Attorney At Large [M/sw, gentle giant, light kink]

[Kisupure]

All I can think of while I write this

[Kisupure]

CHAPTER 5: THE MONKEY-TRAINER

Keith sat down in the crowded cafe attached to the museum. He sat with his back to the wall, and carefully placed the backpack next to him. A waitress came by to bring him water and a menu. He decided he was in the mood for brunch.

“How long are we going to be here?” came the small, muffled voice from inside his bag.

He zipped the bag open a little more, startling Dawn–her feathers were surprisingly easy to ruffle, he was discovering–and she ducked down as his hand brushed past her to reach for his book. “Why, you need to be somewhere?” he said so that only she could hear. Keith watched her indignant expression before grinning and tugging the zipper shut again. “Gimme half an hour. In the meantime… here.”

He turned the backpack so that she could just see out over the table and into the busy cafe. Surely Dawn knew how to people-watch?

When his eggs benedict and glass of house white came, he set the book down and, grabbing a knife and fork, carved out an appropriately-sized bite of bread and egg, giving it the smallest dollop of hollandaise, and went to share it with his guest.

“Psst.”

He placed the bite of food at the edge of the table just in front of the hole in the backpack, and watched as two little arms reached out to snatch it up. It was, for lack of any better word, quite adorable.

As he ate, Keith did some reading (Michael Crichton was one of the few popular fiction writers he trusted with his time), and he did some listening. There was a family of tourists in the corner, a frumpy looking couple and their two children who might’ve been from Cleveland (they couldn’t possibly have chosen a worse time to visit the Big Apple!) and he smiled to himself as he listened to them try to make sense of Georgia O’Keeffe. The wife liked the flowers, but the husband thought the rolling landscapes resembled the sensuality of human flesh a little too much. By his breadwinning measure, the western scenes were more stimulating for the whole family.

A few seats away was a couple who appeared to only be here to have an argument. They leaned in over their plates at the small table like two alley cats standing off, staring intently at the other and speaking in hushed voices as they angrily shoveled sandwiches into their mouths. Keith guessed a divorce was imminent, if not already underway.

Beside him was a businessman shaking out the crisp pages of the Sunday Times every few minutes in a rather uncivilized way. There were several different ways to read a paper, and this man had apparently mastered none of them. He fought with the thing like a knight with a dragon, forcing the newspaper into various contortions as he poured over some bit of text, then grumbling to himself and jotting notes down on a napkin, started the process all over again.

Keith quite enjoyed watching people in this town, it was something of a hobby of his. There was just no shortage of interesting people doing interesting things, and if one couldn’t strike up a conversation to learn more about a stranger, then letting them talk about themselves through their behavior was almost as good.

In the back of his book were a few blank index cards, and he fished a Bic pen out of the pocket of his shorts to begin a little doodling. With simple, confident lines, he followed the contours of his half-eaten brunch, the plate, the empty glass of wine, the salt and pepper shakers, the little box of sugar packets…

“Hey that’s pretty good,” the businessman said. “You an artist?”

“I am,” Keith replied, quite skilled at graciously taking random compliments by this point in his life without letting them effect him much. “And thanks.”

“Whaddyou, uh… you do drawings or somethin’?”

“Sculpture, actually. Mostly furniture, though. I do a lot of tables.” He grabbed a business card from his wallet and handed it over. KEMO Inc. it read.

“Ah, shame. Was lookin’ for somethin’ new for the office, yannow?”

“I’ve gotta friend showing on 37th right now, at the Stanley Greer Gallery. She’s popular with the corporate crowd. You might check her out.” He knew the businessman wouldn’t, but it never hurt to mention these sorts of things.

“Hey, thanks. And say… you mind me askin’ whatchu got in the bag?”

Keith stopped and the back of his neck suddenly prickled with heat. His eyes darted down to the navy blue backpack, then back up to the man, and Keith found himself laughing nervously to buy him a moment.

“What, uh… what makes you think I’ve got something?”

The businessman smirked and adjusted himself in his seat so he could lean in and speak low. “C’mon… I know a monkey when I see one. You got a monkey in there, dontcha? One of those little guys, like in the movies.”

