I winced and shivered as the rain hit my brow. It was storming like the end of days as I crossed the street. Thunder echoed through the clouds as far as the eyes could see and it felt like the storm of all storms was raining down on my umbrella. I let out a sigh as I silently cursed myself for not buying a new umbrella that didn’t have holes in it for the weather to get through. Every time it rained, this happened. I would be walking and completely forget about it, and suddenly a drop would hit my eye and make me wince.

This was an important day, too. It had been 2 months since I had work. Working at a nice job for over 2 years and suddenly gone for good because of an anxiety problem that was getting in check. The mere thought of it filled my mind and heart with rage. I’m not one to hate or have a grudge, but I know when I’ve been wronged. I know when I’ve been lied to and discriminated against. The past 2 months have almost been constant thinking about it whenever my girl isn’t trying to console me and get my mind off of it.

But I was desperate for work now. Unemployment refuses to give me money and I can’t live off of Rebecca’s paycheck forever. As much as I love her for supporting me in these dark times, I knew that I had to get out there for myself. I knew that I had to get a job, no matter what. That’s why I had signed up for this job in the first place. It was mysterious and sketchy, but it was work. Anything is better than being stuck at home all day to dwell and soak in my own self-pity. Anything is.

I stopped at the corner and grabbed the printed ad I had taken with me. I had to, because I’ve never been to this part of town before. The damp paper almost looked faded thanks to my faulty umbrella, but it was readable. It took a few minutes for me to be able to focus on it. My own eyesight was sketchy, thanks to the raindrop from a few moments ago. “8890 Ridgewood Lane”, I softly spoke to myself. I was close, at the corner of Ridgewood and Elm. Just a little further to go and I can go in and get in on this experimental job.

I didn’t know much about the job in question. However, as soon as I read “Technical Skills Needed”, I got interested. I don’t have a huge variety of professional skills, but technical skills were some that I did have. The ad, itself, listed an odd organization name, presumably a new company. It also said that the company dealt in experimental products. The whole thing sounded fishy to Rebecca, but in my opinion, it didn’t matter what they did. They could be a sick cult for all I cared. The job was for an IT Support position, not for a Lab Rat position. The job market was so bad I was willing to do it.

Before long, I finally made it to the building. Across the top, it read “Tiny-Giant Industries: Turning Small Ideas into a Huge Success”. Kind of cheesy slogan, if you ask me. But I had made it, regardless. I came under the front door and took a few minutes to close my umbrella and dry off before heading inside. There was no way I looked anywhere near as professional as I did before with all of the rain that had managed to leak in on me. Once I dried off, though, I re-combed my hair and headed inside.

With a loud latch, the door shut behind me, making my presence known to the large hall in front of me. A blond receptionist with a smug look on her face looked up at me. No, look isn’t the right word. More like she snapped. Like an animal shifting its glance in a split-second to look at their prey. Immediate intimidation came from this woman. Even still a good 20 feet from me, her stare just screamed “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” I didn’t like it. I just hoped that she wasn’t the person interviewing.

Little did I know, in the days to come, a smug receptionist would be the least of my worries…

The tension was in my gut the entire walk forward. It only took me a couple minutes to reach the receptionist's desk but it felt like forever. That strange blond never took her eyes off me, staring deep into my soul. That anxious feeling in your gut when you just know someone means you harm grew more the closer I got to her. When I finally got up to the desk, I was almost certain there was a hidden knife somewhere she was about to gut me with. She was a short, medium-build woman, but something about her scared the hell out of me.

We both were in silence for minutes, maybe longer. I put my arms behind my back, holding my wrists together, a habit I've had since watching way too much Star Trek. I looked at her, and she looked right back at me. I expected her to do something normal, like ask for my name or who I was there to see. I was too nervous to speak outright, but she never did. She just stared at me with those deep, blue eyes. Trading gazes, silence, trading more gazes. It almost felt like torture for me.

"Sir?" Her voice whipped and snapped at me. My heart skipped a few beats and I nodded to her. I almost lost my own train of thought and began talking about how scary she was. "Y-Yes, I have an interview. My name is--" The moment my name came out, she began looking down at a small clipboard, and away from me. As she mumbled to herself I couldn't help but feel at ease. With her gaze on something else, my body began to calm down and the fear she struck in me was fading away.

"Follow Me. There's been a change of plans" No sooner had she spoke did she stand up, her heels clicking the hard floor, beckoning me to go with her. Having a change of plans made me nervous, but she wasn't showing me out the door, so I followed closely behind. Automatic Doors opened as we entered a long metal hallway. There were offices, open areas, and even what looked like labs that we passed. It was completely different than the entrance. Like I had gone to some completely different building through a single set of doors.

As we walked down the halls, beckoned me faster as we passed by one of the labs. She made an ugly look towards the lab for some reason. I inquired as we went past, but she wouldn't answer me at all. I tried looking into the lab, curiosity taking its toll, but the windows were faded and tinted. I couldn't see or hear anything from it. Thoughts popped in my head. Was there something wrong with that lab? Or did this woman just dislike people there for some reason?

We eventually came to a small office room where she sat me down at a table. Her face still had a look of disgust from when we passed the halls earlier. No sooner had we sat down was a handful of paperwork slid towards me on a table. "Sign and Date it here and let me know the first day you can work"

The words that came from her mouth surprised me. My eyes widened for a moment and I even dared to look her in the face. "Excuse me?" I asked. "I came here for an interview, didn't I?" A couple moments passed and she had a look of impatience on her face. She tapped her fingernails on the table and looked right back at me. "Change of Plans. Remember? There is no interview. You sign that paper and you're hired, today. So do you want to work here or don't you?"

My gut tightened at the impatience of her tone, but I couldn't believe what she was saying. No interview or doubts? I would instantly get this job? It sounded too good to be true. However, I didn't need a pinch to realize I wasn't dreaming. All of the negative feelings I got from this woman were too real to be a dream. I quickly signed the paper and handed it back to her. We conversed a bit about the hours they wanted me to work. Night Shift. I agreed.

Not even 10 minutes went by that she walked back out the halls and to the entrance again. She looked me in the eyes as she opened the door for me. Her face then moved dangerously close to mine. Her eyes fixated on me like a predator on its next meal. "I expect to see you at 10 PM. Tomorrow. Don't be late, got it?" The preciseness of her ton made me nod in an instinctive reaction. As I turned and left to head home, I had so many tense thoughts. I had a job, but this woman felt like someone you shouldn't dare cross.

Still, as the tension left me, I headed out the door and back into the rain, content that I now had a job...

I didn't get any sleep at all last night. No sooner had the news been broken to Rebecca had we both gotten overly excited about this new opportunity. Months without work and I got into this job without an interview! Direct hires like that don't come every day, and we both were counting it as a divine blessing. Rebecca had a job for a long time and was more than willing to support me with her paycheck, but she knew how much I hated having to mooch off of her money because I couldn't find any work. I love her very much, but wouldn't take advantage of her like that. Regardless, both of us were extremely happy about it. 

Naturally, I couldn't sleep at all last night or today. This new job's been on my mind so frantically that my body just won't shut down. So many questions are in my head: Where will I sit? What software will I support? What will my co-workers be like? What will my clients be like? Of course, none of the questions quite surpassed the constant "Will I be working with that scary receptionist?" thought. As much as I appreciate her giving me this job so quickly, every time she comes to mind, I get a cold chill down my spine. I've never been one to get intimidated by others, but this woman struck fear in my veins just by looking at me. I hoped to be far, far away from her with my office. 

I combed my hair back and came into the office for the day and almost died. Before I even had a chance to ring the bell and open the door, it quickly opened away from my hand. In the middle of the doorway was a pair of eyes staring knives into my soul and I was in shock. The blond receptionist again, at the door like she was waiting for me. I knew it had to be at least 10 minutes early. Within moments, the door opened the rest of the way and she looked me up and down, just like yesterday. "Early." she said, almost with a sound of disappointment in her voice. "Come with me." She turned and began walking away, not even bothering to look to see if I was following. As such, I began to follow her as I slowed my breathing down from the scare. 

I followed her through the same halls as before. Labs, all having clouded windows. I wanted to stop and think about these areas to remember how to get to where we were going. The receptionist was moving too fast, though. Her legs were carrying her faster at a walk than most people would consider a slow run. We passed by a lot of different labs and hallways, much deeper in the complex than we went the last time. Turns here and turns there. Stairs every so often that over time, I was sure I’d collapse from exhaustion before I even begin my day’s work. All the halls were empty, seemingly. Maybe no one was on break? 

I couldn’t think at the wrong time, though. No sooner had I noticed no one was around that I saw a short, petite woman in a lab coat walking by. My guide never stopped or even seemed to notice her. Just walking by. My eyes looked to the petite woman and her eyes peeked up at me through her glasses. She offered a small smile and I offered one back. “Hurry Up!” came a familiar voice and I hurried on, catching up with my intimidating guide. 

Finally, we reached a small office no bigger than a few cubicles at my last job. It looked nice enough on the inside. A large computer desk filled with a desktop, laptop, and many other accessories that I was familiar with. There was also a small table with chairs at the side and a mini-fridge. My guide stood in the doorway and snapped me back to reality from my observations. “Everything is here. Boot the PC and you can go through the training material. Call me on Number 1169 when you’re done.” 

I understood and nodded to her, thanking her for all of this. She didn’t answer, like she didn’t hear or didn’t wish to answer the question. As I got settled in and she was about to leave, she stopped and looked back, her voice slightly less loud. “You are to speak with and interact with no one in this building but me. Understood?” With that, she left the office, an automatic lock going into place from my side of the door. I blinked and watched as her silhouette disappeared from the doorway. 

What a strange job, I thought. I then booted the PC and began looking over the training materials, wondering what I’d gotten myself into…

The training material I was going through was a cake-walk.  Every piece of software I had done before.  True, they were already running the super-recent Windows 10 Operating System, but everything else I knew very well.  The list went so quickly as my eyes skimmed it that I practically didn’t need to even go through the material.  “VMWare, PuTTY, Office 2013, Citrix.  This is everything I have a lot of experience with.  This might not be a bad job, after all!”  My words were very confident though I made sure I didn’t say anything too loud.  I didn’t want anyone hearing that over confidence, especially in my first 20 minutes on the job. 

Since so little time had passed, I just skimmed over the training material over and over and over.  It felt wrong to just skim it in 20 minutes and say that I was done so I just wasted time skimming it over again.  Knowing how that receptionist acted, I’m sure I’d get a mouthful of attitude the moment I tried to say I was done after 20 minutes.  It would take a normal person an hour or more just to read through this, not knowing the software.  I took nearly an hour of reading and reading again and again and again before I finally went to my phone to dial her up and tell her I was finished. 

“Okay, what was that number again?” I asked myself.  She had told me what extension to reach her at but I forgot to write it down.  I have a good memory, right?  Apparently not because it eluded me.  I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to think.  Trying to replay that memory in my head as I thought.  It would be the worst first day if I forgot something so simple.  For all I knew, she’d come in here and smack me across the face for forgetting something so simple.

“1165?  Yeah, that was it, right?”  It sounded right.  Why not?  I picked up the headset and set my microphone in place.  It was already wired to the phone so as soon as I put it on, I heard a dial tone almost immediately.  I took a deep breath and punched in the numbers.  1.  1.  6.  5.  Dial.  The phone began to ring.  Once.  Twice.  Five times.  Six.  It seemed like an awfully long time for someone who works as a receptionist.  I wouldn’t think a single moment or two would go by without her answering. 

“Lab.  This is Dr. Hiroshi.  What is it?”  My heart just stopped.  The voice that came through was definitely female, but it was completely not the person I was trying to call.  This person’s voice sounded sweet, affectionate, happy.  I stuttered, realizing I had completely dialed the wrong number.  What was I going to do now?  She told me not to talk with anyone, but can I just hang up on this lab worker?  I was so much of a mess that I just started talking.  “Umm…I…I’m sorry.  I think I dialed the wron-“

I didn’t even get a chance to finish my fumbled statement before she interrupted like she’d been struck with some high rise out of something.  “Ooh!  Hello!  Are you the guy they just hired down in the IT section?  I saw you in the hallway!”  My face just went blank.  I was more shocked at this conversation than I was with the receptionist.  “Um…hi.  Yes, I am.  But“, My entire mind was cut off once again by this woman on the other end of the phone.  “Oh, good!  We don’t get new employees often.  Let’s meet on your break.  12:15 right?  I can show you around the building, okay?  See you then!”

The phone clicked off and I was just dumbfounded.  I just sat there for a couple minutes, not knowing what to do or say.  Eventually I was interrupted by a door latching open.  “Not done yet?!”.  I came out of my daze and looked to the doorway to see a familiar, blond face with her hands on her hips.  It took a moment but eventually I responding, letting her know I was about to call her, trying hard to keep from saying that I’d accidentally spoken with someone in the lab.  She then proceeded to bluntly tell me my duties and throw me on the phones within minutes, nearly slamming the door on her way out. 

I took a breather and took a look at the schedule she gave me.  “Okay my first break is--!”  Just as the Doctor had said.  First break: 12:15 am.  ‘Does she make the schedules or something?’ I thought to myself.  I pushed it out of my head.  Thinking about everything from disobeying the receptionist to this break coincidence would just make it more stressful.  I set the phone on and began taking support calls…

Why does a company need 3rd Shift Tech Support? Think about that question for a few moments, because I thought about it a lot that first day. From the moment I was put on the phones to a good two hours later, I had only received a single phone call for a simple password reset. This may be expected, given the time of night the shift starts. How many people calling in company problems are even still awake at this time? This situation would definitely prove a good favor for me, as my work will be very relaxed, particularly with learning how they use the software. I could definitely get used to nice, quiet nights of working and getting paid to sit around and wait 30 minutes or more for a single phone call.

This gave me a lot of time to think about things. About the blond receptionist and the woman I'd accidentally called. What was the story behind that receptionist? I've never met such a cold, blunt woman in my life. It was like she's going out of my way to make things hard and strict for me. Her very presence frightened me. Then there was this Doctor that seemed to be the opposite. She sounded more bubbly and willing to meet and socialize with new employees. I glanced over towards my clock and thought about those plans for my break. My computer soon sent an alarm off, my digital assistant notifying me that it was my break time. Speaking of Break Time...the Doctor seemed to know my schedule, but what would happen if--

My train of thought was broken at loud knocking outside of my door. My head quickly moved and stared at the silhouette outside the stained window. My fears began to rise, and continued to do so as I heard a voice reach through the doorway. The voice was that of the Doctor, not the receptionist. "You there? I'm ready to give you that tour!" I slowly got up to answer the door, but not without doubts in my mind. I was told not to talk or interact with anyone here but the person who led me back here. A tour of the building could be risky of being caught by her. Still, I unlocked the door and opened it...to see a pair of ocean blue eyes staring up at me.

As my eyes adjusted to the hallway's light, I could see her. Short, petite, glasses, long black hair in a ponytail. It was definitely the same woman I'd passed earlier that day. But now she was right in front of me, offering me a pleasant smile as she looked me over and reached for my arm. "It's about time you came out. Now, come on, newbie. I'm gonna show you all the exciting places that you haven't seen yet!" The woman seemed so pushy and eager that I found myself nearly dragged along with her before I could even get out single word.

As we walked, she began walking me by the labs, explaining each to me. "So this is the production lab area, where all of the ideas we get are put through their final stages. If someone presents an idea for a new toaster, this is where all the parts are put together and tested. Since we do all kinds of different projects, this entire section is designed for these production facilities, each equipped with its own unique equipment." The more we walked around, the less tense I became about the blond finding me. I was actually enjoying this little tour, learning more about the company that I was working for. In all honesty, I'd learned next to nothing from anyone else, other than all those training guides.

Our tour ended with going inside one of the labs. The Doctor brought me into her own lab, where she took me to a small office attached to a large room with a lot of tables and various machines that I wasn't familiar with. Inside the office was a desk as well as a small table with a few chairs. "Go on, sit down. I'll get us some tea. Sugar or Sweetner?" I nervously came down into a small metal chair at the time and motioned for sugar. I never could drink unsweetened tea. As she was preparing the tea at her desk and getting out several packets and cups, I asked her what she did.

"Oh, I do this and that. This is really the experimental section of the company. When all of the new ideas come in, it's my team's job to figure out how to make it work. If someone ever brought in the idea of turning peanut oil into rocket fuel, it would be thrown on me to perform miracles to make it work. Though the lab is usually more lively. I'm the only one who stays here after 8:00 PM." As she talked for what felt like forever, she finally got finished preparing the tea and placed a cup for herself but offered a covered glass for me. I looked at it and back at her as I sniffed it. "So what kind is this?"

"Oh, it's my own blend. Since I make everything else here, I tested around with mixing different kinds of teas together. But we don't have time to talk about that. It's almost 12:45. Isn't your break almost up now?" She was right. I had to be back in my office in less than 2 minutes. I quickly got up and nodded, thanking her. Taking the tea with me, she came after me. "Oh, I almost forgot! Here's a special set of spices. Put them in the tea for a little extra kick. It helps on long nights like these. See you around!" She winked to me as I walked out, causing a natural redness in my cheeks.

I moved back towards my office, where I saw my door, open just like I left it. I quickly came back inside and shut the door behind me. It didn't look like anyone had been there. No messages on the phone. So I sat down and put my glass of tea on my desk, arranging the spices the Doctor had given me, listening to it almost sizzle down into the liquid. I smiled looking down at the glass, at the kind friend I had made.

After I got back into my office, I had a guilty feeling that I would have a message on my phone or PC that would just scream “Busted!”  The receptionist did tell me, after all, not to interact with anyone but her.  Then again, I was beginning to question whether she was even a secretary.  She acted more like she was my boss than anything else.  As the thought passed, I hit my phone and waited for another call.  It was a long wait, given the time of night, but it gave me time to mix up and try to tea the Doctor had given me. 

As I sipped it down, I smacked my lips a few times, trying to really get in the taste that this tea produced.  It wasn’t sweet, but wasn’t sour.  It wasn’t powerful, but not weak.  It was a taste that I can’t really describe.  It tasted good, but I just didn’t know how to define it.  I sipped at it over and over again as I waited for call after call after call.  As I was taking my final sip, a loud banging hit the door, causing me to reflex and spit the tea in my mouth all over the cup and my arm. 

“Come here” said that familiar, short, cold voice of that blond woman.  She never seemed to get a single statement out without being very blunt and to the point.  Without knowing the reason for her visit, I slowly got up and unlocked the door, wiping my arm off with a nearby towel in the process.  From the sound of the latch, the door swung open and there she was, staring at me with the same death glare that she had given me every time I’d seen her the past two days.  She looked over to me, but was suddenly distracted. 

Her eyesight immediately went to my arm, still being wiped off.  “What’s on your arm?” she said as she reached for the towel.  She scanned my arm up and down as she tossed the towel back into my office…  In the midst of the chaos, I explained that it was tea I had been drinking.  She offered me an intimidating gaze, looking me right in the eye.  There was a pause where she muttered to herself before she spoke again, pushing this one-sided conversation.  “Be careful.  I don’t want anything damaged.  If you can’t keep your drink under control, keep it in the fridge.” 

She kept looking at my arm and back at me.  I wanted to inquire this odd behavior, but she spoke of her passion about everything being clean, spotless, and perfect.  She then turned and left without saying a word.  No “Good job so far”.  No “I need you to work harder”.  Just, turned and left.  Though as she closed the door she turned and gave me a devilish smile, the first time I’d ever seen her do so.  Chills ran through my body at seeing her lips curling into anything remotely like this.  My fingers began to tingle from the sensation, and I began to wonder if she’d just come to further intimidate me.

I didn’t see her for the rest of my shift that day.  The hours came and they went and I found myself home.  It was so early in the morning but Rebecca was still awake.  She was at the door and quickly embraced me, congratulating me on a first day at my new job.  After being around that receptionist, I was more than happy to have the sweet, gentle touch of Rebecca at my disposal as I clung to her and never let go. 

I told her about everything that had happened during the day.  Especially about the two people I had met.  Rebecca was never much of a talker so she just listened as we laid in bed together, her slender fingers slowly brushing back my hair.  I talked for what seemed like forever and as I looked towards Rebecca, I began to notice that she seemed a little more motherly towards me.  Her touch feeling different than before.  It almost felt her touch was around more of me. 

I questioned her but she just tossed it aside, blaming it on the stress from my “boss”.  With her reassurance she hummed to me until I fell asleep, entering the world of dreams before my next day of work…

After the lovely night I had, I was ready for my second day of work.  The way Rebecca brushed back my hair, cuddled me, and more made me feel like I was a child in the tender care of their mother.  It brought back a sense of maternal protection that I’ve not felt in as long as I could remember.  Rebecca had cuddled me on countless nights, but this felt so much different.  It was like I was a baby in my mother’s arms and being led to bed by her soft hums and lullabies.  The experience got me that much more inspired to go into the next day, that scary receptionist be damned. 

As I walked into the office, I saw her and realized I didn’t even know her name.  It didn’t dawn on me until I saw her and realized that neither of us had exchanged names at all from the moment she “interviewed” me.  That’s not normal, was it?  Should I ask her what her name is?  As I walked up towards the desk, she whipped her head and I could feel daggers hitting me from her general direction.  From the tension and stress that I always got from her, I decided it wasn’t that important to know her name.  After all, she would tell me at some point. 

The situation would go strange, despite my encouraging feelings, though.  She looked at me, but whipped her head right back up after a moment.  She got up and walked over to me.  She looked me up and down, and I looked at myself.  It was that look someone gives you when you forgot to do something important, like buttoning up your shirt, or putting something on backwards.  It was different, even for her.  After a few minutes, though, she reached forward and straightened my tie, putting it extra tight on me.  I swallowed, feeling like my throat was swelling shut.  Then, she went back to her desk and pointed to the door, silently saying “Get to work”. 

I gave her a few looks before going back to the office.  A bit of strange treatment.  Not only did she not say anything, but she’d never touched me before, let alone with an action like she did that hurt my neck a bit.  I loosened the tie when I got to the office and could already see a red line around my neck.  Stressful job, indeed.  I settled down into my chair and flipped on my headset.  A weird day, already, and not having even taken a single phone call. 

Time went by, almost too quickly.  Calls weren’t coming in, but contact from others wasn’t either.  My first break went by, and then my lunch break.  No surprise visits from Miss Receptionist or the good doctor.  So, I decided to venture out on my own on that break to be able to at least try to find someone.  As much as being alone in the office without having someone look over my shoulder was comforting, it was also a bit lonely.  Deep down, I missed that nice conversation from the day before.

As such, the lab was my first stop.  The door was open but the room was empty.  I walked back to the office area where I’d been offered tea, but that door was shut.  I could see inside that my friend was behind, sitting at the table.  I knocked on the door and nothing happened.  No answer.  I did see her turn her head towards the door when I knocked, but there was no recognition.  I stayed there for about five minutes before I abandoned it.  Unfortunately, I had even less luck at the front desk.  I went up there and the receptionist was nowhere to be found.  Then again, part of me was asking myself why in the world I would go to that blunt and snappy woman for company on my break. 

All of this didn’t stop there, either.  I came back to the office and tried to call the doctor to see if she was there.  It rang multiple times, but there was no answer.  I sighed as my lunch was almost up, but I looked to my desk and realized there was a cup there.  A cup I hadn’t brought with me.  Upon further inspection, it had tea in it, much like the tea I had the day before.  With it, a note:

“Hello There,

Glad to see you’re still around the job.  I missed you on break today.  Since you were out and about, I wanted to drop this off for you.  It’s another blend of my specialty tea.  I have a lot of it, so feel free to drink as much as you want.

Stop by on your later breaks if you’re not busy, okay?  It’s always nice to have company on these long nights.

Signed,
Dr. Hiroshi"

I looked over the note over and over again, not really getting the situation around my head.  I was sure I’d gone to her lab and she just flat-out ignored me, yet she came by to give me some prepared tea?  I scratched my head over and over, not understanding a thing.  Still, it was a nice gesture.  So, as I clocked back in, I began to drink the tea that she’d given me, wondering why this was such a weird day…

When I got home from my second day, everything felt a little off for me.  The way both of them ignored me just bothered me a lot.  The receptionist I shouldn’t be worried about.  She always makes me feel so tense and stressed out, but even her ignoring me was grinding my gears.  I was glad to be out of the day and back home.  Because I knew there was at least one person in my life who would never ignore me or dodge me.  Rebecca would always be there to give me a much-needed hug.

She wasn’t there when I first got to the door, so I let myself in and prepared to get into bed.  As I walked into the bedroom, I could see why.  She was curled up under the covers, fast asleep.  No surprise for me.  We work different shifts, so our sleeping patterns have got to be off.  Putting me to sleep the night before must have made her have an incredibly tiring day.  I changed and got in bed next to her.  The lights were out, but I could still see the moonlight shining over the silhouette of her sleeping form.  I couldn’t help but lean forward and offer her a kiss. 

Just at that moment, I started to gasp.  Not a single breath was taken between the time of my kiss before her arms acted on command and coiled around me, pulling me into her.  Her lips then curled and eyes opened up with a giggle.  “Surprise, surprise, honey.  You always fall for this!”  She leaned forward and kissed me back and my whole just melted in her arms.  I should have known this would happen.  Rebecca’s done this to me so many times in the past.  Pretending to be asleep and catching me right when I least expect it. 

I didn’t have to say anything to show her my appreciation.  Tears immediately ran down my cheeks as I got the long-needed attention that I was denied all day long.  Her lips came and pressed hard onto my body.  They passed over my eyes and swept away every single tear, and that same maternal protective feeling came over me again.  Her arms tightened, and I felt more and more that I was a helpless child in the arms of its protective mother.  I’ve never remembered how her touch has affected me to such a degree but I closed my eyes and didn’t care one little bit.  I just indulged and let her warmth envelop me. 

“That’s a good boy.  You just let me hold onto my precious teddy bear and drift away.  It’s the best gift for both of us, isn’t it?”  I nodded in reaction, already half-asleep.  This feeling was so strong in me that I just started shutting down the moment I felt her touch.  She whispered to me over and over as I drifted off to the land of dreams.  “Sweet, little teddy babe.  Ever since your new job, you’ve been that much cuddlier.  Don’t stop being this way.  Don’t stop being such a snuggly teddy for your Rebecca” 

My mind went blank as I fell asleep in her arms, her words ringing through my ears and guiding me to sleep. 

