Practical Effects - Chapter 2

Megan loomed over me, smiling imperiously as she rested a much larger hand on my shoulder. I’m tall enough that it’s rare for a woman to have even an inch of height on me, and Megan had several. The sensation of tilting my head back to meet her gaze made my mouth run dry and the hairs on my neck stand up.

Then, in an instant, Megan’s smooth, calm, dominant demeanor crumbled, giving way to her more familiar bubbly, excitable self. With a squeal, she threw her arms around me and started mashing her lips into my cheek over and over. I stumbled backward, her increased weight and strength threatening to shove me down to the sidewalk.

“Ah!” Megan realized the problem at the last second and pulled back, steadying me with her arms. “Sorry! Gosh… I guess I can’t really fling myself at you like that anymore, huh?” A devilish grin returned to her face as she leaned in, and I gasped as she bit down on my earlobe, just hard enough to hurt. 

“I’m gonna have to start being more careful with you,” she whispered.

“C-... C’mon Megan, stop it.” She giggled softly into my ear, sending another wave of goosebumps down my body.

“How ‘bout we head up? These clothes are really starting to dig into my…” Megan trailed off, then blushed furiously; when she’d moved to embrace me, it was more than the poor buttons of her blouse could take, and it was now hanging open, exposing her bare midsection, her bra just barely holding out against her inflated bust.

“Okay, no, in now. Now now now!” Megan started pushing me toward the door, with more strength than I expected. I stumbled, nearly falling once again as she pushed me up the stairs of my building’s stoop, fumbling with my keys as my girlfriend abashedly pressed her exposed stomach into my back. I swallowed, feeling the warmth of her skin through my shirt.

In short order we were inside and on my floor. Megan felt a little less exposed inside, but she was still awkwardly tugging at the edges of her too-small blouse to try and force it closed, to no avail. 

“Wait,” she said as I got the door unlocked. “I wanna try something.”

Before I could ask what, she’d crouched down slightly, snaking her arms around my midsection. I felt an intense pressure as she squeezed, her face straining as she struggled against my weight. My eyes went wide as I felt my feet slowly but surely rising off the floor, my body supported by nothing but Megan’s trembling arms, her poor, valiant bra exploding off of her, the flexing of her chest the last push it needed to finally surrender.

Everything slowed to a stop as I hung there, barely an inch off the ground, held up by Megan’s strength. And then, time slammed into us like a wave. Megan’s grip faltered, and I dropped back down to my feet.

“Aw. Can’t quite do it yet, I guess.” Her tone was pouty, but I could see the manic, electrified look in her eye that she’d managed it for even a moment.

Without warning, she pushed me again, hard, sending me stumbling through the open door. I crashed onto the floor and let out an “oof” as Megan came down on top of me, kicking the door shut behind her with a bare foot. She straddled my hips, the open ends of her ruined blouse brushing against me as she clamped a hand around each of my biceps, pinning me to the floor and kissing me hungrily.

“If I remember,” she sighed between kisses, tugging my collar down to kiss my neck and clavicle, “I said something about showing you the advantages of having a bigger girlfriend.”

I strained my neck up to kiss her, my movement limited by her arms pinning me down. I could force myself up… but it took every ounce of strength I had. Megan attacked me like an animal, her lips smothering every bare inch of skin she could find, before she was suddenly off of me, struggling to get her pants off.

“Shit. Fuck! These things are really starting to hurt.” The button had burst off of them and the fly was forced open by her enlarged hips, but the waist of the jeans was still digging stubbornly into Megan’s skin. “I really didn’t plan to grow in this outfit… Do you have some scissors? I might need to cut myself out of these.”

I clambered to my feet, panting, and nodded, heading for my kitchen. I’d no sooner turned away than Megan’s iron grip was once again wrapped tightly around my arm.

“Wait.” I stood stock-still as Megan’s breath began to quicken behind me. A small gasp escaped my open mouth as I felt a tell-tale heat begin to build up in Megan’s fingers.

I moved to turn and see her, but her other hand came down heavy on my shoulder, holding me still. Even through my shirt, her skin was so hot it nearly burned.

“Stay right there. I don’t want you to see until it’s done.”

I did as I was told. It felt like Megan’s grip on my body was constantly shifting and adjusting, but I knew the truth: that was the feeling of her hands growing. A low, slow riiiiiip sounded from behind me, accompanied by a steady staccato of labored breaths and grunts. I felt the heat in her hands continue to build, and build, and build…. Before it finally, degree by degree, started to cool back down.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God.” I shivered as I realized that my girlfriend’s voice was coming from a distinctly higher source than before.

“You’re so small!”

