Passages
One evening, as Jasmin's height was approaching seven feet, Ray got home late from putting in some extra time at the lab. He saw her when he entered. She was standing in front of the full-length mirror with her back to him doing ballet exercises.
It had been days since she'd been to ballet class. Her sense of dedication to the discipline, coupled with her truancy from it, had exacted a heavy toll of guilt, and emptiness. Aside from the impossibility of her getting into any of her dance cloths, she was mortally afraid that her appearance would be an unwelcome distraction to her extended family of friends. She was also very concerned that her now enormous muscles would greatly hamper her ability to move. She'd called her beloved teacher that Monday with the excuse that she was ill. She hated lying, but didn't know how else to account for what she knew would be an undeterminable period of absence. It hadn't helped that her teacher had wished her well, and hoped to see her back in class soon.
Her thick, black mane was drawn back into a neat chignon, which showed to good advantage the outline of her delicately shaped head, and her small, close-set ears. She wore her Gwen outfit, even though it now covered very little of her. She'd had to let the laces out more each day. The trunks now had a six inch gap in each side. The gaps in the top were even wider. The fact that her constantly expanding breasts, and muscles, hadn't burst it yet was testament to Gwen's prowess at sewing. She'd used a strong, tight stitch in lining the lace holes so that, no matter how hard Jasmin's developing body fought against it, the seams of the ensemble held.
Captivated by her size, and beauty, Ray stood in the open doorway watching her. He knew how she missed her classes, and it was not unusual for her to do some exercises on her own. What he found peculiar was the way in which she moved. He noticed that the extreme bulk of her muscles now gave a different shape to the arcs, and angles, that made up ballet. Far be it for this to have presented a problem, however, since she still moved with the same fluidity, and grace, that she'd always had. In fact, everything about the way she moved was exactly as it had been before her transformation . . . except for one thing. An essential element was missing, and Ray could see that that element was confidence. It was with extraordinary slowness that Jasmin performed what his limited knowledge told him were the most rudimentary of moves. She would painstakingly execute the same basic motion over, and over, always with same exacting slowness.
He became concerned when he caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. He noticed that her cheeks were tear-streaked. Ray cast his eyes about the room for the cause of her mood until he saw the screen saver running on their computer.
Jasmin didn't notice as Ray quietly closed the door after himself, then crossed the room to the computer desk. He nudged the mouse. When the screen came up, it showed a page of internet search results to the keyword 'giantism'. Several choices were highlighted, indicating that the web sites had been opened. His jaw tensed when he saw phrases such as 'symptoms of', and 'coping with' in some of the highlighted item's sub-topics, and then he sighed as it became clear to him why she'd been crying.
She'd been doing so well, he thought, adjusting to her new self, and now she'd gotten it into her head that she was sick. He knew that the time would've eventually come when she'd descend into some sort of valley of darkness of her own invention. Her relentless drive for perfection, and her knack of being overly self-critical, would've dragged her down sooner, or later. He knew that, but she had been doing so well.
Now it was time for him to assess the damage, and make repairs where he could. He watched her from the side as she performed one slow-motion demi-plié in second position after another, trying to determine the challenge he faced, then he approached her from behind, and lightly supported his extraordinary partner at the waist as he looked at her in the mirror from under her massive, upraised arm.
"Hey, Imp," he spoke to her intimately.
Jasmin saw his image behind her own in the mirror. She felt his fingers on her sides. She went on with her work uninterrupted, his presence apparently giving her no comfort as it did nothing to assuage the sad expression from her face.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
She answered him as best she could.
"Trying," she said haltingly. "Searching."
She started another plié, then broke off in the middle of it, stood erect and stepped away to one side. She reached a hand behind her head, and withdrew the clip that bound her hair. Letting her hair down always announced that she was through with dancing. The bun dropped a bit, and sagged to one side, but remained intact. Jasmin didn't bother to shake it out.
"I don't know," she finally said.
She sounded terrible. Ray reached up, and lightly stroked the side of her arm.
"Can you tell me what's wrong?" he asked.
She avoided looking at him.
"I don't know," she would only reiterate.
"Yes you do," he coaxed her softly. "Come on."
Her mind reeled.
"I . . . I can't . . . move anymore."
She'd spoken as though it were a mortifying confession.
