Night had settled in, the windows had shaded into black mirrors. The clouds had released another small burst of rain, which scurried over the windows like sharp claws.

Soft clattering came from the kitchen, the women were washing up.

I sat on the sofa armrest, the TV was playing softly at the other side of the living room, the one with the Afghan rug and its hypnotic red and black patterns. I had leapt over to the remote and switched it on, if only to forestall the heavy quiet in the spacious white room. The more I focused on the IMAX sized flatscreen, the more the moving colors blurred together as my consciousness tried to burrow back inside my skull.

The weight of the food I’d eaten pressed in at my gut, and drowsiness was creeping in. I lightly considered texting Raf, but now it was so late I felt guilty hauling him out and into the night and the rain. Darcy’s offer became more attractive by the second.

The pleasant, slightly nauseous feeling wasn't just having eaten too much. The marsala had contained wine and, from the tell-tale bitter aftertaste, there must have been alcohol in the dessert as well. My nerves were numb, warm and tingly. With my eyes closed, my awareness was teetering on a cliff edge, desiring to drop right off.

Searching for a distraction, I scooted over the armrest and leaned over the edge of the remote, reaching for the button to switch the channel. My weight came down on the remote clumsily, and as the arm of the sofa was rounded, not flat, the remote shifted out from under me like a fish, shooting off the sofa. Automatically reaching after it, my mass then cantilevered over the edge, and the air was whisking all around me.

The floor sprung up at my face. I’d missed the Afghan rug, instead the wood panel floor gave my face an almighty pounding, which seemed to echo around my skull for an extra moment. The numbing alcohol kept the pain at bay.

As I lay in a crumpled, groaning heap, the floor trembled against my cheek with a series of thudding sounds that rapidly grew closer, before a giant umbrella seemed to cast over me. Warm objects probed up under my armpits, grasping my chest, taking me up into the air. For a moment my ribcage was being pinched too tightly to expand properly, my breath escaped in short gasps. And then my ascent levelled out, my butt came down on the soft, padded surface of an open palm which clouded my liberated airways with perfume.

She braced my shoulders and scalp, and a fingertip brushed my throat to tip my head back as she peered into my flushed face. My vision tilted unless I concentrated. Her visage wavered dimly before consolidating under the bright light.

"TOO MUCH AMARETTO." She made a sound somewhere between frustration and regret. "MMM. I AM SORRY.”

“No,” I mumbled, unable to blame the alcohol when it had generously clouded the pain of my fall. “I get drunk easily because of my size.”

It took a moment longer to click. Amaretto was a liqueur. I stared up into her eyes, held on my face with gentle inquisition. Only the alcohol gave me the fortitude to unflinchingly return her confronting, intimate stare.

"You like liqueurs?"

She betrayed a small smile.

"A LITTLE."

Her face rose from sight as I was lowered to her chest, and her smooth gait began to carry me across the floor. The living room area receded past a corner of the house I hadn’t visited. She clicked the switch and light filled up a bedroom, white walls and dark floor. The air was cooler in here, and I realized how heated and charged my skin felt, like a light bulb.

I was gently dropped onto the satin throw rug on the duvet, and as she moved away, she gave me an ironic glance over her shoulder.

“DON’T PEEK.”

I stood frozen on the bed as, without any warning, she began to undress, slipping off the halter to a lacy, mesh, flesh-baring bra, and peeling the pants down to slinky matching underwear.

As I fought for composure, she rummaged vaguely – I eyed her lingerie drawer with a flicker of unease – before pulling out and changing into a black slip that fitted tightly; her breasts hung full against the bust, and jiggled faintly as she walked, the underwear clung around her butt.

I ran my palm against my perspiring forehead. The room seemed too airless and too bright, giant and somehow too small. My skin flamed from the alcohol.

She paused in front of the cheval mirror in the corner of the room, ran her hands over her breasts, adjusting the bust of her bra, absorbed, as if I wasn’t in the room.

