There was a long, tense span of time between boarding the bus and when the grumpy driver finally started the ignition. During this time Rachael watched the other athletes squirreling around and holding animated conversations, and she kept one eye on the diner itself. She couldn’t see any details in the glowing windows, but the front door flew open and the middle-aged, round-hipped woman came charging straight at them just as the bus’s engine whined at a higher pitch and its wheels began to roll across the parking lot pavement. She was shouting, Rachael could see, waving her arms, and she’d left her huge purse behind, but she shrank into the dark distance as the charter bus took the service road to the highway.

Rachael tried to control her breathing. A lot had just happened—the timing of the steal, hustling aboard the bus, trying to hide her prize from her fellow students—and her thoughts were racing. She had to calm down… all she had to do was calm down.

The tiny man writhed against her skin, but weaker now. She hoped she wasn’t hurting him. Perhaps he was just tired? She waited another five minutes, when everyone else was fully absorbed in their own activities, before she dared peek down at him.

There he was: an actual tiny man. He was wearing a little brown wool suit, just like a regular person but much, much smaller. To Rachael he was an old man, which was anyone twice her age and on up. He lay against her laced fingers, blinking and squinting up at her. The lights of the bus had dimmed once it started moving, so it was hard for her to make out the details of his clothing.

He lay there, gasping, staring up at her. His weight was very light in her hands, but his clothes were warm. He was real. She could hardly believe it. Guiltily she glanced up and around her, but no one cared what she was doing.

“Hi,” she mouthed to the little man.

His mouth gaped as he looked around him in fright. All there was to see was her palms, her volleyball shirt, and her face looming overhead.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

He shook his head violently, his tiny heels digging into her hand, trying to push himself away. He even had tiny shoes: how in the world did he get those?

“Can you hear me?” she whispered. “I know the bus is really loud, but can you say anything?”

His jaw worked but she couldn’t make out any words over the tires on the highway and the huge diesel engine. She bent her head down even further and lifted the tiny man to her ear.

The tiny man sounded delirious. “Please, my wife,” he cried, “find my wife. Help me.”

Rachael turned her face to him, cupping him over her mouth. He was only slightly taller than her mouth was wide, and she felt his wool suit brushing against her fat bottom lip. He smelled like fries, and she unconsciously licked her lips right above him.

Breathily she whispered, “Don’t think about her. How did you get so small?” She turned her ear to him again, but he only continued to beg for his wife. She placed him over her mouth again: “Your clothes are so small. Where did they come from?” He gibbered frantically, something about his wife and where they were. “Don’t be scared! You’re safe with me! But how come you’re so tiny?” Then he just moaned quietly, and when she looked at him, he was covering his face with his hands.

“I can still see you,” she said, prying one arm away. Though she was a soft suburban girl a year or two past high school, he was entirely unable to resist her slim index finger and thumb. His expression was horrified, staring up at her with one eye.

“Let me see your jacket.”

His hand fell from his face, and he shook his head. “C’mon,” she whispered, and she started tugging at his sleeve. He tried to keep it on his body, but the large girl jerked him around so violently that he let his arms slip out of the garment. Cupping him in her left hand, she held it up with her right fingers, admiring the detail: it even had little brown buttons. “Is there anything in the pockets?”

He wouldn’t say. He kept going through this little rotation where he wanted to peek up over her hands, but every time he twisted around to prop up his body, he jerked his hands away from her palm as though surprised or shocked. Rachael couldn’t understand why he’d want to escape. It was much more dangerous for him on the bus floor, with all the other girls around. She was keeping him safe.

“How about your pants?” She tugged at his pantleg, but the trousers wouldn’t slip over his shoes or something. Then she spied his tiny little belt buckle. “Take off your pants,” she said gently. “I want to see.”

Again, he shook his head disagreeably. This time he put his wee little hands on one of her fingers and lifted his shoulders over her hand as she cupped him. She let him look around: below him were her pale, smooth thighs on the broad, green vinyl bus seat. Past that was the sticky black bus floor, and in the aisle and under the seat ahead of them there were a selection of girls’ trainers, stomping, twisting, swinging idly. The tiny man stared at these surroundings for a moment, then slowly slunk back down into Rachael’s palms. His face looked tired, and he turned his head to the side.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.” She lifted him close to her face and grinned toothily at him, to show him she was friendly. “I’ll take care of you. Now how about those pants?”

