The titanic trio approached me and stood close enough that the tips of their shoes formed a cell, trapping me in place. I looked up beyond the white foam walls to see them all staring down at me in contemplation. Sylvia leaned forward, narrowing her eyes, while Rebecca stood tall and simply glared at me with a cold arrogance I was unaccustomed to from her.
“What should we do with him?” Taylor asked, not even deigning to look at me anymore. “It’s been a while since we’ve had one make it through the whole week.”
“We’ve already primed another chump to shrink, and we can’t have two mascots,” Sylvia replied. “It’s too much work, and if they talked to each other, they could spoil the whole arrangement.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?” I shouted up in surprise, hoping they would be able to hear me. “What arrangement?”
Rebecca’s eyes lit up and she smiled, dimpling her cheeks with craters deep enough for me to slide into. “Oh, he hasn’t figured it out yet!” she exclaimed, and I flinched from the boom of an excited clap. “Can I tell him?”
“I guess that’s fair.” Sylvia flexed her toes inward and the wall from her side slanted in toward me. “You’ve had to be his girlfriend all week, after all.”
“Awesome!” The other two stepped back while Rebecca knelt, leaning forward so she loomed over me. The force of her knee hitting the floor jostled me, and my discomfort only made her smile wider. “Okay, so. Every week during volleyball season we invite some pipsqueak to a game, knowing they won’t show up, but the whole thing’s just a cover to put a shrinking spell on them. After the game, two of us go to harangue the little guy for being a bad friend and trigger the shrinking. It’s really fun to watch! Then the person who shrank him takes him back to a special room while the others get ready for their roles.”
“Roles?” I repeated, confused, and Rebecca burst out laughing, making my ears ring from the low, loud roar.
“Oh shit, did you really think I wanted to be your girlfriend? That’s so cute! No, like, you fit under my fingernail, be real. Tay’s a psych major and figured that if one of us acted interested in you, it’d offset the others being cold and mean, kind of a good cop bad cop situation. Seems like it works! We don’t really get a lot of feedback on this.”
Rebecca leaned back and a curtain of long, straight blond hair slid into place. Sylvia stared down at me with wide eyes and a huge grin, her hands clasped against her cheek. “He’s so adorable, I don’t know why you’re so mean to him, Becky!” she exclaimed, her gargantuan size distorting her falsetto. “I wish he were mine, so I could really show him how much I like him.”
“Sorry, but you know how it works,” Rebecca replied. “I shrank him, so I get to keep him. If you liked him so much you should’ve told him, and maybe he would’ve showed up to support you!”
“Okay, but after the game I’m taking him with me!” Sylvia blew a kiss and winked down at me, then slid out of the way so Rebecca could loom over me again.
“Sound familiar? We switch roles every week. With the next guy I’ll be the mean owner, Syl will be the girlfriend, and Tay will be the cold, judgmental one. It’s the only way to keep it fair.”
“Okay but… why? Why would you do this to me? To anyone?” Everything had been a big act, and my concern for my own survival had kept me from considering there might be something even more sinister going on. How long had they been planning on using me like this?
Rebecca shrugged, and a long curl of golden blond hair fell off her shoulder, shoving me along with it when it brushed against the floor. “We like it, and a tiny man’s a much better mascot for our team than an eagle. Makes us all feel big and powerful, like we can take on anything, and that really helps us in the games.”
“I think that’s all he needs to understand,” Taylor interjected, and the floor trembled when Rebecca stood back up. The trio of enormous volleyball players loomed over me in judgement while I laid on the floor between them, still aghast at what I had just learned. “What should we do with him, though? The ones who make this this far usually get squished during the game.”
“I could squish him now,” Sylvia offered. “He’s probably been expecting it from me, and I think we should let him be right about something.” She stepped forward, and a humongous platform of white foam and blue rubber filled my vision. It began swinging down toward me, an island of foam poised directly above giving me nowhere to run.
