The following Saturday afternoon, Jocelyn went to the supermarket and bought a bag of lollies. She knew that it might well be some time, before she met another boy who would undertake to be her next special treat at tiny size. She was conscious of the need to be careful in choosing whom to discuss her eating desire with, and to keep the topic as a hypothetical impossibility in her representation of it, until such time as she was sure that the boy would keep her confidence. In the meantime, she needed the next best thing as a substitute: small candy boys to eat from a bag.

She handed over the coins to a blondish pale brown haired checkout operator whose nametag said “Kate,” and felt Kate’s finger accidentally slide against her hand as she groped for the smaller coins. Kate was somewhat taller than Jocelyn, with proportionately larger fingers.

Jocelyn went walking with her bag of sugar substitutes, while Kate continued working. About an hour later, a boy entered the store. Kate had seen him before, and recalled how handsome he looked. He disappeared down one aisle, and came back ten minutes later with a bag of crisps and an isotonic drink bottle.

“Do you want the free collectable cards with your purchase?” she asked, as he handed over the money.

“No, but is there any chance I could have a date with you instead?” asked the boy.

“I was hoping you’d eventually ask,” she said, “I’ve seen you here before, lots of times, but I can’t ask a customer on a date, and you seemed so shy.”

“I am so shy,” he said, “I’m Herbert.”

“Where would you like to go on our date?” asked Kate.

“We could catch the train up the coast, and then there’s a bushwalk, with my family’s holiday house at the end of it. I can carry enough food in my backpack, and we’d have the place to ourselves for a romantic meal for two.”

“I think I’d enjoy that,” said Kate, “I’m on four days a week here, and alternate Saturdays. So I’m free next weekend, if you like.”

“Four days a week? Have you left school before doing the higher school certificate?” asked Herbert, and then wondered if the question was a little critically worded, which he had not intended, “Sorry, that didn’t come out as politely as I meant it.”

“No offence taken,” she said, “I did my HSC a few years ago. I’m in my 20s now. Is that a turn-off?”

“Of course not. If I’d known about it, I might have thought you too daunting a prospect to consider my chances with you. As it is, I like it a lot.”

The following Saturday came, and they met up at eight in the morning, caught the train to the coast, and went on their bushwalk. They reached the holiday house at 11:45.

“It’s a wonderful old house,”  said Kate, “Could you walk me right around it? I’d like to see all of the outside, before we go in for lunch, hungry as I am.”

“I’d love to,” said Herbert, still holding hands with her.

They were almost back to the front, when Kate clutched her stomach.

“Do you have a cramp or something?” asked Herbert.

“No, it’s not that. But I do feel strange,” said Kate, “Ohh!”

“Hey, You’re not the only one who feels strange. I used to come up to your eye level with the top of my head,” said Herbert, “But now I only seem to reach to your chin. What can be happening to me?”

“I think it’s more of what’s happening to me,” said Kate.

With that, she found herself growing taller and taller and proportionately wider, until she towered above the house. Herbert barely reached her ankles now.

Kate sat down.

“What can be happening to cause this?” she asked.

“I simply don’t know,” asked Herbert, “There’s been nothing in this area to cause such an effect before.”

“I’m so hungry,” said Kate.

“You’d better have all this,” he said, opening the backpack.

She tried to reach for it with her fingers, but could not get a grip on the small items of food. She recalled the slight difficulty she’d had the week before, when she’d taken the small coins from Jocelyn’s hand. This was much harder.

“I’ll go up to that window balcony,” he said. “You see if you can sit back and open your mouth below it when I get up there.”

He let himself into the house, ran upstairs with the backpack, and went over and opened the door to the balcony and stood there. Kate had sat down and then lay back, so that only her upper torso and head were upright.

Herbert opened a large slab of meat that he’d brought to make sandwiches with, and dropped the entire thing into her mouth. He saw it land on her tongue and slide back  towards her throat. Then he opened the loaf of bread, and let all the slices fall out of the plastic bag and into her mouth. He did the same with the punnets of strawberries and the entire sponge cake.

“It was nice, but it barely felt like one mouthful,” said Kate, “I’m still starving after that walk.”

“I wish I’d kept this house stocked all the time,” said Herbert, “There’s nothing else here.”

“Except you,” said Kate.

“I meant something else for you to eat,” said Herbert.

“So did I,” said Kate.

“Except that I’m obviously not food,” said Herbert.

“You look good to me,” said Kate, and raised her hand towards the balcony.

He realised in that instant that her hunger had gotten the better of her. He backed indoors, closed and locked the balcony door and backed into the center of the room.

“Don’t be difficult!” he heard her call, “You know I need you. You might as well get it out of the way, and then I’ll have a larger piece of meat inside me.”

He stayed silent, trying to think what to do.

