Chapter Seven

Ποικιλόθρον’, ἀθάνατ’ Ἀφρόδιτα,
παῖ Δίος, δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε
μή μ’ ἄσαισι μήτ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα,
πότνια, θῦμον·

–Σαπφώ, Θραύσμα 1, “Ύμνος στην Αφροδίτη”

Iridescent-throned Aphrodite, deathless
Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now implore you,
Don’t–I beg you, Lady–with pains and torments
Crush down my spirit.

–Sappho, Fragment #1, “Hymn to Aphrodite”

The first thing Adam was aware of was nausea. He doubled over briefly, retching, but nothing came up.

That was when he became aware of darkness.

He struggled to put together what exactly was going on. He had a vague recollection of something…they’d been on the beach. Yeah, they’d been on the beach, and Stephanie wanted to go snorkeling, but she didn’t right away, but he said she should, and then that woman came up with the pen, but it wasn’t a pen, it sprayed something, and then….

…and then he was here. His head throbbed, and his stomach twisted, but he forced himself up into a sitting position, forced his eyes open.

He threw aside some fabric that was draped over him like a blanket, but that didn’t increase the light significantly. He was in a chamber. No – no, not a chamber. He could see on the ceiling the clear zig-zag pattern of a zipper. The light behind it was grayish and dim, so obviously whatever room lay beyond it was not lit up too brightly. Still, it told him he was in a suitcase, or a carry-on. It was too big to be a purse.

He struggled to his feet. He needed to figure out what was going on. Stephanie must be mad with fear by now, and he didn’t want her to blame herself. He’d insisted she go, and he’d do it again. She deserved a good life. He just hoped that she wouldn’t feel like this was somehow her fault. He couldn’t bear that.

* * *

This is all my fault, Stephanie thought, as she paced the floor at the police station.

Six hours Adam had been missing, and he could be almost anywhere by now. She cursed herself repeatedly as she thought back to stupid decisions. They should have stayed home, they should have stayed in America, they shouldn’t have come out on a cruise – and she damn sure never should have left him alone, not even for a moment. Precious few moments were left, how could she be so selfishly stupid?

She told herself that she’d done it because he’d suggested it, that she’d done it to make him feel more human. But that didn’t console her. It made the pain worse. Because she had a responsibility to him, to keep him safe, to keep him with her until the bitter end.

She’d promised.

The past few hours had been horrible. After the agony of finding him gone, she found herself trying to explain in her broken high school Spanish that her doll-sized husband was missing. The federales were as understanding as could be expected, but remained rather perplexed until one officer remembered seeing something about Adam on television. That got things moving a bit, and soon enough she was put in touch with the consul in Méridia. The consul was on her way, which was supposed to be comforting, but which just left Stephanie pacing, and blaming herself, and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

* * *

The zipper on the bag was not moving, that much was sure. Adam wasn’t sure if it was locked outside, or if he just was too little to move the slider, but frankly, it didn’t matter. He did feel that escape was his best option; after all, almost anyone had to be better than whomever had him. They might not want to kidnap him, and that was more than he could say for his captor.

He had figured some things out, at least. He was on an airplane – he’d heard the call for tray tables to be stowed, and seatbacks put in their full upright position. They were en route to George H.W. Bush Intercontinental in Houston, which gave him some hope – while his captor might be American, she’d still have to go through customs. They might check the bag. He hoped.

He called out a few times, hoping to attract attention – he could hear a mother and child talking through one wall of the bag, which, combined with the groaning of springs above, told him he was stowed under a seat. But while he shouted and banged on the bag, nobody appeared to hear him; it didn’t surprise him. The walls of the bag were soft and plush, and he expected it had been doctored in preparation for him.

No, it appeared he’d have to hope that customs officials would find him, or at least, that he would get the chance to escape in the airport. If he ended up wherever he was being taken, he doubted he’d be free ever again.

* * *

Stephanie was angrier after her initial conversation with the consul than she was before. While the federales had been helpful, the consul had been skeptical. She asked repeatedly why Stephanie had gone snorkeling, as if disbelieving her story. When she pointed out that one statement given to the federales backed her up, the consul seemed almost annoyed at that fact.

The consul had explained, impatiently, that there was nothing much that could be done – Adam’s “condition” made it unlikely that he would be spotted randomly. If he was found, it would be because he escaped. They had no leads, save for the one statement by a fellow cruise passenger, who said he’d noticed a pretty blonde woman talking to Adam – but didn’t see much more, as he was on his honeymoon, and was more interested in ogling his wife.

And of course, pretty blonde women are not a rarity on the beaches of Mexico.

So Stephanie was given a plane ticket back home and advice to check in with police there as soon as she arrived, and a condescending pat on the shoulder. At least the cruise line said they’d take care of sending her things along. She couldn’t go back to their honeymoon suite. Not now.

* * *

It wasn’t long after the bag was pulled out from its hiding place that Adam found himself surprised by the zipper parting. He stood up defiantly, as if hoping to be spotted.

It was the pretty blonde from the beach, wearing a scowl. “You’re awake,” she whispered, pointedly.

“Damn right I’m awake! Let me go!” Said Adam, as he moved for the side wall. He walked right into a backhand that sent him sprawling.

“If you don’t want to die,” the woman said, as he lay in a heap, “you’ll get back between those shirts and stay put.”

Adam lay on the ground, in a great deal of pain and rage. He knew, somehow, that this woman wasn’t bluffing – she’d kill him. But in the pit of his soul, he knew that wasn’t going to change whether he stayed put like a good boy or not.

He got to his knees, and looked up at his captress. “Okay,” he said, “you win.” He got up on both feet, and launched himself forward.

The move caught the woman by surprise. He grabbed the open side of the bag and pulled himself over, throwing himself over the side and into the abyss. He fell the equivalent of nearly thirty feet, but adrenaline and his small size made sure he could bounce up cleanly.

The woman grunted in rage, but she didn’t have a chance to get to him, as he dodged and weaved through a sea of legs and bags. He was looking for something, some way through….

He saw it presently – a diaper bag, laying by the feet of a mom who was paying no attention to her bags at all, just kicking them forward as she and her husband cooed over a titanic infant. The bag was open just enough that he could throw himself into it, pulling himself deep past jumpers and bottles into the depths of the bag, as the mother’s enormous foot gave it another shove forward.

He felt the bag shudder after a moment, and some muffled shouting as it was picked up by the woman, the husband yanking it back, pulling the bag so fast that Adam felt himself blacking out. This would make it hard to draw the attention of customs agents, but at least he wasn’t a prisoner anymore….

* * *

“Look, lady, this is my daughter’s diaper bag. It isn’t your bag,” David said, yanking the bag away from the crazy woman who’d just grabbed it.

“But…but…it…uh…looks so much like…I mean, if I could just check…you know, inside….”

“That’s our bag,” Sharon said, bouncing her baby girl, who had started crying. “It’s even embroidered with Kayla’s name, see?”

“But…I mean…you don’t understand….it’s important….”

“Look, lady, what I understand is that you just came up and grabbed my daughter’s diaper bag without saying a word, and if I hadn’t seen you, I have a feeling that it would be your diaper bag right now. Why you want a diaper bag is beyond me – but I’m betting you didn’t think it was a diaper bag. I bet you thought it was a purse.”

The woman stared at David, nonplussed.

“Now,” he said, lowering his voice, “this line is long, and moving slow, and luckily for you, we’re still a ways away from customs, so the cops didn’t see your little attempt at thievery. But if you’d like me to go tell them what you tried to do, I’d be happy to. Fortunately for you, though, I’m tired from our vacation, and I’m ready to go home, and the paperwork sounds like a lot of trouble. So if you’ll shut up, get back in line, and leave us the hell alone, I’ll let it drop. But if you keep pushing, or if you’re stupid enough to try anything else, I swear you’ll wish you’d stayed in Mexico. Got it?”

The woman nodded, dumbly, and stumbled back through the line. So close – so close! He would be furious with her, that was for sure. But she would have to take His correction with grace. She would have to endure it, so that she could get back out and find this prize. Much depended on it, she knew. She would not fail, not in the end.

* * *

Aphrodite stormed into the café, angrier than she’d been in at least three thousand years. “Hephaestus!” She called, espying her estranged husband at a table, “how dare you ignore me!”

The room ignored her outburst, as she and her husband were not showing themselves at present, but even still, the patrons felt the chill wind blowing through the coffee shop.

“Aphrodite, you’re facing me before the Council. We shouldn’t be meeting. Unless you’re looking to concede.”

“Hephaestus, I know you got my message. The Adversary is taking advantage of this for His goals. We can’t let that happen.”

“The Adversary is no different than any of us Gods, Aphrodite. He has a very important role – God of Sorrow, God of Evil, God of Hate. For if there was no hate….”

“…there could be no love, yes, I know all about The Adversary’s role in the multiverse, and how His job is as important as Al’yah’s Herself, but that doesn’t mean we should stand idly by and watch our bet be perverted into sorrow and hatred. That was not the aim of this bet. Concede, Hephaestus.”

“Never,” the God of Smiths said.

“All right,” Aphrodite said, swallowing her pride. “All right, though I swear I have defeated you, I will agree with you to end the contract. I will withdraw my appeal, and I will remain your wife, if in name only. And you can draw what conclusions about women that you will. And we can get Adam and Stephanie together, as they deserve.”

Hephaestus sipped his espresso, but said nothing.

“Did you hear me, Hephaestus? I said I will break the contract! I will agree to those terms!”

“I withdraw that offer,” said Hephaestus. “I will not allow the contract to be broken.”

“Do you want me that badly?” said Aphrodite, a tear gracing her lovely olive cheek. “Is that it? Then allow me to concede all but women’s folly. I will be the wife to you that you want. But…allow these mortals their love, too.”

Hephaestus started at that, and looked up at Aphrodite, eyes wide. “You would promise that? You…you would, wouldn’t you? By Zeus, you have grown up.”

He stared down at his cup. “It is a pity.”

Aphrodite stared at him, drinking in those words. And she looked down, as she dared to comprehend them.

“It was never about women. Or me. You were working for The Adversary the whole time.”

“He made me an offer,” said Hephaestus, “that I couldn’t refuse. Not even for you. But,” the God said, taking another sip, “that doesn’t mean I don’t still see our bet as meaningful. Nor that I will not grant you divorce if, after twenty years….”

“Fuck you,” said Aphrodite, rising. “You want to work with The Adversary? Your right. He is, as you noted, but a God like the rest of us. But do not think that I will not fight you with all my power and all my fury, to my destruction, if need be.”

She turned on her heel, and began to stride out of the room.

“You know you can’t interfere. The deeper magic prevents it, so long as our contract is in force.”

“Do not lecture me about the deep magic, bastard,” Aphrodite said. “Unlike you, I will play fairly. And I will still win.”

And with a sniff, she was gone. She had someone she needed to see – and right away.

Chapter Six

Ἐκ τῶν ὧν οὐκ ἄνευ[1]

Time passed, as time does. Adam stood now less than two feet high — 19¾ inches, just over 50 centimeters, easily the shortest adult male in the world. Indeed, the Guinness people had certified him during an appearance on the Jayne Jordan Show two nights before, on the eve of his wedding day.

Now, he sat in the airport in a seat the size of a sofa, waiting to board a flight for his honeymoon.

Some ways away, observing from an airport bar, sat two figures whose presence would have spoken poorly about airport security, as they had simply walked through the TSA checkpoint without even removing their shoes. Of course, Gods are allowed some leeway that mortals are not.

“So, are you willing to concede?” the female asked, as she watched the tiny man snuggle up to the side of the woman three times his size.

“Concede? Whatever for?”

“They’re married, aren’t they? It was on the news, see?” she said, pointing at a monitor, which was showing what all the photographers had agreed was the hero shot – Stephanie kneeling down to kiss Adam, softly but fully on the lips. The shot was already being readied for the next edition of People.

“Married, schmarried. Marriage isn’t the end of the story, my wayward wife. You and I know that better than any of these mortals. The test isn’t over until it’s run its full course.”

“She’s not going to break,” said Aphrodite, sighing. “You could at least show them the kindness of not continuing this. Haven’t they suffered enough?”

“Suffered? This is what volitionals were made for, dearest. To test. To answer our questions for us. You ruined poor Paris’s life just to prove you were hotter than Athena and Hera (and frankly, you had him when you disrobed); don’t lecture me on sympathy.”

“I’m thousands of years older than I was then, and a good deal wiser. I am more attractive than Athena and Hera, but I don’t feel the need to show if off anymore. If it happened now, Hera could have the damned apple.

“But you’re right, marriage is just a mile-marker, it isn’t a destination, no matter what the stories claim. We’ll leave them alone. See if they live happily ever after. But at some point, you will concede.”

Hephaestus was silent.

“You will concede eventually, right?”

“How long did Penelope wait for Ulysses to come home, Aphrodite? Twenty long years, she waited, though she knew not whether he was alive or dead. Twenty years of a mortal life! She remained faithful to her husband though she had suitors aplenty. And you are pestering me to concede now?”

Aphrodite stared, nonplussed. When she gathered herself, she found she was quaking with rage. “Surely,” she said, “you would not be so petty as to require of these two twenty years of heartache simply on the chance it would prove your point? Surely you would not force this woman to live a life of chastity long after all hope of seeing or communicating with her husband was past?”

“Why not? It was good enough for the ancients.”

“We were awful to the ancients. They put up with far more than they ever should have,” said Aphrodite.

“They were stoic. Not like these hedonists. You’re telling me that this girl can’t keep her legs crossed for a couple decades? Some champion for womankind.”

“Penelope is still lauded today simply because her actions were so unusual! That kind of faithfulness borders on pathological; Ulysses had no right to expect his wife to be faithful to him, especially as he spent a year fucking our cousin Circe.”

“Why not mention Calypso?” Hephaestus asked with a thin smile. “She had him for seven years, if I recall.”

“Because Calypso kidnapped and raped him, precious husband. But he bedded Circe with eyes wide open – even had her swear by your name and mine, and all our brothers’ and sisters’ names too, that she wouldn’t steal his manhood – the vagabond had no problem getting his carnal needs met. But Penelope? She’s supposed to keep her legs crossed. And this is what you say dear Stephanie must do? You are more blind than I thought.”

“Hmpf. You are awfully quick to ask for my concession. And awfully impatient that the deed be done, and right quick. Not bloody likely, but I’ll offer you this: you can break the contract, if you wish,” said Hephaestus.

“No chance,” replied Aphrodite, angrily. “You are simply looking to force me to break the contract because you know you have lost. I should have known better to trust your word. No, Hephaestus, I thought you knew that I was tougher than that. I will not accede to your wishes.”

