"The sad part is, it's just gonna happen more and more," May said, spooning a big dollop of mashed potatoes onto her plate before passing the bowl to Nate. "When nobody gets caught, people get emboldened, and you get copycats. That's just basic psychology."
Nate took the bowl from his older sister and spooned his own serving of mashed potatoes, doing his best to pretend he wasn't interested in the conversation at all. He was sitting around the dinner table with his mom and sister (his father was away on a business trip,) and like everyone else in the town of Dampton, they were discussing the missing shrinkies. It had been two weeks since the disappearance of Hope Fisher, a college student who'd suffered a bad case of the shrinking virus, making her the second local "shrinky" to go missing in Dampton since Alice Grayson, a high school student who'd been reported missing just two months prior. Though two was hardly a trend, the brewings of hysteria were already in the air, and the locals were abuzz with anxious gossip.
All save one: Nate. Nate was staying out of the discourse, doing his best to keep his head low and his mouth shut. Because while everyone in Dampton suspected the cause of Hope Fisher's disappearance, he knew their suspicions to be true: she'd been eaten alive. He knew this of course, because he was responsible.
"I still just don't see why anyone would do something so terrible..." Nate's mother shook her head disapprovingly. "We didn't used to have to worry about this sort of thing."
Nate gripped the serving spoon a little tighter, cringing inwardly. Terrible...yes, he supposed that was an accurate way to describe what he'd done when he'd given Hope Fisher to his friend Becca, knowing she'd wanted to try swallowing a shrinky. And as for the why, well, he'd thought it would turn him on. And it had, and if he was honest, it still did when he relived the memory in his head of watching Becca toy with the tiny girl before swallowing her down. It was possibly the most erotic experience of his life.
But the feeling easily faded when out in the real world, surrounded the aftermath of his and Becca's actions. In the past week Nate had been gripped by guilt and paranoia, acutely aware of how completely he'd been thinking with his dick and not his brain. God, how easily he could have completely ruined his life by getting caught...what if his mom had found Hope's jar in his room that night? What if he'd been caught by security cameras taking her from the mall? And stupidest of all, him and Becca had texted about it afterward! He'd poured over the conversation anxiously over the past several days, and while they never mentioned Hope by name, it would be easy enough to connect the two via timing and context clues.
He did feel some guilt over Hope herself, too. It turned out her family only lived a couple blocks from his, and Hope's little sister actually went to his school! He had to change the channel any time he saw their sad and worried faces being interviewed on TV, but if one of his family members had the remote he'd have to block it out or leave the room discretely.
"Mom, we live in a different world post-shrinking virus, the social order is completely fractured from the lockdowns alone," May explained, pushing a few strands of her long auburn hair behind her ear. "I read a research paper that explained the whole thing; shrinkies are a living memory artifact of the virus, and part of the reason the populace so easily dehumanizes them is as a subconscious coping mechanism. It's just an extremely carnal form of closure these individuals are seeking."
Nate grimaced as he listened to his prim and proper perfect sister delight in the sound of her own voice as she usually did. May was five years older than Nate at 23, having graduated with a major in psychology two years ago that she never stopped reminding those around her about. She'd been living at home with them since, allegedly just until she could find real employment. Lately her psych ramblings had taken on a new flavor of torture for Nate, however. Every time it was a reminder that Hope had been majoring in psychology, not that she'd ever finish now.
"Well, I still think it's awful. We just need to keep prayers of thanks in our hearts that nobody in this family was affected," Nate's mom sighed, nodding to her children. She stopped and stared at Nate in surprise. "Nathaniel!"
Nate blinked to attention, looking at his mom and sister in confusion.
"Hey dweeber, got enough mash there?" May teased, nodding at his plate.
Nate looked down and in horror saw he'd shoveled about half the bowl of mashed potatoes on his plate in his anxious daze. Oh god, he was really cracking. How much longer could he keep this up?
"I, uh..." Nate began, but thankfully the table's attention was pulled away to the next room by the sound of the front door opening. A moment later, a young woman in a checkered flannel and black beanie walked in. Her dyed blue hair was curt short in a fierce wolf cut, a silver septum piercing hung from her nostrils, and dark eyeliner with purple accents surrounded her piercing green eyes, a deep contrast to her snow pale skin.
"Sorry, I know I'm kinda early," she apologized, looking as uncomfortable as she did out of place in such a vanilla and suburban household.
"Oh, Juniper! Join us, please!" Nate's mother smiled, getting up to hug Juniper (or "June" as she actually preferred to be called.)
June was one of May's old high school friends, and they'd recently reconnected since May had moved home from university. Nate still wasn't quite used to her modern look. Both her and May had sported a "scene" light-gothy aesthetic in high school, and seemingly ever since their fashion senses had driven apart to the opposite extremes. May had cleaned up to a more professional look, and June was more alternative than ever. Nate felt the slightest twinge of awkwardness as her sparkling green eyes met his, his memory jumping back to when he'd been 11 and she'd been 16, back when her hair was still blonde with only streaks of blue, though she'd worn just as much eye liner. He'd had something of a crush on her back then.
"Thanks, but I already I ate. I can sit though." June finished the hug and pulled up a chair next to May. She looked over at Nate and grinned. "Got enough taters there, bucko?"
"That's what I said!" May cackled.
"Ha, ha, ha...hilarious," Nate muttered as his face turned red. "What were we talking about again?" he asked, hoping to change the subject. Less than a second later he realized his mistake. You fucking idiot...
"We were talking the collective psychic trauma society is working its way out of, and what we can learn from it," May explained.
"Huh?" June blinked.
"The grisly business in the news," Nate's mom explained with a tired sigh.
"Oh," June nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment before grinning mischievously. "Why, you guys think you know who did it?"
Nate coughed, practically choking halfway through his latest sip of water. June grinned and pointed at him. "Right this way officers, we got him."
Nate kept coughing, trying to dislodge the water from his windpipe. Even though she was only teasing, she couldn't have picked a more triggering gag at his expense.
"No, I raised my kids right in this house," Nate's mom shook her head. "They know the difference between right and wrong, they'd never even think of it."
May turned to June and rolled her eyes out of her mother's view. June laughed and continued to watch Nate cough and sputter.
"I dunno..." she said, "I remember what Nate was like as a little kid. I wouldn't put anything past that little spaz..."
"Hey Nate, wait up!"
Nate turned to see Becca hurrying towards him from down the hall, shoving her textbooks into her bag as she ran. Watching her slender legs move in her torn jean shorts and the bright smile between her lips sent his heart aflutter. His feelings for her were still extremely confusing, but it was a welcome change from the dread that had haunted him for the past week. When he was around her, it all had a tendency to melt away.
It might have had something to do with the aura of confidence the brunette seemed to exude. Unlike Nate, Becca hardly seemed fazed by the media circus surrounding Hope's likely demise in the belly of a beast, despite her being the beast in question. She wasn't being stupid about it at least, but she wasn't exactly being cautious either. More than once since that night, she'd made thinly veiled jokes about the incident just a bit too loud for Nate's liking, and she'd developed a cute but anxiety inducing habit of patting her stomach subtly when they passed the "MISSING" posters of Hope posted in the school hallways, often making sure to wink at Nate while doing so. Nate was beginning to suspect she actually enjoyed her infamous alter ego as the boogeyman of Dampton.
"Sup?" Nate asked as she finally caught up to him through the sifting crowd of students.
"Not too much," she sidled up alongside him and began matching his pace down the hallway. "Just got out of third period, and you know how that can be..."
