I

 

     Ted Baldwin was on the road for home.

     Once off the exit ramp of the highway he drove slowly, squinting as the evening sun flashed in his rearview mirror.  He shifted in his seat to ease the unwelcome sensation of heat running up and down his back.  The pain was a symptom of inactivity-seventeen weeks of unemployment had sapped his strength and stamina, and he had been required to work hard his first day on the job.  Still, being one of the new hires for Kee Construction felt good.  Kee had won a major renovation and building contract for a dozen hi-rise offices.  The contracts almost guaranteed at least five years' full-time employment.  Now both he and his wife could relax a little.  Worries about the mortgage on the house they just purchased (his home address was still new enough to require a conscious effort for Ted to find it) and other bills had dominated the dinner table conversation recently.  Ted disliked Darlene having to go out and work, but there was no avoiding it.  Still, the fact that she was home before him meant dinner on the table and a pleasant, familiar welcome.  Ted smiled.  His entire day had been good news.  He looked forward to seeing Darlene tonight.

     As he pulled into his accustomed spot in the driveway he noticed that Darlene's car was missing.  Ted frowned.  Darlene had taken a job in the secretarial pool at the new Ikagawa Research Center last winter to help supplement their income—despite the so-called building boom of the last few years Ted, a union man, still found himself facing significant periods of unemployment, and Darlene had parlayed her learned-at-home computer skills into employment to help keep them afloat.  She was never required to work past five, and Ikagawa's facilities were only twenty minutes away.  Ted looked at his watch, unnecessarily—he knew it was almost six-thirty.  His pleasant daydreams of a good dinner followed by a backrub faded away.

     Ted stepped out of his truck.  Outside of its air-conditioned comfort the air was hot and fetid.  The heat of the evening seemed determined to press him into the ground.  A spark of pain shot up his back, adding to his irritation.  He walked stiff-legged to the front door.  Inside, the foyer and kitchen were unlit and empty, further evidence Darlene had never arrived home at all.  Ted's frown deepened.  Maybe her car—his Ford, before he got his new Ram pickup—had broken down.  It was five years old, after all.  If so, she probably would have called the house and left a message.

     Even as Ted stepped through the foyer to the kitchen, he heard the telephone ringing.  He sighed and lifted the receiver.

     "Hello."

     "Hello," an excited, high-pitched voice replied.  "Hello.  May I speak to Mr. Baldwin, please?"

     "Speaking."

     "Ah, Mr. Baldwin, I am Stewart Corwin, executive assistant to Toshiuchi Ozawa of Ikagawa Research.  Mr. Baldwin, there's been an accident at the facility.  Your wife—"

     "My wife?  What happened?" Ted asked abruptly.  Corwin had rushed out his words so quickly they nearly stumbled over one another.  The obvious anxiety in his voice provoked a similar response in Ted.  "What happened?  Is my wife all right?  What happened to her?"

     "There was an accident, sir.  Your wife is in the Harmony Hospital Center of Westchester.  You see, what happened is—"

     Darlene was in the hospital?  Ted's pique vanished instantly.  In his experience a family member suddenly being taken to a hospital meant nothing good.  Ted felt his heart begin to thump wildly.  He dropped the telephone.  His fatigue and sore back were forgotten.  He rushed out the door and back to his car.  He easily broke the speed limit on each road he entered.  Speeding north, he dodged the other, more sedate traffic in his way to the hospital complex.

     Inside the corridors of Harmony Hospital the air was mediciney-smelling and heavily air-conditioned.  Ted had pushed his way past the heavy glass doors insulating the main lobby from the outside and made his way towards the large kiosk adorning the center of the space.  He was about to speak to the receptionists when a cool hand touched his arm.

     "Mr. Baldwin?" the woman was young, well dressed and pretty.  "How do you do.  I'm Stacey Callander, from Ikagawa Research."

     In his distress Ted barely observed any social amenities.  He barely noticed Callander's smile and did not see her extended hand.

     "Where's Darlene?  What happened to her?" he demanded.

     "Your wife is going to be fine, Mr. Baldwin," Callander replied.  She took his arm and gestured down the hall towards the open door of a nearby waiting room.  Ted dug the heels of his workboots into the linoleum floor, an aggressive expression on his face.

     "What happened?"

    Callander noted the set of Ted's jaw.  She nodded in acquiescence.

     "Please be assured your wife is in no danger, Mr. Baldwin," she replied.  "Darlene just came into contact with an experimental substance one of our scientific teams was working on."

    Callander's smile broadened slightly and she nodded in emphasis as she spoke.  Her calm demeanor did not reassure Ted.

     "The material was completely harmless in the amount of exposure she received," Callander continued.  "We just transported her here to the hospital as a precaution.  Right now she is being decontaminated—"

     "Decontaminated?"

     Callander's face colored slightly.  She shook her head.

     "Forgive my poor choice of words, Mr. Baldwin.  I should say we brought her here to ensure there were no complications from coming into contact with the materials.  As I said, it's not dangerous at all in the level of exposure she received—"

     Ted's face grew tighter and tighter with each word she spoke.  He cut her off with a gesture.

     "I want to see my wife right now," he said in a loud voice.  Callander hesitated for a moment.  Her eyes strayed from Ted's tight, worried face, then came back.  Ted looked over his shoulder as he followed her gesture.  He saw three other people standing in a tight group in the waiting room into which Callander originally intended him to go.  All three were men, well dressed in suits and ties.  One, silver-haired and with oriental features, looked in Callander's direction.  He stared at them, an indecipherable expression on his face.  Then he nodded shortly.  She re-fashioned her smile on her face.

     "Of course.  Come with me and I'll show you where she is."

     Ted remained silent during the elevator ride.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Callander open her mouth to speak, hesitate, and then close her mouth again.  Ted found himself wringing his hands in anxiety and concern.  He caught himself and stopped.  Dried sweat made his skin felt tight and sticky and he rubbed at his face and forearms to ease the discomfort.

     "Here we are," Callander announced.  The elevator opened and she led the way out.

     Ted immediately felt his worry rise to near-panic.  Immediately in front of him were broad double doors.  Just below the small glass panels set high in each door were huge red ISOLATION UNIT signs.  The doors led into a small, glass-paneled room.  Blinds were drawn down in front of each panel, hiding the rooms' interior.  As he watched the doors opened and four figures slowly stepped out.  Other than the fact that they each had two arms and two legs he could tell nothing else about them under the incredible clothing they wore.  Each was encased in a bulky suit made of what looked like white-colored rubber, with rubber gloves and a rubber hood over their heads.  Only a small faceplate in the hood gave each wearer the ability to see out of the suit.  The mass of an air tank sitting on their backs under the suits made them look deformed.  They were dragging and pushing a metal wagon bearing a massive, oblong plastic tank partly filled with some dark liquid.  Ted saw the liquid it contained sloshing around as they moved. Even under all their protective clothing the caution in their movements was obvious.  Between their bulk and the tank on the cart Ted could see nothing beyond the doors. Ted felt Callander grasp his arm.  It was all he could do not to break her grip and run headlong through the doors into the room.

     "I know this looks a little scary, Mr. Baldwin.  Please believe me, your wife is all right—" Callander began.

     "What the hell is going on here?" he shouted.  "What the hell did you people do to her?  If there's no harm, why is she inside this place—"

     "Mr. Baldwin?" a new face thrust itself into his vision.  "I'm Doctor Hale."

     The new speaker was short and rotund.  He wore the archtypical doctor's clothing, a lab coat over a tweed jacket and slacks.  A pair of half-glasses sat on his bulbous nose and a stethoscope hung around his neck.  He offered a big pink hand.  Ted ignored it as he continued to move towards the doors of the isolation room.

     "Just a moment, please, Mr. Baldwin," Hale said, gripping Ted's arm firmly.  "It's not a good idea to go in there right now.  Your wife is currently undergoing immersion therapy—"

     "And what the hell is that?  Listen, pal, I get to see my wife right this minute or I start busting this place up," Ted snapped loudly in reply.  Hale faded backwards at Ted's anger, then nodded.  He waved one arm.  To Ted his gesture seemed nervous.

     "Okay, Mr. Baldwin."  Hale pointed to the window panel nearest the door.  "Look, right now we can't let you inside there, but I'll go inside and open the blinds so you can see your wife."

    Hale quickly doffed his coat and jacket.  A scrub nurse helped him into a scrub suit and mask and he slipped between the doors.  A sour, nauseating smell wafted from the room as he passed through the doors.  He tapped his foot as he waited.  Then the blinds slowly drew upwards, allowing him a full view into the isolation room.

     The hollow in the pit of Ted's stomach got bigger.  Surrounded by an array of unrecognizable equipment, his wife lay naked inside a clear plastic tub filled with some kind of cloudy, bubbling green liquid.  Even Darlene's head was below the surface of the fluid-he could see what must be an oxygen hose clamped to her mouth, feeding her air.  Five people, dressed in white lab coats over anonymous scrub suits and masks, surrounded her.  Some of the coats had what Ted thought were Japanese symbols on their backs.  He could tell little about them with their heads and faces covered. Ted looked more closely, edging closer to the glass, his hands pressing against the stiff windowpane. His breath caught in his throat.  He could see pieces of tape sealing shut Darlene's eyes and nostrils. The clamps sealing her mouth shut around the oxygen tube twisted her face grotesquely.  The people around her were poking tubes and other items into the fluid and looking at the readouts of the machinery surrounding her.  Ted noticed the same Asian calligraphy on the equipment they were using.

      "I know this looks very frightening, Mr. Baldwin," Callander suddenly said in his ear.  "You see, the material     she was exposed to was a mild—a very mild—corrosive.  It's less corrosive than common household lye, in fact.  But we wanted to be absolutely certain that your wife suffered no ill effects as the result of her exposure.  See, they're draining the bath now."

     Ted felt himself go white at the mention of the word corrosive.  He spun on his heel to face Callander.

     "I want to be with my wife right now," he growled.  Callander nodded.

     "Surely, Mr. Baldwin.  Just as soon as they finish draining the bath and clean Darlene up she'll be moved to a hospital room."

     If Callander's reassurances were meant to help it wasn't working.  Ted became increasingly agitated.  Hale removed himself from the isolation room and also tried to calm him, to no avail.  Suddenly two uniformed security guards appeared, their faces grim.

     "Mr. Baldwin, I understand you're upset," Hale said.  "Please sit down here and I'll find out what room your wife will be in tonight.  I'll take you up there and you can wait for your wife to arrive."

     "Why does she have to stay here, in the hospital?" Ted asked.  "You people keep telling me she's in no danger.  Why does she have to stay?"

     "It's just precautionary, Mr. Baldwin," Callander replied soothingly.  "I'm sure you wouldn't want your wife to suffer any unforeseen complications at home, would you?"

     Ted wasn't sure, and he knew he didn't like it at all.  Hale looked at his bitter, anxious expression and patted his hand.

     "Please trust us, Mr. Baldwin," he said.  "Everything will be all right."

     Hale escorted Ted into Darlene's hospital room.  It was a single room on the top floor of the hospital.  The pleasant wallpaper and furnishings told Ted it was top-quality space.  Ted worries compounded as he looked around.  He'd just begun working-his benefits with Kee Construction wouldn't have started yet, and his union benefits wouldn't cover the cost of a first-class hospital stay.

     "Your wife—Darlene, is that her name?—will be here shortly," Hale said.  "We just need to keep her overnight for observation, Mr. Baldwin.  You'll be able to take her home tomorrow."

     Ted was about to reply when a squeaking noise caught his attention.  A hospital gurney appeared in the doorway.  Darlene was stretched across it.  Ted forgot Hale and everything else.  He jumped to the side of the gurney, reaching out towards his wife.

     "Please, Mr. Baldwin," Hale blurted.  The doctor grabbed at Ted's sleeve, holding him back.  "Let them get her in the bed, first."

     Ted moved to his wife's side as soon as the orderlies and floor nurse cleared away from her.  He looked at her carefully.  Her skin and hair were covered with an oily sheen.  He thought he caught a whiff of the same intense, sour odor he smelled before when the doors to the isolation unit had opened—the fragrance of the soap and shampoo used to wash off whatever that stuff was did not completely cover the odor.  Darlene looked asleep.  Her mouth was slack, her breathing slow.  As Ted looked at her carefully he suddenly realized her hair was much thinner than it should be, even counting it being wet.  His mouth fell open as he realized her eyebrows and eyelashes were missing.

     "The hair loss is temporary, Mr. Baldwin," Hale suddenly said.  Ted looked at the short, fat doctor.  Hale's rheumy eyes and fixed, coffee-stained smile could not completely hide an inner worry that kept wandering across his face.  Ted felt real fear and anger now.  He opened his mouth to speak.  A soft sound interrupted him.  He looked back down at Darlene, focusing all his attention on her face.  Darlene's eyelids fluttered as he squeezed her hand.

     "Uhhh," Darlene said.

     "Baby?" Ted said softly.  He squeezed her hand again.

     "Ted?"  Her voice was soft and weak.

     "I'm here, baby.  I'm here."

     Darlene opened her eyes slowly.  She looked up at Ted.  He saw her eyes narrow as she attempted to focus on him.

     "Ted?  What—where am I?"

     "You're in the hospital, baby," Ted replied.  "The doctors here say you're going to be okay."

     Darlene's face contracted into a slight frown.  Her expression reminded Ted again that her facial hair was missing.

     "You're going to be okay, baby," Ted murmured reassuringly.  He leaned over the hospital bed's rails and caressed her head with one hand.  To his shock a tuft of Darlene's dirty-blond hair came free, clinging to his callused palm.  He looked up at Hale.  The doctor looked at Ted's hand.  His eyes grew wide, then he looked away.

     "It's-it's only temporary," Hale said again.  Ted felt tears begin to well up in his eyes.  He looked back down at his wife.  She had closed her eyes again in sleep.  An angry fear filled Ted.  He fixed a fierce expression on Hale.

     "What the hell happened to my wife?" he snapped.

     "I understand that she was helping transfer documents onto a new computer system," Hale replied.  His tone was slow and uncertain.  "One of our top researchers needed to have his materials translated into english and put into the database.  Your wife was asked to work with the translator in his lab.  While she was there a canister of—of an experimental substance broke.  It released its contents into the room.  Dr. Ito managed to get everyone out with only slight exposure to the materials he was working on.  You saw the bath she was put in?  That was done to preclude any possibility of her suffering any ill effects from the exposure.  Your wife is going to be fine, Mr. Baldwin."

     Fatigue and worry were sapping what little energy Ted still possessed.  He only half-heard Dr. Hale speaking softly and insistently as he rubbed Darlene's hand with his own.  Her skin felt as oily as it looked and the sour smell persisted.  Darlene continued to sleep deeply, her breathing slow and shallow.  Despite his best efforts Ted felt his eyes wavering shut from the exhaustion that was steadily creeping up on him.  A touch on his arm made him jerk upright from the slouch he had fallen into.

     "Mr. Baldwin?  I said your wife is sedated," Dr. Hale said.  He gestured broadly.  A wide, insincere smile crossed his face.  "She will be asleep all night.  The company's arranged to have a private nurse here all night to keep an eye on her.  You needn't worry."

     "Mr. Baldwin?"  The sound of Callander's voice startled Ted.  She must have slipped into the room a few moments ago.  He was so tired he did not notice.

     "Why don't you go home, Mr. Baldwin," she continued.  "If you like we can have a company car take you."

