Prologue – The Life-Changing Verdict

It was hailed as one of the greatest scientific marvels before it was even released, and its significance was not overstated. MicroMD had started, as most companies do, with good intentions. As the name implies, the proprietary technology was originally intended for medical use only, and it revolutionized the practice of medicine. It started as a simple series of remote-controlled tools, intended to take surgical error out of the equation for medical procedures. Laser-like precision, without actual use of lasers, was the promise, and MicroMD delivered. The game truly changed, however, when they rolled out the nanotechnology.

A scalpel that could be reduced in size and remotely navigated around a gunshot wound to carefully cut loose a bullet fragment with minimal tissue damage and effectively no blood loss? It sounded like a flight of fancy, but MicroMD made it real. Order after order poured in for their products, supply being chronically short. A few years in, their initial public offering in the stock market nearly broke Wall Street. Nobody had ever seen the likes of this technology before. It was as much of a per se gamechanger as the microchip itself was. Thus, was technology’s newest golden child born.

Of course, it was not foolproof. Sudden lapses in the remote-control functionality causing tools to randomly expand and create blood clots or sever arteries. Electronic shortages on the products leading to permanent brain damage. It was far from perfect, but it offered far more good than it did harm. At least, until it didn’t.

Enter the fateful batch of nanobots. The ability to build the machines at full size and reduce them afterward led to wild innovation. The bots could be programmed to repair tissue, shrunk down to near cellular size, and injected directly into the bloodstream. These were more than just another tool; MicroMD claimed the nanobots would make doctors themselves obsolete. They offered the ability to chase cancerous cells throughout the body, with directly targeted use of chemotherapy and radiation to gradually eradicate the presence of cancer without any of the usual side effects. They could form links within the spinal column to create electrical stimulation that simulated nerve endings, in some cases remediating paralysis. Truly, an innovation to shatter, and subsequently reframe, the public perspective on what was possible.

The mistake, however, lay in MicroMD’s greed. Of course, the contracts and licensing agreements with insurance companies were fruitful, and the company was profitable beyond even the wildest expectations. As is ever the case with the truly fortunate of society, however, it was never enough. The decision was made internally to sell the nanobots directly to consumers, opening an infinitely wide range of profitability. The lofty aspiration was for the nanobots to become akin to the smartphone: a product that eventually every single person on Earth would hold in their hand for personal use thereafter. Viruses could be attacked and destroyed before they took hold in the body. In essence, MicroMD promised a permanent cure for the common cold, and whatever else that ailed you.

But greed leads to sloppiness, and rushed development meant faults in the system. This would end up being the crux of Clover & Glenwood’s class action lawsuit: the foreseeability of the harm MicroMD engendered in the population by releasing an incredibly dangerous product prematurely. Within mere days of the tubes full of nanobots being sold to society’s wealthy elite, one ghastly news story after another would start popping up on news stations and social media. Sudden size expansion of the nanobots leading to a loved one exploding while reading their children a bedtime story and crushing the children in the process. The nanobots losing connectivity and going rogue, attacking healthy cells and serving as their own form of the most aggressive, artificial cancer for the whole body. The initial release alone killed thousands and scarred infinitely more, even before the first recall was ever ordered.

The class action lawsuit that followed would be the keystone moment for the firm of Clover & Glenwood. The firm that previously languished in relative obscurity would become a nationwide sensation that dwarfed even the most intensely covered celebrity trials. The attention paid by the public to the case was enough to make the OJ Simpson trial seem comparatively insignificant.

In truth, though it was the case of a lifetime, and though the protracted litigation would consume hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs, expert witness fees, transcripts, subpoenas, etc. over the course of five years, Steve Clover never felt it was a particularly difficult one to prove. The outcome, as far as he was concerned, was effectively preordained. It didn’t matter which way you scrutinized the nanobots product: design defect, manufacturing defect, failure to warn. It had them all in spades. In the sometimes-murky field of products liability, the voluminous discovery in the case would paint a picture of deliberately cut corners, chronic and incessant malfeasance, and pure corporate greed.

So it was that the so-called “nuclear verdict” came as no surprise, though there was an appropriate amount of champagne toasting involved afterward. A verdict of $500-billion dollars, split amongst the parties to the class action. The attorneys’ fee on the verdict was of such significance that calling the wealth “generational” fails to do it justice. It said much for the fortune MicroMD had amassed that they would survive the verdict, never reaching the point of having to declare bankruptcy. The subsequent criminal proceedings and legislative amendments that would follow were another story entirely, however.

Over the course of discovery, seemingly endless schematics, blueprints, designs and specifications would come to light. It transpired that MicroMD was on the cusp of its next great innovation: a human suit that borrowed from the same technology designed for recreational use for those that truly had so much money it had long since lost all substance and meaning to them. The intent was for the suit to cost $10,000,000.00 to purchase, an exorbitant sum that put even the most luxurious of sportscars to shame. It was actually quite far along in the product development cycle as well. The first iteration of the suit had been declared ready for testing, with paid human trials to commence once they had figured out how to regrow the organic material the suit reduced.

Unbeknownst to both his clients and his firm, Steve Clover had a secret. The world had given it the sanitized, clinical term of macrophilia, or at least a specific version of it colloquially known as the “giantess fetish.” He could scarcely believe his eyes when he first saw the report for the MicroMD human suit. It was hopelessly enticing to him that a version of it already existed somewhere. Steve would use a relatively standard discovery device, known as a litigation hold notice, to secure his eventual prize. A legal requirement for MicroMD to store documents and things for further inspection over the course of discovery to avoid any spoliation, intentional or otherwise, of key evidence. It would have been served in the regular course of discovery regardless; it just gave Steve an opening he would not have conceived of in his wildest dreams.

He was aware of the risks, of course. He would count himself fortunate if the only result were disbarment. Then again, Steve had always been the type of man that called himself undeniable. He would pursue the suit with a fervor unseen since his courtship of the paralegal Amy Allegria. The hundreds of thousands of documents and half-formed products from MicroMD had been set aside in a secure storage facility early in the litigation. Few had access to it, but Steve was one of them. Under the cover of night one otherwise bespoke evening, he slipped inside the facility and hunted down the briefcase that would forever alter his life. In a particularly shortsighted bout of hubris, he never suspected that the unnamed human suit could drastically shorten that life as well.

Steve announced his retirement a scant few weeks after the verdict. In truth, he felt the firm was in capable hands. His partner, John Glenwood, had no intention of retiring anytime soon. Contrary to Steve’s desire for an untroubled life of leisure (and more than a little play) for the remainder of his days, John felt he would rapidly grow bored with an idle lifestyle. There were still cases to be tried and won, precedent to be set, perhaps even a future career on the bench if he ingratiated himself to the right people. Coupled with the highly capable roster of associates and paraprofessionals, Steve knew that Clover & Glenwood would thrive in his absence.

Amy, however, did not take the announcement of Steve’s retirement very well. Still in her 20s, she found much pride and validation in her career and foresaw another 40+ years of it. Her reservations were somewhat mollified by Steve’s assertion that he would function as a stay-at-home dad for their eventual family. Taking him at his word, however, would prove to be one of her greatest misjudgments. Steve had set his heart on a particularly selfish course of action. Unlike the myriad other product offerings from MicroMD, the company had not yet fashioned the means by which to regrow organic material. The human suit was, for now at least, and potentially forever, a one-way ticket to a life literally diminished.

With this narrative foundation having been laid, we bring our story now to the present. Specifically, to the moment of Steve’s life-altering, fateful decision. A decision that had been made without his wife’s knowledge or consent. A truly selfish decision, that would change the dynamics of his relationship with Amy, potentially irrevocably. 

Chapter 1 – Voluntary Intoxication

Present Day, 5:30 P.M., January 4, 2024

Digging through the stacks of boxes he had used to obscure the human suit from Amy’s notice, Steve let out a reverent sigh as he withdrew the black briefcase. He had come to this point several times since his early retirement, each instance ending much the same. He would place the briefcase on the bed, undo the clasps, flip it open, and unfurl the length of the human suit. On a few occasions he had even gotten to the point of putting it on, glancing at himself in the mirror for one last glimpse of life at his full height. Invariably, his mind would process the implications, and common sense would set in. He would sheepishly fold the suit back up and stash it back in the closet, only to end up doing the banal ritual the next day.

So, what was different about January 4, 2024? Like so many other crises born of regrettable lack of inhibition, the difference was alcohol. His decision to retire had been made rather lightly, all things considered. After all, he could always just go back to work if it wasn’t for him. He was still in his early forties. Plenty of career ahead. But a toxic combination of pride and laziness kept him from donning his shirt and tie and making the commute he had made so many times before. The inability, or perhaps the simple unwillingness, to admit to himself that retirement was a mistake led to bouts of drunkenness his wife casually resented. Amy would come home from work exhausted, wondering if today was finally the day Steve decided to actually pick up the stay-at-home duties he had promised her and attempt cooking instead of ordering out. And every day for the past month, she would be disappointed. Every night she would come home to her husband looking much the same as he did when he rolled out of bed that morning, with the additions of more stubble on his face and alcohol on his breath.

As though his hands were operating of their own accord, Steve found himself unlatching the briefcase, laying the human suit on the bed, and stripping down to his underwear which, in a sign of his current lifestyle, realistically only required removing a t-shirt before he was left in the same boxers he had worn to bed the night before. He picked up the MicroMD human suit, zipped it up over the top of his head, and one by one began to connect the wires and electrodes that allowed it to work its technological magic. He removed the bottom of the briefcase, withdrawing a remote no larger than his palm. And once again, as with so many times before, he found he was staring his image down in the mirror, practically daring himself to go through with it.

Even through the haze of inebriation, the disappointment of cold, hard logic set in. Though the plans revealed in discovery showed that MicroMD was working on a means of reversing the process, it didn’t exist yet. That meant this would be a potentially permanent, irrevocable change to life as he knew it. Life as his wife knew it as well, for that matter, since she would be forced into the role of caretaker. All this, just for momentary sexual gratification. Was following through on a fantasy he’d possessed since adolescence worth the lifelong shift in status to full-time dependent in his household and the inevitable strain on his relationship with his wife? There would be no children, no cooking dinner, no Christmas mornings unwrapping presents, no romantic date nights on the town, no walking his daughter down the aisle (unless, of course, she carried him, in which case it would technically be her walking him down the aisle, he thought with grim amusement), no showing his son (or daughter, he thought to himself, no reason a girl can’t play hockey) how to break in a new goalie glove.

Then again, this would be the only chance he would ever have to scratch that proverbial itch. MicroMD was still in operation, despite the ongoing criminal case. They had figured out how to regrow inorganic material almost contemporaneous with the ability to shrink it. How far off could a “cure” be if he went through with it? I might be worrying myself over nothing. This could be a fun, little month-long excursion that spices up our love life a bit. Amy will probably get a kick out of it, and things will be back to normal sooner than later. Besides, he thought with a wry smile, marital privilege. They can’t compel her to testify against me even if someone eventually figures out where the suit went.

At least, that was his reasoning before common sense once more prevailed. He glanced out the bathroom door at the bottle of bourbon he had left on the nightstand. Blanton’s Gold, a retirement gift from Amy that deserved to be sipped from a whiskey glass as opposed to gulped from the bottle, as was his current method of consumption.

Maybe I’ll leave this on for a bit and eventually work up the courage, he told himself. If Amy wondered what the weird spacesuit was about, well, it was high time she knew about it anyway. She had indulged his sexual interests before, after he confessed (and explained) the macrophilia to his wife. Sitting on his face was a reasonable approximation of buttcrush. Placing her open mouth over his eye during sex gave him prey’s vore perspective. Stepping on him as he laid on the floor approximated the foot crush videos he consumed almost daily. The middle ground wasn’t perfect, but it existed. Amy was far from a bedroom freak, at least compared to some of his wilder exes (in fact, he got the distinct sensation that his last ex Katie enjoyed penetrating him more than he did her), but she was kind, and ever willing to try. She wanted him to be happy, she wanted their relationship to have a vibrant sex life even after marriage. And, on rare occasions, her sexual appetite would pierce her usually reserved demeanor and result in insatiable marathon evenings. They playfully referred to this voracious alter ego as “Flamy,” a nod to the unquenchable fire that would sometimes consume her.

Steve picked up the remote once more and began to leave the bathroom, when fate, or perhaps simple, but altogether deserved, misfortune, would take the decision out of his hands. His drunken shuffling caused his foot to catch on the threshold to the bathroom. His arms flailed out wildly for purchase, his fingers unwittingly jerking the dial on the remote down to the lowest setting, a mere inch in height. The final dagger was falling flat forward, which caused his body to land on top of the remote…and press the now-engaged button.

Immediately, a pit set in his stomach, strikingly similar to the sensation one gets at the top of a roller coaster hill just as the ride begins its plunge. A heavy, all-consuming vertigo subsumed his mind and vision, the room spiraling out of control and a strong urge to vomit setting in from the resultant nausea. It felt like stepping off a cliff with no bottom in sight, only to immediately end up falling upside down. For Steve, the whole proceeding felt like it went on for minutes, when in actuality he had shrunk down in less than five seconds.

The suit, of course, had been reduced with him. His change in stature didn’t set in mentally until he observed the remote, which had been in his hand only moments prior, laying what seemed to be the length of a football field away. He glanced down, and the grains on the hardwood floor were infinitely closer and more detailed than the countless times he had casually observed them. It took a few seconds for the full reality to set in, but set in it did: Holy shit. Shit shit shit shit shit!!!!! I’m fucking tiny!!!! Steve began hyperventilating as he fought to avoid panic overtaking him.

 ---------------------------------------------------

Amy liked that she still felt desired. Invariably, Steve would attempt to initiate intercourse within moments of her walking through the door. But she wondered. Does he need to be drunk to be intimate with me now? The needling, nagging doubt had her squinting in the mirror each morning, convinced the crow’s feet under her eyes had finally become noticeable even though she had not yet reached her thirtieth birthday. It infected her mind like a disease, worrying away at other, worthier emotions. It surfaced when she would strip down to get in the shower, convinced that her once tight belly was beginning to sag, even though she was in the best shape of her life.

It was also more than a little obnoxious. She was tired and hungry, so watching the man she married roll listlessly off the couch and approach her with a lascivious leer and a semi-erection was less than welcome. A potent and formidable man who had developed a nationwide reputation as one of the country’s premier litigators, reduced to little more than a slovenly lush. She had always seen the best in Steve though, and she believed life would reach a new state of amicable normalcy after some time. He was still the love of her life, and she held onto a conviction that things would get better. She checked her makeup in the rearview mirror one more time before getting out of the car.

Amy punched in the door code on the lock to their front door, juggling her purse on one arm and a Redweld folder under the other arm for a toxic tort action she needed to review before drafting the commencement pleadings. She walked through the door, softly tsking to herself as all the lights were off. That usually meant Steve had yet to find his way out of the bedroom that day. She flipped on the lights and called out: "Steve? Honey? I’m back. What do you want to eat?” As if on cue, her stomach let out a growl in protest of its vacancy.

No answer. He’d better not be passed out again, she thought as anger began to rise. She sighed, kicking off her shoes under the console table near the front door while dropping her keys on top. As if they had been silently waiting for their chance in the spotlight, her feet immediately began to ache as they left the restrictive confines of her flats. Sure, the office let its employees get away with casual attire, but as the wife of one of the named partners, Amy held herself to a more professional standard. Despite the lack of a dress code, she couldn’t help but silently judge the legal assistants and assorted staff showing up daily in flannel pajamas and slippers. Amy usually drew the line at shorts, and more often than not chose to wear heels and a blouse. Sometimes, when there wasn’t enough time to run home from the gym, she’d head into the office in her tennis shoes and yoga pants. Those occasions were exceedingly rare, however.

“Steve?” she called out again as she put her purse and the folder down on the coffee table. With a soft, annoyed groan, she ambled into the kitchen and popped open the fridge, grabbing a protein shake. This will have to do for now, she thought ruefully. If Steve was unconscious, that usually meant dinner was at least an hour away, since he had to be woken up and brought to some measure of sobriety before the nightly debate over which of the same six restaurants to order delivery from ensued.

May as well get this over with since I have to get changed, Amy thought as she approached the bedroom. The door was ajar, and the stale scent of alcohol and vague body odor wafted out as she pushed it open. The first thing she noticed was the uncapped bottle of Blanton’s Gold on the nightstand. She quickly mastered her emotions before the sight of it alone induced tears. That bottle had been exceedingly difficult to find, and what was supposed to be a commemoration of happy times ahead in Steve’s retirement had in essence become a symbol of his precipitous decline. A sweet gesture from a wife who knew of her husband’s bourbon enthusiasm and did her homework, and a celebration of the resolution of the MicroMD case and all they had achieved together, reduced to an expedient means of inebriation.

The second thing she noticed was Steve’s absence. Sure, the bed was unmade with the distinctive indent of a body on the mattress, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Odd, Amy thought to herself as she put the cork adorned with a golden racehorse back into the bottle. She rifled through her dresser briefly, taking out a pair of Steve’s basketball shorts and one of his older t-shirts before approaching the bathroom. As she traversed the length of the bedroom, she caught sight of another oddity. A strange looking remote on the floor near the nightstand. She picked it up, a cursory examination revealing that the remote had but two inputs: a dial that appeared to be a rotating scale of various sizes, and singular button marked simply “ENGAGE.” The red light at the tip of the remote was glowing steadily. Must be some sort of laser measuring tool, she thought. Maybe he’s building something? That would be a refreshing change from his current daily routine of unmitigated sloth.

She set the remote down on the nightstand and began to enter the bathroom, when she suddenly stepped on something on the threshold, bringing a sting just under the toes of her right foot akin to when she used to step on her little brother Joe’s Legos. Unlike the Legos, however, this object gave a barely perceptible crunch as her weight pressed down on it…

Chapter 2 – A Reasonably Prudent Person 

"Steve? Honey? I’m back. What do you want to eat?” Fuck, Steve thought to himself. She’s home. Despite knowing that the process was effectively irreversible, Steve had still entertained some faint hope that the shrinking would only have been temporary, and that maybe he would have been back to normal before Amy walked through the door. Accepting, for now at least, that this would be the status quo for the foreseeable future, he resolved to get Amy’s attention, somehow. He knew one of the first things she would do would be to get changed, but the dresser was on the other side of the room, and he had no means of scaling it. Plus, the bedroom lighting was dim compared to the rest of the house, and it was already dark outside. His best chance of notice would be through the bane of his existence on hungover mornings: those excessively bright bathroom lights.

“Steve?” he heard Amy call again. He stood up, and began a light jog toward the bathroom, immediately becoming winded. Jeez, Amy wasn’t kidding, I really have let myself go. Being so close to the floor, he could feel the thuds and vibrations from Amy’s footfalls resonating throughout the house. Though he heard her divert to the kitchen, he knew he realistically had only minutes before she came in. He tried to pick up the pace a bit, his thighs immediately cramping from underuse and dehydration. Fuck me, it’s hell getting old, though he knew the root cause was less age-related and more alcohol-induced. Gasping and doubled over, he had nearly made it to the threshold to the bathroom when he heard Amy enter the bedroom.

He knew he was small, but this was his first time seeing what normal height looks like from his vantage point. His petite wife, who normally (and adorably, he thought) had to stand on her tippy toes to kiss him on the lips, was a monolithic colossus. The sense of scale was overwhelming, immediately bringing to mind certain scenes from the Hollywood Godzilla reboot in 2014. The cute girl with the little button nose that he had easily and giddily carried into the bedroom on their wedding night was now a terrifying force of nature.

The gawking, of course, did him no favors in his effort to get to the bathroom, as he observed Amy approaching the nightstand to cap off the Blanton’s Gold bottle before heading across the room to her dresser to grab a pair of his shorts and a t-shirt. He always got a kick out of seeing her in his outsized clothes, reminiscent of when he would try on his dad’s suits in the mirror as a child. The dim reverberations he had felt as she walked around the house earlier now felt like tremors under his feet, threatening to upend him as she began to approach the bathroom. Suddenly, she glanced in his direction. He briefly entertained the hope that, against all odds, he had been spotted, but then he followed Amy’s gaze to the MicroMD remote prototype still laying on the floor.

As she bent down to pick it up, he saw his wife in a completely new light from a completely new angle. Her blond hair fell forward over her shoulders, framing her face and nearly brushing the floor. The shadow of the cleavage visible under her blouse was less arousing and more reminiscent of a bottomless canyon. Despite these observations, however, the thing that stood out to him the most was those emerald green eyes he had fallen head over heels for. He knew she would never hurt him willingly (except when I ask her to, he thought with a smirk), but from this angle, at this perspective, he could not help but feel that those beautiful eyes had taken on a predatory aspect.

This simple action of bending over to pick something up, a banal, routine occurrence that he had witnessed countless times, became a spectacle. He watched in rapt attention as she grabbed the remote, briefly inspected it, did that adorable shrug of the shoulders that she does, and placed it on the nightstand. Only when she pivoted and began to walk toward the bathroom once more did he realize what his transfixion may have cost him. She clearly had not seen him, and with his clothes tucked under her arm, she walked toward the bathroom. Those petite strides that she ordinarily needed two of to keep pace with one of his now seemed to cover miles with each step. He watched her socked left foot land somewhere in front of him before the right foot lifted in the air.

In that same inexplicable fashion that allows humans to catch a ball instinctively, his quick mental calculation resulted in an inescapable conclusion: she’s going to step right on me! It was all happening so quickly, barely any time to formulate an escape plan or dodge. As it so often does during crisis, however, time seemed to slow down as he watched Amy’s foot coming down overhead. He had enough time to register the weave on the socks, the discoloration on the ball of the foot and the heel from both chronic and recent use, the contours of her high arch and her cute toes pushing at the fabric, Amy’s foot radiating a slight, damp warmth and faint odor of sweat as it approached. He did the only thing he could in that moment and dropped down to the floor in a ball to cover his head. He felt the fabric of the sock come down on him first, for a fraction of a second, before the incalculable weight of Amy’s entire body pressed down, forcing him from the huddled position he had taken and flattening him against the wood floor.

 ----------------------------------------------------------

Amy felt the object under her toes, almost under the ball of her foot, give way as she stepped on it. She rolled her eyes, convinced she was now going to be washing the unmistakable scent of the brown marmorated stink bug from her clothing once again. Things are a god-damned menace, she thought to herself before lifting her foot up and bending down to scrutinize the critter.

That’s funny, she thought as her face approached the floor in inspection, it almost looks like it has the shape of…. But as she got closer and the creature came into focus, there was no mistaking it: IS THAT A PERSON??!!

 -------------------------------------------------

Steve knew that once Amy saw it was him that she had crushed, she would be inconsolable. He regretted the toll it would take on her conscience, the overwhelming logistical nightmare that would follow in sorting out his estate without a will, his ownership shares in the firm, the life insurance. His dear wife was about to be put through the mental and emotional wringer. And yet, some part of him was glad it was her. For all the strain he had put on their marriage in recent months, it could not be said that he died alone. He was with his wife right until the last moment, quite literally closer to her than he had ever been before.

He felt a distinct crunching sensation as the exoskeleton of the shrinking suit gave way beneath the weight of Amy’s foot. He would be ground instantaneously into an almost unrecognizable paste. Amy’s foot pressed him out of the ball position he had curled into protectively, flattening him face down against the floor. He felt the pressure on his shoulder blades, on his ribs and on his spine, feeling them bend to an excruciating limit before they would inevitably break. But just when he thought that moment was imminent, the pressure stopped building. He risked a glance upward, being able to see in the dim light filtering through Amy’s sock exactly where her foot had landed: with him under the arch of her toes, just in front of the ball of her foot. If her stride had been one inch longer, he would be dead already.

He had time enough to register the stale odor of Amy’s foot before she lifted it off him. Amy was fastidiously clean, maintaining a level of hygiene that bordered on neurotic. Even with that cleanliness, however, Amy was a human just like anyone else: put a socked foot in a shoe all day, and there will be an odor.

Whereas before he had felt that Amy’s gaze was intimidating, as her face closed distance to the ground, she took on an angelic mien to Steve. Maybe it was the light on the ceiling playing through the strands of her hair, maybe it was her beauty even in something mundane, but in that moment, she radiated divinity as a goddess. In reality, however, it was because his executioner had now become his savior.

He saw those emerald eyes grow closer and closer before they began to widen, shock clearly registering in her expression. At a loss, he smiled sheepishly upwards and shrugged.

  -------------------------------------------------

“STEVE??!! WHAT…THE…ACTUAL…FUCK??!!!” Amy cried out, perhaps at too high a volume for her greatly diminished spouse as he winced and covered his ears. After the advent of MicroMD, size changing was no longer as outlandish to conceive as it had been previously. Even still, it was widely understood amongst the public at large that reduction of organic matter was decades away. Amy quickly scooped up her husband, bringing him closer to her face as she walked carefully to the bed and sat down, feeling as though she might faint.

“Babe…” Steve began, before Amy cut him off. “Honey, I just….just give me a minute, please.” Amy’s mind chose to run wild with dire implications and scenarios. I almost killed him. Steve, my…husband. I almost crushed him like a bug. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she processed the enormity of the moment. The last thing he would’ve seen before dying painfully was the bottom of my dirty sock… Amy’s face took on a blank, vacant stare as it all began to set in. “Stay here,” she said, standing up once more and placing him gingerly down on the bed.

She walked calmly into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, feeling a panic attack coming up. She hadn’t had one of these since finals in her senior year of undergraduate college. She felt the gorge beginning to rise in the back of her throat and quickly ran to the toilet, flipping open the lid with no time to spare before depositing that protein shake she had consumed moments earlier into the bowl. After she was done heaving, she slumped down and leaned her back against the toilet, mind numb and body limp.

  -------------------------------------------------

Regret. That’s the first thing Steve felt. He saw the spectrum of emotions playing across his wife’s face, going from shock, to sadness, to sickness. He heard her vomiting in the bathroom, and instinctually he rose to his feet to go console her, before realizing it would take him ages to cross the room again, even if he could figure out how to get down from the bed.

Shame. That’s the second thing he felt. Shame in that he had given his wife this scare, but something more than that. Something less wholesome and more…insidious. He was ashamed because, despite the near-death experience and the human catastrophe playing out, he was aroused. At least somewhat aroused. As the panic over his impending death had waned, the dark recesses of his mind that had always secretly enacted this precise scenario began to take over.

It was a simple gesture, much like taking a step, that he knew his wife would not find arousing in the slightest. All she had done was pick him up. But at this size, the detail was incredible. He was able to take in the distinct lines in her palm and fingerprints as she reached for him, and the fingers closed over his body. He felt the faint warmth and clamminess emanating from her palm as it enveloped him and lifted him ever skyward. He caught the scent of her hand lotion, the one she kept in the glovebox of her car during the winters to apply immediately after leaving the office. She could crush me like a grape, he thought to himself. One squeeze and half of me is leaking out the bottom of her grip. Those dainty, soft little hands he had clasped at the altar when the minister had pronounced them husband and wife now could each easily engulf his entire body without any part of him being visible to the outside world.

That should’ve terrified him. Instead, the mere thought of it caused the blood to begin flowing to his loins, the beginnings of a stir within his boxer shorts. As she had picked him up, he had passed her perky B-cup breasts, still hanging as high and proud on her chest as the day he had met her. And that perfume. Nothing triggers memory like scent, and he was well familiar with Amy’s perfume of choice. He had smelled it every time she leaned over him at the office to grab papers, every time she had passed him by the copy machine. It was the scent of seduction, as far as his mind was concerned. A sweet floral aroma with a lingering wisp of lavender.

He knew he should’ve felt more concern for Amy’s wellbeing. He didn’t like his lower brain skewing his priorities this easily without his direction. But he couldn’t help it. He was hopelessly and helplessly attracted to his wife. Always had been. He didn’t have to ask himself the question of whether he was a bad person. He knew just trying on the suit in the mirror and risking this exact outcome was selfish beyond reckoning. He also knew that, for now at least, the suit would not be functional. It was damaged significantly, past the point of being operational. Even if it were still functional, there was no setting to reverse what had been done. Like it or not, he and Amy now had to make the best of this situation. The beginnings of a persuasive dialogue began to play through his head. An opening argument, one might call it.

  -------------------------------------------------

With tremendous effort of will, Amy placed her hand on the bathroom sink and lifted herself upward. She realized with faint amusement that, despite everything that had just transpired, she still had Steve’s shorts and t-shirt tucked under one arm. She slipped out of her work clothes and into his relaxation attire. These have always barely fit me, but they certainly won’t come close to fitting him right now.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, seeing the streaks of makeup under her eyes and realizing for the first time that she had been crying. As she moistened a cotton pad and dabbed under her eyes, she caught a whiff of her breath. The sickly sweetness of the protein shake lingered on her tongue and in the back of her nose, coupled with the unmistakable, universal scent of vomit. She grabbed her toothbrush and brushed her tongue off, following it up by swishing her mouth with mouthwash. As she spat the mouthwash into the sink and looked back up at herself, she let out a delirious chuckle. What am I doing, she thought, my husband is an inch tall on our mattress right now, and I’m worrying about this. Old habits, she mused.

Meeting her own gaze in the mirror and visibly gathering her will, she brushed her hair behind her shoulders and exited the bathroom. “Hun, I’m going to sit down now,” she announced as she approached the bed. It felt patently silly to narrate her every move, but after she had come within centimeters of ending her husband’s life, she wasn’t leaving anything up to chance anymore. Of course, now that she knew what to look for, she spotted Steve immediately on the bed, exactly where she had left him. She got a faint sense of amusement out of seeing that Steve barely occupied even a fraction of the indent her butt had left on their memory foam mattress. He wouldn’t even occupy a fraction of a single cheek. I suppose I’m now going to have to watch everywhere I sit too, in addition to watching my every step, she thought to herself.

She slowly walked toward the bed and sat down next to him, watching as the mere impact of her body on the mattress threatened to topple him over. She looked over at him. That boyish, dimple-laden smile that had captured her heart looked back at her. “You okay, Ames?” Steve asked. “No,” she responded with more than a little indignation, “I’m about the furthest thing from it right now. But let’s not worry about me at the moment.”

“You know,” Steve began, “you don’t have to announce your every move,” trying to make the situation sound just a little more normal. “The hell I don’t, Steve,” she answered angrily. “I could’ve killed you. WOULD have killed you, were it not for dumb luck. How the fuck is this even possible?” For the first time, she took notice of the weird outfit Steve was wearing, and her mind began to connect the dots. She had reviewed the same discovery from the MicroMD trial that her husband had. Hell, she had drafted the litigation hold notice herself. She knew MicroMD had been working on a prototype, a suit for humans…

“Stephen…you didn’t,” she stated with disbelief. “Didn’t what, baby?” he said. She could barely hear him at this size. “Don’t feign innocence. The suit. You took it. From their facility. That’s what you’re wearing, isn’t it? That’s how this happened?” she questioned. She saw the telltale flush beginning to flood his cheeks, the hallmark of her husband’s guilt when he was caught red-handed. “Babe, you have to understand. I wasn’t ever going to use it! It was just…the idea of it. At least, you know, until they…” He cut himself off before the idiotic iteration escaped his lips.

“Before they what, Steve?” Amy answered, her frustration rising. “Before they, you know,” he said shuffling his feet in place, “came up with a way…to, uh, reverse it…” he finished quietly.

“Steve, we’ve been together a long time. You’re a brilliant man. Truly brilliant. But for fuck’s sake, sometimes I could swear that, every now and then, your brain churns out one colossally moronic idea just to balance out all the great ones,” she said with a huff. “Do you know the risks? COULD you even POSSIBLY know the risks? Will this give you cancer? Are we going to go to prison? Is a rat going to run off with you in the middle of the night? How much thought, if any, did you ACTUALLY give this?” she asked angrily.

“We don’t have rats, sweety,” he said with that normally charming grin. “Don’t get cute with me. Stop deflecting. Do you have any idea how we’re going to fix this? Please, PLEASE, tell me that somewhere in that discovery we got from MicroMD you saw something about regrowing organic matter. Something that I missed,” she practically begged him.

“Well, not, ahem, as such…exactly,” he responded bashfully. “STEPHEN, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?” she cried, feeling the tears threatening to come out once again. “Baby, don’t worry. They figured out how to regrow the inorganic matter basically contemporaneous with how to reduce it. A fix for this can’t be that far off,” he responded.

“And HOW, exactly, are we supposed to ask for that fix without going to prison? Is MicroMD even still going to be in business? Play the tape through Steve, as you’re always so fond of saying. How and where does this end?” she asked with apparent desperation.

“Babe, don’t worry. We’ll figure this out. We don’t have to tell them how this happened. It could be a, uh, an ‘unintended side effect’ of one of their other products. Heck, we could just let the statute of limitations play out before coming clean, if we ever even HAVE TO come clean,” Steve reasoned.

This motherfucking, selfish, recalcitrant, idiot of a man, Amy thought. She felt the fear and frustration rapidly combining into a spectacular rage. But then she saw the look on his face. The clear remorse, his gaze downcast as he stared at his feet, averting her eyes. And as it had so many times before with Steve Clover, her heart softened a bit. “Steve, honey. I love you. You know that. And I won’t abandon you. We WILL figure this out, together. But…but…did you even think, for one second, what this could mean for me?” she asked in almost a whisper. “How my life will now be taking care of you, without you ever being able to take care of me in return? This has, potentially irrevocably, transformed our relationship from a partnership to one-sided dependency.”

“Baby, again, I never intended for this to actually happen. I would just try on the suit for the idea of it, and then take it off and put it away. It was an accident. I was walking out of the bathroom to um, get…something,” he trailed off. It was brief, but she knew him well, and she caught it. The quick dart of the eyes to the bottle sitting on the nightstand. “To get another fucking drink, you mean,” she said in weary exasperation.

“Well, um, yes. I’m not going to lie to you. But then I tripped with the remote in my hand and, next thing I knew, your foot was coming at me. Your toes are cute in those socks, by the way, especially from this perspective,” he said with that beguiling grin.

“Steve, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Don’t tell me you’re getting a literal rise,” she said while glancing briefly below his waist, “out of this.”

“Babe, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I’ll find ways to help you around the house. Hell, I’ll find ways to help you at work. Bring me with you! It’ll be like having an earpiece in during the LSATs. I can give you all the answers!” he said with an enthusiasm that Amy found vaguely off-putting. “And besides, you know how bad I’ve always wanted to, um, do this…” he trailed off.

Amy’s gaze flattened, her eyes narrowing. This horny fucking bastard, she said. Their banter and rapport achieving some degree of normalcy over the past few minutes, Amy’s panic was quickly subsiding, leaving a draining emptiness in its wake.

“Steve, honey. I’m exhausted. I need to lie down. How can I do that while keeping you out of trouble?” she asked wearily. “Easy,” Steve responded with a grin, “just put me in your bra!” Amy groaned audibly. “Honey, can we please NOT do this? Please? I just need to rest,” she said with a clouded sadness in her eyes. That seemed to take the wind out of his sails a bit. He looked up at her, concern in his expression. “Okay honey. And, I know I haven’t said it yet, but…I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I never meant for this to happen, and you’re right: it’s not fair to you. I love you, and I hope you know I would never do this to you by choice,” he said genuinely.

He seemed legitimately repentant and contrite in that moment, and Amy’s heart softened a bit. “I know, honey, and I love you too. I just need…time. Time to process this. To come up with a plan,” she said earnestly.

“I understand, babe. Just put me on my pillow. I’ll stay put, you don’t need to worry about me,” he responded. “Steve, honey, worrying about you is basically ALL I can do right now,” she said with a rueful smile. She picked him up and moved him over to his pillow, subconsciously taking note of how he rolled to the bottom of the indent left by his own head mere hours ago, when his head was hundreds of times the size of his entire body right now.

Amy laid down on her back and closed her eyes, feeling the panic almost tangibly seeping out of her. Within minutes, she felt herself begin to doze, but not before a thought entered her head. She cracked one eye open to make sure Steve was still on his pillow. He was, laying on his back like she was, arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the ceiling fan.

“No funny business, mister,” she muttered. I wouldn’t put it past him to do some exploring while I rest, she thought.

“No funny business, ma’am,” he responded with a smile and mock salute. With that, Amy closed her eyes once more and felt sleep begin to claim her.

  -------------------------------------------------

“No funny business, ma’am,” Steve said while saluting his wife. He got a small dose of satisfaction out of seeing the glimmer of wry amusement on Amy’s face at his response. The armor weakens, he thought to himself. Laying on his back with his arms tucked behind his head, Steve watched the blades on the ceiling fan spin as he began to sober up a bit. There was a hypnotic quality to the fan’s rotation, but despite the weariness from his ordeal and from the alcohol leaving his system, he found sleep difficult. He was too….excited.

It's all possible now, he thought. All of it. Wonder what it would take to convince her to wear her tennis shoes tomorrow with me in them while she goes to the gym, he mused to himself not entirely rhetorically. He quickly shook himself out of it. Why don’t we start with convincing her to let me off the bed first.

He felt the bed underneath him moving slightly with the ebb and flow of Amy’s deep and even breaths. As he glanced over, a brief snort escaped her cute button nose. God she’s cute when she snores, he thought. Of course, she would always steadfastly deny that it ever happened. One time he had presented her with a recording he took overnight, and she accused him of framing her, he recalled with a laugh.

He heard the soft whoosh as her breath escaped her lips. Those lips, he thought, look more pillowy than, well, this pillow. He could see the faint gap, Amy sleeping with her mouth slightly open. How easy it would be to just slip inside those lips… No. Not only would she never forgive him or trust him again, he might actually kill her if she choked on him. My wife…can choke on my body. Like a meatball. That’s crazy, he thought. Just the mental image of him caught in her throat caused his member to rise to half-mast.

His eyes tracked downward, seeing the muscles move in Amy’s throat as she swallowed saliva, further fueling his arousal. But where his gaze ultimately settled was on her breasts. Rhythmically rising and falling in time with her breaths. Up, and down, up, and down. He could see the faint outline of her bra underneath his baggy t-shirt. It was so cute when she wore his stuff.

The allure of those breasts was proving quite difficult to ignore. His eyes flicked back up toward Amy’s face, taking close note of her eyes, seeing them move back and forth under the lids. REM sleep, he thought, she’s out cold. He rose to his feet, climbing quietly out of the indent his head had left in the pillow and sliding down to the mattress, approaching Amy’s body as her chest continued to rise and fall. Just a peek, he reasoned. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Steve reached the t-shirt and began to climb. 

Despite the panic and terror that had subsumed her earlier in the evening, Amy found sleep without much difficulty. Once the anxiety, and the physical illness that it created, had abated, all that was left was an overwhelming exhaustion. In the recesses of her mind, Amy knew that the problems would just be there for her again when she woke up and was under no delusion that resting at this juncture would “fix” anything. But her depleted mind and body both demanded recompense for having been put through the emotional wringer, and Steve was safe where he was on the pillow.

Once sleep had fully claimed her, Amy began to dream. It was her wedding night once again, Stephen standing across from her in his tuxedo with a lopsided grin underneath that messy mop he called a hairstyle. They kissed to seal the marriage, the applause raining down on them from the congregation within the church. As Amy’s lips separated from Steve’s, she could taste a faint, metallic flavor. Licking her lips, she knew instantly it was blood. She looked over at Steve, and it appeared that her kiss had taken a chunk out of his lower lip. Instead of being upset or in pain, however, he laughed it off and grabbed her hand, leading her down the aisle as onlookers tossed rice and flower petals in their wake.

Instantly they were transported from the church to the wedding venue, an old courthouse long since converted for public entertainment usage. Amy found herself standing in front of the three-tiered wedding cake, the wedding dress train having been discarded and her heels having been cast off for more practical attire. But where was Steve? She didn’t want to cut the cake without him. The attendees would not be denied, however, howling and cajoling for her to take the first slice. She obliged, cutting a piece from the top of the cake. The piece that had the miniature couple on it.

By the time it was on her plate, however, the woman in the miniature couple was gone. What was left was a miniaturized version of her husband in his tuxedo, smiling up at her with all the charm and guile she had fallen for time and time again. Dream logic taking over, she immediately went to put the slice of cake back, believing this would magically reverse the process. But the cake was gone, as were the onlookers. It was just the two of them.

Still smiling, the mini-Steve looked up at her from his vantage point on top of the cake slice and said, “Ames, please, I want this.” Instinctively, she knew what he was asking her to do, the dream having pushed her in this direction from the very start.

“No you don’t,” she responded with desperation. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You’ll...you’ll die…you’ll die...in me…” she trailed off practically in a whisper.

“Ames, please…” Steve repeated. As though she were being compelled by some undeniable, divine force, she watched as her hand moved of its own accord, the silver fork slipping underneath Steve and lifting him upward. She knew that she should stop, that she should do something, do ANYTHING, but it was as though she were a mere bystander to the tragedy her body had decided to go through with. She felt the brief adhesive stickiness of the lipstick as her lips separated, her mouth opened, and the fork drew ever closer. As it had with countless other meals, her tongue slid outward slightly to usher the fork’s contents (my husband, she thought with panic) into her mouth.

Her lips sealed around the fork as she drew it out of her mouth, the fork being absent its passenger as he was deposited onto her tongue. Her mind registered the oddity that there was no flavor of icing, despite Steve having ostensibly been picked up from a cake. She tasted only his skin, as she had so many times when they laid together. She felt her tongue press upward against the palate of her mouth, the first step in moving something backward to the throat. She felt Steve’s small body being forced ever backward, until the muscles at the top of her throat seized their prize. She swallowed, an audible gulp accompanying it and a faint sigh escaping her lips as her mouth opened once more. She knew in the back of her mind that one cannot really “feel” food once swallowed (barring the occasional very hot or very cold beverage), but in the dream, she imagined she could. Her neck muscles bulged ever so slightly outward as her husband was pushed down beneath her collarbone, soon to be dropped into a pit of no return. She thought she could feel the motions in her stomach, just under her left breast, as Steve was deposited into his final resting place.

For all the strange contents of the dream, the true oddity came at the end, when she felt her lips curling up into a satisfied smirk. She found that she was enjoying it, feeling the faintest tickling sensations around her labia, igniting a small fire within her that seemed to radiate directly from her stomach down to her loins. She was in that hazy, between state of partial, hypnotic consciousness at this point, her hand snaking downward and her fingertips finding her clitoris with practiced ease.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glancing once more upward to confirm that his wife remained asleep, Steve grabbed a hold of the t-shirt near the shoulder, finding scaling the fabric to be remarkably easy. It was certainly a more gradual slope, with better handing and footing than that rope dangling in the center of the gymnasium in high school. Once up on her shoulder, he took in the new vista with deep wonder and satisfaction. Downward, he saw the twin peaks of her breasts, rising up from her chest to press against the baggy t-shirt. The t-shirt was so big on his petite wife that it almost covered up the black basketball shorts he could see further down. He took in the pale lengths of her legs, culminating in two socked feet pointing toward the ceiling. He smiled as he recalled her tendency to wear socks into bed, perpetually complaining that her toes were ice cubes under the tyranny of his preferred room temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Those feet looked cute and dainty from here; in fact, Amy had always been on the relatively small side, somewhere between a women’s size 6.5 – 7 shoe depending upon the type and brand. He knew that this angle was deceptive, however. That dainty little foot could have blocked out the sun when it was coming down on him like a collapsing skyscraper earlier this evening.

Upward, he could see the graceful curve of her neck, her small, rounded chin seeming to be a gateway to the expanse of her cheeks on either side. He could barely see it from this angle, but he knew if he climbed upward, he would see the cute little mole high on her left cheek, almost near her eye. She had once proposed lasering it off, an idea he shot down vehemently. It added to her beauty, in his mind.

Steve continued his hike below Amy’s neck, finding the collar of the t-shirt with ease. It was so baggy on her, there was already a large enough hole protruding for him to slip in under. He shot one more furtive glance at Amy’s face, just catching her licking her lips. The arousal at seeing her tongue poke outward and make the sweep of her lower lip was immediate. He briefly harbored the concern that she was about to awaken, but she immediately slipped back into a deep sleep. Reassured, he slid under the collar of the t-shirt into Amy’s world.

The light filtering through the fabric above lent a dim glow to the area around him. The first thing he noticed was the scent of her perfume, that sweet floral aroma with a hint of lavender. He knew from when they used to get dressed for work together in front of the mirror that the light spritz would have been targeted right where he was standing, below her collarbone and above her breasts.

The second thing he noticed was the warmth. Inside of the t-shirt, the insulation of Amy’s body heat made the whole area noticeably warmer than outside. Steve took a moment to appreciate his surroundings. The fine, nearly invisible hairs over Amy’s body were much more noticeable at his current size, seeing as how they almost came up to his knees. Underneath his feet he took in the sight of the faint smattering of freckles that adorned the top of Amy’s chest. A casual observer would not even see them unless they were deliberately seeking them out from a creepily close vantage point. He knew that there were matching sets of barely perceptible freckles high on her cheeks, just below her eyes.

Of course, the view that dominated the landscape was Amy’s breasts, moving gently upward and downward as she breathed. The rhythm was almost hypnotic. Steve knew he didn’t have long, and wasted no more time appreciating the little things, gingerly striding toward Amy’s breasts so as to avoid notice. After taking his first few steps, he deliberately waited a few moments just to see if his movements were felt at all. With no discernible change in Amy’s position or breathing, he resolved to keep going.

The navy blue bra belonged to what Amy called her “Practical Collection,” a line of understated undergarments employed for functional use as opposed to the lacy, flashier ones she donned for social occasions or their evenings together. He knew from fumbling with the clasps on this particular bra that there were in fact two hooks on the elastic pressing against her back, and he was under no illusions about being able to do anything about that at his size. This would have to suffice to scratch the itch for now.

Amy laying on her back, however, avoided stretching the bra to its limits, and Steve observed a looseness around the cups. Walking between the two mounds, he found yet another aspect of Amy’s anatomy to marvel at in his current size. The changed perspective was both humbling and endlessly captivating. He knew that Amy’s B cups were not the type of large, pendulous breasts that interested other men. Hell, her breasts were even small in comparison to her best friend Allison’s full C-bordering-on-D cups. But at his current size, the top of his head didn’t even make it halfway to the peak. And besides, he had never taken issue with Amy’s breast size before. Not when the rest of her body was so flawless, and certainly not when her bubble butt looked as gorgeous as it did. He was more of an “ass man” anyway.

He made his way around to the top of the right cup, prodding at the seams to test the tensile strength. His quick assessment was that he would be able to slip under the edge with minimal issue. But with the heightened sensitivity of this area, would that be pushing his luck too far? Biting his lip, he considered for a moment before his libido won out once again. He had come this far; he would just be extra careful. With that, he laid down onto his stomach and shimmied under the edge of the bra.

Immediately he noticed the silky smoothness and pillowy softness. Sure, the rest of her skin was perfectly soft and smooth, but here he was ENVELOPED in it. He had casually fondled this same breast countless times before, never taking note of the delightful, springy buoyancy of it, the unmarred skin culminating in the areola. He continued to army crawl his way upward even though visibility was almost entirely non-existent at this point. He soon felt the telltale ring of gooseflesh that marked the outer edge of her areola. He felt the texture change under his skin to slightly more wrinkled and firmer, his hands reaching out in front of him and eventually reaching the elevated nub that he knew to be her nipple.

It was almost a religious experience. Despite the lightless environment, he felt almost as though he and Amy were one in that moment. The tactile sensation of her nipple on his body, coupled with the fading scent of her perfume layered on top of a faint odor of sweat, was nothing short of immersive. He ran an appreciative hand across the nipple, imagining that he could probably actually slip his arm inside at his current stature.

Amy had not yet awoken, but that did not mean that her body was unaware of his presence. He felt a faint shuddering beneath him, the breast jiggling slightly with the motion. He felt the skin underneath him shrivel, the nipple growing harder right under his hands. He had but a mere moment to appreciate Amy’s unwitting arousal, however, before her subconscious took matters into its own hands…quite literally. He could not see what was happening from where he was currently, but Amy’s body had certainly registered his movements, and at his size they weren’t quite arousing so much as…ticklish.

Steve suddenly felt an immense pressure above him as he was pressed into the breast, temporarily being unable to breathe as his face was buried in soft skin. He knew what had happened: Amy was scratching an itch, and that meant he knew instinctively what was coming next. He winced as he felt a fingertip through the fabric layers of the bra and t-shirt, digging into the skin and bringing him with it, before it rapidly moved from side to side. His body was rolled uncomfortably to the left, then to the right, then to the left with the motion of the fingertip. The combined pressure and friction resulted in a body-wide burn, a brief but nonetheless intense escalation of heat and pain. It was over almost as soon as it began, but he imagined that if he could see his body right now, he would look as though he was sunburnt all over.

Steve resolved to move a little more carefully in fleeing this area, marveling once again at the softness of Amy’s breast as he sidled backwards on his stomach, slipping once more out from under the edge of the bra. He knew he should head back to the pillow. After that, Amy could wake up any second, and if he was caught here, he knew she would not trust him again for quite some time.

And yet, her breathing still hadn’t changed. She appeared to remain in a deep sleep. And based on her reaction to his casual innuendo earlier, she wouldn’t be feeling playful and comfortable with his current size for a while, if ever. He might not have another chance like this again. He took a deep breath and began walking downward toward the depression in the skin that he knew hid Amy’s bellybutton. As he traversed her ribs, leaving the breasts behind him, a loud groan startled him before he realized what was happening. He felt a squelch and a faint rumbling as Amy’s stomach protested its emptiness. That’s right, he thought, we never got to eat dinner. And she threw up. Poor thing must be starving. Wonder if she’s dreaming about a meal?

He continued his trek downward, seeing the hem of the shorts just past Amy’s bellybutton. As he reached it, he took one final look behind him, considering. If she wakes up, there’s no defense to this. Falling down her shirt when she sat up while “trying to get her attention” is almost believable. This…this could only be one thing. Point of no return, now. He grimaced as he wrestled with his conscience. Wasn’t this more than a little violative of Amy’s privacy? Wasn’t this a betrayal of trust? Conversely, hadn’t he seen and touched this exact area hundreds of times before? If a husband wasn’t allowed to touch, then who was?

Yet again, the arousal-driven, flimsy rationale of “who knows if I’ll ever get this chance again” prevailed. This wasn’t just sightseeing; this was the culmination of decades of fantasizing, of countless times awaking from wet dreams wishing it were truly possible. It was all still a bit surreal, but this would be a life-affirming moment unlike any he had experienced since prevailing in the MicroMD case. Steve had now talked himself into it. He took a deep breath and slid his way under the elastic waistband of the shorts.

If underneath Amy’s shirt was noticeably warmer than the ambient room temperature, this was another level entirely. The air wasn’t just warmer, it felt humid to boot. Where the oversized t-shirt overlapped with the shorts, there was even less light to see under. But he could see small openings further down her thighs where the shorts ended. Visibility was satisfactory, in his estimation.

Immediately he was confronted with the sight of Amy’s panties which, like the bra, were more of a casual, utilitarian affair than a seductive one. No real lace or patterning to speak of, just a solid navy blue comprised of breathable cotton fabric. As he walked over her pelvis, he could faintly feel the beginnings of stubble through the fabric under his feet. In keeping with her obsessive cleanliness, Amy kept the area thoroughly waxed. But once again, even small hairs were much more noticeable from this vantage point.

As he reached the top of her thigh gap, he took note of the difference in texture on the cotton fabric beneath him. Here, it was almost imperceptibly pillowing slightly, a byproduct of the constant wear, chafing, and dampness of the region overall. The scent, however, was utterly intoxicating. A faint hint of her body wash lingered, trapped under the panties and emanating upward from her smooth, bare thighs. Entirely more noticeable, however, was the scent of her nethers. That beguiling and bewitching combination of sweat, pheromones and bodily fluids. Even the faintest whisp of stale urine after her full day at work, which Steve didn’t mind at all. Amy spent so much time and energy maintaining utmost cleanliness that he very much enjoyed when she was a little dirty. There was something deliciously scandalous about it. He knew she would be embarrassed if he were to ever mention it, and the verboten nature of it made it even more arousing. Breathing deeply, he felt himself grow fully erect.

Yet again, he was not lacking for handholds and traction on his descent, entering into a controlled slide down the front of Amy’s underwear. He felt the pure, radiant heat coming off of her then, knowing he now stood in front of a metaphorical and literal hotspot on his wife’s body. He couldn’t stop here. Not when he was so close. Not when his arousal had reached its peak.

It was here, however, that the undergarments finally stymied his efforts. The elastic seal around Amy’s pussy was strong. Putting both arms and his back into it, he pulled upwards, finding that he could barely create enough room to slip a hand under, let alone his entire body. He was able to arrive at one inescapable conclusion: even if he made it under, there was functionally no chance of getting out without Amy’s help. He threw his head back and groaned. So, so fucking close, he complained inwardly.

Well, no reason I can’t enjoy what I have while I’m here, he thought. He reached out tentatively, appreciatively, as his hands traced the contours of Amy’s labia, finding that from where he was standing, her clit was almost out of reach even with both hands stretched above his head. His hand brushed over the entrance to her vagina, feeling the epicenter of the damp heat that suffused his surroundings. He continued to move his left hand up and down across Amy’s pussy as his right hand found its way into his boxer shorts and around his member.

He was beginning to stroke when there was a sudden disturbance. The clothing around him jostled, almost causing him to lose his footing. He was pushed backward as two rigid lumps snaked down the front of Amy’s panties, stopping above her clit and moving in a circular motion. Softly and gently at first but growing increasingly firm as they continued. He watched in almost childlike wonder. A front row seat to sweet, innocent Amy getting herself off. This is too good. Too fucking good. It was over almost as soon as it started, however, evidently being a subconscious reaction to the slight stimulation his hands had been providing moments earlier, almost like when she had scratched the itch on her breast moments ago.

He knew Amy, and he knew that this motion meant that she was in between sleep and awareness. That meant that he had maybe two minutes at best, 30 seconds at worst, before her eyes were going to pop open for a moment. Even if they ultimately closed again and she drifted back off to sleep, he knew that in that brief moment, she would almost certainly glance over to his pillow. I have to get back. Now. With a heavy reluctance, Steve made haste along the inside of Amy’s pale, silky smooth thigh and slipped out the bottom of the shorts, relying upon the diminished sensation in the loose skin over her kneecap as he scrambled up and over to the other side of her leg, sprinting back toward the pillow. Like a runner sliding into home base, he tumbled down the crater left by his head earlier that day just in time to see Amy’s right eye crack open, the pupil immediately shifting to glance at him. He waved with a grin as she shifted her position slightly, letting out a soft, drowsy groan. He was busy watching to see if she rolled over, but as he felt her eye continuing to linger on him for just a moment, he could’ve sworn she licked her lips once more before it closed…

With the morning sun trickling through the blinds, Amy’s eyes blearily flickered open. In college, her sorority sisters would have called this a case of Awfuck’s Disease, where you wake up and the first words out of your mouth are: “aw fuck.” She was surprised that she managed to sleep through the night, mostly, given the early bedtime and empty stomach. A THANKFULLY empty stomach, she thought to herself as she recalled portions of her dream. The prior evening’s proceedings had left her with what felt similar to a hangover, a dull headache throbbing by her temples and a lingering, roiling sense of unease. She sat up and glanced over at Steve’s pillow, seeing him fast asleep, seemingly without a care in the world. She could swear that was a smirk of contentment on his face. I’m wrestling with nightmares, and he’s living his dream, she thought with annoyance. If anyone should be dealing with the unenviable combination of latent panic and a semi-hangover, it should be him.

She kept an eye on Steve as she stood up, stretching overhead with a yawn and grabbing her phone off the nightstand. 6:00 A.M. Normally I’d be getting ready to go to the gym. There was absolutely no chance she was going into the office today. Not until she and Steve arrived at some new form of status quo that would keep him safe while they sorted through this ordeal. She sent a quick text message to Allison Glenwood, knowing she would handle the paid time-off calendar. She bit her lip, wondering if she should fill Allison in fully. Allie is good in a crisis, and I could use a little of her optimism right now. She glanced once more over at Steve. Can’t do it without talking it out with him first, she thought with a grimace.

Amy wandered into the kitchen, getting the coffee started as usual to maintain some semblance of normalcy. She walked back through the bedroom on her way to the bathroom, glancing at the bed to see Steve exactly where she had left him. Heading into the bathroom, she started running water while she put toothpaste on her brush. Good lord, I look rough, she thought after seeing herself in the mirror for the first time this morning. It wasn’t just her hair spinning itself up into its usual bedhead rat’s nest of knots, but the generally haggard look on her face and the bags under her eyes. It was understandable, all things considered, but she couldn’t help but observe it.

She spit into the sink and ran the water, turning the faucet off before walking out of the bathroom. Steve continuing to sleep peacefully was really starting to grate on her nerves. We need to talk about this already. She felt the panic over the situation rising again and decided this needed to be Steve’s problem as well, not just hers. She flopped down onto the bed exaggeratedly, almost jumping into it and jostling the mattress. That did it; Steve’s eyes flew open, and he sat up.

Rubbing his eyes, he squinted over at her. “Don’t you have to go to work today?” he asked.

“Good morning to you too,” Amy responded sarcastically. “No, I took off today since, you know, THIS whole situation,” she said as she gestured vaguely in his direction.

“Oh,” Steve responded, a tinge of excitement entering his voice. “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah, I got a pot started. Wanna go sit down?” she asked him.

“Absolutely,” Steve responded.

“Okay, I’m gonna pick you up,” Amy warned as she carefully reached over and wrapped her fingers around him, lifting him upward so that he was sitting in her palm. She frowned as she saw he was still in his boxer shorts from last night. “What we do about clothes for you?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

“Good question, hun,” Steve responded. “Guess I’m just gonna have to be naked while you assume responsibility for keeping me warm!” he said with a grin.

“Steve, it’s 6:00 in the morning. Can we save the perversion for like, at least the afternoon?” she asked wearily.

“Oh, so you’re saying there CAN be perversion, as long as it’s scheduled perversion,” he responded excitedly.

Amy groaned. “Save it, mister. Let’s figure out what the plan is for keeping you alive first,” she said while carrying him toward the kitchen.

“Stay here,” Amy cautioned as she placed Steve down on the kitchen table.

Steve looked around, bemused. “Where am I gonna go, babe?”

“Fair point.” Amy responded with a slight smirk. It was good that their banter was at least somewhat normal; very few things were in the past 12 hours. Out of habit, she grabbed two coffee mugs and poured one, her hand holding the pot in suspense over the second. “Um, Steve, how exactly does this work?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“How does what work?” he responded from the kitchen table.

“The, uh…the coffee,” Amy answered.

“Oh, right,” Steve said. He looked contemplative for a moment. “Can you put a few drops on a spoon?” he asked.

“Want a lighter as long you’re freebasing caffeine?” she asked, smiling sweetly at him.

“Har har, Ames. You got a better idea?” he said with a hint of annoyance.

“Oh don’t get your boxers in a knot, Steve. They’re your only pair,” she answered.

“Wow babe, you’re really on a roll this morning,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.

“…put you on a roll,” Amy muttered to herself.

“What was that?” Steve asked.

“Nothing babe,” she responded, smiling innocently again.

Amy grabbed a spoon and a metal straw from the utensil drawer, dipping the straw into her coffee and capping it with her thumb. She held the straw over the spoon and lifted her thumb slightly, letting a few drops fall out before carrying it over. She placed it on the table next to Steve before slumping into the chair, sighing and rubbing at her temples. Caffeine should help with the headache, she hoped.

Wrapping both hands around her oversized mug, Amy slouched while resting both elbows on the table, closing her eyes for a moment to refocus. When she opened them, Steve was standing in front of his spoon, smiling widely up at her.

“What?” she asked while eyeing him suspiciously.

“Nothing babe. It’s just, you’re super cute when you’re all out of sorts. Really putting the “hot” in hot mess,” Steve responded.

Amy frowned at him. “Wow, you say such sweet things to me honey,” she said sarcastically. “Can you turn your lower brain off for a second and actually discuss this?” she asked.

“What’s there to discuss, Ames?” Steve asked seriously. “The suit is broken for now, and we don’t know how far off a reversal of this process is from MicroMD.”

“I know, Steve, and that’s the problem. I have a full-time job, a life to live. I can’t have a second full-time job and a second life dedicated just to keeping you alive,” Amy said with her voice cracking a bit.

“Well, about that. I feel a little…different…” Steve began.

“Different how?”

“Remember yesterday when you, ahem” he coughed, “er, squashed the suit?” Steve asked.

“How could I forget, Steve, I almost killed you!” Amy answered heatedly.

“Right, well, at the time, it felt like my ribs were close to breaking before you let up. But now, I dunno. I feel, denser, maybe?” Steve explained.

“I find it hard to believe that you could possibly get any denser, Steve,” Amy said with a smirk.

“And here you are telling me to take this more seriously,” Steve said while rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I don’t really know how to explain it. It feels like my bones are a little heavier or something,” Steve continued.

“What’s your point?” Amy asked with sincere curiosity.

“What I’m getting at is, I think if you were to, um, step on me again,” Steve said with his cheeks flushing a bit, “I might be able to take it a little more.”

“Babe, put your dick away for a second. I am NOT going to step on you,” Amy said incredulously.

“No no no, nothing like that,” he said hurriedly. “I just want to test something, if you’ll go along with it for a moment.”

“Okay…” Amy said with dubious confidence.

“I’m gonna sit down. I want you to put your thumb down on my leg and press until I tell you to stop,” Steve said.

“WHAT?!” Amy nearly shouted. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Babe, if we’re ever gonna sort this out, we have to test things. Push the envelope a little and figure out what I can handle,” Steve reasoned. “I think we BOTH want to know how easy it is for me to get crushed.”

“Steve, hun, I could smash your leg into bits, and then you’re not only housebound, but you’re also basically immobile to boot, if not dead from bleeding out” Amy cautioned.  

“I know, Ames. And believe me, if I feel like my bones are gonna snap, I’ll tell you to stop. I’m not so horny that I’ll tolerate a compound fracture of my femur just to get a rise,” Steve argued. “Just go with it, Amy, and I’ll tell you when to stop. I promise.”

“If you’re sure, honey. But I’m going to watch your face and the moment I see so much as a grimace, I’m stopping this,” Amy warned.

“I’m sure, Ames. Let’s do this!” Steve said with enthusiasm that Amy did not share.

This little psycho, Amy thought. Actually, maybe I’m the psycho for going through with this. Steve sat down on the table as Amy lifted her hand over his head, placing her thumb gently on top of his leg. Just the very tip of her thumb could cover everything below his waist. Amy watched Steve’s face closely as she began to apply pressure. First, just a fraction of pressure, and then increasingly more.

The whole time Steve just sat there, a goofy grin on his face as he watched his wife’s enormous thumb covering his leg. At this level of pressure, Amy knew that the average bug would already be reduced to paste. And yet, Steve just kept smiling along as she dialed up in the intensity gradually.

Just when she felt like she was really beginning to press hard, she caught the hint of a wince on Steve’s face and immediately stopped when he held up his hand.

“Okay okay, that’s good Ames,” he said. “Seems like I can take a decent amount of smooshing. I don’t think I’ll survive being stomped on directly, but my bones aren’t gonna snap like twigs either, it seems. Something about the reduction of the organic matter appears to have condensed it, or something. Made me just a little tougher.”

“So it would seem.” Amy was also genuinely surprised at how much Steve could tolerate. It put her mind SLIGHTLY more at ease knowing that a fall from the table likely wouldn’t be fatal, or if she sat on him by accident, he would probably be mostly okay as long as it was a soft cushion. Bet he’d love that, she thought.

“Okay!” Steve said excitedly while standing up and clapping his hands. “Let’s do your foot now!”

Annnnddddd there it is. He can’t help himself. Amy didn’t bother to respond, just giving him a flat glare until the smile dissipated from his face, and he got down on his hands and knees to begin sipping at the coffee in the bottom of the spoon like a dog.

Her stomach still being relatively unsettled, Amy fixed simple wheat toast with a little jam for breakfast, sharing a miniscule portion of it with Steve. He barely needed more than a few crumbs, and Amy realized she would have to remind herself constantly to start cooking smaller portions moving forward.

They spent a good part of the morning talking through the logistics of their new situation. Steve agreed with letting Allison know at some point, just not yet. He wanted a better picture of what their day-to-day routine was going to look like first, and they both agreed that revealing him to Allison at the office would be a monumentally stupid idea. Amy would just have to concoct some contrivance to lure Allison over to their home, where they would do the reveal…eventually.

Together, they settled upon a few ground rules. Steve had argued that it was safer for Amy to bring him along to the office on workdays, instead of leaving him at home. Amy was far from convinced, but she was willing to entertain a trial period for the first week just to see if it was feasible. The plan was for Steve to ride along in her purse, only coming out during breaks to stretch his legs and get a bite to eat when Amy took her lunch. Amy was worried about Steve being jostled around in the purse, or potentially falling out without her knowing, so their agreed-upon solution was to poke some pin holes into a prescription bottle. The translucent sides of the bottle would allow Amy to see easily whether Steve was okay, with the prescription label still shielding him mostly from view for a casual observer. Plus, it was a large enough object that if it fell out of her purse, she would know.

The prescription bottle idea was solely for transportation purposes while Amy was walking. He could sit in the cupholder when she was in the car, and when she was seated at her desk, they agreed he could be out and about as long as he staid out of sight and kept out of trouble. Her desk faced the door, and her back was to a wall, so she would be able to see anyone coming long before they reached her desk. Ample time to tuck him under the keyboard, for instance.

As the morning went by, Amy found herself already going a bit stir-crazy. She was accustomed to getting up and going, not lounging around the house for 12 hours before going right back to sleep. She got up and began pacing around the kitchen, glancing at the clock. It was already noon, and she hadn’t showered or gotten dressed yet. She briefly walked out of Steve’s line of sight to give a quick sniff under the arm. Yeesh, I should probably clean up.

But she was entirely restless and was considering going for a run. It was a brisk January afternoon, but she could layer up a bit. Amy had always found running to be a fantastic means of clearing the mind and burning energy before. She glanced forlornly out the window. The sun was shining, and she knew there weren’t a lot of hours of daylight in the middle of winter. She quickly made a decision.

“Steve, honey, are you gonna be alright if I go for a quick run?” Amy asked while walking back into the kitchen.

“Sure, as long as you take me with you!” Steve answered enthusiastically.

Amy gave him a flat, unamused stare. “For the second time today, Stephen, I must ask: are you out of your fucking mind? I can’t imagine anything more dangerous. We literally JUST talked about this.”

“Ames, just wear a hoody and tuck me in the pocket. I’ll be fine. Unless you take a tumble, I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll be plenty warm,” he argued.

“Absolutely not. No way I’m chancing that, enhanced durability or no,” Amy responded angrily.

Steve’s face lost its playfulness for a moment as he became visibly crestfallen. “Babe, yesterday you asked me if I ever thought what doing something stupid like shrinking myself would do to you before I did it. I’m gonna ask you to put yourself in my shoes, for a moment: you’ve become officially, indefinitely useless. You cannot text, call, browse the internet, use the remote to turn on the TV, leave the house, feed, bathe or clothe yourself, the list goes on. Even going with you to the office, I have to ride in an empty prescription bottle. At some point, we have to ask: am I still going to be able to live my life at all? Am I ever going to be able to leave the house with you feeling safe? Ames, I don’t have any other options. You are basically my entire world right now. My life is, quite literally, in your hands, and I am asking you, PLEASE, to just bring me along so I don’t spend the next half hour counting the tiles on the kitchen floor.”

Over the course of Steve’s diatribe, Amy softened in empathy. He was right. If she were in his shoes, she would be deeply resentful of being forever locked away, questioning whether life was still worth living. He didn’t even have a say in the matter. His access to the outside world was entirely dependent upon her willingness to indulge his requests.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this. Surprise surprise, the career attorney knows how to make a case for himself. Amy sighed. “Alright Steve, I’ll bring you along. But we’re using the hoody with the zipper pockets. I’m not taking ANY chances.”

Steve’s face lit up. “Great! In case you were curious about my attire, I will indeed be wearing boxer shorts for this outing.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Amy tucked her hair behind her head, binding it in a ponytail after zipping up the hoody. She placed Steve on the console table in the front hall next to her keys while she reached under it and grabbed her worn sneakers. Steve felt a tinge of excitement over catching a glimpse of the depression Amy’s foot had left in the insole as she placed it down next to her foot while lacing up the other one. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be riding along in there instead. He quickly gave himself a reality check, however. We already figured out that I’m not invincible. I don’t have a death wish, even if it would be a fucking sexy death.

Amy slipped her foot into the empty sneaker, lacing that one up as well before standing up and lifting Steve off the console table to her face.

“Babe, you’re absolutely SURE about this?” Amy asked with blatant concern in her eyes.

“Yes, Ames, stop worrying! It’ll be fine!” Steve answered while giving her a thumbs up.

“Okay, in that case, I’ll see you in about a half hour,” Amy said as she closed her fist around him. She didn’t want to risk dropping him, so she slid her closed fist all the way into the front pocket of the hoody before opening it to deposit Steve inside. She withdrew her hand slowly and carefully, making sure she wasn’t dragging him along by accident before she zipped up the entrance to the pocket. With that, she took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped outside, pressing the “lock” button on the door’s keypad as she shut it before walking across the yard to the sidewalk.

Of course, Steve saw none of this, being effectively in total, albeit soft and warm, darkness. Dim light filtered through the fabric once the sun hit the hoody directly, but it was barely enough to see his own palms right in front of him. He was jostled around slightly, but not unpleasantly, as he felt Amy taking strides across the yard. He was surrounded by her presence and absolutely loving it. He could feel her abdominal muscles expanding and contracting as she took her breaths, and he could smell the fabric softener Amy had used when she washed the hoody.

I wasn’t kidding when I said she’s my whole world now, he thought. This is surreal. The novelty wore off almost instantly once the reality of what he had signed up for set in. He heard Amy whisper a faint “hold on babe” through the sweatshirt before the gentle rocking inside the pocket turned into getting tossed around like a popcorn kernel. Despite her springy step and generally excellent running technique, he could almost feel each impact as her foot hit the ground before he bounced upward again between strides. The overall sensation was what he imagined a single article of clothing inside a dryer would experience on the “tumble dry” setting.

It was both fun and mildly nauseating. He eventually found a loose thread he could hold onto as a harness of sorts, wrapping his arm around it to hold himself in place. At least now it was more like an extra-bumpy car ride instead of a bouncy castle.

He had no sense of time really, but after what felt like five minutes to him, he could physically FEEL Amy’s body heating up. A warmth began radiating outward from her abdomen as her breath quickened. He knew a thin sheen of sweat was growing under Amy’s undershirt on the other side of the hoody, and for a moment he felt envious that he wasn’t riding in the undershirt instead. If he were at his full size, he’d probably be waiting by the door for her to get back from her run before he would offer to lick that sweat off her stomach and her chest. Nine times out of ten she would rebuke his attempts, but every now and then when she was feeling a little...dirty, she’d take the top off and lay down on the couch and let him do his thing.

About what he imagined to be 15 minutes or so into the run, he felt Amy’s steps slow down gradually before she came to a halt entirely, feeling a brief sense of weightlessness as she sat down somewhere. He knew based on the geography of their neighborhood that this was probably the bench at the bus stop a few blocks away. Wonder why she’s stopping. He heard Amy let out a faint hiss as he felt her bending over. That was when it all went horribly wrong.

He hadn’t seen it from his comfortable perspective deep in the corner recess of the pocket, but when she bent over, he fell forward to the front of the pocket, where he promptly encountered a small hole in the fabric. Amy probably didn’t even know it was there, being at the front of the pocket near the bottom, close to the hem of the hoody, and being barely large enough to stick a fingertip into. But at his present size, it was big enough. Alarmingly big, in fact. He toppled over himself, quickly losing his spatial orientation and whereabouts in the darkness, until he felt a very cold breeze biting at his bare skin. He noticed that he was maintaining an exceedingly tenuous grip on the single loose thread he had wrapped around his arm earlier.

He had his arms and legs spread out wide to stop any further descent, and from this perspective, it was like looking down out of an airplane before skydiving. He could see straight to the ground, two blue and green sneakers side by side on the pavement with twin columns of toned, rounded calves wrapped in tight yoga pants rising out of each. The reason for Amy’s sudden halt quickly became apparent. She had slipped her left foot out of the sneaker and was aggressively rubbing the arch of her foot through the white sock. For the second time in as many days, he took note of the permanent discoloration on the bottom of the sock from its repeated use and Amy’s foot sweat. Poor thing must’ve cramped up, probably dehydrated after last night’s ordeal.

