Growing into the Job, Post 465: Gifts

He’d been showered, he’d been shaved. He’d been clothed and brushed and fed. Now, thought his newly 6’9” girlfriend, he was ready for the day.

Him? What did he think? He wasn’t so sure.

Since his shrinking had begun in earnest, every hour seemed to bring with it some new flavor of humiliation, and each day brought something new that he could no longer do. Being mollycoddled by Melissa through his whole morning routine was a prime example. How could he expect to face life like a capable adult if he could barely get through dressing himself anymore? And Melissa, as doting and maternal as she’d become, seemed all too happy to help him descend into new depths of infantilism.

The way the morning had gone, he was more than happy to be getting out. She wanted to walk him through the park, apparently to where they were going ‘shopping’. That was about as specific as she’d be. Okay, well, great, he thought, at least some fresh air will do me some good. A walk would do him well, even if his legs were still wobbly from that last blow job on the bed.

As he opened the door, stepping out into the hallway which led to the temporary spiral staircase, he was met by a decent-sized pile of delivery boxes that were stacked just outside the entrance to his apartment. They cluttered the narrow space.

He glanced back at Melissa as she stepped out. Even barefoot, she needed to duck under the doorframe. Something about that made something about him quiver. 

"Amazon delivery?" she asked, looking down and noticing the packages herself as she carefully stood back up straight. With the doorway behind her, and with her too-small jeans and his overstretched BÖC shirt doing their best to not be torn asunder, she looked taller and more formidable to him than ever. The narrow dimensions of the hallway seemed only to accentuate her larger-than-life presence. 

Suddenly seeing the opportunity for what might pass for a dry joke, he replied half-smiling. "A whole delivery of them? I think we have plenty of Amazons around here."

Melissa’s laughter bubbled up from behind him, light and teasing but still sending ripples through the air. "Oh, you can never have, like, ’too many Amazons’. You know that, sweetie ." She reached out and playfully tousled his hair, as if to punctuate the joke.

Curiosity piqued, Dr. J pushed one of the boxes with his foot. “What’s up with these? I didn’t order any…shoes, did I?” He bent down a bit, hands on his knees, squinting at the labels. They definitely all looked like shoe boxes - long, rectangular packages in sleek brown cardboard. Maybe a bit oversized, though.

Melissa’s eyes lit up with realization as she stepped past him to scoop up one of the boxes, kneeling effortlessly but threatening to split through her jeans at the thighs. Her sudden enthusiasm was infectious; he couldn't stop smiling though he couldn’t quite place why. “Oh, these are for me!” she squealed, practically beaming as she examined the label of one box, then another. “Since I’ve been growing so much, and now that I’m getting a little attention online, some shoe companies want to, like, make custom heels for me.”

He raised an eyebrow, looking at her with an expression that was equal parts confusion and disbelief. “Custom…heels?”

“Yeah! Like the ones I wore last night, silly,” she nodded, grinning down at the box. “and they're free! Can you believe it? I mean, really high heels are in, and they want to show off their styles on someone as…I dunno, noticeable as me.”

He nodded absently, just starting to finally get the picture in his head. Now she’s, like, an…influencer?

“It’s just ‘cuz you have big feet,” he joked, recovering quickly but also earning himself a quick slap on the thigh from where she knelt. 

“Oww! That stung!” 

“So fresh!” she playfully scolded, giggling again. She wiggled her toes playfully; she was barefoot, and hoping that she still, somehow, fit into the white tennis sneakers she kept in her desk downstairs. They would be so much better than having to wear her pumps from last night (or, maybe, she could wear something from one of these boxes). “And it’s not just one company either,” she continued, “A few of them reached out. I guess I’m gonna be becoming a bit of a shoe model.” She giggled again, proudly. She’d had her modeling days, a side hustle before she’d come to work at Far Horizons, but it was never really her feet that people were interested in. Thinking of, she reminded herself, those new bras from Poland should be here soon, too. 

He let out a soft chuckle, still trying to wrap his head around it. “Shoe companies, huh?” He glanced at the pile of boxes. “But…why are they being delivered here? To my place?”

Melissa stood up, still holding one of the boxes, and eyed the stack thoughtfully. There were six more boxes. “Ah, yeah yeah, I forgot to mention. Until the new apartments are ready, I’m having them sent here, not my mom’s place. I don’t really have a good place to store them all yet. But, then I remembered, we have a nice sized room placed conveniently right above my office. So, I thought, I'd just leave them here.”

