To wish upon a star
Megan let out a deep sigh and cursed as traffic started to gradually slow down until it came to a complete halt. So, it would be one of those days.
She looked at the digital clock in her car’s dashboard. It told her that it was 6:48 in the morning. It was way too early for traffic to be as fucked up as it was, but then again, I-797 had been full of surprises ever since the extension work had started. Megan knew that she did not have too many reasons to complain. After all, the construction work was being managed by the company she worked for.
She had vivid memories of telling the project manager about the risks. She had only needed to look at the topographic maps once to have it crystal clear in her head that the slope would not take the digging well. She had brought the point up in one of the staff meetings, only to have her opinion disregarded simply on the grounds of being young and being a woman. As she grew older, she guessed she would eventually find out which of the two conditions had had a higher weight in the way some of her colleagues treated her.
How could they not see? Megan was too humble to brag about her intelligence, but some things seemed so clear that she could not get how others could not see them. Or at least, why they could not listen.
Now, she was suffering the consequences, trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic because of a construction project that should have been finished almost a year before. Thankfully, she was not in a hurry. The meeting was not until 9 AM, which meant that she had plenty of time to waste in the morning pile up, as if she had nothing else to do.
Thank God she only needed to go downtown Stanton once or twice per week. She did not think she could take this shit every day. Merely thirty miles out, Hathford was a much more manageable place to live and work. In the end, the hours she wasted driving to the big city were kind of compensated by the ten minutes drive it usually took to get to the local office of Kelson Construction, the firm she joined after finishing Engineering School and where she had worked for a bit more than two years.
The brake lights of the car in front of her turned off and Megan got ready to move forward. She could only do so for about a car’s length before traffic stopped again. She slammed her palm on the steering wheel, frustrated. Not for the first time in her life, she wished she could simply grow out of the car and stomp her way to her destination. Enhanced mobility was not one of the main reasons that would come to mind when reflecting about her secret desire to become a giant woman, but it would certainly be a welcome one in the current circumstances.
She had fantasized about giants for what seemed like forever. If she stopped and thought about it, Megan thought that the spark that had lit the flame had been some of the superheroine cartoons she had watched as a teen. She had been especially captivated by She-Hulk, even if her fantasy had evolved considerably, especially when it came to size preferences. The massive online community she had found had then fed the fire burning inside her, helping her shape her dream and learn about the amazing possibilities it offered. Like stepping on traffic to get rid of traffic jams!
Always shy and discreet, Megan had been wary of sharing her secret with people. As far as she knew, there were only a couple of close friends from school that knew about it, and their reactions had not been encouraging enough to open up to others.
She had felt a bit weird about it at first. Also a bit guilty. She was over that now. As if others did not have any fetishes of their own! Back in college, she had dated a boy that had been obsessed about her feet. Considering the similarities with her own fantasy, she had kind of been able to empathize with that. She could understand less a girl she had befriended and that had once confessed that she enjoyed being bonded. And she doubted these would be the only cases.
In any case, Megan kept her dreams mostly to herself, now. She was not against sharing some secrets with the right person, but she really needed to build a lot of trust before opening up.
She had certainly not reached that point with Gregg. Megan had to admit that she had fancied him quite a lot at first. He was both smart and good looking. It had only taken a dozen dates to realize that they were not made for one another. She was happy that he had agreed with her. Megan had always avoided conflict, and a bad breakup was the last thing she needed.
Sure, she would miss having someone to call when getting out of the office late, but there was no point in extending something that was not going anywhere, was it? At twenty-six, she was over these things.
It took her thirty-five additional minutes to reach the point where the four lanes of I-797 narrowed down to two. It was, of course, the cause of the almost permanent jam that messed with the lives of the hundreds of thousands that lived south of Stanton.
Traffic was moving at a snail’s pace, so Megan had plenty of time to critically observe the massive construction crew working in an area that extended for about a mile. She could sense in the worker’s attitudes that Pierce was in charge today. She immediately knew that they would not accomplish much. Bulldozers, excavators and steamrollers seemed to be working, but it did not take long for Megan to identify the chaotic pattern and realize that they were all getting in the way of one another. It frustrated her. There was no reason the project could not be finished in months, but at the pace it was progressing, she guessed they would not be done in less than two years. If only they listened!