Oh god. Possibly among the most shocking and ironic reveals of the past two weeks was that Beth shared a class Casey Fisher, the girl he'd seen running in the mall. Hope's little sister.
"I can't believe you literally sit right behind her and you didn't notice..." Nate muttered in disbelief, lowering his voice slightly.
"How was I supposed to know she had a sister? And it's a pretty common last name...though now that I know, the resemblance is pretty obvious." She grinned leaned right into Nate as she almost whispered in his ear, "Honestly if I accidentally stare at the back of her head for too long, I feel my mouth watering..."
She giggled as Nate got visibly uncomfortable, pulling away. "Becca..!"
"Oh, and can you guess who the teacher tried to pair me with for the group project?"
He turned to her, stunned. "...No..!"
"Yes! I know!!" Becca replied, pushing Nate back slightly to emphasize her point. "Dude, I was barely able to convince the teacher to pair me and Amy up instead...so awkward!"
"Yeah, that would be...rough."
"Seriously, it's bad enough she acts so mopey all the time, but I'd feel weird just eating snacks around her and stuff. I would've died..."
"Why, what's up?"
Nate and Becca turned to see Amy hurry up alongside them. When they didn't immediately reply, she pressed again. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Uh, sports," Nate said quickly.
"Politics," Becca said at the same time.
Amy stared at them quizzically for a moment, then fixed her gaze solely on Nate. He gulped as he watched her eyes narrow.
Though the three of them hung out from time to time, Amy was really Becca's friend, and Nate had always gotten the vibe that for some reason she didn't care for him much. It made sense in a way, that if Becca liked him that Amy wouldn't, because in many ways Amy was Becca's opposite. While Becca was wild, thin, pale, and let her long dark hair hang down, Amy was more reserved and keen to follow the rules. She often kept her golden blonde hair tied up in a ponytail or a bun, and she had a kind round face with slightly tan skin. While she was far from chubby, Amy's build was also far more substantial than Becca despite being the shorter girl, sporting wider hips and thighs, and considerably larger breasts. As Nate took just a moment to eye the tan cleavage poking out of her top, he considered that perhaps she didn't like him because she'd caught him looking before.
"You guys have been weird lately, you know that?"
"Have we?" Nate asked, playing dumb.
"Yeah." Amy's gaze was still fixed on the boy.
"Relax Ames, it was just an inside joke," Becca explained. Nice save.
"Uh-huh," Amy nodded. She'd resumed walking with them but she still looked skeptical.
"But before that Becca was telling me you guys go paired together in class," Nate continued, trying to ride the momentum.
"Oh yeah, you know she almost got paired with Casey Fisher?" Amy was more animated now, it looked like maybe they'd thrown her off their trail. "Oof, that poor girl. I wouldn't want to group with her either though, I don't imagine she'd be a very helpful partner. I mean how could you focus on homework, knowing your sister was inside someone's stomach?"
"To be fair, by now she's in the sewers..." Becca muttered innocently, the slightest smile creeping on her face.
Nate twitched but tried not to show it. How could someone be so infuriatingly careless, yet so cute?
"Ugh, gross Becca..." Amy scrunched her face into a frown. But Nate thought he caught the hint of a smile on her face a moment later. He supposed she had find Becca somewhat amusing for them to be such good friends.
Amy and Becca quickly began talking about girly things Nate had no interest in, and he found himself tuning them out as he walked. Instead he listened to the ambient chatter of the students around him, scanning the sea of gossip and bullshit for anything of interest. It wasn't long before his ears zeroed in on something especially shocking:
"...but yeah, it's obvious who it was, if you know about them. That Fisher girl never stood a chance once they got their hands on her."
Nate's heart skipped. He slowed his stride as his eyes identified the source of the voice. Leaned up against some nearby lockers was a classmate of his, Juan, talking to Heather, another classmate of his, while she dug through her locker.
"Hey, I'll catch up..." Nate said faintly, fallout of step with Becca and Amy. The girls didn't even seem to notice, continuing forward with their high pitched chatter. Cautiously and casually, Nate approached them, then bent over as if he were pretending to tie his shoe.
"So what, you know who ate her?" Heather asked, leaning out from her locker to give Juan a skeptical look.
"Well, no..." Juan admitted, rubbing the back of his head. Phew... "...but whoever it was, I know who they got it from." FUCK.
Nate was making an absolute mess of his shoelaces as his nerves felt electric. Did he know? How the fuck could he know?
"They got 'em from 'The Spider.'" Juan said, twitching his fingers in front of his face like spider legs for emphasis.
"Who's the Spider?" Nate asked, surprising even himself as he stood up.
"Wha..? Oh, hey Nate," Juan blinked in his direction. For a second it seemed like he wasn't actually going to explain now that Nate had butted in on their private conversation.
"Well, who is it?" Heather pressed, finally done going through her locker. Juan grinned now that he finally had her attention. He gestured for Nate to come closer and spoke to them in a dramatic whisper.
"I heard about it from my cousin. They say they're like a drug dealer, but for shrinkies," he explained, "you go to this one corner store downtown, you buy some spearmint gum, then you ask the guy behind the counter to show you the 'jumping beans,' and he'll take you to meet the Spider..." he repeated their title with excessive fanfare. "Then if you got the cash, the Spider will sell you whatever kind of shrinky you want, to do with what you want."
"Yeah, right..." Heather rolled her eyes and began walking away.
"Hey, it's true!" Juan called after her. "You callin' my cousin a liar or somethin-"
"So what's the name of the corner store?"
Juan turned to see Nate still there, waiting patiently. Juan leaned back, straightened his jacket, and smiled.
Nate stared at the street view of the address on his laptop. The more he thought about it, the more it sounded like bullshit. A drug dealer for shrinkies? How would something like that even work? The corner store was definitely on the sketchier side of downtown. It felt infinitely more likely that he'd show up and get mugged by Juan's cousin than encounter this mysterious "Spider."
And yet, this was the best and only lead he'd ever had for locating shrinkies. He'd gone back to the mall two times since he'd found Hope there, but predictably he hadn't manage to stumble across one again. The mall being mentioned on the news as Hope's last known location made him nervous anyway, and he quickly decided it was wise to stop going there for a while.
God, what was he thinking even entertaining this? Even if it somehow was legit, hadn't he learned his lesson the first time? The short term thrill wasn't worth the long term stress...
Nate's phone buzzed. It was from Becca: a video message with no context. Curious, he clicked the play button.
The video started with a closeup of a gummy bear pinched between Becca's fingers. "Oh no! Please don't eat me!" Becca called out in a squeaky voice from somewhere off screen, wiggling the candy bear back and forth to make it look like it was the one talking. The phone camera then pulled back as Becca held the gummy bear over her open mouth, singing out "Aaaaah..!" as she did so. Finally she plopped the candy in her mouth, sucked on it for a second, looked into the camera and swallowed, not breaking eye contact. As soon as the bulge passed down her throat, she opened her mouth and brought the camera close, pointing it right at her white teeth and gaping throat. She held it there for a moment before losing composure and giggling wildly, the video cutting off as her face halfway blurred off screen.
Fuck.
Nate groaned in annoyance as he quickly came to terms with the embarrassing fact that he was about to jack off to a video of his friend eating a gummy bear. It was almost depressing, was this his life now? Was he this much of a slave to this new lust? If he was going to debase himself like this, it might as well be the real thing. That might have been fucked up, but this was just...sad.
Nate looked back at the corner store on the screen.
