“It can’t be that hard really?” he thought, “Guys have always asked girls to go steady with them. If anything was unusually difficult, it was her task of asking me to be experimented upon, reduced and eaten. Yet she found the confidence to do it quite coldly and objectively. But then she had an advantage. She dressed the whole request up as a job interview. I can’t think of a suitable gimmick to aid me in delivering my own proposition. What does she like about me? What has she always liked about me? Of course! My sense of humour. I just need to work some into a romantic speech. How about this: Do you, Colleen, take this man, to have and to hold, until you find a way to reduce his size and eat him, and then enjoy the memory of a delicious meal, for as long as you shall go on living without him?”

He felt elated at the newfound confidence which accompanied this idea, and watched the visual distortion effect of the surrounding light begin to clear. He would take her in his arms, guide her to the couch and declare his undying love for her.

Patrick noticed two tall pillars in front of him. They stood on black platforms.

Had she been moving the furniture, while he was in the path of the light beam?

Then he looked more closely at the platforms.

They were shoes!

He followed the pillars with his eyes, and focussed more clearly on them.

They were Colleen’s legs!

His head stood level with the first visible parts of the legs, just above the shoes. He was one and a half inches tall.

He looked up further, to where her long skirt covered her knees and the top half of her shins. It was like looking at the top of a house, in terms of how far he had to crane his head back.

He looked a little more, leaning right back, and stepping back as well, and saw the line of the skirt going up to her waist, bordered on each side by her unbuttoned lab coat.

Her hands were in the pockets of the lab coat. He looked beyond the waist, and saw her blouse covering her immense stomach.

The implications were not lost on him.

Still surprised by the sudden success of this latest test, he looked up at her blouse and saw her firm breasts pushing against the top of the blouse.

High in the distance, he could see her soft neck, which decorated the throat which had longed to swallow him.

Looking up still further, he saw her face: her beautiful lips, her rich cheeks, and her powerful eyes. Her towering hair fell adorably about this magnificently large face.

He concentrated on the lips, and saw them smiling at her success.

Colleen slowly took her hands out of her pockets, and knelt down enough to be able to reach him. 

He saw her hand coming towards him. It looked more arousing than it ever had before.

He stepped towards her hand.

“It’s alright. Let me do it for you,” she said calmly, and enclosed him in her fingers.

He thought back to the first time he had fantasized about this in his bed, and enjoyed the feel of those fingers, with their puffy white segments pressing against his own flesh. He had no idea that Colleen could have shrunken him at any time during their days and weeks of testing. She had let the suspense build up. He was driven wild with the realisations of all that this meant. There seemed little or no point in mentioning his desire to go steady now. The dynamics of their relationship had just changed, as no relationship’s dynamics had ever been altered before.

“I’ll get back up slowly,” she said, “Let me know if you feel any vertigo.”

He never even thought to look down. All of her most engaging features (and the promises they represented for his future) were all in positions which involved the need for him to look upwards.

“It’s OK so far,” he said, as she slowly rose to her feet. Now she was holding him in her hand, and it was held out in front of her body. He was roughly level with the bottom of her breasts.

She began to raise her hand some more. He stared in wonder, as the top of her breasts came slowly into view. She had been wearing old fashioned dresses of centuries past in the privacy of her mansion, as he had responded with many compliments to the first one she’d worn for him.

Now he saw her radiant cleavage spread before him like a human mountain which simply must be climbed.

“You’ve done it!” he said, “Colleen, you’re absolutely wonderfully brilliant! You’re the most amazing woman in the world!”

“Thank you, Patrick. We’ll get to the final aspects of your job description in due course, but would you like to get comfortable in that area of me you’ve just been watching closely?”

“Yes please!” said Patrick, “I’d love to!”

She walked to the large couch, sat on it, and put him gently onto her right breast.

He climbed down between them, and felt the pressure of both breasts pressing against him.

“Is this nice for you too?” he asked.

“It is actually. I wondered what it would be like. You’re really quite stimulating, Patrick.”

She’d never thought to do this with Stanley, and Henry would have been too young.

He climbed up onto her left breast, and lay down on it.

“We’ve already talked about your downward journey on the inside of me,” said Colleen, “Would you like to make an upward climb on the outside?”

“It would be marvellous,” said Patrick, and began slowly crawling up her well exposed neckline, until he reached the base of her neck. She leaned back on the couch, lying down with her head resting against the side of it. He climbed slowly up her neck, rubbing his whole body against the smooth flesh which covered the tunnel to her stomach.”

He stopped halfway up her neck.

