Twenty-four hours later, Kimberly was no closer to figuring it out. 

Andy had another sleepless night. In the morning he, Brooke, and Kimberly went to St. Luke's with Alecia's ashes. Mourners started arriving at about 10. They met with everyone who came. Brooke and Alecia's brother spoke before the gathering. Then they had a reception in the church gym that went on for 2 hours after the memorial service ended. Kimberly held Andy in her open palm at chest height for most of the event. 

The worst part was seeing Alecia's mother and siblings. Kimberly noticed Andy struggling to keep his composure around his deceased wife's family as they peppered him with questions about the accident in Virginia and his health. And who was this young girl in the black dress carrying him around? Using the social arts mastered by the fairer sex, she deflected their attention from him more than a few times. 

During the reception someone tugged on Kimberly's sleeve. She turned and had to look down to see who it was. It was a man she used to have to look up to, but now he was almost a head shorter than her. 

"Paul?!" she said, shock registering in her voice. It was uncanny. He was the size of a prepubescent boy, but his face was much older. "What are you…? You have a lot of nerve coming here!" 

Paul, who was at eye level with Kimberly's smooth collar bone, looked positively sheepish. 

"Cool it, Kim," Andy said. He turned to face his friend. "So how long has this been going on?" 

"The shrinking? Ten days or so." 

"Wow, what a coincidence," Andy said. It was unknown how the shrinking disease spread. Human-to-human vectors were the first to be ruled out when the disease first appeared. 

"Yeah, that's too bad," Kimberly said mockingly. 

"Look, I came to apologize to both of you, and to give you my condolences," Paul said. "Alecia was a great woman, Andy. She lit up a lot of people's lives." 

"Thanks."

He inclined his head. "And I'm sorry I was a jackass and kicked you." 

Andy glanced at the girl behind him, the one with the implacable glare. "I don't think it's me you need to apologize to." 

Paul raised his eyes to the beautiful teenager. "I'm sorry, Kim, for everything." 

"I forgive you," she said coldly. She drew herself up to her full 5 feet, 10 inches in her short heels. "Fortunately Mr. Speed wasn't seriously hurt. If I were you, when I'm small I would hope I'm treated better than how you treated Andy." 

Paul took her scolding. He probably felt he deserved it. "I really feel terrible about what happened," he said. He began to move away from them. 

"I know. I made sure of that." She bent her knee and smoothed a hand over her thigh, a reminder of how she'd cut their date short on Weathertop Hill, and an implied threat of what she'd do if he came near her again. 

Paul's face flushed red and he dissapeared into the crowd. 

"That was unnecessary," Andy commented. 

"That dirt bag could have killed you." 

"If only he had," he muttered under his breath. 

"What?"

"He learned his lesson. He apologized. Let it go," he said sternly. 

When they got home, Brooke and Kimberly took naps. Per his new normal, Andy tried to sleep, but ended up lying in the crib with his eyes open, thinking. He'd been dreading the memorial service all week. He was glad it was behind him. Now, what was next? 

He'd known the answer to that question for so long. Alecia, Brooke, accounting. That was 90 percent of his life. Now, Alecia was gone. He was losing Brooke to college. Shrinking had merely made his loss of authority over his daughter more acute; it wasn't the cause. As for his career, it held little meaning for him outside the context of supporting his family. 

What was next? He pondered the question all night long.

Andy had to take a leak. He jumped down from the office desk and walked to the bathroom. The toilet bowl was now taller than him, but he could still climb up to relieve himself. He and Alecia had talked about him needing her help to use the bathroom someday. If I were to kill myself, he thought, it would be the day I rely on someone else to wipe my ass.

His mind roamed as he arced his stream into the toilet bowl. He'd spent several hours online googling what happens to men when they are single as a result of death or divorce. All the reputable sources he found showed that newly single men die sooner, make less money, have fewer connections to society, commit more crimes, and use more drugs than their still-married peers. And most of the research didn't factor shrinking. It was a bleak verdict on middle-aged singlehood, and it read like a prophecy to Andy.

He flushed and headed back to the office. When he reached the desk, he realized the toilet in the bathroom was still running. He ran back, climbed onto the toilet bowl, and jiggled the handle.

