The 2000s…
Keene Walker was twenty-one years old, and attended classes at university. Keene was pleased to have been offered a place as a teaching student.
One day his class was given an assignment that required the students to work in pairs.
"What a cumbersome nuisance. I've always been my own man, rushed in here, done the work and rushed home. It won't be so easy, having to fit in with somebody else's plans. I am a bit of a loner. All the people who know each other will pair up, and I'll have to see who is left over. They can be stuck with me, which won't enthuse them if I don't become more of a team-spirited person," he thought.
He was still thinking about improving his concept of teamwork as well as his attitude to it, when another thought invaded his mind.
"This is an excuse to do something with Louise Waters! I have always wanted to be with her."
He found her in the courtyard at lunchtime and asked her:
"Do you have anyone to work with on the assignment yet?"
"Our group is still deciding who is with whom. There'll be an odd one out."
"Would you like to work with me, and that will leave an even number amongst the others?"
"Alright Keene. You live around here, don't you? I've seen you riding your bike."
"I'm very close."
"I'm not that far myself. Shall we meet at my house? Tonight would be fine."
"I'd best get the train and walk to your house. If I use the bike I'd be riding it home in the dark."
What Keene did not know is that Louise Waters, since defeating the Sons of Molech (in an earlier chapter), had started a teaching course, so that she could put her scientific expertise to use as a science teacher, now that she had to support both herself and her shrunken boyfriend Phil Hermuth.
"I could take you. Why don't I pick you up at your house today, as soon as you've got the bike home. I'll cook dinner for us as well."
"Thanks."
He told her his address.
"I can drive you home too" she said.
So at the end of the day Keene cycled home and Louise collected him in her car, a maroon coloured station wagon. She led him into the kitchen.
"Since this assignment is about relating to young children, I thought we might talk a little about our own childhood lives while I prepare our dinner."
"Mine was very lonely. I tend to forget it all these days" he said "It's probably why I'm such a loner now. Many people plunge happily into nostalgic memories of their childhood, but I'd much rather leave mine far behind. What about you?"
"I see. I was an only child. Being an only child was a good thing for me. It did not make me spoiled like some only children. At least that's what everyone says. I grew up a little faster than most children. Maybe it was because I never had any brothers and sisters to play with."
"Fair enough."
"So what will you have to drink at dinner time?"
"Do you have cola?"
"Yes. Will you open a bottle for me?"
They continued talking until dinner, and then they ate together at a grand dining table, until Keene found himself constantly blinking his eyes and struggling to stay awake.
"Are you alright?" asked Louise. She must have noticed a fading in the colouring of his face or something else, which would have betrayed his sudden urge to fall asleep on the spot.
"I just feel tired for some reason. We'd better start the harder parts of the assignment though. I'll sleep better knowing that we've got some of it out of the way."
"I can start on my own, if you're not feeling well."
"No. I should be fine in a minute."
"You do look very drowsy."
"But I can't imagine why. I feel sleepy too, but I had a good night's sleep last night, and I've just eaten a hearty meal. I should be bursting with energy."
* * * *
Keene had fallen asleep. He dreamt of a variety of scenes and was oblivious to whatever Louise was doing while he slept. Many hours later he began to awaken from a deep sleep. His eyes were still closed, but he felt he was now in a bed. Had Louise carried him to the car, driven him home and opened his door with his own keys before putting him into his bed? Had she watched him suddenly drop off and taken him to a spare bed in her own home?
He felt a hand stroking his head and heard her humming to herself. He opened his eyes and saw her standing beside a bed, which was completely new to him.
"How's my darling little Keene this morning?" she said.
"Fine Louise I suppose. Did I fall asleep at dinner?"
"No. I just tucked you into bed when you were ready, like I normally do."
"But I've never been here before. I only came over last night so that we could do some of the assignment."
"I'm doing it with Karen. Anyway I don't think that my university would welcome the help of my foster son."
"Who is he?"
"You. Why do you ask all these silly questions, Keene?"
As she spoke, Louise sat on a chair beside the bed, put her hand under his chin and tilted his head a little so she could kiss his cheek.
"Hey that felt strange."
"Really?" she laughed.
"It was nice, but I haven't shaved yet" he said rubbing his cheek with his fingers "Hey did you shave me? My cheeks are clean. They're never this clear. Whatever you used was marvellous. I've tried all the best and most expensive shaving equipment over the last few months, and I still ended up with chafed up skin and short stubble sticking through."
"You're telling more fibs Keene. You cannot expect me or anyone else to believe that you would need a shave at your age. You don't have any facial hair to shave off."
"Of course I do."
"Nonsense. It's because of all these foolish stories about being an adult, that the school counsellor at your last school gave up on you. They don't know how to cope. They've asked me why I even adopted you in the first place, because of all the trouble you've been. That's why I'm enrolling you in a new school today. It's time for you to face up to the reality of life. The reality is that you are a six year old boy. I adopted you from the orphanage, and I would like you to do your best at school."
"Look Louise, if this is an experiment for our assignment so you can see how an adult reacts to being treated like a child, I think it's very clever but you can stop the playacting now."
"I'm not playacting. You're the one with the unfounded ideas about being an adult. You say this sort of thing to me every morning."
