Tarquin lived with his foster mother in a pleasant home in London. He was seven years old, going on eight, when he was riding the bus home from school one sunny afternoon. An older girl got onto the bus and sat next to him. After a few more blocks, she took a book out of her bag.

“Would you like to have this?” she asked, “I got it in a lucky dip at the school fair, and I don’t like it much. It was donated by a book shop near the school. Maybe a younger boy might like it more. It’s about a young boy.”

“Thank you,” said Tarquin, “I wish I had something I could give you.”

“You don’t need to give me anything,” said the girl, “You can just take the book. I have to get off now.”

He watched her pull the cord and walk to the front of the bus, as the driver brought the vehicle to a halt. Tarquin watched her go, and she waved to him from the footpath. He waved back, to thank her again for the book, and then put it into his bag. Reading in a car or bus made his stomach feel ill. So he would save it until he got home.

When he had his chance, he went into his room and began to read the book. It was called ‘The Boy’s New Friend’ and was written by a lady named Leanne Commons. As Tarquin got into the storyline, he read of a boy named Dillon, who had a number of unusual and scientifically unprecedented adventures.

About half way through the book, Tarquin became more interested as he read the latest turn of events:

One day, Dillon was walking in the Dew Forest when he came to a tunnel in the earth which was large enough for him to walk through. He went inside and saw that it was lit up by some unusual glowing rocks in the earth. He walked through the tunnel for twenty minutes, and then saw some sunlight shining into the tunnel in front of him.

Dillon knew that he was coming to the end of the tunnel. He found that he had to walk up a little slope, so that he could get out of the tunnel. It was then that he remembered how he had needed to walk down a little when he had first entered the tunnel.

Dillon walked up the small slope and stepped out into a patch of the largest lettuces he had ever seen. They were each as big as the largest room in his house. Dillon liked lettuce, but not on its own. It needed to be mixed into a salad or a sandwich or a hamburger, for him to be able to enjoy it.

Dillon began walking through the patch, making his way around the lettuces, until he heard some footsteps, and looked around. He could not see anyone, and the footsteps sounded as though they were walking on hard concrete ground or brick or rock surfaces. Yet he could see none at all.

Despite his confusion, the footsteps were definitely becoming nearer. So they sounded louder to him. When he was sure of the direction, he began walking around the lettuces towards the sound, so that he could meet whoever was with him in the lettuce patch.

After he had passed three more lettuces, he saw a concrete surface ahead, and then saw two shoes stepping into view. Each shoe was longer than the largest of the lettuces. He looked up and saw the bottom of two legs, and then a dress which reached high up into the air to meet the neck of a giant lady. He looked up further and saw that she had a long neck and a head that was at least as large as the largest lettuce he’d seen.

The woman reached down and lifted Tarquin high into the air. As he looked around, while she started walking, he saw that the giant lettuce patch was part of a large garden on a huge estate that seemed to be in the middle of a giant district of lakes and valleys and hills. It reminded him very much of the English Lake District that he had visited once on a school excursion. Yet this one could not be in England, for it was gigantically proportioned, like the woman herself.

The lady did not say anything, but walked towards a beautiful immense house, opened a door, entered and came to a quaint old kitchen. As the boy looked on, he saw the lady lift a large dish down from the shelf and place it on the bench with her free hand.

The next thing that happened was sudden and unexpected. The lady lowered the hand which held him into the dish, set him down, released her grip, withdrew her hand, picked up the dish with one hand, carried it to the oven, opened the over door with her other hand, and placed the dish inside. She closed the oven door, turned a switch from the outside, and walked away.

Dillon could only make the most logical guess at this lady’s plans for him. She was cooking him without even a word of introduction, after which she would undoubtedly be preparing to eat him. What other explanation could there be?

He waited for her to come back, and felt the warmth of the oven affecting him as she approached the door and opened it. She took the dish out and carried him to a table in the garden and sat down. He looked up at this enormous woman and wondered how the tunnel had brought him there, and what to do next.

“Hello, I’m Dillon!” he called, “You must be very hungry, Miss Giant.”

“I do seem to be getting that way,” she said, in a polite friendly voice, “I had a nice breakfast, but that was a few hours ago. I was going to pick one of my lettuces and make a salad, but I’m sure you’ll be much nicer. Salads are alright, but it’s nice to have something really tasty, when one can find a little boy like you, isn’t it?”

“How do you know I’ll be tasty?” asked Dillon.

“My widowed mother lives in the nearby meadow with my younger sister,” said the lady, “Mother’s eaten a few little boys, and she always tells me how tasty that you all are. You’ll be the first one I’ve had.”

“Has your sister eaten anyone yet?” asked Dillon.

“Farra? Well- oh! How thoughtless of me. You introduced yourself, and I never told you my name. I’ll tell you all of our names, so that it’s easier to talk about each of us without confusing you. My mother is Mrs Waye. My little sister is Farra, and I’m Merri. But to answer your question, Farra did find a little boy one day. She was luckier than me. She asked him if she could eat him, and  the boy said no. So she let him go, but Mother caught him in the garden shortly afterwards and cooked him and ate him for her dinner.”

“Does Farra always ask the boys first?”

“Yes she does.”

“Why don’t you ask?”

“Well I don’t really see the need. It’s been nice to meet you, little boy,” she said, raising him above her mouth, and leaning back a little.

She opened her mouth wide and put out her tongue. She always found it easier to put the food onto her tongue if it wasn’t in her mouth.

“I like talking to you,” said Dillon, who had truly found something very pleasant about her voice and her manner, “Can I please be your friend and talk to you some more?”

“Well then I’d have to make something else for lunch,” said Merri, “I suppose you could be my little friend for a while, “Perhaps I’ll eat you another day.”

Dillon and Merri talked for a while and got to know each other, and then Merri began to feel more than usually hungry.

“I think I’d better go and pick that lettuce after all now,” she said, and walked out along the path, with Dillon resting on her shoulder. When she saw a nice ripe lettuce that took her fancy, Merri leaned over to pick it, and Dillon fell off her shoulder and landed on another lettuce, and then slid down the side, and fell onto the ground, to land just beside the tunnel.

“I’d better be getting home,” he said, and went into the tunnel, “Thank you for being my friend, Miss Merri!”

“And just like that he’s gone,” thought Merri, “I do hope he’ll come back some time.”

Maybe Dillon will go back and visit Merri sometime, and maybe Merri will eat him for a nice tasty lunch, or perhaps a delicious dinner. What do you think?

The chapter ended there, and the rest of the book went on to tell about the other adventures that Dillon had. Tarquin read faster and faster, hoping to get to the next exciting chapter about the three giant ladies, but he eventually reached the end of the book. Leanne Commons had not made any mention of the giantesses after asking her question. Maybe she wanted the readers to answer the question.

Tarquin looked on the back inside cover’s dust jacket leaf, and saw the most beautiful photograph of Leanne Commons. Yet he had no idea how to contact her. He hadn’t even bought the book himself. She was an established author, and he was just a little boy.

He began to imagine himself in the story as Dillon, with Leanne Commons as the beautiful giantess Merri. He thought of writing a sequel story himself. He could never write a whole novel like an adult could, but maybe a short story which returned Dillon to the giant lettuce patch and the clutches of Merri or to the sister or the mother would be the answer. Tarquin thought for a while and then he had his idea. Dillon would discover a fork in the tunnel, that he’d walked past in the dark the last time. He would find that it led to Mrs Waye’s garden. No matter which giantess he was thinking of, he visualized Leanne’s beautiful face, especially her smiling mouth in the photograph, as being the face of the giantess concerned. Leanne’s story had awakened in Tarquin the strong desire to be considered as a possible meal for Leanne herself, if it were only possible to find Leanne, and for that matter, for Leanne to be a giantess who was thinking about eating him.

Over five years passed. Tarquin was now in his long summer holidays, at the end of year eight, at the age of 13 ½. He was able to move more freely with more responsibility and less supervision by his foster mother.

One day he was in a bookshop, when he saw the spine of a newly released book, and the spine bore the name: Leanne Commons.

He bought the book, took it home and read it, but found that the story had no content about giantesses at all. He did, however, find one thing on the last page, which took his breath away:

Leanne Commons is a divorcee with a three year old daughter, who lives in the English Lake District. She has written three children’s books and one adult novel…

The paragraph did not give her actual physical address, but this time included a postal address.

He laboured hard to finish his sequel story manuscript, so that he could send it to her.

One day Dillon went back through the Dew Forest and into the underground  tunnel. He walked more slowly this time, and noticed something he had missed before. There was a second tunnel forking out from the first. He decided to follow this one instead, and came out in another giant garden. He could see nothing but high plant life all around him, and decided to walk until he came to any sort of clearing.

After he’d been walking for a while, he saw an enormous hand reaching down towards him, and looked up to see a beautiful woman’s face. It looked like Merri’s only older, which looked strangely more appealing to him. It must have been her mother Mrs Waye.

“I’m in Mrs Waye’s garden,” he thought, “She’ll eat me for sure.”

He felt her elegant fingers around him, as he was lifted high into the air, to see that she was actually standing on a stretch of grass that he would soon have reached anyway.

“It’s a while since I’ve caught one of you little boys,” she said, as she began walking towards her giant house with him in her hand by her side, “My name is Mrs Waye. I’m going to cook you and have you for my dinner. I don’t have anything against you personally, but I like the taste of little boys like you more than anything else I eat, and you’ll just have to make yourself ready to be swallowed whole.”

She put him on a high shelf for the afternoon and then prepared him in her oven and took him to the table, where he noticed a glass of water and two tablets.

“I wouldn’t waste your time struggling in my tummy if I were you,” she said, “Those tablets will put me fast asleep for the whole night. I won’t feel a thing. By the morning, I expect you’ll be all gone.”

He looked across at her tummy. Adorned by her beautiful soft tight feminine clothing, it looked nice and pleasant. Yet he would soon be inside it. He remembered her use of the phrase “swallowed whole” and looked up at her neck. Then he looked further, to her eyes.

She met his gaze and brought her hand towards him. He had time to see her fingers opening. The sight was of a lovely open palm, and a thumb and fingers which reached around him and closed gently. He was lifted off his feet, up to her face, and in front of her lips. Mrs Waye opened her mouth, and he then saw her tongue come slowly out of her mouth and approach him. She licked the entire upper part of his body, and he felt her whole tongue progressively sliding over his face, before it went back into her mouth.

Dillon had not imagined how enjoyable it would feel to be eaten in this way (or in this Waye). In a few minutes, Mrs Waye would be somewhat better off than he would, but there was no harm in enjoying the process while he could.

Then something else occurred to him. There was no harm in telling her either.

“That felt wonderful, Mrs Waye. I’m Dillon,” he said.

“Thank you, young lad,” said Mrs Waye, “You’re very nice.”

She repeated the gesture a few times, and then used her tongue to draw him inside her mouth, releasing her grip on the last occasion.

“She’s actually eating me!” he thought, “and I seem to like it more than I did when Merri almost did it.”

He realised that he must have subconsciously felt that way the whole time. It was the only way he could explain his return to the tunnels from the Dew Forest in the first place. He had been glad to make friends with Merri, but the fascination had been born out of the newly introduced concept of a giantess wanting to eat him.

He lay on her tongue for a few seconds, and then found himself being gulped down her carefree indulgent throat.

As Dillon travelled slowly down towards her stomach, he felt two objects rush past him, along with some water.

“The sleeping tablets,” he thought, “She’s going straight to bed.”

Then his whole world seemed to turn sideways, and he realised that Mrs Waye was lying down. After a while, he could feel the movement of her breathing in her sleep, as her whole stomach and upper tracts moved a little each time.

He considered that she must be in a deep sleep. In fact, so confident had she been that he would not have roused her with any movements of his own, that he had an idea.

He slowly climbed along what was now a horizontal tunnel, back up her throat and into her mouth. He felt no sign of stirring from her, and was convinced that nothing would awaken her until the tablets had run their course. As he lay on her tongue, he faced still one more issue: Her mouth was closed. He remembered how he had recovered from colds and flu viruses on occasion, how the inner lining of his lungs had been traumatized, how he had needed to cough uncontrollably for weeks after the original symptoms had all gone away.

Dillon moved to the back of her tongue, leaned down and tickled the top of Mrs Waye’s throat with his hand, until he got a reaction. Without realising what she was doing, Mrs Waye coughed Dillon out of her mouth and onto the pillow in the darkness. He quickly rolled off the edge of the pillow and onto the top of the mattress. Peeking up onto the pillow, he could see nothing, and assumed that Mrs Waye was still asleep.

Dillon managed to feel his way down the blanket, which she had not tucked in, climbing it to the floor and then running out into the garden. In the dark, he would not be able to find his way back to the tunnel, as Mrs Waye’s giant legs had enabled her to walk into the house with him in a minute or so. He concealed himself in the garden. If she had not been aware of his escape, she would not be looking for him in the morning.

He slept the night outside, and woke up with the dawn. He could clearly see the lawn now, and ran to the garden area from which he had been seized the day before, and found his way back to the tunnel. He waited just on the outside of the tunnel, until he saw not Mrs Waye, but her youngest daughter Farra walking in the garden.

Dillon remembered that this girl never ate anyone without permission, and would most likely be even less likely to eat someone who had spent part of the night in her mother’s tummy.

He called out to her: “Farra!”

“Oh… Hello little boy. How did you know my name?”

“I met your sister Merri.”

“You must be Dillon. She told me about you.”

“I met your mother yesterday too. She ate me last night, but I managed to climb out of her while she was asleep. She doesn’t know.”

“She’s eaten a few boys like you, but I never heard of any coming out again before.”

“She took sleeping tablets.”

“That must be it. She’s only been using them lately.”

“I liked her mouth. It was nice being eaten by her,” said Dillon, “If I let her eat me again and again, do you think she’d let me come out each time?”

“I don’t know,” said Farra, “It’s never happened before. I could ask her for you and then come back and tell you. You’ll be safe at the tunnel. It goes into your land, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, although I don’t know how,” said Dillon, “It isn’t nearly as long as the Dew Forest, and yet it somehow comes out in another land entirely: yours.”

“I’ll go and enquire about you to mother,” said Farra.

Dillon watched the young woman walk away. Soon both Farra and her mother Mrs Waye came out and stood just in front of the tunnel.

“My daughter has explained your situation,” said Mrs Waye, “I had expected you to be gone into my tummy by now, but since you aren’t I would like to accept your proposal. I will enjoy eating you up whenever you can make it here, and I will be sure to lie down and let you climb back out afterwards.”

“Thank you!” said Dillon, who was thrilled with this new arrangement.

Even a return to Merri might not have worked out so well.

Tarquin stapled the story pages together and then wrote an accompanying letter.

Dear Mrs Commons,

When I read your story about Dillon a few years ago, I really enjoyed the chapters about the giantess who nearly ate him. I think you have a nice looking mouth, and I wish you could be a giant woman who wanted to eat me. I’m 13 ½ and I hope I would taste very nice for you. Would you like to be the giantess in your story, or was it just a story idea? I always wished that you had written some more about Dillon and the giantess. In fact, I have written a bit more about what might have happened to Dillon next, and put it in this letter for you. Here is a picture of me too.

Your admiring reader,

Tarquin.

He posted the entire package to Leanne Commons and waited for her reply. Within a week, he received a letter in the post.

Dear Tarquin,

I was delighted to receive your lovely letter. I would not have developed the giantess plot line of my story at that stage, as I was not aware of anyone who reciprocated my feelings. I would indeed like to be a giantess and eat a little boy, especially one like you. You look so sweet and handsome and delicious. I very much enjoyed the way you have extrapolated on my story, and I would like to continue you it with you in tandem. If we ever found someone willing to publish it, you could share the authorship with me.

More than that, I would like very much to meet you. You would find that the English Lake District where I live is very much the scenery on which I based the area in and around Merri’s garden. I have written down the name of the nearest station where I could meet you, and my telephone number, and left you some money to buy a train ticket. Would you like to come and stay here for a few days?

Love,

Leanne.

P.S. I have attached some more of the story, which I have written to continue on from where yours left off.

United States of America, 36 years ago…

Dianne Archer was an attractive 23 year old young woman, with all of her life ahead of her. She worked in the cosmetics department of a large multi-storey city department store. One day she was arranging lipsticks in a glass display tray on the bench, when she noticed a handsome young man walking through the store.
He was a little younger than her, 18 in fact, which was far more significant at that age, than it would have been if they’d both been ten or twenty years older.

Dianne had dated a few boys in high school and two men since leaving, but it had never developed into anything serious. Though there had been some initial attraction in each case, it had never amounted to what Dianne felt at this moment:

This was love at first sight.

Dianne felt herself begin to panic. There was a sense of urgency about these things. There had to be, or she would never see the boy again, and the opportunity would be lost. He would not be purchasing any women’s cosmetics, and would walk past her department, on the way to another.

Perhaps she could help him to locate it. That was it. She would offer.

Dianne stepped into his path and smiled. She had been used to turning on a smile for the purpose of good customer service. In fact, one customer had returned and given her the following poem in response to it.

SMILE FOR HIRE

(1)       Why do you allow your smile to be used, to sell more soft drinks and French fries?

            Employers position you at the front counter, playing to customers' eyes.

            Your moods are a gift, to express when you choose, not to withhold and suppress,

            While faking a view that your heart doesn't share, when modelling somebody's dress.

(2)       You played in the fields, in the days of your youth, without manufacturing moods.

            Why sacrifice all of that innocence now, merely to offer fast foods

            To the consumers, who empty their wallets down into the shop owner's till,

            Defying the truth of emotions inside your soul, while projecting goodwill.

(3)       The sale of goods and services rendered doesn't include your own features.

            Love is not a commercial commodity. That's what the word of God teaches.

            It's yours to decide, when to give or respond with feelings that come from inside.

            It's yours to be offered, in various stages, from first date to girlfriend to bride.

(4)       A woman petitioned the Lord with a question, asking "How long have I got?"

            "You'll live forty years" the Creator replied. The lady was pleased with her lot.

            She went to the surgeons to have a facelift, disguising the years she'd acquired,

            And bought a new car, to drive through the town, pursuing the men she desired.

(5)       A truck driver suddenly slammed on his brakes, which sadly suffered from rust.

            He sent her car rolling, and when she'd passed on, she questioned the God she did

                                                                                                                                    trust:

            "My Father in Heaven, you said I had decades. So why did you leave me to die?"

            "I'm sorry," said God, "I did not recognise your face, when that large truck went by."

The man’s Christian message had not been wasted on her, but she couldn’t see herself progressing in her career by sighing at customers … or frowning.

This had to be different though. This had to be a smile from the heart which would use a brief opportunity to convey all her hopes and feelings in little more than an instant.

England, present day…

This was far more than the average boy’s wildest dream. She had not only written about but actually reciprocated the fantasy that her story had aroused in him. The promises of her letter would do everything short of actually enabling them both to go through with their fantasy.

Tarquin decided to read the new pages of the story that Leanne had written:

Dillon had returned home as usual by the weekend, and Mrs Waye was able to go about her regular Saturday evening business. Being a widow with two daughters, she was the president of an organisation called Single Mothers United Group (SMUG). Almost every Saturday evening, she would host parties for the group in her large garden. This was in fact the very garden where the second fork of Dillon’s Dew Forest tunnel emerged.

On the next Saturday evening, once the sun had set and the latest SMUG party was under Waye … err… under way, a prep school boy named Tristram (from the orphanage near the Dew Forest) snuck out for an evening walk, and found the tunnels too. He emerged in Mrs Waye’s garden, to see that a party of giant women was in full swing.

As he walked through the flower bed, he saw a beautiful woman reach down into the garden in front of him and pick up a young man. Her hand just kept on lifting him up, until she suddenly slipped him into her opening mouth!

“Hey!” called the young man.

Tristram watched as the giantess closed her mouth and then gulped. Before his very eyes, she had swallowed the young man completely. The giantess licked her lips and then looked around the garden.

He realised that she might well have been looking for another boy to eat. He might have turned and run, but he was still mesmerized by both her beauty and the dining feat that he had just seen her perform.

Mrs Waye turned and walked back to a party table and made conversation with her guests, completely unconcerned with the fact that she had just eaten someone. A number of other single mothers (giant women) were in attendance at the SMUG party that evening: Mrs Hornsby, Mrs Tyrrell, Mrs Croker, Mrs Unswales, and Mrs Sue Lane.

The young adult man, who had just been eaten, was in fact a member of a club called the British Bachelor Boys. He made himself as comfortable as he could in Mrs Waye’s giant stomach and felt the movement as she walked around enjoying her own party.

The British Bachelor Boys had discovered the parties a few weeks earlier, and decided to come back and evaluate their chances of romancing the beautiful giant women. Most of them had spread out in the garden and prepared to approach the ladies who had caught their eyes, and weren’t even aware that one of their club was now in the hostess’s tummy.

In one part of the garden, a young adult named Dick managed to get the attention of a beautifully heavily built woman in her thirties with medium length light brown hair and very full shapely lips.

“Hello, I’m Dick,” said the man.

“You’re rather tiny, aren’t you?” she said, “I’m Mrs Hornsby.”

“Would you like to go out with me?” asked Dick.

“I suppose I could take you home, hide a small photograph of me in my lounge room and then leave the room while you hide yourself. I’ll come back and search for you. If you find the photo before I find you, I’ll be your girlfriend for as long as you want me. If I find you first, I’ll eat you.”

“That’s a fair bit risky for me,” said Dick.

“Well I can always find a man my own age and size,” said Mrs Hornsby.

If her mouth had not been so beautiful, he would never have considered taking the chance of being eaten by it. However, he was not going to make any decision other than accepting her offer. Mrs Hornsby was so keen to eat him, that she left the party with him early, and took him home and set up their game. He concealed himself behind a curtain and then began navigating a potential route in his mind’s eye, which would lead him around to the various parts of the room, where she might have hidden the photograph.

He watched her come into the room, and waited to see which direction she would go in to start her search for him. She turned to the right, and got down on all fours, crawled over to the nearest cupboard and peeked under it. Dick ran to the couch on the left, and simply ran under it in search of the photograph.

Dick made his way around the room in the same clockwise direction that she had done. However, when he reached the place that she had started her own search, she was most of the way around. She had covered more ground in the same time that he had taken to cover less, because of her giant size. He could only run for the cupboard that she had checked first.

Before he could reach it, she turned her head and saw him. It was the most amazing sight that he had ever seen, as the beautiful giant woman began crawling triumphantly towards him. She soon had him cornered and caught him in her giant hand.

In the meantime, back at the party, another Bachelor Boy called Paul had approached a giantess who introduced herself as Mrs Unswales. He invited her on a date.

“I think you’d be more suited to my daughter,” said Mrs Unswales, “And if it doesn’t work out, you’d be lovely for dinner.”

Paul went back to her place and met her daughter that night, who seemed happy to date him. He found himself wondering what Mrs Unswales had meant by “lovely for dinner.”

Back at the party, another bachelor boy asked Mrs Croker out.

“I’ve already been married,” she said, and suddenly put the boy into her mouth.

Before he could say anything else, she swallowed him.

“I guess that was a rejection, and a counter offer,” he thought in her stomach.

Sue Lane accepted the invitation from a boy named Lawrence and began dating him.

Mrs Tyrrell looked at her own young and tiny admirer.

“No. You’re too young. I’d much rather have you for supper tomorrow night,” she said, “You’re just the right size to be swallowed whole.”

She dropped him gently into her handbag and continued enjoying the party, leaving right at the end of the night.

When Mrs Tyrrell got home, the young man debated the issue with her, but she insisted on eating him.

A week passed, and another member of the British Bachelor Boys approached Mrs Hornsby. She made him the same challenge, which he accepted. He managed to find the photograph and became her boyfriend.

Mrs Sue Lane met another boy named Reginald. He asked her on a date.

“Well I’ve already started dating another boy from your little group,” she said, “But you do look very nice. Perhaps you’d consider inviting me to eat you instead.”

“Eating me? … I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, “But your mouth looks lovely.”

“I’ll meet you back here just before the party ends, and you can give me your answer then,” said Mrs Lane.

Reginald spent the evening watching the adorable Mrs Lane walking around the garden, and his mind was made up.

“So what have you decided?” she asked sweetly.

“I’d be honoured if you ate me,” said Reginald.

“Thank you, young man,” said Mrs Lane.

She took him home and hid him for the night. The next evening she waited until her daughter had gone to bed, and then licked Reginald slowly and slid him into her mouth and swallowed him.

In the meantime, Paul couldn’t help thinking that it would be more fun to be eaten by Mrs Unswales, than to continue dating her daughter. He waited for a chance to talk to her, while her daughter was out of the house.

“I was wondering what you meant, when you said I’d be lovely for dinner.”

“I meant that you’d be very nice to eat,” said Mrs Unswales.

“Could you describe what that would be like for me?” he asked.

“Being eaten?” asked Mrs Unswales.

“Yes,” he said, “Could you tell me how you would have done it?”

“I’d have warmed you up a little, but not too much, in my oven, and then enjoyed the taste of you in my mouth for a while, and then gobbled you down gently,” she said.

Paul took the next available opportunity to confide in her daughter, who didn’t seem to be that taken by him anyway. The girl was more fascinated by his vore crush on her mother, and agreed to break off their relationship, so that her mother would proceed with her alternate plan.

“It seems my daughter does not want to continue seeing you,” said Mrs Unswales the next time they were alone together.

“It does look that way,” said Paul.

“Well I might make a start on having you for dinner,” she said, and placed him gently into the oven.

She turned the oven on low, so as not to burn him, and waited until he had heated up a little, and then gently ate the boy. It was the ride of his life.

Tarquin enjoyed the new plot device to no end. The SMUG parties and the British Bachelor Boys would provide a potentially endless series of multiple plot lines, allowing them to tell stories of both romances with giantesses and young men being eaten by them. He wondered what would happen to Tristram, the boy around his own age in the story, who had so far only witnessed a gobbling, but not revealed himself to the giantesses. The plot structure would now allow each of them to create and develop separate subplots without contradicting the other writer’s storylines.

USA, 36 years ago…

Dianne was now blocking the aisle which would take an eighteen year old boy past the cosmetic’s department and over to the other side of the store.

“Can I help you?” she asked, beaming at him.

“Yes. Could you direct me to the furniture department?” he asked.

“Are you looking for domestic furniture or office furniture?” asked Dianne.

“I am after an office chair actually. I’ve just finished school and taken charge of one of my father’s companies,” said the boy.

“It’s up the escalators on level 3. There’s a lot on that floor. I’ll show you the way,” said Dianne.

She looked back at the other staff member of the cosmetics department, Justine, and rolled her eyes in the boy’s direction for Justine to see.

The two staff members had always gotten on well, and Justine could see that Dianne was keen on the boy. She winked back at Dianne to imply that she would be happy to cover for her.

Dianne turned her head back to the boy and guided him to the first escalator. On each level, they had to walk around to the next escalator.

“I’m Dianne,” she said, when they were on their way from level 1 to level 2.

“I’m Jared. Pleased to meet you,” said the boy.

His youth made him shy, and Dianne suspected that he’d been too occupied with educational and vocational achievements at an early age, to have had the chance to have dated girls. There was an art to seasoned romantic behaviour, and this boy didn’t have it.

To Dianne, his innocence of such things added more to his appeal.

“I know this store fairly well,” she said, “I’ve been here for five years since finishing school myself.”

It was important to let him know the age difference up front. If he were to fall in love with her, it had to be with the Dianne that she was, not the Dianne that she might have allowed him to imagine her to have been.

“It’s kind of you to come all this way to help me,” he said.

Dianne blushed. Was he just being polite or was he taking the opportunity to compliment her?

“I’m very glad to help,” she said, and led him the rest of the way to the office furniture section on level 3, “Will you have time to stop back at the cosmetics department and let me know how you get on?”

“Sure. Do they do deliveries?”

“It’s the store policy for anything larger than a handbag, if the customer requests it,” said Dianne, “See you soon then.”

She watched him start to examine the chairs, and could only return to her own department, wondering if she should have been more forthright. Yet what could she have said?

England, present day…

The day finally came, when Tarquin was able to accept an invitation to go and visit Leanne Commons in the English Lake District. She picked him up at the last railway station and drove him the long distance to her home, as they talked together.

“I’m so happy that you liked my story,” she said, “I didn’t think anyone would reciprocate the more unusual longings I concealed in it.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” he said.

They reached her place and spent the afternoon walking the countryside together, and then sat down on a lovely slope by a river.

“Would you enjoy eating me if we could make me small enough or make you big enough?” he asked.

“Darling I’d enjoy it very much,” said Leanne.

“So would I,” said Tarquin, “How I wish we could do it, but at least we can be friends and talk about it.”

“We can always be more than friends,” said Leanne, and wrapped her arms around him.

Tarquin enjoyed the unprecedented feeling of feminine touch in his life, and then realised that she was going to kiss him.

He enjoyed the sensation all the more, and looked forward to staying the night at her home.

They kissed for several seconds.

“That was lovely,” she said.

“I’ve never done it before,” said Tarquin, “Thank you for helping me to kiss you.”

They were soon walking the countryside back to her house.

“I can imagine chasing you through so many of these lovely scenic spots,” said Leanne.

“It would be great looking up at you coming after me in your lovely dress, with it swaying grandly on the grass,” said Tarquin.

They made their way home, and Leanne took out some more pages of her manuscript.

“I just added these last night,” she said, “Would you like to read them while I’m cooking dinner.”

“Since I can’t be the dinner myself, I suppose it’s the next best thing,” said Tarquin.

“I love you!” said Leanne, and licked his cheek.

He moved his head, so that the other cheek was near her mouth.

“What are you doing, shaking your head like that?” she asked, “I thought you’d like it.”

“I did, very much,” said Tarquin, “I’m just turning the other cheek.”

Leanne laughed as she understood the implication, and licked his remaining cheek too. Then he sat down on the couch and began to read from the story.

One evening a twenty-four year old lad found his way into the Single Mothers United Group party, and was amazed to see that a beautiful lady named Yvonne was there. She was thirty-two now and looked adorably plump. He had never found slim girls nearly as attractive as larger ones, and as a giantess, Yvonne was more attractive than anyone his own size. Unlike any of the other boys who had been to these parties during the tunnel from England, Terry Murray was the only boy who had found the giant country through another tunnel many years earlier.

