Chapter one: Awakening

His eyes flashed open, torn from sleep, to the phone's vibrations. Every morning. He was not late for work. He would never be late for work again. He was neither in danger of missing any appointments nor was he at risk of letting any deadlines lapse. The phone's “silent” vibrating alarm did not buzz for him, but it shattered his sleep just the same, the quaking burst of vibrations under the adjacent pillow always jolted him awake, his sleeping brain bracing for cataclysm. He quickly found his breath again as his mind settled from instinctive fear to the mundane source of the rumbling. Much of his world now lacked subtly in this way.

Six buzzes later she stirred. A slow exhale, a low hum at the unseen stretch of sleepy limbs under heavy rustling blankets. A practiced hand slipped under the pillow beneath her head and silenced the alarm. Ten more minutes. Her cycle would repeat at least once more before she roused. His would not. The low hum of her wordless voice drifted towards speech as she got comfortable again under the covers. “Good morning,” she breathed, gently wriggling under the covers to lie facing him, her eyes still closed.

Their mornings were filled with practiced rituals, soft and warm. He knew this cue well. He stretched his limbs away from him and felt the weight of consciousness return to his form. “Good morning,” he yawned, picking himself up and stepping towards her, untangling himself from the cocoon of his plush brown blanket. The pillow-top mattress pushed gently at his feet, giving him a sensation of bounding slightly in her direction. He sank back down and she opened her arms to his approach. She drew him in against her, crooking him along her chest. He nestled his face against the warmth above her collarbone, his body taking in the steady drum of her heart as he breathed in the sweet, soft musk of her sleep. A wave of heat, trapped overnight by body and blanket, escaped to wash over him as she settled around him.

“Ten more minutes,” she slurred, nodding to kiss the top of his head. He pushed up against the soft weight of her lips in silent assent, felt the heat of her breath wash across his face and the slight catch as her mouth pulled back from his head. He cuddled into her and kissed gently at her throat. He felt the muscles in her neck work a swallow, pulling and lifting, as goosebumps rose away from his kiss and she nuzzled back into her pillow. Her arms brought him in tighter, thumb idly stroking his hair, as she settled in to steal a few more minutes of sleep.

He lay there, drunkenly basking in the vastness of her embrace. She still stroked at his head, sleep reducing previous pets to something more closely resembling a recursive twitch, fingers drifting ghostlike from his scalp to his shoulders. She cupped his body loosely in her left hand, cuddling him against her chest and neck. The rhythms of her slowing touches and the wavelike cascade of her breathing body under him set him adrift in meditative warmth. He still felt her heartbeat – the only sound in the room besides her breathing – kicking against his hips through her chest.

His eyelids were heavy. He was warm in her arms, pressed on all sides by her sleeping hug. He did not allow himself to drift back towards sleep. She had delayed the start of her day, but he knew his had already begun. He tilted his head up, feeling the cool air of the room against his face as he pulled back from her skin. Her jawline rose above him, her cheekbones peaking beyond and her eyes closed. This angle cast sharp lines of her features, and he found so much serenity in the intimacy of the view. He looked down. He was pressed against the black t-shirt she had slept in for the past four nights. The sheets smelled of the lavender mix she sprayed into the sheets as she made the bed each morning, but he could smell her on the fabric of the worn shirt. Floral wisps above an earthy base, touched by the sweetness of sweat. A sprawling ocean of bedding surrounded them, all down comforters and heavy, worn quilts, piled high to keep out winter's touch. They were pulled up, just above her breasts, leaving only his head outside of their weight. He could barely see beyond them.

He focused on his breathing; he focused on hers. Hers he rode as waves: the pressure of his body against hers waxed and waned as her rising chest erased the space between the soft wall of shirt and breasts and the resisting steadiness of her arms. The heat and the embrace at this scale had been claustrophobic at first, but the weeks had replaced frustrations of immobility with comfortable complacency. He found himself feeling safer, more at ease in these moments than any other points throughout his day, and wondered at how quickly and deeply that transition had taken root.

Ten minutes had passed. The second alarm was not so startling as the first. His waking mind was ready for it. The hand that had minutes ago stopped petting him shot under the pillow, the process pinning him tightly against her. He rolled into her along the motion of her arm, his face pressed into the collar of her shirt. The pressure was intense, but fleeting, and the buzzing stopped as her hand returned to him. She shifted her weight, exhaling a sigh, slow and deep, as she wriggled her shoulders and propped broad, white pillows against the headboard. The hand that held him to her cupped his backside, maintaining his position as she adjusted herself. When she was comfortably inclined, her shoulders climbing up her pillow, she let go of him.

He lifted himself slightly away from her, hands pressing into her shirt and sternum as he looked toward her face, awaiting what came next. He was naked, and in the absence of her hand he felt the crisp air of the room to wash over him. He resisted a shiver, shoulders locking briefly as he focused beneath him, legs still warm against the cotton where he had been held to her. Her hand came back to him, descending from above. Her long fingers curled around his midsection. He shuddered slightly at the sliding touch of her fingertips against his stomach. Her grip tensed against him, fingers stiffening around him. She began to lift her arm.

He rose slowly above her, his elbows to his sides and his hands on her index finger around his chest, holding tightly to her. His stomach tingled as he rose. It was a strange sensation to be lifted in this way, not unlike the tickling feeling of driving over dips in the road, though this was something deeper, more drawn out. She was practiced now, the speed and incline refined over the past six weeks. She lifted a sleepy eyelid and her lips pressed together as she sighed through her nose, watching as he rose in her hand.

She brought him only a few inches above her. The ascent stopped as she slowly drew him away from his den atop her. She brought her hand back down, lowering him to barely graze the flesh of her stomach under her shirt as she brought him along her. She deposited him before her chest, lying prostrate on the firm floor of her stomach. Her hand withdrew. He was under her shirt now, the rising slopes of her breasts illuminated by shirt-filtered morning haze.

A phantom of her hand's weight returned to him, through the shirt this time, guiding him towards her left breast. He was already in motion. He crawled to her, gathering and gently lifting at her in something like a bearhug. He took her nipple into his mouth, feeling her sharp inhale rise up from below him as much as he heard it. He worked his tongue around her stiffening nipple as it rose away from the even round of her areola, itself growing flecked with goosebumps. Her hand held more firmly now, bringing him into the softness of her body as the motions of her breathing deepened. He slacked his jaw to take more of her into his mouth, working its meager length with his lips held firm, rolling his tongue in flat circles around its tip and column.

It grew stifling between body and shirt. Her arm had pushed her other breast towards him, erasing the valley between them as her fingers began to swirl between her legs. Her heart beat like thunder beneath him, her airy breaths gaining weight and carrying the occasional stray muttering hum. The world around him shuddered when his teeth grazed her flesh, soft teasing bites as her hand returned under her shirt.

Her fingers traced delicate swirls around his legs and torso as she found him, padding playfully at his erection and grazing a firm touch along the back of his thighs and ass. He felt a dull, aching throb awaken in him then, and realized that he had been grinding his hips into her as he kissed and sucked. Her fingers were locking around him now, but she did not raise him as she moved him to her other breast. She dragged him along her to his next destination and he felt the textural transitions between breast tissue and sternum, back to breast, with the whole of his body. His feet swept without protest across her stomach, and the pulse of a twitch rippled out from under him as they neared and parted from her navel. Her hand left him at that second altar, and he resumed his work, taking another stiffening nipple into his mouth, losing himself on that warm plane of her as he worked his hips against her.

She rose and fell beneath him as her breathing quickened. He matched the pace and ferocity of his work to her accelerating excitement. A sudden pitch of her body came as she lifted her hips up from the mattress. He felt her stomach rise against him as her knees drew up, and held himself in place as her arms rapidly snapped at her underwear. It was difficult for him to maintain the rhythm he had established as she wriggled free of them, but it didn't matter. A few seconds later her bare hips crashed back down to the bed. The force of the drop almost sent him sprawling, her saliva-slick areola absorbing the shock of his face's impact.

He had barely righted himself when he felt her shirt lift from his back again, a sure sign her hand was back for his final cue. He was placing small, sweet kisses on and around her nipple when he felt two fingers and a thumb lock around his left knee. He continued planting kisses, sweeping his tongue against her as she slowly dragged him off of her chest and down her stomach. She slid him along her center and he passed over her navel, where the soft bristles of her gathering fuzz tickled at him. He playfully sucked and licked her as he passed, relishing at the trail of goosebumps he left in his wake.

His hand found the curve of her navel. He held fast, letting her hand catch at his sudden resistance. This, too, was a practiced game by now. He pushed against her stomach, climb-sliding his way back up her torso, kissing at her and running his arms in great sweeping motions, barely grazing her skin. She was so easy to tease here. Her abdominal muscles contracted under him at his touch, rippling beneath the surface of her soft stomach. She walked her index and middle fingers up him, starting at his feet, again gently pressing at his buttocks, driving his hips into her, and then at his shoulders they swept down the front of his body in a single stroke, carrying him the rest of the way down her.

Her hand left him as he slid over the slope of her mons pubis, accelerating slightly as he relaxed his body and let gravity take him home. He landed on his back, legs splayed up the front of her, and took in the sight.

Her thighs rose above him – strong, pale towers framing her center. He brought his legs under him and rose to his knees. He could nearly touch the tops of her knees if he stood like this, and from this vantage his eyes rose almost perfectly parallel to her clitoris. He shuffled closer to her. She was wet. He breathed in her earthy musk as he ran either arm up towards her mons, reaching outwards as if to grab around at her ass, anchoring himself to her. Her hands were nearby; one traced slight, lopsided shapes against the inside of her left thigh, the other fixed atop her right knee, drumming in anticipating vigilance.

Her sleepy, heavy eyes opened to meet his then. Slightly. Another sharp intake of breath, her front teeth gripping at her bottom lip. Her hips rose and fell again, and for a moment he lost sight of yearning lips for another. Then she was back. He smiled at her and lifted himself by his arms, still reaching for her hips, raising himself against her labia. His head and chest sank slightly into the warmth of her folds. His head had pressed towards her hood; he lifted it with the motion of looking up, rising slightly and taking her into his mouth. She lifted her hips involuntarily as he began suckling firmly at her clit. The yawning rhythms of her gyrating hips carried him against her, and he drifted along her tide, sliding bodily against her labia, pressed hard to her.

He let his hold slip, returning his weight to his knees and sank slightly back into the pillow-top. He could still easily reach her clit there, kissing and swirling his small tongue against it in hungry, circular motions. His arms, no longer holding him to her, traced along her lips, pressing and teasing against her; working vertically along her. He felt that aching throb from before, deep and primal now, a pulsing pressure gathering at the head of his erection. Her hand found him and she pushed him to her, fingertips forming a seat for him, driving him repeatedly against, up, into, and along her.

He stole his oxygen when he could. The weight of her hand behind him grew, driving him harder and deeper against her. He kissed and licked frantically, sucking in breaths and swallowing her excitement in alternating mouthfuls. She worked him along her, the storm of her arousal gathering fury, exchanging for him fewer tastes of air for tastes of her. His mind wandered from her – briefly – and he wondered if he'd suffocate against her. He found air then, and returned to her. He noticed a raw, tingling sensitivity at his groin. He had cum in the storm.

She released him suddenly, and he fell, soaked and dazed, back to the mattress. The hand that had held him was dipping and twirling against her clit. Her other hand found him gently, her nails ran flat and cool against his back, ushering him back to her. He thrust forwards, headfirst, and found himself shoulder deep inside of her. She piqued again at his entry, a low moan escaping her, and her nails again ran down him. He worked his legs to drive himself into her, trying to simulate the rhythm of a full-scale partner's penis with the whole of his body.

Her fingers playfully fondled between his legs as she closed her hand around his legs. She worked him slightly deeper and upwards into her for a moment, and then began driving him back and forth, in and out. He brought his arms away from him at an angle, allowing some air to slip in as she used him. He gulped frantically at it when he felt its cool touch. Her pulse slammed around him. He felt the motions of her other hand above him, steadily working towards her climax. He could hear her voice, though he heard it from inside of her now, all vague vowel sounds and muffled drawl. He was a part of this process, but no longer partner to it, and he gave in to the ride. The velvet walls around him intermittently hugged and throttled him, gripping from all sides as she worked him.

Her hips rose high this time, her body and thighs aligning as the waves of an ecstatic finish quickened inside of her. She collapsed around him, a crushing, rolling series of contracting muscles as she came. He was entombed in her from the waist up, awash in her fluids. He licked and lapped greedily, sucking, kissing, and wriggling, hoping to draw out the experience for her. Her hands left him, his feet dangling outside of her as she continued to play at her clit. Her legs closed tight around him, further constricting him inside her as his legs vanished in the plushy vice of her thighs. She squeezed him there, hugging him hard from inside, before relaxing and lowering herself back to the mattress.

She grasped his legs again and drew him out of her. He emerged from her, drenched body shocked by cold air, and found himself soaring over her. She held him by the legs, his arms dangling before him as he watched her passing bodyscape below him. Where she had teased herself with his slow descent before, she tore him towards her now at a dizzying speed.

His stomach met her tongue in a wet jolt, and she dragged him against it, wrapping her lips around his exhausted body. She sucked at him, pulling her cum from him, tasting herself and washing him at once. Her tongue explored him completely, curling between his legs and probing at his ass, working around his torso and down his arms. She tasted herself on every inch of him. She sated her thirst at his head, parting her lips slightly as he entered. He was enveloped again, her full lips passing around him on all sides, her gentle, relentless tongue working his face over, pausing now and again to let its warm weight fall over him.

She slid him out of her with a slight sucking pop, her tongue following him out for a farewell caress. She turned him upright and set him down astride her mouth. His hands wound into the frizzy dark hair around her temples, his knees ran along her cheeks, feet upon the pillow she had sunken back into. His body, utterly spent moments before, awakened at the touch of her wide, flat tongue, her soft lips parted to permit him entry. She sucked gently at him, periodically working saliva back towards him and then swallowing, churning him, pressing at his cock and balls. Her tongue ran up his left thigh, finding his balls and working backwards, pressing at his ass. Her eyes – huge brown pools before him – were fixed on his. He rode her like this, the motions of her tongue and lips guiding the rhythm of his hips. Her face held a deep flush, pink and red contrasts against her pale face. His back arched as he moaned, his exhaustion forgotten.

She took him in both hands then, easing him against one palm as the other scooped his legs and took him away from her mouth. She rose, back sliding up the headboard, and she laid him between her legs again. Her legs no longer towered above him, but settled into encircling walls around him as she found a comfortable sitting position. The heel of her left foot came at him slowly, and he shifted back and into it, straddling slightly the ball of her foot as the back of his head found the pads of her toes. Her right foot rose above him.

She was coiled around him like a serpent, limbs crossing in and out of his vision. He looked up at her, along the creases of her stomach, up past her breasts, to her sleepy, smiling eyes. She lowered her foot onto him slowly, shifting slightly to the side to flatten her left sole and sandwich him between them. Her right heel was raised, her toes playfully jostling at his shoulders. He reached out for them with one hand, working between them, guiding the pads over his face, kissing deliriously. His other hand fixed around his erection and pumped furiously. He came quickly, lost amid the heady odor of her feet, the contrast of soft sole and gentle scratch of callous. His semen spread across the heel of her right foot. She pulled it back from him then, licking the small wet spot away, offering a profoundly distracting view of her contorting midsection in the process. Her foot came back to him, carrying with it the familiar scent of her spit, and pressed against him a moment longer.

Her left foot tilted then, and he was deposited back onto the mattress. She swung her right leg over him and he heard it thud against the rug. She rose away from the bed. He watched from the mattress as she rose above him, her shapely ass mostly disappearing under black shirt as she rose upright. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her.

She looked down at him groggily and smiled.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

Chapter two: Cleansing

She turned from him and strode into the bathroom. He heard the flat tink of the toilet seat cover rising. He stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. She had drained him wholly. His breathing steadied, the sounds of her relieving herself flowing gently from the adjacent bathroom. The toilet seat fell back to its rest as a flush roared. Metallic clinking as she pulled the shower curtain back. His drew in another deep breath and released it, taking stock. He was soaked. In sweat. In spit. In her. He yawned and gathered himself, rising to his feet. A shower sounded incredible.

She had left him near the center of the mattress. He set off for the foot of the bed, stumbling awkwardly over the rolling hills of blankets along the way. A mountain of her dirty laundry was heaped on the floor at the end of the bed, reaching halfway up the mattress. She joked now that she left it there for him, but it had predated his Diminishing and been a facet of every bedroom he had known her to keep. He could not dispute the utility now, though. The bed stood around three feet off the ground; slightly over three times his height these days. Most furniture required additional accessibility options now. He turned his back to the edge of the mattress and dropped clumsily to his stomach, his feet dangling over the edge. Gripping the plush down comforter under him, he let himself slide down until he was clinging onto the side of the bed, where he kicked off and landed back-first in the pile of her clothing.

It was an easy landing. Occasionally a pair of pants with the belt still looped in or a stray shoe would offer an unwelcome surprise, but she had become much more cautious about what made it into the "hamper" as she called it since he had almost dashed himself upon a boot two weeks ago. He sank into the laundry on impact. He enjoyed this practice; the fall was, for the most part, safe, and the brief exhilaration of terminating in a cozy pile of clothes that smelled strongly of her still excited him. Standing among her discarded outfits – wading through socks and crawling through pantlegs – drilled home his smallness in ways both comforting and thrilling.