Keith laughed harder, relieved. Dawn must’ve been furious, if she hadn’t fainted from panic.

“Not so loud,” Keith whispered, playing into it. “I’m still training her. Don’t want the staff to know I brought an animal in here.”

“Gotcha, gotcha. Can I uh… can I see 'er? Just a peek? Only time I seen a monkey was at the Bronx Zoo when I was a kid.”

“No can do, I’m afraid,” he said sagely. “The… the Madagascar, uh, Doll-Faced Monkey is very sensitive to… to socialization. I’m getting her used to voices, right now.”

The businessman blinked and nodded, pretending he understood. “Oh yeah, of course. Of course. Don’t let me throw off your training.”

It occurred to him then, though, that he had the perfect opportunity to make a defense attorney squirm. And dammit, he couldn’t pass it up. Keith leaned over the backpack and gave it a pat.

“She’s doing really well though. Aren’t you, girl? Here, let me get you another bite.”

He broke off a piece of ham and balanced it on his finger before holding it up to the gap in the zipper.

“Come on,” he teased. “You know you want some…”

He pushed his finger just inside, when he felt her snatch up the ham and give him a hard slap.

“Ow!” he laughed. “She’s in a mood today. I think I’d better get going soon. It was nice meeting you.”

As soon as they were outside, Keith had barely adjusted his cap and put on his shades when there was movement coming from the backpack. Angry movement, it seemed. Like something was trying to hit him through the fabric.

“Hey now, hold on,” he said, looking for a secluded spot in the park behind the museum where they could converse. It took him a few minutes, but eventually he found a patch of lawn by some lilac bushes where he could set her down and unzip the bag.

“What the hell was that!” Dawn yelled as soon as she could see him. “You almost gave me a stroke!”

Keith laid down on his side in the grass next to her, and shrugged. “It was just a little harmless fun.” You could really learn to lighten up, he thought.

“Harmless?” she barked in that squeaky voice of hers. “More like humiliating! My god, to add insult to injury…”

He frowned. “Now don’t be like that, I saved your butt just now. Better a pet monkey than a twelve-inch Dawn Cooper, attorney at law, don’t forget.”

She fumed as some people walked by and Keith pretended his attention was elsewhere for a moment.

“Honest question, Dawn.”

“What.”

“What’s your idea of fun?”

“Oh don’t start with me.”

“No, really.” He rolled over onto his back and looked up through the leafy canopy above. “What do you do to cut loose after a long week?”

“I don’t ‘cut loose’.”

He snorted. “So, what, you do lines of coke and just get more work done?”

“Of course not!” she huffed, also quite adorably. “I like exercising.”

“Exercising? That’s not very relaxing.”

“It is to me!”

“What else?”

“I… I cook, sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“I try to make dinner once a week.”

“Uh huh. And what else?”

“What am I, on the stand?”

He grinned up at the tree. “Yeah, sure.”

“I…” Now this one she hesitated with. He knew it was going to be juicy. “I enjoy going on blind dates.”

Keith couldn’t help rolling over again to face her. His expression was one of raw amusement. “Oh! Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“Oh, stop it. I’m a grown woman, I can do as I damn well please.”

But he couldn’t wipe the grin from his face, and the next thing that came out of his mouth surprised him. He could possibly blame it on the wine, at least. “Well, you barely know me, why don’t you pretend this is all just one blind date?”

Dawn looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Why in the world would I do that?”

“Might have a little more fun that way.”

“Fun, you big, stupid man, is standing six-foot in red heels, and convincing someone you just met that he can’t possibly go on living without you.”

He stroked his chin and grinned wider. “Ah, so you do like 'em big and stupid, then?”

“Ugh! You’re impossible.”

“Incorrigible, I believe is the word.” He zipped the backpack up again. “Now come on, let’s see if you can convince me that I can’t go on living without you by the time we’re done here.”

[Olo]

@kisupure Dawn could use an assistant like Rosalind.

