Part 10

For the next several minutes, Daniel felt like he was trapped in some kind of crazy kaleidoscope of big, gushing tears, hot, sweet breath, and huge, moist lips, as Emma kissed him on his face again and again, sobbing into his shoulder all the while. The crazy thing was that she had swooped Daniel up off the ground, dangling his limbs multiple feet off the ground as she hugged him to her, squeezing in desperate affection, to the point where he was barely able to get his words out anymore. 

“Emma…” he panted weakly, hardly able to make a sound as she compressed his lungs into his chest. “Emma…p-please…please…”

“Oh Daniel!!” she cried, continuing to hug him to her as she nuzzled his shoulder over and over, interspersing her innocent, almost animal-like emotion with wet, sloppy kisses directly on his face. “I’ve missed you soooo much!! You…you can’t even know!! Oh my god, oh my GOD…I just…I never want you to leave me again!! *Smoochsmooch* Promise me, Daniel!! *Smooch* Promise me that you’ll take me away from here!!”

“Emma…” Daniel forced out, as his face began to turn pale white from lack of oxygen, “C-can’t…can’t breathe…”

“Huh?” she asked, sniffing her nose and blinking the tears out of her eyes as she looked up from his shoulder (which at this point was sopping wet with her tears). She stared into Daniel’s face for a couple moments, puzzled at his wide-eyed panicked expression, and it was only after Daniel started gaping wildly like a fish out of water that she realized that she was holding him too tight, and that he couldn’t breathe. Quickly extending her arms outward, she gave Daniel the space he needed to catch his breath; his legs, though, were still dangling well off the ground. It wasn’t lost on him that Emma’s huge hands (which felt extra enormous under his armpits) were having absolutely no trouble in holding him off the ground, at arm’s length. 

“Oh! Sorry!” she said quickly. “Are…are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” he answered, coughing a few times before he blinked rapidly and made a notable effort to give Emma a reassuring smile. He had known, from the conversation on the phone with Dr. Kline, that Emma was having a kind of breakdown…or at least some kind of panic attack, and that he needed to prepare himself to deal with it. But nothing could have prepared him to see his girlfriend this huge. It didn’t matter that he was 6’1 — she was well over 3 feet taller than him, and frighteningly strong…and worse, she was frightened and upset. 

“It’s all good, Emma!” he added bravely, maintaining his smile in an attempt to calm her down. “It’s all ok! I’m here, and…and we’re not g-gonna be…be separated again, ok? You understand? I’m…I’m not going anywhere.”

“But WE are, aren’t we!?” asked Emma. “We’re not gonna stay here…You’re gonna get me out of here, right!?”

“R-right…yes,” said Daniel, nodding vigorously. What else was he going to say? He didn’t know what was the best decision, medically-speaking, but he was in no doubt that it would have been dangerous, in that moment, to say anything except what Emma wanted to hear. For the next few minutes, he continued to give Emma exactly what she wanted, comforting her and reassuring her over and over that he wasn’t going to leave her again, and that he would pull her out of the Institute as soon as possible. He was never really comfortable in her arms, even if she had stopped inadvertently squeezing the life out of him, because, in her unstable state, Daniel didn’t quite trust her to know her own strength. Several times, he had to remind her not to squeeze too hard under his arms, and to not kiss him too hard.

“I…Ow! G-Emma!” he exclaimed, after one such kiss directly on his face felt like she was about to suck the skin off his nose and cheeks. “Th-that…that hurts!” 

“Aw, I’m sorry Daniel!” Emma said immediately, shaking her head. “I j-just…it’s soooo good to finally see you again…and…and touch you!” 

“I…y-yes…it’s good to see you too,” he replied, quite truthfully. But the more nuanced truth was that Daniel was feeling more shocked and stunned at Emma’s sheer size and strength than anything else. She was basically using him as a teddy bear, a role that he had not prepared for as he drove up to the Institute. But he resigned himself to this temporary position, calming his gigantic girlfriend in the middle of the night, in the Institute parking lot, bathed with the strange and surreal illumination of his car headlights, which he had forgotten to switch off the moment he saw Emma.

