Laura felt  a last twinge of doubt as she unlocked her apartment door.  Andre, if that really was his name, was certainly attractive enough.  He was certainly charming enough, certainly full of good stories, a great talker, and knew how to tell a girl just the right lies.  Still...  she just wasn't a girl who would take a man home on the same evening she met him.  But here she was, taking a man home who she'd met only hours before.  That's stupid, her mind's voice shouted, impatient, reckless, loco de la cabesa. Dumb.  She knew it was just dumb.  But the door was open, she was still holding his hand, they were both in the apartment now, lights on, door closed.  And she had never felt safer.  Andre, or whatever his name really was,  faced her and looked into her eyes for a moment and kissed her.

Then he kissed her for real.

She had kissed men before, she had kissed this man before, albeit fleetingly, but this was a new experience for Laura.  The rest of the world dropped out of existence and her only reality was kissing this man, being held by him.  They inhabited a cocoon that was all there was to the universe and she had never felt safer.   It wasn't so much that she felt that nothing would harm her here or that nothing could harm her here; it was that nothing anywhere existed to harm her.

She clutched his body and responded while his hands began to rove skillfully, embracing her, caressing, a gentle squeeze here, a feather tickle there, some slight explorations.  Finally they came up for air.  "Bed...behind you,"  she murmured, stumbling forward, pushing him backward to it.  He made a nimble flick at the light switch by the door and they were in darkness, slowly stumbling to the bed.  She kicked off her shoes as he undid her buttons  and snaps and quickly but gently removed her clothes.  A distant part of her mind awarded him a prize for an amazingly fast disrobing of her while she noted that somehow he was now naked too and now they could really embrace and kiss once again, still standing.

Then he reached down and swept her up, holding her in his arms for a second before tossing her onto the bed.  She had been thrown onto beds before but this was different too, a longer sensation of flight, of ascending, before landing softly.   But she had no time to wonder about that either for now he was beside her again and they were burrowing into the covers and exploring each other with their hands and mouths.  He proved to be more talented than she had imagined, with his hands, his lips, his tongue.    She answered him with an enthusiasm that broke into frenzy as she invited him, begged him, wordlessly pleaded for him to take her, ravish her, screw her senseless.  But he held off, teasing and exciting her until she couldn't take it anymore and finally reached down herself and inserted him into her.

Still in control, now he began the ancient movement, slowly pulsing in and out, every stroke a little deeper and longer as Laura gasped and moaned beneath him.  A slight grin appeared unseen on his face as he played this woman like a musical instrument, varying the tempo and intensity between them, murmuring slight endearments, before he built up to a fever pitch again as she screamed and clawed as his back, locking her feet behind his knees, writhing in fervor.  Still he kept up the steady rhythm between them, not spent at all, bringing her to the brink again, and over it, until her brain reeled and her body ached, until they collapsed into unconsciousness together and lay entangled each in the other, the rest of the world still not in existence for her.
 

A few hors later, Laura slowly came back to consciousness, still wrapped around Andre.  Groggy though she was, the sensations filtering through to her brain seemed wrong.  Not wrong, maybe, but different.  The covers didn't feel right to her, too heavy.  And the material of the bed sheets seemed coarse against her bare skin.  Abruptly, she was fully awake and lifted her head in concern, almost alarm,  eyes trying to pierce the darkness surrounding her, striving to solve the wordless puzzlement she felt.  Although Andre's presence was comforting,  too many things were wrong.  She lifted her arm to throw the bed covers off her and found that, rather than lightweight blankets, she was now covered by heavy coarse fabric, more like a tarpaulin or a collapsed tent.  She wriggled out of Andre's loose embrace and crawled out of the blankets to encounter more strangeness.  She pushed into a large  bulky shape that she suddenly realized was a grotesquely large pillow.  Recoiling, she clambered to the side of the bed but hesitated at the edge.  She couldn't see the floor but somehow knew that it was a long way now down to it.  Not just the pillow, not just the blankets, but everything in the room was suddenly much too large.  Or else, she knew with growing dread,  she and Andre were much too small.

She held her growing fear in and groped for the now stirring form of her lover.  She dived back under the covers to shake his shoulders, needing to wake him and find comfort and explanation.  He woke abruptly, startled, and reached to her, his hand brushing her face before he held her again and pulled her to him.  The former feeling of emotional and physical safety returned but her waking mind would not be so easily comforted.   "What's happened to us?" she demanded in a frightened whisper.  "What have you done to me?"