“What? N-no… I’m. I’m the same…” Her grip had relaxed, but I found I didn’t have it in me to turn and face her.

“You don’t get it. How could you? You’re not… God, nobody’s ever felt this before. Ahh!” Megan’s squeal was as girlish as ever, but I couldn’t help but notice that it was also louder than it usually was. “It’s like… It doesn’t feel like I’m the one who’s changing. It feels more like it’s everything else. Like the whole world just keeps getting smaller, and smaller…” As she spoke, her voice gradually went from loud and enthusiastic to low and husky.

“Hey. You can turn around now.” She lifted her hands off me completely, although she kept them held out, hovering above my shoulders.

I swallowed, and knew I couldn’t delay any longer. Slowly, I rotated where I stood, Megan’s hands settling back on my shoulders as I turned to face her, shuddering as I stared directly into her clavicle. I’d seen her naked plenty of times, but for some reason I felt embarrassed to see her bare breasts, enlarged along with the rest of her, and so instead forced myself to look up… and up… and up, to meet her eyes.

The size difference still wasn’t that crazy—proportionally, she still wasn’t as big compared to me as I’d once been compared to her—but it was if her body wasn’t the only thing that had grown, as if her sheer presence had become big enough that just standing before her like this was some kind of intrusion. I opened my mouth to speak, but found no words.

Megan just smiled. “Why don’t we try this again?” Crouching down, she wrapped one arm around my shoulders and another around my knees. She was still grunting with effort as she lifted, but she was able to completely take me off the ground, and I instinctively clung to her neck as she walked me to my bedroom, throwing me on the bed.

I sat up as she picked up one long, toned, perfect leg and rested the ball of her bare foot against my bed frame, tearing away the last scraps of fabric clinging to her. I forced myself to look away from the hot, glistening wetness between her legs, trembling as I looked up into her ravenous eyes.

“Strip.”

I did as I was told.

300 test subjects.

299 failures.

And then, there was Megan.

I could practically mark the days over the next few weeks by the number of bruises I was accruing; hot, passionate sex with an Amazon who doesn’t know her own strength was not a delicate endeavor. It was rare that she’d hurt me enough for either of us to take note of it in the moment, but sure enough I’d wake up the next morning with a new dark spot somewhere on my skin. Megan was sheepish and apologetic, always… but there was something else in her eyes too, a thrill that she wasn’t just capable of hurting me, but struggled not to. 

My apartment was getting it far worse than I was. My bedframe noticeably creaked now in a way it never did before, and the doorknobs all rattled a little, pulled loose from someone applying excessive force. Any time I drove us anywhere, I insisted on opening my car door on Megan’s behalf, a bid to keep her from destroying it that she took as a gentlemanly gesture.

“You should really think about getting a bigger car, this one’s kind of small.”

“It’s… It’s a normal car. You’re just…”

“Just what? No, say it! I want to hear you say it.”

“...You’re just big.”

She grinned, the passenger seat groaning in protest as she leaned over to whisper in my ear.

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

Megan was big. Every time I saw her, she stood just a little bit taller. The treatment seemed to be working in smaller increments; every now and then, I’d feel a little flash of heat, and it would almost look like Megan just stood up a little straighter. It wasn’t long before she was over seven feet tall, and she wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

“Apparently, it’s got something to do with my DNA. They take another biopsy every time I visit the clinic, but they still don’t know why the treatment only works on me. I guess I’m just special, huh?”

I sputtered, struggling to get a good gulp of air into my lungs.

“Hey, come on, are you even listening to me?”

“I’m… listening…” I managed to wheeze.

Megan thought it would be fun to “play wrestle” in our underwear now that she was so much bigger than me, but there wasn’t much “play” to it at all. She’d trapped me in a leg-lock right away, lying on her side with my arms and midsection crushed between her thighs, and twenty minutes later that’s where I still was, still ineffectually squirming as I failed to break free.

She didn’t even seem like she was trying that hard to hold me. That’s why she’d started casually chatting as she squeezed.

“They don’t know why I keep growing, either. They still haven’t given me the third dose, but I keep getting bigger anyway. They told me they don’t have any idea how big I’m going to end up! Isn’t that awesome?”

Mercifully, Megan relaxed her death-vice on me and started bending and straightening her leg, massaging me with the soft smoothness of her inner thigh.

“Yeah,” I said, panting. “That’s… that’s awesome, Megan.”

“Good. I’m glad you agree. The doctors at the clinic are sooooo worried about it. They’re really freaking out that they don’t know how to make it stop, and like… I don’t really see what the big deal is! Isn’t making me bigger the whole point?”