It didn't stop running. In the past he would just lift the lid off the tank and adjust the chain or whatever was out of whack. The tank lid weighed literally a ton. He needed Brooke or Kimberly to take off the tank lid.

If I were to kill myself, it would be the day I have to ask my little girl to fix the goddamn toilet, he thought. He jumped up and bore all his weight down on the flush handle. The handle slipped through his hands. 

The air left his lungs as he landed hard on his side on the toilet lid, bending the ribs Paul bruised 2 weeks ago. He sprawled out his arms and legs, hoping to catch himself on anything to arrest his fall. Somehow his feet found purchase on the opposite rim of the toilet lid. He came to a stop. His 9-inch tall body was stretched across the diameter of the toilet bowl. 

"Shit," he grunted, struggling to hold on. He couldn't move. His shoulders burned to keep his upper body level. He couldn't take much more of this. He gambled by kicking his legs as hard as he could, aiming to land his chest on the toilet lid to gain enough leverage to pull himself up. 

Not even close. He tumbled into the bowl, slid down the side, and plunged into the water. 

Sputtering, he stood up, feet in the deepest part of the toilet bowl, where the flush valve curved towards the wall behind the commode. The water came up to his arm pits. He tried to scale the bowl to its broad opening, so close above him, but the wet porcelain was too smooth, too slippery. And he was too short to reach the top of the bowl. He was stuck. 

The good news was the toilet had stopped running. He could still handle that aspect of his domestic duties on his own. Yay. 

"I'm going to drown here," he thought aloud, knowing fully well he wasn't, but imagining it would be preferable to being rescued by Brooke or Kimberly. A fitting end to his shrunken life. He thought out how his obituary would read. 

Widower Andrew Speed, 40, drowned in toilet water after attempting a routine but ill-fated home repair. He was found by his daughter, Brooke Speed, 18, his last remaining kin, and new owner of a used 2013 Nissan Altima.

"If I were to kill myself, I wouldn't drown in the toilet," he said. 

There was nothing to do but wait.

Brooke had left for work by the time Kimberly woke up. The first thing she did was to check in on Andy. 

He wasn't in the crib or anywhere in the office. He wasn't in the master bedroom, either. He must be downstairs, she thought. She wondered if he got any sleep. A weight had seemed to lift off his shoulders as soon as they left the memorial service. It was the most content he'd looked since she returned. Maybe it signaled he was beginning to put Alecia's death behind him, and would finally be able to rest his mind.

She went to the bathroom, peeled her pink panties down her thighs, and sat on the toilet. She propped her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, and released her bladder. She heard a faint wailing sound over the trickle of urine, coming from the toilet bowl. She lifted her butt off the seat and looked in the water. 

"Mr. Speed!" 

His skin was blue, and he was shivering. Soaked to the bone, and haggard from nearly a week of personal neglect, he looked like a homeless man caught in a downpour. 

She reached into the yellow water to pick him up and carried him to the sink. His little body was freezing. "Let's warm you up," she said. 

She plugged the sink and filled it with hot water. It was like an oversized jacuzzi to Andy, a vast improvement over the toilet. He submerged himself and kicked off his clothes, including his underwear, and let the warmth from the water permeate his small body. 

He surfaced and looked up at Kimberly. "You peed on me." 

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Speed. How long were you in there?" 

"I dunno. Hours." 

"Why didn't you call for help?" 

"I did. No one heard me." His tone was accusing. He stood up in the knee-deep water. Kimberly blushed at his nakedness. 

"Can I have some soap, please?" he said. 

She grabbed the bar soap and rubbed it between her fingers until she had a good lather. Andy didn't fail to notice the motion of her large, perky breasts. She was wearing a white, low-cut tank top. No bra. He knew he wasn't supposed to look, but neither was she supposed to wear those kinds of clothes around him. Whatever, he wasn't complaining. 

She offered her soapy hand to him. He grabbed an armful of suds and proceeded to wash himself. She giggled through her closed lips. 

"Something funny?" he said. 

"Yeah, you. You should take yourself less seriously. You'll live longer." 

"My wife just died. Living longer isn't high on my priorities list." 

Kimberly hid her dismay while Andy continued to bathe. She didn't know such extreme bitterness and self-loathing was possible. He was even worse off than she thought.

