Posts made by i am insane

In retrospect, with my interest in dragons and giant monsters and the like, it was something I had since basically… ever, but I didn’t realize it until much later, although even now that moment is still pretty vivid to me.

Back in the day when games still had paper guides, the back of one had a teaser picture for the next game… which featured the main character, an attractive woman in a delightfully skimpy dress with leg on display, on the back. She looked all of four or five inches tall and it was mesmerizing to me, and that was what made me realize I was interested in, well, not SW, I didn’t really know what it was, but something to that effect.

Brutally honest here, I’m pretty sure I’ve been depressed since… ever, even before I realized this was a thing for me, so it’s hard for me to tell, but yeah.

I get the scarcity thing; my searches on things like ehentai are for three things: mini girls (which is the new shrunken woman tag), shrink (which generally covers all varieties of the word) and… giantess, because sometimes there’s giantess with a smaller woman and that’s generally much more common than just SW content, even with the sheer amount of just normal GTS stuff I have to learn to filter through. And if you like giant couples…? Ouch. That’s even less that SW, from what I’ve seen.

It gets tiring, to look at the sheer, giant amount of porn that shows up on a daily basis and realize that, somehow, yours is the one that seemingly nobody likes/makes/cares about can be grating, and seeing the comments on some pages that are basically ‘?!?’ from random people doesn’t help either.

Personally, there’s also some guilt on just the whole thematics of it all, which doesn’t help, and the knowledge that nobody in my life would get it, even if they accepted it (and I wonder about the accepting part, even).

@kisupure
Well, at least you can actually draw, lol. I can’t even do that!

On a related note, could there be a tag to the effect of ‘NWO’ or ‘New World Order’ or something like that?

Hey, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen you last. How’s things? Good to have more people from before show up!

Again, I was surprised by how fast the process was; bureaucracy, in my experience, was a thing of many forms and periods of waiting, often followed by even more waiting. Outside of the changes I had made, getting Miranda had been a process of several days, assumably with whatever work she may have done on her end to help the process along; for Sydney, I had expected at least a week.

Instead, when I called the DMC, I had an appointment made for an hour later.

As it turned out, Sydney was on a list of Mins with that, by default, accepted anyone interested in her as a potential host. Since I was already in the system at this point, all we needed was that one meeting, and, if she agreed, I could walk out with her.

Miranda only snorted when I explained this to her, looking amused at my ignorance from her lofty position atop the left armrest, sitting just in front of my hand. My agreement to help her get revenge had helped her relax around me, somewhat. There was still a wary look in her eye when she saw me, but she seemed willing to have an actual conversation with me now.

“Of course she’s on the list, Ian: everyone I’ve ever met there was on the list. Hell, I was on the list.”

I didn’t say anything, absently watching her little legs as they dangled in the air, but Miranda glanced at my face and continued to explain, her tone serious now. “No one wants to be there, Ian, and when you Min, you feel… abandoned. The world hates you, your friends and family give up on you, and you’re left in the Kennel to rot. Everyone has heard a story of someone whos ends up living in a bird cage or something, just a living decoration for their Master to enjoy, but even so most would take that, because at least then they’re wanted. Someone looked at hundreds or thousands of Mins crawling around their feet and picked you out, out of all them clamoring for attention; and maybe it’s because you’re blond, or you have big boobs, or a nice voice, and sure, maybe you end up spending your days on that perch, singing sweet songs and being fed table scraps, but at least it’s you doing it, at least you are the one worthy enough to get even that much. Even if he looks at you like a toy, well…”

Miranda trailed off, before finishing bitterly, “At least he’s looking at you.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“I always knew, you know.” Miranda started abruptly, staring off toward the door. “That you’d take me, I mean. We never talked much, but your Change came up awhile ago, so you were safe, and your willingness was… obvious. When you’re first picked up, they always ask if there’s anyone who might be able to take you in, and I knew, in that instant, that all I had to was ask. Mia was right, most Mins would kill for an opportunity like that.”

“Why?” I croaked, my voice hoarse with the weight of the question that had been burning in me for weeks now. “Why didn’t you? Why did you wait so long to ask?”

She sighed. “Fear, at least in part. Fear, and me lying to myself. I… never really liked you, Ian, you know that. You were always nice enough, but you’d look at me and you were always so… intense about it. Hungry, even. There are creepier ways a man can look at you, I admit, but it was more than just wanting to see me naked, or to rape me, it was like you wanted to own me, to put me a box on your shelf or something.”

Miranda paused, and blushed. “I’ll admit, part of me thought it was nice, to get that much of reaction from you, to have a man just look at me and fall madly for my charms, but it was also scary Ian. You never pushed me, you never did anything you shouldn’t, but it was like being a piece of meat in a room with a well trained dog: even if it’s not doing anything, you know it’s just a few words away from gulping you down. And then I Min’d and…”

She shuddered. “It scared me. You scared me, Ian; you still do. Even now, you’re still that dog, just as hungry as ever, still patiently eyeing me, waiting for that word to pounce. Only now you’re a dog as big as a house, looming over me with drool dripping from those big sharp teeth of yours, so close I can feel your breath threaten to knock me over, and there’s nothing holding you back: no leash, no collar, nothing but your willingness to obey.”