“Not so fast!” Rebecca said, and the shoe’s descent stopped. “You’ve been the least involved of everyone this week, why should you get to do it? I’ve had to act interested in him this whole time, it should be me.” Sylvia pulled her gigantic shoe back, opening my field of view so I could see Taylor looking at her friends with her arms crossed under her chest, clearly unmoved by their arguments.
“Yeah, a few hours playing the most fun part must have been really rough on you,” Taylor said, her words dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve had to deal with him the whole time, and he’s been quite the whiner. Besides, don’t you two have some sap to go shrink? I’ll deal with this one.”
“Good point.” Rebecca looked to Sylvia and took a step back. “Think this one will believe we’re growing at first too? That’s always the funniest part of the panic.”
I flinched when Sylvia stepped over me, and I was so gripped with fear that I barely registered the tremor from her footfall. “I kind of hope he realizes he’s shrinking immediately,” she replied nonchalantly. “They always try to run, like that’ll help them.” In lockstep the two walked toward the exit from the court, chatting about their hopes for the next victim.
Taylor squared up with me and placed her feet shoulder width apart, then set her hands on her hips. She looked down at me and smirked, a smug, self-satisfied colossus towering over me. “If I thought you’d live this long, I would’ve planned a grand finale for you. Alas, here you are, and now I need to come up with a fitting send-off.”
“You could let me go,” I offered. “Grow me back, send me on my way, and I’ll move on like nothing happened. I won’t tell anyone about you or your game, and I’ll do whatever I can to stay out of your way for the rest of my life.”
Taylor threw back her head and laughed, and the booming sound echoed throughout the empty court. “That’s good!” she said, turning her gaze back down to me. “I’ll let the next one talk more so I can hear more desperate begging.” She paused and tapped a finger to the base of her rounded chin. “Stepping on you would be some fun irony. I mean, you just avoided it so many times, only to get squashed anyway?” After a brief chuckle she continued. “Maybe it’s just funny to me. Still, I’m sure I can come up with something better.”
She spent a few more seconds thinking, then clicked her tongue. “I think I’ve got to get you off the ground,” Taylor began. “Kind of an ‘If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail’ situation, you know?” Bending forward, she set one hand on a knee and extended the other toward me. Even though I knew it was futile I tried to run from the tremendously long finger’s approach, looking over my shoulder at the whorls of her fingerprint hypnotically expanding as they drew closer. With a single, delicate tap the oils of her skin ensnared me, and my whole body was trapped against her finger.
Taylor stood, and the tremendous g-forces of that simple movement made my stomach drop to my feet. It was far from enough to break my bond with her skin, however, and after a moment the tumultuous ordeal was over. She rotated her hand so it was facing her and I gasped, finding myself level with her gigantic face. The broad plain of flawless, slightly tanned skin sloped away from me, and I craned my neck back to see two gargantuan eyes peering down at me. Her features were so tremendous in comparison to me that I had to choose just one to focus on at a time.
“Yeah, I can already feel the ideas flowing,” Taylor boomed. This close to her face, the sound waves from her voice hit me at almost full force, and each syllable shook my bones and made my teeth rattle in their sockets. “Just looking at your tiny body stuck to my finger is such an inspiration.” Her finger bent inward a little and my view was blocked by the titanic tip of her thumb opposite me. “Like, how powerful would I feel if I squeezed you like an ant between my fingers? It’d be such a rush; I’d feel like a fucking goddess.”
Taylor’s thumb moved to the side, and my stomach leapt when she lowered me to her full, pink lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever swallowed one of you guys before.” The gale force winds of her voice blew my hair back and I had to shut my eyes to keep them from drying out. Even then, I caught a glimpse of the inside of her cavernous maw lined with building-sized teeth with a tongue the size of a city block waiting for me. “Becky says you can feel them struggling, though, and I don’t think I’d like that. Feels a little cruel to make someone suffer.” After everything she had put me through for her own amusement, I was surprised she could think of anything as too cruel.
