Lionel stood at the edge of the table, arms folded in a forest green wool blazer. One hand stroked his chin as he thought. In tight black jeans he leaned heavily upon one leg and let the other malinger to the side.

Margaret looked around at the other women in the group: Miriam seemed hypnotized; Laura practically had to wipe her gaping mouth; even Barbara seemed to stir fitfully in her seat, breathing deeply and glancing out the floor-to-ceiling windows to her left. Whatever she and her tiny husband were going through, she knew he was sartorially unimpeachable and took some pride in that.

“Once upon a time,” he called out, slowly, “there was a tiny little boy born to a well-to-do family. Let’s not mince words.” He looked up at the therapist sternly. How on earth did he manage his five o’clock shadow, wondered Laura, glancing at her little man, shaven down to stubble. “He was born into privilege, the son of a scholar who transitioned to government and of a woman who led the regional social chapters. They were not ashamed of their minuscule baby, as so many families are, but cherished him and raised him with all their resources until their untimely demise. Through these, little Lionel learned that his mind was his greatest weapon and his heart, his greatest vulnerability.

“School, college, a string of unimportant jobs, yadda-yadda-yadda.” Lionel waved imaginary fumes away. “What’s important is that he met a goddess on this earth, a vision from his dreams. They met in school and she claimed him, body and soul. A more than apt phrase for us, eh?” He smirked at Rodney and Brent, who nodded.

“It’s because you’re so fucking small!” crowed Miriam, grinning at her groupmates. Laura smiled weakly, but Margaret appeared to be somewhere else.

“They graduated, Lionel married his queen, and they traveled the world. Lionel could not have been happier.” He began to pace, strolling around the perimeter of the low table. “All he wanted to do was see the world and experience life, firsthand, to the fullest. Now he was doing so in the pocket of the most radiant creature imaginable. He wondered if he were dead.” He shrugged at Brent, passing him on his monstrously large wife’s bulging lap. “As if all his synapses were slowly shutting down, wrapping him in the delirium of his dearest dreams. Food, culture, amazing sex—truly, he wanted for nothing. And anything he had, his family’s estate, his upbringing and status, all of this went toward her comfort and enjoyment, happily.” He rounded the corner where one of Margaret’s slender, bare legs folded over the other. “Happily,” he iterated, locking her gaze.

“Yeah, we get it!” brayed Miriam. Brent bounced with her immense laughter.

“So, what happened.” The rhetorical question fell flat before his wife’s lap. He turned to the group. “What happened?”

“Children?” asked Laura.

Rodney nodded. “Kids’ll wreck a fuckin’ marriage.”

Brent cleared his throat to speak up but was buried in the avalanche of his wife’s abundant bosom as she bent over to crow, “She got tired of your scrawny ass, ya gold-plated toothpick!”

Lionel turned to face her, but before he could speak Barbara cut in. “Why don’t you tell us yourself, Mr. Kelley.” She sniffed hard, bit her fat bottom lip, and twisted in her seat.

He studied her for a moment before continuing. “They met a trickster god, of all things. They don’t exist in the States, where we worship Money with a capital-M and Science with a capital-S, but they still thrive in certain corners of the world. He took many forms: a tall, barrel-chested fisherman in Norway. A short, dark-skinned chef with knotted muscles and glossy hair in Thailand. A wiry dancer with salt-and-pepper hair who moved like water in a stream, in Cuba. Lionel didn’t notice these, because why would he, until she brought them home.” The tiny, elegant man paused before the Paynes. “Or perhaps Margaret never came home. Her body brought him back to the States, where they started a family”—he nodded at Rodney—“found careers and got on with their lives. Three children, all large and healthy. They grew up so fast and are all off in college. So why not travel again, said Margaret.” Lionel hugged himself and let out a long, slow breath. “But Lionel didn’t think this was to see the world as much as it was to find herself, again. Because she certainly wasn’t in the house.” He looked up at Barbara, over her firmly crossed knees. “She wasn’t in bed with him. That was for sure. Where did she go?” He spread his arms and turned to the group once more. He had nothing else to say, letting his arms fall limp as he trudged back to his wife’s corner of the table.

