Fulton turned up to his Saturday job as usual, hoping that the time would pass more quickly this time. He was eagerly looking forward to the evening. He’d met a beautiful girl named Alison Bowles on a sailing camp during the previous holidays, and they had exchanged telephone numbers.

In the next few months, they had been growing closer and closer together as friends over the telephone. A few weeks ago, she had invited him to go to her school formal with her. It was this Saturday night, and all he could think about. His employer, Jenny Schofields was a scientist who had hired him to be a test subject in her laboratory. Each week, while he was at school, she would make further adjustments to her developmental Reduction Radiation chamber. Then every Saturday, she would ask him to enter the chamber, and be exposed to two hours of radiation, which in theory was supposed to reduce him in size. The Enlargement Emanation chamber, in the same laboratory, would be used to reverse the reduction effect, should the latter ever be achieved. Today he had worn his formal attire to work, so that he would be ready in time to go straight from Jenny’s laboratory to Alison’s school.

The process once again failed to yield any result. He spent the remainder of the day typing notes while Miss Schofields dictated them, and then walked to the station, caught the train up the line and met Alison at the gateway to her school. She walked him along the path and into the school hall, as the sun finished setting, to welcome in the evening. They talked and socialized for a while, as Alison introduced him to her friends, and then sat down at the tables for a three course meal.

After the dessert bowls had been well taken care of, the music started. Fulton asked Alison if she’d like to dance, and she accepted. They began to jive and groove to some fast tunes, which went on for the next hour and a half. Then the pace of the music slowed down dramatically, and they began to slow dance in each other’s arms. He felt Alison’s cheek against his own, and enjoyed that for some time, before he made the move which had been in his thoughts for so many months. He turned his head a little and kissed her cheek, and then felt her turn again to kiss him full on.

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since the sailing camp,” he said.

“I was thinking about it during the sailing camp,” said Alison, “Perhaps we could have an encore.”

He kissed her again, and then felt that something had changed. He opened his eyes, saw that Alison’s were still closed, but that they were a little higher than his. He had never been this close to her before. Yet he felt certain that they had been the same height, with their eyes meeting, when they had been dancing.

“Maybe she’s always been taller than me,” he thought, “I don’t mind that at all.”

He closed his eyes again and enjoyed the feel of her lips, until he felt that he was straining his neck rather uncomfortably in order to maintain the position.

He opened his eyes once more, and could not make sense of what he saw. His eyes were now barely level with her chin, so that she had been leaning her head down a little to maintain the kiss, while he had been stretching upward. He then realised that he’d subconsciously gone onto the balls of his feet by the time the kiss had progressed to this point.

It was then that he thought back to his work hours for Jenny Schofields. The Reduction Radiation chamber must have finally worked, but taken a few hours for the radiation to take effect.

“I can’t explain, but I have to go,” he said, “I’ll call you as soon as I can. I really love you very much.”

“But Fulton-…,” she said, as he turned and ran out of the hall, and through the garden. He could see the effects of things in the garden appearing to grow, while he shrank along with everything he had been wearing while inside the Reduction Radiation chamber.

“What’s happening to you?” called Alison.

He could hear her footsteps running along the pathway behind him in the garden.

He had put some distance between himelf and the hall in the fifty or so seconds that he’d been running through the garden. However, he finally lost so much height that he could no longer make any significant progress. He was down to slightly under two inches in height. He turned and saw Alison catching up to him with ease. He stepped back into the flowerbed, as she came and stood in front of it.

“I don’t want to take a chance on anyone seeing me like this,” he said, “It must have been the reduction experiment I’ve been doing at work each week. It finally had a delayed effect. I was still normal sized when I left the laboratory, right up until the middle of our kissing. I’ll have to phone up Miss Schofields and tell her what’s happened. Will she ever be pleasantly surprised to find that it works. I can direct you to the laboratory, if you could take me there to meet her.”

“You look so cute, I could gobble you all up!” she said.

“I’ve always wanted a compliment from you, but perhaps you could use a different choice of words tonight,” said Fulton.

“What words could express it any better?” asked Alison.

“Well, you could say I’m handsome, I guess.”

“Of course you are, but I was talking about how nice it would be to eat you. Just think how easy it would be for me to swallow you whole. It would only take two or three gulps, and you’d go all the way down my throat.”

“Alison, this isn’t funny. I need you to be serious.”

“Fulton, I am being serious. We’ve been dancing and kissing for hours. The formal dinner has had plenty of time to go down, and I can see no point in taking you back to work to become enlarged again, when you’ll make a mouth watering supper instead.”

“Would you really be prepared to do that?”

“I certainly will.”

