Chapter 2

Bath Time with Sum

“Hey, have you heard from Mom lately?” Sum turned her gaze from her palm to Plus, who was smoking and filling in a crossword at the far end of the table.

“Hm.” Plus puffed on the last of her cigarette and ground it into the ashtray before pulling out her phone and scrolling through her texts, “Seems like she's still really busy.”

“Figures.  Ah well, I'd say the three of us do pretty well keeping things together around here.  Still, text her that we miss her, you know?” Sum said.

“Mm.” Plus's thumb unerringly flew over the touch screen, while her eyes stayed focused on the newspaper, “Nine letter word for 'small or insignificant person.'”

“Um...” Sum touched her index finger to her lips before suddenly beaming proudly, “Pipsqueak!”

At that exclamation, Sum slapped her hand down into the other, absolutely demolishing the tiny inhabitant.  The sudden, severe pressure caused Minus's already pocket-sized body to shrink further.  Sum slid her hand away and eagerly inspected her handiwork.

“O-ow...please S-sum, can-” He barely squeaked.

“Um, can't hear you bug!  Duuuh!” Sum taunted.  She lifted her hand high again and wiggled her slender fingers, “This sure is fun though.  I wonder how small I can get you.  Ready?”  Her hand slapped down again, crushing Minus into a smaller shape, “Pow! Gotcha!”

His limp form tumbled out of her hand and onto the table.  He coughed once and rolled onto his back, feeling every joint in his body pop as he did so.  There was a brief moment of respite as Sum and Plus figured out another crossword clue, before his now titanic sister turned her attention back to him.  She grinned her tell-tale grin, raised her street sized index finger, and pressed it directly onto Minus's body, flattening it into the table's smooth surface.  Although there was not enough light filtering from the edges for him to see, he could feel the stretching and expanding of her ridged fingerprints on his chest and face.  After a perceptual eternity, her prodigious digit returned skyward and was replaced by her swimming pool sized eye.

“Wow!  This is like, the smallest you've ever been.  You're the size of a ladybug now.  How's it feel, huh?” Sum happily chirped.

“F-f-feels awwwwful...” Minus droned.

“Can't hear you!  Duh!  We went over this!” Sum's spray of saliva, invisible normally, misted over Minus like warm, tacky rain. “Hey, get up, there's something I wanna try.”

Minus dutifully peeled his ravaged body up from the table, though nearly fell over again when a large object suddenly intruded in his peripheral vision.  He turned his head and stared blankly, not entirely sure what he was looking at.  It appeared to be a shiny, curved wall, sea foam green, with uneven ridges running along it, hovering just past the edge of the table.

“Okay, ready to fly, nerd?” Sum's voice reverberated from a distance.

It was her fingernail, Minus suddenly realized.  She was about to flick him.

It happened in less than an instant.  From its position nestled against Sum's thumb pad, the index finger snapped forward and collided with Minus, sending him toppling end over end, whirling through the air with orbital velocity.  His virgin space flight was quickly cut short, however, due to the intrusion of Plus's reading glasses, which he slammed against and stuck to.

“Oops!” Sum gasped.

Plus narrowed her eyes and pinched the tiny man from his position on her lens.  Without a hint of acknowledgment she pursed her lips and blew out a short, powerful breath which knocked Minus from his perch between her fingers, directly into the ashtray below.   Plus pulled off her glasses to wipe away the imperceptible smudge left behind and cast her cold glance into the soft ash where her brother now lay.

“Unbelievable.  Now you're a filthy mess.” Plus spat.

“I...I can't...believe it...either...” Even delirious from his unexpected journey, Minus was amazed at Plus's scapegoating capabilities.

“If he grows back like this, he's going to track ash all over the house.  Please, go rinse this cretin off.” Plus turned back to her puzzle.

“Oh-ho-ho, I can think of one way to give him a shower.” Sum snickered.

“Sum, if you urinate on him, it will be exactly the same problem.” Plus said.

“Omigosh, Plus, you're a psychic!” Sum gasped and pulled her hands over her mouth.

“Unlikely.” Plus rolled her eyes.

“Jeez, you're no fun.” Sum pouted, “Fine then, let's go take a bath, squirt.  If you're lucky, I won't let you get sucked down the drain.” Sum gingerly snatched Minus from among the ash and began to walk away.

“Don't clog the bathtub with our brother.” Plus didn't look up from her puzzle.

“Fiiiiine, but don't let this make you think I'm going easy on you, Minus.” Sum said.

“N-n-no problems there...” Minus groaned.

