Annie IX: Patience

(Chronological index: Ray as College Junior)

"Annie! That's enough! Where are you?"

Annie crouched behind the blinds and tried to be very quiet. Ray rinsed his mouth again and spat. He started moving things on the shelves around the sink.

"I'm not mad, Annie," he lied. "Come on out. I just… I don't want you to get hurt, Annie. I might accidentally move something… Come out."

He spat in the sink once more, then started to rinse his cup. "I will admit, you got me," he said.

The door opened and Thomas came in with Susan. They saw Ray leaning over the sink, thick milky drool dripping from his lip.

"What did she do now?" Susan asked. Thomas just placed his backpack carefully on his bunk then took her arm.

"Back later," he said.

"But we don't know-" Susan started to complain.

"They'll tell us when they've thrashed it out," he said and shut the door behind them.

Ray stared at the door for a second, spit once more, then started to laugh. Annie refused to fall for it.

"Come out," he said in a much calmer tone. "We can start crafting another 'Annie Story.' I should probably be writing these down somewhere." He moved to his desk and sat down. She watched as his eyes scanned the cage, books, stereo and cassette rack.

"Where the fuck are you, you little weasel?" he muttered. With a sudden motion he jerked his desk drawer open. Then he closed it slowly.

He bent over to scan the floor. What she wanted was for him to move far enough that she could change locations, hide somewhere he'd already searched.

When he was really calmed down, she'd show up and accept a rational punishment. If he saw her right now, they'd both say things that she'd regret.

He scanned under both beds, then started moving shoes around in his closet. She rolled slowly across the window sill, reaching for the drawstring of the blinds.

Moving glacially slow, she lowered herself until she was behind his desk, then slipped more quickly down.

Just before she reached the floor there was a snap overhead. The entire assembly of blinds and gears fell out of the window.

"Annie!" Ray shouted as he spun around, pushing the desk to the side. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she called from under the piled plastic. "My leg broke my fall."

Ray lifted the blinds piece by piece until she was uncovered. Her foot lay at an obscene angle. "Oh, Annie," he sighed.

"Or maybe the fall broke my leg," she said with a wince.

-----

The doctor at Student Health knew an orthopedic surgeon in town who owned a sylph. The pet, Serge, had been a paramedic. He set Annie's leg and put on a cast.

"The good news is," he told her, "you'll heal up faster than you would have if you'd never shrunk."

"Of course, if I'd never shrunk, blinds dropping on me would hardly muss my hair." She sighed and tried to get comfortable. She was bent over a box of plastic gloves as the doctor held and Serge wrapped her limb.

They soaked and applied another layer of plastered cloth. "What's the bad news?" Ray asked.

"Sylph bones heal very quickly," the doctor answered. "So it's critical that they heal right. By the time we detect it's growing wrong it'll be too late to do anything but break it again and heal it again."

"Oh! No, not that!" Annie said.

"So, she has to stay off the leg completely!" the Ortho guy insisted. "No walking, no weight on it, no standing to hop to the bathroom. She's going to have to remain completely at your mercy for every move."

"So, conditions nominal is what you're saying," Ray said with a nod. Annie stuck her tongue out at him.

"No riding in your pockets," the doc said. "You'll have to take her to the bathroom, place her on her little toilet, hold her while she wipes-"

"Eugh!" Annie winced. "Can't I just stand on my good leg for that?"

"Not once we finish wrapping the cast," Serge said. "We make them very, very thick. So we don't have to do this again." He dipped his hands in the bowl of water and took her hand in his.

"Seriously, I've seen them use a screwdriver to rebreak a bone. It's that or walk with a twisted limp for the rest of forever." He glanced down at her bare leg. "And your pins are too nice to risk marring them."

"Thanks," she said with a smile. Then the leg started to throb again. "Ooooh!"

"Can we give her another pain killer?" Ray asked.

"Opinion is divided as to whether sylphs are more or less subject to addiction…" the doc temporized.

"Yes," Ray pointed out, "but her rehab will be simpler. It's not like she can steal my car keys to score something downtown."

"Got a point," Ortho said as he squinted at the X-rays.

"Well, maybe a half-dose," the doc agreed. Serge gave her hand a squeeze then picked up more plaster.

-----

"Oh, my Lord! She looks like she's smuggling masonry!" Susan exclaimed as Ray opened the carrier. He'd used gauze and a wire hanger to make a sort of hammock for her. There was no way she could move with the Cardiff Sylph wrapped around her legs.

