Strip Tease (Chapter 3)

Of course, with some regret, Jessica knew this couldn’t last. Who knew what kind of ordinance the United States military could level against her if they chose. Sure, she was pretty big, but what if they nuked her right in the head? She’d worked hard to get her hair to this exact length and degree of slight curl, and she’d be damned if anyone was going to mess it up. And Jessica had a hard time believing anyone would buy her explanation that all she wanted to do was dance for the little people, after she’d probably inadvertently squished a few thousand of them. The authorities tended to blow problems out of proportion like that. Grasping the chain of the amulet in her fingers and removing the necklace in its entirety, Jessica didn’t shrink back down to normal as she’d hoped.

            So, Jessica squinted, brushed her bangs away, and scanned the immediate horizon for the mansion-dotted neighborhoods of Vegas, far from the smaller urban sectors near the ruined strip. She’d only been to Paul’s house once or twice along with a large group of other strippers for a personal party, so she wasn’t quite certain what his home looked like. However, it was better than nothing, and she had to start somewhere.

            Given that Paul was now smaller than a flea by comparison, Jessica didn’t have the foggiest idea how she’d manage to pick him out, let alone how he’d be able to convey the necessary information to her, but one thing was certain. She needed to reverse whatever effect had taken hold via the amulet. Maybe he’d be able to find her, though. It was the much more likely solution.

            Carefully as she could, Jessica propped herself back up and arose to full height. Her crystal heels sent out a shockwave when they made berth that leveled multiple miles around, not to mention flattened multiple districts into paste beneath the gleaming blockade of her shoe. The last sights experienced by most of the citizenry below the shoe was the glass-distorted dream-view of her slanted, sole-arched foot rushing through the starlit dusk. Houses, towers, city blocks, and masses of gawking citizens were instantly mashed into the second dimension by a ceiling of absolute crystal, with the illusion of the stripper’s immaculate island-length bare feet hovering above the invisible platform like an angel’s. Of course, Jessica was privy to none of this, either.

            Now that her growth had come to a full stop, the steadily calming stripper couldn’t be certain exactly how big she was, as math had never been her best subject. Scratching her head, she guessed somewhere in the ten-mile-high range, when in fact she was closer to thirty. In a single stunted step, the woman cleared most of the city as well as the surrounding towns, and did her best to plant her shoes carefully upon a seemingly unoccupied stretch of green. Unfortunately for the mostly unlit suburbs below, Jessica’s judgement was off again and they turned to pulp upon the crystal sole of her high heels.

            “Paul!” Jessica moaned, cupping her hands around her lips. “Paul, help me, please! This… this necklace, it really is gorgeous, baby. So gorgeous. It’s the best I’ve ever gotten. But this? All of me, like this? This ain’t gonna fly over at the casino, you know? Or what’s left of it, because I think I took most of it out, even though it was on accident, which I’m sure they’ll understand. Anyway, please tell me how to undo this!”

            The woman re-adorned the amulet around her neck in preparation for whatever form of instruction she received. To help Paul out, she lowered her face back down toward the earth again around the gilded gated-community land of the upper-crust neighborhoods. Just like her previous stop-off point, the ground was littered with frozen onlookers, likely taking in the sights of her, as well as plentiful pictures. Jessica fingered the amulet between her flushed tits. Her eyes darted from one end of the subdivision to the other, her eyelashes idly batting. In the process of doing so, she watched several of the grainy mega-mansions tumbling over like dust bunnies from the breeze of her casually blown breath and whipping artificial eyelashes.

            “Oops,” she mumbled, watching another few houses and the accompanying rich throngs reduced to rubble. After another ten minutes passed with little movement down in the valley, she was beginning to doubt Paul was ever going to present himself and explain the magic method to return to a more business-appropriate size. It looked like she’d have to think her way out of this one solo. And for that, she’d need to get comfy.

            Jessica withdrew the golden flood of her unspooling hair and collected it over one shoulder. She hunched back to her knees and pried her long, high-arched feet out of the restrictive glass prisons of her crystal heels. Freed of the footwear, the towering behemoth of a stripper flattened her oblong, peachy soles into the earth. Hundreds of thousands of shrieking populace were left to the mercy of the rich wrinkles of her ped; those not drowned in sticky post-dance sweat were instead lost to the darkness of her undulating cells, or simply abandoned beneath the ever-caving walls of foot skin. An involuntary moan of soothing escaped her lips as a mushed forest seeped like massage oils between the fleshy crevices of her long, bell-end toes.

            “Well, well, well…” Jessica sighed, nibbling her lip. She toyed with the luminescent amulet between her fingertips again. Her pink-painted toes scrunched with muscular aplomb into the earth, forcing a few dozen unknown survivors of her previous steps down into the cracking crust of the planet. “What can I do?”

            Then the stripper recalled her mother’s words of advice to her before she struck out for the heart of Vegas to find work. If you think hard enough and believe in yourself, her mother had said. You can achieve anything. Those humbling words, of course, allowed Jessica to nab the career she had now. Maybe it would work for her again, just one more time.

            And so she tried. Clenching her eyes shut, Jessica squeezed the amulet in her fist. She pictured shrinking. She focused with all her mental energy on morphing again to the form she once knew. She envisioned her body reducing downward, until she fit comfortably into one of the asteroid-sized craters molded by her bulbous naked toepads into the earth. Regretful though she felt deep down inside at the thought of losing the simultaneous admiration of thousands of onlookers at her current miles-high size, Jessica knew it was the only option. She had to reduce down again.

            When next the girl opened her eyes and released her hold on the amulet, a bellow of shock was squelched silently inside her throat. She tumbled backward, losing her balance for perhaps the first time in her work as a stripper, and landed squarely on her panty-wrapped ass cheeks. The seismic blast sent hundreds of surrounding buildings flying lethal distances into the sky; those communities not launched toward space by Jessica’s rump were instead pulverized into a fine sandy mixture beneath the tightened globes of her butt. Her long toes curled backward, grasping for nonexistent aid. Those culling digits were able to scoop up trees and homes by the hundred, like crumbs adhered to wet skin: the mess of twinkling destruction painted across the flesh of her lovely, wriggling toes. Her sole, in similar fashion, was smeared like pastry frosting with foolish fans and entire city blocks ripped from the ground by the mere brush of her citadel-like foot.

            Jessica knew it now. She hadn’t shrunk. If anything, she’d grown even larger.

            By another ten miles or so, by her shaky estimation, and in this case, Jessica was exactly correct. She stood at a solid forty miles high now, and even slumped over on her rear end, her glamorous countenance was nearly tipped into the blackened heavens.

            Then, and only then, did the beleaguered stripper turn her attention back to the surrounding regions beyond the dirtied remnants of Vegas and its sister cities. Evidently, there was no actual way to shrink back to size, because she’d wished for it with every fiber of her being, and she only grew larger. Maybe, Jessica decided, it was best not to let her mind wander to such heady subjects again, just so she didn’t gain any more inches. After all, if she got much taller, it would be near impossible to distinguish the joys and desires of the puny citizens below for her body. She had a responsibility as their golden idol of a goddess, who’d finally danced and stripped her way to the success she’d been working toward all her life.

            And what was the fun in all this, truly, if she couldn’t savor the praises of the genuflected souls below like a fine wine?