"Holy Mother of God!" muttered Nathan as Bambi steadily shrank in front of him. "You--you're really shrinking!"
She gazed up at him, already no more than half his height. "Damn!" she swore. "The original field must have destabilized! I'm going to be stuck this way! You have to help me, Nate! Do something!"
She was looking up at him with that doe-eyed expression, the one that could make him do anything she wanted, but this time her efforts were wasted. There was nothing Nathan could do for her--arresting her miniaturization was beyond his power. All he could do was watch, slack-jawed, as she gradually grew smaller and smaller in front of him.
He kneeled down to watch the process, totally fascinated. She was only about two feet high and shrinking steadily. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to see if she was real or some kind of hologram or hallucination, but didn't dare. If what she'd said about being in contact with a collapsing enlargement field was true, he could wind up shrinking right along with her!
As she got ever smaller, he laid down on his stomach to observe her rapid size change. She looked both frustrated and terrified, glancing around furtively as, from her point of view, everything seemed to be growing to monstrous proportions. He'd seen the ladybug shrink back to normal size earlier in the day, and it was a fascinating process, but watching the lovely Bambi dwindling rapidly in size was something else again.
In fact, something stirred inside him, something more than just a passing interest in Bambi's curvaceous body. He was actually getting turned on by this! He shifted his body to one side, almost embarrassed by the notion, but for some reason watching her shrink was...what? Not just fascinating or titillating. It was actually erotic!
He felt his face turning red and struggled to control himself. She was looking up at him in with that pleading expression, almost begging for help, but this time it was more than just a way to tease him. She was afraid, honestly frightened and desperate, of that he had no doubt.
Bambi was tiny and vulnerable now, getting more and more helpless with every passing second. Was that what made this so exciting? The fact that, for the first time he could recall, she was no longer so sure of herself, so headstrong and self-confident? That for once she'd completely lost control of a situation?
He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind. How small was she going to get, anyway? She was less than six inches high now, too tiny to get on a chair, or drive a car, or even answer the telephone! And she kept right on shrinking, smaller and smaller, finally stopping at about the size of a small laboratory mouse.
Nathan couldn't take her eyes off her. She was still exactly the same Bambi he'd always known, but reduced to twenty-five times smaller than normal. How had she ever managed to turn on the machine at that size, he wondered? She was resourceful, for such a tiny thing!
Her mouth opened and she shouted something, but all he could hear was a faint, piping squeal, just like a mouse or rat might make, only softer. "I can't hear you," he replied in a normal voice.
Bambi covered her ears and collapsed to the ground, wincing in obvious pain. "Oh, sorry!" Nathan whispered. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize how loud that would be for you!"
She looked up at him and yelled something else. He tried to read her lips, but caught only the barest hint of what she might be saying. His response was as much a guess as anything. "No, I can't understand," he whispered carefully. "Your voice is too high-pitched for me to hear."
She put her hand on her stomach and pushed upwards, as if leaning on her diaphragm, and talked slowly and deliberately. He suspected she'd dropped to the lowest octave her vocal cords could possibly sustain, and yet the words that came out still sounded shrill and reedy, and only barely audible. She said, "Help me! Please!"
"All right," he whispered back. "I'll help you. But I have to take you inside." Then he placed his hand down next to her.
Bambi stared at the colossal hand like it was some kind of monster. She knew she had to climb into it, but it was just so big! Yet even that was nothing compared to the immense shape beyond, the colossal monstrosity that was Nathan, her assistant. His face could have been the side of a building, a building with eyes and a nose and a mouth that was now grinning hugely at her.
Gulping down her fear, she climbed cautiously into the gigantic palm. The skin was thick and leathery, with rough, yellowed calluses forming pools of solidness amidst a soft sea of pink. Far from being featureless, the hand was covered with intricate patterns of lines and gouges. For an instant it seemed like she stood on a battlefield, or amidst a huge, scraped-out crater. Then the platform moved.
Nathan stood, and as he did, it was impossible to keep his palm steady. Bambi yelped in surprise and fell to her hands and knees, for to her it seemed that a massive earthquake had occurred, and everything around her was rushing away as she climbed into a hazy blue sky. The sensation of rising upwards was overwhelming. For an instant all she could see was folds of skin and the towers of his fingers and thumb. Then his face appeared, staring down at her with eyes filled with wonder.
