Despite Carol sneaking in at the end of the last chapter, I figured the date was happening in this one. So I had some pretty high expectations going into it.

And you completely and totally smashed them!

Before I get too deep into all that, though, I wanted to call attention to something really small that you did that I think really set the tone for most of the chapter. That little line about Mateo pulling down Beth's finger when they were walking back to the apartment was the epitome of what makes gentle great, I think. Not only was the fact that she let him control her finger for his comfort and sense of security a really, really sweet moment but that this was following up him acknowledging that those fingers could crush him with almost no effort just one paragraph back was brilliantly done. Those two paragraphs conveyed the power she has over Mateo and that she cared about him so much as to relinquish that power and control to him when he needs her to (yeah, need is a strong word in this example, but metaphorically, I think it fits). 

That little moment, to me at least, helped frame everything that came after and made it all feel that much more special.

And holy fuck was pretty much all of that special! There were so many great moments between Beth and Mateo from the moment they reached the apartment to that last line of the chapter.

That moment she made Mateo come in her whey by teasing him about eating him? Fuck! That was incredible, so hot and she didn't even touch him! Also, I love that line about her not realizing that she could like him even more, as I felt like she hinted at being into vore, too, way back in chapter one when she taunted Emma about ending up in her stomach, I believe. It almost felt like a nice little callback to that.

We've been building to the date for quite some time now, and the payoff for it was spectacular. From the moment Beth's earthshaking steps brought her in front of Mateo to see her in her "little" black dress and heels to that emotional conversation at the restaurant, everything felt just right. Seeing Beth be vulnerable around Mateo, showing how self-conscious she actually is when everybody stares at her, judging her, was a nice moment. She doesn't just like and love Mateo, but she truly trusts him, and that's huge!

I knew there was some trouble at home for Beth (I've been calling it since chapter one or two), but damn, being abandoned by her irresponsible parents who just wanted to downsize and avoid being her mom and dad was a kind of fucked up I wasn't expecting. That Beth was willing to downsize with them surprised me a little bit, given how much she loves the feeling of being big, but it makes sense given that she wanted to be with her parents. It's a miracle that she came out of that still loving downsizers! But yeah, this certainly fits that sense of loneliness she always has and helps explain why Mateo paying attention to her drew her to him in the first place, even if she wasn't the best at expressing herself at the time.

I do wonder if Beth will get to confront her parents at some point in this story. I could see this just being a thing that has affected her and not being a plot point that's revisited, but part of me hopes she gets that closure before the story ends.

Also Mateo was such a good boyfriend her. He knew just what to say (because it was the truth!), and he made her feel like she truly wasn't alone for the first time in a long time. The biggest person in her world, indeed!

Also, I kind of glossed over it, but I love that it looks like you're moving forward with the unregistered downsized shelter idea. There's a lot of potential with that idea ...

And then there's the fucking! Good lord, did it really take me this long to get to the fucking?! (Not the first time I've said that!) Everything about this was perfect! Reminding us that this has been Beth's exact fantasy since he first offered to do her homework (not exactly what you said, but close enough and probably also true!) for her helped highlight how big a moment this was for her. You also captured Mateo's timidness at this being his first time having sex at any size wonderfully.

Mateo deciding to ignore Beth in the same way he had ignored most of the downsizer rules and go "too deep" inside her like that? God damn! Also, him using her clit as a sort of joystick for her was a nice visual. I just picture him testing it by putting pressure on different spots and watching her reactions. It's as hilarious as it is intoxicating to picture.

That mouthplay scene was (fuck, I'm already running out of adjectives) ... hot as fuck! Yeah, that works. It was hot as fuck! The way she teases him about eating him is absolutely perfect (yeah, I used it again, so what?). She intimidates him enough for his fear instincts to kick in but he trusts her enough to know that he's safe on a conscious level. That's really tricky to balance, but you did it well with the whey (after Beth found out about his new kink), and you did so even better here at the end. And the rest of that scene, from the way she tossed Mateo in to the laundry drier simile to the climax itself, was phenomenal (there we go, found another one!).

But you hit on a couple of things in that sex scene beyond the sex itself that I loved. First, the way Beth stopped and asked for consent despite being so into it that she literally ripped her dress off (poor dress, it was so pretty in my head!) was great! It shows how much she respects and values Mateo, as did her determination to get him to make decisions for himself throughout the sex itself.

