Colleen still wished very much, that she could have found and eaten a leprechaun. However, she found that she had greatly enjoyed the verbal reactions from Stanley and Patrick, when each of them had realised that there was nothing they could do to avoid what she had in mind for them Henry’s actions had also stimulated some thinking about what might happen in the future. He had been able to break into her house and discover her machine. The fact that its existence remained a secret kept from all but Frances Woodfield was due entirely to Henry’s willing use of the machine on himself to facilitate his voluntary journey to Colleen’s tummy. The other practical problem Colleen faced was the need to invite everyone she shrank to her home, in order to do it. Eventually, this pattern might well bring her under suspicion.

So, ever since she had swallowed Patrick, she had set about dealing with these concerns. Most of the machine’s apparent bulk was actually not in the mechanics of the machine itself, but upon the wheeled platform with which she had moved it from room to room. Now Colleen detached the unit from the platform, so that it was the size of a paperback novel, and adjusted the wiring, soldered some battery terminals to it, and inserted some rechargeable batteries. She would now be able to take the reducing machine with her in her handbag, and shrink anyone who took her fancy, at an appropriate time of privacy between her and the gentleman concerned. She could then either dine out in a secluded picnic location or bring her usually reluctant meals home and eat them in the confines and luxury of her own dining room.

While this had been happening, Frances Woodfield had continued teaching at the school, where she and Colleen had been colleagues and friends for years. One day after school, all of her year 10 students headed home, except for one, a 16 year old named Nathaniel. He had always been the best behaved person in the class, and gotten good marks in his three stronger subjects and done his best with the other three.

Nathaniel walked over and stood at her desk.

“Miss Woodfield, would you like to go for a picnic lunch with me on Saturday?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Yes, if it’s alright to ask that.”

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Do you have any favourite locations?”

“There’s a meadow up in the hills,” said Miss Woodfield, “If I draw you a little map now, could you meet me there at around 11:30?”

“Sure. I’ll bring everything. I’ve been saving up for this for months.”

Elsewhere, the school volleyball club were playing on a court after school. One of its players, Connor, had been doing his best to play well for the team captain Edith Kelson, since he’d been nursing a crush on her for a long time, and was having more of a struggle than Nathaniel to find a way to bring the subject up. She was tall and fast and consistently saved the scene, whenever he fumbled a shot or couldn’t reach in time. Connor didn’t feel demeaned, only all the more admiring of her.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” she called again, and darted in and slammed the ball over the net with a speed and force which took their opponents by surprise. They won the game and were heading back across the lawn to their separate change rooms, when Connor said, “Edith, would you like to go out with me?”

“I think I’d have more fun with my boyfriend,” she said, “But thanks for asking.”

She was soon striding ahead on her own and leaving him to ruminate.

How did she have a boyfriend, when he’d never seen her with anyone? It must have been someone who didn’t go to the same school. Oh well, at least he’d tried. Better to have asked and been turned down, than never to have asked and never to have known.

Frances headed out early in the morning on Saturday, and went through the meadow and up to visit Colleen. She told her about her date with Nathaniel, and they spent most of the morning together. When the time came, she walked down to the meadow, and saw that Nathaniel had already arrived, spread a rug, and put out some plates, cups and an assortment of food.

They ate and talked for some time, and eventually she saw Nathaniel leaning in to kiss her.

Frances withdrew her own head a little.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taken aback, “Was that a little more than you wanted?”

“No, it’s actually less than I wanted. Are you open to talking about it in absolute confidence?”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone anything you said. I’m so glad that you went on this date with me.”

“There are rumours, probably unfounded, that leprechauns live in this meadow, which is why I chose this spot. If you could become a leprechaun, or at least become the size of a leprechaun, and live with me forever at that size, I could lick your face and shoulders like a lollipop whenever I wanted, and nobody would know. Before I let you kiss me, I would like to know whether you would be happy to consent to such a development. Before you answer, I need your answer to be based not on an unlikely scenario but on the expectation that it could be a very real possibility.”

“It’s quite a matter to think about,” he said.

“Would you like to enjoy the scenery with me, while you’re thinking?”

“I would.”

“I’ll be silent until you’re ready to talk about it,” said Frances.

“Would you put your tongue out, so that I can have an idea what it would look like?”

“I’d be happy to,” she said in a friendly way, and did so.

“Can I touch it?”

