A single strip of white athletic tape held me against the smooth, warm wall of Jessica’s inner thigh, positioned so that just my head poked out above it.  Every time her right foot hit the ground I felt the impact go up through my bones, shaking my insides while the muscle on her thigh bounced from it.  It was nighttime so only a small amount of light filtered through her skirt, allowing me to follow a mole the size of my head as her other enormous thigh swung back and forth in front of me.  The lights drew attention to her stark white sneakers, glistening in the light, with only three green slashes breaking the radiant surface.

The trip over had hardly been pleasant, either.  Jessica initially had my mouth covered by the tape as well, and I had to fight with only my head and neck to get loose so I could breathe freely.  Her first step made it feel like I was having a heart attack, and it took the whole length of a hallway for me to grow accustomed to the incessant pounding and rumbling.  I thought there would be some reprieve when she got in her car, but that was just a different type of torment.  Pressed between two powerful thighs with nowhere to go, I could only bear the sudden temperature increase, as well as the subtle movement of her foot on the pedals grinding me back and forth.  Then when she got out, I had to adjust to the punishing effects of her gait all over again.

The black asphalt beneath gave way to red, shredded rubber crossed by white lines every step which gave me vertigo as they rushed past my view.  Jessica finally came to a stop, and I could see the toes of two more pairs of white sneakers at the edge of her skirt’s hem.  She brought her legs together, smushing me between her strong thighs.

“Where have you been?” someone bellowed at Jessica, her voice muffled by the tons of flesh between us.  “The game starts in, like, two minutes, we’ve already done all our warm-ups!”

“Yeah, I know,” Jessica apologized.  Her voice rippled through her body, washing over mine in an unexpectedly pleasant way.  It’s just.  Mr. Thompson wanted to see me after school, and you know how he can be, you know?” 

“Yeah, we know.”  Despite the insulating layers I picked up on the knowing tone in the reply.  What did these girls think of me?  “Think you’ll be good without a warmup?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Jessica reassured them.  “I mostly just join the warmups as a formality these days.”

“Well then, take your spot, the game’s about to start.”  Jessica stepped off, freeing me from my fleshy enclosure, and walked until she was by herself.  The worst thing was, she was right: I hadn’t been to a school football game my whole time as a teacher, so I had no idea what to expect.  Some sort of routine?  Maybe some splits?  Whatever was coming, I was suddenly very glad for the tape pinning me to her thigh and had the utmost faith in its ability to hold me in place.

A loud shot rang out in the distance, and I realized too late that was the start of the game.  G-forces seized me when Jessica threw her whole body into action, swinging her legs over her head so that she was upside down.  For a brief moment I saw the night sky then it was back to rubber, accompanied by a ferocious thud that sent tremors through me.  As she pushed her body forward to another backflip I scarcely had time to brace myself, and I felt the adhesive on the tape weaken.  While it was refreshing to be able to move again, the lack of a strong tether to the gigantic moving body I was attached to was concerning.

When the tumultuous forces of another backflip tore at me I felt myself thrown against the loosening tape, pulling it a smidge further off me while blood flow shifted from my feet to my head again.  My body struggled to normalize the pressure while Jessica was in motion, but the solid impact of her landing on both feet brought it all back to center, with another slight tear at the tape keeping me comparatively safe.  Her muscles were already tensing for another flip, and I hoped that I would be lucky enough for this to be the last one.

Keeping with the theme of the night, I was not that lucky.  Momentum carried Jessica’s body into several more flips, straining the already-weakened adhesive a little more each time.  My teeth rattled each time her heels struck, and did not even have time to stop before they hit again.  The constant shift between the dark night sky and red track did no favors for my sense of stability either, and I felt myself growing dizzy by the fifth flip.  In addition to that I was being thrown between the tape in front of me and muscle behind, leaving me constantly dazed.

For the finale Jessica clutched her thighs together, driving me into the skin opposite me and further disrupting my sense of orientation.  They came apart slightly before the terrific impact, pulling me along with the soft skin as it moved away.  Her feet slammed down on the rubber, and I felt a tremendous force jerking me along with it.  The frayed and weakened tape holding me against her thigh could no longer hold, and I was sent plummeting to the ground.

There was a deafening tear when the tape gave way, and I found myself in a freefall.  In an instant I flew the rest of the length of Jessica’s thigh, past her knees, and along her solidly developed calves.  Almost without noticing I flew by her ankles and shoes, landing on the solid rubber beneath her.  There was no doubt in my mind that, had I been slightly larger or the ground a little harder, I would have splattered on impact.  Instead I was only slightly bruised and forced to watch while Jessica posed for the cheering crowd.

