“I still can’t believe you punched out Dr. Vale.” Trish remarked as she said her goodbyes to Thomas. While Trish’s accommodations meant that she could telecommute to the trial, Thomas still had to appear in person. Trish was admiring the cut of his figure in his suit, especially his broad shoulders and strong arms.

“Haha, yeah… I’m not usually the violent type, but something about him threatening you…” He said, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. Trish smiled and pinched the edges of his suit jacket to straighten it on him, and fought the association her memory made to dressing up dolls when she was a little girl.

“My hero.” She said sarcastically, though in truth she was quite flattered by the thought of Thomas coming to blows over her.

“Yeah… sorry. If I hadn’t gotten all emotional then they wouldn’t have been able to pin this on you.”

“You know as well as I do that they would have come for me no matter what. I’m just lucky that the real person responsible has the moral fiber to be honest about his crime.” She teased again, and splayed her fingers to envelope him in her hands, bringing him to her mouth for a kiss.

“Stop! You’ll mess up my hair!” He protested as her lips enveloped his face.

“Oh, you’re worried about your hair getting messed up?” She continued to tease, and opened her mouth to extend her tongue, which was wider and taller than his face, and give him a lick. She licked from his chin up and over his head, drenching his face and causing his hair to stand up in big, wet spikes. Trish guffawed loudly when she saw his ridiculous new hair do on top of his sour face.

“Har de har.” He grumbled and crossed his arms.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Trish managed between fighting her laughs for breaths of air. She shifted him into one hand and used a free finger to smooth his hair back down, pushing his hair down flat. His once fluffy hair was now plastered to his face with her spit. Trish bursted out laughing again.

“Knock it off! I’m going to have to take another shower now!” He protested again. One of his token protests, Trish could tell, based on the feeling of his penis stiffening and pushing up a tent in his suit pants. Trish gave him a sly smirk, letting him know that she saw how much this was turning him on, and then pulled him closer to her chest for a hug.

“Do great today.” She wished him, patting him on the back. Thomas wrapped his arms up and around her neck and gave her a squeeze.

“You too.” He wished back. Their embrace was interrupted by a polite ‘ahem’ from Margaret, who entered behind them. Trish set him on the ground next to her lawyer, and gave them both a wave of her fingers as they exited her living space. 

Margaret shot a look over her shoulder as she walked next to Thomas, back at the lovestruck Trish giving him an admiring look as he walked away from her. Then she looked back to Thomas, who was handsome enough, she supposed. Handsome enough to make up for being a weird pervert? Or to make up for being less than knee height? Well, her client seemed to think so and that was all that mattered.

“You ready?” Margaret asked him, interrupting his own lovestruck look back at Trish. 

“Read as I’ll ever be. What do you think the odds are of us pulling off our little judo move?” 

“If your hunches about Dr. Vale’s mental state are true… 51 to 49.” 

“Hey, at least we're better than a coin flip!” He said with forced optimism that made Margaret roll her eyes.

“You know if this works you will likely be going to prison, right?”

“Yes. Better me than Trish though.” Thomas replied, looking off into the distance as if he could see his fate there. 

“Honestly Thomas, this will be kicking the can down the road. The stunts these guys are pulling to try and get a hold of her… if this one fails they'll just try again another way.”

“Guess we will have to beat them then, too.” he replied. And maybe, he thought, there would be some point down the road where she would be too big for anyone to do anything to her. Thomas knew that if nothing changed Trish’s increasing size would increasingly put her into conflict with others. If Dr. Vale’s growth charts were to be believed, she would be larger than the whole state of Kansas in around six years, and growing miles and miles larger each day. But the military would be sure to respond at that point, and even if she was that big he doubted she would survive a missile to the brain…

Thomas shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. Maybe she’d grow bigger than Kansas. Maybe she’d stop growing tomorrow. Useless to worry or to hope. He needed to focus on getting her out of this first.

