And here is my rundown of SizeCon weekend! Go get yourself some snacks and something to drink, this is going to be pretty weighty. I’m publishing the copy first, but I’ll go back and add photos later. Some of the quotes are paraphrased to the best of my ability; pen names and handles are respected. If I get anyone’s pronouns wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Because it doesn’t just start at the weekend: for two months prior, when I should’ve been getting materials ready to sell, I was locked up with terrible writer’s block. My lovely wife brainstormed alternate ideas with me, and while I didn’t act on her stickers idea, I did start designing writer’s notebooks. I used to sell these on the Moleskine website, where I’d buy a pack of medium cahiers, decorate them with fancy papers and collage work, maybe some tasteful stamps and lettering. I did something similar with these, digging out my old Print Gocco and drawing up an image to be printed on the covers. My wife heard about a tent sale at a used book store, so we drove out and I plundered their collection of women’s fitness magazines for any suggestive images I could clip out and recombine. Then in chatting with a coworker, she gave me the idea of promo codes for the stories I sell on Smashwords, and I wrote these up on a small stack of business cards the night before flying out. Half the notebooks had tips for inspiration for writers in the back cover, and I wrote those up in the hotel room after I arrived. That is what I knocked out in four days, rather than writing SizeCon-exclusive stories in the two months prior.

Friday

Friday came and I got reasonable sleep, woke up at my regular hour, grabbed all the bags I’d packed the night before, and called Lyft to hustle me out to the airport. Once there, I easily figured out how to print my gate pass and struggled to figure out how to get to security—the MSP Int’l Airport has been rearranged in recent years, and I just don’t fly out that much. Fate smiled upon me as a few of us were redirected into a shorter line that happened to be a much less diligent screening: kept my shoes and belt on, didn’t take out my electronics, just walked on through without a hitch and found a place to grab a nice, hot breakfast before flying out.

Another break: I was assigned a seat at the gate, and it turned out to be in an exit row! I got extra leg room, my backpack (filled with books, journals, and four days’ clothes) fit easily into the overhead bin, and my satchel of more books, phone and headphones, power bank, and other crap had plenty of room beneath the seat ahead of me. So I just played a word-scramble game on the LCD screen before me, had another coffee when it was offered, and soon enough I found myself in LaGuardia.

It was a hot day, and the place was surrounded by construction. It had been last year, too, but for last year’s SizeCon I’d been able to pick my way through it and walk to the Courtyard LaGuardia Marriott. This year there was no passage through on foot. I called the hotel for a shuttle, but they put me on hold for ten minutes and I gave up. Some construction guards suggested I take a Purple Route bus, and I figured what the hell, I’d track where we were going on GPS and see how close I could get. Very damned close, as it turned out, and I followed Google Maps’ instruction to the new location of the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott. Very nice place, though also still under construction.

That was when the weekend truly started for me, because that’s when I met Taedis. We shared a room for the weekend, and you couldn’t ask for a more thoughtful, amenable roommate. I unwrapped my books—the compilation of short stories from last year, We Come from Somewhere This Was Real—and journals, he showed me his inventory. I think I got first crack and what he was selling! We both needed lunch, so he followed me to where Google Maps swore a Five Guys existed, but it didn’t, so we walked down to Astoria Blvd and found a great taqueria instead. I’ve come to enjoy Jackson Heights for many reasons, and I have especial affection for Astoria Blvd, the main drag, laden with the authentic and inexpensive hole-in-the-wall multinational dining I favor. You just can’t go wrong there, in my experience.

People started hauling gear around, we discovered upon our return. I worked with MaxGrowth (who recognized me immediately from last year!) to help Praedatorius unload and store his gear; Gomaironin explained which room the vendors were using and what the layout would be. I spotted a beautiful young woman parked by the Dealer’s Room, writing assiduously in a notebook and guarding boxes of costumes and supplies. I wouldn’t figure out who she was until later. Taedis set up his table but my equipment was so sparse I saved it to the next morning. In fact, I missed out on the first meeting of the convention because I had a dinner date with a friend in the area.

We met at an Irish pub in the heart of Jackson Heights for a few beers, then picked up a six-pack of toasted lager at a bodega and brought this to Phayul, a very small Tibetan restaurant. It doesn’t look like much from ground-level: you take a staircase between unrelated storefronts, like you’re going up to an apartment, and then you find yourself in a bustling and crowded little kitchen. We found a table that was about to clear, staked our claim, and wedged ourselves into the little seats. The beer came in handy, as we were perched by the exhaust ports for the ovens, and we cooled down until our food came. I do mean “until” because we ordered it spicy, and they did not skint. Amazing lhasa liang, delightful beef momos, and chicken and onions swimming in a garlic bath. They had some kind of new hot sauce I’d never seen before, a scrim of volatile red fluid floating on an earthier, light brown liquid, and once I tasted it I put it on everything. Then a long walk in the rain through fascinating and busy neighborhoods until we got to Woodside and a small brewpub she knew of, Solid State. We got a few more beers and then decided we were both really tired, and we were shocked and dismayed to discover it was only 9:30 p.m. (or 8:30 p.m. to my body clock!). But the body wants what it wants, and we wanted to sleep. She kept me company until my Lyft hustled me back to the Marriott. I thought it wise to check in on the dealer’s room once more.