“I know you don’t have anything in your mouth right now, but could you do some gulping anyway?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Patrick, “It will give me a chance to know how it looks and feels from this side.

He felt her flesh moving against him, as her throat undulated with every arousing movement she made. He looked down at the base of her neck, and imagined himself sliding down inside it, to her stomach.

It was no longer an idle speculation or an unfulfilled fantasy, which could only be simulated in his mind. Now it was the reality of his future. That neck would gulp him down.

He reached the top of her neck, and she leaned back further, so that her head rested horizontally, allowing him to climb up onto her chin. He sat on it and stroked her lower lip in admiration.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful view to see you like this, and the feel of you as a giant is so wonderful,” he said.

“You’ve become quite a convert,” said Colleen, “I haven’t forgotten your initial reaction to this.”

“I’d be missing this now, if you’d found someone else first,” he said, “When will we be doing the final parts of the job specification?” 

“Not tonight, Patrick. I’m sure you’d like a night in bed with me at that size, before I start the Corporate Restructure.”

“It would be even better if you turned on the central heating, and gave me a night ON the bed with you at this size,” he said.

“I’m sure I can manage that,” said Colleen, “We can continue this physical development then if you like.”

She took him for a walk in the garden, as the sun began to set. They had spent the morning doing all the usual adjustments and recalibrations of the machine actually amounted to nothing but a floorshow for his benefit, and then begun the lengthy test. All of her pretence of working on the machine had created a lot of suspense in the boy, who believed he had been working towards a scientific discovery, with a possibility of being eaten, when in fact she had guaranteed the likelihood of it before they’d even met.

She sat on a hammock on the veranda, and let him rest gently in the palm of her hand, which rested in her lap, while she rocked in the hammock. They both looked out at the garden.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes. We’re usually too busy to spend any time out here in the afternoons.”

“I’ll have lots more time for that now,” she said.

Something about that last sentence had a sobering effect on him, for the first time since he had left her first interview and found himself lost in fantasy at the back of the train carriage.

He went over those last words in his mind: “I’ll have lots more time for that now… I’ll have lots more time… I’ll … I’ll … I’ll!”

He turned his head from the garden and looked up at her high face. There was a new contentment in her eyes. She had completed the pinnacle of her lengthy research. He was now successfully reduced. She had no more anxieties about perfecting the machine. She was going to eat him, and spend more time on that hammock alone, recollecting the pleasure he had finally been small enough to afford her.

And he wouldn’t!

It was mind boggling, to say the least!

Yet this was what he had waited for. This was what he had come to realise after weeks of solo fantasy without her. What made the fantasy and all of the physical manifestations (now possible at this size) so arousing was the knowledge that she was going to permanently eat him. She was going to derive a pleasing delicious meal, with all of her previously enjoyed wealth still available to her after the experience had concluded. She was going to continue as a successful company director living in the comforts with which she had surrounded herself.

And he was not!

The look of satisfaction on her face showed a complete detachment from the significant changes for him, involved in his impending situation. Yet it also showed an awareness of the inevitability of these changes. Knowing that all of these thoughts were factored into her contented look somehow aroused Patrick even more than before.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“It would be so much more arousing to hear you tell me about what you’re going to do with me all over again, but now that I’m at this size. It has so much more significance, now that it’s not just a distant possibility dependant on the outcome of tests.”

“Alright then,” said Colleen, and sat him on her breasts and smiled down at him, “At dinner time tomorrow, I’m going to present you on my dining table, where you’ve sat with me many times for meals we’ve BOTH enjoyed together. I’m going to pick you up and lick you many times. Then I’m going to put you inside my mouth. I’m going to close my mouth and let you get familiar with the fact that you’re on a one way trip. After you’ve rolled around on my tongue for a while, I’m going to slide you into my throat. Then, as you look up at the last vestige of light, thinking of my continued existence in the world outside, I’m going to concentrate on your own thoughts, as you face the very real and certain prospect of being gulped down into my stomach forever. Then I am going to carry out that promise and swallow you whole. I will revel in the fact that you have given yourself to my experiments with a distant surreal consideration of this possibility and now come to see it as an imminent reality. Eventually, I will remind myself of the most defining moment of my triumph: namely the look on your face, when you saw that it had finally worked this afternoon.”

“Oh Colleen, you’re driving me off the scale.”

That night, he watched every arousing aspect of Colleen serving and eating dinner, from his new dramatically different vantage point on the dining table itself. Every movement of her tongue, her lips, her hands, her neck, her occasionally heaving breasts’ and her stomach at his own eye level added to his excitement. It all contributed to the ultimate preview for what she would be doing to him the following night.

