It was a Saturday when Sally first noticed anything was wrong.
Pearl had left her to have some fun on their bedroom floor while she put out some fires in her home office.
Sally liked her dollhouse. She loved her hamster cage. But unsupervised time in the normal world was why she'd taken the Eki in the first place. Straining her head upwards at the skyscraper like nightstand or the stadium sized bed drove home how small she'd become. Being alone in it allowed her to explore some fantasies she'd never even told Pearl about.
Pearl had some idea about her wife's more offbeat fantasies. She didn't understand them, but that didn't mean she wasn't willing to indulge them from time to time.
That day it meant leaving the bedroom floor in a state of disarray Pearl normally wouldn't tolerate. She'd never leave a pair of tights dangling from the laundry hamper or leave her heels tipped over in the middle of the room where any mouse, or tiny wife, could crawl into them. She just hoped her freshly worn underwear crumpled up by the hamper looked like they'd been thrown there and not shimmied out of and left there a minute before she collected Sally from her cage.
Pearl didn't understand it, she just watched her wife scamper to the laundry basket, climb up her tights, and jump face first into a week's worth of her dirty clothes. She didn't understand the allure of her laundry or why Sally felt the need to climb like that. Pearl had cut a hole in the bottom corner so Sally could get in and out safely. She even told Sally it had been made by a mouse. She knew Sally would like it more that way.
Pearl left Sally to her fun.
Sally tuckered herself out playing in the laundry. When she finally pulled herself through her mouse hole the only thing she wanted was a nice long nap curled up in the toe of Pearl's nicest set of heels. If she was lucky Pearl would get done early and stick her foot inside trapping Sally between Pearl's toes and the hot smelly leather.
If she was really lucky Pearl wouldn't let her out until she'd kissed her toes clean.
She didn't fit.
She fit last week and the week before, but this time she wasn't able to wedge herself in as far as she had before. The difference was small. Even by her standards. But it was there and she noticed it.
Sally knew she'd been packing on the grams since Pearl started baking again. That must be it. She'd just let Pearl know so she could monitor her diet. Maybe make her do laps on her hamster wheel to burn off calories. Sally hoped Pearl would be strict about her weight loss; she liked it when Pearl was strict.
"That's stupid."
Sally crossed her arms over her chest and gave her best pout. She'd have stomped her foot too if she weren't dangling between Pearl's breasts.
"The tape doesn't lie." Pearl tried to sound condescending, she knew Sally liked it when she spoke down to her. "You're growing."
"No I'm not."
"If you don't believe the tape measure, believe my boobs. How long's it been since you were able to fit in your titty harness? I had to dig through the attic to find this. You cried when you too small for it."
"That was different."
"I'm taking you to the doctor and I don't want to hear any more of your backtalk. I'll give you a choice – ride in my cleavage or in your panty pocket. What do you want?"
"Panties." Sally sounded like a petulant teenager.
"Is that how you ask me to do something nice for you?"
"Nooooo."
"Then ask me right or I'll stuff you so far up my butt I'll need to stop at the butt doctor's to get you out."
Pearl's heart was in the right place even if her ad libbed threats weren't.
"Please, Master." Sally sounded contrite at least. "Pretty please put my in my pretty panty pocket."
"Much better. Now stay put while I slip them on. Once I've thoroughly drenched your pocket I'll slide you in and we can go."
"Thank you."
Pearl could tell this unexplainable growth was still bothering Sally. She couldn't make her smaller, but she could at least distract her.
"In an hour Dr. Pityup is going to ask to see you. I'll have to hike up my skirt and pull down my panties right there in her office. Can you imagine what she'll think when she sees my wife crawling out of her panty cave covered from nose to toes by my girl juice? How would that make you feel?"
"Humiliated."
"Just the way you like it?"
Pearl felt Sally's head nod between her breasts.
"I think I'll wear tights over you. That way you'll be extra sweaty when you crawl out."
"Thank you, Master."
"I don't want to."
Sally felt like a freak. She had to be 18 inches tall by now. Taller than her old cage. She could look into the window of her third floor dollhouse bedroom without stretching.
She closed her eyes and wished with all her heart she was small enough to crawl under the tiny covers and wake up from this nightmare.
But when she opened her eyes she was still staring at her old home and the crib looming just behind it.
"We have to do something. At least till they figure out what's making you grow. Be reasonable, honey. You're too big for all your doll things now. Didn't you love it when I babied you the last time?"
"That was different. I was going the right direction then. You'd lay me down there and I knew the next time you took me out I'd be littler. Like I'm supposed to be.
"Now I'm just … getting bigger. Like I'm cancer or something. I feel like Godzilla."