I felt like I was in a tangled trap of love last night.  Rebecca was always loving towards me but last night she was even more motherly towards me than the previous night.  It almost felt toxic for me.  Her touch, her grip.  It all just made me want to lose myself.  With feelings like that, it’s amazing I wanted to leave the house at all, but since she worked when I was to leave, I suppose I didn’t have a way around it.  That and I wanted to know what the deal was around the job.  I felt alienated the day before and it bothered me.

I got in the door and was all set on marching right up and giving that sourpuss receptionist a nice greeting to return her bothersome treatment from the day before.  I don’t even know why I cared enough to do it for someone who’d been so cold to me, but being ignored bothered me a lot.  If you don’t like me, fine.  But you act like my boss and suddenly don’t even say a word to me?  It was bothersome and I wanted to find the answer.  Even if it meant a conflict and ending up scared and intimidated by her again. 

I didn’t get the chance, though.  When I got in the door, she wasn’t at the desk.  I walked up confident and she was nowhere to be found.  I let out a sigh as I just went back to my office on my own.  I’d look for her later, on my break, or lunch, or both.  Surely she couldn’t be gone from her desk the entire day.  And if she were out sick, they’d have a replacement there at the desk.  Then again, I’m not sure I’d want to see a replacement there because I’d probably like them more than her. 

I got back to my office and continued towards taking my nightly calls.  The chair felt comfy, very comfy.  I hadn’t really noticed it being comfortable before, but I’d take it.  Even my headset was comfy enough that it was sliding around on my head.  Not that I used it much.  By the time my first break happened, I’d taken maybe two calls, one being a wrong number call.  My mind was wandering, though.  As my first break alarm hit, I was a man on a mission.  A mission to find a very unpleasant person. 

I wandered the halls and up to the front desk again and again and again.  Every time I came up there, no receptionist.  I peered down the various halls and then went back up again.  I even stopped and waited for a while to see if she would get back from wherever she was before I would have to go back to break.  But, the longer I waited, the more I realized that I was going to miss her again.  So I went back to my office and would try again on my lunch break.  She couldn’t evade me forever. 

When I went back on my lunch break, it happened again.  I wandered, waited, wandered, waited.  It was like she wasn’t even there anymore.  But she had to be.  About half of my lunch was up before something touched my back.  I darted my head around, only to find the petite doctor looking at me.  The doctor, in front of me, in person.  Well that was a start.  She looked me up and down, asking what I was doing out in the halls alone, and she invited me back to her lab for the remainder of my break.  Taking whatever company I could get, I accompanied her back to the lab. 

A pitched creak flowed through the room as she pushed a small glass of tea my way.  “So, what were you doing?”  The question was a surprise for me.  I looked at her, a little dumbfounded, until she continued.  “I’ve seen you walking up and down the halls today.  On your breaks, I’d guess.  You almost looked like you were hunting something, or someone.  What are you looking for?” 

I looked back at her and took a sip of her tea.  I wasn’t one for being overly open about my feelings, but she was the only one around.  Maybe she had an answer.  “Well….” I began, slowly but surely explaining that I was looking for the woman who gave me the job and had spoken with me every day up until now.  She just looked me over as I explained the situation, nodding and listening every few moments.  It wasn’t long until my phone went off, signaling the end of my lunch break. 

I gathered my things, along with another cup of tea the good doctor had packaged for me.  On my way out, she spoke to me again.  “What does she look like?  If I see her, I’ll tell her that you’re looking for her.”  I turned around and nodded, explaining that she was a tall blond woman, the same that she’d seen me with my first day.  At first, she looked confused.  She cocked her head to the side, as if trying to process the information or trying to think of what to say.  I didn’t think I’d said anything wrong.  Eventually, she said she’d keep an eye out. 

I left the room and went back to the office.  I never did hear back from her or the receptionist that entire day.  ‘Maybe she had a day shift today’ I thought to myself.  I thought of it until I left.  Amazing, thinking and almost worried about someone who had been nothing but rude to me…

I couldn’t help but spend my entire drive home, thinking about what had happened at work.  The receptionist being gone.  Searching up and down the halls time and time again, and even having the Doctor looking for her too.  It was like I was slowly becoming obsessed with the fact that she was missing from my perspective.  Why would it matter?  She was somewhere in the building.  She had to be.  But my mind just wouldn’t let it go.  I was already thinking about how I’d be searching different places the next day to try and find her. 

I was still thinking about it when I walked in the front door.  It bothered me, but not as much as the next events would.  No sooner had I opened the door did I hear rumbling from inside the house.  It rumbled every second or so, but soon sounded more like patting.  Patting, slowly getting louder and louder until I saw a silhouette come through one of the doorways, Rebecca walking through the room and towards me.  I let out a soft grin at my surprise.  She’d never waited for me to get home so late and come out into the house like this before.  It was always her waiting at the door already or her waiting in bed. 

As she walked up to me while I closed the door, she suddenly had a rush of genius, or so it seemed.  I could swear I saw a light bulb come on right above her head as she proclaimed, “I knew it!!!!”  I just raised my eyebrow at her as she proclaimed this in the middle of the night/early in the morning.  I questioned her about it, but before she answered, she walked towards me and started patting my head and pushing me against the wall, measuring me up to the doorway’s boarding.  I was just kind of moving for her along for the ride until she eventually told me what was going on.  

“You’re shorter, babe”.  Her words didn’t make much sense to me.  That tied with the fact that my mind was pre occupied at the moment from the confusion of her moving me to the wall and measuring me and wondering more about the missing receptionist.  I just scratched my head for a moment and joked back at her.  “Rebecca, don’t listen to my mother anymore.  I know she told you coffee makes people shorter, but that’s just a myth she and Dad made up.”

“I’m totally serious!” she said back to me.  The way she spoke was in a way that I knew she wasn’t just joking around with me.  She really thought that I had gotten shorter.  So I had to clear my mind for a moment and try to think the way she was.  If she really thought I was shorter, I’d go along and hear her out.  “Alright, Rebecca.  What makes you think I’m shorter?”  I was legitimately curious about what had made her so convinced that I was shorter than before.  I didn’t feel any shorter. 

She then looked me in the eyes, directly.  Her eyes were level with mine and she just stood there for a moment, as if expecting me to make some miraculous discover.  “We’re eye level with each other now.  You used to be taller than me, remember?” she said, as she drew ever closer.  I thought about it and she was right.  I was always just a little taller than she was.  Her eyes normally came up to about my lips, maybe my nose.  We were eye level with one another, but I still wasn’t convinced that I was shorter than before.  My clothes still fit fine.  If I were shorter, surely my pants would be dragging and falling. 

“Maybe you’re just taller, Rebecca.  Maybe you got a random growth spurt.”  She just gave me a look after that and shook her head.  “Me?  A growth spurt?  Come on, babe.  I’m telling you you’re getting shorter.  Now you can either believe me or maybe you’ll keep getting shorter.  Maybe if my chest is eye level you’d believe me more!” She partially laughed as she gave this comment, but I could tell she didn’t appreciate me not believing her.  She was definitely serious about this, but that just doesn’t happen.  She can’t expect me to believe that I’m shorter than I was a few days ago.  Even if she was eye level with me.  

The more we spoke about it, the more agitated she got with me for not taking her seriously and believing that I was getting shorter.  She kept taunting me about being eye level with her chest or hips and whatnot, as if that were even a possibility without her getting ridiculously high heels.  Or a step-ladder.  She’s done that before, pretending to be a super tall woman before, or to get something off the high shelf without me having to go out and help her.  So I wouldn’t put it past her to do that to me one night.  I’d walk in the door and she’d be on a step stool next to the door, pretending to be super tall. 

As the night ended, we went to bed.  I still remembered the last words she said to me before going to bed, our debate clearly still fresh in her mind.  “Night Night, shorty.” And with a giggle she was fast asleep.  I couldn’t help but shake my head and drift off to sleep on my own…

Who would think getting a new job would be so stressful on the mind?  As I was driving to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about what all had come up in the past few days.  First, I get thrown into a job with a blunt woman that scares me from a look.  Then, she disappears and the goodness deep down in me is worried and wants to talk to someone I know scares me.  Finally, Rebecca starts getting in on the delusion that I’m getting shorter.   How did my life get so stressful and messed up in just a few days? 

I walked in the front door and expected to see no one at the front desk.  As I turned and went in I saw the chair turned towards the opposite wall and there was something odd about it.  I tried to focus my eyes on it as I walked, but it took some time to finally realize.  There was a coat hanging off the back of it.  A small slowly began to curl into a smile as I realized and reassured myself.  ‘I knew it’, I thought.  ‘I knew she was still here somewhere.’  As I walked closer to the chair, though, I realized it was still empty.  It almost disappointed me.  But there was some reassuring fact that she had used the chair.  Someone had, at least. 

The rest of the day seemed to fly by with much more comfort than the previous day.  My mind had been so worried about that crazy receptionist that just a coat on a chair was enough to brighten my spirits about the whole thing.  Without much time having gone by at all, my phone went off, signaling that it was time for me to go on my break.  I thought about going out to the lobby again to see if she was there, but the events prior had been enough for me.  So I just took a snack out of my bag and stayed in the office as I twiddled around on the computer. 

By the time lunch came, though, I ended up leaving the office.  I’d received an email about an hour previous from whom I assume to be the Doctor.  She said she wished to meet me for lunch again.  Being in the office for several hours straight had made me a bit tired from sitting all the time, so I’d accepted the invitation and headed to her lab right at the time. 

By the time I walked in and sat down, she already had a cup of tea ready for me, almost feeling like things were getting into tradition-status now.  Go to work.  Meet Doctor and have tea with lunch.  Go home.  As she sat me down and passed me the tea, she began discussions about our little “missing person case” from the day before.  “Sorry, but I wasn’t able to find her.  Maybe she just took yesterday off”, she said as I took my first sip of her tea. 

It took me a moment but I looked back to her and nodded, letting her know to stop looking.  “Don’t worry about it”, I said.  “When I came in today, I saw her coat on her chair so I’m sure she’s here somewhere.  I’ll run into her eventually.”  This was mostly to clear things up and get things off of the topic.  That woman had stressed me out by being missing, so as long as she was there, I didn’t need to focus that much on the topic of her.  We then proceeded to talk about a lot of different things as we ate.  Mostly the Doctor talking about her work and how she was originally a day shifter and requested to work nights. 

By the time I got up to leave, I had downed almost half the tea and stopped in front of the table.  For some reason, at that moment, I had thought of and remembered what Rebecca told me last night about being shorter.  “Excuse me, doctor, but can I ask you a question?  Can you stand up, please?”  She looked at me with an almost confused look on her face.  But, she proceeded to stand up and bring her petite form right in front of me, asking what I needed. 

“Well…” I began.  “Do I look any, well…shorter to you?  Compared to when we first met?”  My cheeks started to flush, realizing how ridiculous all of this sounded.  She looked equally embarrassed making a few hesitant sways as she listened to me.  After a moment, though, she placed her hand around my forehead and shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so.  Why…would you think you were shorter?  I’m not feeding you coffee or anything!”  She let out a laugh, clearly having been brought up with the same “Coffee Makes You Short” myth that I had. 

Still being drawn out, I continued.  “Well, last night, my girlfriend was sure that I looked shorter to her.  I’m not sure I believe her, but she sounded very serious.  So, I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask you since we’ve been meeting these past few days.”  She then stopped and looked me over.  She stepped back a moment and let out what sounded like a sigh.  “Oh.  You’re, uh…girlfriend….She thought that?  I see.  Is she, um, short?  Like me?”  She then looked back at me with an almost annoyed look in her face and I almost felt bad I’d even mentioned it. 

Both of us had a short moment of silence before she broke it, talking a little quicker about it.  “No, you don’t look any shorter!  So you just stop listening to whatever this…girlfriend, of yours is saying okay?  I think you look just as tall as you did the day we met!”  The way she talked was a little odd, but I just shrugged my shoulders and went back to the office…  

Coming out of the office didn’t prove very fruitful with finding the friendly neighborhood receptionist, and then there was the awkward end of discussion with the doctor.  I guess even a day that starts out looking good could still lead to be stressful by the end of the day.  The amount of stress would make a normal person think about whether they really wanted to stay in this job or they wanted to move.  But, I knew better than that.  It was hard enough to grab this job.  I’ll get used to it.  I’ll adjust and adapt to the situation.  As soon as this trouble with the receptionist is over with, everything will be just fine.  

I came to the front door and hesitated before going to the inside of my home.  I thought about if I should prepare myself for another one of these “You’re getting shorter” talks with Rebecca.  With as much as she teased me and asked about it last night, I doubt it’s something she would let go just like that.  I retracted my hand from the door and thought for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts and make some good come-backs before even going in the door.  That is, if fate would allow me to do this.  The answer came when the door opened up by itself.  

There at the door, waiting for me, was a PJ-clad Rebecca with a goofy smile on her face.  “Welcome home, shorty” she said, teasingly as she leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  As my face reddened, I should have known this was coming.  I just returned her kiss in kind and let her pull me inside.  As I came in, I tried to explain to her again that I wasn’t getting shorter, but she was just not taking that for an answer for the second night in a row.  She reached forward, and pulled me into her.  

“See?  You’re even shorter today?  You’re only eye level with my lips!”  I just shook my head and kept my eyes shut as she embraced me.  Part of me didn’t care about all of this.  When her warmth hit me, all I cared about was her warmth.  But eventually she made me look.  As I opened my eyes and straightened up, I did see her lips and face in front of me.  I let out a soft laugh and just shook my head.  “Rebecca, just because you want to get up on your toes doesn’t mean I’m getting shorter, okay?  I even asked someone at work today about it and they dismissed it”

This got her attention as she began taking me back towards the bedroom.  “So you asked someone at work about this, huh?  My noticing making this bother you, hmmm?  Starting to believe it yourself?”  The way she teased me had always made me speechless and especially in this situation.  She knew that if she teased me, she could just make me blush and go into a shy state of mind.  And she was right.  My face blushed and I just crept along where she was taking me.  She giggled, knowing full well that she had done that on purpose all the way from the door and under the covers in bed.  

As we got in bed, she looked at me with a serious look on her face as she brushed back my hair.  “Listen, babe.  I just want you to know that I’m serious about this and I want you to take this serious, too.  I know what I feel when I hold you.  I know what I see when I gaze upon you.  It’s different.  I know it is.  I am worried about you.”

The seriousness of her tone really did strike me.  I could see the sincere look in her eyes.  She’d gone from a teasing girly girl to someone that looked very concerned and worried.  Her eyes were quivering as she held onto my hands.  I started feeling a heaviness in my chest, after seeing the serious look in her eyes and realize that she is stressing herself out over this.  I leaned forward and into her.  I expressed that I knew she was worried about me.   And said I would take her more seriously.  That I would take a closer look at things in the morning.  

I could tell she didn’t like the answer, but she held onto me, regardless.  I could feel her breathing over my hair.  I could feel her heart beating against me, rapidly.  She stroked my hair over and over again, humming to me until I fell fast asleep, thinking about how I must have been making her feel and what I could do to investigate this myself, to make sure she wasn’t just over-worrying herself…  

From the moment I woke the next day, I started taking Rebecca more seriously.  The previous night made me feel like a terrible person for not believing her and it hit home.  She was going through a lot and was hurt that I didn’t even believe her.  When we had first got together, I promised myself I would never do anything to hurt her, and I’d done just that.  Thankfully, she was gone at work when I woke and didn’t have to see me waking, in tears because of that realization.  But, the realization would prove to be inspiration.  I would make sure of that. 

I spent the entire “morning” focusing on what she thought and how I could help verify whether she was right or not.  If I was getting shorter, surely there would be some obvious factors, even for me.  So I brainstormed and thought of what I could do.  At least, until it was time for me to leave and head back in for work.  So, I gathered my thoughts and planned to brainstorm even more throughout the night with the lack of calls coming in.  I traveled to work, and would do everything I could to plan this out.  For her. 

When I got there, I wasn’t surprised to see no receptionist, once again.  She should be here, but she’s not at her desk.  I thought about her, but I kept it out of my mind so I could focus on Rebecca’s worries about my height.  So, I went straight back to the office and got clocked in to prepare.  Like I’d hoped, there were very little calls coming in, so I had nothing to worry about with not having the time to prepare.  So, I got out a notepad and began to jot down my ideas for being able to help seek out Rebecca’s claims. 

It took some time to think of much I could do right then and there.  But, by the time my break came around, I did think of a few things.  So, on my break, I left work and ran down to the general store just down the road.  Cycling through aisle after aisle after aisle, I got some supplies and brought them back to the office.  It was going to be a little odd to see in my office, but it was something I wished to do anyways.  After clocking back in from my break, I switched over to a wireless headset and began hammering nails into the rear wall. 

Time went by again and again and again, and I kept hammering in nails and hanging my supplies up on the wall.  After nearly 2 hours, I took a step back and looked at my work.  There was now a collection of bulletin boards lined up the wall about 6 feet high, each overlapping one another and carved out to look like one tall board.  I carefully traced my finger over it to make sure everything was stable and wouldn’t move until I backed myself up against it.  I closed my eyes and thought to myself.  ‘This should work.  I hope’.  I then let a box cutter glide over the top of my head and create a punctured line in the board. 

It wasn’t until my lunch break that I had completed this task.  My goal was that I would made markings for my height every day at work.  That way, if I really was getting shorter, it would be clearly obvious that I was.  The engravings would ensure that my markings could never be tampered with or erased.  It wasn’t anything immediate, but it was definitely a start. 

I was about to move back to my desk and clock out for lunch when there was a knock at my door.  Surprised, I set my headset down and answered it.  Despite the tension I should have felt, things were more comfortable than that.  Slowly opening the door, I found the good doctor right at my door with two glasses in hand, asking to come in.  I looked back, realizing that there was a spare chair so I let her in, seeing that she hadn’t forgotten our habit of meeting each day for lunch.  This was the first time she had actually come to my office for this, though.  I was surprised she even knew where my office was. 

We began our lunch when she asked about the boards up on the back wall.  I looked at them and sighed.  Then, I looked to her and began telling her that I was trying to measure and that this was about the worries of getting shorter.  I tried to avoid mentioning Rebecca, given the reaction from the last time I had mentioned it to her.  The doctor set down her cup and looked over at the board.  Then looked back at me and let out a sigh of her own. 

She then reached forward and pressed her hand on my shoulder, as if trying to console me about it.  “Why the trouble?  You know people don’t get shorter.”  She then got up and walked over to the boards, eyeing the engraving I’d made.  I did get her point.  She’s right.  People don’t get shorter.  It’s silly to think about, isn’t it?  No.  Not when someone I love is so dearly worried about me.  That made this worth the trouble.  I would do anything to ensure Rebecca that everything was fine, and proof of me not getting shorter was the only way I could do that.  Unless, of course, I really was getting shorter.  I had to know, for her. 

When the doctor came back over, I explained the circumstances to her.  She just shook her head at me, like I was some sort of crazy person.  “You sound like a case of an over-stressed person.  Or maybe she is, or both of you.  You know what, I’m gonna give you some extra spices for your tea, okay?  It’ll help with the stress.  There’s no need to go out of your way for some fantasy about getting shorter.” 

With that, she added an extra pack of spices to my tea that she’d held in her pocket up to this point.  Afterwards, she just left, without saying a word, slamming the door behind her.  I winced at the slam, and began thinking deeply.  Was I going off the deep end?  Was Rebecca?  I didn’t know.  But, I needed to do this for Rebecca, didn’t I?  I kept telling myself that as I drank some more of the tea.  I needed to take away those worries.  I belonged to Rebecca, and she with me.  I’m there to help her, and that’s what I was going to do.  Even if my office looked odd.  

My mind had never been busier than that day.  As I walked out of the office, I didn’t even care to look to see if the receptionist was there or not.  Ever since the lunch break, I’d just been thinking on everything I was setting up.  I made the wall in my office to measure my height every day to come, but that was only long-term.  I couldn’t have any answers for Rebecca that night but only after several days.  So, it wasn’t the only project I had been thinking up in that wacky head of mine.  I had lots of other ideas. 

When I got home, I was planning on laying some old shirts out so I could measure that as well.  If I was getting shorter, I’d be able to fit into clothing I wore when I was younger, right?  It made sense to me, at least.  It wasn’t enough, though.  My entire drive home was spent on trying to think of more and more ideas.  I thought about getting wrist-bands to wear and even looking for someone at work to help measure myself at the beginning of each shift. 

The only problem with the latter is the only person I knew was the Doctor, and she didn’t seem that interested in this worry about being shorter than before.  Maybe it was because she was a short, petite person, herself.  If she was conscious about her own height, maybe she felt something a little personal whenever I brought this thing up.  I’d figure something out, though.  Maybe I could wander the halls the next day and find another night-shifter to give me a hand.  Regardless, I would get all of this figured out in the most extensive height project ever seen and put Rebecca’s thoughts at ease.  That or be confused if I really was getting shorter. 

When I walked in the door, Rebecca was waiting for me, once again.  She looked at me with the same look I saw last night.  The look of someone worried about their closest friend.  She didn’t say a word as the door opened.  I didn’t let her, because I pulled her into a hug the moment I saw that worried look.  I made the hug last quite some time as I softly and gently rubbed her back, giving her some long-needed attention after all she’d been giving me the past several nights.  It ended with me speaking up about having a lot to tell her. 

We came back to the bedroom and got in bed together.  As we covered ourselves up, she looked into my eyes and asked about everything I had to say.  I allowed her to pull me closer as I began to speak.  I told her about what she said the night before, and that I was going to take this seriously from now on.  I then went on to talk about what I’d done at work that day.  Making the boards on the wall to measure myself and a host of the other ideas I had about old clothing and many other ideas that were forming as I spoke.  She stayed quiet and intently listened to every word I had to speak to her. 

When I finished up, I looked her straight in the eyes.  “Rebecca, I didn’t take you seriously before.  I’m sorry.”  Her lips began to curl into a smile as she reached forward to kiss my forehead.  Not without her own worrying coming out.  I could see a tear dripping down from one of her eyes as she did this.  She was a lot more worried today than the day before.  That guilty chill went all over me as see finally spoke.  “Don’t be sorry.  Just promise me, we’ll figure all of this out.  Promise me.” 

This led me to move my head and look her in the eyes again.  She was crying even further now.  I responded by pulling into her even tighter than before.  This had been affecting her far more than it had been affecting me.  So I held her tight and reassured her.  “I promise.  We’ll do everything we can to figure out what’s going on, exactly.  And when we do, things will be okay.  Please don’t worry yourself like this.  This will all be figured out soon.  I promise.” 

Before I knew it, the situation had turned.  No sooner had I finished speaking did I realize that Rebecca had fallen asleep in my arms.  It’s normally the other way around, but she must have been worrying herself silly.  I took a deep breath as I stayed still, thinking of what else I could do to try and help her not worry and feel better.  “Breakfast” I said to myself.  “I’ll get up early and make her some food later.  Yeah, that’ll be a good idea…” 

I then looked over to the clock, having to focus my vision to see it clearly.  Only a few hours away.  A good nap, and then breakfast for a very over-worried lady.

The drive to work was long the next day.  So much had happened within me.  It had been months since I’d been able to make breakfast for Rebecca, and I strived to knock her out.  Not that I didn’t like cooking, but she was always up before me and never let me cook for her.  It was a nice change of pace from our recent talks about this whole short thing.  I got a little sleep deprived, but that was okay, in my mind.  As long as I was able to put her mind at ease today, it didn’t matter. 

From all the lack of sleep, my body hurt as I drove.  I only got a few hours of sleep from this breakfast ordeal and my body was reminding me of it every moment until I got there.  The Doctor’s tea would be very welcome that day, especially if it had loads of sugar packed into it.  As I got out of my car, I went in the door, finding no receptionist at the desk, once again.  Had I not been incredibly tired, I may have spent some of that extra time for being there early in looking for her.  At this point, though, it wasn’t in my mind much past the fatigue and the stress. 

I finally got into my office, where a cup was waiting for me already.  The doctor must have been psychic.  Or so I thought.  The one day I came in worn out and needing some tea and it’s there waiting for me.  I let my hands go around the cup and downed nearly half the cup in a single instant.  I got so wrapped up in the tea that I wasn’t thinking about much else.  Before I knew it, my alarm was going off to clock in.  I put the tea down with a finger against my forehead, loosely fitting the headset on and beginning my day. 

It was already my lunch break before I fully woke and realized I’d forgotten to measure myself.  I put my headset down quickly and aimed to do it right away, just in case I had a visitor for lunch again.  Getting up, I moved over to the board and grabbed the box cutter.  After straightening my body, I made the slit and then backed away.  As I turned around to look at the indentation I’d made, the box cutter hit the floor.  It fell because I’d dropped it and my jaw when I looked at the board.  There was the indentation there from yesterday, wearing the same shoes as today.  And there was the indentation from today, a clear 3-4 inches lower on the board. 

I stopped and shook my head, making sure it wasn’t just the fatigue making me see things.  I looked again and again, but it was always the same.  My mark from today was clearly a few inches lower than yesterday’s.  That was impossible, but it was there.  A flood of anxiety rushed through my stomach.  ‘She was right?’ I thought to myself.  ‘I really am getting shorter?!’  I didn’t know what to think or do.  The board didn’t look like it had been tampered with or moved.  I always lock the office on my way out, so no one’s been in here.  Could this be a legit reading? 

I fell back down into my chair, staring at the board for time that seemed immeasurable.  The very idea of me getting shorter was impossible, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.  I’d gone through all of these projects to prove to Rebecca that everything was fine, didn’t I?  How am I supposed to go home tonight and tell her that she was right?  How could I tell her that I potentially lost almost a quarter of a foot over the course of the past 24 hours?  How could I explain any of this to myself, let alone to her?  Or anyone else? 

My fingers started to quiver when I heard the door open next to me, just as I expected.  In walked the Doctor, who came with a cup of tea in her hands and she just stopped to look at me.  I was so caught in this trance-like state of thinking that my body didn’t even react to her coming into the room.  I don’t know how long she was in there before she’d made the motion to put her hand on my shoulder and ask me what was wrong.  Of course, once she did, my body reacted completely off guard and I nearly screamed when I felt her hand on me. 

It took a few moments to calm down and start to speak again.  “Calm down.  It’s just me.  The Doctor down the hall.  You look like you’ve seen a ghost, though.  What’s wrong?”  I looked at her, fingers quivering and then looking back at the board.  I moved my gaze back and forth for a few minutes before I began to speak, explaining the situation to her.  I left out no detail about the board, and even had her measure me up to it to make sure it wasn’t just me.  The result was the same, though. 