I considered clearing my throat, but it was so dry, it wouldn’t obey the command. And my eyes were stuck on her reflection which faced me, though her eyes were on herself.

It was then I realized her body was different than I remembered; when I’d been kept in her house, the little of her I’d seen under light, anyway. Back then she had been lean and lithe. Now, she had filled out a little around her hips, abdomen and chest. Her belly was not slightly sunken but flat and firm, legs meatier, breasts lush and projecting, her whole shape curved subliminally. She looked better, and I hated to admit, more sensual, intensely desirable.

“IT HAPPENED SO QUICKLY.”

She was speaking so softly, barely audible, that at first I assumed she was muttering to herself in Italian, until I understood the words.

“YOU MUST HAVE BEEN VERY AFRAID.”

The chase at Skyros? I wondered. The run-in with the guy on the street outside the club? It took a moment to register what she was referring to. She was talking about the initial miniaturization during the Flip party. Maybe she had seen the interview; I’d opened up more about the Flip party than in the TV special.

“I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE.” Her voice was analytical, like a psychologist.

“My body creates more adrenaline,” I explained. “More energy and a dopamine kick in response to fearful situations. So, it balances out, I guess. The world is scarier at my size, but the effects of the miniaturization allow me to cope better.”

She stared past the mirror, contemplating this.

“FORTUNATE...IN A RELATIVE SENSE.”

“I guess so.”

“BUT IT MUST BE DIFFICULT,” she went on. LONELY. NO WOMAN TO FOLLOW YOU OUT OF THE MACHINE.” She voice lilted coyly. “I ASSUME THE PROSPECT DID NOT SEDUCE YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER…?”

“That’s not happening any time soon,” I said sadly, rolling my shoulders in a shrug. “And I wouldn’t want it to.”

For a fraction of a second she seemed taken aback. My answer seemed to catch her off guard. She quickly recovered.

“What’s the draw?” I pointed out. “It’s a big, dangerous world.”

I went quiet again, deciding to let her imagination fill in the implications of that suggestion, for shrunken women in particular.

“WITHOUT QUESTION,” she said smoothly. “WHAT SINGLE ADVANTAGE IS THERE BEING YOUR SIZE?”

My brow hardened at her frankness.

“I didn’t say there was nothing good about it.”

“THEN, PLEASE SHARE THE GOOD NEWS.”

“I see detail normal-sized people miss.”

“AN EXAMPLE.”

“You look good. I mean, better. It’s more obvious at my size, I—” I fumbled for words. The truth was, I saw her body bunch and flex when she moved, her tanned skin seemed warmer and richer, the darkness of her hair and eyes more lustrous, seeming to shine with light from within.

The compliment glanced off. She turned from the mirror and faced me, folding her arms.

“GOOD? JUST TELL ME.”

“What?”

“PEOPLE. WHAT THEY REALLY LOOK LIKE.”

“You really want to know?”

She looked at me intently.

“YES…I WONDER.”

I lay back, staring up at the ceiling, thinking for a moment. Maybe because of my position, I said:

“It’s like you’re lying on the ground looking up at people. But they’re not just tall, they’re wide, too.”

There was a frown in her voice.

“THAT’S TERRIFYING. IT MUST BE.”

“Adrenaline,” I reminded.

The mattress groaned and bounced me as she slid onto the bed. I continued.

“It’s hard to describe, because I don’t think about it anymore. It’s just…normal.”

She had brought her head close to survey me, her warm breath hitting one side of my body in soft waves.

“HOW IS IT NORMAL?” she said. “YOU ARE AT THE LEVEL OF THE TOENAIL. HOW ARE YOU NOT THOROUGHLY SICK TO DEATH OF FEET?”

It was a joke. Or maybe it wasn’t. She had a point, but I couldn’t explain how the exposure to feet had hardened my sensibilities. At home, if I walked around on the ground, a passing Jen had no hesitation about playfully poking me with her toe as her giant strides took her past and over the top of me, as if to tease me for being unable to match her walking speed.