Almost unconsciously I found myself brushing a finger under my lips, looking for anything wet, and she laughed, sounding slightly hysterical.

“It’s… a little intoxicating, really, to have something as big as you are listen to me, to have that kind of power under my command.” Miranda smiled at me, excitement dancing in her eyes, mixed with with something darker. “But it’s dangerous, too: it’s all too easy to forget that the power isn’t mine, not really. You’re just letting me use it, and you could just as easily take it away.”

“I wouldn’t-” I begin, only to stop after a moment as I realized how intensely I was staring. WIthout realizing it, I found myself licking my lips, and she giggled.

“Face it, Ian,” Miranda said, patting my hand gently. “You would. You really would.”

Then the amusement left her face. “As for the other reason… just before it happened, Jarrett and I got in a fight. A big one. I left that day angry, and when he didn’t answer the request, I thought… he was just mad at me. That he was trying to punish me, and after a day or two, he’d come get me. Days turned to weeks, and there was still no word. It was a month in when I finally accepted the obvious: Jarrett didn’t want anything to do with me. If he had, he would have picked me up that day, fight or not.”

Slowly, I lifted up my hand and moved it towards her, one finger extended. Miranda watched it for a moment, face carefully blank even as her eyes glittered with the faintest hint of tears, but ultimately gave a little half shrug of her shoulder that I took as permission. Gently, I ran the finger tip down her back and she stiffened for a moment at the touch, before relaxing and leaning into my touch.

“That realization hit me harder than I would have liked,” Miranda continued, her tone admirably calm. “And it took me a while to get over it. Him. I… I thought were were getting pretty serious, before all of this. We were arguing about me moving in with him. He was for it, I wasn’t sure yet.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “Can you imagine, Ian? How fast everything changed? Just a day ago he was almost begging me to move in with him, but when I needed him to take me in, what does he do?”

She laughed again, sounding at the edge of tears. “He just gave up on me, Ian! He didn’t even have the courtesy to give me a ‘No’!”

For a minute, I thought she was going to cry again; I was sure she was at the edge of it. For whatever reason, though, Miranda pulled herself together, and wiped her face with the face of her arm instead.

“If… if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be alone for awhile, Ian.” No matter how she phrased it, it was a question, and both of us knew it. I didn’t have to listen to her, and more than that I didn’t want to listen to her. I didn’t want to let her go, much less when she was feeling so vulnerable… but she wanted to, and we were doing so much better, now; I didn’t want to ruin everything just because I was impatient.

When I laid my hand back on the armrest, Miranda smiled up at me, surprised and pleased all at once. Guilt bubbled in my stomach at the fact that respecting her even that much was something so hard for me to do, and so unexpected for her to receive, even as her joy soothed the edge of my shame.

“Thank you, Ian.” She sniffled a little. “I appreciate this. I’ll… I’ll be back by the time you come back from the Kennel.”

And then, before I could say anything, she slipped off the chair, slid down my leg, and ran off into the house.

xxx

Scale Woman nodded to me politely. “Good to see you again, Mr. Hunter.”

“And you.” I replied briefly, since I still had no idea what her name actually was.

She huffed slightly, apparently just as unimpressed with me as ever. “If you’ll follow me, you meeting is rig-”

“Wait.” Scale Woman raised an eyebrow at my interruption, but let me continue anyways. “When I called, I had a… request.”

I had asked for Sydney by name when I called, but before I hung up I took a risk and asked that my interest in her in particular be kept from the Min. The man on the line had given me some bland reassurances, but I didn’t actully know if they had followed through on it or not.

Something about that must have interested her, because the boredom in her gaze vanished, and she examined me with mild interest.

“Yes, Mr. Hunter, your… request.” She emphasized the word with a mocking grin. “Rest assured, we did not tell her you were looking for ‘Sydney Wilson’, but simply that her criteria met your interest.”

“And she believed that?”

And there was the contempt again. “Sydney is the largest Min in our facilities, one of the largest Mins on record, to be frank. She’s used to getting more attention than the norm.”

Apparently done with the conversation, she turned on her heel and strode off, forcing me to follow her.

xxx

As it turned out, Scale Woman hadn’t exaggerated: the Min waiting for me atop the table in the meeting room was the biggest I’d ever seen, bar none. Miranda was on the high end, I knew, but Sydney must have been twice her height, easy; it was no surprise she was able to so easily push her around. She was also, I realized as I took in the form of the lithe creature before, drop dead gorgeous: warm bronze skin complemented by night black hair, long enough to reach her feet and artfully arranged to give her modesty, which only served to highlight all the features it hid. Over all, the effect only served to grant her an appearance even more sensual than just bared skin would have provided.

Sitting there, legs demurely folded beneath her as she waited for me, Sydney Wilson looked like nothing less than a fey creature out of a story, an exotic beauty that, in other circumstances, I would never be worthy to even approach.

Part of me wondered if I would see her adorning the cover of a magazine or two, if I was to investigate her in any depth. The rest of me had realized that this creature, small as it was, had hurt Miranda, and that anger helped shield me from being overwhelmed by her charms.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scale Woman watch me with what I could only believe was approval on her face I proceeded to the chair without making a fool of myself.

