She stood with her back to the bed at first, and sat back slowly on it. Then she began to gradually lean backwards, bracing herself with her arms resting on the bed.
She finally reached the horizontal position. Inside her, Patrick surmised what had happened, and lay down on the back wall of her stomach. She adjusted her direction in the bed, so that she now lay in the usual sleeping position, with her head on the pillow. Then she reached out and turned off the reading light. She had plunged herself into the same darkness which he had been facing for nearly an hour.
He felt strangely wonderful, to be lying down inside her, in her bed, only inches from the breasts he had lain on the night before, yet in a drastically different situation. In a way, it felt lovely to know that she was lying in her bed, aware of having just eaten him, aware of the life she still had ahead of her, outside of her own stomach, and no doubt stimulating her mind with these thoughts as well as with the feeling of his presence in her stomach. If only he could still talk to her, to tell her how he felt.
Then he realised he could.
He began tapping on the back wall of her stomach, in Morse code, using soft taps for dots and hard taps for dashes.
“If you can understand Morse code this way, pat your stomach once for yes.”
She received his message, going even wilder still with the news.
She patted her stomach. He felt the movement.
“You can do two pats for no, if I have any more yes/no questions,” he signalled, “You won’t have to imagine how it feels now, darling. I can tell you. It’s amazing. I’m here, inside you. You’ve eaten me, and you don’t mind. It’s driving me wild. I’m going to lie here and think of your future celebrations and recollections as you asked me to. I feel so happy at least, that you’re always going to remember eating me tonight and celebrate this event. By the way, I still love you even now, Colleen. You’ve done everything you said you would, forced specific performance of my employment contract. Are you going to stay awake for a while?”
She patted her stomach twice.
“It’s OK,” he said, “You’ll wake up in the morning after having dreams about tonight’s dinner, I suppose. I’m sure that will make you very happy.”
She patted her stomach once.
“Are you really enjoying this?”
She patted her stomach once.
“I am too now. I really don’t want to go on now, if it would have meant missing this. Are you disappointed that I’m not worried anymore?”
She patted her stomach twice.
“Are you happy, because you got to enjoy my worries and fear before?”
She patted her stomach once.
“Goodbye once more, my darling Colleen.”
“I didn’t even have to pay him any superannuation,” she thought, and smiled privately in the darkness.
She rolled over to the other side of the bed and lay awake in mental ecstasy for twenty minutes, before she fell asleep.