She took him to bed early that night, so that they would not fall asleep until they had indulged in each other’s presence for a long time.

He resumed his position on her breasts, this time as she lay on her back on the bed, and enjoyed the heaving of the huge spheres of her magnificent bosom below his body. Then he made the horizontal journey to her neck and onto her chin again. He again stroked her lower lip, and enjoyed looking down into her mouth as she spoke.

Then Colleen lay with her head on her side and he lay on her cheek and looked down at her lips, and at her body. Then she lay back again, facing the ceiling. He lay on her lower lip. Occasionally, she would slightly open her mouth, being careful not to shake him off. He felt her tongue coming up and rubbing against his side and the side of his face.

“I’m honoured as always,” she said, and he jumped down onto the pillow beside her head. She moved her lips closer to him and gave him a long and satisfying giant kiss.

“We can talk ourselves to sleep now,” she said.

She left the reading lamp on for the night, and he enjoyed watching every movement of her lips and neck as she spoke. When she pronounced the rounder vowels of certain words, he stared in at her tongue in admiration of its plans for him.

They fell asleep for a few hours. He awoke to see that it was 12:40 in the middle of the night.

“I’ve been awake for about 10 minutes myself,” said Colleen.

“Darling, could you do something for me?” he asked.

“What?”

“Do you think you’d be able to stay awake for half an hour, so I could climb into your mouth and lie against your tongue for a while?”

“I’d love to,” she said.

He slid across her lower lip, and felt the touch of her tongue against his whole body this time. It was amazing, being inside that mouth, looking out at the pillow and bedroom when she sometimes parted her lips and teeth, and thinking of the throat which awaited behind him during her next evening meal.

He eventually waited for the next time her mouth opened, and called out, “Can you keep your teeth apart now, so I can climb out?”

She could not answer the question, with him on her tongue corrupting her speech patterns, but he saw her mouth opening wide around him. Her tongue pushed against the inside of her lower lip, so that he would not have to slide over her teeth. He slid himself slowly out onto the pillow.

“That was lovely!” he said.

“You’re welcome. It was quite a way to whet my appetite for tomorrow night too,” she said.

He lay against her neck this time, and they talked again, until they both fell asleep.

In the morning, she slept in. Without being able to talk to her, he could only daydream.

He thought of the dinner plans which awaited him, the new destiny inside her stomach, and the life she would continue to lead later.

And then he remembered his original plan of going steady with her.

He climbed up and pulled at her cheek.

“Oh,” she stirred, “Did you want something, Patrick?”

“In all the excitement I forgot to tell you something. I was planning to ask you to go steady with me yesterday afternoon.”

“Really? That was very sweet of you.”

“I’d still like you to keep the memories of our dates, even after I’m gone,” he said.

“Thank you. I will. I’ll always treasure them, Patrick.”

They were both silent for a few minutes.

“Colleen?” he said at last.

“Yes Patrick.”

“Do you think you’ll go out with anyone after this?”

“Does that have any importance to you? You’ll be playing an entirely different role, Patrick.”

“I’m just curious, I guess.”

“Well I might.”

“Would you have accepted my invitation, if yesterday’s test hadn’t worked?”

She turned her head in the bed, looking up at the ceiling, so that her cheek was now visible to him, and rubbed the top of her head, stroking hair out of the way on the back of the pillow.

“I’d have accepted, but we’d have had to keep extending the arrangement until the experiment testing successfully reduced your size. I have had boyfriends before. How about you?”

“There was never anyone before you.”

“That’s good, Patrick,” she said, turning her head back to kiss him affectionately, “I will feel much happier, to be sure of that, when I’m gobbling you down tonight. I don’t know why I never thought to ask it before.”

Colleen drew her head back a few inches and yawned widely in front of him. It gave him a new arousing view of her tongue, with her lips stretched out in the yawning position. He could well have dived into her mouth right then.

“I’m still so drowsy, darling. We’ve got all day until it’s time to do it. Just make yourself comfortable, while I get some more sleep.”

Patrick was far too hyped up to possibly drop off again now. He lay awake on the bed and began to process everything she had said. It was the first chance he’d had to think, without communicating with her wakening self. He realised that she had returned his affections, and so cultivated an even greater willingness in him to submit to her tests, the eventual successful reduction and the dinner engagement which awaited him that evening.

He had certainly connected with her purely in the context of the wild fantasy she had aroused in him. But he had also fixed his affections on her in a permanent way. She had just expressed the fact that she would have humoured every desire of his, and enjoyed doing so. On top of the unique and costly pleasure she would gain from him, she would have all of the normal aspects of a long life to look forward to. 

