Chapter 6: Small talk

“Excuse me officer” drooled a powerful voice, bringing Rick’s attention to its owner with practiced ease. “I need to report something.”

The woman who was speaking was, obviously, a Small. It was always them who seemed to relish the opportunity to come and bother Normals. Giants and above barely noticed them, which made sense considering their size. And Rick was, somehow, a Small magnet. Perhaps it was his athletic body which he couldn’t hide even in his uniform. Perhaps it was just his looks which gave him a sort of cute face or something like that which drove them crazy – boys and girls. As a teenager, he had had far too many suitors towering over twenty meters more than willing to “play with him”.

As it was, he’d rather have been working on their case, but they had been met with a roadblock so far and he couldn’t see his way out of it. He’d need a warrant and it’d give all the time in the world for their perp – okay, he was just a suspect in theory but Rick was certain he knew something, he knew it in his guts – would get away or get croaked for good. Therefore, even those oafish attempts at seducing him were welcome just now. At least it wasn’t anything too bad.

He tried to see where was his new partner, but Alicia was nowhere in sight. Probably still in queue for her latte or whatever hey sold at Starbucks. He never went to those old and crusty stores, favoring instead the sleeker and cooler new ones when he really craved a bagel or something like that. Sadly it meant that he had to wait for her in the open, since he hated waiting inside a car if he could avoid it. But as the red-headed colossus loomed far too close to make him feel comfortable, he really started to reconsider his habit.

“Sure, how can I help you?” he asked her, doing his best to hide his tired tone – he could almost feel a terrible pick-up line coming.

“Well, I think I’ve seen a felony, since you’ve stolen my sight and now I can only see you.”

He didn’t even sigh, which required a lot of effort. Truth been told, as corny as it was, it wasn’t the worst line he had heard. At least that one wasn’t showing off her curves to him as if having tits the size of small elephants was supposed to be attractive for a guy like him. They seemed to forget rather easily that those tons of breasts could crush him to death. Looking up at the lady, who stood far enough from him to grant him an unobstructed view of her face, he had to admit that she was pretty. Had he been into Smalls, perhaps he’d have been tempted.

“Wow, am I interrupting the most dated flirting attempt ever” chuckled a feminine voice, heralding the arrival of Alica, who had a huge grin up her face.

“It’s not dated!” shouted the Small ginger, glaring at the other woman she probably saw as her rival, suspected Rick, who now allowed himself to sigh.

“I’m flattered lady but, uh, I don’t think I’d be up to the task of being a great boyfriend. I’m not exactly made of that kind of wood, you know?” – and I’m far too into taller women for my health, he added in his head, knowing how it had ended the last time he had been the one trying to woo a Small gal.

“Oh, you’re just so cute!” she cooed, her sudden anger at Alicia disappearing almost as fast as it had started to rise. “Here, take my number! I’m sure you’d be perfect” she said, producing a leaf of paper from her considerable bottom and handing it out to me. “I’ll be waiting, officer!”

And with that, she swirled around and left – with what he suspected was an exaggerated swagger in her backside – that gal had curves for day, even for a Grown! She’d have verged on overweight if she had been a Normal, with most of the far concentrated in her breasts, her hips and calves – and her ass of course. He did his best to not stare at her even as she looked over her shoulder and winked at him, knowing full well it’d be impossible for him not to at least look at her a little.

“Careful, if your mouth opens a little more, your jaw will touch the floor” chuckled Alicia, snapping him out of it.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad. And even you have to admit that she got curves. But she’s really taller for me, nowadays.”

“Really? For someone who wanted to date Smalls, you’d pass up the opportunities now?” she asked quizzically, her beautiful face tilted toward him as she started to sip her coffee.

“Yeah, I would. I’ve come to realize that someone whom I’d be able to stimulate in more than one place at once would be more up my alley, you see?”

He grinned when she coughed a little but raised his hands to show he didn’t meant anything bad about his little laugh. She continued to drink as she looked at the Small moving away. The red-headed bombshell was relatively careful where she walked and the throngs of peoples opened around her path. Which was great, if she had hurt someone they’d have had to intervene and it’d have been super awkward… Still, she wasn’t as beautiful as Alicia. Rick blushed when he realized what he had just thought.

“Whoa, I hope it’s nothing more than a terrible idea of adding sugar in my coffee that’s passing to your head” said Alicia, grinning at him half-jokingly, half-threateningly. “I can get real dangerous when I’ve got too much of that in my bloodstream, you’re warned.”

“Noted!” he smiled. “But nope, it wasn’t that at all just… an embarrassing old memory. That I won’t be sharing anytime soon” he added to build up his lies as she opened her mouth.

“Shame, I heard it’d helped build up trust in partners. Mines were always more attracted to me than… me, if you get my meaning.”

Rick definitively got it, even if she hadn’t traced her torso with her left hand. Alicia was both strong and curvy. Not too much, she was more muscular than anything else. But she was definitively feminine, her breasts were noticeable – if not enormous or even large, if he was being honest. Her ass had seemed larger and better defined from what he had seen at the hospital. But he wouldn’t – he couldn’t – fall for her, no matter how pretty she was or whatever strange messages she’d send at him.