[Olo]

@kisupure True story: I have a mongrel rescue dog that I take to the dog park. Occasionally people there try to guess his breed, and I have a little fun making up an obscure breed that they’ve never heard of. My go-to is “Madagascan Zebu Hound.”

[Kisupure]

@olo Ah yes! The majestic Zebu! I hear they have issues with their, uh, glands? Fur? Something like that.

And I’m sure Dawn would MUCH prefer to do the shrinking, if she had her way. Though I’m sure she can make an assistant feel inches tall with a word and a look.

[Olo]

@kisupure said in Attorney At Large [M/sw, gentle giant, light kink]:

I’m sure Dawn would MUCH prefer to do the shrinking, if she had her way. Though I’m sure she can make an assistant feel inches tall with a word and a look.

If she makes partner at the right firm, anything is possible.

[tinyborrower]

I am loving the dynamic between Dawn and Keith! Such fun, vibrant characters to read about! Can’t wait to see where you take us

[Kisupure]

@olo Glad I got out of the legal industry when I did

@tinyborrower Glad you’re enjoying it! Out of all my years in the kink, I have to say - this is my first straight-up SW story I’ve ever written, believe it or not. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but it’s so far a very fun change of pace.

Now let’s see if I can finish it before I recover!

[Kisupure]

CHAPTER 6: THE JACKASS

Dawn was furious. Insulted. Positively annoyed. Keith–her gigantic and all around lackadaisical tease of a keeper–was really beginning to get on her nerves. Why couldn’t she have fallen into the hands of literally anyone else in New York? A banker would have been nice. They’d at least be able to see eye to eye.

It was as if he didn’t have a care in the world. No schedule, no responsibilities, no sense of urgency for anything. How could someone get through life like this? Surely he wasn’t the financial brains behind his so-called business?

And now he was determined to make a damn fool of her. Dawn’s “kind” weren’t often appreciated until one was in a tight place, she knew that. And she didn’t care. Everyone swears against the devil, but as soon as you need to strike a deal with him, it’s funny how quickly the song changes. As they walked through the park she imagined Keith groveling on her office rug, begging her to represent him in a ludicrous and predatory lawsuit. Poor thing! You couldn’t afford me, she’d tell him, and slam the door in his handsome face.

Handsome?

Well, he wasn’t half-bad looking.

As Keith waved his membership card at the admission both, they strolled in and he said in a low voice: “Now remember, this is a date. Try to enjoy yourself.”

This wasn’t a date and she absolutely would not, thank you very much.

It was afternoon by now and possibly the hottest part of the day. He should have gone to the gardens first and finished with the museum, she thought balefully. However, the trees cast decent shadows and there weren’t as many people about as there could have been, she imagined. He took them to the Japanese garden first, and she had to admit that it was beautifully manicured. She always felt she had some spiritual quality in common with the Japanese; their pursuit of perfection, rigor, and straightforward utilitarian aesthetic struck her as sensible. And she found the ritual of the sushi restaurant to be one of life’s finer pleasures.

“Have you ever eaten sushi?” she called out, mostly out of boredom.

“Raw fish and horseradish? No way,” he said back.

Dawn smiled to herself, a sharp little expression that she was often fond of weaponizing. Finally, she had something on him.

“You mean to tell me that in all your cultured explorations, you’ve never once even thought about it? Didn’t think anything was too highbrow for you.”

He stopped in a particularly nice bit of shade as a little breeze picked up and brought cooler air off the pond. It was heavenly.

“It’s just not my thing. Now isn’t this nice?”

How dare he just… brush her off like that! If she was her normal size and this was a real date, she would have command of the conversation. She would have him wrapped around her finger by now. He’d be eating whatever she told him to eat.

She was jostled again, though, as he set her down on the ground to take a peek inside with a quizzical look on his face.

Dawn frowned and blinked. “What?”

“I was expecting some acerbic response and didn’t get one. Wanted to make sure you were still with me.”

“Some acerbic–! You know what, how about you try being attacked on the landing to your apartment, shrunk down to however the hell tall this is, thrown in the fucking garbage, and then dragged around Brooklyn in this heat by some strange man who’s trying to flirt with you without getting a little frustrated!”

