The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[3]

Editing the stream on the computer took longer than usual because her muscle memory was misaligned with what it should’ve been. At one point, Rachel asked her if she wanted to use her “booster seat“ from when they set up their spooky streams several years ago so that the two of them were closer height for the video. It helped but didn’t quite close the gap.

Thinking through a gag that she wanted to pull for a stream highlights video, Giselle murmured to herself and made a quick trip to the restroom. Standing before the toilet, an emerging voice inside her head started screaming loudly, but she didn’t understand why until the seat was up and her hand went to find a pants button that wasn’t there. An instant later, her ass was bare, cold, and wet.

Several minutes after that, Giselle sprawled out on the couch with a large pillow covering her face and her fists smacking into that pillow. Rachel sat silently nearby, before taking a deep breath and saying, “Sweetie… You know, if you secretly want to be a girl… You can tell me. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Groaning, Giselle shook her pillow-smothered head and said, with muffled words, “I just wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

Jeremy‘s slips of thought were often a source of stream in-jokes and comedy but they each sometimes fretted that it was more than absent-mindedness, since his family had a foreboding history of early age mental deterioration. A stray thought Rachel had considered bringing up last night was that perhaps doubling up Jeremy’s X chromosomes might fix his memory problems. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.

So, it was four days now. That took it just past Saturday evening game night with all their friends. Giselle could just imagine the comments from their group. And the rest of the streams for the week would contain this suspicious new guest girl. Not that the impromptu stream had been unsuccessful but trying to craft a fake life being someone else without dropping the usual slice of life stories Jeremy liked to tell left her uncertain of what to say.

Rachel consoled her by sharing a tiny snack of some pretzels and mustard. After a second session of editing and work, during which Giselle used the spare, far-end house bathroom with a normal toilet seat, as she told herself she should’ve done all along, Rachel came over with her most recently completed Pokémon plushy and announced, “Let’s have lunch out, so we can go shopping for something to tide you over for the rest of the week.”

Giselle didn’t like any part of that idea but she also understood that having some clothes that fit better to wear would be good. The frugal miser in her heart grumbled at the idea of buying clothes that no one would be able to wear after Sunday. Rachel quipped, “Well, then you just need to pop the toilet seat up every so often to make them worth it.” Part of Giselle grumbled about the fact they were even keeping the seat, but it was a serviceable product, aside from the fact it was punishing her.

Giselle acquiesced when Rachel reminded her that they needed to pick up some shipping supplies as well. Outside, Giselle clung to her big smartphone and Rachel‘s purse, which she’d placed around her shoulder.

Being outside, vividly female, and 4 foot 9 left Giselle feeling pale and unwilling to let any of the neighbors see her in such a state. Of course, the entire neighborhood had to be lingering in their front yards right then. She treated it like a sudden sneaking mission and dashed over from the door behind some potted plants and then snuck into the garage. When she got there, Rachel casually reminded her that she could’ve just gone straight from the side bathroom and the litter box to the garage. Rachel also firmly resolved that she was going to drive, despite the fact that Giselle, as a tall lanky man, was one of the safest drivers around. She just worried that the placement of the pedals and everything would throw her off.

After sighing, Giselle accepted this explanation. The problem was their car was a rather tall crossover SUV. It didn’t get much use during the pandemic but now it was perfect and reliable for errands to supplement their small business. However,  it was quite a step up to even get into the passenger’s seat. Giselle envisioned it as a mountain climb and fumbled before gripping the handle and wrapping her arms around the seat. She didn’t tumble backward.

Scooting in carefully, she marveled at the stratospheric headspace above her and the tall cushion behind her. The seatbelt was about the same, she had issues reaching back as a tall man. But the way the belt set against her prominent boobs left much to be desired.

Before starting the car, Rachel looked over and sighed, “I am really doing my best not to feel schadenfreude. It would be better if that silly thing made you more my height than what it did… Although, while I can’t say I didn’t want this to happen, I would only want it for just a tiny tiny time. Sorry, sweetie.”

Giselle sighed too. “I get it…I get it. And I’d like to treat it as a learning experience. Human nature and all that. But it’s so inconvenient and I’m not complaining about the girl stuff. I’m talking about the fact that I have to explain I’m someone else and I’m not a size I’m comfortable with. And several parts of that.”

Rachel knew that she could’ve ribbed her but she understood. If some other apparatus cursed her with man parts and something like Jeremy‘s height then she would probably feel like walking around as one of those stilts performers.

She relayed her thoughts and emphasized, “Imagine if you were like this and I was like you. Imagine how something like last night might go.”

Giselle brushed her hair back and gave a light laugh. “Would you be able to reach all the way down to notice me? Or would we have to have a ditch like they do with making couples in movies the same height?”

With a cocked eyebrow that wiggled, Rachel noted, “You would be at the perfect height for certain things.”