Vibrations rumbled through the ground, and I was met with dismay when I turned my head to see what was causing it.  The entire cheer squad was swarming around Jessica – of course she was the captain – and I could feel them getting ready for something as a unit.  With all this attention coming my way, I resolved to remain as still as possible to keep it from turning directly toward me.

Two seconds into the routine, I realized that would be impossible.  Amidst the incomprehensible cheering – the voices of a dozen giantesses all merged together as a terrifying roar – they all lifted up their foot to bring it back down as a stomp.  I ended up right in the path of Jessica’s shoe, and only a quick roll to the side save me from getting smashed beneath it.  She brought her other foot up, and just before the enormous concentric circles of her rubber sole smashed me I jumped backwards, narrowly evading the toe of her titanic shoe.  Shockwaves ran through the ground, and my joints were powerless to do anything but make myself fall backward while they proceeded with their choreography.

It was difficult to tell the passage of time while I laid prone on the ground.  Hours might have passed, or more likely minutes while the team of cheerleaders did their routine.  Throughout the whole thing my attention was drawn to Jessica.  Not out of any preference, of course, but because she was the one looming over me at that time, and I needed to make sure she didn’t step on me.  Several times I had to jump to the side, as though she were aiming to just barely catch me beneath her destructive feet and give me enough time to evade it.

Once their dance was done, I allowed myself to collapse onto the rubber.  Somehow I had managed to avoid Jessica stomping on me for several minutes, and I felt like I should take a much-needed break.  While the cheerleaders retreated I gasped for air, knowing that I would need it when they came back so I could keep dodging certain death.  If I were lucky, I could escape to the edge of the track and wait it out until Jessica decided I’d had enough at the end and came to get me.

“Uh, what’s that?”  The voice cut through everything else, not only due to its sheer power but because it was clearly about me.  Two sets of legs diverted toward me, and though I desperately craved fresh, cool air, I tried to get my breathing back under control.

“Idunno.  Looks like a weird bug though, doesn’t it?” came another booming voice from the other set of long, powerful legs.  They both chatted while cautiously approaching me, swapping tales of big bugs they had crushed recently.  Apparently I was far from the largest, but definitely the strangest looking of all the insects they had exterminated in the past couple of months.

A pair of titanesses strolled up to me, their white shoes shining brightly in the game light.  I looked up at them in desperation, trying to at least get a name for my potential killers.  To my left was Naoko, an otherwise reserved but very popular Asian student, and on my right was Aubrey, an incredibly social brunette who did her best to stay off my dysfunctional list. Though they were both fairly good students, I saw no mercy in them while they looked down at me with complete contempt, not even recognizing me as human.

Aubrey’s quad twitched to bring up her leg, but before she could get very far a surprising voice of reason called out.  “Now hold up!” Jessica called out, a head taller than the others as she came into view.  “This bug’s not hurting anyone, is he?”  The two that were primed to smash me a second ago stopped, idly shuffling their feet.  “And we’re outside, right?”  Jessica pushed her way through the other two titanic women so that she could stand astride me.  “This bug lives outside!  How would you feel if someone came into your house and stomped on you, huh?”  Out of all the people to defend my right to live, I never would have expected her.

The other two began to back off while Jessica asserted her control.  “Now, for safe keeping, I’m going to put this bug on our bench,” she declared, squatting in front of me.  I looked up and saw her deceptively soft, round face framed between her knees while she continued, “And I expect to be able to find it after the game, okay?”  Her hand descended toward me amid grumbled from the rest of the cheerleaders.  Her statement was not popular, but they knew they had to abide by it.

Jessica’s thumb and forefinger settled around me, then closed in so that they pinched around my torso.  The world blurred past me while she picked me up, then my stomach sank as she stood to her full, impressive height.  She leaned in close, so that the only thing I could see were her pink lips, and whispered, “You owe me big for this one, Mr. Tiny.  If not for me you’d just be some red mess on the bottom of their shoes.”  I gulped, wondering what else she could possibly demand of me.  I already knew she could shrink me to the size of an ant, what more leverage did she need?

 She lowered me to her chest and walked toward her squad’s metal bench, keeping me steady during her long strides.  Each second Jessica held me like this tugged at my nerves as I expected her to squeeze her fingers together and cruelly exterminate me.  The fact that she was being uncharacteristically considerate of me only made it worse.  Any moment I expected her to swing back to her demanding and sadistic ways, and all I could do was wait.

Gently Jessica lowered me the rest of the way, crouching slightly so that my feet touched the bench before releasing me.  Her fingers opened and she stood, taking a moment to relish looming over me.  I stared back up at her, my eyes quickly tracing the route from the bottom of her knees over her tight uniform and to the enchanting blue eyes staring at me from her smug face.  “Now, don’t go anywhere, Mr. Tiny,” she commanded with a booming voice.  “Or else.”  There it was again.  I realized that if she crushed me, she would only be depriving herself of future opportunities to torment me.