He had landed on a strewn sweater. The fabric was thin and soft, and she had recently worn it out: the perfumes of hairspray and lotions still clung to it. He attempted to rise from it and stumbled back, briefly unable to find firm footing. He waded through the tumbling spread of wool, cotton, lace, and denim, emerging from the pile and onto the cheap, hard carpeting of their apartment bedroom. Recovering from another brief stumble as he finally left the laundry behind, he made for the bathroom door.

"Clear!" he called when he had put a little over a foot between himself and the hamper. That cue was hers. The black lumpy ball of her t-shirt careened out of the bathroom doorway as soon as he spoke the word and landed expertly in the heap. The walk to the bathroom was quick. Quicker for her, to be sure; she could clear the space between bed and doorway in two or three steps. But he was typically only ever a few seconds behind, eternally grateful that their apartment was small and single-story.

He crossed the threshold into the bathroom and turned to the shower along the left wall. She leaned slightly over the side of the tub, throwing the faucet on. The drumming cacophony of the bathtub faucet quickly gave way to the hissing rain of the shower, and she rose to her full height. He admired the twinge of muscle in her legs as she did, following her motion upwards, lingering over the soft lines and round fullness of her backside.

She had a hand in the stream, testing the temperature of the water. It was too cold for her – it was always too cold for her – and she worked the dial again. These were practiced motions and did not require her full attention. She turned her head as he entered and smiled at him. "Sleep well, lil goblin?"

"Mhmm," he answered, approaching her. He stopped to her left and ran his arm up and along her calf in a half-hug, resting his head where muscle met shin. "That new blanket is so nice. Thanks again."

"It was on sale!" She reminded him, beaming down at him. "I'm glad it's working for you. You looked so cute all bundled up in it this morning. Such a cozy bug." The last words came as teasing baby-talk. She had in recent weeks begun to tones she had previously reserved for small animals. It didn't bother him. There was a sweetness to the doting, and he suspected that it came from a place of irony as much as love. She reached over him and pulled the door closed.

He had begun to idly massage her calf as she spoke, squeezing at the malleable softness of the relaxed muscle, tracing slow lines up and down her leg. It tensed and pulled as she strained to swing the door closed without stepping away, relaxing into a jelly-like mound upon its return. He looked up and met her gaze.

There was something that stirred deep within him during these glances. Standing at her feet, staring up into her clear eyes. She was all soft, curving lines. Long arching toes to smooth feet; ankles yielding to the gentle slopes of her calves and legs. Her thighs were strong and pale, thicker around than he was, and greeted one another warmly when she stood. Her love handles and the small round of her stomach stood out when he admired her from such a steep incline, accentuating the air of softness about her. She often stood with her shoulders pulled back slightly, drawing the line of her stomach up towards her full breasts. She often teased him for how distracted he became when they spoke at close proximity like this, both standing on the same surface. He couldn't help it, though he rarely tried. She was enchanting.

"Very cozy," he absently assented just a few seconds too late. He earned a smirk. She held a hand to the stream again. Apparently appeased, she pulled the curtain back farther, creating space for her to enter. She stepped one foot in, then the other. "If you're going to drool you may as well do it in here," she offered.

"Fair. I'm still pretty sticky," he said, running a hand through his hair. She had sucked a lot of her arousal from him, but what lingered had begun to dry on him. He felt it most in his hair. He clambered up the old two-step ladder she found for him, and ascended to the rim of the tub. She pulled the curtain shut behind him.

Steam was already beginning to swirl around the stall. Her back was to the faucet, her closed eyes pointed towards the ceiling as she worked the roaring water through her hair. She luxuriated in the heat of the spray for a moment, letting it run down the dark waves of her shoulder-length cut and over her body, drowning the chill winter air of their bedroom. She breathed deeply as the water ran over her, and found him when she at last opened her eyes.

She stooped towards him – far lower than she needed to, torso running almost perpendicular from her legs – affording a generous view of her bare chest as her eyes drew nearly level with his. She enjoyed dramatizing the extent to which she needed to lower herself to reach him. She brought both hands – hot from the steaming shower – around his midsection. She considered it too slick and dangerous in the shower to allow him to jump or slide down to her, and had forbidden him from entering through any means but her own. She moved him delicately, his arms slack over each of the hands that framed his torso. She brought him first to her face. They held one another's eyes for a moment, and he felt his groin lurch, trapped so in the hands of his naked partner, inches from that larger-than-life smile. She pressed his face into her puckered lips, her kiss a familiar force visited upon him whenever she held him so. She centered her lips around his, though their fullness encompassed a considerable portion of his face and the totality of his view. He kissed back just the same, pressing his face into the puckered embrace of her mouth to silently communicate his adoration for such affections. She held his face to hers for a moment, admiring the nuzzling glide of his head against her lips, then lowered him to enamel floor, centering him before her.

He stood facing her, feet firm where she placed him. Her body insulated him from the stream. He had always appreciated the high water pressure in the shower at his former height, the force of the water making it easier to clean the thick curls of his hair, soothing him as it battered his shoulders. It was too much for him to take on unprotected now. Even down by the floor of the tub the water fell too forcefully to be comfortable for him. He took a single step forward, placing himself directly under her.

Trickling streams of water fell gently from her and rained down around him. The torrent of the showerhead blasted water to her scalp and shoulders, where it ran down her form. It fell in long, steady drops from her breasts and elbows and poured in an unending column from her center – running along her stomach, over her vulva, and down to splash against the enamel between her feet. Here was his shower. He turned his back to the faucet, a tiny mimic of her own posture. He raised his head up, eyes shut as the water ran over his face, working it back into his hairline and massaging his scalp.

The water ran from her as though from a tap, far from the pressure of a shower, but it made up in volume what it lacked in force. He ran his fingers repeatedly through the areas of his hair and beard where her arousal had dried, feeling the strands break free as he worked the hot water through them. The natural texture of his hair returned . He opened his eyes, still facing upwards, and took her in. The water's course over her bodyscape placed him directly under her vulva. The swelling from the morning's excitement was going down, though still visible, its soft uneven folds glistening hues of heated pink in the cleansing rain. Droplets perched in the dark wire of her hair. The two rounds of her cheeks carried a deep line along under her and up to her backside. Water collected and dripped there too, the sound of their splashes against the tub's floor almost imperceptible over the rush of the torrent above. Her legs ran like spires above him, reaching a height more than two of his body lengths above his own head before melting into her midsection. He followed the steep lines of her and saw that she was staring down at him.

He could see only the bridge of her nose and up, the rest of her face obscured behind her raining chest, but he could tell by the pull at the corner of her eyes, the luminescent shine in their brown, that she was smiling at him. "You'll die a noble turkey's death, staring slackjaw into the rain like that, lil man," she teased.

"Lil ol' me?" He offered back, "I was just standing here minding my own business when you came out of nowhere!"

"Mhmm, sure," she intoned, drawing out the vowel sound in mock acceptance. "You good for shampoo?"

"Yup!" He had to shout to be heard over the water, and he offered an exaggerated nod to ensure that she caught his meaning. The smile in her downturned eyes deepened for a brief moment before she looked away to the caddy at the far corner of the tub. She found her shampoo, a large purple drum with a pump nozzle at its top, and filled her palm with a few squirts of gel. She had taken to filling her shampoos, conditioners, and washes in these containers after he Diminished; she had often let the slick plastic of traditional bottles fall from her hands in the shower, and was afraid for him. The sweet floral medley of her shampoo washed down to him.

She stepped forward, away from the water, and he hustled along with her, keeping the balls of their feet roughly aligned. Her hands worked the gel into a lather in the wet mop of her hair. Dry and in the light her hair shone a deep auburn, lighter tones peeking out from the layers of her rich waves. Here, soaked, and with the bathroom's light on the other side of the curtain, her hair was almost black, contrasting sharply with the white suds she worked around her scalp.

The stream he had been relying on had dwindled to long, steady drops when she stepped away from its source. They drummed around his shoulder as he leaned against her leg, head resting towards her calf while she lathered. The bathroom had quickly grown hot and muggy in these short minutes, the mirror surely fogged by now. A slight chill managed to find him, though, creeping over the rim of the tub and settling in the spaces outside of the water's touch. He drew closer to her leg.

"Here it comes," she warned, taking a pump of a lilac body wash into her palm and stepping back towards the water. She worked her hands around her chest and stomach, under her arms, and then down each arm. She wiped excess lather from her palms onto the fronts of her thighs and spread it up around her hips and back over her buttcheeks.

The water was beating against her again and his stream beneath her resumed. It no longer came as clear bathwater, though, but carried the soapy lather of her shampoo and bodywash away from her and down to him. He closed his eyes and looked up again, stepping into the fullness of the stream. The water eased his chill away instantly, and his nose filled with the mingling sweet and floral scents of the soapy water raining over him. He had until then still been able to smell her body on him, but the rich musks of her sex gave way to crisp notes of cucumber, vanilla, lilac, and melon as he worked his secondhand soap through his hair and over his body. The aches of the morning's exercise melted away from his thighs and chest as his nose filled with the sharp cleansing scents. She continued her work above him, rinsing her body clean of the wash, fingering through her hair to rinse away shampoo. Huge wet sheets crashed behind him when she threw her hair back to let the water seek out lingering soapy pockets. He steadied himself on her, arm wrapped loosely around her leg as the water from her hair woke a current around his ankles and water rushed towards the drain.

"Ready?" She called down to him, head angled sharply up, the water thrumming the floor behind him and kicking against his bare back. Her elbows were bent, hands overlapping at the crown of her head, hair bunched up and away from her.

"Ready!" He called, yelling over the rush of water, pressing twice against her calf in case his voice failed to reach her. Her hands twisted and slid to the ends of her hair, ringing a great wave of water free. He stepped back and into the wave, letting the water crash over him. He staggered at its force but remained upright, stepping backwards against the shock of its weight. The water was mostly clear of shampoo, and he ran his hands through his hair and over his face, down his arms and over his body, rinsing himself of soap.

She leaned forward as he rung his own hair out, twirling his wet mop into a ponytail that reached his shoulderblades, ringing water from it. She pumped at a third bottle, collecting conditioner this time, and worked it into her hair. She pushed the showerhead away, sending the stream cascading against the tile wall, to allow the conditioner to set. She took more body wash into her palms and squatted down towards him. Her tummy bunched as she lowered, the rounds of her ass parting.

He found himself eye level with her vulva once more. Water trickled down her legs, beading along the folds of her scrunched midsection. Her knees peaked just over his head, passing behind him; she walled him in on three sides.

"Soap me up, babeh," he sang, puffing his chest and raising his arms straight out to his sides. She smiled and brought her hands together above him, rubbing them slightly to lather the body wash. Some of it dripped onto his head and shoulders, slowly sliding down him, tickling as it crawled. Her hands were against him then. They came with a sharp coolness, the bodywash making first contact, but the heat of her hands were only an instant behind. She worked up and down the column of his body, caking him in thick soapy foam. He was clothed in it, the lather rising from his chest as high as his mouth. He looked ridiculous. He blew from his mouth in exaggerated puts, clearing his mouth as dramatically as he could.

Her work done, her soapy hands rose up to the shower's stream, clearing the lingering bubbly clouds from them, and then traveled to her knees. "The abominable soapman," she noted dryly. "Get to work before you melt away."

He began to move, and frothy wisps of the wash fell from him as he did. He stepped towards her, ducking under her vulva, and walked under her, shoulders hunched deeply. He rose to his full height when he was out from under her, turning to face her spread cheeks. He ran his arms up along the inside of her glutes, painting the interior of her cheeks with white foam. She braced herself against the rim of the tub and brought her knees – left, then right – to the cool enamel surface. His canvas lowered slightly and scooted towards him in the process. He stepped back to allow the roundness of her bum to settle at its new, more accessible height, and went to work. He ran his hands and forearms along the thick rounds of her glutes, wiping fine bubbles onto her. When he ran low on his supply he scooped liberally from the soapy armor that adorned him. He worked inwards, from the peak of her heat-flushed cheeks towards the valley between them. He rubbed vertically in the valley, driving soap into the skin around her asshole. She shuddered slightly as his arms found her there, tracing over its ridges, placing a flat pressure against it, each motion flirting with entry.

She drew a sharp, pleasured breath as her rectum twitched at his touch, then rose slightly and flexed her cheeks, binding him in the plushy maw of her ass. "Pace yourself. You get me too worked up in here I'll fall backwards. My weight is a lot less forgiving in the tub than in bed."

She relaxed her glutes and freed his arms. He returned to massaging the soap into the soft flesh of her cheeks. "Sorry. Can't make an omelet without stimulating a few butts."

A sarcastic sound of disgust rang out above him, but she wriggled her hips, flaring her ass towards him, threatening to knock him over as it swayed to soundless music. The soapy mix he had spread onto her mingled with the coating still surrounding him. He had been acutely aware of the heat radiating from between her legs during these labors, but his mind was temporarily flooded with thoughts of losing himself there. He pushed them away, knowing she expected him to finish up so she could continue getting ready for work. He patted her left cheek twice, cueing the next step.

She shifted slightly atop her knees, rising higher above him. Soap floated absently against the back of her thighs where her ass had rested. He turned from her, stepping over her left calf, and straddled her Achilles heel, facing the scrunched, water-reddened plane of her sole. He leaned forward and hugged her foot, squeezing his soap-drenched body against her puffy feet. His face found the space between the pads of her toes and the ball of her foot. He left the smell of lilac perfume behind him, but he could smell the slight, sweet sharpness of her toes in the first moments of his embrace. He breathed deeply, planted a kiss on the pad of her second toe, and righted himself.

He rose to his feet, approached her left ankle, and repeated the motion. Stooping as if in prayer to visit soap upon her soles, breathing their soft scent, withdrawing with a small kiss. She wriggled her toes into him upon his descents.

Both feet now covered in a base coat of soap, he rose from her right leg and knelt between them, facing the left again. He scrubbed and massaged over the surface of her sole, working from heel to toe, massaging the soap into her pruning foot. He visited the same devotional upon her right.

She eyed him while he worked, right shoulder forward, lower back arched, craning over her left side to stare down at him. He was aware of her eyes on him while he washed her. He stole glances up at her as he stooped over her foot. Her eyes smoldered as she cast her gaze down at him, basking in the sight of his small body working up a sweat cleaning the feet of the woman he loved.

They had found mutual gratification in his service to her even before he Diminished. He knew he was subordinate before they met, aroused by pretty toes, stern orders, and playful smothering; almost more animated when allowed to paint nails, massage, and provide pleasure than he ever was to receive it. She approached the dynamic with more curiosity than excitement at first, content to find a partner who she could offer sore legs to for doting attention after a long day at work, someone who would fold laundry and cook for her with visible excitement. It grew on her quickly, though, and she came to find the dynamic as arousing as he seemed to. She found herself eager to get home after a difficult day so that she could stick the damp richness of her nylons in his face to be licked and rubbed whole again. She relished at his nigh worshipful moans when she found herself wanting and wordlessly climbed onto his face, smothered him as she rode until she had her fill, acknowledging the engagement with little more than a pat on his panting head as she walked away. She found that the things that she loved so dearly about him as her partner – his caring nature, his intuition and deep-rooted empathy, even the self-deprecating and sardonic humor he hid behind from time to time – she could love anew when he served as her pet. They thrived together under this agreement. He, full-time emotional support and doting boyfriend, part-time pet. She, kind, nurturing, and scathingly funny always, goddess of their one-bedroom apartment sometimes. Diminishing had cast all of this in new light, and they were still working on finding their new strides together, but it had all worked to severely deepen this reciprocal cycles of service, care, and love.

His work complete, he approached her behind. They each strained to hold one another's eyes, but her cheeks soon eclipsed an easy behind-the-shoulder view of him, and her attention turned to the floor of the tub in front of her. She did not rise into her previous squatting position, which easily enabled him to hunch under her, but remained on her knees, spreading her thighs slightly and raising herself only a few inches. She left him facing a narrow trench, a few inches of space separating thigh and her core. She'd make him crawl under her. "You make for a good loofah," she purred as she felt him drop to hands and knees between her calves. She was surprised at the arousal in her voice. Her excitement around his new size seemed to be growing on her, not normalizing as she had originally anticipated. "Maybe we'll soak tonight?"

"I'd love that," he murmured, too low and too quiet for her to hear him over the rush of water above. He was on his hands, squeezing along the cavern she had offered him. His shoulders brushed her squashed calves on both sides. He crawled steadily along, holding his head high enough to run the length of her underside, tickling under her tailbone and grazing along her vulva. He pressed kisses into her as he went, offering lapping motions as he passed under her lips, rising into them and feeling the tremors of her arousal all around him.

Her hands were waiting for him. As his shoulders emerged from beneath her they found him, lifting under his arms, pulling him the rest of the way. She lifted up swiftly, dragging the length of his waist and legs against the eager catch of her moistening labia as he rose. She rolled him slightly, moving his full weight to her right hand, fingers wrapping towards his front as they closed.

"You don't listen," she reprimanded, tilting her head in an exaggerated mimicry of scolding. "I believe I said just moments ago that if you played around under there you'd risk an accidental squishing?" He was grinning back at her, his full erection swaying with the motion of her hand. She could feel the flush spreading from the bridge of her nose, the tingling hunger his probing hands had stoked at her ass and set aflame with the sliding, filling pressure of his trip under her.

"Guess I was looking forward to some squishing," he offered back to her, fighting to wipe a stupid grin off of his face and failing, visibly and miserably.

"I have an insolent little goblin today, then?" She gathered her feet back under her and rose to her full height as she spoke, bringing him with her. She held him close, barely above her chest, requiring that he crane upwards to look into the hungry lights of her eyes. She absently moved the faucet to spray behind her again, washing away the soap he had spread around her backside. She was smiling now. He was joy-drunk in her grip, trying to hold her gaze while stealing eyefulls of her water-beaded breasts, gently stroking at the tip of her index finger at his chest with his right hand, his left having apparently discovered his erection. "If you cum I'll put you in the fridge."

