Weeks ago, I could stretch almost to the top of a corn stalk. Now, I’m shorter than an ear of corn and much too weak to shuck it.
Paw tried explainin’ how this happened, but I don’t really understand what he’s talkin’ ‘bout. He wasn’t there when it happened—he was sound asleep on the sofa, right where me and Zeke left him—but he keeps insistin’ it all started the last night of the County Fair. That makes no sense, since I was definitely tall enough to drive his truck home that night. He had a few too many swigs of Ol’ Elmer’s moonshine and was in no shape to drive hisself.
I was watchin’ Zeke showin’ off his strength by swingin’ the hammer and ringin’ the bell—he won me a big stuffed bear, which now makes a comfy place to lie down—when we saw Paw stumble outta the gypsy woman’s fortune tellin’ tent. He was ramblin’ ‘bout me always bein’ his little girl and wishin’ I still was.
Now I’m twenty-one years old, and I stand—well, I used to stand—a few hairs shy of six feet, so I haven’t been particularly little for some time. Maw—rest her soul—passed away soon after I started gettin’ my monthly visitor, if you know what I mean, and Paw’s had to raise me hisself. Needless to say, he’s been a bit overprotective, and we’ve gone through a bunch of farmhands since then. If any of their glances lingered on me too long, Paw’d cuss ‘em out or threaten ‘em with a pitchfork. He even chased one feller clear outta town on his tractor.
Zeke wasn’t like them. He didn’t slow down his work while I was around, and he never whistled at me bendin’ forward to fill the pigs’ slop trough. He was polite too, every day sayin’ “Mornin’ Daisy Sue,” or noticin’ things like “Are those new cowboy boots, Daisy Sue?” I smiled every time he spoke to me, his steady, deep voice givin’ me goosebumps, but I knew Paw wouldn’t approve if I asked to go a-courtin’ with Zeke.
Back at the farm after the fair, me and Zeke got Paw outta the back seat, but we jostled him awake. “Little girl. Tomorrow mornin’,” he mumbled, repeatin’ hisself, slurrin’ his words together until they were barely words anymore.
“What’s he blatherin’ on ‘bout?” asked Zeke.
“Beats me,” I said, strugglin’ to keep Paw upright as we brought him inside. “That gypsy woman’s got him all worked up over somethin’.”
In the livin’ room, Zeke twisted Paw outta my grip and dropped him on the sofa like in a rasslin’ match, which got me a little hot and bothered.
“Wanna sit with me on the porch a while?” I asked, my hands behind my back as I stood on my tippy-toes.
“That’d be nice,” Zeke drawled out the word nice and curled his lips into a smirk.
We sat on the swing, careful not to let it creak too much. A breeze clanked the wind chimes Maw hung—and that Paw refused to take down. “You’re mighty purty,” he said, scootin’ hisself closer to me. “Reckon you might let me kiss you?”
Before I could say heck yeah, his eyes were closin’ and his face was leanin’ toward mine. I coulda backed away, or I coulda decked him the way Paw taught me, but I wanted to be with Zeke in ways I’d never wanted to be with a feller.
His lips touched mine, and my heart revved up like a tractor, but I backed away. “We shouldn’t do this here. What if Paw wakes up?”
“How ‘bout the hayloft?” Without waitin’ for my answer, he whisked me off the swing, and we ran hand in hand toward the barn.
Zeke lit only a single lantern, like he was tryin’ to set a romantic mood or somethin’—or maybe he was just makin’ it easier to see while climbin’ the ladder. Like a gentleman, he let me start up first, but it didn’t take him long to catch up and press his chest against my back.
Then I felt his you-know—as solid as a log—pokin’ me in the buttocks, and I froze.
“I’m real happy to see you tonight, Daisy Sue,” he whispered right behind me, his breath on my neck.
I shuddered—feelin’ his heat against—and my hands slipped off the top rung as my body went limp. Like I was startin’ to melt.
Zeke caught me as I swooned and turned me around, and I looked up into his eyes. Now, you may recall I’m almost six feet, and Zeke’s pretty tall hisself—almost a head taller than me—but he musta been standin’ at least one rung below where I was, and that night on the ladder, I had to look up at him.
Before I knew it, we were kissin’ again. He carried me to the loft, where it was pretty dark, especially with Zeke on top of me and blockin’ my view of the lantern’s flickerin’ shadows. But though I couldn’t see much, I heard and felt a lot.
I had no idea how he was able to slide the straps of my brassiere clear off my shoulders without even touchin’ ‘em. Or how he was able to slip his hands inside my tight Daisy Dukes without any unbuttonin’ or unzippin’. I figgered that from all our rollin’ in the hay, my clothes just came loose.
But when his fingers stroked my girly parts, I pushed him away—well, tried to ‘cause he was mighty heavy on top of me. I took a deep breath to calm my tingles and said, “Now this feels all good, Zeke, but Paw says this kinda thing should wait ‘till after I get married.”