Without looking at him, Margaret issued a languid golf-clap, which Barbara allowed to go on for a few beats before calling for civility. “Yeah! You can tell your side of it next!” Miriam called, but Barbara shook her head at her.

“She’s not telling her side of Lionel’s story,” intoned the therapist. “Margaret is going to tell her story, complete and independent of the one we just heard. Do you understand?”

Rodney laughed, from Laura’s narrow lap. “Well, shots have been fired, haven’t they? I think we know how the rest of this is gonna go.” He folded his arms, nodding at Miriam’s thumbs-up and entirely unaware of his wife hiding her face in one thin palm.

Reclining in a white sleeveless sheath dress fronted in artistic black scribble, Margaret stared at the tiny body builder for a while. “Thanks for keeping an open mind. Let’s give the people what they want.” She glanced at Barbara, who had thrust her fists into her lap and grunted with a tight grin.

“I love Lionel. Or I did. I don’t know whether he changed or I did, to be quite honest. We’ve both been through so much.”

“Margaret,” Barbara started, but Margaret shook her head tightly.

“There was this girl, Margaret, born into means but never entitlement. She had a good heart and an insatiable curiosity. At least, all the people she admired were inquisitive and educated, so she wanted to be too. Her mother encouraged this all the way to college, when she had to let her daughter go. Margaret swam in new ideas, challenging ideas, and she met her first Tinies.”

Laura sucked in her breath at the pejorative term, but Margaret ignored this. “Of all her dangerous ideas, the only one Margaret’s mother couldn’t accept was falling in love with a Tiny. But her heroes had gotten in trouble with their parents, so she took this as a good sign. But that’s not why I fell for him.” Her brow furrowed. “I mean, why Margaret fell for Lionel.”

She sat up, tugging the hem of her short skirt down her thighs, and stared at her little husband less like a person and more like a meditative focus. “Margaret was fascinated with tiny people. She didn’t grow up with them, and then she met the smartest man she’d ever heard of, regardless of size. A little charmer who coincidentally showed up in more of her classes each semester. It wasn’t a reach at all for Margaret to seize this little man up in both fists and bring him back to her dorm and figure out how sex worked.”

She paused, leaning back in her chair, never taking her eyes off Lionel, and smiled. “Trial and error. Lots of experiments. But they figured it out. Explosive, addictive.” She looked away. “College sex. It’s never as good as that again, is it.”

Barbara looked as though she were about to say something, then swallowed it. Miriam stepped to the fore. “You kidding? I never went to college and I’ve been fucking little guys nonstop since high school!”

“Jesus Christ,” murmured Rodney, grinning at Brent.

“They traveled, they went everywhere. South America, Southeast Asia, the Eastern bloc. Museums, live bands, street food, temples, festivals.” Margaret smirked. “The worst, cheapest guesthouses from here to Budapest. But they loved it, every minute of it: Margaret nestled in the back of a sleeper bus or a puddle-jumper, with her little man snoozing between her breasts.” She placed one hand gently upon her own chest. “It’s hard to come back from that to raising a family. Diapers, groceries, meals, school supplies, all the labor that even a normal-sized man wouldn’t help out with, to say nothing of…” She traded glances with Lionel. “But she didn’t blame him, that would be unfair. Margaret knew that was the price of falling in love with an exquisite little man. He would’ve helped out if he could.”

Lionel trembled with the words he was holding back, but Margaret’s apparent generosity made it inappropriate for him to speak up. He knew this as well as she did. Margaret let him sweat it out for a moment before bringing it home. “And so it went. The children grew up and went to college, off on their own adventures. The large, messy, loud house was suddenly empty and quiet. Little Lionel wanted to establish his roots with a family, and then with the university. All Margaret had, as she worked out and gave up interesting food, as her body dried up and betrayed her, was the memory of all those beautiful neighborhoods overseas. All those bubbling clay pots and steel woks of questionable ingredients, all those strong arms working farms and hauling crates, all those loud voices singing and shouting.” She pursed her lips and turned her head aside. “At some point, that erudite half-ounce of a man became a burden, a gesture of largesse. If you’ll pardon the pun. Half an ounce of a man weighing Margaret down, holding her back from the rest of the world.”

