Dorothy was aware of the pounding in her head before she was aware she’d been sleeping. That was how she emerged, with an angry fire burning in her skull and a mouth dry and pasty. “Goddess damn it,” she growled, pulling a pillow over her head and hugging it tightly. The coolness of the back of the pillow felt nice for a moment, but her own raging hangover heated it up within a minute. And there was still the matter of her parched throat.

Stuffing the pillow against the headboard, she rolled to her side and rubbed her eyes in order to peer at the digital clock glowing dimly on the nightstand. “Five o’clock.” Her voice rasped through another string of cusses as she evaluated her situation. She could try to grab another partial sleep cycle before her alarm went off, or she could get a glass of water and call it a wash, just go to work with a throbbing headache. Sighing heavily, she tossed back the sheets and swung her large legs over the edge of the mattress.

Dorothy was a loyal employee at Overmedia. Never took a sick day, always the first one in and departed sharply at 5 p.m. No one noticed her in the office and that was the way she liked it: as few meetings as were absolutely essential, and left alone to support the company single-handedly the rest of the time. Any daydreams she had of the younger, handsomer coworkers were quickly stifled down and replaced with a countdown to retirement. It was better to just focus on her paycheck and usher the gears of industry along as best she could.

But with every footfall of her thick feet, over her bedroom’s carpeting to the icy tiles of the bathroom, she wondered whether she might not put a small dent in her sick days. The doorways lurched sickeningly to the sides as she pulled herself through them. Her joints ached, her skin sweated, and it felt like there was a lump in her ass. The porcelain sink seemed to generate blinding light; she squinted and gritted her teeth, groping around for the polished chrome faucet. Chilly water roared into her waiting cup and she let it froth over her puffy hand, its coolness promising a primal relief to her suffering complex system. What if I didn’t go in today, she thought, hoisting the cup to her lips, letting it trickle over her gummy tongue and chill her throat. Oh, Goddess, that’s good. It tastes so much sweeter when I’m hungover.

She refilled the cup and brought it back to bed. There was no way she could go in today, not the way her head was pounding. All of her muscles felt lazy and gelatinous, and as she laid back down, the sloshing of her stomach told her she’d better not rock around too much longer, not without a bucket nearby. Setting the cup down on the nightstand, she fumbled gingerly for her cheaters and adjusted them on her nose before opening up the email app on her phone and breaking the bad news to her department. “Came down with a stomach bug,” she thumbed. “Encourage everyone to get their shots this flu season. Will be in Monday.”

The phone clattered to the nightstand as she rolled to her back and groaned. Why the hell did she drink so much, anyway? What was the occasion? Cupping her burning forehead in her cool palm, Dorothy reviewed the previous night’s activity.

That pretty blonde piece of fluff caught her as she was heading out the door. Lynn, her name was, in charge of Overmedia’s social media and relations. Dorothy, as research analyst, had to work with Lynn a couple times a month, generating reports on this marketing campaign or that outreach push, but they weren’t close in any sense. Why did Lynn need to see her so badly?

And why did Dorothy go along with it?

It didn’t sound like a bad idea at the time, going down to the mall, to Tuffy’s for two-for-ones. Not drink specials originally: Lynn insisted she had something important to talk about with Dorothy, but damned if she could remember what that was supposed to be. The two-for-ones kept coming, the Aperol, the Bellini, a pitcher of sangria. Lynn kept talking about her family, shows she was watching, never getting to the point of why they were there. In a way, it was nice to be included in something: Dorothy enjoyed a night out, getting a little careless, talking and laughing with another person.

Then it got hazy. There was a cab, or one of those ride-sharing services. Was there a hospital? Dorothy glanced at her wrists for an ID band, but no such thing was there. Somehow she ended up in her own bed, in a nightgown. Frowning, she sat up and looked around her bedroom. Her polyester suit from yesterday was draped across the back of a chair, next to her dresser. Did Lynn come up with her and get her changed? She really couldn’t remember.