Andy climbed out of the sink onto the counter. "Can I have a towel, please?" 

A towel was too big, so she got him a dry washcloth. Andy dried himself and wrapped it around his waist. She carried him to the guest bedroom. 

"Hey, my clothes are in my room," he said. 

"Your clothes can wait. Let's talk for a bit." She set him on her bed and knelt down on the floor to face him. 

"What's there to talk about?" he said, drawing the washcloth tighter around his waist. 

"I dunno. Whatever you want." 

"You start." 

"Okay. Why haven't you slept in 6 days? Are you punishing yourself for Alecia's death?" She had to say something shocking to break him out of this cycle of pretending he could work through this trial on his own, and doing more harm to himself in the process. She needed him to react to her, not the other way around. It worked, but seeing him so hurt and angry wasn't the greatest feeling. 

He clenched his fists. "Trust me, Kim, you don't want any part of what I'm going through. Just let me mourn in my own way, will you? Is that too much to ask?" 

"This isn't mourning. This is suicide, Mr. Speed. You're never going to get your normal height back if you continue on like this." 

"You don't know anything!" he lashed out. "Alecia was going to cheat on me with some jerk from work. And it was because of me!" 

This revelation took a moment to sink in. "Truly?" she asked. 

Andy buried his face in his hands, upset with himself for letting slip his wife's infidelity. No one was supposed to find out, least of all Kimberly, the source of his own infidelity. 

"Why was it because of you?" she asked. 

He shook his head. How could an 18 year-old understand? "It just is." 

"Why?" she insisted. 

"Because I pushed her away. Because I wasn't a good enough husband. Because for weeks all I could think about… was you. Take your pick." 

They were quiet for a minute. Kimberly clenched her jaw, resolve displacing sympathy. "So what?" she said. 

He scoffed, "What do you mean, 'So what?'" 

"I mean, what difference does it make? She died. It's in the past. Forget about it." 

"I can't forget." 

"You should try." 

"Well, I don't want to!" 

She looked down at him impassively. "Do you want to die, too, Mr. Speed?" 

That took him off guard. "Excuse me?" 

"Do you want to die? There's lots of ways we could do it. I could help you make it look like an accident." 

Andy glowered. "I don't want to die, Kim." 

"Are you sure? Your actions in the last week say otherwise." She straightened her long legs until she towered over him and dropped heavily onto her butt, very close to him. He bounced on the mattress, losing the washcloth, and tumbled into her smooth thigh. 

"I could sit on you. At your size I could crush your skull pretty easily. I don't think it would hurt." 

He stood up and backed away from her, naked, seething with wounded pride. "Shut up, Kim. I don't want to die." 

"Prove it." She calmly extended her large hand over him. 

"Hey!" he shouted. He jumped to the side and her hand came down with a loud thump, shaking the mattress. He fought to keep his balance. "What the hell are you doing?" 

She slammed her hand down again. He dove out of the way. "Are you crazy?!" 

"I am, Mr. Speed." She extended both hands over him. He stood up, tracked her threatening hands with his eyes, body tensed to avoid her next strike. 

Her hand came down quickly. He tried dodging it, but his leg caught under her thumb. She raised her other hand over him. He kicked free and rolled away. He felt a gust of air as her open palm crashed down on the spot where he'd just been. 

He leapt to his feet, heart racing like mad. He was trapped on a corner of the bed. A hand shot out, fingers extended, trying to grab him. He ran to the side, then hurdled over her forearm, seeing an opening to outflank her. He looked over his shoulder to see what she was doing, but she had vanished. He stopped, mistified. 

"Kim?" 

Kimberly's huge body rose up next to the bed behind him. Seeing Andy on the bed reminded her of the home video shot by Alecia 18 years ago, the one where Andy bounced an infant Brooke on the bed, making her topple over. She was inspired to recreate that moment, but with a role reversal.

Andy turned around in time to see both her hands slam into the mattress next to him. He lost his balance and fell to his knees. She giggled and pushed the mattress down, then allowed it to recoil, bouncing him like he was on a trampoline. His small body was tossed to and fro. 

"Okay! Okay, stop!" he cried out. He rolled to his feet and looked at his captor. She was sitting on her heels on the floor, smiling wickedly, her arms extended to either side of him. A cat toying with a mouse. 