Then he felt a tremendous noise above him, and saw the roof starting to move upwards. Kate was pulling the entire roof off the house with her bare hands in order to get at him.

As the roof came off, revealing her stern face staring down at him, he ran to the stairs, slid down the rail to save time, and retreated into the central room.

“It won’t work, Herbert. I’m not going to let you escape!” called Kate.

He heard another noise above him, and knew that she had pulled the outside walls off the upper rooms, to give her a better chance at gaining leverage to work on their floors, which were also the ceilings of the downstairs rooms. He wondered if he could run out the door and into the bush and elude her, but knew that she’d certainly see him.

He heard more noise, and knew that she was wrenching the remaining ceiling up from over his head.

Herbert darted down into the basement and looked for anywhere that might conceal him. He knew that it was only a matter of time, before she discovered the stairs to the basement, and began pulling up the downstairs floorboards.

Then he heard more crashes.

“You’re being irrational, delaying the inevitable!” she called, “If you’d been more cooperative in the first place, this would all be over by now.”

“Whatever you think’s fair,” he thought cynically, and found a pile of wine crates.

He managed to build a structure that allowed him some cover underneath four crates mounted partly on the rest of them, and ducked under it.

Then he heard the floor pulled up above him, and peeked out at Kate.

“It’s obvious where you’re hiding,” she said, and lifted the covering crates from above his head, and put them down in the garden outside.

“Kate this was the date I’d looked forward to for so long. Are you really going to let it end this way?”

“I came out with you expecting to be fed to my satisfaction as part of the romantic meal in this house you promised me,” said Kate, “I’m not going to be disappointed.”

She picked him up and stuffed him eagerly into her mouth, gulped violently and licked her lips with satisfaction.

“That should at least keep me sustained until I get back into town,” she thought, and made her way.

That night, while watching the news, Jocelyn saw that Kate had marched on the town, snatching up anyone in sight and eating them until the rest of her hunger pains had completely subsided. She went to talk to Madam Minnie about it as soon as she’d finished dinner.

“I saw the news report too. It’s being updated on every channel,” said Madam Minnie, “I never met Kate, and she couldn’t have known about my Enlarger Elixir, unless you told anyone who could have told her. But there’s none missing. I checked. Nobody’s been here except us, Peter and Larsin.”

In the days ahead, several other reports came in of girls and women growing to gigantic size and manifesting overwhelming urges to swallow normal sized people whole for food. All of them had one thing in common. Other staff members from Kate’s former store of employment reported to government investigators that all of the gigantic women had been seen as customers in that store. Authorities have ordered the store closed down, and all of its food items recalled for scientific analysis.

“You HAVE met Kate, you mentioned,” said Madam Minnie, “I don’t think they’ll find anything in the food products of that store, which would explain the growth of these women. It started with Kate, and she met you. It’s not much to go on, but I’d like to do a blood test on you, and apply every possible analysis to your blood.”

Jocelyn agreed, and waited a few days for an answer from Madam Minnie, which might throw some light on it.

In the meantime, the government named the condition as GROBIG-86, and declared that it was a pandemic. The armed forces were called in to attack the giant women with both land and air strikes. Some women went down under fire, while others regrouped and united in places where a preemptive strike was not feasible. It was easier for the giant women to hide behind cliffs and throw boulders at approaching planes and tanks.

Madam Minnie met with Jocelyn before another week had passed, and put her theory to words:

“I believe that you had a large amount of seafood, large for you from the perspective of a temporarily shrunken person anyway. You then had the Enlarger Elixir mixed with red cordial. The seafood and the Elixir both combined with some unknown factor in the female DNA has created a growth virus. You’re a silent carrier, unaffected to the point of doing anything more than regaining your original size the day we met. However, somehow, you’ve passed the dormant virus onto someone else.”

“I think I know how now!” said Jocelyn, “The last time I saw Kate was a week before she made the prime time news. She had sold me a bag of lollies at the store, and she had to work at getting the coins out of my hand with her larger fingers.”

“It must be transmitted on contact with the skin then,” said Madam Minnie, “And since Kate acquired it from someone who enjoys eating tiny boys, namely you, her first thought was to relieve the hunger pains of her new giant body by eating people whole. I can inform the government anonymously, but I won’t let them track either of us down. I might be able to come up with a way to use the Shrink Drink in another modified form as an antidote.”

As GROBIG-86 began to spread around the world, nothing was able to contain it. The governments resorted to putting entire countries under house arrest for their people’s own safety, testing all manner of proposed medical countermeasures, despite painful and even deadly side effects, usurping people’s medical choices, and generally taking away people’s civil rights.

Madam Minnie perfected a powder antidote, derived from the original reduce tablets, and sent it in large quantities to the governments. The armed forces fired missiles tipped with the powder into the upper arms of rampaging giant women, with interesting results. The women did return to normal size, but then died a few minutes later. The antidote worked, but had death as a side effect.

