Brent listened to all of this and thought that Henry had been very fortunate to have his affections reciprocated, and that he would have benefited from Miss Woodfield’s licks as much as she did.

“I walked up into the hills and far beyond Miss Balfour’s hillside house and off to a spot by the lake. I unrolled the sleeping bag, and got into it and snuggled Henry beside my cheek, just like we did every night here.”

“It sounds romantic,” said Brent.

“It was. We slept under the stars, neither of us wanting to eat anything, as we felt that digesting food would have made it harder to sleep without the usual luxuries of my bed at home. The next morning, we woke up and looked at the lake. It was a beautiful sight. I decided to get our breakfast out of the backpack and then take my empty water bottle down to the lake, fill it up first and then have a swim before breakfast. It was then that I discovered that the sharp edge of a can must have worn a hole in the bottom of the bag. Our food must have fallen out and gotten lost back when I’d been walking here. Henry had been riding on my shoulder with some of my hair in his hands to hold onto, and hadn’t noticed the food falling out behind us either. So there we were with empty stomachs all night, counting on revitalising ourselves with breakfast and no food at all to eat.”

“What did you do?” asked Brent.

“I told Henry I could still fill the water bottle from the lake, but wouldn’t find the walk all the way back home easy on an empty stomach, and that I’d have to eat the only food available.”

“But there wasn’t any.”

“There was one piece of meat that hadn’t been in the backpack when the hole developed, because it had been on my shoulder.”

“Henry!”

“It was the only thing I could think of to solve my problem. I told him that we didn’t have any other options. He reminded me that, when Miss Balfour had first reduced him, she had told him about eating leprechauns and perhaps the odd shrunken boy too, and that I’d said I had no interest in eating Henry. I explained to Henry, that when I had said that, I was talking about not feeling Miss Balfour’s desire to eat a reduced boy for the pure pleasure of it. I told him, that in this case, I needed to do it in order to relieve a pressing hunger, before embarking on the return home. I tried reasoning with him in every way I could think of, but he still didn’t want me to do it. In the end, I told him that he would simply have to get used to the idea, while I took a swim. I took off my skirt and pullover and carried him down to the lake in my bikini. I set him comfortably on a rock, where he could watch me swim, but he wouldn’t be able to climb down from it.”

At this point, Brent was feeling a sense of suspense which was more than that of every fictional cliffhanger he’d ever read or seen all combined into one story.

Miss Woodfield continued.

“I imagined he would have been thinking of running away, in spite of his undying love for me. Then I walked around the rocks to a position, where he could see me standing almost front on, and dived into the lake. I swam underwater for quite a length, and then surfaced a couple of meters in front of Henry’s rock and gulped in some air. I walked and waded around for a while, and then came back and collected Henry and the bottle I’d left beside him. I filled up the bottle and carried him back to the sleeping bag. I took out my towel, dried myself off.

I told Henry that I might as well have breakfast before I took off my wet bikini and put my skirt and pullover on. When I’d planned the trip, I had originally intended to put him into the pouch of the backpack while I changed, but since he would be in my tummy by the time I did it now, there would be no need for the pouch.

I sat down and told him how much I’d enjoyed being with him all that time, and that I it was a shame that we didn’t see eye to eye about the food shortage, but that I still loved him just as much. Then I gave him a goodbye kiss. He said that he wouldn’t have missed out on all our time together, even if he’d known that this was going to happen. I kissed him again, and said that I really couldn’t wait any longer. I gave him a final round of licks, then opened my mouth wide and placed him gently inside it, and gulped quickly.”

“Didn’t you want to leave him in your mouth for a while?”

“We’d done that many times, and he’d even slept whole nights in my throat, with a fishing line harness attached to my teeth at one end and his waist at the other.”

“Wow!”

“In this case, I needed him in my tummy as soon as possible, and I can imagine, that by then he wanted it over and done with too, since he knew that he would be unable to talk me out of eating him. Then I put on my skirt and pullover again and came back home. I told Miss Balfour about it, and she offered to make me a new Dollipop if I found someone I liked. I’ve noticed the way you look at me at school. It’s hard for shy teenagers to hide their feelings from a perceptive lady, no matter how shy and reclusive they are. So I arranged for her to follow you part of the way home and reduce you at a place where nobody else would see her doing it.”

The fact that she hadn’t sought his agreement first was not lost on him, but then he realised that she ultimately hadn’t gained Henry’s position for her final act of involvement with him either. Brent knew that he was reduced to stay reduced, and that he was happy to be with Miss Woodfield in any way… except one.

“I like you very much, Miss Woodfield, and I’d love to be your new Dollipop. I was just wondering if… you could make sure that you never get caught without any other food again.”

“I’ll do my best to anticipate and prepare for every eventuality,” she said, “It’s not a guarantee that nothing will ever take us by surprise, but it’s unlikely to happen. If it does, I guess you’ll just have to make the best of it like Henry did. You’ll be my contingency plan.”

What a situation, he thought.

That night he settled down to an evening of kissing, snuggling and licking from Miss Woodfield, the first of many to come.

“Sleep well, Dollipop II,” she said, and closed her eyes.