     The heavy malaise imposed by stress and his long day was really beginning to catch up with Ted.  His eyes began to swim again as he shook his head at Callander's suggestion and rose.  He squeezed Darlene's hand one more time before he left her bedside.  Both Hale and Callander continued to speak to him but he was so tired he paid no attention to their words at all.  His movements were like those of an automaton as he walked out of the hospital.  It took a few moments of what limited energy he still possessed to find his pickup.  Seating himself, he struggled to find the ignition switch with his key—

     Ted snapped awake.  His eyes felt fouled and gummy and he blinked several times to clear them.  He looked around.  He was slouched in his easy chair.  Slanting sunlight coming in through the nearby window made him squint.  He rubbed his eyes again. He remembered finding his way home last night and falling into his chair.  All he could think of was his wife, lying in a hospital bed with her hair falling out.  He must have fallen asleep in the chair instead of going upstairs to bed—

     Ted suddenly remembered what had happened.  Darlene.  She was in some sort of accident. He remembered his wife lying naked in a pool of some foul-smelling liquid.  It was a decontaminating bath, they had said.   He snapped fully awake. Ted jumped to his feet.  Shivers of fear coursed up and down his spine. God, he had to see her—

     Ted stopped.  He shook his head to clear it.  The sunlight streaming in through the window reminded him of something else.  He looked at his watch.  Nine o'clock.  Oh, no.  He was late for work, and it was only his second day on the job.  He had fallen asleep at-three this morning?  Four?  He couldn't remember.  Ted shook his head again.  Worry and the length of the previous day were muddling his thinking.  He had to go see Darlene-that much he knew.  Ted found it hard to think of anything else.

     Ted showered and dressed quickly.  As he was pulling on fresh clothes he realized that he had not gotten any contact information for his new employer.  Ted sighed in frustration.  He was going to have to stop at the job site first before going to the hospital.

     It only took a few minutes for Ted to find the foreman at the construction site.

     "You need what?" Bill Mancuso asked.  He was a potbellied man with a florid, weathered face that sprouted an immense, frizzled beard.  "What happened?  You just started yesterday."

     "I'm sorry, Mr. Mancuso," Ted began, "but something has come up."

     "Like what?"  Ted had learned the day before that Mancuso was a cheerful dictator, demanding a full days' work from every employee under his eye.  He saw his foreman's expression grow jaundiced.

     "What's going on?" a new voice asked.  Ted turned.  His new employer stood immediately behind him.  James Kee was a tall, well-built man with a tanned complexion and a ready smile.  He turned to Ted and offered his hand.

     "How are you, Ted?" he asked.  "You look worried."

     Ted was surprised.  Kee Construction had a good reputation both among its employees and its clients as a capable, solid company.  With over a thousand employees it was also very big.  When he had interviewed for the job Ted had been surprised to see the owner actually participating in the task.  Even more surprising was the fact that Kee remembered who he was.

     "Baldwin here says he needs the day off," Mancuso growled.

     "It's not for me, you understand," Ted said quickly.  "My wife was in an accident at her job yesterday.  She's in the hospital.  I just want to be with her."

     "Your wife?  In the hospital?  I'm sorry," Kee said.  His small gesture cut off Mancuso in mid-sentence.  "By all means, take the day.  Bill, mark Ted as present for the day.  I'll authorize it."

     "Okay, chief," Mancuso replied.  Kee nodded.

     "Is your wife going to be okay?" he asked Ted.  Ted noticed that he seemed genuinely worried.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Mancuso looked amused, a ragged smile splitting his face muff.

     "The doctors say so," Ted replied.  He couldn't keep the uncertainty out of his voice.  Kee nodded and thumped Ted's shoulder.

     "If you need any help, you let me know.  Here, take my card.  If you need more time, just call me."

     Ted flushed.  Kee's broad courtesy was startling if welcome.  He nodded.  Kee smiled, thumped his shoulder again, and walked away.

     "Okay, Baldwin, the boss has cleared you," Mancuso growled.  "You can get out of here.  Here, take my number, too.  Just let me know what's happening."

     "Thanks, Mr. Mancuso."

     "Don't thank me, thank the chief."

     Mancuso followed Ted back to his pickup.

     "Kee's a good guy, Baldwin," he continued.  Ted nodded as he caught the implication in Mancuso's voice.  "He's got five kids.  Talks about them and his wife by the hour.  He meant what he said.  Just make sure you touch base with me and him and everything'll be fine."  Mancuso sighed resignedly.  "Go see your wife."

     "I'm sorry, sir, but visiting hours are from two until ten p.m.," the receptionist at the front desk said in a dry, bureaucratic tone of voice.  Ted stared at the receptionist.  The bouquet of flowers held in his hand began to shake as his temper went from cool to simmer.

     "I was told I could see my wife at any time," he replied.  "Her name is Darlene Baldwin.  I'd like to see her now."

     The receptionist looked rebellious for a few moments, then turned to her computer terminal.  She pecked at the keys for a moment, then peered closely at the computer screen.  Ted's eyes wandered as he struggled to keep his annoyance in check.  His eyes fell on a sign behind the receptionist's counter that read VISITING HOURS DAILY 2:00PM TO 10:00PM.  He sighed and looked at his watch.  It was just approaching eleven in the morning.  The idea of fighting hospital officialdom was not something he relished, but waiting for three hours until visiting time began was unpalatable as well.  He gathered himself to plead his case.

     "Darlene Baldwin, you said?"  She tapped at the keys some more.  Another of the receptionists slipped beside her and whispered something in her ear.  She gave a start and looked up at Ted.

     "Oh."  For a moment she stared at the terminal like she had never seen one like it before.  Then she lifted her chin and stared at Ted with the same peculiar expression.  "Uh, okay, you can go right in.  Just sign this entry form and we'll give you a pass."

     It was obvious from the receptionists' expression that Ted's being able to see his wife before official visiting hours was very unusual.  A vague, nebulous sense of suspicion began to nag at him.  Why was Darlene the object of so much overt concern?  If the accident she had been involved in was so minor, as everyone he met kept insisting, then why the smothering layers of official concern, the amazing therapy used on her the previous evening, the surprise in people's faces?  Ted looked carefully at the receptionists' pinched face.  Her previous expression had vanished and she now looked bored to the point of official disinterest.  Ted blinked.  He was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  He promptly signed the sheet of paper extended towards him and was rewarded with a page-sized sheet of stiff colored cardboard bearing the word VISITOR in large letters.

     Ted could hear low voices as he stepped into his wife's hospital room.  At the threshold of the room he stopped abruptly, rocking on his heels.  Three men surrounded his wife's bed.  None of them were doctors.  All of them were conservatively dressed and two had briefcases beside their feet.  One man had a clipboard in his hand and was writing on it.  He paused as Ted arrived, his pen at mid-stroke.

     "What's going on?" Ted asked.

     "Mr. Baldwin?  Hello, I'm George Dallas.  I work for the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration," the nearest man said, turning on his heel and offering his hand.  "We are here conducting an investigation into the accident that occurred at the Ikagawa facility yesterday."

     Ted shook the proffered hand as the others introduced themselves.  That the New York State Department of Health was making an inquiry alongside OSHA was no surprise to Ted.  The presence of a representative of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was, however.

     "Ted?" his wife called.  With a muttered apology Ted slipped between the men.

     "Hi, baby," he murmured.  He took up Darlene's hand and squeezed it gently.  Darlene smiled, obvious relief flooding her face.  She returned his squeeze.  He presented the bouquet he carried to his wife with a flourish. Darlene accepted them and sniffed them.

     "Mrs. Baldwin?  We can talk later," Dallas said.  He motioned to the others and they stepped out of the room.

     "Oh, Ted, I'm so glad to see you," she said.  Ted was startled.  All Darlene's facial hair had returned.  In sharp contrast to the smooth baldness of yesterday her eyebrows now stood out thickly against her pale skin, and lashes once again decorated her eyelids.  He gulped back his surprise and reached out to run his hand over her hair.  This time no hairs came free on his hand.  In fact, her hair felt thicker than he remembered.  It looked a little different, too, more blond than usual.  He almost shook his head in disbelief.  He knew she had lost all her facial hair-even that doctor Hale remarked on it more than once.  Now, it looked like all of it grew back.  How did it grow back so fast? Darlene sighed happily and leaned her head against his palm.  Ted felt the warmth of relief run through him.  Tears spurted into his eyes.  Darlene reached up to stroke his cheek with her hand, then pressed her palm more firmly against his face.  Ted obeyed the gentle pressure of her touch and leaned across the bed to give her a kiss.

     "I'm so glad you're all right," he murmured.  Darlene kissed him again.

     "I feel fine, Ted, I really do."

     "When I saw you yesterday—all the things they were doing to you.  I was so scared—"

     Darlene looked puzzled at the emotion in Ted's voice and expression.

     "I feel fine."

     "Can you tell me what happened?" Ted asked.  Darlene screwed her face up in concentration for a moment, then shook her head.

     "I honestly can't remember anything that happened yesterday.  All I remember is going into one of their lab rooms to help type some documents into the new computers they installed a few days ago.  I remember hearing a hissing sound, and this cloud of gray dust suddenly fill the air, and that's all."  Darlene sniffed.  Her expression visibly changed as a thought struck her.  "I remember the smell of the stuff—it was sweet, almost overpowering.  That's it.  The next thing I know I woke up here.  What happened to me?"

     "I don't know, baby.  There've been these people from Ikawa here.  They told me it was some kind of 'substance' they were working on—"

     "Ikagawa, Ted," Darlene interrupted him.  Her tone was teasing.  Ted felt the weight on his heart lift even more.  Darlene kidding him was a sure sign she was all right.

     "So, they had you in some kind of bath when I arrived.  Stuff stunk like hell.  Then they brought you up here.  They said the stuff you got on you was some kind of corrosive."

     "Oh."  Darlene looked out the door.  "I guess that's why those people are here."

     Ted's reply was interrupted by the arrival of a nurse bearing a small wire basket filled with papers and glass tubes that rattled together as she walked.

     "How are we feeling today?  Good.  We need to take a blood sample from you."

     "Again?" Darlene asked.

     "Well, I'm afraid the lab had a problem with the previous samples and they were unusable.  I'll take it out of your other arm.  We need three altogether.  There, you're all done."

     Ted had made himself small against the wall as the nurse drew the blood samples from his wife.  He had a tremendous aversion to needles and taking blood samples always made him queasy.  As soon as the nurse labeled the samples and left he slipped back to his wife's side.  He was about to speak again when the three investigators returned.  They continued to question Darlene as Ted held her hand.

     After some fifteen minutes another interruption appeared, in the form of a heavily made-up woman in a dark dress suit followed by two men bearing a video camera and a boom microphone.  The three investigators hastily vacated the room once more.

     "Hi.  I'm Shauna Brown, with News-12," the woman announced.  "We'd like to interview you about the accident at the Ikawaga Research Center yesterday."  The cameraman snapped on his camera light on oriented the lens on Darlene.  Ted felt her squeeze his hand harder.  He slipped as close as possible to her in a gesture of support as the news crew crowded around the foot of her bed.  The reporter was barely civil and almost hyperactive in her gestures and questions.  Darlene repeated to her how she didn't remember much of anything that happened.  The body language of the female reporter visibly telegraphed her disappointment.

     "D'you know there was a fatality at the facility?" she asked.  Her voice was professional, clear, and overloud.  "A Professor Moroboshi Ito.  The cause was said to be some chemical that got loose in their labs."

     Darlene's eyes widened in surprise—probably just as this Shauna Brown intended, Ted thought—and she brought her free hand to her face.  She grimaced in pain as the plastic tubes leading to the I.V. line in her arm caught on the metal rail of the bed.

     "No, I didn't know.  I'm sorry," Darlene replied.

     "Did you know Doctor Ito?"

     "No."

     "Where were you when the accident occurred?"

     "I-I guess I was in the laboratory at the time."

     "You don't remember anything?"

     "No, I'm afraid I don't."

     When it became clear that Darlene could not be able to provide any new information the reporter abruptly ended the interview.  The camera light switch off and they breezed out of the room.  Darlene never released Ted's hand all through the ordeal.  She squeezed it again.

     "Ted, do you know what happened?  Why are all these people here?"

     "No, baby, I don't.  I got a call from a Stewart somebody last night, telling me you were in some sort of accident.  When I got here they had you in that bath.  I guess they were cleaning some corrosive chemical off you.  The good news is, the doctor said you could go home today."

     "Oh, good," Darlene sighed in relief.  She picked at the flimsy cotton gown covering her.  "You don't know how embarrassed I felt this morning when I got up to go to the bathroom."  She pointed to the IV stand.  "I had to drag that thing in with me and nobody had tied up this gown in back.  I was cold."

     Ted smiled and leaned down to kiss her lips.  Darlene making a joke was like a tonic to him.

     "Did you see Dr. Zarcone?" she asked.  Ted shook his head.  He felt his face grow warm.  Emily Zarcone was Darlene's personal physician.  In all the excitement and worry he had completely forgotten about calling her.

     "No, baby.  The doctor taking care of you is one of the hospital staff.  He said his name was Hale."

     "Oh."  Darlene thought for a moment.  She wriggled on the bed as she stretched her muscles like a cat.  Ted smiled again.  Even after ten years of marriage he was still charmed by that habit.

     "I'd really like to go home," she said.  Ted rubbed her hand.

     "I'll go find Dr. Hale and get you set up.  Is there anything you need?"

     "Just my clothes."

     Ted investigated the closet in the room.  It was empty.

     "What happened to my clothes?" Darlene asked.  Her voice was plaintive and clearly annoyed.

     "I don't know, baby.  After I find Hale I'll run home and get you something to wear."

     "But that was my best outfit!" Darlene exclaimed.  Ted nodded to himself.  He hid a short grin.  Darlene's reaction to her missing clothes was the final proof he needed to see.  Whatever had happened to her, his wife was clearly all right now.

     "Tell you what," he replied.  "Once we leave here, we can stop by the mall and get you another one."

     Darlene looked at his face intently.  Her annoyance vanished.

     "You got the job?"

     "Yes.  Worked the full day, too"

     "Oh, Ted, that's wonderful!"

     Ted smiled broadly.  "It's at least five years' work.  The boss is a nice guy, too."

     "Honey, I'm so happy for you.  Now I can have some peace around the house."

     Ted's smile did not diminish, but his eyebrows rose.

     "And here I thought you were getting used to having me around," he replied.  Darlene snorted.  Ted could see her eyes dancing.

     "No, but with you out of the house I can watch my soaps in peace," she said.  Ted began to laugh.

     "Now I know for sure you're okay.  I'll go find Hale and run home to get you something to wear."

     Inquiring as to the whereabouts of Dr. Hale proved unsuccessful.  It seemed the fat little doctor was nowhere on the hospital grounds.

     "But we do have other doctors on call, Mr. Baldwin," the floor supervisor explained.  The answer sounded too pat to Ted.

     "Okay, fine.  Then, I'd like to call my wife's doctor and have her come in."

     "Er, your wife's doctor?  Is she accredited by this hospital?"

     "I don't know—"

     "I'm afraid it's policy that, as a private hospital, we can only allow staff doctors to make decisions on patients here, Mr. Baldwin."

     Ted began to feel utterly bewildered.

     "You're telling me our own doctor can't come in?  I thought this was a public hospital."

     "No, this is a private hospital, Mr. Baldwin.  We used to be the Northern Westchester Hospital Center, until it was sold by the county last year."

     "Will Doctor Hale be here this afternoon?" Ted persisted.  He looked at his watch.  It was just after one in the afternoon-all the interviews by the investigators and the news people had taken longer than he thought.  He looked up from his watch.  One of the two nurses on the floor had walked over to stand behind the floor supervisor.  She straightened abruptly as Ted’s gaze fell on her.  Again he felt that obscure nagging suspicion in the back of his mind.  The floor supervisor caught herself in the act of nodding to the other nurse.  She smiled at Ted, a genuine, sympathetic smile.

     "I will page Dr. Hale for you immediately, Mr. Baldwin," she said.

     An hour later found Ted returning to the hospital, the paper bag in his hand containing a change of clothes for his wife.  Since it was now after two in the afternoon re-acquiring the visitor's pass from the front desk presented no problem and Ted walked confidently to the elevators.

    As he walked into her room he discovered that Darlene had acquired new visitors.  The formerly absent Doctor Hale stood beside her bed, one hand on her shoulder and a smile on his face.  Callander had also returned, her appearance and couture perfect.  Ted looked across them at the third visitor, a small, rail-thin oriental-looking man with slicked black hair and a conservative black suit.  He smiled broadly at Ted.  With his hornrimmed eyeglasses and buck teeth he looked just like the caricatures Ted had seen in cartoons when he was a kid.

