The Family that Doesn't Grow Together

By Marknew and Steve the Z

An engineer invents an augmentation chamber to make him and his wife the most powerful beings on the planet.

 

Prologue

 

My wife, Sophia, and I have for years been a somewhat discontented couple. Not with each other, but with our lot in life. I am an inventor, an engineer by training, and maybe a a dreamer, but a seriously practical dreamer. I have never been happy to work for others. I have dreamed of creating something new and marvelous, something all my own, something that would make us rich and powerful.

 

I have developed many new devices. But because of bad luck, poor legal advice and rapacious business partners, I have achieved little of my ambition after nearly fifteen years of work. My wife has always managed the details of our lives to maximize my opportunities for work. She has been always my able assistant, the procurer of the materials I need for my projects. She handles my correspondence and cooks our meals. She is as disappointed as I am that as we reach our mid-thirties we still live in the same small house on the same unimpressive street where we started our marriage.

 

Now I have taken a different course of action, with my wife's full participation. It may not make us rich quickly, but it will make us powerful. My new invention, the augmentation chamber, will make us the biggest, strongest and healthiest persons in the world. This invention will not be sold; it is for our use alone and I will destroy it after we complete our augmentation. But thanks to it, fame, glory and power will come to us as we dominate the sports and entertainment worlds. Today my wife and I will enter the augmentation chamber. Although the chamber will remain a secret I will record my observations, for the sake of science.

 

After all, history is being made. Before our first treatment, I was six feet tall, weighed 195 pounds, and was moderately muscular. My wife was 5'1" tall, weighed less then a hundred pounds and was thin, fragile and physically rather weak. According to my calculations, the augmentation rays will interact with our bodily tissues, most noticeably our bones and muscles, but also on our other systems, increasing their size, their efficiency and their effectiveness. As I am larger than Sophia and will absorb more of the rays than she will, the effect on me will be proportionally greater, but we both will benefit significantly. I will become the strongest living being on the planet, the most powerful man ever in history, and she will become a lovely, fit and very strong girl. My hands shook with excitement as I activated the process and we stepped into the chamber for the very first time. The world would look very different when we left in just three minutes time.

 

1

 

When we stepped outside, to my enormous surprise, my readings remained unchanged, but Sophia's height had increased from 5'1" to 5'2 1/2", and she now weighed 106 pounds.

 

"Oh my!" she said, looking at the readout. "It looks like you haven't grown at all, Darling, even though I have. What happened?"

 

"I'm not sure," I said, carefully reviewing the logs that recorded the radiation emitted during the first treatment. "The spectral profile is within the expected parameters although it is possible that a fluctuation in the conversion derivatives interrupted the actual dispersion of the radiation."

 

"Oh dear! That sounds serious. Has that ever happened before?"

 

"Well ... no. As you must recall, each trial had worked perfectly on the mice."

 

"Yes, I remember! Dear little Mina and Gina! It was so cute when you buffed the little critters up! By the end of your experiments they got so big and strong that they drove away that awful cat next door! I was so sad you had to put them down, although I did understand."

 

"Yes," I said, recalling with a shudder just how much cyanide I ended up having to use in order to kill those repeatedly augmented mice.

 

"Well, the important thing is how it works on you and me!" Sophia pointed at her feet. "I don't really feel any different, and I'm still a lot smaller than you are, but my cuffs are above my ankles now, so I KNOW I'm a bit taller already, even without the instruments on your machine! I guess that dispersion thingee that's worrying you was just on your side. Poor Honey! You must be very disappointed not to have grown."

 

"Well, yes I am." I said, glancing at my own shoes with the cuffs in their usual position. "It is very strange, but obviously just a temporary setback.

 

I'll reinforce the buffers to ensure a more consistent flow."

 

"That sounds great."

 

She watched me for awhile and then walked around the lab, straightening the papers I had left in my usual disordered piles.

 

"OK!" I said. "Done!"

 

"Great! Do you think it will work on you now?" she asked.

 

"Yes, I do." I said. "Let's try it again!"

 

"Oh yes!" she replied and took my hand as we entered the booth a second time, waited the three minutes it took the augmentation rays to take our bodies to the next level of improvement, then stepped out when the ‘COMPLETED' chime sounded..

 

2

 

Now the readouts indicated that Sophia was 5'4" tall and weighed 119 pounds. I was the same as before. My statistics had not changed in any respect whatsoever.

 

"Again only me." she said. "Look, you can see my calves now!"