A crease formed between his brows as he looked down at her. “So you didn’t want to come after all.”

“That’s not what I said! You don’t get it.”

“No, I think I get it perfectly well. Come on, I’m leaving. This isn’t going to be as nice of a walk as I was hoping it would be.”

Dawn knew his mood had changed when he hailed a cab home. The backpack was handled roughly as he slid into the back seat of the air-conditioned Crown Vic and told the driver his cross streets. They were back at his place in a matter of minutes, and in no time he was taking them up those horrible creaky stairs to the third floor. Key in lock, door open.

The backpack was put on the floor, and he opened it rather brusquely, in her opinion, before walking away to go to the kitchen. She heard water running as he filled a cup.

Dawn was left to pull herself from the bag and straighten out that horrible dress. She was going to follow him and demand to know what his problem was, but she was too small to make it up the stairs to the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” she yelled up at him.

The artist took a long swig of water from what looked to be a beer pint, and she watched as his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed high above her head.

“You don’t have the faintest idea of how rude you are, do you?”

Keith leaned against a wooden guard rail that looked like it’d taken at least 100 coats of paint over the years and had that bloated look to it.

“Being nice doesn’t exactly get you anywhere in this town.”

Exasperated, he disappeared from view and poured himself more water. “I was trying to help,” he called down to her. “I was trying to take your mind off how damned awful your situation is, and boy am I sorry for trying.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have let someone see me and then pretend I was a goddamn ape!”

“You’re human! You are an ape!”

“I don’t think you appreciate how bad this is for me. If I can’t get back to normal, then I’m out of a job! Everything I’ve worked for, my client base, my position, my… my figure! All of it, wasted!”

There was silence for a moment.

“How come you said you didn’t want to be alone?”

Dawn opened her mouth and closed it again. Eventually, Keith appeared at the top of the stairs and in that easy way of his, ambled carefully down, eyeing her.

“I’m not used to spending much time by myself, I guess,” she said stiffly. “I’m rarely home.”

Keith held up a finger as he crossed the floor to the couch and sat down. His back was to her. “That’s not what I heard in your voice this morning.” He grabbed one of the expensive art books and began flipping through it.

“Oh? And what did you hear?” she snapped.

She heard him suck in a breath. “I heard a woman who was terrified to be stuck alone with her own thoughts and was begging to be distracted. Maybe to feel a little taken care of.”

Dawn couldn’t help the snort as she folded her arms and blushed deeply. “Don’t be ridiculous… I can’t believe I’m listening to a man tell me how I feel,” she huffed incredulously.

He flipped a few more pages. “Am I wrong though? I mean, I’m happy to be wrong if that means you’re just a jackass instead.”

And just like that, he had her cornered. Her shoulders slumped and she fingered a lock of hair. But after a moment her frown turned into a smile; maybe Keith was a little more clever and ruthless than she’d first imagined.

Dawn crossed the floor as he continued busying himself with the book and appeared beside the end of the sectional, where she stood near one of his huge Chuck Taylored feet and looked up, up, and into that face she had evidently underestimated. Alright, so he was handsome. Sue me, she thought.

“I’m not used to being called a jackass,” she said quietly.

“I don’t like the word bitch.”

“Oh I hear it all the time.”

He smiled a little and shook his head.

“It’s not often someone can beat me at my own game like that.”

He quirked a brow at her, then gently closed his book and leaned back. “And let me guess, you like that in a big, stupid man?”

She didn’t answer, and it was Keith’s turn to blush. He looked away and stood up quickly, and she gasped at how big he suddenly was, then wanted to laugh at catching him off guard. He went to the kitchen stairs again and clapped his hands together. “How about, ah, wine coolers and a game of poker? You can play Hold 'Em, you think?”

“Sounds great,” she said. “But could we go someplace cooler? I’m dying out here.”

[Olo]

@kisupure I remain impressed with how quickly you’re knocking this out. The dialogue is sharp and evokes a real meet-cute.

[Kisupure]

@olo Well, last time I left the couch to water my plants the fever came back, so I guess the universe is telling me to do nothing but write until I’m over the damn rona.