The plaster extended the length of her hand beyond the bottom of her foot. There'd be no way she could hop on one foot except if there was a channel dug in the floor.

They'd offered her a hospital gown but those things were like sandpaper. She went naked in the Georgia fall, with a few blankets near at hand for emergencies.

Right now, Ray was carefully lifting her out to place her on a foam pad beside his writing lamp. Thomas and Susan looked down at her with sympathetic expressions.

"Poor little thing," Thomas said. He went to the minifridge and poured an Annie-sized pitcher of iced tea while Susan tucked a blanket around her.

Ray was looking at a map of the university. "What?" she asked.

"Trying to figure if I can get to all my classes on time while I carry you around," he said.

"Of course you can," she said. "I'm not that fragile-" The image of a screwdriver loomed in her mind. She winced, noticing a similar reaction on Ray's face. He was thinking the same thing. "Well. Maybe not that bit on Thursday when you run down the stairs…"

"That was what I was thinking about," he said.

"I suppose I could watch her on Thursday," Thomas offered. Ray flinched and his eyes met Annie's.

"Not that I don't trust you, Thomas?" Ray said. He paused, looking for the words.

"If anything happened to her," Susan said, "even if it wasn't your fault, he'd never forgive himself."

"I wouldn't forgive Ray either," Annie said. She smiled to take the edge off it and everyone laughed. "Um, but I do need some help right now. I have to go to the little, little, little girl's room."

"Okay," Ray said, rolling to his feet.

"Like hell!" Susan said. "You're not attending her while she's…"

"Powdering her nose?" Thomas suggested.

"Yeah," Susan said. She reached down for the sylph.

"SUE!" Annie shrieked. The woman paused with a confused look. "I, uh… Okay, I love you like a sister, but…"

"I've been carrying her for eight years," Ray said. "We know each other."

"You trust each other," Susan said with a nod.

"Well, she trusts ME," Ray said. He gently picked her up, managing to support her leg, back and head, and walked over to the sink.

---------

A few of the other engineers in the dorm wandered through. They all had suggestions for improving or replacing Annie's hammock or carrier. Some made sense to Ray, some might have made sense if he were as buzzed as the one offering improvements.

He kept everyone clear from actually jostling his pet for several hours. He eventually rounded them up and shoved everyone out the door. Thomas was spending the night with Susan so at the last, they were completely alone.

"Let's get you ready for bed," Ray said, running hot tap water into her basin. "You can't soak, so it'll have to be a sponge bath."

Annie lay across the foam as he soaped her up and rinsed her down. He went slowly, giving her every chance to anticipate a touch, a move or a roll.

She ended up face down on her bed. He'd moved it outside of the cage for easier access. Before he tucked her in, he gave her a gentle backrub to hurry her to sleep. She was dozing nicely when he finally turned off the lights.

The bed squeaked like an army of slinkies getting caught at a railroad crossing so she waited. When Ray was settled into place she lifted her head.

"Hey, Ray? Thank you."

"What for, Annie?"

"You never once tried to make me feel bad about it being my fault." He was quiet for a minute and she lay her head back down.

"Well, I could probably thank you for the exact same thing," he finally said.

-----

Annie woke to banging. Ray hopped up out of his chair and ran to the door. She tried to roll over and found herself pinned in place by her leg.

Low voices at the door murmured as she tried to slide the damned thing to the edge of her bed. Maybe grabbing the cage bars, she could lever herself over.

"What are you doing?" Ray asked. He sat down at the desk and took her hand between fingers. She used her hip as a fulcrum and rolled over the cast. Ray released her when she pat on his fingers.

"I wanted to roll over," she said. He nodded. "I could put a bar over the bed, hang a rope from it. Think you could pull yourself over that way."

"Uh, yeah. Beats having to shout over your snores until you wake up."

"That's what I thought," he said. He started rummaging through his junk drawer for appropriate apparatus.

"Who was at the door?" she asked.

"Oh. The dean sent someone over. It seems we're cashing in on that trip to Alaska. Dean Jolen says I can take the week off. They'll count it as a sickness on my part."

He started laying out parts for his apparatus. "Um…" she waved for his attention. "Potty, breakfast, THEN engineering?"

"I suppose in that order?" he asked as he reached down. She took his hand and started to pull herself into a sitting position. She gasped and fell back. "Drugs?" he asked. "Drugs, potty, breakfast?"

She groaned and he reached for her dispenser.

-----

Annie begged until he let her watch TV, though it didn't take much beseeching. He gathered some books, a printout of code and her hammock. They set up in a corner of the lounge by the TV.

