It was after dark when Rachel finally returned home. I had long ago grown tired of watching TV, although I had kept it on just to provide background noise. When I heard her unlock the front door, I turned it off and stood up expectantly. I was both hungry and cold, not to mention in desperate need of some company. She came inside and went back out to her car several times, carrying in and putting things on the kitchen table, although from my position I couldn’t see what those things were. Eventually though, she came over to the couch and sat down beside me. She placed her open hand down next to me and I climbed in eagerly, and she lifted me up and gave me a kiss.

“Sorry I’m so late, Sam,” she said. “I had to do quite a lot of driving around after work today. I got us some takeout food, hope you don’t mind. But I really didn’t feel like making dinner myself tonight.”

“That’s okay,” I reassured her. “I’m just glad I have someone to talk to again. You’ve no idea how much I missed you today, baby.”

“Well, maybe when you see what I’ve brought you, it’ll make up for it. But first, I’ve got something else you might like.”

She stuck her hand in the pocket of her jacket and took out a couple of tiny items. To my surprise, it turned out to be some clothes that were more-or-less the right size for me to wear. But they were obviously doll or action-figure clothes, since they were pretty crudely made and didn’t fit quite right. The T-shirt was about the correct size for me, though it felt a little bulky, but the trousers, though the correct length, were too loose to wear and kept falling down. But Rachel solved that problem by cutting up an elastic band and tying it around my waist as though it were a belt. Now that I had something to wear, I felt more comfortable and less self-conscious, even though I’d begun to grow used to being naked around her.

“You’ll have to go barefoot for a while, I’m afraid,” she said, as I stood in her palm and turned around so she could see how I looked in her clothes. “I couldn’t find any toys that had shoes that were the correct size, or that weren’t just part of the toy itself. But I’ll keep looking.”

“Thanks, babe. This is a lot better for me already. So, what else did you get for me? Or can we go have dinner first? I’m really hungry…”

“In a minute! Come on, let me show you one more thing first. I think you’ll like this.”

She carried me over to the kitchen table and put me down on it, and I couldn’t believe what I saw. Sitting in front of me was a house. More accurately, it was part of a dollhouse, with one entire wall missing, allowing me to see the rooms inside. The ground floor room had two tiny, doll-sized chairs and a little table placed in the centre of it. The back wall across from me had a miniature window in it, with panes that could be opened and closed. A ladder mounted on the outside wall by the corner led to an upper room, but I couldn’t see what was inside it from down on the table, only that it had a little railing in front of it. Above it was a peaked roof. The whole thing was only about 16 inches high and wide, but that made it about 30 feet in size to me. I had no idea what to make of it.

“Isn’t it great?” Rachel said, sounding very excited. “I found it at an antiques’ shop. The lady who owned the place told me she’d made it herself when she was a little girl. It wasn’t actually for sale, just on display in the shop, but I managed to persuade her to sell it to me, promising to take great care of it. It’s wonderful, isn’t it, Sam? A little place of your own!”

“A little…what? Am I supposed to stay in there from now on?”

Though I appreciated her going through the effort to buy this thing for me, I didn’t quite like the idea of living in what was essentially a child’s dollhouse. I knew she couldn’t see it from my perspective, but to me the feeling was one of being reduced to a toy myself. I stepped into the large ‘sitting room’ and walked over to one of the red-cushioned chairs. Despite being miniature in size, they were still slightly too large for me, and sitting in one of them felt awkward and unnatural. Out there, on the giant-sized couch, it had at least felt as though I was still in the normal, everyday world, instead of trapped in some alternate doll-universe, where I was just a doll myself. Rachel crouched down and I saw her giant face peering into the room.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked, sounding a little more concerned all of a sudden. “I thought you’d enjoy having a place like this to stay in. Then you wouldn’t feel so…well, small…all the time.”

“You mean, like when I’m with you?” I asked, getting up and approaching her. “Is that how you think I feel when I’m with you, Rachel?”

“Sam, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! Please, I don’t want to start another argument with you, not now! I’ll take the thing back if you don’t like it.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check. I didn’t want to have another argument either, not over something as silly as this. “But…I mean, what am I supposed to do in here? There’s not even a bed for me to sleep in!”

