Reus Village Ch 02

"Hey so, um...thanks for letting me eat in your car," Lauren muttered sheepishly to Gail from the back seat. The fast-dwindling remains of three giant double cheeseburgers and a large order of fries was spread out on an expanse of wrappers laid across her lap. "Or...you know, van...truck...whatever you call it."

"We usually just call them "resident taxis,"" came Gail's pleasant voice from the driver's seat, "And of course! It would have been rude of me to whisk you away before your delivery order came!"

Lauren finished off her food, wiped her fingers, and gathered the wrappers and napkins all up into a ball, tossing them down into the brown paper bag they had come in. "So...I'm assuming you had my phone tapped too?" she asked, glancing out the window of the large van-like vehicle at the passing city streets. "And you heard my delivery call?"

"Oh no, no, nothing like that," Gail replied, shaking her head as she kept her eyes on the road. "We only had one agent assigned to you, and he stayed in the hotel across the street from your building, keeping tabs on when you left, what you did out in the world, and so on."

"Agent?" asked Lauren, again feeling a bit irritated at the invasion of privacy. She was so excited by what was happening, though, and where they were going, that she couldn't even bring herself to lay into the negative emotions. Still, though, she was in the habit of snappy replies, and so she added, huffing, "Well I didn't see anybody."

"Of course you didn't," chuckled Gail. "He's an Agent. It's his job not to be seen."

"Huh..." murmured Lauren. She felt the desire to retort melting away inside her. Clearly, there was already so much more going on than she could have ever imagined. Her head was still swimming as Gail continued driving them through the city, passing block after block. Lauren kept staring out the window the whole time, watching all the small people passing by, going about their everyday business, totally oblivious to this new world that she had only just learned about. She swallowed, shifting in her large seat a little to get into a more comfortable position. Her car seat, incredibly, was actually too big for her...way too big. Her feet only barely managed to touch the floor, and the armrests were much too wide for her to even think of putting her arms on them. The headrest towered far above her own head by a good two or three feet.

As Lauren glanced up in confused wonder at this headrest, a glint of sunlight reflected off the glass windows of an office building, and shot through the tinted van windows, revealing something she hadn't seen before: a long strand of blond hair, stuck to the very top of the headrest. Lauren blinked and kept staring, hardly believing the implication. And yet there it was -- one of the last people to ride in this van had been absolutely gigantic compared to her. The fruity, feminine smell that she had initially noticed seemed to grow stronger. Lauren's eyes scanned around the rest of her seat, trying to imagine another woman's body filling it completely. At once, she felt something throb in her loins, like a quick little shot of electricity. But she did her best to ignore it, burying it down in her psyche as she turned to look out the window again.

"So this place..." she said after a little while had passed, still staring out the window, "Where is it, exactly?"

"Way out in the country," replied Gail, driving calmly, "Far away from the media spotlight. As I told you before, Reus values its residents' privacy immensely, so you won't have to worry about journalists or tourists gawking at you."

Lauren turned to look at Gail. This woman was so poised, and so calm; Lauren found herself wondering how many times Gail had done this with other giant people.

'Well, there was at least one blond woman that was like 15 feet tall,' she thought to herself, glancing up at the top of the headrest again. And once more, Lauren felt that twinging little spark of electricity in between her legs. She again tried to ignore it, but she knew that, sooner or later, her latent feelings were going to rise to the surface. The concept of human size had preoccupied her from a very young age, and there were certain...impulses surrounding the idea of size and size comparison that she had been struggling with for a long time. Her present growth predicament had done nothing to assuage these strange impulses, but, for the moment, at least, she was determined not to let her mind wander. She shoved the feelings back down inside of her, knowing full well that she would have to contend with them sooner or later. Right now, though, she had questions.

"But...how is it possible?" Lauren asked, turning back to Gail, "For something like, uhm...like Reus to exist without everyone knowing about what goes on inside!? I mean, a whole giant town, built to scale, giant people?"

Gail was quiet for a moment; she seemed to be gearing herself up for a response, and Lauren's anticipation deepened with the passing stillness.

"Have you heard of Area 51?" Gail asked quietly.

