Growing into the Job, Post 492: Lunch Meeting, Epilogue, p1

The late afternoon sun slanted through the small window of my equally small apartment, filling the single room with a warm, golden light. I sat on the couch, cross-legged and hunched over the phone Melissa had given me, its sleek design almost too large for my smaller hands. I’d swiped idly through a search engine page, scrolling past articles and forum threads as I tried to find what I was looking for.

Across the room, Melissa was kneeling on the carpet in front of a mountain of shoes and shoeboxes, barefoot in her panties and thin pink t-shirt; she’d nearly burst out of the jeans she’d, uh, acutely outgrown earlier today at lunch, and it had been a relief for her to peel them off. So, her amazingly curvy, amazingly fit lower body was all but bare, long muscular legs somehow still tanned, and enormous, heart-shaped rear seeming to fill up the room. She pretended to be oblivious to the effect her figure had on me, but it took all my effort to not just sit there on the couch and ogle as she went through her new acquisitions.

When we’d arrived home after lunch, we’d been greeted with a new mountain of shoe deliveries, at least three times the size of the one Randi had dropped off yesterday. Melissa hummed softly to herself, her thick, wavy hair catching the sunlight as she pulled open box after box. The rustle of tissue paper and the occasional squeal of delight punctuated the air as she discovered yet another pair of heels or boots, some which seemed would be a perfect fit for her enlarged feet, and many which seemed even…bigger. A smile played constantly on her lips, her dimples deepening with every new find. “Look at these ones!” she’d call out to me, holding out a pair of bright-pink pumps, “And THESE!”, she’d crow, now with a set of platform boots. “Once I get a little bigger these are going to be PERFECT!” she vaunted, “And when I outgrow them I think Lakshmi might love them too!”

I shuddered, imagining the day - it’s impossible, right? - when Far Horizons was staffed with a coterie of Amazons in huge high heels, Melissa in the hugest of them all. I tried to put it out of my mind and ignore the sounds of her excitement so I could focus on the task at hand. My car - well, the car that Melissa had gifted me - had followed us back home earlier, and now sat silently in the parking lot below. As much as I hated to admit it, Melissa and Randi had been correct: I hadn’t been in any condition to drive after everything that had happened at lunch. But that didn’t mean I wanted to rely on Melissa’s and her XX Behemoth for every little errand or emergency. I needed to figure out how to make my car more independent, maybe to grasp back a bit of independence for myself as well. Having shrunk, earlier today at lunch, from 4’6” to - yes, Melissa insisted we measure as soon as we got home - to 4’3”, anything would be a victory.

Melissa was now 6’11”, by the way. ‘6’11 AND A HALF”, she’d insist I say.

My thumb hovered over the phone’s screen, pausing on a link way down the search page that promised ‘aftermarket solutions for your Valkyrie XY’. The site’s URL looked dubious at best, but I was desperate. I tapped it, and my phone’s screen filled with a garish, cluttered layout straight out of the early days of the internet. Not that I was a snob about this sort of thing, but yikes.

“God, this is ugly,” I muttered under my breath, swiping through pages crammed with oversized text, low-resolution images, and animated banners. At the top of the phone screen, an eye icon - one that had been on my phone from the beginning, since I’d gotten it, but to which I hadn’t paid much attention before - began to glow faintly red, pulsing like a heartbeat. It flickered more brightly as I scrolled deeper into the site, but I dismissed it. Some sort of system warning, I assumed.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

Maybe I’ll ask Melissa about it later…

…or maybe not.

Anyway, back to the website. The site’s creator - or whoever ran it, I guess - seemed to have a lot to say. Most of the homepage was filled with a rambling diatribe about Valkyrie Motors, women’s growing dominance in the automotive industry, and a supposed global conspiracy to suppress men. It was full of buzzwords and wild accusations about “the Movement” and “men’s diminishing independence.”

“Yeesh, paranoid much?” I muttered, quickly scrolling past the ranting. Honestly, it made me feel a little queasy, when I tried to read it. Anyway, I wasn’t here to read some manifesto. I had one goal: to find an adapter that could let me plug my car into a regular outlet. It had to exist somewhere, I figured. Men, families, busy people couldn’t be hamstrung like this, right? Relying on one car to charge another, without any other option?

After what felt like ages of scrolling through various weird contraptions, I found it - a small, unassuming device buried in a section titled “Discreet Mods for Your XY.” The description claimed it would allow the car to charge from any standard outlet, bypassing some of the more restrictive built-in safety features. It looked simple enough, but the price tag made my stomach drop.