"I'm an adult. You know it. I'm as tall and ordinairy as any adult."
"Then prove it."
"Alright" said Keene.
Louise stood up as he got out of bed. To his surprise he only came up to below her waist, halfway between her waist and her knees.
"What have you done to me? How did you shrink me?"
"I didn't shrink anyone. Such a thing would be impossible. Listen Keene, you have no facial hairs, no adult height, nothing to support these wild stories of yours. Now will you promise to be sensible?"
Keene did not know how it had been done.
"Is she right? Was my adulthood merely a dream? Did I never really grow up the way I seem to remember having done? Did I never really go to university as a teaching student?" he thought "Is it possible to dream a lifetime of activity in one nightmare. I'll have to play along at being a child until I can prove whether or not I am supposed to be an adult."
He agreed to be sensible and spent the day in infant school until Louise picked him up from the after school childcare centre attached to the school.
She looked beautiful in her dress. Now he had to cope with the possibility that she had adopted him.
"The only way to prove who I am is reach my house" he thought "But she's already told me she'll be deadlocking every door in her house, so that she doesn't have to worry about me running away."
Louise drove him home, led him to the kitchen, locked the door and said "You can help yourself to a snack while I do my homework. Then I'll come and make our dinner."
She left him alone in the room looking at the window, which was also deadlocked. If he smashed it, he could still squeeze through but the glass would cut him horribly.
"I know! I'll make her think I tried it anyway. It is dark enough for me to get away with it. Then I can escape while she investigates the crash" he thought.
Keene opened her oven door.
"At six years of age again I'm small enough to hide in here. It will be dark. So she won't see me at a glance, but I can look out the glass front at her."
He threw a large saucepan violently at the window, quickly climbed into the oven and pulled the door shut.
He saw Louise come in, see the window, unlock the door, open it and run outside. He stole out of the oven, ran out the open door and went in the opposite direction to the window.
"If she plans to chase after me, then I gained very little by tricking my way out, except that she will think I am cut and hurt by the window's glass remains" he thought as he ran to the street. He kept running until he reached the station. Louise had not followed him.
"Thank goodness, if it is true that I do remember there are no station masters on the line at night" he thought as he ignored his lack of money and caught a free train home.
"I'll excuse myself from a charge of fare evasion on the grounds of being too young to know any better" he thought.
He got off the train and ran to his house.
She must have taken his keys the night before, leaving him with only one option.
He found the spare key that he had taped to the inside of a hollow tree, let himself into the house and found ample proof that he had indeed been an adult until the night before.
Then he heard a knock at the door.
"It's Louise, Keene. By the time I'd finished searching the garden and worked out what you had done, I came here too late. If you let me in I will explain everything. If you don't I can easily try each of your keys that I took last night until I get in."
He had no choice but to open the door for her.
"Would you like to sit down?" he said, pointing to a couch.
"You were an adult" she said as she sat down "Among my scientific achievements, I invented a youth serum. I put a sleeping drug in your cola and mixed the youth serum into it. You drank it, slept and woke up only six years old."
"But why?"
"I did it for you. You told me that you had a lonely childhood that you didn't enjoy. I thought I could adopt you, explain your memories away as delusions and then be your friend and give you a happy childhood this time, a second chance."
"Then it was a lovely thing to do, except..."
"What?"
He began to cry.
"Except that I was very much in love with an adult girl around my own age yesterday."
"No wonder you wanted so much to be an adult again."
"Yes. She's the most beautiful girl, and she seemed so sweet and kind. By the time I am an adult again she'll have married someone else, and I'll have to be his foster son."
"Do you mean you are in love with me?"
"Yes. That's why I wanted us to do the assignment together."
"Then you're the sweetest little darling boy I could ever have, but I already have a very special boyfriend. Why don't I adopt you and look after you until you're an adult again? I'll give you foster son kisses too."
"That will be wonderful. This will be the best we can do, I guess."
"Yes, and now that you agree to keep our secret, I can show you to the other girls I see at university. You've seen them around, but they'll think you're an ordinairy six year old boy."
"There's just one thing. After this, I won't need a bedtime story tonight when you tuck me in."
They laughed.
* * * *
In a few years Louise Waters graduated from the teaching course, and she accepted a teaching position.
* * * *
One morning Keene woke up in his bed to see that he was tiny-sized, with Louise Waters standing by the bed.
"How did I get so small? How will I get to school?"
"You won't be going to school today" said Louise carrying him to the kitchen table and sitting down, "It was as easy as the shock that I inflicted on you when I de-aged you. I was surprised to learn of your crush on me when we first met, but I have a very special boyfriend already. So now I have decided I'd rather have you for breakfast."
To the boy's surprise, she soon gulped him down whole.
The 2000s…
Robert Sinclair was an exceptional illusionist, who had applied his talent to the pleasing of children. He had his own truck complete with his props, equipment, costume and room for only one passenger. He was always keen to study and examine the scene of an upcoming performance in advance, so as to plan a thoroughly captivating show for the children in any audience. On Monday he was to set up his equipment at the Van Horner mansion which was a beautiful white building with terraces, balconies, courtyards and large gardens; and prepare a show for Saturday evening.
