Carmel woke up feeling oddly rested. Light spilled in through the window, and she was warm, snug and free of worries. It took a moment, clearing her eyes and trying to shift under the sheet, before she recalled she wasn’t in a bed at all, but was still in the fist of an enormous woman. She went rigid, fully awake now, as she acknowledged the gentle rise and fall of the chest beneath her, the softness of Liberty’s skin that surrounded her. Her arms were free to drape over the giant fingers clasped, loosely but immovably, around her chest, and for a moment she just lay there and absorbed this feeling.

Despite the horrors of it all, and her dire entrapment, Carmel had the strange realisation that she had actually slept really well. There was something undeniably relaxing about this position, entirely embraced by another person, sleeping upon her breast. Right now, the hills of Liberty’s boobs that flanked her, and the fingers that held her, seemed more like protective barriers, blocking out how terrible the rest of the world was. Here she was helpless, with no control, but . . . safe.

Except she wasn’t, Carmel remembered, with a sudden start, trying without success to loosen herself from Liberty’s grip. The giantess had devoured Gerard, and eaten Simone without seeming to even realise what she was doing. In the minutes before Carmel’s capture had lulled her deceptively into sleep, she’d heard the poor receptionist struggling inside this monstrous woman. Being digested alive.

As Carmel pushed at Liberty’s fingers, the giantess’s grumbling snore interrupted, and the hand twitched. The fist suddenly tightened and she was lifted with a cry, “No!”

Liberty cleared her throat, sitting up, and brought Carmel towards her face, making her struggle even more, that massive mouth getting closer. But the giantess merely wiped her wrist over her lips, and rubbed an eye with the back of her hand, then lowered Carmel slightly to look at her with bleary eyes. She asked in a croaky voice, “What are you so worked up about?”

“Get off me!” Carmel cried, slapping both hands into her top finger. “Put me down you monster!”

“God, you little pets really gotta learn a few new lines,” Liberty murmured, then yawned enormously. Carmel froze as she was gifted the sight of the inside of the woman’s mouth, a cavern of flesh leading into a scarily large tunnel that would easily fit her whole. A waft of alcohol-soaked breath made her nostrils curl as Liberty peered about the room. “Where’s . . .”

“Simone?” Carmel said, incredulously. “You don’t even remember? You ate her!”

Liberty frowned. “No, I ate Gerard. Which I appreciate might’ve been a bit extreme. But I reckon it worked out alright.”

“You ate Simone!” Carmel’s voice raised. “You drunk, monstrous bitch!”

She was suddenly shaken about like a dog’s toy, torso jerking side to side, before Liberty held her up closer, baring her teeth. The giantess hissed, “Call me that again. Dare you.”

Carmel cowered under her fierce gaze and found herself quickly shaking her head in apology. But Liberty’s face softened, eyes shifting away, then widening.

“Oh shit. Yeah. You were trying to get out of here, the pair of you.” A giant finger came up and poked Carmel’s chest. “You had her climbing up on my shrinking device. What’d you expect would happen?”

Carmel said nothing, thinking that they might escape! There was no sense in arguing with this woman, though; she had her own sense of logic.

“Aw,” Liberty groaned, swinging her legs over the side of the bed to sit up properly, “that’s a shame. I quite liked her. Very tasty though. Man.” She gave Carmel a conspiratorial look. “This has been a journey of revelations, ain’t it? I could get used to all this.”

“You murdered them,” Carmel noted, more quietly. “You’ve kidnapped me.”

“Hell yeah,” Liberty replied, without remorse. She grinned as she jumped up to her feet, the rush dizzying Carmel, then she paced over to the crate containing the mysterious shrinking rod. “Don’t think I’m gonna drop this bad boy off after all. Might just go on tour, picking up the odd toy. Or snack.” She laughed loudly, spare hand tracing a circle over her belly. “This body’s definitely itching for more of that.”

“Liberty –” Carmel tried once more, but the giantess shook her head, giving her a gentle squeeze for quiet.

“Let’s park the complaints already, Carmel, okay? Time to accept where you’re at. I don’t know what this thing is or how it works, but we ain’t finding out here. It’s coming with us and we’ll get some more company along the way, maybe. You, though – you belong to me, get it? You do what I say, when I say, and we enjoy ourselves. Piss me off and I’m gonna make a meal out of you, same as the others.”

Carmel itched to argue and find some way to take control, but she was literally in this brash woman’s hand. The look on Liberty’s giant face bore the point deeper home: if there was a choice here, it was accept her fate or die. She’d seen right into her throat just now, a destination that she had a very real possibility of visiting.

“Understood?” Liberty said and Carmel nodded. Like the flick of a light, the giantess’s great grin came back and she spun about to look out the window. “Well shoot, it really came down last night.” She strode closer; the snow was almost as high as the first bar of the frame, at least four feet deep outside. It had stopped coming down, but was hard to see beyond, to the occasional tree that poked out. “Guess we got a little us time.”

