“That’s pretty ballsy, dude.”

That was Garren, a long time friend of mine. He was a forty foot Brob to my six foot Lillian, and here in this Brob-centric city, he was my roommate and guardian, helping me do what a Lillian can’t with my size disproportion to the city. Living in the Cypress district (for 20-50ft Brobs), I was fine where things could be done digitally, but for getting around and moving things, Garren was my chauffeur.

Today was a little different, though. I needed Garren to do something a little out of his own league. He was going to be my middle man, my wing man.

Tanna Han, a striking Brob woman of some indescribable pedigree, was coming to town today. A well known star for working in ‘larger than life women’ advertisements which featured a giant woman walking through a small city. She was a perfect four hundred and ninety-nine feet tall, just under the height limit for Brobs allowed into Lillian cities, which made her a hot candidate for live ad campaigns which pushed for big spectacles. Her favorites were when she was advertising for shoes or cars, she once said in an interview. Those usually had her stepping on something, it seemed, and rumors of a crush fetish circled around the media.

Maybe as a move to stymy the bad press, Tanna had launched a campaign of her own. Inviting Lillians from around the country, she was offering a chance to meet up with her personally, with the promise that she’d reward the first to satisfy her with a generous gift. Her only condition, as she put it, was: “Survive me.”

A few Lillians had tried already, but were scared away the moment they saw her feet eclipsing buses as she made her way through their cities. A few didn’t even manage to get her attention as it was hard to differentiate one speck from another beneath her, and she left without seeing them. One who did get her attention put up a brave front for a while, but the sheer difference in size meant that Tanna couldn’t even see or hear what the participant was doing most of the time, and he quickly gave up. With that, she left and was now travelling to entertain the next candidate for her little game: me.

I was pretty confident. I’ve lived amongst Brobs all my life, so I was used to big people. Garren was there to help me get Tanna’s attention, and help set some things up. After that, it was all on me to keep the fire going. I’d succeed where others have failed, and get a day with my favorite actress all to myself. With a prize at the end, to boot.

We were engineering students, Garren and I, and it just so happened that we specialized in making communication systems. Tanna wouldn’t give her phone number out to the participants, so we thought we’d hook her up with a little custom device like a walkie talkie so I’d at least be able to start a conversation. I had an inflatable human hamster ball if she wanted to get physical, so she didn’t need to worry about squashing me.

We were meeting in an open lot downtown, and ahead of us were a gathering of journalists, notepads and cameras in hand. Most of them were freelance, probably writing for tabloids about Tanna’s scandal. They seemed completely uninterested in me, and just shuffled past Garren and I as they waited for her arrival.

“You sure about this, Derrick?” Garren asked me again.

I was sitting on his shoulder, impatiently drumming my fingers against my thigh. I regarded my friend for a bit and shrugged. “Too late for regrets,” I said.

I felt Garren shrug his other shoulder, and we just looked on in silence. We were here a bit earlier than our appointed time, but Tanna was already running ten minutes late. What was keeping her?

A low rumble shook the ground. It sounded like a truck falling through a pothole, only that Brobs didn’t have vehicles on their roads; no technology in the world was strong enough to support them. The rumbling got more intense, and I saw the Brobs around me look nervously at their surroundings. People who were four to ten times larger than me were scared, something I never thought I’d see, and began looking for places to take cover. The rumbling had magnified into powerful, singular thumps, shaking the ground so hard that I had to hang onto Garren’s shirt to keep my balance. There was no doubt as to who was making them.

Sure enough, rounding from the corner of an intersection, a great sandaled foot thrust out, sending a few Brobs yelping away as they dodged the giant tread. Instantly, the pedestrians plastered themselves against the walls of nearby buildings, making way for the inevitable footfall of a second gigantic foot following the first. Thump, thump, thump, the sandaled feet put themselves one ahead of the other, carelessly unimpeded by the crowd in their way. Men and women hurried to give way to this two-legged parade, some narrowly dodging in time as a foot sailed right past them. The feet, I saw, belonged to a woman who, relative to the buildings around her, looked maybe seventy-five feet tall. She had tanned skin, a mysterious coloration combined with creamy brown hair in large, wavy locks highlighted with red stripes, billowing against either side of her sharp, predatory face, smiling foxily with pearly white teeth and resplendent blue eyes, a face and smile which many ad agencies would kill to put in their photags. A tight golden dress without sleeves covered her from her shoulders all the way to her knees, glitter twinkling against the sunlight as she moved. She wouldn’t be out of place in a pop concert, and she would deserve it. Every part of her was majestic.