“Then we wait,” he said.

“No. We do not.”

“Then what in Zeus’ name do you suggest we do?”

“I shall appeal to The Council of Thirteen.”

“Appeal?” scoffed the God of Artisans. “Do you really think The Council will give you a fair hearing?”

“Whether they do or not is Their decision, not yours nor mine,” said Aphrodite. “I must place this in Their hands. My responsibility to this couple and to women generally requires it. If The Council wishes to punish me for what I once was….”

“Athena’s on the Council, you know.”

“She’s no more likely to favor you,” shot Aphrodite.

“You’ll lose,” said Hephaestus, straightening himself.

“We’ll see,” said Aphrodite, as she vanished.

* * *

Adam shifted uncomfortably in the chair, while Stephanie perused the paperwork for the cruise; they had purchased this trip back before…well, back before. And he was willing to go on it because Stephanie wanted to; she didn’t quite say that she wanted to go on the honeymoon because it would be their last vacation together, but he knew the thought had gone through her head. The thought had gone through his head. How could it not?

The wedding had been lovely, everything he’d hoped for. Since he’d reached his breaking point that night, that awful night, the night he’d pondered suicide…he’d finally found some balance. He was dying; he knew it. He didn’t want to die, and he was scared, but there was no stopping it. Scientists had taken measurements of his gait, his head, his legs, his arms, and declared that physically, he shouldn’t be able to walk like he did. One doctor admitted that the whole thing seemed not just apart from medicine, but a violation of the laws of physics. They didn’t know how to stop it. They didn’t even know how it was happening in the first place. No, they would not be able to stop it. He might get lucky and stay large enough for Stephanie to talk to, to see, to hear, to love. He thought if he could stay even a couple of inches tall…

…but he admitted to himself that he probably had about two months left. Two months before he was a millimeter tall, give or take a few days. His reduction in size had worse and better days, but on average he’d lost about ten percent of his height each day since it started. (Ten percent of his width and depth, too – or eventually he’d have ended up a pancake; he wondered, idly, if that would be better. No – there were advantages to being human in form, even if he was too small.)

He looked over at Stephanie, who was still radiant despite the fact that they’d partied late into the night. He saw her in his mind’s eye, decked out in her lovely white dress, her mammoth form collapsing down toward him; he was just a bit over knee-high, and she appeared to be nearly eighteen feet tall. She had chosen a dress that accentuated her décolletage – he hadn’t known, but he heartily approved. Her breasts were enormous, and delicious, and he could have stared at them forever as they came to dominate his view, except then her face approached, and he saw her huge, blue eyes blinking back tears of joy and pain, tears that mirrored his own, and that he could have stared at forever and a day. And she kissed him with those amazing lips, and he kissed back as best he could. And in that moment, he realized –

“Excuse me, but – I’m sorry, I just saw you and, well, I mean, I can’t believe it’s really you two!”

The girl was a teenager, maybe, or maybe in her early twenties – people were all so big that it was getting hard for him to tell. She was lovely, wearing a skimpy halter-top and denim jeans, obviously more than ready for her vacation to begin. He sighed at the interruption, and forced a smile. “I assume we’re us,” he said, repeating the line that he used in these situations. “I’m Adam White, this is my – my wife,” he said, realizing that Stephanie was his wife.

“I’m Aimee. I think it’s sooooo amazing how you’ve been able to cope with all of this. I mean, it’s just gotta be hard on both of you, but you got married! I mean, I saw it on the news – it’s awesome!”

The girl babbled on, while Stephanie and Adam nodded, occasionally exchanging meaningful glances. Aimee had wanted her parents to take her picture with Adam sitting on her lap; Stephanie had given Adam a sportive grin, and said she’d be happy to take the picture. Adam had been perched precariously on the comely lass’s lap, his head resting against her breasts. Stephanie had to stifle a laugh as she took the picture, and handed the camera to Aimee.

“Bet you didn’t know that all you’d have to do to get the ladies was shrink,” she said, kissing his forehead. “Do I need to be jealous?”

Adam fought back the brief pang of despair; he knew Stephanie was teasing him. “She’s too young. I think. How old do you think she is?”

“She’s in high school. So I don’t think it would be legal, even if you intended to stray. But now that the first girl has broken our protective zone, I’m sure others will be coming.”

“Well,” he said, looking at the tiny ring that had been fashioned for him (it had been fashioned from a strip of gold, along with three smaller rings and one that would fit him if he should revert to full height – hope springs eternal), “it’s just lucky for you that you got this ring on my finger when you still had the chance.”

“I know it,” said Stephanie, bittersweetly. “I know it.”

* * *

Stephanie’s prediction had come true. There were pictures to be taken, autographs to sign. The old couple who simply came over to express their congratulations were their favorites; they were heading down to Florida for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They were both jealous; though neither said it, both knew they were going to end up 49 years, 10 months short of that.

Stephanie tried to keep an even keel, though it was hard. The wedding reception the night before had taken on the tenor of an Irish wake; nobody quite said that Adam was dying, but everyone in the room had known it. She remembered when her grandfather was dying, the last few weeks, when he couldn’t move, couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk, but his eyes – his eyes were still lively as ever. He knew full well what was going on. He could see the end coming. So could Stephanie.

She saw the end coming again.

Adam spent most of the flight on Stephanie’s lap, his head resting against her left breast, lightly dozing. She liked having him there; she felt, however irrationally, that she could protect him. That her body could deflect any dangers from her tiny husband, that she could keep him safe from the oncoming storm. But she knew that the danger was within his body, that he would slip further and further from her grasp, until one day he was gone.

She didn’t want to say it, though. Not yet. There would be time for goodbyes, and then…then she would keep her promise. However hard that would be.

*  *  *

Getting checked in was relatively easy; there was minor confusion, as Stephanie and Adam had been upgraded to a larger suite courtesy of the cruise line, which was loving the attention the minor celebrities had brought to it. But it took just a few minutes of confusion before they were heading to their cabin, Adam running to keep up with the giants (he had stubbornly refused to let Stephanie carry him; he knew he’d have to give up very soon, but he wanted to walk on his own for as long as he could). The cabin boy was leading the way, with Stephanie falling behind to stay near to Adam; they turned a corner, and Adam raced around it to keep up, when he collided with a moving body and was sent flying.

“Adam!” he heard Stephanie call, as he woozily rolled over. The guy he collided with must be build like a Mack Truck. He turned around to see the concerned person looking down on him.

“Wow, are you okay?” the girl asked. She couldn’t have been more than five or six, with braids on either side of her head, and a soft, quizzical gaze; clearly, she was not used to seeing 1’8” men wherever she was from.

“I’m fine,” Adam said, grabbing the hand the girl offered.

“Kenzie, what are you – my goodness, what happened?” said an immense thirtysomething woman, who was coming back for her wayward daughter, arriving just as Stephanie did. “Why – you’re that – that guy!” the behemoth said.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Adam said. “I ran into your daughter. Sorry, should have looked where I was going.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re really small! I didn’t see you!” the little girl blurted out.

“I’m used to it,” he said. “Now go on with your mom.”

“I’m so sorry,” the mom said to Stephanie, almost not addressing Adam. “Kenzie needs to be more careful.”

“I’m fine,” Adam said. “It’s okay, really.”

As the mom pulled the girl along with her (the girl, for her part, was fascinated by the tiny adult she’d nearly flattened), Stephanie knelt down. “Are you okay?” she said.

“I’m fine,” Adam said, “but I think I will take you up on the offer to carry me the rest of the way.”

*  *  *

The room was smallish by room standards, largish by ship standards. Adam joked as he entered that they should have asked for a smaller cabin; it would make him feel more at home. But he was glad that Stephanie would have room to stretch out a bit, and while his ears were still ringing from the collision, he actually felt okay once they got settled. Home was where Steph was, after all, and as long as she was there with him, he’d be fine.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Stephanie asked for at least the fifth time. “You went flying.”

“Well, I only weigh five pounds. That kid weighs, I don’t know, like six thousand compared to me. But I’m fine, really. Just had the wind knocked out. What’s next?”

“Well,” said Stephanie, “we’re on our honeymoon. And while I’ve never been on one before, I’ve come to understand that the best part of most honeymoons is the sex.”

“Really,” Adam said. “Sex? You’re sure? I mean, I’ve been told that cruise ship buffets are really good. You don’t want to hit that first?”

“I’m enough bigger than you as it is, I don’t need to go adding weight. No, I think that we should get everything put away, go to the life preserver practice, and then come back and make out like sixteen-year-olds until dinner.”

“Can we make it twenty-year-olds?” Adam asked. “I was a lot better at making out at twenty than I was at sixteen.”

“Hmm,” Stephanie said, grinning, “come to think of it, you’re better now than you’ve ever been. Let’s make out like 28-year-olds.”

“Sounds good,” said Adam. Then, he paused. “You know, I wish with all my heart I could promise you that we’d be making out like 69-year-olds some day. Or even 29-year-olds.”

“Nobody can promise that,” said Stephanie, picking him up and cradling him in her arms, almost like he was an infant. She kissed him softly on the forehead. “I know, it’s…I don’t ever want to say goodbye to you,” she said. “But if nothing else, we get to make out like 28-year-olds, right? If nothing else, you’re my husband, ‘til death do us part.”

Adam smiled, just a bit. “I just wish,” he said, “that I was a long way from knowing when that would be.”

*  *  *

Celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be. The lifeboat drill got them noticed by an unctuous crew member who said she’d been assigned to be their personal concierge for the trip; they were invited to the Captain’s Table for dinner, which meant rather than enjoying a long and leisurely fuck, they instead got to get dressed to the nines. Adam was self-conscious about sitting in the center of the room, but Stephanie claimed she got some good photos out of it, so he accepted it.

When at long last, they made it back to their cabin, they were a bit tired and annoyed. But not so tired and annoyed that they didn’t strip down rather quickly.

Stephanie picked him up and put him on her chest, laying between her two breasts, so she could look him in the eye.

Adam scooted up between the breasts, feeling their soft gelatinous warmth, he softness of Stephanie’s skin as his naked member slid along it. He reached out and steadied himself, placing a hand on both her cheeks. And then he kissed her, as hard as an 18½-inch-tall man can kiss a 21-foot-tall woman. He took in her tongue as she gently pressed it into his tiny mouth, and he pressed his tiny tongue against hers in a kiss that was a promise and a consecration.

They lay like that, simply kissing, for quite some time before they finally broke, and with a kiss on her chin, Adam slid backward down her chest and onto her stomach. He embraced her right breast, which was now bigger than his head. Her nipple was almost too big to suck on – he would miss that when it was gone, he thought, but he loved the detail he could see, as he kissed and sucked on her tit, watching her areolae crinkle and her nipple grow. He had seen this before, of course, many happy times. But the smaller he got, the more intricate detail he could make out.

It was the one thing that made this bearable – the smaller he got, the more of Stephanie there was. And there couldn’t possibly be too much of Stephanie.

He moved over to her left breast, as he always felt a need to be fair to the breasts. Then he slid back in between her thighs, and leaned against her sweaty sex, the enormous vulva, the bulb of her clit. He touched the lips, and as he had discovered he could last week, he slid his right arm in, all the way up to the elbow.

He worked his arm back and forth as he softly kissed her nubbin. She was growing slicker by the moment, as he slid his arms back and forth. And then, he paused just for a moment, and pulled his arm out.

“What’s wrong?” Stephanie rumbled, half-annoyed, half-concerned.

“I think…” said Adam, and then he threw caution to the wind, and dove head-first into the crevasse.

He couldn’t get more than neck-deep in, and he figured he probably shouldn’t stay here too long, lest he trigger an orgasm and end up with whiplash. But he kissed her inner lips, filling his whole person with her. He wanted to know, in a week or two, when his arm was too small, whether he himself could stomach the blast-furnace heat of Stephanie’s sex.

As he pulled his head out, he gasped for air and grinned. He could more than stomach it.

His head wet with her juices, he turned his attention back to her clit, and buried his arm in again. It was but a moment before Stephanie burst.

It was only the beginning of a long night, the first of several long nights. They’d make up for it by sleeping in. Or having sex during the day. Whatever worked.

When they finally finished for the night, sweaty and spent, Adam curled up next to his gigantic bride, and kissed her cheek once more as they drifted off. No matter how little time he had left, this was where he wanted to spend it.

*  *  *

“You’re asking a lot of The Council, Aphrodite.”

The young man adjusted his glasses, investigating her petition. In his lilting British accent, he said, “Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing that would be taken up at the general session in thirty-four Terran years.”

“That would be beyond the time upon which the respondent has allowed he would concede defeat. I hold that he is violating the spirit of our agreement, and that action is required now.”

“I can read, Aphrodite. But why the action now?”

“To save these volitionals the agony of separation. Believe me, if you set this for thirty-four years from now, I’ll simply amend the petition to demand temporal marking and repair.”

The Assistant Secretary chuckled at that. “You’re forceful, all right. Are you sure you never worked for a record company?”

Aphrodite smiled in spite of herself. “I have, actually, but not in legal. At any rate, I ask that this be placed for immediate hearing.”

“And they say I’m a dreamer,” the angel said, checking some boxes. “We may work in miracles here in the Central Office, but that’s beyond possible. Earliest I can set the hearing for is six weeks’ time.”

“Six weeks! He’ll be shrunk down to nothing by then!”

“Take it or leave it.”

Aphrodite sighed. She actually was doing better than she thought; she had expected to have this thrown out for a year, maybe two. Six weeks…that gave her a chance. “All right,” she said. “And please, express my appreciation to both St. Peter and Mr. Anansi.”

“Right, love,” said the man, scribbling a J.L. on a line, chuckling at the irony of it all. “Now, confidentially – you didn’t hear this from me – but I’d say you owe it to your little charge to keep an eye on him in the meanwhile.”

“Why?”

“Well, the Devil’s Advocate was in my office right before you were, trying to file paperwork preempting your challenge as irrelevant. I denied it of course – not that Beelzebub was surprised. Still, seems that there are other forces at work here that have taken an interest in your Mr. White.”

“Malakas!” swore Aphrodite, before looking up apologetically. “I’m sorry for the profanity….”

“Love, I’ve said far worse things than that. Just don’t go telling anyone I tipped you off.”

“I won’t. Thank you,” said the Goddess. And with that, she disappeared.

*  *  *

They lay on the Mexican beach, soaking up the sun. It was heavenly.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t go snorkeling,” Stephanie mused, lying on her stomach as her Ken doll-sized husband worked sunscreen into the back of her thighs.

He had insisted.