One of these days she would speak up, she told herself. She always felt embarrassed when it came to telling others what to do, but it had already been a while since she had realized that she could see the things that the others could not. Which she guessed was the reason someone in the headquarters up in San Francisco had decided to put her in charge of some of the largest projects, lately. This had not necessarily fit well with her older colleagues here in Hathford, but at least it gave her enough control to make sure that some things happened as they should.
Traffic started moving gradually faster once she was past the mile or so where the construction messed with it, and soon Megan’s mind was set more on cars driving and less on the hardships of the day to day. She observed the stalled traffic in the outbound lanes with a certain degree of pity as they approached the choke point, but soon forgot about them as she made a quick way to the bridge and the second round of congestion in her morning drive.
She minded this second gridlock quite less than the previous one. At least, she could enjoy the view from it.
There was no doubt that Stanton was an amazing city. Built around the mouth of the Stanton River, the metropolis was both lively and incredibly appealing from an architectural point of view. As a civil engineer, Megan appreciated it even more than the rest of people.
The cliffs on that particular section of the Atlantic coast were made of a specially soft type of calcium rock. With its strong current, the Stanton River had, over time, dug its way into it, forming a bay that looked more like an oversized version of a cove, surrounded by cliffs on three sides, getting down to sea level only around the mouth of the river, where the skyscrapers of downtown formed one of the most amazing skylines in the world.
There was something about the combination of a spectacular natural environment and refined architecture that made Stanton hard to top for someone with Megan’s inclinations. And she got a full view of it all through her ride along the three-mile length of Tranton bridge. Built between two spots where the bay narrowed enough, the bridge was a marvel of engineering, especially when one considered that it was almost a hundred years old.
She was having the best moment of the day when she was interrupted by the annoying sound of her cellphone ringing. Megan scowled as she pushed the button to take the call.
“Megan, where are you?”
The voice on the other end of the line seemed nervous. She immediately recognized Clifton, the superintendent for the shopping mall project.
“On my way,” she said, a bit annoyed at the tone, but trying to mask how she felt. “Why? I am not supposed to be there for another forty-five minutes!”
“The guy from HQ came early. He is making quite a mess,” Clifton said.
Megan sighed. Couldn’t they fix this by themselves? Why did they always need her to get everything sorted out?
“Which type of mess?” she asked, trying to sound patient.
“He is demanding that we change the position of the walls,” he came back.
“Whoa whoa whoa, hold on, what?” Megan replied while also starting to remember if there was anything special about the wall positioning in the first place. She began to feel panicked that something had been missed, despite feeling fairly positive that she had double checked this herself.
“He came here about half an hour ago and started bossing his way around. He says we got it all wrong,” Clifton came back.
Megan was about to crash into the car in front of her, but managed to brake just in time. Her heart rate had doubled in a matter of seconds, and having been close to having a car accident had nothing to do with it.
“Where is he now?”
“Talking to some of the guys down in the basement,” Clifton said.
She tried to calm down. She breathed in hard and counted to ten. Then, she said:
“Listen to me, Clifton. Go get him and bring him to my office. Tell him that I’m on my way there. I should arrive in less than twenty minutes. Offer him a coffee and ask him to wait before he talks to anyone else,” she said as calmly as she could.
“What if he does not want to?”
“Get it done, for God’s sake, Clifton!”
She hung up and changed to the lane on the left, pushing the gas as she tried to shorten her trip to the construction site as much as she could.
Seventeen minutes later, the familiar monumental shape of the future shopping mall welcomed her. It was far from her favorite project. There was nothing fancy about the monstrosity of steel and concrete. But it was a large project. Way larger than a woman her age was typically managing.
She was a bit out of breath as she stepped into her field office and saw the burly man sitting on the chair across her desk. Her chair.
“Good morning, Mr. Langdon,” she said, trying to contain her frustration.
“Please, call me Mitch,” the big man said with a jovial smile. “How long will it take for Miss Monroe to arrive?”
“I am Megan Monroe,” she said.
The sudden change in his expression was deeply frustrating.
“You are in charge?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
“I am the project manager, yes. Though I can understand the confusion.” she replied calmly.
“I see,” he insisted.
The man was one step away from being plain rude. Megan wanted to call him out, ask him if he had any problem with her managing the project. She managed to suppress the reaction.
“So what can I help you with today? Clifton told me that you had some points to make regarding the progress on the project?” she asked.