Ray wondered about her statement for a moment.
"Wul, what do you mean you 'can't move anymore'?"
"I don't . . . it's the . . . I can't."
She struggled painfully. So painfully.
"Why not?" he tried coaxing her gently.
"It's . . . the nerves."
At last, it was out.
"My nerves are all messed up now," she explained as best she could. "It's the nerves."
Ray tried to reassure her by dismissing her concerns.
"No their not, now come on . . . "
The approach backfired, however, as Jasmin became more agitated.
"Ray, you don't understand," she asserted hurriedly. "It's the nerves."
They stood looking at each other for awhile; he, waiting for her to go on - she, too frightened to continue. He hated seeing her like this. Tired from work, and exasperated with her hedging, Ray gave up waiting, and sighed.
"Alright," he began slowly, and with labored patience. "What about, 'the nerves'?"
Jasmin hesitated.
"They don't grow," she informed him with great foreboding.
He waited again for her to continue. It only added to his displeasure to realize that he had to prompt her again.
"Okay. So they don't grow."
"It's genetics," Jasmin said after another moment. "A person is born with a genetic blueprint designed by evolution to keep everything in balance, and in harmony with each other. Like the heart, and the lungs, and the ribcage; they all have to be in proportion to each other within fairly narrow limits if all of them are going to function properly. If one of them gets out of proportion, it affects the rest, like if the heart gets too large, you can't get a deep breath . . . "
"Yeah, yeah, okay, okay," Ray said, trying to be patient, but wanting to get to the point. "I got you, but what 'as that got to do with, 'the nerves'?"
"Well," she continued, "if a person is meant to be a certain size, and then something happens to make that different, then the blueprint gets, like . . . defiled."
Ray waited.
"Defiled," he prompted her again.
"Yeah, like, well . . . the nerves - "
"Okay, good," he commented grandly as he walked over to the couch. "We're finally getting to - 'the nerves'."
He took a seat on the couch, then leaned back, gesturing for her to continue.
Jasmin was not pleased with his demeanor. It only made her feel worse.
"You're not taking this seriously, are you?"
"No, I'm not," he admitted casually.
Hearing this made Jasmin squeeze her eyes shut as tears flowed from them once again. Ray sat up quickly, and pointed a finger at her.
"And you should be thankful - "
The entire room shook suddenly as the huge, distraught woman stomped her foot on the floor, glaring at him through her pain.
"This is serious, Ray!" she stated vehemently.
Her insistence only made him more angry.
"If I took it as seriously as you wanted with the way you are now, we'd be making a suicide pact to jump off a fucking cliff fer God's sake!"
"The nerves don't grow!" she blurted helplessly. "Instead, they get . . . torn apart!"
While taking some time to cool down, Ray could see that getting Jasmin out of this state was going to take some work. He could also see that it wasn't going to help if he got upset himself. He leaned back, and draped his arms along the back of the couch, then took a breath.
"Okay . . . ," he prompted her calmly in a quieter tone.
Jasmin knew she was being required to elaborate. She lowered herself to the floor, and crossed her legs. She carelessly shook, and raked, her hair out as she took some time to get herself enough under control to explain.
"I did some research on the net," she began, "and it says that giantism is almost invariably caused by some outside disturbance to a person's body. The result is that the person grows uncontrollably, and, while the bones, muscles and everything else grows, the nerves, somehow, don't grow. They remain the same, and yet everything else is growing, constantly."
"Okay . . . ," Ray acknowledged with a nod.
Jasmin raised her hands, trying to think of a way to go on, then, seeing her fingers, she held them before herself for Ray to see.
"Okay, it's like . . . say my hands are two nerve cells, okay?"
Ray nodded patiently.
"Okay now . . . the nerve cells have these like . . . little tentacles coming out of them," she wiggled her fingers to demonstrate, "and that's how they communicate with each other, and keep everything running, and functioning."
"Yeah," he prompted, nodding again.
"Now, if a person's genetic code says that the nerves are supposed to be like this," she explained as she interlaced her fingers, "then . . . this is how the nerves have to be so they can talk to each other. Now, with giantism, everything grows except the nerves, so that, what happens is that the nerves get pulled apart," she slowly drew her hands apart to demonstrate, "like this, you see, so that now, they're like this," she stopped her hands with her fingertips barely together, "and function is diminished." She rejoined her hands as before. "The nerves were meant to work like this," then she pulled them apart again, "and now they're like this, and they can't talk to each other anymore, and it's everywhere. It affects everything."