Maybe he'd just pop by…
The bell on the door rang as Nate walked into the store. It looked like your typical, rundown corner store on the inside, definitely not a place Nate would normally find himself shopping. Thankfully he was the only one in the store besides a young middle eastern woman behind the counter texting on her phone. Nate grabbed a pack of spearmint gum off one of the shelves, and approached the counter. Shit, didn't Juan say it was supposed to be a guy behind the counter? Thing were already derailing. He felt his palms growing sweaty. Oh well, moment of truth. Either this worked, or he completely embarrassed himself and never came back here.
The woman scanned the gum without a word, barely registering Nate's existence. As he watched her throw it into a plastic bag, he worked up the courage to speak. "Uh...could I see your jumping beans..?"
The woman stopped and stared at him like he was the stupidest person on the face of the earth. She's not wrong, he thought to himself as he realized he'd been had.
"Never mind-" he began, but she interrupted him pointing to a door behind the counter.
"Through there, knock on the door at the end of the hall four times," she instructed emotionlessly, before handing him his bag of gum.
Stunned, Nate walked around the counter rigidly and without a word, doing as he was told. It was dark in the cramped hallway behind the store floor, with a dark red carpet that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in far too long. Before Nate even reached the metal door at the end of the hall, he could already smell the scent of marijuana.
Reaching the door, he knocked four times. A moment later there was a clicking noise, and without any other instruction, Nate opened it and stepped into the room. Time to meet the Spider...
The stench of weed increased tenfold once inside the room, and there was a visible fog in the air from the wafting smoke. Nate had only tried smoking weed a couple times at parties, but otherwise he didn't touch it. The skunky smell was a bit overwhelming to him.
Any reaction he had to the room's odor vanished as soon has he saw the person waiting for him in the room. Sitting at a cluttered metal desk was his sister's friend June, her short blue hair hanging back over the top of her chair as she leaned back into it lazily. Now that she wasn't wearing her checkered flannel, he could appreciate the intricate sleeve tattoo sprawling down her arm. She shot upright when she saw him, practically spitting the blunt out of her mouth.
"Nate! What the fuck?" she gasped before hurrying to put out the dropped cigarillo.
"June..?" Nate stammered, dumbfounded. "What are you doing here? Where's the Spider..?"
She stared at him for a second longer then snorted out a laugh. She leaned back in her chair and pointed two enthusiastic thumbs at herself. "You're lookin' at her, kid."
"Is this like, a prank?" he asked, taking a seat in front of the desk.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," she said, kicking her bare feet up onto the desk and smiling at him. "Shit, I was only joking with you at dinner the other day, I didn't really think you were one of those weirdos that ate people. Does May know?"
"I don't eat people!" Nate insisted.
"Oh, so you're one of the ones that likes to keep them as little pets? Honestly, I think you guys are even weirder..."
"None of that is why I'm here!" Nate was getting flustered. Ever since he was a kid, June had been good at pushing his buttons. "And who are you to talk, you're some kind of dealer for shrinkies?"
"Dealer of shrinkies," June corrected him, spinning in her chair. "Big difference."
"How does that work? Where do you even get them?" he asked.
"I have a source, all I can say," she explained. "Trade secret, you get it."
Nate shook his head in disbelief. This was too surreal. But either way, it was happening. Might as well roll with it.
"So let’s say I want to buy one, how much is it?"
"Well, that's kind of tricky," June continued to spin in her office chair. "You see, we're actually cleaned out right now...turns out missing shrinkies on the news is good for business. Suddenly everyone wants to try it..."
Nate's heart sunk. All out...
"Wish you'd come by yesterday, we actually had one left, this dweeby looking guy that nobody wanted. Didn't think he was gonna move, so I had to re-home him..." As her chair spun around to face Nate again, he saw that she was lifting her band t-shirt up just enough to expose her pale stomach. She smiled at him and gave it a pat, just to make her point clear.
"You mean you..." Nate stared at her stomach intently.
"Yep..." June grinned forward towards Nate across the desk, resting her chin in her palms, "...I'm one of those weirdos that eats people." She opened her mouth and clacked her teeth together menacingly for good measure.
Nate couldn't believe it. He'd come here to find a shrinky for his current crush to eat, and here he was, face to face with his childhood crush, explaining that she'd just eaten someone. He thought back to that 16 year old scene girl he'd stared longingly at in his sister's bedroom. Who would have thought that years later who knows how many tiny people would meet their end inside her stomach...
"But if you want, you can put a deposit down and I'll reserve you one when we've got 'em back in stock."
June's words snapped Nate back to reality.
"Really?"
"Yeah, potentially got a big batch coming in, just gotta work out the logistics with the source..."
"How much?" Nate asked excitedly.
"Hm, for you?" June eyed him with amusement. "$850. Friends and family discount."
Nate's heart sunk again. He'd grabbed all the cash he could find in his room before coming here, and he only had just over $90. "Seriously, that's the discount? I can't afford that, that's so much!"
"Uh, it's pretty cheap when you consider the risk on my end," June gave him a stern look. "You think I wanna go to jail over eight hundred bucks if you get caught? It's the best deal you're ever going to get, Nate."
Nate sighed. So it was back to the gummy bears after all. "Isn't there any way you can help me out for cheaper..?"
June eyed him for a few quiet moments. She frowned, reached for her discarded blunt and took a drag, looking to be caught in deep and conflicting thought.
"Ah, fuck it," she said, exhaling the smoke into Nate's face, causing him to cough wildly. "I need some extra hands on this next job anyway, if you help me out with this I'll cop you one, on the house."
"Really??" Nate asked between coughing fits.
"Sure, I'll swing by your place in the morning around 6. Be out on the sidewalk when I get there, and don't be late," she instructed before taking another hit of the blunt. "I'll explain everything on the way..."
She cursed as the blunt slipped out of her fingers with an overly enthusiastic flick of her wrist. She stood up and exhaled an annoyed grunt. "One of those days..." Turning around, she bent over to fish it off the ground, and Nate's eyes were drawn to the pale exposed flesh where her shirt pulled away.
There at the small of her back, just above where the top of her blue thong stuck out from her butt crack, was an equal parts menacing and intricate tattoo of a black spider.
True to her word, June showed up at six. She pulled up to the curb in a beat-up looking old van. Nate felt a bit more nervous seeing her driving in such a piece of junk; even his car was nicer than that. Hopping in shotgun, Nate noticed that June was wearing sunglasses already, even though the sun was barely rising.
She gave him a small smile and took off down the road without a word, the car radio blasting loud punk music from June's phone. Nate looked into the back seat. There were two big black dufflebags sitting on it. Before he could even ask what they were for, his eyes were drawn to movement in the cupholder between him and June. A shrinky!
Sitting at the bottom of the cupholder was a tiny Latina girl looking up at Nate with an annoyed expression. She looked like she'd probably be a pretty small thing even at her regular size, but as Nate studied the tiny tanned girl, he concluded she was probably 2 to 3 years older than he was.
"I thought you said you didn't have anymore?" Nate asked, still staring at the tiny brown skinned girl.
"Oh, Rosa? Nah, she's not product, kid." June explained with a smile. "You're looking at my source."
"How is a shrinky your source for other shrinkies?" Nate asked, unable to take his eyes off the tiny girl. She looked even more annoyed at him, if that was possible.
"What, you think because I'm little, I'm useless?" Rosa barked up at him.
"I didn't mean..."
"That's actually the genius of it, nobody sees it coming," June explained, keeping her eyes on the road. "You see, most shrinkies are hard to find because they're scared of everybody. For good reason, really. But who's the one person a shrinky's got nothing to fear from? Another shrinky!"
"So how do you actually get them?"