“There’s no reason you can’t,” he said, dropping into the valley between her legs, so as to better get the interior of them. “Just because the jellyfish would pack too big a wallop for me, that’s no reason you can’t go see them.”

“Aw, that’s swee…yeeeee…yuh. Don’t forget we’re in public, dear. Anyhow, that’s sweet, but there are some awfully big people here. I wouldn’t want to leave you to fend for yourself.”

“Aw, I can handle it.”

“Honey, you’re seven inches shorter than you were when this trip started,” Stephanie worried.

“I know,” said Adam, quietly, rather amazed as he stared through the canyon of Stephanie’s butt, looking down her twelve-foot-long torso. “But honey, how many chances will you get to go snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico? I’ll be here when you get back. And I can put more lotion on you.”

“Mmm. And then I can peel those red swim trunks off you.”

“They peel off easy, they’re a bit big, you know.”

Stephanie giggled. “You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m sure. Go!”

A few minutes later, Adam was staring at his wife, who was striding magnificently into the ocean some distance away. He lay back on the field-sized towel, and sighed, and closed his eyes.

A few minutes passed, before he heard a voice. “Mr. White?”

He opened them, and stared up at a 34-foot-tall goddess in a skimpy string bikini. She bent down over him, her short blonde hair whipping in the wind. If he wasn’t married, he’d have found her incredibly attractive. Well, he still found her attractive. But attractive wasn’t enough to keep him from being annoyed.

“Yes?” he said, sighing. Autograph time, or maybe a picture. The price of unwanted fame.

*  *  *

Stephanie carried the glass carefully, and looked at the ground. “Hey, sweetie,” she called, their bag partly obscuring her view of the towel. “I grabbed a piña colada, I thought….”

Her view crested the bag, and she stopped dead.

Adam wasn’t on the towel.

She looked around, fighting the rising panic. He was probably nearby. Probably a group of coeds was taking a picture with him. That’s it, he’s just enjoying a group of six sorority sisters in skimpy swimsuits. She turned slowly, looking for a sign of him, and then she saw it, a wisp of red fabric on the ground.

His swim trunks.

Dropping the piña colada, Stephanie screamed.

Chapter Five

Μὴ χείρον βέλτιστον [1]

“Of course it’s hard, Steph. I’m amazed you’ve been able to hang in through all of this. ’Course, you’re tough.”

“Right,” Stephanie said, staring into her skim mocha latté. She wondered how many skim mocha lattés she’d stared into, talking about relationships falling apart, while Michael sipped on his chai, listening to her vent.

“No, really, I can’t imagine having to go through what you’re going through. You’re holding up really well.”

“I have to,” she said, quietly. “Adam…Adam needs me to be strong.”

“Of course he does,” Michael said. “Of course he does. But you have needs too.”

Stephanie laughed, bitterly. “You know, it’d be easier if he could pull out of his despair. I don’t blame him, I really don’t; God knows he has every reason to despair. If his height would just stabilize…I don’t mind him being smaller. It’s the not knowing when it’s going to stop…or if it’s going to stop.”

“You know, I read a story a while ago, about a guy in…I think it was England, but don’t quote me on that. Anyhow, he was a quadriplegic, totally paralyzed. And he worked it out so his wife and his best friend could have an ongoing affair. Said it saved his marriage.”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m not suggesting you have an affair,” Michael said, “but Adam’s going to have to start caring about your feelings at some point, or you’re going to fall apart.”

“That’s just it,” Stephanie said. “I think if he could get his feet on the ground, if he knew, say, eighteen inches tall, that’s it – I think he could live with that. We could plan, we could figure it out. He could start to rebound. But who knows where this ends? What if he’s the size of a grain of rice, too small for me to hear? How do we live like that? What if it doesn’t even stop there? I can’t…it’s worse than him being paralyzed. Lots of people are. We could figure it out. Hire a nurse, go through rehab, enjoy our time. But this is totally new. Totally new. And I just don’t have any idea how we’re going to make it. And as bad as it is for me, I know it’s worse for him. I mean, I’m not wearing toddler clothes. He is. I don’t need a stepstool to get onto the toilet. He does. I can still cook and clean and take pictures and do everything I ever could, and he can’t. And I feel so…it’s not right that I’m feeling this way when it’s not me going through this!”

“Feelings aren’t right or wrong,” Michael said. “They’re just feelings. You can’t control what you feel, you can only react to it. You feel like this is a big imposition on you, and it is. That’s not wrong. And yeah, you’re right, you owe it to Adam to suck it up a bit – I mean, that’s just the right thing to do. But you can’t be ashamed to have feelings of your own. And you need to vent now and again. I insist on it.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling weakly. “I feel like an idiot, I haven’t even asked you how Molly’s doing.”

“Oh, we broke up a couple weeks ago,” Michael said, downing the last of the coffee. “Didn’t tell you – I know you’re going through worse.”

“I’m so sorry, Mike! I thought she was a keeper.”

“Yeah, well. It happens. Look, you call me when you need to talk, okay?”

They shuffled the coffee cups into the garbage, and they hugged for a long time, before they broke off and headed out on their separate paths.

*  *  *

Stephanie entered the house a bit warily, as the lights were all out. She hadn’t been gone so long that Adam would be asleep, she didn’t think. Frankly, if he was going to bed at 9:30, she’d take that as a sign that his depression had deepened to the point of despair, and she’d damn well demand that he go see a psychologist, for all the good that would do.

But as she entered the house, she saw that there was light coming from it, dim, and flickering. She opened the door, and the living room danced in the light of the half-dozen candles, all of which had been set ablaze.

“Adam?” she said, noting that the letters had all been piled neatly in a corner of the table. She saw a note on the middle of the table, with Adam’s handwriting, clear as always, though smaller, with two words written on it.

She smiled. His memory was sound. And if the candles were on lower shelves than they’d been before…well, she understood.

She bounded up the stairs, two at a time, remembering exactly when he’d first done this for her. Their second anniversary. She’d told him then that he could surprise her like this any time, and he did. Often. Until lately.

She entered the bedroom, where he was waiting in the light of the candles, naked. He smiled, then stammered, “I…we don’t…”

“Shhh.” Stephanie said.

She stripped down; they had done this many times. He waited, quietly, for her to lay face down on the towels that he had arranged on the bed, and then, he took out the oils, and began to massage her back.

Adam found quickly that this was not as easy as it had been when he was three feet taller; nevertheless, he found he was enjoying it. He’d taken a class on therapeutic massage in college, mainly because he thought it was a good place to meet girls, but he’d picked up a number of very good tips in that class that allowed him to keep girls once he’d met them. And he’d never met anyone – man or woman – who didn’t like a good massage.

Stephanie loved them. And he loved giving them to her, sliding his hands over her marvelous, toned body, working the oil into her creamy skin, his hands dancing over all the parts of her – all parts he loved. That there was more of her now (at least from his perspective) was not a bad thing. He had always enjoyed this; there was now more of it to enjoy. He put more force into it than he would have at full size, hoping he was equaling his previous output.

Stephanie, for her part, sighed contentedly as the small hands of her lover glided over her back. They weren’t pushing with the force they once did, but she didn’t mind at all. It was still pleasant and sensuous as ever, and she felt the worry about the future wash away as Adam slid his hands along her, caressing her back, her butt, her thighs…it was heavenly.

In due time, she rolled over, allowing him to work his way up her body from toes to breasts. When his face was over hers, she opened her eyes. This was always the point at which she demanded a happy ending.

And so, grinning, she pulled his lips to hers, and gave him a rough kiss.

Adam was surprised by it; he had expected to give her the massage, but he was going to ask quietly if she wanted anything else; he wasn’t doing this to get into her pants. Indeed, he hadn’t done it the first time in pursuit of sex. Yes, it always seemed to lead to sex, but he never minded if it didn’t, because sex was not the sine qua non of the experience. It was Stephanie. Just being with her, making her happy; that was what made him happy. That was all he wanted.

He was surprised by the kiss, but he did not pull back.

He was a bit more surprised when the titaness roughly pulled him up onto her body, but he didn’t pull back then, either.

She was nearly twice as tall as he was, now. As he kissed her he was aware that his stomach lay atop her breasts, that his foot landed just south of her crotch. He didn’t stop kissing her. He decided that as long as she’d let him, he’d make love to her.

He began to work his way down her, amazed anew at the size of her breasts; they had never been small, but now they were immense. His lips grazed her nipples, now damn near as big as his thumbs, but he kissed them hungrily, as she groaned in approval. He slid along her belly, the oil from the massage lubricating things as it always did, preparing to kiss her below, when she said, “stop.”

“What?” he said, looking up at her between the valley between her breasts.

“I want you inside of me,” she said, huskily. “We can come back to that later, if you want to. But right now, I want you to fuck me as hard as you can.”

As their interests aligned nicely, Adam slid back up, bringing himself in for docking. Her vagina was already wet, receptive to him. He fit easily now, of course, but Stephanie still moaned as he pushed himself into her. He put every ounce of energy he had into it, knowing that he wasn’t going too deep into her, but not caring. And Stephanie felt him in her, and she knew it was not as big as it had once been, but it still felt good, Adam and her connected together, and she reached behind him, holding his little butt in her hands, pushing him into her, and he felt himself pushed as far in as he could go, pushing into the woman he loved, his head buried between and beneath her breasts, and he spasmed, and released.

She felt him unload, and sighed, happily. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. For the moment, everything was okay.

* * *

“That was a good idea,” she murmured to him, some time later.

“Well, I…I haven’t done much lately but mope. I’m not saying that all is well, but…well, damn it, I don’t know how much time I get with you. I want to enjoy it. I want you to enjoy it.”

She smiled at that. “I’m grateful for every day I get with you.”

They held each other, for a good long time. Adam didn’t tell her about how he’d considered, after she left, just finding a way to end it. How he’d been looking for a razor blade when he came across the matches. He didn’t want her to know how close he’d been to giving up; it embarrassed him. Especially considering what a good night he would have missed out on.

“Steph, if this keeps going forever, if I get so small that you can’t even see me…I want you to do something for me.”

“Huh?”

He swallowed. He knew what he was asking of her. “If I’m going to be the size of a microbe I’m not going to live long after that, right? And frankly, if it gets to that point, I don’t think I want to. So please, if I get so small we can’t talk, so small you can see me…I just want you to turn me loose on your body, somewhere. You pick.”

“Adam….”

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “If I’m going to die, I want to be with you when I do. Just…if you could do that, that’s all I’ll ask. If I’m big enough to see, I’ll keep fighting. But if I get so small that I’m lost to the world….”

Stephanie looked at him, and smiled sadly. “I will,” she said, quietly, and she knew as she said it that it was okay. She imagined him, lost in her cleavage, her breasts the size of mountains, and she sighed. They would be together, even if they couldn’t communicate. She understood.

She hoped and prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Adam did, too.

Chapter Four

Ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι[1]

“More fan mail for you,” said Stephanie, dropping a bundle of letters in front of her diminutive fiancé.

“Great,” Adam said, morosely, as she put several dozen huge envelopes in front of him. He opened the first letter, and sighed as he held the poster-sized letter. “Actually, this is for you,” he said, handing it up to Steph.

She read it with a pursed lip, then crumpled it and threw it across the room. “Bastard,” she muttered.

Adam thumbed through the pile of letters, dividing them into the usual piles. The smallest, of course, was pile of actually touching and heartfelt expressions of sympathy. Most were banal words of encouragement, which Adam tried to accept in the spirit in which they were sent. Some were exhortations to join a particular religion. A few were business offers of one sort or another, like the offer to custom-make him a tux for the wedding in exchange for his endorsement. He didn’t mind those, though most were rejected.

More disturbing were the letters from freaky girls who thought his 3’3” frame might be fun to take for a spin, freakier guys who thought he was lucky to be 3’3” and falling, and the suitors lining up for the bereaved widow-in-waiting.

The freaky girls and suitors-in-waiting were fond of sending pictures, because evidently they figured that would work.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Stephanie said. “Don’t tell me you gave that letter more than a passing glance.”

“Be lying if I said I hadn’t,” said Adam, shuffling his piles. “He can probably reach your breasts without stretching.”

“Yes, but what good will that do him? I wouldn’t let someone like that touch me with a ten-foot pole. Hey, have you left me for any of the naked women you’ve gotten letters from?”

“They’re twice as far away as they used to be, so it would take too long.”

Stephanie was briefly bemused, before she began to laugh. “Was that actually a joke from you?”

Adam chuckled in spite of himself. “Gallows humor, I guess.”

“Let’s hope not. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“You mean I’m ridiculous.”

“No, you’re Adam. What’s ridiculous is these people…you’ve got women looking to explore their freaky side…”

“Don’t forget that one guy,” Adam said, shuffling a paper into the heartfelt pile.

“Right! And I’ve got vultures swirling around me, expecting me to spread my legs because they saw me on the teevee.” She came and sat down on the couch, bouncing his tiny frame just a bit. “Oops. Sorry,” she giggled.

He leaned up against her, the wall of woman who sat next to him. His head leaned up against her bosom, under her arm. She looked down on him with a smile. “You know, I’ve got the night off. What say I pour us some wine, and I can pretend to be one of the girls in your fan club.”

She leaned in to kiss him, but he pulled away.

“I…not tonight,” he said.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. He ached for her. And he was almost ready. But that last line…yes, it would be easier for her to pretend to be attracted to him.

“Adam,” she said, “you were showing some actual spirit there earlier. Don’t give that up. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I just…I wish I was still the man you agreed to marry. It’s not fair to you…none of this is.”

She tousled his hair. “You’re the man I agreed to marry. You’re just coming in travel-size these days. That doesn’t mean you’re not you.”

“But I’m not,” Adam said. “I’m…I’m something else. I’m under thirty pounds now,” he said.

“I told you not to weigh yourself.”

“I’m the size of a three-year-old. And at this rate, I’ll officially be the world’s shortest man three days before the wedding. And that won’t end it, will it? I’ll just get smaller and smaller, until…what? Do I just eventually pop out of existence? Have you read The Shrinking Man?”

“What?” said Stephanie, trying to follow his non-sequitur, while not  accidentally admitting to him that yes, she had, and that it terrified her.

“In the end, he shrinks down to microscopic size, and less. And he keeps living. I can’t imagine that, how horrible that would be. His wife is utterly beyond him. He’s lost, and he tries to get her attention and she can’t see him, can’t hear him, he’s nothing. A speck of dust, less than a speck of dust. He’s nothing.”

“You’re not nothing,” she said, taking his face in one hand and turning it toward hers. (It was easy. She was so much stronger than he was.) “You are the man I love, and if you become so tiny that I can only see you with a microscope, then I’m going to have to buy a microscope. You hear me?”