     "Ah, Mr. Baldwin," Callander said, turning towards him and offering her hand.  "How are you."

     "Uh, I'm fine," Ted replied, shaking her hand.  Her smile stayed fixed on her face.

    "Good.  Mr. Baldwin, I'd like you to meet Toichi Ozawa.  He's chief of our Human Resouces Department in our Headquarters Offices.  We came in to see how your wife is doing."

     Ted smiled and nodded to the little Japanese man, then slipped next to his wife.  Darlene smiled at him.

     "Hi, Baby.  What's up?"

     "Miss Callander and Mr. Ozawa came in to tell me that the company is going to pay for all my medical costs while I was here," Darlene said.  Ted echoed her smile of relief.

     "That's great.  Thank you," he said to their visitors.  Ozawa gave them a jerky bow.

     "It's the least we can do, given the circumstances," Callander replied.  Ozawa startled Ted by suddenly babbling in Japanese.  Callander cocked her head to listen to what he said, then straightened and smiled again.

     "Mr. Ozawa would like to know when you think you'll be returning to work, Mrs. Baldwin," she said.  "You are a valued and valuable member of our team.  We'd hate to lose you."

     "Yes, there are certainly no reasons for you not to be able to return to work," Hale interjected, patting Darlene's shoulder.  Ted's sense of suspicion flooded him, almost overwhelmingly.  Why did they seem so insistent?

     "I don't know," Darlene replied.  Her voice was hesitant and uncertain.  "I do like the job, but I don't want to work someplace where people get killed, like Dr. Ito."

     "That was a one-in-a-million event, Mrs. Baldwin," Callander said.  "I can promise you that you will never be asked to go into one of the iso-labs again."  She paused as Ozawa again erupted into his native tongue.  "Mr. Ozawa tells me to tell you that your supervisors had already recommended that you be promoted to office manager and that they are taking the recommendation under consideration.  It's a challenging—and very rewarding—position, Mrs. Baldwin."

     "I-I'd like a couple of days to think it over," Darlene replied.  Ted almost broke into a cheer.  He had clenched his jaw to keep from exploding at the overt efforts of the part of Hale, Callander and Ozawa to twist Darlene's arm to return to work right away.  Their demeanor was so sweet it was almost treacly.  His suspicion skyrocketed into real concern.  It was almost as if they wanted her back in the place, and right away.  Why the insistence in her returning to work at the Ikagawa facility?

     "Yes, I think a couple days' off is a good idea, honey," Ted added.  He could not keep the concern out of his voice.

     "I understand," Callander said.  Her face fell into a concerned frown.  "It's not surprising you are a little shaken by what happened."  She turned to Ozawa.  A short conversation in Japanese resulted.  Ozawa's expression seemed frozen for a moment, then he nodded.

     "Well, Mrs. Baldwin, since you are part-time, you can schedule yourself as you see fit.  However, please understand that the opening for office manager will not remain indefinitely.  It's a great opportunity—I know."  Callander leaned forward a little, nodding conspiratorially.  "Not too many of us women get jobs like this in a Japanese-run company."  She smiled again and straightened.  Ted saw Darlene grin in response.

     "I'll think about it and tell you tomorrow," she replied.

     Ted paced beside his wife as she was wheeled down the corridor to the front entrance.  He tried to squelch his disquiet over the events of the last two days and failed.  Accompanying Darlene out of the hospital were Callander, Hale, Ozawa, and Stewart Corwin, who had suddenly materialized like an apparition just as she was readying herself to leave.  Corwin was a small but very polished man with nut-colored hair and sharp, inquisitive eyes.  Ted couldn't help noticing him openly look his wife up and down several times.  At any other time Ted would have felt a sense of pride whenever he saw such glances directed at her but Corwin's ice-cold gaze was disturbing.  The expression of the executive assistant to—whoever-it-was—resembled that of a farmer eyeing a particularly well-fed farm animal prior to rendering.  Corwin seemed to notice Ted's scrutiny.  His features suddenly changed, becoming concerned and smiling.  Ted began to harbor the notion that all of the people involved in Darlene's accident were actors—they spent so much time hiding their real thoughts.

     "Stacey did tell you that we are picking up the entire cost of your wife's hospital stay?" Corwin asked.  Ted nodded.

     "Yes.  Thank you."

     Ted felt Darlene squeeze his hand.  He looked down at her and got a warning look.  Ted sighed and returned her squeeze.  He knew that he could be overly cynical at times—Darlene had on occasion told him he sounded almost paranoid, only half-jokingly.  His voice must have sounded distrustful in his reply to Corwin.  He smiled down at her and brought her hand up for a quick kiss.  His wife's face dissolved into a broad smile, then just as quickly her mouth formed an "O" of concern.

     "Oh, no.  Ted, my car.  It's in the parking lot at the Research Center," she said.

     "Oh, don't worry about that," Callander replied quickly.  "We can arrange to have someone drop it off at your house.  You should just enjoy the day."

     Ted fixed a sharp gaze on Callander, whose smile and glinting eyes stayed fixed.  Darlene squeezed his hand again, and he shrugged in defeat.  "That would be great, if your could."

 

 

II

 

     Ted found himself having to work at being patient.  He stood outside the Bryant Weyrhauser store, packages in hand.  Darlene had taken him up on his offer to buy her a new wardrobe, and the elegant pantsuit-and-blouse combination inside one shopping bag and the undergarments and panty hose inside the other bore witness to their credit card account being used for the purpose.  Ted sighed.  It wasn't really so bad—with him working and Darlene's steady paychecks their credit was excellent, and his wife's happiness at shopping made the excursion worthwhile.  Ted made himself small against the railing surrounding the third floor of the Galleria Mall and watched as Darlene and a female sales clerk were picking and choosing shoes.  He looked around, bored, then reflected that it could've been worse—they may have tried this on a weekend rather than a weekday, fighting with the inevitable crowds that for him always made shopping on the last or first day of the week a nightmare.

     Ted looked up again.  Darlene was walking back and forth across the floor of the store.  Doubtless she was testing out a pair of shoes.  He watched as she stopped halfway and stooped to remove the shoes, then padded barefoot back to the clerk.  The two women put their heads together for a moment, then the clerk disappeared only to return a moment later with another shoe box.  Darlene tried the new pair.  Her satisfied smile told Ted the shoes passed judgement.

     Darlene came out of the store.  Her feet were once again clad in her walking shoes.

     "Everything okay?" Ted asked as he noted her downturned mouth.

     "Oh, yes.  I just think shoe manufacturers are trying to trick women into thinking they've got big feet."

 Ted grinned as Darlene latched onto his arm.  They began to walk back to the escalators leading down to the garage.

     "Why? Didn't they have your size?"

     "Yes, they did.  But they didn't fit on my feet.  I had to buy a size six shoe."

     Ted's smile got broader.  "Well, the important thing is they fit you.  Didn't you tell me your shoes usually felt a little tight anyway?  Or is it that time of the month again?"

     "Yes, my shoes do feel a little tight usually, and no, it's not that time of the month," Darlene snapped in reply.

     "Okay, okay," he replied, throwing up both hands in surrender.  The parcels he bore thumped his forearms.      Darlene reclaimed his arm and they walked to the threshold of the escalator.

     Darlene was quiet on the journey home.  Ted drove steadily, occasionally looking at his wife beside him.  He saw her shift in her seat and stretch out her legs under the dashboard.  Ted grinned.  The broad cab of his truck must be quite a change from the cramped accommodations of their old Escort.  The usual chaos of White Plains traffic distracted him from his examination of her and he turned back to look out at the road.  As he continued to drive a familiar sign beside the road appeared in his vision.  Ted's grin grew broader.  He snapped on his truck's turn indicator.

     "Ted?  Where are you going?" Darlene asked.  She looked out the window.  "Where is this?  Leonardo's?"

     "Sure," Ted replied.  He brought the truck to a smooth stop in the nearest parking spot he could find and shut off the truck's engine.

     "Okay.  What are we doing here?" Darlene asked.  Ted turned in his seat and reached out for Darlene's hand.

     "It's been a while since we went out to dinner," he said.

     "Yes, but why now?" she replied.

     "Why not?" Ted squeezed her hand again.  "I'd like to take my wife out to dinner, if that's okay with her."

     "But I'm not dressed for it—" Darlene began.

     "Me neither," he replied.

     "—and I'm tired.  It's been a long day today.  I just got out of the hospital, remember?"

     "Yes."

     Darlene looked up at the wealth of emotion in Ted's tone.  She looked at him for a moment.  Then her eyes softened.

     "I'm just really happy to have you back, baby," he said quietly.  Then he brightened.  "Besides, all that shopping you did wore me out."

     Darlene snorted.  A smile crossed her face.  She nodded slightly.

     "Actually, I'm really hungry for some reason," she admitted.  "That one hospital meal I got wasn't very good and it wasn't a lot either."

     "Then let's go," Ted said.  Darlene smiled and he loosed her hand.

     It was after dusk when Ted followed his wife through the front door of their home.  Darlene surprised him by almost stumbling on the last step before the threshold.  She stopped and looked down at her feet.

     "What—” she began.

     "Is anything wrong?" Ted asked.  Darlene looked up at him.  Her expression was puzzled.

     "No, I guess not.  I just stepped wrong."

     "You're just tired," Ted offered as he shut the door behind them.  Darlene paused to consider his words.

     "No," she replied after a few seconds.  "Actually, I feel much better."  She patted her stomach.  "Going out to eat was a good idea."

     "I'd hope so, after all of that penne pasta you ate."

     "I couldn't help it," Darlene replied.  She rubbed her belly again.  "I was hungry."

     Ted's eyes followed her movement, then drifted lower down.  In ten years of marriage Darlene had gained perhaps twenty pounds, giving her a belly and making her buttocks and thighs fuller and rounder as well as softening all her contours.  Wrapped in the slacks Ted had brought to the hospital for her to wear her derriere pressed out attractively.  Darlene turned and saw where his eyes had gone.  She snorted and grabbed at the packages in his hands.

     "I can guess what's on your mind," she said.  Ted grinned still more.  He glided around her into the kitchen and headed to the refrigerator.  Grabbing up a can of beer he popped it's top, then looked in a nearby cabinet for a glass.

     "Didn't you get enough to drink at Leonardo's?" Darlene asked.  She looked around him at the sink.  It was empty.

     "Ted?" she asked.  "Didn't you eat anything yesterday?"

     Ted stopped.  He had to think for a few moments.  Then he shook his head.

     "No, I didn't," he admitted.

     Darlene shook her head.  She took the beer from his hand and set it on the kitchen counter, then slipped in between his arms and wrapped her hands around his middle.

     "You're worse than a baby, sometimes, Ted," she said.  Ted looked down at her.  He saw a twinkle form in her eye.  "What, do you think a visit to the hospital means I was at death's door?  Here.  Take your beer and go into the living room.  Go find something to watch on TV.  I'll join you as soon as I put my new clothes away."

     Ted bent himself at the middle and pecked his wife on the lips.  She loosed her hold on him and returned his glass to his hand.  Then she shoved him in the direction of the living area.

     Ted seated himself on the couch.  He set his beer on the coffee table and reached for the remote control.  As the television snapped on he could hear Darlene moving around upstairs.  He was familiar enough with her habits to guess she was stuffing his work clothes from yesterday in the hamper—he had left them lying on the floor as he'd showered this morning—then he heard her feet padding towards their bedroom.  He turned back to the TV. The New Jersey Devils were playing at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he switched to one of the cable movie channels—Darlene had never developed a taste for ice hockey, and instinct formed by ten years of marriage warned Ted to be sensitive to her sensibilities tonight.   Ah, the movie tonight was While You Were Sleeping.  It was a favorite of his wife's.  He dropped the remote on the coffee table and settled back in the cushions of the couch.  Darlene appeared a few moments later, a glass of beer in her hand, and joined him, planting herself in the middle of the cushion next to his.  She smiled as she saw what was on the screen.

     As the climactic romantic scene with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman appeared on the television screen Ted slipped his arm around Darlene and drew her closer to him.  Darlene agreeably rested her head on his shoulder.  Ted felt a grin crease his face.  He began to stroke her hair.  Its softness was surprising—whatever that smelly garbage was they had dunked her in was, it certainly had a beneficial effect on her hair.  Ted could actually feel its abundant softness under his thick-skinned palm.  He began petting her and heard her sigh softly.  A smile began to form on her face.  He echoed it.  As he kept petting her hair another thought occurred to him.  Darlene's hair felt—thicker?  He let his hand run down to her neck, then to her shoulders.  Ted struggled to remember exactly how long his wife's hair was before, but couldn't.  His sense of disquiet returned.  First her hair was falling out, and now it's back and better than ever.  What did the stuff she was exposed to at Ikagawa do to her?  Ted felt Darlene shift on the couch.  One of her arms snaked around his neck while her other hand slowly slipped atop his thigh.  A mischievous grin crossed her face.  Ted spurned his morbid thoughts.  His wife really was right sometimes—he could be so paranoid about things—

     Ted kissed Darlene gently on the forehead and felt her slip her hand slip higher up his leg.  His body reacted.  He saw Darlene look down at the evidence between his legs.  She levered herself higher and lifted her chin to press her lips against his.  Ted returned her pressure.  He heard her sigh again.  He slipped his hand down her cheek.  It too was soft and pliant.  He felt her smile broaden under his hands.  He kissed her again, and again.  He could feel his own urgency increasing.  His heart leaped as he felt Darlene's hand slip up his leg to his crotch and touch the increasingly hard bulge there.

     "I think an early night would be good for both of us, Ted," she said softly, her smile huge.

     Ted squelched his surprise.  He had always been the one who proposed their lovemaking-while Darlene was always a willing partner she never had been an aggressive one.  His excitement level skyrocketed as she caressed his hard-on with one hand while rubbing the stubble on his cheek with the other.  Even as he wriggled in his seat at the pleasurable sensations Darlene was giving him he began to run his hands slowly around her face and down her neck to her collarbone.  His hands first caressed her shoulders through and then under the cloth of her T-shirt.  Darlene's lips formed a smile as they pressed against his.  Ted continued to brush his fingertips against her skin-down her arms to her wrists, slipping through her head hair and down her neck, then back to her shoulders and then her chest.  His fingers touched lightly at the outline of her bra.  He lifted his hands back up to her shoulders, then snaked his thumbs inside her shirt collar.

     Darlene suddenly sat up, then rose upright. Reaching out with both hands she pulled at Ted.  Her smile looked like it could split her face in two.  Ted obeyed her unspoken urging and stood.  Darlene never relinquished her hold on his hands as she led him out of their living room and towards the stairs.

     In the bedroom Ted removed his wife's shirt.  She quickly did the same to him, her fingers working to unbutton his cotton work shirt and tugging it free of his waist.  Darlene stepped up on her tippy-toes and wrapped her arms around Ted's neck to bring their lips together again.  Ted felt her bra brush his chest.  He bent to wrap his arms around her lower back, pressing her into him.  She murmured in response and tightened her grip around his neck, her mouth nuzzling his.  Ted slipped his hands down her back to caress her buttocks.  He cupped her in his hands and pressed her close to him.  Darlene murmured her pleasure at his actions.  Her hands released their grip around his neck and went to his belt even as he slipped his hands inside her waistband and began to slide her sweatpants from around her hips.  Darlene pulled down both his pants and underwear in one smooth motion as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her panties.

     "I love you, Ted," she whispered.  Ted joined her in drawing down the bedcovers.  They both leaped into bed, the elderly boxspring and mattress protesting their bouncing energy.  Ted reached out to turn off the lights.  The room plunged into near darkness, with only the faint light of evening filtering through the blinds to see by.  Ted reached out and began to caress Darlene's body once more.  He paused at her bra, unhooking the clasp behind her back.  As it came free Ted drew it from her shoulders and cast it on the floor.  He felt Darlene's hands begin caressing him once more and his excitement surged.