I looked up in awe. The Brobs around me might have thought Tanna looked big, but to a Lillian like me, she was on a scale incomprehensible to me. She was a giant amongst giants, standing so tall that Brobs whom I’d routinely worry about stepping on me were only able to measure up to her ankles. The cameramen amongst the journalists had to point their cameras almost ninety degrees up just to get a good shot of her, and as the distance between them and her disappeared, it was all but impossible to get a full body shot of her anymore. A throng of questions were thrown at her, Brob journalists scrambling to question her at her feet. They looked like guppies feeding from the edge of a pond, massed together and eager for this massive person above to feed them some juicy info.

Tanna smiled. She ignored the journalists and deliberately stepped her way through them, sending some flying onto their backs. She took a step in Garren’s direction and I gulped. The foot was large enough to engulf him beneath its enormous sole. I would be so small to her that stepping on me probably wouldn’t even register against her skin. This was the power of a five hundred foot Brob, so unfathomably large that even Brobs gave way without question.

I gulped. This was who I was dating today.

Tanna brushed a lock of hair aside dramatically and shoved her hip to the side, standing in a seductive pose. “Hello, boys,” her silky voice reverberated through the air, “I’m looking for a Derrick Miles. Nobody’s already stepped on him, I hope?”

There was some laughter from the crowd around her, but no real response. I turned to Garren and smacked him. He was staring up at Tanna with bulging eyes.

“Garren!” I shouted, “Why aren’t you calling for her?!”

“S-she’s...so big,” Garren muttered, his eyes unable to unglue themselves from the massive Brob above him. There were definitely other guys who were taller than Garren around, but this must have been his first time actually seeing someone tower over him so completely.

“Look, she’s not going to pick me up herself,” I said, “Just hurry up and call for her.”

Garren continued staring for a good second or so, then shook his head and mustered up his courage. With one hand, he waved to the massive Tanna above, shouting, “H-hey!”

Instantly, Tanna looked his way and took two steps to put herself directly before Garren’s now shaking form. She bent down, giving him a closer look, her giant face eclipsing the sun above, covering both Garren and I in shadow. Her right hand came down onto the ground to support herself, crashing down beside Garren. Had it landed even a little closer to us, Garren and I would have been carelessly swatted to death.

Tanna’s face was right above us. At first she regarded Garren with those bright blue eyes, scrutinizing him with such intensity that Garren’s legs buckled from the pressure and fell over. I tumbled along with him, but managed to cling onto his shoulder. I wanted to call out Garren for being so clumsy, but when I looked up, I realized Tanna’s gaze had affixed itself onto me.

“Ah, there you are,” Tanna said in delight, the sheer force of her voice shaking me to my bones. It was like a hundred speakers were directed at me, broadcasting her words to me at maximum volume. “I had wondered why you’d be in a Brob city, but it looks like you’ve friends to help you. Clever, clever.”

“T-Tanna Han!” I shouted, waving to her frantically. She just seemed to ignore me, though; I was too small for her to even hear me, just like some bug skittering about below. This was where I needed Garren, and I gave that useless, shivering Brob a swift kick to his chin to get his attention.

“Quick!” I shouted, “Give her the comm rings! I can’t do anything, otherwise!”

Garren just looked blankly for a while, then remembered what he was here for and nodded. He took out two enormous ring bands from his bag out, each fitted with a mic and speaker within, and held them up with trembling hands.

“U-um...Miss Tanna,” Garren said squeamishly, still shaken by being close to someone this large, “These are c-communicators we made for you, one speaker f-for your ear and one mic for y-your toe, you’ll be able to speak with Derrick with t-these…”

Tanna reached for the rings with her free hand, but instead of taking them, she wrapped her fingers around Garren’s considerably smaller arms, clutching them firmly in her grasp. Garren yelped, but was unable to escape. Tanna only smiled, pulling the forty foot brob up effortlessly like a doll.

“You must be Derrick’s friend, then?” Tanna said, bringing Garren up to her eye-level, “The both of you have certainly come prepared. Did you make these yourselves, love?”

“U-uh, yeah,” Garren stuttered, “W-we’re both from Cypress University, a-and we m-made them as a s-school project…”

“That’s sweet of you two,” Tanna said with a bright smile. She lowered Garren into her other hand and brought him up to her cheek. She struck a pose, holding up a peace sign as she looked toward the gathering journalists before her. The cameras clicked furiously as she said, “Cypress University engineers, ladies and gentlemen, helping Brobs like Tanna get her Lillian date!”

There was a brief laughter and an applause from the crowd around Tanna. She let Garren clip a ring to her ear, then put him down at her feet so he could slip the other one on her second toe. With a wiggle, she confirmed the ring was comfortably fit on, and gave Garren a pat on his head with her massive palm. It threw him back onto the ground again, but this time, I saw that he had a slight blush on his cheeks.

