Reviewer: It Was Me Signed [Report This]
Date: December 01 2023 2:31 AM Title: Chapter 2

Apologies in advance, as I already know this is going to be really long.

I just happened upon this story by chance, but I'm really glad I did. I love stories, even smut-related ones, that have depth and make me think, and this was a very deep, very thought-provoking story, at least in my mind.

First, I really appreciated the little details you put into the relationship between Cole and Chelsea. Things like Chelsea ordering milk for Cole's coffee because not only does she know he wants it, but she also knows he's struggling to decide if he wants to make a fuss about it shows a sense of familiarity she has with him that goes beyond simple friendship (I also feel like this is paid off near the end of the second chapter; more on that in a bit).

Then there's Cole recognizing all of Chelsea's personal touches in her living room, especially after first noticing how nice it looked in general. Being able to go deeper and know where her knick knacks were bought from or that the blanket came from her grandmother, let alone her using flowers to display her favorite colors, shows an understanding of her that can only come from paying attention to and truly knowing someone.

I also thought this was a good way to distinguish Cole from being a stalker, as the depressed obsession he has for her presented a fine line for him to walk early on in the story. I feel like things like this helped to manage that line pretty well, though.

And there were also little "throw away" moments between more active parts of the story that subtly showed the bond between them as well, such as when they ragged on that house Chelsea was showing during her lunch break and that whole bit with the daytime soaps marathon. These may not have been essential to the story, but the personalization used to detail them really sold the friendship between them and made them feel more real.

Oh, and speaking of Cole's house tour, I love that you found a legitimately believable way to justify Chelsea platonically shoving him in her cleavage. In most of these stories, it's either not platonic or the excuse is lame. The scene was well set up, right down to Chelsea taking her jacket off and folding it up in the bedroom because she was hot. Again, it's a small thing, but I really enjoy that attention to detail.

I also thought the internal struggle Chelsea goes through in chapter two was really well done, although I didn't think that at first. As I was reading it, I initially thought her transition from super sweet best friend to sex-obsessed potential owner was a rough one, as I had a hard time buying that a simple visit to a website could awaken something so drastic in her and alter her personality so much. I was a little disappointed about this, given the thought that went into so many other aspects of this story (such as the ones I mentioned above), but I rolled with it anyway because, hey, it's a just a smut story, and a well-written one at that.

But then I came across a short paragraph in the back half of the chapter that completely changed my perception (I love when stories make you go back and reevaluate things, by the way).

Okay, stay with me for this, because this is a winding road.

Maybe it should have been obvious to me sooner, but it wasn't until we learned that Chelsea didn't think that Cole was "into her ... that way" that I realized that she already felt the same way about him that he did about her. I kind of thought that this was going to be a story where the girl married a guy and fell out of love with him only to realize that her soulmate had been right in front of her the whole time, and the fact that he was tiny only helped her to realize this.

That's not what this is at all, though.

When Chelsea said that Cole would have pursued her when they first met if he liked her like that, it became clear that she felt that way about him from that moment, with that feeling likely only getting stronger with time. It hadn't occurred to me until she basically said it that she would ever think that Cole had no interest in her. But now, we've got two main characters who both loved and wanted to be with each other but, for various reasons, both thought the other one didn't want a romantic relationship, so they each kind of gave up on life, since the person each of them cared about most (i.e. each other) didn't return that love (in their own minds).

For Cole, that meant abandoning whatever he was going to do after college to get a dead-end, soul-crushing job; pining after pictures of Chelsea; and condemning himself to a life of solitude. For Chelsea, yeah, she kept her bubbly personality and is clearly living more comfortably than Cole, but her role as a wife is equally as soul-crushing and lonely.

For me, that became incredibly obvious during that last scene, when Jeffrey made his regular semen deposit into his wife (that's how impersonal it felt). It wasn't blatant, but I drew some parallels between Chelsea in that scene and Cole in the factory. She seemed almost robotic in what she said and how she moved, like she was just going through the motions. In essence, having sex with her husband has become something of a job for her, which, in a way, might be even more lonely than not having anybody at all.

But anyway, yeah, I kind of got the vibe that Chelsea never actually loved Jeffrey but just settled for him because she didn't think that the person she actually loved felt the same way, which is way different than what I initially thought.

So how is all of that relevant to Chelsea's struggle to not turn her best friend into a living sex toy?

Well, because I don't think that's what the struggle is really about. To be sure, if that darker side won out, I have no doubt she would be using him that way, but I don't think that's the core of the issue. No, I think something deeper, maybe even subconscious, took over her brain when she stumbled upon Giantess World.

At first, Chelsea just wanted to help her friend. But after reading stories about the power someone her size has over someone his size, part of her realized something. She had the power to just take him. She's wanted Cole for 10 years but felt she couldn't have him, not in the way that she wanted, anyway.