     "I love you too, baby," he whispered in reply.

     Ted felt a sense of ecstasy he had not experienced since they were first married.  Darlene spurred him to greater and greater plateaus of excitement and arousal with her hands and mouth.  It seemed to take no time at all before she was urging him to enter her, a command he eagerly wished to fulfill.  But his experience with his wife told him that she enjoyed their lovemaking much more if he took his time.  He moved deliberately and slowly, using his own hands and mouth to stimulate her more and more.  Darlene surprised him by voicing her approval in a louder and louder voice.  He gave in to his own urges and acted more quickly under the stimulus.  As he began to penetrate her he felt Darlene wrap her legs around his middle.  She clutched him, firmly pressing his middle into hers, forcing him deep inside her womanhood.  As he began to stroke Darlene's moans became louder and more fevered, until her breath caught in her throat and he felt her hands quiver against him in orgasm.  Ted began to pump strongly as Darlene's legs gripped him even more firmly, their bodies close together until his own climax made him shudder.

     Ted was gasping for breath.  As he came down from the rapture he had experienced he could hear and feel Darlene also gulping in great breaths of air.  He withdrew and let himself fall on the mattress beside her.  She turned onto her side to keep her arms around him.

     "Hmmm," she murmured.  In the dim light Ted could see an immense smile on her face.  "Now I remember why I married you, tiger."

     Ted felt himself smile back.  "And I know why I married you, beautiful," he replied.  He ran his hands down her sides to her hips.  Here he paused, caressing her gently.  Darlene loosed her hold on him and rolled onto her back to catch her breath.  Ted's hand slipped to her belly.  He paused.  It was curious, but it felt like Darlene's middle was firmer than he remembered.  He rubbed her belly, drawing a giggle—Darlene was often ticklish after they made love—and cast back in his memory of the last time he had caressed her in this way.  He pressed gently into her belly.  It definitely felt like her muscles were harder than he remembered—or that her padding had diminished a little.  He felt her toes rub down the front of his knees and down his calves.  It was pleasant and exciting sensation.

     "Let's do it again, tiger," she suddenly said.  Ted was even more surprised.  After the initial glow of their relationship had matured he had learned that for Darlene once was usually enough.  It was a shock to hear her want more.  Ted tried to mull the import of his wife's sudden appetite when she began to caress him again.  She quickly found his member and began to massage it gently.  Ted felt a surge of desire and his organ stiffened in her hands.  Darlene giggled again and stroked him still more.  Ted forgot all about his concerns as he felt his excitement rise quickly once again.  Darlene slipped across the sheet closer to him.  He felt her lips brush his ear.

     "I want to be on top this time," she whispered.  Ted's mouth fell open in shock as his wife promptly straddled him.  He felt her hands caressing his chest and middle.  All his concerns dropped away as the ecstatic feelings her gentle, insistent touches caused overwhelmed his senses.

     Ted woke abruptly.  Bright sunlight was streaming through the filter of the bedroom curtains.  He could feel the warmth in the room already-it promised to be another scorcher of a day.  Ted blinked and rubbed his eyes.  As he dropped his hand back down on the bedclothes he found one of Darlene's arms draped across him.  Ted smiled.  Soft snoring was coming from the bundle of covers beside him.  Darlene had curled up into a ball, facing towards him, her face half-covered by the bedsheet, her hair tousled.  Her face was relaxed and peaceful, and very fetching.  Her eyes were moving in a dream.  Ted stretched luxuriously, then slipped across the mattress to peck his wife on the forehead.  Memory of their sexual exercise from the night before sent a pleasant erotic thrill through his frame.  He rubbed Darlene's forearm.  She made no response.  She was obviously still deeply asleep.  Ted wasn't surprised—they had explored one another until well after midnight and he found himself both pleasantly tired and relaxed this morning as a result.

     Ted threw off the covers and rolled out of bed.  Moving quietly, he made his way to the bathroom.  A quick shower brought him to near-full wakefulness and he padded around the bed to his dresser.  He dressed quickly and eased himself on the edge of the bed to put on his boots.  Even though the boxspring creaked loudly Darlene still gave no evidence of waking.  Ted rose erect and looked down at his sleeping wife.  He debated rousing her, but decided against it.  After the last couple of days it would be a kindness to let her sleep in.  He would stop at a delicatessen on the way to work and get himself a large coffee to help him wake up fully.

     Kee Construction site foreman Mancuso was remarkably energetic.  As Ted and his fellow workers began to assemble for their assignments he was everywhere, a portly whirlwind with lungs of brass and a withering four-letter vocabulary.  Ted was about to strap on his tool belt when Mancuso's gnarled ham hand grasped his arm.

     "How's things going, Baldwin?" he half shouted.  "Is your wife okay?"

     Ted smiled.

     "Yeah, she's okay.  I took her home yesterday."

     Mancuso's gaptoothed smile split his beard.  He thumped Ted's shoulder.

     "It's good to hear, Baldwin."

     "I never got the chance to thank you for yesterday, Mr. Mancuso," Ted began.  Mancuso waved him off.

     "Don't worry about it.  Family is important around here.  That's why I like working for this outfit.  Now, get to work."  Ted saw Mancuso's eyes stray around the construction yard whose borders were crudely designated by warning cones and fluorescent tape.  He fixed on another worker who was in the process of uncoiling a pressurized air line to a pneumatic nailer.

     "Hey, King!" he shouted.  His sheer volume made Ted wince.  "Do I have to come over there and find out why that nailer in your hands isn't driving any nails?"

     The day passed swiftly.  Ted and the rest of the crew spent most of the morning engaged in demolition, as they stripped out the interior partitions of the second floor offices inside the building.  There was no air-conditioning inside the building and the sun-baked interior rapidly became stifling.  Lunch hour was a welcome break that passed all too quickly.  Ted's four-month lack of exercise came back to haunt him as he felt his fatigue increase with each passing hour.  Mancuso, who combined a remarkable insensitivity to the heat inside the building with an apparent sadistic thrill in urging his subordinates to work harder and harder, did not help his soreness.  By quitting time Ted felt like he had been flattened and left to dry in the sun.  As he clambered into his pickup he could feel the familiar sensation of burning soreness running down his back to his legs.  Ted groaned with his aches and fatigue.  Then he smiled.  At least today Darlene would be home to welcome him.

     As Ted pulled into his driveway he noted that his wife's car had returned.  He recalled that Callander from Ikagawa had said something about having someone drive Darlene's car home for her.  He shrugged.  That was one problem neatly solved.  He stepped into his home.

     Inside the kitchen it was relatively cool.  Ted's face fell as he realized he could detect no signs of an impending dinner—he could smell no food cooking and the countertops were empty.

     "Baby?  Darlene?  I'm home," he called.

     "I'm over here," he heard his wife reply from the dining room.

     Ted felt his annoyance fade.  Something in his wife's tone made him feel uneasy.  He strode into the kitchen.  A subtle crunching noise under his workboots made him pause and look down.  Tiny shards of pottery were scattered across the floor.

     "Baby?  Did you break a dish today?" he called out.

     "Yes.  It-it slipped out of my hand."

     Ted apprehension rose at the audible tension in her voice.  As he rounded the corner of the kitchen he saw his wife sitting in her usual chair at the dining room table.  Her head was bent slightly as she stared at its polished surface.  Ted could see she was playing with a small object that sparkled in her hands.  It was her wedding ring.

     "Honey?  Honey, what's wrong?  Did something happen today?"

     Ted put his hands on his wife's shoulders and lowered his head to peck her on the neck.  As he rubbed her shoulder his uneasiness strengthened, congealing inside his guts.  Her shoulders felt—different.  Darlene seemed fully occupied in attending to the ring in her hand and did not turn her head to look at him.  As Ted straightened he found himself staring at her hair.  After a moment it occurred to him that Darlene's hair looked-longer?  While yesterday it was just above her shoulders her hair now hung thickly almost to the points of her shoulder blades.  The sense of uncertainty began to nag at him more strongly.

     "Did you do something with your hair—" he began.  Darlene shook her head.  Ted's face fell.  The jerkiness of her head motion warned him that she was very upset about something.

     "What's wrong, baby?"

     Darlene placed her wedding ring on the table.  She turned slowly in her chair and then rose until she stood erect, facing him directly.  Ted saw that her expression was puzzled and a little upset.  As he looked into her eyes a sudden sense of disorientation confused him, making him blink several times.  Ted felt real worry strike at him.  Darlene's expression was tight and strained.  He couldn't understand why.

     "Ted, do I look any different to you?" Darlene asked softly.  She let her arms fall to her sides.  She was wearing one of her pastel T-shirts and her beach shorts.  Her feet were bare.  In an automatic gesture of reassurance Ted reached down and took up her hands.  He squeezed them even as he tried to sort out the disordered jumble of thoughts that suddenly crowded into his head.  More surprising was his own reaction to holding her hands.  They also felt different.  They felt almost like they were swollen.  Ted looked down at her left hand.  Darlene had not replaced her ring.

     "Baby, why aren't you wearing your wedding ring?" he asked.  Darlene suddenly jerked her hands out of his grasp.  Her expression became apologetic and she shook her head again.

     "I-it's too tight on my finger," she said.  Ted felt his puzzlement increase.

     "Do I look any different to you, Ted?" Darlene asked again.

     "Well, your hair looks thicker and maybe a little longer," Ted replied.  "Ah, other than that—"

     Ted stopped.  He raised his eyes until they were level.  The strange sense of disorientation struck him again, though less forcibly.  He looked down at her feet, then up at her head again.

     "I don't know—" he began uncertainly.

     "Something's happened to me, Ted," Darlene said.  Her voice was low.  "I don't know why, but everything—my clothes, my shoes, my ring—everything.  None of it fits me properly.  It's all too small."

     Ted stood still, his thoughts muddled.  It suddenly struck him that the top of Darlene's head was higher than it ought to be.  Her hairstyle hadn't changed—he knew Darlene did not go in for big hair, anyway—and it wasn't her hair that was distracting him.  Her forehead—it looked higher than it should.

     "It began this morning," Darlene continued as she turned away from the food to face him.  "I woke up late.  After my shower I tried putting on my favorite jeans.  You know, the faded ones."

     Darlene put her hands to her belly.  Ted's eyes widened.  As she pressed her hands against her waist h saw that the bulge around her middle had visibly diminished.  His eyes wandered down her frame.  The curve of her hips looked the same—or, did they look wider than they did yesterday?

     "When I tried putting them on I found I couldn't zip up the zipper—they were too tight on my hips.  But, I was able to button them."

     "Baby, well, maybe they probably just shrank in the wash," Ted said.

     "That's what I thought, too," Darlene replied.  "So I tried another pair.  I couldn't zip them up, either.  Ted, I've tried on every pair of pants I own, including the new pantsuit I bought yesterday.  None of them fit me.  It's not just my waist or hips, either.  The new shoes I bought yesterday, the ones that are size 6?  I tried them on this morning and they're too tight to wear.  Yesterday, they were loose on my feet."

     Darlene was really upset.  She needed reassurance.  He quickly considered the ramifications of what she had just said.  A rational explanation occurred to him almost immediately, and he fashioned a supporting smile.

     "Well, baby, you had a good meal last night," he said.  "So you broke your diet and gained a couple of pounds.  You can lose the weight, you've done that before—"

     Ted's voice trailed off uncertainly.  He looked again at his wife's waist, then his eyes wandered up her frame.  Either her belly had markedly diminished, or her breasts were swollen—her physique suddenly reminded him of how she looked when they were dating, before she had started gaining weight.  Darlene put her hands to her waist.  She rubbed her hips nervously.

     "Do I look heavy to you, Ted?" Darlene asked.  Ted felt himself sag.  The long days' work was really beginning to catch up to him.  Darlene noticed his posture.  She shook her head.

    "Wait," she said suddenly.  "I'm sorry, Ted—I've been so distracted today I forgot dinner.  Look, let's order a pizza delivered.  I'll tell you the rest after you've relaxed.  Go get those dirty boots off the carpet and grab a shower."

     Darlene had looked down at his feet.  He followed her gaze.  His boots were coated with a thick layer of wallboard dust.  A clear pattern of treadmarks spotted the new carpeting on the floor.  Darlene half-smiled and pushed at him, turning him in a circle.

     "I'll call for the food.  You grab a shower.  I'm sure you had a hard day," she continued.

    Ted was unsettled enough not to protest.  He retreated back into the kitchen and slipped off his boots.  He paused in his journey to their upstairs bedroom.  He could hear Darlene on the phone, placing an order.

     "Yes.  Make that two large pies, half plain, half sausage and mushroom," he said.  She quickly spoke their address.  "Fifteen minutes?  Good, thank you."

     Ted's urge to protest Darlene's generous order died in his throat.  Her voice was still tense, even scared.  Better to let them both have a meal and relax.  Then he would be able to discover what was bothering her so much.  As he paused on his way up the stairs with one foot in the air as he prepared to take the next step an explanation occurred to him.  He allowed the thought to roll inside his head for a second.  Darlene’s physique reminded him of when he first saw her as a teenager, when she was growing.  Then he snorted.  The idea was so preposterous it was foolish.  He thumped his way to their bedroom.

     Ted showered quickly.  Mindful of his wife's apparent mood, he made sure he stuffed his clothes into the laundry hamper and kept his boots on the wooden floor of the hall.  He put on a T-shirt and shorts then rummaged under the bed until he found his beach sandals.  As he ran his comb through his hair and re-tied his ponytail he heard the doorbell ring.  The food must have arrived.

     Darlene had already seated herself again and laid out both pizza boxes.  She paused in the act of freeing a slice as Ted came into the room.  Ted smiled and took his place opposite her.  A cold bottle of beer beckoned him to his seat.  They both drew from the boxes and ate in silence.  Ted tried to smile reassuringly at Darlene again.  She was eating with an almost single-minded intensity.  Ted watched as she literally inhaled a slice, chewing and gulping until her hand was empty.  Another, visceral stab of doubt roiled inside him.  Darlene noticed his scrutiny.  She looked downcast for a moment, then nodded and reached for another slice.

     "Something else I've experienced today," Darlene said around a mouthful of food.  She swallowed half her bottle of beer to clear her mouth.  "I can never remember being so hungry.  I've eaten breakfast and lunch today too, and I still feel hungry."

     Ted paused.  It was unusual for Darlene to eat so much, especially as she had been dieting for the last couple of weeks.  He also knew she usually never ate lunch on days she was at home.

     "Okay, so you're hungry," he began.  "You'll probably not feel hungry tomorrow."

    Darlene paused in the act of wiping her mouth with a napkin.  She seemed to consider his words.  She shook her head.

     "There's something else," she said.  She rose to her feet and gestured for Ted to do the same.  "Now, come over here and stand beside me."

     Ted felt shock crawl up his back to his neck.  He rose slowly, never taking his eyes off his wife.  The roller-coaster-ride feeling became even stronger as he navigated his way around the table to stand face-to-face with Darlene.  A series of emotions washed over him—uncertainty, an almost visceral anxiety and, most surprisingly, a sense of  desire.

     "Do you see, Ted?" Darlene asked softly.  She looked down at herself, holding out her arms from her sides.  Ted followed her motion.  Drawing out her arms had tightened her T-shirt across her chest.  His eyes told him that she definitely had both lost weight in her middle and gained it in her breasts—he could see she was pressing into her cups more than he could remember seeing before.  Then his eyes rose again.  Darlene's forehead was definitely higher than before.  His eyes darted down at her bare feet, then at his own in his flip-flops.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Darlene nod, her expression tense once again.  He looked up.

     "Do you see?" she repeated.  "I don't know how, Ted, but I'm—bigger."

     She turned on her heels to point towards the dining room wall.  As she did so Ted's eyes roved up and down her frame again.  He felt his desire increase as he saw that his first impression was correct—Darlene's breasts had definitely gotten bigger, overfilling her bra cups.