*

Floating on his back in the warm water, Minus could almost forget his current size.  If he tried hard enough, he could even imagine that he was elsewhere, not in the bathtub he had recently scrubbed clean with his own toothbrush.

“Dah-dum, dah-dum.” Sum sang.

Minus could almost forget.

“Dah-dum, dah-dum.” The rough imitation of the Jaws theme drew closer, and the water around Minus began undulating violently.

“Dah-nah-naaaah!  Shark attack!” Sum's hand suddenly burst up from underneath Minus, carrying him far above the water's surface, the sudden g-force making his head swim, before dropping him closer to his sister's body.  He kicked up to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes.  Sum was lying supine in the bathtub up to her broad shoulders, and Minus was now treading water just beyond the shores of her bikini covered breasts.

“Not just any shark though,” Sum slid further down in the bath so that her body up to her chin was submerged, “I'm a shark that eats little losers!”

Sum stretched open her mouth wide, allowing some bathwater to flow in, before curling her arms inward, creating a wave which pushed the uncontrolled Minus directly towards his sister's gaping maw.

“W-w-ait, Sum, wa-a-a-ait!” Minus ineffectively splashed and kicked, the current drawing him directly up to Sum's waiting mouth, when suddenly her teeth snapped shut.  He bounced directly against the shiny white obelisks and floated backwards into stilling waters.

“Hahaha, not gonna eat ya' yet, buggy.” Sum laughed, before drawing some water into her mouth and spitting it directly into Minus's body, sending him skittering in the opposite direction.  “I totally wonder what would happen if I did eat you, though.”

Minus regained his composure in the water, now floating above the twin Titanics of his sister's calves.

“Like, you shrink from pressure, right?  So would you start to grow back inside me?” Sum crossed one leg over the other, creating a riptide which pulled Minus towards the tub's side, “Then again, you'd probably get melted in my stomach before that...” Sum crossed her legs back, causing the flailing Minus to careen towards the opposite side, “Is there even air in there?  Could you breath?  Hey, where'd you go?”

Minus pushed himself off of the wall and weakly paddled back towards the tub's median line.  

“Oh, there you are.  Okay, time to get out and let me get washed up for real.  Unless you wanna help?” Sum leaned forward and plucked Minus from the water.

“H-h-help?” He stuttered, wondering if his sister could remember the recent, panty-based tragedy.  He tucked his legs tight, trying not to picture his sister pulling off her bathing suit and dominating his tiny body with her soapy curves.

“Ew, Yeah right!  You'd like that too much, wouldn't you, you little perv?” Sum said, “But like, I'm already in the bath now.  Can't I just stick you somewhere so you can't see anything?”

Minus looked up to his gargantuan sister and shrugged.

“Oh duh, we just talked about it!” Sum grinned, before tossing her brother directly into her mouth.

“Ack!  No!” Minus tried to protest, but he was already in the dark, sticky cavern.  Sum's tongue quickly maneuvered him to a space near her bicuspid, before laying flat, leaving him blind in the darkness, pressed hard against her tooth, with barely any room to move.  He attempted to pull his arms above the slimy muscle, but it was no use.  

In reality, it didn't take long for Sum to wash up, but it was a veritable eternity for her tiny brother.  Periods of silence were broken by her occasional humming, which seemed to fill the entirety of Minus's sensory perception, all the while her saliva continued to build up around him, threatening to drown him in viscous liquid.  He could hear the inner workings of her body more than he'd ever wanted to, and every small cough or clearing of the throat was a deafening, terrifying experience.

There was a sudden acceleration upward, Minus felt, another brief period of humming and movement, and then the gentle rocking of his sister's walking.  He could distantly hear the creak of his room's door before, in an instant, the entire shape of the cave around him changed.  He was pushed up past the teeth, the tip of the tongue prodding him in the back, and the lips creating a tightening hole that he was pressed against.  Vacuum pressure from somewhere behind him sucked away most of the thick, stuffy liquid stuck to his body and then, with a sudden push and pop, Sum spit him onto his own bed like a watermelon seed.  

Minus wiped the spit from his eyes and allowed them to readjust to light.  Sum was standing above him, wrapped in a towel.

“That was fun, squirt.  I'll let you be my candy again sometime, kay?” she smirked and winked, before turning away.

“G-great...” Minus rolled over onto his face and considered screaming into the soft blanket.

“Oh, I wonder what would happen if I chewed on him...would he even...” Sum's musings faded out of earshot as she walked down the hallway.

-To Be Continued-