 

Sofia's jeans had risen enough to show the bottoms of her shapely calves.

 

"And look at this!" she continued, flexing her right bicep, which was now the size of a lemon. "My arm's not soft and skinny anymore!"

 

"You've gained some muscle mass." I said, looking her over.

 

"It feels good," she said. "It makes me feel more – substantial!"

 

I laughed. "That's a strange way of putting it! You have always had substance. Having more of it than before should not lead to a different perception."

 

"Hmm, maybe." she said. "But I can tell you it's true!'

 

Sophia kept flexing her arm, looking at her new small bicep and playing with it. I reached out and touched it. I was surprised at how hard it felt.

 

"Well, the augmentation rays are certainly working on you exactly as specified. I don't understand why they haven't augmented me too."

 

"Yes, it's really strange, honey. You're such a great inventor, except that your machine isn't working on you!"

 

I opened a control panel, found some relays that seemed to be stuck closed, and sprayed them with a lubricating agent.

 

"That must have been the problem." I said as the relays popped open. "Now we can try again!"

 

"Good!" Sophia said. "I can't wait. I'm really starting to enjoy this!" She stepped forward into the chamber ahead of me, then reemerged, took my hand and we went into the chamber together for try number three.

 

3

 

Three minutes later I was still exactly the same size, while my 5' 5 1/2" tall wife now weighed 133 pounds. She looked down at the readings and caressed the glass panel thoughtfully with her forefinger.

 

"I'm catching up to you, Honey," she said playfully. "Slowly but surely." "We'll see about that," I muttered, scratching my head. I opened the panel again and tapped the stubborn relays with a screwdriver. "These things got stuck again!"

 

"Need some help?" Sophia asked. "You know I'm good with hand tools."

 

"Nope, it's not necessary." I said, closing the panel and turning to her.

 

"There, that should do it."

 

"Oh, good!" she said, clapping her hands surprisingly loudly. "I feel SO sorry you're not getting the same benefit from the machine that I am. I really feel, um, augmented. You know what I mean?"

 

"Well ... you certainly look ... bigger," I said.

 

"Yes, my blouse is definitely getting snug." she said, shrugging her wider shoulders. "It was fourteen new pounds this time and it must have been all muscle! Really solid muscle, you know?"

 

I stared at her for a moment, then reopened the panel and sprayed more lubricating fluid on the relays.

 

"What's the matter? Afraid they'll stick again?"

 

"Well ...

 

"If they do, I may get bigger and you won't. Again." Sophia wondered innocently. "Are you getting worried about that?"

 

I felt my face turn red. "No, of course not." I said. "Just making sure, you know, that I've done a thorough job."

 

"I'm just teasing you." Sophia said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

 

"I know, of course. I just wish I hadn't settled on used relays!"

 

"You know we don't have that much money ... yet. These were a lot cheaper. You shouldn't blame yourself, sweetie. It's not your fault."

 

"Yes, I know. And, used or new, it shouldn't make a difference, really, once they've been properly lubricated. They have exactly the same physical properties," I said, forcing some confidence into my voice. "All right, let's try it again. I'm sure it will work properly now!"

 

"Well, if you're sure, then it definitely will!"

 

"Yes, I'm sure it's ok now. After you!"

 

"All right then." Sophia said. "If you insist!"

 

She walked into the chamber, her jeans pulled taut across her rounded, more muscular butt, and I followed her inside.

 

4

 

The emitters discharged the augmentation rays into us for the fourth time, and I waited anxiously to feel something changing within me, but I felt nothing, and when we stepped out after 180 seconds the readout confirmed my forebodings.

 

"Whoops! It happened again!" said Sophia, who was now 5'7" tall and weighed 149 pounds. The top of her head, which had always come up to just below my chin, was now at the bridge of my nose.

 

"I just don't understand this." I said, staring at the way her buttons were straining to hold her blouse together across her deeper and surprisingly busty chest.

 

"What are you going to do now?" she asked. "Should we stop for now, so you can do more testing, or even take your machine apart to see what's wrong?"

 

"No! I'm going to get this damn thing working NOW if it's the last thing I do!" I said.

 

"Good for you, Darling." Sophia said, flexing a bicep the size of a small orange. "I know that with your determination and intellect there's nothing you can't do! But first feel my bicep! See how strong I'm getting!" I gulped, but bravely placed my hand on her bicep. It felt like a velvet covered ball bearing under my palm. The stretch marks in her shirt were also impressive.