“Nothing shocks me anymore.”

She thought over this for a moment. Then a varnished fingernail extended to tap softly against my temple. I turned my head shyly.

“THE NIGHT AT SKYROS, DOES HE RECALL WHAT I SAID TO HIM?”

Now she made a seamless transition into being analytical again.

“Uh…Basically, yes.” 

“AND WHAT WAS IT I SAID?”

“That we were going to move on from—”

“NO, AFTER THAT.”

Her dark eyes burned into mine, scattering all my thoughts.

“Um…The wedding. You and Darcy—”

“YES, BUT LATER.”

As my brain raced for recollection, my eyes traced the waxed fur of her left eyebrow, the slitted one. I dumbly wondered how many of my tiny fingers wide the slit was, and impulsively wanted to stroke her eyebrow to check.  Anything not to stare into her penetrating eyes, half veiled by the long dusky lashes.

The fingernail stroked behind my ear, grazing, coaxing me to continue, but now I sensed it was growing slightly impatient.

“You said the court pro—”

Her long eyelashes shaded almost fully as she gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, while her thumb brushed my lips, silently imploring me to stop talking.

Then her eyes held on my face again like she could beam the correct response into my head.

“BEFORE YOU FELL ASLEEP IN MY HAND, I MADE NO IMPRESSION WHATSOEVER?”

“You said a lot of things,” I said weakly, “and I was drunk.”

“MUST I REPEAT MYSELF?”

“You could give me a hint.”

Some cryptic expression passed her face, fleetingly, possibly a smile, or just a muscle twitch.

“BUT YOU PROVIDE THE HINT ALREADY.”

As she said this, her hand came in to poke and tickle at the soles of my feet with her pinky nail. I kicked my legs away and tucked them in.

 “Yeah, I seem to recall you saying something weird about your feet.”

She paused.

“’WEIRD?’…NO. THAT’S NOT WHAT I SAID AT ALL.”

Her gaze held on me like a laser, daring me to object.

“Okay, not the right word. I don’t like the underside of a foot to fall from the sky without warning. That’s my only concern.”

The bed frame groaned and wobbled softly as she gracefully slid up into a sitting position on the mattress, with her legs folded like she was going to cross them, but instead brought the soles of her feet together.

Her outstretched hand covered the ceiling as it dropped over me, fingers curling tight around my body. The mattress pressing against me was quickly replaced with her cool bare soles, slightly separated to allow my body to slip in between them, my head positioned between the soft pads of her big toes, which moved in, cushioning my skull like a padded helmet.

With her toes pressed in on either side of my head, I could feel the pulse running through the bottom of her big toes, tapping at my cheeks. It was weirdly relaxing, like a head massage.

My arms and legs were pinned by the firm balls of her feet, and my head was fixed in place between her big toes, forced to stare straight up at the ceiling, and her face, which abutted the bottom of my visual field. She surveyed me with interest, waiting for my reaction.

A little unnerved, I began to struggle, but my extremities were rigidly locked in place, like I had set in concrete. The muscular walls of her feet calmly shifted and tensed against me, effortlessly hemming me in.

"YOU’LL TIRE YOURSELF OUT," she murmured, giving my head a small squeeze between her toes in a way that she probably intended as comforting, but only made me feel even more helpless and in her control. "BEHAVE FOR ME. BE STRONG."

“What if Darcy comes in…?”

“THEN WE SAY THIS IS A LITTLE GAME OF OURS,” she answered lazily, continuing to tense and flex her feet, squeezing and moulding me like a tiny wad of clay.

