Aborigen

Now, I’m not saying that Software Dance Magazine is a crappy place to work: it’s not. The admin really do try to do right by the staff, they try to listen and pay attention, if not act on every problem they see. I mean, Percy’s still here, picking on Michael and Lloyd and me, HR won’t do anything about that. But instead, what do we find?

Adrienne poked her head into my office late morning, grinning like a child. “Did you see? In the break room?” Her voice was nearly singing. I said I didn’t: the PRT shuttled me directly from the elevator through our lobby and right to my office.

She stepped into the doorway, hands clasped before her wide hips wrapped in charcoal wool. “Someone brought in a jigsaw puzzle!”

I looked up at her, from my arching bronze perch before two large monitors. “Was it you?”

“Well, I don’t—” she stammered, blinking rapidly before turning as though someone had called her and hustling off. She’s a very sweet woman, I hope I didn’t take the wind out of her sails. I was in the middle of a project at the moment, but I resolved that I would chip away at the puzzle, to show her that I was engaged and a team player.

I opened up the Anthropole resource window to call a PRT. It looked like the three in the office were being used. That was strange. I looked up the BigSuits: Likewise, the Shane was taken. The Kitab was unoccupied, but how lame would I have to be to borrow that to do a jigsaw puzzle? And I’d still need a PRT to hustle on over to Norman’s desk to sign it out, or else it’d be an all-morning slog across the office. (We used to have an Amante but there were rumors it was being abused, it being a repurposed sex-bot, so Madelaine donated it somewhere.) The break room wasn’t that far, anyway, so I supposed I could hustle on over without inviting too much risk.

Risk of what? I wouldn’t want to be caught alone in a hallway when Percy’s coming through. He’d have plausible deniability to claim he didn’t notice me and boot me around a couple times. And I still don’t know what was up with the designer, Juanita, when she started to step on me in the PRT a couple months ago. She doesn’t seem cruel, day to day, but she clearly went somewhere else in her head when apologizing for nearly killing me, reenacting it with a certain savor. So I could do this, but I’d have to be quick.

I had the bronze saddle lower me to the floor, and I hiked on over to the doorway, keeping my ears open for anything going on in the hall. A few people had called in sick to enjoy the lovely summer day right before the weekend, but there was still trouble enough lurking about. I could hear a conversation way down the hall but no footsteps padding up the carpeting. I rested my palms on the enameled metal door jamb and peered up the hall: the coast clear, I rounded the corner and sprinted to the wall across from my door, then hugged close to that as I made my way to the break room.

The break room shares space with the kitchenette, it’s just another area we didn’t know what to do with. It used to be lined with metal cabinets full of old issues, but Angelina and Madelaine decided that not only weren’t we referring to them, they were a fire hazard the longer they sat there. They had Fannie and a couple contractors scan the oldest issues in for posterity and recycled them all. Now it’s just a big empty space with an unwanted table and four old desk chairs, and today that table was covered with the fragments of a jigsaw puzzle.

I slipped inside. If anyone’s in the kitchenette, they can’t help but make a ton of noise. It was nicely silent, so I trotted over to one of the desk chairs. They were simple jobbers with straight steel legs and coarse upholstery over foam cushions. Nothing the Bigs could doze in but better than standing. It wasn’t anticipated that Anthropoles could ever need these, as awareness grinds slow but fine, so there were no guide threads to let me shimmy on up to the seat and then the table.

But I’m no slouch when it comes to climbing, having way more strength than body weight, so I rolled up my sleeves, wrapped myself one of the chair legs, and began the long ascent.

I heard someone come up the hallway and then pause. “Euen?” Ceci’s voice queried. Damn, she was looking for me in my office and wouldn’t hear me if I screamed. What would she do if she found me here… Moot point, as I heard her heavy footfalls clomp away, back to her office. I wondered if I lost an opportunity for a free breakfast with my work wife.

I paused and thought about that phrase. I never say that, I don’t even like it. Where’d that come from? And was it true?

Dismissing it as one of those stupid tricks minds play on us, I continued hugging my way up the chair leg, up to the overhang of the rigid cushion. It was no feat at all to dig my fingers into the worsted contour and haul myself onto the seat. I wasn’t sure whether to congratulate myself or resolve to hit the micro-gym more often. I smoothed out my hair, straightened my shirt and tie, and cast my gaze upward to plot a path to the table.

Abruptly, Juanita stepped into the office. How could someone so big be so silent? Was I distracted? I watched her broad hips rock back and forth as she sailed past, heard the suction break as she opened the fridge and began to dig around. All’s well that ends well, I guess.

