No matter how much I hated writing midterm papers, it still had to be done: there was simply no way I would accept a zero on these assignments.  My topics had been approved far in advance, and even though I knew the material well that would not be enough.  Everything needed research and specific citations.  With a list of books in hand I went into the library’s stacks, seeking them out in roughly the order they appeared in the Dewey decimal system so as to not miss any.

It was the middle of the day, but I had almost free reign of the floor.  Everyone else was probably either in class or putting off their research until the last minute.  That just meant I was almost guaranteed to get the ones I needed.  I walked down the aisle until I found something in the range I needed and ducked in between the shelves.  Two slender volumes on my list were here, and I quickly slid them from their slots and took them in hand.

When I turned the corner to the next set of shelves, my heart momentarily jumped up to my throat.  There was someone else in here, quietly minding her business while she perused a book.  Long, straight black hair came a bit past her shoulders, and coal-colored eyes quickly skimmed lines on the page.  Her tight, buttoned-up shirt was tucked into a tartan skirt, with sleeves rolled up to her elbows.  Black socks came up to her knees, giving extra definition to her toned calves, and she wore a pair of dark brown penny loafers.  I got a feeling I might want to linger here a bit longer.

Slowly I trudged down the aisle, looking for the book I needed in this section until I was right next to her.  Up close, I noticed that she was surprisingly tall, about six feet – in other words, about a head taller than me.  She had taken no notice of me, engrossed in her reading, and only moved to turn a page with her long, slender fingers.

Luck smiled upon me.  The book I needed was on the top row, a bit out of my reach but well within hers.  “Excuse me,” I began, “would you mind grabbing a book for me?  It’s a bit high up and getting a step stool is a little humiliating, you know?”  I forced a weak smile when she looked down to face me, her eyes entirely impassive.

“I don’t,” she replied coldly.  “Which book?”

“The analysis of Byron’s Corsair,” I explained.  “It’s right above me.”  Without saying anything she reached up with a long arm and grabbed it, then held it down to me.  “Thanks.”

“Welcome.”  Without missing a beat, she had gone back to her reading.

Time in the stacks could be dull, and I figured I might as well talk to her a bit longer.  It’d help pass the time, and it’s not like there was anyone else here.  If she was in this section, we might even have a few things in common, so I introduced myself.

“Li,” she replied simply, turning another page.

“What’re you doing here, Li?” I asked.

“Reading,” she answered.  Getting conversation out of her would be like getting blood from a stone, but I was willing to keep trying.  There had to be something she’d elaborate on.

“What topic are you researching?”  That was sure to open her up.  If there was one thing students liked talking your ear off about, it was their project.

“It’s for fun,” she said.  That was an unexpected dead end.

“Well, what are you reading?”  At the very least I could branch off that and try to get her talking.

Suddenly the book snapped shut, and Li turned her whole body to face me.  Our eyes met, but I did not feel any sort of warmth in her gaze.  I didn’t feel anything at all.  “I got your book for you, why are you still here?” she asked.  Not exactly the avenue I’d like to go down, but it was something at least.

“I’ve got a long day ahead of me looking for stuff,” I explained, “and I figured, why not kill some time with the only person I’m likely to see for a couple hours?”

“Uh-huh.”  Li did not sound impressed.  “And the fact that I’m a beautiful Asian girl all by her lonesome has nothing to do with it?”  I gulped, and when my Adam’s apple came to a stop I felt a small wave of vertigo.  It took a second to refocus myself and gather my thoughts, and when I did Li seemed just a bit taller.  “Well?”  Another quick hit of vertigo, and before it settled she continued, “What’s the matter?  Cat got your tongue all of a sudden?”  My head continued to swim, and I rapidly blinked my eyes.  Li looked about seven feet tall now, and I only came up to her chest.

“Um, well, uh, it didn’t even really occur to me,” I answered.

“Of course it didn’t,” Li replied sarcastically.  “That never seems to occur to any of the guys who approach me out of nowhere.”  My head felt foggy again, and Li seemed to grow another foot.  Something must have gone wrong in my head, and I needed to go see a doctor.  “They’re always just looking to kill a bit of time, or keep themselves busy in line, or keep me company since I look so lonely.  How do you think that makes me feel, huh?”  Li shot up another foot, and while I stared up at her face the plaid of her skirt came into the bottom of my vision.

“I think I should go,” I managed.  “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”  When I tried to back away Li reached out and grabbed my shoulder, gripping it hard.  She held me firmly in place, and for the first time I saw her crack a smile.

“But you wanted to talk to me!” Li teased, giving my shoulder a hard squeeze.  I winced and she jerked me toward her, slamming my face into her thigh.  “I was just starting to open up, don’t tell me you’re bored of me already.”  Held against her like this I could feel her growing like a weed.  She looked to be ten, maybe twelve feet tall now.  “This always happens to me, right when the conversation starts to get interesting the guy tries to leave.  Maybe I am lonely and I just wanted you to break through my cold outer shell, did you think of that?”