He slowly turned his face back to her, flinching at her broad maw of shiny, white teeth. He half-heartedly waved her off, then undid the buckle of his belt and untied his shoes. He pulled them off and set them aside, looking at them dubiously, on the heel of her palm. Glancing up at her once more, the tiny man hooked his thumbs under his waistband and pulled the wool trousers off, tossing them before him.

Rachael smiled at him pleasantly to let him feel better about it. She plucked up the pantleg and raised it to her eye: it was a perfectly detailed pair of pants. Fascinated, she gave it a little shake and watched it sway almost weightlessly. In the dim light she barely discerned a number of objects falling out of the pants. The little man suddenly came to life, crawling around on his knees, scrambling, trying to collect these objects as they drifted in the humid bus air. Most of them caught a slight breeze and tumbled outside of her hand, but they were far too small for her to try to catch.

“Sorry.” She lay the pants across her index fingertip and ran her thumb over the fabric. They looked like wool, but at her size they were so soft as to be nearly frictionless. Her lips parted in concentration, watching the garment slide around under her touch.

Her eyes turned back to the tiny man on all fours in her left palm. Now he just had on a light-colored dress shirt, dark boxers, and a pair of dark socks. He looked like an actor in one of those old black-and-white comedy movies her grandfather always watched. He had the same dopey expression on his face, and he looked like he was caught halfway to getting ready for a big night out, which was when the most awkward things happened in those movies. She smiled at his goofiness; he frowned and retreated into a fetal position.

Rachael just could not figure out what was going on in his mind. Why was he acting so strangely?

“Pull off your socks and underwear,” she whispered to him. She wanted to see all of these little clothes. They were made with such incredible detail, she wished she had a microscope or something to help her study them better. How could they all be so small? Who could have made them for him?

But the tiny man wasn’t moving. He was sulking, resting his chin on his knees, eyes closed. She nudged him in the side with her fingertip, and his body contorted in agony. “Did I hurt you?” Rachael was genuinely concerned: maybe he was very fragile in this state. She didn’t know. He appeared to be gasping for breath, one arm swatting at her fingertip as it hung poised over him.

That seemed rude. He should just give up his stupid socks. Didn’t he know what kind of pressure she was under? Any one of these other girls could catch her at any moment. Impatiently, she pinched his foot and tugged a sock off. It came away cleanly, and she pulled the other off before he could react. She turned them over in her right palm, pressing the little man flat against her belly, and tried her best to make out all the details. She could see they were woven and brown, and she could only just make out a pattern. Yeah, if she had a magnifying glass, they’d probably look awesome.

Without asking, she rolled him to his back with a couple fingertips, then pulled the front of his dress shirt open. He fought against her, predictably, since nothing could ever be easy, but she seized him by his waist and yanked his shirt off backward, and there was nothing he could do about it. The shirt also received her scrutiny: she turned it back and forth in space, and it caught the light of headlights outside. It was so small and fine it was like gossamer, something she’d read about in fantasy novels, so now she finally grasped the concept.

“Gossamer,” she whispered to herself. She released the shirt and it caught some slight, subtle breeze. Rachael and the tiny man both watched it ride the air and float away, turning gently like in a laundry commercial.

She knew he’d be a pain about his underwear, so she just pinned him down with her left thumb as her right hand worked at the garment. It was the softest thing she’d ever felt, and she guessed it was silk which meant it weighed and felt like nothing. She tugged these free and peeked inside them, looking through the little leg holes. She tried to fit them over her pinky finger, but the waistband shredded immediately so she discarded them.

Now there was a wretched-looking, totally naked little man in her palm. He was curled up, trying to hide as much as possible, though she could see his bare butt and a little dark spot peeking out from beneath his thighs. What was that? She ran her fingertip over it as gently as possible.

