When Templeton was 19, he took a bushwalk that he’d done many times, but this time deliberately strayed off the path and began walking randomly between trees, just to see where he might end up. Unexpectedly, he passed through some sort of invisible warp and ended up in a giant garden that looked out on a massive building with a sign on it that said BOOKS & TUCKSHOP. He walked a little away from the portal, and then looked back at it, and commited the location of it to memory, as it was invisible.

Then he walked back through the portal and studied the divergent path he had taken on his bushwalk, and commited that to memory too, so that he could repeat the experience any time he wanted. He looked up at the building and realised that it seemed to have been designed disproportionately.  The building was as tall as a skyscraper, and yet the door reached almost to the very top. A books and tuckshop building shouldn’t have needed a skyscraper complex to accommodate it. He walked over to the door and couldn’t see any way to open it. Then he heard a loud bell from somewhere in the distance.

Before long, he turned and saw several girls in school uniforms walking towards the building. Unlike earth school uniforms, these were in the form of long elegant dresses which reached almost down to the ankles, and looked much better in his opinion than earth school uniforms. He ducked behind a flower outside the building and watched the girls approach. Then it suddenly dawned on him that he was smaller than the flower, and as the girls drew closer, he could see that they also had a disproportionate look to them, as he was straining his neck back. He had to look upwards, to concentrate on their faces. They weren’t unattractive by any means, but since leaving school, he had found that his visual chemistry system was geared towards adult women. As the first girl came right up to the door, she unknowingly confirmed what had slowly been working its way into his mind. He only came up to the girl’s ankles, and had to conclude that the people on this side of the invisible portal were giants. Some sixteen girls opened the door and filed into the shop, chattering away happily. He waited for the last of them to go in, and then ran in behind, before the gigantic door could close.

Inside he saw several book stands close by, and food shelves and a counter on the far side of what was actually just one giant sized room. He ducked under a book stand, and peeked out for the next 50 minutes, as the girls selected their lunches and were served by a gigantic and very beautiful woman. Then another bell rang, and the last of the girls, who had subsequently turned up after his own entry, left with only a few lollies to eat before presumably returning to a giant classroom somewhere.

He felt a sense of impatience at last relieved, as he could now approach the giant woman unobserved by anyone else. He stepped out into view and walked over to the counter, but could not see her face, as she had been serving from a sitting position behind the counter. From this position, the counter itself blocked his view of her face. He walked around the counter and took in the full grandeur of her elegant beauty. She was wearing a long pale brown dress, with patches of dark pink on it.

“Hello,” he said to her, “I’m from another land called earth.”

“I know you are,” she said.

“Really. How?”

“Because I’m from earth too, a number of years ago. I came through the invisible portal, and a few seconds after I’d appeared here, I just started to grow. I don’t know what caused it, but I can’t undo it, and I couldn’t go back to earth now if I wanted to.”

“Does that mean you’d prefer to stay here anyway?”

“I was fortunate enough that the girls school Books & Tuckshop staff member was retiring not long after I arrived. So I soon had this place to keep me going. Now I have a house of my own and a nice life here. I’m Elena.”

“My name is Templeton.”

“I’ll get you off the floor, so we can talk more easily,” said Elena.

She picked him up and sat him on the counter. He looked up and across at her neck. It alone was taller than his own height, and looked so soft and wide. He felt the overwhelming urge to snuggle against it. There was something about it that accentuated her beauty still more.

“I’d never thought of combining the book shop and tuckshop that they have in earth schools into one,” said Templeton.

“It’s an innovative idea on the part of these giants,” said Elena, “Most school book shops usually only sell their books at the beginning of terms or the beginning of years. With the tuckshop in the same building, it can stay open all the time, except in school holidays. They’re not far away here, although you’re not due for them on earth for a while, are you?”

“Not for 2 months,” said Templeton.

“What school do you go to?”

“I finished over 2 years ago.”
“Really? How old are you?”

“19, going on 20 in 4 months.”

“I’m  nearly 36.”

“I thought you’d be about 26. I guess we both look younger than we are.”

“I’ll say. I’d have guessed you to be in junior high school. You’re deliciously cute. Now that there won’t be anymore customers until lunch time tomorrow, I can have my dessert. I had lunch’s main course before the girls came in. I’ll cut a slice of rainbow cake. That way it’ll be something soft enough for you to stand beside it, and you can dig in with your hands and have as much as you want, while I put my finger and spoon to work and scoff down the rest.”

“Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, little fellow,” she said, placing the plate with the slice of rainbow cake on the counter beside him.

He stepped onto the plate and scooped out a bit of cake with his hand and used his other hand to eat parts of it slowly.

“It’s very nice!” he said, “Did you make this yourself?”

“No, it came with the regular supplies that stock up the tuckshop. It’s nice in a sticky messy sort of way, but when school breaks up, I think I might come in here once more on the first day of the holidays and enjoy something I can swallow whole, without all the gooey icing sugar and crumbs.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t think it’d be so easy for me to swallow whole.”