“Well, you got it all wrong,” the man said.
“I beg your pardon?” Megan asked, now really annoyed. Who just starts off by criticizing everything all at once, she thought.
Her management of North Pier’s Mall had been nothing short of flawless. At the pace the project was moving, she was confident they would be done three months ahead of schedule, assuming no typical project hiccups occurred. As far as she knew, the fat man sitting on her chair had been sent by HQ to get some insights about how this had been possible and to use North Pier as an internal benchmark for other projects.
“The four corner stores. You got them wrong,” he said.
Megan took a deep breath.
“I can assure you that the four corner stores have been completed exactly as per the project’s drawings,” she said.
“I was building malls long before you started high school. Believe me, they are wrong,” the main said in a patronizing tone that was getting her out of her nerves.
“Trust me I believe you, and I believe you have plenty of experience. But I can assure you that North Pier is being built exactly as designed. And I should know. I’m the one that’s talking to the architect every day.”
“You are way too cocky for a girl your age,” he said. Now she had to focus all her energy in containing what had now evolved into a mild burst of anger.
Instead of letting out the first thing that ran through her head, Megan cooled down enough to ask:
“Did you have the chance to take a look at the blueprints for this project specifically?”
She could see she had taken him by surprise with her question.
“What? Well, no… but there is no need. Every mall is designed according to the same principles,” he babbled, sounding uncertain for the first time since she had met him.
“Apparently not North Pier. The client wanted a different set up for this one. The architect was nice enough to oblige and I am trying to be thorough enough to have it built as designed. My responsibility is to stay true to the original project scope. And I’m the only one that can suggest changes to the drawings as we build. Which I don’t need to do today, because things are progressing as needed. I appreciate your input. I really do. But unless you can point out any obvious flaws that we can check against the original project, or if there is an actual safety concern that we should consider, I don’t think that we are in a position to make any changes.”
The man was getting red. Which, combined with her size, made Megan fear for his health, while also suppressing a bit of a grin. He did not have a stroke, though. It turned out that he was only building up an angry outburst.
“You think you know it all, don’t you?”
Megan did not reply, even if she would have loved to.
“You don’t know who I am, young lady!” he finally said.
“I’m afraid you are right about that. I don’t,” Megan replied.
She was a bit afraid when he stood up and stomped his way towards her. Megan felt a chill running down her spine, but it turned out that the man was only heading for the door.
“You will hear from me!”
And then, he got out and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Wow, he really had a short fuse,” Megan muttered. On one hand, she felt proud of having been able to handle the situation coolly. The man was an asshole, and she had managed to contain her anger and put him in his place. She had not even been harsh when doing so. On the other hand she felt a bit regretful. After all, she hated conflict, and something told her that this was not over.
She tried to get the fight out of her head during the rest of the day, but it was not easy. Getting into the details of the project helped, but she could not avoid thinking back on the situation as soon as she took her car and started driving back home.
Things were progressing well, so Megan decided to leave early afternoon, with the hopes of avoiding the worst of the traffic both on the bridge and in I-797. She was admiring the landscape from the bridge with the different afternoon lighting when she was interrupted once more by her cellphone.
Seeing her boss’ name in the caller ID was never a good sign. Today, it was even worse.
“Doug,” she said as she pressed the button to take the call.
“Where are you?”
The voice on the other end of the line sounded upset. Megan knew better than to argue with her boss when he was in this mood. Doug was not the most rational person in the world to start with. And in moments like this it was pointless to try to make him reason.
“Driving back from Stanton,” she said in a plain tone.
“I need you in the office,” he said.
In the office? She had woken up at 5:30 to get to the job site. Hathford was still at least forty-five minutes away. And he wanted her to go to the office?
“What’s the problem?” she asked.
“How long will it take you?” Doug asked back, ignoring her question.
His tone was aggressive enough that Megan decided to avoid the confrontation. So, she simply replied:
“About forty-five minutes.”
“Ok,” he said, and he hung up without giving her the chance to reply.
Megan had never thought much of Doug as a boss. She knew he had not been the one making the decision to put her in charge of the projects she had got and that most of what he did was to manage the bureaucracy down in Hathford. There was no love between them, and she did not expect much from him, as he rarely tried to get to know his staff very well. Interactions like this one tended to confirm her feelings.