His luck immediately worsened. Amy bolted upright briefly, and he heard her shout “hey Jackie!” happily. Ugh. Jackie Cooke. Also known as the Bitch Queen of Suburbia. Jackie was the president of the neighborhood’s homeowner’s association, a consummate busybody and perpetual critic. God help you if your blades of grass exceeded two inches in length, or if you had patches of clover anywhere on your emerald green sod. Putting a trash can on the left side of your mailbox for pickup, as opposed to the CORRECT right side, was an unforgiveable, overt act of insubordinate anarchism.

Jackie wasn’t all bad. She was certainly easy enough on the eyes, a handsome, tall brunette in her mid-40s that had aged with enviable grace. She was always welcoming, and consistently making social outreach efforts to build the community. When she’s not busy criticizing it, that is. If there was an HOA-sanctioned block party, chances are Jackie Cooke was hosting it and would insist on preparing food for everyone, no donations allowed. Jackie Cooke was the one at your house with a tray of brownies when you were still unpacking your boxes after moving in. She’d help you unpack those boxes too, and insist on organizing them alphabetically to boot. Jackie was perfectly personable and hospitable…when you weren’t defying her tyrannical iron will by failing to trim your hedges in time for spring.

A deeply Christian woman with bedrock community values, Jackie had married her high school sweetheart shortly after graduation and had her first child, Emma, when she was only 25. Her son Tommy was born two years later, but within the decade following Tommy’s birth, Jackie lost her husband, Joe, to cancer. She had raised Emma and Tommy as a single mother ever since and was doing an admirable job, by all accounts.

Where Steve took exception was in Jackie’s coping mechanisms following the loss of her husband. The woman derived an inordinate amount of satisfaction out of being a gossip, and Steve sometimes got the feeling that Jackie delighted in creating a clique of neighborhood wives that would seemingly convene just to prepare their joint litany of marital complaints to then bring home and unleash on their unwitting husbands. The other coping mechanism was at least more entertaining. Despite her religious zeal and status as a paragon of community values, Jackie had developed a not-entirely-unfounded reputation as a cougar with a predatory predilection for men half her age.

Having recently turned 18 and being in the prime of her rebellious teenager phase, Jackie’s daughter Emma appeared to be purposely cultivating a reputation as the anti-Jackie made physically manifest. Combined with the loss of her father, Emma wore her darkness like a safety blanket. Calling her aesthetic gothic would be to understate it. In the past year, she had cropped her hair to shoulder length and died it jet black with blood red highlights. She was hardly ever seen without her spike-studded leather choke collar around her neck, the glint of steel being complemented by her recent nose piercing. Her everyday makeup included dark purple lipstick, black eyeliner with varying shades of dark eyeshadow, long, fake eyelashes, and checkerboard fake nails. Her wardrobe consisted entirely of black attire, including knee high lace-up boots. The brand was Demonia or something, Steve thought.

Honestly, Steve really liked Emma. Not in a creepy, perverted sort of way (though he did find Emma to be hauntingly beautiful), but in a practical, straightforward, intelligent, and intuitive sort of way, with a penchant for biting, sarcastic, observational humor and insightful, witty remarks. Whenever he spoke with her at any of the backyard barbecues or neighborhood pool parties, he would invariably come away impressed. For as much as she was clearly going through, wrestling with teenage emotions and the lingering absence of her father, Emma was a good kid that was almost certainly going places. More than once, Steve had attempted to plant the seed of law school in Emma’s mind while she was applying to undergraduate colleges, often after she ran circles around his arguments in conversation. He felt like if he ever ran into her on the other side of the courtroom, he’d get his ass handed to him on a silver platter and he wouldn’t even be mad about it. Because he probably wouldn’t realize it had happened until a week later.

Focus you stupid asshole, Steve chastised himself. He was quite literally hanging on by a thread, threatened by a long, hard plummet to the pavement if he couldn’t hang on. If Jackie’s timing was comedically bad, however, her decision to wave at Amy instead of simply saying “hi” back was unfortunate on a cosmic level. Because Amy, sweet girl that she is, absolutely HAD to wave back enthusiastically, even though she had already greeted Jackie. That vigorous wave of her arms shook the hoody side to side. A normal human wouldn’t have even registered their clothing shifting with the gesture. At Steve’s size, it was like trying to hang on during an earthquake, and he lost his grip on the thread.

Oh SHIT! That one small movement of waving “hi” to a neighbor had doomed him. He knew he was slightly more durable than he was at his normal height, but he still didn’t want to test whether he’d survive a straight fall to hard pavement. Then there was the larger overall issue of getting noticed once he DID fall. Would Amy see him? Would she step on him by accident? Would he get scooped up by a bird, inexplicably disappearing from Amy’s life to never be heard from again? All of these thoughts ran through his head in almost an instant as he found himself falling, futilely peddling his arms and legs in the air to try to slow his descent.

His efforts managed to flip him over, such that he was falling backwards now. He had a brief glimpse of his wife before he hit the ground, her ponytail hanging over her right shoulder as she was bent over with one hand still massaging her foot while the other finished waving to her neighbor. Fuck, she’s not looking. Amy’s eyes were still on Jackie across the street. He fell past her calf and ankle, only then noticing how close he was to her leg during his fall. He instinctively suspected he wasn’t going to be landing on the pavement anymore.

He felt his back hit a warm, damp, spongy surface, the force of the impact knocking the wind out of him. As soon as he was able to take a breath, however, he immediately wished the wind had stayed knocked out of him. His nose was accosted by a cloying miasma of stale, vaguely cheesy foot odor, magnified to an almost unbearable extent courtesy of a toxic combination of the sneakers seeing heavy use both in the last few years and past few minutes.

If she had just walked in the door and kicked off her shoes, it’s not like he would’ve smelled anything at his full height, even standing right next to her. Again, Amy was aggressively hygienic and fastidiously clean. The stress of the past 18 or so hours, however, had resulted in an uncharacteristic oversight of Amy using the same socks she had worn to work the day before and to bed last night…and all morning. And he knew she hadn’t showered yet today.  Combined with being INSIDE her shoe, the same shoe that her foot had just slipped out of seconds ago after working up a sweat for 15 minutes, well…it didn’t matter how clean she usually was. Right now, the inside of this sneaker was predictably an assault on the senses.

Steve didn’t mind a little foot sweat. Again, there was something enticingly naughty about his cleanliness perfectionist wife being a little dirty every now and then. Hell, there were a few rare occasions where he had managed, against all odds, to talk her into letting him suck on her toes right after she had kicked off her work shoes at the end of the day.

But this...this was a lot. It wasn’t so much a waft reaching his nostrils as it was a new state of being at that moment, the damp heat enveloping him despite the cold January air outside. There was no escaping it. He could feel the sweat soaking out of the insole of the shoe between his bare toes. He could see the permanent stain left by Amy’s footprint all the way inward to the toe section, with the five little depressions (well, me-sized depressions right now) from her toes and the crater from the ball of her foot being noticeably a shade darker than the more open heel area. But again, the thing that stood out the most, by far, was the scent.

Steve’s last hopes evaporated when he saw that Amy’s hand, finishing up rubbing the cramp in her arch, was blocking a direct line of sight to where he was standing. She was going to slip her foot back into the shoe and lace it up without any prayer of him being noticed. Seeing the writing on the wall, Steve took those precious few moments to try to sprint to the toe section of the sneaker. That effort ended up being unnecessary, as Amy angled the shoe upward to slip her petite foot inside, causing Steve to tumble end over end until he banged against the very front of the shoe’s interior.

He didn’t think the smell could get worse than where he had been standing in the heel moments earlier, but he hadn’t realized just how much the fresh air from outside was mitigating the effect. Whereas before it just felt like humid weather, now it felt like a steam room. The moisture and heat from Amy’s sweat was trapped in here, and whatever bacteria were growing in these dank, dark confines were all too happy to announce their presence in the most belligerent manner possible. Now, on top of the stale, cheesy aroma, there was an entirely more offensive layer of stinging body odor. The kind of sharp, ripe, lingering scent that seems to wind itself through your nasal cavity and into your throat as though it has a mind of its own. This area of the sneaker, with less ventilation and more accumulation of moisture, had fostered the perfect ecosystem for bacterial growth, resulting in an environment that was infinitely worse than anything he’d encountered previously.

He was sure that it was more noticeable because of his size and his proximity to ground zero. He knew Amy would be mortified if she ever knew and would probably spend the rest of her life buying new sneakers every month out of the mere shame of it. Of course, becoming aware of it would require her sticking her nose directly inside the sneaker and breathing deep which, unlike him, she was certainly nowhere near weird enough to ever do. The other alternative would be him telling her about it, if he lived to do so. He made a quick, meaningless promise to himself that, if he survived, he’d keep this secret for the sake of Amy’s mental health.

Suddenly, the dim lighting he had in the front of the shoe was blotted out, as he saw socked toes dip their way inside first before flattening out and barreling toward him. He wished he had made a mental picture of that brief glimpse he caught of Amy while he was falling, because it was likely the last time he would ever see his wife’s face. I insisted on coming along, baby, and I don’t blame you for this. No matter what happens, I love you. Those were Steve’s final thoughts as the damp, socked toes crashed into him.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy felt her toes hit the front of the shoe before she slipped her heel inside and stamped it down. She bent over a little further to tie the laces again. If my thumb didn’t crush him, he’s not gonna implode being caught between my belly and my thigh. Lord knows they’ve both got wayyyy too much cushioning, Amy thought idly while remaining under the mistaken impression that Steve was still in the front, zippered pocket of her hoody.

She briefly considered taking him out to check on him, but as much as she enjoyed Jackie Cooke’s company, the woman was an unapologetic, world-class yenta. The last thing she needed was the entire neighborhood wondering why Amy fished out pocket lint to talk to during a run. I’m sure he’s fine, she reassured herself.

Standing back up, she hesitantly flexed her toes up and down, extending and curling them to test whether that debilitating cramp that had waylaid her run was going to return. There was a little soreness still, but she felt like it would hold out the rest of the way. She was only doing her half hour circuit of the neighborhood, after all, so she should be back home in 10-15 minutes. As she was flexing her toes, she felt her long toe seize onto a pebble and drag it under, rolling it back out as she continued to stretch out the tendons in the arch of her foot. She knew what it was immediately: their landscaping had gravel around the bushes and trees in the front yard. It wouldn’t be the first time that she accidentally kicked some up on her way to the street. I really should just use the driveway.

Though her breathing had slowed a little from the brief recess, her chest was still heaving from the cardiovascular exercise. Should’ve brought a bottle of water, she thought, though it still felt great to stretch her legs. The fresh air and the endorphins released from the physical activity were doing wonders for her mental state. For the first time since she had stepped on him by accident yesterday, she felt the panic over Steve’s wellbeing and their new situation subsiding meaningfully. Maybe he’s right. It IS all going to be okay…eventually. She smiled to herself before resuming her run, feeling the little pebble rolling around in the tip of the shoe.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The toes hit him like a freight train, moving inexorably forward to the tip of the shoe’s interior before he felt the angle of the shoe level out. Amy’s heel snapped into it a second later. From his perspective, the impact of Amy stamping her heel inside the shoe felt like the lid finally closing on his coffin. He felt like his fate was sealed at this point. He then heard the faint zip of her laces being tied quickly. And that would be the nails on the coffin, he thought with grim recognition.

He expected the brutal impact of the jogging to begin any second now, but instead Amy’s toes lifted upward over his head and hung there for a moment. That’s right, the cramp. She’s stretching. He had barely enough time to register that thought before the toes collapsed down on him and pulled him inward, rolling him painfully across the bottom like dough under a rolling pin. He felt the textured fabric of the insole scrape painfully against his raw, bare skin, as he was dragged in and out mercilessly and relentlessly. He knew she was just flexing the tendon in her foot, but the torture almost felt personal. Like she was enjoying doing this to him on some morbid, primal level.

Even with the pain of his skin being rubbed between the rough sock fabric and the insole of the sneaker, the odor still surged to the front of his mind. He didn’t think it could get any worse than when he had tumbled down into her toeprints earlier, but he hadn’t counted on the added degradation of being surrounded on all sides with heat and sweat. He didn’t realize how much the crisp winter air had mitigated the shoe’s interior in the brief time Amy had slipped her foot out. Now, in addition to being immediately soaked to the point that sweat was plastering down his hair and rolling across his face, the ambient body heat magnified everything. The air became thicker to the point of being suffocating. He felt like he could cut it with a knife. His lungs screamed for fresh air, and gasping as he was, he couldn’t avoid taking in constant mouthfuls of the fetid steaminess with his every inhalation. His nose was being assaulted simultaneously, the previously stale odor becoming increasingly, overwhelmingly ripe. It went from a vague cheesiness in the aroma to feeling like someone was forcing his head into a wheel of Limburger to drown him.

He felt his skin pruning almost instantly, wrinkles appearing on his fingertips from the suffocating moisture. And then the real torture started. He felt a pit in his stomach as he lurched upward, knowing that this was the first of what would be many strides. He wondered with morbid curiosity whether the first impact would pop his body open like a grape. His teeth were jarred together as he felt Amy’s foot hit the pavement, her toes rolling forward and over him once more. The pressure built, and built, and built, pushing him to what was surely his breaking point, before it abated all too briefly. He was again tossed upward with the next stride, coming out from underneath Amy’s toes long enough to bang his head against the top of the shoe’s interior before slamming back down on top of the sock. He attempted to hang on like he was riding a bull, fruitlessly grasping for purchase and trying to get a handful of the fabric to hold onto. But the force of the next impact immediately shook him loose, throwing him once more to the tip of the shoe.

If riding in her hoody pocket earlier had been like a bouncy castle, this was more like he was at the bottom of a bottle with a “shake well before opening” label on it, a vigorous, aggressive, constant motion that he was powerless to stop.

In the back of his mind, he credited Amy’s excellent running technique for why he hadn’t been obliterated quite yet. He knew with each stride her foot was connecting with the ground in the order of heel, ball, toes, heel, ball, toes, on endless repeat. If she had been sprinting, he knew the forward weight would have already ground him into an unrecognizable paste as surely as a mortar and pestle.

As it was, he still wasn’t entirely sure he was going to survive this. One misstep could result in him rolling under the ball of her foot, and then he’d be dead in an instant. Even setting aside the possibility of getting crushed, his body was still being put through physical hell. Flying around the toe section of the shoe like a pinball, intermittently being smashed almost to the point of breaking and then banging his head against a toe or the interior of the shoe. Paradoxically, despite the fact that he was dripping wet from a combination of his and Amy’s sweat (mostly hers, he assumed), the heat and salt were causing rapid dehydration. He found that he was parched, his mouth dry as a cotton ball, the dull ache in his head from the jostling rapidly growing into a traumatic migraine.

Not to mention the motion sickness which was transforming into overwhelming nausea. The true breaking point came when he was gasping for air from the physical exertion of trying to stabilize himself and the thick, sticky atmosphere. His mouth opened wide to take a desperate gulp of air when a massive drop of sweat splattered directly into it. He immediately choked on it, swallowing a portion out of reflex and hurriedly spitting the rest of it out. It didn’t matter; the pungent saltiness remained on his tongue and in his airways, and some part of him suspected it would be there forever now. His body decided against his will to add to the mixture of bodily fluids as he threw up the toast and coffee from earlier in the morning…which he was then promptly rolled around in. If there is hell on Earth, this is surely it. He couldn’t imagine anything worse at the moment.

The deadly pattern of tossing, tumbling, smashing, drenching, and banging continued on for what felt like an eternity before he felt Amy’s footsteps padding slower and slower until they were just a brisk walk. At this point, he was trapped squarely under her big toe, his body plastered flat against the insole and his face buried into the wet sock, his head turned to the side in a largely futile attempt to get a breath of air. He credited still being alive to his slightly increased durability, but no amount of physical resistance was going to protect him if he suffocated, and right now Amy’s big toe was his entire world. What little air his lungs could take in was filtered through the fabric of the sock, his mouth involuntarily siphoning out sweat with each breath he took.

Take the shoes off…take the shoes off…TAKE THE FUCKING SHOES OFF!!! He was surprised that he was actually pleading out loud at this point. Amy took a few more steps, pressing Steve repeatedly downward into the insole of the sneaker to the point where he felt like he would soon be buried in it. But suddenly, the constant pressure abated for a moment as he could just make out the distinctive sound of their front door closing, and the keypad lock being engaged. He heard Amy’s other shoe clatter against the hardwood floor as she kicked it off her foot before he could hear the laces being untied somewhere above him.

Of course, Amy’s foot had one last treat in store for him before they parted ways. As she withdrew it from the sneaker, her toe dragged Steve’s body along the entire length of the insole, coating him in God-knows-what accumulated gunk as he rolled across the bottom and once more causing friction burns the length of his body. He was blinded suddenly by the light in their front hallway as Amy’s toes seemed to wave him a mocking “goodbye” as they slipped out the top. The motion knocked the sneaker over onto its side. With a tremendous effort of will, Steve clawed his battered and bruised body to his feet and limped outward, a pantomime of a zombie at this point. Testing out his body as he ambled slowly, he was utterly stunned that he didn’t immediately notice any broken bones. Definitely attributable to the increased durability, because that was an absolute beatdown he had just taken.

He blinked sweat out of his eyes, the light above him being momentarily blinding before he could make out Amy’s figure. Sweet, beautiful Amy, who had unwittingly come close to being his executioner for the second time in less than 24 hours. She’s right, we do need to be more careful. Gotta stop thinking with my dick. The perspective was still awe inspiring to him, the columns of Amy’s legs rising what seemed like miles into the sky, her entire form towering over him. His mind registered from his peripheral vision the wet footprints Amy’s feet were leaving behind on the cold, hardwood floor.

Amy unzipped the front pocket on her hoody, sticking her hand inside and fumbling around. “You alright Ste….STEVE??!!” He felt a pang of sympathy for her despite all she had just put him through as he saw the panic set in on her face. Amy patted the pocket on the other side of the hoody, unzipping that and fishing around inside as well in case she had forgotten the correct pocket. When that hand also came up empty, Steve saw Amy’s face blanch, draining of all color as she appeared almost physically ill. She frantically turned about and pushed her keys around the console table, probably wondering if by habit she had taken him out and placed him down as though he were her cellphone.

She spun around once more, her eyes darting all over the floor around her feet before they settled on him, recognition dawning in her expression as she squatted low and gingerly scooped him into her palm before standing up and bringing him in front of her face. He saw blatant concern in her expression, but also a faint relief.

“Steve!! What happened?! I thought I lost you somewhere!!” she breathlessly inquired.

Seeing the look on her face, he made a snap decision. He couldn’t tell her the truth. First, she would never forgive herself. Second, she would never, ever agree to take him out of the house again, for anything. He had to lie. Convincingly.

“Ames, I’m fine. I was waiting by the zipper and your hand just knocked me out of the pocket when you reached inside to look for me. I’ve only been on the floor for a few seconds, tops. Good news though! I can apparently survive a fall from that height unscathed!” Hopefully that’s true, he thought inwardly.

Immediate doubt registered in Amy’s expression. “Then why are you beet red, hun? You look like you just came out of a week in the sauna.”

“Well, uh…it was warmer than you would think inside that pocket. You really worked up a sweat!” Nailed it.

“Uh huh. You sure you weren’t um…having fun…in there?” Amy asked with a hint of a smirk.

Having fun in there? Are you fucking high? “You caught me! You know I love it when you get all sweaty and dirty, babe.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re gross? Just to make sure: you’re gross,” she responded with a knowing smile. “Well, I guess as long as you’re alright…” Suddenly Amy’s nose crinkled in disgust. “Baby, you stink. You smell worse than your hockey equipment, and that’s saying something.” That was fair. She actually had forced him to keep his equipment bag in the garage. At her insistence, he had started hanging the glove, blocker, and skates on a coat rack to air them out better after games. It hadn’t helped.

“Well uh, you know, I didn’t shower today. Or yesterday. Not sure about the day before that,” he responded sheepishly.

“Again, honey, I love you, but you’re fucking disgusting sometimes,” Amy chastised him.

“You know, I can’t exactly shower on my own anymore. We could, uh, clean off…together?” he said suggestively.

“My God you’re insistent. Incorrigible. I suppose you’re gonna ask me to use you as a bar of soap now?” Amy said with a raised eyebrow.

Oh come the fuck on, that’s playing dirty. Just not fair. “You know I wouldn’t want to impose babe…” he said with a wink.

Amy rolled her eyes and groaned in disgust. “Let’s get you cleaned up, Pigpen,” she said as she began to carry him toward their bedroom. He knew he should be relieved to be alive. He knew he should never risk anything like that again. He knew thinking with his dick was almost certainly going to get him killed. But that raised eyebrow of hers, that smirk, that suggestion of using him like a bar of soap…she knew how to push all the right buttons. And yet again, he found his near-death experience dwindling in his mind as he felt blood flowing to his groin at the thought of showering with her. Hell, he’d probably even give the shoe thing another try under more controlled circumstances…

Amy stood in front of the bathtub, considering. Her eyes darted between the drain and her husband, her brain doing quick measurements. “Be right back, babe,” she said while placing Steve down gently on the counter next to the bathroom sink. She headed into their kitchen, rifling through the hodgepodge drawer of larger kitchen utensils. Moving spatulas and ladles out of the way, she found what she was looking for near the bottom: a strainer. The sieve grating on it was fine enough that Steve probably couldn’t even manage to get a hand stuck in it, let alone slip his entire body through. It was used primarily for straining pulp out of juice. This should work perfectly, Amy thought while taking note of the strainer’s round shape.

She walked back into the bathroom, affixing the strainer just above the drain at the bottom of the bathtub.

“Wow…good thinking, Ames,” Steve said from his perch atop the counter.

Amy turned around and looked at him, an annoyed question in her eyes. “What’s the ‘wow’ for?”

“Just that, uh, I wouldn’t have thought of it!” Steve answered quickly.

“Uh huh,” Amy responded flatly. Permanently convinced he’s the smartest person in the room. The same dynamite attorney that had won the MicroMD case had also managed to shrink himself to an inch tall. Book smart…maybe, she thought while smirking inwardly.

She started running the hot water, flipping the switch on top of the tub faucet to redirect the stream out of the showerhead. Placing her hands on her hips, she frowned.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Steve asked.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this. Maybe I should just get you a little cup of hot water and squirt some body wash into it and you can take it from there. Even with the drain issue sorted, this seems…dangerous, somehow.”

“Booooooo!” Steve jeered at her. “That is WAY less fun. Just cup your palm and if it gets tricky, I’ll stand on the soap tray.”

“Steve, the stream from the shower alone could probably blast you out of my hand. I’m one bad slip away from rinsing your paste off the bottom of the tub.”

She saw his cheeks flush a bit as he turned away from her, his hands blocking the view of his crotch. Oh come on, how is THAT arousing? I literally just said I was gonna smash him to paste. She recalled, however, the peculiars of her husband’s giantess fetish. Suddenly, it seemed less surprising to her. He was into all kinds of stuff. He had asked her to step on his face while he laid on the floor or sit on his face while they were in bed together, simulating the crush aspect of the macrophilia. I will truly, truly, never understand the appeal.

Amy unzipped her hoody and placed it on the counter near the sink, bending down afterward to peel the still-damp socks off her feet. She glanced up at Steve and saw his eyes move from her bent-over butt to her now exposed toes. The butt thing I get. The feet thing will always be a mystery to me. She felt her cheeks flush under the attentive observation. She had stripped down in front of him hundreds of times over the course of their relationship. Why did this feel different? More…intimate? It’s because it feels like the first time, she realized. Everything he saw about her was in a completely new light. She suddenly felt self-conscious, not knowing what her body looked like from this new perspective for her husband. Maybe those wrinkles she convinced herself she saw in the mirror every morning were magnified a hundred-fold. Maybe the little paunch on her abdomen (which was, in actuality, non-existent) stuck out more.

Never missing a chance to dial up the flirtation, Steve smirked as he saw her blushing and turning away from him. “Awwww, Ames, that’s so cute. You’re shy again.”

“Shut it mister, or I’m filling the sink and letting you take it from there. I’m already nervous about this shower thing,” she responded. Inwardly, however, she was smiling faintly. The playfulness was reminiscent of the beginnings of their relationship, when Steve was a nobody with big dreams and she was along for the ride. Could this actually end up being good for us? Amy immediately chastised herself for the thought. Her husband was now entirely dependent on her, and every day of his life would be rife with mortal peril, at least until they found a solution. It felt a little selfish to be getting a rise out of the situation, but at the same time, Steve was clearly having fun with it.

She removed her tank top and leggings next and, taking note of the sweat under her breasts, felt self-conscious once again. Steve, on the other hand, was practically drooling. His eyes were bugging out of his head so much that they brought to mind a cartoon wolf salivating over a pretty woman. The look gave her the confidence boost she needed. She smirked at him and slowly, ever so slowly, peeled the sports bra off.

“Let me lick it…” Steve asked.

“Lick what?” Amy inquired with genuine confusion.

“The sweat under your tits….let me lick it.”

“Okay, nope. Nope! You’re being gross again. Not a chance in hell,” she responded. But as she went to place her sports bra with the rest of her discarded clothing, a playful whim entered her mind and, instead, she threw it at Steve, burying him under the damp cloth. She took that opportunity to slip out of her underwear as well, at last fully nude. She approached the sink and gently lifted up the sports bra, only to see Steve laying on his back clutching the fabric to his face, inhaling deeply as though he were a drowning person cresting the surface of the ocean for the first time in minutes. It was harder to make out details with his current size, but she could’ve sworn she saw a flash of pink as his tongue darted out of his mouth.

But then he noticed that he was discovered, and quickly relinquished his grasp of the fabric, instead standing straight in genuine awe of his colossus of a wife. The girl who had to stand on her tippy toes just to kiss him now dominated his point of view like a sunrise. No makeup, she had bags under her eyes from the stress and lack of sleep, her hair a tangled mess that was still damp with sweat, complimented by a sheen of sweat giving her body an oily glisten. To Steve, his wife had never looked more beautiful.

Of course, Amy caught him ogling her voraciously. It’s not like he made any attempt to hide it. Her confidence was bolstered even further, seeing Steve’s small (but massive at his size) erection standing at full attention. Amy decided to lean wholesale into the moment. She bent down so that her nipples almost made contact with the sink, looking Steve dead in the eye as her gaze narrowed and she smirked at him.

“You know,” she said while moving her open palm over his head, hanging like an executioner’s axe, “I could squash you like a bug in an instant. I’ve killed roaches twice your size by accident,” she said in a sultry whisper as she lowered her palm enough to make contact with his hair. She leaned in so close that her breath washed over his naked form. “I could’ve fit 10 of you on my toast this morning, and you know what the crazy part is? I would’ve still been hungry,” she breathed at him, her voice barely above a whisper.

As though he were under a spell (and perhaps he was, of sorts), Steve slowly walked forward with his hands extended, wanting nothing more than to run his fingers over her plush lips and climb inside the moist warmth of her mouth. But just as he extended his arm, she backed away and stood up.

“Uh-uh-uh,” she taunted him while wagging a mocking finger, “this Goddess doesn’t eat trash.” She hadn’t even touched him yet, and Steve was on the cusp of bursting. This is wayyyyyyy too easy, she thought.

“In other words, I ain’t licking your dirty ass. Hop on,” she said while extending her hand, palm upward as a platform. Still in a sexual stupor, Steve ambled forward and practically collapsed in Amy’s hand. Reveling in the effect she clearly was having on him, Amy couldn’t resist a little more teasing. She closed her fingers around his diminutive form, clenching her fist gently as she lifted it to her mouth and whispered between her fingers, “one squeeze….that’s all it would take.”

She heard a faint groan and felt a touch of liquid warmth on her palm. She immediately unclenched her first and looked at a red-faced, thoroughly-embarrassed Steve, witnessing his erection dwindling slowly. “Jesus babe, you came from that? I guess one squeeze really is all it takes,” she said with a playful grin. “At least this is way less of….uh…a mess.”

“Oh, don’t worry Ames,” Steve responded, “I’ve got plenty more in me if you’re gonna keep this up.”

“No promises…bug.” Amy couldn’t help herself throwing that one last jibe out. And she was not surprised in the slightest when she saw his member twitch to life once more. With that, she stepped into the shower.

------------------------------------------

Dear sweet Mother of God does this woman know how to push all the right buttons, Steve thought to himself. Already he felt the flickering in his loins when Amy carried him into the shower. After his ordeal in her sneaker, the hot water immediately felt good on his raw, red skin, and he felt like he could feel the layers of filth washing off him. From his perch on Amy’s palm, he glanced upward and saw a look of careful deliberation on her face.

“What’s the hold up babe, I’m ready to be your sponge!” Steve hollered up at her over the sound of the rushing water.

“First of all, no, you’re gross. Again. Second, I’m trying to think of the best way to do this,” she responded.

“Just do what you’d normally do, but with one hand,” Steve suggested.

“Duh, that part I had worked out already. I’m talking about YOU,” Amy said while looking him over. He could practically see the gears turning in her head before she announced, “alright, got it.”

Amy reached over to the bottle of body wash and pumped out a tiny dollop on her thumb. She then pinched Steve’s body between her thumb and forefinger, rubbing him up and down gently but firmly. It wasn’t lost on Steve that she only had to move her fingers slightly to cover his whole body. He felt his arousal grow even more as her thumb brushed over his genitals, easily bringing him to a solid half-mast. Amy, of course, noticed immediately, and sighed.

“Lift your arms up,” she instructed. He complied as she continued to use her thumb and finger to scrub his miniscule form.

“What about, you know, down there?” Steve asked with clear suggestion in his voice.

“Nuh uh, you have hands. Use them. I’m not jerking you off twice in 2 minutes, and I’m certainly not playing with your butt.”

“Rats, can’t blame a guy for trying,” Steve responded. He saw Amy was smiling, genuinely, for what felt like the first time since this whole ordeal started. He found himself smiling in response. They had nothing even approaching normalcy at the moment, but they had at least achieved some level of rapport and understanding.

Amy then pumped out a tiny dollop of shampoo and smudged it on his mop of hair, similar to how a mother would lick her finger to scrub dirt off her child’s cheek. He took it from there, lathering and rinsing himself off. Amy then began to clean herself with the rough, exfoliating loofah sponge she loved using. Thank God she didn’t use that. That thing fucking hurts. I don’t get it.

Steve still couldn’t help but watch in awe as Amy cleaned herself off, the mundane activity she had done countless times in his presence suddenly taking on new meaning. Watching everything happen at this scale was like being in a domed IMAX theater. Her eyes were closed as she was rinsing the shampoo out of her hair, but shortly thereafter she cracked one open and saw him gawking. He seized his opportunity.

“You know, that sponge offer is still on the table. I won’t hurt your skin like that masochistic self-flagellation device you insist on inflicting on yourself daily,” Steve coaxed.

Amy’s eyes narrowed briefly as though she were actually considering it, before she sighed and he saw the hesitation. “Steve, I appreciate that we’re having fun. It’s just…well…the way you’ve been lately doesn’t exactly make me feel…wanted. It makes me feel like I’m not enough unless you’re so drunk your urges take over.” She knew he hated it when she asked insecure, inane questions like this, but she couldn’t help asking: “am I still…pretty?”

Steve was shocked. Is she fucking serious? I can’t be in the same room as her without popping a boner. Where is this coming from? But then he saw the look of shy concern on her face, perhaps even a little fear of the answer that would be forthcoming. Have I really made her feel that way? He replayed recent weeks in his head, realizing for the first time that he had stopped kissing her goodbye on her way out the door each morning, had stopped talking to her at night when they lay in bed, hadn’t taken her out for dinner, hadn’t spent time with her meaningfully unless it was to gratify himself. And she was right, those moments were basically only when he was drunk. Fuck, I’ve been a bit of an ass, haven’t I?

“Ames, I wish you could hear what’s going through my head right now. Maybe retiring this early wasn’t the right call. I thought it was what I wanted, but I thought it would lead to us spending more time together, at least time together outside of the office. But you’re right; it seems to have made things worse. The simple fact of the matter is this: I’m in awe of you each day. You can’t leave a room without me following you like a lovesick puppy. And just before, when I was standing on the sink, I realized that you had never looked more beautiful to me. Somehow, you’re more gorgeous than the day I met you, and that’s saying something. So no, you’re not ‘still pretty.’ You are, and always have been, much, much more than that.”

He saw her tearing up as he told her how he felt. “Thank you for saying that,” she responded sincerely. “I felt like I wasn’t enough for you anymore.”

“Well, if you weren’t enough for me before, you certainly are now, Queen Kong,” he quipped at her.

“Watch it mister,” Amy replied as she gave him a playful poke that knocked him on his butt. “I’m no sniper, but I’m pretty sure I can sink you in the toilet with a shot from here,” she said as her eyes glanced outside the shower.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Steve said with a mischievous grin.

“Ew, just…ew. Nope, nope, nope. No golden showers, no Cleveland Steamers, no blumpkins, none of that nasty stuff you’re inexplicably into.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Babe, do you even know what a blumpkin is?”

“I know it has something to do with a toilet, and therefore whatever it is, it’s disgusting and vile.”

“Hey…don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Steve responded.

“You can NOT be fucking serious right now,” Amy said with an apparent look of disgust.

“I’m not, I’m not. Just messing around,” Steve conceded. “That said, I can definitely clean you better where the sun doesn’t shine than that sponge. Small hands and all that,” he offered half seriously.

“Hun, I am not putting your inch tall self anywhere near my butthole, so get that idea out of your head right now.”

Darn. “Well, worth a shot at least,” he said while maintaining his grin. “We gotta have some fun though, right?”

Amy rolled her eyes and sighed in genuine exasperation. “Okay fine, we can, er, fool around a little.”

Steve started jumping up and down like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning.

“Just stop doing…whatever that is,” Amy chided.

Steve visibly forced himself to calm down. I still can’t believe we’re doing this. Like, yes, life is deeply fucked up for both of us right now, but I’m quite literally living the dream.

With that, Amy cupped Steve in her hand and began to move him toward her chest.

---------------------------------------

Amy had second thoughts. In her head, every miniscule, perceived flaw would undoubtedly be exacerbated a thousandfold with Steve’s new perspective. But, she felt buoyed by his comments from earlier.

Guess we might as well do this, she thought.

She moved her hand containing her tiny husband in front of her right breast, letting him take over from there. I’ll bet I’m just one big playground to him right now. Still concerned about dropping him, she kept a close eye on him as she watched him stand reverently and slowly walk toward her nipple.

He reached out and gave it the slightest caress. With the tremendous size discrepancy, Amy barely felt it. But in an area that sensitive, her body responded nonetheless. She felt the nipple harden immediately under his touch.

He then reached out both hands, and began a circular massage of the areola, his touch sprouting goosebumps everywhere his hands moved. It was ticklish at first, but Amy resisted the urge to scratch at it and continued to let him do his thing. She closed her eyes and focused on the sensation. You know, I could actually get used to this.

It felt more like a tease than actual foreplay, however. Subconsciously, her left hand moved up to her left breast and began a similar massage, albeit one that covered the whole tit. With her eyes closed, she didn’t even realize that her right hand had mimicked the movement until she heard muffled grunts. Her eyes flew open in shock as she saw that she was pressing Steve into her nipple. She immediately relented.

“Oh my God, babe, I’m so sorry!” she said with a tinge of panic.

“Don’t be,” Steve responded with his trademark lopsided grin, “that was fucking great.”

She knew he got off on asphyxiation. He was quite tall, at least he used to be, and even though she had a noticeable bubble butt, her frame was very petite. When he would ask her to sit on his face, a request she always felt uncomfortable indulging, she could usually still see his chin from her perch. But she always noticed that he went rock hard the moment his face was buried between her cheeks. He would even urge her, on occasion, to smother him. It was tough to do at her size, but she usually tried to accommodate. She always felt weird doing it though.  

Shortly after Steve had retired, that particular sexual interest had reached a breaking point, of sorts. On one of the days she was working remotely, he had floated a deeply unhinged suggestion. He wanted his face to be her chair during a meeting. She had been dressed professionally from the waist up, but knowing his preference for soft pants when sitting on him, she was wearing her floral-patterned flannel pajama bottoms at the time. He had laid down on the couch, and she had perched over him holding her laptop before descending onto his face.

Steve’s primary pitch was that the added sense of naughtiness added something to it. The fact that she would be staring the rest of the law firm in the face over camera while her husband’s face was buried between her asscheeks. She had very, very reluctantly agreed to the proposal. She was deeply concerned about a wrong camera angle showing what was going on, or about her giving it away with a blush or look on her face, to the point where she moved all the mirrors in the house to another room and closed the curtains. Doing something so intensely private, albeit secretly, in a public setting had put her on edge. But she agreed that the added sense of taboo brought something new to the equation.

She remembered hoping that the meeting wouldn’t go long, as the lumps of his face, particularly his nose, touching her butthole was quite uncomfortable. The regular couch cushion was vastly preferable. It was to her surprise, then, that she actually kind of got into it. His nose touching her butthole, his hot breath on her vagina, the movement of his lips and chin as he teased her, knowing she couldn’t do anything about it after the meeting had already started it. She felt her face flushing, and started to grind into him a little bit, finding that she actually had enjoyed the stimulation more than usual.

And that’s where it went spectacularly wrong. While her petite body normally posed no real threat of smothering him, they hadn’t accounted for his body sinking into the couch a bit and messing with the angles. When she would give him a blowjob, his signal to expect imminent cum was slapping her on the arm. So, visibly seeing his boner quivering, and feeling his slaps on her thighs, she thought he was just getting super into it. It was when those slaps turned into claws pulling at her that she realized something was off. When his struggles slowed and then stopped completely, she panicked. She had told her coworkers on the call that a delivery person was at the door, and she frantically turned off her microphone and camera, flying up from her perch on Steve’s face.

She remembered him looking a little blue, and she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. She thought she had killed him with her butt, a tragic and catastrophic loss coming from something so silly. She flew over to him to commence CPR, but the moment her lips connected with his, his eyes flew open and he drew in a massive, shuddering inhale. Amy’s relief was palpable. She had chastised him at the time for the stupid idea and swore they would never do anything like it again. That didn’t stop Steve from heading to the bathroom to promptly jerk off over the hot idea that his wife’s little bubble butt had almost killed him for real.

All of this informed Amy’s shock and fear in the shower. That’s why the next words out of his mouth stunned her.

“Squish me,” Steve said without a hint of insincerity.

“What??!! Are you nuts??!!” Amy nearly shouted at him.

“No, I’m dead serious. Put me between your boobs and squish me.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not you psycho. Remember the Couch Incident?” referring to that particular instance of nearly lethal facesitting with the name they had given it subsequently.

“I’m not telling you to smother me, I’m asking you to surround me with squishy boob flesh. Not for long, just for a few seconds. What you did a few seconds ago with pressing me into your tit was…fucking incredible. I want more of it. I want ALL of it.”

This guy’s out of his fucking mind, Amy thought. But, she saw little harm in accommodating the request. It wasn’t like it was going to kill him, particularly if she didn’t do it hard. Her perky little B-cups weren’t anywhere near big enough for titty fucking, nor were they even big enough really for motorboating. But at Steve’s current size, they were positively monstrous.

She moved her hand from in front of her right boob and positioned him in the center of her chest, using her elbows to squeeze her boobs together. She stifled a giggle as his tiny form disappeared instantly. I may not be one of those BBWs men talk about, but these are plenty big for him right now.

She hadn’t accounted, however, for how soapy Steve still was. Almost as soon as she felt her tits make contact with each other, she felt something squeak out between them like a slippery rocket. She reacted immediately, frantically trying to grab Steve as he fell down, but he was propelled with significant speed and was quite small. Her palm ended up smacking him against the back of the shower, his body then falling down to the floor and spiraling toward the drain.

Oh my God, this time I’ve actually killed him, she panicked mentally. “STEVE??!!” she shouted.

She saw him bounce back up instantly and energetically, grinning ear to ear, as though he had just gone down a water slide. “Let’s do it again!! Smack me around a little more this time!!”

Amy breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared that he wasn’t lying when he said he could survive a fall from her full height, and considering he didn’t seem to have any broken bones or even visible bruises, it seemed like he could actually take a bit of punishment as well. Amy leaned into the moment, quite literally.

“Hold on, there’s a bug in my shower I have to squash.” She slowly and deliberately moved her foot over his body, lowering it until she felt his form pressed under the ball of her foot, his head between her second and third toes. She applied just a tiny bit of pressure before letting up. But then Steve surprised her again.

“Harder!” his muffled shout came out from between her toes.

“What??!”

“I said HARDER! I told you to squish me and you’re failing miserably.”

“Oh, okay hotshot. Just remember, you asked for this.” She started to press down a little more, bringing to mind their initial test of his durability with her thumb on his leg. She was doing it carefully, but she now had a rough sense of how much he could take. She could feel his body giving slightly under the ball of her foot, the hair on his head ticklish between her toes.

She leaned forward, pressing her foot down more and more, albeit slowly and gradually, until she finally heard a faint “oomph.” Amy lifted her foot back up to see a red-faced Steve, his erection fully restored despite having ejaculated only minutes prior.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask for, uh, some help with my…situation?” Steve asked while gesturing vaguely to his privates.

Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. This man is insatiable. “What did you have in mind, exactly?”

“Uhhhhh….a blowie? Maybe?”

“And how exactly is that supposed to work considering your entire body is smaller than my tongue?” Amy asked genuinely.

“Dealer’s choice, I guess. Get creative.”

“Okay but, yet again, remember, you wanted this,” Amy cautioned. Steve had an anticipatory ear-to-ear grin as she picked him up off the floor of the tub and lifted him upward to be level with her face. And then, she unceremoniously popped him into her mouth like he was a pill.

----------------------------------

Despite the rapid-fire chain of events, for Steve, everything seemed to move almost in slow motion. He took in all of Amy’s monolithic visage: her drenched hair, her dainty plucked eyebrows, the little mole high on her cheek that he loved to kiss playfully. But more than anything, his eyes were drawn to her lips. Those plush, pink cushions that had pressed against his own lips countless times, and that had frequently wrapped around his cock to extraordinary effect. Over their time as a couple, Amy had learned how to push all the right buttons. He was too large, and she was too small, for her to really ever deepthroat him, but she knew how to work her tongue like a magician.

Of course, she could deepthroat ALL of me now, Steve mused. What if…what if she swallowed me by accident? The brief jolt of fear was quickly subsumed by an increase in his arousal. Jeez, she’s right. I really AM fucked up. Why does the thought of being her food turn me on? He supposed it had something to do with the dramatic reversal of their power dynamic, with his insignificance. They weren’t husband and wife; she was hungry and he was food; she was a predator and he was prey. He knew he wouldn’t even be enough to satisfy her. Somehow, the thought of stewing in Amy’s gut while chewed bits of salad rained down on top of him in the digestive slurry was even hotter. I should see a therapist. Well, after we figure this shit out.

Though from Amy’s perspective she had just callously tossed him into her mouth, from Steve’s perspective, he took in every minute detail. Her elevator of a hand drawing him ever closer to her open mouth. Her straight, white teeth that always dazzled when she smiled. Her pinkish, red tongue, the small depression in the middle and the tastebuds scattered throughout. Her palate, the ridge running down the middle and the ribbed texture evoking an image of some great beast’s spine and ribs. And, of course, those cute, dainty little lips. Those cute, dainty little lips that were now the entrance to the underworld. Amy’s world.

Steve stared up in wonder as those lips passed over his head before he was dumped onto her tongue. The pliant, spongy texture gave a little as he fell, but supported his weight enough for him to quickly scramble to his knees and turn around. He wanted to take it all in. He could see the backs of Amy’s teeth, her gums ringing around him like he was an animal in a circus ring. And most significantly, he could see the wall of the shower. His last look at the reality he had been in moments ago before he entered an entirely new one of Amy’s sole design. This is a view nobody’s ever had before…probably because human beings were never meant to be food. Maybe for some wild animals, but certainly not food that can be swallowed whole.

The light streaming in between Amy’s lips rapidly dwindled to a pinprick before he heard the distinct clack of her jaw slamming shut. He suppressed a shudder, the noise sounding eerily similar to the closing of a casket in his mind. Remember, you’re supposed to be enjoying this. And he found, with little surprise, that he was. Not only did his erection stay rock hard, but it was pulsing of its own accord without any physical stimulation. That situation was quickly remedied though.

Sealed in the darkness, his other senses took over to inform his surroundings. For the first time he noticed her warm breath enveloping him with every exhale, a faintly stale, lingering aroma of the toast and jam from hours earlier wafting over him. The toast that she threatened to put me on, he remembered lustily. He realized for the first time that, despite how hot the interior of a mouth normally is, he wasn’t struck by the warmth. Probably a result of coming in from the hot water in the shower.

But with his vision gone dark, his tactile senses were in overdrive. The rubbery, spongy texture of the tongue beneath him that gave slightly when he pressed on it, the thickness of the saliva as compared to the water that had been flowing over him moments prior. He felt like if he could see, spreading his fingers apart would show strands of the thicker fluid connecting them now like spiderwebs. And while he wasn’t ordinarily one to let a woman toss his salad, the stimulation of the gooey warmth underneath his cheeks was surprisingly pleasant. The inside of Amy’s mouth was a sensual wonderland.

Until the tongue moved. The first thing Amy did was press him against the inside of her cheek like a gumball, her tongue dragging him across the cushiony, springy surface as he felt himself get fully coated in the saliva for the first time. Amy wasn’t taking it easy on him either. He was rolled like a barrel, bringing to mind his experience in her shoe from earlier this morning. She continued to toy with him, the tip of her tongue pressing him down between her lower gums and the inside of her lips. Amy’s tongue then tossed him to the other side of her mouth, repeating the same procedure of smearing him across every conceivable surface.

Okay, this is significantly less enjoyable than I thought it would be. Then the tongue vibrated underneath him as he heard a booming “mmmmmmm.” To Amy, the guttural sound was faint. To Steve, it washed over him in a vibratory wave. Wait a minute…is she TASTING me? He rapidly put together that this performance was for his benefit. There was no way he tasted like anything other than faint soap after having already cleaned himself off. Knowing that allowed him to get into a little more. It was difficult to coordinate in the constantly shifting darkness, but he tried to get one of his hands around his cock. He briefly succeeded, before he found himself getting pressed between the tip of Amy’s tongue and the inside of her upper lip, a sudden influx of light shocking his system.

Amy was poking his head out of her mouth like she was blowing a bubble with his body. He felt her teeth grip him slightly as he heard a cute giggle. Haha Ames…glad you’re enjoying yourself.

Amy sucked him back in like she was pulling on a straw, the vacuous suction effect putting pressure on his eardrums suddenly. But then, the actual play started. Amy’s tongue curled upward and inward, dumping Steve to the wet, encompassing flesh below the inside of her lower gums, a place that would normally be covered by the tongue. And with a surprising amount of dexterity, the tongue spun him around so that he was facing it, his back sinking into the soft flesh at the bottom of Amy’s mouth, the back of his head resting against the stiffness of her lower gums, his whole body resting in a small pool of saliva.

He was curious what she was going for, but it became apparent in an instant. The tip of Amy’s tongue, ever so gently, began to slide up and down his body, slathering him in saliva. And then it focused on his genitals, the tip of Amy’s tongue describing short, circular motions as she played with his entire package in one small motion. The stimulation, both from the tongue on his cock and the environment he was in, had an immediate effect on Steve. He felt his bloodflow rising, the flood of hormones and neurochemicals that signify an imminent orgasm filling his body with warmth. He lasted a grand total of less than 30 seconds once Amy actually started trying to get him off.

It took a second for his miniscule load to register with Amy’s tastebuds, her tongue continuing to lap him up and down like a child with an oversized lollipop. But she must have tasted his cum on some level, ar at least felt his erection subsiding, because the motion gradually stopped. Her tongue scooped him off the bottom of her mouth, depositing him in her cheek again like dentist gauze.

“Really?” Amy’s voice boomed around him. “That’s it?”

Steve felt his face flush with embarrassment. He didn’t know if she could hear him, but he responded nonetheless. “Sorry babe! That was really fucking hot.”

Still pressed down inside her cheek, he heard Amy speak once again. “Hey hun, I figured out a way to get you your own jacuzzi at your size!” Steve was deeply confused until Amy’s mouth suddenly opened wide, the light from outside blinding him briefly. She moved her open mouth below a stream of hot water coming out of the shower head, the hot water rapidly filling her mouth as she held back from swallowing it. Now that his lust was abating, however, the possibility of Amy swallowing suddenly became all too real. He glanced behind him hesitantly, a spike of fear in his belly as he was able to fully see Amy’s tonsils and, most significantly, the currently (and fortunately) sealed entrance to her esophagus. The gateway to hell.

He was about to shout out to Amy that this wasn’t funny, until she started to gargle him like he was mouthwash, her head tilted back and her mouth open. It wasn’t inconceivable that she would swallow him by accident at this point. Her head was tilted all the way back; it was a straight shot down her throat from here.

----------------------------------

Amy felt herself giggling again as her husband’s tiny body was tossed around in her mouth “jacuzzi” like a pinball. If he gets to have his fun, repeatedly, then I get to have mine too. But suddenly, her thoughts took a much darker turn. She remembered slicing the piece of wedding cake, only to find her new, tiny husband on her plate instead. She remembered her jaws closing inexorably around him, seemingly of their own accord. And she remembered tracing the lump of food that used to be a person down her throat as it was deposited into her stomach for digestion like every other meal she had ever consumed. And all it would take to reenact that right now would be to open the gates and just…swallow. The dream she had of eating Steve whole suddenly became frighteningly real. It wasn’t funny anymore. He’s probably terrified…or insanely turned on. One never knows with that man.

She gently reached in and plucked Steve out of her mouth between her thumb and forefinger, and then spat out the hot water. “Sorry babe…I got a little carried away there for a second.”

“No shit,” Steve responded angrily. And then he added, “but it was kinda hot though.” I fucking KNEW it! Is there anything that doesn’t turn him on?

“You know Ames…now that I’m all lubed up…” Steve hinted while waggling his eyebrows.

“Unless those were tears I tasted, by my count you’ve now cum twice in five minutes,” Amy responded. “You can’t possibly have more in you,” she said with a dubious tone.

“Right but like…you haven’t gotten off yet,” Steve stated matter-of-factly. It was true. The stimulation on her breasts earlier and the ad hoc jacuzzi power trip DID have Amy’s blood boiling a little bit. “What did you have in mind?” she asked him.

“I have an idea. Sit down in the tub and spread ‘em,” Steve instructed.

“Okay…” Amy said while going along with his plan. Balancing Steve on her upturned palm, she gently lowered herself to the floor of the tub, feeling more than a little self-conscious as she scissored open her legs and displayed her pussy in full. The hot water from the shower continued to rain down on their naked bodies.

“Now put me down,” Steve told her. Amy placed him gently on the floor of the tub between her open thighs. Steve immediately began heading on a beeline toward her vagina. Amy’s cheeks flushed as she covered herself with her hands.

“Wait, babe…I’m not 100% on this,” she said quietly.

“Why?” Steve asked with genuine confusion.

“Because you’re tiny and it’s gonna be like…big and gross. It’s been a few weeks since I waxed. I probably have hairs longer than you and like…I’ll bet the uh, ahem, scent is seriously potent at your size,” she said with the hesitance clear in her tone.

“Ames, I’ve practically had my nose up your butthole before,” Steve said while Amy felt her already blushing face grow a shade redder at the thought. She knew he was into that kind of stuff, but it didn’t exactly make her feel…ladylike. “I’ve buried my face between these legs more times than I can count. Ain’t nothing I’m gonna see, smell or taste that I haven’t reveled in before,” Steve said with utmost confidence. “Besides, you literally JUST washed it, and you know I prefer it when you’re dirty anyway. How bad could it be?”

Amy did still feel a lingering sense of arousal, and he was right that, up to this point, she’d mostly just been teased while he got off repeatedly. “Yes, and you’re truly disgusting for enjoying that,” she said flatly. Steve continued to stare at her, awaiting authorization to proceed.

“Okay, I guess, but….I’m gonna close my eyes and, please, just don’t SAY anything about it,” she pleaded.

“That’s the spirit!” Steve shouted back enthusiastically. With that, Amy removed her hands from her privates and rested them on her thighs, tilting her head back and allowing the hot water to flow over her face.

For a few seconds, she didn’t feel anything, to the point where she considered cracking an eye to see what he was up to. But then she felt it…barely. His tiny hands running up the inside of her thigh as he slowly approached the holy grail. Much like when he touched her nipple, it was slightly ticklish but also titillating. And that was before he touched her pussy directly. He applied more pressure with his palms as he ran appreciative hands up and down the exterior of her labia, the noticeable touch scintillating and alluring.

From all their exploits together, Steve knew how to push Amy’s buttons the same way she did his. While he gently teased her by stroking the outside of her pussy lips, he did eventually make his way to her clit. She felt a brief tugging sensation as he must have grabbed a hold of pubic hair to hoist himself upward, massaging her clit with both hands. The sensation was electrifying, like the naughtiest possible kind of vibrator.

Amy wasn’t one to make a ton of noise during sex, usually feeling self-conscious and animalistic whenever they got down to business unless she was drunk. But she couldn’t suppress the moan that slipped out when she felt his touch stimulating her. She found herself biting her lower lip as she moved her hands up to her breasts and began massaging them simultaneously.

Suddenly, she found that she CRAVED having something inside her. Steve always knew how to find her g-spot with pinpoint accuracy, sticking his pointer and middle fingers inside her while doing a “come hither” hook motion against the roof of her insides. The sensations coming from her clit right now felt almost like an unfulfilled promise. She needed the satisfaction.

She carefully maneuvered her right hand away from her breast and around Steve’s body so as not to smush him against her pussy, sticking her fingers inside of herself and simulating the hook motion he was so adept at performing. With her petite hands and small fingers, and with the weird angle around his body, however, she found she couldn’t fully reach the spot. And it was driving her mad.

Steve knew what she was trying to do and felt bad that he could no longer do it himself…until the seeds of an idea planted in his head. “Ames…let me take over,” he stated.

She cracked one eye and looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Here, take your fingers out and put them under me,” Steve said. Amy followed his instructions, Steve hopping down from her clit onto the tips of her fingers.

“Okay, now try it again,” he told her.

This time Amy opened both eyes before narrowing them and glancing at him. “What? No.”

“Why not?” Steve asked.

“Because number one: it’s dangerous. Number two: I just feel…weird and gross about having your whole body…you know…” she trailed off.

Steve smirked up at her. “Do you wanna get off or not? Just go with it, Ames.”

She was already in peak arousal, and the hormones suffused her judgment at that point. “Okay…but let the record reflect that I wasn’t totally on board with this idea.”

“Hahaha…’let the record reflect.’ You know any lawyers?” Steve quipped.

“Har har, are we doing this or not?” Amy asked in anticipatory frustration.

“Oh, we’re fucking DOING this alright.” With Steve dangling on the tips of her pointer and middle fingers, Amy slowly began to stick them both inside her. Not far, just enough for Steve to reach her g-spot. And she felt it immediately. Holy fuck…fuck….fuck this is fucking hot, Amy thought to herself as she felt her husband’s tiny hands and feet going to town on her g-spot like a rock climber scaling a mountain. Steve was on his back, flailing and kicking his arms and legs in the air like a toddler. Dimly, Amy recalled the famous story about Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel on his back. This was the precise opposite of good Christian behavior, however.

She began to make circular motions on her clit with her thumb, pressing down and flitting back and forth like Steve’s tongue used to. She felt her body flooding with the hormones and warmth that precipitated an imminent orgasm, her insides pulsing and quivering. She applied more pressure with her thumb, rapidly approaching climax. She heard herself repeating, “yeah…yeah…oh fuck…fuck,” briefly feeling embarrassed at the outpouring of emotion but being too caught up in the moment to really care.

It was the flurry of frantic movement against her g-spot that pushed her over the edge. She squeezed her thighs together, her toes curling and a slight yelp coming out of her mouth, not realizing that while she had been applying more pressure with her thumb outside, she was doing the same with her fingers inside her. Steve was getting buried in vaginal flesh as she came forcefully, bunching her knees upward and leaning forward almost into a fetal position. She bathed in the afterglow of her orgasm for a few moments before reality set in. Oh shit!!! Steve wasn’t moving anymore. She quickly pulled her fingers out to inspect them, immediately wondering how she was going to administer CPR at his size, a replay of the Couch Incident going through her head and exacerbating her fears.

What she saw was a frazzled, red, wet Steve, his hair a matted mess, his dick standing at full attention yet again, an immensely satisfied and knowing grin on his face. He just got her off harder than possibly ever before, and the little bastard knew it. She experienced a brief moment of confusion as he quickly hopped down off her fingers to the floor of the tub, before backing up a few inches and taking off at a sprint toward her genitals. She thought he was about to leap ALL the way into her vagina, and so she was completely surprised at the next sensation she felt. She let out a shocked, little squeak as she felt her husband’s miniscule form slip under her pussy and between her buttcheeks, now slightly opened from having brought her knees up and leaning forward. If her face wasn’t red before, it must’ve looked like a beet now as she felt him slip into her butt and start fiddling around near her anus. She practically jumped out of the tub in surprise.

----------------------------------

Yes, Amy was pressing him hard. And yes, the friction was a little uncomfortable. But boy was Steve ever in heaven. Much like his brief journey into her mouth, Steve made sure to take in every little detail on his way inside Amy. Her two fingers were already a little sticky with vaginal discharge, and as he was brought closer to her labia, he was breathing deeply to take in the scent. He was half-tempted to lick her fingers, but he knew he’d be getting a much closer and personal experience than that. And did he ever.

He remembered glancing upward as she brought him to the entrance to her vagina, seeing her clit partially protruding and her smooth, toned belly rising above her pelvis, her tits on full display and her head arched backward enjoying the moment. And he took in every detail around him. The change in skin color, the little wrinkles, the faint, wispy pubic hairs that encircled the area. And then he was in front of the entrance. It didn’t exactly look “open” to him, contrary to some porn depictions of a gaping vagina. He knew he’d be squeezing in a little bit, and he loved the idea of it.

And just like that, he left planet Earth behind and entered Amy’s World for the second time since they had gotten in the shower. An abrupt absence of light, and then the slick, silky walls pulsating gently around him as her fingers dexterously guided him further inward, her heartbeat barely detectable and even then, only because of him literally being inside her. It wasn’t something he would have ever noticed with his fingers. The scent and taste of Amy all around him, her juices clumping his hair together, the faintly sweet saltiness as he licked his lips. He had tasted her countless times before, but at this scale, Amy became his entire world. There wasn’t an up or a down, a left or a right, a higher or lower, it was just…Amy’s pussy, everywhere, surrounding and enveloping him. And the heat. Of course you would expect her insides to be warm, but in her current state of arousal, her pussy was like a miniature (or, at his size, a massive) furnace.

He felt his dick twitching to life once again, shocking himself with his own virility. He had thought that, as his age, his days of marathon sex sessions were long over. But nothing could have prepared him for how much hotter everything was at his size. I could get lost in here, and that’s amazing. I could probably squirm all the way to the cervix and there’d be no way of getting me out. He knew that plan was totally infeasible. He needed to breathe, after all, and he knew Amy would never forgive herself if her husband died inside her.

Speaking of which…Steve wasn’t sure what he was expecting, exactly, but he had assumed there would at least be SOME airflow being so close to the entrance of her pussy. But the walls closed around him and Amy’s fingers, abruptly robbing him of vital oxygen. He took an enormous inhale in the little pocket he had left, before that too slipped upward and outward. He figured he maybe had a minute, tops, before he would need to breathe. We probably should’ve talked about this in advance. There I go, thinking with my dick again. He hoped Amy would sense his struggles when the time came and know to take him out, especially after the Couch Incident.

And yet, as her two fingers hooked upward and began to mash Steve’s one-inch body into her g-spot, pressing the air out of his lungs and smushing his face against her velvety interior, the juices almost flowing up his nostrils, he found he wasn’t asphyxiating. He had thought there was just sufficient airflow in Amy’s sneaker when he hadn’t died under her foot, but maybe there was more to it than that. The enhanced durability, the lessened need to breathe, this shrinking thing has its perks. He was certain there was some scientific rationale behind it, but he wasn’t going to trouble himself with the details. For now, it made everything awesome. I could probably hold on long enough to jerk off on the wrong side of her butthole, he thought. He mentally chastised himself, both for the shamefully gross (but equally hot) idea, and for the embarrassment Amy would feel if he even HINTED at something like that. She’s so put together, so cute, so demure…she should get a little dirty now and then. It’s probably good for her. Amy’s pride in her hygiene made it inexplicably sexier when he thought about her bodily functions and secretions. Like with the Couch Incident, that kind of stuff being generally taboo for women made it so much hotter to him. The sweat on her feet, the occasional whiff of armpit B.O. he would catch when he’d hug her after she returned from the gym, her morning breath, the vague staleness in her panties after she slept in them, her private time on the toilet….

Jeez, maybe I AM gross. Okay, enough. Let’s be in the moment here. Amy was certainly in the moment. He could feel the walls clenching around him, could vaguely hear what sounded like a moan, and he went to town on the spot above him. Steve extended both legs and arms, digging his fingers and toes into the g-spot and moving all four limbs with as much speed and ferocity as he could muster. The response was gratifying, as he felt Amy’s flesh quivering around him, seizing and shaking him in equal part as he was further bathed in vaginal fluid.

It was going great, until Amy got perhaps a little TOO into it. Suddenly, she started pressing down with her fingers and moving them along with his body. She may not have been able to fully reach the g-spot in a truly satisfying way, but she had enough reach to mash Steve into the roof of her vagina. Bringing to mind his experience in her mouth just moments earlier, and his experience in her shoe earlier in the day (which feels like a lifetime ago), he was mercilessly rolled back and forth, almost like his wife was using him as a paint roller for her insides. And now the lack of oxygen started to matter a whole lot more. While he could hold his breath longer than was possible at his full size, his enhanced capacity had its limits, and it was reaching those limits even before Amy squished the remaining air out of him and exacted a tremendous physical toll on his body.

And she showed no signs of stopping. She was only speeding up, clearly approaching orgasm and bulldozing on ahead like a freight train. He started gasping for air, instead sucking in flesh and pussy juice, the viscous fluid coating the inside of his mouth and jetting down his throat, causing him to cough…which made the oxygen deprivation even worse. He felt like his one chance at this point was to do whatever he could to help the process along, and he started violently flailing his limbs once more, even licking when his head made contact with her flesh, knowing his tongue was too small to really make a difference. But he ran out of energy rather quickly, and he could feel his limbs slowing….slowing…

And then he was completely gassed, but Amy kept going harder and faster. Just when he was about to lose consciousness, he could vaguely make out what sounded like vocalizations from Amy, something he knew was exceedingly rare during sex for her. And in that moment, he felt like a man again, a grin spreading across his face even as the world was fading out around him. Suddenly, all of the slick, hot flesh that had been quivering and shuddering around him clenched into an extended vice grip that must have lasted over 10 seconds. There was a brief pause as his vision was starting to fade, before the fingers below him speedily dragged him out.

The shock of the comparatively cool shower water and bright lights immediately brought him back to full consciousness, and Steve noticed that at some point, he had gotten hard again. Maybe asphyxiation does it for me even more at my new size. He looked upward at Amy’s flushed face, her wet breasts heaving inward and outward rapidly with her accelerated heartrate. His grin grew wider. He knew that look. She just came HARD. He imagined he had a similar look on his face.

He glanced around and saw Amy’s knees were now drawn up, likely clenched inward with her orgasm, and her torso was leaning forward. And he could make out the faintest little shadow under her vagina, where there was the tiniest of gaps between her buttcheeks. He was thoroughly lubed up, and before the shower washed it off him (and while he still had the element of surprise), he seized his moment. He was way too horny after what had just happened to pass this up.

Steve nimbly hopped off Amy’s fingers down onto the bottom of the tub and took off at a full sprint toward the little gap of darkness below her vagina. He knew he must have timed it right, because Amy made no move to stop him. She was probably still coming down from her orgasmic high, paying half attention to his actions.

Like an Olympic diver, Steve put both hands in front of him, his arms making a “V” formation, as he dove forward into the little dark space between Amy’s lower crack. And boy, did he ever hit his mark. His body slipped easily between the wet flesh, especially with her juices still lubricating him, and he felt the sensation of flesh above him change from a pillow, jiggly softness to almost a hard, creased rubber. He knew he didn’t have long (unless she randomly decides to indulge me…ZERO chance of that) with Amy’s sensitivity about that area in general, a self-consciousness that was no doubt magnified a hundredfold by her current size. If she was worried about pussy odor, there was no chance in hell she was letting him anywhere near her anus anytime soon.

So, he took full advantage of the brief moment he had. Amy’s puckered little star was clean, having just showered, so he immediately dug his fingers into the crevices that formed the wrinkles around the entrance to her backdoor. His fingers slid along the little divots, tracing a line directly to the center, where he heaved himself up to get in a quick lick. He heard the alarmed squeak Amy let out, immediately followed by a sense of weightless vertigo as he felt the cheeks collapse around him while he was lifted upward. He felt two fingers pinch his abdomen rather forcefully, plucking him out of his position.

And then he was yanked skyward, staring now at Amy’s even redder face, anger written plain across it.

----------------------------------

THIS FUCKING PERVERT!! Amy thought angrily as she dug her fingers into her butt, extracting her overexuberant husband.

She brought him up before her, looking him dead in the eyes. “You have GOT to be shitting me!!” she practically yelled at him.

Steve offered a sheepish grin in response, clearly not all that bothered by what he’d done. “Actually, I was kinda hoping it would be YOU shitting ME,” he offered jokingly.

“EW!! Just….ew again!! Steve, I can’t keep an eye on you 24/7, and I have to know that you understand that no means NO. If you’re going to pull a stunt like that, how do I know I’m not gonna smash you one night while you’re climbing all over me and I roll over in my sleep?”

And then she caught the telltale sign of Steve caught with his hand in the cookie jar: he looked away, refusing to make eye contact, suddenly finding the ground to be very interesting.

“Oh my God….you’ve already done that, haven’t you?”

“Just a little!” he responded defensively. “I was…really excited and you were out like a light, so I figured I’d do a little…you know…exploring,” he said, still not making eye contact.

“Steve, look at me,” she commanded. He still wouldn’t make eye contact. “LOOK at me!!” He finally glanced up. “That’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s not charming. It’s both scary and violative. In fact, it’s more than a little…rapey. Setting aside for a moment that you could be killed, I never said yes. That’s objectively fucked up.”

That last point she made landed, as she saw the understanding and contrition dawning on his face. “You’re right Ames, I’m sorry. Really. I won’t do it again.”

She cooled down a little at the look on his face, but she had one more point to make. “Good. And also, it’s just…gross, Steve. Like, I know I’ve said that a lot, including a bunch of times today alone. But you KNOW I’m not really into the whole…butt stuff thing. I do it because you’re into it and I want you to be satisfied. But to be clear, my preference would be if you were never anywhere NEAR that area. You know what that’s used for, right?” she asked sarcastically.

“I thought you said girls don’t poo?” Steve asked jokingly.

“We don’t. We ABSOLUTELY don’t. We don’t fart either. Ever. But still. Exit ONLY. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Steve answered. She was inclined to trust him as he was looking her in the eyes still, the apology evident on his face.

“Okay, good. This was…scary. Scary, but fun.”

“I know right?!” he responded enthusiastically. “10 out of 10. Would recommend.”

This man is a total boob. “Would recommend? What does that even mean? To who? All of my other one-inch husbands?”

“It’s just a thing the kids say,” he said looking a little embarrassed.

“Oh my God, you are nowhere near old enough to start talking about ‘what the kids say.’ Retiring really did a number on you, huh grandpa?” Amy said with a wry grin.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Let’s get out. My whole body looks like a prune.”

“First thing you’ve said that makes a lick of sense today,” she paused, unable to resist landing one last jab after seeing he was still erect. “You know, prunes are delicious…”

-------------------------------------

Amy wrapped her hair up in a towel after helping Steve dry off. The process was quite simple, actually. She just pinched him between her thumb and forefinger with the towel and rubbed her fingers together, finishing it off with a quick rub on his head like he was a child getting his hair ruffled. Amy slipped into her underwear and threw on one of Steve’s oversized t-shirts, practically a dress on her. And then she glanced at Steve sitting next to the sink, naked as the day he was born and clearly loving it. I’m the younger of the two of us and sometimes it feels like I’m a cougar.

“We have to do something about…that,” Amy said while gesturing vaguely in Steve’s direction.

“Do something about what?” Steve asked innocently. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“Your junk flapping in the breeze, hun. It’s gross. And the only thing grosser than that would be you putting those grimy boxers back on.”

“Oh. Well, I’m actually enjoying the freedom, so no rush as long as we keep the heat on,” Steve said.

“No, we need like an actual solution to this. I’m not going to be able to handle you by myself the whole time. Eventually, we have to bring in some help and, well, we can’t have you scaring them off with your unabashed nudity.”

“One would think that people would appreciate this depiction of peak male performance,” Steve said while gesturing at his body.

“Glad to see your ego’s the only thing that didn’t shrink with you. But no, you’re not spending the next few weeks, or months, or however long this takes to sort out, buck-ass naked,” Amy responded in a tone that brooked no further argument. “Where’s your toolbox again?”

“In the garage. Why?” Steve asked.

 “Stay put, I have an idea,” Amy said while sliding her feet into her house slippers, exiting the bathroom. Shortly thereafter, she returned with an odd combination: his boxcutter, and a few pairs of her socks.

Steve’s mind began to the connect the dots. “Wait, why your socks? Why not one of my shirts?”

“Steve, when’s the last time you washed those shirts?” Amy asked matter-of-factly with a pointed, raised eyebrow.

“What month is it again?” Steve asked.

“Exactly. And I’m not cutting up my shirts or pants. That stuff’s expensive. Socks are a dime a dozen. And at least I know they’re clean,” Amy responded while unrolling her sky-blue socks with the depiction of rubber duckies on them.

“Why the ducky socks? I’m going to look ridiculous!!” Steve protested.

“Oh no,” she said in a half-hearted mocking tone. “You’re right…well, too late, already started cutting.” You do something stupid like get yourself shrunk, you play the cards you’re dealt dummy. Amy turned her back to hide her grin at exacting her petty revenge.

A few quick slices, and she was done. She presented Steve with a tiny pair of underwear, which consisted of a fraction of fabric with two holes cut in it for legs. The remaining ensemble resembled a poncho, just a larger piece of fabric with holes cut out for his head and his arms.

Amy slid them across the counter, this time unable to hide the smirk. “Well, get dressed.”

Steve gave her a pointed glare that he hoped conveyed exactly how he felt about Amy’s choice in wardrobe, hopping into the ducky underwear and sliding the “shirt” over his head.

“I look ridiculous,” he said exasperatedly.

“Babe, you’re an inch tall. You would look ridiculous if you were wearing a tux.”

“Whatever, we’re washing my boxers ASAP.” he responded in an annoyed tone, but deciding to drop the issue for now. “What did you mean by you need help?”

“Well, if I’m being honest, the first night I almost crushed you. Then I almost did it again after getting back from my run. Then I smacked you around in the shower by accident,” Amy reminded him.

“Yeah, but nobody else lives here. Who’s gonna step on me while you’re away?”

“Hold on hotshot, I’m not done yet. You also confessed to crawling around on me while I slept doing God knows what,” Amy continued. Steve opened his mouth to interject something in his defense, but Amy held up her hand to cut him off.

“The point is: I don’t trust myself not to hurt you, and I certainly don’t trust YOU not to do something stupid. Also, you know how variable my work is at the firm. If I get held up drafting a motion until midnight, who’s gonna feed you?”

“Just leave a piece of bread on the table and I’ll nibble at it if I get hungry!” Steve protested.

“Uh huh. Sure. Because we both know that you’re going to stay put on the table, with nothing to entertain you but bread going slowly stale, for 12 hours,” Amy responded flatly.

“I thought you said I could come with you to work!” Steve argued. “Remember the whole pill bottle idea?”

“And you will. Just…not yet. If I’ve learned anything over the past day, it’s that you have an unbelievable knack for getting yourself
into trouble. Plus, you know how Allie is. I love her to death, but that girl is an open book. What if she sees you and starts blabbing? People are going to ask questions about how this happened, and it’s really not hard to connect the dots. The last thing we need is legal trouble on top of all this, even though I’m sure that’s still in our future,” Amy reasoned with a hint of anger.

“Allie’s your best friend. We’re gonna have to tell her SOMETHING…” Steve pointed out.

“We will. Just…under more controlled circumstances. Like, invite her over to dinner, make sure she understands the implications, break the news nice and slow. She catches a glimpse of you in the office though, and the whole building will know about it by 5PM. She can’t help herself sometimes.”

“Well if not Allie, who? How about John?” Steve suggested.