"All kindsa ways," June continued. "Basically Rosa is my foot in the door. Lotta catfishing mostly: Rosa sets up a meetup, the shrinky's handler confirms she's actually meeting a shrinky, and I make my move when they're alone. Sometimes she gets invited to events catered to shrinkies too, or like shrinky rights gatherings. When she can get me into those I can really make a big score."
"And she's really okay with that? Helping you snatch other shrinkies?" Nate asked, still staring down at Rosa.
"Hey! You wanna stop talking about me like I'm not here, asshole?" Rosa called up to him. "And for your information, I look out for one person and one person only: me. Shrinkies aint some race or culture I gotta be loyal to, we're just a bunch of unlucky bitches who got fucked up by that damn virus. You gotta do what you have to to survive in this life, if they get caught that's their problem."
"Preach, sister," June nodded.
"So that's how you got into this?" Nate asked.
"Pretty much," June shrugged. "Just sort of fell into it. I was at the movies and I found Rosa on the floor in the ladies room. I'd had one shrinky before at a party a couple months earlier, and I'd liked it, so I decided, fuck it, I'll eat her."
Nate glanced down as he heard Rosa cursing quietly in Spanish.
"But then she tells me she's there with a whole group of shrinkies, it's like an outreach thing, taking them to the movies or some shit. And with her help I'm able to snatch up like four of the others while the chaperone is distracted. I ate good that night..." June bit her lip, reminiscing fondly. "To be honest, I was just gonna eat her after anyway, but she made some pretty good points about how she could keep doing this for me, and pretty soon I've got enough of the little buggers that I'm selling them and making good money. Before I know it we're in business. Been doing it for a little under a year now, and it's a good gig for both of us. She gets her cut, and more importantly, she gets to stay out of my belly."
Ah, there it was. Nate looked down at the tiny Latina with some sympathy. She was trying to hide it, but there was definite fear there, lurking under the surface. So it wasn't totally a willing business venture after all. He knew there was something about a regular person and a shrinky working together like this that didn't add up. The world didn't work that way, not when the power dynamic was so one sided. As much as June acted like Rosa was her partner, they both knew that if Rosa ever said no she'd be taking a one way trip into the Spider's body.
"Anyway, today's job is a first for us: a hospital." June explained. "There's one a couple towns over that started up quietly, specializes in treating shrinkies."
Nate had never considered that shrinkies might need their own specialized hospitals and doctors, but the more he thought about it it made sense. There were probably all kinds of things about shrinkies he and other regular people never thought about.
"Your job's easy. I've got some wigs and glasses in the back there," June nodded back to the dufflebags. "You're Rosa's brother rushing her in for an emergency, and I'm the nurse helping you. As soon as we're past the front desk, I'll find an opening to slip away and do my thing. You've just gotta keep the doctor busy."
"Are they really going to believe I'm her brother? We don't look that much alike..."
"The whole idea is they don't get a good look at us. In and out quick. Trust me, just play your part, and there'll be no problems."
Nate was starting to get nervous now that he knew the actual "plan" but he'd already come this far, so he relented. The drive was a long and boring two hours, but eventually they arrived. June parked across the street from the building, and the two of them emerged in their disguises. Nate had a black haired wig and thick rimmed glasses, while June wore a nurse's uniform, a long blonde wig and sunglasses. She also flipped her septum piercing up into her nostrils to hide it.
Nate was surprised by the size of the building; it was probably the smallest hospital he'd ever seen. But then again, he supposed a hospital for shrinkies didn't need to be very big.
"Don't I look like a total prep?" June giggled to Nate, flipping her fake hair slightly.
"I remember your old hair used to look kind of like that," he pointed out.
"Ugh, as if..."
Nate took a deep breath as they approached the building. Alright, it was go time.
Nate burst into the hospital waiting room, clutching rosa in his open palms. "Help! My sister needs help, I think she's dying!" Rosa, playing her part, was twitching wildly in his grip, even foaming at the mouth slightly. She was a pretty good actress, he thought.
"We need to get this one to the ER, stat!" June called out behind him, pushing him forward by the shoulders past the front desk.
Several tiny people and their regular sized companions gasped and stared in shock at the scene from around the waiting room. Only the woman behind the desk briefly moved to stop them, but she hesitated, perhaps reconsidering that she might be hindering an emergency if she interfered. Holy shit, it actually was that easy.
June hurried them into a patient's room across the hall, and peeked back out into the hallway. "Alright, it's hunting time. Just stay here and if a doctor comes in, keep him busy. I'll be back." And with that she slipped away.
Nate waited in silence in the room, Rosa still sitting in his palm. She was no longer faking a seizure, saving her energy in case she had to perform again. Instead she was sitting hunched over, with her arms wrapped around her knees. He could tell she was trying to look calm, but her nerves were as obvious as his.
Nate blushed slightly as he realized Rosa sitting on his palm meant in a way he was touching her ass. Almost involuntarily he shifted the surface of his palm slightly under her, trying to feel the tiny bumps of her proportionally healthy butt cheeks. There wasn't much to feel at her size, but just the idea of getting to feel up this older Latina girl's ass openly stirred some stiffness in his pants. If she noticed, she didn't react. He supposed she was probably painfully accustomed to being handled at this point.
"Shrinky hospitals..." Nate muttered, breaking the silence as he looked about the room. There were all kinds of itty bitty instruments and tools on the shelves. "Do you think if we get caught there's some kind of tiny prison they'll send you to?"
"Psh, if we get caught I'm saying you bozos forced me," Rosa explained. "No way I'm getting locked up for this dumb shit."
"Probably a good call," Nate chuckled. "Don't worry I won't rat you out."
"Thanks," she replied without looking at him. But he thought he detected the slightest hint of laughter in her reply.
Both of them jumped slightly as a scream echoed from somewhere inside the building. Not a moment later, June rushed into the room and grabbed Nate by the arm. "We've gotta go – now!"
There was a commotion in the hall as doctors and nurses rushed through towards the screams. "My daughter! My daughter is missing!"
Unfortunately for the hospital, the commotion worked in heister's favor, and they were able to use it the chaos to slip out the front door unnoticed, rushing across the street to June's van.
"Woo! Holy shit!" June laughed, hopping behind the wheel and firing up the engine. She tossed off her wig and sunglasses behind her and hit the gas, loud punk music once again blasting from the speakers. Nate couldn't believe she was actually laughing, his heart was still pounding out of his chest. As the final piece of her transformation, June flipped her septum piercing back out so it was visible again.
They were already shooting down the road at high speed, the hospital block a distant speck in the rearview. "Hahaha, good work everybody! Oh man, that was a close one! But feast you eyes on this!" She reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out a plastic baggie from between her breasts. Inside were a dozen tiny people squirming together in the tight confines and screaming in fright and confusion.
"Oh fuck," Nate gasped.
He watched as various shrinkies looked to him and June, not sure who to be more afraid of. A few of them noticed Rosa in the cupholder below them, calling out to her for help. But the tiny Latina simply crossed her arms and turned away, refusing to meet their gaze. Though she was trying to act tough, Nate was pretty sure he caught her tremble.
"C'mon, lets do one right now, both us!" June grinned at Nate excitedly, already digging her fingers into the bag, much to the dismay of the shrinkies inside. Nate just sat petrified as he watched her fish a tiny girl out of the bag. There was something about June's current manic state that was kind of frightening to him, and yet he felt a familiar stiffness in his jeans.
