Being dropped down a woman’s shirt was far from the joyride one might expect.  It was so hot I began sweating immediately, and the persistent musk of sweat all around made it difficult to breathe without gagging.  When Tanisha mashed her breasts together one of them won the tug of war after she let go, leaving me stuck to the side.  I lingered for a moment, then a slight vibration caused me to fall away and gravity took over.  Her sports bra caught me, and I bounced off the bottom like it was a trampoline before coming to rest.

Trapped inside her bra, Tanisha’s gait was a new and unique form of torment.  Vibrations from her feet hitting the ground traveled all throughout her body, and though they were weak when they finally got to me, they still gave me the jitters.  These vibrations hit me out of sync with the bouncing of her chest, normally almost imperceptible but impossible to ignore now that each of her breasts battered me and her bra bounced me with them.

Everything came to a sudden stop and I heard a door open.  When Tanisha started moving again, I was thrown backward until I slammed into an immovable wall of flesh.  My feet slipped between her skin and bra, and I was just able to brace myself with my arms.  I tried to pull myself back up, but every single time she took a step it erased my progress until I was buried up to my armpits and barely hanging on.  Still exhausted from the climb up to her bed, I knew it was only a matter of time until my arms gave out.

It took just a few more steps for my tenuous hold to slip, dropping me into the open cavity of her shirt.  I managed to grab on to her bra with a hand, but another step was enough to set me loose, and I began to plummet.  Though it was tight around her chest, Tanisha’s shirt did little to arrest my fall, and I desperately clutched at her smooth skin for something to stop my descent.  I slipped out from her shirt and tumbled along her shorts, then got caught for the ride as she took a step.  My body fell along the slope of her long thigh until going over the precipice of her kneecap, finally landing hard on the carpet beside her foot.  The familiar sight of it grinding against the carpet greeted me, then her sock wrinkled and she stepped away, the pounding of her footfalls getting weaker as she left.

Tanisha descended the stairs, and I realized she had not just been messing with me with that warning about getting lost.  She should be back this way later, I told myself, but there was no sense inviting danger; if she was serious about this, she just might be right about her sister, too.  I trudged through the carpet back to her room, keeping an ear out for her sister as I stepped over the fibers.  When Tanisha came back this way I could grab her attention, but I needed to minimize my time in the open.

Her room looked to be a few hundred feet away, hardly an insurmountable trek.  Even with the added challenge of practically having to climb over the carpet, it should only take about ten minutes to get there and squeeze under the door.  The odds of Tanisha’s sister leaving her room during that time were low, and even if she did there was no guarantee she’d spot me.  Besides, Tanisha would not pass up her chance to spend the evening torturing me, and her long legs would make the journey even quicker.

Feet thudded on the stairs, and I got ready to act.  A curtain of blond hair rose into view, and I called out, “Hey, Tanisha, over here!  I’m on the ground!”  She continued her way up the stairs, paying my desperate plea no attention.  In just three more strides she reached the top, and the floor began shaking with each step again.  I began jumping up into the air and waving my arms while yelling something I never expected to.  “Tanisha, please help me!  I’m on the floor and need you to save me!”

The tremors got stronger with her approach, and there was no sign she had noticed me.  She did not even look down as her feet slapped ever closer toward me, and I began to doubt my plan would work.  When she was practically on top of me, I was sure she was going to step on me without even knowing it.  Outside of her twisted games, this would be fatal.  I was looking at the sole of her sock as it descended, and finally gave up.  With a great leap I dove to the side, just clearing the area before Tanisha’s foot landed with a bone-rattling quake.  To my dismay she continued on her way, completely unaware of where I was, let alone that she had just nearly squished me.

It was unfortunate, but this just meant I would not have quick transport back to her room.  I got back to my feet, dusted myself off, and resumed my course to her room.  Navigating my way there was easy enough with the wide open space, and I had just watched her massive frame duck into a door if there was any doubt which was hers.  All I had to do was ignore my burning muscles and intense desire to rest my legs until I was back with someone who at least needed me as a bargaining chip.