“It must be safe enough to use the reduce powder on someone who has taken the enlarge powder with water,” said Madam Minnie, but for someone who grew to giant size by contracting the GROWBIG-86 virus through skin contact, the reduction would be lethal.”

The telephone suddenly rang. It was the home diversion extension of her business line.

Madam Minnie took the call.

“Hello,” came a voice, that was very soft, “Can you hear me?”

“Just barely,” said Madam Minnie, “Can you talk louder?”

“I’ll shout, but it won’t be much better, and you’ll soon know why. I’m Arty, a neighbour of your former laboratory assistant Chad. He came to see me on the way home, the day you fired him. I cheered him up, and he thanked me and shook my hand. I haven’t seen him since, but I’ve developed some major medical problem, and I  think you’re the only scientist I could make contact with for help, since I can’t go out of my local area during the GROBIG-86 lockdown. I’ve got the opposite problem. I’ve suddenly and inexplicably shrunken to tiny size. That’s why I’m so hard to hear. I slipped under Chad’s door, found your phone number in his room, and managed to lift the phone off the hook to call you.”

“Can you hang up and stay near that phone? Give me the number and I’ll call you back,” said Madam Minnie.

“Alright,” said Arty.

Madam Minnie hung up the phone, turned to Jocelyn and filled her in.

“It’s the same problem in reverse, with the same origin story,” said Madam Minnie, “I didn’t tell you the full details before, just condensed the story. Before Chad first asked me to eat him, he knew I was having prawns for lunch in the laboratory. He secretly took two of my reduce pills, dyed himself with red and white food colouring to look like a prawn and hid in my bowl of prawns. I detected an unusual taste, found him in my mouth and took him out. I dismissed him from my employ and then spent the afternoon thinking about his incredible desire to be swallowed whole by me. He consoled himself by talking to a neighbour and shook the man’s hand. Clearly his contact with seafood after taking the reduce pills has combined with something in his male DNA to create a shrinking virus passed on by skin contact too. He shook hands with Arty, and then I came around and agreed to eat Chad after all. Arty was none the wiser, and now the dormant virus in Arty has caused him to shrink. Everyone Arty’s touched since then is either a silent carrier or someone who’s been reduced but hasn’t been able to contact me, because they don’t know even as much of the story as Arty did. I guess I’d better go and see him.”

Madam Minnie called Arty back, got his address, and then remembered that Arty was still in Chad’s vacant home.

“I know where that is. I’ll come and see you,” said Madam Minnie.

She went to Chad’s place and let herself in with the house key he had left her, and sat down in front of Arty. She explained everything.

“Well, I guess I’d better have some of that Enlarger Elixir to restore my size,” said Arty.

“When I supplied the governments with the shrinking powder as an antidote to the GROBIG-86 virus, they could only use it on known threatening giant women, to stop their rampages. They know they can’t possibly use it in any other context. When taken as an antidote to the opposite powder having been taken with water, either powder will safely restore size with no side effects. However, when taken to counteract GROBIG-86 or the shrinking virus, both acquired by skin contact with a silent carrier, the effects are lethal. You’d have your size back to normal, but only for a few minutes, and then you’d die from the side effects.”

“So you’re telling me that I either kill myself at normal size or stay like this forever.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Madam Minnie.

“What sort of a lifestyle is that?” asked Arty.

“I wish I could offer you a better one,” said Madam Minnie.

“What am I going to do? I’ve been a bachelor for long enough. What girl’s going to want to go out with me now?”

“I could take you on a first date with me, and then swallow you whole on the second date,” said Madam Minnie, recalling the kisses that Jocelyn had exchanged with Larsin for the pleasure of eating him.

Arty looked at Madam Minnie’s beautiful face, particularly her mouth, and considered her suggestion.

“I suppose I might as well,” he said.

“Would you like me to take you back to my place?” she asked.

“I guess so,” said Arty.

Madam Minnie took him home with her. Jocelyn had gone home to watch the news reports about the gradual restoration of people’s civil liberties as the giant women were put down. Madam Minnie romanced Arty for the rest of the day, and well into the night, before they went to sleep. They spent most of the next day together, and then she ate Arty for her dinner that evening.

Arty had been too caught up in his own dilemma to even consider the fact that he had come in contact with several other men and boys since the day he’d shaken hands with Chad. A shrinking virus was spreading around the world, but without the newsworthy events of gigantic rampaging women. All over the world, arbitrary males, who were not mere silent carriers, were secretly shrinking to tiny size and acquiring the irresistible appeal to women’s and girls’ mouths. Madam Minnie had surmised this, and considered going in search of them, but could see little point in simply being the harbinger of bad news, when no cure was possible. Boys were eaten without their consent by their former girlfriends, or girls they’d admired but never found the courage to ask out. Some boys willingly went along with their fates. Some even suggested it. The shrinking virus only affected a small percentage of the world’s population. So many people just went on as normal, unaware of the problem. Once the last of the giantesses had been terminated, the GROBIG-86 virus reached a global zero case statistic, and was no longer a problem… except for Jocelyn.