June held the shrinky up to Nate's face. "C'mon, pop her in! We'll gulp 'em down together, to celebrate!" Nate looked at the tiny dangling girl, still stunned. She was fairly pretty, with a slender athletic frame strawberry blonde hair tied back in a ponytail behind her head. She looked like she was about his age, give or take a year. She was writhing frantically in June's grip, shaking her head at Nate as tears poured down her face, pleading with him not to. Jesus, his life had really become fucked up recently.
"I-I told you, I don't want to eat them!" Nate insisted, leaning his head away. He was pretty sure he could hear the tiny girl sobbing, "thank you..! thank you..!"
"What! I thought you were just saying that!" June shouted, her eyes darting between Nate and the road as she continued to dangle the shrinky in front of him. "Then why do you even want to buy one??"
"Because it's for someone else! I want to give it to them!" He shouted, leaning back further as June pushed the girl closer to his face.
"Oh." She remarked, suddenly looking thoughtfully out at the road as she pulled the girl away. She then turned to Nate and smirked knowingly. "It's for a girl, isn't it?"
"Yeah..." Nate sighed, looking away. There was no use denying it with such a long drive ahead of them.
"Aw, I think that's sweet!" June cooed. "I'm sure she'll love it Nate!"
"I hope so..." now that June was acting less crazy, his body was finally allowing him to relax.
"She'll love it, trust me..." June nodded sweetly. She then proceeded to lift the tiny blonde girl in front of her face, smiling smugly at her. "...girls love eating shrinkies."
The tiny girl screamed as June parted her lips in front of her, her long pink tongue snaking out to greet her. Nate stared mesmerized as June held her there and slid her saliva drenched tongue slowly up the girl's body. The shrinky did her best to protest and push the probing tongue away, but it was so much larger and stronger than her. The tip of the giant's tongue finally reached girl's face, and June held there, poking and prodding at her little face until she was coughing and choking on June's saliva. June giggled and retracted her tongue into her mouth, still holding the girl in place.
"Mmm," she hummed appreciatively.
Using her elbow to brace the wheel, she reached under the dash and pulled out a small vape, taking a deep hit from the device. Removing the vape from her lips, she parted them just slightly and exhaled the hit over the tiny girl slowly, completely saturating the now coughing shrinky in her breath and secondhand smoke. She then opened her mouth again and loomed closer to the tiny blonde, causing her to panic and writhe harder. But June stopped just short, and instead clacked her teeth together menacing just before her, slowly pulled away, then repeated the process a couple more times, the tiny girl's cries growing more shrill with every clack of the giant's teeth.
Nate couldn't believe his eyes. Jesus, she was such a bad bitch, and reveling in it. His sister's friend had always had some edge to her, even as a teen, but this was on another level. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. She was literally a pro at this, after all.
"Oh I can already tell you're going to be a good one, nice and feisty..." June cooed cruelly at the tiny girl. "I'm guessing you're not too thrilled about the idea of being trapped inside my belly, huh? Not that I blame you, it's not going to be much fun for you in there..."
June opened her mouth again and brought the girl closer, a cruel, excited laugh escaping her throat as she looked like she was finally going to pop the girl inside. But as the tiny blonde reached the entrance to her lips, June stopped in surprise as she felt a tugging at her nostrils. She looked into the rearview mirror and laughed in surprise as she realized what had happened. The shrinky was gripping onto her septum ring for dear life with both hands, trying to stop her trajectory into June's mouth. However surprising both Nate and the shrinky both, June didn't try to pry her loose or force her between her lips. Instead she released her grip on the girl's waist, and the tiny blonde yelped as she suddenly found herself dangling loosely in front of the giant's lips, her grip on the nose ring the only thing stopping her from plummeting through the air.
"Check this out..!" June laughed, turning to Nate and pointing to the dangling shrinky.
"Help! Somebody please, help!!" Kaylee screamed, dangling from the woman's nose ring for dear life.
This was all so, so wrong. Just minutes ago she'd been at the doctor's, waiting for her physician to return to the room. It was just a basic check up to get caught up on vaccines. Kaylee didn't take chances with vaccines anymore, after the shrinking virus. But now she'd wished she'd put it off, even if just for a day. Maybe then she wouldn't have been snatched from the room by this terrifying woman and shoved into a cramped bag full of panicked shrinkies. Maybe then she wouldn't be about to be devoured.
"Oh, do you really think that'll save you?" the giant's voice boomed just before her. "You can't hold on forever..."
Kaylee sobbed as the giant's stale breath washed over her with every word, the scent of weed still strongly present. Kaylee hated the smell of weed. Kaylee looked up at the silver ring she held in a death grip, up into the dark nostrils that loomed over her. It was true what the woman said, she could already feel her arms getting tired.
She really couldn't believe she wasn't even going to finish high school--she was supposed to graduate this year! Her parents had even pulled her out to finish the semester remotely for her own safety, and she'd persevered through the lonely work. All that time spent studying in her room in the hopes of getting into a good college, all the while enduring the constant cyber bullying from ex-classmates, messaging her about how much they'd enjoy swallowing her down...all of it was going to be for nothing if she didn't figure something out fast.
Kaylee tried to brace her foot on the giant's lower lip for support, but the woman seemed to intentionally shift it to frustrate Kaylee's effort, pucker her huge lips together to kiss tauntingly at the blonde's dangling body.
"Stop it!" Kaylee cried out, twisting her face as far as she could away from the puckered lips. She whined in disgust a she felt the enormous lips stick slightly to her skin where they made contact before pulling away, the giant's red lipstick leaving a slight crimson smear on her flesh.
Kaylee yelped as she felt something brush against her side, looking down to see the black vape pen the woman was nudging her aside with as she brought it to her lips. "Please stop..." Kaylee begged as she helplessly watched the giant casually and slowly inhale the pungent vapor. Her tormentor's only response was to exhale the hit through her nose, her red lips smirking smugly as Kaylee choked on the warm vapor expelling from her flared nostrils. Kaylee whined weakly between coughs as she felt her grip on the silver hoop begin to loosen. The combination of the sweat on her palms and the humidity from the exhaled vapor was making the smooth surface of the nose ring perilously slick.
Kaylee felt her fingers finally slip. She cried out and clenched her eyes shut as she prepared to plummet, determined that if she was going to fall to her death, she at least wouldn't see it coming. But to Kaylee's surprise, her descent was quickly cut short, and she blinked her eyes open as she felt her butt land on something warm and wet. To her horror, she found herself sitting on the woman's long, outstretched tongue, staring directly into to the pink and glistening cavern that was her eager, waiting mouth.
"Oh no! Oh shit!" Kaylee shouted as she felt the bumpy and slimy tongue beneath her begin to quickly retract into the woman's mouth. She scrambled to flip around onto her hands and knees, her every instinct crying out for her to fling herself off this disgusting tongue and away from the woman's maw, the consequences of the fall be damned. But she wasn't nearly quick enough, only just reaching the tongue's tip when the enormous teeth and lips closed shut in front of her, sealing her in humid darkness.
Kaylee screamed as the woman's tongue wasted no time to commence tasting her, shoving her upwards and pinning her body against her hard palate, warm saliva already surging through the cavern and all over Kaylee's squirming body. The tiny girl shrieked repeatedly in panic as the writhing tongue pressed and shoved her about the woman's mouth, her cries only pausing briefly to occasionally cough out the woman's disgusting spit.
"MMMMMMM..." the cavern roared around her. "OHHH, YESHHH..."
Kaylee blinked madly as the glimpses of bright light assaulted her eyes through the woman's mouth as she spoke. It was a cruel peek at the outside world she had taken for granted, that she might soon never see again.
