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This is an old story from several years ago I thought might interest some people.

Chapter 1
Janet Billingsley was one of St. Petersburg’s most beloved hometown girls. From the suburban swimming clubs where she first took to water, the girl became a powerful swimmer with explosive grace and shapely thighs. She became a gold medalist and distance champion at 14, and was idolized by the town, a beguiling intersection of feminine beauty and power. The love continued, as she grew into a 5’9" woman and won two more gold medals. Now in her mid-twenties, her swimming career nearing its end, she decided to take on one last challenge – not for a clock, but for distance. Janet was going to swim the length of the Gulf coastline of Pinellas County, from Fort De Soto Island, at the mouth of Tampa Bay, all the way up to Howard Park, in Tarpon Springs – a distance of over 25 miles. It would take about ten hours, and would tax her to the edge of her existence, causing her to lose several pounds in the journey. That was what Janet thought about her little undertaking. She was half right. It would tax her to the edge of existence, but would end up taking a lot more than ten hours – and a lot more off her figure than a few pounds.

Janet had a support crew in a boat that would track her every move. There would also be helicopters and Coast Guard units dispatched to help the swim go smoothly. It was designed to benefit a charity fund named for her grandmother, who had died of breast cancer. The timing couldn’t have been better in one sense. It was early April, it was warm, winds and seas would be light since this was the driest time of the year, and she would be swimming more or less with the current. On the other hand, it was personally not a great time for Janet, who had just broken up with her boyfriend. Janet was planning to work out a lot of aggression on that swim.

7:30 a.m. on April 3rd. The team is ready. Janet decides to make a dramatic dive off one of the Fort DeSoto piers to start the swim. A pistol fires, she’s in the water and off.

The first few hours of the swim were uneventful. Arms and legs parted the water rhythmically, breaks at scheduled times, up through the beach towns and the Intracoastal. She passed Clearwater Beach around two o’ clock, and she could hear people cheering her onshore. It was on past Dunedin, and Janet fully expected to be climbing up onto the shore at Howard Park around five o’clock that afternoon. She was passing Honeymoon Island when she saw a bulbous bluish-white form in the water.

She knew to avoid this – a Portuguese man-o-war. It was a little early for them to pop up on the beach, Janet thought, though it has been warm. Its sting could ruin a day at the beach, and could do even worse to a swimmer in open water. She swam to her left, away from the coast, to avoid the creature. She figured that would be enough. But for some reason, the man-o-war was still coming toward her. In fact, its movement seemed awfully fast and purposeful. Janet began to zigzag away from the creature. No use. It kept coming closer and closer. She opened up her waterproof radio to talk to the crew.

“Guys, I’ve got this man-o-war… I can’t shake him…(gasp)…if he stings me, I need you guys to be ready to pull me out fast…” the boat turned and headed closer in to Janet’s position.

As she turned around, there was the creature. “It’s almost as if this creature has intelligence” was her thought as it stung her, once and firmly, on her left shoulder. Janet yelped as the pain invaded her and quickly grew stronger. “Guys… help me…” she cried over her radio. “What’s happening…” The crew on the receiving end thought they heard the transmission grow fainter, and Janet’s voice go a little higher in pitch than it normally did.

Janet didn’t perceive those changes. Instead, her pain seemed to dissolve into a hallucination, a dream, or like one of those things you see or feel after sex. The toxins in her body seemed to be telling her that she was… too large? An image of a big beached whale flashed in her brain for a moment. It was replaced by the image of a lithe, tiny fish skittering through the sea. Then Janet noticed her body getting lighter, her buoyancy increasing in the water. The waves, light as they were, seemed to be growing heavier. The poisons working their way through her body seemed to communicate an intelligence. Janet got a sense that what was happening was natural. She also felt a vague sensation in the pit of her stomach, as if something very deep within her had been touched.