Lauren was about to say "Duh!" but she caught herself, not wanting to be rude. Already, she could feel herself changing, becoming calmer, more measured, and less irritable. "Yeah, of course," was her more polite response.

"Do you know all the incredible, groundbreaking research going on there?" asked Gail, "I mean, like, things you wouldn't even believe, Lauren. Technology that normal people can't even conceive of. Weapons that will completely alter our definition of war; cutting-edge discoveries in robotics and nanotechnology that will revolutionize the medical industry. Do you know about all this?"

"No...no, I don't!" Lauren exclaimed. She could feel her heart starting to beat faster, and had the sense that she was on the precipice of yet another fundamental alteration of her worldview. Her next question came out in a childlike kind of blurt, but Lauren didn't care: "Do you know about all this stuff!?"

"Sure don't!" Gail responded, a smile brightening her features as she drove. Laren felt a bit deflated...and confused.

"But...ugh, I don't get it," she muttered, feeling her irritation starting to return.

"My point," Gail continued gently, "Is that lots of people know about Area 51, just like lots of people know about Reus, though those who do tend to be taciturn friends and family of the giants and giantesses who live there."

"Taciturn?" asked Lauren.

"Oh, it just means that they're not really willing to say much," Gail replied, "Even though they know about it...the reason of course being that they want their loved ones to have peaceful lives, unbothered by people who might take an inordinate interest in them. So yes, lots of people know about it, but, like Area 51, almost no one really knows what goes on inside."

"Because the government protects it?" asked Lauren.

"Precisely," Gail nodded. "Families of the residents have managed to accumulate enough political power to support a permanent government security apparatus which protects Reus from intruders."

"Damn..." Lauren's head was spinning again. "This is, just...damn..."

"I know, it's a lot to take in," Gail smiled kindly. "But don't worry, Lauren -- everything will start to fall into place once we get there. You'll likely be a bit overwhelmed at first, given that..."

And here Gail paused again and trailed off. Lauren was beginning to think that her handler rather enjoyed keeping her on the edge of her seat like this. But, in contrast to how she would've expected herself to react, she didn't much mind. She could feel her sense of intrigue building again.

"Given that...what?" she asked.

Gail turned around for a moment and gave her a friendly little glance before returning her eyes to the road. "Oh, well, given that you'll be the smallest one there."

Lauren felt her mouth drop open. Now there was no hope of stemming the tide of her physical reaction -- she could literally feel her clit beginning to swell, as her labia started getting wet.

"Uhm...what did you say?" Her voice had trembled slightly with the question, though not in fear. The excitement that Lauren had been feeling had suddenly rocketed off into the stratosphere.

Gail sniffed a little appreciative mirth out of her nose. "I thought that might surprise you, especially since you've gotten so used to being the giant girl around all the little midgets. But yes, I'm afraid that, at Reus, you'll be the little one that everyone else is looking down on...I mean, of course, literally, not figuratively. The residents are all very pleasant people, despite their conditions."

Lauren could barely contain her shock, her excitement...everything. She didn't know which question to ask first.

"So, I mean...I..." She trailed off, having gone into a kind of temporary vocal paralysis. Gail turned back around in her seat, giving Lauren another brief look.

"I'm sorry, I should've mentioned that earlier," she said, with a tinge of empathetic concern in her voice. "Does knowing that change your desire to go?"

"Wh-what!? No! No, not...at all!" Lauren exclaimed quickly. As soon as she heard the words leaving her mouth, she blushed, feeling that perhaps she had revealed too much about her internal thoughts revolving around the idea of size in general. The truth was that, ever since she had been a little girl, the idea of height and size had fascinated her. It all started, as with so many others, with her exposure to Alice in Wonderland -- the scene in which Alice shrank down to only a few inches tall had exerted a powerful effect on Lauren, and had planted the scenes for a size fetish that had blossomed when she became a young adult. Lauren told no one about her strange fixation, fearing that they would find her bizarre. When she masturbated, though, she often fantasized about shrinking, or just being small in general.

Her recent condition, therefore, had come as a most unwelcome surprise, and had caused Lauren to bury her fetish deep down inside herself, since she figured it was now utterly impossible to fulfill it in any way whatsoever. A 10-foot tall young woman with a fetish for being small?! It seemed that she had the worst condition possible for someone of her persuasion.