When he was six years old, Terry was staying on a holiday with relatives, and found a tunnel and started walking through it. He came out in a giant open field right under a large table. He could see the bottom of a woman’s dress and her ankles and shoes right in front of him. He looked around and saw other tables, and women walking around everywhere. It appeared that some sort of ladies market had been set up in the field for the day.

Another giant woman came over to the table and accidentally knocked something off it. As he watched, a doll about twice his own size fell to the grass in front of him. The giantess squatted down to pick it up and saw Terry.

“There’s another one fallen down here too,” she said, and picked up the doll as well as Terry and placed it on the table, with Terry beside it.

There were several other dolls. Terry felt it wisest to stay stock still and hope that nobody realised he was alive.

“I didn’t see that one in the bunch before,” said the first giantess, “I’m sure someone will buy it soon. It’s the cutest of the lot.”

After a while, Terry noticed a woman and a teenaged girl come out of the back gate of a property just beyond the field. They walked over and looked around the stalls at the market, until they came to the dolls table.

“Are you still interested in dolls at fourteen years of age, Yvonne?” asked the mother.

The girl was plump, and so stunningly beautiful, that Terry felt an excitement beyond his years as soon as he laid eyes on her. She had the most magnificent full shapely lips, and the roundest loveliest cheeks. Everything about her was big and wonderful.

“I thought I’d grown out of them, but this one looks so nice that I’d love to have him,” said Yvonne.

Her mother bought the doll and gave it to Yvonne. They walked around the field for a while, and then returned home to their house. Her mother made lunch and served it. Yvonne put the doll beside her plate and began to eat. After the main course, they enjoyed slices of cake. A piece broke off in Yvonne’s hand, and fell onto Terry’s face where he lay, and then slid off onto the table. Yvonne picked it up and ate it, and then noticed that Terry had cake crumbs on his face.

“Try not to get it into a mess,” said her mother.

“It’s alright, Mother,” said Yvonne.

She picked Terry up and removed the crumbs with the tip of her large pink tongue.

“Oh Yvonne, really!” said her mother.

“It must be made with special clay,” said Yvonne, “It tastes rather nice.”

“Well just remember that clay could make you sick. You gave me a real fright when you put that other doll in your mouth once.”

“Mother, I was only five then.”

“Alright. I’ll leave you to wash up,” said her mother.

Yvonne picked Terry up again and put him on her lower lip, slid him inwards a little, and closed her upper lip down onto him, so that he would not fall from her lips. She gathered up the plates and took them to the kitchen. Terry looked down at her lovely rounded arms and plump hands washing the plates in the sink, drying them and putting them away.

When she had finished, Yvonne took Terry to her bedroom and opened her mouth wide, and placed Terry gently inside it. She closed her mouth and opened it periodically, and was clearly enjoying the taste of him, while she read a book. He spent two hours on her soft moist pink tongue, until she took him from her mouth, dried him with a tissue and left him on her bed. She left the room.

Terry climbed down the overhanging blanket to the ground and snuck out of the house, and back out into the field. The last of the giantesses had packed up her table and was preparing to leave. Terry located the tunnel and returned home.

Now he was sure that this was Yvonne walking around the garden at the party of giantesses that he had come upon. She looked far more beautiful at 32 than she had at 14. He remembered his close contact with her lips, and thought how nice it would be to ask her out on a date and receive a deliberate kiss from her. He stayed concealed, doing his best to follow her around, until she reached a part of the garden which was well lit by lamps, but unoccupied by any other giantess. Then he stepped out into view.

“Hello!” he called, “Are you Yvonne?”

“Yes,” she said, “How do you know me?”

He told her his name, and recounted the adventure he had had, when she had mistaken him for a doll.

“You’ve got a good memory, and you’re very sweet to recall that after 18 years,” said Yvonne, “I think I’ve put on a bit of weight since then.”

“No you haven’t,” said Terry, “I liked you being so big, even back then.”

“Did you really? I wondered what had happened to my little doll. Now it turns out that you never were a doll.”

“Are you disappointed?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Yvonne, with a sudden mischievous smile, “I could never have swallowed clay.”

“Do you mean …?” he broke off.

“I do indeed,” laughed Yvonne, “I’m going to eat you up, young man. I’ll have you for dinner tomorrow night.”

“I guess I must have really been very tasty,” said Terry.

“I’m sure you still are,” said Yvonne, towering in front of him, “Now I take it from something you said a little earlier in this conversation, that you have certain feelings for me, about which you might like to tell me.”

“I do. I think you’re more beautiful than ever now,” said Terry, as Yvonne leaned down, picked him up, and sat on a garden seat.

“You’ve grown into a very handsome young man yourself,” said Yvonne, “I got married four years ago, to a man older than my father. My three year old daughter was born the following year. He turned out to be a very nasty person, and we separated a few months ago. So I’m free to romance you, sweet prince, for 24 hours. Why don’t we get away from this party?”

“I’d like that,” said Terry.

Yvonne smuggled him out of the property and took him to her home, paid the babysitter and then checked on her sleeping daughter. Then she took Terry into her bedroom and sat up in bed and kissed him several times.

“Oh Yvonne, I spent the whole time at that party hoping you’d do that,” he said.

She lay down and continued, and they talked until they fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning beside her beautiful sleeping face.

“She’s going to eat me,” he thought, “What a way to renew an eighteen year old acquaintance, which she never fully knew of back then!”

Yvonne stirred and turned to look at him.

“Good morning, Sweet Prince,” she said and kissed him.

“Good morning, Beautiful Giantess,” said Terry.

“It must be time to make breakfast,” she said, “Savoury prince meat sounds good. What do you think?”

“I’m glad you don’t find me an unsavoury sort of fellow,” said Terry.

Yvonne laughed, and rolled onto her stomach and then lifted her upper body and held her hands each side of the pillow, looking down at him.

“I don’t even consider having mince meat for breakfast,” said Yvonne, “But by dinner time, I’m sure I could summon up a craving for Terrys and cream.”

Yvonne slowly lowered her face and put out her tongue and carefully licked him, so that her tongue didn’t touch the pillow. Her tongue, despite the implications of her plans for him, looked truly magnificent from that perspective.

She left her daughter playing by herself for most of the morning, while she enjoyed romancing Terry. Finally she packed a picnic basket, concealed Terry inside it, and took her daughter for a walk to a scenic slope. They ate together, with Terry remaining out of sight, until she let her daughter wander around on the grass. Then she took Terry out of the basket, and he looked at her daughter playing, while she kissed and licked Terry happily. Eventually they returned to her home, and she spent the afternoon with Terry, fed her daughter early and put her to bed.

Yvonne returned to the kitchen and placed Terry into the centre of a bowl. She surrounded him with strawberries and raspberries. Then she opened a packet of icing sugar and used her lovely fingers to sprinkle icing sugar over himself and the fruit. He looked up at her hand, and out at her awaiting tummy and up at her beautiful happy confident face. This would be a meal to remember … though he may not have a lot of time afterwards to recall it.

“I won’t add a DOLL-lop of cream,” said Yvonne, “But you look like a delicious recipe, don’t you think?”

“I guess I’m the TERRY-aki special of the day,” said Terry.

“You’re in fine form for someone about to embark on a one way journey to my tummy,” said Yvonne.

“I liked your joke too,” said Terry, “And I love you very much.”

“I know,” said Yvonne, “I love you very much as well.”

Yvonne took him to the dining table, and sat down. He watched in awe as her tongue came out, each time she delicately spooned strawberries and raspberries into her mouth, until they were all gone. Then she drank from a glass of water, to wash her mouth.

He saw the spoon slide under him, and made a show of helping her, by climbing onto it.

“Thank you,” she said, and raised him to her mouth.

Without another word, she spooned him into her mouth, and began sucking and moving him around in her mouth, drawing all the icing sugar onto her tongue. After a few moments, Yvonne opened her mouth, took him out with her finger and thumb, and put him down again.

“Good, you’re clean again. Now you taste like … just you,” she said.

“I thought that the taste of me alone was to be a real treat,” said Terry.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and washed her mouth again.

Yvonne picked him up and put her thumb and finger under each of his shoulders and held his upper body that way, as she began to lick him again and again. The sight and feel of her tongue coming out and sliding over him was beyond description.

“Are you ready to say goodbye?” she asked at last.

“Yes, my love. I didn’t think I’d have the chance, when you spooned me into your mouth.”

“I wasn’t going to swallow you down then, but this time I am,” she said.

“All things considered, it has been lovely to see you again.”

“I’m glad we caught up this way too,” said Yvonne, “Perhaps a little more than you are at this point.”

“I’ve no regrets,” said Terry, “Without this, I’d never have had those kisses and licks.”

“Oh … I suppose I can see how you’d have liked the licks too. You might enjoy the swallowing more than you expected. Did you know that the tongue starts somewhere down inside the throat?”

“No I didn’t. So it must be a lot longer than I thought, and a lot longer than me. I only considered the visible top of it, when I thought of myself as being just a little shorter than your tongue.”

“Then let me acquaint you with the rest of it,” she said, “Would you like to go down head first or feet first?”

“Feet first, lying on my stomach would give me the best way to look at your lower lip for the last time, before you close your mouth, and it would be the most comfortable way to slide down inside your throat,” he said, “Especially now that I’m a No Added Sugar meal.”

“Down you go then,” said Yvonne mirthfully.

She slid him backwards over her lower lip and onto her tongue, soon closed her mouth, enjoyed the sugar free taste of him, and then suddenly gulped a little, so that he slid down into her throat. He made his way down, down, down, and the meal was over.

United States of America, 36 years ago…

Dianne kept looking up from her work to see if Jared was on his way back.

At last he returned.

“Hello again,” said Dianne, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes, they’re going to send it on to the office. Thank you for all your help too.”

“It must be quite an undertaking to start running a company,” she said, “Do you usually have time for lunch breaks?”

“I always take an hour, though I could get away with two,” said Jared.

She noticed his eyes looking down at her dress, apparently appreciative of the material and the style. She was sure that this boy had never asked a girl out and simply didn’t know how to go about it. She would have to help him along.

“I’ve found some nice places to eat in Central Park,” she said, “I could probably take my lunch at the same time as you and show them to you, if you like.”

“It would be good to know,” said Jared nervously, “What time do you usually have lunch?”

“One o’clock,” said Dianne, “But I might be able to swap with Justine and change it to twelve.

“I can make my own lunch hours,” said Jared, “One o’clock would be easy for me. Where would you like me to meet you?”

“What’s closer to Central Park?” asked Dianne, “Your office or this store?”

“Definitely the store,” said Jared.

“Could you meet me here just before one then?”

“That’s around two hours time,” said Jared, “I’ll be here.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” said Dianne, thinking that now might be the time to reveal a little more of the true extent of her enthusiasm.

Jared left the store, and Dianne returned to Justine.

“How did you go?” asked Justine.

“I think I have a lunch date,  in Central Park,” said Dianne.

“Well done, you! I saw how young and cute he was too. What was he shopping for?”

“An office chair. He’s taken over a company after recently finishing school.”

“Really! What prospects you have there!” said Justine.

“That’s not important to me at all,” said Dianne, “I just know I’m going to want to be with him long-term. That’s what’s different about him.”

England, present day…

Leanne served dinner, and asked him what he thought of the new chapter.

“I could see myself as Terry and you as Yvonne all the time. It was fantastically written,” said Tarquin, “It’s even better now, watching you eat a meal right in front of me. I can imagine myself down on the plate, with you as a giantess eating me.”

“I’ve noticed you watching my tongue coming out while I’m eating,” said Leanne, “It’s very flattering.”

“Most women wouldn’t think so,” said Tarquin.

“Most boys wouldn’t want to be eaten,” said Leanne.

After dinner, she led him in some slow dancing, and then took him to her bedroom. They snuggled up together in her bed. He thought of the beautiful lake district outside, and the comfortable roof over their heads, and the beautiful woman who would have eaten him, were it at all possible.

They kissed and cuddled, and she often licked his cheek. At one stage he asked her to open her mouth, and proceeded to slide his fingers around inside it, on her tongue, each in turn.

“I’m enjoying you doing that,” she said.

“I thought it might only be good for me,” said Tarquin.

“Not at all. Every little manifestation helps,” said Leanne.

“We have the most unique and special fantasy in the world,” said Tarquin.

“Not entirely unique,” said Leanne.

“How do you mean?” asked Tarquin.

She leaned out of the bed, opened a drawer in the bedside table, and took out a paperback book with the title ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ on the cover. It was written by an author named Howie Kenville.

“Have a look inside,” she said.

He turned the cover and the first page, to find that it was first published nearly two decades earlier, in Australia, and that the author lived in Sydney.

“Does he think like us?” asked Tarquin.

“Somewhat like you, although he came up with the preference of reducing his male character, rather than encountering a giantess,” said Leanne, “It was reading this that gave me the courage to insert a small hint of myself into the book that first drew you to me. Take it home with you and borrow it for as long as you like. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

As soon as Tarquin was back on the train to London, he quickly engrossed himself in the book.

Wally McGee was an 18 ½ year old second year literature student at Redfern University, the most prestigious, architecturally magnificent and scenic university in the greater Sydney area. It combined the grandest old stone buildings with a set of gardens which could both inspire him as a writer in training and distract him from his studies, if he were to allow it.

For over a year now, he had seen a tall, dainty elegant lady walking around the university on a number of occasions. He had begun to follow her movements unnoticed, and learned that she was a science teacher at the university, and that she had her own private laboratory/office in the basement of one of the large buildings. He knew from his pleasant walks in the gardens of the university, that the basement rooms all had high windows which were level with the garden outside. If he could just work out which window was hers, he might be able to look in and learn a little more about her…

He made a point of watching her go into her laboratory one afternoon, when he had no class to attend, and then visualized the outside of the building in his mind. He walked around and crawled into the garden and found himself well concealed, as the sun began to go down. He saw the light on in the window he had calculated to be hers, and sure enough, he looked down and could see her sitting at a desk, with her back to him. She was writing notes, but he could not read them at that distance. At least he had learned one thing. The laboratory door had a plaque with her name on it: Rosemary Markham.

He took his video camera out of his backpack. He had used it to take footage of the gardens in the daytime on a few occasions. Today it would serve as a telescope. He used the zoom lens to look through the window, glad that the circular polarizing lens prevented it from focussing on the glass which was immediately in front of him.

Wally zoomed in on her note book, and decided to press record, so that he could always take time to read over it again later. He began reading what she had already written.

I am now 30, and still unmarried, though I see good reason for this. Neither of my past loves (one in my teenage years, and one in my twenties) has expressed any support or interest in my ongoing experiments.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted tiny beings to be real. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it would be far more practical to make a full sized person tiny, than to go on searching for a tiny person who simply didn’t exist. Though I never told them of my actual endeavours to reduce a lad to tiny size, I did ask how they would feel about it. Though each of them had a typical male interest in me, neither of them felt any inclination to be reduced. In both cases, we eventually went our separate ways.

I’ve been alone for two continuous years now, which has allowed me more time to concentrate every free moment into working on a way to shrink someone. I know that I am so close to achieving a result, yet so far from ever finding someone willing to participate in the experiments.

The most discouraging thing for the participant, is the fact that I could not possibly hope to enlarge the shrunken person, should I succeed in reducing him. The change in size would be a one way conversion. This would not concern me, but it makes the pool of volunteers rather empty, even if I were to make my need of a volunteer known…

Wally had read enough … or at least, almost enough. He watched her continue to write, but the rest of it was unintelligible scientific text, recording the results of her experiments. He kept reading, hoping that she would give some hint as to the one aspect of her experiment which meant the most to him.

Would she want to eventually eat the participant?

Ever since he had been a little boy, Wally had dreamt of being swallowed whole by a woman, being so tiny that this would be a simple feat to accomplish. It was this very fascination that had fuelled his crush on Rosemary Markham. There was no mention of any desire to eat the tiny person she wished to bring about. Yet there was no desire to restore his size either. Perhaps to be reduced by her, if it were even possible, and be in her company forever would be the closest he would ever come.

The next day, he looked for her during lunch time, and found her sitting alone in the garden. He went and sat beside her. Would she be upset with the way he had learned of her experiment? Even so, could she look past that, since he was the only volunteer she had ever had?

“Could I talk to you, Miss Markham?” he asked.

“I don’t think we’ve met, but please go on,” she said.

“I have something to own up to,” he said, “I knew that you had a laboratory in the basement, and I was curious. So I used my video camera zoom lens to read your notes through the window last night. I’ll give you the film to keep or wipe, and I’ll never tell anyone, but I know you need someone for your shrinking experiments.”

“Oh,” she said, “It is difficult to find someone who would be willing to live out the rest of his life at a height of two inches or so. Are you interested in volunteering?”

“Would you let me live with you, always, so that I’d never have to cope on my own?”

“I certainly would. The whole idea is to have a little man in my care forever. Do you understand the permanency of the situation, if I should succeed?”

“Yes. I’ve thought about it half the night, before I fell asleep. I’d like to be your guinea pig, and I don’t mind at all if you can eventually make me smaller than one.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, “Can you start after classes today?”

“I’m free from four o’clock onwards.”

“I’d better put a curtain over that window from now on, just in case anyone else is out there in future. We must keep this strictly between ourselves,” said Rosemary.

Soon they were testing a machine that she had been working on for some time. It projected a ray, but would not reduce anything. After three months of continued experiments, they finally saw a laboratory chair reduced to tiny size before their eyes.

“We’ve done it!” she said, “I can reduce you to two inches tall whenever I like now. I’d like to test it on a living person, but not fully for tonight. It would be nice to go out and celebrate. You’re two inches taller than me. Would you like me to reduce you to six inches shorter, and then take you out for dinner? We can see all the sights of the city together, and then I can reduce you to tiny size back here tomorrow.”

“That sounds great,” said Wally.

They went out to a beautiful restaurant in the highest tower in the city, and sat at a window looking out at the city lights, and then danced to soft music, and walked around the city together. They walked back to the university and into her laboratory and she turned her head to his and embraced him and kissed him passionately.

“I thought you’d like to do that once, before it was too late,” she said, “I know I did like it very much. Would you like to stay the night with me?”

“Oh yes,” he said, and she drove him to her house in the suburbs.

They snuggled up and kissed and cuddled all night, slept in for most of the day and then considered their absence.

“I don’t have any classes today,” she said, “But you’d be missed, I guess.”

“They don’t ask questions like they did at school,” he said, “But my height would be conspicuously less than it was.

“Nobody will know,” she said, “We’ll get back there after dark, and then I’ll use the machine on you.”

They had a mid afternoon meal, and then she drove him towards the city.

“Now that you’ve enjoyed last night, are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked, “You haven’t lost that much height yet, and you could still live out a normal life as you are. It won’t be possible again ever afterwards.”

“I thought about that a lot, while we were together romantically, and I’m still sure,” he said.

“Well you don’t have long to change your mind,” said Rosemary, and pushed her long dark hair back with her hand, while waiting at the traffic lights.

She looked so feminine.

They reached the university after sundown and went down to the laboratory.

Rosemary turned the machine on.

“You know where to stand. Are you having any second thoughts?”

“No,” he said, “But I would like a last hug while I can.”

“Me too,” she said.

They embraced for what turned out to be nearly half an hour.

“Still sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Wally and moved in front of the machine.

He looked not at the machine, but at Rosemary, as she turned it on, and slowly he dwindled down until he was only a little taller than her knees. She stopped the machine and walked over.

“Now you’re the size of a dwarf,” she said, “I can’t undo that, but I can stop there, if you like.”

Her legs looked so shapely. He put his arms around them and hugged her in this new way.

“Could we date again tonight, with me as a dwarf, and I’ll give you my final answer at the end of the evening?”

“Of course we can,” she said, and they went this time to quieter places alone.

They did get some notice at a secluded city restaurant, when they sat at a table together, but nobody came near them. She took him back to the laboratory just before midnight, lifted him up and sat on a seat and cuddled him.

“Have you reached a decision?” she asked.

“Yes, and I’m very grateful to you for stopping the shrinking process to give me time to think it out,” he said.

“I thought you might be. So you’d like to leave it at dwarf size, then?”

“No! I want to be the tiny boy you’ve wanted to make tiny. I’m just glad of tonight with you as well.”

She hugged him tight, with her stronger full-sized body, kissed his cheeks and then his mouth, and then gently placed him down in front of the machine. She activated it again until he was only two inches tall, and slowly walked over, towering like a giantess!

She gently stooped down, picked him up and held him in front of her face.

“Are you still comfortable with it?” she asked.

“Yes. Oh Rosemary, it’s incredible.”

She kissed him.

“Thank you,” she said, “Thank you for being so interested in me that you spied on me and found out what I wanted to do and made it possible.”

She took him home and kissed him to sleep on her pillow.

But would she ever want to eat him?

Tarquin was fascinated, and planned to read on, as soon as he could, but for now, the train was pulling in at London. He put in a bookmark, and closed the book.

USA, 36 years ago…

Jared arrived back at the cosmetics department at 12:55 pm.

“The food mall’s just below us on the underground floor,” said Dianne, “We could grab some lunch there to take into the park.”

“Sounds good,” said Jared.

They walked down to the mall.

“What would you like?” asked Jared, selecting two sandwiches and a container of pineapple pieces with a plastic spoon.

He was offering to pay for her lunch! He did like her.

Dianne chose her lunch and thanked him. He offered to carry hers as well. She led him out to Central Park, and took him to a seat which looked out onto the small lake of sorts.

“That’s frozen for ice skaters in winter,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” said Jared, passing her lunch to her.

“You’ve been a real gentleman,” said Dianne.

She talked about her own school life, as it was closer to his own recent past, and it also would have more interesting moments to recount than working in the store. Jared compared his own school stories with her, which helped the conversation along.

“So did you have any girlfriends?” she asked.

“No. I never seemed to find anyone.”

She’d briefly touched on her boyfriends, but did not want to go on about experiences he couldn’t yet relate to.

“It’s nearly two,” she said at last, “Will you be late if you walk me back to the store?”

“Not at all,” said Jared, and made his way beside her.

Now was the moment of truth, she thought. He knew where to find her. She had made the first move. Would he take up the chance?

They stood just outside one of the double entrance doors to the store.

“Would you like to have dinner with me after work?” asked Jared, “I’ve never asked a girl out before. Is that the right way to time it?”

“There’s no real right way,” said Dianne, “You did well, and I’d like to come. I could stay out until around nine, before the trains thin out a bit.”

“I come in by car. I could drive you, if you’re in my direction,” he said.

“A lift home would make the night go more smoothly, just by anticipating the relative ease of it,” said Dianne, and gave him her suburb.

It turned out that she was three miles further out than him, but he wouldn’t mind the extra drive.

England, present day…

That night, Tarquin continued reading ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ with great interest. There were several chapters which described Wally’s relationship with Rosemary, before the story returned to the direction that Wally had been awaiting:

Wally was so keen to know where he stood with Rosemary on the subject of being eaten, that he decided to come straight out with it.

“Rosemary?” he said one day.

“Yes Wally,” said Rosemary.

“I really like your tongue.”

“My tongue?”asked Rosemary.

“Yes. It looks wonderful. I’m sure it would feel wonderful too.”

“Wally, I’m not sure what you’re leading up to.”

“When I first learned that you had the means to reduce a person to tiny size, I was very keen on volunteering, because I have always hoped that I might one day have the chance to be eaten by a beautiful lady like you.”

“Oh!...”

“Do you think I’m an oddball now?”

“No … I don’t have any judgement of you. It’s just that I don’t have any desire to do what you’ve just brought up. I don’t think I could possibly bring myself to put you in such a situation.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” said Wally, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Maybe it’s just as well you did,” said Rosemary, “Bring it up, I mean, not make me uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s best if we stop seeing each other.”

“Don’t you want me around anymore?” asked Wally.

“I was thinking of you,” she said, “If you stay with me, you’ll never realise your dream. If we go our separate ways, you’ve got the whole university to search in the hopes of finding a lady who might like to eat you. I can always shrink someone else, if I find someone else who wants to be reduced.”

“The chances of that are limited, if you can’t come up with a way to reverse the process,” said Wally.

“Maybe, but I’m not worried,” said Rosemary.

She took him to the front of the university grounds, which were the closest to the city, and left him in the gardens. Both of them were aware that the secretaries who worked on the outskirts of the city would often come and eat their lunches in the university gardens. It would give Wally a chance to hide in the gardens and observe their tongues coming out of their mouths, note which ones took his fancy, and ask those particular ladies if they would be interested in eating him.

In the next few weeks, he had several reactions of surprise at his tiny size. He mentioned that he was a shrunken man, but not that the process was done by a member of the university staff. None of the ladies was interested in eating a tiny man, though two agreed to lick him and did so, before putting him back in the garden and returning to their offices to work.

One day he met a sweet lady in her late twenties named Joanne. He made his usual pitch, adding that he hadn’t met anyone willing to eat him, despite approaching a number of secretaries. They had all promised to keep his existence a secret, but had been unwilling to gobble him down.

“It’s not something I would have chosen for my dining pleasure either,” said Joanne, “But as it seems to be very important to you. I would be happy to do it for you, if you’re sure it’s what you’d like.”

“It is,” said Wally, “Could you do it now?”

“I’ve just had lunch,” she said, “I could meet you here tomorrow. I’ll have more room for you down there then.”

With her last few words, she pointed at her tummy.

“I can’t wait,” said Wally.

“The next day he saw Joanne arrive and stepped out to reveal himself. She sat on the garden seat and lifted Wally up and looked at him.

“Would you like me to start straight away?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Wally, “And thank you.”

“How would you like me to do it?”

“Could you lick me a few times, then put me into your mouth and let me lie on your tongue? I’ll slide myself into your throat, when I’m ready to go down, and then you can start gulping.”

“Alright then,” said Joanne, and slid her dainty tongue over his face and shoulders and neck to his heart’s content, before easing him into her mouth.

He waited for a while, thinking about the whole situation. He had kept hoping that Rosemary would simply announce her intention to eat him without seeking permission, and it had never happened. So he had been forced to ask her to do it. He had taken the initiative with Joanne, and she had responded. He had enjoyed all the pleasures of the contact with her tongue, and could now go on to enjoy the pleasure of being gulped down her throat.

Yet something was missing. He was not able to enjoy the pleasure of having the situation proactively determined by the lady. He’d had to ask all of them to do it. Joanne had been the first one to say yes, but the adventure still lacked that edge of not being given the choice.

Wally turned himself around, to face the front of her mouth, pushed at her mouth, indicating that he would like her to open it, and waited.

“Could you take me out again?” he asked.

Joanne let him out into her hand.

“Is anything wrong? Did I do it alright?” she asked.

“You did wonderfully, and I’m very grateful. I just think that there must be someone out there who wants to eat someone without being prompted. It would be a shame if she and I never met, whoever she might be. So I don’t think I’d like to go ahead with the final stages of this meal. I’m sorry you came unprepared for the hunger I’ve left you with, Joanne.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, “If you change your mind, I’m still happy to do it.”

For a few weeks longer, Wally continued introducing himself to the secretaries, but took care not to bring up the subject of eating him until he was sure that they would not mention it.

Towards the end of the year, on a Thursday, a lovely woman in her early twenties, about three years older than him, named Lisa, sat on the seat near his garden, and was as surprised as anyone to meet him.

“How do you come to be here?” she asked.

“I was born to be your size, but I’ve been permanently shrunken,” he said as usual.

“Well I’ll just put you in here,” said Lisa, lowering him into her handbag, “Once I turn the clasp, you won’t be able to open the bag and get out.”

“If you’re taking me with you, I don’t want to get out,” said Wally.

“I think you will,” said Lisa, “Tomorrow night I’m going to swallow you whole. It’s not something I’ll have any reluctance to do, but I’m sure you’ll need more than a little coaxing.”

“I won’t need any,” said Wally, “Lisa, you’re just the lady I’ve been waiting for. I’ve wanted to be eaten by a woman all my life.”

“Somehow I don’t think so,” said Lisa, with a laugh, “Eating is fun for those who participate in the eating, but I’d expect the food to have a vastly different outlook on it.”

She closed the bag above him, and left him to settle himself inside it while she went back to her office to work.

USA, 36 years ago…

“So how long have you had your license?” asked Dianne, as they sat down in a restaurant overlooking the city.

“Only a few months,” said Jared, “I started learning as soon as I could.”

They enjoyed their meal, and then Jared led her to his office building.

“The car’s in the underground car park, but would you like to quickly see the office first?” he asked.

“Okay,” said Dianne.

They went up in the elevator and into his office. It had brown wooden wall panelling and an almost matching desk, and a large plastic ball behind it.

“Someone suggested it, until the store delivers my new chair,” said Jared.

“I’m glad we could help,” said Dianne, with a faint trace of amusement, “The view from up here is even better than the restaurant we just left.”

“I like the city lights too from this angle,” said Jared.

“It’s very romantic,” hinted Dianne, and moved closer to him.

“I’ve never been romantic with anyone before,” said Jared, “But this has been a special day. I didn’t know whether you were just showing me to the furniture department out of professional courtesy or whether you might like to go out with me.”

“I wasn’t sure how you were responding to me either, until we went to lunch,” said Dianne, “You’ve given me a special day too.”

She was now standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes. Dianne closed her own eyes, and tilted her head a little to the side, moving it ever so closer to his face as she did so.

Jared met her moves with his own and gave her a soft gentle kiss. Dianne enjoyed the sweetness of that for several seconds, and then kissed him more passionately. Their arms embraced each other’s bodies, and they kissed for several minutes.

“I’m glad I never had a girlfriend before now,” said Jared at last, “I would only have wanted to be with you anyway.”

“I love you so much,” said Dianne.

“I can’t wait to see you again, but I suppose I’d better drive you home,” said Jared, and showed her down to his car.

Sydney, Australia, present day…

“Would you like to go out tomorrow night?” came a young man’s voice later in the afternoon.

“I’m seeing someone at the moment,” said Lisa.

He waited until Lisa took him to her house and placed him on the kitchen table.

