Pretending to be a distraught girlfriend turned out to be more difficult than Naomi had imagined.  The investigation took longer than she thought, too, including letting the cops search her apartment twice (the first at her invitation, the second with a warrant).  The worst were Rick's parents.  They called shortly after Naomi made the report to the police ("Why didn't you call us first?  He might have come home!"), and his mother was immediately suspicious.  Naomi was convinced that his mother had said something to the cops to provoke the second search.

She also kept her contact with Stefan strictly professional.  She could sense his lingering attentions to her, but she was confident enough to reserve her feelings for private contemplation.  Almost a month had passed since Rick's disappearance before she gave Stefan enough of an opening to press an overture.

"Got any plans this weekend?" he asked.

"None at all," she replied.  "Why do you ask?"

"I'd like to make dinner for you at my place.  Does Saturday work?"

"That sounds like just the treat I need," she said.  "What are you making?"

"That'll be my surprise," he said without flourish. "But I hope you come with an open mind; I'd like to try something new."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she said, surprised at how easily her answer came.

Naomi puzzled over the possibilities for half a day before deciding that she preferred the mystery.  She had no regrets about anything that had happened since meeting Stefan, something she reminded herself of whenever self-doubt cropped up.

Arriving at Stefan's house on Saturday evening, she caught herself trying to identify any of the cars parked nearby, but in this she was unsuccessful.  Once she entered his home and scented his kitchen, however, she knew what they were having for dinner.

"I admire your audacity," she said after Stefan greeted her with a peck on the cheek.  "Not in a million years would I try to pull off something like this.  Where did you go for ingredients?"

"You know Matsuno's, off Division?"

She did, and she gave a low whistle.  "Pricey."

"Well, I've been in there often enough recently that I think he's giving me a break."

He brought the drinks.  She wasn't really a fan of sake, but it was traditional and Stefan's selection was better than average.  At least they weren't sitting on the floor.

Stefan's kitchen featured a large island topped with white stone—she couldn't tell if it was marble or granite.  It had a four-burner gas range, but tonight it was merely the staging area for trays of seaweed-wrapped discs of rice.

Naomi sat on one of the two stools next to the island while Stefan stood opposite her and selected the first fish.  As she watched him clean and fillet it, her affect slowly shifted from indulgence to admiration (and, to be honest, a bit of envy).  By the time he was on the fourth fish, she was making mental notes for her next attempt at the craft that she last abandoned almost five years ago.

The dining was sheer pleasure.  All four fish were excellent, and Stefan hadn't made a single poor cut.  It even improved the sake.  At the conclusion of the meal Naomi felt warm all over.  "I can't remember ever having such a lovely feast in any restaurant," she said.

"Better than Mom used to make?" he prompted with a smirk as he cleared the trays.

"Squashes Mom like a grape," she said, getting up from her stool and rounding the island to slide her arms over his shoulders.  Their kiss picked up from where they left off the night she made garlic pork, their lips pressing slowly, less hungrily, each parting followed by gentle nibbles.  Her arms drifted down to his lower back and her thigh nudged between his.  He drew a deep breath through his nose and brought his lips down to the side of her neck, where he planted a quick suckling kiss, then he grasped her shoulders and gently pulled back.

"Are you ready for something new?" he asked huskily.

Naomi was slightly startled, as she had assumed the exotic Asian Yellowtail had been the novelty of the evening.  Nevertheless, she welcomed Stefan's next offering, whatever it might be.  "Certainly," she said.

He looked at her appraisingly, but before she could fully discern his verdict, he said, "Follow me," and turned to walk toward his bedroom.  She did not hesitate at all but smiled to herself as she walked after him.  All evening she had been sensing Stefan's restraint, his reminding himself not to indulge in too much ceremony.  Having taken the measure of some of his appetites, she was confident that she would be able to easily share his enthusiasm for whatever he had prepared.

Stefan's bedroom was tastefully if simply appointed.  A single dresser and chair, a deep closet next to a full-length mirror on the wall, and internal shutters on the windows that could block out the brightest sunlight.  The queen-sized bed had a small shelf running the length of the headboard.  Most important of all, everything was clean.

Stefan had walked straight to the dresser, and now he reached into a drawer and pulled out a handful of salmon-colored scarves.  Naomi looked at them and then to his face.  "Another magic trick?" she asked with the barest minimum of amusement.

He clearly wasn't prepared for any questions at that point, however whimsical, and he was momentarily flustered.  He tried to recompose his smile.  "Uh, no," he said.  "I just wanted to, um, I just wanted to tie you up," he concluded, raising his chin.

