“Not this again.” 

I awoke to the sound of artillery fire coming from the door to my room. Rolling over in my futon, I could barely make out the hands of the wall clock in the midnight haze.

“2:30...” I noted with a sigh.

The riot outside my room did not cease. It sounded like the door would come off its hinges if I didn’t address the issue immediately. Pushing my warm bed sheets to the side, I begrudgingly crawled onto my feet. I stumbled wordlessly to the door, not bothering to check my hair. I knew my pink, tangled mess wouldn’t matter to the overexcited ball of pure energy that awaited me on the other side. I did, however, take a second to straighten out my wings, which had folded under my weight while I slept. If things went south, I had to be ready to fly out of there as fast as possible. I took a deep breath, flipped the light switch, and slid the wooden panel door open.

Nimi already had her puppy eyes ready. Those eyes could command the attention of everyone in a packed courtroom. Maybe it was the stark contrast between the bright yellow iris on her left and the baby blue on her right. Maybe it was the wide, round pupils that expanded from her usual thin, vertical black streaks when she got excited or nervous. Maybe it was the way she slid her thick, scaley, teal-colored tail down and lowered her body to appear small and innocent. I knew better. 

“Hey April… Sorry to wake you up, but I’ve got a bit of an issue,” she started cautiously, then began rushing through her words with nervous excitement. “So, I have a tournament coming up tomorrow and I really need to be at my best for this. It’s the regional championship so it’s, like, super important and-”

“Nimi, just spit it out already,” I yawned. “Why are you knocking on my door at 2 in the morning, again?”

“Um, so, I swallowed a contact. I need your help, y’know… getting it back.”  She opened her palm to reveal an open case with a single contact inside.

Nimi had no trouble seeing without her contacts. In fact, she complained they made it more difficult to focus on the ball during a match. They were cosmetic, covering her thin snake pupils with the wider ovals familiar to humans. She competed on a human volleyball team, so she had to hide her lamia traits so as not to alarm her human teammates. Like many monsters, she used a combination of charms and cosmetics to blend in with humans. She liked to complain about how the contacts dried out her eyes, but she was lucky compared to most lamia. 

When monsters competed in human sports, they often needed to temporarily replace their monster body parts with human ones. Thankfully Nimi had the help of Harumi, the okami (an honorific she detested, as it sounded too similar to the Japanese word for “wolf” for her kitsune tastes) at the monster-girl ryokan where both Nimi and I worked. Being a shrine maiden as well as hostess of the inn, Harumi had access to powerful illusion charms. When she heard Nimi complaining about having to play volleyball with human legs, she offered to instead magically disguise her legs, ears, tongue, and other snake-like features. Once during practice, Nimi’s teammates admired that her movements were “inhuman, like you’re gliding across the court.” Her face flushed white and she rushed to the locker room to make sure the magic had not worn off. I explained to her later that it was just an expression, but I cursed myself for not being there to see her panicked reaction.

In a way, Nimi was right to be worried. Illusion magic takes a great deal of spiritual energy, so most monsters avoided using it as frequently as Nimi. To conserve the shrine’s power, Harumi gave Nimi a pair of cosmetic contacts to conceal her eyes. Of course, klutz she was, Nimi managed to swallow the only part of her disguise for which she was responsible. 

“You... swallowed it? How?”

“Well, you know how I nibble when I’m nervous.” She also nibbled when she was excited, scared, angry, sad, or bored. I rarely saw her not chewing on something.

“This championship’s a really big deal for me, so I was fidgeting with my contacts and one kind of just…” she gulped as if to reenact the scene.

“Alright. So what do you want me to do about it?” 

“C’mon April, you know what I’m getting at,” she pleaded.

I did. This was the third time this month she had come knocking on my door expecting a favor, the same each time. Last week she dropped her phone in a drain, and I had to use my… talents to get it for her. I was washing sewage out of my hair for three days after that.