She looked me over for a while as I did her.  I was calming down and she just looked deep in thought about the whole thing.  Likely feeling bad about dismissing this for so long.  In the end, she put her hands on both shoulders and looked up to my eyes.  “You need to calm down, okay?  You’re stressed out.  Couldn’t the board have gotten moved?  You’re going to give yourself a panic attack at this rate.  I want you to just take deep breaths and tell yourself that you’re okay for the rest of the night.”

She then set down her cup of tea and put more stress-reducing herbs in it.  “Because that’s what you are.  You’re okay.  Trust me.  I’m going to go back to my lab, but I’ll be back on last break.  I want you to be more calmed down, alright?  Just sit down, drink some tea, and get your mind off of these things.” 

With that, she walked out of the room, gently shutting the door behind her.  My mind was still a mess, just from seeing a mark on a board.  I then took a deep breath and drank some tea, as she’d said.  Getting shorter or not, she was right about one thing.  I needed to calm down or I was going to give myself a panic attack…

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. The words had been going back and forth in my mind ever since the doctor left the room. I was told to calm down and I immediately tried to do so. Thankfully, no one called in on the line while I was doing this, so I didn't have to try and tackle talking to a client and controlling my breathing at the same time. Then again, it might have been a good distraction from all of the stress running through me right now. A nice call from a mad client could help get my mind off of this and onto something else.

The 2 hours to last break felt like an eternity to me. It always does when you're gripped with anxiety, worry, and a million other emotions. My mind was constantly busy, too. My biggest fear was going home and telling all of this to Rebecca. The doctor's optimism about the situation be damned, I was completely convinced that the "You're Getting Shorter" theory of Rebecca's was no exaggeration. What happened if it kept up? What if the rate stayed the same? In a week's time, I'd be nearly two feet shorter. Sooner or later, children would be taller than me. Midgets would be taller! And what if it didn't stop?

I was gripping at my hair when I heard footsteps approaching my door again. I was so emotionally worn out that I just looked up and stared at the door for a few minutes before she came back in. As I suspected, it was the doctor again. She just walked in and offered me her hand. I looked at her and then her hand for a moment and the back at her. She had to come out and say it. "Come to the lab with me. A nice little meal will do you good to get all of this nonsense out of your head."

I was in no position to decline the offer. She knew I needed to relax, and so did I. I simply nodded and took her hand, which abruptly pulled me out of the chair before I'd even begun to get out myself. As I came up and she led me on, I started thinking again, about that. She was strong for such a petite girl, when she wished to be. She didn't let my hand go until we got to the lab, as if she were worried about me wandering back away if she'd let go. Well, maybe she was thinking of something else. I didn't know. Not then.

As we did reach the lab, she passed me a cup of tea and told me to drink it. I let out a deep breath and began to sip at it. As more of the hot tea traveled down into my gut, I could feel the air around me. My own stress, worries, anxiety. It was affecting the world around me. Everywhere I looked, I felt dread, the worrying coming back in full force. That is, until the doctor began talking to me again. After that, I focused my attention back to her.

"How do you feel?" she asked, almost like she was a completely different kind of doctor, all of a sudden. I looked at her until she asked again. I didn't really want to answer, but I did. After gulping down another drink of tea. "Okay, I guess. Just worried." It was brief and wasn't everything but it wasn't a lie, either. I was better than I was before. Not that I'd say I was anywhere close to being well, but better.

"Drink some more tea and you'll feel better. It's got a special stress-relieving herb in it. Before you know it, you'll be chipper again and we can put all of this stuff behind us." Her words came out rather confident, as if drinking tea was a fix-all for stress and anxiety. I was still drinking the tea, but even natural remedies for stress have their limitations. My mind was filled with so much doubt that it didn't feel it had room for such optimism. I just shook my head as I took another drink and put my hand over my forehead, staring down at the table.

"What if...? What if you're wrong? What if I really am...?" My doubts were beginning to come out when she reached over and grabbed at my arm and tilted my head back towards her face. "No. Stop", she said. She looked at me with a very intent and serious face. I got a chill just from looking at it. It just screamed 'Stop being pessimistic or I'm going to kick your ass.' I stared at her and nodded to her, definitely getting the message she was trying to convey to me.

She put more herbs in my tea and urged me to drink more. I focused on the drink and downed it quickly, hoping it would be as miraculous as she said it was. These types of feelings weren't good at all. Unfortunately, I started to shiver upon downing it all at once. My entire body felt hot with heartburn. I'd always had problems like that. Being too thirsty and downing an entire drink leading to brain-freeze, heartburn, or something else.

As I held my head, I heard a soft voice near me, the doctor, saying: "I'm sorry". And then I felt myself passing out...

Pain surged through my head as I came to.  It wasn’t any sort of unfamiliar pain.  It was more like when you wake up with a pounding headache.  I’d made a grunt and immediately reached my hand up to place it over my forehead.  Pulse, Pulse.  Every time my heart beat, the stinging of a headache pulsed.  I was used to this feeling, but it certainly wasn’t ever welcome when it decided to rear its ugly head.  I let out a yawn and tried to get myself into an upright position. 

I yawned several times, a strong feeling of sleepiness coming over me at the same time as this headache.  As a result, it was hard to keep my eyes open.  With them shut, I just sat where I was for a few moments.  I still wasn’t sure I was even awake at the time.  Everything around me was filtered with that tired, sleepy feeling when you’re partially awake and partially asleep still.  All my mind could focus on was going back and forth between the pain of this headache and just wanting to collapse and go back to sleep. 

I tried laying back down, but the pulsing kept getting more and more apparent.  This happened every time I woke in the middle of the night with a pounding headache.  I felt it, and didn’t care.  I would try to go back to sleep until it got so bad that I couldn’t concentrate on sleeping and would be forced to push myself out of bed and to the bathroom to get some painkillers.  I was so sleepy that I didn’t realize the same would happen to me right then and there.  I kept trying to sleep until I got a searing pain in my head and I started to whimper at the pain. 

At that point, I knew it was time to get up and go get some medicine, sleepy or not.  As I pushed myself up, I did my usual and covered my eyes for the most part with my hand.  If I got too used to walking around, I would just wake up and never be able to get back to sleep.  The goal was to reach the bathroom, get the painkillers, and get back without hitting anything on the way to hurt myself and really wake me up.  I’d done it a million times before, so one more wouldn’t really hurt. 

As I slowly walked, I tried to concentrate on maintaining my sleepiness, despite being partially awake and walking around.  How tired I was made itself known as I just hugged and drug myself against the all on the way to the bathroom, feeling every crease and board of the wooden walls from the bedroom to the next door-frame.  If it weren’t for the headache, I probably could have just fallen asleep right there, sitting against the wall.  What an embarrassing thought and scene that would be. 

I eventually found a doorway that led to the bathroom.  I knew because the wooden floor changed to white tiles.  ‘Almost there’ I thought.  Just a little bit longer and I would be able to get some painkillers and go back to bed.  As soon as I entered the room, though, my headache suddenly got worse.  Stinging, pounding pain force itself through my forehead and my nose and I panicked, rushing myself forward, only to bash my head on something, completely knocking me to the floor in a loud whimper-filled thud.  I don’t know what I hit but it made my head feel that much worse.  I just laid on the floor, both hands holding onto my forehead, trying to ease the pain with pressure. 

A moment later, I heard more thuds, but these were more distant.  They almost felt like they were coming from the floor itself.  Not part of my headache.  As they got a little louder, I could tell they were footsteps and they were very rapid.  Someone running across the house, maybe?  If so, why was anyone else awake?  Before I could even ask myself these things, I felt my body slowly being lifted off the floor and into a sitting motion. 

“Are you okay, sweetheart?!  What’s wrong?”  The voice was very feminine and familiar.  With all the pain from my headache as well as whatever I ran into, I didn’t care who it was.  I just held my hands over my head and said “Headache.  Trying to get Ibuprofen.”  I squinted my eyes under my hand’s shadow as the pain got worse.  I just sat there and waited as I heard her start rummaging through the cabinets and getting out a bottle of pills.  Before long, she’d come back and handed me a couple pills. 

Still woozy, I downed the pills and was guided back to the bedroom by her hand in mine.  My eyes were shut the entire time but I could tell her hand elt very warm to me.  Very warm.  Very strong, too.  Almost like a motherly grip of not wanting to lose a child.  She even tucked me back into bed and kissed my forehead, telling me to go to sleep.  “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart.  Then, we can have a nice chat about yesterday.  Just don’t go bashing your head against the sink again.”  She slowly left the room, at least I thought so.  I still wanted to just go back to sleep. 

As I slowly drifted off, I thought about what she said.  Bashing my head against the sink.  That didn’t make much sense, did it?  But before I could care about the confusion of the words, I was off in dreamland, completely unaware of the situation I was in…

The clock ticked and tocked, hour by hours.  The second hand moved and then again, and again, and again.  The soft ticking of the clock now filled the room with an echo.  Tick, tick,tick.  Tock, tock,tock.  The sound bounced off the walls and to the other, and the back.  The sound was slowly moving from a simple ticking of the time passing by to a dreadful reminder of how much time had passed already.  Seconds.  Minutes.  Hours.  It all passed far too slowly and without a single bit of good news to go with it. 

"He's still not home" muttered Rebecca, as sat at the kitchen table, staring at the clock.  Her eyes were following the second hand almost obsessively, without fail.  Her face was pale and her body tired and weary.  But, as the hours went by, again and again, she couldn't make herself move from where she was.  She just sat by a clock, in clear view of the front door, waiting moment after moment.  Minute after minute.  Hour after hour. 

She had been sitting there for several hours.  She came home, worried about me, and wanted to see and greet me the moment I got home.  Her own stress had risen to new heights that day and she wished to see me in the hopes her worries really were just hallucinations.  She was prepared to apologize for the trouble and the stress she had sent to me.  However, she didn't get a chance to apologize, because I never came home that night. 

Her phone softly rang as a text message came through.  Her eyes didn't even notice it for several minutes, still focused and staring at the clock.  Eventually, her senses came back and she saw a message from her boss.  It read:

"Are you sure you can't come in today?  We could really use the extra help"

Her eyes studied the two statements for almost an hour before she finally moved her hands to respond.  She was sure of her decision.  It was the right one.  It was the emotional one, but the right one. 

"I need this.  Please understand"

As the phone whistled as the message sent, a tear began to slowly drop down her face.  She blinked, and more made streams from her eyelids all the way down to her chin.  She stared off into space as she allowed them to run down and tickle her cheek.  One after another, they came down again and again and again.  She stared downward and clenched her fists together, them shaking as she tried to hold in her frustration. 

There had never been a day before that I just didn’t show up at home.  Rebecca knew that.  If there was something wrong, I always called her to let her know, normally resulting in her coming to me to take me home, herself.  But this day, she had something unexpected.  No contact at all.  No emails.  No texts.  No calls.  Just nothing.  Putting that on top of the stress she was already under must have really put pressure on her. 

She picked her phone up and dialed my number, but it immediately went to voicemail, meaning my phone wasn’t turned on.  She waited for the tone to come up to leave a message and tried to speak.  She tried for several minutes but nothing came out.  After the message timed out and the call disconnected, she just set the phone down and more tears began running down her face.  Before long, it had moved beyond that as she clenched her right hand into a fist and slammed it down into the kitchen table in a fit of rage. 

Her fist hit, and then again, and again.  The dangling wine glasses got jostled around with every hit.  Slam.  Slam.  Slam.  She did it again and again, as if it would never end.  It would never stop.  When she finally did, she picked up her now-red hand and walked to the door.  As she peeked out the window, she could see the sun beginning to rise.  It had been more than 24 hours past when I would normally arrive home. 

Rebecca looked out into the streets, hopeful that she’ll see me coming towards the door.  But, I wasn’t there.  Just like I wasn’t there a day before.  It didn’t take long for her to start slamming her fist on the door again and again, screaming at the top of her lungs.  All of this stress was too much for her to handle.  As she wore out her lungs, she slid down to the ground, gushing tears and shaking. 

“Wherever you are…please…please be safe….and come home to me….”

*Yawn*

I woke up with a very sleepy yawn, slowly sitting up and collecting the thoughts on the dream that had just ended.  It was a strange dream, even for me.  I’d been running around a Candy Land board like I was one of the game pieces.  My mind was really screwy sometimes.  As I opened my eyes to help myself wake up, I looked down to the ground.  The bed felt a little more flat and hard than it should.  After blinking a few times, I found out why.  I wasn’t on a bed at all.  When I woke up and traced my covers around, I realized that I was on a bed-like futon.  The kind you’d expect to see in a traditional Japanese home. 

I covered my eyes for a moment, still adjusting to the line around me.  A few deep breaths and I revealed them to look around again.  Sleeping on a futon is something I wouldn’t normally do, seeing as how I don’t own a futon.  As I looked around the room, I realized that wherever I was wasn’t a place I was familiar with.  Aside from the futon, this room was very small, only big enough for maybe a few tables outside of the futon where I was sleeping.  It was very long and thin, and the futon was the only thing within it, other than me. 

“Where am I?” I pondered.  There was a sliding door at the end of the room that I could probably use to leave and see where I was.  Before that, though, I stopped to storm my brain and try to remember what had happened.  I hadn’t remembered going to bed the night before, but my memory was hazy.  I could remember images, visualizations, pictures.  I remembered going to work.  “Work.  Then I’d been spending some time with the doctor.  But then….what?”  The words rang around the room a few times, playing over and over again in my head, hoping it would spark some sort of memory.  But there was nothing. 

I sat there for a long time, no knowing what I should do.  I didn’t know where I was.  So, what could have been outside that door?  Or who?  There was a part of me that thought it would be a better idea to just stay in the room until something happened to explain the situation to me a little better.  The only other choice would be to wander out of it and hope I wasn’t in some sort of dangerous place.  Amidst my indecisiveness, I could hear footsteps nearby.  Footsteps that were coming towards the room. 

Before long, the door slid open, and a figure slowly walked in.  My head was down at the moment, but I slowly moved it up.  Past the hard floor, I could see a pair of socked feet slowly walking towards me.  Above them, a petite-looking body covered in what looked like a Kimono, or at least what I believed was a kimono.  I’d never seen one before, outside of the media, but it definitely flowed and looked like one.  As my eyes slowly traced up the body, I finally came to the person’s face, whom was looking towards me with a small smile on her face.  It took a moment to recognize, but I soon realized that it was the Doctor that I’d been meeting at work. 

“Doctor?  Where am I?” 

The words were pretty straightforward and to the point.  She was a familiar face and she was here with me, so she had to know something about what was going on.  As she approached, I got myself on my feet, hoping that she would explain and take me somewhere.  I wasn’t really thinking everything through when I’d first seen her.  I wasn’t all the way awake and didn’t realize the state things were really in for me.  I should have known more about the situation just from it right there.  I find myself in an unfamiliar room.  She walks in in a kimono and socks.  I should have immediately realized. 

The only problem was that’s not the only thing I should have realized.  No sooner had I gotten to my feet and straightened the sheets of the futon had I turned around and immediately went into shock.  After I’d stood up to my full height, the doctor had made her way over to me and was looking down at me.  And I was looking up at her.  The shock took a few moments to hit.  But my jaw dropped and I fell backwards when I realized that my eyes were barely level with her stomach. 

The shock hit me all at once and I slid back on the floor as I did so.  She didn’t say a word at first.  If she did, I didn’t hear it at all.  I picked myself back up as I felt my heart start to race and I closed my eyes.  It was me.  I was still sleepy.  I was still dreaming.  I had to have been.  There is no way I could have stood up to full height and only been as tall as her waist.  There was no way!  It took a few minutes, but I opened my eyes again only to realize the same thing.  She was still walking towards me, her waist right at my eye line. 

It was like a horror movie in my head.  The closer she got, the more I retracted further into the room.  She didn’t say a word, and all I did was sweat and panic as I moved backwards.  Eventually, though, I found a wall behind me.  I was starting to get scared, my legs shaking.  Then I realized what victims in horror movies must have felt.  When logic just didn’t apply and fear directed you in the entirely wrong direction.  Then you realize you’ve trapped yourself in a room with someone that you’re afraid of, and you have no idea why you’re afraid.  You just are. 

Soon, I was face to face with her again.  I was back against the wall and her petite body, now easily twice as tall as my own, standing there keeping me from going anywhere.  She hadn’t done anything hostile.  She just walked in the room.  I wasn’t afraid of her.  She’d been nothing but nice to me.  It was the fact that she was twice my height that scared me, and that fear just wouldn’t let go of me.  As she knelt down to get both our faces level with each other, I felt more fear settling in.  Tears began to run down my cheeks.  I was scared.  Frightened. 

In response to that fear, her arms went around me and I felt an overwhelming warmth hitting me all over, giving me goose bumps all over my body.  She wasn’t being too tight.  She wasn’t being forceful.  She wasn’t hurting me.  But it gave me all of the fear of being harmed and in a dangerous situation.  Then the words came out.  The first words out of her since she entered the room.

“Don’t be scared, little one.” 

My body felt like it was on fire.  As soon as her arms went around me, a warmth enveloped my body that sent me even further into shock than I already was.  It was hot.  Too hot at that.  All of my nerves suddenly went wild.  Every nerve end on my fingertips, toes, arms, all started to sting.  It was like when you sleep on your hand overnight, but more painful.  Tears continued to gush down my face and that split-second felt like a lifetime of torture.  Mere seconds of her holding me felt like hours, even days. 

She didn’t let me go, either.  After she had muttered those words, her arms began to hold me in a tight hug.  Not a painful one, but tight enough to force even more realizations on my melting-down brain.  Her arms felt strong against me.  This didn’t just feel like a hug, but partially a constriction.  I took deep breaths and saw that her arms weren’t straining at all, even though I felt like I was trapped and unable to wriggle free.  It made me realize the reality of the situation and that I wasn’t dreaming at all.  She was twice my height and it felt like she had twice my strength. 

To be honest, I didn’t know what scared me more: The fact that she was twice my height or the fact that she could probably lift me with one arm.  At that point, everything about the situation scared me.  Not even the seemingly warm words sent towards me made me feel any better.  If anything, it made me feel worse and made me want to wake up from this nightmare all the sooner.  In the midst of my thinking, I began to hyperventilate in her arms, not able to control myself.  There was no way I could have prepared myself for this kind of situation.  I used to have bad anxiety issues and this was bringing them out at the worst possible time. 

“Hey, hey!  Calm down!  It’s okay!  Everything’s okay!” 

My reactions didn’t go unnoticed.  The moment I began hyperventilating, I was pulled in closer.  My eyes just widened further as I realized my head was over her shoulders.  I felt movement along my back.  It was strong, but not as much so as before.  I felt it in slow circles along my back.  The more she rubbed my back, the calmer my body began to feel.  My breathing slowed over the course of the next few minutes and I finally got out of “scared and hyperventilating” to just scared.  She stayed there with me, rubbing my back over and over again for more time than I could care to remember.  10 minutes or 30.  It could have been even longer than that. 

“There you go.  Everything’s okay”

Her words went through my ears, but I knew they were wrong.  Deep down inside, the voice in my head kept repeating ‘No, it’s not.  Nothing is okay right now.  Nothing about this is okay.  What in the world is going on?!  Why am I here?  Why are you insanely tall?’ but none of the words ever left my mouth.  In the state I was in, I wasn’t in a position to be able to say anything at all.  I wanted to say something, but I just couldn’t will myself to breathe a single word.  All that I could do was stay there, in her arms.  Helpless, scared, crying. 

She took me to another room after that.  She stood up and wrapped her hand around mine, like a mother does to her child.  Aside from my facial features, that may be exactly what I looked like at the time.  A child being led on by their mother.  I walked along with her by instinct and natural reaction.  I was just silent and looking around at the place we were.  The walls and corridor outside the room looked very much like the room, itself.  Everything was oriental.  Every room had sliding doors.  Asian pictures and decorations across every wall.  This was an Asian-inspired building or whatever it was. 

We came into a room with a small table set on the floor.  She sat down on one side after setting me down on the other.  As she sat, I looked forward, ever-reminded of the fact that she was so tall compared to me.  My eyes had been on her the entire time, but the walk here had made me realize it wasn’t just her.  The door handles were above my head.  Even this table, while sitting, came up to my neck, while it didn’t even come up to her chest after she sat down.  It wasn’t her that was taller.  I was shorter. 

This thought sparked my mind with memories.  I remembered the past days.  The experimenting I was doing about Rebecca’s worries that I’d become shorter.  Freaking out over the bulletin board I had set up.  The Doctor constantly dismissing it as me being too stressed.  Right, the doctor.  She dismissed it every time.  But, wasn’t it her that had me in this room right now?  It only raised more questions in my head about what had happened, and why she was here.  Now I was thinking more along the lines of wondering if she knew about this all along.  I didn’t see anyone else in this place.  Just her. 

I looked at her as she passed me a plate that has some sliced bread on it.  I sat there for a few minutes before she urged me to eat it.  I looked at the food, and didn’t object.  Beyond all the fear, I was pretty hungry.  So I took her up on the offer and managed to get myself moving enough to take a bite out of the toast she’d given me.  This led to her speaking to me again. 

“Before we talk, I just want you to know that you’re safe here, little one.  I’m going to keep you safe from everything.  Just like I…promised.”

I was in mid-chew when she spoke back to me.  It made all the comfort of the food I was eating flush right out of me and yank me back to reality.  I just stared into the slide of toast in my hands, the butter starting to dampen both of my thumbs.  I took deeper breaths as I forced myself to think back on the situation and what she said.  I was hysterical on the inside, but I also knew well that I couldn’t just run away from the situation I was in.  I’d already realized none of this was a dream.  It was just to surreal.  This was really happening and trying to mentally run away from it wouldn’t change that. 

It took a few moments, but I finally looked back towards her, reluctantly.  The muscles in my feet and legs tightened upon seeing her again.  I had to fight myself hard not to start shaking upon gazing up just to see her face.  ‘Calm down’ I thought to myself.  ‘Breathe in your nose.  Breathe out your mouth.  In your nose.  Out your mouth.’  Of all the places my memories of therapy would come back and be needed.  It took me a few minutes, but I began to calm and relax, the doctor just sitting there, smiling, as if she were just waiting me to finish. 

She wore a gentle smile on her face and her cheeks wore blush.  Her hair flowed perfectly down onto her kimono and she was calm as could be.  The light coming off the ceiling bounced off her form perfectly.  The more I took in this image, the more my feelings almost felt unwarranted.  I sat there, terrified of her, yet she looked and had acted so gentle this entire time.  I was starting to wonder if the fear really was warranted.  Or, if she was right when she said was true, and I really was in a safe situation, after all.  There was much conflict, but certain parts of this made me question if I really was in danger. 

“W-what’s going on?”

I muttered only three words, barely getting them out before I started to shake again.  My fists clenched and I started breathing deeply again to maintain control of my anxiety.  I brought out the strength to speak a few words, but at least they were the words that needed to be said.  I was in an impossible situation, or so I thought.  I needed answers, more than anything else.  I needed to know where I was, and why I was there.  More importantly, though, I needed to know why everything, including her, was twice as big to me. 

“Oh, don’t worry.  I’ll explain everything in due time.  But ‘what’s going on’ is that you’re recovering and I’m taking care of you” 

‘What?’ I thought.  ‘In due time?  Why can’t I know now?  And recovering from what?  Could you have given me a more vague answer?’  My thoughts were going crazy, but all I could do physically was shake my head.  My breathing was starting to increase again, but I grabbed at my chest and tried my hardest to concentrate.  I felt like I was about to hit the floor in the worst panic attack of my life, but I had to focus.  I had to concentrate.  I had to keep this going.

“R-Recovering?”

There, another word came out.  Only one word, but I had to keep this conversation going.  If something was wrong with me, and there clearly was, I needed to know what it was.  It’s like being told you’re terminally ill but no one will tell you whether it’s from Aids, Cancer, Parkinson’s, the list goes on.  How could I possibly cope with whatever I’m recovering from if I didn’t even know what was wrong with me in the first place?  In a bold move, I locked gazes with her and tried to show her how serious I was as tears began to flow down my face again. 

She slowly reached her hands out and took mine with them.  Each hand was large, warm, and gentle.  There it was again.  Gentle talking.  Gentle actions.  Gentle feeling.  An overwhelming sense of comfort that makes me doubt my own feelings on what was going on.  But I never took my gaze off of her, as much as it made my heart pound harder and harder.  I couldn’t stop looking at her.  I needed this.  I kept telling myself that, anyways.  Finally, she slowly nodded her head towards me. 

“You’re recovering from the reduction process.  You’re smaller now.  Just the way I…just the way you need to be”

That statement made me tense up again.  ‘Reduction process?’ I thought to myself.  Was my gut feeling right?  Did this have something to do with her and her dismissal of Rebecca’s worries about me getting shorter?  My hands started to shake in hers, a clear emotional reaction from what she’d just said.  But when they shook, she just stood and moved around the table, over to me.  The more I shook, the closer she got.  Until she had gone as far as picking me up and pulling me into her stomach and chest. 

I gasped as my feet left the ground.  I’d always been afraid of heights since I was a small child.  My entire body started to tremble and I instinctively pulled closer to her.  I clung tightly into her body and closed my eyes, not willing to let go of anything solid, even if it was her.  And that was my first mistake.  When I realized that, in that moment, less than a foot off the ground, I naturally reacted and was depending on her to hold me to keep me from falling, although that short fall would not have done anything short of a small bump. 

“There we go, little one.  Everything will be fine, as long as you’re here with me.  You’ll never fall.  You’ll never get hurt.  That’s why I chose you.  To pull you away from the stress and the pain.”

I couldn’t let go of her, but her words just struck be in a really bad way.  I muffled the word ‘Chose?’ into her shoulder as she held me while standing up.  Despite my shaking, feeling her body warming me also helped calm me. 

“That’s right.  But don’t worry about that.  I chose you and made you this way to make you happy.  I can provide your every need.  You’ll never have to go anywhere anymore.”

I swallowed a large mouthful of air.  The more I heard, the more I was starting to get scared again.  She did this to me.  She’s the one who made me this short.  And that fact alone terrified me enough to make my heart go so high that I passed out…

The world slowly began to come back to me.  I let out a soft moan as I woke up with the worst headache of my life.  It was pulsing not only around my forehead but down around my nose.  My eyes.  My arms.  It felt like my entire body was react to each heartbeat with the pain of this headache.  I tried to reach up to put pressure on my head with my hands.  I was beat to it, though.  My hand had barely left my side when I felt something warm gently pressing down over my forehead for me.  Warm, almost soothing.  Accompanied by a gentle voice that almost sounded heavenly in my pained state.

