“SOOOO…” Natalie began with nervous excitement, as she drove me back to her place, “…HOW DID IT GO?”

“It was crazy. I mean, it was amazing. She was so into me. And she’s even hotter than her picture – she’s actually a model!"

“THAT’S GREAT, I’M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU.” She said this in a rush, with no pauses, and not looking at me. Then she bit her lip.

“What? What’s the problem?”

“I WISH I DIDN’T HAVE TO TELL YOU, JERRY, BUT…WHILE YOU WERE OUT, SOME POLICE SHOWED UP AT MY DOOR.”

“What? Why?”        

“THEY WERE LOOKING FOR YOU. YOUR PSYCHO EX MUST BE TRYING TO HUNT YOU DOWN OR SOMETHING.”

“What did you tell them?”

“DON’T WORRY,” she said quickly. “I DIDN’T TELL THEM ANYTHING. I JUST PRETENDED I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT.”

“Fuck…” I swore under my breath. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I really didn’t mean to drag you into – ”

“IT’S OKAY. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. AND THEY’VE GONE NOW.”

I dug my nails into the car seat, pushing my head back against the backrest, groaning.

“But I’m worried they’ll come back. I’ve got to get out of your place, Natalie, before she sticks a private investigator on you.”

It seemed like an obvious step-up for her; she might even plant her butt on his desk and play up her inner femme fatale, I thought, with a shiver of disgust.

“DON’T BE WORRIED ABOUT ME. I’M MORE WORRIED ABOUT YOU. WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GO?”

“Samantha suggested I would live with her.”

“WOW,” Natalie blurted out, “ALREADY, HUH? THAT’S KEEN.”

“But it’s perfect,” I said, smiling. “It’ll get the heat off you.”

She nodded, but a frown tugged at the side of her lips.

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD WARN THIS GIRL ABOUT YOUR EX.”

I knew she was right, and hated it, terrified of the inference of any little thing that might ruin my chances with Samantha. And my ex wasn’t just any little thing. She was kind of a big thing.

“Yeah, eventually, but I don’t want to dump all my crap on her right away. Things need to stay simple for now. She’s great and I’m not going to mess this up –” catching myself before I added ‘again.’

“BUT YOU HAVE ONLY JUST MET HER, RIGHT? JUST…BE CAREFUL.”

I grinned.

“Are you jealous?”

Not taking her eyes off the road, she reached one arm over and playfully swatted my head.

*

Natalie was almost more excited than me about my party, thinking it would be good for me to get out and meet new people. She was especially eager to help me arrange an outfit, as she had a seamstress friend who, after hearing about who I was, offered to make me an outfit for the occasion. This required the seamstress to come around to the house to get my measurements, though it was not so fun stripping down and having her cold hands adjusting my body posture; tugging at my arms and legs while she pulled her tape measure against and around different parts of my body. She worked diligently and mechanically at this, moving and propping me until I felt like a statue she was trying to assemble, rather than a person.

She also couldn’t help but giggle with affection upon reading off my measurements, being as incredibly diminutive as they were.

When the seamstress returned, she dropped off a turtleneck and a jacket, and some suit pants. It looked great – not like a doll outfit, but like real clothes – though it was slightly stuffier than my typical party wear; it looked like something an ivory tower academic would wear, and I would have never dressed like that around Jennifer; she would have called me a pretentious smart-ass. But this seemed like a good reason to try it: I wanted to feel like a different person living a different life.

After the seamstress left, Natalie revealed she had given input for the turtleneck suit, because she thought it looked ‘sexy’ in a ‘sophisticated way.’

“You gave it a lot more thought than I realized,” I remarked.

“I HAD TO,” she said, adding seriously: “THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOUR CLOTHING DOESN’T DRAW ATTENTION TO YOU IN THE WRONG WAY.” She smoothed the outfit over the table, studying it approvingly. “YOU CAN’T CONTROL YOUR SIZE, BUT YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT YOU WEAR.”

“I guess I never thought of it like that. I’m just grateful to wear anything that fit me. I mean, half the time I’ve been running around in a superman costume.”

Natalie smiled good-naturedly until she realized I was not joking. Then she looked kind of sad.

“DON’T TELL ME THEY DIDN’T GET YOU PROPER CLOTHES...?”

“I had clothes, I just wouldn’t call them ‘proper.’”

She sighed.

“IT WAS A WAY TO CONTROL YOU, JERRY,” she explained. She said this delicately, as if she was trying to deprogram me out of a cult that had stolen years of my life, and news of the real world might shock me into a nervous breakdown. “IF SHE GAVE YOU EVERYTHING, YOU’D HAVE NO REASON TO DEPEND ON HER.”

I shrugged, deep down knowing she was probably right.