She slumped back to the mattress, and her body inventory of annoying little aches and pains brought her back to her butt. She felt as though she were about to fart, but it was trapped between her huge cheeks and holding stationary. That’s what she hoped it was. If it was a drunken shart waiting to announce itself, she was going to be furious and depressed and humiliated. What was Lynn thinking? Dorothy laboriously drew in a breath and rolled to her side, fearing for the worst. She reached back and swatted her immense butt a couple times, a little awed at the profound ripples that traveled up her back and down her legs, in her vulnerable state.

Nothing came of that. She bit her bottom lip and groped her own butt cheek, her pudgy fingers crawling like a crab across the hillside of her ass. Hoping for the best, she gave her butt a tug and spread the deep fissure wide.

Something moved, something rolled out. Dorothy’s heart nearly stopped, fearful of one sole turd tumbling out and worsening an already crappy hangover. No pun intended. She froze for a moment, then sniffed the air: there was no scent of feces. Thank heaven for small favors! She sighed and relaxed, scooting her body to the side and rolling over to discover what was to be seen.

There on the pink-and-white bedsheets, within the curvature of her own body’s massive mountain range, lay a tiny little man.

Dorothy stared at it for a long time, it felt like. She knew it couldn’t be possible. Was it a toy? Who would’ve been able to shove a toy up her ass without her knowing? Oh, right, she was pretty sloshed last night. But what would have been Lynn’s motivation to slip a toy up her butt? And even if she wanted to, how did she have access? Did Dorothy provide access to her own butt to her coworker?

Did Lynn rape her with a toy?

Her heart pounded, but her asshole did not hurt. She took stock of her body: her stomach wanted to puke, her head was pounding, her muscles felt ill, but her ass was thankfully unviolated. It looked like she had a little riddle on her hands, solving the Mystery of Last Night. Taking no consolation in joining the time-honored ranks of this beloved American tradition, she retrained her swimming head upon the tiny figure sprawled somewhere below her sagging breasts.

He looked so realistic. So much detail had gone into this little toy. The hue of the skin was perfect. The fingers and toes were almost too small to be seen. She didn’t understand why he’d been dressed in what looked like a maxi pad, until she rubbed her eyes and found her reading glasses at the bedside table, and realized he was wearing a kind of tunic, a kind of muu-muu… no, a hospital gown. That was it: featureless, flat, and lightly patterned. But why? Why was a tiny man in a hospital gown hiding in her butt?

In a moment, her skin chilled and her insides turned clammy. Flashes of the previous night were coming back to her, new images, details of the hospital. The front desk, Lynn speaking aggressively to the nurses on staff. Lynn trying to get Dorothy to laugh, trying to get her to sit upright in her chair while they were waiting. Waiting for what?

The tiny figure was lying on its front. Its perfect calves bulged beneath the hem of its gown, its arms spread out at awkward angles. Its head was covered in matted hair. Frowning, Dorothy took up one of its arms, instinctively treating it with great delicacy. With this much exquisite detail came some fragility, no doubt. She rolled the figure to its back.

Why did it look like Derek? Why was a toy replica of Derek wearing a hospital gown? Why was the replica of her coworker stashed deep in the crack of her ass? How long had it been there?

“It” changed to “he” as her fingertips analyzed the tenderness of his wrist, the softness of the tiny man’s skin, how the joints flexed not like an articulated action figure but fluid, organic, like the fine bones in a chicken wing, but much, much smaller.

And that temperature. Cool and chilling, bleeding the heat of her deepest ass-crack regions. Limp, soft, and cool. This was not a toy.

Dorothy shrieked and rolled away, nearly falling out of bed. Instinctively she covered her crotch with one hand and tried to contain her full and floppy boobs with her other arm, crossing her legs defensively. Against what? There was no one else in the room except a tiny corpse, and she screamed again.

Derek. Derek was tiny. Derek was dead. Derek was tiny and dead in her bed.

Lynn. Lynn! What did you do, Lynn? What the fuck happened last night?

She realized she was still screaming and covered her mouth. It smelled like her own crotch, so she covered it with her other hand and let her boobs bobble upon her belly. Wide brown nipples stared at her bare feet. The world slowly woke up outside her window, light creeping in over the horizon, traffic slowly picking up. And Derek was dead and shrunken in her bed. Or shrunken, then dead, then in her bed. After being in her ass.