And yet, now...Lauren could feel these feelings rekindling again. But her excited exclamation had been the first external indication she had ever shown anyone about her fetish, which was why she was blushing now. Gail, though, in her typical calm and understanding fashion, simply smiled as she proceeded off onto a smaller highway, one that went straight into the rural heart of the country.

"It's okay, Lauren," she said genially, "You really don't have to worry about anything. It's quite common for our residents to experience...well, unusual feelings about their size, both before and during their stay at Reus."

"Oh...really?" Lauren couldn't tell if Gail was referring to sexual feelings or not, but she somehow doubted that Gail understood the extent of her history with size fetishism. She hadn't told anyone about it, ever.

"Mhm, it's only natural," continued Gail, "To experience any range of thoughts, feelings, and emotions surrounding physical size, since, of course, it has such an effect on interpersonal power dynamics." Gail grinned and shook her head, as if to remind herself to stop. "But...that's not really for me to be talking about with you. You'll be able to talk all you want to your own personal psychotherapist who you'll have access to. Needless to say, they are far more qualified to speak about this kind of stuff than I am. I'm just speaking from experience, and from what I've seen and heard from others."

Lauren was listening to what Gail was saying, but, as she watched the whizzing trees give way to the rolling fields of the countryside, she could feel her next question burning in her mind. Part of her didn't even want to ask, since it would further expose her fetish, but Gail's light, reassuring demeanor had encouraged her, and made her feel like she could shed the hard outer shell of her exterior.

"So..." Lauren ventured in a quiet voice, after having taken a deep breath to keep her voice from quivering, "How big is...is everyone else there?"

"Well let's see...I guess we have to start with Nancy and Greg, Reus's co-founders." Gail watched as a red sports car zoomed past her in the left lane. "Geez," she muttered, chuckling to herself, "That guy sure is in a hurry! I'm already going 80..."

"So how big are they?" Lauren asked, letting her eagerness get the better of her.

"Haha I'm sorry, Lauren," laughed Gail, "Got distracted there for a minute...okay so, Greg...hmm, last I remember he's about 25...no wait...26 feet. And his wife Nancy is 32 feet tall, and for a while she was the tallest. Actually, I think since Reus was founded she was always the tallest. But recently her eldest daughter Nicole overtook her, and I don't think Nancy was too happy about that! Haha she always loved being the tallest. But goodness, Nicole has been shooting up like a weed -- what is she now? I think...god, I think she must be 38 feet tall by now. And she's got company too, because I believe her younger sister Kayley has also recently overtaken their mother. Last week Kayley measured out at 33 feet, and if the current precedent is any indication, she'll be as tall as her sister, and maybe even taller!"

To Lauren, once Gail had mentioned "25" and "32 feet," the rest of the words sounded like they were coming at her through a tunnel. She had been expecting her handler to say that most Reus residents were 11 or 12 feet tall, and that maybe, maybe...the tallest ones were like 15 feet. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that there were people there who were over 20 feet...THIRTY feet tall!! The rolling fields outside her window passed by like a blur in her vision, as she tried to picture what such a gigantic person would look like from her perspective.

'If I'm 10 feet,' she thought breathlessly, 'And this...Kayley or Nicole or whoever...is 38 feet, then that would mean I would be, oh my god...like, less than a third of their height!? From their perspective, I would literally be shorter than a 3-foot tall person would seem to me now!'

Her brain continued to twist and somersault over itself as it performed these dizzying mental gymnastics, and from time to time Gail glanced behind, evidently enjoying the effect this new information was having on her.

"Pretty incredible to try and imagine, isn't it?" Gail chuckled presently. "But let me just say -- however hard you try to imagine it now, it doesn't even come close to the real thing, when you see these people in person."

Lauren shook her head, her mouth still partially agape. "I bet," was all she could muster up at this moment, and for the next minute or so she just stared out the window, still absorbing the shock of this crazy new information. Part of her felt incredibly excited about the prospect of being so dwarfed, but another part of her, which was becoming more intense by the minute, was feeling quite intimidated, and even scared. If Reus was full of people who were that big, wouldn't it be easy for them all to push her around? She had grown quite accustomed to bossing everyone else around, and this change of scenery was going to be a complete 180-degree turn for her.