I felt a bit left out, what with Tanna giving all her attention to Garren and the press. It was getting on my nerves that I was so far unnoticed when it was my time to shine, so when Tanna suddenly slammed her foot down right before me, I was shocked out of my slump.

“So, little man,” Tanna said, her eyes looking directly at me, “How do your rings work?”

I trembled, the force of her footfall still fresh in my mind. I was close enough to her toes that I could reach out to touch them, but I was much too afraid to move at all. I looked up; from my sitting position, Tanna’s toes were even taller than me. I marvelled at how her face above was slightly obscured by the long, white nail of her big toe, and at how the underside of the toe bulged out from her sandal toward me. The great ball of flesh that eclipsed my tiny figure was only the tip of the toe of this titanic giantess! A part of me just wanted to run.

“I-I-I…” My words were slurred, and I babbled some incomprehensible lines out before stopping to calm myself. I straightened myself out and stood up on shaking legs, trying to compose myself before Tanna. Conveniently, she had placed the foot with her toe ring in front of me, so it was only a matter of speaking near enough to the mic for my words to be heard. “I-if you can hear me, then it means the comm rings are working.”

“I couldn’t hear you there, sweetie,” Tanna said, cupping her hand around the comm ring dangling from her ear, “The toe ring’s picking up too much static. Could you be a darling and check it for me?”

I looked at the toe comm ring. We had tested it before bringing it here today, so there shouldn’t have been any problems. Did a wire get loose when Garren put it on her? I didn’t have much of a choice if Tanna couldn’t hear me properly, so I began my way up to the ring.

It was a surreal experience, climbing my way to Tanna’s toes. The sandal’s sole was pretty tall from my point of view, midway up my thigh, so I needed to pull myself up to get atop the massive footwear. I had slid myself between her big and second toes, and I noticed that I wasn’t much taller than the huge digits on either side of me. Gigantic. It was like standing in a corridor made of flesh. The narrow space between the toes was large enough to stand in without contact with either wall, and I nervously edged my way through the claustrophobic trench.

I was right between the bulge of the toe tips. I put my hand on each side to push myself in further. As if in response, the walls of flesh suddenly enclosed themselves around me, sandwiching me in her toe grip. I yelped as titanic forces conspired to crush me between Tanna’s digits, but no sound left my throat as I was pressed deeper into the soft pad of her big toe. I struggled, but Tanna had me firmly clamped down, and if she felt any resistance from my diminutive flailing, she didn’t show it. Instead, I felt the world shift as Tanna shot out her leg, lifting me toward  where the throng of reporters were still standing. I felt her grip on me loosen, and through a tiny gap between my toe prison, I saw a stream of camera flashes illuminate my vision.

“See, folks,” Tanna’s voice boomed overhead, “Tanna Han’s not in the habit of crushing such cute little men. She’s extra gentle to even the smallest of fans, isn't that right, Derrick?"

I gasped. She would obviously use me to further her agenda of clearing her name of that crush fetish rumor, but I never thought she'd be this bombastic about it. The journalists looked eager for me to answer, and several cameras were already held close, almost filling the entirety of my view.

"Er," I said awkwardly. From the position I was in and the attention I was getting, there wasn't anything that wasn't awkward about my situation. It was hard to even talk, on account of Tanna Han’s toes enveloping me. Still, I played out the role I was given, and said to the press, "Y-yes, I'm fine...it doesn't hurt at all."

I was surprised that I was actually speaking truthfully. Giving myself a second look, not a nerve in my body screamed of pain, and despite being nestled between this woman's toes, her soft pads made it quite comfortable to be here, if a little warm. It was amazing to me just how gentle her handling of someone as tiny as me could be.

There was a brief silence as the reporters jotted down what they witnessed, but as soon as they lifted their heads again, they were looking at Tanna instead of me. A rapid barrage of questions shot toward the towering beauty, but Tanna only smiled at the hungry press.

"Sorry, my darlings," Tanna said, getting to her feet, "But my time today is with Derrick here. Don't forget catch me in tonight's Embrace commercial! The sandals I'm wearing now were specially supplied by them."

I just hung on as the world shook around me. If Tanna's toes weren’t holding me firmly, I would have been flung out from her sandals the moment she walked. I held onto the ribbed grooves of her skin, hanging on tight as her foot slammed down against the ground as she took another step.

I bellowed from the top of my voice desperately, "Tanna! Tanna, stop! Just let me fix your ring! TANNA!"

The shaking stopped. I picked myself up, having fallen all the way to the back of Tanna's toe space, and shook my head. What had happened? Surely Tanna hadn't heard me when I yelled out. I still needed to fix the-

"Oh, I'm sure you don't have to," I heard Tanna say high above me, "After all, I could hear you perfectly fine, love."

I blinked. Looking up into the sky, I saw Tanna's brilliant face grinning down mischievously on me. Her one hand was held against her ear, listening to my heavy breathing as she watched me from on high.

