I screamed for a long time. She let me.

Nora scooped me out of her bra, letting me tumble into her palm rather than picking at me. The difference between these two gestures is vast and I’ve since come to appreciate it. You don’t want a giantess plucking at your limbs, because if you’re stuck at all, your body will give and her fingers won’t even detect any resistance. I was sticky and overheated from being plastered to her enormous boob, sweltering even, but she patiently made space in her undergarment for me to slurp off and collapse into her waiting fingers, considerably chillier than her tit.

She grinned at me. Her cheekbones bulged and jutted around her thin, mauve lips. Dimples formed in either cheek, and her teeth, which looked small and stunted to me five minutes ago, were large, sharp tombstones in a tidy row. All she did was smile down at me, her head hanging over me with all the warmth and promise of a precarious and ponderous boulder. I wasn’t comforted by her smile at all. She grinned and shook her head at me, cooing and ahh-ing at me, and I screamed as soon as my breath returned to me. My body was tense… and nude. I became aware of my own nakedness, lying on the leathery cushions of her fingers and palm.

What happened to my clothes? She shrunk me, but how did she shrink me? And what happened to my clothes?

“There, there, my little pet,” she said softly. I could tell she was trying hard to keep her voice down. Maybe that was so no one would hear her, but even speaking quietly, she was terribly loud to me. “That’s good. Let it all out. I know this must be terribly confusing for you. You go ahead and sing for me, that’s a good pet.”

The absurdity of her words struck through my panic. “I’m not singing! I’m screaming! Help! Somebody!” I saw we were in my office, so I craned my head to the doorway and shrieked my head off. It was then I realized she’d shut the door behind her, and why wouldn’t she. Nora didn’t seem particularly troubled by my shouting, either, so I supposed I wasn’t very loud.

“What did you do to me?” I yelled up at her clownish, grinning visage. The question of what she did to me triggered the question of what happened to my clothes, so I covered my crotch with my hands. I must have blushed, because she aww-ed at me again and told me I was cute.

I persisted. “No, seriously, you lunatic witch, what did you do to me?”

Her fine eyebrows pushed together and her lower lip pushed out. “That’s no way to talk to your lover!” Her tone was only as sad as a caricature of sadness, and she tsk-tsk-ed me as well.

She wasn’t taking me seriously, that was clear. “Nora, goddamn it! Wake the fuck up! What have you done to me! This isn’t possible, you can’t shrink me down!” She laughed at that and I saw I was getting nowhere, so I decided to go somewhere. I rolled to my side, tucked my knees to my chest, and sprang out of her hand before she could react.

Very quickly I realized I hadn’t thought about where she was holding me. I went sailing over the edge of her palm—eliciting a satisfyingly panicked “Eep!” from her—and fell through the air. She took a swipe at me, I could feel the air breaking and rushing past my bare legs as she missed, and I slowly turned in my descent. The cold, simulated wood finish of my former desktop slammed into my back and knocked the air out of my lungs.

Nora laughed at me, a ringing, almost theatrical laughter. If we’d been at a cocktail party and she’d laughed like that at one of my jokes, I would’ve been pretty won over in that instant. In this situation, however, sprawling naked over a tiny fraction of my desk and gaping up at two pendulous, heaving breasts crowned by a broad, working jaw of flashing teeth, it was anything but merry. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted across the vinyl screenprinted wood grain, rapidly gaining my bearings as I fled. It was a good direction, away from the insane giantess, heading toward more open space. Hell, I could see the door, and if I survived the leap off the desk, there was every chance I could wedge under the doorway, were Marion used to slide thick job folders after I’d left for the night. Plenty of room. I just had to reach it.

But of course I couldn’t. It was nothing for this psychopathic giantess to slide her red-sweatered arms around me in a very generous circle. There was plenty of room in this enclosure, but her arms were unassailable walls. Her fingers laced together in an elaborate gate before me, secure as hell. Cursing, I planted my right leg before me and caromed sharply to the left. I had some good speed built up and could probably leap upon her forearm and scramble over in a flash.

No good: the gate unfolded and her hand hovered over her arm, just waiting to snatch me out of the air. In the corner of my vision, however, I spotted a gap in the fortification, a small triangle of open air between her arm and ribs. She was leaning against the desk but she wasn’t slumping at it, see, and there was an empty space beneath her shoulder. I sucked air down and turned my course a little farther, dodging her waiting hand and heading for her armpit.