But now he doesn't really have much of a choice, does he?

And I think that's where the obsession with owning Cole comes from. Again, she might not realize it's her motivation, but Chelsea's attraction to things like the leash, birdcages, and aquariums isn't to keep Cole as a pet. It's to make him hers. Her love for him is coming out in this weird way that she can't fully make sense of, but wanting to treat Cole like a possession is symbolic of her desire to have him more broadly.

And I think this is even backed up by how she has accepted how Jeffrey treats her. He makes sure she's the last to know when he's staying at a conference for extra days, doesn't really listen to her, tells her to lose weight, and then, after going several days without seeing her (we know he stayed an extra three days, but we don't know how long he was there before that), he tracks her down, immediately has sex with her (the way he wants it), and goes to get cleaned up: no real conversation, no questions about how she was when he was a way, and no real intimacy or cuddling. In short, he views her as a possession, one he can take out and put away whenever he wants.

And I doubt Jeffery is the first lover to treat her this way. Given how Chelsea couldn't understand why Cole wouldn't make a move if he loved her, even though we know through Cole that she was always either seeing someone else or in a tough spot emotionally and he didn't want to take advantage of that, as well as the fact that the only other boyfriend we know of cheated on her, it's almost as though she doesn't know how to recognize a potential lover who's also a decent person. That tells me that she's informed on how relationships work from nothing but bad experiences and poor treatment.

So, with all of that in mind, it isn't hard to understand how Chelsea might associate love and ownership.

But the part of her that's fighting this urge realizes that to do this is to take away a part of Cole: the part that she loves, the part that separates him from all the other men in her life. Also, it represents her having to make a choice between continuing to be in the same type of relationship over and over again (albeit this time in the opposite role) or to choose something different, a more filling and relationship (although, up until the end of the chapter, she believes that this would be a nonromantic relationship, which is why it's such a struggle for her to go down this road).

But Cole's near-confession changes all that. Like I noted much earlier in this review (sorry again for being so long-winded), Chelsea knows him really well and can almost read his mind at times, it seems. So I thought her finishing Cole's thought with the "And I love ... you" while looking at the drawer was artfully done and really powerful. It seems like that was the moment, despite the tension she felt throughout the day or the fact that Jeffrey was using her before putting her back on the shelf, so to speak, that Chelsea found a moment of clarity and realized that Cole loved her just as much as she loved him.

Or everything I said is all in my head, and I attributed a bunch of ideas to your work that were wrong. But that's how I saw things as the story evolved.

And I also appreciate that you gave us an upbeat cliffhanger (which is hard to do), as opposed to a more depressing one. It would have been really easy to cut things off with Cole questioning if he was just a plaything or a friend at best to Chelsea, but having her tell him that she loved him directly makes me want to read about what happens next even more than if I was left hoping that he would, at some point, learn the truth. It also doesn't take anything away from the drama of her loving him but being married to Jeffrey, so there's still plenty of tension for our characters to deal with going forward, even with things starting to look up.

Finally, I did want to mention Jeffery one more time. I think it was a good decision to have him be so over-the-top with his stereotypical uncaring-husband mentality. Normally, I'd like to see a bit more nuance in characters like this for fear of them turning into a cliché, but I think you needed to use a blunt hammer here, and it was really effective in conveying just what Chelsea has condemned herself to.

Anyway, I see it's been a while since this has been updates, so I don't know if the commissioner is looking to keep this story going at some point, but I really enjoyed what we've gotten so far. I'll keep an eye out in case we get a chapter three and probably check out some of your other work, as I was pretty impressed with this one.

If I review another story, I'll try to be a bit more brief. I promise.

Author's Response:

Thank you for the lovely detailed review! It's such a delight to know you came away with so much from what I wrote. It's pretty rare that I get to stretch my writing-muscles, commissioners pay by the word, so understandably they want to get to the smutty part quickly. This was a rare exception where the commissioner was happy to give the story time to breathe, to flesh out the characters more than just human-shaped sex-toys, so it's thoroughly satisfying to hear you appreciate that side of the story.

Originally I wasn't sure if any readers would even get past the first scene, it's quite bleak, but it helps justify all that's to come and make it more relatable, rather than just "because it's arousing." This is where stories excel in comparison to visual arts, you can grow to know and care about these characters, they aren't just pretty mannequins posed into a lewd configuration.

And yes that bugs me too when "sexy times" abruptly happen without rhyme or reason, it pulls me out of imagining myself in their shoes as a reader if the logic jumps.

As for more content, I still have a plan for a few more chapters of this and the commissioner was eager, but my commission queue is immensely long so it takes me a year+ before I get back to a story. As for my other works, I've not had this level of free reign to develop characters as this tale, they jump to the smutty parts far sooner, so I'm not sure if they'll appeal to you as much as this but I hope you enjoy them still.

Thanks again for the lovely review <3