It's amazing the things you take for granted. Like food that doesn't make you retch when you look at it. Or your own TV, stereo and personal library of digital books. Or, for that matter, plumbing.
When I lived at SPECTRUM, my little apartment had running water, including a working toilet and a shower. Unfortunately, my current residence lacks this convenience. My drinking water comes from a shot glass that Naomi keeps filled and sets in my kitchen. My toilet consists of some small, white paper ketchup cups that Naomi lifted from Dairy Queen. And bathing... well, bathing really sucks.
Nicole has gone to school, and Naomi is sitting in the living room, chatting on the phone with someone named Cheryl. From what I can tell, Cheryl lives next door, is divorced, and has a daughter named Kim who is close to Nicole's age.
"Oh yeah, you've got to see him to believe it," Naomi says on the phone. She looks towards the dollhouse, sees me, and smiles. "Well, Paul really wanted to wait until the barbecue tomorrow night to show him to people but I guess you can... oh, he'd love that, I'm sure." Naomi giggles and holds up her bare foot to regard her toenails. "Well, yeah, I am in dire need of a pedicure. I was thinking about putting Ray to work." She giggles again and says, "Cheryl, you dirty-minded thing!"
God, it just gets worse and worse.
"Well, how about this afternoon?" she says. "I still need to shower. Besides, Suzy's coming to clean today and I kind of need to be here because she hasn't met Ray yet. I'd hate for her to accidentally vacuum him up or something." She giggles, then says, "Okay, Cheryl, I'll see you about noon then. Okay. Bye-bye."
She hangs up, then stands and ambles toward the dollhouse. "Ray, sweetie," she says, peeking through the window at me. "Momma's gonna go take a shower. Why don't I go ahead and give you a bath while I'm at it?"
For the past two days, I've dreamed of a bath. I feel so grimy and itchy right now I can't stand it. And I'm really starting to stink. I figured it was beneath Naomi's notice, but when she put me back in my house this morning, she made a comment about how it was starting to smell like a gerbil cage.
But the prospect of bathing in front of Naomi makes me cringe. And what if, God forbid, she wants me to bathe with her? I can't even think about that. I know I don't stand a chance of talking her out of it, but I try anyway. I sigh and say, "I'd really rather not right now."
For a second, I expect her to be angry. But she smiles and says, "I suppose you could shower with me, if you wanted to." Her giggle makes my blood run cold.
"No, that's okay. A bath will be fine. Give me a minute to get ready."
I rummage through all the clothes I brought with me from SPECTRUM, and I pull out my bathing suit. I step into the corner, out of her sight, and slip it on. Then I go downstairs and out the front door to step into her waiting hand.
Naomi carries me into her bathroom and sets me down on the marble counter, right next to her clam-shaped sink. She turns on the faucet and holds her finger under it until it's warm enough. Then she flicks the stopper into place.
"Let's see," she says to herself. She sets the enormous bar of soap and a bath rag down on the edge of the basin and turns off the water.
"Okay," she says, turning her attention to me. "I think we're about ready."
"I can take it from here, Naomi," I say. "Really."
"Okay, sweetie," she says. She scrapes a sliver of soap off the bar with her fingernail, then offers it to me. She picks me up and starts to put me in the sink, but reconsiders.
"Ray? Maybe you should take those trunks off."
Horrified, I crane my neck up to look at her. "What? Why?"
She shrugs. "You're supposed to be bathing, not swimming. Besides, what's with all the modesty?" A scary, predatory grin appears on her face. "What could you possibly have to hide in there?"
"Naomi, please."
"Oh, okay." Her fingers envelop my body and her hand lowers me into the sink. Her hand withdraws, leaving me sitting chest deep in warm water.
From inside the sink, I can't see her. But I hear the shower start up, and I hear her digging around for a towel. After a few minutes, I can see the mirror behind the sink fogging up. I can hear her humming, but I don't recognize the tune.
