----
Amanda had to go out of town on business, and somehow Ron talked her into letting him spend a week in the house alone. That would give him enough 
time to pull off his plan. He didn't want to tip her off, which meant that he had to risk a trip into the garage on his own. 

He had rigged a small electric motor to haul an old toy wagon out to the garage door. A piece of dental floss with a fishing hook attached was 
enough to open the latch. Ron found the reels of fishing line and loaded them in, along with a few odds and ends. He was tooling along with the 
wagon, heading for the door when he heard a noise, at once familiar and unrecognizable. He turned to see a rattlesnake rearing up, its hypnotic 
eyes staring him in the face. 

Ron tumbled out of the way of the snake's first thrust. Then he drove a knife as deeply as he could into its belly. He leapt out of the way, then 
watched as the snake writhed and undulated, before at last giving up the ghost. 
Gasping in terror, Ron gathered his cargo and headed back for the door. His mind tried to make sense of what had almost happened to him. In his 
dreams it came to him as a test. The snake represented the old Ron, the towering giant that possessed the power of manhood and the power to enter 
a woman as a birthright. The old Ron was gone, and the new Ron would win his place with a woman through wit and skill -- just as he had beaten 
the snake. 
----
Amanda wasn't sure what she'd find when she opened the door. She'd left Ron a blackberry so he could check in with her every day. He would type a 
short message and it reassured her that something hadn't happened. But the messages were brief and terse. 

Amanda put in the key, opened the door, and was amazed by what she saw. 

A maze of fishing lines criss-crossed the room -- mostly near the walls, but a few running the ceiling and connecting other rooms in the house. 

Amanda walked over to one of the walls. She was tracing one of the lines when a shape crossed her field of vision. It took her a second to make 
out a tiny figure dressed in a pirate costume, waving a sword. It took her another second to realize that it was Ron, dangling from one of his 
fishing lines as he rappelled across the room, and still a third second to realize that he was swinging his tiny sword at the gold locket she 
always wore. By that time, he had scooped the locket into a backpack and had swung toward the ceiling. 

"Ron! What are you doing? Give me back my locket!" Ron disappeared through a crack in the wall before she could do anything to stop him. 

A moment later, Amanda heard Ron's voice all around her. It was coming out of speakers in the ceiling -- and it was his old voice, from when he 
was big. Ron dictated his message in his best imitation of a pirate voice, through a tiny microphone with pitch-lowering technology attached. 
"ARRRRRR! They call a ship a lady, and I've stolen an armful of gold from the fine ship Amanda! She knows that what I'm after is booty, 
especially hers! Aye, lassie, if you want your precious gold locket back, you'll have to do what I say!"

Amanda was a little tired from the trip, but she decided to play along. "Oh tiny pirate, what wouldst thou have me do?"

"The good ship Amanda is to put to port in the bathroom, to have her barnacles scraped."

"What? Oh, you've LOST it, Ron! I'm going to walk into the bathroom and I'm going to stuff you into a bottle along with that pirate ship you're 
dreaming about! I...."

Amanda opened the bathroom door and found the tub filled with warm water frothing with bubbles on top. A bubble bath. Ron floated down from the 
ceiling, wearing only his pirate hat and a pair of black swim trunks. 

"I command the weary crew of the great traveling ship Amanda to put into dock for a warm, relaxing bubble bath." 

"Will I get my locket back if I do?"

"We'll see about that, my lass." 

Amanda scooted next door to the bedroom, unzipped and unsnapped as quickly as she could. Then, nude, she slowly opened the door and slid into the 
room. She crossed her arms in front of her breasts. She felt something in the air again, something that made her want to blush and be modest, and 
at the same time want to reveal herself to Ron again. 

As for Ron, his heart was pounding so heavily he lost his balance and started to spin aimlessly at the end of his rope. He landed on a shelf 
facing the back of the tub, gathered himself and shouted a command to Amanda. 
"Now, I command the ship Amanda to put into port and prepare to be boarded!"
Ron's heart started pounding again as he watched her lower herself into the tub from the back. Her back looked absolutely magnificent, the curves 
breathtaking, and that rump... was his equal. It made him want to give Amanda something else to think about... but he decided he'd given her 
plenty to think about already, and who knew what a slap at this size might do to him. 

Amanda settled into the warm, frothy bubbles. She closed her eyes. She opened them to find a tiny, leering pirate staring her in the face. 

"Prepare to be boarded", Ron shouted. 

He lowered himself onto her right shoulder, just above the water. He turned off his microphone, leaned into her ear and whispered -- although to 
him it was just talking normally. "I am at your service, m'lady." He then began to rub her right temple and eye socket in slow, circular paths. He could hear Amanda's breath leaving her nose and mouth as she relaxed. 