The large boulders of her toes began to move in my peripheral vision, their firm pressure against the sides of my head increased subtly as they began to move in circular motions. My powerless head had no resistance, and was forced to rotate along with them, like a tiny cog being turned inside a machine. I let my neck go limp, to prevent neck strain, letting the toes take my head by whim. My head was turned completely to one side, and flat, grainy toepad rested there for a moment, keeping my head held still. My stomach churned a little in nervousness with the blown up toe completely having dominated my entire world, blanketing it into darkness beneath its impassive pressure. Then my head was rotated  once more, to the other side, where the opposite toepad settled over my features for another period of brief stillness. And this carried on several times.

The foot massaging loosened her up. She started to murmur:

“WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER, I WAS INDISPOSED TO BE TRULY MYSELF AROUND YOU, BECAUSE…I WAS AFRAID I WOULD FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t; my body was immobile between her feet, and my face was buried beneath one of her big toes.

A big soft object began handling my shaft, plucking it out from between the upward-facing, inside edges of the balls of her feet. My member started to pound with arousal as it was idly stroked and fingered in a thrillingly affectionate, feminine way, like my member was a curious little animal whose trust needed to be elicited. Then the sensation stopped, leaving me achingly firm, dick twanging with desperate need.

Despite the strange position I was in, everything about her was very cool and graceful, as if I was being propositioned for a business deal. Her manner was businesslike, as always, but with a subtle touch of intimacy, which, the more I tried to ignore, the more it called attention to itself. And she intended to make it clear who was the subordinate; sandwiched between her feet, where I was forced to crane my neck up to look at her, while she surveyed me without expression, while subtly stroking her lips in consideration – admittedly a little unnerving – as she slowly rolled and compacted me between her feet.

Finally she gave me a small smile and in a silken voice, murmured:

“YOU HAVE A SEAT AT OUR TABLE ANYTIME YOU WISH.”

My face was rotated out from under the big toe of the left foot, and I took the opportunity to gasp:

“That’s…very kind…” I said, and my voice came out thin and strained as a result of the slight pressure on either side of my throat. “…Thank you.”

“BUT – I SIMPLY SUGGEST – THERE MIGHT BE SOME KIND OF SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN US…?”

I hesitated, wondering if maybe my intuition about the business deal was accurate.

“What…do you…mean?”

Her fingertips swept down to me – the same that had, moments ago been stroking her lips – patting my belly and lingering there a moment, tickling softly.

“JUST US,” she emphasized softly. “HOW WOULD THAT BE; FOR US TO BE CLOSE AGAIN? – BUT NO MORE WILDNESS.”

Her soles somehow felt narrower, tighter, claustrophobic, even as their soft surfaces titillate 

“No!” I spluttered, unsure if I was comprehending her meaning correctly. “We’re both…in relationships...I’m engaged!”

“I WRONGED YOU, YOU LOVED ME AND I HURT YOU. IT PLAYS ON MY MIND STILL…”

“Samantha,” I said, “I’m not here to…for that. What about when were together?” I shot, feeling a surge of frustration, “you weren’t…interested then.”

Her feet muscles became tense like clamps on my comparatively weak body. My head was slowly rolled to the side where a toe pad planted itself perfectly on my face and held there. Everything was dark, the commanding pressure of the toe pad was like someone sitting directly on my face. With my head held, both toes exerted a couple of subtle squeezes upon my skull, seemingly unconsciously. She was thinking.

“I MUST ADMIT,” she said flatly, “THE NOTION OF A TRADITIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN BORES ME…”

My face was rotated back to gaze up at her, but carried on rotating to the opposite side.

“Yeah. Precisely—oof.”

The opposite toe pad came to rest upon my face, squishing my features down.

“BUT—” a soft finger palpated around my belly again “—DID I SAY YOU AND I WOULD MAKE A TRADITIONAL RELATIONSHIP? SOMETHING ELSE IS OPEN TO US.”

The finger slid down to my semi-erect penis and resumed its stroking, until I was fully hard. My chest seized up and a shudder ran through my body. The soft fingerpad stroking my shaft then slipped smoothly down to the underside of my balls, trying to scoop them up between the gap of her feet.