It was empty this time of day so no one questioned her show selection. Ray muttered a bit, but indulged her 'chick' choices.

Phil Donahue had a surprisingly intense show that day. His main guests were identical twins Sally and Jerri Kims. Sally had sylphed some time after The Day. Jerri had remained 'normal.'

They had leveraged their condition to the maximum profit. The twins' Playboy spread was world famous. They'd had TV roles including a were-sylph on Magnum, a woman who wanted to experience sylph life on Fantasy Island and a stint as Shrinking Violet on the short lived Legion of Super Heroes show.

Right now, though, Phil was largely ignoring their celebrity in favor of activism. Pro-sylph activist and poet Juliet Jordan insisted that their condition proved that whatever sylphing was, it wasn't something based on genetics.

Geneticist Angela Harding brought the DNA profiles of the twins and tried to explain that genetically, twins were 'identical' only by gross standards.

Senator Storm Thirdhand, often referred to as President Kimball's attack dog on the sylph issue, interrupted her there, pointed at the Kims and asked how anyone could consider them gross.

The audience laughed at that, the girls giggled and Jordan pounced. She got Strom to admit, quite easily, that he found Jerri attractive. He resisted attempts to get him to admit that he found Sally attractive.

Bob Geldraff, President of the Sylph Sexual Freedom League, kept challenging the Senator to find one thing wrong with Sally that wasn't also wrong with Jerri.

Storm could probably have said 'size' or something similar, but avoided any statement. This must have disappointed Phil, as they had set up a special effects booth on the back stage. The twins, wearing their Salu Digby costumes, went behind the booths. Two identical looking, identical sized women stepped out into view.

Right about then, Thirdhand accused Phil of a set up, and of selling out his 'god given status as a full Man,' in order to promote the agenda of the Shrunken Rebellion.

Annie drank it all in, including the riot that broke out. She idly wondered if Brent had the chance to see the show.

After they went to commercial, she leaned way back in her chair and examined her owner upside down. "What do you think?" she asked.

"I have always thought that Jerri Kims was a babe," he said without looking up.

"What about Sally?" she asked.

"That's the cool thing about identical twins," he said. "Fantasize about one, you're already fantasizing about both of them. Very efficient."

She glared at him for a second. "You know," he said, "that frowning at me upside down looks like a smile."

"Eek!" she said. "And when you smile at me upside down, you look like a Neanderthal!"

"Ogg no like tiny woman make fun Ogg. Ogg smash."

"Ogg wuv tiny woman," the tiny woman insisted. "Tiny woman know where Ogg like to be licked."

"Good point," he replied. The show came back on, minus actual members of the US government.

-----

By Wednesday, they were both going stir crazy. Ray started chafing at grounded to be her 24/7 attendant. She started feeling guilty about needing him around all the time.

"Look," she finally said. "How about you take the evening off?"

"I can't," he said. "I have to be-"

"You put me in the cage," she insisted. "I'm protected, I'm home. Thomas and Susan stay in for an evening, watch over me, and promise not to touch me."

"I promise," Thomas said from his desk. "Susan'll promise. She says you're starting to get snappish."

Ray and Annie looked at each other. "Who's fucking snappish?" he asked. Thomas laughed. "But the potty-"

"It is a bird cage," Annie said. "Put paper down. That'll work for one evening. Hell, if I was in a hospital bed, it'd be a bedpan and someone else wiping me. I can handle this."

"Better do it," Thomas advised. "If she recruits Susan, she'll get Deliah to drag you out somewhere. No telling when you'll get back."

"Really?" Annie said. "I'm a pity date away from being abandoned property?"

"Okay, fine," Ray said. "When's a good time?" He turned at the knock on the door.

Susan walked in with four large books in her hands. "I need help studying up on History, Thomas. I'm sorry, but I don't think we can go anywhere tonight." She paused as various suspicious glances were bounced around the room in front of her. "What? What did I say?"

-----

As soon as the door shut behind Ray, Annie missed him. She knew it was probably a matter of unavailability, but she was instantly bored, lonely, hungry, thirsty, aching and she had to pee.

She liked the couple discussing the causes of WWII, and they'd certainly feed her or get her a drink. She just couldn't imagine making them sit through the sound of her tinkling down on the paper.

Well, maybe they'd take a break and go hit up the vending machines or something. She tried to cross her legs and wait, but her knee rapped on the construction beside it.

"Ow!" she hissed. Susan looked up sharply.

