“Fucking starving!” Kati shouted to herself as she slammed the door behind her.

Although she was alone, she instinctively locked the door behind her before sauntering over to her loveseat. All the while she kept her messenger bag clutched tightly to her under her chest, as she had done the entire bus ride and walk home from the dispensary. Although not illegal, her purchase was frowned upon by some backwards members of society and she'd prefer not to have to answer any awkward questions. Accordingly she guarded it jealously even if no one on the bus or street cared about what the young woman did in the comfort of her own apartment.

With a practiced lack of grace, Kati stood beside the arm of her overstuffed chair, leaned back, and simply let gravity do the work of carrying her over the arm and into the plush embrace of her favorite loveseat. All the while she kept her bag clutched to her chest. A quick rummage through the bag’s contents produced a brown paper bag. With the brown paper bag secured, Kati discarded the messenger bag and began to rip open the stapled shut paper. The paper discarded, Kati pulled the jar within free. A smile crossed her lips as she finally got to see her prize for the first time since she pointed him out in the dispensary’s display tank.

Kati couldn't help but lick her lips on seeing the tiny man in the jar. The store had rinsed him and air-dried him, so most of that grime or dirt from his enclosure had been washed away. He was clearly poorly groomed with far overgrown hair. The store advertised him as ‘ready to eat’ and that was a selling point for Kati. His trembling form fought to distance himself from her, despite the jar keeping him contained.

“Look at you! I can't believe my luck!” Kati exclaimed. “The last wild-caught tiny man on the shelf and you're all mine!”

Holding the jar up, she marveled at the tiny form tumbling inside it, all the while turning and tilting the jar, keeping him moving in the glass. A naked man, not older than herself, fought for balance and footing as she rolled the jar in her hands to try getting a better look. Although he was unable to escape the jar, between his desperate attempts to put distance between Kati and himself, and his overgrown hair, there was little hope to glean much. Abandoning the goal of discerning too much about him, she lowered the jar down closer and closer to her mouth, tilting it to prevent the man inside from moving away from her as she slowly pressed her lips onto the glass. She made sure that he had no choice but to regard her mouth beneath him as she kissed the glass between them. Although she wore no lipstick, the oils in her skin left a faint outline of lip prints where she had kissed, right over the tiny man behind the glass.

“I know you probably aren't going to want to hear it, but even though I am famished, I'm going to take my time with this.” Kati explained to the man in the jar. “I don't get to do this often so I really want to savor it.”

She let her breath wash over the jar, fogging it and hiding the tiny man inside for a brief moment before she pressed her lips into the glass again, tilting the jar to ensure he'd be right above where her lips would appear in the foggy glass. Only after the glass had been covered with kisses did she switch to a long and slow lick, from the base to the lid of the jar, leaving a trail of saliva residue behind.

“Are you enjoying the preview?” Kati asked before licking again. “I want you to get a clear look at where you're going.”

Kati continued to lick and kiss the jar, her lips leaving prints and her tongue leaving trails of spit as each stroke brought the tiny cowering man inside so close to her mouth that he could probably feel the heat coming off her tongue and her breath. When the jar began to drip down onto her chin, she slowed, simply holding it above her mouth and letting the excess saliva fall back in, while at the same time providing a clear and stable view of her open mouth, and the back of her throat. When a drop of spit hit her tongue, she made a loud show of swallowing it, gulping so that he could hear it, clearly, even in the jar.

“But your trip doesn’t stop there.” Kati explained, pulling the jar close to her lips. “Once I’ve had some fun with you in my mouth, really tasted everything you have to offer, well, then it’s time to take the last slide you’ll ever ride.”

She pressed one last, slow, kiss into the jar before she began to slide the jar down her chin, until the glass was pressed against her neck just below her chin. Slowly, aided by the lubrication of her saliva, Kati pulled it down her chin, mimicking the journey of a swallowed morsel of food as it made its way into her esophagus.

“This is where you’ll get the tightest, warmest hug you’ve ever gotten.” Kati mused. “I once swallowed a man, a little bigger than you, and accidentally threw him back up. Before I sent him back down permanently, I asked him all kinds of questions about what it felt like, and he said nothing could compare to the pressure of my throat squeezing him down, down, down into my guts.”