Thankfully I was unbothered for most of the game except by the small earthquakes generated by the cheer squad every few minutes.  I paid very little attention to the game, since football had never particularly interested me, and I was not going to start now.  My attention was preoccupied by the dozen or so titanesses a few feet away from me.  They were a much greater threat to me, and even though Jessica had told me to stay where I was, if I saw one of them sitting on me I was not going to put the whims of a capricious high school senior ahead of my life.

Jessica acted very territorial, almost protective, toward me.  Several times she walked by me, close enough to brush against the bench, giving me a long wink while the metal trembled from her light contact.  Whenever the cheer squad took a break she rushed to the bench so she could claim her spot, slamming her butt down with a crash mere inches from me.  She never once acknowledged I was there and did her best to act casual, but I could tell from the way she carried herself that she was beaming with pride and a feeling of abject superiority with how she towered over me, actively acting like I was negligible.  Half the times the fabric of her skirt landed on top of me and I was not strong enough to push it off, and I suspected she did it on purpose.

The one exception came toward the end of the game – apparently our team was doing rather well, so the cheerleaders were left to their own devices.  Jessica was off chatting with their coach, and I was unexpectedly cast in a long shadow.  I pulled my gaze away from Jessica to the more immediate matter and saw four powerful thighs in front of me.  After a gulp I looked up at the two gigantic women standing in front of me.  To my right was Naoko’s dark eyes, and on the left Aubrey’s emerald eyes stared down at me.  Their expressions seemed to be a mix of curiosity and mirth, like they did not quite know what to make of me.

“So this is Jessica’s favorite bug,” Aubrey declared.  Her low, rumbling voice surprised me, since I was used to her sweet, perky voice when I called on her.  “Didn’t even know she collected them.  I wonder what’s so special about it?”

“No clue,” Naoko replied.  Her low, powerful voice made my innards tremble, a vast departure from her normally demure tone.  “It sure is weird looking, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Aubrey agreed.  She took a moment to look me over from a distance and continued, “Looks like it’s only got four legs and stands upright, almost like a person.  Certainly never heard of a bug like that.”

“I know, right?” Naoko answered.  “She might’ve discovered a new species.”  The pair suddenly knelt to get a closer look, and the two monolithic women suddenly dropping startled me.  I stumbled backward while my mind adjusted to the abrupt change of scenery, and when I recovered they were practically on top of me.  Their enormous faces loomed over me, and from the sparkle in their eyes I got the distinct feeling that they were ready to pounce.

They considered me for a moment, their eyes darting between me and each other.  Aubrey was the first to break the silence.  “It even kind of looks like a person,” she proclaimed, leaning forward slightly.  This close, and with my unique vantage point, I could see all of the tiny pores concealed beneath her makeup along with the darker flecks in her deep green eyes.  “Definitely feel like this is something new.”

“That’s because I am a person!” I shouted, desperate to get recognized.  “Don’t you recognize me?  I’m Mr. Thompson, your history teacher!  You’ve been looking at me every day for months!  You’re six inches away from me, you have to realize I’m a person!”

A few merciful seconds of silence followed my outcry, and I hoped that they were trying to process what I had said.  “Pretty annoying call, though,” Naoko stated.  She had not understood a word.  “It’s high-pitched like a squeak toy, but loud like a cicada.  They’re probably unheard-of because people kill them before they can be reported!”

“What?  No!” I protested.  “Just think about it for a few seconds!  Give it a bit of time to sink in and you’ll realize what I’m saying!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Aubrey agreed.  “This one is super annoying.  If it’s typical of the others they would’ve been squished after a few minutes, tops.”

“So why haven’t we squished this one?”  Naoko’s question rang in my ears.  I never would have imagined that one of my best, sweetest students would contemplate killing me, but then again I never figured a slacker would, or could, make me an inch tall.

“You know, that’s a good question.”  Aubrey sent two resounding ripples through the metal when she set her elbows down, accompanied by tremendous clangs.  She leaned forward until her pointed chin was directly above me, and she could glare down at me with full contempt.  “Are we really afraid of what Jessica will do to us if we just crush it?”

“That’s a good point,” Naoko chimed in, leaning in as well with similar effects.  Before I could recover from the impact she intoned, “Personally, I think bugs are gross, and squishing them outside just means we don’t have to deal with them inside.  And I don’t want to have to deal with this one a second longer than I have to if it’s going to keep sounding like this.”

The two paused to look at each other.  “So, you want to do it, or should I?” Aubrey asked.

Naoko had already raised her hand.  “It’d be my pleasure.”  I looked at the broad, open palm above me, poised to strike and snuff me out, her long fingers all stretched out.  Never in my life did I consider it ending this way, but getting smashed by one of my students would at least be a unique way to go out.