Mrs Van Horner was holding a birthday party for her nephew Daniel and his friends. She would hope to have the adults adequately entertained as well, but the thrust of Robert's performance would be aimed at the ears and eyes of dozens of enthusiastic primary school children.
He parked his truck in the street, opened the gate and walked to the distant front door, rang the bell and waited for an answer. The door was opened by a beautiful tall lady with blonde hair that curved upwards neatly above her shoulders. She wore a white neck-to-knees dress and the faintest shade of lipstick.
"Hello. I'm Robert Sinclair, the illusionist performing here on Saturday night. I promised Mrs Van Horner that I would have a look in the main room and set up most of my equipment today."
"Mother's not home at the moment, but I'll show you to the room. There's a side exit to the courtyard at the end of the middle driveway. You can back up to the door if you like."
"Thank you. I'll try not to disturb you with too much noise. Once I've brought the bulky things in and positioned them, the rest should be a fairly quiet procedure."
"You won't disturb me. I will be in the far wing of the house. You won't ever disturb me, Mr Sinclair."
"She senses my attraction to her" he thought "And she hardly seems keen to respond positively. I know there is no point in trying to impress her, and yet I cannot simply just accept that she is too cold and aloof to be the girl I wish she were. For some reason I strongly hope that there is a fair reason for her coolness."
"Okay. Thank you."
"You should be able to open that door without a key, from the inside. When you're finished don't bother saying goodbye. I'll be far too busy to see you out."
"I'll just pull the door shut and leave then."
* * * *
The truck was in position outside the courtyard door to the main room. As Robert carried in his platform, he listened to make sure that none of its hidden doors were rattling around loose. Within it were concealed magnets, hiding areas and other devices necessary to technically create a plausible illusion. The show need only be sufficiently exciting to bewilder the children, but the secrecy of the techniques must still be sufficient to prevent them from being discovered or exposed by the adults.
All references to "magic" in this plotline refer to sleight of hand tricks, not actual supernatural magic, which I wouldn't have my characters do, given my Christian views on the occult.
"I have the awful feeling that any attempts to dazzle that girl would be the greatest magic feat of all" he thought. She would resist him and take a sadistic pleasure in keeping him at a distance.
"It's never enough. No magic trick will do anything more than telegraph to her the hopelessness of my desperation. I wonder if she ever shows her cousin any friendliness on the nights of his birthday parties. Well this is a well paid appearance that I cannot afford to jeopardise with bad public relations; and that is exactly what any other attempt to approach Miss Van Horner would do. Why am I hoping for any change of fortune on Saturday night? After all if she wore a hat at all, her lips would inevitably tell me that she doesn't like rabbits. There's never a wonderful audience when you need it, except the children. The worst of it is that I cannot enjoy the children's positive responses the way I usually do, with their host's older adult cousin snubbing me brazenly. What would I do for a second chance at magic matching?" he thought.
He had his second chance in the middle of town on Wednesday, when he was performing in the open air theatre sponsored by the local council. She was eating from a plastic container with a disposable spoon, sitting on a bench facing the stage.
This time she wore a cream coat with matching dress, and her hair had been cut slightly shorter since the encounter on Monday. He walked around the audience talking trivially as he finished a feat of deception with an apparently shrinking wand.
"It's the trouble with trying to make people believe in the power of magic during lunch hours" he said "I seldom have the time or opportunity for providing myself with food for thought, and what's worse: I don't seem to be able to find my red handkerchief. Could I borrow a spare tissue from you Madam?"
He had made this request of Miss Van Horner.
"I would want to know if I'd have it back at the conclusion of your show without any knots in it or other damage. I'm not that keen on the way you illusionists amuse people by embarrassing members of your own audiences."
"You will have it back exactly as you lend it to me. What colour is it by the way?" asked Robert.
"White" she said reaching into her pocket to remove a red handkerchief, "... What? Not only are you an exhibitionist. You seek to make me appear a liar and a simple fool for your deception."
"Open it up if you like" said Robert hearing the amused murmur of the crowd.
"Oh alright!"
She violently separated the fold of the handkerchief to discover and reveal that it bore his initials RS in maroon old fashioned lettering.
"Well I had better let you keep it anyway."
"I don't see why! It certainly isn't mine!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"But I'll never be able to prove that it's mine, since you found it in your pocket."
"I know what you're trying to prove, but I will have no more of it!"
She threw the handkerchief at his face, furious at whatever trickery or sleight of hand had enabled him to replace her pocket handkerchief with his own. She stood up and walked away in a huff, while the audience watched him screw the handkerchief up in his hand, hold out his fist, open it to reveal the mysterious absence of the handkerchief, and return to his final illusion on the stage.
Regretful looks caught his eyes, as people glanced at their watches and noticed that they would soon be due back in their offices. He concluded the act and shook hands with the council's master of ceremonies.
"Could you mind the shop while I pursue some lunch?" he asked "You'd be welcome to look around."
The council worker seized the opportunity.
"Why am I doing this for such an arrogant snob?" he thought. Beauty seemed so often to be wasted on girls who would never let a person benefit from it.
Miss Van Horner came to the end of the park and turned onto the footpath, stopping abruptly as Robert Sinclair stepped out from behind a tree, producing a silk white handkerchief.