There were Taedis and Miss Kaneda, set up and lounging around. There was no way I could go to bed now, so I pulled up a chair and got caught up with them. That was when Gomai swooped in and descended upon us, pulled up the weekend’s schedule on his laptop, and asked us which panels we’d love to moderate or facilitate. Taedis took up quite a load of events, actually, all in high spirits and wanting to help out wherever he could. Not to be outdone, I volunteered for one, trusting that whatever was required of me would be made clear in the course of time.

But people were still turning up, even at 11 p.m., and that’s when we met the force of nature that is Miles Striker. He commands attention just by his presence, just by how he stands and the tone of his voice. He’d added me on Twitter right before the convention—we were both rolled into a promo by SizeCon—and I didn’t know who he was. I was interested to learn he’s a giant model for videos, because you really don’t hear a lot about that. As he’d shown up in BDU shorts and a brown T-shirt, I had to ask whether he was prior service, and we Army-bonded for a minute. I like an opportunity to lapse into veteran-speak and download information quickly.

We also learned that some people wouldn’t be able to make it, due to thunderstorms, and flights being delayed and canceled in Florida. It was truly saddening to learn that Bratty Foot Girls and Raquel Roper wouldn’t be able to attend: the next available flights would be Sunday, and that’s just not enough time to merit the trip. I’d met Raquel at the second SizeCon and started an interview with her, until Hurricane Irma swept through and it just didn’t feel right to pester her with questions while she was scrambling to evacuate and recover her life. As for Bratty Foot Girls, I’d met them when I didn’t know who they were, and after a year of chatting on social media I was looking forward to talking with them in person. It wasn’t meant to be, as it played out.

And then it was time for bed, which I went to far too late, so I was going to need a better coffee than the hotel could provide in the morning.

Saturday

It looked like the hotel didn’t have a bar or a restaurant, due to the aforementioned construction. I didn’t care, because I’d gotten burned on their buffet breakfast the year before ($17 for a scoop of powdered scrambled eggs and limp potato slices? Suck my left one!) and had no intention to throw any more money at them than was strictly necessary. And so it was that I relied on Google Maps to not fuck me over and lead me directly to Dunkin’ Donuts, which it very ably did, and I got my huge-ass coffee and a breakfast sandwich and a couple fanciful doughnuts though I do not need the carbs, and I showed up only a little late to my own table and started business.

The first event of my Saturday was meeting the legend that is Giantess Katelyn. No, I’m not exaggerating: in a genre of fiercely siloed tastes, she has been an enthusiastic and joyous powerhouse of production and imagination. She produces hundreds of videos that honor the multifarious aspects of the size-fantasy genre. Dozens of Photoshop artists have integrated her poses into images of widespread destruction. Viewers of her videos have gone down her throat—indeed, have been ground, mashed, or thrust into all of her orifices. Some of us skirt around being identified with giantess/shrink porn, using cartoon icons or fragments of our bodies in photos, but Katelyn has thrown herself fully and without reservation into this genre. You see her face, you know her name, and this was who I met Saturday morning.

I don’t know if I can apologize for my fangirling. I mean, it’s a genuine emotion! I was standing before someone who, in my worldview, is a fucking legend. I know it makes people uncomfortable when you react like that, because you don’t know who’s a stalker and who’s seriously unhinged (a very real threat in the world of porn), but I also believe in not dampening my emotional sincerity. Without wanting to be too creepy, I expressed and emphasized how happy I was to see her.

She examined my booth and found the Pocket Me statuette of myself. Without a moment’s hesitation she scooped “me” up in her fist and posed for a very gratifying image. And there I was, clutched in the manicured fist of one of the most prominent figures in the Giantess scene. As early as Saturday Morning, this weekend was shaping up to be one of my best in memory. Poor Taedis and Kaneda, having to listen to me babble and recover my vocabulary… well, it wouldn’t be the only time this weekend, and that’s what we writers call foreshadowing.

I gave Katelyn a signed copy of one of my books, and she was more than gracious. “I’ve been meaning to get into reading more!” she enthused, citing the breadth of talented and impassioned writers in our scene. In my signature I thanked her for everything she does, for she has truly given as much of herself as anyone can, and then she gave me an autographed photo of herself. Now, it bugs me when fans meet an adult video actor and go on and on about what a sweet person they are, how genuinely kind and thoughtful they are, as though their working premise is “despite being a porn star, they are still somehow human,” but I was impressed with receiving Katelyn’s generosity. She didn’t have to front me a photo, in response to receiving a tribute from a fan, but she did it anyway. That was very cool, and I like her that much more for it.

Some time later in the weekend, I disremember when, I sauntered over to her table during a rare slow moment and played for her my shrunken man song. My phone’s speaker was shitty, and the room was not quiet, but she was very patient and listened to the whole thing. It was around this time, regardless, I decided I’d better chill and mind my own business for a while. I didn’t want to become someone else’s dark moment in an otherwise positive weekend.

I sat back at my table and watched the patrons go by, and I flagged down an interesting-looking couple. This turned out to be Seth and Bianca, themselves checking things out at a leisurely pace. SizeCon isn’t something you rush into, you savor it, take your time, take it all in and then do it again. They asked me about my work and I talked about the online forums I’m on, places I store my work, &c. Seth asked if I knew about Coiled Fist, and I said I did but didn’t feel my work would find a home there, conflicting themes and all. He actually took the time to explain what’s up and encouraged me to give it a chance, look around, figure it out. I appreciated that, and fortunately he had business cards on him besides his name badge. See? Connections being made at SizeCon.