He blinked. He had not consciously started masturbating as she held him, and his pumping slowed to a stop. He felt the telltale pressure of an impending rupture. She could see him working through the calculus of her threat in his mind. Surely she wouldn't put him in the fridge. Would she? That would kill him! Wouldn't it? They were playing! Right? His left hand fell away from his crotch, the head of his dick red and ripe with proximity. His grin turned sheepish but endured.

"I didn't say stop." The calculus returned, then resolved, and his hand shot back to his penis. It was taking slow, deliberate pumps now, agonizing over its length in the hopes of prolonging the pulsing inevitable. She pressed him to her breasts, feeling his tiny hard-on grazing against the sensitive skin of her areola. He practically convulsed. The felt a heat uncurl around the tingling he had set in motion, realized the need that was waking up in her again.

"You're so mean," he gasped pitifully. He watched her free hand swirl along her breast, tracing a light circle over her nipple before meandering downwards, dancing over her stomach and briefly disappearing inside of her. Arousal bloomed through her, taking root around her touch. She brought it back to him, slick with her arousal, and touched her fingers to his face. He inhaled the heady aroma of her sex. "You're so, so mean," he managed, voice barely a whisper, twinged by desperation. He was so tense in her hand, his torso ramrod straight in his strain, feet pointing straight down, apparently invoking the entirety of his small body on preventing the finish that he desperately, visibly, trembled for.

She smiled at him, her tongue curling over the top of her lip. She cupped her hand in the stream of the shower and let it run over with hot water. She brought it over his head and drained it, washing away the trace soap from his writhing body. He cringed at the unexpected flush of water, and relaxed somewhat. "Goblins don't cum before goddesses," she recited, mocking lilt in her voice as she quoted him. "Those were your words, not mine, but I'll happily hold you to them. Run along now. I have to rinse this conditioner out of my hair and get moving."

Much of him deflated at her words, though his dick held arrow-straight. She brought him to her face for a kiss, parting her lips slightly to run her tongue over his mouth and nose. He convulsed again in desperate pleasure, racked with unmet need. She parted the curtain slightly and placed him on the plush bathmat, pulling it tight after him to prevent peeking. "I'll be right out," she said, her animal baby-talk tone returning.

He stood, sunken past his ankles in the thick shag of the bathmat, stupefied. He heard the slapping sounds of water as she worked the conditioner out of her hair. A minute passed as she rinsed thoroughly, and the water shut off at last. He had needed that time for lucidity to return to him, the roiling pressure consuming him outwardly from his groin dulling into a slow ache. He had come so close, agonizingly close, well past what he had thought was a point of no return. But he reined himself in and began willing himself soft.

The curtain opened and she emerged, lithe steps carrying her glistening body gracefully over him. Stray droplets fell from her body and hair rained all around him; they cooled nearly instantly outside of the shower, and the morning chill crept back to his naked body. She reached up to a shelf mounted over the toilet, still standing over him, and retrieved a towel. She rubbed face, arms, and legs with it, before throwing it around her chest and folding it tightly to her. It reached down to her mid-thigh, though his angle still offered him a revealing look upwards. Her wet hair fell about her shoulders in spiky strands of varied length.

She reached down for him with both hands again, placing her right hand to his chest, guiding him into the crook of her left arm. The fingers of her left hand closed over the outside of his right thigh as she raised him like a baby to the warm dampness of the towel around her chest. She held him there as she stepped over to the bathroom sink, wiping the fog of the mirror away with a stray handcloth. She squeezed him to her in bouncy rhythms, an unconscious rhythm to her as she swayed him, before she deposited him on the pedestal of the sink. She reached over him to pull down a fresh washcloth for him. He accepted it and blotted it at himself, eventually tying it around his midsection.

She turned the sink on, freeing a rush of cold water over the bristles of her toothbrush. She tapped it loudly against the sink's twice and squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles. She closed off the tap. The brush entered her mouth as she began to work it in sharp circles against her teeth. He watched her reflection in the mirror. She tried her best to offer a smile while brushing when they caught eyes in the mirror, dribbling some paste along her chin.

"Thanks, bug," she lisped, mouth full of brush and toothpaste. She spit, saliva and toothpaste mingling in a viscous puddle that ran towards the drain. "Same time tomorrow?"

She had placed the toothpaste tube next to him uncovered. He swabbed his hand at it and brought the paste to his mouth. He smiled back at her reflection and began brushing his fingers against his teeth, waiting to speak until his mouth was obstructed by the frothing paste. "You know where to find me."

Chapter three: Dressing

He worked his finger around his teeth, spreading toothpaste in squeaky circles. They hadn't yet worked out how best to simulate a tiny toothbrush. He eyed her in the mirror as she brushed, the mirror still foggy, save for the small patch she had cleared away while she held him. His towel was doing its best to keep out the nipping chill of the bedroom behind him. The sweet, muggy haze of their shower made the air hang heavily around him.

She abruptly turned around and walked out of the room. He continued brushing, watching the spot she had vanished from in the mirror. She was back a moment later, lazily swiping through her phone. Her free hand idly tugged at a strand of hair by her temple as she focused on the screen, waiting for him.

He finished brushing as she reappeared in the mirror and spit. The minty tributary of his saliva ran down the bowl of the sink, meeting the great, ponderous puddle she had produced by the drain. He approached the tissuebox on the back corner of the pedestal. He tore a corner from the tissue protruding from the box with both hands, coming away with a strip that he used to wipe the stray paste from his hand. He crumpled it in his hand as he walked back towards the edge of the pedestal nearest the door. Towards her.

"Any fun tweets?" He asked as he reached the edge. He looked up at her face, her brow furrowing as her pupils darted to and fro, scanning at the screen.

"There are never any fun tweets," she offered dryly, her lowered voice betraying interest in whatever she was reading. She glanced quickly at him, then back to the screen, and her free hand parted from her hair to center at the small of his back. She turned slightly, her left side pointed towards him, and she gathered him to her. She held him at her hip, her left palm taking the weight of his bottom and holding him to the natural groove above her waist. He steadied himself with handfuls of the towel's yellow fabric. It was an old towel, worn and thinning, and he thought about the smooth plane of her skin underneath it. She was warm against him, bouncing absentmindedly as she walked back into the bedroom, eyes down on her screen. He could see her phone now, and watched as her thumb flew over its surfaces, tearing through her timeline, pausing occasionally for a moment's attention, and moving along. He rested his head against the steadiness of her. The towel had a slight must to it already as the wet fabric cooled in the chilly room.

They crossed the room together, he astride her hip. She stopped towards the far corner from the bathroom door and faced her desk, a simple flat surface of painted wood, three drawers built into the bottom of its right side. She tapped at her phone, queuing up her morning playlist, and adjusted the volume to a low setting. The sound of acoustic strumming filled the room, the husky drawl of a woman retracing melancholic steps through her past. She placed her phone, screen up, on the desk.

She rocked gently to the rolling rhythm of the song. He could hear her humming above him and beneath him, the column of her body rumbling along in her voice. Her diaphragm expanded against him, his head riding the gentle rise of her ribs outward. She centered a heavy chrome mirror in front of the seat before the desk, flicking the switch at its base. A rim of bright white light awakened around its perimeter. Her free hand reached for the simple wicker-seated chair beside her, drawing it out and moving between it and the desk.

The weight of her hand began to ease behind him. She gently drew her hand from his back, hovering behind him where before it had firmly planted him against her. She steadied the back of the chair with her free hand and began to sit. He relaxed his hold on her towel, sliding gently back into the seat of her palm. He glided down the towel this way, traveling back to the floor in the safety of her guiding hand as she sat down in the chair.

The wicker quietly squeaked as her weight settled into it. Her hand left him at the right angle of her sitting knee and he slid the rest of the way down her leg unaided. He passed down her quickly, the washcloth at his waist loosening as he fell, and landed with a none-too-graceful thud on the top of her foot. She had driven her heel to the ground and raised her toes towards into air as he made his final descent, slowing the momentum of his fall. Her practiced motion made a "V" of shin and foot and he landed in its nadir, his back tossed flat against the base of her toes.

He rolled sloppily, transferring the vertical momentum of his fall into a clumsy motion off of her. He stuck his landing and steadied himself on his feet. Her right foot stepped in as she scooted her chair under the desk. It moved directly for him, toes scrunching slightly as they gently gripped at his head. He wrapped his right arm around the top of her foot to steady himself against it. A playful "mwah" sound came from above the desk as her foot "kissed" him. He responded with a loud, wet "mwah" of his own, driving an obnoxiously grand kiss against the pad of her big toe. He looked up from her wriggling toes as they retreated back to the floor, just in time to see her moving back into an upright sitting position. The familiar clicks and shuffles came from above as she began to assemble the day's makeup on the cluttered surface of the desk before her.

The cubby he occupied darkened as she scooted her legs in under the desk, eclipsing the light from the room. Her ankles found one another, right foot behind left heel, toes pressing towards one another, as she drew her legs in and under her chair. They still rolled vaguely to the slow beat of the music that chimed from her phone. He placed his palm on her shin as he squeezed by, pressing through the space between her leg and the desk's, reemerging into the bedroom proper.

She was rubbing her fingertips against her cheekbones, radiating outwards, moisturizing her face. She stared intently into the mirror, its ring of light brilliant in the depths of her pupils. She half-sang, half-hummed vague approximations of lyrics as she opened the bottle of foundation, eyes returning to the mirror. He reached up and ran his hand along the notched wood frame of her chair as he walked past. He moved in the direction of the bathroom door again. He passed the foot of their bed, walking along the rim of the lake of dirty laundry as he did. His feet passed from the hard press of the apartment's cheap carpet to the cold scratch of denim, the sinking plush of sweatshirt interiors, the sleek slips of silk underwear. He stepped out of his way to squish at the thick gel of a pushup bra with his toes. He walked on. The doorway out of their bedroom, shut tight, rose along the wall to his left. The bathroom was straight ahead of him, its door ajar. The artificial light flowing from the fixture she had forgotten to throw off as they exited crept out, mingling with the natural lighting of the bedroom.

He turned to his right and set off along her side of the bed. The top of the mattress was exposed above him; she had pulled the sheets over towards his side as she rose this morning. It stood over twice his height above his head. He had no way of accessing the bed from her side, save her aid. They had tried leaving steps or other climbing aids on both sides of the bed, but she found them to be nuisances after stumbling over them routinely on late night trips to the bathroom. He didn't mind.

He continued to walk alongside the raised vastness of the bed to his right. About three quarters down its length, almost centered before her nightstand, he found the underwear she had discarded in the morning's excitement. They were one of her favorite pair for sleeping: soft cotton bikini with alternating horizontal bars of mint and seafoam. He squatted down in front of the heap, found the waistband, and rose with two handfulls. He brought his arms out to either side as he rose, his wingspan sufficient to bring the panties out to their worn shape. He folded them in half as he had a blanket at his former scale, and threw them over his left shoulder. The crotch of the panties were a cool dampness on his shoulder, not having yet allowed her arousal to dissipate fully. His mind returned to the warm, pulsing weight of exploring her. He could still smell her on them, gently wafting from his shoulder. He turned around and walked back down the bed's length, turning towards her again and facing the laundry pile.

He listened to the clacks and tinks of her routine as he approached the pile. It rose a couple of inches above his head. He sank his feet into the soft wool base afforded by one of her favorite sweaters. He fell forward as he stepped up, reaching upwards and taking a handful of a denim leg. The jeans were heavy, and the leg emerged from within the pile, so he knew it would easily take his meager weight. He stepped up again, his foot finding purchase in the dark puddle of a cami. Another fistful of leggings, another step above the denim, and he had crested the pile. He shrugged her underwear from his shoulders and fell to his seat. The smells of her were everywhere here: her clean, floral deodorant in the arms of her tops; the sweet, warm musk of her sweat in the thick collars of sweaters; the sharp brine and buttery lows of worn socks and tights; lotions and perfume mingling in sweaters, weekend dresses, and coats; the heady medley of arousal and cum in the underwear he had deposited next to him.

The cool, snaring softness of this mountain of her was almost dizzying. Each morning he was charged with retrieving whatever clothing she had left between the bathroom and bed and adding it to the pile. Each morning he took on the unnecessary extra labor of scaling the laundry to experience her in this way. He slid down the pile in a seated position, holding onto the rim of his towel as he traveled. He rose back to his feet and approached her chair, admiring her absentminded hums.

He stopped parallel to her chair and looked up at her. She was focused on her reflection, both hands at her face as she applied eyeliner. "What does your day look like?"

"Ugh," she grunted, anticipatory frustration already racking her voice. "I'm everywhere today. I am already covering a few committee meetings while my boss is on sabbatical, and Mandy decided to wait until an hour before we went home last night to tell me that she can't cover the info session this afternoon." He could see anxiety working into her form as she considered the day ahead. Her voice quickened as she spoke, the linework of her shoulders becoming taut. Her hand hand found the desk a little too quickly as she brought the pencil from her face, the loud thwack of pencil on wood rang sharply in contrast with the soft music in the room.

"Damn, that sucks. You guys are way understaffed. If only you had someone you could bring with you to help. Some kind of assistant, maybe? It would probably help if he was handsome as hell and easy to carry around, too, huh?" He flourished his arms in a dramatic "ta-da" pose. His towel fell away from him, but he decided that he was too committed to the schtick to catch it.

She turned away from her lipstick drawer to face him and smiled. He saw a shred of the anxious frustration in her eyes fade as the warmth of her smile found them. "Oh I'm sure!" She teased. She leaned back in the seat as she reached for him, raising him from under his arms, palms firm around his torso. He felt weightless as he rose in her hands, soft and strongly cloaked in the scent of the lavender lotion she had recently applied. "We're always so productive when I bring you in with me." She raised him to eye level and held him there, a foot from her face. His naked legs dangled in the cool air of the room as she considered him.

"I mean I think I'm an excellent assistant, but if you have found my performance lacking-" She silenced him with a kiss, his face pressed deep into the fullness of her lips. He leaned into it, the pressure of his face against hers a more tactile assent than simply reciprocating with his mouth. She still tasted slightly of toothpaste, and the gentle coolness of spearmint stayed with him as she brought him away from her mouth and to the desk. His feet found the chipped white surface of the desk as her hands left him. "I'm just sayin'," he continued.

She smiled at him again, then offered an exaggerated pout. "I wish. I'd love the company today. But I'm barely going to be in my office, and you know I hate leaving you there. I'm going to be nervous enough about presenting that session, I can't add worrying about you getting hurt or someone finding you or even you just being super bored while I'm doing it. Sorry, bug." She returned to her lipstick drawer, rummaging with her index and middle fingers to find the right color.

He deflated slightly – he loved when he could spend the whole day with her – but he understood that there was no ground to gain here. "Aw, okay. Unless. Hear me out here. Unless you," he paused for effect, "wear me! I'll be super sneaky. I can offer you tips or encouragement or whatever, and most importantly make fun of all the dumb questions you get." He stepped in front of the mirror and sat, crossing his legs. The wood was cold on his bare skin, but the metal mirror was colder. He had to test his back against it a couple times before he could lean against it.

She smirked at him and a slight snort escaped her. "Sure, sure, no one will have any questions about the wriggling lump in my shirt all day. And you bitch about my body heat when you spend too long under a t-shirt, do you have any idea how stuffy it'd be spending hours at a time under my work clothes?"

"One way to find out?" He offered back.

She popped the tube of lipstick open. "You're cute. It's not happening." She pursed her lips and began applying a smoky purple to her lips. Bold corporate goth aesthetic was her go-to silent protest whenever she had to dress formally for an event. Her eyes bounced from the reflection of her lips to him. "I can maybe bring you in on Monday. My schedule looks way lighter, and I need to work on accreditation reports at some point next week, so I can keep my office door closed all day." She went back to her lipstick.

"Oh awesome, okay. I guess I can survive another workday without you if I have to." He leaned his head against the mirror and felt more than heard the barely audible hum from its light above him. His eyes traveled up the sharp lines of her throat as she checked her reflection in the mirror from varying angles. They settled when they found hers.

She pressed her lips into a hard line as she finished her work and rolled her eyes at him. "You're so brave," she offered in a teasing deadpan. She took another look at her reflection as she covered the top of the lipstick and replaced it in the small plastic drawer. It jostled as she pushed it shut. Apparently satisfied, she reached for a spray bottle of leave-in conditioner. She threw her head towards her right side, her drying curls all pooling over her shoulder. She began to work the conditioner into her hair, spraying the bottom and scrunching her way up.

"I'm an inspiration, I know." He said, rising to his feet. He turned to the mirror and stooped to turn the light off. It faded from the perimeter of the glass as he rose to face his own reflection. His hair had begun to form ringlets as it air dried and he tossed it around in the mirror, working his part. He ran his hands through the mop of it a few times, catching on a couple of snarls to work them out. He tossed the body of it out behind him and let it settle behind his shoulders. They made eye contact through the mirror. "What time do you think you'll be home?"

She was working the conditioner into her roots now. "The session starts at 3:30. It will hopefully only be an hour, so I should only be a few minutes later than usual tonight. If that changes I'll let you know though."

He nodded at her through the mirror. She was – on paper – an administrative assistant for a university English department. She worked more like a department head though, and had somehow become responsible for an enormous amount of the event planning and student development projects that the department took on. Her hours became inconsistent at the beginnings and ends of semesters, and whenever large projects such as these info sessions cropped up. She didn't love the hours, but the commute was great and the pay kept them afloat on a single income. She took an enormous amount of pride from her work.

