“No, I won’t do that, Will!” she exclaimed.

“Mary, you have to!” replied William, “You have no idea what this means for us, think about what it will mean for our family!”

“Will, I’m glad you got a promotion and I’m glad you’re safe!” Mary said, “You are a good husband, but I worry every day that you won’t come home from work. I don’t want to help her.”

“Mary, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Especially if you do this for me.” He replied softly. "For us."

“Will, those are still people!” retorted Mary in disbelief, “People like us!”

“Better them than us, right?” Will replied sharply, “If it’s not you, then someone else will do it.”

Mary’s looked at her husband’s pleading expression, her eyes were red and watery. “I can’t believe you, Will,” she said softly, in disbelief. “We always talked about escaping the tyranny of the giants and moving when we could afford to live in a sanctuary city, someplace safe!”

“Mary, I know it sounds crazy,” William started.

“Because it is, William!” she shouted. “Not only are you suddenly okay with it, but now you are helping her hurt people?” Mary shook her head. “I don’t even recognize you right now.”

“Listen, honey, just do one. That’s it, one,” he explained, “One contract pays 100 thousand. That will be enough to get you and the kids a nice apartment in a sanctuary city. Then you can call it quits.”

“But what will my friends think of me? What will my family think of me? How do we explain it to the children?” asked Mary.

“We just tell them that we did what we had to do,” William said and gently grabbed his wife’s shoulders. “Just one and done, I promise.”

“100, th-thousand?” asked Mary, holding back tears.

“That’s more than we’ve made in the 10 years we’ve been married. Let’s get out of this poverty! You can do that for us! You can save us!” William smiled reassuringly.

Mary looked at William, letting a tear flow down her cheek.

“God, help me…”

***

Naomi walked down the hallway to the conference room. She carried her lunch in one hand and William in the other. Her heels clacked loudly against the floor as little employees from various departments fled out of the way. There was a designated path for giants, and one for tiny people so they wouldn’t get hurt. And surprisingly, Naomi abided by those rules. But still, the little people were as cautious as they could be, after all, Naomi had stepped on several of her employees before, but it was almost always by accident.

Naomi tried to come off as composed, structured, and deliberate. She never felt the need to stomp on her subordinates carelessly, unless it was for a really good reason. She was in a different mood today, however. Not that she felt the need to stomp on anyone, but she was still excited thinking about her new plan. True, it had never really bothered her before when she stepped on someone, never giving that person a second thought, but today, it would have probably meant even less to her.

“Are you ready for your first meeting, William?” she asked from above.

“Uh-yes,” William replied nervously. “What are we meeting about?”

“I sent a memo to legal, and they don’t seem too excited about your idea. So, I’m going to pay them a little visit and see what the problem is,” she said with a smile. “Let’s see if we can set them straight.”

Naomi walked into the conference room. There was a large table for her that had a tiny table on it with 17 lawyers sitting around it. William was surprised to see that all the lawyers were tiny. He briefly wondered why they worked here. He assumed that they made good money as lawyers, so why didn’t they live in a sanctuary city if they could afford it? It had only been a day since the deadly performance review. William knew what Naomi was capable of, but he didn’t know how far she was willing to go. He was nervous for the legal team now.

“Everyone, this is William,” Naomi said setting him down on the table, “he is my new assistant.”

One of the lawyers, Mr. Philips, spoke up. “Charmed,” he said exhaustedly.

Naomi set her sandwich down on the table as well. “I hope you guys don’t mind, but I don’t have time for lunch today so I’m going to eat during our meeting, if that’s okay with you guys,” she smiled sweetly at them.

They nodded. What did she expect them to say? Did she really expect anyone to object?

“So, explain to us exactly what it is you want to do now?” asked the lawyer, Mr. Philips. “I’m afraid your memo left us all a little perplexed.”

“What’s so hard to understand?” Naomi asked with a furrowed brow. She took a bite of her sandwich and a loud mushy sound erupted from her mouth as she chewed it. “It was my new assistants’ idea,” she said with a muffled mouth full of food.

