The man was back in the room now. He leaned down towards the minibar, opened it up, took out a bottle of water and then walked over towards an armchair which was located right in front of the coffee table. He also picked up the remote - the normal-sized one. He sat down in the armchair, and now she felt like he had to notice her, she was right in front of him, so she ran towards the edge, flailing her arms, positively fuming. He put the water bottle down on the table, picked up his phone (she noticed in the meantime that it was an iPhone, latest model), switched channels on TV from her Netflix show to some news, set the remote down too and leaned back. Still not a word said to her, not a glance given.

“You are kidding me!”

His eyes were glued to the smartphone now.

Then an idea struck her.

She ran back to where she’d been sitting before and found the little remote she was given. Her hands were shaking and she could barely find the right button, but eventually she simply switched it off. Screen went black. Done.

She turned towards him once more, hoping to finally have attracted his attention.

He was still checking something out on his phone, his face bearing a focused expression. He was clean-shaven, slightly older than her, and wore a button-up shirt (with a tie) and trousers. A man on a business trip, she thought, glancing towards the door, where his blazer was hung up… and where he kicked off his dress shoes, one of them still lying right on top of her sneakers.

She heard the armchair creak as something big shifted. She looked back at the man and saw him raise his legs as he slowly swung them on top of the coffee table. One of them went right over her head, the other simply moved across its surface, eventually settling next to her. Then the first one descended on the other side of her as the man stretched his legs over the coffee table; she was now locked in in a strip of polished surface between his calves, clad in expensive dress pants. Many times as thick as she was tall, his legs created a valley for her, cutting off most of her field of vision; she could still see his face and some of the taller objects in the room, but was otherwise surrounded. Cynthia gulped, not sure how to feel about this. The faint smell of fabric and of something else - of the outside, she thought, car exhaust, perfume, dirt, - hit her nostrils. She could tell these were nice pants, probably fit to him. Sheepishly, acting before she could even think, she reached out to touch a fold, and felt the fabric to be high-quality, soft even to her tiny hand.

Then she stepped back, suddenly afraid.

Cynthia heard a click. The TV came to life again, the voice of the presenter filling the room once more.

The tiny woman looked down at the remote in her own hand. ”I shouldn’t”, she thought, and dropped it before raising her eyes to the man’s face again. Still concentrated on whatever it was that he browsed. Stocks or something?..