The room was dark. Yellow light came in from the outside hallway. Footsteps shuffled past the open doorway.

A shadow was stretched over the bed. There was someone standing over me.

My back jolted up off the pillow.

A nurse looked down at me with contrition.

“SORRY, DARLING,” she whispered as she replaced my IV bag. “I DIDN’T MEAN TO WAKE YOU.”

Wow, feel those reflexes, my heart hammering, like my nervous system was waking up from a long slumber. Hadn't felt like that in a long time. At least it was a sign I was improving. I lowered myself back down and shut my eyes.

*

During the rounds next morning, my doctor thought it would be a great idea to sweep a parade of young medical students through my room. They had, after all, never had a patient like me before, and he was jumping at the opportunity to show me off as a learning tool.

Before I’d even properly awoken, multiple pairs of gloved hands were probing, palpating and examining me in turn, trying politely not to notice my engorged morning wood pushing up against the sheet, and my deep red blush.

After they had left, and my frustrated erection had subsided, a member of the hospital staff came by to bring me some breakfast in little plastic cups.

“THE DOCTORS SAY YOU’RE GETTING STRONGER,” she noted, “SO YOU’RE ALLOWED SOLIDS NOW.”

After so long being tube-fed mashed whatever, I was ravenously hungry and relished the simple act of biting and chewing almost as much as the taste of the food itself. It was only hospital food, but anything was better than whatever Samantha had been feeding me.

Within minutes the tiny plastic cups were empty and my stomach cramped from the shock of digesting normal food. I turned onto my side and began kneading my forearms into my gut.

Sometime after, the nurse came back to take out my IV line.

“YOUR CARER’S OUT THERE TALKING WITH THE DOCTOR,” she said, “HE’S DISCHARGING YOU, SO YOU CAN GO HOME.”

I nodded, trying to look eager, but the stomach cramps from earlier had now turned into an urgent need to empty my bladder. Actually, it was a surprise to remember this was something that was needed to be done. Memory of how I’d handled that issue Samantha’s was flimsy; I must have peed myself in the drawer while semi-conscious, and being fed a basically full liquid diet had eliminated the need to crap solids.

As my insides gurgled, Jennifer strode into the room and up to the bedside. She seemed to be about to drop onto the mattress, but at the last moment, caught herself and eased down lightly, until I was hemmed in on one side by the bump of her derriere.

“GOOD MORNING,” she said, her husky voice almost a purr. “HOW’S MY FAVORITE LITTLE HAND WARMER DOING TODAY?”

She sounded much more cheerful than yesterday. In fact, she not only sounded better, she looked better, like she’d had a good night’s sleep. Her skin was practically glowing.

“No cute stuff, please,” I groaned. “You’re freaking me out.”

Chuckling quietly, she  mussed my hair with a finger.

I looked over at the door.

“Where’s Stuart?”

“HE’S AT WORK. ANYWAY, READY TO GO? – ‘CAUSE I HATE THIS PLACE. YOU LOOK SO TINY AND SHRUNKEN IN THAT BED…”

“I am tiny and shrunken,” I retorted.

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. SKINNY. UNLOVED.”

I didn’t say anything. The word ‘unloved’ hit me in a sensitive area. My previous attempts at co-mingling had been dismal failures. She didn’t have to rub it in.

She stood up and began to reach for me.

“No, wait!” I gasped, afraid the pressure of her fingertips against my belly was going to make me spurt a fountain of pee.

“I’LL BE GENTLE,” she said with a trace of impatience.

“No, I…I need to use the bathroom first.”

Her hand drew back a moment. She looked vaguely puzzled; she probably didn’t think a lot about how I managed that stuff anymore. At their place I usually had just gone into a big pot plant in the front door lobby which I just assumed had benefitted from the free fertilizer.

Her eyes travelled from the room’s open doorway to the bathroom door, and then back to me.

“GUESS IT’S A GOOD THING I’M HERE, THEN,” she concluded.

Her hand was then reaching for me once more, but this time it came to a rest on the mattress right in front of me, palm up, the fingers curled slightly. Her hand was so much like the seat of a pink leather couch, I marveled, my very own seat with its creases and soft bumps.  It was such a supplicating gesture, and she held her fingers so delicately while she watched me, that for some odd reason it took my breath away.

When I did not move, she waggled her fingers slightly, inviting me to get on. In Jennifer’s usual playbook, this would be a trick, but I sensed no pretense now.