“Of course you can.”

He slid two of his fingers over her tongue, as soon as she’d stretched it out again for him, and ran his fingers deep into her mouth. It was a wonderful sensation.

“Thank you. I guess I’ll start thinking about it then.”

They looked at the hills rising up behind them, and stretching down below them, the meadow in the immediate vicinity, the forest in the distance, and the fact that the village was not in view from up there. Nathaniel considered what it would be like, unable to explore such places at full size anymore, and yet having a whole adventurous life with Frances to explore, if he were to be reduced forever.

“I have thought it all through a lot,” said Nathaniel at last, “It all amounts to the fact that I would like to be with you under whatever circumstances would make you happy, under any circumstances, and I’ll never tell anyone you asked me this. I’ve been an orphan in the boarding house attached to the school, and I’ve had a crush on you since the first day I saw you. I don’t know how such a thing could ever be made possible, but I’m sure that I would go along with it, should that day ever come. I do think it would be nice to go on several kissing and cuddling dates with you at normal size first, maybe for a few weeks, from the moment that we knew it was possible.”

“It’s already possible,” said Frances, “I won’t tell you how until the time comes, but if you’re committed to this as a way forward for us both, with a scheduled reduction in your size to take place in three weeks, then I should enjoy it very much if you were to kiss me now.”

Nathaniel leaned in again. Frances smiled warmly and leaned towards him too this time, and their lips met. He imagined what it would be like to be pressed against those lips after he had been reduced in size dramatically. He thought she was the most exciting lady imaginable to have suggested this lifestyle for them both.

Their next date was a night walk through the public gardens in the village. When they reached the most scenic spot in the centre, he took her in his arms and hugged her tight and kissed her again. Then he turned his cheek and rested it against hers for a lengthy embrace, thinking how haunting it was to be doing this with a lady who would, in the near future, be holding his entire body in her hand. Every familiar aspect about the life he’d known, and every new thrill of dating her at his full size would all soon be a thing of the past, never to be repeated, replaced by an amazingly different dynamic.

On a Saturday three weeks after their first date, she invited him to meet her in the meadow, and said that she’d bring everything this time, as it would be the day that he undertook his reduction in size. The night before (Friday), they danced to music in Frances’ living room, first some fast paced disco tunes, and then some soft slow music to accommodate snuggling and kissing. He held her in his arms, knowing that this was apparently to be his last night at full size. He had no idea how she would accomplish what she had stated as her long term plan for him, but he believed her and would happily go along with it.

He kissed her goodnight at the end, and left, and went back to the boarding house and dreamt of the next morning.

He awoke the next day and walked up to the meadow. Frances took his hand and led him further up the hill until she came to Colleen’s house and knocked on the door.

“Miss Balfour!” said Nathaniel, remembering the teacher who had gone on sabbatical, “So this is your house.”

“She’s going to help with your transition.”

Frances had recalled the time she had licked Stanley a lot, and had begun thinking about it with greater frequency and intensity of emotion, from the moment that Nathaniel had first asked her on a date. By the time she’d arrived at that first picnic, she had been set on a course which prompted only one response to his first attempt to kiss her.

Colleen closed the front door, showed them both into the lounge, and drew the curtains.

“It’s time to reduce you now,” said Frances, “Is there anything you’d like to say or do, beforehand?”

“I guess just to tell you that I’ve enjoyed the last few weeks very much, and I’m every bit as excited about what’s to come.”

“Let’s have one last full sized hug,” said Frances, and wrapped her arms tightly around him, “…Are you ready then?”

“Yes my love.”

“Thank you, darling.”

“If you just stand in the middle of the carpet and leave the rest to me,” said Colleen, “I’ll show you how it works.”

Frances stepped back, and Colleen picked up the portable reducing machine from a small table, and pointed it at Nathaniel. He watched as she pressed the switch, and a beam of light came and enveloped him. Slowly his perspective altered, as his eyes were no longer level with her face, and the room seemed, by comparison, to be growing larger and larger, as did Miss Balfour. When he was no higher than the base of her ankles, Colleen turned off the machine.

“Pick him up and see if he’s as small as you wanted,” she said.

Nathaniel heard Miss Woodfield’s footsteps on the carpet, and turned around to look up at her towering approaching form. She stooped down and picked him up.

“Do you need a ruler?” asked Colleen.

