Ron knew the fishing line he kept in his garage was perfect for the task at hand. A month or two before, he would have simply walked out there
and gotten it. Ron's legs were just fine, moved as well as ever, give or take a bum knee. Problem was, for the last month or so those legs had
been about three inches long and they supported a body no more than six inches tall. He was standing in a dollhouse on a high shelf and was
trying to figure out how to climb down, get to the garage and retrieve the fishing line.
---
Ron once stood six foot one. He had been married for the past 20 years to Amanda, a five foot six blonde. Their marriage had gotten into the
comfortable rut that so many do, with its share of quirks that bond a pair together. One thing Ron liked to do was kiss Amanda as soon as
possible after she had brushed her teeth, so as to taste her at her freshest. Of course, she wouldn't let him do that unless he had brushed
first, which meant that he usually got up first to get the bathroom before she did. On one particular morning, Ron walked up to the bathroom
door, put his ear against it, heard the sound of brushing, and waited. A moment later, the door opened, and Amanda pretended to be startled as
she looked up into the eyes of her husband. Then their eyes locked together, and she closed hers as their faces came together for a kiss. Amanda
had no reason to believe she had just looked up at Ron for the last time.
Ron looked down into his wife's eyes as he leaned down to kiss her. As their lips touched, he felt a spark, not unlike the static electricity one
gets touching a doorknob after rubbing one's feet on a carpet. Then came a feeling of current flowing through his body. He ended their kiss,
breathing a bit more heavily than he usually would and feeling a bit depleted. His clothes seemed a bit loose, the sleeve on his shirt a bit
long.
He looked into Amanda's eyes -- not down into her eyes, but straight across, as though they were... the same height? It seemed dizzying to Ron.
He braced himself against the bathroom threshold, and shook his head as he tried to reorient himself. At that moment, Ron had no idea that the
same thing had just happened to men all over the world -- whether or not they had just kissed their wives or girlfriends, whether or not they had
wives or girlfriends.
Ron gathered enough of his wits to look at Amanda again. Her eyes were filling with concern. Her brain hadn't made the connection that Ron was
smaller. At that moment, she had only perceived that he seemed sick and disoriented. Ron saw her reaction and decided to make a joke. "You must
have some really high heels on today", he said between gasps as he managed a smile.
Amanda answered. "You don't look well. I really think you should go to the doctor."
"No, I'm fine, Amanda. Then Ron felt a chill, then a shudder, and he found himself looking straight into his wife's lips. "This is scaring me",
Amanda told him. "We are going to the doctor." She grabbed Ron by the hand and marched him to the car. She wasn't normally this take-charge.
Ron and Amanda arrived at the doctor's office to find it full of men, four or five feet tall, who weren't that height when they woke up that
morning. To Ron, now just five foot three, the nurses and receptionists seemed a bit more in charge. One told Ron to put on a hospital gown and
wait in the examining room. He did and was amazed to find how much it covered.
After hours of waiting, the male doctor, hands engulfed by a growing white coat, did the standard "Say aahhh", looked around in Ron's mouth, and
slumped his shoulders. "It's happening to every man I've seen, and to me too. There's no explanation, no signs of illness. They all feel fine,
just a foot or two shorter. I don't have anything to prescribe, unless you need something to calm you down. Put your clothes on and get your wife
to take you home."
Amanda and Ron rode in silence. About halfway home, Ron felt that strangle tingle again. He uttered a "Whoa", as his arms, legs and head
retracted into his clothes. In an instant, Ron had gone from five foot three to four foot two. Amanda's face lost its color and it took all of
her concentration to get the car off the road and check on her shrinking husband. Once in a parking lot, she looked him over. "I'm beginning to
wish we hadn't sold the child seats after the twins outgrew them."
As Ron experienced the new feeling of looking up at Amanda, he found himself thinking that something had changed. Of course she seemed bigger to
him, but something else was happening. Despite her obvious look of worry, Ron thought her very attractive, moreso than he had in years. He tried
to think of what she could have done to her look, and could think of nothing.
As Amanda steered back onto the road, she noticed cars stopped in the middle of the road, pointing every which way. Apparently some men were
trying to drive home when the latest shrink spurt hit them.
"I'm fine", Ron insisted as Amanda tried to help him out of the car. Ron hopped out and his pants fell to the ground. He tightened his belt to
the last notch and managed toclomp into the house in his oversized shoes.