A flash of sensation as her breasts touched the sea told Janet that her skintight swimsuit had suddenly gotten very large and bulky. In fact, it seemed to be retreating from her flesh. Janet considered her modesty for a moment before darting out of the suit and going au naturel.

Once she was free of the suit, Janet paused and swam in place. Strangely, the pain was gone. Looking around at the horizon, it was as if the whole world was retreating from her, becoming farther away and bigger, as if Nature itself were trying to readjust her place in its cosmos. She turned back to look for her rescuers – and saw instead an apparition. It looked as though a ten foot version of the Portuguese man-o-war was bearing down on her, as if it was somehow going to… EAT her?

She knew that humans weren’t on a man-o-war’s menu, and she knew they didn’t come ten feet high. Yet here there was one, and it was coming toward her, so she started swimming, away from her swimsuit, away from her radio, and away from her would-be rescue team.

The man-o-war sped up. There was no doubt now, it was stalking Janet, and no matter what its motives, that couldn’t be good. Janet swam for her life, added stress to an already exhausted body. The water seemed more buoyant than before, but it was also harder to swim through. The surface tension seemed harder to push aside. She gave it every last ounce of strength, and at last she gained ground on the monster. After a few more minutes it apparently decided this creature wasn’t worth the chase, and broke off to head back for shore.

Janet now considered it was time to do the same. She turned back toward the coast – and found that the beach was now an impossibly far distance away. Instead of a half mile, it seemed to be about 15 or 20 miles away. She could see helicopters circling in the area where she had been. What she didn’t see was the rescue team pulling out a swimsuit and headset, and finding nobody inside.

She began swimming toward the helicopters and boats, tapping into the reserve that would have carried her to Howard Park. All thought of that was off now. She had to get help. She wasn’t in pain from the sting, but that could be a hallicunation, along with her seemingly distorted view of things. Oh, what a stupid mistake to swim off without my radio, she thought.

A familiar roar came closer to her – a motorboat engine. I’m saved, Janet thought. She began waving and yelling in the water – and was shocked when an enormous wake, ten or twenty feet high, knocked her down. She fought her way to the surface, and couldn’t believe what her eyes saw. A small motorboat by appearance, but it was as tall as a cruise ship and almost as long! The engine appeared to be six stories high!

Janet knew she was losing it. She had to keep trying to get to shore. If she could just lie down and breath for a moment, it might help. She knew she was near giving out, and yet the beach seemed no closer. More helicopters and boats overhead. Must be the Coast Guard, she thought. WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY SEE ME? Her answer came when she saw it floating in the water. A beer bottle as tall as a five-story building. They don’t make them that big. That means… Oh, my God! I must have shrunk! Janet’s mind thought back to the feeling when the sting hit her. The feeling that Nature was… adjusting her SIZE?

She swam closer to the bottle to get a gauge of what had happened to her. She threw an arm around it and pulled herself up on the neck. Looking at its size, she figured herself to be about two inches tall.

The wake of another rescue cutter threw her back into the water. Now Janet was totally confused. Keep swimming for shore, but what would she find when she got there? She swam purposely for the coast, even if a part of her conceded it might already be hopeless. It was all she knew to do. Now her reserves were indeed giving out. She was cold without her swimsuit, and even though the Gulf waters were warm, they seemed to have gotten a lot colder since the sting. Janet knew she would lose consciousness soon, and place her fate in the hands of the seas. She said a prayer as she found the last bit of energy leaving her arms and legs. Another great wake swept water into her lungs. Goodbye, she thought, as another mighty wave swept her end over end… and into a large net.

@ltltb Chapter 2
Janet found herself in a net, being hoisted off the ground, in the company of several thousand wriggling shrimp, all as big or bigger than she was. She fought her way to the edge of the net, elbowing some aggressive shrimp (she began to feel regret for all those seafood dinners of her youth). Once at the net, she saw herself and the gaggle being lowered into the hold of a ship. A shrimp boat, yet it was so huge! Janet climbed back into the pile, to avoid being crushed when the net loosened its cargo.