"So is...is everyone there pretty much that big?" Lauren asked a minute later. "Am I gonna be the, you know...the total runt that everyone picks on?"

"Oh noooo, no, no!" Gail exclaimed pleasantly, "Like I said, everyone at Reus is quite nice, for the most part, at least. I mean, it's a small-town community, heheh, you know, at least in the sense of being a tight-knit group of people, right? So of course there's the occasional disagreement or conflict, just like anywhere else. But I think the reality that everyone there shares this unique growth condition...well, you know...it makes everyone more understanding of each other. And, of course, far less likely to resort to violence, especially since violent behavior of any kind is grounds for immediate expulsion from the town."

Gail paused for a moment before remembering Lauren's first question, and continued:

"And no, most of the residents aren't that big...though I must say that we've been getting a fair influx of people taller than 20 feet recently. There appears to be something of an increase in these cases. But anyway, no, most of the residents are under 25 feet tall, and a good portion of them are under 20. I think maybe...hmmmm, trying to remember here...I think that something like a quarter of our residents are under 18 feet. You'll of course be staying in the Lavender Compound..."

"The...Lavender Compound?"

"Mhm, yes -- the housing unit reserved for those under 18 feet," Gail replied. "We have a variety of compounds at Reus that are designed to meet the unique needs of each group of residents, organized by size. The Lavender Compound is for the smallest residents under 18 feet, the Jade Compound houses those between 18 and 22 feet, the Scarlet Compound between 22 and 28 feet, and the Burgundy Compound takes care of those 28 and up. Nancy and Greg...you know, the founders...they have their own special house in the center of Reus, since they founded the whole place, and also considering that their family, heheh, has unique size requirements, even by Reus standards."

"I'll be living in a compound with other people?" asked Lauren. She had forgotten that Gail had mentioned roommates before, and now that she knew she'd be the smallest one there, she was beginning to feel even more nervous.

"Yes! And Lauren, listen..." Gail said amiably, "I can hear it in your voice -- it's totally normal to feel a bit anxious. But really, I can assure you that you're making the right choice here. Your life is about to get a whole lot better. And worst case, if you have a terrible time, you'll be free to leave. But you should take it as an encouraging sign that no one who has moved into Reus -- not a single one of our residents -- has ever moved out once they got there. Now that's got to tell you something positive, right?"

Lauren nodded her head as she turned to look back out the window. Her head was swirling with all the new information, and it was difficult not to feel anxious about moving into this strange new village field with people who dwarfed her -- with some of them more than triple her size! But Gail had done a good job to reassure her, and she managed to keep her anxiety under control the rest of the trip. She even managed to doze a little, and was roused by the gentle sound of Gail's voice:

"Might wanna wake up, Lauren -- we're here!"

She opened her eyes and sat upright, heart pounding in her chest. The rolling fields on either side of them hadn't changed, but, looking forward, she saw that their car was about to descend down into a valley, the extent of which she couldn't yet see. But before she could see what lay beyond, they had to drive under a huge, stone, gated archway, with the word "Reus" displayed in gigantic black iron letters across the middle. Gail stopped the car at the gate, whose high black bars, ornately decorated, remained closed.

"And remember Lauren," Gail was saying, as she signaled to the guard who had come out to check her credentials, "This gate isn't to keep you or anyone else in -- it's to keep everyone else out."

Moments later, the guard had opened the gate and waved them in. Gail drove slowly through the gate, and suddenly, as the car began its descent on the steep slope, Lauren saw the entire extent of the valley open up before her. She felt a thrilled jolt go through her, even as her mind struggled to process what it was seeing. Reus Village. The shape of the houses and shops were the same as any other, with all of them painted a variety of bright and inviting colors. But even though Lauren had been trying to prepare for what it would look like, the sheer scale of everything was mindboggling. Houses and shops rose hundreds of feet into the air, with doors and windows that were as tall as three-story buildings. Street lamps towered so high up into the air that Lauren had to arch her head to look up and see the gargantuan lighting fixtures on top. The sidewalks were huge expanses of pavement, and it suddenly occurred to Lauren that the roads themselves, along with the traffic lights were the only "ordinary-sized" things that she saw.