“It would be semantically impossible,” she said, “Not just because it would only fit inside my giant mouth, but also because of the logistics of it. I was referring to you.”

He remembered a feeling of excitement and warmth and elation all roled into one when she had described him as ‘deliciously cute’, but dismissed it as just a form of flattery based on visual appearance. Now he felt far more excited by the words she had just used, and wondered if he had understood her correctly. There was one easy way to find out.

“Did you mean that it would be semantically and logistically impossible for anything to swallow itself?” he asked.

“That’s it exactly,” said Elena.

That seemed to settle the matter, but one more question just to confirm.

“So when you said you were referring to me, you meant that I would be something that you could easily swallow whole.”

“For sure,” said Elena.

“That’s an amazing idea! I’ve been looking at your neck and imagining how lovely it would be to cuddle up against it. Being able to slide down inside it would be a thrill beyond my ability to express.”

“You can snuggle up against it if you like,” she said, “If you’ve had enough cake.”

“I’m full on it,” said Templeton.

She used her hand which had been holding the spoon, as it was not sticky, to pick him up and place him at the base of the neck, with his feet resting on her necklace. He snuggled against her, while she put more cake into her mouth.

“Are you comfortable down there?” he heard her mouth say above him after a while.

“Yes. I can feel the movement of your neck doing the gulps, each time you swallow a mouthful of cake,” he said, “It’s helping me to imagine what it will be like when you’re gulping me down on the first day of the holidays.”

She lowered him back to the table.

“I’ve been imagining it too, just from the feel of you against the outside of my neck. I’m sure it will be a very special treat for me.”

She rested her elbow on the table and sat her face in her open palm.

“It would never have been possible for us to do this, if you hadn’t grown to giant size when you got here,” he said, as she began eating again.

There was just a little of the cake left on the plate. She put her forefinger into the cake, then placed it into her mouth and sucked the cake from the tip. He saw her finger emerging from her lips slowly.

She radiated warmth as she smiled down at him, while they both considered what she was going to do to be the most natural thing in two worlds.

“There, it’s all gone,” she said.

“It seems like such a long wait until the holidays, when I’m this excited. Could I have a turn in your mouth now?”

“I’ll just wash the crumbs down first,” she said, and lifted a small bottle of water to her mouth, and gulped down a plentiful intake.

Elena picked him up and laughed sweetly as she opened her mouth and placed him inside. He enjoyed the adventure of it immensely, and felt that it had thoroughly satisfied him by the time she took him out again and placed him on a shelf.

“I’ll have to hide you out of sight under the counter when the girls are in here each day, but we can get to know eachother more for the rest of the time, and I’ll even come in to see you on Sundays too (not Saturdays, when the girls have school sport and I’m at home), right up until the week in which I’ll swallow you.”

There were two weekends of school term left. On the first one, she came in on the Sunday wearing a multicoloured dress and sat down on the stretch of carpet behidn the counter, with her back against the wall. She stretched her right leg out in front of her on the carpet, and bent her left leg, with her hands on her knee, so that her wide well curved calf muscles towered just in front of him. They talked for most of the day, until she finally went home.

On the following Sunday, she arrived wearing a long dress with a high neckline level with her shoulders, and her arms and ankles covered. Only her hands and shoes were visible. The dress was white, with thin green vines all over it, with little yellow and pink flowers coming from the vines.

“It’s like your dress is a beanstalk, and I can imaging climbing it up to your neck,” he said.

“Would you like to try to do that?” she asked.

“Yes please.”

“Alright. If you slip from anywhere up to my tummy, you can just grab the lower portion of the dress and stop your fall. Once you’re on my chest, I’ll cup my hands under, to catch you if you fall off the edge.”

Templeton made the whole climb without the slightest mishap, and even used her hair to climb up beside her cheek and then run his hand over it. Her soft facial skin was tender to the touch. He then slid down her hair to her shoulder and asked her to turn her head to face him. He ran his hand over her lower lip.

“I can’t imagine that any native giantess would be as lovely to eat me as you are,” he said.

She was breathtaking, and the inner wonders of her mouth were his and his alone to explore.

What he only just that second took to heart was that he had already adequately explored them. When she went ahead with her holiday lunch treat, the inner wonders of her stomach would be the only new exploration prospects in store for him, and the journey would be very much a one way trip.

“We can go out in the gardens for once,” said Elena.

She took him out, walked through the school grounds a little way, and sat at a garden table, looking resplendently beautiful in her elegant white patterned dress.

They talked some more.

“This is the first time I’ve been in the gardens, instead of the tuckshop,” said Elena, “It’s as new for me as it is for you.”

“And so scenic,” said Templeton.

“Do you know something? You look so cute right now, I’d really love to play hide and seek with you out here, and then chase you through the garden when I find you. Do you think you could manage the exercise of trying to outrun a giantess?”

