The Object of my Desire (story) (mini-GTS, GTS, BBW, 18+)

[Eelskin]

11

And that was the end of the discussion. My pants came off directly, and so did Marie-Eve?s. These were followed by the rest of our clothes. Veronica sat back on the bed and leaned back on her elbows. She was long enough that her head was almost touching the wall, but her knees extended just past the foot of the queen-size bed and her feet rested comfortably on the floor. I placed a hand on her knee ? which was almost as high as my waist ? and ran it up and down the inside of her thigh, while she bit her lip and smiled.

Poor Marie-Eve wasn?t sure what to do, being unfamiliar with the entire situation, until Veronica pointed at her and crooked her finger, indicating that she wanted her to come closer. Hesitantly, she approached the side of the bed, and squealed as Veronica hoisted her off the ground and sat her on her chest. She then leaned forward and began to lick Marie-Eve?s breasts, running her enormous hands up and down Marie-Eve?s legs. Marie-Eve ran her hands through Veronica?s hair and moaned in arousal.

From between Veronica?s legs, I was in a perfect position to see her growth accelerate again. She was growing far faster than I had ever seen her do before, and it was making it difficult for me to control myself. I continued to rub her thighs, which were now so thick I could barely reach my arms around them. I did, and touched my fingertips to each other- just for a moment. As I held my own hands, her thigh simply pushed my arms apart until they couldn?t touch anymore. I then leaned forward and began to lick her belly button and kiss her rolls, taking the time to rub every square centimetre of her rapidly expanding belly. I knelt down and applied my lips to her clitoris, gently sucking and licking it.

Marie-Eve, meanwhile, was repositioning herself. She turned around so that she was facing me, and Veronica began to eat her out while Marie-Eve sat on her face. As I applied my own tongue to her oversized vagina, Veronica trembled and spasmed, which made Marie-Eve lose her balance and fall forward. She landed on Veronica?s chest so that their breasts pressed against each other. It was impossible not to compare them; Marie-Eve had a fine set of breasts, but the comparison was just ridiculous. Both of her breasts would fit into Veronica?s cleavage, and did. Marie-Eve struggled to raise herself up, but couldn?t find a good grip anywhere. She eventually let her chest rest on Veronica?s, and simply enjoyed herself.

It wasn?t long before I began to get pushed backwards; her head had reached the wall and as she grew, she grew towards me, which meant I had to keep backing up in order to be able to service her. I soon decided to approach her from a different angle. I got up and walked around to the side of the bed, climbed up on top of her belly, and lay face down with my head between her legs. Here, I resumed my work. I was also in a perfect position to pleasure myself; my penis rubbing against her soft, fleshy belly felt unbelievable. I ground my crotch against her as I sucked, and my penis once or twice actually slipped inside one of her rolls! It was incredible.

Veronica must have been almost triple her original height, and was still expanding. If anything, her growth was still speeding up. Her body began to shift underneath me- she was changing position. I began to raise myself up, but she turned her body and I tumbled onto the bed next to her- not that there was much room left on there. Marie-Eve was already standing on the bed next to me, staring at our gigantic sex partner. I rose up and stood next to her.

Veronica was propping herself up on one arm, gazing at us both, and her shoulder was at the same level as mine. Even though her hand was resting on the same surface I was standing on, her eyes were exactly level with mine. Each one of her breasts was almost as wide as my entire chest. I stepped forward and kissed her, gently, on her bottom lip. She smiled back and kissed me on the lower half of my face. I think she was trying to do it gently, but she pushed me backwards and knocked me over. I stumbled backwards, right into Marie-Eve, who propped me up and kept me from falling over. I turned around.

?Uh, thanks.?

She laughed. ?No problem.?

I looked at Marie-Eve. She was ecstatic. She was sweating all over and blushing furiously. It was incredibly alluring. I placed one hand on her cheek and kissed her, and she returned it with passion.

After being in a monogamous relationship for months, it was a little unusual to be kissing a different person, especially someone with such a different body type. Marie-Eve wasn?t thin, but certainly not as big as Veronica was. It was nice. I gripped her right breast, squeezing it gently, and guided her to sit down on the bed. I leaned down and kissed her, and she leaned backward, inviting me to follow her onto the bed.

Behind her, the wall that was Veronica?s belly lifted up to grant us more room on the bed, because the three of us were not going to fit side-by-side. She sat up on the bed and knocked her head against the ceiling, wincing as she did. I looked up, grinning.

?Are you ok??

?Oh sure. I?m just glad we moved all of the furniture out of this room,? she said as she moved herself onto the floor. She propped her arms on the foot of the bed, then rested her chest on them to watch us. Her monumental breasts formed cleavage that was almost as long as my arm. I looked back at Marie-Eve, lying on her back, to see that she was staring at them too. I touched her gently on her shoulder and she turned back to me, grinned, and kissed me again on the lips. I lowered my head to her breasts and bit her nipples gently, pulling on them with my teeth. She gasped and wrapped her legs around my back, squeezing me between her thighs. I licked her chest between her breasts and reached behind me to squeeze her ass, which was quite a bit more soft and round than I had realised.

Marie-Eve rolled over, with me still wrapped in her legs, until I was on my back and she on top. She sat on my stomach and leaned back, allowing me a view of her breasts from below. She winked at me, leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, then backed up slowly, dragging her breasts down my chest, over my stomach, then began to rub them against my penis. It was unfamiliar but wonderful. She then moved back further and took me into her mouth, licking up and down.

From behind her, however, a shadow covered us as Veronica rose up slightly and began crawling on her hands and knees toward us. As she placed her hands on the bed, her head bumped against the ceiling again- much more softly this time- and she had to bend her elbows to keep from raining drywall down upon us. She crawled over Marie-Eve to get closer to me, which was simply amazing to watch. Marie-Eve was still giving me a blowjob, and Veronica was directly above her, her arms to either side of her, her pendulous breasts swaying back and forth as she advanced. She leaned down and kissed me again on my face, this time her lips pressing from my chin to my eyes. She then stuck out her tongue and licked me from my chest, up the left side of my face, to my ear. Her tongue was the size of my foot. She then rose back up and moved forward some more, so that her two breasts, each one about half a metre wide, hung directly above my face. Then she lowered them.

I dug my fingers into her breast flesh, but I have no idea if she even felt them or not. She just continued rubbing her simply enormous breasts against my face, right to left, left to right, then raised them up above me and dropped them down again. I tried to lift them to take a look at Marie-Eve, and actually could not, because they were so heavy. I could sink my hands into them, but couldn?t actually push them up. I tried placing my forearms into her cleavage and pushing them apart, which I managed to just barely accomplish, though it was a huge effort. I looked down to see Marie-Eve still sucking on me, with Veronica?s belly pressing into her back. I strained to hold them up just for a moment, then let them flop back down. Her arms rested on either side of my head like pillars holding up a ceiling.

Lying on my back, I could feel Veronica?s weight increasing steadily, though she wasn?t actually resting on us. Her breasts, just like the rest of her, were getting more and more massive, and I could feel their weight on my body. I could only imagine how it might feel if she were to actually rest her whole weight on us at this moment. I kissed her nipples and tried to suck on them, when I realised that they would actually not fit into my mouth. They were each almost as big as my fist.

At this point, Veronica dropped her upper body down until my head was directly between her two monolithic breasts. She then pressed them together with her arms so that they completely enveloped my face. The smell of sweat was overpowering, and all light was blocked out, so I couldn?t see anything. I could just feel her giant breasts squeezing my face, her body heat enveloping me, and Marie-Eve still, persistently, sucking on my dick. I came powerfully into Marie-Eve?s mouth, shouting into Veronica?s cleavage in joy, though I don?t think either of them heard me.