“Your ethics and professional responsibility-obsessed law firm partner who currently resents you for leaving him in the lurch when you retired and would almost certainly report you to the state bar for snagging MicroMD tech? THAT John?”

“Fair point,” Steve conceded.

“Don’t you have any other friends?” Amy asked.

“Ames, I’m a lawyer. Well, retired lawyer. There’s not exactly a ton of opportunity for expanding your social circle with how busy you generally are. And, well, since retirement, I really don’t see anybody anymore, except you…”

Amy briefly glanced up at the ceiling, clearly weighing options silently in her head. But then the lightbulb turned on as she made eye contact again. “What about Emma?”

“EMMA? Emma Cooke? The 18-year-old high school senior? THAT Emma? You’re gonna have a teenager babysit a middle-aged man?” Steve asked incredulously.

“Why not? She’s a good kid. Sensible. Got a good head on her shoulders, tries to do the right thing. Plus, you know, she likes you…” Amy trailed off 

“You are NOT seriously suggesting weaponizing a kid’s crush on an older man for free daycare of said older man, are you?” Steve asked while flushing with embarrassment. “You’d sooner entrust a kid with my survival than trust me to stay out of trouble?”

Amy’s gaze narrowed as she gave him a flat look. “Yes. Unequivocally yes.”

“But like, aren’t you worried about, you know…stuff happening?” Steve hinted.

“Absolutely not! Emma’s too nice to try to take advantage of you, especially as you are now. And if you try to take advantage of her, well, good fucking luck surviving on your own. I’m putting you out on the sidewalk and letting God sort it out from there if you cheat on me with a kid less than half your age. That would be a Hall of Fame sleezeball moment.”

Steve could tell she was actually serious. And he recognized that Amy had recently had her whole world flipped from wife to full-time caretaker of a problematic, constant risk. The least he could do would be to keep it in his pants with how much work Amy had ahead.

“Come on, you like hanging out with her…” Amy coaxed.

“Eh, fuck it. Alright, call her,” Steve relented. Amy picked him up off the sink and carried him into their bedroom, grabbing her phone off the charger.

-------------------------------------

The doorbell rang.

“Alright, I’m gonna keep you out of sight until I have a chance to explain it all to her, got it?” Amy asked as she walked toward the door.

“Got it,” Steve responded giving her a mock salute.

Amy closed her fist around Steve’s small form, straightening herself up a bit before she opened the door.

“Hi Mrs. C!” Steve heard a chipper yet oddly mature voice blurt out. Emma had all the boundless energy unique to the uninitiated young, but as she had aged, her voice had deepened a few registers giving it a resonant quality. Musically gifted, Emma had explored a wide array of instruments over her years in school, eventually settling on the saxophone. If she wasn’t the soloist on sax in the jazz band, then she was the vocal soloist in choir. Her range and impressive command gave her a slick, almost seductive and sultry voice that belied her age. Emma was equally at home belting out cheerful pop covers as she was with soulful arias.

Of course, her own, personal musical tastes skewed toward much darker fare. On her way to school with the windows down in the morning, Steve would hear death metal, prog rock and emo/goth music in equal measure blasting from Emma’s car. Steve much preferred the classics himself. He recalled one of Jackie’s backyard barbecues where Emma had gotten bored and wanted to show him her new record player. The aesthetic of her bedroom felt only a few neon lights removed from a nightclub, the kind of décor you would expect to find at a metal bar where the only signage on the street was a red light over a black door. Steve didn’t know why companies continued to make records for modern music when you could stream anything, anywhere, at any time, but he was relatively certain vinyl was never intended to play whatever the hell “Angel of Death” by Slayer was supposed to be. He just grinned and went along at the time. Told her he enjoyed it rather than upset the kid. Meanwhile, “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen was about the limit of what he could tolerate. What’s wrong with A Hard Day’s Night?

“Emma, for the last time, call me Amy. You’re an adult now,” he heard his wife reply from his position in her balled fist.

Ah yes, good. She’ll like that. Butter her up a bit. Good move Ames.

“I dunno, it still feels weird,” he heard Emma reply as the front door shut behind her.

“Well then I’m asking you to stop doing it as a favor to me. I’m closer to your age than I am to Steve’s. Stop making me feel old,” Amy joked.

“Fair enough, Mrs….Amy,” Emma responded.

“Anyway, come sit down. I have some…uh…news to share, and a favor to ask,” Amy said as Steve felt her crossing the room.

“Ooohhhh…that sounds ominous. I like it!” he heard Emma say with an uncomfortable laugh 

He felt a lurch in his stomach from the shift in gravity as Amy must have sat down on their living room couch.

“Hi Em…” he began to blurt out before Amy’s fist squeezed him in a clear warning to shut his mouth.

“Did you hear something just now?” Emma asked.

“Uhhh….yeah, we’ll get to that,” Amy answered.

“Ah. The mystery and suspense are killing me!” Emma laughed again.

“So, you know that whole…MicroMD thing that’s been all over the news the past few years?” he heard Amy question by way of introduction.

“That insane company that killed a whole bunch of people that Mr. C kicked the shit…um…hell out of in court?” Emma responded.

“Emma, again, you’re an adult. You can curse in front of me. I’m not your mom, I truly, truly do not give a flying fuck,” Amy said chuckling.

“Oh, okay. Mom hates that stuff. Says I’ll go to hell if I keep swearing. Honestly though, heaven sounds boring,” Emma said. Steve could hear the wry grin in her voice.

“Well, you SHOULD listen to your mom. Most of the time. But you gotta let loose every now and then, you know?” Amy said with a smile. He heard Emma let out a soft laugh.

Okay, continuing to work her over. Nice work again Ames. This is why I always had you prep my deposition notebooks.

“Anyway, yes. THAT company. So, uh….well…MicroMD had um…some tech. Tech that, uh, they didn’t really…I mean that people didn’t…,” Amy trailed off.

Sheesh, I take it back. Nice fumble. “They were working on something privately that Steve only knew about from discovery in the MicroMD case.”

“Okay…” Emma responded, her voice inviting Amy to continue.

“Well, one way or another, Steve um…ended up with that tech,” Amy continued

“What do you mean ‘one way or another’?” Emma asked, confused but curious.

“The, uh, the details aren’t important. The reason why I asked you over here is that…well…Steve had a bit of an accident involving that new tech,” Amy explained.

“WHAT??!! Is Mr. C okay? He didn’t get smashed under one of the nanobots, did he?” Emma asked with clear concern. Close, kid. But not by a nanobot. Try Amy’s size 6.5 foot.

“Uh, no. No. He’s okay. Sort of. Emma, I want to be very clear about something. I really don’t know what the future is going to hold legally for us and, well, you’re 18 years old. You don’t need to be caught up in the shitstorm. You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you, and you don’t need to start it off with this level of drama. So, I’m offering you a choice. Steve and I could use your help, desperately. But, you can say no. If you walk out that front door right now, there are absolutely ZERO hard feelings, I appreciate you coming over, and I look forward to seeing you again. No harm, no foul. But once I fill you in on what happened, that’s it. There is no going back. You’re now privy to a life-altering secret, and we’re going to ask you to carry that secret to your grave, as unfair as that sounds. And I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea what it could mean for you down the road. I truly, truly want you to understand that if you leave right now, we won’t give it a second thought. But if you stick around, well, we’d certainly appreciate it.”

“It’s okay…er…Amy, I want to help,” Emma responded softly.

“You’re super nice Emma, and I know you always want to help people and do the right thing. So, I have to ask: are you absolutely, 100% SURE you’re okay with this? And we let you in on what’s happening, you have to promise me and Steve that you will never tell a single, solitary soul about it. Not your mom, not your friends, not your teachers, not God, not even your cat. Nobody,” Amy stated quietly but firmly.

“….I understand. And I still want to help. If it’s so big of a deal that you asked me over here and had to give that serious of a disclaimer, it only makes me more motivated to help in whatever way I can. Whatever it is, I understand that it’s serious. You have my word I will not share anything about this with anyone else, EVER, unless you tell me to,” Emma answered sincerely.

“Okay. And, thank you, sincerely, Emma.” Steve felt Amy’s hand rotate so that the palm was upward, levitating slightly to hold him out in front of her body. And then she uncurled her fingers.

Emma squinted for a second at Amy’s palm, and then gasped. Her face and her skin were ordinarily quite pale, to the point where Steve
wondered whether it was some kind of makeup. But this time, she positively blanched. She held her hands to her mouth as she took a sharp inhale. Then, visibly mastering herself and her emotions, she closed her eyes and rested her hands on her thighs, breathing deeply once to steady herself and then turning her gaze on Steve.

“Is that…him? Mr. C, is that you?” Emma asked quietly.

“Hi Emma! Yes, it’s me. In the flesh and in my favorite ducky sock poncho!” Steve exclaimed while waving his arms over his head. That solicited a faint smile from Emma, breaking the tension a bit.

And that smile made him deeply uncomfortable. It had been a few months since he’d last seen Emma, having become a drunk shut-in after his
retirement. In fact, it had been a few months since he’d seen anyone other than Amy. And at Emma’s age, those few months made a TON of difference. He used to
think she was a cute kid, her round face and dimpled cheeks giving her a cherubic mien that was directly at odds with her gothic aesthetic. But whatever fat her cheeks and abdomen lost when she grew an inch or two seemed to have been deposited directly into her chest.

Jesus….are those things fucking double Ds??! Amy’s decision to sit on the couch for this little presentation, and to hold him out in front of her, put Steve at an enormously unfortunate vantage point. He was directly even with Emma’s breasts, seeing the cleavage practically spilling out of her soft, black sweater that had to be several sizes too large for her. The stretched, drooping neckline and baggy sleeves made plain that this was an outfit she wore for comfort, but that only made it more enticing. He questioned whether she was even wearing a bra under there, her chest bouncing and jiggling enticingly with her slightest movements. He could tell without touching her that her skin had that taut, springy feel to it that was unique to people under 25 years old.

He had always found the whole goth getup kind of goofy. He thought the studded choke collar coupled with the ringed nose piercing made Emma look more like a cartoonish bull than anything else. He had found the fake, checkerboard fingernails garish, and thought that the dark purple lipstick and black eyeshadow only accentuated Emma’s natural paleness, giving her a corpse-like appearance that could have passed for a Halloween vampire costume.

But Emma had inherited the best of Jackie’s traits, having grown into a woman with a breathtaking frame that bordered on unrealistic. The kind of thing teenage boys would draw as idealistic anime characters. He remembered a show that used to be on at night when he was in law school, Cowboy Bebop or something like that, and Emma’s ridiculous proportions brought to mind the embodiment of male fantasy that was the main female character in that show. What was her name again? Faye, maybe?

Her adult body, coupled with the dark, haunting makeup and accessories, cultivated an uncomfortable level of arousal. What he used to write off as a kid’s Halloween costume now seemed a riding crop, ball gag, handcuffs and stilettos removed from a dominatrix. His mind went to sinfully dirty places, picturing Emma squeezing all that flesh into a tightly-bound corset, the soft, milky lengths of her legs enwrapped in fishnet stockings covered by short leather skirt, her feet bound up in glistening heels…

Okay, okay. Getting to be a bit much, Steve thought to himself as he tried to look anywhere but at Emma’s chest, which was unfortunately mere inches away and directly at eye level. He could faintly smell her perfume. God, I could dive in there and get lost for days. I’ll bet you she spritzes that perfume right between her tits, and jumping in thatsweater would cover me in her aroma and surround me with boobs…

Okay for REAL now. ENOUGH. Steve coughed into his hand, aware he was probably blushing. And as he bashfully turned his eyes up to make contact with Emma’s, he saw what he could swear was a knowing smirk written plain on her face. Oh shit…did she catch me gawking??! While I’m literally standing in the palm of my wife’s hand?

“Ahem, uh, yeah. Hi. Again. So, um, we could use your help…” Steve began before Amy cut him off.

“Since my darling husband seems to have spontaneously lost his ability to form coherent thoughts, what he’s trying to say is this: he needs a babysitter,” Amy said with a bemused look at Steve, clearly wondering why his brain was going haywire all of a sudden.

“And you want…me? To babysit him?” Emma asked with genuine confusion. “What about your friend? What’s her name…Allison?” Emma inquired.

“As crazy as it sounds, Allie can’t really be…trusted. Not yet. We’re seriously going to have to ease her into this and make her swear a blood oath of secrecy,” Amy responded.

“I can handle it, Mrs. C. No problem! What do you need me to do?” Emma asked enthusiastically.

“Again, call me Amy. And if you could just swing by for a few hours after school and, I don’t know, entertain this man-child and get some food in him or something, it would be tremendously appreciated. When do you get out usually?”

“I’m usually home by 3:30ish. I can totally just pop over!” Emma offered.

“Okay, great! I called out today, and I’m sure there’s an absolute MOUNTAIN waiting for me in the office. I was kind of planning on heading in for a bit tomorrow. Is that…too soon?” Amy asked.

“No, no! Not at all! I’ll be by around 3:45 or so,” Emma said cheerfully.

Amy visibly exhaled in relief. “Phew, okay. Thank you so much, again. The door code is 31945.”

“Got it!” Emma answered while standing up. He couldn’t help but look up as Emma straightened out her oversized sweater. I can barely see her face. Those things could block out the sun.

Emma began to make her way to the door before Amy called out to her. “Oh, Emma?”

“Yes Amy?” Emma answered with a grin at the novelty of using Amy’s first name.

“Thank you. For real. Thank you. You are, quite literally, a lifesaver,” Amy said sincerely.

“It’s my pleasure. You guys are cool, and you’ve always been nice to me. It’s the least I could do. And don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me!” Emma winked as she pantomimed zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key before opening the door.

“See you tomorroooowwwww,” Emma called over her shoulder ina sing-song voice, winking as she walked through the door and closed it behind
her. Steve could swear she had been looking directly at him when she winked.

-------------------------------------

“Alright, I’m off. Emma will be by around 3:45. I cleaned your tiny boxers for you, they’re on the nightstand drying. I also laid out another…ahem…outfit for you. TV’s on, set to ESPN.” Amy was announcing all of this from the bathroom, brushing her hair.

They had a relatively normal sleep for the first time. As usual, Amy was up before him. It was her moving around the bedroom as she got ready that woke him up. Steve yawned as he wiped his eyes and glanced over at the nightstand.

This time his outfit was pink, with little yellow daisies. He sighed as he rolled his eyes. “Ames…I’m starting to think your wardrobe choices are intentional!!” he hollered out.

“Beggars can’t be choosers hun!!” Amy called back sweetly.

He also saw a small Tupperware container with a foamy fluid inside, a stretch of fabric laid out next to it.

“What’s with the science experiment?” he called out.

Amy walked into the bedroom, affixing her earrings while kicking her feet into her flats. “What are you talking about?”

“The Tupperware. What is it?”

“Oh. I took the liberty of drawing you a bath. And you’re going to get in it before I leave or I’m going to put you in it. I know what your hygiene is like nowadays and I will NOT have Emma thinking I allow my husband to wallow in filth.”

Steve grumbled to himself as he hopped from the bed over to the nightstand, his pride bristling at being ordered around by the girl that used to be a foot shorter than him. Getting closer, he saw that the strip of cloth was a cut out piece of towel, realizing that Amy must have made it for him. This is actually kinda thoughtful, he thought as he climbed over the edge and into the soapy water. The temperature was perfect. He sat down in the water and began to scrub himself clean.

Amy walked over to him and smiled, seeing him use the ad hoc tub. “Alright, see you later babe.” She bent over and planted a peck on his head, her lips practically wrapping around it.

“Great, now I have lipstick in my hair,” Steve said jokingly, giving his wife a broad smile.

“Wahhhhh, you big baby. Love you too! Oh, and…behave yourself around Emma,” she warned.

“What do you mean?” He knew exactly what she meant.

“You know. No funny business. And don’t share anything with her that she doesn’t need to know. God, I feel like I’m talking to a child,” Amy said with playful grin.

“On my honor as a one-inch man, no funny business!” Steve promised.

“Alright, be good. See you later!” With that, Amy walked out of the bedroom. Shortly after, he heard the front door shutting, the automatic lock whirring after.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do until 3:45?” Steve sighed as he climbed out of his bath, drying himself off with the towel and donning his truly ridiculous “clothing.”

He climbed back over into bed, scaling his pillow to sink back into it as he stared at the TV. He was mildly interested in the Sportscenter recap going on, but Amy was way too early a riser for him. He found himself dozing off within minutes.

By the time his eyes opened again, the sun was no longer coming through the window. He rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. Amy insisted that his smartphone could easily replace that function, that the clock itself bordered on being an antique, and was an eyesore to boot. But, call him old fashioned if you will. Nothing gets you out of bed faster than that klaxon nuclear meltdown ear-ache alarm that smartphones were nowhere near capable of imitating.

He blinked at the blurry image, squinting to confirm what he was seeing. 2:00??!!! Amy usually left the house around 7AM for work. I’ve been asleep for another 7 hours??!! It wasn’t lost on him that 7 hours was what many people would consider a normal sleep…overnight. He’d had two bedtimes, back-to-back. Chalk it up to the stress, I guess. It’s been a weird few days.

Well…fuck. Still got basically two hours to kill. He decided to test out his ability to interact with technology at his size, beginning with his smartphone, which remained on the nightstand from the day he had shrunk. He hopped over to the nightstand, the water in the Tupperware long since cold. He poked the screen of his phone, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Probably doesn’t even register my touch.

So, he tried jumping and down in it. That did it. The screen lit up. And he was staring down at one of his favorite pictures as his wallpaper. They’d decided to give Costa Rica a shot for their honeymoon, hiring a private tour of the “Cloud Forest” in Monteverde. Amy was obsessed with finding whatever the hell a “Resplendent Quetzal” was. They never found one. They did, however, get the opportunity to pick ripe coffee beans off the mountainside, their guide bringing them to the base of the mountain to a tiny coffee roastery. He knew coffee beans had to come from somewhere, but it was still a surprise to him that they looked like red berries before the bean was extracted and roasted. The tour guide explained to them how coffee should never be described as “bitter,” and how espresso was just highly condensed light roast. He learned for the first time that stronger coffee taste didn’t mean stronger caffeine content. The opposite, in fact.

Anyway, Amy had asked the guide to snap a photo of the two of them in front of the roaster. He had squatted down, his usual lopsided grin on his face, Amy behind him with her arms wrapped around his neck, beaming at the camera with a smile that promised a lifetime of wonder together. She had a “Pura Vida” baseball cap on, a nondescript t-shirt, khaki shorts, and hiking boots completing the ensemble. He had just…dressed the same way he always did. And had paid for it. He had wiped out several times on the trail, learning that the term “rainforest” meant rain…and mud. Half of his body was covered in it in the picture. It was post-marital bliss condensed in one goofy image, and he loved every inch of it. He found himself actually tearing up a bit, thinking about what his idiotic, selfish actions meant for Amy, possibly for the rest of her life. He resolved to do his best to make this ordeal easy on her, if he could.

Suddenly, his pink poncho with yellow daisies on it was no longer annoying. He found he actually kind of treasured it. He might even want to keep it as a memento when (if) he got back to normal.

Well, it sure as shit isn’t gonna recognize my fingerprint. He paused, considering for a moment. He shimmied out of his “underwear” briefly, planting his bare bottom on the little circle you could use to swipe up to put in the PIN. And then he scooted upward on the screen like a dog dragging itself on the carpet, which felt patently ridiculous…until it actually worked. The number pad came up. It became what felt like a game of hopscotch from there, jumping onto the numbers to input his PIN while avoiding the incorrect ones. And then, his phone was unlocked.

He felt like Tom Hanks in “Castaway” after he made fire for the first time. Steve threw his hands over his head, running around on the touchscreen like had just scored the game-winning goal. And his feet landed on the Messages app, opening it up. As expected, given his reclusive post-retirement hermit status, the only recent messages were with Amy. Then he got an idea.

He jumped on the text chat with Amy, then jumped in the text field to pull up the keyboard, hopping around to scrawl a simple message: “Hi babe! Luv u!!” He was huffing and puffing by the end of it, this one small, routine act turning into a plyometrics course. He saw the “Read” receipt on Amy’s end, the little dots popping up on the screen that signaled a reply being composed.

“Steve tell you to send that Emma? You get back early?” Amy wrote.

Steve hopped back and forth across the keyboard again. “Nope this is ur hubby. Surprise!”

Amy sent back a laughing face emoji, followed by a simple question: “How?”

He didn’t feel like incurring the physical exhaustion of jumping out another message and wrote back, “Explain later!” Amy’s simple response was almost immediate: “K. Order to Show Cause on my desk this morning. Opposition due today. Might be late. Told Emma.”

“Got it! See u later!” he wrote back. Amy responded with a simple heart emoji.

Steve then looked around, wondering what else he could get into. He saw ESPN was still on their bedroom TV, the remote sitting on the nightstand next to his phone. He tried jumping up and down on the numbers, but he couldn’t apply enough weight to depress the buttons. So, he tried something else. Kneeling down on top of the channel up/down button, he put his back into it and pushed as hard as he could on the up arrow. And, to his surprise, he felt the button give under his push and saw the channel change. Sweet! I can change the channel! He had ended up on a channel showing replays of Bonanza, and decided that was good enough. His spontaneous exercise had eaten up a full hour already, only 45 minutes left until he had some actual companionship.

-------------------------------------

Emma tossed her keys on the counter after walking through the door, placing the box of pizza she had just picked up from Angeloni’s down
next to it. She bounded up the stairs to her bedroom, rifling through her drawers to find a more comfortable bra. Growing into her current breast size was a learning experience. During PE today, the wire had actually started to poke out and stab her a bit while she was jogging. She frowned as she surveyed her options. Well, option. The only clean bra she had at the moment was the black lacy number she had treated herself to at Victoria’s Secret over the summer during a trip to the mall with her friends. She hadn’t even really wanted it, not having a significant other at the time and, therefore, not seeing the use of it. But, after much cajoling from her friends, she relented and made the impulse purchase. She had yet to ever wear it, her romantic life non-existent with the amount of extracurriculars she surrounded herself with. Emma swung both ways and would’ve been equally happy with the attention of a male or female. In fact, though she was sure it was entirely one-sided, she could feel something…simmering whenever she was with her nerdy gamer friend, Becky.

Becky had aspirations of being a Twitch streamer, a profession she had to explain to any member of her parents’ generation every time she brought it up. Quiet and bookish with mousy features and a frazzled mop of brown hair, Emma questioned whether Becky had possessed the requisite sex appeal that catapulted game streaming women to global stardom. But much as she had matured over the past year, Becky had come into her own. She had gone from what Emma imagined the character Hermione Granger to be in the Harry Potter books to what Hermione Granger was in the last couple of movies. And Emma was totally there for it. Becky had actually gotten some traction on her game streams too. Emma was sure it was unrequited, but she sometimes felt like the two of them would steal glances every now and then, the occasional hug lingering for a little too long, the late-night texts sometimes bordering on flirtatious. Emma had kissed a boy at her Sweet 16, but she had never kissed a girl. She was deeply curious what Becky’s lips felt like.

Is this thing even gonna fit? Emma asked herself as she extracted the bra, dangling it in front of her with serious skepticism. Emma wasn’t oblivious to what was going on with her body. She had caught the blatant, lingering stares of the boys in her grade, felt the added weight putting pressure on her back when she would run or jog. She knew her breasts had sort of…exploded. To the point where there were nasty rumors circulating that the weirdo goth chick had gotten implants because nobody liked her. She wished that were the case. She was actually contemplating asking her mom to pay for reduction surgery. What was an endless source of attraction for salivating young men had become equal fodder for locker room ridicule with her contemporaries. The popular girls loved to make “moo” noises, frequently bringing up the cow’s udders.

Of course, in reality, there was nothing bovine about Emma in the slightest. Her adolescent chubbiness had blossomed into a full-framed woman’s body. She knew she wasn’t fat, her tight black jeans never muffin-topping, her toned stomach having the vertical line down to her belly-button that signaled the pending arrival of visible abdominal muscles. It was just those irksome sweater pillows that were the problem. Her butt wasn’t spared either. It seemed like, while the rest of her body had consented to grow upward, her chest and thighs had decided to grow outward. She was proud of her body, taking care of herself physically, but the jibes and barbs at school still hurt. She knew the effect her body had on men though. In fact, she was pretty sure she caught Mr. C checking her out yesterday.

Emma hurried into the en suite bathroom, throwing her black denim jacket and t-shirt unceremoniously on the floor, unhooking her bra and
promptly discarding it in the trash. She wouldn’t be using that thing again. She heard a voice call from downstairs.

“Emma? Is that you?” her mom yelled up the stairs.

“Yeah mom,” she yelled back absent-mindedly as she was attempting to clasp the Victoria’s Secret bra behind her back.

“What’s the pizza for?” her mom hollered.

“Oh, uh….” Shit. She hadn’t thought this part through. “Mr. C wanted to talk to me about a legal undergrad program and internship at some point. I’m heading over there now. Figured I’d buy dinner to butter him up a bit.”

She heard footfalls down the hallway as she finished pulling her shirt back on and throwing a black sweatshirt over it. The black denim jacket looked cool, but it was uncomfortable and it really made her chest pop out. No need to wear that to Mr. C’s place.

“Okay sweety. Just, be careful. I don’t know what’s with that man but I hardly see him anymore,” her mom called much more softly from the entrance to Emma’s bedroom. Emma gave herself a once-over in the mirror. Her makeup had help up fine, but her hair was a tangled mess from PE and pulling her shirt off and on. She grabbed a brush and started straightening it as she answered her mom. Why do I even care what my hair looks like for Mr. C?

“I just saw him yesterday, mom. He’s fine. Just having a rough go of it after the premature retirement,” Emma answered as she walked out of the bathroom, glancing at her mom in the doorway. Jackie was wearing a form-fitting blue dress, her hair elegantly coiffed and her formal heels on, red lipstick on her face sticking out like a stop sign.

“What’re you all dolled up for?” Emma asked.

“Oh, um, church fundraiser. I’ll be in a little later,” Jackie answered quickly.

Uh-huh. Sure mom. “Okaaayyyyyy….but, like you always tell me, make good choices!” Emma said with a smirk. 

Her mom blushed as she studied Emma’s face a little more closely. Her eyes took on a note of concern. “Is everything alright sweety? 

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know. You’ve just been…quieter lately. And you look tired.” Jackie Cook translation: I look like shit.

“Yes mom, I’m fine,” Emma huffed in frustration. She looked at her mom again and softened a bit, seeing the genuine concern. “School’s just been…tough, lately. But I’m managing.”

Emma’s mom looked at the floor for a moment before raising her eyes to meet Emma’s. “I miss him too, you know. Every day.”

Emma felt the tears tugging at her eyes. “Could’ve fooled me,” she answered nastily. And immediately regretted it. She saw the barb land, a wince coming across her mom’s face. “I’m sorry mom. That wasn’t fair.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I get it. I just…want you to be happy. And I hope, well…I hope you would want the same for me,” Jackie answered with her voice catching slightly. 

Emma crossed the room and gave her a deep hug, realizing for the first time that, even with her heels on, she matched her mom’s height. “I do, mom. I really do.”

After they broke the hug, Jackie put her hands on Emma’s shoulders and leaned back to take her in. “He would be so proud of you. Look at you. You’re stunning, you’re brilliant, you’re talented…”

“Okay, okay mom. I get it!” Emma answered with playful smile. She gave her mom a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” she said as she walked past her.

“Say hi to Mr. Clover for me. And tell him to go to church. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I have a feeling it’s because he’s at the bottom of a bottle most days. A good gospel will set him straight.”

“I’ll say hi to him for you mom, but I’m not evangelizing for you!” Emma called over her shoulder as she bounded down the steps. She grabbed the pizza box and her keys off the table, heading outside into the crisp January weather.

She crossed the street in a half-jog, settling into a brisk pace down the sidewalk a few houses toward the Clover residence. Balancing the pizza on her arm, she entered the passcode and opened the door, shutting it behind her.

“Mr. C! It’s Emma! Amy said you’d be in the bedroom. Are you decent? Can I come in?” she asked as she crossed the living room and walked down the hallway, pausing outside the bedroom door. She could barely make out his voice as he answered.

“Yes I’m decent! Come on in.” She carried the pizza box in, flopping down onto the bed and seeing Mr. Clover’s little body go flying with the motion.

“Oops! Sorry! That’s gonna take a little getting used to,” she said sheepishly. She looked over at the TV. “What’s this cowboy show?”

“It’s called Bonanza and it’s awesome. You should watch it!” Steve answered before lifting his nose in the air, clearly sniffing. “Is that Angeloni’s
I smell?”

“It is! I figured you might be hungry. I’ll go get us some plates,” Emma offered.

“Nah, fuck that. Let’s just have it here,” Steve responded.

“Amy’s gonna kill me if we drip pizza grease on your sheets!” Emma protested.

“Then just eat it over the box. Not like I need a plate,” Steve reassured her.

“Oh. Right. Guess I didn’t think this through. I suppose I’m going to be eating most of this,” Emma said looking down at the box with a slight frown.

“Most of it? Try all of it. I’m good for basically a crumb,” Steve said laughing.

Emma reached down and unlaced her boots, kicking them off onto the floor before crossing her legs and resting the pizza box on her lap. She picked Steve up and placed him on the opened lid.

“Whichever slice you climb onto is yours,” Emma said gesturing at the pie. She separated two of them near Steve and watched as he shimmied between them, beginning to just take bites out of the side of the slice like it was an apple.

She tried to conceal a grin. “Nice…outfit. Is this part of the Rubber Ducky Fashion Line?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Steve gave her a flat look. “I didn’t have much say in the matter, unfortunately.”

“I’d imagine not,” Emma said laughing. They sat in companiable silence, eating and watching the TV. 

“Mr. C, can I ask you something?” Emma began.

“Let me guess: what really happened and why’d I do it?” Steve suggested.

“Yeah…that.”

“I guess you could say I was…curious. Always sort of wondered what it would be like,” Steve answered.

Yeah right. “That’s a stupid reason. Did you steal the tech?”

Steve looked at her, she could see the thoughts percolating in his mind as he debated whether to lie to her. “…yes.”

Emma sighed. “Mr. C, you’re always telling me to be careful, to stay out of trouble. How one criminal arrest could disqualify me from admission to the bar during the character and fitness interviews. What were you thinking?”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking. Really. Look, if I could go back, I would never do it. I may be more than twice your age, Emma, but grown-ups fuck up too.” Emma could hear the regret in his voice. “There was just an itch of sorts that I needed to scratch. And, well, for what it’s worth, I never intended to actually go through with it. The actual…shrinking was a bad accident.”

Emma was watching him as he explained the situation to her. I believe him, she decided. But what…itch? She was wracking her brain, trying to come up with why someone would ever want to be this small. And then something buried deep in her memory surfaced. Her friend Ashley’s first boyfriend. How she would share what sorts of mischief they would get up to as they explored their sexuality in their adolescence. How he had confessed to her that he wanted to be tiny, wanted her to eat him and digest him, turn him into poo. How they had all had a laugh about how weird and gross it was during a sleepover. Oh shit. Is Mr. C one of those…people?

“Well, how was it? Scratching that ‘itch,’ I mean. Was it everything you hoped it would be?” she asked somewhat sarcastically.

“It has its moments. It also has some perks. Like, I’m weirdly durable and I can hold my breath a super long time,” he answered.

“Really? How’d you find that out?” Emma asked with a knowing smile. 

“Don’t worry about it. Now, can I ask you something?” Steve asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Of course!” she responded genuinely.

“How can you eat all that,” he said gesturing at the now-empty pizza box except for one slice with a few nibbles taken out of the side, “and look like…” he trailed off, clearly not having thought this line of questioning through.

Emma quirked an eyebrow. “My turn to guess: my mom?”

Steve looked down, and she thought she could see a little blush. He’s kinda cute at this size. “Yeah,” he answered weakly.

“Good genes, fast metabolism, who knows?” Emma answered sincerely. “Feels like all my weight goes straight to these puppies now,” she said while hefting one of her breasts. She saw Steve turn red as an apple and turn his back on her.

Whoops. She had only recently come to terms with the fact that she was attractive. She had a few immature traits that some would call unladylike that would still occasionally spill over. That’s the kind of thing she would’ve done in front of her friends, but Mr. C was of the opposite sex…and older than her mom.

There was an uncomfortably long silence before her phone buzzed in her pocket, startling both of them. She took it out and frowned. Speaking of Ashley…what does she want?

“One sec, Mr. C,” she said to Steve while holding up one finger. She answered the phone. “Hey Ash, what’s up?”

“Where the fuck are you??!!” Ashley yelled in her ear through the phone.

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked, a sense of dread building as she yanked the phone away from her ear to avoid going deaf.

“Rehearsal. Where are you? We started 15 minutes ago!!”

Oh FUCK! In her eagerness to help out Mr. and Mrs. C, she had completely forgotten about jazz band practice. She may be on a fast track for valedictorian, but sometimes she had a tendency to overlook things, most of them mundane, some of them significant. This was the latter.

“Oh…I’m…I’m sick,” she responded insincerely.

“Emma, we ALL saw you at school today, including Mrs. K. She knows you’re fine,” Ashley answered.

“Ah, well, in that case, I had an emergency to attend to,” Emma answered half-heartedly. 

“You’re the SOLOIST! The concert is Friday night!! She’s gonna bump you down to second chair!!” Ashley shot back. “Get your ass down here!!”

“Okay, okay, jeez. I’ll be right there,” Emma said as she hung up the phone.

She looked at Steve, who held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain, your friend was loud enough for the whole neighborhood,” he said laughing.

“I told Amy I would be here though. PLEASE tell me she’s coming back early tonight,” Emma pleaded.

“Uh, well. No. Unfortunately,” Steve answered.

“Uggghhhhh, what am I supposed to do??!” Emma asked with evident exasperation.

“Bring me with you!” Steve said, suddenly shooting to his feet and looking excited.

“What? No! I’m pretty sure Amy wouldn’t be cool with that. It sounds like a terrible idea,” Emma said, frowning.

“Nonsense. Just yesterday she brought me with her on a jog. She’s totally cool with it. Plus, I love jazz and I’ve barely ever heard you play. Front row seat!”

Emma could almost hear the lie in his voice, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. Her frown deepened as she weighed options.

“Come onnnnnn….I WANT to go!” Steve shouted up at her.

Eh, fuck it. What could go wrong? “Alright fine, but we’re agreeing NOT to tell Amy about this, right?” Emma said seriously as she bent over off the bed, lacing up her boots once more.

“Deal!” Steve answered excitedly.

“Alright, hop on,” Emma said as she lowered her upturned palm toward him. Steve quickly climbed on, a wide grin splitting his face.

-------------------------------------

Yes yes yes yes!! I get to leave the fucking house! He was thrilled that his subterfuge had worked. What serendipitous intervention from Emma’s friend.

As they walked toward the front door, he saw Emma feeling around on herself, a grimace on her face.

 “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“No pockets,” she answered, looking concerned.

“What do you mean ‘no pockets’?”

“Dude, you’d be surprised how much women’s clothing they make without pockets. Drives me nuts.”

He still couldn’t believe it. “What about your pants?”

Emma pulled up her sweater, showing him her black leggings…and inadvertently showing him how they hugged her hips…and the curvature of her butt. He felt his face reddening again.

“Leggings. Almost never have pockets,” she said without catching his embarrassment.

He glanced at her sweatshirt, convinced there had to at least be a pocket on the front of it, noticing the design on it for the first time. Is that a demonic owl? What the fuck is Helluva Boss?

“What do we do?” Emma asked him sincerely, snapping him out of it.

“Just put me on your shoulder. I’ll hang onto your hair for support,” he answered. Perfectly reasonable suggestion, not at ALL motivated by the view it’ll give me. It’s not cheating if it’s just looking, right? Ames and I have agreed window shopping is fine. It did still feel gross to perv out on his neighbor’s young daughter, but you only live once, he supposed.

Emma looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! Ames and I do it all the time! In fact,it’s how we get around to most places since my incident,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“Uhhh….okay. I guess I can hear you from there too if anything goes wrong. Just give me a shout if you feel like you’re gonna fall,” Emma told him as she lifted him up to her shoulder. He hopped on, grabbing a few strands of her shoulder-length hair like a child grabs the chains holding up a
swing. He could smell her perfume again, from this vantage point having an almost uninterrupted view straight down Emma’s cleavage. He was suddenly blasted with a chill as Emma stepped outside, locking the house behind her. And then he was hypnotized by the motion as she walked back across the street, heading toward her car. Those soft, milky, pillowy mounds of flesh bouncing up and down with every step, a little jiggle rippling through them with every footfall impacting the pavement.

Fuck, this could be a problem. Maybe this was a bad idea. He was suddenly worried about Emma checking on him only to find him with a raging erection.

Emma opened the car door, lowering herself into the seat and starting the car. The minute her Bluetooth connected, indecipherable metal music started blasting, practically deafening Steve. He winced and covered his ears, letting out an audible groan.

Emma glanced at him out of the side of her eye. “What?”

“Can we uh, maybe listen to something else?”

“I thought you said you liked my music!” Emma said, sounding defensive and hurt.

“I do, I really do, it’s just uh…everything’s louder at my size,” he lied again.

“Alright, well what do you want to listen to?” she asked him.

“You ever heard The Beatles?”

“I’ve heard OF them,” she responded.

“You’re kidding. You’ve never listened??!! We’re fixing that right now. Try ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’” Steve directed.

Emma told her phone to play it, scoffing at the beginning. “‘She was just seventeen, you know what I mean?’ That has to be the most basic, lazy rhyme in the history of music,” she said with a cringe.

“Just…be quiet and listen,” Steve instructed. Emma complied, and about a minute into the song he caught her head bobbing a little bit, her hand tapping the steering wheel. Got her, he thought with a grin. At one point he even caught her harmonizing with the chorus, her sonorous, resonant but crystal-clear voice striking him with its haunting beauty. How does she do that? How do you listen to a song and just…create stuff in your head without seeing the sheet music? That level of artistry would always be lost on him.

At the conclusion of the song Emma asked, “that wasn’t bad, but do they have anything that doesn’t sound like I should be listening to it while sipping egg creams down at the soda shop before going to the park-and-neck with my best fella?”

“I’m surprised you know what egg creams are. I’m even more surprised you know that soda shops were a thing. I’m truly SHOCKED that you know what necking is. Anyway, try Helter Skelter. I think that’s more your speed,” he suggested.

She put it on and instantly was visibly into it, taking in the lyrics. “Is this song about fucking?” she asked.

“I think so. If not, it could certainly be interpreted that way. You know, a lot of people think the free love of the 60s ended when this dude named Charles Manson…”

Emma cut him off. “Oh, I know all about Charles Manson.”

“What? How?” Steve was confused.

“Marilyn Manson,” she answered. Oh, right. Could’ve guessed that.

The ride was going relatively smoothly, until Emma committed the cardinal sin of driving ever since the advent of the cellphone: looking at her texts. 

For Steve, it was like it was all happening in slow motion. He could see the red light up ahead, see Emma’s car approaching the rear of the next one way too quickly.

“Uh, Emma…” he began. But she looked up in time. Well, in time to avoid a collision. Not in time to avoid slamming on the brakes, which flung Steve forward. He avoided ending up as paste on her dashboard with his grip on her strands of hair, but he still had a ton of forward momentum. And he found himself plunging straight downward. Downward into the bottomless canyon that was Emma’s cleavage.

“Oops, sorry Mr. C,” he heard her say meekly. It was muffled, because at this point he was surrounded on all sides by tons of boob flesh, sinking deeper into it like quicksand as Emma’s breasts shifted suddenly with every turn of the wheel, bounced with every bump in the road. He finally got an answer as to whether her lily-hued skin was some sort of makeup or powder. It wasn’t, she was really just that pale. He also got an answer as to whether she spritzed her perfume between her breasts, and she almost certainly did.

There was a faint odor of sweat, likely from her full day at school including gym class, but it was being overpowered by what smelled like a not altogether unpleasant combination of lavender and rose oil. As he continued to get jostled around, he continued to sink ever downward, finally losing all light as he was buried alive in Emma’s breasts, his last view of the “surface” being a look up at the studded choke collar around Emma’s thin, pale neck.

The stifling, compressive, claustrophobic darkness was startling. His immediate instinct was to begin thrashing around, but after what he had just witnessed, he was terrified about causing an accident with distracting her. He resolved to give her a holler as soon as the vehicle came to a stop. Emma was a smart kid. She’d put it together pretty quick, he thought, even if they’d all be embarrassed from the ordeal.

It was strange. Yesterday in the shower, Amy had been trying to smush him a bit with her boobs, even pushing them together. Emma was just…existing. Just being Emma. And he was compressed on all sides, felt like he was swimming in tits but sinking ever downward, thankful once again for his oddly enhanced lung capacity as air was scarce. He did his best to stay still, knowing that the ride to the high school was short enough that they should be there any minute.

Sure enough, just as he was starting to run out of oxygen, he felt the car come to a stop and heard the engine turn off, a very faint, muffled “alright, we’re here Mr. C. Now we gotta figure out how to keep you out of sight.” He heard the car door open, felt his fleshy prison swaying back and forth with the simple motion, adrift in a totally lightless environment that was stiflingly hot and suffocating as his stomach lurched while Emma got to her feet.

“Mr. C???!!” he heard Emma’s panicked voice. He felt another lurch as she must have bent over, rifling around on the car seat and looking about in her car for him. He decided now was as good a time as any to announce his presence and gave a weak little struggle. He heard a yelp of surprise and felt some frantic motion, the world of pillowy flesh around him jiggling with the effort. He assumed she was fishing him out right away, until he heard another voice call out faintly. And then he got whipped around, Emma’s breasts clashing together and squashing him in between, as she spun quickly to face the newcomer.

-------------------------------------

“Emma! Finally!! Where have you been? Mrs. K is PISSED!” Emma whirled about to face Ashley, who was rapidly crossing the parking lot to intercept. Shit shit shit shit shit….Mr. C’s in my tits. I can feel him. WHY Ashley? WHY??! I was coming inside!! Of all of Emma’s friends, Ashley was the only one that had always been conventionally pretty. A silky-haired redhead with a splash of freckles and bright green eyes, Ashley had sprouted into her adult body earlier than any of them, and her dating record proved it. Ashley had been through three boyfriends already. Emma had yet to have her first relationship of any kind, really. Ashley was fundamentally a good person, just a complete ditz and perpetual busybody. Emma wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the reason Ashley came out to intercept her was so that she could get all the details first.

“Uhhhh….forgot my instrument, haha…” Emma answered, still flustered about what to do over her…situation. She felt him squirming. It was ticklish, if not altogether unpleasant. But it was deeply, deeply embarrassing. She had made a point of straightening her hair before she left her house to come see him, but she hadn’t showered. Not only did this feel shamefully violative of both of them, but she had the additional embarrassment over potential odor. She just hoped the perfume was doing its thing.

Emma popped open the trunk of her car, grabbing her saxophone case and slamming the trunk shut, her movements jittery and nervous, feeling almost like she got caught making out in the bathroom by the principal. The motion of slamming the trunk jostled Steve further, and she felt him pinched at the base of her breasts, his legs dangling against her sternum and his frantic kicking tickling her. Fuck, he’s dropping.

“Mrs. K is going to lay into you. You know that, right?” Ashley asked with her hands on her hips. Emma was sure she was correct. Mrs. Karczewski took her role as music teacher and conductor seriously, as strict as they come in terms of discipline. Marching band season, with all its intricacies and formations and timing in particular, was a special kind of hell. Mrs. K was fair though, and it was clear that she only just wanted her students to be their very best. A stunt like this wasn’t going to do Emma any favors. She might lose first chair even despite her flying over here to make up for the initial absence.

Well, no way around this. I’m really, really sorry Mr. C. I don’t want to do this either, but I don’t see another way out of this. I really wish I had another option other than this fucking bra…there’s barely any strap. But…I can’t have you falling out. Emma turned her back on Ashley, sticking her hand down the front of her shirt and pinching Steve’s miniscule body between her fingers. And then she dragged him over in front of her left breast, tucking him under the bra and feeling her face flush out of both embarrassment and maybe, just maybe, the faintest HINT of arousal as his tiny form was pressed against her nipple. She had intended just to tuck him into the side of it, but her aim was off. He was smack dab in the middle. Part of the problem with having a skimpy bra that basically covered ONLY the nipples.

Ashley was giving her a quizzical look when she turned back around. “Everything alright there, Em?”

“Uh, yeah. New bra, weird fit,” she laughed uncomfortably.

“Why are you beet red? Just us girls here you know, no need to be shy,” Ashley said sensing her friend’s discomfort and trying to be supportive…and also probably fishing for gossip.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. I just…uh…I really hurried over here and almost got in an accident. A little stressed out and out of breath, that’s all.” To her own ears, the lie sounded terribly unconvincing. If it were anyone but Ashley, they probably would’ve asked more questions. Fortunately, Ashley bought the line of BS without issue.

“Well, hurry the fuck up, let’s get inside and get you warmed up already!” Ashley was already striding back toward the high school.

Emma looked down at her shirt one more time, whispering very quietly, “I’m so sorry Mr. C, I’ll get you out as soon as I can.”

Ashley held open the side door to the band room for her as Emma walked inside. The band was in the middle of rehearsing “Take Five” when they all came to an abrupt silence, every head in the room turning to stare at her. And of all the times she had been picked on, ridiculed and bullied during her time in school, Emma had NEVER felt more self-conscious than right now.

She fervently hoped nobody could see the tiny flailing lump protruding from her left tit, but in that moment, it of course felt like EVERYONE could see it. Her face got even redder as she laughed nervously and shuffled stiffly to the back of the band room, squatting down to open her saxophone case and begin assembling it. She was positively convinced every single eye was on her, everyone scrutinizing her every move. She was sure she was moving like a guilty person, and that’s because she was. Exigent circumstances or not, what was happening under three layers of clothing right now was absolutely scandalous by any measure.

She’d always thought Mr. C was super cute for an older guy. Despite the obvious, significant age gap, he never came across as a middle-aged man. His impish, boyish charm made him seem decades younger, and she had fostered a little bit of a crush ever since she was 15 years old. She liked that he had never condescended toward her, always treated her like an adult, took her reports of her daily school life and complaints seriously, tried to offer meaningful input. Stimulated her brain with spirited debate on many occasions. Listened to her music. Heard her out when she would occasionally cry over the loss of her father. Amy was an absolute sweetheart, but every now and then Emma would even feel a pang of jealousy as she would watch them embrace and kiss at the block parties and barbecues.

As awkward and uncomfortable as this situation was, all of this added up to two emotions. The first one, primarily, was panic. The second one, lurking just underneath the surface in a place where she could pretend it didn’t exist, was the sense of…naughtiness. That she was a bad girl for what she was doing. That she was punishing the nice, older man she’d had a little bit of a crush on for years by confining him to her tits. That she was just going about her business while he was trapped, pressed firmly into her oversized bust, with (hopefully) nobody the wiser. It was terrifying, but also exhilarating in a way she would rather not admit.

Can I sneak him into the case? She glanced around, feeling like a kid smoking pot for the first time in her parents’ basement, like Mrs. K was going to call out her weirdness any second now. And then she caught the eyes of Bernard “Bernie” Levy, the band’s timpani player and consummate weirdo, which was saying something as the band was primarily comprised of social castoffs. It was a little inaccurate to say she caught his eyes, actually. What she caught was him staring directly at her tits hanging low over her saxophone case as she squatted to put the pieces together. The first name Bernard had lent itself to the unfortunately apt moniker “Barnyard,” so named because of his radiating, offensive body odor. And he wasn’t ashamed of it either. He laughed, embraced the name, got a tattoo of a barn on his shoulder. Barnyard Levy was as sloppy and gross as they came, clinically obese, overly hairy for a kid his age, ill-fitting clothing that was equal parts stained and torn. And his lascivious glare, his fixation on her breasts to the point where she was surprised he wasn’t salivating, made her feel…dirty. Like she needed a shower. She suddenly became even more self-conscious, turning her back on him and moving her saxophone case in the other direction to continue the assembly unmolested by his disgusting leer.

I’m sure he’s just staring at my ass now. Fucking gross. Anyway, no way I can sneak Mr. C out right now. She again, very softly, whispered “sorry,” to her chest, hoping that nobody saw or heard her talking to herself and hoping that Mr. C could hear her through the layers of clothing.

Emma affixed her reed to her mouthpiece, throwing the strap over her shoulder and positioning the saxophone on the front of her body. And then she took her rightful place as first chair, in the empty seat next to her bitter rival Sheila, who was smirking at Emma getting in trouble with Mrs. K. Sheila knew that Emma was one fuckup away from being second chair. Whereas music came naturally to Emma, her solos seemingly conjured from her very soul as she just “felt” the music flow through her, Sheila had worked. And worked. Tirelessly. Sheila wasn’t just good. She was excellent, but excellent technically. She could rip through any scale with perfect execution, read sheet music for the first time and nail it, but put her on the spot to come up with something on her own and she’d just flub out a few sad notes. Still, nothing was stopping Mrs. K from writing the solo for Sheila. If the music were in front of her, Sheila would execute it perfectly.

Sheila was as petty and vindictive in her competitiveness as they came. In one particularly egregious instance, she had asked to see the crystal mouthpiece Emma’s father had purchased for her, ostensibly just to admire it before dropping it on the hard tile floor in the hallway with an unapologetic “oops,” shattering it into a million tiny pieces before smiling sweetly and walking away. Emma learned the hard way that day that Sheila just couldn’t be trusted and would do anything to get ahead, even destroy a cherished memento just to screw with someone mentally. Nobody would describe Sheila as conventionally beautiful. Her long, straight black hair, pointed nose, and large teeth that she was seemingly unable to wrap her lips around gave her a rat-like appearance that complimented her personality perfectly. She was also a little on the chubby side. Emma had grown out of her baby fat, or at least her genes had redirected it to her bust and thighs. Sheila had kept it on her gut and in her face.

“So glad you could join us, superstar,” Sheila whispered sarcastically.

“Shut it,” Emma responded curtly as she took her seat and arrayed the sheet music on her stand. She really was in no mood for the bullshit.

“Oh pardon me, I didn’t realize you were so important that you could blow off our dress rehearsal,” Sheila continued, clearly trying to bait her.

Emma looked her in the eyes and smiled. “I think it says a lot that Mrs. K would rather leave this seat empty than let you fill it in my absence. Addition by omission,” Emma answered. That absolutely landed. Sheila glared and opened her mouth to say something else before Mrs. K cut in.

“Alright girls, enough! Emma, are you tuned? Concert B Flat,” the conductor directed.

“Yeah yeah, I know the drill,” Emma grunted. She played the note and immediately realized she was a little sharp, sliding her mouthpiece out a little bit to flatten the sound. She saw Sheila’s glare deepen out of her peripheral vision. That was something else that drove Sheila insane: Emma’s perfect pitch. She could hear a note and know innately whether it was sharp or flat. Sheila needed a tuning fork every time.

Just as Emma was about to begin playing, she felt another tickle coming from her left breast. She realized that her posture naturally rested her elbow on her chest, compressing Steve further into her nipple. Oh shit, I’m so, so sorry Mr. C!! She shuffled around a bit, reconfiguring her posture. There really wasn’t a way to avoid it without screwing her up, however. She had to get him out, and soon. Feeling self-conscious once again, she began to play as the conductor led them in, feeling the faint but frantic motions under her elbow, and noticing her nipple unfortunately hardening in response. Not for the first time, Emma blushed again, thankful she had something to distract her for the moment.

-------------------------------------

IT’S NOT CHEATING IF I DON’T TOUCH! IT’S NOT CHEATING IF I DON’T TOUCH! IT’S NOT CHEATING IF I DON’T TOUCH! Steve continued to repeat the mantra to himself, feeling deeply uncomfortable and remorseful over his current predicament. He hadn’t really had any say in the matter. The car jolted, he dropped into the bottomless pit that was Emma’s cleavage, flailed around to get her attention when he felt her getting out of the car, and just when he thought she was going to rescue him, she inexplicably peeled up her left bra cup and stuffed him inside.

He had faintly heard another voice speaking to Emma and had heard her responses, so he assumed she did what she did for a reason. After all, she had always demonstrated uncannily mature, shrewd judgment in the past. He suspected she had been intercepted in the parking lot and had to improvise. He had been dropping ever further downward, barely sandwiched between the bottoms of Emma’s breasts before she nabbed him. Maybe she didn’t want him to fall out by accident? Regardless, he felt like there HAD to be a better solution than this.

It was suffocating and stifling before when he was buried between Emma’s tits. Adding another layer of fabric by tucking him into her bra was a whole different level. He was warm before, smelling her sweat and feeling more than a little claustrophobic from the squishy flesh bearing down on him from all angles. Now he was actually sweating himself and having trouble breathing to boot.

Whatever this choice in underwear was for Emma, it was too small. Regrettably small. The already sparse, lacy fabric was stretched thin, pulling him inward with a vice-like grip. That made the situation even more salacious, if that was even possible. He had wanted to turn around so that his back was to Emma’s nipple. That was just flat out an impossibility. He had managed to hold his arms up over his head in a bad approximation of the opening move of the “YMCA,” trying to give himself the slight reassurance that if he wasn’t pushing out with his hands in front of him, he wasn’t really “feeling her up.”

It was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. There was no avoiding touching her. She was everything right now. The fabric at his back was unyielding, Emma’s enormous breast pushing back on it with equal and opposite force. So powerful was the compression that his tiny, one-inch form had briefly given Emma an “inny” nipple, pushing the dead center of it inward a little and burying him further inside the world of Emma’s breasts. That was when he started flailing harder, it becoming difficult to breath with Emma’s areola enveloping him. Every gasping mouthful was flooded with flesh, Steve putting his head back to gasp for air. For the second time in less than 24 hours, he was enormously grateful that his new size afforded him a greater capacity for holding his breath somehow.

Emma’s tit was just…everywhere. And it was everything. It was his entire world right now, his body stretched thinly across it, the wall of pillowy flesh filling every one of his senses. And that was before she had rested her elbow on it. That banal action, presumably for her saxophone posture, actually had put his life in real danger. He kicked, struggled, flailed, pushed, leaned back, did whatever he could to create some separation, and it was an entirely fruitless endeavor. That is, other than stimulating Emma, which paradoxically provided him a modicum of relief.

As he felt her nipple hardening in response to his efforts, he was rescued from the sinking pit of her areola, which had begun to feel bottomless. He felt like if he had sunk into her nipple anymore he would’ve been floating in milk. But Emma’s physiological, unwitting reaction to his motion pushed him outward, saving him for the moment. He still felt the fabric pulling down on his back with unbelievable tightness, still felt the stifling, smothering heat of being pressed into Emma’s breast by her elbow, but he could at least turn his head and breathe. A little.

Emma began to play the saxophone, and Steve wished he could have appreciated it at a distance. The sound was just overpowering from his proximity to it, and his whole ordeal made it eminently unenjoyable. He knew he had to keep the nipple hardened if he wanted to avoid being suffocated again, so he continued to struggle. Continued to wiggle and worm about in the center of Emma’s areola, right on top of her nipple, feeling like a dirty, predatory old pervert a thousand times over.

IT'S NOT CHEATING IF IT’S TO SURVIVE! IT’S NOT CHEATING IF IT’S TO SURVIVE! His mantra of reassurance changed slightly, trying to assuage his guilty conscience. He remembered the emotional moment he had earlier when he saw their honeymoon photo as his phone’s wallpaper. Amy’s bright, brilliant and uninhibited grin in the photo seemingly capable of banishing night and bringing on the dawn. Remembered the “luv u” texts and heart emojis. And he felt awful about all of this. Especially the dark, seedy macrophile buried deep inside him getting more than a little stimulation from the situation. Just as Emma’s nipple had hardened as an involuntary reaction, so too had his dick hardened. It really, truly could not be helped, at least that’s what he told himself. What was he supposed to do? His neighbor’s cute little girl had grown into a supermodel figure with almost comically large breasts, and she was undeniably hot. For the first time in his life, he was seeing Emma as a real WOMAN. He felt bad that it took being smothered by her tits to get him there.

Again the thought occurred to him that the craziest thing about it was Emma wasn’t even TRYING. She was just going through her usual motions, with these WMDs mounted on her chest. He was perfectly content with Amy’s B cups, found that her perky tits complimented her slight frame well while being plenty enough to play with. But if Amy’s tits were a bouncy little playground, Emma’s tits were an overwhelming, suffocating mountain. A true force of nature that came to her naturally.

He tried to turn his mind elsewhere. Turn it to ANYTHING else. But when an enormous tit constitutes your entire world and point of view, even with the added struggle of survival, there was no getting around it: it was hot.

He continued his frantic, panicky motions until he heard the music stop, presumably the conductor cutting them off. Suddenly, the pressure of Emma’s elbow at his back lifted, the breast against him jiggling as her left hand shot upward.

“Mrs. K!” he heard Emma shout. “I have to use the restroom!!” Oh thank God. Bless your little heart Emma, good move.

“What? Ms. Cooke, you just got here,” the conductor responded flatly.

“I know, but I REALLLLLYYYYYY gotta go. It’s an emergency,” Emma pleaded.

“Alright, but hurry back. We haven’t even gotten to your solo yet,” the conductor cautioned. 

“I will! Thank you!” He felt his flesh prison bounce again as Emma got to her feet, feeling the motion of her breasts swaying side to side as she sidled out of the row of saxophone players and walked briskly to the door. Then he heard the telltale “clop” sound as Emma’s boots were hitting the tile floor in the hallway as she raced to the restroom. He heard a faint whisper above him, “Hold on Mr. C, we’re almost there. I’m gonna get you out of there!”

Fuck, he thought as he realized his erection was still standing at full attention. She can’t see this. He tried to turn his mind elsewhere, but yet again, it was a Herculean task given that has entire existence at present was subsumed by Emma’s breast. He heard a faint creak as the bathroom door opened.

-------------------------------------

Emma hurried into the bathroom, immediately fishing into her bra and extracting Steve. He actually stuck a little and had to be pried off her nipple like an overcooked pancake stuck to a griddle, and she grimaced at the thought that the sweat and pressure had simulated an adhesive. As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough that Mr. C had been tumbling around in her boobs for the better part of the last half hour, and had been pressed up against her nipple for half of that, now she had the added shame of the sweat and undersized bra.

Steve was predictably red. Like, everywhere. His whole body. His pink and yellow daisies outfit looked soaked to Emma’s eye. And he immediately turned his back on her and bent over.

Why isn’t he looking at me? She saw him give a quick glance over his shoulder, saw his hands trying to stealthily hide his pelvic area, and failing miserably. Oh…um, okay. Emma felt herself blushing again. She was a girl in high school. She knew what that hunched over posture meant, what that sad attempt at covering yourself without looking like you were covering yourself signaled. One boy she knew had actually mentioned something called the Texas Tuck, a trick where he folded his erection up into his belt and tucked his shirt over it to be able to walk to the front of the class, next to his smoking hot teacher, without anyone being the wiser. Steve didn’t have that option. He’s…uh…he’s hard. Over…me. That’s, um…that’s uh…yeah. I should probably say something. But what the fuck do you say in a situation like this? I guess it should probably start with an apology.

“I’m so, sooooo sorry Mr. C. I didn’t realize you had, um, “fallen” in the car, and my friend Ashley intercepted me in the parking lot. I was worried about you falling out and I uh, improvised. I didn’t have a lot of options,” Emma said frowning.

“It’s okay, Emma, I get it. Just…we absolutely CANNOT tell Amy about this, agreed? It was an accident all around, nobody’s at fault here for…anything,” he answered in a tone that was unusually quiet for him.

“Oh 100%. And um, yeah, just so you know, that’s uh…that’s a perfectly natural thing to have, um, happen. Like, I know you don’t really have control…”

Mr. C cut her off. “Can we just drop it?” he said a little angrily. Emma felt hurt, and he must have seen it. His tone softened a bit. “You don’t have to explain how ‘stuff’ works to me, Emma. I’ve had more years dealing with it than you,” he said with a sheepish grin.

Phew, okay. He’s not pissed. Well, not SUPER pissed. “Got it. Again, I’m really sorry about this whole mess. This was a bad idea, bringing you along for this. This could’ve been avoided a dozen times over. Like, if I had remembered we had rehearsal. If we had left you behind at your house. If I hadn’t been texting and driving. If I had realized where you fell when I slammed on the brakes. If I had improvised better…”

He cut her off again. “Emma, it’s fine. Accidents happen. They’re called accidents for a reason. Nobody’s really to blame here, and there’s certainly nothing to be gained from relitigating every event. The bigger question is: what do we do now?” By this point, his erection had calmed down and he had turned around to face her.

“Well, again, no pockets,” Emma said while letting out a laugh she really didn’t feel. “Um, your prior, uh, ‘arrangement’ is out of the question, and anything else I can think of is actually uh…worse,” Emma answered honestly.

“Oh? And here I was about to suggest riding around between your buttcheeks,” Steve said with a grin.

“I mean, listen, I’m not here to judge anyone. If it’s what you want…” Emma joked back at him.

“No, no. Trust me, I don’t. What about your boot?” Steve suggested. 

“My…boot? Like…inside the boot? That’s…that’s gross, isn’t it?” Emma felt quite uncomfortable with the idea. I don’t think he wants to be around my feet…does he? Some guys are into that kind of thing.

“No, no, not INSIDE the boot. It’s a boot. It’s laced up almost to your knee. Just like…tuck me in the top of it and don’t tie it so tight. Nobody will be the wiser,” he explained.

Oh, okay. Phew. “Um, I guess so. I guess we don’t really have a lot of options. Sure as shit can’t just leave you here. Janitor should be coming through soon,” Emma answered as she bent down to start unlacing her right boot.

With that sixth sense that all women innately possess, she could feel the eyes on her rear as she bent over and smirked, sticking her butt out just a TINY bit more. A little teasing never hurt anybody.

She came back over and picked Steve up, sliding him into the inside seam of the top of her boot. “Is that too tight? It looks like it’s too tight still.”

She bent down to undo a few more laces, suddenly being startled by the door flying open behind her and jumping up in surprise.

“Emma? Who are you talking to?” FOR FUCK’S SAKE ASHLEY, HOW ABOUT A LITTLE FUCKING PRIVACY??!! It was the second time today that Ashley’s unquenchable thirst to be a busybody had mucked up her plans. At least Mr. C was already secure this time.

“Jesus Ashley, you scared the shit out of me. Anyway, I was talking to myself. You know how I do that sometimes,” Emma said laughing nervously.

“I’ve literally NEVER heard you do that,” Ashley said with a frown. “You’re being weird today. Are you sure you’re okay?" 

“YES Ashley!” Emma immediately felt sorry for raising her voice and adjusted her tone a bit. “I’m fine, it’s just…been a rough day, that’s all.”

“Alright, well hurry your oversized ass up, Mrs. K is looking for you,” Ashley said walking out of the bathroom and holding the door open.

“No shit, that woman would lo-jack me if she could,” Emma joked.

She started to follow Ashley down the hallway, relieved that she and Mr. C had sorted it out and that he was safe now. My boot feels a little loose. I wonder if it’ll be too tight for him if I just tie one more knot…

It was as if she had wished disaster into existence. No sooner had the thought occurred to her before she felt a little object tumble down the inside of her long boot, coming to rest at the arch of her foot. And she was mid-stride and couldn’t react in time. Her boot impacted the tiled hallway hard, and she felt what could only be Mr. C’s tiny body get smushed under her arch.

Oh shit I think I killed him!!! She let out a loud gasp at the thought, Ashley immediately pivoting and looking at her quizzically.

“What was that?” Ashley asked.

Emma was about to rip her boot off to check on Mr. C, consequences be damned, when she felt a weird little tickle under the arch of her foot. One long tap, three short taps in rapid succession. The secret knock she had taught him as a kid when he used to play with her, the only way he would be allowed entry into the house during Jackie’s parties.

Clever, super clever Mr. C. I guess he’s fine. Emma wasn’t sure if he could feel it, but she scrunched her toes together in the same pattern. And slowly, very slowly, she resumed walking.

Before she had even made it to the band room, the forward momentum had thrown Mr. C the same way any pebble would have been. He was now DEFINITELY under her toes. She paused briefly again, felt the secret knock once more, and kept walking.

Emma entered the band room, shuffling back into her seat and grabbing her saxophone once more. As she took her place and began playing, she felt an oddity. A little tickle along the tips of her toes, almost as though…he was running his hand along them, like someone would a new car.

Wait. IS he the type of guy that’s into this kinda thing? Emma experimented a little bit, lifting her toes up slightly and then slamming them down, snagging Mr. C and curling him into the ball of her foot before releasing him. She shifted her foot around in her boot, placing her big toe over Mr. C, the toe being larger than his entire body easily, and she had rubbed it back and forth over his prone form softly and gently, with only a touch of pressure. And then she thought she felt it, the little additional pinprick of hardness pressing against the bottom of her big toe.

Oh, yeah. He’s DEFINITELY into this. I should stop. This feels wrong. She had to focus on the music anyway, and stopped paying Steve any mind for the time being.

-------------------------------------

IT’S NOT CHEATING IF IT’S FEET! IT’S NOT CHEATING IF IT’S FEET! IT’S NOT CHEATING IF IT’S FEET! For the third time today, Steve had adopted a new mantra. He had thought they had gotten the bad luck portion of the day out of the way, but he was sorely mistaken. Emma had hurriedly dropped him into her boot and didn’t have the opportunity to lace it snug when her friend interrupted. He had a brief moment to appreciate the way the black-and-gray striped sock hugged and accentuated Emma’s calf before he found himself tumbling down the full length of the knee-high boot instead of being pinned just below her knee, as was the original plan. And, for the second time in two days, he was under a woman’s foot again. 

Being under Emma’s arch hadn’t hurt him, even when she applied her full weight on the next step. He had hoped she would figure out the secret knock thing, and he felt she had gotten the message. Even when he had tumbled to the front of the boot and was under her toes and, occasionally, the ball of her foot, his enhanced durability ensured that the worst effect was the wind getting pressed out of him.

Still, it was an uncomfortable situation. First of all, he knew that Emma probably didn’t think of her feet the same way she thought of her tits or ass. He knew that from the summer backyard barbecues, the way she would slip her pale foot out of her sandals and prop her long, milky legs up on the lawn chair, flexing her toes without a care in the world. He thought Amy had once caught him staring and he felt bad about it, especially with Emma having been underage at the time. She had even painted her toenails in front of him before, and he found he had to look away lest the creep vibes come to the surface.

But even though Emma probably didn’t have the same line of thought, he knew he had it. And he felt guilty about it, hence the new mantra.

Second, whether he was turned on by feet or not, there were still some unenjoyable aspects to it. Amy’s sneaker was meant to absorb shock, the spongy, springy texture on the sole yielding under her weight. Emma’s leather boots with the blockish heel were mostly a fashion statement and not entirely practical. There wasn’t a ton of give, and he felt it much more when her toes pressed down on him, the hard leather surface under his back only yielding slightly.

Also, it was a shoe. Specifically, the inside of someone’s shoe. Whether it was attached to a hot girl or not, it was a sweat and odor factory. Being used more recreationally, and with leather’s less permeable surface, it wasn’t the same level of malodorous that Amy’s sneaker was after it had heated up. But it was still like being dumped into a steam room…if that steam room had a faintly cheesy odor to it. And the bottom of Emma’s foot was wet with sweat, a slight squeaking and squelching sound made as her sock slid around on the sole. It was just…wet. Very wet. The leather trapped a TON of moisture.

And he was being smeared in all of it. It was the same as what happened in Amy’s shoe, albeit Emma was only walking instead of jogging. He would feel a weightlessness in his gut as he lurched upward, would feel the descent like going down a hill on a roller coaster and would brace for impact, and even with knowing it was coming, he would still end up almost flattened with every step. And then he would get dragged across the sole, rolling in sweat, sock lint accumulating on his skin in a fine, itchy film.

It was clear that Emma took care of herself, and it’s not like her boots were billowing out raunchy foot odor whenever she took them off. Hell, she had taken her boots off at his home and, even with her legs crossed under her and him sitting on the pizza box, he hadn’t caught a whiff of anything. But when a sweaty body part is stuck in a confined space day, after day, after day, after day, clean socks and clean skin or not, there would eventually be an odor. Yet again he was reminded of his hockey equipment.

There was one clear difference between his experience under Emma’s foot versus Amy’s. Emma’s foot was…softer, somehow. Like the pillowy flesh that made her boobs and butt so enticingly squeezable extended to the tips of her toes, to the ball of her foot. Amy was hot, no doubt. She drove him wild just by merely existing. She couldn’t sip her coffee without him getting aroused. But Amy was also unquestionably skinny. When her foot was landing on him, he felt it: skin and bone, mostly. Emma wasn’t fat by any stretch of the imagination. But she definitely had a little more cushioning where it mattered.

Emma’s foot was a little more forgiving, even if the surface at his back wasn’t. There was one other difference: unlike Amy, she knew he was here. He kind of hadn’t been able to help himself. He had just been smushed against arguably the greatest rack he’d ever seen on a woman with ZERO release afterward. And then she had dangled her butt in front of him, joked about being okay with him riding in it, pressed between those pale, soft globes of flesh…

And so when he was surrounded by the pheromones in Emma’s sweat, he was hitting a state of pique again. When she had finally sat down, and he had a moment to compose himself, he had run an appreciative hand along the tips of those pretty toes all bound up in the black and gray sock, feeling the soft skin through the fabric of the sock giving under his touch. And Emma had DEFINITELY felt it. He wasn’t sure if she had just been tickled by him and had an itch, or if she was actually TRYING to tease him, but after he had done that, she had lifted her toes up, seized his entire body with them, and curled them back into the ball of her foot with a gentle squeeze.

And then she had positioned him under her big toe and, well, kind of…stroked him with it. There really wasn’t any other way to put it. It was absolutely, positively, intentional…and sensual. Her big toe was larger than his entire body a few times over, but she pressed down gently with it, gliding it back and forth across his body, slathering the salty sweat against his face and rubbing his body against the leather sole at his back, the sock-covered toe flesh in his mouth and nose briefly cutting off his ability to breathe. It was at that point that he KNEW she was playing with him. That she had probably put together that he was…enjoying himself. And he couldn’t help it. He grew hard again. And she definitely felt that too, because the big toe flicked him to the front of the boot and ceased its ministrations.

He was content to just sort of hang out here for the time being. Sure, it was a sweltering, cloying, damp atmosphere, but he could breathe, albeit barely. And when he breathed…wow. He knew most other men would be repulsed by it, but Emma’s faint foot odor was utterly intoxicating to him. He was sucking down big, gulping breaths full of it, reveling in it and trying not to touch himself. He knew he was disgusting, that this was objectively a weird thing to be into, but…he could just picture her all the way up above him, back in the real world. The real world that had no idea he was here, trapped in the confines of formerly-cute-but-now-undeniably-sexy Emma’s boot, her toes twitching about in front of him like great beasts on the prowl. It felt undeniably intimate. He could practically see her pale, soft calf stretching upward to her well-endowed thighs like redwood trees into the atmosphere, her soft, grabbable butt planted into the chair as she wiggled about, playing her saxophone…

And it also felt like cheating. Again. So, he did his best to block it out. Reminded himself that neither he nor Emma wanted him to be here. It was just the both of them making the best of a bad situation. Right? That was it. That’s all this was.

He heard the music start up, got to listen to Emma play for the first time for real, not like when she used to torture him with her “concerts” in her living room while she was still learning what all the buttons on the sax did. And she was veritably sensational. He could feel the gentle sway of her legs as she rocked back and forth with the rhythm, as though he could sense the music just moving through her and flooding out of her in a ceaseless cycle of harmonic symphony. And then there was a point where the rest of the band sort of…died down a bit, and Emma took over. At first, to his untrained ear, it sounded like a rambling, discombobulated convolution of random notes. But he heard the snare drum slowly keeping time, heard the low line of the bass riff underneath pushing the song ever forward, and it clicked into place. She wasn’t just playing notes. She was pouring her soul into the mouthpiece, and the instrument was rewarding it in kind by blasting out a captivating, hypnotic solo. He had little doubt that other members of the band were probably just staring in slack-jawed awe right now, and that the audience would eventually do the same.

Not for the first time, he found himself in awe of this young woman and found he kind of dreaded the day when she would inevitably head off to college. He would…miss her. A lot. She wasn’t just the neighbor’s precocious kid anymore. She was a grown woman, and while he of course didn’t love her romantically the way he loved Amy, he loved what she had become. WHO she had become. He knew heading out into the world and becoming her own person was what was best for her, but he couldn’t deny that he would miss his…friend. Age gap be damned. That’s what she was, he realized. One of his closest friends. The idea was both surprising and gratifying.