“Wouldn’t it be better to eat me tonight, before you see your boyfriend again?” asked Wally.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” said Lisa.

“Oh. Were you just telling that guy who asked you out, that you were seeing someone, so that he wouldn’t keep on asking?” asked Wally.

“No, I am seeing someone, until tomorrow night,” said Lisa.

“Me?”

“I know it’s an unusual dynamic, but we are seeing each other.”

“Thank you for expressing it that way,” said Wally, “It makes me feel all the more special to you.”

Lisa put him in a dolls house on a high table, and left him while she read a book in bed. In the morning, he awoke before her and climbed down the dolls house light cord to the floor, walked into her room and climbed up onto her bed and lay down beside her face.

She awoke and yawned in front of him. He stared into her mouth at point blank range and enjoyed the view of her tongue throughout the three second yawn. It was magnificent. He was so glad to have finally found someone who felt this way about eating him.

“How did you get off the dolls house table?” she asked.

“I climbed down the power cord and then used your blanket to climb up and see you, since part of it wasn’t tucked in. That was the most exciting yawn you did, Lisa. Could I climb into your mouth for a little while now?”

“Be my guest,” said Lisa and opened her mouth wide.

Making as much contact with her lower lip as he could, Wally climbed into Lisa’s mouth and settled himself against her tongue. He enjoyed himself immensely, until she suddenly put out her tongue and let him slide off onto the pillow.

“Why didn’t you get out of here while you had the chance?” she asked.

“Remember I told you I wanted to be eaten?”

“So you did,” she said, “I thought you were trying to trick me. I had no idea that you really meant it. Aren’t you a little darling?”

“You’re adorable,” said Wally.

“Let’s have some breakfast,” said Lisa.

She took him to the kitchen and served up some fruit salad. They ate and talked, and then Lisa put on her lipstick and prepared to leave.

“Wally, would you like to see a romantic movie on the television tonight? I’ll still eat you tomorrow night instead.”

“I’d love to,” said Wally.

“It’s a date then,” said Lisa, and waved goodbye, “I’ll see you tonight.”

She left him in the dolls house and departed for work.

When she returned in the evening, they had dinner together and then she sat on the couch and set him on her shoulder. They watched the first hour of the movie, and then came a scene where a boy attempted to kiss a girl, and the girl pushed him away.

“That boy got an unpleasant surprise,” said Wally, during the commercial break.

“I don’t think she liked him,” said Lisa.

“How would he have known whether she would have wanted to kiss him or not?” asked Wally.

“He couldn’t,” said Lisa, “You don’t know. You just have to take a chance and see how the girl responds. If she’s interested, she’ll embrace the kiss. If she’s not, she’ll move away and decline.”

“Thank you for explaining that,” said Wally.

“You’re welcome,” said Lisa, “Did I explain it alright?”

“Yes,” said Wally.

While her head was still turned to face him, Wally held her chin from each side with his outstretched hands, and kissed her lower lip slowly and steadily.

Then he stepped back and looked up into her eyes. Lisa beamed at him, smiled and then he felt her hand behind his back, steadying him, as her huge lips moved closer and pressed against him.

“Did you realise I was asking about the kissing scene because of you?” he said at last.

“I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t imagine you seeing yourself with the chance to kiss anyone else after tomorrow night. I’m touched, Wally.”

They watched the rest of the movie and then went into Lisa’s bed for a night of kissing, talking, dozing off and eventually waking up. Lisa lived down south, well on the way to Maroubra, and her back garden looked out onto the water. She put on a beautiful swimming costume and lay in the shade with Wally resting on her for part of the morning, and then took a swim with Wally holding onto her hair for the ride.

After lunch, they talked and played hiding and chasing games, which excited Wally all the more. He thought back to Rosemary and Joanne, and the disinterested secretaries, and was so much happier to have found Lisa. She would go the distance, completing the adventure by making him a meal in a way which would bring mutual pleasure to both of them.

The sun began to set, and Lisa sat on the porch with Wally and watched the sun go down over the water.

“I thought you’d like to see the water for the last time,” said Lisa.

“I was going to think of the water on your tongue as the last that I’ll see,” said Wally.

“I’m honoured that you can look at it like that,” said Lisa.

“It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever looked at … your tongue, that is,” said Wally.

Lisa took him to the kitchen and made an arousing performance of placing him in the oven to warm up, circling the kitchen to make other preparations, removing him from the oven and placing him onto a plate. Wally soon found himself on the dining table with the beautiful Lisa smiling down at him.

“Can I have some licks before you swallow me?” asked Wally.

“Certainly. I was going to give you some anyway!” said Lisa.

She put out her thrilling tongue and ran it enthusiastically over his upper body and face, holding him in finger and thumb and moving him towards and away from her mouth to meet her tongue each time it approached.

“I’ve just realised that this wouldn’t have been possible if you hadn’t gone looking for someone to eat you,” said Lisa.

“That’s why I told you about the ladies who didn’t want to do it,” said Wally.

“I know! When you told me how you told Joanne that you wanted to wait for someone like me instead, I didn’t realise the significance straight away. Now that I do, I’m so glad you considered that someone like me would be waiting to eat you,” said Lisa.

“I’m so glad I found you,” said Wally.

“So am I,” said Lisa and kissed him one more time, “Have a nice time in there.”

She put him into her mouth and played with him for several minutes before gulping him down happily.

USA, 35 years ago…

After six months of dating, Jared Leslie proposed marriage to Dianne Archer. Six months later, they were married, and Dianne resigned from her position in the store. She would often still come into the city to have lunch or dinner with her younger husband, but neither of them wanted her to continue working.

The views of the city at night remained as romantic to the young couple as they had been on the night of their first dinner date.

Jared remembered their first lunch date in Central Park too. When Winter came around, he purchased ice skates for both of them from the store where Dianne had formerly worked, and they spent the early half of an evening on the ice, skating around.

“This is wonderful,” said Dianne, “I feel like a teenager in love.”

“I AM a teenager in love,” said Jared.

“How lucky for me,” said Dianne, remembering that he was still in that age bracket for one more year, “Can you go backwards?”

“Skating?”

“Yes.”

“I might fall over.”

“Just try slowly. I’ll show you.”

She demonstrated the foot movements, and explained how best to slightly bend his knees, so that they would not lock up in a perfectly straight position and cause him to lose balance.

“It feels a bit awkward,” said Jared.

“I’ll hold you and go forwards,” said Dianne.

She put her hands on his shoulders, which felt nice. He had looked after her in so many ways, and now she had the chance to keep him safe.

Jared edged slowly backwards, and could not seem to get up much speed in that direction, but enjoyed the proximity to his lovely wife on the ice.

After a few attempts to go a little faster, they went back to holding hands and skated around in a clockwise direction. Something about the beauty of the scene reminded him of things that he had seen in reruns of cartoons that were made long before he was born. Yet this was his reality now. Jared enjoyed it more than ever.

They had talked a number of times since then, about the day that they had first met. Dianne had been more open about the way that she had initiated their courtship, and this made Jared cherish her all the more. She could have gone on to marry the boys she had dated in high school, or the men she had dated since, but he had been the elusive quality of true love that she had been waiting for all that time.

England, present day…

Tarquin enjoyed the book so much, that he could hardly wait to talk about it with Leanne the next time he visited her.

“How would you like to meet him?” asked Leanne.

“In Australia?”

“Yes. I’ve been in contact with him, and his wife. As far as we know, they’re the only other couple who reciprocate each other’s fantasy. I can buy the tickets for whenever you can make the trip.”

Tarquin was very keen on it, and promised to go with her during the next school holiday break. They flew to Sydney and met Howie Kenville and his wife Corinne. They were able to stay for a few days at the Kenvilles’ home in the suburbs of Sydney.

“What could have caused just the four of us to have these impossible longings?” asked Tarquin.

“I don’t think that they are impossible,” said Corinne, “We just haven’t discovered how to make them possible yet. As for what causes it, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s already been possible, just not in any way we can prove,” said Howie.

“So who was based on Corinne, if anyone?” asked Leanne.

“Undoubtedly Lisa,” said Howie, “Though there were elements of the few I confided in unsuccessfully, that were worked into the personalities of Joanne and Rosemary.”

“So what did you mean by the idea that it might be possible but unproven?” asked Tarquin.

“It won’t make much sense, unless you end up finding out for yourself,” said Howie.

It was the above portion of the most significant of several conversations between the four of them, which remained in Tarquin’s mind forever afterwards. However, the visit to Australia came to an end, and he had still not understood what Howie and Corinne were driving at.

One day, Leanne woke up to find herself in an unfamiliar bedroom. She walked through an unfamiliar house and stepped out into an unfamiliar garden, which had many trees and flowers. The sky seemed extremely overcast, but there was not a drop of rain either falling from the clouds or resting on the plant life. She stepped slowly out onto the lawn and walked across.

As she drew near the flower bed, Leanne saw something which simply took her breath away.

There was a tiny boy looking up at her from the garden! She stepped closer and leaned down to get a closer look at him, and lowered her hand to make a grab for him. Then, all of a sudden, she found herself lying in her bed again.

The next time Tarquin came over, she told him the whole story, and he then shared an experience of his own. He had awoken on the same night that she had dated her own experience, and found himself out in a giant garden in the daytime, although on a very overcast day. He had walked for a while, until he had seen a gigantic Leanne Commons staring down at him. Just as she had leaned over and reached down, he had somehow been returned to his bedroom, and it had once again been the middle of the night.

“Your experience was your own point of view of the very same thing that happened to me,” said Leanne, “I couldn’t tell for certain that it was you. I just hoped it was. In another few seconds, I’d have caught you.”

“I might have backed away in time,” said Tarquin.

“I saw and felt everything,” said Leanne, “There’s no way that it could have been a dream. Yet it was too ethereal and temporary to be the kind of regular reality we’re used to. So it must have been something in between.”

“Could this be the possible but unproven experience that Howie and Corinne were alluding to?” asked Tarquin.

“I don’t know. You were shrunken, like Wally was in ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’, but we don’t know how.”

“I thought that you were a giantess, like Mrs Waye in your story.”

“But I never grew. I just walked out of the house and there you were.”

“I never shrank. I just found myself in a giant garden, and there YOU were.”

“I suppose we can’t say whether that was a giant house and garden, with my having been a giantess, or whether it was a normal sized house with you having been tiny.”

“No, we sure can’t. Neither of us recognised that house and garden.”

“Maybe we’ll go back there.”

That night they snuggled up together in bed, cuddling and kissing each other, until they dozed off to sleep. Tarquin awoke after a few hours, and found himself in the same giant garden again. He heard running footsteps coming from the house.

“It’s happening again,” thought Tarquin, “Only this time Leanne’s running.”

He backed into the garden and hid himself, and then wondered why he had done that. Had he not waited and wanted to be eaten by her for so long? Yet some instinct had made him duck back and hide. He saw Leanne come out and run towards the garden, and look down.

“I’ll find you,” she said, and began searching the garden.

Then, before he knew it, he was back in the bed, awake. So was Leanne.

“Did you go back there again too?” he asked.

“Yes. Were you hiding this time?”

“I was.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I do. As much as you fantasize about the motions of being eaten, you still had the average boy’s innate self preservation tendency, when faced with a literal realisation of your dream.”

“If that’s it, I can get past it,” said Tarquin.

“You’ll need to,” said Leanne, “If we keep going back there, I’ll catch you in the end.”

A few nights later, he was at home again, when they had the same experience. This time Leanne caught him. He could actually feel her lovely fingers holding him. It was not a dream at all. She lifted him towards her mouth, and he saw her gigantic tongue extending in front of him.

Just before her tongue could touch him, he was back in bed.

His next telephone call to Leanne would confirm that she had had the reciprocal experience, but Tarquin knew that it would not be necessary. He had come that close to touching her tongue. If only the experience had gone on just a little bit longer, he would have been able to feel her moist gigantic taste organ sliding over his face, without being swallowed, if the experience ended before that could happen.

He began daydreaming of it recurring as far as taking him halfway down her throat and then ending. He would be happy for that to happen over and over again.

Before he actually met up with Leanne again, he had the experience again. This time she caught him and put out her tongue and licked him! He felt it! It had to be real! He could not explain what brought the experience to an end each time, but he could feel her tongue licking him.

They talked about it the next time he called her, and she claimed that she could taste him on her tongue at the time it had happened too.

The whole thing happened one more time, during which Leanne put him into her mouth. He lay on her tongue and waited to be gulped down, but the experience ended before she could do it.

From then on they had that experience again and again, and wondered what to make of it.

“We could try to vary it,” said Leanne, “You could run different ways in the garden to make the chase less predictable. I could come out of the house from a different door each time and approach the garden from a different direction. That way we’d surprise each other more and draw it out.”

“And you could take me to the kitchen before putting me in your mouth, if you get the time to cook me first,” said Tarquin.

“I’d love to,” said Leanne.

So it went on and on.

USA, 32 years ago…

Dianne was now 27 years old. For over two years, the couple had been trying to have children, and had been unsuccessful. Dianne finally applied for a series of tests by her doctors, and learned that she was not able to have children.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Jared, “We could have kept on trying, but we can still adopt someone eventually. It doesn’t have to be straight away. Maybe we need more time for ourselves anyway.”

“My sister Mary’s 36. She had a daughter the year before we met. Mary’s about to go back to teaching in an infant and elementary boys school, now that her daughter has started school.”

“Didn’t she want to be at her daughter’s school?”

“I think she did, but it was fully staffed. The boys school had a vacancy to be filled,” said Dianne, “It seems I am neither working nor having a baby.”

“Do you miss work?”

“No, not really. It was just an observation,” said Dianne.

Mrs Mary Parkin had spent most of the first year of her daughter’s schooling as a stay at home mother, and then returned to teaching towards the end of the second year. Dianne almost wished that she’d done a teaching course as well. At least being a teacher would have put her in the company of children during her working hours then.

Dianne and Jared began visiting the Parkins more often, so that Dianne could spend time with her niece. Mary encouraged double dating between the couples too, for the same reason.

England, present day…

Months and months went by, and Leanne and Tarquin continued to enjoy the unexplained unproven manifestation of their longings, with the limitation that Tarquin was never gulped into her throat, which he would have preferred, nor swallowed down to her stomach, which she would have preferred.

One day, Tarquin and Leanne returned to Australia and told Howie and Corinne of their experiences.

“We can’t explain it either, but it’s what happened to us,” said Howie.

“There is one other couple who might have been able to shed some light on it, except that they were never really a couple,” said Corinne, “I found a story which was serialized in a recent science fiction magazine by a middle aged widow named Christine Long. She was actually widowed at 29, became a school teacher, had a number of boyfriends, but never remarried. She wrote a story which seems to follow the pattern of experiences that you have had, except that the venues changed. There’s one other startling thing I uncovered when I researched the author.”

“This will blow you away when she tells you,” said Howie.

“I can’t wait,” said Leanne.

“Christine Long used her real name in the story. My research shows that, from the age of 30 to 31, she had a student who had the same age and name of the boy in her story,” said Corinne.

“That’s not so surprising,” said Leanne, “She probably based it on her dreams or experiences and chose not to change the names.”

“Here’s what’s extraordinairy,” said Corinne, “A month before Christine wrote and published the first chapter of the story, the boy disappeared from society without an explanation. Nobody in Sydney knows what happened to him. The story has circulated in such rarefied circles, that nobody has made the connection between the missing boy and the experiences of the boy in Christine Long’s story.

“How can we get hold of this story?” asked Tarquin, keener than ever to read it.

“You’d have to collect a run of rare issues of limited publication,” said Howie, “We’d be happy to lend them to you.”

“I wouldn’t want to risk anything happening to them,” said Leanne.

“Why don’t we all go to the library, and photocopy just the pages from each issue which contain Christine Long’s story, and then hole punch them and put them in a cardboard folder?” asked Tarquin.

The others agreed, and the quartet had soon prepared a booklet with the entire collection. As they had only copied a small percentage of each issue, the copyright regulations were not against them. Apart from that, they recognised that copyright was designed to protect the sales income of the authors’ works, as Leanne and Howie well knew. As they were unable to locate any more copies currently on sale, they considered that there was no intellectual property theft performed by duplicating the only accessible copy of the magazines held by the Kenvilles.

Tarquin enjoyed the story the moment that they were back at Leanne’s house. He and Leanne would take turns to read it, while the other was working on draft ideas for continuing their own story about Mrs Waye and the other giantesses. Christine Long’s tale went as follows:

Timothy Scribener got onto the specially hired bus after lunch. He was in 6th class in prep school, during the first term. The school hired busses to take the students to the large sports grounds owned by the school a few kilometres away. There were several fields for games of sport at the grounds. One of the teachers on the bus was Mrs Christine Long. She had graduated from a teachers college, with a diploma of teaching, over a decade earlier, at the age of 20, taught elsewhere for ten years, and had started teaching at his school at the age of 30, when he had been 9 ½  years old. Now he was due to turn 11 during the year of 6th class, and Mrs Long was due to turn 31. She had married at 21, had her son at 23 and her daughter at 29.

After school, Timothy decided to explore the outer boundaries of the playing fields. The field furthest to the back had a descending grass slope behind it, which led to a small nature reserve. He could see beyond it to the public field beyond. He went down the hill and into the nature reserve and started walking.

To his surprise, he suddenly found himself shrinking, and stopped at a height of less than two inches. Now the trees of the nature reserve seemed gigantic. He decided to head back towards the school playing fields, rather than get lost in the reserve.

When he reached the base of the grassy slope, which led up to the fields, he was relieved to be back on the school’s premises. If anyone had found him in the nature reserve, he might have been captured by strangers. The grassy slope was around 8 meters of fairly steep walking, to a normal sized person. He started up.

He was only a little way up, when he looked up and saw Mrs Long come into view at the top of the slope. She stopped and looked out at the nature reserve, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Thank goodness she’s still here,” thought Timothy, “It’s well after 3pm now. If she just looks down, she’ll see me and be able to help me.”

Then he saw her head tilting downwards a bit. Mrs Long saw him and started briskly walking down the hill. She stopped just in front of him and towered like a giantess.

“Just what do you think you’re doing here, little creature!” she roared, while unzipping her handbag, “I don’t know where you came from, but this property belongs to a private school, and I am Christine Long, one of the teachers. You’re not supposed to be on this land, and you can think about that, while you’re sliding down my throat! Maybe you’ll be sorry for what you’ve done, when you’re getting settled in my stomach! I’m going to eat you for my afternoon tea.”

Timothy had still been recovering from the shock of his unexplained shrinking spree. Now he was going to be eaten by the person he’d hoped would help him. Mrs Long picked him up and put him into her handbag. He saw her hand withdrawing, and then she zipped her handbag up again, leaving him in darkness, while she began walking. He felt himself moving downwards with every step she took, and then on level ground.

“Mrs Long must have been headed for the nature reserve too. Then she saw me and stopped. She’s on her way there again now,” thought Timothy.

“Timothy! Are you in there?” he heard her call.

“She came looking for me!” he thought, “She must have noticed that I didn’t return to the change rooms with the other boys.”

She walked for a while, occasionally calling his name, and then seemed to be going back up the hill. After a few more minutes, he saw the handbag open above him, and could see that she seemed to be sitting under a tree at the border of two playing fields. Mrs Long’s fingers closed around him and lifted him out of the bag and up in front of her face. She tilted her head back and lifted  him a little more, so that he was held only inches from her mouth. Then she lowered him towards her mouth, as he saw her large tongue come out to receive him. It was a slippery pathway towards her throat. Once he entered her mouth, he would not be able to do anything to stop her from sliding him into her throat and gulping him down.

Her tongue made contact with him, and he felt her fingers preparing to slide him into her mouth. He quickly turned his head to the side, so that his mouth was free to speak.

“Mrs Long! Stop and talk to me! It’s me, Timothy Scribener, shrunken!” he called.

By now he was halfway into her mouth. Mrs Long slid him out again and stared closely at him, squinting with her eyes, to make out his tiny facial features.

“So it is!” she said, “How did you manage to do that?”

“I don’t know. It just happened in that nature reserve.”

“I wondered where you’d gotten to, when school sport finished for the day. It looks like I’ve found you after all.”

“Thank goodness you know it’s me now,” he said, “I need you to help me find out what happened and how to reverse it.”

“I can’t do that now, Timothy. Ever since I found you, I’ve been looking forward to having you for afternoon tea.”

“But you can’t do that, now that you know I’m one of the students! I’ve every right to be on this land.”

“I’m not saying you don’t, but you’re very tiny now, Timothy, and I’ve caught you. All the other teachers and students have gone home. There’s nobody here to see us. I’m sorry I didn’t realise it was you before, but I’ll have to say goodbye now. I’m not going to pass up a treat like this.”

“Couldn’t you just put me in your mouth, eat me a little bit, and then let me out again?”

“No Timothy. I’m going to gulp you down to my tummy.”

“You’re an awful cruel teacher!” he called, as his panic drove him on.

“The other students don’t seem to think so,” said Mrs Long.

“You’re not eating them,” said Timothy.

“I’m not going to sit here arguing with you, Timothy. Your time is up. Goodbye,” said Mrs Long, and opened her mouth wide just below him again and slid him into it.

He was facing the back of her mouth, as he felt her fingers releasing their grip on him. Then her mouth went completely dark. She had closed her mouth, which meant that he was trapped inside it, with no way to force it open again at his helpless size. Then her tongue moved under him, and he felt himself sliding towards her throat. He desperately tried to wrap his arms around her tongue to keep from moving, but it was hopeless. He slid into her throat, and …

USA, 31 years ago…

Dianne was invited by her sister Mrs Mary Parkin to attend the fete at the elementary boys school, where Mrs Parkin was a second grade teacher. When the day came around, Dianne enjoyed the chance to meet some of Mrs Parkin’s students, who were six and seven year old boys.

One of the boys was particularly friendly, and Dianne offered to take him for a while on the ferris wheel. The boy concerned, named Corey, almost seven years old, was happy to go with her and enjoyed his ride.

Afterwards, Dianne bought him a ticket in the lucky dip, and saw that he won a small felt animal. It was a pleasant day, but only served to make her long for a child of her own all the more.

Not once did she take her frustration out on Jared, even though he seemed to lack the same parental drive and was taking the situation better than she was. She understood that he was simply completely in love with her, and his affections would never waver. Had they managed to have a child, even then he would still have loved her more than the child. Some women might have looked upon this as a form of selfishness or immaturity, but Dianne was grateful every day for the way that he cherished her.

How she wished she could have taken Corey home, but at least she’d been able to enjoy his company for one day.

“He’s nice, isn’t he?” asked Mary, as she drove Dianne home in her car, “He’s been one of my best behaved little boys actually.”

“You seem to have a way with them,” said Dianne, “Thanks so much for bringing me along today.”

“I’m glad it helped,” said Mary, “I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve let me play with Claire. Being an aunt has always been the next best thing to having one of my own,” said Dianne.

“She looks up to you too,” said Mary.

“It’s done me the world of good,” said Dianne.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

… He woke up. It had all been a dream. He went to school that day as planned, watching Mrs Long in a new awe, yet unwilling to embarrass himself with the news of what her dream self had done to his. The school term finished, as did the rest of the school year.

On the last day of the school year, school broke up at 11am. He had wondered why they didn’t break up at 3pm the day before. Timothy fell asleep in class at around 10:30. He awoke to find that he was in a dark room. He felt about for the door, but had no success in finding it. A few minutes later, the whole wall seemed to be pulled away, and then he saw a giant hand, framed in the foreground of the view of the empty passenger seat of a car, which was not moving. The hand came to rest in front of him, palm up, and one of the fingers beckoned him to step onto the palm. He stepped over the fingers and onto the palm, and then was lifted out and towards the person in the driver’s seat. It was Mrs Long.

“Hello!” he said, “How did I get here like this?”

“That’s my secret,” she said happily, and sat him on the steering wheel in front of her, “Aren’t you more interested in your immediate future than your immediate past?”

“I guess so,” he said, “So what are your plans for me, now that I’m like this, Mrs Long?”

“I’m glad you asked,” she said, “I’m going to take you home and gobble you all up for my lunch.”

She was smiling at him with great amusement and satisfaction.

“Please don’t do that! I’d be absolutely terrified.”

“I’d have been sincerely surprised if you weren’t,” said Mrs Long.

“I don’t understand this. I’ve been a very good boy. I just can’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”

“It’s very simple to understand, actually Timothy. I would like a nice delicious treat for an end of school year lunch, and you’re going to be that treat.”

“Don’t you have any concern for how I feel about it?”

“From where I’m sitting, your voting power seems to be somewhat limited, Timothy.”

She put him onto the passenger seat and drove to her house.

“We’re here,” she said, “You’re the only child I’ve ever invited to my house.”

“But you’re my teacher!”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, “Our high school will give your year seven  position to a new boy, when you don’t show up next term. I’ll go on with my teaching. The only person left behind will be you. Come and have a look in my kitchen.”

She took him to the kitchen and then carried him to the garden table on a plate. While he was looking up at her, he remembered the dream he had had about being eaten at the school sports grounds. In that experience, she had mistaken him for a tiny trespasser. Now she was bringing about his fate for her own enjoyment.

As she drew closer to the table, he began desperately considering jumping off the plate to the grass below, but knew it was hopeless. He would survive the fall down her throat, for a while. He would never survive the fall from the plate.

As he faced the inevitability of what was to happen, his mind raced back to the question of how she had managed it. His thoughts jumped between these two concerns.

“It’s time to go, Timothy,” he heard her say.

He awoke again, to find that she was speaking to him from the front of a now empty classroom. It was just after 11am, and he had been dreaming about being shrunken, ever since he had fallen asleep at 10:30.

Timothy again kept the dream secret, and went home for the summer holidays, thinking that Mrs Long had made quite a dramatic impression on his sleeping mind.

He was still in the classroom.

*         *          *          *

Timothy’s sixth class year came to an end.

*         *          *          *

Timothy was in first year in high school. It was early in the first term. Mrs Long came over to the high school from the prep school, as they were both part of the same college. She located Timothy’s locker and slipped a note between the base of the door and the base of the locker.

He read it later:

Dear Timothy,

I am leaving the school soon, and I’d like to ask you something. Could you meet me during lunch at the waterfront park around the block?

Mrs Long

He kept the appointment with her and heard what she had to say.

Mrs Long met him at the park and led him into a small clearing concealed by bushes.  Suddenly Timothy shrank down to tiny size. Then she outlined her idea.

“Since I won’t be teaching anymore, while I raise my daughter, who was born just before I came to your school and just after my husband died, I thought it would be nice to take my favourite student to live with me in my garden as a little pet. I could feed you well at that size, at an unnoticeable cost, and you could keep me company. You wouldn’t have to keep coming to school and spending most of your day studying and working. I know from the last two years that you don’t enjoy that. What do you think?”

“Well you were my favourite teacher, even though you were strict when I was naughty in 5th class.”

“You’ve been good since then, and we’ve become good friends,” said Mrs Long, “I’d love to take you with me and look after you. Nobody will know that I’ve adopted you as a pet, if you’re so small. You’ll never be found in my garden.”

“I’d like it very much,” thought Timothy, who had dreaded 6 more years of school work followed by university and long days in an office, “I haven’t told anyone that I was coming here today.”

“Good boy. Alright, well I’m leaving in a month. I’ll meet you here again on the Friday in five weeks time, after school instead of at lunch time. I’ll take you home with me. Keep all this to yourself, and you’ll be out of school for good. In the meantime, if you hide yourself well in the bushes down here, nobody will find you, and I’ll bring you food and drink each day.”

Mrs Long bought a large toy spaceship and removed much of its internal fixtures, and replaced them with dolls house furniture. She set it up at the back of her garden, well concealed by bushes.

When the Friday came, she met him at the waterfront park and reduced his size to less than two inches. She was now like a giantess as she placed him into her handbag to conceal him until she got him home.

Mrs Long had a daughter named Kirsty, and by the beginning of what would have been his year 8 at high school, his dolls house furniture had begun to wear out.

“I’ll buy replacements, when I go shopping shortly,” she said, “I’ll be taking my daughter Kirsty with me. You can set things up any way you like in your ship. I’ll continue to bring you food every week day, and sneak it out to you at suitable times on the weekends.”

“You’re very kind, Mrs Long.”

The next day she came out to the ship with another day’s supply of food.

“I usually watch a movie or two from the video store during the day time,” she said, “Would you find that an interesting way to spend your days?”

“Yes thank you!” said Timothy, so grateful that he could enjoy all the videos he wanted, without having to work.

She took him inside and sat on the couch and put on the first movie. She positioned him on her shoulder.

“Are you comfortable there?” she asked, “It’s easier to talk during the non-speaking parts of the movies, if you’re close enough for me to hear you clearly.”

“It’s very comfortable. You have a soft shoulder just the right size for me.”

She smiled, and turned her head back to the television.

Whenever Mrs Long would otherwise have been alone, she integrated Timothy into her activities, taking him on secret outings with her about once a week. 

*         *          *          *

USA, 30 years ago…

Mrs Mary Parkin asked her sister Dianne and Dianne’s husband Jared around for dinner.

“I have some sad news to tell you,” said Mary, “Do you remember the boy Corey, whom you spent some time with at the fete last year?”

“Yes, I never forgot him,” said Dianne.

“His parents just died in an accident,” said Mary.

“How awful,” said Dianne.

“He needs someone to take him in, and I know how much you’ve wanted a child of your own. Now might be the best time to apply for adoption of the boy.”

“Not only have I wanted my own child, but that day I wanted so much for it to be him,” said Dianne.

“I can advise the school and the government department of your existing friendship with him,” said Mary, “He’s been turning to me for comfort, and he said something significant today.”

“What was that?” asked Dianne.

“He said, ‘I wish I could live with you and your sister’. I don’t think he realised that we live in separate houses with our husbands. I asked him which of us he’d prefer to live with. He said he liked us both. I told him that I was already a teacher at his school, though not his own class teacher this year, and that I have a daughter of my own. I asked him how he’d feel about coming to live with you, and he said he’d like it very much.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Dianne, “It hardly seems fair to find what I want from his tragedy.”

“It was his idea,” said Mary.