“I think there’s only one way to measure his height that really matters,” said Frances, and put out her tongue and pressed him against it, “He’s just a little shorter than what can be seen of my tongue. You got it right the first time.”

The feel of that tongue was the wildest thrill that Nathaniel had ever experienced in his life. To think that he would be feeling it countless times in the years ahead. It still came as quite a significant surprise to see that this had actually happened, even with all of the preamble with which Frances had assured him of it in the preceding weeks. However, he felt no shock or regret, only elation at being there in this way.”

“I’m like a lollipop and a doll in one!” he said, “Your tongue feels incredible!”

“A doll and a lollipop. I think I’ll call you Dollipop from now on, if it’s alright with you,” said Frances.

“It’s a great name,” said Nathaniel, “Have you used this device on anyone else, Miss Balfour?”

“You might have heard of Henry’s disappearance from school,” said Colleen.

“Wow! You shrank him and kept him here as your own Dollipop?”

“Actually he followed me home from school, snuck in here and shrank himself. He heard us talking about the machine one day at school.”

“Well I guess it won’t hurt for you to say hello to him from me,” said Nathaniel.

“It wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t hear. He wanted me to eat him, and the idea certainly appealed to me too.”

Miss Balfour pointed to her stomach.

Nathaniel gaped in surprise and turned to Frances.

“Are you going to eat me one day?”

“No, darling. I want you with me as you are, always.”

“Since you won’t be telling anyone, there are two others who’ve been reduced by this machine, but they’re not from your school,” said Colleen, and told him all about Stanley and Patrick.

“Boy am I lucky you gave me to Miss Woodfield then!” said Nathaniel.

“You do look nice and mouth watering, but Miss Woodfield and I are best friends. I did this for her. But you certainly are lucky. Well Frances, I guess we’ll have some lunch here, and then you’d like to be taking him home with you then.”

“Yes, and thank you again,” she said.

Nathaniel sat on the table and ate generous portions of food while looking up at the two ladies gulping down mouthfuls of food at least as large as himself. He could only guess at what it had been like for Stanley and Patrick.

Frances carried him out of the house after lunch and let him ride on her shoulder, holding onto her hair for stability and comfort, while they descended the hillside.

“I asked her if she’d do this for us on the morning of our first picnic date,” said Frances, “She agreed straightaway. Do you think any less of me for being her friend, knowing about the others?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“I believe you,” she said, and stopped for a moment and turned her head to kiss him.

The feel of her gigantic lips was the sweetest thing he’d ever known.

When they reached the far end of the forest, she concealed him in her dress pocket, so that she could head home without anyone seeing a tiny boy perched on her shoulder. Once inside she took him out and talked with him on the couch for some time. After dinner, she took him to her bedroom and sat up in bed and asked, “May I lick you now?”

“Oh yes. I loved it before.”

She slid her huge perfect tongue over his shoulders and face a number of times and then left the moisture on him, while she lay down.

“Are you chilly at all? Do you want me to dry it off now?” she asked, reaching for a box of tissues.

“No, it feels nice to have your tongue water still on me,” he said, and snuggled against her cheek on the pillow.

They talked eachother to sleep, and awoke the next morning and spent the Sunday playing board games, with Nathaniel acting as one of his own pieces in each game. That night, in the bedroom, he climbed onto her face, while she was on the pillow, and lay down on her chin and lower lip.

“When I had Miss Balfour for science, she showed us a cutaway diagram of the human head and neck. The tongue actually starts down in the throat, but the lower part of it can’t be seen, only what’s in the mouth. Could I climb into your mouth and slide down into the top of your throat and lie there against the concealed part of your tongue for tonight’s sleep?”

“Oh Dollipop, aren’t you sweet to ask! I’d adore that!”

She opened her mouth, making sure that her lower lip reached further than her teeth. He started sliding over her lip and into her mouth, until the top half of his body was resting against her tongue. Then he put his hands against her lips again and pulled himself back out.

“You don’t have to do it, if you’ve changed your mind. Our original agreement was only for licking.”

“I can’t wait to do it. I just realised it would be easier to let myself down into your mouth, right side up,” he said, and lay on her chin and lower lip, facing towards her tummy. He eased himself backwards, into her mouth, and slid slowly over her tongue and then into a horizontal position at the top of her throat. Holding tightly to her back lower teeth, he was able to look out at her tongue, still lit up by her bedside lamp, looking resplendent above him, and then her lips slowly closed, and he was in darkness.

