Emma’s one-inch heels clacked against the tile of their bathroom as she pulled her boyfriend in. Daniel had attempted a kind of halfhearted, chuckling protest as she tugged him along, masking his surprise at how strong she had become.
“Haha…come on Emma…hehe, this is silly!”
“It’s not silly,” Emma immediately countered, without even turning around. “I wanna show you that this is serious. I’m, like…totally getting bigger, and no one knows why.”
“I…uh, Emma…hehe easy there…I now it’s, umm…serious and all, but I feel like you’re getting yourself all worked up for, uh…you’re just stressing yourself out.”
He had been about to say “all worked up for no good reason,” but he thought better of it. He didn’t want to antagonize his already-distressed partner. Although, and here Daniel felt a little twinge of guilt for this thought, he could not fail to notice how Emma’s ass was bouncing up and down in front of him as she walked. She definitely looked…well…totally hot. She had been hot before, but now, her added weight had really accentuated her curves, to the point where Daniel actually had to shake his head a few times to bring himself back into their current situation.
“Well, I don’t need any help getting stressed,” said Emma irritatedly as they reached the bathroom. “My body’s doing a fabulous job of doing that all by itself.” She bent down to take off her heels. “Ok, you first.”
Daniel glanced down at the scale, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped on. The blue numbers mixed themselves up in a fast array, and then, a couple seconds later, it presented the result: 173.6.
“Huh, guess I lost a pound or so,” said Daniel airily. “Oh well — I hover around 175…sometimes lower, sometimes higher.”
“Ok, now me,” said Emma, shooing him off the scale as she stepped on in her bare feet. She was being a little more bossy than usual, but whenever Emma got irritated, her behavior generally followed suit in this way. Daniel looked down at the garbling numbers with a bemused look on his face. He thought all of this was a bit silly, a bit of an overreaction on Emma’s part. Emma, on the other hand, was clearly not enjoying herself. She kept her head down, staring intently at the garbling scale numbers with a look of determined anxiety. She was anxious, yes…but she was also determined to show Daniel that there was something truly wrong with her.
Daniel looked up to Emma’s face, blinking a couple times as he regarded her. She sure was beautiful…he would try harder to help her calm down. However, just then, he saw her eyebrows go up as her eyes went wide. She took a sharp breath in through her mouth and thrust her arm down, pointing at the number.
“See!?” she said forcefully. “Look at that!”
Daniel inclined his head downward and looked…167.5. He felt something lurch in his stomach as his eyebrows also went up, but he maintained a cool disposition as he straightened up again to look at her.
“Uhh…yeahhh….so, uh — ” was all he could manage to get out before Emma interrupted him.
“I was right!” she exclaimed miserably. “I’m almost as heavy as you now! You don’t even weigh ten pounds more than me!”
“Look, Emma…honey,” said Daniel gently, coming around behind her and embracing her as she stepped unhappily off the scale. “You have that doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Maybe…uh…maybe they’ll be able to clear some things up with you then.”
“But he didn’t know anything about it last time,” said Emma as she fought back the urge to cry. “What if they still don’t know, Daniel? And what if I just…keep growing and growing and growing!?”
“Come on baby,” persisted Daniel, hugging her tighter from behind. He was doing his best to ignore the arousal inspired by feeling the firm plushness of his girlfriend’s newly-accentuated curves. ‘Now is not the time to be horny,’ he told himself. He was also trying to ignore how Emma had to only be two inches shorter than him.
“You’re not just, uh…gonna keep growing and growing. That doesn’t happen to people.”
Emma turned around in the embrace to face him, her eyes glassy as her mouth quivered a little. She was scared…and she missed Daniel’s overwhelming embrace more than anything now. She missed feeling small in his arms.
“Th-this…THIS doesn’t happen to people!” she replied, gesturing down to her body.
“Just…Emma…you gotta put your faith in the doctor, ok? And in the meantime, totally stressing yourself out can’t help. The body responds badly to, uh…to chronic stress, you know.”
“I know…I know,” said Emma, nodding gloomily. Daniel saw his chance at latching onto this slight bit of momentum, and kept on.
“And Emma…and I know you probably don’t wanna hear this, but…you look fucking incredible. I mean, of course, I thought you did before, but babe! I mean come on! Look at your ass! Look at your hips…your breasts!”