She had asked him at the first interview, if he had found her beautiful. He had confirmed it. Since then, she had played on his affections to guarantee his willingness to play the role that she had sought from someone. That very night she was going to go through with it, and she had not even been concerned with sparing his feelings about the likelihood of her giving her affections to someone else, without exacting the same costly commitment from that someone else.

He reviewed all these facts in his mind again, sometimes looking at her beautiful sleeping form to complement the growing awareness of the inner workings of her mind, and at other times closing his eyes and recalling the gorgeous radiant beauty of her relaxed expression on the hammock the day before, again with his new understanding of her thought processes combined in his mind with that image.

“It’s not fair,” he suddenly realised, “She knew I couldn’t help but be lured by the whole thing, and yet she never even considered me as being a long-term boyfriend for her. She knew I was just a boy a few months ago. She dressed this dinner arrangement up as the ultimate thrill, and it certainly is. But I’ve grown up a lot in the last few months. I want more. I want some way to have this thrill, and yet still survive to convince her to stay with me after the thrill has been enjoyed. There’s no way I can think of to do that now, but I have to delay our dinner date, until I can think of such a way.”

He looked across at her sleeping form again.

Colleen had planned all of this for many years, and dedicated years of scientific research to making it possible.

She would never give him what he wanted, even if it became possible somehow. For her, a significant part of the encounter (in fact the same significant part that aroused him for so long) was the inescapable nature of the dinner date that she had prepared him for. The more he wanted to escape, the more she would want him to be inside her stomach facing the fact that he would not be able to avoid it.

He knew what he was walking away from, knew it far more clearly than he had known when he had walked out of the first interview. Yet he had to walk away. His only chance was while she slept.

He slid gently off the pillow, being sure not to wake her, and walked to the edge of the bed. He looked down at the floor. The fall was nothing trivial.

He stared down, trying to think of a way to get down without becoming a human splat.

“Trying to give reign to your second thoughts?” came her voice behind him.

He spun around and saw her fingers approaching.

“Keep back!” he said.

She stopped advancing her hand, but did not withdraw it.

“There’s no way down the side of the bed,” she said, “The sheets are tucked in tightly. So is the blanket. I thought you’d begun to take in the full significance of this, when you were so silent on the hammock for a while yesterday. I was sure, when you asked me about going steady. There’s no resignation from this employment, Patrick. You have the rest of the day to remain in anticipation of the fact that you’re going to be my dinner.”

“Get your hand back, or I’ll jump off!”

“And hit the ground?” she laughed, “You won’t survive that.”

“I won’t survive forever in your stomach either, but I now fully understand how much you’ve been looking forward to having me in there aware of that fact. If I go over, you lose that privilege forever.”

“You’re right,” she sighed, as her shapely shoulders shrugged beside the straps of her nightie, “So what’s the answer to this little stand-off?”

“I won’t jump, if you give me your word to give me a chance to get out and run for it.”

“You gave me YOUR word to complete the job I hired you for,” she said.

“So sue me.”

“I’d prefer to swallow you,” she said.

He thought about the height of everything in the room.

“Get out of the bed!” he said, “On the other side, of course.”

She moved away from him, and climbed out of the bed.

“What now?” she asked.

“Walk over to the window that’s on my side of the room, but don’t come near me.”

She did so.

“Good. Now open the window.”

She unlocked it and slid it up.

“Very well done, Colleen. Now walk back around to the far side of the bed.”

She made her way. She looked so adorable in her nightie. He felt a brief pang of guilt about turning on her like this. However, he had to think of his own continued existence.

“Now push the bed, until the pillow is as close to the window ledge as possible,” he said.

“Oh no,” she mused, “You don’t really think I’ll allow you to make a career change like that, do you?”

“Push, or I’ll jump!” he said, and made ready to do so.

He was bluffing, and didn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t willing to yield. He would never kill himself in such a way as to miss out on the enjoyable aspects of the fate she wanted to inflict on him. He had to count on her immediate fear of losing that aspect of the encounter.

“Alright,” she said, “But you’ll be shaken off. Move in just a little bit, not nearly far enough for me to reach you, but just enough to make sure you don’t get knocked off.”

“Thanks for that,” he said, and did so.

As she began to push, he realised that the wall would cut off his suicide opportunity.

He ran past the pillow to the back of the bed, and looked through the posts. There would still be a chance to convince her he could kill himself, if she made it necessary.