Edith had a friend in the volleyball club named Denny, who was often telling her about his crushes on adult ladies. He’d fallen for a shop assistant, a librarian, a waitress, and a few others. Yet he’d never thought to ask one of them on a date, as boys at that age simply didn’t know what to do about their feelings. One day, after the volleyball game, Edith showed him a photograph of a very beautiful adult woman.

“Do you like her?” asked Edith.

“Do I ever!” said Denny.

“I can take a photo of you and show it to her. If she likes it, I’ll introduce you to her.”

“Yes, please do!” said Denny.

A week later, Edith told Denny that the woman was very keen to meet him for a date.

“Her name’s Moynie. I’ll walk you over to her place on Saturday. It’s a bit of a hike, but she’d love to see you.”

“I won’t mind the hike at all,” said Denny.

“Can you meet me at the near end of the forest at around eight in the morning?”

“I’ll leave home with time to spare,” said Denny.

They made their rendezvous as planned. Edith led Denny through the forest and then through the meadow, up into the hills and into a larger version of the forest, which stretched for countless miles. Deep into the high forest they walked, until they came to a point where Edith suddenly stopped. She led him into some thick bush area.

“The way to Moynie’s garden is just around here somewhere. Hold my hand, so we don’t get separated,” said Edith.

After they’d walked a little way, Denny suddenly found that the forest seemed to vanish from around them, and they were now on an open stretch of grass. There was a house in the distance, but something about it didn’t make sense to Denny. It was as if the angle of its perspective didn’t look correct, or something. He didn’t have the words to explain it.

The front door opened and a woman stepped out.

“Here’s Moynie now,” said Edith.

They waited as the woman drew closer, and then Denny saw that it was not just the house that looked out of perspective, but also the woman. She approached them with graceful strides, and he suddenly worked out what the visual perspective issue was. Both the house and Moynie were gigantic in size.

“She’s a giant, like this whole garden!” said Denny.

“The portal we just went through is invisible, and not on the main path in our high forest on earth. That’s why I always have to feel about until I pass through it,” said Edith.

Moynie drew closer and then sat down in front of them.

“This is Denny,” said Edith.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said Moynie.

“Me too,” said Denny.

“Well I’m glad you’re pleased to meet yourself,” said Edith.

“I know what he means,” said Moynie, laughing at Denny’s demonstration of nervous shyness, which had already been described for her by Edith, “Denny, I own a number of houses in this land. One of my others is within easy walking distance from this one… easy walking distance for me, I mean. Edith discovered this garden while walking in the forest, and she told me all about your world. I said that she could have this house as a gift from me, if she introduced me to a boy your size, just so long as I could still use this garden as a meeting place with the boy. This is the only place that links our two lands, as far as we know.”

“I’m glad she did,” said Denny, “Thank you Edith.”

“I had my own reasons,” said Edith, “But I’m glad you like her.”

“The house is yours, Edith,” said Moynie.

“Thank you. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” said Edith

She walked back to the portal and headed back through the high forest, and down the hill, until she saw a familiar lady hanging her washing out on the line in her garden. It was Miss Balfour. She remembered the way that she had snuck into the laboratory and used Miss Balfour’s reducing machine on Connor and eaten him. She didn’t want to own up to that little adventure, but it did give her an idea.

For the next few months, Denny would get up before the sunrise every Saturday and go to visit Moynie. She would meet him at the portal opening in Edith’s garden and take him back to her nearby house for a picnic on the lawn. They would talk for hours and get to know eachother very well. They learned that she was his first girlfriend. He was not her first boyfriend, as she had dated someone her own size for many years before they decided upon the parting of their ways. However, Denny was certainly her first boyfriend of his size. Her kisses far surpassed anything he could have hoped for from the shop assistant or the waitress or the librarian, who were all his own size and not quite as stunning as Moynie.

He enjoyed the sight of Moynie licking her lips when she ate, and sometimes when she talked. Her huge tongue was as large as his entire body, probably even a little bit larger, and he wished that he could touch it. He didn’t want to tell her of this longing, in case she thought him a little strange. So one day, he staged an accident, where he fell into a bowl of punch that she’d brought to their picnic.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I guess you were leaning over too far to fill up the tiny cup you brought. It was too big for me to hold it in my hand. So I had to let you fill it up yourself.”

He trod punch to stay afloat, and said, “Well now that I’m in here, it feels like a nice opportunity to have a swim.”

“A pool is one thing this house doesn’t have. Edith’s got one on the property I gave her. You can stay in there and swim. I’m just going to fill my cup up with the ladle. So don’t swim in that direction.”

He watched her scoop up the punch and ladle it into her cup.

“It’s caught some of the small pieces of fruit too,” she said, “They’re great for flavour, but I can’t seem to get them out of the cup, when I’m drinking it, no matter how hard I tilt the cup.”

He watched her drink the cup dry in one gulp, as her neck showed more distinctly while she was tilting her head back.

“Those pieces of fruit are still there. Oh well, time for more food.”

He watched her eating, while he enjoyed swimming around in the punch bowl. Then she was ready to fill up her cup again.

He swam towards the ladle, and into it, as she submerged most of it.

“I have an idea,” he said, “Scoop me up into the cup too.”

“Alright,” she said, with a look of curiosity.