Jasmin had become progressively more upset as she'd continued with her explanation. Ray could see that she was seriously beginning to loose it. He sat forward.
"Impy . . . ," he implored her.
"People with giantism are invariably clumsy, and uncoordinated," she went on, unable to stop. "Their bones become very fragile, and their circulation sucks. And it's all because their nervous systems are literally ripped apart, and nothing can communicate with anything anymore, and their oafish, and it's not their fault . . . "
She couldn't go on. She sat where she was on the floor, suffering horribly.
It was equally difficult for Ray to see his woman the way she was. Groping blindly for a way to help her, he made a first attempt.
"Impy, that's okay, but what has that got to do with - "
"I'm a giant, Ray!" she shouted at him with all her tortured heart.
Hearing her own admission reduced Jasmin to very bitter tears. She slumped forward, and lay her face in her hands.
It was getting worse, fast. Ray rose, and went to her. He crouched before her, and rested his hands on her quaking shoulders.
"Impy," he gently called to her. "Impy, come on."
He improvised as best he could.
"Hey, y'know, it's . . . 't's not all that bad, okay? You, uh . . . you're . . . yer different, okay? Your heart, your muscles, your liver, and yes, even your nerves, everything, they all grow, and develop together, and stay in perfect balance and harmony with each other. That's the way the formula was designed."
She looked up at him with sudden clarity. Looked at him through her hair, and through her tears.
"How can you say that when so much has happened that you don't have a clue about?" she demanded.
She had him, and they both knew it. Jasmin swept her hair back from her face, and pressed on.
"You remember when I first really started growing taller? I almost fell."
"Wul, what were you doing?"
"I was trying to step into some shorts. I lost my balance, and I almost fell."
"Jasmin, that was just after you'd grown nearly a foot," Ray explained. "In the blink of an eye, you were twenty . . . thirty percent bigger. You can't expect yourself to adjust to something like that immediately. It takes time. And you did it. You adjusted to it just fine."
But this wasn't what she wanted to hear.
"I can't balance anymore," she muttered, lowering her eyes to the floor. "On demi-pointe . . . I can't balance."
"Awoh bullshit!" Ray tersely asserted. He was getting frustrated with the whole situation, and especially with her stubbornness. "I saw what you were doing. Transitions between poses aren't meant to be that slow. Shit, if you're going to spent an hour getting up on your toes, of course you're going to have trouble maintaining balance. Hell, it's like you're trying to dance, and shoot yerself in the foot at the same time."
"You don't understand,' she forlornly maintained.
"I do understand," Ray retorted, getting to his feet. "That's what you're having so much trouble with; I do understand!"
With that he turned, and left her. Jasmin looked after him as he went.
"Where're you going?" she wanted to know.
Ray disappeared into the hallway without answering. Jasmin waited for a time before curiosity prevailed, then she got to her feet, and carefully padded after him. Poking her head into the hallway, she saw him coming towards her from the bedroom. He had their cadcam in hand, and was preoccupied with checking it over to make sure it had film, and was in working order. Jasmin backed away to clear the doorway for him
"Come on, let's go," he said as he passed her by without a look, and headed for the front door.
"What?" she asked, completely lost.
Ray paused at the coffee table where he'd spied her bottle of oil.
"Come on," he told her a bit more forcefully, taking up the bottle before proceeding to the door.
"Where?" Jasmin wondered suspiciously.
His hand was on the doorknob as he looked at her.
"We're going outside to take some pictures," he stated in a way that was not open to discussion.
Stunned by the realization of what he meant, Jasmin tried to make her massive body disappear as she backed away.
"No!" she pleaded in terror.
"Yes," Ray countered, coming toward her with determination. "I'm going to film, you're going to dance - just like we've done any number of times before."
"Noo," she begged him, her back to the wall.
Ray stopped in front of Jasmin, looking up at her as she looked down on him. He shook the cadcam under her nose as if it were an extension of his fist.
"Only this time," he told her sternly, "you are not going to pick yourself to bits, and pieces."