The tiny spit-soaked girl tried to claw her way forward, but her every effort was easily thwarted by the powerful muscles of the woman's tongue, always forcing her into a new and terrible corner of the giant's mouth. Kaylee shrieked especially loud as she was pushed between the woman's giant white molars, fearing for a moment that she was about to be mashed apart by the fearsome teeth. Instead, they came down softly, simply gnawing on her body gently to inspire a further frightened response. It was quite effective, and Kaylee continued to shriek as the massive molars lightly pressed her from both sides.
There was another brief flash of light as the woman snickered around her, and the tormenting tongue forced her back to the center of the woman's mouth, and then back towards her throat. It didn't take Kaylee long to realize what was happening as she felt her back legs slip over the edge of the tongue and into more cramped quarters, the woman's hot and marijuana stinking breath washing directly over her back.
"NO! No please! Don't..!" Kaylee begged desperately as the tongue finished pushing her backwards, crying out in fear as a terrible gulp forced her body down through a tight and slimy tube into the woman's body.
"Ooh, hell yeah..." June moaned, touching her throat gingerly as she felt the bulge that was the shrinky pass through it. She closed her eyes contentedly for a moment, taking another quick hit from her vape pen before exhaling it through her nose. "That never gets old."
Nate wasn't certain, but he suspected there was at least a little pre-cum in his boxers. Jesus Christ, what a show!
He gazed down at June's slim midsection, his imagination racing. He knew logically that the young blonde girl was currently landing somewhere inside, but it was crazy how you'd never suspect it from where he sat. June could've walked through a busy crowd or even in front of a news camera as she currently was, and no one would be any the wiser that she had a captive prisoner in her gut. The effect was only amplified by the total disregard June was showing the girl, her contented gaze lazily fixed on the road ahead of her. It was like as soon as she'd swallowed, any thoughts of the shrinky had completely left June's mind.
"Do you still feel her?" Nate asked, mesmerized.
"'Course," June replied casually, smiling over at him. "No surprise there since she was a squirrely one, but no matter how tough or brave they try to act on the outside, I've never had a shrinky that didn't start kicking like crazy once they're in your belly. I guess something about realizing you're inside a person's stomach just causes something in their little brains to snap." She snickered quietly at the thought, then returned her eyes to the road. "I've just learned not to give them the satisfaction. Better to let them stew in there for a bit while they accept that they're just my food now. Might give her some attention later if she behaves..." She flashed Nate a sly grin.
Nate blushed and looked away, trying not to make his arousal too obvious. June's approach and outlook on shrinky swallowing was totally different than Becca's in a way, but no less erotic to him. As the panic he'd felt as the hospital faded away, he was more and more grateful he'd gone along with June's plan. He'd gotten way more than he'd bargained for out of this deal.
"I guess you have a lot of experience," Nate remarked looking out the window as he tried to will his boner away. "How many have you, y'know, had?"
"Hmmm," June hummed thoughtfully, staring out at the road. "I think this makes number seventeen."
"Wow." Nate was impressed.
"Well, eighteen if you count the one I shoved up my butt," she giggled.
Nate whipped around in shock. "You what?!"
"I just thought I'd try it! A friend told me it would feel nice...honestly, it sorta did." She shrugged casually. "But when I finally pulled the little thing out, for obvious reasons I didn't really feel like eating her anymore...so I sold her off to some spoiled sorority chick." June grinned mischievously at the memory, shifting in her seat slightly. "Doubt she would've paid so much for her if she'd known where she'd been, but to be fair she didn't ask too many questions."
"So fucked up..." Nate laughed in disbelief.
"Hey, it's not like I didn't wash her after!" June laughed.
The young woman sighed happily as she finally got the last of her giggles out, then looked over at Nate and smiled. "Anyway, good work today, Nate. This went better than I expected, honestly." She glanced down into the adjacent cupholder. "You too, Rosa."
Nate was embarrassed that he'd entirely forgotten he and June weren't alone. She was sitting down crosslegged with her back against the curved edge, not looking at either of them. She nodded, acknowledging June's praise, but did her best to sport a disinterested expression. However Nate felt he understood her better now, after observing the tiny woman over the past few hours. As much as she tried to appear cold and unfeeling, he detected that perhaps all the casual chatter about eating and abusing shrinkies was weighing on her more than she let on. She had certainly been right about one thing, you had to do what you had to in this life.
After that, the conversation lulled, and June turned up the speakers, filling the cabin with piercing punk lyrics. They only chatted idly about things they spotted on the side of the road for a while, until June's eyes lit up at one of the signs posted near the upcoming off-ramp.
"Ooh, Chipotle anyone? I feel the munchies coming on…"
"Help! Helllllp!!" Kaylee screamed as the all too familiar sound of more slimy mush pouring into the sweltering chamber squelched and spurted from above. She screamed in surprise and revulsion as she felt a large dollop of the disgusting mass collide with her back, knocking her off her feet and faceplanting her into the chest-high sludge that was already churning back and forth around her inside the woman's stomach. She shrieked in disgust as she pulled herself to her feet, practically clawing at her face to wipe as much of the filth off of it as possible in an incredibly futile effort.
There was no escaping it of course; this foul and indistinguishable mixture of chewed beans, rice, cheese, meat, tortilla, guacamole, and sour cream, all soaked in the ever present slimes of the blue haired woman's innards. Even in an empty stomach Kaylee would've had difficulty dodging the bombardments of swallowed burrito in the cramped quarters, but she was effectively held in place by the accumulated lunch that the flexing stomach walls were forcing around her as they worked diligently to digest them both. All while she could hear the muffled sound of woman's voice somewhere above her, barely audible through the gurgles, layers of flesh, and the unending chorus of muffled rock music, casually chatting between mouthfuls like Kaylee didn't even exist.
Kaylee hugged her chest tightly and belted out and anguished scream. It wasn't as if she'd never considered what it would be like to be eaten alive. It was a real danger for people like her, and it was hard to imagine there was a single shrinky alive who didn't live in fear of this eventual outcome. Not that she was ever short of reminders, barely a week went by when she didn't have to block the account of some troll or bully that messaged her detailing the ways they'd like to consume her, the real sting coming from that fact that she was sure the message were coming from her peers and ex-classmates.
But in her darkest nightmares, she'd always thought it would be like falling into a pool of stomach acid that would dissolve her like lava. This was so much worse.
Never could her mind have conjured how torturously slow and vile the process of being digested in a human stomach really was; never could she have even begun to imagine foul stench she tasted with every breath. Never could she have dreamed of the creeping and all-consuming dread that came with the dawning realization that she was simply food for another human being.
"Help me, please...someone..." Kaylee sobbed, hanging her head low. "Please, just get me out of here..."
Oh, if only it were like lava, at least it would be over quickly. Instead Kaylee had to contend with the gradual sting that needled at her entire body, slowly but surely ramping in intensity with every passing minute. The worst of it was that her instincts still screamed at her to flee or fight back, to resist this terrible fate however she could. She suspected that meant she still had a long way to go.
"No..! No!!" she pleaded upwards as she heard the familiar sound of another incoming swallow. "Stop!!"
The tiny girl shrieked as the mass landed right on top of her, knocking her flailing body back under the churning mush.
Nate watched the latest gulp of Mexican food travel down June's throat as she stared forward at the road, holding the burrito she'd ordered from the drive thru in her spare hand. He was doing his best to resist staring at her while she ate, but it was so hard to look away. How could he ignore how every swallow was being sent down to join tiny shrinky in June's stomach. Jesus, she'd already eaten just over half it...it had to be absolutely packed in there. Nate had to imagine the experience was surely far more unpleasant than sharing a stomach with a cupful of boba tea. It was fascinating to Nate how even though June wasn't actively taunting her prey, she'd still found a way to be more cruel towards them than Becca.
