“I think,” said Guy, “That it only needs to last until it’s time for what’s in store for me.”

“I’ll think about it,”said Judy.

She prepared dinner and sat at the table.

He watched her eating again, marvelling at her tongue in awe and trepidation.

Then she took him to her room, shut him in her bedside table drawer while she changed into a night dress and then got into bed. She lay beside him and spoke.

“I’ll give you my attentions as you’ve asked me to, but don’t think that it means a reprieve of any kind.”

“I wasn’t hoping for that, but this means so much to me,” he said, “You’re adorable.”

She pressed her lips to him willingly this time, and spent some time talking and kissing him.

“Now it’s time for you to show your acceptance of what you’ll be doing for me,” she said, “I’m going to sleep now, and I’d like you to spend the night inside my mouth. My tongue starts in my throat, as I once learned in science class. So you can lie on any part of it that feels comfortable, depending on how I’m positioned, and it will be just like the ultimate water bed, except with the water on the outside so that you can feel it.”

“What if you accidentally gulp me down?” he asked.

“This is what I’m trying to make you understand,” said Judy, “What difference would it ultimately make, when I’m going to deliberately gulp you down anyway.”

“It would just give us more time together first, I guess,” he said.

“Well you can spend part of it in here,” she said, and opened her mouth wide and beckoned him in with her finger.

He slid into her mouth and lay on her tongue.

An hour later, she opened her mouth again and slid him out onto her hand.

“I’ve set a date and a time to eat you,” she said.

“When will it be?” he asked.

“Tomorrow night,” said Judy, “You can sleep in my mouth or against my cheek tonight, and I’ll try to make tomorrow as enjoyable for you as possible, given that you’ll be living in expectancy of something formidable. I will be looking forward to it.”

The next day, Erin woke up and got out of bed. Still wearing her sleeveless nightgown, she stretched her arms in front of Bobby, and then pushed back her hair with both hands. Everything she did was sweet and feminine and ladylike. Was it possible that she might be as ladylike in responding to his request that he intended to make: that she would eat him?

He decided to use Judy’s announcement of her plans for Guy as a springboard to introduce the idea.

Erin took him to the lounge room and sat down on a chair, as the sun began to fully light up the room.

“What did you think, when Judy said she was going to eat her little boy?” he asked.

“It surprised me,” said Erin.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since I heard it from your handbag, even though I didn’t see Judy.”

*          *          *          *

“Good evening, Faris,” said Jodie Moore.

It was another night, and Faris Buckner was dreaming again.

“I enjoyed having you teach me about chess,” said Jodie, “I could pick up a piece like you, between my finger and thumb, just as long as I moved one of my own pieces into the right position to capture it.”

“Well the pieces in Hyde Park are a lot bigger than my finger,” said Faris, “They’re pretty much my size.”

“But they’d be no bigger than MY finger,” said Jodie.

“How can that be, if they’re the same chess pieces?”

“I’m in a land where everyone is large enough that you’d be the size of one of our fingers,” said Jodie.

“That would make you a giant.”

“By your measurements it would. And by mine, I suppose it would make you a very small person.”

“So you’re not on earth.”

“No, but I somehow knew that you were from a place of smaller people, the first time I saw you in my earliest dream about you, before we spoke.”

*          *          *          *

Elsewhere on the giant world, Colleen was dreaming about Stanley. She dreamt that she had shrunken him and set him to work luring leprechauns out into the open in the meadow near the home she had once had on earth. They didn’t have any success.

“Welcome back, Tim. Anyway it’s an intriguing start.”

She wondered who had said that, and couldn’t see anyone other than shrunken Stanley.

“Thank you, Nathan Ural. It will get better. Trust me.”

Another completely unfamiliar voice from out of nowhere had invaded the ears of the Colleen who was searching the meadow for leprechauns, with a shrunken Stanley on hand to assist.