He turned from the mirror and walked towards her as she finished up at her scalp. She scuffed the chair back a few inches and rose to her feet. He stood there, centered on the edge of the desk, rising to just about navel height before her, and looked up at her. She tugged at the towel, parting the folded knot that held it to her. She balled it slightly and tossed it into the pile behind her, where the damp cotton landed with a soft thud.

He stared, taking her in. Every glimpse of her came as if it was his first. Their eyes had met as she took off the towel, and she took a step closer to the table to intensify the angle of their contact. His eyes traveled over her bodyscape, settling straight ahead, and he watched the subtle motion of her breathing on the sloping paleness of her stomach. Gooseflesh bloomed across her as her skin bid farewell to its barrier from the room's cold.

She pivoted slightly, bringing her left thigh to the desk. He stepped closer to her, leaning his chest into the slope of her hip. Her body was much cooler than it had been on their trip out of the bathroom. He slid his fingertips out and over her as he leaned into her, and she inhaled sharply as his light touches crossed over the soft plush of her stomach. Goosebumps awoke in greater number to greet his touch. Her left hand found his backside as she crooked her hip slightly, and she brought him up and onto it. He straddled her there, pressed against her. He continued his slight touches, planting kisses against the side of her ribs as she turned to walk towards the closet. She jerked in tiny twitches as he did, the muscles in her stomach and arms contracting in response to his touch. He could feel himself getting hard against her and the gentle pecks of his kisses gained weight as they shifted towards eager mouthfuls and weighted licks.

The weight of her hand grew, and she pressed him deeper into her side in a quick squeeze. "Don't get yourself too worked up over there. It's time to get dressed." She took the last few steps past the bathroom door and flicked the closet's lightswitch on. She pulled the door with her free hand and stepped in. It was a small walk-in, its interior perimeter lined with a thick wall of her clothing. She turned to her left and faced a cluster of work clothes: a combination of dresses, sweaters, and textured blouses. She leafed through them, sliding the hangers around. Her absent hum returned as she began to bounce slightly on her feed. They danced together in a slow, off-beat rhythm as she considered her options for the day. He rested his head against her, letting his eyes close with the calming sway of her hips.

"Whatcha feeling today?" He asked, and listened as the sliding clack of hangers added percussion to her hums.

"I dunno," she almost sighed. "I feel like I need to dress up for this thing, but everyone who shows up is going to be in jeans and t-shirts. I don't want to overdo it."

"You never overdo it. You're peak fashion and you're always gorgeous." He recited. He meant it, but his compliments bounced off her whenever she thought she detected hyperbole, which was often.

"That's not helpful," she said, a teasing squeeze bringing him into her again as she bounced. "You're never helpful."

"I am the single most helpful person alive, thank you." He said brazenly.

"Mhmm."

"What about the cat dress? Black dress makes it formal, cats make it fun?" He attempted to insert a helpful suggestion into his usual teasing.

"Hm, maybe," she considered. He opened his eyes to see her swiping garments aside until she found the dress. It was a light blend of black fabrics with orange tabbies and small silver stars. "I haven't worn this in a while, and I can wear a scarf with this." She pulled it from the dresser and looked it over. "Plus I can wear tights. Yeah okay. Thanks bug. Maybe you're not useless all the time after all." The bouncing squeeze returned.

"High praise! I love that dress though!" He had bought it for her a couple of years ago. It was not her only article of clothing featuring cats in space.

"Can you grab me some black tights?" She asked. He clapped his hand to her back twice in assent, and her hold on him eased. Her hand led him over her hip and down her leg. It left him around her knee as she straightened back to her full height, and he slid the rest of the way unaided. He landed on his feet and planted a kiss at her calf that turned into a loud raspberry.

"You're gross," she mocked as he walked deeper into the closet. He stopped about midway down the length of the room and gripped the bottom drawer that faced him. She had rearranged their closet after his Diminishing. She kept a few of his old t-shirts that she liked to sleep in, and some of his sweaters that she could lounge in, but they had donated most of his clothes. She moved anything that he could fetch for her – underwear, socks, leggings, tights, camis, t-shirts – towards the floor, opting to put heavier garments such as jeans and sweaters in drawers beyond his reach.

He threw his weight into opening the drawer and it slid a few inches towards him. He tugged again, leveraging the weight so that he could slide it open enough for him to see most of its contents. He was aware of her eyes on him, watching him struggle with the weight of the drawer, but she withheld her jokes this time. After the drawer was open she turned to walk back towards to the desk and grab her phone, and then sat on her side of the bed, facing him and waiting for his delivery.

He stepped around to the side of the drawer to get a better look at its contents. At its floor sat a couple pairs of yoga pants, on top of which went leggings and then tights. He sifted through the knotted lines of tights, searching for the new black pair she had bought last time she was at Target. He found them towards the front of the bin and withdrew them, dropping them on the floor. He walked back around to the front of the drawer, lifted it, and walked it back into its base. He had to throw his weight into heaving it shut firmly before turning to pick up the fabric ball. He held the knot to his chest with both arms as he walked back towards her.

She beamed at him as he approached. "Thanks lil guy, sorry the big scary bin gave you so much trouble," she offered in a teasing sing-song. She brought her feet down into the carpet on either side of him, scrunching her toes to grip at the carpet. She leaned over him. "Hold on tight so I can make sure my bug is okay," she continued, mocking deep concern.

He stopped between her legs, inches from the bed's foundation. He smiled up at her as she loomed over him, raising the knot towards her. "You're ridiculous," he offered back, though they both knew that the other loved these chiding jokes.

She reached down and a claw of index, middle finger, and thumb locked around the knot of the fabric. He tightened his grips between her fingers and she lifted, slowly, raising him up along with the tights. Her free hand found him as he passed her knees, her palm forming a seat for him as she continued to bring him up. She wound the fingers of her right hand around his midsection and brought his torso to her lips. Her left hand tugged the tights from his hand and discarded them to her side.

She looked him up and down, pretending to appraise him for injuries, before opening her hold on him slightly and kissing him gently on his chest. Before he could take in the warm press of her mouth, though, he was overtaken by her tongue. She pressed the full, hot weight of it against him, letting its tip tease his cock for the briefest of seconds before traveling up his midsection. She flicked it up over his chest and brought it down again over his face, leaving him damp with her saliva. She pressed her lips back to his stomach and blew a raspberry, loud and long, sending tremors down the whole of his body and causing him to yell out in surprised laughter.

She held it for as long as she could and he writhed against her, wheezing in tortured hysterics at the intense tickling of her lips. She eventually pulled back from his soaked form, grinning at him as he gathered his breath. She wiped some spittle from her mouth with the back of her palm and they laughed together. "That's what you get," she said proudly.

She placed him on her pillow, and he immediately threw himself at her. He crashed into her side and her hand flew out to catch him into her roll as she collapsed down the length in the bed, pretending to fall under his weight. "Ew no wait you're so wet!" She exclaimed as she felt the dampness of his stomach against her side. She rolled onto her back and lifted him, blotting at him with a handful of blanket. She brought him to her stomach and dropped him there, where he sat cross legged, rising and falling above her navel as she continued to giggle.

"Love you, Ness," he said, falling to his back and laying down the length of her stomach. He threw his hands out behind his head, reaching into empty air as her mons rolled down towards the bed. "Love you a whole lot."

She brought her right arm under her head for support and her and her left hand to him, where the nails of her index and middle fingers traced delicate circles around his torso. "Love you a whole lot too, bug."

They spent a few moments laying together that way. His eyes closed at the delicate touch of her nails to his stomach and the gentle swaying motion of her breathing body beneath him. His hands had crooked backwards and traced lazy circles around the inside of her thigh. Her meandering hand eventually became a blanket, and she closed her eyes as her palm fell flat across his torso. He brought one arm out to support his head and began tracing his circles along the tops of her fingers.

Her voice came low and sleepy again. "We should get back up. I need coffee. You must be hungry." She squeezed her fingers gently, prodding at him.

He patted her hand with his palm playfully. "Coffee sounds nice. Staying here sounds nicer. Oh no! Maybe you're sick today and have to call out?"

She groaned. "Nooo don't tempt me. That sounds so nice. I need to go in today." She brought her hand past his waist and closed her fingers around his left leg. She pulled him slowly up the length of her. He passed over her and between her breasts as she pulled him into a straddling position at the base of her throat. She smiled at him and started to rise to a sitting position. Her hand found his back before he began to fall, guiding him down to the mattress. She scooted to the edge of the mattress and reached for the ball of tights. She undid their knot and spread them over her right foot, scrunching them up past her knee before repeating the motion for her left. When both knees were covered she rose. He watched intently as she danced the tight fabric up her thighs and over the roundness of her glutes. The fabric stretched thin over her backside, white rounds of cheek peeking through the black fabric.

She turned to face the bed again and found him there, lying upside down and eyeing her, visibly aroused. She rolled her eyes at him, but she smiled. "You're ridiculous this morning," she said, lifting the dress from the bed and orienting it towards her.

"Why don't you have a seat real quick," he suggested, patting on his chest, "We can have a quick muffled chat about how ridiculous I am."

She shook her head and disappeared into the dress for a moment. She reemerged from its collar, pulling it down and over her, where it stopped just above her knees. "I bet we would. You going to put some clothes on today or are you going to spend the whole day as a pitiful naked mess of hormones?"

"Kinda leaning towards the latter if I'm honest," he muttered as he rose to his feet.

"Of course you are. Here," she stepped into the closet, knelt down, and returned with a small pair of thick black cotton pants and a grey t-shirt. Ness had commissioned a woman who makes clothing for dolls to make a few to-scale outfits out of cotton and blended fabrics after his Diminishing. They hadn't realized how poorly and uncomfortably actual doll clothing would fit him, and despite her insistence he still won't let her put him in children's clothes. "Put these on at least so you don't freeze." She tossed him the clothes.

He caught the pants, but the shirt went wide. He stepped into each leg, wobbling slightly at the uneven footing on the mattress, and then retrieved the shirt. By the time he poked his head out of its collar she had opened the bedroom door and set off down the hallway. He returned to the floor by way of the comforter and laundry pile, stumbled out onto the carpet, and set off after her.

"I'm going to be late if we keep this pace up," she called from down the hallway. He could hear the refrigerator door pop open before he reached the bedroom doorway. "You're making coffee."

It was a straight shot from the bedroom door, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. She stooped in front of the refrigerator, its open door blocking his view of everything but her feet, crossed in consideration. He broke into a jog towards her. "Can do!" he called back.

 Chapter four: Huntering

Ness gently kicked the fridge door shut as she rose and spun away from it. He crossed into the kitchen as she strode towards the stove. She set an egg carton and a veggie sausage down on the counter to the left of the stove. She turned and stepped towards him. He raised his arms as she leaned down to lift him. The tips of her fingers met in a lattice along his back as her hands settled around his armpits. She lifted him quickly, the air rushing and a slight dizziness finding him as the floor fell beneath him. "Uuup we go," she almost sang she rose with him in hand. The marbled laminate was cold under his feet as she placed him upon the countertop.

She had left him to the right of the stove, in front of the coffee maker. It was an expensive machine with a sleek design, and he reached above the carafe to pull the grounds tray towards him. It swung open after a slight tug. He stepped closer to the machine and grabbed at the top of the filter with both hands. It was still damp with yesterday's grounds. He pulled the sides of the filter together and stepped backwards, heaving to drag the mass of paper and wet grounds out of the machine. The machine was almost exactly his height, which made for awkward work. The slope of the grounds tray aided his efforts, lifting the filter as he dragged, and the bundle came free. It was heavy in his hands, but manageable, and he turned away from the machine to face Ness.

She had watched him liberate the coffee grounds as she pulled out a small frying pan and a cutting board. She leaned to her right to slide the trash bin out from its cabinet next to the sink. He dropped his load from the countertop and watched it land at the bottom of the bin. "Thanks!" he chimed as he turned to walk back to the machine. She slid the cabinet shut with her right foot. "Any time, bug."

He returned to the coffee maker. A small metal tray on top of the machine held clean filters. He reached up on his tiptoes to pull one down and swung it in a motion he had, at another scale, reserved for trash bags and bedsheets to open it up. He placed the empty filter back in the tray still beaded with moisture from the last brew. He stepped to the left of the machine and turned his attention to a metal grounds container. It was a squat cylinder, a little over half a foot tall, made of a seafoam brushed stainless steel and emblazoned with a silver "V." They had always preferred fresh ground coffee, though his new size made operating the grinder almost impossible, so Ness typically ground a few pots worth of beans at a time and had picked up this container to keep the surplus fresh.

He stepped to the right side of the canister and leaned his torso over the top, grateful for the shirt Ness had reminded him to don as the cold metal surface curved along his stomach and chest. He found the left-side latch to the canister's seal and heaved upwards. The latch held firm for a moment before beginning a slow ascent. As the seal broke the latch abandoned its resistance and rushed to meet his face. He rose quickly as it approached, avoiding the collision, and bounded backwards onto his feet. He steadied himself and let his eyes wander up from the canister, over the stovetop and to Ness.

She was at work at the counter beyond the stovetop. She had chopped the veggie sausage and jalapeno, and was working through half of an onion. She had resumed her half-worded hums as she chopped. As he watched her she wrinkled her nose and silently mouthed in something like a yawn, water overrunning her eyes as the onion got to her. She took a half-step back from the counter, knife still in hand, and rolled the outside of her wrist at her eyes to blot the tears away. She caught him eyeing her as she stepped back to the cutting board.

"Taking a break already?" She mused, cutting at the last slices of onion.

"No," he offered back, stepping around the canister to face the other latch. "Heard my girlfriend crying and thought maybe I needed to defend her." He leaned across at the canister again and pried at the right latch, feeling the lid beneath him lift as the latch gave way.

"Oh I think the onion could take you, sweetheart," she offered in feigned pity, stepping in front of the stove and watching him struggle with the canister.

"Ye of little faith. Countless onions have met their end at the tip of my blade." He stood upright and ran his hands along the inside seal of the canister, then threw it open like a chest. The rich notes of the ground beans washed over him, chasing the morning's sleepiness further from his mind. He leaned back down over the canister to retrieve the scoop that had become buried under an inch of grounds.

"Maybe before you were onion-sized. I can't even imagine what cutting one of these would be like for you, you'd probably go blind." She admired him from above, watching him rummage for the scoop. "Cute bum, though." She poked her pinky finger at his backside, briefly pinning his pelvis against the cold smoothness of the canister and lifted slightly, driving him bodily up and thus deeper into the canister. The slight curve of her nail slipped between his cheeks, laying a firm, even pressure against his ass.

In the moments that his full weight sat atop the pointing force of her pinky he found his mind quickly flashing over thoughts of their time in bed earlier that morning. Her teasing press disappeared as quickly as it had come, though, and he found himself scrambling to get his feet back onto the countertop and draw himself out of the canister.

"That was unfair," he sighed, drawing the scoop out of the canister and turning to face her.

"What?" She teased, twisting a knob as a blue flame clicked and sprung to life beneath her pan. "I'm a simple girl. I see a cute bug-butt, I touch the cute bug-butt." She drew a small slice of butter from the dish on the counter and flicked it towards the pan where it landed and began to sputter.

She met his gaze, noticed an erection under his sweatpants, and smiled at him. "Doesn't take much these days, huh? If you had told me you were that into butt stuff before you were little we could have picked up more toys. I'll make note for later." The butter had begun to sizzle in the pan, and she lifted the cutting board. She swept the knife across it, drawing out a grating sound as the blade dragged along the board and guided the sausage, pepper, onion, and pile of spinach into the pan. The sizzling grew louder and the kitchen began to fill with the smells of their breakfast.

"Hadn't quite caught it back then, I guess." He shrugged, watching her stir at the veggies. "You ought to let me return the favor. I see a cute Ness-bum but I can't quite reach it from here."

She smirked and rolled her hips, pointing her backside towards his countertop. She scrunched her dress up towards the small of her back, revealing the full rounds of her pale cheeks straining the dark fabric of her tights.

"Are you inviting a trust jump? Because I'll get a running start and dive if you wanna see how that goes." He remarked dryly, eyes fixed.

"No butts for boys who haven't finished making coffee," she chided. She put the spoon she was using to fuss with the vegetables down and picked up an egg.

"You're killing me," he muttered playfully, turning back to the canister. He plunged the scoop into the fragrant mounds of coffee and drew back, angling the scoop against the canister in a steady incline and walking it back to avoid emptying its contents back into the pile. He swung the now-full scoop around and hefted it up and into the coffee filter as if it was shovel full of snow. He repeated the motion for the second scoop-full, then let the scoop fall back into the canister.

He returned to the front of the coffee maker. He reached up to swing the tray full of grounds back into the machine and pressed firmly to ensure that it was closed. He grabbed the top corner of the machine with his left hand as he drove his right palm firmly into the buttons, first selecting the option for a single large cup and then selecting "Start." The machine beeped with each press, and in moments the container of water began to kick and bubble as the heating coil brought it to a boil.

Ness had cracked two eggs into the veggies and was stirring the pan into a scramble. He approached the stovetop and sat with his legs dangling over the lip of the countertop. She was cooking on the pilot farthest from him, but he could feel its heat lapping gently at his right side. He watched her work as the eggs firmed into a scramble. The countertop was almost navel height for her, and his view at this proximity was mostly the black void of her dress' fabric and constellations of cats in relief. He kicked his legs absentmindedly as she finished up, his feet toying with the rolling waves where the material flowed along her thighs. The light tings of her wooden spoon on the metal pan, the steady sizzle of the pan's contents, and the mingling fragrances of fresh coffee and breakfast enveloped them both.