Margaret and Thomas arrived at the courthouse. The bailiff was busy fiddling with a projector, managing to get it on just as they entered. It threw Trish’s image on a screen next to the bench. It was an odd illusion for Thomas. The screen could lead one to believe that Trish was normal sized, and just like any other person telecommuting. But, funnily enough, her face blown up on the screen was actually smaller than he knew her to be in real life. He reached his seat at the defendant's table and leaned down to the webcam set up to face him and waved into it, prompting a smile and a wave from Trish in turn.

The courtroom filled slowly. The prosecution took their spots: Agent Grisham and his slick team of lawyers, followed by Dr. Vale who looked like a shaking leaf. Thomas nudged Margaret and pointed to his nervousness, and then gave her a thumbs up. 

The subtle celebration was short-lived. Just as soon as everyone was getting to their places, another person entered and sat on the prosecution’s side. Melanie, dressed humbly in a cardigan that she might have worn behind the receptionist’s desk, and heels tall enough to be the same height as Thomas. They locked eyes across the courtroom. Melanie’s expression was hard to read: a mix between apologetic and determined, as if she was saying “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you.”

“All rise for the honorable Judge Wentworth.” The bailiff announced as the stony faced judge entered and took his seat, followed by everyone else. He went through the standard announcements at the front of the trial, introducing the prosecution, the defense, and the charge: Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” The slick prosecutor started, strutting around the courtroom like it was his personal stage. “Today you have the opportunity to punish a monster. A monster of such size that it cannot even enter this court of law…”

“Objection. The size of my client is not germane to whether she is guilty of what she is accused-”

“Overruled.” Judge Wentworth cut her off. “The details of the weapon used to harm Dr. Vale are relevant to this case. Proceed.”

“As I was saying, the monster on trial today is of a size that it cannot fit in this court of law. Patricia Hostettler’s mysterious and terrifying transformation into a giant has imbued her with tremendous strength. An inappropriate relationship with a fetishist trained her to wield that strength on those smaller than her. Unfortunately, this culminated in the assault on Dr. Douglas Vale, her own nutritionist. A punishment she saw fit to dole out just because he would not bring her her food fast enough.”

The lies were galling. Thomas looked to the screen where Trish’s face was projected to see her chewing her lips and dabbing at the corners of her eyes so as to not be seen crying. If their plan was going to work, she would have to be strong. Thomas waved to the camera and scrunched his eyebrows forward and set his jaw, waiting for Trish to notice. She quickly corrected herself when she did, mimicking the facial expression. She was not a vulnerable, helpless person. She turned her eyes back to her own webcam, giving the illusion that she was giving the courtroom a stern glower. Thomas snuck a look over to Dr. Vale to judge the effect. The paleness in his face showed it was working.

The prosecution finished their opening arguments and Margaret rose to give the defense.

“Patricia Hostettler did not do anything to harm Dr. Douglas Vale. My client is large. That is undeniable. But it is not a crime to be large. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today the prosecution will try to make you scared of Patricia Hostettler. They hope that if you are afraid of her, you will find her guilty of a crime she did not commit so as to be safe from her. It is said: “Those that would trade liberty for security deserve neither.” Today, when you are asked to trade my innocent client’s liberty for security, choose liberty.”

Margaret ceded the floor to the prosecution. The first witness called was the man who had been with Agent Grisham when they revealed that they had found out about his participation on the fetish site. Apparently, he was some manner of expert in digital forensics. They immediately started getting to work litigating Thomas’s morality.

“You discovered that Dr. Thomas Black was a participant on the web forum in question. What sort of things did he interact with?”

“Objection, relevance?”

“Your honor, in order for the jury to understand the mental state of Patricia Hostettler, they need to understand the mental state of her psychologist.”

“Objection, speculation then.”

“Overruled and overruled.” The judge dismissed with no explanation. Margaret returned to her seat defeated. Margaret had warned Thomas that this was coming after seeing the piles of forum posts in discovery for the case. A plot to challenge his credibility and make the jury despise him before he had a chance to tell the truth about the assault.