“Yeah…all so much bigger than I used to be,” pouted Emma in his arms.
“Well, just know that, haha, honey…a lot of girls would totally kill to have a body like yours right now.”
“You’re just…you’re just being sweet,” said Emma dismissively, looking away from him and down at the floor.
“I am not!” laughed Daniel, shaking his girlfriend affectionately. “I’m telling it like it is!”
Just then, a slow, deep rumbling came up from somewhere. It only took Daniel a second to realize where it had come from — Emma’s stomach. She looked slightly up at him, with a mixture of apology, embarrassment, and unhappiness. Daniel, however, laughed.
“Haha, you hungry there?”
Emma’s mouth went up a little at the corners, responding to Daniel’s mirth with a little smile of her own. He really was sweet to her. ‘He’s just doing his best in a tough situation,’ Emma reminded herself. And even though she felt emotionally upended right now, she would try her best and put on a happy, straight face.
“Yes,” she mumbled softly, bending down to lay her head on his chest.
“Well then, let’s order in again!” said Daniel brightly. “Let’s have a little fun with it! How about some pizza from Angelo’s? That sound like a good choice?”
“Pizza sounds good,” murmured Emma into his chest. She really was very hungry. And even though she truly disliked her new appetite, there wasn’t much that she could do about it right now. She had to satisfy it.
That night, for the first time, Emma actually out-ate Daniel. They were watching Netflix together on the sofa, and Daniel was considerate enough not to point it out, but he had definitely noticed that he had eaten three pieces of pizza, and Emma had eaten four. Emma had decided that she wasn’t going to tie herself up in knots about how much she ate tonight, and so, after she had polished off her third slice, she had made no ceremony about reaching into the box for her fourth. Emma had to admit that it felt good to satisfy that gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach, even if it meant that she was gaining more weight.
The next day, Emma went back to the doctor’s office. Dr. Hartman greeted her, and did a short little scan of her body as he walked into the room.
“So…we’re still growing, are we?” he asked with a smile on his face, trying to keep everything casual.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” said Emma, folding her hands nervously in her enlarged lap. “My appetite’s been, uh…I mean I’ve just been eating a lot lately.”
“Mmmm, ok, ok,” said Dr. Hartman analytically, “How about we get some actual measurements now, huh?”
A few seconds later, his eyebrows had gone up.
“Well that is something…that is definitely something,” he muttered. “You’re a full six feet tall now, Emma.”
“I…uh…” stammered Emma, feeling the bottom go out of her stomach.
“Take it easy, take it easy…no worries, Emma. Deep breaths in and out,” said Dr. Hartman soothingly. “Let’s get your weight here…uh-huh…ok, just adjusting this scale here…aaaaaanddd…it looks like…176.”
Emma stared straight ahead at the white wall, feeling her mind go blank. She was bigger than Daniel now. She weighed more…than her boyfriend. She blinked her eyes desperately at the wall, unable to say anything in response. Dr. Hartman was clicking his tongue as he typed on his computer.
“Quite curious…hmmmm, very unusual,” he was saying, almost to himself.
“D-does…what does this mean?” asked Emma in a shaky voice, turning around to face him.
“Well…before I say anything, let’s get your vitals, and just…make sure everything’s working the way it should,” said the doctor. “Your blood work didn’t show any illnesses or abnormalities, so we don’t have to worry about that.”
For the next several minutes, Dr. Hartman examined Emma carefully — he took her blood pressure, listened to her heart and lungs, looked in her throat, nose, and ears, and even tested her reflexes.
“Well — everything seemed to be in good order!” he announced at the end of his examination. “You’re healthy, Emma…totally healthy. The only thing out of wack is your, uh, your abnormal growth.”
“And you’re sure the blood tests didn’t find anything?” asked Emma desperately, feeling a real need to find something to latch onto. “Nothing at all?”
“Nope, nothing!” said the doctor. “Like I said, Emma — you’re totally healthy.”
“B-but…but isn’t…isn’t all this just crazy!?” exclaimed Emma, throwing up her hands. “I’m getting taller and bigger, and nothing explains it!?”
Dr. Hartman looked at Emma steadily for a moment, studying her face. Emma was not encouraged by the air of befuddlement in the doctor’s demeanor.