"I thought I had best return this while I had the opportunity. You see I found it in my pocket. Dashed surprise really. Can't imagine how it managed to teleport itself into my pocket while mine was whisking itself into yours."
"You can keep your hands out of my pocket in future. How did you follow me? I left before you started your last item."
"My second last item was to distract both you and the crowd with the simple palming of a red and maroon handkerchief, while sprinkling luminescent powder on the grass in front of your feet with my free hand. It wasn't that difficult to follow you. It's a lot harder to befriend you."
"It's unlikely to become any easier."
Why on earth were they born like that?
"Why can't I believe that there isn't a sweet version of you sometimes? You've hardly improved yourself by stepping out of that big house today."
"Do you mean that you're the Saturday night's party illusionist? I have to put up with you then too."
"Recognition is the beginning of acceptance."
"And the end of approval. I'm leaving. Please don't bother me."
* * * *
As he was packing up his more portable street show props, he felt a policeman's hand rest on his right shoulder from behind.
"Excuse me, what were you doing bothering Miss Van Horner?"
"Well next time I return someone's property I shall do it by reporting to the police station and bothering you. I just couldn't bear the thought of her blowing her nose with a common disposable tissue."
"Just be quick about packing up and moving out; and if you give me the slightest cause, I'll be looking for an excuse to arrest you."
* * * *
As he sat on his own terrace recalling the incidents of Monday and Wednesday, he knew that all of his jokes had done nothing to solve his emotional frustration at the way Miss Van Horner had snubbed him.
"Would you mind if I sat down for some of that lemonade?" came a voice behind him.
He turned his head to see her again, walking around to the other side of the table, this time wearing a medium blue dress with a perfectly fitting light blue trench coat around it. Her hair was adorably bundled behind her head, and her eyes had the most confusingly evident glow of friendship that he had yearned for on the previous two occasions.
"I'm sorry if I caught you at an uncomfortable moment."
"Why would it be uncomfortable? I fell in love with an intangible quality on Monday, which I wrongly imagined you to possess. If that wasn't bad enough, you had the police hound me for trying to improve things on Wednesday."
"I could hound them back for you if you like. I'm a part time journalist, and since you are performing at our house tomorrow, I thought that it would be marvellous to meet you and request a brief interview, especially if you fell in love with my Monday column photograph."
"You weren't a photograph in the park on Wednesday."
"I work on Wednesdays and Fridays. I don't have time for parks. It must have been Hanya. She looks just like me, and you have been the badly treated victim of confusion."
"So it was she who didn't like me on Monday either. I knew somehow that you could be as sweet as this when I saw Hanya on Monday."
"That must have been Irma. Hanya and I were both out on Monday."
"Do you mean that you are triplets?"
"You couldn't have known, but I wish I'd known what you must have been going through if they didn't like you."
"I feel so foolish, a illusionist taken unawares by the simplest illusion of nature."
"I would say that you are exciting. I am Carrie. You are an inspiration, to believe in me before you knew that I existed. You will promise to propose to me? I'll do anything for a handsome fiancé."
"When?"
"By the end of the week. I'll interview you tomorrow morning. We could have a picnic lunch on Sunday. There is still time to look for rings today."
"It all seems to be happening so fast and easily now. Don't people usually have problems?"
"I wouldn't want us to be usual, Robert. Please let's just be us. That is the way that it should be."
"When will you come?"
"Eleven. Don't worry about Irma and Hanya. They will get used to you."
* * * *
The Saturday evening performance came to a conclusion, and the children were shown out to their parents' cars by the Van Horners.
Irma and Hanya were curiously unconcerned by the presence of Robert, now that he was an established sweetheart of their sister.
"Carrie, I would love to take you on a picnic tomorrow, but could we also walk through the garden tonight with the pathway lights on? It would be so romantic."
"Of course."
* * * *
"I thought that you might look forward to the picnic even more if I did a little magic tonight."'
"Yes do."
"I'll need help with this trick. Check that my hands are free of anything."
She faced him, taking his hands in her own, separating his fingers with hers, and said "They're empty. Now about that magic trick."
"I'd say it's coming if you keep smiling. Yes it's on the tip of your tongue. You had better open your mouth" he said seeing a sudden look of surprise in her eyes. He kissed her. Then the startled girl opened her mouth to discover that there really was something on top of her tongue.
"Well what have we here Carrie? Put out your tongue."
He removed from her outstretched tongue a small object, and she then withdrew her tongue and saw that he held an engagement ring.
"It's beautiful. You really found one."
"Will you be engaged to me for a long and happy courtship followed by a magical marriage?"
"I will."
"Will you kiss me?"
"But the ring?"
"But the kiss."
"Alright...mm....that's lovely the way you rest your palms gently against my cheeks while you kiss me."
"Palming is a habit I just cannot seem to break. Don't yours feel any different?"
"The ring. You slipped it on my finger."
"Yes."
"You wouldn't try to palm it back?"
"You'll be Carrie Sinclair one day."
"I'll be carried away."
"Mmm."
"Mmm."
* * * *
One day Robert was performing again at a Van Horner party when Mrs Van Horner's friend Louise Waters was a guest. After the party Robert and Carrie went out to kiss on the lawn.
"I really wonder what she sees in him" said Mrs Van Horner.