Sydney straightened up and began to examine me in turn, and I took the time it afforded me to examine my feelings on her. Normally, I knew, the idea of someone hurting Miranda would have filled me with a burning rage, but looking at this woman, it was somehow too… personal an emotion to feel for her. She was too small for me to truly hate in that way, too weak. I didn’t like her, but I felt no overwhelming desire to cause her pain, either.

I’d do it, of course, but it was good to realize I wouldn’t end up killing her in some fit of rage; that’d be far too quick for what I had in mind.

“I have one question for you.” Sydney said, in a melodious voice. “Will there…”

She sighed suddenly, and slumped on the table, the ethereal air she had maintained gone in an instant, leaving only a Min as it left. She looked tired and defeated as she stared at me, and held her arms up as if to accept handcuffs. “Will there be diapers?”

What.

“What?”

“Five months ago, an old man came and tried to take me.” Sydney gritted out through clenched teeth. “He delighted in telling me about how he’d keep me in a cradle, make me wear diapers, feed me from a bottle, and in general treat me like an infant, and how wonderful it was that I was so large.”

What the fuck.

“I turned him down, obviously, and you’re the first person who has met me since then with a desire to take me home. I’m willing to put up with a lot of things, Mr. Hunter,” Sydney continued, staring me in the eye. “I doubt you’re going to be kind to me, and I accept that, but being infantilized like that is where I draw the line.”

“I’m not going to put you in diapers.” I sputtered incredulously.

I planned on humiliating her, obviously, and hurting her, but I had no interest in that.

She stared at me critically, but the sheer disgust at the idea must have been clear on my face, because after a moment she nodded. “Then I accept your generous offer… Master.”

---

Fun fact: DMC stands for Department of Minimal Control. Yes, the name is a tad ironic, and people are aware of that. Though the slang for shrunken women in this setting is ‘Min’ in common usage, more technically it stands for a ‘Minimal’. It’s also a verb, though, for ‘Minimizing’, which is the technical term for a woman shrinking and becoming a Min.

Surprisingly enough, I didn’t actully consult a Random Name Generator for Ian’s last name.

BTW, I’m curious: what is the impression you’re all getting of Ian’s personality thus far? I know what I’m going for, but I’m not sure how well it’s getting across.

When you making a post, it saves what you’re saying pretty frequently while you’re writing it. Could we get an undo button? And an option to save a draft, so you can write something, and then come back to it like a week later without losing everything?

So, given the opportunity, what games would you play with shrunken women? To be perfectly clear, ‘with’ here means that she’s not on the other side of the board, she’s part of the board.

I’m working on an idea for a story and this came to me: chess or checkers, where every piece is a tiny woman, each in elaborate (or skimpy. Or elaborately skimpy, depending; my example that started this has giants hiring prostitutes to use as pieces, so the apparel would match their budget) outfits with matching colors. Each captured piece goes to the one who captures them, the winner gets all the remaining pieces on the board; no one leaves alone. Or, quite frankly, in a group of less than two digits.

For promotions, in the context I’m envisioning, there’s little crowns to give to the new queens or whatnot to symbolize the change, but in other versions, pieces are arranged by size, and are grown when promoted to match their new roles.

There’s also tournaments, which play by different rules: each player keeps the pieces they capture, yes, but the surviving pieces remain on the board and the open positions are restocked from the large general pool of women prepared beforehand. It’s an elimination style match, so the first out have a fraction of the prizes of those of, say, a semi finalist, and the champion is the one who claims the board, including both Empresses (aka the Kings), who are for that final match prepared with particular style for the occasion… I’m thinking wearing only a crown and covered in edible paint.

Depending on the available pool of pieces, if there’s not enough for later games an equal amount of captured pieces from every one’s pools will be removed to sub in, with a certain minimum maintained so, again, no one leaves alone.

I’m a giant, passing a village/city/town of little people, and I just don’t give a fuck about them, but they’re worried about me. Very worried.

Worried enough that, in their fear of what I could do to them, they launch a preemptive strike against me… which fails miserably. But now? Now I’m pissed off, and while I didn’t start it, I’m going to finish it.

It’s not a war, it’s not even a fight, it’s just breaking toys. Walls are smashed, homes, are crushed, all their resistance against me is completely meaningless as I destroy their lives.

And then they come to beg for their lives, and for mercy from the disaster they caused.

I didn’t look at the dog bed when I woke up. I didn’t know if Miranda was there or not, and I didn’t want to know. Not yet, anyways.

I’m not sure how much the other two saw last night, but if nothing else they sure picked up on my mood: by the time I finished scrambling some eggs on the stove, they were at the edge of the table again, mere steps from the ladder, and all but cowering as they tried to avoid my attention. I left them to tremble as I prepared the table: two small plates, each with a tiny portion of eggs, and a larger plate, where I put the rest of the eggs. It was as I was applying some jelly to the toast that I realized that there was no sign of Miranda, and that for all I knew she didn’t even know I was making food.

I would have liked to say I thought about the decision, but at the same time part of my mind was noting that the eggs wouldn’t reheat well, my mouth was opening to shout.

“Breakfast is going to get cold, Miranda!”