Dr. J shifted, slightly uneasy at the idea of his apartment turning into a storage space for heels approaching the size of small boats. “Here?” he asked, his voice tinged with hesitation.

Melissa’s smile softened, sensing his discomfort. “ Just for now, sweetie. It’d be weird to keep them downstairs in the office, and once my apartment’s ready, we’ll all be moving anyway. So it’s okay, right?” She tilted her head, looking down at him with those big, earnest eyes to which she knew it was hard to say ‘no’.

Funny enough,  they both knew that her office was bigger in size than his entire apartment, but, with a playfully embellished and resigned sigh, he put his hands on his hips. “I guess so…"

She giggled again, and thanked him. She placed a touch on his shoulder.

“Oh, and the other girls are all getting shoes too,” she added cheerfully, her voice brimming with excitement. “Their deliveries will probably start showing up here soon. That won't be a problem, will it? We’re all getting new shoes!,” She crouched down to lift one of the bigger boxes, and noticed how he watched her arm. The muscles were flexing subtly beneath the tight sleeve of the too-tight, too-small shirt she’d borrowed from his dresser.

Dr. J blinked. “Wait, the other girls too?” His eyes darted to the hallway, imagining his apartment piled with even more boxes, every square inch of livable space lined with pairs of shoes in every conceivable size. “Y’know, my apartment’s not that big right?…”

Melissa waved it off casually. “It’ll be fine. We’ll keep them all organized by size, color, heel height…”

“Sounds like I’ll be living in your girls’ shoe closet,” he said half-jokingly, though not entirely unserious.

She laughed again, a warm and lighthearted sound that filled the hallway. “Hey, there could be worse places to live, right?” She bent down again, easily gathering the rest of the boxes into her arms. “Seriously, I promise, I’ll try to make sure they’re out of the way.” She took a step back into the apartment with the packages and then looked over her shoulder. “And who knows, maybe you’ll like having them around. So many women’s shoes, think about what it'll be like to be surrounded.” She laughed, flashing him a teasing wink.

He shook his head, half-amused, half-overwhelmed. "Just don’t let me get buried alive in sandals and stilettos, okay?"

Mm haha some guys would love that, Melissa chuckled softly to herself, dropping the boxes onto the couch I wonder if we can make you one of them?  She left the boxes there, deciding that she could open them later, and then stepped back out into the hallway, closing the door, before leaning down to kiss him on the top of his head. Her towering form casting a much larger shadow than his, devouring him. “I promise. You’ll always have, like, room to breathe,” she joked, “even when I’m walking around in heels the size of skyscrapers.”

As she led the way down the spiral staircase that ended in her office, Dr. J couldn't help but feel a familiar tug of awe. There was something surreal about how easily Melissa dominated every aspect of his life now - her size, her presence, her power and beauty. Now, even something as simple as a shoe delivery, carried with it an unspoken reminder of how much the dynamic had shifted. Not only between them, but between the sexes in general. And, as much as he might still resist or feel awkward around it, a part of him couldn’t deny there was a strange allure of it all.

 Dr. J’s eyes squinted against the bright sunlight that bathed Melissa’s large, modern office as he carefully made his way down the final steps of the staircase. He now understood that the office’s sleek elegance, so out of character from the rest of this old place, was an early reflection of the design present in the atrium and the other wings. Melissa’s office space was huge, built for someone of her stature and, with him now smaller than he had ever been, it seemed as if it had expanded around him. Its design seemed to fit her ever-growing presence. Tall glass windows overlooked the city in the distance, their light streaming in and illuminating the immaculate white decor, including  the huge leather couch and her massive desk in the center of the room. Everything felt pristine and airy.

And Randi was standing at the desk.

“Hey losers,” she quipped, as the two of them appeared. Randi’s outfit made it look like she’d just rolled out of bed. The disheveled look - puffer jacket, baseball cap, and remnants of last night’s makeup - seemed at odds with the sterile and spotless office, but Randi didn’t seem to care. She was also holding a large envelope. 

Melissa raised an eyebrow as she spotted her friend, her eyes immediately drawn to the envelope. “What are you doing here so early?” she asked with a hint of amusement. It really wasn’t that early, but it was a Saturday. “And…nice slippers.” 

Randi didn’t answer right away, her dark eyes flicking over to Dr. J, who stood somewhat awkwardly beside Melissa. She gave him a brief, wry look, as she sized him up again, before turning back to Melissa. "I dropped off some boxes at your guys’ door. I didn’t want the delivery dude up there disturbing you," she said. Her voice was raspy, her usual husky tone underlined with a trace of pretext. “You found them, right? Shoes I think?”