"So do I" said Hanya, "and it's ruined my friendship with my sister, who knows that I can't stand him."
Louise took Hanya aside and said:
"Could you pretend to be her for long enough to fool him?"
"Why would I want to?"
"Because I could help you to shrink him. If he thought that you were Carrie, he'd walk straight into your trap when you get him alone with my shrinking ring I’ll lend you. Then you could gobble him whole, and he'd think it was Carrie eating him. You'd be rid of him and take the smug confidence out of him as well, if that's what's bothering you."
"Shrinking ring! You're kidding!"
However, Louise soon had Hanya convinced, and they made their plans and arranged for Robert to have the shock of his life.
1983…
Vector Small was 14, and due to turn 15 later that year. After being beaten by school bullies one time too many, and being unable to change schools, he stowed away on a boat and was eventually caught and set adrift in a life raft with limited food supplies. Shortly after they’d run out, he drifted onto an island and lay in the raft on the beach exhausted, until he saw two enormous gigantic women jogging along the beach, wearing sleeveless feminine dresses. He looked on in awe, as they saw him and came to a halt in front of him. The taller of the two knelt down and lifted him out of the raft.
“You look poorly,” she said, “I’m Princess Adrianne.”
“I’m Vector, and I’m just hungry. My food supplies ran out yesterday. I’ve been drifting for much longer.”
“Pauletta, run and tell my mother the Queen that I’m bringing a small young man to the palace. He needs food, fresh water, and a small makeshift bed,” said the Adrianne.
“Yes Princess,” said the other giantess, and raced off to obey.
Princess Adrianne carried the boy more gently and slowly to the palace, and introduced him to her mother Queen Lippylotta.
“Well we can feed and take care of you for now,” said the Queen, “But the question remains of what to be done about you, as you now know the secret location of our island.”
“Since you’re feeding me, I’d be happy for one of you to eat me,” said Vector, “I’d like that, while it lasts.”
“It could last as long as you like,” said the Queen, “Everyone on our island has the gts gene but without the ability to shrink to your size, as far as we know. However, each of us does have a separate section in the front of her stomach, where you could live and sleep and daydream in comfort. We could never let you leave our secret island, but one of us could take up your offer to be eaten by her. I shall declare a contest in which all of our women will walk the catwalk for you. You can choose any whom you would like to be eaten by. Then I shall hide you in the palace gardens myself, and the contestants you have chosen will then search for you until one of them finds you and captures you. She will be the one to eat you.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Vector, thinking it was an apt choice of wording.
When the Queen was busy arranging the contest, Adrianne tended to Vector alone.
“I hope you’ll be the one to eat me,” he said.
“I hope so too,” said Adrianne.
She smiled sweetly at him and touched him with the tip of her tongue.
Later she told her mother how she hoped to win.
“No my daughter, I forbid it. Whoever eats him could well develop a taste for boys that size and leave our island to find more. We must remain in seclusion here,” said the Queen.
Adrianne returned to Vector and told him of her mother’s decision.
The next day, the catwalk contest began, and Vector chose 13 beautiful giant women, including one who looked as pretty as Adrianne, but instead of dark brown long hair, she had medium length light brown hair with streaks of red, as well as a pair of glasses. As she reminded him so much of Adrianne, he simply had to make sure that she won the garden hunt for him. It would be the closest thing to the forbidden opportunity to be eaten by Adrianne herself.
Queen Lippylotta set him loose in the palace gardens, while the 13 contestants remained indoors. After he’d had time to hide, she announced the start of the hunt. Vector stayed well hidden from everyone, until he saw the lady in glasses get close, and then made sure that she saw him. She caught him and took him back to the queen, and pulled off her glasses, and what turned out to be a wig, to reveal that she was in fact Adrianne all along.
“I’m sorry, mother. I want him in my tummy very much, and I will not leave the island for more. He is enough. He always will be.”
“I shall have to trust you, my daughter,” said the Queen, “You may take him to your chamber and eat him.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with him in the garden first,” said Adrianne, and sat down in a beautiful scenic spot with the boy in the lap of her dress.
“Did you know it was me?” she asked.
“I thought it was someone who closely resembled you. I was heartbroken that your mother wouldn’t let you compete. Your other identity was the closest I thought I would come to being eaten by you. I … I made sure that you were the only one who saw me in the hunt,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, and kissed him.
“Thank you too,” he said, “This is so much better than the school bullying I left behind.”
“You’ll face none of that in my tummy,” she said.
They talked all afternoon, and then she took him to her chamber, and slowly slid him into her mouth. He waited on her tongue in anticipation and then slowly eased himself off into her throat. She sensed his enthusiasm and helped him down with a careful gulp, which took him to the front section of her stomach, where he would be safe.
2013….
After years and years of carefree life in Princess Adrianne’s tummy, he suddenly felt himself being vomited up again. Surrounded only by the moisture of her tongue, he came out of her mouth and into her hand.
“I had to let you out now,” she said, “I’ve grown many years older, as you can see, and I’m now the new queen, with the recent passing of my mother. Now my own word is law, and I wanted to give you the chance to start anew among your own people. If you stayed in my tummy, I would eventually die of old age long before you were ready to and you’d be trapped in a lifeless body which would no longer sustain you.”
