Paul was studious, industrious, and hopeless. He was good-looking enough, and had he not lacked for confidence, he would have found he could turn the heads of any number of the girls he pined for. But that lack of confidence was his downfall. So convinced was he that he would strike out that he devoted time he could have spent trying to talk a fellow coed into some extracurricular activities into something rather ridiculous – no less ridiculous for working.

The drug metabolized quickly, and had a temporary effect; about four hours in the mice. He had tested it on rodents enough to get some basic idea of dosage and effectiveness. Of course, he had never tested it on humans; still, the biomechanics of it were simple enough. Humans and mice aren’t that different, all things considered.

In retrospect, maybe he should have tried it on himself in a controlled environment. But he really couldn’t wait to do what he wanted so desperately to do.

He had a shrinking formula. Of course he was going to go spy in the women’s locker room.

He could have gone to the campus rec center, but he knew that women would be coming and going all the time. He’d have to get into the locker room, undress, and take the formula without being seen. Even though it worked quickly on the mice, he didn’t want to chance a very awkward confrontation. So he chose his target carefully: the women’s soccer team. There were more than a few beauties on the team, and he’d get plenty of chance to get an eyeful, before and after the game.

All he had to do was head into the stadium an hour before game time, and enter the vacant locker room. (It was all open; the school was small, and security was lax.) He slipped into the locker room, and quickly removed his clothing, storing them in a locker where he could grab them later. He checked the clock; he knew he didn’t want to take the serum too early, lest he unshrink in the middle of the post-game showers. (Ah…post-game showers.) He waited until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and downed the vial in one quick gulp, tossing it into the trash can.

He suddenly felt sick, felt vile, felt as if he would explode. He dropped to one knee, and then fell onto his side. As the room spun, he thought to himself that it was odd – he’d never seen the mice faint.

* * *

He first was aware of voices, distant and distorted. As his mind tried to make sense of the input, he suddenly sat bolt upright, rubbing his head and looking wildly around. If the serum hadn’t worked, he’d be naked and lying on the floor of the locker room, and he’d be expelled very soon.

But as he looked around, he couldn’t quite work out where he was. It didn’t look like the locker room. He was on some sort of enormous, rough concrete plain, with boulders littering the field to the horizon, which ran up against skyscrapers that were taller than the tallest mountains.

And then the explosion happened.

It came from behind him, a deafening thud and he was airborne, tumbling over and over. He skidded several hundred yards, though miraculously, he was unhurt. He was facing away from the locker, looking at a hill, yellow and black, with a shape that would have been unmistakable even without the three stripes.

It was a shoe. An enormous shoe. Too enormous.

He had been aiming for an inch or two tall.

The world jolted, and a new earthquake knocked him flat, as the shoe’s owner appeared as if from nowhere, sitting down on the bench.

Her size was beyond description. He stared up the expanse of leg near the shoe, and tried to guess how far up it went before the cliff of the knee. Thighs that converged on panties large enough to cover the campus. Was it a mile? It was damn far. Her uncovered breasts were spectacular, despite their similarilty to warehouses. A mass of black hair was above them, but the face was so far away he couldn’t see her. Not really.

He had to get away. He had to hide. He was the size of dust. He could hide, and wait out the serum. Hopefully it would wear off. Soon.

The next earthquake was worse. A different girl approached, moving faster than a jet. She stopped just a few hundred feet from him. Far, far above he saw short shorts with pink panties peeking out. In spite of himself, he found himself aroused. Terrified, but aroused.

And then, the worst possible thing happened.

She gathered her uniform out of her locker, fumbling but one item, which floated to earth harmlessly. She picked up the sports bra, never realizing that it had picked up a tiny, briefly unconscious piece of dust. Sliding it over her head, she pulled on her goalie jersey and shorts, put on her shin guards and socks, laced up her shoes. And though she couldn’t feel it, about four hundred feet from her heart, a piece of dust was waking up.

Paul lay on a rough surface, one that felt not unlike soft plastic. It was dark, and every few seconds, the world seemed to sway wildly. He couldn’t get a bead on exactly where he was until things got quiet for a moment, and he felt the steady pulse that slightly shook the wall of plastic that the plastic floor ended in.

He was standing on her nipple. It was quite big enough for him, soft as it was. When he got right up next to the breast, he could see just a smattering of light from above.

He tried to think of what he could do to get out of this predicament. He tried to think about how he could survive. He tried to think about what he was going to do about his raging hard-on. He just knew he was in terrible trouble.

And then the team burst from the locker room, and he was in hell.

It was fortunate for Paul that his hostess was a backup. Yes, warm-ups were awful; when she stretched out, she dropped to her knees, dropped to her behind, bending over, tossing him into the front of her bra before whipsawing him back into underneath it, or in between them, or into the front of her nipple. She took practice shots, and with each one, her breasts bounced, and the tiny, sentient piece of dust that bounced back and forth from sternum to breast to nipple to breast, he prayed for death, and death didn’t come.

But at least she went back to the bench, and he could sit. And for most of the first half and through halftime and into the second half, Paul was able to rest, clinging to the top of her right breast. He had to admit, this wasn’t bad. Oh, it was terrifying. And next time he’d have to fix the dosage. But at least he was able to enjoy being at second base, no matter the appropriateness of the metaphor.

He might have lay there until the woman undressed, and he might not have learned much.

But the starter pulled a groin muscle. And so the mountain of girlflesh he sat upon entered the game.

And if warmups had been awful, this was something other than else. She was more than willing to lay out for a ball, landing hard on her chest. And if that kicked some dirt out of its hiding place and out onto the collar of her shirt, she could hardly be bothered to notice. If that dust was caught by the breeze as she punted the ball and nearly blown away, only to grasp a thick cord that was one stray brown hair – her team had a one-goal lead. Who cared about dust? And as the dust tried to climb up the hair toward the enormous ear that might give him a chance at life, she moved to clear the ball, and he went tumbling down the mountain, landing in the middle of the penalty area, a forest primeval.

And then the ball sailed overhead, and the shoe crashed down near him, and all was black.

* * *

He awoke hours later. Alive. He was alive.

He knew he’d almost died. He knew he had to get back to the dorm before he was spotted naked. But it had been interesting.

Except for the fact that the grass still was enormous, though only a few feet over his head.

He was an inch or so tall, just like he planned.

He sighed. He wondered how long this would last. And what disaster would follow.

But even though this was not an unusual occurrence, there was something different about it. Usually, my sleep was punctuated by the sounds of my owner getting dressed, getting ready to go to work or to school or watching television. But this sleep was blissful and uninterrupted. My owner, Diana, was not in the bed next to the table on which I slept; clearly, she must have woken some time before. I knew she must have crept from the room quietly indeed. Giants were noisy. They couldn’t help it. There was so much of them. It was impossible for them to move silently. And yet, somehow my mistress had managed. And though years and years of terror caused me to momentarily panic that Diana had abandoned me, somehow I knew that she had done so not out of malice, but out of kindness. She had let me sleep, had gone out of her way to make sure I could. She had shown care toward me.

I was nonplussed by it.

I rose from a bed of panties that she had arranged for me, folded into a small bed. She had even arranged a small thimble of water for me, when I admitted that I liked to drink and eat, even if I didn’t have to. Mala had seen to that. I had starved, I had thirsted, I had even wanted for air; none of it could kill me or even harm me. All disconcerted me now; all had terrified me in turn as I’d endured each the first time. But none frightened me as much as being without a mistress to keep me whole.

A sound of soft thuds announced Diana’s presence at the door to her bedroom, peeking in toward me. Seeing me standing, she smiled, and crossed the distance quickly.

She wore sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and as she dropped to a knee to get closer to me, her breasts swung impressively. She ran a hand through her unkempt hair, and my stomach lurched. I had seen many women made up far more than her at that moment — and many made up a good deal less. But I’m not sure I had ever before felt what I felt then. Many months later, I would tell Diana about it. But not yet.

“I see we’re awake,” she said, smiling. “Did you sleep okay?”

“It was the best night of sleep I can remember, mistr…I mean, Diana.”

“Old habits die hard, huh? I took the day off. I didn’t want you to wake up on your first day here all by yourself.”

“But this is my fourth day with you,” I said, then flinched, awaiting her correction.

She was right. Old habits do die hard.

Her correction did come, but not in the way I feared. Instead, her smile faded for a minute, as a cloud passing over the sun. “I know. And I’m sorry. I wish I’d done this for you the first night. Wish I’d seen you for what you are the moment I opened the box from Annabelle. Can you ever forgive me for that? I promise, I’m going to make up for it, starting today.”

“It is my first day here if you say it is,” I said.

“No. No! No, it’s the fourth day. Damn it, will it mean anything if I tell you to disagree with me? Or will you disagree with me because you think you’re supposed to? You’ve been treated very badly, haven’t you?”

“Not by you,” I said, and somehow, somewhere in me, a long-buried pathway in my mind reawakened, if only for a moment, and the words came tumbling out. “You were kind even before last night. In the first few days, you were gentle with me. You didn’t force me into you. That’s what most women do, you know, they just spread their legs and shove me inside, or else hold me hard against their clits, making me struggle for freedom while they enjoy themselves. And I know it’s the price I pay, but it’s hard.

“But you…even before you talked to me last night, you took your time with me. You offered yourself, you didn’t force me to do anything. You set me there. You let me move at my own pace. You even tried to make me feel good. You touched me…my…uh….”

The words halted abruptly, as I felt myself blushing deeply, as if Diana cared whether I had enjoyed myself when she’d rubbed her pinky gently over my penis, back and forth, idly, until I burst forth.

But Diana didn’t seem put off by my diatribe. Instead, her smile had widened. “It did look like you were enjoying yourself. But come on. Don’t tell me nobody ever did that for you before?”

“Not in a long time. One girl…who hadn’t been with a boy…and was curious….” I shuddered, involuntarily. “But she wasn’t interested in making me happy. She just wanted to see what would happen. I…I know that it’s not important that I enjoyed it. But it was kind of you.

“I mean, you were already one of the kindest mistresses ever to own me, Diana. You don’t need to apologize for anything as far as I’m concerned. You…you don’t even have to do this for me.”

“What?”

“Treat me like one of you. Like a person.”

Diana sighed. “You are a person. You deserve to be treated like one. God. If me being not a total rapist and jacking you off once makes me one of the better women to meet you…you’ve met a lot of bad women.”

I sighed myself. “I don’t think most of the women I’ve met are bad. They just…you’re the first one to tell me I’m a person. I don’t even know if you’re right. But most women just treated me like other sex toys, like their dildos or vibrators. And they were doing me the favor. If not for them, I’d be tiny.”

“Which reminds me,” Diana said. “You have to be on my person for an hour today, or you shrink, right? How do you want to do that? I’m not making you dive into my pussy anymore. But I’ll definitely hold you for an hour each day to keep you whole. That’s the least I can do.”

I was shocked by the sudden turn of the conversation, so much so that I couldn’t even respond for a moment.

“I mean, you don’t have to decide right this instant,” Diana said. “Frankly, I’m not even sure where exactly is best. But you know, whatever works for you. Just let me know.”

“Do…did I displease you last night?” I asked.

“What?”

“Did I do a poor job stimulating you?”

“No! Not at all. You were quite…stimulating. But I don’t want to rape you every night. You weren’t happy doing it. And if you don’t want to be my sex toy, that’s fine. I don’t mind. You don’t owe me your body.”

“And you don’t owe me yours,” I countered, in a voice that was not quite my own, but which seemed to come from a long-lost part of me.

“You’re right,” Diana said. “But I’m happy to give an hour a day to you to keep you healthy and full-sized. I’m giving it by choice. But if you don’t want to be around me, if you don’t want that, then you can leave. I don’t want you to go,” she said, seeing my face, ”but you always can go. You’re free.”

My stomach lurched again, the same as it had when she’d first descended to my eye level.

“Diana,” I said, “I…I don’t know as I’ve ever chosen to be what I am. But…you are very kind. You’re pretty. You even keep your, uh…well, you are pleasant to be around,. And you are giving me more than I’ve ever been given. If…if you still want to use me…I would be happy to…continue to do other things than just sit in your pocket.”

Diana smiled as brightly as I had seen her to that point. “Little man, if I hadn’t been shoving you in my vaginal canal over the past few days, I’d think you were trying to talk your way into my panties.”

I struggled for words; I didn’t know how to explain what I wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted myself. What I said next surprised me and her alike.

“I’m happy,” I said, “just to be with you. To talk to you. If you didn’t touch me again, if you just…just talked to me as I shrunk to nothing…I would stay with you. If you wish to hold me and talk to me to keep me whole, I would be grateful and happy. If you wish to use me to pleasure yourself, I would be honored…and I would….”

I trailed off, as I choked off the last part of what the long-buried part of myself was trying to say. For good or ill, Diana forced the issue.

“You’d what?”

“I’d enjoy it, too.” I said, quietly. “It’s never been a question of my enjoying it, but…if I’m given the choice, I think I would.”

Diana leaned closer to me. For a second, I thought I’d said something horribly wrong, but she moved in until she was right on top of me, and she kissed me.

I fell backward with the force of her lips, and landed on my butt; she backed off quickly, her face lined with concern, but I was already laughing as I tried to right myself. “That was some kiss,” I said, chuckling.

She sighed in relief. “I guess I don’t know my own strength,” she said.

*  *  *

The day was heavenly. There were many such days like it to come — not every day, of course, though it seemed every day to come had a part of that day within it. But it was the first day in my memory I could remember that I spent with someone. Not adjacent to someone or in service to someone, but with them.

Diana had showered soon after our conversation, and then gave me a bath in her bathroom sink while she combed her hair. The issue of my shrinking was soon resolved for the day; I spent the rest of the morning perched on her shoulder, holding on to the spaghetti strap of her top, while we talked about her life and about making arrangements for my life with her. She told me about her family, about her ex-fiance, Jeff, about her job in the front office of a local toaster manufacturer. She decided that we’d go shopping that evening and buy me a doll bed, and maybe some doll clothes, so that I didn’t have to be naked if I didn’t want to. She even fixed us both breakfast — well, she fixed herself pancakes and made one enormous one for me. We lounged on the couch and watched television, with me lying on her stomach; she showed me her computer (she sent a letter on it to her friend Annabelle, thanking her for me; she had to rewrite it several times to eliminate phrases like “How could you not see he was a person?” and “What kind of monster are you? Am I? Are all of us?”).

And in the early afternoon, to make sure I wouldn’t shrink, we made love.

I’d never used that term to describe sex, not in this life. I’d heard it. But love had little to do with what I did, and what was expected of me. But this time…Diana had licked me first, had carefully manipulated me so that I had come before she even let me explore her. And I found myself exploring far more completely than I ever had.

I had seen many women up close — young, old, fat, skinny — and I had become hardened to what I was seeing. But on that day, it was as if I’d stumbled into a different land. Every inch of skin was amazing, the soft hairs on her stomach swayed gently with each breath. Her coarser hairs surrounding her vagina were not just rough handholds, but still-soft branches that bore her unmistakable scent. I lavished attention on her clit, while she simply lay back, letting me do the work, not forcing me, not directing me. Indeed, for the first time I could remember, I worked on her until she spasmed, and rather than hoping that she was done with me, I took the opportunity to slide inside her slickened sex, a place I usually tried to avoid. And though it was hot and dank and claustrophobia-inducing, I took advantage of the fact that I did not need to breathe, and I explored her as thoroughly as I could. Indeed, bizarre thoughts escaped me, as I wondered if I could take advantage of this, if we could not touch for a few days, if I could explore her more if I was smaller. And though I doubted I would propose it, I knew that Diana would consider it if I suggested it, if I explained why.

Because more of her wouldn’t be a bad thing.

* * *

After some time, laying on the bed, Diana turned to me and sighed. “That was incredible. Those other women didn’t know what they were missing. Did you enjoy it?”

“It was wonderful,” I said. “I…thank you.”

“So tell me,” she said, languidly, “how many other women have there been? Don’t worry. I won’t be jealous. The more there’ve been, the more lucky I am that you ended up here with me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Dozens. Maybe hundreds. I don’t remember all of them. A few…well, I’m not proud of it, but when I was at my smallest, a few times I hid in the panties of a woman for a few days. I tried not to bother her, but it was so hard to contact women at that size. Usually I just tried to grow large enough to present myself to them without being squashed like a bug. But more than a few times, I got lost.

“I suppose I gave them no choice. Maybe I deserve….”

“No, you don’t,” Diana cut me off. “Did you try to make them come? Try to get them to orgasm?”

“No,” I said. “It happened accidentally a couple of times…but it wasn’t on purpose.”

“Well then. I’ll forgive you for that; given the way you’ve been treated, I think you’ve had the worse of the bargain. So I’m guessing those are the shortest times you were with a woman. What’s the longest?”

“The longest…was with Julia. It was years. It was…it was horrible. She did things….”

“What did she do to you?”

I shuddered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to,” said Diana. “So what’s the oldest woman you’ve been with?”

“I think Elizabeth said she was sixty.”

“Was she horrible?”

“Eh? No. Pretty decent. Better than most. Her daughter Kara gave me to her, then Elizabeth kept me for a while, and eventually gave me to her daughter Jennifer. That was a few years ago; it was along the chain of women that eventually brought me to you. Maybe twenty women ago.”

“Is that how you met most women? As a gift?”

“Mostly. Most women use me until they get tired of me, and pass me on. A few times I’ve been lost, usually left in hotels. A few times I actually escaped. But that left me alone, and put me at risk of shrinking. I escaped from Julia.”

I didn’t want to talk about Julia, but the escape wasn’t that bad. And so I told Diana of it.

* * *

I waited and waited for my chance, and one night, she forgot to lock my cage. She was tired. I snuck out of her room, and I hid behind her refrigerator for five days, letting myself get smaller and smaller. I had to get small enough so that she wouldn’t see me. Finally, when I was a little less than a centimeter tall, I snuck to her front door during the night. When she opened it, she let me out — didn’t even see me. My heart was beating so fast that if I hadn’t been taught by Julia that nothing could kill me, I would have thought it would burst.

I threw myself off the steps at the front of her house; the fall hurt like sin but I knew the pain would soon subside. When I felt whole again I got up, and headed through the forest of grass in the front of her house.

It took me a week to get through it. I saw her pass a dozen times, each time looming larger than the last. I was lucky that it was fall; the bugs had died off. When you’re a millimeter tall, ants are really frightening. But for once, I didn’t care how small I got. I couldn’t go back with Julia. And no, I don’t want to talk about it now. I’ll tell you someday. But…not today.