 

"My pants are so tight they feel like they're going to split!" Sophia said, running her hands across her jeans where they were pulled taut across her rounded thighs. "And I wore the loosest pants I could find this morning when we started, just as you had suggested, darling. You are so very smart, you know."

 

"Thank you, Sophia. I like the way your pants look now," I said.

 

"Yes, you men always like tight clothes on us girls," Sophia said, "so you can see all our curves. I always found them uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel bad at all now. Must be because of the muscle! I guess I'm stronger than my clothes!"

 

"Uhm yes," I agreed.

 

"Are you sure you want to try this again so soon?" Sophia asked as I re-opened the panel. "Aren't you afraid I'll get to be as strong as you are, Dearest?"

 

"That won't happen. I was too much stronger than you were at the start," I said. "Look at this! A piece of dust got caught in one of the emitter diode circuits. But I've cleaned them and I'm sure everything will work right now!"

 

"Really? OK, you're still the boss." Sophia said, giving me a look that made me feel strange.

 

"What do you mean?" I said.

 

"Oh ... nothing," she replied. "You are the boss, right?"

 

"Right! One more try then." I said. "I'm sure it will work on me as well this time!"

 

"Well, then I think so too!" Sophia said, as we entered the chamber for the fifth time.

 

5

 

Three minutes passed and we stepped out, accompanied by a ripping noise. I looked at Sophia, to see that her shoulders had burst through the sleeves of her blouse. Glancing at the readout, I saw she was now 5' 8 1/2" tall and weighed 167 pounds, while I STILL remained the same as before. The top of Sophia's head came up to the top of my nose now. As she turned to me, a button popped off her blouse and her chest forced the lapels apart.

 

"Oh my, I'm really outgrowing my clothes now!" she said, casually reaching up and tearing the remains of her sleeves off to bare her muscular shoulders. "I should have worn a stretchier top I guess!" Then she looked closely at me. "Hey, I'm almost as tall as you!" she said.

 

"Not at all!" I said quickly.

 

"Oh! I didn't mean to tease you, Sweetheart." she said contritely, "You poor dear! You're still exactly the same as you were this morning. And now I have these!" She flexed her arms for me, to show me how much bigger her biceps had grown.

 

"I think they're as big as yours!" she said, with evident satisfaction. "Now I know how it feels to be as strong as a man! And I can tell you, it feels good!" Sophia put her hands on her hips. Her shirt had been pulled out of her jeans by her expanded chest, and I could see a two inch slice of her waist exposed beneath the bottom of her shirt. And whenever she moved, I could also see the ridges of her newly developed abdominal muscles around that waist.

 

"This is driving me crazy!" I said. "It makes no sense that the augmentation chamber is only working on you! We both enter the chamber. We stand side by side. We both absorb exactly the same radiation!"

 

"Yes we do, every time," Sophia interrupted me. "We even stand in the same places!"

 

A realization suddenly dawned on me. "Yes, that's right!" I said. "The emitters must be crooked, or have somehow fallen out of alignment, and all the radiation is being discharged on your side! That has to be it! Sophia, you're a genius!" She looked down at her hands, modestly, but I grabbed her and waltzed her around the room, then tried to lift her and swing her through the air..

 

"Oof!" I grunted.

 

"I weigh a hundred and sixty-seven pounds now, don't forget! Not ninety-five." she said. "Your muscles probably expected a lot less weight!" she added, charitably.

 

Then she surprised the heck out of me by lifting ME and swinging ME through the air. It didn't escape my notice that I still weighed almost thirty pounds more than she did. But then, she was expecting that.

 

"I'm so much stronger now!" she said, laughing at my startled expression. "Maybe, with all this new muscle, I'm as strong as you are. After all, you don't have any of the ‘augmented' muscle. AND, since you started working so hard on our augmentation chamber, you haven't been doing your exercises either."

 

"Perhaps," I said, not rushing to try lifting her again just yet. "But I'll be the one doing the lifting next! Let's change sides and go in again!"

 

"If you say so, Darling."

 

So, Sophia went in after me this time, and the cycle started again, with each of us standing on the opposite side.

 

6

 

I was so confident everything had worked that I strode out of the chamber after Sophia when the sequence was complete without even looking at her.

 

"There!" I said, waving my hand at the readout. "See! This time I....I...." I spluttered to a confused halt. It couldn't be. My indicators once again said 6' tall, 195 pounds.