Once back in their living room, Amanda pulled Ron up onto the sofa and held him. Ron sighed and adopted the unusual position of leaning into the
arms of his wife, who was now much taller than he was. "The doctor said he doesn't know a cause or a cure".
"How long can it go on? When would it stop?" Amanda asked as she rubbed Ron's back.
Just then Ron let out a moan. The tingling enveloped his body again and his arms and legs pulled farther back into his clothing. Ron was now
three feet tall -- half the height he'd been when he woke up. Ron saw that his face was now even with where Amanda's right breast filled out her
purple sweatshirt. Amanda looked down just in time to hear another moan, this one higher in pitch, as Ron's clothes seemed to collapse around
him. Now he was just two feet tall and just his head stood out from the pile of fabric. He pulled up his T-shirt and tried to cover himself as he
clung to Amanda's sweatshirt. Then another moan, in what sounded to Amanda like a chipmunk voice, and Ron stood just a foot tall. Then the
chipmunk voice let loose again, and Ron's world expanded one last time.
Ron shook his head to clear the dizziness. He looked over and saw that he was clinging toone of the belt loops of Amanda's jeans. He was now naked, standing on the pile of what had been his clothes. On the sofa, Amanda's thighs were
almost as tall as he was, and each of her buttocks were big enough to be a recliner. Ron now stood just six inches tall.
Ron inhaled, noticed the scent of Amanda's perfume, and then it hit him. A powerful wave of desire for his wife, as powerful as anything he had
felt for her when they were a new couple. Seemingly enlarged to the height of a ten story building, the woman who had been his wife for 20 years
had suddenly become in his mind, the greatest bombshell he could imagine. Not that he hadn't been attracted before. Not that they hadn't
sustained their relationship for two decades. But the feelings that were washing over him right now were indescribable. He covered himself to
keep Amanda from seeing the reaction of a certainpart of himself. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, Ron became lightheaded and fainted.
Amanda had heard the strange sounds and had seen the clothes collapse. Then she saw a tiny, naked Ron climb out, stagger, and collapse. She
screamed. The scream didn't wake Ron up. Amanda scooped up her tiny husband and placed him on a pillow. What could she do? CPR was impossible
with this size difference. She waited to see whether Ron would wake up.
After an hour, Ron's eyes fluttered open. He sat up and saw that he was sitting on a pillow on the sofa where he last remembered clinging to
Amanda. A torn piece of a handkerchief covered the lower half of his body, apparently for privacy's sake. Then the wave of desire hit him again,
and before he looked up he knew he was in her presence.
Amanda's face was directly above him, carrying a glow he had never seen before, or at least had never perceived. Her eyes were blinking and
watery. Clearly she'd been crying as she worried about her husband.
In spite of his situation, the feelings churning inside him for Amanda were making him smile. He waved and shouted at his now seemingly gigantic
wife. Then he reached up and kissed her nose.
Amanda smiled, reached down with a finger and tickled his belly. She had Ron back. But how could ever they be a couple again?
Finding the answer to that question drove Ron crazy over the next few days and weeks, thanks to the enormous heart-pumping arousal that he felt
whenever she was in the room. He wanted to be with her, even if he couldn't figure out how to do that. Ron paced the floor of his dollhouse at
night, trying to figure out why he was feeling as horny as a teenager whenever she entered the room.
Then it hit him. Pheromones.
Amanda was still pumping out enough pheromones to interest a six-foot-tall man. Since Ron was just six inches tall now, he reasoned, that same
dose of a woman's attraction hormones was now enough to fill him with enough unrequited desire to utterly take over his mind and soul.
The other thing that was bugging Ron in his dollhouse was what to do with his life. He had owned a business, he was a husband and father, he had
hunted and fished and played golf and a million other things. He'd thought about taking up mountain climbing. Now all of those things were
foreclosed to him. Amanda was taking care of him as best she could, but any sort of adventure to life seemed to be over. Any of his old
challenges were too dangerous, and there was nothing inside the four walls of his house that could ever be as exciting.
Then he thought about his overwhelming desire to be with Amanda. She was huge. She could hurt him without meaning to. His desire may have
increased a hundredfold, but expressing his love to her physically was clearly out of the question.
Or was it merely a question of engineering?
Which is what got him thinking about that fishing line in the garage.
---
Ron's heart began pounding. He knew Amanda was about to come back in the room.
