Lily didn’t know whether to be elated or furious.

This entire time, Tom had been behaving like he was in a horror movie, like getting shorter was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. He’d made her beg him to give up some of his size for her. He made her feel like a monster for taking a pinch more than they’d agreed on. And then, he’d come to her feigning pity, acting as if he could give her a little more as some grand gesture of love and self-sacrifice.

And all the while, that little shit had been just as into it as she was!

His little Freudian slip had been the stray thread that let her finally unravel his facade. How quickly he’d forgiven her; his apparent panic when she talked about growing; his complete and unquestioning commitment to their deal; the way he’d been so agreeable to all of her photo sessions.

He wasn’t afraid of shrinking; he was afraid of how badly he wanted to shrink. It was the middle of the night, and Tom was snoring softly next to her. She had half a mind to see how close she could get him to coming before he woke up.

But no. No, that was not how she was going to play this.

Listen, she thought as she stared up at the dark ceiling of their bedroom. She supposed she was… praying? I don’t know what you are, or how you’re doing this to us, but I know full well that you’re listening. We wouldn’t have landed so cleanly on 5’6” if you weren’t taking our thoughts and feelings into account. 

She paused as if expecting a response. None came.

It’s clear that, for some reason, you’re not going to let us stop having sex. You’re not going to be happy unless we’re fucking, unless we’re changing each other. But I think, as long as you get your way on that, you can be negotiated with. And I want to negotiate.

You want me to get bigger? You want Tom to shrink? Fine. I want that too. But it’s going to be on my terms: I’m not going to force it on him. I don’t even think I need to, since I’m pretty sure he wants it just as much as us.

I guess the first step is proving that. I think I’m right, but I can’t go forward with this unless I’m positive.

She began to formulate a plan. Tomorrow morning, she’d kiss him. With the way the curse influenced their libidos, even a quick peck on the cheek should get his blood pumping. After that, she’d start teasing him about his size. Maybe… oh! Maybe she could get him to compare weights with her! Now that they were the same height, they probably weighed about the same. She might even edge him out by a couple of pounds. She’d tease him about how he weighed the same as his dainty little wife, his wife who was now, strictly speaking, taller than him. She’d gauge his reaction, and see how it compared to his response to the kiss. If the teasing had a bigger effect on him, then, well…

This was a good plan. God, just thinking about seeing him squirm was making her wet. Was she sure she didn’t want to try and jerk him off in his sleep?

No, now see, that’s exactly what we need to negotiate about. For this to work, I need to be able to play it cool. I can’t control this situation if I can’t even control myself. I’m on your team now, so you don’t need to keep punishing me for not going along with you. Once I know for certain that Tom likes this as much as me, we can do this the right way, and I can have a clear conscience about it. And if I’m wrong, if he’s not into it… then I guess we’ll just have to go back to seeing whether or not I can wait you out.

There was still no response, and Lily still felt horny as hell. She rolled over, turning her back to Tom as she slid her fingers under her waistband. For the first time in a while, she felt good about tomorrow.

Nine hours later, Lily was ecstatic. Her plan had gone so much better than she could have imagined!

God, she never would have guessed that he weighed so much less than her now! He really didn’t look that skinny. Seeing 115 on the scale had sent such a thrill through her that she almost dropped the act and took him right there in the bathroom, but honestly, she was so glad she’d stayed strong. All of those pitiful little expressions he cycled through while the fuses blew in his head would be cherished memories for the rest of her life. Ugh, she should have thought to set up a camera in here beforehand!

Oh well, there was always next time.

With Tom hiding in the other bathroom, Lily started to calm down, and curiosity got the best of her. Why did he weigh so much less than her? Shouldn’t they be more or less the same? She didn’t really look more than, maybe ten pounds heavier than him? Where were the other thirty hiding?