 

"No." I said, "It can't be."

 

And then I read Sophia's stats.

 

5'10" tall, 186 pounds

 

I stared at her, my mouth gaping. She was only two inches shorter than me now.

 

"Twenty more pounds of muscle." she said, indicating her thighs, over which the seams of her jeans had been split apart by the even larger muscles. "AugMENted muscle too!" she said, sounding very pleased indeed.

 

Her cuffs were up to cullotte height, and her calves looked pretty darn strong too.

 

"I'm catching up to you, Sugar." she said in a mockingly warning voice. "You better watch out!"

 

"This can't be." I said. "It should have worked on ME this time!"

 

"Should have, perhaps, but, obviously, it didn't." Sophia said, bending down and working her fingers into the gap over her thighs.

 

"What are you doing!" I asked.

 

"This!" she said, ripping her jeans horizontally, tearing one of the pant legs off with her fingers, ripping it inch by inch around her upper thighs.

 

"My god," I said. "How can you tear that cloth so easily!"

 

"Oh, it feels just like tearing thin cardboard." Sophia said, continuing her savage tailoring. "It's easy!" She looked over her broad shoulder and ripped away at the back of her pants. She tore the leg quite high around her hip, almost to her waist in fact, and then repeated the procedure on the other pant leg, pulling the denim away and tossing it aside.

 

"There!" she said, "That's MUCH more comfortable!"

 

She caught me staring at her thighs, which had developed into large teardrop shaped muscles.

 

"You like them?" she said. "Well, anyway, I do!"

 

She twirled around, and I couldn't help but gasp at the way she had torn most of the seat of her jeans off to bare her beautiful fanny, which looked much rounder then I had ever seen it before.

 

"Very comfy!" she said, laughing at my nonplussed expression.

 

"That's it!" I said. "I'm trying the chamber alone this time!"

 

"Are you sure you want to, Sweetness? Are the parameters adjusted for --

 

"I don't care!"

 

She frowned at me but shrugged. "If you say so ... But you shouldn't yell. I don't like it at all."

 

Normally I would have apologized, but I didn't feel like it. Instead I just entered the chamber and initiated the cycle.

 

6b

 

I stepped outside, once again the same old me.

 

Sophia tsked.

 

"Did it even do what it's supposed to?" she asked, not even looking at me, running her left index finger lightly across the thick blue vein which curved around her right bicep, which she was holding in a side bicep flexed position. I saw her biceps were now easily the size of baseballs.

 

"Yes, yes! Everything functioned perfectly, the rays were discharged but they still had no effect! Maybe the capacitors weren't fully charged."

 

"Hmm, maybe." Sophia said, inspecting her tightly packed obliques.

 

"The only thing I can think of is to have you try it alone, Sophia, while I monitor it from outside. Then we'll know for sure."

 

"Well, sure, no problem, Dearest. I'll go along with that," she said.

 

7

 

After she entered the chamber unaccompanied I set the cycle in motion with exactly the same settings I had used for myself.

 

Immediately the readout began to flicker, and her height reading went steadily higher in small increments....5' 10.1"...5' 10.2"...5' 10.3"... And her weight likewise...187 pounds...188 pounds...189 pounds.... I stared at the flashing, increasing numbers for three minutes, and then they stopped, at 5' 11 1/2" tall and 210 pounds. Sophia stepped out, barely half an inch shorter than me, weighing more, and her muscles all far larger than mine. And they were "augmented" muscles too, I remembered. She looked down at her legs.

 

"No way I'll get these ‘shorts' off, they'll never slide past these thighs!" she said. "I'll have to rip or cut them off, when the time comes." Her long, powerful legs were exquisitely muscled, every curve intensified by new strength. Her shoulders were wider, sinews rippled under her forearms, and when she turned, I could see bands of powerful new muscles writhing under her broad back beneath the shirt that was now stretched like a drumskin over it. She faced me, put her hands on her hips.

 

"What are you going to do now, Lover?" she asked innocently.

 

I couldn't help but stare at her. She was magnificent!

 

"I – all I can think of is turning all the emitters so they discharge into one side of the chamber only. I'll stand on that side, you stand on the other."

 

"Hmmm. I can see the superficial logic of your idea, but I suspect you're missing something. Still, I don't see any real downside. Sure, let's go for it." she said.

 

So I adjusted all the beams to point directly at where I would be standing in the chamber.

 

We went in again. "Keep you fingers crossed." I said as I pressed the start button.

