Tyler is here. I scent his trail, track it all the way from the bus stop.
So. This is happening.
The line is halfway round the block tonight. I stroll past, and Sammy at the bouncer table waves me inside with a wink. And there’s Tyler. By the dance floor. Enormous—a head taller than anyone else, in his small pond of admirers.
He’s faced away, trying to ignore me. I pick up his stress hormones, like an accusation, and suddenly I’m angry. I list his atrocities, like a mantra, and I can feel my rage building, feel myself growing with it.
I make myself stop. No. Forget it. This war is over. I won’t fight it again. Who won? Well. Ask Tyler’s cloud of cortisol—the one he’s spewing into the air like ash from a volcano.
Ask the back of his pretty little neck—the only part he’ll show me anymore.
EVERYONE knows I’m here now. I’m hard to miss, at eleven feet tall—plus a bit more from my ill-advised anger spurt. I feel their eyes on me, sift through their chemical signals. Jealousy and fear, curiosity and lust. All reasonable responses, when you lay eyes on the world’s one and only giantess. I sniff the hot, humid air, and I process every emotion in the room. Evaluate. Pinpoint targets.
Like the predator I am.
I’m not here to hunt, though. Or to make a point. I’m here because this is MY home, too. I’m here to see my friends.
They’ve saved me a seat at the bar. Well, three seats actually. Allen and Janice. Carol. Bobby, waving from the dance floor, working up a delicious sweat. We’ve all got a contingency, for tonight. For when Tyler showed his face again. They’ll keep me safe.
Oh! And Paul is here! He wants to buy me a drink, the little sweetie.
We have a contingency for him, too.
They come and go, in small groups, or alone. Pilot fish to my Great White. I love them all in their own way. And not a whiff of fear on any of them! There’s tension, though. Everyone’s laughing too loud… crowded too close. Asking if I need anything.
It’s such a welcome distraction, when Paul casually brushes his tiny hand against my thigh. An accident, I’m sure. Just like the last six times. He’s been dancing around me for weeks, but I KNOW he’s interested. He showers me with oxytocin whenever I meet his eye. Plus he’s not subtle with his normal flirting, either. Maybe I’m the one who’s been too subtle.
I can change.
I lean way down, hand to my chin. Showing Paul all my attention is for him. I touch his arm. Make him sparkle for me.
My friends see, discreetly give us space. That second contingency, in effect.
We’re openly flirting now. He’s touching me. I’m touching back. Chaste. But adventurous. I’m getting worked up, and Paul notices I’m growing again before I do. Then he has the audacity to ask WHY I’m growing.
Well. Make ME show my poker hand.
I tell him I can usually control it. But if I’m distracted, strong emotion makes me bigger.
He sniffs at the bait. Takes it in his mouth. Tugs.
Which strong emotion?
I take his little hand in mine, fingers stretched halfway up his forearm, let my eyes answer.
He’s hesitating. There’s a turbulent ripple in the air, something sour, and before I can process it–
“Was it like this with Tyler?”
It’s a blurt. He’s sorry before it’s out of his mouth. Can he hear my heart, pounding above the music? He must. His ear is so close. At least he can’t smell my panic.
“It was never like this, with Tyler. I never grew around him for a happy reason. Not once.”
He’s still apologizing. He buys me another drink. They don’t affect me anymore. Wouldn’t, even if he bought me all the booze in the bar. I don’t have the heart to tell him.
I sigh. “This isn’t how I wanted tonight to go.”
“Me either. I just… really don’t want to be like that guy.”
I want to reassure him, and somehow end up telling him everything. How Tyler signed us both up for the same experimental trial. How it was, ‘for my own good.’ How the drug was so much more effective on me. His bitter, toxic hurt, the day I outgrew him. His oddly aggressive teasing about what he’d do when he caught up.
“Then he asked me to quit the experiment. So he could stay the big one. I almost did, you know? Just. Throw away the best thing in my life. I loved measuring myself—have I ever told you? Back when I was bigger each day, and inches mattered. I wanted to make him happy. Fuck. I WOULD have quit. But Tyler didn’t give me the chance.”
I came home to find him, sweating naked on our bed, thigh covered in track marks, discarded syringes everywhere. He’d taken all his doses. Mine too. Stolen them, as much to keep me from having them as anything.
“He was growing. Fast.” I’m past the point of stopping now. “The worst part was how I just stood there. While he gloated, and yelled, and told me it was all my fault. And I apologized. I fucking apologized. Do you believe that?”
“I believe you,” Paul says, too quiet to hear, but I see it on his lips.
“It wasn’t anger though. When I found out I didn’t need the serum anymore. When I grew. It was… fear. Cold, pathetic fear. I found a rip cord marked ‘In Case of Emergency,’ and I pulled. Growing was instinct at first. I could’ve stopped, when he was just outmatched. But then, I grew vindictively. I wanted him… inferior.”