Janet’s pink, nude form was almost indistinguishable from that of a shrimp. She decided to take advantage of this, and crawled up the overflowing pile until she could leap to the actual hold of the ship. Once on its cargo deck, she started walking around. She figured the shrimpers wouldn’t notice her, and she could find a place to hide until she got to shore. An indentation in the floor seemed very inviting.

The now-tiny woman crept in and crouched underneath it. Instinct seemed to have kicked in, from the days when the ancestors of humans were tiny mammals walking among the dinosaurs, telling her to stay low. She was doing just fine at that, until the mouse that normally occupied the spot came home.

Janet screamed at the sight of a rodent with a head three feet high. She screamed, in a range far above the hearing of any man aboard and maybe even of the mouse as well. She dashed madly through the cargo hold – and found two incredibly large fingers lifting her toward the sky.

“WELL WELL WHAT THE HELL HAVE WE GOT HERE?” Those words came from a fellow who had been at sea a long time, and looked the part. A wrinkly, leathery face, a scraggly beard, and snaggly, bent or missing teeth complemented a booming voice delivered in a Cracker accent with a raspy laugh.

Janet was terrified and closed her eyes at this giant apparition. The giant paid her no mind, and rolled her around in his palm. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU, MISSY? SOME LITTLE BARBIE DOLL FOR SHRIMP CHILDREN? SOMEBODY’S SEX TOY GOT AWAY AN’ SHRUNK IN THE WATER?”

“No, you bastard!” the swimmer yelled. “I’m Janet Billingsley, I’m a gold medal swimmer, and I want you to put me down and call the Coast Guard!”

The giant saw the tiny woman’s lips move, but heard no sound come out. He continued talking, the beginning interrupting Janet’s rant. “SEEMS LIKE I DUN CAUT MAHSELF THE LITTLE MURMAID HEER! TIME TO HAVE ME A LITTLE FUN…” and that raspy laugh kicked in, projecting the foulest smells in the direction of tiny Janet, whose undersized sensory organs were overwhelmed by them.

But worse was to come. The giant lifted a gnarly, fleshy finger with lots of dirt and who-knows-what-else under the nail. He began passing it slowly over her body, then began wiggling it between her breasts. Janet folded her arms to protect herself, but they were pushed away. She could smell his breath, and feel his fingerprints as she was worked over. She found herself becoming aroused in spite of the situation. But the giant overreached his achievements when he took that finger and moved it down to her pubes. Janet screamed, brought back to reality, and bit the finger.

“Why you little…” the giant brought his hand back to smash her against a table. But Janet managed to leap onto the table, then scampered down a power cord that went into the bulkhead of the ship to avoid the giant. Frustrated, the shrimper went back to other business. “ILL KUM BACK FER YOU LITTLE MURMAID”, he sang as he walked away. Janet knew that and wasn’t taking any chances. Janet decided that with her swimming skills, she was better off in the water than in the hands of horny old shrimpers. She scrambled up to the main deck, and leaped off.

Again, Janet struggled to fight the waves. She couldn’t seem to get any closer to shore. But just then a spoil island popped up in her view. For now, she thought, it was her best chance. She turned and swam in that direction.

Janet straightened up to a walk as the beach fell beneath her feet. Whatever else might be on this little island, it at least offered the possibility of food and shelter, and perhaps a respite from any lecherous shrimpers.

It was the first time her feet had rested on dry land since her shrinking. The magnified sights in front of her eyes were awesome. Sea oats that stretched twenty feet high, clumps of grass that reached eight feet, stretches of seaweed washed up from the water that were as wide as she was, and four times as long as she was tall.

Janet’s powerful thighs strode gracefully along a beach made up of sand mixed with rocks as big as the balls of her feet. Realizing her vulnerability, she crouched down, to avoid the attention of birds or other predators. I’d like to have a weapon in her hand in case of a confrontation, she thought as she crouched and crawled along the shore, looking for a safe spot in the reeds to duck into.