A distance had built up between them. Amanda found it hard to talk to a man who answered her in a voice somewhere between a chipmunk's chatter
and a bird's chirping. She felt alone and unsupported as she tried to keep their economic needs met. She fought the temptation to thnk of Ron
just as a burden. Every other woman on earth had the same problem now, she thought. But every once in a while, Ron showed a little bit of that
spark that made her laugh, and for just a moment, it all felt better, more like the way things had been before.
Still, Amanda was showing signs of getting used to Ron's new size. She had even renewed one of their marital quirks. Fresh from brushing her
teeth, she bent over the dollhouse and kissed Ron on the lips. Or as close as she could get. For Ron, it was sort of like being under a mint-
flavored tornado, as Amanda seemed to suck his breath away.
"I still love when you do that", Ron shouted at Amanda. "I still love you."
"I love you too", Amanda whispered back.
"I know you've been working so hard to keep everything going. I'm going to make that up to you. I'm going to find a way to make things easier for
you, and someday, I'm going to show you love again, the way a man loves a woman."
Amanda smiled. "Yes, someday they're going to find a cure for this terrible plague or whatever it is that made all the men six inches tall."
Ron shook his head. "No, I mean whether they find one or not. I'm going to be a man, and I'm going to make you feel like a woman."
Amanda's face flushed, and she covered her mouth as she giggled. "Somehow, I just don't think that'll work."
Ron looked into Amanda's huge eyes as deeply as he could. "I'm not an invalid. I'm not disabled. Everything works. I'm just..." he still had
trouble admitting it... "six inches tall. Somehow, I think it can work. But all I really want you to do right now, is think about it. You know
that when you think about doing something... different..."
"When I think about doing something, it's as exciting for you as if I actually do it." Amanda had no trouble finishing the sentence. Ron had used
that line over the years whenever he wanted Amanda to do something a little adventuresome -- usually in the bedroom -- or to let him take a
chance in business. From when they met in college, Ron loved it when Amanda thought about his crazy ideas, in business or in the bedroom, even
when the result wasn't what he wanted. She didn't always do what Ron suggested -- and once she responded with a slap. But he did get her to roll
it around in her mind, to own the idea herself, and often that was enough to draw her in.
Amanda laughed. "I love you to death, but I think you're crazy. I mean --- what, how -- wouldn't you get..."
"Just think about it, Amanda. And know something else... you are more beautiful to me now than you have ever been. Walk tall and straight, and
carry yourself proudly. I don't know what it is, but somehow I believe I've been placed beneath the hem of your longest dress for a reason."
She turned and left. For Ron, it felt like a thunderstorm that was moving away. Somehow, he knew lightning was going to strike.
----
Amanda tried to figure it all out. How would it work? She tried to get her head around the concept and couldn't. How would she deal with not
feeling the weight and presence of a man above, beneath or beside her? Could she lose herself in the moment without putting him in danger? It
just seemed so... silly. But in the end, she decided, all she was doing was risking looking silly. He was risking a lot more for her. And he was
so certain of success. She had to give him a chance. She remembered back to the first time they made love. His skills were considerably less than
perfect, and her pleasure was not necessarily at the center of his thoughts. She remembered feeling a little sore the morning after. But she
didn't give up on him then, and she wouldn't now. When that thought established itself, Amanda straightened up unconsciously. Her face changed to
a serene look. She felt ten stories tall, tall enough to touch the clouds.
As Amanda warmed up to the concept, Ron was starting to have his doubts. He knew the physical dangers, but something else was gnawing at him as
well -- the idea that he could actually disappear into Amanda. For a moment, he would not exist as a separate being -- only as a part of her.
What would that make him when he re-emerged -- assuming that he did?
----
Amanda had to go out of town on business, and somehow Ron talked her into letting him spend a week in the house alone. That would give him enough
time to pull off his plan. He didn't want to tip her off, which meant that he had to risk a trip into the garage on his own.
He had rigged a small electric motor to haul an old toy wagon out to the garage door. A piece of dental floss with a fishing hook attached was
enough to open the latch. Ron found the reels of fishing line and loaded them in, along with a few odds and ends. He was tooling along with the
wagon, heading for the door when he heard a noise, at once familiar and unrecognizable. He turned to see a rattlesnake rearing up, its hypnotic
eyes staring him in the face.
Ron tumbled out of the way of the snake's first thrust. Then he drove a knife as deeply as he could into its belly. He leapt out of the way, then
watched as the snake writhed and undulated, before at last giving up the ghost.
