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Chapter Four
I wonder if Claire feels as great as I do right now?

For the first time in years, Phil woke up feeling rested and refreshed. He still stuck to his normal restricted diet, but even his rice cake with sliced fruit seemed to satisfy him more than it ever had in the past. The results were everything he hoped they could be, and he was anxious to report the news. In fact, he looked forward to his "morning after" check-in at the clinic about as much as he was dreading his visit the previous day.

He pulled into the lot at the clinic, which was nearly empty on a Saturday. Despite the previous night's torrential downpour the sun was out and the weather was pleasant. He recognized a few of the folks from the study in the parking lot, and he imagined how thrilled he would be to see Claire again. As great as he felt this particular morning, he might even have the confidence to ask her out for lunch.

A loud screeching jolted Phil to attention as an old white sedan cut him off, missing him by inches. He was shaken, but not too angry, particularly when he noticed a wonderfully familiar streak of blonde hair in the driver's seat. He took his time to see where she was parking, which appeared to be the first spot she came across. He pulled in directly across from her.

Claire leaped out of her car, stumbling a bit into the car next to her. Barrelling out from between the spaces, she nearly shrieked when Phil suddenly appeared. Phil opened his mouth to speak, but found it hanging open as he took in the sight of the girl in front of him. She was, if anything, more beautiful than he remembered. He remembered her being curvy, but now she seemed to erupt with allure. In the meantime, the panic that flashed on Claire's seemed to indicate that he'd attacked her with a chainsaw. While not sure what to make of the reaction, Phil stuck to his guns. "Hi Claire!"

A flash of recognition hit her. "Oh! You!"

"Phil."

"Yes! Phil. Hi!"

"Claire." Phil could practically see himself grinning like an idiot.

"Um, I didn't expect to see you." Claire said, shaking her head and seemingly clearing her thoughts. "Uh... how are you?"

"Great!" Phil beamed. "I really feel great, you?"

Claire looked at Phil carefully, and realized that she actually hadn't spent enough time standing next to him for the difference in their heights to be too striking. This didn't stop Phil from staring, and she had no problem imagining why. She was used to attracting attention, and her skintight t-shirt and painted on stretch jeans certainly stepped it up a bit.

"Honestly, I'm feeling a bit off today. Sorry for startling you," Claire said. "It's nice to see you, Phil." Claire smiled softly, and Phil grinned ear to ear, looking every bit eighteen years old. Dear God, Claire thought, he's a baby. Of course, she knew that the study was aimed at kids specifically between age sixteen and eighteen. She couldn't slight Phil for being young when he had no reason to believe that she was five years too old for the study they were in.

"Would you like to grab a bite to eat?" Phil asked.

Claire wasn't expecting this and it threw her for a loop. "Thanks Phil, but right now I really need to..."

"Not now," Phil blurted. "Maybe tomorrow?"

Claire felt a bit stuck. She didn't want to lead the kid on, but she he didn't seem like a bad kid. She wasn't exactly single, though she wasn't exactly dating Seth as much as occasionally fucking him. She figured there'd be no harm in a casual coffee date.

"You've got to check in again on Monday, right? How about Monday morning, beforehand?"

Phil could have done a backflip. "Monday morning at nine?"

Claire grinned at Phil's enthusiasm. "Sure, how about Beantown? It's a cafe about two blocks from here."

Phil had no idea where Beantown was and didn't drink coffee. "Absolutely!"

"I've got to go Phil. I'll see you Monday." Claire turned to hustle to the clinic, leaving still standing in his spot, his mind swimming in unbridled joy.

- - - - - - - -

"Oh holy fuck," was all Seth could think to say.

When Claire had told him she'd been involved in "a few medical studies" already, it hadn't set off alarms, particularly since he had administered most of them. Upon being presented with Claire three inches taller holding a two-page single-spaced list of medical studies she'd participated in over the last three years—some under alternate aliases—Seth not only began to question his field of study for the first time in his life, but his sanity as well. In the meantime, Claire sat sheepishly on examination table.

"Gross-saft, Progenitorivox, Solon, Claritin-F...Claire, why didn't you tell me you had been doing so many medical trials?"

Claire shrugged. "I didn't think it mattered."

"Didn't think it mattered? These are fucking drug trials, Claire! It's the precise reason we have warning labels on medicine bottles."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Warning, may cause demonic food binges and sudden growth spurts. Sorry, I'm not familiar with that one." Seth slapped his hands to his face and groaned, and Claire felt guilty. "Ok, ok, Seth. Let's look on the bright side. Can't this be considered a desirable side effect? Can you imagine the demand for this?"

This only seemed to further frustrate Seth. "Claire, first of all, you fucked up the study from the get go by eating a damned cheeseburger when the first thing we asked was to avoid meat and animal by products!"

Claire pouted. "I was hun..."

"Secondly," Seth cut her off, "I haven't the slightest idea what combination of drugs, diet, or body chemistry could have caused this. This very likely is not a reaction to just meat, but rather a number of elements, and it's going to take me a little while to figure it out."

"I didn't mean to..."

"Lastly," Seth sighed, "and most importantly, we've got to keep this quiet until I figure out whether this is going to land me a prison sentence or the Nobel Prize."

"Keep this quiet? Who am I going to tell?"

"You told your roommate."

"Given the circumstance, it probably would have been hard for her not to notice something was up."

"Whatever, Claire. Whether you told her or not isn't really the point. What I'm saying, as weird as it sounds, is don't grow any more."

"I don't even know how it happened the first time."

"Anything that you even remotely think could have caused it, don't do it. In fact, if I could ask you to only consume brown rice and water from here on out, I'd opt for that." Claire grimaced in response to the suggestion. "Listen, come to the check-in on Monday morning and I'll be sure that I'm the one that administers your next treatment. Given the nature of what we're doing, we can't afford to stop now."

"What if I grow again?" Seth was quiet, clearly not quite ready to considerit, though they both knew it was a very real possibility.

"We'll deal with it."

The whole conversation clearly grated on Seth's nerves, with good reason, so Claire dropped it. "So what do we do in the meantime?" Claire asked, plopping down from the table.

"In the meantime," Seth said, turning away from her to rifle through a few drawers, "I take your vitals and a bunch of blood and get busy trying to figure out what in the holy hell could have caused this."

Claire folded her arms. "I hate giving blood."

Seth clenched his teeth for what had to have been the hundredth time this hour. "Well you should have thought of that before you started growing."

Claire pouted again, before a thought occurred to her. "Do I still get paid?"

Seth sighed in frustration. "We'll proceed as normal with the study. You're still registered, so yes, Claire, you still get paid."

"Well, that's good at least," she said. Claire felt a bit guilty about upsetting Seth. Besides his looks, one of the things she liked about him was his intelligence and the sheer enthusiasm he had for his work. While they weren't exactly a steady couple, she enjoyed their occasional flings. Of course, one of their flings is what had gotten her into this study and, in turn, the pickle they were currently in. Seth was good at what he did, but this typically came at the price of a high stress level. Claire loved being the one to get him to relax, and she wanted badly to help him out right now.