The tiny man shuddered visibly, and his mouth made a large O-shape. She couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the vehicle. He glanced up at her and tried to scoot away, one hand covering the dark spot. “Were those your balls?” she asked him. “Are your balls sticking out? Is that what they do, behind your legs?” Her public elementary and high school system had avoided the topic of sexual anatomy, so all she knew for sure was what she’d seen on cop dramas, and those weren’t comprehensive in their education.

“Did it hurt? Did I hurt you?” She kept asking, whispering louder and louder, but the little man just wouldn’t respond. He covered his balls under his tights with one hand, his face with the other, and he curled up like… like a baby bird or something.

Well, where the cop shows fell short, she stood to learn something useful here. “Hey, spread out,” she hissed at him. She went ahead and prised one arm away from his head and pinned it beneath her thumb, then used her other hand to tug at his other arm and one leg. He couldn’t hide much with his last leg, though he tried to, as she had him spread-eagled over her soft, pink palm. Her eyes were wide with study and her pupils were huge in the dark, and she brought her lean, angular face in closer to the naked man’s eensy-weensy body to figure him out better. She was entirely unconscious of her breathing, moist winds she gusted over his skin; she could see he was timing his breaths, the way his ribcage pulsed and spasmed, but didn’t figure out it was coordinated with her inhaling.

“Hey, listen to me for a minute.” Both hands occupied, she could only nudge his chest with the tip of her button nose. “Listen. You need to cooperate with me, okay? I’m taking care of you but you’re not really working with me. Spread yourself out so I can see you.”

The tiny little man only shook his head, his whole body shivering. Rachael thought that was strange. Was he colder at this size? Looking at his contorted face, she realized he was crying.

“Don’t be sad. Knock that off, just lower your leg so I can see you better.” Not knowing how else to effect this, she stuck out her tongue and pushed his knee aside.

The tiny man’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped, but he allowed his leg to move down and stretch out. His ribs shuddered with a couple gasps, but then he slowly spread his legs all on his own. Surprised, Rachael lifted her finger off of his ankle, and he didn’t retract his legs. He lay there before her, arms and legs spread wide open. His body didn’t look old, not that old: he had a little padding around his waist and belly, but his lean biceps stood out and his pecs were pretty defined. He had good thighs, too, it looked like, and she wondered what he did for a living to work out these muscle groups. She didn’t know much about reproductive organs, but as an athlete she was more than familiar with gross motor function.

“Is that your penis?” She pointed her nose at his crotch. The little man was saying something, frantically, but still he nodded. “Does it always point like that?” He looked down at himself, then turned his head away, eyes closed.

Rachael brought him very close to her face, until he was too blurry to be seen. She gently blew upon his penis and balls, warm, wet air in a slow breeze. She lowered him and watched his hips roll slightly, watched his minuscule penis slowly rise from pointing at his hip to pointing up his belly. Her friends could probably explain what was going on: she was naturally shy, and sometimes that meant naturally prudish, and she avoided learning too much about this embarrassing stuff.

But now she had a tiny little man all to herself, and she could ask him anything. She could force him to give her answers, too.

Very gently, she rubbed the blunt end of her nose against his crotch. She realized her nose was a little cold, because the tiny man’s body was surprisingly hot. Tilting her head, she ran the tip of her tongue between her lips, back and forth, tasting the last of her soda on them. She parted her lips, fishing a crumb of food from the corner of her mouth, something that had gotten wet and pasty and sticky. She worked at it with her tongue, tasting it, dissolving it, until the corner of her mouth tasted clean. When she was done, she realized the tiny man was staring at her, completely entranced.

She looked back at him. “What?”

He slowly turned his head away.

There was something going on here that she didn’t understand. Experimentally she extended her tongue and pointed it at him, lowering her head until she nearly touched his face. He wouldn’t turn to face her, but his eyes were bulging and tracking her.

“What, do you like tongues?” Her brow furrowed. “Do I have a nice tongue?”

Once again, he refrained from answering. She took the initiative and guided the tip of her tongue to his penis. She wondered if that would feel good, something huge and soft, warm and wet, pressing against his penis. She rested it there, unsure what to do, pressing it against his hips.

