Never, in the past two years of being roughly three inches tall, had I experienced something this surreal.

                Okay, maybe that’s an overstatement, but nevertheless, as Julia and I continue sitting here, picking awkwardly at our dinner and chatting idly, smiling like lovesick puppies at one another, I’m slowly beginning to experience an odd sensation.  After some thought, I’m able to figure out what it is.  Normalcy.  And damn, it’s been a long time.

                Most people probably wouldn’t consider this particular situation to be “normal” at all, considering my girlfriend could stab her fork through my leg, slake me through a little pool of teriyaki on her plate, and gulp me down like a piece of meat with no more exertion than extending her arm, but it’s about as normal as I can expect.

                For one thing, I’m not hungrily snatching pieces of food off of a scrap like a pet hamster, I’m sitting at a table, using tiny utensils and plates.  Weirdest of all, though, I’m not having the kinds of odd, robotically positive memory exchanges I normally have at mealtimes with my fellow shrunken cohorts.  I’m having… well, dinner conversation.  It’s with my kidnapper and I have to pretend like nothing’s wrong, which is a little awkward, but other than that, it’s totally normal. 

                “What do you want to know about me, Jack?” asks Julia invitingly, finishing up the final bites of food on her plate.

                “I… um…” I stumble, trying to find some neutral ground to keep this conversation rolling.  “Tell me about your parents.”

                “Oh.  Them,” she says, sneering a little.  “They’re annoying.  They’re almost never here, obviously, too busy with their jobs.  I… don’t really want to talk about them.”

                “Okay.  I’m sorry,” I add quickly.

                “Don’t be.  It’s not your fault.  Now, tell me about your parents, Jack,” says Julia sweetly, placing a small bite of potato on her tongue and beginning to masticate it quietly between her teeth.  For a moment, I’m distracted with fear, watching the chunk of food be ground ruthlessly between her cheeks and imagining with pulse-pounding terror that it’s me in there, but I quickly revert to forced boyfriend mode.

                “I… well, I don’t know what there is to tell, exactly.”
                “Try,” requests Julia, placing an elbow on the table and resting her chin on it, studying me intently.  “I want to hear.”

                “Um… okay, sure,” I say, my throat drying out.  “I… well, my actual parents aren’t really around anymore, but I live with fosters, have for a long time now,” I begin uncertainly.  I watch Julia’s face, obviously completely focused and hanging on each word I say.  It’s a little strange having such a massive entity of life so thoroughly engaged in what you’re saying.  It almost makes me swell with a false sense of importance.  “We sort of live separate lives.  We don’t really… you know, know each other that well.  They’re nice people, really, but…”

                “They don’t get you, do they?” interjects Julia, finishing the thought.

                “No, not really,” I answer with surprising ease as instinct gradually takes over.  She nods knowingly.

                “I didn’t think so.  Not… many people understood you, did they, Jack?”

                “I guess not.  I sort of like to keep to myself usually, it’s just who I am.”

                “I know that.  And… that’s part of why I like you so much.  Because you’re not like so many boys out there today that think it’s all about them, trying to get up in people’s faces in everything with their opinions and… oh, I don’t know.  You’re just… just…” she sighs.  “…so special.”

                “Thank you, Julia.”

                “No.  Thank you,” she insists.  “So, I guess you can see now…”

                “See what?”

                “Why this is all so good for you.  Coming here, I mean.  Back when I found you and brought you home,” she adds.

                “I…”

                “You HAVE to be able to see, Jack.  Think about it.  No one really got you out there.  Not even… your own parents.  It must have hurt to not have people understand you fully.”

                “Sometimes, yeah.”

                Slowly, Julia was leaning forward across the table, her hands flat on the wood as her face neared mine aggressively, her whisper lowering back down to that huskily sultry level.  The chills began coming back.  “And that’s why I took you.  I saw that person in you, and I knew I could save you if I just took you back home with me.”

                “S-S-Save?” I ask, surprised at this choice of words and losing my wall of confidence briefly.

                “Of course,” she smiles.  “I saved you from that big scary world out there that wouldn’t get you, or ever try to get you.  It’s a really selfish place out there full of jerks.  But… in here… there’s none of that.  I’ve given you friends, Jack.  People you can be with.  And then, well… there’s me.  I’m here for you.”

                “I know.”

                “No.  You don’t know,” corrects Julia insistently.  “I’m here for you because I brought you here for a reason.  You just weren’t working right out there on your own.  You were missing something.  And… now, you’ve finally gotten it back, and I think you know what it is.”