“I see,” said Mr. Philips, glancing at William and then back to his gigantic boss, who was busy chewing her food. Despite having worked for her for many years, he had only seen her eat a handful of times, and it was intimidating every single time.

“So…, you want to contract giantesses, such as yourself, to destroy property, in order to get more people to buy insurance?” he asked, not allowing himself to be distracted by the bulge of food going down her throat.

“That’s right," she stated.

Mr. Philips sighed, “Miss Naomi, we can’t do that. It’s already hard enough to keep you out of legal trouble now.”

“That’s right, Nathan,” Naomi addressed Mr. Philips by his first name, “YOU work for ME, and that is your job to keep me protected from legal trouble.”

“This is a lose-lose, Miss Naomi!” exclaimed the tiny lawyer. “There are no clear-cut wins here, your assistant gave you bad advice!”

Naomi looked sharply at Mr. Philips, and then slowly turned her gaze to William. Had he actually given her bad advice?

“Well... do all of you agree?” William jumped in, thinking fast.

“Yes,” said Mr. Philips.

“Two-thirds, actually,” answered Barry, one of the other little lawyers.

“That’s still the body’s decision,” Mr. Philips said rubbing his forehead. “Majority has always been the deciding factor.”

“Who agrees with what Naomi wants to do?” asked William. Seven of the tiny lawyers raised their hands. There were all sitting next to each other on one side of the table. They were obviously on the defense from the rest of the legal team. When Naomi saw that, she raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Could you elaborate?” asked William.

“Sure,” answered Barry, “we could absolutely draft an air-tight legal plan to accomplish Miss Naomi’s wishes. Sure, it would take a lot of extra work and time, but it can be done, no problem,” he answered. “Nathan just doesn’t want to do the extra work, is all.”

“So, you seven would rather do the extra work for Miss Naomi, letting her run her company how she sees fit, rather than just try and take the easy way out, like these ten?” asked William. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Now hold on!” yelled Mr. Philips. “That is a gross misinterpretation!”

William looked at Naomi, “I think we should let Miss Naomi interpret it.”

“I agree, William,” Naomi pursed her lips together in disappointment. “And you know what, I think it would be a good idea to restructure the legal department, don’t you?” The little lawyers looked around in a panic. What was she talking about? Was she going to fire them?

“This is such a disappointment. I had such high hopes for this meeting,” Naomi frowned. “But,” she continued, removing the top piece of bread from her sandwich, “there’s no reason I can’t at least salvage my lunch break, is there?”

The tiny lawyers looked at the piece of bread sitting on the desk, slathered in mayonnaise. Next to it was the rest of her sandwich, with lettuce and thinly sliced pieces of turkey. What in the world was she talking about?

Then, one by one, Naomi plucked them up and dropped them onto her sandwich. They screamed and yelled, they begged and pleaded. But it was too late, Naomi had already made up her mind.

William’s heart sank deep into the pit of his stomach. He had half expected this to happen, but he wasn’t fully prepared to watch it play out in front of him. He was just thankful that it wasn’t him. He watched Naomi wedge a tiny woman into the slices of meat, completely sealing her within the gigantic sandwich. He shuddered to think about what it must be like to be in her position.

After only a few seconds, the ten lawyers that voted against Naomi’s plan were all stuffed into her sandwich. Some were wedged between the layers of condiments and cheese. Some were dropped unceremoniously onto the lettuce, only to have a piece of bread trap them within.

Naomi grabbed her sandwich and brought it toward her face. The seven remaining lawyers and William watched in morbid trepidation as she opened her mouth wide, revealing wet dripping strings of saliva. Her lips pulled back, baring her teeth toward her lunch as she bit down. Various screams and crunches erupted from the sandwich. Naomi’s teeth came down like it was nothing, tearing off a clean bite.