He watched her powerful body pushing the bed. When it was up against the wall, he saw that the pillow was still six inches from the edge of the bed and the window ledge.

“Now stay out of the bed, but lean over and push the pillow right up against the wall,” he said.

Colleen complied.

“Good! Now keep back,” he said, and climbed up onto the pillow.

“You’re quite a little engineer of sorts,” she said, “But what now?”

He was now easily able to climb from the pillow onto the window ledge and repeat his threat to jump, only out the window this time.

He quickly pivoted his head, looked out the window, and then turned back to make sure that Colleen hadn’t moved.

He was strangely enjoying the way he was commanding this full sized woman in her own house, where she theoretically had all the advantages. She was so close, almost within striking distance of him, and yet he was using himself as a hostage to keep her in line. He hoped he would live to restore his size and write about this experience. It could sell as the most original cliff hanger scene.

“Hadn’t really thought that far, had you?” she said.

“I have now,” said Patrick. He moved across to the outside window ledge, and got as far from the pillow end as possible.

“Now, Colleen, very slowly and carefully, I want you to lie on the bed, on your stomach, to limit your movements as much as possible. Pull the pillowslip off the pillow. Then dangle it out of the pillow’s end of the window. I’ll be watching you closely. If you make the slightest move to grab me, I’ll jump off. Close the window, so that the pillowslip is jammed in it at your end. Lock the window. Once I’ve seen you do that, I want to look through the pane and see you move to the far side of the room. Only then will I slide down the pillowslip and onto the garden bed and run for my life.”

“You’re reneging on a contract,” she said, “We shook hands, even fingers and tongue, remember?”

“I did civics at school,” he answered, “Unconscionable contracts are not legally binding.”

“You still gave me your word,” she said.

“Which you got me to do after creating a situation where I couldn’t possibly think clearly,” he said.

“An engineer and a lawyer!” she marvelled, “I do admire you all the more for this, but you know I have to make sure you can never develop either of those careers, Patrick. Alright, I’ll give you the chance you’ve succeeded in forcing from me. Once you’ve descended that pillow case, you will have neutralized your own threat to jump. I’ll be outside looking for you in no time. I will catch you, and I will swallow you whole for my dinner tonight, Patrick!”

“You look so thrilling, when you assert yourself, Colleen.”

“Enjoy it while you can, my crafty little friend.”

He positioned himself on the outside location of best advantage, and watched Colleen edge across the bed. He looked at her breasts and neck as she lay on her stomach in her nightie. It was almost a sight sufficient to entice him to stay and await his original fate.

“What are you going to do about your size?” she asked, “I won’t let you get near the machine.”

“I don’t know. The first thing is to get away.”

“Do you think you’ll meet someone who’ll love you at that size?”

“Would you, if it was the only way to keep me from jumping?”

“You know you can’t trust my word, now that you’ve broken yours.”

“True. I doubt I’ll get over you any time soon, but I have to try to escape. What else have I got otherwise except the shortest and greatest thrill of all?”

“Well good luck,” she said, as she positioned the pillowslip, “I don’t think I’m going to need it. I won’t punish you, when I catch you. I’m going to enjoy eating you all the more, knowing the lengths you’d use to avoid it.”

“May the best man or woman win,” he said.

She closed the window on the top of the pillowslip, and he looked up at her locking the window from the inside. Then she turned and walked away. He ran along the window ledge, and saw her standing on the far side of the room.

She waved adorably at him. It was a thrilling gesture at least. He slid down the pillowslip and ran into the undergrowth.

In less than half a minute, Colleen stepped out of the house, onto a path and headed in his direction. He used the larger plants for cover, and kept running.

He eluded her until he came to the lawn, and was delighted at what he saw on the other side. There was another hammock. Its legs met at the top, which almost touched the fence which separated her property from the open hillside. There were several holes for bolts all the way up the legs, holes which hadn’t been used, he remembered in the hammock he had been riding on in her hand the day before. Maybe there would be in this one too.

He had to cross the lawn, climb the holes like a ladder, and get onto the fence. Maybe then he could find something on the other side to aid his safe descent to the village.

Running straight across the lawn was out of the question. She would bridge the distance in a matter of seconds. He ran to the nearest flowerbed, and darted between flowers, heading for the next pathway.

He managed to stay out of sight, while Colleen continued searching garden beds in vain for him, until he finally reached the second hammock. He started climbing the hammock on the outside of the leg.

He was almost at the top, when he saw Colleen stand up and stretch her arms. He made it to the top, while she was not looking his way, and lay down flat on the top. He saw Colleen look around the garden, and then walk over to his hammock and sit down on it.