I went limp, and took a moment to recover from the experience. Not that I could have moved much, had I wanted to. I could hear Marie-Eve say something, but my ears were totally blocked and I couldn?t make out what it was. Veronica replied, and then the weight lifted off of me. I could see again, and my eyes were greeted by the sight of her cleavage. I continued to lie still. After a moment, Veronica spoke to me.

?Oh David, honey??

?Yes, Veronica??

?I can?t move. I need you to crawl out from under me.?

?Do I have to??

?Well I?d like to turn over. So unless you want to be under my back??

?No, I?m going.? And I slowly leaned up, flipped over, and crawled out from under my girlfriend. When I could stand up, I saw that Marie-Eve was already out from under her, staring dumbfounded at the beauty in front of her. I turned around to see that Veronica was far longer than the room; her knees and neck were bent to accommodate her incredible size, and her body spanned from one end of the room to the other. She must have been over eight metres long. Eight metres? that?s insane. I turned to Marie-Eve, next to me, and kissed her on the forehead. She grinned up at me.

?As-tu aim? ?a, David?? she asked me.

?Oh, it was alright. Could have been better.? She laughed and punched my arm.

Veronica, meanwhile, was trying, without much success, to turn over. There simply wasn?t enough room in the bedroom to allow her to turn the way she wanted to. After knocking against the walls and ceiling several times, she gave up and rested lying on her left side, propping her head on her arm with her elbow on the bed. Most of her body was resting on the floor, but she seemed content with where she was.

?Well, kids,? she rumbled. ?I am in desperate need of someone to get me off. David, since you?ve had your fun, why don?t you take the honour.?

?Yes ma?am!? I walked toward her crotch preparing to do my job. Behind me, Marie-Eve approached Veronica?s face, and Veronica actually picked her up in both hands and held her off the ground, which distracted me for a moment. I watched Marie-Eve shiver and cry in pleasure while Veronica brought her to her face and began to lick her up and down, paying special attention to her thighs and vagina. She sucked on her breasts and nibbled her feet, then returned to her sex for more.

I turned back to my task, and immediately noticed a problem.

?Uh, Veronica??

Veronica paused and licked her lips. ?Yeah??

?You?re bent too much. I can?t really reach you properly.?

?I can?t straighten out without going through the wall.?

?Yeah, I know.? But then I realised that if I could get to the spot behind her bent knees, I could reach her pussy from there. ?Can you open your legs and let me get behind??

Like a portcullis opening, her thigh slowly lifted toward the ceiling. Her left thigh, which still lay on the floor, came up to my hips, so I had to climb over it. I landed on the other side, between her knees and the wall, and the wall of flesh closed slowly behind me. I turned and saw Veronica?s ass, which was sideways and pressed against the wall. It was just as tall as I was. I would not have been able to climb up on it had I tried. These two globes of flesh, each one weighing far more than I did, gyrated and swayed with her body movements, and I could hear Marie-Eve moaning. I brought my arm back in a wind up, then swung forward with as much force as I could muster, and slapped her cheek with my open palm as hard as I possibly could. The slap sound echoed loudly in the tiny cavern where I stood, and her ass rippled with the force of it in a beautiful movement. Veronica didn?t even respond. I grinned and kissed each of her cheeks before focusing on the task at hand.

I turned to where her thighs met her bum, and there were her lips. They were more than twice as large as they had been the last time I saw them; probably about twenty centimetres long. If I stretched out my fingers as far as they would go, the distance from my thumb to my little finger would still not be as long as her lips. In went my right hand.

I felt around, feeling the walls of her pussy, slowing massaging them, rubbing, caressing them. Veronica began to moan from the other end of the room, and the huge fleshy walls around me twitched. Marie-Eve cried out in pleasure once again, and this time it sounded like a climax, though I couldn?t actually see her. I pushed my arm in to the elbow and was shocked to find that there was still plenty of room. I pushed in deeper and discovered that I could my arm in to the shoulder ? my entire arm ? and I still could not reach the end. Oh well, I thought. Make do with what I have. And with that, I pulled out, and began to thrust in.

Veronica reacted immediately, moaning and spasming throughout the entire room. I thrust faster, balling my hand into a fist. Veronica began to buck her body in time with my thrusts. ?A-a-a-a-almo-o-o-o-st?? she whimpered, although her whimper was loud enough to be heard in the next room. I kept pumping until I could suddenly feel that my arm was soaking wet, and Veronica?s scream filled the entire house. I withdrew my hand, which was sticky and slimy from the fingertips to the shoulder, and wedged it in between her thighs. She opened them up to allow me through, and I climbed out from my cave.

Veronica lay on her side, in the same position, panting. Marie-Eve sat on the bed, learning back against her breasts, with her eyes closed. I walked up to Veronica?s face and kissed her on the tip of her nose. She gave me a smile that was the size of my forearm. I sat down next to Marie-Eve and lay back as well. I closed my eyes and felt Veronica begin, slowly, to shrink against my skin. I nestled my head in between her breast and her belly, while I still could, and got comfortable.

I?m glad I didn?t call that cab after all, I thought.

[Eelskin]

12

Marie-Eve stayed the night. By the time we finished, it was the early hours of the morning and I unfolded the couch into a bed for her, while Veronica shrank and spoke with Marie-Eve. As Marie-Eve went to sleep out in the living room, I kissed Veronica and fell asleep immediately.

The next day, I wasn?t sure what to make of the situation. My girlfriend and I had just had a drunken threesome with our friend, which was? unexpected, but also? well, amazing. But now that I was no longer drunk, I was having second thoughts about what had just happened, what it meant, and what the consequences would be.

First of all, I was shocked that Veronica had been so willing ? eager, even ? to have sex with Marie-Eve. She had never been a prude, but, to my knowledge, had never been interested in multiple partners. Or women, for that matter. We had spoken about it briefly, and she had said that she had just never been attracted to them.

I was one hundred percent certain that this was the result of the bracelet. The bracelet was changing the way she thought and acted in so many ways, and sometimes this was a good thing. She was happier, and I was happy for her. And that fact allowed me to push away most of my doubts and misgivings about this powerful tool which I just did not understand in the least. But when it caused her to do really unexpected things like this, it brought these doubts all back, twice as strong as before. Yes, she was still happy, but also? reckless. And this newfound promiscuity? it didn?t offend me morally, but the sudden personality shift was very alarming.

--

I decided to bring it up that afternoon. Marie-Eve had gone home, giving my girlfriend and me a good-bye kiss at the front door, and Veronica and I had some errands to run, so we took the car to the grocery store.

Walking up and down the aisles, I had no idea how to broach the subject. She hadn?t responded well the last time I had told her I was uncomfortable with the effects of the bracelet, and I had no doubt that her reaction this time would be similar. Worse, I didn?t want her to interpret it as jealousy. What if she reacted with hostility? What if she?

?David.? I looked up. Veronica was smiling at me. ?You off in space??

?Uh, yeah. Didn?t sleep too much last night, you know.?

She grinned ?Oh, I know,? then stepped forward to hug me. As she stepped away, she looked up at my face and saw that I wasn?t smiling. Her own smile disappeared. ?David, are you okay? What?s wrong??

?I just? nothing.?

?No, David. Tell me.?

?It?s just? the bracelet. Veronica, last night you acted in such? you were so different.?

She looked hurt. ?I thought you liked that.?

?I do! I love it when you?re happy. But this is more than that. This is really scary.?

Veronica looked away. When she looked back at me, she was blinking back tears. ?Not here. We?re going to pay for these groceries and then we?ll talk about this when we aren?t in public.?

?Okay. I think that?s a good idea.?

Luckily, there was one cashier who had no line, and we were out of the store within a few minutes. We got back in the car, she sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition. She pulled out of the parking lot and began to cry.