I thought I could climb up to one of the arms of the chair, walk across one of those until I was in leaping distance from the table. I really should’ve picked out a chair situated closer, didn’t think of that. I could see now that two were parked right up against it, while the one I was in must’ve been used by someone else and left practically in the middle of the floor. The Bigs were so inconsiderate of each other, I never got over that. Still, the leap shouldn’t be impossible: with a good running start, I could easily clear the distance from the end of the arm to the lip of the table. Why not? I turned to scale the back of the chair.

The back of the chair had no lower partition, just a gap from where your ass goes to a vertical panel for the mid-back. That’s what allowed me to see Juanita walking straight toward me, poking at her salad.

“Hey, Juanita,” I hollered, jumping and waving, but her eyes were buried in her lunch, and she happened to be wearing headphones, the big, chunky over-ear kind. I didn’t know anyone still did that. She sang quietly to herself:

“Me gusta la canela, me gustas tú.
Me gusta el fuego, me gustas tú.“

And then her face disappeared behind her salad as she approached. Her full thighs rubbed against each other in dark slacks as she approached the chair. I watched her thick fingers wrap around the top of the chair back, and I started running too late. She jerked the chair from the table slightly, enough to knock me on my ass, and I could only watch her hips swing around the chair, and then her immense ass bend and spread and descend upon me. Goddess damn it.

All I could do was straighten myself out, arms to my sides, in the half-second before the designer piled upon me. The fabric of her pants were fortunately soft: it’d be no fun to have the astounding tonnage of a full-grown (and voluptuous, among the Bigs) woman plowing into me through an unforgiving layer of polyester. I had been running to pitch myself out the back of the chair when she jerked it away. My feet shot out in front of me, my head necessarily pointed toward the front of the chair, which placed the heart of her femininity directly upon my head, and my chest down to my legs pinned along the crack of her butt.

Screaming was useless. It was hard enough to gather the strength to breathe. The heat descended slowly through her hips, flowing all around and then through me. My nostrils were stuffed with the aroma of her laundry detergent and what residual perfume she wore to the office, all very flowery and delicate. My idiot mind, running in all directions like it does, wondered whether her scent would change if she became aroused, sitting on me. This was a stupid notion, as jigsaw puzzles were hardly erotic, though it was true I hadn’t seen the image on the box. Still, even clueless Adrienne wouldn’t bring a Playgirl spread into the office. Likely.

I had no idea how long I was expected to wait underneath her. I couldn’t reach my Kobaretto, nor could I muster the breath for a desperate verbal command, or else I could’ve flagged Ceci to rescue me. Or anyone else, if Ceci would’ve found it too humorous to leave me under the designer’s butt. I tried, once, to gulp enough air to shout, but I couldn’t even say Juanita’s name: I only coughed, with the pressure crushing my ribs, and lost all the wind I’d gathered.

Now it was becoming too warm for comfort. I wouldn’t say sweltering, not just yet, but I could see it going there as Juanita’s broad hips radiated heat into the cushion, and both of those sources radiated it into me. I tried to wiggle my fingers, tickle her ass maybe, but I could barely brush the tips over the fabric of her slacks. No way in hell could she feel that or how I was attempting to wiggle my feet further down. I had no idea what part of her massive butt they were under, just briefly hoped to tickle something sensitive without thinking too hard about what that might be.

Was Ceci still looking for me? Would she think of nowhere else to look but my office? Would she start people asking around? I mean, in a business that prides itself on Anthropole hires, you’d think they’d be a little concerned when one of their five token employees goes missing.

The immense weight upon me shifted to the side. The opposite butt cheek didn’t lift enough to permit any light in my enclosure, but I could feel the crushing weight alleviate slightly on one side, then replace itself. I supposed Juanita had reached for a puzzle piece, to pick one up or put it in place. She rocked again, same direction, and I wondered why she didn’t choose a chair that would place her closer to the action, instead of reaching all the time.

And as much as I wanted to get her attention through activity, beneath her butt, I held my head perfectly still, never venturing to turn it to either side even to breathe, for fear of being accused of rubbing against her most sensitive parts, so to speak. It wasn’t like I wanted her to sit on me in the first place. I’m sure she was a nice-looking lady, but her behavior worried me. When she enunciated how close a call that had been, when she nearly stepped on me in the tiny little vehicle, and then replaced her foot as though it were attracted to me, that was frightening. The way her eyes glazed, dreaming of what it would be like (I can only assume) to step on a tiny person, to bring her shoe down gradually, irresistibly upon a living person, knowing they were getting crushed in pieces and parts while her thick foot inside that tight, unforgiving shoe registered no sensation at all. Was she into that? Did she desire it? Was it strictly stomping and foot-crushing she was into, or would it give her some pleasure to know she was smooshing me flat beneath her pronounced posterior?