"You...you lied to me!" I shouted angrily.

“Just this once,” Tanna said as she flicked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, “I did something without your consent. The quickest way to shoo away the press is to put on a show, I found, enough for them to write an article about at least. If I decide to do anything else in the future, I’ll let you know in advance. Won’t you forgive me this one time, love?”

I just sat there sullenly between Tanna’s massive toes. I didn’t like being toyed with like this, but I’ve already come this far. I was really going out with Tanna Han, right of this moment, and I wasn’t going to let a small incident like that stop me from enjoying the rest of the day.

“Alright,” I said, getting to my feet and making my way to the edge of the sandal. Before I could leap off, though, the two walls of flesh began to close around me again, squeezing me one last time before I could make the jump.

“Thanks, love,” Tanna called up from above, giving me what amounted to a hug with her toes. Trapped as I was, I couldn’t see what was going on outside, but I felt the world fall away from me, like I had just risen twenty stories into the air instantaneously. The vertigo was nauseating, and I couldn’t help but feel the contents of my stomach were about to spill against Tanna’s toe. I felt the walls around me give way, and all of a sudden, I was tumbling from Tanna’s tilted foot, falling into the air from two hundred feet. I yelped as I saw for the first and maybe last time the bird’s eye view of the Cypress district. I prayed the tarmac below would miraculously turn soft and catch me.

Strangely enough, I got my wish. Only, I had fallen a grand total of ten feet, and landed on something far softer than what tarmac would suggest. I groaned, rolling off my stomach and nursing a throbbing pain in my shoulder, and saw a huge expanse of grooves and fair skin stretch out in all directions around me. I had fallen into Tanna’s palm.

Up above, I saw the face of my date closer than ever before. It still felt distant, with the entire range of her abdomen and chest rising up from where I was, but even then, Tanna’s face filled a good portion of the sky as she looked down at me. Her facial features were more distinct now; her brilliant eyes were highlighted with a dark shade of mascara, bringing out the silvery-blueness to its full potential. Her cheeks were lightly powdered, just enough to get that faint pink hue which teased out her cheeks. Her lips were glossed and retained a natural-looking color, but were so full and plump they probably didn’t need the extra redness anyway. Her mouth was pulled into a grin when she spotted me in her palm.

“Hm hm,” Tanna hummed happily, “I could almost see you now. You look so cute, little man.”

“I…” I began, not sure of how to respond, “Thanks, I guess...I- WAH!”

I felt a second burst of vertigo as Tanna brought me even higher up to her head. Now, the entire side of her head dominated my view, and in front of me was a massive cavern leading into her ear. Clipped on the lobe below, I saw, was the comm ring Garren had helped put on.

“Sorry, love,” Tanna’s voice boomed out, louder than ever before, “But you’re a little too small for me to hear. Shout so I can hear you.”

Right. I forget why we had those comm rings in the first place. Luckily, I had my own headset to tap into that speaker. I put the little device on my ear, turning it on and saying, “It’s okay, I got- ouch!”

Reverb. I was too close to Tanna’s comm ring, and my mic had picked up my voice coming from the speaker. I felt the world jerk to one side as Tanna flung her hand away from the sharp noise. I was almost thrown out of her open palm, but Tanna had the presence of mind to close her fist and trap me within. It was dark here, and I was stuck under one of Tanna’s massive fingertips. She wasn’t pressing down as hard as I thought, but I could never get used to being encased by her flesh again.

“Er, sorry,” I said as I tried to squeeze myself from under Tanna’s finger, “Technical difficulties...can you hear me?”

“I can,” Tanna said, righting her hand palm up and releasing me from her fisted grip, “Quite the contraption you have there, Derrick dear, though maybe not quite perfect yet?”

“Aha, yeah,” I laughed, “This is our first actual test run with the target user, so we might have missed out on some kinks. But anyway, we can talk!”

“Yes,” Tanna said with a smile, “We can. Shall we start our date proper, then?”

“Yeah, let’s- WHOA!” I yelled as I felt a sudden acceleration underneath me. Tanna had begun moving, and the movement was so great that I lost my balance. I fell face first into her warm, fleshy palm, and stayed there for the duration of her walk. It was different from when I was being held by her toes; I was simply being carried along with her then, but now that I was out in the open. with the air whizzing past me in a cold stream at the speeds we were going. I had to grab onto something to keep myself from shifting around too much. I just clung to the grooves of her palm as best I could, my fingers tiny enough to find its grip in such relatively shallow ridges.

“Where’s Garren?” I absentmindedly said to myself.

Tanna seemed to have heard, though, and replied, “I last saw your friend scuttering away when he finished putting on your rings for me. I suppose I am a bit intimidating.”

