A horrible electronic ringing jolted Dan awake.

He found himself laying in a puddle of his own sweat on the large glass expanse of his ex-wife's coffee table. His vision slowly came into focus as Dan watched the gigantic woman rise from her couch and walk into the blurry distance. “What...” He mumbled to himself, pushing his body into an upright position as he tried to remember exactly what was going on.

Like distant thunder, he could hear Julia's voice as she spoke to someone at the door. After barely a minute she returned, a brown bag the size of a small building in her hand. Julia placed the bag onto the hardwood of her floor before sitting down and opening it. Dan watched mesmerized as she lifted a pair of containers the size of modest suburban homes from within and set them down on the counter.

The two take-out containers formed a nice pair, looking not unlike a two-story house and an accompanying garage or car port. Dan's stomach rumbled in hunger as the powerful scent of Chinese food overwhelmed his senses. His mouth was already starting to water as he rose to a standing position. His eyes were locked on a drop of brown colored sauce dribbling down the side of the larger container, glistening with grease.

A loud snapping noise caused Dan to snap to where his ex-wife's huge teeth were biting through a truck-sized egg roll. He stood, effectively frozen, as Julia chewed the huge piece of food. Her teeth demolished it and her throat muscles flexed as she swallowed.

She could easily stuff him into the egg roll, amidst the various vegetables and thin strips of pork or shrimp that might have been within it. In one bite, or maybe two, he would be gone. That's what she had been talking about just before he had passed out.

Standing there, watching as she took another enormous bite while scanning over some legal brief, Dan could actually feel his heart begin to race once again. Her jaw moved vigorously as she chewed, and the horrible sound of the egg roll's fried shell cracking and snapping filled Dan's ears. Would that be what his bones sound like?

The file containing the legal brief came crashing down, landing amidst the pile it must have come from as she popped the last bit of it into her mouth with a guilty smile. Julia had been healthier than Dan while they were married, but plenty of his bad eating habits had rubbed off on to her. As much as she tried to eat right and exercised, Dan remembered many quiet winter afternoons when she decided to read while snuggling up against him while he played video games or watched some terrible movie. Eventually, they'd get something greasy delivered and she'd mention how bad it was for the two of them before digging in. As if merely recognizing that it was a bad decision absolved them of all the fat they were consuming.

She had never eaten well while working late or from home, and Dan knew that it had only gotten worse during their time together. Not that he had ever minded. He had actually enjoyed the brief moment when Julia had gotten a little tummy. It had been kind of cute, though she had considered it devastating. Within a month, she was back to her usual flat stomach.

With a strange lust in her blue eyes, Julia popped open the take out containers and reached into the bag for a pair of chopsticks. The food smelled positively heavenly to the hungry Dan, and he found himself unconsciously walking toward them. The larger one was lifted high into the air above him by Julia's huge hands and he could hear her chowing down. Only after she was well into the process of eating her late dinner did she notice Dan standing there, practically starving with hunger.

“Well look who's up,” she giggled, playfully snapping her chopsticks down at him before lifting up the smaller box that held her white rice.

Dan gazed up at his ex-wife, actually managing to take her in full for the first time since the food had arrived. For once she was wearing her glasses, a thick framed black pair with soft purple accents, and her dark hair was still unbound, falling about her shoulders. She had scrubbed her make up away while he was unconscious and gazed down at him with her plain face. Julia's skin was well maintained though he still noticed the dark rings and crow's feet around her eyes that she always managed to hide. Her lips were back to their more neutral flesh coloring rather than the shades of red she normally favored. Looking over the rest of her body, he wasn't surprised to see her in pajamas. When Julia was decidedly 'at home,' her work clothes disappeared and were replaced by soft t-shirts and comfortable sweats. Emblazoned across her ample breasts was the symbol for the University of Chicago law school, which she had graduated from nearly a decade ago.

“Are you just going to stare up at me like a dog begging for scraps, Dan?” Her voice was still teasing and playful, “I don't know, my parents always told me and Leslie that we shouldn't feed pets human food. It wasn't good for them.” Laughing, Julia leaned back into the bag and pulled out a small stack of paper napkins. After she set them down on the coffee table, her fingers delicately grabbed a few off of the top and set them at Dan's feet. “Still though, I just can't resist such a cute little face,” Julia kissed down toward him once more, laughing all the while.

With careful deft movements, Julia picked up a few small shreds of chicken from the larger box and placed them at Dan's feet. He stared at the greasy strips of meat, barely able to contain himself as they were accompanied by a small mound of rice.

“There you go, Dan.”

Dan fell to his knees, unable to restrain himself any longer as he tore into the food.