She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that these weren’t their “natural” heights. Lily studied her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t given it much thought until now, but she supposed she didn’t really have the body of a 5’6” woman. She had the body of a 4’9” woman who just happened to be 5’6”. And for Tom, it would be the opposite; he had the body of a 6’3” man scaled down. Maybe all those subtle differences in their proportions explained the weight gap?

She wondered if Tom was finished downstairs yet. Poor little guy… Heh. Even though they were still the same height, she was starting to think of him as a “little guy.” 5’6” was pretty short for a man, but it was more than that, and it was more than her weight advantage, big as it was. All of his skittishness and anxiety, combined with the complete meltdown she’d just witnessed…he just felt smaller to her now. Even though he could look her straight in the eye, everything about him just screamed “little.” It was as though his current stature was no different from that oversized old shirt he was wearing. 5’6” was far too big for him, ill-suited to the much smaller man she could see inside him, and she needed to help him shed it, help him into a size that fit him better.

She felt the heat start to build within her.

No. Not yet. Be patient. If we take this too fast, we’ll scare him off.

To her delight, the heat began to fade. The magic was listening to her.

Casually, she descended the stairs and lightly knocked on the bathroom door.

“You okay in there, Tom?”

“Uh, yeah! Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered. “I just uh. I just had a stomach ache.” She covered her mouth to keep from laughing at his obvious lie.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Just like she had all morning, she put a bit of a doting, patronizing edge in her voice. “Do you need any medicine from upstairs?”

“I-I think I’m okay. I shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” She turned to walk away… but she just couldn’t help herself. She leaned her back against the door, arms crossed, and turned her head to talk over her shoulder.

“But yeah, isn’t that crazy Tom? I never would’ve guessed that I was so much heavier than you now. It’s so weird!”

No response.

“Tom?”

“Sorry! I, uh… it’s just that I’m… trying to concentrate.” She snickered into her hand. Yeah, I bet you are.

“Okay babe, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need any help!”

Lily chuckled, then felt her stomach growling, reminding her that she hadn’t had breakfast yet. She strolled into the kitchen and grabbed the carton of eggs out of the fridge. She’d never had much of an appetite, and one egg had always been plenty for her.

Today, she decided to have two. No, three.

After all, I’m a growing girl.

* * *

Tom felt a kinship to the squirrel out the window.

It was the following morning, and once again, he was up early, alone in the kitchen. Holding a large mug of black coffee, he was standing at the sliding-glass door that led out to their modest backyard, watching. There was a single small tree out there, and a squirrel was maneuvering between its branches. Some cat from the neighborhood had hopped their fence and sat at the base of the tree, staring up with rapt attention, tail twitching. Now and then, the cat would lower itself into a pouncing stance, then relax and think better of it, waiting for a more opportune moment to strike. Looking for the perfect moment to scale the tree and grab the squirrel in a single fluid motion. The squirrel would wander out to the edge of a branch, searching in vain for an escape route before gingerly retreating and trying a different, equally futile direction. Now and then, the cat would move to a different position, never letting the squirrel stray from its sight.

The squirrel was trapped. It was only a matter of time before the cat caught it.

Yesterday had been, blessedly, a workday. Lily had tried to insist he stay home, since he’d feigned illness to explain his sprint to the bathroom. She tried to get him to climb back into bed and let her take care of him, her voice dripping with the same innuendo that it had all morning. He managed to convince her that he was feeling fine, and got to spend the entire day at work cooling down. He barely got anything done all day, spending most of it trying to figure out what the hell had happened that morning. What had prompted the sudden change in his wife’s behavior? In less than a day, she’d gone from depressed and sexually frustrated to a flirtatious beam of sunshine. If the curse was making her too horny to focus, the way it was with him, she certainly wasn’t showing it.

Why had she become so obsessed with his weight all of a sudden? Why did she make him weigh himself in front of her like that?... Does she know? Does she know that, for some reason, the curse wasn’t just causing his arousal to surge, but was causing it to surge even more intensely for taller women? For… larger women? How could she know that? He hadn’t said anything about it, to her or anyone else. Lily’s smart, and she’s your wife. She knows how to read you. He must have said something, done something, that had given it away.