He felt her start to get into it a bit, her foot starting to tap along with the music, which interrupted his revelry. Now he was being tossed around like a popcorn kernel as she tapped her foot along to the beat. He bounced across the top of her toes, then slammed into the front of them, then was pressed under them, then was pressed under the ball of her foot, then was thrown back to the front and did it all over again.

He knew she was totally unaware of what she was doing, the toe-tapping reaction to the music entirely involuntary. Yet, he didn’t dare interrupt her. She was in the zone, and while all this jostling was positively migraine inducing, he wanted her to nail it. Knew she would, too.

-------------------------------------

As the band winded down, Emma became more self-conscious about the little game of footsy she had played earlier. It was grating on her conscience that Mr. C was probably….well, turned on, and she was kind of feeding into it. Well, not “kind of,” if I’m being honest… She resolved to fix the situation while they had a quick stretch break between songs. Most of the band stood up and ambled around chatting with each other. A couple of the “cool kids” went to go vape outside behind the building outside the ever-vigilant, watchful purview of Mrs. K, who would doubtlessly lecture them on the damage being done to their lungs.

Emma tried to surreptitiously sneak out. She got into the hallway and began to head on a beeline for the bathroom again when somebody shoved her shoulder…roughly.

“I call dibs cow. I don’t need you stinking up the ladies’ room,” Sheila said over her shoulder with a sneer.

Whatever…cunt. Guess the bathroom’s out. Emma looked around, up and down the hallway, peeked through the window into the band room, saw Ashley engaged in conversation with Mrs. K. This is as good a time as any.

She hurriedly flopped down onto the floor of the hallway, unlacing her boot quickly and turning it over, dumping Mr. C out of it a little forcefully in an unconstrained tumble. He was completely red again, and he looked a little…grimy, which she felt bad about. Like he was visibly wet, and she was pretty sure most of that wasn’t his sweat. But he was covering his crotch again, which in turn brought on another bout of blushing for her. Whoops…again. At what point is this kinda stuff no longer “accidental”? A question she would have to muse on later.

She looked around again to make sure they were alone, and cupped him in her hands, bringing him to her face.

“Sorry about that again Mr. C. I feel like all I’m doing is apologizing today. I’m supposed to be keeping you safe and this has been a total disaster,” Emma said apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it, but I think you should probably get that boot back on and secure me this time…”

Steve was cut off by the band room door flying open, Emma’s face blanching as she saw Mrs. K standing there with a concerned look on her face, Ashley behind her. Fuck, Ash must’ve said something about how weird I’ve been. Emma closed her fist around Steve, trying to stealthily move her hand out of notice.

“Ms. Cooke, your friend was relaying to me how you’ve been acting odd today, that you were flustered when you got out of the car, had almost gotten in an accident on the way here, were talking to yourself in the bathroom…it’s really not like you to miss practice…” Mrs. K trailed off as her gaze narrowed. “What do you have in your hand?”

Oh FUCK! “Um, nothing,” she answered weakly.

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, young lady. Are you doing drugs? Open your hand,” the stern conductor ordered.

And yet again, Emma found herself having to improvise. She opened her hand slightly and hoped Mr. C caught the apology that was written on her face for what she was about to do. And then she tossed him into her mouth with all the care and consideration she would give to a grape.

“It’s nuffin,” she said with her voice garbled from talking around Mr. C’s tiny frame. Yuck, he tastes awful. Like…feet, I guess. “Piece of gum.”

“Piece of gum, huh?” Mrs. K approached where Emma was sitting on the floor of the hallway and stuck out her hand, the suspicion and anger at being lied to evident in her expression. “Show it to me.”

Shit. Shit shit shit SHIT! Amy said he absolutely can’t be seen like this. I promised her I would keep the secret. What do I do?! What do I do???!!

“Emma…” Mrs. K cautioned. “Either spit it out or swallow it,” she directed, calling Emma’s bluff.

Emma panicked, her normally quick brain overloaded by possible options, outcomes and consequences. For what felt like the hundredth time today, she found herself apologizing in her head. I’m so, so sorry Mr. C, I really am. He had said something about being able to hold his breath longer, right? About not needing to breathe as much? He had mentioned some kind of increased durability? She hadn’t misheard that, right? He would be fine. Totally fine. He would have to be.

And then she swallowed.

“Hmph,” Mrs. Karczewski studied Emma, still not believing what she had just consumed was gum. “Do I need to call the nurse? Be honest, you could actually die Ms. Cooke if those were drugs,” Mrs. K prodded with genuine concern.

FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!!!!! Emma had made the decision on the spot to swallow Mr. C rather than reveal his secret, and she was already regretting it. She had heard a faint cry resonating up the back of her throat through her nostrils as the small form had hit the entrance to her esophagus, had felt the lump flailing all the way down…deeper and deeper into her body. But that wasn’t the scariest part, no. The scariest part was that now she didn’t feel anything at all.

She glanced down at her belly in terror-filled shock. I…I ate him. I ATE HIM!! Mr. C is in there, right now. In….in me….In my stomach. HOLY SHIT what did I do??!!! She felt like she was going to throw up, which honestly would be for the best. She wracked her brain for what she could remember from learning about the digestive system. She knew there was no air in there, contrary to cartoon and video game depictions showing characters just plodding along in a gut like nothing happened. If the acidic bile hadn’t killed him already, he would be suffocating. Slowly. Painfully. Dying alone inside me…The thought was paradoxical. It could be argued that one couldn’t possibly get any closer to another human being, physically at least, than literally being INSIDE them. But even though Mr. C was inches away, just on the other side of her abdomen, so close she could probably poke him through her skin, he was alone in all the ways that mattered. No holding hands around a hospital bed as the nursing staff dimmed the lights and gave a grieving family their last moments with a loved one. No, Mr. C’s company was partially digested pizza and the ominous groans and gurgles of a stomach hard at work. She knew he wouldn’t even hear her if she tried to talk to him, even though the only thing separating her vocal chords from her belly was a short length of esophagus.

How long did Mr. C have, realistically? Ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Five minutes? Or was he dead already, the acid dissolving him on contact, his corpse being melded with masticated, half-digested pizza and soda as she sat here…

No. NO!!! Mr. C couldn’t be dead. She had time. Amy had trusted her. They BOTH had trusted her. And on her first day helping them, she had suffocated and crushed him with her breasts, stepped on him as he drowned in sweat in her boot, almost jerked him off with her big toe, and now…now she had eaten him. She couldn’t have done a poorer job of keeping him safe if she had tried.

It can’t end this way.

“Ms. Cooke?” Mrs. K was still awaiting a response, Ashley looking over her shoulder, a mix of surprise and concern written on her face.

Think Emma. THINK!!!! She forced herself to breathe. Closed her eyes for a moment, regained her composure. That’s it. I have an idea. Just have to sell it. Time for those stage lessons to work their magic.

She turned from her seat on the ground to make eye contact with Mrs. K, nonchalantly grabbing her boot and slipping it back over her foot before lacing it up as she responded. “I’m fine, Mrs. K. Really, I am. Just feeling a little queasy from nerves over the concert and a big dinner. Mom gave me something to help settle my stomach. I was worried you would think it was drugs, and I panicked, which of course made you think it was drugs. I’m really sorry, I should’ve been more transparent. But I’m fine, Mrs. K. I really am,” she offered with a weak smile. Did she buy it?

She saw Mrs. K’s face go from concern to sympathy before snapping back to its ordinary sternness. “Can you finish rehearsal?” Phew, she bought it.

“Absolutely! I left some of the sheet music in my locker though, so I have to run over there real quick. I swear I’ll be RIGHT back!!” Emma asked with what she hoped was very little audible desperation.

Mrs. K’s eyes narrowed in suspicion again, her eyes darting up to the clock on the wall. “Three and a half minutes, Ms. Cooke. Three and a half minutes until you’re back in your chair, or I am giving the solo to Ms. Platt.”

Fine, I don’t give a fuck as long as Mr. C’s okay. “Thank you thank you thank you!!” Emma said with entirely faked excitement. “I’ll be right back!!” She turned around and began sprinting down the hallway, rounding the corner before her foot struck something and she suddenly found herself falling forward, the momentum causing her to smack her elbow on the hard tile floor, only mitigating the impact on her breasts slightly. OW!! What the fuck…

Emma turned and looked up, saw Sheila with her leg stuck out, smirking. I swear to Satan I’m gonna kill this fucking cunt one of these days. No time now. She just gave what she hoped was her most threatening glare, and scrambled back to her feet, resuming her sprint.

Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay….

------------------------------------

From the moment he had seen the look of concerned apology on Emma’s face as she had him cupped in her hands, Steve knew what she was thinking about doing. Knew the conductor wasn’t going to buy it. Knew Emma would be forced into two equally undesirable, unthinkable choices. But he had expected her to spit him out, and his plan was to just lay very still. Hopefully, she would pick up on what he was doing and pretend he was a toy. He had NOT expected her to take the other option.

He'd had a chance to take in all the details of Amy’s mouth when they had their little play session in the shower. He was able to see her lips, her teeth, the view of the outside world from his unique perch on her tongue. With Emma, he had none of that. One moment he was drenched in sweat sitting in her cupped palm, and then he was in complete and utter darkness. A different kind of wet darkness.

In response to the saltiness of sweat-soaked Steve on her tongue, Emma’s mouth had instantly begun flooding with saliva. The first step in preparing a meal for consumption and digestion. Her voice had nearly deafened him, the waft of Angeloni’s pizza on her breath washing over him as she tried to play him off as just bubblegum. He thought he could make out the faint scent of starchy wood on Emma’s tongue from her saxophone reed. That tongue had then flipped him to the back of her mouth, directly into her throat, where he sat for a split second on what he presumed was Emma’s upper esophageal sphincter. He had briefly called out, fruitlessly hoping to stop what was coming. And then…

And then she…she ate me. Like the pizza they had shared not even an hour ago, Emma had cast him down into the fiery cauldron of her stomach for processing. She had swallowed him whole, with all the consideration a frog would give to a fly, the audible gulp echoing in his mind as one of the last sounds he’d ever hear.

With his macrophilia, Steve had often fantasized about what this moment would be like in his mind. By far, the hottest thought to him was his cute, tiny, loving wife eating him by accident and never being the wiser. And what he was quickly realizing was that the vision he had in his head had been HEAVILY romanticized. He wasn’t aroused. He wasn’t excited. The scenario of him sitting in his Amy’s belly jerking off as he slowly succumbed to her stomach acids hadn’t even entered his mind for a split second.

No, there was none of that. In its place was one thing: terror. Sheer, unadulterated, all-consuming terror. He realized he actually knew very little about what awaited him at the end of his journey down Emma’s esophagus. He didn’t know if the seconds he had for his life to flash before his eyes as he was pulled ever downward would, in fact, be his last seconds alive. He didn’t know if it was instantaneous death waiting for him at the bottom, if he would feel the sphincter to the stomach dilate open before he plunged into a sea of churning acid, his skin sloughing off him in great clumps as he bled out.

The one thing he knew for sure was that there would be no air inside Emma’s stomach. He had the wherewithal in his moment at the top of her throat to suck in one last, great big gulp of air into his lungs. He was holding his breath during his descent. He felt like a prisoner being walked to the gallows, felt his bladder growing weak at the stark realization that he was about to die. Die inside the belly of an 18-year-old girl who he loved dearly, and who he knew loved him back. He might have urinated himself in fear, there was no way of knowing with all the wetness already on his body and clothes and the sensory overload. 

And so he had fought. He didn’t care that Emma might choke, didn’t care that if she hacked him back up his secret would be exposed. He wanted to LIVE. All of those concerns were secondary to the overwhelming survival instinct. He panicked, he kicked, he punched, he flailed. He tried fruitlessly to dig his nails into the soft esophageal lining around him to slow his descent. Tried spreading his arms and legs out as wide as he could to stick himself in place like a child would on a waterslide.

He struggled. Struggled for his life. And in response, he got a cold dose of humility and insignificance. The reality was: nothing he was doing mattered. Nothing he was doing worked. It didn’t even help slightly. He wasn’t even sure if Emma felt any of it or if he had already departed the world of the living in her mind. No, Emma’s bodily functions reigned supreme, conquered him completely and utterly without effort. The simple act of her swallowing had doomed him to a fate worse than ordinary death, and the stark reality was there was absolutely NOTHING he could do about it. The waves and waves of continued peristalsis ushered him along like a bouncer throwing a drunk out of a bar. There was no slowing or stopping it. There was simply Emma eating him. Swallowing him. Digesting him. Killing him.

And so when he found his journey down her esophagus come to a rather abrupt halt, he knew what it signified. And he suddenly became wistful for his brief seconds in Emma’s esophagus, bargaining with a god that wasn’t watching that he would give anything just to be a few inches higher in Emma’s body than he was right now, just for a few more seconds. Anything but this.

In most of the media depictions of vore, there is a description of a plummet after the journey down a person’s throat and into their stomach. A sensation of falling through air as you plunk unceremoniously into a pit of acid at the bottom. He didn’t know if it was because Emma had consumed almost an entire pizza to herself earlier, but there was none of that. No falling, no sense of weightlessness. No final requiem knell of a ‘plop’ at the bottom.

Instead, he went from being pushed down Emma’s throat, to the briefest of halts before the tissue underneath him dilated to accommodate his inch-tall frame, and then he was consumed for the second time in less than a minute. This time, by a roiling mass of masticated and partially digested pizza, the faint hint of soda sweetness lingering within, but the unmistakable odor of human digestive bile dominating his senses. He came out of Emma’s esophagus, and he was pulled into a digesting bolus of food. Simple as that. It wouldn’t be accurate to describe his experience in her esophagus as tranquil, but there had been a systemic, predictable, and gradual sequence of peristalsis when he was swallowed. Order, of a sort. This…this was pure chaos.

Steve couldn’t see anything at all. It wasn’t just darkness; it was the complete absence of light altogether. As he got sucked into the digesting mass of pizza, pulled underneath the surface and sloshed through it like clothes in the wash, the only sounds he could hear were the telltale gurgles of a stomach doing what it does best, each groan sounding to him like the Grim Reaper laughing. He rapidly lost all sense of spatial orientation as Emma’s stomach continued churning and processing its prize, being dragged down, rolled over, briefly gasping back at the surface for air that wasn’t there before a wave of chewed food collapsed down on top of him again, the process effortlessly and continually tossing him about like a leaf in the wind. He thought he could dimly make out the sound of Emma’s voice, presumably concocting some contrivance for her odd behavior and, hopefully, enacting a plan for his imminent rescue. Steve felt like any such plan that took more than a minute would probably already be too late.

He thought at one point he might’ve thrown up, but there was really no way of knowing. Either partially digested pizza poured into his mouth from his own stomach, or it poured into his mouth from Emma’s. He had felt close to death in Amy’s sneaker. Made peace with it, forgave her for whatever happened because it wasn’t her fault. He realized now that was nothing, comparatively. THIS…this was life or death. As suffocating as the darkness and absence of breathable air were, and as disgusting as the heaving mass of digestive slurry washing over him in waves was, none of that was the worst part. No, the worst part was that his body had begun to tingle.

She’s…she’s DIGESTING me. Under other circumstances, the thought would have been laughable. Hell, many an evening in front of the laptop surfing various giantess porn repositories, the thought would have been arousing. Now, it was just terrifying. And sad. Sad because he knew Emma would never forgive herself, would probably be scarred for life from the ordeal. Sad because he and Amy would never find a solution to his problem. Sad because he could just picture the intolerably tragic and awkward confession Emma would have to make to his wife. That her darling husband, whom she had entrusted to Emma’s care, ended his life as little more than a bowel movement. He didn’t know if his desiccated, digested corpse would ever find its way back to Amy for a burial and some final mourning closure. What was Emma supposed to do? Fish through the toilet bowl tomorrow morning, clean off his lifeless body, and bring it over to Amy in a shoebox to be interred in the backyard like a pet hamster? Would there even be anything left of him, or would a stained, brown skeleton be the only indication that he had ever been alive?

These thoughts in particular, the inescapable tragedy of it all, the emotional damage it would inflict that would resonate for the rest of the two young women’s lives, were what kept him from achieving any sort of peace in what he believed to be his final moments. This is what differed from his time in Amy’s sneaker. He had known Amy would have eventually found him, that she never would have forgiven herself. But it would have been an accident, and as he and Emma had just discussed, accidents happened without regard to fault. It would be a stretch to classify this situation in the same manner. Emma had looked him in the eyes, the apology plain on her face for what she was about to do, and then she had made a choice. Made a choice to EAT him. Yes, being executed under your wife’s sweaty foot while she blithely jogged along without a care in the world was an ignoble end by any stretch of the imagination. Ending up as a teenager’s shit was as bad as it could possibly get though.

He felt his execution chamber suddenly start jostling violently, the digesting mass within heaving up and down as Emma moved with determined purpose. She was running…somewhere. He fervently wished it was toward some sort of salvation, but he refused to allow himself any false hope at the moment. If he was being tossed about by Emma’s ordinary digestive processes before, this new sensation was akin to being ice cubes in a bartender’s shaker. Just a violent, senseless, unpredictable sense of weightless, chaotic movement.

And then, inexplicably, it got worse. He felt both his own body and Emma’s stomach turn end over end before a sudden, jarring impact. Though he had been getting sucked down into the digesting pizza like so much quicksand, he had entertained some faint hope that if he managed to remain somewhere near the surface, he would be first in line for the eventual life-saving vomit, if that vomit was even coming. Now…now he had no idea where he was, but he suspected it was worse. In the same way a diver would feel the sense of pressure at the bottom of a pool, he knew he had been pushed to the bottom of the chaos unfolding around him. Knew he now had to somehow muster enough strength, his lungs burning and his limbs already going limp, to claw his way back upward through a mass of chyme that had no purchase.

And the tingling was getting worse. It had started as faint pins and needles itching at his skin. Now it felt like the type of itchiness you feel when you just KNOW you missed a spot with sunscreen and would be punished for it imminently. It burned. And it was getting worse. Not for the first time, he let out a wordless, soundless scream that was absorbed by the digestive slop around him. A scream that nobody would hear.

Just when he thought his situation could not possibly get any worse, he felt it. He felt the tissue dilating beneath him, felt some of the chyme around him drain downward. Right now, Emma’s pyloric sphincter was the only thing separating him from her stomach and her duodenum. He was less than an inch away from what was assuredly death. The only way to retrieve him alive at that point would be surgical incision. He would be long dead from suffocation, likely even long dead from the acid, before Emma even got halfway to the hospital ER. The most likely outcome would be Emma sifting through a bowel movement for his remains in the morning.

The recesses of his mind drew a grim comparison between his immediate situation and the Greek myth of Charybdis, the ocean-borne monster that would suck unwitting sailors into its depths with unerring, devastatingly effective vortices. He had no more chance of survival than they did.

This is it. This is…the end. He would have cried if he hadn’t already sweated out almost of all his moisture in his combined experiences in Emma’s breasts and boot. And in a dark parody of the times Amy had wiped away the tears rolling down his cheeks when he lost a trial, worried about their future together, judged himself harshly, he knew the masticated slop around him would have wiped those tears away instantly, only more fodder for the horrific mixture around him.

He realized that his pink sock outfit with the little yellow daisies had been lost somewhere in the incalculable, unknowable vastness of Emma’s stomach. And he was reminded of his cellphone wallpaper, Amy’s arms draped around his neck, both of them smiling uninhibited, even knowing that the tour guide was almost certainly judging the comically touristy cliché gringos. He was reminded of the lipstick in his hair this morning as he sat in the “tub” Amy had thoughtfully laid out for him, his cleanliness from mere hours ago now truly a thing of the past. Again he remembered the “luv u” texts, the heart emojis, Amy’s smile as she made her way out the door this morning, trusting Emma would look out for him.

And so, when he felt the pyloric sphincter seize onto his foot like mud suction grabs a boot, he fought. Fought with everything he had, or everything he had left, at least. He grabbed his leg and pulled with both arms, his abdominal muscles straining as he leaned backward to leverage against the sludge draining around him, attempting to push him down just a LITTLE further to end his life. The human stomach is unquestionably efficient at what it does. The digestive system seamlessly moves food along the disassembly line, from the moment saliva begins breaking it down, to when it is chewed and swallowed, to when it is tossed in stomach acid, to when it drains into the small intestine. It was brutally and inexorably effective. But it wasn’t used to its prey fighting back.

He never had long inside Emma’s stomach to begin with. Death was imminent from the moment she had swallowed him. But now…now he had seconds. Milliseconds, maybe. Unless Emma did something right this very moment, it was over. He felt his execution chamber lurch one last time, wondering if Emma had somehow fallen again. If she had, well…Steve Clover’s time had run out.

------------------------------------

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!!! Emma had sprinted down the long hallways of her high school to a bathroom on the north wing, far away from any prying eyes. She made a point of using the disabled bathroom this time so she could shut and lock the door.

She felt bad for the janitor that would invariably be sweeping through here shortly, but she had no intention of depositing Mr. C into the toilet. Instead, she just immediately fell to her knees and jammed two fingers down her throat, attempting to trigger her gag reflex.

Come on…..COME ON!!! COME THE FUCK ON!! THROW UP ALREADY!! She was coughing and hacking, her mouth filling with the saliva that signifies imminent vomit, but nothing was coming up. She felt tears streaming down her face, both from the effort and the worry. She glanced around the bathroom frantically, her gaze seizing upon one last potential lifeline: the plunger.

It was undoubtedly filthy. The kind of thing no sane person would EVER stick in their mouth, and just the thought of doing it made her nauseous. But, nausea was what she needed right now. She grabbed the plunger and didn’t hesitate any longer, immediately jamming the wooden handle down her throat.

Mercifully, it worked. She felt the gorge rising up the back of her throat, spewing onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. She immediately began rifling through the vomit like a child digging for seashells on the beach.

Where is he??!! WHERE IS HE??!!! Emma wasn’t just tearing up now, she was fully sobbing. Mr. C wasn’t there.

Don’t….don’t tell me… She looked down at her abdomen, wondering if her neighbor, her confidante, her friend, was somewhere inside her small intestine already, burning alive if he hadn’t already suffocated. She looked around the bathroom again hoping against all hope to even see a pair of scissors. Maybe she could cut herself open and get him out.

She knew it was insane. She had no idea where her small intestine was, no idea if she would impale Mr. C in her efforts. Knew they would both die if she even attempted it. And she knew there wasn’t a single sharp object to be found in the bathroom. She wracked her brain, trying to think of ANYTHING around her that could do the trick. She didn’t even have her keys. The lack of pockets had ensured she had left those in her saxophone case.

There wasn’t another option. She had to just keep trying, and hope. Pray. Even though she was an avowed atheist in contrast to her mother, she had to pray for a miracle. She grabbed the plunger and rammed the handle down her throat again, gagging immediately. And she felt more vomit coming up, adding to the messy, wet pile that was already seeping out and spreading into the grout of the tile.

This time, there was visible blood, whether from the soreness of her throat from vomiting or from damage inflicted by the plunger handle, she didn’t know. An inescapably dark thought entered her mind: what if that blood is Mr. C’s body, dissolved and bleeding out….

But then she saw it. The flicker of faint, feeble movement just underneath the surface of the grotesque, partially digested pile of masticated pizza. She had never reacted quicker in her life, her hand darting into the mess without hesitation, seizing the tiny one-inch lump she found and dragging it out. Her fist was clenched around it.

She didn’t want to look. What if Mr. C was alive, but already dead? What if she was just holding a disembodied torso, having rescued him just in time for his limbs to be digested, to become a part of her, while he bled out in her hand? What if the thing she was holding was no longer even recognizable?

Well, as her father used to say before he passed: “the task of gutting a fish doesn’t get any more pleasant for having waited to do it.” Hesitantly, chilled to her core, shaking in fear, she slowly unraveled her first.

Oh thank…thank somebody. Mr. C was in one piece. But as opposed to a few seconds ago when there was a little motion within the digestive slop, he was completely and utterly still. Lifelessly still, and limp. It would be the cruelest possible twist of fate for her to have rescued him, only for him to finally suffocate in the seconds it took to extract him from her vomit.

She didn’t know what else to do. Emma placed Steve’s tiny body on the tile, away from the vomit, and for the second time in 30 seconds, did something unspeakably gross. She pressed her lips to his face, his head being so tiny that even her puckered lips buried his head between them. She was basically kissing the tile floor of a bathroom that hadn’t been cleaned yet today. But she didn’t care. She blew slowly, gently, the lingering, unmistakable taste of vomit still overpowering her tongue. She couldn’t even tell if any of the air passed into him, but she started compressions with her pinky finger, frantically trying to recall the CPR course her high school had put them all through.

One two three four five six…she counted the compressions in her head, after thirty of them lowering her mouth once again. But as she neared Mr. C’s body, she saw it curl almost in half as he let out a great, heaving cough. She was ashamed to see bits of her own vomit come flying out his mouth, realizing that he had been drowning slowly in the pizza they had consumed together earlier while watching Bonanza.

Emma quickly grabbed his body, running over to the sink and turning on the faucet, running Mr. C’s body under the cold water, figuring that he had to be burning. He looked very, very red to her. That did the trick: his eyes flew open at the shock of the cold water, a dazed, disoriented confusion plain on his face as his gaze came slowly back into focus.

She took him out from under the stream of water. She didn’t know what to say. “Mr….Mr. C?” she asked hesitantly. His eyes stopped wandering around the room aimlessly, slowly locking onto hers.

“………Emma?” he asked blearily. She could barely even hear him, his voice was so quiet. She saw him jolt as yet more liquid splashed on his face, realizing that one of her tears had struck him head on. She leaned back to avoid it happening again.

“Mr. C…..I don’t….I don’t know what to say. I’m so, so sorry…” she trailed off, biting her lip as it trembled. “I…..I panicked. I didn’t want them to find out. Amy said they couldn’t. I didn’t….I didn’t know what else to do…”

She was waiting for the lopsided, easy grin to come across his face again, waiting for him to reassure her like he had done only minutes ago in the other bathroom, assuage her guilt and tell her accidents happen, that he forgave her.

He said none of that. He didn’t smile, didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything. And maybe he didn’t need to. His expression said it all. It wasn’t anger, relief, empathy, forgiveness, or anything of the sort. It was the unmistakable thousand-yard stare of trauma, the human brain’s natural, emotional defense mechanism of cold detachment from reality. Her mom had much the same look on her face as her dad drew in his last raspy, weak breath on the hospital bed in the intensive care unit of the oncology department. She imagined that she and her brother Tommy had looked similar, if not identical, at her father’s wake, his body in the casket mere feet away as a seemingly endless line of well-wishers and apologists queued up in front of the distraught family.

Though she of course felt relieved that Mr. C hadn’t died, the enormity of what had just transpired set in. I…I almost killed him. Mr. C almost DIED inside me….in my stomach. I…I ate him. Like he was food. I’ve….I’ve been….DIGESTING him…. The redness of his body stuck out to her again.

A fresh bout of tears and emotion washed over her as she clutched his still-limp form to her chest, hugging him while sobbing and heaving uncontrollably. It took several minutes before she had regained her composure.

“Mr. C….I’m gonna leave you on the sink while I…clean this up, okay?” He didn’t answer. STILL didn’t answer her. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was just gazing around the bathroom aimlessly as though it were his first moments on Earth, as if everything he was seeing was new, and shocking. She gently placed him on the edge of the sink as she grabbed fistfuls of paper towel, beginning the arduous, tedious process of scooping up her pile of vomit and depositing it into the trashcan, hopefully a small mercy for the janitor who had to mop up her mess.

Afterward, Emma washed her hands thoroughly with soap and water, rinsing her mouth and gargling a bit to get the taste of vomit out. She realized she hadn’t really cleaned Mr. C off yet, just having rinsed him with cold water. She glanced over at him…and realized for the first time that he was completely and utterly naked. She blushed deeply, averting her gaze.

“Mr. C, I’m going to, uh, clean you off….is…is that alright?” she asked hesitantly without looking at him.

His response wasn’t even an answer. Just a barely audible two-word utterance that struck her like a dagger to the heart: “I’m alive.”

Emma choked back the tears again. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was, what she had put him through.

“Mr. C….I’m really sorry, but…I have to get back to band and I can’t leave you here. Can…can I clean you off?” she asked again, looking in his direction out of the corner of her eye.

His response was an uncomfortably long time forthcoming, and it was just a simple, slow head nod.

Still without really looking at him, Emma squirted a dollop of hand soap into her palm, then ran it under hot water, creating a sudsy puddle in the palm of her hand. She picked Steve up with her other hand and brought her two hands together, gently using her fingers to massage the soap and water over his body. “Close your eyes,” she instructed, “don’t want soap getting in them.” Yes…that was true. But she also didn’t want him looking at her while she cleaned his privates.

Her fingers danced over his genitals quickly and lightly, refusing to make it even remotely sensual. She rinsed him under warm water again, and then grabbed a paper towel, dabbing him off.

“I’m…naked.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Hold on,” she said as she grabbed a piece of paper towel, tearing off a strip and handing it to him. “It’ll probably be a little scratchy, but it’s better than nothing.”

Steve wrapped himself in the paper towel like a toga, visibly gathering himself. He tried disingenuously to summon some of his usual charm and restore some normalcy to their dynamic, offering Emma a sheepish grin. “You know…I actually liked that outfit. Was thinking about keeping it,” he said with a laugh he truly did not feel.

“Yeah, uh….I don’t think you’re going to want that outfit back,” she said with nervous chuckle. “We should probably just let that go. Are you, um, ready?” she asked him.

“What are we going to do with me now?” he asked almost in a whisper.

The dread on his face with that question broke Emma’s heart. “I was thinking of leaving you in my locker for the rest of practice, but I’m worried Mrs. K is gonna wanna talk to me afterward, and they lock down this section of the school for safety after 6:00. I was thinking maybe you just um…ride on my shoulder. Like, under the sleeve. We could even tuck you under my uh….my bra strap so you don’t fall out.” She felt uncomfortable talking about using her underwear to secure him, but her shoulder was nowhere near the same level of scandalous as her nipple was.

“Fine by me,” he responded. Emma reached over and picked Steve up, lifting up the collar of her shirt and seeking out the top of her bra strap, tucking his tiny form underneath it like a child tucked into bed.

“I’m really sorry again, Mr. C,” Emma offered.

“Let’s just get this over with.” His response lacked any of its usual mirth, a clear indication of where their relationship stood after their shared ordeal.

Emma hurried out of the bathroom, beginning a brisk walk through the hallway. As she rounded the corner to head toward the band room, she glanced up at the clock and gulped. 5:12 P.M. She was supposed to have been back by 5:00.

Emma had a feeling what was waiting for her on the other side of the door into the band room, but she still wasn’t entirely prepared to see it. When she walked in, Mrs. K was talking to a trombonist and shot a glare of pure daggers in her direction. Emma turned her eyes to the line of saxophone players, seeking out her chair. Well, what used to be her chair. The satisfied, sneering smirk on Sheila’s face said it all. Emma’s chair was filled. The second chair, however, was vacant.

For as long as she had been playing music, first chair had felt like her birthright. Emma Cooke being the best musician in the building was as routine and predictable as the sun rising, day after day and year after year. That chair now belonged to Sheila.

Emma though it would hurt more, but after what she and Mr. C had just been through, she found it kind of…didn’t matter. I’m okay with this. He’s alive. She actually found herself grinning a little bit as she took her seat, her smile instantly evaporating Sheila’s. Yeah, that’s right bitch. Enjoy your victory by default because I truly do not give a FUCK.

Mrs. K walked back to the front of the room, grabbed her baton and tapped it onto the podium vigorously to bring the room to immediate silence, and then before she resumed conducting, she gave Emma a disappointed shake of the head.

------------------------------------

It transpired that Emma was actually incorrect. Mrs. K had no interest in speaking to her after practice. She suspected that role would be left up to her mother, who would doubtlessly be receiving a phone call that would put her on edge. Whatever…I just need to get the fuck out of here.

She had actually felt Mr. C slipping a little bit again as she moved her saxophone around, the strap over her shoulder sliding him out of place. He had righted himself, mostly, but she still wanted to get him out of there before he fell out.

Emma moved to the back of the band room to begin disassembling her saxophone, looking around her surreptitiously before she slid her hand into the collar of her shirt pretending to scratch her shoulder, withdrawing Mr. C in her closed fist. She opened her box of unused reeds, ready to deposit him inside at least until she got to her car.

“Hey Cookie.” Emma suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Barnyard Levy’s nickname for her, that she had informed him on countless occasions that she HATED, never failed to repulse her to her core.

“Don’t call me that, Bernie,” she said as she dumped Mr. C into the box of reeds in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. It wasn’t.

“Whatcha got there?” she heard him ask. Emma saw him leaning over her shoulder, and realized that, without question, he had absolutely just been standing behind her moments ago, staring at her ass as she squatted. She wanted to throw up…again.

“Nothing Bernie, fuck off. I’m really not in the mood,” she grumbled.

“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he persisted. Ew. “What was that? You got oxy?”

“What?? No!!” Emma had enough. She stood up and whirled around to give him a piece of her mind and was taken aback by what she saw. He was unkempt as usual, of course, body odor stinging her nostrils. How is it possible for a human being to smell like rotten Domino’s pizza? But there was something else. The predatory leer he always had on his face whenever he spoke to her was there, but it was turned up in a placid grin. His eyes were…red.

Oh no…he’s high. Barnyard wasn’t vaping behind the school during breaks. He was smoking weed. She could smell it on him, now that she realized it.

“Lemme see,” he said, going to reach around her. Emma moved into his path, holding her arms out. That immediately redirected his gaze to her chest. UGH!!!

“No, Bernie! Leave me alone!!” she cried. He just pushed her out of the way, his enormous bulk tossing her aside like a bowling pin, causing her to fall to her ass on the ground. Now people were staring.

She looked up and saw that Bernie had the box of reeds in his hands, was flipping the lid open to peer inside. Emma jumped up and charged at him, trying to tackle him. She had an arm around his neck as she grabbed for the box, Bernie’s longer arm holding it just out of reach.

“GIVE…IT…BACK!!!” she grunted as she jumped at him, punching him repeatedly.

“You smell good,” he laughed at her. That was it. That was the line. She slapped him. Not a light warning tap. No, she got her hips into it, twisting back and uncorking with unbridled, unfettered fury, the sound of the slap seemingly resounding throughout the band room louder than Bernie’s timpani ever had.

“MS. COOKE!!!!!” Emma whirled around, seeing Mrs. K at the front of the room, the threat evident in her expression. “What has gotten into you??!”

“Bernie took my…my reeds, and won’t give them back!” she protested.

“Mr. Levy, do you have her reeds?”

Bernie held both hands over his head, completely empty. “No idea what she’s talking about Mrs. K.”

“HE’S LYING!!” Emma shouted. She could see Sheila sniggering by her case, clearly relishing Emma’s public emotional breakdown.

“Ms. Cooke, I will be speaking with your mother tonight. And you and I will be meeting with the Principal tomorrow. I am going to strongly, strongly recommend suspension. Maybe missing the concert will snap you out of…whatever’s going on.”

Emma opened her mouth to protest, but Mrs. K just held up a single finger. She wasn’t going to hear another word on the subject. Mrs. K turned around and went into her office adjacent to the band room, presumably to call Jackie Cooke. Emma saw Ashley a few feet away in the corner disassembling her flute, shaking her head sadly as she avoided eye contact.

“Whooooaaaaaa……” she heard Bernie’s amazed gasp behind her. Oh…oh no.

The box of reeds was discarded on the floor, Bernie staring at something in his palm in evident wonder.

“Are you…are you a leprechaun or something?” Bernie asked with the detached semi-awareness unique to pot-enabled high.

She heard Mr. C’s terse response. “Yes, top o’ the mornin’ to ya. Now fuck off.”

Emma reached again for Bernie’s hand trying to snatch Mr. C back, Bernie twisting away and turning his back on her.

“Whoooaaa….it talks. Do you grant wishes or somethin’?”

“Fresh out of wishes. I can curse you though, make sure you never get laid, though I think you have that squared away on your own,” she heard Mr. C answer impatiently.

“Nasty little thing, ain’t ya? I could just squash you,” Bernie threatened, holding his other hand above the one holding Mr. C.

“Bernie. Give. Him. Back,” Emma growled, hoping her glare adequately conveyed her threat.

He turned a smarmy, lazy grin on her. “Or what? You’ll tell on me?” He laughed, his eyes looking over through the glass at the back of the room to Mrs. K, who was on her feet pacing around her desk with the door closed, on the phone with someone.

Emma decided to try something, knowing Bernie was high out his mind. “He’s not kidding you know. About the curses. Hurt him and you’ll die…painfully” Emma warned.

She wasn’t sure if the threat landed. Bernie was newly distracted by something else. Ashley was now squatting in the corner putting her flute away, her bright green thong poking out of the top of her tight, low-cut jeans, a little opening between the small of her back and the top of her underwear. She was surprised Bernie hadn’t already accumulated a puddle of drool.

She saw the gears turning in Bernie’s head. She had been the victim of this particular foul trick many a time. Bernie would ball up spitballs and then try to flick them down girls’ pants. There was nothing more shocking, or disgusting, than being in the middle of a song and feeling the sting of a wet lump on your back, sometimes slipping down into your underwear. It was positively revolting, particularly since your choices were either to fish it out, and thereby touch it, or leave it in your underwear.

“Bernie…don’t.” This wasn’t so much a threat as it was a plea. She was asking him, sincerely, for once in his life, to not be a total creep. To do the right thing.

He looked at her, smirked. “Whatever,” he responded. And then he flicked at his palm, Emma seeing a tiny object go flying, praying that Bernie would be off the mark. He wasn’t. He had done this too many times, was too good at it. She saw Mr. C’s one-inch form smack against the bottom of Ashley’s shirt, knowing she wouldn’t feel the impact. He tumbled down, sliding down the small of Ashley’s back into the tiny opening at the top of her thong.

Ashley might have felt something, because she closed her flute case, stood up, shimmied about for a second, grabbed the hem of her jeans, did a little hop, grabbed the top of her underwear, pulled it out and hiked it up a bit, appearing confused for a second before shrugging and bending down to pick up her flute case.

FUCK.

------------------------------------

Oh my God does this kid stink. Everything about the sloppy mess of a young adult towering over Steve was disgusting. He could feel the greasy, oily sheen on the kid’s palm under his feet, could see the unnaturally billowing arm hair. Saw the spit and crumbs of food caught in his double chin, the disgusting grin on his face displaying yellowed, stained teeth proudly. But most of all, he could smell him. And it was positively revolting.

Emma had tried, bless her heart, to get him back. Had actually fought for him. But the discrepancy between this kid’s size and Emma’s was even greater than the discrepancy there used to be between him and Amy. She didn’t have a chance in hell of prying him out of the kid’s grasp. Bernie? Is that what she called him?

And so he had tried to talk his way out of it. Well, not really. Realistically he could have been a little nicer, or at least a little more convincing. The kid was clearly baked out of his mind. But Steve was having a HELL of a day. He had no patience for this bully’s nonsense. He hadn’t expected it to end well, but what happened next wasn’t anywhere NEAR the spectrum of possible outcomes he had considered. The kid had given him one last mocking grin before placing his thumb in front of Steve on his palm, his forefinger tensed on top of it, bent slightly backward. Steve knew that finger posture. The hallmark of a super-powered flick.

The fingers had snapped so quickly he hadn’t even seen them move, briefly felt the sting of the impact on his body before he was soaring through the air to God knows where. The band room spun around him on his dizzying flight, his body and his vision turning end over end before striking something soft. He had but the briefest of moments to register where he was. He glanced up, saw a slender back rising up into the heavens above him, soft and straight red hair caressing it about halfway down. He glanced down, saw the neon green top of this girl’s thong, her jeans riding low beneath it. Not for the first time, he questioned whether this type of fashion choice was intentional. With that cut of jeans and that type of underwear, there was NO WAY this girl could so much as slightly lean over without the tip of the underwear crowning. Ask women and they’ll tell you it’s absolutely not by design, they’re just wearing clothes they like, and men are all creeps for thinking it’s for them. But come ON.

His brain did the math before his body did the motion. He started sliding down immediately, saw his trajectory to the dark little opening at the top of the underwear. Tried to course-correct on the fly. Roll, twist, kick, pedal, whatever. But it was a rather short drop, not a lot of time to readjust. All he had succeeded in doing was twisting himself around, his back now to Emma and his face now taking in the peach fuzz that dotted the silky landscape that was the small of this girl’s back below her shirt. He had a brief moment to glance over his shoulder, to see the shock and dread on Emma’s face. And then he was gone from the outside world. Again.

He felt like laughing, but he really wanted to cry. In the span of a few short hours, life had given him everything his fetish-addled brain had always wanted. And he hated ALL of it. The breast play was awkward at best and torturous at worst. The time in Emma’s boot was disgustingly wet and uncomfortably arousing. Being swallowed alive wasn’t hot, it was fucking TERRIFYING. And now he was a on a fast track to some random girl’s ass crack.

He didn’t know what to do. If he flailed around to get noticed he…would get noticed. And that was actually a bad thing. He shouldn’t get noticed. COULDN’T get noticed. But what was the alternative? Hanging on for dear life until this girl eventually took her underwear off? Where would he be? Some stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere? What if she didn’t take it off tonight? Would he be spending the night up some teenager’s butt? It felt disgustingly predatory and objectively wrong, an older man fiddling around in a much younger girl’s bottom without her knowing. But he didn’t have much say in the scenario. In their current roles, this girl was the predator.

He hoped Emma had a solution, but he couldn’t possibly imagine what it would be. “Hey, let me dig around in your ass a bit, you have something that belongs to me?” How in God’s name could she pull that off?

It wasn’t too bad at first. The tightness of the thong stopped his descent. He was pinned under that little triangle of fabric where the straps intersected above the girl’s butt. But then she had stood up, and he slid down a little further, his feet making contact with the top of her crack. The REAL problem began when she adjusted herself. First, she had wiggled a little, now wedging at least three quarters of his body in her crack. Then she had hooked her thumbs into her underwear as she had grabbed the hem of her jeans, giving a little hop as she pulled them back up after coming out of her squat. That had sunk him further down, but he could still see the light of day.

Then she had grabbed the underwear and fished it out of her crack, causing him to fall down further, before she yanked it back up into place. He had fallen down the arc of her underwear, coming to a short rest at the bottom, the twin, soft, warm moons of this girl’s cheeks dominating his point of view, and then the bright green fabric was rushing in at his back, slingshotting him forward. The friction of the skin around him burned as he was aggressively yanked into the dank depths, but that was the least of his problems.

-SLIGHT SCAT MENTION WARNING-

There was no light anymore. There hadn’t been any since he had tumbled all the way down to the back of this girl’s pants. He had to rely on his other senses for orientation in his surroundings. And he smelled it before he touched it. It went from the faint scent of stale human skin to the pungent, acrid, nostril-stinging odor of fermenting sweat, to finally something altogether worse. The smell of shit. It wasn’t like this girl’s butthole was caked in it. In fact, he was relatively certain that Amy was less clean than this girl was right now on a few occasions where she had sat on his face, and the smell hadn’t been overpowering. But now…now this girl’s butthole was bigger than his entire body, and it wasn’t just the tip of his nose pressed against it. HE was buried in it. His entire self. There was no avoiding it.

So, the smell was the first thing that clued him off to where he was, exactly. The second was his tactile senses. Much like when he had intentionally dived in between Amy’s cheeks the day before, the skin around him went from soft and pillow, to faintly stubbly, to firm and rubbery. And wrinkly. The fabric pressing at his back was shoving his entire body against it. He could feel the contours of the wrinkles against his face, against his hands, against his legs. He knew that there would, undoubtedly, be some…residue…within those wrinkles. They were literally still in the shower yesterday when he had invaded Amy’s privacy. She had JUST cleaned off. This…this was a teenager’s butthole at 6:00 P.M. on a weekday. After a full day of school, including gym class, and then a full two hours of having that ass planted in a chair to play music. It’s not like the girl was filthy or anything. It’s just…there’s a limit. A limit to how clean someone’s asshole could possibly be at the end of a full day.

-END OF SLIGHT SCAT SECTION-

Even with the innate pheromones in this girl’s sweat, and even with this same scent having been the smell of arousal to him before on the many occasions he had buried his face in Amy’s butt, this wasn’t sensual. It wasn’t arousing. Not after the day he’d had. It was just…gross. And while he felt like he was violating this poor girl’s privacy, he felt like this girl’s butthole was violating his privacy even more. There was nowhere to go. It was dominating him right now, the thong holding him taut against it as it pulsed, twitched and clenched around him, all undoubtedly subconscious movements the girl wasn’t even aware her body was doing.

He was afraid to open his mouth, breathing in exclusively through his nose. After his experience today with Emma’s tits, he knew that with this level of equal and opposite force, there was a high propensity for flesh to end up inside his mouth if he opened it. And that was the last thing he wanted right now.

The situation felt so thoroughly unarousing that, unlike his time with Emma earlier, he didn’t feel the need to apologize to Amy mentally, to adopt a mantra that reassured him that he wasn’t cheating. This was just…disgusting. And punitive. And unfair after the day he’d had.

Steve was holding out hope for Emma to pull some sort of miracle, but he suspected that the most he could hope for would be for this girl to just not…fart. If I could just have that, Lord, please…just give me that. Give me SOMETHING. He couldn’t handle the thought right now. He had been submerged in tits, rolled in foot sweat, buried in digestive soup, inches away from slipping into Emma’s small intestine and never coming back. The last thing he needed was this girl unwittingly uncorking on his entire body. He didn’t thing he’d be able to stop himself from struggling then. He would want out. Immediately.

He decided to trust Emma to come up with something, at least until this girl got to her car. When she sat down again, he decided it would be time to start struggling. He would rather have his secret discovered than be kidnapped by a random teenaged girl’s butt. One way or another, he was NOT going to spend the rest of the evening pressed up against this girl’s oily, malodorous sphincter.

He felt the rhythmic sway of the girl’s hips moving side to side as she began to walk, and then he heard a sound he was sure neither man nor science had ever recorded before. The girl’s buttcheeks were rubbing back and forth against one another as she walked, and he was mere millimeters removed from it. The sound was faint, but the friction produced a perceptible rubbing sound as she moved. There was no way this noise was audible outside of this girl’s jeans, but where he was, he could hear it. Faint, but undoubtedly there.

He was jostled slightly as he thought he heard a door slam. He couldn’t hear much from the depths of this girl’s crack, but he thought he could faintly make out Emma’s sonorous, crystalline voice calling out. He felt a small jerking motion, presumably the girl opening her car door. And just when he thought his situation couldn’t get any worse, it did.

-LITTLE MORE GROSS STUFF WARNING-

The girl swung one leg into her car, pivoting on her other foot as she lowered her butt into the car seat. That motion opened up the girl’s buttcheeks slightly…and also her asshole. It wasn’t a gaping vortex that he fell into like in some anal vore scenarios, but it was enough. He was pressed tight against it, and suddenly it was stretched wide, his head and his body sinking into it a bit, getting caught. The sensation of the skin against his body went from rubbery and oily to slick, silky and sticky, Steve’s mind realizing that he was now being smeared into the remnants of the rectal lubricant this girl’s anus used to pass bowel movements. It was revolting. He gagged, which ended up being a mistake as, without fail, his mouth was pressed into the wet tissue. It was faintly salty from accumulated sweat, faintly sweet from…things he would rather not think about.

-END GROSS STUFF SECTION-

And then the girl’s butt hit the car seat, and he was shoved further upward and inward. He knew the sphincter wasn’t a thin layer of tissue. He knew he would have to pass through a tight, constrictive vice of sorts that was designed to push things out, not bring them in. He wasn’t expecting to plop into her rectum suddenly, in other words. But he could also no longer fairly describe his position as “outside” this girl’s anus. He was firmly stuck into it, sunk into it.

She must’ve felt it, because the next thing he knew, there were fingernails harshly digging at his back through the small line of thong fabric, scraping him despite the barrier, mashing his entire body into this girl’s butthole. If she kept digging like this, he WAS actually concerned about ending up on the wrong side of her anus. But suddenly, the hand retreated with a haste that could only be attributed to alarm. Presumably, Emma had caught up with the girl, and she had retracted her hand before Emma saw her digging at her butt.

The girl’s body vibrated slightly from whatever she was saying to Emma, the details of the conversation lost on him. And then the leg swung out again, and he felt a lurch as the girl got back to her feet, the movement loosening him somewhat. Thankfully. The sway of the girl’s hips resumed, albeit slowly, as she ostensibly followed Emma somewhere.

What transpired next was difficult to describe, and deeply confusing. He had felt the girl spin around, had felt her cheeks compress inward once more as she leaned against something. Felt the faint vibrations again as the girl spoke with Emma. And then the girl’s whole body was violently yanked forward, and he felt the butthole pulsing around his body pucker closed in shock, pinching around him, the girl’s entire form seizing and going rigid…briefly. But then everything softened, seemingly relaxing. And yet again he felt a vibration resonate throughout this girl, but this wasn’t speech. This was a guttural moan. He was sure of it.

What the fuck? He felt the girl gently swaying back and forth a bit, before he felt his fleshy prison get jostled more violently. He felt fingernails scraping over him through the fabric of the thong, prodding, searching…passing over him once or twice before they zeroed in on his location. He felt the tense, constrictive fabric at his back ease up suddenly, felt two fingers digging into him, pressing him further into this girl’s anus but also pinching him, seizing onto him…and holding him there for a few seconds.

What in the name of all that is holy is going on??! The fingers seemed to take their time, and he was briefly concerned that one of them would lurch forward at any second, burying him fully up this girl’s butt and into her rectum. But as the long fingernails clenched gently around him, they began, ever so slowly, to extract him, plucking him out of his location and dragging him upward, his body rubbing against the inside of this girl’s asscheeks again as he was squeezed between the, before he was greeted by artificial light blaring overhead…and fresh air.

------------------------------------

Emma wracked her brain in desperation. He’s….he’s in Ashley’s BUTT. How the fuck was she supposed to rescue him? Her mind sorted through improbable scenario after improbable scenario, her eyes locked onto the hypnotizing, rhythmic rise and fall of Ashley’s buttcheeks as she walked confidently toward her car, not a care in the world. How far in there WAS Mr. C? Hopefully when Ashley had hiked up her thong, Mr. C had remained…outside. If he wasn’t, Emma truly was out of options other than just telling the truth and begging Ashley, against all hope, to believe her.

She saw Ashley toss her flute case into the backseat and slam the door, and Emma winced as Ashley opened her driver’s side door, swung a leg into the vehicle, and plopped her butt onto the seat. Whatever Mr. C’s current predicament was, that could NOT have helped it.

Ashley was reaching out to pull the door shut. Think Emma, THINK!!! Yet again, for the umpteenth time in this disastrous sequence of events ever since she and Mr. C had left the house, she was begging her brain to come up with something. And then…then the seeds of an idea took root. A truly insane, unhinged, desperate and frankly bad idea. But it was all she had.

“Hey Ash!! Wait up!!” she called out as Ashley had begun to swing the door shut.

“Oh….hey Emma. What’s up?” Ashley asked curiously, seated in her car still.

“Can I uh….can I…talk to you…about…something?” Emma invited shyly, not fully convinced that what she was about to attempt would work.

“Sure Ems, what’s up?”

“Just um…just come with me for a sec,” Emma smiled nervously as she gestured for Ashley to follow her.

“Okay….” Ashley responded quizzically, frowning slightly as she climbed back out of her car, shutting the door and walking quickly to catch up to Emma.

“Is this about why you’ve been so weird today?” Ashley asked with a hint of concern.

“Um….yes!! I mean…kind of. Just uh, just follow me…”

Emma led Ashley around the back of the school. The sky was fully dark, the sun having set hours ago with the shortened days of winter. There were lights scattered about throughout the parking lot, most of the other students having dispersed with only a handful of cars remaining.

Ashley leaned her back against the brick wall, reclining under a safety light on the outside of the building. “Wait…we’re not…smoking pot, right? You know I get all weird and paranoid,” Ashley said with a frown.

“No, no….nothing like that,” Emma responded, her heart pounding in her chest over what she was about to attempt.

Emma found herself biting her lip as she mustered her courage. Welp, may as well do this. “Emma, I gotta say, you’re being REALLY weird…”

Emma cut her off, reaching out and grabbing the front of Ashley’s shirt, pulling her close. For Emma, it was all moving in slow motion. She saw Ashley’s eyes widen in alarm at first, and then genuine shock as Emma leaned in.

“Emma…wait…” Emma kissed her. Deeply. It wasn’t just a peck on the lips. That wouldn’t cut it for what she was attempting. She needed to convey PASSION. She closed her eyes and leaned into it, her right hand reaching behind Ashley’s back and pulling her into it, melding the two of them together intimately.

Emma breathed out through her nose, feeling Ashley’s body stiffen in shock, her shoulders hunching up defensively, her hand on Emma’s stomach extended in defense, intending to push her away. But then…Ashley softened. Her shoulders slouched, her posture melted.

Ashley’s hand stopped pushing at Emma’s stomach and instead snuck around her back, landing softly between Emma’s shoulder blades, Ashley’s other hand rising up to meet it and complete the embrace. Emma’s mouth was opened only slightly, but then she felt it. Ashley’s tongue darted in between her lips like a viper striking prey. Testing at first, probing, if shyness could be conveyed with such a simple movement. Seeing how far she could take it with Emma.

Oh… Emma wasn’t expecting that. At ALL. She and Ashley had been friends since they were kids, countless Friday night sleepovers rolling into Saturday morning cartoons, bowls of sugary cereal on their laps as they laughed and talked about everything and nothing. She remembered when they had both started becoming interested in boys, getting their nails done for the first time at the mall, Emma keeping to herself how she also was interested in girls, and how pretty she thought Ashley was. How Ashley would relay her experiences with her various boyfriends with an air of wisdom, the self-appointed guru of all things adolescent love as the only one of them with any practical experience. How Emma would feel the occasional pang of jealousy when Ashley did so.

And throughout all of those years, there was never even a HINT of anything else with Ashley. There was none of the slow-burn, smoldering embers of a bonfire just waiting to be lit that she felt when she was with Becky. As far as Emma knew, Ashley was as straight as the day was long.

All of this was to say that Ashley’s tongue slipping into Emma’s mouth, the soft moan she let out as their bodies came intertwined, her comparatively slighter frame melting into Emma’s, was all a surprise. Not an entirely unwelcome one, but a surprise nonetheless.

Emma leaned into it, upping the ante on Ashley’s probative kiss by sinking her tongue deeply into Ashley’s mouth. She felt her cheeks flushing at the unexpected intimacy of the situation, found herself getting caught up in the moment. But she had a mission. Sorry Ash…this…this isn’t real…

Emma snaked her hand lower down Ashley’s back, testing Ashley’s limits first by grabbing a handful of Ashley’s butt through her jeans, seizing onto it with a sinking squeeze. Ashley made no move to stop her. Green light…I guess…

As their tongues continued to explore each other’s mouths, awkwardly and haltingly at first but with increasing confidence and rhythm, Emma snaked her hand upward from Ashley’s butt onto the hem of her jeans, hooking her fingers into Ashley’s unoccupied belt loop. She suspected the decision not to wear a belt was by design. When you looked like Ashley did, you didn’t buy a neon green thong unless you wanted people to know you were wearing it.

And then Emma continued to test Ashley’s limits, her fingers sneaking below the waistline of Ashley’s jeans, inside her pants, her long fingernails plucking at the thong like a guitar string. Ashley didn’t stop her…so she continued. Slipped her fingers inside Ashley’s buttcrack, her nails probing for any sign of Mr. C. She didn’t feel anything at first. She was briefly concerned that Mr. C had fallen out in the parking lot or, even worse, was already….inside Ashley. Emma was pushing boundaries with Ashley and getting away with it for the moment, but she suspected they were quite far removed from a level of comfort whereby Ashley would suddenly let Emma toss her salad. If Mr. C was….up THERE, it was going to be a problem.

But then she felt it, the nail on her index finger rolling over a lump underneath Ashley’s thong. And if that lump was where she thought it was….Oof….sorry Mr. C. That can’t be enjoyable. Her hapless neighbor was having a rough go of it today, to put it lightly.

Her middle finger gently pulled the thong string out of the way as she felt Ashley’s breathing intensify, Emma’s own body heat rising even though none of this was supposed to be….real. Ashley tensed again, clearly wondering what Emma was doing fiddling around in her behind, probably suspecting that Emma intended to stick a finger in her.

That would have to be a first, even for Ashley. Nobody’s first kiss ends with their butt getting fingered. The nails on Emma’s thumb and index finger dexterously clamped around Mr. C’s form and…extracted him. She felt something like a little pop, almost as if Mr. C had been stuck halfway up Ashley’s butt. This poor, poor man, Emma thought remorsefully. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she withdrew her fingers, sliding them out gently from between Ashley’s buttcrack, making sure to continue leaning into the kiss and, well, selling it. She felt like more of a sleaze than Barnyard Levy. She was VIOLATING her good friend, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Nothing about this was remotely genuine. It was purely practical. A necessary evil. Wasn’t it?

Even though she had Mr. C secured, Emma made sure to give Ashley’s cheek another deep squeeze, digging her fingernails into the delightfully squishy flesh so that it wouldn’t be obvious that she had been fishing for something in Ashley’s butt. She was sure Mr. C wasn’t going to be happy being pressed into Ashley’s asscheek after having almost been swallowed whole by her anus, but she couldn’t just yank her hand out and run away. That would be even MORE suspicious.

Letting go of the handful of Ashley’s butt, Emma slowly extracted her hand, making certain to keep her fingernails clenched around Mr. C’s body in a vice. She slid that hand up Ashley’s back again, gliding under her shirt as though she intended to unclasp Ashley’s bra, pulling Ashley in so deep that Emma thought her tongue must be halfway down Ashley’s throat by now…but then she cut herself off. Withdrawing the hand and pulling it behind her back, she withdrew slowly.

As their lips parted, neither of them backed away immediately. Their eyes both opened, taking each other in, each peering into the other’s soul trying to find something, neither of them willing to break the moment or the silence. Their noses were still touching, each of their lips brushing the surface of the other’s. She felt Ashley’s breath on her, Ashley’s breathing having quickened and intensified. It tickled her wet lips in all the right ways.

Wow…that was…that was…something. She was surprised at the amount of will it took to back away, to separate from Ashley. Ashley’s eyes looked down at the ground bashfully, her hands linked behind her back, her foot twisting on the pavement in awkwardness as they both tried to find the words.

Hesitantly, perhaps even a little fearfully, Ashley’s eyes slowly rose to meet Emma’s. What was it she saw there? Was it fear? Shock? Nerves? Lust? Or was it something…more?

“Emma, I uh….wow,” Ashley began with painful awkwardness, biting her lip. “I had….had no idea…” Emma didn’t know what to say. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected her half-baked plan to get this far. She hadn’t planned out what would happen after, only now realizing that THIS was the most difficult part. Navigating this situation without torching a lifelong friendship. Plucking Mr. C from her friend’s butthole had actually been the easiest part. This would have to be handled delicately…and carefully.

“Ems…I’m not….I’m not gay…” Ashley continued. “I have a boyfriend…”

“No no Ash, I know. This was a bad idea, I’m really sorry…” Emma responded sheepishly as she backed away from Ashley, clasping her hands behind her back so Ashley wouldn’t see Mr. C. “I should go…” Emma trailed off as she continued backing away.

“No, wait Ems,” Ashley pleaded. “Why…why didn’t you, you know, ever…SAY something?” Ashley asked genuinely. “I thought….I thought you and Becky…”

“We’re not. I mean, I don’t think we are. I don’t know. Look Ash, I’m really sorry, again…” Emma turned her back on her friend, bringing her hands in front of her as she began to walk away. She heard Ashley’s quick footsteps as she jogged up behind her, grabbing her arm and turning her around.

“Emma….we should, you know, TALK about this…” Ashley begged.

“We will, Ash. Soon. I just…I just need a minute to think…Again, I’m really REALLY sorry.”

Ashley looked hurt for a second, her brow furrowing as her eyes searched Emma’s face for something. Emma felt she could almost see the gears turning in Ashley’s head, her brain processing the enormity of what had just happened, how it had reshaped their dynamic as friends potentially irrevocably. Ashley seemed to reach a decision, a shy grin coming across her face. She took Emma’s hand, pulled her forward, Emma’s eyes widening in shock and her face flushing again as Ashley planted a soft kiss on her lips that lingered perhaps just a moment too long. Emma’s body tingled, the soft, hesitant touch of Ashley’s lips brushing on hers somehow even more electrifying than their more intimate moment together a few seconds ago. Oh no….what did I do?

Ashley’s shy grin continued, her eyes darting to the pavement once again. “Call me later, Ems.”

“O…okay…” Emma trailed off as Ashley smiled at her, turning around and walking back toward her car.

Emma turned about to walk to her own car, lifting Mr. C up in her hands about to ask him if he was okay when, somehow, this cursed day got even worse. Under the parking lot lights, she saw someone waiting by her car, staring in her direction.

Oh…oh no. Emma felt dread mounting and snowballing within her. With everything that had transpired over the past few hours, she had completely forgotten her plans with Becky. Becky had likewise been staying late at the school for chess club. They were supposed to meet at Emma’s car when they were both done to go grab a bite to eat and…well, hopefully more. Emma had been hoping the evening wouldn’t end there, for once.

PLEASE tell me she didn’t see that. No such luck. Her eyes found Becky’s from across the parking lot, Becky immediately averting her gaze as her body took on a hunched, defensive posture and her head looked down at the ground. Becky grabbed her backpack off the top of Emma’s car and tucked it under her arm, storming off quickly, her movements stiff and almost robotic.

Emma started jogging after her. “Becky!!! Wait!!!” she called out. Becky ignored her, continuing her determined retreat to her own car. Everything about her posture screamed hurt and defense mechanisms.

“Becky!!” Emma called after her one more time, as her friend threw her backpack into the passenger’s seat, got into her car and slammed the door. Emma heard the ignition turn over, the headlights on the vehicle turning on before it peeled out of its spot, speeding away into the distance toward the street.

FUCK!!! Just when she thought this day could not possibly have gotten any worse, Becky had seen her and Ashley. Becky’s reaction had seemingly confirmed something Emma had fervently hoped was true, but now she wished she had never found out. Not the way she did just now, at least. Motherfucker.

Emma sighed, her shoulders drooping, feeling the tears tugging at her face again. She was sure her makeup was an absolute runny mess. As she got into her own car and deployed the rearview mirror, her suspicion was confirmed. She thought she looked like Heath Ledger’s twisted, damaged Joker more than a teenage girl in the prime of her life.

She collapsed forward, banging her head on the steering wheel in exasperation. “UGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!” she moaned in sheer, unadulterated frustration.

She heard a faint voice. “Everything okay, Emma?”

She opened her cupped palms, looking at Mr. C who had once again lost his “clothing.” Somewhere up Ashley’s butt was a little wad of paper towel. The Barnyard Levy Spitball Special had never been more successful. Somewhere, somewhere gross probably, Barnyard was doing victory laps.

Neither of them cared about his nudity at that point. They had both seen too much of each other, been through too much together, for something so mundane to matter in this moment.

All things considered, Mr. C was looking better. He had lost that wan and waxy look to him that she had seen after fishing him out of her vomit, his eyes more focused, his demeanor somewhat normal. She was certain there would be lingering trauma over his experiences today, for BOTH of them, but that dazed, detached and, frankly, frightening stare he had displayed earlier was gone. Emma was glad to see it. She had been concerned that he would NEVER get back to normal.

She caught a whiff of him, her nose wrinkling involuntarily in disgust. “P.U.! Mr. C, you smell positively foul,” she said with a tremulous smile.

“Yeahhhhh….your friend’s butt almost ate me. You uh, you might want to wash your hands, by the way.”

Emma fished around in her backpack, extracting a small bottle of hand sanitizer. She held it up in front of him, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. “Want a squirt?”

“Yes please,” he answered quickly. Emma held it over his head, squeezing out a little dollop that covered Mr. C easily from head to toe. She heard him let out a loud hiss as he frantically scrubbed it everywhere around his body. What? He doesn’t have any cuts… But then she saw it, the redness of his skin sticking out even more after having been irritated, and she winced. Oh….that’s….that’s um, acid burn, isn’t it? From….from my stomach…. Just when she felt like they were both starting to get over their shared ordeal, life handed her this painful, unforgiving reminder of just how close she had come to committing the most disgraceful type of murder imaginable. Well, actually…I think dying up Ashley’s butt would’ve been worse. A little. The thought was so patently ridiculous that she felt an involuntary grin crack her lips.

Mr. C looked at her skeptically. “What?” he asked with a frown.

“Nothing,” she answered, placing him on the armrest as she squirted sanitizer into her palms and lathered her hands. “Just…you’ve had a day, haven’t you?”

“That’s an EXTREMELY mild, generous way of putting it,” he responded, mercifully matching her grin.

“That was some quick thinking earlier, Emma. Thank you for…for saving me from your uh, your friend’s butt.” Mr. C said awkwardly.

“Please don’t thank me. It was the absolute least I could do after what I’ve put you through. Amy would murder me, painfully and slowly, if she knew what I’ve been doing to her husband since 3:45 this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry, Emma. Your secret is safe with me. For the record, Amy would ALSO murder me if she knew,” he said with a faint smile. His expression grew more serious. “What was with that girl?”

“The girl whose butt I rescued you from?” Emma asked curiously.

“No, the other one. The one that ran away from your car.”

Didn’t realize he saw that. “Oh that’s…that’s nothing. Just my um….friend. Becky.” Emma’s response sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

Mr. C looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you like her?”

Emma debated internally for a moment. She didn’t know where Mr. C stood on these kinds of issues, where he was on the political spectrum, whether he would judge her for being bisexual, whether he’d approve of her lifestyle choices. She didn’t know if she should tell him the truth. And honestly, this would be the first time she had admitted it out loud to herself to boot. That she liked Becky. Weirdly, it felt like a point of no return. That if she gave voice to what she hoped had been building since they were kids, nothing would ever be the same again. What am I talking about? This is Mr. C. He’s always been kind to me.

“…..yes. I think….I think I do like her,” Emma answered softly.

“And does she like you?” Mr. C questioned immediately.

“I don’t uh….I don’t know,” Emma answered honestly.

Mr. C raised an eyebrow. “You saw her have THAT reaction, and you seriously don’t know? REALLY, Emma? You’re a smart kid,” he coaxed. “She likes you, trust me.”

Emma was briefly elated at the thought, but then her heart plummeted again. “Well, not anymore she doesn’t. I just blew it.”

Mr. C’s gaze narrowed, his expression suddenly growing serious. “Bullshit. Bullshit Emma. FUCK that. If you like this girl, and she likes you back, you fucking talk to her. Do you know how many times I’ve pissed Amy off, how many times I’ve made her uncomfortable, how many misunderstandings we’ve had over the years?”

“I can guess,” Emma answered with a wry grin.

“The point is: you’re both adults. And adults talk to each other. Amy and I wouldn’t still be together if we couldn’t talk to each other about everything. You’re done with the high school politics at your age. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that can’t be solved with a real conversation. Maybe you don’t end up together, but wouldn’t you still want her as your friend?”

“I would, yeah,” Emma conceded. “What am I even supposed to say? ‘Hey sorry you saw that Becky, but believe when I tell you that I had my tongue down Ashley’s throat and was fiddling around in her butt just for laughs, it meant nothing’”?

“Emma, this may come as a surprise to you, but I wouldn’t lead with that,” Mr. C answered, both of them laughing. “Let me think on it. I’m a lawyer, Emma. We can make a case for you, we just gotta sort out our approach.”

“You don’t have to do that Mr. C, but…I appreciate it,” Emma responded with a warm, genuine smile.

“No problem.” Mr. C paused for a second. “This is going to sound absolutely bonkers after the past few hours but….are you hungry?”

“Actually, yeah. I could eat,” Emma answered.

“As long as it’s not me this time,” Mr. C warned mockingly. Emma smiled again. It was good that they could already joke about it. She buckled herself in, put Mr. C in the cupholder, and started her car, pulling out of the parking lot. 

Steve Clover needed a drink. Not just in the sense that he had an extraordinarily trying day, but in the sense that it had been several days since his last one. He hadn’t realized just how much he had been consuming daily, didn’t think that alcohol withdrawal was really a thing. But when he held his hands up, they were shaking. It could be attributable to his terrifying ordeal in Emma’s stomach, sure, but it felt like more than that. He felt…squirrely. Twitchy. Itchy. He just didn’t feel right.

The rest of the evening was mercifully uneventful. He and Emma had hit up a fast-food drive-through on their way back from her school, Steve once again marveling at the girl’s metabolism. She had joked that the weight seemed to go straight to her tits nowadays, but he still couldn’t fathom how someone could consume two burgers, large fries, and a large soda, then chase it down with two apple pies, and look like she did.

By the time they had gotten back to his home, it was already around 8:00 at night. Amy would be back within the hour. Emma had helpfully retrieved one of his outfits from the newly-coined Rubber Ducky Fashion Line (the name she had given it had stuck), this one comprised of forest green sock fabric with teddy bears on it. He resolved to keep this one, somehow, after the pink number with yellow daisies was left behind in Emma’s gut somewhere. She was right that he probably didn’t want it back…if there was anything left of it.

The question was how they would explain his skin looking red and inflamed, and where his other outfit went. And in Steve’s experience, the best lies start with a kernel of truth. Not that Amy would ask for it, but they had the fast-food receipt. The plan was to explain to Amy that Steve was hidden from sight in the cupholder as Emma went through the drive-through, and she had spilled hot coffee all over him as she went to put it next to him in the cupholder. They had extracted Steve immediately, who tore off his outfit (without Emma seeing, of course) to get the scalding fabric off him. It had been inadvertently thrown out when Emma cleaned her car.  

It was a stupid excuse. They both knew it, felt like kids lying to their parents about getting drunk. But Amy trusted Emma, and if Emma corroborated it, well, there really wasn’t anything to contradict the story, was there?

Emma had hung out with him for a bit before Amy got in, Steve deciding to introduce her to Cowboy Bebop now that it was on his mind. He hadn’t seen it in 25 years, and he knew Emma liked anime. “It’s an all-time classic,” he had explained. He found it patently ridiculous, and borderline unbelievable, that she had never heard of it. So, they had agreed to swap their favorites as long as they were going to be spending so much time together. Up next on the slate of various intellectual properties was Oshi No Ko, a show that Emma insisted was amazing despite the truly bizarre plot synopsis she had provided. He had his doubts and reservations, but she had humored his desire to trot down memory lane, so it was a fair trade. They were going to start it after they finished Cowboy Bebop.

They made it through a handful of episodes before the headlights of Amy’s car illuminated the hallway outside the bedroom, Emma standing up and grabbing her keys before meeting Amy at the door for the changing of the guard. She had uttered one last sincere apology, her face conveying a desperate need for Steve to tell her she was forgiven, her lip trembling as she stood in the doorway of his bedroom before Amy came inside. And he had, in fact, forgiven her. As mature as she seemed at times, she was just a kid. A kid with her own trials and tribulations, her brain stuffed to the gills with emotions, hormones, and personal drama. Steve believed that Emma had done the best that she could, even if Emma’s best had almost gotten him killed. Emma vowed that she would keep track of her school schedule and coordinate with Amy going forward so there wouldn’t be a mix-up like this again. They both agreed that the absolute LAST thing either of them ever wanted was for Steve to end up at Emma’s high school again. It seemed like nothing good happened there.

Emma had been terrified over the looming confrontation with her mother, her cellphone having blown up with missed calls and texts in the hours after band practice had concluded. Jackie had undoubtedly spoken with Mrs. K, and surely intended to tell her daughter just how she felt about that conversation. Much like their contrived story to Amy, Steve had suggested that she just tell the truth. Well, a version of the truth that had some key details omitted, such as her neighbor being one-inch tall and hitching rides in her tits, her boot, her stomach, and Ashley’s butt in the span of a few short hours.

He had recommended to Emma that she confide in her mother about her nerves, about her conflict with Sheila, about the professional creep otherwise known as Barnyard Levy, about the bullying she suffered on a day-to-day basis. Steve was banking on Jackie’s empathy and maternal instinct subsuming any lingering rage. He hoped for Emma’s sake that he was right about the approach. The concert was supposed to be tomorrow night, and both he and Emma firmly believed she would not be in attendance, a suspension being the likeliest of outcomes in her meeting tomorrow morning with the Principal. All things considered, she was taking it pretty well.

