Dr. Black busied himself with his other work while he awaited his appointment with Patricia Hostettler. She arrived at the hospital on Monday, but Dr. Black had not seen her. She was undergoing an entire battery of tests ordered by every single organ specialist and every single imaging specialist. Dr. Black couldn’t remember anything like that happening in his history at the hospital. Things get done when there is money behind it, he assumed.

He had lunch with Dr. Vale on Thursday after he had just had his meeting with her. He arrived with a handful of charts and notes, setting them down on the table with a bang. “Girl is going to eat” He said with a laugh.

“Oh yeah?” Asked Thomas, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Oh yeah. She complained about the meals not being enough to fill her since she came here. I did the math and she’s eating about twice the number of calories a person her size should eat.” He said between bites of his sandwich. “Look at this: she’s 7’ and weighs around 198 lbs, and she’s eating about 5,000 calories every day. She eats about as much as a linebacker.” He said.

“Is she gaining weight?” Asked Dr. Black, unable to suppress his curiosity.

“You would think, but she’s not getting fat. It’s like she’s just getting… larger.” He said, shaking his head. 

“She’s pretty, too.” Dr. Vale added apropos of nothing. Dr. Black felt his face flush.

“Hey, don’t talk about patients like that.” He said.

“What? I call it like I see it.” He said with his mouth full of sandwich. Dr. Black checked his watch. It was about fifteen minutes until he was to meet with her.

“I gotta go.” He said, scooping up his notebooks and files and making his way out of the cafeteria. Why did Dr. Vale have to say something like that? The last thing he wanted to think about was how pretty she was. It was already hard enough to keep his wits about him in the face of his fantasies of a growing woman coming true. He went to the bathroom and splashed hot water on his face. “She’s just a scared young woman looking for help.” He reminded himself, and repeated that as a mantra as he dried his face and made his way to her room.

“She’s just a scared young woman looking for help.” he repeated under his breath as he knocked on the door and let himself in. His eyes locked immediately on Patricia Hostettler. What Dr. Vale said had been an understatement. She wasn’t just pretty, she was achingly beautiful. She was sitting in the hospital bed in a paper gown, arms crossed over her chest and with a slightly agitated look on her face. As the door opened she turned to look at him, making eye contact with her large, blue eyes. They were bright and intelligent looking, appraising him as he approached. She had a small, slightly upturned nose, with a smattering of light freckles that ran over it in a band that started and ended on either cheek. Her hair was brown, straight, and mousey, the strands just brushing the top of her slight, round shoulders. He couldn’t tell much about her body through the boxy paper gown, but she looked lithe and mildly athletic.

Her legs were pulled up tight against her. She was chewing her thin, pink lips nervously and rubbing her feet against each other. Right, he reminded himself. She’s a scared young woman looking for help. He pushed those other thoughts down beneath his rehearsed mantra and impeccable professionalism.

Finished with his gawking, he noticed Jeb Hostettler beside her rubbing her hunched back. He was a tall man, wearing blue jeans, a blazer, and an expensive looking cowboy hat and boots. A number of nurses and doctors were also in the room, preparing for some sort of test. 

"Hello, Mr. Hostettler, Ms. Hostettler. I'm Dr. Thomas Black." Said the professional as he approached the two. Jeb gave him a hearty handshake. Patricia remained folded in on herself. 

"How many more of you are there going to be?" Asked the woman with an exhausted tone.

"I'm the last one, I promise. Though, I think you have a lot of tests ahead of you today." He said, gesturing to the small crowd of nurses. "I'm a psychologist." He explained. 

"What do I need a psychologist for? I'm not sick in the head. The problem is that I'm becoming a giant freak." She huffed, folding her arms tighter.

"Well, I might not be able to help your… condition" he said, having to once again push down his excitement over an honest to god growing woman. "...but what you're going through can't be easy. I can help you work through your feelings about it."

"I don't have feelings about it. I just want it to stop." She protested. Her father nodded along with her.