June licked her lips and set the half-finished burrito down in the cupholder adjacent to Rosa, taking a moment to raise a fist to her lips, proceeding to release a soft and quiet burp. Nate couldn't help but chuckle. There was something funny about the fact that someone who cultivated such a harsh aesthetic would have far more dainty and lady-like burps than his brunette classmate.
"What?" June asked.
"Nothing, you just reminded me of something."
She eyed him for a moment then shrugged and picked up the burrito, resuming her lunch. "Whatever..."
All in all with the lunch stop included, the drive home took just under two and a half hours. As they pulled up to his house, he was reminded of what Becca had said about it taking around 20 to 30 minutes to digest a shrinky, and it dawned on him that whatever remained of the tiny blonde and the burrito was surely snaking its way through June's bowels on its way to her pale punk ass. His manhood flexed against the fabric of his pants in celebration.
"Alright, let me pick out a good one for your little girlfriend..." June teased, pulling out the bag of frightened shrinkies. "You got something to carry them in? Oh, perfect." She nodded at the mason jar with holes in the lid Nate pulled out of his backpack.
"Hmmm..." June hummed, fingering through the panicked clump of shrinkies before finally pulling out a frightened redheaded girl who looked slightly younger than Nate. "Ooh, gingers are pretty rare for shrinkies just based on demographics alone. This'll show her you care."
Nate opened the jar and allowed June to place the tiny girl inside. It hadn't really occurred to him what kind of shrinky he wanted to give Becca. Maybe she would've liked to try a guy this time? He supposed he'd have to ask her preference at some point, but for now he was thankful to have the opinion of an expert.
"So, who's the lucky lady?" June asked, grinning curiously.
"Uh..." Nate hesitated, then concluded there was no reason to hide the truth from June after the day they'd been through. "Do you remember Becca?"
June gasped, then beamed with joy. "Of course! I used to babysit her, remember?" She giggled excitedly, looking down at the tiny girl futilely scrambling to climb the slick walls of Nate's jar, clearly amused by the idea of her being swallowed by the young girl she used to get paid to watch over. Grinning nostalgically, she picked up the bag again and reached inside, pulling out a tiny squirming woman who looked at least half some kind of Asian and plopped her into the jar to join the first girl. "What the hell...here, on the house. Becca's a sweet kid, she deserves it."
Nate stared down into the jar in disbelief. Two shrinkies! "Seriously?? Shit, thanks June!" Nate's mind was already getting ahead of itself, imagining the brunette swallowing the two tiny ladies at once. She'd been curious about what it would feel like to have a tiny person moving inside her stomach, just wait until she got to find out what it was like to have two!
"You earned it." June smiled, taking another quick hit from her vape. "Oh, and don't let your sister fool you with all that academic crap, she totally bought one off me a while back."
Now Nate was really stunned. "Seriously? May??"
June chuckled. "Yeah, specifically picked out this emo looking guy...I think he reminded her of one of her exes. Guess she was 'working through carnal trauma' or whatever."
They both laughed at that. June then sighed and shooed Nate with her hand. "Alright, get out of my van."
"Alright, see ya," Nate said, opening the door. Before stepping out, he glanced down into the cupholder. "Nice meeting you, Rosa."
"Sure," she replied, only bothering to meet his glance for a moment. It was hard to read into it too much with how little she was giving him.
Screwing the lid on the jar, Nate placed it in his backpack and stepped out onto the sidewalk, preparing to begin the short walk to his house.
"Hey Nate!"
He turned to see June leaning towards him in her seat from the car. "I figured out what kind of weirdo you are..!"
"Wha..?" he asked stunned.
"...You're one of the ones that likes to watch!" she teased, restarting the engine. "Next time hide your boner better you little perv!" She cackled and stepped on the gas, leaving the redfaced teen alone and mortified on the sidewalk.
Fuck. She had noticed...
Whatever, he thought brushing the light humiliation off, he wasn't going to let it ruin his mood. He'd just hit the jackpot, after all. Pulling out his phone, he hurried to text Becca.
NATE: Hey wanna hang out? Just got home.
BECCA: up in my room! come by!
Nate smirked. Wait until she got a load of this…
Nate made his way up the stairs of Becca's house, and as he reached the top step he could already hear the music blasting from her room. Making his way to the partially ajar door, he pushed it open and stepped in, already swinging his backpack over his shoulder to open it.
"Dude, you are going to lose it when I show you what I've got for you-"
Nate froze as he entered the room. Sure enough, Becca was sitting at her desk with a textbook and bluetooth speaker in front of her, and completely unsurprisingly, a half-finished cup of boba tea. But what caught him off-guard was Amy, laying on her stomach on Becca's bed, also nose-deep in a book and halfway through pulling a cheese nip out of the box and into her mouth. At least she had been, until Nate had announced his presence. Now she was watching him suspiciously.
"What do you have?" Amy asked, chewing then swallowing the little orange cracker as she eyed him.
"Uh...I..." Nate stammered, still frozen.
"Oh, I guess I forgot to tell him you were here, Ames," Becca giggled at Nate's awkward entrance. "We've got the project remember? So what is it?"
Nate stared at Becca intensely, begging her with his eyes for some kind of rescue. She looked back at him, confused, until a dawning realization slowly crept over her features and her eyes widened. It had taken entirely too long, however. Several moments of awkward silence had already passed. "No..." she gasped quietly, looking at the backpack in Nate's hands.
"What is it?" Amy asked again, more demanding this time.
"Nothing Ames! Another inside joke!" Becca said with a forced giggle, struggling to do damage control.
"No! You guys are being weird again!" Amy exclaimed in frustration, pulling herself off the bed and almost knocking the box of cheese nips onto the floor. She marched towards Nate, her expression growing more cross. "Stop lying to me, what is it??"
"Wait, Amy..!" Becca pleaded, but the blonde was too quick for her, reaching Nate in an instant.
"So what is it, huh? Are you guys hooking up? Are you dealing her drugs??" Amy demanded, the short blonde pointing her face as close up to Nate's as she could.
"No! I..." Nate stammered. His eyes involuntarily drifted to the backpack in his hands. He couldn't let her find the jar, or they were fucked. But as his eyes drifted back up to meet hers, he saw that she'd caught him, and he'd just given her the only clue she needed. "Wait..!"
"What's in here??" Amy demanded, snatching the backpack from his hands and reaching inside. Nate tried to snatch the bag back, but she pivoted away from him, using her wide behind to screen him away, like she was playing defense with some kind of ball.
Nate watched helplessly as the blonde pulled the jar and held it high, her face indignant with triumph. "I knew it! Drugs-!"
All three teens froze as the blonde's eyes drifted back towards the jar in her hand. At two tiny people inside, staring down at her fearfully.
"What..." Amy gasped, staring in disbelief at the two tiny girls, "...the fuck..?"
Well shit, Nate thought.
This was going to be interesting...
June giggled as she sped away from Nate's house, quite pleased with the how she'd surely embarrassed her friend's kid brother once again. Once the van was just a little further down the street, she shifted in her seat to the left and ripped ass loudly.
"Hey, hey!" Rosa protested angrily from the cup holder.
"Ugh, I've been holding that in forever..." June sighed, feeling significantly more content now that her lower bowels were less bloated.
"Fucking disgusting puta..." the shrinky grumbled bitterly, plugging her nose in vain. At her current position and proximity to June's ass, there was little she could do to escape the sulfurous odor.