And truly, I’ve learned from some of the best in this community

[Kisupure]

CHAPTER 7: THE PENNY-WAGER

The tile floor of the bathroom was a pittance cooler than the rest of the loft, but being on the north-east end of the building, it would more or less stay this temperature as the rest of the apartment baked in the setting sun. He plugged a fan in and angled it upwards so that it wouldn’t disturb their game, shed his shoes and shirt, and when everyone was settled in he cracked open a wine cooler from the bowl of ice he brought down from upstairs, pouring Dawn her shotglass’ worth.

They clinked their glasses together, toasting nothing for the heat and eager to drink something cold.

As Keith dealt, he glanced over at Dawn, trying not to let his eyes linger. He was trying to figure her out, mostly. She was a woman of uncompromising extremes; blasting hot one minute and frigidly cold the next, and quite hazardous to handle. Keith, always the diplomat, took an Alan Watts approach to life, gently setting boundaries, but always being generous with the latitude he gave others. It was more his style to watch, listen and learn, acting moderately and moving lightly, in most things. Even his chosen artform was thoughtfully measured. It was why he was drawn to designing tables: innocuous pieces of furniture whose job it was to simply hold up other things. Truly the unsung hero of human civilization, he always thought.

But even in that absurd doll’s shift, he couldn’t help but be reminded that underneath was indeed a grown woman. In miniature, of course, but a grown woman all the same, with a mind to match. He caught the curve of her naked shoulder, and took a long guzzle of his bright red drink as he focused on his pair of cards.

“Well?”

Dawn gave him a sly look and bit her lip. That, he knew, was fake. At least she was kind enough to make it obvious.

She slid two pennies into the blind.

“Hm.”

He dealt the flop. It wasn’t kind to him, and he bet two cents as well.

Dawn hefted a nickel from her pile of change and dropped it in. He gave her a look, and she batted her lashes at him. He dropped his hand.

“You can’t possibly be this transparent.”

“Oh?” she said sweetly, sipping on her shotglass. “Am I being transparent?”

He sighed and smiled, meeting her bet. He dealt the fourth card.

“You’re exhausting.”

She popped in another penny.

“Then maybe you should leave the grown-up games to those of us with some… verve.”

And baffling, he thought. And frustrating. And mesmerizing. For the hell of it, he put two pennies in his blind before drawing a last card and downing the rest of his cooler.

“Oh sweetie,” she said with a coy, but wicked little grin. She threw in a dime.

He called her bluff and slid in a dime and a nickel. She took a peek at her cards again, a hilarious thing at her size to begin with, but she managed to look cool and casual as she lifted the posterboard-sized cards an inch from the ground and set them back down again. Her shoulders slumped, she looked at him coquettishly, and for a fleeting moment he thought he might’ve had her.

Dawn threw in two more dimes. Keith did the same, just to see what would happen.

Her pair of jacks obliterated his four and nine.

“Good god,” Keith laughed as her little arms scooped all the change into a pile. He helped push a stray dime her way.

“We should play strip poker,” she said, finishing off her little glass of wine cooler. “I’m only wearing one thing and I’ll still have you naked first.”

“Now look who’s flirting.”

“Not flirting. It’s merely a statement of fact.”

“I object, your honor.”

“Overruled.”

Keith cracked open a second cooler and dealt on her behalf.

They played at least a dozen rounds, and Keith lost all but two. Dawn seemed to be making some kind of effort to be nicer; she’d at least cranked up the charm, and, well, he couldn’t exactly say it was unpleasant.

When the sun began to set, he was already four wine coolers in, and the tiny lady already two shotglasses in herself.

“We should probably eat something,” he said, looking at his last four pennies.

“Please, no cold pizza. I want something Zagat-rated, darling,” she said dramatically, falling over and lounging on the floor as if it were a chaise.

A belly laugh welled up in him. “You won’t find anything Zagat-rated here in Flatbush.” He thought for a moment, and snapped his fingers. “Wait for me by the door by the studio.”