Naomi felt a mixture of relief and excitement.  Relief that she hadn't embarrassed him, and that he had been able to proceed with his proposition.  She also realized that her quip betrayed her subconscious worry that Stefan might have another reality-bending surprise waiting for her.

She was excited because she had instantly decided that yes, she wanted to be tied up by Stefan.  Bondage was something that had loitered around the fringes of her sexual imagination for as long as she could remember, but being with Rick and similarly vanilla partners she had never given it a moment of serious consideration.  Now that she was presented with it, all reluctance fell away.  She looked back at Stefan's bed, and she immediately noticed the fittings at each end where bindings might be affixed.

Fully aware that Stefan was scrutinizing her face as never before, Naomi did her best to keep her cool.  She wanted him to eventually know that she was one-hundred-percent enthusiastic for his proposition, but she couldn't resist drawing it out, hoping that he would reveal more about his desires.

She knelt down and examined the metal loops bolted to the foot of the bed.  The finish was unworn, and there was a bit of sawdust on the backside where the drill had poked through.  "How long have you been thinking about this?" she asked, turning to look him in the eye.

"Since I decided not to swallow you," he said without hesitation.  She nodded, then stood back up and faced him.

"Where did you get those?" she asked, gesturing at the scarves.

Incredibly, he reddened.  Then he gave a awkward smile.  "A shop called Lover's Lane," he admitted.

She smiled reassuringly and pulled one from his fist, then wrapped it around her fingers.  "At least they're not fuzzy pink handcuffs," she said.

He shrugged, and his blush faded a bit.  "I think these are safer," he said, "and they're probably more comfortable."

She rescued him by planting another kiss on his mouth.  When she broke off, she whispered in his ear, "Let's try them out now."

He exhaled quickly, then stood back up and looked her up and down.  He inclined his head towards her feet, then sat in the chair facing her.

Naomi was more than ready for this, and she wasn't frightened by the idea of being tied up.  Stefan had already seen her naked, and she had already had a close-up look at his cock.  What she hadn't quite anticipated was Stefan watching her from his chair.  Taking his earlier restraint as a model, she performed the most casual and unembellished striptease she could.

Of course it made her wet.

As she dropped the last item of clothing onto the pile, Naomi clasped her hands together just above her privates and looked at Stefan.  He hadn't moved, and one of his legs was still crossed over the other.  He gestured to the bed with one hand.  "On your back, if you please," he said.

She located the four mounted loops at the head and foot of the bed, then clambered on and assumed the spread-eagle position necessary to place her wrists and ankles nearest the loops.  Once she had settled, Stefan stood and drew a scarf from the jacket pocket where he had stuffed them.

As he bent over her arm to bind the first of her wrists, Naomi wondered if he could smell her arousal.  She quickly decided he could not, as he seemed too focused on his task to be attending to his senses.

When he had secured all four of her limbs, he stood at the foot of the bed and looked down upon her.  She thought she recognized the expression he had had back when she lay tiny and helpless on his desktop.  He licked his lips, and she remembered how easily she had been dominated by that tongue.  Her pulse quickened.

"Excuse me a moment," he said and stepped into the adjoining bathroom.  He left the door open, but she couldn't see what he was doing, and she couldn't make out any sounds, either.

Some instinct led her to test the tightness of the bonds at her wrists.  In fact, there was the barest slack in the scarf securing her right wrist.  She couldn't immediately slip out of it, but with time she might be able to work it loose enough to get a finger into the knot.

Then Stefan came back into the room.  She didn't know what kind of expression he might have been hoping to see from her, but when she saw that he was completely naked, she went with "hungry."  As she searched his face, however, she realized he wasn't seeing her expression at all.

Stefan again stood at the foot of the bed, truly ogling Naomi for the first time.  It was that odd mixture of awe and possession that she had seen a million times from boys and men.  She felt like a buffet table loaded with dessert pastries, or perhaps an elaborately-detailed model of the Battle of Helm's Deep.

"Like what you see?" she said, unable to keep the accusatory condescension out of her voice.

He jerked back as if he'd been slapped.  He looked at her face in surprise, then he pursed his lips and swallowed.  He walked to the side of the bed, then stepped up onto the mattress, so that he was standing next to her torso, looking down at her outstretched body.

Stefan's face was recomposing itself as he tried to figure out what he wanted, so Naomi decided to look at his cock for the moment, hoping it might be more decisive.  It had been getting harder from the moment he emerged from the bathroom, and her comment didn't seem to have stemmed the surge.  The shaft and balls bobbed as the blood kept flowing in, and because she couldn't fondle it herself, she willed Stefan to do so.  She wondered what he was doing with his hands, and that's when she noticed that he still had his ring.