It was then that a thought crystalized in his mind. He had been in her mouth. He had been against her neck, even touched her lip with his hand. After those experiences, including the experience of lying on her tongue, there was nowhere left to go but down, quite literally down her throat and into her stomach. She had spoken about it so naturally, as though there were nothing unusual or daunting about it for over two weeks, and had been so sweet and pleasant in her demeanour, that he had not had a chance to emotionally process the ramifications of what she had made up her mind to do with him, apparently without considering how he might have felt about it. In the midst of all that, she had just suggested an activity which might well afford him the opportunity to avoid those ramifications.

“I might not give you a very good chase, but I’ll try my best,” he said.

“That’s alright. I’ll certainly give you a good chase,” she said, with a sweet friendly giggle.

She put him down on the grass and closed her eyes.

“You run and hide. I’ll count to 50 and then come and get you,” she said.

He noticed some long grass, and darted in amongst the base of dandelions, just in time, before she opened her eyes.

“Coming, ready or not,” she said, and walked around until her eyes came upon him. She had to squat down and make her way through the long grass and dandelions carefully, to avoid destroying the appearance of the school grounds. He turned and ran with ease, as he did not face the same restrictions at his size. He came to a row of circular drains and wondered why the grass had been allowed to grow over them. He darted through the nearest one and ran a few paces, before he came out the other side. He turned and looked back above the drain, but could not see Elena any more. She simply wasn’t anywhere in the garden.

Then he noticed something else. It was raining. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all morning, and yet it was pouring with rain. He looked through the drain and saw sunshine on the other side, lighting up the long grass and dandelion stems. He stepped back into the drain and went almost to the end, but not all the way, and looked out, just as Elena drew near to the opening, her face lit up in sunshine too. He darted backwards and looked at her.

She looked into the drain and could see him on the other side.

“That’s odd,” she said, “It only seems to be raining on your side of that drain, when I look through it. Even odder still, when I look over it, I can’t see you or the rain on the other side. Hang on. There’s a plague here next to the drains, that’s largely overgrown. I can’t read it.”

He looked around on the rainy side and saw a plaque that was not covered in any grass at all. Then he noticed for the first time, that the grass was not long on his side of the drain.

“There’s a plaque here too,” he called back, “I’ll read it out for you:

These are the Timewater drains. They enable small objects to flow

like water from one time to another. They go back different numbers

of years in time, and are labelled with numbers on the side, to denote

how many years can be traversed by any object you place in them.

Objects can not travel back to a point before the Timewater drains

were invented and built here by earlier students. If you wish to retrieve

your objects, then choose your drain carefully, as the drains are

nowhere near large enough for YOU yourself to go into the past and

retrieve objects.

That’s all it says.”

“I’ll have a look at the drain you’re in from my side,” she said, “It says 8. You must be eight years in the past. I was 28 then. I didn’t come to this land and grow until I was 29. By the time I was 30 I’d been settled here for months.”

“So there isn’t a giant you here in this time then?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “I lived in 31 Lyle Street back then. My house backed onto the bush, which got me started walking, and one day I felt some inexplicable urge to go off the path. I accidentally stepped through the invisible portal and found myself here.”

“That’s pretty much how it happened for me too, except I didn’t grow like you did,” said Templeton.

“I guess I can’t make good on what I said about giving you a good chase,” said Elena, “My hand wouldn’t reach further than a few giant inches beyond the opening at your end.”

“I guess that’s the way it works, according to the plaque,” said Templeton.

“We’ve certainly had an interesting day for our last weekend of term. Come on back through and I’ll carry you back to the tuckshop and dry you off. I’m guessing that any rain that fell on you in the 8 years ago time period will travel through the drain with you, so that you’ll still be wet in this time period.”

She was either still so sure of his having reciprocated her desire for their diner and lunch relationship or entirely presumptuous at this point, to have assumed that he would step back into her mercy.

“Can I ask you something?” he called back.

“Anything you like, little darling.”

“When you first told me about swallowing me whole, were you posing it as a suggestion?”

“Not really. I’d been thinking about it ever since I’d first laid eyes on you in the shop. While we were eating our rainbow cake, I made up my mind that I wanted to do it. The only thing left was to let you know.”

“So … I guess what I’m asking is that …. Well then you didn’t just decide that you wanted to eat me. You decided that you would.”

“I guess so.”
“So … You were announcing your plan to swallow me whole …. I mean, as opposed to asking me about it.”

“There wasn’t anything I really needed to find out from you. I could see that you looked deliciously mouth watering, and I was sure that I could gobble you whole without any problems. Everything seemed perfect. So I didn’t need to ask you anything.”

“Well nothing except my thoughts on the idea.”

“But you’ve been looking forward to it. You kept saying so.”

“I only said it for the first time after you’d already declared that you’d made your plan. What would you have said and done, if I hadn’t wanted to make a one way trip to your tummy?”