Up to this point, Claire hadn't really given much thought to her changes. She'd never really felt self-conscious about her height. 5'2" was short, but hardly tiny. She was only a few inches taller, but she found herself surprised at what a difference three inches could make. She'd outgrown some of her clothes, and she even felt a bit more confident. She'd certainly never been taller than any of her boyfriends, though she still was just a bit shorter than Seth...in her bare feet.

Hmmm....

"Seth?"

"What, Claire?" Seth said, impatiently looking for a blood drawing needle.

"Out of curiosity, how tall are you?"

"169 centimeters or five-foot six and a half, why?"

Claire giggled. "Well that explains a lot."

Seth turned around, "What's that supposed to m..." Seth trailed off as he was faced with Claire--standing five foot eight in her heels--looking down at him.

"It explains why I like these shoes so much." Claire purred, approaching Seth until she was close enough to tilt her head down slightly at him. A wry smile escaped from her lips as she straightened up a bit and admired the way she even seemed to cast a slight shadow over him. Just as she thought, she felt a slight thrill at her new perspective.

Seth felt something of a thrill as well, accompanied with just a twinge of fear. This was hardly the first time that Claire had sprung impromptu seduction on him (perhaps the third or fourth time), but this encounter seemed to have a markedly different feeling. That said, it wasn't enough for him to stop her.

"You know, Seth, I would never have deliberately done anything to upset you."

Seth swallowed, "but you did."

Claire took Seth by the hand, "I didn't do it to upset you, Seth. I really couldn't help it. It was like I lost control of myself. In fact, I barely remember." There was nothing but sincerity in her eyes, Seth noticed, though perhaps a twinge of something else that didn't quite sit as well with him.

"Look, Claire," Seth said, anger now absent from his voice. "None of this should have even happened. It's not your fault, I shouldn't have even let you into this study."

"But you did, and I thank you for everything." She craned her neck up and kissed him softly on the forehead, a new experience for them both. "It's funny Seth, I never thought of you as short before."

Seth looked up at her. He wanted to feel self-conscious about her comment, but he didn't. "I'm statistically below the average male height, actually," he replied.

"What about me?"

"Um, I believe five foot four is the average female height."

"But I'm five foot five now, and five foot eight with these shoes."

"You are."

Claire straightened up again with pride. "Ah, so I'm above average."

"Yes!" The word seemed to leap from his mouth.

Claire smiled bigger, "What about, five foot...eight?"

"That would be an inch shy of average male height."

Claire pressed closer to him, allowing her breasts to smoosh against his sternum, grazing the underside of his chin. "Seems like the perfect height to me."

"Claire, I..." Claire cut him off by taking his head in her hands and planting a firm kiss on his lips. As her hands snaked into his short, unkempt hair, Seth couldn't believe how amazing Claire felt around him. At the same time, Claire was reeling with the control she felt in the situation. She knew better than to think she were actually stronger than Seth, but she couldn't help but feel that she was overpowering him. It gave her an unexpected thrill. Seth gripped her arms firmly and suddenly separated them, though he wasn't exactly sure why he had done so.

Claire impatiently sighed heavily in between them. "Yes or no, Seth?"

Seth took a moment to consider the question before abruptly answering, "yes."

Claire's smiled mischievously down at Seth, and she shoved him roughly to the wall . "Good, then let me show you how sorry I am for all the stress I've caused you." She took a quick glance over her shoulder. "Is that door locked?"

"Yup."

Claire peeled her shirt up and over her head, and Seth's jaw dropped at the sight of Claire's boobs stuffed into a lacy blue bra that only barely contained her new growth. "Jesus, Claire. Are you...?"

"...bigger there too?" She reached behind and unhooked her bra. It fell to the ground, letting her breasts wobble free. They were magnificent, hanging like two massive teardrops. "The measuring tape says I've gone from DD to E." She pressed into Seth again, letting them flatten against his chest. "But I'll let you be the judge of that."

Seth again savored the plushness of Claire's breasts pressed against him. He embraced her bigger body, taking in her scent as her nimble fingers unzipped his fly and slithered into his pants. As Claire arched her back, Seth buried his face in the cleavage that cradled his chin. Claire moaned with pleasure as he took a handful of each and licked them. She enjoyed letting him explore them for a while, before crouching down and doing some oral exploration of her own.

Seth was in heaven. As amazing as his occasional flings with Claire were, this was something entirely different. He imagined how rare the experience was for a guy to experience a lover at two different heights--two different sizes! It was like the passion had a whole different flavor. Even as his mind began falling backward into sexual bliss, he was still pondering how he might crack the mystery of Claire's mysterious growth spurt.

Perhaps I might learn more by replicating the effect...

Chapter Five
It wasn't the first time Claire had sex on the floor, but it was certainly the first time she had great sex on the floor. She let herself stretch out, arching her back and stretching her arms above her head. Her joints popped a bit and she relished feeling of the cool tile against her back until the realization that she was completely naked on the floor of a university lab hit her. She found her t-shirt at her feet, and dragged it towards her with her toes.

Seth had konked out completely. The clock on the wall read 10:45, and Claire savored the knowledge that she and Seth had fucked for over an hour. She always admired Seth for his stamina, which meant she could always get her fill from him. For the first time, however, she felt that she'd not only bested him in stamina, but felt like she'd nearly held her own in strength as well, which she thought was strange.

I guess all those long hours in the lab are taking their toll on him.

Claire wobbled a bit getting to her feet, as the hour of rigorous cardio had left her a bit sore. This didn't help the fact that she had to shake and shimmy herself into her borrowed jeans, and she cursed a bit under her breath as she tugged them onto her body. She'd borrowed them from Julie, who while still taller than Claire by a bit, didn't remotely measure up to Claire in the curves department. She'd nearly gotten the jeans around her hips when a seam along right leg popped open, exposing a nearly half a foot of her thigh. She was surprised at how easily the seam surrendered, but didn't think much of it.

After getting herself decent, Claire tossed around the idea of waking Seth, but opted instead to let him rest. She could always come back to the lab later. Claire took a step to leave the lab when her stomach growled loudly. It took Claire by surprise, and she rubbed her taut belly with her other hand. She took another step towards the door only to have an even louder growl erupt from her belly, powerful enough for her to nearly feel the reverberations in her legs.

"Oh my god..." she said, bending over and clutching her stomach. She knew she would never make it to her car, let alone anywhere she could find and purchase food. If she didn't eat, however...well she didn't really want to think about that. Her stomach rumbled again.

"...the hell is that sound?" Seth was gathering his bearings and looked up in time to catch Claire in a state of panic.

"Seth! I need to eat."

Having had the morning to digest Claire's situation, Seth settled into his practical, scientific problem-solving mode. He took a moment to mull things over, before starting toward her and dropping off his lab coat. "We haven't got a lot of time. Take off your pants."

Claire was exasperated. "We've done that already! Twice!"