Another laugh rained down from above and he felt Julia's delicate finger stroke down his backside once more. “God, look at you. You really are like a little animal,” she mused, making Dan pause.

He looked down into his hands. They were covered in greasy meat, and he could feel the sauce dribbling down his chin. Only after he stopped eating did the spice of the dish finally start to hit him. Dan had been eating so fast that it hadn't even registered before. Sure, he was hungry but was he that hungry?

“I'm... sorry,” he said suddenly, looking up at his ex-wife.

Julia only cocked her head, “What was that?”

“I'm... I'm sorry!”

“About what?” Dan couldn't help but notice how delicately she placed a piece of chicken the size of his torso into her mouth. Her teeth made short work of the meat as her eyes looked down at him.

He took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to explain why he was embarrassed while she once more handled her chopsticks with practiced ease. It wouldn't have been so bad, Dan thought, if she had just used a plastic fork or even a metal fork. Somehow, the fact that he had actually never bothered to learn how to use chopsticks made him feel all the more like some kind of animal. “For just... for making an ass out of myself by eating like a damn dog.”

Julia smirked high above him and the smile grew wider until she covered her mouth in a poor attempt to stifle her own laughter.

“What?” Dan cried, anger welling within him as Julia laughed down at him.

“It's just,” she took a deep breath to calm herself, “I tried to imagine a dog, and I just realized that even a little dog could probably eat you up at that size.”

“Julia!”

“I'm sorry, Dan.” Julia shook her head back and forth, still smiling broadly, “I'm sorry. It's terrible, I know but you have to look at it from my perspective. You're just... you're so small.”

“No!” Dan stood up, “You need to see things from my perspective, Julia! You are HUGE! I mean, do you think it is easy riding around in your purse?”

Julia looked down at him, the smile was gone, but it wasn't replaced by the pity or understanding Dan was hoping for. Instead, it was replaced by the cool authoritative glare that Dan knew Julia had used to crush many an intern at her law firm.

Dan found himself trembling beneath that gaze.

“I'm... I'm sorry,” he said once more, looking away from his enormous ex-wife. When he looked back up, she was sliding another chunk of chicken the size of his chest between her teeth.

Her teeth crushed and sliced it into an unrecognizable mush. Dan could easily hear her lips smacking as she sat there, silent except for the simple act of eating something that wasn't much smaller than him. “For what?” She asked after swallowing, her eyes still locked on him.

“For,” Dan swallowed hard as he realized he knew the exact words Julia expected to hear, “For disrespecting you, Julia. I know that taking care of me isn't going to be easy for you and I should... I should be more considerate.”

Julia simply nodded before returning her attention back to her late dinner.

There wasn't going to be anymore conversation. Dan knew that already as he sat before his greasy scraps, no longer as hungry as he was just moments before hand. Julia had always worn the pants in their relationship, whether she was willing to admit it or not. Sure, there had been plenty of times when Dan got to be the man but he was more her wife than she had ever been his. As ridiculous as the situation was, it had been easy to forget that day that they had ever gotten their divorce. She had been so caring, so sweet... so... like she had been before.

But they weren't married, and Dan now realized that they weren't really equals. After all, people that were on equal footing didn't get carried around in purses. She would be sweet, and smile down at him, maybe even play with him sexually like she had at brunch but Dan doubted, sitting there in front of her scraps, that she had any intention of treating him as much more than a pet for the foreseeable future.

When she finished, Julia crumpled up the remains of his unfinished meal within the napkins she had laid it out on. She returned moments later and the rest of the night passed in silence while she read over more briefs, making notes in her own elegant handwriting as she went. As Dan sat there, drifting to sleep, he was jolted awake when her fingers wrapped around him.

He panicked for a moment, slamming his hands against her fingers but Julia didn't seem to notice or care. She set him down on her nightstand before walking about to her hamper and grabbing something out of it. The object she laid down on her nightstand in front of Dan was a fluffy white athletic sock. It didn't look particularly well worn though Dan instantly noticed the mixture of Julia's feet, detergent, and skin lotion.

Her glasses were set down next to him, and Julia slid into her bed that could easily hold several city blocks. With a casual flick of her arm, Dan was plunged into darkness and Julia said, “Good night.”

The chill of the air conditioner quickly began to get to him as he stood blind and alone in his ex-wife's apartment. Seeing no other alternative, he steeled himself and opened the mouth of the sock. A heavier foot funk flowed out and Dan fought back a cough before sliding himself into the discarded piece of clothing. His feet didn't even reach where her toes went as he bundled up, tugging the elastic of the sock over his shoulder.

Drifting off to sleep, Dan was forced to wonder if his body even made it to the sock's halfway point.