Jennifer ended the story on the photo on the mantelpiece that the media team had expressed interest in earlier. After failing to contact me, we bumped into each other again some weeks later when I went over and took the picture with us. It hadn’t clicked with me at the time she was the same girl, whose hair had been dyed differently, so from my point of view it was like our first meeting.
She giggled a little as she said:
“I DIDN’T THINK I’D EVER SEE HIM AGAIN, SO AFTER HE CAME UP FOR THE PHOTO, I THOUGHT, I’VE GOT TO MARRY HIM NOW. IT WAS ONLY A JOKE. IT JUST SEEMED CRAZY THAT HE FOUND ME AGAIN. LIKE FATE WAS TRYING TO SET US UP.”
“SO,” said Julienna, “JERRY’S ACCIDENT MUST HAVE BEEN A TERRIBLE SHOCK TO WHAT SEEMED LIKE A PERFECT RELATIONSHIP.”
“OH, NO,” Jennifer said lightly. “IT WASN’T THAT AT ALL. WE’D ALREADY SEPARATED WHEN THAT HAPPENED, AND I’D STARTED SEEING STUART.”
Jennifer’s response struck me as odd for some reason. Too flippant? Maybe she was just comfortable in front of the camera. Much more comfortable than me.
Maybe I was reading too much into things. With everyone looking at the interviewer or Jennifer, I felt oddly out of place now. They talked about me but not at me. Their heads and eyelines were all way above me. No one acknowledged me. I sat mostly forgotten on Jennifer’s lap. She had one palm coiled protectively around me while her other hand hovered closeby, her forefinger brushing my hair and stroking the back of my neck. I felt more like a house pet than ever.
“OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE STILL CLOSE TO JERRY,” said Julienna. “HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF HE STARTED SEEING SOMEONE ELSE?”
Jennifer hesitated for a long moment. Her fingers stopped stroking me and just held me, firmly. It seemed like she was holding herself back from answering. Finally she said:
“I GUESS IT’S NATURAL FOR HIM TO WANT TO START SEEING SOMEONE EVEN AT HIS SIZE. I JUST THINK IT WOULD BE AWKWARD WHILE HE’S LIVING HERE. AND I WORRY IF HE’LL GET THE APPROPRIATE CARE. HE’S A VERY DELICATE LITTLE MAN, AS YOU CAN OBVIOUSLY SEE. I HATE TO THINK OF SOME OTHER WOMAN KEEPING HIM UNDER HER THUMB. IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.”
I suppressed an exasperated smile.
“NO PRESSURE,” Julienna directed, “BUT CAN YOU GIVE HIM A KISS. LIKE A BELOVED FRIEND. WE WANT THE FACE COMPARISON IN AN ORGANIC WAY.”
Jennifer fingers squeezed me, lifting me in her cupped hand up towards her face. If the cameras hadn’t been on her she probably would have been rougher, pulling me up by the collar.
Her warm breath gusted against my face as she tilted my face up towards her lips. I shut my eyes as one whole side of my face was captured beneath the soft pressure of puffy moist lips. Her tongue very briefly lashed against my ear as her lips drew away again, and one of her fingerpads brushed subtly over the fork of my pants as her fingers shifted to lower me to her lap again. My stomach clenched. Anyone looking closely enough could see this fell way outside the bounds of ‘beloved friend’ territory, but no one said anything. Endeared by the display, some of the women twittered.
They then captured some film of me climbing up and down the sofa. I clambered around faster than I normally would have, as I was keen to dispel any notion that I was physically disabled. The media team made appropriate noises of awe at my flexing biceps as I scaled the vertical face of the arm rest.
“YOU’RE SO STRONG,” Lisa admired, blushing slightly. "I MEAN, FOR YOUR SIZE."
“IF YOU EVER NEED A HARDER WORKOUT,” Julienna smirked, “THERE’S PLENTY OF FURNITURE AT MY PLACE.”
“BETTER WATCH YOURSELF, MISTER,” said Claudia, “OR ONE OF US WILL SMUGGLE YOU HOME IN HER HANDBAG.”
The women giggled.
My earlier interview gave them a false sense of comfort around me, like they knew me. They were less inhibited. More than that, my displays of strength – even if in miniature – seemed to bring out the gushy schoolgirl them. I was cute like a tiny animal but beefed up like the protagonist of a romance novel. It probably crossed the wires in their brains.
They were very keen now to get some film of me getting a bath. Probably a little too keen.
Whatever she thought of the women’s affectionate clucking, Jennifer all too happily obliged to give them their PG13 footage of me in a waterhole.
I was taken into the bathroom while Jennifer made up the sink. Not everyone could fit inside, so Julienna and Craig the cameraman went in while the others hovered around the doorway. Stuart waited back in the living room.
Julienna announced, “IF YOU COULD TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF AND GET IN FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES.”
“I thought I wasn’t getting naked,” fisting my hands and feeling locked under the almost palpable weight of their staring.