“You’ll never get that,” said Adam, pointing to the table. Stephanie followed his gesture to a piece of paper that sat on it, a brightly colored get-well picture that had obviously been drawn by a little kid. “I wanted kids, like you do,” Adam said. “I wanted to be a dad. But I can’t be now, can I? How do I wrangle a kid when they’re taller than me, stronger than me? How do I raise a baby when I can’t diaper her, feed her, carry her, hold her when she’s sad? What good am I?”

Stephanie was quiet. In all the swirling desperation of their lives, she hadn’t thought about that. But it was true: marriage to Adam likely meant giving up on motherhood.

“I hate that I’m doing this to you, hate what you’re giving up for me.”

Stephanie got up from the couch. “I’m going out.”

“Out? Where?”

Stephanie gestured to the door. “Out. There. You know. Gonna go shopping.” She didn’t turn to look at him.

“Hmm.”

“What, where do you think I’m going?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Adam. “Away from me. Not that I blame you.”

Stephanie wheeled on him. “Adam, you have no idea what you’re talking about. But I can’t sit here and listen to you hate yourself all night. I just…I can’t. I’ll be back later. I love you.”

He said nothing. She walked out the door.

He closed his eyes, and wondered how it would be to be with one of the crazy women who’d propositioned him. He wondered, idly, if it would feel better than this. If they’d view him not as an object of pity, but an object of affection. But he shook of the thought; he loved Stephanie. He just wished she still loved him.

* * *

She wasn’t sure why she went to the mall; she supposed it was as good a destination as any. She needed space, needed to think. She needed to get away from Adam so that she could return to him in a way that didn’t destroy him.

She didn’t want to destroy him. She loved him, in the best sense of the word – she really did hold his well-being above her own. She hated that she might be giving up on children, but she was willing to for him.

But he wasn’t himself anymore, he was right about that, but not for the right reasons. He was spiraling down, and she didn’t know how to pull him out of it. She tried; the Gods knew she tried. But she was only human, and she was wearing down herself, and she didn’t have anyone she could really talk to, except….

“Steph?”

She turned, and smiled, somewhat surprised at the vagaries of fate. “Hey,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know, just doing some running around. My sister’s birthday’s coming up. How are you holding up? I left you a message….”

“Yeah, I got it. It’s been….”

She stopped, and she burst out crying. “It’s been hell,” she said.

Her old friend Michael put his arms around her, as he had through so many boyfriends past. “It’s okay,” he said, quietly. “Come on, we’ll go get coffee. My sister’s present can wait.”

Chapter Three

Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

In a cramped office in New York, Bekah Taylor’s phone rang.

The producer sighed, and grabbed it, going through the early pleasantries of the call. It was a reliable source, one who had pointed out more than a few famous people to wander through the Mayo Clinic. Still, with just twenty minutes until air time, it was a lousy time for a call, and Taylor said so.

“Becks, trust me, this is huge. Mega-huge.”

“What, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie all have the same strain of the clap?”

“Better.”

“So who’s the patient? Britney? Paris?”

“No no no, Becks, nobody famous.”

“Yeah…okay. Look, we don’t do news of the weird here. I don’t care how big the tumor in the fat lady’s gut was.”

“Look, will you trust me? This is something new. Totally new. A guy’s shrinking.”

Bekah stopped at that. “Shrinking?”

“Shrinking. He’s two feet shorter than he used to be. And it hasn’t stopped. He was just through here, but he’s on his way back home. I’ve got his address.”

Bekah drummed her pencil. “Isn’t shrinking normal? I mean, I remember my grandma shrunk.”

“Maybe by an inch or two, when you’re 80. Bone settles just a little bit, you get shorter. This guy, though – he’s literally getting smaller every day, and he’s pretty young. Everyone’s baffled, never seen anything like it. Frankly, I’m amazed it hasn’t got out yet. But when it does, it’s gonna be huge.”

“Is there any other hook to it?”

“You need a hook? Really?”

“No,” admitted Bekah. “But I want everything you know about him.”

“Usual fee?” the source asked.

“Usual fee.” “All right,” the woman said. “Send it to the PayPal account. I’ll send the documentation through presently. We never talked.”

*  *  *

The trip to Minnesota hadn’t been a total loss. Stephanie had found a couple nice outfits at the Mall of America.

Otherwise, it had just confirmed what Adam knew: there was nothing that could be done for him.

Oh, the doctors didn’t say it; they didn’t say much of anything. They’d poked and prodded, debated whether the HGH was helping or hurting, musing about cell wall thicknesses and the physics of his transformation and whether the fact that his weight was declining slightly less than his overall volume had was important or not. But he’d gone to Rochester ten days before, and he’d been 4 feet, 11 inches tall.

He was 4 feet flat now.

Stephanie walked into the room. God, she was enormous. Over eight feet tall – her breasts stared him in the face when they talked, her head was in the clouds. When she wanted to kiss him now, she kneeled down, like a mom with a kid. And it was appropriate – he was the size of a five-year-old now. He drew stares from people when he walked down the street.

He’d stopped driving.

Stephanie had mused a few days ago that they might need to get him a car seat – for his own safety.

She’d tried to back it off after she saw his face – told him that she only meant that the seat belt hadn’t fit him right. That she didn’t want anything to happen to him.

And he believed her. At least, he believed that she didn’t think she wanted anything to happen to him.

But he also was certain that when they made love – and they did, still, she insisted on it – he was certain she didn’t do so with the abandon she once had. That she was doing so out of a duty to him, out of a belief that she owed him.

He hated that. And yet he loved her so much that it burned in his gut. Even now, as he stared up at her beautiful face, staring through the gap between her (larger – there was at least some benefit to all this) breasts, he wanted to grab her, and tell her to come back to bed, and skip the graduation photo shoot she had this afternoon.

But he didn’t.  Instead, he looked up at her, and said, “Hey.”

“Hey there,” she said, kneeling down to his level. “You’ll be okay while I’m gone?”

“I’m a grown-up, Steph. I can handle it.”

“I know,” she said, grinning. “But if I can’t worry about my husband, who can I worry about?”

“We’re not married yet,” Adam said.

“We will be,” she said. “I won’t be late. What should I bring back for dinner?”

“I’ll make dinner,” Adam said, stubbornly. He hated that he’d have to use the stepstool Steph had picked up at IKEA, but he wanted to be useful.

“Great!” Steph said. “I’m looking forward to it. But I’ll call you on the way home, just in case you decide you want to be lazy. It’s okay if you want to be, you know.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Adam. “I’m the homemaker, right? I’ll make spaghetti. I think I can handle that.”

Steph kissed him on the cheek, and got up. Her gear was already packed; she waved goodbye to her fiancé, worried as she carried the bag to the car. Adam used to always insist on carrying her bag to the car, but he’d given up after the wedding last weekend; he just wasn’t big enough anymore. The cameras weighed as much as he did.

She was worried. He seemed remote, depressed. It was understandable, of course, but she could tell – when they made love, he was tentative. She was holding back a bit too, of course; he weighed only 60 pounds now and she more than doubled his weight. She would hope that if he weighed 350 pounds, he’d go easy on her.

But she wanted him to love her with reckless abandon, the way he used to. She knew why he couldn’t; part of her wanted to call Julia and tell her that something had come up, go back into the apartment and urge him to come out of his shell.

But she didn’t. She started the car and drove off.

*  *  *

It was a lot of work – a lot more work than he’d thought it would be.

Every day, he was a little bit smaller. And the spaghetti was still up in the cupboard where he’d offloaded it six weeks ago. The faucet was still behind the counter, at a perfectly accessible spot for someone a foot-and-a-half taller than he was. The pot of water was more than twice as heavy as he’d expected. Even the jar of pasta sauce was heavy.

But he’d done it. The hamburger had been browned, and mixed into the sauce; he’d doctored it until it was perfect, even though that had required him literally to climb onto the counter so he could reach the top shelf in the cupboard. He’d made garlic bread, and even had wine chilling. Damn it, he could still be useful.

He’d gotten most everything ready, when there was a knock at the door.

He sighed, and debated whether to get it. He didn’t really like dealing with people right now. But the knock repeated, twice, with a bit of urgency to it. Sighing, he walked over and pulled it open, expecting an overzealous, seven-foot-tall girl scout pitching cookies, or perhaps a nine-foot-tall delivery guy.

Instead, he was greeted by someone in between those heights; an eight-foot-tall, youngish brunette, wearing a low-cut blouse that basically caused him to say hello straight into the deep cleavage of what appeared to be E-cup breasts.

“Mr. White?” the woman inquired.

“Yes, that’s me,” Adam said, feeling a bit of unease.

“Hi. My name’s Rebekah Taylor. I’m a producer for the Jayne Jordan show, on the National News Network. Can I come in?”

Adam’s heart sank. He’d known this day would come, but he had hoped it would come after he was dead.

“I…I don’t think so. My fiancée’s on her way back – we’re having dinner…I just…I don’t think so.”

“I understand. You’re worried about being paraded around like a freak. Believe me, I want to stress that we want to do this tastefully. Tell your story to the country, let them know how you’ve borne up under this affliction.”

“How do you know I have an affliction?”

“Mr. White, were you always four feet tall? You weren’t, were you?”

Adam sighed. “I just…I want my privacy. I want Steph to have her privacy.”

“Mr. White,” Bekah said, smiling a smile that she’d used to get the mother of a kidnapped child on the air the night her husband was arrested, “I understand. Believe me. But…well, we’re not the only news organization to get this information, we’re just the first. And while I’m happy to work with you, to do this respectfully…the next guy might not be. But if you let us tell your story exclusively, it will keep the riff-raff out…or at least down to a minimum.”

“I…I’m really not interested,” Adam said.

“We’re willing to compensate you,” Bekah said.

“Compensate me? How could you possibly compensate for my being the national freak show?”

Bekah smiled that smile. “With money, of course. I have a check for half a million dollars in my purse. You agree to go on tomorrow, I give you that check now.”

Adam looked down. “Half a million?” he said, at long last.

“And that’s just the start. We’d like to track this through all the way.”

“All the way to what?” Adam asked.

“Hopefully, until you’re cured. But Mr. White…Adam…if you can’t be cured, at least you’ll leave a good financial legacy for your fiancée. Don’t you want that?”

Adam looked back into the dining room. “All right. Come in. But I’m not signing off until Steph gets home. This decision is as much hers as it is mine.”

“Of course,” said Bekah, sliding past the diminutive man into the small rambler. She knew the interview was as good as set.

*  *  *

“So do you think we’ll get in trouble for this?” said Hephaestus.

“No,” said Aphrodite, smiling, as she turned on the television. “This is just the sort of one-off event that already has approval in this reality. You know that the powers-that-be have been talking about taking a more hands-on approach. Besides, eventually the doctors will find out how this happened. Just not for a few centuries.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” said the God of Smiths. “As may be, I still think I’m going to win the bet.”

“We’ll see,” the Goddess of Love said. “We’ll see.

*  *  *

“Two minutes to air.”

Stephanie shifted in her seat, and looked over at Adam, whose feet dangled off the chair he’d been given. “We can back out,” she said. “We still have time.”

“No,” said Adam, quietly. “This…money won’t be an issue after this. Right? I mean….”

“I don’t care about the money. You don’t have to do this.”

“No,” said Adam, “I do. But you don’t.”

Steph smiled sadly. “I’m with you every step, Adam. And if you think it’s important to tell your story, then I support that. But if you’re just doing this for the money….”

“I’m doing it for the right reasons,” said Adam, as the producer announced one minute to air. “I am.” That those reasons were all about the money he’d be able to leave her when he died – for he expected he would die, sooner than later – that he did not say.

The music came up, and the host talked of Adam’s plight, and they had a long and at times painful interview in which Adam broke down but once, talking about his upcoming wedding, and how he feared he would be less than two feet tall for it. And Stephanie said all the right things, and Jayne Jordan was her usual feisty, personable self, and Adam and Stephanie talked about love, and staying together through it all, and both of them said all the right things that night.

And if each harbored doubts, neither expressed them.

By the end of the night, Adam White’s affliction was being plastered across the entire media spectrum.

And things wouldn’t be the same after that.

Chapter Two

Δεῖμος καὶ Φόβος[1]

Stephanie reacted on instinct to her fiancé’s swoon. She rushed to his side, and knelt down by him, rolling him over and calling to him.

“Adam. Adam!” she called, as she debated whether to get some water to pour on him, wake him up. The weirdness of the previous seconds was gone in that instant, replaced by concern. She didn’t know what was wrong. But she didn’t want to lose him.

His eyelids fluttered after a second, and he looked up at her. His eyes grew wide for just a split-second, as if he was trying to get his bearings, as if he was half-wondering if he was seeing his fiancée kneeling over him because she was simply to big to do anything else. But he seemed to gather himself, as he stuttered, “What happened?”

“You fainted,” Stephanie sighed in relief, as she stroked his hair absently.

“I had a weird dream,” said Adam, struggling to his elbows.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Stephanie said, helping him up. “You’re smaller than I am.”

Adam sat by the dying embers of the fire, staring beyond her. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she; she didn’t know what to say. If it was cancer, or heart disease, or…well, she didn’t want any of those for him, not ever, but those were real diseases, ones she knew about. She could talk to him about those, offer hope, support him.

But this – this was something else. It chewed her stomach up as she looked at him.

Finally, after a long time, she broke the silence; she felt like someone had to.

“Should we hike out of the woods? Go to a doctor?”

Adam looked over at her, and gave a rueful chuckle. “And tell them what? That I’m shrinking?”

“Well…yeah.”

“And what are they gonna do for me?”

“I don’t know, more than I can do, right?”

Adam looked at her, looked at her a long time. She felt almost uncomfortable, he looked so long.

And then he burst into tears.

*  *  *

“Took him longer than I would have thought to notice it,” said Hephaestus, over lamb at a corner restaurant. “Not a very observant lad, is he.”

“Oh, come now. Don’t insult the volitionals. This is a very unusual thing for one of them to have happen – the Gods don’t go meddling that often anymore.”

“True, I suppose. Wonder how long it would have taken him to figure out he had the head of an ass.”

“Heph,” said Aphrodite, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d soured on this mortal. If he’s not worthy of you….”

“Never said that. She didn’t notice either, did she? ‘Course,” he said, knocking back some ouzo, “they sure as Hades noticed it now, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” said Aphrodite, sighing, “and she’s being supportive, you saw. Or were you trying to ignore that?”

“Long time left in this bet,” said the God of Smiths. “She’ll crack. You’ll see.”