Dorothy’s eyes widened. Tiny Derek was in her ass, had been in her ass all night long while she slept. Was he dead when Lynn put him in there? No, that was too bizarre. That made no sense at all. Why would Lynn shrink a person down and hide him in her butt? But then again, why would she put a tiny living person in her butt? None of this made any sense.

Except.

If Derek was alive when Lynn put him in there.

And she had Derek in her ass all night long.

Did tiny Derek die in her ass?

Did Lynn kill tiny Derek by inserting him into her ass?

One hand drifted around her full hip and placed itself defensively upon her butt crack, far, far too late.

Her stomach seized, her armpits and head and chest flop-sweated. Her boob-clutching hand was busy protecting her butt, so her pussy-protecting hand flew to her mouth to prevent her from puking right there. The floorboards resounded with heavy blows from her heels as she stumped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. The lid and seat clattered in the tiled room as she clutched most of her hair and spewed great gouts of bile into the toilet, once, twice, thrice.

Her eyes watered. Her stomach cramped. She could scarcely draw a breath between rounds. The basin turned a rich burgundy, not of blood but of wine, sangria. Her head spun with all the drinks she must’ve consumed; very distantly she wondered who paid for all this. Was she going to have a nasty surprise when she checked her bank balance? The urge to punch a hole through Lynn’s skull was superseded by her ribs and abs spasming painfully, ready to eject more but nothing was forthcoming.

The rest was mechanical. Once the spasms subsided, she soaped up a washcloth and mopped her face. She brushed her teeth and savored her remineralizing mouthwash. Once she rinsed the stench of stomach acid from her sinuses, she drank about a gallon of water, standing nude in her kitchen. The morning sun shone through blinds, drawing glowing lines over her plump thigh and the wide curve of her hip, disappearing around the bulge of her ass. She breathed slowly, sucking in through her nostrils and blowing through pursed lips.

Fuck Lynn. Goddess-damned Lynn. She had some explaining to do. Later.

The coolness of the baked tiles of the kitchen floor, the marble counter against her wide ass, these were soothing to her. Dorothy used this relief to sort herself out.

If Derek was dead, it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t in control of her actions. But she was mad at herself for believing that Lynn just wanted to make a new friendship, when really her goal was to stuff her miniaturized coworker in her ass.

Wait. That part didn’t make any sense. She would have to ask Lynn more about that, because absolutely nothing of it sounded rational.

Yet there was a dead tiny Derek in her bed right now. Was he still there? Was it a dream? She filled her electric kettle with cold water and set it to boil, to get ready for coffee, then slowly padded up the hall back to her bedroom.

The sheets were still thrown back and disheveled. There was an indent where her huge body had been laying all night. In the middle of this long crater lay a tiny, pale object. She rounded the corner of the bed and saw the tiny, fine limbs sticking out of the tiny hospital gown. Goddess damn it, there he was.

Dorothy drew a deep breath and crawled upon the bed, her fat knees digging into the mattress. She crouched near the tiny figure, staring at him. He wasn’t going to move, so she reached out and extended one pudgy index finger. She held her breath as she poked his side.

The limp little man rolled as far as she pushed him, then flopped back into place. He weighed nearly nothing, but she could feel a tiny hip and tiny ribs against her fingertip. Fascinating!

Emboldened, she crept closer on all fours. Her massive tits hung and blocked her view on the upswing. The tiny man was so much smaller than either of her boobs. She lowered her shoulders, watching her boobs rest upon the bedsheet and spread around the tiny man. She arranged him between her tits but she could have easily covered him with one: her resting boobs swelled over the diminutive body until only his peaceful face, almost sleeping, peeked between her fleshy mounds.

Was she sick? Was this wrong? Dorothy stared at tiny little Derek, embedded between her fat, matronly boobs. No one knew he was here, except Lynn, maybe. She didn’t mean to kill him, she just found him in her butt. He really did look asleep… Slowly she rocked on the bed, back and forth, making her massive boobs pulse around the tiny, handsome head. What was she doing? She didn’t know, but she wanted to find out.

