Keeper of the Keys

He saw her tense up momentarily. Her teeth were bared, her large hands folded into heavy balls ready to deliver blow after blow in his open face. Phil swallowed hard and wished that he hadn't dropped his wand. He lifted his hands above his head slowly and made small steps out of the corner. No pace was wasted; each time he connected with the floor was full of deliberation. She closed her full mouth, but her small, black eyes frowned.

Finally, he stood only a foot away from her.

He stood only to her chin, even with all his efforts at giant-ness. Her back curved into a slight arch like the imitation of an angry cat. She looked at him intently and took a few steps towards him. Her face softened, but Phil made sure to stand absolutely still. Her face came so close to his that he thought - absurdly - that she would open her mouth into some strange, predator's osculation. No such thing. Instead, she started to smell him. Phil felt her hot breath press against his cheeks, his neck, his naked stomach.

And then she stopped.

She fell backwards a bit and ended up on the ground, not angry, but bewildered. Her black, black eyes turned towards him imploringly. What was it?

Then, he realized what it was. He felt his face heating up again, his skin instantly dispelling the cold bumps of chicken skin that had formed on his limbs with the heat of remote shame. He was very naked. He was very exposed. She approached him again, this time her hot breath pressing on his limp member. He peered down at himself. Well, that was weird. He looked like a stranger to himself under the engorgio charm. Like meeting an old friend only to find out that they were not at all who you thought they were. He felt faint and hoped that she didn't touch him. But she just stared and stared.

That night, she somehow let him sleep in the cave, near the entrance, while she retreated into her own dark corner. He covered himself with that cloak while he curled into fetal position. And he stayed the next night, much to his surprise. And the night after that. But not the next night.

The deer carcass she had brought in before was starting to rot slightly, so she cooked it that night. She took a piece, hot out of the fire, and offered it to him without meeting his eyes. He took it slowly, cursing quietly when it burned his hands. Her own large hands were so callused that she could probably grate onions with bare fingers. With a deft movement, she snatched the burned hands and put the throbbing fingers in her hot, wet mouth. Phil let her do it, without really knowing what he should do. They stayed like that for several minutes. She removed his fingers to masticate one chunk of meat. The fire, a meek reddish-orange flame, had only succeeded in charring the outsides. The inside remained raw and bloody. The blood dribbled down her chin. Phil nibbled shyly away at his own piece. Tasting it made him realize that he'd had nothing to eat for several days, and he bit into the rest ravenously. Now, they were both covered in the blood.

She laughed her low, growling laugh at seeing his soiled face. He laughed too, partly because it was funny, partly because he was still afraid she would rip off his genitals with one rapid motion.

Suddenly, she stopped laughing. Her tongue cleaned him of the blood, until she reached the corners of his mouth. Then she withdrew her tongue back into that full mouth.

"Fridwulfa," she said, placing one hand on her chest. "Fridwulfa," he echoed obediently. She placed one hand demanding on his own chest. "Ph-ph-phil," he stammered.

She repeated, "Phil."

She held her face up to him: sharp-ridged cheeks, that full mouth, thick eyebrows that connected very barely at their ends. Very hopeful, but for what he would find out she didn't know back then. He'd find out that it had only been "four moons" since she had left her own mother's cave. That she had come a long, long way from their native England to escape the purge. That he really liked it when she fell asleep curled into him.

But for now, he pushed his face into hers, pausing to consider if he had the balls to do it, then saying to himself, yes. He licked the blood off of her curious face, the one that would become so familiar to him, and when he got to the corners of her cracked and dry lips, he pried them loose with his own searching tongue. She tasted metallic and saline and a bit rotten all at once. She opened her mouth dumbly, letting him explore the textured curve of the hard palate, the soft insides of the cheeks, and those brutal, animal teeth. They both kept their eyes open the whole time; Fridwulfa watching him and taking it in, Phil looking for her reaction. There would be more in the coming months, but never again like this. She was small to her own kind, a runt. And to make up for it, she was rough, so very rough. She would always have to be the one to start things. Fridwulfa only liked things like that, once past her intial dumb-foundedness. His Fridwulfa.