She raised me back to her nose, and my body had not yet adjusted to the sudden, sharp changes in altitude. “Maybe I could press you against my thigh until you pop,” she wondered aloud. “I’ve got nice legs, and I know you’ve been a big admirer of them in the past. Now you’re a teensy admirer of them!” Taylor laughed, and I cringed from the sudden surge of sound. “Got to get all those jokes out now before I have to be the stern, no-nonsense girl.”
A loud crack ripped through the air when she snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it!” Taylor proclaimed, causing me to wince. “But first I’ve got to take you to the most appropriate place for it.” Her walking forward was a surreal feeling, like the entire world was moving around me. Every subtle movement and deviation was obvious, bouncing me up and down and to the sides as her finger wobbled tiny amounts despite her trying to hold it steady. I could feel the vibrations from her steps diffusing throughout her body all the way to her extremities, making me shudder on her fingertip. Although it felt significant to me, it was not enough to break the hold her skin had on me, and my fate was still hers to decide.
She stopped in front of her team’s bench and glanced down at me, arching an eyebrow. “Have you figured it out yet?” she asked playfully, then squatted. Taylor turned her hand over, showing me a broad plain of dark blue fabric. It looked soft, like a cushion that had never been sat on before. “This is the seat we reserve for our future mascot. It’ll be the first time anyone’s ever sat in it.”
Taylor’s finger descended and lightly touched the cushion’s surface directly in the center, then jerked to the side. It caused enough friction to tear me free of her skin, and I rolled to a stop on my back looking up at her. She gazed down at me, smirking, and her light blue eyes danced with mirth. “I hope you’re not in too big of a hurry,” she rumbled, “because I’m really enjoying how powerful I feel looking down at your puny, ant-sized body.”
“Then spare me!” I pleaded. “You can feel it all the time if you take me out of here with you. You don’t even have to grow me back. I’d gladly live in a jar on your table if it meant I got to live!”
“Part of me wants to, it really does,” Taylor replied, running her fingernail along the cushion. It pushed me along like a bulldozer blade until her hand stopped and she giggled. “But what would I tell the poor little guy two weeks from now when there’s already a tiny man living in that glass? Plus, part of the rush is knowing that I can squash you like a bug whenever I want, and if I were taking care of you I think I’d lose that.”
While I tried to get up she swung her finger at me so the tip just passed in front of my body. Though she missed, it still generated enough of a breeze that it made me stagger unsteadily to the side and fall to my knees. Taylor chuckled, then a low, long rumble emanated from the base of her throat. “You’ve probably had some time to think if you haven’t been scared out of your wits, and it’s not like you’ll be telling anyone. Ask me anything. Or you can keep begging, that’s fun for me too.”
I rushed to come up with something to stall her in hopes something would save me. “How do you shrink people?” I asked, blurting the first question that came to mind.
“With magic, duh!” she responded, and a fleck of spittle landed next to me. Taylor smirked and brushed some hair out of her face, then continued, “All right, I’ll give you a real answer. I learned at a volleyball training camp the summer after my freshman year. A few players on every college women’s volleyball team can shrink people, it’s by far the sport’s best kept secret. Anyone who learns has to swear an oath never to tell anyone and to never be observed doing it. We have to keep all the shrinking low-key so we don’t attract too much attention.”
“But why were you three picked? Why not anyone else, or the whole team?”
“Letting every volleyball player shrink people is just asking for the secret to get out,” Taylor replied as though it should have been obvious. “I’d like to say it’s because we’re so trustworthy, or because we’re such great friends, but really the magic’s just easier to use on shorter people, and it’s easier the bigger the height difference is. So they teach it to the tallest players to get the most use out of it.”
“Is there any sort of plan for it? Like, do they teach you how to shrink people for a reason?”
“Yeah, so we can shrink people!” Taylor chuckled and gave me a quick jab with her fingernail. “No, really, that’s it. Whatever we do with the magic is completely up to us as long as we don’t broadcast ‘Hey, I can shrink people.’ A lot of people don’t even use it, I think.”