“Of course there’s a bed! You just haven’t checked upstairs yet, that’s all! But you really don’t have to stay in here all the time, darling. It’s just something I thought you’d like, where you can go and feel normal for a few hours each day, or whenever. I never wanted to keep you in here like some kind of pet!”

Once again I could hear the honesty in her voice, and once again I felt like an idiot for doubting her and for being this confrontational with her. I turned around and decided to give the place another look. I climbed up the ladder, which led to a balcony overhanging the lower room. Inside this ‘attic room’ was a large double bed, easily big enough for me to sleep on, with an appropriately-sized mattress, covers and pillows. I threw myself down on it: the mattress was a little hard, but not uncomfortable, and I could easily picture myself sleeping here. Behind the bed was a little window, just like the one on the ground floor. I opened it and looked out at the immense room that lay beyond. Then I turned around, and like magic it felt as if I were in a different world, one in which I belonged.

Besides the bed up here and the table and chairs below, there were no other furnishings – but that was something I could work on rectifying. A new idea came into my head. What if I actually could make this place my own somehow? I didn’t mean sending Rachel out to look for some more doll furniture that would fit in; I wanted to make them myself. I walked back out onto the balcony and leant on its railing, which was coincidentally just the right height for me.

“This is really great, Rachel,” I said to my colossal girlfriend, whose face hovered in the sky above me. “You were right – I do feel…normal…when I’m in there. I’m sorry for being such a dick to you again, really. I just didn’t want this to come between us, you know? Thanks for buying me this…this home, I guess you could call it.”

She smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. God, how beautiful she was…

“Apology accepted,” she said. “I know it’s not the greatest little house – it was made by a child after all – but it was the right size, not too big or too small. I can even carry it around with me when you’re inside, so I can always have you close to me. And I know it’s a little empty at the moment, but that can change too.”

“Yeah, definitely – in fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about…”

Our dinner was temporarily forgotten, as Rachel sat down at the kitchen table and listened to me explain my plans for the house. Ideas were popping into my head one after the other, and I told her how I planned to make my own furniture for the place, my own decorations, give the place a new paint job – all the things most young people liked to do when they moved into a new place and wanted to give it a personal touch of their own. I also wanted to build some more interior walls, giving me a bathroom I could fit out with a toilet, bathtub, etc. That would mean having to solve the problem of supplying water to the place somehow, but it was a problem that I had no doubt could be solved somehow. Rachel looked very sceptical at first as I laid out my plans, but she listened patiently until the end and finally agreed to do whatever she could to help me realize my ideas.

“I know it all sounds so stupid,” I admitted afterwards. “But It’ll give me something to do while you’re off at work. I can’t just sit here on the couch every day and wait for you to come back, I’ll get bored to death. Besides, if it ends up with me having a nice home to stay in – something I wanted to buy for us someday, by the way – well, that’s a bonus, right?”

“I don’t think it sounds stupid at all,” she replied. “In fact, I think it’s a wonderful idea. Sam, the last thing I want is for you to feel like you’re trapped in here, or like I’m keeping you prisoner or anything like that. I just want to keep you safe and to make sure you’re happy, until they discover a cure for you, however long that takes. Go ahead, make the house your own! I’ll do what I can to help, but it’s your thing, so I’ll leave you and let you do whatever you want to the thing…place…whatever you want to call it.”

She lowered her face until her chin was level with the balcony and puckered her lips. I got the hint and climbed onto the railing, then fell forward against her lips and let her kiss me. I would never get tired of this feeling, I thought, this expression of love and devotion from her. We ate our dinner afterwards, with her sitting at the kitchen table and me sitting on the balcony of my new home. I was still using a bottlecap as a plate and two wooden splinters from a toothpick as a knife and fork, since the dollhouse didn’t come with any eating utensils, but Rachel assured me she’d find some for me soon, along with a lot of other things as well.