The prosecutor took the expert through a series of questions establishing the facts of Thomas’s fetish. They had screenshots from around a year ago, before he met Trish, commenting on various works of erotica and images of giant women of all sizes. It was all deeply humiliating for Thomas, who hadn’t even really shared a lot of these specifics even with Trish, even though by now he was sure she could guess his specific predilections. Mouth play, being hunted, being crushed by her strength and weight, being dwarfed and teased by a giantess, being used like a toy. The fifteen minutes of the questioning seemed to last forever for Thomas.

“In sum, Dr. Black’s comments on the site make it clear that he is interested in giant women asserting their dominance over smaller people.” The prosecution rested and Margaret got up to cross examine him.

“Can you tell me what’s on page 92 of the packet here?” She said, gesturing to the evidence.

“It’s a forum thread started by an account called “TheRealPatriciaHostettler.”

“Let the record show that TheRealPatriciaHostettler is Ms. Hostettler’s account. Is the date of this post before or after Dr. Vale’s assault?”

“After.”

“And can you summarize the content?”

“It appears to be an exchange between the defendant and members of the fetish community.”

“How would you characterize her tone?”

He hesitated for a moment as he read over it again. “Curious, wanting to learn, skeptical.”

“So if Patricia Hostettler was curious about the fetish after the assault, clearly she did not know much about it even after the assault. So how could it be relevant to whether or not she did it?”

“Objection, argumentative.”

“Sustained.”

“No further questions.”

Next to the stand was Melanie, avoiding looking at either Thomas or the projection of Trish as she made her way there. Trish was unable to hold her stern look as she saw her, her face melting into a guilty expression.

“Yes, I was involved with Dr. Black romantically while he was treating Ms. Hostettler.” She responded. “And I was friends with her while she was staying at the hospital. Or at least I thought we were friends.”

“What changed?”

“The two started to have an affair behind my back.” There was much shaking of heads from the jury.

“From what you know about Dr. Black, do you think it’s possible that Dr. Black could have pushed Ms. Hostettler to act like the monsters of his fantasies?”

Melanie shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable, and eyed Thomas from the witness stand. “I guess that could happen.” She said, though she herself didn’t really believe that was likely to be the case. It wasn’t even that she was trying to cause him harm either, though she knew he would be harmed by this. She just didn’t trust him anymore. Could he have pushed Trish like they alleged? Not the man she thought she knew, but the man she thought she knew also wouldn’t have cheated on her.

“In your time knowing Ms. Hostettler, was there ever a point you felt threatened or intimidated?” Margaret asked in cross examination. Melanie searched her thoughts.

“There was one time, when I first met her. Her and Thomas were coming back from a walk around the hospital campus. She was around 9 feet tall then, and had to crouch while standing indoors. She marched right up to me and was looming over the desk… I was scared of her then.”

“What happened next?”

“She… invited me and Thomas to a party.”

“So did you feel threatened or intimidated after that?”

“No.”

“No further questions.”

Dr. Jacobson was next, who put the final nails in the coffin about the inappropriateness of Thomas’s relationship with Trish. The prosecution made him go over the ethical lapses of Dr. Black, which Margaret rose to try and repair.

“Evidence shows that you made a call to Dr. Thomas Black on Friday, April 2nd. What was the content of that call?”

“I was calling in Dr. Black to help with an emergency regarding Ms. Hostettler. Her boyfriend had broken up with her, and she had a mental health emergency that resulted in her barricading herself in her room.”

“Why call Dr. Black?”

“Dr. Black was very good at handling Ms. Hostettler’s mental health. Everything else we tried didn’t work.”

“And did Dr. Black resolve the issue?”

“Within minutes.”

“To what do you chalk up Dr. Black’s success?”

“He clearly had a way with her, as evidenced by their, on the face of it, loving relationship.”

“Do you believe Dr. Black used his position to groom Ms. Hostettler?”

“Honestly, no I do not. Do I wish that Dr. Black had recused himself from her case when he developed feelings for her? Of course. He crossed an ethical line that forced me to terminate him, but I do not think there was anything malicious about his intentions. I think he made a stupid decision out of being in love.”

“No further questions.”