“OF COURSE. YOU CAN KEEP YOUR UNDERWEAR ON.”
Only problem: I wasn’t wearing any. I didn’t have enough pairs of tiny underwear to wear a pair every day. So it was commando day every other day.
Jennifer knew this (she did the laundry after all), but – God bless her – she said nothing, allowing my cheeks to develop a red glow under the bathroom lights, which seemed hotter than usual. The bathroom also seemed much smaller than I remember. I certainly had not gotten bigger.
“I’ve only got these pants on.”
“OKAY,” the woman interviewer nodded curtly, still keen to get her film, “WHAT IF WE CLOSE THE DOOR A SECOND, OR HOLD UP A TOWEL?”
“NO WORRIES,” said Jennifer, “I’LL COVER YOU.”
She took the initiative to position herself behind me and placed her hand up on its edge like a makeshift fence, shielding my body from view of the others.
I hesitated for a moment, not trusting that Jennifer might take her hand away as soon as I was naked – it was the type of thing she’d take delight in.
“DON’T WORRY,” Julienna said to me. “CAMERA IS OFF UNTIL YOU’RE IN THE WATER.”
I began to undress slowly. I could feel the media peoples’ eyes on me, even though they couldn’t see my body behind Jennifer’s hand. But unlike them, Jennifer retained a full view of my nudity. This was no big deal, I guess, seeing as though it wasn’t the first time she’d seen me in the buff. It’s just that it seemed very different since I’d shrunk; with her great mass hovering over me, basically casting her shadow over me, and her eyes sweeping over me like a lighthouse beam, it always seemed oppressively intimate.
The smallest sexually suggestive gesture, in the presence of a giant, was magnified into something breathtakingly carnal, because giants had such an unavoidable bodily presence, and that presence weighed on you with its suggestion of skewed power. The power was always there, even if the giant did not use it.
It wasn’t just that I was taking off my clothes; there was the unspoken intimidation that Jennifer could effortlessly rip them off my body, if she wanted to.
Once I was bare, her fingers swept around me, covering me up from the media people, and she lifted me off the sink counter. Her thumb was pressed along my spine, and her little finger was hooked around my lower belly. I inhaled stiffly as I felt my package squeezed into the space at the base of her little finger, where the lowest joint met her palm. Her littlest finger shifted back and forth subtly over my member, as if trying to identify exactly where it was.
Unable to protest under the media peoples’ watchfulness, I bit my tongue.
The flat glassy surface of the sink water rose up towards my dangling feet. Without warning, she dunked me fully under the water.
Her hand surfaced me again, coughing and gasping.
“THIS IS HOW I WASH HIM,” Jennifer said over her shoulder, a trace of glee in her voice. I realized the camera was shooting us now.
Barely getting a breath in, I was dunked a second time. Underwater, the bathroom light dimmed and Jennifer’s voice was muted. Her little finger gave my junk a firm squeeze, and released it again as she brought my head back above the surface.
“I’VE GOT TO WASH HIM LIKE HE’S A LITTLE BABY, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY HE CAN’T WASH HIMSELF.”
“DON’T I, SWEETIE?” She cooed down at me, tickling my scalp. “YOU LIKE IT WHEN I WASH YOU, DON’T YOU?” She even followed this with some kissing noises down at me, like I was a baby animal.
The media people tittered again with amusement, which I hoped they would remember to edit out of the film back in the studio. In fact, right about now, sporting a furious blush on my cheeks like an allergic reaction, I wished some cosmic censor would edit me out of the picture entirely.
Once this infantilizing display was mercifully over, Jennifer’s fingertips captured me around the chest and went to lift me out of the sink.
My eyes went wide.
“Wait—”
I flew through the air, dripping, and was placed down on the sink, while her hand automatically withdrew. Their eyes hung over me.
“OOPS,” she said, referring to the fact she’d just bared me at the camera, putting my conflicted boner on full show. She quickly lifted her hand in front of me, but the damage was done. Everyone had seen Jerry Junior at full mast.
The females (Lisa and Claudia had poked their head around the door by now) were blushing almost as much as me, and sniggering with surprise – and probably other emotions.
“IT’S FINE,” Julienna said quickly, trying to hide a smile, “WE’LL EDIT IT.”
I got dressed behind Jennifer’s hand and then we went back out into the living room again.
“I THINK JERRY’S GETTING TIRED NOW,” Jennifer said. “HE NEEDS A REST.” As much as I appreciated her concern, I wish hadn’t phrased it in a way that infantilized me, like I was a grumpy baby.
The media team obligingly wrapped up the interview, and thanked me. Julienna seemed about to shake my on the way out, but opting against it, patted me on the head instead, her huge hand overshadowing me like an umbrella. The women were practically gushing over me now, and seemed like they would have been eager for some physical contact as well – maybe even a goodbye kiss – but Jennifer was quick to sweep the whole crew out the door.