She laughed at her own remark in a self-deprecating way, but quickly turned her attention back to me. “So, fancy taking me anywhere, love?’ Tanna said.

“Oh,” I said, “I was thinking there were some places big enough where you can get comfortable in around the Cypress district, maybe-”

“Perish the thought,” Tanna suddenly interrupted, “I’d be glad to go anywhere! In fact, I’m permitted to go anywhere I want, even Lillian cities. Don’t hold back on my account.”

“Err...” I said. It was hard to think when you are hanging on for your life, “I don’t know about-”

“Oh, I know just the thing!” Tanna exclaimed, interrupting me once more, “I’ve had a shoot at this one Lillian city nearby before, and they simply have to most darling streets I’ve ever seen. The heels I wore there for a commercial simply matched the buildings perfectly. Let’s go there, shall we?”

“A Lillian city?” I said incredulously. A five-hundred foot Brob in such a tiny place? I couldn’t see how this could end well…

This city was named Tilonda, and was home to little over five million Lillians. It was fairly metropolitan, with skyscrapers several times taller than most Brobs, and busy streets chockful with commuters. While the roads were wide enough to accommodate an average Brob, the architects of the city never intended for one as tall as Tanna to pass through.

It was supposed to be just another day. The inanity of the daily commute would never give rise to suspicion of what was about to occur. The eastern edge of the city limits began to tremble as Tanna’s massive form came into focus in the horizon.

A police car parked behind a derelict billboard some ways away from the city was the first to feel her thunderous approach, footfalls shaking the car as each step quaked the ground. The police officer within was startled awake, having dozed off in the midday heat, suddenly aware of the looming presence that approached him. His eyes widened when all he could see were Tanna’s tanned, bare legs, with her sandal clad feet traveling toward him at frightening speeds. The police officer quickly grabbed his radio mic, but not before a tremendous force blew past overhead.

The officer gawked as he saw through his sunroof the dark shape of a massive sandal sole above, soaring past him just in time to catch a glimpse of a label that said “EMBRACE” beneath it. It landed only ten meters from the billboard, kicking up a large dust cloud as it hit the earth.

Coughing as he rolled his window shut, the officer lifted the radio mic to his mouth and said, “Border team, this is Charlie Border Patrol, I have visual on the Class D Brob. She’s coming.”

“You can’t do this!” I shouted.

We were here. A Lililian city, just as Tanna had said. All around, the buildings either didn’t reach her waist or only made it up to her shoulders. Even a thirty storey apartment would only scrape past her navel. She was a giantess in every sense of the word here, overshadowing everything before her.

Her feet filled the streets with ease. Multiple lanes crumbled with her every step, leaving a massive footprint of her sandal wherever she stepped. I couldn’t see or hear what was happening below very well, but it doesn’t take a great imagination to realize what chaos was going down below. The roads must have vehicles in them, and if she were stepping on the roads-

Tanna’s toe ring mic must be picking up the screams. If there was any indication that they were affecting her, her face didn’t show it. She simply smiled, looking ahead smugly as she continued further into the city, seemingly oblivious of the great potential for destruction her feet held for the Lillian city.

“Tanna!” I shouted again, “Stop, just stop this!”

“Why?” Came her cold, indifferent response. There was no hint of guilt for what she was doing, no sense that she was even in the wrong. She just kept walking forward, her eyes not even looking at the calamity below.

“Don’t you know what you’re doing?!” I said hysterically, “There are people...you’re just stepping on them...just...just stop, okay! I thought you were better than those rumors about you!”

This seemed to give pause to Tanna, as she suddenly halted in her tracks. I was nearly thrown off the palm of her hand by the sudden deceleration, and I just hung onto whatever I could dig my fingers into.

“So,” Tanna said, suddenly bringing me up to eye level, “You believe the rumors that I’ve a crush fetish, that I enjoy stepping on things which which fit snugly beneath my feet?”

“I...I didn’t want to believe it at first,” I said through clenched teeth, “But-”

“Then why don’t you join them, Derrick?” Tanna said with a big grin.

Without warning, I saw Tanna’s face rise further from me, the sudden sense of vertigo as the ground beneath me began to fall away, driving me into a state of panic. She was going to drop me on the ground, and she was going to crush me under her heel like everyone else. I clawed against her skin, desperate to stay onboard even as her hand began tilting. I helplessly slid off the massive surface and tumbled to the ground, right between her feet. Looking up, I could only see her giant legs straightening themselves as she got back up to her full height. Fear permeated my every pore as I watched helplessly at what she was going to do to me next…

...It was a long moment before anything happened. Tanna’s feet remained motionless on either side of me, and I could detect no murderous urge to crush me from them. I looked around confusedly, until I saw the trail of destruction Tanna had left behind her.

