“Ohhh, goodness…” Duval’s announcement began lethargically, her words morphing into a wide yawn that bellowed like a great wind. Sierra remained bunkered down after being bull-rushed by gravity, but there was no proper defense for what she was experiencing. It was the second time that she faced the ordeal of Duval’s heavenly stretch, but she was no better off than before. She braced herself, but when the giantess’s shoulders finally relaxed, there was no avoiding the drop. As though the cleavage hungered, Sierra was wedged deeper.

Both arms shot upwards in frantic waves. “Duval!! Duval!!” All anew did she try shouting up at the overseer, but being plunged further into the cleavage, it became even harder to call up to her. Flesh spilled over top of her, and her fight back to keep an opening available resulted in her falling further still. There was no winning, and worse yet, Duval was still moving, repositioning herself into a normal sitting posture. Every idle shake that the scientist thought nothing of was another quake that doomed Sierra into a deeper part of this suffocatingly soft trench. Only one arm still flagged past the surface, a muffled last attempt, “Duval, please…!”

“I’m sorry, Sierra,” Duval replied -- so it had seemed. Sierra froze with suspense upon hearing her name in a groggy grumble, but the huge face hanging in the sky did not turn her way. Duval blinked and massaged her temples with a thumb and forefinger, ever blissful that such movement was ushering Sierra further down her sweat-lined chest. “I-I think I dozed off for a moment. Were you saying something?”

As much as her binding allowed, Sierra jumped with her mouth aimed high, all to propel one more shout, “I’m on you, Duval, I’m stuck to you!” She tried again, but the darkness overcame her, leaving just the tips of her finger to claw at the cool office air. Sierra’s sobs filled the little space she had to herself with a humid despair.

“... Sierra?” Duval said her name, more curiously than before. Sierra’s hope still kicked; “S-Sierra, did you wander off? How long was I…?”

Blind to what was happening past the globes of flesh, Sierra could only guess what all the movement was about, but what she imagined was not far from the truth. Duval hovered above her chair, lifted out of it while she surveyed the desk once, twice, and thrice -- “I didn’t… put her away, did I?” Items were shuffled across the work space, everything being turned or picked up once, then set aside until the main level of the desk was cleared of everything but the keyboard. When her subject still hadn’t been found, Duval rushed to peek into the medical station at the corner. She checked behind every curtain and in the showers as well, but Sierra was nowhere to be found.

“No…” Duval stood completely out of her seat. In her hurry, her chair was rolled backwards, and she whipped back to make it still -- as still as her. Each of her movements going forward were calculated and specific, leaving her frozen in place while she gazed around her office. “Oh god, no,” she murmured, too nervous to even wipe away her beading sweat.

After a pause of consideration, Duval spoke with confidence, “Sierra, where did you go?! Do anything to tell me where you are!” The sense of emergency was apparent in her tone. There were no tipsy jokes or casual comments, but an understanding of the situation’s severity. Her head raced with protocols she had hoped, and expected, to never have to utilize, but for the immediate time being, what she could possibly do was limited. Every step, every action, put Sierra’s life at risk.

Sierra would have cried had she not been so panicked, so eager to be discovered. She chanted Duval’s name while swimming upwards, but she soon realized she had sunk deeper than she thought. Not even the cool air of the outside could be felt, for she was entirely drowned under pillowy flesh. It tormented her to hear Duval’s voice, which resonated from inside the body she was so close to. The concern was a rope tragically too short to be grabbed, but it was the one chance she wouldn’t let pass her by.

A barrage of kicks and punches stemmed from Sierra where she was trapped. In any direction and without any regard to the giant body, Sierra spasmed in a full assault for Duval’s attention. She forced open as much space between the skin as she could, throwing any part of herself into the walls. Each blow bounced back and coated her with a touch of sweat, but having unleashed her panic, Sierra spared no mind to these details. It was truly pathetic to resort to such mad desperation, but it was far more respectable than suffocating inside Duval’s blouse.