     "After I tried on my new pantsuit I stood in front of my mirror," she continued.  "Not only were my hips wider than before but I saw that the hem of my pants was suddenly up to my ankles.  So, I measured myself against that wall.  Ted, I'm two inches taller than yesterday."

     "Baby, that's ridiculous," he heard himself reply automatically.  "Look, maybe you just mis-measured yourself.  Let me measure you and we'll see for sure.  Just wait and I'll get my tape measure."

     Ted quickly went to his truck and grabbed up his small T-square and a 25-foot tape measure out of his tool belt.  He flopped his way back to the dining room in time to see Darlene polish off another slice.  She looked up as he entered the room.  An embarrassed blush crept up her neck.

     " I can't help it," she mumbled.  "It tastes so good."

     "It's good pizza," Ted replied.  He touched her arm.  "Okay, let's check your height again."

     Ted let Darlene brace herself up against the wall.  He set his T-square atop her head and scribbled a line on the wall with a construction pencil.  He noticed that Darlene's previous mark was not accurate.  But, it was wrong in the wrong way—it was just a fraction too low.

     "Okay, baby.  Now, let me lay this out," he continued.  The visceral unease that was making the pizza he had eaten feel like a lead weight in his belly rose along with his hand as he spooled out the tape.  His professional eye told him the tape was perfectly vertical and pressed firmly into the carpeting.  He rolled the tape out the last few inches until it bisected the line he had drawn.  He read the measure.

     "Sixty-five and a half inches," he said.  He couldn't help his voice trailing off.  He felt his wife's hand grip his arm.

     "Ted, you know I'm five-three."  The strain in Darlene's voice was very obvious now.  "I've been five-three since I was a sophomore in high school.  Now, I'm almost five-six."

     Ted found himself staring pointedly at the mark he had made on the wall, as if it was somehow responsible for the measure he had just made.  Then he looked at his wife.  Her close proximity to him reminded him again how different she now looked.

     "Maybe I measured wrong—" he began.  Then he stopped.  Darlene's lower lip was beginning to quiver.  Her eyes were shining.

     "Ted, I'm scared," she said.  Her voice began to quaver.  "I'm really scared.  What's happening to me?  How can I grow bigger all of a sudden?"

     Ted felt a weight on his heart.  His wife was distressed and afraid, and desperately in need of comfort.  He took her in his arms and hugged her as she began to sob.

     "Shhh.  It's all right, baby.  It's going to be all right," he said softly.  He pressed his cheek against her hair.  "I-I don't know what happened to you.  But whatever's happened, we'll get through it.  I promise."

     Ted squeezed his wife in his arms, ignoring how his exertion made his tired limbs ache.  Darlene's sobs diminished, and then stopped.  He heard her gulp and felt her stiffen in his arms.  He loosed his hold on her and she stepped back away from him.  Ted ran his hands down her arms until he could grasp her hands firmly in his own. Darlene sniffed and gave him a sad half-smile.  Her expression lightened the tight band wrapped around his heart.  She tossed her head in an effort to draw away the hairs that adhered to the damp on her cheeks and chin.  Despite her worry she looked so pretty Ted felt his sensation of desire well up inside him.  His smile broadened.  Then he turned back to the problem at hand.

     "Well, okay.  Something has made you grow a little," he said.  He kept his voice reassuring and low.  "Do you feel all right otherwise?"

     "I-I guess," Darlene replied.  "Other than my appetite I feel okay."

     "Okay, then," Ted said.  He pulled Darlene closer to him and kissed her.  "Did you call Dr. Zarcone?"

     "Yes.  I've an appointment at ten tomorrow morning.  Ted, how could this have happened?"

     Ted shook his head.  "Baby, I haven't the faintest idea.  Maybe the stuff you were exposed to at Ikagawa caused it.  I've never heard of anything like it happening before.  But, if this is all that happens to you—" he let his eyes rove up and down her body—"then I'd say you may have discovered the next beauty craze."

 Darlene snorted again, more in derision than in anxiety.

     "At least you said the name of the company right this time.  Speaking of which, I got a phone call from them this morning."

     "Oh?  What did they want?" Ted asked.  He tried to keep the cynicism he suddenly felt for the Ikagawa people he had met in the last two days out of his voice.

     "They called to ask how I was doing, and they wanted to know when I was going to come back to work.  They told me the job offer of office manager was still open."

     "Did you tell them, you know, what happened to you?"

     Darlene shook her head.  Again Ted was struck by how her hair swirled around her face when she shook it like that.  He found himself swallowing.

     "No.  I didn't realize what had happened to me until later.  Ted, what-what if I'm still, you know, growing?  What if I get even bigger than I am now?"

     "I won't mind—if you don't," he replied.  He tried hard to keep his voice as light as possible.  Darlene looked up sharply at him.  For a moment neither of them spoke.  Then she snorted again.

     "You really don't mind, Ted?" she asked.  The uncertainty in her voice was surprising.  "You don't mind that I'm—bigger?"

     Ted gulped.  He drew in closer to her, encircling her waist with his arms.  He felt surprise again as he realized her hips were higher against his wrists.

     "I don't mind at all," he replied.  He kissed her gently in the lips.  Darlene returned his kiss.  Her lips tasted like garlic and olive oil.  After a few seconds he felt her smile.

     "I just can't imagine how this happened to me," Darlene said as they broke away from one another.  She pulled her hands free from Ted's and ran them down her front.  Ted felt his manhood twitch suddenly as she pressed her bosom in her hands.  He could see her flesh squeeze out around her bra cups as she kept a gentle pressure against them.

     "God, I've really gotten bigger up top, too," she murmured.  She began to run her hands down her shirt, stopping at her waist, then her hips.  Ted felt an erection starting in his shorts as he followed her hands down her contours.  Her waist had definitely become thinner than he remembered.  A bulge in her belly told of the pizza she had just eaten.  Her hips were still as round as he remembered but her thighs had lengthened, giving her a slimmer appearance.

     "Ted, I don't know, but—I think I'm still growing," she said softly.  Her hands returned to her breasts.  "I don’t think my boobs were this big this morning."

     The tension in Darlene's voice had returned.  Ted reached out.  He drew her hands away from her chest and gripped them tightly.  Darlene looked at him.  As her eyes went down his frame she saw his erection.  A look of wonder crossed her face.  Ted saw her eyes look directly at him.

     "You really do like me the way I am now," she said.

     "Yes, baby.  I think you are very attractive," he replied.  Darlene looked down at herself again.

     "You like that my boobs are bigger?  Is that what you liked all along?" she asked.  She was suddenly, clearly miffed at his reaction to her condition.  Ted shook his head.

     "No, no.  I married you, okay?" he replied.  Darlene looked askance at Ted for a moment, then her face cleared.  Ted brought up both his hands to her chin.  He brushed his fingers along her jawline.  Darlene smiled in response and she pressed her cheek against one hand.  Ted let his other hand slip down her neck to her collar, then further down.  Darlene’s eyes widened as he touched her breast, then cupped it in his hand.  Ted felt his manhood leap to attention.  Her breasts were definitely bigger than her usual B-cup.  Darlene’s expression became troubled, but she did not pull away from him.  Ted moved his other hand to her bosom and squeezed gently.  A soft noise escaped her lips.

     Ted's next surprise was an utterly pleasant one.  Darlene stepped towards him.  She brought her hands around his neck and pulled his head down for a kiss.  His hands were mashed between them, squeezing her breasts still more.  He heard a soft moan come from Darlene's lips.  She broke the kiss.  Ted dropped his hands around her waist.  She drew close to him again.  They kissed again and again.  Each kiss was longer and more urgent than the one before.  It soon became clear to Ted that Darlene had forgotten about her increase in size.  He didn't care either.  She took his hands and led him upstairs once again.  She drew him into bed, then jumped atop him again.  Ted was amazed at how loudly she expressed her pleasure as they made love once, then twice.  Muscles fatigued by his day's hard work lost the memory of their aches and pains as he obeyed her urgings.  He was again overwhelmed by a pleasant sensation of enervation in the afterglow of their lovemaking.  He lay back.  Darlene snuggled up next to him, wrapping her arm around his chest.  He felt her burrow her head into his shoulder.  Ted sighed and closed his eyes.

     Ted woke suddenly.  He blinked and turned his head to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him.  It read 3:47-not quite four in the morning.  A soft noise made him stifle a groan.  He rolled over in bed.  The light in the bathroom was on and he found himself blinking again at his glare in the darkness of the predawn.  As his eyes focused he felt the uneasiness that had disturbed him last night return with a vengeance.  Darlene was standing naked before the vanity, her hands flat on its marble top.  His eyes seemed to tell him that her proportions had changed again in the last few hours.  Her belly had diminished further.  In its place her breasts had ballooned, thrusting roundly from her chest.  Her buttocks also had grown, becoming higher and rounder.  Her legs were the most obviously changed, however, visibly longer and slimmer.  As he watched she looked first at her reflection in the mirror, then down at herself.  She brought up her hands and cradled her expanded breasts, shifting them to one side and then the other.  A curious, fearful look crossed her face as she observed herself.  Ted couldn't believe it-she looked even bigger now than she had when they went to bed.  He sat up abruptly.

     "Baby?  Baby, what's wrong?"

     Darlene jumped at the sound of his voice.  She turned and looked at him.  Even from across the room he could see her anxiety.

     "God, Ted, I'm—it's not stopping," Darlene said.  Her voice broke.  She swallowed convulsively.  "I'm still growing.  I-I think it's happening faster, now."

 

 

III

 

     Ted squirmed in his chair in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.  Boredom was creeping up on him, taking up residence beside the anxiety he already felt.  He looked around the waiting room.  It was small and crowded by institutional-looking furniture.  Preposterous, inevitable clown paintings, encased in worn gilt frames, occupied spots on walls covered in vaguely tan-colored wallpaper.  For company Ted had two other people, both women.  One had a child sitting beside her, a little girl whose nose was swollen and red and who sniffed constantly.

    Ted looked at his watch.  It had been over two hours since Darlene had walked through the door into the exam rooms beyond.  Ted bit at his lower lip.  He sincerely hoped there was a rational explanation for what was happening to Darlene.  The morning had been a long one, beginning when Darlene had woken after they made love and saw her appearance had visibly changed from the night before.  He had held her after that, for comforting, for over an hour until she fell asleep again.  He had followed suit, then woke before her this morning.

    After she woke up she made a beeline for the dressing mirror, stared at herself for almost a minute, then collapsed in a heap.  Her reaction had shocked Ted.  He had rushed to her.  Setting her back on the bed he shook her gently to wake her.  When she was finally able to stand unsteadily on her own two feet Ted had suffered his second shock of the day.  Darlene and he were suddenly able to look almost eye to eye.  She had grown to over five feet seven inches—over another two inches from yesterday—overnight, and just two inches shy of his own height of five-nine!  From that moment on everything seemed to go wrong.  While she was just able to pull on one pair of her panties Darlene had found all her bras too small and tight for her bigger chest and bosom.  She had to struggle to pull on her shorts over her hips, her T-shirt was too tight across her chest—she’d had to substitute a formerly oversized nightshirt that was too warm for the weather outside—and her heels hung out of her own beach sandals.  Her hunger had not abated, either—she gulped down six pieces of toast and three bowls of cold cereal just before they left to go to the doctor’s office.

    Darlene had been quiet on the drive to Zarcone’s office.  Once in the waiting room she had sought out his hand and held it tightly, not relinquishing her grip until Zarcone had called her inside.  Ted had caressed her reassuringly as she rose (and rose—it was amazing to him how big she now looked) and followed the nurse into the back offices.  Ted shifted in his chair again.  There was no muzak coming out of the speakers recessed in the suspended ceiling overhead.  It made the room seem almost depressingly quiet.  The snuffling noises of the sick girl weren’t helping, either.

    “Mr. Baldwin?” The nurse suddenly appeared in the doorway.  Ted looked up, startled.  He couldn’t remember hearing the door open.  “Would you please come in?”

    Ted rose and walked stiff-legged through the passage.  He was led down a narrow hall.  The nurse suddenly dodged to her right and Ted followed.  He found himself facing a cubbyhole of an office.  His wife was seated in one of two chairs set before a massive, overloaded desk.  The nurse smilingly pointed Ted to an empty chair, then closed the door behind him.

    “Hi, Mr. Baldwin,” Emily Zarcone said.  She was a small, solid woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail and a broad, professional smile.  She literally jumped from her chair and bustled around her desk to grasp Ted’s hand.

    “Please come in and sit down,” she said quickly.  Ted suddenly felt tired and old as he confronted the hasty doctor.  Zarcone seemed to be an endless bundle of energy.  Her brown eyes were bright and intelligent.  She almost elbowed him into the chair, then flung herself back into her own.

    Ted looked at his wife.  Darlene had looked up at his arrival, then looked away.  Ted reached out and grasped her hand.  Darlene looked back at him.  She was biting her lip.  Then she gave him a nervous half-smile.  Zarcone dived into the mass of papers on her desk, then raised her head and scrutinized them both.

    “Well, Darlene, when you called me yesterday and told me that you thought your body had somehow grown, I found it hard to believe.”  She nodded to the papers she held in her hand.  “I believe it now.  You’re four and three-quarter inches taller and ten pounds heavier now then at your last physical in December.  That you, as an adult, could suddenly begin to grow is not wholly unheard of.  People who suffer from a condition called acromegaly often report thickening and even lengthening in their long bones, although the most common symptoms of an overactive pituitary production in an adult are growth in hands and feet, thickening of the jaw bones, some thickening in the plates of the skull.  None of those symptoms, by the way, are present in you.  I did measure you carefully.  I can tell you that your growth has been almost perfectly proportional—your legs are now a little longer than average in comparison to the rest of you, but not unusually so.  It’s like you suddenly had the physical characteristics of a teenager and just started growing again.  That is something completely outside of the medical lexicon, and a physical impossibility to boot.”

    Zarcone dropped the papers on her desk and looked keenly at both Darlene and Ted.  There was something disquieting in her gaze.  Ted couldn’t put his finger on it.  She looked almost troubled and excited at the same time.

    “What worries me more than the fact that you’re getting bigger is the apparent rate of growth,” she continued.  She pressed her fingertips together.  “If what you’ve said is true—and I have no reason to disbelieve it—your body has increased in size by almost seven percent in two days.  That is faster than an unborn infant growing in his mother’s womb during the last trimester, by at least a factor of ten—which happens to be the fastest any human grows in their entire lifespan.  Now, other than your increase in size I can find nothing else out-of-the-ordinary with you.  Your pulse, your heart sounds, your blood pressure, the results of your chest and thigh x-rays—everything about you is well within normal for a woman your age.”  Zarcone paused to rummage among the papers on her desk.  “In fact, your blood pressure has dropped slightly from the last physical I gave you.  Given what’s happened—or is happening—to you, you shouldn’t be normal.  In fact, your body should be racing to maintain the level of cellular activity necessary to keep up such a rate of growth.”

    Zarcone leaned forward.  Her chair squeaked echoingly as she moved.

    “Now, you say you were exposed to something at your job and you had to have it cleaned off of you,” she continued.  “Have you any idea what it was?  Did the people you work for tell you what it was?”

    Darlene shook her head.  Ted was looking at her as Zarcone asked the question.  He blinked.  Something about her had changed again.  Her hair.  Her hair looked longer now than this morning when they first awoke.  Zarcone turned to Ted.

    “You saw how Darlene was ‘cleaned’ off?  Can you describe it to me?”

    “They called it being decontaminated,” Ted replied.  He quickly described what he had seen at the hospital.         Zarcone’s eyebrows knit together.

    “A whole-body immersion—” she began, then stopped.  “What was the name of the OSHA investigator who came to investigate the accident at the plant? Dallas?  Like the city?  Okay.”  She turned in her chair, then rose upright.  She quickly occupied one corner of the desk and reached out to touch Darlene’s arm.