Which leads me to the other thing that really stood out to me here: Mateo's trauma. You had a nice moment with the whey were you brought it up fairly blatantly, with him being afraid of being punished by Beth for getting off in her whey, much like how Sofia would punish him for lesser shit. I liked that you called attention to his experience with Sofia there. It as a nice reminder of what he had to go through to get to the paradise he's in now.

But I thought it was much more subtle and clever to have Mateo be so indecisive and focused on what Beth wants rather than his own desires at times. That's how Sofia was with him regarding everything, so it makes sense that he would struggle with some decision-making for some time after that nightmare. And again, I love how Beth gently pushed him to make those decisions anyway. She was patient and wanted to make him happy just as much he did for her.

Backtracking quite a bit, Tricia's segment was small but meaningful. I suspected that it was Tricia's mom who had done that to Steve's leg and that Tricia had found him after her mom had left him for dead somewhere. To read that Tricia did that to him herself was incredibly sad. I also don't fully blame her for this.

I think trusting a 14-year-old (she amputated his leg at 15, a year after finding and keeping him, right?) with the kind of power a human has over a downsizer, especially without any of the safeguards in place, is extremely dangerous. It sounds like Tricia had anger issues before all this, so of course a young, immature girl is going to flip out at some point and hurt her tiny father. That she was so nice to him for months afterwards shows how shitty she felt about the whole thing.

And I've said it before, but between the way she was raised (most likely by her mom) to think about downsizers and having Steve right there at her disposal, it only makes sense that she torments him the way she does. She gets so frustrated so easily, and it's easy to blame Steve for her problems. If only he hadn't downsized, right? Of course, if she wasn't raised to think of downsizers as pests and mom were more accepting (I know I'm speculating a lot here, but this seems to be what's being hinted at), they could all be happy together without any of this shit. But Tricia is trapped in this cycle because of the hate that was passed down to her and all the difficulties in her life because her dad is a downsizer in a household that hates downsizers. It's really, really sad.

And Kamila sees none of that because how could she? I completely understand where she's coming from in her thinking on Tricia, but I'm glad that Tricia still treats her well. Even after that shitty day at school, she still thought to bring Kamila her coffee and wasn't a jerk about giving it to her, either. That has to count for something, right? RIGHT?

Oh, and hearing Steve explain that Tricia's bad moods became more frequent after she broke up with Mateo sure was interesting. She really did/does care about our main character. But again, her social programming won't let her acknowledge it. I speculated back in chapter two that the way she ditched Mateo didn't necessarily mean that she didn't care about him anymore. Maybe she was too mad at the situation to stick around. Or maybe she left in tears. We don't really know, because we didn't see it. We were just left to guess that she didn't care about him and abandoned him when he needed her most. It's kind of nice to see that this wasn't exactly the case and that something more complex was going on in her heart.

Finally, those Principal Sullivan segments were awesome! The way she sat back and basked in Mateo's begging fits how I pictured her personality perfectly, as did the way she put those downsized parents in their place! But I was a little surprised to see Carol take Mateo's feelings into consideration a little bit here. I get that she didn't just do what she planned because he "killed the mood," but that she went through the trouble of finding a way to have her fun without Mateo feeling like a cheater was a more considerate than I had given her credit for. Maybe I judged her character a little too harshly before (she was always super hot, though!).

I mean, she could have easily just put him in the detention box after she decided not to put him in her tits. And that she called him her favorite downsizer wasn't insignificant, I would think.

I already mentioned the downsized parents stuff was great, especially that part where she walked up to them when they were halfway up the ladders. Holy fuck! They were 40 feet up and only at her knees? What a power move by her. Also, you're use of the word "splatter" here got me both times, especially the second time. That she barely thought to look and make sure she didn't splatter those downsizers under her heels? Jesus fuck!

I do still wonder if there will come a time when Mateo's parents will want to have a chat with the good principal. I'd love to see her face when she tells her secretary to send them in, ready to put them in their place, only for a full-sized Sofia to stomp in super pissed about something. And if she's a DPS agent at that point? Oh man, that could be fun.

Then again, maybe Mateo will keep being her favorite and it won't come to that. Who knows?

So, summing all those words above up, this chapter was pretty okay, I guess.