?I don?t know why you keep wanting to take this away from me. David, this is the best thing that?s ever happened to me! Ever! Don?t you keep telling me you want me to be happy??

?Yeah.?

?And now I am! Now I can finally appreciate what you feel when you look at me, and it feels so, so good! It?s something I?ve never felt before in my life? I couldn?t before I got this. And the sex! Fuck, David, the sex is amazing! Isn?t it??

?Yeah.?

?But you don?t want me to wear it anymore! Why??

?I just? don?t know what to expect from you next. Veronica, you?ve never been attracted to women before.?

?Is that what this is about?? She was yelling now, and she took her eyes off the road to look at me while she was yelling. ?I seem to remember you being just as active last night as I was!?

?Not at first! I wanted her to go home. And so did you! Right up until?? I stopped.

?Until what!?

And as I thought about the events of the previous evening, I understood. I knew why she was suddenly attracted to Marie-Eve. She was addicted. She was addicted to the feeling of being lusted after, and she grabbed any opportunity to feel it again. Even when she felt it coming from me every day, she still couldn?t refuse it from anywhere else. That was why she wouldn?t ask Marie-Eve to leave once she had learned that Marie-Eve was attracted to her- because she suddenly had an opportunity to feel more lust. And she would always take advantage of that if she could, because she was addicted to it. It made sense. I didn?t like it, but? I understood it.

I looked at her in a new light after that epiphany. ?I? I think I understand now.?

?What do you understand?? She was still fuming, obviously. Though she could tell what I was thinking sometimes, this kind of thought didn?t factor into it.

?I think I understand why you??

?AUGH!? Veronica looked ahead and saw that she was about to hit the car in front of her. She swerved out of the way at the last possible moment, driving into the thankfully empty oncoming lane, missing the car ahead of us by mere centimetres. She pulled ahead of it and got back into the right lane, trying to ignore the chorus of angry HONKS that followed us, straightened out and slowed down. We took a moment to make sure our hearts were still beating. ?Are you okay?? she asked, the anger gone from her voice.

?Yeah. Are you??

She took a deep breath and nodded. ?I?m sorry. I should have been watching the road.?

?Look, Veronica, maybe we should talk about this more once we get home. It?ll be??

?Oh no.? Veronica was suddenly horrified.

?What??

?Uhm??

?Veronica, what is it??

?Are you thinking sexy thoughts??

?No.?

?Well, someone else is.?

?Now?? I looked at her, and sure enough, her belly was beginning to pull her tucked shirt out of her jeans. The seat belt was digging into her waist. ?Oh, shit. Hold out your arm!? She did, and I tried to pull the bracelet off of her wrist, but it was already too late. It constricted her pudgy wrist just enough so that it couldn?t be pulled off around her hand. I pulled harder, provoking a cry of pain from Veronica, who snapped it back.

?Maybe I should pull over.? We were on a busy city street, and there were no parking to be had. She pulled over illegally into the space next to a bus stop, and jammed her enlarged foot down on the brakes clumsily. We strained against the seat belts as we bounced to a halt, and she put the car in park. Several people in the queue for the bus began to shout in protest.

I looked over at Veronica, who was already stretching toward the ceiling of the car. This is a worst-case scenario, I realised. I looked back out at the folks at the bus stop, who were beginning to peek into the windows in angry curiosity. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. It?s happening right now and there?s nothing I can do to stop it because I?m not even causing it this time. The seat belt strained against her belly and in between her breasts, and she grunted painfully as she tried to press the button to release the clasp. I realised that she couldn?t reach it, so I reached down and pressed it. The clasp swung up and struck me in the forehead before retreating back into the wall. ?Ow!? I cried, but Veronica didn?t even notice. She looked down at me, already taller than I was.

?David, you need to drive me home. I can?t do this. You need to drive me home right now.?

She was right. ?Okay! You see if you can squeeze into the passenger side of the car!? I opened my door and got out, closing it behind me. One of the people waiting for the bus stopped me.

?Yo, man, you can?t??

I cut him off. ?We aren?t staying!? I ran around in front of the car to get to the driver?s side door, but suddenly, a car passing by slammed on the brakes right in front of us, and an angry, short, balding man wearing a business suit got out of the driver?s side. He was actually blocking traffic. He came around the car and began to yell at me.

?Hey, asshole! You nearly killed me back there! What the fuck is wrong with you? I tell you, I memorised your license plate and I?m going to report you! I have a photographic memory, and I?m calling it in as soon as I get home! That?s reckless endangerment of motorists and pedestrians! And if??

He was cut off as the horn started blaring. ?David! We don?t have time for this!? Veronica screamed through the windshield. I grabbed my ears reflexively and looked in at Veronica through the windshield. Her hands were on the passenger seat and her knees on the driver seat. I had no idea how I was going to drive the car with her at this size. I looked back at the angry motorist in front of me. Other cars were now beginning to honk at him, since he was blocking traffic, but he didn?t seem to hear them, or see me. He was speechless, looking in through the driver side window at my girlfriend?s expanding ass, bursting out of her jeans, pressed against the glass.

I ran past him and opened the door, and she came spilling out, her knees falling onto the pavement. Her bum barely fit through the door. ?David!? she yelled. ?Get in here!?

I examined the situation to see how I could best fit in there, and after a moment, concluded that there was no way. I could not possibly fit in that car. If only I could? I got a bright idea. ?Sit tight, Veronica, I?m going to call Marie-Eve!?

?Why?? She was beginning to hyperventilate.

?To tell her to stop this!?

?Urgh? I don?t think she?ll pick up, David.?

My phone was already in my hand. I found her name in the caller ID and hit send, then held it to my ear and waited the few agonisingly long seconds before it began ringing. Veronica?s legs stretched further and further away from the car. Finally, it began to ring.

Two rings.

Three rings, and I heard yet another enormous HONK from behind me. I turned to see that the bus was here. The one that wanted to stop where we were illegally parked. The driver continued honking at us while I waited for Marie-Eve to pick up.

Four rings, and then a click. ?Bonjour! Ici la bo?te vocale de?? I hung up and yelled to Veronica, ?I got her voice mail! I?m going to try again!? The people waiting for the bus began to yell at me now. The seams of Veronica?s pants ripped, her fleshy legs bursting through the fabric.

Her muffled voice came from the inside of the car. ?David, she?s really close to coming. She?s not going to answer the phone!? But I had to try. What else could I do? I opened the phone and dialled the number again. I looked back at the angry motorist, who hadn?t said anything for almost a minute. Looking at his face, he was staring, dumbfounded, at Veronica?s legs, which were now more naked than covered. He didn?t even see me. I looked down and saw that he was in too much shock even to cover his erection, which formed an obvious tent in his pants.

The significance of that erection suddenly struck me. My entire body went cold. In a panic, I took a step forward and punched him in the face as hard as I could. He fell down on the ground and clutched his nose, which began to bleed profusely. ?What the fuck is wrong with you, buddy??

?Yes!? I cried. Just keep looking at me. Just keep thinking about me. ?How do you like that, asshole?? I didn?t know what else to say. I just needed him to look at anything else, even if that meant inviting a physical attack upon myself. But once I looked around, I knew that it was hopeless. Several of the people who had been waiting in the queue had stopped shouting and were now peering in through the windows at Veronica. The bus driver behind me had stopped honking, as well.

Veronica was now big enough that she couldn?t even back out of the car if she had wanted to; her belly had grown so much that it was holding her fast in both front seats of the car. From the inside, I could hear her gasp suddenly and loudly, and her body began to expand even faster. Her palm pressed against the rear window and I could hear glass shattering as her elbow went through the windshield. I lowered the phone to my side. ?David? she just came!? she yelled from the inside.