    “Now, Darlene, I don’t wish to alarm you.  Right now, I honestly would not be alarmed.  Other than your increase in size there is nothing wrong with you.  I should get the reports on the blood samples I took from you tomorrow.  What I want you to do now is go home and rest.  I want you to take at least a week off.  I have got to assume that what has happened to you is a result of the whatever-it-was you were exposed to.  What exactly, I don’t know.  I will make every effort to find out, however.  I am going to call OSHA right away and speak to this Dallas.  Hopefully he has some idea what you were exposed to at that Research Center.  Darlene, I want to see you in two days.  Betty outside will set up the appointment for you.  Now, what I don’t want you to do is starve yourself.  Apparently, right now you are eating to grow and cutting off food to your body will do no good for you at all.”  A smile split her face.  “Obviously you’re putting all the weight into the right places.  Go home and try to relax.”

    The rest of the day passed all too slowly. Ted noticed that Darlene was becoming increasingly obsessed with the changes in her body.  Shortly after arriving home from the doctor he found her sitting on the edge of their bed in front of their dressing mirror, looking at herself, her eyes and hands running up and down her frame.  In her utter silence Ted could see and then hear her breathing becoming deeper and more rapid.  He seated himself beside her and hugged her shoulders.  Darlene let herself rest her head on his shoulder for a moment, then she sat up abruptly.  Ted knew why.  Darlene had grown to the point where bending her neck to rest her head on his shoulder was uncomfortable—she was now simply too long in the torso.  She sighed, rose, and stepped into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.  Ted listened.  After a few moments he heard the shower start.  He pursed his lips and sighed.  Then he rose from the bed and went downstairs.

    After waiting until nearly two in the afternoon Ted realized his wife was so distracted she had forgotten completely about making lunch.  He began rummaging in the kitchen for something to eat.  After a few moments Darlene joined him.

    “I-I’m sorry, Ted,” she said apologetically.  “I guess it’s just that I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

    “It’s okay, baby,” Ted replied.  He was distressed by Darlene’s tight-lipped, anxious expression.  He took her shoulders in his hands, trying to ignore just how much broader and higher up they seemed.  He pushed her towards the dining room.

    “Here,” he said.  “Why don’t you grab a seat.  I’ll make lunch today.”

    Surprise replaced the worry on Darlene’s expression.  She was obviously bemused at his initiative.  She allowed herself to be seated at the table while Ted prepared a cold lunch.  He quickly juggled a plate of cold cuts, containers of potato salad and coleslaw and an unopened loaf of bread out to the table along with a pitcher of iced tea.  Darlene thanked him and smiled as she began to build first one sandwich, then another.  Ted joined her, putting some ham between two slices of bread. He was perhaps halfway through his sandwich when he found himself staring at Darlene.  She had already eaten two sandwiches along with half the contents of the salad containers and was in the process of concocting two more.  His eyes darted down to the serving plate.  Most of the cold cuts he had brought out were gone.  Darlene, suddenly aware of his scrutiny, paused in her eating.  He looked away in an effort not to embarrass her.  Darlene sighed.  She looked down at her plate.

    “I guess I’m hungrier than I thought,” she said.  Ted nodded wordlessly, then he smiled at her.

    “Well, if you’re hungry, you should eat.”

    Darlene looked down at herself.  Ted followed her gaze.  He felt his eyes widen as he realized all the food she had eaten was making her stomach press visibly against her shirt.  Darlene looked up.  Her face was a mixture of concern, surprise and resignation.

     “I know, Ted,” she said softly.  Her hands caressed her bulging belly.  She tried to smile.  “Looks like I’ve found a surefire way to remove unwanted fat.  My stomach’s never been so flat.”  She paused.  Her face fell.  “Except that I’ve gained ten pounds in the last two days.  God, Ted, what if I never stop growing?”

    “I can’t imagine how you could keep on growing, baby,” he replied after a moment’s thought.  “Hopefully what’s happening to you will taper off, soon.  I mean, you can’t become a fifty-foot woman or anything like that—”

    Darlene’s sharp reaction made him break off his sentence.  Darlene’s head had snapped up.  She fixed him with a terrified haze.

    “Don’t even think that, Ted,” she said.  Tears began to form in her eyes.

    “What?  What’d I say?” he replied defensively.

    “Don’t even think that,” she repeated.  A tear escaped one eye and traveled down her cheek.  Ted groaned inwardly.  What was supposed to be a mild joke turned into something else.  He rose quickly and circled the table to wrap his arms around Darlene’s shoulders.  He squeezed her as she began to cry, her sobs shaking her body.

    “God, Ted, what if—what if I never stop?  What if I never stop growing?  I’ll be a freak!  God, I feel like a freak now!” she cried.  Ted squeezed her more tightly.

    “No, no.  You’re not going to become a freak and you’re not a freak now.  Don’t be silly, sweetheart.  You’re just the same as you were before, but just a little taller.”

     Ted rubbed her shoulders and pressed his cheek against her head.  After a few moments Darlene’s sobs weakened, then stopped.

     “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  Ted squeezed her shoulders again.  “This is all so-so—”

     “Amazing?” Ted suggested.  He kept his voice light and joking.  Darlene burst into a fit of giggles.

     “Yes, that sounds like the right word,” she said.  Ted caressed her chin.

     “I told you before, sweetheart,” he said.  “I don’t mind what you looked like before, or what you look like now.  I married you.”

     Darlene giggled again.  She turned her head for a kiss.  Ted obliged.  He felt his heart leap.  Her lips felt different, somehow—softer and more plush.  He pressed closer to her and felt her smile.

     “Well, that’s one thing I don’t mind about your, ah, problem,” he said.  Even as he spoke the words he regretted it.  Darlene stiffened against him.  As he drew back he could see she was hurt.  He sighed.

     “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured.  For a moment Darlene looked like she was going to continue to take umbrage at his comment.  Then she bent her head.

     “You can’t imagine how this feels, Ted,” she whispered.  “It feels so strange to be so big so suddenly.  Speaking of getting big, I think I’d better go upstairs and see what I can wear and what I can’t now.  I may have to go shopping again.”

     Ted smiled.  “Okay, then.  Let’s go.”

     “What, just like that?”

     “Sure.”

     The promised mugginess of the late afternoon sapped Ted’s energy as he helped his wife carry their shopping back into the house.  At Darlene’s prodding he had driven her to the nearest Caldors.  She had gone up and down the aisles in the women’s wear section, selecting and trying out various items.  She now found herself needing denims with an inseam three inches longer than before.  Her feet had grown to fit a size eight shoe, her breasts now filled a C-cup bra to capacity, and she had gone from small-to-medium to large in almost every category of clothing.  Ted felt a queer sense of frustration. Darlene was becoming increasingly temperamental as their shopping trip went by.  Nothing he did seemed to improve her mood. A side trip to the supermarket only seemed to make things worse.  He patiently pushed the shopping cart as she literally threw foodstuffs into it, her mouth set in a grim line.  Her silence continued as they packed away the shopping bags in the bed of his truck and returned home.

     After dinner Ted finally decided to break the silence in their home.  He stood abruptly from the table and began to clear away the dishes.  Darlene watched in total silence for a moment as he stacked his plate, coffee cup and glass.  The rattle of the silverware he used seemed to echo in the room.  Finally Darlene spoke.

     “What are you doing?” she asked.  Ted looked at her and smiled.

     “I’m clearing the dishes,” he replied.

     “Why?  It’s not like you,” she said.  Ted waggled his eyebrows.  His smile diminished into a rueful grin.

     “True enough,” he replied.  “Maybe it’s time I did it more often.  You finished with that?”

     He stabbed his finger at her plate.  Darlene’s eyes focused on his finger as if she’d never seen anything like it before.  Then she looked down at her empty plate.  Ted saw her eyes flicker to the latest bulge in her middle.  She looked up at him again and nodded wordlessly.  Ted reached across the table and retrieved her used crockery.

     “I’m not helpless, Ted,” she said.

     “I didn’t say you were,” he replied equably.

     He could see she was becoming incensed at his actions.  He steeled himself for the upcoming explosion.

     “Then why are you—”

     Her voice abruptly stopped.  He looked up.  Darlene had turned in her seat away from him.  She sat there, her shoulders sagging in visible evidence of utter dejection.  As she bent her head he could hear her begin to cry.  Ted emptied his hands of dishes and circled the table to stand beside her.

     “Baby—” he began, gripping her shoulders.  She tensed immediately and jerked her body in an effort to break his hold.  He tightened his grip.

     “What’s wrong, Darlene?” he asked softly.  “Please talk to me.”

     He bent down and encircled her with his arms.  She still felt stiff and unyielding.  He tightened his hold around her.  After a moment he felt the tension in her shoulders and arms soften.

     “Why is this happening to me, Ted?” she asked plaintively.  “Why am I growing?”

     “I don’t know, baby,” he replied softly.

     “I feel so strange, now,” Darlene said.  Her voice was soft and terse.  “I think I can almost feel it happening.”

     “Feel what happening, honey?”

     “My-my growing.”

     Ted loosed his hold on her.  He quickly dragged his chair around the small table until it touched Darlene’s.  Once he was seated he began caressing her shoulder as he leaned forward to look at her face.  Darlene shifted in her chair until she could see his face without turning her head.  Ted smiled, a genuine, concerned smile.  She sighed sadly.

     “I feel—big.  Big and—and strange.  Ugly,” she blurted out.  She looked down at herself again.  Then, she suddenly belched softly.  Ted tried to stifle a laugh and couldn’t.  Darlene looked at him.  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.  Then she began to giggle as well.

     “At least I know now exactly where everything I eat is going,” she said.  They laughed together for a moment.    Then Darlene’s face bent again into a frown.

     “Well, I don’t know about you, baby, but I think you’re gorgeous,” Ted said.  He reached out with his free hand and touched her jaw.  Darlene obligingly turned her head to face him fully.  Ted reached up and touched her hair.  It was now well past her shoulders.

     “I think your hair is very pretty,” he said.  Darlene raised her head as he continued to look her up and down.  He caressed her shoulder again, then cuddled her throat and neck.  “You look very pretty, in fact.”  He looked down her front.  His eyes paused at her breasts.  “In fact, I think your growing has done you nothing but good.  It’s making you more beautiful to me.  In my eyes you’re still the same beautiful, kind, wonderful woman I married ten years ago.”  Darlene stiffened again but he did not move his hands.  “Darling, the important parts of you haven’t changed at all—your smile, and your personality.  Even your temper—”

     Darlene’s expression visibly softened.  Ted saw her eyes grow moist.  At his joke about her temper she smiled, a very cute smile.  He began to chuckle again.  He leaned towards her.  His eyes locked with hers.  This time she did not look away.

     “I told you before, baby,” he continued.  “It doesn’t matter to me how much bigger you’ve gotten.  I don’t care that you are taller, or your hair is longer, or that your boobs are bigger—well, maybe,” he added, his smile threatening to cut his head in half.  Darlene snorted.  “Okay.  I married you.  ‘For better or for worse’, remember?  You’re not alone in this, baby.  I’m here for you.  I will stand beside you no matter what.  I love you, darling.  Don’t keep me out.”

     “Ted, I’ve never heard you talk like this.  Not in years,” she said wonderingly.

     “I know, baby.  I forget sometimes.  But, it’s how I feel about you.  You’re my wife.  You are the most important thing in my life.”

     Darlene looked deeply into his eyes for a moment.  Then she suddenly flung her arms around his neck.  He returned her embrace, pressing her against him.  Darlene sniffed in his ear and he felt wetness on his cheek where it met hers.  Then he felt her shift in her chair.  Without loosing her hold on him she rose smoothly from her chair and slipped onto his lap.  Ted felt a sudden surge of desire at the sensation of her plush derriere in his lap and her newly-large, pliant breasts pressing against his chest and shoulders.  Darlene kissed him tenderly as he tightened his grip around her.  He smiled.

     “I think we both could use a distraction,” he said.  “Want to go see a movie?”

     She shook her head.  He saw a twinkle form in her eye.

     “How about I make some popcorn and we see what’s on cable instead?” she countered.  She pursed her lips seductively and wriggled on his lap.  Ted felt his manhood stiffen.  His grin met around the back of his head.

     “Okay by me.”

     The ringing of the alarm clock roused Ted.  He quickly slapped at the snooze button.  He groaned as his body protested his motion.  Then he felt a weight across his middle.  Turning over onto his side he looked at his wife sleeping beside him.  Darlene was lying on her side as before, one arm draped over him.  With her tousled hair and relaxed expression she looked incredibly beautiful.  Ted stretched until he felt the bones in his back pop.  Warmth rushed through his muscles as they loosened.  Ted smiled.  He felt remarkably serene and satisfied.  They had made love with am amazing level of passion last night.  In the aftermath of their sexual marathon Darlene had confessed to having enjoyed her first multiple orgasm, and she had rewarded him by using her hands and mouth to bring him to climax twice.  He allowed himself a moment to remember the incredible feelings they had shared the night before, then he carefully lifted her arm so he could slip out of bed without waking her.

    Something about her limp hand caught his eye.  He felt his breath catch in his throat.  Darlene’s hand was almost as big as his own.  His eyes darted to the rest of her.  Even with the camouflage of the bedcovers she looked visibly bigger than yesterday.  The curve of her hip was now considerably higher than his, even lying in the bed.  More startling was the height of her shoulders.  Her legs looked longer, too.  Then Ted shook off his whimsy.  Darlene may be growing, but she couldn’t be growing that fast.

     He rolled out of bed.  A quick shower refreshed him and restored his energy.  As he returned to the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, he heard Darlene murmur.  She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

     “Good morning,” he said.  He circled the bed and bent to deliver a kiss to her lips.  He felt a thrill run through him as their lips touched—hers were so soft and inviting.  Darlene returned his kiss, parting her lips to nibble at his.  He smiled as she continued to kiss him with greater and greater force.

     “Wow,” he said as they finally parted.

     “Good morning, darling,” Darlene said.  She smiled as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.  Then, as she focused on him, her face contracted into a frown.  She rolled onto her back and threw off the bedcovers.  Ted’s smile vanished and he felt his heart leap in his chest.  Her body had changed overnight.   He could see her torso and legs were longer.  Her breasts looked like they had actually grown more, too.  His mouth fell open as Darlene rotated slowly in the bed.  Her feet thumped the floor with enough force to vibrate the wood under his feet.  Startled, she looked down at herself.  Her mouth opened into a “O” of surprise.  Ted was standing right before her.  She looked up at him, then stood upright.

     Ted realized his previous notion was correct and then some.  Darlene now stood tall enough to see him eye-to-eye.  Her face quickly folded into a horrified expression.  She looked down at herself.  A small sound escaped her lips as she took her breasts in her hands.  She cradled them, feeling their weight.  Then she bent over still more.  It abruptly occurred to Ted that her breasts had grown so large she had to look around them to see the rest of herself.  She looked at her belly, then down to her legs. Ted could see that it was her legs that were giving her most of her new height.  Her thighs were longer and more massive than before.  Then Darlene looked at her arms and hands.  Her horrified expression did not change.

     “Oh, God, Ted, it’s still happening,” she cried out.

     “Judas Priest, Baldwin.  D’you expect to be able to work any time this week?”

     Ted winced.  Even through the filter of the telephone Mancuso’s voice was still able to shatter plastic.

     “Look, Mr. Mancuso, this is really important.  Something is really wrong with my wife.  We’re calling the doctor this morning to try to get her an appointment today.”

     Ted felt himself flush.  This was the second day he’d had to use that excuse.  He was extremely reluctant to use the real reason for his continued absences: how could he tell anyone that his wife was suddenly, steadily growing bigger and bigger every day?  Then he heard Mancuso’s signature sigh on the phone.  He felt the cords in his neck relax.

     “Okay, Baldwin, okay.  You understand I’m going to have to talk to your shop rep today?”

     Ted wasn’t at all surprised.  Out of three days on a new job he’d only worked one.  Kee Construction would have to contact his union representation to bitch about his missing days.  It was something he could deal with for the moment.

     “Yeah, Mr. Mancuso, I know.  I hope this will be the last time.”