Once she had ladled him into the cup, he stood up, so that his head and the top of his neck were not covered. The pieces of fruit were floating on top of the punch beside him.

“Could you hold the cup close to your mouth?” he asked.

“Will this do?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so. I’ve solved your problem,” he said, “Can you open your mouth now?”

She did so, and he lifted a piece of pineapple in his hand and reached out of the cup and across Moynie’s lower lip and placed it into her mouth. He managed to slide his hand across the top of her tongue as he withdrew it, which was as close as he’d gotten to touching her tongue at last.

He watched her swallow it.

“Very enterprising,” she said, “And very thoughtful of you too.”

He did the same exercise with the remaining pieces of accumulated fruit.

“I’ll sit back in the cup, as you tilt it to drink the rest,” he said, I can put my arm in the handle to hold onto, since it’s a thick plastic cup with a hollow handle. That way I won’t fall into your mouth.”

“Alright. Hold on tight then,” she said, and tilted the cup slowly forward, as he sat back and watched the liquid flowing past him and into her enormous open mouth.

He watched her tongue swish from side to side as she licked her lips afterwards. It was so near, yet so far from any opportunity to touch it.

When she’d finished, she let him crawl out onto her other hand.

“That was very considerate of you, Denny. And now my punch has made you all sticky, after you’ve helped me enjoy it all the more.”

Then Denny saw his opportunity.

“Maybe you could clean me up right here, if you were to lick the punch juice from my face.”

“It may not do any good, since I already have a lot of it on my tongue, but I’ll try,” she said.

Then came the moment for which he’d staged the fall into her punch bowl.

Her tongue came right out of her mouth and slid over him, pressing and sliding against his face, making him far more ecstatic than he’d ever been before.

She had been right though, he reflected a few minutes later, although not for the reasons that she had been thinking of. The presence of the punch on both her tongue and himself had taken a lot away from the feeling he had hoped to attain from being licked by her tongue with no intervening liquid present. If only he could find a way to prompt her to do that, without sounding like a juvenile child with an unexplained urge.

He loved her. She was kind and considerate at all times, and took care of him on every one of his visits.

Apart from that, he found Moynie’s conversations with him flowed naturally, as he told her one day, while they were having a celebration picnic, to commemorate six months since the day Edith had first introduced them to eachother.

“I always find everything you say so interesting,” said Denny.

“That’s one thing that makes you so nice,” said Moynie, “You listen to what I say, and then weeks later you’ll tell me something yourself, that was sparked off by what I’d said to you. It shows that you’ve taken an interest in everything I’ve told you about myself.”

“You’ve been so nice to me too,” said Denny, “You’ve always come over to Edith’s house to collect me, and brought the rug and all the food. I’ve never had so much of the best food before, and not had to eat it sparingly.”

“That’s why I asked you what your favourite foods were at our first picnic, so that I could always be sure to bring them for you,” said Moynie.

“Well it’s very kind of you. I’m too small to be able to bring you anything nice to eat.”

“I don’t think you’re too small,” said Moynie, “I have my birthday dinner coming up in a few weeks’ time. Your size is perfect for me to gobble you down whole.”

“Do you mean, like … you’d eat me for your birthday dinner?” he asked.

“Exactly. You were very nice to lick that day, when you had the punch on you. Thank you for suggesting that back then. This time, I can lick you while you’re already clean, enjoy the taste, and then put you into my mouth and swallow you.”

For weeks and weeks, he’d wondered how he’d have the chance to touch her tongue while it was completely clean, and now she had just announced her desire to give him an exceptionally good chance to experience that … and significantly more.

“So you’re really going to eat me.”

“Yes, for sure. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and waiting for a suitable special occasion. My birthday dinner will be an ideal one.”

“It will be so special for me too. I’ve been trying to think of a way to touch your tongue, ever since I first saw you eat something on our first picnic. I actually only pretended to fall into the punch bowl, so that I could have an excuse to ask you to lick me, and then I thought of helping to put the fruit pieces in your mouth afterwards.”

“You should have said something.”

“Well it’s going to work out well now anyway.”

“You can stay here with me until my birthday,” she said.

“I’d love that very much,” said Denny.

It didn’t trouble him at all, that she had simply announced her plan without seeking his approval, because he was so elated. As far as he was concerned, she was doing something wonderful for him, because she thought it was wonderful herself.

That night, she took him to her bedroom with her and let him lie on her stomach.

“I’m pleased that my punch stunt worked out as I’d planned, and gave you the idea of eating me as well,” said Denny.

“I’d been thinking about it long before that. When I first met Edith, she told me that she had snuck into your school’s science classroom with a boy named Connor after school one day, and found that the teacher Miss Balfour had a reducing device in her handbag, which she’d left on the classroom desk, while she had gone to attend a teachers staff meeting. Edith had reduced Connor with it, taken him home and eaten him. So I made an offer to Edith, that she could have the house if she brought me a boy from your world, so that I could go on lots of dates with him and then eat him up one day. It’s worked out well for Edith and me, and for you too.”