If she wanted to, she could sit up and swallow him with one deliberate gulp, and there’d be nothing he could have done about it, he thought, as he recalled Miss Balfour’s stories about Patrick, Henry, and Stanley. He wondered if she might even swallow him with an accidental gulp, but he trusted her judgement, and was happy to take the risk for the sheer thrill and comfort of being in there. Even if she did accidentally swallow him, he had already enjoyed so much happiness with her. He would take this risk as often as Miss Woodfield wanted him in there.

He lay there, with the feel of her soft moist tongue pressed against his face and shoulders, and slowly dropped off to sleep.

After a few nights of this, he awoke one night to a slight movement of her throat. Then he suddenly felt a tremendous movement which altered the angle of her throat, and then a huge movement which drew him deep down her throat and into the top of her stomach! Had she had a sudden change of heart and decided to imitate Miss Balfour’s actions with her shrunken boyfriends? Then suddenly everything turned upside down, and he slipped back into the bottom of her throat, and felt a massive heaving coughing pressure, taking him down further, until he reached her mouth, and found it wide open. He slid out along her tongue and onto the bedroom floor, to find that she was leaning over the side of the bed, with her head near the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I partly woke up, when I felt the need to cough, but was not fully conscious enough to remember that you were in there until after I gagged and coughed and felt you falling down my throat.”

“It’s alright. You sure got me out with quick thinking.”

“We can’t count on that again. I’m sure Colleen would shrink someone else for me, if I did swallow you permanently, but they might not want to be shrunken, and I only want to be with you. I guess you’ll have to sleep on the outside of me from now on. I’ll miss having you in there, but you’ll still be right beside my cheek or on my neck.”

After days of exploring the house, he asked her to cut him a piece of fishing line.

“That’s a good idea. It will make it easier for you to climb things when I’m not home,” she said, and gave him a long piece.

He climbed onto the bed with it, while she was reading in another room after dinner, and formed a lasso of sorts, which was knotted such that the size of the loop could be altered, just by pulling on the appropriate part of the line. He slipped it under the pillow and waited until Frances came to join him in the bed. Then he asked her to turn her head away, as he wanted to surprise her.

She pivotted her head on the pillow, so he could only see her hair at the back. Then he pulled out the lasso end of the line, slipped it over his waist like a harness, and then asked her to turn her head back to facing the roof and lift him onto her chin.

She did so, and said, “What have you got there?”

“It’s a safety harness I made with the fishing line. I can put it on each night, just before I climb into your mouth, then tie the other end around one of your lower back teeth and lie in your throat for the night, with no risk of being swallowed, no matter what happens in there.”

“You’re a genius, Dollipop! I love you,” she said, and pressed her lips to his face.

“It might be easier going in with you in a sitting up position, so I can lie on the top end of your tongue beside your teeth, while I’m tying the line on, and the same for when I’m untying it in the morning. Then I can slid into your throat in the vertical position, supported by the harness, and you can lie down after that.”

“That’s all fine with me. Let’s try it now.”

After that, no abseiler ever had it so good.

Henry’s  mother had been at a loss to understand his mysterious disappearance. She sought out the one private investigator in the village, who was just at the outset of his career, young, fresh with ideas, and affordable.

Richard “Dick” Flanigin showed her into his waiting room, and then heard his phone ring. As he could not afford a receptionist, he said, “I’ll just take that in my office.”

He went in, closed the door, and picked up the phone.

“Dick Flanigin, Private Investigator,” he said.

“It’s Brenda Leesil,” said the voice at the other end.

Brenda had been his second case since he opened for business. She was a beautiful widow, somewhat older than Richard. Her last surviving parent, her mother, had died, and other relatives had attempted to swindle her out of a significant portion of her inheritance. Dick had solved the case and secured her rightful legacy entitlement, and been handsomely paid from the proceeds. When she had paid him, he had slipped a note under the receipt he’d handed her:

Dear Brenda,

There’s no pressure here, and I’m happy to take other assignments from you in the future, no matter what you say, but would you like to go out for dinner with me some time, and shall we say, see how the case progresses?

Love,

Dick.

Now she had called him back!

“Hello!” he said keenly.

“Thank you for your offer, but I’m not interested,” said Brenda, “I will call you if I need your services again though.”