“So you came up with the plan to shrink and torment people solely for your own amusement?”
Taylor pouted and leaned in so her face overwhelmed my vision. “Aw, does that displease you? Do you think we’re cruel?” she asked mockingly, tilting her head back and forth. “We can shrink people. Your ideas of right and wrong don’t apply to us. We’re powerful, you aren’t, end of story.” She closed her eyes and leaned back, smiling. “Oh yeah, there’s that rush again.”
“I survived your games though, why still kill me? I want to live in your glass, you can keep me anywhere you want, I won’t tell anyone where I am or what happened, I promise!”
She looked down and bit her lower lip. “Your begging’s getting more desperate,” she purred. “I love it, you’re making me feel so fucking powerful. But I don’t think I can take much more, so if you’ve got something you’re burning to ask you should do it soon.”
“If I had shown up to your game, would you have still shrunk me?”
“Undoubtedly, yes. I wish you had, since it would’ve saved us the trip to your dorm after the game, we could’ve done it on the spot.”
“Were you ever really interested in me, or was that just another part of your game?”
Taylor’s eyes lit up and she seemed to become more radiant as she smiled widely. “There it is. Yeah, I was into you, but once Becky put you on the list I couldn’t do anything about it. If you had asked instead of avoiding me like I had the plague, though, I could’ve gotten someone else put in your place. It’s a little late for advice, but if a gorgeous, gigantic blond falls into your lap, maybe you should at least act interested.”
She chuckled, then let out a soft sigh. “Speaking of.” Taylor licked the tip of her index finger, then placed the finger on the cushion beside me. Slowly she moved it to the side, plowing me over with it and pushing me into the seat. When her finger moved from atop me, to my horror I stayed behind with the saliva, stuck fast to the cushion’s fabric. “I figured since you spent so much time with it you should get to kiss my ass goodbye.”
Taylor stood and gave me a little wave, then turned around. She was in no hurry and loomed over me for a bit, and the thin film of saliva holding me in place forced me to gaze up at her. I looked up her powerful thighs to the huge, perfectly round instrument of my destruction, buffeted by the skin-tight shorts sealed around it. Her light hair waved back and forth while she shook her head, as though she were loosening up for it.
Soon, however, she could wait no longer, and her knees began to bend. Nothing was going to save me. “Taylor, please, stop,” I shouted, “I’m begging you not to do this. I’ll do anything you want for however long you want, just don’t sit on me.” The only answer was the continued slow, gradual descent of her perfect ass toward me. “Don’t crush me Taylor, please, you don’t have to do this!” Her gigantic butt grew in my view as it drew closer, and I could now plainly see the cleavage between her butt cheeks from her shorts pulled tight. “Say you’re joking and I will worship you as a goddess, Taylor, just don’t smash me!” Taylor’s rear filled my entire field of view, and I could smell the sweat soaked into her shorts.
My pleas fell on deaf ears, if they reached them at all. Taylor’s tremendous ass touched down, pressing me into the cushion and muffling any more begging I could have managed. I felt the dampness of her sweat as her butt pressed down on me, making the smell overpowering. She slowly eased her weight onto the cushion and I wiggled under the gargantuan butt cheek, desperately trying to free myself from beneath it. The more weight she put on the less I could move, until my tiny body was totally pinned under her monumental butt.
Taylor sat as slowly as she could, and I felt my body slowly compress beneath her weight. I gasped for breath, gagging on the salty air, only to have it slowly squeezed out of me by her rear. There was nothing I could do against the behemoth, and pain spread throughout my body as the force of her enormous butt slowly smashed it. Finally it could take no more and my body gave way, flattened by Taylor’s titanic butt as it had come close to doing so may times before. She had reduced me to the size of a bug, then to a mere stain on the seat of her shorts as a demonstration of her unquestionable power. And there was nothing anyone could do to stop her.