Liberty carried Carmel with her as she strode into the washroom and splashed water on her face, then brushed her teeth, and even held her over her lap as she sat on the toilet, noisily pissing. Carmel flinched when the massive woman farted, followed by the plop of her defecating. She wasn’t just unashamedly shitting in front of her: Liberty toyed with Carmel as she did so, fingers idly pulling at her arms, stroking her hair. She gave a big sigh of relief, wiped off and washed her hands, then set Carmel down in the sink and said, “You probably need to go and all.”

Carmel gaped at her in alarm, realising the giantess meant for her to use the sink as a toilet herself. She did need to go, though, now it was mentioned. Rather desperately. She said, “Can you look away, at least?”

Liberty hesitated, like she didn’t plan to give her any privacy, then smiled, only teasing. She turned her giant back on Carmel and rested her bare ass against the sink counter. Carmel grimaced at the crack, distracted from her own urgent need to go, and considered how the toilet noises she’d heard weren’t just Liberty taking a shit, but might’ve been the sounds of whatever was left of Gerard and Simone leaving her body. Were there bones in the pipes now?

Carmel shook herself out of the thoughts and hurriedly squatted to pee. Only to realise she needed a shit, too. It came almost without warning and she felt herself ready to keel over and die. She called up, nervously, “I need some paper.”

Liberty looked down, over her shoulder, then laughed. “Yeah. Sure.”

The giantess gave her the dignity of handing down some torn toilet paper, then picked her up again and rinsed the sink. Then she paused, inspecting Carmel in her hand, and pinched off her shirt. Carmel began to protest, to push back, but Liberty snapped, “Ah. What’d we say?”

Carmel went limp and let her captor roughly undress her, removing her pants now, stripping her bare. Liberty ran the tap, getting it warm, then held Carmel under it and rubbed her with her fingers, saying, “Quick scrub. Can’t tell me it ain’t nice having someone else clean you off.”

Carmel was tossed about, hit with a hard torrent of water and squeezed vigorously by the massive fingers. She was then rolled into a towel, back and forth, and was finally left breathless in Liberty’s palm for her assessment: “Perfect. Now wait here.”

Liberty set her down on the sink counter, maybe thirty feet off the tiles with no way down, and stripped to take a shower of her own. She took her time, humming tunes to herself, the heat way up so the room slowly filled with steam. Carmel gathered her pants and Gerard’s shirt and dressed again, then conserved her energy, watching  Liberty shower, barely able to form thoughts. Not so bad, she was telling herself. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Letting this woman take control. No sense worrying about getting home now. No sense worrying about the business or making mortgage payments. Everything had changed. She might die any moment, or she might be trapped forever in this stranger’s grasp; either way, nothing back in Edmonton really mattered. Jake had probably already fucked off.

And Liberty, despite her fearsome nature, was something incredible – both in her massive, beautiful stature (more evident now than ever, with the last of her skimpy clothes shed) and in the way she’d so quickly and thoughtlessly taken charge of this unbelievable situation. She was a woman without ties or responsibilities, and without even the basest desire to explain how they’d come to be here. She just saw an opportunity and took it. Decisive, independent, gorgeous.

Carmel wasn’t sure if she admired her or was finding herself now drawn to the magnetic monster. Her heart fluttered as Liberty stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her statuesque body, deliberately tied low on her boobs to make her cleavage bulge. The giantess dried off, then took a fluffy robe from a hook and threw it on, only tying it loosely. It was oversized and baggy, and the central parting showed off her toned stomach and the inner bulge of her breasts. Finally all freshened up, she said, “Time to go exploring.”

Liberty picked up Carmel and walked out the bedroom, stopping only to slip her feet into her boots and, without sense, put her baseball cap back on her head. She carried Carmel into the corridor, saying they’d rustle up a good feast of whatever they could find in the hotel. In the morning light, it looked pleasantly inviting, the wood finishes and tinsel on picture frames. Warm, too, the hotel well heated throughout. Liberty started by heading back to the main lobby, where the fireplace gently glowed with the last embers of the evening’s fire, and it was possible to see through the windows how high the snow had piled against the entrance doors. No way out. There were big, fluffy sofas here, though, and a great widescreen TV by the fire. There were candles on tables scattered between armchairs, all the charming ambience of a hunting lodge.

“Could be worse places,” Liberty announced, and Carmel found herself internally agreeing. It had been a terrible night, maybe, but somehow it felt better this morning. Perhaps sleeping in this woman’s hand, something had gone out of her. But looking at the cosy lobby, a hotel entirely to themselves, with nowhere – and no way – to go, Carmel gave up resisting.

“What do you want to do with me?” Carmel asked. This time, it was more of an offer.