Anyhow, by the time I reached the sidewalk, I was despairing that it could be months at this size. I had the misfortune of getting this tiny before, and it was always difficult to get near enough to a woman to hitch a ride with them. I mean, think about how tiny I am now. I’m more than a hundred times bigger than I was when I got out of the lawn.

Now, people would pass by, and I was willing to hitch a ride with any of them. Hitch a ride home with a little boy or girl and you might have a shot at getting their mom to help grow you; hitch a ride with a guy and if he doesn’t have a girlfriend or any girl friends he probably at least works somewhere with women.

But it’s not easy hitching a ride with someone when they’re the size of a mountain. If the guy out for a walk ties his shoe halfway down the block, if the friends out for a jog decide to sit down even a few feet away, if two kids are playing in the yard in the house next door, it’s still impossible to reach them. You need someone to stop dead right by you.Or you need to get lucky.

I got lucky. I thought I had gotten lucky when the overweight jogger stopped and put his hands on his knees on the sidewalk square next to my hideout in the grass; I ran as fast as I could toward him. But he didn’t stay put for long, and he took off again at full speed, with his foot landing next to me, blasting me into the air.

When you’re a millimeter tall, you’re pretty light, and I didn’t fall back to earth right away; I floated about knee high for a minute. That would have been the end of it — I would have landed, swore at myself, and tried again. But when I started to drift lower, from behind me two college students out for a jog blasted by me, and the eddies the left in their wake blew me out unpredictably.

I danced sideways and upward, now high enough in the air that the prevailing wind could get me. This had the effect of pushing me out into the street, just as a car was flying by at light speed.

Fortunately, it just passed near me. But after that, the energy that propelled me was such that I could barely even register what was going on. I was simply tossed on the wind, buffeted by other cars, thrown high up into the sky, until even my durable self nearly blacked out.

And then came the miracle. It was a cool fall day, but not cold; occasionally, someone would roll their window down while driving. That’s how I met Amy, who was on her way to work out; she had her window cracked, and the current of wind I was on was sucked into her window. Before I could even register what had happened, I was crashing into a mass of white fabric, and then tumbling down the front of her shirt until I fell right between two legs that were slightly askew, working the pedals on her car.

After a look skyward to confirm that the person I hit had breasts, I scampered inside her shorts, just in time for her to go in to the gym. I made it into her panties in time for her to climb on an excercycle for an hour. If not for Mala’s spell, I would have been goo.

But it worked. I revisited her panties for two nights, then hung out in her bed, trying to get her attention. I did, eventually, and while I was small, I was able to explain what I wanted. She was amused, and she kept me in her panties for a few hours the next few days. After that, she kept me bigger, but not too big — she’d let me sleep with her every four days, then stow me in her panty drawer, so that I was about the size of her fingernail when she pulled me out. But she wasn’t rough. And after Julia, it seemed like heaven.

*  *  *

“So when I hear about Julia, I’m going to have to kill her, aren’t I?”

“Today has been a wonderful day,” I said. “I don’t want to think about her again today.”

Diana smiled. “Okay. Besides, we have other business to attend to. You need a name.”

“I do?”

“Yes. I mean, what, am I supposed to call you Dildo Jones? I think not. No, while you were sleeping, I googled a few names, and I found one I like. But it’s your name. So you have to like it too.”

“I’m going to like any name you give me,” I said.

“Well, after that little story, I think it fits. You’re tough, little one. Feisty. I think the name ‘Leo’ fits my little lion. What do you think?”

“‘Leo,’” I murmured. I think I would have been happy with “Idiot,” frankly, had it come from her. This was much better. “I like it,” I said.

“Okay, Leo,” said Diana, happily. “So do you want to watch television? Or would you like to explore me some more?”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

With time, she’d grow bored. I knew this, and it did not concern me. Well, it did – but not for the reasons you may think. My size would be an issue. My heart would not. I knew this. I had been through it all before.

There had been others before. So many others.

She was maybe thirty years old. Maybe older. Maybe younger. She was not too young; when she looked down at me her skin showed just the barest hint of aging. A few lines around her eyes. A few more at the upturned corners of her mouth.

Not too old. Not too young.

I had been pulled out of many women, pulled by their massive fingers, some fumbling, some assured. Pulled from women who were indifferent, pulled from women who were pleased, pulled from women who were angry. It was my purpose.

It had ever been.

This night was a good night. At least there was a woman. At least she used me. I would not grow smaller tonight. I was already at my full size, so I could not grow larger, but I would not dwindle down to a speck, to the point where I would have to seek out a giantess.

But while this night was a good night, it was no different from many other good nights.

Yet.

The woman looked down at me, and her contented smile changed as she regarded me. Her face fell, and her mouth turned down. My heart sank. She was growing tired of me already. Well, this would not be the first time. Hopefully, she would do as her friend had done – make a gift of me to another woman.

But she did something that surprised me, after all these years. She lifted me up past her mammoth breasts, and carried me up to her face. Leaning back against the wall, she looked at me, and finally, at long last, she spoke.

“Did you enjoy that, little toy?”

I tried to smile. They like it when I smile. “Yes,” I answered.

She looked at me carefully, and frowned slightly at that answer. At first, I feared that she was going to be sadistic, like Julia had been. That my declaration of pleasure would displease her. But that was not it.

“You didn’t really like that, did you?” she said. It was not really a question.

“My feelings are not important,” I said. “I am here for you, mistress.”

Her frown deepened. I had displeased her. Blast! I did not dislike this woman. I could find pleasure in her loins, but…well, I had experienced this so much. In truth, she was kinder than most. It was not her fault. It was mine.

“What is your name?”

Her voice was booming, but all the voices were booming. It was pretty, though; I imagined that were I her size, I would have found it soothing, warming like hot apple cider on a cold day.

But that was not the important thing. She had asked me a question. I should address her.

“I….”

I stopped. For it had been a very long time since I had been asked anything personal. Anything that required an honest answer. They would ask the rules, sometimes. And I would tell them, tell them all about the rules that governed my existence. She had asked me, after I’d been given to her.

But it had been a long time since I had been asked anything about me.

“I do not know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I used to know, but….” I shrugged.

“Did you have a name?”

I sat, cross-legged, in the palm of her hand. I looked at her, and told the truth.

“Yes. I did.”

“What made you forget?”

I looked at the pretty woman. The prettiest I’d ever seen? I would say so now, but I would not have then. One of the prettier, yes, but there had been women whose physical beauty was….

But I digress.

I looked at the pretty woman, and I answered her truly.

“It was a punishment.”

Her eyes widened at that, and the hand that did not hold me covered her mouth. I did not recognize the emotion at first; I had not witnessed it in this life.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “What have I done?”

“I am grateful to you,” I said. “You’ve kept me whole for another day.” I’m sure I blushed. “I apologize,” I added, hastily. “I did not mean to speak out of turn.”

She looked at me, and seemed to recompose herself. “You don’t have to apologize. Not to me,” she said. “You…you can always talk to me. I want you to.”

I was nonplussed. Talk to her? She wanted me to talk to her?

They never wanted me to talk to them.

I was a toy. A servant. I was here for her amusement. I was not one of the giants. I was being punished.

“Diana,” she said. “My name is Diana. And you…you will have to have a name. But not right now,” she said, as much to herself as to me. “Were you human? Like me? How did you get like this? Were you always this small?”

“I was once as large as you,” I said. “But I was punished.”

“You said. But for what?”

“I was unfaithful. She told me.”

“Who told you?”

“Mala. Mala told me.”

The woman looked at me, and said, finally, “Tell me what Mala told you.”

And so I did.

* * *

It was the first thing I could remember.

She was standing there, taller than me. So much taller. She was kneeling down by me, and I was at the size I was now. Just short of thirteen centimeters, or so I’d been told.

She was beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. Her eyes twinkled with mirth and blazed with hatred. I was sore afraid.

“Perfect,” she said, brushing her long black hair out of her eyes. “So, worm, do you know me?”

“Mala?” I ventured. She was familiar. I had loved her. I thought. Maybe.

“Hmm. And do you know yourself? What is your name, bug?” she said, pounding her fist down next to me so hard that I bounced.

“My name is…it’s….”

I started to panic. I knew my name. It was on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t force it to come out, and the more I struggled with my name, the more I knew that it was all slipping away. Images of family and friends seemed to dance just out of reach, until they scattered like leaves in the wind.

She smiled as she looked at me, as if reading my mind. Smiled a twisted, beautiful smile.

“You pig. You could have had so much happiness with me. But you liked other women too much. Well,” she said, smiling wider now, “you’ll get all the women you want. So much pussy! You’ll like that, won’t you?”

“I…yes?” I said, trying to figure out what this meant.

She laughed, a bitter laugh. “We’ll see.”

She grabbed me around the waist. I was naked; at the time, I found that somewhat surprising, though I don’t know why. I suppose I used to wear clothes all the time – not just when my mistresses want me to.

She brought me to her face, and licked me from toe to head, up and down. In spite of the strangeness of the world, this woman, me, I found myself growing aroused. She flashed her cleavage below me, and lowered me toward it, the promise of her inviting bosom mere feet from me.

And then the flicked me in my sex, so that I was doubling over in pain.

“I suppose you thought you were going to get something, huh? No, no, no. Not from me. Never again. You forfeited that right when you cheated on me.

“Now, you are a toy. A plaything. And let’s hope you’re a good one for your sake. You will need women to want to play with you – or at least tolerate you – if you hope to stay larger than a bit of dust.”

“What do you mean?” I gasped. “What have you done to me?”

“It’s an old spell. It’s been in my family generations. I modified it a bit for the present circumstances, of course. Added my own personal touch.

“Worm, you will lose half your height every day that you do not touch a woman for at least an hour. You won’t shrink to less than a millimeter – I want you to never shrink so far that humanity is beyond you. You might start to think yourself free of us. Oh, and don’t worry – my protection is on you. You will neither age nor die nor suffer grievous injury so long as you live.”

“But I will slowly shrink, and then what? Certainly, there will be days no woman will have me. Am I to shrink to…to dust sized? To nothing?”

She laughed, a bitter laugh. “No, no. Little nothing, you just need convince a woman to sleep with your shrunken, pathetic, lilliputian self. And by ‘sleep with,’ I mean ‘fuck.’ Get her into bed, and you double in size – but bad news, shrimp. You’re already as big as you’re going to get. Tough luck, that.”

I stared at the goddess who stared down at me, and swallowed hard. Echoes of memories told me that this would be hard, that few women would choose to sleep with me, that I would be tiny beyond tiny soon enough. Maybe, if I was lucky, I would be found by a woman who knew me.

Although Mala knew me, and she had done this to me.

“Am I condemned to this forever?” I asked.

Mala smiled. “No,” she said. “But you may as well be. The spell is broken by something that will never happen for you. So don’t get yourself any ideas. You’re going to be stuck like this for a long, long time.

“Now,” she said, sweetly, “it’s been fun and all, but I’ve developed a really good love potion that I’m going to put to use tonight. I’m going to seduce a real man, with a cock that’s bigger than your whole body. As for you, well, I’ll be good to you. I’ll dump you on the sidewalk outside the hotel. Give you a fighting chance to find a girl.”

And that is precisely what she did.

* * *

Diana was silent for a good long time after I finished, and I finally felt compelled to say, “I’m sorry if I have displeased you, mistress. Do you wish me to leave?”

She looked down at me with her big, beautiful eyes, which I saw were brimming with tears. “Leave? What? No! No, not unless you want to. You…you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I cheated on Mala.”

“Long ago, from what you’ve told me. And if you did? Maybe she should have dumped you. But what she did to you? It’s horrible. And I’m horrible for treating you like a toy.”

At that, she began to cry in earnest, and I found myself at a loss. She was crying…for me.

Never in my memory had anyone cried on my behalf.

Somewhere, deep inside me, something broke open, just a bit. Not completely. But enough that I found myself climbing up her long, bare arms, until I reached her shoulder. When I reached it, I sad down, and stroked the giantess gently.

I don’t know why I did it, but it caused a reaction. She stopped, and looked over at me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I just…you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “All you did was care for me and give me what I need to not shrink. I’ve been a millimeter tall. It’s…awful. Horrible.”

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

She frowned for a bit, and then gave me a little half-grin. “Well, little…little one. I have to get to sleep. And you do, too. But not in the drawer, okay? You’re not a sex toy. You’re a person. And I’m going to treat you like one.”

“As you wish, mistress.”

“That’s another thing,” she said, gently plucking me from her shoulder and setting me upon her nightstand. “I am not your mistress. If you’re a person, so am I. I’m Diana. I want you to call me Diana.”

“Okay…Diana.”

She smiled at that, smiled really and truly. “Annabelle said she was giving me something that would make me forget Jeff. Well, she’s done that, all right. Tomorrow, little one, we’ll find you a name. And you can tell me how you came to be with me.”

“As you wish,” I said, as she plucked a pair of panties from her dresser, and set them on the stand for me to sleep in.

I lay down, and watched Diana fall asleep, my heart racing. It had been so long since I had been anything but a toy that the emotions I felt were overwhelming. I fought the part of me that said I loved her. She could betray me, I knew. So many had, so many times. And no doubt she thought of me like a pet.

But at least I was her pet. It was better than being a vibrator. Better by far.

Νενικήκαμεv

(“We have won”)

Hephaestus bowed slightly to Aphrodite. “Declare the terms of your victory.”

Aphrodite smiled triumphantly. There had been times when she doubted this moment would come.

“You will work for women. You will treat them equally to men. And you will grant me my freedom.”

Hephaestus looked at his wife, and sighed. He looked down at the ground, and wiped a tear from his eye.

“I only ever loved you, Aphrodite. But I gave you my word. And so it is. You are free.”

Aphrodite let loose a big sigh, three thousand years’ worth of guilt exiting with it.

She walked over to her ex-husband, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“What was that for?” Hephaestus asked.

“Because I did love you, once,” Aphrodite said, “despite your flaws. And because maybe, some day, you may realize the error of your ways. When you do…come back to Olympus, Hephaestus. I may be willing to greet you there, if not as a wife, then as a friend.”

Hephaestus frowned. “My place is in Hell.”

“For now,” she said. “For now. But you know the Unspoken Principum. You know you may one day return.

“But now is not the time to discuss that. For now…I have one last duty to attend to.”

“Give them choice,” Hephaestus said.

“I will,” Aphrodite said. “I will.”

*  *  *

Adam wondered how long he would last in the forest of Stephanie. He both hoped and feared it could be some time. If he could stick to cover, he might just avoid being washed away by the shower. A bath or a swim would be different – but the small canyon in the distance held the possibility of air pockets. Even a tiny one could sustain his tiny self.

He wondered if he could survive for weeks. Months. Even years. He shuddered. After years, she’d be the size of a planet. Would he even remember that once, he had been married to the world?

He started to panic at the idea. No. He’d rather die than that.

“Would you, really?”

He spun around, quite amazed to have heard anything approaching speech in this world. A beautiful woman stood before him. An angel? A hallucination? He didn’t care.

“Would I what?” he asked.

“Rather die than live like a mite on your wife. Die, rather than stay on her forever.”

Adam sighed. The woman was achingly beautiful, and naked. He wondered, idly, if he’d dreamed her up in his grief.

No. If he’d imagined a woman to be his companion, it would be the woman he inhabited.

“That’s another answer,” the woman said.

“What’s another answer? Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. In a few minutes, you will either know who I am – or you will not remember me at all. Adam, what do you want?”

Adam White looked at the woman – the hallucination – the angel. And he inhaled, breathing in the sweet scent of his wife.

“I just want to be back with her. To be her husband. That’s all.”

“If you die,” the angel said, “you will go to a better place than this world.”

“I will die someday,” Adam said. “And it isn’t better without her.”

“You could make love to women who surpass me in beauty, any time you wanted.”

“Are they Stephanie?”

“They could look like her.”

“But are they her?”

“You couldn’t tell.”

“But are they her?”

“No.”

“Then no,” Adam said. “Or if I’ve got to die – then put me on ice. Let me wake up when she gets there.”

“Stubborn,” the woman said. But she smiled.

“All right, Adam. What if I told you that you could only get back to an inch or two tall?”

“An inch? That would make all the difference in the world,” Adam said.

“It would, would it? You’d live with her at an inch high, because you could be with her and she would know?”

“I would give my soul for that,” he said.

“I don’t work for Lucifer,” the angel said. “And lucky for you. Because He would take your soul and give you an inch. I will do better.”

“Who are you?” Adam asked the woman. “Are you an angel? A dream?”

“A God,” the woman said. “But you won’t remember me until we meet in the next life. And now, Adam, a gift. A head start. You will have to get the rest of the way on your own.”

*  *  *

Adam wondered how long he would last in the forest of Stephanie. He both hoped and feared it could be some time. If he could stick to cover, he might just avoid being washed away by the shower. A bath or a swim would be different – but the small canyon in the distance held the possibility of air pockets. Even a tiny one could sustain his tiny self.

He wondered if he could survive for weeks. Months. Even years. He shuddered. After years, she’d be the size of a planet. Would he even remember that once, he had been married to the world?

He started to panic at the idea. No. He’d rather die than that.

And then abruptly, the panic subsided. No. It would be okay. He didn’t know why. But it would be okay.

And suddenly, he felt very much as if a switch had been flipped. As if something wonderful was going to happen.

And then it did.

*  *  *

“If there is anyone up there, anyone at all…he’s a good man. And I love him. Please…I’ve prayed every night. Every night. And I don’t know if anyone’s listening. But if he could just be big enough for me to talk to – just big enough to see him. I don’t need him restored. I don’t need him back to normal. I just ask for him to be just an inch or two tall. And I will love him and be faithful to him and protect him until death do us part. Please. Amen.”

Stephanie cried until tears wouldn’t come any more. She wondered how much longer she could lie on the couch. She didn’t feel him down there, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still live – and that she could kill him by accident if she wasn’t careful.

That he wanted that – that he was counting on it – did not make it easier.

She didn’t want to call his parents. She didn’t want to call the county. She didn’t want to alert the media. That would make it real. And she didn’t want it to be real. She wanted to give the Gods a chance.

And then, something happened.

It wasn’t a big something. Just a sudden feeling, a weight. A tiny one – far less than a gram. But enough that she felt it.

It was the biggest thing there could be.

Carefully, she pushed herself up, keeping her hips in place. She looked down, stomach doing somersaults. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it was desperation. She would probably be disappointed. She knew it.