Ron worked his way around her face, scooping bits of the froth around him and massaging them into Amanda's face, neck and chin. Then he 
alternated massages with kisses. He kissed her on the lips, and Amanda answered with the equivalent of opening the door of an airplane at 30,000 
feet. An impetuous thought crossed Amanda's mind. She reached for a nearby bottle of body wash, turned it upside down and squirted it all over 
Ron's body. Ron didn't need instructions. He worked the wash into a lather and placed his back on Amanda's belly, starting where it met the water and working 
his way up to her neckline.He made snow angels, he ground his back into her flesh. He brushed the outer radius of each breast, just allowing a small bit of body wash to 
rest there. 

For the first time since that incredible day, Amanda was feeling desire for Ron. Just as she wanted to ask him for more, Ron suddenly lifted off 
from her chest toward the ceiling. "If you still want your locket back, bring the good ship Amanda into the master bedroom at twilight... and 
capture me if you can! Take me, Amanda!" 
Both Ron and Amanda were nervous as the magic moment approached. Ron was gasping as he waited for the door to open, Amanda as she stood at the 
door waiting to go in. But thenshe remembered her husband's admonition to stand tall. A faraway look took over her eyes, and she strode into the bedroom wearing not a 
nightgown, but her most comfortable sweatshirt, and a pair of high heels -- the first time she'd worn them since the reduction of men. 

Amanda opened the door to find the room lit by a single lamp with a blue light bulb. She threw her head back and strode proudly through the 
strange glow. She felt sexy and powerful at the same time. She walked to the bed, took off her shoes, removed her sweatshirt, and rested her back 
onto the bed. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, tiny pirate! You're going in the brig!"

Just then, ropes flew out from all corners of the bed and flew around Amanda's wrists and ankles. In a moment, she was as secured to bed as 
Gulliver had been to that beach in Lilliput. 

From above, she saw a tiny pinpoint of light swing down at her from the ceiling. "Ah, my lass, thought she had captured the pirate at last! 
Perhaps she shall, but first... the torch run!" 

Ron was wearing the same pirate hat with black briefs replacing the swim trunks. In one hand he carried a lit birthday candle. He landed next to 
a spot where a small vein was visible as it crossed her right hip. He kissed that spot and then began to run around Amanda's figure, stopping 
every inch or so to kiss a spot. Amanda's eyes followed as the bouncing point of light made its way around her. He made three rounds of her body, 
then climbed up to stand between her breasts. Theatrically, he extinguished the candle and threw it off the bed. Then he shouted, "I take command 
of the vessel Amanda!" He ranup to her lips and felt again the mighty power. Then he ran down to her right breast. He knelt before it, as though it were holy ground.

Then instead of walking to the top, hewent to the edge and kneaded a small section of flesh, brought his face to it, and kissed it. He did it again and again, working his way up the 
hill. Reaching the nipple, he gently placed both hands around it, gradually increasing his grip and bringing his face down for a kiss. He 
concentrated as the earth began to move beneath him. 
He climbed down, repeated the process for the left breast, then looked up to see the face that glowed in the blue light, nostrils flared. He felt 
the heat of her breath wash over him. He turned and started for her belly. "Noooo", came a soft moan from her lips. He returned his attention to 
where it had been. Amanda's gasps became more ragged, and he sensed the time had come. He turned southward. This time no protest was registered. 
Rather than risk touching without preparation, Ron jumped off Amanda's belly and ran down the bed next to her right leg. He then carefully ran 
along the inside of the legs that were trying to arch above him, held back by the ropes. Like the arch of a cathedral, he thought. 
At last, Ron reached the sacred place. He felt compelled to call it that, not all the other names he had learned in a lifetime of locker room 
jokes. This was the threshold, the boundary between life and love, a place of complete and unachievable embrace. He sawthe most intimate place of the only woman he had loved for 20 years as he had never seen it before. He noticed its purple color, which it took on 
after the twins were born. The royal purple of motherhood, he thought. Ron went to his knees, as though he couldn't approach this place on his 
feet. 

He looked around for a familiar place to begin. He saw the brown spot on the inside of Amanda's right thigh. The first time Amanda had talked him 
into ... THAT activity, he started by kissing that very place. He decided it was charmed. Now it was almost as big as his head. Ron crawled over, 
took the corner of flesh into his hands and kissed it over and over. He heard a deep and distant moan from above him. 
Ron continued, working his way closer to the sacred entrance. He steeled himself as he reached out with a hand, and placed fingers just a 
quarter-inch long along the swelling flesh before him. A deep cry arose from Amanda, and her thighs closed together, just missing Ron's head. 
Carefully he calculated his position and repeated the touch, making contact just a second or two longer. Again the great beams of the cathedral 
closed around him, but not tightly enough to endanger him. 

Tiny kisses and tiny fingers coaxed the purple flower into bloom, and as it ripened the deep voice from above said something it had said a thousand times before... '

"Ron, I need you." 