“Shhh, I’ll take care of everything.  Just relax”

My eyes opened to a squint, showing the blurry image of what was sitting above me.  I could see a loving smile staring down at me.  Just barely.  A smile.  The silhouette of her head, shoulders, arms.  Even her hand that was pressed on my forehead I could just barely see.  As I took her words in, I just kind of nodded to her and closed my eyes shut again.  Just relax.  She will take care of everything.  The doctor will take care of everything.  The doctor…the doctor?!

It was one of those moments where you’re so far asleep yet one crucial thought pops into your head and a rush of energy forces you to not only be awake but incredibly full of energy at the same time.  For me, it was the words “The Doctor” that made me immediately remember my situation.  I remembered waking in that strange room.  Being so short and small.  Being so helpless to her.  And being so afraid.  As soon as my eyes opened in a split second and I immediately shoved myself away from her as hard as I could, falling down to a hard floor below.  I yelped as I hit, feeling a bruise forming on my bottom, and just looking up at the Doctor sitting in front of me, clearly still just as Amazonian as I remembered seeing her before.  

She slowly began to get up from where she was, a chair in a room that looked like a kitchen.  She looked towards me with worry written all over her face.  She stood and then crouched down to me, her face beginning to redden as she looked down at me.  In reaction, I just moved back further and further as the situation was forced into my head and the same panic that had come over me came back in full force.  The closer she got, the further I tried to scoot away.  Her face said she meant well, but my entire body said “Get away from her right now!  She’s the one who did this to you!”  

Her hands gently came over my arms, clearly trying to touch and comfort me in my afraid state and in response, I felt more able to use my lungs than before.  The moment her fingers began to wrap around my arms, I closed my eyes and screamed at the top of my lungs.  I screamed like I was being critically harmed and in danger, to which her hands immediately retracted and an apology quickly came out of her.  As soon as that happened, I lowered my voice and got to my feet, hugging the walls and moving around the kitchen, trying to keep my distance from her.  I had to.  At least, that’s what my brain was telling me.  

I then realized she wasn’t constantly following me anymore.  She just crouched down in the same place she was when I began to scream.  She wasn’t pursuing me around the room.  She just looked at me with a look of shock all across her face.  It seemed that my scream had gotten my point across, that I did not want to be touched at all by her.  But there was so much more that I wanted.  So many answers.  And above all, I wanted to awaken from this nightmare that I was trapped in.  Before long, I was able to push myself forward again, to speak and start asking.  
“Why?  Why did you…do this?”

There was an air of silence in the room that made chills go up my spine.  She looked at me and clearly heard what I’d asked.  Was she trying to find an answer in her head?  Or did she just not want to answer it?  Regardless of whether I would get a good answer or not, my entire body was getting nervous the more time went by.  The anticipation was killing me, even though I knew hearing an answer wouldn’t change the fact that I was now less than 3 feet tall.  

She began to move again.  She moved downward more.  Instead of crouching, she sat down in an Indian-style form.  She began to look at me again, the look of worry waning and a more serious look going onto her face.  This was the first time I’d seen such a stern look and the fact that it was stern made me even more nervous.  

“It doesn’t matter.  We’re here now and nothing will change that.  Don’t worry about it!”

That was it?  That was her answer?  That wasn’t an answer at all!  That was more like ‘I don’t want to tell you the real reason.  Therefore, you don’t need to know’.  I just stared at her and shook my head.  I couldn’t accept that.  I couldn’t accept this situation.  How could I?  This woman had somehow made me half my former size and took me somewhere I’ve never been and claimed she was there to take care of me.  As enticing as the idea of just letting someone take care of me was, everything about this situation was wrong.  

“I…I want to leave.  Right now.  If you….if you’re here for my best interests…get me out of here.”

It felt like déjà vu.  I had asked another question and another silence came across.  The stern, serious look returned to her face.  That question had been my second mistake since that situation started.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that one choice would cause my situation to get that much worse.  

“You’re here with me now.  You never have to go anywhere anymore.  And you won’t”

You know you made a mistake when you get that awful gut feeling that you had when you were a kid.  That feeling where you did something really bad and your parents were going to kill you for it.  That’s what I felt at that moment and the way her voice sounded so stern when she said I wouldn’t be leaving made me realize I’d made a horrible mistake in demanding to be taken away from there.  Any logical person could know it was bad beforehand.  You don’t demand that your kidnapper return you from where they kidnapped you from, especially not a kidnapper that was a lot stronger than you.  But I didn’t think about it at all before I blurted it out of my miniature mouth. 

“W-what?”

It’s all I could ask at the time.  I wanted to know more information.  My instincts did, anyways.  It was clearly obvious at the time, but I just had to ask to make her explain my situation to me.  Yes, I knew I’d been kidnapped.  I knew that she made me smaller.  And I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere.  But the surging emotions in me just had to ask.  And in response, she scooted towards me, looking just a little bit down at me from her sitting position, with a smile on her face.  As she began to speak, she brushed back my hair with her hand, sending chills down my spine. 

“You don’t have to go anywhere anymore, little one.  You don’t need a job.  You don’t need to go out to get food.  You don’t even need to do laundry or cleaning anymore.  I will take care of our every need.  You can depend on me.  So, as long as I’m around, you don’t ever have to go into the outside world.  And neither do I.  We’ll be here, happy together.  Forever.”

The way she was touching me and talking to me.  As I think about it now, it could have been a dream come true.  Imagine that you are taken out of your life full of responsibilities and have this tall, beautiful, maternal woman there with you, vowing to take care of your every need.  Some people would kill for a situation like this.  At one point of my life, I probably would have jumped into the situation and loved every bit of it.  But that wasn’t me anymore, and I was far too scared by how Hiroshi sounded to be comforted by her warm touch and heavenly promises. 

I reached up to move her hand away, but every time my hand moved, hers got gentler across my hair.  Her gentle brushing movements weren’t just gentle.  They were soothing, comforting, relaxing.  My brain and body were in two different mindsets.  My brain was telling me this was a bad situation.  But the way she touched my hair made my body start to relax and be comforted.  Her touch was so comforting that part of me just wanted to stop and jump into her arms and allow this to happen.  To allow my life to be given to this crazy situation. 

“This…isn’t right….”

The words I muttered just barely came out as my brain started winning the inner battle, despite her soft and comforting touch.  My mind always went back to what I had before.  My life had been empty of anyone until Rebecca came into my life, and I had her.  Small or not, I had someone I needed to go back to.  For her sake, I had to keep fighting this.  She would be terrified at seeing me like this, but…it would be better than never seeing me again at all.  Who knows what me completely disappearing would do to someone as close as she was. 

“Yes it is.  It is right.  I knew it from the first I saw you.  And from the moment I held you in my arms on the way here.  Everything is as it should be.  Now shhh and let me take care of and decide everything.”

She could tell I was resisting, because her comforting touches were intensifying.  I left the ground again and was smothered right into her chest in a tight hug.  My face was planted and rubbing right against one of her breasts and one of her hands pushed the back of my head into it while the other was slowly stroking down my back.  My face couldn’t help but blush deep red as this happened.  She was surrounding me with her warmth and was showering me with gentle affection.  I didn’t know how much longer I could resist this before my brain lost the fight. 

Thankfully, I wasn’t entrapped in her arms for long.  After she began hugging me, she stood up and began walking, somewhere.  As I clung to her, knowing full-well how high up I was, I waited until we got wherever she was trying to take me.  When it came to heights, it didn’t matter if it was a bad situation.  I was terrified of falling and I would cling as closely to her as I could to keep myself from doing so.  Eventually, I was let go.  Set down on the same futon that I woke up on, in that narrow room. 

“You just need to rest and take everything in.  I’ll be back in a little bit to see you, okay?”

After that, she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.  I sat there for a few minutes, trying to shake off all of the affection she had forced on me.  My will against such tender care was weak thanks to my past of being alone for the majority of my life.  But my will of returning to Rebecca wasn’t.  The more the warmth faded from my body, the more I thought about what I could do next.  I had to do something.  Right?

After some time, I got the courage to stand on my own and walk around the room.  My main idea was the door, nostalgic with my own thinking before I realized I wasn’t alone here.  Do I leave and try to wander and get out of here, wherever here is?  Or do I wait and see what happens?  Only now I knew that staying wasn’t going to accomplish anything.  Hiroshi was here and she seemed set on making sure we both stayed here forever.  So I decided to take the riskier choice.

I got up and slowly walked over to the door.  It was probably three times my height, almost.  The doorknob was above my head, but still within my reach.  I got up on my tip-toes to try to put my hands around it.  I struggled for a while, just barely getting up to it.  I had to look around the room and stand on some rolled up cloth in the room to finally reach it.  With sweat dripping down my face, I finally got a grip on it.  And as I turned it, it barely moved and clicked. 

My hopes were then lost as I tried again and again.  She locked me in this room…

'I'm in prison'

At the time, it didn’t really seem too far from the truth.  I’d been downsized and brought here against my will.  And there was the fact that I had been locked in this room while Dr. Hiroshi was away doing whatever she was doing.  I didn’t want to be here, but I was, and I didn’t seem to be going anywhere.  Aside from chaining up my leg, putting on an embarrassing uniform and making me do hard labor, this was as much of a prison as things could get. 

For a while, things seemed pretty hopeless.  The door was barely tall enough for me to even reach.  Who knows if I could even open it if it wasn’t locked.  If I wanted to get out of this situation, what were my options?  Wait until the Doctor came back and bolt away from her the first moment I got?  Of course that wouldn’t work.  She was twice as tall and strong as me.  She probably wouldn’t even have to run to easily catch up to me.  That left me few options.  Hide and hope she doesn’t find me?  Play along and try to sneak out when she’s asleep, assuming I didn’t get locked up in this room at night? 

I knew I didn’t have long to think about it.  She would be back soon and probably want to do more stuff with me and make my situation feel more hopeless.  Not to mention how aggressively affectionate she’s been.  It’s very possible she could shower me with so much affection that my mind could give into the love and really want to stay with her.  It made me cringe to think about, but I know what I felt.  The warmth and gentle way she had touched me before was beyond comfortable.  It was heavenly.  That scared me.  The fact that I had to fight so hard to resist it earlier.  How long would I really be able to keep doing that before the physical part of me fell into paradise and didn’t care about leaving anymore? 

The only thing I could decide was that I needed to get out of here, and soon.  I needed to get out before she had a chance to coerce me with all of that love and affection.  There had to be an exit somewhere.  I just had to be able to get away from her, find the exit, and get out.  Simple, right?  I knew it was a long shot the moment it entered my head, but there wasn’t much else I could do.  The longer I stayed would make it more likely for me to decide to stay.  If I didn’t get out soon, I may never get out at all. 

*CLICK*

My head snapped from my sitting position as I heard the door unlock.  Time was up for thinking.  The door slowly opened, and Hiroshi slowly stepped back into the room.  She didn’t have anything in her hands and she was still dressed the same.  She looked the same as before.  It made me wonder even more about what she had just gone to do.  Then again, did I really want to know?  The more I learned about this situation, the more I didn’t like it.

“Hey there, little guy!  I’ve got a big surprise for you!”

I already didn’t like where this was going.  She was sounding way too enthusiastic about the way she was talking.  I dared not speak a word.  I just let her do her thing and keep talking as she reached down and started walking me out of the room.  If anything, I could look around as we walked.  Maybe I could eventually learn the whole layout of this place and see the exit.  That way, I wouldn’t get lost when I decided to finally make my move and try to get out.  There were several rooms we walked by, all with doors closed.  Well, most of them.  There was one door open at the end of the hallway. 

There was something that made my stomach drop about all this.  I had a feeling I was about to be plunged into an awkward situation.  Unfortunately, these feelings were usually right, and I hated it when they were.  As we walked closer to the open door, I could start to smell something coming from the door.  It had a very light, warm smell to it.  The closer we got, the more I realized that I could see some steam, or what looked like steam, coming out of the room.  I began to slow down, only to be tugged along towards the room. 

“Okay, little guy.  You’ve been here for a few days straight in those clothes.  So, I thought it would be a good idea for you to get into some clean ones.  But first, we need to get you washed up.”

I knew it.  I knew this would be awkward.  As soon as she turned into the room, I realized where I was.  I was in a bathroom.  The steam I saw was coming out of a long, marble bathtub, filled up most of the way with warm water.  I could see the sink in front of me as I walked in, right as tall as my head.  That brought back a memory.  But I shrugged it off as I looked up at her, starting to shake and back up a little.  Like a little kid who was afraid of baths, I shook my head at her.  But she just smiled. 

“Don’t be shy, little guy.  You need a bath.  Now, hold still.  I’m going to take off all those dirty clothes and get your cute little butt squeaky clean!”

With that, she shut the bathroom door and began to reach down to grab at my shirt.  My face just went beat red an tried to back away, but hit the door.  My eyes started to tear as I felt her forceful hands ripping my clothes off, about to see me completely nude…

Terror has many forms in the world.  It can be fleeing from a murderous villain.  It can be walking into a room and screaming upon seeing a huge spider on the wall right above your bed.  Or, it can be something completely crazy like a woman making you half your former height, kidnapping you, and stripping you naked against your will to give you a bath with the creepiest yet gentle smile on her face the entire time she was doing it.  Unfortunately, the completely crazy one was exactly what I’d gotten myself thrown into. 

From the moment she began reaching for my clothes, I tried to move back, only to hit a solid, closed door.  By that time, her hands were already on my shirt, yanking it right off of me.  I tried to grab it and pull it back on, but her strength was too much for me to handle.  My strongest tug was a mere fracture of the strength of her light tugs to get it off.  With my grip on so tight, I completely fell over, yelping, and feeling my tear-filled face hitting the soft rug by the tub.  I felt so embarrassed and awkward.  I wanted to scream ‘RAPE!’, but who would even hear it?  Who would come to my rescue?  She was the only one here, and if she wanted to do something to me, she had every bit the strength to do it, whether I wanted to or not. 

As I let out muffled whimpers into the mat, I could feel her tugging all the other clothes off my body.  Every inch they moved sent terrible chills through me.  I felt like I really was being raped, my whole body about to be shown to this woman.  Not even Rebecca had seen me naked that many times, and now Hiroshi, someone I barely even met a few days ago was forcing my clothes off to see me that way.  I felt so helpless in this situation.  All I could do was cry out as I felt everything but my undies leave my body. 

“P-Please….please stop this…I don’t want this!” 

She stopped right after that.  Her arms left my bottom and I could feel her pull me up.  I looked up through my foggy eyes and could see her face in front of me.  She didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to her.  She just sort of looked at me for a moment, that big smile still on her face.  At least, I think that’s what it was.  I’d been crying so much, I could barely see silhouettes of the room around me.  And my eyes immediately shut as soon as her face came forward and she pushed away my tears…with her lips. 

“My little one.  Don’t be embarrassed.  Don’t be scared.  This is how things should be.  Now, calm down.”

Her words came with comfort.  As she kissed away my tears, my face was turning red.  Her hands went behind me and were rubbing against my back.  She was doing it again, and my body was letting her.  Every ounce of affection she gave me made me less and less resistant to her touch.  Before long, her hands had lingered down and were taking that last piece of clothing off, and I paid no mind.  She was using her warmth to coerce me into allowing her to do everything to me, and it worked.  By the time I was completely naked, my face was bright red, but I’d stopped crying, and just looked at her, intoxicated by all of the love.  All of the affection.  Not even Rebecca had ever given me so much tender affection, and one part of me wanted it. 

After I had calmed down, I not only felt so teased with all of the affection, but I was emotionally tired and worn out.  I was set down into the bathtub and I sat still.  My eyes and vision blurred as I stared into the water.  I was starting to not care anymore.  My emotions were running wild and they’d worn my whole body out.  I wasn’t thinking about anything.  I was just staring, empty and blank thoughts filling me in an attempt to try to move through this awkward moment.  After a few moments, though, her hand touched me and I came back to reality, face brighter than ever. 

I was absolutely shocked and silenced when I felt the pressure of Hiroshi’s hand on my shoulder.  I looked as she began to step into the bathtub as well, standing right behind me and moving to a sitting position.  My eye started to twitch and I shivered because the whole situation had come full-circle.  As she sat down behind me, she was completely naked, too, and I had seen it and could never un-see it.  Her wavy hair.  The curves of her breasts.  The delicate creases around each of her legs.  And I just barely got an accidental sight of her womanly parts as she moved down.  Everything about this wasn’t right to me.  But I was so emotionally worn out I couldn’t bring myself to tears again. 

I was then pulled backward, into her bare body.  I could feel her breasts slightly touching the back of my head.  I could feel her legs moving outward and pushing against my sides, ensuring that I didn’t move.  I could feel every bit of the situation and then came her using a wash cloth to scrub all over me.  My body got goosebumps, but didn’t find against it.  The water was warm, and her scrubbing was as gentle as it could be.  The scary part of this situation returned.  Being in a situation I didn’t want, but not willing to fight it because it was so comfortable and soothing. 

After several sessions of being lathered and scrubbed and hearing her scrubbing herself, the bath was finally drawing to a close.  The water was still warm when we got out, or rather, she got us out.  Her air-dried arms wrapped around me and pulled me out of the tub with her.  As we did so, we both got dried off and she wrapped an over-sized beach towel around both of us and carried me into another room.  The room looked like a sort of bedroom.  There was a double futon in it. 

We both went onto the futon still naked and inside the beach towel.  I was trying to regain my senses about how wrong all of this was, even past my mental fatigue.  But as soon as we went down, she tugged and pulled me in tighter, my body being enveloped by hers.  Every time I tried to struggle and move, she would gently brush my hair back and tease me back into comfort.  We laid there for hours, if not longer, her clinging tightly to me.  I couldn’t help but feel myself drifting off after such a long time there in her warmth.  Just as I was beginning to doze off, she whispered words to me, though it would take me some time after to remember.

“Sleep well, my little one.  You’re all mine and I’ll never let you go out into that dangerous world again.”

I opened my eyes and found myself in a cloudy, hazy atmosphere.  It took me time to adjust myself to this, but I appeared to be next to a paved road, but everything was covered in fog.  I stood there for a few minutes, allowing my eyes to adjust to where I was so I could find out exactly where I was and what was going on.  I scratched at my head, knowing full well the last thing I remembered.  I didn’t need to be reminded that I’d been in a terrible situation, but where was I now?  That’s what I didn’t know and wanted to find out. 

After my eyes got adjusted, I saw a street sign right up the road, where it looked like the fog was lifting.  Taking the luxury of more sight into account, I began walking towards that place.  As I walked forward, though, my expectations were not going true.  I fully expected to see that sign get taller and taller the closer I got, but it didn’t.  It looked normal to me.  So, I kept moving, just to make sure.  For all intents and purposes, the street sign should be two, three times my height.  The closer I got, the more I began to realize that I seemed to be exactly the height I was supposed to be.  I was almost as tall as the street sign, itself. 

A smile came over my face and a feeling of relief came over my body.  I wasn’t short.  I wasn’t small.  I was exactly my own, normal, regular height.  Even better, the sign I was near showed that I was on the road I lived on.  I could even see my house down the road from where I stood.  It raised so many questions but also made me feel relieved.  I wasn’t kidnapped in some strange place.  I wasn’t being taunted and teased by an overly tall Dr. Hiroshi.  I was right near my home, and right near the person I wanted to see more than anything else.  I sprinted towards the house, knowing that I would be able to see Rebecca again. 

The air rushed past me as I sprinted further down the road, the house getting closer with every second.  I was alive, and I was home on a foggy night.  No reaching upward to turn doorknobs.  No overwhelmingly strong kidnappers.  No awkward baths.  Only the joy of being home and seeing my Rebecca again.  I placed my hand on the doorknob and began to turn it.  It wasn’t locked.  No, of course not.  It was probably still the same day I thought I was kidnapped.  Rebecca was likely inside, waiting for me to come home, worried sick about this getting shorter thing. 

I opened the door and looked inside.  Just at the other side, she stood.  Rebecca, in all her beauty, right before me, with a smile on her face.  My eyes began to sparkle at the joy of seeing her again.  It was a dream come true for me.  Or, at least, I thought it was.  No sooner did I began to walk into the house that I felt something pulling me backwards.  I grunted and gripped the door-handles as this unseen force beckoned me backwards.  It wasn’t enough, though.  Within moments, I felt my body being yanked away from the door and Rebecca disappearing in the distance.  Everything was fading to white as I screamed out her name.

“R-R-Rebecca!!!!!”

I gasped as my eyes bolted open.  Sweat was running down my entire body and I was breathing heavily.  Everything around me was warm and hot and the image of Rebecca disappearing in the distance was still thrown in my mind.  I could see her face, her attire, every strand of hair on her head.  But I also saw my own reality.  I woke up and I could feel everything more intensified, more real.  I was still on a futon and two large, strong arms were still wrapped around me.  The fog, the street, seeing Rebecca.  It was all just a dream.  A dream I’d been torn from as I had called out her name at the top of my lungs. 

I wished I had only screamed in the dream, though.  That was my third mistake.  Not a moment after I screamed, I felt the arms around me begin to tighten, pulling me closer to Hiroshi’s body, still naked in the futon behind me.  Pulling, pulling, pulling.  It wasn’t like before, though.  Her gentle touch on me was very gentle.  This wasn’t.  Her arms went past gentle and began to constrict me into her body.  She was holding me tighter and tighter every second.  I felt pain around my ribs and stomach, and it was getting harder to breathe.  What was once a hug was turning into a tight grip. 

“Now, now, little one.  We don’t have those kinds of dreams here”

Her voice matched how she acted.  It was strict, serious, and deliberate.  The tone of her voice had a very disappointed tone, just like a mother who was disappointed that you broke something that belonged to her.  And her grip only tightened further the more I tried to struggle against her.  She out-matched me in every field of strength, and it was hurting me.  I could only assume that screaming out Rebecca’s name had some bad reaction in Hiroshi.  At the time, I should have known exactly why, but I wasn’t smart enough to put 2-and-2 together from all the other times I’d mentioned her. 

“P-Please….s-stop….it…h-hurts….”

I went from struggling against her to pleading for my safety.  With her strength, I didn’t doubt that she could snap me in two if she wanted to, and right then, I didn’t care to imagine what it would feel like.  I just wanted to plead to keep her from hurting me further.  Her grip on me did lessen, but it stayed tight enough that strained every time I took a breath, feeling the effort it took just to let the air flow through my body. 

It stayed that way for several minutes, but it didn’t make my situation better.  Every breath was harder than the last.  My heart was racing.  My ribs were aching.  I knew this couldn’t last forever.  But all she did was keep me in that situation and look at me with that serious, disappointed look on her face.  Not the gentle smile she had before.  It seemed far away, and I was regretting ever falling asleep and having that dream.  If I could have, I would have taken it all back. 

“I’m here now.  I’m taking care of you now.  You will dream about me.  Understand?”

I nodded my head as quickly as I could.  It didn’t matter if it was true, false, or somewhere between.  At that moment, I would have done anything to get her to stop hurting me.  As soon as I did, she let go and let me recuperate.  I wheezed and coughed into the oversized pillow I was near and a lot of thoughts poured into my head.  One thought in particular was higher than the rest.  The thought and lesson I’d just learned.  And something that was reinforced when I looked back and saw Hiroshi glaring down at me with unsympathetic eyes. 

I realized that I was in a much more dangerous situation that I had first thought…

I don’t know how many times during that whole ordeal that I thought I was the most scared in my life.  I felt absolutely terrified when I first saw that Hiroshi had made me small.  Then I was terrified when I was up high and had to depend on her.  The amount of times I felt overwhelming fear was a never-ending list.  But, at that moment, when I realized how easy it was for her to hurt me, I felt fear I’d never felt before in my life.  I knew that I had to start playing by her rules.  If I didn’t, and even had an accidental sleeping outburst again, it could have very dangerous consequences. 

The moments after she let go of me were traumatic, to say the least.  My body was hurting and I was coughing and wheezing, adjusting to being able to breathe normally again.  I dared not even look at her after seeing her glaring down at me.  My mind was so conflicted at that moment as I recuperated from my struggle.  What was I going to do now?  What happened if I actually tried to escape and failed?  If Hiroshi got this bent over me calling out Rebecca’s name, what would she do to me if she thought I was trying to leave her?  Hurt me again?  Confine me to something even worse than a locked room?  I didn’t even want to think about it. 

“I…I’m…sorry”

It wasn’t easy to talk.  The breathing it took to speak still hurt from her squeezing me.  Even single syllables brought on a burning in my chest.  I decided to speak then because it felt like the best thing I could do at the time.  I knew that I was now at her mercy and she wasn’t going to put up with anything that she disliked.  It reminded me of when I was a boy.  My father disapproved of everything and every time I did something he disapproved of, he bullied me to the point of crying in my room.

Back then, I just did everything I could to make sure I never spoke up about anything around him for years, too scared to be shot down and verbally abused.  It completely warped my personality and changed me from an outgoing, spontaneous guy to a very quiet and shy introvert who only spoke when spoken to.  The same rules were applying, but much faster and for much better reasons.  I had to play by Hiroshi’s rules, or I may end up with far worse injuries than what she had just done. 

She looked at me for a moment with a confused look on her face.  She even asked me what I had just said.  I didn’t know if she actually didn’t hear me or was just trying to make me say it again.  It didn’t matter, because I worked up the courage to say it to her again.  I apologized to her.  I apologized for having a dream of someone I care about and calling out to them.  I apologized for thinking about someone who cared for me.  Every second of it disgusted me.  I just wanted out and back in Rebecca’s arms, but I was too scared to resist, still feeling the pain of what had just happened. 

So, I did what I thought was necessary.  I clung to her body, tears rolling down my cheeks and I kept apologizing again and again.  I wasn’t crying because I was sorry, but because I was so terrified at how easily she turned from a gentle maternal figure to whatever I had just seen constrict and bruise my ribs from hearing a name.  I cried and apologized several times, not willing to stop until I had given Hiroshi exactly what she wanted.  It was a very dangerous plan, but it’s one I thought wouldn’t end in me in even more danger. 

Several minutes went by, but I finally felt that warm, gentle feeling on my back from her hand.  It was smooth and went in gentle motions, just like it was doing before. 

“I forgive you.”