"I'm sorry, love," he breathed in her ear.  "You weren't supposed to be aware of this, I thought I'd wake before you."  He fell silent, holding her motionless.  "But now to make amends."  He kissed her again, passionately as before and, as before, her world receded as they retreated into their private cocoon.  Only this time, she knew the outside world still remained and she was still linked to it.  Passionately, joyously though she returned his kiss, a small part of her stayed in touch with her surroundings and was aware of those surroundings slow alteration.  She could distantly feel the sheets slide around and briefly bind their bodies as the bed covers returned to their normal proportions, she somehow knew that the world around her was returning to normal.  When they finally broke out of their kiss, she started to ask for explanations but he silenced her with a gentle touch across her lips and held her close, murmuring softly.   Overwhelming security crowded away her fear and she relaxed into a deep sleep that didn't end until she awoke at her usual time in the morning to her usual view of her room.  As usual, alone.
 

Of course, she was worthless at work.  Her mind wasn't on duty at all; the only thoughts flowing through it were about last night.  At first, her thoughts had been as much about the phantom size changes as about Andre but as the morning drifted by, the reality of the memories began to fade.  It had been too dark to see anything, after all, there had only been the touch of outsize cloth and the sensation of too much space around her.  And it had only been for a few moments in the middle of a very busy night.  The details began to run together the way remembrances of a dream will.  By mid-morning, she could tell herself that it had been a dream; by mid-day she was starting to believe it.   Not that Andre had been a dream - well, not THAT kind of dream.  For one thing she was physically sore down there - not that she was complaining, not at all - but it was almost impossible to think of anything besides him.  Her rational mind knew that he was probably gone forever, a one night stand, no matter how much she wanted him again.  Andre, was that really his name?  In any event, as far as work was concerned she accomplished almost nothing.

Fortunately, nobody noticed her distracted state for the very good reason that she had the office to herself for the morning.  Her associate Kevin wasn't supposed to be back from his sales pitch until sometime in the afternoon and nobody had come in the office.  The few phone calls were minor annoyances only, easily handled and brief.  By morning's end, she had recovered enough to actually get some things done and decided to skip lunch to try to make up for the worthless morning.  Increasingly absorbed in her work, it was after one before she noticed the time again.

A fairly young, fairly attractive woman was coming through the door.  Not a local and, judging from her dress and manner, probably not somebody who would be particularly interested in moving to the area.  "May I help you?", Laura inquired.

"I'm sure you will, Laura," the stranger replied.  Laura was a bit surprised by the woman's use of her first name but not unduly so.  This was quite a small town and the business had an ad in the phone book with both Kevin's name and hers listed.  The woman could certainly have learned her name on her own.  The woman continued, "You met a friend of mine last night, I believe. You'll remember Andre, that IS the name he's using here, right?  I need to deal with the... situation between you and Andre."

Laura blushed in embarrassment and not a little fear.  Could this be a wife?  A girlfriend, maybe?  A jealous, angry wife or girlfriend?  The newcomer smiled thinly but reassuringly at her sudden look of alarm.  "I can guess what you're thinking and don't be worried about that.  I know what Andre does in new places.  He can be...persuasive.  But it doesn't concern me if, say, he has a fling with someone.  Someone like you, for instance."

Laura still felt a twinge of fear but her curiosity was waking.  "How do you know about us, then?  And if you don't care about it, why are you here?"

"As to how I know about you two, I can't very well help but know.  You've been  broadcasting all over the place all day.  Andre was too, maybe not as loud, before he left this morning."  She leaned across the desk.  "That's what I don't care for.  I've been around him a long time, I know how he is.  He has his little affairs, which is fine, but the next day he's all business again."  She paused and regarded Laura.

 "You though."  She paused again.  "You've got him distracted.  When he comes back, you'll still be thinking about him, he won't be able to help but know that you are, he'll start thinking about you, things might happen, he could get more distracted.  That wouldn't be good."

"Well, who are you to..." Laura began but the other woman cut her off.