The jar continued its descent, sliding down her neck and onto her chest. Her spaghetti strap-and-hoodie ensemble allowed for easy access to keep the jar pressed against her skin as she paused once again, just at her sternum.

“When I eat one of you, this is where it gets really interesting.” Kati explained. “Right here, for a very brief moment, I lose track of you. I think it’s just that gravity takes over, and you pass through the last part of the, what is called, the esophagus, I think? But for just a moment, there’s a release in the pressure, I can’t feel you struggling, and I gotta say, it makes what comes next so much better.”

Finally the jar passed between her breasts, down below where her ribcage began to end. She lifted her shirt up a bit so she could keep him pressed against her skin. Kati sighed and then exhaled as much as she could trying to keep as still as possible.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered. “I can hear it from up here! My stomach is growling, almost roaring. In a few minutes though? It'll be harder to hear with you in there, screaming for me. Oh! That reminds me.”

Kati reached over and set the jar down on the coffee table next to the loveseat and ungracefully rolled out of the chair. She quickly climbed to her feet and after a quick trip to the kitchen came back with a glass of water and a couple of antacid tablets. She quickly popped them in her mouth and washed them down with the water.

“I don't know these actually make digestion take longer, but if I can extend it out even a little bit, they're worth it.” Kati said, sitting back down. “Okay, let's get a better look at you!”

The lid came off easily enough and without delay the tiny man inside began screaming incoherently. Kati considered him a moment, as best as she could. As far as tiny people went, he seemed scrawny, and like he’d been through hell. Kati had read up on people who shrunk. If they had the funds, the family, and the connections, they were rushed off to a tiny community where they were allowed to live in comfort and security. If they didn’t, their lives usually were measured in hours, and were a mix of horror and danger. A few got snatched up by resellers to be sold in dispensaries like the one Kati had purchased this one. He seemed to have exhausted himself screaming and scrambling and just looked back up at her in horrified silence.

“Well, don’t you just look absolutely delicious?” Kati mused. “A little bit dry though, let’s fix that.”

If he understood what was coming, he was too shocked to avoid it when Kati pursed her lips above the jar. The drool that had built up in her mouth after taking the antacid tablets flowed easily from her mouth and hit the tiny man with Kati’s practiced accuracy. He coughed and sputtered in the stream as it continued to pour out of her, pooling beneath him in the jar. When she felt she was running dry, Kati pushed the last bit of spit out in a potent spit that hit the tiny man and knocked him off his feet.

“Stay away from me you freak!” the tiny man shouted, shocked out of his silence.

“Freak? Wait, that sounded familiar.” Kati said, reaching out her phone.

She took out her phone and switched to the video camera, zooming in as much as the phone would allow. The image on the screen showed a man drenched in her spit, looking manic beneath the saliva coating him. But with a quick swipe of his hand to brush the spit, and his overgrown hair, from his face, Kati began to recognize features. The face, the chin, all together started to flash in Kati’s mind as she looked back and forth between the tiny man huddled in the jar beneath her, and the larger image of him on her phone screen.

“Do I… do I know you little guy?” Kati asked. “Stand up, let me get a look at you.”

Whether obedient or just trying to collect himself, the tiny man obliged and stood himself up, scrambling as he did so, to the opposite side of the jar to maintain any distance he could from Kati. Standing up straight, without his hair in his face, and finally in good visibility and light, all the brief flashes of recognition in Kati’s mind finally connected and produced a clear, definite image of a recognizable face from her memory.

“Holy shit! I do know you! You sat next to me in Psych 209 at Santa Malefica University!” Kati exclaimed with glee. “What was your name again? Bobby? Billy? Banner?”

“G…Greg! M…my name is Greg.” the man said, visibly relieved that Kati had recognized him. “And it was both Psych 209 and Soc 290.”

“Greg! That's right! You were right next to me at the back of that huge auditorium!” Kati marveled, as the memories came flooding back. “Oh my god, that class sucked so bad! I thought professor Svenson was gonna die every time he shuffled in!”

“Y…yeah he was pretty old.” Greg acquiesced.

“Come on! The Simpsons is ‘pretty old’! A landline phone is ‘pretty old'!” Kati laughed. “Processor Svenson spent his fifth birthday mourning the recent loss of his pet dinosaur!”