Gasping in terror, Ron gathered his cargo and headed back for the door. His mind tried to make sense of what had almost happened to him. In his
dreams it came to him as a test. The snake represented the old Ron, the towering giant that possessed the power of manhood and the power to enter
a woman as a birthright. The old Ron was gone, and the new Ron would win his place with a woman through wit and skill -- just as he had beaten
the snake.
----
Amanda wasn't sure what she'd find when she opened the door. She'd left Ron a blackberry so he could check in with her every day. He would type a
short message and it reassured her that something hadn't happened. But the messages were brief and terse.
Amanda put in the key, opened the door, and was amazed by what she saw.
A maze of fishing lines criss-crossed the room -- mostly near the walls, but a few running the ceiling and connecting other rooms in the house.
Amanda walked over to one of the walls. She was tracing one of the lines when a shape crossed her field of vision. It took her a second to make
out a tiny figure dressed in a pirate costume, waving a sword. It took her another second to realize that it was Ron, dangling from one of his
fishing lines as he rappelled across the room, and still a third second to realize that he was swinging his tiny sword at the gold locket she
always wore. By that time, he had scooped the locket into a backpack and had swung toward the ceiling.
"Ron! What are you doing? Give me back my locket!" Ron disappeared through a crack in the wall before she could do anything to stop him.
A moment later, Amanda heard Ron's voice all around her. It was coming out of speakers in the ceiling -- and it was his old voice, from when he
was big. Ron dictated his message in his best imitation of a pirate voice, through a tiny microphone with pitch-lowering technology attached.
"ARRRRRR! They call a ship a lady, and I've stolen an armful of gold from the fine ship Amanda! She knows that what I'm after is booty,
especially hers! Aye, lassie, if you want your precious gold locket back, you'll have to do what I say!"
Amanda was a little tired from the trip, but she decided to play along. "Oh tiny pirate, what wouldst thou have me do?"
"The good ship Amanda is to put to port in the bathroom, to have her barnacles scraped."
"What? Oh, you've LOST it, Ron! I'm going to walk into the bathroom and I'm going to stuff you into a bottle along with that pirate ship you're
dreaming about! I...."
Amanda opened the bathroom door and found the tub filled with warm water frothing with bubbles on top. A bubble bath. Ron floated down from the
ceiling, wearing only his pirate hat and a pair of black swim trunks.
"I command the weary crew of the great traveling ship Amanda to put into dock for a warm, relaxing bubble bath."
"Will I get my locket back if I do?"
"We'll see about that, my lass."
Amanda scooted next door to the bedroom, unzipped and unsnapped as quickly as she could. Then, nude, she slowly opened the door and slid into the
room. She crossed her arms in front of her breasts. She felt something in the air again, something that made her want to blush and be modest, and
at the same time want to reveal herself to Ron again.
As for Ron, his heart was pounding so heavily he lost his balance and started to spin aimlessly at the end of his rope. He landed on a shelf
facing the back of the tub, gathered himself and shouted a command to Amanda.
"Now, I command the ship Amanda to put into port and prepare to be boarded!"
Ron's heart started pounding again as he watched her lower herself into the tub from the back. Her back looked absolutely magnificent, the curves
breathtaking, and that rump... was his equal. It made him want to give Amanda something else to think about... but he decided he'd given her
plenty to think about already, and who knew what a slap at this size might do to him.
Amanda settled into the warm, frothy bubbles. She closed her eyes. She opened them to find a tiny, leering pirate staring her in the face.
"Prepare to be boarded", Ron shouted.
He lowered himself onto her right shoulder, just above the water. He turned off his microphone, leaned into her ear and whispered -- although to
him it was just talking normally. "I am at your service, m'lady." He then began to rub her right temple and eye socket in slow, circular paths. He could hear Amanda's breath leaving her nose and mouth as she relaxed.
Ron worked his way around her face, scooping bits of the froth around him and massaging them into Amanda's face, neck and chin. Then he
alternated massages with kisses. He kissed her on the lips, and Amanda answered with the equivalent of opening the door of an airplane at 30,000
feet. An impetuous thought crossed Amanda's mind. She reached for a nearby bottle of body wash, turned it upside down and squirted it all over
Ron's body. Ron didn't need instructions. He worked the wash into a lather and placed his back on Amanda's belly, starting where it met the water and working
his way up to her neckline.He made snow angels, he ground his back into her flesh. He brushed the outer radius of each breast, just allowing a small bit of body wash to
rest there.