"Ray, please."
"You are going to see what you can do, and see how well you move."
"No, I . . . I can't!"
"Your size is the only reason you haven't gone to class - "
"I . . . oh God . . . I can't!"
" - not the way you move!"
"Noooo!" she wailed.
Desperate for escape, Jasmin pressed her back against the wall so hard that it audibly began to give from the pressure of her weight, and strength. At his wits end, Ray grabbed her by a wrist, and made for the front door. Fear, however, rooted the powerful young woman where she was. When she felt her shoulder move forward from the pull on her extended arm, Jasmin issued a piercing squeal of agony, and tore herself from his grasp with such force that she buried her elbow into the wall behind her.
Mindless of what she'd done, Jasmin descended into helpless panic. Her skin went alarmingly pale, and her huge muscles twitched, and quivered out of control. Her stomach tightened forcefully at the same time her enormous chest begged for air. Violent, uncontrollable trembling overtook her massive limbs as she babbled endlessly about, "my nerves", and, "I can't".
Ray stood numb with shock, and disbelief. He'd never seen his Jasmin so overwhelmed with fear. He'd seen her in panic situations, yes, but she'd always been able to snap herself out of it. This was different though. She wasn't coming out of it. She was utterly engaged, and completely unable to free herself. As he witnessed his love so taken, a hitherto untapped region of Ray's mind engaged. On an instinct, he stepped up, and delivered a resounding slap to one side of her face.
Jasmin's large head yielded to the force of the blow, twisting sharply away from where Ray had struck her. Everything then froze. Her eyes shut tight, the stunned giantess stood with her back to the wall, her massive chest in full expanse. All involuntary movement she'd been subjected to ceased. Time began to move again when a great blast of air issued from Jasmin's open mouth as she exhaled forcefully. Both of them were in shock. She drew in a second massive inhalation, and then let out a ghastly moan.
Ray stood in gaping wonder at what he'd done. Without a thought, his action had broken the vise her mind was trapped in. There was no argument, or debate about it. There was no moral right, or wrong, or civil nicety. It just was.
He grabbed her wrist, and headed for the door. Jasmin let herself be lead along, but lagged behind, mumbling, "The floor, the floor."
With the impact of a thunderclap, Ray was struck by the epiphany that they really did need a bigger place. The way Jasmin had been compelled to move about in the apartment had gotten slower, and more cautious, as she'd gotten larger, and heavier. It had gotten to the point where she was running an increasing risk of a foot going through the floor every time she took a step. The affect of their increasingly cramped quarters on her spirit was far worse than the physical inconvenience she had experienced.
Outside, the couple strode solemnly toward the street in front of their apartment building. Ray had filmed her dancing several times before. It was a feedback mechanism Jasmin preferred so she could see the way she moved, and then work on correcting her form in class. That activity, though, had been when Jasmin was under five feet tall, and under a hundred pounds in weight. With the transformation having multiplied her body mass by who knew how many times, Jasmin had no idea of what her enormous form would look like executing the classic poses, and transitions, of the beauteous, but rigorous, discipline known as ballet. As they approaching the darkened, residential side street which had often been her stage, both of them knew that she had to find out if she could still move, or if, as she greatly feared, she had, in fact, become a 'giant' as she'd described herself.
Jasmin redid her chignon as they made their way in the evening darkness. At the curb, Ray stood under the illumined field of her usual streetlight. He finished setting up the camera as Jasmin oiled her thighs, then wiped the residue from her hands on her trunks. She rubbed her hands together, then rotated each wrist in turn within the grasp of the other hand.
"Any time you're ready," Ray told her as he moved a distance off.
Jasmin took his prodding with the corners of her mouth pursed. She looked away from him, and into herself, as she slowly walked into the street, gripping one wrist as she lead each small step with her heel at first, then, gradually, with her toe. When she released her wrist the skin was white from her having gripped it so tightly. She forcefully shook her hands to rid herself of tension. The huge muscles of her upper arms, and shoulders quaked, and rippled from her effort. She became very quiet, staring off into a tiny spot in space that only she could know about. Ray readied the cadcam when he saw her mental focus shift. After another moment, Jasmin raised a hand, then extended a foot, and she began to dance.