"I have to agree, Dr. Black, her problem is she's growing. Shouldn't we be focusing on that?"

Dr. Black looked between the two of them. And then gestured to Patricia.

"I want to point out your body language." He started. "You're clearly uncomfortable. Your closed posture signals to me that you're defensive which is to be expected. You've been poked at and prodded all day, and it's clear that none of these many professionals are going to be able to tell you anytime soon what is going on with you."

You're also trying to shrink yourself by curling into a ball, he thought but didn't say.

"I might not be able to tell you why this is happening to you or help stop it." No, never stop! A more primal, sexual part of his brain screamed. "But I can help you sort your feelings about it and help you face these trials. If that sounds helpful to you, I would like to schedule a weekly meeting for us to talk about it."

"Like therapy?" She asked. He was winning her over. 

"Yeah, like therapy." He agreed.

She looked Dr. Black up and down as he made his pitch. His earnestness and care was a little bit of warmth in what had been an entire week of cold clinicians not making any sense. It would be nice to talk to someone about this that wasn't her dad. Someone who she could be vulnerable with, someone who wasn't expecting her to put on a brave face. 

"Fine." She relented. Dr. Black smiled and rose to offer his hand. She reluctantly unfolded herself slightly to offer hers back. He pushed away the butterflies in his stomach as his smaller hand became engulfed in hers. For some reason, as their hands touched she felt suddenly like she wanted to laugh in relief.

"Friday then, one hour. And if you want to meet beforehand, just tell the nurses." He said warmly, then turned to regard Jeb. “You too, sir. If you ever want to talk about this, you let me know." Jeb gave a polite nod back, in a way that signaled that he would never ever take him up on that. Dr. Black made his exit, feeling the piercing gaze of Patricia Hostettler tracking him on the way out.

That wasn’t so hard, he decided, even though she was indeed quite beautiful. He tried to resist fetishizing her condition, but soon found himself doing the math of how tall she would be the next time he saw her if she kept growing at the same rate. He checked her chart. She was a little less than 7’2” today. If she grew two and half inches over the week again, she would be over 7’4”, or a whole foot and a half taller than he was.

I can’t think about that, he told himself, but the image of Patricia Hostettler’s bright blue eyes looking at him was hard to shake. On the drive home, that small crack in the dam widened to a flood, and soon Dr. Black was doing the math of Patricia Hostettler a year from now. Growing two inches a week would quickly accumulate. In a year she would be over fifteen feet tall. He imagined her in her room, crouched over to fit her massive body under the ceiling. He reached his hand forward to take hers, her hands as long as his forearm, her long fingers wrapping around his elbows. That same hand that held his earlier today would be big enough to lift him one handed. 

He forced himself to snap out of it. There was no way for a woman to grow that large, and if she did she would have so many health complications. He knew that if the other doctors didn't figure it out soon, she would likely be dead before she reached ten feet tall. "She's just a scared girl looking for help." He said out loud. 

—

"She is entirely too healthy for her size." The cardiologist concluded his presentation at the next day's noon meeting. "We would expect the heart to be taxed by such an immense growth spurt, but it appears that the heart is getting stronger relative to its task."

"Her bones as well." The orthopedist added. "There appears to be no loss of bone density. On the contrary, her bones are becoming more dense at an incredible rate.”

"What's that mean for her?" Dr. Jacobson probed. The two doctors looked at each other, and the cardiologist spoke first.

"There appears to be no adverse symptoms we would expect from her growth. If this pattern continues, she is unlikely to suffer any health complications at all save for increased size. At this time we predict that she could surpass ten feet tall with no complications." Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"And how are we doing on diagnosis? Any indication what is causing this?" 

The diagnostician rose to address the crowd. "For the third time, there are no signs of pituitary tumors or other known causes of a growth spurt. Her blood work came back indicating a nearly 1000% higher concentration of stem cells. We are currently investigating why that is."

"Is there anything likely to cause that?"

The diagnostician shrugged her shoulders. "Magic?" The joke provoked uncomfortable laughter from the assembled doctors. 