Her head slumped, she caught her forehead in her fingertips, and her other hand waved everyone away. Miriam snorted. “Ya need a moment there, Maggie?”

Lionel wheeled around and started to say something, thrusting an accusatory arm at Miriam, but then he faltered. The words never came, he only snarled silently at the gigantic woman from across the table. Laura petted Rodney, as much to calm herself down as anything, and Brent looked as withdrawn and miserable as Margaret did.

The therapist draped elegant fingers over her mouth, and her eyes twinkled. "This has been very useful, I think. Yes, I think we're starting to make some real progress. Because what do we have here?" She sat up, adjusting her hips once more in her voluminous rolling throne. "All the cards are on the table. You've all opened up, in the ways that are most meaningful to you, and I think you've done excellent jobs. I mean, even if you haven't been precisely forthcoming or honest with yourself," she added, slyly glancing at Miriam, "you've still revealed something important about who you are and how you see things." The large woman failed to pick up on the hint.

Lionel, stranded in the middle of the table, looked over at Brent. Brent, parked on the expanse of his wife's lap, overshadowed by her tremendous chest, looked over at Rodney. Gently shrugging away his wife's huge fingertips, Rodney turned to face Barbara. "So, what now?" he called out, his face hardening. "You made us humiliate ourselves to each other in all sorts of ways. What next? We just gonna line up while you take shots at us? You know, now that you know all our personal information, you gonna attack us personally?" Without stopping him from talking, Laura's large hand nonetheless formed a protective shield around Rodney, cupping his back. He found the heat from her palm comforting.

Barbara snorted, slowly turning to regard him. "I understand your frustration, Mr. Payne, but humiliating you isn't my intent at all. No, I think we're in a very useful place right now. Miriam: what did you observe about the Paynes's relationship?"

All heads in the room turned to focus on the overly voluptuous woman, who looked surprised, then delighted by the attention. She straightened up in her loveseat, relieving her husband of the threat of being crushed by her boobs, momentarily. "Well, you've got Laura, who comes from, like, a background of not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, right? She's just kinda, should I do this or should I do that? And that goes on until she finds a little man who shares one interest with her: working out." She shrugged, setting every last roll of fat about her person wobbling. "But that's not enough, and then she's all, 'Oh! Oh no! Did I throw all my chances for something else away?' Like on the one hand, she doesn't know what she wants, but then when she makes a decision, she's obsessed with all the things she didn't choose." Miriam laughed, and her immense breasts bounced merrily. "Someone like Laura just can't win, because she'll never be happy with what she has. That's like, um," she faltered, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. "Oh, nice ceiling. Never noticed that before." Everyone looked to see what she was talking about, except for Barbara, who frowned at the distraction.

"It's like the kids say, FOMO." Miriam leaned back in her loveseat, satisfied.

If it were possible, Laura turned even paler. Her hands drifted gently to the seat of her chair, leaving her tiny husband stranded upon her thigh. "Hey, don't listen to that idiot," Rodney told her, but she gave no sign of hearing.

Lionel turned to look back at his wife. Margaret had been staring at Miriam with hooded eyes; at her husband's motion, she reached out to gently scoop him up and perch him on her bare shoulder. He gripped a slim gold hoop in her earlobe for stability.

Only Barbara seemed pleased. "That's not bad at all, Miriam. Now, what do you think of Margaret's predicament?"

Margaret shot an icy glance at the therapist, but Miriam started in immediately. "Well, if you really want to know, I actually feel kinda bad about Margaret. You know, menopause hits some people harder than others. I don't have to think about that for a while," she purred, giving her own body a once-over, "but it's doing a number on Margaret. It took her libido away, and I bet she's all dried up and sore down there."

"How dare you," Lionel whispered. Margaret said, "It's not all about sex, all the time, with everyone, you monstrous cow." Rodney hooted in admiration at that.

"Hey, don't get sore at me!" Miriam raised her hands gently. "It's not your fault. I'm sure rich fucks like you eat the best organic food from the most expensive co-op in your neighborhood, and you've got jacked-up gym memberships that you use three times a week. You're really doing the best you can, and then your body went and failed you. How about you, Lionel?" She lifted her chin and grinned at the tiny man on Margaret's shoulder. "How's your little peeper doing? Can you still get it up?"