At that same time, Duval happened upon a possibility. She had studied her desk to figure out the method Sierra had left the desk, at which then her focus turned from beneath her, to onto her. With as little movement as she could, Duval brought a hand to her shoulder, then down the other arm, gently sliding two fingers along the places Sierra could be. There was no other way off the desk, not unless Sierra miraculously became an expert at scaling down furniture by hand. This left only her body as to where the tiny woman could be.

Her hands patted at her clothes while she concentrated on every square of her skin. She looked foolish patting herself down while standing behind her desk, she knew as much, but it was a necessary caution. Even her chest had to be examined with these tender grasps, Duval unable to rule out the possibility. She smirked halfheartedly, thinking, Certainly she did not go into--

Duval twitched upon feeling a lump. A moving lump, situated between her breasts. She stared straight down, both tickled and itched by what she felt, but ultimately held in wonder. “Sierra?” she whispered quickly, not instantly seeing a hint of the woman.

Light showered onto Sierra with a swirl of fresh air. In her squinted vision, she saw figures seep into the flesh nearby, digging into the softness without any trouble. Fingertips, Sierra realized, and just as effortlessly did they widen the cleavage. The wall-like breasts separated and opened the view to Duval’s gasping reaction, granting Sierra merciful relief -- only for it to be whipped away from her.

In her surprise, Duval flinched and pulled aside her breasts too far. It took only that instant for Sierra to slip, not at all prepared for the breasts to be moved. The moisture slid her deeper than she thought the valley went, and then further still. Just as she dropped from the bosom entirely, she was bouncing off the brown fabric of the blouse, tossed into the dark underworld of inside Duval’s clothes. From above, sparse light continue to shine in, but Sierra had slid out of Duval’s view, screaming as she plummeted down the towering body.

Too terrified to close her eyes, Sierra loosely watched the world around her be reshaped. She felt it as well, that Duval was surging into movement in order to rescue her. It happened so fast, despite how gargantuan every motion was. The distant sight below, of the tiled floor that a pair of high heels stood upon, was swept away by the black of Duval’s slacks. The giantess was sitting down, throwing herself into her office chair just as Sierra was at her stomach. Her lap was flattened out, making for an emergency platform that Sierra landed on. Twice she bounced along the firm surface, rolling down the legs like a ragdoll until Duval perked her knees up. As an additional safety measure, Duval also blocked off Sierra’s path with both hands, forming a wall that encircled the tiny woman’s position on her lap.

The harsh stumble had left Sierra dazed and breathless. Up and down were just suggestions while she came to, dizzyingly reaching out for support that wasn’t there. The spinning had made her sick, but she was too exhausted to even cough. She rose only as far as being hunched on her knees, both arms propped forward and pressed into the pitch black ground. The texture of processed wool was smooth under hands, a hint that she had yet come to terms with where she had fallen.

“Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!” Duval bombarded Sierra with her worries, leaned in over her test subject. One hand disconnected from the circle it had made so it could be there for Sierra, offering a fingertip that she could support herself with. Originally, she had wanted to scoop the woman into her hands and immediately carry her to safety, but Sierra’s staggered movements had her wait for the time being.

Duval stuttered over herself, at one point trying to lecture Sierra before devolving into an apology, which itself was mostly her berating herself for such carelessness. Sierra lifted a quivering hand to signal to Duval, but what it meant was uncertain. When she tried to explain herself, her throat was empty. Her mind had only then accepted that this black-dyed terrain and its peculiar roundness was, in fact, Duval’s thighs. Once having comprehended this, Sierra could think of nothing else, surveying her baffling surroundings. She looked to her hands and knees, how casually they graced this personal area of the overseer.

“Sierra! Speak to me!” Duval urged. An instinct to shake her leg for emphasis almost manifested, but she managed to sustain being motionless.  “Please, t-tell me you’re okay! I won’t forgive myself, p-please, sh-show me you’re okay…!”

It was enough to snap Sierra out of her trance, but she still babbled when it came to saying anything. She waved at Duval, but could not crane her head back enough to look at that mountain peak head. “I’m alive!” she called out, the first thing that came to mind. It was genuinely her best evaluation, otherwise unaware if she was harmed or in danger. “I’m… alive…”

Seeing that a fingertip was waiting for her, Sierra grabbed it by the nail and used it’s offer to stand up. She took a step forward without it, but immediately tripped off the rounded ground of Duval’s legs. Her stumble left her face-first in the crevice that was her thighs, but unlike Duval’s bust, this cleavage did not threaten to absorb her. She hurriedly crawled back up, grasping the fingertip and keeping it held while she regained some composure.