“Yeah! Shoes!” There was something Randi wasn’t telling them, Melissa could sense it. She could sense a lot of things. 

"Thought I'd stick around to say hi, see if there’s…maybe anything else you needed before I took off. I know I need to touch base with Sheryl, get those papers for you. Congrats, by the way."

“Thank you,” Melissa replied, though obviously distracted. Her eyes had been drawn again to the large yellow envelope Randi was holding - there was something about it, something magnetic to Melissa. She wasn’t sure why, but her gaze lingered on it. “What’s in there?” she finally asked, her voice low but curious, her eyes remaining fixed on the envelope.

Randi glanced at Dr. J again, her expression still as dry as ever. “Maybe we should talk about this privately?” she suggested.

Melissa, catching the implication, gave a soft, indulgent smile. She leaned down toward Dr. J, put her hands on her knees, and turned her voice to something almost aggressively sweet and playful. “Hey, sweetie pie, could you do me a biiiiig favor?” She flashed him a dazzling smile, her eyes glittering. “Would you mind grabbing me a protein shake from the breakroom? They’re in the fridge.”

Dr. J opened his mouth to object - it was his office too, after all - but something in her voice, a soft, almost irresistible suggestion, made him hesitate to speak. The sweetness in her tone, the way her eyes lingered on him and sparkled - it was certainly clear that this, wasn’t a request, but a gently firm command. But he didn’t take it that way. Instead, he took it as immediately the most interesting, and helpful, thing in the world that he could do. Without another word and with an earnest smile, he nodded, turned, and scurried off toward the breakroom.

As his footsteps disappeared down the hall, Randi let out a low whistle, shaking her head with a smirk. “Damn, girl, you’ve got him trained. It’s like watching a puppy heel.”

“Yeah, sometimes I feel bad using my mom voice on him,” she answered wistfully, standing back up straight, “but it can be helpful. So, yeah, now, what’s, like, going on?”

Randi held up the envelope, her expression turning more serious. “Sooooo….we had a bit of a situation this morning. A crowd showed up in the parking lot - early, maybe right before seven. There were, like, two dozen people just hanging around, waiting.” She paused, her voice dropping as she met Melissa’s gaze. She wasn’t sure how her friend would take this. “They wanted to see you.”

Melissa arched an eyebrow, her expression casual, almost amused. “I know. I heard them while Jay was sleeping. They sounded like some earlybirds with nothing better to do on the weekend. I didn’t think much of it.” Her tone was dismissive, as if the entire ordeal was nothing more than a mild inconvenience. She shrugged. “I mean, I don’t get it. Who gets up that early just to hang out in a parking lot?”

Randi gave her a long, assessing look. She needed to make sure her friend knew what these people were. “They weren’t just ‘hanging out’, Missy. They really wanted to see you. You’d said it yourself, to the news cameras last night, that people should ‘come on down’ to see you.”

“Like, fans? Or stalkers?”

“I think it’s more than that, Missy,” Randi answered, more pretext in her smoky tone, “They left things. Like…gifts.”

At that, Melissa’s eyes snapped quickly back to the envelope, her curiosity rekindled. “Presents, for me? Is that them?” She reached out and Randi offered the envelope. 

“Yeah,” Randi replied, deciding not to tell her about the candles or the chocolates or the weird letters. 

Melissa took the envelope from Randi’s hands, her fingers clasping onto the yellow paper. As soon as it was in her grip, she felt it: a light tingle, a warm, thrilling sensation that spread from her fingertips, up her arm and all the way through her body. Her breath caught for a moment, and her usually playful demeanor darkened and curled slightly.

Blinking herself back, she began to open the envelope. Randi had closed it up with one of those little strings wrapped around a - Ugghh why is this taking so long! “I LOVE presents…” she said, as finally she opened the envelope and peered inside. It was stuffed with cash - bills of all sizes, some small, others larger. Some people had written their names on the bills. Her fingers reached in and grazed the money, and the tingling sensation intensified. It was more than just physical touch. There was some sort of energy in these people’s gifts that was weirdly feeding something inside her..

Randi watched her friend, her sharp gaze noticing the shifts in Melissa’s expression. “Yeah, people are starting to lose it over you,” she said. ”It’s weird, but I figured you’d wanna know.”

Melissa’s grip on the envelope tightened, her eyes narrowing slightly as the tingles coursed through her. She stared at the money for a moment longer before her voice dropped, suddenly serious.

“Get me more of this,” she said. 

==========================