There was another problem, besides the booze. A different itch of sorts that needed scratching. When he was boiling alive inside Emma’s stomach, he thought that he would never jerk off to his macrophilia again. But being a few hours removed the ordeal, his lower brain took over gradually like it always did. Being back in the safety of his own home, calming down, his heart rate achieving normalcy, the old libido kicked in retrospectively. He had caught a glimpse of Emma’s friend Ashley in the parking lot, and the girl was simply stunning. Steve being a lifelong fan of the Spider-Man franchise, Ashley seemed to him like what he was sure every horny teenager imagined Mary Jane Watson to be in real life. Ashley had silky, flowing, natural red hair that tussled about effortlessly as she moved her head, rounded cheekbones mounted on a narrow face that boasted a smattering of freckles, bright, piercing green eyes that bordered on being unnatural, a radiant grin with pearly white teeth, and thin, pink lips that looked soft enough to sink into.

Ashley was slender, sure, but so was Amy. Whereas Amy had been blessed with genetics that allowed her butt to pop out a little despite her slight, wiry frame, Ashley’s butt was more proportional to her size and weight. That didn’t make it any less of a natural wonder to behold, however. It fit her perfectly. Seared into his mind was the rhythmic rise and fall of Ashley’s buttcheeks in her tight jeans as she strutted away toward her car after kissing Emma one last time, the knowledge that he had been nestled between them moments earlier being posthumously arousing as he contemplated it from the safety of his own bed.

And though he really didn’t want to think about it with everything Emma meant to him as his friend, especially with the significant age gap, the time he had spent with her was likewise replaying on an endless loop in his mind’s eye. When they got back to his house, Emma kicking off her boots again as she flopped casually onto his bed, crossing her legs as she leaned back and reclined against the headboard, his eyes were drawn to her chest. He couldn’t help it. He was a man, and Emma was a woman. A very, very attractive woman. He felt like the definition of pure sleaze for the things he thought about her, felt like he would be thrown in prison if anyone were ever able to read his thoughts. But as she laid there on his bed watching the TV, her toes pointing upward to the ceiling, curling and wiggling on occasion, her mountainous chest popping out from her relaxed, reclined posture, her stomach quietly gurgling as it processed the fast-food, her pale legs with thighs seemingly twice as thick as Amy’s extending toward the foot of the bed, the glistening, black lipstick that her tongue occasionally darted across for moisture…

It was just…a lot. As an adult male, Steve had long since perfected the art of scoping women out with his peripheral vision, such that he could look at the TV and still take in “the sights” without being obvious. But during one particularly egregious instance of ogling, he realized his head had been turned COMPLETELY in Emma’s direction, his gaze locked onto the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed in and out, for several uninterrupted minutes. And Emma wasn’t oblivious to his attention either. At her age, most girls were familiar with the sensation of a man’s eyes lingering on them. At one point, Emma had glanced over in his direction out of the side of her eyes when his unabashed stare continued, a faint smirk cracking her lips as she crossed her arms across her body, underneath her chest, seemingly making her tits pop out even more prominently…on PURPOSE. NOT fair, he had complained to himself mentally. He quickly averted his gaze when she caught him, but the damage was done. For the second time in two days, Emma had caught him red-handed taking in the sight of her breasts like tourists photograph mountains.

Yes, he had known this girl since she was 9, for literally half her life. Had dressed up like a princess before for teatime to humor her after her father had suddenly vanished from her life. Had been a literal shoulder to cry on as she went through puberty and learned the harsh lesson of just how petty, vindictive and eviscerating young girls’ bullying can be, how the cuts and barbs could be so hurtful that they often felt like physical wounds. Had pushed Emma and her brother on swings. Had sung “Happy Birthday” to her at one of her parties, burying his face in the slice of cake on his plate and smearing it all over him to Emma’s immense delight. She had always thought that eating “like piggies” was truly hilarious, and the nice, goofy neighbor man was consistently all too happy to oblige. Sometimes, he agreed with Amy’s repeated accusation that he was a man-child. He was actually proud of it, in fact. Wore it like a badge of dopey honor.

It all added up to an inescapable sense of taboo perversion, a predatory sensation that made him uncomfortable with self-loathing. But God dammit, this girl was HOT now. Like, no way around it. Emma Cooke had become the type of girl he would’ve killed to have under his arm during his own time in high school. In fact, Emma’s adult body was such that he would’ve had someone like her as a poster on his wall in college. He truly felt bad about it, but Emma was just…hot. Super, super fucking hot.

He had asked for one last favor from Emma before she left. He knew that if he wanted to get what he was hoping for out of his wife this evening, he needed “Flamy” to make an appearance. That was the moniker they had designated for when Amy got a few drinks into her and became ravenous and insatiable, her sexual appetite exceeding even Steve’s on those occasions. He was hoping against all hope that when Amy got in he could get her a little liquored up, which would hopefully pierce through her normal self-consciousness and reservations, and grant him permission to play around with her butt a bit. And her feet. And her pussy. And her tits. Really all of her, but her butt was the one thing that had been consistently, patently verboten unless she was a little tipsy.

That was why at the conclusion of the evening he had asked Emma to fetch two of his whiskey tumblers with ice, Emma inquiring as to why they would need two when it was just him and Amy, and he was one inch tall. He hadn’t elaborated, just asking her to go along with it. And after what she had put him through earlier in the day, Emma didn’t ask questions, all too happy just to feel helpful. She had placed the two whiskey tumblers on the nightstand, adding healthy pours from the bottle of Blanton’s Gold per Steve’s instruction, the bottle having remained on the nightstand still from the night he shrunk. And before Amy came inside, Emma had offered Steve a little wink. “Have fun you crazy kids, hope you get laid Mr. C,” she had said with a smile as she left. That level of directness and dirtiness in discourse with a girl he had practically helped raise should have felt like crossing a line, but after what he had seen of her, it didn’t. He imagined she felt similarly. They had both seen too much of each other over the preceding hours for off-color humor to feel taboo.

All of this was to say that by the time Amy’s head poked into the bedroom with a tired smile, her bare feet becoming unbound from her flats as she kicked them off into the closet, her bra becoming visible as she unbuttoned her blouse and placed it in the laundry bin, her little bubble butt poking out as she unzipped and then shimmied out of her skirt, Steve was fired UP. He had worked himself up into a lather, a fit of aroused pique that positively SCREAMED for immediate release. Plus he really, really, really wanted that drink. Needed it, if he was being honest, even though he didn’t want that to be the truth.

And so when he saw Amy start to walk toward the bathroom in her underwear to inevitably shower before slipping into her PJs, he called after: “…don’t.”

“What was that, babe?” Amy responded with evident confusion as she unclasped her earrings, an inverse echo of the same action he had watched her do more than 12 hours earlier.

“Don’t….shower,” he instructed. He was sure that Amy would recognize the look on his face. She had seen it so many times before. Even when Steve was at his normal height, the sight of Amy half-naked had never failed to entrance him. Never failed to send his privates into overdrive, to make him mad with lust.

And he could tell by the look on her face that she knew EXACTLY why he didn’t want her to shower. He wanted her DIRTY for what they were about to do. Hopefully.

Amy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, her gaze falling upon the two filled whiskey tumblers. She approached the bed in a confident saunter, exaggerating the motion of her hips a little. Even if she had no intention of acting on it, Amy was never above teasing him.

“What’s this for?” she asked, gesturing at the bourbon.

“For us, dummy. Nobody else here,” Steve offered with a grin.

“Steve, if you’re hoping to get laid tonight, and I STRONGLY suspect you are, you’re off to a bad start calling me ‘dummy,’” Amy playfully admonished. As she looked at him more closely, however, her gaze widened in alarm.

“Why are you so red? And where’s the pink outfit?”

“Oh, uh…Emma and I went to get McDonald’s earlier, and she spilled the coffee on me. Total accident, not her fault. I don’t know what happened to the outfit though. She must’ve tossed it when she cleaned up,” Steve explained. The lawyer part of him found irony in the lie. He was reminded of the famous court case that resulted in fast-food coffee cups having “WARNING: HOT” slapped all over them.

“Oh,” Amy frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I mean, I’m a little burned, but nothing an ice bath won’t fix,” he responded as he wagged his eyebrows suggestively in the direction of the bourbon.

“I’m not enabling your habit you sloppy drunk. It’s long past time for you to dry out,” Amy answered flatly.

“I know, I know…just this once though. It REALLY, REALLY burns!!” he pleaded.

Amy rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, sighing audibly. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this…”

“YES! Thank you Ames!!”

“I said I’m CONSIDERING it, jackass. I have half a mind to leave you here staring at it while I go shower,” she answered with a tone that indicated that she was only KIND OF joking.

“Oh come on, now you’re just being cruel. We don’t have to fool around if you don’t want to, but can we sit and talk at least? I want to hear about your day. What was with the Order to Show Cause?”

He saw an amused smirk come across Amy’s face. She knew exactly what he was doing. Yes, she liked it when he would actually listen to her recount her day, especially after a long one, but she harbored no illusions about what was really going on here. Steve wanted her to start talking, forget about the shower, take a couple of casual sips, and then…see where the night goes.

“Hold on, I gotta put these away,” she said, gesturing at the earrings in her palm. That’s when Steve saw it. The little ant wandering around on the hardwood floor, barely perceptible with its brown body against the dark grain of the wood. He had only noticed it because of the movement. He gulped. He knew it was objectively a dark thing to root for, to watch this little creature’s life be snuffed out. But Amy’s feet were bare, had just come out of her work flats… And he had way, way more in common with that ant than he would care to admit. He’d never told Amy that this part of his macrophilia existed, knowing that in her mind it would be crossing some sort of line with how sweet she normally was. Telling her he wanted her to kill little bugs for his enjoyment would be a step too far.

That said, Amy was smart. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had already put it together. The way he would stare in rapt attention, his jaw dropping when Amy would see a bug skittering across their floor and just…stomp on it. Usually with her sneakers on. This…this would be a first.

Amy turned around, pivoting on her back foot as she began to stride toward the dresser. He saw her footfalls getting closer, closer…her bare feet leaving little footprints of moisture on the comparatively cold floor. Her eyes still locked on the dresser, Amy’s right foot lifted up hanging over the poor, unwitting ant like a guillotine. Her foot came down and Steve’s breath caught. The next step she took, however, he could see the little thing was still mingling around. It must’ve been between her toes when her foot had landed. Lucky little devil.

Amy finished crossing the room, extracting a small black box from the top drawer and carefully putting the earrings inside. He had actually purchased those earrings for her after the MicroMD verdict. That was a frivolous purchase, the diamond-studded hearts really having no personal significance to either of them. Those things were fucking expensive, he recalled. Amy had never displayed much interest in material things, having come from relatively humble means herself. Other than to the extent that she wanted to be there for him when he lost a trial, or celebrate with him when he won, she didn’t really care whether he netted a massive retainer fee. She didn’t care whether he bought her a fancy car or took her on expensive dates. She had always just been along for the ride, as she put it. Excited to see where life took them. Together.

Amy saw life as an adventure of sorts, a story being actively written. She would sooner take a stroll on the beach than accept a diamond ring. That was how he had gotten talked into Costa Rica instead of his preferred destination, Hawaii, for their honeymoon. Amy wanted to go ziplining, and against all odds had talked him into it. He hadn’t wanted to seem like a coward or look like he didn’t know what he was doing, so he had told the instructor he didn’t need directions. And like a true dope, his pride on the line as the self-appointed alpha of their tour group, he had volunteered to go first after the instructor reached the other tree. It was only when he saw the man frantically gesturing over his head for Steve to press down on the cable that Steve realized what the giant rubber pad on the glove was for. He had gone full speed into the trunk of the tree like Tom chasing Jerry into a wall. There might still be a Steve-shaped impression on the bark. He had heard a shocked gasp from Amy at first, and then when she saw he was okay, she had doubled over laughing. He had been super annoyed at the time, but in retrospect, it was kind of funny. And he liked it when she laughed, even when it was all-too-frequently at his expense.

Amy came walking back toward the bed, Steve’s brain forecasting her path and realizing she would be well wide of the little ant. Sorry about this, my little dude.

“Hey Ames, can you get me a piece of tissue?” he called out, stopping her in her tracks.

“What for?” she asked.

“Gotta blow my nose, unless you’d prefer that I do it on your pillowcase,” he responded.

“Ewww, don’t do that. Alright, hold on,” Amy did an about-face, this time stepping directly over, and bypassing, where the ant was still milling about without a care in the world. Darn.

He heard her extracting a tissue from the box on the kitchen sink, a brief pause as she presumably tore off the tiniest piece of it. She came striding back into the room, Steve’s eyes glued to her feet. And then it happened. Her left foot hovered directly over the little ant like the proverbial executioner’s axe, before stomping down and, presumably, obliterating it. Steve inhaled sharply, feeling guilt as he felt the blood rushing toward his dick. Your sacrifice will not be in vain, comrade. As Amy approached the bed, Steve searched the floor, looking for the smushed carcass. Where is it?

Amy handed him the tiny piece of tissue and glanced at the TV as he pretended to blow his nose. “Were you two watching cartoons? What are you, five?”

“Hey! That’s Cowboy Bebop and I’ll have you know it’s fucking awesome!!” he shot back defensively.

“Uh huh. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with Ms. Purple-Hair-Impossible-Measurements-Squeezed-Into-Skimpy-Outfit sauntering about?”

Of course Faye would be on the screen. That’s how it always seemed to happen. Amy would walk in during the parts of his shows that he wanted her to see the least.

“Um, no. You’re wayyyyyy hotter babe,” he said, trying his trademark lopsided grin.

“Steve, the boys hitting on me in middle school had more subtlety in their game than you do,” she said as she grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. That’s fair. Probably accurate.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Scootch over or I’m sitting on you,” she warned.

He opened his mouth to respond, Amy cutting him off. “I swear to fuck if you say ‘don’t threaten me with a good time’ you’re sleeping on the couch,” she said while staring him down, daring him to say it.

Am I really that predictable? “Yes, Steve, you’re really that predictable,” she said. Holy shit, can she read my mind?

“You realize I don’t need to ask right? I can just enforce compliance?” she threatened as he hesitated.

As if to prove her point about his predictability, she answered her own question at the exact time he did, both of them saying simultaneously: “that’s hot.”

Amy was grinning at him, clearly enjoying needling him a bit. He found he was smiling back. He made his way to the edge of her pillow, hopping off and moving a few inches further along the mattress. Still in her underwear, Amy plopped down onto the bed, reaching over to grab one of the whiskey tumblers off the nightstand. Steve had underestimated the distance he had needed to go to make room for her, the depression in the mattress from Amy’s weight tumbling him down toward her.

He looked up and gulped, praying Amy wouldn’t realize what happened before she leaned back over. He had rolled directly under her pink panty-clad butt, in the imprint her bottom had left on the mattress. Her ass was hanging inches over him, elevated and angled slightly with her body leaning over to grab the glass of bourbon. And then she leaned back over.

He wished he could have slowed the movement down, recorded it somehow in his mind. This precise scenario was something he had dreamed about countless times. It happened all too quickly for his liking. As Amy had leaned back over, her right cheek had collapsed down on top of him like a falling building. The silky fabric of her panties made contact first, and then Steve was knocked onto his back by the weight pouring onto him.

He felt the soft, warm flesh envelop him, the pressure mounting as Amy’s weight realigned on the mattress, her butt sinking down into the memory foam. He remembered seeing the imprint her ass had left on their mattress a few days ago and wondering what it would be like to be flattened under it as his size. And now he knew.

The downward force on his body built and built, to the point where he thought he might pop, but Amy was done realigning. He was in complete darkness, his petite wife living in her own world what felt like miles above him, his body interred under her butt with her none the wiser.

He couldn’t breathe, felt the air forced out of his lungs with Amy’s tiny (but comparatively enormous) body perched on top of him. It was warm, a little damp, and a little stale, her butt having only recently been freed from the confines of her tight skirt after having sat it in all day at the office. And it was SOFT. Squishy. It wasn’t lost on him that, with Amy’s short height, he used to be able to fit an entire cheek into his hand when he would give her butt a squeeze. Now though, now her ass was kicking his. He wanted to reach out and take great, big handfuls of it, but his arms were flattened to his sides. He wouldn’t be moving unless Amy moved. And even though he couldn’t breathe, he kind of hoped she wouldn’t.

“Steve?” he heard the voice faintly above him, sounding like it was coming down from the surface to the bottom of the ocean. Should probably let her know I’m here. He couldn’t move much at all, but he gave a feeble little wiggle. He heard that adorable squeak Amy does when she’s surprised. One of their ongoing pranks was to scare the ever-living fuck out of each other. She had started it, claiming it “kept things spicy” in their relationship. He had a vastly different definition of spicy but had gone along with it because it sounded fun. His Hall of Fame Scare was during recycling night. He had moved all the cans and bottles over to the trash, had grabbed a few empty trash bags, and squatted inside the bin, scattering the bags above him over his head to conceal his appearance. Like clockwork, he had heard Amy’s footsteps on their driveway, hearing her grunt as she titled the can to wheel it to the curb. She was probably wondering why it was so heavy this week. As soon as he felt the can come to a lurching stop at the curb, he flew up and burst open the lid, yelling. On this occasion, he had actually gotten her to scream, and then she started slapping him playfully as the shock wore off and amused annoyance set in. World Class Yenta Jackie Cooke must have heard the scream, because she came outside to investigate. He had snagged Amy’s hand as she went to slap him one more time and pulled her into a kiss, their height discrepancy even greater than usual with the added height of the bin underneath him. He remembered seeing Jackie behind Amy’s head as he kissed her, the woman clearly confused as to why the neighbor-couple across the street was making out in a recycling bin. He was sure the entire neighborhood had learned about it within minutes. Neither of them cared.

It was Amy’s turn to surprise him, however. He had expected her to fly up, terrified over the prospect that she had just squashed her husband, or at least thoroughly embarrassed over the idea of him being so close to her butt after a full day at work. But instead, she toyed with him a bit. He was glad they had tested his durability out a few times now. As recently as two nights ago, Amy would have jumped out of the bed in alarm, mortified over the prospect of crushing him. She seemed to have a good idea of his limits now.

“Hmmm,” he heard her rumble as she feigned consideration. “Where has my darling husband gone?” Keep going Ames, this is hot as FUCK. She gave a playful little wiggle, her buttcheek rolling him slightly to the left and right as he was dragged along the mattress, the friction adding additional heat to what was already a warm position. He felt the pillowy flesh of her butt roll over him once or twice quickly, pressing him deeper into the mattress, before he was suddenly greeted by light once again and an enormous hand plucked him out.

“Whoops, sat on a bug,” she said with a seductive grin. OH COME ON!!! This wasn’t fair. She knew this was one of his favorite scenarios, and she had likely cut if off intentionally just to torture him. Still, it boded well for the evening ahead. She was already feeling playful, and she didn’t even have any booze in her. Good sign.

His face must have been flushed, either from the added warmth under Amy’s butt moments ago or the blood flowing to his loins at the moment, because Amy gave him a small smirk and said, “you look warm. Maybe you should cool off.”

With that, she dangled him over the top of the glass of bourbon by his arms, like a fishing lure about to be dipped into a pond. And then she let go.

The “ice bath,” as he had put it, had been his idea, but he still wasn’t prepared for the shocking, abrupt change in temperature. He went from feeling heated up to suddenly being stung by the ice-cold liquid around him as his body plunked into the glass like just another cube. He had forgotten that alcohol still stung with his acid burns, but the alcohol content of the bourbon was nowhere near as severe as the hand sanitizer, and the ice quickly chilled him to his core. He found himself shivering.

“Okay, this might’ve been a bad idea, I’m cold,” he complained as he floated in the bourbon.

Amy eyed him in the glass. “Waiter, there’s a fly in my drink,” she called out mockingly.

“I’m serious Ames, this is fucking FREEZING,” he continued.

“Too bad hot stuff. You could do with a little cooling off anyway,” she responded, making no move to retrieve him. Any blood flow Steve had going to his dick from moments ago was long gone. He was now fully into the shrinkage experience, in more ways than one. Although… He remembered part of why he wanted to do this in the first place, sinking his head into the bourbon and sucking down enormous mouthfuls of it. Each gulp was probably the equivalent of 2-3 shots at his size.

Either Amy took pity on him, however, or (more likely) she wanted to interrupt him getting drunk, because she lifted the glass toward her mouth and took a sip, tumbling him forward. He had been mid-slurp and wasn’t entirely prepared for what happened, his ice bath suddenly on an angle, finding himself staring down the barrel of the glass at Amy’s eyes, little upturned button nose, and red lips, her pupils locking onto him with an almost predatory aspect as she poured the bourbon into her mouth.

It appeared that she was determined to get him on this sip, because she continued essentially chugging the bourbon as she angled the glass more and more, giving it a little shake to jar Steve loose from the ice cubes. Yeesh…waste of good bourbon. Is she even tasting it? He wasn’t going to complain though. He eventually tumbled to the lip of the glass, his body briefly sticking on Amy’s top lip. Until her cold, wet tongue darted out and slurped him in.

He felt a brief sense of panic over being in another girl’s mouth after his near-death experience earlier. This is Amy though. If he couldn’t trust her, he would be as good as dead because then he couldn’t trust anybody with his one-inch frame. The alcohol probably hadn’t hit her brain yet either, so he wasn’t worried about Flamy taking it too far. Yet.

While initially her tongue was cold, having been bathed in the icy beverage moments earlier, it rapidly warmed up, for which he was immensely grateful. Amy didn’t flick him around tasting him this time or playing with his body. Instead, she did something strange. She pinned him against the roof of her mouth, and took another swig of booze, the freezing liquid shocking his skin all over again. The contrasting sensations between the warmth of Amy’s mouth and the cold drink washing over him was…odd, to say the least. But not unenjoyable.

Oh, I get it. She was teasing him, bourbon literally flowing around his body as her tongue funneled it down her throat while he couldn’t have any. Joke’s on you Ames, I can make this work. The next sip she took, he tried to gulp some of it down himself. He was aware he was basically drinking his wife’s backwash, but he didn’t really care.

Then she did something she hadn’t done yesterday, something that made his ears pop a little painfully. She sucked on him, the tongue bathing him in warm saliva as she skillfully extracted the bourbon from his hair and his now wet clothes. And then she spit him out gently into her palm.

“Let’s get you dried off,” she said as she got to her feet and started walking toward the bathroom. Steve again glanced at the floor as she walked, searching for any sign of the ant from earlier, but it was difficult to see from this distance while she was moving.

Amy brought him into the bathroom, placing him on the counter as she studied him.

“What?” he asked.

“I was gonna tell you to get undressed, but now I kinda want to do it.” Oh, the booze is setting in.

“You know I’m not gonna argue,” he said with a smile. Amy surprised him again. He had been expecting her hands to pluck him skyward once more. Instead, she brought her face down to meet him, her warm, boozy breath washing over him as she opened her mouth slightly, and then delicately bit his sock-poncho, her teeth clenching onto the front of it as her upper lip mashed into his face. And then she started to lift her head up, Steve realizing quickly that he had to slide his arms out of it or else he was going to plummet.

Amy placed the sock-poncho on the sink, looking back over at him. He gestured suggestively at his “underwear.”

“Still clothed Ames.”

“Nuh-uh, you’re doing that one. I’m worried I’ll bite your dick off.” Jeez, why does THAT turn me on?

Steve shuffled out of it, discarding it by the poncho.

“I’ll wash those tomorrow,” Amy said as she started running warm water. She picked his naked form up and moved him under the faucet, rinsing the saliva and any lingering bourbon off his body before grabbing a towel and dabbing him off.

She carried him back to the bed, plopping into it again and placing him on top of his pillow. He was naked and raring to go with the funny business already, but there were two whiskey glasses for a reason. He needed Amy a little drunker.

“So what was with the Order to Show Cause?” he prompted.

“Oh,” she frowned, a hint of anger on her face. “It’s a Jake case.”

Woof. Jake “The Snake” Davidson had been the bane of Steve’s professional career while he was still practicing. Though the legal profession certainly attracted a disproportionate amount of mental illness, mostly everyone understood that they were just punching a clock. Yes, everyone had a duty of zealous advocacy for their clients, and yes, some trials were high stakes, some cases felt personal. But at the end of the day, you should be able to walk out of the courthouse and buy each other a beer. No hard feelings, we’re all just doing our jobs here.

Not Jake Davidson. Steve questioned whether the man had obtained a license to practice law just so he could piss people off professionally and claim it was advocacy. Eminently unreasonable, tirelessly stubborn, and thoroughly uncooperative, every legal argument Steve had ever had with him had devolved essentially into “I know you are but what am I?” level discourse. Schoolyard blacktop “neener-neener” bullshit. And his voice. Like nails on a chalkboard. Seeing “Law Offices of Jacob Davison & Associates” on the caller ID was anathema to Steve.

“What’s that prick up to now?”

“It’s a new one, even for him. He’s trying to vacate a settlement agreement. I guess he decided his client is paying too much and wants to back out of it.”

Steve was stunned. That wasn’t just obnoxious and borderline unethical, it was stupid. It was a waste of time. The courts heavily favored settlement with docket overload. If there was a single email from Jake or his client saying “I agree” with an electronic signature, he basically didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“Please tell me you included a cross-motion for sanctions for frivolous litigation in your opposition,” Steve asked.

Amy raised an eyebrow at him. “Who do you think you’re talking to, mister? I’ve been BEGGING for a chance to slap this asshole around for YEARS. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Amy may have just been a paralegal, but there are plenty of paralegals out there that have become so good at their jobs, they’re basically attorneys that just needed a lawyer’s signature on the documents they draft. Amy was one of them.

During their conversation, he noticed Amy had grabbed the other glass of bourbon and was sipping at it. She saw him studying her drinking it and rolled her eyes, emptying a tiny drop into her right palm and lowering it to his pillow.

YES! “Thanks Ames!!” He fell on his hands and knees and slurped up the miniscule amount, feeling the warmth radiating out from his belly. His hands had stopped shaking, his skin had stopped itching so much. He felt…better. He would get sober….at some point. Probably. But you had to wean off this stuff slowly, right?

“Anyway, John was asking about you. Said he hadn’t heard from you in a while and was worried,” Amy advised.

“What’d you tell him?”

She shrugged. “The truth, mostly. That retirement had hit you hard and you had basically become a hermit…” Amy trailed off. “Speaking of which…Steve, if we ever get you back to normal somehow, do you think you might consider going back to work?”

He had thought about this. While not having the stress of the daily grind was quite liberating, he had to admit he was bored. And there was no reason he couldn’t sort of hybridize his retirement. He didn’t need to go back to a level of importance at the firm where the buck would always stop with him. He could just do cases he liked, on occasion. Assist with overflow. Like an attorney working as a part time paralegal, almost.

“Yeah, I was thinking about it,” he answered honestly. “I think it would be good for me.”

Amy smiled warmly, the alcohol starting to color her cheeks a bit. “Good. I think it would be good for you too.”

She stood up again, grabbing both of the now-empty glasses. At some point she had drained the second one as well, which he had asked Emma to pour for this very reason. She teetered and wobbled a bit, her balance a little unsteady. Oh perfect, yes. This is the correct level of drunk we need for Flamy to make an appearance.

“I’m going to put these glasses away before they get broken,” she said as she made her way toward the bedroom door.

“How would they get broken?” he called after her.  She just smiled at him over her shoulder, suggestion plain on her face.

She came back a few moments later, shutting the bedroom door behind her and eyeing him from across the room. Staring him down, her eyes feeling like they were almost promising imminent threat. He was expecting her to come back and sit down, but instead she walked to the foot of the bed, dropping her knees onto the mattress and her hands forward in front of her.

Amy bit her lip, never taking her eyes off him, as she started to crawl across the bed on all fours like a lioness stalking gazelle. He could see the glaze in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks. That lascivious, eager expression she had was a sure sign that the alcohol was working its magic. Is it working a little too well? Steve was briefly concerned. As hot as Amy crawling toward him seductively like this was, she had never done that before. He couldn’t help but feel it had something to do with his size, with the fact that she could actually pounce on him now if she wanted to. And there would be nothing he could do about it.  

Instead, she surprised him again. As she neared his pillow, she laid her stomach and head down on the bed and rested her chin on her hands, which were crossed under her face, smiling sweetly at him, the picture of perfect innocence. She kept her butt up in the air though. He could see that even from this angle. Knew she was doing it for his benefit. Or to tease him some more, which was also mostly for his benefit, he felt.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he whispered back.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked playfully.

“Hopefully you,” he answered.

Amy snorted a laugh. “Walked right into that one.”

“You did,” he responded, matching her grin.

She reached out with both hands, grabbing him and rolling over onto her back before she scootched her butt up along the mattress until she was leaning against her pillow once more, braced against the headboard of the bed, her legs crossed under her. Steve was cupped in her hands, held chest level. At first his eyes were of course drawn to her breasts, being so close he could have jumped onto them from his perch on her upturned palms.

But then, that’s when he saw it now that her feet were crossed under her. He finally got closure on what had become of the ant. There was a little dirt and accumulated grime on the soles of Amy’s feet, both from her full day at work and from walking around the house barefoot for a little bit. On the ball of Amy’s left foot was its flattened, splattered carcass, the ichor that had exploded out of it, as its chitinous body was callously and casually mashed into the hardwood floor, adhering it to her foot. No wonder she hadn’t felt it…it was one of the tiny ones. He wasn’t sure how he even saw it in the first place. He briefly wondered what it would be like to be that small. Hell, even at his current size, he probably could’ve snapped that ant’s neck without much problem. But by the same token, Amy’s foot would have obliterated him equally, with the same level of unaware disregard.

Amy saw him staring at her feet, which wasn’t out of the ordinary, but she noticed where his gaze was specifically. Locked onto the ball of her left foot with the record of her unwitting carnage proudly on display.

She gave Steve a sardonic grin. “Friend of yours?”

“Yeah, kinda,” he answered. He had been talking to it in his head, after all. He again felt mildly sad for the ant’s sacrifice, resenting the dark, seedy part of him that was enjoying this creature’s life being carelessly snuffed out by his wife’s bare foot but…fuck this was hot.

Amy looked at the ant carcass on her foot. “Sorry ‘bout that little buddy. Didn’t know you were there. Hope your friends all learn their lesson though. Don’t sneak around my home unless you’re willing to get squished.”

She’s talking to the dead ant. Definitely drunk. He knew this was being done for his benefit though, particularly with what came next.

She leaned over and flicked the carcass nonchalantly off her foot into the distant recesses of the bedroom. Then, she uncrossed her legs and extended them a bit so that she was able to touch the soles of her feet together, the arches of her feet forming a circular crater of sorts as they touched. And then she dropped him into that pit.

This is…progress, he thought while feeling encouraged. If fooling around with Amy before she showered was off the table, she never would have let his tiny form this close to her unwashed feet. He looked in front of and behind him, Amy’s heels and the balls of her feet forming the boundaries of his prison. The slightly wrinkled but no less soft skin of her soles stretched above him, making him feel like he had fallen into a trap.

Displaying her remarkable flexibility, Amy leaned her torso forward so that her head was just hanging over him by inches, wiggling her toes a bit. Steve felt the muscles in the arches of her feet flexing with the effort, a sudden, wiry hardness clamping around him slightly.

Yet again he caught the lingering scent of alcohol on Amy’s breath as the steamy gust of it washed over him, her voice lowered to a sultry whisper, cracking slightly with vocal fry as the sound came out almost as more of a groan.

“Do you wish you were that ant, Steve?” she asked him rhetorically, not expecting a response. “Do you wish you were that tiny, that you had ended up as a stain on my foot?”

Jesus Christ this is hot. He felt his member twitching to life, the erection fully on its way.

Amy continued to dial up the pressure. “I could do it, you know,” she said as she opened her feet slightly, causing him to tumble to the mattress. She pulled her feet in slightly so that the balls of each foot were on either side of him like a trash compactor. And then she slammed them together. Not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Amy’s feet squeezed a grunt out of him.

“It would be so easy…I could just push a little harder and you would be gone, the world would have no idea what happened to you…that you had ended up splattered under your wife’s feet.” He was kind of hoping to see her smirking so that he would know this was just foreplay, but the look on her face was somewhat…chilling. She looked serious. Uh oh…is she TOO drunk?

He was also bathed in foot odor at the moment. It hadn’t been as noticeable down by her arches, but up here by her toes, which had been packed into tiny flats all day without the level of aeration the arch has, it was palpable. Not for the first time, he wondered what had gone wrong in his brain during puberty that made this arousing. He could see the accumulated dirt, dust and grime on Amy’s foot. In fact, before she had pinched him between the balls of her feet, he had seen the remains of the ant. He was pretty sure there was a tiny, severed leg still suck. The feet pressing down around him almost felt like they were coating him in a film. The scent from her toes went beyond the ordinary staleness. Now her feet had the pungent combination of cheesiness and acrid locker room odor that was unique to the human foot. He knew she would be embarrassed half to death if she wasn’t drunk, would probably lock herself in the bathroom and scrub her feet until the sun came up if he even hinted at them being dirty or malodorous. So, he didn’t say anything. Because he liked it. It was difficult to breathe, but he was sucking in through his nose. The added odor made it feel again like Amy was his whole world.

She pushed her feet together more, the vice grip around Steve growing tighter as only his head poked out of the top. Okay, starting to hurt a little, he winced.

Amy didn’t notice. “Would you like that, babe? Would you like to disappear from the world like a little, squashed bug? I don’t think I’d even need a full tissue to wipe what was left of you off my foot,” she continued.

The pressure was starting to get intense. Initially, he had still been surrounded by soft skin, the balls of Amy’s feet having a little more padding than her heel. But now he could feel the bones underneath the skin, the hard, unyielding walls closing in and condensing his own bones.

“O….okay…Ames, that’s…enough,” he wheezed.

She tutted like a disappointed parent, lowering her head a little more and staring at him until he made eye contact. “Is that it? Is that ALL you can handle, little bug?”

This is why macrophilia didn’t make any sense. Yes, he was one slight exertion of force by Amy away from death, but God damn was this ever turning him on. Part of him wanted to just answer “do your worst.” The more rational part of him was worried that a drunk Amy wouldn’t know the line. Where to stop before she killed him inadvertently…and effortlessly.

“Amy….please…I can’t breathe…” he grunted.

That got through to her, Amy’s eyes widening in alarm as she dropped the predator/prey façade.

“Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry! I got a little….carried away,” she said looking sheepish. “Are you…are you okay?” she asked hopefully.

“I’m fine Ames. And, don’t be sorry. That was fucking HOT,” he grinned up at her.

She unfolded her legs all the way now, Steve now being positioned between her knees on the mattress as she looked down at him. “….I know it was,” she said with a smirk.

Well, no time like the present, I guess. Gotta take full advantage while she’s still tipsy. “….sit on me,” he said with a straight face.

Amy’s nose wrinkled in partial disgust. “What? No.”

Okay, two can play at this game. If she wanted to dominate him, he was going to take some power back. And hopefully antagonize her a bit. Demeaning name-calling wasn’t ordinarily part of their foreplay, but he knew Flamy kind of liked it. Sometimes. He decided to roll the dice.

“I said SIT on me you dirty little slut,” he said making eye contact. That got her. Her eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Bring me over to your desk chair, put me on the cushion, and sit on me,” he directed. “Or are you too scared?” he goaded.

“Scared? No. But YOU should be,” she said as she reached out and grabbed him suddenly, her fist clenching around him a little roughly. Amy got to her feet, walking slowly toward the desk in their bedroom she ordinarily used for private work calls, Steve feeling like she was the warden escorting a prisoner to the gallows.

Amy yanked the chair out from under the desk aggressively, and then tossed him onto it carelessly. She bent over, bringing her head down to his level.

“You sure you’re up for this, little man?” she teased.

“Bring it on, you big bitch,” he shot back. Okay, maybe I’m a little drunk myself.

He saw Amy’s cheeks flush a bit, whether in anger over what he just said, embarrassment over what she was about to do, or (hopefully) arousal, he didn’t know.

“Okay…but just remember. You wanted this,” she warned as she did an abrupt about-face, showing him her bubble butt wrapped in the pink panties. He took in the details voraciously. The crease along each buttcheek from the elastic lining of the panties, the shadow of her crack barely visible through the lining, her thighs pressed together making her butt pop out a little more, the little tag poking out from the hem, which from his current vantage point seemed like it was miles away.

And then she began to lower her butt, slowly. Agonizingly slowly. JUST BURY ME IN IT ALREADY!!! he shouted in mental anticipatory anguish. But she didn’t. Instead, she dropped her ass down just enough for it to make contact, the soft fabric of the silky panties brushing against the top of his head, the warmth from her crack, from her contained cheeks, radiating outward in waves.

He was glad he had gotten a few drinks in her, because she would NEVER do this ordinarily. She really didn’t care for his predilection for her filth, preferring to see herself as a spotless, dainty and demure picture of a perfectly ladylike woman. The fact that she had squeezed her butt into a skirt, sat on it all day, and hadn’t showered since getting home meant there would CERTAINLY be an odor.

And there was. It was hitting him now that he could reach out and sink his arm into her panties, pushing them into her buttcrack even if only by a few millimeters. He caught a waft of it. Not the smell of scat like from his experience hours ago mashed into Ashley’s butthole, but the smell of fermenting human sweat. It was similar to the smell of an unwashed armpit, except with added pheromones and lingering aroma from her vagina added to it. It was faint at this distance, but he knew he would be getting the full experience shortly.

Fuck, this is amazing, he thought, fully erect at this point. He did, in fact, reach out an appreciative arm, intending to wedge it through the panties into Amy’s buttcrack. But as soon as she felt him make contact, she took it away from him.

“Uh-uh-uh,” she taunted as she wagged a finger over her shoulder. “Not yet little man. Lay down.”

What does she have planned? He did as instructed, laying flat on the chair cushion. Again, he was greeted by the sight of Amy’s butt slowly being lowered down on top of him, this time angled slightly off center. He felt the softness of her panties covering her right cheek brush against his face, against the rest of his naked body. She was feeling him out with her butt, trying to get a sense of where he was.

And then she sat down a little more, applying a fraction more weight. As it had moments ago in bed, the warm flesh began to descend over him like a curtain, the pillowy softness agonizingly enticing. Dimly, in the recesses of his mind, he had a ton of respect for Amy’s core and thigh strength. Holding this position without quivering couldn’t have been easy.

She lowered her butt a little further, this time blocking out all light as the flesh completely enveloped him. Once again, his arms and legs were pinned down, his face having no choice but to be sunken into the ass cheek. She held herself there for a second, before doing something he found to be ridiculously hot. She started grinding on him a bit, sliding her butt forward and backward. Not hard enough to drag him out of position, but enough for her flesh to roll over him in waves.

She’s giving me a lap dance. This was a scenario he had dreamed up more times than he could count. Amy wiggled her butt from side to side, back to front, occasionally grinding it into him before lifting it up and dropping it down again.

She must’ve felt the tiny prick of his erection burying into her butt, because he heard a soft scoff above him. “Enjoying ourselves, are we?”

He tried to shout back yes, but all that came out was “mmmphh,” Amy’s ass absorbing all of the sound he made.

Suddenly he felt the fresh air of the room again, light rushing back in as Amy’s butt rose back up to a vertical stance. She looked over her shoulder, her unbound hair occluding one of her eyes in a manner reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit, the remainder tumbling down the length of her back playfully in scattered, disorganized tresses.

She gave him a seductive smirk. “You ready baby?”

“Oh you fucking know it!!” he was fired up.

“Okay, but if my butt pops you like a grape, remember you’ll have only yourself to blame,” she cautioned mockingly.

With that, she turned her head around to face forward and sat down. Not a tease this time, not a gradual descent, but actually sitting like she was about to start typing at her computer, her back vertical and arched, her posture leaning forward slightly to take a LITTLE of the weight off her bottom. The rest of that weight though, she knew Steve wanted, sick little bastard that he was.

Amy’s butt floored him. Or, well, chaired him. Whichever. He had seen the shadow of the crack between her cheeks, barely perceptible through the panties, widen as her hips began to open up, her ass spreading outward and backward as it was lowered into the seat with little fanfare. He had seen the pink panties bulging at the seams as Amy’s butt pressed against them, stretching them out as she was sitting down. He had seen the darkness start to creep in, Amy’s ass gradually blocking out the light in the bedroom like a solar eclipse.

And then it was on top of him, feeling almost like it was being poured onto him in immeasurable waves. She had positioned her crack directly above his tiny frame, ensuring that he wouldn’t end up as paste under one of her cheeks. Here, once again, he found that the typical porn depictions of this scenario were somewhat inaccurate. It’s not like Amy’s crack had widened to allow him entry, splitting open like a coconut as she sat down. That wasn’t what happened when humans sat, unless they made a point of spreading their cheeks with their hands while doing so.

All the positioning did was allow him not to be squashed. The point where the two great globes of flesh met still smushed him, still buried him under her ass. But it wasn’t all-consuming, it wasn’t her full weight on top of him.

Still, her cheeks had separated slightly, and that slight separation was enough. As opposed to just the general proximity of the scent when she was giving him the impromptu lap dance, here he was immersed in it, embraced by it. It supplanted the regular breathable air around him, as though someone had sprayed a perfume of her scent onto his nostrils. Just like with the grime and the odor on her foot, he knew he should be grossed out. But he LOVED it.

There were a few reasons for this. Yes, he could smell her pussy, the stale, lingering odor on her panties, even the unavoidable faint hint of urine that afflicted both men and women no matter how much you dabbed off. And the smell of it made his hair stand on edge, pheromones driving him wild. But there were two other factors at play here making it immensely more arousing.

First, he again was delightfully turned on by the naughtiness of it, the taboo nature of what Amy was doing. The way she was always so prim and polished, a perfectionist when it came to cleanliness, hygiene at the front of her mind when she woke up in the morning and when she went to bed at night. She used to insist that she be given the opportunity to shower EVERY TIME before they had sex when they had first started dating. Only once she had realized that he was serious about liking her dirty, that her sweat and stink turned him on, that he wasn’t just pranking her, did she relent, and even then, only on rare occasions.

Cute, proper, demure little Amy was dirty after a day at work, was burying him in it, and he LOVED it.

The second factor upping the arousal was the macrophile in him, the giantess aspect. The fact that if someone walked into the room right now, they’d have no idea that he was here. The fact that if they hadn’t actually planned this out, and Amy had just randomly sat down when he was on this chair, even SHE might not have known that he was here. The fact that she could continue her normal life while he was sealed away in a dark, dank prison. She could send emails, call her mom, file and polish her toenails, whatever, all with him trapped down here under her ass, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The thought drove him mad with lust.

And then Amy made it almost painfully arousing. She started to hum one of her favorite songs absent-mindedly, shimmying her butt to the rhythm, bopping back and forth in that carefree manner that seemed to be the sole purview of young, energetic women. The weight was on him, then it was off him, on him, off him, on him, off him. All the while, he felt like he was being driven further inside Amy’s butt. Yes, her cheeks didn’t part open fully when she had sat down. But now she was grinding into him a bit, wiggling back and forth, the playful shuffle wedging her cheeks further and further apart, drawing Steve’s body ever further inward.

It was difficult to know that this was happening just based on touch, and he certainly couldn’t see anything. No, the tip-off for him came in the change in odor. The stale sweat smell became sharper somehow, gaining a sting to it. And then the flesh pressing down on top of him, all around him, enveloping and swallowing him, had gone from the pillowy softness that made Amy’s bubble butt so delectably squeezable to the telltale, pliable stiffness of a butthole. He knew what that felt like, having been pressed up against, and partially inside, Ashley’s anus earlier. He knew what it smelt like too. He knew where he was, and he loved every bit of it.

Alright, I can’t take this anymore. He needed the release. He already felt close to bursting, and he hadn’t even tried to touch himself yet. He wrapped a hand around his cock and began stroking vigorously, sprinting toward the finish line.

Either Amy could, in fact, somehow read his mind now, or she felt the slight movement. More likely, she knew him well enough. Knew from the times she had sat on his face, the times he had buried his nose in her butt, that he’d quickly hit a limit and would be seeking release. Because in an agonizingly regrettable move, she stood up, the light flooding back in, fresh air taking back over.

“UGGGHHHH AMES WHY!!!!” he shouted up at her. “I’m so close!!!”

She squatted down so her face was eye level with him again. “I know…and I want you to finish inside me,” she whispered.

What? He was flabbergasted. Astonished. Shocked. Amy was enjoying her career as a paralegal, hadn’t wanted kids yet. Made him wear protection every time they had sex. Was on the pill. Kept a stock of “Plan B” in the bathroom in case of a faulty condom. And they didn’t have a condom for a one-inch man. Not yet at least.

She must’ve seen the doubt on his face. “Steve, honey, ain’t no way your laughably microscopic sperm are gonna get me pregnant. Hell, I doubt your load would even be visible at your size.”

“But…” he began.

She leaned in closer, her warm breath brushing against his genitals. “I said…I want you…to finish…INSIDE me,” she whispered.

Oh fuck that’s hot. “O….okay…” he stammered, practically in a trance.

Amy’s fist closed around him as she plucked him off the chair, sauntering back over to the bed, ditching her panties in the process, before leaping into the bed back-first. She backed up again, dragging her butt across the mattress as she positioned herself in an upright position. And then she opened her legs.

Still with one fist clenched around him, she reached over into the drawer of the nightstand, fumbling around for something. She withdrew a vaguely phallic object. It looked like a golden, pointed tube of lipstick.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“What?” she asked defensively. “I wanna get off too.”

He couldn’t help but laugh a little, which brought a smile to her face. She began to lower him toward her stomach, before suddenly stopping and bringing him back.

“Almost forgot,” she said, still grinning.

“Almost forgot what?” he asked curiously.

And then she did something she had never done before. In all the times he had wanted her to flip their power dynamic, to abuse him, to step on him, to sit on him, to dominate him, he had never asked her to do this. He knew she would find it prohibitively gross and, honestly, he kind of did too.

Amy leaned forward and spit on him. It wasn’t like she summoned a glob of mucus to do it like a childish bully, bathing him in a slimy loogie hawked up from the depths of her throat. But it also wasn’t just a light spritzing of foam. No, she wanted him lubed up. The spit covered him from head to toe, soaking into his hair, strings of it visible as he lifted his arm, spread his fingers in inspection, shocked at what had just happened. He was coated in it, a small puddle at his feet. Soaked. In his wife’s spit. He could smell the remnants of the bourbon in it still.

His first reaction was shock. His second one was anger. This…this felt like crossing a line somehow. This just felt disrespectful and mean-spirited. He opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, which was a mistake as her spit flowed into it.

But then he saw the look on her face. Of predatory anticipation. Of desire. And he heard her whispered growl in his head again: “I want you to finish inside me.” Okay, I changed my mind. This is actually kind of fucking hot.

“Ready?” she asked him with a faint grin.

“Affirmative,” he responded.

“You sure babe? Because this time you’re going ALL the way in. Can you hang on long enough for us BOTH to finish?” she asked in a mocking-but-sultry tone.

“Guess we’ll find out!!” he answered honestly. In all seriousness though, they probably needed a safety signal. He had almost blacked out the last time he was working on her g-spot.

“How about this,” he offered, “if I need out, I’ll stop moving for a few seconds, and then do three consecutive kicks. That’s the signal.”

“Kicks?” she asked with an amused smile. “Test run for when I have a baby growing, huh?”

“Ew, now it’s not sexy anymore. We doing this or what? This spit is starting to make me cold.”

Amy’s response was to lower him down in front of her pussy. Steve was again reminded of the stark contrast between Flamy and Amy. In the shower yesterday, she had covered her pussy out of embarrassment. This time, she had a vibrator in one hand and him in the other, her legs spread open.

He thought she was going to let him hop down onto the mattress and take it from there, but she surprised him again. She closed her hand around him, using her middle and pointer fingers to drag him from her palm onto their tips. He noticed that there was already a good deal of moisture around the entrance to her vagina. Was she…getting off on sitting on me? This evening’s full of surprises.

And then, with all the consideration she would give a dildo, she stuffed him inside her. One moment he was sticky with spit, a shiver overtaking him as it was starting to dry, perched on the tips of her two fingers. The next, he was barreling straight toward Amy’s pussy, the fingers ushering him along as inexorably and irresistibly as a bullet train.

He went from feeling slightly chilly to abrupt, wet warmth. He had a brief moment to take in the sight of her labia framing the slitted opening to her insides, matching pink crescents around the entrance, his mind again noting that it wasn’t a wide-open hole so much as a pliable crevasse through which to squeeze. Over the years together, Amy had remained tight. And then he was pressed into the soft, pink flesh, but the fingers didn’t stop their charge there. This time, instead of hooking upward and backward to hit her g-spot, Amy pushed him in. As far as her fingers could reach. He had a moment to remark mentally on the change in texture from the sort of rough ribbing near the entrance to the smoothness of the cavity he was thrust into. And then….she left him there. The fingers withdrew abruptly. Abandoned him inside her pussy. He suddenly felt very alone despite being literally inside his wife. When you couldn’t look your lover in the eyes during sex, you felt more like a toy than anything.

He knew he didn’t have long though, and he wanted to get off. And it wasn’t particularly difficult either, given the venue. The silky smooth, slick, wet walls pulsated around him, Amy’s scent filling his senses, her vaginal fluid taking the place of her spit as lubricant. A handsome, tall, confident man who never made any secret about his aspirations of becoming a lawyer, Steve had tasted more women than he would care to count. And contrary to what people might say, he thought there were differences. Amy’s juices had the same vague saltiness, the same sticky texture, the same unique aftertaste, but he thought she tasted a little…sweet. It would fit her personality, so maybe he was imagining it.

In any event, Steve remained rock hard and he began stroking himself, determined to finish before he had to abandon ship. He heard a faint buzzing sound, a barely perceptible vibration from where he was deep inside Amy. The walls around him started clenching and quivering, seizing around him like a clamp and then letting go. The moan was what did it. Even from his current location, the outside world gone and entirely drowned out, he could hear her moaning. It was such a rarity for the normally reserved Amy that it drove him wild. He was close already, nearing climax as Amy’s pussy chewed his tiny body like a stick of gum.

------------------------------------

Amy had known what Steve was attempting. What he wanted to happen by leaving two glasses of bourbon on the nightstand. And honestly, dealing with Jake the Snake pissed her the fuck off. She hated him as much as Steve did. Her original intent had been just to have a sip or two to unwind, but one thing led to another and, well, she might’ve gotten a little carried away.

This was different from the playful fingering she had done in the shower. This time her husband was really INSIDE her. So deep, in fact, that she knew he wasn’t getting out unless she took him out. Maybe there’s something to this whole giantess thing….that thought should NOT be as hot as it is. She could feel his tiny motions deep within her, so far in as to be closer to the uterus than the slit.

And there had been…something else. Something she really didn’t want to admit, especially since she knew Steve would run with the idea and take it to the next level. But when he had called her a “dirty little slut,” she’d wanted to PUNISH him for it. It had turned into a sensual lap dance of sorts before she unceremoniously sat on him like a cushion. As she had said to Steve many, many times previously, her butt was an “exit only.” She didn’t like the thought of him being so close to where…stuff…came out of her. Gross stuff. Disgusting stuff. It made her deeply uncomfortable.

That’s what made what had happened next so simultaneously off-putting and exciting. As she had hummed to herself, grinding into his one-inch frame, she had felt the faint tickles on her anus. And it had felt…GOOD. It felt good. Not in the same sense as his body currently stimulating highly sensitive nerve endings deep in her pussy right now, not in the sense of her vibrator circling her clit, but in the sense of utter domination and dire promise. The sensation had tickled more than anything. But that tickle felt like it begged for more, for something else to happen, like it was just foreplay for the main event.

When she had found herself suddenly saying “I want you to finish inside me” (words that had left her mouth before her brain had even processed their implications), she wasn’t….wasn’t talking about her pussy. She had even spit on him, intending to go through with it. The REAL Amy had won out though, finding the thought of her husband being up her butt where gross stuff happened to be a step too far. She had revised her position on the spot, not wanting to go through with shoving Steve up her asshole.

Her face flushed at the thought of it. His tiny body, scratching at the exit, begging for release…begging for a gasp of real air. NO. No. Absolutely not. Never….right?

Even without the stimulation on her g-spot, the current sensations were electrifying. She knew how to manipulate the vibrator to get herself off. She had done it countless times previously. She would’ve cum with or without Steve’s assistance. But the titillating, scintillating squirming deep inside her had put her on edge, and when the vibrator touched her clit, she felt her body light up like a Christmas tree. The combination was….INTENSE. It felt like too much, the sensations so overpowering that she almost wanted to cry, almost wanted it to stop. ALMOST. The other part of her wished it would NEVER end. The hand that wasn’t controlling the vibrator was dug into the mattress, squeezing.

She felt the walls of her vagina clenching around Steve, squeezing him, smashing him, a more. sensual parody of when he had been compressed between the balls of her feet earlier. She felt her body building to the crescendo, a flood of hormones suffusing her with anticipatory warmth. And then…then he stopped moving. Just for a few seconds. And she felt it. The three hard kicks he had designated as “the safety signal.”

NO! No no no no no, mister. Not yet. That thought aside, she really didn’t want her husband dying inside her vagina while she got off to be the legacy of their marriage. She wasn’t THAT horny. Really. But…she was going to get the release she craved, whether he liked it or not.

She took the vibrator away from her clit, passing it into her left hand as she sat up slightly and stuck her fingers inside her, fishing around for Steve. She found him, and pinched his body between her forefinger and middle finger, dragging him out with a sticky, wet ‘shluck’ sound.

It was hard to focus, the room spinning around her a little bit out of a combination of the alcohol and the building toward an orgasm moments earlier. But her pupils did eventually lock onto him, seeing the satisfied grin of a man post-expenditure. Oh hell no.

“You good babe?” she asked.

“Yeah….why? Did you get off?” he inquired.

“Deep breath, honey,” she warned.

“Wha….” she cut him off, stuffing him back inside her before the natural lubrication dried, deep into her pussy, practically against her cervix. She grabbed the vibrator with her right hand again, going right back to taking care of herself.

She trusted that Steve would figure out what was going on. He was a smart guy. Sometimes. And either he had, in fact, put it together, or the sudden submersion back inside her had startled him, because he started moving around with a fervor that he hadn’t previously.

She felt the pins and needles running throughout her body, gooseflesh pricking to life on her arms, her nipples growing hard as she stroked them in a circular motion with her left hand.

Fuck…fuck…yes…keep going…KEEP GOING!!! she willed her husband mentally, knowing he couldn’t hear her. Even if he could, she would have been embarrassed to say that kind of stuff aloud.

And there she was again, teetering on the precipice. It hadn’t taken long to get back to that point, the combined sensations of her husband’s struggles inside her and the vibrator pressing into her clit almost too much to bear. And then she felt it. She was pushed over the edge, the orgasm hormones filling her body to the point where she needed a release, letting out a loud, groaning whimper as she came. Hard. The pleasurable sensation suffused her so completely and utterly that she felt like it would pour out of her mouth if she opened it.

The problem was that her insides clenching around Steve with the orgasm only made him struggle harder, the flailing, tickling sensation from deep within her taking on an air of urgency and desperation. She was still overcome by the sensation of the orgasm, her toes curling and clenching, her body leaned forward slightly, her knees drawn inward and her thighs pressing together. That was probably what contributed to the renewed pressure Steve was feeling right now.

Oh….bad idea babe, stop that. She both wished he would and prayed he didn’t. She felt herself out a bit, tickling her clitoris once more with the vibrator. How long would it take to get off one more time? How long did Steve have in there? She bit her lip almost to the point of bleeding, considering. Fighting every urge inside her to just say “fuck him” and go to town on herself again.

No. This is my HUSBAND we’re talking about. Down girl, she admonished her pussy mentally, almost as if it had a mind of its own that was antagonistic to her rational self.

She turned the vibrator off and carelessly tossed it over her shoulder, hearing it strike the nightstand and knock Steve’s phone onto the floor. Good thing I moved those glasses. And then slowly, carefully, she stuck the fingers of her right hand inside her once more, clenching around him in a vice and pulling him out. Even that sensation, his small body sliding along her wet interior, threatened to put her into overdrive again, the heat flooding her and the sensation to find that fucking vibrator almost overpowering her.

But, he was successfully extracted. If he looked satisfied before, he looked…damaged now. Not dinged up and bruised. It was more the look of someone who had been through an exhausting ordeal. And he was soaked. When she had pulled him out briefly earlier, he had of course been glistening with her juices coating his body. This…this looked like he had been standing in the pouring rain for an hour. She dimly felt a faint sense of regret that he was probably drowning inside her at one point when she came. Eh…he’s fine. He’ll get over it. His idea, right?

Steve visibly composed himself, holding his arms out at his sides and looking at them in wonder, Amy’s fluid connecting them to his abdomen in stringy, clingy strands. He ran a hand through his mop of hair, wringing a glob of her juices out from it in a manner reminiscent of when she had squeezed her long hair in the towel yesterday. And then he did that thing he often did that made her both uncomfortable, because it was gross, and super turned on, because it was HOT.

He looked her in the eyes, his face taking on a serious expression. And then he stuck his fingers in his mouth, sucking on them one by one like they were barbecued ribs. Tasting her. Swallowing her fluid. She shuddered, whether in revulsion or arousal she no longer knew. When she got into this state mentally, a lot of lines were blurred.

“Roll over,” he said with the serious expression still on his face.

“Huh?” Amy was briefly confused.

“I said: roll over. Lay on your stomach,” he ordered once again.

She knew what he was planning and was enormously skeptical about it. She played dumb. “Why?”

“Ames, do you trust me?” he asked sincerely.

“….yes.” The answer was an awkwardly long time forthcoming.

“Then just go with it. Roll over. Now.”

“Or what?” she asked, not liking his tone.

“Or I’m climbing back in there and I’m not gonna stop moving until you’re sore.”

Fuck. That was hot. This man knew what he was doing. He couldn’t dominate her physically anymore, but he knew she liked to be ordered around when they had their playtime together. Knew she liked when he was in the driver’s seat. And even though the threat was patently ridiculous, the idea of the sensation of it, coupled with her being put in her place by the one-inch man, upped her arousal once again.

She resolved to try it. Just for a second. That’s all. Let him get his jollies by fiddling around a bit and then stop him before it got…gross. Or weird. “Okay, but you’re on your own mister. I’m not helping you,” she warned as she slid downward into a fully prone laying position, rolling over onto her stomach and placing her chin on her pillow. And true to her word, she didn’t place him on her back. She dumped him on the mattress.

God dammit. I’m gonna have to clean these sheets tomorrow. She felt a few feeble, tickling motions along the outside of her thigh as Steve was clearly trying to jump up and grab a hold of something, taking the short route to her butt.

“What? My little ole butt too big for you, hotshot?” she taunted.

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t feel the sensation anymore for a few seconds. She was about to turn around and look at what he was doing when she felt a tickle on the toes of her left foot. Clever. He was using her upturned foot as an on-ramp of sorts. She was certain he had chosen the left one so he could take in the obliterated remnants of that poor ant one more time. Sorry about that again, buddy.

She felt the tickle of his steps going up the arch of her foot, then onto her heel, resisting the urge to scratch at it. His footsteps continued across her Achilles tendon, then up her calf, over her knee, up the back of her thighs…

Until he reached her left buttock. She felt Steve run an appreciative hand through the crease where her cheek met her leg, and then she felt his hands and feet digging into the somewhat-springy flesh as he made his ascent. The feel of his footsteps across the top of her left buttcheek tickled more than anything else, and she found she was clenching her hands to stop from knocking him off and just scratching away. But it also felt…enticing. There was a buildup to what he was doing, an anticipation of sorts for whatever taboo activity he was planning.

She felt the depressions his tiny feet made in her butt as he traversed the length to where her crack was. She had expected him to struggle with this part without her assistance. She hadn’t counted on how wet he still was. One moment, she felt his feet planted firmly on her left cheek, the next she felt something slip into her crack and land slightly below her tailbone, above her anus. She let out a high-pitched squeak at the sudden sensation.

Like a hiker shuffling through a narrow crevice, she felt Steve move sideways further downward…downward…downward. And then she felt him stop. She was unsure of what he was doing, but then the sensations resumed. This time directly on top of her anus. She felt herself clench in a subconscious, defensive response, her pucker squeezing shut and her cheeks collapsing in around Steve as she heard a faint “oomph.”

What is he….oh. Oh my. She found herself deeply blushing as she put together what he was up to. It felt like he had gotten onto his hands and knees and was massaging her butthole with all the strength he could muster, which wasn’t much. Not for the first time, she was grateful she had cleaned herself thoroughly after…well, after lunch. She put it that way in her mind.

At first, this sensation also was ticklish, Steve’s miniscule limbs physically unable to make a discernible impact. But those tickles began to become enticing, inviting almost. She was reminded of the feeling yesterday in the shower, when Steve playing around with her labia felt like an unfulfilled promise. A promise that he would be going inside her, satisfying her. That her pussy would be eating him alive imminently.

Except this time…this time it was her ass. She felt her thighs and butt quivering with an anticipation of sorts. He was definitely stimulating a sensitive area, the nerve endings on her butthole only slightly less susceptible to tactile sensations than the skin around her pussy.

Maybe…maybe he’s onto something with this…this um…butt…stuff. No. No way. She had only ever let him toss her salad on exceedingly rare occasions because he had begged, and even then, only after she had showered. Vigorously. She had only ever sat on his face because he had confessed it to be one of his top fantasies, and she wanted him to be satisfied and fulfilled with their sex life. But she had NEVER let him put a finger, or anything else, in her butt, her inner shame repulsed at the thought of what that finger might look like…might smell like when he took it out. She didn’t know what was up there. Or rather, she did know what was up there, most likely. She didn’t know how deep up there “it” was though. On the off chance it was within reach of his fingers, she didn’t want him fiddling around in there and touching it by accident. Or, knowing him, touching it on purpose. Ew.

He must have known she was drunk, though, because he pushed his luck. And she found she didn’t stop him. She felt him crawl forward a bit to be positioned directly on top of it. On top of my… Her brain didn’t want to finish the thought. Going only off of the sensations coming from her rear, Amy was somewhat in the dark as to what he was up to. But she could guess. It felt like he was running his fingers along the creases around her sphincter, tracing the lines down to the center. The entrance…no, EXIT, she corrected herself, to her anus.

And then she felt something else. Something that crossed a line for her in terms of grossness. He had gotten on his hands and knees for a reason. She felt the faintest whisp of his mop of hair dead center on her butthole, and then felt an almost imperceptible tickle. Oh…oh no. He’s…eating my ass. She’d let him do it before, but that was when he was full-sized. That was when she had had the opportunity to clean up first. This…this was something else entirely. And in a deep, dark place in her that she always locked the door on, sealed away, and pretended never existed…she LIKED it.

It was dirty. It was disgusting. It was embarrassing. It was naughty. It was taboo. It was gross. But also…it was hot. Because of all those other things, it was hot. Amy seldom ever let herself cut loose sexually, and something about Steve being his current size made her feel…safer somehow. That she could stop it whenever she wanted. That she was in control, not him. Like it was a safe space to try new things. If he shamed her afterward, she’d just lock him in her desk drawer until either she got over it or he shut up.

I wonder if I could… She didn’t want him to notice, being somewhat against giving him the satisfaction of pushing this for all those years and being kind of…right. She snaked a hand down under belly, slithering closer…closer… And then she started touching herself again. Softly.

When she closed her eyes to focus on the sensations coming from her lower regions, she was gifted with that humbling dose of reality of knowing you’ve had one too many. The room started spinning and she opened her eyes again immediately. Oooofff….tomorrow’s gonna be ROUGH. Amy was in her twenties. She could handle booze. It wasn’t too long ago that she was putting down a dozen drinks in an evening in college. How much did Emma put in those glasses?

Notwithstanding the discomfort from being beyond the point of tipsy, she was bringing herself close to orgasm again. Another soft moan slipped out. Steve must have heard it, because he redoubled his efforts. She felt the sensation welling up within her again of that too-soon-after orgasm that is unique to women but no less enjoyable than the first. She felt her body seize up again, all of her muscles clenching, the fingers on her free hand grabbing a handful of the pillow as she dug her claws into it with the overpour of pleasant sensation.

And then she felt it. Steve’s hurried, frantic movements. They weren’t REALLY on the “outside” anymore. It felt like when you had one of those…clingers that let you know you’re not quite done yet, if that clinger was flailing about with all the fury of a mid-tantrum toddler. Amy’s face blanched, the warmth of the booze and the orgasm afterglow draining out of her rapidly. Oh shit. SHIT!!

Quite likely faster than she had ever moved before in her life, her hand shot to her butt, dug in between her cheeks, and grabbed Steve. Well, what felt like Steve’s legs at least. Oh no… That meant his face was…in THERE. She was mortified at just how stuck he was, feeling like there should have been an audible cartoonish “pop” like a cork when she extracted him. She kind of didn’t want to make eye contact, but twisted around and sat up quickly, bringing him to her face.

There was no visible…stuff, at least, so that was…something. As for Steve, well…he was grinning. Widely. The look on his face brought to mind the self-satisfied expression of SpongeBob when he finds out Squidward actually really does like Krabby Patties. She could practically hear it in her head with the smirk on his face: “…you like butt stuff, don’t you Amy?”

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off, holding up a single pointer finger in the symbol universally recognized as “shut it mister.”

“Don’t say it,” she warned.

“Say what?” he asked innocently.

She gave him a flat look, hoping that her gaze conveyed precisely just how little she wanted to hear what he had to say.

She had to ask though. Had to know, because otherwise, the thought of what had just happened would haunt her for the rest of her days. “….Steve…” she began softly, “do you…do you actually LIKE that stuff?” She was terrified of the response, feeling like she had just asked a doctor for a diagnosis.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” he asked incredulously. “I’ve been barking up this tree for YEARS!!”

“No, Steve, really…I mean it,” she said, her tone sounding to her own ears like someone pleading for mercy. “Do you REALLY like doing that kind of thing? Do you REALLY like what…what just…happened…” she trailed off.

His gaze softened in understanding. He knew her well enough that he could tell she needed the reassurance. “Ames…my only regret about what just happened was that you plucked me out instead of shoving me ALL the way in.” She found herself blushing deeply at the thought.

“Ew!! Isn’t that…gross though?” They’d had variations of this dialogue before, but she still could never fathom where he was coming from, what the reasoning was, exactly.

“Not to me it isn’t,” he answered quickly and honestly.

“But like…that’s where…you know…” she led on.

“Please, please,” he said holding up a hand to jokingly forestall her continuing. “You don’t have to sell it to me anymore, I’m already buying,” he concluded with a faint laugh.

He had a way of disarming her. She found herself smiling in response. “You’re disgusting babe. Truly, truly disgusting.”

“What does that say about you? You married me. You knew the kind of sick shit I was into,” he said playfully. They both chuckled together, enjoying each other’s company for now.

“Seriously though….you didn’t mind it? Like….you’re actually INTO that kind of thing?” she asked again.

“Ames, why do you keep asking that?” She bit her lip to keep herself from answering. She didn’t want to hear the response come out of her own mouth. She saw the understanding dawn on his face.

“You LIKED it, didn’t you??!!” he yelled excitedly.

She blushed again and gave him a playful flick, knocking him on his ass. “You can kindly fuck allllllllllll the way off, babe.” That didn’t stop him from grinning. “And wipe that smug look off your face!”

“Or what…dirty little slut,” he said grinning.

She clapped her other hand down on top of him, sandwiching him between the two. “You do realize I don’t HAVE TO hear or see any of your BS, right?” She opened her hands slightly, wincing when she saw him covering his ears.

“Oh my God, Steve, I’m so sorry!!”

He stood up, his grin returning almost instantly. “It’s fine babe. We should probably get cleaned up though. You know, since I was in your…”

She cut him off. “DON’T SAY IT!!!” she yelled at him as he covered his ears again.

She gave him a smirk. “All things considered, I’d say YOU’RE the dirty little slut babe.” That got a laugh out of him, as she got to her feet, still a bit wobbly, and stumbled toward the bathroom to start the shower. At least tomorrow was Friday. This weekend, they could talk about a real plan for getting him back to normal. And…maybe squeeze in some other stuff too.

------------------------------------

Steve heard the sound of unfamiliar voices stirring him from his slumber. He sat up and realized the TV was on, local news running. By the time Steve had opened his eyes this morning, Amy was long gone. Considerately, however, she had left the TV on for him. He glanced over at the clock, his head pounding like someone was driving lawn spikes into his temples. Somehow, he had managed to consume more booze than he thought. 10:00 AM?? Amy’s been gone for three hours already??!!

He blearily rubbed his eyes, realizing that he was extremely dehydrated. It would be absolute TORTURE if he couldn’t quench his thirst until Emma’s shift came around. He took in his surroundings, surprised suddenly by what was on the nightstand. First, Amy had in fact washed his boxer shorts as promised. That slightly abated the embarrassment of putting the latest number over it: a bright yellow material with white cartoon kitties on it. Why does Amy have so many socks that five-year-olds would wear?

One of their smaller glass food storage containers was flipped upside down, a matchbox sitting in front of it with a rolled-up cotton ball on top, ostensibly to serve the function of a cushion. Not having tiny plates, glasses and utensils, Amy had gotten creative. The very tip of a toothpick was broken off, sitting on the right of the overturned glass container. Running the length of the ad hoc “table” was a long strip of aluminum foil, a full course spread arrayed across it. There was a chunk of toasted bread, a little crumble of eggs and bacon, she had even sprinkled loose black pepper and salt on the left side for him to add to his taste.

Steve hopped across to the nightstand, approaching the display in wonder. It transpired that the most thoughtful addition wasn’t even the food. No, Amy knew him. Amy knew the hangover would be kicking the shit out of him. She had fashioned a series of “cups” out of the aluminum foil as well. Steve hopped up onto the matchbox, sitting down on the cotton ball and finding it to be surprisingly comfortable. He grabbed one of the cups and gave it a sniff. Pedialyte. He grabbed the other one and gave that a sniff as well. Coffee. And then there was the real kicker. If it hadn’t been clear already that Amy had gone above and beyond to take care of him, there were powdery crumbles of a white substance set aside on the glass container away from the food. From his new vantage point, he saw she had put a sticky note on the nightstand underneath the glass container, where he would be sure to see it once he sat down.

No, it’s not cocaine. Sorry bae. Ibuprofen. You should stir into Pedialyte. XOXO – Dirty Little Slut

First, he grinned at her signature, and then he found himself welling up with tears. How long must this have taken? She usually left at 7:00 for work. Did she get up at 5:00 to do all this? Earlier? Regardless, the food and coffee were long since cold, but he didn’t mind. Amy had helpfully orientated the whole setup facing the TV. Steve enjoyed his breakfast, watching the news. A headline ran across the ticker at the bottom: MicroMD to release quarterly statement Monday. Interesting. He’d be curious to see what they were up to nowadays. The fact that the company was still in business despite the egregious corporate malfeasance and gross negligence never ceased to amaze him, a testament to its sheer profitability and longevity that survived waves of bad press and expensive lawsuits. But it was for the best in his particular instance. As long as they were around, there was hope for a cure.

No sooner had he finished his breakfast than he heard his phone vibrating next to him. At his current size, it shook the whole table spread assembly, jarring him a bit and spilling a little coffee as he took a sip. Who the fuck…

He saw the name on the screen…and the face that popped up with it. Amy had snatched his phone at one point a while back and took a truly, truly awful picture of herself, knowing he would see it later when he went through his camera reel. She had crossed her eyes, pulled up her nose like a pig, and stuck her tongue out. As revenge, he had made it her profile picture on his phone…which then prompted her to steal his phone again and change her name from “Amy” to “Sexiest Woman Alive.” He recalled an embarrassing moment when he and John had gone to lunch and Amy had called him, the Bluetooth speakers in the car boldly announcing: “Call from ‘Sexiest Woman Alive,’ would you like to pick up?” John had just given him a flat look, followed by saying, “that had better not be my daughter.”

Ames is vastly overestimating my athleticism. He sprinted over to the phone, dropped his boxers, put his butt down on the screen again and dragged the little circle upward to answer, once again scooting along the surface like a dog on a carpet. He felt truly ridiculous, but hey…whatever works, right? They would have to see what they could do about getting him another means of communication.

He wasn’t sure he had made it in time at first, but then heard the tentative “hello?” He ran back down to where the microphone was on the phone, yanking up his boxes while doing so and then dropping to his hands and knees to get closer.

“Yeah, I’m here Ames.” He hoped he was small enough that his exhausted huffing and puffing from the effort wouldn’t be audible.

“Wow…I’m kinda surprised this worked.”

“Me too, babe, me too. What’s up? How’s work?” he asked, grateful for any distraction to help occupy the hours until Emma came over to keep him company.

“I’m about to file this opposition. Do you remember the name of that case where you raised frivolous litigation before? I really don’t want to reinvent the wheel here if I don’t have to.”