He was rolling it back and forth between his fingers, and he was looking at her breasts, at his cock, at her pussy, at the bathroom door; anywhere but her face.  Then he suddenly took a deep breath, clutched the ring in his fist, and rapidly spoke the charm, followed by five taps on the back of his hand, "Toon-toon-toon-toon-toon."

Stunned, Naomi's mind grasped after small details.  Oh, she thought, that's what it looks like when they shrink with no clothes on.  Oh, that sounds like the ring bouncing on the carpet.

For a moment, she couldn't see Stefan.  She no longer felt his weight depressing the mattress, of course.  Then she felt his tiny hands and arms on her side, just above her hip bone.  The man who had expertly prepared the best sushi dinner she had ever eaten and then tied her up so he could fuck her was now struggling to pull himself atop her belly.

Confusion and disappointment warred within Naomi.  She thought she had been ready for anything this evening, but she had been wrong.  As she watched the three-inch-tall man find his uncertain footing upon her abdomen and look around at her body, she decided that more than anything else she was simply curious to discover his next action.  And hers.

After another moment of gawping at Naomi's sprawling nudity, Stefan hiked up to her left breast and flung himself onto its slope.  She could feel that he still maintained his boner as he embraced her tit and thrust it against her.  The sensation was not unpleasant, but she found that she wanted to see his face, to know what he was feeling.

Naomi also resumed trying to slowly increase the slack in the scarf binding her right wrist.  Stefan was too busy to notice, but she wouldn't have cared if he had.

The tiny man climbed to the top of her breast and started to kiss and suck on her nipple.  She remembered the first time his tongue had embraced her, and a short laugh escaped her and sent tremors through her breast.  He hung on and didn't even interrupt his ministrations to her nipple, as big or bigger than his head.  Once more, she saw the Stefan she had come to know, certain of his appetites and confident of his abilities.

He humped her a few moments more, then she saw him take hold of himself and push off from her pliant flesh.  He let himself slide down to her sternum, where he stood and looked up at her face, rubbing one of his shoulders with his tiny hand.

Stefan had brought his miniscule face as close as he could without forcing Naomi to look at him cross-eyed.  His expression was one of wistful yearning, lust and wonder leavened with rueful memory.  She had a thought, and this being the night for it, she acted on it.

"What was her name?" she asked.  "The woman who left you the ring."

Stefan let his hand drop to his side, and his mouth fell open a bit.  His face dropped for a moment, but then he raised his chin and looked back into her eyes.  "Melissa," he chirped in his tiny voice.

Hearing this man she had been in awe of squeak like a mouse made Naomi deflate.  She had guessed at some of his history, and she had seen what he could do, and indeed everything that had happened this evening had been his design.  But now he was standing between her boobs, liable to lose his footing at her slightest inhalation, and it was a struggle to think of him as a man of consequence.

"How long did she have you?" she asked.

Stefan shifted his weight on his feet, perhaps because she was drawing breath, perhaps for other reasons.  "Two months," he replied.

She could sense a dozen more questions starting to germinate in her mind, but in a flash she decided she didn't want to learn any more about Melissa.  Her tongue made a contemplative circuit of her teeth and palate.  Stefan was still looking up at her, entranced by her lips.

"Was it your idea to put her in your mouth?" asked Naomi.

"Yes," said Stefan with just a bit of conflicted pride finding its way into his faint voice.  Naomi no longer felt any need to hide her feelings from Stefan, and her admiration for the tiny man returned in the form of a smirk.  For the first time in the conversation, he managed to look away from her imposing face, and he again took in the vista of her exposed body.  There was, however, one crucial detail she needed to know.

"Did you mean to eat her?" she asked.

Stefan's head whipped around and he was once again transfixed by her gaze.  She slowed her breathing to give him better footing, but he shifted and stepped back anyway.  He reminded her a bit of a child eager to get out on the playground but was forced to wait for a parent to finish talking.  Does he not realize what is riding on his answer? she wondered.  Could I tell if he lied?

Imagining how she must appear to the tiny Stefan, Naomi tried to keep her eyes steady and receptive.  There was nothing she could do, however, about her restless lips and tongue.  Although she held his gaze, she felt his searching slip away from her face and turn inward, his trepidation having nothing to do with her at all.

"No," he whispered finally.  Then he drew a deep breath and exclaimed, "No!" loud enough that he was sure she could hear.