When he didn’t react, she tried moving it. She nudged the tip of her tongue down between his tiny thighs. The fit was tighter than if she’d licked between her fingers. His thighs were solid and smooth, but there was something softer up between them. That must have been the dark spot she saw earlier. It must have been his balls. She tried gently rubbing her tongue over his balls a few times, then she ran her tongue over his penis, back and forth.

He wasn’t fighting now. The little man lay so still, she lifted her fingers off of his arms, and he lay there, perfectly obediently. “That’s better,” she murmured, and she traced the entire length of his tiny body with her tongue. She placed her taste buds against the sole of his left… no, his right foot. His right, her left. She ran it up his ankle, over his calf, and she could even feel the bump of his knee. Her tongue flattened out as it dragged over his thigh and his penis, and it spilled over the sides of his belly and chest. She mashed her tongue into his face, just as a joke, holding it there. The corners of her lips curled up in an open-mouthed grin, and her tongue twitched and glistened as plastered his whole face in it. She could feel his head swishing back and forth, which she thought was funny, somehow, and then she felt a slight sharp pain.

Rachael retracted her tongue and peered down at the little man. “Did you… bite me?”

He stared up at her for a moment, then slowly looked away. His penis was still pointing up at his belly. Or his chest, or his head. She didn’t know what his penis wanted.

“Well, it didn’t really hurt, just so you know.” She caught a whiff of his moist skin, where her saliva was beginning to dry, and it was different. She’d sneezed in her own hand and smelled that strong, pungent aroma, but it wasn’t like that with the little guy. Her saliva carried the last traces of her burger, and his skin was a mix of french fries and cologne like her grandfather wore. It was very faint but very familiar.

“You smell good,” she said, and she lifted him once more to her face. She couldn’t see him, just a little blur against her palm. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply, nearly shoving the tiny man’s head in her nostril. She slid him down and her nostril flared over his penis. This smelled a little more earthy or meaty. It was hard to say, so she gusted hot air over him and took another long sniff. The tip of her nose barely brushed his soft belly. She wasn’t getting a good scent off of him, but then she remembered how bloodhounds track people, with their snuffling way of smelling things, so she tried that. Her ribs shook as she tried inhaling and exhaling rapidly in short blasts. After a while, though, she wasn’t getting any new information and she felt silly.

She glanced up over her bus seat again. No one seemed to be paying attention to her. It was a little surreal: usually at this point, the other girls would be getting bored and looking for something new, and they’d turn to her because she hadn’t interacted with them all night. But they were just chatting, playfully punching each other, staring into their phones.

So Rachael lowered the tiny little man, tugged up the hem of her volleyball shirt, and carefully slid the man up to her chest. She hadn’t brought a change of clothes to this match, like some girls did, so she was still wearing her sports bra. This she also shoved up and out of the way, letting her breast hang freely.

She wasn’t overly endowed. Between her time at volleyball matches and in multiple locker rooms, she knew what the range of women’s breasts looked like, among her age peers. She wasn’t flat, but she wasn’t stacked either. For the time being she really didn’t care, wasn’t interested in impressing anyone with her curves, so she was happy with the cute little mounds on her chest. They didn’t get in the way, and she’d heard awful things about back pains, so she considered herself lucky.

Regardless, even her boob must have seemed enormous to the little man. She wanted to ask him if that was true, but he was just an oddly shaped lump beneath her shirt. Guiding him by touch, however, she tried to remember where his head was, and she rubbed it around her nipple. Why not go for it, here, alone? Practically alone. She had a tiny little man, and she wanted to know what these sensations were supposed to feel like, so why not practice?

She felt his little hands wiping over her skin. Was he stroking her or pushing her away? It didn’t matter: she mashed him against her boob, completely covering him and probably smothering him, until he held still and she could rub him over her again. Her breast filled her cupped palm perfectly, and she tried sliding the little guy lengthwise up and down over herself.

So far, she wasn’t sure she understood the appeal. Men did this to women in cop shows, and the women seemed to lose control of their bodies when they did, but all Rachael felt was a little ticklish. What was the big deal?