[I’m so sorry I missed out on November 10, International Giantess Day. No disrespect intended to the giantesses in my life. I’ve now got it marked on all my calendars and carved into my forearm. Please accept this belated short story in honor of this beautiful, life-affirming celebration.]

“So, what I’m thinking,” said the one gigantic woman, full-bodied and caramel-colored, “is what if we start with a crowd of people, for example. Right? Just a bunch of ordinary people, doing whatever it is tiny people do.” She swept one arm around her hips, lazily gesturing at the goings-on around their feet: crowds fighting against each other to get away, curious little specks lingering and taking photos, cars backing into other cars or honking at a row of even, adorable toes nearly as large as the drivers. The giantess parked one elbow upon a relatively short skyscraper and rested her chin upon her palm, gazing dreamily at her friend. “They’re laughing, singing, or maybe even not paying attention at all. And then, like, one of us shows up.”

“And then we stomp them.” The other giantess, resembling nothing so much as a juggernaut of iron wrapped in boiled leather, nodded once. Her eyes were steely and stormy, her cheekbones carved by glaciers. Her stance took up two city blocks, and it looked as though not even a Cat-5 hurricane could budge her. A metro transit bus poked from beneath the east and west sides of her foot, but odds were good she hadn’t noticed it at all.

The voluptuous giantess’ eyebrows knitted. “No-o-o-o-o!” she sang. “These are really interesting little people! Why not? And then maybe, among them, there’s one who’s really cute and thoughtful, and it’s up to us to pick him out.”

The stern giantess rubbed her jaw. “What is the function of this, Gálneswynn? Unless… yes, of this one we shall make an example.”

Gálneswynn snapped out of her dreamy state, jerking from resting double-elbows upon a low skyscraper to standing bolt upright. Her massive breasts swung wild, carving a delicious yet savage arc out of the facade of the building, exposing a hive of frantic white-collar termites scurrying for cover. “No, not an example, Mánslagyth! This one we shall love! This is the cherished one, the adored one…”

“All the better to teach the population a lesson in obedience. We shall show them that intelligence and compassion avail them naught.” Mánslagyth raised her hand before her efficient, angular face, slowly curling tree-like fingers into a fearsome fist. “If there is a slight chance for survival, it is to be found in abject devotion and obedience. Even this is no guarantee.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at the horizon.

“Or,” said her friend, leaning upon the building and plowing her boob into the 40th through 43rd floors of Contralia Investments, “we use this one to show that devotion and obedience have a reward. Right? And then we can secure even more devotion and obedience.”

Mánslagyth shifted to one leg, slamming her toned, cannonball ass into the 35th through 37th floors of the Coleman Tower, disrupting a rental property management firm, a temp agency, and a public insurance adjustment firm. “I see what you’re saying,” she said carefully. “And yet, allow me to posit that a no less equally effective tactic might come in the form of a reign of terror, achieved through equal parts psychology and extreme violence.”

Shifting pleasingly rounded shoulders beneath a full-bodied spill of mocha tresses, Gálneswynn curled one finger against her swollen lips. “Okay, I hear you. I hear you, Mánslagyth, and I’m not going to say you’re wrong, but. What if.” She paused, momentarily distracted by the sensation of a dozen lascivious and self-destructive tiny people swarming around her distended nipple. “What if we walked on back to this one sweet little guy we’ve hand-picked out of a crowd of hundreds.”

“And we crush the rest, to impress upon the witnesses the fruits of their chosen path of worthlessness.”

“No, let’s put that on the shelf for now. Right now we’re focusing on the one adorable, tiny little man who is full of more love than his puny frame suggests. Okay? What do you think should happen to him?”

“He is crushed.”

“Or! Maybe he is loved upon. Yes, I think that’s what happens. He is brought up to a large, warm, soft breast, cupped against it by a wide, padded palm, and this delightful, womanly weight presses upon him very gently.” Gálneswynn cupped her own breast in demonstration, regarding her hand with a loving expression as though it held a tiny man. “He feels secure beneath its weight, its warmth sings a lullaby of love to him. And he can kiss this huge breast, nuzzle his little face into it with hot little pecks−”

Throughout, Mánslagyth listened with a heavy brow. “Until his inadequate lungs are deprived of life-giving oxygen, or perhaps his frail and spindly ribs snap like dry straw.” She closed her eyes and rested her palm upon her sternum, between two lean breasts of economy. “Perhaps we feel his struggle, yes, his palsied thrusts and punches, as the preponderant weight of femininity bears upon him, smothering him, erasing him from this world.”

“Until we lift our bosom away,” said her friend, “and revel in his expression of relief as the waves of air roll over him once more, as his soft, velvety skin is kissed by beams of sunlight. We see his color return, his arms lifting up to us in adoration, perhaps a plaintive cry for affection.”

Mánslagyth scanned about herself critically. “To which we respond with the simple turn of our palm, emptying him into space. And since the LD-50 of defenestration is eight floors, it is profoundly unlikely he will survive the fall−”

“Which is exactly why we won’t do that.” Mánslagyth glared at her friend, but Gálneswynn pressed on. “Instead, we will lift him up from the treasured valley of our bosom to our glorious visage, right, and present him to ourselves, so that he may bask in the magnificence of our full lips, our finely carved noses, and the limpid pools of our soul-penetrating eyes, in which he sees his core essence laid bare.”

“And found wanting.”

“And found beautiful,” Gálneswynn said, almost sternly, “a beautiful little man, all the more so for his vulnerability and helplessness. Think of it: this exquisite little creature, born stupid and tender in a cruel, unforgiving world. Every week of his life a bitter struggle for survival, betting on stability no matter how often this betrays him, receiving one marginal benefit for every three crushing blows throughout his life.”