I had no response. I was at a complete loss for words. Her thighs swelled and her belly began to bend the metal of the car as she outgrew the doorframe. Her hand disappeared from the inside of the rear window, and after a moment, I could hear her groaning in- I couldn?t tell. Pain? Effort? Both? After a moment I could see the roof of the car beginning to distend, being pressed upwards from the inside. I looked on in horror, with nothing I could possibly do or say. From my hand, hanging by my side, I could hear, faintly, Marie-Eve?s voice. She sounded annoyed and out of breath. ?Allo? Allo? David, est-ce-que c?est toi??

With a powerful yell, my girlfriend pushed herself up from the seats with as much force as she could, and with a crunch of twisting metal and more shattering glass, Veronica actually ripped the roof off of the car and stood up.

Slowly, majestically, she rose high above us, and her gigantic belly cast a shadow over me and the poor man whose nose I had just broken. What few tatters of her clothing she still had fell off of her body. The tops of cars were only as high as her knees. Everyone around us immediately stopped honking their horns, and I could hear cars rear-ending each other in the distance. Then an eerie silence settled around the area.

Veronica looked around at the crowd of people before her, and then, slowly, her eyes lost focus. She stared off into the distance, and traces of a smile flickered across her features. ?Oh? my?? she rumbled. She looked around again at the motorists who were getting out of their cars to see her better, at the people on the sidewalks who were fumbling for their cameras, at the windows of the buildings all around her, smiled, and her body stretched upward once again.

[Eelskin]

13

?Veronica!? I yelled, but I don?t think she even heard me. Her eyes were glazed over and she wasn?t moving, but still rising higher. What the hell do I do now? I thought to myself.

The angry motorist was standing up, next to me, blood staining his suit. He seemed to have a difficult time deciding whether he was more angry at me for breaking his nose or more awed at Veronica towering above him. For the moment, it seemed, awe was winning out, but he occasionally shot me murderous glances.

?Veronica!? I yelled again, but got no response. People were getting out of their cars, beginning to crowd around, but keeping a safe distance at the same time. Windows were opening from buildings in every direction. I ran up and began tapping her thigh, which was right in front of my face.

That got her attention. She looked down at me and grinned drunkenly. ?Hey, David. I? feel? amazing.?

Uh oh. ?Pick me up!? I shouted back. I did not want her wandering away without me.

She cocked her head and leaned down to grab me in both hands. This wasn?t the biggest I had seen her at, but she still could pick me up in both hands without much difficulty. She held me to her like a baby, with my chest pressed against her shoulder. My legs flailed as I tried to get a grip on her belly with my feet, but it was just a bit too high for me to find any purchase. I just had to grip her shoulder with my arms and hope that she held on to me. She looked away again, in through the open second-story window of a building where there was a wide-eyed young man, dressed only in his underpants, staring at her and smoking a cigarette with an unashamed erection poking out of his boxers. She looked him in the eye and pressed her lips together, blowing him a kiss. His eyes widened even more than they had been, and he started, clutching at his pants as he came just from the sight of her. She giggled.

Correction: this is a worst-case scenario. She?s not thinking rationally. ?Veronica!? I said, into her ear. She smiled down at me. ?We have to get out of here! You need to get away from all of these people!?

She laughed. ?Oh, don?t worry, David. Don?t be jealous. I?m just enjoying this.?

What? ?I?m not jealous! Veronica, look at your car!?

She bowed her head to examine the destroyed bits of metal and glass that littered the pavement around her feet. ?I did that, didn?t I??

?Yes, Veronica, you did that! And if you don?t get out of here right now, you are going to get so big that you are going to destroy a lot more than your car!?

She moaned. ?Just a bit longer, David?? she held me out from her shoulder and looked me in the eyes. ?I wish you could know how this feels? there are so many people out there.?

She?s not just thinking irrationally? she?s drunk. This is very, very bad. I had not even considered this as a worst-case scenario. ?They?ll still be able to see you, Veronica, but you need to get away from these buildings! And all of this traffic!?

Slowly, carefully, she looked around at the pieces of her car around her feet, then at all of the cars gridlocked around her in every direction. ?Okay,? she conceded, finally.

Oh thank Christ, I thought. Now: where do we go? But it didn?t matter what suggestions I might have come up with, because Veronica pressed me back to her shoulder and shifted into motion, walking down the sidewalk, which was still wide enough to accommodate her- for the moment. Ahead of us, people screamed and ran out of her way, into alleys and doorways and into the street, between stationary cars. She paid them no mind, just walking down the street slowly, nonchalantly, as though she had just decided to go for a walk on an otherwise uneventful day. I held on to her shoulder for dear life, noticing that my feet could now rest comfortably on her stomach, and that her ear was just a bit further away from me than it had been a moment ago. I looked to my left and could see the second-story windows as we walked by them getting slowly, gradually, lower and lower, until we approached the third-story windows. On nearby buildings that didn?t have three stories, residents were congregating on the rooftops to witness the spectacle. Veronica waved at them. They didn?t wave back.

At this point, Veronica yelped in pain and stumbled. I grabbed hold of her shoulder in panic, digging my fingers into her flesh. I?m sure most people would have yelped in pain at that, but Veronica didn?t even feel it. From below me I could hear a CLANG of metal on concrete and a rush of pressure, and suddenly I was being sprayed from below with ice-cold water. I realised that Veronica had stubbed her toe on a fire hydrant and knocked the whole thing off the sidewalk- without even trying. She fell forward slightly and tried to steady herself on a lamppost, but it collapsed instantly under her enormous weight. It fell into the street, denting the roof of one car and smashing the windshield of another. The alarm in one of them began wailing.

She covered her mouth with her hands, nearly dropping me. ?Sorry! Oh my god, I really didn?t mean to do that!?

It was at this point that people began to realise how much of a danger she was. With every passing minute, she swelled larger and wider, and with every new meter of height, she became that much clumsier- and, as a direct result, that much more destructive. I could see people running away from her now, though many were still gawking.

She looked into the street and saw that traffic was only jammed in one direction- two of the lanes were almost totally empty. She stepped over the parked cars to get to the empty lanes, where she could walk more comfortably. As she did so, I could hear a number of people underneath us cry out in fear that she was going to step on their cars, while they were inside. Luckily, she did no such thing. She just stepped over them and continued walking down the street, passing by people?s homes and shops, getting taller and heavier with every footfall.

As she continued down the street, I could see her feet slowly taking up more and more of the lane as she walked down it, and noticed that we were moving perceptibly faster and faster. She was walking casually, but someone running alongside her would not be able to keep up. Occasionally, she would pick up on some particularly intense emotion radiating from someone, and look around playfully to see if she could find the source. When she could, she would pause and spend some time basking in it. From my vantage point, I was just about able to see the rooftops of the three-story buildings, and since there were no four-story buildings in this part of town, that essentially meant that Veronica was now visible from blocks away in every direction. Wonderful. The number of people who can see her just multiplied.

At one point, she looked down at a group of two men and two women on the roof of their two-story apartment building, and she must have detected something particularly special emanating from them, because she turned and focused on them. They got nervous and took a couple of steps back, even though she was in the middle of the street. But when she stepped toward them, two of them actually ran away. Of the two who remained, one stood, transfixed, and the other stepped forward. Veronica leaned her arms down on the roof of the building and I cringed as I could hear the structure groan under her incredible weight. I?m sure the architects did not have this in mind when testing the stability of this building, I thought. She rested her gigantic breasts on top of her forearms, directly in front of the man and woman on the rooftop. She didn?t say anything. Nothing was necessary. All she wanted was to be adored. She grinned at them and they stared back.