During a lull in the first day’s action I made the rounds, greeted my friend Kreeyz, capping off his American vacation with SizeCon. I’d seen Taedis and Miss Kaneda playing the 2D side-scroller he’d designed, but I’d never seen the game itself. He sat me down and ran me through it for a while, and I was blown away by its gorgeousness. The shading and colors lent so much to the detail, it was beautiful to watch. This labor of love has taken him a long time to build, and it’s not complete, he claims, but it is a masterwork.

I walked over to Gary Pranzo’s booth. I met the famous DIY giantess video producer last year, where he suggested he’d heard of me (and once again, I nearly lost my composure). This year he was featuring a setup of 360° goggles paired with headphones, with a goodly selection of shrunken man POV videos to experience. He asked me what I was into, and I had the wherewithal to suggest “mouthplay.” He loaded up a teasing vore video in which a tiny man is passed between two lovely women on a couch, who take turns teasing and threatening their prey with lips, tongues, and jaws. I found myself hovering before the face of a clearly malicious woman, delighting in my predicament, who repeatedly thrust her face at me, smooching me or feinting with her glistening incisors. When she seemed to step back from the action, I swung my head around and found a shyer, less confident giantess trying things out with me, unfurling her bed-sized tongue and lapping at me.

This went on for quite a long time. I was surprised how generous the video was, how long the two women could pass me back and forth, how long they deigned to tease me  before finally tossing me down a throat and blackness consumed me. Gary enthusiastically showed me how to tilt my head/viewer to call up the menu and select another video, but he couldn’t know how overwhelmed I was. He might have figured this out when I dislodged the sweaty head-mounted goggles and handed them back.

What I went through, I’m struggling to describe. It’s not that I was catapulted into a state of raging arousal, even though these were beautiful women and their actions met my appetite. But my heart was hammering in my chest and my pulse was barreling down the highway because of something else, a neighbor to arousal. I was in the experience, and it connected with my psyche: I was in a woman’s fist, and she was having her way with me orally. I was watching it happen. It wasn’t a flat monitor or a high-resolution image. I was there, it was happening to me. I darted my glance back and forth frenetically, defensively, trying to catch one giant woman or another in the act of swinging me into her sensual mouth. There were actually giantesses there, flanking me, and everywhere I turned my head, they commanded my horizon.

It spoke to something primal in me, I think. It touched on the thrill of seeing a much larger predator come very close to you, like feeling the life force radiating off an elephant or a blue whale. The video had transcended mere masturbation and ventured into being truly overwhelming. Gary really wanted me to call up another video and show off his oeuvre, but in that moment I needed to sit down and catch my breath, lower my core temperature, and somehow begin to process the amazing experience I had been thrust into, living and whole. I praised him for the experience, but he was modest and dismissive: the real action, he insisted, was in 3D 360° video, that’s where he wanted to go. And that’s the Gary Pranzo I met last year: not content to rest on his laurels, always plotting to get around the next obstacle, eyes set on ever-distant horizons.

I paid a visit to CaptainRand’s table, with his vast spread of glossy prints of enormous women and tiny people. Fluid in Photoshop, he composed a custom image for me while I sat there, and then walked me through a new process of pasting a video clip upon another. That is, someone had filmed a guy miming the process of climbing something, and then Rand isolated that image and applied it to the close-up of a woman’s hip, and it wasn’t a perfect process but it really looked like a tiny man scaling her hip! I was tickled by the notion.

I spotted that attractive young woman from Friday night, usually surrounded by a shifting, cloud-like shell of admirers and admin. There would be no opportunity to just stumble over and casually introduce myself: I would have had to assail the electrons and I couldn’t very well do that without a compelling reason to attempt a connection. As it was, she was pretty and I was succumbing to biological imperative, and when I framed it like that I became irritated with myself and intentionally fucked off, doubled-down on greeting wanderers by my booth.

Or not: there was a very tall woman there who strode by mightily, silent as a cumulus, grinning vaguely at the booths as she passed. I saw her last year, too, and she didn’t say anything then either. Several times I’d lean over my table, smiling, overtly making eye contact, trying to greet her or ask her how her weekend is. The only thing I ever got out of her was a slight shift in her grin before she turned away and walked off. So I have no idea who she is or what her role is there, and perhaps I never will.

I walked over to Pythonpie’s booth, drawn to an incredible array of handcrafted miniatures, little labeled bottles, wands, and many other things. They told me this is what they do in real life, props for theater, and I was very excited to see such crossover with the handicraft between worlds. Enviable skills all around.

Prior to this weekend I hadn’t heard of Dinner-Kun, I don’t think, but I introduced myself and we had a nice chat. I resolved to find him online when I went home, and I’ve enjoyed his DeviantArt gallery. I passed, but did not get a chance to meet, Featherpantsd, but she is also a fantastic artist I’ve been following quietly.