     “Yeah, okay, Baldwin.  All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

     Ted put down the phone.  He felt relieved—at least he hadn’t been given his walking papers from his new job yet despite his chronic absenteeism.  He flipped through the small rolodex they had purchased to keep track of important phone numbers and found the one number he was looking for.  He studied the number until he had it memorized, then he picked up his T-square and tape measure.

     Dr. Zarcone instructed that Darlene be admitted to White Plains Hospital immediately.  Ted felt the sense of dread that usually crept up on him when going to the hospital—the sensation was even stronger this time as he was taking his wife back to one.  Darlene was now five feet, nine-and-a-half inches tall.  After he had taken her measure the entire morning had been spent making one unpleasant discovery after another.  The results of Darlene’s shopping the previous day had been rendered almost useless—her new bras were just too tight around her ribs, her panties were now uncomfortably form-fitting and her ankles stuck out the bottom of her jeans once more.  She raided Ted’s clothing, appropriating one of his T-shirts and a pair of pants.  His beach sandals covered her feet.  Ted stayed as close as possible to her the entire time, reaching out to touch her hand or to say a reassuring word in her ear. Darlene seemed to be adapting better to the change this time—she had cried only a little and allowed herself to be comforted.  She found herself ready to leave their home before him, waiting patiently as he deliberately gathered himself together.  She offered him a small smile as he puttered around—she knew the real reason for his sudden deliberation.

     “Pretty soon I’m going to be tall enough to be a fashion model if this keeps up,” she said conversationally as Ted drove.  Ted detected only a hint of tension in her voice.  He almost smiled in relief.  If his wife was fishing for a compliment he would bite.

     “You were model material before, darling,” he offered.  Darlene looked at him.  His smile broadened under her scrutiny. She reached out and caressed his cheek.  He felt his stubble rasping against her soft palm—in his morning distraction he had forgotten to shave again.  He felt a gentle increase in the pressure of her hand on his cheek.

     “Thank you, honey,” she replied.  A sad half-smile crossed her face.  “I appreciate that.  No, I mean that most fashion models are six feet tall.  At the rate I’m going I’ll be prime fashion model material in a day or so.”

     “Well, good,” he answered.  He grinned.  “Then you can support me.”

    Darlene looked at him.  He began to curse himself mentally for his joke when she rubbed his face again.

     “I can’t believe it,” she murmured.  Her voice sounded distant.  She looked him up and down, then looked at herself again.  “Ted, I’m as tall as you, now.”

     Ted looked across the cab of the truck at her again, his eyes wandering along his wife’s body.  He noticed that his pants were very snug around her hips but needed one of her belts to snug it in tight around her waist—the one article of clothing, she had said, which still fit her.  Ted was not a bulky man, and as a result her thighs pressed very firmly into the fabric of his jeans.  He focused on her torso.  Hidden under his Devils T-shirt her unsupported breasts were two globes that bounced and swayed on her chest with the motion of the car.  Ted tore his eyes away from his wife’s enlarged frame and shifted in his seat.  He was struck by just how sexy she now was, how desirable.  Her increased—no, increasing—size was making her more attractive to him.  As he looked out at the road he called up in his mind’s eye the memory of her appearance from a moment ago.  He found his heart beating harder in his chest. His mouth went dry and he swallowed.  Until that moment Ted never admitted to himself just how much the idea of his wife being growing bigger turned him on.

    “Ted, is everything all right?” Darlene asked suddenly.

     “—Everything all right, with what?” he replied.

     “With me being as tall as you.”

     The tone of her voice was worried and plaintive.  Ted’s inner thoughts vanished.  He turned to face her fully.

     “Of course it’s all right, sweetheart.  It doesn’t bother me at all.”  He smiled.  “In fact, when this is over, I wouldn’t mind taking you out so I could show you off.”

     Darlene’s smile widened.  She caressed his cheek again.

     “I’m glad I married you, Teddy,” she said.  Ted was startled.  His wife had not called him by his nickname since they first started dating.  He looked at her.  Darlene’s eyes were large and moist and her smile was starting to fade a little.  Ted loosed one hand from the wheel.  He took Darlene’s hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss.  Again he was unprepared for his own reaction—her hand was soft and warm and big.  His manhood twitched again.

     “Oh,” she murmured as he kissed her hand.  Her smile returned.  A tear escaped one eye and rolled down her cheek.

     “I’m glad you let me marry you, baby,” he replied.

     Zarcone arrived two hours after Darlene was admitted into the White Plains Medical Center.  She scurried past the other unoccupied bed in the room with a cheerful smile, the privacy curtains flapping in the breeze of her passage.  She promptly directed Darlene out of the hospital bed.  Darlene moved cautiously, her hands clutching at the back of the flimsy hospital gown she wore.  Zarcone’s reaction to seeing Darlene standing up straight was something Ted would never forget—her eyes grew so big and round they looked like they threatened to leave their sockets.

     “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is get a scale in here,” Zarcone said after a few moments.  She flipped open the aluminum clipboard she carried and looked at its contents.

     “Darlene, everything looks perfectly normal,” she said after a moment.  Her voice sounded puzzled.  “Pulse, blood pressure, heart, reactions.  Now, I called the lab this morning right after you called me to get the results of your blood tests.  I’m afraid they screwed something up in the samples we took from you—they were rendered unusable, somehow.  So, we’re going to take a little more blood here and run some tests on it.  Okay?  In the meantime, please try to relax.  I’m going to schedule a stress test, a PBG, some blood-glucose levels, and I’m going to set you up for a CAT scan.  We’ll find out what’s causing your growth.”

     “Did you talk to that guy Dallas?” Ted asked.  Zarcone shook her head.

     “He didn’t return my calls yet.  My office will page me the moment he does.  Don’t worry, Mr. Baldwin.  We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

     Zarcone waited until a portable scale was brought in.  Darlene stood on the measuring plate while Zarcone took her height and weight.  She was exactly sixty nine and three-quarter inches tall and weighed one hundred forty pounds.  Ted found his wife’s eyes locking onto his as her doctor read off the measures.  Either he had measured her wrong this morning—or she had grown more in the few hours since they awoke.

     “Okay,” Zarcone said in her businesslike tone.  “Now, what I’d like to do is have you measured every morning, Darlene.  I’ll write that in the nurse’s orders for the supervisor on the floor.  Now you just relax and let us do our work.  I’ve already arranged with the kitchen to have food sent up to you.  I’ll be right back.”

     Zarcone hustled out the door.  As she left Ted blew out his cheeks in relief.

     “Whew,” he muttered.  “I’ve never seen anybody so energetic.”

     Darlene laughed.  It was a pleasant sound.  Ted echoed it.  He waved his wife into the only chair in the room and seated himself on the metal shelf covering the room’s radiator.

     “How do you feel, honey?” he asked.  The chair was an aged recliner with a long, broad seat that threatened to swallow her up Darlene’s middle up entirely.  With her feet on the floor her knees stuck up absurdly into the air.  Ted gulped again.  Her legs were so long, so sexy-looking.  She fiddled with her gown as she looked up at him from the recliner.

     “I feel fine, Teddy,” she replied.  She looked down at the valley formed in her gown by her burgeoning cleavage.  “I just feel big.”

     Ted felt his manhood twitch again.  God, all that was needed was anything that reminded him of what was happening to her and his urges demanded attention.  He shifted his seat.  Darlene saw his reaction.

     “Ted?”

     “Uh-huh?”

     “You really do like what’s happening to me?”

     Ted looked away from her searching eyes.  Then much to his embarrassment he found himself blushing furiously.

     “You do like that I’m bigger,” Darlene said.  She grabbed the armrests of the recliner and tried to pull herself upright.  Her longer legs refused to cooperate and she fell back against the cushions.

     “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, her expression cross.  “I feel so clumsy.”

     She tried again, using more force.  This time she pulled herself up far enough away from the seat of the chair to balance on her feet.  She straightened up and turned to face Ted.  He craned his neck up to look at her.  Darlene took one step towards him, then another.  She reached out and took up his hands.  Her touch was soft and gentle.  Ted felt his heartbeat pounding in his cheeks as he blushed even more.

     “Do you?”

     “Do I what?”

     “Do you like the way I am now?  Do you like me bigger than I was?”

     Ted squirmed on his seat.  Darlene was looking deeply into his eyes.  He finally met her gaze.  He felt an idiot’s smile cross his face.

     “Yes,” he whispered.  “I love what happening to you.  I-I don’t know, but it’s the most erotic thing I could ever imagine happening to a woman.  I know it sounds weird, baby, but I can’t help it.”

     Darlene kept hold of his hands.  Her gaze was penetrating.  Ted felt calmer now that he had finally confessed what he had been feeling more and more strongly over the last two days.  Then her face softened.  She slipped onto his lap again.  Ted pushed himself back further onto the hard flat surface of the radiator cover to support her—it was peculiarly thrilling, how much more of his lap her butt and thighs covered, now.  His arms snaked around her waist and held her gently.  Her plush softness stirred his urges again.  Darlene looked furtively over her shoulder out the open door to the room.  The hallway was empty.  She turned back and looked down at herself.  Bringing up her hands to her breasts she began massaging and squeezing them.  Ted felt his erection rocket upward in size.  Darlene wriggled into his lap.  Her eyes widened as she felt his stiff manhood.  She kissed Ted very gently on the lips.

     “You know, it’s funny,” she said.  She looked down at herself again.  “I can’t imagine why, but I sort of like my new body too.”

 

 

IV

 

     At Darlene’s insistence Ted returned to work the next day.  It made sense to do so—“There’s no point in both of us being bored out of our minds, Ted,” Darlene had said—but Ted could not help feeling concerned for his wife.  She assured him that she would call him if she needed someone to talk to, and he had relented.  Her parting kiss had been long and powerful, so powerful it took Ted’s breath away.

     “Thank you, sweetheart,” she had said after they both came up for air.  “Thank you for being here for me.”

     “You’re welcome, baby,” he had replied.  “I’ll call first thing in the morning.”

     Ted had kept his promise and called just before he prepared to leave for the day’s work.  His wife did not answer, however.  He became concerned and called the floor itself.  One of the nurses told him Darlene had been awoken early.

     “She should be in radiology right now,” the nurse had said.  “She was scheduled for a CAT scan this morning.”

     “How was she this morning?” Ted asked.

     “Oh, fine, fine,” the nurse replied.

     The nurse’s answer was pat to the point of being mechanical, but there was little he could do.  He found his way back to his job site.  Mancuso welcomed him back with a short nod and a mirthless smile.  The site foreman had lost none of his energy or his sadistic streak.  Ted found his muscles aching by the time lunch was called.  He gobbled the short sandwich he had made for himself.  He saw that the nearest pay phone was on the corner.  He trotted quickly to the phone and plunked in five quarters.

     “Hi, Ted.”

    At the sound of Darlene’s voice Ted knew what the answer to his first question would be.

     “How are you, baby?”

     Darlene sighed.  “Bigger.  I’m six feet tall this morning.”

     “Did the doctors say anything?”

     “No, not yet.  Emily was in this morning.  She said they were having some sort of problem with my blood     samples.”

     Darlene sounded depressed.

     “I’ll be there right after work to see you, baby,” he said.  He tried hard to keep his voice cheerful.

     “Good.  I miss you,” Darlene replied.

     Darlene was seated in her chair as Ted came in through the door.  He hid behind the bouquet he carried, a dozen red roses wrapped in colorful cellophane and tied with a red ribbon.  Darlene smiled appreciatively.

     “Thank you,” she said as she accepted the roses.  Ted bent and kissed her.

     “How’re you doing, baby?”

     “Oh, I’m fine, Ted.  I’m still growing, but I’m fine.”

     The serving table sitting beside Darlene’s bed caught Ted’s eye.  Two trays filled with empty dishes decorated its top.

     “I’m afraid my appetite hasn’t slowed down any,” Darlene said.  She had followed his gaze.  Her smile was wistful.  “I’m still hungry, too.”

     Ted nodded.  Darlene looked up from her seat.  She looked at his hair, which was wet.

     “Oh, good.  I was afraid you’d walk in here right from work rather than cleaning up first,” she said.  She smiled to sweeten her comment.  Ted grinned back.

     “Didn’t want to stink up the place,” he replied.

     “That’s a change,” Darlene said teasingly.  Ted felt a fit of pique seize him at her criticism.  Then he chuckled and bent to kiss her again.  She leaned into his kiss.

     “Mmmm,” she whispered.  “That feels good.  I really miss you, sweetheart.”

     “I miss you too, baby,” Ted replied.  He grabbed up her hand and squeezed it.  She sighed.

     “Well, would you like to see?” she asked.  Ted’s eyebrows rose.

     “Ah, okay,” he said.  Darlene tightened her grip on his hand.  Her free came gripped the arm of the recliner.  She pulled with surprising strength, hauling herself up out of the depths of the chair.

    Ted couldn’t help stare as she came upright.  She rose up, and up.  Ted found he had to look up to keep eye contact with her.  Darlene arched her back and shook out her hair.  She groaned slightly and stretched, twisting her head and shoulders.

     “Whew, that feels better,” she said.  She looked down at Ted.  Her face fell.

     “Oh,” she whispered.  “Oh, Ted.  This is so weird.  Never in my life did I think that one day I’d be looking down on you.  God, this is so weird.”

     Darlene had filled out even more than yesterday, Ted noticed.  Her legs were now incredibly long.  Her calves were curved and sexy and her thighs had grown even more massive.  The gown hinted at the new flesh filling out her butt.  Her breasts were now two round pillows sitting high on her chest.  He could see her nipples through the flimsy fabric of her gown.  Her arms were longer, her shoulders broader.  Ted’s eyes flittered up to her face.  Had it too changed a little, her jaw longer, her cheeks broader?  Her hair cascaded well down her back.  Even under the harsh fluorescent lights overhead it seemed to shine lustrously.  It was a more even, honey color than he remembered, too.  Ted felt a disquieting sense of disorientation that made him blink.  Then he looked into her eyes.  They looked the same, soft and amber-colored—and they were wrinkled in anxiety and concern.  Ted suddenly realized he was holding his breath.  He exhaled loudly then took a breath, and then another.

     “Ted? Are you all right?” Darlene asked.

     “I probably should be asking that question,” he replied, clearing his throat.  Darlene bit her lower lip.

     “It’s-it’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she asked softly.  Ted found himself nodding dumbly.

     “Ah—yes.  Yes it is, sweetheart,” he replied.  Then he shook his head.  Her expression told him she was afraid of his reaction to her increase in size.  He rubbed her bare arms.  Her skin was soft but he could feel the firm muscle beneath.  Darlene’s face became screwed up with anxiety.  A distraction was needed.

    “Listen, let’s take a walk up and down the hall.  I imagine you wouldn’t mind getting out of this room.”

     “Oh, you can say that again,” Darlene replied.  She slipped close to him.  Threading her arm around his, she waited for him to lead them out into the hall.  It was such a familiar gesture on her part that Ted felt himself relax automatically and squeeze her arm close to his side.

     “Emily was in twice today,” Darlene said as they strolled down the hall.  “She says she would recommend I see a specialist, but she has no idea what specialist I should see.”

     “She has no idea at all what’s causing you to grow?” he asked.  She shook her head.

     “She’s hasn’t got a clue.  She said she was going to call some people today and try to arrange a meeting with them for me.”

     “Well, at least she’s trying,” Ted said softly.  He looked up at his wife.  The reality of his gesture was so astounding it stopped him in mid-stride—God, he was actually looking up at his wife.  Darlene felt the tug on her arm as he stopped short.  She looked at him.  Her pensive expression returned.

     “I know, Ted,” she said softly.  “It’s so strange.  Everything looks smaller to me.”  She looked down at her free hand.  She brought it up, and flexed it carefully.  “I kept losing my grip on hairbrush this morning when I was brushing my hair.  I guess it’s smaller than I remember.  My toothbrush felt small, too.  And my body keeps changing—you wouldn’t believe how big I’ve gotten up top.  Its funny, but I remember when I was twelve, how I kept hoping and wishing I would grow tall and big.  Now my dreams are coming true twenty years later.”