“You know what? How about this?” he said suddenly. “I can send your lab samples out to a different lab…one with even more testing capability. We’ll run a more intensive series of tests on your samples, and maybe we’ll find something then.”
“O-ok…that…that sounds good,” said Emma, nodding her head. It wasn’t the immediate answer that she wanted, but at least it was something…perhaps an answer to look forward to.
The rest of the day passed by slower than Emma wanted. Her co-workers, both men and women, were acting awkward around her. Monica, Stacy, and Shelly all looked at her with concern, and told her that they hoped she was ok, and that they were thinking about her — the whole social shebang — but Emma knew that they were whispering about her behind her back. It didn’t help that she felt absolutely huge around them now. She had been the “tall one” initially, but now, she was taller than a lot of the men in the office as well. She could tell that a lot of the guys, Keith in particular, were eying her body more than they had been before.
‘I guess Daniel was right about that,’ she thought to herself. ‘I guess I’m…hotter now.’
A few times during the day, she caught herself just staring down at her body: into her cleavage, along the curving sway of her hips, and so on. She hated how big she was getting, she really did…and yet…well, there wasn’t any getting around the fact that the guys in the office were totally noticing her now. Emma couldn’t have cared a flip about them — she only cared what Daniel thought. But she would have been lying to herself if she said that there wasn’t a tiny little part of her internal self that…enjoyed the attention. Towards the end of the day, she and Keith were walking through the same doorway going opposite directions, and as Keith passed by, she actually saw his eyes get bigger as he passed close by her body. He couldn’t help but look at her cleavage, and then down to her legs. Even without her one-inch heels, Emma was a full three inches taller than him now, and as she glanced down to witness his surprised, almost-helpless expression, she felt a strange surge of pleasure emanate from her spine. In that moment, Emma was actually aware, for the first time, of feeling…powerful in her new body. She didn’t have to do or say anything. She only had to exist, and her body would command attention and influence.
She gave Keith a slight smile as she passed by, and then spent the next few minutes puzzlingly going through a number of confused emotions. She liked the feeling of being taller than Keith…and bigger than him too. But this didn’t make any sense — she wasn’t happy about what was going on with her body! She wasn’t happy about it at all! She was dreading going home to Daniel, when she would have to tell him that she was now bigger than he was, if not taller. And she would be taller than him pretty soon, with the way all this was going.
‘No, no, this is not good, what’s happening to me,’ Emma reminded herself insistently. ‘Yeah, sure, now I can turn on all the guys at work. Great. Awesome. It’s all I ever wanted.’
She quickly talked herself back down into her hole of misery, and she was still in this mood when she got home. As usual, Daniel stood up from his computer chair to greet her in his socked feet, but this time, with Emma in her one-inch heels, they were exactly the same height. They hugged, and kept the embrace going for longer than usual, as if they were both reassuring each other. It was Daniel, however, who was doing the majority of the reassuring the rest of the night.
“So they’re sending your samples to another lab?” asked Daniel over dinner. “Well that’s good! Maybe they’ll find something.”
“Yeah maybe they will,” said Emma, trying to put a bright face on the whole thing. Everything that happened, though, seemed to underline what was going on. She finished her first portion of spaghetti in under five minutes, and was already halfway through her second portion when Daniel finished his. He sat back and rubbed his stomach, sighing contentedly.
“Aren’t you, uh…aren’t you gonna get more?” asked Emma.
“No, I think I’m pretty full already,” replied Daniel. “That sauce is pretty rich.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Emma, looking down at her half-eaten second bowl. She suddenly felt irritated at her boyfriend — why couldn’t he just eat more, so she wouldn’t feel like such a pig?
“But don’t worry Emma — you just, haha…you just have as much as you want!” said Daniel kindly, though he was reddening slightly in the face. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but he was finding this whole situation to be quite difficult to tiptoe around.
“I…thanks,” mumbled Emma. She wasn’t quite sure if she had managed to keep the annoyance out of her voice or not.
“So…how is everyone at work?” asked Daniel, trying to make light conversation.
“How is everyone?” asked Emma, looking up at her boyfriend, annoyed. “What do you mean?”