"Right. Keep on it then. So we still don't know how or why, but at least she's not in immediate danger. Let's hear the gorey details." He nodded to the general practitioner that was made head of her case. He rose and read from the chart.

"The patient appears to experience her growth spurts overnight. We measure her each morning, including vitals and everything, but as has been noted, there seems to be no complications with her bodily functions. This morning we measured her at 86.2 inches, or just over 7’2”. Yesterday she was 85.8 inches, meaning that she has grown a little less than half an inch overnight.” Whispers of disbelief scattered around the meeting.

“Furthermore, her growth spurt appears to be, for lack of a better word, proportional. She’s not just getting taller, she’s getting bigger all over.” Thomas pictured Patricia in her bed at night, her body expanding ever so slightly as she laid curled in her paper gown, slowly taking up more and more space on the bed. The curve of her hip pushing just slightly higher. He imagined her slowly growing and not stopping, the paper gown and blanket failing to cover her expanding body as she swelled larger and larger, until she was too big for the bed, getting crushed under her vast weight. She continued to sleep, unaware of her massive surge of growth as she surged larger, filling up the room. He entertained this fantasy, making her body grow through the ceiling, her feet demolishing the opposite wall just from the force of her growth.

"...we would risk starving her." Thomas tuned back in as Dr. Vale the nutritionist spoke. "As it stands she is consuming nearly double the calories that she would need to maintain bodily functions, but if her growth is fueled by her excess consumption, we may be able to slow it by limiting her intake."

"Run it by the Hostettlers, and if they agree I want you or someone on your team to check on her every four hours for signs of starvation." Dr. Jacobson ordered then scanned the room.

"Alright that should be everyone right?" He asked, finally landing on Dr. Black raising his hand slowly. "Oh, sorry. Psychology. Yes. Very important."

"The patient and I worked out a treatment plan. We will be meeting every Friday for an hour to discuss her feelings.”

"Sounds good." Dr. Jacobson said as he penciled in the sessions on the calendar as if it were an afterthought.

"Alright, you have your marching orders. Let's all give her our best." He said, dismissing the meeting.

It was hard for Thomas to concentrate on much of anything that week as he anticipated the Friday session. He found himself refreshing his email constantly for memos about Patricia's condition. A memo was sent to the hospital with the news that the growth Patricia was experiencing seemed to be slightly accelerating. Her health remained perplexingly better than normal despite this. The only negative appeared to be the new diet being tried on her. Eating the minimum for her size was beginning to show signs of starving her, and so far there appeared to be no impact on the rate of growth. 

Finally, Friday rolled around with no progress on a diagnosis. Thomas spent the entire night masturbating to vanilla porn in an effort to make sure his mind was as clear as possible for their appointment. He had a duty to help her and he wasn't sure if he could fulfill that given the difficulty he was experiencing avoiding fantasizing about her.

He showed up to her room ten minutes early. Despite his attempt to lower his sex drive, he felt a twisty feeling of anticipation as he arrived. The atmosphere around the room was anxious. Doctors hung around in hallways having hushed conversations about the crazy case and of Patricia's miserable mood. "She's just a scared girl who needs help." He reminded himself as he opened the door. 

The tall woman was huddled in a tight ball, blankets drawn up over her knees. Some of the largest feet Thomas had ever seen were poking out the front of the blanket. Her head was buried in her knees, her long brown hair draping over her, unkempt and dirty. She hasn't been taking care of herself.

"Ms. Hostettler, it's me, Dr. Black." He said gently to the poor woman, his ulterior motives melting away as he saw her condition. The large woman tilted her head up slightly to look at him over her knees. Her eyes were sunken and her cheeks were hollow. She was starving.

"How is the diet going?" He asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible. The goals for this session were for him to assess her condition and see what kind of therapy patient she would be. In general, he found there were a few broad types. Type 1 were people who needed to be told what to do. They responded to firm directions. Type 2 needed to be challenged. They needed an adversary to prove themself against. Type 3 needed to be coaxed. These needed to be persuaded and rewarded for good behaviors. Seeing how she responded to these questions would tell him what sort of tenor to take with her moving forward.