Lunchtime came and went, but what can vendors do when they need to staff their tables? Taedis and Kaneda and I went in on a pizza, gambling on one of the several names the Marriott’s front desk proffered, and I think it wasn’t bad when it finally showed up. But I remember being very happy about sitting on the “Writers’ Row” with my friends. Now, I’d paid for a full booth and had planned to share it with a friend who, it happened, was unable to make it, and then someone else stepped up and offered to fill it out but they bailed, so I had a whole table to myself. Next year, I would really like one of my size-fantasy writer friends who couldn’t make it this year (*ahem* Nyx and JDO) to fill that space, and then we could command a full row of we several writers who’ve met and bonded over Twitter.

Everyone’s friendly and open at SizeCon, or they say they are, but there are some people it’s very difficult to meet. It’s true. There are people I saw last year and couldn’t get eye contact or a “hello” out of them for love or money, and it didn’t improve when I saw them this year. I mean, sure, some people are shy, and other people just glance at you and decide, on the spot, you have nothing to offer them. Or I don’t know what’s going through their minds, as they drift by my booth and I smile at them, raising a solicitous eyebrow, and they half-grin vaguely (if that much) and wander away. My thinking is, we’re all here for the same reason. We should at least be civil with each other. I’m curious about other people, why aren’t they curious about me?

But where I failed in extracting conversation with the illustrators and artists, I succeeded in meeting several cool people for whom this weekend was their first SizeCon experience. I know I’m going to neglect to mention a few people, and I deeply regret my thoughtlessness, but here is who I have record of. As people passed by my booth, I met Chrlorez, Angered-Icon, Loner2000, and Schretz. They asked me what I was about, and I got to practice my elevator speech: I mainly write about tiny people and how they engage with the normal-sized world. Sometimes I write about giantesses; more often I write about sex. That’s the thing with an elevator speech, you’ve got to be succinct. And, you know, that was enough for them: I sold all my books on Saturday morning, and I handed out a few business cards with promo codes for free stories on my Smashwords account. And I listened to them, asked what they thought of the weekend, where their interests lie, what they’re hoping to see, etc. It was really great to talk with them, it was energizing to meet more people who share this interest and have a relaxed conversation about it.

And then I reconnected with several personages in the size scene! It was a delight to see The Reducer every time he swung by our tables. He’s just a fun guy to chat with. I thought he was messing with me at one point, when he approached my booth and asked if I’d heard of “Aborigen.” Going along with what I took to be a joke, I said that he’d been arrested and escorted off the premises. The Reducer looked surprised and asked what happened.

“He walked into the room, totally naked, his dick in his hand and shouting, ‘You wanna buy a duck?!'”

“Ah, well, that’d do it,” he said. “Seemed like a nice guy online.” It was maybe an hour later he came back, rolling his eyes, pointing out my sign and my stack of books and absolutely flummoxed as to his little brain fart. That gave us something to talk about any time he stopped by after that, at least.

I was privileged to meet, in person, GP Ellison and his lovely wife! There’s a special satisfaction to be had in meeting someone who’s famous and established in our scene, getting to look them in the eye, shake their hand, and sincerely express how nice it is to meet them. This was a good weekend for that, meeting these people I knew of, putting faces to names, all of it getting a little more real. I ran into JitenshaSW who was happy to see me again but was in the middle of something but would connect with me later.

I reveled in our little writer’s row: me with the double-wide, Taedis and Miss Kaneda, and Scidram right around the corner. I met him last year, when we’d sat on the Writers Panel, and was cheered to see him again this year. It was a disappointment to note the absence of Cezar Nix, due to inclement weather again, as I wanted to explain to him what a fun night I’d had of drinking a tall beer, smoking a cigar, and reading his book Small Print, vol. 1 in my back yard. Scidram had an even larger print library available for sale this year, an impressive array across his booth.

Any time I had to go anywhere, I also had to scoop up my precious belongings and hide them or bring them with me. Not that I thought there were roving thieves on the grounds, but simply to appease my paranoia. I brought a power pack to supplement my all-too-failing smartphone battery, and some people thought my little figurines were up for sale. Oh my gods, no: do you know how hard it was to find them? But right after lunch it came time for me to pack it all up and head out to the Writers Panel.

Taedis courageously offered to moderate this session. Last year it was Gomai at the helm, and he did a great job of making sure everyone got equal time, steering away from a “look at me” monologue and picking out the quiet types. With a gentle yet firm hand, Taedis no less satisfied this role and went up and down the row of writers, as we addressed pertinent topics for beginners and people struggling in the craft. For example, I gave a short talk about how to dismiss useless critique (“I’m not into this”) and build up a support network of fellow writers and beta-readers, the importance of self-care as a writer and editor, learning to value yourself and your time, to respect your limitations. Taedis ran through the other panelists:

• Anoka, freelance commissions and giant males
• The Reducer, how to get started in writing and how to keep positive
• Scidram, shrunken women, how to make scenes feel real
• Praedatorius, motivation, understanding and talking about your desires
• Bonebell, who… sat in the front row… and shared his experience?

After this rundown and some cross-talk, we fielded questions from the audience. It was a great session, and I was honored to once again have been invited to participate in it.

Taedis: If any of you have any questions, well, it’s going to be a long ‘Con and we’ll be here.

Aborigen: That’s right, we’re here for the long con.

I facilitated one of the social hours, Hungry Hunnies, a roundtable conversation about giantess vore. Having learned from other moderators’ experiences, I watched my timer app to try to give everyone enough time to speak.