"No, no, not that. But seriously, take off your jeans. We don't have a lot of time"

Claire shuffled over, hopping as she slipped out of the clothes she had just peeled on moments earlier. When she's completed the maneuver, she approached Seth, only to be quickly spun around by him and felt a sharp pain in her right buttock. "Ow!" she shrieked. What the fu..."

"Not now, Claire," Seth said, cutting her off. He tossed his lab coat at her. That's going to help me draw some data from you later. In the meantime, I need you to listen carefully...."

- - - - - - - -

Matt, a fellow graduate assistant burst into Lab 4, to find his colleague busy at work.

"Seth! What the hell are you doing?"

"I just finished with Claire Albertson from the GST607 study, and now I'm doing Friday's bloodwork, why?"

His colleague gave him a once over, noticing his disheveled appearance. "Are you okay?"

"Um, yeah. Is something up?"

"You look a mess, man. Were you attacked?"

"No. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, that's all...wait, attacked?"

"Yeah man, someone broke in."

"Broke in? Was anything stolen?"

"It don't know man." Matt led Seth towards the back break room. "I just finished up with that skinny kid--Phil, I think. Anyways, I was heading back here to grab a bite and I found this."

Seth and the Matt stepped into the break room to be greeted with the sight of a tipped over vending machine. The glass was broken and there were wrappers strewn about everywhere, but not one morsel of food was left.

"I hadn't come back here yet, wow." Seth said. "Some stoners after junk food I guess."

"They must have been high on more than pot, check this out." Matt gestured to a trail of snack wrappers which led to the rear exit door which had been forced open. The latch had been torn from the wood and there was even a dent on the door where it had unquestionably been struck.

"You know as well as I do that no one can use this door without a key card. They must have been on some serious shit to do this kind of damage."

Matt was quiet for a moment. "Damn, this a hell of a mess. Matt, why don't you check the Jensen Lab and see if there's any damage there. I'll call campus safety."

"You sure, man? Whoever did this might still be around."

"There's nowhere else for them to go. Besides, you got here earlier than I did, and you aren't going to get any extra cash for overtime. You may as well get going."

"Sure man, no prob," Matt said after a moment. He took another look at the door, and headed back to the labs.

Seth waited a minute, listening for the sound of Matt leaving. He muttered a few quiet curses before walking calmly, but briskly, to his grad office. He slipped in to find Claire seated on floor surrounded by food wrappers and stuffing candy bars into her mouth along with a large handful of beef jerky. She wore only a large lab coat with the straining top buttons buttoned and pink underwear that were barely visible under her bulging stomach, which hung over the waistline. Seth took a moment to survey the spectacle.

"I told you to open the back door with my card, not obliterate it. What the hell did you hit it with, anyways?"

"Mmm," Claire responded without looking up.

"Also, I gave you the key to the vending machine, Claire. You didn't have to tip it over."

"Ah wush shtarfin," Claire replied, her cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk. Seth shook his head, not knowing what to make of the scene. Claire crammed the last of the food into her mouth and laid back against the wall. She gulped the last of the food in her mouth, and ran her food-stained hands along her belly. "Ugh, I'm a mess."

"Outside of the Santa belly, you look just as charming as ever," Seth said, shutting and locking the door behind him. He sat in the chair next to Claire and began sticking electrodes to her body, noticing that her skin was notably warm to the touch. He'd considered warning her, but she was barely coherent, let alone argumentative.

"What're ya' doing?" Claire drawled.

"I'm monitoring your vitals, as well as your metabolism and brain chemistry. I shot you up with a mix of compounds that should have distributed through your system by now and will help give me a clearer picture of what we're dealing with. Try and relax."

"M'kay." Claire shut her eyes, and smiled. "I'm gonna stay awake for it this time."

"Stay awake, huh? What's so important?"

"M'gonna grow bigger."

"What?"

Claire giggled like a drunk frat girl. "M'gonna get big. You'll seeeeeeeee," she drawled again.

Seth attached the last electrode, and glanced at the monitor. Her body temperature was pushing 104 degrees and her heartbeat was racing. He resolved that if either got much higher, he'd be calling paramedics. Just as the numbers started to creep higher and he started to reach for his phone, he heard Claire whisper, "Here....goes."

In what would become one of the strangest sights of his life, Seth watched as Claire took a huge breath, and her body subtly but distinctly rose upwards and outwards, her arms and neck stretching out of the lab coat. Seth had stopped trying to interpret the bizarre data on his laptop screen, and remained transfixed. He didn't know if it was her pugnacious curves, her sultry breathing, or perhaps an unnatural pheromone, but he could barely keep himself away from her.

Claire leaned forward, exhaling and clutching her still (but less) expanded belly and letting her cleavage press against the top buttons. This put audible strain on the lab coat which began to give way as Claire took another breath and her body swelled again. Her crossed arms pushed her cleavage upwards, and her breasts rose like bread dough from the open neck of the jacket. While the seams of the lab coat didn't give way, it was going to take an exact-o-knife to get her out of it. After straining for a few moments with a second growth episode, Claire's vitals returned to normal. Her belly, which had been massive only minutes earlier, had retreated, its mass seemingly absorbed into her body.

Seth shook his head in disbelief. He tried to estimate her height: her torso alone had lengthened a couple inches. That combined with her legs which logically must have stretched as well, probably equated to a growth spurt of at least four or five inches--well beyond medical possibility even given the large number of calories she had consumed. Claire's breasts had clearly expanded as well, though they were hard to gauge with their girth pinned both above and below the single jacket button that mashed them down.

Seth squatted down next to her. "Claire?" Her eyes opened into slits and she only muttered softly and grinned.

"Well, holy shit," Seth sighed.

Chapter Six
Phil Redinger felt a few sweat beads roll down his face, and he let the window down as he sat in the front seat waiting for Claire to emerge. His checkup was a pretty routine series of questions and the taking of vitals, but he was curious about a commotion he'd heard on the way out. He stuck around for a few minutes, and though he'd seen his own clinician leave and head toward an adjacent building, he hadn't seen anyone else leave. He'd hoped to "casually" run into Claire a third time on his way out, but her car was still parked, the other three labs were empty, and she was nowhere to be found.

Phil knew his behavior bordered on obsessive, but there was something about Claire that he couldn't let go of. He thought about his few encounters that he'd had with her, and how she'd completely enraptured him. Her bright eyes, her soft smile, her hypnotic curves. Just thinking about the way her clothes could barely contain the swooping and diving contours of her body practically made him weak-kneed. Even the way she carried herself—charming, yet aloof—was not only attractive to Phil, but inspiring to a kid who had for so long been the latter, but never the former. He couldn't help but be drawn to her.

And that's why he would go in after her.

He couldn't help running over a number of scenarios in his head. Maybe I'll get a chance to see her. Maybe we'll chat again. Maybe she'll be in the mood for a lunch date. Maybe...maybe she's in trouble! Maybe she's having a bad reaction to the treatment and I'll enter just in time to dial the paramedics. Maybe her clinician was trying to take advantage of her and I'll burst in and hit him with...um...something. I'll save her and be her hero, and she'd fall in love with me.