When I was just a couple yards away from Tanisha’s room, a door down the hall opened.  I froze and turned my head just in time to see a dark-haired woman step into the corridor and close the door behind her.  Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and a pair of large, round glasses magnified her green eyes.  She was thin, but her high cheekbones made her look downright gaunt in contrast to the rest of her soft features.  The enormous, lanky body was pale, but not pallid, making her crimson tank top with white Greek letters across the chest stand out more.  A pair of tiny black shorts barely even began to cover her thighs, leaving her long legs bare down to her navy-blue ankle socks.

She turned toward me, and the world shook with every one of her steps.  There was no way I could make it to Tanisha’s door before she overtook me, so I was once again forced to decide how best to avoid getting noticed.  In the middle of this cream-colored carpet it would be easy to spot my outline no matter what, but burrowing into it was not an option either: I needed to keep an eye on her in case she did spot me.  There was nowhere else to take cover, however, and in my indecision I defaulted to standing still and hoping she just walked by.

The pounding stopped when she was mid-step, and my stomach sank.  There was no doubt in my mind that she had spotted me, and my eyes darted up her tremendous frame to see her looking right at me with a disgusted sneer.  We stood there in a tense stand-off, neither quite sure what to do.  If I moved, she might panic and smash me out of reflex, and though I was small, I was probably the biggest “bug” she’d ever seen.

 As often happens, the giantess acted first.  She finished her step, then raised a foot as high as she could.  Immediately after it reached its apex she brought it down, and I realized that Tanisha had been toying with me.  Her sister’s foot came toward me with unimaginable speed, and before I realized it was even moving the dark blue sole of her sock blocked everything above.  Reflexively I jumped back, but my legs snagged on a fluffy bit of carpet.  I fell backwards, and the friction kept me from sliding any further.

Fortunately, I had moved just enough to keep from getting smashed.  Her foot slammed into the ground with the force of an asteroid, making an incredible thud with the strike.  A shockwave emanated from the point of impact, powerful enough to make picture frames on the wall shake.  Once it passed through me, I felt tears welling in my eyes and I nearly lost what little food I had eaten.  The tremor made my body shake so violently that it almost did not matter that she had missed with her foot.

Before I could get back up, she noticed she missed and quickly moved to correct her error.  She raised her foot and slid her heel forward, nearly centering it over me before bringing it to a halt.  It swung down in a flash, and there was nowhere for me to go this time.  Her entire foot slapped me, making my skin sting from the blow even as it pushed me into the carpet.  For all the difficulty it had given me, I had no doubt that, had the carpet been just a little thinner, I would have been killed instantly.

With her foot on top of me, however, I was far from safe.  The immense amount of weight on me became even greater when she lifted her heel, allowing her to press down on me with the ball of her foot.  I did not see how it could get any worse until she started grinding her foot back and forth, rotating me with it while she put even more pressure on me.  I gritted my teeth, expecting the end to come at any time, but it never did.  Although the amount of force pressing down on me was excruciating, it was just short of the amount needed to flatten me outright thanks to the plush carpet and her soft socks.

When her foot finally lifted off me a bit of carpet snagged my clothes, keeping me from getting stuck to her sole.  Again, I had been narrowly saved by the carpet – if I ended up under her foot with her full weight pressing down, I doubted even soft materials would save me.  She kept her green eyes focused down on me though, watching for any sign of life.  I did my best to stay perfectly still, but even then it would only be a matter of time until I tipped her off.

Another titanic figure had appeared beside us, staring down at me with a pair of brilliant blue eyes.  “Oh, hey Eve!” Tanisha exclaimed.  “I see you’ve met my study partner!”

“Your study partner is a bug?” Eve asked incredulously.  Her voice was softer than Tanisha’s, more like velvet, but still absurdly deep with a terrifying rumble to it.

“He might look like one, but he’s not!” Tanisha answered.  “He’s one of the students in my English class.”

“Your school has a student the size of a bug?”  Eve was having trouble with the situation, but not as much as Tanisha said she would.