Giselle‘s lower lip dropped without her thinking about it and an accidental bit of drool spilled from there onto her top. Scowling and grumbling, Giselle urgently tried to correct how that looked. Rachel had to giggle and soon assured her that it was fine. More than anything, she appreciated the way that Giselle‘s wide, green eyes tried to look like they were distracted by something on the side of the garage. But she wasn’t able to hide the bright red bloom of a blush from her cheeks.

When they finally got to driving, Giselle set her phone to record video for their YouTube channels, even though she had no clue how she was going to work recent events into their long-standing, weekly vlog. She didn’t wanna appear in any of the videos, nor did she want evidence that these four days of chaos actually happened. At the same time, she realized it might be kind of interesting to be able to look back on herself in candid moments.

Editing the stream had been an exercise in screaming to her brain that the girl on the left side of the couch wasn’t actually the bizarro version of herself but instead some random guest and close personal acquaintance of Rachel. That notion only had so much staying power.

Before setting up a traveling vlog recording of Rachel driving, she turned the camera toward herself and held it out a few inches and at the right angle to make it look decent according to all she learned in film school. Rule of thirds, light exposure, all that jazz.

When the actual vlogging started, Giselle narrowed her eyes at her wife when she narrated how they were going to go shopping and have some lunch and find something cute for her wife to wear. It was the “wife“ comment that sent the most nervous shivers down her back.

She was a girl, she was a wife, she was a little lady whose legs felt like a kid’s that couldn’t reach the bottom of the footrest, and it was freaking her out. Any efforts to adjust the seat tilted it in such a way that it hurt her back and moving it up just felt like she was pinned to the dashboard like some odd specimen. She eventually found not a happy medium but at least a tolerable one.

Giselle‘s anxiety spiked when they drove out of the neighborhood area and past where her parents lived. On a ridiculous number of occasions, they actually ran into her parents either strolling the neighborhood and asking how they were doing or driving by and wanting to know if they could help them or get them anything. Her mom, a cosmetologist, had the ravenous need to make sure they were fed. That meant crafting vats of soup, three-course meals with endless servings, literal tons of cookies around Christmas time, and frying more shrimp than anyone else along the coast even dared.

For an immense and often hungry big guy like Jeremy, that was no big deal. But since her stomach now acted like it was the size of a walnut, the notion of several plates of food instilled a strange new fear in her. Fortunately, her parents were nowhere around right then. She would have to call them or rather Rachel would have to call and provide some plausible excuse that didn’t raise their suspicions or sympathy to rush over and help.

It didn’t take long till Rachel merged onto the main interstate that fed the tourism beast that was this area of the coast during summertime. It was past the peak and, fortunately, all but the humidity had started to abate. She didn’t enjoy the fact that the makeshift outfit Rachel was able to put together for her also included some of the warmer things to wear at this time of year. But she grew up here and she could stoically tolerate it. The A/C blasting full tilt definitely helped.

They both agreed on a chain sub sandwich place for lunch even though Giselle pressed a nail against her teeth and fretted whether one of their local friends might show up. It turned out this concern was well placed as not only did they see one of the people they knew in the area, but two.

The first was her college roommate who shared the bedroom next to her, Dale. He was a stout guy with a curly beard and trucker hats often featuring some famous Star Wars ship Giselle still didn’t know the name of despite the fact Dale had shown her the original trilogy twice. She blamed her wretched memory there.

The second was the guy standing next to Dale, Finley, who was the co-founder and manager of one of the best video game stores for 100 miles. He looked like a man out of a fantasy legend with a jolly, jiggling belly and the facial hair of Peter Jackson (another series of films Giselle still desperately needed to watch, but she’d seen the bonus features). They noticed Rachel as Finley raised an arm high above his long black locks and curtain-like beard and greeted, “Hiya, Chel. How y’all doing? Who’s your friend?”

Giselle did her best not to curse on a regular basis, for any reason. That came from her upbringing. Then, they got a cat. And pretty much every curse word she could ever imagine was unleashed dealing with his shenanigans. This moment called for her to dig up all of those curses and swing them around her head like a barrier to keep her invisible from her friends and ward off the worst kinds of embarrassment and suggestions to her identity. Like a waking nightmare, she half-expected her wife to suddenly say, “Oh, this is Jeremy. He got transformed by a cursed toilet seat.”

Fortunately, her wife was the kind of partner who could be trusted to not only not embarrass her but to make sure a delicate and strange secret like this was carefully kept…

“Oh, this is Jeremy. He got transformed by a cursed toilet seat.”

Unfortunately, she overlooked that sometimes her wife could also be a troll. In the nicest way, especially for humor when they streamed. However, this moment didn’t feel very funny for Giselle. More terrifying instead.

But Rachel emphasized her comment with a flare of her teeth and a slight wink. Dale needed that, since he sometimes had trouble picking up on the nuances of words due to his hearing issues. Finley understood right away and gave an uproarious laugh. He raised his eyebrows in an animated manner, looked to Giselle, and remarked, “I hope you didn’t fall in. How are you liking the weather at this elevation?”

Giselle had to give him credit, he phrased that in such a way that it could work on multiple levels. Dale just managed a few raised eyebrows and comments of “What?” and “Wow”. She did her best to emphasize a sense of confusion, which the entire situation easily fostered, while keeping a cordial expression.