She clicked her tongue in a frustrated inhale. "Dammit, how did I almost forget the cheese?" She turned the heat down on the burner and stepped over to the fridge, throwing the door open and leaning over to grab a bag of shredded cheddar in a single motion. She kicked the door shut behind her as she returned to the stovetop, dropping a handful of cheese into the scramble and padding over with egg as she brought the heat back up. "It's not going to be very melty, sorry."

"It'll still be great!" He exclaimed. "The heat of the egg'll melt it even once it's off the burner." He stood up. "It smells amazing, I'm so hungry."

She smiled at him and some of the tension that the sudden realization had conjured dissipated. "Yeah, I just like when it's gooier. Oh well." She opened the cupboard above him and reached up towards the top shelf, leaning over him and rising to her tiptoes as she retrieved a plate.

He leaned against the smooth firmness of her midsection, reaching an arm around her as best he could. She was warm against him, and he could still smell her soap through the fabric of her dress. Her stomach gurgled hungrily.

She passed the plate from her right to her left hand as she returned to the flats of her feet and closed the cupboard. She stooped slightly to plant a kiss on his head. He rose on the balls of his feet to press into the kiss, and the soft warmth of her bottom lip eclipsed his vision. The pucker of her kiss pulled at him, and he reached up to brush her jawline, inviting her to kiss longer, deeper. She smiled suddenly, releasing a rush of warm breath over him as she sighed a laugh at his eagerness. She rose from him and returned to the stove, smiling down at him.

"You're sweet," she said quietly, setting the plate down and reaching for the pan. Her playful tone was back as she began emptying the pan onto the plate and added, "But you know that."

"Oh I know it," he declared in exaggerated pride. The coffee machine chimed, alerting them that the brew had finished. He could lift neither carafe nor mug, and the silverware drawer sat directly below him but was inaccessible in any safe manner. He stared up at her, watching her fix their plate.

She set the empty pan down and shifted her gaze from the steaming plate towards him. There had always been so much adoration in his eyes when they found hers. It had helped fuel her love for him when they first started dating, and became such a comfort to return to. That adoration had been joined by a growing needfulness that almost gave way to worship since his Diminishing, which evoked a new suite of emotions in her. A fiercely protective need to keep him safe from the dangers of his now enormously outscaled world, but also a deep, yearning hunger to continually reaffirm the power she had over him. That yearning coursed through her as she eyed him there, standing on her countertop, eyes wide with awe and love and helplessness.

Ness forgot the pangs of morning hunger as she held his gaze. This person before her had given himself to her so fully. They had decided and affirmed and reaffirmed over months to undertake a Diminishing. They were so deeply in love with one another, knew that they would spend eternity together, and crossed this irreversible threshold together. He was hers. To have and to hold, and for wherever else her whims took them. A deep pulse began to thrum in her as she walked through these realities. She loved imagining his motivations to Diminish in these moments and could get lost considering the staggering price he had been willing to pay to fulfill this role. How badly he had to want her for him to be willing to give up so much of his independence. So much of his humanity. They were partners still in so many ways, but that was so wholly maintained by her will alone. Hers. He was hers. The thrumming pulsed up towards her chest, set her heart to pounding. It laced down to her groin in tingling waves, the pitifully sweet sight of the man she loved gazing up at her, waiting to be lifted into her arms so that he might eat crumbs of breakfast from her plate. She bit her lip to center herself, drew a slow breath. In. Out.

He wondered up at her. She was staring fixedly at him, worrying her lip. Her breathing had quickened slightly. He was overwhelmed for a moment by how beautiful she was, how lucky he was to be loved by her. He squinted as he beamed. "Love you, Ness!"

He noticed something stir in her as the words left him. He felt himself stiffening, straining against the fabric of his pants at the sight of her. Her right hand floated to her chest absently, tracing a line down her front and drifting under her dress. He followed it with his eyes, then looked back up to her confront the hunger in her eyes. He took a step forward towards the edge of the counter and waited for her.

Her right hand curled between her thighs as her left moved for him. The mounts of her palm centered around his spine and her fingers closed around him quickly and tightly. She pulled him forward, slowly and surely, his feet dragging over the countertop and then dangling over nothing. She held him to her mons, over her tights. He could smell that she was getting wet before he could feel it. Her fingers slid away from his front as she formed her hand into a flat bed behind him, shifting his position to a flat pressure against her. She pressed him bodily into her, squatting slightly to bare her weight into him. The fabric of the tights had a slight roughness to it where her hairs poked at the material as he joined it, but that gave way as her growing excitement began to saturate them. She swayed her hips and dragged her palm, riding against him. He lapped greedily at her, pushing his head at her labia, running his hands along the length of her. He drove his hips into her, grinding his erection towards her, desperate to be closer. His hands found his cock in desperate pulls as they drew teasing swirls around her.

She fell away from him suddenly as her hand withdrew from her dress, careening him upwards. Before he could fully process where he was headed he was at her mouth. The rich fullness of her lips offered a wilting smirk before parting at his approach. She moaned softly as she tasted herself on him. She wrapped her lips around his head, blacking out his vision and probing every inch of his face with her huge tongue. He swam in the soaking humidity of her mouth, held his breath in the torrent of saliva. She hooked a finger into the waistband of his pants and tugged them off in a weightless flourish, freeing his aching erection. She sucked at his head and ran her tongue along his face as she pulled him out of her mouth, lifting him above her and depositing him astride her lips.

He wrapped his thighs tightly around her face, laid over her nose and gripped twisting handfuls of her hair, writhing in waves of ecstasy as her probing tongue and ravenous mouth toyed with his cock and balls. Her tongue swam around his legs, between his thighs, over his stomach, pushing him into an upright sitting position. He rode it back clumsily, lifting his hands from her hair to embrace her tongue, then over his head as he felt a fingernail run up his naked back, pulling his shirt from him. She had disrobed him in seconds and he was riding her face, naked, as her fingers closed around his midsection again. She slurped at him as his groin left her mouth, and she held her tongue out wide and flat against him as she lowered him, soaked in her spit.

She held him there, dangling in front of her. Her eyes were fire and her voice purred out at him, "I seem to recall a certain bug asking for some ass."

He searched desperately for words. "Yes please" was all he could manage. She smiled, a flash of teeth and anticipation. They were in motion now as she carried him out of the kitchen and towards the couch. They had barely cleared the kitchen when she moved him behind her, lowered him under the brim of her dress, and then up her back. She pressed him flat against her back as she slid him downwards, parting the fabric of her tights slightly to afford him passage.

He slid downwards, against the smooth hardness of the small of her back, along the rising mounds of her glutes, and past the brim of her tights. He angled his legs and shimmied along her as she held the back of her tights out for him, sliding awkwardly but quickly into position in the back of her tights. He went down feet first, his legs disappearing under her perineum as he settled into the sweet stickiness of her. The fabric snapped back against her as her hand left its rim, and he was pinned firmly to her ass. He had settled in a sitting position in the seat of her tights. He was pressed hard against the shifting mass of her cheeks as she knelt down onto the couch. She spread her knees apart as she settled, gathering pillows in front of her and leaning forwards.

The cheeks of her ass parted as she leaned. He was faced with her asshole, and he leaned in, kissing and licking feverishly. She shuddered as his hands joined the work, probing at her, testing swirling motions and pressing against her rectum. It was growing stifling in her tights, and she was soaking him already, his senses flooding in the rich earthy odor of her. Her hips jostled as she settled into position. He felt rustling down by his feet as her right hand found her clit. The fabric rocked him along her as she worked herself. She rolled her shoulders and raised her hips as her left hand reached between her legs, finding the lump of him against her and began to mash and knead him into her. He rode the intense waves of her slamming pressure, licking and slurping, leaning and pressing into her as she drove herself against him.

He twisted his shoulders to press his face to the tights and gulp for air periodically as he ate at her. He could feel the rise and fall of her hips as she worked herself into a frenzy all around him. Her fingers broke from her clit for a moment to pinch at his ankle and drag him downwards, pulling him from her ass and down along her labia. He landed in a ridiculous slump, his legs riding the tights up towards her mons, but she had deposited his head at her vagina. He rose upwards, penetrating her with his head and working his shoulders up to climb into her. She moaned expletives as he found purchase, her left hand guiding him and adding pressure to his restrained motions. Her right returned to her clit.

His world lurched and flipped as she shifted position. She withdrew her hands as she lowered her hips, returned to her knees, and rolled backwards onto the couch, swinging a pillow under her back as she propped up against the arm of the chair. The pressure around him grew as her weight settled into the couch, and he was driven harder against her. Her hand returned to him, pressing at his ass in a kneading motion, driving him flatly against and into her. His arms were outstretched above him, pressing hard against the walls of her pussy, trying to fill her with his torso as she used him. He came, hard, as he drank and ate of her, his senses utterly overwhelmed. He could feel the walls of her around him grip and tighten sporadically as she careened towards climax. Her fingers whirred at her clit between his knees. He felt her heady moans and gentle sighs all around him, unable to hear the outside world. He gulped for what air he could find, growing lightheaded with exertion and deprivation, drowning in fragrance and fluid.

She gasped as she came, rising from her seat and driving him with incredible force into her. The walls of her vagina slammed against his submerged torso like a vice, gripping and pulling as her shuddering hand tried to hold him against her. He rode the waves of her orgasm, pressed hard and fast against her, and grunted as she slammed back down onto the couch. She deflated in a sigh that shuddered all around him.

He was utterly stuck, almost waist deep inside of her. The rigors of the exercise had drenched her tights, and the fabric practically glued his legs against her. He was wrapped upside down and around her vulva, his feet pressing awkwardly against the front of her tights. He could feel her heaving breaths as she collected herself. After a few moments her fingers came for him, reaching into her tights to fasten around his legs and drag him out her and into the light of the room. She cooed as he slipped free of her and shuddered as he slid bodily over her clit. He continued to kiss and knead as she dragged him, sending tingling waves through her. She had pulled her dress up around her breasts and left him on her stomach. He laid motionless against her for a moment, riding the tide of her breathing, arms outstretched to embrace her stomach. He breathed heavily against her navel, taking stock of his senses again, cataloging the overwhelming pleasures that had swallowed him.

The back of her fingers pet at him lazily. They added to the coolness of the moment as her fluids rapidly dried on him. "Mmm, thanks bug," she mewled, sleep playing at the edges of her voice again. "I guess I wasn't done."

He rolled onto his back as her hand came back for another pat. He gripped at her fingertips and held firmly as she lifted, guiding him to a standing position. He began walking up towards her face so that she could hear him clearly as he spoke. "I guess not! Where'd that come from?"

She pressed her chin down against her chest and eyed him over the bundled folds of her dress. "You just looked so cute and pitiful and horny." He couldn't see her mouth behind her chest, but he could see a molten smile in her eyes.

"I think I'm always cute and pitiful and horny these days," he smiled back. He tested a hand against the fabric of her dress to find somewhere firm to step.

"No, you'll stain it. You're a mess," she rushed, catching him with her hand and lifting him over her dress. She shifted to her side, hiked her dress back down towards her hips, and dropped his drenched form gently on the pillow next to her face. "You're not wrong though, you've taken to this whole thing so well. I really expected a more drawn out adjustment process."

He shrugged. "We talked about it enough, we both knew it would work for us. Surprises me too sometimes though, I guess. I knew I'd like it, I didn't know I'd live for it quite as much." He sat down cross-legged in front of her and searched in the huge autumn pools of her brown eyes.

She adjusted as she puzzled, "What do you mean?" She was speaking low, as much breath as voice, as she studied him with heavy eyes.

He thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. We had discussed everything so thoroughly, I figured I'd know what it was like by the time I Diminished. But it's different and like, so much more natural than I thought it would feel? There's this part of me that wakes up every time you look down at me, or idly shift me around, or move me without talking about it. It's this odd yearning feeling, like I was meant to be yours in this way I guess. I dunno, this is just working out really well and I'm so happy we took this step together."

She smiled at him. "You're adorable. I feel that too. You make for a damn fine pet."

He straightened up and smiled back. "I should hope so."

She gathered him as she rose, planting a gentle kiss on his face. "I love you so much. We should stop talking about your yearning to be manhandled though, it'll get me going again."

He kissed at the tip of her thumb near his collarbone as she held him. "And that means we should stop why?"

She rolled her eyes, "How are you not exhausted. Breakfast is getting cold. Do you want fresh clothes before we eat?" She rose as she spoke, dancing out of the damp mess of her tights and abandoning them on the living room floor.

He shook his head. "I'm going to need to wash up again before I get dressed after that anyway. As long as you don't mind me eating naked." She was drying all around him, her evaporating excitement cooling his skin, creating a sensation of tightness where it was at its thickest along his face, arms, and chest.

She playfully tensed her grip on him and kissed his bare stomach as she carried him back into the kitchen. It sent tingling goosebumps all around his form. "You can wear whatever you want, it's kind of one of the perks of the setup, yeah? Pets don't need clothes to eat last I checked."

Even through the exhaustion he felt blood kick towards his groin at her words. They used that word in jest, but there was truth there that excited him. She was his world, he was her pet. Her partner too, sure, but that line was more blurred than not these days.  

Chapter five: Sating

They crossed into the kitchen together. Her right hand loosely gripped him, her palm at his back and her long, thin fingers curling gently around his abdomen. She lifted him over to her left shoulder, and he reached a hand out to wind through her hair, securing a firm grip on a ringlet before he transferred any weight to his feet atop her shoulder. He found soft, sure footing at the center of her shoulder, and turned around to face out in the same direction as Ness. She stood still while he adjusted, familiar with this rhythm, and was careful not to move too suddenly until he was safely in place. He inched in closer to her neck before he slacked his grip on her hair, letting his hand loosely run the length of the curl as he dropped to a sitting position. He scooched in close, leaning his head towards the soft lobe of her ear. His hand traced goosebumps as it traveled up from the base of her neck, his arm vanished almost to the elbow as he secured hold of her hair again in the deep forest of her drying curls. Settled into a comfortable seat in the dip of her collarbone, he leaned a long, firm kiss at the juncture of her jawline and neck.

She stood at the countertop to the left of the stove, where she had plated their breakfast before their living room detour. She lifted the plate in her right hand, spun on her heel, and crossed the kitchen towards the fridge. His perch afforded a view of the space as if from her eye-level. It was a small kitchen, half of a galley, with the opposite wall bare save for a floral painting hung on it and a small dining table with two chairs against it. The doorway that separated the living room from the kitchen was just past her right shoulder as she stopped at the fridge. The sink faced them at their left.

She pulled the refrigerator door open. Its light blinked on and cool air washed over them as she hunkered gingerly into a squat so that they could both see its contents.

More than two weeks had passed since she had last gone grocery shopping, and it showed. The fridge was sparse: a water filter sat half-filled on a shelf almost alone, save for a carton of eggs. The shelf below it had an almost-empty carton of oat milk, a jug of orange juice, and an open box of baking soda. The crisper still held some slices of cheese, and the base of the fridge held an old jar of pickles alongside the remains of last night's Chinese takeout. The door was a mess of condiments and syrups, an entire shelf of it reserved for cocktail syrups from a chapter in Ness' life where she had become fascinated by mixology.

"Thirsty?" Ness asked, as much to herself as to her passenger.

"Coffee's probably enough for me right now," he said, closing his eyes as the cold air washed over him. He could practically murmur from here, nestled against her neck, and his voice would carry the few short inches to her ear.

"I want something cold, too. Would you drink some juice if I poured some?"

"Probably," he yawned. His time in her tights was catching up with him. He could feel the panging tension in his abs, the promises aches in his arms and thighs. It had been a busy morning.

"You're such a help."

He knew she wanted him to express more excitement about the orange juice to motivate her to pour some. He turned his face to her, pressing his lips against the side of her throat and blowing a long raspberry.

"Ass." The ghost of a laugh touched her voice, flattening her attempt at annoyance. She grabbed the juice and rose quickly to her feet.

The motion of her rising to her feet tickled his stomach, but his seat was secure. His view shifted as she turned to her left, stepping towards the cabinet above the right side of the sink to draw out a glass tumbler. She twisted the plastic lid from the jug and poured juice into the tumbler, replacing the lid and dropping a straw into the glass from a tin near the sink. The stainless steel straws were another carryover from her mixology period, and proved incredibly useful for keeping her boyfriend hydrated at his new size.

He tightened his grip in her hair with his right hand and bunched a fistful of fabric from her shoulder with his left in anticipation of her next move. She raised both tumbler and plate and spun quickly on her heel. She took a half step forward and leaned towards the table, sliding plate and tumbler in front of the chair facing the living room door. She straightened herself before spinning back towards the counter, sidestepping to face the coffee machine, and grabbed a pot from the cabinet above. As she filled the cup she opened the silverware drawer in front of her, pulled out a fork, and shut it with her hip as she turned to face the table again. He jostled along through this dance, having become intimately familiar with the slips and strides of her harried routine. He braced himself for impact as she crossed the small kitchen in a single stride to drop down into her chair, colliding bodily with the length of her neck as she came to a seat. She centered the plate in front of them, then set the coffee and juice to the right of it before scooting the chair in under the table.

"Eat up!" She chimed, rolling her shoulder slightly in the direction of the table. It was his cue to hop off.