“Well, uh…” I chose my words carefully, not wanting to rekindle a fight we’d already had plenty of times, a fight that got a little scarier with every inch Megan gained. “I mean… they might just be worried about your health, you know?”

“You are all such worrywarts! They run, like, a ton of tests every time I visit, and I am perfectly healthy. They can’t find a single sign that growing is having a negative effect on me!”

“But, I mean…” I gently pushed myself out from between her legs in order to look into her eyes. “It’s gotta stop eventually, right? You can’t just keep growing forever.”

“Says you. I’m all the way in, I want to see just how big I can get. Imagine what it would be like if you needed to stand on top of a skyscraper just to give me a kiss.”

“Heh. Yeah, that’s, that would be crazy, Megan.” I looked up at her, my nervous laugh gradually dying off as I realized that she was deadly serious.

“In fact,” she said as her leg came up to gently pull me back into its grip, “if anything, I think things have been moving a little slow.” Mashed between her legs as I was, I hadn’t really been able to see where she’d gotten it, but Megan was now holding up a small syringe. “That’s why I swiped this during my last appointment.”

The color drained from my face. “Megan, no. You can’t.”

My girlfriend just laughed. “Oh, I think I can.”

“You don’t know that it’s safe! The doctors don’t even know what’s happening, you can’t take risks like this!”

Megan clicked her tongue. “See, I knew that’s how you really felt. What is it going to take to make you trust me, huh? When are you going to stop treating me like I don’t know what’s best for myself?!” I could hear the anger rising in her voice, emphasized by a steadily growing pressure exerted on me by her powerful thighs. 

“It’s not about trust, it’s, it’s…”

“Guess what. You don’t have any control over what I do. If you really don’t want me to take this… then try and stop me.” Her legs squeezed me, so hard that it knocked the wind from my lungs. A joint in my shoulders popped as she mashed me between her legs, confirming my suspicions that she really hadn’t been trying to keep me pinned up til now. I struggled and pushed against her, but it was completely hopeless. All I could do was watch helplessly as she tugged down the waistline of her underwear and drove the needle into her buttock.

“Please! Don’t!” I pleaded with the last of my breath, but Megan said nothing as she slammed the plunger down.

“You wanna know how big I want to get?” As she spoke, I felt a now-familiar heat building all around me. “Big enough that no one ever, ever has the thought that they can tell me what to do. I don’t need people ‘looking out for me,’ I don’t need people ‘taking care of me.’ What I need, the only thing I need, is to get bigger. Bigger. Bigger.” As Megan grew, her thighs parted slightly, and combined with the lubrication of my own sweat, I was able to wriggle free, scrambling backwards away from her. She sat up, hooking her hands underneath my armpits as she rose to her feet, my own langs dangling freely. I looked down, watching the floor slowly drift further away as Megan continued to grow.

“I’m going to become a big deal, in every sense of the word. You can either get on board with that, or you can get the fuck out of my life. What’s it going to be?”

I turned my attention back to her. Her size and anger made me tremble. This wasn’t just my girlfriend yelling at me, but something… more. The bigger she got, the more she seemed to become… something more than human.

“I-I… I want… I want to get on board…”

It was astonishing how quickly the fury vanished from her face. She pulled me into a hug, swinging me back and forth as she squeezed.

“Yay!” It would’ve been cute, maybe even a little childish, if it wasn’t coming from someone who could snap me in half.

***

“Too tall?!” Megan barked, causing the receptionist to flinch backwards. “I got rejected for years because I was too short, and now you’re telling me I’m TOO TALL?!”

Megan had redoubled her efforts to get a modeling gig from the moment she first started growing, and had actually seen a few mild successes here and there. Nothing major, a local commercial or two, but it was a start. And then this past week, she’d finally gotten called in for a proper photoshoot. I’d never seen her so excited, and honestly, these days I was just happy if there wasn’t anything to upset her. The bigger she got, the more frightening it was for her to be upset.

As the receptionist at the modeling agency was experiencing firsthand.

“I-I’m sorry, uh, ma’am, but, that’s what, that’s, they don’t even make clothes big enough for you to mod—”

“I am a fucking goddess. Look at me!” Megan stood up as straight as she could, the marble reception desk barely clearing her knee. “You really want to turn this away? I want to speak to whoever’s in charge here, now.”

The receptionist continued stammering until Megan slammed a fist on the marble countertop between them, cracking it. That sent her scurrying away as quickly as she could.

“Megan…” I trepidatiously set a hand as high up on her back as I could reach. Her attention snapped to me immediately, and I fought to resist the urge to cower from her. “I don’t think we should be here. I don’t think this is going to help.”