Pearl picked her up before she started crying. She made gentle shushing sounds as she drew her close and lovingly rubbed her hand over her tiny wife's bare tush.
"It's going to be alright, sweetie." Pearl sat down on the nearby glider and started to rock. "You can cry if you have to. When you're finished I'll diaper you and put you in one of your old onesies. You remember. The ones with the mittens sewn in so you can't use your hands like a grown up. You'll like that, won't you?"
Sally was too busy pouting to answer.
"Then I'll feed you strained peas with a rubber tipped baby spoon. You hate those the most, don't you? How they taste just awful and they make your poopies all green and mushy."
"Stop trying to make me feel better." Sally sobbed.
"Never."
Pearl shifted Sally to her left arm and awkwardly undid her blouse one handed. She unbuttoned pst her bra then undid a catch that let the fabric fall free from one breast.
"I don't care if you did buy a nursing bra I'm not gonna suck."
"Does Sally need a time out?"
"Time out" was Sally's safe word. Pearl was reminding Sally she could end this any time she wanted.
"No."
"Then you'll suck what I tell you to suck, young lady."
Pearl's nipple felt stiff, hot, and a little sweaty. The hard nipple more than filled Sally's tiny mouth.
It took Sally some time to relax enough to lean into the scene. Pearl just rocked her patiently as she waited for her wife to start suckling, soothingly rubbing her bare back.
Pearl's breast began to taste better the longer Sally held it in her mouth. Sweeter, with just a hint of sweat salt. The flavor made Sally want to suck.
Sally tried to jerk her head back when a trickle of warm sweet liquid flowed into her mouth, but Pearl had anticipated that and held Sally's head firmly to her milky breast.
"Does Sally want to tap out?"
Pearl waited patiently, but Sally didn't use her non-verbal safe word.
"I got a prescription for Motilium after we found out you were growing. I knew you wouldn't be happy going through your third childhood so I figured I'd do something special for you this time. Drink all you want."
Sally fell asleep suckling Pearl. Filling her tummy with warm vanilla honey milk.
When she woke up she was diapered, laying in her crib, staring up at the old mobile Pearl had made for her the last time she'd slept there.
On it were all the totems of Sally's old life. Her car keys. An old bra. Her Master's Degree. All dangling above just out of reach. The last time she'd seen them she was dwindling further and further from them.
Now she was coming back.
Pearl heard Sally crying on the baby monitor and got up to check on her.
"I'm scared."
"They're just panties."
"But they're big girl panties and I'm not a big girl."
"These are as juvenile as I could find." Pearl held the pink triangle of fabric in front of Sally's face; Hello Kitty glared back from the plucked cotton.
"I don't want people clothes; I want my dolly stuff back."
"I know." Pearl wished she had something more helpful to say.
"When do I try the Eki again? Dr. Pityup said they'd try in a month. It's been six weeks."
Pearl got down on her knees to look Sally straight in the eye when she told her the truth. She put her hands on Sally's small bare small shoulders and took a deep breath.
"Sally … honey … they aren't giving you any more."
"What?"
"Dr. Pityup says you've developed an immunity. She's never seen anything like this. No one has."
"So I'm just gonna keep on growing? Till I'm bigger than you?"
Pearl nodded.
"But that's not what I am."
The pain in Sally's voice stabbed deep into Pearl's chest. At that moment she didn't give a fuck about facing tough realities with a stoic acceptance, she just hugged her girl.
"Why do they even have science if it can't fix me?"
Pearl didn't have an answer, she just hugged her wife deeper.
After a minute Pearl wiped her eyes, rose to her feet and led Sally by the hand to the door of Pearl's, formerly Sally's, home office.
"I'm not allowed in there." Sally stared at the forbidden door.
"I'm bending that rule. Just this once."
Pearl turned the handle and let Sally push.
The mannequin standing in the center of the room was taller than Pearl with a figure both women knew intimately.
It was covered in a neon pink abomination of a dress that looked like a unicorn had vomited up a fairy princess. The material looked thick, hot, and uncomfortable. The buttons running down the front were just a bit too big for human hands.
"I had it made special for when you're big again."
Sally airwalked her way up to it and ran her fingers over the cheap fabric.
"It's just like …"
" … one of your doll dresses. Do you like it?"
Sally just turned and wrapped her tiny arms around Pearl's legs. Hugging her like that while she still could.
"Things aren't going to be as easy as they were before. We're gonna have to work a little harder to make you feel as little on the outside as you are underneath." Pearl lifted Sally up until her growing girl could reach her arms around Pearl's neck. "But I promise you I'm never going to forget what you really are. You may end up a couple inches taller than me, but in my heart you will never ever be big."