He turned himself around to face her as he began to slide himself down her front. He pressed his palms to her collarbone, gripping at the material of her dress as he shimmied over the front of her chest. Once he was flat against her she leaned forward slightly, closing the narrow distance between her breasts and the tabletop and deepening the incline to accelerate his descent. He released his hold on her dress and felt as gravity began to carry him over her. He leaned his head against her and brought his hands into a pushup position, enabling him to control his speed and wriggle down her without falling clumsily onto the table.

His hips quickly crossed the flat drop of her sternum, and he landed straddling her left breast. He sat back against her for a moment, feeling his meager weight sink slightly into the soft warmth of the top of her chest as he looked over his shoulder to adjust his trajectory. His seat rose and fell in a gentle crest as she breathed. Her lean had shifted the apex of her breasts to face down at the table, hovering less than an inch from the cold, stained wood of its surface to facilitate his trip. It would be a safe fall at this height, only four inches or so to slide before a short drop onto the table, but he risked stumbling over himself and landing in a mess of breakfast if he just let go.

He leaned forward into her again, placing his right ear flat against her chest, feeling the deep rhythm of her heartbeat gently drum against him. He rolled his hips a few times to work himself over the incline of her bust, and flailed his right leg awkwardly outwards to free it from its confines inside the bodice of her dress. When he felt his leg land upon the cooler fabric facing the kitchen air, he inclined towards it. His left leg hand landed in her cleavage, and it was an awkward swing of his hips to free it and ensure that he would travel over, not into, her dress. With both legs freed he slacked the pressure in his thighs to release his straddle, traveling the remaining distance over her in a quick slip.

His legs left her for the table, only in free fall for a moment before thudding clumsily against the light wood of its surface. He stumbled back and away from her as his weight shifted fully onto the table. He lost control of his stumble, tripping towards their breakfast in jerky back-steps. He suddenly felt her behind him. She had brought her hand down in a sloping cup to catch his fall. He collapsed backwards, expecting to find cold dish and hot food where he landed, but was accepted into her open palm. He leaned into its center, welcoming the dissipation of momentum and the transition of his weight back under him. The steadiness of her palm rose from just above his backside up to his shoulders. He had thrown his arms behind him in the panicked discovery of her hand, and his left arm ran along her index finger, his right hooked over her thumb and down towards her palm. He leaned to her thumb as he steadied himself away from her palm to kiss its tip gratefully, turning back to look up at her.

"Thanks for the catch." Her hand withdrew from behind him as she rested her arm along the table. He stood between the plate and her forearm. She had shifted back into an upright sitting position, no longer needing to incline towards the table, and smiled at him as she pierced some of the scramble on her fork.

"Any time, bug. Can't have you bodyslamming breakfast again. Eat, it's going to get cold." She brought the fork to her lips and took the bite of cheesy egg and pepper into her mouth. He turned his attention to the plate, increasingly aware of the renewed rumbling in his stomach. The scramble smelled incredible, and he could feel his mouth begin to water at the thought of finally getting some breakfast into his body.

He took a step towards the plate and sat cross-legged at its rim. It was a large square with rounded edges, a deep forest green mottled throughout. It rose in a gentle slope from its base, cupping slightly at its rims, and he could fit his feet and crossed angles under the plate's lip, allowing him to easily reach the food at its center. He reached forward, lifting from his seat slightly to grab a handful of egg. It was soft and warm in its hand, smelling richly of melted cheese and the bite of the jalapeno, but it broke away in an enormous, unmanageable chunk. He pulled it apart, ending with a handful that sat in his hand like a large apple, and sat back to bite into it.

A panging emptiness awoke in him as his body realized the depth of his hunger. He chewed eagerly and swallowed, immediately taking another bite of the egg in his hand. She brought her fork back down to the plate, searching for some veggie sausage to skewer, and worked another mouthful before she spoke.

"Any big plans today?"

"Nuff-," he started, stopping himself when he realized how ridiculous he sounded with a huge bite of egg in his mouth. He smiled at her and shook his head as he chewed. After swallowing he tried again, "Nothing much. I'll try to get some cleaning done I spose, and I'm hoping to get some writing done. If all goes well I'll be able to get the next chapter going, but we'll see. Yesterday was slow going."

She lifted her mug of coffee and sipped as he spoke, watching him over the rim of the mug. She set it down next to him: his cue that the coffee had cooled enough for him to retrieve some. She reached over their plate, plucking a tiny mug from atop the pepper shaker with pinched finger and thumb, and offered it to him. He received it gladly, "Thanks."

"Don't clean anything in the bathroom without me." It was as much a scold as it was a reminder. Cleaning the bathroom fixtures required a lot of climbing for him, and she worried he'd fall. "The bedroom could really use a dusting though. How's the story coming?"

He feigned shock, placing a hand to his heart and offering a ridiculous pout. "You mean you haven't been reading?" He rose from his seat at the plate, mug in hand, and approached the cup she had set down behind him. It was a somewhat rough piece of ceramic that she had made for him in the days following his Diminishing. She had made it at a larger scale than he needed out of concern that it would crack in the firing, and it was huge in his hand. She had painted it a deep gray base, and drawn a ladybug onto it in jesting reference to the nickname she had bestowed at his new height. It had been her first gift to him at his new height, and he treasured it.

A gentle wisp of steam curled out of the dark pool before him. He gripped the thick handle of the mug with both hands and lowered it it into the coffee. He tipped some of its contents back into her mug as he retrieved his pour to avoid spilling any onto the table. The coffee's scent coursed through him as he heaved the now-full mug up and out of hers. Ness favored bold brews, and notes of caramel and chocolate washed over him as he adjusted to the weight of the mug. He slipped his right hand under the mug to support its weight, his left steadying it at the handle, and breathed deep through his nose. The fog of exhaustion began to lift from him as he took in the smell. He stepped backwards, dropping slowly to a cross-legged seat at the plate again, and sipped.

"I haven't read the last few updates, no." She lifted her own mug to sip at it when he had finished taking his fill. She drank deeper this time, no longer concerned about his ability to retrieve liquid from her mug. She sighed after swallowing, and set the mug back on the table. "Good coffee by the way."

"Thank ya kindly," he smiled as he leaned forward to wrest a chunk of sausage free. "If you find some time to catch up let me know. I'd love your thoughts. No rush, though." He bit into the fistful, savoring the savory mix of peppery spices.

"Oh I know, bug. I'll take a look at it soon, maybe on break this afternoon. I've certainly enjoyed living it, so I'm sure I'll love reading it." She chewed another bite of breakfast thoughtfully and added, "Hopefully you don't get me too worked up before I have to present."

He smiled up at her as he swallowed his last mouthful of sausage. He filled quickly these days. "Here I am, once again offering to come along to help with that. It would be a fully immersive experience, like one of those 4D rides but, you know, horny." He hugged at the warmth of his huge coffee mug between sips.

"I have no doubt." She lifted her cup for a final sip, raising her chin to drain the last of the coffee. His eyes crawled over the linework of muscle in her neck as she drank, the quick pulse at her throat as she swallowed. She set the empty mug back on the table with a hollow clink. "Any other day and you'd be coming with me. You know I hate leaving you here." She cut the remaining chunk of egg on the plate in half with her fork, pierced it, and chewed.

He swallowed his coffee and conjured a feigned cheeriness. He missed her enormously on days that she couldn't bring him along to work, but he didn't want to add stress or guilt to her day. "I know. Hopefully the day flies for both of us. We still on for date night tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it. I'll be home as soon as the session's out, unless you want me to pick anything up. It's still your turn to choose, by the way. What do you wanna do?" She eyed the clock on the stove and sighed. "I have to go soon. You want any more of this?" She nudged the plate in his direction, its cool glass pressing against his feet.

He shook his head. "I'm all set. It was delicious though, thank you." He drained the last of his coffee, untucked himself from under the plate, and clambered to his feet as she ate the last bite of their breakfast. "I'm up for whatever tonight though, what are you in the mood for?"

"I'm in the mood for you to make a decision," she teased coolly. She placed the form onto the empty plate with a slight clatter, added her mug to the stack, and scooted her chair back. She rose from her chair and lifted the dirty dishes. The plate passed over him as he watched her step away from the table and cross over to the sink. She let the dishes slide into the sink with a clatter and turned to face him. She leaned against the sink and offered him a playful glare. "I chose last week, remember?" They had gone to the theater last week to catch a movie. She had smuggled some chocolate, wine, and him in. They had caught more of a buzz than they had planned for and wound up in bed before eleven.

He smiled up at her as he stepped towards her, approaching the edge of the table. The narrow kitchen allowed only a couple short feet of clearance between table and countertop, and he inclined his head to meet the teasing gaze of those bright, brown eyes. "Of course I remember! You just did such a good job, I thought I'd defer to your fantastic event planning prowess."

She crossed her arms. "You're so annoying it's actually kind of impressive."

He beamed at her. "For real though, you've had a long week, and I'd be down for a quiet night. Let's order dinner, watch a movie, take a bath, and go to bed early?"

She considered him for a moment, arms crossed. "That sounds perfect. I'm not letting you off the deciding-hook though. Your failure to specify what we're ordering has not gone unnoticed."

"Fair enough. I'll have an answer for you by the time you're home. Promise."

She adopted a caricature of a deep, gravely tone, "See that you do."

He chuckled. "Can I come down now, or do I have to live up here?"

She squinted at him and slowly stroked her chin. "Hmm, good question. You make a cute centerpiece."

"The cutest centerpiece. Beyond a doubt. The guests will especially love it when the centerpiece gets naked and tackles their dinner."

Ness roller her eyes as she stepped towards the table. "You're a mess. Come here." She reached for him with both arms. He lifted his arms out to his sides slightly to accept her hands. Her fingers knit together behind him, her thumbs limply splaying over his shoulders. He gripped her thumbs parallel to his chest, as if he was settling into an inverted coaster. She lifted him up to eye level, his stomach flitting at the sudden acceleration. Her pursing mouth filled his vision as she planted a kiss across his face. His senses were lost in the soft warmth of the kiss, the padding press of her lips, the current of coffee on the warm breeze of her breath. He kissed back, turning his head up to press his face against the fullness of her top lip. He strained against it, lifting his weight towards her lips as if trying to gain admission. They puckered around him, relenting as part of his face passed through and into the humidity of her mouth.

The gentle padding of her lips sealed around his ears as his vision vanished in the darkness of her mouth. Familiar breakfast scents washed over him, the notes he had picked up on her breath much stronger in this humid heat. Her tongue, a broad and featureless shape in the darkness beneath him, rose to greet him. It rose across his face, a wet pressure washing over him. His hands pressed against the restraints of her thumbs as he pressed into its mass, planting a long kiss to the tip of her tongue. She flattened its weight against him in response, lingering long enough for him to register his inability to breathe against it. She lifted him away from her slowly then, suckled gently as she drew him back out. A thin line of saliva briefly crossed the growing space between their lips, popping into nothingness as the distance could be measured in inches.

They held one another's gaze for a few breaths. The still waters of his green, the crisp depths of her brown. Her saliva was cool as it dried on his face. He was hard again, which was entirely impossible to hide as he dangled in her hands like a doll. Air escaped her flaring nostrils in a chuckle. "You're too much, little bug."

His eyes lingered on the fullness of her lips as she formed her words. The cold air on his drying face did what it could to lift the drunken daze her kiss had placed him in, but he only became more aware of his own arousal as each recovering breath carried more scent memories of her mouth to him. She had lowered him slightly when she had pulled him out from the kiss, his head parallel to her jugular notch. He inclined his gaze further, climbing over her lips as they twisted into a taunting smirk. Lucidity crept back into him as he found her eyes, shining down at him in pitying jest, and he realized he had not heard a word that she had spoken.

His voice came back gravel until he cleared it in a huff. "Sorry, what?"

She felt his limp weight in her hands. She always marveled at the lightness of him, barely a pound, so utterly small and helpless and hers. He had come away from their kiss in a drunken stupor; she could follow his gaze back to her mouth in an obvious line. She felt the briefest pang of guilt at working him up again so quickly before she had to leave for the day before it was washed away by the teasing fun of how easily she had done it. She had noticed a transition in his awareness of her over the past weeks. They had known that he would become dependent on her after his Diminishing, sure, but she hadn't been fully prepared for how inescapable she would become to him. How overwhelming her presence would be to him. She seemed to swallow up every iota of his attention when they shared a space at this new scale; he became so easily entranced and distracted by her now. This was understandable enough, she supposed, but had still come as a surprise, and was still fun to exploit in moments like this.

She decided to see how far she could push him before he broke.

Chapter six: Parting

Her eyes flittered to the clock on the stove – she had about fifteen minutes to get out the door if she wanted to get to work on time – and then back to him. She felt her eyes tighten as she smiled at him. The medley of love, pity, gratitude, protectiveness, and lusting hunger that always seemed to wash over her when her mind turned to thoughts of what he had given up for their new life together filled her. She knew that he was aching for her, and she knew how much worse she could make it.

She brought him in, pressing him to the bare skin at the base of her throat. She felt his frame run over collar bone and breast, the length of his little body slight against hers. He nuzzled into her in affectionate bliss, his damp face cool on her neck. She felt the tickle of his gentle kiss on her throat, drew in a breath through her nose that filled her chest, and began to guide him over her front. She undid the latticework of her fingers behind him, freeing her right hand and holding him to her with her left. She passed him over her chest, felt his tiny weight over her breasts, before she flattened him against her stomach in a firm press. He rode against the rise and fall of her breathing, pinned against the surety of her abdomen, as she bunched some of her dress in her free hand. She could feel the firm poke of his erection against her, just below her navel. He shuddered, passing a moan too softly to reach her ears.

"Don't you dare ruin this dress," she warned, voice heavy and grave. She eased the pressure at his back enough for him to lift away from her stomach, and she lowered him under the bunch of her dress and between her legs, pressing him flatly against her. She felt the tickle of his arms reach up her thighs as he framed her from beneath, clutching at her quads as he tried to lift himself from the seat of her hand and into her tights.

He was drenched in her scent. He buried his face into dark fabric, licking and pressing pressure where he knew her hood hid behind her tights. His body ached with need for her, pulsing pleasure radiating from his cock as he felt the weight of her hand behind him press him harder against her. The heady earthiness of her arousal drowned out all other senses, silenced all thought. He was drunk on her in an instant. Every part of him screamed for her, ached desperately to stay with her, to plant roots and serve her. And just like that he felt her falling away from him.

He was practically convulsing into her through her tights when she began to withdraw him. Slowly she retraced the driving pressure of her hand into his back. Gravity parted his torso from her labia, her fingers crooking back into a curving seat as she carried him backwards, out from under her dress and into the full light of the kitchen. She had felt herself awakening in tingling waves at his needful presses, the sure weight of his form against her vulva whispering wet memories of the mornings' adventures.

She only quickened when she saw the frenzied confusion on his face as he emerged from under her dress. His eyes were lit by passionate hunger, a blind desperation to close the growing distance between them and lose himself in her. She considered for a moment that the sight of her thrall over him had turned her on more than his touch. She lifted her boyfriend swiftly up the length of her, confident that this speed would only add to his dizzied overstimulation. Her grip switched on him as he arrived at her eye level, the fingers of her left hand closing around his torso. His left arm reached out between index and middle finger, gripping her knuckle for security, his eyes burning for her.

She affected a quiet, low murmur. "Little bug is so easily distracted," she purred, squeezing him gently in her hand. His erection surged against her grip. Her free right hand rose to join him, lightly caressing the tip of him with the pad of her finger. He shuddered in her hand, his breath coming to him in a slow roll. She felt her own hunger grow at this meditation on ownership. Her mind raced over ready-made excuses for her boss as interest in reinforcing her dominion over the pitiful writhing boy in her hands overwhelmed her objections to tardiness. Reason won out, but she knew she could push him just a little bit farther before he broke.

He waited there, dangling from her hand, feet swaying gently above the kitchen tile as he watched her eyes consider him. He felt words continue to tread towards the periphery of his consciousness, turning to smoke before he could close around one with enough intent to speak it aloud. He finally landed on what, in that moment, felt like the most compelling argument in the world: "Ness, put me back," he sighed as much as spoke. "I wanna finish you," he slurred. Enough of his brain came back online to register the pathetic distraction in his voice.

She smirked. "No time, bug. It's time to say goodbye." She offered him an exaggerated pout, relishing his deflated defeat in her grasp. Her right hand, still hovering over his groin, traced a line down his legs, sliding delicately up his backside to place a pinching pressure at his ass. He jerked back to alertness as the flat of her nail passed between his legs, driving up at his base and flicking his balls as it passed.

She smirked, brown eyes full of a playful mischief, smoldering over an unquenchable hunger, as she turned to step out of the kitchen. She crossed the threshold as she spoke, keeping him at eye level, eyes fixed on his. "I have to say goodbye to my sweet bug, leave him for hours all alone," she pouted. "What ever will he do all day?" She moved him back to her mouth, wrapping her lips around his erection.

The hot plush of her mouth's grip closed over his cock. He craned his back in an instinctive reaction of pleasure, the vastness of her lips spilling over him, crashing over thigh and hip as she slid him out of her puckered lips in a slow pull. His shoulders fell and his hips thrust uselessly towards her as he left her mouth. She smirked at him again, eyes alight.

"Ness, you're gonna kill me," he begged. She was already moving him back in for another kiss. He felt a deep pressure welling within him, threatening equilibrium with the pressure of her gripping lips around his dick. The pressure grew, coalesced around the head of his penis. He felt ready to explode, lost in the lovely depths of her soft lips, the gentle suckling tide of her mouth. And just like that he was withdrawn again.