“I had to advise you to stay here,” said Madam Minnie, “If the government knows that you’re a silent carrier, they’d probably execute you in the interests of national safety, before you could start the pandemic off all over again. Until and unless I can find a way to isolate and remove the virus strain from your system, you’ll have to stay here. I haven’t caught it from you, perhaps because having eaten Arty, I’ve acquired a counter-related immunity.”

“Then why couldn’t I?” asked Jocelyn.

“Of course. That probably would have occurred to me in a few more minutes,” said Madam Minnie, “The one way to neutralize the silent dormant GROBIG-86 strain in your blood is for you to eat someone who has shrunken, not from willingly taking the Shrink Drink, but from contracting the shrinking virus through skin contact. Then the two virusses would destroy eachother in your bloodstream, leaving you only with normal healthy skin contact again. After that, you must never have seafood and red cordial in the same day again.”

“The only problem is how to find someone who’s caught the shrinking virus,” said Jocelyn.

“We’ll just have to go looking,” said Madam Minnie, “But first we’ll need to cover our skin. I’ll rig up a transparent layer of temporary skin cover, so that you don’t go infecting everyone else.”

A few weeks later, now fully equipped, Madam Minnie and Jocelyn searched through parks, forests, every public place they could think of, looking for someone who’d manifested shrinking virus symptoms while outdoors. They could not go into people’s homes to look for someone, but the virus could take its effects anytime.

After several more weeks of searching, Jocelyn and Madam Minnie found a boy a couple of years younger than Jocelyn who was walking alone in the public gardens, when he suddenly shrank to tiny size.

Madam Minnie and Jocelyn walked over.

“I know what’s happened to you. I’ll explain soon enough,” said Madam Minnie, scooping the boy up in her hand and placing him gently in her handbag for concealment.

They took the boy back to her house and told him about the virusses and what had happened.

“So you see, we can’t have Jocelyn wandering loose with a tentative temporary skin cover, to soon become a silent carrier and start the GROBIG-86 pandemic all over again,” said Madam Minnie.

“See, what she worked out is that the two virusses can cancel eachother, when they’re absorbed into the same bloodstream. All I need to do is eat someone who has contracted the shrinking virus, and that will be absorbed into me. Then the shrinking virus and dormant GROBIG-86 virus will destroy eachother.”

“I still don’t understand how that can cure me,” said the boy.

“There is no cure for you,” said Madam Minnie, “There might have been, if I’d found a way to get some of the GROBIG-86 strain from a rampaging giantess and somehow get it into your tiny bloodstream. I don’t know of any way to do that, and the giantesses are all dead now.”

“But you could cure me,” said Jocelyn, “All I need to do is eat you.”

“Just like that?” said the boy, “You look lovely, Jocelyn, including your mouth, but I don’t think I want to be eaten.”

“I can make it thrilling and enjoyable,” said Jocelyn, “Both of my boyfriends were happy for me to eat them.”

“And the alternative for you would be spending the rest of your days at that tiny size,” said Madam Minnie.

“I think I’d like to make the most of that,” said the boy.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Jocelyn, “But I’ve been isolated for some time now, because of this problem in my bloodstream. We’ve been looking for a shrinking virus patient for weeks now, and you’re the first one we’ve found. I’m afraid you’ll have to help me, willingly or otherwise.”

“Are you going to let her do this?” asked the boy.

“I do take some responsibility for everything that my accidental inventions have set in motion,” said Madam Minnie, “And I regret that you’ve faced the loss of your normal size. In every other situation, I’ve left it up to boys and men to volunteer for being eaten. However, in this case, I have to think of the wider consideration … the fact that Jocelyn simply must be cured. She’s been a dear friend and neighbour for a long time. I hope you can see that we have no other course of action available to us.”

Jocelyn picked him up off the table.

“Thank you for complimenting my appearance,” she said, and kissed him, “Don’t worry. I’ll be as quick as I can about it.”

She opened her mouth wide and put out her tongue and lowered the boy onto it and drew him into her mouth. She was so keen to affect the cure, that she didn’t savour the taste of him, as nice as it certainly was, but gulped hurriedly and felt him sliding helplessly down into her stomach.

“I’ll keep you here in isolation, and do blood tests every two days until we’re sure that the dormant GROBIG-86 is gone,” said Madam Minnie.

Within a week, they were sure.

For the rest of the world, just a few men and boys would shrink irreversibly every day. What happened to them is another few stories.