It was...surprising, I guess should be how it felt. The road she tread upon obviously couldn’t survive those sandals she wore, with her footprints digging several noticeable inches into the asphalt, but the streets were otherwise devoid of anything. There were no crushed cars, no trampled people, heck, there weren’t even any people around, and that was truly puzzling for Tilonda was one of the busier cities around here.

“What do you see?” Tanna asked, “Rows of mangled bodies and machinery lining the floor? Craters dripping with pools of red, made of crushed people? Tell me Derrick, are the rumors true from where you are?”

I just let my mouth hang open in disbelief. “How…”

“I registered my trip here, Derrick dear,” Tanna said. She began moving, and her foot, wide enough to occupy two lanes of the road at a time, took a step forward, the force of her footfall making me bounce from where I sat. Tanna turned around so that she was a step or two away from me, facing me. She knelt down, and the entirety of her figure began filling my peripheral vision once more.

“Cities require Brobs between two-hundred and five-hundred feet to register a few days in advance if we decided to come visit,” Tanna continued, “And where we go is also registered, so any roads we travel on are predetermined and cleared for our arrival. You didn’t honestly think I’d just waltz into one of my favorite cities whenever I wanted, did you, dear?”

“I…” I blubbered. I knew I had made a huge mistake; Tanna wasn’t a mass murderer, she clearly knew the rules which were imposed on her and obeyed them. It wasn’t even her first time in a Lillian city, and I had already assumed the worst. The rumors about her, even before we met, I knew they were false, yet I let them get the better of my judgement and made me falsely accuse her of being a monster. I had to make up to her, somehow.

“Tanna, I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh, “I...I just thought for a moment that what they said was true, and I’ve ruined the mood of the entire date because of it. You’re not a violent crush fetishist like they say you are, and I’m sorry I almost believed them, too…”

Tanna didn’t look angry, or sad, or any kind of negative, really. She still held her smile from before, as if she were enjoying herself. Tanna began to speak, but it didn’t come with any malice when she said, “So, how do you intend to fix this?”

“What?” I said, unsure of what she meant.

“Our date,” Tanna said, “You said you’ve ruined the date with your little tantrum, so how do you intend to fix it?”

“I…” I began, but was unsure how to reply. I wasn’t about to let things fall through so easily, though, so I just said whatever came to mind, “I’ll do anything!”

Tanna’s eyes seemed to brighten up at this. She shifted from her kneeling position to a sitting one, laying her massive bottom down onto the street which could only just fit her, grazing either side of the street. She took this opportunity to unbuckle her sandals and laid them behind her, letting her now bare feet air out upon the black asphalt. She slid her right foot right before me, a seventy-five foot monstrosity which now towered right above me, and she wiggled her massive toes above at my miniscule frame.

“Truth be told, Derrick dear,” Tanna said, “The rumors weren’t completely wrong. I do so love feeling something small squirming beneath my toes. I never intended to hurt anyone, but this one time, the poor boy broke some bones and needed to be hospitalized for it. I took care of his bills, of course, but it never really flew well with the press. It’s been just soooo long since I’ve had someone to play with, then.”

I looked on, her foot angling itself down until they were just a few feet from actually stepping on top of me. This was a world of heat and darkness, an oppressive narrowness which could instantly decide if I was going to be alive or be crushed here at any moment. Only by Tanna’s grace was I still spared from being a stain on the street, and I felt a great urge to run, but my body suddenly decided this would be a good time to turn all my muscles into jelly. I slumped back, unable to resist the large leathery canvas above me.

“W-what do you want me to do?” I asked in a quivering voice.

“Why, take responsibility, of course!” Tanna exclaimed, “If you make me feel good, I might just name you the winner of my little campaign.”

“A-and how do you w-want me to do that?” I asked again.

The huge digits hovering above me began to move, wiggling in a hungry, playful way. I couldn’t see Tanna’s face from here, but I knew she was still wearing that huge grin of hers. Now I knew why.

“By letting me step on you, of course,Derrick dear,” Tanna said with a short laugh, “Let me feel your tiny frame all over my sole, and I will accept your apology. All I can tell you is that for every other boy who made it this far, this was where they’ve called it quits. They didn’t dare play along with me, so they forfeited right at this moment. I could hardly care less about my own public image, my campaign was really just me looking for a new boy toy who’d play with me.”

I grit my teeth at these words. So all this while, she’s been pulling me along in the hopes that I could serve as...as some sort of plaything for her? To satiate her hunger for some sick fetish which already hurt somebody else in the past? This wasn’t how I imagined Tanna Han to be like, and I’ll be damned if I get pulled along with it.

“So, Derrick dear,” Tanna said with poisonous delight, “Just say the word, and we might begin…”

“No,” I said as sternly as I could.