But she had to see.

She carefully lifted the waistbands of her shorts and panties, and peered inside.

And down in the forest of her pubic hair, she saw something. It was tiny – oh so tiny. But it was getting bigger.

And bigger.

And bigger, until it was gigantic compared to what it had been. Twenty-five times bigger than it had been. Like a normal man suddenly growing to 150 feet tall.

Of course, it was still just an inch tall. But it had been very, very small to begin with.

With a trembling hand, she reached down to him. He was already staring up at her, as if disbelieving. She plucked him out of her bush and raised him up to her face, barely daring to believe that this was real.

For a long, long time, they just stared at each other, slack-jawed, as if seeing each other for the very first time. In a way, they were.

When they finally spoke – and they would argue about who said it first for years, though good-naturedly – they both said the same thing, to nothing and everything there was.

“Thank you.”

*  *  *

It would take three more months, the journey back. Adam didn’t grow quite as quickly as he shrunk, but he grew. A week later, he’d been about an inch-and-a-half tall; it took him three weeks to reach three inches. But about a month and a half later, he was as tall as he’d been when they’d married, and in two months he’d grown to three feet tall, as tall as he’d been the night he’d almost given up, before discovering that his life was worth living.

And today, five months later – today Adam stood five feet, five inches tall – 166 centimeters flat. He had stopped a bit shy of Stephanie’s height – he wasn’t sure why, nobody was, but he didn’t care, and neither did she. It had stopped. It was over. If she was a couple inches taller than he – he could live with that.

“So now that you’ve recovered – do you think you’ve learned anything from the experience?”

Jayne Jordan had loved it, of course – his rebirth had meant more specials, including this one. And they’d show back up from time to time for decades to come, she hoped – this was the kind of story that always had legs.

Especially since a few others had come forward with White’s Disease since he had made his miraculous recovery.

“I’ve learned – I’ve learned so much I don’t even know how to describe it,” Adam said. “I mean – I can’t put into words how I feel about Steph. I know now that she’ll be with me through anything. Anything. And I am so, so grateful to her. What we’ve been through – God, I don’t know if anything can top it. But I’m looking forward to trying.”

“Well, maybe you can. Stephanie, you told my producer that you had an announcement to make?”

Stephanie smiled at her husband. “Yeah. I, uh – Adam, you remember, when you were about three feet tall – going downward – you remember the picture we got from the girl?”

Adam frowned, then snapped his fingers. “The drawing, you mean? The get well card?”

“Yeah. Well, remember what we talked about right after that?”

Adam’s eyes went a bit wide, and a slow smile played across his face.

“No,” he said, but not in answer to the question. “Seriously?”

Stephanie nodded, emphatically.

“Oh…that’s awesome!” Adam said, leaping out of his seat and embracing his wife in a big bear hug.

They held each other for a while, not caring they were on national television. Of course, they hugged often these days. They loved being able to hug each other.

They always would.

“Adam, would you like to translate for the viewers out there?”

Adam grinned widely. “We’re – Stephanie – Stephanie’s pregnant. We’re gonna be parents!”

He held her hand, and she squeezed it. He looked at her, and she at him.

It was the beginning of another adventure. A different one. With less nearly-being-crushed and more changing of diapers. And about the same mix of tears and laughter.

Okay, a lot more of the laughter.

Half a continent away, in a hotel bar in Las Vegas, a woman watched the events on television, and smiled.

All the eyes were on her.

She was used to it, of course. She was made to be desired. She was desire.

She had proposed a good couple, she supposed. But this was really their victory. Adam and Stephanie had chosen wisely. She had given them the hurdle. They had cleared it.

“Shit,” said a man watching the show alongside her, as Stephanie and Adam mooned over each other.

She turned and looked at him. “Don’t like what you see?”

“I us’d to know that girl, y’know,” the man slurred. “She wanted me, when he’s gone, y’know? But now, now it’s like she never kissed me. Fuck!”

Aphrodite considered for a moment, than looked more carefully at the man. “No,” she muttered, “you’re Lucifer’s problem. He’ll be here soon enough.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Michael” Aphrodite said, getting up to leave. “Good luck.”

His was a different story. This story – the story of Adam and Stephanie White – had more chapters to be written. But they would be written by someone else. Aphrodite had done her part.

She laughed at that, laughed out loud. And muttered, as she exited the bar, “This is my story which I have related. If it be sweet, or if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me.”

Καλλίστῃ
(For the fairest)

The American poet Benjamin Gibbard once noted, quite accurately, that love is watching someone die.

“You two ready?”

Adam sat outside the plexiglass box that had become his home within his home in the past few days. It wasn’t a bad idea, mind you, the box – it would allow him more time with Stephanie. The world was becoming a very dangerous place for him, not that it hadn’t been before.

“Okay. Two minutes to air.”

Two weeks, it had been. Two weeks since the night that Adam had made it home, the night he and Stephanie had made love to each other despite the gulf between them, the one that had been widening for months.

“Do we have his mike up? We’re ready to go to him?”

In two weeks, the gulf had widened further. He was now just a centimeter tall, a bit less than four-tenths of an inch. The size of an ant.

“All right, camera four – the image is good. We’re just going to stay on that. 90 seconds.”

Stephanie loomed four-and-a-half times larger than she had that night he’d explored her. She appeared almost a thousand feet tall, over three hundred meters. There was no question of whether she was a skyscraper now. She would have been the tallest building in the state, by his lights. Her legs alone would have been smallish skyscrapers.

“One minute to air. Jayne, stand by.”

She sat by his side, on a chair that had been placed next to his table in the living room.

It wasn’t a prison. Stephanie had seen to it that he could open the doors to the enclosure that had been constructed for him, a feat of quick and intelligent engineering by a couple of engineering students at a local university. There were buttons that he would be able to press for another few weeks, anyhow.

But he wasn’t going to leave it much, he knew, and certainly not on his own. The world was a big place now. He only would leave if she was there.

“Thirty seconds.”

She looked down on him and smiled, squinting from her distant perch. She was trying to make out his features, he knew. He was too small for her to read him from more than a few inches away. And when she was a few inches away, she was too big.

He couldn’t integrate the enormous pool of an eye, the cliff of a nose, the rough terrain of her lips. He still ached for her. And they had kept making love these two weeks, as best they could. But each day had taken her just a little bit more beyond him. Each day, she became tougher to navigate.

He’d almost gotten lost in her vagina yesterday, got too deep in and got turned around, and he’d made the mistake of gasping, draging in a lungful of her juices….

“All right, coming up in five, four, three, two….”

Two more weeks, maybe three if he was lucky. And then – then she’d be utterly beyond him.

The theme music began.

* * *

The questions came fast and furious, even as they were sympathetic and even, at times, cloying. Jordan was at her best – she knew, in the back of her mind, that she was doing this in front of one of the largest audiences ever to watch a cable show. Everyone was tuning in for Adam White’s last interview.

She got through the boring stuff first – asked Adam to show them his safe house, talk about being back with Stephanie. The small microphone and close-up camera weren’t ideal, but they worked well enough.

He handled the questions about his kidnapping with grace. Asked about the death of Tanith Nightingale, he’d been almost kind.

“I don’t know if she knew what she had gotten mixed up in,” said Adam, thoughfully. “It was like a game for her. Marbas, Andousha – they scared me a lot more than Tanith. Don’t get me wrong, she did horrible things to me, and I don’t know as I can forgive her. But I don’t think she deserved what she got, especially while the real brains behind the operation is running free.”

(In a hotel room, a Goddess laughed a bit at that, knowing as she did that Marbas would have traded anything for mere imprisonment – or indeed, for the punishment Tanith would receive when she reached Hell. Lucifer had been descriptive after a few glasses of wine, and Aphrodite was very glad that she had not chosen the master her husband had.)

Jayne let Adam tell the story of the escape. The bird carrying him, dropping him by a post office. (Adam had never told anyone, save Stephanie, that he heard the bird speak. Even Stephanie didn’t believe him, though she didn’t not believe him.)

“Was it a miracle?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “This whole thing is, I guess. Nobody’s explained how my shrinking is possible. What’s one more miracle? Maybe someone out there was looking out for me. I hope so. That would mean that there’s something else beyond all this. And that the next few weeks aren’t all there is.”

Aha, thought Jordan, leaning back in her studio, studying the two on the monitor. Foreplay’s over. Here we go.

“Do you think you’ll go on shrinking forever?” she asked Adam, quietly.

“No,” Adam said, firmly. “Because at some point, I get so small that I can’t breathe. I can’t eat. And frankly, I don’t want to live until then. Once Stephanie and I can’t understand each other anymore – at that point, I may as well just drop dead, because that’s the point at which I’m gone.”

“Stephanie, what do you think of that?”

Stephanie wiped a tear away from her eyes, and looked down on the bug that was her husband. “I’d love to believe that somehow, Adam could always exist, even if he got so small I couldn’t see him. But that’s not a life for him. I can’t imagine being separated from the world like that. If this can’t be stopped….”

“It can’t,” Adam sighed.

“I know,” Stephanie said, wiping away another tear. “I just wish it could.”

Jayne let the two look at each other for a moment, smiling inwardly as her director went to a split screen, with the close-up on Adam showing him looking up at his wife, as his wife looked down on him in the wide shot. He’d be getting a bonus for that.

“Does it bother you, the law the legislature rushed through?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said.

“No.” Adam said.

“You disagree, I see.”

Adam spoke first. “I asked for it to be passed, and I’m grateful that it did. It’s the only sensible way to proceed. If Stephanie wakes up some day and I’ve shrunk down to nothing – well, my situation’s unique. At that point, I am dead. Dead to the world, anyhow. I want her to be able to mourn and move on. If some miracle reverses it afterward – well, it’s not going to.”

“If it does, it’s not going to be undoable,” Stephanie said, firmly, in a tone that echoed the discussions they’d had ten days ago when Adam first suggested the idea, eight days ago when his buddy Chris had called his brother-in-law who was the Governor’s Chief of Staff, six days ago when the legislature met in special session, five days ago when the law was signed. “Because as I’ve told Adam, I’m not rushing down to the courthouse to get him declared dead. And frankly, the day I do is only the first of a lot of days that I’m going to be missing him.

“I know why he wanted it done, and I guess…well, it works for us. But I still hate it. Because I don’t want to think about losing him. I don’t want to think of a life after ‘us.’”

“Do you think you ever will be able to?”

“No,” said Stephanie. “Maybe I will. But I don’t know how I could be.”

“Adam, do you want Stephanie to find someone else, someday?”

The question was a bit out of left field, but somehow, it didn’t catch Adam off guard. His image was priceless. He looked down, and smiled, serenely. “Absolutely,” he said, without looking up.

“Really?” Jayne and Stephanie said as one.

“Really,” Adam said, now turning to look at his enormous bride, his voice breaking, along with his heart. “Stephanie, I love you with everything I have. Everything. And I want you to have a long and hap…a happy life. I’m only sorry I won’t get to be there with you.”

Stephanie broke down at that point, and Adam cursed silently. He wanted to run to her, to throw his arms around her, but aside from a few strands of hair or – for maybe a few days more – her clitoris, there was nothing he could come close to embracing on her.

Stephanie looked back down at Adam, and somehow recomposed herself. “Adam, honey,” she said, “you’ll always be with me. Always. I will carry you with me every step of the rest of my life. And if I do meet someone, a few years from now – well, he’d better be a damn good man, because he’s going to be competing with you, and I don’t know who could.”

And that was the ending Jordan was hoping for. Well, besides a miracle recovery – which would mean more specials.

But if not that, a bittersweet farewell would do.

“Adam, Stephanie – it’s been amazing and heartbreaking sharing this journey with you.”

They wrapped quickly after that. And the camera crew packed up and left the home of Adam and Stephanie White, and the two of them looked at each other across a very wide gulf indeed.

Adam knew who was going to watch him die. And he hated it. And she did too.

* * *

Aphrodite drank the ouzo and Coke in a small Greek grocery-slash-café, one she’d sat at a few months ago, back at the beginning. She waited, and toyed with the baklava. He would be here soon enough.

She watched two old men in the corner playing tavli, somewhere in the plakoto stage of the series, trash talking in Grenglish and having a fine time of it, while on the wall a fading poster of Aphrodite of Soli watched over them.

She wondered, idly, what they’d think if the statue’s model came over to talk to them. Probably fall over each other trying to impress her.

No. Better to leave them to their games. It would be over soon enough, and then on to the next one, a cycle repeated, over and over again, until they won.

“Waiting for someone?”

Aphrodite looked up.

“Yes. You. Sit down,” she said, looking back down at the baklava.

“So,” Hephaestus said, as he lowered himself into the chair. “Seems like it’s all worked out.”

“Has it now.”

“Yes. Boss told me that you were amenable to sharing your discoveries with us – which, I have to tell you, really makes Marbas expendable. He’s gonna have to work real hard not to end up just another damned soul before this is all over.”

“How lovely,” Aphrodite said.

“And the Whites are gonna solve the bet for us, aren’t they? Yeah, constant companion, this has worked out perfectly.”

“Yes. And all it took was you lying.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve lied to me.”

“About trivialities. About who I slept with. Not about the Adversary. Not about a wager. I took the serious things seriously. Always.”

Hephaestus harrumphed.

“Anyhow, I don’t really want to spend more time with you than I have to. So say your peace and get back to Hell.”

“All right,” Hephaestus said. “Seems to me that as soon as the promise is executed, you win the bet. Unless she fails to do it.”

“She’ll make every effort. Unless he lets her out of it. You know this. So just concede and let it end.”

“I still have a chance,” Hephaestus said, “to bring you to Hell, to make you the wife of the Chancellor of Hell. To show you the type of God you deserve. I will not pass that up.”

“So you hope to win my bondage, and rape me. Hell is indeed the right place for you, Chancellor Polymitis Adramelech. Very well. We will both know when the moment is at hand. At that point, we meet and we formalize the result. And until then, may you truly enjoy the smell of sulfur.”

Hephaestus gave a half-grin. “So be it,” he said, and rose and left.

Aphrodite finished the ouzo and Coke in a quick gulp, and followed.

* * *

It was one week after the interview. Stephanie was puttering in the kitchen, working on a dinner for one; Adam had grown too small for normal foods to work well for him; he could, with difficulty, eat some vegetables, and if the meat was ground down enough – but it was difficult. The doctors had provided some pastes that provided nutrition;

Adam didn’t complain. Oh, they tasted bad, but frankly, nothing was easy anymore. Even water had become difficult to consume – it was still refreshing, in its way (at least, he wasn’t thirsty after he drank it), but the surface tension covered each drop with what felt like jelly. If he got through it, the water flowed more like syrup. It could be consumed; it quenched his thirst. But it wasn’t right.

None of it was right.

“So what are you making?” he asked Stephanie, as he sat in the plexiglass box, trying to work up some enthusiasm for nutritious paste.

“Nothing exciting. Frozen pizza. You want to try –”

“Nah. We’ve been down that path. I can live on what I’ve got.”

Stephanie sighed as she checked the oven; the earphone she wore picked up the sounds from Adam’s dollhouse. She picked up the general disdain in his voice a lot these days, not that she blamed him. It was getting tougher for him. He was half a centimeter tall now, and he was so small he was but a figure to her; she couldn’t read his face anymore, not really. But she could tell what he was thinking by his voice, and his posture. And she knew he was nearing the end of his rope.

She sliced the pizza, and brought it back out to the living room, where the plexiglass box sat; she didn’t leave this room much any more. She slept on the couch (despite Adam’s protestations that she should get a good night’s sleep) because she didn’t want to be away from him. And the box wouldn’t carry easily to the bedroom.

She didn’t dare take Adam to the bedroom outside the box; an insect could get to him in the night. And if the insect didn’t – well, she didn’t think Adam would easily survive if she rolled over on him in their sleep.

She set her plate by the box, and smiled at her tiny husband, who sat in the box and picked at his paste.

“So what do you want to do tonight?” she said, after a long silence.

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Do we dare try again?”

Stephanie looked at him, and sighed. “I don’t know, Adam. I mean, you were knocked out. I don’t want to kill you – not that way.”

Adam sighed, as he looked at his beautiful, massive monolith of a spouse. They had stopped making love three days ago; he had been a couple millimeters taller then, but still small enough that her body was no longer a wonderland, but more a danger zone.

He’d been riding her clitoris – and she’d enjoyed herself. But he’d lost his grip, and tumbled down into the abyss, swept inside by subtle motions of her muscles. He had thankfully been quickly rinsed out – and she had thankfully looked for him immediately. Had she not felt him fall, had she scooted her butt, just a little bit….

They both shuddered to think of it.

“Damn it,” Adam said, looking at her with a wry smile only he could see. “Death would be worth it.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Stephanie. “There’s still a chance for a miracle, babe. If I killed you the day before this turned around…and I know, I couldn’t know that, but I’d always fear that.”

“It’s not going to turn around,” said Adam.

They sat in silence for a few minutes after that.

“Stephanie,” Adam finally said, “do you remember what you said you’d do for me? At the end?”

“Yes,” said Stephanie, looking suddenly down at her husband. He couldn’t be saying it was over…now, could he?

“You don’t have to do it,” Adam said.

“What do you mean?”

“If it would hurt you…you don’t have to do it.”

Stephanie slid her plate to the side, and got down on one knee, putting her eye up as close as she could to her husband.

“Adam,” she said, softly, in a voice that still shook the box. “I promised.”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m not going to make you do something you’ll regret.”

“No,” Stephanie said. “I don’t want to kill you while you’re still with me. While I can still talk to you. While we can still be together, in some real way. If you don’t turn around before the end, though…Adam, I know it’s suicide by Steph, in some ways.”

Adam smiled sadly, a smile Stephanie could see.

“I know that’s what you want to do, and I’m okay with that – when it’s time. Because I know that once we can’t communicate, then…well, then.

“But when the time comes…I want to give you myself, one last time. But not before the time comes. I want say as many words as I can to you, until the day we can’t anymore.”

Adam wiped his eyes dry. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” she replied.

She stepped back, and sat down on the couch.

“You remember when you used to go on business trips? And you’d get lonely? And we’d…talk?”

Adam looked out at his wife, who was peeling her blouse off to expose her mountainous breasts. And grinned.

“Well,” said Stephanie, “it may be too dangerous for you to do things directly. But…we can still talk.”

Adam smiled. “Okay,” he said, leaning against the wall, watching the mountain, who was now removing her skirt. “Let’s talk.”

* * *

It was a grey, somber Wednesday.