To my surprise in several ways, I was relieved to see Jessica sidle up behind them.  Even Naoko’s tremendous hand could not block the monolithic woman behind her.  She cleared her throat, and Naoko halted her swing before it could serious imperil me.  “I’m glad you’re having fun with my bug,” she declared, “but I’m going to take it home now that the game’s over.”

The pair shot back up, and I was dazed again with the sudden landscape change.  It simply did not make sense that something so large could move so fast.

“It’s over?” Aubrey asked.  Apparently she had been so engrossed with me that she did not notice the passage of time – ironic, then, that she never noticed I was a human being.

“Yeah, for a couple of minutes,” Jessica confirmed.  She leaned her tremendous form so it parted the pair in front of me, then seized me with her thumb and forefinger.  “And I’ll be taking my new find back with me.”  She plucked me off the bench as though I were nothing, then cradled me inside her free, open palm.

“You’re coming to the after party though, right?” Naoko asked, as though Jessica’s timely intervention had not stopped her from committing murder.

“Yeah, of course I’ll be there!” Jessica answered, cradling me between her hands.  “I’ve just got to get this little guy back home first.”  When she said ‘this little guy’ she made her voice condescendingly sweet, like she was talking to a puppy, and brought her face close enough to nuzzle me.  Then she turned away from the pair, swinging my insides enough to make me nauseated, and strolled away from them.

When she was out of earshot she harshly whispered, “That’s two you owe me, Mr. Tiny, and don’t think I won’t remind you of your debts.”  Again, I was perplexed: what else could she possibly demand from me, and how could this be more compelling than the knowledge that she could make me like a bug to her at any moment?

I did not voice my concerns, however, since I figured it was unwise to challenge someone thousands of times your size.  Instead I enjoyed the relatively calm ride between her fingers, protected from the outside world by her other hand.  When she got back to her car she dropped me onto the seat between her thighs; part of no longer seeing me as human included not seeing me as a man.  Her car’s acceleration sent me tumbling into her skirt, but before I collided with her panties she took a hard turn, throwing me into her thigh.  The whole ride continued like that, tossing me back and forth like nothing from her simple movements.

When she finally stopped I was pushed forward, just emerging from inside her skirt.  Jessica reached down and gripped me much more firmly than before, causing my shoulders to pop.  She raised me to her face, close enough that one eye dominated my vision and was, in itself, enough to impart judgment.  “Have fun in there, Mr. Tiny?” she asked with a smirk.  “Don’t think I haven’t caught you looking at me.”  I was perplexed: the only reason my gaze had lingered on her before was because she almost took pride in not doing my quizzes until the last minute and I hoped to impart some sense of shame into her.

Her fingers curled around me, trapping me in the warm, fleshy prison of her fist.  It felt like she was exaggerating her arm swing while she clenched me so that my insides felt like they were being tossed about even more.  I did not cry out for help or plea for mercy, because what would be the point?  She was clearly having her fun, and could simply act like she did not hear me later.

Finally, I felt a solid impact through her fingers, and her hand opened to deposit me on the familiar tile floor.  Jessica stood up, taking another opportunity to tower over me for the sake of it while she glared down at me.  I looked back up at her helplessly, from the toes of her Adidas sneakers to her blue eyes emanating power.

The glow from Jessica’s eyes surged, and in a moment she had halved in height.  She was finally giving me back my size.  It was a slower process than when she shrank me, but regardless of how long it took I was glad to no longer be able to disappear under foot.  When the process finally stopped my eyes were about level with the top of her breasts.

“You promised to give me back my original size,” I challenged.  “I’m a few inches short.”

Jessica chuckled and patted my head.  “You’re more than a few inches short, Mr. Tiny,” she replied, “but I also took some as payment.  One to remind you of what I can do, and two for the debts you owe me from not getting smashed.”  She took a step forward, bumping into me hard enough to shove me back.  “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, I don’t,” I answered.  Nothing I could say would sway her, so I simply submitted to my lot.  From now on, one of my students would essentially be in charge of my life.

She smiled and leaned in, touching her nose to mine so that we were at some definition of eye to eye.  “Good.  Now, I’m going to get drunk with my friends, and you probably need to readjust your car’s chair and buy some new pants.”  Jessica stood back up to her tremendous height and wiggled her fingers at me to wave goodbye.  “Ta-ta, Mr. Tiny!  I’ll see you on Monday.”  With that she spun on her heel and left.

I waited a few minutes, expecting her to come back and deliver some bon mot.  When it became clear she was gone for good I went back to my desk, pulled out my phone and keys, and left, hitting the light switch before I closed the door.  This was about to become a very interesting, unpleasant semester.