*  *  *

“This should be impossible,” the doctor said, keeping Adam at arm’s length. “People don’t shrink. At least, not until they get older – and that’s due to osteoporosis. This…doesn’t seem possible.”

They hadn’t left the woods until morning. No point, really – they both figured he’d fainted from the shock, not the shrinking itself. And the woods were more passable by day anyhow.

“It’s possible,” said Adam, as he looked up at the woman going over his vitals. “I’ve been 5’11” since I was 17. I’m 5’4” now. That’s real.”

They’d simply lay in their tent; they didn’t have sex – neither was in the mood. They’d just held on to each other, through the night. Adam had felt a bit self-conscious at first, as he could tell she was a bit bigger than he, feel that her feet were now below his, not vice-versa. But he grew accustomed to it in time, and eventually he had drifted to sleep.

“I know, Mr. White. But I’m baffled as to how. With the exception of your height, you appear to be in exceptional health – better than you were when we last saw you, actually. Your blood pressure’s down, reflexes are sharp…this doesn’t seem possible.”

It had almost been okay, until he woke in the morning, still holding onto Stephanie – who was even bigger than she had been the night before.

“Look,” said Stephanie, exasperated, “I don’t care whether it’s possible or not, it’s happening to Adam. My fiancé is three inches shorter than me. A month ago he was taller than me. You need to do something for him.”

“I need to call in a specialist,” she said.

“There’s a specialist in shrinking?” Adam asked.

“No…but I want an endocrinologist to look at you. Maybe they’ll see something….”

The doctor didn’t really say goodbye as she left the room, but sort of kept muttering about impossibility.

Stephanie put her arm around Adam’s shoulders. They were narrower, she realized; this used to be a stretch for her, but now he fit nicely into her embrace. She hoped she didn’t feel too big to him. Hoped this didn’t make things worse.

“How small do you think I’ll get?” asked Adam, quietly, staring after the doctor.

“I can’t imagine it’ll be that small,” said Stephanie. “I mean, physics makes it kind of impossible for you to get too small, right?”

“I don’t know,” said Adam. “What if it’s like that one movie, with the guy who shrinks and ends up fighting the spider?”

“What?”

“Some movie from the fifties, guy’s married, ends up shrinking so small he can live in a dollhouse. The Incredible Shrinking Man. What if I’m the incredible shrinking man?”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Stephanie. “It’s not possible,” she said, echoing the doctor’s quasi-assurance.

“You heard the doctor – this isn’t possible. People don’t shrink. I mean, if I’m doll-sized, what kind of husband will I be?”

Stephanie would be lying if she told Adam that the thought had not crossed her mind. Not that he’d be doll-sized, but that he might end up a midget. (Midget? Is that the right term? She wasn’t sure. She’d have to find out.) What would that mean for them? She’d fallen in love with a man who could go hiking with her, go camping with her. What if he became frail?

And now he asked her what would happen if a spider could attack him? What could she do to save him then? She’d have to baby-sit him. Would that be good for her? For him?

These thoughts whirled through her head, and it took her a second to realize that Adam had said something.

She paused; she had a good memory, and while her mind was given to drifting, she could usually play back the last sentence or two that was said in the absence of her conscious attention. She did so with Adam’s sentence, and quickly turned him to look at her. (It was easy. He was smaller than she.)

“Don’t even talk about that,” she said, staring him in the eyes. “We’re getting married. The ‘better or worse,’ ‘sickness in health’ stuff? I’m gonna mean that.”

“You haven’t said it yet,” said Adam. “I can’t hold you to it. If I’m going to be a burden….”

“Adam,” said Stephanie, sounding as assured as if she was truly sure, “I made that promise to you when I said yes to you; I put on this ring because I wanted to make that promise. If I had…uh…let’s say I’d gotten in a car accident, and I was paralyzed. Would you leave me?”

“What? Never!” Adam said. “I love you.”

“And I love you. And…well…this is like that, isn’t it? Except better – I mean, let’s say you end up three feet tall.”

Adam hung his head.

“Well, so what if you do? If you’re three feet tall, but still healthy, then you can still get around, still take care of yourself; you’d need less help than a quadriplegic, right? And I wouldn’t leave you if you were paralyzed, so why would I leave you now?”

“What if I end up three inches tall?” asked Adam.

“I love you, Adam,” said Stephanie, not exactly eliding the question. “We’ll make it through this. I promise.”

The doctor returned with three other doctors in tow. “Mr. White, I think we need to run some tests,” one of them said.

*  *  *

Tests were run.

Dozens of tests. Glucose tests. MRIs. PET scans. Biopsies. Adam White was poked and prodded every which way.

And all he had to show for it were the seven inches he had lost.

The doctors were baffled; there was no reason he should be shrinking. He just was. He was admitted for observation overnight, but by the next day he was released; everything seemed to show he was in perfect health.

Just smaller.

He was put on human growth hormone; the doctors weren’t sure it would do anything, but it was all they had for him. They were going to check with the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota; maybe they’d have something more for him later in the week.

Stephanie knew it was hell for Adam. It was hell for her.

“I don’t want you to go to Philly tomorrow,” she said as she drove them home. “I don’t think you should be traveling in…uh….”

“In my condition?” said Adam. “No, no, you heard them; I’m healthy, anyhow. Just shorter.”

“Still, we don’t know how this works. I mean, what if this….”

She trailed off, chiding herself; this wasn’t helping, this was just going to scare him. Not that she wasn’t terrified. But he’d only lost seven inches in the last month, or so he thought. Even if he’d lost it all in the last week, he’d only lose a couple more inches before he got home. They could handle it. Maybe.

“Steph, I don’t want to stop working,” he said. “I already feel less like me…I don’t want to give up.”

“We’re not giving up,” she said. “We’re not. I’m sorry, I’m just scared. You go to Philadelphia, you just…be aware of what’s going on. Okay?”

She felt his hand on her thigh as she weaved through traffic; she shot him a half-smile that she hoped was reassuring.

“Thanks for being scared,” Adam said, at last. “I sure am.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

*  *  *

“That’s insane,” said Rob.

Adam was already chafing in his too-big suit, talking to a too-big Rob. He had become hyper-aware of his surroundings since Stephanie turned out to be six feet tall. (He preferred to think of it that way. It made more sense.)

“That’s the deal,” said Adam. “I’ve shrunk about half a foot so far.”

“Well, do they think it’ll be more? I mean, how far does this go?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

“So why didn’t you say anything before you flew out here?”

“Well…I mean, it’s not really anything I wanted to worry you with.”

“Right,” said Rob, as he downed a scotch. Adam had been out here two days; he knew why Rob had flown out to meet him. He’d been off his game, out of sorts. He didn’t seem to have his mojo working, that’s for sure.

“Look, Adam, sales is a simple game, all about psychology.”

“Rob, I know sales.”

“Do you? Do you really? Then you know about the relationship between height and success in this business, right?”

Adam had made a living reading people, and he could tell that Rob was in full panic mode right now.

“Rob, calm down; I mean, yeah, that’s an old standby, but I’m not screwing this sale up because I’m shorter, I’m screwing it up because my head’s not in the game. I probably should’ve taken some time….”

“And when you’ve taken time, and you’re a foot shorter, what then? Oh, Christ – and the insurance. You’re gonna kill us on insurance. How many million dollars is this gonna cost to get fixed?”

“Rob…you’re not going where I think you’re going, are you?”

“Look, Adam, I need my salespeople on their game. You’ve been a rock until now. But now….”

“If I had cancer, would you be saying the same thing?”

Rob was quiet. “You’re right. I’ve already said too much; EEOC would cream me. I can’t fire you because you’re sick.”

“Thank God,” said Adam. “Look, I’ll get it together.”

“I can fire you for cause, though,” said Rob. “You haven’t destroyed this sale, but you came close. You’re fired for that. I’ll get you a ticket home.”

Adam sat with his jaw open, staring at his former boss. When he picked his jaw up, he said, “You’ll be hearing from my attorney tomorrow.”

“No, I won’t, because we’ll offer you a generous buyout not to sue. I’ll keep you on the payroll until we can draw something up. It’ll include insurance for a while. It’ll make it okay.”

“Nothing can make this okay,” said Adam.

He walked out of the hotel bar, and headed for his room, to gather his stuff. He didn’t want to admit it to Rob, but he had tanked this because he was shorter. Not because of some bullshit argument about smaller people being less effective.

No, it was because he was smaller now than he’d been two days ago, when he’d kissed Stephanie goodbye.

He’d realized it not long into the first day’s meeting, when he was looking the female buyer he was selling in her chin. He was smaller.

The loss of the job was a relief. He couldn’t function exactly after that; he felt weakened beyond measure.

He just wanted to go home.

*  *  *

“Four feet, nine inches,” said Stephanie, marking the wall.

“Jesus,” said Adam. Just a week ago, he’d been in Philadelphia; two days before, he’d received the generous settlement Rob had promised, a full year’s salary plus three months of insurance.

He stared straight into her breasts, not wanting to look up to catch her eye.

“It’s going faster, isn’t it?”

“Well…you were 5’4” before you went to Philly, 5’1” when you got home. You’ve lost five inches in the past six days, but that’s a slower pace than before. Maybe it’s slowing down?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe it just doesn’t matter.”

He walked away from her. The wedding was in five weeks. He was losing six inches a week. Five times six, that was what, 30? Yeah, by the wedding he’d be eighteen inches tall….

“Maybe we should call off the wedding,” he said, hopping up onto the couch.

“We’re not calling off the wedding,” said Stephanie. “This is going to stop.”

“Is it? The doctors don’t know shit. I’ll be the size of a baby at our wedding, and it’s not like you love me anymore.”

The last line came out of his mouth without conscious thought.

Stephanie was quiet for a long time as she walked over to the couch. “Why do you think,” she said, “that I don’t love you?”

“You haven’t…we haven’t done anything since the morning before we went camping. I don’t blame you – I’m a freak. A tiny little freak. Why would you want to be with me? I don’t…I don’t want you to tie yourself down to me.”

Stephanie came over to the couch, and sat down next to her diminutive fiancé. She was quiet, as if mulling things through. And then she tackled him.

He was stunned by how forceful she was; she pushed him back on the couch and held him there as she pulled her shirt off, exposing breasts that were bigger and fuller than they had been before he had shrunk, she left them at his head’s lever for a moment, letting them lay on him. Then she slid her enormous body down his, and kissed him, hard.

The fit wasn’t what he was used to. She was bigger and stronger and more unwieldy. And yet he found himself becoming aroused in spite of his grief and anger. And then, to his surprise, she picked him up – carefully, yes, as he was still a heavy load to her – and carried him into the bedroom.

She pulled his clothes off quickly as she disrobed herself; and then she slid onto the bed beside him, and spread her legs.

“Just because you’re smaller, that doesn’t mean you get out of paying the toll,” she said to him. He smiled in spite of himself, and fairly dove between her legs, licking and sucking on her nether regions, until she spasmed in orgasmic ecstasy. A brief refractory period, and then he was on top of her. Again, the fit was different – looser, mainly – but he was so full of pent-up ardor that it didn’t take very long at all.

And then they were together, naked and alive, on the bed, resting in each other’s arms as they had so many nights since their second date three years before.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just….”

“You’re scared,” said Stephanie, kissing his forehead. “I am too. I didn’t do anything because…well, this will sound silly, but I was afraid of hurting you.”

“Probably not a bad thing to be afraid of,” he said, “but I’d rather die than live without you. I definitely will risk a few bruises.”

“So do you still think we should call off the wedding?”

“I want to marry you so bad it hurts, Stephanie. But I really don’t want you to be stuck with me.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Stephanie smiled.

“I hope not,” said Adam. “I hope not.”

Chapter One:  Aπò μηχανής Θεός

All the eyes were on her.

She was used to it; they had ever been on her, from the moment she had risen from the foam. It was part of her existence, part of her being. She was made to be desired. She was desire.

But one pair of eyes that affixed on her caused a chill to run up her spine.

She slowed, then stopped.

It couldn’t be.

She turned to look behind her. The man was limping toward her, leaning on an exquisitely fashioned copper cane. His lame left leg, shorter than his right, foot twisted in, moved stiffly. And his face was slightly lopsided, with his left eye drooping noticeably. He was not a creature who had been made to be desired. And yet despite his clumsy gait, there was a grace in the way he carried his brawny upper body that made it clear he was quite able to take care of himself.

Aphrodite smiled a thin smile as he approached. “Well, well,” she said. “If it isn’t my husband.”

“If it isn’t my no-account wife,” the man grumbled, pausing to give her a kiss on the cheek. “It’s been a long time, my dear.”

“Hephaestus, what are you doing here?”

“Well, it’s nice to see you, too.”

“You know what I mean.”

“The same thing you are, constant companion. Looking to stay relevant in a world that’s forgotten me. Finding a way to help my people as best I can.”

“Your people?”

“My people,” he said, giving a lopsided grin. “I do have people, you know.”

“Not a lot of smiths around in the 21st century.”

“More than you’d think. But I was the god of technology, if you recall, and craftsmen and artisans. And they exist in spades. But are we going to just stand here talking? My leg is hurting something fierce.”

“Come on,” said Aphrodite. “I know a nice shop around the corner. They serve ouzo.”

* * *

“And that,” said Hephaestus, “is when I decided that you were right; retirement in Olympus isn’t exactly rewarding. Aetna and I did nothing but squabble, and frankly…well, I missed doing something useful. There are only so many gewgaws you can make for Hera before you start to get bored.”

“And so you took off to look for your wanton slattern of a wife, to see if she’d take you in?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said the god, staring at the milky white mixture of ouzo and water. “I didn’t come down here on your account.”

“You know,” said Aphrodite, “you may be the only creature in all the universe who could say that and mean it.”

“Struck home, huh? Dear, I got over the ache when you were screwing Ares. Don’t get me wrong. I love you. You’re you, I can’t help it. Not a creature in all the universe, mortal or immortal, who doesn’t. But I’m not here for you.”

“Well then why come find me? I’m a trifle confused.”

“Because while I’m not here for you, I need you to settle something in my mind. It’s about women.”

“Human women? The foolish ones will be repelled by your outward appearance, but the wise will see the man beneath.”

“Please. I’ve had nymphs. I’ve had Athena, no matter what she says now. I’ve had you, for Zeus’ sake. Seducing humans is not a challenge. No, the trouble with women is that I don’t trust them.”

“I can’t blame you; you married me.”

“Well, that’s just it. Not a less trustworthy creature in all the universe than you, apple of my eye. And that’s presented a problem. Because I’m the god of laborers, and…well, a lot of the laborers today are women.”