It was awful. She moved with the awkwardness of a rank beginner, only worse. Blessed with naiveté, beginners can be bold. They can take their first, faltering steps with confidence, because they truly do not know what they are doing. This peculiar mental blend of attitude exceeding ability is necessary if the long road toward competence is to be successfully traversed.
Because, without confidence, nothing can be done, and Jasmin was attempting to maneuver her vastly changed body within a vacuum of confidence. The classical poise, which had been second nature to her, was completely gone. She bumbled, she stumbled, taking one misstep after another, at times even tripping over her own feet.
Eventually, Ray couldn't bear to watch anymore. He turned off the cadcam, and lowered it from his eye. As he rewound the tape, he prayed that she'd be able to work herself out of it, but wondered if her fear about her nerves was actually true.
Jasmin kept moving, however. Throughout what had to be humiliating exercise, she kept moving. Even as badly as she moved, she kept on moving. Something, almost in spite of herself, kept her in motion as she awkwardly proceeded from one sadly executed pose to another. She just kept moving . . . moving . . .
Eventually, Jasmin's training, and talent, could endure no more of her enforced incompetence. 'Enough!' they declared. Another part of her mind took over. She got more caught up in the raw feeling of what she was doing. Limitations fell away, and then, in a moment of sublime surrender, one enormous arm swept high up over her head.
The breakthrough had been made. She was free.
The sense of liberation intoxicated her. She was the mistress, not her surroundings. She didn't have to be concerned about the damned ceiling. She didn't have to worry about the damned floor. She was free. Free to move as she damned well pleased.
No sooner had Jasmin gleaned the opportunity, than she seized it with all of her extraordinary might. She relaxed. She lengthened. She grew. She began moving to the immutable beat of her internal metronome. Her transitions became beautifully fluid, her poses delicately majestic. Demi-pointe followed demi-pointe as her moves became bolder, her transitions faster. She began adding 'beats' with her feet, and the fluidity of her wrists, and arms became as supple as flowing water.
"Car coming," said Ray as he noticed a pair of headlights in the distance beyond her. Jasmin paused to visually confirm his warning for her own satisfaction, then they both cleared the street so the approaching vehicle could pass. A staggered procession of cars from both directions came, and went, and the couple found themselves standing by the curb longer than they'd expected.
"Humf," Jasmin snorted in complaint, "'t's like rush hour around here."
"Well . . . ," Ray intoned noncommittally in an attempt to take the edge off her edginess. He knew she could be irritable when she was focused on her dancing, and he was quietly thrilled that she'd regained her aggressive attitude. It meant that her confidence was not far behind.
Impatient to keep moving, Jasmin invented a little in-place step while they waited. It quickly evolved into an eight beat tempo of a doted eighth note with a sixteenth, the figure becoming a tuplet on the seventh beat.
Ray notice what she was doing. He reset the focus on the cadcam, and started filming again. Not wanting to disturb her concentration, he worked his way around to just slightly behind her so's to get a better view of her movement, zooming in on her lower legs.
With her open hands resting on her iliacs, Jasmin gradually intensified the pace of her step; her feet moving progressively faster, and faster, until their speed finally passed from the realm of human perception to become altogether blurred.
After muttering an expletive of amazement, Ray slowly panned up her gigantic frame to her face. She appeared to be completely calm, and self possessed, as she looked this way, and that, waiting for traffic to pass. She had to be aware of what her feet were doing, he reasoned, but it was as though it was nothing to her.
Jasmin's head suddenly left the frame. Ray panned quickly to catch a glimpse of the back of her receding head, and upper back before realizing that the street had finally cleared, and was theirs again. Jasmin pranced into the street this time, leading each step with an exquisitely extended toe, the last step being a developpé an avant, piqué into a full, expansive arabesque on demi-pointe.
She held the pose, maintaining perfect balance, until Ray could get back into position to resume filming. When she was sure that her 'audience' had returned, her jaw tighten, as it often did when she set her mind to something difficult. Inhaling slowly, Jasmin began to 'lift'; her hands, and chin rising slightly as she sought to press herself higher.
And she did rise as the toes of her supporting foot slowly extended, pressing her upward until she finally stood in arabesque on full pointe. There was no flat, no toe shoe, nothing to offer her support. She'd accomplished the feat entirely through raw will, and the awesome strength of her naked foot.