     “Uh-huh,” Ted said.  At least he tried to say it—the tightness in his throat choked his voice.  Darlene’s expression grew more sorrowful.  Ted gulped.  He slipped both his arms around her waist and squeezed.  Darlene held back from him for a few seconds.  Then she yielded.  The softness of her enlarged bosom spread across Ted’s chest.

     “I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured.  “It does take a little getting used to.  More for you than me, I’m sure.”

     Darlene’s face cleared.  She bent and kissed him on the lips, gently, hesitantly.  Through the thin cloth of her gown the warmth of her breasts across his chest was intoxicating.  Ted felt lust erupt inside him.  He struggled to dampen it.

     “Mmmm,” he said.  “Now that is familiar.”

     Darlene broke into a fit of the giggles.  She wrapped her arms around his neck.  He was startled to hear a sob amidst her giggling.  He opened his eyes.  Darlene was looking at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

     “Is everything all right, Ted?” she whispered.  There was a wealth of emotion in her simple question.  Ted smiled even as he shifted his feet to ease the sense of crowding in his pants.

     “Yes, baby.  Everything is fine.”

     Darlene licked her lips.  Her sigh of relief pressed her boobs even more firmly against him.  He found himself staring at her bounty pressed between them.  She looked down at herself, then back at him.  She saw where his eyes were.

     “Do you like?” she asked.  Her simple question robbed Ted of his voice again.  All he could do was bob his head up and down.  She smiled.

     “Well, they’re all yours.  I love you, Ted.”

     “I love you too, darling.”

     The next day was Saturday.  Ted woke on his own.   Half-asleep, he rolled over in bed and reached out for his bed partner.  Finding himself the only occupant in the bed startled him for an instant. He rubbed his eyes for a moment and sighed.  He was alone in bed.  Ted groaned again.  He threw off his bedcovers and straggled downstairs to the kitchen.

     As he buttered some toast he looked at the clock on the kitchen wall.  It was well past eight.  Time to call Darlene at the hospital.  He snatched the phone off the wall as he chewed his toast.

     “Room 513, please.”

     “Thank you.  One moment, please.”

     Ted nodded.  He chewed more toast as the extension rang.

     “Hallo?” a voice suddenly said.  It wasn’t his wife’s.

     “Hello?  Is Mrs. Baldwin there?”

     “Who?  Oh, the patient.  She moved to another room.”

     Ted found himself struggling to understand the heavily accented voice on the other end of the line.

     “Where is she?  Where is the lady who was in that room?”

     “Ah?  Oh, she is in another room.”

     Ted tried asking the same question twice more, phrasing it differently each time.  Both times he was defeated.  Fear for his wife seized him.  He hung up the phone, then called Dr. Zarcone’s number.

     Ted made it to the hospital within thirty minutes.  He rushed through the front doors, heading straight for the elevators.  He quickly found Darlene’s floor and stepped out.  Nurses and aides looked at him in blank surprise as he half-ran to her room.  Save for a housekeeper making the bed, it was empty.  Ted returned to the nurse’s station.

     “Where is my wife?  Where is Darlene Baldwin?” he demanded.  The one nurse on duty looked at him as though he was a ghost.  Then she recovered.

     “I’m sorry,” she replied.  “Baldwin, you said?  Oh, yes, she was transferred up to the eighth floor.  806.  It’s a private room there.”

     Ted nodded.  He turned on his heel and started back towards the elevator.

     “Wait a moment.  You can’t be in here.  Visiting hours are from—”

     The rest of the nurses’ words were lost as the elevator doors closed behind Ted.  He tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator rumbled its way to the eighth floor.  He watched the overhead signals as they advanced towards eight.  Just as the number seven symbol went dark he started moving towards the doors, ready to move through them the instant they opened.  He took two steps, moving quickly.  In his rush he nearly collided with another person.  Ted jammed on the brakes, his sudden stop making him rock on his heels.

     “Oh, hello, Mr. Baldwin,” Stacey Callander said.  Her customary smile was not present this time.

     Darlene’s new room was more plush than her former, double-occupancy quarters.  Ted, his arms folded across his chest, stared coldly at the crowd of people standing around his wife as she sat on the edge of the bed.  He recognized Stewart Corwin, the small neat Japanese man he had seen earlier, Dr. Hale, and George Dallas from OSHA.  Three others, all oriental-looking men dressed in expensive suits, stood together in one corner of the room, their expressions inscrutable.  Encircled by her visitors Darlene looked alternately annoyed and worried.  Her face visibly brightened as she saw Ted.

     “What’s going on here?” Ted said loudly.  Almost in unison everyone standing shifted on their feet.

     “Ted?” Darlene said softly.  Ted elbowed his way around the crowd and took up her hands.  Darlene nodded shortly as he inspected her.  It was obvious she was still growing.  Ted pressed his legs up against the side of the hospital bed to give his wife a peck on the cheek.  He tried to ignore just how much he had to stretch to do so.

     “I’m afraid so, Ted,” she whispered in his ear.  “Six-three.”

     Ted nodded.  He turned and glared at the assemblage.

     “I asked what’s going on?”

     “Nothing is going on, Mr. Baldwin,” Callander said.  She stepped up closer to him.  She tried to smile and failed.  “No, we learned that Darlene was in the hospital again.  Ikagawa Research is paying for your wife’s hospital stay.  We suggested that Darlene be moved to a private room.  I am very sorry to hear what’s been happening to your wife, Mr. Baldwin.  We all are.  We just want to do what’s right for her as an employee.”

     “That sounds very nice.”  The presence of a new voice in the room startled everyone.  Zarcone, her bulk dressed in a nylon jogging suit and her hair in a bun, came striding into the room.  She quickly slipped through the crowd and took up Darlene’s wrist.

     “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked as she took Darlene’s pulse.  Darlene shrugged.

     “Bigger.”

     “Yes, I just found out,” Zarcone said quietly.  “I also just found out about the room change.”

    The insinuation in her voice was obvious.  Both Callander and Corbin shifted their feet again as they looked at one another.

     “It’s unfortunate you didn’t come back to Harmony Medical,” Hale spoke up.  “I’m sure a proper room would have been arranged for you there.”

     “Darlene happens to be my patient, Doctor—”

     “Hale.  Saul Hale.”  Hale offered his hand to Zarcone.  She ignored it.

     “Well, Doctor Hale, I am accredited at this hospital, not Private Westchester.  If I am to take care of my patient she needs to be where I can work.”

     Ted noticed that Hale flinched at the “Private Westchester” joke.  The bearded doctor flushed.  His eyes dropped.

     “Dr. Zarcone, I presume?  I’m George Dallas.”  Dallas offered his hand.  Zarcone looked the federal investigator up and down, then took his hand.

     “Mr. Dallas.  I have been compiling data on Mrs. Baldwin’s condition I think you need to see.”

     “If you have a moment, you can brief me,” he replied.  Zarcone patted Darlene on the hand and nodded to Dallas.  Dallas quickly latched onto her arm and drew her out the door of the room.

     Ted found himself scratching his head.  He had not showered before rushing to the hospital and his skin felt sticky.  Darlene saw his motion.  She beckoned to him with one hand.

     “Now, Darlene, there are some points we’d like you to consider in this proposal—” Callander began.

     “What proposal?” Ted asked.  Callander actually looked cranky for a few seconds.  Then she fashioned a smile on her face.  Unaccountably, she blushed.

     “Well, Mr. Baldwin, it’s like this,” she began.  “It seems that Darlene’s exposure to the, ah, chemical at the lab that day may be a contributing cause to her current medical condition.”  She turned from Ted to his wife.  Her gestures grew broader.  “In light of your er, problem, the Chairman of Ikagawa has authorized us to offer you compensation for the obvious difficulties you are undergoing.  I think you will find it is a generous offer.”

     Callander gestured.  The youngest of the trio of Japanese businessmen swiftly opened his leather briefcase and retrieved a sheaf of forms clasped between two blue pieces of paper.  Ted had just taken up Darlene’s hands in his own when the papers were pushed at them.

     I think you will find it is a really generous offer,” Callander continued.

     Ted stared at the proffered papers, his face blank.  He looked quickly at his wife.  Darlene’s face wore an expression of utter contempt.  She slipped from the edge of her new hospital bed to her feet, not loosing her hold on Ted’s hands.  Ted looked over his shoulder.  The young businessman was not a tall man—he looked positively stunted in front of Darlene.  Ted craned his neck to look back at his wife.  He was startled.  An almost feral snarl filled Darlene’s face.

     “Who the hell do you people think you are—”

     “I think,” Callander interrupted, stepping between Darlene and the little Japanese, “you’re a little—you’re upset over what has happened.”  She held out both hands in a supplicating gesture while her taller figure hid the paper bearer.  “I can understand why.  Please understand we are sympathetic to your plight, Darlene.  What’s happening to you is something none of our scientists had even remotely thought of.”

    In an unconscious gesture  Callander reached up and pulled at her collar.  Ted noticed for the first time that she was perspiring freely.  She seemed to notice what she was doing.  Her arm dropped self-consciously.

     “Look, I really do understand,” she said quietly.  Ted saw the Japanese back away.  He bowed slightly, a nervous gesture, then turned his back on them and scurried to his fellows.

     “Darlene, please believe me,” Callander spoke up suddenly.  “What’s happening to you should not be happening.  There’s no reason for it at all.  There was nothing in that lab that could have caused anybody to—grow—like you have—”

     “Ms. Callander,” Darlene replied icily, “you have no idea what I’m going through.  D’you know what it’s like to wake up every morning and find you’ve outgrown the clothes that fit you yesterday?”

     “That’s the reason we are offering this compensation to you,” Callander replied.  “When we were told what was happening to you we felt a responsibility—”

     “Who told you what happened to Darlene?” Ted demanded.  Callander looked at him for a moment, then turned back to his wife.

     “If you think we’re trying to trick you into absolving us of all responsibility in this matter, Darlene, we’re not,” she said.  “We’re not trying to duck of whatever responsibility we may have in this.  Now, if you read the contract, you will see that the only stipulation we have is that you be transferred to Harmony Medical from here.  There is equipment there that this hospital doesn’t have which may help get a handle on what’s happening to you.  It also provides financial renumeration, to the amount of a thousand dollars a week to start—”

     “What?  A thousand a week—” Ted began.  “What’re you trying to buy—”

     “We’re not trying to buy anything,” Callander snapped in reply.  She opened her mouth to say something more, then stopped.  Her head shook slightly.  She was still perspiring.

     “Look,” she said softly, “I know both of you are upset.  Here, we’ll just leave the contract for you to look at.  I will not insist on you signing it now, even though I think it’s a good idea for you to do so.  Please look it over.  Ikagawa is not trying to absolve itself of responsibility here.  We’re only trying to help.”

     The contract was offered again.  Ted loosed one of his wife’s hands and took it gingerly.  Callander nodded to them, smiled once more, then turned on her heel.  The others in the room also turned with almost military precision and joined her as they marched out the door.

     “Bastards,” Ted heard Darlene hiss.  He dropped the contract on the bed and grabbed up her hand again.  She was clearly beside herself with anger.  “They made me think they were just going to help us, Ted.  Then after they got me up here they started talking to me about how we’re going to need money, and Ikagawa was going to give me the new job now—they were trying to get me to sign that paper without telling me everything about it.  Dammit, I started to trust them—”

     “Shhh, it’s all right,” Ted replied.  He had never seen her so overtly angry before.  He found himself squeezing her hands to ease the discomfort of her grip—her hands were surprisingly strong.  “Look, nothing happened.”

     Darlene was still obviously angry.  She took a deep breath in an effort to control it.  Ted smiled and sighed himself.  He shrugged.

     “Too many surprises,” he muttered.  Darlene looked at him.  Her frown was replaced by a gentle, almost wistful expression.  Ted found himself wrestling with the familiar sense of surprise.  Darlene was now so tall her chin was at his eye level.  He looked up into her eyes.  They were bright and he could see the beginnings of tears forming around them.  Suddenly Darlene loosed his hands and flung her arms around him.

     “Oh, God, Ted, it’s not stopping,” she sobbed.  “It’s not stopping.  I’m still growing.  I don’t think it’s ever going to stop.”

     Ted automatically returned Darlene’s pressure.  He reached up with one hand.  After a few second’s searching, he found the curve of her neck.  He began to caress her reassuringly as she dampened the shoulder of his shirt.  Ted struggled with his emotions as he held his wife.  He could feel her warmth pressing against him more strongly than ever.  The strength in her arms was surprising.  The small of her back was markedly higher than he recalled it should be.  Her sadness was so strong it seemed to fill the air.

     “Come on, now, sweetheart, don’t cry, don’t cry,” he murmured softly.  He struggled to find something to say which would reassure her.  He almost shook his head as he cudgeled his brain for the right words.

     “I’m-I’m here, baby.   I’m here,” he finally said.  “I’m here.”

     Darlene sniffed and released him.  She leaned back to look down at his face.  Ted licked his lips and swallowed.  She was so big and tall.  As he watched she gave him a small, loving smile.  Ted felt relief overwhelm him.  He smiled back.

     “Thank you, Teddy,” she finally said.

     “Ahem.”

     Zarcone’s loud effort to get their attention surprised them both.  Ted loosed his hold on Darlene and she stepped away from him.  Zarcone gestured both of them to seat themselves on the bed as she closed the door to the room.

     “Darlene, I’m sorry to say I’m no wiser as to what is causing your growth,” she said.  She spoke slowly and carefully, as if reluctant to impart unpleasant news.  “What I do know so far is that you are definitely growing, and that your rate of growth is accelerating.”

     Her rate of growth was accelerating?  Ted felt his heat began to race.  God, what was going to happen to his wife?  He looked at her.  Darlene’s face tightened.  She swallowed and gestured for Zarcone to continue.

     “I suspected the cause of your condition is whatever you were exposed to at Ikagawa Research,” Zarcone said.  “After speaking to Dallas I am convinced of it.  I am still no wiser as to exactly what it was, but I can tell you it has had an amazing effect on you.”

     Again Zarcone paused.  She blinked once, then took a deep breath.

     “Now, the laboratory here and at Miriam Lake—”

     “Miriam Lake?” Darlene asked.

     “It’s a private laboratory in Maryland.  The laboratory here and at Miriam Lake were never able to properly analyze the blood samples we took from you.  They kept telling me the samples were useless or untestable.  Well, they weren’t.  It’s not that the samples were no good, but that they were not like anything the labs had ever seen before—your blood was unrecognizable to any of the test normally conducted on it.  Somehow, Darlene, your entire body chemistry has been changed.  Not one test I ordered came back with any recognizable results.  It’s like your entire chemistry has been completely rewritten.  How, I do not know.  Nor do I know how this change is causing your growth.  I can tell you that your body is now using everything you put into it more efficiently than anyone else’s.  Excretion of minerals like calcium or potassium is a normal part of everyone’s normal daily metabolism—except in yours.  Release of random free protein in your excretions is also nonexistent.  There is more I could tell you about what we’ve discovered about your condition so far, but none of it will help your current dilemma.  Now, I don’t want you to give up hope—I’m sure that as soon as more information is forthcoming from Ikagawa we’ll be able to formulate a therapy to stop your growth—”

     “Didn’t Dallas tell you what I was exposed to?” Darlene asked.  Zarcone shook her head.

     “But he’s investigating it, right?” Ted added.  Zarcone turned to look at him.  Her eyes were troubled and clouded.

     “I think he already knows—” she began, then stopped.  She quickly put on a smile.  Reaching out she took Darlene’s hand in her own and patted it reassuringly.

     “I promise I will keep on this for you, Darlene,” she said.  “Now, I’m afraid Ted has to leave—I’ve scheduled more tests for you that will keep you busy for most of the morning.  Ted, you can come back at two.”

 

Story Completed in Giantess Wife 2 by Hi-Standard