From behind, she began to sway her bum back and forth for the benefit of everyone behind her and across the street. My god, I thought. She?s posing. She?s putting on a show for the entire city. I was terrified to think of how big she was going to get as a result of this. I heard a CRUNCH and looked down to see that her protruding belly had collided with someone?s second-floor balcony, ripped it off the side of the building and sent it tumbling down to the sidewalk. It is actually getting impossible for her to not destroy everything around her, I thought to myself as I listened to the tenants of the second floor screaming at their wall being pulled apart by this titanic person. I climbed up onto her shoulder and turned around, sitting, facing the same direction as she was. I held on a few strands of her hair to keep my balance. Her ear was at my chest level, which meant I could speak to her quite easily.

?Veronica,? I spoke into her ear, ?How about going to the lake? There?s lots of open space there.?

She turned her head from her adoring spectators and turned back to me. The enormity of her face shocked me as she smiled a huge, toothy grin that was wide enough for me to fit my entire head inside. Okay? now she is bigger than she?s ever been. And she?s still growing. I no longer felt horror or terror at the situation. Just numbness.

?David, you are so cute down there!? Her voice boomed at me and I had to fight my reflexes to block my ears, because that would mean letting go of her hair.

?I?m serious, Veronica. If you stay here you?re going to keep causing damage!?

One of the two people on the roof began to climb onto Veronica?s breast, trying to sit on her other shoulder like I was. He grabbed some of her hair and began to climb up it like a rope.

?Ouch!? Veronica cried as the weight of this man pulled on her hair. She jerked her head back reflexively and he was pulled away from the building. He began screaming as he held on for his life to my girlfriend?s hair, swinging wildly back and forth, bumping against her chest, two floors above street level. ?Oh no!? Veronica gasped, and grabbed him in one hand. I could hear people screaming from a distance at the sight of this man being held aloft. He cried out as well, in pain this time, and she placed him back down on the roof, where he fell down onto his knees and gasped for breath.

She looked down at him with concern, still rising higher. ?Veronica,? I said again. I need to keep her focused. ?Veronica, we need to keep going.?

?I know, I know.? She was responding like a child. ?I?m going. I think the lake would be nice? it?s so hot out today.? And she stepped back into the empty lane, following it south.

I looked out toward the horizon to try to gauge how long it would take us, but it was then that I realised something awful. My heart sank when I realised that getting to the lake would be far, far more problematic than I had hoped it would be.

This street will bring us to the lake? but first, we're going to have to go through downtown.

[Eelskin]

14

My mind raced. I ran through a dozen scenarios in my mind to imagine how we could possibly get out of this situation without destroying anything. Well, anything more. The bigger she gets, the more potential for destruction there is. What if she gets big enough to damage the street? What if she gets big enough to collapse a building? She couldn?t get that big, could she? I remembered that just half an hour prior, I would never have believed that she could be anywhere near as big as she was presently, and shuddered and I reminded myself that I had no idea what the limit of the bracelet?s power was- or if there was any limit at all.

Veronica was still headed south, thankfully, but as she grew, she seemed to be more and more distracted. She was gazing around in every direction and not looking where she was going. I leaned in to her ear. ?Veronica,? I began.

She turned her head and grinned at me, and I completely lost my train of thought. The immensity of her face filled my vision. She didn?t seem to mind, though, that I suddenly had nothing to say. She just bit her lip and looked down at me in a euphoric haze, feeling my arousal, whether I wanted her to or not.

I heard a horrible groaning sound of twisting metal from below, and, jerked out of my reverie, looked down. Veronica had nearly stepped on a car- that is, she had brought her foot down against the driver?s side, smashing in the door and snapping off the side view mirror. The alarm began ringing its shrill whine. ?Oops,? she laughed. ?Oh no! I?m sorry!? She bent down to get a closer look at it, forgetting completely that I was perched on her shoulder without a seatbelt.

I panicked. ?Veronica stop, stop, stop!? I yelled and clutched even more tightly to the hairs I was holding onto. They were like thin ropes, but I had no idea if they would support my body weight. It didn?t matter, because I was pitched over her shoulder and suddenly found myself falling down from high enough to kill me if I landed poorly. My body jerked as her hair went taut and I swung wildly, kicking frantically, trying to get a decent hold on it. But she was moving as well, and it was impossible for me to keep a good grip.

Upon hearing me yell, she jerked back up, which yanked me forward against her. I bounced off of her shoulder and swung around behind her, screaming in terror. ?Fuck! David?? she called, trying to find me. She turned her head, swinging me even more violently around her back, and when I swung back toward her shoulder I tried to grab onto it, but she was still turning around frantically, trying to catch me.

In her panic, she stepped on the car again, fully in the centre of the hood this time. The windows exploded outward and the alarm was silenced as she completely crushed the engine with her foot. I barely noticed this, as when she stepped on the car unexpectedly, it caused her to lose her balance and she fell backwards, across the street.

I barely realised what was happening; at first I thought that I had pulled her hairs out of her scalp and that I was falling to my death. I reflexively clutched them and closed me eyes, and was surprised when they suddenly went taut again as I heard the loudest CRASH I had ever heard, followed by Veronica yelling ?Ouch!? I was still hanging on to her hair, my knees tucked into my chest, eyes squeezed tight. Her hairs were pulled to one side again and I went with them, and suddenly I could feel something soft under my feet. I relaxed a bit and collapsed into her hand.

?David,? said Veronica. ?David, are you okay? Oh please, David, look at me.? I opened my eyes and looked around wildly to see her face less than a metre away from me. I tried to speak but I was hyperventilating and couldn?t get any words out. She seemed slightly comforted by the fact that I could open my eyes look at her, at least.

I turned my head to see that I was being held in both of her hands, resting against her breasts. I was lying on my back across her eight fingers, secure- for now. I also realised that I was still holding her hair, my knuckles white with the strain. I let them go and slowly flexed my fingers, feeling pins and needles as the blood flowed through them again. My breathing slowed and I took beep breaths through my nose. I looked up to see Veronica?s giant face above me, putting some distance between us, now that I wasn?t hanging on to her hair anymore. I took a glance around to see that she was sitting down on the ground, her back leaning against a building. I could see people looking incredulously out of the windows from behind her. Her legs stretched across the four-lane street.

?Are you okay, David?? she asked again. I propped myself up against her fingers and nodded, still wondering what to do.

?Oh, David, I?m so sorry! Oh my god, I can?t believe that almost happened! Are you sure you?re okay??

I felt her skin move, and it took me a moment to realise that she wasn?t shifting the position of her fingers, but that she was still growing and it was causing her skin to rub against my own. I was suddenly reminded that we were still in the middle of a city. I looked back up at her. ?Veronica, I?m fine. But we need to keep going.?

?Let?s sit here for a minute. I want to make sure you?re alright. David, you don?t know how much you-?

I interrupted her. The absurdity of it hit me only afterwards, but I actually interrupted my building-sized girlfriend while she was talking to me.

?No, Veronica. We need to keep moving. You?re still getting bigger.?

She looked down at me, then looked around at her surroundings, then back at me and nodded. ?Okay.? She slowly, gently, set me down on the sidewalk and stood up.

She placed her right hand on the sidewalk in front of me and propped herself up, and I was shocked to see that when her fingers were outstretched, her hand was almost as big as my entire body. She placed her left hand in the middle of the street and her face rose high above me as she placed her legs underneath herself. Her breasts hung down well over my head and she took a few seconds to rise to her full height. I came halfway up her shin- at the most.

As she stood, my eyes wandered to the space where she had landed. There was a pile of rubble where her bum had been, a crushed pile of flattened metal and shattered glass that had been a car. The car behind it had been damaged as well, the hood having been caved in, but the car that had taken her full weight was no longer a machine. It was scrap metal.

I looked back up to see her facing away from me, and there were bits and pieces of debris stuck to her skin. I could see what was probably a rear view mirror pasted to one of her cheeks, held in place by her sweat and the heat. She turned around to face me, crouched down and placed her hands on the street in front of me, smiling kindly. I really didn?t want to step in them? but what else was I supposed to do?