She had looked in, seen him sleeping. The microphone was struggling to pick him up, now. She could no longer make out detail in him at all – he was a millimeter tall, as tall as a fingernail clipping is thick.

Compared to him, she was almost two miles tall.

She took a very fast shower, put the listening device back in, dressed and popped toast in. He still hadn’t woken up; he usually greeted her.

She walked over to the enclosure,expecting to see him sleeping, but he wasn’t. He was pacing. When he heard her coming, he turned to her – at least, it looked like he did. And jumped up and down.

Her heart all but stopped. She walked slowly toward him, and knelt down.

The microphone was in working order – the test button worked, and the earphone was receiving.

He had just slipped below its ability to hear him.

She looked at him, and put her hand against the wall of his glass, and started to cry.

Adam saw his wife do this through his own tears. He couldn’t make out features exactly, but he saw the eye, saw the water running like a rivulet down the walls of the box. Saw her uneven breaths fogging up the side of his final home.

When finally she regained herself, she got down at eye level, and said, in a voice that shook the box, “So this is it.”

Adam swallowed, and nodded.

“I love you so much,” she said to him. “I’m gonna…I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“I love you too!” he screamed, hoping she heard it.

She didn’t. But she could see what he was doing, when he put his hands to his mouth.

“Are you saying you love me too?”

She saw the speck enthusiastically nod yes.

“I know, Adam. I know.”

They watched each other silently for a long time. For as long as they could, before they knew.

It was time.

Stephanie opened the box.

“Now,” she said quietly, as she put her hand to the doorway, “if you want to stay in the box for longer…if you want to hang on for more…don’t step out onto my hand. Stay where you are. Maybe…we can….”

But Adam looked out resolutely at the 4,000 square feet of hand in front of him, and stepped into it. He was ready.

She lifted him up to her face, and brought her lips down next to him. She didn’t press them against him – she waited for him to approach, and to lean up against her bottom lip with all his force, so she would know that he was indeed kissing her goodbye.

“I’ve thought a lot about where to put you,” she said, after moving him back from her face. “Part of me wants to put you in my ear – see if I can hear you. But…well, there’s a part of me you always seemed to like quite a bit. And I think you’ll be happy there, for as long as you live. Which I hope is a long time.

“I love you so much, Adam. I will never, never, never forget you. I’ll see you again. I promise.”

They looked at each other, and then Stephanie slowly, carefully lowered her hand, until it rested against her lower abdomen. With her other hand, she stretched out her panties and the waistband of her shorts. And carefully, she dumped her husband into the forest of her pubic hair.

Adam skidded quite a ways before coming to rest in the shadow of the hair, in a world that quickly darkened as panties and shorts were put back into place. He rose, and found that some force – static electricity, maybe – held him to Stephanie, just enough that he wasn’t falling further.

He walked through the grove of brown trees, smelling the odor of Stephanie carried on the breeze. He didn’t know how long he would survive. Hours, days maybe – maybe minutes.

But he sank to his knees and kissed his wife’s skin. He could think of worse places to depart the Earth from than here.

She had given him a gift. He was grateful.

* * *

“It is over,” Aphrodite said.

“It is over,” Hephaestus agreed. “You have won.”

* * *

Stephanie lay back on the couch, not daring to move. She didn’t think she could even feel him down there; she wondered if he’d been hurt in the fall. This, she realized, was a strange worry; he was legally dead, according to state law.

But when all is lost, hope survives. And Stephanie still hoped, even as it dwindled away.

And so, as she’d prayed for months, she prayed one last time, to whatever Gods existed.

“If there is anyone up there, anyone at all…he’s a good man. And I love him. Please…I’ve prayed every night. Every night. And I don’t know if anyone’s listening. But if he could just be big enough for me to talk to – just big enough to see him. I don’t need him restored. I don’t need him back to normal. I just ask for him to be just an inch or two tall. And I will love him and be faithful to him and protect him until death do us part. Please. Amen.”

Stephanie cried until tears wouldn’t come any more. She wondered how much longer she could lie on the couch. She didn’t feel him down there, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still live – and that she could kill him by accident if she wasn’t careful.

That he wanted that – that he was counting on it – did not make it easier.

She didn’t want to call his parents. She didn’t want to call the county. She didn’t want to alert the media. That would make it real. And she didn’t want it to be real. She wanted to give the Gods a chance.

Maybe another five minutes. And then she’d get up.

βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (Kingdom of Heaven)

It would be nice to say that from that instant, Adam and Stephanie lived happily ever after. That the curse was broken, everything went back to normal, and they lived out their lives, happy and perfect.

But that wouldn’t be quite right. For one thing, nobody is really happy ever after. One suspects that Cinderella bickered with her Prince; one feels certain that Snow White and Prince Charming had to spend much of their first year of marriage simply getting to know each other. And how readily did Beauty take to the Beast, once he had become human again? The story is silent; we can only guess.

For another, the curse wasn’t broken. Adam was the size of Stephanie’s thumb. Whatever fate had brought him back to her had not cured him. The resumed their countdown to their separation, only now knowing just how painful it would be.

Adam and Stephanie desperately wanted just to melt into each other, but both knew within minutes of their uniting that simply being with each other would have to wait.

In real life, even in the happiest of real lives, there are still moments of doubt. There are still responsibilities to attend to. There are still promises to keep.

Adam had been the first one to broach the topic, some time after Stephanie had held him to her bosom.

“So…before we do anything else, we need to get you cleared,” Adam said.

Stephanie raised her eyebrows at this. “I don’t need to be cleared. I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” Adam said. (Stephanie strained to hear him. He was so much smaller now. She wondered if they could rig a microphone for him. She wondered if that would help.) “Of course you didn’t do anything. Only now, you have proof. Me. And I want you cleared immediately, because…Stephanie, you’re everything to me. I don’t want you getting attacked because I can’t keep myself safe.”

“I should have kept you safe,” Stephanie said, darkly.

“I don’t know if you could have,” Adam said, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Stephanie’s lovely, imposing visage. “The people who took me….”

Adam let the words trail off, because he realized to his horror that he would have to explain what had been done to him. He’d have to tell the police about the torture that was inflicted on him. He didn’t want to.

He wanted to put it in a box and turn the key, lock it away forever.

But he had responsibilities. And he focused on his wife, and he knew that for her sake, he needed to tell the authorities his story. The blame had to go onto Marbas and Tanith and Andousha. They had to pay.

“Adam…were you hurt? Did they hurt you?” Stephanie asked. It had suddenly struck her, like a fist in the gut, that Adam had been kidnapped. Not that she hadn’t known something like that had happened. But here he was, back to her – and he had really been kidnapped. It wasn’t a hypothetical. It wasn’t a theory. It was reality.

She had been vilified. He had been hurt. Even before he said it, she could see it in the posture of her tiny husband.

“Yeah,” Adam sighed, and found himself crumpling into tears.

The flood of it all overwhelmed him. All the pain and torture flooded through him, and suddenly, he lost all control of his emotions. He was simply sobbing. After what seemed like forever, he felt Stephanie’s finger gliding up and down his back, softly, caressing him.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, when he regained his composure. “I….”

“Never be sorry,” said Stephanie, who Adam saw had her own eyes filled with enough tears to bathe him. “It’s my fault.”

“No!” Adam called up, sternly. “It’s their fault. They hurt me. Not you. You went swimming, because I said you should. Maybe we were both dumb. But – it’s not your fault.”

Stephanie nodded, dumbly.

“It’s like – when a woman gets raped. People will say, ‘Oh, well, she was dressed provocatively,’ or ‘She shouldn’t have been out alone after dark.’ But so what?” Adam said. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t rape anyone. She’s a victim. Maybe she could have done more to protect herself – or maybe not. But blaming her just ignores the guy who raped her – because all he had to do to not rape her was not rape her.”

Adam felt righteously angry now. Angry at his kidnappers. Angry that his wife had to feel one second of guilt over his kidnapping. Angry that he ever had.

“They’re the bastards, Stephanie. Not you. All you ever did was love me. Even when I didn’t think I deserved it. I love you so much. Please. Don’t cry.”

He said that because it was now Stephanie’s turn to dissolve into tears of anger, tears of rage – at the people who had hurt her husband. She felt him, stroking her hand as much as his tiny body could – literally running up and down, sliding along it.

She bent down, at long last, and kissed him.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll call the police; we’ll go in, we’ll give statements. I’ll call our families and we can have a quick reunion. But by the time the evening news is on, I want you and I to be back here, at the house, alone. I’ve missed you so much…I just want to be with you.”

“And I suppose you’ll want a massage – I mean, it’s been a few weeks, right?”

Stephanie smiled just a bit. “Well….:”

Adam smiled at his wife, a smile that widened to a grin. “You’re asking me to do a lot of work. I mean, you’re the size of an aircraft carrier now, you know.”

“Details, details,” Stephanie said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I mean, if you don’t want to do that….”

“Did I say that?” said the tiny man on her table. “We’d best be back early. I need time to do this right.”

Stephanie smiled, then sobered. “You know, Adam…if you’re uncomfortable, if you’re not ready…I mean, you just mailed yourself to me. I don’t want to push it. So if you want to just come back and relax…I’m okay with that, too.”

Adam beamed up at her. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I want to massage you as best I can. I mean…you love me. I love you. I get to be with you again. And that’s all I ever wanted.”

*  *  *

By the time the press conference was over, the statements were taken, and the reunions with family and friends were complete, both Adam and Stephanie could have been forgiven had they chosen to come home and curl up, no matter how willing their spirits.

It had been a very emotional few hours. Adam had told off the world for ever suspecting his wife of hurting him, and then had told police just how he’d been hurt by those who really did kidnap him. By the time he bid his family adieu, the police in the city where he’d been imprisoned had raided the lab, and confirmed its existence – including some notes that conclusively proved Adam’s story true. Marbas and Andousha were nowhere to be found, but Tanith Nightingale had been found, dead – her throat slit, her body splayed out in the middle of a crudely drawn pentagram on the floor of her studio apartment.

This, of course, sent the media into paroxysms of muted glee (“Were Adam White’s kidnappers…Satanists?” they asked. It was probably for the best that they didn’t know the real answer). Adam and Stephanie, however, had stated flatly that they’d have no further statement after the press conference, and to underline that, Stephanie had decided to do exactly what she was planning to do when that day began – only with much more joy in the action.

Hey, she was already packed.

And so she and Adam checked in to a very nice hotel, the kind with turn-down service and late night room service and large, cushy beds. And Stephanie promptly turned off her cell phone, hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and stripped.

*  *  *

The bistro was about halfway full; this town wasn’t much for staying up late, and the small group at the table in the corner appeared to be the group that would close down the place. Not that the staff was complaining – the three women were stunningly beautiful, each in their own way, and for fanciers of the rougher sex, the man was quite delicious himself. They ordered big and appeared more than willing to tip big as well – the group was clearly in a celebratory mood about something.

“Sounds like they’re attorneys,” Meg said, conspiratorially to her on-again, off-again, but presently on-again lover Pete. “The black woman was telling the brunette something about a closing argument.”

“No way,” Pete said. “She looks like she’s about 19. Maybe 20.”

“Been looking at her a lot, have you?”

“No,” said Pete. “At least, not more than you’ve been looking at her brother.”

“Her brother? The guy? You think so?”

“It’s the nose. Anyhow, you’re out of luck; I think he’s dating the redhead. Certainly can’t keep his eyes off her. Not that I blame him. She is smoking.”

“Hmf. And here I was going to suggest you come over to my place after closing. But I see you’re distracted.”

“Oh, come on, Meg, don’t be like that. You know exactly how hot I think you are.”

“Yeah? Well –”

The two stopped their conversation as the door opened. It was very late for another diner to come in on a weeknight, but the restaurant was still open, and the man certainly fit the place – dapper, smooth, wearing a pin-striped black suit with a red tie and rose in the lapel. He scanned the room, and seeing the party in the corner, smiled at Peter, the maître d’.

“Don’t worry,” the gentleman said. “I see my party.”

He glided over to the four in the corner, and delighted as the conversation died down. “Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” he said. “May I join you?”

The brunette woman looked at him, frowned dubiously for just a moment, and then fixed a winning smile on her face. “Of course, Lucifer. Though I must say, I’m surprised.”

“No more than I, dear. No more than I.”

*  *  *

Adam looked up at the goddess who was his wife, and gulped. She was so damn big – six or seven times as big as she’d been on their honeymoon, what seemed a lifetime ago.

When last he’d seen her, she’d seemed about 36 feet tall. Now, that’s really, really tall – her knee was a good meter over his head, and he could fit his head in her vagina. But now? Now she was well over two hundred feet tall. Had he been viewing her from the floor, he knew her ankle would have been far above him. Each leg of hers was the height of a middle-sized office building, and she herself was approaching that line of demarcation that divided office towers from skyscrapers.

Of course, she was doing no such thing, he knew; it was he that was dwindling. But it was so hard to think of it any other way.

He stood on the night stand by a king-sized bed that was the size of a few football pitches, and gazed up at the immense, beautiful woman and swallowed again. He was just above knee level, looking up at her smooth, naked form, and he had no idea where to begin.

Then, suddenly and without warning, that mammoth creature dropped down, so that her face was at his level. Her breasts swayed dazzingly as she descended; he saw to his amazement that each aereola was almost as wide as he was. The nipples were as big as his head. Her face filled his visage, like looking at a billboard from up close. She smiled at him, the same quiet, loving smile that she’d smiled at him the first night they’d made love (okay, technically they hadn’t actually had sex that night, but it was close enough), and while it was a smile that was wider now than he was tall, he finally felt the blood return to his stomach.

It was okay. This massive landscape was Stephanie. And that was all that mattered.

“You are adorable,” she said, her breath cascading around him, bathing him in warm humidity. “And you still think I look all right, I see,” she said, the smile growing to a grin.

Adam didn’t have to look down to know that he’d reacted with the gallant reflex.

“You’re amazing, as always. I just…I don’t even know where to start,” Adam admitted. “I mean…there’s not very much of me left.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” said Stephanie. “I don’t want to break you. But I do want to welcome you back.”

And with that, she leaned in and kissed him, hard, and proceeded to run her tongue down, then up the front of him, then down again, and up, but in shorter strokes, until she settled on a point that she was quite familiar with.

Stephanie was very, very careful. She could still feel the proud flesh of her husband, and she slid along it gently, as if he were made of porcelain.

Adam, for his part, was instantly moving toward orgasm, but about halfway through, he said, loudly, “Stop!”

Stephanie pulled back instantly. “What? Too hard? Did I hurt you? Adam, I –”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re being too gentle,” he said, smiling. “Do it with abandon.”

Stephanie was quiet for a moment. “You might get hurt,” she said, finally.

“I’ve been hurt,” said Adam. “You can’t hurt me. Not in any way that matters.”

“But if you got injured, or died….”

“I’m gonna die, Steph,” Adam said. “I can’t think of a better way to go.”

Stephanie looked at her husband. It was brave, and stupid, what he was saying. What he wanted to do.

“You know,” she said, “I threw in the massage oil. Just on the off chance….”

“Perfect,” said Adam, beaming. “That’s the stuff. I’ll need your help to pour it.”

“I can help however you need me to,” Stephanie said. “Let me get a couple towels for the bed. I’ll be right back.”

*  *  *

“So,” Mami Wata said, after a long, long silence, “what brings you out tonight, child?”

“Well,” said Lucifer, surveilling the menu, “I’ve been meaning to visit this restaurant for some time. I hear the quail is excellent.”

“Seriously,” said Eros. “Why are you here? You want to interrupt the party?”

“Hell, no, Eros. Believe me, you have earned your celebration. I have not seen such a magnificently argued case before the Council in many a decade. As soon as I have the opportunity to order wine, I fully intend to toast the victor; you outmaneuvered me, Aphrodite. I lost this one. And I take my losses graciously.”

“Aye, that’s all well and good,” Aoibheal said, “but it still doesn’t explain why you’re here, and here now.”

“Isn’t the willingness to congratulate an adversary on victory enough? And here I thought good sportsmanship was the essence of gentility.”

Aphrodite smiled. She found herself doing it quite a bit over the last day. “Lucifer, my dear, I accept your gracious concession. And now, please cut to the chase – so we can get whatever unpleasantness there is behind us, and get on with the celebration.”

Lucifer returned Aphrodite’s smile. “Well said, my dear. I am here primarily to enquire about something you said in your argument. About there being sad stories, as well as happy ones.”

“Go on,” Aphrodite said.

“Well…it seems to me that you were allowing for the idea that I and my cohorts might be granted the ability to use your discovery to tempt and vex mankind. Which is, I must say, all I ever wanted in this matter.”

“I know,” Aphrodite said. “And don’t worry; you’ll get the information on how to do what I’ve been doing. After the Whites have found their ending.”

Eros and Aoibheal broke out into objections; Mami Wata smiled quietly. Aphrodite raised her hand.

“It is impolite for Gods to deny other Gods information,” she said, firmly. “And I meant everything I said – Satan needs to be able to tempt humans, so that they can say ‘no.’ Or ‘yes,’ as some do wish to yield to temptation, don’t they?”

“But – won’t this increase pain in the world?” Eros objected.

“Of course it will,” Aphrodite said. “Which is why it’s our job to use it to advance the cause of love. And to, from time to time, go up against Lucifer in an effort to save damned souls. Something I’m sure he understands, don’t you?”

Lucifer smiled a toothy grin. “But of course, Aphrodite,” he said. “I look forward to many battles to come.”

“Mmm, I bet you do,” she replied. “And you’ll get them. Incidentally, please remind your Chancellor, next time you see him, that the bet should resolve itself in the next few weeks, and I want him to be around for its resolution.”

“Of course,” Lucifer said. “Of course.”

And with that unpleasantness behind them, the five Gods ate quite a nice dinner, and left quite a nice tip.

*  *  *

“So how do we do this?” Stephanie said.

“Well,” said Adam, looking at the gap between the nightstand and the bed, “I really have no idea.”

Stephanie chuckled. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

Adam looked over at his giant wife, laying with her stomach on the bed, her soft behind looming like a mesa, her long hair laying haphazardly like a field of vines. He said, finally, “Can you reach out your hand and put it on the table?”

Stephanie instinctively reached out palm-up, to carry him over, but he shook his head. “Face down. And try to stay as still as you can.”

She flipped her left hand, and Adam walked over to the junction between her third and fourth fingers, lovingly stroking the now-enormous rings on the fourth. “I didn’t realize I’d bought this big a diamond,” he said, cheekily. “I think I got a pretty good deal.”