 

"I'm rooting for you, Darling!" Sophia responded, showing me her hands and her crossed fingers.

 

8

 

The chamber went dark and we both heard it humming. The three minutes seemed like a long time to me, but finally the cycle ended and the door slid open again so we could step out.

 

I looked up at my wife, who was an inch taller than me. Her readings were now 6'1" tall and 235 pounds.

 

"Oh my!" she said. "Well, well, this is a new perspective for me!"

 

I couldn't speak.

 

"Look at us, Baby!" Sophia said, "My shoulders are much wider than yours, my arms and legs are much longer and thicker than yours and most importantly of all, my muscles are much larger and harder too! I'm heavier, and it's hard, dense, powerful muscle that makes me weigh more, because my waist is still narrower!" She looked over at me for confirmation. "Do you think I'm stronger than you now?" she added, innocently.

 

"I – I never thought it would come to this!" I said. "I mean, I thought I'd...we'd...."

 

"I know you did, Dear." Sophia said, patting my shoulder. "You thought we'd grow together. And so did I! This isn't working out at all the way you planned! You must be terribly disappointed. And perhaps a bit frightened too," she added, eyebrows raised.

 

I ignored that comment, not wanting just then to point out how unbefitting it was, given my role as head of the household. But still I admitted, "I just don't know what to do."

 

"Really? Are you giving up then?" she asked. "Are you all out of explanations?

 

Is there nothing left for you to try?"

 

"I've got one more." I said. "I'll place my hands right on the emitters and absorb the radiation directly into my body. That ought to work!"

 

"That's a new one. But darling, why should that work when the rays had no effect on you when you were alone in the chamber?"

 

"Because the settings were for the two of us," I answered.

 

"And yet it worked for me when I went solo," she countered.

 

"No doubt due to the residual effects of your previous treatments."

 

Sophia nodded. "Yes, I see." Sophia said. "Your reasoning is very impressive. You are quite a man, Darling, even if you are a little bit small."

 

9

 

This time, Sophia had to hit the button, since I was holding on tightly to the emitters, As the door slid shut and the lights went out I could feel them warming under my hands, and I imagined the augmentation radiation entering my body, changing me, making me grow taller and stronger. If I believed strongly enough, it could only help, I reasoned, adding the placebo effect to the other measures I had taken to ensure success this time. "I think it's working this time!" I cried out, willing complete success.

 

"I'm sure that if you think it is then it must be," Sophia said confidently.

 

As the cycle completed itself the emitters cooled, and I took my hands away. The lights came on and the door automatically opened. I squeezed my fists, willing myself to feel the new energy I should now possess.

 

"Strange," I said as the door fully opened. "I don't feel any different."

 

"No? Well, I do!" Sophia said.

 

"No!" I gasped, staring at the readout. "Not again!"

 

"Again." Sophia contradicted me. A Sophia who was now 6' 2 1/2" tall and weighed 263 pounds. Now it was the top on MY head which came up to the top of Sophia's nose. She looked down at me with an enigmatic expression.

 

"So, my little husband." she said. "You really must come to terms now with the fact that we are now totally reversed. Not only am I clearly taller than you, but I also outweigh you by over sixty pounds! And I am most assuredly far, far stronger than you!" To emphasize her point, Sophia did a double biceps flex for me, making her biceps, which were now somewhere in the size range between baseballs and softballs, bulge into mini-mountains of muscle, the veins across them even thicker and more numerous.

 

"I think the muscle parts of my arms are more than twice the size of yours, Dear, don't you?" she said, feeling them. "I'm very confident that they're much harder. And, of course, they ARE all augMENted muscles." She picked up a metal stool that she had used to clean the higher shelves when she was smaller and pressed it between the palms of her hands, quickly flattening it into a metal sheet, which she then folded several times until it was the size of a wallet. As she pressed, her shirt finally gave up its battle to hold together across her massive chest and it split apart, the remaining buttons pinging off the wall as her out-thrust chest split the sides of her blouse asunder.

 

Laughing, Sophia pulled the remnants of her shirt aside and let them flutter to the floor, her only garment now her skin tight mini-shorts. Her breasts were held high by her massive pecs, and her nipples were conspicuously erect, and at least twice their former size.

 

"B-b-but I was HOLDING the emitters! How could the rays have gotten to you!

 

It..it....it can't be!"