And everyone quite literally brought something to the table. We talked about the gentle side, mouthplay and partial vore; we discussed violent vore, from swallowing a tiny person whole to mashing them up between teeth. We talked about the point of view and perspective, people who wish to be the tiny person getting swallowed (or mangled), people who only desire to witness this happening to someone else, and people who want to be the giant sucking down the tiny, struggling figure.

Motivations were as varied as the scenarios, from experiencing one final, ultimate orgasmic rush to craving the abnegation of the self and surrendering to the greatness of the consumer. I found Happyguy729  there and got a chance to talk to him later: I’d met him online when he joined my Size Riot writing contest, and I was pleased to meet him in person.

Bianca Baker shared her insight as a dominatrix and a fetish video producer/actor, offering a perspective not many of us had. One participant lamented being unable to find vore material where the victim is really being violently torn up and burst, and another person had some specific artists to refer them to. I was excited to see the sharing of subcultural capital, people getting their questions answered. One man took the opportunity to reflect on how long he’d been holding his interests secret and how great it was to finally open up and speak candidly about them, and he had a lot of questions for Bianca.

That evening I attended the Silver Social, which I guess is in reference to the hair color of elderly people. Not the Silver Age of the internet, since the discussion was meant to be about how fans of growth/shrink shared stories and images prior to the internet. Entering the meeting room, however, I found four people hanging out at three separate tables (one sat on the floor). I pulled up my own chair, acknowledged the others, and waited. The man on the floor got up and left.

“Does anyone know who’s in charge of this?” I asked the room at large. No one did, so I trotted out and found Gomai, only a little frantic and wild-eyed. “Hey,” I asked as casually as possible, “does the Silver Social happen to have, you know, a facilitator?”

He asked me how much I’d love to do that.

The other three men joined me at one table and we began to tell our tales, which I won’t recount here because you should’ve been there. One guy talked about driving around with a hard drive loaded with TXT files and images, physically traveling to other fans’ homes and plugging his drive into their computer to share files, because this was faster and more reliable than FTP. The artist Larry Philby flexed his raconteur muscles and related his own experiences, culminating in happening to be at the right place and the right time, picking up the right magazine and finding an ad that asked, “Are you into giant men?” Then he indulged in a little geekery over pipe organs with the first gentleman. As I hadn’t really created any giantess material prior to the internet, and I’d had no idea how to begin to even look for it (beyond VHS copies of Village of the Giants and Boccaccio ’70), I could only talk about my early fantasies and my first web search. One man took the opportunity to reflect on how long he’d been holding his interests secret and how great it was to finally open up and speak candidly about them.

At the end of the evening, I’d sold all my remaining copies of We Come from Somewhere This Was Real and most of my journals, so my Sunday was going to be mostly chatting and shopping for other goods, I figured. I went in on another pizza with Miss Kaneda and Taedis and called it a night.

SUNDAY

This morning, there was no question I was running straight out to Dunkin’ Donuts. It was a brisk 20-minute walk, there and back, with nearly no waiting, and I’d waken up in plenty of time to set up my booth and greet the day. Taedis came with me, because who doesn’t want to hit DD, and we chatted about literary influences and what we were hoping to achieve in our careers. He picked up a big box of doughnuts, because he’s a real mensch, and we headed back to the convention.

But the first order of business? The Giantess & Tiny Men Social, at 9 a.m. sharp! I had been tergiversating on attending, but Miss Kaneda insisted, and she’s kinda tall and wears these boots, see, so we went. And it was a good time! Lots of people were there, all sharing their experiences with why they’re attracted to gigantic women or eensy-weensy li’l men, what it means to them to be a gigantic woman or an eensy-weensy li’l man, so on and so forth. It was a pretty popular social hour, so the facilitator had his hands full, trying to make sure there was enough time to go around the room and let everyone weigh in. Giantess Katelyn was there, and though I showed up late I got to listen to her talk about her perspective and interests in producing videos and working with artists and writers to pursue her dream. One man took the opportunity to reflect on how long he’d been holding his interests secret and how great it was to finally open up and speak candidly about them, and he had a lot of questions for Katelyn.

When it got to me… it’s strange, but I flubbed it. I talked about one aspect of lusting giantesses, something that was true many years ago but less so now. I tried to amend that but almost immediately derailed my train of thought. I didn’t represent myself well, going off on a tangent about the writing contests and illustration and music I do, and I don’t know if my point was that I was trying to create a world where this was real, but I was surprised at myself and shut myself up. I don’t need a lot of attention, but it sure sounded like it in that moment.