“Crushing blows.” Mánslagyth smiled warmly, fluttering her eyelashes at her friend. “You said crushing blows.”

Regarding her not, Gálneswynn stood erect (oblivious to the tiny, screaming men clinging to her nipple or failing to do so) and cupped her hands before her chin. “And after a lifetime of striving and defeat, at last he is rewarded with the nurturing love of a good woman, hundreds of times his own size. I think that’s an apt analogy for a life well lived, don’t you? Not just the love of a woman, but a woman commensurate with the adversity he’s overcome.” She parted her palms to caress her breasts and grope her own hips, tugging massive buttocks apart and letting them clap together, a monstrously burlesque exhibition for an entire block of businesses behind her. “What greater reward than this, the copious bosom and supple flanks of an earthbound goddess, with which to love him endlessly?”

“Death is a reward,” Mánslagyth stated. “It is a cessation of pain and suffering, an escape from more of the same, of which there is no dearth. The kindest act to perform would be that which cuts the thread of his measly life short, in the protracted and tedious tapestry of human existence.” Exactly as Gálneswynn palmed and palpated herself, Mánslagyth betrayed no indication of conceit or even mild curiosity to how she might be perceived. “How fortunate this hapless creature, to be caught in the perception of a creature of such grace as beggars his imagination, to be momentarily beheld and apprehended in the touch of one far above his station, and then to receive the gift of deliverance between thumb and forefinger. Surely, this is beneficence far beyond his merit, and yet it is bestowed upon him. None may speak against; so mote it be.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at the horizon.

“There are many deserving of all sorts of deaths, certainly.” Gálneswynn nodded encouragingly, wide-eyed, eyebrows raised. “But! Since we are higher beings of superior stature and prounouced gifts”—she looked into the bowl of her palms once more—”it is surely within our ambit to bestow grace and forgiveness upon one wretched little creature, some wee and fragile gentleman… with long, strong legs…” She peered into her hands. “And adorable little toesies. Oh yes, those wiggly, delicious little toesies, oh, my Goddess.” Gasping, she thrust her face into her palms, whimpering, smooching them feverishly.

Mánslagyth regarded her friend in disdain. “The devouring of a puny, sparse half-morsel is beneath us, but I suppose there is some pleasure in the gnashing of bones between molars. The way that half of the skull resounds with the tiny little snaps and pops. Mmm, yes. This is good.” She worked her jaw sympathetically, nodding.

“I’m not eating him!” Gálneswynn looked scandalized.

“Gnash, gnash, gnash,” whispered Mánslagyth.

“What’s wrong with love?” Gálneswynn’s huge arms fell to her sides. “What’s wrong with finding that one special little guy and smothering him in kisses? Huh? What’s wrong with draping his frail and pliant little body upon my breast, attuning all my attention to his feather-like struggles? What’s so wrong with sweeping him down the length of my delicious, voluptuous bodyscape and lowering him between my thighs?” Her eyes twinkled with forming tears, her full lips pouted and pleaded. “Why can’t I place him upon the gateway to the chambers of my feminine mysteries?”

Her friend stared at her blankly. “Why would you want him there?”

“Because it feels nice!”

“Just to leave him there?”

Gálneswynn blushed. “No, not just to have him there. Like, maybe he starts struggling…”

“Yes, a fight. Good.”

“And maybe he starts stroking along my length, you know, tiny little blows against my skin. Useless, of course, but I appreciate the effort.”

Mánslagyth nodded slowly. “Lull him into a false sense of security. A sound tactic.”

“And then, maybe one of his legs just kinda… slips inside.”

Mánslagyth grimaced.

“And then his other one does, too, and he’s kicking around inside you.”

“Disgusting.”

“And he slips a little further, and then he really starts to panic.”

Mánslagyth’s eyes lit up.

“So he’s clawing at you, screaming.”

“But it does no good!”

“Yes, of course. He’s really starting to panic, calling your name, but he’s sinking deeper and deeper within.”

“Of course! He’s going to drown!”

“And that can’t be helped! It’s tragic, of course, but what are we supposed to do?”

“What, indeed! He’s sinking within, coated in searing tissues and sticky fluids that cover his seeing and breathing holes!”

“Yes! Welling over his face, his scrabbling arms that slowly sink within.”

“Oh, he won’t like that!”

Gálneswynn grinned wildly. “That’s when he really starts to fight!”

“Really?” Mánslagyth leaned forward, her thin lips parted in fascination.

“Oh, yes, he’s panicking, but he’s sinking deeper within, the walls closing in over his head.”

“The walls crushing him! Squeezing those vulnerable joints, those flimsy bones!”

“Oh, my, yes,” said Gálneswynn, taking a deep breath. “He’s really squirming down, desperate for a breath of fresh air, but… he just feels too good.”

“We want him down there! We crush him! We crush him in the most intimate way possible, even as he struggles to escape!”

Far, far below the yelling and the moaning and the wandering fingertips, a young man sat in his condo. Having little choice but to follow the booming conversation, rooting for one voice and quailing at the other, he finally slumped in his chair. In his hands he held a large card he had cut out of a pizza box and covered in magazine pictures and large print. On the outside it read HAPPY INTERNATIONAL GIANTESS DAY, and on the inside it carried a long and feverish screed of raw, unrefined adoration. The man folded it closed, pulled open a desk drawer, and stored it away.

“Perhaps next year,” he said quietly, listening to the thunder of tremendous, bare feet outside.

[Dedicated to two giantesses of my acquaintance, whose conversation I was privileged to overhear, and the survival of which I was fortunate to experience.]