There was a brief pause before Tanna registered what she had heard. “Derrick, boy, I thought I just heard you say-”

“No!” I yelled, “I won’t let you do as you please! Now I understand, you tricked me into guilt so that I might submit to you, turning me into some kind of pleasure slave for your fantasies! I’m not some hapless boy you can take advantage of whenever you please, and I won’t be swayed by fear to-”

Wham! Before I could finish, Tanna’s foot suddenly disappeared from above me, and instead slammed me right between her big and second toes. I felt the walls around me clenching me tight, and I gagged as the air was knocked out of me. I only had enough wits about me to notice that the comm ring was still around her second toe, and the microphone inside was close enough that I could make one last shout into it.

“TANNA!” I yelled into the microphone. It should be sensitive enough that my voice would blast at maximum voluume into her earring comm’s speaker. Sure enough, Tanna flinched, and the momentary relaxing of her grip gave me the opportunity to slip out of her massive digits and onto the hard ground below. I felt my knees buckling as my feet met hard ground, but I began a desperate sprint forward, away from the looming Brob.

I ran as fast as I could, but there was no outrunning a skyscraper. In an instant, Tanna slammed her foot down in my path, the resulting blast of air sending me off of my feet. In my daze, I wanted to get up, but was suddenly attacked by Tanna’s digits again. I squirmed as I struggled against the colossal strength of her toes, raking my fingers against the ground as her toes found purchase around my body and held me in their grip, lifting me up into the air.

I flailed and screamed for Tanna to let me go as she brought me higher still, until she actually did let me go, and I screamed as I began my descent down ten stories high. My landing came earlier than expected as Tanna introduced her hand beneath me, landing me back down onto the soft, fleshy palm of her hand. I could only wonder what the crazed Brob was going to do to me, now that I’ve defied her twice in a row. I clenched my eyes shut, anticipating that she was going to just swat me out of existence or something-

“You’ve passed,” I heard Tanna said.

I gingerly opened one eyelid, then another. I looked Tanna in the face, and she beamed back with a wide, sincere smile.

“I what?” I said, dumbfounded.

“I was testing you, Derrick dear,” Tanna said cheerfully, “If you were so afraid of me to bend to my every whim, or really did do as I instructed of you willy-nilly, then this would be a rather one-sided relationship, would it not?”

“Uh…” I just hung my head, unsure of how to react.

“And you were marvelous, even as I dangled my foot on top of you,” Tanna continued, “If all Lillians were as brave as you, there’d be no rumors about me having that silly crush fetish. Only a fearmongering opportunist would besmirch my name with such falsehoods.”

“Wait,” I said, “So that story of you hurting a boy-”

“Is false, yes,” Tanna said, “It’s all smoke from the tabloids, I assure you.”

I just sat back, unable to process everything I was hearing at once. Things were happening too fast for me to keep up. But before I had a chance to gather myself, Tanna held me right in front of her face, and whispered to me as softly as she could.

“You’re the winner of my little campaign, love,” Tanna said softly enough that even ten feet from her mouth, her voice was bearable to me, “You’ve managed to survive me, and I’m satisfied that you’re the man you’ve shown me to have been. Your reward-”

Tanna leaned in closer, until her mouth came crashing down upon me. I yelped as her moist lips peeled away to drag themselves across my tiny chest, pushing me down and puckering together to form the largest kiss I have ever experienced in my life. As her face lifted itself from me, I was left with a thin film of saliva from what should have been a small peck.

“-Is a favor from me,” Tanna said, “Just for today, I'll do anything you ask me to.”

I just gawked as Tanna's face returned high up above, leaving me drenched and bewildered as I sat in her hand. One moment I was being toyed with by Tanna, the next moment things turned around and I was the one who was to instruct Tanna. I didn't know how I should react; it still felt like I was being toyed with.

“You…” I began, “You'll do anything for me?”

“It’s only fair, after all I’ve done, dear,” Tanna said with that infectious smile of hers, “Anything you wish…within reason, of course. Every Lillian who has come to me had their own reason for doing so, do they not? Your reason for participating in my little game, surely it is something I can make come true?”

I sat still for a moment, lost in thought. With all the drama in the last hour, I had forgotten what I was even doing here. Why I spent all that time before making the communication rings, why I wanted to meet Tanna, and why I was so determined to win her over. The thoughts rushed back to me all in an instant.

“Tanna!” I exclaimed.

Tanna's face let out a silent, surprised gasp at the sudden intensity of my voice. My energy was enough to startle this five-hundred foot Brob; it made me feel a little pride. I quickly rode the wave of adrenaline that had washed over me and continued.