He got up and stepped over her, feeling much more tipsy than he initially suspected. Oh jeez. Well, it was nothing a little baguette couldn’t fix.

Keith bounded across the floor, up to the kitchen, and dug out a slice of pizza while he worked. He set out a cutting board and tore through drawers and refrigerator, slicing bread and cheese, gathering a jar of olives here, dolloping a bit of jam there, until he’d managed to assemble something that might’ve looked like a charcuterie board if he squinted. Now to make it to the roof without dropping it.

“What is taking you so long!”

“Coming!”

He undid the enormous bolt on the old door and it swung outward with a metallic groan, revealing a substantial fire escape. He had a few potted plants languishing on the landing, and made a mental note to water them in the morning before he started work. Inside, he slipped on an old pair of flip-flops.

“I can’t climb all those myself, you know,” Dawn said, peering out.

He laughed. “Well I’m not bringing my books out here.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He blinked. “You mean you…”

“Yes, you’ll have to pick me up.”

Keith bought himself a minute by rushing up the stairs and situating the board safely on the roof before coming back down again.

“Now, maybe it was the wine coolers, but I thought I hear you say that you wanted me to pick you up.”

“Want is a strong word,” she said in that beguiling way of hers.

“Well that’s funny, because that’s the word I need to hear.” He bent closer and cupped his ear toward her.

“Oh no. You’re not doing this to me again.”

“Keith, I want you to pick me up,” he mimicked. “I need to hear it.”

She folded her arms and cocked her hip under that shapeless gown. God, he wished she’d put on the Barbie clothes.

“C’mon,” he teased. “It’s easy. Keith, I want you to pick me up.”

Dawn mumbled incoherently.

“Come again?”

Oh he was definitely a little drunk.

“Keith, you giant moron, I want you to pick me up and whisk me away to the damn roof.”

“Much better.”

For all his newfound confidence, he still wasn’t quite prepared to handle her again. He knelt and she stepped closer, hands on her hips. Dawn looked up at him expectantly.

“Well?”

“Uh…” He tried what came naturally. He cupped his hand and held it out behind her, which she promptly sat down in. With his other hand, he supported her back, and carefully, carefully, rose to his feet. “I-is this OK?”

He didn’t anticipate the electricity when she grabbed hold of his fingers with her tiny hands. And judging by the look on her face, neither was she.

“You’d um… you’d better leave a hand free to hold onto the railing,” she said.

Keith nodded, brows furrowed in concentration as he brought her to his breastbone. For some reason his heart was pounding. “How about this?” He tucked his chin in to look at her.

“This is… nice.”

For a very brief moment Dawn met his gaze without pretense, guard down. She looked like a strange little princess from a fairy tale, self-unaware and unencumbered by the world, and Keith felt a jolt of recognition: that, THAT, was the Dawn he wanted to see.

He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on the wrought-iron steps of the fire escape as he began his ascent.

“Hang tight…”

In the end he needed to make one more trip downstairs for a can of 7-up and, he decided, the radio. A little music made everything better.

Up on the roof he already had a few folding beach chairs, which he plopped into as Dawn busied herself with the little spread of snacks. As she worked around the pit of a kalamata olive, he piled a few slices of cheese onto a baguette and smeared it with jam.

Off to the northwest was the downtown Manhattan skyline, a beautiful sight that he would never get tired of. He and his friends spent quite a bit of time up here, and nights often ended with a number of chairs arranged in a circle on the roof, talking and laughing. Keith wondered what his friends would think of Dawn.

“Ow,” he heard his guest say under her breath. When he turned, she was picking something off her bare foot.

“I’m sorry, I forgot you weren’t wearing any shoes. Uhm…”

“If I have someplace to sit, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Would you like a chair?”

“Not necessarily…”

He cocked his head at her while he tried to figure out what that meant. “Don’t make me make you say it again,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t think I need to say anything…”

She padded over to him carefully, swaying as she did, and his stomach did a little thing when she climbed up onto his thigh and reclined against his hip.

“Com…fortable?” he rasped. It took every fiber of his being not to adjust his shorts right then.