After dinner, she carried my house, with me inside, all the way to her bedroom and set it down on her little bedside table. I wasn’t feeling sleepy yet, but she had had a tough day at work, followed by a lot of driving around in order to find my house and clothes for me, so she said she was ready for bed. But first she took me to her bathroom, where I could use her washing basin as a toilet and could also wash myself under the flowing water from its tap. It was an unusual experience, but one I could get used to eventually, I figured. When she came to collect me, she was already in her nightclothes and I saw for the first time how tied she looked. Some of that was no doubt due to everything that had happened these past few days, but the two of us were already adjusting to our new life together quite quickly. I was scooped up by her strong fingers and cradled in her hand, while with her other hand she took my clothes and put them down next to the basin. Then she took me back to her bed with her, just like that.

“I never mentioned this before,” she said, after she’d given me another sweet kiss, “but you look great, Sam. Really healthy, I mean…not in bad shape or anything like that.”

“Thanks,” I said, pleased at the compliment. “Yeah, I did try and keep in shape while at the hospital, and I guess I’ll keep on doing that here. I’m not gonna sit on the couch and watch TV every day, like I did today, so don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m not, I’m just wondering,” she said, giggling. Then she ran the very tip of her finger across my head, messing up my still wet hair. “How did they cut your hair?” she asked. “Did the nurses do it for you?”

“No, no-one did. It just hasn’t grown at all since, well, since the accident. My facial hair hasn’t grown either, so I never needed to shave. Maybe the stuff that caused me to shrink is affecting that as well. In any case, I don’t mind it. It’s one less thing for me to worry about.”

“Yeah, I suppose…anyways, you look really great, sweetie.”

Using her thumb and index finger, she carefully picked me up by my waist. It was unsettling how strong she was, not to mention more than a little emasculating, but I weirdly enjoyed her handling me like this. She ran her fingertip all over my body, caressing every part of me, while I grew more and more aroused, until I could no longer hide it. She noticed how red my face had become – and that I had gotten a rather conspicuous erection.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I want you to enjoy this, Sam. Don’t feel ashamed. You’re still the man I love, and I want to love you as much as I can. I’m going to give you another kiss – a special kiss – and I want you to enjoy it, every bit of it.”

I was suddenly lifted up all the way to her mouth, where her lips were waiting for me. As she pressed my groin against them, they parted slightly, and her tongue came out and pressed against me. She was licking my manhood, pushing it up and down, until I could no longer resist it and came. When I did, she squeezed me just a teensy bit forward and began to suck with her lips, and I felt the sensation all over me. It wasn’t the first time she’d given me a blowjob – which I always felt was something she only did to satisfy me, not because she enjoyed it herself – but now that my whole body was smaller than my dick had always been, it felt like a whole new kind of sexual experience.

After it was over, I was carefully placed on her upper chest, on the velvety fabric of her robe, and she stroked my back and legs as I lay pressed against her. Words couldn’t describe how entirely satisfying and fulfilling an experience it had been for me. After everything that had happened to me, after believing on many, many occasions that any life worth living was over and that I’d be better off dead, to find out how much this incredible young woman still loved me, and how much I loved her – I began to cry softly, overcome with emotion. Rachel just kept on rubbing me and fondling me as I buried my face in her vast bosom.

“That’s right, honey, it’s okay,” she said soothingly. “I’m here for you now. You don’t have to be scared anymore. You’re safe here with me, in my hands, where I can hold you and keep you close. Don’t you ever feel ashamed when you’re with me, you hear me? I love you, Sam, now and always.”

“Even…even when I can’t love you back?” I said through the sobs that still overcame me. “No, that’s not what I mean – I love you more than ever – but…”

“But you can’t fuck me, is that it? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

I wouldn’t have said it quite that bluntly, but I nodded. That was one of the things I was afraid of, but there were others. I could no longer go out with her, take her to places we liked to go to, show her a good time. I could no longer protect her, like most men felt they had to protect the women they loved, and she could no longer depend on me for even the most basic things. As I lay there against her soft chest, caressed by her loving fingers, I told her everything, all my fears and regrets, everything I would no longer be able to do for her.

“Sam, I’m not gonna pretend there won’t be any changes in our relationship,” she said after I’d finished. “But…how can I explain this to you…okay, imagine this. What if it had been a different kind of accident, instead of shrinking? What if, on the way to work that day, you’d been involved in a car crash, and you’d been completely paralyzed from the shoulders down? Do you think I would have abandoned you then? Should I have? That wouldn’t have been something you’d ever have recovered from, either.”