Janet was watching and listening intently for a bird or a snake. She was completely caught off-guard by what confronted her: a tap on the shoulder and a “Hello?”

@ltltb Chapter 3

Chapter 3
Janet turned her head around to find a woman standing over her. This was more unsettling to her than seeing a crab or a snake or a bird would have been. Seeing this was Janet’s first realization that she was not alone as the only sentient being in this outsized world.

Janet stayed crouched to preserve her modesty. She also wanted a moment to get the measure of her fellow traveler in the land of tiny critters. The woman was in her early thirties, appeared petite, with modest breasts and a small butt. She had light brown hair, long, wet and held together with tiny bits of seaweed, that seemed to blow in the wind. She was dressed in an interesting costume. It appeared crudely woven together, perhaps with the help of the rusty sewing needle that she carried as one would a weapon. The costume consisted of bits of dried seaweed holding together bits of windblown fabric, dried sea plants, and what appeared to be dried and stretched bark, maybe from a nearby sprout. Tiny bits of gravel dangled around her neck as a crude necklace.

Janet took a deep breath and stood up, covering her privates. She was shocked to discover that she only came up to about breast-level on the figure of this petite looking woman.

The woman held out her hand. “Hi, my name’s Kim. Kim Columbo. I’m from Tampa, and I’m an investment banker – at least I used to be one.”

Janet smiled at the fact that Kim chose to reveal her occupation first, and did likewise. Extending her hand, she said to Kim, “Hi, I’m Janet Billingsley, and I’m a swimmer.”

Kim’s eyes widened with recognition. “Oh, you’re Janet Billingsley the long-distance swimmer! – My goodness, my daughter is a big fan --” Kim gasped and sighed, giving Janet the sense that a lot was left unspoken. Kim’s eyes got misty for a moment, and then a forced smile returned to her lips as she continued. “I’m so glad to see someone else here in my world! Well, how did you get here?”

“Wow! Um… I was swimming from Fort De Soto to Howard Park in the Intracoastal…”

“Fort De Soto to Howard Park? That’s the whole county. That’s like swimming the English Channel or something.”

“Well, it was part of a big charity event. I was swimming to raise money for charity, and… I was up to about Honeymoon Island, and I saw this man-o-war on the surface. It kept getting closer to me, and closer, and… then it stung me. The next thing I knew, my swimsuit was falling off, and everything was expanding away from me. Then it seemed as if the man-o-war was coming for me again, as if he wanted to eat me…? I swam away from it, and at the same time I was swimming away from my support team, so they never found me. I was actually swimming away from the mainland and toward the barrier island. I would have drowned if I hadn’t been rescued by this shrimper…”

“You were rescued? How come you’re here?”

“Because he was a creep. He saw me in the net and thought I was a little shrimp sex toy. I ran away from him and jumped back in the water. I kept swimming until I reached this little spoil island, and here I am.”

“What an escape!”

“So, Kim, how’d you get here?”

Kim’s eyes shifted down. She wanted a change of subject. Her eyes moved back up, and she smiled and put an arm around her visitor. “Let’s get out of the open. You never know when some predator might show up – and besides, we need to get some THREADS for you, Janet baby…”

The two walked back through rows of reeds, twenty or more feet high. A spirited conversation, though mostly small talk (no pun intended), A beer can the size of a gas tanker, the leavings of a day tripper, reminded Janet of her smallness. To Kim, though, it was more than a prop. It was where she stored her clothing supplies.

“Here. I was going to use these to make another outfit but I’ve got three already. Why don’t we get you outfitted?” Kim explained as she went along. “The seaweed can be used as a belt once it’s dried, and these little bits of bark fiber I beat into shape so they could be bound with the seaweed to make a halfway decent dress.”

She began stitching, a hard thing to do with a needle half as tall as you are, and before too long she had fashioned a useable costume out of these less-than-promising material. It fit the swimmer to a T – maybe not as well as her old swimsuit, but pretty good for the circumstances.