She held the pose for only an instant, then rolled down again to demi-pointe as she uttered an audible sigh of relief. The effort it had taken Jasmin to do that had been tremendous, but she'd done it. Through the unique combination of her attitude, her ambition and her continually transforming body, yet another barrier had not only been surpassed, but crushed in the process.
Emboldened by this feat of having done one thing that every dancer dreams of, Jasmin got braver in her movements, and even reckless at times. Strict adherence to technique became obscured in her will to expression. She would do a move over, and over again, until she was completely satisfied with the way she'd executed it. At times, she'd merely pace about pensively; thinking, feeling, and then, all at once, she would explode in a flurry of wondrous, captivating motion. Eventually she gave up thought altogether, and surrendered herself to a scream of consciousness. Therein lay the telling of her peace, her joy, her grief, her fear, all of what she was so intensely living.
Another car was coming; an oversized SUV this time. Ray alerted her, but Jasmin didn't respond. She kept on dancing, seemingly unmindful of the vehicle's decelerating approach, its headlights showing strangely on her gracefully fluid form.
She had to know it was there, Ray thought as he called to her again from the curb. Her response was to spot him with a stern look, execute a turn, and then go on dancing to the music in her soul. She did know that the truck was there, but she wasn't going to give it sway.
The vehicle got closer, and slowed even more, then the driver sounded the horn. In the blink of an eye, Jasmin spun 'round, and flashed both of her palms at the truck, the light emanating from them showing as brightly as a pair of suns. Blinded by the glare, the driver panic stopped, and the vehicle screeched to a halt, stopping less than a foot from her shins.
The intrusion on her activity angered Jasmin. Facing the stopped, but still idling truck, the glowering giantess turned off her hands, and lowered them comfortably away from her sides. She stood solid, unmoving, staring at the truck. Ray could see that she was angry, and called to her again. Jasmin turned her head in his direction, then slowly waved a dismissive, faintly glowing hand before him. She had heard him. She would hear him no more.
She turned off her hand as she lowered it, then returned her attention to the SUV. After a moment, she raised her hands to the front of the vehicle's hood, and pushed sharply. The response to what was, for her, hardly any effort was that the truck lurched backward violently amid the sound of screeching tires, and grinding gears. The engine stalled as the vehicle settled a few feet back from where it had been.
"Alright, that's enough!" Ray ordered her as he stepped from the curb.
"No, it's not," Jasmin told him back without looking.
She could see beyond the dimmed headlights into the vehicle's cab. She spotted the driver. He looked terrified. She fixed her almond eyes on him.
Her statement had given Ray pause. He was no longer certain of what was going on. He knew that her perception had been enhanced, and he wondered if she'd detected a medical problem with the truck's driver. He glanced nervously, to and fro, between Jasmin, and the driver. Jasmin, meanwhile, leisurely executed one graceful pirouette after another in front of the truck, changing her direction with every turn. Ray was becoming more confused, not only by the situation in general, but by Jasmin's behavior in relation to it.
"Is he in some kind of trouble?" he asked her.
Jasmin flowing to a stop at the conclusion of yet another turn. Ray could see that she was smiling curiously. She turned his way, a look of thirsty mischief in her eyes.
"You might say that," she answered in a casual tone.
She returning her full attention to the driver of the SUV. After subjecting him to a withering glare, she stepped toward the driver's side door.
Uncertain of the huge, approaching female's intent, the frightened driver hit the power control of his open window. Jasmin saw the window begin to go up. She quickly finished her advance, and clapped her hands onto the driver's door just below the window.
Through her touch, she located the energy traveling along the wires to the window control through the vehicle's metal skin, and, redirecting it, compelled the window pane to change direction, and lower once again. The shocked driver couldn't understand how what was happening was happening. He maintained his finger pressure on the switch, and the window began going up again as Jasmin relaxed her effort. Seeing the window change directions, the giantess pressed her hands more firmly against the door, applied more of her power. The window began to lower once more.
There ensued a kind of a tug of war between Jasmin, and the driver, the disputed window repeatedly moving up, then down, stopping, then moving again. As time went on, however, Jasmin began to weaken, and the driver eventually prevailed. The window finally glided all the way up, and stayed there.