Derek had been a frustrating character up to this point. He was good-looking, almost like Jim Halpert from The Office, but with shorter hair and younger. Not younger: Derek had a liveliness to him that made him seem young, but really, he was like a regressed adult. Playing pranks, saying horrible things about the women in the office, talking bullshit to get out of his responsibilities. Dorothy came to regard him as an obstacle: if you wanted to get something done, you had to disinclude Derek. Dorothy was all about results, doing a good job, wrapping things up and sending them along. Derek only wanted to drift through life, avoid hard work, avoid explanations, collect a paycheck and get drunk with friends.

It was hard to think bad thoughts about a dead acquaintance, but Dorothy was always a complex person. She could bear all these resentful thoughts in her head, and still look down at this sweetly dormant figure lodged in her fat boobs, simultaneously. No one in the office could guess what was going on within Dorothy at any moment, so she told herself.

It was unfortunate that Derek was dead. It wasn’t her fault; it was probably Lynn’s, but it was definitely not hers.

She let her hips slide to the mattress and stretched her legs out. Her stomach, her muscles all felt better, but she would need coffee soon to take care of her head. Her breasts bulged over the tiny little man, and she smiled to see it. If he were alive, would he be screaming right now?‌ Would he be thrilled?

Would he consider himself the luckiest little man in the world, buried beneath her gorgeous tits?

Dorothy paused, then rolled off of him, flopping to her back. This was fucked up. Even if he was the size of a toy, he was still Derek and he was still dead. There was a dead body in her bed, and she didn’t know if she should call the cops or… just… drop him into compost. Maybe toss him in the neighbor’s yard, the one with the little yappy dog. Let the dog take care of it.

She looked over one sagging boob at the tiny man lying not far from her armpit. No, that was too cruel. Tiny Derek was too cute for something that callous. Or was he? Dorothy’s brow furrowed: it wasn’t that she wanted to protect Derek. What was it?

The tip of her tongue poked between her lips and slid to the side, then the other. He was so cute, though. Derek was a handsome man, but now he was a cute little toy.

She kept one arm around him like a mountain range, but her other slipped over her round belly and her hand disappeared between her padded thighs. Her fingertips rasped through scraggly dark hairs, then sloshed between hot, wet, sucking lips.

He was so tiny and cute. So tiny.

Dorothy bit her lip and reached down to pluck him up. Such fine bones, so delicate. He dangled from her thumb and forefinger. Briefly she stopped masturbating to tug that ugly dressing gown off his body. There: Derek was naked. He was built about like Dorothy would’ve guessed: muscular legs and arms, a little padding around the belly, and… what a waste. That would’ve been a nice penis, if he were normal-sized. She wasn’t about to suck off a dead body, even if it looked like something she could win out of a gumball machine for fifty cents.

But.

Dorothy dug her heels into the mattress and shoved her head and shoulders into a pile of pillows. She brought her arm down, hoisting the limp figure over the hillside of her breasts, the mountain of her belly, down into the valley of her thighs. She stared at the ceiling, focusing on the sensation of draping the soft, yielding form upon her labia. He was cool, but he picked up her heat rapidly. She glanced guiltily at the Venetian blinds: there was no way anyone could see her. There were bushes and trees, and the next house lay at the wrong angle. She closed her eyes and placed her index finger between his shoulder blades and nudged him gently between her thick labia.

The tiny little chest pushed through her folds easily. He stuck there, weightless, adhered by her old pussy’s juices. Such juices! Dorothy hadn’t gotten this wet on her own in a long time. Her nightstand held a couple bottles of flavored lube, just something for her own entertainment, but she was delighted to discover how copiously the fluid flowed from her pussy right now. Her knuckle brushed the tiny skull against her clit and she gasped. She released him and he held in place, embraced by her engorged labia. Taking a deep breath, she ground her fingertips on either side of her clit and rubbed it in slow, deep circles, harder and faster.