There. Conscious assuaged. If she still didn’t show up, then it was her fault she was going to eat sub-par scrambled eggs, not mine. Amber and Mia, if anything, lowered themselves even farther down on the table at the sound of my voice, but a minute passed and there was still no sign of Miranda.

“Looks like it’s just us, then.” I announced to the Mins, who didn’t seem reassured by my statement, but I ignored their fear and sat down to eat.

Part of me was irrationally, bitterly glad that Miranda was ignoring me: it let me be angry easier, let me put the blame for our… everything on her. Another part noted that if I wanted her at the damn table so bad, I could just make her come: she only had a choice in the matter if I let her have one. She was, it reminded me, not my girlfriend who I was having a fight with, she was the Min I owned. I could blame her for whatever I wanted, do to her whatever I wanted, and there was nothing she could do about it, and that fact was oh so tempting.

The rest of me was just pining for her presence, pathetically so. I knew, in the end, I’d be stupidly happy just watching her go about her day, even if she was ignoring me, and that fact only fed into my irritation.

The worst part of it all was the fact this was all her fault in the first place! I hadn’t expected anything from her beyond annoyance and dismissal, and I had resigned myself to a life of lonesome longing before I had even met with her; it was Miranda, in the first place, who brought up and accepted in the same breath the fact I could and would use her. It was Miranda who plead to me for safety, cried over my kindness, smiled at me with that damn smile of hers, only to all but spit in my face minutes later.

I could deal with getting nothing from her, I expected to get nothing from her, so why did she keep taunting me with all these fantasies of anything more?

Why did she keep getting my hopes up?

I was so busy fuming, only half heartedly eating my food to better wallow in my bad mood, that I was lost to the world around me until I felt a slight tug at one of the legs of my pants.

“Uh.” Miranda began, refusing to look me in the face. “Is… is it too late for me to eat?”

I stared at her, stunned and mouth still filled with eggs, for so long that she took at as a rejection.

“Oh”. She murmured softly, seeming to fold in on herself ever so slightly, before beginning to turn away.

“OK then. That’s… I’ll just-”

I swallowed hastily. “Wait!”

Miranda flinched at my shout, but stopped moving. “Wait! Of course you can eat! I was just… surprised.”

“Oh!” She said again, her tone suddenly lighter. “Thank you!”

There was a pause where neither of us moved.

“Would you… like me to help you up?” I ventured.

Yesterday, I knew, I wouldn’t have even thought about moving her to the table. Today, though, today taking that liberty felt… wrong. Like we were starting fresh, and if I wasn’t careful, I could wreak any chance I had of us having something better than how it had been.

Miranda, apparently, was just as surprised by my sudden courtesy as I was, and stared at me for a moment before smiling gently.

“That… that would be nice.” She said, sounding almost shy.

Slowly, I reached down to her, grabbing Miranda firmly around the hips before lifting her as smoothly as I could. She tensed slightly at my approached, but only that: she didn’t try to run from me, and even relaxed slightly at my firm grip on her body.

Then she was on the table again, and we were both trying and failing to eat, distracted by each other’s presence.

“Oh!” I said, starting to get up from the chair. “I just remembered I got you silverware to use. Give me a minute and I’ll grab it-”

Miranda jerked away at my sudden movement, and I froze. For a tense second we stared at each other, before she sighed and waved me down.

“Sorry about that, I just… panicked a little.” She shook her head. “This isn’t going how I wanted it to at all. Can you just… sit down for a minute? I want to ask you something.”

I nodded before lowering myself gingerly to my seat. Miranda sighed again.

“Ian, I-” She cut herself off, pinching her nose with one hand while holding the other up. “Actually, can you just… give me a minute?”

I officially had no idea what was going on. “…Sure.” I said finally.

“Thanks.” Miranda said almost absently, before starting to pace back and forth on the table, muttering to herself.

A quick glance to the side revealed that Amber and Mia were just as confused as I was, if less worried than they had been before: while it looked like they still hadn’t touched their food, they seemed far less stressed than they had been the last time I looked at them.

She stopped and took a deep breath. “Alright.”

I focused on her as she turned to face me. “Ian. I… it occurs to me that I handled things… badly, between us. Everything, honestly. I didn’t need to make things so adversarial between us. I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. You’ve been doing me, all of us, this incredible favor and I’ve been rude to you in return. I’ve just been in a bad place recently-”

She gestured at her body, before waving her arms out at the entire room, and how vast it was in comparison to her.

“-Obviously, and I’ve been taking it… badly. Which makes this next part even more awkward than it would have been.”

I leaned back in my chair as she stopped for a breath, my jaw on the floor.

Holy shit. She was apologizing. Holy shit.

“I had a hard time in the Kennel,” Miranda continued. “There is very little structure there, outside of some basic rules imposed on us, and so the biggest among us ruled. I’m big for a Min, more than enough to give Amber and Mia some protection, but there was one woman there who was bigger than me. Sydney…” Miranda winced. “Was unhappy with my presence. She felt like I was moving in on her territory, and wasn’t afraid to take it out on me.”

She snorted. “Which was stupid, really, because I wasn’t a threat to her; I tried to fight her when she got in particularly nasty mood, several times, actually, and I didn’t stand a chance. But she did it, anyways.”