“If you don’t feel right with me doin’ stuff to you, Daisy Sue, you could always do somethin’ to me. That way you’re not a sinner, but I already am ‘cause I already got you mostly nekkid.”
What he said made sense, and I liked how he made me feel safe and protected. After all, he was big and strong—even bigger than he seemed to be when we first climbed up into the hayloft. “Whatta you want me to do?”
“Will you touch it?” he asked, squirmin’ outta his pants.
Now I’ve never seen a feller’s thing before, and I sure never touched one neither, but as the moon shined through the hay door right on it, I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my fist right ‘round it, and Zeke howled like a coyote—startlin’ me at first—but I musta been doin’ somethin’ right ‘cause he asked me to keep doin’ it.
At first, I could hold it in my hand, but as I kept graspin’ it, it got longer and thicker. That’s what I heard was supposed to happen from some girls I went to school with, but I didn’t expect it to get that big. My hands felt tiny compared to it, but as long as he was enjoyin’ it, I kept on squeezin’ like I was milkin’ a cow upside down.
“Reckon you could… lick it?” Zeke asked between his heavy breathin’. “Kinda like an ice cream cone.”
Kickin’ away my shorts—which were down by my ankles for some reason—and shakin’ outta my shirt, I crawled onto Zeke’s thighs, longer and thicker than I’d’ve guessed. When I slid my tongue along his thing, which was quite a lot bigger than an ice cream cone, he said, “Just like that, Daisy Sue.”
I crouched there, lickin’ and slurpin’, and he was shakin’ and tremblin’, almost like he was freezin’ cold—which I know he wasn’t ‘cause I could smell the sweat drippin’ off him. Heck, I could taste the sweat on him!
Zeke’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight like lightnin’ bugs down by the water hole. “It’d be nice… if you started to… suck on it a little,” he said.
I kinda wanted to—not really sure why, other than I wanted Zeke to feel good—so I scooted closer. It’d gotten even bigger, so I opened my mouth as wide as I could to take it inside.
It nearly choked me when it reached the back of my throat, and I could tell somethin’ wasn’t right. I couldn’t swallow, and I could barely breathe, ‘cause his thing was stuck there. I started kneelin’, thinkin’ that the higher I could get my head, his thing would just slip out. And it moved—a little, anyway—but it also got wider.
“Oh, Daisy Sue!” Zeke called out. “You’re gettin’ mighty tight! I think I’m gonna come!”
Now Zeke was already there in hayloft with me, so I wasn’t sure exactly why he said he was comin’, but all I wanted was to get it outta my mouth and quick, before I passed out.
I heard hay crunchin’ around me, like Zeke was cracklin’ it in his hands. Then I felt his muscles under me get all stiff and clenched up. He let out this howl, and the next thing I knew, I was flung backward, coughin’ up somethin’ warm and sticky. Then I musta banged my head on the floor, ‘cause that’s the last thing I remember till mornin’.
The rooster woke me up at sunrise. My eyes were crusted with sleep, but I could smell I was still in the hayloft.
“You awake, Daisy Sue?” Zeke’s voice was deeper than usual—nervous soundin’ too—and I couldn’t see where he was, even though he seemed to be all around me. “I don’t know how it happened, but I can’t be here when your Paw comes lookin’. He sounds mighty ornery.”
Then Zeke was gone, leavin’ me alone and naked, and I couldn’t find my clothes. And there was much more hay—towerin’ over me—than could possibly fit up in the hayloft.
A few moments later, the door opened, floodin’ the barn with light. Paw was shoutin’, “Daisy Sue, where in tarnation are you?”
I couldn’t let him see me in my birthday suit, so I grabbed one of the huge blankets—a familiar pink and white checkered one—draped over the hay nearby so I could cover myself. Wrappin’ it all around me, I felt somethin’ hard and round buried in its folds. When I saw it, it looked like a button, almost as big as my head.
It finally dawned on me when Paw’s face—as tall as I was—appeared at the top of the hayloft ladder. That’s when I fainted, and I reckon Paw might’ve too, seein’ me so small.
When I came to, I was inside a basket, and Zeke was drivin’ me and Paw back to the fairgrounds. I couldn’t see what was goin’ on, but he said all the tents and stands were gone ‘cause they had packed up in the middle of the night and moved on. I heard Paw cussin’ out that gypsy woman ‘bout how this wasn’t what he wanted when she said I’d be his little girl again the next mornin’.
It’s been a few weeks, and I’m doin’ the best I can, all things considered. Paw and Zeke look out for me. I obviously can’t work the farm or even go anywhere near the animals anymore—bein’ a hair under six inches tall, they might mistake me for food—so I stay in the house. Swim in the sink. Relax in front of the biggest TV screen I’d ever seen.
Paw’s told us all about what happened with the fortune teller, and Zeke thinks that Paw misheard her, but I don’t understand what he means. That rooster didn’t get any bigger—it only looks bigger ’cause I’m so much smaller than I used to be—so there’s no way she coulda said that I’d be a little girl again when the cock grows.