She offered him another pout this time, tilting her head slightly. Her thoughts were foggy with desire. She was consumed with the need to return to bed with him, to let him lose himself to her, to fill her in his worship. Her teasing pout yielded to a sad smile as the fantasy faded to an understanding that she had to leave him soon. It deepened as she realized how profoundly overpowering her cocktease had been. He was heaving putty in her hands. "Sorry bug, you just make it so easy. I really do have to go, though."

He reached through her words and sought lucidity. The pressure in his groin still screamed, but he knew this game well enough by know to recognize its end, and he squeezed her fingertip in an admission of defeat. "You're a monster."

"Yeaaah probably," she drawled, smiling. "You were just so cute, how could I resist a little kiss?"

He was still catching his breath. Still naked from the waist down. Still hard, and could still smell her heady arousal on his chest, in his beard. "That was a little kiss, huh?"

"Just a lil smooch to show I loved ya," she returned, humor lilting her voice. She had crossed from the kitchen into the living room as she had played with him, and stood now before the couch. "Not my fault if you have a horny little meltdown over a kiss."

He rolled his eyes at her, but she was moving him in towards her chest before he could start on his rebuke. She held him close, pressing him gently to the top of her breasts, so that she could safely drop into the couch without giving him whiplash. He could feel the soft fabric and her smooth skin on his naked lower half. The steady thuds reverberating from her chest offered him a self-satisfying glimpse into her own excitement at his work under her dress.

She clutched him to her tightly as she dropped onto the couch. He fell with her, the jolt of impact lessened by the cup of her hand and the cushion of her breasts. Her hand left him there, splayed awkwardly across her front, as she settled into the seat, leaning suddenly to her left as she pulled her feet in under her.

He held himself still as she settled, his eyes shut as he lay against her through the familiar motion of her settling into a comfortable seat. His center of gravity shifted atop her as she shifted backwards, seeking the comfort of her usual sloppy seiza, seated almost atop her calves, burying her feet behind her in the cushion's corner. He felt her raise her phone in her right hand through the gentle incline of her breast beneath him. He sat up, eyes opening.

He swung his legs out and away from her, settling into a straddle towards the top of her right breast. The small room stretched before him: their modest television centered on a dark wood console against the wall that separated kitchen and living room. The console was a grid of eight storage nooks, the bottom four holding hastily-folded blankets and bedding, the top littered with knicknacks, half-used candles, a router, and a Switch. Between the television and the couch was a modern looking coffee table. Dark metal framed the glass-topped surface, clear save for a lonely cork coaster. The glass granted view of the table's base, which Ness used as a catch-all shelf for magazines, library books, paperwork, and board games. They were organized into somewhat neat stacks, their orderliness allowing enough space for him to walk if he wanted a shortcut to or from the couch.

He took the room in, familiar sights from a familiar perch, in the space of one of Ness' breaths. He rose with her diaphragm, gathering himself to move as the warmth of her quiet exhale found his hair and shoulders. A tight buzzing sound turned his eyes downwards and to their right, where he saw a text notification slide down over the Instagram feed she had been lazily thumbing through to relay a series of confetti emojis from her friend Emily.

Her thumb jumped to the banner, the colors of Instagram yielding to a plane of white and blue as her messenger app opened.

"Could you grab my shoes for me?" There was a tired worry to her voice that often accompanied conversations with Emily. Her right hand moved inward, knuckles meeting in a gently knotted wall as she employed both thumbs in her response. Her chest rose slightly as her arms centered, and his right foot grazed the peachfuzz of her arm where it pressed into her breast.

"Sure thing," he assented, already swinging bodily to his right side. He rolled clumsily sideways over her front, letting gravity slope him over the side of her chest and into the crook of her arm. He twisted into a sitting position in the in the sloped bed of the inside of her elbow. His right hand held against the originating rise of her bicep, his left on the flat wall of soft forearm, alive with the gentle twitches of her texting thumb. He lifted himself up and out of this seat slowly, his butt and then back pressed firmly against her, lowering himself as far as he could towards the couch cushion before releasing and allowing himself to fall.

It was a short drop, barely a foot, from her elbow to the cushion beneath. His slow descent had eased him most of the way down, and he dropped the remaining inches in a quick pencil dive. Momentum drove his feet down into the upholstery, which snapped him back upwards in a bounding retort. He had slid down her in anticipation of this bouncy landing, and had kept his hands held to the fabric of her dress as he fell, allowing himself to thud gently against the wall of Ness' thighs behind him and avoid springing into a fall.

She had hardly noted the excitement of his descent, her eyes held fast to her phone. The hushed hums of messages received and sent that sounded as he had worked his way to the couch meant that the conversation was unfolding quickly, typically signifying some sort of catastrophe on Emily's end.

"How's Emily doing?" He called up to her as he started towards the far side of the couch. Emily had been Ness' best friend for years. They had met in their freshman year of college and had been roommates for the remaining three. She was a kind and caring person, but her tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend had built a lot of distance between she and Ness over the past year. It seemed like Emily only reached out when she was in crisis these days.

"One sec," she said, her usual distracted way of saying that she needed to finish typing out the thought she was working on before she could answer. He crossed the couch in awkward, loping steps, trying not to be tripped up by the sinking slopes that formed around each footfall. It was a grey couch, its upholstery frayed in spots from years of service as the only proper seating that they could fit in the living room. It was comfortable though, and its deep cushions made it as useful as a guest bed as it was a couch. He neared the far arm rest as she sent her text and answered him.

"Rough. She and Derek had a huge fight last night apparently. She says they're done for real this time, but I'll believe it when I see it."

He had reached the far side of the couch, and approached its lip. Ness had picked up a pair of stairs from a pet store meant to help small dogs or cats who had become too old to jump climb onto furniture. The stairs were covered in a soft synthetic wool and consisted of four steps about six inches high each. They were still far too large for him to step down as stairs, but they made a safe – if awkward – journey out of an otherwise risky drop of almost two feet from cushion top to living room floor. He was far enough from Ness at this point that he'd have to shout if he wanted his voice to reach her reliably, so he remained quiet as he leaned to his left side to place his palm on the landing of the cat stairs to hop onto the first step in a clumsy hurdle. She was used to him keeping quiet outside of easy conversational range since his Diminishing, and would continue to update him as he retrieved her shoes.

He hopped down the second step, his bare feet gripping the wispy fabric of the stairs with each thudding landing. As he swung himself off onto the last step he heard her phone buzz with an incoming text.

"Oh, holy shit." The muttering shock of her initial exclamation gave way to quiet wonder. "She says it was her call this time. She told him she was done and spent the night at her mom's. This one might stick. I'm gonna have to see her this weekend, bug."

He turned around to face her. Her attention had risen from her phone to him as she finished her thought, clearly looking for his reaction. They had not yet told anyone about his Diminishing. As far as his friends and family knew, he had relocated to Oaxaca for work and focus on his writing. It had been a hasty and somewhat sloppy lie, but it had held up so far, though Ness had admitted that she had come incredibly close to telling Emily on more than one occasion. If she and Derek were truly over this time – and he hoped for both Emily and Ness' sake that they were – it meant that Emily would become a much more regular part of Ness' life again, and probably a much more regular presence in the apartment. The fiction would become simultaneously harder to maintain and much more taxing on Ness, who hated lying to her friend.

He was still too far for his voice to carry easily, and he resisted the urge to shout an affirmation at her. He looked up at her, folded in on herself on the couch, phone limp in her hand, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she likely cataloged the same thoughts that were running through his mind. Her eyes shone for a moment when he gave a quick thumbs up, and then pointed towards the doorway, inferring that he'd be back with her shoes in a moment.

"We'll talk about it before we make any decisions, I promise." She offered, seemingly to him, though almost certainly to quiet her own concerns as well.

He set off away from the couch, padding over the chunky cords of the living room's polyester carpet. He walked briskly, knowing that Ness needed to leave soon, and hoping she'd be pleased enough with his pace so as not to start fetching her own shoes before work again. Finding tasks like this where he could continue to be a helpful presence around the house was increasingly important to him; he took a lot of pride in his outfit retrievals, his morning coffee brews, his fetched shoes and cleaned shelves. It was a way to give, an outlet for tangibly expressing love through supportive labor, something that had become much more difficult at this scale.

Just past the doorless frame that separated their living room and kitchen was a narrow hallway to the outside door. Ness kept a small row of her most regularly worn shoes there, and chief among them were a pair of black Toms that she often wore to work. They were simple black flats, made of a lightweight canvas that lipped up at the heel in an elastic gore. They each weighed just under half a pound, and were only a couple inches shorter than he was, making lifting and carrying them an impossibly difficult task. He had found that he could get a good handle on the inside gore of the shoe's heel, though, allowing him to lift the heel slightly off of the carpet and pull the shoe with him. These flats in particular had smooth, worn soles to them, and glided over the carpet easily.

He approached the left shoe first, leaning down to find a handle on the seam of the elastic gore, and lifted it up to his waist. The shoe had a familiar heft by now, and he had become much more efficient in these runs since Ness had let him take over the task about three weeks back. With the base of the heel pressing against his waist, he began trotting backwards, pulling the shoe with him. She hadn't worn her Toms in two days, but her scent clung to them, the fabric of the soles serving as an efficient sponge for the sweat of her workdays. The familiar briny warmth of her feet rose to greet him in increasingly intense waves as his breathing reached a deep, even rhythm from the work of the run. He crossed the room back to the couch quickly, dragging the shoe down along the base of the couch, and deposited it with a faint thud near Ness. He craned his head back as he approached, still walking backwards, and took her in. She rose before him, upside down at his perspective, back to swiping idly at her phone. She felt his gaze and looked down at him, wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes in cheerful acknowledgment of his return. He jogged back to the shoe's twin, eager for her to see the effort he was putting into getting her to work on time.

The return trip was a repeat of the first, though his breaths had deepened for his hustle. It carried the sweet scents of foot lotion and sweat to him in ever-increasing waves, the odor tangy and sharp in his nose and mouth as he brought the second shoe to a stop next to its twin. He flexed his fingers, easing some of the tension from the awkward hold that the shoes required, and let a huffing sigh out of his mouth to begin easing his breathing. "All set!"

She set her phone on the couch and leaned forward, looming exaggeratedly over him. She had watched him work out of the corner of her eye, mostly ignoring her phone in favor of the ridiculous but heartwarming sight of her boyfriend working up a sweat to drag each shoe over to her as if hauling a canoe. She was still working on putting words to the complicated mix of emotions that watching him labor over these mundane tasks elicited: gratitude for the work he put into these gestures of love, pity at the enormous undertaking they now represented for him, deep need for the worshipful way he seemed to approach these moments as examples of devotion, and burning hunger over how completely he orbited her. Dwelling on these thoughts created a lightness in her chest that could easily give way to consumptive demands for his continued adulation if she gave them space to breathe. She begrudgingly banished the thought, feeling the lightness warm into more benign appreciation for this man who loved her so deeply.

"Thanks bug, good hustle."

"Any time." He smiled, running his hand through his hair to shape it back off of his shoulders. His breath was already evening out, but he couldn't quite hide the deep fall in his chest as he exhaled. "Need a hand?"

"Sure, careful." She warned, leaning back into a sitting position against the couch. She clumsily kicker her legs free, and they slipped out of their hiding place in the corners of the cushion with a ruffling scrape. She set her feet onto the coffee table, transferring weight towards her legs to straighten herself into a seated position that brought him back into sight, centered between her legs. Her toes gripped the edge of the table, heels inches from him in either direction. She loved framing her view of him with her body, reaffirming their disparate scales. "Right first."

He had been utterly focused on her since the moment she began moving. He watched her legs swing out from the couch, the right passing over him with steady grace. He marveled at the soft slopes of her nylon-clad calves, breathed the medley of lotion and body that stirred in the breeze her motion awakened. A particularly distractible part of his mind drifted over the earthy notes of arousal he thought he might still be able to pick up, though he could just as easily have fabricated the thought in a moment of imaginative desire.

He found lucidity as he felt the brightness of her eyes wash over him, and the instant after processing her demand he looked down at the flats to his right. "Can do." He leaned down to the shoe, taking it by the side now, only having to skitter it a few jolting inches to bring it into alignment with the foot perched atop the table. He moved behind the shoe, taking a tight grip to the top of the gore, bending it slightly towards him. "Ready for ya."

Ness' foot flexed, her knuckles sloping convex as she slid her foot slowly from the table. The grip of her left foot on the table tightened and twisted slightly as she leaned into it, careful in the controlled descent of her foot towards him. She flourished her toes inward, their curling awakening a plane of wrinkled nylon as her sole puffed. She glided her foot backwards and towards him, confident that he'd be transfixed by the sight of her looming towards him.

Glancing down to ensure she wasn't moving quickly or deeply enough to hurt him, she relaxed her toes as they approached his face. His vision vanished in a sea of soft nylon, cool and fragrant with the light perspiration from their minutes wedged in the couch cushion, firming into the pressing pads of her toes as she scrunched gently. Her toes hugged at his face in the slope of their curl. He heard her exaggerated "mwah" noise as the squeeze of her foot's kiss reached its sturdiest hold, the smell of nylon and lavender mingling with the buttery baseline of her foot and flooding into him.

He let his left hand fall away from the shoe and rise to meet her foot, pressing his palm against the knuckle of her big toe and pushing, driving his face towards her in an assenting kiss. He planted a kiss, firm and long, on the inside of her scrunched toes. He drew his hand back to its place on the heel of her shoe as her grip laxed, aware of the pressure solidifying his arousal.

Her tight-clad toes slipped out of view as they entered her Toms, some of her weight transferring into her right foot to drive the shoe down and forward. He met the growing resistance with a rising pull of his own, drawing the heel of the shoe back towards him and lifting slightly, stretching it enough to grant the rest of her foot passage. Her heel lowered before him, passing first past his head and then down into the shoe, level with his waist, his view blocked by the black wall of her flexing calf. She worried the ball of her foot down and into the carpet, twisting to ensure the shoe held. He released his hold on her shoe and pressed his face against her calf muscle, its plush softness flowing back into it as the muscle relaxed and the weight disappeared from her leg. He kissed her as she leaned down, running the index finger of her right hand along the perimeter of the shoe, smoothing out the canvas of the flat around the top of her foot. There was a chime to her voice: "Left's turn."

He crossed over to the left shoe in two strides, aware of the pulsing pressure between his legs. He lined the shoe up with her left foot this time, and it slid from its perch on the table in a mirrored flourish.

She watched him standing there, spreading her shoe open for her and eyeing her traveling foot as a tarmac worker might a plane. She found his face with her toes again, feeling the desperate slam as he grabbed at her foot with both hands this time, the humid wash of tiny exhales as he buried into the flesh of her toes. He could feel his greedy inhales through the fabric of her tights. She squeezed again, harder this time, and offered him another kissing noise. They had played this game at their original scales together, and she relished the memory of her toes gripping at his nose, where now they envelop his face. He had always been easy to work up, but she could effectively frenzy him with a touch of late. She released his hold on him and worked her foot into the toe of her shoe, feeling the length of him hug against her leg as she settled her heel into the shoe.

"Such a good helper," she teased, reaching down for him as she prepared to stand up.

He watched her right hand soar towards him, stepping into her grip. Her fingers closed around his midsection, running most of the circumference of his torso, and he turned so that he faced out with her knuckles. She stood as she lifted him, his vision blurring in the dizzying acceleration of their rise.

She stepped out from between the couch and coffee table and crossed the distance that had taken him a minute to jog in two easy steps. He braced himself by holding onto the knuckles of her hand, riding out the flittering skips in his stomach as she settled him at eye level. She had stopped near the kitchen doorway, just before the hallway that would take her out of the apartment. She held him at eye level as she spoke, her voice touched in affected sadness.

"It's time to say goodbye, little bug. Thanks for all of your help this morning."

He deflated slightly at the realization that she was truly leaving without him, falling limp in her hand. Her smile faltered at the sight of him falling limp in her grasp, and she brought her left hand over to join her right, linking fingers in a knotwork at his back, whispering a thumb over his chest. "I know, I know," she cooed, clicking her tongue. Her thumb retracing lines over his chest. "I hate saying goodbye."

He felt goosebumps rise across the delicate lines traced by her thumb. He raised his hand to grasp her thumb, fingers sprawling over the tip of the digit. He squeezed, gazing into the brown pools of her eyes. "I'll miss you, Ness."

He tried to gain control of the flood of emotions washing over him. He understood that she had to go to work, he said goodbye to her in this way almost every day – it was only once or so a week that she could bring him with her. But he found himself increasingly having to wade through these complicated experiences of loss and terror at her departure. When he approached the thought head on he understood that he would be fine; it was another day to get some writing done, to finish some chores for her, and that he'd see her in a few hours. But there was a panicking despair at the thought of being outside of her sight, outside of her reach, and beyond her protection for the bulk of the day. The dawning thought that he had effectively domesticated himself woke him out of the panic, and he stroked her thumb distractedly, smiling up at her.

She considered him there, her pliable doll of a boyfriend, content to lie in the palm of her hand, nuzzling her thumb and muttering flirty platitudes at her until she asked him to paint her nails or shoved him under her dress. She was his, sure: she loved him. But he was hers, completely and beyond measure. He needed her, craved her. Mourned for her when she so much as stepped out of the room. She considered for a moment what leaving for work meant for him, the vast emptiness of their shared apartment, the terror he must feel at the sound of an opening door when he knew she was nowhere nearby. She was consumed with a brief need to hold him close, to forsake her obligations at work and stay home with him. The clouds parted though, and she knew it was time to leave him.