“Jared, can we do it?” asked Dianne.

“If it’s what you want, I’d be happy to take him on,” said Jared, “Maybe I’ll have a company for him when he’s eighteen.”

“Thank you!” said Dianne.

With Mary as the link between Dianne Leslie and the boy Corey, it was not that difficult to arrange the transfer of custody, and the boy was happy to move in with the Leslies.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

Timothy had been secretly living in the model space ship in Mrs Long’s garden for three years. One day, she invited him to have lunch with her on the garden tables in the gazebo around the side, instead of in the house as they usually did. He thought it would be a lovely setting for a meal, and watched her preparing it. She took the first plate of food out and set it up on the table, and left him there, while she went back to get a jug of water and a glass.

Suddenly a volleyball flew over the neighbours’ fence and landed just near the table. He looked in the direction it had come from, and saw a tall athletic young girl in her late teens, presumably a high school student with the day at home, as the girl pulled herself up onto and over the high fence. She walked over and picked up her ball. Then she saw him and came over and picked him up.

“You’re the first little boy that size I’ve seen,” she said, “I think I’ll keep you.”

“You can’t! I want to stay here!” he said.

“I don’t care what you want,” said the girl, “You’re coming with me.”

Mrs Long suddenly stepped into view.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

“My ball came over the fence. I came to get it,” said the girl.

“Well you didn’t ask my permission, and now you’re stealing my lunch!” said Mrs Long, and snatched Timothy from her open hand, “I think you’d better go now.”

The girl shrugged at Mrs Long’s stern rebuke, while Timothy wondered how Mrs Long could have been confused. The girl had not touched any of the food. She had only attempted to kidnap Timothy.

Mrs Long put Timothy into her mouth and closed it. The girl gaped in surprise and turned and climbed back over the fence.

“She meant that I’m her lunch!” he thought, “I hadn’t realised that she was planning to do that. Well she has done a lot for me, and it looks like I’ll have to return the favour now.”

Mrs Long waited until the girl had departed and then collected her plate of food from the gazebo table in one hand, and continued to hold the jug of water in the other. With Timothy in her mouth, she was able to carry both to the chair and table on the lawn on the opposite side of the property. She took Timothy out of her mouth after she’d put the plate and jug on the table, and then put Timothy down on the table too.

“I’ll go back for the glass now, and I’ll bring a salt shaker too,” said Mrs Long.

He watched her walk into the house, and soon saw her coming back. As she walked towards him, he realised that he would not have avoided his visit to her two years earlier, if he’d known this was coming. The last three years of carefree happiness had meant more to him than any other time in his life. Now it would be over, and he would soon be inside her stomach.

Mrs Long placed the items on the table and sat down.

“She’ll think I’ve swallowed you now. She’ll never come onto this property looking for you again. You should be able to continue living in your ship, without having to worry about her,” said Mrs Long.

“So that’s why you put me in your mouth,” he said, “I thought you were going to eat me.”

“So did she. That was the idea,” said Mrs Long, “You did taste very nice, and I’m sure you’d have made a very enjoyable meal, if I’d known what you tasted like on the day that you first came here. I’d have been happy to have eaten you for lunch then, but don’t ask me to do it now. I enjoy your company far too much, and I’ve grown very accustomed to it.”

In a way she had just made him feel doubly appreciated as her special tiny friend. She appreciated him as a meal she might have been prepared to have, if he had invited her to eat him on the day that they had first met. She also appreciated him as a very special person, whose existence was only known to her. Mrs Long had indeed looked after him.

*         *          *          *

Another two years had passed for Timothy. Timothy was now 16. One day she spoke to him one day in depth.

“Timothy, I’ve enjoyed having you here these last five years, and your company has been invaluable. I really feel as though I’d secretly adopted you.”

“I’ve enjoyed it very much too, Mrs Long. I’m so grateful to you for looking after me.”

“You’re most welcome, Timothy. It was a pleasure, but I do have some significant changes to prepare for. I’m going to return to teaching soon, as my daughter has settled in at school. I plan to start everything happening in a month’s time. So I only really have a month left to be able to spend time with you watching movies and so on.”

“I’ll miss that very much,” said Timothy, “But I’m still very grateful to be able to live in the ship in your back garden.”

“I’d have been happy to let you go on doing that, except that I was thinking you might be able to do something for me this time.”

“I’d be glad to,” he said.

“Over the years, I’ve eaten every type of food except for one. What do you think, Timothy?”

“I couldn’t think of anything new, Mrs Long. I’ve been relying on the food you’ve cooked for me.”

“I wasn’t thinking of conventional meals,” said Mrs Long, “I have tasted one item of meat over two years ago, and I found it very appetizing. Do you understand what I’m saying, Timothy?”

He recalled the incident with the girl from the neighbour’s property. Mrs Long had said at the time, that she would have enjoyed eating him the first day they’d met, if she hadn’t formed an attachment to his company. It seemed that, with her plans to come out of retirement from teaching, she no longer relied on Timothy’s friendship for ways to spend her time. So she had re-evaluated the pros and cons of eating him, and was asking him to return the years of care and attention she’d given him by agreeing to it.

“I do understand, but can you understand the differences in our experiences, if you were to eat me?”

“Yes, I think so. For me, the sensations would be felt inside my mouth, my throat, and then in my tummy. For you, they would be felt on the surface of your body all throughout the process.”

This meant she wanted to swallow him alive.

“I know, Mrs Long, but it’s more than that. For you, it will just be the ordinairy taste sensations of eating an appealing meal. For me it will involve a painful consumption of my whole body inside you.”

“I think I can clear up your anxieties about that,” she said, “I’ve studied the stomach a lot in my biology classes. The stomach acids can’t hurt the human body. They don’t hurt the owner’s body. You will be dissolved, but it will just be a painless sensation, until you stop feeling anything altogether. My body mass will absorb your nutritious meat, and that will be the end of the matter. I can’t think of a better way to privately celebrate my impending return to teaching, than to eat the most delicious boy I’ve ever come across.”

“I’m truly touched that you feel that way, Mrs Long, but I haven’t fully explained my worries. Even if it doesn’t hurt, I’ll be gone. You won’t.”

“You’ll still continue as one of my fondest memories,” said Mrs Long.

“It’s not the same as the way you’ll continue on.”

“Life is about people coming together with different experiences. We all experience life in different ways, Timothy. I will experience eating a magnificent meal. You will experience being a magnificent meal. They’re both different, but both significant experiences. Does it matter that it will be different for me?”

“I don’t know how to explain it from my viewpoint, except as an absence of yours. Did you enjoy being married?”

“Of course. My husband and my daughter were my whole life.”

“I thought I was part of it.”

“You were, in a smaller way, but it’s not nearly the same thing, and our time spent together will be over once I’ve eaten you.”

USA, 23 years ago…

Dianne Archer Leslie was 36 when it happened. Jared was 31, and Corey was 15.

Jared went on an overseas business trip to expand the interests of his company, and was lost in an aircraft accident.

Dianne was devastated, and turned her attention to comforting Corey. They attended the funeral together and then went to visit the cemetery a few weeks later.

“He’ll always stay in our minds, just like my parents,” said Corey.

“I’m sorry,” said Dianne, “In the last few weeks I’ve forgotten that you’ve been living with this for seven years. I should be looking after you.”

She gave him a hug.

“It’s my turn to look after you,” said Corey and kissed her cheek.

Dianne kissed him back. It was now her adopted son who would in fact help her to cope with the loss, as he had experienced it first, and was experiencing it again.

She drove him home, and they kept each other company for the remainder of the school vacation period. They had inherited a fortune from Jared and would not want for anything material, but a gap had formed in their lives, and they did their best to fill it for each other.

One evening after school, they had dinner as usual and then sat on the couch to watch a movie that Corey had chosen. He kept looking sideways at Dianne. He began to realise how much he had always thought her to be a pretty lady, but had not considered it, because of his position in her family.

“What’s up?” she asked, when the movie ended.

“I …”

“Are you OK?”

He stroked her hair.

She put her arm around his shoulders and leaned his way a little.

“I’m glad I still have you,” she said.

Would he always be just an adopted child in her mind?

He leaned closer, and kissed her on the cheek.

She gave a startled look, and stared at him.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

“That’s what I mean. I want to get married one day too, Mrs Long.”

 “How long have you been feeling like this?”

“I guess it only just occurred to me, when you said you were leaving. I was happy enough watching the movies and not being married up until then.”

“I suppose a single girl might take you on at that size,” said Mrs Long, or I could restore your size, “But my desire to eat you is a definite known available possibility. I have taken care of you for a long time.”

“I know, and you’ve been very kind and friendly, Mrs Long. Can I have some time to think about this prospect of being eaten by you?”

“Of course. We’ve still got over four weeks. Take two weeks from today. I’ll keep putting on the movies for us, while my daughter’s in school, and then you can take time out for personal reflection later in each day.”

At the end of the two weeks, he was sure of his decision.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, Mrs Long, and part of me wants to be eaten out of gratitude for all your friendship and hospitality over the past few years. Part of me wants to be eaten because I felt deeply flattered by the way you complimented me on the appeal of eating me that day I was in your mouth. However, the overriding part of me wants to go on outside your stomach. I hope that you’ll still continue to think of me as a friend though.”

“I do, Timothy, but I realise now, that I didn’t explain myself very well two weeks ago. I said you could have two weeks to think about being eaten, so that you could get used to the idea. I wasn’t asking you to make a decision. I did that myself two weeks ago. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding.”

“Please, Mrs Long, can’t you appreciate how desperately I don’t want to be eaten all up by you and gone?”

“I can assure you I do understand your perspective, Timothy. You’ve explained it most lucidly, but I’ve made my plans and you don’t have any say in the matter.”

“It’s so unfair. The outcomes are so unevenly balanced in your favour!”

“People outlive everything they eat, Timothy. It’s a scientific fact,” said Mrs Long, lifting his ship high in the air, with him still in the doorway.

She placed it on the branch of a tall tree.

“You should be safe there until tomorrow,” she said, “I can’t leave you on the ground now. I’d be too concerned about you trying to get out of my garden and run away. I’ll be back to collect you just before lunch time tomorrow, and then I’ll prepare a meal of you in the kitchen and enjoy it. I’ll see you later, little friend.”

She turned and walked away. He thought and thought all day, and finally went to sleep with no solutions in his mind.

The next morning, Mrs Long came out at 11:30 and took the ship down and put it back in its usual place.

“I’ll leave it there as a memento of the last few years,” she said, “Let’s get you eaten.”

Mrs Long grabbed him, stood up and carried him inside. There was no point in further protests.

Mrs Long put him down on the kitchen bench. He still admired her grand towering face and figure as he watched her take a plate from the cupboard and put it down on the bench beside him. She lifted him up and set him down on the plate.

“Lie on your back, Timothy,” she said.

He obeyed her, noting that she seemed much more like the strict teacher of the old days than the friendly host he’d known in recent years.

Mrs Long’s elegant fingers opened various jars of herbs and sprinkled samples of them over his face and body. She left him on the bench and took a jug of water and glass out to the same table that she had ended up using on the day she had put him into her mouth. Then she returned and carried his plate out and placed it on the table.

Mrs Long sat down, picked him up, licking her lips, and spent several minutes licking all of the herbs off his body, and washing them down with water from the glass.

“Well Timothy, you did all this to avoid the normal responsibilities of life. I shall now make sure you never need to concern yourself with those responsibilities again. Don’t struggle too much on the way down, or you’ll cause my throat some discomfort. Now in you go.”

She opened her mouth wide, put out her tongue, lowered him onto it, and drew him into her mouth. He thought about her instruction and decided to obey it.

“Maybe she’s testing me,” he thought, “If I show consideration for her wishes, while I’m halfway down her throat, she might think I deserve to be coughed up and spared!”

With this new hope in mind, he waited until she gulped him into her throat. He stayed still, keeping his arms above his shoulders, resting gently against the wall of her throat. She was remaining still.

“She hasn’t made a second gulp,” he thought, “I guess she’s waiting to see if I’ll honour her expectation that I don’t struggle. Well Mrs Long, I know you couldn’t hear me if I spoke, but I will do what you want.”

He stayed still. So did Mrs Long’s throat.

It felt strangely pleasant just resting there, surrounded by the inner flesh of her neck As the tongue starts in the throat, his stomach and face were actually still pressed against it. He was quite content to rest there, while Mrs Long appraised his character. Then he looked forward to the possibility of sliding back up that tongue and out of her mouth.

Suddenly Mrs Long began gulping again!

He was slowly but inevitably drawn down into her stomach, where he soon felt the painless absorption of his body.

Timothy awoke again. He was still in first year high school. Mrs Long had come over earlier in the year to make an announcement concerning the boys from last year’s sixth class. Then he hadn’t seen her again, and assumed that she had left the school. It probably gave rise to the dream he had of the five years of developments at tiny size in the toy spaceship.

*         *          *          *

When Timothy was in third year high school, in the May holidays at the end of term one, he went walking in the forest and found a tall vine concealed by bush, but visible nonetheless to his keen eye. He climbed it until he emerged in another land. He seemed to be in a giant garden. There were lots of ladies’ clothes on the washing line. So he assumed that a woman lived there. He walked over to the gigantic front door a long way from where he’d first emerged.

The door had a bell cord which reached right down to the ground. Timothy pulled the cord, and was surprised by the lady who opened the door. It was Mrs Long. He hadn’t seen her in over three years. She was now a giant. She stood there towering in front of him. Timothy looked up past her long dress to her high face.

“Timothy!” she said, “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Mrs Long! How did you become a giant?”

“Oh don’t worry about that. Why don’t you come in for lunch?”

“Thank you. I’d like that after my long walk and climb,” he said, and watched her giant hand reach down to pick him up.

Once they were in her kitchen, she put him onto the table and said "I don't have any small plates. I think I shall just put you onto a plate of my food and let you help yourself. We will eat with our fingers."

She prepared a large plate of ham, salad and bread, and gently positioned Timothy in amongst the salad. He moved around the plate, helping himself to relatively negligible amounts of the giant's food, while looking up at the beautiful lady consuming mouthfuls of food that were larger than he was.

High above him, Mrs Long's long neck gulped down the food.

He thought of how Mrs Long was a giant now and had no real need for him as a school student.

She finished the meal and wiped her hands and mouth on a serviette the size of a parachute.

"Did you like it, little Timothy?"

"Yes thank you. I did get rather messy in it, but I think I would probably drown in your bathtub. I had better bathe in a saucer."

"Don't worry" she said, lifting him towards her face, "I'll have you sparkling clean in no time."

USA, 23 years ago…

“I’m sorry, Dianne, I… always liked you… I’m really sorry.”

“He’s younger than Jared was when we first met,” thought Dianne, “And I was the older woman then.”

Dianne brought her lips back, and threw her arms around him. They kissed passionately for ages, slipping into a lying down position on the couch and enjoying each other’s presence in the silence.

“If anyone finds out, I’d lose custody of you,” she whispered.

“We’re not related. It’s alright,” said Corey.

“But you’re underage and in my care,” said Dianne.

“Do you wish any of this hadn’t come to pass?” asked Corey.

“No, I don’t wish that,” said Dianne.

Both of them had temporarily forgotten their grief and felt elated. Dianne had never imagined the potential for such an outcome, when she had first befriended the boy eight years earlier, but she could not deny her feelings now.

Corey himself had had a form of crush on her right from the start, and saw no reason to deny himself the opportunity to act on it now.

“I just hope that Mary doesn’t read the signals,” said Dianne, “Maybe we’d better not go around there so often.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m in high school now. I only ever see her when I’m with you,” said Corey.

“Give me another kiss,” said Dianne.

“I love kissing you,” said Corey.

They lost themselves in the moment and felt no shame. Nor was there any need for it.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Dianne at last.

“Forward all the way, but secretly,” said Corey.

“There would be one limit,” said Dianne, “I just don’t think I could marry my adopted son. I’ve been married once already. I’ll always be with you, but I couldn’t get married again.”

“I don’t even think I want to get married the first time. I just want to be with you too,” said Corey.

He couldn’t explain what was in his mind instead of the things that married couples do. Though if he’d read ‘Love and the Shrinking Male,’ he might have had a better chance.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

She drank a glass of water from the table and then put out her tongue and licked his face and hands until they were fully clean.

"There you are" she said, putting him down on the table "I shall let you rest on my daughter’s dolls house, while I take a nap on her bed. The dolls house is on the bedside table. I shall take you in to the dolls house now."

"Mrs Long, could you please put me down on the floor and let me walk in myself? I haven't really had any exercise, with giant hands giving me such nice rides everywhere."

"No I suppose you haven't....there you are," she said lowering him gently to the floor and releasing her fingers. She rose to her full height again, looking down at him.

"Shall I lead the way?"

"Could we just stand here like this for a while?"

"Sure, if you like."

"Thank you. This makes me respect what a big tall giant lady you are. So how do you feel to have somebody so small staring up at you?"

"I'm proud and pleased to have you as my visitor, little boy. You're one friend that I never expected to see again."

"My whole house wouldn't even come up to your knee now. I like being your guest, but I'm sure you'd never be able to be mine. I would have no room to welcome you, even if we could ever get back to earth."

"That does not matter. I would not try to squeeze into your tiny house, but you do not take up too much space here."

"Good. I am ready to follow you now.”

“My daughter’s away with my husband at the moment. They’re both giants too now. Alright. I shall try to walk slowly" she said, "Otherwise you will not even be able to run the distance in the time that I shall take to walk it."

She led him into her absent daughter’s room, picked him up and lowered him into the open roofed dolls house with an upstairs bedroom waiting for him. The window looked out onto the bed beside the table on which the dolls house stood. His own tiny bed was beside the window. He got onto it and looked out as she climbed into the giant bed. It would be nice to sleep so comfortably in this giant place knowing that an old friend had become a giantess and could look after him.

"I hope you sleep well, little Timothy."

"Thank you giant Mrs Long. I hope that I can be useful to you sometime."

"Oh you will," she said smiling adorably, "I have decided to have you for dinner tonight."

"Dinner! But why?" he exclaimed.

"Because you are a delicious little boy. Sleep nicely, little Timothy," she said casually.

"But Mrs Long, I thought that we were friends."

"I'd love to eat a little friend.  I am big enough now that I can easily swallow you whole. We had better get some rest now," she said, settling her face on her pillow.

"But Mrs Long, I don't want to be eaten."

"Well you will be, Timothy. You cannot escape, and I see no reason to let you go. It would be quite natural for a big giantess like me to eat a tiny little boy like you for my lunch. So there!"

She poked out her tongue, teasing him.

"I hope that you were watching my tongue, Timothy, because you will be placed upon it at dinner time. Now I shall open my mouth wide in front of your little window. Have a look inside it, since you will be inside it yourself when I do the gobbling."

She opened her mouth and he stared past her huge lower lip in at her big sparkling tongue and the distant throat that awaited him. It was like a terrifying tunnel down to her stomach of no return.

"So what do you think about that, little Timothy? Would it help you to prepare yourself for tomorrow, if you climbed into my mouth for a few minutes now? I shall keep my teeth apart. You will not get hurt."

"I shall try" he said.

She opened her mouth. He sat on the window ledge, climbed over her lip, and lay down on her tongue, with his face and arms resting on her lip, looking out at her dress as she sat back in her bed. After a few minutes he called out to her.

"Can I come out now, please Mrs Long?"

She brought her mouth back to the dolls house window, and he climbed back to his bed.

"I don't mind going into your mouth Mrs Long. I could do it every day without being scared, if you like the taste of me. I just worry about going into your stomach."

"Are you saying that I don't have a nice stomach?" she asked with an air of being offended by his remark.

"No, but I don't want to live in it."

"Well you had better change your mind, because you are going to be in it for a very long time. It will not matter to me what you think of it. I will continue enjoying my happy long life long after I have swallowed you down."

"But don't you think it is unfair to keep me there all of my life, just so that you can enjoy one meal?"

"Life is often unfair, Timothy. I have had unfair things happen to me too. You will just have to face up to it. I am not going to allow you any way out of this. It will not be frightening for me, when I am eating you. I am looking forward to it. You will have to be brave. Now if you wake up before I do, have a look at me while I am asleep, so that you can prepare yourself to be kept inside me."

"Why should you have so much fun eating me, while I go through such terror?"

"For one thing, I am big enough to eat you, and for another, you know that my stomach will be soft and comfortable."

"And impossible to get out of."

"Timothy, I gave you lunch, washed you with my tongue and let you sleep here this afternoon. Don't I deserve a special reward?"

"I am very grateful, and I would do anything for you except being your dinner."

"You will have to let me eat you for my dinner, little Timothy. I will not accept any other reward for all the kindness that I have shown you. I am not going to listen to any more of your objections. Go to sleep and think of yourself as a piece of food for me to enjoy eating. You will understand the situation much better, if you do that, little Timothy."

She soon fell asleep.

So did Timothy.

He awoke in the latter half of the afternoon to see that Mrs Long was still asleep, but he was in desperate need of a way to escape from her.

He went downstairs and out of the dolls house. He found a small nail file on the table beside a wall. He lifted it, jumped to Mrs Long's pillow and crept over to a part of her hair that was not held in place and weighted down by her sleeping head. He filed off a few strands, which were as dense as rope to him, snuck over to the bedpost, tied Mrs Long's hair strands to the post and slid down them to the floor. He soon ducked under a door and ran across her lawn, reaching a flower bed in time to hear her open the door and call out:

"I'm awake now, you naughty little boy! I will catch you and gobble you all up! Here I come now!"

USA, 19 years ago…

For four years, the widow Dianne Archer Leslie had continued secretly dating her adopted son Corey in the confines of her home. Corey enjoyed kissing her soft white skin, and loved looking at the happiness he’d brought back into her eyes.

Since reaching adolescence, he had felt more and more consumed with her. The boy was now 19, one year older than her late husband Jared had been when Dianne Archer had first met him in the department store where she’d worked since leaving school until the day that they married.

The grief at Jared’s passing had now turned largely to joy at each other’s love.

One evening over dinner, Corey said something which Dianne found highly amusing. He saw her mouth open wide with laughter. Her entire tongue was clearly on display, and he could think of nothing better than to touch it, but not as he was. Corey had never read ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ nor Christine Long’s story, nor the works in progress of Leanne Commons and Tarquin. Yet he could no longer deny what had been building in his mind for four years, what had possibly even been in his subconscious since he had first met her at the age of six going on seven.

Corey wanted to be tiny sized and climb into Dianne’s lovely mouth!

He had witnessed her tongue from across the dinner table, but from then on, he took every opportunity to try to make her laugh, whenever he was sitting right next to her. He did his best not to be noticed staring in at her tongue. She had done her best to come to terms with the idea of dating an adopted son some 21 years her junior, but would not be so likely to continue doing so if she knew of his bizarre fantasy.

Every time he succeeded in making her laugh, it filled him with ecstasy. He would lie in bed cuddled up to her, daydreaming about crawling across her upper body and sliding into her mouth.

Corey’s infatuation with her had taken on the wildest new dimension. How he wished he could make his home indefinitely in that beautiful mouth of hers every night of the week.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

He darted into the flower bed and concealed himself, looking back as she crossed the lawn in no time. He kept creeping away, looking out at her towering form on the edge of the lawn. She had put on her black dress with white dots, and found the hair strands no doubt, and deduced what he had done.

"Come on out, little boy, and we will get you ready for my lunch."

He crept away under the cover of flower petals, heading away from the house. He ran as fast as he could, taking care not to step on anything that would rustle and alert her to his location. He turned and peeked out, and saw her sit down and begin to gently part the flowers with her hands, and then she began to crawl through the flower bed, mindless of any flowers that she might crush in the process.

He ran for his life, and at last he felt that he had outdistanced her, for he could no longer hear her distant crawling behind him.

"Thank goodness I've eluded her at last!" he thought.

Now he would make it back to earth again.

Suddenly he saw Mrs Long burst through the plants in front of him. She had doubled around and ambushed him. She smiled down at him, licking her lips, and he saw that she was going to lunge for him with her hand, before he could even think of darting away again. He was soon surrounded by her giant fingers and unable to see out of her closed hand.

When he had been released by her fingers, he instantly fell into some sticky substance, and heard a door close. He struggled to the surface and looked around. He seemed to be in a dark room. However, there was light behind him. He turned around, and was shocked to find himself in a piece of pavlova warming up in an oven which must have been turned down low so as not to burn him.

He looked through the glass at a giant unoccupied kitchen, and recognised it as Mrs Long's. Soon she came back into the room, opened the oven door and leaned down to look in at him.

"It was silly to run away. You're still going to be eaten" she said.

She smiled at him, closed the oven door and began setting the table, and soon came and sat on a chair in front of the oven door, beaming in at him, licking her lips with glee.

Mrs Long had won.

She looked big beyond compare, and she was now going to eat him for her lunch. She opened the door, dipped her finger in the pavlova and licked it.

"I think you are ready to be gobbled now."

She took out the pavlova, with him still inside it, placed it at the table, and sat down towering over him.

"Do you want to say anything before I start, Timothy? I will not be able to talk to you with my mouth full, especially when it is full of you."

"No Mrs Long. I know it won't help at all to beg for mercy."

"Good. Then without further ado, little Timothy, I shall proceed to eat you."

She ate the pavlova around him, using her fingers.

Then she picked him up and licked off the close bits of pavlova from him.

She held him in front of her face and laughed at him.

Then she opened her mouth, placed him inside it and closed it, rolling him around on her tongue.

"I know what I should have said. I will try to get out and ask her" he thought "If I can just-"

She drew him suddenly into her throat.

He struggled to keep from falling down further as she started gulping with tremendous pressure in an attempt to fully swallow him. Little by little he lost more ground and sank lower into her gulping throat, and eventually reached her stomach.

She went into her bedroom, changed to her nightdress, got into bed and lay awake thinking that she was still happily married, was now a giantess, and looking forward to enjoying the rest of her life, with her captive finally accepting that he would not escape her stomach. She was his destiny.

Suddenly he felt a tingling sensation and realised that her stomach acids were dissolving him into part of her, part of a beautiful giant lady now older than himself. His mind went blank as it dissolved.

She licked her lips every time she remembered him, glad that age and size could no longer separate them. He would be a part of her stomach forever.

The real Timothy awoke once more, to find that it was just another ordinairy day in the year 10 May school holidays.

*         *          *          *

Timothy Scribener didn’t dream about Mrs Long again. He finished high school, went to university, started his career, and eventually reached the age of 24. One day he went to a lovely set of nature gardens and set up a picnic lunch on a small stretch of lawn which was enclosed by hedges and trees. He took out a plate of green salad and set it up on the picnic rug and poured a glass of water and put that down too.

Suddenly he shrank to a miniature size of just under two inches.

“I can’t be dreaming again,” he thought, “This seems very real, somehow. Yet I’ve shrunken just like I did in those dreams I had from ages 10 to 14. Mrs Long was in all of them, but I haven’t seen her since I was due to turn 12. That was more than 12 years ago. Why should I suddenly shrink now?”

Then he heard footsteps coming from a path in another part of the gardens. He looked around, between the hedges, and saw a woman walking in his direction. If he ran anywhere, she would notice him for sure. The only place to hide was in his own plate of green salad. He dived under a lettuce leaf and peeked out as the woman approached. She had long dark hair and looked familiar. She would have been in her mid forties, but he was absolutely certain that she couldn’t have been anyone else but Mrs Christine Long.

“After all those dreams, I can’t take a chance,” he thought, “I’ll have to wait until she’s well and truly passed this spot, before I start working out what to do next.”

Mrs Long drew closer and closer, and then noticed the unattended picnic set up. She looked around, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. It reminded him distinctly of the way her dream self had done the same thing at the top of the slope at the school playing fields, when he had been in sixth class.

Seeing nobody else in the gardens, Mrs Long sat down and looked at the plate of salad which concealed him. She lifted a piece of cucumber, put it into her mouth and ate happily. Then he saw her fingers approach and lift the piece of lettuce which had been his cover.

She gaped in surprise, as she put it into her mouth.

“Is that you after all these years, Timothy?” she asked, after swallowing the lettuce.

“Yes Mrs Long. I was sure I recognised you too,” he said.

“Did you just shrink today?”

“Yes.”

“Well you won’t be able to finish that salad now. I’ll pack up your rug and take the picnic basket down to the garden wall and sit there and eat it for you,” said Mrs Long, and was soon positioned in the new location, seated on the wall.

She put him on the edge of the plate, so that he could still eat what he could fit in his greatly reduced stomach.

“If you recognised me, why didn’t you say hello?” she asked.

“I had some dreams about shrinking unexpectedly or going to a giant woman’s house. They were all when I was in 6th class through to year 10. When it actually happened, I was too surprised to know what to do.”

“Was I in the dreams too?” asked Mrs Long.

“Yes, all of them. When I was shrunken, you retained your full size. When you were a giant, I retained my full size. How did you guess?”

“I had similar dreams around the same time too,” said Mrs Long.”

“I wonder how it’s possible for both of us to have dreams like that,” asked Timothy, who was also wondering how they could have predicted his shrinking and how the shrinking itself could have happened.

“My dreams were just wishful thinking,” said Mrs Long, “I don’t know why you had yours.”

USA, 14 years ago…

Corey and Dianne went to one of her sister Mary’s pool parties. Corey was 24. Dianne was 45. Her figure was breathtaking as she went swimming in the pool, while Corey sat on the deck chair and watched her.

“Could you bring me a piece of celery and a biscuit?” she asked, standing at the edge of the pool, her lower body still immersed in the water.

“Sure,” said Corey.

They would make it look like an adopted son obeying his adoptive mother. They had never told even the Parkins about their love affair, which had been going on for nearly a decade. Corey was hiding something from Dianne herself as well: his desire to go inside her mouth.

He came back with the food items, and placed the celery into her opening mouth first, as her hands were still covered in chlorinated water. He managed to slide his finger over her tongue as he removed them from her mouth. There would not be the room to do it with the biscuit.

Corey watched her eat it, and then gently placed the biscuit onto her tongue and waited until she’d swallowed it and thanked him again.

“What I would give to slide around on her tongue!” he thought.

