“In just a few short years since its discovery, Matter Manipulation Technology changed the entire world, but the industry that stood to gain the most was shipping. And no company took advantage of this breakthrough better or faster than International Exports,” Rachel said with well-rehearsed pride. “Now gentlemen, as we walk toward the dock I’d like to caution you of overhead work, so I ask that each of you grab a hardhat before we move forward.” She pointed to a nearby rack of safety gear. Her visitors, some members of government, others potential investors, dutifully obliged. Rachel nodded in approval, and pushed open a nearby door.

“This technology has enabled us to scale down our operations significantly,” she continued, giving a jocular wink to her guests, “while increasing our total export volume. Even our labor costs have been reduced. At one time we had a hundred men working out here,” she said, leading the group down a hallway, “but now most of the work is conducted by just one.” She opened one final door bearing several danger warnings. “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” one read.

The tour group poured into a massive, partially covered loading bay. Long arrays of shipping containers were stacked neatly along a concrete dockside, but only the most observant visitors recognized the lack of heavy machinery needed to move those containers around. Ocean scents filled the air, but so too did another scent, an alluring musk that Rachel eagerly inhaled, luxuriating in every breath. The whole dockside carried the distinct aroma of man. Rachel closed her eyes, just for a moment, and imagined him: boots, sweat on his back, laboring away with infinite power at his disposal. Mustn’t linger on such things. The show must go on. She opened her eyes.

But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Rachel surveyed the area, trying her best not to look distressed at his absence. One of the visitors sighed. Another checked his phone. “Um,” Rachel began, searching for the words to maintain the tour’s momentum. She pressed onward with her practiced spiel, adapting it only slightly for the unplanned change of circumstances. “Thanks to your efforts, Senator Jacobs,” she said, nodding toward one of her guests, “We have secured the rights to become the first company ever to grow its own workforce. For now, we’ve only been granted license to grow one employee on a trial basis, but we view this as just the beginning. While historically, this has been seen as a military technology, we at International Exports are debuting human growth for peaceful, commercial ends. Today I want you to meet the largest man in the world,” she said.

Still no entrance. “So who was selected for this experimental growth anyway?” one of the guests asked, idly shifting his posture from one foot to the other.

“Great question, congressman,” Rachel said. “The candidate was chosen based on a number of criteria. Items such as physical prowess, keen senses; we wanted someone with a surgeon’s hands to handle tiny, delicate objects.”

“Hopefully someone who doesn’t have a bad temper,” another guest joked.

“Ha! I hope so too,” Rachel said. “To tell the truth, I don’t even know who we ended up choosing. So I guess we’ll all find out at the same-” she stopped. A dull roar rumbled behind her, the sound of millions of gallons of water being displaced. Ships parked along the pier creaked and rocked in some unseen leviathan’s wake. 200 yards from the pier, a blue dome ascended, cascading into waterfalls taking the form of a human head bigger than a house. Gigantic eyes opened, hazel orbs focusing intensely immediately on distant, insignificant beings.

He continued his ascent. Rivulets of saltwater streamed down his immense face, rushing across a chiseled jaw, and joining into a full-sized river running down his neck and between Adirondack pectorals. His bare abdomen rose, stretching fifty feet in the sky, forming a billowing landscape of pure muscle. Huge hands, each possessing the smiting power of some primordial deity, landed on the concrete port with infinite grace and restraint.

Rachel instinctually motioned for her group to step back, as waves of seawater lapped over the pier’s edge and came crashing down onto the pavement. She lost herself for a moment, staring at this seabeast’s abs, imagining herself on the wrong side of them, being digested by this supreme being. She was nothing against this creature; nothing but a morsel. Making matters worse was the alarming realization that Rachel knew this man. The man the company had chosen to unshackle from pathetic mortal proportionality and transcend into the realm reserved for the titans was Rachel’s ex-boyfriend, Justin. And he was, unmistakably, the wrong man for the role.

Even at his regular height of 6’2”, Justin was an Adonis of a specimen. Big, beautiful, charismatic, good at everything he did, smart - too smart for such being such a big lug, and terribly self-absorbed. He knew exactly what he was. Justin tore through women like tissue paper, controlling them, twisting them around his little finger, reducing them to nothing in his wake, and discarding them. All of them, that is, except Rachel. She saw the warning signs early, and she was not about to be used like the others. True, she found him nearly irresistible, and she had to admit that even his arrogance was as warranted as it was intoxicating. Leaving him was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was the most right.

But now, Justin finally had a body that matched the size of his ego, and Rachel felt smaller than ever. She was just an old toy, ready to be picked up and played with again. Or maybe she was an insect, a mere pest who annoyed Justin with her departure from his life, ready to be swatted by those thousand-ton hands of his. His stoic expression gave no indication of his intent. But then he smiled. He gave the crowd his usual calming, charming smile. “Hot day,” his voice boomed, carrying with it the force of a volcanic eruption. “Had to cool off.” His slightest utterances nearly brought the visitors to their knees. Justin had become a living force of nature, and he loved it. Rachel saw his familiar cockiness in his massive eyes.