The well-dressed, tiny man could only gabble in shock. "He has no problem whatsoever," Margaret stepped in. "It's all me. I wish I had a libido. I miss wanting sex. I miss wanting my husband. It kills me that my body doesn't respond to him anymore." She looked at Barbara, almost pleadingly. "It's like a huge part of my identity has been stolen from me, and I don't know what to do about it. In the meantime, I'm taking it out on the one who deserves it least."

Lionel carefully stood upon her shoulder and hugged her ear, lowering his tiny head inside her aural canal to whisper to his wife.

"That was remarkably astute of you, Miriam." Barbara looked proudly at the rest of the group. "I think you should all congratulate Miriam for her insights. Who would have guessed she had that much depth to her?"

Rodney barked out, "Wait, are you saying that she's right?"

Barbara chuckled. "Not at all. Not at all, little gentleman. I'm just saying I'm proud of her for overcoming her certain handicaps and taking a chance on expressing herself so candidly." Miriam looked like she was unsure how to process the compliment. "For example… who would like to go next?"

Everyone reared slightly at that. Men and women glanced at each other, fear in their eyes.

"Exactly my point. You should all follow Miriam's bold, mindless example and speak freely. Rodney!"

The muscular little man nearly jumped out of his skin. "Yeah?"

"I think you should take a shot at this. Do you have anything to add, about the Kelleys's situation?"

"Aw, jeez, I dunno," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, like I said, children are hell on a marriage. All that stress, losing sleep when they're babies, trying to get them fed and clothed, where's the money come from, and then maybe, like, one day you find out you two don't necessarily agree on how they should be raised."

Margaret fixed her gaze on him, on his wife's lap. "What do you mean?"

"Like, say you've got a son, and one day the school sends him home because he popped a kid on the playground, right? And like," he waved his hands dismissively, "I'm not saying this is you two, but say you're all, 'Fighting's wrong, you have to learn to talk your problems out with people,' and you send him to his room without his supper.

"But then Lionel's all relieved his kid's a fighter, not a victim. And he goes up and talks to the kid and learns that he was protecting someone else from a bully. Right? No one ever thought to ask the kid any questions up to this point. Everyone's just all, fighting is wrong, punish the one we caught, no questions asked."

From across the coffee table Brent laughed. "Sounds like we're learning more about you, huh?"

Rodney smiled and shrugged. "May have been based on actual events. But you know, shit like that can split a couple up, or just make it hell to live together. Voice of experience. But I'm just saying, trying to raise kids that'll be strong enough to take care of themselves, make good decisions, all that? That can take a lot out of anyone."

Lionel stared at Rodney thoughtfully, surprised. Margaret mouthed "thank you" to him and leaned back in her chair, pointedly not looking in the therapist's direction.

Barbara only grinned at Rodney. "And what advice would you have for the Littles?" She stumbled over the end of her sentence, squirming fitfully for a moment.

"Aw, well, Brent," Rodney said, crawling to the end of Laura's narrow knee. "What can I say? You got your hands full, that's for sure. You're a sensitive guy, you're real smart and all that, you know. But it kinda sounds to me like you're attracted to a type."

"I don't know what you mean," Brent said, from his wife's copious lap.

"From what you described, you just went after women who weren't good for you. And it kinda sounded like that's what you were looking for. Plenty of nice women out there, and you just somehow kept falling into shitty relationships with women who treated you like shit? I don't buy it."

"That's not… that's not it at all!"

"Mr. Little, please," said Barbara softly, smirking.

"He has a point," said Laura quietly. "Even if you didn't know you were getting into a bad relationship in the beginning, you always had the option of walking out once you realized what was happening. I really don't know you very well at all, but it sounds like you look the other way when all the signs are there."

"It's almost like you enjoy the struggle," Lionel chimed in.

"What's that saying?" Margaret prompted him. "That Chinese saying that always makes me laugh?"

Lionel chuckled. "He takes his pants down to fart." Margaret laughed and confirmed that. At the others' blank expressions, Lionel continued: "It just means someone who likes to make simple things more difficult than they need to be."