"Never mind who I am or what business it is of mine.  It is my business, that's all you need to know.  You also need to know that knowing me can be dangerous, just like knowing Andre can be dangerous."  Her eyes had locked onto Laura's and while she was speaking she was sidling around the desk until she stood behind it, next to Laura's chair.  Still holding Laura's gaze, she reached down to take her hand and raise it up, silently urging the startled girl up out of her seat.  Despite the woman's talk of danger, despite the shock of a stranger barging in and taking over the place, Laura wasn't afraid.  Or maybe she felt the calm fear of a bird entranced by a snake's gaze, as she was entranced by this woman's.  She stood facing the woman, close.  Very close.

And then the woman kissed her and still she didn't feel any alarm.  Laura had been kissed by girls before, in college after a few drinks and a bowl or two, but it had never been more than than a kiss.  Girls were sweet but she much preferred boys or, better, men.  While she responded only minimally to this kiss, she didn't resist, even though a small dim part of her mind signaled concern.  The kiss was fairly brief, though.  The female intruder into her office broke off and took a half step back.  "Feel all right, Laura?" she asked.  "Everything okay?"

Laura looked at her and then about her, her mind dazed.  Somehow, her brain tried to address the woman's questions.  Yes, she felt fine.  But things weren't okay, and not just because of the bizarre events of the past few minutes.  The perspectives of the room were subtly different although she couldn't quite see how.  She glanced at the woman before her and thought irrelevantly that she should get clothes that fit better, that weren't so baggy.

The woman reached to her with both arms and kissed her again.  Laura surrendered again and closed her eyes, still locked in the strange mood of unconcern.  This kiss went on longer before the woman broke off again.  "How about now, Laura?" she wanted to know.

This time when Laura opened her eyes, she knew the answer to the questions, she knew what was wrong.  The desk beside her was grotesquely large.  Her clothes were hanging off her, enormously oversized, as were the clothes of the strange woman still holding her.  The woman had shrunk her somehow, shrunk with her, so that two half-clothed, half-sized women now stood in a loose embrace.  Bitter laughter in the woman's eyes answered the fear awakening in Laura's.  "What are you do, doing?", she stammered.  "Doing to us?"

For answer, the woman smiled grimly and kissed her again.  Again Laura's eyes closed in surrender but, while she made no resistance, her mind knew what was happening.  She knew that when this kiss ended, she would be smaller yet, tiny even.  She knew that she was leaving the world she had known behind or rather, that she was going to be in it in a quite different way.  A small way.  A shrunken way.

This third kiss lingered longer than the second, longer than the first and second combined.  When the woman released her this time, she stepped nimbly away, shaking off the folds of clothing that had fallen on and around her.  Laura remained where she had been, absently heaving great folds of cloth away from her, as well as a lighter clingy material that part of her mind recognized as her stockings.  She had been shrunk out of her shoes and one lay on its side near her, nearly shoulder high to her new, nude form.  Now that the other woman was out of reach, the fear building in here could come to the fore and her eyes darted around frantically taking in her new surroundings, or rather her old surroundings grown strange and monstrous.

"How did you do this to me?" she wailed.  "Why?  Why me?"

The stranger shook her head in scorn and pity mingled.  "You couldn't understand the ‘how’ if I tried to tell you.  And that's not important anyway.  As to 'why', I've already told you.  It can be dangerous to know me.  It can be dangerous to know  Andre. I told you that before but now you know how true it is.  Not only that..."

Her explanation was cut off by the tone of the office phone ringing on the desk above them.  Laura looked up longingly.  If she could talk to somebody, maybe they could send help.  But there was no way to get up to the phone, if she was strong enough now to pick it off the cradle.  And somehow she doubted anybody on the other end of the line could help her now.  The stranger waited quietly  while the loud rings continued until finally Laura's recorded voice apologized for not answering and asked the caller to leave a message.

It turned out to be her business partner, Kevin.  "Laura, this is taking longer than I thought so I won't come in at all today.  I'll be in first thing in the morning..  Leave a message on my home phone if you need anything.  See you tomorrow."  Click.  Good bye, Kevin, thought Laura.  Maybe really good bye, unless this is some sort of hallucination.  But she knew that this was no hallucination.  This was real and ongoing and she was afraid of what was going to happen next.  She looked over to where the woman who had done this to her still waited.

