I awoke to an earthquake rattling the floor and walls of my house, but quickly realized they were just footsteps.  A loud roar came from the other room, resolving to a pained moan after a second.  “Fuck, my head,” Mia muttered, shuffling her feet toward the door in a series of protracted booms and rumbles.  They stopped briefly while metal scraped against wood, then resumed after a soft thud.  There was a loud click from the door being unlatched, then a creak as it swung open.  It slammed shut, rattling windows and fixtures on the walls outside my tiny home, and Mia was finally gone.

About a minute after she left the floor started shaking again.  Whooshing from a much nearer door opening filled my ears, followed by the rhythmic, paired crashes of footsteps.  Tremors became stronger and more violent while they approached, then abruptly stopped.  I looked out a window and found an enormous tanned ankle dominating the view, with the rough, black canvas of a Converse leading to it.  With a gaze upward I saw a gargantuan leg stretching toward the sky, a small bar of black the highest thing I could see.  Slowly the Converse lurched forward, tapping the outer wall with its rubber toe twice with tremendous bangs.

“Time to wake up, little guy!” Fulda boomed.  “We’ve got a big day ahead of us, and I want to get started as soon as possible.”  It was rare that she felt the need to wake me up, but I knew she was serious about it.  The last time I kept her waiting too long she simply removed the roof and plucked me out of bed, giving me a solid shake on the way up.  Hoping to avoid a repeat of that I ran down the stairs and threw open the door, dashing out into the wider world of Fulda’s condo.

There was less than an inch between my door and her shoe, and I ran right into the gleaming white rubber.  Luckily, I managed to get my arms in front of me to keep from smashing my face against it, but kept leaning on the rubber while I recovered.  It was always a pleasure to look up at Fulda, enormous as she was, with her long, muscular legs towering over me, her shorts rolled so that they could be seen in their entirety.  At this point I was surprised she could even get them on, and if they were worn normally they would probably be torn to shreds.

“Good morning!” she greeted, looking down at me with a glint in her eyes.  “How’d you sleep?  Mia bother you any?”

“No, she was crashed on the couch all night,” I answered.  “Most of the morning, too.  I was starting to worry she died she was out so long.”

Fulda chuckled.  “I know, right?  I was waiting for her to leave before I came out here so I wouldn’t have to deal with her.  After that shit she pulled with nearly stepping on you I was worried I’d beat her pretty little face in.  Managed to get a solid work-out on with my home weights, though!”  She posed and flexed, trying to show off her arms despite her audience being by her shoe.  They were so far above me I could not see anything different about them, and they would have been massive to me regardless.

“Why are you so chipper, anyway?” I asked.  “She sounded like she was on the verge of death when she walked out.”

“It’s simple biology,” Fulda replied.  “I’m huge, so I can drink a lot.  She isn’t, but she tried to keep up with me.  It’s a wonder she didn’t puke on my couch, really.”  She paused to beam down proudly for a moment.  “Plus, today we get to do something that’s going to change your life for the better!”

“What’s that?” I responded.  “You going to sew me into your gym shorts or something?”

“Ooh, frisky!” Fulda exclaimed.  “And while that’s tempting, I was thinking something more fulfilling for you.”  She waited for me to guess, but I did not even bother.  I had no idea what she was getting at.  “I’m gonna set you up with some of my sorority sisters!”

I smiled involuntarily, then quickly stopped myself.  The idea was exciting, but I had some misgivings.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.  “I mean, I’m not even an inch tall, won’t it be dangerous?  Mia showed us last night that I’m still pretty vulnerable, and one wrong step will kill me.  Plus, I haven’t been on a date since high school, I’ll have no idea what I’m doing!”

“You didn’t have much of an idea then, either,” she teased.  “You,” Fulda began, then bent her enormous body in half.  She reached down, thumb and forefinger extended, and pinched me between them.  When she was sure I was secure she stood back up, raising me to her face.  While her cold eyes focused on me she finished, “need to stop worrying so much.  All of them have extensive experience with tiny people, they know what they can and can’t do without hurting you.”  With how little she had talked about her college experiences that was hardly reassuring.  “Besides, Mia said you’re cute, and she’s got high standards.  I’m sure they’ll find you adorable!”