"How about that?" said Rodney. "I like that."

Barbara nodded slightly. "And Miriam?"

"I already went," said the large woman.

"Well, Jesus, what can you say about Miriam?" Rodney attempted to stand on his wife's narrow thigh. Laura cupped her hand around him again and he gripped her thin, waxy index finger. "What you see is what you get. She's a big, boisterous woman, full of life. She ain't too bright but she's got lots of opinions anyway. She loves to eat, that's obvious, and I can respect that. Some people got a certain zest for life, they just want it all, or they just want to feel good all the time." He paused, considering. "I'd actually like to learn more about her background. I got some suspicions. But anyway, here, right now, you can see she loves sex. She's greedy for it! And she doesn't care how she gets it," he gestured at Brent, who scowled.

"That's awfully generous of you," murmured Lionel, sneering.

"Hey, calling it like I see it, pal. You wanna come down here and discuss it further?"

Margaret shielded her husband with one slim hand, just as Laura's palm closed around hers.

Margaret couldn't help but noticed how pleased Barbara looked with herself, her dark eyes glittering, her thighs clenching to a steady tempo. "Well, let's see, who's left?" Barbara tapped her teeth with one long fingernail and glanced at Brent and Miriam, Margaret and Lionel. "Well, Margaret, do you have any light to shed upon Laura's situation?"

Laura's head snapped around and she glared at Barbara in something close to terror.

"There's nothing to worry about, Laura!" Barbara chided. "Honestly, you look like you've seen a surgical table." Rodney glowered at her, stroking his wife's finger tenderly.

"It's fine, Laura, it's not that bad." Margaret's voice was soothing, almost melodious. "I relate to the idea of looking back and wondering about the other opportunities, the roads not taken." The tiny man on her shoulder whuffed indignantly. "Please don't make this about you, Lionel. It's perfectly natural, Laura. I don't know anyone who doesn't take a quiet moment to wonder about how things might have been."

"But what about my directionlessness," Laura hissed, shooting Miriam a look.

Margaret smiled broadly. "Look, there are three kinds of people. Some people are born knowing exactly what they want to do. Other people are born into families that choose their path for them, without any discussion or debate. In the middle?" She swept one hand to indicate a vast territory. "Everyone else is just trying to figure it all out, too. You take a bunch of courses in college, see what appeals to you. You hop from job to job, trying to find the perfect fit, going for the promotion. This is just how the world works!"

Laura didn't quite look pacified but she nodded slowly.

"Lovely sentiment," cut in Barbara, "but you're not quite answering the question. Do you have any observations on Laura and Brent's situation?"

"That's frankly tactless of you," Margaret said, meeting Barbara's gaze for a long moment, before turning back to Laura. "You really should take greater stock with what you have with Rodney. He's a wonderful little man, I'm sure you know that, but you're not missing anything by being with him."

"It's not that I think I'm missing anything," started Laura, but Margaret cut her off.

"You have to celebrate him, but you have to celebrate yourself, too. You can't be any good to anyone else if you don't love yourself first. Do you believe that?"

Laura nodded but clearly did not believe this.

"Look. He's your partner, and he's chosen to stay with you." Margaret's eyes were deep and serious. "You can't deny that. He thinks you're good enough for him, so why don't you value yourself?"

"Who's the counselor here?" Barbara laughed gently. "Let's try a different tack: how about you talk about Rodney's problems with Laura. What do you think is happening there?"

The elegant, older woman looked as though she were swallowing quite a few words, but she drew a deep breath through her nostrils and refocused upon the tiny bodybuilder on Laura's lap. "Rodney. You're a very strong, strident little person. We've seen that in group, and from what we've learned about you, there's nothing you can't achieve on your own.

"But now you've got a partner. Try to look past what you feel is your own abuse, and see the wounded little girl inside Laura. Do you understand? If she's lashing out, like you claim, it's because she's struggling with something powerful inside herself. You're a tiny little guy, but surely you're large enough to crawl inside your wife and help her confront what's going on in there."