“So?”

“So I want to help the workers. They need help. The world is ever-against the worker, and artisans could always use a friend.

“But I find myself shying away from helping the women. I don’t feel they deserve my help.”

“But they do! They work as hard as the men — harder, in a lot of cases. Just because they have pussies doesn’t mean they’re worthless.”

“I never said I was proud of it, never said it was something I wanted to think. But you’re their apotheosis. And you, the ultimate woman, have cheated on me with…let’s see…Ares, Butes, Dionysus, Hermes, Anchises….”

“Don’t forget Adonis.”

“How could I forget the inbred freak?”

“He was the most beautiful man ever born. Until Taye Diggs, that is.”

“Is he your doing?”

Aphrodite smiled, and shook her head. “Erzulie Freda gets the credit for him. She was looking for a new initiate.”

“That’s just it, you see. Women are inconstant, fickle. I was not born beautiful, and so you rejected me for prettier men.”

“You were forced upon me, because Zeus thought it would make me keep my legs crossed. Had it gone down another way…but those were the times. Many millions of women were sold to their husbands’ families to seal a contract, or forge an alliance, or just to get their fathers an extra sheep. Men and women didn’t choose each other, and even when women stopped being sold, they were told not to pursue, only to be pursued. Only in the past generation or two of man have women and men been able to choose each other.

“And that makes a difference. Today, couples are made of sterner stuff. They choose each other, love each other, and can bear up under more, because the bonds are internal, not external, and the partners are equals. That makes all the difference.”

“I want to believe you. I always want to believe you,” said Hephaestus. “But I think women are the same as ever. If a woman found her husband less than he was, she would abandon him for a pretty face.”

“And I think you’re wrong. But you knew I’d say that; what are you after, Heph?”

“A wager,” he said.

“A wager. Right. What are the stakes?”

“If you’re right, and women are more faithful, then I learn to overcome my misogyny, and work for all the workers of the world. If you’re wrong, I support the men, and work to put the women back in their homes, where they belong.”

“That’s just the natural outcome of our little experiment. I didn’t ask about that. What are the stakes?”

“If I win, you become the wife to me I’ve wanted you to be.”

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “I knew it! You’re after me. Heph –”

“And if you win, I grant you a divorce.”

Aphrodite stopped short. “A divorce?”

“A divorce. You’re free to be a wanton slattern with no guilt. Because I know you do feel guilt for it, my love. I know you better than you think.”

Aphrodite looked down. “So what’s the plan?”

“Well, I’ve been looking into your last couple interventions, and they have a theme to them. I’m thinking if a woman found her love reduced, that would be enough. But we’ll need the right couple — one that’s fair. And once the die is cast, no interference — none from me, none from you.”

Aphrodite looked distant for a moment, and smiled. “All right, Hephaestus, you’re on. If I win, you give me my freedom, if you win, I come with you.”

Hephaestus smiled a lopsided grin. “All right. May the best god win.”

* * *

It was two weeks before Adam White noticed that something was wrong.

To be fair to Adam, he was busy. He had a wedding to plan for, and work was keeping him busier than he wanted – he was traveling nearly every week, and he was kept busy with wining and dining and schmoozing clients from Toronto to San Diego. The signs he might have noticed at first were largely missed, put down to fatigue. God knows, he’d been sick working hard enough. No wonder he felt tired, like he’d lost a step. It was easy to rationalize it; heck, he wasn’t aware enough of it to need to rationalize it.

Had he not gone camping with Stephanie that weekend, who knows when he would have figured it out.

Stephanie had insisted he tell his boss that he was taking a bit of vacation, and wouldn’t be flying to Philadelphia until Wednesday. He was glad she’d pressured him; it gave him an excuse to tell Rob that his fiancée was angry that he wasn’t home enough, and while it did get him chided for being whipped, even before the marriage, Adam didn’t really care. Stephanie was smart, funny, a college lacrosse player who still sported an amazing athletic physique. Adam knew damn well that Rob would cut off his left testicle for one night with a woman like Steph, and frankly, so did Rob.

As it was, Adam wasn’t really doing anything he didn’t want to do; his beautiful, sexy fiancée was ready and willing most all the time – more than he was, tell the truth. This made lonely nights in Buffalo or Boise or Spokane all the lonlier. (Steph was good with instant messaging, and she had some good imagination over the phone – but it wasn’t the same.) Adam was good at his job, but he wasn’t excited about spending evenings with potential clients in Jersey City when he could be spending them with the future Mrs. White.

So as he packed his bag, he mused to himself that telling Rob that he wanted to travel less might make him a bit less money. And he said so.

“It’s a good thing I’m not marrying you for your money,” said Steph, smirking, as she checked the tent.

“You like going out to eat,” said Adam, “and you like the High Def TV.”

“I’d rather cook for you,” she said, sending Adam into a brief fit of laughter.

“No, you’d rather I cook for you.”

“You’re a better cook than I am. But I’d rather one of us was cooking and I got to see you more than once or twice a month.”

Adam sighed. “I know, hon, and…well, I would too. But where am I going to make the kind of money I’m making at Jenkins McCollister?”

“You’re not, but it’s not like I’m making pocket change. You could take a less exciting job in town, and I could have you here every night. And we could do things.”

“You mean we could watch TV? I’ve heard good things about Lost.”

Steph laughed. “Yeah, Adam, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Adam looked up at his fiancée as he zipped the bag shut. “So you’d really love me just as much if I didn’t have the flashy job?”

Stephanie pushed the pack to the floor, and tripped her fiancé, causing them both to land on the bed. “I’d love you if you were unemployed, Adam. I don’t love your wallet. I love you.”

They got a late start that day, but they didn’t really care.

* * *

It was about two hours into their hike that he began to notice it.

They were on their way back to the campground they’d spent their first weekend away together at; they both had a shared love of the outdoors. Steph was a photographer, and a good one, and while she made her living on graduation pictures and weddings, her passion was nature photography. She was good at it and getting better; she had sold a couple of photos in recent months, nothing particularly lucrative, but enough that she thought she might have a future at this.

Adam was raised in a hunting family, which had made his brief flirtation with vegetarianism in college a bit dicey. But while he’d put down his gun (even as he picked hamburgers back up), he’d maintained his love of the wilderness. He liked going out with Steph, taking pictures of the animals his dad loved to kill; it was all the joy of the pursuit and the communing with nature, but with none of the blood and pain.

And Steph was much better looking than any of his dad’s hunting buddies, or any of his dad’s hunting buddies’ wives, for that matter.

It was just after three in the afternoon. Steph was laying in wait, trying to get a shot of a deer that was quite some distance away. She was muttering to herself, sweating and fussing with her camera, trying not to make any noise that might spook the animal. She was down on one knee, and took photos with a quick click-click-click. Adam smiled to himself; he loved watching her work, the seriousness of her pursuit of joy.

She finally sighed, though it wasn’t apparent whether in relief or resignation. Then she tucked her camera back in its pack and stood up, and briefly stretched, showing off her long, toned legs, which disappeared into her short khaki shorts.

Adam looked at her; she smiled at him and he at her, and she turned to head down the trail.

And yet something was off. He told himself that it was the same thing that had made him think his backpack was a bit heavy, or that his shoes didn’t seem to fit right. But when she had stood and stretched – well, she’d stood and stretched a bit too much.

He didn’t say anything, though; it would be crazy to say anything. He was a good four inches taller than Stephanie, after all, and while it seemed like she’d looked down at him slightly, it had to be an optical illusion. The trail was uneven; maybe she was standing on a rock or he in a ditch. That had to be it.

He put it out of his mind until that evening. They were enjoying dinner by the campfire, talking about the wedding. Just two months out, now, and both were looking forward to getting it over with. Not that they weren’t looking forward to the ceremony itself, but really, both just wanted to get the is dotted and ts crossed, and make what was already unquestionable into something official. It was a boring conversation, and soon enough, both parties decided that the time had come to do something more entertaining.

Stephanie headed back to the tent, and smiled coquettishly. “You coming?”

“You don’t have to ask twice,” he said, as he doused the fire with water. He walked over to the tent where she was waiting for him, and threw his arms around her and kissed her.

It didn’t feel right.

They kissed for a bit, before they broke, and Steph said, “Why are you walking around barefoot out here?”

“What?”

Steph looked at him, and he couldn’t help but notice that she was most definitely looking down at him. Not much – her eyes were just north of his – but enough that he couldn’t deny it.

“You’re barefoot! I mean, right?” she said, as if the situation was obvious.

Adam took a step back. Just a step. He looked down at his feet, as if the obviousness of her statement would make the slightly sick feeling in his gut go away, as if he’d look down and see that she was right – that she was wearing her boots, and he was barefoot.

But he knew better. They both looked down, and saw his boots, as secure as hers.

“You must have grown,” he said, wanly, because the other possibility was not possible.

Stephanie, for her part, simply stared down at his shoes.

Adam turned away, and took a few steps. He knew in his gut what was happening, why his shirt sleeves had been just a bit too long, why his boots had felt looser than normal, why the pack was heavier.

He turned back to Steph, who was looking down at him, looking down at him, mouth opened in shock.

“It isn’t possible,” she said, numbly. “I…I guess I must have grown.”

“No,” said Adam. “You haven’t.” And with that, he fainted.

*The title is Greek for “Deus ex Machina.” It seemed appropriate.

Chapter Five

They were one day shy of their one month anniversary. She was having her period, or she would have done much more with Paul, but she’d at least sent him home happy, and she’d told him encouragingly that the next night she’d be ready for no-holds-barred action again. Paul, for his part, would have been fine going that night, but Kari was sensitive about it, and he wasn’t going to belabor it, not when he was at least getting himself jerked off by a beautiful girl with a deft touch. Besides, he had just the faintest tickle in his cock afterward, one that felt pleasant. He wasn’t sure exactly what Kari had done, but it was nice.

Paul drifted off to sleep pleasantly relaxed, and awoke the next day and headed off to the gym no less cheerful.

*  *  *

The man giving Paul his pleasant sensation was not so pleased.

Seth was dumbfounded as to how he had come to be here. Well…he supposed he knew, mechanically, how he’d ended up here. How he’d ended up on her finger last night as she was preparing to give Paul a hand job, how he’d been pressed over Paul’s piss slit as he came, rubbed against it until he’d spat out his ardor, and then pushed just inside. How Paul had grown flaccid after that, and how the suction had pulled him deeper in, and held him fast.

He’d been peed over twice, both times coughing and sputtering and praying just to be washed out into the abyss. But both times he stayed put. He didn’t think physics allowed for this, but he knew he wasn’t here due to physics, but the goddess’ curse. Aphrodite had punished him but good.

The day passed more interminably than most; at least the day he’d fallen onto Kari’s tampon, only to be stuffed deep within her, to be covered by her detritus…it had been her detritus, after all. This was worse than any of the pain inflicted upon him by Kari in the long and interminable time since he’d entered this hell.

He tried to think what his giant host was doing — at least, he did so after what he figured was a morning run, when the world was moving too much to think. Most of the day seemed boring, a great deal of resting with the occasional getting up to go do something, at least twice to piss. Seth survived both, unfortunately. Twice the world around him hardened and deformed as Paul sprouted wood; Seth told himself Paul was probably going to throw himself at a hot girl in his office, but in actuality, both times were due to subtle emails that Kari had sent, letting him know that this would be an evening they could take full advantage of.

In truth, even as Seth hoped that he would be at ground zero of Paul cheating on Kari, he knew he wouldn’t be. He’d become the proverbial fly on the wall (because flea in the bush wasn’t a proverb), and he’d seen enough to know something he hadn’t known before.

Kari loved Paul. More than Kari had ever loved him.

And Paul — he was as in love with Kari as she was with him. But both were calm and easy in love. Seth had thought, in the second week they were together, that Paul was taking Kari for granted. That he wasn’t trying to learn everything about her, that he wasn’t always worried about her first. The three-night run that Paul had been away working on a project — Seth had thought Kari would leave him, and quick.

But it hadn’t happened, and Seth knew why; Paul didn’t need Kari to complete him, and Kari didn’t want to complete him. They complemented each other, and did so well. But they weren’t the missing pieces in each other’s lives, because nothing was missing. Both were complete as-is.

Seth had been willing to give up everything to be with Kari, because he needed her to complete him. But she didn’t need him to complete her, not at all. And how could he make her be the missing piece to his soul?

Wasn’t he responsible for his own soul?

The world around him stiffened again. He wondered if Paul was checking out a hot barista or something. But a few soft collisions and then a huge, crushing squeeze let him know that more interesting things were going on.

*  *  *

Kari groaned in pleasure as Paul buried himself inside her. She felt his member moving within her, unwrapped, finally — she and he had decided to trust in her birth control, and she preferred the feeling without a condom in the way.

So did he, tell the truth.

He was shuddering in pleasure, sliding himself back and forth. It wouldn’t be enough to get her off — like most women, she wasn’t built that way — but it was just the opening act in a long night. Paul had been a fast learner with her rabbit pearl, and he was not the kind of guy who got intimidated when a woman brought in a little extra assistance.

He went a long time, longer than usual, before he finally came. She pulled him close as he blew his load deep within her. They lay together like that, him on top of her, her kissing his cheek, him kissing hers.

“It took you a while. Am I losing my luster?”

“Hardly,” he grinned, kissing her again. “It’s the weirdest thing…ever since yesterday, it’s like I’ve had a little cork inside my cock. Nothing bad, mind you, just a feeling. It was a little bit of pushing before it went tonight. But it felt good. And now it’s gone. Weird, huh?”

“No weirder than you usually are — hwoop! There you go.”

“So, you want me to go to work with the appliances?”

“Mmm…just let me enjoy the glow. Orgasms aren’t everything, you know.”

“They aren’t? You mean you get something other than that from sex? Damn, women have all the luck.”

*  *  *

Seth came to as the ground around him began to shake uncontrollably.

He’d lost consciousness as he’d been blown with a stream of sperm deep into Kari, and he had awoken just in time to see a pink behemoth pushing its way back in. This one was not human, however; Kari was evidently using her vibrator to finish herself off.

He’d hated that thing; it always made him feel like less of a man when she turned to it. She said that he wasn’t unique in not being able to get her off through sex, but he’d always thought she was patronizing him. He’d seen different in the past few weeks.

Kari’s juices began flowing as the vibrator did its job. Soon enough, the soft, moist ground was inundated by a flood, which swept sperm and Seth out behind the withdrawing vibrator. He ended up in a puddle on the bed, between Kari’s milky thighs.