"Annie, do you need some medicine?"

"No, no, I just… Um. Could I get a drink?"

"Sure!" Susan reached in the cage and collected the little pitcher.

Thomas called a gentle warning to both women. "If you spend all night trying to make her comfortable, we won't get any work done."

"Honest, Thomas," Annie promised, "I'll sit quietly. I'm sleepy."

"Hmph. Don't let grumpy bother you," Susan said as she set the pitcher down. She looked at it for a second, then pushed it closer to Annie with a fingertip.

Thomas grunted as they began studying again. Annie looked at the ice chip floating atop her pitcher. If she drank that, she'd be in worse-

The door opened and Ray came in. He hung up his jacket and sat down. Three people glared at him and he smiled back.

"I had a sari!" he said.

"He means satori," Annie translated.

"Exactly. I was going crazy in this room, all the time in this room, no chance to go anywhere. I wanted to do something, to have a choice. Then you guys chased me out. I got to the front steps. I tried to figure out what I wanted.

"I wanted to come back here and make sure my sylph is okay."

"Aw," Susan said.

"Aw, crap," Thomas replied. "So you're going to be stuck here for another week, going more crazy at a higher rate for having rejected a night to blow off steam."

"Not at all," Ray said. He scooted over to reach into the cage and move Annie out, sling and all. "I now KNOW this is where I want to me. I'm not missing anything, because there's not much I want to do without someone to talk to."

Annie smiled up at her owner with a wry grin. "You are so WHIPPED," she told him.

"I could give you up any time I want," he told her. "I just don't want to."

"Cause you wuv me?"

"Oh, no, it's all the time I've put into training you," he said. "Watch. STAY!" After a moment he waved his hands in victory. "She did it! I'm the Master."

"Yep. You have to break my leg to get me to obey, but-"

"If you don't mind," Thomas said testily, "some of us are trying to work. If you're going to waste a night out by spending it in, could you spend your night in somewhere outside?"

"Well, Remington Steele is on in five minutes," Ray said.

"Just enough time!" Annie said, holding out her hands for a lift.

------

"Jarlsberg," Ray said.

"Swiss," Annie insisted.

There was a knock at the door and Thomas rushed to get it. "Please be sane people!" he muttered. Susan and Deliah entered. "One out of two isn't bad," he said, snatching a kiss from his girlfriend.

Deliah stepped around them into the center of the room. She was carrying a picnic hamper. Ray nodded a hello then turned back to the sylph. "Jarlsberg."

"Swiss," Annie repeated from where she sprawled on a washcloth, air-drying after her sponge bath. A strip of plastic wrap circled her leg at the top of her cast.

"Oh!" Deliah said, rushing to sit on Ray's bed between the two. "I can help with this argument." She turned to Ray. "I like the flavor of Jarlsberg, really, as a snack. The nuttier the better. But," and she turned to Annie, "Swiss is softer, easier to work with for cooking. Very flexible."

Thomas laughed. Deliah looked back and forth. "What?"

"After my second hamster died," Ray explained, "my mom got rid of the hamster cage."

"About goddamned time," Annie muttered.

"Then we got a really big aquarium," he went on. "And twelve goldfish. Everyone got to name three. We were trying to remember one of Dad's picks. They were Gouda, Brie and-"

"AND SWISS!" Annie said.

"And THIS is what I live with!" Thomas said.

"Not for tonight," Susan promised. He grabbed his coat.

"You guys going on a picnic?" Annie asked, eyes on the basket.

"No, I'm here for you," Deliah said. Thomas and Susan made their escape.

"I'm all ears," Annie said.

"Well, I've been trying to come up with something for a Hospitality project," Deliah explained.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Annie replied. "Food basket?"

"Well," and she turned towards Ray, "you ever eat something that had, like, a peppercorn, or a piece of garlic that was too big, and one bite suddenly turned wrong? Changed the whole taste?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Well, I was thinking about being a sylph."

"Okay," Ray said. He tilted his head and stared at the woman.

"What?" she asked.

"He's thinking of you being a sylph," Annie said. "Small, handheld… probably naked, if I know anything about my revered master."

"Stop that!" Deliah cried, but with a slight smile.

Annie still remembered The Bebest and wasn't sure she liked that smile. Then again, absolutely no part of Deliah was, or was ever likely to be blonde. "Anyway," she said to restart the explanation.

"Actually, I was thinking about sylphs eating human food. And I was wondering about how flavors work. You can't take a bite of bread, meat, mayo and lettuce, you have to take a bite here and one there."