Miriam cackled too hard for too long, and it became apparent she was trying to make a joke but it amused her too much for her to frame the words. Brent spoke up: "You know, that's not really fair. You have to look at the fact of the situation. She's physically abusing him, and he's just—"

"As for Brent," Margaret said, turning in her seat, "Rodney wasn't too far off the mark. If you're in an abusive relationship, you can leave it." He tried to ask how, possibly, but she charged ahead. "Obviously these power dynamics you helplessly, haplessly find yourself in are satisfying something deep within you. You can't deny that, because you keep repeating them. You're looking for something, and maybe you need to examine yourself more closely and learn exactly what that is before you go blaming all the women in your environment."

"Dear, that's a little harsh," Lionel said. Margaret's slender fingers whipped up and nearly smacked him off her shoulder. The near miss was enough to chasten her husband into silence.

"And Miriam, oh boy." Margaret sat up and Barbara leaned forward in her stuffed leather throne. "You're a real piece of work. I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of those sex-crazed maniacs who goes through tiny men like tissues, each of them meeting some 'accident' or another. Who knows? This could be the last time we see Brent, because he doesn't have the balls to stand up for himself and flee you."

"Hey!" Miriam's expression darkened. "That's really mean! I'd never do anything to hurt my little Brent!"

"That's too much bullshit to tolerate," said Brent, rolling onto his back to glare at her, over her mammoth breasts.

"What? When have I ever?"

"The masking tape and the popsicle stick?" he said defiantly. "That time you thought it'd be fun to put me in the popcorn popper."

"That was fun!"

"You scalded all the hair off my body. And that time you taped me to the dog leash and took me out for a walk."

"That was cute!"

"And the neighbor's Schnauzer nearly picked me off the collar in one chomp!"

"I fished you out of his mouth before he could swallow. What're you complaining about?"

"And all the suffocation. All the near-drownings. All the times you ignored my cries for help."

"You weren't serious," Miriam said, and her body rumbled with giggling. "This li'l guy is the biggest drama queen you've ever seen."

"And yet you stay with her, Brent," said Margaret firmly. "If she's nearly killed you a few times? And you choose to stay with her? That is no one else's fault but yours, little man. Own it." She lounged back in her chair.

"I'm not going to kill him." Miriam's tone was plaintive, the smile fading from her face as she looked from woman to woman in the square seating arrangement.

"Oh, Goddess," muttered Barbara quietly, but not quietly enough. The group participants looked up at her in time to see her adjusting herself in her seat yet again. "Well, that's everyone," she said hastily. "Is that everyone? Has everyone had a turn?"

"We could give our assessments of you, next," said Rodney. Lionel laughed.

The therapist stiffened in her seat. "That would be quite inappropriate, besides making no sense at all." She glanced around to see as though to find any who would challenge her. "With that, I think we're ready to move on to the last phase of our therapy. Is anyone interested in that?"

Brent struggled to sit upright on the taut skirt of his wife. "Wait, what?"

Lionel said, "You're ending this? I don't really feel like we've accomplished anything. Does anyone else feel cured?" The other adults murmured and shook their heads, unwilling to take their eyes off of the therapist.

Barbara soaked in their confusion for a few moments before breaking out into a huge grin. "No, it's not quite over, don't worry. There's just one more method we're going to try. I just have the sense that there's a layer of ice we're not cracking through, so I think it's time to really take you all out of your comfort zones."

"Christ!" yelled Rodney. "What were the last few goddamn weeks?" Laura stroked his bulging shoulders while Margaret studied the pair of them.

"I think that's rather an ungenerous assessment," said Barbara, arching her eyebrows. "We've made some interesting breakthroughs, and if I'm perfectly honest, you are all to be commended on your bravery and hard work."

Margaret winced and looked at the other women. "It just seems a bit rushed."

"I don't like to share my methods, of course, but all I'll say is that the work we blasted through was leading up to this moment." Barbara folded and unfolded some papers in her clipboard. It was necessary to get you feeling a little raw, a little vulnerable and confused for the next step."

"And what's this next step?" called out Lionel. "Something by another German philosopher with mommy issues?" Margaret only rolled her eyes.

"If you must know, it's one of my own designs," said Barbara. She tore out little squares of paper and stacked them into a slim deck. "I find it an effective technique, especially when it comes to stubborn people who seem locked into their ruts and are otherwise unwilling to move out of them." She started to rise from her chair, then looked startled and sat back down. "If, um, you all wouldn't mind coming up to me, I have some notes to hand to you."