“Mm yes, thank you.”

“Is that flirting or a just statement of fact?”

She pretended to be scandalized. “Mr. Morgan. If I want to flirt with a man, I would not need to hide behind double meanings and feigned innocence.”

Keith took a long sip of his pop and pondered the situation. She was asking something of him, he could tell. There were nickels in her blind and she was asking him to play dimes. He set down the can and sat up a little straighter in his chair.

“Alright, spit it out,” he said suddenly but warmly, surprising even himself. Dawn whipped her head up and around to look at him. He took the opportunity to capture her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and her eyes grew wide for a second. “Keith, I’m flirting with you and I want to see how far it’ll take me.”

He had her. It was that look again, and in the dim light he could see her blinking in surprise. She licked her lips.

“Keith,” she began slowly, “I’m flirting with you and… I want to see how far it’ll take me.”

[Olo]

@kisupure You can tell this is a great rom-com because I don’t want to spend any time learning who shrunk Dawn or why.

[Kisupure]

@olo I know, the mechanism of shrinking was always the least interesting thing to me. I hope I can continue sidelining that part of the story lol.

[Kisupure]

CHAPTER 8: THE SKYLINE

Dawn wished that she could say that the kiss caught her by surprise, but she knew that look in his eyes, and even this small it was obvious his eyes were flicking down to linger at her mouth.

What did surprise her, though was the sheer thrill of it. His face was enormous, the size of a sedan to her, and it came close with such precision. Instinctively she held out her hands and they came to rest on his stubble-shadowed cheeks just before his lips pressed to the bottom half of her face.

She kissed him back, or tried to–Dawn wasn’t entirely sure he could feel her, so she made sure to throw her back into it. Keith’s hot, wine-cooler-flavored mouth found purchase along her jaw, and she supposed that was some geometry that he could settle on without swallowing up her nose.

Warm breath flowed over her and she felt like she were kissing some mythical beast. When he pulled clumsily away, the lawyer felt altogether like she was 16 years old again. How did that happen?

Dawn had been turned around and backed up his leg, and she couldn’t tell if she’d slid up herself up the fuzzy limb of if he’d pushed her that way, but in a calculated move she let her derriere come back down to rest in the crook of his thigh, making sure to keep her dainty legs away from the second brain surely smoldering away in those silly technicolor shorts of his.

This was a game of wills, she wanted to make him repeat for her. But somehow the idea of losing didn’t sound so bad. Not at twelve inches tall, at least. She didn’t have as far to fall at this size, and felt easier to catch.

“You’re drunk,” she said with a grin.

“I’m not the only one.”

Peter Gabriel played softly in the background, but it wasn’t exactly a soft song. “I wanna be… your sledgehammer…!”

Keith beamed in the long New York summer twilight. “Each of those shotglasses must’ve been like a fishbowl’s worth of drink for you.”

“I can hold my liquor,” she insisted.

He chuckled. “Sure, at 140 pounds, maybe. But three? C’mon, Dawn, do the math. The numbers don’t lie. You’re hammered.”

She found herself sticking out her tongue. “Are you always this much of a tease?”

“Oh, so now I’m a tease because I haven’t rushed you off to the bedroom yet, is that it?”

She watched him stretch and put his arms behind his head, well out of her reach. It was all the same to her, though, because his lean frame looked much broader this way and she could clearly see the outline of his biceps.

Dawn kept wanting to push him, goad him into acting out, but it was looking like the kiss was all she was going to get for now. She experimentally pressed her foot into his belly button and felt his abs tighten in response. It was like pushing a lever on a great, powerful machine and seeing what would happen.

“That’s not how all of my dates end,” she added with a little haughty defiance.

The song continued: “I kicked the habit… shed my skin… this is the new stuff… I go dancing in…”

“You should trying dating more artists,” Keith decided, returning his gaze to the view. “We can tease you for weeks.”

“And let me guess, “artists do it with style” or something.”

“No, we do it with longer strokes,” he said with a hint of bedroom voice she hadn’t heard before. It sent tingles down into her toes. When she looked up, he was looking at her with a bit of a self-satisfied smirk that she wanted to wipe off his face with a taste of her own sexual prowess.

