Chapter 11:

A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I found out that my mother wasn’t mad at me. I knew I’d eventually have to speak with her, no matter what Jackie did or said to try to separate us.

Before Jackie and I left to start the day, she kindly made me a smoothie to hold me over until lunchtime. The house had a full kitchen with all the bells and whistles. Granite countertop, heavy-duty sink, stove-top oven, real plates and metal cutlery. How they had the money for all this was a total mystery to me, but I didn’t really care. I was practically living in an upscale bed and breakfast, so who was I to question the volleyball girls’ finances?

I watched her toss various fruits and vegetables into the blender atop the counter, although I didn’t have a great view. My eyes were several inches below the speckled granite. Even on my tippy toes, it was difficult to see what she was doing. The counters in Volleyball House must’ve been bar height because I was pretty sure I could still see over typical kitchen counters.

“Do you make smoothies every day?” I asked her.

Not looking away from what she was doing, she answered me, “Yeah, pretty much. It annoys the hell out of some of the girls who like to sleep late, but you know what? It’s my house too, so they can get over it.”

And with that gibe, she turned on the blender. Remembering the ultra-vivid dream I had last night when I looked directly at Faith throwing up, I instinctively looked away from the blender. I really didn’t want to have images of myself getting split in half by blades be stuck in my mind for the next week.

As Jackie continued making the smoothies, I walked around to the side of the kitchen island away from her. Luckily the loudness of the blender stopped her from noticing my buffoonish attempts to climb on top of the one of the islands’ stools. I scolded myself for being so weak. The damn stool was nearly tall as I was, at shoulder height, and it was making me look like a fool.

Suddenly a pair of white, neatly manicured hands appeared under my armpits and lifted me on top of the stool. Turning back, I saw that it was Faith. I mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ and beat my heart with a fist. She blew a kiss to me and waved as she walked out the door. It was nice to have a friend in the house other than Jackie.

Apparently, I’d made it up the stool just in the nick of time, because as soon as Faith disappeared behind the front door, the whirring from the blender stopped.

Jackie turned and said, “How’d you get up there? These stools are pretty tall, you know.”

Deciding to leave it a mystery, I said, “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

She sat down opposite me with a naughty smile forming on her face. God, she was enormous. Of course, I would never tell her that (she, being a girl and all). Through my eyes though, she was scary huge.

It reminded of me of a scene in Percy Jackson when Percy finally makes it to Mount Olympus to converse with the gods and they’re all ridiculously gigantic compared to him. I felt like Percy in that moment: truly out of my depth, unworthy.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see what other tricks you have.” She reached over and took my hands in hers, squeezing them, transferring her womanly warmth over to me.

“Your hands are so small now. I love that,” she said.

She wasn’t wrong. My entire hand, fingers and all, fit comfortably in her palm. Her fingers extended up past my wrist. Her middle finger ended somewhere in the middle of my forearm.

“Well, I have good news for you. The rest of me is small too.”

“Oh, that is good news. And you’re only gonna get smaller.”

Remembering what I’d promised myself I would be more truthful, I ceased to dance around the issue of shrinking.

“You know what’s weird? Some small part of me, a small part, wants to shrink. Up until maybe a few days ago, I wouldn’t dream of actually wanting to shrink! I mean, that’s crazy right?! And I’m scared that that part of me will stop me from trying to overcome this.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy that you want to shrink, Desmond.”

I was taken aback. I thought it was crazy, and I was the one shrinking!

“How, though?! I don’t understand it.”

“I don’t want to be an armchair psychologist but…” she lingered on the end of her sentence for me to give her permission. So, I gave it to her.

“This is driving me crazy, Jackie. So, any ideas you have, I’m all ears.”

“Ok, here’s my guess. You’ve been a short guy all your life. And I’d guess that most people you’re around, even girls, were taller than you growing up, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you had a dormant attraction for tall, leggy women that you weren’t truly aware of. Now, since you’re shrinking, that dormant attraction is rising to the surface.”