“I love it,” the monument rumbled, softly, as Adam grasped the webbing at the base of her hand and pulled himself up on top of her smooth skin.

Her hand was soft, and the skin yielded just a bit under his feet. He stood up, and surveyed the area; the back of her hand was eighty feet square, give or take. He could feel her pulse in his feet as she walked, and then, suddenly, the ground shifted, just a bit.

He fell to the ground, bouncing on his butt. “Oh! Sorry,” Stephanie said, struggling against her instinct to move, lest she cause Adam further indignation. “It tickled.”

“’Sokay. I need to be careful. Can’t forget the ground’s alive, and attached to a pretty girl. All right,” he said, getting up.

He walked to the arm, which bridged the twenty foot gap between the nightstand and the bed. This was the most dangerous stretch; after this, a fall would land him on the bed, and he would be okay.

Carefully, Adam got down on all fours, the better to hold on to the six-foot-wide path. He felt her pulse even more clearly here. Carefully, he edged his way across the gap, exhaling only when he was over the bed.

“So do you want me to lift you onto my back now, my little daredevil?” Stephanie asked.

“Nah. I’ve got a nice road to follow,” Adam replied, sliding along the smooth, mottled skin of his wife.

A different mind might have looked at Adam’s journey and seen the imperfections in Stephanie. The mole here, the freckles that were bigger than the palms of his hands. The foot-tall hair that isn’t supposed to cover women’s arms, because beautiful women are supposed to be hairless for reasons that nobody quite understands.

Adam saw these things, of course, because he was there, on the seventy-odd foot journey along her arm. But he didn’t see them as imperfections. They were just a part of Stephanie, magnified as all of her was. The cute freckles that had always dotted her forearms were just what they’d always been. The hair had always been there. So had the moles. They didn’t bother him, They were, if anything, reassuring. He knew these moles; he’d seen them. Traced them idly, in the nights when they were worn out and happy, drenched in sweat and sex.

He reached her upper arms, which were less yielding than her forearms. He could feel her solid muscles now, feel the athleticism in her that he’d always loved. He was very close to his destination now. He reached her shoulder blade, smelled the scent of Stephanie emanating from the armpit below; he reached the back of her scapula, and stepped down onto the back, breathing at last. He walked over by her spine, and said, “I’m ready for the oil.”

“That looked like hard work,” Stephanie said.

“That was amazing,” Adam said. “You’re amazing at this size.”

Stephanie felt the tiny footsteps of her husband on her back, and had to fight down the shivers they sent down her spine. “You know,” she said, “if we cover my back in oil, that’s going to make it hard to maneuver.”

“I can put up with that,” Adam said.

“Yeah, but…you know what I’d like more than a massage?”

“What?” Adam said, somewhat surprised.

“Just…keep exploring,” she said, dreamily. “Keep exploring for as long as you want to. It feels nice,” she said.

Adam didn’t need prodding. He did just what his wife said – walking down her back, climbing the soft, round hillocks of her behind, sliding between her legs, feeling the damp, soft folds of her vulva – teasing her with just a touch there, before asking (three times – he was far away, and distracting her) her to roll over. He accepted the proffered hand, and let her set him on her stomach; he headed north, to her magnificent breasts, climbed the left one and simply lay on it, feeling its softness and her heartbeat, solid and strong. He kissed her nipple, slid down and climbed up her ear, peered in the massive pool of her eye. He knelt by her lips and kissed them.

He was quite surprised when her massive mouth opened up  and a tongue popped out, picking him clean and pulling him inside.

For half a second, he panicked, before his mind overrode the old, instinctive fear of being eaten. Stephanie simply held him in the warm cave of her mouth, sliding her massive, rough tongue over him as the world did somersaults, maneuvering him until he lay with his back against her incisors, where she could resume the blow-job she’d begun quite some time ago.

This time, Adam had no reason to complain about gentility. Stephanie wasn’t rough, but she didn’t hold herself back. She slid the tongue over and over, coating him in her spit, sliding the tip over his penis quickly, then slowly, then quickly again until he couldn’t take it anymore and burst, coating that tip of her tongue with semen.

He lay there, weak and spent for just a moment, as she moved her tongue up and opened her mouth. He was pushed backward into a free-fall – just a short one, which ended with him on her pillow, staring up at the massive, smiling woman he was bound to.

“Wow,” he said, eliciting a giggle from Stephanie.

“So you didn’t mind that?” she asked.

“No,” said Adam, who couldn’t think of a witty riposte.

She kissed him, gently, and they lay there for a little bit, before he said, “Well, you know there’s someplace I’d like you to put me.”

“My ear? I can do that,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, that’s exactly where. Come on, Stephanie. It’s been too long.”

“Mmm…I agree,” she said. “But I want you to promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Nope,” Adam said. “I want to take you with everything I have.”

Stephanie sighed, but she still gave him her hand, and deposited him between her thighs.

She was face-up, leaning against the pillows so she could see him. He walked over to the daunting gates of her sex, which were actually elevated just a little bit. He used the hair down there to pull himself up beside the glistening lips, lips that were already inviting him. He slid between them, and against them, covering himself with the viscous fluid that seeped from between them. And grabbing a lungful of air, he pulled himself inside.

He had pushed his head in before, just for a moment. This was something else. All around him, he felt the pulse of Stephanie, the rush of blood, the rivulet of fluid. Her smell filled the world. He slid a fair way in, but not too far – he didn’t want to drown – and he felt for just a second like he could wait her forever, pushed between the yielding walls of her pussy.

But he pulled himself out, at least long enough to grab another lungful of air, and to go back in.

Ten times he did that, before he finally surfaced completely, and pulled himself to the edge of the lips, where a nub of flesh somewhat larger than his head stood, bouncing with the pulse of its owner.

He fairly tackled it, rubbing against it with all his strength, as from some eighty feet above him, a low, rumbling moan escaped. He slid against it, slick with the sex of his wife, letting it slide against him. He found himself growing hard again, and he ground his erection against it, as the rumbling moan grew deeper, and urgent.

And then, the earthquake came. It was all he could do to maintain his grip, to keep from being thrown to the bed below. When finally the ground stabilized, he lay down upon it, enjoying its warmth, the pulse that kept it going, the smell that he knew so well.

Eventually, two soft fingers carefully plucked him, and brought him back to the pillow, where the beautiful face of his wife gazed down at him.

They didn’t speak for a long time. They didn’t have to.

They were home.

“Ἐπεὶ δ’ οὖν πάντες ὅσοι τε περιπολοῦσιν φανερῶς καὶ ὅσοι φαίνονται καθ’ ὅσον ἂν ἐθέλωσιν θεοὶ γένεσιν ἔσχον, λέγει πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὁ τόδε τὸ πᾶν γεννήσας τάδε” ¹

Aphrodite swallowed as the thirteen members of the Council filed in, each sliding behind their chairs – well, all save Kunapipi, who simply floated in the space afforded her. They sat as one, as if they had choreographed their motions; as they sat down, the sober, dark man at the center of the semicircle spoke.

“You may be seated,” he said, in an accent not very different from the one Mami Wata affected. “The Council of Thirteen is now in session, a majority of its members being present, we shall first open with daily business, followed by the expedited petition in the case of Aphrodite v. Hephaestus. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Chair Emeritus.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chair,” said Yhwh, stroking his long, white beard. “I request the call of the roll.”

“To what purpose?”

“We have quite a full house today, and I believe that a more formal introduction is warranted.”

“Because we are Gods, and we wish to be loved, you mean,” Anansi said, waggishly. “Very well, the distinguished Chair Emeritus has requested a formal call of the roll, are there three seconds?” Eleven Gods raised their hands. “Clearly three second, the Chief of Staff shall call the roll.”

St. Peter, who was sitting at a desk behind the chair, straightened up and intoned, “Allah, God of the Muslims.”

“Here,” said the God sitting at Yhwh’s left. He could have been Yhwh’s twin – which, of course, he was. Only the somewhat darker beard betrayed any difference between the God of the Jews and the God of the Muslims.

“Siddhārtha Gautama, Gautama Buddha.”

“I am present,” said a fat, smiling Indian sitting stage left.

“Christ Jesus of Nazareth, Trinitarian God of the Christians.”

“Here,” said a younger Semitic God, sitting at the right hand of Yhwh.

“Izanami-no-Mikoto, Japanese Goddess of Creation and Death.”

“Yes, I am here.” Aphrodite was stunned at Izanami-no-Mikoto’s visage, which was corpselike and decaying; she knew that the Goddess could appear however she wanted to. She was surprised she chose such a frightening display.

“Freyja Njörðrsdottir, Norse Goddess of Love.”

“Here,” said Freyja, and she gave Aphrodite a smile. The blond Amazon was radiant, as always; Aphrodite made a mental note to discuss the poetry of Sappho with her after this trial was concluded.

“Athena Pallas Athene, Greek Goddess of War and the Hunt.”

“Present,” said Athena, coldly. Aphrodite expected the daggers her sister shot at her, but was somewhat surprised to see, if anything, more disdain expressed toward Hephaestus. She ignored the hope this instilled in her; she had no doubt Athena would rule against her if she could find a way to do so.

“Dr. Bertrand Russell, Atheist Prophet.”

“Here,” said the professor. He looked rather small compared to the Gods and Goddesses around him, but as he shuffled through notes, Aphrodite caught a sense of a mind racing.

“Saraswati, Hindu Goddess of Knowledge, Music, and the Arts.”

“I am here,” said the pretty Indian Goddess, toying with her hair with one of her four arms.

“The Triple Goddess, representing Wicca.”

“We are here,” said the Goddess, who was presently incarnate in her Mother image; a blink of an eye changed her to Maiden, and another to Crone. She smiled at Aphrodite and Hephaestus both.

“Yù Huáng, Jade Emperor of Heaven.”

“Present,” said the slim Chinese God, in an authoratative voice.

“The Vice Chair, Kunapipi, Mother Goddess of Australia.”

“I am here,” said the shimmering, ethereal being, a woman in form, but more a creature of rainbow light.

“The Chair Emeritus, Yhwh, God of the Jews.”

“Yes, present.”

“The Chair, Kweku Anansi, God of Tricks and Storytelling.”

“I am here,” said Anansi, “and now that we have all been introduced, the Chair will entertain a series of motions to adopt the previous meeting’s minutes as read, to suspend the rules and lay the discussion of temporal disturbances on the table, and to move directly onto the order of the day.”

“So moved,” said Kunapipi.

“Second,” said Yhwh.

“All in favor? Opposed? By unanimous vote, we shall move on to the order of the day.”

Anansi smiled. A hush fell over the cavern.

“Now, Hephaestus is joined at his table by Lord Ba’al Zbûb, the Devil’s Advocate,” said Anansi. “Aphrodite, you have no advisor with you; have you sought advice on the procedures for petitioning the council?”

Aphrodite cleared her throat. “Mr. Chair, honorable members, yes, I have been advised by the distinguished Emeritus Councilor Mami Wata.”

“Ah, Mami Wata. Dear Mami Wata. No doubt, this is why you are alone; it would be improper for a former Councilor to argue in front of the Council when still Of Council. You are comfortable with this, though? You do not wish to ask the Council that an exception be made? That your guide be allowed to argue for you?”

For a half-second, Aphrodite was ready to say yes, to put her burden on Mami Wata. But before she did, she thought back to what Mami Wata had told her, many times.

She would know what to say.

“I have been advised well,” she said. “With due respect, I will argue for myself.”

“Very good,” said Anansi, eyes twinkling. (Eight eyes twinkling? For just a second, he had appeared very spider-like. Of course, Anansi is a spider and Anansi is a man. He is both; this is not a conflict.) “Without further ado, we shall begin. Are there any motions from the petitioner?”

“No, Mr. Chair.”

“Again, good. Any motions from the respondent?”

Beelzebub cleared his throat, and rose. “Milord, on behalf of the Chancellor I move for dismissal of this case; the Chancellor is willing to concede his bet.”

At this the crowd erupted into a thousand side conversations, causing Anansi to raise his voice over the din. “We will have order! We will have order before this panel! What do you mean by this?”

“We are willing….”

“I am not speaking to you, Beelzebub. You, Hephaestus – what do you mean, you will concede?”

Hephaestus cleared his throat, and slowly rose. “Milord, my circumstances have changed. While I won’t be working directly on Earth – and thus will not be able to fulfill my promise, for now, of working for gender equality – I will concede all else in the case, and accept defeat, in order to end this case immediately.”

“And you decided to wait until you were before the Council to do so? Unbelievable.”

The din in the hall had ceased, and now was replaced by an almost perfect silence. Aphrodite stared over at Hephaestus, nonplussed; this seemed far too good to be true. She would have her victory, immediately. She could hand-deliver Adam to Stephanie – assuming they could move quickly enough.

“Does the petitioner object to the motion?”

This seemed to good to be true.

She would have to see if it was.

“Milord,” Aphrodite said, slowly, fighting the urge to look again at Mami Wata, “I am curious; it is my understanding that the withdrawal of this case would leave no precedent for other Gods and Goddesses to follow, no hint of how they should treat volitionals in the future. Is that correct?”

“It is,” Anansi said, giving her a half-smile.

“Milord, I object,” she said.

“Why?” Anansi said.

“Because…because I believe this motion is not made in good faith. I believe that the respondent seeks to interfere in the return of Adam White to his wife. I will accept the motion if the respondent agrees on behalf of himself and his comrades in Hell to grant Adam White safe passage home, and to allow him to be restored to his full height.”

Lord Ba’al Zbûb and Hephaestus whispered pointedly back and forth. “Well?” Anansi said, after a long wait.

“Milord…we cannot agree to bind the hands of Hell. Not without the permission of Lord Satan.”

“Well then,” Anansi said, “Lord Satan may come forward and address the Council, if he wishes to support the motion.”

All eyes in the cavern turned to Satan, who sat, stone-faced, in his seat.

“Very well. respondent will not agree to grant Adam White safe passage, therefore the Chair will consider the respondent’s motion to be withdrawn. Any further motions?”

Aphrodite shook her head. She wasn’t sure if she’d just won or just lost.

* * *

Stephanie woke early. She had been having the strangest dream, one that seemed to slip away as soon as she awoke. There was an argument going on about her and Adam, about his safety. She didn’t understand it all, and it was gone now. But it had seemed important.

She rubbed her eyes, and checked the clock. It was still the middle of the night. She groaned. She knew that she wouldn’t get back to sleep; the house seemed so empty. It had ever since she had returned to it alone.

After debating for a few minutes, she got up. She would start to pack. Michael was right; this wasn’t a good place for her to be, not right now. She would pack, get a nap in, and she’d leave that afternoon for a hotel. (Or maybe she’d take Michael up on his offer; he was a good friend. She’d have done the same for him.)

She’d wait for the mail, though. She’d have it forwarded to her parents’ house starting tomorrow, but she wanted to go through the ritual one last time, read the death threats and marriage proposals and prayers and curses one last time. And then – then it would be time to go. At least for now.

She got out the suitcase she had last carried on her honeymoon. And she began to fill it.

* * *

Ba’al Zbûb sighed. “If we must continue the trial, I respectfully request that the honorable Councillor Freyja Njörðrsdottir recuse herself from this hearing, and that she be replaced by the honorable Chair Emeritus Quetzalcoatl for this hearing.”

“Why do you ask this?” Anansi said.

“Because as a fellow Love Goddess, she is biased toward the Petitioner.”

“Aphrodite?”

Aphrodite fought back a smile. She had brought up the idea of challenging Jesus; he seemed like a sure no vote to her. But Mami Wata had told her in no uncertain terms that members hated to have any other members asked to step aside. It was not considered polite.

They would do so, of course, if both sides made challenges. But they didn’t like it.

“Mr. Chair, it seems to me that if Freyja must step aside because she shares a calling with me, then Christ Jesus would have to step aside, because both he and Hephaestus are artisan Gods.”

Aphrodite smiled her most winning smile. “Of course, I will make no such motion; that would be foolishness. I believe that both Jesus and Freyja – and indeed, all the members of the Council – can decide honorably this case. I object to this – and any other – request for recusal.”

“Just so. Is there a second from the committee for Lord Ba’al Zbûb’s motion? No? Seeing no second, the motion dies. Any other motions?”

Zbûb shook his head. “No, Milord.”

“Good. Now. The Chief of Staff shall read the petition, and then the petitioner shall make her presentation; the respondent shall rebut this. At that time, we shall take a recess, and the Council shall ask such further questions as it has before rendering its verdict. The Chief of Staff shall proceed.”

And as St. Peter began to read the challenge Aphrodite herself had authored, Aphrodite’s stomach lurched again. Because Mami Wata was wrong. She had no idea what to say.

* * *

Adam was beginning to despair whether he’d ever make it home. It had seemed like forever since he sealed himself inside the envelope; he couldn’t tell day from night anymore. He had just been sorted again, the envelope was in a truck. But he didn’t know if it was heading to Stephanie now, or if he was three states away.

He fought down the urge to break out of the envelope. He would have to wait. Maybe he would die en route. But at least his body would make it home. He just had to have faith.

Besides, the envelope was roomier now than it had been when he entered it; shrinking had its advantages, he supposed.

* * *

“Thank you for your presentations. This Council shall stand in recess for one hour.”

Anansi brought down his gavel, and the Council abruptly disappeared. And Aphrodite heaved a huge sigh.

The morning arguments hadn’t gone poorly, exactly. Indeed, now that she finally chanced a glance at Mami Wata, she could see that the goddess looked pleased. She had built her case around Hergensheimer v. Yhwh – in that case, after all, it had been ruled that volitionals who are promised rewards shall be granted them. And the argument had seemed persuasive to at least a few of the members of the Council. Saraswati seemed eager to advance the argument, noting a series of cases that seemed to bolster her case. And Bertrand Russell had argued passionately in favor of restoring Adam to preserve the “reason doctrine” which had prevailed since the seventeenth century.

But Allah had been scathing in his questioning, and he had seemed much more receptive to Beelzebub’s claim that considering the feelings of volitionals could interfere with the ability of the gods to judge humankind. And Athena had launched an ad hominem attack against Aphrodite, talking once more about her temptation of Paris, leaving out Athena’s own proposed bribe. As the attack had come during the respondents’ time, Aphrodite could only look on with cold fury at her sister.

She could not consult with any of the other gods during the break. She could only look at her notes from the morning, and try to figure out what she could say to persuade the Council that she was right. That mortals were not just playthings. That they deserved more. That they deserved the right to tell their own stories, as much as the gods.