Cupping my groin I staggered onto her palm before dropping my butt onto the soft plush surface of her skin.

Her hand swept into the air, while her other hand cupped over my head as she carried me into the bathroom. It was the way she’d held me the first time after I’d been shrunk, like I was a baby animal and she was trying to shelter me between her cupped hands.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

Oh God…I despaired inwardly, Not good, not good!

I was in love with her.

I wasn’t just attracted to her. If my dick got hard sometimes in her presence, that could be forgiven. It was a mindless nostalgic response caused by the surprise of her touch, or being caught in a cloud of her perfume. If she worked to get me hard, I blamed her.

But now I only had myself to blame.

I was still deeply in love with her.

Before I had time to ruminate on this, the giant hand tilted and my feet came down on the cold ceramic ring of the toilet seat. My insides recoiled a little; I hated to think I was standing where countless huge butts had been pressed before, even as I rationally told myself they sterilized the seat between patients.

She stood to the side, close enough to shade me under the bright bathroom light.

“Do you have to watch?” I grunted.

“WHO’S GOING TO FISH YOU OUT IF YOU FALL IN?” she shot back.

Glowering, I bit my tongue before I said something I’d regret, then closed my eyes, trying hard to ignore her presence and concentrate on relieving the sharp pressure in my bladder.

My toes curled just over the inside edge of the toilet lid as I aimed down into the gaping white basin. It was weird using a toilet; I hadn’t since before I was shrunk, and the glassy pool of water at the bottom was disturbingly big enough for me to swim around in.

I could feel Jennifer’s eyes on me the whole time, even as I had my own eyes shut. I always could tell when she was looking at me. It was like an urgent tugging sensation at my attention that kept me from concentrating on anything too long.

Rather than concentrate, I tried to relax all my muscles, and let the pee leave my body rather than trying to push it out.

When my stream finally tapered off, I opened my eyes to find her offering me a square of toilet paper, and felt touched even by this simple gesture.

She took me out of the bathroom again. My body hair was now standing up on end from the cold bathroom air, but before I could utter a word, the hospital walls were flashing past as I was being carried out of the room and through the building. Her hands were cupping around me again, half concealing me from the glare of the bright interior and the curious eyes of other visitors.

The brisk momentum made the cool air feel like it was whipping past me. In desperation, I tried to press and even rub myself against her warm skin.

We came outside into the car park, where it was even cooler. To my bare flesh it felt like stepping into a cold shower. I was pressing and rubbing myself against her skin even more vigorously, nearly clawing at her flesh for its warmth.

Only once inside the insulated environment of her car did she un-cup her upper hand from me, revealing me rolling around languorously on her lower upturned palm.

Bringing me up close, her face walled me from above like a movie screen as she watched me with a strange expression, almost as if she had never seen me before. I just lay back, basking in the warmth of her breath.

Finally she broke the silence:

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING DOWN THERE?" she said, sounding taken aback. "IT FELT LIKE YOU WERE SHOWERING MY HAND WITH LITTLE KISSES."

I sat up suddenly.

"I was doing no such thing! Your hand just happens to be warm, and I'm freezing!"

Her eyes roamed my exposed, goosebump-dimpled body.

"MMM," she said, cocking her head a little to get a better look at me, "NO KIDDING. YOUR BALLS ARE TURNING BLUE AND THAT GORGEOUS LITTLE PRICK LOOKS LIKE IT'S GOING INTO HIBERNATION."

"Oh Jesus," I cringed, hunching up, "don't...don't refer to my—"

"BESIDES," her low rolling timbre cut in over me, "THERE ARE MUCH WARMER PLACES ON MY BODY THAN MY HANDS."

“Your hands are fine.”

She slipped me between her thighs and gave my body a firm squeeze on either side to keep me in place. The warmth radiating from her seeped into my muscles, and they began to relax.

"LIKE HERE — WHERE DID YOU THINK I WAS REFERRING TO?"

*

It was evening, after dinner, we were in the living room, watching TV.

Or at least Stuart was. Having not long come home from work, he was reclined in an armchair, with his arms folded, trying to watch TV but every so often his head would start to nod.

It had been three days since I had come home from the hospital, and I had been napping regularly, needing to sleep off the lingering pain and swelling in my limbs as the pain relief steadily wore off. Jennifer and Stuart had mostly left me alone during this period, for which I was grateful.

In the meantime, my body had worked quickly to recover, and now was I beginning to show interest in my surroundings again.