Denny was stunned to learn that Miss Balfour had invented a reducing machine, and that Edith had used it on Connor. If he’d known about that back then, he might have been able to pursuade Miss Balfour to reduce him and give him to the librarian, the shop assistant, or the waitress, so that he could have touched their tongues. However, this was a better experience with a lady he liked more than any of the other three, and this world was a fantasy realm in real life, which only he and Edith knew about. He was amazed at the way that Edith and Moynie had arranged this outcome for him.

“This is a nice big soft stomach that you have,” he said.

“In a few weeks you’ll be inside it,” said Moynie, in the same friendly voice which made it all sound so natural and wonderful.

“It’s interesting to think that your dinner is being digested only a couple of feet for me, a couple of inches for you, below me.”

“You’re mixing up the two sections of my tummy,” said Moynie, “The food is being digested in the rear compartment of my tummy. There’s a wall of tummy flesh between that and the front compartment you’re lying on now, which is as thick as the space between where you are and the front compartment. There’s no digestive pathways in the front compartment. It’s just like a soft little cave.”

“Do mean that I won’t be digested then?” he asked, amazed again.

“Of course not. You’ll stay in the front compartment, so I can always feel you moving around, and you can feel the movements of my big tummy around you too.”

“I’ve learnt about the human body from cutaway diagrams in Miss Balfour’s science classes. We don’t have those compartments. Connor would have been completely digested by Edith.”

“In a way that’s an even greater difference between our people, than our comparitive sizes,” said Moynie.

“This means we’ll always be together. Although I suppose that Connor and Edith are always together too, in a very different way.”

The next day she took him for a long walk around the giant countryside, which was even more solitary and peaceful and scenic than any of the attributes of the Irish countryside from whence he had come. At one point, she took him into a small isolated shop, which had a sign on the front saying ‘Mrs Timsum’s Mixed Wares’.

They looked at some things inside, and Moynie asked him to climb into a small model boat, to see how well he fit. To him it was about halfway between the size of a kayak and the size of a rowboat, but he could sit comfortably in it.

“Would you like me to buy it for you?” she asked, “I know where you could enjoy riding in it.”

“Yes, thank you,” he replied.

She carried the boat home in one hand, while he rode on her shoulder, and then put the boat on the bathroom bench, beside the bath, and sat him in it. She turned the bath on to start filling up, and left the room.

In a few minutes, she returned, wearing a bikini, looked at the water level, and turned the tap off. Moynie stepped into the bath, and sat down, leaning against the back of the tub. She lifted the boat up, with Denny seated in it, and placed it gently into the water in front of her, gave it a little push with her hand, and watched it float to the other end of the bath. It soon floated back to her, and they talked the whole time.

“We can do it every night until the birthday dinner, if you like,” she said later in the bedroom.

“I thought it was a great way to travel with no destination in mind,” he said, “Except your tummy eventually. But we won’t need a boat for that.”

The next day she took him to a third house she owned, which did have a pool, and they went indoors. She left him and the boat in the lounge room, while she changed into a bikini. Then she carried the boat out to the side edge of the pool and left it there with him inside it.

“I’ll come and get you, after the water settles down,” she said.

He watched her stride gracefully over to the far end of the pool, climb the small ladder to the diving board, and then walk slowly along it. Every move she made excited him immensely, and every move she made took on a new dimension, when he looked at her tummy, knowing of the life that awaited him inside it. It was a beautiful compartment separating the two pieces of her bikini and it seemed just made to accommodate him perfectly.

Denny had never been able to dive himself, had tried to learn to do it at swimming lessons, but had never been able to talk his feet into leaving the ground and kicking out while he leaned over. Several attempts had ended up with him either going in feet first or bellyflopping. It had always turned him on to see older girls diving into the school pool so confidently, when he couldn’t do it himself. Now he stood and watched in exponential awe, as this beautiful giantess bent her legs a little, and launched herself off the board, into the air, and down into the clear water. He watched her gigantic body gliding under the surface, and treated the whole experience as a rapture of unparalleled proportions.

She broke the surface after she had passed him and reached the other end of the pool, opposite the diving board, and then swam back to his position at the side, this time, moving her arm and legs above the surface. He had always thought it foolish the way some boys at school referred to women as goddesses. However, he saw no harm at all in thinking of Moynie as the most beautiful of giantesses.

She reached him and stood up.

“You looked amazing, doing all that,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Her tummy was right at his eye level, and continued to fill him with a mixture of fascination and ecstacy.

She put the boat in the pool and let him float, while she swam around.

When they had both had enough, she put the boat and Denny on the side of the pool again, and climbed up the ladder, looking resplendant in her bikini. She picked him up and went and lay down on the lawn and placed him on top of her tummy again.

“I like all these sporty things we do together,” he said.

“What sports do you have in your world?”

“I used to play volleyball with Edith,” he said, and described the game, “And I loved exercising on one of the school trampolines.”

“What’s a trampoline?”

He explained.

“We’ve never had one of those here, but I think I can improvise,” she said.

He felt her breathing in deeply, as her tummy moved below him.

Then she suddenly exhaled and heaved her tummy upward. It catapulted him into the air. He twisted in mid air and landed on his feet and jumped up and down. She gave him further boosts of heaving support, whenever he ran out of momentum, and watched as he jumped up and down. When he was tired, he lay down and caught his breath.