She built him a sturdy boat to his own size scale and farewelled him from the beach, with all of her people looking on. She trusted him to keep their secret, unlike her mother, and would never expect to see him again.
He found that he was able to claim an inheritance from his recently departed parents, but he still had the mind and education of the mere 14 year old boy who had learned nothing new in all the three decades he had spent in Princess Adrianne’s giant stomach. Unlike Bryce Banta, alias Captain Miniature, who had retained his youth after a similar absence from the 1960s to the 1990s (in the earliest chapters of this book), Vector Small was only just coming to terms with how much he had aged physically but not mentally. It was not until Adrianne had brought him up and out of her mouth, that she had had the chance to tell him exactly how many years had passed. He had not been able to keep count of it himself, as there was constant darkness in her stomach, giving him no inkling of the passing of night and day. Nor had he obtained any vitamin D from sunlight exposure in that time. The offsetting quality was that he had also avoided any sunburn or skin damage. His facial features had largely retained the youthful appearance of a man in his 20s, and hair dye would hide a few grey hairs too. All he could do was to claim social security and do his best to make ends meet in his inherited house until suitable work came along. He managed to enrol in simpler tertiary education courses, that did not require him to finish high school, and learned as much as he could about modern computers and the internet, so that he could eventually begin a career of some sort.
At last, the tie-in you would have been waiting for, if we’d given the readers any hints as to where the plot of this story was headed: Captain Miniature, Louise Waters and Smartman all come together to defeat the greatest threat ever faced by giantesses and shrinking men alike.
The late 2000s…
Brandi Gold had been hiding out at Brayne Mansion to avoid being recognised as the ex-model who had, in a moment of hunger, attacked Sydney Centerpoint Tower in search of a human repast. When in public, whether at normal or giant size, she always wore the mask and costume of her new alter ego, Enlarger Girl. However, there was one realm, where she could retain her original identity of Brandi Gold: the internet. Checking her own fan website, Brandi found an email message from a young admirer who was placed in a career position that had great significance to Brandi and every other giantess in Australia:
Dear Brandi,
I saw the news coverage of your recent … visit to Centerpoint Tower, and I really wish I’d been there. I think I’d have loved the thought of you eating me, just so I could have gone inside your beautiful mouth. I’ve seen every photo of you on your website, and I just love the ones where you’re laughing with your mouth open or sticking your tongue out. I think you’d be the best vore giantess ever, but I’m worried about your safety. I’m an admin assistant / secretary for a member of parliament, and I’ve been told to attend a private cabinet meeting with my employer and the Prime Minister and other MPs next week, the purpose of which is “to end the giantess problem forever.”
I know this can’t be good for you, and you mean so much to me. Even if you didn’t, even if no giantess did, I still have the awful fear that whatever the government is planning is so wrong that it must be stopped.
Your adoring fan,
Mike Roman (but you can call me Microman which sounds the same).
Brandi forwarded the email to her private email address, and then edited out the references to Mike’s personal feelings for her, leaving only the revelation of his news about the government. Then she printed the rest and showed it to the Smartman formerly known as Agilitricks, namely her host and boyfriend Wooss Brayne.
“We could send this guy in and get him to report to us, but if he gets caught, he could be in great danger,” said Smartman, “I think it’s time to call in some other players. I’ve been observing and monitoring their activities for some time. There’s a Dr Ann O’Malley whose scientific knowledge created the project known as Captain Miniature, and there’s Louise Waters, who single handedly defeated the Sons of Molech. I had spent years working on a plan to raid the secret inner headquarters of the global criminal elite, and just couldn’t come up with an attack that even had a reasonable chance of success, let alone a good safety factor. The Sons of Molech were actually the real players behind the activities of Sydney’s biggest crime leader Red Moll. Everyone who tried to take Red Moll down thought that her name was spelt with two Ls, making her a modern day version of the 1927-1934 Sydney gangsters Katie Leigh and Tilly Devine. In fact her code name wasn’t Moll, but Mol, based on her own sick devotion to the pagan god of child sacrifice known as Molech. Here’s the interesting crossover: Ann O’Malley and Captain Miniature never knew about the Sons of Molech. It was Louise Waters who took them down, because her boyfriend’s closest kin died in the Twin Towers bombing of September 11th 2001. I don’t think Louise was aware of Red Mol’s involvement, or that she had also cut off the funding and guidance of Sydney’s worst crime leader, any more than Captain Miniature was aware of the existence of the Sons of Molech. Then there’s one more player who might be useful to us: a man named Vector Small, who has been the target of every contemptible scheme by the Australian government to victimize people who have been unemployed through no fault of their own. This guy spent 3 decades inside the front compartment of a giantess’s stomach, growing from adolescence to middle age without the ability or opportunity to gain a tertiary education or even keep up with the technical changes in society. He was unemployed through no fault of his own, and was targeted for government sanctioned slave labour programs and constant denigration and stigma. I’m going to contact them all, using methods only I have learned about, and arrange a secret meeting in a dummy location I purchased years ago for just such a purpose.”
And so it was that Louise Waters, Smartman, Enlarger Girl, Captain Miniature, Dr Ann O’Malley and Vector Small all met in a small house on the waterfront of Sydney.