A little while later, Daniel had convinced Emma to go back inside the Institute and get some rest in her dorm room. She had been reluctant to go at first, but after he promised that he would be taking her home the next day, Emma finally relented. Ever since her emotions had snapped earlier that night, when she confronted the legion of doctors outside her dorm room, Emma had not been able to think very clearly. She knew that, in her tantrum, she had reverted to a strange kind of childishness, which took on a new flavor and dimension when she embraced Daniel. Her free-flowing emotions had changed, at that point, from anger to desperate and unfettered infantilization. She was aware that it was probably embarrassing for her to be seen in such broken pieces, in such a tattered and regressive state, but she didn’t care. Even after she had calmed down, she didn’t really regret her emotional outburst. It was the only way that she could have thought to react to the situation…and anyway, it had gotten her what she wanted, hadn’t it? 

The one big aspect of her behavior, though, that Emma remained oblivious of was the sheer extent of how terrifying she was to all around when her emotions were unstable, particularly when she was angry. Somewhere in her subconscious, Emma remembered the pale terror on the faces of the doctors as she stomped her feet in the hallway, screaming and shouting down at them…somewhere in her brain, she knew how badly she had scared them all. But Emma didn’t want to think about any of that now. If she started to go back to that memory, she got sick to her stomach. In any case, Daniel was here and she had calmed down, so it was all over. And besides, if she was really being honest about the whole thing, Dr. Kline, Martha, and the others had kind of set themselves up for everything that happened — what had they been thinking, gathering like that at her door, like they were setting some kind of trap for her, with all their syringes filled with god-knows-what drugs!? What had they expected to happen??

Emma was so exhausted that she ended up just going back to her dorm room and falling asleep, with Daniel by her side, of course. Once she was asleep, Daniel sat there beside her bed, staring strangely at her bare feet that hung off the bed, a bed that was already designed to accommodate a 8-foot-plus giant or giantess. But Emma, being almost nine-and-a-half feet tall by this point, was just too big for it. Minutes later, however, she was asleep. Daniel peered into her face, which had softened with sleep…he felt so sorry for her, to the point where it seemed like his heart would break. She didn’t deserve any of this. She was just an unassuming, kindhearted girl who wanted to fit in and be loved, eager to love back in return. He noticed that his shoulders and armpits were already sore from her tight, affectionate squeezes…as was his entire diaphragm. He would really need to somehow teach Emma to be cognizant of the effects of her size and strength, or else she was really going to hurt someone one of these days. Her huge chest rose and fell…rose and fell…as Daniel helplessly watched her massive breasts go up and down, up and down. What were they going to do now?

“Daniel,” whispered a voice from around the door. It was Dr. Kline. Daniel waved to him, smiling sadly. Dr. Kline motioned for him to quietly join him in the hallway, and Daniel rose and followed, pulling the door to very gently so as not to wake Emma up. 

“So…um, yeah, she’s out,” said Daniel, shaking his head ruefully. “She’s…uh, had a tough night, I think.”

“We all have,” said Dr. Kline seriously. “I’m sorry, Daniel, but…I just have to be honest with you. I’ve never seen anything like the growth that Emma has been experiencing recently.”

“Like…the, uh, the extent of the growth? The speed?” asked Daniel.

“Both!” said Dr. Kline immediately, speaking barely above a whisper. Even though his voice was quiet, it carried a tone of true alarm and perplexity. “It’s unprecedented, at least in my experience. I wish I could say that we knew what was going on with her, but…we…we just don’t know.”

“So…all those tests? Nothing came up?” Daniel was doing his best to ask these questions without making the doctor feel more stressed than he already felt. 

“Nothing,” replied Dr. Kline. “Usually we’re able to locate certain enzymes or hormones or proteins that are out of whack, and once we pinpoint the cause we can usually begin some kind of proactive treatment. But with Emma, we haven’t been able to find anything.”

“Do…do you think that, uh, if she…stayed here longer, you might be able to, uh…to find anything?” asked Daniel uneasily. He was pretty sure he knew what the doctor’s answer would be, but he felt like he had to ask anyway. 

“Well, I can’t really say anything for sure,” Dr. Kline began, sighing as he shook his head, “But…and I’m sure you’ll understand, Daniel…I have to say that we…can’t keep her here anymore.”

“No?” asked Daniel, feeling his stomach jump a little, even as the doctor gave him the answer he had expected.

“No,” Dr. Kline repeated. “It’s just…well, it’s essential that our patients, whoever they are, actually WANT to be here, you understand? Because of the nature of this particular family of disorders, um…”

“You mean growth disorders?” asked Daniel.