“You look exhausted,” Duval muttered, still teeming with nervousness -- Sierra could sense as much beneath her, how the legs just slightly swayed and rumbled. “H-How’s your arm? Tell me if anything, anything hurts!”

“I-I think I’m okay,” Sierra said, stroking Duval’s finger with both hands as if trying to calm the panicked scientist. “Really. I-I’m… alright. Nothing hurts, j-just dizzy-- erk,” her shoulder recoiled, the same arm she had landed on two weeks ago. Once again had it been injured, rolled over on top of at least twice when she spiraled down Duval’s body. “Well… m-maybe my arm,” Sierra scoffed, a half-chuckle at her predicament, “it may have been whipped a bit too hard.”

Duval maneuvered her fingertip so that it could lift the arm in question. The limb was dainty compared to the thick finger, drooping back to Sierra’s side the moment it was let go. After a quick study, Duval returned to supporting Sierra’s balance. “You poor thing… You just can’t catch a break.”

“I-I don’t know about that… I think, actually, I’ve been really lucky.” Sierra didn’t wish more stress onto Duval’s shoulders, so she shuddered away from mentioning how scared she had been. Truly, had anything happened differently, she likely would have become a splatter somewhere on the floor, or somewhere on Duval’s body. To end up dazed on the overseer’s thighs and with her tenderness being showered onto her, Sierra admitted, spoke volumes of her luck.

But just as Sierra was beginning to relax, Duval dragged her back to moments before. “What even happened, Sierra? Y-You could have died… Surely you realize that?”

“I do,” Sierra coughed, “I-I’m sorry. It won’t-- I swear, I won’t do that again.”

“What did you do? That’s what confuses me the most.” Duval frowned, burdened by this curiosity. She felt the little body shiver against her fingertip, a sign that something was being hidden. Her mouth stayed open during a pause, “Sierra… y-you were in my… shirt. Between them.” Her lips curled inward, not much more comfortable to bring up the subject than Sierra was.

Sierra hesitated to reply, instead wallowing in her own heat. Those moments from before, as dangerous as they were, felt so fantastic and so adventurous, but when retold by Duval, it was shameful and belittling. It had not been some grand tale, but a miserable anecdote, where her existence had succumbed to being little more than lint stuck to a person’s body. Her head swirling among those thoughts, it was a challenge to speak up of anything, when the truth was as ridiculous as any lie.

“Sierra?” Duval pressed it again, dissatisfied with silence. Though her volume was considerate, it stung with a serious tone. “How did it happen? D-Did I do something when I was drunk…?”

“No,” Sierra answered that fast enough. It ached her just to think of Duval misinterpreting things that way, that she had done something selfish and sinister in her drowsy state of mind. “I-It wasn’t like that, it was just an accident. You moved your arm and I got, well, pushed in.” Though finally peeling that off her chest felt relieving, it also left her exposed to the cold judgement. “I… got up close to you while you were sleeping. If I had stayed where I had been, then…”

“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that in the first place,” Duval sighed, “but… true, you really shouldn’t have been there. What made you do that? I-I could have done anything in my sleep th-that could have hurt you, something worse than this. I wouldn’t even have known about it-- I almost didn’t know about this!”

“I was trying to wake you up! Yelling your name a-and even nudging you, none of it worked. I was too small, I…”

Duval’s hands gently formed around Sierra into the shape of a platform, ushering her into silence. Without argument, Sierra allowed herself on, and was then elevated slowly up to level with Duval’s eyes. Even when she wasn’t being looked down on, Sierra trembled in her vision. She sat on her knees and with one arm hugging the other into herself, awaiting to be lectured for her actions.

But instead of that, there was a pop of a question. “Why?” Duval asked as much, but seemed as confused as Sierra did regarding what she herself meant. She elaborated, a small shake of her head, “How can you be so comfortable around me? Why don’t I scare you…?”