“Okay then,” said Dick, “No hard feelings, but I’d better go now actually. I had a client waiting in the reception area when you called.”

Henry’s mother told him of the way her son had simply disappeared with no warning or explanation, not even any signs of discontentment at home. She said that she suspected some sort of foul play, and that he would not have stayed away willingly.

“Well I’m happy to take the case, but I’ll need to cover all ground, in order to be as effective for you as possible. Will you allow me to search his room?”

“Of course, but I’d rather you didn’t tell me what you found in there. If I do get him back, I don’t want him to think I’ve intruded on his privacy.”

“If I find anything pertinent to the investigation of his disappearance, I’ll use it, but if I need to make you aware of it in order to make good use of it, do you still not want to be told?”

“Well only if it’s going to affect the outcome,” she replied.

She led him back to her home, and did housework while he searched through Henry’s room, including his school bag.

“I may have something,” he told her at last, “Would you mind if I borrowed this school lessons timetable book to photocopy one of the pages, and then returned it to you?”

“There’s a photocopier in the house,” she said, “You can use that while you’re here.”

“Even better,” said Dick, “I won’t need to give away any of Henry’s privacy, but from what I’ve learned here today, I have reason to think that this might cross over with another case I’m working on. This may just help me to solve both.”

He took the photocopy back to his office, started a file for Henry, and then took out another file, that of another disappearance which had been reported to him by an apartment body corporate chairman, whose strata rates had not been paid recently. The chairman had become Dick’s client and also given permission for a search, in this case of the entire apartment belonging to a man named Patrick.

Dick spread both files on his desk, and looked at the most recently dated piece of paper prior to Patrick’s disappearance. It was a newspaper with a circle drawn around a job advertisement:

PERSONAL ASSISTANT – TEMP

Company director needs a personal

assistant to help with all kinds of

work around the premises. Apply, in

the first instance to:

Colleen Balfour

T/A Reduced Interest Co,

using the address or telephone number

at the bottom of this advertisement.

Now he looked again at the photocopy of Henry’s school lessons timetable. The first page listed each subject, and the name of Henry’s teacher for that subject. Beside English and Science was the name Miss Balfour.

Dick went to the school and made enquiries with other staff, to learn that Colleen had been still teaching at the school at the time of Henry’s disappearance, but had gone on a sabbatical starting shortly before Patrick’s disappearance.

Dick found her address in the telephone book, and decided to do some covert reconnaissance. That night, he took his flashlight with him, walked up to Colleen’s house, and used a professional lock pick tool to open the door which Henry had once picked with a piece of twisted wire. He let himself in silently, turned the flashlight onto its dimmest setting, and began to look around the lounge room. He presumed that her bedroom was upstairs, and that she couldn’t see any light directly beneath her, even if she woke up.

He wondered what to look for. What could the connection be between a year 7 schoolboy and a young adult looking for a job? Probably none at all, as they had both no doubt encounted Colleen Balfour in different contexts. So what then, was he looking for? What evidence would justify a midnight felony for the downmarket fees he’d opened his business by charging?

Suddenly the light was turned on, and he saw a lady holding the light switch on the opposite side of the room, right next to a doorway. She was holding some small contraption in her other hand.

“Colleen Balfour, I presume,” said Dick.

“And you would be Dick Flanigin. Pleased to eat you,” said Colleen.

“I think you left out an m,” said Dick, putting his flashlight into his trenchcoat pocket.

“I was saving it up for the word ‘mouth’,” said Colleen, “That’s where you’ll be going at lunch time tomorrow. My friend at the school called me this afternoon, to let me know about your enquiries concerning my sabbatical dates. I’d have caught you anyway. A few weeks ago, I was concerned at how easily someone else broke into this place. So I made a point of setting up a video camera arrangement which trips a silent alarm connected to an alternate on switch for my bedside lamp. I’d have caught you anyway, even if my friend hadn’t given me reason to expect an uninvited guest.”

“Were Henry and Patrick uninvited too?”

“Henry was, but he was very welcome.”

“And where are they now?”

“In here, in some form or another,” she said, removing her hand from the light switch to pat her stomach.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re a cannibal? They were a schoolboy and a late teenager, woman! When I first got in here, I was concerned about the legalities of this exercise, but after what you’ve just said, I can see it was justified. How could you go about butchering and consuming two kids like that?”