Last, but not least, was Dr. Vale. He fully covered his eyes so he would not have to see Trish’s eyes blinking at him from the screen as he took the stand. The prosecution led him on a rambling tale about his fictional assault. He went to bring her her food, but he was late. The hungry giantess, at that point twice the size of him, flicked a back hand at his face, laying him out and almost knocking him unconscious. Thomas supposed the tears that streaked down his face as he lied were genuine. Fearful tears that what he was saying wasn’t going to save him from Thomas’s ever growing girlfriend and all that her increasing size entailed.

Margaret only had one question for cross examination.

“Are you scared of Ms. Hostettler?”

“I am terribly frightened of Ms. Hostettler.” was his answer.

The prosecution had no further witnesses, and so the court went into recess to let their case sink in.

“Do you think we’re winning?” Thomas asked Margaret.

“I think we look like we’re winning enough for the plan to work, and I think if the plan doesn’t work we will lose.” She said flatly.

Thomas nodded in acknowledgement, then directed his attention to Trish on the big screen.

“You holding up ok honey?”

“I’m scared and I feel terrible about Melanie…” She said candidly.

“I know. It’ll be over soon.” He said. “Are you ready for part two?”

Like a snap of the fingers, Trish’s worry melted off her face. She tilted her chin up and lowered the lids of her eyes to exude superiority. She furrowed her brow in determination and gave a curt nod.

“Ready.”

Court resumed, and as soon Margaret had control she called Thomas to the stand. As rehearsed, he confessed to assaulting Dr. Vale in his office. He gave his recounting of confronting Dr. Vale about the topic of Trish’s growth, and of how he punched him out in response to his hysterics.

“Why did you do it?”

“I was in love. It was like some sort of protective instinct.”

“You felt the need to protect a woman twice your size?” Margaret challenged with faux naivety.

“She is a human being just like you and me. Of course she needs protection, especially from these government goons that make up lies about her just because they’re scared of her.” He lobbed at the prosecution with a glare.

During cross examination, the prosecution continued to litigate Thomas’s predilections. Though the questions were open ended, the picture they were trying to paint with them was clear: that Thomas could not be trusted. Their final volley was quite underhanded:

“Would you do anything for Ms. Hostettler?”

“Yes.”

“Would you lie under oath?”

“Objection, argumentative!” Margaret shouted. She knew the trial was mostly rigged, but she was nonetheless shocked by how blithely transparent the prosecution was being about it.

“...Sustained. The jury is instructed to ignore the prosecution’s previous question.” 

“No further questions your honor.” he smirked, knowing that he had planted a seed of doubt anyway.

Next was Trish herself, who was trying hard to maintain her confident glower aimed at the camera.

“How big are you today?” She started.

“I’m thirty feet and six inches tall, and I weigh eight and a quarter tons.”

The jury audibly gasped, and Dr. Vale squirmed in his seat.

“And you’re still getting bigger?” The prosecution gave each other confused looks, looking at their notes and wondering why the defense was making their case for them.

“Yep!” She said bravely. “I’m growing about an inch and a half a day now. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up. And also, I’m growing proportionally, so that also means I’ll also be gaining two hundred and seventy pounds.”

“Wow, That’s more than twice what I weigh, and you gain that much weight every day?”

“Yep! And there’s no sign of it stopping. This time next year I’ll be… about a hundred and ninety feet tall if nothing changes. That’s way taller than the statue of liberty from head to toe.” She said, painting a picture that led to more uncomfortable mutters from the courtroom and confused looks from the prosecution.

“Do you like getting bigger?”

“Not really, no. It scares me a lot. But I’m living with it.”

“But it does come with perks right? You are easily the strongest person on the face of the earth. Nobody can mess with you.”

“Not unless I let them.” She nodded and smiled.

“Do you let them?”

“Of course. The government came to my living quarters to arrest me for an assault I didn’t commit. At that point I was… fourteen feet tall and living in a basketball court. They detained me for three months with phony charges. They starved me. They deprived me of sleep.”

“And you think you could have resisted them?”
A practiced, wicked smile twisted onto Trish’s face. She made sure to look into the camera as she delivered her next line.

