For the second day in a row Lily was absent from lab hours. Max couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing, sitting at home by herself, naked and gigantic. She must be so bored, so lonely. Or perhaps she was keeping herself busy plotting her revenge.

At the end of the day he found a short text message on his phone. “7pm. Bring food, non-greasy.” Max smiled to himself. The girl could be pushy, but at least she knew what she wanted.

At seven on the dot he was ringing her doorbell, dinner in hand. For the first time that day he felt a little jolt of apprehension. The last time he had stood on this porch, Lily had been standing over his shoulder, seven feet tall, ready to devour him as soon as he had the door open. He had managed to escape her clutches, somehow. And now, in total contradiction of all good sense, he was here again to give her a second chance to do her worst.

One part horror, two parts fascination. It was an emotion he was coming to know well.

The door cracked open. Max had his neck craned to meet the gaze of a giantess, and so it gave him pause when he found himself staring well over Lily’s head.

She was short again!

“Max,” she said, nodding her greeting. The girl reached up and snatched one of the styrofoam containers from his hand. “God, I’m starving! What’d you bring?”

“Indian,” he answered, stepping over the threshold without being invited. “There’s a nice little place just around the corner.”

“Indian, eh?” she said, smirking up at him. “You aren’t trying to curry my favor, are you?”

It took him a moment. “Oh. Indian food. Curry. I get it.” He shook his head, but found to his dismay that he was smiling at her awful pun.

Lily opened the container, and began shoveling food into her face as fast as she could. “I hope you didn’t get this just because you think I'm Hindu,” she said around a mouthful of rice.

“I wouldn’t presume to guess your race. You’re tan. Ish. That’s good enough for me.”

She laughed. “You white boys are all alike. But in case you’re curious, I’m only half Indian.”

Max shrugged. “I would’ve said Mexican.”

“Maybe that too. And you’re right, this IS good.” Lily belched softly, and looked at the stack of food that Max still held in his arms. “Wow, you brought a lot of this, didn't you? Why so much?”

So she was going to force HIM to address the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room. Or rather, the lack of gorilla. “I don’t know. I kind of expected that I’d have a growing girl to feed.”

Lily grinned at him cryptically. “No present tense. 'Grown.' Maybe future tense, 'will be growing.' But definitely not growing right now.”

He stared at her in confusion. “Um...what?”

She giggled, the sound soft and musical, like the ringing of many tiny bells. “Are you really that dense? You can’t tell?”

He was about to demand that she tell him what she was talking about, but then he noticed. How had he managed to miss something so obvious? Perhaps because he had been expecting to meet a giant girl, the presence of a perfectly reasonable-sized one had been overlooked.

Lily was short again, without question, but not NEARLY as short as she had been. He was used to his lab partner being tiny, almost elfin in stature. The girl was still pretty small. However, there had been a time when even little Tara would’ve been nearly a head taller than Lily. Now, they were almost the same size.

She was watching him, an expression of barely suppressed glee on her adorable face. “Five foot two,” Lily said, slowly, as if savoring each word. “Up a full six inches from my old height. And that’s not all.” She leaned back, and pointed her chest up at him. Max’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’m actually a B-cup now! Can you believe it?”

“I...you...when did you...?”

“Hold on there Killer,” she said, taking his hand to calm him down. If anything, this action had the opposite effect. “When did I shrink down? Well, I went to sleep after you ran out on me the other night – don’t think you’re off the hook for that, by the way.”

Max gulped.

“When I woke up the next morning, I was like this. I’ve been measuring myself every few hours since then, and I’m still the same height. So, besides just temporarily giving you massive height and giant boobs, it seems this stuff also has the ability to make you a little bit taller and bustier, forever.”

Max finally found his voice. “It isn’t always breasts.”

“Huh?”

“I gave my friend Tara a bit of the drug last night.” Briefly, he explained the events of the previous evening, how the drug had made his friend stronger instead of causing her breasts to grow, and how it had failed to have any effect on the two men who tried it. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to also tell her about how amorous Tara had become, and about her confession of a secret crush. “So it seems as if the drug can make you feel good, but not control your thoughts or anything.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Lily answered, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You remember how I tried to...umm....”

He nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, even before I took that stuff, when I thought about you, I felt....”

Lily trailed off, and looked down. Max suddenly realized that she had been holding his hand for what seemed like ages. He let go, and the girl pulled away as if contact with him had burned her.

“Anyway, your...ah, friend was it? Tara?” she said, examining her hand carefully, checking to see what damage such long-term contact with Max had done. “I would bet that she woke up this morning about two inches taller and marginally more fit than she was yesterday. After being over six feet tall, I also bet she was fairly disappointed.” Lily sighed. “I sure was.”

“You should go out with me sometime.” The words were out of his mouth before he was even consciously aware of having spoken.

“I...uh...should what?” Now it was Lily’s turn to be tongue-tied. Her expression was frozen in shock, her large, round eyes glittering up at him wetly.