"Or you'll do what?" she said. She pushed the mattress down again, testing his balance. He lurched to the side. 

She was breathing heavily with excitement. He saw the tops of her breasts, thanks to her plunging neckline, rising with each breath. He had a naughty idea, and he figured he owed her one for all the times she almost flattened him under her hands. 

"Or I'll do… this!" He ran towards her at full speed and jumped headfirst from the edge of the bed into her shirt. 

His back hit her soft chest and he slid face first into her warm, shadowy cleavage. He stopped sliding as his torso became wedged between the heavy, convex walls of her breasts. The thrill of jumping down Kimberly's shirt gave way to the realization of where he was. He didn't think he'd actually get stuck in here. He figured he would just ride her like a slide and fall out the bottom of her shirt. But he was completely engulfed in her breasts.

She peered down her shirt. All she could see of Andy were his little legs poking out of her neckline, kicking. He was squirming around, trying to worm his way farther between her breasts. It tickled. She laughed girlishly and squeezed her breasts together, making his whole body disappear between her fluffy mounds. 

Andy felt, more than heard, her laughter from the vibrations in her chest. All of a sudden the walls of flesh around him closed in, and he was plunged into total darkness. He could feel himself being squeezed from head to toe, like getting a bear hug from a giant sumo wrestler. TWO giant sumo wrestlers. His chest ached from the intense pressure, and his arms and legs went numb from lack of blood. He screamed, but he was walled in. His voice didn't carry.

Kimberly gave him a few more squeezes before deciding he'd had enough. As she played with Andy's naked little body, the answer to the question that had been bothering her since Thursday revealed itself. At long last she knew exactly what he needed and exactly how she could provide it. 

She pulled her shoulders back to separate her breasts and pulled Andy out of her cleavage. She dangled him upside down in front of her face. His penis was hard as a rock. 

"Kim, put me down," he said, struggling to free himself. "I'm sorry! I was just playing around!" 

How cute. He thinks I'm angry with him, she thought. She set him on his feet on the bed. 

"The rules are for your protection, Mr. Speed," she said patronizingly. "If you break them, you could get hurt." 

He shielded his erection with his hands. "Sorry. I didn't mean to get stuck… in there." 

She snickered, "It's okay. I liked it, too." She climbed onto the bed, crowding him with her huge body and long limbs. "Now, how would you like me to get you off?" 

His face screwed up in confusion. "Huh?" 

"How would you like me to get you off?" she repeated, like an adult repeating herself to a child. "I could use my legs…" She extended her long legs and ran her hands over her silky calves. Andy recalled oiling her perfect pins a week ago, when they seemed less than half as long as they seemed now. 

"My feet…" She placed her foot next to him and wiggled her pretty, fuckable toes. Her foot was as long as he was tall. 

"My soft, soft hands…" She poked him in the chest. The pad on her fingertip covered half his chest. She ran her finger down his belly and flicked his crotch, still protected by his hands. 

"Hey—" 

"My mouth…" She raised her finger to her glistening, pink tongue and licked it sensually, from base to tip. 

"Or my butt." She turned over and stuck her firm butt at him. Her pink panties hugged her slender hips and dug a deep, delectable trench between her round cheeks. 

Suddenly her butt accelerated towards him, ramming his chest and knocking him on his back. Kimberly looked over her shoulder, recognizing the internal battle between desire and trepidation reflected on his face. 

"You can have me any way you like—except here." She raised her hips higher, showing off the triangle of pink fabric covering her vagina. "This area is reserved for my future husband. You can't go there." 

Her hand ran delicately over the forbidden area. She turned over so she was sitting on the bed again. "Other than that, I'm all yours. So what'll it be, Mr. Speed?" 

Andy retained enough of his senses to immediately recognize she was attempting another sexual coup. Well, he had stood up to her once before. He could do it again. 

"No, Kim. I won't let you do this to yourself." 

"This isn't about me. Right now it's all about you, and how you want me to make your little dick go pop." She smacked her lips loudly on the "pop." 

"My answer is still no, Kim." 

"You don't want any of this?" she pouted. 

"No." 