My tiny footsteps on the vast, cool desk sounded ridiculous, but I had a new springiness at this size. I felt more fleet, more agile. Without wanting to get cocky, I grinned to myself as I neared the gap under her arm.

Looking at a giantess from my size, I never would have dreamed she could move so fast, of course. You look at a skyscraper, and try to imagine how it would move if it were animated. You wouldn’t associate it with speed and grace, would you? Hell, look at elephants. Look at whales. There’s no question they can get some good speed up, but not from a standstill.

Not true with giantesses, apparently. As soon as I made a beeline for her armpit, she shifted her body to block me. Not even a grunt on her part: she simply saw me and responded immediately. Unable to stop, I plowed straight into her left breast, hitting that mound of flesh with at least 12 miles per hour, from my perspective.

This was the one she had stored me in, before, in the kitchenette. I was wrapped around her bare breast when I heard her pulse quicken, when she lied to Marion about me going to the Lion’s Tap. Now I was on the outside of the padded and reinforced bra cup, outside of the red acrylic sweater that stretched over it. It was no less bouncy, even with all that on it, and my own velocity threw me backward and up a little bit. I flailed, grasping at the air, kicking at nothing, and fell to the desk with an awkward spill. I was disoriented, frustrated, frightened as hell, and I just lay there.

Didn’t matter. Nora clapped her palm upon me, lightly but firmly, to hold me in place while she cracked up. “Oh, you beautiful little man!” she chirped. “You beautiful, lovely, graceful little athlete!”

“Fuck you, don’t make fun of me.”

“Aw, don’t be mad! I’m serious! You looked so impressive just now!” All this, she coughed between fits of laughter. “You moved fast as the wind, and you changed direction like a snowshoe hare! It was amazing!” From beneath the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, I looked up at her. Her eyes were certainly lit up with wonder, and there was nothing mocking in her grin. “And your legs pumping… wow. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Are you really an athlete? You’ve got such good thighs.”

I told her I wasn’t an athlete. I ran on the weekends and cycled a bit, but she didn’t need to know that.

“And your little butt.” She’d stopped laughing. Her voice turned a little deeper, breathier. “You’ve got a cute little butt. I loved watching you… no, don’t turn away. It’s a compliment! You’ve got a firm, round little butt, just like I like it. Has anyone ever told you what a nice little tushie you have?” She leaned in closer, her breasts resting upon the desk and spreading, and she licked her lips. She told me she could just bite my little tushie, and I screamed and took a bite out of her fleshy webbing.

Tried to. I latched my jaws right onto one thin fold of milky skin, and I clamped my teeth as hard as I could, but it was like biting a dictionary, with a little more give. Nora didn’t appear to notice at all. She was muttering about my firm, well-defined calves, about my lean and shapely feet. I couldn’t move my arms or I would’ve pushed at her palm, not that that would’ve done any good.

“Look, just let me go, please,” I said as seriously as I could. “Just let me go, put me back at my regular height, however you wanna do that, and we’ll just forget about this. Seriously, I won’t call the cops or anything. They wouldn’t even believe this, would they.” I forced a laugh, trying to get her on my side.

It was the knock at the door that snapped her out of her spell. Three sharp raps, and the metallic sequence of gears in the doorknob. I never locked my door, and apparently it hadn’t occurred to Nora that all the doors weren’t self-locking. Marion stuck her head into the office with her classic look, the combination of friendliness and apology.

“Nora!” Her voice was musical, familiar, and welcome. “What are you doing in Alvin’s office?”

Her reply was instantaneous, not a moment’s pause, and her tone was bright and breezy. “I’m getting his stuff ready for the courier, remember?” In one vicious gesture, Nora’s fingers clamped around my entire body. I yelped as she squeezed all the air out of my body, unable to shout for Marion’s attention. The desk surface fled beneath me, and the lunatic thrust me between her thighs, jamming me between her legs through her skirt. Her thighs closed tightly, all-encompassingly around me, swaddling me in her cream skirt, natural fiber weave abrading my nude skin, and that was the end of it for me. I could hear Marion’s tone, muffled, inquiring; Nora’s voice was much louder. She strove for glibness, I heard her voice fluctuate from confusion to confidence to humor to concern, changing direction even more nimbly than I could in my new form.