I lather up with the sliver of soap and splash around to rinse off. God, it's incredible! I rub the soap into my hair, then dunk my head to rinse it. I'm done in a matter of minutes, but I'm pretty much trapped in the sink until Naomi lets me out. So I lay back and float in the warm water, feeling my tired muscles relax. For the first time in three days, I feel almost human...
After a few minutes, I hear the water cut off and the shower door open. Naomi continues to hum as she towels off. I can hear her rub her hair vigorously with the towel. Soon, I hear her wet footsteps on the bathroom tile.
"That's better," she says, peeking into the sink. Her hair is wrapped in a white towel. "You done?"
I nod and stand, glad to have the bath over with, and relieved that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. Naomi reaches down and scoops me up into her palm. She starts to set me down on the counter next to the bath rag, but she reconsiders. Instead, she picks up the rag and begins dabbing at me with it.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Just drying you off, sweetie," she says. She rubs gently with the rag, wiping my chest and stomach. "Hmmm," she says, putting the rag down.
"What?"
She smiles. "Nothing. I just think we'd better get you out of those wet trunks."
"No!" I struggle as her fingers tighten around me. Her other hand hovers above me like a monstrous bird.
"Don't," I plead as she grasps my swimming trucks with the tips of her fingernails and slides them off of me. Despite my protests, she effortlessly pulls them from my kicking legs. She tosses my trunks onto the counter and picks up the rag to continue drying me off.
"There we go, sweetie," she says. "Feel better?"
"I'm fine," I say, just ready to return to the relative safety of my dollhouse.
"Good," she says, carrying me over to her vanity. She sits on the stool and bends to set me on the floor.
"Now what?" I ask.
"I dried you off," she says with a tight-lipped smile. "Now it's your turn."
I find myself standing on the bathroom floor in a puddle of water. Naomi's bare feet are on either side of me, still wet from the shower. Her hand comes down and drops the washrag on the floor in front of me. I take the rag and drag it over to her left foot. I begin wiping along the arch, down towards her toes. It's debasing and humiliating, but what bothers me most is that some part of me wants to do it.
"Get between the toes real good, sweetie," she says, fanning her toes apart to make it easy. Nervously, I dab between her big and second toe, my heart pounding from the feeling of sheer helplessness. She giggles suddenly, clenching her toes together and snatching the rag from my hand. Startled, I jump backwards.
"Sorry, sweetie. Momma's ticklish there." She releases the rag and slides her foot towards me, spreading her toes apart again. I'm suddenly, painfully aware of my erection. I grab the rag and continue to wipe the water from her foot, praying she doesn't notice. I make my way around her heel, trying not to notice the way her toes are slowly wriggling. Trying not to imagine how it must feel to be grasped helplessly between them...
When I'm done with her left foot, she turns slightly and brings her right foot to rest on the tile in front of me. For a glorious, terrifying second, I can see the sole of her foot. What must it feel like to be trapped beneath it, to feel its flesh press me to the floor? Shaking my head, desperate (yet reluctant) to be done, I start to work.
By the time I finish, I'm pretty much drenched again. Naomi reaches down and snatches me into the air along with the damp rag. I squirm and shift in her grip, trying desperately to hide my erection from her. Fortunately, she doesn't notice, or at least pretends not to. She just wipes me dry with the rag and tosses it onto the counter.
"You're not still angry at Momma about this morning, are you?" she asks in a teasing tone.
I choke back the resentment in my voice as I shake my head. "No ma'am."
One of my friends at SPECTRUM was an engineer named Sally Mabudafhasi. She was an older woman, fifty or so, from South Africa. I remember that she spoke with this beautiful, exotic accent that was clipped and vaguely European. She also wore these thick glasses that made her brown eyes amazingly large.
Three years ago, Sally was working on the lights in my apartment. I was lying on my bed, watching her brown fingers as they nimbly navigated the tangle of wires and circuits. It was almost frightening to realize just how complicated my home became once you peeked beyond the bare white walls.