She stopped, fists clenched, and I waited patiently for her to continue, barely able to breath.

“I hate her.” Then louder. “I hate her, Ian! I hate that stupid, over sized bitch! I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want to be ‘in her way’! I just wanted to be left alone, and she just-”

Miranda was screaming now, clenched fingers clawing through the air. “I want to make her pay! I want to her to be the one to be afraid, to be the one crying! I want to hurt her, Ian! So much!”

She stopped and panted, catching her breath as I stared at her, enraptured by the display.

“But I can’t.” Miranda continued, suddenly as calm as could be. “I’m here and she’s there, and even if I could get to her, she’d beat me just as effortlessly as before. I can’t do anything.”

She lifted her head to stare me straight in the eye. “But you can, Ian. You promised me, yesterday. You said you would protect anyone I wanted to protect, and hurt anyone I wanted hurt.”

“I want her to hurt, Ian.” Her voice was like a blade: sharp, cold and completely merciless. “Her name is Sydney Wilson, and I want her to hurt.”

For a long moment I stared at Miranda, at her determination, at the weakness that she had just laid before me. This, I knew, was my chance, my choice: I could take this opportunity she gave me, and build some kind of bond with her, or reject it, and her, forever.

I nodded. “Alright. I’ll do it.”

---

Your daily reminder that this is not a nice story I’m writing.

Also, the real reason I’m annoyed at the name of this fic: I’ve finally reached the point where it no longer matches, and at this point, it’s probably too late to change it. Also, I wouldn’t know what to change it to.

This ‘twist’, if it is a twist to you, was something I had always planned to do, but… later. Then again, this fic, both within and without, seems to be about recklessly accelerating relationships, so it’s fitting in a way. I’ve got to say, though, working in the new character with the olive branch to ‘fix’ their relationship (and oh, what a fucked up olive branch it is: torture my enemy for my love!) for their relationship is a stroke of genius I wish I could take credit for, but I have like… only three or four plot points for this entire story. The rest is all flailing and spinning bullshit.

After a while, I turned the movie back on, though neither of us really watched it.

On Miranda’s part, it more the fact she couldn’t watch it: from her position, my arm rose like a wall in front of her, blocking her vision, while also holding her tight enough she couldn’t have freed herself even if she wanted to. And she didn’t; once she got over her shock, she merely wiggled a little, rotating herself until her back was to my arm, before closing her eyes and apparently falling asleep, right there in my lap.

I could have watched it, of course, but I didn’t. Miranda laying there in my arms, so small, so vulnerable, yet despite of that so trusting, was… entrancing. I could have sat there all day, watching that tiny chest rise and fall, the stress on her face vanished, it’s former presence only made clear now by its absence.

Eventually, she woke up, and there was a moment, then, a single perfect moment. Miranda looked up at me, eyes still blinking away the sleep, and smiled, ever so slightly, in a pure, innocent happiness.

It made everything worth it. Everything, all the time and money I had spent, all the times she held my heart in her hands, massive and helpless all at once, as she squeezed, all of it and more paid for that brief instance of peace and joy.

Then, of course, it passed: her face froze in realization, before hardening, the walls rising again in front of me, rejecting me. She sat up, somehow formal and harsh all at once.

It hurt seeing that, a sharp, piercing pain, like a jagged shard of glass thrust deep into my chest.

I felt my face lose whatever expression it had held in response, pulling away, my back straightening from the slight bend it had been in for… hours, probably.

A tense silence fell between us, each waiting for the other to make the first move, both of us unsure how to act. Our relationship, her a Min, me her owner, had been one of sudden, drastic changes, struggling to find an equilibrium; would I be cruel to her? Kind? Would she accept me? Flee from me?

I couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened here would determine the direction of it for the near future, maybe forever, and I… didn’t know what to do. What I wanted to do.

I wanted to take her, break her, dress her in collars and chains as she dangled limp in my hands, make her scream my name, again and again, voice so loud and hoarse and broken it was impossible to tell it was from pain or pleasure.

I wanted to comfort her, protect her, hold her close and keep her safe, serve her food on fine china and dress her like a queen, give her everything and anything she wanted, just to see that one perfect smile again, chasing even the faintest hint of kindness or praise relentlessly.

I wanted to reject her like she had me, to cast her aside to crawl on the floor, naked and thin and dirty and alone and afraid, looking up at me and her friends so high above her, desperate for even a crumb of attention, begging for mercy, for a chance at an opportunity she knew was now long past.

I wanted to rend her limb from limb, feel her flesh twist in between my fingers, to rid myself of this nagging thing that had haunted me for years now, to be gloriously free and unburdened and to never look back at what I left behind me.

I wanted all of it. None of it.

I-

Miranda struck first.

“I-Ian,” she said, stammering in the face of whatever she saw in me, “Ian. I… would you mind if I went to bed? Please?”

Her voice sounded one step short of pleading, and her eyes shone with tears as she tried, and failed, to appear in calm and control.

It occured to me, then, that Miranda had stood at the same crossroads that I had, that she too had warred against her choices, but had arrived at a single perfect answer: nothing. No change, positive or negative, no bridges built or burnt, all the problems and questions between us shoved aside to be dealt with another time.