Yet as far as he knew, it was completely impossible, and so childish a daydream that he must never confide it to her. To do so might just be the very act that discouraged her from continuing with their romance, and he was now old enough to be sent out to make his own way in the world without her romantic affections.

He watched her rising out of the water in her swimming costume.

When they were home he told her how exciting she looked in it, and asked her if they could have a shower together in their swimming costumes. Dianne agreed, and he enjoyed watching the water fall off her cheeks and onto her shoulders.

He embraced her, with their heads away from the spray of water, and kissed her as he had so often done in the past, but never before in this setting.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

“What happened in your dreams?” asked Timothy, thinking it was the most tactful and indirect way of finding out what she had been wishful for back then.

“I would gain the same size advantages you described in your dreams, and then take the opportunity to have you for meals,” said Mrs Long.

She waited for a response from him.

“I guess mine were just the same,” said Timothy.

“In every case I would eat you all up,” said Mrs Long.

He looked up at this teacher who had haunted his dreams for 5 years so long ago. Both of them were obviously aware now, that she had just indicated what she would do to him, now that she had the opportunity in real life. He watched her eating the salad, more concerned than ever now, to study the process of Mrs Long eating.

“It was so long ago, wasn’t it?” he said at last.

“I’ve had a long happy life since then,” she said, “Have you married?”

“No. I’ve been waiting for the right person. I was hoping that this would be the year I’d meet her.”

“I met my husband in high school. We were married until just before I started at your school. It’s good that you’re still single, like the boy in my dreams of old.”

“Have you thought about the dreams much over the years?”

“Quite a lot,” she said, “I never thought I’d have the real life opportunity though. How about you?”

“I’ve recalled them a number of times too.”

They spent a long time talking, sharing the specifics of their dreams with each other.

“I’ll do it at lunch time tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll have my home to myself then, and we can recreate the chase sequence from your dream in which I was a giantess. I’d like that very much.”

She was going to give him a chance to get away.

“I’m still taking in the fact that it’s come to this,” said Timothy.

“You’ve still got nearly a day left,” she said, and picked up the picnic basket, with the plate now inside it, “I’ll let you sleep the night in my car, using your basket for a bed and the folded rug as a mattress. I’ll come and collect you in the morning.”

She carried him gently in her hand, as she walked with the basket to her car. He looked out at the paths which approached, and up at Mrs Long’s mature contented facial expression. She had been happily married for a while, commenced her teaching career with a desire to eat one of her first students, dreamt of doing so, and would now go ahead with it.

“I guess there’s definitely nothing that would change your mind about it,” he called up, as she reached the outskirts of the public gardens.”

“No, it’ll turn out exactly as it did in the dreams, little Timothy. I’m glad it’s finally happened.”

She set him up in the car, drove home and went about her regular lifestyle for the rest of the day. He awoke the next morning to the sound of her opening the car door. He had spent half the night replaying the dreams in his mind and analysing the whole matter, before he’d finally dropped off at 3am and slept until 11am, when she awoke him.

Mrs Long took him to her back garden and gave him 15 minutes to run and hide. Then she came out looking for him and walked around searching, until she located him amongst some flowers and picked him up.

She took him inside and put him onto a plate, which she carried out to the garden. She sat at a table, with his plate resting on it.

“Are you all ready?” she asked.

There was absolutely no point in saying no. They both knew that.

“Yes Mrs Long,” said Timothy.

“Well goodbye then. It was nice to see you again,” said Mrs Long.

She licked him a few times.

“I always wondered what you’d taste like,” she said, “Very nice. I might as well move on with things now.”

She put him into her mouth and left him there for nearly an hour, while both of them thought back over the years to their real and dream days together, when he had been at school. At last she sucked him into her throat and swallowed him eagerly.

He reached her stomach and waited.

“Now maybe I’ll wake up again … although it feels more real this time.”

Then he heard a rumbling around him. Her tummy began to absorb him.

Was it possible that Mrs Christine Long, the long-term widow and her admiring schoolboy friend Timothy had actually had recurring giantess or shrunken male experiences of the same unexplained nature as Tarquin and Leanne? Had they mistaken the recurrences for dreams, having been apart from each other for three decades and unable to discuss those unproven encounters with each other?

Or had Mrs Long understood it perfectly, and written it as a series of dreams in order to provide an explanation for the readers of the fictional version?

Perhaps the most important question of all was this: Had Mrs Long eaten Timothy, or was there some other explanation for his disappearance? If she had eaten him, then the experience must have eventually had recurrences which went beyond the point of Timothy being in her mouth, and eventually it must have been possible for her to gobble him down permanently, if the story had been based on a factual series of encounters.

Leanne Commons had published her stories as novels and provided enough information to enable Tarquin to contact her.

Howie Kenville had published his story as a novel, and provided enough information to enable Leanne Commons to contact him.

Christine Long had published her story in serialized format in a science fiction magazine, which did not provide any information about the enigmatic authoress. Howie and Corinne had explained that they had searched the Sydney telephone directory and found no clue as to Mrs Long’s address. She might not even have remained in Australia. Nor did the story provide any clues as to how to contact Mrs Long’s daughter, if the girl’s existence in the story was even based on that of a real life daughter.

Tarquin would not be able to contact Mrs Long and learn any more about the situation she had once either experienced or invented and then novelized. Yet one thing stood out. If it had been real, it would prove that there was the possibility that Leanne Commons would eventually succeed in completely gobbling Tarquin down for ever.

If Christine Long’s story was literally accurate, then once that had occurred, he could not expect to find himself back in bed. He would be eaten and, to everyone else’s awareness, disappeared from society forever too.

The boy enjoyed the arousing exciting mischief in Leanne’s voice and mannerisms, as they discussed these questions and concerns in depth. Never before had the matter become so close to home, so much more than mere self indulgent fantasy writing.

Now this matter seemed to be real, even if it was only real in the most ethereal way to Tarquin and Leanne, and possibly to Howie and Corinne and to Timothy and Christine Long.

They could only wait for the next round of the experience, and see what happened.

USA, 13 years ago…

“What was it like when you first got married?” asked Corey one day.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” said Dianne.

“I just wondered what it would have been like being in Jared’s situation,” said Corey.

“Well you’re not Jared!” said Dianne.

“Right now I don’t feel much like Corey!” he said, and left the room and sat down on the couch alone in the lounge room and began to cry.

“I didn’t think I ever took it out on you after we lost Jared,” said Dianne, “But I was older than him too. He was only 18, fresh out of school, when we started dating. I started us off really. We had thirteen happy years, and then it was all cut short, and before I knew it, I was turning to you to fill his shoes. I had no right to do that.”

Corey realised that she was now standing right behind him, and felt her hand on his shoulder.

“I would have been heartbroken if you hadn’t,” said Corey.

“I know, but I’m the sort of girl who only marries once in a lifetime. I know you’d accepted that, but I’ve kept too much of Jared around in your life, reminding you of what I had before, and I’ve never given a second thought to the way I’ve gone on living in the house where I spent all my years of married life with him,” said Dianne.

“It’s been worth it to be with you,” said Corey.

“Would you like us to move?” asked Dianne.

“I guess it would be a fresh start,” said Corey.

“Then we will, but let’s not recreate that part of my life. You’re a new chapter, and equally unique and valuable in your own way. That’s what I’m looking forward to now.”

They hugged each other tightly.

England, present day…

Tarquin and Leanne worked hard to finish their combined story.  They developed all sorts of sub plots involving the British Bachelor Boys and Single Mothers United Group, but the story needed one more element involving one special character: Tristram.

They had introduced him as a prep school aged orphan boy who had snuck into Mrs Waye’s giant garden one night and witnessed Mrs Waye gobbling up a young man. They decided to develop his storyline in order to provide the energy event that would wrap up the novel.

What had become of Tristram? Soon after he had seen the gobbling in Mrs Waye’s garden, he was adopted from the orphanage, and was no longer able to walk through the Dew Forest, as his new family didn’t live anywhere near it.

Tristram grew older with time, and reached the age of 13. He began to find himself staring at girls’ mouths a lot, and particularly their tongues. Every day at lunch time, he would go into the school playground and sit in a position where he could watch girls’ tongues come out of their mouths while they were eating. He found that there were two types of girls. Some would use either a spoon or their hands to place the food inside their mouths. This gave only a limited view of their tongues, as the food would cover most of them.

The second category of girls would put out their tongues to receive the food from their fingers or their spoons. Tristram concentrated his efforts on looking at the mouths of these girls, as he would see much more of their tongues that way, and enjoyed the view far more. Occasionally he would notice a girl licking an ice block, and the sight of that was too good to pass up. He tried out different positions, to look at their tongues from different angles. He found that a front on view was usually limited a little bit, and a side on view also failed to give him a view of the entire tongue. When he sat at a 45 degree angle to the girls’ faces, he could see their tongues coming out to receive the food, and mentally store the split second image that was available, of their outstretched tongues just before the food made contact with them.

He thought back to Mrs Waye and imagined himself being eaten by the girls in the school. By the time he was 14, he found that he wanted very much to actually touch a girl’s tongue. For this, he would need to make friends with one of the more attractive girls. He began compromising his viewing angles of one particular girl’s mouth, in order to sit beside her and talk while she ate.

Anthea had the most beautiful mouth of all with her shapely pink lips and her perfect tongue. Tristram sat beside her and began making conversation as best as he could, and decided that the best chance he might have would be to ask her out on a date.

“Would you like to come out with me on the weekend?” he asked.

“I don’t think so, Tristram,” said Anthea, “The girls think you’re weird. You’re always watching us while we’re eating, and you don’t look at my eyes, when you’re talking to me. You’re always staring at my mouth.”

Tristram was heartbroken, and knew that there was no point in talking to the other girls, if they had all been gossiping about him too. He was relieved that the school holidays were due, as he didn’t feel like facing the class, now that he knew what an awful opinion the girls held of him.

He came to the realisation that the only female person who could really meet the desire that Mrs Waye had stirred up in him was Mrs Waye herself. Now that he was nearly 15, he could make his way back to the Dew Forest one day in the holidays and go to her garden.

On the first day of school vacation, he took a large roll of butcher paper and some crayons with him to the Dew Forest, sat down and wrote a letter on the paper and folded it up, having made the lettering as large as possible, so that a giantess would be able to read it.

Dear Mrs Waye,

Several years ago, when I was a little boy, I came into your garden one night and saw you catch someone my size (except older) and eat him. Your tongue looked like a beautiful lake that I would have loved to swim around on. However, I knew that you would swallow me forever too, if you caught me. So I stayed hidden and returned home.  

Shortly after that, I was adopted and moved away from the orphanage in my land, which was near the forest that led somehow into your garden. So I was not able to come back and look at you again.

About a year and a half ago, I started noticing the tongues of the girls at school, and did my best to watch them eating their lunches. Eventually I knew I really wanted to touch a girl’s tongue, and tried to make friends with her. She made fun of the way I look at the girls’ mouths, and told me that they all think I’m weird. How I wish I could touch your giant tongue instead. It’s what I’ve really wanted all along, but I don’t dare come into direct contact with you, for I know you would eat me for sure.

However, I wanted so much to tell you how I feel about you. I think you’re so much more beautiful than those unfriendly girls my own age at school, and I hope you would like to write back to me and be friends.

Love from Tristram.

(P.S. I’m nearly 15).

He left the letter in her garden, just near the outlet of the tunnel, and returned to visit the orphanage he’d once lived in. He managed to stay the night there as a guest of a childhood friend who still hadn’t been adopted.

Mrs Waye found Tristram’s letter and smiled to herself. Dillon had grown up, met a girl on earth, gotten engaged, and found that he’d outgrown his desire to be eaten by Mrs Waye. He had told her of his decision on his last visit and been warned that their truce was therefore over. Should he ever return to her giant garden, she would eat him permanently.

Now it seemed, she had the chance to cultivate a new opportunity with someone who was as young as Dillon had once been, if only as a pen friend. She wrote a letter to Tristram and left it where she had found his letter.

The next day, Tristram returned to Mrs Waye’s garden and found a giant letter. He folded it a little more and took it through the tunnel and read it in the Dew Forest.

Dear Young Tristram,

I was surprised to learn of your recollections of my eating that young man all those years ago. I had no idea that I was being watched by a little boy that night. I’m truly flattered that you enjoyed the sight of my tongue, and admire the way you likened it to a beautiful lake.

I am sorry to hear that you were so cruelly ridiculed by the girls at your school. They have yet to mature into an understanding of people’s different tastes and desires.

You sound like a lovely young man, and you are wise to restrict yourself to a written relationship. If I caught you in my garden I would most certainly gobble you whole as soon as dinner time came around. I did spend several years willing to only partially swallow a teenaged boy, but he left me for a woman his own age and size, and I have learned not to be so benevolent in the future. From now on, I will return to my original approach. When I eat someone, it will be for good.

I will grant you one concession. I will give you the opportunity to collect and deliver letters we exchange, without ambushing you in that part of the garden and eating you. However, in time I am sure that you will want to venture further into my garden and look at me in person. I will eventually see you and capture you and make a delicious meal of you. Until that happens, I shall enjoy our correspondence.

All my love,

Mrs Waye xxx

Tristram was delighted. He wrote and received several amorous letters during that school vacation, making use of his friend’s willingness to accommodate him at the orphanage, but revealing nothing of what he did in the Dew Forest.

On the morning of the second last day of the holidays, the impending return to humiliation by the girls at his school crept back into his mind, and Tristram made a decision to give reign to his real desires. He wrote one more letter to Mrs Waye and left it for her to find.

Dear Mrs Waye,

I have fallen completely in love with you now, and have thought about this carefully for the last three weeks. I would like to take advantage of the one and only way that I shall ever be able to touch your tongue. I would like to come and turn myself over to you in your garden tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. I will meet you on the large stretch of lawn near our letter collection spot. If you stand in the middle of the lawn, I will come out towards you, and then you can pick me up.

I would consider it the highlight of my life when you gobble me all up.

Your adoring young admirer,

Tristram xxx.

The next day Tristram made his way to the garden, walked to the edge of the lawn, and watched the other side in anticipation of Mrs Waye’s arrival.

Soon he saw her walking slowly along a path and out onto the lawn. He watched her huge grand form pacing slowly to the centre of the lawn, where she stopped and rested her hands by her side. He stepped out of the garden and walked across the lawn to stop just in front of her.

“Hello Tristram. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” she said, “You’ve only ever seen my tongue from ground level. Would you like to come up and have a closer look?”

“I’d love to, thank you,” said Tristram.

He looked up, as the woman leaned over and reached for him with her huge hand. Her shapely forearm was in view, as her fingers closed around him, and then he felt himself leaving the ground. He looked up as he was lifted high into the air and held just in front of her lips.

“How does this look?” she asked.

The words had given him a brief glance at her tongue, and he saw more as they continued to talk.

“It’s so nice to be with you like this, Mrs Waye. I’m glad you’re not at all offended by my staring at your wonderful tongue.”

“I’m pleased with it actually,” she said, and kissed him, “Dillon gave himself to me with a built in escape clause, but your devotion to a one time encounter is touching indeed. Would you like me to do anything else for you today?”

“Could you open your mouth wide, so I can look inside it without your tongue moving to speak, and hold it there for about ten seconds?” asked Tristram.

“I’d love to, but you’ll have to count the seconds, if you don’t want my tongue to move,” said Mrs Waye, and opened her mouth wide.

Tristram stared in at the beautiful sight with unparalleled admiration. He reached in, resting his upper arm on her lower lip, and stroked the front of her tongue with glee.

When he withdrew his arm, Mrs Waye smiled adorably and put out her tongue and licked him.

“Thank you,” said Tristram.

“The pleasure was mine,” said Mrs Waye, “Shall we go inside?”

“Yes please,” said Tristram.

She carried him into the house and spent the rest of the day with him. He enjoyed watching her eating her lunch, having told her of the reactions of the girls at school. It delighted Mrs Waye to give him generous views of her tongue, and then they spent the afternoon talking happily together.

After the sun had gone down, Mrs Waye cooked him in her oven, while he looked through its glass door in admiration of her every movement about the kitchen. Soon she took him to the dining table, sat down and began licking him ecstatically.

She thanked and farewelled him, and then placed Tristram onto her tongue to await the final gulping process. He slid around for several minutes, and then the first gulp came, and he found himself slowly making his way down her throat. Even at this point, he had no regrets. He thought of the scorn he had received from arrogant dismissive teenaged girls, and was more grateful than ever to Mrs Waye.

Then he felt another gulp, and was carried down further and further, as each successive gulp took him closer to her stomach.

Leanne and Tarquin had co-written these last chapters, rather than taking turns to write a chapter each. This allowed for Tarquin to write all of Tristram’s dialog and thoughts, and for Leanne to do the same for Mrs Waye.

Then, having discussed the knowledge they’d gained of Christine Long and the Kenvilles, Leanne and Tarquin decided to add a few more pages after the conclusion of the novel. The first such page read as follows:

If this story has awakened an interest in giantesses or tiny boys, the authors would like to give you the opportunity to contact them and become members of our new fan club called G.O.O.D. (Giantesses Order Of Diminutives).

Send the joining fee now, and we will send you regular newsletters with the secret meeting venues and events for our fan club. As you have seen from the story, single parents have their exclusive clubs, and it is time that those who would be either giantesses or tiny boys were given a group of their own in which to gather…

The one thing that still remained was a title for the book. It should not be overtly descriptive of boys being eaten by giantesses, but should nonetheless make the science fiction genre unmistakeable to anyone choosing whether or not to purchase the book. Leanne had chosen the wording of the fan club invitation page, and asked Tarquin for his thoughts on a title for the novel.

After some thought, he suggested ‘Tunnel to the Giants’, and Leanne agreed that it seemed suitable. As Tarquin was still a minor, he was happy to have his photograph only on the inside cover, so that nobody who knew him would find it staring at them from the front of the book.

Leanne’s photograph was on the back cover, and the front cover read ‘Tunnel to the Giants by Leanne Commons and  Quinn Little’. The pen name would preserve his anonymity. However, Leanne would set up an account in Tarquin’s name, which would receive half of the proceeds from the sales of the novel as well as half of the money raised from the joining fees for Giantesses Order Of Diminutives.

Not only would they be making extra money from their project, not only would they be helping other people with similar interests to meet and socialize and share their work, but they would also be furthering their own research into how many other people like Timothy, Christine Long, Howie and Corinne Kenville, Tarquin, and Leanne Commons existed in the world. They would gain some insight into how widespread the rare desires of these few people were.

When the work was completed and the manuscript sent to Leanne’s publisher, Tarquin stayed one more night at Leanne’s place, to celebrate with a series of cuddles and kisses.

In the middle of the night, he awoke to find that it was daytime in the familiar garden of their size differential experiences. This time he ran straight for the approaching Leanne Commons and made it easy for the giantess to catch him.

“Put me in your mouth, quickly, and try to gulp me down before it can end,” he called enthusiastically, spurred on by what they’d both written about Tristram and Mrs Waye, to see how it would turn out for himself and Leanne.

“Why not?” said Leanne.

She placed him into her mouth and took none of the usual time to savour the experience, but gave a powerful gulp.

Tarquin was quickly drawn into her throat, and downwards.

Then he found himself back in the bed, cuddling up to Leanne.

“You did it. You ate me!” he said, “It worked, but I’m still alright.”

The book sold well in England, the United States of America and Australia. Once it had been read, it was subjected to some scathing commercial reviews, and very few people responded to the fan club invitation. However, those who did were extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Each of them had their story to tell, and it seemed that each of them had had their own unexplained unproven encounter with a giantess or a tiny man or boy:

Corey purchased a copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’ and was fascinated to find that two other people, one male and one female, had co-authored a novel which dealt with his interest in going inside a woman’s mouth after having his size reduced.

Corey began to daydream about it so much more often, as he made his progress in reading the book. When he came to the last page, he turned over and discovered the fan club. He immediately sent off his application to join the Giantesses Order Of Diminutives, and would attend functions whenever they were held in the United States. He had to do it secretly, so that Dianne would not learn of his strange and unusual fantasy. He had never let her find the book, as he expected it might well mean the finish of their relationship.

He met the authors / chairpersons of the club at a function and asked Leanne what he might do about his own personal situation.

“So as far as you know she’s never shown any interest in having you reduced or inside her mouth?” asked Leanne.

“No. I’m taking a risk even telling you about my dating my adoptive mother,” said Corey, “But then I’ve learned about your romance with Tarquin.”

“I’m not out to ruin things for anyone in our kind of situation,” said Leanne, “I founded the group to explore and protect such special fantasies.”

“I wonder how to find out what Dianne would think of my fantasy? Maybe she’d accept it.”

“You do realise that it could be possible one day? I suspect that it hasn’t worked for you, because she doesn’t have those urges. So perhaps the question becomes whether you could see yourself shrinking into someone else’s mouth, and then you’d have to decide whether being with Dianne was more important than being able to do the fantasy,” said Leanne.

“How did you and Tarquin make it happen?”

“We didn’t really. It just happened. I guess it’s because we were both thinking about it, wishfully, “I don’t think Dianne is.”

“I guess I’ll never know,” said Corey.

“You could try leaving the book out for her to find and read,” said Leanne.

“I wouldn’t risk it. She might wonder what was wrong with me, if she found that I was into a story like that …. Oh, no offence to you. I absolutely couldn’t put it down.”

“None taken, but there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s why we put the book out and started the fan club. People have to realise that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to shrink and go into someone’s mouth,” said Leanne.

“Thank you for talking it through with me,” said Corey.

“I can talk to her discretely, if it helps,” said Leanne.

“Thanks, but I haven’t even told her about the group. She just thinks I’m at one of the more common fan clubs for fiction.”

Elsewhere, Chad Wood went on a long bush walk with his binoculars, until he came to the public gardens at the end of the track, and walked past a scenic café in the gardens. He was 28 at the time and couldn’t help noticing a beautiful 39 year old woman with long dark hair and full shapely lips, who was eating from a large bowl at a table outside. She was the only person outside. If there were any other customers, they and the staff were indoors.

Chad was very keen to see the woman’s tongue, and then he remembered his binoculars. He went and sat down some distance away, but still in her line of sight, and put his backpack in his lap to rest his binoculars on, leaned down a little bit, and looked through them.

He focussed them until he could clearly see the lady’s hand raising a spoon to her mouth. He saw her thick sparkling pink tongue come out of her mouth. He couldn’t explain exactly how it looked different to the tongues of women his own age, but it only seemed to excite him all the more.

The woman seemed to notice him and gave him a cold look, but he didn’t feel quite as intimidated as he might have done, given the distance he sat from her. She licked her lips and returned her attention to her meal. Chad continued to enjoy the view for several minutes, until it suddenly changed.

For no reason at all, he found that he was no longer looking through his binoculars. He was staring at a large pile of greenery, which seemed to surround him.

“I thought I was on the small wall, not in the bushes,” he thought.

Then he turned his head a little and saw a large red object beside him. It looked like a gigantic piece of tomato.

“How did that get into the garden?” he wondered, “And how did it get so big?”

Suddenly a large metal object passed under him and lifted him into the air. He looked up to see that he was on a spoon, in a giant bowl, and that the woman was now a giantess looking down at him!

When the spoon cleared the height of the bowl, he could see the familiar outdoor café behind the woman, and then only her face, as she brought the spoon closer to her mouth.

“Just what do you think you were doing?” she asked.

“Looking at the café scene through my binoculars,” he said nervously.

“You were looking at me,” she said, “I came here for some solitude while I’m eating my lunch!”

The woman opened her mouth wide and put out her tongue. The spoon approached her mouth. She was about to spoon him onto her tongue!

Chad turned sideways and looked down into the bowl, at what he could now clearly see was a pile of salad. He jumped off the spoon and landed softly on the salad. Chad looked up at the woman as her hand reached into the bowl with the spoon again, pursuing him as he attempted to shuffle away from it in the salad.

“I saw you when I was walking past,” he said, “I thought you looked very beautiful. It seemed natural enough to look at you.”

“Then being the well spoken young man that you are, you might have asked me if you could take me out to dinner, not sat there staring at me through your binoculars,” she said, digging under him unexpectedly with the spoon, “You’ve upset my lunch!”

He looked up at her outraged facial expression and then down a little at her towering wide neck. If she succeeded in spooning him into her mouth, he would have no traction at all to resist the gulping potential of that neck. It was a beautiful sight, and so was her mouth. He would love to go inside it, but her manner indicated no intention to let him out again.

Snaring him again with the spoon, she raised it to her mouth much faster, opened her mouth and extended her tongue again. He tried to jump off once more, but she angled the spoon slightly, so that he lost his balance, and then spooned him onto her tongue and into her mouth.

“Her tongue feels amazing!” he thought, “She really means to eat me!”

The next thing he knew, she was gulping him into her throat. Down he travelled, as she slowly began to swallow him.

Then suddenly he was back on the wall, looking into his binoculars again. He quickly put them back in his backpack and looked at her without them. She looked up from the salad bowl and stared across at him, before continuing to eat her lunch.

She had eaten him, and it had been the most thrilling adventure of his life. He wondered what to say to her. She had indicated that he should have taken her out to dinner. The way she had used the phrase “well-spoken young man”, even in the midst of her anger, had warmed his heart. Yet one thing still confused him.

Had she meant that she would have accepted an invitation to dinner only if he had given her such an invitation in the first place? Had he ruined his chances of that, by staring at her? Would she be interested in him at all now, or only angry? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Being eaten by her beautiful tongue had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, now that he knew that whatever unknown phenomenon had placed him in her bowl had also freed him from her stomach.

He felt too shy to approach her now, even more so than before the incident. He thought that he might as well watch her depart, as he would most likely never see her again. The woman finished her meal, drank a glass of water, and then got up from the table. To his surprise she began walking straight towards him, though the way out of the gardens was in the opposite direction.

She drew closer, and he noticed that the anger had left her eyes, but had not been replaced by a smile.

“I don’t know how that happened, or how you got out of it at the end,” she said, “But have you learned something from it?”

“I’m sorry if I disrupted the enjoyment of your meal,” said Chad, “And I’m not unhappy with you eating me. It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know how it happened either.”

“When you’d made your presence felt with the binoculars, I wanted to eat you up, and then suddenly noticed you in the salad bowl instead.”

“Did you want me to get out after you’d eaten me?” he asked.

“No. As far as I was concerned, I’d gobbled you down and that was the end of the matter. I had nothing to do with your escape.”

“Did you enjoy eating me? I mean, I know you were upset with me, but did I make a nice tasty mouthful for you?”

“Yes. In fact the nicest I’ve ever had, I would say.”

“I liked the look of your tongue, and especially liked the feel of it, while you were eating me,” he said, “I’m not upset with you at all for swallowing me. Are you still angry with me for looking at you?”

“I think I’ve been angry with life ever since my husband left me for no reason,” she said, “Then you came here and interrupted my revelry, and I ate you. I’ll say nothing more about it.”

“Thank you,” said Chad.

“Did you come from the bush track?” she asked.

“Yes, it was very nice. I was going to go back that way to my car.”

“Would you mind showing me the way?” she asked, “I’ve never done that walk before.”

“Sure, I can show you,” he said.

“Thank you. I’m Heather. What’s your name, young man?”

“Chad.”

He led her into the trail, and then began to talk.

“I can’t think how I ended up in that bowl,” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Heather, “It’s as unexpected and unexplained as the way you ended up back on the wall.”

“Being eaten was amazing enough, but then being free was an even bigger surprise.”

“We might never know what caused it,” said Heather.

They began to talk about their lives and experiences for a while, and eventually reached the end of the track.

“Is your car nearby then?” asked Heather.

“Yes,” said Chad.

“Would you mind giving me a ride back to my own car?” asked Heather, “I don’t really feel that keen on doing the walk back.”

“I’m happy to give you a lift,” said Chad, and drove slowly towards the gardens until she pointed out her car.

“Thank you,” said Heather, looking out through the windscreen at the scenery outside.

“Heather?” asked Chad.

“Yes.”

“When you were spooning me up the second time, just before you put me into your mouth, you said that I should have asked you out to dinner. Did you mean that you would have come out to dinner with me if I had asked, instead of spoiling your lunch the way I did?”

“I think it would have been the better approach for you to have taken,” said Heather, “Asking a lady out is the conventional approach. I wouldn’t have said yes to every man that asked, but I believe I would have said yes to you.”

“Thank you,” said Chad, “I guess I really spoiled my chances when I took out those binoculars.”

“I thought it was very graceful of you to show me the bushwalk and drive me back after I’d eaten you,” said Heather, “And you were a delicious mouthful to gobble down.”

“Would you … perhaps like to … give me a second chance, and come out to dinner with me tonight?”

“Thank you, I’d love to,” said Heather, “I joined you on the bushwalk and again in your car, to give you your second and third chances to ask.”

“Really?” asked Chad.

“Yes. You’re a handsome young man. I’d have been happy to have kept you in my tummy, but now that you’re back, I’d like to go out with you.”

She gave him her address and telephone number and asked him to pick her up at seven o’clock. When he knocked on her door that evening, she opened the door wearing a beautiful black dress and a green coat. He drove her to a nice restaurant and talked with her over the meal.

“You’re looking at my tongue while I’m eating,” she said after a while, “Did I make a big impression on you, when I was eating you?”

“Oh yes,” said Chad, “I was looking at your beautiful shapely full pink lips and your big sparkling pink tongue at point blank range, at relatively giant sized proportions.”

“You’ve spoken very generously about the whole affair. I might have underrated your ability to treat a lady well.”

He drove her home and stopped the car in her driveway.

“Thank you for a delicious meal,” she said, “Come to think of it, I suppose you’ve given me two today, even if I didn’t get to keep the first one.”

“Do you wish you could have?” he asked.

“I suppose not,” said Heather, “Or I’d never have had the second.”

“Do you think I’ll ever end up that small again?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“Would you eat me again?”

“Probably,” she said, “Does that discourage you?”

“From what?”

“Well you’ve taken me out to dinner, talked with me, gotten to know me and driven me home. I haven’t gotten out of the car, and I’m sitting right beside you. I thought that a man would know what to do next.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t ever been on a date before,” said Chad, “I haven’t had much social experience with ladies at all. Maybe that’s why I got things wrong in the gardens in the first place.”