“Yes…yes, growth disorders,” replied Dr. Kline, looking almost embarrassed to say what he was saying. “Because of…well, you know…the fact that our patients here are…much bigger and stronger than ordinary humans…you understand, then, that we’re not really in a position to force any kind of treatment on anyone, even, uh…even if we think it’s for their own good.”

“But…but you said that you had tried to do that with Emma,” Daniel countered, feeling a sudden need to argue a little. “You had…what was it? A sedative ready for her?”

“Y-yes,” said Dr. Kline, “And, believe me, Daniel, I didn’t want to use it on her, but…well, there didn’t seem to be another option. She was clearly not going to stand for any more tests.”

“But you weren’t able to do it?” Daniel didn’t know how he felt right now. On one hand, and most prominently, he was angry at the thought of Emma getting sedated against her will. But on the other hand, he understood why Dr. Kline had attempted it. With these competing emotions within him, Daniel felt frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t feel one emotion purely. 

“No,” said Dr, Kline in a low voice. “And, well, I think that was the breaking point, Daniel. This is not a punitive decision on our part, you understand? But here at the Institute, the doctors and staff need to feel like we’re…um…you know…safe. And what happened tonight…we didn’t feel safe. None of us did. And before you say anything, please, please understand that I don’t blame Emma in any way whatsoever. She’s a sweet girl…so sweet, actually, that it breaks my heart to have to say this. But it’s clear that she doesn’t want to be here, and…after tonight, we just…can’t have her here.”

“Because the staff is too scared of her?” asked Daniel, his voice sounding odd out loud. 

Dr. Kline simply spread his hands open, tilted his head slightly to the side, and raised his eyebrows slightly as he gave another sigh. Daniel quickly decided to spare the doctor any further questions — he knew what he had said. A few minutes later, he was back in the room with Emma alone, sitting in the chair by her bed. 

‘Jesus, look at all this here,’ thought Daniel anxiously to himself as Emma slept away, ‘I’m sitting here next to her bed, like she’s…in intensive care or something. Like she’s really sick, and I’m…just, like…holding vigil.’

He felt sick to his stomach, with pity for Emma, with anxiety and anguish at the situation, with the unknown, and with the mere unreality of everything that was happening. He was finally able, an hour or so later, to nod off in the chair, falling asleep to the paradoxical sound of Emma’s heavy breathing.

The next morning, Daniel snapped awake to the sound of Emma bounding awkwardly around in her dorm room. He saw her struggling with something white on her body, and finally, after a few seconds, he realized that it was the white Institute gown that she had been wearing the whole time…but now, it had become uncomfortably tight, and she was trying to stretch it out to make some breathing room for her growing body. And it wasn’t just that — Daniel saw that her head was even closer to the ceiling than it had been the night before. Or maybe he was just…bleary-eyed or something, after just waking up. 

“Oh, sorry!” Emma exclaimed, seeing Daniel move in his chair as she looked up from struggling with the gown. “I didn’t mean to wake you up! I felt so bad for you, sleeping in that uncomfortable chair! You should’ve come and snuggled with me!”

“I…uh…I didn’t want to wake you up!” said Daniel, stretching in the chair and standing up. The truth was, he hadn’t even considered joining her in bed…not because he wasn’t attracted to her. He just…hadn’t considered it.

“Damn thing’s too small for me now,” muttered Emma, returning abruptly to her task as the fabric slipped out of her grasp and snapped back down onto her skin. “I need to get out of this thing before we leave!” 

She paused a moment, eying Daniel carefully. 

“We…are leaving today, aren’t we?” 

“Yes! Yes, of course we are!” replied Daniel, coming up to her, having already decided not to tell her about the conversation he had had with Dr. Kline the night before. “We’re gonna get out of here…just as…just as soon as…we get those papers…signed.” 

Daniel had not been able to help trailing off as he approached Emma, because, if he had been shocked by her size the previous night, seeing her for the first time in the bright sunlight that bathed the room…well…it was something entirely different. There was no question that Emma had grown again during the night. The thick curve of her mighty hips was now just above Daniel’s eyes, and he found, if he looked slightly downward, that he was looking straight into her pubic triangle, which was clearly visible, since her vaginal lips pressed tightly into the interior of her formerly-loose-fitting white gown. He blinked his eyes blankly as he swallowed without realizing it. He felt like a child in front of her, which was all the more strange for him since, looking up at her, it was Emma who was behaving a bit peevishly. 