For a second, she paused. She thought…no.

No, she didn’t have it. But she could. She studied more.

* * *

The last part of the ride had been bumpy. He’d heard voices outside, heard chatter, then felt the world moving again. Finally, he heard a voice that sounded familiar saying, “Hey, Steph! Mail’s here.”

His heart leapt. He thought it must be Michael. It would stand to reason – the guy was one of Stephanie’s best friends. He must be helping her through the mess of losing her husband. Good. He was glad. She needed the support.

“Thanks, Michael,” said Stephanie, tipping the basket of mail out onto the kitchen table. “I’m just going to go through this before we go.”

“You sure? You know it’s just death threats.”

“Yeah, some of them are funny. Like this one – ‘Die bitch.’ That’s all it says. I mean, if you’re going to send a letter, wouldn’t you take some time?”

Stephanie moved through the mail quickly. She saw a few larger letter that she’d save until the end – some of them had useful information. But about halfway through the opening of the letters, she came across one that stopped her cold.

It was a long and violent treatise from someone claiming to have killed Adam. Claiming to have crushed his body flat with their foot, until he was just paste. It was very descriptive. And though Stephanie knew it was just meant to rattle her…it rattled her.

Adam heard her start crying, and he decided that he’d had enough of waiting. He worked his way to the edge of the envelope, and quickly worked it open. She needed to know he was alive.

He was briefly disoriented as he emerged into the now enormous kitchen. Stephanie had risen, and had her back to him. She had balled the letter, and flung it across the room with all the strength she could muster. Michael walked over to her and held her, letting her cry it out.

“Why do people have to be such bastards?” she asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said.

“I just…I hate it. I wish…I wish I could be back in his arms like I was at the beginning, like everything was back to normal. I just wish that it was normal again.”

“It can be,” Michael said, pulling away just a bit.

And then, to the shocked dismay of a tiny man, Michael kissed Stephanie, full on the lips.

She didn’t immediately pull away.

* * *

The question session with the Council, Mami Wata had said, is where cases are won and lost. The Council’s members are more than happy to tip their hands, to show their thinking. The God who does better in changing those lines of thinking is the God who will win.

Thus far, Aphrodite was pretty sure she was losing.

She had, she thought, four or five Gods on her side. Saraswati, Bertrand Russell, Freyja, and The Triple Goddess all were vicious in their questioning of Hephaestus; they were much more solicitous to her. And Kunapipi, though inscrutable as always, seemed to be on her side. That was the good news.

The bad news was that Yhwh, Allah and Jesus all seemed solidly in Hephaestus’s camp, as did Yù Huáng. The Gods who could be persuaded seemed down to Anansi (whose questions were complex and multifaceted), Buddha, Izanami-no-Mikito, and Athena. And Aphrodite wouldn’t consider Athena on her side even if she won her vote.

She needed to run the table. She needed to convince them. She needed to…

“Madam Aphrodite?”

…pay attention.

“Please, Mister Chair, could you repeat the question?”

Anansi sighed. “Tell me, why exactly is it these volitionals you have decided to care about? Why not the ones before?”

Aphrodite sighed. “I have cared about the volitionals for some time. For example, I gave Pygmalion….”

“Yes, you gave Pygmalion his Galatea. And good for you. But you did so only after a great deal of resistance. Now you seem willing to go to the ends of the universe for these two humans. Why?”

She swallowed, and decided to answer the question honestly.

“I don’t know, Mister Chair. It just…I believe that what Hephaestus and I have done is to muddle up their lives. To inject ourselves into their story.”

“Their story?”

“Well, yes,” Aphrodite said. “Metaphorically, anyhow. I mean, the story of Adam and Stephanie White’s love….”

She stopped.

She looked down. Could it really be that simple?

“We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true,” she murmured.

“What?” scoffed Yhwh. Anansi, though, ventured a small smile.

“A story, a story; let it come, let it go! That’s it!” said Aphrodite.

“What is ‘it,’ Aphrodite?” said Anansi. The question was pointed, but he was beaming at her.

She was right. She knew it.

“Mister Chair, Members of the Council, Adam White and Stephanie White are part of a story. Their story. Just as all of us are a part of the stories and myths that have created us, the narrative of their lives has created them. They exist for the same reason the whole of creation exists.

“Christ Jesus, in your holy work, the Bible, there is a book that begins, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Anansi – you sought the stories, because the stories were the most valuable of all the Sky God’s possessions. The stories – the stories. Let them come, let them go.”

“What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?” asked Yù Huáng.

“Simple, your Highness,” Aphrodite said. “Adam and Stephanie White are part of a story. It may be a good story. It may be a bad one. It may have a happy ending, it may have a sad one. But it is theirs. We the Gods can test them – throw up challenges – test them reasonably. But when we give impossible challenges, or use their suffering for mere maculate gain, we destroy the narrative of their lives. We interfere with their story. And there is no graver sin than that.”

“Please,” said Beelzebub mockingly. “Are we to believe that Faust is somehow invalid because of my Lord’s interference in a mortal life?”

“Of course not,” shot back Aphrodite. “We can test mortals, and we can make death, damnation, perdition – all of these can be a part of the bargain. They can choose their fate. But they must be able to choose. Not you. Not me. Not even Al’yah, begging milady’s pardon.

“Adam White did not choose his fate. That does not mean that it was wrong for us to interfere in his life, to give him a chance for growth. But we must give him the ending that is right for him, and for Stephanie. We must give them the chance to make their decisions, to come to their resolutions, and to live the fate that is just for them. And they, and only they, can choose their destiny.”

The cave was silent. Dead silent. Anansi looked around the Council, and smiled. It was clear that no further questions needed to be asked. So he asked a couple.

“There is a promise between them. One made by one to the other. What say you of that?”

“I say,” said Aphrodite, surprising herself, “let them make that choice. I can wait. And let my bet ride on their decision.”

“And if Hell gains this power, and decides to use it to their advantage?”

“So long as humans have free will, and have the ability to say no to Satan’s temptations…there are dark stories as well as light ones, milord.”

“Indeed.” The Chair cleared his throat. “Very well. Are there any other questions? Seeing none, the Council shall vote in the matter of Aphrodite v. Hephaestus. Said vote shall be taken by secret ballot; the members will place their markers in the bag as it comes by them.”

The bag was handed to St. Peter, who quickly tallied the vote, and gave the information to the chair.

“Very well,” said Anansi. “The vote is decided.”

And then he paused.

Aphrodite never knew a longer moment.

* * *

Adam never knew a longer moment.

The kiss lasted but a second, maybe two. But it lasted long enough for Adam to quickly reverse course, toward the mail.

All the inadequacy of his reduction was thrown back in stark, titanic relief. She had found Michael. Found him amidst the pain. He could make her life normal. Like she wanted.

Adam coming back now would just complicate things. He’d just….

But he didn’t have a chance to complete the thought, before he heard the sounds of a giant stumbling backward, followed by the sound of a nearby thunderclap. Adam turned, and saw something that caused his heart to leap.

Stephanie stared Michael down with a blazing fury. Michael rubbed the cheek that his friend had slapped. “I –” he started to say, but Stephanie wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

“What the fuck was that, Michael? Did you – did you really just do that?”

“Steph, I can explain. I –”

“I’m married, Michael! I wouldn’t cheat on Adam for anything. Anything!”

“He’s dead!”

“If you’re right, then I can tell you that it will take a hell of a lot longer than a few weeks to get over him. I love him, Michael. I always will.”

“But Steph…I mean, I love you.”

Stephanie laughed bitterly. “No. You don’t. You want me. How long?”

“What?”

“How long have you been plotting this? Since Adam started shrinking? Before? I remember you talking about the guy in England, whose wife was sleeping with someone else – that was a pass, wasn’t it? Planting the seed, hoping I’d hop in bed with you when things got rough. My God, you selfish bastard!”

“Selfish?” Michael said, finally mustering some anger. “Selfish? I’ve been your shoulder to cry on for years. I’ve been here when everyone else left you. I’ve counseled you through Brad, and David, and Rick, and now Adam. I gave you emotional support, but did you ever see me as anyone you’d be interested in fucking?”

“Yes,” said Stephanie. “But you never asked. And anyhow, Jesus, was I wrong. You’re the worst type of sleazebag. You’re a guy who feigns friendship. You never really cared about me at all.”

“What?”

“You wanted sex, you could have been a man and asked for it. But you didn’t. You tried to weasel your way into my panties, rather than trying the direct route. That’s why you’ll never have me, Michael. If you’d been the friend I thought you were, you’d understand that.

“Now get the hell out of our house.”

Michael looked at Stephanie with unfocused rage. For a second, Adam thought that he might go after her, but instead he sullenly trudged away.

Stephanie walked over to the table, and sad down heavily. She rested her head in her hands, and cried for a good long time. Until gradually, she became aware of an itch on her right elbow.

She rubbed her eyes, and looked down.

And gasped.

* * *

“By a vote of 10-3, this Council finds in favor of the motion by the petitioner. We declare that the bet between Aphrodite and Hephaestus will be complete at such time as Stephanie has fulfilled her promise to Adam, or at such time as she is released from that promise. Further, we enjoin Satan from further interference in the lives of the Whites. And this Council declares henceforth that Gods must take the self-determination of volitionals into account when casting miracles. With no further business before the Council, we stand adjourned.”

The cave broke into a roar of approval. Hephaestus and Beelzebub trudged back through the throng toward Satan, who appeared more thoughtful than angry.

The Council did not disappear. Instead, most of them rose and headed directly for Aphrodite – all save Allah, Yhwh, and Yù Huáng. Mami Wata was headed for her as well, as were Eros and most of the Greek Pantheon.

Aphrodite was mobbed with adulation from her fellow deities, and though she quickly split herself into a half-dozen selves in order to accept the congratulations, she still found herself overwhelmed. Nothing warmed her quite as much, though, as Mami Wata simply telling her, “I told you so.”

“You did,” Aphrodite said. “Thank you.”

Okay, maybe there were a couple more. Al’yah simply smiling and nodding at her – that was something she’d never forget. And Athena’s comment…that shocked her.

“That was a hell of an argument,” she said. “You won my vote with that, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” Aphrodite said.

“For winning my vote?”

“For everything. For all the fights, the rivalry, the stupid golden apple…for everything.”

Athena looked at her, and gave a quiet smile.

“Me too,” she said. “Tell you what – drop by Olympus sometime. We’ll have some wine, and we’ll tell each other all the stupid things we regret. Eternity’s too long to hold a grudge.”

As she hugged her sister, Aphrodite thought to herself that this growing up thing was underrated. It made love better. All love. Even the confused rivalry between siblings.

* * *

Stephanie blinked back the tears. She couldn’t…she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a trick of the light. Or a hallucination. Or a dream. Or she’d finally just lost her mind.

But the naked man stroking her skin was still there. And she lowered her face to his level, looking at the man who was nearly ten inches shorter than he’d been the last time she saw him.

“Is it – is it really – you?” she said, through tears.

“How many shrunken husbands do you have?” he said, his heart bursting.

She didn’t wait. She scooped him up and held him to the skin just above her neckline. She held him and felt his warm skin against hers. Adam lay against her, and drank in her scent, her touch, her enormous being. She was so much beyond him now – and she was still his.

She finally pulled him away, long enough to kiss him, and to say, tearfully, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“For what?” Adam said.

“For losing you. For thinking you might be dead. For kissing Michael – oh, God, I…can you forgive me for that?”

“What, you mean when he tried to take advantage of you and you smacked him? Yeah, I can forgive you for that. Can you forgive me for getting myself kidnapped? For putting you through the wringer?”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Really? Damn, because I was really looking forward to the make-up sex.”

That did it. The tears of Stephanie disappeared, and she broke out into the laughter that had deserted her through the weeks of not knowing, and Adam joined her in the laughter that had disappeared in the weeks of torture, and they were home. Where they both were, that was home.

1“When all of them, those gods who appear in their revolutions, as well as those other gods who appear at will had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed them the following”

Λάθε βιώσας
(Live Hidden)

The great American philosopher Thomas E. Petty once observed, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Certainly, Aoibheal found this to be true. Standing, ready to defend against the Prince of Darkness, the goddess was quite certain that she was about to be destroyed.

“What stakes do you demand?” she asked, as the ritual required. She showed no sign of fear, but inside she quaked, as she expected the Ruler of Hell to demand her soul.

“I demand your obedience on an issue of importance,” Satan said, calmly. “And should you win, you will have the same of me.”

She frowned a bit. She wasn’t sure that being bound in Satan’s service was a better fate than being destroyed.

“You do not choose destruction?”

Satan laughed. “No, friend, I do not. If I start destroying other Gods, then other Gods will get angry, and come try to destroy me. Oh, I’m not saying I haven’t done so in the past, when things were a bit rougher. But these are better times. And so I ask merely your obedience. Nothing more.”

Aoibheal was briefly dubious; she was dealing with the Prince of Lies. But she nodded to the Devil. “My word is my bond,” she said.

“So let it be,” Lucifer replied, and bowed, respectfully, a motion Aoibheal mocked.

“Aye,” she said. “Let us begin.”

A battle between Gods cannot be explained in language that would make sense to a human. Indeed, the lone human observing the battle, Tanith, was surprised to see what looked like a staring contest. Had she stepped into the space between the two, of course, she would have instantly been annihilated by the sheer power flowing between the two; fortunately for her, she stood well back.

A battle between Gods is not fought merely physically, or even mentally; it is a pure struggle of two souls, flowing like two opposing rivers down the same channel, until one finds a way to overtop the other. An unadvanced volitional would easily be swept away in such a battle; perhaps some of the great prophets, like Rabbi Yeshua bin Yosef, or the 14th Dalai Lama, or Siddhārtha Gautama – perhaps they could have stood their ground for a few moments against Lucifer. (Jesus and the Gautama Buddha, of course, could now stand against Satan and would have better-than-even odds of beating him head-to-head – but that is now; they have long ago shuffled off their mortal coils).

It was not a battle just of wills; there was strategy, of course, but none that can be explained to someone who can’t see the universe in eleven dimensions. There was bluffing and taunting and trash-talking and some day, when you are dead, you should ask the God-Teachers to explain it all to you, because then you might be able to understand, if only for the briefest of instants.

For now, understand that Aoibheal, Queen of Thomond, fought gallantly against a foe who had her dramatically outclassed, and that when Lucifer finally won his victory, and the two blinked as they reentered the maculate world, the breathless “Well fought,” he bestowed on her was meant with the fullest measure of respect.

“I have been defeated,” Aoibheal said. “As we agreed, I am in your service. Praythee, Satan, make your intention clear.”

She braced for what would come next. Would the Prince of Lies demand she take him to Adam? She couldn’t do that, at least, not directly; she had deliberately not asked Aoife where she would take Adam. Would she be requisitioned to Hell? Made a demon? She hoped not. And yet, she realized with mounting panic, Satan had not given a time limit on her obedience.

She could be his slave for all eternity.

Which is why what Satan said next surprised her so much.

* * *

It had taken Adam several hours to put his plan in motion.

He had snuck into the post office almost immediately, but it took him a bit of observing before he figured out his best strategy for getting home. For a while, he thought about trying to hitch a ride with the letters going to the central processing station, but he realized that the chaos of that place would pose a mortal hazard. He considered approaching one of the customers – they must have been near a college campus, as there were more than a few young beauties who came in – but he didn’t trust anyone right now, with good reason.

Instead, he hid out until the office emptied of people, and he walked behind the counter, dragging the trailer-sized manilla envelope behind him.

The interior was protected with bubble wrap; he hoped it would provide enough protection to him to allow him to make it home unscathed. If nothing else, he’d make it home dead, and his body would be proof of his existence.

Heck, maybe that would be for the best. He could exonerate Stephanie and not put her through hell anymore.

At any rate, he slid the envelope along until it reached the side of the bin where people dropped letters in the off-hours. He wasn’t alone; there were a few other letters that had been, through the interplay of gravity and wind resistance, guided away from their original course.

He had stolen the six stamps that decorated the right upper corner of the envelope; writing the address took a huge amount of energy. But by late that night, not long before the post office opened for business again, he had leaned the envelope into place, added the postcard on which he’d written his story, added the ketchup packet that he hoped he could use for emergency food, and then, and only then, did he peel off the tags that covered the glue, and with great difficulty and a bit of ingenuity, he sealed himself in.

He could breathe – but it was intensely claustrophobic. Like being sealed in a tomb.

He just hoped that, alive or dead, this tomb would make it to its destination.

* * *

“And so that’s where we are,” said Eros, as he stared out at the river. “I’m afraid it’s not much to go on.”

“No, child, it’s as much as the old liar would give anyone. You have done well. Now, do you wish to stay for dinner?”

“Mami Wata, I would love to, but I’ve got much business to attend to. At least you’ve got some time before the hearing starts; I’ll come back before it happens, I want to be there with you guys.”

“You don’t have to, darling,” Aphrodite said, picking at her mango. “You are busy; you’ve given so much of your time already.”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m damn well going to see this through. So, the hearing is when, three weeks?”

“Not anymore.”

All three Gods turned in shock to the figure who had suddenly appeared behind them. “Aoibheal? What are you –”

“I fought a duel. Against Satan. And lost.”

Eros looked at the ginger-haired Queen, and bowed his head briefly. He raised it, and said, “You were involved at my behest. I will present myself to the Prince of Lies myself, I can….”

“No. He has not claimed my soul, and he does not wish to destroy me. He has bound me only to witness a transaction, and to bear a message to you, Aphrodite. Thenceforth, I am freed from my debt.”

Aphrodite looked on the Irish Goddess, and smiled sadly. “I am sorry,” she said, “that my son involved you in any way. I told him not to….”

“Nay, Aphrodite. Dinna say that,” said Aoibheal, her accent thickening a bit. “My loss is…not as bad as could be, no?”

“Your loss is nothing to be ashamed of, child. Do not hate yourself because of it. I have lost battles, as have all Gods; I would lose to Satan. We all three of us would. It is not your fault,” said Mami Wata, gently. “Did you fight gallantly?”

“I did my best.”

“Well then. What more can any of us do? Now. You said you have a message,” Mami Wata said. “Please.”