Derek stayed put. The tiny body remained lodged in her vulva, a warm, solid mass of person, like a strong man’s thumb except softer. She strummed her little pink bean harder, hoping not to knock him out of her pussy, but he never left. It’s like he wanted to be there. She bit her lip and rubbed harder, gripped one huge tit in her other hand, and held her breath.

In two minutes she came, hard. The tiny man plopped to the mattress, finally set free by a torrent of juices from Dorothy’s depths. She didn’t even mind, stunned at this renewed lease on sexual life. Did she want Derek that much? That couldn’t have been it. But this little man, this tiny man that she could own, that she could place wherever she wanted and make do whatever she needed…

She had to talk to Lynn. Lynn must know what was going on. And she did call, after she mopped herself up and showered, and after she stuffed the tiny body entirely inside her pussy and came even harder than before. Derek didn’t look so good when he came out, like he’d been strangled and crushed, so Dorothy wadded him up in paper towel and hid him in the compost bucket, half in disgust and half in regret. But she called Lynn.

“Hi, this is Lynn, social media manager for Overmedia! I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now—”

Dorothy hung up, swore, and redialed.

“Hi, this is Lynn—”

“Answer, you coward!” Dorothy’s throat hurt from vomiting. She scrunched her face up and tried to recall the day’s schedule. She called up her calendar on her phone: there were no meetings until noon, after which were talks about specific projects. No all-office meetings, no reason for Lynn to be away from her desk.

“Hi, this is Lynn—”

Dorothy wondered if this made her look crazy, rapidly redialing someone like this. Would it be like Lynn to avoid her? Maybe her name was coming up on caller ID and Lynn didn’t want to deal with the shitstorm she’d created. Was that like her? No, Lynn was pretty good about owning up to things. Derek was the one who’d dodge and evade and slip away like smoke.

“Hi, this is Lynn.”

Dorothy nearly hung up, until she heard no more words forthcoming. “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Lynn.”

“Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Lynn?”

“Hi, this is Lynn.”

Dorothy pulled her phone away and stared at it, flummoxed, then put it back to her ear. “Is anyone there?”

“Yes, this is Lynn with Overmedia. Who’s this?”

“Lynn! This is Dorothy.”

There was a slight pause. “Dorothy, hi! How’s your head? I saw from your email you’re not coming in today.”

“I’m taking it easy today. Shit, I‌ forgot I’m making coffee. How are you doing? You’re in the office, didn’t you drink as much as I did?”

Laughter barked over the smartphone. “I don’t mean to be insulting, but I can still handle a night of binge-drinking. I‌ was surprised you kept up with me.”

“I‌’m surprised I‌ tried. That’s not usually something I‌ do. But I’m getting off track, this isn’t what I called about.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

Dorothy paused. Was Lynn playing dumb because she was at work, or did she really not know what was going on?

“Hey, Lynn.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s something we need to talk about.”

“I hope you’re not upset about our girls’ night out. I‌ mean, you are a consenting adult, we were just having a little fun.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I can accept responsibility for how much I drank, or I‌ have to.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t know why you needed me to drink so much, but I‌ suspect it has to do with what I found in my bed this morning.”

“Uh, Dorothy, I had a late breakfast, so if you’re about to tell me about something your body did because of last night—”

“No, Lynn. You know what I’m talking about.”

Pause. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“I’m talking about… someone we know.”

Pause. “I’ve got a meeting I‌ have to get ready for. Can we pick this up later?”

“You don’t have any meetings, I checked your calendar.”

“There are people outside my office right now. I can’t talk about this now. Can we pick it up later?”

Dorothy’s face flushed with anger. “When would you like to talk about it, Lynn?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Saturday?”

“Meet me at the Grindstone by our office. Can you do ten o’clock?”

Dorothy could. They hung up and she had another long, hot shower, rinsing the cum off her inner thighs and out of all the creases in her hips and thighs and ass. Then she thought of that slender, frail form draped over her pussy’s lips and her thick fingers thrust and hooked into her pussy and her howls echoed off the shower tiles and she gushed sloppy spray around her ankles. She had pictured the tiny man again, but not dead or even sleeping. Awake, doing stuff. But after cumming three times in an hour, as she toweled herself off, she started to wonder what the hell was wrong with her. This wasn’t something she was into, she never had been, not even a hint of it. Why the hell would she suddenly get off to something so strange? Was her body waiting for something like this all these years? She swayed on her feet, suddenly dizzy, and let herself collapse to the bed with a choir of groaning springs and stressed wood frame.