“Maybe so,” said Heather, “I’ll help you along then. I would like you to kiss me.”

He turned to see that she was looking at him now, not the scenery outside as she had done earlier. Her front porch light was on, illuminating the garden. The scene was set for some passionate romance, and he simply had to work up the nerve to do as she’d asked.

He realised that Heather had been making her feelings equally clear when she had been preparing to eat him. This time there was no mistaking her intentions. Chad leaned across a little, and put his arm around her. Heather responded by taking his other hand in her own, and offering her lips. He recalled that he had told her over dinner what an impression those lips had made on him when she’d been spooning him into her mouth.

He touched her lips with his own and enjoyed the kiss for several minutes.

She finally withdrew her mouth and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for a delightful evening,” she said, “It’s been a special treat for me to have given you your first kiss. I know you couldn’t have given me my first kiss, but you have given me the first truly fresh start since my divorce. Tonight, for the first time, I no longer feel angry with him, but happy with you instead.”

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” said Chad, “And I’d love to go on seeing you.”

“I’d like that very much,” said Heather.

“I never imagined we’d be doing this, when I was trying to dodge that spoon in the salad bowl today.”

“Didn’t you?” she asked.

“I certainly wanted to kiss you, but I couldn’t see how I’d get the chance.”

“Well I didn’t expect to see you again after I gobbled you down, but I’m glad it’s worked out this way. My husband left me for a younger woman.”

“I think he was very foolish,” said Chad, “But in a way I’m glad he did.”

“I think you’re a sweet handsome young man,” said Heather, and pulled him tightly with her arm.

“Even though I upset your lunch?”

“You were my lunch,” she said, “I’m not sorry for eating you, but I wish I hadn’t been so cold and unfriendly to you while I was doing it. I can see from our first kiss, that you were just too shy to approach me directly for a date. So you tried to be content by admiring me from afar.”

“I couldn’t have expressed it better myself,” said Chad, “I’m so glad you understand. I didn’t know if you liked me at all, when you were lifting me up with the spoon.”

“I could see that your tiny face was handsome and young, but I felt certain that you’d be the most delicious part of my lunch, and you were. I realise now that I would have eaten you, given the chance, whether you’d used your binoculars or not.”

“You would?”

“Yes, and I’d like to go on seeing you, Chad, but if you should find yourself that small again, you can expect me to do everything possible to eat you all up again.”

“But what if I don’t get out next time?”

“Then I’d have eaten you properly,” said Heather, “I’m sure I’d have no regrets about that, Chad.”

“Oh,” said Chad.

“Do you still want to keep seeing me?” asked Heather, “It’s more likely to happen again if we’re in close proximity to each other.”

“I couldn’t possibly stop seeing you,” said Chad, “I’ll take my chances on being eaten and hope I get out in time if it happens.”

“I think I love you more than I ever loved my ex-husband,” said Heather, “He wouldn’t stay with me when he had no risk and nothing to lose. You’re willing to risk being gobbled down forever in order to stay with me. I’m sorry for what I said at lunch time. I’m very fortunate to have met someone who liked me enough to take out those binoculars.”

“I think I’m actually lucky too, to find someone who liked the taste of me enough to spoon me onto that beautiful sparkling tongue of yours.”

“You’re adorable,” said Heather, and kissed his cheek.

The couple continued to date, and Chad eventually lent her his copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’. After she’d finished reading it, he asked her if she’d be interested in joining the Giantesses Order Of Diminutives. Heather was keen to do so, and they sent their application fees to Leanne and Tarquin and were soon made financial members of the club.

Soon after that, they attended their first social function of G.O.O.D.

“So you ended up in her salad bowl but still at the same venue?” asked Leanne.

“Yes,” said Chad, “I couldn’t tell that I was in a salad bowl, until she spooned me up towards her mouth, but then I quickly realised what was happening, though I didn’t know how.”

“None of us know how,” said Tarquin, “It just seems almost as though it happens because both parties want it to.”

“Why did you ask about the location?” asked Heather.

“Location?” said Chad.

“The venue,” said Heather.

“It’s happened to us over and over again, but we find ourselves in an unfamiliar house and garden,” said Chad.

“I wake up in the house and he wakes up in the garden. It’s always during our sleep times too,” said Leanne.

“She comes out to catch me and eat me. The first time it happened, I thought she was a giant. She thought I was a shrunken boy. We still haven’t worked out which, because we don’t know where we were each time,” said Tarquin.

“It’s happened several times,” said Leanne, “I caught him after the first few rounds and ate him every time from then on.”

“Maybe we can do it again soon too,” said Chad.

“I hope we do,” said Heather.

“So do I,” said Chad, “It would be nice to do it, now that I know I won’t be eaten forever.”

“Maybe you don’t know that for certain,” said Heather.

“There’s a young man here on his own,” said Leanne, “I think I know who it is. I’d like to welcome him, Tarquin. Can you look after Heather and Chad?”

“Sure,” said Tarquin.

Leanne walked over to the newcomer and checked his club badge that she had sent him.

“Timothy Scribener!” she said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since you sent your application form. I’ve got something to show you.”

She took out the folder copy of Christine Long’s story, and let him read through it while she attended to other guests. He rejoined her half an hour later and talked.

“I am that Timothy Scribener,” he said, “It was two and a half years ago that I literally lived the final scene of that story, except for one detail which Mrs Long couldn’t possibly have known. She wrote every bit of it as it happened, it seems.”

“We’ve been trying to locate her,” said Leanne, “I think she’d make a valuable addition to the club, but there’s no indication of her address in that story. We pulled it from several issues of a magazine.”

“I’ve been trying to locate her as well,” said Timothy.

“What was that detail that was different?” asked Leanne.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” said Timothy, “I didn’t dissolve in her stomach. I suddenly found myself back in the nature gardens at full size, and of course Mrs Long wasn’t there.”

“What did you do?”

“I couldn’t have worked out where her house was from the journey that my tiny self took in her car. I don’t know where she lives. I’d give anything to see her again, now that I’ve got my full size back. I’d love to tell her how much that gobbling meant to me when we finally did it together.”

“If your experience was anything like mine and Tarquin’s, I believe that you did it together every time you thought you dreamt it,” said Leanne, “We’d end up in our beds or bed each time the experience stopped too, but you might have mistaken it for dreams, since you never had the chance to talk with Christine afterwards.”

“No wonder it seemed so real,” said Timothy.

“We’ve been very interested in Christine Long and wondered if you’d been eaten forever. We were hoping, and still are, that she’ll find a copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’ in a book shop, read it, read the fan club application pages at the end, and contact us to join up. The book has been out for a while now, and we haven’t heard from her. What happened to you? Our research showed that you disappeared from society altogether.”

“I woke up one morning at home and found myself at tiny size. Mrs Long never showed up, but I spent nearly two years living in my house at tiny size. I had enough food supplies to last my tiny self indefinitely, except that I couldn’t get at the things in the fridge. I had to struggle to climb to basins, turn taps on and off and get at the food. I hadn’t been out of the house in all that time, until I suddenly got my full size back. Since then, I’ve spent months trying to locate Mrs Long.”

“None of us know what causes our unusual desires, let alone what makes the size differences temporarily possible,” said Leanne, “But I founded the group to provide a way for us to meet together and share the details of our lives without facing any judgement from the outside world, which is full of people who don’t understand and would sneer at us if we told them. Your experience is different yet again from anything that we’ve learned from other members. I think it would be inspiring for the group if you gave a testimonial speech recounting your story at the next meeting. I’ll send photocopies of Christine’s fictionalized version to any member who books for the function, and ask them to have read the story before they come to hear from you. Would you be willing to talk about it?”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell it to a lot of like minded people,” said Timothy, “Sure, I’ll be happy to do it.”

“I’m grateful,” said Leanne.

“I’m the one who should be,” said Timothy, “Without your book, I’d never have known that there were others like me in the world. You wouldn’t believe the ridicule I got on the rare occasions that I trusted people with my secrets in the past.”

“It’s their loss,” said Leanne, “Our desires are so much more exciting than conventional ones, and they enable the day dreamers involved to remain aroused for hours longer than the conventional desires do too … longer than the duration of any criticism from the outsiders, wouldn’t you say?”

“When you put it like that,” said Timothy.

A month later, Leanne organised a dinner for Giantesses Order Of Diminutives, with Timothy Scribener as guest speaker. He enjoyed sitting at Leanne’s table. She placed all the men on one side and all the women on the other, enabling the men to look across at their partners eating, and revel in every movement of the women’s tongues.

“I’ve put you at the end of the table, next to Tarquin,” whispered Leanne, “You’re welcome to look at my tongue. You’re the only one here without a partner, and I know how much you must be missing Christine Long.”

“Thank you,” said Timothy, “It would be nice, though I hope you won’t be offended if I say not as nice as Mrs Long’s tongue would be to me.”

“Not at all. To people like us, it’s very romantic. She’d be touched by your devotion.”

“She must have spent all this time believing that I was lost in her tummy,” said Timothy suddenly.

“If she’d known where you lived, she could have gotten at you any time,” said Leanne.

“I couldn’t have avoided her for nearly two years, even in my own home,” said Timothy, “She’d have caught me and eaten me eventually, and I’d have loved it.”

“I don’t think you’d have stayed tiny for two years, if she’d eaten you again,” said Leanne, “For Tarquin and I, it keeps ending just as I gobble him down. It couldn’t with you, because Mrs Long wasn’t around. So you stayed tiny for a long time. It breaks the precedents of our adventures, and that’s why I’m looking forward to hearing the details of your experiences, picking right up from where Christine Long’s story left off.”

Timothy enjoyed the sight of Leanne’s tongue in a more detached way, as he didn’t have the emotional investment of years to incorporate, as he did when he thought about Mrs Long. Then Leanne announced him, and he told of his many struggles and efforts to live for nearly two years at tiny size. He had spent most of the time reading or watching television, glad that his electricity bills and water rates had continued to be automatically deducted from his savings account electronically, and that his wealth earned more in interest than the cost of the bills. It was a struggle to manipulate the TV remote control at tiny size after climbing up to where he’d originally left it on the couch, but well worth it to watch enough programs to keep him entertained and occupied for years.

The fact that he watched a lot of television did not preclude him from sufficient exercise. Obtaining food from his pantry and kitchen, washing and drying and hanging out things to dry themselves, and other things all took considerable exercise at that size. Climbing relatively gigantic furniture was a daily necessity for him in that period.

“I’m very proud of you, and I think the others all enjoyed it too,” said Leanne at the end of the night, “I didn’t want you to tell this to the others, until we’ve had a chance to follow it up, but I’ve got some great news for you.”

Leanne took out a society magazine which had event listings of authors, and showed Timothy an item which took his breath away:

Notification of the wedding of

Jay Long (son of magazine author Christine Long)

and

Krystal Hume (daughter of Clive and Edith Hume)

…

“Wow! If only we could go,” said Timothy.

“We can,” said Leanne, “I sent the magazine publishers a signed copy of my book to be passed on to Christine, asking her to contact me. She read it and invited me to the wedding and the reception, and said I can bring a date. I haven’t told her about you, but Tarquin understands your situation and is happy for me to take you.”

“Boy will she be surprised to learn what happened to me since she ate me all up!” said Timothy.

“I thought you’d like to surprise her,” said Leanne.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Timothy.

“That’s what the group’s here for,” said Leanne, “Or one of the reasons it’s here anyway. I’m glad we’ve been able to organise this reunion for you and Christine.”

“What if she has a boyfriend there?” asked Timothy.

“I’ve only spoken to her on the telephone so far, but I managed to slip that into conversation. She had been dating someone for years by the time she ate you, but it broke up since then. She’s not spoken for in any way at the moment. Most of the guests there are friends of Jay and Krystal. Jay’s 24 and Krystal’s 22. Their friends are around that age too. Christine’s 47. Besides that, who would she possibly prefer to the returning young man she ate nearly three years ago?”

“I guess so,” said Timothy.

“Just trust your heart and go for it,” said Leanne.

“I think I’ll still be nervous.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there to steer you along,” said Leanne, “And as far as Christine’s concerned, the caterers at that wedding won’t have anything to compete with you.”

The wedding day came, and Timothy and Leanne attended. They sat up the back, so that Mrs Long would not notice Timothy until the reception. Then Leanne snuck out the back with Timothy, before the service ended, and drove to the reception venue. They talked in the car until Mrs Long arrived. Then Leanne led Timothy into the large mansion, and they began to eat and talk.

Timothy watched Mrs Long deliver her speech, and then the slow dancing began.

“It might be a good moment to introduce yourself,” said Leanne.

“What would I say?” asked Timothy.

“Ask her to dance. She’s the only one here without a partner.”

“She’ll think that I’m your boyfriend,” said Timothy.

“No. I explained that I was just bringing a friend who had no romantic attachments to me, when I arranged for us to come,” said Leanne, “The field is clear for you. Make the most of it.”

“I guess it’s why we’re here,” said Timothy.

“Best wishes,” said Leanne.

Timothy walked over to the table just in time to see Mrs Long pick up a prawn and place it into her wide open mouth. As it touched her tongue, he was exhilarated, remembering the way that she had eaten him nearly three years earlier.

“Mrs Long?” he said.

“Hello … Timothy Scribener?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I can see how you look like an older version of the boy I once taught and dreamt about, and a full sized version of the boy I ate three years ago, but I really thought I’d gobbled you down for good that day. I guess my theories were right after all.”

“What theories?” asked Timothy.

“You recall that we perceived all our earlier experiences as dreams. Leanne, the lady you came with today, explained to me that they were real, in an unexplained unproven way. Each time we encountered each other, you really shrank, or I really ended up in a giant place somewhere. How it happened is something we don’t know, but it did. It always ended just as you slid down my throat. I worked out why.”

“Of course! You were a science teacher long before your brief stint as an author. I read your story about me and enjoyed it very much by the way. You’d be able to work out the closest thing to a scientific explanation of our situations, which the others couldn’t, being authors or other non-scientific members of our special community.”

“What happened to you, by the way?”

“I found myself back in the nature gardens at full size. Soon after that I shrank to tiny size in my own house and spent almost two years like that. I guess I was trying to bring about another encounter, but you weren’t.”

“Maybe that’s why we had all the ones we did,” said Mrs Long, “Was the timing of the incidents in my story concurrent with your experiences in each case?”

“To the day,” said Timothy.

“Were you thinking about me at all around the time you started to shrink?”

“Every time, now that I recall it, or dreaming at least,” said Timothy, “Or thinking about you the night before.”

“And I was thinking of you in each case, but not when you shrank two or three years ago. That has to be it. You only shrink when both of us are thinking about each other at the same time,” said Mrs Long.

“Boy are the other members of G.O.O.D. going to be pleased to learn that!”

“Well now think what could cause you to restore your size?”

“I don’t know. It usually just happens when I’m about to reach you tummy.”

“We both mistook the situations for dreams. They felt very like them, and had similar properties,” said Mrs Long, “Have you ever had frightening dreams, when you could see no way out, and some how you willed yourself to wake up as the only escape from the situations in the dreams?”

“Yes. They were all like nightmares: being assaulted, threatened with death, losing something important, being in some other terrible trouble.”

“Exactly. It’s no wonder people always awake from nightmares at the worst time, before they’re over. It’s a safety buffer built into our subconscious, I’ve speculated,” said Mrs Long, “And since our gobbling encounters were like dreams, you willed yourself back to full size and out of my throat when there was no other alternative.”

“Of course. And in the case of my long shrinking stint at home, I became so desperate and fearful that I’d spend the rest of my life shrunken alone at home and never meet you again, that I willed myself back to full size.”

“That’s the secret,” said Mrs Long, “I couldn’t end the encounter. Neither could Leanne or your other friends, because I wasn’t worried about gobbling you down. I was enjoying it. Only the imminent anxiety of the tiny boy can do it.”

“I remember that you once, in one of the encounters, described the digestion process of the stomach acids, so that I need not fear being hurt by it. Was that scientifically accurate?” asked Timothy.

“I’m sure of it,” said Mrs Long, “Which leads to my next point. If a boy were to be truly unconcerned of being eaten permanently, then his escape urge would not kick in. He’d be digested in the lady’s tummy, without ever returning to full size and the outside of her body. Your friends in G.O.O.D. would be surprised to learn THAT also.”

“It could change the dynamic of those relationships quite dramatically,” said Timothy.

“To say the least,” said Mrs Long.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Mrs Long, “I certainly plan to join the group after the wedding’s out of the way.”

“Would you like to dance with me?” asked Timothy.

“Alright,” said Mrs Long.

He led her to a quiet part of the veranda and put his arm around her and held her hand. They drew closer to each other and were soon cheek to cheek.

After fifteen minutes or so, he attempted to kiss Mrs Long on her lips. She turned her head slightly, and avoided it, and then spoke gently into his ear.

“Are you in love with me, Timothy?”

“Yes. I always have been.”

“Then there is a lot that I’d better tell you,” said Mrs Long, “It will fill in the years that we haven’t seen each other, except for the brief shrinking and giantess encounters, and I can show you what was going on in my life at the time they slotted in.”

Mrs Long began her tale, while continuing to slow dance with Timothy. In a sense, it had all started five years before she had first met and taught Timothy:

Hart Dale was a fifth class student at Gray Thwaites school at North Sydney when Mrs Long was teaching there at the age of 25. He was nearly ten years old, and would often find himself in trouble with the teachers, because of his various misdemeanours.

One day, Hart was about to head out into the school playground for lunch, when he noticed that one of the boys had left his wallet on the desk in the classroom. There was nobody else there. The wallet belonged to Bill Stephens, who had been picking on him recently.

Hart shamelessly slipped the wallet into his pocket, and went down to the lower playground, ate his lunch, and then decided to look in the wallet. He found some money, and decided to steal it. He transferred the money to his own wallet, and then looked up. On the other side of the playground, he saw Mrs Long looking straight at him. To him, the playground was a large place, and he was not aware that the adult Mrs Long perceived it as being much smaller, and had clearly identified what he was doing.

Mrs Long began walking towards Hart, who panicked, and came up with a feeble attempt to tell a lie that he hoped would enable him to keep the stolen money without being punished.

"Mrs Long, I found this wallet. Would you like to give it back to Bill?" he said, and gave it to her.

"I see," said Mrs Long, and took the wallet from Hart. She was unlikely to be deceived by a prep school student.

During the afternoon classes, Mrs Long interrupted Hart's lesson, in front of Hart, the class, and its teacher for that period. She explained that she knew what Hart had done, and asked him to return the money, and to see her after school in the assembly hall.

When Hart reached the assembly hall, Mrs Long was waiting for him, with Mr King, a regular teacher at the school.

*          *          *          *

The previous year, Hart had drawn a satirical comic strip about Mr King during a lesson. Later, he had been caught talking to the boy beside him, and sent out of the classroom. He had waited outside the classroom, expecting that it was the full extent of his punishment. About ten minutes later, Mr King had come out to him, holding the comic strip that he had written and drawn.

"Did you write that?" Mr King had asked angrily.

"Yes," Hart had nervously replied.

"Come with me!"

Mr King had led Hart down to the headmaster's office, and showed the comic strip to the headmaster.

"What are we going to do?" Mr King had asked.

"Well we can give him a good caning for a start," the headmaster had responded.

"And why don't we send a letter home to his parents with that comic strip in it?" Mr King had asked.

The headmaster had agreed, and Mr King had then taken Hart into the teachers' common room, and lifted a cane stick down from the top of the cupboard.

"Would you write things like that at home?" Mr King had asked Hart.

"No," Hart had stammered.

"Then don't do it here!" Mr King had erupted, and he had then struck Hart's legs twice with the cane.

*          *          *          *

Now Mr King was holding the cane stick again.

Hart decided it would be best to get the beating over with and face his punishment, since he had been thinking all afternoon, and come to the conclusion that being bullied by Bill did not give him the right to steal Bill's money after all. It was a valuable lesson to learn, but there would be physical consequences, before the incident was concluded.

"I'm ready," he said, and bent over with his back to them.

"We want to talk to you first," said Mrs Long.

He began crying, knowing that he would have to wait for an end to the conversation, dreading the caning that lay ahead, when he had already understood that he was a thief, and just wanted it all out of the way.

"Now you shouldn't do that. You're just messing up your face," said Mr King in dead ernest.

Some five minutes later, Mr King said, "It's stealing. You'll have to have the cane for that."

"Well I knew that in the first place," thought Hart, "Why couldn't he have caned me, and then had the talk?"

"Bend over and touch your toes," said Mr King, and then hit him twice, with Mrs Long watching the proceedings.

"Alright, go and hide," said Mr King.

Hart never stole money from another boy again, but he did find himself in other problematic situations involving Mrs Long.

In the middle of second term, it was his tenth birthday. He arrived at school about fifteen minutes before school started, and went into his classroom.  He took a piece of chalk, and began to write in large letters that took up most of the space on the blackboard:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TO HART DALE.

TEN YEARS OLD TODAY.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

When he had finished, he continued holding the chalk, and began wondering what else to write. He was no longer involved in underhanded behaviour, such as the time he had stolen the money.  He expected that his efforts with the chalk would just be treated as birthday fun by his teacher.

"What do you think you're doing?" came the voice of Mrs Long behind him.

He turned around and faced her.

"Are you going to pay for all the chalk you wasted?" she asked.

"I've only used a little bit of this piece. I could give you some from my chalkboard at home," said Hart.

"Just start rubbing it off," said Mrs Long, and walked out, as the bell rang.

Before school each day, the boys would line up in the upper playground for a five minute assembly, before being sent to their first classes.

Outside, Mrs Long announced to the assembled boys and teachers, "Hart Dale would like everyone to know that today is his tenth birthday."

"Where's Hart Dale?" asked another teacher.

"Rubbing his name off the blackboard in the classroom," said Mrs Long.

The entire school laughed, and classes began.

Hart was relieved that he would not be receiving a caning this time.

At the end of fifth class, Hart's best friend moved to New Guinea, and would not be returning to Gray Thwaites in sixth class. Hart felt extremely lonely, since he had not made any other close friends. Mrs Long, noticing the improvements in his behaviour, took an interest in him in sixth class, and was occasionally his substitute mathematics teacher, when the regular teacher was able to leave her in charge of lessons. She had observed his despondency at losing his friend, and would smile at him in the playground as often as possible, in the hopes of lifting his spirits.

Using her singing skills, Mrs Long also became the preparatory school choir teacher.

During the final week of first term the school would be participating in a special musical to be performed in the town hall. Since Mrs Long actually knew the musical well, Mrs Thompson had put her in charge of it, and the two teachers became good friends. Mrs Long had now graduated as a fully qualified teacher, and become a full-time teacher on the permanent staff of the school.

The preparatory school (including all of the students, not merely the choir) would be performing one lengthy song, which Mrs Long had them rehearsing many times, as the weeks of term went on.

The first time she attempted to teach the song to the students, they were fairly unresponsive, and she said, "I can make more noise than the whole lot of you!" frustrated at their lack of enthusiasm.

After several weeks of rehearsals, there came a time when they had sung the song twice during the lesson just before lunch hour.

Mrs Long said, "We'll do it once more, and let's jazz it up a bit this time."

She asked the piano player to alter it a little, and Hart realised that Mrs Long was trying to make it more enjoyable for the students. He began to stop thinking of her as a tyrant who opposed his mischievous pranks, and to respect the dedication of her efforts.

The day before the musical was to be performed (which would be part of an excursion into the city to the town hall), Mrs Long walked the boys to the school assembly hall, so that they could practice their final rehearsal, using the stage of the large assembly hall. This would familiarise them with the acoustics and environment of the town hall.

When she first became a student teacher at the school, Mrs Long had worn red lipstick, and sometimes even sunglasses. Now she was not wearing any lipstick at all, and was standing in front of the stage, leading the preparatory school in singing the song. Mrs Long had to sing much louder, to ensure that she was heard by the students. To do this, Mrs Long was opening her giant mouth wider than she usually did.

The assembly hall also had much larger windows, which let in plenty of sunlight. So, as he watched Mrs Long singing, Hart focussed his eyes on her full shapely lips, and realised for the first time in two years, that he liked looking at Mrs Long. It was his first real awareness of the concept of a lady looking beautiful.

That night, Hart woke up in the middle of the night, and began recalling the beauty of Mrs Long's mouth. He was not aware of the marital significance of her title "Mrs" or of the romantic benefits of kissing someone. He felt frustrated, because he did not know what to do about his fascination with Mrs Long's beautiful mouth. He dreamed of two Mrs Longs, one with lipstick and one without.

The musical was a tremendous success, and sixth class continued on.

On the second last school day of the year, Mrs Long approached Hart in the playground, and said, "You've improved a lot over the last two years or so."

"You helped me improve, Mrs Long. When you got me caned that time, you taught me that stealing was wrong. Then this year you showed me that music can be fun. I started off wishing that we didn't have to do the excursion into the town hall and all those rehearsals, but then I got to like it."

"Thank you, Hart. You go on and do well in High School, and grow up to be a special man. I'm sure you will."

He told her which high school he would be going for, and she wished him all the best.

*          *          *          *

Two years later, during the school holidays at the end of first term, Skipper Long decided to take a holiday from the science institute where he worked and go on a hiking expedition with his wife, Mrs Christine Long, who had once been Hart’s teacher.

When they were six days into the walk, about half of the distance that they had intended to cover over the two weeks, an accident lost them all of their food over the side of a cliff.

"We'll have to start back tomorrow morning, without completing the walk we had planned. We'll go to bed early without any dinner tonight," said Skipper.

After four days of walking with no food, and only river water to drink, Mr and Mrs Long were literally starving to death.

"Darling, as a scientist, I know we won't make it through another day. We will die from malnutrition. It's a certainty, and we wouldn't have the energy to walk any further. Our stomaches are nauseous from hunger. There's a way to save you only, and I'm going to do it, Christine."

"What do you mean?"

"I've still got the bottle of sleeping pills I've been using to fall asleep in unfamiliar camping environments. There would be enough pills left to put me painlessly to sleep, forever. I know it would kill me, but we'd both die from hunger some time tomorrow anyway. Once you've checked that my heart has stopped beating, start a fire and cook me and eat some of me today. Then carry the rest and eat it tomorrow and the last day."

"That's an incredibly generous offer," said Christine.

"Will you promise me you'll do it?"

"I ... alright," said Christine, "but give me a last kiss and cuddle first."

"You can have it while we're waiting for the pills to take effect," said Skipper.

Skipper Long poured all of the sleeping pills into his mouth, and snuggled up to his wife. She embraced him, and they reminisced over all their old memories, until Skipper had fallen asleep, and then she checked his pulse. There was no pulse.

She prepared a fire, and roasted her husband until he was properly cooked.

For the next two days, she completed her walk back to civilization, and saved all of the bones from Skipper Long, once she had eaten him. She would put them in a container and keep them forever hidden, buried in her back yard.

She reported to the police that she had seen her husband killed and eaten in the bush, and let them assume that it had been done by a wild animal.

Feeling such a strong need to start life anew, Mrs Long did not return to Gray Thwaites Boys Preparatory School in second term. Instead, she took a few months off, expecting the birth of her child, and had a beautiful baby girl. At the beginning of the next year, she took a new teaching position at Timothy Scribener’s Prep School, in the neighbouring suburb, only a few blocks from Gray Thwaites, but full of new scenery and new teaching opportunities.

It was at the approach of the end of the first term there, that she finally began to think about going out on dates. However, all of the male teachers at the school were married, as they were adults themselves. Mrs Long’s mind floated back to the day she had seen how much Hart Dale had changed, even as an 11 ½ year old boy. She took out an old year book from Hart’s prep school and found his class photograph and stared at the boy. He was decidedly handsome as a child back then. She wondered how much his looks would have matured in the last five years. As an adolescent boy, he might turn out to be very very attractive. She thought about it at her luxurious Turramurra home that evening.

"It's hard to see clearly, with him so small in the picture taken at a distance large enough to incorporate a class of thirty students," thought Mrs Long, "but he was a very handsome boy, for an eleven year old. He'd be nearly fifteen by now, like Skipper when we were dating. I feel as though I simply must find out how Hart turned out."

The next day, since she had no lesson to teach in last period, Mrs Long excused herself from school early, and drove her car around to Mount Street in North Sydney, which was near the high school that Hart had once told her he would be attending. She waited, watching the boys walking from the school to the bus stop. None of them looked like Hart. Looking through her car windscreen, Mrs Long was about to give up and go home, having seen that there were now no more boys walking along the footpath at all.

Then she saw a boy who must have been Hart. He was taller than the primary school boy she remembered of three and a half years earlier, but his face was unmistakeable.

"Why he's absolutely gorgeous!" thought Mrs Long.

She rolled down her window, and waited until he drew closer, and then put her face to the window and smiled.

"Hart Dale?"

"Yes? ... Mrs Long, I haven't seen you for years!"

"I changed schools after my husband died. He lost his life saving mine on a bushwalking expedition."

"How awful," said Hart.

"It was nearly a year ago," said Mrs Long, "Say, you haven't been in detention today, have you?"

"No. I haven't had one for years. Why?"

"All the other boys went home half an hour before you came by."

"I was finishing a short story I've been writing. I had to redo the last chapter, because some bullies tore it up."

"That's disgraceful. If I'd been there, they would be in serious trouble for ruining your work."

"They don't like me, because I don't play sport at lunchtimes. They make fun of me for not having muscles like theirs too. They told me I should go to the gymnasium and do some body building."

"Well don't pay any attention to that nonsense at all, Hart. Writing is a rare gift, and you look fine the way you are."

"One of the boys said that a large body is a good first impression for a girl, if I wanted to ask her out on a date."

"Well my husband was slim, like you, and had a nice handsome face like you. That made a good first impression to me. I wasn't interested in big boys. The ones who asked me out were bullies too, as I recall. I'd seen them doing it to smaller boys. It doesn't impress me in the slightest. The fact that you can cope with year ten work and write a story of your own is what counts. I'd like to read your story."

"I could lend it to you for tonight, or longer if you needed it. It goes for twenty-one pages."

"I can get through it tonight. I'm not doing anything. I teach at a nearby Prep School now."