“You do really good work,” Janet laughed. “I’m just amazed at how confident you are here, and how COMPETENT you are here. How long have you been doing this?”

Kim’s eyes got big and sad. “Two years.”

“You still haven’t told me how you got here.”

“Uh, it’s a little intense, OK? I’d like to tell you, but, let me take my time about it, OK?”

Janet hit that wall again. She decided to change the subject this time. "Two years… that’s just it… I mean, you’ve got it down like you were BORN into this…

Kim took Janet’s shoulders into her hands, and a playful smile grew across her face, not unlike the one she saw from cute guys who would chat her up. “Listen, baby, I’m going to tell you every secret that I’ve used to survive in these past two years, but you’ve got to know the biggest secret first. Let me whisper it in your ear…” She leaned into Janet’s left ear… “You gotta know that you were MEANT to be two inches tall…just like I know that I was meant to be two and a half inches tall.”

Kim answered Janet’s confused look by stepping back, putting her hands back on Janet’s shoulders, and resuming normal speech. “You won’t be able to survive unless you can FEEL that what has happened to you was an act of Nature or God. You’ve got to know in every part of you that shrinking was your DESTINY! Because you know what? If you can believe that, then you know that Nature or God wouldn’t leave you out here without the tools to survive! So you got to believe that what happened to you is as natural as getting your grownup teeth, or having your first period, or having your first man… You got to know that it’s destiny, and it’s foolish to try to change it… that your head was supposed to be a third of an inch, and your bust measurement is supposed to be one inch around, and your vagina, now matter how wet you get, is supposed to be a sixth of an inch deep…”

Janet interrupted her, after briefly blushing at the frankness of her statement. “Kim… how am I supposed to think this is NATURAL? People don’t shrink, at least they didn’t before you and me. How can this be normal?”

“You weren’t hit by alien rays from outer space, hon. You were stung by a man-o-war. One of God’s creatures. That proves it’s part of nature. Maybe the man-o-war has evolved a species that shrinks other creatures as a defensive measure, or maybe for food.”

“Kim… how did you come to accept this?”

“I made a lot of money… sometimes I cut a few corners… but I had a successful career, a supporting husband, and
a beautiful daughter… and God saw fit to bring this on, to take all that from me.”

“You say ‘had’… how do you know your family isn’t–”

Janet’s words were interrupted by a frightening “clamp” around her right leg. It felt as though sharp glass were cutting through her flesh. Janet found herself flipped over in the claw of a small crablike creature. She looked at those huge, separated eyes, and saw the gaze of the predator. The paralyzing fear of prey froze her for a moment. Then she struggled to get out of its grasp. She could feel the blood flow to her foot ceasing, when suddenly —

She was dropped. The crab was now on its back, oozing blood from a used single-edged razor blade, plunged into his
midsection by Kim.

Janet was hyperventilating with fright at this close call. Without thinking, she plunged herself into Kim’s arms as she teared up and trembled and tried to get over what had almost happened to her. Although Kim had obviously been a petite woman in her previous life, to Janet her arms were large and powerful. The rhythmic stroking of her hair and head with one hand, her back with the other, was giving Janet a wall of comfort and safety after this horrific encounter. Kim spoke soft words of caring to Janet. “It’s okay, it’s all right, you’ll never have to fear anything as long as I’m here…”

After a long time, Janet stepped back and looked up at the larger woman who saved her life. “First of all, thank you very much”, she smiled and, on a whim, curtsied. “Now, Kim, tell me something. Remember… when we were talking, before we were… um… interrupted, and you talked about shrinking being destiny. Tell me, how tall were you before you got shrunk?”

“Five foot three.”

“I was five foot nine… yet here we are, shrunken down in Teeny Tiny World, and you’re more than a head taller than me.
Why do you think THAT is?”