Juanita rocked to the side again, replaced herself and held still for a long time. I couldn’t hear her music, I couldn’t hear her salad crunching through her frame. I did hear her fart: a conspiratory whisper that bathed my shins in noticeable heat. All of me was being slow-roasted in her crotch, but that sting of fetid gas upon my legs was nearly searing. Her sphincter, clothed in layers, let out a relieved PFF-ffft, like the pneumatic pressure semis release at stoplights or pulling into a truck stop. PFF-ffft, and my legs were baking in a sauna, and it was only a few moments before what little air I could seize upon was tainted and polluted. I cursed to myself, gulping down my air and pinching my lips tight. My mind flashed with the factoid that people who eat raw vegetables and aren’t used to them tend to become gassy as their GI tract struggles to accept the roughage. I tried to recall whether I’d seen Juanita with any kind of lunch, salads or otherwise, but we just ran in different circles and I didn’t keep tabs on her for any portion of the work week. So I had no idea whether this was a one-time thing, or if she was going to regale me with the fitful serenade of her digestive bacteria.

The latter: she rocked to the side, and this time her sphincter clenched and tooted a brief raspberry, like a trombonist sneezing mid-note. I could picture her excusing herself, her eyes lighting up as she ducked her head, embarrassed. But I couldn’t see any of that, just the darkness around the base of the seam of the crotch of her pants, and soon I could smell something far worse than her little spurt before. Oh, Goddess, what was she eating? This was horrible. My lungs began to quiver, they needed air.

Her tremendous rump settled back down into the chair once more. What kind of designer had so little to do? Weren’t we going to press in three weeks? She should be formatting product images and coming up with a palette for the next issue. How did she have so much time to futz around with a jigsaw puzzle, farting indiscriminately into tiny, helpless people?

Oh, Ceci, if we’ve ever had any kind of connection: hear me now.

The monstrous ass upon me began to rumble and turn. Goddess, was she loosening up for a really big blast? I might not survive. I gritted my teeth and mashed my face into the fabric of her crotch, attempting to suck out any clean air hiding in there. It was ridiculous, it was desperate, but I needed something to breathe. What I pulled out wasn’t exactly fresh, but it wasn’t her flatulence at any rate, so my body accepted it. I clenched my fists and tried to relax, not burn up so much oxygen with stress, but this was next to impossible, as you might imagine.

Suddenly artificial light streamed in from all sides. I gasped, rasping, wheezing with a long breath, as Juanita’s broad, round ass lifted up like a blimp and drifted away. Her fingers clamped onto the seat arms and jerked the whole construction back, as her massive thighs struggled to sidle away.

“Looks like you have some company helping you.” Percy’s voice was oily and delighted. I strained to turn my head and found him hovering behind the chair, holding a mug of coffee and smirking at me like the cat who got the canary.

“What? What do you mean?” Juanita asked him, and I saw him nod toward me. The immense woman turned, and one hand flew to cover her mouth as her eyes widened. “Oh, my Goddess! Mr. Abasolo, how long have you been down there? Are you okay?”

“I’ll just never understand these little pervs,” said Percy. “Always slinking around, always creeping up on us, always thinking they can get away with something.”

She turned toward him. “What do you mean? You don’t think he…” She looked down at me once more. He shrugged, unable to wipe that smirk off his face. “Oh, that’s disgusting! Mr. Abasolo, really? Is that what you’re like?”

I was too crushed to speak. I could only shake my head.

“What does he get out of something like that?” she asked Percy, staring at me harshly. “That’s sick, sneaking up under women’s bottoms like that. What if I’d been wearing a skirt? What if I’d forgotten to wear panties today? Not that that happens a lot, but sometimes I let laundry build up and I forget. But still!” She crossed her arms over her chest and backed away. It was interesting to see a gigantic, full-bodied woman like this acting vulnerable and threatened by me, the human equivalent of a used paper napkin.

“I think you’d better report this to HR. I’ll be your witness,” Percy said, sipping his coffee. He gave me a knowing glance before slipping out the door.

“Disgusting! Disgusting!” Juanita grabbed her salad plate and hurriedly dropped it in the sink. “I’ll wash that later. I can’t stand to be in the same room with you! Disgusting little thing!” She stormed up to the seat again, where I hadn’t moved an inch as I waited for the circulation to fully restore in my limbs. She reached down and tucked her middle finger behind her thumb, the gesture all-too-familiar to us Tinies: she was going to flick my head clean off my shoulders.

I coughed and gasped and turned my head away.

After a moment, her hand pulled back. “Mr. Abasolo? Are you okay? Mr. Abasolo?” Of course I was okay, but if the only way out of this was to feign a near-death experience, then I would walk toward that light. “Oh, my Goddess, what do I do?” And she trotted down the hallway in her awkward heels, calling Ceci’s name. I closed my eyes and was immediately overwhelmed with images of that vast pair of buttocks descending upon me, rising up, and falling to overwhelm me again. I chose to stare into a fluorescent lighting fixture until help arrived.