"You're still fairly close to North Sydney then."

"Yes. I came back to look at my old teaching school from the car window. Would you like me to drive you home?"

"Yes, thank you. I live at Pymble now."

"That's well on my way. I'm at Turramurra."

"Pop round and get in then," said Mrs Long, and reached over to unlock the passenger door.

Hart stepped into the car, thinking that Mrs Long looked even more beautiful than she had done so as his teacher.

"So what subjects are you doing for the school certificate this year?"

"Maths, Russian, Greek, English, History and Science."

"Russian and Greek? How are you finding learning two languages on top of your own?"

"I came first in Greek and first equal in Russian last term."

"You must have a gift with foreign languages."

"I used to make codes and ciphers with my best friend in fifth class."

"Oh yes. He left, didn't he? I remember you seemed very unhappy about it for a while."

"Then your musical excursion cheered me up, once I got to like it. I enjoy learning Russian and Greek, because it's just like learning the codes off by heart."

"Maths and science were the subjects I studied at teachers college level. I'm a widow. I've been going to a singles club on Saturday nights. They have parties at members' houses, but I don't really fit in. Most of them are older than me, and are single because they're divorced. So they don't have happy memories of the last few years of their marriage. As a widow, I find that all my memories of my marriage are positive. The divorced ladies are unwilling to go out on dates, because they fear that anything that develops will have an unhappy ending similar to their first marriage. Because I don't have those emotional restraints, I just needed a year or so to be on my own, and now I'm ready to think about being with somebody again."

In her world, he was a baby by comparison. Still she had shown a keen interest in reading his story. 

Mrs Long stopped her car just around the corner from the address that he had told her, so that he could leave it surreptitiously.

"I could pick you up after school in the back street at the other end of the alley, and give you some feedback on your story. Would you like that?"

"Yes, thank you, Mrs Long."

"Alright. I should be there by half past three. If anything goes wrong, and we miss each other, here's my telephone number."

*          *          *          *

The next day, he got into her car, with no risk of being seen by anyone else from the school.

"Your story was well written. I'm not an English teacher, but I enjoyed the plot, and the traces of humour as well."

"Oh good."

"Do you break up for term one holidays at 11:00 am tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to walk down to the Lavender Bay area, just beyond North Sydney? We could sit in the tiny park at the bottom of the steps and have a picnic. I'll bring enough lunch for both of us."

"Could you show me on the map how to find it? I've never been there."

"Sure... Here, you can see on this page of the street directory. The part we're using is at this end, at the bottom of a pedestrian walkway with trees growing on one side. It's small and enclosed by plants and shielded from the sun by a large tree. It looks out beyond the disused Lavender Bay train line and across to Sydney Harbour. I'll wait for you, while I spread out the picnic rug and open some food containers."

*          *          *          *

When he reached the park, he saw just how romantic a location it was. Mrs Long invited him to sit on the rug, and he watched her remove the lid from a plastic container of strawberries, and lick the juice from the top of it. This was his special time alone with her, while she was between her first marriage and whatever developed into her second marriage. None of the bullies who had made his high school life unpleasant would know about the precious time that he was now able to spend with Mrs Long.

They talked for a while, and ate as well, sharing experiences from the last three years.

"So have you had many girlfriends?" asked Mrs Long.

"I've never had any so far," said Hart.

"Why ever not? You're a handsome boy."

"But all the ladies I see on the bus are older than me, and usually married. I wish I was your age."

"I'm thirty."

"I won't even be fifteen for another few months."

They were seated beside each other on the picnic rug.

"So you've never kissed a girl then," said Mrs Long.

"No," said Hart.

"Nor embraced a girl for a hug?" asked Mrs Long.

"No."

Mrs Long was sitting on her legs, which were now completely covered by her skirt. Hart was also sitting on his legs, at an angle to her position.

Mrs Long smiled and leaned towards him and put her arms around him, turning the upper part of his body towards her. He put his arms around her.

She was bringing her face towards him!

Slowly she turned her head to a slight angle and pressed her full shapely lips to his own!

Hart had never felt such a gesture before, and enjoyed it immensely.

"This is what she must have done with her husband!" he thought, "I didn't even think of her husband's existence in prep school."

She stretched her legs, so that he was lowered backwards onto the rug, and he stretched out his own legs.

Mrs Long lay down on top of him, and kissed his cheeks in turn.

He stroked her hair.

"Was that nice?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs Long. You are so beautiful. Do you really like me enough to enjoy doing this, or are you just teaching me how to do proper kissing?"

"You gorgeous lovely boy! Of course I enjoy doing this! I came back to Mount Street two days ago in the hopes of seeing you. You were just a child when I saw you last. When you came walking towards my car two days ago, I couldn't believe what handsome boy you've grown to be."

They rolled over, so that they were still embraced, but now on their sides.

"The girls in my youth group don't look as nice as you, Mrs Long. Can I touch your mouth?" he asked, holding his finger near her lip.

"Be my guest."

He rubbed his fingertips across her lovely lower lip.

"I didn't know how you felt about me either. I've just been in a fantasy world, ever since I saw you again the other day."

"You're my greatest fantasy too, Mrs Long."

"So did you have a crush on me back in sixth class. What started it?"

"The day we had our final rehearsal for the excursion musical in the assembly hall. It was well lit, and you were opening your mouth wider than ever to sing. I saw how lovely your mouth looked and thought to myself, 'I've just realised how pretty Mrs Long is'."

"That was in first term of sixth class! I remember that. You were only ten. I feel like a cradle snatcher now."

"I feel like a very lucky boy, if you're going to keep seeing me, that is."

"Of course I'll keep seeing you. What we can have together is very special."

"I'm so happy now. We'll have these school holidays together."

"Yes. We need to be careful though. I'm a schoolteacher, and although I don't teach at your old prep school anymore, it might put my career in jeopardy, if anyone found out that I was dating a teenage school student. There's nothing wrong with you, and I'm not embarrassed or ashamed to be your girlfriend from now on. I just have to keep it secret, so that I don't lose my job."

"I understand. I'm good at doing things secretly."

"Oh Hart, I love you! Kiss me again."

Hart did so.

After a while, Mrs Long said, "Hart, would you like to come with me to my old high school, where I was a student, on Saturday? It's high up in the Blue Mountains. The school fete is being held, because it's the first Saturday of the school holidays. Then in the evening, they're having the old girls' reunion ball. I was hoping you might like to come as my date."

"You wouldn't mind being there with a student? I'd love to go."

"It won't matter up in the mountains. Nobody up there knows where I teach. I'd love to show you off to all my old school friends."

*          *          *          *

Mrs Long took Hart to the Blue Mountains on the Saturday. She met him at the local park near his house, and drove him on the long journey up into Medlow Bath, where Upper Blue Mountains Girls College was located.

They arrived at around ten o'clock, and began to enjoy the atmosphere of the fete. The historic buildings of the school was pleasant for Hart, and he felt extra special to be exploring a part of Mrs Long's past.

After they had visited all the stalls, they had lunch, and then took a ride on the Ferris wheel together.

Then Mrs Long took him on a walk through the school grounds and buildings not used as part of the fete, so that she could tell stories from her teenage years. He kept remembering that she had been married for some of these. When she had been in her final year of high school, she had gone to the annual fete, and met a third class boy, who had come to the fete with his older sister, a friend of Christine's.

The boy had said, "I'll bet you can't catch me," to Christine, and run around in the bushes and gardens.

Christine had mischievously said, "I'll bet I can."

The boy's sister had left them to it, and gone to look at fete stalls. Christine had said, "If I catch you, I'll give you a big wet kiss!" and chased the boy around, giggling, until she caught him and gave him the kiss.

Now she told the story to Hart.

"I wouldn't have run so fast, if it had been me expecting that kiss," said Hart.

After the informal tour of Mrs Long's memories, people began to pack up their unsold goods and dismantle their stalls.

Hart and Mrs Long enjoyed the meal at the reunion ball, and then danced together for the evening.  Mrs Long's friends were all happy that she had fallen in love with Hart after she had become a widow, and seemed to have no misgivings about the age difference between them.

At the end of the evening, Mrs Long and Hart walked hand in hand to the car, and drove back to Pymble.

"Thank you, Hart."

She leaned across and kissed him.

Mrs Long made a date to spend Tuesday evening in North Sydney with Hart, going for an evening stroll around the suburb where they had first met each other, and looking at the old preparatory school.

Tuesday evening came, and Mrs Long and Hart had their walk around North Sydney, and kissed under the moonlight for a while. Then they returned to North Sydney station, and caught the first train home.

Halfway down the North Sydney railway tunnel, the train came to a halt. A teenaged boy with a gun came into the carriage. He was one of the boys in Hart's class.

"Don't anyone move. We're holding this train hostage. There's one of us in every carriage, including the driver's!"

"It's Donald Poullson, Mrs Long," said Hart quietly, "He's in my year at school."

"So this is what he does in his holidays," said Mrs Long.

"Take your bank cards and cash out of your handbags and wallets, all of you. Move!" said Donald.

Hart took his wallet from his pocket, which had no money in it at the time, and aimed it at the light globe of the train. The glass shattered, and the filament broke as well, destroying the circuit. The carriage was now plunged into darkness.

"Quickly, Hart, this way," whispered Mrs Long at his side.

Hart felt her feminine hand gripping his arm.

She led him to the carriage door, felt about to open it, and then said, "Now jump."

It was not until the two of them were running along the ground in the tunnel outside the train, that Donald noticed their escape. The tunnel itself was well lit by fluorescent tubes.

Since Hart, Donald, and Mrs Long had been in the rear carriage, Mrs Long led Hart back behind it, out of sight of any of the other gunmen in the forward carriages.

"Donald's jumped out, and started to come after us," said Hart.

"We're too far down the tunnel, to hope of reaching the North Sydney platform before he shoots us," said Mrs Long, "I can't even see the station. I do have another hope though."

"What?" panted Hart, as they continued to run.

"When I was working with Mrs Thompson, the Gray Thwaites School music teacher at the time I was your teacher, she told me of a rumour that there was a secret passage leading from a hidden room in one of the boarding houses in the school. This tunnel runs under the school. The passage was supposedly built during wartime, so that if North Sydney were to be bombed, the boarding school boys could have been secretly evacuated down to the tunnel, and use it as a deep shelter. Since it never became necessary, there is no firm evidence that the tunnel even exists... Hart, look. A paler shade of stone. We've found it. It's the door to the passage, painted over to make it blend in with the tunnel wall. Railway workmen would not think about it, because they were not aware of the tunnel's existence, but if we push on it, we'll have it open."

Hart threw his weight against the door, and Mrs Long pushed as well. The door opened, and Mrs Long pushed Hart onto the steps beyond. They had only the light from the tunnel to illuminate the lower steps. Mrs Long darted in after Hart, and they both ran up the stairs, feeling their way in the dark. Luckily, the stone staircase curved around, so that Donald could not aim a shot at them, when he reached the entrance to the passage.

He followed the steps himself, and came to a door, opened it, and stepped into a lit room, with a table in the middle. Hart closed the door and pushed the table in front of it. 

"Hart, go and find the way out of this boarding house. We know where the door is from this side. Call the police and ask them to send a tactical response squad into the tunnel."

Hart left the room and did so. The police soon caught up with Donald and company, who had returned to the tunnel. Mrs Long soon caught up with Hart at the telephone.

"Donald won't hurt you again," she said, "Let's find a taxi and go home. I don't think the railways will be functioning normally for several hours."

They took another hour to get back to Pymble station car park.

“Well thanks to this adventure, we not only helped the police catch some robbers, but one of them is a bully who won’t be free to trouble you now,” said Mrs Long, “What was it you threw at the train light globe?”

“My wallet,” said Hart.

Mrs Long gave him a wry smile.

“What’s funny?” asked Hart.

“I’m proud,” she said, “In our first real encounter, you had used someone else’s wallet for the theft of his money. This time your own saved the day.”

“Thanks to your influence back then,” said Hart.

The following year, Mrs Long had her first encounter with Timothy on the sports grounds, and her second encounter on the last day of school.

The year after that, she had her third encounter, which led to the toy spaceship affair that went on for some time from their perspective.

*          *          *          *

Hart finished his high school years, and started a university course at the age of seventeen years and six months. He had continued to date Mrs Long, and they loved each other completely. 

Mrs Long went on to have the fourth encounter with Timothy, in which they somehow found themselves in a giant house.

From then on, she began to think constantly of eating Timothy, but the boy had just reached adolescence, and began to attempt regular relationships with girls his own age, and the dim memory of Mrs Long was fading. So he did not think of her or of shrinking into her particular mouth. Sometimes he thought of doing it with girls his own age, but they had no such urges for him, and hence the process did not come about.

When Hart would finish his university classes, if it was the right time of the afternoon for Mrs Long to be on her way home from the latest school where she taught, which was no longer Timothy’s school but a girls high school. She would pick Hart up from the university on her way. One day, he came out of the university building, to see one of the lecturers kissing Mrs Long passionately on the pathway. He pretended not to have seen it, and didn’t confront her with it until dinner time.

“So you’d rather marry a man your own age, like that one you kissed today,” he said despondently.

"Is that why you’ve been so quiet and solemn? I wasn't kissing that lecturer. He started kissing me, without my permission. I'm going to telephone the university and report it right now. You can listen to the complaint."

Mrs Long made the telephone call, and then hung up the receiver.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Long. I just came out, and it looked like... I thought you wanted to be with a man your own age, and get married again," he said, and burst into tears.

"No, Hart, I don't want a man my own age. I've been asked out on dates by several men around my age in the years you and I have been dating. I've flatly refused every one of them, saying that I already had a steady boyfriend, and that is you, Hart."

"Then I've made an awful mistake," he said.

"I'm sorry you had to be upset like that," said Mrs Long, and hugged him tightly, and then kissed him passionately.

He began to cry again.

"It's alright, Hart. I'll never leave you."

"It seemed like when I was ten and you were married, only worse," he sobbed.

She kissed his cheeks and stroked his hair.

"Why don't I give you your free tutoring for the day, and when your homework's done, you can stay for dinner?" said Mrs Long.

He agreed.

*          *          *          *

Hart graduated from university with a few months remaining before his twenty-first birthday. During that time, both of his parents had died, and Mrs Long was now thirty-six years old. After the graduation ceremony was over, Mrs Long took Hart out to dinner to celebrate.

After they had had their dinner, Mrs Long drove Hart Dale home

They made a date to go to Northbridge baths for a swim on the Saturday.

As they were walking down to the water, two sixteen year old girls walked past them giggling and sneering.

"Look at his skinny little body," said one of the girls to her friend, making no effort to suppress the volume.

"Only his mother would go swimming with a boy as small as that," said the other.

Mrs Long turned on them furiously.

"How dare you make such a shallow, insulting comment! My boyfriend is extremely handsome, and I enjoy his company more than anything else in the world. It's obvious to me, that you girls have a lot of growing up to do," said Mrs Long.

"And I'm lucky to be with such a lovely adorable attractive lady," said Hart, "I'm glad she's older than me, but I'm sure she was more mature than you two, when she was your age."

"We... didn't think," said one of the girls.

"Well try to think carefully, when you're choosing your boyfriends and husbands. Girls your age are often attracted to abusive, aggressive men. I wouldn't like to see either of you divorced in fifteen years time, with your children badly affected by the whole thing. Wait a few years, to really get to know someone well, and then make sure you've found the right men to marry," said Mrs Long, "I've been dating Hart for nearly six years now, and I've known him for ten or eleven years."

"We're sorry, and we will think about your advice," said the other girl.

Mrs Long and Hart walked ahead of them, and stepped into the water.

"Whatever happened to keeping our dating a secret, so we don't risk your career?" asked Hart, full of admiration for Mrs Long's speech.

"You're not a school student, or even a uni student anymore. A thirty-six year old woman dating a twenty-one year old boy is not nearly as much of a cause for tongues to wag in the community, especially since most people don't know how long we've been together."

"But you told those girls."

"I wanted to make them consider their brash teasing of us."

"You were magnificent. It made me feel very special, to see you defending me without feeling ashamed of me."

"I was honoured by what you said too," said Mrs Long.

"Well they were poking fun at our ages, as well as my size."

"They may never be half as happy as we are," said Mrs Long.

After their swim, they had a picnic on the grass, and Mrs Long said to him, "Hart, you've continued to call me Mrs Long in all the years we've been dating. Wouldn’t you rather call me Christine?"

“No,” said Hart, “I’d rather call you Mrs Dale.”

"I love you more than I loved my husband Skipper, and he's been gone for a long time now. I'd like to be your bride, Hart, but it would need to be a long engagement."

For years they were engaged, with Mrs Long postponing their marriage indefinitely for reasons she couldn’t explain to Hart. When she was 44, she had the encounter in the nature gardens with Timothy, and ate him. It had been possible, because Timothy had thought once again of being eaten by Mrs Long. He had gone through high school, five years behind Hart in fact, and then eventually finished university and started work. Yet he had never found any girl for either a normal relationship or a shrinking and eating encounter. So his thoughts had returned to Mrs Long and facilitated the chance for her to find him in the nature gardens and eat him. Yet something still played on her mind.

In present day now, Mrs Long continued dancing with Timothy at her son’s wedding and concluded the narrative of the intervening years.

“I broke up with Hart, not forever, but indefinitely, because I realised that I was not ready to marry again. That’s why I’ve remained a widow all these years. There was something else that I couldn’t remove from my thoughts.”

“What was that?” asked Timothy.

“Eating you,” she said, “Every time I did it, I somehow felt that the experience wasn’t complete. I never really felt you becoming absorbed into my tummy, becoming part of my stomach forever. If only that would happen, then I could always have you there within me, as a part of me, and go on to remarry to Hart. He loves me very much, and I know he’s still waiting for me to resume our engagement. That’s why I shied away from your friendly kiss before, Timothy. I think you’re adorable, but I’m very much involved with Hart, and have been for a long time. I wanted you to know all this, because I know you’re the only one who can help me. I’m sure that it would work, if you went all the way down into my stomach willingly, instead of willing yourself out and back to normal size. Now that I’ve explained the principle, would you be willing to do it?”

Timothy was stunned. Her story had gripped him every step of the way, and he had not seen her request coming until the end.

"Alright, I'll think about it," said Timothy.

"Thank you. I’ve got to help with the packing up after we see the bride and groom off on their honeymoon. I'll see you in an hour," said Mrs Long, and returned to her work.

Leanne talked with Timothy, who briefly summarised Mrs Long’s narrative and her request.

"So you didn't say a definite no," said Leanne.

"I ... I think Mrs Long's very pretty. I was hoping that she was going to say that she'd like to be my girlfriend, instead of going ahead with the wedding to Hart. Then when she said she wanted to eat me in the way she described this time, I didn't know what to say. Do you think she’s right about her scientific conclusions about our encounters?"

"It’s more than likely."

"My goodness! So Mrs Long could really do this."

"Why don't you tell her how you feel?"

"I'd be embarrassed. It would take some audacity to confess a crush on an engaged woman."

"No more audacity than it took for an engaged woman to ask a boy for his permission to eat him."

"You're right. I'll tell her."

When Mrs Long came back, she offered her hand to Timothy, and walked around the garden outside.

"I can understand, if you refuse," said Mrs Long, "The proposed idea offers a lot of pleasure for me, but only a short experience for you."

"I know. It's just that ... "

"What?"

"I'm just a younger man, and I thought that you liked me, until you said you wanted to eat me."

"I do like you. You're a handsome boy. It's just that I'm looking forward to marrying my fiancé, and I thought you would be more enjoyable as meat in my stomach."

"I suppose there's no chance that you'd consider breaking off the engagement, and being my girlfriend instead."

"I'm sorry, Dear Timothy, but I can't."

"Then I suppose I must miss out on the happiness I hoped for."

"I guess this means you'd rather not give me that happiness that I had hoped to derive from eating you."

"I'm sorry too, Mrs Long. Your mouth looks very nice. It wouldn't be so bad being eaten by it again, but if I don’t escape, then I'd never get to kiss a beautiful lady."

"I understand," said Mrs Long, and they walked for a minute in silence.

"Timothy," said Mrs Long suddenly, "What if I took you out on a date on Monday, and gave you all the kisses you wanted? I'm not married yet, and my fiancé need not know. I’m not even seeing him at the moment. Besides, he could hardly be jealous of a boy who was going to be eaten. I could shrink you just by both of us thinking about it, and then call Hart and resume dating and set a definite date for the wedding. Leanne could look after you while I’m arranging that, visiting my house each day to feed you, and then I could come back on the Monday while I’ve got some time to myself, and eat you."

"I'd be giving up a lot of years of dating."

"I'm going to give you all that in one night."

"It sounds like a good deal. We would both get at least part of what we wanted."

"I'd have everything I want, and give you the best possible deal in the process."

"Alright, Mrs Long. I'll do it."

"Thank you," she said, and licked his cheek, "I was right. You are tasty even at full size."

"Where shall we start our date?"

"Let's meet in the city's park on Monday, have lunch, and then go to all the interesting places in the city. After that, we can have dinner, and take it from there."

"I'll be looking forward to that."

"You can change your mind up until Monday. After that, you'll have to complete your part of the bargain too, if you’re the honourable gentleman I expect you are. If you let me down, I shall never speak to you again."

*          *          *          *

On the Monday, Timothy met Mrs Long in the park, and they walked around, looking at the fountain and lovely gardens. Then they had lunch at an outdoor cafe, and then rode in the elevator of Tourist Tower, the tallest building in the city. When they reached the top, they stood in the viewing room and looked out at the city below, and the suburbs beyond.

"You haven't spoken for a few minutes," said Mrs Long.

"I never realised what a spectacular town I'd be leaving behind. There's still so much I won't have the chance to explore."

"You'll be the only one who has the chance to explore the inside of me though."

He embraced her, and they cuddled each other for several moments.

After they had eaten their dinner, Mrs Long took Timothy to a deluxe disco in one of the city's glamorous buildings. They danced to the fast tunes, and then held each other for the slow dancing music. Timothy thought Mrs Long was lovely, and kissed her cheek while they danced. She did the same for him. The carefree look of happiness in her eyes was haunting. She was enjoying the evening, knowing that her happiness would not have to come to the same end that his did.

After the disco had finished, Mrs Long led him to the isolated spot where she had parked her car.

They sat on the grass beside it, and Mrs Long licked her lips quite deliberately in front of him and opened her mouth wide, concentrating on her desire to eat him, and inducing a visual stimulus to put Timothy’s mind on the same thing. Sure enough, this effort reduced Timothy to tiny size.

She walked over and picked him up, saying, "I knew you wouldn't try to escape, before you'd enjoyed all the benefits of the date, and I'm fairly sure I can trust you to keep your word now too."

"I would have kept my word," he said, knowing that he would have struggled with the temptation to run out on his part of the deal, but done his best to stick to it.

"I believe you," she said, and kissed him.

She got into the car and placed him on her shoulder beside the base of her neck, drove to her home and tucked all her bedclothes in tightly.

"This will make sure that there's no way you can get down to the floor," she said, and put him on her pillow and talked to him in the moonlight. He snuggled against her cheek and eventually slept.

The next morning, she went to the cupboard, and took out a model house.

"You'll have everything you need, and Leanne will take over, and I'll be back to eat you after the wedding date has been arranged."

Timothy enjoyed talking with Leanne about his feelings for Mrs Long and the incredible experience which they had planned out. Leanne considered making the same request of Tarquin, but would not do it for years to come.

“I’d like to enjoy things as they are for a while first,” said Leanne.

“I guess I’ve done as much of that as I’m going to,” said Timothy.

“Are you nervous?”

“I’m excited, but I had a wonderful date with her, and in a sense, what she does next will be like another.”

Eventually Leanne left Australia for England, and her awaiting young admirer Tarquin.

Mrs Long returned to her house and saw Timothy lying contentedly in the model house.

“Hello!” she said, “Are you all prepared?”

“I think so,” said Timothy, “Your tummy looks nice in that outfit. I’ll be honoured to join it.”

“I’m flattered that you’re not having any second thoughts,” said Mrs Long.

“There is one thing I’d like to ask for though,” said Timothy.

“Now I’m curious,” said Mrs Long.

“You’ve never kissed me at this size. The touch of your lips would be wonderful to a tiny young man like me.”

“I imagine it would,” said Mrs Long, “Would you like me to do it?”

“Oh yes please.”

Mrs Long picked him up and took him to the couch. She sat down and held him gently in her fingers, and lifted him towards her mouth. She pressed her lips tightly to his face, and then her lower lip to his neck and shoulders.

“Was that the way you hoped for?” she asked at last.

“It was lovely,” said Timothy.

“We have several hours until dinner time. Why don’t we lie down and talk?” said Mrs Long, and took him to her bedroom.

She placed him onto the pillow, lowered her head gently beside him, and let him snuggle against her soft round cheek.

“It’s like our first real talk at that wedding dance,” he said, “Only even nicer to feel your cheek on me at this size.”

“For me too,” she said.

“Do we need to make any final plans or arrangements for the gobbling?”

“I think I’ve got it all organised, darling. I’ve made myself ravenously hungry, which will be easier to do if I stay lying down. If I get up again before eating you, I’d want more food first. This way my tummy will be completely empty when you go down. It’ll feel nicer for you that way, and you’ll be absorbed into it quickly.”

“It’s absolutely mind blowing to hear you describing that so casually,” he said.

“How are you feeling about it in general?” she asked.

“I’ve always enjoyed touching your tongue in the previous encounters, and it looks nicer than before at your current age. I’m glad you always stayed 20 years ahead of me, whatever happened. Would you like to lick me while I lie here?”

“I’d love to,” said Mrs Long.

She lifted her head off him, turned around, lowered her face, and put out her tongue and ran it over his upper body and face, while he lay in comfort on the pillow. Timothy enjoyed watching that huge sparkling tongue come down and feeling it sliding over him.

She lay down after a while, and lifted him onto the top of her dress, so that he could dry himself on the material. Then he climbed up to her neck and lay on it.

“Can you do some gulps?” he asked.

“Sure, if you like,” said Mrs Long.

“Thank you. I’d like to see what it feels like out here.”

He felt the movements of Mrs Long’s powerful neck underneath him. He eventually crawled down and lay on her tummy, feeling it moving up and down with her breathing.

“To think that I’ll soon be in there,” he said.

“Indeed you will, unless you trick your way out.”

“I won’t. You did what you promised. Now it’s my turn.”

“I’m very proud of you, Timothy,” she said.

Mrs Long recalled the way she had taught Hart not to steal, and he had since used his wallet to foil a robbery. Now a second young admirer had taken an honest option after making a deal with her which few boys would have considered.

“It’s getting late,” she said, “Shall we go to the kitchen?”

“I’m ready,” said Timothy.

He looked up in awe, as Mrs Long placed him gently into the oven, warmed him up slowly and then took him to the dining table and sat down. Every aspect of his search to locate her had in fact led to this moment, he realised, as he saw her lovely forearm and hand approach him.

Mrs Long lifted him up and licked him several times.

“I hope your second marriage is everything you hope for,” said Timothy, “While you were telling your story, I often envied Hart, but you gave me a wonderful romance, be it ever so brief, and I’m very happy to be this nice dinner for you now.”

“I’m very flattered and grateful,” said Mrs Long, “I’ll always remember you’re down there in some form. Goodbye, my little one time student.”

She slid him into her mouth and swished him around on her tongue and then drew him into her gulping throat. He slid down and down and into her tummy. He felt the incredible movements of her tummy, and then passed out blissfully.

Corey remained far too reluctant to trust Dianne with his secret desire to shrink down to tiny size and climb into her mouth and slide around on her tongue. Yet it would not go away, that was for certain.

He was now 38 years old. Dianne was 59 and carried an elegance which only added to his secret fantasy. There was a seasoned confidence in her eyes, which she had acquired over the last 36 years of dating first Jared and then Corey. It made her look all the more arousing. He would take her out to dinner as often as possible, seizing the opportunity to look at her tongue making contact with anything that went into her mouth.

Yet he didn’t dare think of having the chance to do so, because he feared that she would frown on his strange desire and leave him. He had loved her for most of his life, and couldn’t bear to lose her.

One day her sister Mary Parkin came around, when Dianne was out shopping.

“Dianne will be home soon,” said Mary, “I just wanted to have the chance to talk to you alone first.”

“What’s it about?” asked Corey, looking at his former teacher of three decades earlier with curiosity.

“Dianne and I talked for hours last night, while my husband was away. She told me something which I feel you have to know. Even I never knew this about my sis, until last night, but all her life she’s had a secret longing to eat someone, a boy or a younger man in more recent years.”

“Do you mean she’s a cannibal?”

“Not in the conventional sense,” said Mary, “Her longing is to become a giantess, or like a giantess, and gobble someone down whole, as slowly and delicately as possible. She suppressed it altogether when she was with Jared, so that he would not fear her tendencies and leave her. Then when he died, she put all thoughts of marriage aside. She had made her go of that experience, and there would only be one Jared. Yet, whenever she saw handsome boys and young men in public places, she could not help thinking about reducing them to tiny size and eating them.”

“But it never happened, because the boys didn’t feel the reciprocal way about being eaten by her,” thought Corey, “At least that’s how Leanne Commons explained it, while she was learning more about it from Christine Long. It takes two to make it happen.”

Mary continued.

“She recently bought a book called ‘Tunnel to the Giants’ and read it yesterday, while you were out. She said it brought a new feeling into her. For the first time in all the years she’s known you, she lost all her protective instincts for you, and became infatuated with the idea of shrinking you and eating you. She’d never tell you for the same reasons she never told Jared, but also with one extra reason. She never felt like eating him, but as of last night, she feels very much like eating you.”

He remembered that Mary knew nothing of their affair. Yet now he was privy to the fact that Dianne would eat him.

“Would she do it if she had the chance?” asked Corey.

“She said that she would, and that she felt no shame in it,” said Mary, “She realised that she has subconsciously wanted to eat you ever since she first met you, but it’s only just come to the surface three decades after that fete when I introduced you both at the school. I trust you won’t tell her that I told you.”

“I won’t,” said Corey, “But I think you did the right thing. I won’t be leaving her either.”