“Yes,” said Aoibheal, breathing deeply, and pulling out a parchment. “The message is as follows:

“To The Honourable Her Excellency the Lady Aphrodite Ourania Pandemos, Empress of Venus, Princess of the Seas, Daughter of Uranus, Olympian Goddess of Love

“From His Wickedness and Imperial Majesty The Honourable Lord Shaitan Lucifer Morningstar Iblis, Prince of Darkness, Prince of Lies, Tempter of Man, Slanderer of the Righteous, Deceiver of the Pure, Sower of Discord, Lord High Reverend of the One False Church, Djinn of False Promises, Shaitan of the Pit, King of Dis, Mayor of Pandemonium, Emperor of Hell

“Your Excellency,

“It has come to my attention that you currently have a matter before the Council of Thirteen involving my Chancellor Polymitis Adramelech. This is a most busy time in Hell, and as I do not wish to have my highest advisors tied up any longer than necessary, I have thus intervened to have the hearing moved up.

“While I expect you will receive notification later today from the Council, I did not wish to surprise you with this, as such a move would be Ungodly; therefore I have directed this Goddess, who was evidently working on your behalf, to advise you that the hearing will begin the day after tomorrow, at dawn, at the Majlis al Jinn as previously indicated.

“I hope this is not too much trouble; if it is, I understand that the hearing can be postponed until the human year 2043 C.E. If that is more to your liking, please respond as soon as possible, so that my Chancellor may make his arrangements.

“Sincerely,

“Lucifer”

Aphrodite would have blanched white, if she were human. “The day after tomorrow? There’s no way I’ll be ready by then! Please, tell me he’s bluffing.”

“I am sorry,” said Aoibheal, “but he made me travel with to confirm the arrangements. I have the second letter from the Council with me as well.”

Aphrodite swore. “Mami Wata, I can’t do this. I’m not ready to argue before the council. I mean….”

“You are ready,” Mami Wata said, quietly. “You have always been ready. I have given you all the tools you needed. This is a blessing, what Satan has done.”

“But why would He do it?” Eros said, puzzled. “I mean, Adam is still a few inches tall, right? And he’s in Satan’s clutches. This won’t help Him.”

“Yes, it will,” Aoibheal said. “With a bit of help, I was able to liberate Adam. He is, I hope, on his way home now.”

“And if Adam gets home…then he could share information about Satan’s operations on Earth. Even if he didn’t know it was Satan Himself…that would be a problem.”

Aphrodite smiled, thinly. “He can’t outright kill Adam while the case is being adjudicated. Adam’s protected from being permanently killed by one of us so long as either Hephaestus or I do not agree to allow it. But with the case closed, Satan could do whatever He wanted. So he’s going to try to get the case moved up so He can head Adam off at the pass, so to speak.”

“He is brilliant,” said Mami Wata.

“I should decline, and demand the time stop and 2043 hearing.”

“No,” said Mami Wata. “Satan is wrong in this case. Not only can He kill Adam once the case is settled, but we – all of us – can protect him once it is done. And all of us will. He is more powerful than any one of us. But He cannot stand against the combined strength of the four of us, plus the many other Gods and Goddesses who would rally to our side to make sure Adam arrived safely home.

“No, the Prince of Lies has given you a gift, Aphrodite. Use it. You know what you must say to the Council.”

“No,” said the Goddess of Love, “I don’t.”

“You will,” said Mami Wata, inscrutibly. “You will.”

* * *

Adam had lost track of how much time had passed, how long ago he had entombed himself. His existence was long stretches of drudgery broken by moments of sheer terror; when the letter was being flung around, or run through automated processing machines – those moments felt wild and out of control, and at least once, when the bottom of the letter was squished as it ran along a track, Adam thought he might be killed.

But most of the time was spent laying around, abandoned, shoved into a box or a basket for further sorting; he wasn’t sure which was worse. These times were agonizing, as he sat in his insulated, darkened crypt, wondering whether Stephanie would be happy to see him, wondering if his plan would fail, wondering why he had been sidetracked, wondering how long he would last before he faded away to nothing.

He wanted to believe that everything would be okay at the end of his journey. He wanted to believe that Stephanie would take him out of the envelope, press him to her bosom, and that everything would work out fine. But he knew that his return to her would start the countdown on his life anew; knew that in some ways, his dying in transit would be a gift to her, and to him.

He tried to push these thoughts out of his head. He had conquered them long ago. But they kept reappearing, as he had nothing to distract him, no beautiful wife to hold him, not even a cadre of torturers abusing him. He had nothing but the dark, and the quiet, and his thoughts.

* * *

“You know, we can reroute these letters to somewhere else,” said Michael, as he took another threatening letter and placed it into a pile. “You don’t have to read them.”

“This was something Adam and I used to do together,” said Stephanie. “We’d read them, and laugh about them, and sometimes…well, it wasn’t always easy. But no, I don’t want to give this away. If someone’s threatening me, it just means they don’t think anyone should harm Adam, and they’re right. Just wrong about me.”

“Your call,” said Michael, dubiously. “So…how long do you want to keep staying here? You know the rock through the window last week could be something worse tomorrow. You can always come crash at my place.”

“If Adam escapes, he’ll come home. I need to be home. I’ve told you this, Michael; why don’t you get that?”

“Well, I mean, we could have a cop, or a security guard….”

“I’m not having my husband come home to a damn security guard, Michael! Why do we keep having this conversation?”

Michael sighed. “Steph…he’s not coming back.”

Stephanie put down the letter she was reading. “Michael….”

“He’s not. He’s the size of a finger now. Even if he managed to escape, I don’t know how he’d get from Mexico to here. I…I don’t want to hurt you, but…at some point, we have to face the truth.”

Stephanie buried her head in her hands, and started to sob. Michael put his arm around her shoulder, and held her until the sobs became coherent.

“I…I…know…he’s d…d…dead. B-b…but I…I just can’t…I just can’t. Not yet. Not yet,” she sobbed.

“I know,” said Michael, softly. “It’s okay. Look, you’re sure you want to stay here?”

Stephanie wiped her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “For a couple more days, anyhow. It’s…it’s still home.”

“I understand,” said Michael, smiling. “I’ll help you through it.”

“You’re a good friend, Michael.”

“Thanks,” he said, angelically.

* * *

The first rays of dawn were filtering down into the Majlis al Jinn. Had a human been down on the floor of the vast cavern, she would have needed a powerful light just to see. Of course, no human was down on the floor that morning; the Omani government had recently banned spelunking in the cave due to the danger of exploring it. To get into the cave, a human would have to rappel down the walls, down farther than the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Getting out required the reverse climb – and not many humans were capable of such physical feats.

Gods, of course, required no such assistance. And on the floor of the domed cavern, a floor larger than the base of the Great Pyramid, the Gods were gathering for the meeting of the Council of Thirteen.

Aphrodite sat at the incongruous wooden desk on the right side of the stage; Hephaestus sat to the left, along with a demon she did not know. She looked around the crowd, dazzled at the attendance. Odin was there, along with most of the Norse pantheon; her little brother Zeus had led eight other Olympians into the gallery. Lucifer sat near the back, looking smug, surrounded by ifrit. The former members of the Council, including Mami Wata, sat nearest to the rostrum, and deities and demons great and minor filled the room. And most startlingly, in the front row sat Al’yah Herself, radiant and calm. She smiled at Aphrodite, and despite herself, Aphrodite’s stomach lurched.

It was a far greater attendance than Aphrodite could remember at any meeting of the Council that she had ever attended. She swallowed hard, or would have, had she been a human; if she failed, she failed in front of all her peers, and Mother Al’yah.

As she thought this, suddenly and magnificently, a shaft of light began to enter the hall through Asterisk Drop. It slowly made its way down through the darkened dome until it illuminated the center of the stage. And the moment it did, Malaclypse the Younger shouted, “All rise! The honorable Council of Thirteen is now in session!”

Aphrodite would have uttered a prayer. But anyone she might have prayed to would hear her speak on the matter in but a moment.

Anyhow, I’ve been around the GTS community for a long time, and I’ve never asked for a dime for my work, because, well, I figured I’d write the stuff anyhow, so I may as well share it for free. And I’m pretty happy with that decision. Which is why I’m not going to ask for a dime for my work.

However, in the past month I’ve been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Happily, it’s a very treatable cancer, and one that hasn’t progressed very far; my chances of beating it are very, very good. Unfortunately, I live in America, and currently lack medical coverage. And that means that I’m already getting killed by the amount of money I’m having to fork over, and am only going to get killed now.

I know, things are tough all over. And I’m not the only charity case out there, nor am I the most important; if you have just $1 to give to charity, I urge you to give it to Haitian relief efforts.

But if you do have some spare money, and you’d like to share it with a guy who’s posted the occasional entertaining yarn on the internets over these fourteen years, then I wouldn’t mind if you found a way to share it with me. Consider it a tip. And if anyone asks what that payment was for, just tell them it was for a poor guy with cancer; telling them that it’s for a macrophile writer will get you looked at funny.

At any rate, the link to donate via PayPal is here.

If you can share, I’d appreciate it. If nothing else, it will keep me free to keep producing the giantess material you’ve come to expect for free. And if you can’t, well, I won’t hold it against you; things are tough all over, and I’m not the only one pinching pennies these days.

No matter what, I appreciate your time and consideration. Thank you for listening.

Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ χεῖρα κίνει¹

The Great Hall of the Palace of the Morning Star was awe-inspiring, even for one who had grown up on Mount Olympus. Easily the size of a large stadium, the hall rose eight stories into the air, topped with a massive series of frescoes depicting the start of the rebellion in Heaven, the attack of the rebel angels, the fall of Lucifer and his cadre, and the establishing of the Kingdom of Hell. If an observer didn’t know better, she would have thought the frescoes looked like they could have been Michaelangelo’s work; if she thought further about it, she would realize with shock that this was because they were Michaelangelo’s works. And what works they were! Compared to them, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel looked rather drab; Michaelangelo had labored two hundred years on this ceiling, or perhaps two thousand; time has no real meaning in Hell.

The hall itself was astonishing, decorated in chandeliers that blazed forth with constant cold fire, illuminating statues and monuments aplenty to the angels who had rebelled, and to Hell’s best agents on Earth. The obsidian columns that supported the great ceiling were crowned in gold, and silver stripes two feet wide bordered the main walkways into and out of the chamber. It was more opulent than Olympus, or Yhwh’s palace in Heaven, but then, Lucifer had always been rather keen on proving his worth.

The most shocking thing to Eros would have been seen as almost mundane to the casual observer. Halfway through the hall, columns arranged themselves into a rotunda the size of a football pitch. The ceiling here rose over a hundred meters to a domed ceiling painted with the morning sky, a single star blazing forth in the east, right above the purplish-red of sunrise. Well, not a star; not exactly.

The star’s identity was given by the gold symbol inlaid in a platinum circle on the floor of the rotunda. It was a symbol that Eros knew well:

♀

His mother’s symbol, the symbol of Venus. He hadn’t thought of it before, but it was Lucifer’s symbol, too: the symbol the planet Venus, the symbol of the Morning Star.

He and Virgil stopped right at the point where the cross of the symbol met the O, for two figures had entered the rotunda from the other side.

They were two demons. One was clearly a minor functionary, off to the side, carrying parchment; he did not draw attention. No, Eros’s attention was drawn by the other figure, another demon, and a high-ranking one at that. He wore black vestments trimmed in red, and an ostentatious robe made of peacock feathers. He wore a heavy medallion on a gold crest bearing the open-pentagram Seal of Satan. The demon leaned his bulky upper body on an exquisitely fashioned copper cane

The functionary cleared his throat, and said, “May I present His Excellency, Polymitis Adramelech, Chancellor of Hell, President of the Senate, High Councilor to Shaitan Lucifer Iblis.”

The Chancellor smiled. “Hello, son,” he said.

“Hello, Hephaestus,” Eros replied.

* * *

The nightmare was all-consuming. Marbas was assaulting Stephanie, raping her. But Adam was his tiny self, and though he tried over and over to stop Marbas from defiling his wife, Marbas simply swept him aside each time as an afterthought. Adam screamed in fury, and rose again, and again, and again….

His eyes popped open. He heard a sound, a rustling, scratching sound. He rose gingerly, body feeling fine, but soul still wounded from Tanith’s assault the afternoon before.

“Hello?” he called into the empty lab. The room was dark, save for a safety light in the corner. He shrugged. Must be hearing –

No, there it was again, a scuffling, scampering noise from the floor. He put his ear to the bars, and tried to listen, tried to hear what it was.

He screamed and jumped backward as the monster leaped up onto the counter top, and ambled over toward his cage. It was a rat, a giant, black rat the size of two bears.

Adam rushed to the middle of the cage, eyes wide. He had to hope the beast wouldn’t pay him attention, because there was no way he could fight the beast. No way. He just had to hope the creature wouldn’t be interested in him, or at least, that it wouldn’t be able to break into his cage.

His first hope was immediately dashed, as the rat snorted, and looked around the side of the cage, moving quickly toward the cage door. Adam watched in horrified fascination; the beast almost seemed to be looking with intelligence, as it reached out with its paw for the latch.

Adam’s stomach sank. He wondered if this was one of Marbas’s tests; it seemed impossible that a rat could be fumbling with the latch of a cage, but then, it seemed impossible that his penis could be still attached after a hundred-foot-tall woman had mashed it to a pulp, and yet it seemed perfectly fine. Nothing was impossible.

His very existence was proof of that.

The creature had the latch undone now. Adam swallowed. If this creature came into the cage, he was done for. Rats are vicious omnivores, and if this one attacked him, he would die. He couldn’t watch. He closed his eyes, and a prayer danced through his head, one he hadn’t said since he was a child.

Now I lay me down to sleep…

And now it was opening up the door, and Adam was sure this was it; he could not fight off the rat, and he would not survive its attack.

…I pray the Lord my soul to keep….

But maybe, maybe, maybe that was for the best. He heard the creature move through the door.

…should I die before I wake….

He would be released from this hell. He could wait for Stephanie in the afterlife, or wait for her in the deep and silent dark; either was better than this.

…I pray the Lord my soul to take.

He could smell the creature’s rancid breath on him, and he was at peace.

Amen.

He waited for it to strike.

He waited.

He waited.

After what seemed like forever, he opened his eyes. The beast was gone. It had been his imagination. Maybe a dream. Or a hallucination. Probably a hallucination. He was going crazy. So crazy that a few feet distant, it still looked like the door was open.

Wait – what?

He stared it down, daring it to close on him, but the door to his cage stood resolutely open.

He walked over, climbed up to it, and stuck his head out. The rat was gone. But it had opened up the cage.

He wondered, idly, if this qualified as a miracle.

Deciding he didn’t care, he swung himself out the door and onto the counter. He would have to move fast. Morning would be here all too soon, and he was determined to be far from here by the time Marbas and company returned.

He didn’t know if he’d survive. He was less than three inches tall. And the world was four times as big as it had been when it had been already too big for him to negotiate alone. But he didn’t care. At worst, he’d win the most important victory. He’d die free. And God willing, he’d at least find a way to let Stephanie know that he died free.

* * *

“Anansi is a swing vote,” Mami Wata patiently explained to Aphrodite. “And he will be your most cunning questioner. He owns all the stories, you know. He has a smoother tongue than Loki and Lucifer could ever dream of. Be on your guard when he speaks, but answer him truthfully.”

“What do you mean, he owns all the stories?” Aphrodite said, jotting a note down absently.

Mami Wata smiled. “You know the story of how Anansi freed the stories from Nyame, do you not?”

“I know he’s a Storytelling God and a Trickster God, but I’ve never crossed his path; I do not know his story.”

Mami Wata smiled wider. “Good. For this will be a story you should hear. It will help you, if you listen carefully. Indeed, even had you known the story, I would have told this to you, before the trial.”

The Goddess of Beauty cleared her throat, and began:

We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true. A story, a story; let it come, let it go.

Once, Nyame, the Sky-God, owned all the stories. He was a jealous god, and he would not share his stories with anyone. One day, Kweku Anansi went to Nyame to see what it would cost him to buy the stories.

Nyame did not wish to share his stories, and so he set a very high price. Anansi would have to bring to the Sky-God the Python, Onini; the Leopard, Osebo; the Mmoboro Hornets; and the dwarf Mmoatia.

Anansi wanted the stories for himself, and so he went to collect his payment to Nyame. He went first to where the Python lived.

“I wonder,” Anansi said to himself, “If it is true what Aso says, that Onini is as long as the palm branch. I do not think he is; I think the palm branch is larger than he.”

Hearing this, Onini came out to challenge Anansi. “I am larger than the palm branch, foolish spider,” the Python said.

“Prove it,” Anansi said. “Lie along this palm branch.”

The Python lay along the branch. Anansi clucked his tongue. “I cannot tell – you are too crooked, Onini! Let me tie you to the branch to straighten you out. Then I can tell for sure.”

Anansi tied Onini to the branch, and when the Python was secure, he took the Python to Nyame.

“Impressive. But you have three more gifts to bring,” Nyame said, “before I will give you the stories.”

Anansi next went to collect Osebo, the Leopard. He dug a pit near Osebo’s home, and covered it with leaves. Osebo soon fell into the hole, and Anansi went to the edge.

“Are you all right, Osebo?” Anansi asked, innocently.

“All right? I’m trapped in a hole, you foolish spider!”

“Ah, ah, Osebo! Insults will get you nowhere. But if you flatter me, perhaps I can spin webs for you, that you may climb out.”

And so Osebo flattered Anansi, calling him the wisest and kindest of all the creatures. And Anansi spun webs for Osebo to climb out of the hole. But when the Leopard got to the top, he found that he was thoroughly tangled in the spider’s webs. Anansi then brought Osebo to Nyame.

“Impressive. But you have two more gifts to bring,” Nyame said, “before I will give you the stories.”

Anansi next went to find the Hornets. He took a calabash – the bottle gourd – from a vine, and filled it with water. He poured water over a banana leaf, which he held over his head. He then poured some on the hornets’ nest.

“What are you doing, spider?” the Hornets demanded.

“It is raining! Such a rain as I have never seen! I have come to warn you, and to help you to safety.”

“Noble Anansi, thank you! What shall we do?” the Hornets asked.

“Quickly, into the calabash! It is thicker than your hive, it will protect you!”

And when all the hornets had flown into the calabash, Anansi sealed it, and brought it to Nyame.

“Impressive. But you have one more gift to bring,” Nyame said, “before I will give you the stories.”

Anansi then went to the odum tree where the dwarves play, and fashioned a baby doll from tar, straw, and gum. In front of the baby doll, he placed a succulent yam.

Mmoatia came along presently, and ate some of the yam. “This is excellent!” the dwarf said to the doll. “Thank you for it!”