The words weren’t exactly back to an affectionate level, but it was improvement.  I at least thought part of what I was doing was helping.  I was slowing down the crying as she kept rubbing my back, which was mostly me trying to fight the tears.  Afterwards, I kept clinging to her body, hugging tighter and tighter as the minutes passed with us sitting there, naked, her arms around me and mine around her.  I could feel every part of her bare flesh that I touched, mostly her stomach and breasts.  But at least it was better than being hurt. 

She looked me in the eyes, her eyes now less sinister and more affectionate.  It was a very creepy look, which I credited mostly to the fact that I was now looking at her in a completely new light.  She had that smile on her face she’d had this whole time.  Before long, she got up and carried me into the bathroom.  On the way there, I noticed a clock on the wall, curious as to what time it was.  I assumed it was morning, but I do have weird sleeping habits.  It read 3:50 a.m. 

Once we got to the bathroom, she set me down on the toilet and began to wipe my face off with a nearby wash cloth.  My face shivered every time it rubbed on me.  Despite being a wash cloth, it felt like a lot of bumps were rubbing all over me.  I still let her do it, though.  After that much crying, I knew my face looked awful.  So, I just bared with it and allowed it to happen. 

Once my face was washed off, she handed me a small cup.  I looked in and it and back at her, confused.  It was just an empty cup.  There wasn’t anything inside it.  What was I supposed to do with an empty cup?  Stare inside it at my mirrored and deformed reflection?  Before long, though, I heard the rushing of water coming from the sink.  She took a quick drink out of her own cup and told me I should have a quick drink of water before we return to bed. 

Had everything escalated this quickly?  Or was she just trying to advance things because she now had a tight grip on me?  Regardless, I was thirsty from just suggestion and nodded.  I watched as she took the cup and put a little bit of water in it from the sink and handed it back.  In reality, it was just a small juice cup.  To me, though, it looked like a full-sized drinking glass.  I took a few swigs of the water and handed it back to her, gulping down as much as I could. 

After replacing the cups on the sink, she picked me up again and carried both of us back to the bedroom.  As we settled into bed, she quickly fell asleep, holding me like an oversized teddy bear.  Meanwhile, I just stared out at the walls of the room, trying my best not to fall asleep.  I may have calmed her down this time, but I didn’t dare fall back asleep and repeat the same dream again…

I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.  My mind was constantly on what happened and making sure I didn’t repeat the same situation.  I have a habit of resuming dreams after I wake up from them, and that was the last thing I needed at the time.  So, I laid there, held against Hiroshi’s stomach and chest, watching the walls and hoping she would wake up and get ready for whatever she was doing that day so I wouldn’t fall asleep on her and get myself into even more trouble than I was already in. 

After the longest night of my life, she had finally stirred and woke up.  I heard her groaning and yawning behind me and there was a warm air that hit my neck.  My neck got goosebumps from this as I was moved around, turned to face her.  She looked me up and down, her eyes barely open at all.  Her hair was moving in every directions and she just smiled as she moved closer.  The smile looked more affectionate than normal, and I found out why a moment after.  As I was brought closer, she pressed her lips into mine, and gave me a long, tender kiss. 

My cheeks flushed and it felt like my face was burning with embarrassment.  She wasn’t even completely awake yet and she was kissing me like a lover kisses their partner.  I didn’t like it.  It was too comfortable.  It was too enticing for me.  I had to resist and not fall into this.  I attempted to move my arms to push away, but she kept pushing forward.  Her lips were covering all of my lips and more.  I kept pushing more and more, but she finally pulled me as she laid down on her back.  Laying down and me above her, pulling my face down into her lips, trapping me in that long, tender kiss, and reminding me that she was in control. 

When the kiss finally ended, her cheeks were as red as mine and her eyes opened a little wider.  She was clearly waking up more from that kiss than the actual yawning she had done a moment ago.  As she opened her eyes, she held me above her face and her smile widened. 

“Good morning, my little one”

As she spoke the words, she was already moving, getting up and me with her.  I was starting to wish she hadn’t gotten up and I was still resisting the urge to fall asleep.  As we walked from room to room, I just clung to her and looked at the walls, knowing that there was a lot in store for me.  Why would I have ever wanted this day to start?!  The questioning had to wait.  Before long, we arrived at our destination: The Bathroom. 

Hiroshi set me down on the toilet and began running the water, obviously for a bath.  As the faucet roared with the rushing of water, she sat down in front of the toilet so I was eye level with her.  Past the noise, she just looked at me.  Her eyes went up, down, left, and right, but they never left me.  She was looking more over and it made me nervous and embarrassed.  It was like the first time Rebecca saw me naked.  She just stared at each part of my body again and again, like she’d never seen a naked guy before.  It was nerve-wracking back then and it was worse now. 

“You’re so cute like this”

Now she was complimenting my looks, and my face continued to show embarrassment.  As much as I hated this situation and was starting to get a real hatred for her, the words weren’t unwelcome.  Getting compliments were few and far between for me before I met Rebecca.  It was rare for a woman to talk to me at all, let alone give me a compliment.  Part of me still remembered that and it adored and cherished every compliment I got.  Even if that compliment came from some crazy person that reduced my height and kidnapped me. 

“What about me, little one?  What do you think of me?  Am I cute?  Beautiful?”

My heart stopped at that moment.  When she asked, she swayed herself from side to side in a teasing manner, trying to entice me.  As soon as the question came out, though, everything in my body just froze.  What did I think of her?  Sure, I thought she looked cute when I first met her.  Now, the first thing that came to mind is ‘I think you’re a terrible person for doing this to me and should return me to my partner right this instant’, but I didn’t have a death wish.  You don’t say stuff like that to someone who can hurt you with ease. 

I didn’t know what to say.  Should I say she looks beautiful?  Pretty?  Gorgeous?  What was the ‘right’ thing to say?  But even further, if I just gave her constant compliments, would she catch onto the fact that I was lying out my butt to keep myself safe?  That might have an even worse reaction than asking to leave again.  I just sat there, looking at her, dumbfounded at what I needed to say.  I was absolutely clueless at what I could do.  In the end, my jaw dropped as she looked away from me and back at the bath. 

“Oh, look!  The water’s all done.  Time for our bath!”

Thank goodness.  After she turned the water off, she immediately got us both in the tub and started to scrub me down with soap and water.  I was saved, literally, by bath time.  As she scrubbed me all over, I was staring down into the water again, thinking about what I could use as an answer to the question.  I knew it was just like at home when I was a kid.  Mom would ask me a question I didn’t want to answer and timing would save me.  But, then I knew that the question would come up again, and it always did. 

My body shivered out of the thought as I was rinsed off, though.  Feeling water being poured on top of my head without warning was beyond disturbing in this manner.  But still, she did it.  She could, so why not?  I was helpless and at her mercy.  She had shown me last night what she could do to me if she got upset or angry.  She could do whatever she wanted with me, not that I’d say it to her face.  If she was told that, who know what inhumane things would happen to little me. 

That wasn’t the end of the bath, though.  I was washed off and soaked in water, but she just grabbed me and turned me around.  I found myself sitting in the tub, facing her.  I looked up and saw her face just a bit above mine, the height difference not as apparent with both of us sitting.  I looked confused, since this was the point where we got out of the bath the day before.  This time, though, she didn’t seem to be moving at all.  She just sat there, smiling, slowly extending her hand over to me, a wash cloth in her hand. 

“That’s my good, clean boy.  Now it’s your turn.”

My turn?  I looked at the wash cloth and back up to her.  What was I supposed to do with this towel-sized cloth?  Did she intentionally not clean part of me and expect me to make up for it?  It was possible, but I didn’t know of any place she missed.  She even washed the more private parts of my body and those hard-to-reach places.  Then again, this was also an obvious situation that I should have seen coming, but didn’t see at all.  And when it did, I was thrown into an even more awkward scenario. 

“Go on.  Take it.  I washed you.  Now, you can wash me!”

At the time, I decided I needed to stop thinking about how awkward every situation I was in got to be.  Every time I thought about it, a much worse scenario was thrown at me.  Having Hiroshi scrub me clean was incredibly awkward, but what she’d just suggested was that much worse.  I was shocked and embarrassed at the thought of taking a washcloth and scrubbing down her naked body with it.  It was like me being trapped there and being cared for by her weren’t enough.  Fate had to throw this at me to make it as awkward as possible. 

I had to take the wash cloth in both hands because of how large it was.  Sure, it was a normal wash rag to her, but it was like a kitchen towel to me.  If I tried to take it with one hand, it would cover half of my arm.  It was slick, too, still full of soap and suds.  I could feel it running down my arms, constantly reminding me of what I was in and what I had been asked to do.  No, I would take back that thought.  I wasn’t asked.  She told me to do it.  An “I watch your back, you watch mine” sort of deal.  And it made sense.  For all intents and purposes, Hiroshi was keeping me clean and feeding me.  Kidnapped or not, I did somewhat owe her for that. 

She was just sitting there, waiting for me to wrap this around my head and get started.  Her arms were set to the side, resting on either side of the dub, making her torso easy to reach.  I slowly raised my arms up and they came back down, shivering.  I didn’t want to do this.  I really didn’t, but I was going to have to.  As I was trying to get my shaking under control, her hand came down and pulled at my arm.  I looked up to her again and saw her giving me a warm smile. 

“Don’t be nervous.  I’ll help you get started”

She guided my hands up to her body, slowly showing me how to scrub away all of the dirt and smells that had built up over the course of the night.  She started right at the base of her neck, only holding my hand for a few moments.  Before long, I was slowly doing circular motions around her neck and shoulders, getting the hang of things.  I had to put a lot of effort to actually get soap on her body.  It almost felt like a workout just to be able to do this at this smaller size.  I spent several minutes around this area before getting tired and slowly letting the wash cloth move downward, over her breasts and towards her stomach. 

“Ooh!  Go back, little one.  That was…wonderful!”

Her surprised tone of voice was thrown at me right after the wash cloth ran over her breasts.  The wet, soapy cloth had run right over one of her nipples and I had seen it almost immediately harden to that gentle touch.  Her face was bright red as she was starting to guide my hands back up over her breast, moving my hands around her nipple with her softly moaning in the process, and then the other in another hand. 

No, no, no, no, no!  My mind was screaming on the inside and my face was bright red at this turn of events.  ‘No!  This is not going there!  I am NOT doing anything sexual with this woman!’  My thoughts screamed no, though she guided my hands further as she used my hands and the wash cloth to allow both of her nipples to get hard and her breasts to slowly swell up from the motions.  I tried moving away, but she kept pulling my hands closer and pushing them into her breasts more the further I tried to move.  No matter how much I didn’t like it, I was being forced to give her sexual pleasure in the bath rub.  Was there even a term for what was going on right now? 

Before long, she allowed my hands to go and pulled my entire body into her, my face held right over her breasts.  I yelped and a large splash flew water everywhere, but she didn’t seem to care.  I was trapped in her arms, my face being rubbed back and forth against her swelled up breasts with soft giggling and moaning coming from her, just inches away from my face.  To go along with this, I felt her legs begin to move, curling around my ankles, entrapped me there in two separate places.  I couldn’t get away now.  Two strong arms and two strong legs held me in place.  I wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Come on, little one.  Don’t stop playing with my breasts now.  Give them a little kiss.  For me”

Her face was so bright red and her voice had completely changed that she must have been caught up in the passion of that moment, or maybe just the lust of the moment.  She sounded like a turned-on lover that was just begging for their partner to play with their lady parts.  Unfortunately for me, I was trapped and even though I didn’t comply, she moved my face around and forced my lips right over her nipple.  I tried my hardest to resist.  I kept my lips shut, closed my eyes, and tried to hold my breath as long as I could.  I was trapped here with her, but everything about this wasn’t right.  I couldn’t pursue anything sexual with her, could I? 

I resisted as long as I could.  Her hard nipple was pushing on my lips.  I knew that if it hit the crease between them, I’d completely fail.  As much as she was pushing at me, I tried my hardest to keep it poking against either the top or bottom lip, and not the crease.  My body was breathing heavily, and I could feel the beatings of her heart starting to race as well, clearly getting sexually enticed by all of this. 

My resistance did not go unnoticed, unfortunately.  After only about a minute, I was moved away from her breast for a moment, with her head shaking.  Her head was shaking, but she still had that creepy, playful grin on her face.  I was hoping she would stop and not make me do this, but she just pulled me against her body harder, causing me to gasp from the rush and force of the blow.  As I hit, my mouth opened and she forced her erect nipple right between my lips, holding my face into her breast and not giving me a chance to reject it. 

Across this whole ordeal, my body and emotions had abandoned my good logic of how bad of a situation I was in, and it did so again here.  The way her nipple felt inside my mouth brought back too much lost nostalgia in me.  From the dizziness and the feeling, my eyes closed and I began to lightly suck on it.  My body was acting on its own, and it caused Hiroshi’s moaning to get that much more intense.  That, and the constant swelling of her breasts that I could feel pushing against me. 

My mind was completely taken by these turn of events.  The swelling, the moaning, the breasts.  My body wanted to react in the same way hers was.  Being this close to her breasts and sucking her nipple.  Even her kiss from earlier was enticing to my own sexual drive.  As much as my body seemed to give into her nipple, I tried my hardest not to let that drive take over.  My arms and legs shook as I was trying to resist getting turned on, myself.  Trying to remind myself that this person had made me this small.  Kidnapped me and was holding me against my will.  She was a bad person.  Bad person.  Those two words I kept forcing into my thoughts. 

It was an inner battle, but my thoughts finally came through.  I didn’t think.  I just bit down on her nipple as soon as the thoughts ‘Bad Person’ came into my head.  As soon as I bit down, I heard Hiroshi gasp and immediately move me away from her breast and up to her face.  This was it.  I was in deep trouble, right?  She was going to hurt me again because I hurt her to make her stop.  Those were the thoughts coming into my head.  Because I bit her pretty hard.  But when I saw her face, I only saw a smile.  And my heart sank, once again. 

“Oh, my little one.  I knew I chose you correctly.  I can play rough too”

I can’t say much of what happened right after that.  I do know how I felt at the time, though.  It was utter terror as I bit as hard as I could, trying to break and rip skin.  I put all my effort into it and know it had to hurt her.  She may have made me half my former size, but it still hurts when a child bites you, let alone in a sensitive area.  I even saw a mark on her nipple after she pulled me away.  Nothing was cut or bleeding, but there was a definite bite mark right there around it. 

She didn’t seem angry, though.  She just smiled at me and told me she knew how to play rough.  That in itself just made me think to myself.  ‘Don’t do anything ever again.  Just stop doing everything.  You’re only making this worse!’  My thoughts weren’t lying either.  As I think back now, everything I did made things worse.  I wanted to leave and I got locked in a room.  I slept and dreamed about Rebecca and nearly got my entire body strangled.  Now I tried to bite at her to keep her from forcing me to pleasure her and she talked of playing rough.  I needed to just stop doing everything and making things worse for myself. 

After that, my memory went blank for a while.  Something happened, I’m sure.  Something I probably don’t want to remember.  When I was a kid, there were memories that have been blocked out of my conscious mind.  There are so many years of middle school and high school and I just don’t remember what I did then.  There are a lot of things people have told me I did that I don’t remember doing at all.  My mind blocked the memories out, keeping them very far from me.  Even when I’m reminded of them, I still draw a blank.  I can only assume the same happened here. 

The next memory I had was very different.  I was no longer in the bathroom with Hiroshi.  In all honesty, I didn’t know where I was.  Everything was dark around me as I came to.  I immediately felt that I was still naked, the memory of the bath from before flooding into my brain.  But it ended at that moment of ‘playing rough’ as I call it.  I slowly woke up and tried to look around, but it was dark everywhere I looked.  It was just pitch blackness that seemed to have no end at all. 

Where was I?  I didn’t know at first.  I couldn’t have been in a true black area.  I started to brainstorm, thinking about things.  I was smaller than I was originally.  Maybe I had just been put under the blankets of the futon, or in some other area adorned with cloth.  The material I was on certainly did feel soft like a blanket would.  Something about it was different, though.  If this were blankets, wouldn’t the top blanket be on top of me? 

I tried to move around, and eventually found a wall of sorts to my side.  I hadn’t been moving and traveling long before I ended up finding it.  I knew it was a wall and different because the entire feel of it was different.  While the bottom of this area was soft like cloth, the wall I found was much harder and felt cold to the touch.  It was rough and almost felt metallic in nature.  Feeling it there only furthered my confusion about where I was.  At first, I thought it may have been the zipper of a sleeping bag, but things just didn’t add up. 

It was too big to be a zipper, anyways.  The metal area was long and narrow, but as I felt, I realized it was as wide as my whole palm.  At my current height, a zipper like that might be a little wider than one of my fingers, or so I thought.  My memories moved around and I had to think about it at first.  I knew I was half my original size, so a zipper would appear twice as large as it did before.  So, I just felt around the metallic area and the cloth-like area, hoping that something would open somewhere and I could leave whatever futon or sleeping bag or whatever I was in to get some light.  It’s not that I was afraid of the darkness, but I was afraid of not knowing where I was, and why I didn’t remember what had happened between the bath and right then. 

As if an answer from my guardian angel, I saw light filtering in from somewhere in front of me.  The light was accompanied by a large, grinding sound.  It was so loud that I had to cover my ears, going into the fetal position just to keep the noise from hurting my eardrums.  I could see light shining in around me, but I refused to let go until the noise was gone.  In reality, it only lasted a few seconds but it felt like several minutes to me.  Even after it stopped,  I could still hear it, ringing in my head. 

After I had calmed down, I went to look to see where the light was coming from, finally having a chance to see where I was.  It was blinding at first, only looking like a bright wall of white piercing my eyes.  I only got a look at it for a second, though.  Before long, I felt my body moving out of where I was and into the source of all that light.  My eyes couldn’t adjust right away, so I was relying only on what I felt to try to analyze my situation. 

The feeling was there, but confusing.  I could feel air pushing around me, making me believe I was being moved somewhere.  It was just like the feeling when Hiroshi would pick me up off the ground.  The only different is that my stomach and chest felt strange.  When she picked me up before, I could feel pressure around my chest.  But, this time, it was like the pressure was around my entire torso.  Was she picking me up with her arms as well as just her hands?  Assuming that’s what was even going on. 

Finally, my eyes adjusted to the situation enough to see.  I saw Hiroshi’s face looking at me and smiling.  I could barely make that out, as my vision was still a little blurry.  I closed my eyes and shook my head a few times before I could focus enough to see clearly.  Unfortunately, I wish I hadn’t opened my eyes at all. 

“There’s my little one.  It’s a shame you were a bad boy earlier.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had to do this to you.”

My heart began racing as soon as I saw everything clearly and heard her voice.  Everything changed.  Absolutely everything.  Her voice sounded much louder and deeper than before.  The pressure on my torso was tighter.  As I looked down around me, I could see why.  Her arms were needed to wrap around all of me.  But now I could see her fingers, each almost completely able to surround my entire body.  Her pointer finger was right at my chest, showing a painted fingernail that was almost as big as my entire face. 

I was smaller…a lot smaller.  

That was the second time during the ordeal that I had that reality-defying realization that I was smaller.  This time, though, wasn’t just being smaller, but it was smaller than I already was when I’d been made smaller the first time.  I wanted to just have a panic attack right then and there, so I could pass out and not be forced into this situation.  I’d done it before, so it could happen again, right?  I was so hopeful that it would freak me out enough to pass out, even for a little bit.  Just a little while so I could try to be more sane and level-headed when I woke up again.

That did not happen, though.  The more my mind wished for it, the longer time passed with me in Hiroshi’s hands and I realized I wasn’t going to pass out anytime soon.  It didn’t stop my body from shivering and shaking in her grasp.  Panic attack or not, I was so small that she didn’t even need both of her hands to have me in her grasp and held high in the air.  That fear hit me when I saw one of her hands leave me and her other slightly move, holding me all on its own. 

Why I didn’t faint, I will never know.  I was so much smaller, and at my height, being held in her hand was like being held a couple dozen feet in the air.  It was like I was being kept conscious on purpose, cursed to feel the worst fears of my life being combined together.  The only thing that was missing was spiders, but I didn’t even want to think about that.  It was scary enough to see Hiroshi like this.  I didn’t even want to consider the dangers the natural world would have to confront me with now.  Being half my former size, sure, I could be okay on my own.  At my current size, though, not so much. 

“Now you’re not going to be bad, are you?  Now you have to depend on me.”

Her voice wasn’t any easier to get accustomed to, either.  With how much smaller I was, it sounded like she’d lost several parts of her voice’s pitch.  Instead of having the more normal, semi-high pitched voice, it now felt much deeper and lower, almost like a man’s voice.  It was louder, too.  Each time she spoke normally, it sounded like she was talking into a small microphone.  It really made my eardrums tingle on the inside from how loud and different it was now. 

Aside from that, I thought about the words and realized that my size now was exactly what she wanted and planned.  I don’t know what I did between biting her and waking up like this, but it had to have been something bad.  She thought so, and it was enough to make her make me smaller.  Small, like a doll.  Smaller than even a child.  With her words repeating themselves in my head, I did realize it, slowly.  Whatever I had done had threatened her situation of taking care of me.  I’d done something to show that I had a chance of leaving and being on my own.  So, she ‘fixed’ the problem. 

By fixed, of course, I mean she made me smaller.  She made me small enough that I couldn’t go out into the world on my own, even if the chance presented itself.  She set me down on the floor for a moment, as if forcing me to take it in.  I barely came up to her shin, at my full height.  I knew that, at my current size, I’d have to climb the door and walls just to reach the doorknob.  I couldn’t open doors.  I couldn’t get in chairs to eat.  I wouldn’t be able to reach much of anything.  At this point, to get anywhere or do anything, I would be forced to depend on her.  For everything. 

The feeling settled in for quite some time.  I could tell that she intentionally set me down on the floor in front of her and stood to full height to make it soak into my mind that much faster.  I looked forward and saw the bottoms of her shins.  I looked up and saw her at an unbelievable height.  If I reached up with my arms, I wouldn’t even be able to reach her hips.  I couldn’t even reach the hips of someone who was short, to begin with.  I turned away from looking at her, holding my hands over my eyes, shivering all over. 

‘Please, let this be a dream.  Please’.  The thoughts repeated in my mind over and over again.  I wanted this to be over.  I wanted it all to be a dream.  How could I accept this reality?  How could I accept the fact that I was now no taller than a plush doll that you would place in the room of a child?  How could anyone possibly accept this?  Not only that, but I was the size of a doll at the mercy of a woman whom had seemingly drugged and kidnapped me against my will.  Someone who almost strangled me out of jealousy of hearing another woman’s name.  And someone who was extreme enough that she made me so small that I couldn’t get through a single day without depending on her for absolutely everything. 

“It must be scary down there.  You want to come up here with let me take care of you and protect you, don’t you?”

I wanted to run.  My right leg did start to move.  I knew I could dart between her legs and probably get under the table before she could move.  We were in the kitchen and I could probably surprise her.  I almost started, but I mentally stopped myself as memories flooded into my head.  ‘Don’t you dare, you idiot.’  And I stopped myself and knew.  If trying to get away from her or something of the sort resulted in this, what would happen if I kept resisting?  If she could make me this small, what else could she be capable of doing?  Across the likely unbelievable strength she now had over me and the thought of her making me even smaller, I forced myself to stop. 

I had no choice.  I was helpless.  I felt sadness, fear, depression, and more go into my body.  I couldn’t go anywhere without her following.  I couldn’t do anything without consequences like what I had just had happen.  I looked up to my towering tormenter and raised my arms, nodding my head towards her.  My gut rolled and tightened. 

Her words scared me, but they were the absolute truth.  I had to depend on her…

The idea of being forced to depend on someone that scared the hell out of me was beyond disgusting.  I felt like I was trapped with a crazy ex that had a beautiful, twisted love dream and had a knife to my throat to make sure I made it as perfect as she wanted it to be.  It wasn’t too far from the truth, either.  Only, instead of a knife being the dangerous weapon, it was her entire body, or even the world around us.  If I met any sort of aggressive, hungry animal at my diminished size, I’d surely be done for.

So, here I was, raising my arms up to Hiroshi, giving in to the situation that she had manipulated to make perfect.  Her entire body came and knelt down in front of me, almost like seeing the Colossus of Rhodes come to life and move around.  It was terrifying to me, seeing this crazed Hiroshi so large to me.  Even more so when she reached and intentionally picked me up with just one hand, a clear display of her strength.  As I was lifted off the ground, heart-pounding, I saw her arm and never saw a single strain on her muscles.  It was effortless to her. 

“There’s my good little one.  Now, let’s go to the other room, shall we?”

Her giggling was just as loud as her normal voice was.  I had to squint my eyes as she moved because it felt like I was going so fast at that moment.  With my eyes shut, I also took in more of my surroundings.  I could hear her steps across the floor as she moved.  Each step almost felt like a light pounding on the ground below.  It made me think of being down on the floor before and glad I was in the air.  As much as I was afraid of heights, I wouldn’t have wanted to hear that pounding right next to me. 

I clung to her hand as she moved me, not willing to open my eyes at all.  There was at least some comfort from the finger I was holding onto, which was letting out a pretty large amount of warmth.  Being as naked as I was, that warmth was welcome, even if it was the only thing welcome about this entire scenario.  If only I could feel that warmth and nothing else.  I was dreaming big there, though.  Hiroshi had very different plans for me. 

We eventually came into her bedroom, the same as before.  I opened my eyes and could see the walls, windows, ceiling, and even the double futon down on the floor.  The blankets on the futon were still a mess and looked unmade.  I thought it may have still been the same day that awkward bath had happened.  After all, I didn’t know what happened afterwards and during the time Hiroshi had done something to make me smaller. 

“Okay, little one.  You just stay here on this dresser so I know you can’t go anywhere.  I’m getting dressed so we can have a little talk.”

The “dresser” she had mentioned looked more like a building to me.  I was set on top of it and was level with her face, which said a lot about how high it was.  She was right about one thing.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  The best thing I could do was try to take a plunge into an open drawer and hide in various clothing.  But I did as I was told.  I just sat down on the cold, hard wood of the dresser and watched as she moved around, putting on some clothes.

‘What can I do?’ I thought to myself.  I just willingly gave myself into this scenario she created, but was there really no way out of this?  It all seemed hopeless to me, but one little spark in me was hoping and praying that something would come about that would get me out of this situation.  I thought long and hard on it as she dressed herself, but came up with nothing at all.  I shook my head as I looked back up when she came closer.  It got my attention because she walked up very close to the dresser and laid her arms on it in a crossed fashion just inches in front of me. 

“I didn’t want to do this, you know.  But you left me no choice but to make you smaller.  I’m going to take care of you now.  And if you don’t let me, this will happen again.  Understood?”