“Freaking thing’s ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, pulling on the fabric as her hands flexed around it, trying to make it expand. As she did so, Daniel saw the tendons in her hands tighten powerfully, as the muscles in her forearms swelled high over his head, under her efforts. Daniel quickly registered, with a kind of surreal coolness, that her arms were unquestionably bigger and stronger than his legs…it wasn’t even close. 

A ripping sound began to cut the air, and Emma once again let the fabric snap back on her skin as she threw her arms up in frustration, rolling her eyes and sighing out exasperatedly. The sudden movement of her arms, in addition to her mighty sigh, actually forced Daniel to take a step back, to shield himself from the wind they created.

“It’s…it’s gonna be ok…honey,” Daniel managed to say. “We’ll…we’ll get you some new clothes. Ms. Bisset will be —”

“Huh?” asked Emma, her voice much louder than she thought it was. “What’re you saying, Daniel? It sounds like you’re just mumbling.” 

She bent down toward him, putting her hand to her ear as she furrowed her brow in concentration. Daniel unconsciously took another step back as she descended toward him, since, from his perspective, it looked a little bit like the sky was falling.

“I…I was j-just saying,” Daniel spoke up louder, “That Ms. Bisset can make you some new clothes. You won’t be stuck with, uh…with…that gown…for long.”

Once again, Daniel felt himself trailing off, since Emma had apparently heard all she needed to from him and had stood back up to her full height, nodding and closing her eyes as she did so. 

“Yes, you’re right,” she sighed, looking out of the window toward the sunlight. She was silent for a few long moments. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss a few friends here,” she said wistfully, out of the blue. 

“Your…your friends?” asked Daniel. 

“Well yeah! said Emma, turning back down and looking at him, smiling sadly. “I made some really nice friends, and now…I guess…I’m not gonna be seeing them again.”

“Aw, well…well I’m sure you can, uh, you know…see them again sometime,” said Daniel, suddenly feeling uncomfortable, upon remembering that Emma had been living her own life here in this strange place for weeks without him. 

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, a bit absently. She went back to staring out the window for a while, and Daniel’s discomfort increased as he just stood there, watching her. He had never felt awkward like this before, around Emma. But something about their incredible size difference, and, perhaps more than anything, the simple fact that her head was so far away from him, made him feel like she was perhaps acting more distant from him than she was intending. or was she intending it!? He had no idea.

Emma suddenly turned back down towards him and smiled warmly, blinking her eyes, for all Daniel could tell, like a sweet, innocent little child. 

“But no one here treats me like you do!” she exclaimed. And she bent down again and swooped him off his feet, squeezing his body to hers as she sighed pleasantly into his body. Daniel panicked for a moment, feeling her enormous breasts squish around him on either side, like firm, giant balloons, and the hot pressure of her huge hand on his back, seemingly covering a good portion of its upper region, as she held him to her. He felt the vibration of her sigh go through every atom in his body, from the center of his diaphragm out the top of his head, and down to the tips of his fingers and toes. In that moment, he hardly felt human — once again, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had become her living teddy bear. 

“Mmmm, oh my god!” Emma burst out, the brilliant white row of her teeth showing as she leaned back and gave a delightfully musical laugh (which was somehow deeper than Daniel had been expecting). “You’re, like…haha! You’re soooo tiny now, Daniel! Look at this, haha! I can just…just pick you up and hold you, and…and caress you and…and just be with you! Aww, this is sooo nice! Isn’t this great!? You’re like…my big stuffed animal now!”

“It’s…it’s nice…yes,” Daniel forced out with effort. 

“Mmmmm, you smell nice,” breathed Emma, nuzzling him with her nose as she flared her nostrils, inhaling in his scent. Daniel didn’t know why, but even though he knew that Emma was complimenting him, and clearly enjoying his presence, he had never felt more objectified in his life. He knew that she meant nothing by it, but he couldn’t help struggling a little in her grasp as she proceeded to sniff and smell all over his body.

*sniffsniffsniffsniff*

“Mmmmm, I’ve missed that smell soooo much,” she cooed to him, holding him out in front of her huge face as she smiled toothily at him. Almost playfully, and a little flirtatiously, she closed her eyes again and brought his body up to her nose once more, sniffing around his neck, his chest, under his armpits, and then, finally, down towards his crotch. Daniel felt himself getting hard, but he wasn’t really enjoying all of this. 