My balls, balancing on the tip of her finger, were filling with irresistible pressure, an aching longing to ejaculate. My head was also filling with pressure, as the big toes were absent-mindedly pushing in and out against my head, making it feel like it was throbbing. I tried to moan in protest but my voice was locked up; the pressure of her toes squeezing my throat.

My shaft was once again targeted; the soft, warm fingertip was drawing circles into the tip of my penis. My head was spinning, balls seeming to swell, so tight and dense I thought my heart might fail. I wanted to scream but was totally, hopelessly mute.

There was an agonizing stretch throughout my entire body now, as my member was tugged over and over, faster each time until I was practically mimicking sexual thrusts, but unable to move my hips. The feeling endured, over and over, and building until it peaked with a series of blinding, pleasurable jolts that ripped through my shaft, until I was drained.

As I panted hard, the soft walls enclosing me spread gently to admit grasping fingers to carry me up from the bed to come to a stop against the soft flesh of her mammary. As if unable to help herself, she massaged my head against her nipple, until I began to blush and struggle in her grip, breaking her meditative trance.

The world rocked and swayed while she got to her feet and stepped back down the hall into the main room. Darcy scrutinized us – and me in particular, wrapped up in Samantha’s hands, held against her chest. Eyeing us, she said:

“THE HOUSE IS SO QUIET…WERE YOU GUYS CUDDLING?”

Samantha didn’t say anything, but she must have thrown some kind of understated look because Darcy’s face lit up as she found this adorable, and she laughed.

“YOU HAVE TO WATCH YOURSELF, JERRY,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at me. “NEXT THING YOU KNOW, SAM’S GONNA ADOPT YOU.”

She reached down and stroked my face with the tip of her fingers, as if I was a little gerbil. In fact, the small conspiratorial smiles they were giving each other over my head were beginning to make me uneasy. I called up Raf to pick me up, and noticed my phone had more missed messages, all from hers truly.

Half an hour ago:

weird day? busy, not, whatev, just lmk. not hard, just courtesy.

ten minutes ago:

because im such a bad person checking where you are??

And five minutes ago:

or fine just leave me in suspense…

The tactile impression of Samantha’s toes against my cheeks felt stuck, like it had made imprints in my flesh, hot and heavy.

*

Back home I rang her, telling her I’d had dinner with friends, and played it off like my phone was in one room and I was in another. Due to my size, such excuses were reasonable, if in this case, not entirely truthful.

“You can relax,” I said soothingly. “I’m home.”

If I was ‘home, home’ and not ‘Tiferno, home,’ I could have soothed her with my body; crawling onto her lap and pressing myself against her stomach for a hug. She usually could not resist this, even if it was just the pathetic spectacle of her vastly diminutive boyfriend struggling to encompass the breathtaking breadth of her hips in his puny arm spread.

But now, through a phone line I felt even more impotent to my gigantic girlfriend than usual.

Then I realized she was talking:

“…around new people? Or is it just, like, the escape?”

She had this analytical way of acting like she had you all ‘figured out’. It was incredibly sexy when she was coming on to you, like she’d been observing you for a while before deciding to make the approach, but it was exasperating when she did it to assert a difference in opinion.

“I think you’re being slightly moralistic,” I said, aware how strange it felt accusing Jennifer Tomlin of being ‘moralistic’. “You’ve had more than your lifetime of buck-wild, unaccountable Friday nights.”

“Oh, please stop,” she huffed, “I don’t care if you were running naked through central SP. That is so fucked up of you to suggest my moral compass is broken.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“It is just so sexist to say when a girl is having fun it’s a moral thing, like it’s abnormal or shameful. It’s a double standard. You’re a pretty smart guy so I’m going to pretend you didn’t mean that.”

I promised when I came home we’d do something fun together. She one-upped me, saying we’d do something fun together – in Tiferno. Next weekend, she’d fly up with me and stay in my apartment. She insisted.