For the first time since that incredible day, Amanda was feeling desire for Ron. Just as she wanted to ask him for more, Ron suddenly lifted off
from her chest toward the ceiling. "If you still want your locket back, bring the good ship Amanda into the master bedroom at twilight... and
capture me if you can! Take me, Amanda!"
Both Ron and Amanda were nervous as the magic moment approached. Ron was gasping as he waited for the door to open, Amanda as she stood at the
door waiting to go in. But thenshe remembered her husband's admonition to stand tall. A faraway look took over her eyes, and she strode into the bedroom wearing not a
nightgown, but her most comfortable sweatshirt, and a pair of high heels -- the first time she'd worn them since the reduction of men.
Amanda opened the door to find the room lit by a single lamp with a blue light bulb. She threw her head back and strode proudly through the
strange glow. She felt sexy and powerful at the same time. She walked to the bed, took off her shoes, removed her sweatshirt, and rested her back
onto the bed. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, tiny pirate! You're going in the brig!"
Just then, ropes flew out from all corners of the bed and flew around Amanda's wrists and ankles. In a moment, she was as secured to bed as
Gulliver had been to that beach in Lilliput.
From above, she saw a tiny pinpoint of light swing down at her from the ceiling. "Ah, my lass, thought she had captured the pirate at last!
Perhaps she shall, but first... the torch run!"
Ron was wearing the same pirate hat with black briefs replacing the swim trunks. In one hand he carried a lit birthday candle. He landed next to
a spot where a small vein was visible as it crossed her right hip. He kissed that spot and then began to run around Amanda's figure, stopping
every inch or so to kiss a spot. Amanda's eyes followed as the bouncing point of light made its way around her. He made three rounds of her body,
then climbed up to stand between her breasts. Theatrically, he extinguished the candle and threw it off the bed. Then he shouted, "I take command
of the vessel Amanda!" He ranup to her lips and felt again the mighty power. Then he ran down to her right breast. He knelt before it, as though it were holy ground.
Then instead of walking to the top, hewent to the edge and kneaded a small section of flesh, brought his face to it, and kissed it. He did it again and again, working his way up the
hill. Reaching the nipple, he gently placed both hands around it, gradually increasing his grip and bringing his face down for a kiss. He
concentrated as the earth began to move beneath him.
He climbed down, repeated the process for the left breast, then looked up to see the face that glowed in the blue light, nostrils flared. He felt
the heat of her breath wash over him. He turned and started for her belly. "Noooo", came a soft moan from her lips. He returned his attention to
where it had been. Amanda's gasps became more ragged, and he sensed the time had come. He turned southward. This time no protest was registered.
Rather than risk touching without preparation, Ron jumped off Amanda's belly and ran down the bed next to her right leg. He then carefully ran
along the inside of the legs that were trying to arch above him, held back by the ropes. Like the arch of a cathedral, he thought.
At last, Ron reached the sacred place. He felt compelled to call it that, not all the other names he had learned in a lifetime of locker room
jokes. This was the threshold, the boundary between life and love, a place of complete and unachievable embrace. He sawthe most intimate place of the only woman he had loved for 20 years as he had never seen it before. He noticed its purple color, which it took on
after the twins were born. The royal purple of motherhood, he thought. Ron went to his knees, as though he couldn't approach this place on his
feet.
He looked around for a familiar place to begin. He saw the brown spot on the inside of Amanda's right thigh. The first time Amanda had talked him
into ... THAT activity, he started by kissing that very place. He decided it was charmed. Now it was almost as big as his head. Ron crawled over,
took the corner of flesh into his hands and kissed it over and over. He heard a deep and distant moan from above him.
Ron continued, working his way closer to the sacred entrance. He steeled himself as he reached out with a hand, and placed fingers just a
quarter-inch long along the swelling flesh before him. A deep cry arose from Amanda, and her thighs closed together, just missing Ron's head.
Carefully he calculated his position and repeated the touch, making contact just a second or two longer. Again the great beams of the cathedral
closed around him, but not tightly enough to endanger him.
Tiny kisses and tiny fingers coaxed the purple flower into bloom, and as it ripened the deep voice from above said something it had said a thousand times before... '
"Ron, I need you."
If Ron turned back now, he had proven his ability to be a man to his wife. Or had he? He knew he couldn't reverse course. This drama had to be
completed, even at the risk of making it the last act of his life.