*

There was a brisk knock at the door. Then Natalie’s voice rang through the house:

“JERRY, I THINK SHE’S HERE—!”

My heart turned to ice.

Then I realized she was referring to Samantha, and time seemed to flow normally again.

“COME ON, YOU DON’T WANT TO KEEP HER WAITING!”

Natalie appeared and whisked me up, taking me to the door.

“DON’T WORRY, YOU LOOK GREAT,” she muttered, as one of my hands raked compulsively through my hair. “OOPS, I ALMOST FORGOT – ” She slipped a bottle of fragrance out of her pocket and squirted the back of my neck. I sneezed, and she giggled before composing herself as she opened the front door.

Samantha stood there in a tight-fitting dress, perfect hair, red lipstick, dangling crystalline earrings, her long tanned legs showing above her pump stilettos. She just looked better and better each time I saw her. Staring at her with my mouth open, I was now breathlessly grateful that Natalie had given my outfit due consideration.

Amusingly, Samantha was looking down at the threshold, like she had expected me to be standing down there, ready to greet her shoes.

Her eyes ran up Natalie; she stopped and her face sort of glazed over.

“I DON'T BELIEVE JERRY TOLD ME ABOUT YOU...” she began.

“THIS IS ACTUALLY MY HOUSE,” Natalie cut in, keeping her tone polite. “JERRY STAYS HERE. WE’RE NOT DATING.”

The tension melted and Samantha was poised again. Meanwhile, Natalie looked down at me.

“ARE YOU GOING TO BE OKAY, JERRY?” she said with more meaning in her eyes than her voice.

“I’ll be fine,” I drawled. Yes, Samantha was a little stiff, I wanted to reassure her, but she really was nice once you got to know her.

Satisfied, Natalie passed me into Samantha’s awaiting hand, which smelled like expensive perfume.

“SEE YOU LATER,” Natalie said to me, leaning in the doorframe. “HAVE FUN!”

“Bye,” I said, as Samantha turned and began to take me into the night, towards her car. I was about to make some small pleasantry with her, ask her what she’d been up to, as she began pulling at her handbag with her free hand as if she was going to retrieve something from it.

“You look really beautiful,” I said, stammering.

She gave me a faint, almost non-existent smile.

“IN YOU GO,” she said forthrightly. Then I was tumbling off her hand, falling through the air. The world was swallowed up by darkness as I landed on something hard, bounced, and rolled along a fabric floor, surrounded by the scent of leather and sanitizer. 

There was a loud sound like tearing cardboard as the teeth of the zip above came together, until it stopped short of a small gap through which a sliver of light shone through. It was not enough to illuminate the objects crowded in the bag, silhouettes like furniture in a dark room. Worse, as the handbag continued to sway against her hip, the objects bounced and slid around the bag floor. I was forced to leap back and forth blindly, constantly dodging bulky objects that loomed out of the darkness and barreled into me.

Something big and hard knocked me onto my back and pinned me down under its weight for a few moments before the bag’s momentum dislodged it again. Judging by the shape and the smell of leather, it was a purse.

A car door opened and shut, before the bag touched down on a firm surface and stayed there. I stared up intently at the tiny shaft of light coming through the zip opening. The car’s interior light was on, so the fact that the sliver of light shining into the bag was so dim suggested she had put the bag not on the car seat, but on the seat floor.

The car engine started and there was a tapping noise right outside the bag that made me jump. It was the sound of her pump stiletto contacting the accelerator. The sound was so close I realized the bag must be on the floor between her feet. Awkward placing, but I forgave her without a thought. Meetings with me could be clumsy when people didn’t know me well; people didn’t know how to hold me or carry me, and tended to make embarrassing faux pas without even realizing it.

Vibration thrummed through the air as the car began to roll off the curb and head down the street.

The bag trembled as she tapped her shoe against it to get my attention.

“I SHOULD WARN YOU,” she said slickly. “THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL GATHERING. YOU CANNOT HIDE IN THE CORNER. EVERYONE IS GOING TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE.”

That’s a bad thing?” I said, trying to speak up over the car engine and road noise.

“IT DEPENDS. THESE PEOPLE ARE INFATUATED WITH NOVELTY. AND SCUSI, IL MIO GIOCATTOLO, BUT YOU ARE NOVELTY. HOT NOVELTY.”

I paused.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t care who I was.”

“I DON’T BELIEVE I EVER SAID ANYTHING REMOTELY LIKE THAT,” she said nonchalantly. “IN FACT, THE CONTRARY: I SAID THEY WOULD LOVE YOU.”

“Now it sounds like you want to show me off, like an offering to the crowd or something – ”

Wait, I thought to myself; I was going to this party with this gorgeous model and I was the trophy? This was getting way too surreal for me to process. Amazing what my life looked like now; my former, pre-shrunken self would not have recognized me.