Forty minutes later, Megan was walking through the main door at Kelson’s site in Hathford.
“Megan? I thought you were off for the rest of the day,” Kevin said as he crossed his path with her. He was leaving. Which was the normal thing to do at five in the afternoon.
“He cannot live without me,” she joked, nodding towards Doug’s office with her head.
“Tough day?” he asked. It was a genuine question. Kevin was alright, the type of guy who cared for his colleagues.
“Nah. The usual. Just someone wanting to change the entire mall layout a year after the deadline,” Megan replied, winking.
Kevin was usually not the first one to joke, but he could follow the mood when needed.
“Oh, if it’s only that… what’s a year more at this point?” he said.
“Not a big deal, I guess. After all, it’s not as if anyone will be getting to the mall until we finish fixing the interstate, right?” Megan said.
Kevin let out a loud laugh. Megan knew he was not precisely Pierce’s best friend, and the constant delays in the I-797 extension project had become a usual joke in some circles in the office when he was not around.
“Take your time, then!” he replied. He then changed his expression and added: “I’ll let you go about your business. Have a good one!”
“You too!”
Megan was soon walking along the aisle that led to Doug’s office. She could feel some glances as she did. What the hell was going on? Her encounter with Kevin had relieved some of the tension she had felt while driving back, but it was building back up at an amazing pace.
She opened the door to her boss’ office only to find the last person she had been expecting. Mitch Langdon was sitting on Doug’s chair, forcing her manager to take one of the seats typically used by visitors. Megan felt a shiver run down her spine as she faced her red-faced boss and the satisfied-looking fat man.
She did not have the chance to open her mouth before Doug said:
“Mr. Langdon has briefed me on your attitude this morning. This is deeply concerning, Megan. And honestly, very disappointing.”
She felt as if she had been stabbed through the heart. It only took one sentence to know that she was alone in this. Any support she might have expected from her manager was merely an illusion. It was disappointing. And also incredibly frustrating.
She could barely utter her next words:
“What… what do you want?”
“Mr. Langdon is here for an apology. He has agreed to overlook the incident as long as you do.”
Megan’s first impulse was to tell them both to go fly a kite. She managed to suppress it just in time, realizing that it would provide some brief satisfaction to her ego but screw everything else.
There was some tension as she remained in silence, her deep hazel eyes fixed on the two men. When she finally opened her mouth, the words that came out of it were very different from the ones she would have felt like saying:
“Mr. Langdon, I realize that my behavior earlier in North Pier might have been inappropriate. Please, accept my sincere apologies.”
It hurt to swallow her pride. It really hurt. But she loved her job too much. She was doing stuff at twenty-six that most others were not entrusted with until they had ten more years of professional experience. And it was pointless to sacrifice all that merely for a few minutes of self-indulgence.
“Of course,” the fat man said, suddenly looking all jovial.
Apparently, Doug did not feel that her own belittling was enough, since he immediately jumped in.
“Mr. Langdon, I want to assure you that this is not the way we do business down here. You can rest assured that Miss Monroe will understand that.”
“Sure,” the man said. “But don’t get too obsessed. This was merely a misunderstanding. I’m glad that it has been clarified. I’ve been reviewing Miss Monroe’s progress back in my hotel and I have to say that I am impressed. It turned out that she was right about her remarks to me in the morning, too. Considering her age, I don’t think that we should be too harsh just because she has a little too much passion, should we?”
“Of course,” Doug said. He obviously did not know how to react.
“I’m happy we have been able to sort this out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s a long drive back to Stanton, and I have plans for tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Doug said.
Megan did not reply. She was feeling the frustration well up inside her once more. Doug was obviously not realizing it, but to her it was obvious what the fat man had come to do. He had only wanted one thing. And he had had it. She had kissed the ring. So had Doug. And so, he could now leave.
She was about to break down when the man closed the door behind him.
“If you ever make me look bad again with HQ, I swear to God that you’ll find your ass in the unemployment line!”
Megan breathed in hard. There was no point in arguing with Doug. He was too thick. She should better get out of his office before she let out what she really felt, though.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
It was too much to take. Megan turned and looked at the local manager of Kelson Construction. No wonder projects were taking forever with someone like him in charge.
“I did. I presume your head was too deep into Mr. Langdon’s ass to hear him acknowledge that I had been right in the morning, am I right?” she said.