This was it. Phil decided he would storm into the clinic and do whatever he could to rescue Claire.

...in a few minutes, when his legs stopped shaking and he was sweating just a bit less.

- - - - - - - -

"Claire. No two ways around it. Your body's a mess. Whatever you've taken over the last couple years—step on the scale please—seems to have set the stage for our treatment to finish the job. A perfect storm of chemical reactions, really."

"Perfect storm, huh?" Claire said, still somewhat in shock at waking up noticeably taller than she had been before. Seth balanced out the scale as Claire softly pawed at her body, amazed by its sudden and dramatic changes. "This is just...crazy."

"Tell me about it. I think...hm." Seth flashed a brief look of puzzlement before returning to normal. He motioned her down from the scale and stretched a tape measure around her waist.

"What is it, Seth?"

"I'll tell you, in a minute. Claire, how many times would you say you've used the restroom in the last few days?"

"The bathroom? Geez, how the heck should I know?"

"I've got a hunch it may be a low number, so think. When's the last time you used the toilet?"

"Um, well..." Claire thought for a moment as Seth continued his measurements, wrapping the tape measure around her chest. "Actually, I can't remember. God, it's probably been at least a day."

"...or two." Seth finished. "Okay, first thing's first: it looks like you're actually growing taller, and not enlarging."

"Enlarging? What's the difference?"

"Your head is pretty much the same size as before, and your waist is only minimally wider. It's the rest of you that's, well, lengthened. Your legs, for instance, are giving you at least a half of your new height. You're growing like you're going through puberty, or like it never stopped really. You're getting taller and...curvier."

Claire's smirked a little. "Curvier?"

"You're measurements are not proportional to your previous height. On the plus side, you'll look less like a giant and more like just a tall person. The downside is that this will make it much harder to estimate your height and measurements." Seth stopped to take down a few more figures. "...it also means you run the risk of gigantism and anemia if your body doesn't get enough nutrients, though so far your vitals are surprisingly normal."

"That's good, I guess," Claire said, as Seth straightened her against the wall. She felt enormous, as she dwarfed Seth by at least a few inches. Seth marked her height on the wall and took the number down on his pad.

We'll Claire, you're officially 177 centimeters tall. A smidgen over 5'10"

"Jeez, really?"

"That's roughly what I expected, however there's something else I didn't expect. You weigh 182 pounds."

Claire's eyes went wide and she reddened a bit. She also felt a bit warm. "182? I only weighed, like, 108 when this whole thing started!"

"Claire, you weren't obese before and you certainly don't look obese now. Even given your greater height, from what you've told me, there's no reason why your weight should be that high unless..."

Claire wiped some more sweat from her face. "...unless?"

"Unless your body is somehow absorbing all of the food you're eating, and if that were true, it would mean you're more dense, rather than...muscle density! Yes, that's got to be it!"

"Muscle density? But that's weird, why haven't I...nnnnggghhhhhh" Claire shuddered suddenly and clenched her abdomen. "Shit," she hissed between clenched teeth. "This...fucking...hurts." Seth could only watch with his mouth hanging open as Claire grunted and groaned, her body straining against her already restrictive clothing. She was breathing quickly, almost hyperventilating. "Seth..." Claire whimpered.

This was quickly getting out of hand, and Seth had an impulse to call someone, though he wasn't immediately sure who. He saw his phone underneath the lab table and he dropped to his knees to retrieve it. "Hang in there! One sec, I've got an idea."

Claire clenched her teeth and brought her hands down on the table as a stabbing pain shot through her body. A loud crashing ripped through the lab like a gunshot, and immediately the pain passed. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times.to find that the thick, oak lab table was broken, a large slat missing from the middle. She then noticed Seth laying still underneath the table.

Shit, Seth!

Claire pushed the large table out of the way to find Seth lying still on the floor. She crouched closer to him, adjusting her clothes that were nearly shrink-wrapped to her body. She started to reach toward him, but immediately recoiled her hand, struck by the fear of what she might have done to him. Her face was blank as looked back and forth between her unblemished hands and the splintered broken table. Then, barely aware of her actions, she abruptly stood to her feet, backed away from Seth, and left the room, closing the door softly on the way out.

- - - - - -
For the second time that day, Seth awoke to the now familiar feeling of the lab floor. A phone was vibrating in front of his face, and though his perception was still a little fuzzy, he managed to make out "Claire: Home." He reached for it and flicked it open.

"Claire? Claire? is that you?" A clearly stressed female voice asked.

Seth scanned the room from his vantage point on the floor. "No, unfortunately not. This is Seth, from Northshore Health and Science Clinic. So I guess you're not Claire either."

"I'm not. I don't suppose she's with you?"

"Nope, I get the feeling she's left already, but give me one sec." Seth pulled himself carefully to his feet, feeling at a wet spot on the back of his head where the slat from the table had struck him. His head was cut, but it was hardly life-threatening, or even serious. He left the lab and scanned the waiting room, the lounge, and the exam rooms, before heading to the front parking lot.

"Her car is here, but I can't find her."

"Did you see her? Was she there?"

"Yeah, she was here. Is this Julie?"

"Yeah. So you're Seth. Cute Seth, from the lab," Julie recalled with a soft chuckle.

I like her already. Seth smiled, in spite of the bit of blood on his fingers. "Sure. I'll take that. So if you're her roommate, that means you were the one who helped her out the other night."

"I guess. God, that was so weird. I thought she was coming to check in."

"Well, she did come here, and she did check in."

"But..."

"We had an incident—well, a couple really—and she seems to have gone missing."

"An incident? What happened? Is she okay?"

"She's quite okay, for now at least. It'd be in our best interests to find her soon, however." Seth paused for a moment. "You want to come on down, and I'll get you caught up?"

"To the lab?" Julie sounded surprised.

"Well, sure. You know her better than I do, and I'm not quite ready to get authorities involved. As you might assume, we've got a delicate situation on our hands."

"I'll be there fast as I can! See you soon!"

"Sure." Seth said, though he was pretty sure she didn't hear it. He looked around at the mess he'd made of the lab, with the spilled samples and splintered table. Then there was also the issue of his superhuman booty-call on the loose. As much as he knew he should be concerned, he was preoccupied by other thoughts.

"Cute Seth from the lab, huh?"

- - - - - - -

"So where do you want to go?" Phil asked, buckling his seat belt.

"It doesn't matter," Claire said, looking down. "Just...let's go."

Phil started the car without another word. All that mattered was that he had the girl of his dreams in the car with him, and she was ready to go anywhere with him that he wanted. He took one last glance at Claire, taking in her presence. He had all kinds of questions for her, particularly given her appearance, but those could wait until later. He turned toward the road, away from Claire, catching only a quick glimpse of shiny object in her hands that resembled quarter that had been bent into a smooth curve.