"So nobody will find you here today, then."  Laura nodded.  "That makes it simpler.  I can leave you here for a while then, while I tend to some other matters.  Excuse me for a minute, please."  With that, she walked further away from Laura and the desk and their two heaps of clothing and stood perfectly still  as she closed her eyes.  Laura could plainly see the concentration she was mustering.  Then Laura choked out a sob as the other woman began to grow.  In the space of a minute her body enlarged so that she was somewhat taller than Laura, than twice her size, then twice again as tall.  Her face grimaced with the effort while her hands clenched into tight fists.  Her eyes snapped open and she let out a gasp and then stood  sucking in great lungfulls of air.  She shook her head wearily.  "That's still an effort," she choked out, more to herself than to Laura.  "I need a rest."  Laura looked up in terror at the huge woman before her.  The top of her head was still below the level of the desktop but she was a giant to Laura.  She looked down at her victim, now tiny compared to her and took a deep breath.  "Stay where you are," she ordered.  "I'll be ready to take care of you in just a bit."

And sure enough, the second stage of her reenlargement seemed to be much easier.  In less than a minute, what Laura judged to be a normal, full-sized woman towered over her.  She smiled down in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring but could only be menacing to the tiny girl on the floor.  "I'll be getting dressed now.  Then I have some things to do before I come back here.  Any requests?  Do you want me to put you somewhere off the floor, maybe?  I could put you up on a shelf or in one of these drawers."  She pointed to the desk.  Laura cowered beneath her gaze as she reached down and started to put on her underclothes, followed by her pants and blouse.

"How about if you put me on top of the desk."  Laura finally managed to whimper.

"So you can try to use the phone, I bet.  Nice try but I'm not that easy to fool.  I don't know who you think you'd call anyway.  That guy that left a message?  Or 911?  There aren't any emergency services for your condition.  Tell you what.  I'll just leave you where you are.  Nothing should bother you until I get back.  You can use your old clothes for blankets if you get chilled."  She smiled in triumph at the miniaturized, terrified girl.  "They aren't of any other use to you, I don't think."  And with that she finished buttoning her blouse, stepped into her shoes and marched out the door.
 

Laura stood alone, a tiny figure lost in a great expanse of floor, frozen in shock.  Part of her heard footsteps clicking down the hall, the sounds growing fainter as they stepped down the stairs.  But even without the sound, another section of her mind was aware of the woman's location as she descended to street level, left the building, walked down the street.  Finally the shadow of her presence faded and Laura found herself altogether alone.  Still frightened but no longer terrified, she did a long hopeless survey of her surroundings, unfamiliar now even though nothing in the room had changed.  Except her.

Nothing in the room looked to be of any use.  She gazed longest at her desk, craning her neck to peer up at its top, to where she knew the phone sat, her only  possible means of communication with help.  Maybe she could climb there somehow, scramble up a dangling electric wire, do it in stages by resting on shelves as she went, even use the little potted tree for support here and there.  Maybe.  She wasn't a mountain climber though, or a gymnast, or even particularly athletic.  And if she did reach the phone, who could she call for help.  Her tormentor had hit the nail on the head when she'd scoffed at calling the police or emergency rescue.  Laura had made a few friends since she moved here, to be sure, but none close enough, none she trusted enough to reach to now.  She supposed she could call home but what could anybody do from there?  It would take a day for anybody from home to get here, even if she could convince her mother or brother of what had happened.  Her brother would most likely call the emergency services for her after all, the mental health branch.  No the phone was out, at least for now.

The fear filling her was growing cold, cold and forlorn.  She felt all alone in the world, victim of a strange chance, with nobody to turn to.  As the last remnants of shock faded, awareness of her body's state grew in her mind.  She was dreadfully tired, fatigued mentally and physically.  Physically cold too, in her nakedness.  In despair, she crept the short distance back to her heap of outsized clothing, burrowed into the pile, discovered the relatively soft material of her huge blouse and wrapped folds of it around herself.  Sobbing now, she allowed herself to relax and drift into sleep.
 

When Laura awoke, she was confused for only a second before snapping to full consciousness.  Another second or two passed before she recognized where she was and what had happened to her.  She felt much better, much more alert, than she had earlier.  Even without looking, she knew that the daylight that had come through the window high above her had faded and been replaced by the glow of streetlights.  She could just sense that; it seemed she could sense many things.