"Yep," Annie said. "And you cooked…?"

"Oh, I have a little tasting menu here, little bits of lots of things. I wanted to get your thoughts on them, then see what develops."

"You're going to experiment on the little minx," Ray said. "And all she has to do is lay there and eat. And when she tells you exactly what she thinks, you're going to listen to her?"

"Yeah…" Deliah said slowly.

"Well, if every other dish is chocolate, then you may have just defined Annie Heaven." He got up and walked towards the door. "Get you a soda, Deliah?"

"A Diet Pepsi would be nice," she said. He nodded and ducked out into the hall.

"Wow," Annie said.

"What?" Deliah asked, moving her basket to the chair and clearing a spot on Ray's desk.

"Oh, he's a Coke fanatic," Annie explained. "And he didn't even flinch when you said Pepsi. He must like you."

Deliah smiled again. Annie watched the girl array several pastries and some tiny sandwiches on the desk. She could maybe live with the smile, she decided.

-------

Deliah started to hang around with Ray during Annie's convalescence. She always brought over food. The humans finished off anything Annie left.

But Annie suspected that sylph indulgence wasn't Deliah's main motivation. She kept waiting for Deliah to either glom onto Ray or start playing dolly.

She was pleasantly surprised each time the girl seemed to respect Ray and Annie's relationship, but that just made her more curious. If she wasn't after either Ray or his pet, what was she after?

She smeared strawberry filling on a piece of crust and mulled Deliah's possible motivations over.

"I thought I told you, no seeds," she called. Deliah bent over the desk to see what Annie was eating from. "It's like coming up on a stone in your soup."

"But I strained it," the chef complained. She shook her head and made a note. "Smaller, smaller, smaller strainer. I'm not sure if they make anything smaller than bite-sized to a sylph."

"Not in kitchen supply stores," Ray said. He sat down on his bed and waited for the springs to stop screaming. "But how about a chemical supply store?"

She scribbled faster. "Where would I find one of those?"

Annie lowered her head and reached for her length of piano wire. They discussed where to find such things and exactly what to ask for at the counter. She pushed her loop down to scratch at the back of her thigh. She couldn't WAIT for this damned cast to come off.

She was still trying to figure out how to get a cheese grater into her plaster pants when she heard the door slam shut.

"NO!" she screamed. "DON'T LEAVE ME!"

Ray sat down at the desk and leaned over her. "Calm down."

"Oh, thank the Force! You stayed!" She placed her scratcher carefully in reach. "I want you to know, I appreciate this. You turned down a beautiful damsel in distress AND a trip to your kind of toy store to stay at my side."

"If I leave, my Coke will go flat before I get back," he said, sipping from his bottle.

"Oh." She grabbed the dangling rope and pulled herself over. "So. Is she your girlfriend, yet?"

"I dunno," he said. "What do you think of Deliah?"

"She looks like chocolate, she brings chocolate, and half the time she smells of chocolate. I have no problems with Deliah." She reached out as far as she could and stretched.

Ray pinched her hands between four fingers and tugged gently. She sighed and went limp.

"So, you ready to lose that thing tomorrow?" he asked.

"I was ready to lose this thing before it dried."

------

Deliah was in the Lounge when they came back. Ray waved and she followed them in.

"Is she mobile?" For an answer, Ray reached into his pocket and pulled Annie out. Her cane was in another pocket. He placed them both on the table, keeping a hand next to her until she was stable.

"Mobile?" Annie asked as the girl leaned overhead. "I can dance!" She moved back and forth, dragging each foot into a new position one at a time. "Slowly, anyway."

"She has a workout regimen to get her muscle tone back," Ray said. He moved to his bed and held his hands out. "Come over here, Annie."

"Aaaaaw, can't we start tomorrow?" Annie asked. Deliah silently pulled a piece of fudge out of her pocket and placed it next to Ray. "Good morning," Annie started to sing, "good mooooooooorning, it's great to stay up late…." She wobbled towards the fudge.

---------

When Annie finally came home from the doc without her cane, Deliah announced a celebration.

"Cool," Annie said.

"Uh-oh," Susan moaned.

"Come on, you guys never do anything fun."

"We have fun all the time," Ray protested.

"Deliah's idea of fun," Susan said, "usually involves intimate knowledge with the bailing out process."

"Cool," Annie repeated.

"Says the person who doesn't have any money," Thomas noted.

"Yep," the sylph admitted. "Come on, I can walk, I can dance, you guys need a night out. You guys always need a night out! Besides, you owe me!"