“Yeah!  Well no, but yes,” Tanisha struggled to explain.  “He’s a student, but he’s also only, like, five feet tall or something?  I haven’t seen anyone so small in a long time.”

“Five feet?”  Eve smirked, picking up on Tanisha’s joke.  “Well no wonder I thought he was a bug, that’s puny!”  She waved down at me sarcastically then squatted, framing her face between her pale thighs.  Her glasses made her gaze seem even more imposing, and the way her hair fell made a dark border around them.  “I promise if I see you again, I’ll do my best not to step on you!”  Each word was carefully enunciated and spoken loudly, like she thought I didn’t understand English. 

“I’d introduce the two of you,” Tanisha started, “but it looks like you’re already pretty well-acquainted.”

Eve stood back up, and I was again stuck between two towering women.  “Does mom know you have a boy over?” she asked, smiling.

Tanisha let out a single, booming laugh before answering.  “What boy?” she replied, still grinning.  “Look at him!  Look how small he is!  Even if I wanted to do something with him, he’d get pulverized!”

A thoughtful hum radiated from Eve’s throat.  “Yeah, I guess you have a point,” she said.  “He really does go to school, though?”  Tanisha nodded, and she continued, “How has he not been stepped on yet?  I feel like someone would have slipped up after all this time.”

“You know, I ask myself that every time I see him.  Guess he’s just lucky.”  I certainly didn’t feel lucky as Tanisha knelt to pick me up.  My body was so drained by this point that even if I wanted to get away from her, I simply did not have the energy to move.  Her outstretched fingers and palm overwhelmed me, and when they clenched, I was gripped in her fist.  Their abuse had exhausted me so much that I barely even registered the rush of her standing despite how uncomfortable it always made me.

“Well, we better get back to studying.”  The sisters said their goodbyes, then Tanisha withdrew into her room.  I heard the door close, then another weak rush when she brought me to her face.  She opened her fingers, and on her titanic face I saw her usual cold, calculating demeanor.

“That’s twice I’ve saved you now, so you better convince her to teach me how to shrink people.”

“Once,” I corrected her, not mentioning all the times she – and her sister, now – had brought me to the brink of death.

“Twice,” she insisted with a growl.  “I didn’t swallow you earlier.”

“Fine, twice.”  She was even more stubborn than Meredith and arguing with her was an exercise in futility.  Naturally, I did not agree that it should count if she was the one who put me in danger in the first place, but if I brought that up the count would keep increasing while she refrained from squashing me in her hand.

“Anyway, I have an early day tomorrow since I need to convince that so-called girlfriend of yours to teach me how to shrink people, so I’m gonna hit the hay early.  There’s no way I’m letting you sleep in my bed since you keep getting aroused around me, so I’ve made alternate arrangements for you.”

Tanisha carried me to the far side of her dresser, and with her free hand she picked up an empty jar, about the size of one used for cloves of garlic.  She set her hand on the rim of the jar and turned it so I slid out of her palm, landing hard on the glass bottom.  Before I could stand up she screwed the lid on, giving me a single hole punched through it for air.  When I did try to stand, I found that the new ceiling was too low even for me and I had to hunch over to keep from bumping my head against the metal.

She held the jar delicately by the lid, pinching it between her thumb and middle finger, and held it up to her face.  While she was already imposing, the warped glass added to her presence, making her face seem to warp around me while she gazed smugly at me trapped inside the glass.  A low, rumbling chuckle emanated from her throat, and she set the jar down on her dresser.  Even from this elevated spot I was only level with her stomach.

“There, that should keep us both safe,” Tanisha declared.  “I won’t roll over on you, and you won’t hump my leg or whatever weird-ass thing you want to do.”  She walked away, and with the flick of a switch the room went dark.  Her comforter and sheets rustled loudly while she got situated, then the noise died off when she got comfortable.  I curled up on the glass floor, devoid of any comforts, and reminded myself that I’d get to see Meredith again tomorrow.  That thought was the only warmth I would have for the whole night.