What she said immediately clicked with me. It made sense! If a short guy who was already attracted to people bigger than him shrank, wouldn’t he want girls to get even bigger?

“Maybe you should switch majors, Jackie,” I said, amazed by her analysis of me.

“No, no, no,” she shooed away my praise.

“I’m serious! I think you nailed it!”

“Thanks! I do try, you know.”

Now, I wanted to steer the conversation back to what we were talking about earlier.

“So, when you said you wanted to see what other tricks I had,” I began, “What did you, um, mean by that?”

“I think you know.”

So maybe she had decided I was ready to do naughty things with her. It took all the self-restraint I had to stop myself from jumping up on the table and dancing in celebration.

As calm and collected as I could, I said, “How about tonight? I can show you how ready I am.”

She let go of my hands. “Dessy. We just had this conversation last night. Give it time. You will be ready very soon. I just have some things to get in order.”

The vagueness with which she spoke was ticking me off a bit. She screamed at me in the middle of a coffee shop for leaving her, and when I came back, she wasn’t letting me do anything remotely sexual with her. And I was her committed boyfriend! When was ‘very soon’? And what ‘things’ did she have to ‘get in order’?

So, I flat out asked her. “What things?”

“Things about you. Remember? Your wellbeing is my concern now too.”

“Sure, but what’s going on exactly? Does it have to do with my mother? Because you already talked to her.”

“Partly, yes. The most important thing you need to know is that everything will fall into place over the next few days. Once everything is how I want it to be, our relationship will progress to new…well, kinky places. All you need to do is do your part and listen to me. Got it?”

I got more information than I thought I would. I had a timetable. And that’s all I needed.

“Got it,” I said, “So, a few days?”

“A week at most. I promise."

“You really are an enigma sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a feeling that you’re hiding something. Some sort of big surprise. Who knows, maybe I’m just, well, excited about what comes next for us.”

She put her head in her hands, “Oh, trust me. There is a whole lot you don’t know about me. And I do have surprises for you. But good things come to those who wait.”

“When did you become a fortune cookie,” I joked.

She giggled unabashedly and came with back with a stinging retort.

“Here’s a fortune for you. When you shrink down to the size of an itty-bitty little insect, I’m gonna drop you inside a fortune cookie and make it your new home.”

I should’ve been outraged at her insinuation. She was joking about me shrinking down to basically nothing and leaving me inside a cookie. Once again, what my traditionally masculine brain was telling me didn’t match up with how I felt. My dick was poking through my pants. I was overwhelmed with arousal.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.

“Oh, I would. I’d drop you right in. And if I was feeling particularly hungry, and nothing else was around, well, I just might have to eat that fortune cookie with you inside. So, you should be careful. Don’t get on my bad side, Dessy.”

I was amazed that I wasn’t leaking pre-cum just listening to her talk about what she would do once I was the size of an insect. My dick seemed incapable of discharging any semen. But I wanted to test my limits.

“Out of curiosity, how would a guy like me get on your ‘bad side’?” I asked.

She took a sip of her smoothie, “Oh, I’m glad you asked. Disobeying me could be one way.”

“Ok, order me to do something.”

She smiled, clearly enjoying where I was taking this. She put her finger up to her chin as she thought about what to tell me to do, and then she came up with it, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Get down from that stool and get back up. By yourself this time.”

She saw Faith help me up? How? Her back was turned!

“Wait, how did you know Faith lifted me up?” I asked her.

She twirled her hair around with her finger, an expression of pure satisfaction forming on her face.

“I didn’t,” she said, a wry grin plastered on her face. Her smile only stretched wider when she saw me realize I had fallen into her well-laid trap.

“Ooooh, you are just…unbelievable!” I threw my hands up in defeat, “You got me! I guess I’m not as mysterious as I led you to believe.”

With a now reassuring smile, she said, “Don’t worry about trying to be the mysterious one in this relationship. That’s my job. Your job is to be the cute little munchkin that you are.”