I got in and she lifted me up. She linked her fingers and held them to her chest to make a cup for me. I held on to a few stands of her hair anyway, to be safe.

As we continued down the street, I thought to myself about times I had been drunk. I occasionally did something stupid or dangerous after having had too much to drink. My memory flashed back to a moment years ago when I had walked into the middle of the street outside a bar and nearly been hit by a bus. I remembered the fear and shame of the situation, as well as the relief that came with not having been hurt or having caused anyone else to be hurt. It sobered me up every time, without exception. But this isn?t the same? is it? I thought. I had no idea what Veronica was feeling. Whatever it was, it obviously felt great, but it wasn?t drunkenness from alcohol. Feeling someone else?s emotions was probably something no human had ever felt before. Would she react the same way?

I looked up at her, at the underside of her chin. She was looking at her feet, stepping with care. As the street became narrower and narrower from her perspective, she had to pay more attention to where she was walking, and she seemed to be really doing it.

I lay my head against her chest and thought that maybe that near-death experience was a good thing. Anything to make her understand how important it was to get out of the city. I just hoped that this self-awareness would last for a few minutes more, or as long as it would take to get to the lake.

To my right was her wrist with the bracelet. It was the only thing that was growing along with her; all of her clothes were long since destroyed. Sitting here, so close to it, I noticed that it looked somehow different. It was difficult to identify exactly what it was, but after having studied it for a few moments, I realised that it was glowing. We were outside in the middle of the afternoon, so it wasn?t obvious, but it was most certainly emitting a faint light. It had never done that before; I was sure of it. I shifted over to try and get closer to it, and kneeled down on her palm to try to crawl to her wrist without having to stand up. I reached forward to touch it, and as my hand approached, I felt a wave of heat extend from it. I pulled my hand back. I wasn?t hurt, but that was so unexpected that I didn?t know what to make of it. Veronica doesn?t seem hurt by it, I reasoned. Her skin doesn?t look burned. I reached forward again, through the aura of heat that surrounded it, and placed my hand on it.

I gasped in pain as the bracelet burned the skin on my fingers. Jerking back my arm, I put my fingertips in my mouth and fell backwards into Veronica?s cupped hands. I pulled them out and looked at them, and saw that they were bright red and slightly misshapen. If that thing is hot enough to blister my fingertips after just a moment, I thought, then why doesn?t Veronica seem to feel it? I looked back up and saw that she was still concentrating on where she was stepping. Good, I thought. That?s the most important thing right now.

Looking forward, I saw that we were approaching the limits of downtown. We were once again beginning to walk by buildings that were taller than Veronica was. I leaned my head over her fingers and looked down, then immediately had to withdraw my head at the wave of dizziness that passed over me. I could not grasp the height that we were at; it was too high for me to look straight down without passing out. I decided to look ahead and pick a building on the next block, and counted the windows from the ground up to my level. I counted five. I am five floors above ground level. My girlfriend is five storeys tall. That means? I paused as I remembered that I had to look up to see her face. No. I?m five floors above ground level, which means that she is probably closer to six storeys tall.

Looking up past her face, I saw something in the sky for half a moment before it vanished behind her forehead. Without consciously understanding what it was, I felt a deep tremor of renewed horror. Then I heard it, and I understood fully what was in the sky. Veronica didn?t seem to understand, or else she hadn?t noticed it, or maybe just didn?t care. But I suddenly began to question whether we?d be able to get through downtown at all once the news helicopters began broadcasting Veronica?s image across the world.

[Eelskin]

15

Veronica peered into the windows of the buildings as we passed by them. She smiled down at me and placed me back on her shoulder to free up her hands, then she cupped them over her eyes to block out the sunlight so she could see through the glass. She laughed and smiled at the office workers inside, sticking out her tongue and taunting them. She moved from building to building, enjoying herself more with every new audience. I couldn?t see inside any of them, as the bright sunshine made all of the windows into mirrors, but I could imagine what Veronica was seeing. It was probably very similar to what we had been seeing for the past hour, except with more neckties. She began to tap her fingers against the window in front of her while she looked in, and the force of her fingernails against the glass shattered it on the first blow. She gasped and leaned in closer to take a look inside. ?I?m sorry! Is anyone hurt??

After a few moments of inarticulate yelling, I could hear someone yell back, ?Um? no?? at which Veronica grinned. ?Oh good,? she replied nonchalantly, and moved on the next building.

As she pressed her face to one window, I could see the wall in front of me slowly descending relative to my own position. Veronica had to bend down slightly in order to continue looking in through the same window, and I began to slip forward again. I grabbed on to her hairs once again and called out.

?Veronica! Stop leaning! I?m going to fall again!?

She instantly straightened up and took a step backward, away from the building, though she moved much more slowly than I was used to. All of her movements were now slower than usual, at maybe three-quarters of her usual speed, from her footsteps to her speech. This was a blessing; it made it much easier to keep from falling. As she straightened herself, I rose higher up until I could look easily into the sixth floor windows of the building in front of me. She looked down at me with concern.

?Are you okay??

?I?m fine, I just need for you to keep straight!?

?I?m sorry. I?m just so? distracted. I can actually? feel everyone?s thoughts about me. It?s getting clearer and clearer. I don?t know why.? She giggled. ?It?s getting more? precise, too. I can feel people admiring my boobs.? She looked down and cupped her breasts in her hands. As she did so, she gasped and looked back at the building in front of her. ?Oh?? she smiled. ?A lot of people in this building really liked that.? She flashed a smile at the windows and hefted her breasts at her audience once again. As she did so, I could swear that she started growing just a tiny bit faster. It may have been my imagination, but somehow, I didn?t think so. Looking down at her hands massaging and rubbing her gigantic breasts, I saw, once again, that the bracelet was emitting light. Even in the bright afternoon sun, it was now becoming very visible. It also seemed to be coloured- it was very, very pale, but it seemed blue, or turquoise. And getting brighter.

I looked up into the sky, trying to find the news helicopters. I couldn?t see them, but I knew they were there. I could hear them faintly.

?Your boobs are gorgeous, honey. But you can show them off in a few minutes. It?s??

She sighed and interrupted me. ?Yeah, yeah, the lake. I know.? She blew a kiss to her admirers in the office building and took a step southward, towards the other end of downtown.

At first, I was confused by the fact that there was no traffic. There were cars parked along the sides of the street, which Veronica was, mercifully, avoiding as best as she could, but no cars in motion. As we passed an intersection, however, I looked down and saw that the police had set up roadblocks. That?s good, I thought. The fewer people in her path, the better. Just past the roadblocks, there were crowds of people gathered to witness the spectacle of Veronica strolling between the buildings. Directly below us, I could hear people screaming and running into buildings- probably people who hadn?t turned on their TVs and had wandered outside to see what was happening. Veronica didn?t appear to notice.

I looked up at her face to see that she was staring intently straight ahead. I followed her gaze and saw a building ahead of us that was entirely windows, so that in the bright afternoon sunlight, it became a several-hundred-foot-high mirror. Veronica pointed at it. ?In that building,? she breathed, slowly, ?there are thirty-nine people who are admiring my belly.? She turned her head to gaze at a building to her left that came up to her shoulder. ?On the third floor of this building, six people are looking at my ass.? She suddenly laughed. ?No, seven. Nine! Oh!? She placed one giant hand on her left cheek and squeezed it. Veronica moaned softly and she spurted up by a few metres more. She turned to her right and looked two intersections away, at the throng of spectators who were watching from behind the roadblock. ?Eighteen of them think I have sexy feet.?

She looked back to the giant mirror in front of her. She didn?t move or say anything for a moment. I could hear indistinct talk from the people a block away, and police shouting something into a megaphone about there being nothing to see here. Veronica kept absolutely still, except for her continuous growth. I passed another story on the building to my right.