“I really like your tummypoline,” he said.

“Do you have any other sports to tell me about?” she asked, “I’d like to know as much as I can about you and your land, while you’re still out here where I can talk to you.”

“Well we did play chasings and hide and seek a lot in the lunch hours.”

“How do you play them?”

“We could play both at once,” he said and jumped off her tummy to land on the lawn,      “Find me and catch me.”

He darted into the bushes beside her and ran for all he was worth. She sat up and came crawling through the bushes in search of him. It was then that he realised that, if he hadn’t been so thrilled at her birthday dinner announcement, and assuming that she would have still gone ahead with it anyway, this then would be the test of whether he could have escaped her. Not that he wanted to.

He kept looking back, to keep an eye on her movements, and stayed out of sight as best he could, until she finally closed in on him and snatched him up.

“You won the game!” he said, “It’s more fun playing with a giantess, except that I don’t know how I’d ever catch you.”

“Well I don’t think I’d be able to hide from you,” she said, “The smaller one has all the concealment advantages. I did enjoy the game though. Thank you for teaching me.”

“Shall we play again? You can just give me a headstart, or close your eyes and count to twenty.”

She went for the second option, and they played a few more rounds, each of which ended with her finding and catching him in the end.

When the three weeks of being completely together in her giant homes were over, and her birthday rolled around, she took him to the room beside her bedroom, and placed him on a mantlepiece.

“I thought we’d have a little fashion parade this afternoon, and you can choose the outfit that you’d like me to wear while I’m eating you,” she said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes with the first one.”

One by one, she tried on each of several elegant outfits, walking back into the room to show him. After he’d seen eighteen of them, she asked which was his favourite.

“Well they’re all very attractive, but I guess I’ll choose the eighth one,” he said.

She took him downstairs and put him on the dining table.

“I’ll be back wearing number eight shortly. See you soon.”

Even having seen the dress on her before did not prepare him for the thrilling vision of elegance and beauty which was Moynie as she entered the room for the purpose of eating him all up for her dinner that night. He watched her slowly walk into the room, pull the chair back a little, and sit down in front of him.

“You look incredible!” he said.

She smiled down at him.

“It’s been quite a period of anticipation for both of us, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, as she licked her lips in the most exciting way.

“How are you feeling then?” she asked.

“More thrilled than ever, each time I see your tongue do what you just did with it,” he said.

“I feel a thrill every time I look down at your sweet little face,” she said, “Soon I’ll have all of you in my tummy.”

“And even sooner than that, I’ll have the perfect licks with no punch in the way.”

“I took steps to make sure of that,” she said, and poured herself a glass of water from the jug, “Here’s to the next chapter of our relationship.”

“And here’s to the biggest and most beautiful sparkling tongue I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing and touching.”

She drank it down, and then leaned forward.

“No punch this time. See,” she said.

She put out her tongue.

“What a magnificent sight!” he said.

She brought her hand close, as she sat upright again, and he watched her fingers enclose him and lift him up. She held him in front of her mouth and put out her tongue again and gave him the first lick.

“Did you like that?”

“More than anything,” he said.

She licked him again and again, and then withdrew her tongue at last.

“The rest will happen fairly quickly,” she said, “But don’t worry about ending up in the back compartment. I have total control of my swallowing techniques. I will gulp you into the front part of my tummy, I promise. Are you ready to go down then?”

“Yes, beautiful Moynie.”

“Then have a nice ride, little Denny.”

She opened wide, tilted her head, and he saw her tongue coming out just below him. She lowered him onto it, and then he was drawn into her mouth and into her throat, in fairly quick succession. He felt himself being gulped and swallowed, down, down, further down, until he landed in the soft compartment at the front of her tummy. He recalled the night he had been lying on it, while they had been talking about the specifics of eating him, only half a day or so after she had told him of her birthday dinner plans. Now he was on the other side of her tummy wall, on the inside, and the excitement of it all remained with him. He lay down and made himself comfortable.

All in all, it had been the most successful example of photographic matchmaking he could ever have imagined.

Edith Kelson and Miss Colleen Balfour had both seen eachother, as Edith had been heading past her house, back on the day that Edith had introduced Denny to Moynie.

“Hello Miss Balfour!” said Edith.

“I didn’t know you lived up this way,” said Colleen.

“I live down in the village. I’ve been taking long walks in the high forest. You wouldn’t believe what I found up there,” said Edith, seeing an opportunity to seek some assistance from Miss Balfour, without letting on that she had already made an unauthorized use of Miss Balfour’s reducing machine.

“Tell me,” said Miss Balfour.

“Deep in the high forest, there’s some kind of portal into a giant garden. I made friends with a giant lady who owns lots of houses, including the one attached to the giant garden where the portal comes out. She’s actually given me that house as my very own. I can come and go there whenever I like.”

“Except that it would be too big for you to live in and use,” said Miss Balfour.

“That’s been the only problem. So I keep living at home in the village and take walks up there to see it.”

“I think I could have a solution to your conundrum, and I would like to see this giant realm. It might interest me some day,” said Miss Balfour, “Could you take me there tomorrow morning?”

“Sure,” said Edith, “Shall I come over at around nine am?”