Ron ran to the edge of the bed and pulled up the gear for this incredible moment. He had constructed a metal cage that was strong enough to
withstand crushing pressure. Then he surrounded it with airbags that would inflate on contact, protecting his lungs, internal organs and rib
cage, while at the same time increasing his presence within. Topping off his gear, goggles and a hard hat, decorated in the shape of a pink
helmet with a flap on top. He covered himself in a jelly to aid in the journey.
Ron approached the sacred place, feet first. Carefully he reached out, allowing the feet to touch the royal purple. Amanda's thighs closed around
him, but the airbags behaved as planned. He slipped closer, until his feet had passed the threshold, then his torso, surrounded by the cage. He
slowly and gently slid downward, until his hands were at a point at which he could touch the most sensitive place of a woman. It was now as large
as a cookie to him. Carefully he leaned toward it, certain that Amanda could feel his tiny breath. Then he kissed it as hard as he could. Mighty
convulsions seized the part of himbelow the surface and brought him downward.
For Ron it was like shrinking all over again. Nature or whatever force had made him and all other men tiny was completing the task, totally
sublimating him to the expression and release of the primal female force. Ron had resigned himself to this. It was the only way to complete his
quest and his duty as a man.
Ron gasped in the nearly airless heat. His gear was incredibly hot. It was like fighting a fire without flames. He remembered that the
Elizabethans had called sex "la petite mort" -- the little death. That was just what he feared was happening. Now he knew whyhurricanes had at first been named only for women. The storm Amanda raged all around him. Her cries and moans filled his ears, shorn of consonants, resonating through her skin and bones, carrying unimaginable comfort and unimaginable
power.
Amanda fought the urge to totally give in to Ron's ministrations. Damn, she thought, why did his touch have to be so perfect? She guessed even a
klutz couldn't miss the obvious when it was in front of his face, as big as his face.
Ron struggled to escape, pushed back each time by the great walls around him.
"Don't hold back!" he shouted over the radio. "Let yourself go,
Amanda! Let yourself go!"
Those words drove the water over the dam.
A last, mighty seizure sealed him up tight. The airbags deployed at full strength, yet Ron felt himself being crushed. At last a great cry, and
then the pressure dropped. Ron could hear the mighty thump of Amanda's heart and her grip on him loosening. The storm was beginning to subside,
and Ron began to make his escape.
He forgot that hurricanes have eyes, and it's usually guys who roll over and go to sleep.
Much later, a panting Ron made his way out into the world. The blue light nearly blinded him, and the cool air sent a chill down his spine. He
took off his helmet and climbed out of his cage.
Dazed, Ron tried to make sense of it all. What had happened to him wasn't a little death. It was a little rebirth. It occurred to Ron that all
sex, if a man allowed himself to think this way, was not death, but its opposite. A man, or part of him, enters for a moment a place not unlike
that from which he entered the world. When he leaves, is that not rebirth? And wouldn't his complete immersion into Amanda qualify as being born
again, in the sense of immersion, almost a religious experience?
Ron crawled past Amanda's face, still twisted in ecstasy. The heat that radiated off her body reminded him of where he had been. Ron sniffed his
arm. He reeked of Amanda. She had marked him, branded him. Her aroma had permeated his flesh and become his own. In a sense, she had penetrated him. Nothing was broken. But a few
places felt sore.
Ron climbed onto the nightstand, where he had used lines and cranes to place a warm bowl of water. He climbed in and shook himself, trying to
return to some sense of distance, some small bit of separation and distinction from this maelstrom of passion resting next to him.
After a few minutes, Ron felt himself clean enough to step out of the bowl. He looked atthe glow of satisfaction on his beloved wife. He reached into a drawer and pulled out the gold locket, which he placed on her pillow. And at
last, he permitted himself a moment of exultation. He pumped his fists in the air and cheered.
The sounds awoke his wife. A smile crossed Amanda's face, not unlike the cat who'd found a mouse to play with. Wordlessly, she removed his swim
trunks with a fingernail. Sapped of his strength, Ron had no choice but to revel in his own vulnerability, as his wife planted vacuum kisses on
his belly, his back, his rump, his head, and other strategic places. His needs at last fulfilled, his mind drifted through free association as
his wife whispered compliments to his courage and resourcefulness. He was utterly defenseless, and yet felt as much a man as ever.
Before he disappeared from the world, Ron had felt at odds with the size and scale imposed upon him. When he returned to it, he felt he was the
perfect size for the adventure that had become his destiny, and that of men.