“I've always been a fan of your commercials,” I said, “And I know you've been advocating several Lillian causes for better rights in the Brob zones. I've always wondered why you were so interested in… er… our kind, and I thought this was the best shot I got to asking you. Garren and I had the comm rings made so we'd be able to talk to each other, so I'd be able to…”

My voice trailed off. My face grew hotter as I pondered my next words. I couldn't muster the right of amount of courage to finish the sentence though, and my jaw was left hanging where it was.

Tanna moved her hand up closer to her face again, beaming at me with an encouraging look.

“Well,” she said, gargantuan lips flapping mere feet from where I sat, “Don't leave me in suspense.”

I gulped. She probably didn't mean it as a threat, but my proximity to her half-open mouth gave me morbid thoughts that she might eat me if I didn't answer her.

“I...” I muttered, gulping nervously before I let out how I felt.

“I like you,” I finally said, like a sigh of relief, I felt the weight of the words leave me, “You're strong, powerful, successful, but two years ago, you donated to a charity which supported Lillian doctors in a Brob district. My family lives in the Cypress district, and Brob doctors couldn't treat Lillians one-hundred percent of the time. My sister got into an accident, and there wasn't a Lillian doctor at the time. It was only because your charity got my sister to the nearest Lillian hospital fast enough that she-”

I felt a massive fingertip plant itself into my face, smoldering me and silencing my speech. I gasped as the sudden force of being pushed back dropped me back into Tanna’s palm, and I stared up at Tanna’s ever smiling face.

“I think I've got the gist of it,” Tanna said with a smirk, “And it makes me happy that I've been able to help one of you dearies. I'm even more ecstatic that you've fallen for me, despite all I've done today. But I do want here about what you want, not your gratitude to me. Surely you’ve come to me with something in mind?”

She’s right. I didn’t come here because I wanted to thank Tanna for saving my sister or anything like that. I came here of my own volition, to express the one thing that’s been pulling at my heart for a long while.

“Go on,” Tanna said.

“I…want you…” The words came out after a huge push of courage, and I felt my heart beating insanely fast as I told this five-hundred foot tall supermodel how my pathetic little self felt about her, “I want to love you, stand by you, and be the closest one to admire you. I want to be with you, not as spectator in the audience, but a partner who’ll always be by your side. I want to go out with you, Tanna, not as your fan, but as your significant other, not matter how insignificant I may be. I...I love you, Tanna Han! Since the day I saw you, I knew I had to get you, however impossible!”

“It’s not impossible,” Tanna said, her voice still silky cool, but a luminescent blush was forming on her cheeks, “Especially if I say ‘yes’ to you right now.”

My face brightened immensely. “You really mean it?” I said.

“Of course,” Tanna said with a smile, “But accepting proposals is’t my style. My fans might think I’m being preferential.”

I felt a rush of air as Tanna’s two fingertips came toward me, clamping the entirety of my left arm and torso in a pinch. I dind’t know what she was doing, but she lifted me from her palm and brought me directly in front of her face, my legs and free arm dangling almost the full five hundred feet in the air with nothing but her grip keeping afloat. I didn’t look down, though, because I couldn’t refuse Tanna’s strong, intense yet loving stare as she brought me closer to her face.

“Would you go out with me, Derrick?” Tanna Han asked me.

“Ooh,” I cooed, suddenly realizing THE Tanna Han was confessing to little old me.A sudden rush of blood shot right to my head as I fathomed this moment which only previously existed in dreams. I was definitely turning a bright shade of red, and for a moment, I even forgot that I was hanging from a height which could easily kill me.

“I will!” I shouted, “I will, Tanna!”

With her widest smile yet, Tanna lowered me from her eye-level and brought my tiny frame down to her lips, where I received the longest, wettest and most full contact kiss in my life. Tanna’s tongue rolled out from her lips, lightly lapping at my diminutive body at first, before turning into a full lashing as I was smeared against the bumpy surface of her tongue. She even let go of me, pinning me down between her lips, letting her tongue slide across my lower body. It was electrifying, getting frenched by a five hundred foot tall brob, and being whipped around my that lump of muscle should have been a frightening experience, but I felt nothing but pleasure from having been assaulted by the giant red appendage.

When Tanna finally released me, she simply spat me out lightly onto her hand, where I was undoubtedly drenched in an unholy mix of her saliva and lipstick. Just as I thought it was over, Tanna lowered her face down for one final peck, pressing me down against her palm with those thick, plump lips of hers.

“I love you, Derrick,” Tanna proclaimed over my wet, dripping body.

“I love you, too, Tanna,” I could only reply.

The rest of our relationship wasn’t without its hiccups. We had to figure out how to do things at our different sizes, and the endless hoard of paparazzi never relented in their photos of our mismatched pairing, but that is a story for another. For now, we were happy just to be together, a 6 foot Lillian and a 499 foot Brob, and our future then looked brighter than the midday sun above...