"Ray?" she said. "Have you ever heard of the abatwa?"
It sounded like one of my vocabulary words. "Isn't that a slaughterhouse?"
Sally laughed. "No, not abattoir. Abatwa."
I shook my head. "Uh huh. What's the abatwa?"
"The abatwa are this race of little tiny people that the Zulus believe in. My aunt used to come visit us in the city, and she would tell me stories about them. They're supposed to be really shy, and they only show themselves to babies, holy men and pregnant women. In fact, my aunt used to tell me that my mother had seen an abatwa sleeping in an anthill outside our house when she was pregnant with me. I never believed her though."
"How come?"
"Because if you're pregnant and you see an abatwa, you're supposed to have a son. That's what the legends say, anyway."
Her hand withdrew from my quarters, then returned with a tiny soldering probe. The air was filled with the sour, bitter smell of soldered wire.
"Anyway, my aunt told me that the abatwa were so tiny that an entire tribe could ride on one horse, sitting behind one another from the neck to the tail. They would ride the horse to hunt food and if they didn't find anything, then they'd eat the horse."
"Cool. Then what?"
Her hand withdrew again, then returned one more time to snap the panel back on the wall.
"I don't know," Sally said. "I guess they would go looking for another horse."
"Well, did anybody ever catch one?"
"Probably not," she said. "They carry these poisoned arrows that can kill a man easy, so most people go out of their way to avoid them. In fact, my aunt said everybody in her village wore thick, hard shoes when they went walking in the hills just in case they accidentally stepped on one."
"Ewww." At the time, the idea of being stepped on was repugnant and frightening.
"Anyway, I thought you'd be interested," she said, finishing up her repairs. She tapped on the wall with her fingertip, and the lights flickered on above me. "That should do it, Ray," she said. "Give it a try."
I clapped my hands twice, and the lights went out. Clapped again, and they came back on.
"Cool," I said. "Thanks!"
I'm lying on my green sponge bed, wishing right now that I had some of those poisoned arrows. Just three would be enough...
Naomi is sitting in the living room, reading a magazine. The Price Is Right is on the TV, and the constant blare of "Come on doooowwwwn!" is starting to give me a headache. Life sucks, but at least I'm fully clothed. And clean. Now if I could just get something decent to eat...
"Ray, sweetie," Naomi calls me from the living room. "You wanna come watch TV with Momma?" Dammit, why can't she just leave me alone? I just lie there, wondering how long I'll get away with pretending I can't hear her.
I find myself toying with the idea of fleeing the dollhouse and living like a rat. I would never dream of trying to make it in the outside world, but for some reason the idea of scampering for cover and avoiding capture appeals to me. Darting under furniture, or even burrowing an elaborate network of tunnels throughout the house.
I remember Louise reading me The Borrowers when I was younger. The idea of living secretly in the world of giants was exciting and oddly tantalizing. I concocted elaborate fantasies in which I was a Borrower who had been discovered and captured. I spent many nights imagining that my guerilla brethren would mount a massive rescue mission to free me from the giants and take me home. Of course, I would never leave Louise, so in my fantasies she would always come along to live with us...
What can I say? I was eight.
"Ray?" Naomi calls from just outside, startling me. I didn't even hear her approach. "Why don't you come out now, sweetie?"
I just lie there, hoping she'll go away if I ignore her.
"Ray?" The house shakes as she nudges it with her foot. "You in there?"
Just go away, I chant silently to myself. Just go away. Just go away. Just go away.
"I'm going to count to three."
Justgoawayjustgoawayjustgoawayjustgoaway...
"One... two..."
"I'm coming," I call out to her. Defeated, I climb down the stairs and go out the front door to stand at her feet. That's the problem with fantasy. It sets standards too high for reality to ever live up to.
Giantess World
Homunculus by Cayce