Description
Chapter Four
I wonder if Claire feels as great as I do right now?

For the first time in years, Phil woke up feeling rested and refreshed. He still stuck to his normal restricted diet, but even his rice cake with sliced fruit seemed to satisfy him more than it ever had in the past. The results were everything he hoped they could be, and he was anxious to report the news. In fact, he looked forward to his "morning after" check-in at the clinic about as much as he was dreading his visit the previous day.

He pulled into the lot at the clinic, which was nearly empty on a Saturday. Despite the previous night's torrential downpour the sun was out and the weather was pleasant. He recognized a few of the folks from the study in the parking lot, and he imagined how thrilled he would be to see Claire again. As great as he felt this particular morning, he might even have the confidence to ask her out for lunch.

A loud screeching jolted Phil to attention as an old white sedan cut him off, missing him by inches. He was shaken, but not too angry, particularly when he noticed a wonderfully familiar streak of blonde hair in the driver's seat. He took his time to see where she was parking, which appeared to be the first spot she came across. He pulled in directly across from her.

Claire leaped out of her car, stumbling a bit into the car next to her. Barrelling out from between the spaces, she nearly shrieked when Phil suddenly appeared. Phil opened his mouth to speak, but found it hanging open as he took in the sight of the girl in front of him. She was, if anything, more beautiful than he remembered. He remembered her being curvy, but now she seemed to erupt with allure. In the meantime, the panic that flashed on Claire's seemed to indicate that he'd attacked her with a chainsaw. While not sure what to make of the reaction, Phil stuck to his guns. "Hi Claire!"

A flash of recognition hit her. "Oh! You!"

"Phil."

"Yes! Phil. Hi!"

"Claire." Phil could practically see himself grinning like an idiot.

"Um, I didn't expect to see you." Claire said, shaking her head and seemingly clearing her thoughts. "Uh... how are you?"

"Great!" Phil beamed. "I really feel great, you?"

Claire looked at Phil carefully, and realized that she actually hadn't spent enough time standing next to him for the difference in their heights to be too striking. This didn't stop Phil from staring, and she had no problem imagining why. She was used to attracting attention, and her skintight t-shirt and painted on stretch jeans certainly stepped it up a bit.

"Honestly, I'm feeling a bit off today. Sorry for startling you," Claire said. "It's nice to see you, Phil." Claire smiled softly, and Phil grinned ear to ear, looking every bit eighteen years old. Dear God, Claire thought, he's a baby. Of course, she knew that the study was aimed at kids specifically between age sixteen and eighteen. She couldn't slight Phil for being young when he had no reason to believe that she was five years too old for the study they were in.

"Would you like to grab a bite to eat?" Phil asked.

Claire wasn't expecting this and it threw her for a loop. "Thanks Phil, but right now I really need to..."

"Not now," Phil blurted. "Maybe tomorrow?"

Claire felt a bit stuck. She didn't want to lead the kid on, but she he didn't seem like a bad kid. She wasn't exactly single, though she wasn't exactly dating Seth as much as occasionally fucking him. She figured there'd be no harm in a casual coffee date.

"You've got to check in again on Monday, right? How about Monday morning, beforehand?"

Phil could have done a backflip. "Monday morning at nine?"

Claire grinned at Phil's enthusiasm. "Sure, how about Beantown? It's a cafe about two blocks from here."

Phil had no idea where Beantown was and didn't drink coffee. "Absolutely!"

"I've got to go Phil. I'll see you Monday." Claire turned to hustle to the clinic, leaving still standing in his spot, his mind swimming in unbridled joy.

- - - - - - - -

"Oh holy fuck," was all Seth could think to say.

When Claire had told him she'd been involved in "a few medical studies" already, it hadn't set off alarms, particularly since he had administered most of them. Upon being presented with Claire three inches taller holding a two-page single-spaced list of medical studies she'd participated in over the last three years—some under alternate aliases—Seth not only began to question his field of study for the first time in his life, but his sanity as well. In the meantime, Claire sat sheepishly on examination table.

"Gross-saft, Progenitorivox, Solon, Claritin-F...Claire, why didn't you tell me you had been doing so many medical trials?"

Claire shrugged. "I didn't think it mattered."

"Didn't think it mattered? These are fucking drug trials, Claire! It's the precise reason we have warning labels on medicine bottles."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Warning, may cause demonic food binges and sudden growth spurts. Sorry, I'm not familiar with that one." Seth slapped his hands to his face and groaned, and Claire felt guilty. "Ok, ok, Seth. Let's look on the bright side. Can't this be considered a desirable side effect? Can you imagine the demand for this?"

This only seemed to further frustrate Seth. "Claire, first of all, you fucked up the study from the get go by eating a damned cheeseburger when the first thing we asked was to avoid meat and animal by products!"

Claire pouted. "I was hun..."

"Secondly," Seth cut her off, "I haven't the slightest idea what combination of drugs, diet, or body chemistry could have caused this. This very likely is not a reaction to just meat, but rather a number of elements, and it's going to take me a little while to figure it out."

"I didn't mean to..."

"Lastly," Seth sighed, "and most importantly, we've got to keep this quiet until I figure out whether this is going to land me a prison sentence or the Nobel Prize."

"Keep this quiet? Who am I going to tell?"

"You told your roommate."

"Given the circumstance, it probably would have been hard for her not to notice something was up."

"Whatever, Claire. Whether you told her or not isn't really the point. What I'm saying, as weird as it sounds, is don't grow any more."

"I don't even know how it happened the first time."

"Anything that you even remotely think could have caused it, don't do it. In fact, if I could ask you to only consume brown rice and water from here on out, I'd opt for that." Claire grimaced in response to the suggestion. "Listen, come to the check-in on Monday morning and I'll be sure that I'm the one that administers your next treatment. Given the nature of what we're doing, we can't afford to stop now."

"What if I grow again?" Seth was quiet, clearly not quite ready to considerit, though they both knew it was a very real possibility.

"We'll deal with it."

The whole conversation clearly grated on Seth's nerves, with good reason, so Claire dropped it. "So what do we do in the meantime?" Claire asked, plopping down from the table.

"In the meantime," Seth said, turning away from her to rifle through a few drawers, "I take your vitals and a bunch of blood and get busy trying to figure out what in the holy hell could have caused this."

Claire folded her arms. "I hate giving blood."

Seth clenched his teeth for what had to have been the hundredth time this hour. "Well you should have thought of that before you started growing."

Claire pouted again, before a thought occurred to her. "Do I still get paid?"

Seth sighed in frustration. "We'll proceed as normal with the study. You're still registered, so yes, Claire, you still get paid."

"Well, that's good at least," she said. Claire felt a bit guilty about upsetting Seth. Besides his looks, one of the things she liked about him was his intelligence and the sheer enthusiasm he had for his work. While they weren't exactly a steady couple, she enjoyed their occasional flings. Of course, one of their flings is what had gotten her into this study and, in turn, the pickle they were currently in. Seth was good at what he did, but this typically came at the price of a high stress level. Claire loved being the one to get him to relax, and she wanted badly to help him out right now.