The status quo preserved.

I opened my mouth, then closed it, cleared my throat and tried again.

“Alright.” I croaked.

It was an unspoken agreement of her choice, and she relaxed ever so slightly at the acceptance.

Carefully, I closed my hand around her torso, my grip slow and gentle. Miranda didn’t resist, but didn’t relax, either, as I lifted her up into the air.

I should probably have brushed my teeth, maybe taken a shower, but I just didn’t have the energy for it anymore; those few minutes of indecision had left me emotionally and physically drained. All I wanted to do was to sleep.

Quietly I turned off the TV, flicked off the lights, and walked into the bedroom, setting Miranda slowly on the nest of thin blankets and fabric I had prepared for her , all of them set on a large, plush dog bed so soft that even her tiny weight made her sink down into it.

Both of us where silent as I changed, unceremoniously removing clothes before putting on my pajamas. At any other time, I knew, this would all be immensely embarrassing for me; to be naked, or just short of it, right in front of Miranda like this, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to feel anything.

I climbed into bed and plunged the room into darkness.

“…Goodnight, Miranda.” I said finally.

She didn’t say anything. For awhile I lay there, waiting, hoping for a reply, but there was nothing.

Eventually I fell asleep.

---

I planned for literally none of this. They were just supposed to go to bed. I had all a little conversation about it planned, and then… this.

It all feels… overly dramatic?

Halfway through the movie, the strange peace between us was broken by a single, embarrassed statement by Miranda, who refused to look at me as she said, with admirable calm:

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

In retrospect, I was kind of surprised that problem hadn’t come up yet; by now we’d been home for almost half the day.

“Ah.” I replied awkwardly.

Pausing the movie, I began to get up, taking pains this time to move her gently as I did so.

“Let me show you the bathroom, and then I’ll just… leave you to that.”

I walked briskly towards the bathroom, absently noting as I did so that Amber and Mia were, once again, seemingly gone. It didn’t matter, though: the Min House came with a fully functional bathroom, a flushing toilet included.

“How it works is simple,” I began, as I reached the toilet and adjusted the seat.

The new section, located between the two pieces of a normal toilet seat, dropped into place. Resembling nothing more than a second, thinner lid, it was mainly distinguished by the small hole near the front.

“When this is down, you can use the toilet and not worry about falling in and dying in a humiliating death. The roll is close enough for you to reach it. I’m pretty sure you can figure it out from here. Try not to make a mess, because that’d just be awkward for both of us.”

I leaned down and set her on the Min seat before straightening up and pointed in front of her at a small plastic object resting against the wall. The clear container on top was filled with water, and the green case beneath it displayed a matching pair of nozzles above a small depression and foot pedals, all sized towards Miranda’s dimensions.

“That’s a hand wash station for you to use afterwards; it has liquid soap and water, so there’s no reason for you not to use it when your done. I’ll clean out the waste water every couple of days.” I paused. “For obvious reason, I’m pretty sure I can trust you to maintain basic hygiene.”

I smirked at the annoyed look she gave me at implication. In all honesty, I was pretty sure she’d wash her hands normally anyways, but if her irritation at me pushed her to do it more thoroughly, I wouldn’t complain.

I jerked a thumb towards the right side of the toilet. “There’s a ladder installed there, so you aren’t trapped there all day. I’ll leave you to it, just come back to the couch after you’re done. And if you decide to take a minute or two to clean yourself up a bit while your at it, I’m not going to stop you.”

No matter how much I wanted to. I wanted to clean Miranda off myself: to run my fingers over her wet body as she writhed in my palms, brushing off the concealing soap suds to reveal the prize beneath… but I was trying to pace myself. I was already playing this faster and harder than I had planned, and didn’t actully want her to hate me. All the good things would come in time.

Striding towards the bathroom door, I stopped and added one more thing over my shoulder.

“And don’t worry, Miranda. I’ll try to make sure not to leave the the seat up.”

By the time she pulled herself together enough to articulate her rage, I had already walked out of earshot of her tiny cries. Chuckling, I sat back in my chair and pulled out my phone. A quick browse through my emails showed that there was no problems with me taking my vacation, the first one in years. I had been getting near the point where I was going to start losing them if they sat any longer, so honestly it worked out well for everyone.

I was scrolling through the news when I heard a throat being cleared quitely.

Look down, I could see Miranda standing just beyond my arm rest, looking at me with a piqued expression on her face.

“Well?” she asked impatiently.

“Well, what?” was the prompt response.

I was taking it easy on her. I wasn’t, however, going to let her walk all over me either. Not unless we did it for more exciting purposes, anyways.

She growled adorably. “Are you going to pick me up or not?!”

Instead of answering her, I hummed under my breath musingly, before draping my arm over my chair down towards her.

Miranda stared at my freely swaying hand, then back up at me, then back at my hand.

“What the hell?”

It was more of a statement than a question, but I decided to answer her anyways.

“Grab onto my hand, and I’ll lift you up.”

“Fuck off, Ian!” was her prompt response. I lifted an eyebrow.

“And now you have to grab my hand and say ‘please’ as you ask me to bring you up.”