She touched her chin, feigning concentration. "What could he possibly want, then?" A knowing smile passed over her lips. "Oh, how silly of me. I've known for a long time he has a soft spot for THESE." 

She arched her back and ran a hand over the top of her toned belly, molding her tank top to her round breasts. They bulged from her neckline and stretched the thin, white fabric even thinner. Her lofty nipples jutted half an inch through the shirt. 

Andy was stunned as she brought her magnificent chest closer, blotting out the light. He had been almost crushed to paste between her breasts a minute ago. They were so fucking BIG, his mind couldn't process it. 

He came back to earth when she suddenly pulled away from him, grabbed the bottom hem of her tank top, and lifted it over her shoulders. 

"Oh my God," he croaked, as her pale, teardrop-shaped mounds topped by beige nipples shook free, swaying hypnotically from her strong, broad shoulders. This is it, he realized. She's going to do it. 

She dropped her shirt to the floor. "Where are you going, Mr. Speed?" 

Andy was crawling backwards across the bed, trying to create some distance between himself and the giant, gorgeous girl, now naked except for her pink panties. 

"I'm—" 

She reached around him and stopped his progress with her hand. Andy's head bumped into her palm. "You're not going anywhere." 

"Kim, remember what happened at the pool. You don't want to do this!" 

She lowered her chest on top of him, pinning his feet to the bed with her stomach. Her soft right breast slowly rolled up his legs. 

"I love you, Mr. Speed. I can't stand to see you suffer. So I'm giving you what you need most. I'm giving you… me." 

Andy grunted as the hard nub of her right nipple, as big as his fist, pressed into his junk. 

She giggled, "Oops, sorry." She lifted off him a bit, giving him some relief from the crushing weight of her breast. Holding herself up on her elbows, she dragged her naked breast over his small body. He looked so cute. His little arms, spread wide, couldn't span the girth of just one of her huge breasts. 

"Is that better?" she asked. 

Andy forgot his objections. He moaned as her doughy flesh flattened him against the bed. His hard dick thrummed like a piano string against her hot skin. 

"I'll take that as a yes." She offered him her other breast and repeated the massaging motion. 

Andy felt her left nipple slide up his chest and neck. When it cleared his chin, he tilted his head up and mashed the nub between his teeth. It was firm and fleshy, like a ripe peach, and just as sweet. 

"Oh!" Kimberly felt a sharp pain in her nipple and lifted up completely. 

Andy stared up at her heavy breasts, hanging over his small body like the sword of Damocles. "I'm sorry! I thought—" 

"It's okay," she said. The pain was subsiding, and was soon replaced by a new sensation, deep between her legs. 

She repositioned herself. "Try that again." 

Andy raised his arms to embrace her enormous tit, and made out with her nipple as if he was making out with Kimberly herself. 

She tilted her head back and moaned in pleasure. A damp spot spread out from her pink panties. She didn't imagine she'd get something out of this, too. But Andy at his size could still please a lady. 

"Let's change positions," she announced. She slid her hand underneath Andy's body, and held him against her breast as she turned onto her back. 

Andy was disoriented, as the world to him turned upside down. When Kimberly removed her hand, he was thrilled to find himself on the wobbly surface of her left breast. He crawled across her buxom chest and belly-flopped onto her chin, planting wet kisses on her plump bottom lip. 

It made her happy to see him so eager. Her lips broadened into a loving smile wider than his shoulders. She ran her large, pink tongue over pearly white teeth, which stood in contrast to the dank, sensual cave of her mouth. 

"Not so fast, big guy. You're not done yet." 

She pinched his little foot between her fingers and pulled him off her chin. Andy's torso bounced on her soft chest, and she dragged him between the enormous swells of her breasts. 

She proceeded to pleasure him with every square inch of her supple breasts. As Andy glided over the hills and valleys of her majestic bosom, he left a thin trail of drool and precum on her flawless skin. His ride ended with him face to "face" with Kimberly's right nipple. He mouthed it passionately. 

This time Kimberly couldn't help herself. Holding Andy against her breast, she reached between her thighs and rubbed the surface of her clit. Her body shook as she quickly brought herself to orgasm, soaking her pink panties through. 