She reached over the table with her long arms and pinched my cheeks as if I were a child, smiling down at me. Seeing her this happy was magical. In fact, it almost didn’t seem real. For the past week or so, my head had been racked with staggering fear and uncertainty. All that negative emotion left little room for happiness but looking up at her right then was enough to make me forget about all that.

I zoomed in to take stock of all her individual facial features. Her shining blue eyes were so huge and expressive; I wished I could swim in them. Many girls hate their nose, but I couldn’t imagine how Jackie could hate hers. It was smaller than average, but cuter than any nose I’d ever seen on a girl. Her lips had no lipstick or anything, which made me respect her more. It was clear that she was confident about her appearance, make-up or not. Her skin was slightly burned in some places: her nose, her cheeks, her ears. It was probably from the outdoor practices she did with the girls. Oddly enough, the slight sun burn was endearing for me. It told me that she cared about her sport so much that she occasionally forgot to reapply her sunscreen. She was dedicated.

After nit-picking her face and falling in love with all of her slight flaws, I zoomed out and looked at her face as whole. With all of it put together, I couldn’t imagine a prettier sight. But it wasn’t just that she was gorgeous. It was a confluence of her poise, her beauty, and her lack of fear to show her true self to the world (and to me). If I didn’t know a single thing about her and was meeting her for the first time, I would guess she was 23 or 24 years old. But no, she was an 18-year-old knockout who was completely comfortable in her own skin.

When she was done doting on me, and I was done internally gushing about her every trait, she continued our little morning back and forth.

“Your job is also to do what I tell you. I distinctly remember giving you an order just under a minute ago.”

Still in a playful mood, I responded, “Yeah? What order?”

“Playing dumb, are we? That’s cute.”

“No really! I don’t remember. Well, whatever, I guess. It was probably something stupid anyway.”

“No, honey. What’s stupid is this little show you’re putting on. Now, just this once, I will repeat what I told you to do. Just know, on future occasions, I will not repeat myself.”

Her tone had changed significantly. It didn’t sound like she was joking anymore. Perhaps, calling something she said ‘stupid’ was the final straw for her. And I didn’t want to get on her bad side for real. I was just kidding around.

“I asked you to get off the stool and get back up by yourself.”

“Oh y-yes, I remember that.”

“Good. So, do it.”

I still wasn’t totally sure if she was joking. Even if she was though, I wasn’t going to take any chances. Getting on her bad side when in a few days, she said I would be ready to do ‘things’ with her, would be royally stupid.

So, without a moment of hesitation, I hopped down from the stool. Standing on the floor, I looked up at her for approval.

“There you go. But that’s only half of what I asked. Now I want you to get back up on the stool. Is that too much to ask? Because I’m willing to help you.”

“No, no. I can, um, do it.”

She crossed her arms, “Let’s see it.”

I stepped up onto the tiny ledge of the stool that was positioned several inches off the floor. I reached my arms over the seat, and desperately tried to pull my body, or at least my stomach on top of the seat. My only problem was that my arms might as well have been noodles. For all the time I had been shrinking, my limbs had remained proportional to the rest of my body. However, after the most recent bout of it, my arms and legs were a great deal skinnier than ever before.

All my efforts were for naught. I couldn’t wriggle my way up on to a normal sized stool. I was simply too weak and short. I tried jumping from the ledge, but even that wasn’t enough. Before I managed to hurt myself, Jackie came over to me and took matters into her own hands. She put one hand on my butt, and pushed me up on to the stool without expending even a fraction of her energy.

Jackie sat back down and told me to look at her. It took me a couple of seconds to do so, considering how embarrassed I was. What kind of man isn’t able to sit on a stool? My cheeks were hot and red.

When I finally looked up at her, she said, “That was a lesson. Instead of possibly getting hurt trying to do things on your own, you need to ask for help. I’ve already told every girl in this house that if you need help reaching something or getting up in a chair, that they need to help you. Do not feel like you have to do everything on your own. Ok?”

Talking about accepting help from people was one thing. Actually doing it was another. I felt so pathetic and weak. Just a week and a half ago I was a man. A short man, but a man at that. All of that seemed so long ago.