“NO ONE IS OFFERING ANYTHING. YOU ARE MY ATTACHMENT, NOW.”

It sounded cold and proprietary but then again, I reminded myself, it wasn’t unusual for partners to be referred to as ‘attached’.

Sensing my bemusement, she explained:

“YOU MUST BELONG TO SOMEONE. THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT SHY. THEY ARE RULED BY APPETITES FOR AMUSEMENT. IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL THEY WILL CONSUME YOU WHOLE.”

I assumed she was being metaphorical, but at my size, who knew?

I huddled in the bag, being rolled off my feet every time the car took a turn, and nervously anticipating what I was in for.

The engine stopped and the bag lifted off the floor. Then it was swinging rhythmically again as Samantha’s heels sounded over cement like hammer blows.

Having grown a pair of sea legs, I weathered the swaying motions as I climbed up on top of a small pile of cosmetic accessories and pushed my head out of the zip opening, expanding my lungs with a gulp of fresh air.

Gazing up from her hip, my eyes were hit by a mass of tanned side-boob. I searched around in vain for her face, but it was obscured by this arresting distraction.

"Hey, gorgeous, can I come out now?" I piped up.

A thumb came thrusting down upon the top of my head, pushing me back down into the stuffy depths of the bag.

"YOU ARE TERRIBLY EAGER, AREN’T YOU?" she murmured. "TAKE CARE OR YOU’LL FALL OUT.”

Sounds of chatter grew closer until it filled the air with a steady hum, backgrounded by the pulsing of music beating through speakers. It was very dim, no sliver of light falling into the bag anymore. With the darkness and thrumming sounds it was like being underwater.

Samantha began talking to someone, then the zip widened, her hand dipped inside and began patting and probing around, searching for me, bumping me to the ground before seizing me powerfully and whisking me up into the air.

The surrounding room was dim and smoky with red walls and a black floor, filled with a loose crowd of people milling around, talking and drinking. The women were wearing short skirts and strappy heels, the guys a combination of formal causal dress. I was glad I wasn’t wearing the full suit and tie: none of the other guys were.

As people shifted around, I caught a glimpse of the far end of the room, where there was a gold tassel string curtain dividing another room, and a taxidermied hare on a mantel.

“I HAVE JERRY MOUSSEAU WITH ME TONIGHT,” said Samantha, and I was rotated to face a couple of people staring down at me: a tall shapely woman in a long sleeved and incredibly close-fitting dress, and a bearded guy with a happy drunk smile.

“Oh, hi!” I said.

It was difficult to get any more words out; Samantha was holding me the way a gangster held a cigar: pinching my middle, and it was putting incredible pressure on my diaphragm.

“JERRY FROM TV, RIGHT!” the man said as he leaned forward. His bulky hand was flying at my face before, right at the last second, stopping and taking my hand between a bulbous finger and thumb, and giving it a shake that nearly loosened me from Samantha’s grip.

Then it was the woman’s turn to lean in, giving me a look like I was a bouquet of flowers being presented to her.

“AWWW,” she swooned, “HE’S EVEN TINIER IN REAL LIFE.”

“THE TV ALWAYS ADDS A FEW POUNDS,” the man joked.

The woman’s frosted white fingernails began to reach towards me as she shot Samantha a tentative look.

“MAY I TOUCH HIM?”

“DON’T JUST TOUCH HIM,” Samantha commanded smoothly, as she not only moved me towards the woman, but pushed me bodily into her grasp, “REALLY FEEL HIM. FEEL HOW HIS BODY RESPONDS TO PRESSURE, LIKE CLAY.”

At Samantha’s insistence, the woman’s fingers were everywhere: fondling and caressing every last inch of me. My hair bristled at the intolerably cold touch, like she’d been holding a chilled drink. I opened my mouth to say something when a thumb hooked itself under my jaw, probing my throat with enough pressure to cut my voice off.

Samantha and the man continued to chat, with the woman interjecting occasionally as she manipulated me in her hands: first taking each of my wrists and pulling my arms up straight over my head, then bending me forward as if trying to fold me in two, with my face being pushed into my legs. She then kept me like that for some time as she responded at length to a question Samantha asked her, with her thumb pressing down against my spine, and her fingers pushing up against the underside of my thighs, while I spluttered weakly for release, my tendons cramping. Distracted by the conversation, her fingers idly rotated me completely around, giving her a good view of my undercarriage.

I’m way too sober for this, I thought wearily.

Put rightside up again, the woman handed me back to Samantha.

“WHAT A LITTLE PUSSYCAT,” she said, her cheeks dimpling as she smiled. “HE JUST SOAKS UP ALL THE ATTENTION.”

The man grinned toothily at the three of us.

“POOL, ANYONE?”