“Do you want anything to drink?” Melody was already removing her coat and closing her umbrella.

“I’m fine,” Jared replied. Now that he was out of the rain, he realized that the damage was far worse than he imagined. His pant legs had now fallen to rest around his ankles, and his shirt had almost entirely dissolved into a fine, shredded fluff. “Could I maybe, wait in the living room while you, like, do homework or something?”

“Don’t be silly!” Her laugh was like the ringing of bells. “We have to hang out in my room. I’ve redecorated since you were last here. It’s almost like you’ve been scared of coming to visit your little old friend lately.” She stuck out a hip and put a hand on it, leaning forward for emphasis.

Jared’s eyes traced the outward curve of her hip, following the gentle recess of her stomach up to the chest that pushed gently at her top. His eyes involuntarily returned to her stomach, and his words caught in his throat as he was dragged down the hall to the bedroom. She cheerfully plopped him down on a red cushion. The color of her shirt, Jared thought before he could stop himself.

“I, uh like what you did with the place. What, um, what did you do with all the stuffed animals?” The door to the room suddenly felt far away.

“Nevermind that, now.” The door closed with a click. “You always were careless, weren’t you, J-bear? I always told you it was gonna get you eaten.” Her pink tongue ran across the surface of her lips, also pink with lip gloss. “What do you think is gonna happen when you, I don’t know, get caught without an umbrella on a rainy day?”

“I d-don’t know,” Jared stuttered. “Maybe a really good friend who’s attractive, strong, and good at decorating will let me stay dry until it stops?”

“May-be,” she purred, her voice shifting into a singsong pitch as she advanced on Jared, her breasts hanging over his head. “But with your clothes like that, you already look half-digested. Wouldn’t hurt to finish the job, would it?”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the world began to grow around Jared, who let out a pitiful shriek. Melody, previously comparable to Jared in height, grew first to the size of a telephone booth, then to the height of a flagpole, then to the size of one of the tall buildings that dotted the skylines of modest cities. Melody, for her part, was anything but modest, as her mouth had opened into a vicious, open-mouthed smirk that seemed to fill the air with brimstone. Her eyes, normally blue, burned red as coal, and Jared was left gaping at the seams of her now-magnified jean shorts as well as the seeming hundreds of meters of soft leg that stretched beneath them. He could see the pores where she had shaved blonde hairs from the otherwise pristine surface, and he could smell the cool, sweet-and-sour aroma of her sweat mixed with a floral perfume.

And yet, of course, Melody had not grown, she had simply used her innate power, the power of every woman living in a post New Giantess Order world. Melody had shrunk him to the size of a candy, and she was now eyeing him with the same voracious intensity.

“I always knew you were the cutest,” she boomed, her words shaking her breasts in a hypnotizing display, “but this is unreal! I’m lucky that my first crush looks so delicious.”

“Delicious?” Jared choked out. “Please, you don’t have to do this yet, Melody. We’ve been friends forever! Could you, uh, keep me as a pet for a few weeks first and think it over?”

Melody put her pointer finger to her chin as if she was thinking about it, and Jared watched as she inserted the same finger into her mouth, pulling it out with a “schlock!” noise. A thin strand of saliva spun in the air between the finger and her plush, pink lips before she began giggling.

“Friends? Only humans can be friends.” She put her hands on either side of Jared’s pillow for emphasis, creating an artificial ceiling of her chest and face. “I just see a delicious little snack waiting to be gobbled up. Hee hee. Ha ha ha ha!” The laughter shook the cushion like an earthquake, forcing Jared to cling to a seam for dear life. Melody, her radiant golden hair illuminated like a halo around her head, clicked her tongue derisively. “You can’t even handle it when I laugh? You’re way more pathetic than I remember. I bet you can’t even fight back against my tongue.”

Her head hung there for a moment, tongue hanging from an open, laughing mouth. The shrunken boy could see saliva pooling, oozing down along its massive red surface, and eventually dripping from its tip like a stalactite reaching down from this ceiling of a damp, red cave. As the first drop splashed against the red velvet of the pillow, Melody’s grin turned into a sneer, and she bent down even further, touching the tip to the surface of the pillow. Almost like folds of concrete being poured layer after layer, the tongue seemed to grow in density as it spread itself out against the soft fabric and began its advance.

“Please!” Jared was yelling now, desperate to be heard over the scratchy sound of Melody’s massive tongue dragging along the pillow. “I know I’m going to get eaten someday, but I’m not ready yet! If you wait, I promise I’ll let you be the one to do it. Just give me a few more years. I can even convince Mom to sell me to you, so no one else can eat me until then!”
                Melody, her tongue still gliding toward the tiny morsel, scoffed. “Thath not likthley.”

And with a sinking feeling, Jared knew that she was right. His mother was one of those conservatives who believed that boys shouldn’t get eaten by a woman before college, who would refuse to sell her son on the grounds that if Melody purchased him, the two hormonal youths would just be even more tempted to do the deed.

“I promise!” He yelled. “I won’t let anyone eat me!”

The massive wall of flesh had left an upturned fibers on the soft, fuzzy pillow, much like the swath of destruction in the wake of a hurricane. Now, she lifted it from the pillow that had become Jared’s world. “You can’t promise that,” she said softly.

“Women are cruel,” she continued. “They’ll eat you up if you’re not careful, and you’re the least careful pers- I mean, boy, I know. Do you think a girl has to ask for permission or something?”

“A nice girl might,” Jared protested feebly.

“I’m the nicest you’re gonna get, J-bear.” Melody smirked. “You wanna see if I ask for permission?”