I could see Miranda bite back her knee jerk response; she always was a smart one. If she gave me more lip, I probably would have had her beg to me to pick her up. Pity.

I really was having a little too much fun bullying her.

After a long minute of what was clearly a fierce internal debate, Miranda walked up to my hand. I helpfully curled my fingers slightly as she wrapped her arms around them, firmly pressing her body against one as she tried to get a good grip. The feeling of her breasts enveloping my middle finger, her stomach sliding against my skin as she moved, her smooth, firm legs attempting to straddle my middle finger were indescribably, and I luxuriated in the sensation as I waited patiently for her to finish.

I felt one of her feet plant itself against one of my fingers, before I heard her spit out, “Please, Ian. Would you be so kind as to lift me up?”

I laughed at her tone before slowly bringing my arm up, trying to keep the motion as smooth as possible.

Apparently, whatever hold she had was far less reassuring to her than she would have liked, because I had barely started when she yelped and frantically began yelling up at me.

“Ian! Ian, wait, I’m going to fall! Oh god, Ian, please don’t let me fall!”

Drama queen. Even at her size, a fall of a few inches wasn’t a real danger. Still, I tilted my hand back and curled my fingers, bringing her up before I twisted my wrist, sharply, breaking her grip even as mine took hold around her waist.

I heard a heartfelt, “Oh thank god,” as I set her, trembling, in my lap. I started to bring my hand away before she grabbed onto it suddenly, a frantic look in her eyes. I didn’t fight her, instead just adjusting my hand so it lay up against her like a living blanket, tucked her securely up against my stomach.

“Shhh.” I murmured soothingly as I stroked a finger through her hair. “Shhh. It’s OK. You’re OK, Miranda. You’re safe. You’ve always been safe. I’d never put you in any danger, Miranda, you know that.”

Gradually, her shaking subsided under my ministrations.

“Don’t ever do that to me again, Ian.” she said finally. When she looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. “Please. Everything is so big now, and I thought I was going to fall and I just…”

She trailed off and began to sob into her hands, only to stop with startled squeak as my hand moved from laying on her to holding her. I lifted her in the air slightly as I moved around in my chair, settling with my legs crossed beneath me, before tucked her into my arms, cradled her gently.

“Alright, Miranda, I promise. I’ll never dangle you like that again. No matter what I do, I’ll always keep a firm hold on you.”

She stared up at me with wide eyes as she realized exactly what I promised her: not that I would keep her safe (though I already promised I had), but that I would never let her go. That she would never be free of me. That she would always be mine.

Yet, even with that startled expression on her face, her body settled down into mine trustingly.

“Now then. Why don’t we continue on with our movie?”

---

So. I’m not doing so hot. Between that, the fact I’m busy and me actully losing my draft this time (though only the small part I had done, thank fuck), and the fact that I didn’t really have any kind of vision for this section, it’s been hard doing anything, much less writing; you would not believe how blood loss makes it hard to focus. And even when I could work on it I just couldn’t get into any sort of productive zone, like I was just flailing around for direction and sweet fuck, I spent so much time focused on the damn toilet of all things, trying to figure out how that worked, and I mean… I don’t actully care about the damn thing, but I’m taking this holistic approach to having an SW and it kept bugging me that I didn’t have a plan how that would work…

Sigh.

But, ash seeketh the ember and whatnot, and eventually, I got there. I’m not really happy with this chapter but it’s nice to write again and get that good rhythm going, and as uninteresting as this is, it’s necessary build up for later.

Hard to remember sometimes, for all the work I’ve put into this, but this is honestly still the set up; hell, this is still just the first day; they all need to settle in more before things can really escalate, and I have some exciting plans for that.

Honestly? For awhile, at least, I’d install myself as a evil thing to appease/protector/patron god, get a system set up where tithes (including, of course, women) are sent to me on a regular basis, my basic needs are met (a home of some sort, furniture, whatever food I’d need, if I needed food) and just… chill. Have fun with shit; have the women read to me, dance for me, whatever.

Stomp an enemy army if it rolls around, have fun toying with any knights that get ideas, tame a dragon or something…

I’m pretty low key, and actually ruling something sounds like a pain in the ass. As long as I get mine, I’d be good.

@the-big-g
One of the things I realized I like about writing this is how many factors that are running in the background: Ian knows a bunch of stuff that you don’t, for example, that he isn’t thinking much, but is affecting how he acts. Yet at the same time, he’s also missing a lot of information himself; he’s operating on assumptions, really, and the same is going for all the characters here. I’m trying to get this feel of motivations and plans and ideas and stuff clashing, you know? Trust and betrayal and hope and all that good stuff.

I didn’t plan for it to be like this initially, but it is what it is, and I’m glad it’s grabbing people’s interests.

Probably should have been mentioned this earlier, but thanks for all the nice comments, everyone! All the good vibes help me a lot with this.

Sorry it took longer than usual, but I’ve been feeling my… everything, lately.

---

I let them enjoy their treats for awhile before I broke up the fun.

“Alright, everyone, I have an announcement: today, we’re having movie night!”

I paused before correcting myself. “Well, Miranda and I are watching a movie, anyways. You two are invited, but I don’t actully care if you show up. You can join us, or watch it from the Min House, or just hide somewhere and do whatever.”