For instance, Laura knew with certainty that the woman stranger was  approaching the office.  She sensed it very strongly.  So it was with equal parts relief and fear that she heard the office door open and footsteps cross the room.  The relief was at not being so alone but fear welled up in her too.  For how could she know what this woman might do to her next?

The woman peered dismissively down at her as she emerged from her pile of clothes and spoke abruptly.  "You're all right, I see.  Now I have a question for you: Since I left, have you thought about Andre much?"

Laura thought about that and was actually surprised herself at the answer.  "No, not much.  I guess I was too afraid to think about him."

"Good answer.  I knew you weren't thinking about him, of course, you weren't screaming it out like you did all morning.  And that's all I wanted.  The way one fire burns out another, I wanted you to feel fear that would drive out your infatuation with him.  You're not calling out any more.  He won't hear you, he won't be distracted, all's well with this world."

A spark of hope awoke in Laura.  "So you won't leave me like this?  I won't be small forever."

"Nah, I'll restore you.  I've been adjusting pretty well.  I can have you back to full size in a few hours."

"Hours!  Why not now?  Please, why not now?"  The tiny girl pleaded up at the woman who had shrunk her.

"Yes, why not now?"  A male voice startled them both.  "Why lie, Chloe?  You're enjoying tormenting this girl.  You like being menacing."  Andre stood at the door  looking at the two women, the tiny one and the normal sized one.

"Maybe I do."  Chloe glanced sideways at him.  "You had your fun with her last night.  I went to a lot of trouble today to straighten out the mess you were making.  I think I've earned something from her."

"Well, you've had all the fun at her expense that you're going to have.  Quit wasting my time and her time too.  Bring her back the way she should be."

Chloe looked at him thoughtfully, then shrugged.  "Okay.  She doesn't stay frightened very well anyway."  She closed her eyes and concentrated.  The effort of shrinking seemed to be much less than the reverse had been.  Her face remained serene as her clothes grew loose on her and her height rapidly diminished.  In a matter of  30 seconds or so, a second nude woman peeked out from a pile of clothes on the floor.

Andre grinned down at them both.  "Two lovely ladies, posing for me.  But it wouldn't be polite for me to stay so much larger than you both."  He didn't even close his eyes, he merely stood calmly and quietly while he shrank even more quickly than Chloe had.  Laura had known his body in the dark but as he stood forth from the heap of clothes surrounding him, she appreciated his physique even more.  A handsome man, more than handsome, she thought.  Her fear evaporated as desire for him flamed again.

Chloe spun to look first at her then back at him.  "What are you thinking?" she demanded of him.  "You know this isn't stable.  We can't all be this size.  Not here."

Andre crossed to stand behind Laura, his arms draped loosely around her.  "Well do I know it.  You've been annoying me more and more lately, did you know that?  What if I keep my new love here with me for a while?"

"You can't do that.  You need me.  You'll need me more to go on."

"I don't need you, Chloe.  I need a woman to cross to some places but that woman doesn't have to be you.  Laura can come with me."  Laura squirmed happily as he nuzzled the side of her neck.

"You can't do this to me," Chloe cried as she began to slowly grow.  "Please don't do this to me," she pleaded, as she overtopped the desk.  "I don't want to be stuck here, stuck  this size forever.  Please."

But Andre only chuckled as she returned to the stature of an ordinary woman.  "I'll spread the word around.  Maybe Nick will come visit you,"  he said derisively.

But Chloe didn't seem to hear him.  Looking around her in anguish, she snatched up her pile of clothes and hugged them to her.  "Trapped like this!" she cried.  "I'll never be normal again."  She stumbled from the office, sobbing in despair.

Laura felt comfortable now, comfortable and very, very safe, with Andre's arms around her.  "What was that all about?" she asked.  "I'm the one who's been shrunk.  Not that I'm complaining, not if I can be with you.  But what's her problem?  She's not in love with you."

"But you've lived your life that size, in this place," he told her.  "She hasn't and now she's trapped in a little place with no way out.  She deserves it, for a lot of reasons, but she's afraid now.  I can't explain it to you but you'll understand after we've gone to some other places."

He released her from his arms and turned her to face him.  "You do want this, now?  I can switch her size with yours still.  You don't have to stay like this."

She stopped his talk with a kiss of her own and started to drag him to a pile of clothes.  "Be quiet," she told him.  "We have tonight, and I have you, and you just be quiet."

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