“Because I was meant to be your PROTECTOR when Nature saw fit to bring you down into this world”, Kim said as she picked up the littler Janet and lifted her off her feet. “I want you to know that in this huge, frightening world, I am going to be your rock and my arms will be your safe place no matter what happens.” Their eyes met and stayed locked together. Kim took Janet’s head in her hands and planted a kiss – a short kiss, but a kiss on the lips. Maybe it was a reaction to the scare they had been through together, but Janet kissed back. She didn’t know if she liked it, but in the circumstances she knew she didn’t dislike it. As Kim brought her back to the ground, Janet wondered if Kim’s offer was for more than friendship, and whether this, indeed, was destiny, just as Kim told her her shrinking had been.

@ltltb Chapter 5
Eventually, they would have to clean themselves of the joys of this evening. But first, they lay together, Kim wrapped around Janet like a spoon. As the ecstasy of orgasm passed, Janet wanted to know. After their feelings for each other had been expressed so vividly, she felt she had a right to know. She asked it in a whisper: “Kim, tell me how you got small.”

Kim sighed, with resignation but also looking forward to removing this from her chest. "I was an investment banker in Tampa. I made a lot of money, and helped people lose a lot of money. Nothing blatantly illegal, but I cut some close corners. I played the system well. I also had a wonderful, supportive husband, and together we had a beautiful daughter who I just knew was going to grow up to be somebody special. Right before I shrank, there was a lawsuit by one of my disgruntled clients. He lost a bundle. I managed to eke out a legal victory, but I can’t say it was anything to be proud of. To celebrate, we decided to take the family boat out on the Gulf.

"We were passing Honeymoon Island when something flipped the boat over. Dave – my husband – radioed a Mayday and the EPIRB beacon went off. We were hanging to the underside of the boat and figured we’d be rescued shortly.
Then we saw this man o war in the water. “Everybody watch your feet!” I yelled. We all watched our feet. But that creature was coming right at us. It stung Dave, then my daughter Jenny, and finally me. We were all screaming in pain… and then the strangest thing happened. The boat started getting bigger. Our clothes and our jewelry were falling off. “Hold on the boat!” I was yelling. But one by one, we all lost our grip and fell into the water.

“As I watched, that man o war came up on us again. It reared up and – I didn’t know man-o-war’s could do this –
it just DISSOLVED Dave right there. I was shocked, but I was even more horrified. When I saw it going for Jenny.
I swam as fast as could toward Jenny, and she swam as fast as she could toward me. But it wasn’t…enough…”
Kim’s voice began to trouble. "It got Jenny… and DISSOLVED her. I could hear her scream as it just seemed to absorb her within itself. And then I knew it was coming for me…

“I swam, I swam, I swam. I must have worn it out. I saw a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne floating in the water.
It was the bottle my husband and I had brought to celebrate. The bottle caught the panties I was wearing under my shorts by a leg hole. I rode that bottle – the last physical evidence of my family – to shore.”

“Poor Jenny. I knew she wanted to swim. She wanted to be the best swimmer in the world. Every waking moment, she was dragging us over to the swim club. You know who her hero was? She had her posters up in her bedroom. Her name was JANET BILLINGSLEY.”

Kim was sobbing, and now Janet was crying too.

“And you know what? She came up to me just a little lower than you come up to me right now–” Kim choked on her tears again. It was the first time she’d had any shoulder to cry on, save her own, since the tragedy.

“They searched the coast for days. They went right past me, never saw me, never heard my cries for help. How could this have happened if… the man o war wasn’t sent to punish me for ripping people off. I got my family ripped off from me for doing that…” Kim broke down again.