"Well, this is just weird," said Rodney. Laura rested him upon the coffee table, as did Margaret with Lionel and Miriam, reluctantly, with Brent. The wives towered over their husbands as they crept around the table and approached the dusky, domineering woman in her executive chair. Barbara handed one folded slip of paper to each of them, instructing them not to look at them until they were all seated and ready.

Lionel looked at the paper in his wife's hands and turned to Barbara. "Don't we get any? What's going on?"

Ignoring him, Barbara told the women to unfold their notes and read them quietly to themselves. Laura yelped. Miriam swore. Margaret raised an eyebrow and looked over at Rodney.

"What's it say?" demanded Brent. "What's it say!"

* * *

"Oh, my Goddess, you've been naughty lately. I could hardly focus. Are you trying to get me to lose my job?" Barbara spread her full, tanned thighs to the empty room, slumping in her executive throne until her ass nearly fell off the edge. She drove her head into the upholstered seat back, digging her fingertips very forcefully into her thick, darkened labia, rubbing them with a rigid V-shape. "So naughty, so disrespectful. You've caused me so much trouble. What do you have to say for yourself?"

From between her engorged pussy lips, two pale legs slid out, limp at first. When their tiny hips surpassed the clenching rings of her vaginal canal, exposing a tiny little bare ass, the legs sprang into life, kicking and wheeling in the cooler air. The minuscule feet found nothing to rest upon, no toehold, no purchase, frantically jabbing at the empty space outside of Barbara's cunt.

"Oops, there you go, squirming and fighting your way out," she purred, grinding the thick, slick flesh on either side of the tiny figure. "Be careful, Timur, or you're going to tumble to the carpet. And who knows what'll happen to you there? Maybe my chair's wheels will roll over you, crushing you, grinding you directly into the fibers." She slid her other hand up her shirt, groping one proud breast. "Or maybe I'll simply lose track of you and step on you. You wouldn't want that now, would you? Surrendering the entire building over to me, instead of greedily collecting rent every month? You couldn't want that, you greedy little weasel." She laughed at how his tiny feet bumped against her shivering anus. "You greedy little ferret, crawling in and out of me like that. You've made the last few sessions very difficult to focus on. I'm sure you know that, you wicked little creature. Op, oops, hold on!"

Just as her pussy seized with an incidental flourish at the tiny man's squirms, she clenched and squeezed him out like a lump of shit. Quickly she caught the wretched little figure in her palm, then ground him into her labia, moaning, without any intent of jamming him back inside. "Oh, you nasty little ferret," she whispered, rubbing him all over her pussy, nearly frictionless with her copious lubrication, "you disgusting little weasel. The things you do to me." She bit her fat bottom lip and vibrated him rapidly over her clit, but the complaining, struggling little man was useless for stimulating her there, so she brought him up and dropped him on her chest.

"Oh, look at that. You've stained my blouse, you minikin nuisance. I should crush your legs for that." She cranked her head down hard, glaring at him with a savage smile and a double-chin. "Would you like that? Would you like me to snap your pathetic little legs like pretzel sticks?"

Timur Smyth only lay bedraggled upon the awning of fabric stretching between her mountainous boobs. "Can't breathe," the tiny man coughed. "Couldn't breathe." He hacked violently for a moment, then vomited a quantity of Barbara's own pussy juices upon the fabric.

Barbara's brows grew heavy and dark. "You really have a death wish, little man. You know what this means for you, don't you?"

The old man's head lolled to the side. His eyes, for all their exhaustion, were large with fear. "Please, no more. Not that. I can't, I can't."

"If you weren't such a foul creature, Timur, none of this would be necessary. If only you'd behave…" She took up one tiny, slim arm between thumb and forefinger and dramatically hoisted him up off of her chest, over her face. "Why can't you behave?" She laughed at him, clacking her teeth just below his bare feet, as she struggled to right herself in her chair. She focused on the frailty of the tiny being between her fingertips, and she slowly rose from the overstuffed leather throne, luxuriating in all her long, huge, powerful muscles, hauling her up into the sky as she lifted her wretched landlord further and further from the earth. He made her feel like a giantess. It was easy to believe that she was enormous and powerful, with this spindly, wizened little man between her fingers.