The moon was almost full in the sky that night, and the outdoor lights in the garden and on the outside of the buildings had lit up the scene enough for him to clearly see Alison’s towering beauty. He could only hope that the garden wasn’t as clear to her night vision as he sought concealment from her.

He stepped rapidly back into the garden, as Alison knelt down and looked in at him.

“If you want to play hard to get, that’s fine with me,” she said.

Alison reached in with her hand, and just missed him, as he ran out of reach.

He darted through the garden bed and turned to see her stand up and walk around on the path in pursuit. He headed away from the path, knowing how much the plant growth had inhibited the movements of her full sized legs, and ducked deep into a shrub and then stopped to catch his breath. He checked his pocket and found that his mobile phone had been reduced proportionately with him. He could still operate it. He speed dialed Jenny and waited for her to answer. Hopefully the reduced size of the phone when held to his ear might not carry Jenny’s voice to Alison’s ears. He could hear Alison walking around on the path, presumably scanning the garden with her high eyes in search of him.

After four rings, Jenny answered the call. He could see that the volume was set just right for him to be the only one to hear her.

“Jenny, it’s worked. I started shrinking at the formal. I got out into the school garden, before anyone noticed, but now I’m stuck at under two inches tall.”

“That’s wonderful news, Fulton. It looks like we’ve finally been successful. I can probably make it up there to collect you in a couple of hours. I have a friend over for supper at the moment.”

“If you don’t get here soon, I’ll be a supper myself. Alison’s chasing me through the school garden. She’s made up her mind to eat me.”

“Well I hope you get away. I’ll be tied up for a while as I said. If she hasn’t caught you by the time I get there later, I’ll take you back and restore you to full size in the other chamber. If I don’t see you then, I’ll say thank you now for all the time you’ve put in at the laboratory. You’ve proved my invention works, and I’ll be able to hire a new student assistant to reduce and then test the enlargement process on afterwards. Best wishes for eluding Alison. I’ll have to get back to my guest. Goodbye,” she said.

With that, Jenny hung up the phone.

He heard a rustling sound behind him and turned around, just in time to see Alison’s hand closing around him. He was removed from the bush and lifted up to see Alison’s face.

“If you want any more exercise, you can try putting up a good struggle in my throat,” said Alison, “The others will be coming out soon. I think we’ll finish this date off somewhere with a lot more privacy.”

She took him into another building and up a flight of stairs, across a landing, up another flight of stairs and then into a high carpeted room with a window that looked out on the well lit school grounds below. Some light from the school’s outdoor lighting shone in on them, augmented by the considerable amount of moonlight which has been mentioned earlier. Alison sat down on the carpet and leaned her back against the wall.

“Well here we are. Soon you’ll be in my stomach,” she said, “Do you like it up here?”

“It’s quite a view out there, but not as spectacular as you are.”

“Thank you. I really enjoyed all of tonight, and you’re about to give me a real treat.”

“Your lips look even more incredible from this point of view.”

“Do you think so? Would you like me to kiss you?”

“You might as well. It would be a shame for me to miss out on it.”

She pressed her lips against his entire face and held them there for several seconds.

“How was that?” she asked at last.

“Fantastic.”

“We’ve no hurry about supper, and you can’t run away again up here. Would you like to talk for a while first?”

“Sure,” he said.

“It’s not that I’ll be changing my mind or anything. I had another boyfriend before I met you, and I’ll have another after I’ve eaten you at some stage. But tonight is our special night.”

She sat him on her shoulder, so that he leaned his head against the side of her neck. They both looked out into the garden far below.

“I haven’t had a girlfriend before you.”

“And you won’t be having one after me. So I’m your first, your one and only. That makes me feel very special.”

“I don’t mind the fact that I’m not your first one,” he said.

“Well you are uniquely special, nonetheless. You’ll be the only one I’ve ever eaten,” she said, “I’ll never forget you, Fulton, and I’ll always have a very special place for you in my heart. But for tonight, I have a very special place for you in my tummy.”

“For you, I guess it will be just a matter of sitting here and feeling me sliding around on your tongue and then going down your throat. For me it will not be nearly such an inconsequential experience.”

“Oh I know. I was picturing it from your point of view, back when we were talking about the wording of my compliments to your new size in the garden. I wasn’t at all surprised when you ran to hide.”

“And you’re truly OK with that?”

“You’re an opportunity that doesn’t come along all the time. In fact, it’s never come along before. I saw the opportunity, and I’m going to take it. If you’d eluded me and gotten your size restored by Miss Schofields, I’d have made the most of dating you again. But you didn’t, and I can assure you that your own difficult situation will not take away any of the pleasure I expect to have when I’m eating you up.”