Her lips closed and she started to chew. Unlike the mushy sensation from earlier, her sandwich now had a crunchy kick to it, and that made her smile. She giggled as her teeth came down, over and over again, turning the food, and the little people into mulch.

“Mmm,” she groaned, “I must admit, I’m very fond of the way you guys taste!” she said, eyeing her sandwich, looking for little wiggles and movements. She looked down at her assistant and greatly reduced legal team and burst out laughing when she saw their faces. “Oh, but you guys don’t have to worry! You guys are safe,” she smiled reassuringly and swallowed her food.

But for how long? They wondered.

Naomi turned her attention back to her sandwich and went in for another bite. William turned his head and winced as he heard more crunching and silenced screams. He glanced over at the others who were watching with disbelief. This was evidently an action that not many had witnessed before.

GULP…

They heard the giantess swallow her most recent bite. Naomi still had half a sandwich left. She saw two little legs sticking out from the sandwich, kicking in the air. She let out a little laugh and bit off the piece containing the tiny person desperately trying to escape. The little man could feel the layers of ingredients compress as she took a bite. His legs were now kicking against something large and soft, which he assumed was Naomi’s wet tongue. He redoubled his efforts to escape but his movements only served to tickle Naomi as she slowly started chewing. The tiny man could hear her boulder-like teeth clamping down on various bits of food, tearing it to sheds.

His sandwich prison toppled over as her mouth ripped it apart. There was some light coming in as the giantess chewed with her mouth open. He wiped thick saliva and bits of food out of his eyes and started running toward the opening of Naomi’s mouth. It was difficult to move as she chewed; her jaw moved up and down, and her tongue kept wiggling around, causing him to fall to the side of her mouth.

He landed and saw his fellow workmate stuck under a pile of unchewed food.

“Kevin, grab my hand!” the tiny man gasped. “Pull me out of here!”

Kevin quickly reached out to help his trapped co-worker, but as Naomi kept chewing, Kevin was forcibly pushed to the side of her mouth by her monstrous tongue and placed on her lower teeth. He didn’t have time to scream, or even see where he was, before Naomi’s powerful jaw closed and her teeth came crashing down on him. Her canines popped his head like a grape and her molars mashed him into jelly that oozed out from between her teeth.

The other tiny man, still trapped under the pile of food, let out a blood curdling scream as he witnessed what just happened. The scream could be heard by William and the others as they waited for the ordeal to end. Naomi heard it too. She lifted her eyebrows in mock surprise but just kept on chewing and smiling. A few seconds later everyone heard the crunch of the other man as he got chewed up and swallowed by the giant woman.

Naomi set her sandwich down momentarily.

“Ugh, I am getting so full!” she said to no one in particular. “But I’d hate to waste food like this. Maybe I’ll save the rest for later,” she giggled.

Out of the edge of the turkey club, a tiny woman, one of the lawyers, slid out from her meat prison and fell on the desk. Naomi watched as the disoriented woman caught her bearings and looked up at her. Naomi eyed her intently and smirked curiously. The woman started panicking and running away as fast as she could toward the work elevators at the edge of the table.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm, I don’t think so…” Naomi said, picking her up between her thumb and finger. She rolled her around violently between the pads of her fingers before flicking her into her open mouth. And without fanfare, Naomi swallowed the poor woman whole, sending her down to her stomach to meet her fate. William shuddered again to think about what her final moments would be like.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” she said wrapping up the remaining sandwich with some of the little people still trapped within. “Let’s get down to business. You guys,” she said pointing to the downsized legal team, “write up a new legal plan so we can move forward.”

“Yes ma’am!” they nodded readily in agreement, willing to do anything in order not to suffer the same tragic fate as their former co-workers.

“And you,” Naomi said, turning her attention to William, “find me someone I can trust to contract as a giantess. Naturally, she should be someone you trust as well. I can’t tell you what will happen if things go badly.”

“Yes ma’am,” William said, nodding nervously, “I know just the right person.”

Naomi smiled delightfully.

“Good,” she purred. “Now in the meantime, I have some other business to attend to.”