Up to this point, Claire hadn't really given much thought to her changes. She'd never really felt self-conscious about her height. 5'2" was short, but hardly tiny. She was only a few inches taller, but she found herself surprised at what a difference three inches could make. She'd outgrown some of her clothes, and she even felt a bit more confident. She'd certainly never been taller than any of her boyfriends, though she still was just a bit shorter than Seth...in her bare feet.

Hmmm....

"Seth?"

"What, Claire?" Seth said, impatiently looking for a blood drawing needle.

"Out of curiosity, how tall are you?"

"169 centimeters or five-foot six and a half, why?"

Claire giggled. "Well that explains a lot."

Seth turned around, "What's that supposed to m..." Seth trailed off as he was faced with Claire--standing five foot eight in her heels--looking down at him.

"It explains why I like these shoes so much." Claire purred, approaching Seth until she was close enough to tilt her head down slightly at him. A wry smile escaped from her lips as she straightened up a bit and admired the way she even seemed to cast a slight shadow over him. Just as she thought, she felt a slight thrill at her new perspective.

Seth felt something of a thrill as well, accompanied with just a twinge of fear. This was hardly the first time that Claire had sprung impromptu seduction on him (perhaps the third or fourth time), but this encounter seemed to have a markedly different feeling. That said, it wasn't enough for him to stop her.

"You know, Seth, I would never have deliberately done anything to upset you."

Seth swallowed, "but you did."

Claire took Seth by the hand, "I didn't do it to upset you, Seth. I really couldn't help it. It was like I lost control of myself. In fact, I barely remember." There was nothing but sincerity in her eyes, Seth noticed, though perhaps a twinge of something else that didn't quite sit as well with him.

"Look, Claire," Seth said, anger now absent from his voice. "None of this should have even happened. It's not your fault, I shouldn't have even let you into this study."

"But you did, and I thank you for everything." She craned her neck up and kissed him softly on the forehead, a new experience for them both. "It's funny Seth, I never thought of you as short before."

Seth looked up at her. He wanted to feel self-conscious about her comment, but he didn't. "I'm statistically below the average male height, actually," he replied.

"What about me?"

"Um, I believe five foot four is the average female height."

"But I'm five foot five now, and five foot eight with these shoes."

"You are."

Claire straightened up again with pride. "Ah, so I'm above average."

"Yes!" The word seemed to leap from his mouth.

Claire smiled bigger, "What about, five foot...eight?"

"That would be an inch shy of average male height."

Claire pressed closer to him, allowing her breasts to smoosh against his sternum, grazing the underside of his chin. "Seems like the perfect height to me."

"Claire, I..." Claire cut him off by taking his head in her hands and planting a firm kiss on his lips. As her hands snaked into his short, unkempt hair, Seth couldn't believe how amazing Claire felt around him. At the same time, Claire was reeling with the control she felt in the situation. She knew better than to think she were actually stronger than Seth, but she couldn't help but feel that she was overpowering him. It gave her an unexpected thrill. Seth gripped her arms firmly and suddenly separated them, though he wasn't exactly sure why he had done so.

Claire impatiently sighed heavily in between them. "Yes or no, Seth?"

Seth took a moment to consider the question before abruptly answering, "yes."

Claire's smiled mischievously down at Seth, and she shoved him roughly to the wall . "Good, then let me show you how sorry I am for all the stress I've caused you." She took a quick glance over her shoulder. "Is that door locked?"

"Yup."

Claire peeled her shirt up and over her head, and Seth's jaw dropped at the sight of Claire's boobs stuffed into a lacy blue bra that only barely contained her new growth. "Jesus, Claire. Are you...?"

"...bigger there too?" She reached behind and unhooked her bra. It fell to the ground, letting her breasts wobble free. They were magnificent, hanging like two massive teardrops. "The measuring tape says I've gone from DD to E." She pressed into Seth again, letting them flatten against his chest. "But I'll let you be the judge of that."

Seth again savored the plushness of Claire's breasts pressed against him. He embraced her bigger body, taking in her scent as her nimble fingers unzipped his fly and slithered into his pants. As Claire arched her back, Seth buried his face in the cleavage that cradled his chin. Claire moaned with pleasure as he took a handful of each and licked them. She enjoyed letting him explore them for a while, before crouching down and doing some oral exploration of her own.

Seth was in heaven. As amazing as his occasional flings with Claire were, this was something entirely different. He imagined how rare the experience was for a guy to experience a lover at two different heights--two different sizes! It was like the passion had a whole different flavor. Even as his mind began falling backward into sexual bliss, he was still pondering how he might crack the mystery of Claire's mysterious growth spurt.

Perhaps I might learn more by replicating the effect...

Chapter Five
It wasn't the first time Claire had sex on the floor, but it was certainly the first time she had great sex on the floor. She let herself stretch out, arching her back and stretching her arms above her head. Her joints popped a bit and she relished feeling of the cool tile against her back until the realization that she was completely naked on the floor of a university lab hit her. She found her t-shirt at her feet, and dragged it towards her with her toes.

Seth had konked out completely. The clock on the wall read 10:45, and Claire savored the knowledge that she and Seth had fucked for over an hour. She always admired Seth for his stamina, which meant she could always get her fill from him. For the first time, however, she felt that she'd not only bested him in stamina, but felt like she'd nearly held her own in strength as well, which she thought was strange.

I guess all those long hours in the lab are taking their toll on him.

Claire wobbled a bit getting to her feet, as the hour of rigorous cardio had left her a bit sore. This didn't help the fact that she had to shake and shimmy herself into her borrowed jeans, and she cursed a bit under her breath as she tugged them onto her body. She'd borrowed them from Julie, who while still taller than Claire by a bit, didn't remotely measure up to Claire in the curves department. She'd nearly gotten the jeans around her hips when a seam along right leg popped open, exposing a nearly half a foot of her thigh. She was surprised at how easily the seam surrendered, but didn't think much of it.

After getting herself decent, Claire tossed around the idea of waking Seth, but opted instead to let him rest. She could always come back to the lab later. Claire took a step to leave the lab when her stomach growled loudly. It took Claire by surprise, and she rubbed her taut belly with her other hand. She took another step towards the door only to have an even louder growl erupt from her belly, powerful enough for her to nearly feel the reverberations in her legs.

"Oh my god..." she said, bending over and clutching her stomach. She knew she would never make it to her car, let alone anywhere she could find and purchase food. If she didn't eat, however...well she didn't really want to think about that. Her stomach rumbled again.

"...the hell is that sound?" Seth was gathering his bearings and looked up in time to catch Claire in a state of panic.

"Seth! I need to eat."

Having had the morning to digest Claire's situation, Seth settled into his practical, scientific problem-solving mode. He took a moment to mull things over, before starting toward her and dropping off his lab coat. "We haven't got a lot of time. Take off your pants."

Claire was exasperated. "We've done that already! Twice!"