"Ugh. It's terrible. I eat more than I ever have and I still feel like I'm starving.” She said, putting her head back on her knees. “But I'll do anything if it helps me stop growing."

"Do you feel like it's helping? Your record shows that your growth has only accelerated since you went on the diet." He pointed out, trying on the adversarial approach. She just grew pale and sunk in on herself. Ok, too fragile for an adversary. 

"I'm sorry." He said. "I know this has been hard for you. Look, you're clearly hungry. Maybe starving yourself is doing more harm than good. Have you considered breaking the diet?" This was a coaxing strategy. She sighed and shifted uncomfortably in her bed. The idea of breaking her diet while starving must have been enticing to her, but clearly not as enticing as the potential it represented for slowing her growth down. Maybe she was Type 2 and he just didn't have the right argument to convince her. Still, there was a final method to try. 

"How about this? I’m going to call down to the cafeteria and have them bring up a big meal for you." He said, heading to the phone. And there it was: a little bit of light returned to her eyes. Excited at the prospect of food, definitely, but also excited to have responsibility taken off her shoulders. Her body language shifted a bit, not as closed off. It made sense, thought Thomas. She was scared and vulnerable, and was looking for solace from that from someone telling her what’s what.

Thomas waited a minute, then punched in the number for the cafeteria and asked them to bring 6 meals to Ms. Hostettler's room. When he hung up he looked at the giant woman sitting up straighter. She was paying more attention to him now. Her blue eyes followed him around the room as he circled around to sit in front of her bed.

"You didn't stop me." Thomas observed. She shrugged. 

"What do you do for a living?" Thomas asked, changing the subject on a dime, taking her by surprise. It was the first time in a while anyone had asked her about herself, besides how tall she was, how fast she was growing, or any chemical she had been in contact with for the last three months.

"Oh, uh… marketing, for a publishing company in New York. I just happened to be visiting home when this happened. I’m on sick time now." A glance at her hands reminded herself of her predicament, and her face was going cold again.

"Ah, they should be able to make your cubicle in jumbo size." Thomas waved her worries away with a blatantly tasteless joke. She opened her mouth into a shocked and offended  ‘o’. She couldn’t do anything but let out a very, very small scoffing chuckle. Who was this guy making light of all this?

The food arrived shortly after. Thomas took one of the meals for himself and left the other five for Patricia. She rapidly wolfed down an entire tray by the time Dr. Vale barged in. 

"What's going on here?" He demanded as he saw her already half way done with her second tray, the first was picked clean and laying on the floor next to the bed. Timidly, she set down the relatively tiny fork and began to fold in on herself once more.

"It's alright Ms. Hostettler, you can eat." Thomas said, gesturing to the food, then turned to face Dr. Vale. "She's starving Doug, look at her. She wanted to stop the diet."

Dr. Vale looked at her. She was giving unsure looks between him and Dr. Black, and then slowly picked up the fork. Dr. Vale looked pissed, but he relented. He was seeing the data too, and knew there was no sign that the diet was having any positive impact. 

"Fine." He conceded, taking one of the trays. "But you shouldn't have all of this at once. You finish those four and we'll rework your meal plan to slowly ramp back up to a place where you're comfortable." He said to Patricia. "And you". He said, jabbing a finger at Thomas. "Learn how to make her happy without stepping all over other departments' plans!" He decreed and stormed out, picking bits of food off the tray and shoving them in his mouth as he did.

When the door closed. Thomas ventured a smile at Patricia. She glanced between him and her food, clearly embarrassed. She ate voraciously, occasionally shooting a glance at Thomas over her tray table.The two didn't exchange any words as they ate their hospital food. They ate until the time for their session was well past, and it was time for Patricia to have more tests. As Dr. Black was preparing to leave, she gave him another small smile.

"Thank you." She said quietly. Dr. Black looked over his shoulder, nodded, and left.