“I’ll expect you,” said Miss Balfour.

The next day Edith took Colleen to the giant garden and they both went into the giant house and looked around.

“How soon would you move in here, if you could become a giantess?” asked Miss Balfour.

“Well I’d just have to let my boyfriend know where to find me,” said Edith.

“If you give me his address, or the address of his school, I could tell him for you,” said Colleen.

“I guess I could move in right now,” said Edith, “If I could become a giant, I’d have to leave earth behind sooner or later.”

This was what she’d hoped for. Miss Balfour was going to offer to enlarge her, without ever knowing that Edith had once helped herself to the machine the day she’d told Connor that she was going to reduce him and eat him.

“Well I can make that happen this very minute, if you’re sure,” said Colleen.

She was sure alright. She’d been planning this, since she’d first seen Colleen hanging out her washing. She’d have probably thought of it anyway, but having to explain her own presence on the hill outside Colleen’s property was a perfect lead-in.

“I know I’m sure,” said Edith.

“We could collect some things from your home. I have a way to make them small enough to carry here all at once, and then make them large enough to be suitable for this house.”

“Moynie gave me everything that comes with this house anyway. It’s more than enough,” said Edith.

“Well stand back and prepare to be a growing girl,” said Colleen, and took the reducing machine out of her bag.

She adjusted the setting and pointed it at Edith, until Edith grew to the size of a giantess.

“This is… Thank you, Miss Balfour. What prompted you to design such an amazing thing?”

Colleen told her everything about the shrunken meals she’d had, and the leprechaun hunts.

“Can I keep my giant size if I tell you something about me that you might not like?” asked Edith.

“We’re friends and allies forever now. You can keep your size and keep my secret, and I’ll keep yours.”

Edith told him about the Connor and the day she’d snuck into the science classroom.

“I guess we both liked eating reduced boys,” Edith concluded, “That’s why I asked for your help. I was going to just come to you at school and ask for a science teacher’s ideas about how I could be in this house, but I was always hoping that you’d use the reverse setting on me.”

“I was an adventurous teenager once too,” said Colleen, “It’s fine, and I hope you enjoyed Connor. Could you take me on a walk around this area?”

Edith did so, and showed her the neighbouring block of land, which was not that far from the portal, even to a normal sized person. It was unowned and empty, like many examples of the abundance of unused land in the giant realm.

Later, Edith dictated her boyfriend’s name and address to Colleen, who took a notepad and pen from her handbag. She wrote it down, and assured Edith that she would explain the situation to her boyfriend and to show him the forest entrance to the portal.

Colleen returned home and made a point of keeping watch on Edith’s boyfriend Eddie’s house. When he was sure to be there alone, she went and introduced herself, told Eddie the whole story, and arranged a date to show him the way to the portal.

Eddie stepped through by himself, as Colleen wanted to return home, and went to Edith’s giant front door. He saw that she had tied a long piece of string to the handle which would ring the old fashioned outdoor bell. The string reached down to the doorstep.

She had written on the step in chalk: “Pull the string whenever you like, Eddie.”

Eddie gave it a good tug now, and heard the bell sound loudly above him. Edith came out to greet him and took him inside.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“It’s sure going to be different having a giant girlfriend,” said Eddie, “Unless your teacher wants to give me the same treatment you’ve had.”

“I’ve asked her not to,” said Edith, “After all, there doesn’t seem to be any point in being a giant, unless you’re giant sized compared to somebody else. But you are certainly welcome to be the someone else.”

“Eddie and Edie, It always sounded good, and now it makes us boyfriend and girlfriend of two worlds or realms or lands or whatever this place really is,” said Eddie, “I guess it’s a new angle on our relationship.”

“Well if you’re willing to just go with it, then we can stay together,” said Edith.

“Of course. It’s done now, anyway. You’re a giantess.”

“Miss Balfour could reduce me, but she knows I want to stay this way.”

“I think I’’m already beginning to like you being that way,” said Eddie.

Stanley had been living with the leprechauns, ever since they had rescued him from Colleen’s attempt to eat him. He finally came to a decision.

“Even if I can’t be with Colleen, because of the dangers of her reducing machine, I still need to be back at my full size, living among my own people,” he told them, “Couldn’t we sneak into her house and use her machine to restore my size while she’s asleep? A few of you turned invisible could search the whole house undetected, before she awakens, and even put the alarms out of action first if she’s reset them.”

“We’d be happy to try for you, but the first time she saw you in the village, you’d be in danger of being reduced all over again.”

“Not if I took the machine after we’d used it on me,” said Stanley.

So it came to pass, that a small group of leprechauns and Stanley snuck into Colleen’s house in the night. There was no point in trying while she was out in the daytime, as she’d have taken the machine with her everywhere she went. Nor could they try in the daytime while she was home and awake to catch at least Stanley at it. It took most of the night before one of the leprechauns located the machine, but they used its reverse setting successfully on Stanley, and then snuck off back to their kingdom.

Stanley let himself out and took the machine with him. When he reached the village, he felt that there was something in the pocket of his coat. It was a piece of gold, with a note from one of the leprechauns.

Dear Stanley,

This stuff is of no use to us, although we have plenty of it down in our cabins. Take it as our gift for being such a good citizen.