Sierra still struggled to understand the question. When it was as simple as she initially thought, it was a muffled laugh that first responded. “A-Are you trying to be scary? Sh-Should I be scared of you?”

“... Yes! A little, at least!” Duval rippled with giggles that poured past Sierra, pooling around her and tickling her into her own fit. “O-Obviously you shouldn’t be terrified of me, you can trust me. But I am this… walking, breathing skyscraper of a woman to you. I’m huge! T-To you, anyway. Doesn’t that, err, bother you? Don’t you know-- you must know, Sierra, th-that when you’re around me, it would be… just, so easy. Something could happen to you.”

Sierra kept her head down, wishing for her bright blush to go unnoticed assuming her warmth didn’t give her away. The exact word choice Duval used was secretly exhilarating, for it was quite rare for her to speak so openly about her size. A pun here or there sometimes slipped out of the scientist, but the topic was usually avoided or mentioned vaguely. She wanted to hear it again, a recording to repeat of Duval admitting out loud, “I’m huge!” Such a cheery bounce in her voice, and so plainly stated.

She hadn’t meant to leave Duval on hold, but the silence spoke for her. Duval’s amusement trickled away. Before Sierra could reply, Duval submitted her own answer, weighing it in her head several times over, “I… get it. I’m sorry. Maybe it was more obvious a-and I should have noticed earlier.”

Sierra lifted her head, but much of her riled hair hid her eyes. She could see Duval’s grounded expression, notably how it glowed with its own redness. She leaned in inquisitively.

“It’s… important for me to know. It’s important for both of us, s-so I’ll just ask. Are you feeling attracted to me?”

It was like a car crash, a violent collision that began as just a glimpse of oncoming traffic. The question circled around Sierra like a predatory animal, cursing her with a frozen spell. All the fluster-made heat in her body was expelled and a chill settled in its place. Sierra swallowed, painting a smile for appearance’s sake, “What do you mean by that?”

Duval withheld a sigh, having lured Sierra in her hands closer than she realized. She glanced away, thinking her big eyes might overwhelm the shrunken woman when she was clearly at her limits already. “It came up in our debriefings, but I didn’t think it would happen. An effect we were warned about with the shrinking experiment was that the changes in perspective and power could… alter your ability to form relationships. That’s just part of why the lab is organized the way it is, with the subjects living together in a simulated community. The intent was to keep everyone socializing at a normal scale. Life was supposed to remain as normal as possible for you all, including who you interact with. Then, there’s our relationship, as an overseer and as a subject. It was considered that a shrunken person could theoretically develop an attraction for their overseer due to our height difference. You still process me as a human, but I’m… also more than that. A lot more, c-compared to you or any of the others. I’m big, a-and not like how an adult is to a child.

“I’ve noticed you a few times, especially recently, that you can end up… staring at me.” Her seriousness briefly collapsed with a giggle, “I-I don’t pay that much attention, mind you, but I’ve felt you looking at me. And I’ve felt you wanting me, enough that I’ve considered that your arm’s injury might have been a little exaggerated.”

Reflexively, Sierra gripped the arm that had been hurt, shuddering with genuine pain. “I-It is real!” she stuttered, looking between it and Duval’s observant eyes. “If you think these check ups aren’t valuable, th-then we can just stop them. I don’t want to be in the way…”

“It isn’t about that,” Duval assured her, raising her smile in hopes it might relax Sierra. “I’ve never minded our check ups, in fact, I’ve looked forward to them. But, if you really do have feelings for me, wh-whatever those feelings might be, it’s important for us -- and the experiment -- that we be on the same page.”

Yet Sierra’s heart still pounded as though she were caught in a trap. She regretted everything in that moment, from choosing to approach Duval while she slept, to as far back as signing up for the experiment. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she confessed, “I-I just felt alone. And you’re… always there, always looking after us…”

“I understand, Sierra, I do. When you’ve become that small, it’s natural to want to be cared for and to secure any kind of power.” Duval tilted her head, hoping that Sierra was following along. “It makes sense you would do so much to build a connection with me. I’m… big and powerful and independent. You… You’re not. It’s only natural that someone in your position would want more.”