Miranda, bless her soul, had apparently been either appeased or abused enough to not protest my forceful inclusion of her, but after a moment the unspoken spokeswoman of the lesser Mins stepped forward.

“Pardon me, Master, but may I ask what you are watching?”

It was an odd question for Amber, considering the more practical bent of her questions when drawing my attention, but I got the feeling she was… testing the boundaries a bit. Not in a subversive way, but more trying to figure out what I would allow her, find the line so she could stay well clear of it.

Still, it would be interesting to see how far that boldness could go.

“You know, I’m not actually sure.” I said. “I guess I’m open.”

I waited, but Amber didn’t take the bait, merely stepping back with a polite curtsey to where she had stood before. Not bold enough, then, to raise her opinion unless she felt it was truly needed.

“Alright then,” I sighed, getting out of my chair. It was increasingly easy to adjust my arm around Miranda as I moved about, keeping her safely tucked against me as my body moved. Once I straightened up, I placed my free hand on the table, palm up.

“Anyone coming?”

Amber wasn’t the only one doing some testing though: there was something unspeakably fascinating about poking and prodding at the two of them, to see how long their courage would last before breaking, how long before a suggestion, in their minds, became an order they couldn’t refused.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that, interested in a movie or not, neither of them would be interested in being carried to see the movie, not by me, at any rate. Too much fear and (warranted) mistrust, too easy for me to simply close my hand into a clenched fist while they’re still inside, or to take them somewhere they didn’t want to go.

The pair traded nervous glances, and I didn’t have to look down to realize that Miranda was glaring at me.

“I- I mean, we, thank you for your generosity, Master, but… i-if you wouldn’t mind, would prefer to stay here for the moment.” Amber stammered briefly, before adding a quiet, ‘Please don’t’ at the end I think I wasn’t supposed to hear.

Interesting. I would have thought that had read far closer to a command than my unspoken question about movies. Maybe the fear of being held by me had overcame their normal reservations?

I shrugged casually. “Alright.”

And, really, it was. As much fun as it was to poke and prod at them to see how they reacted, I still didn’t care how they spent their time.

My business with them done, I turned and left, still cradling Miranda carefully. After a minute, she finally spoke up.

“What the hell was that about?”

It was more subdued than how she had talked to me before, but the anger was still present. It was, in my mind, a good sign, so I decided I’d give her a straight answer in return.

“…Honestly? I wanted to see what they would do. I asked them a question, because I wanted to see what they’d do with it. What choice they’d make.”

I paused and thought about it again, that small defiance, glaring compared to their short history of cowering subservience.

“And I did.”

As I arrived at my chair, I heard her huff, and it was with a little irritation, and maybe a touch less of a gentle touch than before, that I shifted her in my grip, moving her around until she sat on me knee, facing me as I sat down.

I refrained from reclining, instead focusing on the conversation at hand.

“Seriously, Miranda, you need to relax. I’m not going to hurt them, I’m not even going to touch them. Not unless there’s permission.”

I leaned towards her, my face stern. “Not unless you push me, Miranda.”

She didn’t flinch, but she tensed in a way that made me think she was stopping herself from doing it, and it was enough for me to be sure that I got my point across.

Pushing myself back, I popped up the footrest. “Your little friends are interesting, Miranda, and they’re fun, sure. But we all know this isn’t about them. Maybe it is to you, at least, but not me.”

I picked up the remote and start searching through movies, looking for something… simple. Something I knew already.

I felt Miranda get up, walking forward and sitting down at the base of my leg, back against my stomach, legs almost straddling the width of my thigh.

Eventually, I started the movie, an old favorite of mine: action, plenty of guns and dramatic moments, easy for me to watch in even if I wasn’t paying attention.

Which I wasn’t.

I gave it a valiant effort, I really did, but the sensation of her on my body, her thin form laying against mine, it was… distracting. To say the least.

Not too long into the movie, I moved my arm from the arm rest to lay it across her legs.

It held her closer to me, which was nice. It felt… affectionate, caring. Like placing an arm over the shoulders of your girlfriend, if adjusted for a different scale.

It also let me cover myself, which was something I desperately wanted to do before she noticed just how much I was paying attention to her.

As my arm set down carefully upon her, Miranda glanced up at me with a cryptic look, but she didn’t protest, so I was able to stay that way the entire time. It was nice. It was what I wanted in the first place: to protect her, to keep her close, to keep her safe.

And maybe, just maybe, to have a relationship of some form. Fondness, or affection, even.

It was hard to remember that, sometimes, when I felt her in my hands, the feel of her skin as she squirmed against my grip, so soft and helpless and mine, at last mine.

It was harder to remember when she looked at me, eyes distant and unfeeling, like I was nothing more than a means to an end, a trial for her to endure.

Harder still when she stared up at me, face filled with fear and horror and the realization that she had made a mistake, that she never should have trusted me, that I would-

…

It was hard, in other words. Hard to be kind and gentle when she was so madly alluring and bloody infuriating, and so a moment like this was something I wanted to treasure.

---

Hmm. I feel like I’m at a filler moment, trying to figure out how to best transition to where I want to be next.