Bryan felt himself held in the stranger's giant hand, with fingers as long as his body curved around him to hold him securely.
After a prolonged but futile attempt to squirm free, Bryan found himself too exhausted to continue struggling.
The man felt the shrunken teenager's body go limp in his hand and smiled to himself. He walked another block and came to his apartment. After scaling three flights of stairs, he juggled his key into his door, pushing the door open as he kept his other hand wrapped around his amazing discovery.
Bryan felt a cool breeze chill his body and raise gooseflesh along his nakedness. He felt glad to be free of the giant's invincible grip, but he felt exposed and vulnerable as the huge stranger lowered the hand to the flat surface of a small kitchen table. He tilted his hand and forced Bryan to slide off the palm.
The little guy scrambled to his feet and raised his head to gaze at the stranger who had discovered him outside his place of employment.
"It's not much, but it's all I can afford at the moment," the man said and gestured around a small kitchen adjacent to a living area.
For anyone else, the studio apartment would have looked cramped. To little Bryan, the rooms looked enormous.
He got another chance to study the man, who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He wore a dark business suit. The off-the-rack suit didn't hide the man's impressive build.
He shifted and removed his ill-fitting jacket, draping the garment over a kitchen chair.
He had dark hair and brown eyes, which glistened intently as he fastened his gaze on the tiny teenager standing in the center of the kitchen table, trying to preserve his modesty with strategically placed hands folded over his privates.
"You have to help me!" Bryan insisted again, dismayed that the shrill squeaky words belied his urgency.
The man's impassive face formed into a slight grin. "You're really real!"
"Yes, I'm real," Bryan said, desperate to get past that obvious fact. "And I need help."
"You are a good-looking guy," the man said.
Bryan cringed. He didn't want this enormous man looking at him, let alone commenting on his appearance.
"Are you an athlete?"
"What the fuck does that matter?" Bryan yelled in frustration.
The man grinned at the tiny guy's out-of-proportion tantrum. "My name is Martin."
"Please, Martin," Bryan said, and some real tears formed in his eyes. "I am scared. I was at work in the restaurant and...I just shrunk. I don't know how or why."
"No one else knows?"
"No," Bryan blurted before he stopped to think better of an honest answer. "But I have family. You could call them."
Martin had lived in the city for nearly five years, trying his best to catch a break. He was still an anonymous accountant in a vast office.
In high school, he had concentrated intensely on his studies while at the same time lusting for the athletic jocks like Bryan. They never noticed him, and he didn't do anything more than give them lingering glances...
But now...this was almost like a dream come true. Martin stared at the tiny teenager. He looked perfect, muscled and trim, but slightly on the short side.
"You don't have to worry," Martin said.
"You'll help me?" Bryan lifted his face and stared with hopeful eagerness.
"I'll take care of you."
Bryan didn't like the sound of that at all.
The giant lowered his hand and extended one of his enormous fingers and brushed it across the front of Bryan's chest.
He laughed, not angrily, as Bryan retreated a few steps.
"You'll get used to that," Martin thought to himself. "You'll get used to that and a lot more."