He did, and he reminded her of the case name.

“Thanks baby. Oh! Emma got suspended, apparently,” Amy continued.

Steve winced in empathy. He and Emma had both seen it coming, but he still felt for the poor kid. Suspension wasn’t just from school; it was from all school-related activities. Emma wouldn’t be partaking in tonight’s concert. She’s probably crushed right now.

“Do you know anything about that? Did she talk to you at all?” Amy prodded.

He loved everything about Amy. Loved her looks, loved her sense of humor, loved her personality…and, yes, he loved her big old brain too. But sometimes...sometimes he wished she were just a LITTLE dumber. Just a little less perceptive. She had connected the dots all too quickly for his liking. Emma babysits him for one day and she gets suspended the next. I guess it’s not hard to draw that conclusion, actually.

Yet again, he stuck to his usual approach: the best lies begin with a kernel of truth. “Yeah, she mentioned something about some bully named Bernie. Apparently, he took it too far with Emma and her friend Ashley, and she punched him.”

There was a brief pause. Uh oh, she ain’t buying it.

But then Amy responded. “…good for her.”

“What?” Steve was shocked.

“I said ‘good for her.’ She’s a sweet girl, she shouldn’t have to take shit from anybody. And sticking up for her friend? She’s a heroine in my book. I wish I had a friend like her when I was in high school.”

Huh. He didn’t realize Amy had dealt with bullying when she was younger. She was so pretty (though many would call her “cute” instead), so nice, so affable and personable, he couldn’t imagine anyone having ever picked on her. He felt a spike of rage. He kind of wanted to kick the shit out of whoever did it, but then remembered his size. I guess I could just gnaw on their earlobes really aggressively. That would show them.

“Anyway, she called me asking if she could come over earlier today. She said she was enjoying that stupid cowboy cartoon and she’s bored to tears at home.”

Steve’s pride bristled. Stupid cowboy cartoon? How dare you. It’s about bounty hunters!! “Fine by me,” he responded, glad to have the early company. “Didn’t Jackie ground her though?”

“I thought the same thing. Apparently not. She told Jackie about why it happened, about the bullying. Jackie supports her.”

Steve was glad his recommendation had paid off. And he was reminded that, for all of her rough edges, her confrontational (and frankly obnoxious) personality, Jackie was just a single mom trying her best. And she had raised a hell of a kid. He was glad Jackie had Emma’s back.

“She actually went the complete other direction with it. She told Emma that she should look at the suspension as a chance to relax. To unwind, unplug. An impromptu vacation. She told Emma she could do whatever she wanted today,” Amy continued.

“Does Jackie know that Emma’s coming here?” He had doubts about how defensible that choice to spend her free time would be.

“Nope, no questions asked,” Amy responded. There was another brief pause. “I know you don’t like her,” Amy began. Steve scoffed mentally. That’s an understatement. “…but Jackie really is nice.”

“I’ll try to remember that next time she weaponizes you against me and works you up into a lather over my failure to do dishes,” he quipped.

He heard Amy laugh on the other end. “Listen bucko, you deserve all of the shit I give you, and more. Jackie reins me in, if anything.” That was terrifying.

“Anyway, I gotta get rolling and get this thing filed. Emma said she’ll be over around noon. Make sure you’re decent,” she playfully admonished.

“I will. Oh, Ames?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For the breakfast. For the clothing. For the ibuprofen. The past few days. All of it. Thank you for all of it,” he said sincerely.

“Wow. THE Stephen Clover being grateful for something?” she lowered her voice before continuing. “Maybe the shrinking finally fixed your dumbass brain.”

“I’m serious, Ames. I know it hasn’t been easy on you and, well…I appreciate it. Truly. You didn’t have to stick by me. You had a choice. And you made the choice to try, even though this could go on forever. A lesser woman would have already been out the door.”

There was a pause before she responded. “…you’re welcome, honey.” He could tell she had been contemplating offering more snark, but she must have been able to sense his sincerity. “We’ll get through this, somehow.”

“We will,” he answered. “Together.”

“Together,” she echoed. “Alright babe, love you. I’ll see what I can do about getting in a little earlier tonight but no promises.”

“Love you too!” He didn’t bother trying to jump up and down on the red phone symbol to hang up. He knew the call would disconnect as soon as Amy hung up, so it wasn’t worth the effort. And sure enough, the ongoing call display on the phone dismissed itself, revealing his wallpaper of the two of them together on their honeymoon once again. He smiled, and walked back over to the breakfast spread, scooping up a bit of the white powder and sprinkling it in the grape Pedialyte before drinking it down.

------------------------------------

Emma gave herself a once-over in her bathroom mirror. She had just returned home with her mother from the meeting with the principal. She had dressed somewhat respectfully for the occasion, wanting to put her best foot forward and show that she was taking it seriously. She had eschewed her ordinarily all-black attire, instead putting on navy blue dress slacks and an unassuming white blouse. Now that she was home though, she wanted to be comfortable.

She had switched to a black tank top with a low, swopping neckline, once again remarking to herself that she needed to buy new clothes. She remembered purchasing this back in August before marching band practice started. It was January. How the fuck is this already THIS tight?

She knew the answer though. It’s not like her gut or waistline were expanding. It was those meddlesome, obtrusive sweater cows that did it. She sighed. Women’s underwear was ludicrously expensive sometimes. She did not relish the thought of having to ask her mom to buy a whole new line of it.

And so, she had left the bra off, figuring the tank top was already constrictive enough. It was purely practical. A decision motivated solely by comfort. Wasn’t it? It had absolutely NOTHING to do with seeing Mr. C.

She studied herself again, frowning. She knew her rack drove most men wild, but she wasn’t a fan. Again, she found herself contemplating asking her mom if she would pay for the reduction surgery. The front of the tank top between her breasts was stretched to the point of almost being translucent despite its opaque coloring. She felt like when she went to college, frat boys would be pressuring her to balance cups of beer on her tits as a party trick. She could probably do it, too.

She had intended on just throwing on a winter jacket over this, seeing as how the walk to Mr. C’s place was a grand total of 30 seconds. But she saw the enormous canyon of her cleavage poking out of the top, remembered Mr. C getting lost in there like a sailor drowning at sea. She decided to put a zipper hoody on over it for SOME modesty. The zipper hoody was also tight. Fucking spectacular, she lamented as she rolled her eyes.

She had switched to another pair of black leggings, grabbing the one set she had with pockets just in case. Black and white converse sneakers completed the ensemble. She went for comfort over style, deciding to leave the boots behind this time. Plus, she suspected Mr. C probably had a little bit of PTSD with those boots. It didn’t seem right to wear them to his house after she had imprisoned him in those very boots under her feet. Grabbing her handbag and keys off her dresser, she headed through the hallway past her brother Tommy’s room, down the stairs, and out the door.

She had been shocked at her mother’s reaction to the suspension. That brief heart-to-heart they had yesterday prior to her leaving the house might have had something to do with it. They both missed her dad. A lot. Jackie empathized with Emma, and she certainly wasn’t going to tolerate anyone bullying her daughter. And so, she had given Emma carte blanche to do whatever. The suspension was for today, and all of next week. Her next day back at school would be the following Monday. A week off, to do whatever the fuck I want… Problem was, she wasn’t really capable of savoring it.

As she traversed the sidewalk in the brisk winter weather, she found she was gnashing her teeth again. Sheila had made a point of just so happening to be near the principal’s office, totally by “coincidence,” to watch her through the window. To take in the spectacle of Emma’s suspension going down in real time. Emma had caught her eye a few times, resisting the urge to run out of the principal’s office and deck the girl. She certainly had it coming. Somehow, she didn’t think that would exactly help her case with the principal, however. She had settled for subtly scratching her face with her left hand, prominently raising her middle finger while doing so for only Sheila to see.

Sheila’s triumphant look of self-satisfaction was endlessly on loop in her mind, living rent free for the hours that had followed. Emma again made peace with it. If losing first chair and missing the concert was what it took to make sure Mr. C was okay, it was a price well worth paying. She would do it all again ten times over if she had to. It didn’t make it sting any less, however. This girl had been the bane of her existence for the better part of a decade now, and she had won. Despite being inferior in every conceivable metric, she had won. Sheila Platt had gotten the best of her. And what made it so damned annoying was that the girl was clearly reveling in it, soaking up every moment of Emma’s abject misery with unbridled malevolent glee.

Emma had also never missed a concert before. Ashley would be up there playing without her for the first time basically…ever. It stung more than she wanted to admit. While Emma wasn’t ordinarily prone to bouts of maudlin melodrama, this was her last year in school. In four short months, she would graduate. Go off to college. There was the nationwide band competition in late March, the spring concert in April, but that was it. There weren’t a lot of opportunities left to spend time with her friends in the band. Come June, she would be listening to most of her friends playing the “Pomp and Circumstance” graduation march as she walked past them in her cap and gown to accept her diploma. That would likely be the last she’d ever see of many of them.

Instead of sadness, it oddly suffused her with nerves. Like she had a pit in her stomach. She felt almost physically ill over the thought. She tried to reassure herself that everyone would keep in touch despite scattering about the country, but she harbored no illusions on that front. The likeliest outcome by far was that they would be out of her life forevermore. Not for the first time, she mused on the ruthlessness of childhood. It was shockingly filled with traumatic moments, even if all you did was move along the standard education assembly line that adults insisted was best for you.

Whatever. She tried to brush it off as she punched in the keycode at the door to the Clover residence, walking inside. “Mr. C? It’s Emma! Can I come in?” she hollered as she kicked off her shoes by the front door. Whoops. She had worn a pair of her mom’s heels for the meeting with the principal this morning. She had forgotten to put socks on when getting changed. And then she felt a brief pang of nervousness. Or maybe it was nervous…excitement? She recalled the discovery that Mr. C might be into…well, feet. She had crossed a line of sorts when she had stroked his body with her big toe. She looked down at her unbound feet and wiggled her toes, the black polish on her toenails standing out as little pools of darkness against her pale skin. I don’t get it. What’s the appeal? She didn’t even know what men liked about feet, like what the standards were. What were they measuring, what were they assessing? With tits and ass, bigger was usually better. That was a generally accepted rule of thumb. With feet, what were they looking at, exactly? The toes? The shape? I wonder if mine are considered…pretty. She shook herself out of her meandering thoughts. Sometimes her brain just went to weird places.

She heard the faintest little squeak of sound coming from the bedroom. She assumed he answered her, but no chance in hell she could hear what he was saying from this distance. She walked toward the bedroom door, averting her gaze until she received the verbal confirmation.

“You can come on in. I’m dressed.”

She walked in and stifled a giggle at Mr. C’s latest outfit. The Rubber Ducky Fashion Line™ never failed to impress. She saw a weird setup on the nightstand and approached. Aluminum foil? White powder? What the fuck?

Mr. C caught her gaze and started frantically waving his hands over his head. “It’s not what it looks like, I swear!!” he yelled up at her.

She looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “Listen Mr. C, judgment-free zone. But if you’re partying, you gotta hook a sister up,” she said jokingly.

“First of all, no. I am not dealing drugs to my 18-year-old neighbor. Second of all, it’s not drugs. I mean it is drugs, but it’s ibuprofen,” he responded flatly.

“Ah, that makes sense,” she said, remembering the healthy pours of bourbon she had helpfully laid out for him last night. “How’d the uh…the “evening” go?” she asked with a knowing smirk.

“None of your business young lady,” he responded. But then he grinned. “But if you must know, it was great.”

Emma smiled back at him, suppressing the pang of jealousy she felt. This particular brand of envy reared its ugly head whenever she saw Mr. C and Amy being intimate or heard about it. She fervently wished it weren’t a thing but…it’s not like she had any control over it.

She moved to plop down on the bed again, but Mr. C held up a hand to forestall her. “Uh, Emma…probably best if we don’t watch TV in here today. On these…sheets,” he said sheepishly.

Emma laughed out loud. “Way to go Mr. C!! Proud of you!” she joked as she booped him on the nose with her finger.

“Don’t…don’t do that,” he said with a somewhat-annoyed tone.

“Sorry, it’s just at this size, you’re really…” Cute. She cut herself off from saying it.

“Really what?” he asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“Forget it. Wanna hitch a ride?” she offered, sticking her hand out for him to jump onto.

“Yes please!” He walked over and jumped onto her fingers, traversing their length into her palm. Emma got back up and took him out to the living room, where she sat on the couch and placed Mr. C next to her one cushion over.

The remotes were helpfully laid out on the coffee table, Emma navigating her way to start streaming the show with the ease of a young person familiar with technology.

The two of them stayed that way for a while, just enjoying the show and each other’s company, Emma occasionally asking questions, Mr. C being very enthusiastic about answering them.

They took a brief break for lunch. Emma had been about to suggest ordering a pizza, but then she remembered that less than 24 hours earlier, Mr. C had been dying slowly inside partially digested pizza…inside her stomach. Probably not the best idea. Like foregoing her boots, Emma was determined to inflict as little trauma as possible today. Though the events of the prior evening had been running through Emma’s mind ceaselessly, keeping her awake basically all night, it still felt surreal. As they fixed cold cut sandwiches from the fridge, Emma chewing and swallowing, she looked down at her stomach while sitting at the kitchen table, just sort of…marveling at it for a second.

Mr. C was in there…like this sandwich. She really hadn’t stopped beating herself up about it yet, despite him saying last night unequivocally that she was forgiven.

Speaking of last night’s events, Mr. C prompted a new line of dialogue. “Anything further happen with that other girl? What was her name?”

“Becky.” Emma had been trying to block that scene out of her mind. Despite all the life-threatening shit she had put Mr. C through, Becky storming away to her car in the parking lot was the singular image that kept resurfacing. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. And hand in hand with those thoughts was Ashley. The feeling of Ashley’s body pressed against hers, Ashley’s butt cupped in her hand, Ashley’s tongue in her mouth, Ashley’s shy smile as she pulled Emma in for one last kiss before parting ways…

She cut herself off from that line of thinking, finding that she was blushing. She really didn’t have the first fucking clue about what to do with that…situation. It was all just…messy. And it felt like it was so messy that it couldn’t possibly be fixed.

“Right, Becky. So, did you hear from her?” Mr. C inquired.

Emma frowned. “No. She’s not even answering texts.” Then she caught an oddity. Mr. C was smiling. “What’s so funny?” she asked a little defensively.

“Emma…that’s GREAT. If she’s not answering your texts, she really took what she saw very hard.”

“How…how is that a good thing?” Emma wasn’t following the logic.

“Because she LIKES you. Nobody who’s just a “friend” stops talking to someone because they saw them making out with another person. She is so into you it’s PAINFULLY transparent.”

Emma hadn’t considered it from that perspective. The thought buoyed her spirits briefly…before she remembered that they still didn’t have a real solution.

“That’s great and all Mr. C, but how the fuck am I supposed to explain tonguing Ashley while fishing around in her butt?” she asked genuinely.

“So, I’ve thought about this. Quite a bit.”

Really? Emma was shocked, and a little flattered. Despite everything she had done to him yesterday, his mind was fixated on helping her.

He stopped, looking serious for a moment. He looked up and made eye contact with Emma, all trace of mirth gone from his expression. “I think we should tell her.”

“Tell her…oh. OH!!” Mr. C was proposing that she tell Becky the truth. That was…insane, wasn’t it?

“What? No way, Mr. C. I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that! Remember the whole swearing me to secrecy, take this to my grave, all that good stuff? Even if you’re on board with it, Amy most definitely is NOT,” Emma reasoned.

“I know, I know. And that’s why, like so much else that has happened since yesterday, we just…don’t tell her.”

Emma felt weird about that. It felt bad. Wrong. She had made a PROMISE to Amy. A serious one. Amy’s tone in that conversation had clearly indicated where she stood on the topic. She absolutely, positively, 100% did not want ANYONE else knowing what had happened to Mr. C. She had made Emma swear ten times over. She even had joked that she was going to make her best friend Allison swear a “blood oath.” Mr. C may have had a more lackadaisical outlook on it, but Amy was taking this VERY seriously.

“No, Mr. C. I…appreciate it, I really do. But that could be the end of you guys forever if Becky ever says anything. Like…people will find out about the stealing, you’ll lose your law license at minimum, you BOTH might go to prison, it’s…it’s just a horrible idea.” Can’t believe I’m the voice of reason in this dynamic.

“How long have you known this girl?” Mr. C asked, continuing his serious tone.

“Becky? Since we were like…5,” Emma responded.

Mr. C paused again. “And do you trust her?”

The answer came surprisingly quickly, even to Emma. “Absolutely.”

“Then I don’t see why we can’t expand our little circle of trust to four people. If it comes to it, I’ll take the fall and say Amy had no involvement, which is mostly true. You know, other than being an accessory after the fact,” Mr. C reasoned.

“But…I promised…,” Mr. C cut her off, holding up a hand to forestall any further argument.

“Emma, it’s my secret to share or not to share. Let me worry about Amy. You and I…we don’t…we don’t really have a lot of time left together before you go off to college and…well…I would much rather see you be happy for that time.”

Emma was surprised at the sincerity in his voice. She found herself tearing up a bit. I didn’t realize he valued our friendship so much.

“Mr. C, I have to ask. Are you SURE about this? I don’t want Amy to hate me.”

“Yes. 100% yes,” he answered quickly.

“Maybe we should just call her…” Emma suggested.

“No. Always better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Emma, trust me: everything is going to be FINE.”

The conviction in his voice was compelling. And somewhere in the ball of confused emotions Emma was wrapped up in, amidst the darkness of losing her father, the bullying she faced at school, her fear over going to college…there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A silver lining. A life raft of sorts. She had wanted to be with Becky from the moment she hit puberty and started becoming interested in relationships in general. Plus, Becky had gained a pretty steady following with her game streams. She had no intention of going off to college. Which meant, if this went somewhere, they could stay together even when she went to college. Move in together, maybe. They’d already spent over a decade getting to know each other. Getting WAYYYYYY ahead of myself.

Still, Emma wasn’t convinced. She had serious reservations about the idea. Maybe Becky wasn’t trustworthy. Maybe, by doing this, she gets Mr. and Mrs. C arrested or, worse still, imprisoned. It just seemed like a stupid idea for the sake of salvaging a relationship she wasn’t entirely sure existed in the first place.

Mr. C must have seen the doubt on her face, because the next words out of his mouth were practically a plea. “Please, Emma. I WANT to do this. I can’t do jack shit at this size anymore except seemingly fuck everything up. If the one thing I CAN do right is help you fix a mistake that, let’s face it, was largely of my own design, then I want to do it. NEED to do it.”

Making it sound like she was doing him a favor was the right call. Sweet girl that she was, that particular sales pitch is the one that landed.

“Okay, Mr. C. If you’re sure…”

“Oh, I’m sure! Call that girl right now!!”

Feeling like she was going to throw up, Emma picked up the phone. She closed her eyes, exhaled deeply, and then called Becky.

------------------------------------

“Do I look okay?” Emma asked while futzing with her hair. She was sorely regretting not taking her appearance more seriously before coming over to Mr. C’s house, and had briefly debated going to get changed but was worried about the questions that would arise at home from doing so.

“Emma, for the last time, YES. You look…great.” Emma suppressed a smirk at Mr. C clearly censoring himself. She had managed to convince Becky to swing by after school. She was going to be here any minute. I’ve known Becky FOREVER…why is this so scary?

“Let’s go over the plan again,” Mr. C began. “Let her inside, sit her down on the couch, ease her into it with an introduction, and then we do the big reveal.”

“And you’re absolutely SURE you’re okay with this? It’s not too late to back out,” Emma offered.

“Emma, you invited her over to your neighbor’s house instead of your own. You’re going to have to tell her SOMETHING now. And yes, I’m fine with this. More than fine with it. I WANT to do this.”

They sat for a while in the kitchen after finishing lunch, waiting for the doorbell to ring. For Emma, it both couldn’t come soon enough and felt like it was coming all too soon.

“Stop that,” Mr. C said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“The shaking, stop that. You’re making me dizzy,” he clarified.

Emma realized that her foot had been bouncing up and down, shaking the kitchen table Mr. C was standing on. “Oh…sorry…”

“Emma…RELAX. I’m going to tell you the same thing I would tell any of my clients before their deposition: you have nothing to be nervous about. All you’re doing is telling the truth and being yourself. Leave the lawyering to me,” he said with an easy smile that did little to mollify her nerves.

She heard a car door shut outside faintly through the window and felt an immediate lump in her throat. Please let that just be the mailman…

The doorbell rang. Oh fuck…

Mr. C gave her his most reassuring, placating grin. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Emma closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and then looked at Mr. C and nodded. She reached over and grabbed him, only belatedly realizing that she probably should have asked or warned him first. He didn’t complain though.

She stood up slowly and made her way out of the kitchen, down the hallway into the foyer, every step feeling like it was taking a lifetime. She placed her hand on the doorknob and hesitated, realizing that she was shaking.

She heard a quiet whisper from her other hand. “Emma, you’ve GOT this.”

Mustering her courage to the extent possible, Emma opened the door to find a bemused Becky standing on the front stoop expectantly. Becky had clearly just come from school, her backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Um…hi,” Emma began hesitantly.

“Hi.” Becky responded flatly.

An awkward silence followed for a few seconds before Becky asked, “may I come in?”

“Oh! Uh, yes, sorry about that,” Emma responded with a faint laugh. She stepped out of the way and gestured for Becky to come inside.

Becky shrugged off her puffy winter coat, hanging it on the rack near the door.

She was wearing tight, navy-blue jeans with a low waist, a short, orange T-shirt that showed off her flat stomach and belly button, and a long-sleeved button cardigan over it. Becky kicked off her tan, ankle-length boots to reveal bright pink socks, discarding her backpack on the floor nearby.

“Come…come sit down…” Emma said haltingly as she gestured toward the couch in the living room.

“What’s this all about, Emma? Isn’t this your neighbor’s house? That goofy dude you have a crush on?” Becky asked with evident confusion.

Emma felt herself blushing. She was hoping that Mr. C hadn’t heard that, but there was no way he didn’t. He was inches away in her hand, after all. Whoops. Probably should’ve seen that coming.

She tried to do some damage control. “Oh, yes. I mean, yes this is his house. But no, I don’t have a crush on him or anything like that. Mr. and Mrs. Clover are just super nice people,” Emma tried to explain hurriedly.

Becky rolled her eyes. “Suuuuurrreeeee, Em. Whatever you say.”

Becky sat down on the couch first, her choice of seating sending a clear signal through her body language that she wanted distance. She sat on the far end of the long sofa, her back against the armrest so she could face Emma head on.

Emma got the hint, and she sat down on the opposite end, the two of them separated by a full cushion length in between.

“So,” Emma started, “the reason I asked you to come over here was because I owe you an explanation.” Whereas before she felt like she was going to vomit, now she felt like her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest.

Becky held up her hand to forestall any further dialogue on the subject. “You don’t need to explain anything, Emma, really. I get it.” Her tone sounded terse…and maybe a little hurt.

“Hold on a sec, just let me finish,” Emma implored Becky. The girl looked like she was ready to bolt any second, a jittery, nervous energy emanating from her almost palpably. She was giving off trapped mouse vibes.

Becky swept her hand out in front of her with her palm upward, the universal gesture for “go on.”

“What…happened with me and Ashley wasn’t what you think it was,” Emma continued. Becky opened her mouth to say something else before Emma cut her off. “Please, just…listen.”

“I did what I did last night because I HAD to.” Becky’s eyebrow quirked in response to that statement, clearly not understanding how Emma would have been compelled to stick her hands in Ashley’s pants.

“My…friend, my neighbor, Mr. Clover, he…he got in some trouble.” If Becky was confused before, she was totally lost now. Emma could see her brain struggling to connect the dots.

“After that MicroMD court case, he ended up with a piece of their technology and, well, there was…an accident.” Emma took another deep breath, steeling herself for what came next.

She stuck out her hand and opened her fist, revealing Steve standing there. Becky shrieked and jumped up off the couch, clearly thinking he was a bug or rodent of some kind at first.

“No no, Becky, it’s okay!! This is…this is him. This is Mr. Clover,” Emma said nervously.

Mr. C waved up at Becky from his perch on Emma’s upturned palm. “Hi Becky! Nice to meet you!!”

Becky looked pale as a ghost. “No…fucking…way…” she said as she hesitantly crept closer toward Emma, finally bending down to get a better look.

“Oh my God…it really is a…a person,” she said with audible disbelief. Becky slowly sat down. “How…how did this happen?”

“Like I said, an accident with some of MicroMD’s tech,” Emma responded.

“No, I caught that part. WHAT tech from MicroMD? Because you know I have nanobots and…I don’t…could this happen to me too?” Becky’s voice was small and wracked with sheer terror. Emma knew about Becky’s nanobots. Becky was born with an abnormal heart murmur. Most of the time, it didn’t affect her at all. Occasionally, however, she had instances of shortness of breath and dizziness, sometimes even passing out. The nanobots were capable of addressing any onset of symptoms in real time, providing electric stimulation to the heart and increasing oxygen flow as needed. She had undergone the treatment before the epidemic of lethal accidents across the globe. Becky had been fortunate, so far at least, that she hadn’t been one of the people that exploded when the nanobots spontaneously returned to full size. She hadn’t been injected with a defective batch, evidently. Emma remembered Becky taking off school when it had first started happening to other people, her parents frantically searching for a hospital that would be able to remove the bots from her bloodstream. They were always intended to be permanent, however. There was no extracting something so small that was present in such high quantities throughout your body. For some recipients, disabling the bots with a targeted electric shock was an option. With Becky’s heart condition, it would have killed her.

The possibility of Becky dying had become so realistic that she had actually made a point of saying her last goodbyes to friends and family in case she died suddenly. Emma remembered an evening at Becky’s house where she had held Becky’s hand, holding her in an embrace as she sobbed. It was a special kind of mental torture, every waking minute wondering whether you were going to spontaneously burst into countless gory pieces, going to sleep and not knowing whether you’d even wake up or if your family would simply find blood-spattered remnants of you all over your bedroom. Becky’s family had received a portion of the class action lawsuit judgment against MicroMD for the infliction of emotional distress.

Emma had actually been braver than most, or at least a better friend. One of the added risks of the nanobots spontaneously regrowing was that a loved one would be near when it happened, and that they could get crushed or injured simultaneously just by proximity. Emma had been the first person other than her parents to hug Becky in weeks. Mostly everyone else would only go so far as to stand in the doorway of the same room as Becky, giving her a wide berth as though she were carrying a form of lethal, airborne plague.

“No! Nothing like that! It was…new tech. It’s not even on the market yet.” Emma saw Mr. C wince at that last statement. She didn’t need to include the additional explanation. They both just had to hope Becky didn’t keep asking questions. Simply saying “new tech” would’ve sufficed.

Becky seemed somewhat relieved, exhaling after realizing that she had been holding her breath. She looked at Mr. C. “Does it…does it hurt?”

“The initial shrinking? Yeah, kind of. But now? I just feel like myself, give or take a few inches,” he said with a grin to try to cut the tension a bit.

“Does your wife know? Who else knows?” Becky asked.

“My wife does, yes. Nobody else other than Emma, however,” Mr. C responded.

“And Becky…there’s a reason for that. Mr. and Mrs. Clover could get into SERIOUS trouble if anyone were to find out. It was an accident but, well, the world won’t see it that way. You have to PROMISE me this does NOT leave this room,” Emma begged sincerely.

“I…I won’t say anything,” Becky said softly.

“Promise me, Becky,” Emma pressed.

“I….I promise.” Becky suddenly looked confused, and perhaps a little angry. Uh oh. Now here’s the hard part.

“I don’t understand, Emma. I’m sorry your neighbor is going through this, but what does this have to do with…last night?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Clover had asked me to help them with his…situation because they’ve known me for so long. Mr. C was with me during band practice yesterday and…well, you know that gross kid that plays the drums?”

Becky looked visibly repulsed. “Ugh, Barnyard Levy? Yes. He’s in my comp-sci class. That fuckhead tries to shoot spitballs down my pants.”

“Well, I tried to keep Mr. C hidden, but Barnyard saw him when I was trying to sneak him into my sax case. He snatched Mr. C from me and, um, well…he uh…he saw Ashley squatting down putting away her flute and…” Emma trailed off, embarrassed to finish the thought.

Emma saw the realization dawn on Becky’s face. “Oh!! Oh…” she looked at Mr. C. “I’m…I’m sorry that happened to you sir.”

“Don’t be sorry!” he responded genuinely. “Not your fault!”

“So, wait,” Becky began, “your neighbor was…in…in Ashley’s pants when you…you um…”

“Yeah,” Emma responded, rescuing Becky from having to complete the sentence. “I…I didn’t know what else to do without revealing his secret. You know how Ash is. She’s sweet, but I don’t think she would’ve been able to keep a lid on this AT ALL. And that’s assuming I would’ve been able to convince her in the first place that there was a one-inch dude up her butt.”

That got a little rise out of Becky, a smile crossing her face for the first time since ringing the doorbell.

“I panicked,” Emma continued. “I had to get Mr. C back and…well, the only thing I could think to do was to get…intimate.” Emma found herself blushing again and was fervently hoping that Becky didn’t catch it.

“So…you and Ash…you’re not like…” Becky questioned.

“No!” Emma answered quickly. “No…nothing like that. It was purely out of necessity. I promise,” Emma said, offering a smile of her own.

“You know I have to ask…how was it?” Becky asked with a smirk. They had talked in the past about how they both found Ashley attractive. That had been Emma’s first hint a few years back that Becky might have swung the same way she did romantically.

“Ew! Don’t be gross, Becky, I’m not answering that,” Emma laughed with a playful slap of Becky’s knee.

“Well, Em, I appreciate you telling me. And Mr. Clover, I appreciate you trusting me enough to share this secret. But…why are you telling me this Emma?” Becky asked quietly. Emma thought she could see the hope on Becky’s face.

“Well uhhhh…I’m telling you because…because…I didn’t want you to think Ashley was gay or anything…” Emma trailed off. UGH!! Why can’t I just say it??!!!

“Oh. Okay.” Becky looked visibly disappointed.

“Um, Emma?” Mr. C interjected. “A word please?”

“Sorry Becks, be right back,” Emma said while getting up and retreating to the kitchen.

“What?!!” she whispered a little heatedly to Mr. C when they were at a safe distance.

“Emma, I’m your wingman tonight, and I am NOT allowing you to fuck this up,” he responded. “See that pantry cabinet over there? Open it,” he instructed.

Emma followed along, a little lost.

“Top shelf. Grab the bottle that says Wild Turkey,” he continued.

“Mr. C, I don’t really know if now is the time…” Emma began.

“Just shut up and listen to me. The cabinet next to the fridge? Open it and take out the two whiskey glasses you took out yesterday.”

Emma continued to follow along, placing the three retrieved items on the counter next to the sink.

“Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You both need to cut loose and be honest with each other, and believe me, I’ve had a ton of conversations just like this. You keep on going the way you’re going now, and the next step here is going to be neither of you saying anything, her leaving awkwardly, and you punching your pillow tonight out of anger that you chickened out. Trust me: you both need this. So grab some ice cubes, go back out there, pour some bourbon into those glasses, and fucking TALK to each other. For real, this time.”

“But…Mr. C…I’m not old enough to…” Emma began to protest before he cut her off again.

“Nuh-uh. Shut it missy. I’m not buying that line of BS. Earlier tonight you were ready to snort cocaine if I actually had it. I do not believe for ONE SECOND that you’ve never had a drink before. You’re an 18-year-old girl in high school. I’m not an idiot. My guess is that by this point you already know your limit and already have a preferred beverage. Am I wrong?”

“…..no,” she conceded.

“Right. So again: grab some ice cubes, go out there, pour a few drinks, and see where the night takes you. Maybe nothing comes of it. But at minimum, you two need to air this shit out finally. You need to actually talk about this. For real, for once. This painful awkwardness is fucking AGONIZING!!”

“Are you…are you sure this is…okay? This stuff isn’t expensive, is it?”

“Stop looking for reasons to back out. GET…THE FUCK…OUT THERE. And close this deal, Emma. You are the smartest, most courageous and capable teenager I’ve ever seen. I mean that. I’m in awe of you each day. I WISH I had my shit together like you do when I was your age. And that girl is CLEARLY into you. I don’t know how you don’t see it, if I’m being honest. The only thing in the way of you two being together is yourselves at the moment. Remember that,” he said with a reassuring grin.

Wow. Emma didn’t know if he was just saying those things to make her feel better, but hearing the words come from him meant the world to her either way.

“….I will, Mr. C. Thank you. Where should I um…put you?”

“Just drop me off in the bedroom with the TV on and a little bourbon in a spoon. I’ll be fine,” he offered.

Emma followed his instructions, flipping the TV on and depositing Mr. C onto his mattress, a spoonful of bourbon on the nightstand, before taking a deep breath and heading back toward the living room.

“Oh, and Emma?” Mr. C stopped her as she made it to the door.

“Yeah, Mr. C?” she asked, pivoting to face him.

“Lose the sweatshirt.”

“Why?” she asked, despite having a pretty good idea of what he was getting at.

“Just…trust me,” he said with a smirk. She found herself smiling in return as she walked back down the hallway, bourbon and glasses in tow.

------------------------------------

Steve was rooting for Emma. He had a feeling that both she and Becky knew what they wanted; the issue was that neither of them was capable of actually saying anything. The booze should help loosen those lips a little…speaking of which…

He was glad Emma had given him a little pour onto the spoon per his request. To a full-sized human, it was barely a sip. For him, it was more than he could drink in an evening. He would ask Emma to remove the evidence before Amy showed up. Hopefully.

Steve made his way over to the nightstand, kneeling down in front of the spoon and helping himself to a few mouthfuls, watching the TV without really paying attention. As it always did when alcohol started to flow, Steve’s mind began to wander to some…dirtier places.

At first, he hadn’t really seen the appeal of Becky. When Emma first unveiled his presence, his initial appearance of the girl was underwhelming. She was small, a few inches shorter than Emma, possibly smaller even than Amy. And she had nowhere near the frame Emma did. Emma was just…stacked. Everything about this girl screamed slight and frail. She looked a bit mousy to him, her beady eyes hidden behind oversized glasses, a tiny nose and complimentarily tiny mouth, her hair a great, billowing brown ordeal that seemed like it was permanently reacting to static electricity around her. Quite frankly, he wasn’t sure why Emma wasn’t more interested in Ashley. That girl was stunning.

But the longer he sat there, taking her in, the more he saw it. At one point she had removed her glasses to wipe them on her shirt and, suddenly, he understood the appeal. Becky wasn’t “textbook” hot the way Ashley was. But she had a down-to-earth, girl next door vibe about her, a pleasant, welcoming smile, deep brown eyes adorned with thin brows. She was the type of girl that he imagined cleaning up into a stone-cold stunner. He could VERY easily see a “She’s All That” ugly duckling style rom-com transformation, as problematic as the message of those types of movies is. The girl was very, very pretty. She just chose to be more casual in her appearance.

And so, as the inebriation set in, his brain and his libido went into overdrive. He had recommended to Emma that she ditch the sweatshirt for sex appeal, knowing she had a tank top on underneath it. He could picture the two girls peeling each other’s shirts off, kissing one another deeply as they unclasped their bras…

Yes, he was a sick, lascivious old man for having these thoughts. And the better version of Steve Clover, the version of him that wasn’t drunk, would’ve firmly put it out of his mind with a tremendous effort of will. But now, well…now there were two hot chicks potentially going at it on his couch. He and Amy had always agreed that just looking was harmless. He knew he was fooling himself with that last line of thought. Staring at a girl’s chest as she walks by on the street is one thing. Watching amateur porn that you helped ignite was another entirely.

So, he resolved to split the difference. Just a quick check-in to make sure Emma was okay. That’s all. A tiny, tiny peek to make sure she wasn’t fumbling the ball again, and then back to his room. No jerking off to his 18-year-old neighbor getting it on with another girl under any circumstances. Absolutely not.

Steve moved back over from the nightstand to the bed, intending to attempt using the sheets for a controlled descent to the floor. On his way, he caught sight of the thoughtful layout Amy had set up for him this morning, and briefly felt a pang of remorse for what he was about to do. But the booze was talking. It was just a peek. That’s it.

He made it to the edge of the bed, grabbed two handfuls of the sheets and began to rappel downward, before he lost his grip and just plummeted. Landing face first on the hardwood floor.

OUCH. He was surprised his nose wasn’t broken, marveling again at the durability that came with his reduced size. At his one-inch height, falling down from the bed was the equivalent of falling off of a building. He wouldn’t have survived that if he was full-sized. He was just glad nobody was around to see the epic fail.

He stood up, dusting himself off as he began the long, arduous trek across the bedroom floor and out into the hallway.

------------------------------------

“What’s all this?” Becky asked, gesturing at the bottle of bourbon and two tumblers filled with ice, a mischievous look in her eyes.

“Oh, uh…Mr. C said we could have it. I thought maybe we’d have a drink and just…talk for a bit,” Emma responded nervously.

“Well I’m not gonna say no to free booze. Hurry up and start pouring before he changes his mind,” Becky said excitedly.

Emma poured a glass and handed it over to Becky before filling her own. She had no concept of what was “a lot” when it came to just straight, hard alcohol. She had only ever had wine, beer or mixed drinks. So, she filled both glasses to the top.

“Cheers, I guess,” Becky said, raising her glass. Emma reached out with hers and clinked Becky’s glass before they both took a sip.

Oh…this…this is AWFUL. Emma held the bourbon in her mouth, hesitant to even swallow it. She could tell it was going to burn. It was already setting her nasal cavity on fire just from being in her mouth. She saw Becky was having a similar experience, pulling a face at the taste in her mouth. Neither of them wanted to chicken out in front of the other, however, both girls forcing themselves to swallow. Emma thought it was going to come right back up. It was practically vomitous. She had to suppress a gag as she forced it down, the scent of the bourbon suffusing her throat and nostrils with a boozy burn and strange vanilla-caramel aftertaste.

“Okay, that is TRULY vile,” Becky said with a grimace, sticking her tongue out with an audible “yuck.”

“Okay phew, I thought it was just me,” Emma said with a grin. “How does Mr. C drink this shit without a chaser?”

Becky took another hesitant sip, looking at the glass in shrewd appraisal. “You know, it actually gets better the second time.”

“I don’t believe you,” Emma responded, taking another small sip herself. Becky was right though; it didn’t burn as much the second time. And hey, at 18 years old, free booze was free booze.

“So…what did you want to talk about?” Becky asked. “I got nowhere to be tonight,” she continued suggestively.

Emma felt the liquid warmth radiating out from her stomach, the alcohol already starting to calm her frayed nerves a bit. Not enough to actually say what she wanted to say though. Not yet, at least.

“Oh…uhhh…how’s school?” Emma asked innocuously. In their senior years, she and Becky no longer had overlapping classes. Becky was just looking to graduate with no designs on going to college. Emma specialized in music, having already secured a scholarship to her school of choice. They hardly saw each other anymore during an average school day other than in the hallways.

Becky had a strained look on her face. Is that…is she…disappointed? Or am I just seeing what I want to see?

“It’s good, I guess. I switched from AP Calc to functions, trig and stat. Way, way easier. We basically just watch Mr. Freck’s favorite TV shows.”

Emma was envious. Everyone knew that Mr. Freck’s FTS class was basically just a guaranteed A+, an easy way to coast to the finish line for your high school degree. She wished she had that luxury.

“How about you?” Becky asked. “How’s band? Still kicking ass in music theory, I assume?”

Emma had, in fact, still been kicking ass in music theory, though her last exam was quite difficult. Mrs. K had her at the point of transcribing music just based on listening to it, writing out the notes, tempo, beats, measures, both treble and bass clef, all of it, just based on the sound alone. She had aced it regardless. Had begun composing her own music, in fact.

“It’s…fine,” Emma said unconvincingly.

“What?” Becky asked suspiciously.

“I…I got suspended for, um, punching Bernie for what happened with Mr. C, and Sheila’s first chair now,” Emma said with audible frustration. “The concert is tonight.”

She saw Becky wince with empathy. “Ouch, I’m sorry Em. That blows. Totally unfair. That rat-faced skank doesn’t have even half your talent,” she said with an apologetic smile.

“Tell me about it. Bitch was hanging outside the principal’s office so she could soak in the glory of my suspension in real time. I’ve never wanted to punch her more than I did this morning,” Emma said heatedly, the incident still fresh in her mind. She was surprised when she noticed that both of their glasses were more than half empty already, grabbing the bottle to top them back off.

A prolonged, uncomfortable silence followed as they both stared at their drinks, neither willing to make eye contact.

“So, uhhh…are you….are you seeing….anyone? Any um….guys you like?” Emma asked Becky unsubtly. Oof. That was bad. It was the exact opposite of the smooth and casual dialogue she was going for.

“Ummmmm….no. No. No guys I’m interested in,” Becky responded with equal awkwardness, staring down at her lap. “How about you?”

“Me neither,” Emma answered quickly. “DEFINITELY no guys I’m interested in, and the Ashley thing was…well, you know what that was…” Way to be subtle, Emma. DEFINITELY no guys?

Becky put her glass down on the coffee table, raising her eyes to meet Emma’s. “Emma…why am I REALLY here?” Becky asked. She sounded almost…hopeful. Expectant.

Emma searched Becky’s eyes for something. For confirmation. For validation. For invitation. For some reciprocation of what she was feeling. And she made a decision. For better or worse, this was it. Once she followed through, her friendship with Becky would never be the same. This would either be the beginning or the end of something wonderful, the start of a relationship or the end of a childhood friendship. Mr. C…you had better be right about this.

Maintaining eye contact with Becky, Emma reached over and put her glass down on the coffee table. Then she shifted her position on the couch, getting up on her knees and leaning forward across the middle cushion that separated her and Becky, that cushion feeling like an ocean of distance between the two of them at the moment.

As Emma leaned closer, she saw Becky’s eyes widening in understanding of her intent. She visibly gulped and, almost looking as if she were shaking, craned her head slightly forward from where she was sitting. Becky not saying or doing anything to stop Emma’s advance was encouragement enough, but what really convinced Emma that they were on the same page was what happened next. Becky closed her eyes. The time-tested, universally-honored sign of a person expecting to be kissed imminently.

And Emma was happy to oblige. Her face closed the distance, her hands reaching behind Becky to the armrest to stabilize herself. She closed her eyes too, leaning closer…closer…until their lips met. Hesitantly at first, just a light brushing, but now that she knew she had the green light, Emma committed. She pressed forward with her mouth, her lips practically merging with Becky’s as they came together as one. Emma never really understood what people were talking about when they said, “sparks were flying,” but she got it now. The sensation was almost literally electric.

Taking the initiative this time, Emma darted her tongue forward into Becky’s mouth, finding a warm welcome. Becky’s tongue immediately met her own, the two muscles engaging in an exploratory wrestling match. And then the tension of years of buildup, the enormous weight of mutual expectations, all the stolen glances across rooms, held hands and hugs that lasted a little too long, came to a glorious, cathartic release. Now that they had finally acknowledged their feelings for one another, this snowball was moving downhill and growing rapidly.

Their kiss went from a mere inquiry of whether their love was requited to a primal, savage thing, Becky suddenly leaning upward to meet Emma’s mouth and even push her back a little bit, their lips closing over one another repeatedly and rapidly as their tongues continued to explore each other’s mouths. Becky was the one to take the initiative even further, her hands reaching down to grab the hems of her cardigan and undershirt and pull them up over her head, discarding them onto the ground.

Then Emma felt Becky grab the bottom of her own shirt. She had ditched the sweater like Mr. C suggested, and now that their eyes were open, she could see where Becky was looking. Emma broke the kiss off.

“Becky…wait…I don’t know if we should…should we?” It wasn’t that Emma wanted to stop. It just felt weird doing it on Mr. C’s couch knowing that Amy would be coming in later.

Becky gave her a flat stare. “Are you fucking shitting me? I’ve been waiting YEARS for this, Emma,” Becky answered hungrily.

“But…Mr. C…” Emma countered before Becky cut her off.

“Is one-inch tall and on the other side of the house. You know your brother never leaves us the fuck alone, and my parents won’t even let me breathe by myself after the MicroMD thing. This is as private as it’s gonna get, Em,” Becky concluded.

It wasn’t just that Becky was making sense. No, I WANT this. Emma was convincing herself more than Becky ever could.

They had known each other for so long that words seemed superfluous. Becky must have seen the thoughts written on Emma’s face, because she smiled as she leaned forward again, grabbing the hem of Emma’s tank top with both hands.

Emma was both nervous and excited. Yes, she had wanted this for a very long time. Yes, she was fired up right now. But other than Mr. C (which was an accident), nobody had ever seen her oversized breasts before but her. She was worried about what Becky would think, especially with her comparatively smaller assets. Her heart was fluttering in her chest as the tank top was peeled off her abdomen, pulled up over her breasts, and finally over her head before also being discarded on the floor.

Emma felt self-conscious suddenly. She found herself blushing as she wrapped her arms around her chest, averting her gaze.

Becky frowned. “Em…it’s ME,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you trust me?”

Emma nodded slowly. I do, Becky. I do trust you.

Becky leaned forward once more, grabbing Emma’s arms and removing them from her chest, instead pinning them to the couch. And then she gawked, which made Emma self-conscious all over again. She resisted the temptation to cover herself again, feeling squirrely under Becky’s hungry gaze.

“Emma…these…these are AMAZING,” Becky said in pure wonder as she reached out, tracing an appreciative finger around the perimeter of Emma’s right breast, gooseflesh sprouting in a wake behind the trail her finger was making.

Emma involuntarily shuddered in response to Becky’s intimate touch. For some reason, the compliment made her even more uncomfortable.

“Really? They’re not like…big and gross?” she asked quietly.

“Are you kidding me??!” Becky almost shouted. “I would KILL to have these. They’re fucking GLORIOUS.” Becky had yet to remove her eyes from Emma’s chest.

The lust was taking over the nerves gradually. “Well, fair is fair, Becks,” Emma said with a suggestive smile as she reached forward behind Becky’s back, her practiced fingers finding the clasp with an ease men would never achieve. Becky’s bra fell forward onto her lap, revealing her somewhat small but nonetheless perky tits.

Suddenly, Emma wanted more of her. Wanted ALL of her. She grabbed both of Becky’s hands and pulled her close, kissing her once more, relishing the sensation of the naked flesh on their chests melding in warm compression.

Their kiss started to get a little more heated, Becky’s hands roaming around behind Emma’s back, before she suddenly backed up, looking embarrassed.

“What?” Emma asked in evident confusion. Did we go too far?

“Sorry…sorry…I’m uh…getting a little light-headed. The booze…you…all of it…it’s just…a lot,” Becky said with an apologetic smile as she reached for her phone off the coffee table. She unlocked and flipped through her apps quickly, eventually opening the MicroMD app and pressing the green button that would activate the bots remotely.

“Ahhh….there we go, much better,” Becky sighed, sounding relieved. “See that, Emma? You’re so hot it almost killed me!!”

“You’re not too bad yourself, you know,” Emma said with a playful grin.

“I have my moments,” Becky answered with a matching smile before leaning in once more to press her lips to Emma’s.

------------------------------------

Steve had heard the relatively cringeworthy dialogue before Emma got the courage to just go for it. He was proud of her for taking the leap and was glad it had paid off. He had made his way, slowly, down the hallway, hearing the girls’ voices as they talked. By the time he had gotten closer to the couch in the living room, he heard the telltale sound of lips smacking and had grinned to himself.

He gave the couch a wide berth to avoid notice, sticking to the perimeter of the living room to eventually make his advance from under the entertainment center below the TV. The sleaze of what he was doing, coupled with the surreptitious scuffling about, really made him feel like a cockroach. One peek, that was it. Then back to the bedroom.

Steve made his way under the coffee table, glancing upward to see the two girls pressed against one another, looking like they were trying to eat each other’s faces. The years of pent-up “will they, won’t they” sexual frustration had built in a crescendo throughout the evening, pouring out in a glorious climax. At one point he had actually found himself buried under Becky’s cardigan and t-shirt after she tossed them onto the floor.

And then…then Becky had removed Emma’s tank top. He didn’t know that Emma had decided to go braless for the evening. Even though he had been mashed all over those tits just yesterday, this was his first time really seeing them in all their glory. And glory was the right word for it. Unbound by her tank top now, Emma’s tits were just…magnificent. A God-damned national treasure. He didn’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that they were, conservatively, probably four times the size of Amy’s, if not more. He agreed with Becky’s assessment. They were, in fact, amazing. Becky was a small girl, and just one of Emma’s tits was almost the size of her head. They weren’t sloppy either. At Emma’s young age, they retained all the upright, springy perkiness unique to the young. Yes, they were enormous. But they were also proudly and prominently mounted, not even a hint of sag, looking to him like he could get lost in that cleavage for days without being found.

This actually DID feel like cheating on Amy a bit, her sweet gesture from earlier this morning tugging at his heartstrings. He had resolved to retreat back to the bedroom and stop spying on the two young lovers. That is until, as it seemed to do all too often these days, everything went catastrophically wrong. He hadn’t thought anything of it when Becky had grabbed her phone, other than praying she didn’t see him hiding behind the leg of the coffee table. But then something strange happened.

Becky evidently had nanobots, using an app on her phone to control their remote activation as needed for her treatment. She had flipped through her phone, ostensibly opening the MicroMD app and pressing the activation button. And then Steve felt weird. It started as an innocuous buzzing, his body tingling all over, his skin feeling like it was being poked and prodded with pin pricks. And then there was a sudden rush to his head, the sensation of imminent unconsciousness, when you just KNEW you were going to black out any second and were praying you didn’t hit your head on anything on the way down. He briefly felt his eyes rolling back into his head as the curtains closed on his vision, a darkness setting in as he dropped to the floor in a limp pile.

When he came to, things were…different. His perspective from underneath the coffee table had been altered, somehow. Did everything seem…bigger? Maybe? But then he received all the confirmation he needed. Emma had lowered her left foot to the floor to brace herself a bit in her position on the couch and it was…enormous. Before, he would’ve said his size was about the same as the toenail on her big toe. Now, he wasn’t even sure Emma would see him if he was standing on top of that toenail waving at her, even with the contrast between his white skin and the black nail polish. He was…a speck. Practically dust.

Speaking of which, from his one-inch perspective, the floor had seemed relatively clean. Now, however, he saw every miniscule imperfection. He could see the dust coating the floor in what appeared to be a downy coating of sorts, little tornadoes of it swirling around where the girls’ movements momentarily displaced matter.

What…the…actual…FUCK???!!!! The shrinking suit was broken. Amy’s foot had smashed it beyond further usage. There was little hope of getting it repaired, and it was still in the bedroom on the other side of the house. How was this possible? What was happening to him? His mind was already drawing connections and conclusions. His body had reacted to Becky activating her own nanobots. Somehow, somewhere, along the line he had received an infusion of them. But when? How? Why? He had never undergone treatment with MicroMD.

He felt despair overtaking him. Was this permanent? If it was, how the fuck would he ever get noticed? Would Amy ever realize what had happened? Would she just move the vacuum through the house one day, inadvertently sucking him up into a void of pure oblivion while being none the wiser? Would he starve first?

No. NO. He refused to let it end this way. He felt like he and Amy were finally starting to get to a good place with one another. That maybe, just maybe, his forced, diminished perspective had given him a new outlook on life that allowed the two of them to find more common ground. For the briefest of moments this morning as he consumed the breakfast Amy had thoughtfully prepared for him, it had felt like they were on the right track. Like his shrinking might actually be GOOD for them.

He absolutely HAD to get Emma’s attention. Somehow. He gulped, nerves suffusing his entire body as he took in the monolith of Emma’s foot. That was his only route upward. That was his only path toward notice. How long would it take him to climb her leg? Hours? Days? Would she smash him by accident first? He felt like even the slightest movement of Emma’s foot would create a gale-force wind that would blow him back to the other end of the room.

I have to TRY. He steeled himself, moving forward. Slowly at first, but then in a run before his nerves and good sense got the better of him. As he closed the distance to Emma’s foot, he realized just how daunting a task this actually was. Her pinky toe was practically a skyscraper to him. In order to get her attention, he would have to be literally INSIDE of her ear canal. He doubted he could get there in a week, let alone in a single evening. Hell, the moment she went outside, a gust of wind could scatter him into the ether forever.

Stop catastrophizing and just move. MOVE DAMMIT!!! As he got to the base of Emma’s pinky toe, he could feel the heat radiating off of it. Whereas during his time inside her boot he was able to feel the plushness of Emma’s feet as compared to Amy’s, now he was able to take in every detail. He could see the lines in the skin forming her toeprint, the slight moisture underneath from the condensation her foot created on the colder hardwood floor. From his current perspective, he couldn’t even see the toenail, but he knew it was up there…somewhere.

Just as he was about to attempt a vertical leap onto Emma’s pinky toe, it moved. Slightly. But slightly was enough at this current size. Slightly was practically the length of a football field. He went from standing next to the toe in one instant, to the toe swinging above him as Emma presumably just adjusted her posture. He had a moment to take in the swirls underneath, the little bit of dust and grime that had accumulated from her walking around his house barefoot, the little bauble of fat in the center…and then it descended. For Emma, it was probably no more than just a flex. Just a slight twitch of the toes. For Steve, a mountain was falling on top of him.

Emma’s pinky toe came down, flattening Steve against the hardwood floor. He was thankful that she wasn’t actually standing right now, wasn’t actually putting weight on her feet and her toes. Her foot was just resting in place, but that was enough to pin him utterly and completely. Clammy was the word to describe it. Her toe had its innate warmth, but she had been barefoot on the hardwood floor. The result was a slight moisture above and beneath him that he would rather not think about.

There was also a faint odor of stale sweat, the kind that lingers in a shoe you’ve had for years. The kind of smell that seemed to have fused with the very fabric of the interior. Yes, Emma had been wearing her mother’s heels this morning. But those Converse sneakers were the oldest footwear she owned, and she had strolled over to Steve’s house without socks on. It hadn’t been long, but it had been enough to pick up the scent of the sole.

Honestly, the fact that he could smell anything was fortunate, because it meant air could move through his fleshy, damp prison. There was a real possibility that, at any given moment, Emma could lower her weight slightly and seal the small gap between her pinky toe and the floor. And then Steve would suffocate. Painfully. Slowly. Agonizingly. Smothered, of all things, by the smallest digit on the human body. It would be a hell of a way to go out.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your perspective), he received an impromptu lesson on his durability at his new size. Emma scrunched her toes slightly, the effort applying more weight to Steve and dragging him along the floor, rolling him like so much toe lint. He was now covered in a fine film, the dust he had seen earlier on the floor merging with Emma’s slight sweat to create a grimy coating of sorts. Mercifully, the toe scraping along the hardwood left him behind in its wake. He quickly leapt to his feet, circumventing the width of Emma’s pinky toe to arrive at the base once more. He had to move…now. Or else the next time he might end up under her foot for good.

Steve jumped up onto Emma’s pinky toe with as much vertical leap as he could muster. It wasn’t a lot, but he found that his almost microscopic hands were surprisingly adept at finding grips. He was reminded of some Discovery Channel or National Geographic show he had seen where they magnified the view of a lizard’s foot, showing the hook-like protrusions that allowed them to grip onto anything. His fingers were capable of finding every divot, imperfection, pore, tiny hair, whatever. And so, he climbed. It was exhausting, the effort of doing so being enormously taxing physically, particularly since he was still a little drunk. At one point Emma must have shifted her weight forward, because her foot angled slightly upward and he almost tumbled all the way back down to the floor.

Every little movement Emma made, every breath she took, every flex of her muscles, every quiver of her skin, all threatened to cast Steve down to the ground again to start over. Surprising himself with his own athleticism, he eventually reached the summit of Emma’s pinky toe despite the hurdles. He found he could barely breathe. My body is NOT used to this amount of activity. He doubled over, huffing and puffing, the sheer hopelessness of reaching Emma’s ear threatening to overtake him once more. Breathing in deeply, he caught the same faint foot odor emanating upward from between Emma’s toes. She had evidently decided to forego both a bra and socks today.

It was then that he caught a lucky break. At least, what seemed like a lucky break at first. Emma adjusted her position, bringing her left foot skyward with rapid velocity. Though Steve was clinging on for dear life, the mere force of the air resistance accompanying the motion of Emma’s foot was enough to keep him flattened on top of her pinky toe. She had done him an enormous favor, saving him the trouble of having to scale her leg.

That was until he saw where her foot was going. She was crossing her legs, tucking her left foot under her butt. As Emma’s left foot traversed the length of the couch on its path, he had a moment to really take in just how insignificant he was. Her face was so far up above him that her features were blurred from this distance, the only visible feature being the smudge of dark lipstick where he presumed her mouth was. She was….gargantuan. He realized trying to climb her entire body in a single evening would have been a fool’s errand to begin with. He was going to have to find a way to hang on for dear life, even when she went back home (presumably after helping Amy search the house for any sign of him), and get to her ear when she eventually laid down. If he fell off at any point, well, that would be the end of him he assumed.

Those concerns were secondary to the more immediate, pressing concern of where Emma’s foot was headed. He saw her lean forward to accommodate tucking her foot under her, her breasts rapidly occluding any view of her face as he passed underneath her. And then his sky, his entire horizon, his whole point of view became Emma’s black leggings as she tucked her foot underneath her. It was hard to accurately assess distance at this scale. It felt like, right now at least, Emma’s butt was miles above him. But he knew she was just making herself comfortable. Any second now she’d be sitting down…

And there it was. The blacked-out sky that was Emma’s legging-wrapped butt began to descend, taking out all light with it as it dropped down with all the force and fury of a meteor falling to earth. Emma’s chest was the most obvious of her feminine features, but her butt was no slouch either. Her ass was large enough and rounded enough to look proportional for the rest of her body. Steve knew he had some enhanced durability at his reduced size. If he were one-inch tall, this would probably be something he could survive, with how soft and cushiony Emma’s butt probably was. At his current size though? Who knows. He could only pray that the enhanced durability was proportional to the reduced size because, otherwise, he was about to end up as an imperceptible splat on his 18-year-old neighbor’s ass.

Unable to see anything, Steve felt rather than saw Emma’s ass landing on him. His heart leapt into his throat the moment he felt the soft fabric of her leggings brush his head, as he flattened himself out like a pancake to avoid having his neck snapped under the incalculable weight. Belatedly he realized that he should’ve done this sooner, should’ve laid face down, because as he was now, his face was buried in Emma’s butt. As was the rest of him.

For a few brief milliseconds it wasn’t bad as the unknowably vast flesh collapsed down and around him, burying him upward and inward into her cheek. But then the rest of her weight settled on top him, and the pain was excruciating. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t already burst, the pressure on top of him unlike anything he had ever felt before. He kept thinking it would stop, that it was done building, and yet more and more and more of it kept pouring on. He thought for sure that his bones must have all been bending downward, his ribs being compressed to the point of nearly snapping.

All of the air was mashed out of his lungs forcefully, Emma’s butt flattening him like whoopee cushion. And it just kept…going. The force, the pressure, the heat, the weight, it all just kept mounting and mounting. Any second now he was sure to pop into an invisible stain on the expanse of Emma’s ass.

But finally, mercifully, her weight had apparently settled. She had achieved her new sitting position, her left foot tucked under body. The weight would roll back and forth on top of him intermittently, faint moans only audible by the vibrations throughout Emma’s body reaching him underneath her. He hadn’t exploded, which was progress, but now he had an entirely new, dire situation: he couldn’t breathe. The weight of Emma’s ass had pressed the air out of him, and he couldn’t suck any more back in. Steve felt his mouth taking short little gasps, none of it reaching his lungs, none of it providing that palpable sense of relief when you emerge from holding your breath underwater.

This would be a hell of a way to go. The Couch Incident Version 2.0. Steve Clover had survived being stepped on by both his wife and Emma, being buried in Emma’s tits, hell, he’d even survived being eaten alive. And now he had survived being sat on…only to suffocate. To smother underneath Emma’s unwitting ass as she explored her teenaged sexuality. He felt the darkness creeping in around the edges, the black spots dotting his vision spreading together like spilled ink on a page…

But then Emma sat up, twisting her legs to be under her, the tops of her feet now pressed into the couch cushion, getting up on her knees as she met Becky’s advances. Except Steve didn’t stay with her feet this time. No, he was caught between the threads of fabric on her leggings, only capable of seeing the weave in the material now that light had flooded back in. It was a detail that he never would have noticed at his regular size. Hell, he wouldn’t have even noticed it as his one-inch height. Only now that he was small enough to fit between threads was it apparent to him that, despite their smooth appearance and texture, leggings were, in fact, knit clothing like anything else.

And so, he remained glue to Emma’s ass, trapped and unsure of how he would ever get out. But once again, fate had other designs for him. Now that both girls were up on their knees exploring each other’s bodies as they voraciously consumed each other’s faces, Steve saw a massive hand coming toward him. At his current size, the fingers would have dwarfed even airplanes. He was powerless to avoid the collision, the enormous hand moving toward him inexorably. It looked like he would be underneath one of the fingers.

Becky’s hand made contact with Emma’s ass, grabbing a solid handful as she squeezed. Steve found himself under her middle finger as it dug into the soft, yielding flesh, burying him an inch further into the butt he had almost suffocated under moments earlier. And yet, as painful as it was to have Becky’s fingernail digging into his body and pushing him into Emma’s buttcheek, he recognized it for the opportunity that it was. This is as good as it’s going to get if I want out of here. Gotta make this count. He tried to get as good of a grip as possible, the rough edges of Becky’s fingernail providing a better handhold.

And it worked. As Becky’s hand moved away from Emma’s ass and up her back, Steve was plucked out of his prison of cloth and yanked skyward once again. He was hanging on for dear life, sure, but he was out. And he was one step closer to getting to Emma’s ear. Somehow.

But Becky surprised him. She didn’t continue to run her hand up and down Emma’s back as they made out. No, now she wanted to play with those tits she had been admiring earlier. Her hand swung around to Emma’s front, Steve catching the look of awed wonder on Becky’s face as she reached out to touch Emma’s breasts. She ran her fingers along the top first, scraping Steve off onto the peninsula that was the top of Emma’s left breast. But then Becky got more aggressive, her fingers digging in and kneading the skin as if it were dough.

Steve had been relatively content with his new location on top of Emma’s tits. Yes, he was still in mortal peril. Yes, he was once again creeping on his young neighbor’s ample bosom, for the second time in 24 hours. But just moments ago he had been on the floor, his entire aspirations limited to just getting on top of Emma’s pinky toe. Being this close to her head already was a stroke of serendipity, even if Emma’s butt had almost smothered him in the process.

But then Becky had started digging in. Not just appreciative traces with her fingertips anymore, but great, grasping handfuls of Emma’s tits as she marveled at them. Becky’s fingers drove him down into the springy, squishy flesh before smearing him across the surface, dragging him lower…lower…

And there it was again. Emma’s nipple. Whereas just yesterday he had been trapped inside of her bra, pressed against it and fighting for every breath, at least he had been able to make his presence known if he wanted to. Now, he was barely the size of those little bumps that formed the edge of the areola. His entire perspective, his entire viewpoint, was dominated by Emma’s one breast. He only knew where he was in terms of orientation on her body by the change in the color of skin below his feet, going from Emma’s default pale white to the deeper tan of her nipples.

Okay, definitely not ideal. He knew he remained a mere instant away from death at any given moment. Any subtle or sudden movement by either girl could result in him getting crushed, or cast back down to the floor, or lost in the couch cushions. But he had to take a moment to appreciate just where he was. He was smack-dab in the middle of Emma’s voluptuous breasts, those voluminous, pendulous tits that every outfit she wore struggled to contain. The skin was as soft and taut as he remembered from the prior evening, and he was sorely resisting the urge to get down on his hands and knees and give it a lick.

Gone was the mantra he was repeating from yesterday, about how it wasn’t cheating if it was for survival. The conscientious part of his brain noticed the absence of guilt, and the one thing that was different here from his prior stint in Emma’s tits was the presence of alcohol. Yet again, Steve Clover’s inebriation made him a worse person, an outcome he realistically should have seen coming.

But that didn’t stop this from being so damn hot in the moment. He would apologize to Amy, make it up to her, another time. For now, he was appreciating how fortunate he was, in more ways than one, to be standing where he was right now.

At least, that was until Becky took things a step further. She moved both of her hands to Emma’s shoulders, shoving Emma down until she was lying on her back on the couch. Interesting…of the two of them I would have thought Emma would have been the dominant one. Becky was so much…smaller. Quieter. Booze did funny things to people.

Unlike Steve Clover, Becky didn’t resist the urge to give Emma’s breasts a lick. Once she had Emma pinned, Steve saw her remove her glasses as she leaned in, the planet that was this girl’s face hurtling towards him like the impending apocalypse. Please just be motorboating…please just be motorboating…But no, he knew exactly what she was up to when her lips dominated his field of view, centering in on Emma’s nipple, parting slightly as a tongue darted out to wet them. To Steve, the gesture seemed almost intentional. A predator licking its lips before a meal.

And then Becky’s lips were on top of him, the faint stickiness of her lip gloss having largely been smeared off from the girls’ extended make-out session. He had the briefest of moments to notice the soft flesh above and below him, before those lips puckered and dragged him into one of their wrinkles. Becky gave Emma’s nipple a sweet little peck, just a dainty kiss that promised more. For Steve, however, it was an abduction. His tiny body was peeled right off of Emma’s nipple, stuck now to Becky’s lower lip.

Oh no. No no no no no no no!!!!! This was the opposite of progress. He began flailing, hoping against all hope that Becky would feel him. He was no longer even on Emma’s body. A girl he hadn’t met before tonight now controlled his fate. And as she had done several times already this evening, that girl made it worse. Maybe she did feel him, or maybe she was just continuing to salivate over Emma’s tits, but that tongue darted out again…and dragged him with it like a frog with a fly.

The tip of Becky’s tongue smeared saliva all over his body before it abducted him, the saliva acting as an adhesive for his infinitesimally negligible weight. Becky’s tongue plucked him from his wedged position in a divot on her lower lip with the ease of picking a ripe apple. Though the inside of Amy’s mouth had felt spacious to him at the time, this…this was something else entirely. At his current size, Becky’s mouth was positively cavernous. He had the same sense of minimalism that one would have driving through a tunnel under a mountain. He could, and most likely would, get lost in here. He was barely the size of one of this girl’s taste buds.

For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE DO NOT SWALLOW. That would be it for him. There would be no tickling her stomach from the inside to get noticed, no forthcoming life-saving vomit like with Emma. He would just be…gone. He doubted he’d even add a single calorie to the girl’s day at his current size.

Becky’s mouth was filling with saliva in anticipation of its continued assault on Emma’s breasts, great globs of the substance running through his hair, connecting her tongue to her palate in slimy strings. He thought he smelled the faint scent of apples, perhaps a remnant from the girl’s lunch at school still lingering on her tongue, but it was presently being overpowered by the heady, boozy aroma of Wild Turkey.

Becky’s lips were still partially open, the interior of her mouth dimly lit by the ceiling lights in Steve’s living room. He had never felt more insignificant than he did right now. The tongue he was plastered against was magnitudes greater than him. Hell, he could get stuck between this girl’s teeth and she would never know about it. He was hoping to see Emma’s breasts reenter the frame of the interior of Becky’s lips, and so when she began to move her head away, to move it…lower…on Emma, a new fear took hold.

He was no longer concerned about her swallowing. Oh…oh no. Please don’t…His brain didn’t even want to finish the thought. As hot as Emma was to him, Becky eating her out would be a step too far. Even in his drunken state, being slathered against an eighteen-year-old girl’s pussy by another eighteen-year-old girl’s tongue felt scandalous. Not the naughty, fun kind of scandalous, but the “there’s no coming back from this, things will never be the same” kind of scandalous. The kind of scandalous where, if he ever got back to a size where he could converse with Emma again, which seemed impossible at the moment, he would never be able to look her in the eyes. Harmless flirtation as she reached adulthood was one thing, even seeing and touching her breasts felt like too much. But this…this would be unforgivable. Irreversible. The most intimate, private part of her young body…and she was still practically a kid.

He was briefly sealed in darkness once more, Becky’s lips closing as he heard the distinct smack of lips on skin, the girl placing exaggerated kisses presumably somewhere on Emma’s abdomen. When her lips reopened slightly, he received confirmation of his worst fears. He could now just faintly make out Emma’s belly button, Becky’s fingers hooked into the hem of Emma’s leggings, tugging away…

------------------------------------

This…this was HOT. Yes, neither of them had any real practical experience sexually, both of their movements stiff and awkward at times. But damn, was Emma having ever having fun. She was exploring Becky’s body with her hands, exploring Becky’s mouth with her tongue, Becky returning the gestures in kind. The guilty part of her wondered if this was what Ashley had felt when Emma had grabbed her butt yesterday, the feel of Becky’s fingers digging into her skin as she took a handful feeling like a promise of things to come.

It was years of pent-up sexual tension and frustration, finally unleashed in a glorious, uninhibited reconciliation thanks to their drunkenness. Mr. C was right about the booze…I never would have had the nerve to just…kiss her otherwise.

Emma wanted more of Becky. Wanted ALL of Becky. She didn’t want to stop. And apparently neither did Becky. She had pushed Emma down onto her back, straddling Emma’s hips with her own, giving Emma’s nipple a playful little lick. The coldness of the saliva on her nipple as it met the air resulted in a delightful tingling sensation, Emma feeling her nipple harden in response. She was a bit surprised by Becky’s aggression as a partner, but the advances weren’t unwelcome.

But Becky seemed to determine to take it even further. She stopped her ministrations on Emma’s tits after licking her lips suggestively, planting soft kisses between her breasts, on her sternum, above her belly button, on her belly button…

She felt Becky’s fingers stop tugging at her hair, stop raking her back, instead moving below her waist to hook into her leggings, Becky tugging downward in a determined advance. Oh…she wants to do THAT. Emma felt herself blushing, her body on fire and WANTING the touch of Becky’s lips, of her tongue, in her most sensitive area.

But something about it didn’t feel right. This was their first time together. Well, TOGETHER. As a romantic couple. Third base felt like a step too far, especially since most of what had occurred so far was fueled by their mutual inebriation. She found her hands grabbing Becky’s wrists, just as her panties had been partially exposed.

“Becks…wait…” Emma said softly.

Becky’s head came up from down around Emma’s stomach, making eye contact. “What?” She looked nonplussed.

“I don’t want to…” Emma trailed off.

“Oh.” The disappointment on Becky’s face was evident. “Did I…did I do something wrong?” Now she looked concerned. They were both new to this. Becky was worried she had fucked it up somehow. Done something that didn’t feel good, something you weren’t supposed to do with a lover.

“No, no. Nothing like that. I want to. I REALLY want to. It’s just…I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this for a VERY long time. And, well, now that’s it here, I kind of would prefer to take it a little…slower? If that makes sense?” she sounded to her own ears like she was trying to convince herself.

“Like, we can keep fooling around, but when we do…THAT…I want it to be…real,” she concluded with a meaningful glance at the half-empty bottle of bourbon, surprised at the effort of will it took to deny Becky in this moment.

Much to her relief, Becky smiled. “I get it, Em. Some things are worth the wait. I’m totally taking you up on that ‘keep fooling around’ thing, though.”

“Mmmmmmm please do!!” Emma groaned as she grabbed Becky’s hair with both hands, pulling her in for another kiss. Even though the winter concert was going on right now, missing it was suddenly the furthest thing from Emma’s mind.

------------------------------------

Oh thank God. You’re a good kid, Emma. Crisis averted. Well, at least ONE crisis was averted. He was still in a random girl’s mouth, smaller than a flea, one ill-timed swallow away from dying inside this girl’s stomach, one unfortunate roll of the tongue away from drowning under it in her saliva.

Becky’s words had boomed around him, forcing him to cover his ears from the proximity, feeling like he was standing directly under an airplane taking off. “I’m totally taking you up on that ‘keep fooling around’ thing though.” He had heard Emma’s sultry response, coaxing Becky on.

And then he had felt the whole cavernous chamber that was Becky’s mouth get yanked forward, her lips parting once again in anticipation of…something. Then he saw it, and realized he had an entirely new problem. Becky’s mouth was on a collision course with Emma’s.

Oh no no no no no no NO!!!! NOT AGAIN!!! As attractive as Emma was, as hot as vore scenarios were to Steve ordinarily, he still had no small amount of lingering trauma from Emma eating him alive, swallowing him whole, just yesterday. Her stomach processing him promptly and ruthlessly like he was just another bite of food. Emma literally DIGESTING him alive.

And he was headed back toward that same mouth. Those same painted-black lips. That same entrance to the underworld, the portal to literal hell on earth. And the worst part was: Emma had no idea he was here. If she swallowed him this time, the world would move on without Steve Clover as a part of it. If anything was even left of his nearly microscopic body, it would be flushed down the toilet tomorrow morning with Emma’s next bowel movement.