But then… if she was doing this on purpose, then why would she torture him like this? Why would she drive him crazy when she was now the one barring them from having any further sex? He’d already volunteered to give her more size the day before, and she’d refused him. What else could she want out of him, if not that?

Before he knew it, it was time to leave, and he’d made no progress on either his work or any of these questions. He could just ask her directly, of course… but, no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to admit to her that he nearly came right in front of her just because he learned that she outweighed him (by forty pounds!!). He couldn’t bring himself to admit that the vision that haunted him, the vision that seemed to drive all the blood in his body into his groin, was the vision of Lily’s beautiful, smiling face, pushing further and further away from him as she rose larger and larger. He knew that if he tried to confront her about her behavior, she’d make him own up to why that behavior had made such an impact on him, and he just couldn’t do it.

So all he had were questions.

Lily was much calmer when he got home that night. She mostly left him be to do her own thing about the house, though every now and then he caught her looking at him with a knowing smile. He could feel her daring him to say something. He didn’t.

But today was Saturday. It was him and Lily together, all day long.

The squirrel was trapped in the tree.

“Tom, are you busy?” Her voice called from upstairs. He gripped his coffee mug tighter.

“Uh, no, hon, what is it?”

“Could you come up here?”

He took a deep breath. He had no good reason to avoid her. He downed the rest of his coffee, steeled himself, and went up to meet her.

Lily was in her office, making some adjustments to the studio lights. He noticed an old folding table and chairs resting against the far wall. When did she get that stuff down from the attic? They don’t look dusty. He hadn’t been in here in over a week, not since they’d completed their deal.

“I know it’s a sore subject,” Lily said as she moved to another piece of her lighting rig, “but it hit me last night that we technically have one more photo session to do. We never documented that last millimeter.”

“O-oh… Uh… I dunno if I really feel like doing that, Lily…”

Lily smiled at him sympathetically, moving toward him to put a hand on his shoulder. “Please, Tom? These sessions were the most fun I’ve had taking pictures in years, and there hasn’t been any excuse to do them since we stopped having sex. It’s just one more.”

Tom sighed; he’d frankly been expecting a lot worse than this. “Okay. Just one more.” Lily beamed at him.

Like always, Tom went first. He approached the height chart, looking nearly a foot overhead at the 6’3” mark. It was so far away. It was hard for him to believe that he’d ever been that tall. 

He swallowed his nerves and smiled for the camera.

Lily took her own picture next, and then directed him to cycle through all their standard poses as the camera snapped away. He stood next to her, he embraced her, he held a finger to the height chart as she stood rigidly against it. They had gotten it down to a pretty set routine by the end, and he’d basically memorized the marks she wanted him to hit without much guidance.

But this time, it seemed like she had a few new ideas.

“Pick me up!”

“What?”

Lily stood in front of him, snaking her arms around his neck. “I said, pick me up!”

Tom gulped. “I’m… I’m not sure I can, anymore.”

“Oh come on, I’m not THAT heavy. You can do it!”

155 pounds was pretty heavy. It was also about 1.3 times Tom’s new body weight (don’t focus on that, that’s what she wants). As he looked into Lily’s unwavering eyes, however, he realized that he wasn’t going to get out of this without at least making the attempt. He filled his lungs and crouched to get an arm hooked behind her knees and lifted.

And nearly fell over, her mass compromising his balance.

“C’mon, you can do better than that!” Lily admonished. Tom felt like he had something to prove now. He spread his feet apart into a more solid stance and squatted, wrapping his arms around her again.

His entire body shuddered in protest at the weight, his arms and legs trembling as he struggled to straighten himself back out, the soft clicking of the camera drowned out by his grunting.  He couldn’t do it. Every muscle failed at once. Lily let out a yelp of shock as she went crashing to the floor, her interlocked fingers behind Tom’s neck bringing him down on top of her.