Rachel eventually amended, “This is Giselle. She was on the stream earlier and she’ll be here at least till the weekend. We were just going shopping and stopped here to grab some lunch. Jeremy is, of course, busy as always. He’ll be fine. How are you?” Once again, Giselle was impressed at the way her wife was able to finesse the nuance of the situation, so she opted to keep her mouth shut while nodding and smiling.

Finley took that lead without concern or confusion. He was heading to Durham in his truck to check out some stock surplus and happened to meet up with Dale. They had just finished, which brought relief to Giselle, because it meant she wouldn’t have to navigate much more of this delicate conversation. Dale directed a few questions toward her, but Rachael intercepted them to explain that Giselle had a few difficult encounters in their master bathroom and it was a dumb joke.

When their friends finally waved goodbye and headed off, Giselle cupped her forehead under her hair and slumped against the nearest waste bin. No words needed to be exchanged between them, but Giselle still inquired, “No schadenfreude, huh?”

Rachel spread out her hands and responded, “I just said I was doing my best. I couldn’t resist and it worked out. It’ll be fine.” They walked over to the line.

In line, Giselle resisted self-consciousness. It was hard though. She’d long ago gotten over people who marveled and gawked at her height, like she was an escaped NBA player. Her concern here was that her clothes may not stay in place or her boobs might do something scandalous. She wasn’t used to wrangling this sort of body in a public space. She wasn’t used to dealing with it in any sort of space but at least her mistakes could be overlooked in the privacy of their home.

Giselle blazed through her squeaky order so fast that it actually took longer with clarifications. She ordered the half, loaded salad, to which Rachel widened her eyes. When they sat down in the corner after ordering, Rachel noted, “Even I usually get more than that. Will that be enough for you?” Wrapping her arms around her tiny tummy, Giselle shrugged and pointed out that she hadn’t finished breakfast, so she was just being cautious.

It turned out it was the right move, as she just finished her salad as her stomach mounted a protest to stop. After lunch, they stopped off at the UPS store before Rachel went hunting for clothing store options.

“What about Perfect Fit?”

Giselle let out a puff of a sigh and narrowed her eyes at her wife before noting, “That is a bra store.”

Rachel countered, “Not just that. It’s intimates, but they have a variety. And they notably carry petite items. Otherwise, you might have to look around the junior/misses and children’s departments of the big stores.”

Giselle rubbed her forehead again and muttered a few sounds that almost sounded like words. She provisionally agreed to go to the bra store.

When they arrived, she took the steps to the door with hunched foreboding. It smelled of all sorts of perfumed airs within. She scrunched up her nose and folded her arms down towards her midsection. The items on the racks didn’t immediately encourage her. Until she found the plaid.

Gray-and-green slim-cut button-up collared shirts. Yoga shorts mixed with Capri pants. And dainty sandals. After a few rote iterations of this template, Giselle figured they were done. But Rachel scoffed that she just eyeballed and estimated the fit. She hadn’t tried any of them on.

Dragging her feet over to the changing room, Giselle presented one after another of the outfits. She thought that too many of the tops followed the curves of her body and emphasized her braless shape. The pants and shorts were even worse as Giselle learned firsthand the vicious hatred that all women’s clothing designers seem to have towards usable pockets. Slipping clothes on and off, one after the other, exhausted her during most shopping excursions. Now though, she had to contend with the foreign feelings, weight, and contortions of her body as she slipped one garment off and then the other on and off and on and off.

Rachel reserved the intimates till the end. They had to talk with the clerk and finesse an explanation that Giselle had a sudden and unexpected weight loss and she wanted to get a clear metric of where things stood. The lady had indomitable Southern hospitality and didn’t ask any of the obvious questions. She just went to work gently posing Giselle around and taking all the necessary measurements.

None of the final numbers really made all that much sense to her and she learned that even some of the letters didn’t matter either. All that really concerned her was that some sort of D cup bra, which was also sort of a DD bra, and sometimes a DDD, and other times possibly even a C…fit her comfortably and kept a low profile to her chest. It felt weird putting all the different parts into the different slots, as she considered it, but her brain tried to think of it as just an intricate back brace.

All told and done, they had a usable assortment representing almost seven outfits. It was honestly more cohesive and varied than her regular combinations of clothes. The number on the bill was bad, but Rachael ameliorated some of it with digital coupons.

For walking out, Giselle wore a slim, comfortable green-and-gray plaid top, a pair of jungle green casual, multi-pocket (thank God) Bermuda cargo shorts, a decent bra somewhere underneath, and a rugged set of sandals. The top, she felt, emphasized too much of a shape and reminded her and the rest of the world that she had boobs around the D’s. And the shorts, despite their casual classification, really clung to the slope of her butt.

But shopping was accomplished. And she was glad to leave that store behind. Ahead, were still far too many days of figuring out how to deal with this. She sighed and rested her eyes.

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

Current ideas/prompts list