The thought was chilling. Terrifying. He knew there was no way she would ever hear him, but he screamed, nonetheless. Screaming was all he could do. It wasn’t going to save him, but it was his only release in this moment.

And then he was thrust back into darkness, Becky’s lips contacting Emma’s, their two mouths merging as one yet again. He felt the massive tongue underneath him slither forward. He couldn’t see a damned thing, but he knew what was coming.

And there it was. Another incalculably vast, hot, wet organ slammed down on top of him, burying him underneath it, coating him further in saliva. It dragged him with it, scraping him along the top of Becky’s tongue before pulling him downward underneath it, their tongues battling each other for dominance in that awkward manner unique to young lovers still learning how to French kiss romantically.

He rapidly lost all sense of direction, any semblance of spatial orientation. He was slathered in spit, buried under veritable mountains of wet muscle, dragged along, smashed again, shoved forward, pulled backward. His body was rapidly becoming battered and bruised. He was already soaked head to toe, but this time not just with spit. No, being dragged along the surfaces of the girls’ tongues had coated him in whatever you call that yellowish, brownish crud that was responsible for bad breath. That gunk that you could spit out after scraping your tongue with a toothbrush. At one point, one of the girls moaned, the sound vibrating his tumultuous prison. He thought it sounded like Emma, remembering the clear, sonorous, crystalline tone of her singing voice from their car ride yesterday.

It seemed like it would never end. He felt like he was being shoved backward, but in whose mouth, he had no idea. One of the girls did swallow the excess accumulation of saliva, his body feeling a vacuous sucking effect followed by a wet “gluck.” It sounded…close. Too close.

And then one of the tongues retreated, leaving him beat to hell, drenched, stinking, and exhausted. He had no idea whose mouth he was in. It could be Emma; it could be Becky. Up was down, left was right. He was entirely lost, feeling more adrift than if he had been on a Styrofoam raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Only when the lips parted once more, light trickling in between them, did he find out whose mouth he currently belonged to. And just how in trouble he was.

He saw down below him, looking through the macabre frame of the interior of Becky’s lips at Emma’s smiling face as if it were a portrait. And though he was on a downward angle at the moment, he had a chance to see just how perilous his position was. He was nowhere near the tip of this girl’s tongue anymore. He was in the back, past the point where it creased in the middle, effectively just above her tonsils.

Oh fuck. FUCK!! If she swallowed right now, there would be no way of avoiding going down with the spit. And so, feeling like he was crossing a paper-thin sheet of ice, Steve crawled. The saliva almost pinned him to Becky’s tongue, but slowly, painfully, agonizingly, he crawled. Dragged his tiny body across this enormous girl’s tongue.

It appeared she wasn’t done playing with Emma’s breasts yet, however. He again felt the entire cavern shift as Becky moved her head, Emma’s hardened nipple suddenly occupying the center frame of Becky’s lips. This is it. This is my chance to get back to Emma. The tip of Becky’s tongue was making playful little circles around Emma’s areola, Steve feeling that if he could just get to the tip maybe he’d be slathered along the surface of Emma’s breast once more.

But then the mouth closed again, an abrupt absence of light. And he heard a slick suckling sound as he felt pressure building in his ear drums. Becky was sucking on Emma’s nipple like an infant. He felt the vacuum trying to drag him further back into Becky’s mouth, the tongue practically pinned against the roof to aid in the suction effect. His ears were popping, his grip was slipping.

But then Becky let up, moving her attentions over to Emma’s other breast. This time she licked up and down, her tongue again tracing little circles near the nipple. Steve seized his opportunity. He clawed his way to the very tip, and Becky’s tongue plastered him into Emma’s nipple. Directly. With his macrophilia, he had always found the concept of someone actually getting sucked inside of a tit to be patently ridiculous. Vore by breast wasn’t really a thing. At his current size, well…he just hoped Becky didn’t push down anymore.

And he really, really wished she would stop licking. He was hanging on for dear life, terrified that the tongue would just sweep him up again, but he had wedged himself into as defensible a position in Emma’s nipple as he could possibly find. And then finally, mercifully, Becky planted one last kiss smack-dab on the nipple, almost as if she were kissing Steve goodbye after putting him through unintentional hell.

“I’m…drunk,” he heard Becky say matter-of-factly.

“Me too,” Emma laughed in response.

“Do you wanna just…cuddle a bit?” Becky asked softly.

“Mrs. Clover will be in soon. I don’t want her to walk in with us…” Emma reasoned.

“I know, I know, but like, just for a minute,” Becky pleaded.

“Okay fiiinnneeeee,” Emma relented.

Steve wasn’t sure at what point Becky’s bra had come off, but he certainly knew it was off now. He knew that because the girl had scooched up to lay down on top of Emma, and her comparatively much smaller breasts were plummeting downward like the sky was falling.

Oh hell…He had time to brace for the impact before Becky’s left breast smashed against Emma’s right one as she laid down, Steve getting sandwiched and smashed as Becky shifted a little to get comfortable. On the one hand, he was glad the licking had stopped, and he wasn’t in mortal danger of being swallowed at the moment. On the other hand, he was now perving on two eighteen-year-old girls simultaneously. He was mashed into Emma’s nipple…by Becky’s nipple. It was not a situation he could have foreseen, nor one that he would have ever wanted. He was trapped. Under and between literal mountains of boob flesh. It was VERY difficult to breathe.

What the fuck do I do now…

------------------------------------

The rhythmic rise and fall of Emma’s chest as she breathed in and out was hypnotizing to Steve. Rocking him almost like a baby. With the effects of the bourbon slowly filtering out of his system, he found he was quite tired.

It transpired, however, that the same was true for the girls, who didn’t have anywhere near the same level of tolerance for alcohol as he did. Their intended quick cuddle session had become a full-on drunken nap. He felt Emma’s breaths become deeper, more even. The same was true for Becky. And then he heard it, the telltale grunt of slight snoring. He thought it was coming from Emma, but being pinned between the two girls, there was really no way to tell whose boob he was feeling the vibrations through.

He knew he couldn’t go to sleep though. Sleep in this situation likely meant death. It meant he would end up God knows where, if he even survived, no hope of getting to Emma’s ear. But then something changed. As he felt Becky’s breaths slowing, achieving the same level of calm as Emma’s, his body began to tingle again. The same electric, pins-and-needles feeling he had felt under the coffee table.

He fought off the impending unconsciousness this time, resolved to stay awake at all costs. The feeling went from a slight, prickly buzz to raging inferno that suffused his entire body. It felt both like his blood was on fire and there was ice in his veins. He screamed from the raw pain of it, the boob flesh around him absorbing the sound effortlessly. It was deeply unpleasant, and the outside world didn’t hear a peep from his full-throated, agonized scream, the two girls’ breasts soundproofing him from the rest of existence.

But then he found he was no longer wedged into Emma’s nipple, no longer a half inch away from the vore by breast that he thought was physically impossible.

He was…growing again. The pain died off, albeit all too slowly and gradually for his liking. But eventually the fire within him subsided, leaving in its wake a bone-deep weariness that, coupled with his impending sobriety, left him feeling entirely drained and listless.

What the FUCK is going on??!! He wracked his brain, trying to figure out what the x-factor was. He connected the dots quickly. It’s the nanobots. When Becky had activated hers remotely, it had changed something within him, causing his size to reduce to almost microscopic levels. But now that Becky’s heart rate had slowed, had calmed down, had achieved normalcy, and now that her averted health crisis was subsiding, her nanobots must have deactivated. In response, his body was restored to its one-inch height.

The question was: how? He didn’t have any nanobots, as far as he knew. He resolved to inspect the crushed shrinking body suit again, the seeds of a needling suspicion taking root in his mind. For now, however, he had to enact his own rescue.

He didn’t want to struggle to get noticed. Getting caught in this situation, in this location, was something he would never live down. He knew Emma would understand somewhat, at least, seeing as how he had accidentally ended up against her nipple just yesterday. But he would still have a ton of explaining to do. Uncomfortable questions to answer about how he got here in the first place. And he was pretty sure Becky wouldn’t take it as well as Emma.

And so, he shimmied. Slowly, stealthily, the mountainous tit above him pressing him down into Emma’s oversized breast. But the flesh was pliable, squishy. Capable of being manipulated. Millimeter by millimeter, he dragged himself out. Slowly. He felt his arm reach the air, not realizing how much he had actually heated up from being in this position until he felt what the ordinary room temperature was. He continued rolling, dragging, shuffling, finally squeezing himself out from between the two breasts. He was gasping for air at this point, both from the effort and from the lack of it in his prior prison.

He was now between Emma’s tits, lost in that cleavage that he previously speculated he would be capable of getting lost in. Fortunately, Becky’s added weight on top flattened them out a little bit, creating a small hole along the top of Emma’s sternum for him to slip through. He crawled toward the light peeking faintly through.

He wanted to take in the sight of the two half-naked girls on top of one another, but he had to get back to the bedroom. Amy would be in any second. He tiptoed across Emma’s belly, trying not to wake her. The sensation still tickled her subconsciously, and her left hand wedged between her abdomen and Becky’s to scratch at him. He used it to his advantage, letting the fingers pick at him and drag him clear.

He didn’t bother to lower himself down the floor. It was a short enough drop from the couch, and he had survived longer drops without issue. The impact was still jarring. He saw the pile of his miniature clothing still by the leg of the coffee table, grateful that it had escaped the girls’ notice while they had been fooling around.

Steve realized for the first time that, during his protracted crisis this evening, he had been naked. The entire time. He quickly ran over to the discarded outfit, throwing it back on before making the sprint down the hallway to the bedroom.

I am fucking EXHAUSTED. His body was unaccustomed to this level of physical activity normally, and the alcohol leaving his system bestowed a parting gift of an imminent migraine. He had been put through a physical and emotional wringer, and now after sprinting the length of his house at one-inch tall, he had to scale the blankets to get back to the mattress. As he arrived at the foot of the bed, he looked up at the daunting task in front of him and sighed.

Better get this over with. No sooner had he placed his hands on the dangling piece of blanket than he heard faint beeping from the front door, Amy evidently punching in the door lock code. He quickened his ascent, digging deep to find the energy, his limbs straining and his muscles feeling like they were rapidly turning to a deflated gelatin in the afterburn of the effort.

“Steve?” he heard Amy call faintly before she cut herself off. Welp, she just saw Emma and Becky. Whoops. He heard Amy shut the front door quietly instead of slamming it, apparently resolving not to wake the two girls.

He made it the mattress, quickly climbing the pillow and laying down to stare at the TV to make it seem like he had been there a while. He heard Amy’s soft footfalls down the hallway before she appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, a bemused look on her face as she quietly closed the door behind her.

“So,” Amy began, “first I was startled, then I was shocked, then I was angry, and now I’m just curious. You wanna explain to me why there are two half-naked drunken teenagers passed out on our couch?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Steve took a deep breath, trying to slow down his heaving from the recent physical exertion.

“Ames…we should talk.”

------------------------------------

“Ames…we should talk.” Steve really didn’t have any earthly idea what it was he was going to say, but Amy was owed an explanation of some sort.

“Uh oh…sounds serious,” Amy said as she kicked off her work heels into the closet. “This sounds like an ‘I should probably get into my PJs first’ kind of conversation.”

“By all means,” Steve said, gesturing toward the bathroom. He was grateful for the extra time in which to compose his thoughts. How much do I tell her?

As Amy grabbed her flannel pajama suit from the top drawer of their dresser, Steve looked back over at the nightstand, seeing the spread Amy had laid out this morning and suddenly becoming wracked with guilt. If his new…issue…was going to imperil him, and likely her thereby, she deserved to know the truth. She was doing so much for him already. Keeping a secret of this magnitude wasn’t just stupid…it was wildly unfair to Amy.

What about the whole…Emma thing though? He hadn’t had a chance to coordinate his story with Emma before she had passed out. If Amy decided to do even a little digging, he would be flatly caught in a lie.

Okay, tell her everything. Mostly everything. She didn’t really need to know WHY he had been near Becky when she activated her nanobots, did she? Then again, Amy would be under the impression thereafter that if anyone activated their nanobots within a 100-foot radius of him, he would shrink. He really had no idea what the actual proximity was.

Amy came back out, looking adorable as always when she got cozy. Her hair was unbound, tussling down her shoulders and across her chest. She was barefoot, standing in front of the bed in her white polka-dotted PJs. She placed her hands on her hips, looking at him appraisingly all of a sudden.

“Why do you look…wet?” she asked as she scooched into bed next to him, the force of her body impacting the mattress shaking him on his pillow throne.

“Oh…uhhhh…we’ll get to that,” he said nervously.

Amy’s eyes narrowed in immediate suspicion. “I detect there is fuckery afoot. Spill it, mister,” she said, crossing her arms in a huff.

“So…let’s start with what happened yesterday. There was more than just me and Emma going on a McDonald’s run,” he began bashfully.

“Uh huh…I figured as much. Something about that spilled coffee thing wasn’t adding up,” Amy responded.

Fuck. Again, he wished she were sometimes just a LITTLE less perceptive than she was. He should’ve realized that, with her years of experience parsing out people’s stories in the legal field, she would smell bullshit from a mile away.

May as well get this over with. “Soooooo…I actually, uh, accompanied Emma to her band practice yesterday.” Steve winced at the look on Amy’s face.

“You WHAT??!!” she shouted back at him.

He held up a hand to hopefully forestall further beratement, even though he knew it was entirely earned. “I know, I know. But I had actually never been to one of her concerts and she’s going away to college, and I hadn’t been out of the house and…I dunno…one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“SEEMED like a good idea? Steve, we’ve talked about this. If anyone were to find out about you…”

“I know. It was dumb. Really dumb. And I’m sorry,” he offered.

“What else?” Amy asked impatiently.

“Well, so…this kid, and I can’t stress enough that I really don’t think this matters because he was high out of his mind to the point where he was convinced that I was a wish-granting leprechaun, saw Emma trying to sneak me into her sax case and um…” he trailed off.

“That’s why she got suspended,” Amy concluded for him. “Trying to get your idiot ass back from him.”

“…yes.”

“So now the whole world potentially knows your…I’m sorry…OUR secret, because you had to get out of the house?” Amy asked heatedly.

“No no, again, the kid was super stoned. I doubt he remembers a damn thing and nobody would believe him anyway,” Steve reasoned.

“None of this explains the two half-naked girls on the couch,” Amy prompted.

Jeez…how much do I tell her? Steve asked himself again. He wasn’t sure how she would take the truth on this next little bit. But then again, even though it was a definite consequence of his braindead decision to leave the house in the first place, he’d really had no control over what had happened after the stoned kid had gotten a hold of him.

He decided to hybridize the truth a bit. “So…as a prank, this kid flicked me across the room, and I ended up hitting this girl’s back and rolling down into her pocket.” He hoped that sounded believable.

The look on Amy’s face said it all. She found the story dubious, at best.

She waited for him to continue.

“Emma didn’t want the other girl to know I was there, didn’t want me getting found out. And the girl was leaving, headed to her car, so Emma panicked and did something…drastic,” Steve continued.

Amy’s eyebrow rose once again. “Drastic how? What did she do?”

“She, uh, took the girl aside and, um…kissed her. Aggressively. And while she had her distracted, Emma stuck her hand into the girl’s pocket and fished me out.”

“And that’s the girl on the couch?” Amy asked.

“Well, no. So Emma had actually kissed her friend Ashley, but she’s had a thing simmering for a long time now with this other girl, Becky. Becky saw the two of them and didn’t take it well. When Emma came over earlier, she was heartbroken. I felt REALLY bad for her. So, I decided that the only way to explain what happened with Ashley was for Emma to tell Becky the truth.”

“Oh for FUCK’S SAKE STEPHEN!!” Amy shouted at him angrily. “So that’s TWO. Two people that now know our secret, one of whom was actually by CHOICE. And you DECIDED, without thinking to consult me, to let her in on it?!”

“Ames, look…I’m sorry,” he said genuinely. “Emma torched a relationship because of my stupidity. Trying to save me. She’s going away to college next year. I didn’t want her last few months of high school to be full of ‘what could have been,’ especially after I’m the one that fucked it up for her. You should’ve seen her, Amy. She was broken up about it.”

Amy sighed in exasperation. I feel like this is one of those things where I’m missing the point. “Steve…you’re missing the point.” Ah, there it is.

“I get WHY you wanted to do it. I get feeling bad for Emma. I love that girl too. It’s the HOW part that I’m struggling with. Did it ever occur to you, at ANY point, to maybe just ASK me first? You know, so we could make a dangerous decision like this TOGETHER?” Amy asked angrily.

“It did. It did occur to me to ask,” he said quietly.

“And?”

“…and I was worried you would say no after I had kind of already promised Emma,” Steve finished.

Amy rolled her eyes. “Exactly. You didn’t trust me enough to let me weigh in on the situation, so you went rogue. How the actual fuck am I supposed to keep you safe…keep US safe, when I have no idea what you might do next?”

“Look, Ames. I’m sorry. Really. For what it’s worth, we’ve both said we trust Emma’s judgment implicitly, and she trusts her friend the same way. I think we’re good, you know?” he asked.

“…whatever,” she responded tersely. Does that mean I made a good point?

“How can I make it up to you?” he asked sincerely.

“Stephen…I’m your WIFE. You can ‘make it up to me’ by fucking TRUSTING me with stuff like this.”

“I…I will. I’m sorry. Again. I won’t make a call like this without you. And we can sit Becky down and talk to her in the morning when they’re both sober.”

“Oh, I plan to. I’m gonna put the fear of God into that girl,” Amy warned ominously.

Yikes. Sorry Becky.

“Speaking of which, I’m going to call Jackie. She’s going to be wondering where Emma is. Something tells me she is NOT going to be on board with the underage drinking, so I’m just going to say she wanted to have a sleepover without her brother meddling and we offered up our house.”

Amy fished out her phone and called Jackie, pacing the room as she wove her tapestry of ever-increasing lies thanks to Steve. Steve couldn’t hear what Jackie was saying, but based on Amy’s reaction, it sounded like she bought it.

Steve looked at her hopefully. “All good?”

“With Jackie, yeah. You and me though, mister, we’re far from ‘good’ right now,” Amy answered in a huff, her arms crossed under her chest in the defensive posture she always would take on whenever they had an argument.

“What else do you want me to say?” Steve asked, genuinely confused why they weren’t just moving on at this point.

“Well, let’s start with my first question, which you said we would ‘get to.’ Why are you wet?” Amy asked in a warning tone.

Fuck. I forgot about that part. Steve looked in her eyes, and his nervousness only grew. Uh oh. The Bullshit Detector™ is on high alert.

“So…I might have gone to check on the two of them, just to make sure Emma wasn’t…you know…blowing it,” he began hesitantly.

“You mean you wanted to creep on the teenaged lesbians.” It wasn’t a question.

“No no no!!” Steve answered quickly, waving his hands up in front of him. “Nothing like that. Emma was just super nervous, and I was her wingman tonight. That’s all. I was worried about you thinking exactly what you’re thinking, and I sprinted back here and climbed up as fast as I could when I heard you coming.” Please buy it. Please buy it. Please buy it.

“Uh-huh. Cool story bro. And that somehow soaked your entire outfit too? Head to toe, you’re just dripping in sweat?”

Christ, this woman is too perceptive. “Ummm….yes. Yeah, that about covers it,” he laughed softly.

“Whatever. Since it’s clear I’m not going to get the truth out of you, I’m just gonna move on,” Amy shot back. Is that…good?

“I just have one more question…” Amy started. Oh no.

“What happened to your clothes?” she asked.

“My…clothes? What clothes?” Steve was actually a little confused considering he was still fully dressed.

“Last night. You said Emma threw them out inadvertently when cleaning up a coffee spill. Obviously, that didn’t really happen. So where did your clothes go?” Amy prodded.

She really does NOT miss a thing. “So…uh…yeah, about that…” he began.

Amy held up an impatient hand to cut him off. “Before you conjure up another fantastical lie, bear in mind this whole conversation is about trust,” she warned him.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. “Well…uh…Emma might have..ahem..eaten them,” he answered quietly.

“Come again? Did you say Emma ATE your clothes? Did I hear that right?” Amy asked, anger clearly building in her tone.

“Er…yes. You heard that right,” he responded honestly.

“Care to elaborate on why our 18-year-old neighbor is eating my husband’s clothes off of him like edible panties?” she questioned.

“It wasn’t anything like that!” he answered quickly. “It wasn’t anything…sensual. Emma’s band conductor caught her talking to me in the hallway at the school. She thought Emma was doing drugs. She forced Emma’s hand and demanded to see what she was holding. Emma panicked and…um…stuffed me in her mouth to keep the secret.”

Amy’s eyes widened in alarm. “And then…?” she coaxed.

“The conductor told her to spit ‘it’ out or swallow ‘it,’ and…well…being short on options, she um…she chose the latter,” Steve answered sheepishly.

“WHAT?!! You’re telling me Emma didn’t just eat your clothes…she ate YOU??!!” Amy demanded incredulously.

“Shhhh….Ames, please. Keep your voice down. I don’t want her knowing that I told you.” He regretted the words immediately after they came out of his mouth, acutely aware of the trap he had just blithely sauntered into.

“Oh. I see. So you’re worried about keeping Emma’s confidence, but not your wife’s. Got it.” The cold steel in her voice was chilling.

Yet again, he found himself waving his arms in front of him while faltering for an exculpatory explanation. “No!! No. She just…she felt REALLY bad about it after we trusted her, and she put my life in danger like that. She was worried about letting you down, after you asked her to keep me safe. Believe me…she hasn’t stopped beating herself up over it,” he rationalized quickly.

“So…then what happened?” Amy continued.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean after Emma ATE you. Then what happened?” she asked with a distinctly annoyed tone.

“Oh. Uhhh…she threw me up. Obviously, seeing as how I’m not…well, you know,” he joked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

“Wait a minute…that’s…that’s why you were so red yesterday, isn’t it?” Wow. She put that together VERY quickly.

“….yeah. It was. Not a pleasant experience, let me tell you,” Steve answered, again trying to inject some levity.

“Oh? Your dream of being swallowed alive wasn’t everything you wanted it to be, huh?”

“Okay, that’s little below the belt,” he answered, now annoyed himself. “It was never my ‘dream’ to die being digested alive. It’s always been an impractical fantasy.”

“Correction, Steve: it WAS an impractical fantasy. Now it’s a realistic possibility when you take risks like this.” Amy sighed. “I’m guessing that means she saw you naked too, right?”

“Well, yeah, but like for a hot second. I wrapped up in paper towel,” he answered defensively.

Amy’s eyes narrowed in shrewd assessment, seemingly scrutinizing him even more closely. “There’s more, isn’t there? Something else happened to you.” Once again, it wasn’t a question. It felt like Steve had the words “I’M HIDING SOMETHING” plastered across his forehead.

Do I tell her about the shrinking even smaller? His mind ran through a whirlwind of outcomes in a matter of seconds. On the one hand, this new discovery represented a real, tangible danger to him. Anyone else with remotely-activated nanobots could unwittingly doom him if they chose an inopportune moment. On the other hand, everything had been such an uphill battle with Amy already. Getting her to finally consent to him coming with her to work had been an utter ordeal. If he brought an unforeseeable risk into the equation, it would almost certainly nudge her back in the other direction.

“Uhhhh…” he faltered, still not sure of whether to be forthright, even after they had just had this whole dialogue about trust.

“Steve…what aren’t you telling me?” Amy pressed.

He realized that, by disclosing what had happened with Becky’s nanobots, he would be opening himself up for an entirely new line of questioning. How close was he when it happened? Why was he that close? If he wasn’t that close, then what was the limit on the range of the effect? Could a person driving by the house shrink him by accident if they activated nanobots in their car? How did he get back to his full size? What did he do when he was that small?

The thing that tipped him over the edge was that he hadn’t thought this through. He realized he didn’t have any answers to the questions that would be asked, and that sort of made the decision for him. They would have this conversation again at some point…just when he was more prepared.

“Nothing!” he answered in what he hoped was a convincible tone. “That’s really it!”

Amy was quiet for a moment. “Whatever. I don’t want to fight anymore. Let’s just go to bed.” Somehow, the abject resignation in her voice was infinitely more chilling to him than the anger of a few moments earlier. He WISHED she were yelling at him. This…this was different.

“Amy…can we please…” he began.

“I said I’m going to bed Steve,” she cut him off, rolling over and turning off the lamp on her nightstand, plunging them into darkness.

Fuck.

------------------------------------

Steve woke up Saturday morning to the smell of breakfast. There wasn’t a whole smorgasbord arrayed for him on the nightstand this morning, unsurprisingly. He briefly thought that Amy had just made breakfast for herself, but then he looked at the clock. It was already 9:00 A.M. She would have woken up three hours ago.

His suspicions were confirmed when he heard other voices echoing down the hallway. Guess the girls stayed for breakfast. He heard a light, high-pitched laugh that he assumed was Becky’s. Well…at least it’s not awkward at the table right now. That’s something, at least.

The sense of FOMO was setting in. At first, he didn’t think he had any way of asking to join them, but then remembered he could still send texts. He hopped over to the nightstand, doing his usual scooting routine and jumping on the Messages app to open his chat with Amy. He didn’t think he needed to say much just to get her attention, so he jumped on the question mark and then jumped on “Send.”

He heard two short vibrations a few feet away, glancing over and seeing Amy’s phone illuminate on her nightstand.

Well…shit. I guess I’m not completely helpless though. Steve sidled over to his usual means of traversal to the floor, sliding down a dangling blanket off the bed slowly.

Amy hadn’t left him a bath or a change of clothes this morning, and he was aware of his lingering crustiness from the prior evening’s activities. Being covered in dried tongue crud wasn’t what he would call a pleasant sensation, and he earnestly hoped Amy wasn’t so mad at him that she wouldn’t assist with a bath. Not COMPLETELY helpless. Just mostly.

The voices echoing from the kitchen grew louder as he made his way down the hallway, Steve catching bits and pieces of the dialogue.

“…so anyway, Mrs. C…” he heard Emma’s voice begin.

Amy cut her off. “Again, Emma, call me Amy!” she responded.

‘Right, Amy…well, if you can believe it, this…” Emma continued.

Amy cut her off again. “Cunt? You can say it, Emma. We’ve been over this,” Amy said laughing. Steve thought he heard a laugh from Becky as well.

“…yeah. This CUNT,” Emma said with evident levity in a still-forceful tone, “had the gall to stand outside the principal’s office to watch me get suspended. I flipped her off, but I wanted to fucking murder her.”

“Probably diddled herself later to the thought of it too,” he heard Becky add. Emma and Amy both laughed.

“Don’t be gross, Becks,” Emma chided playfully.

“So, yeah. I have a free week off of school! I can come by earlier every day next week, if you want,” Emma offered.

“Oh, that really won’t be necessary, but thanks for the offer,” Amy responded. Steve was briefly annoyed at the response before he realized what was happening. Amy was punishing him still by withholding Emma’s presence, effectively grounding him as an adult. His pride chafed at the thought but, realistically, he HAD kind of earned it.

“You sure? I got nowhere else to be,” Emma persisted.

“Positive,” Amy responded.

It took Steve the better part of 10 minutes to make the journey, mentally lamenting the fact that this length of hallway used to require only a few steps.

He eventually made his way into the kitchen, seeing Becky’s back in a chair at the kitchen table, her feet in their bright pink socks crossed underneath her near the floor. He was reminded of how almost comically small the girl was, her feet barely touching the floor like a child sitting at the adult table. On the other side of the table, he could see Emma’s bare feet with the black nail polish but couldn’t see the rest of her from this angle. A chair slid out slightly on the left, presumably where Amy was sitting before she got up to do post-breakfast dishes. Amy herself was parked before the sink, her back turned to the room.

He realized Emma was probably his best bet for getting attention, her bare feet almost certainly more likely to register his presence if he knocked for assistance. Ugh…why didn’t I think to just text her instead? He felt like he should be out in the open as much as possible to increase his chances of being seen. Crossing under the table with everyone unaware of his presence seemed like a recipe for getting crushed unaware…or getting accused of creeping on the girls’ feet. He wasn’t sure what was worse, actually. He knew he wasn’t exactly in good standing with Amy at the moment, and she knew he was into foot stuff. Getting caught under the table with both Emma and Becky sitting there would be indefensible.

And so, he made the decision to swing his route out wide past the table, moving into the center of the kitchen somewhat, intending to circumvent the table the long way around. As he made it past where Becky was sitting at the table, he heard a sound that chilled him to his core: Becky’s chair scraping backwards against the kitchen floor.

Oh come on… He looked over his shoulder hesitantly. It felt like, ever since he had shrunk, he had unerringly been the butt of some sadistic cosmic jester’s jokes. Or, maybe it was just simple karma. His life had seemingly become one unending sequence of Murphy’s Law exemplars after another. He had hoped that this wasn’t another one of those instances, but it wasn’t to be. Becky got to her feet and took two short steps, carrying her plate and utensils with her, evidently intending to be helpful and bring them to the sink. The first step landed near the table. Mentally, he forecasted the trajectory of her second step, knowing innately that her foot would come crashing down on him in his current path.

It seemed like, however, that Becky had noticed him. Just for a moment, her eyes had darted to the floor, surprise registering in her expression. But he must have been seeing things, because an instant later, the pink-socked foot slammed down on top of him.

------------------------------------

Should probably help Mrs. Clover with the dishes, Becky thought to herself. Her and Emma’s impromptu breakfast host had been remarkably both understanding and accommodating. Perhaps it was because she was less than a decade removed from high school herself, but Amy Clover had taken everything about the awkward circumstances in good-humored stride. Becky and Emma had both roused in the morning to the scent of breakfast being cooked, hastily scrambling to put their clothes back on for at least a token attempt at some common decency, even though there was absolutely no way Mrs. Clover hadn’t seen them on the couch already.

The two girls had held a rushed, whispered conference, Becky briefly contemplating just grabbing her stuff and slipping outside before Mrs. Clover came back from the kitchen. Either Mrs. Clover had heard them, or she had a preternatural sense for what their reactions would be, because an instant after the thought escaped her mouth, Becky had heard a singsong “breakfast is ready girls!!” from the kitchen.

They had both shuffled into the kitchen, red-faced and awkward as newborns. But Amy had refused to countenance any weirdness at all, greeting them both with a beaming smile and a congratulatory, part-joking “mazels!” that had helped to defuse the situation a bit. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Clover’s innate affability, good cheer, and bountiful hospitality had them all chatting and laughing as if finding the two nascent lesbians on the couch was the most ordinary thing in the world. And maybe it was. They were just kids, after all. Kids get drunk and do silly stuff sometimes. It’s just…this time, the silliness had an added weight to it. An intangible aura of things never being the same again, in the best way possible.

In any case, in a totally nonchalant manner that somehow didn’t come across as prying, Mrs. Clover had gotten them both to open up a bit. They had sat on opposite sides of the table to create an image of some distance between them, which prompted Mrs. Clover to grab their hands and join them together in the middle over the table, forcing the two of them to make eye contact. Emma’s shy smile as she clutched Becky’s hand had set her heart fluttering, the way that same smile had for years now. They’d turned a page, and Becky couldn’t be happier.

The morning had transitioned thereafter into an effortless recounting of their long, twisted love story, both girls intermittently barking out full-throated guffaws every time one of them shared an instance of one of their many misconstrued near misses, their “two ships passing in the night” flirtation being the sort of stuff Hallmark movies are made of. Even the story about Emma and Ashley, still raw in Becky’s mind, had culminated in an easy, cathartic laughter.

All of this added up to an inescapable sense of something being owed to Amy Clover. There were two ways an exceedingly awkward morning could have gone, and Amy had seamlessly steered the ship toward the vastly preferable option. And so, before she left, Becky was determined to repay the kindness in some meager fashion.

She gathered up her and Emma’s plates and utensils, stacking them to bring them to the kitchen sink where Mrs. Clover was already hard at work scrubbing away the wreckage of their meal. Becky had scooted out her chair, stood up, and taken one step away from the table before she saw…something. And that’s when she learned something new about herself, something that would force her to ask herself some difficult questions later on.

That’s the thing about being young: you kind of don’t know what your kink is until you’re exposed to it for the first time. Sure, there are hints. A vague sense of arousal when you see something in media that scratches the surface, like the first time you see someone stomp on a bug or the first time you see vore in a cartoon. You don’t know what it’s doing to you or why it’s doing that, all you know is you liked it, and you want MORE of it.

And so, when Becky saw the tiny figure scurrying about on the floor that her mind quickly recognized could only be Mrs. Clover’s shrunken husband, she had two options. Avert her step, rescue him from the floor, and announce his presence to everyone else, or…well, just step on him. And before she knew what she was doing, she was following through on the latter. Over the course of breakfast they had briefly discussed Mr. Clover’s predicament, Amy confiding in the two girls regarding his remarkable durability after issuing a dire secrecy warning to Becky, which Emma corroborated based on her own experiences with the shrunken man. Becky knew if she didn’t fully STOMP on him, he would be fine. Mostly.

She pretended not to see him as her right foot pressed down on top of him, her cheeks flushing at the power rush to her brain. Becky had beat around the bushes of her dark side a bit, horny men on her game streams asking her to talk down to them, to call them scum. She had found dominatrix porn to be somewhat up her alley, the idea of controlling and punishing someone bigger than her, after she had always been so small, being curiously appealing. When she and Emma had played around last night, Becky had largely dictated the pace, pushing boundaries as she quite literally pushed Emma around.

But there was no way for her to know that being a giantess was for her until that very moment. As she felt her toes curl over the tiny man, she wanted to do worse to him. Much worse. She wanted to press down with her full weight, wanted to feel his bones crack and see blood leak out from underneath her ordinarily petite, but comparatively enormous, foot. She wanted to hear him cry out in pain, wanted to twist and grind the ball of her foot into the tiled kitchen floor.

She abstained from mostly all of that, recognizing that it would both be murder and just, well, objectively fucked up. Especially after Amy had been so kind to her this morning. But she didn’t relinquish her grasp on his body, wondering if she had the coordination to do what she was going to attempt next. She squeezed her toes around Mr. Clover’s body, tucking him between her toes and the ball of her foot forcefully as she continued her stride. As she approached the kitchen sink, Mrs. Clover looked over her shoulder and smiled, grateful for Becky’s assistance. And somehow, looking the woman in the eye made it worse…which also made it better.

That’s right ma’am, I have your little husband underneath me and you have ZERO idea. There’s nothing you can do about it.

“Here, let me help,” Becky offered innocuously, gesturing for Mrs. Clover to vacate her position in front of the sink.

“Absolutely not, missy. I won’t have it said that I’m a poor host. Give me your plates,” Amy ordered with a joking sternness.

“Thanks, Mrs. Clover,” Becky responded sheepishly.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I keep telling Emma. I’m not even a decade older than you. I’m WAYYYY too young to be called ‘Mrs.’ Call me Amy,” she said with a warm, genuine smile.

“You got it…Amy,” Becky said, matching the smile while feeling the pathetic struggles of the tiny man curled in her toes.

“I…I have to use the restroom,” Becky announced disingenuously…and unconvincingly, at least to her own ears.

Emma raised a quirky eyebrow. “Okaayyyyy Becks. We’re not in class. You don’t need permission, nor do we need the announcement” she admonished playfully.

“Ha ha….right,” Becky laughed weakly.

As she began to leave the kitchen, still curling her toes to keep Mr. Clover obscured and captive and hoping she wasn’t walking strangely, she began to feel a little flustered. She didn’t really have a plan. Stepping into the hallway and glancing down at the foyer, she saw her tan boots she had kicked off by the front door last night. Could I…. As quickly as the thought entered her head, she discarded it summarily. What was she going to do? Throw him in a boot and hope he couldn’t climb out? Get out of the house without somehow sparking a manhunt for him? Keep him concealed from everyone in her life, including Emma?

No. Becky wasn’t a BAD person. She was just a little, well…horny. Particularly after finding out some things about herself last night after what felt like a decade of pent-up amorous energy culminated ecstatic catharsis. But she didn’t need to be a lawyer to know what she was doing, and what she was thinking about, was wrong. It was, at best, kidnapping and, at worst, outright murder if something were to go wrong. No, she had to find a way to extricate herself from this situation. Believably and gracefully.

She walked down the hallway, ducking into the bathroom and closing the door behind her, flipping on the lights. Suddenly, she felt self-conscious. If she was going to maintain some air of tactful and believable deniability, she had to actually look like she was going to the bathroom. Still feeling the tiny figure flailing against the bottoms of her toes, she deliberately stepped onto the mat in front of the sink on her way to the toilet, pretending that Mr. Clover was “scraped” off as she relinquished the grip of her toes slightly. And then, with what she hoped was enough speed that she wouldn’t be flashing herself to Emma’s nice neighbor, she dropped her pants and underwear and sat down on the toilet. Quickly. She glanced over at Mr. Clover on the mat, blushing a bit when she saw he was making direct eye contact already. He looked PISSED.

She had to do this right, turn the tables on him as though HE were the creepy predator in this scenario. She hurriedly crossed her legs and let out a squeal, moving her hands to cover her privates for added effect.

“OH MY GOD MR. CLOVER, WHY ARE YOU IN HERE??!!” she belted out with what she hoped was a convincing effort while still keeping her voice down to avoid being overheard.

He raised an unamused eyebrow. Shit.

“Really? Really Becky? You had NO idea I was under your toes this whole time? No idea that you stepped on something bigger than most Lego pieces? I guess you always just walk around scrunching your toes for funsies?”

Change of plans. Her expression morphed into not-entirely-disingenuous contrition.

“You’re right, Mr. Clover. Sorry for the act. I…I stepped on you by accident, and then I was terrified of what I might see. I was worried I killed you, so I panicked. I’m really sorry!”

His face softened somewhat, but he still looked unconvinced. “You didn’t feel me moving the second you stepped on me? I was flailing like a fish out of water literally THE ENTIRE TIME!”

“I didn’t! Maybe it was the socks? They’re kinda thick…”

Mr. Clover’s expression deadpanned. “Uh huh. Thick socks.”

An awkward silence ensued. He didn’t break eye contact. She felt compelled to look away.

“I’m sorry…again, truly. It was a mistake. But um…can you like, look away or something? Or like…leave? I still…I still have to go,” she pleaded hopefully.

Mr. Clover rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ll get out of your hair. And you’re off the hook…for now. Just know that my wife would kill you, painfully and slowly, if anything were to ever happen to me,” he warned. There was no trace of a joke in his expression. He maintained the stern eye contact until Becky averted hers, the miniature man somehow still managing to be intimidating.

“O…okay…” she answered weakly.

Mr. Clover turned around and made his way to the closed door, easily slipping underneath it and back out into the hallway.

Becky buried her face in her hands. UGGGGHHHHH….that was PAINFUL. You need therapy, girl. Ultimately, she was glad she hadn’t followed through in any irreversible fashion. But the compulsion in the first place came from somewhere…dark. She hated herself for it…and also knew what she’d be looking up when she got home later. Wonder if other people are into…this?

------------------------------------

That girl, Steve thought to himself, is completely full of shit. She had demurred, made excuses, tried to make it sound like Steve was equally culpable in the weirdness that had transpired. But Steve knew. He had made eye contact with her before her foot came down on him, and he felt her toes scrunch up right after to bind him. And then she had WALKED with her toes curled in, fastening him in place while putting his life at serious risk.

Steve’s mind went back to his conversation with Amy last night. Her concern over how the circle of people that knew of Steve’s condition was growing, whether she liked it or not. Steve had trusted Emma’s judgment. She had never given him a reason not to. But he questioned it now. Whether Emma was right about who Becky was, and whether she could be trusted with a secret of this magnitude.

Fuck…I really AM a heel, aren’t I?  He smirked inwardly at the inadvertent foot pun, but the rueful mirth was short-lived. The morning’s events had given him a whole new perspective on Amy’s outrage. She was right…as usual. He needed to be more careful. He needed to trust that she had his best interests at heart, and he needed to know that she trusted him in turn. That would have to be earned. Trust is a funny, fickle, and fragile thing. It can take a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy. He’d have to make it up to her. Somehow.

Heaving out a sigh, he began the trek back toward the kitchen. He had only made it a few feet before the bathroom door behind him opened again.

Steve turned slowly, making eye contact with Becky, who froze in the doorway. She wouldn’t try it again…would she? He really didn’t know this girl.

Much to his relief, she gave him a wide, awkward berth, apparently intending to sidle around him at a distance. He gave her what he hoped was an intimidating stare. Well, to the extent that a one-inch person staring can be intimidating.

“Little help?” he asked. Two puns. I’m really on a roll.

Becky’s face betrayed her confusion. “Excuse me?”

“You stepped on me and toted me across MY house like some kind of fucked-up crane game. I feel like the least you could do is give me a ride to the kitchen.”

“Oh, um…of course. Yes,” Becky said while squatting down. She reached out, but hesitated. “Do I…do I just, uh, grab you?” she asked bashfully.

Oh NOW she’s worried about it. “Yes. That would be vastly preferable to your foot again.”

The girl blushed, looking a bit put out. Eh, maybe I should lay off on her a bit. I doubt it was an accident, but everyone makes mistakes. She’s just a kid.

“Look, it’s fine. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Water under the bridge. Okay?” he offered.

“Yeah…okay. Thank you,” she responded quietly. With that, she reached out and picked him up in a small, clammy fist, standing back up and heading into the kitchen.

Walking back into the kitchen, Becky shuffled awkwardly toward the table where Emma was still seated. Emma noticed the odd behavior, and her eyes honed in on Becky’s clenched hand immediately.

“Whatcha got there Becks?” she asked curiously.

“Oh, uhhhh….” Becky stammered in response, opening her palm slightly.

Steve gave Becky a meaningful look before coming to her rescue. “I smelled breakfast and was making my way down the hallway when Becky here was nice enough to give me a ride. Saved me a long walk.” You owe me one kid.

“Yes, right. I, uh, I helped.” Becky said.

Emma squinted at the odd behavior. “Good for you, I guess? I’ll have Mr. Clover draft up the municipal permit for the parade down Main Street in your honor.”

Becky leaned over the table, giving Emma a playful smack on the shoulder and depositing Steve on the surface. Emma’s sarcasm had abated some of the awkwardness.

Amy walked back over from the sink, effectively throwing a small bottle cap full of food in front of Steve. Had she tossed it any harder, it would have bowled him over.

“It’s not hot. You weren’t up so I don’t want any complaints,” Amy said with narrowed eyes.

Annnnndddd the awkwardness is back. Clearly, she wasn’t over their conversation from last night. And really, he didn’t have any right to assume she would be. He had fucked up. This morning only reinforced that notion.

Both Becky and Emma fidgeted uncomfortably, averting their gaze from the display of marital disharmony unfolding before them.

A painfully awkward silence ensued, all vestiges of Amy’s host extraordinaire persona seemingly evaporating in an instant. She had pulled out a chair at the table and flopped down into it unceremoniously, immediately whipping out her phone to text, doomscroll, or do some combination thereof.

Emma glanced across the table at Steve, who was sitting cross-legged and eating in silence with his bare hands. She raised a questioning eyebrow, to which Steve merely shrugged in response, the gesture conveying in silence that he would fill her in another time.

Emma, bless her heart, broke the silence after noticing Steve’s accommodations. “You want coffee, Mr. C?”

“Pot’s empty,” Amy answered for him flatly.

“I mean…he really only needs like a drop…” Emma answered. Amy looked up from her phone at Emma. If the glare wasn’t quite angry, it still certainly could not fairly be described as hospitable. She gestured in the direction of the coffee pot, inviting Emma to give it a shot if she wanted to.

“I keep a thimble for him in the cabinet next to the mugs,” Amy instructed, her tone at least softening somewhat when she realized that Emma’s kindness shouldn’t be on the receiving end of her hostility.

When did she start doing that? For what seemed like the hundredth time in mere days, Steve was beating himself up a bit. Here was Amy considering his needs preemptively, once again. Even while angry at him, she still went through the effort of arranging him a plate in a bottle cap, and had set aside an ad hoc coffee mug (well, more like coffee tub) for him.

Emma poured out a few drops into the thimble and brought it over. The thimble was basically his size. He couldn’t pick it up, but he could at least…well…lap at it. Like a dog.

Emma and Becky engaged in some light chatter about school and what Emma’s plan would be for reintroduction into the curriculum and the band after her suspension. Steve could tell they were doing it to be polite while he was still eating, because once he finished, Becky immediately stood up and excused herself. Yeah, I’ll bet you wanna get out of here, kid.

“Welp, I should probably be getting home. This was…fun. Thanks again, Mr. and Mrs. Clover,” Becky said.

A trace of Amy’s innate kindness returned. “Anytime, Becky, and we mean that. If you girls ever need a place to get away, well, our door’s always open. Just…let us know if our house is going to become an impromptu love shack next time. Hang a sock on the door or something,” she joked with a smile.

Both girls blushed deeply, Emma biting her lip as she seemingly considered something. As with most details, the significance of the look didn’t escape Amy’s notice.

“It’s okay, Emma. Not only are we cool with PDAs, but we’re also supportive of you two in particular,” Amy coaxed.

That was all the encouragement Emma needed, getting to her feet and taking both of Becky’s hands as she gave her a brief peck on the lips. Becky’s blush only deepened. “I’ll call you later?” Emma asked with a faint smile.

Becky returned the smile in kind. “I’d love that. See you guys later!!” Becky waved over her shoulder as she exited the room to get her stuff and head out.

With Amy’s nose promptly back into her phone, Emma shot a look at Steve that seemed to ask, “you good?” His response was a terse nod.

“Guess I’ll get out of your hair too then. Thanks again for having us over and, well, thanks again for being…you know…cool with it,” Emma said genuinely.

“Of course! I’ll be in touch to discuss the man-sitting schedule,” Amy responded.

Steve smirked and opened his mouth to let out a quip. “Stephen, I swear to Christ…” Amy warned with a glare, DARING him to say it.

Uh oh, full name. Yeah, probably better to keep this one to myself. He looked dejected as he was shot down. Emma stifled a giggle.

Another idea entered his head. As Emma was beginning to walk out, he shouted after her. “Wait! Let me walk you to the door!!”

Both women gave him a strange look. “How are you going to…” they both started.

“Emma, just take me with you for a second,” he pressed. She looked at Amy for permission, Amy’s response being the same “be my guest” gesture she had done with the coffee.

Emma picked Steve up and carried him with her to the front door, putting him down on the little table in the foyer as she laced up her sneakers.

“What’s this about, Mr. C?” she asked.

“So, you might have gathered that I kind of put myself in the doghouse,” he began.

Emma gave him a withering, flat stare. “Yeah, I’d noticed.”

“So, I need your help. I’m kind of hampered in my ability to make kind gestures at the moment.”

“Okay…” Emma answered, sounding unsure.

“My wallet is in the drawer. If you don’t mind, take out my card and give the flower shop a call. She likes these weird-looking flowers. Orchids, maybe?”

“Cymbidium or phalaenopsis?” Emma asked.

“Umm…gesundheit?” Steve answered.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Small pointy ones or big rounded ones?”

“Big rounded ones, I think. They look like a curved stick with just random big flowers on it.”

“Phalaenopsis then. Moth orchids,” Emma responded.

“Since when do you know anything about flowers?” Steve asked.

“I know lots of stuff,” Emma huffed a little indignantly, before providing the real answer. “Mom used to force me to volunteer in the church garden when I was a kid.”

“Oh. Well, use your discretion Ms. Expert Florist,” Steve said.

“Color?” Emma asked.

“Huh?”

“What color? Does she have a favorite color?” Emma coaxed.

“Oh. Uh…blue?” Steve suggested.

“That’s not really a thing, Mr. C,” Emma answered.

“What?! I see them at the grocery store all the time!” Steve protested.

“That’s because they give them food dye, which is bad for the plant. You really don’t know anything, do you?” Emma teased.

“Alright, then pink. Purple. White. Whatever they can get here same-day,” Steve responded

Emma let out a low whistle. “Same day, huh? Yeesh, you must’ve REALLY fucked up,” Emma gibed.

“Yeah, kinda. I’m not relishing the idea of a weekend cooped up in the same house without doing…something, at least,” Steve said.

“Mr. C, if I may, you’ve always given me sound advice. Remember what you told me to do with Becky yesterday?” Emma asked.

“I didn’t tell you to get to second base with your best friend, for the record,” he answered.

“How do you know we got to second base?” Emma asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Fuck. “I’m just guessing. Anyway, what’s your point?”

“My point is that when I started making excuses, you told me to just TALK to her. I’m giving you the same advice,” Emma said. “Have you tried, you know, APOLOGIZING?”

“Of course!” he shot back defensively.

“Really?” Emma asked. “You were drinking last night. Think back. Did you REALLY like ACTUALLY apologize?” she asked again.

“Well,” Steve thought about it. “Not as such. I mean, I tried,” he answered meekly.

Emma rolled her eyes again. “You don’t TRY to apologize to your wife, Mr. C. You just do it. Sincerely,” she admonished.

“I know, I know, okay? She went to bed angry and it felt like pushing the dialogue more would’ve made it worse,” he reasoned.

Emma looked at him for a moment before sighing. “Well, I’ll do the flowers thing. Of course I will. But it won’t mean as much to her as you, you know, being a real husband,” she said.

Ouch. Emma must have seen the hurt register on his face, because her expression softened a bit. “I’m sorry, that was unfair. But like, you get the idea. When I bring you back in there, you fucking TALK to her,” Emma instructed.

“Okay, okay. I will. MA’AM,” he responded somewhat sarcastically.

“That attitude ain’t gonna help you bud. You’d best get in the right headspace for this, quick,” Emma warned again. With that, she dropped him back off on the kitchen table, saying goodbye once again to Amy before heading out.

The awkward silence was back.

Emma’s right. Without any preamble, Steve broke the ice. “Amy…I’m sorry.”

She looked up over her phone, surprise registering in the raising of her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“I said I’m sorry. And I am. For all of it. You know how I get. I’ve been a moronic risk taker as long as I’ve been alive, and this whole tiny thing makes me want to try to be independent even more, to push my limits” he confessed. “But,” Steve continued, “the only way we get through this is together, and I can’t do it without your help. I know that. I’ll talk it over with you before doing anything stupid going forward.”

Amy sighed, rubbing her eyes after finally putting her phone down. She glanced at him. “I didn’t sleep last night,” she began.

Steve didn’t say anything, knowing that this wasn’t a sympathy ploy but rather an introduction to something more significant.

“The whole thing with you and Emma, how close you came to just…being someone else’s food. Inviting Becky into our lives when neither of us knows her from a hole in the wall. It’s all…just…exhausting.”

Tell me about it. “I know, but we have to find a way to make it work. Right? It’s all still pretty new. I think we’ll get used to it,” Steve offered.

“That’s the thing, Steve. I don’t WANT to have to get used to it. I want our life back. I want YOU back. Not…this…” she gestured vaguely in his direction.

Ouch again. He was sure Amy wouldn’t have eavesdropped on his conversation with Emma, but coupled with Emma’s comment about him being a “real” husband, the two separate but similar digs coming in rapid fire succession, well…it hurt. More than he cared to admit.

“I…I get it, Ames. I do. But like, realistically, what choice do we have?” he asked nervously.

Amy must’ve seen the look on his face. She smiled faintly. “Don’t worry, you may be a self-obsessed, ignorant, recalcitrant, thoughtless, and until VERY recently unrepentant jackass, but we’re a ways away from flushing you down the toilet like a goldfish if that’s where your brain is going.”

The fact that the analogy even crossed her mind was disconcerting. He offered a weak smile, opening his mouth to respond when Amy cut him off.

“That doesn’t mean we’re good, either. We’re a long ways away from that too. You broke my trust, and you’re going to have to earn it back. In the meantime, instead of just waiting and praying we get lucky, I’ve been thinking…”

He saw something else in her eyes then. Something that he last saw when she had a few drinks in her the other night. That vaguely predatory gaze. It was a look he’d come to associate with Amy when she was ready to take a risk.

“You have a plan, don’t you?” Steve asked.

She bit her lip, looking thoughtful for a moment. “‘Plan’ is a bit of a stretch, but I do have an idea. A very, very expensive, probably extremely dumb, and DEFINITELY extremely risky, idea. It’s time to call Allie.”

------------------------------------

Steve heard the front door swing open, slamming closed forcefully shortly thereafter. Allie never bothered to knock. She was basically family.

“Sup skank!!” he heard her call out from the foyer. This was a thing his wife and Allie did. His partner and Allie’s father, John, absolutely hated it. Which is precisely why when he used to be in the office regularly, Steve had encouraged it every chance he got.

“Hey slut!” he heard Amy call back. Steve didn’t understand why they thought this was funny, but the fact that it drove John bonkers is what made it funny to him. Amy had deposited him on the shelf underneath the coffee table. He had agreed to obscure himself until Amy prompted him to come out for the big reveal to the next person being conscripted into their ever-growing “circle of trust.” And, if all went according to plan, the next person being conscripted into their criminal conspiracy.

Steve watched through the glass of the coffee table as the two embraced. Not for the first time, he was reminded of how uncomfortably attractive Allison was. Despite being only a scant few inches taller than Amy, it always seemed like Allie towered over his wife when they were next to one another. He knew Amy was around 5’5”, and his best guess was that Allie was around 5’8” or 5’9”. After all, he knew she was a few inches shorter than him. Or, well, at least she used to be.

Allie was wearing somewhat-loose sweatpants with a form-fitting zipper hoody from some athletic brand. The reason the sweatpants could only be described as “somewhat loose” was because they were unquestionably baggy around her knees and calves. But, well, Allison’s butt was something else. People had literally been fired over it at the office, multiple times. John was fiercely protective of his daughter. Even through the distortion of the glass, he could see the sweatpants hugging Allie’s hips tightly, feeling a vague warmth and blood-flow as he saw the gray fabric stretching to its seams against Allison’s…assets. He supposed it made sense that her ass would pop, with how athletically inclined she was.

Aside from her stunning physical build, however, in a word, Allison’s features could be described as striking. Not in the sense of Emma’s appearance, which looked entirely more mundane without her usual makeup, jewelry and accessories. No, Allie was naturally gorgeous…to the point of it seeming unnatural. Her long, silky, raven-hued hair was tucked behind her head in an elegant ponytail. Her hair color was entirely at odds with her bright blue eyes, which only served to accentuate both features.

Steve knew that Allie hated her chin. She had inherited John’s strong jawline, Allison’s chin even having a little cleft on it. On any other woman, it would be described as man-ish. On Allison, it served to give her face the heart-shaped structure that was common to cartoony depictions of feminine beauty, though she had rather tomboyish tendencies at times. Honestly, Steve was grateful for her chin’s existence. If it weren’t for the fact that he saw so much of John in Allie’s face, he probably would have made an untoward and inappropriate move on the girl a long time ago.

“Come on in, take a sea….oh, okay,” Amy trailed off with a laugh as Allison barreled right past her, not bothering to remove her shoes. Allie wasn’t bashful or subtle. Steve knew where she was headed. He watched through the glass as Allie strode confidently down the hallway, hearing the fridge open and close moments later, the utensils drawer slamming shut shortly thereafter. Allie walked back into the living room with a container of cold lo mein and a fork, kicking off her sneakers in front of the couch as she flopped into it and crossed her legs, digging in. Steve winced. That’s probably at least a week old.

“No, please Allison, help yourself. Mi casa es su casa,” Amy quipped.

“Oh shut up girl, we both know you were just going to throw this out tomorrow,” Allison answered around a mouthful of noodles. She hadn’t even bothered to heat it up. “For just pennies a day, you could feed a hungry best friend,” Allison continued, adopting the pandering tone of countless charity commercials.

Amy snorted a laugh. The two briefly engaged in small talk, sharing general work grievances and catching one another up on their respective lives. Allison broached a line of questioning that would organically lead to Steve’s introduction.

Putting down the empty Chinese food container, Allison looked a little concerned as she asked, “so…is everything alright with you and Steve, Ames? It’s not like you to call out of work suddenly like you did earlier this week and, well, you seemed distant even when while you were in the office. And dad hasn’t heard from him at all…”

“I’m glad you asked. That leads me to the reason I asked you over here which, believe it or not, was not to have you clear leftovers from our fridge. I know you’re going to have a lot of questions, so I’ll just get straight to the point and you can ask them after.” Amy looked deadly serious for a moment. “But, Allie, I have to give you the same disclaimer I gave everyone else. I can’t stress this enough: what I’m about to tell, well, SHOW you, is an intensely private secret. Absolutely no one can know about it, or else Steve and I can end up in a LOT of trouble. You don’t have to hear it, if you don’t want to. You can just walk out that door and pretend we never had this conversation. But once I loop you in, well, you’re a part of the secret, officially.”

“I know this is supposed to scare me off, but honestly it’s just making me excited! You did something naughty, didn’t you Ames?” Alllison asked with a mischievous grin.

“Allie, for real, I’m serious. This is actually very dangerous, and it could mean legal trouble for you down the road if it ever gets out. I don’t want you to be a part of this unless you WANT to be a part of this. And, to be perfectly clear, you absolutely cannot tell a SOUL. I know how um…chatty…you get at the office,” Amy warned.

“Oh stop, you’re just as bad as me with spilling tea,” Allison protested half-heartedly.

Amy deadpanned. “Really? REALLY, Allie? I’m just as bad as you when it comes to gossip?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Okay fiiinnneeee. I promise I’ll keep whatever this is a secret. Silence is golden, mum’s the word, yadda yadda.”

Amy looked into Allison’s eyes, searching for something. Whatever it was, she seemingly found the confirmation she needed, as Steve suddenly saw her hand reaching under the coffee table and opening up on the shelf, inviting him to step onto it. He took the invitation.

Without any further preamble, Amy moved him to the top of the table in plain view. Steve gave a little “ta-da!” pose with the reveal. Predictably, Allison gawked. “Holy shit, Steve??!!”

“In the tiny flesh!” he shouted back.

The gears were clearly turning in Allison’s head. But instead of the litany of questions the couple had come to expect, Allison rapidly connected a few dots on her own, likely due to having worked on the MicroMD case with Amy.

“MicroMD, huh?” she asked pointedly, slurping up a stray noodle dangling from her mouth.

Amy blinked, a little surprised that Allison was taking this so well. “Er…yes. The reasons why aren’t really important but suffice to say that Steve got his hands on some tech that wasn’t ready for public consumption. Earlier this week, he had one too many and well, had an accident,” Amy answered.

To forestall the questions that would invariably follow, Steve fell on the sword preemptively. “For what it’s worth, it was an accident. I never intended to actually go through with it. But…Amy’s right. I was messing around with some tech they haven’t unveiled yet and, well, I ended up like this,” he explained.

Allison nodded knowingly, which was perhaps a condemnation of Steve’s general malaise in recent months. She didn’t seem surprised that drunkenness had culminated in stupidity.

“Well, you blew it again Steve. Can’t say I’m surprised,” Allison jabbed with a smirk.

He didn’t have a clever retort, so he resorted to an old classic: “Fuck you.” Allison laughed, and he found himself laughing with her. Even Amy cracked a grin.

“Well, if you two are done cracking each other up, we have to get to ‘The Favor,’” Amy said.

“Oh this should be good,” Allison said. “What do you want me to do, sneak into their facility and find the cure?”

Amy blinked again, once more surprised at Allison’s reaction. “Well…actually…” she began.

“OOOHHHH!! Corporate espionage! Count me in!” Allison said excitedly.

“Actually, Allie, that’s not really the legal definition of corporate espionage…” Steve started to say.

“Oh shut up, you. Let me have my fun,” Allison chided, tossing the empty Chinese food container on the table and letting the dirty fork hit the surface. This girl is a slob sometimes.

“Allie, we need you to take this seriously,” Amy said with a sobering tone.

“Okay, game face for real,” Allison responded. Flippant answer aside, her demeanor and tone changed to match Amy’s. It was the best they could hope for with someone of Allie’s infectious, bubbly demeanor.

“So,” Amy began, “MicroMD just released their quarterly statement for shareholders. In it, they mentioned that they have ‘begun’ preliminary testing on organic matter reduction. Ostensibly, the intended purpose is also medical. Shrinking tumors for removal, transplanting organs, grafting bone, inserting artificial discs, stuff like that. They’ve filed for the permits to commence testing on live animals,” Amy explained. Oh, that’s right. Steve recalled seeing that on the TV ticker the other morning. He had forgotten to follow up on it. Amy apparently hadn’t. Once again, she deserved more credit than he gave her.

“Jeez, bet their stock price just went up,” Allison mused.

Is this chick fucking psychic? Allison had again connected the dots before the actual reveal.

“It most certainly did,” Steve said jumping in on the dialogue. “Soared, in fact.” Which is what makes this next bit painful. “We all know they wouldn’t have announced it if they didn’t have a plan for regrowing the matter as well. And, as we also all now well know, they’re MUCH further along in the process than they’re letting on. They had a fully functional human reduction suit MONTHS ago.”

Allison looked thoughtful for a moment. “That means…that means they DEFINITELY have a cure for you already, don’t they?!” she exclaimed, looking at Steve.

“I don’t know about ‘definitely,’ but I’d be shocked if they didn’t,” Steve answered.

“So where do I fit into this?” Allison asked curiously.

“Their facility security is pretty tight, for obvious reasons. They don’t even allow employees to show their workplace to friends or family. ‘Bring Your Kid to Work Day’ is 100% NOT a thing at MicroMD,” Amy chimed in.

Steve held up his pointer finger. “There is ONE exception. The annual shareholders meeting in the spring. As with anything in the corporate world, money talks. While the average shareholder only gets a virtual invitation, the top shareholders actually are invited on site. In fact, for the first time ever, they’re getting a tour of the facility.”

“That’s all well and good, and I don’t know about you guys, but I can certainly say I don’t have any stock in MicroMD. Let alone a LOT of stock,” Allison reasoned.

“Well, that’s where we come in,” Amy said taking over the explanation. “We had been saving all of our money for kids,” she said with a meaningful, somewhat mournful look in Steve’s direction, “but that’s obviously off the table for now. We have a decent amount squirreled away,” Amy said.

“I figured as much,” Allison responded, “otherwise Steve wouldn’t have entered early retirement.”

“So, here’s the plan. We don’t want to buy a whole bunch of stock suddenly in Steve’s name. Everyone remembers him as the prosecuting attorney on the MicroMD case. It would be HIGHLY suspicious. Similarly, people might be able to tie the name ‘Allison Glenwood’ to the firm name, Clover & Glenwood. HOWEVER, it is doubtful that whoever is offering the tour will connect the dots,” Amy continued.

“Our idea is to set up a generic-sounding trust and appoint you as the trustee,” Steve explained. “The trust funds will be used to purchase a big old chunk of MicroMD stock. You’ll get the invite on the trust’s behalf, and you’ll show up for the grand tour.”

“This all sounds…illegal. Is it illegal?” Allison asked.

Without hesitation, Steve and Amy responded simultaneously: “yes.”

There was a brief pause before Amy continued by quietly saying, “that’s why you’re our only option.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just…wait until they release it?” Allison asked.

“Not really,” Steve answered. “First of all, that assumes they ever release it for public use. Letting people miniaturize appliances to bring with them on vacation is one thing. Allowing people to shrink living things is practically begging for a mass casualty event. Plus, if it follows the trajectory of their inorganic matter devices, it’ll be deployed solely for medical usage for a solid 5-10 years before it becomes available publicly which, once again, seems entirely unlikely.”

“Can I play Devil’s Advocate for a second here?” Allison asked.

They both nodded for her to continue.

“What if you just…turned yourself in? Sure, you’d face legal trouble, probably jail or prison time. But getting you back to normal would be in the hands of professionals, at least, and you wouldn’t run the risk of bringing Amy down with you,” she said while looking at Steve. “You’ll definitely lose your law license, but as long as that’s happening anyway, you could just chalk it up to a bout of alcoholism, couldn’t you? Just say you were incensed by all of the people MicroMD’s products have killed, and in a drunken rage, you took the organic reduction tech from them while you still could so that it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Besides, you’re retired.”

Steve was about to respond before he gave himself a moment to consider. That’s…that’s actually not half bad. He looked over at Amy. “She’s got a point, Ames…”

“No,” Amy answered quickly and firmly. “This whole thing is my idea. To be honest, Steve’s accident forced me to consider what life would be like without him and…I don’t like it. The whole point of doing this is to get him back. Believe me, I’ve thought about it. Turning himself in assumes he survives what follows. He wouldn’t be restored back to his normal size immediately, not if MicroMD wants to keep up the appearance that they’re doing their due diligence with a lengthy trial phase on non-humans. That means a period of detention before trial, and possible incarceration afterward, where he’d be in the hands of God knows who. All it takes is one lax guard looking the other way while another inmate steps on him.”

Yikes. Tonight’s nightmares are brought to you in part by your loving wife. “But Ames…what if I offered to be their human trial as part of my sentence?”

“You think there’s a prosecutor on the planet that’s going to ask for a human rights violation to be included with sentencing? Even if there were, you think there’s a judge that would ever grant it?” Amy asked pointedly.

“Good point,” Steve conceded.

For one of the few times in his decade plus of knowing Allison Glenwood, she looked serious. “Amy….you’re my best friend. You’re per se Maid of Honor material. You guys are like family to me. You know I’d do anything to help you, but…are you SURE you want to go down this road? To me, it feels like you’re just digging the hole deeper when you could start climbing out of it.”

Steve looked at Amy for confirmation. Her objection was vociferous; he had actually been buying Allison’s suggestion. If they were going to back down, it would need to come from her.

“I’m positive, Allie. We do this right, and nobody’s the wiser,” Amy said.

“Okay,” Allison began, “let’s say for a minute that I go along with this cockamamy, harebrained scheme of yours, and I end up on the top shareholders tour. What then? They’re going to notice if someone just vanishes and, as talented as I am at many things, stealth and subtlety are not my strong suits,” Allison cautioned.

Well, at least she’s self-aware.

“How are you going to steal the tech?” Allison asked directly.

“Well, that’s where my husband’s penchant for nonsensical risk-taking comes into play. Your job is to just get him somewhere near the R&D lab, he’ll take it from there,” Amy said.

“What…how…?” Allison began before Amy held up a hand cutting her off.

“The less you know, the better, Allie. If worse comes to worst, you can at least maintain a semblance of plausible deniability. We manipulated you into being trustee and buying the stock, and Steve hitched a ride without your knowledge,” Amy responded.

“But like…how’s he going to get out of there?” Allison asked curiously.

“You leave that part to me,” Amy answered. “I’ll be in charge of getting him out of there; you just have to get him in.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued before Allison asked, “can I have some time to think about it?”

“Of course!” Amy responded. “We’re just grateful that you were even willing to hear us out and consider it.”

“Okay, next question, and I’m really sorry about this Steve but this opportunity is too good to pass up: can I pick you up?” Allison asked excitedly.

Steve found himself rolling his eyes. Of course, the little girl that he’d towered over since he and her dad were young men would want to mess with him at his new size. Again, he looked at Amy for confirmation, worried that this was crossing some sort of weird line with her best friend. She nodded and gave him a faint smile, evidently grateful that, for once, he thought to ask her for input. Or maybe she was just happy that Allie was torturing him. Probably the latter.

Steve let out a performative sigh of resignation. “Uggghhh….go ahead.”

“YAY!!” Allison exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down on the couch. She didn’t waste any time, and once more demonstrated her characteristic zest for life and the utter lack of restraint that comes with it. She didn’t so much pick him up as grab him in a manner reminiscent of a child sticking their hand in a candy bucket on Halloween. Her pale, white fist closed the distance from the couch to the coffee table seemingly faster than he could blink.

One moment, he was standing there minding his own business, and the next, a warm, fleshy vice wrapped him in darkness. He experienced a brief sensation of vertigo as he felt his body move without being able to see where he was going. The next thing he knew, light flooded back in as he saw Allison’s bright blue eyes, seemingly inches away, wide and fascinated. It felt like she was looking at a steak dinner.

“Whoa….this is actually kinda trippy…” she whispered. Her breath wasn’t bad, strictly speaking, but it was a little stale, especially when it was washing over him in waves with old Chinese food. He could swear he could see the film of grease still on her tongue. He gave a theatrical wave in front of his nose, the universally recognized symbol for “P-U!!”

Allison’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Stop it, my breath doesn’t stink,” she said in an annoyed tone, though she did turn her head and try to subtly breathe into her elbow to take a whiff.

She looked over at Amy. “So like…have you guys tried doing it yet?” she asked without any warning or preamble.

“ALLIE!!!” Amy shouted, turning red as a beet while slapping at her friend repeatedly.

“Whoa, careful!!” Steve yelled as he was jostled around on his precarious perch of Allison’s palm. It was in vain; he fell off and plummeted down toward the couch. He lost track of which way was up before he landed belly-first on the couch, the cushion softening the impact. And he felt an overwhelming, radiant warmth. And he caught a familiar scent. He raised his head and saw that, in the same manner as all other crumbs dropped onto a couch, he had rolled to the lowest point: the indent Allison’s body was making in the cushion. He was centimeters away from her…lady parts. The vastness of the soft, gray sweatpants towered over him, Allison’s curves pulling it tight against her nether region. He could actually see the outline of her…no, he didn’t want to think about it, and he purposefully averted his eyes.

Allison, being full-sized and normally unshy, didn’t think anything of it. As quickly as he fell, two enormous but dexterous fingers plucked him back up before she set him on top of the back of the couch. He promptly took a seat, grateful to be away from the uncomfortable coffee table and even more uncomfortable experience with Allison’s privates.

“What?!” Allison shouted back, deflecting Amy’s repeated slaps. She came back down to normal volume when Amy’s assault stopped. “Come on…you CAN’T tell me it’s not like the first thing that went through your head. Or like, at least the second thing,” Allison prodded.

“No, actually, it wasn’t. We were both very much focused on keeping him alive with our lives crumbling around us,” Amy responded curtly.

“Plus,” Steve chimed in, “gross. I’m as old as your father, Allie. I helped change your diapers,” he said with a grimace.

“No you didn’t!” Allison exclaimed. “Now YOU’RE being gross.”

“Okay, maybe I didn’t actually change diapers, but the point remains the same. I was around while your dad was changing them,” Steve said.

“Oh hush you, girls are talking,” Allie said, holding up a hand to block him.

“Allie, ew, I’m not going to give you any details,” Amy said. What Steve didn’t see around Allison’s hand was the knowing wink Amy gave her, so the “ooohhhhh” expression on Allison’s face was without context, for Steve.

Casual chatter ensued, the girls continuing to bring one another up to speed on the latest developments in their lives, Allison occasionally asking for specifics on how the couple had been getting by. Steve kind of wished the TV was on since he was basically just decoration for their girl-talk, but the normalcy of their exchange was refreshing, and he was enjoying the company for now.

After about a half hour, Amy got to her feet. “You want wine?” she asked Allison.

“Nah, I gotta get rolling for soccer. Don’t let me stop you though,” Allison responded.

“Girl it’s the weekend, ain’t nothing stopping me,” Amy called over her shoulder as she walked toward the kitchen.

Steve raised his hand and called out after her. “Actually I would like some….” Amy was gone. Nice of her to bother asking me. No, that was the type of ungrateful attitude that he had to consciously start reframing. She was doing A LOT for him.

“I AM gonna hit your pisser though before I go,” Allison called back to Amy. Gross. There was the tomboy rearing its ugly head as it did on occasion.

Allison got up and sauntered down the hallway to their bathroom. From his vantage point atop the couch, Steve heard Amy’s phone ring. “Hey Jackie…no, I can talk,” he overheard her say. Great, not only was he stuck here for as long as Amy paced around the house on the phone, but Jackie Cooke was likely going to fill her head with complaints to unleash on him. No, remember: be grateful.

He heard the bathroom door shut after a few minutes, and looked over his shoulder to see Amy poke her head out of the kitchen, one ear glued to her cellphone, to give Allison a quick hug goodbye.

And then, as it seemingly had countless other times this week, a series of ill-timed events resulted in disaster striking once more. Allison, with her characteristic lack of grace or subtlety, flopped onto the couch, her upper body slamming into the back cushion.

This would have been completely fine, if it weren’t for the fact that Allison hadn’t bothered to kick her shoes off at the door and, instead, had kicked them off in front of the couch after she sat down. Which meant she was bending forward at this exact moment to tie her laces.

Steve grabbed at fibers on the couch, hoping to find some purchase, but his momentum was too great. He found himself tumbling, this time with a clear eye on his destination: the exposed skin of Allison’s back as the hoody pulled up…and the dark patch at the hem of her sweatpants right underneath it. He called out briefly as he plummeted, his body bouncing off the pale skin on the small of Allison’s back, grasping unsuccessfully at the fine hairs on her skin before he tumbled down into the darkness.