Having lost this battle, Jasmin searched for something else with her transformed sense of touch. Her anger had passed, but she still wanted to amuse herself at the driver's expense. She found what she was looking for when the door lock on the passenger side suddenly popped up with an audible 'tac'.
The driver whipped his head around to the direction of the sound, but then the driver's side door lock went 'tac'. Redirecting his attention to the source of the new sound, the driver could neither understand, nor believe what now was happening. As he gaped through the windowpane at the gigantic woman's slightly menacing gaze, he could see the merest trace of a devilish smile on the corners of her sensuous mouth.
A rear door lock went 'tac', and then the passenger door sounded another 'tac'. Jasmin brought the other rear door lock into play. Once she was familiar with the locking system's wiring, she could direct the energy flow at will, and with ease. Then she got serious; first by 'tac'ing all of the locks separately, one after the other, then gradually combining them until they all were 'tac'ing at the same time, each of them at its own tempo, and rhythm.
The frantic driver was trying to look everywhere at once. He was at a total loss for what to do. Ultimately, he could only gape at Jasmin through his window. The massive oriental with the angelic face calmly watched him back as she kept up the maddening din of 'tac'ing.
How could she be doing this? the driver wondered. How could anyone do this?
And then his window begin to slowly lower again. Once he saw that his protective barrier against his feminine tormentor was evaporating, the driver's survival instinct kicked in. He knew he had to escape.
In a blur of frenzied activity, he threw the shift into neutral, groped for the ignition key, and fired the engine back to life. He found a forward gear, and hammered the accelerator to the floor. The rear wheels screeched, and spun, at the command of the screaming engine. The back end of the SUV fishtailed wildly, forcing Jasmin to relinquish her hold, and step back quickly to avoid being hit. She maintained a watchful eye as the truck inched its way forward, the drive wheels struggling for traction. When the back end of the truck was almost past her, Jasmin stepped forward, placed a hand against a rear corner of the vehicle and pushed hard. The screeching ceased as the truck lurched violently forward by several feet. The tires finally found their ground, and sped the vehicle, and its terrified driver, away.
Jasmin watched the tail lights of the SUV recede into the night. Having observed her from where he was by the curb, Ray knew that the driver had been unharmed, but he didn't like the way Jasmin had handled the situation. Even now he could see an unnerving arrogance in the way she held her carriage. Not really looking forward to what he was expecting to find out, he put himself in motion toward her.
"What was that all about?" he asked with a calculated edge to his tone.
"He was in my way," Jasmin stated without looking at him.
Ray watched her closely.
"Did you have t' be so rough on 'im?"
Jasmin actually thought about this before responding, the question having caught her somewhat off guard. Her demeanor changed visibly.
"I . . . lost control," she admitted with reluctance.
"Jasmin," Ray firmly admonished her, "we cannot afford for you to loose control."
She turned defiant again as she faced her man.
"Well, maybe you didn't notice, but that guy almost hit me," she explained defensively. "I mean, I know I look like a tank, but I'm still a pedestrian. It would've been the same thing if," she then became what she described to illustrate her point, "I'd been a little old lady on a walker slowly making her way across the street."
She became herself again as she regarded Ray once more, searching for his reaction to what she'd asserted. His look told her that he understood how she felt, but that he only accepted her argument up to a point. After a few moments, he approached her, and, reaching out a hand as he arrived, he affectionately rubbed the small of her back.
The giantess relaxed at his touch. She draped her massive arms over his shoulders, and rested her chin on his crown. Ray pulled her closer, the tight lacing that spanned her breasts pressed lightly against his throat. They remained like that; together, yet separately involved in their own reflections until they were distracted by the sounding of an auto horn close by.
Jasmin rose up, and turned to where the sound had come from behind her as Ray leaned back to peer around her. They both squinted into the headlights of a stopped vehicle waiting for them to clear the street so it could pass. Ray felt her move, and gently pressed a restraining hand to her side. Jasmin returned her attention to him.
"Let's . . . just go home, shall we?" he suggested quietly, but firmly.
After a moment, Jasmin smiled. Ray guided her as she turned with him, and rested an arm across his shoulders. Ray slid arm around her waist, and they made their way to the curb. As they left, however, Jasmin cast vehicle's driver a mysteriously haunting glance.
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