She looked out at the garden.

“I think this is a comfortable vantage point,” she said, “You’ve had me ferreting around in my plants for quite a while. It occurs to me, that you need to head in this direction, away from the house, to get away from me altogether. I doubt you’ll be able to do that without me spotting you from here eventually. But let’s continue as we are.”

Her body looked even more arousing in the night dress than it had looked on the other hammock in her laboratory clothes the day before.

He turned around and looked at the top of the fence. It was almost touching the hammock. He could easily take a running sideways jump and reach it. However, there was nothing to convey him to the ground on the other side.

He looked all around the hillside. A lemon tree reached the top of the fence.

If he could walk along the fence, he’d make it to the tree and climb down to the ground. He couldn’t do it until Colleen had given up and gone inside, or at least gone back on all fours to resume her search of the gardens. Otherwise she would see him before he could get to the lemon tree.

He lay down on his side and looked over the edge, peeking down at Colleen’s beautiful body. Her breasts were just below him. They would have broken his fall in the most erotic fashion, but subsequent developments would negate the value of that approach.

He could only wait.

Colleen decided to swing, and suddenly pushed back on the hammock. The unexpected movement jolted Patrick off the top of the hammock, and he fell down. When her breasts moved backwards with her swinging body, the lap of her long nightdress took the place of her breasts, and caught him like a safety net.

 “The best meals always land in your lap,” said Colleen, “Now that you’ve come from up there, it’s clear how you got as far as you did.”

She made no move to get up and carry him inside.

She stopped the movement of the hammock and sat in the same position as she had done the day before on the other hammock, and held him again in her hands, facing the house.

This time there was not only the contentment on her face, but also a satisfied look of conquest. She had hunted him and caught him by default.

“Are you really not angry with me at all?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? That chase you gave me was so much fun. I’ve planned this day many times, and I’d never thought to include it.”

“I guess you’re welcome,” he said.

“Your little escape attempt has not worked. I’ve caught you, and I’m going to swallow you down my throat and leave you to contemplate your time in my stomach. You’ve lost your willingness to comply with it, but I’m going to eat you all up anyway, Patrick! Let’s find out what you think of that,” she said.

He turned again and faced her stomach.

Eventually she took him inside for lunch, and then placed him on her laboratory desk. He watched her write up the records of the final successful test experiment, which again was merely a performance on her part. Then she went and sat in a window bay, let him rest between her breasts, and they watched the sun go down together.

“You’ll have to wait while I get dressed at last in one of those revealing period costumes you like so much,” she said, “And I know just the place for you to wait.”

She went to the pantry with him, took a large oval shaped serving plate, and set him gently down upon it. Then she picked up the plate in one hand and an even larger oval shaped glass dinner cover in her other hand. She took both to the dining room, and put the plate in her place at the table. She lowered the dinner dish slowly, saying, “See you soon, Patrick. There’s plenty of oxygen for you until I return. Just don’t use it up trying to lift the dish. You won’t budge it.”

As the glass dish surrounded him, he realised that he would never see her in that nightdress again. She walked away like a vision of mixed fantasy, destiny and danger.

He looked around the room. It was a very romantic setting. He had enjoyed so many meals there with her after work, never fully absorbing the fact that he would one day become her most significant meal.

He thought back over his entire life, spending only four minutes on the many years before he met her, and then another 12 minutes on the time he had spent with her.

Then he heard footsteps, and knew that she was coming. He prepared to enjoy the view of her walking towards him for the last time.

Into the room stepped Colleen, her magnificent body clad in a marvellous dress, which revealed so much up top, and only her lower legs and shoes at the bottom. She walked into the room, turned around in a slow full pirouette for him, allowing him to admire it from every angle.

Then she walked slowly to the table, and lifted the glass cover, and let it down on the space behind his dish.

“Do you like the dress?” she asked.

“It makes you look truly ravishing,” he said, “I can’t think of any more beautiful vision by whom I’d rather be eaten.”

“It cost a thousand dollars,” she said, “I bought it as soon as I learned you preferred me in these outfits. I saved it for tonight.”

“You bought it back then? You must have been very sure you’d reduce me eventually.”

“I told you that at the job interview. You should have had more confidence in me yourself, Patrick.”

“I’m sorry. I meant no aspersions on your brilliance, darling. You must be a successful inventor, to afford such dresses. I just find your early confidence even more thrilling, knowing that you went out and bought that dress just to make this night as special as possible for me.”

“I’m glad to do it, Patrick.”