Naomi closed her eyes.  Stefan seemed to interpret this as a kind of dismissal, and he began to crawl upon her right breast.  She was seized by the desire to press her breasts together and smother the tiny man, but she refrained from flexing her fingers or drawing any attention at all to her wrists or their bonds.

Instead, she opened her eyes and exhaled, then settled into watching Stefan take his pleasure from her.  She had always thought of her breasts as rather small, and even though Rick had never complained or teased her about them, hanging around with Joan had not improved her self-image.  Now she found herself enjoying the sight and sensation of a man nuzzling her boob while being dwarfed by it.  Stefan might have looked at the expanse of her naked body as territory to be explored and conquered, but she knew who had conquered whom.

His little stiffy had returned after bowing during his confession, but in fucking her tit he wasn't applying the fervor she imagined was necessary to bring himself off.  She had never had anyone come on her breast before, and she supposed that receiving the jizz produced by balls the size of poppy seeds would be a harmless introduction, but she need not have worried.

Heaving but unspent, Stefan let go and stood back from Naomi's breast.  He looked up at her nipple, beginning to darken with arousal, then apparently thought better of scaling it.  He cast about, sneaking glances at her mouth and at her crotch, desperate not to miss any aspect of this rare opportunity.  He didn't dare let his eyes linger too long on her face, but she pointed a warm smile at him all the same.

Finally she couldn't abide the denial of their mutual desires any longer.  "Put your cock in me," she said, doing her best not to startle him.

He turned to look at her, and she met his regard with an expression of frankness and a bit of impatience.

"You've gone to all this trouble," she said.  "My pussy's right there.  You've wanted this since you first tasted me."

He crossed his arms and continued to search her face.

"Look at it," she commanded. "I'm ready for you."

He let his arms fall and his gaze dropped from her face.  Then he looked at her face one last time, nodded, then turn to walk towards her crotch.  She held her breath, both to give him a steady path and because she wasn't at all sure he wouldn't change his mind.

He reached the small trimmed patch of hair at the top of her mons, the only remnant from that morning's grooming.  He trailed one hand through it as he passed, and she continued to hold still so as to feel every rustling of his passage.  As he became even tinier with distance, she stopped trying to read his emotions from his shoulders and just watched his tiny ass churning as he walked toward her hungry pussy.

When he reached the top of her vulva, he knelt down and reached both of his arms between her lips.  She gasped as his tiny hands found her clit and exposed it to his attentions.  He leaned forward and down and—OH HE'S KISSING IT.

She might have closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensations, but she couldn't stop watching his tiny back and shoulders, curled forward and bobbing as he fellated her clit.  She didn't realize how wet she was until he reached an arm under her hood and easily slid it around the horn of slick flesh.

Her pelvis bucked reflexively, and she was certain that he had bit her, bit her with the teeth that once might have ground her to paste.  She let the tremors roll on; she was no longer worried about his footing or is grip, and she was done luring him.

Naomi's rapid breathing became a series of moans that seemed subdued to her but probably resonated more strongly to mouse-sized Stefan laboring just below her diaphragm.  He altered neither his rhythm nor his pace, and her moans clenched into a deep grunt as her juice trickled past her lips and puddled at her taint.

She felt him leave her mons before she saw it; he swung his legs down between her lips and hung onto her clit until he could let himself down.  He reached his arms wide to stroke her outer lips from top to bottom, where he brought his hands together and slipped them between her inner lips.  Then he stood up and nestled forward, and she imagined her pink wet lips kissing his face and chest and folding around him to graze his tiny ass.

Naomi strained at her bonds as never before.  She needed her hands in her crotch, one to resume diddling her clit and one to shove Stefan deep into her cunt.  Feeling him rocking between her lips was a terrible tease.  Wait—was that his tiny boner?  He was humping away like it was.

She needed to reach him before he finished.  "I need you inside now," she called, hoping her genuine neediness made her sound alluring and not like a playground monitor.

He paused in his thrusts, and she prayed he wasn't coming yet.

"You belong there," she said, meaning every word.

Unable to see Stefan's face or read his body language, Naomi couldn't tell if his inaction was due to a fear of entering her body, conflicts between his own desires, or post-ejaculatory torpor.  She felt her frustration coalesce into a whiny moan, but she quashed it before it could be vocalized.

Then, before she could relax her muscles, half of his body slipped through the opening to her canal.  Was it—it was his legs, shooting inside and up along the forward wall of her cunt.  In the greatest act of willpower she could remember, she forced her pelvic muscles not to contract or react at all to the probing of the tiny man's limbs.