"Damn, you are so tiny!" he whispered softly. The sound was like waves crashing against a beach. The gust of his breath passed over her in the still evening air. She suddenly realized that she was sweating, for his palm was incredibly hot, as though she'd been stretched out across a huge fleshy radiator.
Nathan brought his other hand over and touched her with his index finger. She tried to stand, but his palm was shaky from movements imperceptible to him but like constant wave motion to her. Instead, she scrambled back against his thumb, horrified at the size of the finger that ever so slightly touched first her head, then her body, as though pushing against her to ensure she was really there, and not a figment of his imagination.
"Please!" she shouted at him in as low a voice as she could muster. "Please help me, Nate!"
He finally snapped out of it. "A-all right," he told her. "Let me take you back to the lab, and we'll see what we can do."
It was a difficult trip. He tried to hold her steady, to keep her from becoming motion-sick as he carried her back in the building and up the staircase. To keep from being thrown off his hand, she had to lay down flat, and he shivered at the contact of her little leather-clad body against his skin. He tried to ignore the thrill that passed through him as he looked down at her, cowering up against his fingers, but it was impossible. She was just so goddamn small!
He almost walked into the door when he reached the building, and forced his mind back on where he was going, instead of the impossibly little woman he was cradling so carefully in his grip. Actually, his biggest fear was that someone would pass by and see him holding tiny Bambi in his palm. How would he explain that? There was no way to hide her safely, either. He was afraid to try putting her in his pocket for fear of injuring her in some way. Fortunately, this late in the afternoon, the building was devoid of people, so he met no one during the rest of the trip back to the lab.
Once inside, he shut and locked the door and then set her down on the table with the enlarging machine. Almost immediately, the miniature scientist ran over to the computer and started pointing at keys, yelling up at him to press them in a particular order. He did so slowly and reluctantly. Watching the insect-sized Bambi scramble about on the desk in desperation was almost as erotic as seeing her shrink, he thought to himself, making sure he was standing in such a way that she couldn't see the bulge in his pants below the table's edge. Whoever knew that a teeny tiny woman could be such a turn-on?
Finally he got to the last key, and she hurried over to climb into the little cage. He hit enter, and a few seconds later the faint crackle of the field's creation was plainly audible. Then Nathan got treated to the sight of Bambi growing back to normal size, which not nearly as interesting as watching her shrink.
When she'd finally been restored and was once again standing next to him, she shook her head and looked around. "It's so weird changing sizes like this!" she muttered. "Thanks, Nate! I really appreciate your help."
"But--it's not permanent, is it?" he asked hopefully. "You're just going to shrink again, right?"
"Yeah, I think so," she told him. "Somehow that ant infused me with enough of its field to take me down with it when it collapsed. I think I'm stuck at that size until we can fix this somehow."
"How long do you stay full sized?" asked Nate. His eyes were meandering around her lovely body again, almost against his will, and he found himself hardening in anticipation of watching her dwindle away once more.
Bambi's eyes narrowed as she picked up on the poorly concealed interest in his eyes and body language. She'd seen that look often enough to recognize what it meant. It wasn't just the sexy outfit she had on, either. She could tell he'd liked it when she shrunk, and was looking forward to seeing it happen again. How could she use this to her advantage?
"I think just a minute or two," she replied, pretending to look at the machine as though examining it for flaws. Actually, she was treating Nate to a view of her round, well-formed derriere. If she could've figured out a way to unzip the front of the jumpsuit without being too obvious about it, she probably would have done that, too, she thought. Anything to get him to help her!
Finally, she looked back at him, giving him her best puppy-dog pleading smile, the one that could melt his heart and make him do whatever she wanted. "Please, Nate," she almost begged, "you have to find a way to help me stay normal sized. I'll do anything!"
"Anything?" Nathan asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, anything!" she replied, putting her hands on his shoulders and staring deep into his eyes. "Just please, promise you'll help me!"
"Of course," he answered as she began to shrink again. The corner of his mouth turned up into a grin, not only because she was getting smaller, but because of the wonderful new future that was opening up before his eyes.
"Why, of course I will," he said, licking his lips in anticipation.