She sat down at the table. Her torso towered in front of him. Her breasts were more inviting than ever. Yet he knew that he was headed elsewhere.

“Seeing you like this has just changed what I wish I could do,” he said.

“Tell me,” said Colleen, with renewed interest.

“Since this morning, I wished I could get my size back and be with you like that. Now I wish I could merely change your mind about eating me, but not get my size back. My greatest dream come true now would be to be your true love for the rest of our lives at this size. You look so breathtaking as a towering full sized woman.”

“That is truly a compliment, Patrick. You’ll get half your wish anyway. You’ll be able to be my true love at that size for a little while. You like window ledges. Why don’t you start on the middle floor’s window ledge? You can work your way up to the penthouse in a while.”

She placed him onto her left breast, and let him climb around on both of her breasts and lie on them, looking up at her neck and mouth and eyes for quite some time, as they talked together.

“Is that enough for your last time?” she asked.

“With you in this dress, I couldn’t improve on that, even if I could do it a million times,” he said.

“I’m glad you feel that way. The same applies to the rest of your job description. That’s what I told you the day we met,” she said.

“I know. It’s just not as easy to accept from my perspective.”

“I understand. That’s what makes this all the more exciting, for both of us. We’re going to start the main event now, Patrick.”

Her adorable fingers came close and lifted him from her breast up towards her mouth.

“When you’re crawling around in my stomach, when you’re thinking back over every moment we’ve shared together, Patrick … remember this kiss,” she said, and gave him a long slow and thrilling kiss.

Her lower lip was pressed against his entire face. He turned his cheeks in turn, to fully enjoy it, while he rested the palms of his hands against the reachable parts of her cheeks. 

“Thank you … Colleen,” he said, when she finally removed her lips and licked them.

“You are welcome,” she said at last, “And now comes the culinary part of our encounter.”

Colleen’s tongue came out of her mouth slowly, and extended fully in front of him and began to lick his body. It was like being enveloped by an exciting part of her which was at least as large as his entire body. She let the tongue protrude in front of him.

“You can give my tongue a hug if you like,” she said, and then extended it again.

“I’d like that very much,” said Patrick.

“Don’t worry. I’ve never dropped you, have I?” she said, “My hands will steady your feet.”

He wrapped his arms around her tongue, and pulled his face and body towards it.

After a minute of this, the tongue suddenly slid over his upper body and back into her mouth.

“Don’t worry. You’ll soon be in there with it,” she said.

That was the first thing she had said to savour her triumph, since the romantic dinner date had started.

“I know you want to enjoy my helplessness now,” he said, “I thought about trying to be as brave as possible, so that you don’t get that satisfaction, but (1) I’d be feigning courage, and you’d see straight through it, and (2) you’ve done so much to make this as enjoyable as possible for me, that the least I can do is let you know how fearful I am of the inevitable final outcome.”

“You don’t need to let me know,” she said, “I already know.”

Stanley’s reaction had awakened this aspect of enjoyment within her.

“As worried as I am, it doesn’t change the one constant factor in all this. I’m wildly in love with you, Colleen, and a large part of the abnormal extent of my feelings come from this very thing you’re going to do to me. It’s almost an ironic contradiction, isn’t it?”

“It makes sense to me,” said Colleen, “Everyone I interviewed said I was beautiful. All the others wrote me off as a nutjob. You’re the only one who loved me and gave me a chance to convince you otherwise. Knowing that makes me very fond of you too, but of course you know it won’t help you in the least.”

“It helps to be loved,” he said.

“I’m going to put you into my mouth now,” she said, “And I’ll give you plenty of time to lie on my tongue. When I do gulp you down, it will be without any warning. But while you’re lying there, try to visualize this: Think of me in 30 or 40 years time. Imagine me sitting out on one of those hammocks, looking back at the long life I’ve had. When you’ve got that scenario in your mind, concentrate on the knowledge, that whenever such a day comes, I will be looking back on tonight, and fondly recalling what I’m about to do to you. Think of me, contented, peaceful, remembering what I’ve done with you. Think of me having no regrets. Picture me there, with a few lines on my face, but with the same lips smiling at the recollections of tonight. Then picture me enjoying the recollections of all the intervening years to come, with an awareness of my having consigned you to my stomach, and with nothing but a greater contentment for having done so.”

Then she kissed him again.

“That’s for proving you weren’t merely pretending to want this as much as you could, while going along with the early terms of your employment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Well remember that image of my future self on the hammock, and I’ll say goodbye now, Patrick. Hold on tight, while you can. The ride’s just beginning.”