She wasn't quick to learn how to do that at first. He mused at how human a kiss was. But the only one (of the mere handful he had in his entire life) that he came to control was not with a human, but with a giant. She got up. At first, Phil panicked because he thought he'd done something wrong. But she came back, bearing in her hands heaps of some sort of dried, prickly herb. It smelled like dragon dung, but it was the most powerful stuff he'd ever have. She tucked it into a hollowed-out log, lit it, and then held it out to him. Phil shook his head warily, but then thought better of it as the corners of Fridwulfa's mouth began sinking. He reached for the stick, put it in his mouth, and breathed in deeply. Phil choked and coughed, acrid reddish-orange smoke came out of his flared nostrils. She took it from him, and puffed at it easily. Only then did she lower her sealed mouth to his, opening clouds of orange into his eager mouth. Somehow, they retreated inch by inch into her dark corner during the night, laughing and coughing all the way. From where they reclined, Phil could see the deer's head staring out at him with unblinking glass eyes. Its rotting tongue lolled comically, sickly out of the mouth. Flies occasionally came out of the mouth to scale the deer's horns and ears, only to re-enter it. Their high buzzing sounded vaguely like "Blood. Blood. Bloooood." He heard the deer addressing him, "Bloooooood." He nodded languidly, yes, blood, as Fridwulfa clumsily mimicked the first kiss and bit down painfully on his numb tongue.

"I'm turnin' inta stone," he thought groggily. Phil looked at the fingernails...already ossifying into chalk. He felt his face stiffen and then the rest of him. He looked at Fridwulfa, but she was only softer than before...very soft and very wet. He wanted...to stop being stone, to be skin again, and so he reached for that wetness. He coughed and he reached and he pulled down the loose fur shift that covered her, trying to contain those liquid, viscous breasts. He wanted...to drink her...he wanted to cup her in his palms. Drink her. Yes. Wet. Yes. It felt like swimming. She was a lake, now. Not those frozen ones up here, but a lake in a tropical place, full of something slow...like honey. Yes. Fridwulfa looked at him from half-closed eyes, giggling lowly and lost in her own trip. She only lied supine and limp as Phil pressed his own hot mouth on her and pressed her own knees to her chest lazily.

Neither of them remembered much that had happened that night. But it didn't really matter much, because Fridwulfa let him keep on sleeping there and they would always wake up sore and tired the next day. It kept on happening like that for a few weeks, until neither of them really needed the herbs (although that always kept it interesting).

Then one day, Phil found out one more thing about Fridwulfa. She was married, or had a mate, or whatever they called it here. Not only that, but HE was the "gurg," the giants' chieftain. Phil felt faint again. Why hadn't she said something? Granted, they didn't really talk much - it was too much effort. It was now "two moons" since he'd first slept with Fridwulfa. Her stomach didn't show anything yet, but she hadn't bled since then. She was moody (but how to tell with her?) He saw her vomiting once, but she just wiped her mouth off with a large forearm and continued to sharpen that knife. After that, she was vomiting all the time. She told him, after coming back from one of her long trips (they spent a lot of time apart for most of the day) that HE was coming to see her. She was HIS fourth wife, the youngest and the smallest. Fridwulfa spoke about HIM with a mixture of fear and indifference: Grendel. She had been a gift from the giant who fathered her to Grendel. Their tribe was about to be purged out completely, both by wizards and giants alike, but she was given up as tribute, along with several bottles of giant ale. Grendel was coming.

When he came, Phil had to hide. He took a walk to the area around the cave, taking with him his clothes and wand. He hadn't used them for a few months now. It felt odd to put them back on now; the brush of the fabric against his skin like waking up from a recurring dream. The sun was bright in his eyes, and he had to shield himself with his hands in order to see anything. He put one hand in his pockets and paced around for hours.

He heard screaming. He rushed back to the cave, his pulse in his throat like when he first met her. He shut his eyes, bracing himself for the worst and then steeling himself to look inside.

Fridwulfa had Grendle on the ground. After emptying several massive, hollow gourds full of giant ale, he was of course very drunk. Fridwulfa had bent down, grabbed him, pushed him down. She promptly got on top of him and started to gyrate her hips wildly. Fridwulda's matted locks covered her face, while Grendel drooled and slobbered all over the place. Phil watched wordlessly. A few minutes of this, and the giant fell deeply asleep. Fridwulfa got up, said nothing, but came to Phil and began chewing his mouth in a kiss. He wasn't sure if it was an apology or a reward or what. She broke it off, then brushed the insides of her thighs off. And then went back to lie next to Grendel. She cocked her head, come back later. She cocked her head, wait a while. Phil blinked. He obeyed.

The sun was less harsh against the white terrain when he went out this time. It was even beginning thaw. Exhausted, Phil collapsed underneath one of the evergreens. He tried falling asleep, but it was no good. So he just lie on his back for a while, staring out at the sky from under the scraggly tessellation of pine needles. It was graying outside and Phil found himself able to look straight at the sun: a muted white orb that would only shine brightly in those rare moments when the gray parted. He sighed, and his entire body sighed with him. Several hours passed, and he made his way back to her after taking everything except the cloak back off.