On another level, I felt stupid not realizing that her ordering me to get up on the stool was not a cute challenge between a boyfriend and girlfriend. It was nothing but a exercise to get her point across to me in the most humiliating way possible. But I couldn’t deny that a small part of me liked being humiliated by her. It was probably the same part of me that wanted to shrink. And I had an acute feeling that she knew the full extent of her impact on me.

All I could do now was submit. I nodded meekly to let her know I understood her lesson and would abide by her new rules.

“Ok. I’m glad we cleared that up once and for all. Now finish your smoothie, we have to get to class.”

I had four classes that day, and Jackie was kind enough to escort me to every single place I needed to be. She made sure I was situated, you know, in my seat, able to see the board, that kind of thing. Then, she would leave for wherever she had to be, and when my class was over, she was always there waiting for me. I had no idea how she worked out her schedule so perfectly to be able to always be there at the beginning and end of all my classes. She was simply on another level.

At around 4 in the afternoon, we were both done for the day, although she had volleyball practice at 6. So, before we had to part ways, she took me to Epicurean and Company for dinner. Epicurean was a sushi place but also a bar, and it was right at the bottom of Darnall Hall, where I used to live.

Jackie didn’t even let me get my own food. She lifted me into my seat at one of the tables right next the window, asked the owner for a kiddy box, and she filled it with whatever she saw fit to feed me. Somehow, when she brought it back, it had everything I liked, and it was the perfect portion of food for me. Even though she seemed to enjoy stripping me of my independence, she was doing a good job at providing for me so far. I didn’t have a single reason to complain. I had a girlfriend that cared enough about me to fetch me food without even making me get up.

As I dug into my food with a plastic fork, she asked me how it was.

“Perfect,” I said.

She and I took our first bite at the first time, but my first bite and her first bite couldn’t have been more different. I put half of a shrimp and some grains of rice in my mouth. She put two fried dumplings in her mouth at the same time, plus triple the amount of rice. She also had to bring her fork up high above my head, all the way to her mouth, which to me, may as well have been in the clouds.

For the first time in a while, I was truly hungry, and I put away my entire meal. I was actually proud of myself, considering I hadn’t been able to eat the entirety of any of my meals lately. Jackie, though, was impressive with how she ate compared to me. Her dinner had to be five times the size of mine, yet she finished minutes ahead of me. And when she was done, without thinking anything of it, she nonchalantly got up and said, “I’m still hungry, I’ll be right back.”

She came back with probably three quarters of the food she had prior, and wolfed it all down, once again beating me to the finish line. Her appetite was voracious, which fit with her monstrous metabolism and her fiendish exercise routine. In every category that men normally had women beat in, she outclassed me with ease.

“Did you enjoy your food?” I asked her after I was done.

“Yeah, very much. I’ve been here a bunch of times already.”

“Really, how?

“Well, I’ve been practicing with the volleyball girls all summer, so I’ve been on campus a lot. I made a point of trying all the places I could. Epicurean is my absolute fav, which is why I wanted to take you.” She tapped my nose with her finger as she said ‘you’. Sometimes, with how huge she was, her cuteness got lost in the shuffle.

“I’m honored.” I grabbed her pointer finger, and kissed it, starting from her fingernail and slowly working my way up to her palm. She held her hand there like a princess, waiting for her betrothed to adequately greet her.

As I was kissing her beautiful extremities, I heard a tap on the window. It sounded awfully deliberate, so I instinctively opened my eyes and turned to look.

I probably looked like I’d seen a ghost. In reality, it was just my mother. I wasn’t expecting to see her so soon, but I knew she would be coming for me eventually.

I looked back at Jackie, who was a deer in the headlights. For the first time ever, I saw what she looked like when she was blindsided. She had no idea what to do because she told me that she didn’t want me talking to my mother, but she couldn’t in good conscience keep me away from her in public. She wasn’t heartless, and she didn’t stop me from going out to meet my mother.

“Jackie, I’ll come back when I’m done talking to her. Ok?”