“I didn’t say anything about butchering them,” said Colleen, and fired the reducing machine at Dick until he was 1.5 inches tall.

“Oh my goodness! Do you mean that you…This is too much.”

“For my lunch tomorrow, it’s just about the right amount,” said Colleen, walking over and picking him up.

She put him into a cage, padlocked it tight, left the key on a high table, and the cage on the carpet.

“I think you’ve solved your cases, but you might find it a little hard to collect your fees. We’ll talk tomorrow, at least until lunch time. Good night, little housebreaker.”

She turned off the light and went back upstairs to bed.

Dick took his flashlight out of his pocket, reached through the bars of the cage and decided not to turn it on. If it tripped that video camera alarm again, even though its light potential was diminished by the reducing machine, then she would kow what he was doing. Feeling about in the dark, he used the tiny flashlight as a lock pick. The professional tool, which had used to break into the house, was now too small to serve the purpose. His deft manipulation of the flashlight had soon opened the lock. He pulled it off, with all his strength, opened the door and ran for the front door. He slipped under it, ran out of the house and down the hill as fast as he could go, covering as much ground as he could before she awoke in the morning.

The sun was just rising, when he reached the forest. He headed in a little way, and then concealed himself in some bushes and collapsed in exhaustion, and slept until late morning. He awoke and found some berries and ate until he was full, and then thought what to do next.

His only chance was to get back to Henry’s mother and get her help to get hold of Colleen’s machine and restore his size, if it even had a reverse setting. Fearing that Colleen would be down to search the forest for him, he stayed off the paths, and walked through the bushes, until he came to the sight of Brenda Leesil sitting on a log, just about to open a lunch box. He told her what had happened, knowing that her help would be invaluable at a practical level, regardless of her romantic disinterest in him.

“I understand your predicament,” said Brenda, stooping forwards to pick him up and place him in the lap of her dress, “But I can see why she did it. I’d like to have you for lunch too.”

“Does that mean you’re going to?”

She looked down at him and closed her lunch box and put it to one side.

“I don’t think I’ll be needing that now,” she said.

“But you said you weren’t even interested in me! And now this?”

“I think you’re too young to date, but you’re a very nice tender age to eat.”

She looked up and out at the surrounding foliage. The look in her eyes, while they were not pointing in his direction, was strangely arousing. He took in the fact that he had gone from being beneath her interest to being beneath her height, and the fact that he was now the subject of her interest, regardless of his personal objections to the nature of her interest. Her high neck looked so elegant, that he would have loved to kiss it. Now he could imagine it being used in the way she had just outlined…

“Please, I need your help!”

“You need someone else’s help, but I don’t see anyone else around,” said Brenda, raising him to her mouth, “Under the circumstances, I should thank you more directly for your dating invitation though.”

She puckered her lips and pressed them to his face.

“Wow!” he said.

“I haven’t had this woman’s dining experience, but I should think that trenchcoats tend to stifle the taste of a shrunken meal,” said Brenda, as she pulled his coat off him with her finger and thumb, “And this tie’s not helping either. It’s too small for me to get a controlling grip on it. Do you mind taking it off and loosening your shirt for me?”

“What on earth do you think I am? I’m not going to help you do this to me!”

“Fair enough, but let’s just hope I can be careful with my teeth then,” she said, and brought him towards her mouth.

She carefully positioned her teeth near his neck, and bit off most of the visible part of the tie, and let it fall from her mouth. Her red tongue brushed against his face as she instinctively licked her lips. Then her teeth drew close again, and he felt a slight jarring pressure as her mouth tried to get a grip on the remainder of the tie.

“Alright! I’ll undo it!” he said.

“Thank you. I am appreciative,” she said, and waited while he undid the tie and discarded it.

Dick loosened his shirt too, undoing the top buttons. She pushed it down, so that his shoulders were now in sight.

“You won’t find another P.I. in the village, you know,” he said.

“I think I’ll manage,” said Brenda and opened her mouth wide, moving him towards it in her hand.

He saw her tongue behind her lips as he was forced into her mouth and onto her tongue. Before even closing her mouth, she tilted her head back, and he felt and saw himself sliding forward into her throat. Having not attended Colleen Balfour’s science class, he was surprised to find that her tongue was still a sliding pathway for him, once he was in her throat, until he slid below it and slowly slid all the way down to her stomach.

Brenda decided to take his tiny trenchcoat home as a souvenir.