Oh, I had understood her alright.  It was clearly apparent to me at the time.  It was ‘Do what I want you to do or else’.  She had this serious, yet apologetic tone, too.  Maybe there was some part of her that really didn’t want to do this to me, and if I hadn’t resisted so much,  I probably would still be in a better situation.  What did I do anyways?  I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know now.  She never told me.  I wanted to know, but at that moment, I was more worried about further repercussions to not doing exactly as she wanted. 

I nodded to her, confirming that I understood.  Her me-sized face just offered a smile and blew me a kiss.  I’m sure it wasn’t out of innocent affection.  It even further plunged me into my current predicament.  Her face was so close to me that a simple blowing of a kiss felt like someone was blowing hot air at me at full blast all around me.  My body swayed backwards, losing the balance that I had while I was sitting there.  My breathing and heart-rate shot up in reaction. 

“Now that we understand each other, let go get something to eat.  I’ve got the perfect place for you to stay!”

I didn’t have enough time to move before her hand came and snatched me from the dresser, showing she was once again dressed in a kimono and short white socks down at her feet.  Being moved through the air so quickly was almost nauseating for me.  Not only because I was afraid of heights but how much air was forced at me as I moved up, down, and every other direction imaginable.  When I finally stopped, I realized what that “perfect place” was.  She lowered me down into the top of the stomach strap of the kimono. 

When all was said and done, only my chest, arms, and head were sticking up.  The rest of me felt pinned in place when she tightened it.  It was straining on my legs, but it didn’t hurt all that much.  When I naturally put my head back, I nearly screamed as I did.  Through the kimono, I felt her chest behind me and a loud thumping of her heartbeat.  It was difficult just to adjust to this situation.  And she just smiled down at me and started moving again. 

Upon hearing the thumps of both her heartbeat behind me and her feet pounding the floor down below, I was getting a headache of what was to become of me…

The threat of being punished like that again was something that never really left my mind at all.  At that time, though, it was almost the only thing on my mind at all.  Beyond the headache that came from the thumping heartbeat behind me and the pounding below me, all I could think about was the threat, and what it would be like if that ever happened to me.  What would happened if I went to sleep and woke up even smaller?  What if I woke up and saw I was only eye-level with her ankle?  Or even smaller than that?  It sent shivers up my spine. 

When we finally got to the kitchen, Hiroshi didn’t even bother taking me someplace else when she started opening doors and getting food out to fix.  As soon as we got into the room, she opened up the fridge and a freezing wind blew right into me.  It had the chill of a breezy winter day in the middle of the snow season, and it made my entire body chill with the cold.  Even after the initial blow had gone away and she was looking around at what she had, my naked body was freezing cold and trying to move further towards her body, desperately looking for any kind of warmth I could reach to. 

Lucky for me, she seemed to be having a hard time deciding what to get out of the fridge and stood there with it open for several minutes.  My teeth started to chatter as I tried to wriggle and move more of my body down into the stomach strap of the kimono.  I didn’t care if it would feel too tight on my body.  I’d take a little discomfort over the giant fridge in front of me giving me a cold.  I moved, wiggled, and struggled, but I couldn’t move.  It was on too tight for me to get even a little more of my body down into it.  I finally just gave in and clung as closely to her chest as I could.  She didn’t seem to paying attention to me at all, so I just prayed she would close the fridge before long. 

She finally reached in to grab something, shoving and bending her chest over me in the process.  It felt like a huge mattress being pushed down on top of my head.  She may have been short, but her breasts came straight down on top of me as soon as she started to bend forward, even in the slightest bit.  It strained my neck and started to hurt the further she went forward.  If that weren’t enough, when I finally got some relief, the fridge shut, shoving yet another strong gust of freezing cold wind right at my face.  This felt stronger, and in my sudden breathing from the pressure of her chest, it went straight up into my nose. 

It was a strong gust, but it came in at just the right angle to tickle the top part of my nasal canal.  I could feel the tingling coming up into my nose.  My head started to shake as my eyes began to water.  My breathing got a little faster as I tried to get my hands up in time.  I was going to sneeze.  I knew I was going to sneeze.  But I was set on it.  Every time I would sneeze, I would put my index finger over the front/bottom part of my nose and stop it.  So I reached my right hand up and put it in position.  It shivered as it got up there, my body still cold from the wind. 

It shivered just enough that I couldn’t stop it.  Both of my hands were shaking as my body took in a deep breath and let out one of the loudest and hardest sneezes I had ever had.  It was so hard that it felt like my throat was burning and I felt really light-headed from it.  Apart from the, it felt like my body started moving.  In a split-second, I felt rubbing and movement around my stomach and legs.  It was a strange sensation, but I couldn’t see what was going on from my own recuperating from the sneeze.  But still, I felt it.  Rubbing, moving. 

Then I felt air all around me and time was going extremely slow for my eyes.  They cleared up, but they saw movement.  Everything was moving.  Hiroshi’s stomach strap, her face.  It all looked further away from me.  In my light-headed state in that split second, I just noticed it happening.  What was going on?  Was I going through more changes?  No, it didn’t look like that.  I could clearly see the stomach strap I had been in, but it looked several feet above me.  And then a few more…and a few more…and then I screamed at the top of my lungs. 

“D-D-Doctor Hiroshi!!!”

I screamed for help because reality hit me.  I was falling through the air.  Somehow, I had sneezed myself completely out of that stomach strap and was falling towards the ground.  I had to scream to the only person who could help me, assuming she could react in time.  I was falling nearly 20 feet from her waist to the ground, and I know that sort of fall would severely injure me, if not kill me in an instant.  The fear was flowing through my body and I could only scream to her.  She was the only person I could depend on at that moment.  She was the only person who would help me. 

I closed my eyes, fearing the worst.  I heard a loud crash around me.  I didn’t know what it was.  A loud crashing, echoes.  What was it?  I was too scared to open my eyes.  I could still feel the rush of the wind blowing all around me as I descended further and further.  I knew it should only be a few seconds before I hit the ground, but it felt like minutes to me.  I had a terrible fear of heights and this was exactly why.  Falling, falling, falling.  Every time I saw a high fence, cliff, even the open area over the water areas at the zoo.  I was terrified of falling over a ledge. 

Moments went by longer and longer.  And then everything stopped…

Everything went black for me.  I didn’t know what happened.  I felt like I was still conscious, but everything was black.  Did I hit the ground and die?  Or did I land on something and just black out?  My conscious mind felt aware but there was nothing for me to see.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t feel any of the senses.  It felt like I was just aware.  You know those dreams where you see yourself doing something but you’re not them?  It felt like that, as if I was a spectator to the blackness around me.  Maybe I was dreaming, and just wasn’t dreaming of anything but blackness. 

When I finally gained sight again, everything was fuzzy and blurry.  I took several minutes to adjust, but it didn’t get any clearer to me.  There was light around me, but it was still fuzzy.  I tried to shake my head and rub my eyes, but nothing improved.  My eyes also felt heavy and a headache swelled around my entire forehead.  The hazy atmosphere around me was soon accompanied by a voice.  The same, loud voice as I heard earlier.  It was Hiroshi.

“Easy, little one.  Don’t move around too much.”

Sweat poured down my forehead as I felt hot air blowing on me as she spoke.  I couldn’t see very well, but judging by my hearing, it sounded the same as before.  Her voice’s volume and loudness hadn’t changed.  Thankfully, I could rule out her having made me smaller.  For the moment, I just laid there, where there was, and took some time to catch my breath and get around this headache.  She didn’t sound overly crazy at the moment.  In fact, her voice sounded more like a gentle whisper around me. 

A few minutes passed before I tried to move my arms and legs.  Whatever had happened, I survived the fall, but how had eluded me then.  I didn’t dismiss the idea that I landed on a limb and shattered it on the way down.  So I closed my eyes and slowly began to move each part.  First, I wiggled my fingers.  No pain.  Then my toes.  No pain.  Then my arms and legs.  No pain.  Finally, I gently moved up and back down.  No pain there, either.  A sigh of relief came over me when I realized that I didn’t seem to be injured anywhere. 

“Don’t worry.  You’re safe.”

Her voice came down again.  Of course she had seen what I just did.  Checking and testing to make sure all of me still worked correctly.  There was no hot air from her breath this time.  Just still air.  I opened my eyes again and I was a little more focused now.  Things were still a little blurry, but I could make out her face looking down at me.  The more I focused, the clearer my sight got.  So, I kept focusing and concentrating.  Eventually, I was able to see clearly again.  Hiroshi was still wearing the kimono from the kitchen, but it didn’t look like that’s where we were. 

I leaned up again and took a look around.  There was white all around me in several feet in all directions.  Pushing my hand down, I realized that I was on a soft surface.  In the distance, I could see that I was actually on the double futon in her room.  That’s why this was so soft.  It was one of her pillows.  I blinked a few times before I actually stood up to look back over at her.  Or, rather, over at her face.  She was laying on the futon and only her face was visible in front of me, as that’s the direction I was looking.  Her eyes looked down at me, almost in a different way than before.  She was smiling, but it looked less crazy.  Maybe it was just me, though.  I had just gone through something very traumatic and she was the only one there. 

“You had an accident, little one.  But I heard you calling for me.  I saved you.”

I just stared at her for the next few moments.  I thought long and hard about it.  Eventually, I started to nod.  It made sense.  I remember sneezing and then falling.  I was falling past her legs and towards the ground.  Before everything went dark, I cried out her name, desperately for her help.  She must have heard me and caught me before I hit the floor.  That had to have been why I didn’t have any injuries.  She did exactly that.  I was falling to my death and she saved my life. 

This made me have some very mixed feelings about what was going on.  Hiroshi kidnapped me and punished me by making me helpless and small.  She had moved me around and made it clear there would be consequences for not doing what she wanted me to do.  But, when I was in danger, she was there and saved me.  I was beginning to hate her for what she did to me, but at the same time, I felt grateful to her for saving my life. 

With these mixed feelings, I slowly walked towards her face.  I knew I had reason to hate her.  But, with what had just happened, I did what I thought was the right thing to do.  I came up to her raised face and hugged into her right cheek.  My arms were able to reach around to her ear and under her nose, partially.  I just gently grabbed where I could and hugged into her, tears running down my face.  Even my tears were mixed.  I was glad to be alive, and I knew it was because of what she did.  Maybe I was falling right into what she wanted of me, but it was against my personality to have my life saved and not show gratitude. 

After the hug happened, she smiled and stroked my back as I was still against her cheek.  I could feel her finger rubbing down on me.  It felt rough because it was so big, but it felt comforting, somehow.  In that moment, I was so happy to not be dead.  Even if it meant it was Hiroshi that made it that way. 

“I’ll always protect you, my little one.  You’re all mine and I won’t let anything take you away from me”

The words had a little mix of crazy thrown in, but at the time, it didn’t matter.  All that mattered is that I was still alive, because of her.  Whether this was manipulated or not didn’t matter.  All that mattered is that I was safe and able to go into another day.  

I knew what I did was dangerous.  Showing Hiroshi gratitude and affection could have made my situation of her being attached and possessive that much worse.  She wanted me to accept my place of being in her care and, most of all, depending on her.  Needing her.  As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I did need her.  If she hadn’t caught me I would either be dead or severely injured from that fall.  It created so many mixed feelings because she not only save my life, but she saved my life from one of my deepest fears. 

That’s why I hugged her cheek and showed gratitude.  Deep down, a part of me was very thankful that she rescued me when she did, even though she created this situation in the first place.  It was her fault I was in danger.  It was her fault that I was up much higher than I’m comfortable with.  It’s her fault I fell.  But, it was also her that kept me alive and kept me safe that day.  How can you not be grateful for something like that?  I didn’t know, and I became very grateful to her for doing this. 

The rest of the day had gone without much stress.  After my fall, Hiroshi became very gentle with me.  She carried me firmly in her hands instead of her kimono when we moved from room to room.  It was like her entire attitude had changed when that happened.  Maybe she was scared that she almost lost me.  Maybe she really was showing me legit, gentle affection in her own twisted way.  I didn’t know.  But for the rest of that day, I went with her as willing as you could expect with someone who can snatch you up like a doll. 

She took me around that house more times than I could count.  Setting me places while she did things.  I was put on dressers, tables, the bathroom sink, a computer desk, even the counter in the kitchen.  I got to see nearly every inch of that house in a single day, though to me, it looked more like landscape after landscape after landscape.  The bathroom sink was big enough to be a hot tub for me.  The kitchen table was like a soccer field.  The more she took me around, the more phenomenal everything around me seemed.  At first, I was focused only on her.  But with that day, I paid more attention to everything else. 

Eventually, I was set down on the kitchen table as Hiroshi made something for dinner.  I was just sitting next to a wooden bowl, probably used for fruit.  It was empty at that moment, though.  So, I was sitting and just looking over the ridges.  I was still a little It wasn’t long before my attention went to what she was doing.  The stove began to sizzle and my head jerks over as soon as I heard it.  The sizzling of food in a pan sounded like a steam engine nearby.  It was just a sizzle to her, but it sounded like a whistling engine to me. 

I winced from the sound and covered my ears for a moment.  It was so loud for my ears, even though it looked so far from me.  I didn’t even know what she was making, but it was starting to hurt my ears.  I ended up moving to the other side of the wooden bowl, hoping that it would help shield me.  The sound was loud and made my head pound.  I held my head tightly eventually, a headache forming which felt worse than the sound. 

It lasted for several minutes and the more I heard the noise, the worse the pounding got.  When it was finally over, I was on my side, holding my forehead tightly, wishing and praying for some painkillers.  I was never one to get migraines, but this headache was driving me insane.  Even as the sound faded, my headache stayed,.  It was always like that with me.  I practically lived off painkillers to help me with headaches, but clearly I couldn’t take a painkiller that was the size of my entire head.  My breathing deepened and before long, I found myself being moved.  I barely even noticed it, so much of my attention on my pounding headache.  Then I felt a cold pressure over my forehead and opened my eyes again. 

“Is that better?”

I blinked a few times, getting goosebumps from the cold.  I looked at my surroundings and I realized that her finger was dripping with cold water and she had gently pressed it onto my head.  I don’t know how, but my headache just seemed to go away in an instant.  I felt the large droplets of water running down my face and my back, but the pain went away, like magic.  As I was rushed back to reality, although very mentally worn out, I gave a brief nod to her. 

She set me down right after and I was shown a small, ceramic saucer.  There was a bunch of scrambled eggs, though they looked like over-sized yellow puff balls covered in slick cream.  As soon as I saw them, my cold forehead was instantly warmed up.  The steam coming off the eggs immediately dried me off and sent a big warmth through my entire body.  The change in temperature was different for me.  I shook my head but looked up at Hiroshi as she smiled down. 

Her finger patted on my back and she offered me a piece of the eggs in her finger.  In my slightly dazed state and my tummy immediately started to rumble, I reached forward and took it from her.  It was still pretty warm, but I could hold it.  For as long as it had been since I’d eaten anything, I just looked down into the huge glob of egg and started biting into it. 

It was definitely the largest meal of eggs I’d ever have in my life, and for the moment, I was happy to be eating something, let alone something I loved like scrambled eggs.

The food I’d eaten that day had to be the best scrambled eggs I had ever had in my entire life.  After all, how long had it been since I had eaten that little slice of toast in the kitchen beforehand?  It could have been days since I had last eaten any kind of food at all.  Anything remotely edible would have been the Food of the Gods at that point.  Thankfully for me, it was something I already loved eating, which made the taste that much better.

Eating a giant glob of scrambled eggs with my hands was different, though.  Imagine picking up a huge hamburger and biting into it.  Except, this hamburger was a giant glob of egg.  It was slippery in my hands and had large ridges that my fingers fit into perfectly.  Although it felt disgusting and almost slimy, it was amazingly delicious.  I downed the entire thing in a matter of minutes, taking all of my attention away from the headache that had been magically erased by a wet, cold finger.  Eating was one thing that could get my mind off of this situation. 

As soon as I finished it, I just kind of laid down on the floor, completely full and not capable of eating another bite.  Sensations had entered my body that went beyond this horrible nightmare of being doll-sized and trapped inside Hiroshi’s home.  It was the sensation of a starving gut being satisfied and not caring about a single thing in the world but the nice feeling of nourishment in your body.  My hands folded over my stomach and I closed my eyes, taking it in and dismissing the reality I was now a part of. 

It was the first time I had truly felt away from my nightmare.  True, Hiroshi had been incredibly gentle and kind to me since my fall, but I could feel the tension of being so small and helpless before the world around me.  It wasn’t until now that sensations took over that completely took me away from that reality, but for a few minutes, enabling me to have some sense of normal comfort.  I may have been the size of a doll, but I still needed that comfort and needed to try and forget where I was, even for a few moments. 

If only it had lasted longer.  My eyes were awakened at a loud CLUNK that sounded like it was right next to me.  But maybe ‘my eyes were awakened’ isn’t the right way to describe it.  It was more like I was drifting off to sleep and a train drove by 2 feet away, blowing its whistle at its loudest volume, resulting in me gasping and my heart turning into Speed Racer.  I turned around, almost frightened by the sound and saw four long and pointed skewers stabbed into the remaining egg on the plate.  They led to a larger metallic frame, revealing a fork. 

I watched as the over-sized fork lifted the egg into the waiting mouth that Hiroshi’s face wore.  I looked as the fork went into her mouth and came out, her chewing up every little bit, enjoying her meal just as much as I had enjoyed mine.  The fork came down again and the CLUNK happened again, which didn’t scare me as much, but was loud enough to sound like I was in a Blacksmith’s shop.  A Blacksmith’s shop that was actually her just pressing her fork into the plate to get some food. 

This was another case of taking in my reality, as much as my previous comfort didn’t want.  I laid back down and took it in all over again.  I shouldn’t have forgotten that I was on a table the size of a soccer field.  The fork was tall as I was, and anyone could imagine what a mass of metal nearly 6 feet in height would sound like when it pressed down on other metal.  I just didn’t want to be brought back into that reality.  I get a single moment of clarity outside of that reality, and I didn’t want to be taken back in.  Not so soon.  But, luck surely wasn’t on my side.  My past experiences with Hiroshi had taught me that. 

When she finished off the rest of the eggs, and I heard a loud, muffled gulp as she swallowed it down, she looked down at me, still laying on my back, trying so hard to get back into that wonderful feeling I had earlier.  She just smiled down at me with that strangely-warm smile she’d been wearing since the fall.  She was just staring down at me, not saying a single word.  I stared right back up at her, watching and waiting.  She was finished, so I assumed we would go somewhere, or at least she would say something to me. 

We stared at one another for what felt like hours on end without saying a word.  Her smile never faded, and her cheeks showcased a rosy red color.  Just smiling, smiling, and smiling some more.  Seeing her smile like that and look so gentle sparked more mixed feelings down inside me.  Seeing her now, made me question myself.  Was this really the same person that forcibly made me small and nearly cracked my bones?  Was this the same person that was so obsessive over trapping me here and allowing her to do what she wished with me? 

These thoughts were dangerous.  They were the kind of thoughts that cross your mind when you start to trust someone, and until that evening, I had no reason to trust Hiroshi at all.  But my mind was conflicted from that night’s events.  And she furthered it when she broke the stillness and let her fingers run down my chest and over my stomach, slowly moving over it and rubbing it.  She didn’t say anything.  She just rubbed my stomach and kept that warm, big smile on her face. 

The more she rubbed, the redder my face felt.  Stomach rubs were a guilty pleasure of mine.  When someone would rub my belly, it would instantly make me bashful and bright red in the face.  Seeing her smiling face above me and my face growing more bright with every passing moment, it almost felt less and less that she could even be capable of the things she had done before.  The thought occurred to me several times.  How could someone who is treating me with such gentleness and care be the same person that was willing to hurt me and punish me for not doing whatever she wished?  How was that possible? 

I didn’t know, and I could feel the affection affecting me more every second, and I was too caught up in it to know I was surely falling right into what she wanted me to…

As I think back on things today, it’s really amazing how easy it is to toy with someone’s emotions and pleasures in order to manipulate them into a situation they’re thrown into.  Rescuing me from one of my deepest fears and all the kind and gentle affection and I had begun to feel different about Hiroshi.  Maybe I didn’t trust her completely, but I was feeling less and less like she was a threat to my life like I’d felt before.  If she kept up this time of being so gentle and careful with me, it might not be so bad. 

I thought more on things as well that night.  I had been left on top of the pillow on the double futon as she slept.  A warm breeze hit me the moment she went unconscious, her breathing reaching me, only one pillow away.  After she had fallen asleep, I sat up and looked at her.  Her hair flowing down the sides of her head and her eyes a comfortable and casual type of shut.  She was even smiling as she slept.  I sat for a long time, just sitting there, wide awake, and watching her. 

‘What now?’ I thought to myself.  For a moment, my mind went back to Rebecca and the life I’d been taken from.  Today had shown that this situation could be somewhat pleasant and not full of fear.  In fact, if I didn’t have Rebecca, I might have been convinced to accept this as my new life.  If she stayed calm, loving, and gentle, it would be a heavenly situation.  It even appealed to me.  The idea of never having to work again and being taken care of definitely had its positives.  Of course, past the possibility of Hiroshi getting rough and hurtful with me again. 

My left palm went over my forehead as I thought to myself.  What could I do?  I was the size of a doll.  Pets are bigger than me.  Children would think I was a doll and probably kidnap me and do much worse than Hiroshi was doing, all by themselves.  I’d probably hurt myself if I tried to go up or down any sets of stairs.  There was nothing I could do.  I was helpless.  All I could do was depend on Hiroshi. 

Or was I?  The more I thought on things, the more I thought about how dependent I was on someone’s help, namely hers.  What could I do?  Nothing that would lead to me being rescued.  It was hopeless to try to leave.  Besides, if I tried, Hiroshi would surely punish me with disastrous results.  I could be made even smaller, or she could squeeze me again and break my limbs out of pure jealous rage.  No, she wouldn’t do that.  Would she? 

My mind was filled with conflict.  That day scrambled my brain more than the eggs.  Would Hiroshi hurt me or wouldn’t she?  Was I helpless or wasn’t I?  Could anything be done about anything?  What if I walked away from Hiroshi and a spider came along?  What if I fell in a hole in the floor and died from the fall?  What if Hiroshi came looking for me and accidentally kicked me across the room?  The worst case scenarios came into my head.  In the darkness of the outer edges of the room, my mind started seeing thing. 

I stared into the blackness and could swear I saw an eight-legged monster just waiting to pounce on me.  It made my whole body shiver.  I kept staring at that one spot.  Looking at the shadows I thought I saw.  Staring and staring, hoping and expecting it to be my imagination and go away.  The more I looked, the more scared I started to get.  I was terrified of spiders and now that some would be bigger than me was too scary to describe.  Before long, I finally looked away from the blackness where I’m sure my fear was creating things that weren’t really there. 

Then I heard a creak from across the room.  My head jerked up with an “Oh, my gosh what was that?!” look.  I stared into the blackness again at hearing the floorboard creak.  My fingers were starting to tremble as thoughts of falling down a hole in the wood entered my head.  Falling and breaking my legs in the fall.  Trapped between floors with no way for Hiroshi to find me.  Only for something…else to find me and not be so kind.  Becoming some animal’s food or just dying of starvation.  My breathing started to increase and get rapid. 

Then I heard a loud thumping sound from far away.  I didn’t feel it, but it sounded like something heavy fell and hit the floor.  What could it be?  A baseball the weight of an anvil?  A book with the same weight as a car?  As soon as the sound entered my mind, I naturally shrieked and got on all fours, scrambled across the pillow I was on.  With each of these images came more fear until I was quaking in fear from my own imagination. 

I went across the pillow and jumped over to the other pillow without any hesitation. I wasn’t really thinking of anything.  I was just moving in fear of spiders, falling, and heavy objects.  I crawled down the pillow and came down around where Hiroshi’s neck was partly against the pillow.  I latched onto her neck, clinging to her as I shook.  I held onto her as tight as I could, feeling the subtle movements as she breathed in her sleep.  I clung my entire body to her and shook. 

I don’t know how long I stayed there.  But I knew that I was terrified and desperately clung to her for my own safety.  As I did so, I could feel the warmth coming from her body warming up mine.  Eventually, I wore myself out and started to drift off to sleep.  As I did so, I started thinking again. 

Thinking that it was okay to stay close to her.  Just for tonight.

What happened the night prior was probably something that would have happened to anyone in my situation.  As much as we like to convince ourselves otherwise, the world is a scary and dangerous place.  We don’t give credit because we don’t want to, but there are so many accidents, killings, injuries, and more happening every single day.  The entire world is a walking death-trap just waiting to spring, whether you slip and crack your skull on the side of your bath or get bit in the garden by a poisonous snake.  The world isn’t danger-proof, no matter how many precautions you take. 

When you’re the size of a doll, it’s even more reinforced.  Not even considering all of the dangers I just mentioned, how dangerous would it be to be on your own at doll-size?  A puppy finding a chew toy in you would lightly chew at you for play and you’d be bleeding with more holes than a victim of a school shooting.  Slip and fall down a concrete step and you could instantly have one less limb.  Even the slightest movement could be disastrous for you.  No one could blame me for clinging to Hiroshi that night. 

The next day proceeded much like the previous day, with the exception of a life-threatening fall.  I woke in her hands, sitting at the kitchen table, that same smile looking down at me.  There was food ready for breakfast, chopped up small enough for me to eat.  It was all very soft, fluffy foods.  Almost a repeat of the same meal from the night before happened again with me indulging in the food until I felt like I was about to pop.  After that, we went for a bath, completely void of the forceful, sexual aspect the last bath had in it.  Thank goodness, too.  The last time I’d taken a bath with her, she’d made me smaller.  I didn’t think I could take that again, whether she was being nice to me or not. 

After we took a bath, she took me back into the bed room and set me down on the floor as she sat in front me of.  Her legs came around me as she sat in an indian-style form.  It was almost like a small fence moving around me.  I didn’t see her feet, but her legs came up to about my chest.  I could see over them like a fence, other than when I was looking back towards her.  She, clearly, looked as tall as a house, even while sitting down.  She just smiled, again, staring down at me before finally speaking.  It was almost like she just got caught up in staring at me that she wanted to stay that way. 

“You can play or run around for exercise while you’re in there, little one.  You don’t have to worry.” 

