Chapter 16: Bra's Embrace
The world was dark, warm, and rhythmic.
Alex swam up from a deep, syrup-thick sleep, her mind fuzzy. There was a steady, booming thud that vibrated through her entire body, a deep bass note felt in her bones more than heard. Lub-DUB. Lub-DUB. It was slow, powerful, immense. Ellie’s heartbeat.
Memory filtered back. The parlor. The spoon. The dark, wet enclosure of Ellie’s mouth. The terrifying, intimate taste-test. Then, exhaustion crashing down like a physical weight. She remembered Ellie’s palm, the surprisingly gentle curl of her fingers, the ascent through the air. The soft, giving texture of fabric beneath her, the scent that was purely Ellie—clean linen, graphite, a hint of sharp citrus perfume, and something deeper, mammalian and warm.
She was nestled in Ellie’s bra.
The reality of it was neither frightening nor comforting; it was a simple, overwhelming fact. She was lying in a canyon of soft, ivory-colored cotton, pressed against Jess’s side. Her sister was still asleep, breaths even, one arm flung over her eyes. The ceiling above was the dramatic, curved slope of Ellie’s breast, the fabric stretched taut. Every inhale Ellie took made the world expand, the cotton tightening slightly; every exhale brought a gentle contraction. It was like being inside a living, breathing cave.
“You awake?” Jess’s voice was a muffled croak from under her arm.
“Yeah,” Alex whispered. Her own voice was swallowed by the immense, quiet sounds of Ellie’s body: the rumble of digestion, the rush of blood, the steady pump of her heart.
“We’re in her bra.”
“I noticed.”
Jess finally moved her arm, blinking in the diffuse light filtering through the lace trim at the top. Her expression was pure, unadulterated deadpan. “I have a biochemistry midterm on Monday. I’m going to be sitting there trying to recall the Kreb’s cycle, and all I’m going to see is the inside of my mother’s mouth.”
A giggle hiccupped out of Alex before she could stop it. It was stress and relief and utter absurdity all tangled together.
Suddenly, the world tilted. They slid an inch toward the center, cotton bunching under them. Ellie was moving.
The giantess’s voice came from somewhere far above, a resonant murmur that passed through her ribcage and into the space around them, making the air hum. “They’re asleep. It was… taxing for them.”
Jules’s reply was a brighter, clearer vibration. “You think? You ate her, Ellie.”
“I did not eat her. I sampled her.”
“Semantics. You’re lucky she didn’t have a full-blown panic attack. Or punch you in the uvula.”
“She is resilient. They both are.” Ellie’s tone was matter-of-fact, but there was an undertone of pride. The world shifted again, a smooth, swaying motion. Footsteps. Each step was a distant, colossal impact, followed by a rolling sway that made Alex grab onto a seam for stability. Jess clung to the underwire.
They were walking home.
Outside their fabric enclosure, the world passed by in glimpses through the lace and the gap at the top. The ruined, grandeur of the Melting Giant Parlor shrank away, replaced by the cavernous street, the colossal curbstones, the towering streetlamps casting pools of light Ellie stepped over without a glance. The night air was cool, whistling faintly past Ellie’s neck, a sharp contrast to their cocooned warmth.
“You’re just going to carry them home like that?” Jules asked, her voice getting louder as she presumably walked alongside.
“It is efficient. They are secure. And they smell like dessert.” Ellie’s hand, a mountain range of slender fingers and neatly trimmed nails, appeared above them, blotting out the light for a moment. It didn’t reach in, just hovered, a protective canopy. Alex felt the heat radiating from Ellie’s palm. “My portable curiosities.”
Jess leaned her head back against the warm skin beneath the cotton. “We’re curiosities now. Great.”
“Better than a mouthful,” Alex mumbled.
Jess elbowed her, but there was no real force behind it.
The rhythm of the walk was lulling. The heartbeat, the footsteps, the slow breath. It was the most vulnerable Alex had ever been, and yet, she’d never felt more protected. There was no safer place in the world than right here, held against the skin of a being who could, on a whim, end you, but who chose, with meticulous, sometimes terrifying care, to keep you.
Jules chuckled, the sound sweet and low. “You’re such a weirdo, Ellie. I love it.”
“Your definition of ‘weird’ is flawed. It is practical.”
“Practical,” Jules snorted. “Right. Is it also practical that you like the way your own daughters taste? Because we might need to unpack that with the tiny-therapist.”
Ellie’s pace didn’t falter. “Their taste is a data point. A unique identifier. Like a fingerprint, or the sound of their voice. It is part of their profile.”
“You profile your kids.”
“I know my assets.”
Alex and Jess exchanged a look in the dim light. Jess mouthed the word ‘assets’ with a raised eyebrow.
The cityscape began to change, the commercial giants giving way to the residential towers. Their building loomed ahead, a sleek column of steel and glass. Ellie’s steps slowed, then stopped. They felt her shift her weight, heard the jingle of keys that sounded like cathedral bells clashing.
“Welcome home, curiosities,” Ellie murmured, her voice so low it was almost inaudible outside their small space.
Then her hand descended, not to pluck them out, but to cup the outside of the bra, enclosing them fully in a double layer of warmth and pressure. The world went perfectly, utterly dark and quiet, the sounds of the city vanishing, leaving only the symphony of Ellie’s body.
For a heartbeat, three heartbeats, they were held in that absolute, silent darkness.
It was a gesture so possessive, so final. A claiming.
The pressure lifted. Light returned. They were inside the vast foyer of their apartment, the familiar scaled-down furniture clustered like distant villages on the polished concrete plain. Ellie’s fingers finally dipped into the bra’s cup, curling with impossible gentleness around them both. She lifted them out, bringing them to face level.
Her dark eyes, the size of swimming pools, scanned them. Her expression was its usual composed mask, but her gaze was soft, taking in their sleep-rumpled hair, their sticky, sundae-stained clothes.
“The banana split awaits,” she stated. “And then, beds. You will sleep in your own beds.”
She didn’t put them down yet. She held them there, a moment longer, her breath a warm, cinnamon-scented breeze washing over them.
“No more sampling,” Jess said, her voice firm despite her position.
Ellie’s lips twitched. The faintest ghost of a smile. “No promises.”
She lowered her hand toward the waiting, tiny couch, the journey down a slow, controlled descent. But as they neared the safety of their own scale, Alex looked back up at the giantess’s face, at the subtle, fond quirk of her eyebrow.
And she knew it was a lie. Ellie would always be cataloging them, in her own way. By sight, by sound, by scent.
By taste.
It wasn’t safe. It would never be safe.
But as Ellie’s fingers unfurled, depositing them gently onto the cushions, Alex couldn’t decide if that was the most terrifying thing in the world, or the only thing that made any sense at all.