The roiling in Astraea's stomach was getting loud enough that the passengers could hear it even lofted up at the level of her face, but the giantess couldn't help but frown now. Much as she hated to admit it, that nagging bit of Mitch-specific morality she'd accidentally developed at the same time as her love for him was about to deprive her of this scrumptious busload. She huffed, then began tipping the vehicle backward and forward like a rainstick, and was fittingly treated to an instrumental chorus of yelps from within, but this was an unsatisfying substitute compared to making a meal of them.
"If you're sure, then... I'll let you go," Mitch said, mildly cheered-up despite his sorrow. "I love you."
"Love you too, honey."
With that, Astraea ended the call and refocused her attention on the bus with a final bout of glaring intensity, just to squeeze every bit of anxiety out of them she could before they started fainting. She extended her glistening slime-drenched tongue from between her full lips and raked the slippery mass over the windows, greasing them in drool and even denting the bus walls inward slightly.
How simple it would be to pry the back of the thin metal husk away, then tilt it backward over her parted lips, shaking toward the dark wet maw until every last passenger lost their grip on the seats and tumbled into her throat. This was supposed to be her cheat meal, or rather her cheat day. Of course Mitch understood that his wife had to occasionally feast on actual micro-bodies or otherwise perish, but it was nevertheless easier and far more fun to indulge herself while he was off in another city under their daughter's care. But of course, right before she could dump these first little souls past her teeth, swish them in a sweltering spit bath, and gobble them down by the half-dozen, one conversation rearranged all her plans. Damn that Bart Townsend, tainting Astraea's day off one last time while on his way to a boiling grave in Ana's tummy.
"Wow," Astraea stated aloud, fully realizing what she was about to do. "Maybe I really am tamed after all."
Ensuring the bus was still in working order by spinning its wheels with a fingertip, in spite of the minor damage she'd caused when slicking its windows and crunching in some of the frame with bulging tongue musculature, Astraea stooped, tapped her fingers on the vehicle one last time, and set it gently in the street next to her bare dark-bronze tanned foot. After a moment of hesitation, perhaps expecting they were about to be flattened like a tin can under her sole, the driver got ahold of himself and hit the gas, squealing off down the road.
Standing in the deserted streets, as the surrounding blocks were abandoned once Astraea set foot in downtown proper, the giantess puffed up her chest and peered across the adorably-sprawling stone-and-steel landscape, with her hands on her hips and her toes thumping the concrete until it cracked. So, maybe the city wasn't going to serve as exactly the free-for-all smorgasbord she'd planned from the very instant Ana and Mitch left town, but she was still determined that a hearty meal was out there somewhere among the urban mess, all nervous and plump with sin. It was a huge city, even by the standards of a thousand-foot-tall sentinel, which meant there statistically had to be literal handfuls and mouthfuls of wrongdoers whose worthiness as snacks would outweigh Astraea's respect for her husband's wishes.
A fifty-story roof in the affluent inner circle of downtown, shinier than its neighbors, housed an open-air restaurant, pool complex, and even tennis courts. Densely populated with wealthy families enjoying the sun, the news of Astraea's arrival in town had to have reached their ears, though the majority of the patrons blissfully remained at play in the summer heat, likely thinking themselves immune to a visit from the silver-haired stalker. This was the only reason the giantess could really think of to explain their continued presence as she turned a corner between skyscrapers and approached the rooftop club, puzzled and amused.
Far below, stragglers were hysterically racing away from Astraea's oncoming bare peds, on foot and by car, and gifting her with a continuous stream of fear. Yet she felt no such thing wafting from the moneyed hundreds on the roof, at least until she was within three paces of overlooking their little waist-height kingdom. Her attention was only directed below enough to avoid trampling aggrieved micro-citizens, as she'd instead set her sights squarely on the waterpark.
"Now, that does look refreshing," Astraea commented, when her shadow cast over the whole of the complex. By now, the once over-confident masses were standing in preparation for a mass exodus. She knew that collective look of speechless rigid-legged terror well, and knew the delight of its soul-teasing effect even better, but also expected any second for the people to scatter, fighting each other to pile into the elevators and staircases. And that was just irritating. Moments before chaos could break out, then, she pre-solved the problem by plucking water slides clean out of the pool like doll accessories, the ladders still packed with bodies waiting their turns. Then she blockaded all the major exits just by turning the chutes on their sides.
"Whoops. My apologies, but I'd hate to make you all leave so soon on my account," Astraea boomed, cupping a hand over her lips. In her opposite palm, she uncurled her fingers to reveal the unharmed-but-havoc-stricken guests she'd caught by dumping them off the slides before trapping everyone on the roof. "See, I just so happen to be in the market for something high-priced and tasty. As I'm sure you all know, I insist on hand-picking anything that goes in my body. Health reasons, you understand. So it really is vital that I have the widest selection possible. Please, don't get up. I can see you all better this way."
Having averted a screaming stampede, and skipped right to the stage where everyone sat still as stone, and absolutely stinking of dread, Astraea proceeded to examine the contents of her titanic pool-puddled hand. There, eleven men and women appropriately shivered with the greatest volume of fear out of everyone on the rooftop.
"Anyone in the mood for a jacuzzi soak?" she asked, then parted her lips and those pearly-white-lined jaws, even pointing her roiling tongue to her palate, so the gooey moat of saliva at the base was made easily visible to her passengers. "It's not as big as the pool you were about to use, but much cozier. The jets are just bubbling now. Come on now, any takers? If you climb in yourself, without any help, I might just let you relax there while I scrape together some lunch. Don't worry, I can multi-task. There's only a 70% chance I'd swallow you, too, and an even smaller chance that I'd do it on accident."
Astraea then pointed her tongue down, sloppily laying the tip across the heel of her flattened palm, which created a sticky gangplank of pink flesh for the eleven unlucky poolgoers to finally complete their interrupted water slide voyage. Upon offering this path, and steaming out hot breath from the cavernous blackness which blew back the hair of her bug-eyed potential victims, the occupants of the giantess's hand at last got over the shellshock and went into full-blown shrieks. Their vocalized terror seemed to infect the whole roof too, just as Astraea had hoped and practiced countless times before to perfection. The throngs went into a frenzy, some leaping into the pools and others clambering pointlessly over the broken water slides.