She closed her eyes and tugged up the back of her skirt. "Now, this isn't going to be easy for either of us, so I really hope you'll cooperate this time, Timur. Remember how bad it was last time?"

"Please, oh Goddess, don't do this." His voice rasped between coughing fits.

Barbara bent over the coffee table, holding her skirt up to her waist, exposing large, firm, perfectly smooth buttocks to the warm and ancient air of this vintage dining room. "You really have to cooperate, Mr. Smyth, and it doesn't sound like you're going to cooperate." She lowered the tiny man, reaching behind her to present her flat palm to her own asshole. "It's so much worse for both of us when you don't cooperate. Worse for you, of course," she laughed. From the platform of her fingers, Timur watched the pink rays of her asshole flutter and push as she laughed at him.

"Anything but this, please, I'm begging you," he said. "You're going to kill me. This will kill me." He backed over her fingers, his heels digging into the fleshy bumps between her joints, his naked butt sliding over the ridges in her skin.

"I'm going to relax now, so you only have a few seconds, Timur. Don't let me down." So saying, Barbara spread her feet slightly and locked her knees. Her spine drooped and her chest thrust at the table, and then she began taking deep breaths. Long, slow, whooping breaths that filled and flexed her diaphragm, breaths that reached way, down deep inside her.

As Timur Smyth watched, the puckered star of her anus writhed between the spherical, caramel hills of her buttocks. It pushed out, sealed shut with sticky, tender tissues, until a tiny dot appeared.

"No, no, no," he moaned.

Barbara continued breathing, letting out with a tight, hissing sigh, then gulping deep lungfuls of air. The dot in the center of those tender tissues began to spread, until light crept inside and glowed along the pink, wrinkled skin. Her anus relaxed and began to spread, growing larger and larger. Timur began to weep, as her immense ass relaxed and a dark portal opened before him.

"In," Barbara said, trying to hold her breath. "In. Now."

Crying, Timur finally rolled to all fours and began to crawl toward her butt. The huge fingers beneath him twitched in anticipation, and he knew it would be nothing for them to curl up and stab at him, pummeling his weak body until they stuffed him inside her, regardless of angle, regardless of position.

But somehow it was worse this way, as his palms rested upon her index finger, the last digit before her ass. Her taint shown pink and glossy, disappearing beneath her hand, and her asshole opened like a hideous, monstrous mouth, its lips trembling spasmodically. "In, in," she urged, straining. Timur turned and slid one slender leg inside the therapist's anus. Immediately it felt warm and humid in there. Every inch of his flesh crying out in protest, he slid his other leg inside, his knees resting on what he knew to be filthy inner linings.

Wasn't there another way? Couldn't he call the cops? How did it come to this?

The humidity slid over Timur's ass and crept up his spine as his legs slid into Barbara's rectum. Now her sphincter trembled greedily all around him, ready to snap at a hair trigger, seemingly. He hated this, he hated it so much, he would almost rather die than do this, but he slipped his hips inside her anus. He shoved his ribs inside her. He brought one arm inside, and then the other, and at that point, per their arrangement, he lowered his face to lock his jaws around the shivering pink wrinkles and gnawed as large of a bite as he could into her flesh.

Barbara gasped and squealed, and her asshole shrank immediately, locking Timur Smyth's neck in a stranglehold. Timur screamed and begged as he watched the leather chair swing away until he faced the floor. The immense, round buttocks closed in on either side, and her thighs and calves were nothing but bulges from a sharp perspective. The light dimmed as Barbara's skirt hissed over her hips and butt, covering him up from the world once more.

The juices from her pussy continued to exude and ooze down her crack, welling around the sobbing face of old Mr. Smyth, who lay nearly perfectly still within his tenant’s rectum. Nearly, but for all the crying and gasping for breath, as the sweet, salty vasocongestive fluid began to creep over his cheeks.

“Great session,” Barbara announced to the empty room. “Next week should be a real treat.” She took up her notes, strode across the room, shut off the lights and locked the door behind her.