Back to my booth. More glad-handing on my part, more greeting the newbies and making them feel welcome. I handed out some more business cards with promo codes, but as of this writing (five weeks later) I don’t think anyone has claimed them. I was grateful for the large DD coffee, at least, because the hotel wasn’t serving any and not only do I usually need a cup each morning, my engine was running high this weekend and taking a lot of energy out of me. I was reliant on caffeine to keep me pleasant and social, where otherwise I was feeling myself stretched a little thin. It’s just all the reaching out and thinking of things to say and trying to be friendly and gregarious in the face of shyness and shame. It costs a lot, emotionally, to keep this up when one isn’t used to doing it: for my job, I just sit in a little cinder block cell and correct people’s writing, and I can go entire days without speaking to another person. Now, however, I was all “heyhowzitgoingnicetomeetcha” and “BUY MY NOTEBOOK.” But it’s recharging to relax with friends, and sometimes I snuck up to my room and stretched out on the bed and held very still for a while, and the rest of the time there was my large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

When I perceived that traffic around Katelyn’s booth had died down, I asked what the situation was on requesting a collage image with her. She was working with M31 on these, sitting right next to him and all, and she said she’d sort it out. Sometime later, M31 found me and said he’d gotten a nice shot of Katelyn, per my specifications, and was I free to pose for my part of the picture. We trotted out to the hallway, I looked at the images he’d taken, and I arranged myself appropriately for a couple pictures. Some time after that, he surprised me with a fucking fantastic collage of this famous giantess getting ready to finish me off in one or two bites.

Decided to make the rounds and visit more people. Benjamin Boston surprised me with a hug: I’ve been so impressed with his distinctive style of giantess artwork, but I didn’t really get to chat him at SizeCon 2017, yet this year he leaped out of his chair, yelled, “It’s you!” and declared I could give him a hug. He got to experience my spine-popping technique, I’m afraid, which alarms people but they also kinda like it.

I picked up Scidram’s How the Chips May Fall to go with Short Time, purchased at the previous SizeCon. I also got a signed copy of Anoka’s Small Wonders, which I like to pull out and read on the bus to see if anyone’s paying attention. You know, a lurking size fetishist who glances and glances again at the cover, estimating how safe it is to out themselves to me (kidding, that never happens). These are thoughtful, affectionate size-fantasy tales, and I’m taking my time in reading them. These books bulked up my size-fantasy hardcopy library, along with several of Taedis’s titles (my entire Miss Kaneda collection is exclusively digital). As well, I snagged one of Larry Philby’s illustrations, partly to have a document of his work, and partly because it was snow-themed and I live in Minnesota and what else could I do.

I ran into Jitensha who was happy to see me again but was in the middle of something but would connect with me later. I had something to share with Gomai, but people kept needing his attention and after the fourth interruption I let him get back to his duties. Somehow there was another box of doughnuts at our Writers’ Row. I was trying to avoid these because I really don’t need the empty carbs, but enemy action was afoot and I had one. Or two.

M31—a more accessible Zach Galifianakis with a camera—stopped by my booth and asked if he could borrow some of my figurines for a photo shoot. Let me explain where these came from.

Several years ago, one of the main streets in my city was torn up for improvements and upgrade, and while that was great in the near future, at the time it was devastating for local businesses. I mean, you’ve got to bite the bullet and do this hard work, and the city at least secured safe passage for foot traffic, but the fact was that some small indie shops relied on motorists and parking. One of these was Heavenly Soles, a magnificent shoe store with just the most interesting selection of Docs, Fluevogs, everything, but they also offered shelves of quirky knick-knacks and fun stuff. The store held a going-out-of-business sale, inevitably, and my wife and I swept in like vultures to get the good bits. I scored 50% off a pair of Frye Harness 8R boots, but I also found this pack of little terrified people. They were modeled after extras in your standard, bookend ’60s horror movie, running away, rearing in terror, frozen in shock, &c. They’re “collectible” and expensive now, but back then no one knew what they were and I got them for a few bucks, because I saw their potential for my size-fantasy purposes. Much later I found a second set, one of tiny paparazzi and fans, and I had to grab that as well. I brought a couple of them with me for last year’s SizeCon and all of them with me for this trip. This is what M31 asked to borrow, so I put my booth on pause (not much action the second day, just glad-handing and promotion) and followed him to the room with the green screen.

This was my first time in the photo room. On my left as I entered, a small group of people played video games; in the middle of the room was a table with size props, oversized silverware, a huge pencil, other things. Beyond that was a vast sweeping curtain of bright green, surrounded by hotel chairs, and this has been a playground for attendees who model and pose and get done up in Photoshop right on the premises. It’s awesome. I missed out on it last year, and while I didn’t get pictures of myself here this year, I did participate in M31’s shoot.

With the lovely woman parked by the entrance on Friday night.

The one perpetually encased in admirers.

Her name’s Koa and she’s a model with MaxGrowth Productions, and I guess she was at last year’s ‘Con too. Well, I’m very attentive but not perfectly and somehow missed that. My muscles went rigid and I forced myself to inhale and grin in a calming and not-at-all hysterical manner. The air around me turned into a bedding of thin glass spheres that I might break if I moved false. I strode carefully and followed the two of them into the room and listened carefully to everything they said.

M31 arrayed the figurines around Koa where she stood, knelt, lay down. They charmed her with their novelty and expressions: she threatened them, trapped them beneath her, balanced them upon her as M31’s camera clicked constantly. Now I was even afraid to breathe, balanced between being as unobtrusive as possible and witnessing this spectacle, versus reading the situation and waiting for an opportunity to interact, if possible.

Even if I were mute witness, that would have been fine and more than enough. Koa brought tiny figures up to her sharp eyes, clutched in her fist. Would she kiss them? Devour them? Crush them flat? Despite her later denial, she aptly improvised the quintessential positions of a giantess, doing everything right, coming up with great new ideas. I wondered if I would pass out: I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And what I was seeing was that I wanted to be every tiny person she grabbed and did those things to.