“I don’t know…lots of girls would have…”

“Lots of girls? And I’m one of them, right?”

“Rachel, no! Of course not! But I’m just saying…”

“Sam,” she interrupted me, before letting out a huge sigh. “Sam…plenty of couples have had bad things happen to them, either to one partner or both…and yes, for lots of them, it meant the end of their relationship…but you’ll never convince me that the default outcome for ‘bad thing happens to guy in a relationship’ is ‘girlfriend leaves him for someone else’. I’m sorry, maybe I’m too naïve or optimistic or something, but I refuse to believe that most people are that selfish. So what if we can no longer have hot, crazy sex the way we always did? You do know that that’s a bigger deal to guys than girls, right? How many times have you asked me to come back with you to your place, and I’d be like ‘No thanks, baby, not tonight’, hmm?”

“So you’re saying, you won’t miss me showing you my moves in bed, is that it?” I said, managing a grin. She grinned back and gave me a poke in the stomach.

“Of course I will, sweetie – but there are other things we haven’t tried yet, other experiences…like that little ‘kiss’ I just gave you. You liked that, right?”

“Did you?” I immediately asked back. She hesitated before answering.

“Look, I don’t want you to think I’m weird or crazy or anything, but I’m gonna be honest with you, okay? At first, when I saw you for the first time in the hospital, I had no idea what to feel. No, that’s not true…I felt sick, dizzy, overwhelmed by what I saw, just wrong in every way. I genuinely felt like leaving you in that moment…but it was only for a moment. I took another look at you, at how small and helpless and alone you looked, and I immediately wanted you back with me. I thought back to when my dad died, five months ago, and how you supported me and looked after me, being there for me when I needed you and giving me space when I needed to be alone…”

“That’s because I knew you’d make it through all right,” I said. “This isn’t the same, Rachel, you know that. There’s a chance things will never go back to normal for me, ever.”

“I know, and I was getting there before you interrupted me. Sam…and this is the part you’ll think is crazy…but you being this tiny and everything…well, I’ve actually begun to like it, sort of. No, I don’t mean I want you to stay like this forever – of course I want you to get your old life back as soon as possible! But getting to hold my boyfriend in the palm of my hand, or holding you against me like this…honestly, it’s kind of a turn-on for me.”

I looked up at her, shocked. She gave me another grin and squeezed me a little tighter against her.

“You like having me this small?” I asked. “Really? Like…why?”

“I don’t know! It’s just…I mean…” She kept on stammering, trying to explain.

“Because now you get to be the one in charge?” I prompted her. “Because now you’re bigger and stronger than me, and can do whatever you want with me? Rachel, you know I never thought you were inferior to me!”

“I know, baby, and I don’t think you’re inferior to me now! But, yeah, I’ll admit it – I like being in charge for a change! I like having a little man I can carry around and take care of. I know it sounds weird, it even feels weird to me, but…damn it, Sam, you’re so tiny and adorable like this, and it’s like you’re my special little guy, my secret little boyfriend, that only I know about, and it’s really turning me on somehow! You can hate me all you want, and you can act as macho and as chauvinistic as you like, but that’s the way I see you now. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it! I still really, really, truly love you, as much as ever – but maybe it’s a kind of love that’s a little bit different.”

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. I could tell how hard it had been for her to admit how she felt about me now, and even though I hadn’t liked most of what she’d said, I was glad she told me. With a sinking feeling in my heart, I gradually accepted that she could no longer look at me and think of me exactly as she did before I was shrunk. That feeling of emasculation returned, of being reduced to something that was more like a doll than a man. Maybe that was all I was to her now after all – just a doll, albeit one she happened to have strong feelings for.

But was that really such a bad thing? She still loved me, I knew she’d been honest with me when she said that. I still loved her too – but also in a slightly different way. To me, she was no longer just a girlfriend – a sexy, fun-loving, caring, devoted girlfriend with whom I could do all sorts of enjoyable things, and who relied on me for her security and emotional wellbeing. Now I was the one relying on her, not just for my security and protection, but for my very life itself. She had almost become a godlike figure to me, on whom I was utterly dependent and without whom I’d be lost in a world I was far too small to survive in on my own.