Jennifer was up in the master bedroom getting changed. While Stuart fought to remain conscious, I slipped out of my bed – wearing only the red underwear pulled off my superman costume – and started down the table to the floor.

The house looked different. Micro size presented a special perspective for picking up on all kinds of tiny details, and looking around, I noticed them in abundance. Surfaces shone as if polished, counters and tables were cleared of clutter, and floors were spotless.

The carpet must have been steam-cleaned because it used to have the faint musty odor of shoes and feet. It was only apparent when I walked around on the floor, because my nose was so low to the floor, and I had been too embarrassed to report it to either Jennifer or Stuart, since they might take it as a backhand jab at their personal hygiene, which I knew was not deficient. Constant exposure to odor was just an unavoidable reality of my size: body odors, shoe odors, bad breath, and gas were all part of the natural climate of living around giants, and I could no more complain about it than complain when the rain came down.

Now the carpet’s familiar trace odor was gone, replaced with vanilla scented freshener.

On the floor at one wall of the room, just behind the TV, something glittered like a pile of diamonds. On closer inspection, it turned out to be bits of broken glass, like from a dropped vase.

“OH…”

Stuart had gotten up off the recliner and was standing behind me, seeing what I was looking at.

“GUESS I FORGOT TO SWEEP OVER THERE,” he said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. He hastily brought a dust pan over.

“You really got stuck into the house. It looks like new.”

He didn’t look up as he brushed the glass shards into the dust pan.

“GOTTA BE HONEST WITH YOU, JERRY. I’M REALLY GLAD YOU’RE BACK.”

For a moment I was too touched to say anything. He sounded sincere.

“Thanks, Stuart.”

He stood up, and still not looking at me, shuffled the glass around in the dust pan. He went on quietly:

“THINGS WERE TOUGH HERE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. REAL TOUGH. IT WAS ALL I HAD IN ME JUST TO KEEP HER…JUST TO KEEP THINGS COOL.”

The carpet fibers rubbed into the bottom of my foot as I ran it back and forth over the ground.

“I can only imagine,” I muttered.

The worst thing about Jennifer getting angry was that her prodigious sex drive didn’t disappear, it just became stranger. You would be bullied into the bedroom and assumed her punching bag for so long, slapped intermittently, scratched up and down, kneed in the ribs, shoved in the face by a foot, and crawled over bodily, while she held your head by the hair, and all while she was giving your dick the best work of its life. Once she’d built you up into climax, she would bite you in the throat at the critical moment…and then just hold you in that position.

And this would go on for as many nights as she remained angry.

I knew, because I had been there. And if you lived long enough with Jennifer, you couldn’t avoid making her angry. It was like she needed to release like hydraulic pressure every so often.

It was crazy to think Stuart might have been subjected to these same nightly tempests. His gentle nature just wasn’t compatible in the scene in my mind; I couldn’t even begin to picture it. Yet, he sure sounded tired; an understated glimpse into what he must have endured at the behest of her moods.

“I’m sorry that I put you guys through the stress.”

He shook his head.

“IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. IT’S THAT WOMAN’S FAULT. THE DOCTOR SAID SHE ALMOST KILLED YOU.”

There was a pause as that sunk in for a moment. Then he gave a strained smile.

“LUCKY SHE’S IN CUSTODY BECAUSE OTHERWISE JEN MIGHT HAVE GONE OVER THERE AND BEATEN HER UP.”

He looked up from the dust pan, now staring at the living room window, even though it was black outside.

“I DON’T WANT YOU TO TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY, BUT I THINK I’M GONNA NEED TO TAKE A BREAK FOR A LITTLE WHILE…CLEAR MY HEAD OVER ALL THIS.”

He went over to the kitchen to dispose of the glass. I climbed up onto the coffee table. When he reappeared, I waved him down.

“What do you mean? A vacation?”

“NO…” He stopped and folded his arms. “MORE OF A…LEAVE OF ABSENCE…OR SOMETHING.”

“I should warn you,” I started, “if you go on a vacation without Jennifer, she’s going to freak.”

“NOT A VACATION,” he emphasized. “BUT…” his mouth twisted a little, “…I FEEL KINDA BAD, BUDDY, LIKE I’M DROPPING YOU HERE AFTER YOU JUST GOT BACK.”

“Stuart,” I said, now talking in my best ‘dating coach’ voice, “what are you saying? You’re going on a camp or whatever and you’re worried about hurting my feelings? Get your priorities straight; you should be worried about hurting Jennifer’s feelings. She loves weekend-away trips.”