He found her sitting by the fire. Grendel was gone. She smiled up at him weakly. As if to say, "It couldn't be helped." As if to say, "I only did what I had to." She took him by surprise that night, but he couldn't get into it. "Tired," he said. She nodded. The next night, she tried gentle, coaxing him with her mouth, lots of holding and murmuring (not that he could understand most of it). When that didn't work, she reverted back to aggressive. She threw him against the cave walls, bit down on his lips when they kissed, clawed his back. Finally, something. But still, he would ask her constantly, was HIS bigger? Did she like that better? Should we try this instead? It was too many questions, and it landed the two of them in a rut - they laid off of it for a month or so. And her belly was showing now, the dusky gray skin stretched tightly to fit the new distended abdomen.

When they started at it again, he felt too awkward to be on top. As if she'd explode or something if he jerked the wrong way. Once, when they finally had it, he could feel the little person (little-big person) kicking powerfully. For months, he had doubted the existence of this being. He staggered away and became limp. The only incentive was that with the belly came breasts, even larger than he could have guessed. He'd weigh them, full of the promise of motherhood and of life, in his spread palms while she wrapped her long-haired legs around him. Every now and then, Phil had to Engorgio himself big again; the effects wore off after a while and it would show first in his thing. But maybe it was just Fridwulfa. It seemed all they did was sleep and eat and fuck, day after day.

At first, it had been enough. He was tired, but happy. He'd get up after their romps and go sit in the snow. It got to be too much after a while: even during the late moons of being with child, like maybe the sixth and seventh, she was still as demanding as during the first and second. He was scared of falling into her. It felt like she would pop like an angry balloon any day now. Then finally, she did.

She yelped and howled, and got on her knees like a dog. The pains came and went, until they only came. She cried out for the herbs, to which Phil obliged. He got some from the rock which she kept them under, and tucked the handful into a log like he had so often seen her do, then lit it. She raised one of the arms that was propping her up and snatched the stick from him, taking long greedy puffs.

A head, raw and pink, come out of her. Then a round torso, with chubby legs and chubby arms with their perfectly crafted digits. Very red and very raw. The orange acrid smoke consumed the whole place and made the infant wail. "Stop tha'," Phil told Fridwulfa, only to be swatted away. She kissed him again and opened smoke into his mouth. Yes, blood.

The baby lay neglected on the floor. Funny thing. He looked like something that Fridwulfa would kill and eat, with his raw, small body and his wrinkly face. Bits of coagulated liquid like cheese the color of merschaum mottled him. His mouth was amazing. Phil watched his son's mouth open and stretch and widen so fluidly. It was a big black hole, and its blackness was solid and shifting and entirely its own thing. Phil picked up his son in incredulity, the feel of a baby too foreign and dizzy. His son's head tilted back, the weak neck bending this way and that. For one second, the baby was awake. He stared down Phil with crinkly black eyes that struggled to stay open. The eyes of judgment, even as he was blood-specked and covered with fine, translucent hair. Soon, the baby was dozing off again, maybe lost in its own trip too.

Another final heave, and Fridwulfa expelled the weirdest thing Phil ever saw, trip or no. She was still getting high, so she might not have noticed it coming out of her. It was a purplish-gray sac from one side. Phil prodded it with a stick. It looked like it would start crawling away any time now, but it just lay there. He flipped it over. It had the consistency and the hue of the raspberry preserves his mom used to can for winter. Fridwulfa held it up carelessly. The gummy white cord that attached it to the baby tugged a bit, but the baby didn't care. Fridwulfa put the cord in her mouth and chewed lackadaisically. Then, she took the sac itself and took a big bite. It hung out of her mouth. She choked on it a little, but then put the rest into her own mouth and chewed persistently. He had just pushed away the urge to throw up when she took a piece and stuffed it in his mouth. The earthen, ferrous taste of the membrane flooded him, and before he could stop, it slipped irretrievably down his throat. He coughed and sputtered. Fridwulfa laughed.

She lied down, stationary. Fridwulfa stayed that way for about a week. Phil would give the baby to her from time to time. She was even worse than him at holding it; the infant's flaccid neck rolled around uncomfortably and it would cry out. She could hold it to her swollen breasts, but it was more like playing with a little doll for her. She'd get bored and sore, then let the baby scream out its hunger to deaf ears. The infant would cry out at odd hours, waking Phil while Fridwulfa continued to sleep soundly, resolutely. By then, Phil became good at this. He'd take the baby and hold its soft head, pacing around gently until it fell asleep again.

