It’s here. The dream has arrived, drifting across the horizon, wrapping up at the end of my birthmonth. Here are the stories of GentleApril17.

You remember the diablerie of CruelJan17? A bunch of writers volunteered to write cruel-themed flash fiction; nearly a bunch of stories were submitted, then evaluated by the Twitter community of size-fetish interested parties. Now it’s Gentle’s turn.

I felt that quarterly writing contests might be in order, and my wonderful friend and twin-brain Undersquid volunteered to manage the next one, this one, Gentle April. See, no matter what I write, I love the idea of gentle giantess stories, even if that giantess is normal-sized and I’m tiny, as long as she’s doting on me and permitting me to love her as I can. And Undersquid is naturally a real-life gentle giantess: nobody trained her, nobody convinced or coerced her. She was born with the instinct to crave a tiny person. Now we’re fast friends, writing partners, co-conspirators in this fictional world that means so much to us. She sent out the solicitations, attracted 30 willing writers, and has been collecting their flash-fiction entries for the past four weeks.

When the sun rises tomorrow morning, it shall stroke its rose-tipped fingers over nearly 20 short stories depicting the love between a tiny person and a much larger person.

This is a personal thrill to me, to see so many writers putting their efforts to writing a theme of fiction that is straight up my alley. No: I am the alley. I am the space formed between the buildings, and now I’m full of a couple dozen stories.

It represents some real achievements. Many of these writers were pressed for time or burdened by unforeseen circumstances: nonetheless they persisted. A few had to bow out, and that’s unfortunate but understandable, too. Even I never expected 30 stories to materialize, fully formed and complete, upon my dining table.

I almost… didn’t produce anything. Imagine that.

If you read this blog, you’ll note my activity dropped off in April. That wasn’t time spent working on my story, for I had no ideas. I had no inspiration, no drive, no urge to produce size-fetish work for an entire month. Will May show anything different? We’ll see. But what happened?

I went to a national conference for editors, for my real-life professional career. I rubbed elbows with 600 introverted word-nerds, adults who had pursued their passion to a position of excellence. I was inspired by their careers and wanted to develop my own. During breaks I interviewed them, grilled them over lunch, learning what I could about how to expand professionally and make something of myself within this scene, the sphere of lexicographers and linguists. I returned to my regular life with inspiration and goals, to-do lists, and absolutely no desire to do anything size-fetish-related.

Really. It felt as though an organ had been removed. Browsing through my past entries, my series, engendered no instinct for momentum. My Twitter timeline was full of chatter about anime, video games, and pro-wrestling: it seemed as though no one was interested in gigantic women anymore. We’d all met under this banner, yes, but something had run its course. One person posted recipes; another one ran polls asking who still liked them. Still others dumped and hashed out their personal drama and trauma into the forum, trucking us as far from the commonality as possible without posting mailing addresses and social security numbers.

Where were the giantesses? Why was I still here? Did I even still have a place, had it all moved on without me? I was gone less than a week…

So here was April, and I was supposed to write a story for the informal competition. Actually, I was expected to walk away with an easy victory, a gimme. This was supposed to be my home turf. People asked me about the foregone conclusion that, in actuality, was as abstract and fanciful as the idea of an embrace with a woman even twice my size.

I had nothing. I was dry and empty. Dust and cobwebs in my corners.

My birthday came and went. I’m old, I got older. I partied with friends, I embarrassed myself with booze, I recovered and recuperated. I went back to work, set up meetings, gave presentations on the amazing wealth of information I’d gained access to.

I touched base with a couple giantesses, just checking in on them. We… were… all being crushed by life. None of us had much time to be around. None of us were thrilled with how things were evolving. We scraped for reasons to continue, urging each other on (but holding ourselves excepted) with “we do this for the love, for our passion.” Not for popularity, certainly not for a sustainable income.

Don’t laugh! That was part of the dream, if I’m completely honest!

…Okay, laugh a little.

So here was April, my time, my month. My preferred motif, and I had nothing for it. That was more than deflating. Weeks went by, and I wondered if I was going to drop out of my own contest. I don’t mean “my” contest in that I should win it, but that I created it. What if the person who invented poker gave up card games?

I angsted to my giantesses, who by dint of their girth and height had the stamina to weather my petty frustrations. They cupped me in their palms and whispered lullabies to bring me from a boil to a simmer. When I needed it, they cuffed me with an admonishing fingertip upside my head. They asked me what’s wrong, and I said I feel nothing, and they worried with me.

Then one day, I watched a woman dozing on the bus. She had full lips and long hair, and as her head nodded, I saw a tiny man scrambling over her left breast. He wrapped his fists in her long strands and slowly pulled himself up to her slack jaw. He hooked his arms over her fat bottom lip and hung there, awash in her sleepy breath, legs dangling over her chin. The motion of the bus jostled her head slightly, as he peered between shiny rows of sharpened ivory dismemberment, weighing his odds…

There. I had one story.

Then I was in a cafeteria and a woman slouched in her seat, dully pecking at keys on her laptop. Her pelvis slid forward on her chair, lean and muscular legs in futuristic yoga tights, and between her inner thighs fretted a tiny man. Her hips threatened to shove him off the seat, but if he grabbed onto her crotch to save his life, that might attract unwanted attention…

I doubled the stories in my head, just like that.

With three days left, I secured two straight hours to draw an outline and begin writing. Maybe I wasn’t exactly “back,” but I had material to work on. We’ll see whether May looks any better than April, but at least it’s not over.