“Every morning, when he punches in,” Rachel said to the crowd, exerting some considerable effort to stay focused, “the matter manipulator increases his size for exactly eight hours. At the end of the day, the molecules his body return to normal size. Similarly, we can set the duration that shipping containers are reduced.”

“Once you set the duration,” a guest nervously asked, “is there anything that can change it?”

“No.”

Meteoric triceps flexed, lifting Justin’s form even further. More and more of his nakedness arose from the water, and Rachel began to fear - and secretly hope - that Justin had fully stripped for his underwater excursion. To her dismay, he still retained some dignity. A pair of yellow boxer briefs, 25 feet tall and laden with thousands of gallons of ocean emerged from the sea, closely hugging Justin’s form. Smack in the middle was a distinctive bulge thicker than three Rachels, and at least twice as long. Justin was truly the biggest partner she ever had, but this was just ludicrous. What she would give to be with him again. She pictured him plucking her off the ground, and depositing her inside those briefs, where she would spend the rest of her days serving him.

One foot landed on the nearby pavement, followed soon by another. Each mighty thump shook through the visitors’ inconsequential bodies, as Justin lifted himself fully out of the water. He made a point to stand at his full height, showing off to Rachel just what he had become, a 175-foot monolith of masculinity. Today he was scheduled to be half this size - that much Rachel knew, based on the itinerary she had been provided - but Justin went fully off script. Gods don’t need scripts, they don’t abide by the petty regulations of their subjects. Justin knew this. He relished in it. Rachel could see it in his cocky smile, the unbridled joy he felt in being paid to be a god 40 hours a week. This was his first day as a giant and he was already showing off. What ever would day two look like, Rachel thought.

He lumbered off to carry out his duties. Rachel watched as his prodigious toes curled against the pavement, and his expansive soles curved upwards into heels that had the power to smash entire civilizations. He knew she was coming today. Had to. Had to make her feel infinitely small, just like he used to, but this time there was a literal reality to it. He wasn’t putting on a show for the audience, he was putting it on for her. Of that much Rachel was certain.

The crowd watched as Justin stooped down, collected a sampling of cargo containers, and carried them off like a boy carries Lego blocks. He stacked them neatly together in a large, fenced-off area reserved for matter reduction.

Rachel regained her senses. The show must go on. “F-from here,” she stammered, finding herself under the spell of her titanic ex, “all outbound containers are reduced into a more manageable scale, whereby-” she droned on, her words tumbling out as her brain went on autopilot. Her mind drifted to guilty, dark thoughts of her former lover. But Justin never loved anyone but himself. She shook out of her trance. This was the power he had over women, a power she prided herself on being too strong-willed to succumb to. How dare he do this. How dare he embarrass her like this.

The tour concluded. Nobody even commented on how unorthodox the presentation was, nor were there complaints about handmade Italian loafers being soaked in seawater. Rachel always put on a good show for dignitaries, but this time it was Justin that wowed the crowd. Rachel wasn’t having it. She wasn’t about to be upstaged by that overgrown arrogant meathead.

With her guests now out the door, Rachel stormed back down to the dock. There, her hulking ex continued his duties, assembling containers for processing, just as she assembled epithets and arguments in her head, ready to fire at this overgrown asshole. But she paused, just for a moment, for a guilty, delectable moment, just to watch him work. Beads of sweat bigger than her head glistened on his back and chest. She wanted to drink up one of those beads, or even swim in one. She wanted to feel his soft, titanic lips against her body, to become engulfed by his tongue. His mighty hands truly did have a surgeon’s delicate touch, as he masterfully handled his tiny cargo. Rachel wanted to be held in those hands, to feel their warmth and their strength, to be his plaything.

“Did you like my show?” he rumbled, high above her. “Admit it, you were impressed.”

Rachel snapped out of her trance. His senses were so honed he could even hear her trivially small footsteps approach from behind. She opened her mouth, but all the words she’d prepared failed to present themselves. He turned, focusing hungry eyes on tiny prey.

“I want you back,” he boomed.

Rachel nodded. It wasn’t a statement. It was an order. He always got what he wanted, with her it would just take a little longer than usual.

“Okay,” the word weakly exited her lips.

“Not like before,” he continued. “I didn’t like you before.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Like this.” His hands gestured outwards, signifying his own magnificence, and her comparable lack thereof. She barely rose above his toes. He wiggled his big toe for effect. “I want you to live under my foot, kissing it, worshiping it. I want you to grovel and beg. You will sleep in my dirty socks and you will love it, because I tell you to love it. You will always. Do. What I tell you.”

“Okay,” was the only word she could muster. Obediently, Rachel walked toward a nearby matter reducer. She punched some figures into a nearby console. “95% MATTER REDUCTION,” it read. “DURATION: ONE MONTH.”

“No,” Justin’s voice commanded.

She jolted under his single syllable. Tears formed in her eyes as Rachel hit the backspace key and typed in revised orders.

“DURATION:”

She paused, pondering her final moments of freedom, listening to the distant, deep breaths of the man she was about to call God. She could feel his gaze upon her tiny head. She sobbed, but Justin offered her no comfort. He merely waited for the inevitable. She resumed typing.

“DURATION: PERMANENT”

Enter.