“We’ve got to know exactly what the government is planning,” said Smartman, “and since we’re not willing to risk Mike Roman, we need to get ourselves in there. I’ve got some bugging equipment that would enable the wearer to hear everything the cabinet says and transmit it to this headquarters and record it.”
“But we’ll need to come up with a good name for our little group, before we go into any action, surreptitiously of course,” said Vector, “How about the Surreptitious & Somewhat Secluded Six?”
“Sounds alliterative enough for me,” said Dr O’Malley, “All in favour?”
“Aye,” came the unanimous response from the remaining four members.
“Of course Smartman and I are honorary members of a giantesss community in the distant future as well,” said Enlarger Girl.
“That’s okay. I’m involved with the Growe Institute myself,” said Captain Miniature, “But to get back to addressing Smartman’s plan of action, I can shrink myself and acquire a different one time use super power each time I do so. But nothing would enable me to shrink your bugging equipment along with myself.”
“My only power comes from my shrinking ring invention,” said Louise Waters, “I’ve used it to shrink myself and then to permanently shrink the Sons of Molech right out of the regular sized universe. It’ll work fine on your gear, and I could wear it just before I shrink myself.”
“Okay, but you’re not going in alone,” said Smartman, “Captain Miniature will go with you, using his own super powers to run bodyguard interference in case you get caught. We don’t want the government getting wind of Louise’s shrinking ring, or even of her existence. Enlarger Girl will contact her informer again, let him know that we’re ready to act, and get all the details of the upcoming private cabinet meeting. Then we’ll go ahead. I’ll stay here with Dr O’Malley and Vector Small, to monitor the incoming transmissions from you two, and then to devise a counter strategy against whatever they’re up to.”
So the meeting day came, and several of the highest ranking Australian politicians, met with Australian Liberal Party Prime Minister Rich Gardyan, unaware that two shrunken members of the Surreptitious & Somewhat Secluded Six were hiding in their room and operating a bugging device with an outgoing feed.
“As you all know, I’ve convened this meeting, because a secret scientist in my employ has come up with a way to end the giantess scourge once and for all,” said the Prime Minister, “My anonymous expert has devised a device called the GTS Anti-Bomb, which, when detonated, would release a widespread burst of special gas across the whole of Australia, and possibly beyond. The gas would have no effect on most of the population, but to anyone possessing the gts gene, it would be instantly fatal. The gas would take effect, whether the woman was at normal or giant size at the time. Now I call for your comments.”
“Anyone with the gts gene?” said one MP, “Does that include all the males with the shrinking ability or tendency too?”
“It does, and while they’re all relatively harmless, we could put their deaths down to a necessary casualty of collateral damage,” said the Prime Minister, “Besides that, we’d probably be taking steps to protect our nation’s security from a form of espionage we could not possibly hope to counteract. Just think what an army of shrunken men could do if they worked together to spy on our military or even our politicians.”
“You have no idea how relevant that speculation is right now, both to you, and to us,” whispered Captain Miniature, as Louise nudged him in agreement.
“But the public would never approve,” said another MP, “Most of the giantesses are benevolent.”
“True,” said the Prime Minister, “Benevolent so far, as far as they’ve let on, but we need to apply the only blanket cure we have. Look at the 1990s attacks on Centerpoint Tower and Rural Dural Boys High School. The public have lived in fear of what these giantesses can do for long enough.”
“I agree,” said another MP, “We used to have a culture in this country defined by Aussie blokes, football, alcohol and backyard barbeques. Now all of that has been overshadowed by huge women and the wimpy men who admire them, ever since these gts fanatics all started coming out of their closets. Let’s wipe them out and get back to the basics that made this country great.”
“I can see why you wanted this meeting off the record,” said Mike Roman, hoping that Captain Miniature and his ally were actually getting all of this recorded, while acting as callous and evil as his employer’s colleagues, in order to preserve his cover, “So many bleeding hearts out there would think we’re just about to victimize a minority group.”
“They already feel the same about the way we hound and harass the long term unemployed with punishment policies instead of taking measures to get them real jobs,” said the Prime Minister, “And we all know that there isn’t enough work available to gain full employment in this country. Some people are going to miss out. Some of the public are going to perceive them as welfare bludgers, and our voters are going to elect us to come up with ways to hound them off our welfare system and onto the street with no roof over their heads. It’s a necessary collateral damage once again. The unemployed minority are no real threat to our re-election possibilities, and they can do nothing to fight back against us. The only difference is that the giantesses could, if they knew what we were planning. That’s why I’ve screened this meeting down to people who have expressed anti-giantess sentiment in the past.”
At this point, Mike Roman was feeling pleased that he had always perceived his giantess fantasy as a twisted fetish best kept secret. Sheer fear of embarrassment had motivated him to keep his aspirations about Brandi Gold under wraps for the few years (since graduating from college) that he had worked in a political environment dominated by the so-called values of Australian culture which had been espoused in the very meeting being held right now.