I’m growing again, right now. Telling this story always makes me big. I feel stupid and awkward, the wrong shape. Paul doesn’t say anything, because what can you say?
Would it be a comfort if I told him he doesn’t need to speak? If I told him he’s already doing enough? I can feel his empathy and comfort, his righteous anger on my behalf. It helps.
I don’t tell him this. No one knows I’m strange like that yet. They have enough to accept.
Then like a recurring nightmare, Tyler is there. Behind Paul, two steps away at the bar. Getting in my space, my territory, when my friends aren’t around.
We all knew this was coming. Time to have it out.
But then I realize how weak this move is. He can’t even make himself look at me. I still see only the back of his tiny neck. He’s all bitter, acid adrenaline, with nothing behind it. The smell of it disgusts me.
“You’re really brave,” Paul is saying, and he’s rushing with adrenaline too. It’s the exact same molecule. So why do I find it so much sweeter coming from him? “What do you need right now?”
He doesn’t know Tyler is here, bless his little nose! I’m drawn in by his perfect ignorance, reflect myself in it, and suddenly it’s just the two of us again.
“It’s an old story,” I say, then decide to tell the truth. “At least, I want it to be. I want to tell a NEW story. Do you want to be in it?”
He takes my hand, using both of his, and nods. “I just, didn’t want you to think I was some kind of, like, giantess fanboy.”
“They aren’t as common as you think,” I lie.
Paul grins. He leans in closer. I lean too, until our foreheads almost touch. I’m growing, and I don’t fight it. I savor the effect it has on him, watch his skin flush, and his pupils dilate.
I show him my poker hand. I tell him, I know there’s chemistry. How I think he’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met. That I can’t stop thinking about him. How much thinking about him makes me grow. And why.
My lips are an inch from his ear, now. “What about you, Paul? What do YOU want? Can you use your words for me?”
I don’t add, ‘little man,’ but I mean it, and he hears it.
It turns out he CAN use his words. The man is an indecent little poet. I’m so wrapped up in his narrative, that I don’t notice we have a problem until it’s almost too late. This outfit is meant to handle a LITTLE growth? But this is excessive.
I explain the urgency of my problem, the only solution. He nods once, then leads me by the hand. The whole bar quakes. Glasses rattle. People get the hell out of our way. Our bodies are both screaming – words like HURRY and NOW. My dress is too tight to breathe, my toes pinched vice-like. Thankfully we don’t have far to go.
Past the velvet rope. I don’t have my VIP card but they see my expression, and don’t ask. They saved me the Big Room, GOD will I tip Guest Services. Through the door, on my knees, Paul behind me. Hands small and rough, wants to help me undress, but it’ll take too long, I must be twenty feet, growing so fast, I push him away, snarling like a wolf, practically tear my clothes off, turn to do the same to him, fuck I’m on fire, I need to –
The fear on his face hits me like a slap. He’s cowering by the door, hunched, making himself small. The fear, and worse, the SHAME of being afraid of me.
It was like this with Tyler.
And silently, I thank him. I thank Tyler, because whatever he gave me, and whatever he took, he taught me one lesson very well. I know what to do.
I show Paul the back of my neck.
I put my head to the floor, close my eyes. “Paul… this is who I am. This is the reality. I’m scary, sometimes, and I can’t change that. It’s okay, if you want to change your mind, about us. I promise not to think less of you. I mean it. No matter what you decide, I promise you’re safe with me. I’ll always keep you safe.”
I feel the spark of his lips on my neck. And he whispers my name.
I grow. I grow faster than I can ever remember growing.
I kiss him. His tiny lips, then his chest. When he embraces me, I kiss his whole body.
He undresses for me. My mouth explores him, chin almost on the floor, eyes level with his. My tongue rolls over him, soft when he needs it, firm when he can stand it. I close my lips, and suck so, so gently. He says my name again, and again, and again.
On my back I motion to him, then lay still, let him explore me. When he’s ready, I open the portal of my thighs, and invite him in. Someone helpfully turns up the music in a vain attempt to drown me out. I’m moaning his name. Then, I’m screaming it.
Afterward, I lick him clean. He’s ticklish, it turns out. I hold him.
The bar is less crowded when we return. After midnight club rules are lax on casual nudity, and anyway who would stop me? It smells different, now. Only happy chemicals. Even the least perceptive of them must sense my afterglow and relief. Or maybe there’s something about a smiling forty foot Goddess that puts everyone at ease.
I’m going to need to work some of this off, and the dance floor is the only place with ceilings high enough. Paul joins me. There isn’t enough room. Everyone packs close, dancing in the safe places beneath me. “I guess the party’s on me?” I say.
It’s a terrible joke, but people laugh. I laugh, too. This is my home, after all.