The Stanley of this timeline didn’t know that his previous timeline’s self had been willing to lead the leprechauns into capture and consumption by Colleen, in order to win her greater affections. The leprechaun who had given him the gift of gold had not been informed of this by the leprechauns who had used the Ring of Reversal to turn back time by two years.

But notwithstanding all those factors, Stanley was still deeply touched. After all, what had he ever done for them? They had rescued him. Now all that remained was to destroy the machine, but not immediately.
Stanley took it home and put the small piece of gold on the floor of his shed. The machine was still set for enlargement. Stanley turned it on the gold, until he had enough gold to almost entirely fill the room. He would learn how to cut bits off, even how to melt it down, and how to find the right markets for it later. It was not stolen, but he would have had quite a time explaining how he came about it.

Then Stanley went outside with the machine, put it on firm ground, stepped on it several times, until it was destroyed beyond all hope of repair. Then to make sure that nobody could ever reverse engineer it, he took a walk through the village, dropping parts of the shattered machine into one garbage bin after another, until each part had been well and truly separated from the others.

It felt so good to be back to normal size, that he decided to go on a holiday around the world. He cut some of the gold loose, was able to sell it discretely, and booked his passage on the first cruise boat that he could organise.

He was away for the best part of a year, seeing the world with all of the best things that his gold revenue could buy to be enjoyed on the way.

He didn’t know how he felt about Colleen. His infatuation was stronger than ever, but he knew, that if she had succeeded, she would have swallowed him whole without the slightest regret. He had been reduced in size against his will and forced into a life of underground seclusion for months, thinking it would always be that way. He had never stopped pining over his massive crush on her, and yet been acutely aware the whole time that he was on the run from her.

When the cruise was over, he had seen the best that the whole world had to offer, but he still felt empty inside. He decided that there was only one thing to do. He had to see her.

Stanley returned to his home, and walked out of the village, through the low forest, up the hills, through the meadow, up the hills further and came to Colleen’s property.

He was too late. Her house was gone, and the land overgrown with long grass.  His only hope now was to go and see her at the school. She had told him where she taught. He went in on Monday, arrived shortly before lunch break, and asked if he could be directed to her classroom and wait outside for her, so that he could talk to her during her lunch break, explaining that he was an old boyfriend who wanted to catch up.

He was told that she hadn’t worked at the school for some time.

No wonder she had moved away, he thought. He had just travelled the world, and she could be living anywhere in it. All of the gold in his shed wouldn’t have paid for an effective way to find her. He realised just how much of her happiness in the meadow and surrounding area had depended on having her machine, the machine that he had destroyed beyond repair.

He knew he wanted to be with her, knew that she had wanted to swallow him whole, knew that he could never hope to find her, and yet still he couldn’t help thinking about her. He realised why that was the case. When someone found out that a crush wasn’t reciprocated, he’d purge the woman from his life quickly and get on with looking to the future.

Colleen HAD reciprocated his feelings. The only problem was that she had done it with another hidden agenda that definitely didn’t work in his favour. That didn’t alter the fact that she was as infatuated with him as he was with her. She’d always been interested in eating leprechauns and reduced humans, but as well as that she still had the same passion for him that he had for her, and he’d never be able to share that passion with her again, not even now that it was finally safe to do so.

He walked out of the staff room and wandered across the school grounds. Noticing a bush track, and keen to stay anywhere that reminded him of Colleen, he walked along the track and came to the very place where he didn’t know that Colleen had eaten Henry.

He heard the sounds of the students making their usual playground noise during the lunch hour and it was all hollow and meaningless in his ears. When school resumed after lunch, he left the grounds unnoticed and went home.

In the months ahead, the bush track became his nostalgia place, the last place he’d been to that had any association with Colleen, being a part of her former vocational school’s grounds. Every Saturday, when the school was deserted, he would go through the grounds and along the bush track, and think about whatever was going on in his life: the selling of the gold, the things he would spend some of it on, and whatever else kept his mind active. He began to explore the pathways which ran from the rock through the valley beyond, and managed to go a slightly different way almost every Saturday, until the day he went further than ever before. While he was walking, the valley’s trees suddenly disappeared. He was in a completely different form of countryside. All of the foliage seemed to be gigantic.

Was he having a relapse from the process of having been shrunken and enlarged all those months ago? He stepped backwards, and found that the valley woods had reappeared. Then he stepped forward and found that the gigantic garden had reappeared.

It must be a portal to a giant land, he thought. He imagined that he would be as small to the inhabitants of this world as he had been to the inhabitants of earth during his time as a reduced man. He decided to explore the giant garden and make it an extension of what the valley behind the school had been as his nostalgia place. He made his way through a huge flowerbed, marvelling at the beauty of petals which were so large. He’d never had time to appreciate the flowers in the meadow, when he’d had to spend all his time hiding underground.

Darkness seemed to descend overhead, and he looked up to see if the giant sky was likely to deliver a lot of rain onto his head. However, the shadow was not caused by clouds, but by a giant long skirt. He looked upwards further, until his eyes fell upon the face of a giant lady staring down at him. It was Colleen.

They looked at eachother in silence for several moments.