                “I…” I drawl quietly, my gaze drawn to Julia’s deep blue eyes as strongly as hers are to mine, although for an obviously different reason.  Her words, so mesmerizing and heavy like those of a hypnotist.  The depth of her belief in the things she’s spouting are almost as scary as the thought of watching the shadow of her shoe come crashing down on top of me.  I feel like I’m staring into the giant teenage girl version of some mad tyrant.  In a way, I suppose that’s exactly what she is.

                “Of course you know what it is,” she says, puckering her lips in a pout.  “What you needed in your life was to be ruled.  To be owned.  This… THIS… is what your life was missing.  The piece of your puzzle that you just couldn’t find.  It was me all along, a girl you never bothered to notice before, but never gave up on you because she saw the potential in you and your life.  Your potential to be mine.  All of you.  And… now that we’re here, and I know you appreciate that, we can finally be…” she said slowly, extending a finger across my tiny toy table.  “…honest with each other.”

                “Honest?  Like… how?  I thought we were honest,” I gulp nervously.

                Raising an eyebrow, Julia smirks sarcastically at me.  “Oh, don’t play innocent with me, Jack.  We both know it.  Our feelings for each other, they’re something so… much different than anything there’s been before.  Because… now that we’re on a date, we’re more than just boyfriend and girlfriend.  I… don’t know what it is, or what to call it, all I know is that I like it,” whispers Julia seductively, lapping the tip of her tongue against her lips.  “And I know you do, too, Jack.  You don’t have to hide it from me anymore.”

                Gently, her finger snakes from the table and onto my chest.  I swallow hard, leaning hard back against the plastic chair as Julia’s pointer fingertip finds its way into the coat I’m wearing, tugging lightly at it as if to loosen it.  Quickly, I place my hands on her intruding finger, stroking it to help calm the situation, and look pleadingly up at her.

                “Julia, maybe we should… keep talking about this.”

                “I don’t want to talk anymore, Jack,” whispers my date, her eyes widening unblinkingly as her finger continues groping at my chest through my doll clothes.  “I’ve waited a long, long time for you to be able to understand everything I just told you.  I… I couldn’t just tell you before.  You wouldn’t have understood.”

                “I would have, Julia, really!” I object, losing the battle with the caress of Julia’s finger.

                She shakes her head in the negative.  “No.  No, you wouldn’t have.  You would’ve been scared, just like you used to be.  And I respected that.  I knew you wouldn’t understand immediately that you were always destined to belong to me, and that you would need time to adjust to living in my house by my rules.  You would need time to learn that… your life doesn’t belong to you anymore, it belongs to me.  Just… like… the rest of you,” she coos, her finger finally victoriously breaking through the cheap Velcro of the shirt and coat.  Drawing her hand back, Julia watches with amusement as I am left shirtless on her table under the candles, grasping frantically at my clothes to try and cover myself back up.  It seems dangerous to have this much skin exposed at a time like this.

                “Leave it there,” orders Julia with a more thunderously authoritative spark in her words that instantly gets me to stop reaching for the shirt, nodding in agreement.  “And you’ve had time.  A lot of it.  And… now that we’re finally on the same playing field… we’re on a date, we’re… together, like it was meant to be, I can finally put a couple things on the table here, so to speak.”

                “Julia, please,” I beg indirectly for this to stop, clutching my arms around my sides.

                “You don’t understand how hard it’s been for me to… treat you like this.  The same as all the others, when you’re not really the same as them.  But… don’t you understand, Jack?  All of it… ALL OF IT… was for you.  So we could finally be together, here, like… this… for always,” she says softly, her hand rising up and extending towards me.  I flinch as her thumb and forefinger pinch gently around my sides, plucking me out of my chair like an after dinner mint and bringing me closer and closer to her face.

                Julia takes a sharp intake of breath, as if someone had just held her underwater for an extended period of time, as she takes in the sight of me from up closer.  She looks beyond overjoyed, like a kid set loose with unlimited access in a combination candy-and-toy store.  Her other hand comes into view, her thumb stuck up as she presses it against my abdomen, prodding curiously at me.

                “It’s like I’m… seeing you for the first time right now, Jack,” states my giant girlfriend, beginning to fondle my upper body with her thumb while her eyes remain trained on mine.  “Look at me.”

                “Okay,” I say nervously, my voice quivering, having no idea of what to do right now but simply exist in the moment as I dangle over the ground far below, clutched between the fingers of this desperate goddess.

                She smiles, licking her moist lips with a slimy tongue.  “I’m done waiting.  Come here.”