The rough fabric of her skirt pulled upward on my face until I felt the warm skin of her knee on my chin.  If she were growing, shouldn’t it have been pulling down?  As I considered it I leaned to the side, and a dull thud resonated when I stopped.  I glanced sideways and saw that the thin books I was holding had become massive tomes in the past few minutes.  The wheels in my brain began turning but could not accept the conclusion.

Li, almost twenty feet tall now, let out a short giggle.  “Here, let me get that for you!” she offered, and began bending over.  I was frozen in place watching her loom over me like this, unable to even make a sound.  Her slender fingers gripped the books I was leaning against, and with a single, quick jerk pulled them free from my grip.  As she stood back up to her full, impressive height I watched her stunning growth with my own eyes, and she must have added ten or more feet in those few seconds.  Black cotton socks filled the bottom half of my vision, but I could not take my eyes off Li in my astonishment.

“You’re lucky someone so big and strong is here to help you out,” Li remarked, getting bigger and stronger until I only came halfway up her shin.  “Hey, that can be our thing!  Me getting books for you!  I admit, it’s very niche and a little weird, but I think it works, don’t you?”  While she spoke her voice got deeper, like someone slowing down a recording, and she became even more titanic.  By now I was just about level with her ankle.

I shook my head to snap out of it, unerringly staring up at the seemingly ever more mammoth Li.  She was at least fifty feet tall, and I did not want to stay around for her to get bigger.  “Li, I think you got the wrong idea,” I began, “I really was just trying to make some chit-chat and pass the time, but I’ve got a lot more to do and really should get going now!”  With great effort I squeezed my eyes shut and turned around, then began running blindly away from her.

“Nonsense!” Li exclaimed.  “Look, I know a lot of short guys are nervous about dating taller women, but I’ve got no problem with it and I really think we can make this work!”  My head felt funny and I had to open my eyes, and just when I did a brown streak flew in front of me, accompanied by an ear-rending crash and a tremor.  Unable to stop myself, I ran headlong into a wall of brown leather.  After a second, I realized Li had stomped her shoe down in my path.  As soon as I recognized it the shoe began to grow, almost instantly tripling in size, and I found myself gawking up at it.

“Oh, you’re so adorable down there!” Li declared, a low rumbling in her voice.  The shoe, and presumably the rest of Li, doubled in size again, and I found myself level with the top of her sole.  Even my stubborn brain could no longer deny it: I had been shrunk, and by the look of things I was about half an inch tall.  “I do want to keep talking though, and I think you’ll be hard to hear now, so I’ll have to pick you up, okay?”

With how enormous Li was compared to me now, there was little I could do or say otherwise.  Her pillar of a leg subtly shifted while she knelt with the other one, and I could not keep myself from staring up her skirt at the ceiling of white panties.  In a moment the view was gone, blocked by a gigantic wrist.  She lowered a hand toward me, thumb and forefinger together and extended, and I felt her immensity as her hand engulfed me.  Gingerly, as though she had done it dozens of times before, her digits pinched the back of my shirt tight enough that there was no way I could get free.

When she stood I was picked up off the ground, and though she went slow it was far from pleasant.  Dangling from her grip, I swung wildly back and forth, and the swift upward motion made my stomach sink.  In no time I was past her knees again, and by the time I was ascending her skirt the titaness had locked her colossal form back in place.  She continued lifting me, making sure to indicate I was smaller than the buttons on her shirt, and barely even had to adjust for her modest chest.  A short time later I was dizzy and passing her chin, the small imperfections in the smooth surface obvious at my greatly reduced size. 

As I passed her lips, Li slightly puckered them like she was blowing me a kiss and drew my ride to a halt.  Slowly she drew me toward her mouth, parting her lips slightly, and I let out a yelp at the prospect of being tossed inside.  She simply smiled in response and gently placed me against her bottom lip, just enough to make a slight indentation.  Slowly she ran me along the tender, pink skin, moistening me slightly with her saliva, then completed the circle along her top lip.  When she pulled me away she puckered her lips again, wrapping my entire body in a kiss and causing my ears to ring from the smack.

Li slowly pulled me from her lips, and I continued past her mountainous, rounded nose on my way up.  My journey finally stopped when she dangled me between her two immense, dark eyes, a spark of joy in each of them.  “I feel like I’ve been monopolizing the conversation,” she boomed once I had been there a second.  “I’m sure you have something interesting to say too!”

“Why did you do this to me?” I asked.  “I’m miniscule!”

“Oh, your voice is cute, too!” Li exclaimed, causing me to blow back and forth with the breeze.  “Fun, mostly.  It’s really fun shrinking guys who bother me, but for some reason they suddenly lose interest when it happens.  I have no idea why.  Am I scary or something?”