I looked up to her as she spoke that and then looked around.  It was true.  The area I was in was actually fairly lengthy.  Whenever someone sits indian-style, you never really imagine a lot of open space between your legs.  The way she sat, though, I had about a small room’s capacity of space.  I could easily do exercise here, if I wanted to.  Even if I wanted to job around the border around her legs.  Not that I really felt like exercising and running at that moment, but I guess she thought I might.  I ended up just sitting down, leaning against the outer edge of her leg that was on top of her foot.  I could feel the two separate parts behind me.  Her heel for about half my body’s height, and then a crease to where her leg was on top of it. 

As I sat there, I started to feel something through the floor.  It was shaking, but only slightly.  It didn’t feel like something fell.  Just a sort of buzzing through the floor.  I felt around and eventually I heard it too.  It sounded kind of like buzzing.  Not like a bee, of course, but more like the buzzle you feel through the ground when you’re in a workshop and start using a drill.  I thought about what it may have been.  I had no idea.  I listened closer and eventually realized it had a pattern to it.  It would buzz for a couple seconds, stop, and then start again.  Always the same length of time.  Always the same feeling. 

I looked up to Hiroshi and asked her what it was.  Surely she could hear it too, even if just barely.  As soon as I said it, she looked around.  First to the right, where a closet was, paying a little close attention to it.  Then to other areas of the room.  Her gentle smile disappeared for a moment as she spoke.  But she looked back at me and shrugged her shoulders. 

“I don’t hear anything at all.  Don’t worry about it, little one.  Just sit there and relax here with me.  I’m sure it’s nothing at all.” 

A few minutes went by, and I stopped hearing it.  Was it just my imagination?  Or was it something else?  It was so subtle, but so familiar to me.  My mind was at a loss.

----------------

Rebecca stood by the front door of the house and just stood there, looking out the door.  She stared out, intently, as if expecting or hoping to see something coming.  In fact, she was.  She was very much hoping to see someone coming: me.  She stared out the window with an unchanging gaze.  In her left hand, she tightly gripped her cell phone and in her right, she was pressing against the wall.  She was dressed in a robe, clearly having just gotten out of bed. 

Then her phone buzzed and it caught her gaze.  She pulled it up into view and saw that she’d received a new text message.  She opened it and recognized it as a co-worker. 

“Hey, Becks.  How are you doing?  Talk to me when you get here today. -  Boss”

Rebecca just stared down at her phone and closed the message.  Letting out a sigh, she started going back and forth through her contacts.  She had to call someone.  There was a lot on her mind and she was going to call someone.  Eventually, she came upon the contact she was looking for.  She tapped it and put the phone to her ear.  She could hear the dial tone go through and then a few rings. 

“Come on, honey.  Please pick up…”

It was unknown to me at the time, but she was trying to call me.  I had been gone for a few days now, and it was very unlike me to just not show up at home.  Where else would I go, anyways?  She just stood there, waiting for the phone to pick up, and it eventually went to my voicemail.  Her grip on the phone tightened as she started to get a sad look on her face.  She questioned whether or not to leave a message or not. 

So, she eventually recorded a message and lowered her phone again, a tear running down her face.  She then continued to stare out the window.  She knew she needed to get ready to go to work soon.  But, deep down, she just wanted to keep staring out that window.  As she began to move away, she sighed to herself again. 

“It’s been several days now.  Where is he?  What should I do?”

As she spoke these things to herself, she started to go back and get dressed, another stressful day ahead of her…

“So how long has it been?”

The feminine words of the well-dressed woman sitting across from Rebecca had always had a firm, yet gentle tone to them.  She’d been sitting in her office, listening to Rebecca tell her story for over an hour now.  At this point, Rebecca’s voice was starting to get raspy was speaking so much and so rapidly.  The woman was her boss, her supervisor.  As she adjusted her glasses, she just stared at Rebecca and reached her hand out, pressing it onto her to try to give her some comfort. 

“It’s been several days now, I think.  I don’t know anymore.  Maybe it’s only been a few, but it feels like it’s been forever…”

Rebecca keeps talked, despite constant strain in her voice and slight burning in her neck.  Her stress level was clearly shown on her face as sweat dripped down every second.  Not only that, but she looked like a mess.  She had put on no makeup that day and barely brushed her hair straight, as much as she tried to keep adjusting it while in that office.  Everyone in that room could tell she wasn’t doing well, and she’d been that way for a couple days now. 

“Well, Rebecca.  He didn’t come home.  Maybe several days ago.  Maybe a few days ago.  Have you thought about making calls?  Maybe someone at his work knows what happened, or maybe a family member?”

Rebecca understood when she said that.  As she cycled her thoughts, she realized how out of mind she was.  Of course she had contacted my workplace, but hadn’t even begun to think about other family members.  She didn’t want to, either.  She was my lover, after all and she knew that I would always go to her before any other member of my family.  I trusted her much more than anyone else on the planet.  I would never go anywhere without telling her first.  And that fact scared her more than anything.  She was very dependent, just as I was.  That’s one thing that attracted us when we first met.  We constantly depended on one another and weren’t very okay whenever one of us wasn’t around for a while.

“I…you’re right.  I’ll go there and ask them”

She wasn’t very excited about what she had to decide.  If I were in her position, I would be the same way.  If she disappeared for even a day or two, I’d be really worried.  Both about where she was and why she didn’t come home.  But that was the decision she made at that moment.  She was afraid, but she would later go to my workplace to find out what was going on.  All the while, not realizing that she wouldn’t find me there because I was somewhere else entirely. 

----------------------------------------------------------------

Some time passed after I had questioned the odd vibrations in the floor.  I was really tired from everything and I had fallen asleep with laying against her leg.  The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was just laying against her and seeing her smile down at me.  She had asked me to exercise, but really, all I wanted to do was fall asleep.  And that is exactly what ended up happening.  Some time passed before I woke up, but I wasn’t on the floor anymore.  As I pulled myself up, letting out an ear-plugging yawn, my legs were dangling a little bit.  I was in Hiroshi’s hand and my legs were dangling off the edging between her thumb and pointer finger. 

That didn’t last, though.  I pulled my legs up away from dangling so I could sit in her hand.  Her hand was slightly cupped, so I quickly and easily wrapped my hands around a couple of her fingers for something to hang onto.  I looked up to her face, but she wasn’t looking towards me.  Her face was looking down, towards something else.  I blinked and stared at her for a moment.  Surely she could feel me moving on her hand, so why didn’t she glance over? 

“And we’ll fix this so I never have to…oh!  You’re awake, little one”

She was mumbling to herself and eventually looked over at me.  Right after she looked over, she started moving her other hand around.  I couldn’t see what she was doing, because I was so high up and there was so much in the way.  It moved around behind her, I think, and then it came back.  I always wondered what she did.  In that half-asleep state, I was really curious and not really thinking about my situation of being doll-sized.  But I didn’t see it.  She just turned her face and offered me a big smile. 

She asked me how I slept and carefully walked into another room, leaving that room and whatever she was doing behind.  I wouldn’t be getting an answer anytime soon.  It was just a good thing I never asked her what she was doing, as I wouldn’t have liked the answer.  Now that I know now, I’m glad I never asked.  She wouldn’t have liked it, and the last time I did something she didn’t like, I got punished for it.   Definitely didn’t need that, at that point, after she’d gotten so kind and gentle with me. 

We came to another room.  It’s one I hadn’t been in before.  It still had a Japanese theme to it, but it was very small and all it really had in it was a computer desk.  It wasn’t an expansive desk, but it was a simple desk.  There wasn’t anything on it, though.  It was almost like a flat table, but with a couple levels on it.  Before long, I was placed on that table/desk.  Hiroshi then sat in a chair in front of it and crossed her legs, looking over at me.  Her smile went for a bit of a smirk, as if she was trying to look attractive before me.  Maybe she was.  She wanted me to be okay with things and attraction was definitely something she seemed to have for me.  A crazy and psychotic kind, but attraction, nonetheless. 

“So, my little one.  We should talk a little more about what we’re going to do from now on.  Since you’ll be living with me and you weren’t supposed to be this small.”

This was going to be a serious discussion, I knew.  I nodded to her.  It didn’t do me much good now, but it was a little comforting that she didn’t originally plan on keep making me smaller.  Maybe that could make sure I don’t have it happen again.  Not long after, Hiroshi pulled out a notepad and a pen from one of the shelves below me.  The moving of the shelf made the desk move around, but I miraculously managed to keep my balance. 

“Okay, now let’s get started on what you need, hm?  I want to accommodate you as best I can, since you’re going to be staying here with me.” 

While Rebecca was busy at work that day and planning on visiting the place I had started work, I had work of my own to be done with Hiroshi.  When she sat down in front of me and pulled out a notepad, it was a little strange at first.  She crossed her legs and gave me a little smirk, like she was trying to look sexually appealing to me.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t find the pose and look attractive, but becoming attracted to her was the last thing on my mind at that moment.  I did have more respect for her because she saved me from that fall, but I wasn’t close to falling for her. 

She had plans for that moment, though.  She hadn’t just gotten that notepad out for looks in the pose she was in, but for a real and legit reason.  She had said she wanted to get started on what I needed and that she wanted to accommodate me as best as she could.  Deep in my mind, a little voice said the one thing I truly did need: A cure and to go back to the life I was taken from.  It as a quiet voice, toned down because of the fear of more punishments, but in all honesty, that’s all I needed.  Or, rather, that’s all I wanted. 

The reality was that she wanted to accommodate for me.  She had lots of plans on taking care of me, apparently, but not at the size of a doll.  Her plans involved a pillow not being the size of a bed to me and the sink not being the size of a hot tub.  It was back when I could still stand up and nearly see over the sink.  Her decision to punish me by making me smaller seemed to throw a wrench into the plans she had in motion and she was preparing to plan out some new ones, with my help. 

“Now, little one, you need some things and you’re going to help me figure out what.  What about clothes, hm?  Do you want to wear clothes or just stay like that?”

The way she spoke to me seemed so assertive, like being naked was my own choice.  As if I chose to become smaller and not having my clothes join me in becoming smaller.  I still didn’t even know how she had made me smaller, in the first place.  One thing was sure.  I’d never been comfortable being naked around other people, so I nodded my head that I did want clothes.  Anything around my body would be better than being bare out in the open around her. 

“Mhm, okay….clothes.  What else do you need…You don’t need a bed, right?  You can just sleep with me.  We should get you something in the bath so you’re not just out in that huge swimming pool of a tub with me having to watch where you are…”

At this point, I wasn’t even sure I was a part of this conversation anymore.  She asked me questions, but it was more like she was asking herself the questions.  I was there, in front of her, but didn’t feel a part of the conversation.  So, I just sat myself down and listened to what she was saying, for what seemed like forever.  She scribbled and scribbled on the notepad until she finally put the pen down.  I saw it go down on the desk next to me and I looked at it.  Even that was large compared to me.  I was taller than the pen.  Then again, how sad is it to be glad that you’re taller than a simple pen? 

“Okay, we’ve got everything figured out!  We just have to go get you some stuff!”

She seemed pretty excited when she said that.  I just looked up and nodded to her.  It made sense, I guess.  I needed stuff, or she seemed to think I did.  She hadn’t told me any part of what it was, other than clothes.  But hey, I’ll take it.  I’d never been big on always buying clothes, but when I have none, anything would be great.  Imagine it like being a kid and getting clothes for Christmas and hating it.  Then you grow up and have no clothes and it’s a Christmas Miracle for a bundle of socks.  That’s how I felt at the time. 

“Now, I don’t have all this stuff, little one, so how can I go out to the store…Hmm…I don’t want to leave you here by yourself, but I don’t want anyone seeing you, either.  You could get lost out in that terrible world…”

If it had been a few days earlier, I would have done a lot to convince her I would be fine by myself, and then watch how she leaves and run like heck once she was out of sight.  That would have been the perfect escape plan.  At that time, I thought about it, but I also thought about how bad of an idea it would be.  Even if I got out on my own, I probably wouldn’t make it 20 feet without someone or something else finding me that was a lot more hostile than she was. 

Her face looks more conflicted the more she thought about it.  And it didn’t take long for her to filter it through her mind. 

“Sweety, I just can’t leave you here by yourself.  You’ll need me.  I’m sure you will.  I’ll just…order online, maybe.  Yeah, that’s it!  I’ll order all of this stuff online.  And I don’t have to worry about losing you!  That sounds good, right?”

That was a bummer.  She was going to just order everything off the net instead of leaving with or without me.  After she’d spoken that, I wished I would have spoken up about going with her.  It wasn’t until after she made her decision that a thousand other possible escape plans soared into my head about how I could get away from her that day and go to someone else that would help me.  Heck, any nice worker in a store would, right?  Get away to be found by a cashier, blurt out that Hiroshi kidnapped me and then get taken to the safety of a break room, right? 

Maybe, maybe not.  But I didn’t have a choice now.  I saw Hiroshi getting her phone out of a desk drawer and starting to look stuff up online to buy for me.  Except I wasn’t by the phone to see just what she had planned for me…

What would you picture if you were in my place?  You’re the size of a doll and your captor talks about getting stuff you need.  Even better, imagine if your lover had been born the size of a doll and they remained that way.  What would you get to help make him or her more comfortable with living?  What would you get to lower the dangers of the outside world so you could always keep them safe?  Would you have them live inside a doll house?  Would you start building tiny stairways and other methods of transportation so they didn’t always have to have you carrying them places? 

It would be more interesting to me if I hadn’t been the one going through that, and with someone who probably didn’t truly love me the way you’re supposed to love someone.  No, I was forced into that situation and was just sitting and looking at Hiroshi, wondering and pondering.  I wondered what she was buying for me.  I wondered what she thought I needed.  True, I needed a lot.  I was like a Barbie doll, for crying out loud.  It’s hard to find all your needs at 5 feet tall, let alone this size.  Before long, I called up to her, asking her what she was getting. 

“Oh, don’t you worry about it, little one.  You’re getting everything you need, okay?”

That didn’t answer my question, but it’s what I got.  My mind went to a lot of things.  A dollhouse is something I could live in.  Sure, it would be like a regular house, except for everything being made of plastic.  What else was there besides that and clothes?  I guess she could find toy silverware for me to use with food, or small toy cars to make me feel like I still actually have a car and places to go.  This was all on my mind, though.  I had no idea what Hiroshi had in mind.  And I wasn’t going to find out. 

I just dropped my head down and let out a sigh.  Whatever she was buying was probably something that could help me.  The only way for me to find out was to wait until they got delivered.  Though that was a depressing thought at the time.  It entered my mind and I entered my first really down and sad spell since Hiroshi’s attitude changed.  These things had to take days to be delivered.  That, alone got me down because it made me realize that I would still be here with her in days and days to come. 

That really depressed me.  Was this really my life now?  That thought ran through my head more times than I could count.  Right after my life had been saved, I didn’t care much about it.  But now I did.  I could feel a tingling in the top of my nose as I thought about it.  I was really stuck there.  Doll-sized with Hiroshi.  Cut off from my home.  Cut off from Rebecca.  Cut off from everything but Hiroshi.  The more I thought about being cut off from everyone, the worse I seemed to feel. 

It didn’t take much to bring me down when things were going south.  This instance was proving it.  My breathing got slower as I tried to keep from showing my feelings.  Every time this happened, I knew that my body wanted to break down and cry.  So I fought it as best I could.  Deeper breathing.  Wiping my forehead.  Trying to think about anything else.  For years and years, I had cry spells that I had to fight.  I had learned many ways to fight it, but when it got so bad, it just couldn’t be fought at all.  And that moment felt the worst I’d felt in a very long time. 

I worked hard on my breathing, but it felt like the more I breathed, the worse it got.  I could feel it getting closer every second when I just wanted it to go away.  Night time.  Night was the perfect time for this to happen because no one would see it.  But it wasn’t night time.  It was the middle of the day and one moment, I am trying my hardest not to cry and the next thing I know, I fall over on my side and start shaking all over.  There is no feeling of cold.  No feeling of being sick.  Just the thought of being ripped away from my home dominating my mind and throwing me down.  My arms, legs, fingers, toes.  All of them began to shake uncontrollably and I started sobbing into the desk.    

“Hmm?  What are you doing, little one?”

That only made the shaking worse.  Hiroshi saw me move over on my side.  She could see me right now.  Could she see me crying?  Could she see me shaking?  No, of course not.  I was curled up.  So I rolled to face the inside of the desk.  To the point where she couldn’t see my face.  That would work, right?  My panicking mind thought so.  ‘You’ll just look like you’re tired, that’s all’ I told myself.  How ridiculous of a thought, but it was there.  So I stared at the back of the desk, feeling rivers of tears running down my face and onto the desk I was laying on. 

I cried and cried and cried.  It was like a life time of sorrow coming out all at once.  I didn’t wail or make noise, but tears kept rolling down.  That’s how I have always been with crying.  No screaming.  No moaning.  Just being silent and tears running down my face.  I thought that could have worked to my advantage right then.  After all, if she couldn’t hear me crying, she wouldn’t think I was crying.  It made sense.  It still makes sense now.  I just had my hopes up a little bit too high. 

Those hopes were up too high because this was Hiroshi I was dealing with.  I sobbed and sobbed, and soon found myself being lifted up into the air.  Of course she wouldn’t just assume I was tired.  She did say she wanted to take care of me, after all.  As much as I didn’t want it, my face was soon right up in front of her, every tear and every reddened mark on my face clearly visible.  There was no hiding something like that from her.  If only I had been one of those people that rarely ever cried at all. 

“What’s wrong?  Why are you crying, little one?”

Now there was a question I knew I couldn’t answer.  In my crying state, I always just want to get everything off my chest, but I knew I couldn’t.  If I told her what was really going on, I’d be in hot water.  I had gotten to the point where she thought I was accepting this.  Heck, even I thought I was accepting this.  Throwing that out to her now would only have bad results.  Who knows how upset she might get upon saying that I still wanted to leave and go back to Rebecca.  I didn’t even want to think about that. 

So, the question was how to avoid answering the question.  It didn’t take me long before I just buried my face in her thumb and kept sobbing.  ‘That’s it.  Just keep sobbing uncontrollably.  She’ll just comfort me and I can get out of this question’.  It was like something a little kid would think up to do.  I didn’t care.  I just wanted to avoid the question.  That’s all that mattered.  Except, that didn’t work.  Because she just moved her thumb and pushed my head up to look at hers. 

“Do you not want to tell me?  Don’t you trust me, little one?”

Trust her?  Of course I didn’t trust her.  Did I?  Well, around those days, it was a bit of a confliction in me.  I did trust her, in some ways.  In others, I didn’t.  I trusted that she really did want to keep me safe and take care of me.  That was pretty obvious by how well she’d been taking care of me.  What I didn’t trust was telling her why I was crying.  There was no way I could tell her I was crying because I was taken from my previous life.  There was no way I could tell her that it was her fault I was crying and that I wanted to leave.  Sure, I wanted to tell her, but I knew better.  

I had to think of something, and fast, because I knew where this was headed.  As I was being held and I wasn’t answering her, I could feel her insecure side starting to show itself again.  She asked if I trusted her and it was just slight, but I could feel the grip around my chest tighten a little as she was clearly thinking about things.  I knew that I needed to think of something to tell her.  Something that wasn’t entirely the truth, and not entirely a lie, either.  Something that would satisfy her and wouldn’t lead in her getting upset with me.

“Why won’t you tell me, little one?  Why?”

Things were starting to get more serious now to show just how unstable this woman was.  Her fingers continued to tighten.  Tighten.  Constrict.  Squeeze.  It was more than slight now, and was starting to go towards “Hurting” status.  This had to end then.  I had to say something.  Otherwise, things were about to go from bad to worse and much faster than I would like.  So I just blurted out.  “I…I’m just tired and I yawned.  I’m fine.  I promise!” 

Tired?  Really?  That was the best I could think of?  Who would believe something like that?  Apparently, she did.  She looked me over for a few moments as she took in what I blurted out.  Surely, I was still dead meat.  She wouldn’t have believed that.  But, after a few moments, her grip tightened and she began to wipe my face with one of her fingers.  She offered a smile to me as she worked on my face and it was gentle and lacking any insecurity.

She didn’t say anything in response to what I said, which I found a little odd.  She just wiped my face off, put her phone on the desk, and began to walk out of the room, carrying me in the process.  It wasn’t exactly a comfortable situation for me.  Not only had I seen how quickly things could get bad for me, making me remember how dangerous of a situation this was.  But it also left me constantly worrying about whether or not she actually believed my excuse.  If she knew I was lying to her, what would she do?  The lack of her talking to me just made my mind go crazy.  Thankfully, it took my mind off the crying and made it look like it may have just been a yawning tear after all. 

She took me into the bathroom and started drawing a bath.  I was sitting on the sink as she did it, keeping the silence up that she’d been going through up to that point.  I didn’t like that at all.  The water drew for what felt like forever with the waterfall-like splashing hitting my ears and shaking my eardrums.  Even past all of this, I knew she wasn’t talking.  Her lips didn’t move for a moment as she went back and forth between looking at the water, and smiling back at me.  It was a situation where I didn’t know what was going on and the first time she’d gotten really quiet with me since this whole ordeal began. 

Then, she began to disrobe herself.  That was a sight I didn’t think I’d ever get used to seeing.  My cheeks always blushed and went bright red as the clothing so easily slid off her body, revealing the silky smooth, petite body that laid beneath it.  The curves of her arms and legs.  The roundness of her breasts.  And just the overall fact that she was standing there, naked, literally towering above me and before me.  It felt wrong to be with her like this or to even see her like this.  Who was I kidding?  It didn’t feel wrong.  It WAS wrong. 

A few minutes later, I found myself taken from the sink and into the bath tub with her.  She didn’t seem too focused on actually cleaning either of us.  But she just held me in her hands and laid down in the tub.  No wash cloth.  No soap.  No bubbles.  Just, laying there.  Laying there and offering me that smile without saying a word to me at all. 

Eventually, of course, I did find out what was going on.  As she laid there, with only her chest and above sticking out of the water, she slowly lowered me down onto her body, settling me between her breasts.  As I came down, I was on my side, looking right at her left breast.  I could see every little curve.  Every little imperfection in the skin.  Every little spot that led up to her nipple.  It started giving me some very bad memories of the last time I was near her breasts.  But history didn’t repeat itself on that day. 

Her hands came down over me to hold me in place and she stroked me up and down, very slowly.  Then I found out what was really going on.  Why she had stopped everything she was doing to draw a bath.  Why she had placed me here. 

“You can rest now, my tired little one.  I won’t let you fall.  I won’t let you go anywhere.  Now let out all of your yawns and take a little nap on me.”   

Just what do you do when you encounter a situation where you don’t really want to know the answer?  If you, my dear reader, have someone very close in your life, think about this.  If they suddenly disappeared without a trace and you knew where to find answers, would you charge in to find them?  Or, would you hesitate?  Would you think “What if they don’t love me anymore?” or would that never cross your mind at all?  Regardless, it is a decision you must make because you are in that situation.  So, the decision is yours to go in and find the answer or to hesitate and be devoured by your fears. 

Those thoughts were running around the streets on that rainy day.  The front door of my employer was sitting there, pools of water running down the sides of the doors.  It was the middle of the day as a car pulled up across the street and slowly parked.  It was the middle of the day, yet it looked like evening.  Gray storm clouds covered the skies and blocked out almost all of the light the Sun could offer.  Some cars had their lights on as they drove by and even some street lights had naturally turned themselves on.  It seemed to be a dreary day. 

It wasn’t just dreary outside, either.  Inside that car sat Rebecca, staring out the window.  It was parked and it was off, and she just stared across the road to that place where I worked.  It was right around the time I would normally leave to arrive, and she was staring and thinking.  There was much hesitation in her mind at that time.  ‘What do I do when I get inside?’  ‘What if he’s there and doesn’t want me anymore?’  ‘What if I don’t find any answers?’  A million possible outcomes were going through her mind. 

10 minutes went by.  Then 20.  Then an hour.  Never for a moment did she stop staring at that door, hoping but also not hoping to see me go in or come out.  After some two hours, she finally mustered up the courage to open up the car door and step outside.  The rain continued as she did so, and the cold, freezing droplets hit everywhere on her head as she walked across the street.  She wore no umbrella for she was far too distracted by the heat of the moment.  Her racing mind along with her turning stomach.   

She finally came up to the door and saw that it was already open.  The door hadn’t been latched, but she hadn’t seen a single person go in or out since she parked her car.  So why was the door still partially open, and on a rainy day no less?  Maybe it was just fate’s way of nudging her on the path of getting inside and finding out answers.  Maybe. 

Once inside, she saw the same open hall that I had seen when I started there.  A large hall area with a desk up towards the end.  She was seeing just what I had seen on my first day of work.  As rain still dripped off her rain boots, she walked forward, slowly making her way towards the desk.  It seemed to be the only place in the room that would have some information or a way to talk to someone.  It made sense, too.  There’s no reason to have anything else there but that. 

She finally made her way up to the desk and looked over the top.  While she expected to see some sort of secretary or receptionist there, she saw no one.  The computer at the desk was turned on, but the chair was empty.  It was just as it was for me when I began those days where my receptionist friend wasn’t there when I was.  A desk that seemingly should have been occupied, but it wasn’t.  Not even a ghost was there to greet Rebecca. 

The only other way was the door leading back to the work areas.  Rebecca saw the door and she slowly walked over to it.  It didn’t look like an incredibly heavy door to her, so she just shrugged and grabbed at the handle.  With even the slightest pull, it gave out a dull clicking sound.  She tried pulling and pushing and turning, but it just wouldn’t budge.  She’d come all that way to find an empty lobby and a locked door. 

She let out a sigh and just held onto the handle for a while.  She had parked outside, spent 2 hours being nervous, and she came in for what seemed like nothing at all.  Her hand clenched the handle tighter and tighter with every moment.  The nervous feelings were going away and she just wanted answers at that point.  She stared down at the ground and a tear ran down her cheek as she thought longer and longer. 

How would you view the situation?  Your loved one disappears after some issues after they start a new job.  You get worried and the place they work looks practically abandoned?  There’s not even a secretary there to talk to and find out?  What would you think about the situation?  What kind of company has locked doors like that without anyone to answer the phone or greet you with information?  I know I would be pretty worried if Rebecca’s situation and mine had been reversed. 

As she practically clung to that door handle, she didn’t even hear the soft clicking of foot steps approaching behind her.  They came closer and closer and all she cared about was getting inside that door.  She didn’t realize at all until she heard a voice just inches behind her.

“Excuse me.  What are you doing?”