She gave me a small nod, and I hopped off my chair.

A slight dread within myself made me walk slow to the exit. The brief glimpse I got of my mother wasn’t particularly encouraging. Her eyes were bloodshot, probably from having not slept for more than a day. Her hair was ratty, and her skin was pale. This conversation wasn’t going to be fun.

When I eventually got to the front of the restaurant, my mom pulled open the door for me, allowing me outside easily.

“Desmond!” she said, already raising her voice at me. I could hear the anger, the hurt, and the disappointment all rolled up into one.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, shrinking away from her. I wasn’t even as tall as her navel now. I used to be taller than her chest.

I followed her to the courtyard in front of Darnall Hall and we sat down side by side. I could tell she was restraining herself. She wanted to scream and yell at me for what I did, but she knew that wasn’t going to be productive. She began talking as calmly as she could.

“Explain exactly why you left without my permission, and don’t leave anything out of the story. I want to know precisely what made you sneak away from your own home, and back to a place you’ve spent a little over a week at.”

“Will you promise you won’t get mad at me?”

“I asked you a question, Desmond. I haven’t slept for over a day, and my patience with you is running very thin. Start explaining yourself now, or I will definitely get mad at you.”

“Ok, ok. I didn’t want to tell you because she would lash out at me, but Amanda was tormenting me. Every moment I spent with her when I was home was unbearable. She humiliated me for being so small, and she spanked me and sat on me and really really hurt me. I’m genuinely terrified of her! She could kill me! I had to get out of there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve done something. I could’ve got her to stop!”

“I don’t even think you believe that, Mom. You’re not always around. Dad’s not always around. And when you guys aren’t around, Amanda drops the goody two shoes act she puts on, and she becomes a sadistic bitch!”

She had a knowing look. On some level, she was aware that Amanda put on an act in front of her. Unfortunately, my mom didn’t know that her act was meant to cover up how brutally violent she was towards me.

“Desmond, you still could’ve come to me to talk about this. We could’ve worked something out. Your sister isn’t above the law, she needs to listen to me.”

“She basically is above the law, Mom. Was there any way you could’ve stopped her from being home alone with me?”

“Of course! A few days ago, I was considering staying home from work for a few months. You could’ve recovered with me, at home. I had some idea that leaving you with your sister wasn’t going to work long term. But that’s the point! We have to communicate! You didn’t tell me what you were thinking, and I didn’t tell you what I was thinking. That’s what caused this.”

I remained silent, knowing that a failure of communication between me and my mom wasn’t the only cause of our falling out. My mom picked up on this, realizing that I wasn’t telling her the whole story.

“What? What? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Desmond. I know when you’re lying.”

“Fine! I didn’t want you to freak out, but I think… I think I’m falling for Jackie.”

Without taking her eyes off me, she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I really care about her, and I want to be with her.”

“Are you telling me you’re falling in love with a girl you’ve known for a week?”

I hesitated and thought about my answer. It didn’t take long for her to repeat her question.

“Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I think so.”

“What do you mean ‘I think’?”

“Ok, yes! Yes! That’s what I’m telling you!”

My mom put her head in her hands. The problems between us got a lot more complicated with my admission about Jackie. She rubbed her face for a minute and then came back up.

“Please just try to listen to me. I get that you like this girl and you want to spend all your time with her, and you don’t want to come home with your crazy, deranged mother. But coming home right now is the best course of action if you truly want to recover. If you really want to find a cure to this thing you have, and you care about your personal health above all else, you will come home right now with me. You’ll come home, and we’ll go to a different doctor every day and get to the bottom of this horrible disease. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“So, will you come home.”

Bluntly, I said, “No.”

“Are you kidding me? Desmond! You’re wasting away down here! You’re gonna be the size of a thumb tack by Thanksgiving break at the rate you’re going! You have to come home with me before it’s too late!”

I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. And her voice kept falling off a cliff. She was devastated. I felt so awful for what I’d done to her, but there was nothing I could realistically do to fix it at this moment. I’d made the trip back to Georgetown, and I wasn’t about to leave now.