Pinched between Fulda’s fingers, with her expansive face controlling my view, I got the feeling she had already made up her mind.  “This is happening no matter what I say, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Sure is!” Fulda answered, taking a step back toward her room.  “I don’t know why you’re so worried, you’ll be fine.  You didn’t freak out about a new person playing with you, and you seem okay with being lightly stepped on.  And my sisters are all super gorgeous and tall, you’ll love them.”  Springs creaked when she sat down on her mattress, then a chorus erupted beneath her and the world spun around me while she laid down on her bed.

“I’ve had some bad times with your sisters before, remember?” I said while she got comfortable, bouncing back and forth on the mattress.

“Different kind of sisters!” Fulda replied, laughing.  “None of these are power-mad psychos with a god complex.”  She lowered me until I was standing on her breast then opened her fingers, letting them linger until I got my footing.  When she was sure I would not fall she reached over and grabbed a laptop from the other side of the mattress, then set it on her stomach.  Her fingers opened the screen, then typed in her password, and the screen came up to her desktop.

“Just give me a sec to pull up the sorority’s page and we’ll get started, okay?”  She moved the cursor, and I struggled to maintain my balance while her breasts bounced with her movement.  They settled, and by the time I was able to focus on the theater-sized screen it had a tiled array of women’s headshots against a white background.  “Every member, past and present, is on here, complete with a bio and some stats.  We have some unusual and very stringent criteria so there aren’t very many of us, but I know all of them really well.”

“What kind of unusual criteria?” I asked, shifting my feet on the soft ground beneath me.

“For starters, you have to be six feet tall to even be considered,” Fulda explained.  “Unless someone vouches for you really well, then the requirement goes down to five-ten.  Then if we don’t like how someone looks we force them out, there’s all the hazing… it’s a pretty select group that makes it through everything.”  She clicked one of the pictures, making the ground jiggle again.  “That’s how I know everyone’s on the level.”

I looked at the screen, and a familiar pair of blue eyes was staring at me from a huge, tanned face.  “I think I already know her,” I said.  A column to the side read Fulda Stein, Founder, with her graduation year and major.  Curiously, just beneath her name it listed her height as 6’8” and size 16 shoes.  “You list your height and shoe size on the page?  Aren’t you worried that’ll attract the wrong kind of attention?”

“It got the exact attention we were looking for,” Fulda replied with a smirk.  “I really just wanted to show this off.”  She hit an arrow key, and the picture changed to the view I normally had of her.  A camera trick gave the impression that she was humongous, looking up from her ankles while she towered over a wide-angle lens.  “We call this ‘What we see, what you see.’  It made it clear from the outset what we were about as an organization.”

“That you’re all a bunch of height-obsessed loons who want to loom over terrified tiny people?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it!”  Fulda gave me a gentle nudge with her fingertip, shoving me toward the center of her breast.  “You would’ve been right at home at one of our parties.  I would’ve loved to have you at one, they were a blast.”

“Too bad I didn’t make it to college for some reason.”

“Let’s move on to the next one!” Fulda hurriedly said, her voice strained.  The next picture had a pair of dark blue eyes on an alabaster face that I knew all too well.  Jessica Stein, current President, with her stats listed as well.  Apparently she never made it past 6’6”, though there was a wide gap between her and the shortest sister now.

“I think I’ve had enough to do with your sisters for ten lifetimes.”

“It’d be weird if you dated her too, right?  I’ll just move past her.”  With two quick taps she was onto the next one, a blond with gray eyes and a pair of spectacles.  Olga Sergeyeva, 5’10”.  She was obscenely pretty and fit, and the next picture showed a pair of nice, brown riding boots pulled over some tight jeans.  “So?  What do you think?”

“I don’t know, she’s only five-ten,” I said.

“Dude.  You’re an inch tall,” Fulda replied incredulously.  “She could squash you without even knowing and she’s too short for you?”

