Mark was confused as he parked his car in front of the house at 333 Primrose Lane. The request for him -- specifically him -- to come there made no sense. But, the woman who called had been insistent. It needed to be Mark Hames who came, and no one else from the staff of The News Leader.
Haynes exited his car, grabbing his camera and a reporter’s notebook. He walked up to the door. After a second’s hesitation, he rang the doorbell.
The door opened almost immediately. Opening it was a woman, apparently around college age, but very unusual in two respects. She had breasts that were huge in proportion to her body, but her body was only two feet tall.
“Oh, hi!” the short woman said. “Are you Mr. Hames?”
“Yes,” Mark said.
Before he could say anything else, the woman yelled back into the house, “Mom! The newspaper guy’s here!” Then the woman turned back to Mark. “C’mon in,” she said.
Mark entered, watching the woman as she walked. She was extremely curvy, with an ample posterior as well as her extremely ample bosom, but she had a relatively tiny waist. If she were two-and-a-half to three times her height with all the other dimensions the same, she would have been an incredibly sexy woman. Actually, she was sexy at this height, but her height was the dominant thing you noticed.
Mark sat down on the sofa while the woman climbed up onto an easy chair. Once she was seated, she said, “I’m Dolly, by the way. Dolly Hoest.”
“I’m Mark Hames,” he said.
A woman in her late 40s who looked to be about 5-foot-5 entered the room. Mark instinctively stood up. “Mr. Hames?” she said. “I’m Lisa Hoest.” She offered her hand.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Mark said.
“I have to admit, you’re younger than I expected,” Lisa said, as she sat on an easy chair opposite the one Dolly occupied.
“I’ve only been out of college for about three years,” Mark said. “I’m 25. Is that an issue?”
“No,” said Lisa.
“Not at all,” added Dolly, a flirtatious lilt in her tone.
“But you’ve been winning awards for headline writing, and quite a few,” Lisa said. “That’s why I’m surprised.”
Mark shrugged. “I’m good with words,” he said.
“That’s why I need you here,” Lisa said. “Words have been the bane of my life -- mine and my daughters. I’m hoping someone good with words will help me find a way to turn that around.”
“I don’t understand,” Mark said.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Lisa said. “Most of this is secret, and I have to ask you to keep those secrets, to keep things off the record, at least for now.”
“OK,” Mark said hesitantly.
“You see, we need your skill in a non-journalistic manner,” Lisa said. “Do you agree to this, at least for now? At some point, down the line, we may choose to release the story, and it will be a lulu if we do, but, for now, we need to be off the record.”
Mark sighed. Now he was really confused. “All right,” he said, “But I reserve the right to ask to release some of this information once I know more of what I’m dealing with.”
“That’s fair,” Lisa said. “I have a story to tell you, Mr. Haynes. A story you may find hard to believe -- and trust me, it’s been even harder to live.
“My late husband, Dean, and I had been trying for years to have children. Doctors told us it wasn’t possible. We were planning to adopt, but that was proving difficult due to the sheer number of hurdles the system has in place.
“Then Dean heard of a woman who could help us have children … by magic,” Lisa said. “I didn’t believe it would work, but he was so insistent about it that, even though I assumed she was a fraud, I went along with it. That turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.
“The woman cast her spell. But gave us a warning that the spell brought with it the link to the name used. A magical link that would cause the children to resemble the name as she grew older. And she told us we would have triplets.
“Within six weeks, we learned I was, in fact, pregnant,” Lisa said. “Not long after, it was confirmed that we had three babies on the way, and the doctors believed they all would be girls.
“Thinking of ways to address the spell, Dean came up with the idea of naming our daughters after three performers he had enjoyed -- Dolly Parton, Barbi Benton and Penny Marshall. That way, all three of them would be attractive as they grew up.”
“Penny Marshall?” Mark said. “I understand Dolly Parton, and I’m guessing Barbi Benton was some sort of sex symbol for awhile. But isn’t Penny Marshall kind of … well …”
“You’re thinking of her today,” Lisa said. “In her ‘Laverne and Shirley’ days, she played a 1950s ‘sweater girl’ with a nice body. I guess Dean had a crush for awhile. Anyway, we named the girls for them -- but only the first names.
“It was months after the birth when we realized something was radically wrong with all the girls, but especially with Penny. While they were progressing normally from a developmental standpoint, the two older girls -- only minutes older, but older -- weren’t growing, and Penny was actually getting smaller.”