Then, quietly, almost whispering, she said, ?I can see it too.? She gazed into the mirrored building and took a step forward, reaching out her hand. The ground shook slightly as she placed her foot on the ground. ?I can see it. In myself. I? I think I understand.? She slowly ran her hands up and down her sides, lifting her belly and watching the way it moved in the mirror. She then turned to her side and looked at her profile. She moved closer to the building, gazing at her own reflection, seeing herself through the eyes and the minds of a thousand people. She laughed again. ?I can see it.?

She walked forward steadily, no longer keeping her eyes on the road. Luckily, directly in front of the building was a public park which she walked across. It was public property, but at least there was no one in it. As she walked, she kicked a tree because she wasn?t watching where she was going. It was uprooted instantly and tipped over onto its side. Veronica, once again, didn?t appear to notice.

She pressed her breasts and belly against the glass and giggled. ?Oh? it?s cold.? I could hear the structure groan under her incredible weight, and I thought I could see the wall bend, but it held. She cupped her eyes again and looked into this building. She grinned and waved slightly at the people inside. ?Hi there,? she spoke, softly. ?I can see you.? And she closed her eyes and gently kissed the window. As she did so, her growth sped up once again.

She grinned down at me. ?There are a hundred and twelve people in this building who think I?m sexy, David. A hundred and twelve.? She was giddy. I couldn?t remember the last time I had seen her as happy as she was at that moment. ?Forty-two of them think I have a sexy belly.? She slowly pressed her belly against the mirror, rubbing it back and forth, relishing every moment. I could only imagine what the view from inside the building must have been like. ?Twenty people like my lips.? She kissed the glass again, deliberately and passionately, and when she pulled her mouth away it was wet with her saliva. She brought her hands to her chest again and pressed her nipples against the building. She shivered at the feeling of the cold glass against her. ?Almost all of them like my boobs.? Before she had finished speaking, she had risen another story higher. She grinned from ear to ear. ?See?? She bent her knees slightly so she could look into the eleventh story. ?Three like my nose.? She touched the tip of her nose to the glass and smiled. She then burst out laughing. ?And one person on the sixth floor wants to crawl into my belly button. I can feel him so? intensely. And? she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. ?There are eleven people in this building masturbating. Right now. To me. Ten men and a woman. Just in this building!?

Still rising higher, she put her hands against the glass and slowly, carefully, pressed her entire body against it. I could hear the friction of skin against glass as her expanding belly and breasts rubbed against the windows and she grew ever taller, faster and faster. She was nearly fifteen storeys tall at this point. Sitting on her shoulder, I barely came up to her chin. Her ear was now well out of my reach. I yelled up anyway.

?Veronica! We need to keep moving!? She didn?t interrupt me this time, but nor did she respond. She didn?t hear me at all, I thought. I began to yell again, when I realised that she had stopped rubbing herself against the side of the building. She was standing perfectly still, and the light of her bracelet brightened, slowly but steadily until I couldn?t look directly at it. The colour of its light shifted from turquoise to a pale yellow, and her growth accelerated once again, drastically this time. I grasped a few more strands of her hair and she began to speak.

?I can? feel? New York.? What? What is she talking about? ?And? Buenos Aires. And Marseilles. And Hiroshima. And Calgary.? All of a sudden it hit me. I realised that the reason she hadn?t heard me wasn?t because I wasn?t loud enough. Turning around, I could see the news helicopters hovering in the sky, three of them now. Those poor bastards had no idea what they were doing.

And Veronica grew.

Her growth was now terrifyingly fast. I could actually feel her strands of hair swelling in my grip as I held on to them for my life. They were approaching the thickness of ropes. I clutched them tightly as Veronica just placed her hands on her mouth and laughed. Looking ahead at the building in front of me, I watched as the nineteenth and top floor disappeared below me, and suddenly I was looking down at the roof. On this rooftop were gathered several dozen onlookers, but Veronica no longer noticed them either. I looked around and saw that there were people on nearly every rooftop around us, for as far as I could see, but the hundreds of people surrounding her were nothing compared to the tens of thousands of people who were gazing at the image of her on their television and computer screens in every country on Earth. Veronica, for the second time that day, outgrew all of her surrounding buildings. I could see, several blocks away, a couple of dozen buildings that were still taller than she was, but she was approaching fast.

Still she laughed, almost insensate with joy.

I heard a deafening CRACK, almost like thunder from up close, and Veronica abruptly stopped growing. It was so sudden that I almost fell off her shoulder from? I didn?t even want to guess how high up I was. But I could see, right in front of me, the bracelet on her wrist. Her wrist was wider than I was tall, and the bracelet was several times longer than my entire body. Then I realised what was different: the bracelet was no longer glowing. Its light had faded completely, and it now appeared like the dull ceramic it was when we first bought it at the flea market. More, there was a crack running up the length of the bauble. As I watched, the crack widened, and as Veronica raised her arm to examine it, it fell apart and tumbled hundreds of feet to the ground, shattering in the street by her feet.

Looking up at Veronica?s face, I saw a total lack of understanding on her features. After just a moment, it melted into dawning comprehension, followed by horror, followed by an unbearable sadness. She took a deep breath that seemed to last a full minute, then breathed out just one word:

?No??

Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began to tumble backwards.

?Veronica!? I screamed. ?Veronica!?

But she was already beginning to fall. I grabbed on to her hair as tightly as I could and prayed.

My feet lifted off her shoulder and I entered into a free-fall.

I actually opened my eyes and saw the city in front of me, the rooftops crowded with people watching my giant girlfriend faint in the middle of the city. I looked around and thought I could hear more screams, but it might have been the wind rushing past my ears. The rooftops disappeared as I fell below them, and I looked downward. I thought I would see the ground rushing up to meet me, but it was blocked out by Veronica?s enormous body, which was right below me.

I?ve since found out that I was in the air for less than five seconds, but at the time, it seemed much longer.

Veronica fell backwards into the park, crushing trees, benches and a fountain and causing the city to shake as thought it had been hit by a small earthquake. I landed on her breast and bounced ungracefully off it, onto the ground in the park. When I hit the ground, I narrowly missed a tree and heard a sickening snap, and felt my elbow twist in an unnatural direction. Then I passed out.

--

I don?t know how long I was unconscious, but it couldn?t have been more than a minute or two. The next thing I knew I was surrounded by three paramedics who were trying to move me into a stretcher. I yelled and sat up, and they all jumped backwards, startled. I tried to prop myself up on my arm and realised quickly, with a wave of nauseous pain, that I wasn?t able to put any weight on it at all. I stood up painfully, using my other arm, and they rushed forward to get me to lie back down. I ignored them and turned to see Veronica lying on her back, head turned to face away from me. I looked to her body to see that her massive belly was still undulating with breath. Oh, thank Christ, I thought. She?s alive.

My head swam and I couldn?t think clearly. Behind me, one of the medics was asking me my name, but I ignored her. I don?t think I would have been able to remember anyway. I looked around to see that the park was slowly filling with police, firefighters, city officials and paramedics, none of whom had any idea what to do. They were all milling around aimlessly, staring at Veronica.

I stared at her too, still ignoring the medical personnel who were trying to take care of me, and saw that she was shrinking. Even now, she was much smaller than she must have been when she fainted; still, her shoulder, lying on the ground, was taller than I was. I watched her shrink, knowing that this was the last time I would ever get to see it.

I limped over to her and leaned against her shrinking arm - one of my favourite parts of her body. I sat down, resting my head against her, and began to cry.