Allison shot up, convinced she had just heard something. But there was silence. She shrugged, getting to her feet and walking toward the front door. She felt an itch at the top of her thong. That area got dry and itchy sometimes with all her athletic activities. She dug two fingers into her thong, pulling it out and then snapping it back into place. The itch was gone. She shifted around for a moment, manipulating the thong deeper before shrugging and heading out the door.

------------------------------------

“I seriously don’t know why her clothes smelled like booze, Jackie,” Amy said, eager to get away from the dialogue-turned-interrogation. “They just ordered pizza, watched a few movies and went to bed.”

The doorbell rang, providing Amy the escape she needed. “Oh! Someone’s at the door. Yes, yes Jackie, I’ll talk to her next time I see her. Okay, you too! Bye!” Amy walked to the front of the house, opening the door.

“I have a delivery here for an Amy Clover?” the delivery person asked, balancing a tall bundle in the crook of one arm.

“Oh, that’s me! Thank you!” Amy took the package from the man, closing the door and bringing it back into the kitchen to unwrap it. What the fuck…I didn’t order anything…

Inside were two gorgeous orchid plants in a forest green planter, purple and white flowers on separate vines intertwining at the top with some clever manipulation of stick structures.

She pieced it together immediately. As an act of contrition, Steve had gotten Emma to purchase her favorite flowers. That was what their private conversation by the front door was about. Emma had correctly requested actual plants too, not a bouquet. Amy liked flowers but despised seeing them die. She kept an array of prior orchids from Valentine’s Days over the years in the sunlight by the living room window.

“Steve!!” she called out from the kitchen. “You’re still in the doghouse, but this was very sweet.”

She strained to listen for a response, knowing he’d be basically inaudible at this distance. But she didn’t hear anything.

“Steve?” she asked more hesitantly, walking back into the living room with a half-empty wine glass.

She looked on the back of the couch, but he was gone. She briefly searched the cushions, worried that he might have fallen, and then with a growing sense of dread, checked the soles of her feet in case he had been wandering around on the floor trying to reach her.

No…I would’ve felt him. He would’ve called out. Maybe he’s hiding? The jump-scares were one of their relationship tradition pranks. Maybe he was trying to implement an iteration of that to remind her of the good times?

“I know you’re around here somewhere…” Amy said to nobody in particular, eyes scanning the room as a latent panic began to set in.

------------------------------------

Allison bopped along the Clovers’ driveway, practically skipping to her car. Sure, they had just asked her to participate in a criminal conspiracy, but the whole thing was…exciting. The sheer naughtiness of it all was somehow seductive. And she was eager to help her BFF any way she could.

She threw open the door to her car, pausing briefly once again as she could swear she heard something. The wind kicked up a bit, ushering in a biting breeze, and she didn’t hear anything over it. She flopped down into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.

She looked over her shoulder at the rear of the car, wrinkling her nose a bit. I gotta clean this thing out one of these days. She’d been saying “one of these days” for at least 1,000 of those days, probably more. Protein bar wrappers, empty protein drink containers, and bottles of water littered the passenger seat and foot well. The backseat was covered in used sports bras, yoga pants, leggings, socks, and other sundry laundry items she’d been meaning to bring into her house to do. There was a strong odor of sweat, coupled with the sickly-sweet scent of expired protein drink residue. She’d forgotten to put the caps back on some of the empty containers, little brown stains pooling underneath them serving as a testament to her habitual sloppiness.

She recalled an instance of embarrassment during last year’s office holiday party, though it was short-lived. The venue was valet-only, meaning some poor sop had to park this mess for her. She had made it a few steps toward the front door when she realized she had forgotten her vape pen, turning around in a hurry before the car got away. She caught the valet driver with a wad of panties in his hands, taking a deep inhale. He saw her looking and quickly tossed them to the floor, pretending he wasn’t just caught in the act of being the world’s biggest creep. She had him retrieve the vape pen from the armrest and then blew him a kiss as he rolled back up the window, adding a wink for good measure. She hadn’t gone home alone that night. The guy was pretty cute. Did she still have his number?

Honestly, she wasn’t sure why some men were into that kind of thing, but after spending a night with the valet, she had little doubt that he probably even licked the driver’s seat while nobody was looking. That dude was into some crazy stuff. Her feet had been packed barefoot into heels the entire evening, and he had wasted no time getting all five of her toes in his mouth after they undressed. Later on, that same tongue would find its way between her butt cheeks, going rather…deep at one point. Weirdly, she still didn’t have an issue kissing him after that. Her best friend may not have been into butt stuff, but Allison didn’t mind it. She didn’t believe in ass orgasms, nor was it anywhere near as pleasurable as good old fashioned vaginal intercourse, but it still felt kind of good in a dirty way. Having a lover’s tongue anywhere on your body was always titillating, and while she wouldn’t actively seek out someone to toss her salad, the fact that they were into it made her into it. Sex isn’t a math equation of “this input equals pleasure output.” It’s a twisted, often complex, frequently filthy, intimate dance that all adds up to arousal.

She started the car, blasting her music as always. Again, she felt a tickle from her bottom, this time basically right against her butthole. It couldn’t be time to get waxed again already, could it? She chalked it up to the underwear frills, resolving not to wear this pair again unless it was for a night out. Tickly thongs weren’t practical for sports. She lifted her butt off the car seat, clenching her cheeks to smite the itch. She thought she felt a little pop, but since the itching stopped, she presumed it was her imagination.

Humming atonally along to the music (nobody would ever give Allison credit for being a gifted singer), she sped off toward this weekend’s game.

------------------------------------

NOT THIS AGAIN!! For the second time in a single week, Steve found himself in the back of a girl’s underwear. Even the mechanism of how he had gotten here was almost identical, skidding down the back to a pit of doom. As his body slipped below Allison’s waistline, he immediately began flailing and yelling. Aggressively.

He understood not being heard. After all, he was behind her, muffled by clothing, and an inch tall. But for Christ’s sake, if someone shot a spitball at your buttcrack, you fucking FELT it. He was more solid than a spitball, larger than a spitball, and most significantly, he was fucking MOVING. A LOT. There was no way she wouldn’t feel him.

Inadvertently, a little patch of dry skin is ultimately what did him in. At the top of Allison’s buttcrack was a stretch of skin that felt more papery than supple. And unbeknownst to Steve, that made his fist-falls feel more like a tickle than anything else. He felt Allison’s cheeks shifting rhythmically upward and downward as she walked across his living room, his body sinking deeper and deeper with each step.

And then his worst fear had come to pass. She didn’t register his struggles. Instead, she fished out her thong with two thumbs, resulting in Steve sliding even further down the back of her pants, and then she…let go. The elasticity snapped the string back into place, belting him across the face and sling-shotting him into parts he wished were still unknown.

Emma’s friend Ashley was certainly not a slouch when it came to feminine curves but, once again, Allison’s butt was truly something else, to the point where it kind of seemed at odds with the rest of her body. Sure, she had a great figure all around, being as tall and statuesque as a model, but that ass POPPED. And so, whereas with the other girl he felt like he could still claw his way back to the “surface,” with Allison it felt like he was jettisoned into a bottomless pit. He was sure the skin on his body was already red with the smack from the thong coupling with the friction of Allison’s skin. It brought to mind bullies slapping his stomach to turn it red before he hit his growth spurt midway through high school.

And then, there was the SMELL. The redhead, Ashley, had presumably showered that very morning, maybe even showered after PE class. Burying your face in someone’s butthole never smelled GOOD, per se, but all things considered, even after a full day of school, the other girl had been rather clean. Hell, when he was aroused, that smell was actually a turn-on. Having a nighttime soccer match, after which she would undoubtedly shower, Allison had evidently decided that the morning shower was optional. There was no faint hint of lotion or soap. Just…ASS, in the same meaning of the word that the entire world had come to adopt for when something smelled bad. The rank, acrid, pungent, stinging odor that comes from deep, human sweaty parts, coupled with the dank, humid, suffocating and sticky darkness. And, of course, a vague hint of…well, shit. It was like a shot in the arm and a shock to the senses in its sudden presentation. On the outside of her cheeks, it was a mere hint of something darker. Deep inside, it was its own world. Steve’s world, now.

The dissonance of the dichotomy stunned him. He knew Allison could be a little bit of a slob at times, but she was still drop-dead gorgeous. Model-level 10/10 hot, with an ass that seemed to be begging for someone’s face in it. Up this close at one inch tall, however, it was a deadly thorn on a beautiful rose.

Yes, the thong was pressing him inward, and he could feel the coarseness of stubble as he neared a different texture in the cloying darkness, but Steve wasn’t exactly being MASHED into Allison’s butthole. At least, he hadn’t been. Then she flopped down in her car, and that all changed. The all-encompassing flesh around him pressed into a tight, claustrophobic coffin nightmare, lifting him upward and inward. And that’s when he felt it. The unmistakable, trademark, wrinkled, rubbery texture of someone’s asshole. He’d been here for mere seconds and he already felt like a shower wouldn’t be enough to wash himself clean of it. He could feel little fuzzy pills against his bare skin, certainly the remnants of wiping earlier.

One thing that giantess porn chronically oversold was the availability of breathable air in any given scenario. Tiny people would just get stuffed up butts or swallowed alive and carry on like nothing happened. Steve knew from his experience in Emma’s gut that the lack of oxygen would kill you long before the acids did. He’d learned the hard way from the Couch Incident that even being over six-foot tall, and even with Amy’s comparatively modest behind, being surrounded by practically vacuum-sealed flesh could be fatal. He had been gasping for air when Allison had been walking, which had arguably been aerating the environment at least a little. When she sat down, however, the real panic set in.

Have to get out, HAVE TO GET OUT. He tried flailing and pounding his fists for all he was worth the same way he had when he had first fallen down Allison’s back. But being compressed on all sides by immovable tons of ass flesh hindered his movement. He could only manage a few feeble kicks.

And those kicks didn’t register in Allison’s behind as a living being fighting for its life, they registered as a minute tickle right in her butthole, a meddlesome and intrusive annoyance, an itch to be scratched. He had experienced a brief sensation of weightlessness as Allison had lifted her butt off the seat, and then the vice-grip of compression crushed him. In the most inopportune fashion, he discovered that, as he had long suspected, Allison’s butt popped because of the muscle she put into it. It went from soft, cushiony, jiggly flesh globes that seemingly existed to be squeezed into hardened steel in an instant. There was nowhere to move, no little nook in which to cram his body, so something had to give. And it did. He felt his left shoulder pop out of its socket, knowing instantly from the recurrent hockey injury that it was dislocated. Normally, Amy would help him reset it. He was on his own here, if he even lived to make the attempt.

And that was a BIG if. With Allison’s butt planted firmly in the car seat, and him planted firmly against her asshole, breathable air was scarce, if not entirely inexistent. He was getting light-headed as he took short, oppressively hot, malodorous, unsatisfying breaths. Both his mind and his lungs were SCREAMING for fresh air. One time on a class trip in high school, the school had rented a public bus. He had sat in the back with his friends. Even with the door to the tiny, disgusting bathroom shut, the smell seeped out and hovered over the bus’s rear quarters like a fog. It was so pungent that it actually smelled like it burned, somehow. That was preferable to this.

He had a decision to make. Keep struggling and waste what precious oxygen he had on the effort or resign himself to his fate for the time being and conserve his breath. In the dim recesses of his mind, he ruefully recalled all the times he had searched for stuff like “facesitting” and “butt smother” on porn sites. It was hot watching an attractive woman subdue a grown man or woman by burying their face between their cheeks. In practice, it was far less sexy without proper precautions, as he had already once learned from the Couch Incident. “Butt smother” had been one of his favorite searches. But here he was. Being smothered. Suffocated. By a literal butt. And he just wanted out.

The other consideration was his restricted movement. He’d just learned that he had lost the chance to meaningfully struggle against his confines. All of his effort at drawing Allison’s attention had amounted to little more than a vague, itchy nuisance. He had earned a dislocated shoulder for the attempt. What would she do if he kept trying? Clench her cheeks again, or worse? He wasn’t certain he could survive a finger mashing him against the pliable-yet-unyielding surface of Allison’s anus. What would break then, other than his spirit? Ribs, puncturing a lung? A femur, crippling him for life?

As stars drifted in his vision and a suffocating blackness closed in around the edges of it, he regretted, utterly and sincerely, all the times he had casually scoped out Allison’s behind. He had agreed, not aloud of course, with the comments from erstwhile coworkers, long since terminated, that her ass could be called a “movable feast,” or, as one less clever former associate put it, “that thing moves.” At one inch tall, it wasn’t a fun chunk of flesh to grab during sex or a make-out session. It was the grimmest of reapers, both torturer and probable executioner folded into one deceptively lethal package.

Like his confinement in Amy’s sneaker while she jogged or in Emma’s belly while she digested almost an entire pizza, he found his thoughts turning to Amy…and regret. He was apologizing to her mentally, sorry that it was going to end this way when they had just come up with a plan to save him. Sorry that he had gotten himself, and her by association, into this mess. Sorry he had messed with unknowable forces. Sorry that he had put her through the emotional wringer. Sorry that they wouldn’t get to see those kids they had been setting aside money for or get to go on more vacations and make more memories or look one another in the eye as full-sized humans during sex. That last one was one of his favorite moments, an undeniable intimacy born of physical contact and emotional connection. He wondered if Allison would ever find his body, or if the soccer game would grind him into a fine paste mixed with sweat, just one more unrecognizable and indistinguishable trickle down the inside of her behind. If she found him, he hoped she would forgive herself. And he hoped Amy would forgive her best friend for an accident. But most of all, he hoped Amy would forgive him.

------------------------------------

After the little “pop” she had felt deep within her butt, the meddlesome, tickling itch had stopped. Like so many other routine bodily functions, it was firmly in the rearview mirror. It was no longer even on Allison’s mind as she pulled into the parking lot of the arena. She had scratched the itch. Problem solved.

She stepped out of the car, walking around behind to the trunk and retrieving her bag of equipment. Her nose wrinkled again at the blast of stale, sweat-soaked air emanating from the trunk. Having casually been an ice hockey goalie for most of his athletic years, Steve had pushed Allison to be a goalkeeper early and often. And it had paid off. Sure, there was a rush scoring a goal, being the striker that sunk the game winner, the ecstasy of the back of the net bulging outward as hearts on one side of the field soared and sunk on the other.

But Allison found even greater joy, an even bigger rush, in being the spoiler. The one who denied someone else that very elation. And she was quite adept at it too. She worked on her core and lower body strength tirelessly, a blend of explosive plyometric exercise and weightlifting. She had developed her own obnoxious taunt, a nonverbal “chirp,” as hockey players would call it. When the clock on extra time ran out, and the other team’s scoreboard still read “0,” she would do them the honor of mimicking the shape of the goose-egg by holding her arms over her head in an arch. It pissed people off endlessly. Made enemies for life. And she LOVED it. Her father had said it was classless, and she should stop doing it. That she should take her victories with grace and dignity and not debase herself with tacky taunts. Steve had said it was strategy, that it got in the opponents’ heads and intimated them. She preferred Steve’s take. She’d need that intimidation factor today. Their opponents were the highest scoring team in the league, routinely averaging 4-6 goals per game. Keeping them to under 2 would be a minor miracle.

Bag slung over her shoulder, Allison began walking up the sidewalk to the arena entrance. She looked around briefly before going indoors, making sure she was alone. The protein and fiber shake from this afternoon was catching up. Controlling it to the extent possible, she let a small fart sneak out. She sniggered as it still made a faint toot. As kids, both boys and girls found potty humor funny. She wasn’t sure why adult girls stopped laughing at some point in their lives. How could a fart ever not be hilarious?

There was an immediate reaction after she let it go, however. That tickling feeling deep within her asscrack flared up again, Allison remaining convinced that it was the frills on the thong. She again looked around to make sure she was alone before jamming a finger up her sweatpants, digging through the fiber at the itch. She thought she might have felt a faint lump, but it was hard to tell through the layers of material. Regardless, the itch abated immediately after she mashed her finger around a bit.

She headed inside, pivoting right toward the home locker room.

------------------------------------

Steve had actually blacked out for a period during the car ride. As his mind was getting lighter and thoughts getting dizzier, he wasn’t sure he was going to wake up when the unconsciousness took him. It was strange. He had often imagined what this was like for intubated patients at the start of the Covid pandemic, being placed into medical comas so the doctors could work their magic. People hadn’t known a lot at the time, just that there was a real possibility of never waking up again. He recalled tearful anecdotes from family members that hadn’t even been allowed in the same room to wish their loved ones goodbye. What a terrifying experience, to go under without ever knowing if you would come back up.

He yearned for even that level of emotional comfort. Knowing there were medical professionals working on you while you were out, even if you didn’t get a chance to say goodbye and “I love you” once last time. No, this was as ignoble as ends got. Wasting away slowly in some oblivious, happy-go-lucky girl’s unwashed butt, neither her nor anyone in the world aware of what you were going through, that you were dying. Alone. Unaware. In some girl’s ass. Not just any girl’s ass, actually. A girl he had known for so long that she was basically family. That she could’ve been his adopted daughter. A girl he could recall being overcome with uncontrollable giggling when he first taught her the “pull my finger” gag, much to her father’s annoyance and stern disapproval. As always, that made it even funnier. Nothing gave Steve and Allison a rise like pissing off John.

Yet despite the scary thought of dying alone and pitifully, he found an odd sense of relief as the darkness closed in. Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation making him loopy, or maybe he had become inoculated to the fear with the rapid-fire succession near-death experiences this week. He had always thought he would be terrified of moving on when he was on his deathbed. He truly could not identify with stories of those who said their loved ones were at peace, were even relieved, when the moment came. But as he gasped for each tainted, greasy, disgusting breath, he found he was almost begging for the release. When the blackness overtook him, he felt nothing but relief. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to wake up again.

And then he woke up. Allison swinging her leg out of the car had allowed an inflow of precious air, which his unconscious, suffocating body greedily inhaled. Seconds later, the sound of the trunk slamming made him come to with a start. He felt the deeply uncomfortable friction starting to rub his body raw all over again as Allison’s cheeks rose and fell with her steps. She had never really bothered to perfect the hip-shimmying, alluring strut that women drew so many eyes with. But with an ass like hers, whether or not she intended to, it wiggled when she walked.

Steve was resolved to just hang in there. Stay still, don’t risk further injury. Be grateful that her steps were allowing a trickle of air to reach him intermittently. He was expecting to hear the door to the arena open, to hear the voices of other teammates greeting Allison. But instead, she stopped walking suddenly. He was confused until he felt the wrinkled skin of her anus balloon outward in a menacing, threatening bulge.

No. NO. DON’T FUCKING DO IT ALLIE!!! No sooner had the silent mental plea entered his mind than a blast of searingly hot, uncomfortably moist gas blew into him. For Allison, it was just a quick little toot. For Steve, it was like he had decided to make a snow angel on top of Old Faithful shortly before it burst. He was enshrouded by it, surrounded by it. It washed over him in a wave so thick it felt like he could cut it with a knife. With how raw his skin already was, it burned his body all over. He knew Allison hadn’t sprayed fecal matter, but he still felt oddly…greasy in the aftermath.

But that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst part was the smell that settled in seemingly as soon as his brain figured out what had happened. It was the unmistakable rotten eggs odor many have come to associate with passing gas, but at ground zero, those rotten eggs were served up with a side of shit. And despite Allison resuming walking, it lingered too, her high protein intake virtually ensuring its potency. He had just regained consciousness after a period of severe oxygen depravation, and now he was gulping down fumes from Allie’s body…involuntarily. And HIGHLY unwillingly.

He couldn’t help it. He started struggling again. He HAD TO get out. NEEDED to get out. And as it had been the first time, this proved to be an egregious miscalculation. He experienced a brief pang of hope when he felt the pressure from the immense fleshy globes around him lessen as they were parted, but no fingers were forthcoming. At least, not inside her underwear. He was suddenly jabbed in the chest by something long and hard, feeling his ribs bend as his back was mashed against her butthole once more.

As with last time, something had to give. This time, however, it wasn’t him. His body was dug into the hard, rubbery surface of her anus, rolled around painfully in the creases as she scratched at him, coating him ever more densely in human residue of unknown origins, the pressure pushing inward…inward…and then he felt it. He felt his feet slip inside. Not all the way, he was too small for that. But inside enough that the ring of muscle was now cinched around his ankles like some grotesque parody of being strung upside down on a torturer’s rack.

He knew the stories about these situations were exaggerated for smut purposes. At least, he sincerely hoped they were. People’s assholes weren’t “hungry.” Anal “vore” wasn’t really a thing. An ass doesn’t eat; it expends what has already been eaten. It’s meant to be an exit, as his wife was so keen on reminding him every time he pushed her to give it a try. He clung to that hope, because he harbored no illusions about what was on the other side of the discolored, brownish, puckered star. It wouldn’t be breathable air. If he started to sink inside like he was in quicksand, like so many GTS stories wielded as a plot device, it was a death sentence. A literal gas chamber. He’d suffocate inside her, quickly.

And so, he hoped and prayed that the pornographic depictions of a greedy asshole were overblown. Maybe she would even expel him, cut him loose. Then he could get out. He finally heard the faint murmuring of other voices. He was sure they were speaking at normal volume, but through tons of ass flesh, it was as muted as could be while still being audible. He felt Allison’s body move around him, his jiggly prison bouncing slightly as she was probably donning equipment at this very moment. He again felt his stomach leap into his throat as she must have sat down, Allison’s butt pressing inward and upward once more and squeezing the breath out of his lungs. If it was this bad when she was just getting dressed, how bad would it be when she was actually playing? What if she landed on her butt when making a save? Would he be pulverized instantly?

As morbid of a thought as it was, he just hoped it would be quick if that happened. Having compound fractures breaking his skin as he slowly bled to death tattooed against the asshole of a girl who was practically a daughter to him would be both mentally and physically excruciating. He was suddenly jostled again, finding himself bouncing up and down as Allison presumably did the same. He had a feeling she was about to head outside. That little bounce on the balls of her toes was something she had done before taking the field for as long as he’d watch her play.

Steve suddenly heard a loud cracking sound, the fleshy globes around him jiggling briefly in response. A good luck smack on the ass from a teammate was his best guess for what had just transpired. He hoped that smack was actually good luck. He was going to need it.

------------------------------------

Allison bent over slightly to let their team captain, Brittany, do the customary good luck spank. She jogged out of the hallway and onto the field, taking her place in front of the net and stretching her legs. Gone were the days of jogging onto the field to raucous cheering and thunderous applause. Allison had been a big fish in a small pond in high school, becoming something of a local legend. Her school had even won a state championship, riding her sublime netminding to glory.

But when the time had come for NCAA recruitment, she found out just how big that talent gap actually was. The dream of becoming the next Team USA netminding legend was dashed to pieces before it had even begun. She was surpassed at every turn by superior athletes at the combine, overwhelmed by the sheer talent of women who were born to do this. At the end of the day, she was a dilettante in the global soccer scene. She had never realistically had a prayer of playing NCAA Division I soccer.

Maybe that was for the best, all things considered. She had continued to find a measure of success playing club soccer in college, and later on she would find fulfillment working at her father’s firm. And she was happy. Some of her more talented contemporaries in high school had taken it rather hard when they hadn’t reached that next level in college. Allison took it all in stride. If all she ever amounted to was a local menacing nightmare for women playing recreationally on the weekends, that was good enough for her. She took immense satisfaction in still being a ringer, of sorts. The role of the eternal spoiler was made for her.

And so, the lack of cheers didn’t bother her, nor did the empty bleachers. She wasn’t here for the applause. She was here for her teammates, of course, but she was mostly here for the boundless aggravation she caused her opposition. She faced a few warmup shots from her teammates, getting her mind in the Zen-like state of instantaneous geometrical calculation enacted through physical precision, cutting down visual angles, anticipating shots, reacting quickly to cross-net passes.

She was ready. Their opponents tonight were, realistically, the only real barrier her team had to a third straight championship. It felt, to Allison at least, like the other teams she faced were just out here running cardio on weekends, seldom ever threatening. Not tonight, however. She couldn’t be lulled into the false sense of security. That was how you got sloppy.

Yes, she was definitely ready. She just wished, well….that her butt didn’t ITCH so badly. It had started the moment she had left Amy’s house, and even though she had gotten it to abate somewhat by clenching and scratching, every now and then she would still feel a faint tickle. She surreptitiously snuck another scratch in, going up under the back of her shorts and plucking at the thong like a guitar string again. Never again. I hate this fucking thing. Granny panties all the way for games going forward. Thongs were too itchy to play in. It had never been a problem before, but things change. Maybe as she got older, her skin became more sensitive.

She stepped to the side of the net, taking a swig from her water bottle and swishing a bit before she spat it onto the field. Game on.

------------------------------------

It was every bit as awful as Steve had imagined it would be, possibly worse. Yes, he had anticipated his bones continuing to bend to the point of breaking as his tiny body was compressed into a butthole that probably fired out unmentionable things five times his size multiple times a day. He had anticipated the motion sickness that came from the paradoxical state of being imprisoned and incapable of movement…while simultaneously being jostled about constantly. From his experience in Amy’s sneaker, he had even come to expect the dehydration. The desperate thirst that added up as his body sweated out all moisture, to the point where he would contemplate drinking some of Allison’s ass sweat. He knew it would only make it worse, but when your mouth was parched and you were drenched in liquid, your body wanted you to slake that thirst.

What he hadn’t anticipated, however, had been the SMELL. Yes, it had been rank and intolerable from the cursed moment he tumbled down into the back of Allison’s sweatpants. And yes, it had, predictably, smelled like ass at the time. But she hadn’t been SWEATING so much. She hadn’t been heating up. Now, everything was exacerbated seemingly one-hundred-fold. The sour, pungent stink of human sweat, akin to armpits without deodorant after a full day at the gym, was made infinitely worse by heating up and adding to the sweat. It went from stinging his nostrils to feeling like it was stinging his soul, like no amount of bathing would ever rid him of it.

Every desperate, panicked gasp for air between Allison’s buttcheeks sucked down great lungfuls of the potent miasma. He felt like he could almost taste it, like it was so thick in the air around him that he could cut it with a knife. And it only got worse the longer the game went on, Allison’s movements back and forth across the goal crease jostling him around in his human prison. Not for the first time, he wondered how something so profoundly unpleasant could be part of something so sexy. Allison had an ass to die for. He never thought that could be taken literally.

The next breath he took was the one that put him over the edge. Steve didn’t know if it was just a particularly cruel waft, but being so close to Allison’s asshole, his next gasp was further tainted by the faint remnants of her prior bowel movements. That was the limit; the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He vomited onto her ringed pucker, her movements rolling him around it and coating his body in yet more foul gunk. The thought of his vomit seeping into the wrinkles of her butthole, filling them like cracks in cement, made him retch again. But now he was dry heaving, his stomach completely devoid of anything to hurl up in inadvertent protest of his disgusting confinement.

His shoulder was throbbing agonizingly. He could barely breathe. He was dehydrated. He was coated in his own upchuck, soaked from head-to-toe in sweat that belonged to both him and Allison seemingly in equal measure, with something even worse layered on top of it as the greasy film from when she passed gas earlier lingered on his skin. The little pills of decimated toilet paper were sticking to his body and his clothing, getting in his hair. Even if he survived being crushed, the physical toll this was taking on his body might still spell his end. Allison’s ass was killing him, slowly and painfully.

Consequences be damned, he thought to himself. Yes, his prior efforts at drawing her notice had only served to worsen his situation exponentially, but he couldn’t take it anymore. It was either get rescued or die ignominiously up the butt of his wife’s best friend and his best friend’s daughter. And so, he flailed once again, fists pounding against the tough, meaty, rubbery texture of Allison’s asshole, the dull thuds from his fists smacking flesh audible only to him. He screamed for all he was worth. Allison was so well-endowed in her hindquarters that he questioned whether anyone would even hear him holding their ear up to her asscrack. It would be like trying to hear someone buried under ten stories’ worth of rubble.

He felt her anus dilate in response to his touch, opening and closing ever so slightly as his tickles registered, whether consciously or subconsciously to Allison. For a moment, he felt a different texture as the giant ring expanded, his hands hitting some silky-smooth surface just beyond the exterior wrinkles of Allison’s anus, a faint coat of rectal slime sticking to the bottom of his hand. He had just punched INSIDE her butthole.

Oh my God, this is utterly vile. How could he have ever tried to talk Amy into butt stuff? He questioned whether he’d ever be able to even LOOK at a girl’s butt again, even if he got back to normal size. This was the kind of grotesque ordeal that scarred a person for life, the fabric from which the most potent nightmares were weaved.

He felt a spark of hope as two stiff objects suddenly rammed into his back, jiggling the soft flesh around him. But as soon as he felt the fabric, he knew she wasn’t fishing him out, but rather just digging around in her butt through her shorts and thong. Allison managed to now add a severe rope-burn sensation to the length of Steve’s back by mashing the thong material into his skin and rubbing it up and down vigorously as she scratched the faint itch he was creating.

Can this get ANY worse? He shouldn’t have even thought it, because it was about to get a LOT worse.

------------------------------------

Allison resolved to check what was tickling her butthole so much during halftime. For now, digging at it and scratching with her fingers had again abated the itch. She could have sworn that she felt a lump, however. Was something back there that was tickling her? She had been attributing it to the frills on the thong fabric, but now she wase increasingly certain there was more afoot than she initially suspected.

Wonder if Steve’s up there. LOL. That would be HILARIOUS. Okay, it wouldn’t ACTUALLY be hilarious. Not for him, at least. It would be quite foul, and quite dangerous. But like…come on. Uncle Steve? Trapped in her butt and tickling her asshole? He’d never live it down. At least, she certainly wouldn’t let him live it down. Amy might even find it funny, though she did sometimes have a protective streak for her husband.

Focus. Allison dialed back into the game; the itch having been resolved. She kept an eye on the clock, only about 10 more seconds. Her brain saw the breakdown in coverage before it even happened. A turnover, one of her teammates caught flat-footed, a two-on-one rush toward her net. She recognized the number of the girl with the ball. Pass-first, always. Allison still came out of the net a bit to play the angle, since the threat of the shot kept her honest. But she saw the jersey of the other player on the left in the periphery of her vision and knew the girl would be crashing the net for a tap-in or at least a rebound.

And there it was, the cross-net pass. Allison was diving before the ball even left the striker’s foot. It all happened in an instant, but she had enough time to process that this was going to be close. She stretched out her arms, didn’t even see the ball as she felt her fingertips graze something. Did she get enough of it? She rotated as she leapt, landing hard on her rear end while she abated some of the impact by catching the ground with her elbow.

The exasperated, defeated reaction, the type she lived for, was all the confirmation she needed. The other girl threw her head backward, groaning audibly skyward. Allison heard the dull thud as the ball struck the wall behind her. She had gotten enough of the shot to tip it wide of the net entirely. And then it was halftime. She heard a few awed “ooohhhhsss” from her teammates, and a faint “wow.” God damn right ‘wow.’ Brick wall, motherfuckers.

She sat up on the grass, her knees bent as she leaned on both elbows to lift herself up. A hand suddenly appeared in front of her face, Brittany all smiles as she helped Allison back to her feet. “Als, that was fucking NUTS!! How did you even see that??!”

Allison decided to tell the truth. “I didn’t. I just dove and hoped for the best,” she said with a laugh as they started walking off the field toward the locker room.

“Well, it was incredible anyway,” Brittany said, giving Allison a whack on the behind again as she jogged into the hallway.

Speaking of her behind, there was DEFINITELY something back there. When Allison had landed on her butt, she had felt a brief bit of pressure before she felt something in, well, her butthole. There wasn’t really another way of putting it. To her, it felt kind of like when a guy stuck just the tip of their finger in there while using their hands on her, something she was occasionally in the mood for. And the tickles had gotten even fiercer ever since.

Well, now was the time. She entered the locker room and headed off to a corner where she could hopefully do this without too much notice. But then she got distracted. Brittany was wincing, rubbing at her knee.

“Still aches, huh?” Allison asked her, to which Brittany gave a nod and a grimace. She had torn her MCL and had surgery, but it still hurt from time to time.  

“Nothing I can’t play through though, especially with the nanobots,” Brittany said, whipping out her phone and opening up the MicroMD app. She tapped the screen a few times and the relief on her face was evident. “Ahhhh….much better.” Brittany had gotten the nanobot infusion to help with the pain after MicroMD had worked out the kinks that gave rise to the class action lawsuit Allison’s father’s firm had prosecuted. She wasn’t at risk of spontaneously exploding, in other words.

Allison shimmied out of her shorts a bit, digging her hand into her behind and garnering a few strange looks from teammates. Weirdly enough, the sensation of having something up her butt had seemingly vanished in an instant, but she KNEW she had felt something. She wasn’t about to go back onto the field just to have it start itching again.

She dug her finger deep into her crack, scratching directly at her anus. She hoped she was being discreet about it, but several teammates definitely noticed. She withdrew her finger and glanced at it, uncertain what she was expecting to see. The answer was nothing. Well, nothing except for a tiny little speck of lint she presumed was from the new thong.

Worried that her teammates would see something on her finger after she just dug around in her ass (they would DEFINITELY assume it was something…well, gross, and she wasn’t entirely certain they were wrong), she sat down on the bench and pretended to fix her laces, surreptitiously wiping her pointer finger on the sock around her ankle while doing so.

She inspected it again after her pantomime effort was completed. Her finger was clean. Well, VISIBLY clean. She definitely still had to wash her hands. She walked over into the bathroom portion of the locker room, scrubbing with soap and water before returning and taking a seat. Time to hydrate before the second half. Mercifully, the itch seemed to be gone for good.

------------------------------------

It got worse. Somehow, it got worse. Steve was sure Allison must have felt him, but then his stomach lurched as he experienced a dizzying sense of vertigo coupled with weightlessness, before his prison suddenly became ultra-compressed. The inner flesh of Allison’s buttcheeks had squashed inward and upward, like when he had sat down in the car but sudden and magnified tenfold. Steve was sure she had just fallen on her ass playing soccer.

In a vain attempt to stop the walls closing in around him, he had put his hands out and braced his legs against Allison’s butthole. It was the same thing as when she had unknowingly dislocated his shoulder. Something had to give, and it did. The good news was that it wasn’t his body this time. The bad news was that his body was spared because Allison’s asshole had decided to accommodate his sudden entry. Now he kind of wished his legs HAD been broken instead. Suddenly, those anal vore stories he had so summarily dismissed as unrealistic seemed to be terrifyingly plausible.

His legs feeling like they were caught in a hybrid vice grip and furnace, Steve placed his hands on either side of him and attempted to push up and pull his legs free. The effort was unsuccessful. His hands were slipping and sliding all over the creases of Allison’s anus denying him purchase, and the sweat had pooled around him creating something of a suction effect. To him, his legs felt like when you stepped in mud and suddenly your shoe got suctioned off your foot. Incredibly difficult to extract yourself once it happened.

And as she walked, the natural sway of her hips and the upward-and-downward motion of her butt with it only served to corkscrew his body, back and forth. Bit by bit, he was literally being drilled into her asshole. Again, he knew what was on the other side. Not breathable air where he’d sit and jerk off to his biggest fantasy. Just darkness and death. He hadn’t smothered between her cheeks…yet, but her rectum would certainly finish the job.

He felt the vibrations in the ass flesh around him as Allison asked a question to one of her teammates. It sounded like she was asking one of them if an old injury still had pain. He couldn’t make out much of the response, but he was able to glean one word that made his blood run cold. Nanobots.

Oh…oh no. The relief he felt as light filtered into his prison, Allison presumably dropping her shorts a bit to investigate, was overshadowed by a new concern. He earnestly hoped what had happened with Becky’s nanobots was a one-off, an isolated incident. But as with everything else in his life recently, he was not that fortunate.

Seconds after he made out the word “nanobots,” it happened again. His heart plummeted. He recognized the sensation immediately. A vague buzz throughout his body like a cellphone set to vibrate, the prickly feeling all over his skin, the tingling in his toes and fingertips. And then the dizzying, disorienting rush to his head, the space around him spinning as his body reformed and reshaped. Last time, he had blacked out. As felt the unconsciousness start to come over him once again, however, he forced himself to hold on like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. He fended it off with a sheer effort of lifesaving will. Blacking out here would be the end of him.

No sooner had the sensation abated than Allison’s monolithic finger appeared. At his “usual” one-inch height, every digit on a normal sized human resembled a bus to him. Now, however, it was a skyscraper. He was terrified, awed, and utterly powerless. If the finger mashed him into the skin of Allison’s anus, the little bloody spot would be washed off without a care during the next shower and nobody would ever know what happened to him. If she inadvertently plunged him inside of her, he’d suffocate in short order and wind up in the sewers with her next bowel movement.

At his current near-microscopic size, the ambient filth on Allison’s body was more than just a fine film. He was practically standing ankle-deep in a combined pool of sweat, dead skin, toilet paper remnants, and…God knows what else. Which is what made his next move so difficult to follow through on, even though it was his life at stake.

He crawled on hands and knees into one of the wrinkles of Allison’s butthole, going entirely by feel as the sun did, indeed, never shine where he was. And he did it not a moment too soon. He felt the springy, pliable flesh depress around him as Allison went fishing near her asshole for the source of the itch. He felt the enormous finger wash over him like a steamroller, grateful once again for the enhanced durability that came with his compact form. Without it, he’d have been dead the moment she sat down in the car.

But that was where he lost all agency, all ability to fend for himself. He was just trying to avoid being squished into a paste, he didn’t really have a plan beyond that. He wasn’t sure if it would be better to stay where he was, as her ass hadn’t killed him yet, or be fished out on her finger. The former option came with the benefit of the added likelihood of discovery. The latter option came with the obvious benefit of no longer being in the unaware girl’s ass.

Well, as with so much else that happened to him recently, the choice was not up to him. That sticky, disgusting film that he was crawling around in like a swamp served as an adhesive of sorts, his miniscule body getting stuck to Allison’s immeasurably gargantuan finger. As the finger withdrew from her butt, he was struck by something else that most giantess porn got wrong. And movies and TV shows that involved shrinking, for that matter. A common means of depicting the enormity of scale is slowing down the larger object’s movement, as if the world somehow magically comes to a crawl when you have the same perspective as an ant. It was almost certainly a plot device primarily, allowing dramatic scenes like little people outrunning the fall of a foot.

He experienced no such superpower here. As Allison removed her finger from her asscrack, he felt like he was strapped to the outside of a rocket ship falling back to Earth. He was briefly concerned that the momentum was going to gust him off her finger, leaving him to get lost in her ass forever. But the revolting glue-like gunk held.

Steve squinted against the sudden influx of light, the ceiling bulbs in the locker room temporarily blinding him. That was of secondary note to him, however. The first thing on his mind was the air. Sweet, blessed, clean air. He never thought he’d be happy to smell the inside of a locker room, but compared to where he had just been, the change in temperature, humidity and aroma may as well have been standing on a mountaintop.

The building-sized finger was lifted skyward, soaring up past Allison’s waist, her jersey and eventually coming a few inches under her face. At Steve’s size, the bright blue pupils of Allison’s eyes looked like twin moons in the distance. He saw those eyes zero in on him, briefly thrilled that he was somehow still visible, at least in part. But he could tell immediately that she wasn’t actually SEEING him. She saw a speck. Butt lint, or something yet more foul.

A grimly amused part of his mind wondered how she was going to extricate herself from this situation gracefully, having publicly picked her ass and evidently found something. He got his answer, and it was not ideal. He suddenly found the finger he was adhered to zooming toward the ground. He was worried she was going to wipe him on the floor to be squashed by someone’s foot, maybe even hers. She had a different plan in mind, and now he wished that she had actually chosen the floor instead.

The finger approached the black sock poking out of the top of her cleats, unceremoniously smearing him against the fabric and leaving him behind. And he could already smell, even FEEL it, from here. The warmth radiating from her foot, and the strong odor wafting with it. Yet again, he found himself wondering how someone so drop-dead gorgeous, a natural, all-American knockout, could be this gross, this unsanitary, up close. The unmistakable pungent, cheesy odor of an unwashed foot in overused footwear.

As Allison got back to her feet and started walking, however, he suddenly found himself hoping that this same confinement he was lamenting would hold. He was grasping at the frayed tufts of well-worn sock around him, trying to thread his legs and arms in with the weave of the fabric, because the alternative would be worse. At least he could stay near Allison where he was now, until his size bounced back to what passed for normal for him nowadays. Falling onto the locker room floor with an entire team plodding about was certain doom.

As he swung along unwillingly with every step she took, he could make out fuzzy details of the changing rooms, realizing that she had now entered a restroom of sorts with the floor changing to tile and the sterile-seeming lighting. He noticed that, at his current size, he could spend weeks exploring the bathroom alone and never cover every square inch. He needed to hang on.

He heard water running as Allison must have, mercifully, decided to wash her hands. At least she wasn’t THAT unsanitary. She returned to the bench in the locker room, Steve being whisked along for the ride at a speed so fast the details around him were blurred even further. Yet again, he felt like he was strapped to the outside of some fast-moving locomotive.

Allison took a seat, and suddenly that enormous face eclipsed the sky once more. He was under no delusions that she had somehow noticed him, this near-microscopic speck against the black field of cotton that was her sock. So, what was she doing?

He saw her gargantuan hands reach down toward the cleat opposite him, untying the laces and slipping her foot out. He had enough time to mentally say uh oh before the hands reached over to his location next.

------------------------------------

Allison returned to her spot on the locker room bench to begin her halftime ritual. Call it superstition, or call it being thorough, but she basically re-did her equipment between halves every game. She would take off her pads and reapply them, slide her hands out of her gloves to slide them back in, undo her cleats and take her feet out before putting them back in and lacing up once more.

Honestly, it was a habit she picked up from Steve that one time he had let her see him put on his ice hockey goalie equipment in the locker room when she was curious about the process before one of his games back when she was just a kid. She had asked him why he did it, and he had just shrugged. “Goalies are weird,” was his answer. It was the same reason she would swish and spit between stoppages. She even tapped the goal posts sometimes. She knew hockey goalies did that to check their angles and depth, which wasn’t really a thing when your entire body didn’t even come close to covering the net. But hey, to Allison, it felt like the good-luck spank Brittany would always dole out before the games. As far as she was concerned, she was on the same side as the goalposts. They were teammates. Comrades in keeping the score at zero.

It was just about time to head back out. Allison briefly took a glance at her cellphone. Three missed calls from Amy. Well, whatever it was would have to wait. She tossed the cellphone back in her locker before jogging back out to the field.

------------------------------------

As soon as Steve correctly identified that Allison was going through her halftime ritual, he saw the writing on the wall. His grip was tenuous, and he couldn’t afford much more jostling. For the fourth time, he was about to end up under a girl’s foot.

Fuck it. I’m not going through that again. Especially not with Allison’s filthy fucking feet. He decided he would take his chances on the floor. Maybe he’d regain his one-inch size during the second half, and he could climb in her equipment bag or something until he could get her attention.

Allison had other plans. He cast himself off the ankle portion of the sock, only for his descent to be intercepted by monolithic fingers as they popped her foot out of the cleat, the skin on the mountainous digits forming a downward ski slope toward oblivion. And Allison’s foot being unbound by the cleat gave him a dire preview of what awaited. A thick, moist wave of foot odor billowed outward like a fumarole belching steam, causing him to dry heave even as he tumbled downward.

He fell a short distance before he landed with a sickening, actual splash. Whatever moisture wicking function these shoes once served was long since worn down into irrelevance, a puddle of dirty sweat erupting around him and drenching his body on impact.

And there it was. The worst instance of in-shoe foot odor he’d encountered yet. A thick, sticky, stinging assault on the senses. There was, of course, the usual human stench component. The gradual buildup in unaerated compartments like armpits and nether regions that gave rise to an unmistakable sour stench. But here was the added stink of whatever ecosystem had begun to thrive in this wretched footwear. The cheesy, Frito-like smell was likely a buildup of yeast, the dampness and darkness also creating the perfect environment for odor-generating bacteria to thrive.

I can’t believe I ever found this arousing. There was a time where he would have picked up this shoe, stuck his nose in it, and gotten an erection out of it. Maybe not Allison’s footwear, because that would be creepy, but he’d sniffed Amy’s footwear and used underwear before while jerking off. He’d read countless in-shoe GTS porn stories of men laying underfoot and orgasming. Here though, like with Allison’s ass, when confronted with the reality of the predicament, it was…overwhelming. Overwhelmingly repulsive. Despite his best efforts to keep his mouth shut, he could taste the salt from the sweat around the corners of his lips. The air was so densely packed with stink that he could practically chew on it. It was like the hottest and most humid of the dog days of summer, when it felt like you couldn’t ever fully fill your lungs no matter how deeply you inhaled, except that humidity was tainted beyond all recognition.

But, as usual, the stink rapidly became the least of his problems. If Allison’s fingers were like skyscrapers, the apocalyptic foot sliding into the cleat was like the island of Manhattan itself. Like with his brief stint in Amy’s sneaker, his only saving grace was that Allison had angled the shoe downward to slide her foot in. He had no Earthly chance of outrunning the foot Indiana Jones style like he had with Amy. He was way, way too small for that.

So, despite his dizziness, despite his dry heaving, despite the mounting migraine from dehydration, he tucked and rolled. He curled himself into a ball and just…went with it, rolling down the slope as fast as he could. It was enough…to get him out of the heel section, and into the section where the ball of her foot would come to rest. It wasn’t enough to get to the relative safety at the very tip of the boot.

Welp….guess this is it. As the shoe leveled out and Allison’s asteroid of a foot blocked out all incoming light, he realized it was too late. There was nowhere else to go. Except maybe…down? The inside of the cleat was so worn that the insole was in tatters, frayed seams at the edges and holes scraped out in the cushiony middle. That was his best shot.

And so, to the extent possible, he burrowed into one of the foam insole tears, flattening himself as much as possible. And the wet, hot, sock-encased foot came down on him like the sky itself collapsing.

------------------------------------

Allison jogged back out onto the field, breath misting in front of her. As the sun had gone down, the cold winter air was really starting to bite. No matter, she tended to heat up pretty quickly. She tried to dial in once more, but the missed calls from Amy had her mind refocused back on the events that had transpired earlier in the day. Which were honestly very tough to forget.

It was still kind of surreal. Well, not kind of. It was patently outrageous; the kind of thing sci-fi novels were made of. She knew a shrunken dude. Didn’t just KNOW him, he was the closest person to her after her dad and Amy. And he was…one inch tall.

Fucking wild. What were they doing about meals? What about when Amy went to work? Had they told anyone else? How long before the rest of the world knew? What was going to happen to him? So, so very many questions.

Honestly, Steve was kind of on Allison’s shit list lately. Yes, he was basically family, yes, he was her dad’s best friend. But he wasn’t HER best friend. HER best friend was Amy, and in recent months Amy had offered some…uncharitable depictions of what Steve was like at home. Allison got to see it on a daily basis, Amy coming into the office with bags under her eyes and a fresh yarn to spin about some newly achieved low for Steve.

Maybe the whole shrinking thing was karma. SOMETHING certainly had to give. If that status quo had persisted for much longer, Allison was going to just head over to their house and punch Steve in the face herself until he got the message.

Ah fuck. She noticed it belatedly. Her mind had been wandering, she was no longer in the zone. She saw the shot when it was already in the air, and she jumped toward it to try and tip it wide again. Too little too late. She didn’t get any of it, and she heard the faint swish as it struck the back of the net.

She groaned inwardly as the other team celebrated. No goose egg taunt for her today. They were still up 2-1 though. She dialed back in, deciding she would worry about the Clovers’ predicament when the game was over.

------------------------------------

Steve couldn’t believe he was even thinking this, but he wanted Allison’s butt back. It had been an undeniably putrid, horrid experience he wouldn’t soon forget, if ever. It had been difficult to breathe. But he had been an inch tall. He had still harbored some faint hope of getting noticed. Now, he was basically invisible to the naked eye, a speck in a shoe, the ball of Allison’s foot threatening to smash him out of existence every time she moved.

He would feel the pressure of her foot periodically as she shifted her weight around, and while it would flatten him amongst the puddle of accumulated gunk at the bottom of her shoe, squeezing his breath from his lungs, it had yet to reduce him to paste.

That was just a simple matter of weight distribution, and practically a matter of time. All she would need to do would be to jump and land on the balls of her feet, and that would certainly do it. There would be no hiding from that sudden influx of pressure. For now, the added cushion of her sock, together with his enhanced durability and the divot in the insole that had become his shelter, had kept him alive. Somehow.

He felt…violated. Tarnished. Filthy. He was trapped in a heated chamber of foot stink and sweat so copious he could do a backstroke in it. He was laying face down, trying to keep his head above the film that was more of a shallow lake at his size. Even having burrowed into the sole of the shoe, his back was still exposed. And it was like being flayed alive. The constant abrasion of the wet sock on his back was rubbing his skin raw, like a full-body chafing. The salt from Allison’s sweat was giving that abrasion a potent sting. Insult upon injury; literal salt in literal wounds.

He was trapped there for what felt like an interminable period, huddled in the wet, sweltering, suffocating darkness and wondering if his next breath was going to be his last. It felt like an executioner’s axe hanging over his head. At any given moment, it could come down. He wouldn’t even feel it. He’d just be alive and thinking one second and then…nothingness. Total annihilation and obliteration. And nobody would ever know what had happened to him.

So, he cowered in fear and filth, praying to a God he didn’t even really believe in, hoping against all hope that he’d get to see Amy smile one more time.

Eventually, he started to hear voices again, the feeling of the ground underneath the sole of the shoe losing its give and its springiness, as though Allison was walking on concrete instead of grass.

PLEASE let that mean the game is over. His prayers were finally answered when a flood of light reentered the shoe, the planetary mass of Allison’s foot slipping out of it at last, the shoe flopping over onto its side with the movement. His mind making a snap calculation, Steve went with the momentum, relinquishing his grip on his little hovel and falling toward the opening of the shoe. He crawled out onto the cold locker room floor, his blurred vision adjusting to the light, as he sucked in great, heaving breaths of comparatively fresh air once more.

He heard a wet thud as something splashed his face, realizing with growing disgust that Allison had removed the drenched socks and tossed them on the floor nearby. And then, suddenly and without warning, a shadow came over his head as she stood up, her left foot coming down on him. He was directly under her big toe, so he avoided being smashed…for now. But the doughy, sticky flesh of her big toe was like flypaper. He was immediately stuck to it.

He could see the bits of accumulated lint and…God knows what else between her toes. The sour, cheesy smell was much stronger here. Suddenly, more clothing piled up on top of the socks. A jersey…shorts…a bra…and then the weight of the foot shifted around a bit as Allison shimmied, and a frilly thong was added to the heap.

Despite the mortal danger he was in, Steve couldn’t help but blush. He couldn’t see anything being pasted to the bottom of her big toe, but he had never seen Allison naked. And other than the deep, dark perverted recesses of his mind that he would rather comfortably pretend didn’t exist, he didn’t WANT to see her naked. Again, she was practically his daughter.

Steve didn’t put together the danger he was in until the floor beneath him changed to segmented, small tiles, the foot passing over a large drain like an alien spaceship eclipsing a city as the mundane, post-win chatter continued between the girls.

Oh fuck….the SHOWER. Hooray. Allison was finally getting clean. And that meant he was about to end up in a sewer, likely never to return to his former life. His heart plummeted when he heard the water start running. But…he was stuck. Now he found himself ironically hoping that she didn’t get TOO clean. The toe gunk was suddenly an ally.

As the hot water trickled between Allison’s toes and ran around to their respective undercarriages, he felt the adhesive loosening. He needed shelter. FAST. But what could he possibly get to in time? What could he reach at his size?

The dread within him mounting, he realized there was only one option. He jabbed his hands into the lines that formed Allison’s toeprint like handholds on a rock-climbing course as he fought the flow of the water to make his way around to the surface of her big toe. Perched on top of her toenail, the impact of the water was stronger here. He felt like he was standing on a jetty during a hurricane, like the waves could wash over and carry him out to sea at any moment.

He subconsciously noticed that her toenails were a little uneven and unpainted. Allison had always been less given toward feminine grooming rituals, as opposed to Amy who practically turned it into its own religion of habit. It was probably because it was winter; Allison wasn’t about to go walking around in flip-flops anytime soon.

A gush of water rained down on him suddenly, wiping his feet out from under him and almost carrying him down to the floor with its current. No more time for daydreaming. As abhorrent as he found the thought, as much as he detested its necessity, he had to get to his “shelter.”

And so, taking a breath of what would likely for the third time in a span of a few hours be his last fresh air, he made his way to the edge of her toenail, grimacing as he dropped down to hang from the lip of it. He didn’t know what awaited him under it, but there was no chance it was something enjoyable. He swung back and forth a few times while hanging to build up momentum and then curled his body for the leap.

Even here, there was still moisture, and he didn’t quite stick the landing. His feet slipped out from under him as he landed on the supple skin underneath Allison’s big toenail, and he almost tumbled backward down the slope. He managed to get his hands underneath him and stop his decline, but he came close to retching as he noticed those hands were now coated in gunk.

If the stuff between Allison’s toes was repulsive, the unique ecosystem thriving under her toenail was another level entirely. Here, the odor of toe jam was palpable, and the further in he crawled for safety, the more potent it got. Even if he was restored to his normal size tomorrow, Steve figured it would be a while before he found himself asking to suck on Amy’s toes again.

The preposterousness of the situation wasn’t lost on him. Here he was, practically microscopic, curling up for safety amongst the dead skin, bacteria, and who knew what else in the under-the-toenail biome of his wife’s best friend, his best friend’s daughter. The fact that this was the safest place for him at the moment was just…ridiculous.

He heard the loud smacking of a larger quantity of water hitting the floor around Allison’s feet, seeing it pour over the lip of her toenail like a sudsy waterfall. He felt like a caveman waiting out a particularly torrential downpour. As disgusting as his current predicament was, he was grateful for the quick thinking. He assumed that last flood came from Allison wringing out her hair, and it absolutely would have taken him with it.

He heard the water turn off, his impromptu cave moving with him as his limited point of view past the toenail blurred with every step Allison took. He saw the pile of dirty clothing approaching once more, wincing in disgust as Allison reached for the same soaked thong and bra.

He saw her grab the black socks next. Oh no…please don’t. For once, his luck held out. Allison balled up the socks and tossed them into her equipment bag, where they would likely remain unaerated, unwashed, and hidden from light until her next game.

She wasn’t about to walk out of here barefoot though. Steve groaned inwardly as he saw Allison’s hand grab her regular walking shoes. He wedged himself further back, coating his body in the thick smegma as he sought to fortify his position. He knew this next part would be dangerous. Allison’s foot angled downward briefly, giving him a glimpse of the worn heel portion of her shoe before he was once more thrust into darkness.

------------------------------------

Allison laced up her shoes, doing the final rounds of “goodbyes” and “good games” before heading back out into the parking lot. The crisp, nighttime winter air was refreshing after the stuffiness of the locker room. She liked the way it prickled at her skin after the hot water of the shower.

She tossed the equipment bag into the trunk once more, then got into the car and turned the ignition. She was absent-mindedly humming to herself before the Bluetooth call notice came up on the dashboard. Amy again.

Oh shit, that’s right. She’s been trying to reach me.

She pressed the green “pick up” button. “Heyyyyyyy hoe!!” she began cheerfully.

The fact that Amy didn’t answer with her own insult immediately informed the tone of the conversation. This was serious. “Allie, have you seen Steve by any chance?” Amy asked, her tone a little panicked.

“What? No. Not since I left your house, at least. Why?”

“He’s…missing.” Amy answered simply.

“Missing? How?! He’s one inch tall! Where the fuck is he gonna go?” Allison was genuinely confused.

“I don’t know. But I’ve looked all over. I’ve checked the floors, the couch, the coffee table. Nothing.”

“Did you look between the cushions?” Allison asked.

“I didn’t just look between them, I took them off the couch entirely and went over it with a fine-toothed comb,” Amy answered, the upset in her voice becoming more audible.

“Well, the couch was where I saw him last…” Allison trailed off. Something just occurred to her. The itch. That persistent tickle in her…butt, from earlier. There’s no fucking way. As she got to a red light, she lifted her butt off the driver’s seat, digging her finger into it and rifling around near her anus. Nothing. Phew.

“Me too. Allie…I don’t….I don’t know what to do. I’m really worried,” Amy said. This time Allison heard her voice catch, the giveaway that she was actually crying.

“Okay, I’m on my way. Should be there in 10 or 15,” Allison answered.

“Thank you.” Amy hung up abruptly. Allison didn’t know what she was going to be able to contribute other than emotional support. If Amy couldn’t find him after searching for hours, what was she going to add?

Allison made it another two blocks before something exceedingly strange happened. Suddenly, she felt a stabbing pain in her big toe, a kind of pain she hadn’t felt since she had dropped a weight on her toes accidentally at the gym, which had ultimately resulted in her big and second toes turning black and blue, swelling up, and shedding their nails entirely. It felt like someone had jabbed a knife underneath her toenail and then tried to pry it off.

“OW!!! Shit!!!” She pulled over to the side, slammed on the brakes and put her hazard lights on. She contorted to lift her foot onto the car seat, rapidly untying the shoe and throwing it onto the passenger seat.

Her big toenail had been…popped off, basically. It was sticking up at a 45-degree angle, and something was sticking out from under it.

“What the fuck…?” She plucked at the intruding, foreign object, turning the overhead lights on and lifting it up in front of her face for closer inspection. It was…Steve. Naked as the day he was born, beet red and looking beat to hell, dangling upside down from her pincer grip on his leg.

How the fuck did he get in her shoe? He was unconscious. Was he breathing? Uh oh. Nononononononono…NO!! She screwed the cap off her water bottle in the cupholder, placing him gently in the vacant spot next to it before dumping a little of the cold water on him. His eyes flew open as he sucked in a great, heaving gasp, sputtering and snorting as he got the water out of his system.

He blinked in evident confusion, his eyes unfocused with a dazed haze written on his face.

“STEVE??!!” she practically shouted at him. He regained a little focus, his eyes wandering around the car before settling on her face.

“Oh….hey Allie,” he offered quietly.

“Okay, dude…I’m gonna need an explanation,” she said breathlessly.

------------------------------------

Steve was once again in pitch black, barely able to breathe, nestled underneath Allison’s big toe and mired in gunk. Despite it being the dead of winter, as soon as she tied her shoe, the sauna effect had kicked in. He had felt the vibrations of the car starting, the engine running, the wheels rolling over every minute defect in the streets.

He was barely hanging onto consciousness at this point. He had been through an emotional and physical wringer, and the danger was far from over.

And that’s when the faint, high-pitched whine started in his ears again. The electric, tingling sensation across his entire body as it felt like an acupuncturist had jabbed him with thousands of needles all over his body. He knew that this sensation generally heralded an imminent change in his size. He was already dizzy and hovering on the verge of unconsciousness. This time, when the sensation overcame him, he was unable to stave it off. The blackness overtook him as his body was wracked with pain from apparent regrowth.

He wasn’t sure how long he was out, but the next thing he knew, he was being doused with ice cold water that ran down his nostrils and filled his mouth. He coughed and choked on it, sitting upward as he slowly regained his senses and snorted the water out of his sinuses.

Where…oh, right. The car. He saw Allison’s towering form in the driver’s seat, the concern plain in her expression, her color blanched even more than it normally was. He saw the water bottle next to him, several orders of magnitude larger than he was. He was sitting in a freezing cold puddle in an empty spot in a cupholder.

“Oh…hey Allie,” he said weakly.

Allison seemed to need a moment to catch her breath. “Okay…dude, I’m gonna need an explanation.”

He didn’t even know where to start. None of what had transpired over the past few hours was technically his fault, but there was zero chance Amy was going to react well to her husband fiddling around in her best friend’s ass, blameless though he may be for the act.

Ever since he had shrunk, he had found himself stacking lies and excuses on top of more lies and excuses, weaving an ever more elaborate tapestry of falsehoods to keep Amy from panicking or angering. He didn’t have the strength anymore. Not now, at least.

And so, he told Allison the truth. From the very beginning. From the moment she flopped on the couch and went to tie her shoes, condemning him to a virtual death sentence in the darkness of her asscrack.

Allie listened to it all patiently and expectantly, her eyes occasionally registering shock or dismay and…something else. Amusement, maybe? He told her all of it, everything. His shoulder being dislocated, his body getting partially sucked into her asshole, the shrinking when her teammate had activated her nanobots, digging for his life and hiding in the sole of her cleats, taking shelter amongst her toe smegma while she showered. He felt like he should have skimped on some of the more gory details, but he didn’t have the strength.

“And then, next thing I knew, I felt sick and sore before I blacked out, waking up…here,” he concluded.

Allie had taken it all in with a surprising amount of poise and grace, nodding encouragingly at points in the story. He had expected a profuse apology of the sort Amy would offer whenever she so much as inadvertently inconvenienced him.

Instead, after he finished sharing his ordeal, Allison’s eyes took on a mischievous glint. And then…she laughed. She LAUGHED. After everything he had just been through, she laughed, evidently finding his predicament to be hilarious. This girl, who he had practically raised, thought almost killing him was funny. He was FURIOUS.

“Allie, what the FUCK??!! This isn’t funny! My fucking shoulder is dislocated and I almost died!” he shouted up at her.

She wiped tears from her eyes, trying but failing to adopt a more sober expression. “I know, I know…but like…you almost died…in my BUTT. Come on, that’s not at least a LITTLE funny to you?”

“Not even remotely. You have NO idea how awful that was. Aren’t you even ashamed, embarrassed?” he asked heatedly.

“Over what?” She genuinely didn’t seem to think there was anything to be ashamed of.

“I’m your dad’s best friend; you’re basically my daughter! And I was halfway up your asshole!! You fucking FARTED on me and it almost killed me!!” he protested. She sniggered at that last bit, covering her mouth as she unsuccessfully stifled a laugh.

“Dude…do you even hear yourself? The ‘pull my finger’ guy who has laughed at farts his entire life, including adulthood? You have to admit, it’s kind of….hilarious,” she said with a faint chuckle.

“Hilarious to you, maybe. How do you think Amy will feel when she finds out that her husband was plastered against her best friend’s asshole for hours on end?”

Allison giggled again, getting it under control a little quicker this time as she rapidly discerned that he was in no mood for the bullshit.

“Dude…it’s just my ass. It’s not like you were in my pussy or anything.” He blushed as he heard those words come out of her mouth. “It’s literally where poop comes out of. I don’t know why men find it so arousing, but I just think it’s funny. And I mean…come on. Hiding under my toenail? The surreal absurdity is killing me here,” she said with a grin.

“Oh yeah, it’s ‘killing’ you. It almost LITERALLY killed ME!” he yelled back angrily.

Allison wiped the grin off her face with visible effort. “Okay…okay…I’ll stop,” she said with a faint grin.

An awkward silence ensued. “Well, uh…” Allison began, “Amy’s freaking the fuck out over you being missing, soooooo….we should probably tell her we found you.”

“And what are we going to tell her when I’m naked and smell like toe jam and butthole?” Steve asked.

“I guess…the truth?” Allison suggested.

“She, uh, she doesn’t know about the whole thing where someone using nanobots shrinks me again.”

Now the mirth was actually gone from Allison’s face. “What?! Why the fuck not?”

“I was worried she’d overreact and lock me up in the house,” Steve answered more softly than he would have liked.

“Considering what just happened, do you think maybe that would actually be, I dunno, sensible?” she asked angrily.

“Well to be fair, this whole…situation started in the safety of my own home,” Steve reasoned.

“Yeah, but you were like a half inch away from being a human suppository,” she shot back.

“Don’t remind me,” Steve answered wearily. “Again, I REALLY don’t think she’s going to take this well. I would suggest maybe a….hybrid of the truth,” Steve said.

“Dude, you’ve been putting her through literal hell these past few months, and you want to keep lying. In fact, I have half a mind to just…get rid of you,” Allison said coldly.

Steve gulped at the tone of her voice. “Get…rid of me?” He flinched and cowered as her hand suddenly seized him again, bringing him up in front of her face.

“You’ve been drunk for months straight. You use her like an inconvenient cocksleeve. You were already putting her through emotional torture before adding being tiny on top of it. She’s only in her 20s and I could SWEAR I see some gray poking through in her roots. You’re fucking killing my best friend, Steve. Killing her painfully and slowly. You think what you went through today was bad? Try literal months of casual indifference from the love of your life.” Allison’s tone was quiet and laced with menace. He could tell this rant had been a long time coming, shrinking be damned.

“Don’t you think it would make her life easier if you were to just…go away? She could collect the life insurance and be done with you once and for all. Lord knows she has enough money to survive the rest of her life without you. And she’s young enough to remarry. It would solve soooooo many problems,” Allison continued.

Her eyes narrowed, her tongue snaking out to wet her lips. “I could just…eat you. Nobody would ever know. You’ll disappear from her life, and she’ll be infinitely better off without you.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, let’s be reasonable here. You’re talking about murder. Murder by CANNIBALISM. You wouldn’t do that…” Steve said, worried that the last part of that statement sounded more like a question.

“Too late, I talked myself into it,” she answered, opening her mouth wide and tilting her head backward, depressing her tongue to give him a straight look at the shadows at the back of her throat, dimly illuminated by the light in the car.

She’s not actually going to… And then she dropped him. He flopped down and landed face down on her tongue with a soft splat, feeling the bumps of her tastebuds against his chest and cheeks.

Holy shit. She’s serious. Fight or flight lizard brain kicked in. He scrambled to his feet as she righted her head by tilting it downward to face forward. Steve’s feet were slipping on the saliva-soaked appendage, not getting much purchase on the muscle slick with hot spit.

The light in her mouth was rapidly going out as her jaws were closing. He could see out the windshield of the car, at the empty space lit by the streetlights. He entertained some faint hope that someone would see him and put a stop to this, but that was thinking like a full-sized person. This was nothing like someone holding a gun to another person’s head in the passenger seat. This would look to an outside observer like a young woman having a roadside snack.

He made a leap over her teeth, stretching his arms outward as he dove. Not fast enough. He felt her front teeth clamp onto his ankles with a sting, his one-inch form flopping against her lower lip. He felt her lips purse around his waist when he was suddenly yanked backward violently into the darkness with a wet, squelching sound.

She had just slurped him up off her lip. Like a strand of loose spaghetti. It was a reminder of how powerless he was at this current size, how effortlessly she could end his life.

Her tongue was back underneath him once more, pressing him to the palate of her mouth as saliva built all around him. He was rotated onto his side, confused for a moment before his face mashed into more soft, smooth, wet flesh. A vacuum effect made his ears pop as though he was in an airplane gaining altitude. She was…sucking on him, pressing him into her cheek like a gumball. There was no arousal here, despite his nudity and Allison’s tongue bath on his skin. I don’t want to…to die…

He was flipped back over again, this time thrust against her other cheek, back first. Part of him wondered whether an outside observer would see a vaguely humanoid shape pressing out against Allison’s cheek, like so many vore scenarios depicted. He doubted it. He was too small. His voice called out weakly, the sound dying against the enclosed, confined, wet space: “I’m a…person…I’m a human being…” It was as much trying to make sense of it for himself as it was a plea.

He was now covered head to toe in saliva, experiencing the disorienting sensation of spitting someone else’s spit out of your own mouth. Allison’s tongue manipulated him into a soggy, soaked ball, and then started to roll him backward. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew what came next. His experience when Emma had swallowed him flashed before his eyes, an involuntary and sudden panic attack subsuming him.

But then the tongue rolled him forward, and he found himself falling a short distance back into the light, landing against the cushion of Allison’s palm.

“Ew. You taste like cheesy butthole.” Steve suppressed a wretch. Those were words he’d never thought he’d hear together.

She had a smirk on her face again. “Relax dude, I’m just kidding. You should’ve seen your face,” she said with a chuckle.

“That was seriously NOT funny, Allie,” he gasped. “Also, how do you know what butthole tastes like?” He wasn’t sure why that last question occurred to him, but it did.

She raised a suggestive eyebrow. “All I’m saying is it’s an erogenous zone. You gotta live a little dude.”

“Okay, okay, stop. Gross. Also, in case you didn’t know this, someone already…did what you just pretended to do, and I’m scarred for life from it,” he said tersely.

“WHAT? Seriously??!! Someone ATE you already? What happened? Does that mean you can survive, you know, the whole…process? Did you come out their butt?” She seemed way too eager for details.

“No, she threw me up thank God. And I really don’t want to talk about it.” Once he realized he was no longer in mortal peril, his anger started to trickle back in. She had nearly killed him many times over, and then threatened to kill him just for…what? Fun? Maybe a little punishment for his mistreatment of Amy? Allison had always enjoyed teasing him, but this was a bridge too far.

“Allie, I can’t stress this enough. Don’t even joke like that. That was truly, truly fucked up. Not to mention…inappropriate. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m naked. You basically just…” he trailed off without saying the words.

Allison leaned forward, fluttering her eyelashes a bit as she let out a sultry, breathy moan laden with suggestion. “Basically just what, Steve? Sucked you off?” That last part came out in a whisper, mere inches from his face. Speaking of the teasing, this was something else she had started doing when her womanly form had come in as a teenager. She would never, ever think of doing anything remotely like it in front of her father, but she would make wildly inappropriate innuendos in his absence, baiting Steve with gleeful satisfaction. He recalled one backyard barbecue. It was the first time she wore a two-piece bathing suit in her adult body. In the span of about 10 minutes, she had bent over in front of him, asked him to help retie her top, and practically made love orally to the straw in her drink while making unflinching eye contact. He still remembered her tongue, that same tongue that had been smeared all over him moments ago, making enticing little circles around the mouth of the straw. Steve had needed to recuse himself from the festivities afterward.

Her lips were now dangerously close to his body. Dangerously close to his…junk. He saw her lips purse into an “O” shape before she blew out a jet of air like she was filling a balloon, directly onto his genitals. It was winter, he was covered in spit, and it was COLD. His cheeks went red from embarrassment even as his package shrunk. Apparently, there were multiple ways to make him smaller.

She giggled again at his reaction. “Lighten up, it wasn’t anything sensual. I wouldn’t do that to Amy.”

“THEN WHY DID YOU DO IT?!” he shouted at her.

“Can’t hand you back to her smelling like ass and feet, can I?” Allison asked with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t have enough time to run you to my apartment for a bath. Amy’s expecting me any minute.”

“You do realize you just basically put your own ass and toe gunk into your mouth, right?” he asked with a wry grin, convinced he would finally get to her.

She scoffed with a dismissive “pfft.” “So what? It all came from me anyway. What’s the difference?”

He couldn’t believe the logic. Well, he could believe it coming from her, he just couldn’t understand it. Just when he thought she could be sexy and sensual, the tomboyish hygiene habits would rear their ugly head again. He resolved to stop yelling at her. His anger seemingly only amused her further. More importantly, however, she had just agreed hours earlier to put her life on the line for him and Amy, a fact he had forgotten in the recent stress. She had jumped headfirst into a criminal conspiracy unconditionally out of love for her friends. Steve knew that, despite her sick sense of humor, and the fact that she was likely getting off at least a LITTLE on the power trip over his now-reduced form, Allison would run through a brick wall for him and Amy.

“Let’s…not tell John about any of this, alright?” he said.

“Of course not. The question is what we’re going to tell Amy. I won’t lie to her for you, Steve. You won’t lie to her either.” Her eyes narrowed again. “I may have been joking about eating you this time, but if you hurt her again, you’ll earn yourself a one-way ticket to my belly, you understand?” she warned.

He couldn’t tell if she was serious. He felt like she was, and that was terrifying. “Well, I guess we’ll have to tell her everything then, including the part about you turning me into a de facto butt plug.”

For all of her earlier bravado, he could see the gears turning in Allison’s head as she processed that last remark. “You’re right. I don’t think that would go over well.”

“So what do you suggest?” he asked.

“Middle ground. We won’t tell her about the butt stuff, but you ARE going to tell her about the shrinking with nanobots. She has a right to know about that. The story will be that you fell into my shoe, not my pants. I didn’t notice you until after the game, when I changed back from my cleats. It’ll explain any lingering…odor. And the shrinking will explain the nudity. Got it?”

He supposed it was as good a plan as any. “Deal.”

Allison rifled around on the passenger seat, producing a Starbucks napkin and ripping off a piece of it before presenting it to him. He took the hint, wrapping it around his body like a flimsy toga. With his modesty restored, if not his dignity, Allison placed him amidst the mess on the passenger seat and angled one of the vents down to blast heat on him, which he appreciated greatly, before turning her hazards off and putting the car in drive to head to Amy.

------------------------------------