Then, to prove her point, the girl lowered her face until it nearly touched the vast surface of the cushion, extending her tongue again so that it dragged like a monstrous serpent. Jared was quickly swept up with the ravenous efficiency of a dog licking a treat from the ground, and he barely managed to take a deep breath before his world became dark, damp, and viscous. He felt himself being pressed against the roof of her mouth. He heard the “Glick! Glick!” of her tongue sliding against teeth larger than tombstones. He heard (or perhaps felt, as the vibrations of Melody’s massive mouth carried the noise into his bones) a droning, regal “Mmm, mmmmm!” as his childhood friend savored the taste of her tiny meal. Minty-smelling liquid filled Jared’s nose and mouth.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the pressure ceased. Jared was blinded by the soft light of Melody’s bedroom as he tumbled into her hand, coated in her thick saliva. His clothes seemed to have been reduced entirely to fluid in Melody’s mouth, which she swallowed with a smug air of finality.

“See, J-bear? I can’t trust you to take care of yourself when you’re so easy to eat! It’ll be safer if you let me take care of you just this once.”

Melody’s mouth had been warm, but the saliva caking Jared had started to cool, and he shivered. Her hand stretched around him like an altar of sacrifice, its patron goddess gazing down expectantly at her tribute.

“Did- did you ever see me as anything more than food?!” Jared yelled desperately. “We used to play together as kids! Didn’t you think for a second that maybe, I’m as good as a human?”

“Did I ever see you as more than food?” Her massive eyes wandered as she considered the question. “I think I’ll start with your second question. No, I never thought of you as a human being.” With her other hand, she extended her pointer finger, squishing the tiny boy into her now-sticky palm. “Why would I think of you as something you’re not? And you’ve been a lot of things to me, J-bear, but one of them…” She grinned, then opened up her mouth to unleash a wave of hot breath onto her minute victim, still trapped beneath her massive fingertip. “Was always food.”
                She lifted Jared from her palm with a scooping motion, allowing the goopy spit to keep him stuck to her finger.

“Maybe I can take one request,” she said cheerfully, wiggling her finger in the air as she gazed down at his trapped form. “Do you want me to eat anything after I swallow you? Maybe you’d like some leftover mashed potatoes to keep you company. There’s just one thing I won’t do.” Her large, liquid blue eyes seemed to deepen into endless oceans before Jared’s eyes.

“I won’t eat anyone else to keep you company. I want you all to myself in my last moments.”

For Jared, all hope was lost. His future and all his hopes and plans were about to be devoured by this girl he had known since childhood. And yet in that moment, she seemed so majestic, like an ancient goddess granting one prayer to a loyal servant. The romance stories that Jared had watched and read started to flood his mind. Yes, this was man’s role in society: to serve, then to be eaten. He had been a good male for a decade and a half, and now he would no longer be forced to serve the whims of powerful women. He had one last task, a job that only men were fit to perform.

“Ea-eating me will make you happy, won’t it?”

She smiled broadly. “It will make me the happiest woman alive.”

The tension drained from Jared’s body. It was like he was watching a movie, or like he was back in his bed imagining what it would be like to finally be devoured.

“Just tell my mom and sister that I was a good snack.”

“Oh, they already know.” Melody’s laughter rang through the air like the lightest, most cheerful death knell Jared had ever heard. “Who do you think locked the front door? Your sister wants a vore selfie, so be sure to make a good face for her!”

Melody’s lips parted, and the finger carrying Jared seemed to hover between them like a spaceship in a sci-fi film coasting into a hangar bay. Once more, Jared smelled an inviting, minty aroma. She must have brushed her teeth, then gargled in mouthwash just to make sure her childhood friend was comfortable. Jared felt gratitude take its place alongside the terror in his heart as the gigantic finger dragged along the massive, rolling surface of the tongue, depositing him with all the ceremony of a Tic Tac.

Outside, Jared could still see the bedroom, with its soft lighting, pink walls, and large red pillows on the floor. That room had been his world mere moments ago, but now his universe had been replaced with a cavernous mouth, its dripping surfaces soaring high above his head like the ceiling of a cathedral. Jared was thrust forward by his own limbs, scrambling toward Melody’s gaping mouth, but he felt a chuckle shake the tongue beneath him, and he fell to his hands and knees. The view beyond the girl’s lips was replaced with a rectangle, and a bright light nearly blinded Jared until his eyes focused on its source.

Melody had raised her smartphone to take a picture. The shot captured her bright eyes, hair splayed about and glowing. She looked young, happy, and powerful, basking in the glory of her own beauty and strength.

Within her mouth, Jared saw himself reflected back in the phone’s screen. He looked small, awestruck, and very naked. He had to agree: the tiny speck sitting on Melody’s tongue did not look human. It looked like a very small bug about to be devoured by a hungry bird.

“Humm onnn!” the walls around Jared rumbled. That was right, he had to pose for the picture. Melody couldn’t eat him if he didn’t. Jared sat up, then stood shakily. He could feel Melody’s efforts to keep her body still, but the tongue beneath him still pulsed and tensed as he tried to raise himself. Then, swallowing his own fear to the back of his throat, he put his hands over his head in the shape of a heart and forced a big, sloppy grin onto his face.

He heard the shutter sound just a moment before his world went dark, and he felt his ears pop as he was shoved against Melody’s right cheek with the force of a train. He felt himself being squeezed between two surfaces, one smooth and slick, the other rough and forceful. Then, the surface below him curved downward into a fleshy bowl, and he tumbled down into the center, hugging the ground. Just when he thought he was stable, he was slammed upward again, and he felt his body begin to slide backward when-

*GULP*