“Yes!” I shouted.  “You’re like a thousand feet tall to me now!”  She giggled, a low, terrifying rumble from her throat.  “If I’ve learned my lesson, will you grow me back?”

Li brought her other hand toward me.  “Nah,” she said, batting me with a finger simultaneously.  It was like being hit by a truck, and I began swinging back and forth again.  “I mean I can, but… nah.”  She smiled, as though she had said something funny.  “Besides, I can do something you’d like a lot more.”

I was almost too scared to ask.  “What’s that?”

“I’m gonna let you get inside me.”  Li was trying to sound seductive, but with her booming voice it did not quite work.  She began tilting her head back, and my eyes widened.

“No, stop!” I begged.  “Please!  Look, I’m sorry I bothered you, just please don’t eat me!”  Her chin kept moving upward.  “I’m not afraid of taller women, I’ll be your tiny boyfriend!”  Li continued leaning her head back.  “Or your pet!  I’d be a good pet, and you wouldn’t have to worry about me running away!”  There was no sign she heard me.  “You could keep me in a jar, in your shoe, anything but this!”

A loud, rumbling vibration came from Li’s throat, like she was purring.  “That’s the good stuff,” she whispered, warm air buffeting me.  By now her head was all the way back, and I was dangling over her mouth.  Her lips parted, revealing the dark, pink cavern lined with shining white teeth within.  I tried to look at anything else, but it was such a horrifying sight I couldn’t.  Li flattened her tongue, filling the bottom of her mouth like an enormous landing cushion.

Li’s fingers opened, and I was in a freefall.  I rapidly descended toward her cavernous maw, and in a flash I sailed between her lips.  She snapped her mouth shut and I landed on the tongue laid out for me, rolling backward over the minute bumps of her taste buds.  My world turned sideways when her tongue sprung into action, slamming me against her palate.  Slowly she moved her tongue forward, dragging me against the hard surface and rolling me over the ridges.

When the tip bumped against the back of her teeth she stopped, giving me a momentary reprieve.  There was a loud smack when her lips parted slightly, then her tongue curled backward, causing me to slide down the slippery slope and land on her soft frenulum.  With a sliver of light illuminating her mouth my situation was even more terrifying.  Great walls of bone penned me in while her tongue loomed over me, poised to strike like a gigantic beast.  I sank into a pulsing mass of pink, veiny tissue, and trying to get free just seemed to make me even more stuck.  My entire body was slick with saliva, and I felt my skin burning from it.

Li’s tongue shot forward, easily overwhelming me with its immense size.  It pressed me against her bottom incisors, wiggling to grind me against them, then flicked me back into the pool of tissue.  Her tongue hovered above me for a moment before laying down flat again, pinning me.  I struggled to push it off, but not only was it too powerful, but the spongy tentacle simply let my hands press into it.  More saliva dripped from it onto me, and I tried gasping for breath only to find myself suffocating.

Several seconds passed, and Li’s tongue mercifully lifted off me.  Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, however, it dug beneath me, and I was back on the tip of her tongue.  With a quick flick she launched me to the side, throwing me against the back of her molars.  As soon as I hit her tongue followed up, slamming into my back and holding me against the tooth.  I could not even cry out for pain while she dragged me along the bone and onto her gums, driving me into the soft tissue.

Saliva rushed past me while her mouth undulated, and it felt like my skin was on the verge of being torn off.  I struggled and clawed against the gums and tongue, trying to get out, but both surfaces were too slick for my fingers to gain any friction.  My tiny body was simply at her mercy while she sucked on me like a piece of candy, savoring my flavor.  She minutely moved me each time she sucked, accompanied by a tremendous smack that made my ears ring.

When she was satisfied, Li flicked me with her tongue once more, launching me in a low arc until I came to rest on a surprisingly firm wall of muscle.  I tried to scramble away from it, but rivers of saliva kept me in place, and I was unable to fight against the current.  The tiny bit of illumination was snuffed out when she closed her lips, casting me in pitch black.  A sickening schlurp came from beneath, and I dropped down into Li’s gullet. 

I struggled against the walls of her throat, but it was all in vain.  Her muscles were vastly more powerful than I was, and inexorably drew me downward.  The most I could do was wiggle anyway: my arms were pinned in place as well.  It was a mercifully short yet claustrophobic journey, and at the bottom of the chute I was dropped into a completely dark chamber full of stale air.

Once I hit the pool of acid, I no longer worried about the air.  The strong tingling from the saliva became a roaring chemical burn, and I flailed wildly trying to get out.  I swam toward the wall of her stomach, hoping to get one last chance to fight, but the energy leeched out of my body with each stroke.  It was only a couple seconds until I gave myself up to be digested by Li, unable to resist her any more.