If Ron turned back now, he had proven his ability to be a man to his wife. Or had he? He knew he couldn't reverse course. This drama had to be 
completed, even at the risk of making it the last act of his life. 

Ron ran to the edge of the bed and pulled up the gear for this incredible moment. He had constructed a metal cage that was strong enough to 
withstand crushing pressure. Then he surrounded it with airbags that would inflate on contact, protecting his lungs, internal organs and rib 
cage, while at the same time increasing his presence within. Topping off his gear, goggles and a hard hat, decorated in the shape of a pink 
helmet with a flap on top. He covered himself in a jelly to aid in the journey. 
Ron approached the sacred place, feet first. Carefully he reached out, allowing the feet to touch the royal purple. Amanda's thighs closed around 
him, but the airbags behaved as planned. He slipped closer, until his feet had passed the threshold, then his torso, surrounded by the cage. He 
slowly and gently slid downward, until his hands were at a point at which he could touch the most sensitive place of a woman. It was now as large 
as a cookie to him. Carefully he leaned toward it, certain that Amanda could feel his tiny breath. Then he kissed it as hard as he could. Mighty 
convulsions seized the part of himbelow the surface and brought him downward. 
For Ron it was like shrinking all over again. Nature or whatever force had made him and all other men tiny was completing the task, totally 
sublimating him to the expression and release of the primal female force. Ron had resigned himself to this. It was the only way to complete his 
quest and his duty as a man. 

Ron gasped in the nearly airless heat. His gear was incredibly hot. It was like fighting a fire without flames. He remembered that the 
Elizabethans had called sex "la petite mort" -- the little death. That was just what he feared was happening. Now he knew whyhurricanes had at first been named only for women. The storm Amanda raged all around him. Her cries and moans filled his ears, shorn of consonants, resonating through her skin and bones, carrying unimaginable comfort and unimaginable 
power. 

Amanda fought the urge to totally give in to Ron's ministrations. Damn, she thought, why did his touch have to be so perfect? She guessed even a 
klutz couldn't miss the obvious when it was in front of his face, as big as his face. 
Ron struggled to escape, pushed back each time by the great walls around him.

"Don't hold back!" he shouted over the radio. "Let yourself go, 
Amanda! Let yourself go!" 

Those words drove the water over the dam. 

A last, mighty seizure sealed him up tight. The airbags deployed at full strength, yet Ron felt himself being crushed. At last a great cry, and 
then the pressure dropped. Ron could hear the mighty thump of Amanda's heart and her grip on him loosening. The storm was beginning to subside, 
and Ron began to make his escape. 

He forgot that hurricanes have eyes, and it's usually guys who roll over and go to sleep.

Much later, a panting Ron made his way out into the world. The blue light nearly blinded him, and the cool air sent a chill down his spine. He 
took off his helmet and climbed out of his cage. 

Dazed, Ron tried to make sense of it all. What had happened to him wasn't a little death. It was a little rebirth. It occurred to Ron that all 
sex, if a man allowed himself to think this way, was not death, but its opposite. A man, or part of him, enters for a moment a place not unlike 
that from which he entered the world. When he leaves, is that not rebirth? And wouldn't his complete immersion into Amanda qualify as being born 
again, in the sense of immersion, almost a religious experience? 
Ron crawled past Amanda's face, still twisted in ecstasy. The heat that radiated off her body reminded him of where he had been. Ron sniffed his 
arm. He reeked of Amanda. She had marked him, branded him. Her aroma had permeated his flesh and become his own. In a sense, she had penetrated him. Nothing was broken. But a few 
places felt sore. 

Ron climbed onto the nightstand, where he had used lines and cranes to place a warm bowl of water. He climbed in and shook himself, trying to 
return to some sense of distance, some small bit of separation and distinction from this maelstrom of passion resting next to him. 
After a few minutes, Ron felt himself clean enough to step out of the bowl. He looked atthe glow of satisfaction on his beloved wife. He reached into a drawer and pulled out the gold locket, which he placed on her pillow. And at 
last, he permitted himself a moment of exultation. He pumped his fists in the air and cheered. 

The sounds awoke his wife. A smile crossed Amanda's face, not unlike the cat who'd found a mouse to play with. Wordlessly, she removed his swim 
trunks with a fingernail. Sapped of his strength, Ron had no choice but to revel in his own vulnerability, as his wife planted vacuum kisses on 
his belly, his back, his rump, his head, and other strategic places. His needs at last fulfilled, his mind drifted through free association as 
his wife whispered compliments to his courage and resourcefulness. He was utterly defenseless, and yet felt as much a man as ever. 
Before he disappeared from the world, Ron had felt at odds with the size and scale imposed upon him. When he returned to it, he felt he was the 
perfect size for the adventure that had become his destiny, and that of men.