“I’m sorry, I can’t come home. I just can’t.”

“Why not?! Are you afraid she’ll dump you if you leave? If she likes you as much as you like her, she won’t do that! And if she does dump you, then it proves that you should find someone better! This girl isn’t the end all be all, Desmond. You know what is, though? Your body. If you don’t seek treatment, you’re gonna shrink down to nothing, and how am I supposed to live with myself if that happens to my baby boy?!”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know,” I said, now blinking away hot tears, “Don’t you think this is hard for me too? I hate seeing you like this. It kills me. But at a certain point, you have to let me make my own decisions. And I’ve made my mind up already. I’m staying.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, drying her eyes and cheeks.

“What?”

“If you don’t come home with me right now, I will stop paying your tuition. If you won’t listen to reason, then I guess I’ll have to resort to punishing you.”

“Mom! You can’t do that! I earned the right to be here!”

“You didn’t earn jack shit, Desmond. I’m paying for 90% of your college, and the other 10% is on you with the loans. I can take everything away until you understand that you need to drop everything and get your health in order. And don’t talk about your rights, ok? You’re still my son, and I have a right to make sure you’re the healthiest you can be. You don’t want to listen? It doesn’t matter. You have to listen to me!”

“You know what?! Screw it! I don’t even care about being a lawyer that much anyway. I’ll just rely on Jackie and we’ll cakewalk through life together. How’s that for listening?!”

“You tell me you’re an adult and you’re ready to be independent. I don’t see it Desmond. If you have to rely on people you just met to carry you through life, that shows a level of immaturity I didn’t think you had in you. You have total disregard for your own wellbeing.”

“Are you ashamed of your only son, Mom? Not happy with the way I turned out?! I came here scared. Scared I wasn’t gonna make new friends. Scared I would be a total failure. Scared of pretty much everything. But it turned out better than I could’ve ever hoped. And just when I’m happier than ever, you come down here trying to destroy everything!”

My mom recoiled in surprise. “You’ve changed, Desmond. I’ve never seen you act this mean to me, or anyone for that matter. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m proud of you. But you need—”

“Oh, save it!” I interrupted, “I had enough of you telling me what I ‘need’ to do. I don’t need to do anything you tell me.”

“One last chance. If you come home with me now, I will forget about all of this, and the moment you get better, I will allow you to come back to Georgetown. If you don’t, I will ask for a refund from the registrar so quick, your head will spin.”

I said nothing and remained completely motionless, looking away from her.

She got up to leave, saying one last thing to me. “I’m scared for you, Desmond. I’m scared that you’re gonna wreck your life up beyond recognition. I’m scared that you’re never going to come back to normal. I’m scared that you and I will drift apart forever, and you’ll quietly hate me down here, while I quietly mourn for you back home. I know you think you don’t need me, but I need you. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do without you in my life. Please think about what we talked about, and don’t hesitate to call me if you need me or if you just want to talk or if you decide that you’ve changed your mind. I won’t stop trying to make you see reason, Desmond, because I love you to death. I’m sorry this didn’t go well. Goodbye, sweetheart.”

And just like that, she walked off, got in her car, and sped away. And I let her go, without so much as a goodbye, a kiss, a hug, nothing! With guilt weighing on my heart, I walked back into the restaurant and back to Jackie.

“Let’s go back to the house,” I said.

“Are you ok? Did she yell at you? What’s wrong?” the questions spilled out of her mouth.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, just please take me back to the house.”

“Ok, Dessy. We’ll go home right now.”

As we silently walked back to the car, I couldn’t shake my mom’s final words out of my head. They kept repeating in my head, making me even guiltier for how I treated her. I tried to convince myself that I was right, and she was wrong. Before she came, I did feel justified in leaving abruptly. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t even sure if I was justified in staying at college when my life was spiraling out of control. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to pay for it anyway. Soon, I would no longer be a law student, I would be my girlfriend’s house pet. I was beginning to think Jackie was incredibly naïve for thinking everything would just ‘fall into place’.