“Hey, it’s important to have standards!  Let’s put her as a maybe.”  Fulda sighed and clicked through to the next one, a solidly-built blond with sun-kissed skin and light blue eyes.  Helen Komnena, 6’6”.  The next picture showed that she dressed very similar to Fulda, except in all white, and was a little leaner.  “Yes, I like her.”

“All right, I’ll mark her down.”  Fulda tapped at her phone with one hand, then tapped through.  The next had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail – lot of blonds, I noticed – and emerald green eyes.  Mariam Sterner, 6’4”.  In the next picture she was wearing a short jean skirt, showing her long, slender legs, and looking at the camera with a curious expression.  “Oh, Mariam, she’s perfect!” Fulda exclaimed.  “I had some problems with her because she was too nice, and – oh, she has a boyfriend.”

“Really?  Not that I don’t believe it, she’s very pretty, I just figured most of them didn’t get very attached.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the problem.  Looks like she’s dating someone she met at one of the parties after they got shrunk.  But hey, at least we know she’s open to dating shorter guys!”  Without saying anything else Fulda moved on, bringing up a pale woman with hot pink hair and radiant teal eyes.  Jacquelyn Fish, 6’1”.  The pink hair would normally put me off, but with her skin it worked for her, and in the next picture it looked like she preferred matching dresses and black ballet flats.  “Oh, Jackie!  She’s really fun to hang out with, super playful.  You’d have a blast with her.”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot,” I said, as though I were making a concession.  She was gorgeous, and Fulda seemed to like her, so I could definitely do worse.

“I’ll make a note of that too,” Fulda responded, typing it into her phone before going to the next one.  A woman with short blond hair and brown eyes looked down at me, and seemed to favor Mary Janes and poodle skirts from the next photo.  Edna Krandall, 6’3.”  “Ugh, Edna.  She’s kind of a bitch, and if you were dating her I’d have to see her again, and we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms…”

“Hey, if you don’t like her, then I don’t like her either,” I chimed in.

“Glad to have your support, little guy!”  Fulda stroked my hair, then tapped through.  The next woman was a sharp change from the rest.  For starters she was Asian, with pale skin and long black hair, her dark eyes seeming to bore into the camera.  Most of her information had apparently been scrubbed from the site, only listing her height as 6’0”.  The ground-level picture showed that she had a penchant for skirts and white Keds, with knee-high socks. 

“Who’s she?”

“That’s Li.  She’s… kind of mean, to be honest.  But she’s also incredibly smart and motivated, like you, and she’s chilled out a bit in the past year.  I think you two could get along pretty well.”

I thought it was odd that she auto-passed on Edna, but seemed to be pushing Li.  Still, she must have had her reasons, and with how protective she had become I doubted she’d hand me over to someone who would hurt me.  “Yeah, I’ll give her a try,” I agreed.

“Perfect!” Fulda exclaimed, slamming the laptop shut.  The breast I was on wobbled, toppling me over, and she giggled.  “Sorry, didn’t think you’d go down quite so easily.”

“Is that it?” I asked.  “I kind of want to see the rest.”

“Dude, that’s three dates you’ll have lined up, I haven’t even had one in the past six months.  You’ll live.  Now get back up, I need a picture for them.”

I tried to push myself up but my hands sank into the soft skin beneath me, and I had to shift myself around the curve of her breast to stand.  Fulda held her phone up and I tried to pose casually, then after a soft click she put it back down.  If that was all I needed to do, this whole thing was much easier than I expected.

“Why haven’t you been on any dates?” I asked.  “You’re pretty, smart, fun… I figured most guys would be fighting each other over you.  Is it because of me?”

Fulda grinned, and lightly caressed me with a finger.  “Oh, you’re sweet,” she said.  “It’d be easy to blame you, but it’s more complex than that.  Let’s just say I’m not every guy’s cup of tea and leave it at that, all right?”  She gave me a quick tap, shoving me back, and picked her phone back up.  “Try not to go too far, I might need to ask you some stuff while I get these set up.”  Her fingers typed away at her phone while I watched, eager to learn how this played out.