“I just…I mean, like, how is everyone handling…you know…this?” Daniel was privately kicking himself for asking, but it was just very hard to talk about anything else. Emma’s increased size had become the number one topic of conversation, the number one “mood establisher.” And, for Emma at least, it was a sour mood.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She sighed and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. She was not going to take this out on him. He was being nice…he was normal…she always had to remember, through this whole thing, that she was the freak.
“You know, actually,” she said, opening her eyes and making an effort to smile, “I think you were right about, like…people thinking my body’s hot.”
“Duh!” laughed Daniel, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. “What did I tell you? So, like…hehe, the other guys in the office are…?”
“Oh don’t worry about them,” chuckled Emma. “You know that I don’t really find any of them attractive…well, Steve, maybe, but…”
“Hey!” protested Daniel, cracking a grin.
“But anyway,” continued Emma, smiling back, “Yeah, you were right. I could feel them all looking at me, like, in a way that hadn’t before. And the girls too.”
“Well, if any of those dudes, or girls, for that matter, think they can just flirt with you, then they better — ”
“Oh my god, you’re too much!” laughed Emma at Daniel’s mock displays of macho resolve. She was glad to have a boyfriend who could make her laugh, even when she was suffering from a heightened state of anxiety.
Later on that night, Emma was having trouble sleeping, and, as usual, Daniel had fallen asleep almost instantly. She figured that, if she was going to be up, that she may as well get ahead on some of her work for tomorrow. She realized that she had left a folder of documents out in the car, and so she bumbled around a little in the dark closet, pulling on her tennis shoes. She didn’t want to turn the light on, since Daniel sometimes woke up in response. She went out to the car, got the folder, and came back inside. Only when she switched the kitchen light on did she realize that she had mistakenly put on Daniel’s tennis shoes instead of her own — and they fit her perfectly. She sighed out into the house, her shoulders slumping; she suddenly didn’t have any drive to get work done. She took a sleeping pill and fell into an uneasy slumber.
The next couple days continued to be hard for Emma. She was eating more and more, and she knew that she was getting bigger…and taller. Her one-inch heels had gotten too small for her, so she had taken to wearing a pair of Daniel’s flats. She hated that she had to do this, but the alternative was going out to shop for new shoes, which was something Emma definitely didn’t want to do — it would have meant full-on admitting that this was her life now.
Two days later, when she came home from work, Daniel rose to greet her, and, after hugging, Emma pulled away and found herself looking straight into her boyfriend’s eyes. They were the same height. Daniel blinked and smiled a little awkwardly, laughing a little and going on to talk about something unrelated. But Emma could feel the dread of the moment slowly sinking into her for the remainder of the night. Hours later, when Daniel was asleep, she couldn’t help herself. She snuck out again to the pantry, turned the light on, easily fetched the tape measure from the top shelf, and measured herself against the doorframe.
‘Maybe I’m not quite his height yet,’ she thought desperately. ‘Maybe I’m like a quarter inch shorter…maybe…please…’
She took a step back and looked at where she had marked the top of her head, and her heart sank. Right at 73 inches…no more, no less.
It was difficult for Emma to get to sleep after this most recent disappointment. She reached over and cuddled Daniel, but he felt small. She turned around, despondent, and eventually fell asleep.
A couple days later, Emma went to the doctor again, with Daniel accompanying her this time for moral support. She knew that, in the last two days, that she had grown taller than her boyfriend, but she wasn’t sure by how much. The appointment was less than satisfying for Emma, as Dr. Hartman told them that the results had come back and that they still didn’t know what was causing her to grow. Daniel reached down and held Emma’s hand as they heard the news. Emma appreciated the gesture, but she couldn’t help but notice that Daniel’s hand felt small in her own. She looked down at their hands, and then quickly looked away, since the size difference was clear at a glance. It also didn’t help that Emma was now taller than Dr. Hartman, who seemed to be completely befuddled as to what was happening. He measured Emma’s vitals again, which were all normal, and then he measured her height and weight. She was 6’2, 184, and Emma was not able to refrain from bursting out at these new measurements:
“Dr. Hartman! This is terrible! You all have to do something about this!!”
“Now Emma,” said the doctor kindly, “We don’t know what’s happening with you, but I’m sure that this won’t go on for much longer.”
“You…you think so?” asked Emma, looking over at Daniel.