"Not my fault you people put so many beans in your food," June winked down at Rosa with a wicked grin. She then returned her eyes to the road, her grin only diminishing slightly into an amused smile. June had enough experience with guys at this point in her life that she'd clocked Nate's boner almost right away. She'd thought about calling him out earlier to watch the little perv squirm, but ultimately decided against it. Even though he was a bit too young for her, she wasn't opposed to the attention. In fact, it made her feel incredibly sexy to be admired and gawked at like that while she did her thing with a shrinky, and there were very few who put on a show better than her, if she did say so herself. It made the long drive significantly more amusing, knowing she was making her hormonal co-pilot stew in frustration just watching her sit there and digest.
Oh, and the tiny tickling struggles of the little girl in her gut weren't bad either, while they lasted.
The only downside was having to hold in the inevitable Mexican food farts until Nate was out of the car, so as to maintain the image in the boy's mind of June as the sexy yet fearsome predator goddess that she was. Now that he was gone, though, she had no qualms about subjecting little Rosa to her gas. What could she do about it, anyway?
June giggled at the thought.
June sighed and clicked on the lights in her cluttered downtown apartment, hanging her keys on the hook. It had certainly been a good day, but it had also been a long one. It was time to relax.
She carried Rosa over to the shelf and gently placed the shrinky inside the plastic terrarium where she lived. Rosa could do much worse, June thought, at least when it came to living inside a habitat made for a hamster. At least June had sprung for the deluxe size, and the cage was filled with all the basic bedding and lounging furniture the tiny woman needed, some of which June had bought online, others she'd crafted herself.
"You need anything?" June asked, sealing the lid. Rosa wasn't allowed to freely roam the apartment, partly for her own safety, but mostly because it was June's space and she made the rules. Still, she tried to be an accommodating roommate. Rosa couldn't do much for herself, at her size.
"Nah, I'm just gonna sleep," Rosa sighed tiredly, flopping onto her miniature bed and shutting her eyes. June exhaled through her nose quietly as she suppressed a giggle. She could tell Rosa was a bit tired of her shit for the day...probably still mad about the fart too. Whatever, she'd earned her rest.
"'Kay, night!" June tapped the lid of the terrarium for effect, then left her be. Rosa didn't react.
June wasted no time kicking off her black jeans and tossing them onto the living room floor by the couch, now walking around in just her weathered band t-shirt and thong, proudly displaying the spider tramp stamp looming above her pale ass to the world. Reaching down the front of her shirt, she pulled out the bag of shrinkies again and held it up to her face. Oh, the way their frightened faces begged and screamed, there was something so delicious about it...
"Well my little flies, welcome to your home for the next week or so, for you have made the foolish mistake of treading into the lair..." She led with a dramatic flair before moving the bag behind her, looking over her shoulder to make sure she was holding the clustered shrinkies right in front of her ass where they could get a good look at her signature tattoo. "..of The Spider!"
She held them there for a moment longer and giggled as she shook her pale butt cheeks at them before finally bringing the bag back in front of her. Oh, they were really freaking out now. The impulsive part of her mind begged her to dig a couple of the little things out and swallow them down, but she resisted. She was already out three shrinkies, after all. She was trying to run a business here.
June carried them past her messy kitchenette and into her room, dropping the bag on the dresser by her bed. "Don't go anywhere," she teased with a wink, before exiting the room.
She strode back into the kitchen and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer and popping off the cap with one of the many stray lighters on the countertop. Taking a long swig from the bottle's mouth, she carried it back couch and plopped down, spreading out across the cushions. Ahhh, what a day...
Her shirt had rolled up slightly from the haphazard way she'd landed, but rather than adjust it June looked down at her exposed pale stomach thoughtfully. Who was that sweet little girl she'd eaten today?
Though so many had met their ends inside her, she still wondered about each one and who they'd been before she'd sent them to fill her belly, at least until she'd moved onto the next. Sometimes she got around to asking them on slow days in her backroom office, and others spilled the details willingly as they pleaded pitifully in her grip. But most like the little blonde today never got the chance before they were swallowed up, and June's imagination had to fill in the gaps.
She'd been kind of preppy looking, June thought, which gave her no small amount of pleasure. She always enjoyed putting little preps in their place. At the prices she had to charge, most of her clientele were spoiled rich kids, so it was one of her little private ways of striking back at them. Shrinkies like this also reminded her of the kinds of girls that had given her a hard time in school for dressing weird, back in the day.
Life's not so sweet now, is it little prep? She stroked her stomach smugly at the thought. Hope you had fun in there thinking about how I'm going to shit you out later. Too bad none of mommy and daddy's money can save you from that...
The blue haired woman grinned and clenched her eyes shut, forcing a small toot from her ass. Seemed like she'd gotten the worst of it out in the car already. Still, she enjoyed the thought that maybe some small part of the fart had once been that little blonde.
June spent a bit more time on the couch imagining what it must have been like for the terrified little thing in her belly while she finished her beer. When the last sip disappeared down her throat, she wiped her lips and released a dainty burp, then dropped the bottle into the recycling bin on her way to her room.
She was going to follow Rosa's lead and just hop into bed. She could spend plenty more time thinking about her little blonde treat in there...
June groaned as blaring of her morning alarm tore her back to the land of the living. Pulling her face from her pillow, she was annoyed to find it slightly moist with drool where her lips had been resting. Great, she'd been snoring again...
She glanced over at the bag of shrinkies on the dresser beside her, just inches from her face. They were all already awake and watching her fearfully, refusing to let their guard down against such a massive predator.
"Morning..." June greeted them, though the word transformed into a big yawn halfway through. Deciding not to waste the opportunity, she brought her face right up to the bag as she finished her yawn, giving her captives a good long look at the inside of her mouth. She then smacked her lips, satisfied in their predictably panicked reaction, and hopped off the bed.
Her pale boobs swung slightly as she made her way to the bathroom; the only clothing still on her body being the frayed purple thong tucked between her ass cheeks. Stepping into the connected bathroom, June frowned as she scratched her ass and looked at herself in the mirror. She'd forgotten to take her makeup off last night, and it was now smeared terribly. Her blue hair was also a frizzy and uneven mess of tangled bedhead, though that wasn't really unusual for morning June.
A pressure in her lower bowels was quickly demanding her attention, and June touched her gut a bit below her belly button and smiled tiredly. I know, little prep...mornings, right?
Sliding down her thong, the Spider took her seat on her porcelain throne, leaning forward lazily and resting her chin in her palms as she waited for the action to start.
A quick fart echoed into the bowl, then a couple of plops into the water below. June winced at the small jab of something hard as the last of it slid out of her ass. Stupid bones...
After emptying her bladder on top of the rest of it, June wiped up and pulled herself off the toilet, glancing inside. She couldn't help but smile slightly. She almost impressed herself sometimes. The size of that thing...but she supposed those chipotle burritos were pretty big even before going in.
Sure enough, there were a few flecks of white visible among the brown mass, as well as some kernels of corn from the burrito. She studied it for just a moment longer (she usually made something of a game of trying to spot the little skull,) but it was either sticking out on the other side or buried somewhere in the thick of it. Oh well.
My goodness, little prep, what happened to your pretty blonde hair and cute designer clothes? What a terrible fate, to be crapped out of the ass of some weird spooky bitch! Oh, poor you!
June grinned and flushed, feeling slightly more awake now. She watched the tiny blonde's remains spiral down with the ensuring whirlpool before disappearing from sight forever.
It was good to be The Spider, June thought.
Certainly better than being a little fly.