[Eelskin]

16

It was about a week before I could leave the hospital, and almost two months before Veronica could follow. I had a broken arm, twisted ankle, and a pretty major concussion. There was nothing physically wrong with Veronica, other than a few minor bruises, but the doctors wanted to run about seven thousand tests on her before they felt they should let her go. My realisation about her addiction turned out to have been pretty accurate, actually. She went through an awful withdrawal period; though she suffered no physical symptoms, emotionally, she was a wreck.

The first thing she did when she woke up was reach for her wrist, before she remembered what had happened. Once she took a moment to realise where she was and why, she began wailing in mourning. She wouldn’t talk for over an hour, she just cried into her hospital bed in loss, embarrassment and self-pity. I tried to comfort her, but she wouldn’t speak to me any more than she would to anyone else. I touched her shoulder and she shrugged my hand off.

The military had an understandable interest in what had caused her to grow, as well as the medical staff at the hospital. We were both questioned pretty intensely about the bracelet- how it worked, how it was powered, how it was controlled, where we got it, what we had planned to do with it. Needless to say, I didn’t know the answers to most of their questions, and the answers I could share were private or embarrassing. In a way, it’s kind of lucky that so many people saw her, because I shudder to think of what might have happened to her had the military gotten a hold of her without very many people having seen her. She might have just disappeared.

As it turned out, the public wanted to see her and to know that she was alive and well. So after she had been in the hospital for a few days, she conducted a very brief interview with a couple of journalists who took her picture, asked her some leading questions, wrote something witty and fed it to the public. Veronica did not enjoy the interview in the least, but then again, she wasn’t enjoying very much at all, at that time. She didn’t want to see me, or anyone else, or talk, or eat. She just slept a lot and kept quiet when she was awake.

--

Once the tests had all been run, and it was concluded that there was no sign of any long-term effects, and once the military had concluded that we had told them everything we knew about the bracelet (which was true), she was given some antidepressants and sent home. I picked her up at the hospital and drove her back to my place. The ride was mostly silent.

Once at home, we lay down in bed together. I watched her from behind and admired her- just as I had done so often before. I had gotten so used to that provoking a reaction from her that I began to wonder what was wrong, before I remembered that she no longer had the bracelet. She asked me if I was thinking about her. When I replied that I was, she began to cry again, softly. She turned around and hugged me tightly. I hugged her back.

--

Over the next couple of weeks, her life slowly returned to something resembling what it had been before. Going to work added to the normalcy that she needed from her life at that time, and it helped to distract her from her thoughts and memories. I had been back at work by that point for a while, and I was doing okay, but it was difficult knowing that there was nothing I could do for her. She was functioning, she was doing all of the day-to-day things that made up her daily life, but I often felt that she was just going through the motions. I sometimes looked at her and almost wished that we could have the bracelet back- before catching myself and remembering that my memory was being very selective. When she had had the bracelet, how often had it terrified me? How frightened had I been that it would become difficult to control? Now that I had actually seen the destructive potential of the item, how could I possibly wish to have it back?

And yet… every time I looked at her, for just a moment, I wished for exactly that.

--

One major change in Veronica’s life after that afternoon was that she had become immediately recognisable. It was obvious when she walked down the street. Some people were subtle; most weren’t. People would point and stare and take pictures. This did nothing to improve Veronica’s mood. I thought about how if she had had the bracelet, this would be exactly what she would want most. Now that she could no longer actually feel the internal lust and attraction that all of these people had had for her, their outward displays of interest seemed like a cruel mockery. Even my own attraction no longer excited her as it once had.

We were once eating lunch at one of our preferred restaurants, a month later, when she met the gaze of someone behind me. I could see from the expression on her face that something was unusual about this person, though; she wasn’t hurt or angered or saddened by this particular meeting. I turned around to see a young man, younger than we were, having what appeared to be a business lunch. I saw him excuse himself and stand up to walk over to us. Veronica didn’t seem embarrassed or upset as she usually did, just… curious.

He walked up to her and stood awkwardly, not quite knowing what to say. But he must have read something in her eyes, because he finally managed to ask her, “Do you recognise me?”

“Yeah.” She replied quietly. I took a long look at the guy, but I was sure that I had never seen him before

He smiled. “Well, I… I’m just really glad you’re alright. I was worried when you disappeared into the hospital for so long. I’m glad I got to see you outside again.”

She smiled at him, and it seemed a genuine, tender smile, not forced or polite. “Thanks.”

He hesitated, then extended his hand. “I’m Lee.”

She shook it. “Veronica.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, smiling. He looked at me and nodded a greeting, took in her image once more, and returned to his business lunch without looking back.

I turned back to Veronica, who was still smiling softly to herself. “Who was he?”

She looked off into space as she answered, clearly enjoying the memory. “He wanted to live in my bellybutton.”

--

It was two years later that we found ourselves back at the flea market. I hadn’t wanted to go back there at first, but Veronica had encouraged me to go back by myself the year after we got the bracelet, because she knew how much I had enjoyed it there. So I did. And I actually had fun, just like before. It was the same old flea market, and it made me feel good that some things didn’t change.

I had kept my eyes open for the old man who had sold Veronica the bracelet in the first place. I wasn’t really sure why. Was it out of curiosity? What would I even say to the man if I did see him? What if he offered to sell me something? I hadn’t exactly planned ahead. But I always found myself walking by the spot where he had been that one time.

Well, it was a moot point, since anytime I looked, I never found him. And the year after I began going back, I asked Veronica if she wanted to join me on one trip. She did. And sure enough, she had fun too, for the same reasons as I usually did.

So you might imagine my surprise and dread when I saw him there again. He had the same booth, set up in the same place, and I noticed him before I even saw that he was talking to Veronica.

They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but my imagination immediately began to whir. I stood still for a moment, thinking about what I was seeing. Is he selling her something? Is he selling her the same kind of item? Something different? My god, what the hell are they talking about? My heart leapt into my throat as I saw him lift up a box and open it. I couldn’t see what was inside, but I began to sprint toward them, dodging through the crowd. I have to stop them. I have to stop him from selling her any more magical things. I didn’t even notice immediately when she shook her head and turned away. When I did notice that she wasn’t talking to him anymore, I stopped and slowed down, but continued moving forward. She was walking toward me slowly, looking at the ground. When she looked up, she met my eyes and smiled. She could tell from my face that I had seen the man behind her.

“It’s okay,” she told me as I reached her and stopped. Her eyes were wet and she was breathing slightly heavily.

“What? What happened?” Did he sell you something?” I looked at her hands to see if she was carrying anything.

“No. I was… I didn’t even see him at first. I was just looking at his booth and suddenly he was there. And he asked me if I was looking for something specific… but I know that he recognised me. From the way he looked at me and the way he spoke, I know that he knew who I am. So I said no. And then he turned around and he picked up this little box, and he opened it and he showed me this ring inside. And he didn’t tell me what it was, but… I… I knew I didn’t want it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” she looked in my eyes and smiled. “I mean, I don’t need it. Whatever it was, I don’t think I need it anymore.”

I stared at her for a moment. “I’m… not sure I understand.”

“David…” she took one of my hands in hers. “I think I’m okay.” She hugged me, put her face against my shoulder and began to cry softly. I held her back, confused, and she broke the hug. She looked back up at me. She was crying and smiling at the same time. “I want to go back home, David. Let’s go.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

As we turned away, I looked back at the booth with the old man, to find that it was no longer there. It was a young woman selling microwaves. I looked back at Veronica to see that she wasn’t even turning around. She was just holding my arm, walking forward, smiling to herself.

We got in the car and drove home.

END

[Wussy]

Oh those pesky wizards and their trinkets. Always causing ruckus.

Veronica had so much power by the end there, and to have to give it up so suddenly like that.... Can't blame her for being an emotional wreck.

It's a fun story, and a good read. I can't imagine the military would just let them go like that, but maybe they're still under surveillance. Possibly by a foreign government as well.