Tarquin lived with his foster mother in a pleasant home in London. He was seven years old, going on eight, when he was riding the bus home from school one sunny afternoon. An older girl got onto the bus and sat next to him. After a few more blocks, she took a book out of her bag.

“Would you like to have this?” she asked, “I got it in a lucky dip at the school fair, and I don’t like it much. It was donated by a book shop near the school. Maybe a younger boy might like it more. It’s about a young boy.”

“Thank you,” said Tarquin, “I wish I had something I could give you.”

“You don’t need to give me anything,” said the girl, “You can just take the book. I have to get off now.”

He watched her pull the cord and walk to the front of the bus, as the driver brought the vehicle to a halt. Tarquin watched her go, and she waved to him from the footpath. He waved back, to thank her again for the book, and then put it into his bag. Reading in a car or bus made his stomach feel ill. So he would save it until he got home.

When he had his chance, he went into his room and began to read the book. It was called ‘The Boy’s New Friend’ and was written by a lady named Leanne Commons. As Tarquin got into the storyline, he read of a boy named Dillon, who had a number of unusual and scientifically unprecedented adventures.

About half way through the book, Tarquin became more interested as he read the latest turn of events:

One day, Dillon was walking in the Dew Forest when he came to a tunnel in the earth which was large enough for him to walk through. He went inside and saw that it was lit up by some unusual glowing rocks in the earth. He walked through the tunnel for twenty minutes, and then saw some sunlight shining into the tunnel in front of him.

Dillon knew that he was coming to the end of the tunnel. He found that he had to walk up a little slope, so that he could get out of the tunnel. It was then that he remembered how he had needed to walk down a little when he had first entered the tunnel.

Dillon walked up the small slope and stepped out into a patch of the largest lettuces he had ever seen. They were each as big as the largest room in his house. Dillon liked lettuce, but not on its own. It needed to be mixed into a salad or a sandwich or a hamburger, for him to be able to enjoy it.

Dillon began walking through the patch, making his way around the lettuces, until he heard some footsteps, and looked around. He could not see anyone, and the footsteps sounded as though they were walking on hard concrete ground or brick or rock surfaces. Yet he could see none at all.

Despite his confusion, the footsteps were definitely becoming nearer. So they sounded louder to him. When he was sure of the direction, he began walking around the lettuces towards the sound, so that he could meet whoever was with him in the lettuce patch.

After he had passed three more lettuces, he saw a concrete surface ahead, and then saw two shoes stepping into view. Each shoe was longer than the largest of the lettuces. He looked up and saw the bottom of two legs, and then a dress which reached high up into the air to meet the neck of a giant lady. He looked up further and saw that she had a long neck and a head that was at least as large as the largest lettuce he’d seen.

The woman reached down and lifted Tarquin high into the air. As he looked around, while she started walking, he saw that the giant lettuce patch was part of a large garden on a huge estate that seemed to be in the middle of a giant district of lakes and valleys and hills. It reminded him very much of the English Lake District that he had visited once on a school excursion. Yet this one could not be in England, for it was gigantically proportioned, like the woman herself.

The lady did not say anything, but walked towards a beautiful immense house, opened a door, entered and came to a quaint old kitchen. As the boy looked on, he saw the lady lift a large dish down from the shelf and place it on the bench with her free hand.

The next thing that happened was sudden and unexpected. The lady lowered the hand which held him into the dish, set him down, released her grip, withdrew her hand, picked up the dish with one hand, carried it to the oven, opened the over door with her other hand, and placed the dish inside. She closed the oven door, turned a switch from the outside, and walked away.

Dillon could only make the most logical guess at this lady’s plans for him. She was cooking him without even a word of introduction, after which she would undoubtedly be preparing to eat him. What other explanation could there be?

He waited for her to come back, and felt the warmth of the oven affecting him as she approached the door and opened it. She took the dish out and carried him to a table in the garden and sat down. He looked up at this enormous woman and wondered how the tunnel had brought him there, and what to do next.

“Hello, I’m Dillon!” he called, “You must be very hungry, Miss Giant.”

“I do seem to be getting that way,” she said, in a polite friendly voice, “I had a nice breakfast, but that was a few hours ago. I was going to pick one of my lettuces and make a salad, but I’m sure you’ll be much nicer. Salads are alright, but it’s nice to have something really tasty, when one can find a little boy like you, isn’t it?”

“How do you know I’ll be tasty?” asked Dillon.

“My widowed mother lives in the nearby meadow with my younger sister,” said the lady, “Mother’s eaten a few little boys, and she always tells me how tasty that you all are. You’ll be the first one I’ve had.”

“Has your sister eaten anyone yet?” asked Dillon.

“Farra? Well- oh! How thoughtless of me. You introduced yourself, and I never told you my name. I’ll tell you all of our names, so that it’s easier to talk about each of us without confusing you. My mother is Mrs Waye. My little sister is Farra, and I’m Merri. But to answer your question, Farra did find a little boy one day. She was luckier than me. She asked him if she could eat him, and  the boy said no. So she let him go, but Mother caught him in the garden shortly afterwards and cooked him and ate him for her dinner.”

“Does Farra always ask the boys first?”

“Yes she does.”

“Why don’t you ask?”

“Well I don’t really see the need. It’s been nice to meet you, little boy,” she said, raising him above her mouth, and leaning back a little.

She opened her mouth wide and put out her tongue. She always found it easier to put the food onto her tongue if it wasn’t in her mouth.

“I like talking to you,” said Dillon, who had truly found something very pleasant about her voice and her manner, “Can I please be your friend and talk to you some more?”

“Well then I’d have to make something else for lunch,” said Merri, “I suppose you could be my little friend for a while, “Perhaps I’ll eat you another day.”