“Absolutely,” nodded Dr. Hartman. “Your growth is highly irregular, and I don’t expect it’ll go on much more. Just…remember that you’re healthy, keep exercising and eating well, and, uh…you should be ok!”
The doctor’s answer didn’t seem like enough for Emma, but what could she do about it? The car ride home was miserable and nearly silent. Daniel had tried to cheer her up, but Emma was feeling very low and depressed about the whole situation. She hadn’t asked for this…she knew not to say it out loud, but she missed feeling Daniel hugging the air out of her lungs. She missed looking up at him…she missed it all so much.
The next day, a package came in the mail, marked for speedy delivery.
“Promise you won’t get mad?” smiled Daniel, looking up at Emma as she held the box.
“Uh…promise,” she said uncertainly. She opened the box, and her eyes went wide as she inhaled in surprise. A pair of spiffy-looking black platform heels were staring back at her. In that moment, Emma felt a complex mixture of emotions. Her first thought was that the heels looked amazingly sexy, and she felt a wave of something go through her…was it…arousal!? She wanted to put them on immediately. But almost simultaneously, she remembered how much she hated being big and tall already, and this would just…exacerbate it all. She felt herself being pulled in both directions.
“B-but…But Daniel…!” she began, not sure what she was going to say, but he interrupted.
“Now I know that you’ve been down about this whole growing thing,” he said, “But I just wanted to get you something to show how much I, uh…how much I don’t care about any of that, and how lucky I feel to have you, so…yeah…these heels are like my way of saying, ‘Just go with it!’ Haha, you’re not mad, are you?”
“Ohhh Daniel!” cried Emma emotionally, swooping over and embracing him emotionally. As they hugged, Emma was able to forget how big her body felt around his, if only for a moment.
“No! No I’m not mad!” she said, sniffling a little with emotion. “You’re just…you’re so sweet, Daniel. Of…of course I’ll wear them!”
“To your office party tomorrow?” offered Daniel, smiling up at her.
“I…” said Emma, pausing a moment. She found herself suddenly wishing that she hadn’t agreed to wear them, but something in her mind told her to just suck it up and run with it.
“Yes,” she said, blinking down at him. “Yes, that…that sounds nice.”
A few seconds of silence passed between them as they both stared at the stylish black heels, which glinted back at them, almost seeming to wink.
“Well…” said Daniel, breaking the silence as his eyebrows went up. “You wanna try em’ on?”
“Uh…like, right now?” asked Emma uncertainly.
“Haha, yes, right now!” laughed Daniel. “I wanna see if they actually fit right and everything, you know.”
“Um, yeah, sure…ok,” said Emma. Her face was already starting to color as she anticipated the dramatic height change. She lifted them out of the box. “How, uh…how tall are these?”
“Four inches,” said Daniel, nodding his head.
“F-four!? So, like…I’m just…gonna be 6’6 here in a couple seconds,” said Emma. She was feeling quite reluctant to go through with this all of a sudden. 6’6!? That sounded absolutely gigantic!
“Yeah, go ahead, try them on, Emma — don’t be so shy about it,” said Daniel encouragingly.
She bent down and took her shoes off, sat down on the floor, and strapped on the heels. Emma liked how they hugged her ankles and lower legs, but she looked with trepidation upon the imposing size of the actual heel.
“You need me to help you up?” asked Daniel. “Here, take my hands.”
Emma gladly accepted the offer, but the end result was that she nearly pulled Daniel down of top of her. They had both underestimated her strength, and Daniel stumbled forward a bit, laughing.
“Haha! Oh wow, woah, woah! I need to get a little better foothold. Haha, ok there — ready? One, two, three, up!”
With her boyfriend’s help, Emma stood up. Her perspective had changed so much that, for a second, she wasn’t even able to register what she was looking at. And then, like a flash of lightning through her brain, she realized: she was staring DOWN onto the top of Daniel’s head, which didn’t even come up to her eyes! Emma’s eyes went wide and she took a little step back, looking up and down her boyfriend’s body. He just looked so…well, short compared to her now! His shoulders were even with her nipples, and the curve of her hips was as high as his elbows. She saw that his eyes were looking straight into the bottom part of her chin. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything — they were just absorbing the wildness of this new size comparison.