He was staring out the window again like this didn’t register. Then:

“YOU KNOW, SHE’S INCREDIBLY POSSESSIVE OF YOU.”

“You noticed?” I joked.

“SHE WENT TO THE POLICE, BUT THEY THOUGHT YOU MUST HAVE RUN AWAY AND SHE WAS LIKE SOME VINDICTIVE, MEDDLING EX-GIRLFRIEND TRYING TO GET REVENGE ON YOU.” He chuckled tiredly, in spite of himself. “YOU CAN GUESS HOW MAD THAT MADE HER. SO SHE WENT TO THIS EX-DETECTIVE, BUT HE HAD NEVER EVEN HEARD OF YOU AND THOUGHT SHE WAS PULLING A PRANK ON HIM. FINALLY, SHE FOUND THIS P.I. AGENCY WHO TRACKED YOU DOWN.”

I meditated on this in silence.

“IN THE BEGINNING, I AGREED WITH THE COPS; I THOUGHT YOU’D MOVED AWAY, WANTED YOUR OWN LIFE. BUT JEN WAS HYSTERICAL; EVERY DAY SHE FEARED YOU WERE DEAD.”

His gaze drifted down from the window and he looked me in the eye.

“NOW YOU’RE BACK. BUT IF I LEAVE…YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, RIGHT…?” He bowed his head in contemplation.

I sprang onto the sofa and dropped bodily on my back like I’d passed out, threading my hands through my hair and sighing loudly.

“SHE TOLD ME THE TIME YOU’VE BEEN LIVING WITH US HAS BEEN INSANELY HARD FOR HER— SHE WAS CRYING AS SHE SAID IT, AND – ”

“Hearing you loud and clear,” I interrupted. I had been waiting for a conversation like this for a long time. “You guys want me out.”

“JERRY, YOU'RE NOT LISTENING, JUST LET ME FINISH—”

“There’s nothing to say,” I said, not unkindly. “I’m not totally ignorant. You guys have your plans and I’m getting in the way. You don’t have to tell me twice.”

He didn’t seem to be listening to me anymore. His lips were pursed like he was rehearsing words in his head.

“…SHE’S GOING TO LOSE ALL CONTROL ON YOU.”

I blinked, not understanding for a moment. Surely that was being dramatic.

“If you go on your trip? She’ll be pissed off, sure. But it sounds to me like she’s over the nuclear phase. It’s cooling down time now. Perfect time for taking her on your trip as a romantic getaway –” I looked across at him, “—catch my drift?”

I was thinking how much I wanted this whole thing with my kidnap to be behind us. My first escape attempt had, admittedly, been a total failure. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t seriously considering a second attempt. And if Stuart and Jennifer went away, it would free me up to meet more girls online without feeling like I had to creep around the house in the shadows.

And I was determined not to screw it up again; I’d just have to be more cautious. I was already entertaining visions of outfitting myself with a tiny cattle prod to zap wandering fingers if they came too close. It should have been a funny thought, but with what happened with Samantha, I was serious. For someone my size, online dating felt a bit like stringing myself onto a hook and jumping into the sea to see what would emerge from the gloom, praying it was a gentle whale, and not a vicious shark.

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND DO YOU?” Stuart’s pleading eyes were searching my face now. “WE HAD OUR ‘ROMANTIC GETAWAY’. WE WERE TOGETHER THE WHOLE TIME YOU WERE AWAY. WE HAD TWO WHOLE MONTHS BREAK FROM YOU, JUST US, AND…” his face scrunched up, “…AND IT WAS…”

“It can be up and down with her,” I shrugged, trying to commiserate.

“WELL, I GET VERTIGO,” he said under his breath.

I was still lying on my back on the sofa seat, but feeling too agitated to get comfy.

Suddenly I jumped to my feet, turning to face Stuart.

“Listen, just think about this for a second! You narrowly avoided nuclear meltdown – good job – now don’t screw it all up by going away!”

Stuart looked at me for a moment, then his shoulders slumped a little.

“YEAH…MAYBE YOU’RE RIGHT.”

He rolled his shoulders and then put his hands in his pockets.

“So you’ll invite her on your trip?”

“NO TRIP,” he said quietly. “NOT THE TWO OF US.”

I let out a frustrated grunt.

“Dude…! It would be perfect! How do you not see that?!”

“I DON’T KNOW IF YOU SEE WHAT I SEE, JERRY,” he said simply, and strolled off towards the master bedroom.