Andy was having his own fun. The sensitive underside of his erect penis found Kimberly's soft underboob irresistible. Still slobbering over her nipple, trying to fit the fleshy nub in his mouth, he wildly thrust his hips into her giving flesh, and roared at the top of his lungs as his testicles convulsed and he sprayed a torrent of thick, creamy cum all over her pillowy breast. Load after load spurted from his satisfied member until he was certain there was nothing left. 

He was wrong. After a minute of post-sex euphoria, Kimberly sat up. He lay limp in her hands. 

"Kim…" he said, drawing ragged breaths. "My God… that was incredible." 

Kimberly lay him on his back on the bed. She eyed his penis, which hadn't softened much, hungrily. He watched her rub her pointer finger under her colossal right breast, gathering what he imagined was quarts of cum on the tip of her finger. Her eyes never left his small body as she raised the finger to her mouth, wrapped her lips around it, and sucked it clean. 

She traced her wet finger down her chin and throat. "You taste good," she purred. "Do you have any more, big guy?" 

His voice was hoarse. "I don't have anything left!" 

"I beg to differ." She lowered her face towards him, smothered him in a long, deep kiss. Her wavy hair fell down, forming an intimate, dark curtain around their passion. Her hot, moist breath condensed in his beard and in his hair. She worked her lips over his once muscular chest, then over his emaciated belly. 

"Oh, God. Kim," he moaned. His penis swelled to full length again. 

Her huge tongue snaked past his member, and lifted his hairless scrotum between her plush, pink lips. 

"Unh!" Andy's torso bucked off the bed. He was almost sitting straight up, but she gently pressed him back down with her hand. The aroma of her juices on her fingers filled his nostrils. Her blue, saucer-sized eyes hovered above his face, watching his reactions. 

Holding his balls on her bottom lip, she slowly levered her jaw to raise her top lip up and over Andy's inch-long erection. Her top lip met his pelvis, making an airtight seal. His cock and balls were now completely inside her mouth. 

She closed her eyes and sucked him deep and hard, lifting his hips partly off the bed. Her agressive, wet tongue coated his balls and shaft with thick saliva, the perfect lubricant. He felt the pressure of another orgasm building in his loins. 

"Kim!" His arms shot straight out from his sides, and his body arched unnaturally so that only his feet and forearms touched the bed. It was like his whole body was redirecting blood to his penis. As he briefly teetered on the edge, his dick became painfully hard. His glans landed on the tip of her tongue and he blasted the back of her throat with a continous stream of thin, watery jizz. 

His body collapsed against the bed, then tensed again as he dumped a second, equally large load in her mouth. Darkness crept in around the edges of his sight. His field of vision shrank to little circles until all he could see were Kimberly's eyes, squeezed shut in concentration as she wrung every last drop out of his dried up little body. 

Kimberly herself was seeing stars. She raised her head, and Andy's soaking wet cock fell from between her lips and flopped onto his belly, still dribbling cum. She reached between her thighs, felt a fresh slickness there. She had come again, without even touching herself this time! 

She considered sharing the news with Andy, but he was unconscious on the bed. Oh, God, did I kill him? she thought. 

She pressed her cheek to the bed to see if his small chest was moving. It was, barely. Poor little thing was sleepy, that's all. 

She went and showered the odor of sex off her and returned to the room to get dressed for the day. She carried Andy to his crib, tucked his naked body under the sheet, and leaned down to give him a tender kiss. 

"I love you, Mr. Speed," she said to his unconscious form. Saying the words out loud filled her with a sense of contentment. She felt like everything was right with the world, because she loved this man, and would do anything for him. Love, the most powerful force on earth. It could overcome anything. It could overcome age. It could even overcome shrinking. 

"I love you," she said, just to hear the words again. 

Andy tossed his head as if in a dream. "I love you, Kim," he mumbled. 

Kimberly had to stay her jubilation. She'd heard it. There was no doubting he said it. But it was too good to be true. She had to hear it again. 

She turned her ear towards his still sleeping body. "What did you say?" she whispered. 

"I love you, Kim," he said, his words clear as day. 

Kimberly brought her hands together. She looked up and said a prayer of thanks. Tears welling in her eyes, she bent down to give Andy one last kiss and then floated out of the office, feeling like the most cherished girl on earth. 

Andy slept for 26 hours straight.