“Oh my God Lily, are you okay?! I am so, so sorry.” Tom scrambled backwards. His wife had largely broken his own fall, though his knees had hit the floor hard.

Lily burst out laughing. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just took me by surprise, that’s all.” Tom offered his hand and Lily, still laughing, used it to climb to her feet.

“Gosh. So you can’t pick me up anymore. That’s wild.”

Tom broke eye contact and looked away. “Y-yeah.”

“I mean, I think you used to be able to lift me with one arm. Or, remember that music festival we went to? I was too short to see over the crowd, so you had me sit on your shoulders all night long. And now, I’m too heavy for you.” She took a step toward him, and Tom instinctively took a step back, some animal ancestor deep in his brain issuing a warning to give the predator approaching him a wide berth.

“I’ve got just two more ideas for this session, and then you’re free to go. Would you help me set up the table and chairs?” She turned to head toward the card table, shooting him a seductive look from over her shoulder when he didn’t immediately follow. 

He quickly caught up to her, and together they set the table up in the center of the camera frame, a chair on either side. Lily took a moment to adjust the camera lower, then took a seat and gestured for Tom to do the same.

As he sat down, she placed an elbow on the table, her open fingers pointed upward.

“Let’s arm wrestle.”

Outside, the cat’s tail twitched.

Lily didn’t say anything else. She just sat there, waiting patiently, a smug smile on her face. Tom could feel his heart beating faster, and adjusted in his seat as his penis pressed against the crotch of his pants. Lily was much heavier than him now, and she’d just proven that he was way, way weaker than he used to be. Was it… was it possible that he was weaker than her?

His pants grew even tighter, to the point that it was starting to hurt.

That couldn’t be right. They were still the same size! It’s not like those forty extra pounds were all muscle. Besides, aren’t guys supposed to be stronger than girls? Something about muscle density?

He could do this. He could beat her. The camera continued clicking away as he slowly raised his arm up onto the table, clasping her hand in his.

“Ready?” she asked. Tom nodded. “Set.” She briefly opened up her hand and then closed it again, clasping one finger at a time. “Go!”

Tom threw everything he had behind his arm. This wasn’t the time to go easy on her or make it last. He needed to win. The sudden burst of force clearly caught Lily off-guard, and he managed to push her hand nearly halfway to the table.

But then, she caught up to him.

She wasn’t completely overwhelming him. She was struggling just as much as he was, her arm shaking, her face red with effort. But as she groaned through gritted teeth, their arms slowly but surely inched back to the neutral position, and then kept going. Tom drew on every ounce of strength he had in him, but no matter how hard he pushed, no matter how loud he shouted, his hand continued to creep slowly but surely toward the table.

I’m weaker than my wife. The thought hit him like lightning, sending a jolt of shameful pleasure through him that broke his concentration. His hand slammed into the table all at once.

“You did really good, Tom,” Lily said through labored breaths. “You honestly made me work for it.” She made no move to release his hand or let it up, and the torsion was starting to hurt his arm. He tried to retract it, but found that she was still pinning it down with her full strength. He looked from their hands to Lily, who was staring at him hungrily. He pulled and pulled, but he couldn’t break her grip. He jumped to his feet, his knees knocking over the flimsy card table, but still Lily had his hand. His panic increased and he tried to run to the door, but only made it a few staggering steps before Lily clamped her free hand around his wrist.

Twisting him around, she shoved him toward the height chart, and suddenly she was right there with him, pressing him against the wall with her full weight. After what had just happened, he doubted he could push her off, but he was so stunned that he didn’t even try.

“So, now we’ve proved it,” Lily said in a low, growling voice. “I’m bigger than you. I’m heavier than you. And I’m stronger than you. That means… I can do whatever I want to you, right?” Tom’s jaw went slack as he shivered in fear.