Fairies like myself can alter our heights within a certain range, given enough space and pixie dust. Although monster-human interaction law requires hiding inhuman traits when travelling through human territory, lazy or overconfident fairies sometimes shrink themselves rather than hide their wings and ears. As a result, some humans have caught passing glimpses of our tiny flying forms, and those that believe we exist associate fairies with our smallest size, about five centimeters. 

“Fine,” I conceded.

“Huh?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Well, shit, that was easier than I expected. You’re the best, April!”

Nimi sprung forward and wrapped her arms and tail around me. She must have been practicing late and forgot to shower because her scales felt clammy against my legs. Her flower-scented deodorant could not completely mask the stench of sweat. 

“But there’s a catch,” I warned, pulling away from Nimi’s embrace.

She uncoiled from my legs, “Yeah?”

“You’ve been pretty reliant on my help lately. I think it’s only fair that you repay the favor.”

Nimi smiled and nodded, “Yeah, that seems about right. Whaddya need?”

“Well, nothing right now. How about after your big important tournament match you come talk to me and we’ll see what needs doing?”

She shrugged, “Sounds fine to me. Now c’mon, let’s get this contact out of me.”

Her hand snatched mine and she started slithering toward the door, dragging me along with her. I barely had time to grab the pixie dust from on top of my dresser before she whisked me out the door and down the hall into her room.

It was a far cry from my room, other than the standard tatami mat and futon that came with every room. Her floor was a mess, covered in used clothing and training equipment. Her shelves were lined with gold trophies depicting various sports, mostly volleyball. Where I hung a poster of my favorite band, Pixies (cliché, I know), she pinned the banners of various local volleyball teams to her wall. 

She slid the door closed behind us and started laying out her plan, “So you probably already know what to do. I took some of those stomach pills, what are they called?”

“Antacid.”

“Right. So you don’t have to worry about the contact melting, probably,” she said without a hint of reassurance.

“Or me,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah, you should be fine. Once you grab it you should be able to get back out the way you came, easy peasy.” She gave me a grin that showed off her fangs.

“Alright,” I sighed, “let’s get this over with. But remember, you owe me for this.”

I took a bit of pixie dust from my bag and put the rest down on Nimi’s desk so I wouldn’t lose it. I sprinkled the dust over my head and started to feel the effect immediately. 

Nimi’s eyes lit up. Sometimes I wondered if she lost things on purpose just to see me get smaller in front of her. She seemed like she enjoyed watching me shrink, but there was something else too. She got this look in her eyes, the same look that she gave mice when she found them scurrying about the inn just before she pounced on them and released them over and over. She claimed it was just for exercise, but sometimes it seemed like she enjoyed their frantic yet ultimately futile attempts at escape. Needless to say, I was more than a bit worried about what I was about to do.

I kept eye contact with Nimi as I quickly dropped below her chin, then passed her generous chest, restrained by a sleek gray sports bra. Her breasts were a bit smaller than mine, seemingly a source of envy for her. She had no reason to be jealous at the moment however, as I was eye-level with her toned abs and no longer bigger than her in any department.

Nimi squealed in delight as the world continued to expand around me. I soon came up to her waist, clad in an unusual spandex tube that snugly fit around her hips, connecting her humanoid torso to her tail. She loomed over me as I shrunk further, nearing my final height. 

From this angle, Nimi looked enormous. Each muscle on her abdomen was well above my head, and about as big as myself. I reached my final size—about one-thirtieth of my original height—and stared up at my colossal half-serpentine friend.

Nimi glared down at me and flashed a smile. I could tell she was trying to put me at ease, but the sight of her fangs poking past her upper lip was a bit intimidating.

“Alright, you ready?” she boomed, her voice noticeably amplified.

I didn’t bother responding. She likely wouldn’t be able to hear me all the way down here, and she wasn’t waiting for a response regardless.

Her hand came swooping down and wrapped around me on all sides. I had told her several times to just place her hand flat in front of me so I could use it as a platform, but Nimi was not the best listener. Her palm was warm and a bit moist, but not uncomfortable. I was still tired, and started to think about falling asleep wrapped in Nimi’s warmth. Unfortunately, she had other plans for me. Plans that involved a lot more warmth and moisture. I felt my feet leave the floor as Nimi began lifting me. I felt a harsh wind pushing down on my body as it ascended rapidly with her hand. The ascent stopped suddenly, just inches away from her lips that rivaled me in size.