“Wooaaahh!” exclaimed Daniel after a few seconds. “This is…wow! I expected you to be tall in those heels, but…haha, well, it’s a little different actually SEEING it rather than just imagining it, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Emma quietly. In that moment, she genuinely did not know how she felt. She had still not been able to process the reality that was unfolding in front of her. Never in her life had she ever imagined that she could tower over her 6’1 boyfriend like this.
“How do you feel, honey?” asked Daniel kindly. “Not too weird?”
“I mean…hehe, it’s definitely weird, that’s for sure,” said Emma with a nervous laugh. “But…uh…no. No it’s not too weird. I just…uh, yeah, wow. This is just a lot to take in right now, all at once.”
“I get it,” said Daniel, nodding. “Why don’t you try walking around in them a little bit, huh? Just, you know…to see how they feel and everything.”
Emma started walking around the kitchen, and she was amazed at how low to the counter and stove seemed now. Before, when she was her original size, the counters had come up to the middle of her stomach, but now, she actually had to bend down a little bit to even touch the counters. Likewise, she had to bend down a little to adjust the knobs on the stove. She walked into the pantry and turned on the light. She was face-level with the top shelf now! She was able to see a fine layer of dust on these top shelves.
“Wow, I think we need to dust up here!” she said.
“Haha, do we? I had no idea!” chuckled Daniel. “I can’t see that high up.”
“Wow, this is…this is really something,” murmured Emma as she came out of the pantry.
“So how do they feel, hun? Too loose? Too tight?”
“They feel great,” said Emma, smiling. “Like, on my feet, at least. I’m gonna have to get used to, like, actually being this tall, though. It’s definitely, uh…definitely different.”
“Well no time like a party to get some good use out of them, huh?” grinned Daniel.
Even though Emma was still feeling hesitant, her boyfriend’s warm smile was all it took right now for her to put those misgivings on the back burner and step forward to give him a hug. The two embraced. It definitely felt very odd for Emma, and she didn’t like how she was hugging the upper part of Daniel’s shoulders, while he was hugging her midsection. Her breasts squashed together around his neck — it definitely felt awkward for her, but she readjusted herself a little and held on, reminding herself that she was lucky to have a boyfriend like him.
The next day, Daniel went out with Emma and they settled on a fashionable red dress that fit her curvy form tightly, with a few frills here and there for accentuation. Later on, all dressed up, they got into the car and headed to the party. It was a bit of an awkward ride for Emma, since, in her heels, she had to push the passenger seat all the way back to give her legs enough room. Even still, she felt rather cramped. Her head was nearly touching the car ceiling, and her big ass and hips filled the car seat.
“Having a little trouble there babe?” asked Daniel, who was driving.
“Uh, haha, yeah, just a little,” said Emma as she tried in vain to reposition her big body. “It’s just…these heels make it a little tough. I suddenly feel sorry for super tall people — they have to deal with this kind of stuff all the time, and not just when they’re wearing heels.”
“Well, we’re almost there,” said Daniel reassuringly.
Emma and Daniel arrived to her work party fashionably late. As they entered, everyone’s heads turned. They all knew Daniel, but they were looking at the woman on his arm like they had never seen her before. Wearing a tight red dress, and rocking her new 4-inch heels, Emma towered over almost the entire party. She was a full 6’6 in the heels, and Daniel, even though he was 6’1, looked tiny next to her; the top of his head didn’t even come up to her eyes, and her luscious, curvy body made his medium-build frame look almost petite.
Emma took stock of how everyone was turning to look at her, and many of her co-workers had their mouths hanging open. Her first instinct was to turn and run, but instead, she swallowed the urge down, drew her back up, and stood even taller. There was no question as to the power that her frame conveyed, and again, Emma felt struck by how she didn’t have to actually do anything. All she had to do was walk into a room and, just like that, people would turn and look. And their faces were far from nasty or judgmental. Quite to the contrary, Emma was surprised to see that these people…her coworkers…were all looking at her with some combination of admiration, surprise, and intimidation. The moment she and Daniel had walked in, she had felt a nasty cold chill go down her spine. But then, as she realized how people were reacting to her, the cold chill melted away and was replaced by a warm, pleasant sensation that only seemed to increase as the night wore on.