But...
"I feel complimented," he told her gently. "But I have to point out that there are sharp limits—"
"No. No limits. And we have only forty minutes. Please, Mr. Fowler, we have to get started." She sat down on the coverlet and removed her shoes. One thigh showed alluringly as her leg lifted.
He chucked her under the chin with a careful finger. "There has to be a misunderstanding, sweetheart. You're very pretty and I like you but—maybe you'd better tell me exactly what you mean by 'making love.' "
She stood up. She ran a hand down her side and her yellow dress fell open. She shrugged out of it, folded it meticulously (he liked that, too) and stood before him in bra and petticoat. She drew the petticoat over her head.
"I fear our definitions coincide," Burg said quickly. It was as though a real woman were baring herself and he wasn't used to it. "But—surely you see that it's impossible. Physically impossible. You and I—well, it's impossible."
"No, it isn't," she said confidently, as she reached behind to unfasten the bra. "You're a man and I'm a woman and I love you." The bra came free, revealing that spectacular scale-model bosom. Then she dropped her panties.
Ah, yes—complete and desirable in every respect.
And nine inches tall.
"Now it's your turn," she said.
"Look, Minnie—this is ridiculous. I can't—"
"Please, Mr. Fowler!" she urged him. "Get undressed."
"You don't understand—"
She dabbed her face with a handkerchief the size of a postage stamp. "You don't love me! You won't even give me a ch-chance!"
Feeling like both fool and heel, he removed his pajamas. Of all the ways to be spending a Saturday morning!
"Good," she said, looking him over demurely. "Now lie down."
He lay on his back next to her.
She trotted up and leaned against his chin. "You haven't shaved."
"I'll go take care of it right now," he said, grateful for the pretext to remove himself from this embarrassing charade.
"No—there isn't time. Kiss me," she said, and leaned over his face to plant her full red lips against his mouth. Her breasts nudged his cheek and she had one bare foot braced in his ear, but the overall effect, oddly, was potent.
Then she climbed up a little more so that her breasts hung above his mouth. Suddenly some more of the poem popped into his mind. Queen Helen's commentary on her own physique.
Yea, for my bosom here I sue: / (O Troy Town!) / Thou must give it where 'tis due, / Give it there to the heart's desire. / Whom do I give my bosom to? / (O Troy's down, / Tall Troy's on fire!)
It was given to Burg. The breasts pressed down between his lips, their miniature nipples touching his tongue. He couldn't help warming to the sensual impact of her body.
He licked the heart's desire.
"You do want me, don't you?" she inquired.
What could he say? He was drinking from Helen's goblet and Tall Troy was on fire.
The Thoughtsman for the ad hoc Expeditionary Committee presented his report. We divided our mission into two prime areas of endeavor: first, the arrangements for the emissary to solicit a suitable exchange; second, the mechanical provisions for transfer of the shipment. Both areas had unique problems. We could not send one of our own number as emissary, for reasons hitherto discussed, so we formulated a matrix of suitable configuration and cultured it remotely to serve in lieu of direct confrontation. The proteins for the multicellular entity were garnered from the substances available on that world—
Several interjections: Multicellular entity? Why attempt such an unwieldy construction? Surely there is a less tedious way!
The Thoughtsman waited for the commentary to subside. Compatriots, our need is massive and immediate. We felt that our purpose would best be served by dealing with one of the larger species, one capable of delivering the entire shipment in a matter of hours. If our present, admittedly ambitious, scheme succeeds, we should have complete delivery by the terminus of this Assembly.
There was a complimentary aura of awe.
Then another protest: But at what price, Thoughtsman? We shall have to mortgage our entire resources for a thousand generations even to approach a fair exchange for such immediate service!
Not so, the Thoughtsman replied. We need only agree to mutually beneficial terms. In this case we believe our emissary will be able to give satisfactory value. Therefore the shipment should cost us nothing more than the effort of obtaining it.
But we cannot offer in exchange any information about ourselves or deriving from our researches! What else, apart from physical goods, could the emissary arrange for?
Love, the Thoughtsman replied.
Minnie trotted down Burg's chest, stomach and abdomen, her bare feet pattering ticklishly. When she reached the major bifurcation she kneeled in the brush, wrapped her arms about the cannon she found there, and pressed her resilient breasts against it.
Troy had never stood taller.
In the living room the clock chimed eight.
This abrupt reminder of the real world brought the weirdness of the situation home to him with renewed force. There was of course no mini-woman; he was lying steeped in his own concupiscence and he had better get up before he fouled the sheet. It had been a fabulous fantasy, ridiculous but exciting—but there were limits.
"You'll have to sit up, Mr. Fowler," she said. "The angle is wrong, this way."
Burg lifted his head and saw her: a lushly naked woman straddling the canting trunk of a leaning beech tree as though it were a seesaw.
He sat up carefully, swinging his gross feet off the side of the bed while she clung to her support with arms and legs. He didn't know what to do except comply with her requests; the truth was too incredible to argue with.
"Give me your hand," she said.
He put out a hand and she braced herself against his thumb. She climbed just high enough to sit on the apex of the now-vertical stump, her slim legs coming down on either side. He could feel her smooth muscular buttocks and the moist warmth of her cleft as she squirmed around to seat herself firmly, facing him. Her waist was no larger than the purple hassock she bestrode.
She squirmed some more and the action was almost painfully titillating. He began to comprehend how physical intercourse could take place between them: her aperture, properly positioned, might match and seal over the vent in the hydrant.
Burg closed his eyes and let her proceed as she wished. Astonishingly, this enhanced the sensation; it felt as though she were gradually enclosing him. Tip, glans, stem, stage by stage. This was utterly impossible; Minnie's entire torso was hardly four inches long.
He felt the ejaculation coming on—but that brought him to his senses again. So there was a doll-woman perched on the tower; accepting that much, the force of the incipient eruption would surely skewer her. That would not be funny at all. He remembered reading about one of the Nazi atrocities. They had taken one of the death-camp inmates, a young girl, forced the nozzle of a fire-hose into her vagina, tied it in place and turned the water on full force. That image made him recoil all over; it applied too specifically.