“Right?”

“Y-y-y-yes. Right.”

“That’s right. I can do whatever I want to you. But I’m not going to. Do you know why?”

Tom tried and failed to find any other words, so she simply shook his head.

Instantly, Lily’s face softened into a kind, warm smile. “Because I love you, silly! You’re my whole world. And just because my world’s gotten a little smaller lately doesn’t mean I love it any less.” She kissed him, and he felt his fear instantly dissolve against the softness of her lips. Her tongue pushed its way into his mouth, and he let out a soft moan.

Lily broke off the kiss and smiled at him again. There was still something powerful and intimidating about her, but at the moment that just seemed to magnify the impact of that radiant grin. This close, it was almost more affection than Tom could stand, and he involuntarily squirmed against her heavier body.

“And because I love you, instead of doing whatever I want to do to you, I’m only going to do what you want me to do to you.” Still leaning against him, she slowly lowered herself onto her knees, and began unfastening his pants. “And I think what you want me to do is suck your cock.”

“Lily, we, we can’t… I’ll get…”

“I know, I know! That’s why I’m only going to do what you want me to do. All you have to do is say ‘stop.’ Just say ‘stop,’ and I’ll back off. You have all the control here.”

How could she say that, after what she’d just done to him? She knew what she was doing. She knew how the curse worked. How was he supposed to—

Tom let out a long, low moan as Lily’s hand cradled his balls. She slowly drew her hand back, delicately running a single fingertip down the length of his shaft. “Just one word, baby. S, T, O, P. Just say ‘stop’ and that’s exactly what I’ll do. Your devoted wife is only here to do as you tell her.”

His lips trembled in pleasure as he struggled to make the sound of an S.

“I do have to say, it’s nice to get confirmation that you’re still happy to see me,” she said, nuzzling her face into his groin, sneaking in a kiss against his inner thigh. “You’ve looked so scared all morning, a girl could get the impression that you don’t like her anymore.”

Tom screwed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate. Just four letters. S! S!

“But I get it, baby, I do. Things probably are pretty scary for you, now that you’re so little.” His dick twitched on the word “little,” and Lily responded by kissing the side of the shaft, causing Tom to gasp like a drowning man.

“You’re so little now, and everyone else seems so much bigger than they used to be. And your sweet, tiny wife, petite little Lily, she’s bigger than you are now!” She continued to plant small kisses all along his length.

A thought managed to penetrate Tom’s euphoric haze: the camera was still clicking. She’s shooting all of this?

“And she’s been bullying you all morning, hasn’t she? Well, she feels bad about how mean she’s been. And that’s why she’s going to make it up to you, going to give you exactly what you want.” She opened her mouth wide and slid her lips around his dick, slowly taking more and more into her mouth before reversing course. Tom’s knees began to go weak as she went back and forth, back and forth, but he clenched his fists and struggled to speak.

“S-s-st… St… St…”

Lily immediately stopped moving and released Tom from her mouth. The sudden removal of her touch made Tom involuntarily howl in frustration.

“Tom? Are you trying to say ‘stop?’”

Tom panted wordlessly. He started to instinctively move to stroke himself, but Lily took each of her hands in his.

“Tom? What are you trying to say?”

“P-please…”

“Please what, baby?”

“Please… please don’t stop…”

Lily heaved an affectionate sigh and cuddled her face into Tom’s belly. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” She took his cock back into her mouth and started working back and forth again, this time teasing his tip with her tongue. In no time, Tom came, his entire body shaking violently with pleasure. Lily continued to suck and lick as his legs gave out from under him and he slowly slid to the ground. As she let his penis slip out of her mouth, she moved to embrace him, lightly scratching the back of his head as he went completely limp in her arms.

“I guess we’ll need to do another photoshoot tomorrow.”

The cat strutted down the sidewalk, trilling proudly as it carried its fresh kill in its jaws.