He floated towards her as she carried him to her face. Her lips eclipsed his vision, smacking gently as she spoke: "You be good while I'm away, little bug. If you need me you can text me, though once my session starts I won't be too responsive." She planted an enormous kiss on him then, burying his face and torso in hungry lips, the tip of her tongue escaping from between them slightly to press at him as she pulled away. She continued, a teasing hum creeping into her tone, "I hope you can have a productive day here, and I'll see you in just a few hours. I'll miss you, love." Her lips bounced through the syllables, his only focal point as she held him so close to her mouth that he could taste the warm air carried by her words.

"I love y-," His admonitions were smothered under the weight of another kiss, her mouth sealing over his, her bottom lips pressing at his chest. Her mouth parted slightly, her top lip sliding over his scalp, her curious tongue lashing up over his face, soaking him in her saliva. He kissed back, unable to gain sufficient leverage to lean into her, but pressing bodily against her knuckles, kissing blindly at her tongue. She withdrew him, spittle sticking to his bearded face.

"I love you too," he continued. She smiled, needfully at first, but it faded to a reserved sadness as she stooped slightly. She lowered him gently, placing his feet softly atop the carpet in front of her. As soon as she returned to her full height she stepped over him.

He watched her right foot pass over his head. She was a series of alien angles and severe lines from this perspective. Her chest rose out in sharp relief from the vertical plane of her. He barely caught sight of her nose before the step took her away from him, dress yawning to brandish pale cheek through dark nylon as she passed. He stood there as her left foot rose this time, drifting over him, stirring air that smelled of her as she approached the door.

She laid her hand on the doorknob and turned her head to look down at him. He had trod after her, centered in the hallway, to watch her go.

"Have a great day at work, Ness," he said, swallowing panicky dejection and focusing on abstracted knowledge of the short hours between now and her return. "I'm sure the session will go well. I'll miss you."

She turned the knob and smiled down at him, her lonely little bug watching his sun set. "I know. I'll miss you too. I'll be home before you know it, though. Love you." The door was open and she was stepped through it.

The door closed with a soft click. He heard her fumble for her keys for a moment before the deadbolt far above flipped with a heavy slam. He was alone.

"Love you too." He was alone.

Chapter seven: Longing

He watched the closed door for a few moments, hoping that a forgotten phone or wallet might bring her back home and give them a second goodbye. He had very quickly developed an unconscious awareness of the time it took her to travel between the apartment’s door and the elevator down to the main exit, but held out hope for a short time longer while he tried to will her back home. When the finality of her absence finally locked into place in his mind, he turned to face the enormity of the empty apartment.

His feet scuffed across the carpet as he reentered the living room. He could still smell her in the air, but the apartment took on a hollow, cavernous feeling when she wasn’t in it. He had found it all too easy to sleep the hours of her workday away in those first days after his Diminishing. There was a panicky uneasiness without her, and his initial pass at managing that had been to quiet his mind into sleep until the sounds of her homecoming roused him. She expressed concern over how unhealthy this was, and it had almost immediately begun to negatively impact his ability to sleep through the nights with her, and so for the past couple of weeks he has been focusing instead on keeping busy while she’s out of the house. 

He considered his to-dos today: Tidy the bedroom. Dust. Write. Past chapters of his life would have reduced those first two tasks to maybe a half hour of labor total, but there were very few small tasks left in his life.

He crossed through the living room, absently marking the transition into the hallway as the spring of the cheap carpet deepened. He could almost bound the few feet between living room and bedroom, where the original plush of the carpet had not been worn down by past tenants nearly as thoroughly as in the living room and bedroom. 

Ness had drawn the bedroom door slightly ajar on her way out. The door scuffed over carpet, making it difficult for him to push without considerable exertion, but he slipped through the crack with ease. The room’s chilly bite had not yet yielded to the abundant sunlight that poured into the space, and a shiver passed through him as he entered the cool emptiness of the bedroom. He considered going into the closet to grab the sweater that Ness had commissioned from the same woman who made his current ensemble, but decided that the labor of cleaning would likely warm him up. 

He turned right, putting his back to the bathroom door, and began to walk towards the cornered desk. His steps fell slower and shorter as he approached the enormous pile of laundry centered beyond the foot of the bed. He clambered over it, endlessly entertained by the brief scramble that reaching the plushy peak asked of him. He found the dark sleeve of a hoodie that could take his meager weight, and used it as a tether to scale the first part of the pile. He climbed the first foot and a half that way before reaching the buried shoulder of the sweatshirt, and eyed for a second handhold.

Her scents swirled around him in dizzying waves. He looked for any excuse to spend time in this pile, lost in the haze of lotions, perfumes, and sweat that clung to her laundry. He tested the hold his feet had to a plane of denim - last week’s jeans, finally worn to the point of needing a wash - and felt secure purchase. A thin, dark scrap of thong, tangled in the bundle of black dress pants that she had worn for a presentation last week, caught his eye. It dangled a few inches past his left shoulder; an easy enough jump, as long as the pants were buried tightly enough to support him.

He shifted his weight slightly, pressing the bottoms of his feet flat as he lowered himself into a brief squat. He allowed some slack on his hold of her sleeve with his right hand, abandoning it with his left, and lunged. He reached upwards as he jumped, his left fist closing tightly around the strap of her underwear. 

The strap stretched as it took his weight. The balled-up pants that lodged them shifted, the belt that was still looped through it clicking gently as they adjusted, but the weight of the pile atop them held everything firmly. His legs were swinging slightly, causing more clicking from the belt above, until he drove his feet back into the pile, anchoring himself as his toes scrunched between a gray camisole and some tights. The fabric was cool and smooth on his feet, and he let his right foot swirl idly around the loose tights for a moment, enjoying the gentle slide of the fabric on his bare skin as he considered his next step. 

He gave another testing yank on the thong. Another gentle clink sounded as the pants responded to his tug, but he felt confident that the bundle would bear his weight. He shifted his weight up into his arms, his feet falling flat vertically against the pile, and he began to pull himself up, using the thong as a rope to walk up the pile. He gained ground this way, scrambling over the belted pants to stand atop her slacks. The crest of the pile was barely over his head now, and it was a messy scramble over t-shirts and a loose pair of wool socks to achieve the peak’s view of the room. 

He let himself fall into a seated position as soon as he reached the top of the pile, sinking generously into the chilly fabrics as he laid backwards. He reached out to his right side to draw the heavy wool boot sock he had climbed over a moment ago over him. She took to wearing these around the house in the winter months, and kept these at the top of the pile to rewear whenever she got home. They were cool from lack of use, but as he drew the sock - almost as long as he was tall - into a hug, he could still smell her on them. 

He sighed deeply, drinking the low sharpness of her scent and the thoughts of her that it carried. He wondered for a moment how her commute was going, and then sat up. He had wasted a few minutes unnecessarily scaling the pile, and wanted to tidy up her desk before he lost much more of the morning.

He scooted forward awkwardly, having to lift and wriggle to escape the tumbled snares of her clothing that formed his floor. Gravity took over for him as his hips passed over the edge, and he slid clumsily but harmlessly down the pile. He had aimed for a hoodie and landed true, the soft plush of its layers keeping him from winding himself. He landed splayed on his back, eyes taking in the upside-down view of the pile, and watched helplessly as a pair of sweatpants came crashing down towards him.

Impact was heavy and soft. The pants, dislodged from the top of the pile by his descent, crashed over him in a wave of dark plush. He scrambled awkwardly under its even weight, searching with all four limbs for the cold touch of open air that would enable his escape. His right arm broke free first, and he wriggled under the pantleg, emerging free and rising from the laundry heap in a clumsy stumble. 

He continued towards her desk, the foot of their bed rising clifflike to his left. He walked around the chair, stepping between it and the wall, and faced the built-in drawers that ran down the right side of the desk. There were three drawers, two identical large squares topped by a shallower rectangle, with simple wooden pull-knobs centered on each. A long piece of hemp cord ran over the faces of the drawers, secured to the circular makeup mirror on the desktop and landing in a small pool on the carpet. Ness had tied a series of stopper knots into the cord every couple of inches to afford easier handholds and footrests. It was a simple, though tiring, climb. 

He took the cord into his hand and gave it a few testing yanks. When the mirror failed to budge under his weight, he leaned backwards, stacking his hands atop a knot just above head-height, and hopped, leaving the hand-held knot roughly chest-high. He caught another knot between his feet and adjusted his balance, moving his feet to the top of the knot and pressing his legs firmly together, pinning the rope. He made for an awkward pendulum, but held tightly as the cord swung under his weight. As the swinging slowed to swaying, he released his right hand, raised his arm to the knot above, and pulled himself up. Necessity demanded drastically improved upper body strength at his new scale, and he had taken to rope-climbing much quicker than he had originally anticipated.

He climbed the rope in this manner, carrying himself over early knots that covered the first foot or so of the climb, until he reached the base of the bottom drawer. From here he could press his feet flat against the surface of the drawer and walk himself up the rope, trading knots as he climbed hand-over-hand. He took the climb slowly, and though he always felt a flicker of dread whenever he scrambled over the crest and onto the surface of the desk, it was an easy and uneventful ascent. 

Her desktop was a familiar landscape by now. The back right corner of the desk housed makeup and skincare supplies in a small plastic vanity. The clear plastic drawers of the vanity revealed the cluttered messes of their contents, though Ness always seemed to know exactly where whatever she was looking for could be found. Atop the vanity was her blow dryer, a mint-colored compact salon model that she had received for Christmas back in college and treasured since. To the left of the vanity was her makeup mirror, the base of which served as anchor for his cord and ascent. The rest of the space was a somewhat variable plane of discordant use; books, notebooks, her laptop, important paperwork, incoming mail, odds other odds and ends all came and went from the left side of the desk. It was currently unusually spartan, though - a product of the deep clean he and Ness gave the apartment last weekend. All that adorned the far side of the desktop was a planner and a hardcover novel, both of which she must have forgotten to take to work with her this morning. 

He approached the vanity and slid the bottom drawer open. It protested under the weight of the contents of the two drawers above it, which had begun to warp the cheap plastic slightly, and he had to grab hold of the drawer with both hands and squat lift the drawer to align the tracks and reveal its contents. He retrieved his prize from the top of the pile: a Swiffer duster pad cut into chunks about an inch wide. He gathered two slices of the pad and slid the drawer shut, which proved a much easier process than opening it had.

He reached onto the top of the vanity and ran his palm along the lips of the plastic, testing for dust. When they came away clean he set off to the far corner of the desk. He stepped onto her planner, enjoying the cold, slippery glide of the vinyl cover, and stepped again onto the novel. It was a modest read, about two inches thick, and the clear plastic of the library binding sounded crisp as he stepped onto it. He looked over the edge of the desk, checking the corner and the far wall beneath for dust, and again saw nothing. The space stayed cleaner much longer now that there was only one full-sized human living in it, and Ness had clearly hit all of his usual dusting spots in her recent clean.

Beyond the far corner of the desk, Ness had improvised a simple slope out of the sturdy cardboard of a shoebox and some duct tape to afford safe passage to the windowsill. He stepped off of the novel and descended the ramp, his feet noting the transition from cool vinyl to the worn, sun-warmed grit of the cardboard. The tape clicked sharply as it settled under his weight, but it held fast and firm beneath him. Ness had insisted on testing the ramp with a pair of her boots, far outweighing him, to ensure that he could safely cross it without her. 

The ramp ended at a brief lip onto the windowsill, which he stepped up onto. The coarse white stone was almost hot under his feet, drenched in the sun pouring in from the raised blinds. The windowsill was unusually deep and the wide surface of the rough stone offered ample space for Ness’ plants to thrive. He stooped in the corner, testing again for dust, and rose with a clean hand. 

He decided to walk the length of the sill regardless, opting to sidestep the plants by pressing against the cold pane of the window instead of the riskier open air of the ledge. He stopped at each plant, ostensibly to check the pot for dust, and occasionally swept one of his Swiffer pads against the base in the interest of picking up what minute accumulation had begun since Ness had last dusted. 

There were a variety of plants in nearly a dozen pots along the sill. As he walked along them he stopped to breathe in the crisp, green earthiness of stalks and blooms. The orchid, set in woodchips and a pot that nearly reached his chest; its delicate and thin stem secured by a hairclip to a post and towering its gentle pink blossoms high above him. Chrysanthemums blooming in fiery reds and orange, their radiance a monument to the stubborn defiance Ness exhumed when a florist told her she’d struggle to keep them in bloom over winter. An array of succulents in wood, soil, sand, and stone. He ran hands along sloping leaves, cupped petalled blooms, and swirled handfuls of soil as he strolled along them. These walks were the closest he could get to returning to his favorite solitary hikes at this scale; one of the only things he truly missed about his life before the Diminishing. 

A modest jar, mottled white with a rich brown ring at its top, was waiting for him at the end of the sill. It was his favorite spot in the house, if he had to be in it without Ness. The windows ran most of the length of the bedroom, and he was almost cornered on the wall farthest from the bedroom’s entrance, almost parallel with the pillows atop their bed. The jar in front of him was only a few inches high, barely reaching his knees, but squat enough to swallow up almost the entirety of the width of the sill. A relatively recent planting, and one that Ness had been concerned she would have trouble supporting, was verdant and thriving in its home. 

A plane of moss, soft and damp, smelling richly of loam and wood, rose in an even slope above the jar’s lip. He stroked the plant softly for a moment, then took a firm hold as he swung his left leg up onto the surface, climbing into the pot. He took two short, bouncing steps towards the center of the jar and then sat, crossing his legs beneath him and facing the bedroom. 

The bed of moss was an even plush beneath him. He flexed is toes, gripping absentmindedly at it as he settled into a comfortable seat. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, slow breath through his nose. He carried the smell of woodlands into himself, the plane of peat and marsh beneath him stirring memories of hikes and rides through nearby parks and trails, and the stories he’d read and write sitting atop logs and stones, against trees and alongside cousin clumps to this one. He released the breath through his mouth, letting those thoughts escape with his air.

He allowed himself to rest empty for a moment, and then drew another deliberate breath through his nose. Along with the aroma of his retreat of a corner, he carried the deeply entangled roots of gratitude and love inward. He thought of Ness: for her companionship, her humor, their love, all flashing through the tender kindness in her that stirred her to carry this little piece of lowland indoors for him. He held that breath for a few heartbeats longer, dwelling on reciprocal plans in manifesting his love for her, and crawling over his aching longing for her to return home. He exhaled.

He spent a few minutes like that, breathing intentionally and reflecting on their life together. He felt muscles in his neck and shoulders unknot, the tension in his legs lessen, as if the soil beneath him was sapping his weariness from him. Renewed, he opened his eyes. The room stretched before him, a silent yawn of a space without her. The breath that left him as he gathered himself up from the ground was a sigh. He hopped off of the jar and cleaned his feet by way of scuffing, leaving a stray piece of plant and a tiny stain of soil on the white stone of the sill.

He turned and trod back across the sill, offering parting touches to the plants as he made his way towards the ramp. He crossed the cardboard, returned to the flat expanse of her desk, and continued on towards her makeup mirror. The wooden back of her chair, its seat tucked in under him as he passed the desktop’s center, rose in twin spires on his right. The rappel down the face of the desk was easier than the ascent; his confidence in his ability to conquer this height having grown over weeks of practice. He wondered at the time as he descended, his mind returning to Ness. He hoped that her presentation was going well; that her day wasn’t proving as stressful and frustrating as she had thought it might. He hoped she’d be home soon.

His feet planted onto the rough groove of the carpeting with a gentle thud. He turned, placing his back to her desk, and swept the room with his eyes. It looked orderly, and he imagined that if Ness had dusted the spots that she usually left for him that she had certainly dealt with the harder-to-climb dresser, and the bedside tables. His head was still swimming with thoughts of her, set ablaze by the direction that his moss-topped meditation had taken, and he was eager to put these thoughts to words. He decided that he was done cleaning for the day, and that left only writing to pass the remaining time until she returned home.

He turned right from the foot of her desk, and began to walk alongside the length of the bed. He stopped about halfway up the length of the frame, confident that he would be past the storage bins of out-of-season clothes, extra bedding, and seasonal decorations that she stored there. He stooped as he approached the bedside, gathering a handful of bedskirt in his left hand, and lifted it.

He slipped under the bed, letting the skirt fall behind him, and continued - hunched forward and mindful not to hit his head on the wooden slats that held the mattress - towards the head of the bed. There, almost directly below his pillow, was his writing nook. Ness had cut his old yoga mat into pieces to repurpose for him in the wake of his Diminishing, and half of it remained down here. He stepped onto the smooth, squishy foam and dropped into a seat. He scooched forward to settle cross-legged in front of an iPad, laying landscape along the wall beneath the headboard. 

He leaned forward and double-pressed the tablet’s ‘Home’ button, flashing the screen to life and arriving at the homescreen. He opened Messenger, arriving at the thread with Ness, and found a message from her waiting there: “Easy day so far! Got all the bullshit out of the way so much faster than I was expecting. Should be less than half an hour later than usual, presentation’s looking pretty straightforward. Do we need anything?” A purple heart and ladybug emoji served as a signoff for the message.

He pressed his prompt for the text-to-speech function, the iPad’s on-screen keyboard unwieldy and exhausting at this scale, and spoke his reply: “Yay! So glad it’s all going well. Don’t need anything on my end. Love you and see you soon!” He reciprocated the heart and ladybug emojis, leaning forward to hit the ‘Send’ button and pressing ‘Home’ to leave Messenger. 

He swiped the screen right to open Drive, tapping his way into his “WIP” folder and eventually landing on the story titled “Ness’ Bug.” He opened a blank document as the text-to-speech assistant woke up, and he began dictating:

“Chapter 8: Diminishing…”