"No, no, not that. But seriously, take off your jeans. We don't have a lot of time"

Claire shuffled over, hopping as she slipped out of the clothes she had just peeled on moments earlier. When she's completed the maneuver, she approached Seth, only to be quickly spun around by him and felt a sharp pain in her right buttock. "Ow!" she shrieked. What the fu..."

"Not now, Claire," Seth said, cutting her off. He tossed his lab coat at her. That's going to help me draw some data from you later. In the meantime, I need you to listen carefully...."

- - - - - - - -

Matt, a fellow graduate assistant burst into Lab 4, to find his colleague busy at work.

"Seth! What the hell are you doing?"

"I just finished with Claire Albertson from the GST607 study, and now I'm doing Friday's bloodwork, why?"

His colleague gave him a once over, noticing his disheveled appearance. "Are you okay?"

"Um, yeah. Is something up?"

"You look a mess, man. Were you attacked?"

"No. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, that's all...wait, attacked?"

"Yeah man, someone broke in."

"Broke in? Was anything stolen?"

"It don't know man." Matt led Seth towards the back break room. "I just finished up with that skinny kid--Phil, I think. Anyways, I was heading back here to grab a bite and I found this."

Seth and the Matt stepped into the break room to be greeted with the sight of a tipped over vending machine. The glass was broken and there were wrappers strewn about everywhere, but not one morsel of food was left.

"I hadn't come back here yet, wow." Seth said. "Some stoners after junk food I guess."

"They must have been high on more than pot, check this out." Matt gestured to a trail of snack wrappers which led to the rear exit door which had been forced open. The latch had been torn from the wood and there was even a dent on the door where it had unquestionably been struck.

"You know as well as I do that no one can use this door without a key card. They must have been on some serious shit to do this kind of damage."

Matt was quiet for a moment. "Damn, this a hell of a mess. Matt, why don't you check the Jensen Lab and see if there's any damage there. I'll call campus safety."

"You sure, man? Whoever did this might still be around."

"There's nowhere else for them to go. Besides, you got here earlier than I did, and you aren't going to get any extra cash for overtime. You may as well get going."

"Sure man, no prob," Matt said after a moment. He took another look at the door, and headed back to the labs.

Seth waited a minute, listening for the sound of Matt leaving. He muttered a few quiet curses before walking calmly, but briskly, to his grad office. He slipped in to find Claire seated on floor surrounded by food wrappers and stuffing candy bars into her mouth along with a large handful of beef jerky. She wore only a large lab coat with the straining top buttons buttoned and pink underwear that were barely visible under her bulging stomach, which hung over the waistline. Seth took a moment to survey the spectacle.

"I told you to open the back door with my card, not obliterate it. What the hell did you hit it with, anyways?"

"Mmm," Claire responded without looking up.

"Also, I gave you the key to the vending machine, Claire. You didn't have to tip it over."

"Ah wush shtarfin," Claire replied, her cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk. Seth shook his head, not knowing what to make of the scene. Claire crammed the last of the food into her mouth and laid back against the wall. She gulped the last of the food in her mouth, and ran her food-stained hands along her belly. "Ugh, I'm a mess."

"Outside of the Santa belly, you look just as charming as ever," Seth said, shutting and locking the door behind him. He sat in the chair next to Claire and began sticking electrodes to her body, noticing that her skin was notably warm to the touch. He'd considered warning her, but she was barely coherent, let alone argumentative.

"What're ya' doing?" Claire drawled.

"I'm monitoring your vitals, as well as your metabolism and brain chemistry. I shot you up with a mix of compounds that should have distributed through your system by now and will help give me a clearer picture of what we're dealing with. Try and relax."

"M'kay." Claire shut her eyes, and smiled. "I'm gonna stay awake for it this time."

"Stay awake, huh? What's so important?"

"M'gonna grow bigger."

"What?"

Claire giggled like a drunk frat girl. "M'gonna get big. You'll seeeeeeeee," she drawled again.

Seth attached the last electrode, and glanced at the monitor. Her body temperature was pushing 104 degrees and her heartbeat was racing. He resolved that if either got much higher, he'd be calling paramedics. Just as the numbers started to creep higher and he started to reach for his phone, he heard Claire whisper, "Here....goes."

In what would become one of the strangest sights of his life, Seth watched as Claire took a huge breath, and her body subtly but distinctly rose upwards and outwards, her arms and neck stretching out of the lab coat. Seth had stopped trying to interpret the bizarre data on his laptop screen, and remained transfixed. He didn't know if it was her pugnacious curves, her sultry breathing, or perhaps an unnatural pheromone, but he could barely keep himself away from her.

Claire leaned forward, exhaling and clutching her still (but less) expanded belly and letting her cleavage press against the top buttons. This put audible strain on the lab coat which began to give way as Claire took another breath and her body swelled again. Her crossed arms pushed her cleavage upwards, and her breasts rose like bread dough from the open neck of the jacket. While the seams of the lab coat didn't give way, it was going to take an exact-o-knife to get her out of it. After straining for a few moments with a second growth episode, Claire's vitals returned to normal. Her belly, which had been massive only minutes earlier, had retreated, its mass seemingly absorbed into her body.

Seth shook his head in disbelief. He tried to estimate her height: her torso alone had lengthened a couple inches. That combined with her legs which logically must have stretched as well, probably equated to a growth spurt of at least four or five inches--well beyond medical possibility even given the large number of calories she had consumed. Claire's breasts had clearly expanded as well, though they were hard to gauge with their girth pinned both above and below the single jacket button that mashed them down.

Seth squatted down next to her. "Claire?" Her eyes opened into slits and she only muttered softly and grinned.

"Well, holy shit," Seth sighed.

Chapter Six
Phil Redinger felt a few sweat beads roll down his face, and he let the window down as he sat in the front seat waiting for Claire to emerge. His checkup was a pretty routine series of questions and the taking of vitals, but he was curious about a commotion he'd heard on the way out. He stuck around for a few minutes, and though he'd seen his own clinician leave and head toward an adjacent building, he hadn't seen anyone else leave. He'd hoped to "casually" run into Claire a third time on his way out, but her car was still parked, the other three labs were empty, and she was nowhere to be found.

Phil knew his behavior bordered on obsessive, but there was something about Claire that he couldn't let go of. He thought about his few encounters that he'd had with her, and how she'd completely enraptured him. Her bright eyes, her soft smile, her hypnotic curves. Just thinking about the way her clothes could barely contain the swooping and diving contours of her body practically made him weak-kneed. Even the way she carried herself—charming, yet aloof—was not only attractive to Phil, but inspiring to a kid who had for so long been the latter, but never the former. He couldn't help but be drawn to her.

And that's why he would go in after her.

He couldn't help running over a number of scenarios in his head. Maybe I'll get a chance to see her. Maybe we'll chat again. Maybe she'll be in the mood for a lunch date. Maybe...maybe she's in trouble! Maybe she's having a bad reaction to the treatment and I'll enter just in time to dial the paramedics. Maybe her clinician was trying to take advantage of her and I'll burst in and hit him with...um...something. I'll save her and be her hero, and she'd fall in love with me.