“Go out with me. Like, on a date.” His heart felt like a miniature jackhammer in his chest, but he kept his voice even. “Wow you're dense. Hasn’t anyone ever tried to pick you up before?”

Lily took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Wow. Where did THIS come from?”

“My mouth. When I open it, sometimes words come out. Other times they don’t. See?” He worked his jaw up and down mechanically.

She laughed, perhaps harder than she had intended. “You are an interesting one, I suppose.”

“Is that a yes?”

Lily closed her eyes, scratching her forehead. “Call it a maybe.”

“Maybe is better than no,” he conceded, trying to hide his disappointment.

She patted his cheek affectionately, smirking up at him. “I’m glad you think so. Anyway, there's a saying about the dangers of mixing business and pleasure. And you and I have quite a bit of business that needs doing.”

“Do we?” he asked.

“Of course. We just discovered a new drug....”

“WE discovered?”

“...that can do things that no one has ever seen before. This stuff is going to make us both billionaires. I mean, just THINK of all the different applications our drug could have.”

“I really only see one application – it makes girls bigger and sexier.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Fine. But are you going to tell me that isn’t worth something?”

“Of course not.”

She nodded. “Alright then. Our course is clear. All you have to do is get back into the lab and run the exact same reaction, in the exact same way. As soon as you’re able to reproduce it, we can patent the stuff and start marketing it. With any luck, we’ll be rich before the month is out.”

“Wait a second. As soon as I’M able to reproduce it? You’re making me fly solo on this?”

“Relax, hun. I’ll help you out as soon as I can. But I’m not going back to the lab, not for another week at least. I told Dr. Franklyn that I was having emergency hormone therapy, and that I was going to be out sick for a while. It’s at least a half-assed excuse for my sudden growth, and what choice will he have but to believe it?” She grinned up at him. “After all, it’s not like there’s some crazy drug that makes people grow...is there?”

He laughed. “Not yet anyway.” Max looked at his watch. It was only just past eight o’clock – still plenty early if they wanted to do something together. “Is that everything we needed to discuss?”

Lily paused, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully. “I think...oh wait, not quite. Do, ah...do you have the drug on you?”

Something told him to lie, to tell her that he had forgotten it at his apartment. Instead he nodded, pulling the glass vial out of his pocket for her to see. “Yeah. I try to keep it with me whenever I can. Why do you ask?”

She put her hands behind her back, and smiled up at him innocently. “Oh, it’s nothing important. Just a minor thing really, we can take care of it at any time. But...well...we’re going to need to test whether the drug will work on the same person multiple times – there’s a possibility that I...that a patient could become...resistant to future treatment. So, for that reason, I think...that you should give me another dose.” She nodded. “For science.”

Max looked at her skeptically. “‘A possibility that a patient could become resistant?’ Really? Do you think I’m THAT stupid?”

Her smile grew wider. “No, just THAT gullible.” Lily took a step closer to him and rested both hands on his shoulders, looking up at him sensuously. “It’s just that...I’ve practically been a midget my entire life. And then I was big and...I liked it. Now I’m short again.”

“Not nearly as short as you used to be,” he argued. “You’re six inches taller than you used to be. Isn’t that enough?”

He could already tell that he was playing devil’s advocate here.

“I appreciate the improvement, I really do. But...five foot two is still REALLY small. Three doses gave me six inches of permanent height, a larger bra size, and a couple hours of fun. All I want here is one more dose...two more lousy inches.”

“And what about the couple of hours? You’ll be, what, just shy of six feet tall?”

“The fun, yes. You can come along for that part if you want. You might like it.” She looked at him slyly, her eyes shining. “I think you already DO like it.”

Max didn’t say anything. He thought furiously for another reason to object.

“Did I tell you I went shopping yesterday?” she said, changing the subject unexpectedly. “I had to buy a couple of things to wear. Nothing fit me anymore – not a single thing in my closet. I think I did pretty good. This shirt I’m wearing...it’s new.” Lily tugged at the garment, a skin-tight blue tank top that left her arms completely bare. The neck line was cut low, showcasing her new-found cleavage. “Do you like it?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“I thought you might,” she said, pursing her lips cutely. “I bought another one just like it. Only, that one? It’s a size bigger.” Lily ran her fingers through her hair, and shrugged. “It’d be a shame if I never got to wear it.”

Max sighed. “Just one dose?”

“One dose,” she agreed, grinning uncontrollably.

He sighed again, and sat down at her kitchen table. He hung his jacket on the back of a chair, and began to measure out the drug. Lily stood over his shoulder watching him, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other in anticipation. He squeezed out the liquid onto a piece of blotter paper, and handed it to her. “What do you say?”

“Thank you, sweet heart,” she sang. Before he had a chance to think about her choice of words, Lily had thrown back her head and tossed the paper into her mouth.