After I recovered from the whiplash, I reprimanded her as loudly as I could with the air being squeezed from my lungs by her fingers, “Hey Nimi, remember what I said about holding me?”

She blushed, “Oh shit, sorry!”

Her fingers uncurled from around my waist and I tumbled onto the soft pad of her other palm, which she had flattened beneath me.

I rose to my feet and looked up at the behemoth. The fleshy platform I was standing on moved closer to her face, and her look of guilt turned into something like playfulness… or hunger.

Nimi’s gigantic lips suddenly barreled towards me, causing a squishy impact that pushed me off my feet and pinned me against her palm. The massive pink pads gave way and enveloped my body. I tried to push away but found my arms, legs, and wings completely immobile against their pillowy restraints. After what seemed like an eternity of mushy imprisonment, Nimi began to move her lips. As they parted, her upper lip brushed up my face while the lower slid down my legs, leaving a gap at my torso. From that gap, a massive wet muscle began assaulting my midriff.

Nimi’s forked tongue was considerably longer than a human’s, and also more dextrous. She controlled both tips of the gigantic wet muscle to lick around my entire body. If she hadn’t been covering my face with her lip, I might have let out a yelp as the tongue found its target between my thighs. It began teasing my most vulnerable area, lapping at my thighs suggestively. I hadn’t noticed due to the sensory overload of being treated like a lollipop, but her tongue had somehow managed to remove my panties, causing my erect penis to flop out onto her waiting tongue. Apparently, that was all the invitation she needed, because she stopped teasing and began directly attacking my cock with increasingly energetic licks.

I did not expect Nimi to act so decisively. She often made advances toward me, but she was never this direct outside of mating season. I knew she had completely forgotten about her predicament, lost in the moment as she so often was. Unfortunately, her lack of awareness was an immediate threat to my survival. I could fight off her libido, but I could hardly live on just the hot air trapped between her mouth and her palm. If the overwhelming smell of her breath did not kill me, the lack of oxygen would.

My prayers were finally answered and Nimi’s tongue and lips retreated, removing their vacuum seal on her hand. She gave my now fully-erect cock one last lick, leaving my body drenched in warm saliva. Luckily Nimi never wore lipstick, so I was at least spared that humiliation.

As her face rose, her tongue carried a thin thread of saliva from my body to the tip of her forked tongue.

“Sorry, I think I got kinda excited.” Her tongue slithered between her lips after her half-hearted apology, breaking the sticky thread between us as it slipped out of my view. Her gaze lowered to my crotch. “Looks like I’m not the only one.”

“Can we just get this over with?” I suggested, reminding Nimi that this was not a social call.

“Aw, you’re no fun. Fine, let’s just get to the main course then,” she grinned sinisterly.

“Nimi, I’m not food,” I reprimanded.

“Sorry, bad choice of words.”

Her sly smile would intimidate anyone after what she just put me through, but I knew Nimi too well. I still needed to keep an eye on her negligent lack of responsibility, but she would never hurt me on purpose. Besides, the way her left fang stuck out of her mouth made it impossible for her to look more scary than cute when she smiled.

While I was distracted by her derpy look, her fingers snuck up behind me and pinched me by my pajamas, which would need to be replaced with something less sticky after this whole ordeal. They lifted me above her palm and moved in front of her face. Her eyes followed my ascent.

“Bon appetit!” she teased, bringing her hand to a stop with me dangling over her open mouth.

Against my best judgment, I looked down to see her gaping maw awaiting my inevitable descent. Her fang looked much more worrying than just a moment ago from up here. She gulped, and I watched her tongue rise and the pool of saliva at the back of her throat disappear down the dark hole underneath her dangling uvula. Just as I started to regret offering to help Nimi, her fingers released my shirt.