“Shut up! Why do you always do this? Every time I really need you, you’re against me!”

“I’m not! I wouldn’t be here if I was against you, Megan. I just… I don’t think yelling is going to accomplish anything.”

“Nothing else has; what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

I started to reply, but then got distracted by the sounds of sirens outside.

“Oh no. Megan, please, we have to go.”

“I could probably take them.”

“Megan.”

I stared up at her pleadingly as she looked out the glass facade of the building, dots of blue and red speeding across the highway. The muscles in her neck bulged as her jaw clenched and unclenched.

“Fine, let’s go.”

I had to throw myself into a full sprint to keep up with Megan’s absurdly long legs rushing out to the parking lot, Megan cramming herself into the backseat as I climbed in up front. The only way she’d fit in my car now was curled up in the fetal position, taking up the entire back row. Another few growth spurts, and even that wouldn’t work.

I turned the ignition and reversed out of our parking spot, circling the building as quickly as I could to slip out a back road, the cops pulling in at the front just as we were leaving. My pulse was pounding as I pulled out onto the road as quickly as I could and hit the gas.

We drove in silence for several minutes, Megan lost in thought while I anxiously checked my mirrors for any sign of the cops behind us. When it seemed like the coast was clear, I let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“I don’t think we should go straight home. The modeling agency has your contact info, so they’ll probably head straight for your building after this, and it won’t be hard to find my address after that.”

Megan said nothing.

“I, um… Gosh. This was kind of… Well, I was planning to surprise you, after your first big photoshoot. I have reservations at—”

An angry, mournful sob from the backseat cut me off as Megan burst into tears.

“Oh, oh, hey, don’t cry! It’ll… It’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t. I fucked everything up.”

“You didn’t.” I hoped my tone sounded genuine.

“Nobody… I just… I’m just so tired of feeling small. Of being pushed around, shrugged off, ignored. Nobody listens to me, nobody takes me seriously. Not even you.”

I tried to rebut her, but she barrelled right through. “I thought getting bigger would finally… I just thought it would change things.” She sobbed harder; her enlarged voicebox was hurting my ears, but I didn’t dare say anything.

I adjusted my grip on the wheel, and found a parking lot to pull into and stop.

“Megan… I’m sorry, if I’ve hurt your feelings. That’s never what I’ve wanted to do. I care about you. And, I mean… you had a point, back there. You are like a goddess now.” I looked back at her, face red, eyes swollen, lip quivering. “I’ve certainly been thinking that anytime we’re together. I mean… you’re just. You’re incredible, you know? But… But, I think, sometimes, you can be a little impulsive. I think… you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder, and it makes you react badly when someone doesn’t respond to you the way you want them to.”

“Do you really think this is what I need to hear today?!”

“You’re doing it right now.” That was enough to actually quiet her down.

“You have always been gorgeous. You’ve absolutely deserved to have your face plastered up everywhere for people to see, and now, you’re like… you’re something out of this world altogether. They turned you down, and, you know… That sucks. But someone is going to see your value.” I smiled, reaching out and placing a hand on hers. “I mean, I do.”

Megan smiled back, choking back a residual sob. I had started to worry that growing so big was doing something to her personality, though I didn’t know if it was purely psychological or if the growth drug was affecting her brain. She’d always had a stubborn streak, but it had been getting so much worse over the past few months, getting through to her at all just seemed impossible. But, maybe I just needed to find the right way to talk to her. Maybe she was more reachable than I’d been giving her credit for.

Her eyes suddenly shot open wide, and mine followed as I felt heat building up in her hand.

“Shit.”

Immediately, her body started to surge in size. Her knees, pulled up against her chest, suddenly banged into the back of the front seats. I had never seen her grow this fast before.

“You need to get out. Now.”

I did as Megan said, throwing the door open and jumping out. A second later, there was a sickening crack as the seats were forced forward by the pressure of her legs, and a moment later, a terrible shattering sound as Megan’s head broke one of the back door windows and her foot broke another. I hurried over to open the door by her head to give her more room to grow, as one leg awkwardly bent to fill up the front of the car and the other stretched further and further out of the window. Megan tried to free herself, but she was already too big to fit through the doors. The heat from the process was so intense that I had to take a few steps back. I shouted in fear at what I first mistook for gunshots, before I realized that it was the sound of my tires popping under Megan’s weight.

A few minutes later, and Megan was finished. Her clothing clung to her in threadbare tatters, her shoulders pinched painfully in the backseat doorway.

“Hon? I’m stuck…” I covered my mouth, partially awed, partially in horror at just how massive she’d become.

And it was only at that point that I noticed the teenager across the parking lot, filming the entire thing on his phone.