They shared an awkward laugh at their former professor, with Greg relaxing more with every word, even resting against the back of the jar.

“Yeah, I remember that class now.” Kati said, her cadence falling into something a bit more sinister. “And I remember how boring it was, how I had to find ways to pass the time.”

“Uh… y…yeah, it was, uh bad…” Greg confessed, suddenly feeling uneasy.

Kati loomed over him, her shadow eclipsing the light from her living room and casting him into darkness. The glare of the light’s reflection suddenly obfuscated her eyes. Kati smiled, flashing her shining white teeth against the darkness. She could see him shivering, and although she couldn't tell if it was from a sudden onset of terror or the way her breath washed over him, she didn't care either.

“That's where I had to find different ways to keep myself awake.” Kati said, her hands sliding forward to encircle the jar. “You remember that, don't you Greg?”

“N…no I do…don't know what you mean!” Greg lied. “I don't remember the class that well.”

“Don't be shy, you remembered me, and the classes we took.” Kati said with a sadistic, lip-biting grin. “What did I do to pass the time in professor Svenson's class, Greg?”

“Y…you watched porn.” Greg confessed.

“What kind of porn, Greg?” Kati prodded. “When you looked over and saw my face turning red, my hand in my pants, and my hood pulled forward, what was on my phone?”

“You… you were watching some lady…” Greg started, losing his words.

“And what was she doing, Greg?” Kati pushed, leaning in.

“She… she was eating people!” Greg yelled, something snapping in his brain as he lost his footing in the jar. “She just kept shoving them in her mouth, and chewing, and swallowing. She must have eaten a dozen people just while I saw…”

“‘Carnation Carnivore Consumes Her Coworkers’. My absolute favorite Gulpr video. Still is, too.” Kati mused. “And when you saw me watching that video, what was it you called me again? Oh yeah, ‘freak’.”

“I…I didn’t mean it!” Greg protested, suddenly unable to look away from Kati’s mouth.

“Well, that’s in the past, isn’t it, Greg?” Kati asked. “We can move past it and get to the important part, the part where you take a ride down my throat.”

“W…what? You’re still going to eat me? But you know me!” Greg cried in protest. “We were classmates!”

“I know! That's what makes it so hot!” Kati said breathlessly. “Do you know how long I've wanted to get the chance to actually eat someone I knew? Not some random shrunken dude but someone who actually had a name and a face and, fuck! Thinking about it is getting me wet!”

“Wh…what do you mean?” Greg said in disbelief. “You can't be saying that wanted to…?”

“Oh, fuck yeah! I first fantasized about eating my ex roommate, she was such a bitch!” Kati explained, nearly on top of the coffee table. “But this is so much better! One of my classmates, and the guy who got all hot and bothered from seeing me watching Gulpr videos? I don't think I'd even trade my ex roommate for this!”

“No! No! You can’t be serious!” Greg shouted, despite the fact that he never took his eyes off Kati’s mouth, her teeth, her tongue, he turned away and tried pounding on the glass of the jar. “I’m not food! I’m not a snack! I’m not!”

“But you are!” Kati laughed. “And soon you’ll be just like any other food, digesting in my gut while I dream about how good you felt going down!”

Despite his best renewed attempts to flee, he could no more scale the sheer glass walls of the jar now than he could when Kati had first unscrewed the lid. Still Kati enjoyed watching his panicked attempts to, slipping and falling in the pool of spit she'd soaked him in earlier.

“Okay! I can't wait any more! Let's get you where you belong.” Kati said, grinning and patting her stomach. “I wasn't kidding when I said I was hungry earlier!”

Although he screamed his protests, he was powerless to stop her from simply picking up the jar he had been sold in, the jar still decorated with Kati’s lip prints and saliva smears, and holding him above her head. With a kind of sadistic sloth, Kati tipped the jar toward her, opening her mouth and letting her tongue roll out. Greg scrambled to the base of the jar as it tilted, trying in vain to put as much distance between himself and the mouth of the jar, and Kati's mouth far below, as he could. Inevitably and gravity conspired against him, and he lost his footing, tumbling down the side of the glass and catching himself on the lip of the jar.