“Goodbye, Colleen. Could you yawn, as you put me into your mouth? It looked so fantastic in the bed, I just wanted to dive in there and then, in spite of everything.”

“I’ll enjoy it just as much. Alright then. This really is the last farewell, Patrick.”

“Thank you, and my last farewell, with all my love, Colleen.”

She opened her mouth in a wide silent yawn, and placed him onto her awaiting tongue.

He felt its sensuous moist form beneath him.

He turned over and over, and then settled on his stomach, facing the front of her mouth. He recalled her instruction, chose to honour it and envisioned the much older Colleen celebrating this night, many times in the future, seated on her hammock.

He lay like that for 35 minutes, although he was not able to count the time himself.

Suddenly her tongue arched upwards, and he could do nothing but slide down backwards into her throat. He stopped part of the way down, and then she performed as many movements as were necessary to complete his journey.

Colleen felt Patrick standing up on the fleshy interior of her stomach. She felt him take a few steps. She pictured his thoughts.

She imagined him recalling how close he had come to escaping her in the garden. She thought of him coming to terms with the fact that he was inside a woman’s stomach. She thought of him facing the fact that he could not possibly jump back up into the throat. She felt him pressing his hands against the inner wall of her stomach, and accurately guessed that he was satisfying himself that there was no possible escape through the pores of her skin. She felt him lie down to make himself as comfortable as possible. She accurately guessed that he was thinking: “This is it. There is simply no way out of here. She’s eaten me, and there’s no way to reverse it, no way to get out.”

“I’m sorry little meal,” she thought to herself, “but you’ll have to lie on the side of my stomach now, not the bottom.”

She went to her bedroom, and was about to push the bed back into place.

“On second thoughts,” she mused, “I think I’ll keep it in this position always from now on. It’s nice to have the pillow by the window, and it will forever remind me of his escape attempt.”

He had felt a bit of movement, and then remembered she had once told him she’d complete her enjoyment of having swallowed him, by going to her bedroom.

“I don’t know if you’ve worked out that we’ve changed rooms,” she thought, “But you’ll feel your world turning side on, until you adjust. I’ll be as slow and gentle about it as I can.”

She stood with her back to the bed at first, and sat back slowly on it. Then she began to gradually lean backwards, bracing herself with her arms resting on the bed.

She finally reached the horizontal position. Inside her, Patrick surmised what had happened, and lay down on the back wall of her stomach. She adjusted her direction in the bed, so that she now lay in the usual sleeping position, with her head on the pillow. Then she reached out and turned off the reading light. She had plunged herself into the same darkness which he had been facing for nearly an hour.

He felt strangely wonderful, to be lying down inside her, in her bed, only inches from the breasts he had lain on the night before, yet in a drastically different situation. In a way, it felt lovely to know that she was lying in her bed, aware of having just eaten him, aware of the life she still had ahead of her, outside of her own stomach, and no doubt stimulating her mind with these thoughts as well as with the feeling of his presence in her stomach. If only he could still talk to her, to tell her how he felt.

Then he realised he could.

He began tapping on the back wall of her stomach, in Morse code, using soft taps for dots and hard taps for dashes.

“If you can understand Morse code this way, pat your stomach once for yes.”

She received his message, going even wilder still with the news.

She patted her stomach. He felt the movement.

“You can do two pats for no, if I have any more yes/no questions,” he signalled, “You won’t have to imagine how it feels now, darling. I can tell you. It’s amazing. I’m here, inside you. You’ve eaten me, and you don’t mind. It’s driving me wild. I’m going to lie here and think of your future celebrations and recollections as you asked me to. I feel so happy at least, that you’re always going to remember eating me tonight and celebrate this event. By the way, I still love you even now, Colleen. You’ve done everything you said you would, forced specific performance of my employment contract. Are you going to stay awake for a while?”

She patted her stomach twice.

“It’s OK,” he said, “You’ll wake up in the morning after having dreams about tonight’s dinner, I suppose. I’m sure that will make you very happy.”

She patted her stomach once.

“Are you really enjoying this?”

She patted her stomach once.

“I am too now. I really don’t want to go on now, if it would have meant missing this. Are you disappointed that I’m not worried anymore?”

She patted her stomach twice.

“Are you happy, because you got to enjoy my worries and fear before?”

She patted her stomach once.

“Goodbye once more, my darling Colleen.”

“I didn’t even have to pay him any superannuation,” she thought, and smiled privately in the darkness.

She rolled over to the other side of the bed and lay awake in mental ecstasy for twenty minutes, before she fell asleep.