For my part, I struggled where I lay. The coarse fabric scraped at me, but I fought for a little space, only to be met with the applied pressure of Nora’s inner thighs. Where her muscle couldn’t reach me, the thick sheathes of fat rose up and welled all around me. What’s more, there was a pungent and familiar musk down here, and in hindsight I came to realize that this whole ordeal was turning her on. She was insanely attracted to having a tiny little man in her possession, and she was even getting off on deceiving my former boss, in love with her own cleverness. Nora was fucking nuts, I concluded, and if I was going to survive this, it would take all of my wits.

The conversation dragged on and Nora forgot to maintain her stranglehold on me: when I felt the pressure of her thighs alleviate, I didn’t take advantage. I lay perfectly still, barely daring to breathe, and slowly keyed into the conversation those two were having.

“I called down to Lion’s Tap,” Marion said, “but I just got a recording. They don’t open for another half an hour.” I recognized that tone, but Nora, new to the office, wouldn’t: Marion knew exactly what the truth was but she was playing dumb. I’d seen her pull this dozens of times.

“Oh no, I hope he realizes that! What a horrible thing to have happen to you, right? Getting laid off from work, going out for a beer and the bar’s closed.” Nora tsk-tsk-ed at my former boss. “Misery piled upon misery. Maybe he went to Mikita’s?”

Rather than insist that I would never be caught dead in Mikita’s Pub, Marion made noises like her mind was being put at ease, told Nora how much sense that made. Then she changed gears and asked, “What’s that box of ibuprofen doing in here?”

Ibuprofen? I didn’t keep ibuprofen in my office.

“It was empty,” Nora said, “and I was going to recycle the box but I got distracted.”

Light was filling my little cavity, and I carefully turned my face up to watch the psycho spinning her lies. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see her expression, as it was on the other side of a bulging ridge of large breasts. I could feel her hips sway slightly as she gestured with her arms and hands, and I could see her belly move with her breaths. Sharp movements, right before she spoke each time, gasping for breath like she thought the previous line should have ended the conversation. Marion was making her nervous. Well, fucking good. I adored Marion now more than in the previous two-and-a-half years.

And Marion knew how to play her hand. Her voice took on affirming, satisfied noises and she wrapped up their chat in a couple lines. I could see Nora breathing easier, accepting this, believing it. I knew Marion better, and I tucked this information away as a potential resource, if I could ever escape this psycho’s clutches. I braced myself when I heard the solid oak door thunk into the jamb and latch shut again.

Nora’s massive thighs spread and I nearly bounced on her taut skirt. “That was a close one, wasn’t it!” She was all grins and giggles, scooping me off of her lap and then, terrifyingly, mashing me against her mouth. She puckered her lips, sure, making sharp, stabbing smooching noises and humming deafeningly through her nose. But she rammed me into her thin, muscular lips over and over again, seemingly unaware of my frail state, and there were several moments I was worried those lips would part, and those bright, stubby teeth would tear the muscle right off my bones, but it never happened.

Instead she tucked me right back in that goddamned bra, right up against her hot and flabby breast. For the next hour, I’m guessing what was an hour, Nora sang to herself and rifled through my possessions, packed them all into boxes while learning all about me. Once in a while she’d ask me a question, something pointed and specific, tacitly bragging about some new revelation she’d gleaned about my personal life. When she found my home address, she sang it to me victoriously. And all I could do was lie still, feeling her watery breast heave from side to side as she bustled about.

I didn’t have a plan. I had a potential ally in Marion, and that was fantastic, but I couldn’t figure out Nora’s insanity. I didn’t know how to appeal to her, I didn’t know where her weaknesses were. If I was going to get out of this, I had to learn about her quickly.

It made me sick to think about, but I’d have to pretend to like her, to be happy with this situation. I’d have to pretend to be into it. Not right away, she wouldn’t fall for that, but… damn it. I had to play a long game with this scary-ass witch, and it galled me, but it was my only chance.

This all depended on what she had in store for me, of course, and there was no way of knowing what that could be.