“And now do you see why you’re here? God has given me another chance. I couldn’t protect my husband and daughter.
But now I have someone new to protect and love. I know you’re not a replacement for my daughter or my husband.
I love you as an adult, and as a woman. God is telling me, if I can protect you and make your life a good one in this world, I might get another chance. But I don’t WANT another chance…” Kim sobbed. “Not in that big world. That’s the one where I lied and cheated and stole. That’s the only way I knew to ADVANCE MY CAREER in that world and I lost everything. Since I got SMALL, I’ve lived my existence honestly. Not running from the facts, not hiding from the facts, not hiding from my feelings. I do what is necessary for survival – and NO MORE. I CAN’T do any more than that, because I’m too SMALL to do anything more than that.”

Janet wiped a tear streaking down Kim’s eye. “Maybe we can find a way to return to the big world, and still be small. You’ve found integrity in smallness and I respect that. As for me being the one you want to protect, well, what can I say? I’ve won gold medals but I can’t say I’ve had a bigger honor than that.”

The two hugged and kissed as the orange light from the fire died off in a pop-up thunderstorm.

---

Early June brought an unwelcome visitor to the spoil island. Morning light revealed a hulking beast on the beachfront – a Portuguese man-o-war, its life ebbing at low tide.

Kim and Janet walked up to the creature. “Look, it has the pattern. It must be one of the shrinking ones.” Janet mused. “In fact, since there aren’t that many, I’d say it’s the only one in these waters.”

“Let’s pray it’s the only one in the world”, Kim answered.

“If it is the only one”, Janet responded with a sigh, “then it’s the one that ate Dave and Jenny. In a way, this is as close as you’ll get to them in this world.”

“Yes, it is. Oh, how I wish to God I could touch it”, Kim said. “It looks so majestic, up there just dominating everything. Even in death, it’s telling us, how could you ever have fancied yourselves above me? Looking at it, I feel small, and I feel like I’m SUPPOSED to be small, like going in a cathedral.”

After Kim had gone on to chores, Janet returned to the man-o-war with an ax – a razor blade attached to a long bamboo-type handle. She cut one of the stingers from the creature and dropped it in a shell. She carried this home and boiled it over a fire, creating a potion that she set aside in a special blue-toned shell.

After dinner, Janet undressed herself and called to Kim. “I have something to show you…”

She pointed to the blue shell, cautioning Kim not to touch it. “This I made by boiling the stinger from the man-o-war on our beach. Since we think it is the last man-o-war with the shrinking power, chances are that its biomass contains the remnants of your husband Dave and your daughter, Jenny.”

Janet then stood back, lifted the shell over her head, and flipped it over, dumping the mixture onto herself.
She could feel a tingling take hold as she spoke these words…

“I take within myself the last earthly presence of Dave and Jenny. I… I hope and pray that as you take me into your arms and love me, that you feel comfort from sharing the presence of those you lost…” Janet’s voice was beginning to grow a little higher…“I love you beyond words and I welcome your protection, and I grant my honor and obedience to you, for as long as we both shall desire it, or as long as we both shall live…”

The shrinking had stopped. Because the stinger’s poison was diluted, Janet only shrank to an inch and a half in height from her former two inches – about as high as Kim’s belly, as she had figured.

“And I hope and pray that someday you will find a man to help you fill this wonderful womb with new life, and if you do so, I shall not honor you one bit less”, Janet said as she kissed Kim’s round midsection.

Kim reached out to touch her. “No, wait!” Janet yelled. “Sorry to break the moment, but I need to towel the potion off. Can’t have you shrinking too!”

Kim laughed through her tears. She so deeply loved the now-tinier and even cuter swimming goddess who had given her itty bitty heart reason to beat again, and right now that heart was beating at takeoff speed. It was so wonderful to have someone smaller and more vulnerable than her in the world, just to make it all bearable and give it a sense of meaning.

“Just promise me you won’t shrink any smaller, because I never want to lose the opportunity to love you like THIS…”

The two bodies hurled onto the silk bed in Kim’s shell.

Janet persuaded Kim to work with her to contact rescuers. They figured their best chance would be during sea-turtle season, when people would be on the island looking for small crawling creatures. They are hopeful, and whatever happens, they have each other.