After a while, the bed’s occupants got up; Seth wasn’t sure why, until a bra and panties were tossed onto the bed. Aha, they were having a quickie before going out, Seth realized.

And he realized something else; he was going to go out with them.

He’d been between his ex-girlfriend’s thighs just then, been rinsed out and into the shadow of her swollen vagina. And yes, Paul’s presence had detracted from it, but Seth knew that there was a greater reason why he didn’t enjoy the experience.

He realized, finally, that he was over her. The pain that had been his companion at the start of the month was gone. She wasn’t his anymore, if she ever was.

It was time to let her go.

And so he resolved that he’d go out with Kari and Paul, wherever they were headed. And along the way, he’d leave her, for good. He didn’t know what this would do to his promise to Aprhodite — and he didn’t care. He thought he was beyond a month of torment anyhow, that he’d been consigned to hell already. And he was okay with that — he’d been the fool who’d imagined himself happy with Kari’s neglect.

He chose his position intentionally, the top of the bra strap; he worked his way over her shoulder to the collar of her turquoise dress, pulled himself up atop it and grabbed her hair, and pulled himself up carefully into her ear. He knew she wouldn’t hear him — he’d tried this before, to no avail. But he wanted to say this as much for himself as for her.

By the time Kari and Paul were in the car, he had made it. He stood just inside the entrance to her ear canal, and he said it quietly.

“Kari…I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought that you were being cruel, that you didn’t see how I felt about you. But I think you did. I was too crazy about you; I didn’t love you, I loved how you made me feel. I thought I could make you happy by being what you wanted me to be, but I didn’t ever realize you wanted me to be me — and stop needing you.

“This guy Paul — I’ve seen him inside and out, and…I think he’s a good guy. More important, you think he’s a good guy. So I’m not gonna argue, Kari. I want you to be happy. So…I’m going to go now. I’m going to let you live your own life the way you want to live it. And I wish you the best.”

He thought about bending down to kiss the ground, and thought better of it. Instead, he backed up to the edge of the ear canal, and considered.

He had found to his chagrin that he didn’t die easily. But he didn’t want to live life as a flea in a giant world anymore. He didn’t know how many days had passed and didn’t care; a world with magic like this was a world with an afterlife. And so as Kari got out of the car, and he saw the parking lot miles below, he made a fateful decision.

He jumped.

He arced lazily toward the ground as she strode away, her hand around Paul’s waist. He smiled as he drifted down below the hem of her skirt, watching as she strode miles away with a few steps, as the ground rushed up toward him. He closed his eyes, and braced for impact.

“Hey buddy! You okay? That was a nasty fall.”

Seth opened his eyes; he wasn’t dead. That was something. He looked around, and saw a world that was not immense, one that was indeed quite ordinary, a bar that he’d been drinking at, a month and a lifetime ago.

“Yeah, just…fell off my stool,” he said, rolling over, as he saw a pair of beautiful, olive-skinned legs standing and straightening said stool.

Aphrodite looked down upon him beatifically, and lend him a hand. “Seth, here, let me help you up.”

“What was that you put in his drink, miss? Buddy, you know she spiked that water?”

Seth laughed. “It was just a little…uh…flavoring. Don’t worry, she wasn’t trying to drug me,” he said, arching an eyebrow at the goddess.

“Oky doke. Well, you don’t seem drugged, and you don’t even seem particularly drunk, but watch yourself — you need a cab, or to go to the doctor, you let me know.”

“We will,” said Aphrodite, plunking a twenty down on the bar.

The barkeep smiled at that, palmed the tip and wandered away.

“So,” said the goddess, “was it all you expected?”

“It was…interesting,” said Seth. “I don’t want the rest of that.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Aphrodite said, returning her flask to her purse. “Most don’t. A few do…but they are too far gone from the world, and it is a blessing to them to give them an alternative to death.”

“So,” said Seth, rubbing his head, “you said I’d owe you if I didn’t take the rest, right?”

“Indeed,” said Aphrodite. “You have to go say hello to the next couple that walks through that door,” she said, pointing to the entryway that was even at that moment opening to reveal a pretty woman in a turquoise dress, with curly auburn hair, laughing with a blandly handsome man who was holding the door for her.

“You’re kidding.”

“It was easy to say it to her when you knew she couldn’t answer, wasn’t it?”

He smiled, ruefully, at the goddess. “All right,” he said. He started to put his money on the bar, but she shook her head, and dropped two more twenties.

“My treat,” she said.

He saw Kari and Paul take a table at the edge of the bar. “So…tell me this,” he said, as he got up. “Is there someone else for me out there?”

“Do you want there to be?”

Seth smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Someday.”

“Well then, there’s your answer, no?”

The goddess smiled and stood, and walked silently out of the bar, drawing a fair number of stares, but not, Seth noted, from Paul.

Seth stretched, and headed for the exit by way of the table. He was vectoring in such a way that she would see him. He would break the ice if she didn’t….

“Seth?” she said, half-shocked.

“Huh? Oh, hey Kari! How are you?”

“Good, good! This is Paul, my, uh…”

Seth smiled, “Your ‘uh?’ Is that what they’re calling dates these days? Seth, nice to meet you,” he said, reaching out his hand.

Paul smiled a wary smile, and grabbed it back. “Likewise. So, uh, is this your ex-fiancė, dear?”

“Yep,” Seth said, “but don’t let that worry you. She had some good reasons to dump me. I’m not going to interrupt your date. But I’m glad to see you’re doing well, getting back out there.”

“Seth, I…”

“I’m dead serious, Kari,” Seth said, and she realized to her surprise that he was. “It’s good.”

“Thanks,” she said. “So, uh….”

“See you around, right?” Seth grinned. “Have a fun night you two. Good to meet you, Paul. ‘Night, Kari.”

“Good night,” Kari said, as she watched her ex head out of the bar.

“He seems like a decent guy,” said Paul.

“He is,” said Kari, and for a minute she felt just a bit hopeful, for both of them. She knew she’d done the right thing for herself, but maybe, just maybe, it had been right for Seth, too.

“So,” she said, apropos of nothing, “I had this really weird dream last night, and it involved you.”

“Really,” said Paul.

“Yeah. You were two inches tall.”

“Wait — two inches?”

“Like I said, weird. And you were…um…’spelunking.’”

“Well,” said Paul, chuckling. “What else would a two inch tall guy do if they were with you?”

Kari smiled, and continued on with her story, knowing it would probably result in them skipping the movie and heading back to her place, or maybe Paul’s place. Indeed, she was counting on it.

It had been an agonizing night.   It had taken him hours simply to get out of the wicker waste basket, and he wasn’t sure why he’d bothered, once he got out. After all, the night had brought the incursion of more condoms into the basin, proof that Kari was truly enjoying the giant’s company.

When he finally emerged, he was standing on the floor of the bathroom, cold and alone, and bitterly depressed. Still, he wasn’t giving up. Not yet. He wished he’d met the beauty a month earlier, or a month later. But nevertheless, he had to try to get Kari’s attention. Surely she wouldn’t torment him so if she knew he was here, what he’d given to be with her.

*  *  *

There is something about new love that isn’t replicable in any other way. Oh, people in deep, long-term relationships will point out that new love is facile, that a deeper relationship is more meaningful — and they’re absolutely right.

But new love is something else entirely, like being simultaneously drunker and more sober than you’ve ever been. It’s transitory, and you know it’s transitory; if you’re lucky, you can hold just a piece of it, and let it mellow into the deeper, more meaningful long-term relationship. If you’re unlucky, it burns too brightly, and burns itself out. But while it burns, there are few human experiences that can compare.

Kari and Paul were in the midst of new love. Neither knew if it was going to be the kind that flamed out or the kind that deepened and grew. And like anyone newly in love, neither of them were worried about that right now. They were far more interested in finding the sweet spots in each other’s psyches, and the sweet spots on each other’s bodies. There would be time to think long-term. For the moment, their most important task was figuring out what to do that afternoon.

“We could just stay in and have sex,” said Kari. “That’s been fun so far.”

“Oh, I know,” said Paul, “and I’m all for more sex. But you know, I do have to recuperate for a while. I can’t keep up this pace forever. I figure a nice lunch, maybe do something fun, then come back, and I should be ready to go until bedtime.”

“You know,” said Kari, smiling, “it was pretty smart of you to pack for the weekend.”

“Well,” he said, “I thought it was unlikely you were inviting me to your house just for spaghetti — not that it wasn’t good.”

“Hm. You’re just after my body.”

“Well, it’s a pretty nice body, you’ve got to admit.”

Kari chuckled. “All right, tell you what — you have any interest in art?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul. “I know it can be pretty.”

“I was an art history minor; not useful, I know, but would you be interested in going to a museum? The Art Institution’s got a nice collection from the Romantic period.”

“A museum?” said Paul. “Huh. I don’t know as I’ve ever been to an art museum, except in school.”

“In that case, we can do something else….”

“No, actually, it sounds interesting, kind of. Hey, learning new stuff’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Just promise that if I try to drag you out on a hike sometime, you’ll give it a try, at least once.”

“I like hiking,” said Kari, “but I’m sure there’s something you like that I don’t, and I’ll try it, at least once.”

“Well, you did last night…”

“And I liked it! See, that’s how it works.”

“Good deal. All right, you want to shower first, or should I?”

“You think we need a shower? I mean, we’re just full of sweat and sex.”

“Okay, I’ll take the first one. It’ll give us a chance to get full of sex and sweat again.”

“Deal,” said Kari, smiling quietly.

*  *  *

He ignored as the giant came into the bathroom, emptied his bladder, and headed into the shower. The bastard. Strolling around like he owned the place, like he belonged here. The guy soon enough emerged, and dried off, and then, provided Seth with a service.

He knocked a washcloth off the counter. A minor thing, really, but still, it dropped close enough to Seth that he was able to make it to the giant towel before the behemoth conscientiously returned it to a ledge above the sink. Seth clung to the facing of it, not totally stable, but safe enough.

He would wait here for Kari. Surely, she’d have mercy on him.

*  *  *

She entered the bathroom just as he exited, pausing to give him an encouraging pat and a lingering kiss, which lingered long enough for him to say, “You know, I can shower again if I have to.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll shower now.”

“Really, I don’t mind.”

“No, I want us to have some energy for tonight.”

“All right,” he said, smiling, giving her one more kiss en passant as she went in and set about showering herself.

She lathered herself quickly, not worrying about perfection; for one thing, Paul hadn’t complained this morning when she was a bit disheveled; granted, he was partly responsible for it, but she figured he wasn’t expecting her to be dressed to the nines (and if he was, he’d have to get disabused of that notion quickly). She quickly soaped her hair, lathered and rinsed, but didn’t repeat. She simply stepped out and toweled off, faced herself in the slightly steamed-up mirror.

She smiled at her reflection. She felt better than she’d felt since she started dating Seth. She wondered, idly, what he was doing at the moment, as she put on deodorant and combed her hair. She hoped that he’d found a girl to spend a weekend with.

*  *  *

The bathroom grew progressively steamier. His grip grew progressively weaker on the towel, as it soaked in the steam from the shower in which his goddess cleansed herself.

He tried to get higher up onto the shelf above, but as he reached for the looping branch above him, his grip faltered, and he fell.

He screamed as he dropped through the air, until he landed on something creamy and damp.

It smelled oddly familiar, a perfumed scent that he identified with Kari, but he couldn’t quite place it, and his body hurt too much for him to look around right away. Still, by the time the shower had ceased, he looked around and saw himself laying on a plain of white, slightly rising to a hill in the distance.

Was it make-up of some sort? He couldn’t tell. All he knew when she emerged from the shower was that he was at the very least standing on a stark white background.

“Kari!” he screamed, sitting up and waving his arms above his head. “Look down here! It’s me! Seth! I’m down here! Look, please!”

She looked down at him, absently, and her hand reached out.

He gasped with joy. She saw him! “Please! Lift me up! Look at me, Kari!”

She lifted the thing he rested on with her right hand, and brought it up toward her chest. His heart leapt.

Then it sank.

She stopped as the plain reached her shoulder, and then dipped it, lifting her left arm to expose her armpit. And then, too fast for Seth to object, she slammed the plain and him into her pit, sliding and smearing her deodorant and him into a quick, thin film.

He stuck to her underarm, which soon became black, as she lowered her arms to the position they usually were in. Occasionally, he got flashes — when she dressed, he briefly caught sight of the blouse she was going to wear, and the bra strap was pulled around her vast arm. And occasionally, as the day wore on, he would see her sleeve when she gestured with her left hand.

Or feel the collision with the sleeve and a hard thing from outside it, which he knew had to be her boyfriend.

It was a miserable day, and the fact that her scent still ate away at the perfume smell of the deodorant did nothing to make him feel better. He stewed, catching a bit of conversation from outside his armpit prison, and wishing he was dead.

*  *  *

“So be honest, did you like it or not?”

“I did,” Paul said, holding Kari’s hand as they walked out to the car. “I don’t quite get the modern art stuff, but the Baroque paintings were just pretty.”

“They are. I mean, if Rembrandt doesn’t impress you, nothing will.”

“And that one sculpture — you know, with the girl in the bathtub?”

“The Rodin piece? I thought you said you didn’t like the modernist stuff?”

“That was modern art? It didn’t look it.”

“Rodin would have been glad to hear that. He didn’t think of himself as a modern artist, but he was really influential in the development of modern art. His sculpture, The Walking Man….”

There was a bit of quiet. “What about The Walking Man?”

“Oh, I just realized I was getting into a bit of an art history lecture. Which you probably don’t want to hear.”

“Why not? You seem to enjoy talking about it.”

“Well, yeah…but I don’t want to bore you.”

Paul touched her shoulder gently, and turned her toward him. “Kari, if you’re boring me, I’ll tell you. But I actually am kind of interested in this. It really interests you, and you really interest me, and therefore your interest in it is interesting to me. Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” Kari said, sliding her arms around him. “But I appreciate your indulging me.”

“Indulge, nothing. I’m actually wondering what The Walking Man was, other than a walking man.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Kari, as they resumed their walk. “It wasn’t a walking man, not entirely….”

*  *  *

He was grateful that the deodorant was holding him in place.

They were on the bed, all three of them. And eating…well, it looked like Asian food from the glimpses he got, but what did he know? He was just a piece of lint or a bit of dust, an irrelevancy to his goddess. She ate, and flirted with her boyfriend, and ignored him.

He realized now that she wouldn’t see him. Maybe she couldn’t see him. Maybe he was too small to see, or maybe Aphrodite’s magic left him invisible to her.

He swallowed hard. He was starting to realize that he was in Hell.