"I own you!"

"Toe-may-toe, tah-mah-toe," she shrugged.

Annie's mood and Deliah's exuberance carried the day. Before they were quite sure what was going on, the three computer science majors were following Deliah into foreign territory.

"Now, the tapas here are great, but don't fill up," she shouted over the music. "The mezze at the next place we're going are not to be missed simply because you're full." The hostess greeted her with a hug and smiled genially at her friends.

"What'd she say?" Ray asked

"Tapping? Something on tap?" Thomas guessed

"And maize. That's corn," Susan said confidently.

"Corn on tap?" Ray asked. "I dunno…"

"LIVE A LITTLE!" Annie yelled once more. No one heard her over the music. She started to kick at Ray's chest.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "I hear you. Too late to back out now." He followed his kinda-date into the back of the place.

Annie found the next few hours a wondrous experience. Deliah took everyone in hand. She ordered for them, showing a remarkable insight into everyone's tastes.

She was a perfect Hospitality major, keeping track of every one of her charges at all times. The most amazing part, to the sylph, was how she paid exactly as much attention to Annie as she did anyone else.

She never quite got Ray up to dance. That was going to be a much longer campaign, Annie judged. She did get him to use his hand to dance on the table with his pet.

Deliah got everyone to take a turn with the sylph before the night was over.

When they stumbled back to the dorm, everyone was a little tipsy and a little tired and very happy. Annie dozed in Ray's pocket. The group parted in the stairwell. Thomas took Susan back to his room, Deliah took Ray back to hers.

Annie sat up a little straighter when she realized what the arrangements were. Her leg muscles complained at the movement. That's when the sylph realized that at least part of the plan that night had been to tire her out.

Well, she owed the chef for a lot of tasty food. She could borrow Ray for an evening. Annie curled up and started to snore. Not sleep, just snore.

Shortly after the door closed she felt Ray slide out of the jacket and hang it on the back of a chair. There was a moment of silence so she rattled her nostrils at him.

"I think she's sleeping," he said softly.

"Is she okay in there?"

"Are you kidding? That thing's like Oscar the Grouch's garbage can." There was a squeak as the two set on one of the beds. Nothing like Ray's Night Of The Living Springs monster, but noticeable.

"Really?" she giggled.

"Oh, yeah. Air conditioning, pool table, a bathroom with a bidet," he assured her. Annie pushed her foot against the covered bucket clipped in one corner of the pocket and scowled.

"So, Ray… I've been thinking."

"What about?"

"That day you were staring at me." Narrow it down, Annie thought with a roll of her eyes. "And thinking about me." No help there. "About me…being a sylph." Hello!

"I remember," Ray murmured.

"I've been thinking about it ever since. What it'd be like to be…that small." Sister, I'll trade you places, Annie thought.

"Really? What would you like to do?"

"Well, if I was a sylph… What would you do to me?" This was new. Annie slowly pulled herself upright. "If I were to shrink right now, what would happen next?"

"There hasn't been a documented case of shrinking for several years," Ray said. "Everyone who's going to shrink probably already has." Dammit! That idiot was going to nerd his way out of …something! She pushed gently on the flap over the pocket and peered out.

All she saw were two pair of feet sticking out over the center of the room. Four feet that were very close together.

"Say that there was," Deliah started to insist. Her tone lost a little bit of playfulness. Good, hit him on the head with a brick if you have to!

"Right now, with no warning, I shrank. What would happen next?"

"Ooooh," Ray finally said. "Ah. Um. Well, then you'd be naked."

"Really? Would you… Like that?"

"Um…yes."

Deliah stood and Annie let the flap fall. There was the sound of a zipper, then clothes falling to the floor. "All the way naked?" she asked.

"That's…how it works," he said. More cloth fell.

"So here I am, naked before you. What do you do?"

"I'd… uh…" PICK HER UP! Annie thought. She concentrated and tried to broadcast the only rational choice through the thickest skull in ten miles. "I'd reach down towards you…"

"Oh! I'd be so frightened! I would run away and try to hide!"

"Not fast enough," Ray replied, finally, FINALLY getting into the spirit of things. "I'd catch you before you got very far."

"Oh, please, don't hurt me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm expert at handling tiny sylph women."

Annie smiled and slid down to the bottom of the pocket. As she curled up and started to doze, she wondered if Deliah was after a single night of this…play, or a relationship. At least this wasn't The Beast, Part Two. She didn't know for sure what it was, but she was sure that it wasn't that.

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