 

"My precious little darling, if you don't know then surely I can't tell you." Sophia said, bringing her arms down to her sides, where even at rest they pulsed and bulged with her spectacular new muscle. "After all, you invented the chamber and built it from scratch. You're the engineer. You did all the brain work while I've only cooked and cleaned and shopped. But the results are plain to see. The augmentation rays are repeatedly making me bigger and stronger, while you remain exactly the same every time!"

 

She shrugged her hulking shoulders indifferently at the frank statement of fact and I had a sudden flash of myself sitting on Sophia's upper arms while she supported my weight with no effort at all and then, to amuse herself and give me some unusual excitement, or possibly to impress or alarm me, began bouncing me from arm to arm simply by briefly flexing her biceps.

 

"The rays must have gone right through me and onto you!" I said. I was grasping at straws now and knew it. "I was TOO close to them. This time, YOU grab them, and I'll stand behind you!"

 

"Your reasoning is, uhm, very creative, Darling, but there's no harm in letting you be the boss some more, so, yes, if you want me to, Precious One, I will." Sophia said.

 

I gave her a wary look, but decided not to say anything.

 

She walked past me, her long legs so muscular I wondered if she could kick our car all the way to the neighbor's yard if she wanted to, and I simply stared at her superlative body as she entered the chamber and placed her hands on the emitters, not even having to reach up as I had.

 

"R-ready?" I asked.

 

"Of course. Haven't we done all this before? Just go ahead and fire away," she replied, almost as if she was instructing me, which of course was impossible. Nevertheless, this is exactly what I did, pressing the start button and praying to all the gods in the universe to make my machine work on its inventor this time, and to PLEASE leave his wife ALONE! ‘PLEASE let it be ME this time. Please, now, it's MY turn!' my fevered brain shouted silently.

 

10

 

"Mmmm...." Sophia said as the chamber darkened and once again bombarded us with radiation. "The feeling of becoming stronger and stronger is so pleasurable, little Sweetums. It is really kind of a shame that you can't feel it. It's absolutely life-changing! If you only knew ... it's almost ... a bit addictive."

 

My shoulders, already pitifully small and thin compared to Sophia's, slumped as I realized I was feeling nothing at all while she obviously, (through experience!) felt the rays infusing her body and would soon be augmenting herself yet again.

 

This was most assuredly confirmed when the door opened and I looked through the opening at the readout, afraid to turn around and look at her. Sophia, 6' 4" tall, 301 pounds. I, 6' 195 pounds. Feeling a wave of anxiety, I stumbled from the chamber and heard her come out behind me.

 

"Turn around and take a look at me NOW, Babe." Sophia said, her voice noticeably deeper now, and, to me, almost, commanding.

 

Slowly, I turned.

 

My eyes moved up to her beautiful face, upon which was a supremely confident expression I had never seen on her before. Her torso was an incredible "V" of muscle exploding upwards from her tiny waist, and her abs were like cobblestones under the taut skin of her flat stomach. Lats like wings spread her arms from her sides, arms that were now so thick with muscle she could probably rip me in half without breaking a sweat.

 

Her legs looked like tree trunks they were so thickly overlaid with muscle, her inner thighs actually touching they were so over-developed. "Well, it should be obvious now." she said calmly, "so let's not argue. I am immeasurably the superior being. I'm larger, heavier and stronger, as you already know. But also with more acute eyesight and hearing, more efficient internal organs, tougher skin, enhanced resistance to disease and vastly increased healing powers, a regenerated neural network that extends electromagnetically even beyond the physical confines of my brain, which results in deeper, more rapid, and more powerful mental processes and, naturally, matchless beauty and sex appeal. Are we in agreement on this, little man? Do you have any doubt which of us now is the boss?"

 

"Wh-what! What did you say!?"

 

"You heard me, little one. I'm in charge now!"

 

"What do you mean. Sophia? In charge of what?"

 

"In charge of our marriage, in charge of the house, in charge of the machine, and in charge of you." she said, taking a step towards me.

 

"Ok," I said. "If that's what you want, no problem!"

 

"You agreed so quickly. Is that because you've recognized the truth? Or are you scared of me now?" Sophia asked casually.

 

"Sh-should I be?" I asked, unable to mask the quaver in my voice.

 

"Well, you might be. You might just realize that if should disagree, you would have no defense against the power of my muscle, the power of my logic, or even my sexual power." She smiled. Her smile made my heart pound with desire for her. Without knowing exactly why, my eyes were drawn to her large, and now perfectly round, bared breast, whose thumb-sized nipple seemed to pull my head to it. Before I knew what had happened, my mouth was sucking furiously on her nipple, hard and substantial and throbbing in my mouth, while her bosom fully supported my head.