“I guess you know I had to destroy your machine,” he said.

“I assumed as much. I still had the designs. I built another one and had my friend Frances Woodfield use it on me, before I gave it to her,” said Colleen.

“I did try to find you again. I’ve been to your house, but it was gone. The school told me you’d left your job there. In the end, I never thought I’d see you again, and now…”

She stooped down and picked him up and carried him away.

There was a stern look of conquest in her eyes, although they were not looking down at him, until she eventually turned her hand around and said, “Have a look.”

He looked in surprise.

“You’ve had a gigantic replica of your house made!”

“Not a replica,” she said, “And I didn’t demolish the old one. You found a vacant lot, on my old property, because I shrank the entire house to the size I’d once shrunken you, contents and all, and then carried it through the portal here with Frances Woodfield. Then I used the reverse setting and kept it on long enough to enlarge the house not just to its full size, but this giant size. Moving house was never simpler.”

“It’s an original approach,” said Stanley.

“My manuscript was still in the house when it was enlarged too. I think that tonight would be a good time to enact some final chapters,” she said.

“Could we enact some kissing scenes in the afternoon then?” he asked.

“I think that could be arranged,” said Colleen, “Have you had lunch yet?”

“No.”

“Neither have I, but don’t worry. You can’t be my lunch, if you’re going to be my dinner.”

She fed them both more than adequately and then took him into her bedroom and sat up in bed and kissed him several times.

“Oh I’ve missed you,” he said, “It feels so good to see you again, even…”

“I know,” said Colleen gently, and lay down and snuggled him to her cheek, “What have you been up to, since you got your size back?”

He told her about his use of her machine to enlarge a tiny piece of gold he’d acquired, about his world trip and the emptiness that it all seemed to amount to without her in his life.

“How about you?” he asked.

She told him about Edith’s discovery of the other portal, and the arrangements that Edith had made with Moynie, Denny, Eddie and Colleen herself.

“I still don’t understand how you got off my table,” she said, “I’m guessing that you must have hidden in the house until you had a chance to get at my machine unsupervised, and then restored your size and took the machine.”

He didn’t want her to know that the leprechauns had been involved both times and that he’d spent most of the time away from the house in their underground kingdom. He didn’t know if Colleen’s friend Miss Woodfield might then go after the leprechauns, or what else might happen. They had done so much for him, and he owed them the favour of keeping their existence and location a secret.

“I’ll have to keep you guessing on that one,” he said.

“It won’t matter after tonight anyway. I’m touched that you kept me in your thoughts and tried so hard to find me.”

“I didn’t know if you’d want to see me after I took your machine.”

“I would have, and I do. I’m every bit as in love with you as you’ve been in love with me. It’s just that I love you in more ways than you’d like me to.”

“There’s something about this afternoon that’s still so much better than the emptiness of all those months alone.”

“Well despite all the abundance of giant food in this land, my stomach has felt an emptiness without you too. It’ll soon be time to do something about it.”

She took him down to the kitchen and placed him on the kitchen bench, and squatted down on the floor and began rummaging around amongst the crockery on the shelves.

“There’s a baking dish in here somewhere,” she said, “Although you might have to wait to be cooked. I don’t want to use a metal one, as it would heat up too much and too fast and burn you before you could be gently warmed up. I’m trying to find the porcelain one, but I’ll have to rearrange a lot of this in the process, I think.”

Stanley had noticed that the window was open behind the bench, when she’d first brought him into the kitchen, but he hadn’t seen any benefit in that with her standing right there towering over him. Now she was almost on the floor and as out of sight to him as he must therefore be to her. He saw a rack of serviettes, and took one, held onto its four corners and stood at the edge of the window ledge. He jumped, and let the serviette slow his fall, just as a parachute would have done. He reached the garden bed and started running.

The portal was a long way off, and he still had an hour of daylight. He was almost to the flowerbed, when he heard her calling through the window.

“You really do put me to an awful lot of trouble, Stanley. Here I come.”

He reached the flowerbed, and looked back, just as she opened the back door. He backed into it, watching her cross the lawn in much less time than it had taken him, while he kept edging backwards, using what cover he could and looking for the invisible portal. He looked up at her towering form, beautiful but to be escaped if at all possible. He didn’t know how he could ever hope to come back and be with her again, if he did get away, but the important thing to do now was make it safely back to earth.

“You won’t escape me again this time, Stanley. I’ll find you and catch you and eat you all up!”

He came to a thick dense group of bushes, and darted in, turning his back and running. With any luck, it would come out in a position where he could double around and sneak back to the portal. He ran with all his strength, and then the bushes thinned out, and he came to another garden bed, although here  the plants were a little taller, impossible to see over. He ran and ran and then stopped to catch his breath.

Suddenly Colleen came bursting through the plants in front of him, crawling on hands and knees. She had broken off the chase behind him, doubled around quietly and crawled through to ambush him.

“What would you have done anyway, gone back to that emptiness you spent the afternoon telling me about?”

“I didn’t fully know. I had to escape, before I could think that through. You know it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

“And you know that this doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, but you can’t escape. I found the right baking dish, before I looked up and saw you out here. I’m going to take you back to the kitchen, cook you in my oven and gobble you all up.”