Lisa hung her head. “Then we realized our mistake,” she said. “The spell was making the girls the size of whatever their names were as they got older. Soon Barbi began to shrink as well. Apparently, the spell went by sounds, rather than spelling, since there was no ‘e’ in Barbi Benton’s first name. It transformed all of our girls, leaving Dolly the size she is, that of a baby doll. And the others … “ her voice trailed off.
“On the plus side,” said Dolly, who seemed to be trying to cheer her mother, “It did recognize the source of my name enough to give me these great hooters.”
Mark chuckled, but Lisa was still staring at the floor.
“It was too much for Dean,” Lisa said. “He blamed himself, since the names were his idea. When Penny shrank to smaller than his thumb, it was too much for him. He felt he’d cursed all of them, but especially her. He, um … he …”
“Dad killed himself,” Dolly said quietly. “He parked the car in the garage one night, sealed it up and sat there with the motor running. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Mark was staring at both women. It was obvious they both believed this unbelievable story, and Lisa in particular was clearly upset. And there was some evidence of the story’s truth -- Dolly herself. Her condition suggested the spell was real. But it was no proof, in and of itself.
Lisa resumed talking. “I home-schooled the two younger girls,” she said. “There was no way to explain their conditions, and I didn’t want them to be treated as freaks. Dolly was able to attend public schools using special education, and at least have an outside life. But Barbi and Penny have seldom left the house, and Penny hasn’t left her room in years. They‘re all 18 now, and I‘d like them to have a life … a real life.”
“Can I meet them?” Mark asked.
“I’d like that,” Lisa said. “I think they would, too. Follow me.”
Lisa led Mark, with Dolly following, up the stairs to a room. She knocked on the door. “Come in,” said a voice like a cartoon chipmunk.
Lisa opened the door. Mark gasped at what he saw. There was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, lying in a bed on a tabletop, wearing a simple swimsuit. It was a fashion doll swimsuit, and the woman wearing it literally could have been a fashion doll, if she weren’t alive.
“Oh! Hi!,” the bikini-clad woman said. “You must be Mr. Hames!”
“C-Call me Mark,” he said. “All of you can call me Mark. And you must be Barbi.”
“Guilty as charged,” the tiniest of the three women said. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Mark. We don’t get a lot of visitors to start with, and Mom didn’t tell me you’d be so young and good-looking.”
“Thanks,” Mark said, blushing.
“I didn’t know it myself,” Lisa said.
Barbi looked around. “We going to Penny’s room next?”
Lisa nodded. “I’ll give you a lift,” she said, offering her hand.
“No offense, Mom, but I’d rather Mark did that,” Barbi said.
“No fair!” said Dolly. “I saw him first!”
“You snooze, you lose,” Barbi said.
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Would you be willing to carry Barbi, Mark?”
“Sure,” he said, blushing. He held out his hand.
“Give me a lift to your shoulder, please,” Barbi said. “It’ll be a nice place to ride.”
Mark did as Barbi requested. As they set out for Penny’s room, Barbi leaned in beside his ear and whispered, “You know, I’m small enough to hear large amounts of blood flow, like men have to certain parts of their anatomy. I heard what happened when you looked at me.” After a pause, she added, “and I can hear what’s happening down there now, too.”
Mark blushed, hoping no one else was seeing what Barbi was hearing.
Lisa knocked on the next door gently. A voice from inside, sounding like it came through a speaker, said, “Come in.”
The quartet entered. Mark looked around. “Where’s Penny?” he asked.
“There,” said Lisa, pointing to a small table. “That’s Penny’s world.’
Mark was too stunned to gasp now. There was a woman, less than an inch tall, standing, naked, on the table, near a microphone.
“Is this Mr. Hames?” Penny asked.
“Mark,” he said. “Call me Mark.”
“She has to wear ear protection to be around us because she’s so small,” Barbi said. “I’m the only one small enough to talk to her without it, and I’m the only one who can hear her without amplification, like a microphone, for her voice.”
Mark gazed at the bug-size woman. She had a copper tint to her skin, and was, from what Mark could tell, a reasonably attractive woman. She looked like an athlete, but she was so small it was hard to tell too much.
Mark looked back at Lisa. “Well, obviously, I believe your story,” he said. “But I still don’t understand why you called me here.”
Lisa looked up at Mark. “You’re a very clever man with words, to be able to write award-winning headlines,” the mom said. “I need you to see if there are ways that we can use words now to help my daughters. I want you to use your gift of words to help cure the curse and give my daughters a real life, a normal life … or at least a more normal life.”
Giantess World