A heart attack.  That is how Rebecca described the situation of someone coming up to her in that place.  Only a simple question was asked, but without expecting it, Rebecca had a heart attack.  Jumping, screaming, shaking, goosebumps.  You know how it goes when you think you’re alone and someone sneaks up behind you.  That was her in that moment, making that two people that had been frightened in that hall. 

Once Rebecca had caught her breath, she saw the original of that voice.  Her eyes went up and down a woman who was short and had a medium build about her.  She was dressed in a very professional looking suit and had an intimidating look on her face, just beneath her blonde hair.  She had been standing there for some time, hand on her hip, expecting an explanation from her and waited for Rebecca to calm herself down. 

“I….I’m sorry!  You…scared me!”

Still a little out of breath, she finally spoke to the blonde woman in front of her.  It certainly wasn’t easy, but she got words out, despite the intimidating look she was being given.  That’s one way Rebecca and I balanced each other out.  She was able to keep talking, even in stressful and intimidating situations.  I, on the other hand, naturally clammed up and didn’t know what to say at all.  Even in front of the most intimidating-looking receptionist on the planet, Rebecca handled things much better than I. 

The two of them eventually sat down in a couple chairs in the hall and began discussing why Rebecca was there.  She had mentioned me, but not everything about it.  She talked about me coming to work where they were and that I had been missing for many days.  As she went on with her story, she talked about wanting to come there first to see if any of my co-workers knew anything about where I was or what I had been doing.  Both Rebecca and I knew it wasn’t like me to just not show up.  If I were in pain and writhing on the side of the road, I’d still muster the strength to get my phone out and call or text her to let her know.  It was very important to me to be in constant contact with her if something was wrong. 

“I know of him.  But he most certainly is not here.”

The receptionist’s words always seemed to be very short and to the point.  Certainly “I know him but he’s not here” wasn’t the best she could have told someone who was very worried about a loved one.  Then again, maybe that’s just how she was.  Blunt, logical, to the point.  Probably the closest real life example of a Vulcan in real life.  No room for emotional support for someone in need of support. 

Rebecca looked down to her lap, letting out a sigh.  She had come all that way for nothing.  Only one person that she could find and absolutely no progress in her search. 

“What about co-workers?  Isn’t there someone that might know where he is?!”

Rebecca didn’t get any answers, but she didn’t want to give up.  Surely there was more than a single person in the entire building that she could talk to.  She stared at this blunt, intimidating woman, expecting answers, although she knew that she had none.  It just wasn’t enough.  That place was the only tie into my recent actions.  But that didn’t get her any answers either.  At the end of the day, the receptionist just didn’t know where I was.  With good reason, too.  The last few days I’d been at work, she was nowhere to be found.  Where she was hiding during those days, I still do not know to this day. 

“I should have been more careful.  Ever since I thought he was getting shorter, I just…I should have been more careful.  What if something happened to him?”

Rebecca had begun to think out loud, at that point.  She didn’t originally want to tell this stranger about her belief that I had been getting shorter.  It was crazy and insane, and any normal person would take it with a grain of salt.  Had I not experienced it first-hand, I would never have believed it possible to get shorter.  Not at the rate I had been, anyways.  But that was before I got dragged into the kidnapping of my life. 

“Shorter?”

The receptionist seemed interested in what Rebecca had been mumbling about.  Rebecca looked up at her and explained her situation.  With the first word out, it was easier to explain the rest.  Explaining that she thought I was getting shorter since working there and had been worried about me.  Thank goodness no one else was in the room or they’d probably have called the local Psychiatric Hospital.  But the receptionist just gave her a skeptical look and listened. 

Before long,  their conversation ended with the receptionist showing her the door.  She brought her to it and opened the door. 

“You won’t find your answers here.  I will call you if I see him.” 

It wasn’t the answer Rebecca was looking for, but she was shown the door and it was clear she wouldn’t be getting any answers.  Just a long sit in the car, having a heart attack in the lobby and pouring her guts out to this receptionist.  So, she just walked back to her car and prepared to go home, trying to think of the next step in this search. 

Meanwhile, the receptionist closed the door and stared out the window for some time, thinking about what Rebecca had told her.  All the while, I was having a day of my own at the time with the ever-insecure Doctor Hiroshi.  

If there was a way for someone to be in paradise and hell all at the same time, I was there.  To be in a situation both beautiful, pleasurable, and enjoyable, yet terrifying all at once.  That’s where I was.  My captor was caring and loving towards me, but that other side of her scared me to death.  Every moment of being around her had been an emotional rollercoaster and despite being in a very exploitable situation, I wanted out.  I had to get out.  Because she was toying with my emotions in a very dangerous way. 

As I laid there, staring into the skin of her left breast, I tried my hardest not to keep crying and shaking.  And it wasn’t hard, either.  Her soft, warm fingers slowly and gently stroked up and down my body in such a perfect way that being around her truly felt comforting and desirable.  I was scared of her, but the moments where she became like that became very dangerous.  They were levels of pleasure that could make you change your mind.  That could coerce me not to leave.  And it took everything I had to try and resist that coercion. 

Minutes, Hours went by as I laid there, staring and thinking and pondering.  Bathing in the warmth that was all around me, from her body below and her fingers above.  I didn’t know what I was waiting for.  Maybe I thought she would eventually move us out of the bath to a bed or something.  After all, just how long could you just lay in a bath with someone sleeping on your chest? 

A long time is how long.  Hours went by until I finally came out of my daze.  The time of day, I had no clue, but it was probably night time.  But I looked up when I felt the fingers stop moving over me and slip to the side.  I looked around and none of her arms or legs were moving at all.  It was a little odd, as she normally had her hands all over me.  I didn’t put two-and-two together until I looked up past her shoulders and neck and heard the soft hums of her breathing, clearly knocked out from sitting in the bath for this long.  She was out cold, sleeping.

Taking a look around, I wasn’t sure what to do.  I was stuck in a giant bath tub, laying on the chest of a sleeping kidnapper.  What were my options, exactly?  Her being asleep would have been the best chance to try to move away and find a way out of this place, as crazy as that idea was.  Then again, how exactly, would I go about leaving the tub?  Neither of her arms were touching the sides of it and even if they were, the fall to the floor would probably have been the equivalent of a 20-30 foot drop.  If I even survived the fall, I’d be crippled. 

Another idea was to wake her up.  That or just wait for her to wake up on her own.  Who knows how long that would’ve taken.  Waking up my crazed captor.  I’m sure you can see the illogical sound of that as you read this.  Then again, maybe that idea would have been a good idea, thinking back on it now, as opposed to what actually happened in that moment.  For, I was taking so long to think of my options, I didn’t realize we were in a bathtub, and everything around me was wet.  And slick. 

A scream wouldn’t have covered the terror that hit me as soon as her chest and stomach went from being a warm bed to being a slick waterslide.  I started to slide with nothing to be able to grab onto.  Sure, I tried, but I was so small and her skin was so wet that my tiny fingers could barely even try to grasp before slipping away.  So, I went the only direction I could.  Down her chest, down her belly, and plunged into the water right between her legs. 

I’ve never really been a good swimmer, so you can imagine how I felt in that emotion-heavy moment.  I was hectic about moving away and even more about plunging into a lake of bath water.  Sure, I knew how to tread water and swim, but that didn’t been I was good at it.  At the pool, I normally stayed towards the sides, just to always be safe from the fear of drowning.    So, as soon as I came up from my initial plunge, I naturally went to grab onto something.  Anything that wasn’t even more water. 

That’s when you, my dear reader, are to think about where, exactly, I slid down and fell.  For I wasn’t thinking about it at all, and that is what led me down the path of disaster on that day.  For, as soon as I came up, I grabbed onto the only thing that was close and had thin enough skin to grab onto.  And it was the one area of her body that was the most dangerous to grab onto and stimulate, as I would soon find out, the hard way…

“Mmmmmmmm”  

When you hear a moan like that, it’s normally a good thing.  A sign of pleasure, stimulation, and all around enjoyable feelings.  But, for me, this only meant trouble.  From the moment I grabbed onto whatever was near me, I felt a vibrating, shaking feeling.  It was followed by a loud “Mmmmmm” from above me.  Even in the rush and stress of having fallen into the water, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had just happened.  

I swiftly moved my head around as I clung and hung on, only to realize that I had grabbed onto a soft, thin pair of lips.  Not just any lips, though, as these were moistening more and more by the second, my hands inadvertently bringing pleasure to her, as the only thing near me were her vaginal lips, and I’d swiftly grabbed onto them.  The good news was that she was probably about to wake up.  The bad news was how she’d react to this stimulation.  

She moaned again, louder, and from my small size, it scared me.  Like hearing a moan through a megaphone from far above.  In this state, I just kind of froze in place.  I didn’t want to move away from her and into open water, and at the same time I didn’t want to keep hearing these loud moans coming from her.  My mind and face just stuck to her, watching her react.  Watching her body react.  In a way I wouldn’t like.  

As if on instinct, one of her arms began to move.  Ripples in the water pushed towards me as I saw her right arm leave the water and move back onto her chest and stomach.  The soft fingers rested and gently moved around on her belly as a small smile began to creep up on her face, way up at the top of her shoulders and neck.  I kept watching, waiting for her to open her eyes.  Waiting for her to realize what was going on.  What had happened to me.  

But she didn’t open her eyes.  All that happened was movements with her arms and her hands.  She rubbed her own belly slowly, around and around, until they started moving again.  Her fingers slowly crept down from her belly, towards me.  They never left her skin, though.  As her fingers slowly crept down further and further, I was just frozen as I watched.  To shakey and scared to move a muscle.  

That’s when it hit me.  Literally.  No sooner had I frozen in place had her fingers reached those same lips that I had accidentally latched onto, rubbing onto the in circular motions.  From the very first motion, her fingers came in contact with me, forcing my grip off of her, and falling back down into the water below.  As I splashed down in the water, I could still see her above me, her instincts not even aware of my existence, solely focused on touching her vaginal lips and finishing what I started.  

Being thrown off her vagina as she pleasured herself.  To think that’s the kind of situation I was in.  I scrambled back to the surface to get some air, and started treading water right in front of her vagina and hand still going at it.  It was mesmerizing to me.  Not just sexually, but as a further reminder of just what kind of situation I was in.  She was going at it, moaning from above and pushing further and further to pleasure herself.  The fingers that knocked me aside with literally no effort at all were digging deep into her body, stimulating those deep sexual desires with her not even awake yet to realize where she was.  

This was another frightening situation for me.  Because I know that lustful feeling.  When you’re head-deep in that moment, you lose a lot of your perceptions of the outside world, especially if your eyes are shut.  She had no idea I was there.  I was afraid her leg would whip out and close together, effectively breaking bones in my body that she couldn’t fix.  It wouldn’t take much effort and it would be over before she would even know.  

As I worried on this again and again, trying to keep myself steady with treading against the ripples and mini-waves she was causing with pleasuring herself, her legs did move.  Just slightly, but her feet pushed up against the end of the tub, clearly getting much deeper in her pleasure.  And that’s when I heard that heart sinking Pop.  The pop you hear not when your fingers pop.  But the pop you hear when the plug keeping the water in the tub is removed.  And I heard it very loud not far behind me.  

I could already feel it in the water around me.  The plug was out and the drain was already sucking water down.  I was the size of a doll at the time, and maybe I wasn’t quite small enough to fall down the drain, but I wasn’t about to argue and test the risks of suffocating in a drain pipe.  My panic settled in and I swam against it as fast as I could, only wanting to grab onto something until it was over.  Unfortunately, the only thing that I could grab onto was a vagina or the fingers of the hand pleasuring said vagina.  

It was a risk, but it wasn’t dying, so I took it.  I swam and swam as fast as I could, and the moment her hand came into view, I latched onto one of her fingers.  I didn’t care if she tried to push me off on instinct again.  I just wanted out of the water.  Out of this terrifying situation.  Close to her so she would know that I was there.  Close so that she could get us both out of the tub before something even worse happened.  

Then, of course, it did.  From the moment I grabbed onto her fingers, those fingers began to wrap around me, taking me into her palm.  At first, I thought she had come to my senses, but a second later, the hand resumed rubbing her vagina, effectively sandwiching me between the two.  Instead of being relieved, I was only more terrified.  Her hand had completely control over me and rubbed me around her vaginal lips over and over again.  As if I were nothing but part of a handheld vibrator sex toy.  

It was soft enough that it didn’t hurt enough to break any parts of my body, but it hurt.   And at the time, my fear only rose higher and higher.  Being degraded to the point of being unknowingly used as a sex toy hit me deep inside.  Being kidnapped wasn’t enough, and she wasn’t even aware she was doing it to me.  And my body reacted.  I started shaking and quivering, not able to process what was happening.  And the moment my face was free during one of her motions, I let out a blood-curdling scream for help.  

I can’t say this is a memory I like recalling, and I would prefer not to.  But you, my readers, I’m sure would be disappointed at the inclusion of a “The Following Day…” sequence in this chapter.  So, let’s get down to it. 

Terror was a mild term for how I felt in that moment.  Being moved around like a toy, rubbed against her most private and sensitive sexual area.  It hurt, beyond words.  Not physically, but I was being unknowingly humiliated in a terrible way, and all I could do when I finally got room to breath is let out a scream for help.  Hoping, praying that she would not only hear me, but come to her senses and stop using me as her personal, living vibrator. 

As my lungs blew out all they could, I felt the hot air coming from the flesh on both sides of me.  On one side was soft, slimy vagina flesh and the other equally slimy fingers.  And I was helpless before either one.  Her hand was moving far too quickly for me to be able to move against them and try to slip away.  I felt like I was plastered into both of them at the same time, and countless tears ran down my face as I let out that scream for help.  A scream that was heard not long after.  A scream that brought about a very important event of this misadventure, for both of us involved. 

She stopped the moment I let out that scream, though it was already too late.  The moment she stopped, I could hear a high-pitched moan coming from above, much higher and louder than the prior.  Afterwards, I heard a rumbling in front of me followed by the equivalent of a water hose on jet setting of sticky, smelly, and hot juice that I’m sure I don’t need to define for all of you.  My scream made her stop, but not before she came all over her hand, and me. 

The feeling was something I don’t think I could make into one word.  Everything was hot around me.  I was sweating.  Everything felt like it was stuck and pulling in on itself.  My muscles were having spasms everywhere it was possible to feel.  I could no longer even tell the difference with the feeling on my face of what was my tears and what was everything else.  It was enough to completely destroy my sense of anything at all and it was the final straw the made my mind snap and go from fighting everything to a complete mental breakdown. 

Anyone whom has suffered from this knows exactly how it feels.  When everything inside and outside just breaks and lose all of your senses.  Your sight clouds.  Your feelings numb.  Nothing smells or sounds anymore.  You lose any sort of awareness of anything going on with your body, and you are lost in that numbness of your entire being breaking in two.  You lose yourself, literally, in the moment and in the nothingness of your breakdown.  It the true endgame for those that suffer from anxiety and extreme stress. 

I still don’t remember a lot of that moment.  I just remember coming to my senses a few minutes later.  I knew that I was sobbing, shaking, trembling, in the fetal position.  So many tears in my eyes that all I saw was a blurry tear-induced field of vision.  And I knew something was moving over me.  I didn’t know what it was, and quite frankly, I didn’t care what it was.  All I cared about was curling up in ball, crying my eyes out, over something that I partially didn’t even remember at first.  It was an event that not only put me into shock, but it was a truly traumatizing experience. 

Minutes, hours went by.  I didn’t stop crying and shaking for longer than I can even recall.  It hit me and wouldn’t stop, as if it were years and years of hidden stress all coming out at once.  Fear everywhere, sadness everywhere, numbness everywhere.  I didn’t know it at the time, but Hiroshi was next to me, still wiping her “stuff” off of me, just watching me melt down and break in front of her.  I wouldn’t know of any of it, as this kept up until I had sobbed away every ounce of strength in my body and I managed to knock myself out, unconscious and asleep. 

And in that moment, I was witnessing the true meaning of being a victim.  Kidnapped.  And sexually traumatized…

When I woke up, my entire body was full of tingles, as if every muscle were waking up after a very long sleep.  The ends of my fingers stung with that “slept on your hand” feeling and so did my toes.  Just imagine that feeling, but all over your body and that is like I felt at the time.  It’s certainly not something I hope you ever experience, my dear reader.  Not for the same reasons, anyways.  N

It took a long time for me to regain my awareness of where I was.  At first, I thought I was waking up in my own bed, so out-of-it that I forgot about my predicament of being shrunken down by an obsessive colleague and kidnapped into her home.  My vision was blurry and as I looked upward, I fully expected to see my ceiling fan slowly blowing onto me with Rebecca right next to me.  If only I had woken up to that.  If only this whole ordeal had just been a nightmare.  Things would be far different than they are now. 

I did not wake up to my own ceiling.  I woke up to the only thing I possibly could wake up to.  Her, looking down at me.  Though raining down was more like it.  The more my eyes were able to focus, the more my hearing could hear the loud pitter-patter of droplets of water falling down around me.  Your first thought might be that it was raining.  But it wasn’t.  As my focus came in, I realized that those droplets were tears, raining down from the enormous face above me. 

After I truly came back into focus, I saw that Hiroshi’s face was red and had countless drenched tear streaks down her cheeks.   Some were fresh while others looked like they were almost completely dried out.  That sort of look on someone’s face really hits you, especially when said face is multiple times larger than you’re used to seeing.  I won’t lie to you, reader.  Seeing her face like that brought tears to my own face.  The level of sadness that was written right on her face was depressing and I felt really sad about it. 

She didn’t say a word during these moments.  She had clearly been sobbing.  Looking around me, I realized I was laying under a small cloth on her dresser and there were huge puddles of tears all around me.  Something had happened that had hit her hard, and at that moment, I had yet to remember the trauma that had caused it.  Had fate been kind to me, it could’ve left my time as an unaware sex toy as a repressed memory.  But we all know fate is not kind like that.  Fate is a cruel, cruel mistress. 

I didn’t remember right away, of course.  Right away, I was just confused as to what could have hit this woman so hard that she was literally bawling her eyes away.  The woman that had no problems kidnapping me against my will and shrinking me smaller just so I couldn’t leave her.  How could a woman so cruel and psychotic be hit so hard by something like this?  Surely if I’d done something bad, she would’ve just gotten angry and punished me, right?  It didn’t make any sense to my little brain. 

As the waterworks from her eyes finished up, she reached down, gently wrapping the cloth around my body and pulling me up into her face.  Every motion was incredibly gentle and she began rubbing her fingers on my back, letting out a smile and whispering a simple phrase:

“I’m so happy you’re okay”

At this point, you have to wonder what was going through my head.  She had been gentle with me at times, clearly in a “I’m trying to make you trust me” manner, but this was different.  The level of care and gentleness she was giving me.  Even the tone of her voice.  It all felt and sounded sincere.  I believed that right then, she wasn’t just being an obsessive crazy woman, but was truly concerned about my well-being and was sincerely happy that I was alright.  

The whole situation confused me.  But, I decided to go off of what she was doing.  I leaned into her damp cheek and neck and hugged against her.  What else was I supposed to do?  She sounded sincere and, despite the circumstances, I had to also gain her trust if I were ever to get out of this mess.  Then again, I feel like at the time, I was just doing what felt natural.  I was still groggy, after all, and when someone shows sincere concern for your well-being, you can’t just ignore it. 

You might be thinking that this situation was starting to work in my favor.  She shows her sincere concern for my life, and I could get out of this situation.  Explain the dangers of what had happened.  Take advantage of her guilt and get her to restore my height and let me go.  Sounds like a great plan, right?  After all, the human conscience can be a very powerful thing.  That might’ve worked, too, if fate hadn’t intervened. 

She eventually set me back down on the dresser and brought her head down to my level.  She was blinking and wiping her eyelids a lot, clearly trying to keep herself from crying even more.  I just stood there, dumbfounded and waiting for her to do whatever she was planning to do or say.  Waiting was all I could do.  Wait until she could fight the tears enough to talk more.  And when she finally did talk, she said something that I wished she had never said.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.  After what happened in the tub, I thought…I thought I was going to lose you!”

Simple words are powerful things.  A simple word or phrase can spark even the most hidden memories.  As soon as she had said “in the tub”, fate dived into my head and flipped a switch that didn’t want to be flipped.  Because, in that moment, every second of being shoved into her vaginal lips in the tub came rushing back to me, all at once.  And with it, came all of the trauma that comes with being used as a sex toy. 

My eyes got cloudy and it all started with my fingers.  My index fingers twitched and then the rest.  Then my legs started to quiver and shake.  Then my arms.  And then my the rapid breathing.  Rapid and getting faster, without end.  And my heartbeat went with it, beating faster than it ever should.  My entire body began to freak out, the surge of memory sparking a panic attack.  In the panic of this attack, I started backing away from her.  Because knowing what she did to me, she was beyond a psychotic obsessive lady.  She was a monster. 

That moment is what prevented the guilt plan from working.  Because not only did I fall into a panic attack, but I screamed out of fear and dashed back, hiding behind a jewelry box.  Back there, I curled up into a ball and began to rock back and forth, letting everything my body was getting out, well, out.  That was Step 1 of what screwed me over. 

Step 2 was when she moved the jewelry box and tried to reach for me.  And that’s when my filter completely disappeared, like it always used to when I had anxiety attacks.  There was no filter to hold myself back.  Hold words back.  Only what I felt came out, all at once in a scream as soon as her hand came close. 

“Get your hands away from me, you crazy bitch!”

I guess I should have been thankful, at the time.  She could have done worse to me.  I just blacked out.  A particularly emotional stroke and I could have woken up in a much worse situation, or rather, a much bigger situation.  I don't know why she didn’t just shrink me more, since that seemed like her go-to punishment from before.  But I guess I should have been thankful she didn’t do anything worse than what she did.  

But, right now, I was the size of a doll in the hand of an emotionally unstable woman with every intention of keeping me with her for the rest of my life.  When you’re given terrible and another terrible situation choices, you’re not too thankful when you’re in a terrible situation either way.  And all of this was running through my head as her serious eyes stared me down and I tried not to freak out to further lose her trust in me.

She set me down on what looked like the large kitchen table we had been to a few times before.  I say “what looked like” because I was still adjusting to all the dizziness of being moved around so suddenly.  She didn’t give me a lot of breathing room, per say.  Not that you could blame her if you were in her position.  If our roles had been swapped, I might be doing the same thing, or worse.  

“Now, my little one.  I hope you listened to the rules, because this is your first test”

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate tests?  Sure, I did well on them in school, but just the idea of taking tests I’ve disliked.  Being forced to test your knowledge on very specific aspects that are drilled into your brain that you’re only remembering right then and there because you’re being tested on it.  I’ve always hated them and this was no different.  

She moved away from me for a moment and reached for something under the table.  Did she have all of this planned out?  Did she already schedule such an intricate test for “reforming” me?  If this weren’t so terrifying, I’d be impressed by her dedication and amount of effort she’d put into this.  As the thought passed, she pulled out a large piece of paper and a pen, setting them down next to me.  

“Pick up that pen and write down the rules I just told you”

Was she serious?  Pick up a pen half my own height and write on a piece of paper?  I just looked at her for a moment.  I couldn’t help but send that “Are you serious?” Thought straight back at her.  Surely she realized that it wouldn’t be as simple as picking up a normal pen.  It would be like picking up a huge lamp and using it as a writing instrument.  But, the look just sent me a look back, followed by one of her hands behind me, nudging me towards the pen and paper.  

“Well?  Go on.  Pick it up and write.”

She had to be kidding.  She had to be.  But the look on her face said otherwise.  Not only that, but I never have been the strongest man out there.  Sure, I could help with moving heavy things, but I was never one for weight-lifting or anything.  Who knew how heavy that pen would be for me.  It might be more like lifting up a couch at my size.  I just stared at it until the hand behind me shoved me forward, making me fall onto my knees right in front of the pen, catching myself on the pen, itself.  She started glaring down at me with a look of disappointment on her face as she brought it close to me again. 

“Pick.  It.  Up.  Or should I remind you that if you break a single rule of this house, you WILL be punished?  After all, you’re making me do this to you.  This is your fault”

And in that moment, I suddenly gained the strength of Superman.  Being threatened with punishment would be enough to make me do practically anything.  So, I reached down and tugged on the pen.  Surprisingly enough, it was simple for me to lift.  It really was like a lighter lamp.  That feat was impressive, but it also meant that I had to do what she said.  

“Good.  Now, walk over to that piece of paper and write down the rules.  You’ll never follow them if you don’t remember them.”  

I did walk over to the paper, though it looked more like a thin carpet to me.  Except it was a flat, rough, hard carpet.  I stared down at the lines going across the paper and dreaded my task.  Using all of my arm strength, though, I lifted the pen into position.  Accepting this task, because well, I couldn’t refuse.  She was right there, and if I refused, I would get punished.  So I pushed down and began to write.  

Scrape

I yelped as the weight of the pen suddenly increased when I pushed down to write.  It slipped right out of my grip and I fell face-first into the paper.  This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be.  But, I pulled myself up after I heard loud giggling behind me.  She was getting a kick out of this.  I lifted the pen again, but it suddenly got lighter.  I looked behind me and saw that two of her fingers were holding onto the top of it.  

“I’ll help you.  Now, Rule #1.  You remember?  In the Cage”. 

When I pressed down this time, it was much easier to write without falling.  In fact, I never even started to slip until we had completed the second word.  I was pretty proud of that, honestly.  It took some time, but I finally did write down the first rule.  The rule that restricted my escape, requiring me to be in a small cage whenever I’m not with her.  
I was starting to get a little tired when that was over, but she helped me with all three rules.  In a cage.  Follow her instructions.  Punishments.  I really was worn out by the time we got done.  I practically fell over just finishing up the word ‘Punishments’.  

I was pulled upright, though, and forced to stand.  My tired body clung to her hand as I  just looked up at her, now wearing a small little grin on her face.  I could see it.  She was drinking in all of the control and that willing touch I had given her.  The last time I’d had a choice of whether to touch her or not, well…you know how that turned out.  

“Good job.  Now you’re not going to forget any of these, are you?”  

Still wearing that grin, she intensified her gaze towards me.  I could only think of her as a mother or teacher, drilling rules into their children or students.  I quick shake of my head told her that I wouldn’t.  Of course I wouldn’t.  I couldn’t forget after this ordeal.  

Then, she let out a little more of her soft side.  Her face came up and kissed my forehead.  As her lips left me, she smiled and just said three words to me.  Three words that I know shouldn’t go with this amount of obsessive control and possession.  And definitely did not go with her grabbing and holding me like a doll before walking elsewhere.  

“I love you”