Mike Roman had held a giantess vore crush on recent upcoming politician and former journalist Maxima Kute and enjoyed her screen time when she’d chosen to challenge the Prime Minister for his own local electoral seat. He had never contacted her or pursued her, as she had no known interest in giantess fantasies, nor any known giantess abilities. Most importantly, he had put his fantasies of her out of his mind quickly and not enterained them at all, because she was a married woman. The thought of anyone in parliament learning of his private longings would have put him off turning up to work at all. So to cover his tracks, he had even given the appearance of being a more outspoken anti-giantess activist, with the unexpected result, that he had been invited to attend this secret meeting.
“In the case of giantesses, we can hardly refer to them as ‘a minority’ if we go by the amount of space they’re known to take up,” quipped another MP, even though he knew full well that the term really referred to a numerical minority, rather than the size of any particular woman concerned.”
“So we’re all agreed then. The GTS Anti-Bomb must be detonated,” said the Prime Minister, “And since we can’t risk Operation Giantess Fall being leaked out to anyone outside this room, we cannot involve any of our own security staff. I alone will help to detonate the bomb. The scientist will be in attendance, instructing me on the measures necessary to help him activate the two person controls for the detonation sequence. The rest of you will be on the site to act only as watchdogs and security staff, and witnesses to a scientific accident gone wrong, should anyone overfly the area and observe our little blow-up. Now that I have your unanimous support, I can reveal that the scientist’s complex is constructed in the most unviable part of rural New South Wales, where no farming community would ever come into existence. From the underground silo, the scientist and I will launch a miniature missile, which will carry the GTS Anti-Bomb to a suitable height for remote control detonation. The scientist assures me that, once in the air, the released gas will spread and spread and wipe out every giantess, and every shrinking male for that matter, in the country. Whatever drifts offshore might even provide the same service of giantess extermination to another continent.”
“Let’s hope the kiwis are not feeling sheepish about the whole giantess business,” said the same punster who had spoken a few minutes earlier.” (He was definitely not in Carycomic’s league, neither with the quality nor the sentiment of his witticisms).
“We should use this recording to reassign everyone in that cabinet meeting from parliament to Long Bay Jail,” said Smartman.
“Everyone except our inside man Mike Roman,” said Vector Small.
“That’s taken as read,” said Ann O’Malley, “I think Louise and I could use her own technology to work out how to modify both the missile and the bomb, so that, when they try to launch it, instead of leaving their silo to reach a suitable height for detonation, the rocket itself will implode, and release an effect that will shrink the entire complex right out of this universe. They can take their evil plans down to whatever sub-molecular realm that the Sons of Molech ended up calling their new home. I’m so glad you told me about them, by the way. Nice to know what really facilitated Red Mol all those years. I’ve never even been able to discuss these matters with my own family.”
“We’re your second family now,” said Enlarger Girl, “Not one of intimacy, but of allegiance.”
“Alright, well I’ll tell the others as soon as they return,” said Smartman, “If the location of the silo is not revealed to our recording gear verbally by the Prime Minister, before this meeting ends, then Enlarger Girl will use her secret identity online to get it from her tipster Mike Roman. Once we know it, Enlarger Girl will carry us there under cover of nightfall at her giant size, after I fly us out there in the Smartcopter. Then Louise will temporarily shrink us all enough for us to break into the complex undetected. Then she enlarges all of us, except for Captain Miniature, who will have shrunken under his own power. Under her guidance and Ann’s he will go inside the devices and make the changes necessary. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be on watch for the scientist, in case they need a tip-off to avoid being caught. I don’t want our presence there detected either. It is important that they go ahead with their attempt, believing that it will succeed, because it is not enough that the corrupt giant-icidal politicians and the Prime Minister are reduced out of our universe forever. The diseased mind that constructed the GTS Anti-Bomb should also be removed from any possibility of duplicating his own efforts in the future. He too must be consigned to wherever Louise Waters ultimately despatched the Sons of Molech.”
“Then let’s hit the bastards as soon as our tiny spies return,” said Vector, “On the sly, of course.”
“Aren’t we all forgetting something?” said Ann O’Malley, “What about Mike Roman? He’s the innocent man who tipped us off. They’ll be expected him to attend on the day of Operation Giantess Fall.”
“Then he’ll have to be credibly attacked by a giantess a few days earlier,” said Enlarger Girl.
“If you do that, you’ll turn the public against a known super heroic giantess,” said Smartman.
“Not necessarily,” said Enlarger Girl, removing her mask, “It’s time to trust our fellow members of the Surreptitious & Somewhat Secluded Six. Mike won’t be attacked in parliament house by Enlarger Girl. He’ll be attacked on the weekend, and swallowed whole by known voracious giantess temporary menace Brandi Gold. Now that Vector’s told us about the secret second compartment in the front of our stomachs, I can gulp Mike down to there in his own backyard in full view of his neighbours, then beat it out of there and cough him up from the safe part of my tummy later. He can wait until the cabinet members and the scientist have been shrunken by their own rejigged equipment, and then reveal to the public that I ‘vomited’ him up, giving him the chance to run away. There’ll have to be a re-election. With any luck we’ll get the labour party back into power for the first time in 11 years while we’re at it.”
Brandi emailed Mike, knowing that he wouldn’t read it until he got home that night. She was his only contact link between Mike himself and the Surreptitious & Somewhat Secluded Six, and he was still unaware that Brandi Gold was the secret identity of Enlarger Girl.