Sierra fell silent while reflecting from what had been suggested. Could it be as simple as Duval phrased it? Certainly there was something that pulled Sierra towards the overseer, something strong enough to make her want to breach the standards of their relationship. This attraction wasn’t normal, she agreed with Duval on that. It was beyond anything Sierra had felt before, so certainly some element of the experiment was to blame. But she also wondered, what if that was the case? If her gravitation towards Duval was due entirely to being shrunk, or because of Duval’s role in the experiment, what of this affection had for her? Was her longing for Duval just a side-effect of being made tiny? Was this ever a sincere attraction?

“Sierra?” Duval asked quietly. “I hope I haven’t upset you.”

“I’m not upset, but…” Sierra started to speak, but her words sifted through her fingers like sand after only that much. “It’s… a lot to think about. It has felt like I haven’t been my usual self lately.” She brushed a hand through her hair, fixing the places that most bothered her while her tired expression remained downward. “I… I feel like a creep,” she confessed. “I’m sorry, Duval, really. I promise, none of this will happen again, I’ll stop getting in your--”

“Sierra, dear, i-it is fine! Seriously!” Duval giggled, her palms curling in towards Sierra but not closing in around her. “Your attention is flattering, after all! The way you look up at me has always felt just a little different from the others. It’s… more amazed, to put it one way. It feels special, and I suppose I haven’t minded it before all this time. Admittedly, i-it does build confidence to feel… worshiped. As if I were a god with… a little follower.”

Duval broke from her mumbling and into a laugh, her shaking too much for Sierra to not bunker down. “Sorry, sorry~ I think I’m still working through that wine, haha… What am I talking about…”

“R-Right,” Sierra swallowed, not speaking loud enough to be heard. She twisted where she sat; at the very least, what Duval said served as a distraction from the prior topic. Her heart beat to the rhythm of that fascinating concept, looking up to Duval like she was a god, and she did so then. The overseer was impressive and massive and anything she whimmed at her scale was made real, like divine intention. She giggled, which may have eased Duval, but truthfully what tickled Sierra was her wish for that to be reality. She wished that Duval were a real goddess to be worshiped, and that she be rescued from the anxiety of this lab experiment.

Duval stood up, reforming her hands so that a protective shell was around Sierra. “Ohh, Sierra, I’m… I feel awful,” she explained as she turned the corner around her desk. “Just awful. I’ve put you through so much because of how careless I’ve been. I owe it to you to at least take you home as soon as possible, let you get some rest after today.”

“Wh-What about our-- err, my check ups?” Sierra asked as the door was opened. She stammered in her hurry to come up with an excuse, “M-My arm is still sore after that fall, and--”

“We’ll definitely be meeting again,” Duval interrupted, intensely focused on keeping her steps stable through the halls while she carried Sierra around. “I… can’t say exactly when, but I’ll let you know.” She offered a sympathetic smile, which brightened when she saw that Sierra was turned around to look up at her. “Hah, there’s a lot from today that we need to discuss. But, I do look forward to having that time with you, Sierra. You’re always pleasant to have around.”

There was more Sierra wanted to say, but she didn’t have the heart to argue. The afternoon had been eventful enough, and Duval promised that there would be time to talk in the future. She recalled how excited she had been before to have a private appointment arranged with her, but now that same prospect produced dread and anxiety. Looking forward had strangled her into a silence, persisting up until she was standing on the one street, offering her farewell to Duval.

Sierra shuffled into her house, lacking the energy to even flip on a light switch. As weakly as possible, she undid her gown and let the fabric pool at her ankles. She only made it as far as her sofa before she rolled into it, gracelessly spread out upon the furniture. Her face sunk into the cushions, but its softness stirred memories, and those memories cast away the delusions that enveloped her. The living room, the house, the neighborhood; it was all a lie to hide reality, the truth of how small she and the others were. As normal as everything felt, she saw the shadows behind every surface, viewing everything like it were a theater prop pretending to be real. It was all too cramped, constricting, suffocating.

A desire then formed, like a pit in her stomach. She understood little as to why, but she wished for it be fulfilled. The world outside the community’s glass walls called to her, with all its dangers and freedoms. Only out there and in Duval’s possession did Sierra feel genuinely alive.