Instead, she wiggled her toes among the dark hairs on his belly. “Don’t shorten them for me now, darling. I like 'em long.”

He just laughed, and it shook her in a pleasant way. Dawn decided that she liked playing with a giant like this. It was fun pulling his strings and feeling him tug back. A game of wills indeed!

“C’mon, turn around and enjoy this view with me.”

“I’m enjoying the view just fine from here.”

Keith rolled his eyes and leaned forward to adjust the beach chair further backward as she balanced on his activated rectus femoris. Then, not appearing to hesitate at all this time, he wrapped his thick fingers around her middle, tearing her away from her perch, spun her around, and set her in the crook of his arm. A relaxed pectoralis major was underneath her butt this time, and her view was of his long legs stretching out before her, the expanse of roof, still radiating heat, and beyond the river, the World Trade Center loomed and twinkled against a great backdrop of pink and orange sky. A plane hit a waypoint overhead, its engine dropping to a lower note as it prepared to circle around to JFK, and a siren wailed in the distance. The radio began playing Papa Don’t Preach.

“There. Let’s just enjoy this for a little while, alright?” He took another slurp of 7-up and held the can to his cheek, forcing a sigh of contentment.

Dawn brushed a lock of hair behind his ear, but it was too short to stay there. “What’s this about, now?”

“I don’t like to rush things, that’s all.”

“You don’t like to follow your passion while it’s sizzling hot? C’mon Keith, don’t tell me you prefer lunchmeat over a filet mignon right off the grill.”

“You’re not sober.”

“And it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I’m not sober.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time either.”

“This doesn’t bother you? Like, at all?”

He gestured with the can to her and then to himself, looking at her expectantly. Dawn grinned and leaned in toward his ear.

“I like a challenge.” When he made a frustrated sound, she doubled down. “Have you ever had one-night-stand?”

“Yes, I have. But that’s besides the point. The point is…” He made a handsomely befuddled face for a moment. “That you’re, frankly, barely bigger than my swack, and necking a drunk girl is bad enough without her being small enough to stuff in my pants while I’m at it.”

Oh, Keith, she thought. Those were the words of a very interested but very conflicted man.

He continued. “Look, I have no idea what this week is going to bring for either of us. But let’s not do anything that can make stuff worse for you. You’ll have enough on your plate tomorrow as it is.”

“I guess you’re not wrong,” she conceded with a huff.

“Do you know what you’ll do after you make that phone call?”

Dawn sighed and reclined against him, her head not even reaching his collarbone. It must’ve been more comfortable than his own sun-bleached beach chair, though. “I was going to call up one of my girlfriends, have her stop by. I can’t hide from everyone forever.”

“Could you stay with her?”

“No can do. She has three Great Danes.”

Keith’s chest swelled underneath her. “You can stay with me as long as you need to, I guess. You’ll need to hide when I have anyone over, though.”

“How often is that?”

“Couple times a week. I usually see clients on Thursdays.” A pause. “You’ll have to cooperate with police eventually, you know. There’s going to be an investigation.”

Dawn just groaned. She knew exactly how long and how stupid police investigations were, and she was not looking forward to getting caught up in one like this. Sure, she’d filed a half-dozen restraining orders in her time against unhinged clients who…

A little light went off in her head, then. Dawn remembered now a man she defended back in '82 who had killed a neighbor’s dog with some odd machine, and was found to be quite the all-around nutter. He was up for parole last year, and when he didn’t make any appearances around the firm, Dawn thought nothing of it and got on with her life. Looking back, though, he was an extremely difficult client. When she tried talking to him about the purpose of the machine, he said nothing. He’d taken no notes, wrote in no journals. The only details they could get out of him were what they could find in the stacks of loose papers he referred to as “the plans”, full of schematics and nonsense math that not even forensics could make heads or tails of.

“Dawn?”

She jumped up and turned around, planting a big wet one on his lower lip. His hand flew to where she was in case she fell. “Keith, you’ve just reminded me that I might have a lead after all.”