“It’s ironic. When I first saw you on the camp, I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to end up on this date with you tonight. But I had no idea at all what you’d be doing for the supper arrangements.”

“It’s turned out quite unexpectedly, hasn’t it?  It looks like the last of the formal couples is leaving now. The hall light was just turned off.”

They watched the garden emptying, until everyone had gone, and continued talking.

“Oh,” said Fulton suddenly, as he saw Jenny Schofields walking through the garden with a torch.

“There’s someone new coming into the garden now,” said Alison.

“It’s Miss Schofields,” he said, “I rang her from my mobile phone shortly before you caught me in the shrub.”

“She doesn’t know you’re up here,” said Alison.

“I know.”

A few minutes later his mobile phone rang.

“Are you going to let me take the call?” he asked.

“You can, but if you tell her where we are, I’ll swallow you long before she can find her way up here. I was planning to take it nice and slowly, and we can still talk some more.”

“Okay,” he said, and answered the call.

“Hello Fulton. I’m looking around the gardens now, but I haven’t seen you or Alison.”

“I’m with her now. She’s taken me away. I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” said Fulton, “But thanks for coming… eventually.”

“Thank you for all your help at the laboratory. Now that we’ve found the right radiation settings, I can repeat today’s round of the experiment with my next assistant and then move on to the enlargement process later.”

“You’re a scientific genius,” said Alison, moving her mouth as close to the tiny mobile phone in Fulton’s hand as possible, “In a way I’m indebted to you for the supper I’m going to have tonight.”

“I had planned to restore his size in the laboratory, but when the reduction radiation had a delayed effect, the experiment was no longer in a controlled laboratory environment. It looks like you’ve caught him before I could retrieve him. I suppose I’d better be getting back home then, since there’s nothing else I can do here.”

“Farewell Miss Schofields,” said Fulton, and hung up.

“You handled that well,” said Alison, “I appreciate your cooperation.”

She kissed him again.

“Considering I had little alternative, you’ve made it well worth it,” said Fulton.

“For me too. I really love kissing you at your new size.”

“It’s a shame we can’t keep on doing it.”

“There’s no chance of that. You’ll be going exactly where I said you would. I’ll still sit here when you reach my tummy and savour the experience for another hour or so. After that, I’ll walk home in the moonlight, lie awake and think about you until I fall asleep, and then tomorrow will be a new day.”

“I guess you’ll be back here until the end of next year, with school life going on as usual.”

“I think I’ll try to sit near the garden where I caught you as often as possible, when I’m eating my school lunches. I think it will enhance the memories.”

Alison suddenly yawned, and he looked deep into her mouth.

“Your tongue looks beautiful in there, Alison, very beautiful.”

“It’s very eloquent of you to say so.”

“I think I’ll find it very pleasant swimming around in your mouth.”
“I’ll hold off on gulping you down for fifteen minutes or so, to let you get the best experience of sliding about a little on my tongue then.”

“I just don’t think it’s fair that you get to gulp me down, without having a thing to worry about, while I have to go down and never come out.”

“Well you know there’s no point in trying to influence my outlook on that aspect of the situation, Fulton. Your scientist lady has gone home now, and nobody knows that I’ve got you up here. Your destiny was determined the moment you became small enough to fit inside my mouth. I’ve just explained what I’ll be doing when you’re in my stomach, and you simply don’t have any chance to alter the outcome. You don’t have a lot of time left. So you’d be better off preparing yourself for the inevitable.”

“Well I still love you just as much,” he said, and kissed her neck.

“I feel the same,” she responded above him, and he felt her neck moving as she spoke the words.

“All things notwithstanding, it’s so nice being here with you.”

“I think it’s supper time,” said Alison.

“Oh… Can I have one last kiss?”

“Just for a few minutes,” she said.

She lifted him up in front of her mouth and pressed it to his face for the next five minutes, and then withdrew it.

“Farewell, Fulton. It’s been wonderful knowing you. Have an exciting slide.”

“I will. Goodbye, beautiful Alison.”

She opened her mouth wide and placed him slowly inside it. He lay on her tongue and thought back to the moment when she’d made her intentions clear in the garden. He knew that he was just lying in there, trapped, and soon to be despatched. He felt comfortable in a physical sense, and yet he was in a frenzy in his mind. She was sitting comfortably in her school’s tower room, about to gobble him whole without the slightest reservation. She had mercilessly announced her plans and allowed nothing he said to have any bearing on the matter. All he could do was ride it out.

He felt her mouth beginning to move, and was drawn helplessly into her throat. A few seconds later he felt the suction of her gulping maw, as he slid downwards. Alison gulped relentlessly, until he fell into her stomach and lost consciousness shortly afterwards.