I hesitated, biting my lip as I stared at the screen. No way I could afford this, not right now. Maybe I could talk to Melissa about it, see if she’d be willing to loan me the money. It wasn’t like I wanted to modify the car to, like, ‘go against her’ - it would just be…good to have. You know, for emergencies. It would make both of our lives easier. She’d understand, right? I wouldn’t want to, like, insult her, or make her upset. She can get a bit, uh…let’s not say ‘unhinged’ just yet. Maybe…’excitable’, with stuff she doesn’t like.

The eye icon at the top of the screen pulsed more insistently, flashing a deeper red as if it disapproved of my thoughts. I ignored it, closing the browser tab and setting the phone down on the couch cushion beside me. I’ll talk to her about this later. I closed my eyes and tried to think. But it didn’t last long before-

“Jayyyyyyy…?” Melissa’s voice broke through my concentration, warm and teasing. I glanced over to see her holding up a pair of enormous, shiny, black patent leather pumps, with some inlaid pattern in what looked like silver…but was probably titanium. Their impossibly high heels, which also looked like metal, glinted in the sunlight. “Aren’t these just to die for?”

“They’re, uh, very shiny,” I replied, scratching the back of my neck awkwardly. I wasn’t sure how many pairs she’d gone through already, but the stack of opened boxes had quickly overtaken the coffee table and were now being scattered over the floor. The pile of ones she’d opened were off to the side.

“‘Shiny’? Sweetie, they’re fabulous. They’re like armor, they’re like weapons,” she said, grinning as she slipped one onto her foot and flexed her toes. “A little too big on me for now but…soon! I could just imagine stepping on someone with these.” She looked up at me with a wink that sent a shiver down my spine.

I swallowed hard and turned back to grab my phone, my mind racing.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the adapter…I’ll ask Melissa about that later. I’ll check the news…

I scrolled around a little more, still reeling a bit. What a weird day - Melissa’s promotion, my - uh - ‘job change’...not to mention how we’d each, acutely, changed in size. Despite now being even less of a person than I was this morning, my powers of denial and avoidance were still superhuman. I’d been doing a decent job of ignoring the existential horror of my life and just…like…yeah.

What the hell is this?

A news site, one I thought I should be able to trust, had a series of strange headlines. I’d gotten used to some of this, over the past months, but it seemed like there were more and more of them these days. Today, it was all weirdness. Like…‘Senator-Elect Kardashian Promises Change in California’, or…well…see for yourself…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

POLITICS:

• President-Elect Martin to Propose ‘Equality Act 3.0?’: Sweeping Reforms Expected

• Poland’s First All-Female Cabinet Sworn In: ‘A New Era for Our Nation,’ Says PM Sobieska

• UN General Assembly Announces Women’s Empowerment Resolution; 90% of Member Nations Sign On

• Senator-Elect Kardashian Promises Change in California

• European Think Tank Warns of Widening Gender Divide in Political Power

INDUSTRY AND ECONOMY:

• Valkyrie Motors Acquires Iconic British Car Maker Aston Martin

• Global Markets Surge Following Introduction of Women-First Business Grants

• Gender Pay Gap Continues Trend of Reversal: Women Now Earn Even More

SOCIETY:

• Men’s Mental Health Crisis Worsens Amid Struggles to Adapt to New Gender Norms

• Dating Apps Cater to New Societal Needs

• More Sightings of Giant Women Reported in Belarus

• Reports of ‘Disappearing Men’ Spark Conspiracy Theories in Online Communities

• Men’s Rights Protests Surge in Midwest Cities Amid Legislative Overhauls

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• ‘Brain Booster’? A Potential New IQ Enhancer for Women

• Wearable Tech Surges: Devices Designed to Track, Protect, and Empower

• Mommy Is Home - Smart Homes Increasingly ‘Female’

• Anonymous Group Claims Responsibility for Disrupting All-Male Scientific Symposium

CULTURE AND ENTERTAINMENT:

• Hollywood Undergoes ‘Feminine Renaissance’: 80% of Next Year’s Releases Directed by Women

• Fashion Weekly: Carrier Dresses and Tethers go Mainstream

• Rise of the ‘Amazon Look’: High Heels and Height Enhancers Become Billion-Dollar Industry

• Global Male Attractiveness Standards Shifting: the Ideal ‘Vulni’ Man Getting Smaller and Smaller

• From Online Porn to the Big Screen: Giantesses and ‘Mommy Dommes’ Go Mainstream

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