Strip Tease (Chapter 2)

            “We are coming to you live from the air, now,” a toupéed reporter roared into the microphone, clutching his headphones to his ears. He peeked out the window of the news helicopter as it banked another corner. “In a moment we’ll have firsthand footage of the unfolding disaster, whatever its nature may be, though early first reports and social media posts have suggested it’s a “giant inflatable doll” crushing the strip, so obviously we have a lot of jokers working together to block the real news. Let’s see what’s happening out there!”

            The cameraman gave a thumbs up, then swiveled to the window just as the helicopter turned another corner and reached the main block of the strip. The view from the lens was nearly rendered moot by the volume of smoke rising from the streets. Eventually, though, the buildings still intact around the main casino campus came into view. Or at least, they did momentarily, before the camera’s panning perspective was filled from side to side with the gargantuan, seemingly infinite golden-tanned calves of Jessica. Just in time to avoid crashing into the woman’s shifting leg, where the vehicle would’ve become lost like a marooned mosquito, the pilot veered hard away from the stripper’s limb.

            “Holy Christ,” the reporter shrieked, sinking back into his seat. The microphone tumbled from his hands. “What the hell is that? Seriously, what the fuck is it?”

            “I don’t think that’s an “it,” it’s a she,” the cameraman corrected.

            “Well, if you haven’t noticed, she is a goddamned mile tall!” the reporter bellowed hysterically. He scrambled to collect his microphone and crawl in front of the lens again. “Are you recording this? We need every damn instant of this on tape, just in case we’re not about to get fucking crushed by a giant vagina, because on the off-chance no one else covering this on the night shows survives, we’re going to need this for the book deal.”
            “What the hell are you talking about?” the cameraman wondered dreamily. He stared unblinkingly out the window, gawking at as much of Jessica’s sensuous, muscle-toned legs and the islands of her growing feet within their blindingly crystalline platform heels, which by now had inflated in tandem with her body far enough to take out another several blocks.

            “Just thinking of our futures, man!” the reporter cackled, clearly losing his grip. He lay in front of the camera and tried to slick back his hair. “Ladies and gentlemen, prior reports regarding a giant woman who may or may not be in the stripping and escort business do, in fact, appear to have some basis in truth. Don’t believe us? Take a look at the footage!”

            “I think that’s Bella Bombshell!” the cameraman shouted.

            “What the shit?”

            “That’s her name. She’s a fucking amazing dancer, let me tell you. When she gets down to nothing? Oh, God-damn,” the cameraman moaned, unable to tear his eyes away from the shapely arch of Jessica’s pink instep within the glass palace of the shoe. Beneath the surface, he swelled with guilty joy at the sight of any foot-fetishist’s dream coming true right before them. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, man. We live in Vegas. Everyone hits up the strip.”

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             Jessica watched the familiar neon-lit Vegas kingdom which had served as her home for so many years dwindling down further and further, past her chest, her waist, her knees, until it hardly reached her ankles. The light diminished so far, only barely glimmering amongst the crystal of her platform heels and shining on her pink toenails, that the center of the city itself began to resemble dying fireflies. Even the skyscrapers became like meager blades of silver grass.

            The stripper continued to shake with fear and naiveté. Out of necessity for her trembling limbs, she imperceptibly shifted the ovular base of her shoes multiple times, inadvertently smashing through a half a dozen more buildings which were unlucky enough to exist near where she stood when the amulet’s power had first activated.

            For Jessica had at least worked out that much, little sense though it made. What other explanation was there for her freak transformation into a mythical titan of a woman, than that mysterious piece of jewelry she discovered in her room? Had Paul planted it on purpose? Had he any idea what he’d unleashed? Surely not. He’d given her lots of presents in the past that didn’t turn her into a gigantic monster!

            Darkness swirled in increasingly low clouds around her head. The stars twinkled just a little too brightly for her liking. After all, the girl was used to the comfort of manmade Las Vegas, Nevada. Plus, the sight suggested she was growing ever-nearer to the outer atmosphere of the Earth. Though she was no longer growing at an exponential rate, Jessica was far too frightened of what might happen if she allowed her head to burst through the cloud cover and reach the stars. What would it do to her hair, after all?

            Gingerly as she could, Jessica stooped down to her haunches. She laid each of her manicured fingers into the earth, every one her slender digits an extraterrestrial obelisk unto itself. She could feel the tickle of granule-sized houses and businesses imploded beneath the spiraled pattern of her fingerprints. She cringed, nervous what the damage might do to her polished nails. Thus braced in the soft earth, next the stripper slunk down to a crouched position, resting on her shins. Well-aware of her titanic booty jutted out behind her and probably in view of multiple thousands of viewers across the state now, she shimmied. The mere motion caused her translucent platform shoes to roll over another hillside community, rendering it to dust in an instant.

            Situated at last to avoid being thrust out into space, Jessica’s shadow loomed over Vegas, or at least those parts of it which she hadn’t yet wrecked, and dipped her nose toward the earth until the unthinkably massive pools of her twinkling eyes were so near to the ground that many of the inhabitants could only see the black hole vortex of her dilated pupils.

            Strangely, as Jessica’s perspective at last adjusted to her distant view of the speck-like citizens below, she noticed most of them weren’t fleeing. Which, frankly, was what she would do if she was in their shoes instead of her particularly fashionable own pair. Instead, just about all of them were frozen in the streets surrounding the ground zero of her growth. They were too small to pick out their expressions, as it was difficult enough even noticing the individual bodies amongst the crowds. However, Jessica had spent years upon a dance pole, unable to see all the faces beyond, but knowing perfectly well their attentions were glued to her: that she, in that moment during a pounding electronic song, was a goddess to them. That honed sixth-sense of perceiving adoring eyes upon her was in effect now, and at a hundredfold its normal strength.

            Only then did Jessica truly appreciate that anyone her shoes hadn’t yet pulverized like hapless microbes were gawking in admiration at her. Especially considering her coquettishly folded form, nearly nude, the contours of her golden body dazzled under the moonlight. She beamed them a knowing smile and batted her eyelashes, simultaneously flirting with every single living being who was lucky enough to exist in her current orbit without being destroyed. So many people who could see her up here, on the ultimate stage, doing what she did best: simply being.

            “Well, hello there, everyone,” Jessica crooned cheekily. “I’m glad you could all make it to my headlining performance.” She gave her hair another toss, a move she’d perfected over years of work to expertly swoop without getting a single blonde strand in her eyes. The wind generated by her hair bowled over another suburb far below, though by this point the young stripper was far too drunken on the attention to notice.

            She drew her head up again, hoping a maximum number of people now would be able to take in the staggering visage of her leggy form hugged by her custom-fitted gemmed black panties, riding into the crescent valley of her toned ass, or her equally bespeckled bra barely containing the jiggling meteor-masses of her breasts. The glow of their need for her made her positively radiant.