The tar-baby said nothing.

“Did you not hear me? I said that this was excellent! And I thanked you!”

The tar-baby said nothing.

Annoyed at the tar-baby’s bad manners, Mmoatia struck the doll, but found her hand stuck.

“Grabbed me, did you? I will show you!”

And so Mmoatia struck and grabbed and wrestled with the doll, until what was tar and what was gum and what was straw and what was Mmoatia was all mixed up and stuck together. And with the dwarf immobilized, Anansi took her to Nyame.

The Sky-God was angry. He made it thunder, he made it rain. He called on the wind to blow, and he bellowed with rage. But he had no choice; Anansi had met Nyame’s demands. And so the Sky-God gave the tales to the God of Tricks, and that is why, ever since, we call stories Anansesem – Anansi Stories.

This is my story which I have related. If it be sweet, or if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me.

Aphrodite was quiet some time, before saying, “Well, if you wanted to teach me that Anansi is a devious bastard, you’ve done that.”

“That is half of what you should learn,” Mami Wata said. “The other half – you will figure it out.”

* * *

“It is a shame,” said Hephaestus, as they walked deep into palace, “that you could not have been here for my induction. It was a party for the ages. Why, I imagine your mother and you could have had a very good time. Why, there was this one satyr –”

“How long?” Eros asked, tersely.

“Oh, a foot at least, maybe –”

“Not that, demon scum. How long have you been working with The Adversary?”

Hephaestus chuckled. “Ah, still as direct as ever. If you must know, it’s been several centuries now, though most of my work was as a consultant. Wasn’t until Ba’al Adar-malik decided to retire that Lucifer asked me to come on in my current role, though, and that was just a few years ago; by your lights, I’ve only officially been on the job for three months, though of course, I’ve been part of the Senate of Hell for seventy years.

“But really, did you come all this way just to curse me? Come on, Eros. You know damn well that you’re just jealous.”

“Jealous?” Eros said, stopping. Virgil put up a warning hand, but Eros ignored it.

“Jealous. You know how much power a demon has. It’s more than a quasi-retired Greek God. I’m more powerful than I’ve been since before your mother first cheated on me; I’m more powerful than Zeus is, now.”

“Your power is in service to evil,” Eros said. “I choose to work on behalf of love.”

“Ha!” Hephaestus said. “’Love.’ Right. But you know all too well that your work with hot, man-on-man action would have been considered ‘evil’ just a few decades ago. Your work in making women all hot and bothered about men is considered anathema to the good, virginal way girls are supposed to be. And don’t tell me you’ve never been involved in separating a man from his wife, or a woman from her husband?

“Good and evil are cute labels. But you and I both know that there is only chaos and order, and that what is evil and what is good change like women’s hemlines.”

Eros stewed. But what Hephaestus said next sent him into a rage.

“You could join us, son,” Hephaestus said, calmly.

“I’m not your son!” Eros roared.

“Yes, you are,” Hephaestus and Virgil said, together.

“No,” Eros said evenly, to Virgil, “I’m Ares’s son.”

“Biologically, yes,” said Virgil. “At least, if Gods had DNA, he’d come up as the father. But Hephaestus raised you, did he not?”

“As my own son,” Hephaestus said. “I ignored your mother’s betrayal and set out to raise you as my own.” He gestured the pair through a door.

“And yet you betrayed my mother as casually as you claim she did. And for what?”

“For Me, of course,” said a voice from behind them.,

Eros turned, and saw a thin man approaching them. He was ruddy, with a neatly trimmed goatee and jet-black hair that was slicked back, wearing a pin-striped black suit, and a black shirt with a brilliant red tie, which matched perfectly the red rose in his lapel. He was, Eros thought, beyond handsome; the demon that confronted him was beautiful.

“Hello there,” the demon said pleasantly. “I am Lucifer Iblis. Welcome to Hell.”

* * *

Adam had never been a lucky man, not even before he started shrinking. His successes had come through hard work. Yes, he’d struck gold with Stephanie – but he had always figured she was fate’s great equalizer.

But today – today, Adam’s luck was bordering on the miraculous. He’d quickly found a power cord leading from the countertop to the ground, rappelled down an extension cord, and then, to his delight, he found the door to the lab sitting slightly ajar.

He dashed out into the small building, finding what appeared to be a largely abandoned front office – a few desks had some signs of life, but most lacked chairs and computers. He shook his head; he wondered if anything Marbas had done to him was in the pursuit of information, or if the bastard was simply into torture, and thought a three-inch man would be easily tortured.

But he shelved that debate for the moment, as he wound his way closer and closer to the window that bordered the office’s front door. That door was wooden, and not ajar, but he was less than three inches tall, and the door lacked weather stripping; by getting down on his stomach and wriggling, he was able to just slip under it, and out into the tiny foyer that led to another door, this one clear glass, that led to the outside world.

And there he had waited, coiled like a spring, ready for what surely had to come next.

* * *

“So! I trust your journey here was enjoyable? Kudos, Virgil, for taking Eros on the long way; it is the best way to approach this fair kingdom.”

The Adversary had invited them into His office. It was furnished entirely in clean, modern, Scandinavian-style furniture – exquisite in its simplicity. A cheery fire flickered along the wall by where they sat; Satan had directed them to a set of couches and comfortable chairs, rather than the desk in the corner of the room.

“Can I get either of you anything to drink? Virgil, some wine? Lord Eros, some ouzo? Or maybe a cosmopolitan? I understand you’ve come to like those.”

“No, thank you, Shaitan.”

“Please, call me Lucifer. Titles are so stuffy; I mean, certainly, they’re useful in keeping the rabble in line, but you and I are both Gods, and Virgil – well, he’s been here before; he’s a welcome guest. You’re sure you won’t take a drink? I, myself, am going to have a scotch. And I know Hephaestus will be drinking his customary ouzo. Please, gentlemen, I insist.”

“All right,” Eros said, “I’ll take some red wine.”

“As will I,” said Virgil.

“Excellent,” said The Adversary, turning to an imp who had appeared suddenly at his side. “Two glasses of the 1945 Château Mouton Rothschild for our guests, Ouzo Giannatsi for the Chancellor, and I will have the 40-year-old Laphroaig, neat, with water on the side.”

“Very good, sir,” the imp said, vanishing just long enough to reappear with a tray carrying four drinks.

“So, Eros, I assume you’re here to ask why it is that I felt the need to divert the subject of your mother’s bet,” Lucifer said, taking a sip of the tarry Islay scotch.

“Yes,” said Eros, warily. “I mean, it does create some problems in resolving the wager between my mother and Hephaestus.”

“A matter which is, of course, before the Council of Thirteen; I assume you are not planning to interfere on your mother’s behalf? To try to influence the result in any way? After all, that would be in violation of the Deeper Laws.”

“Certainly, no more than you have, Lucifer,” Eros said.

That brought a mirthful laugh from the Prince of Darkness. “Indeed! I suppose I walked right into that one, didn’t I? Yes, I suppose waylaying Adam White has had the effect of interfering in this particular wager, although of course, I am not a party to that wager, and I am not working on the Chancellor’s behalf. My interests are separate from the matter they are investigating.”

“Well then, as someone not working on my mother’s behalf, and not a party to that wager, may I ask what those interests are? And find out if we can get this resolved, so that Adam can get home to his wife before he vanishes into nothingness?”

“‘Nothingness?’ Tsk, tsk, Eros, you know full well that Mr. White will not vanish. What was the line from that work by Matheson? Ah, yes – zero is just a number. There are worlds beyond zero. White will slip deeper and deeper into the infinite smallness – at least until he starves to death, or suffocates. I wonder which will happen first?”

Eros sighed, and looked over at Vigil for help. The poet added, quietly, “Lucifer, my friend is speaking metaphorically, of course, but he is right in this: once Adam drops below a threshold height – say, a millimeter or two – the larger world becomes utterly alien to him. As does his wife.”

“And that is a problem, I suppose, because he won’t be able to get to have a teary, heartfelt moment where he can tell his wife goodbye? Or better still, that miraculous recovery where everything is okay and our friends enjoy a happy ending?”

“Well, yes,” said Eros.

“I see. Now, first of all, please don’t take this the wrong way, as you are always welcome here in Hell, and I would gladly meet with a fellow deity any day, for no reason whatsoever; still, I must ask why you felt it was so important to travel here to ask about such a triviality?”

Eros looked at the Dark Lord, nonplussed, as He continued.

“So Adam will be denied a last good-bye? So Stephanie will not be able to tell her husband she loves him, one last time? Do you know how many thousands of times that will happen in just your reality today? How many husbands will die in car crashes, how many wives will be killed in terrorist bombings, how many soldiers will die on the battlefield, removed from their loved ones? How many people will slip away unconscious, unable to speak, unable to communicate? I suppose it is sad, in a way, but it is not a matter that should concern you particularly.

“As for miraculous recoveries, they happen. But rarely. They are miraculous, after all. And while I understand your mother would like the Whites to have one, ask your mother how many Trojan soldiers died in agony, apart from their spouses, with naught but Hades as their reward?Not that I’m criticizing, I Myself am not opposed to a bit of sorrow; sorrow is good. It’s my job.”

Eros shook his head. “You don’t have to spread evil in this case,” he started, but Lucifer cut him off.

“Spread evil? You mean, like supporting sodomites as they fall deep in lust with each other? Supporting virgins as they throw themselves at their boyfriends, befouling themselves? Supporting people as they stray from their partners, in search of the perfect lay? All these things ‘spread evil,’ to use your words. And yet that is your job, is it not, Eros? Spreading lust for men, just as your daughter spreads lust for women?”

“It is,” Eros said, shifting uncomfortably. “But I also support the two men getting married after forty years together. I support the girlfriend giving herself happily to her boyfriend, their bond growing deeper. I support the partners so deeply in love and lust that they wouldn’t stray if my entire family appeared at their door, naked and willing.”

“Just so; your work is neither good nor evil. It is neutral. You provide the spark, the momentary attraction, the passing glimpse, the appeal to ardor. What is done with it is up to the human who experiences it.

“And this is what I do, Eros. I do not spread evil; I spread sorrow. I support despair. I support, yes, lies. But I do so not in support of evil. Sorrow can motivate one to avoid repeating mistakes. Despair can be transcended into resolution. Lies can be crafted into beautiful stories. You and I are not different, Eros. We do what we do, and the humans – the humans make their own decisions as to what it means.”

“And yet in this case, Lucifer, you’ve diverted Adam White yourself, for your own needs. Why?”

Lucifer smiled. “A fair question. Let’s just say your mother doesn’t know her own strength. Adam White’s transformation is not a minor, one-off miracle; it is power that I do not possess. I am curious about it, as is Marbas; after all, he had not come up with this in seven thousand years of research, and he’s…well, a bit embarrassed.”

“So why not just ask Aphrodite for some tips? Why all this?”

“Like your mom would help Lucifer,” said Hephaestus. “She’s got the same prejudice that you have, thinks Satan is evil personified, that if he gets hold of this, he’ll use it for nefarious goals.”

“Well, will You?”

Satan smiled. “Of course not,” he said.

Eros fought down the chortle. “All right,” said Eros. “Tell you what – you release Adam White, I’ll set up a meeting for you with Aphrodite. You can talk to her directly. I have a feeling she’ll be amenable – she feels like she’s really hurt Adam and Stephanie, and she wants to put things right.”

“And then your mother will happily help Me with My project. Oh, Eros, isn’t it pretty to think so? No, I’m sorry, I don’t generally make deals with Gods, and in this case, Mr. White’s release, and the subsequent publicity that would inevitably follow, would compromise certain of My operations on Earth. I’m sorry to say that I can’t do that. Mr. White will die in captivity. But he’s just a volitional; it is his fate to live and die at the whim of the gods – something your mother you and your mother used to understand.”

Before Eros could respond, the imp appeared at Lucifer’s elbow again, this time with a piece of paper, which he handed to the Prince of Darkness. Lucifer took the paper, and read it, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Well, well,” he said. “Thank you,” he said, handing the paper back to the imp, who vanished again. Lucifer fixed Eros with a formulated gaze. “It appears I will have to cut this meeting short. Something is occurring on Earth which requires my attention.

“Gentlemen, it’s lovely that you came to visit. Don’t be strangers. And I assume you’ll be at the hearing before the Council, Eros?”

“I will be,” Eros said, rising as Satan did.

“Good. I’ll see you there. And we will have a few things to discuss,” And abruptly, Hell dissolved, and Eros and Virgil were standing back on the beach of the God-Teachers’ Guild.

“What happened?” said Eros, puzzled.

“Well,” Virgil began, but Eros cut him off.

“Ouranos’s balls, that was useless! We got nothing, other than that The Adversary wants to know what my mom is up to, and that he doesn’t want to let Adam White go.”

“Exactly,” said Virgil. “And that is enough, is it not?”

Eros started to object, but stopped himself. It was. It told him he was right to send Aoibhell to guard Adam. That Lucifer was unwilling to negotiate, and that if He was going to freelance for his own reasons, Eros had a free hand, too. After all, when Adam got home, Stephanie would no doubt want to show her husband affection; it was Eros’s job to see that moment came.

He kissed Virgil on the cheek and promised to return to the God-Teacher’s Guild in the future. Then, with a quick good-bye, he left. He would need to catch up with Aoibheal. Especially if Lucifer was going to.

* * *

Adam scurried across the parking lot, not daring to believe he was actually free.

Tanith had been the one to inadvertently free him – she had put her key in the door and walked right by him, her skirt fluttering in such a way as to show off her clean-shaven legs and her white thong; if Adam had not known that she was evil at her core, he might have been attracted As it was, he paid her beauty no mind, and raced out into the wider world.

He was rushing toward high grass, carefully working his way under the few cars in the parking lot; he had been both amused and terrified to see Tanith race out into the lot, and scan it – but she didn’t see him in the early morning light, and she raced back inside to sound the alarm. A few minutes later, a car pulled up, and Marbas himself had gotten out, accompanied by Andousha; they had begun arguing almost immediately with Tanith, who was gesticulating wildly.

Adam kept moving. He had reached the curb at the edge of the small lot, and he found the concrete had pits and handholds that made it easy for him to reach the edge of the sidewalk. But he knew that he had to find help, witting or unwitting; last time, Andousha had found him, despite having no way of knowing where he was. He knew in his soul that she had not tracked him with her eyes. And so he stood by the sidewalk, praying for a miracle.

When the crow plucked him from the ground and carried him up into the air, high above the ground, he hoped that this was not the end. He hoped that the crow was here to help, like the rat had been. He hoped his prayers had been heard.

And they had.

* * *

From the edge of the parking lot, a Goddess was reaching out with all her powers, blanketing the ground with confusion, with a thousand false positives that would throw the demonic trio off long enough to lose their quarry. Aoibheal chuckled to herself as she watched Marbas and his succubus dissolve into recrimination.

She watched as Aoife plucked Adam with alacrity; the plan was for her to carry Adam a mile or two away, where he would have a chance to make it to safety on his own. More they dared not do; they were interfering quite a bit already. But they could give Adam his chance, and as part of that chance, Aoibheal would have to find a way to delay and distract those who sought him.

And so, as Adam and Aoife flew safely away, she strode into the lot, and headed straight for her enemy.

Marbas saw her, and started; he did not recognize her, but he knew her by her aura. And the instant he saw her, he cursed.

“How dare you interfere with my Master’s operation? How dare you enter this desecrated building?”

“I would not sanctify your halls, demon. I did not enter your building. Adam White escaped from your lair without my assistance.” This was, of course, literally true; the púca had done all the heavy lifting thus far.

“Still, you are interfering with our search. I can tell. You are stretching your powers, Goddess. You are keeping us from seeing.”

“Aye,” Aoibheal said. “I am. You have imprisoned Adam White; I am helping him get away from you. This should not be a surprise to you, as evil is generally countered by good.”

“Is it really?”

That voice surprised Aoibheal, and she wheeled, as Marbas dropped to a knee, and motioned to his minions to do the same.

“Aoibheal of Thomond? Quite a long way from County Cork, are we not?”

“Well,” she said. “Satan Himself. ‘Tis a bit surprising to see you here, Dark Lord. What are you here for, other than to excoriate your underlings?”

“Oh, that is part of the reason for my arrival here; Marbas, I must say I am quite disturbed that a high value target such as this was not monitored constantly.”

“But…my Lord…he was caged, inside a locked laboratory. He could only escape with help….”

“Precisely. And lo and behold, it turns out that when you interfere in a bet between Gods, Gods then feel free to meddle with you. I may not be thrilled to see this young lady here, assisting in confusing and hiding Mr. White, but I am not nearly as angry at her as I am at you. She is merely playing her role. You are failing at yours.”

Marbas looked up at Satan in abject terror. “Please, my Lord…I beg of you, give me a chance to make this right. The investigation…we are close enough that I can complete what I need through trial and error. We need only dispose of White before he makes it to the press – and our presence here will go unnoticed.”

Lucifer smiled thinly. “Well, Marbas, I’m glad to hear this wasn’t a total waste. But no, it is too late; unless I miss my guess, Adam White is already halfway to freedom at this point. No, you will go back to the palace. And you will wait in your chamber for Me. And you had best be right about how close you are to solving this. Because it is the only thing keeping you from being damned.”

Marbas turned white as a ghost, but he nodded, and with a soft pop, he disappeared from the earthly realm.

“Now, as for you, Aoibheal…as I cannot allow Gods to cross me unpunished, I suppose I must take action here. Prepare to stand and defend.”

Aoibheal swallowed hard; she was no match for Satan’s powers. But she prepared to stand and defend, as the ancient laws said she must.

* * *

The crow swooped over the grass, flying lower and lower, until it reached a near stall; it opened its claws, and dropped its quarry onto the ground.

Adam bounced against the ground, and looked as the beast alighted a few feet from him. He stood up, and looked carefully; there was an intelligence in the eyes of the creature, and if he didn’t know better, he’d almost think that it bore a resemblance to the look in the eyes of the rat the night before.

“Thank you,” he said, to the bird. The enormous crow bowed its head, and…Adam swore this was not his imagination…said in a soft Irish brogue, “You are most certainly welcome, Adam. Now, quickly – you are in a place that will afford you a chance to get home, if you take it.”

With that, the bird flew off.

Adam looked up at the building he had been placed outside of. And he realized the crow was right; this would get him home.

He just had to get into the post office which stood not far from him; from there, it was…well, it would still be amazingly difficult. But he would make it home. He would make it home to Stephanie. As God was his witness, he would make it home.