This was it. Phil decided he would storm into the clinic and do whatever he could to rescue Claire.

...in a few minutes, when his legs stopped shaking and he was sweating just a bit less.

- - - - - - - -

"Claire. No two ways around it. Your body's a mess. Whatever you've taken over the last couple years—step on the scale please—seems to have set the stage for our treatment to finish the job. A perfect storm of chemical reactions, really."

"Perfect storm, huh?" Claire said, still somewhat in shock at waking up noticeably taller than she had been before. Seth balanced out the scale as Claire softly pawed at her body, amazed by its sudden and dramatic changes. "This is just...crazy."

"Tell me about it. I think...hm." Seth flashed a brief look of puzzlement before returning to normal. He motioned her down from the scale and stretched a tape measure around her waist.

"What is it, Seth?"

"I'll tell you, in a minute. Claire, how many times would you say you've used the restroom in the last few days?"

"The bathroom? Geez, how the heck should I know?"

"I've got a hunch it may be a low number, so think. When's the last time you used the toilet?"

"Um, well..." Claire thought for a moment as Seth continued his measurements, wrapping the tape measure around her chest. "Actually, I can't remember. God, it's probably been at least a day."

"...or two." Seth finished. "Okay, first thing's first: it looks like you're actually growing taller, and not enlarging."

"Enlarging? What's the difference?"

"Your head is pretty much the same size as before, and your waist is only minimally wider. It's the rest of you that's, well, lengthened. Your legs, for instance, are giving you at least a half of your new height. You're growing like you're going through puberty, or like it never stopped really. You're getting taller and...curvier."

Claire's smirked a little. "Curvier?"

"You're measurements are not proportional to your previous height. On the plus side, you'll look less like a giant and more like just a tall person. The downside is that this will make it much harder to estimate your height and measurements." Seth stopped to take down a few more figures. "...it also means you run the risk of gigantism and anemia if your body doesn't get enough nutrients, though so far your vitals are surprisingly normal."

"That's good, I guess," Claire said, as Seth straightened her against the wall. She felt enormous, as she dwarfed Seth by at least a few inches. Seth marked her height on the wall and took the number down on his pad.

We'll Claire, you're officially 177 centimeters tall. A smidgen over 5'10"

"Jeez, really?"

"That's roughly what I expected, however there's something else I didn't expect. You weigh 182 pounds."

Claire's eyes went wide and she reddened a bit. She also felt a bit warm. "182? I only weighed, like, 108 when this whole thing started!"

"Claire, you weren't obese before and you certainly don't look obese now. Even given your greater height, from what you've told me, there's no reason why your weight should be that high unless..."

Claire wiped some more sweat from her face. "...unless?"

"Unless your body is somehow absorbing all of the food you're eating, and if that were true, it would mean you're more dense, rather than...muscle density! Yes, that's got to be it!"

"Muscle density? But that's weird, why haven't I...nnnnggghhhhhh" Claire shuddered suddenly and clenched her abdomen. "Shit," she hissed between clenched teeth. "This...fucking...hurts." Seth could only watch with his mouth hanging open as Claire grunted and groaned, her body straining against her already restrictive clothing. She was breathing quickly, almost hyperventilating. "Seth..." Claire whimpered.

This was quickly getting out of hand, and Seth had an impulse to call someone, though he wasn't immediately sure who. He saw his phone underneath the lab table and he dropped to his knees to retrieve it. "Hang in there! One sec, I've got an idea."

Claire clenched her teeth and brought her hands down on the table as a stabbing pain shot through her body. A loud crashing ripped through the lab like a gunshot, and immediately the pain passed. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times.to find that the thick, oak lab table was broken, a large slat missing from the middle. She then noticed Seth laying still underneath the table.

Shit, Seth!

Claire pushed the large table out of the way to find Seth lying still on the floor. She crouched closer to him, adjusting her clothes that were nearly shrink-wrapped to her body. She started to reach toward him, but immediately recoiled her hand, struck by the fear of what she might have done to him. Her face was blank as looked back and forth between her unblemished hands and the splintered broken table. Then, barely aware of her actions, she abruptly stood to her feet, backed away from Seth, and left the room, closing the door softly on the way out.

- - - - - -
For the second time that day, Seth awoke to the now familiar feeling of the lab floor. A phone was vibrating in front of his face, and though his perception was still a little fuzzy, he managed to make out "Claire: Home." He reached for it and flicked it open.

"Claire? Claire? is that you?" A clearly stressed female voice asked.

Seth scanned the room from his vantage point on the floor. "No, unfortunately not. This is Seth, from Northshore Health and Science Clinic. So I guess you're not Claire either."

"I'm not. I don't suppose she's with you?"

"Nope, I get the feeling she's left already, but give me one sec." Seth pulled himself carefully to his feet, feeling at a wet spot on the back of his head where the slat from the table had struck him. His head was cut, but it was hardly life-threatening, or even serious. He left the lab and scanned the waiting room, the lounge, and the exam rooms, before heading to the front parking lot.

"Her car is here, but I can't find her."

"Did you see her? Was she there?"

"Yeah, she was here. Is this Julie?"

"Yeah. So you're Seth. Cute Seth, from the lab," Julie recalled with a soft chuckle.

I like her already. Seth smiled, in spite of the bit of blood on his fingers. "Sure. I'll take that. So if you're her roommate, that means you were the one who helped her out the other night."

"I guess. God, that was so weird. I thought she was coming to check in."

"Well, she did come here, and she did check in."

"But..."

"We had an incident—well, a couple really—and she seems to have gone missing."

"An incident? What happened? Is she okay?"

"She's quite okay, for now at least. It'd be in our best interests to find her soon, however." Seth paused for a moment. "You want to come on down, and I'll get you caught up?"

"To the lab?" Julie sounded surprised.

"Well, sure. You know her better than I do, and I'm not quite ready to get authorities involved. As you might assume, we've got a delicate situation on our hands."

"I'll be there fast as I can! See you soon!"

"Sure." Seth said, though he was pretty sure she didn't hear it. He looked around at the mess he'd made of the lab, with the spilled samples and splintered table. Then there was also the issue of his superhuman booty-call on the loose. As much as he knew he should be concerned, he was preoccupied by other thoughts.

"Cute Seth from the lab, huh?"

- - - - - - -

"So where do you want to go?" Phil asked, buckling his seat belt.

"It doesn't matter," Claire said, looking down. "Just...let's go."

Phil started the car without another word. All that mattered was that he had the girl of his dreams in the car with him, and she was ready to go anywhere with him that he wanted. He took one last glance at Claire, taking in her presence. He had all kinds of questions for her, particularly given her appearance, but those could wait until later. He turned toward the road, away from Claire, catching only a quick glimpse of shiny object in her hands that resembled quarter that had been bent into a smooth curve.