Her head was pounding. Her heart beat hard and fast, but it calmed down shortly, as though she were experiencing a head rush. Slowly she sat up, bound her wet hair up in her towel, and pulled on a dressing gown for walking around the house. She couldn’t remember which windows were open and didn’t want to give anyone a show. She just wanted to make some breakfast, turn on the TV, and lie down and stop thinking for a long time.

Saturday morning was warm and clear. Dorothy went with faded jeans, the old reliable pair by the one brand who seemed to understand not all women were beanpoles without hips, and a comfortable old sweatshirt from her alma mater. There was no reason to dress up, just to go out for coffee with a coworker. That was a reason to play it frumpy, actually, to show Lynn that she wasn’t just a high-performing working stiff, though the instinct to “prove” herself to Lynn surprised her. Why on earth.

She carefully balanced her pumpkin spice latte from the counter to a small wooden table, which she discovered had uneven feet. Rising, she pursed her lips to survey the store: she took a postcard from the front counter, one promoting two bands she’d never heard of—Steaks of Leisure and Why Lizard, Why?—and folded it several times before wedging it under the shortest foot. She was testing the table as Lynn walked up from the rear of the cafe, probably the restrooms. The young blonde woman set her backpack on her chair and leaned over to hug Dorothy with a keening “hi-i-i-i-i!” as if they were old friends. Lynn excused herself immediately to go order a coffee, and Dorothy watched her go, surprised to see her in jeans and a hoodie as well.

“So, what’s on your mind?” Lynn said, once she got set up at the little table. Dorothy took the booth so Lynn got the little chair.

Dorothy opened her mouth and closed it again. “I don’t know how to start this. Something very strange happened to me yesterday morning, and I think it had to do with you and me going out and getting plowed Thursday night.”

Lynn’s eyes twinkled. “Were you a little hungover? I’m really sorry about that. I just thought we were having a good time. I guess we got a little out of control.”

“That’s the other part that doesn’t make sense. We don’t talk in the hallway, you never stop by my office and I never stop by yours, unless we’re talking about an assignment. Why did you call me out for a good time? We’re not that close, frankly.”

“I thought we could be!”

“But why? Why is a young, pretty, professional woman like you worried about forming an alliance, or whatever you were trying to do, with someone like me?”

Lynn’s eyebrows arched and she tilted her head. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Dorothy. Are you saying you don’t want to be friends?”

Dorothy straightened up in her seat. “Don’t try that low-grade manipulation on me. I’ve been around the block a few times. That might work on your Pinot Noir friends, your Sex and the City club, and it might have worked on me 30 years ago. Answer my question.”

“What was your question?” Lynn’s eyes lit up as she sipped her latte, looking cartoonishly large over the rim of her cup.

Dorothy snorted hard enough to disturb the milk froth on her drink. “Fine, that’s how you want to play it?” She cleared her throat, and her resentment of Lynn overrode her self-consciousness at what she was about to do: speaking loudly enough for the tables nearby to hear. “What did you insert into my ass in the hospital, after you got me blackout drunk?”

Lynn swore and ducked her head, as if to avoid the sweeping gazes of those around them. “Holy crap! Keep your voice down. I’ll tell you everything, jeez, just calm down.” It pleased Dorothy to see the younger woman off-balance, peering around her with flushed cheeks. “What exactly are you talking about? I was pretty lit too, so maybe…”

“Are you going to keep messing around with me?” Dorothy drew a long breath, glaring at Lynn.

“All right, all right! I’ll tell you, but you won’t believe me.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“And don’t scream.”

“Oh, I did all my screaming yesterday morning, believe me. Lots of screaming and puking, both because of you, for different but, I suspect, related reasons. Now spill.”

To her credit, Lynn did.