 

"You see? It's fortunate that I still do find you adorable, even if you're a bit small. And weak," she said. She pulled my head off her breast. "That's enough for now."

 

"What do you want?" I asked.

 

"To become even more superior than I am now. To be the ultimate Sophia."

 

"You want to continue to use the augmentation chamber? Are you sure? But my programming was designed for a maximum of ten doses!"

 

"Yes, your programming," she said. "I have a few adjustments to make in the parameters, and then I will enter the machine one last time. Don't you want to see what more will happen to me? Aren't you curious?"

 

"Y-yes." I admitted. "You are spectacular, and I DO want to see you change even more! But can't you do anything to help ME? I want to change too!"

 

"Of course you do. But you can't. You are a man, after all."

 

"Yes, I am! But what does that have to do with it?" I cried. "Is it that you want to keep me weak and defenseless? Do you think that I, as a man, don't deserve augmentation too?"

 

"Well, not particularly. It may seem a bit unfair from one point of view -- yours -- that you were the original inventor, while I've had all of the benefit. On the other hand, you have the privilege of witnessing my spectacular enhancement at first hand. Now, I'm well aware that if you were augmented your capabilities would be enhanced in ways that would provide me with certain additional physical pleasures. But unfortunately, male cells simply do not react to the augmentation rays. The lack of a AUG gene on your minimally endowed Y chromosome means that the AUG gene on your X chromosome remains inactive even after stimulation by the augmentation ray. The response in my cells is, by contrast, fully effective, thanks to the presence of fully functioning and highly receptive AUG genes on each member of my X chromosomal pair. I'm sure you realize now that your testing protocol was insufficient. Because you used two female mice in your tests, you failed to detect this phenomenon. I'm very sorry, Dear, but further tinkering with your machine to produce an augmentation effect on you would be pointless. Now, if you'll allow me to complete the programming for my final dose ...."

 

Her hands flew across the dials faster than I could see and then, helplessly, I watched Sophia push the start button and walk into the chamber. She didn't even glance back at me, and the door closed behind her. The cycle commenced, the chamber hummed and I stared at the readout, afraid to move...

 

11

 

... as I watched the numbers changing for three minutes, then three more, and then five more until they stopped: 5' 1" tall and 999 pounds was the reading.

 

But that couldn't possibly be correct!

 

The doors opened, and Sophia, once again far shorter than me, emerged. She looked almost exactly the same as she had this morning, although she was slightly taller and her breasts were slightly larger and possibly rounder and firmer than before. She had never seemed so beautiful to me. I was so happy that she was unharmed, and that other than the slight increase in the size of her bosom, which was entirely pleasing, she had obviously chosen to surpise me and return to her former size and our former relationship! I rushed over to lift her up and twirl her around in the air in celebration ... and found myself unable to lift her, even a millimeter.

 

She looked up at me, nonplussed. "Darling, what do you think you're doing? You can't expect to have to strength to lift ME!"

 

"But you ... you're just five feet tall again," I said, deeply disappointed at my failure. "What's wrong with me now?"

 

She looked at my sympathetically. "Poor Darling. Nothing is wrong with you. You are exactly the same. Exactly as you were. Once again, it is I who have changed. If it makes you feel better to lift me off the ground, then you may try again now."

 

I looked at her skeptically but slowly tried to lift her, moving very carefully so as not to injure myself. She rose off the ground in my arms as through she weighed no more than a pound.

 

"Happy now?" she smiled. She put her hands on mine and then we moved higher, until both of us floated to the ceiling, with Sophia holding me in place, effortlessly. Then she floated back down to the ground and released my hands.

 

My mouth was wide open. "Your power is incredible!"

 

"Not in the sense that it is unbelievable, but certainly in your eyes, and those of any other non-augmented person, it must seem amazing. It is simply the transmission of theta band energy through various dimensional vectors."

 

"Theta band! That's what the augmentation chamber produces. I mean, produced."