“If not when I was fourteen feet tall, then easily when I was eighteen feet at the end of it. Little Agent Grisham there would be no taller than my knees. I think I could have taken him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, because I am not a monster. I’m just a girl who got big.” She nodded.

“So obviously you don’t feel groomed by Dr. Black to act like a monster.”

“Absolutely not. If anything, I made the first move and Thomas's only crime was failing to resist my advances. At the end of the day, we are madly in love with each other. Me growing larger and him being attracted to that is just one small piece of it.”

Margaret turned the floor over to the prosecution who was scrambling to react, not expecting them to be so open about her size.

“Ms. Hostettler…” the prosecution began, trailing off and deciding in real time what angle to play this at, and deciding that they should play their ace.

“Do you remember the events of this video?” he asked, and played for the court the footage of her exiting the gym at the end of her confinement. Everyone there was sure to have seen it. The beleaguered Trish, looming more than twelve feet taller than Thomas, picking up her foot and pushing it against his chest to knock him on his back. The video ended on a freeze frame that just managed to catch the cold expression on her face.

“Yes. I remember. I feel terrible for shoving Thomas like that. We were having a hard time together, and I was sleep deprived and hungry as a result of poor accommodations by my accusers. It doesn't excuse what I did, but he wasn’t injured and I’ve already mended things with him. I would never hurt someone, and I didn't hurt Dr. Vale.”

“So you admit to using force.”

“Yes. And I will remind you that despite all Agent Grisham did to me over three months, he never felt what force an eighteen foot tall person could exert on him.” She said in a threatening tone, the cracks in her voice just barely noticeable. This is easy Trish, she assured herself. Just get into the character that you get into when you play with Thomas. She straightened her back and gave a superior look to the camera to regain her confidence and control. The prosecution backed off.

“The defense would like to recall Dr. Douglas Vale to the stand.”

Dr. Vale looked paler than ever. Trish made sure to follow where she supposed he was with her eyes as he went, projecting her massive presence at him through the video screen.

“Dr. Vale, are you scared by Ms. Hostettler?” She began, repeating her question from earlier.

“Yes, again. Yes. And you should be, too.”

Margaret turned to the screen, where Trish’s determined and threatening expression remained. “I guess I don’t see it.” She lied. “Everything I’ve seen from working with her and in this trial has been a sweet young woman going through incredible changes.”

“It doesn’t matter how sweet she is. She’s thirty feet tall. She’s dangerous.”

“I don’t know, she seems very peaceful and kind to me.”

“It doesn’t matter how peaceful and kind she is.” Dr. Vale stated agitatedly at having to repeat himself, much to the chagrin of the prosecution. Not a good look to have your plaintiff admit that the person he had accused of assault was peaceful and kind. “She is dangerous, and if she’s not stopped she will become more dangerous by the day.”

“Ah right. These charts were in your office. They detail Trish’s growth extrapolated to well beyond what the other doctors were doing at the time. Why did you make these?”

“A-as her nutritionist, I saw fit to prepare myself for her future caloric needs.”

“And what did you discover?”

“I don’t-”

“How long have you been the head of nutrition at Sunflower State? Five years?” She pressed him to prevent him getting his feet under him. “Tell me from this chart what you predicted Trish’s size to be five years from this date.”

Dr. Vale ran his trembling finger down the chart. This might be my chance to show them all what a future in the shadow of Patricia Hostettler looked like, he thought.

“In five years, on this day, Patricia Hostettler is projected to be…” He swallowed hard, beads of sweat visibly accumulating on his brow. “F-fifty one point six miles tall.”

“And how much will she weigh?” Margaret continued without missing a beat.

“Five point seven… tr-tr” Margaret made sure to signal impatience to him as he tried to choke out the absurd number. It’s a number she herself had to practice disassociating from lest she be reduced to a similar trembling to Dr. Vale.

“Five point seven trillion. T-tons.”

“And you’re a nutritionist. How much will she need to eat?”

“Everything. Nearly 100 quadrillion calories a day.” Dr. Vale was visibly more agitated at the mention of food.