Things had definitely changed for us and it was useless to try and act as though our roles in our relationship were still the same. But one thing hadn’t changed, and that was our love for and our commitment to one another. There was no other choice for me: I would have to accept her as she was, and I’d have to accept the way she now saw me. I would swallow my pride and be a tiny, adorable boyfriend to her and let her be the one in charge. Her eyes were still closed when I looked up at her: maybe she regretted telling me how she felt, or maybe she felt embarrassed. Either way, she probably thought I was mighty upset at what she’d said. I grabbed hold of the fabric of her clothing and pulled myself upwards from underneath her hand. It was only a dozen feet or so to her shoulder, and climbing it wasn’t too difficult. Standing on her shoulder, I took hold of a few strands of her long, flowing hair, and climbed farther still. Holding on tightly, I hung next to her cheek and began to kiss her.

“Rachel, my darling,” I said. “I’m so grateful to have met you, and I’m more grateful still that you’re still with me, despite what’s happened to me. All I want from now on is to stay here with you, and love you and be there for you, just like before the accident. If you want to keep me in a dollhouse, and keep me as your secret little guy, then go ahead. To me, you’re the most incredible girl in the world, a genuine goddess on Earth.”

“God, you’re just too sweet, aren’t you? You keep on sweet-talking me like that, I’m gonna have to use you as a lollipop!”

As if to prove her point, she pried me away from her cheek and, without a word of warning, stuck my entire body into her mouth. Only my head remained outside, cushioned between her lips, while my body, arms and legs were at the mercy of her tongue as she pressed me this way and that. I was as helpless in her mouth as though I really were a lollipop, but feeling her wet tongue massage every exposed part of my body was more pleasure than I could take and I came for the second time that night. Looking very satisfied with herself – and with her newfound power over me – Rachel took me out and quickly rubbed me dry against her sleeve. Then she lay me across the width of her fingers and slowly stuck her hand into the tiny bedroom of my dollhouse. She tipped her hand slightly to the side and I slid off, landing on my five-inch-long bed. I sat on the covers of my new bed, looking out at her face which filled the entire view I had of the outside. She licked her lips, slowly and deliberately, and I instantly wished I was still between those two organs of pleasure.

“Well, I can honestly say that that was the strangest thing I’ve ever done with a guy,” she said. “But screw me if it wasn’t one of the sexiest things too! How did you like it, sugar?”

“Oh my God, it was…I mean, I can’t even describe it, it was so…so…please, Rachel, please let’s do that again! Take me again, I wanna feel how it feels one more time!”

She giggled as I leapt off my bed and ran out to the balcony. But she’d clearly had enough for one night, and a firm index finger easily pushed me back all the way to my bed.

“Not tonight, Sam,” she said, sounding almost rueful about her decision. “I don’t wanna rush things right from the start, okay? There’s so much we can do, you and I, so many pleasure you and I can experience together, and I want to try them all. But I don’t want to go crazy and forget myself either. You’ve been gone so long, and I’ve thought for so long you’d never be back with me, that now I feel like I wanna get to know you all over again…I don’t know if that makes any sense. But seeing how much you enjoyed that…look, I’m just overjoyed to have you back, no matter how small you are now.”

I saw her point-of-view and I understood. It would take her a while to get used to the new me, no matter how enthusiastic we both were. She picked up the entire house that was now mine and hugged it tightly, her powerful arms completely encircling it. I’d always been much stronger than her and had never thought of her in anything like those terms, but now her strength, size and power were truly a source of awe and wonder to me. I was grateful indeed to have her as my protector. She carried my house over to a desk, where she put it down so that I had a view of her bed. We said our goodnights, then we both climbed into our beds and she turned off the light. I suddenly felt alone again, even though I knew she was only a few feet away from her perspective. I wanted to be with her in her bed instead…but would that really be a good idea in my present, fragile state? Such thoughts kept me awake for a couple of hours, but I eventually fell asleep too, content in the knowledge that she’d be there when I woke up again in the morning.