Corey was elated. If Leanne was right, he could now bring about his own reduction, at any time when both of them were thinking about it. More than that, Dianne had not only reciprocated his mouth fantasy, but was keen to take it to another level. She wanted to actually gobble him down whole. They had been together in various capacities for more than three decades, and now he knew this at last. What a surprise it had been, and to think that she would have done it without his approval, had the situation arisen.

Dianne came home and made lunch for all three of them, which they ate together while talking. Corey enjoyed watching Dianne eating more than ever now. He no longer merely imagined himself going into her mouth, but he saw himself being eaten whole. He wondered when Leanne’s techniques would kick in. Perhaps it was not happening because a third person was there.

Once Mary had gone, Dianne began to take the plates out to the kitchen. With the image of her tongue receiving food fresh in his mind, Corey thought of nothing else but being shrunken and eaten by her.

Suddenly he found himself on the floor of the room at tiny size. He had been sitting on the chair until it happened.

He wanted to make it look as though he would retreat from the idea, as she would be even more arousing if she pursued him with that in mind. He ran most of the way to another piece of furniture, but didn’t duck right out of sight. When he saw her coming into the room, he looked up at her.

Dianne looked down in surprise.

“Corey! Is that you?” she asked.

He stared up at her in awe. This was thrilling.

“Yes, it’s me. I just shrank somehow,” he said.

“I don’t know how it’s happened, but there’s nothing you can do about it now, young man. I’m going to eat you all up.”

“Really, after all these years together?” he asked.

“I’ve enjoyed them very much, both adopting you and then dating you,” said Dianne, “But you’re a tiny lad now, and I’m going to gobble you down for my dinner.”

“You’ll have to catch me first,” he said, and backed away.

Dianne laughed, which drove him wild with excitement at her amused, towering, relatively gigantic form. She strode effortlessly across the floor, as he backed away until she had cornered him in the far corner of the room.

“I think you’ve run out of places to go,” she said, and reached down and picked him up.

“Oh Dianne you’ve caught me,” he said.

“Will you join me for a lie down this afternoon?” she asked, “We’ve only just eaten our lunch.”

“I guess so,” said Corey.

She lay down and let him explore her lovely face and upper body at his new size until the afternoon came to an end.

“I think it’s time to cook you for dinner, ever so slightly of course,” she said, and took him to the kitchen.

She placed him into the oven and sat looking through the glass door at him with pleasure and confidence. Corey thought back over all the time that they had shared together over the last 31 years. Now he was headed for her mouth, and her stomach. The thought of it took his breath away.

For nearly twenty years, or perhaps for longer, he had been staring surreptitiously into her mouth, admiring her tongue and wishing he could touch it in the way that he was about to. Yet he never dreamed that it would be such an incredible one way trip. He loved her more than ever now, but did not want to do anything to take away her feeling of conquest when she was eating him.

Dianne soon opened the oven and took him to the table. He admired her dainty white neck and her soft white elegant cheeks and her chest and her tummy. Even seated at the table, her upper body and face towered over him, as though he were nothing more than a mouthful of meat on a plate.

Dianne picked him up and opened her mouth wide. Saying nothing more, she slid him into her mouth, and at last, after all those years of longing, he made contact with her sparkling red tongue.

She slid him around on it for several minutes, and then daintily gulped him slowly down her throat.

Corey would not be returning from Dianne’s throat, for the simple reason that he had no desire to do so. Leanne and Tarquin would continue their shrinking and mouth adventures. So would Heather and Chad. So would Howie and Corinne Kenville. Christine Long was happily married to Hart Dale, having purged her interest in eating boys, when she swallowed Timothy Scribener for the final time. The novels and stories had brought people’s desires out in the open, and all over the world, people were learning to act on them.

It was a giant step forward for all the women involved.

What none of these men or women knew was that their earth was not alone. From their perspective, it was Earth-A in a multiverse of possibilities, many of them similar, many of them different. One such parallel earth was Earth-B. Like Earth-A, it once had a 9 ½  year old 5th grader named Timothy Scribener, and a 29 ½  year old teacher named Mrs Long, who had returned to teaching to support herself after becoming a widow. Instead of being in a boys preparatory school in North Sydney, they were in a co-educational school in Wahroonga, which ran from kindergarten right up to 12th grade, though the high school premises were next door to the prep school.

Here is the detailed account of how Timothy learned the hard way not to help himself to someone else’s food without asking.

Mrs Long explained to the class how to do various aspects of geometrical calculations involving isosceles and right angled triangles, and then left the class to do some of the exercises in the text book. Timothy looked up from his work, and noticed Mrs Long taking a piece of candy from a bag and putting it into her mouth. He watched her place the bag back in the top drawer of the desk.

Later that day, during the lunch break, he could not help thinking of the candies. She’d never miss one, he thought, mindless of the fact that it was still stealing. He snuck back into the class room while everyone else was at lunch, opened the bag and took one of the sweets, put it into his mouth and enjoyed it until it was gone, and then turned around to see Mrs Long looking into the room from the doorway.

“So you stole one of my lollies!” she said, walking over and sitting down.

She pulled him towards her, put him over her knee and spanked him repeatedly.

Timothy never forgot the spanking, and refrained from stealing again. On one occasion, he took an orange from a rubbish bin, ate it and found himself vomiting at home that night.

Early the following year, Timothy was walking to school, and came to the start of the fence. He noticed that he only came up to an inch below the height of the fence. He was sure that he had been almost a foot taller than it in the past. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt and school shorts, and just noticed that the shorts now went all the way down to his knees, and the shirt sleeves reached his elbows.

In no time at all, Timothy deduced what it took a fictional fellow named Scott half a movie to confirm. He was getting smaller. Timothy knew that he couldn’t go into the school now. The change in his size would not only arouse suspicions that he himself was unable to explain. It would make him more prone to bullying by girls who would soon be sufficiently bigger than him.

Surely the answers could only be found in the school science laboratories. If he could ever analyse his condition and cure it, that was the place to do it. He would have to sneak in after school.

For now, Timothy hid himself in the bush land beside the school. He read the novel on the school reading list, which was still in his bag, and ate his packed lunch. After school, he waited until everyone had gone, and then snuck into the science laboratories. Mrs Long was the science and mathematics and singing teacher, but he doubted he would get sympathy from her. He had taken her food without permission, which he realised was wrong. She would be unlikely to support his endeavour to use the science laboratories after hours, and he would feel a spanking all the more, now that he had lost a foot in height.

She was Mrs Long, and he was becoming Mr Shorter, he briefly mused, which took some of the edge out of the nature of his condition. Timothy began rifling through some text books on nutrition, growth, and then the more complex material. Some of it was simply too difficult for a 6th grader to comprehend, and he found nothing that would explain his sudden reduction in size. (On Earth-B, the conditions which caused it were not the same as those which 29 chapters of developments have uncovered on Earth-A).

Timothy realised that he could not go home either. His condition had to be hidden from everyone. The boy could do nothing but run to the nearest shopping centre, where he would not be recognised, spend his entire week’s allowance on food supplies and then return to the bushes beside the school.

The next morning, he awoke in the undergrowth where he had slept, except that he found himself with more room to move. He stood up beside his backpack to find that it was taller than him. He was now only a foot tall!

“How much longer (or shorter) is this going to go on?” he wondered.

If he continued to shrink, he would no longer be remotely considered a member of regular society. There was one advantage. His food supplies would now last indefinitely, and after that, well he just didn’t know how small he’d become. Timothy ate heartily and then resigned himself that the science laboratory would be no more help to someone who could no longer climb up onto the benches.  In fact, at only a foot in height, he would soon be down to a size where he would lose all contact with the school. Mrs Long was his science teacher. Maybe he could find a way to leave her a hypothetical note asking for help with a problem such as his. That was it!

He waited until school ended, and everyone had gone. Then he made his way to the classroom and took a piece of paper and pen from his own desk.

Dear Mrs Long,

If a person suddenly started reducing in size for no apparent reason, how would you try to solve the problem and get him back to normal size? Could you please leave your answer in a folded note on this desk?

Anonymous.

It didn’t occur to such a young boy that she might put the curious question together with his absence from classes and begin wondering about him. All he knew was that he had to get her help, and that she would be unlikely to help someone who had raided her lollies last year. He had begun to notice how beautiful she was, and regretted having made such a bad first impression in the days before he’d come of admiring age. Yet now his main priority was to keep from dwindling completely between anyone’s notice. While he could still climb, he took his remaining food supplies up to the top drawer of her desk, left the folded note to Mrs Long on the desk, and pulled the top drawer open. The bag of candies was still in there too, but he would not be touching that, except to use its soft pile of candy as a mattress. Timothy managed to pull the drawer almost completely shut from the inside, and hoped that Mrs Long would not notice the small opening. He would be close to any information she wrote in a reply, but remain unnoticed by her. He manoeuvred the bag of candy into a suitable shape and lay down on it for the night, having left his backpack in the bush.

In the morning he awoke to find that he was only six inches tall. He ate what he could of his remaining food supplies, and pulled the rest to the very back of the drawer, aware from memory that Mrs Long kept the candy bag at the front and didn’t open the drawer all the way when she wanted a lolly. All morning he waited and heard Mrs Long and the students arrive. He heard her teaching the lesson, and then saw the drawer open a little and her relatively giant sized fingers reach down for the bag.

“It’s a good thing she hasn’t found me,” he thought, “She might think that I hid in here to steal more of her lollies.”

At the end of the day, he heard everyone leave. He forced the drawer open a little way, climbed out, and lay down on the desk and pulled the drawer shut. Walking over the desk, he knew that he would not be able to open the drawer from the inside or the outside if he shrank again. He would need to hide on her desk.

“I’ll just have to wake up tomorrow, see how small I am, and hide in one of her things,” he thought.

Then he noticed a sheet of paper folded on the desk. He unfolded it and read:

Dear Anonymous (Student?/Teacher?),

I’ve never encountered a shrinking person before. I doubt that it’s even possible, so I couldn’t begin to discover a way to counter such a process. I wouldn’t worry about it,

Mrs Long.

So much for help, he thought. All he could do now was to make the most of his new life at tiny size. At least he would be close to the most beautiful person he’d ever met, though she wouldn’t know it. Timothy climbed into her tissue box and slept on the pile of tissues until the next morning.

Timothy awoke the next morning, a Friday, to find that he was only three inches tall. He examined Mrs Long’s belongings and found a large hardcover text book, which had space between the spine and the paper. Even when picked up and opened, it would leave him room to move. He slid into the free space and was able to peek out at Mrs Long all morning, while she taught the class.

During morning tea time, he noticed her take a plate of king prawns out of her bag and place it in the top drawer of the desk. She took one from the plate and swallowed it whole.

“I haven’t eaten for at least a day, and one of them would do me wonders!” he thought.

He waited until lunch time and noticed that Mrs Long left the room with the drawer open and the lolly bag now pushed to the back. He lay down on the edge of the desk, so that he could quickly seize a prawn before she returned. He would pay her back when he got his size back. It was a loan, not a theft, this time, and all he could do to survive. With his legs still on the table, he stretched down, and got his hands around the tail of a peeled prawn which was as large as himself. He did not realise that he had been steadily shrinking that day too, and was now only 2 ¼ inches tall. He struggled to pull the prawn up, and then overbalanced and fell into the pile on the plate. The prawns left a red and white marking on him, which quickly dried but wouldn’t come off.

Timothy found that he could not get back up to the desk. He kept sinking. Then he heard Mrs Long coming back. All he could do was hide himself amongst the prawns, at the bottom. Peeking between them, he looked up and saw Mrs Long take the plate from the drawer, put it on her desk and sit down and proceed to swallow one prawn after another whole.

There were only five prawns left on the plate when Mrs Long reached for him. She picked him up gently between her finger and thumb and opened her mouth wide in front of him. The sight was incredible. Her tongue had a part, but no gap in the middle, and curved up in an amazing pinkish red way on both sides of the part. The tip of her tongue was round, not pointed. She had clearly mistaken him for a prawn, and was even now placing him onto her tongue.

Timothy briefly thought of calling out to her, of telling her who he was, but dismissed the idea. She had given him a spanking for taking one of her lollies. Her giant hand could spank him a lot harder now for raiding her prawns. He could do nothing but go along with her plans for now. He lay on her tongue and felt even his head resting against the moist soft back of it.

“Mrs Long must like the taste of me,” he thought, “Unless I absorbed the taste of the prawns, I must taste like myself, which is different. Yet she hasn’t taken me out of her mouth. So she must be ready to eat me too soon.”

Suddenly he felt her tongue moving, and he slid into the top of her throat.

“Mrs Long is going to swallow me,” he thought, “I’m still big enough to make it a struggle for her to gulp me down, but her throat will prove to be much stronger than my shrunken body in the end.”

Mrs Long gulped heavily, and he couldn’t resist the pressure.

Just as he slid down a little, he had an idea.

“I can try to get into her lungs, while she’s gulping me down,” he thought, “I won’t go any further then, and I can reach out and help myself to small portions of whatever she’s swallowing from now on. I can live safely inside her forever and let her feed me.”

As he was drawn, inch by inch down her throat, he felt about, until he found the cavity that led into her lungs. Timothy made his way inside, and finally had the chance to grab the next prawn she swallowed and enjoy a lot of it, before letting the rest fall down her throat.

At the end of the day, Mrs Long began walking, and he realised that she would be taking him home, though she had no idea of it.

The next morning, he awoke and found that he had slightly more room to move in the cavity. He was now 1 ½ inches tall, though he could not have measured this for himself in the darkness of Mrs Long’s lungs.

He helped himself to whatever food came down her throat each day for the next two days, and was pleased to find that his shrinking had stabilized. He was not getting any smaller.

At the end of the Monday, he felt a sudden pressure all around him, thrusting him towards her throat.

“She’s coughing!” he thought, “She must have begun to notice me in here!”

He could not resist the power of Mrs Long’s coughs, and found himself sliding helplessly into her neck, up her throat and onto her tongue, and then out onto her hand.

“I knew by today that there was something alive in there,” she said, “You must be the student who wrote me that note, about shrinking… I recognise you now, Timothy.”

He told her the whole story.

“I wanted to tell you, when you were putting me into your mouth, Mrs Long, but I thought you’d be angry with me and spank me again.”

He looked around to see that she was sitting at her dinner table, presumably at home.

“No, I wouldn’t spank you for that. I don’t mind having you inside me, but it’s not comfortable having you in my lungs. Since you’re a bit smaller, than you were when you first went in, I should be able to gulp you all the way down to my tummy this time. You can be a nice dinner for me tomorrow. I’ll be glad to have you, little Timothy.”

“Oh. Well thank you Mrs Long. I was hoping you could help me grow back to full size again.”

“I just don’t know how,” she said, “I don’t know what caused you to get small in the first place.”

“Well could I stay here with you, so that you could look after me, Mrs Long? I think you’re a very beautiful teacher.”

“I didn’t realise you felt that way. I guess you’d be easy to take care of.”

She kissed him all of a sudden.

“Your lips are lovely, Mrs Long.”

“You’re very cute too,” she said, “I didn’t know what I’d do for company after my husband died, but this is certainly an interesting surprise. No wonder you’ve been missing school lately. Would you mind if I still did one thing fairly often though?”

“What would you like to do?”

“Lick you,” said Mrs Long, “That way I could enjoy the taste of you every night just before I go on to fill myself up with the meals I cook.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all, Mrs Long. I liked the look of your tongue when you put me in your mouth, and it felt very nice too.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Timothy. Thank you,” she said, and put out her big sparkling tongue.

It looked different outside her mouth, and felt absolutely magnificent as it slid slowly over his chest, his neck, his chin, his cheeks, and his forehead. All he could see was her tongue, and it was quite a sight indeed.

For the rest of the year Mrs Long looked after him by night, weekend s and holidays; and taught her classes in both the prep and high school buildings by day. In late January of the following year, Mrs Long sat down with him one morning.

“You’ve been a charming young boy, Timothy, and I’m pleased that you’ve come a long way since that candy stealing incident. I’ve enjoyed having you snuggled up to me every night.”

“I’ve enjoyed it very much too, Mrs Long,” he said, thinking back over months of cuddling against her cheeks, her neck, and even lying on her lower lip sometimes.

“I’ve enjoyed licking you even more,” said Mrs Long, “So much so that I’m beginning to feel rather disappointed that you didn’t take up my offer to have you in my tummy.”

“For you it would be a nice meal to enjoy, but for me … well I’d never be able to get out of it,” said Timothy.

“I know,” said Mrs Long, “But you’re the perfect size for it, and I just keep on thinking of it as something I’d very much like to do… to swallow you whole, Timothy. It’s never been done before.”

“I just wouldn’t want it myself though,” said Timothy.

“You don’t have any choice,” she said, “I’m going to take a picnic basket to the school gardens and eat you for my lunch today, a week before school goes back. You’ll just have to be eaten, whether you’re keen on the idea or not.”

She really meant it, he realised.

His crush on her had only grown stronger over time, but apparently so had her desire to eat him all up. Timothy watched as she prepared for the trip and took him to the car. He looked up from the basket on the passenger seat, where he lay on the rug, as she drove, with her face towering beside his position. The stern set of her lips was unmistakable. Her long white neck looked lovely and elegant, but it awaited him on the inside for a gulping appointment. Her tummy was soft and pleasant to look at on the outside, but he would soon be on the inside.

Mrs Long parked in the school and took his basket to a seat on the outskirts of the school gardens, just beside the bush. She placed the basket on the seat, and decided that the rug was unnecessary, lifted him up and licked him, and opened her mouth wide. He looked into her enormous open mouth at her tongue.

“Mrs Long, you punished me for stealing your food. How can you eat me like this?”

“There’s no law against it.”

“Only because nobody knows about me,” said Timothy.

“Nobody ever will,” said Mrs Long, “Timothy, you can’t possibly change my mind about this. Why not just accept it and it’ll soon be all over.”

“Alright,” he said, “Can I give you a goodbye kiss then?”

“Of course,” said Mrs Long.

She puckered her full lips and then closed her eyes. It was his only chance to act. Timothy jumped off the palm of her hand, launching himself sideways and grabbed onto her hair. Swinging over her shoulder, he landed in the soft plant life behind her seat and then ran for all he was worth.

“Did you even want that kiss at all?” she bellowed, “I’ll catch you and swallow you whole yet!”

Timothy had the advantage of many plants to hide him. Mrs Long searched for him until the sun began to set hours later, but he eluded her.

“Well you may have escaped, Timothy, but it’s over between us!”

With that she went home and left him there. He hid himself for days, using the rest of the holidays to sneak over to the high school. In the first week of term, he took a chance on befriending a pretty looking sweet blond haired girl named Jenny. She brought her dolls house to school and set him up deep in the bush, and took food to him each day after school. They became very close friends, and Jenny looked after him for three years. She was the only person he ever saw.

*          *          *          *

Over three years later, during the May holidays, he found himself having dreams of Mrs Long kissing him. (Back on Earth-A, Timothy-A had dreamt of finding Mrs Long in a giant land, as recounted earlier, only to learn later that he was in fact having a real but temporary encounter. To Timothy-B, this really was just a dream). The dream made him recall Mrs Long and miss the kisses. If only he could see her again, from a safe distance, he thought.

He decided to take a chance on walking into the school grounds one day. He stayed on the outskirts, where he could be well concealed. He reached the gardens beside the school’s outdoor swimming pool for the prep students and was about to go further, when he saw something which took his breath away.

Mrs Long came walking out of the change room in a swimming costume. She was still the most beautiful giantess in what had become a world of giantesses to him. At his current onset of adolescence, he had been unable to deny his original feelings for Mrs Long, despite her attempt to eat him, and the dream had helped it along.

He watched in awe as she strode slowly towards the pool and stood on the diving board. He watched as she dived gracefully but powerfully into the water and glided along under the water and surfaced near the other end. Her powerful shoulders were well visible as she began to swim laps of the pool. Finally she climbed out of the pool and lay down on the grass just near the plants that concealed him.

Timothy looked at her magnificent body, and again at her magnificent mouth.

“She’s extraordinary and unmarried and originally my teacher. It’s not wrong for me to be in love with her like this. Yet I can never be with her, or she’d eat me.”

Timothy then noticed something that he had never been aware of when he was in her prep school classes. Mrs Long had round shapely breasts, large enough to meet each other in the middle and touch tightly. He had touched her lips and her tongue, even touched it from inside her mouth. Yet he had never touched her breasts.

The sight of her captivating beauty had made him incredibly careless and thoughtless of the dangerous intentions she had once held for him. He was still aware that she wanted to eat him, but he nonetheless edged closer to a visible position, while she lay on the grass. He looked at her lips, her breasts, her shoulders and upper arms, admiring everything about her. She was twenty years older than him, had been happily married for years, was a teacher, a full sized woman, an excellent swimmer and completely unconcerned about the ramifications of eating him all up for a meal.

Suddenly their eyes met, and he realised that he had been extremely reckless.

“Peter!” she said, and got up into a crawling position.

“Hello,” he said, backing away into the garden.

“It’s been quite a while,” said Mrs Long.

She crawled towards him, and reached for him with her hand. He dodged it a few times, and eventually found himself enclosed in her powerful fingers.

“Did you start to miss me?” she asked gently.

“I dreamed about you, and I missed what I remembered of you, but I noticed how beautiful your chest is too, when I saw you today.”

The flattery was not going to help him in the long run, but he had to tell her of these new feelings too. There was nothing to be gained by denying her a sincere compliment.

“Would you like to touch it?” she asked, sitting up.

“Oh yes,” said Timothy.

“Here you go,” said Mrs Long, and gently slid him down between her breasts.

It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He could look up at her neck or down at her tummy, but this position itself was one he would happily have lain in every night with her, if her intentions had been willing to accommodate it. Mrs Long lay down on her back again and let him enjoy the feel of being there.

“I rather like having you there myself,” she said, “… at least for today.”

The additional half a sentence was clear in its warning to Timothy. She meant to eat him that night.

“It’s hard to have any regrets about coming back to see you, even though I know what’s coming,” he said.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” said Mrs Long.

“Without what’s ahead of me, I’d never have been in a position to have this time with you like this now.”

“I’d like to cook you this time … and have you for dinner,” she said, “I won’t burn you though.”

“Thank you,” said Timothy.

“Do they smell of chlorine?” she asked.

“A little bit,” said Timothy.

“Let’s go into the shower,” said Mrs Long.

She took him into the change rooms, towards the showers and set him on a high soap rack, which was level with her breasts. He watched the water running over her shoulders, her breasts and her swimming costume. Finally she dried off her arms and legs.

“I’ll need to change back into my dress,” she said, “I can’t dry the swimmers now.”

“If you leave me here, I won’t be able to get down from this rack while you have your privacy,” said Timothy.

“You’re such a young gentleman,” she said, and leaned down and kissed him before leaving the shower cubicle.

Soon she came back wearing her dress and took him home. They spent the rest of the day lying in her bed together, while he enjoyed exploring the tops of her breasts and her upper body in general. She gave him several giant kisses and then took him to the kitchen an hour after sunset.

Mrs Long put him into the oven and left him there for a short time before she took him to the dining table. She looked ravishing in her grand long dress, as she sat down at the table, serving him on the plate as though he were any other morsel of food put there purely for her dining pleasure.

“Do you have any last words?” she asked, the stern tone suddenly back in her voice.

“Thank you for today,” he said.

“Thank you for coming back to see me,” said Mrs Long, “Now I’m going to gobble you all up.”

She placed him gently into her mouth and left it open for him to look at the tongue on which he lay. It had been more than three years since they’d last seen each other, and more than five years since they’d first met, but she had him dead to any possibility of running from her now, and he wondered if he could ever escape her, now that he was inside her mouth and awaiting her final gulps. He was slightly taller than before, from the normal process of growing up over the last few years, but two inches was nothing compared to the power of Mrs Long’s mouth and her gulping throat. He lay on her tongue and made the most of the feel of it.

Mrs Long’s mouth opened around him, and he could see the back of her tongue again, lit up beautifully.

“Thank goodness she’s decided to let me out,” he thought.

“Ah,” said Mrs Long.

The sound came up from her throat, and then her tongue began moving. He felt his legs rising behind him, pushed upwards by the front of her tongue. In fact his whole body was sloping. She did it ever so slowly, but he felt himself beginning to slide towards her throat.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he thought, “There’s absolutely no traction on her soft moist slippery tongue!”

He knew that Mrs Long was simply enjoying herself, toying with him for her own amusement and savouring every moment of his helplessness. He realised now that she had opened her mouth, so that he could see every second of the enactment of his demise. He could only play along and leave her to it.

Ever so slowly, Timothy slid towards Mrs Long’s throat, until the top half of his body was dangling down into it in a vertical position. Mrs Long continued drawing him in, until his whole body was in the top of her throat.

“Darling!” he called, “I love you! I’ll marry you when I’m old enough! It would be something unique and different from your first marriage, if you-“

Suddenly he felt an enormous gulp around him, and he slid down her throat a fair way, past the entrance to her lungs. This time there was no way back. No doubt she had heard his offer and timed her gulp as a taunting response. There was no point in saying anything else. He waited for the next gulp, and was soon carried further and further down … to her tummy.

When second term of school began, another of her long term students, who was in the same year as Timothy ever since prep school, headed to school one morning. His name was Raymond, and he was convinced of one thing. He had lost a foot in height since he left the house for school. Raymond waited in the school car park, until he saw Mrs Long arrive, and then told her what had happened.

“Come to think of it, you do look a bit shorter,” she said, “I only know of one other case of this.”

“Do you know how to fix it?” asked Raymond.

“As far as I know it’s irreversible,” said Mrs Long, “You’ll get smaller every day for a few days, and stop shrinking when you’re around two inches tall. I know it’s a shock to the system, but would you like to come over for dinner tonight? It would be nice to have a few dates with you, while you’ve still got some height left.”

“I … I would like that,” said Raymond.

“Well don’t go into school today. Take a walk and enjoy your lunch. I’ll meet you near the bush at 3:30 and drive you to my place.”

Mrs Long picked him up at the end of the day and took him home to have dinner with her. She cooked a nice meal and served it for them.

“You can stay here indefinitely,” she said, “I’ll keep your condition a secret.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Raymond.

“Just say you’ll dance with me after we’ve eaten,” said Mrs Long.

Raymond finished his dinner and then accompanied her to the living room. Mrs Long put on some soft music, and took him in her arms. He was only four foot tall now, and didn’t even come up to her neck. He rested his head against her upper arm and slowly moved around the dance floor with her.

“By next week you’ll be no bigger than my lips,” said Mrs Long, “I’d really like to do this tonight.”

She kissed him passionately on the lips. It was a magnificent experience, in spite of what he knew was ahead of him: a life as a tiny mite.

“Would you like to lie beside me in bed tonight?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Raymond.

Mrs Long went to change into her night dress, and then invited him into her bedroom. He got in and felt the luxurious sheets resting over his body and the soft touch of her own body against him as she lay down and pulled him close to her. After a while, she lay down on top of him and let her cheek meet his, while her legs left his behind with her greater height.

In the morning he awoke to find himself only three feet tall. Each day she would leave him at her house while she went out to school and then spend the afternoon and evening with a slightly smaller Raymond. Eventually he was only one foot tall. It was a Sunday, so she didn’t need to go to school. She took him out of the bed and put him on the floor and stood in front of him. Raymond moved forwards and put his arms around her lower leg and hugged it, feeling the soft curvature of her skin between her knee and her ankle. It was larger than his whole body.

At dinner time, Mrs Long took him into the kitchen and lifted him up onto the kitchen bench, and began to whip some cream in a bowl in front of him.

“How would you like me to put you into this with some strawberries, and then eat them and lick you clean?” she asked, smiling in an exciting way.

“Wow!” he said, “We can do things that otherwise would not be possible.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then,” she said, and picked him up in one hand and lowered him into the cream.

“Oh!” he said.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to bite your head off.”

“I know. It was just a bit cold, until I had a few seconds to get used to it.”

“I’d better serve it with some herbal tea to warm up my tongue for you then,” said Mrs Long.

She dropped several strawberries into the bowl and stirred them around, making sure that he remained in the middle. Then she took the bowl to the dining table.

“I’ll just go and get the main course,” she said, “You nibble a strawberry if you like.”

He indulged himself in an abundance of tasty fruit and then watched Mrs Long eating her main course.

Then she dipped her dessert spoon into the bowl and spooned a creamy strawberry onto her tongue. It was quite a sight to behold, knowing that her tongue would soon be licking whipped cream from his body.

When all of the strawberries had been eaten, she lifted him out with both hands and placed him on a spare plate that she had brought out. He looked up in awe as she licked each of her fingers clean first, and then she picked the plate up by the edge with both hands, and raised it in front of her chin. Mrs Long put out her tongue and began to lick the cream from him. The more cream she removed, the closer the contact with her tongue became for him. She took several sips of warm herbal tea, and then began licking again. Now he felt her tongue sliding over his body itself and enjoyed it immensely.

She continued until he was completely devoid of cream and licked him several more times, before leaving him sitting upright on the plate. He lay back down and looked up at her in admiration.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“That was so thrilling, Mrs Long. Even when I first learned of my condition, I had no idea that you would do this for me.”

“I did it for me too,” she said, “You should be down to two inches in another two days. Then you can play a more interesting role. You’ve had your fun as my toy boy. Soon you’ll be a main course. I’m going to gobble you whole, Raymond.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to Timothy Scribener? That’s how serious I am,” she said, getting up and taking him to her bedroom and lying down on her bed, placing him on her stomach, “Would you like to squeeze my chest with all your might? You might as well do it while you still have the opportunity.”

He took advantage of that compensation and then snuggled against Mrs Long’s cheek until she fell asleep. In the morning he awoke at three inches tall. She got dressed for school, put him on the floor and warned him that he could not hope to reach the door handle. She closed the door and soon returned with some food to keep him stocked for the day.

She did the same thing the next day, when he was two inches tall, suggesting that he might like to spend the day finding a suitable hiding spot in the bedroom. She came home and searched for him and found him and took him to the kitchen, warmed him in the oven and took him to the table.
Mrs Long sat down happily and licked and ate him.