Then, as she loomed on all fours above the tiny people, her brown eyes swept over the crowd and paused on one figure in particular. “What is that? It looks like you.”

And then this lovely giantess trained her eyes upon me, reached into the crowd with one slim hand, wrapped her fingers around my entire body and plucked me away for her possession. Besides the badly painted, injection-molded figurines, I had also brought my 3D-printed sandstone statuette of me, grinning like a dope, hands hooked in my pockets. And, just like in my heart’s dream of giantess fantasy, this was who the giantess Koa had picked out and claimed among all others.

Seriously, that’s one of my earliest and dearest dreams, being picked out and taken by a giantess. I can’t adequately relate to you what it meant to me to see it enacted, all on its own, no prompting from me. But it didn’t stop there. Koa stretched out and attempted to balance me on her butt, but it was too round and too jiggly, and I’m afraid I lost my footing, rolled down her curve, and dropped between her thighs. She apologized, but my voice had left me and I had no way to explain that nothing adverse had occurred.

It went on from there. She scooped me in her tender palm and cradled me into her chest. She knelt above me, her powerful thighs enclosing me in a massive grotto. This lovely giantess raised me to her face, peering at me curiously, then brushed me over her soft, pink lips. She set me upon the floor and arranged herself almost in a crab-walk position, slowly lowering her butt upon me. “How fragile is this?” she asked. “I don’t want to break it.”

I’m not sure I said anything; if I spoke, I can’t recall it. I was figuring the replacement cost (cheap, compared to what I was experiencing) and mentally urged her to shatter me into a thousand pieces.

Well. After that, I was beside myself. My heart was racing and my mind was flying over the moon. I could barely process the miracle I’d just witnessed. How would you cope? How would you deal with it, if you watched your literal heart’s desire, your lifelong dream as intense as it was physically impossible, enacted right before your stupid face? How could you even?

Reader, I couldn’t even. If I spoke, I havered. If I breathed, I gasped and panted. It’s to my credit that I did not stumble over my own feet and crack my skull on the corner of a table, honestly, as I was barely in command of my limbs. From then on, any time I saw Koa, I would completely lose my cool and babble about what an important thing she had done for me, and she would giggle and blush and check the exits. No, I’m kidding about that last part: she may have been overwhelmed by my enthusiasm—many people are, when I get going—but she was delighted and gracious and gave me a big hug.

As the rest of the world came back into view, I noticed Scidram had been perched nearby and now proffered an enormous model of a Bic ballpoint pen. At his direction I held it aloft and brought it down upon Koa’s chest: as I am to giantesses, so is he to tiny women. Koa said, “Harder, really push me,” and I nudged the massive pen into her. I tried to hold it at an angle I thought would’ve been believable after the Photoshop treatment, you know, how a giant hand really would have positioned it. We ran through a few poses while Scidram similarly had his breath and speech taken away. It’s safe to say Koa has built up some ardent fans this weekend.

Somehow I ended up back at my booth, feverishly rambling to poor Taedis and Miss Kaneda, who could only stare as I expended vast reserves of nervous energy and struggled with my vocabulary. Mr. MaxGrowth himself was tickled with my elation, claiming the entire weekend was worth it just for my goofy leer of a smile. For that matter, I was a veritable Ancient Mariner, grabbing strangers by the labels and screaming my impossible tale into their confused and frightened countenances. “There was a giantess,” I bayed, as they mewled about commissions or stickers or finding the bathroom. Captain Rand was there with a quickness, offering to fill in the green screen portions for a complete composite image. I’ve yet to take him up on that because one thing I do start promptly is my procrastination.

Now, if you’ve read other accounts of SizeCon 2018, you’ve likely heard stories about a visit from the cops. I don’t know all of what happened, other people were better witnesses who were around at the right time. This was my own experience with that… we can’t even call it an “incident,” it was such a non-event.

I’d gone up to my room, probably to drop stuff off or refresh myself, and when I came back down to the Marriott lobby I saw three young and fidgety officers talking with the concierge. I was far enough away, and there were enough other people around, that I couldn’t make out the conversation but did hear “convention” and “threat” mentioned by the cops. The concierge helpfully pointed but did not helpfully lead the officers to the SizeCon entrance, and therefore it took them some time to mosey over, look at the curtains, look at the staircase, look at the elevator bay and figure out what was going on. When they walked in my direction, I sat down in the waiting area and pretended to find something else to do. Eventually they twigged the THIS WAY and HERE signs and worked on riddling out how the curtain worked. When they slipped in, I slipped in after them.

I found them chatting with Dee at the front desk of the Dealer’s Room, who was all professionalism and friendliness. She directed them to another room; I joined my writer friends and briefed them on what I’d seen, and we were somewhat concerned. At least, until word had drifted back that the trouble had dissipated and two of the officers were fully engaged with Mario Kart in the photography room. That was the end of that.

I made the rounds again. There was plenty of time on Sunday to make the rounds and visit the other tables. Not everyone has my philosophy of looking for potential customers or contacts and actively engaging with them, so sometimes I had to walk up and almost aggressively get them to admit that I existed. Almost. Hello, I’m a ‘Con attendee, here for exactly the same reason as you are. We have this in common, obviously, that’s safely established. You’re a creator, you’ve got your table covered in stuff you’re making; I’m literally looming over you with cash money in my fist, money that could easily be yours if only you would acknowledge me.