“Really, Greg? You're not stopping this. All you're doing is tiring yourself out and delaying the inevitable.” Kati said with a laugh. “Come on, don't be like that, I want you to have all your strength for when you slide down my throat and into my stomach. I need you to squirm in there!”

With a jerk of her wrist, Kati tipped the jar completely upside-down letting Greg’s grip on the lip slip and send him into freefall through the air. A second later, he managed to catch himself, spread eagle, on Kati's lips, avoiding the fate of falling into her mouth instantly.

Kati giggled at the sensation of his arms and legs against her lips. He'd managed to arrest his fall directly into her mouth in a last, desperate attempt to avoid his fate. She could've simply opened her mouth a bit wider, or slid her tongue out and pulled him in, but Kati had a better idea. She pursed her lips behind him and pressed the tip of her index finger in his mid section. Despite his screaming, and all his strength, she found it absurdly easy to force him between her lips. The slow and steady pressure from her fingertip sunk him deeper and deeper between her lips, allowing Kati to savor his squirming and screaming the whole time.

Although she dragged it out as long as she could, within a few moments, Kati felt his hands and feet, the last parts of him outside of her mouth, slip inside with the first knuckle of her finger. She pushed him in just a bit farther with her finger, so her tongue could easily pull him deeper and with a pop, pulled her index finger free from her mouth, a shine of saliva the only evidence of where it had been.

With Greg Inescapably trapped in her mouth, Kati reclined back on the couch. He hadn't stopped fighting fate, or her, and the feeling of him trying, and failing miserably, to overpower her tongue was sending all the right signals throughout her. The sensations from his screaming, audible in her head, were only augmenting that amazing feeling. She could feel him try to punch and kick at her tongue, only to be nearly flattened with the slightest effort from her. He tried squirming around it, only to be easily and instantly pinned to the roof of her mouth. Every action he made was undone with the most casual motion of her tongue, or too inconsequential to even merit the effort.

Almost instinctively, as his struggling started slowing and weakening, Kati slid him to the bank of her mouth with her tongue. She opened her mouth to allow him a breath of fresh air, while her snack resumed his desperate attempts to escape. A chuckle escaped her throat. Without any further fanfare, Kati closed her eyes, lay back in the loveseat, exhaled through her nose, rested her fingers on her throat, and swallowed.

Greg proved to be a larger snack than she had anticipated, but he slid into her throat with the first gulp. Kati lived for the sensations coming from her throat. Greg’s body was deep in her throat and she could feel his every writhing, squirming, struggling against the overpowering muscles in her neck. He was blocking her airway, but Kati had swallowed enough people to remain calm and savor the moment. Even through her fingertips, Kati could feel his desperation, though it was faint, it still translated into beautiful vibrations that reverberated into her hand. A second swallow, more difficult than the first, sent the wriggling lump in her throat deeper. She could still feel him in her esophagus, but he’d slid down to the base of her neck and no longer rewarding her fingertips with his struggles.

A moment later she felt it, the deeply satisfying sensation of a living person splashing down into her stomach. She couldn’t help but fight a moan after a deep breath. Her airways free, and the sensation of Greg arriving in his final destination were almost too much. Kati rested her hands over her stomach and did her best to slow her breathing and her heart rate, anything to help make the slight squirming in her gut stand out. Sure enough, after a few deep breaths, Kati exhaled slowly and held her breath. Over the minimal background noise of her apartment, ever so faintly, Kati heard the mindless scream she had been hoping for coming from her stomach. Accompanying it was the faintest sensation of struggling, unachievable by anything except a living, struggling, desperate person fighting their last inside her.

The warmth blossoming between her legs was a welcome addition, but Kati fought the urge to masturbate. She had, in the past, indulged herself with a wand while her meal digested, but she had learned quickly that the delicate nature of her meal’s noises and efforts could be too easily obscured by the pleasant vibrations coming from a hitachi. Instead, Kati closed her eyes and relaxed back in the loveseat. It wouldn’t take long, minutes at most, and she wanted to savor every beautiful moment of Greg’s last.

“I’ve got to do this more often…” Kati mused to herself. “It’s a shame I can’t eat you again. But thank you, Greg, if you can hear me, for being everything I wanted in a meal.”