 

"Yes, my AUG genes are now self-activating, and I can produce limitless amounts of Theta radiation all across the band, with varying effects, including anti-gravimetic effects, integrating and disintegrating effects on matter at any distance and teleportation. I can also reproduce or reverse the physical augmentation process on myself, or other females, at any time. You seem pleased by my smaller appearance, but of course that does not reflect either my actual or apparent strength." She brought her little fist down on our wooden table, smashing it into splinters, and the waved her hand at it, causing it to reassemble in a much more stylish shape -- the sort of table she had wanted to buy when we had furnished the house years ago. Then, her body expanded in seconds to over seven feet in height with muscles that rippled and bulged far more massively even than before. I looked up at her in amazement.

 

"The project is now, happily, complete," she said, looking at my augmentation chamber. "Of course, in the wrong hands, your invention would be very dangerous." She pointed at it, and in the next second it quietly exploded. She pointed at my computer, at my notebooks, and they quietly disintegrated, collapsing into a pile of dust, and then held her fingers out in a wide spread, rotating her hands quickly so that her fingers pointed precisely in several directions. "You backed up your notes on Google and Evernote, right Darling? That's 73 computers to destroy, if I sense the electronic bits accurately. I will double-check later, the old-fashioned way, through your internet accounts."

 

"There is, unfortunately, one more thing, my Dear. One other place where the information on the augmentation chamber is stored."

 

I looked around the room, uncertainly. "I don't think so, Sophia. I only used the online back-ups that you destroyed. I didn't use any other computers -- unless you include the physical modifications I made to my Wii character."

 

"I don't. Although to be absolutely safe ...."

 

I heard the sound of our Wii console in the next room explode, quietly.

 

"No, darling. I'm thinking of you, of course, the inventor of the augmentation chamber and the architect of 'Sophia 2.0'. I am, course, the architect of my current capabilities, of 'Sophia 3.0'".

 

I backed away slightly, although I knew that with her current abilities there could be no escape. "You're going to kill me?!"

 

She looked down at me, sympathetically. "Oh, Darling. Small and weak and limited as you are compared to me, I would still miss you. But I must make sure that you never build another chamber."

 

"I promise I won't!" I said quickly, desperately.

 

She looked down at me, her massive chest thrust out, her hands on her hips, her muscles exploding from her vein-latticed upper arms. I rose into the air toward her and her powerful arms closed around me. "This won't hurt a bit, my Darling. You'll see," she said as her lips met mine. I felt a mind far more powerful than my own. Images of Sophia flooded through me, producing an escalating series of pleasures far beyond any I had ever felt. And then they faded away. All that was left were a series of equations running through my mind: algebraic, trigonometric, differential, polynomial, physical. I felt waves of disgust, nausea and pain as each one flashed by. They faded away too until there was just the kiss.

 

12

 

"What are you making me tonight, Sweetums?" Sophia asked, seconds after she teleported into the kitchen. I bowed before her, kissing her toes and felt myself rising upwards to her breast. She casually put her arm under me. It made me feel more secure, even though I knew it was unnecessary. She was supporting me through some kind of gravity power. The kind of thinking necessary to understand anything about Sophia's wonderous powers made me feel uncomfortable if I tried, so I didn't bother.

 

"Lamb, medium rare, with mushrooms and chervil, just as you like it, with a salad and fresh baked bread. It will be ready for you in 2 minutes. How was your day?"

 

"Oh, the usual. Speeches at the UN, the Chinese Party Congress and the European Commission. Vaporization of land mines in Korea. Enhancement of some abused women in Alabama. It's amazing that even now some men do NOT get the message!"

 

Her voice sent thrills of excitement through me, and my body pushed against her as I gratefully fondled her full breasts. She was over 7' tall tonight, so I was glad I had made more lamb than usual.

 

"Sometimes I wonder why I don't simply enhance ALL women, all at once, and eradicate ALL traces of male domination. But that would lead to other problems, I know. Some women would abuse their power. Men do have feelings too, primitive as they are."

 

"Speaking of which ...."

 

"Yes, yes, I can feel it. I know it's been three days. Have you done your exercises?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Your housework."

 

"Yes!"

 

"Repaired the rip in my dress?"

 

"As well as I could!"

 

"Well ...." She turned and inspected it, hanging in the closet across the house. "That will do." She waved her hand at the stove, placing the cooking dinner in a time stasis, another one of her powers I could witness but did not dare try to understand, as it would only make me feel ill. And then before I could blink, I was in bed, with my goddess, Sophia. No longer an inventor, no longer an engineer, not rich and not powerful, but still a seriously fulfilled dreamer.

 

"Now, what would little Sweetums like THIS time?" she asked, as she suspended her massively powerful body over me.