Only a few weeks after the birth, and Fridwulfa wanted to get back at it. Phil was exhausted from all of the waking up, but he more than obliged to his giantess. They were rocking each other well enough, when the baby started to cry. Phil wanted to stop and go hold it, but Fridwulfa pushed him down and got on top of him. Phil relented, but sighed. The baby had stopped crying, but was regarding him with black eyes as wide as it could manage. Phil turned his face away. When he turned back to look at the baby, it was still staring at him. "Enough," he said to Fridwulfa. But she didn't get off that time. Other things bothered Phil. Even when she was bleeding like she did every moon, she'd make him do it. It was always weird for him; it smelled too much like the sac she had forced him to eat, messy and somehow very wrong. He had to engorgio himself increasingly often now, and he was always tired. And it was harder to get it up for her now - though he did try, he tried so hard it made him cry. She'd stare at him with her blank face, and even maybe go and touch herself. Meanwhile, the baby was hungry. The baby was talking. His boy was walking.

She missed it, possibly because she was out killing some animal. So instead, Phil recounted his son's first steps to her, in excited almost unintelligible gasps of air. He propped up the little boy and pleaded, "Jus' once. For ye mum, please." The boy looked at him with his shiny black eyes and crinkled them in naughty defiance. Fridwulfa was unimpressed. His son cried even more now that he was getting his small, gap teeth. They sat in his gums side by side, two agreeable friends in an otherwise uninhabited, but wide smile. Fridwulfa crammed a piece of meat in the boy's mouth. It proved too large, so it was Phil who had to chew the chunk and put it in his flat palm for his little son to lap up like a kitten. Fridwulfa pushed the boy away as he sucked enthusiastically at her breast. She rubbed her hurting nipples and gave her son a pinch. He'd pinch back, and then she would, until Phil took the little boy away made him wash out his mouth with the hard snow he liked so much to soothe his aching gums. It was getting towards the end of Fridwulfa's lactating, and Phil hadn't yet tried for himself.

The milk would secrete from her, and run down to her navel in pearly rivulets when she was bent over Phil. Fridwulfa thought he was just licking at first, but then felt the hard suction of his lips. She gave a jump and pushed him off. "No," she told him, drawing her fur shift back up to cover her breasts. It was no. Breasts were for sex. Breasts were not for mothers. She stroked herself, glaring at him. These two grey mounds, these soft pockets of flesh, they were her pride. Phil had memorized the feel of them, like a gigantic tear-drop made of skin. He knew that it would hurt her to be touched that way, but that she like it this way, and he knew how to command those willful, large . He even remembered, without opening his eyes, that they were starting to sag a bit, and that the once perfectly circular halos around her nipples her were now indeterminate ovals. The milk making its way down to his throat was thick and tasted of the castor oil he'd always had to drink with heavy wormwood whenever he had a cold. It was fatty, and he could feel the residue of it clinging in his mouth long after he had managed to swallow. He sat, panting from his exertion during this particular session and from holding his breath to mask out the taste as best as he could.

Their little son stopped nursing altogether. He smiled freely, and ran as soon as he had learned to walk. He liked being chased, that was his favorite game. Phil could chase his son for hours in the snow. The little boy would look back with his wide grin every other second, to see if Daddy was still chasing him. Fridwulfa mostly kept to herself, sleeping for days at a time and then waking up for food and for sex. Even though he didn't need his mother's milk anymore, the boy was still curious about those oddly familiar lumps his mum kept hidden from him. He'd pull the shift off, only to be snarled at before Fridwulfa fell asleep again. He also loved anything that moved. There was little to do in the cave, but the occasional spider or doxy would turn up. He'd scramble after these in delight, cup them in his sticky hands and present them lovingly to his mum with a big smile that showed off his small, white teeth. Fridwulfa would turn to look at him and frown, or at least grunt indifferently, while Phil would anxiously brush his son's hands off and wince squeamishly.

At night, Phil would let Fridwulfa back on top. She didn't like that as much, because she couldn't look at herself during it, but it was this or nothing. Phil was almost there, when she stopped abruptly and got off. "Wha's tha'?" he asked, putting a hand on her sweaty back. "Why's he small? Too small. Will not live," she said. "Wha' ye wanna do 'boutit?" he sighed. "Too small," she repeated. "Wait and wait, but still small." "Shoulda thought a tha' 'fore we started, righ'?" he joked half-heartedly. "Yes. Get rid of it," she replied, referring to the deeply sleeping boy several feet behind them. She put her cloth back on and walked off.

Phil waited two weeks before realizing that she'd never come back. He was angry with her, but he thought that maybe they could work it out. Not so. He picked up his things and put on the underpants, now filthy from lying in the dust for so long, and then the trouser and shirt. The cloak he undid and wrapped around his sleepy son.

It had to be sometime. "Reverto," he said, swishing the sandalwood wand for its first spell in a long time that was't engorgio. Then, once more with feeling, "Reverto!"

He was Phil again. All of him was Phil again. He took his son, and with one last look at the cave, called out, "Apparate!"