“Yeah well, you’re cute but if we end into a shoot-out or something like that, I’d rather know you can mow anything down with a machine-gun or something like that” he chuckled.

“A machine-gun? Why would I use one when I have those guns?” she laughed, flexing her arms and making her muscles bulge in a way Rick was almost certain was beyond human – or at least beyond pure Normal. “Impressive, right. It’s the result of hard work, if you’re wondering.”

“Yeah, well, I hit the gym four times a week and I’ve never seen anyone with arms like this!”

“That’s because you’d need to hit the gym 7/7, partner” she grinned. “And have good genes, but most Normies, they got afraid of height, you know it as well as me.”

“Well, I guess it’s only natural. I mean, men don’t like to feel weak and women well… let’s just say Normal women don’t really have a death wish because they are just too tight, see?”

“Come on, penetration isn’t the only way to satisfy a taller man, believe me.”

“Yeeeaah… how about we returned to work instead of doing Small-talk, uh?” he offered, a little disgusted as his mind produced in his brain a vivid picture of a dick several meters long.

“So prudish” chuckled Alicia. “But okay, sure, let’s get serious. It’s just… refreshing to have a partner who is neither afraid of my size nor ogling me like I’m some piece of exotic meat, you know?”

He could get the general idea at least. Ever since Growns had appeared, Normals had gotten really terrified of them. They had good reasons, because even the supposedly benevolent Gigantics could end snuffing out thousands of lives with one misplaced foot when they decided to stroll around the country… Normals had lost ever more stature as taller peoples had become linked to Growns – in fact even his 1m80 was now somehow too tall for most girls in his size bracket!

And of course, there were also peoples who really wanted to get with “halfsies”, those taller than average Normal peoples. He knew it was rather dumb to call them that, they weren’t a class apart from other Normals, even compared to the smallest of the Smalls. But it was how they were perceived and usually it led to a fair bit of discrimination. Alicia didn’t seemed to have turned too bad because of it thankfully. In fact she looks mighty fine, he thought and he turned around, saved by a yelp in another direction.

“Hey, can’t you huge oaf look where you walk!” shrieked a older woman, around sixty probably.

“Well, why don’t you fucking stay on your side of the sidewalk, you grape-sized cunt!” huffed the Small teenage boy, who looked quite pissed that he was being yelled at by an old Normal.

The two cops didn’t even exchange one more word. Alicia only took the time to gulp down her hot coffee and to throw the cup in the nearby trash bin, giving her partner but three steps ahead of her, before joining him as Rick approached the heated exchange which was growing hotter by the second. They both knew that they had to intervene quickly, those kind of events had a tendency to turn ugly really fast.

“Excuse me, what’s happening here?” shouted Rick, attracting the attention of the Normal, the Small and all the onlookers to him and Alicia. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, I didn’t hurt anyone, it’s just that old hag who’s screaming like a –”

“Who are you calling an hag, you overgrown punk!” screeched the old lady, making Rick wince.

“ENOUGH!” bellowed Alicia, suddenly standing next to the old lady, looming over her in fact. “Don’t shout at me” she growled as the crone opened her mouth, her face reddening by the second. “You don’t seem to be hurt, otherwise you wouldn’t behave like that, so you’ll have to answer a few questions. Okay ? Good. You’re on the Small section of the sidewalk; so where you trying to cross to the other side of the road?”

“No, I didn’t but –”

“Then why did you…”

Rick stopped listening his partner as he gestured to the Small teenager to follow him a few meters away. He looked at him. He had a certain grunge vibe, which was apparently the fad among boys his age currently. He wondered if he’d make dealing with him hard to eal with, but when he met the slightly bored but compliant eyes of the young boy, he felt somewhat relieved.

“Okay, what’s your name buddy?”

“Ted, Theodore, sir.”

“Okay so, Ted. You seem like a good guy, so I’ll be asking the questions honestly and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But don’t try to take me for a fool, or I’ll have to have you hauled to the precinct, and it’d be a bother for both of us.”

The next dozen minutes or so were spent talking with Ted, until he left, feeling reassured that he hadn’t done anything wrong, as far as Rick could tell. Alicia needed twice as much time before she convinced the old lady that she had been the one at fault and that she needed to be happy she wouldn’t be bothered because nothing bad had happened. When her partner joined him back near their car, he handed him out another cup of coffee.

“Thanks to you I can’t tell I’ve never been to a Starbuck, I hope you’re happy” he grinned.

“My hero” she replied, amused, but she took the cup with a lot of eagerness. “I swear this kind of asshats are just the worst…”

“Yeah I…” started Rick but he was interrupted by his patrol phone.

“Officer De Paul? We have received… concerning news, we need you and your partner on the Northern Docks, ASAP.”

There was an urgency in the Commissar’s voice which prevented either of the police officer to groan. They’d have to travel over more than half of the country, but it had to be important. Vital even.

“Seems we got a second chance at getting info, eh?” mused Alicia.

“Seems like it, yeah.”