This was what she should have replied. She did not. Instead, she lowered her voice and said:
“I did. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
Megan closed the door with care as she exited the room and walked back to the parking lot. She was getting even more glances now, especially since her face had turned a bright red as the blood rushed to it. She hurried up, trying to make sure that she would not break out into crying before she was in her car.
“Well done, wonder girl!” someone called out from his desk.
She turned to see the smirking face of Lena Lewis. Of course, it had been her. Megan could hear the animosity in her words, feel the deep envy behind them. She chose to ignore her. After all, it was not her fault if the woman lacked in talent what she had in malice. Fifteen minutes later, she got home. She did not cry until the main door was closed.
Megan was not in the mood to cook, so she just heated some leftover lasagna. She downed the first full glass of red wine by the time the microwave oven’s bell rang, telling her that her meal was ready.
Ten minutes and two more wine glasses later, she was done. On a regular day, she would head to her home office and get some work ready for the day after. This was not a regular day, though.
Megan was beyond tipsy by now, which only managed to make her extra sensitive. A tear ran down her right cheek as she reflected on how unfair the world was.
She knew she had no reason to complain about how far she had got, considering her age. But then again, everything she had was very well deserved. Today, she had realized that this did not seem to apply to everyone else.
She was surrounded by mediocrity, vanity and pure ineptitude. And people seemed to be doing well with them, even to the point where they could screw with her big time.
Megan had realized over a year ago that she could see some stuff no one else in the office could. And still, they kept on ignoring her. It was not only that, of course. A few were not happy enough with that and seemed to invest part of their focus on making things harder for her.
She cursed them. She cursed the world for judging her on the grounds of being a woman and being young. But she also cursed herself. If anything, Megan was fair. And she knew she was not free of guilt.
She knew she needed to stand up much more than she did, she knew she had to be more assertive. She could not spend the rest of her life just blaming others. If only she had the confidence to call the shots when she needed!
She was halfway through her fourth glass of wine when she found her way into her office, bottle in hand. She was soon searching for her files, double-clicking the “GTS” folder first, then the sub-folder “Classics”. Ten seconds later, a PDF with the title “Janice in the city” was taking her screen.
Megan knew it almost by heart, but she started reading nonetheless. The fingers of her left hand found their way into her panties as she moved on, reading about the skyscraper-sized woman as she stepped on crowds and ripped buildings open with her tits.
If only she were like her! She would talk and people would not have any other choice than listening. She would step on them otherwise. Hell, she might even step on them even if they did, just for fun!
Her fingertips kept rubbing her clit as she downed yet another glass of wine and kept reading.
Oh! To have that power! That astronomical raw power! The things she would do!
Megan moaned as she reached the section where the giantess, Janice, reaches her ex’s office building and forces the people to deliver him to her. Her fingers mimicked the predicament of the tiny man in the story, making her moan.
She was taken out of her trance by the loud sound of her cell phone. Megan checked the clock on the wall and wondered who in the hell was texting her close to midnight. Her heart missed a beat when she saw that the SMS was coming from Gregg. Her ex.
She only needed to read a line to realize that she had received the message by mistake.
Wanna come over? Don’t worry about the prudish nerd. I already dealt with her over the weekend. She even thought it was her idea! I’d love to taste some real tits for once. Hers were harder to find than a pirate’s treasure!
Megan had no clue regarding who the recipient of the text should have been. She did not care. Her blood was boiling nonetheless. How dare he! Fucking bastard! Her day had been miserable enough already. But this! She was close to a mental breakdown. Megan could swallow her pride. She could shut up. But if there was one thing she could not stand was being made a fool.
Her hand soon found the half-empty wine bottle. She tossed it with all her might, dark red liquid spilling all over the office as the glass broke in a thousand pieces. She hyperventilated, looking around, trying to find some other way to vent her anger.
Her eyes ended up settling on the screen. She chuckled. If only she could be like Janice! Oh, if only she could be like her. The sorry excuse for a man that was Gregg would really regret it! Everyone would regret it! Megan was fed up with life. She was tired of being pushed around. She was tired of being the smartest person around and not being able to do shit.
“I wish I were a giant. Oh yes! I really do!” she said out loud.
It was in that precise instant, down to the millisecond, that a shooting star soared right over Megan’s house. She blacked out a fraction of a second later.