C'mon, you little fucker, she thought as she moderated her breathing to minimize the chance of another orgasm at this point.  She could still feel his arms stimulating her inner lips, and she wondered if this was what guys go through when they try to mentally defer ejaculation.  What sweet torture, she thought.

It took Naomi a couple of seconds to recognize the sensation, but then it was clear that Stefan's tiny hands had somehow found the necessary grip and leverage on the threshold of her pussy to thrust the rest of his body inside hers, like an astronaut in zero-G going feet first through a hatch.  Even after his arms and hands slipped inside her, she kept up her breath control, unsure just how deep he had gone.  Then his feet touched her cervix, and she finally let a triumphant grin spread across her face.

Her pelvic muscles grabbed him with the sudden ferocity of a submerged frog taking an insect on the surface of a pond.  His limbs were pinned, and he couldn't find the leverage to even start to free himself.  Her grin faded into the tight thin seal that she was willing her labia to mimic.  He spasmed against her straining membranes, and then she could no longer hold back the flood of her joys.

Oh, she had him, as deeply as anyone could be had.  She imagined him gripped tight in the hot wet dark, her pussy walls convulsing him deeper as an homage to her tongue's earlier prey.  She pictured her cervix dilating like a second gullet, drawing him in to be mired in her uterine lining and dissolved.

All that Stefan ever was and ever would be would now become part of Naomi.  As she bore down upon him, shutting out all air and light and flooding him with pressure and heat, Naomi realized that she was dominating not only Stefan but also Joan, Phil, Rick, even Melissa.  They were all there, in her pussy, in her belly, in her blood.

All of her bonds went taut as she arced her pelvis upward and clenched her Kegels in triumph.  I will contain the whole world, she thought.  Nothing will escape my appetites.

Whether the cause was suffocation, drowning, or her final pelvic embrace, Stefan had stopped moving.  She lowered her abdomen back onto the mattress, and she felt more of her fluids seep out.  You were delicious, she thought as she faded from consciousness.

***

Naomi didn't know precisely how long she had lain there.  The wet spot had gone cold.  She couldn't see or hear anyone else in the house with her.

She resumed trying to increase the slack in her right wrist bond.  Unhindered by distraction or concern for stealth, it still took the better part of an hour.  Even when she got one arm free, freeing her other limbs proceeded painfully slowly.

The first thing Naomi did once she was free of Stefan's bonds was to search the floor for his ring.  It was easy to find, under the bed less than a foot from the edge.  She grabbed it and put it on the fourth finger of her left hand.  It fit perfectly, something she never gave a second thought.

Next she found her phone and turned it off.  After getting dressed, she located Stefan's supply of latex gloves, donned a pair, and commenced cleaning.  She started by changing the bedsheets and washing the soiled linen.  While that was running, she collected all evidence of the sushi dinner and its preparation, along with the scarves, and stuffed it all into a doubled plastic garbage bag.  Then she ran the dishwasher.

While she waited for the dishes to dry, Naomi wiped down all the surfaces she remembered touching with her bare hands and a few others just to be sure.  She felt absolutely no urgency.

After putting the cleaned sheets and dishes away, she carried the plastic bag to the front door.  Before walking out and locking the door behind her, Naomi turned and addressed the house as a whole, "Thank you, Stefan."

***

Naomi knew the detectives found her connection to all the missing people impossible to ignore, but she also knew that they couldn't place her at the last known locations of any of them, they had no motive, and of course they had no bodies.  If they had found any of her fingerprints at Stefan's house they would have arrested her, but they must not have because all they did was request two different interviews at her place.  She knew the second interview was just to try to poke holes in her story and to get her emotions to betray her.  She found her most convincing shelter in anger, channeling her disappointment in Rick.  She could tell that her performance had been successful, and that she would just have to be much more careful in the future.

***

A year later, two hours up the interstate, a young man spent almost an hour in a specialty restaurant store going back and forth between three different sets of fillet knives.  After he finally made his purchase, he took a sidewalk table at a nearby cafe to have some coffee and hopefully avoid buyer's remorse.

With the carton open on the table and the blades glinting in the sun, the man looked up to see a slim woman, on the shortish side, with long straight brown hair.

"Nice knives," she said genuinely.  "I hope you know how to sharpen them."

"With a stone, right?"  He was taken slightly aback, but something in her tone made him instantly respect her authority.

"A waterstone would be best," she said, reaching for the largest blade of the set.  "May I?"

"Be my guest," he said without hesitation.  He noticed she was wearing an unusually large ring.  "That's not a class ring, is it?" he said.  "Where did you get it?"

The woman met his eyes and licked her lips.  "I inherited it."