“Emma…Emma!” he said, trying to push her away. “Wh-what…what are you doing?!” 

“Haha, just remembering what you smell like, silly!” she giggled at him, crinkling her eyes and winking in his face. “And maybe…you know…reminding myself what…certain parts of you smell like, ya know?” 

“Ah…haha, uhh…yeah,” said Daniel, forcing himself to chuckle a little. “That’s uh…haha, yeah, that’s good, Emma. But let’s, um…let’s focus on getting home before we, uh…before we do any of that stuff, huh?”

Emma pouted her face at him, and for a moment, Daniel thought that he had made her feel bad…maybe he had, but if so, Emma chose not to show it. She rotated her head to the side a little, cracking her neck (which made Daniel jump in her grasp, since it sounded almost like a gunshot), and then smiled, perhaps a little sadly, and set him back down on the ground. Daniel felt puzzled by her cryptic reaction, and felt like he should say something, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what to say. 

“Well alright,” said Emma, sighing a little and returning to some semblance of her normal adult-sounding voice. “I guess…umm…I guess I need to pack all my things up.”

“I’ll help!” said Daniel brightly, feeling like he needed to convey to her how much he was behind her, supporting her in this whole process. They spent the next half hour or so packing everything up, and though their conversation was covered by a sheen of normality, neither of them felt the least bit normal in it. Daniel felt awkward, both in his inability to appease Emma’s strange jubilation in holding him, and in his pure inability to wrap his head around how huge she was now compared to him. Her hands could hold three, four times as much as his could…and they were undoubtedly many, many times stronger. Just…every movement she made was…was more. Emma simply left a bigger imprint on her environment than he did. And it was making Daniel feel small and insignificant in a way that he was not yet prepared to handle.

Emma didn’t know what was going on. Whenever her mind landed on something concrete, she felt wave after wave of unmitigated sadness. She regretted losing control; she regretted scaring the doctors and nurses; she hated how she had reverted to being a big old baby…she couldn’t stand how helpless she felt, and how it contrasted so ironically with how huge and powerful she had become. As she and Daniel packed, she couldn’t help but notice it all in a cold, almost brutal way — compared to him, she was an amazonian beast, who could have her way effortlessly if she wanted to. She shook the floor when she moved…she ruffled his hair whenever she talked close to his head, or made a gesture with her arms. Sitting down next to him on the floor, she noticed her stomach bulging out a little, and couldn’t avoid thinking that she probably weighed about three times what he did now. Emma knew she wasn’t fat…she knew that her figure had developed almost flawlessly, in strangely perfect proportion to her increasing height. But none of that really seemed to matter right now. She was sad about how monstrously big she was…sad about Daniel having to deal with her…sad about making him come get her, and take her away. 

‘I’m such a baby,’ she thought savagely to herself. 

But at the same time, directly conflicting emotions were simmering just as prominently. She was still angry at the doctors for trying to trick her…for trying to catch her, capture her, like some animal. She kept seeing them gathered at her dorm room door, all huddled up together, staring up at her as she advanced on them. 

‘Fucking pipsqueaks,’ she thought aggressively. ‘Thinking they can just inject me to make me do what they want. Fuck them! They barked up the wrong tree, I’ll tell you what. Look at me! They actually thought they could have their way with me…pathetic bunch of midgets.’ 

Even as she thought these things, she looked at Daniel, his little hands folding her old clothes (far too small for her now, of course) and putting them in her suitcase. He looked like a big doll. She just couldn’t help thinking it — he looked like an oversized doll, complete with the suitcase that was sold with him. Little hands…little feet…little head. He was just too precious. And he had come for her. There he was, folding her huge clothes (compared to him, anyway) as best he could. She felt a strange concoction of emotions well up in her, and her heart felt like it was going to burst for him, in a new way. 

She reached over silently and engulfed his tiny body in a hug. She felt his motions freeze in her embrace, and she leaned in harder, completely enveloping him in her arms. For two whole minutes, she just sat there on the bed, holding him from behind in her arms, rocking gently back and forth, with his body in between her breasts. She said nothing the whole time, and neither did he. He didn’t even move…he just sat there, taking it, feeling utterly unable to do anything else.