“That sounds like a lot.” Margaret said, playing it down. “Can you put it into easier to grasp terms?”

“That’s about 76 billion tons of meat.”

“Wow, big eater.” she brushed it off, which only provoked him more.

“What aren’t you getting about this? The total weight of the biomass of all domesticated livestock is somewhere in the range of 500 million tons! She could eat all of the world’s cattle and it wouldn’t make a dent! She would have plenty of appetite for all sea life, all wild land mammals, and all humans for that matter!”

“And these are the charts you were obsessing over when Thomas assaulted you?”

“I wasn't obsessing, I was trying to convince him! How was I supposed to know he was under her spell?”

Silence reigned in the court as everyone tried to figure out what exactly it was that Dr. Vale had admitted. Margaret gave him a smirk letting him know she got him. He looked to the jury, frightened. He couldn’t judge their faces, which made it all the scarier. This chance of his to put an end to the monstrous woman was slipping through his fingers.

“That’s right, I lied.” He admitted. “But I did it for all of our sakes. Now you have to do what’s right. She needs to be locked up or killed before she grows out of control! 200 feet next year, more than a 1000 feet tall the year after! Almost a mile tall after that! Forget surviving another five years. Imagine what just a mile tall person would mean for our world, how much power she would have over us! We will be like mice to her! We will be as bugs to her! She has to be stopped! And only you can do it!”

His rant was contrasted by the livestream of Patricia Hostettler, now shifting uncomfortably and sadly in her room as he spoke of her being over a thousand feet tall. The number was too large for anyone to really understand it the way Dr. Vale did.

“No they can’t.” The judge’s voice called down from the bench. Dr. Vale looked over to the prosecution, to where Agent Grisham and his lawyer were folded in on themselves with their faces in their hands.

“The court declares this a mistrial, and all charges against Patricia Hostettler are hereby considered dropped. Prosecution, you can meet me in my chambers immediately. Court is adjourned.” He said, banging his gavel against the bench. To Dr. Vale it might as well have been a death sentence. Death by a growing woman destroying your world.

—

Trish was waiting by the front gate, eagerly hopping between her feet as she watched the car carrying Thomas and Margaret back from the courthouse. Thomas was yanked out of the car just as soon as his door was open, and within seconds he was dangling thirty feet in the air. Trish did a twirl while holding him at arm’s length, sending her hair and skirt whirling as she laughed a pure laugh of relief. Thomas nearly passed out from the G-forces.

“We did it!” She cheered as she finally came to a stop. She knelt in front of the car and placed Thomas on the ground, who dizzily stumbled back to brace himself on the hood.

“I can’t believe that worked.” Margaret said, coming to Thomas’s side to help steady him. “How did you know he would crack like that?”

“It’s not that complicated. He was obsessive and fearful and was putting himself on the line. We could have gotten him to say anything we wanted so long as he believed saying it would let him get control of a situation he had no control over.” Thomas said with a smirk.

Margaret just shook her head in disbelief. Then, a hand was wrapping around her, and her feet were leaving the ground. Trish gave her a toothy smile as she brought the small woman up to her face.

“Thank you soooo much Margaret. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Th-that’s fine. No need to thank me. You can just put me down and I’ll collect my fee.”

“Oh, sorry.” She said, remembering how scary it must be to be handled by a giant. She lowered Margaret back to the ground and snatched up Thomas this time, placing him on her shoulder as she rose to stand.

“But really, thank you. If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be free right now.” She said down to her from on high. Margaret just gave a nod, and Trish turned to walk deeper into the ranch, holding a hand to her shoulder to steady Thomas, who had wrapped his arm behind her neck.

Dr. Vale’s fearful words rang in her ears as she watched the giant retreat. 51 miles tall in five years. Really? It could not be believed, but then, Margaret had watched with her own two eyes as the woman more than doubled in size over the course of these legal troubles. Maybe it was possible. Did she do the right thing defending her? Of course. Right?

Margaret got back in her car and turned to head back to the city. She clicked on her trip odometer and watched it tick up as the miles flew by. She was out of the county well before it read 51.