No; maybe it was Purgatory. She had said it would be a month. He didn’t know how he could last another four weeks, but if he did….

Well, maybe the two lovers would break up. Four weeks was a long time. Maybe she’d tire of him, and maybe Seth would have her all to himself again. That would be fine.

This was unbearable.

He finally got a good look at the tableau as Kari stretched her arms over her head. The guy was naked. This wasn’t good.

Kari suddenly took the moment to scratch at him, plucking him off of her skin far easier than should have been possible. He tried to hang on to her finger, but he found himself falling toward a carton of what appeared to be rice. He hoped that he’d simply land in it, and be eaten, but he instead bounced off the facing, and onto the bed below.

He lay there, stunned, as the two began clearing the food away. And he screamed out in impotent rage.

*  *  *

“I’m impressed by your willingness to eat Chinese food in your bed. You don’t worry about getting the sheets messy?”

“Too late for that. Besides, where else are you gonna eat Chinese food when you’re naked? It’s perfect,” she said, stretching her arms out.

“You’re not getting tired, are you?”

“Nope,” she said, scratching herself idly. “Just limbering up. Have a position I want to try. I’ve done it once, but my back got sore.”

“I don’t want you to do anything that hurts.”

“Oh, I can take it,” she said with a wink, grabbing Paul’s flaccid member and squeezing. “Really, it wasn’t bad pain or anything. Not nearly as much pain as it was pleasure. And I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“Well,” said Paul, gathering the food, “I can’t resist that invitation. And I’m full. Shall we get to it?”

“Let’s,” said Kari, as she stripped her panties off.

At ground zero, an inaudible voice protested. But she didn’t know it, and couldn’t hear it. She would have stopped had she.

Probably.

Part Three

Metaphysics

“I am peace,
and war has come because of me.”

—The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Chapter Fifteen

The Mandelbrot Set

Lil screamed.

She had seen Ráichéal sucked into the maw of the giantess, and she had not come back out. The man had shuddered, and blown his load, and Ráichéal was gone.

And so Lil did the only thing she could do. She leapt for the giantess, hoping she could make it to her destination in time.

The woman’s breasts were slick with perspiration, and Lil skidded down them, coming to a rest at the edge of her brassiere. Throwing caution to the wind, she threw herself over, bouncing off the shirt and back underneath the breast, and sliding down the beyond-vertical slope toward the panties below.

“Lloyd! Sue! Quick!” she cried as she skidded past the woman’s navel as the woman was standing up, with the sickening knowledge that she was passing by Ráichéal as she did so. She didn’t know if the giant couple meant to do anything more, and didn’t care. Now was for running, and sliding, and hurtling toward the only hope Ráichéal had.

She hit the waistband of the panties and bounced beyond it, grasping onto a bow that decorated them. “Can you hear me?” she cried out, for a moment terrified that something had happened to them.

Lloyd’s head jerked up. “Lil? Is that you?” he called.

“Yes, bloody – you have to do something! The giantess swallowed Ráichéal!”

“What, on purpose?”

“No, by accident. She was pleasuring the giant, and then – well, look, it doesn’t matter, you have to do something!”

Lloyd looked at Sue, who had her eyes closed.

“Sue?”

“Damn,” she said, quietly. “Damn it all to hell.”

“Sue, we have to do something. Quickly.”

Susi punched the labia of the giantess, and sighed. “All right,” she said. She considered her options, and realizing she had few, she decided to throw caution to the wind.

“Transport,” she said, and she was gone.

  

“I’m sorry,” Jake said, as he lay hog-tied next to Jane in the back of the SUV. “If only you hadn’t found me, if only…”

“Jake,” Jane said, quietly, “don’t ever think that. I knew this day would come, didn’t you?”

“I hoped,” Jake said, “that you’d be anywhere but with me.”

“That would be awfully lonely for you,” Jane said. “I always hoped they’d take us together.”

That brought weeping from her husband, and anger from Jane. “You bastards really think this is going to get you somewhere? Huh? You took away years of his life, left him tiny and scared and alone, and when things got better for him, he was just tiny and scared. Why would you do that to him again?”

“He could have stayed with us,” came Michaelson’s voice. “He didn’t have to run.”

“Oh, yes he did,” Jane said, furious. “It’s fucking obvious he did, isn’t it? Monsters.”

“You know, you’re coming close to treason with that kind of talk. Where’s your love of country?”

“My country doesn’t kidnap people,” said Jane, defiantly. “Doesn’t force them into lives of degradation. Doesn’t conduct experiments on unwitting human subjects. My country is better than that. Wherever your paycheck comes from, you aren’t part of my country.”

“Believe what lies you want to believe, Dr. Matthews. But your country has done far worse than this simply to keep you in test tubes and Bunsen burners. This is just routine, a pretty standard NSA black ops mission. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You know the Society will look for us when we come up missing.”

“Let them,” said Michaelson. “Let them come and find you.”

  

The pit of Erica’s stomach smelled like vomit, cervelat, and beer. Actually, it may just have been cervelat and beer, the smell of the sausage and vomit being too close to be discerned.

“I want to crush you. Or maybe drop you between my lips, and swallow you whole. That…that would be a bad way to go, don’t you think? Oh, Pete, I can think of so many ways to dispose of you. Which should I choose?”

The words danced through her head unbidden as she felt the slight sting of the stomach acid against her skin. “Ráichéal!” she shouted. “Ráichéal, it’s Sue! Where are you?”

She swam in the murky sludge, hoping that Ráichéal was still above the surface. She listened to Erica’s heartbeat, reverberating in the pulse that fed the stomach, that the stomach fed. She could hear, far distant, the distorted sounds of her voice. This was what she’d subjected Pete to, only worse.

She coughed up the contents of her own stomach, and continued to call out for her friend.

Suddenly, the world tossed sideways, as Erica evidently dropped onto her back; whether in preparation for bed or more sex, Sue didn’t know. She dropped below the surface, and popped back up, coughing and sputtering.

“Ráichéal!” she cried out.

“Sue?” came a faint reply, several meters distant.

“Thank God. Are you okay?”

“What happened? Where’m I?”

“You’re in the giantess’s stomach, Ráichéal.”

“What…giantess stomach? I…Sue, that you?”

“You’ve got a concussion,” deduced Susan, swimming with all her might for her friend’s voice. “We’re going to need to get you to a doctor.”

“We were running away from someone,” Ráichéal mumbled. “Running away from…a guy with a taser?”

Sue grabbed her friend around the shoulders. “I’ve got you, Ráich. I’ve got you. It’s okay,” she sobbed.

She hoped it was okay.

With a wave of her hand and a barked, “Transport,” she was back out in the bush, by Lloyd and Lil.

The dim light underneath the blanket didn’t give her much to go on. “You two, grab onto me,” she said, not hesitating. She knew what had to be done. She just hoped she had the right range.

Feeling Lloyd and Lil grab her shoulders, she said, “Transport” once more. And they were gone.

  

“So we’re doing everything we can to find her, and I’m not leaving here until we do,” said Sarah, finally, as she finished telling her mother what little she knew.

“So. Susi has powers like you,” Sharon Kensington said, quietly. “Another daughter I get to lose to this.”

“I don’t think I’ve been ‘lost’ to this, mom. Frankly, I think I’m too easily found. As for Susi…I think she does have powers. But I don’t know to what extent.”

“You said you could see them from Chicago, Sarah. Don’t try to snow me.”

“I’m not trying to; the one time I asked Susi about this, she said she didn’t have any. Now, I think events seem to indicate she was lying to me, but I won’t know until I talk to her.”

“So you think she’s alive,” said Dr. Kensington.

“Yes, she’s alive,” said Sarah, with a certainty she was unsure of. “But something’s put her on the run. I’m just hoping she knows she can come to us.”

“You don’t think she’ll come home?”

“She might,” Sarah allowed. “If she does, let me know right away. We can protect her here, no matter what.”

“Can you?”

Sarah sighed. “Yes, we can. You know, it’s funny; the Chancellor of Germany treats me with deference and respect, like an actual equal. Yet my own mom can’t seem to grasp that I actually am a somewhat powerful individual, that I head an organization that spans the globe, that I can take care of my kid sister, for God’s sake!”

There was a brief silence, before Sarah said, “I’m sorry.”

“I know how powerful you are, ditto,” said Sharon, quietly. “I do. I am proud of you, you know. And I know how scared you are for Susi, because I can hear how badly you want to protect her. But she’s my daughter, Sarah, and some day you’ll understand, you don’t care about anybody more than your kids. And as much as you’re terrified for your sister, I’m more. So understand that when I question you it is not because I would doubt your ability to protect anyone. It’s because I have to doubt your ability to protect my child.”

“I’m able to protect myself.”

“I only doubt that, ditto, because you’re my child too. And as tough as you are, my heart leaps into my throat with every breaking news segment I ever see, or ever will see. But I know you love Susi, and I know you’re probably better equipped to take care of her than me; if she comes home, I’ll let you know.”

Sarah slumped back into her chair. “I’m sorry, mom. I should have pushed her to tell me.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good. She’s stubborn. She got it from me, like all of my daughters. Let me know when you find out anything.”

“I will. Tell dad I love him.”

“I will.”

Sarah hung up the phone, and cried.

  

“Your friend’s going to be okay,” said the doctor, quietly. “She’s got a concussion, and some chemical burns on her shoulder, but otherwise she’s healthy. Lucky, though, you got her out when you did; a few minutes more and she probably would have gone under and aspirated.”

“Thanks, doctor.”

“Look,” the man grumbled, “I know what you two were doing. Stupid thrill-seeking kids. You were swallowing each other, weren’t you? That’s how she came to be in your stomach, right? First you, then her, that’s how it goes, right?”

“I…you’re right,” Sue said.

“Seen it a couple times, kids who don’t know what they’re doing with this stuff. Look, you’re adults, so it’s your own lives you’re dealing with here; I can’t make you be smart. But have you ever read Sarah Kensington’s Guide to the Transforming World?”

Sue had to fight back the smirk. “I haven’t,” she lied.

“Do. It’s laid out well, smart, simple-to-read, and with good advice for proper safety procedures if you’re going to try stunts like this. Doesn’t have a bunch of bullshit theory, just practical stuff. Also, the GTS Society website’s got loads of information. Look, you want to play with size, do a little light vore play, whatever floats your boat – but for God’s sake, don’t do it stupidly! Safe sex is at a whole different level of meaning these days. You got it?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Good. Because I do not want to see you two back here again. And I doubt you do, either. Anyhow, Miss O’Riordan will be staying overnight, if all goes well we should be able to release her in the morning.”

“Thanks, doc. Really, for everything.”

Sue marched triumphantly down the hall, to where Lloyd and Lil were waiting. “So, all’s well?”

“Yep. Ráichéal should be good to go in the morning, I guess. That’s what the doctor said.”

“So now we just have to find a hotel room,” Lloyd said. Then lowering his voice, “With these nice new IDs you whipped up, that shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Eh, the credit cards won’t work, you know. But the cash should spend okay. And I doubt they’re going to be expecting us to turn up in Winnipeg.”

“Why did you choose Winnipeg, anyhow?” asked Lil.

“Free health care. Plus, there’s a mid-sized GTS pharmaceutical company in town, former actor runs it. It’s one of the brightest lights on the whole North American map, given the size of the city. If I aimed us right, we shouldn’t have been noticeable, at least on this end. Switzerland, of course, probably lit up like a Christmas tree, but we’re half a world away. We should have a little time. Look, you two go, find a decent hotel, take a shower, get some sleep.”

“What about you?”

“Ráichéal’s here ’til morning, I am too,” said Sue. “If I’d been less afraid to use my powers, we would have been here all in one piece.”

“We’ll bring you dinner,” Lil said.

“Thanks,” said Sue. “But I’m not really hungry right now.”

  

Erica screamed as the door to the hotel room was broken down.

“Sie sind nicht hier, Herr von Karajan,” said a young woman, swinging a grildrometer from side to side. “Aber sie waren in diesem Raum, vor nicht allzu langer Zeit.”

“Who are you? What do you want? You can have money, but don’t hurt us.”

“We will not harm you, Herr Treehorn. I am with Interpol, we are on the trail of some fugitives. Katja, was sehen Sie?”

“You can’t come in here without a warrant,” said Matt, trying to cover himself and Erica up.

“Come, come, Herr Treehorn, this is not America, and not even your home. The hotel knows we’re here. Katja?”

“Ein großer Höhepunkt, aber verblassen. Wahrscheinlich ein ‘Transport’ buchstabieren.“

“Naturlich. Herr Treehorn, Frau Treehorn, we will need to do a thorough sweep of the room. We’ll give you a few minutes to get yourselves dressed, and then we have arranged for you to have the Presidential Suite for the remainder of your stay, and €5000 for your troubles. Will that suffice?”

Matt looked at Erica, who was nonplussed; $7500 was far more than they’d spent on this trip. “All right,” he said, slowly, “but we would take that few minutes to get dressed now, if it’s all right with you. Mr…uh, von Karajan?”

“Certainly, certainly. Katja, kommen Sie mit mir.“

The intruders left, and the Treehorns looked at each other quizzically. They weren’t quite sure if they should laugh or cry. And so, in silence, they got up and got dressed.

  

“Oi. Wher’m I?”

“Winnipeg,” said Sue, squeezing Ráichéal’s hand. “How do you feel?”

“My head feels like it’s filled with coddle. But I think I’ll live.”

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Last thing I remember I was being swallowed by a giantess. So either I’m insane, or I was swallowed by a giantess.”

“It was the latter,” said Sue, sighing deeply. “It’s my fault.”

“I don’t recall you throwing yourself down the gullet of a giant woman.”

“No, if I’d been less afraid to use my powers…I knew what we had to do. But I was too scared, that if I started, I’d lose control.”

“Sue, I feel plastered right now, so I’m not sure I’m being clear, but if you’re trying to tell me that this is all your fault, you can go feck yourself, ya neddy.”

Sue smiled. “I think that was the next lesson on Irish slang there.”

“And there you go, falling back into your Minnesota heritage. You’re the only person I’ve ever heard end a sentence with a gratuitous ‘there.’”

“That will change, and right quick; you should be discharged in the morning, and when you are, we’re going to see my family.”

“How? Where are we, anyhow?”

“Winnipeg, in Canada. And if anyone asks, you remember you’re an exchange student going to North Dakota; dullest state in the union, even people who are from there don’t want to talk about it.”

“So, I finally get to meet the source o’ your troubles,” said Ráichéal, her brogue deepening a bit as she began to fall asleep. “Should be interesting.”

“Yeah,” said Sue, unsmiling. “It sure should.”