I stopped by Morgana‘s booth and checked out her wares, got a key fob. I really liked her theme of a giantess being impressed with tiny people trying to impress her. That was a cool twist and it touches on a conundrum I’ve been wrestling with for years: namely, how do you? If you’re tiny and you see a giantess coming at you, what could you possibly do to get her attention and incline her favorably toward you? Dance? Juggle? Spell something out in tire skids? But in her world, tiny people are little daredevils and the women who own them are endlessly charmed. At least that was my impression, perhaps I got it all wrong.

I hit up IamfilledwithStatic for a commission, and I received a fantastic, delightful job. I just wanted a gentle giantess image, a tiny man about to kiss enormous lips (or be kissed), and now I have this lovely custom illustration as a fortuitous souvenir of the weekend. I ran into JitenshaSW who was happy to see me again but was in the middle of something but would connect with me later. Before the closing ceremonies I connected with Paloma, who I’d seen running around or parked across the aisle from me, and I got a signed print. As the writer’s row packed up, I buttonholed Owlizard for a quick chat, then I finished breaking down my booth and packing up. After the ceremony, it was time for dinner. Mabo also sat across from me the entire weekend, but he was very busy whipping out commissions and I never had a chance to intrude.

Taedis had heard about a specific kind of Korean restaurant on NPR, whose signature dish was fried chicken. We didn’t know the name of the place, but we did find one restaurant just over the bridge, on the edge of Manhattan, that served Korean fried chicken. We assembled the troops: Taedis, Kreeyz, Miss Kaneda, and then this guy was kinda lingering around the lobby, shy but wanting to say something, and eventually he did ask us if we were going somewhere and doing something. I recognized him as the facilitator for the Giantess & Tiny Men Social this morning. He seemed cool and friendly, and kudos to him for speaking up: this was his first ‘Con and he wasn’t ready to call it a night. We absorbed him readily and called Lyft.

The driver, a sporty-looking guy from the Dominican Republic, lost some of his cheer when he saw all of us, and I wouldn’t understand why until after dinner. We packed into the car and hustled through New York, with Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” playing as an eminently appropriate soundtrack. We spent a long time gawking at the traffic, the river, the urban sprawl and all its lights, and then were dumped out in front of BarKogi, a tidy little Asian fusion restaurant. It glowed like a bright cube along a row of dank apartments and some perhaps risqué establishments, and it was perfect.

I ordered a pitcher of Hite, a Korean lager, and we ordered all up and down the menu. I ordered badly, it turned out: my food was delicious but there was not nearly enough of it, so I availed myself of the charity of my fellow writers. After an hour of chatting and eating and drinking, it was time to head back to the hotel, so I called up another Lyft.

“Uh-uh,” the second driver said. “There are too many of you. I don’t have enough seat belts. I’ll get busted.” I blanched to think of the first driver, what he had to swallow down when he agreed to take us. Lux Lyft it was, then, and that was an experience: the SUV was nice and roomy for all of us, but the driver was aggressive and careless, using the bulk of his vehicle to bully his way through traffic. None of us talked, just waiting for the ride to be over.

“Was it just me,” I said when we’d landed, “or was that guy kind of an asshole?”

“I could only stare out the window in terror,” Miss Kaneda said.

Everyone else went their separate ways, Taedis and I went back up to the room, where I stayed to decompress in the darkness. He went on to socialize, more of a party animal than I am, and that was the end of Sunday.

MONDAY

Not much to say here. Taedis and I exchanged pleasantries and checked out. Stashing my luggage behind the Marriott’s desk, I walked down to Dunkin’ Donuts one last time, finally encountering a line to wait in. This time I sat down with my breakfast and large coffee and soaked in the experience of Astoria Blvd, already missing it, missing the walk past iron fences and old houses and lavish floral displays in yards everywhere. I loved that landscaping, with as little property as people had, was still a priority in Queens.

I was lucky enough to catch the shuttle to the airport. Processing was an arduous wait in a line like the lower intestine. I listened to a podcast about the etymology of “dollar” while keeping half an eye on the armed soldiers lingering around the doorway, two young men with whatever iteration of the M16 kids are issued these days. I can’t keep track. When I finally made it to the airport’s interior, I was four hours early for my flight (waiting is a valuable skill I picked up in the Army). I sat at a restaurant bar by my gate, stocked up on beverages, and cribbed notes in my Moleskine and tweeted my experiences to Size Twitter.

The flight home was fine. I played a vocabulary game by myself and watched someone else’s movie. Caught a Lyft from the airport, a very funny old Chinese man who loved to crack jokes (when I explained there were few bridges over the creek near my house, he suggested we get out and portage his van), and finally trundled into my apartment, where my wife had to very patiently listen to my rambling narrative and the gibbering explanations behind all my prizes.

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And now, for the benefit of others’ experience, I’m including a roster of other artists’ accounts of the weekend. You can make a little game of counting how many times I appear in their recollections.

• Anoka
• Captain Rand
• GP Ellison
• Jitensha
• Miss Kaneda
• Kreeyz
• Mabo
• Morgana
• The Reducer
• Scidram
• Taedis
• SizeCon