Dillon and Merri talked for a while and got to know each other, and then Merri began to feel more than usually hungry.

“I think I’d better go and pick that lettuce after all now,” she said, and walked out along the path, with Dillon resting on her shoulder. When she saw a nice ripe lettuce that took her fancy, Merri leaned over to pick it, and Dillon fell off her shoulder and landed on another lettuce, and then slid down the side, and fell onto the ground, to land just beside the tunnel.

“I’d better be getting home,” he said, and went into the tunnel, “Thank you for being my friend, Miss Merri!”

“And just like that he’s gone,” thought Merri, “I do hope he’ll come back some time.”

Maybe Dillon will go back and visit Merri sometime, and maybe Merri will eat him for a nice tasty lunch, or perhaps a delicious dinner. What do you think?

The chapter ended there, and the rest of the book went on to tell about the other adventures that Dillon had. Tarquin read faster and faster, hoping to get to the next exciting chapter about the three giant ladies, but he eventually reached the end of the book. Leanne Commons had not made any mention of the giantesses after asking her question. Maybe she wanted the readers to answer the question.

Tarquin looked on the back inside cover’s dust jacket leaf, and saw the most beautiful photograph of Leanne Commons. Yet he had no idea how to contact her. He hadn’t even bought the book himself. She was an established author, and he was just a little boy.

He began to imagine himself in the story as Dillon, with Leanne Commons as the beautiful giantess Merri. He thought of writing a sequel story himself. He could never write a whole novel like an adult could, but maybe a short story which returned Dillon to the giant lettuce patch and the clutches of Merri or to the sister or the mother would be the answer. Tarquin thought for a while and then he had his idea. Dillon would discover a fork in the tunnel, that he’d walked past in the dark the last time. He would find that it led to Mrs Waye’s garden. No matter which giantess he was thinking of, he visualized Leanne’s beautiful face, especially her smiling mouth in the photograph, as being the face of the giantess concerned. Leanne’s story had awakened in Tarquin the strong desire to be considered as a possible meal for Leanne herself, if it were only possible to find Leanne, and for that matter, for Leanne to be a giantess who was thinking about eating him.

Over five years passed. Tarquin was now in his long summer holidays, at the end of year eight, at the age of 13 ½. He was able to move more freely with more responsibility and less supervision by his foster mother.

One day he was in a bookshop, when he saw the spine of a newly released book, and the spine bore the name: Leanne Commons.

He bought the book, took it home and read it, but found that the story had no content about giantesses at all. He did, however, find one thing on the last page, which took his breath away:

Leanne Commons is a divorcee with a three year old daughter, who lives in the English Lake District. She has written three children’s books and one adult novel…

The paragraph did not give her actual physical address, but this time included a postal address.

He laboured hard to finish his sequel story manuscript, so that he could send it to her.

One day Dillon went back through the Dew Forest and into the underground  tunnel. He walked more slowly this time, and noticed something he had missed before. There was a second tunnel forking out from the first. He decided to follow this one instead, and came out in another giant garden. He could see nothing but high plant life all around him, and decided to walk until he came to any sort of clearing.

After he’d been walking for a while, he saw an enormous hand reaching down towards him, and looked up to see a beautiful woman’s face. It looked like Merri’s only older, which looked strangely more appealing to him. It must have been her mother Mrs Waye.

“I’m in Mrs Waye’s garden,” he thought, “She’ll eat me for sure.”

He felt her elegant fingers around him, as he was lifted high into the air, to see that she was actually standing on a stretch of grass that he would soon have reached anyway.

“It’s a while since I’ve caught one of you little boys,” she said, as she began walking towards her giant house with him in her hand by her side, “My name is Mrs Waye. I’m going to cook you and have you for my dinner. I don’t have anything against you personally, but I like the taste of little boys like you more than anything else I eat, and you’ll just have to make yourself ready to be swallowed whole.”

She put him on a high shelf for the afternoon and then prepared him in her oven and took him to the table, where he noticed a glass of water and two tablets.

“I wouldn’t waste your time struggling in my tummy if I were you,” she said, “Those tablets will put me fast asleep for the whole night. I won’t feel a thing. By the morning, I expect you’ll be all gone.”

He looked across at her tummy. Adorned by her beautiful soft tight feminine clothing, it looked nice and pleasant. Yet he would soon be inside it. He remembered her use of the phrase “swallowed whole” and looked up at her neck. Then he looked further, to her eyes.

She met his gaze and brought her hand towards him. He had time to see her fingers opening. The sight was of a lovely open palm, and a thumb and fingers which reached around him and closed gently. He was lifted off his feet, up to her face, and in front of her lips. Mrs Waye opened her mouth, and he then saw her tongue come slowly out of her mouth and approach him. She licked the entire upper part of his body, and he felt her whole tongue progressively sliding over his face, before it went back into her mouth.

Dillon had not imagined how enjoyable it would feel to be eaten in this way (or in this Waye). In a few minutes, Mrs Waye would be somewhat better off than he would, but there was no harm in enjoying the process while he could.

Then something else occurred to him. There was no harm in telling her either.

“That felt wonderful, Mrs Waye. I’m Dillon,” he said.

“Thank you, young lad,” said Mrs Waye, “You’re very nice.”

She repeated the gesture a few times, and then used her tongue to draw him inside her mouth, releasing her grip on the last occasion.

“She’s actually eating me!” he thought, “and I seem to like it more than I did when Merri almost did it.”

He realised that he must have subconsciously felt that way the whole time. It was the only way he could explain his return to the tunnels from the Dew Forest in the first place. He had been glad to make friends with Merri, but the fascination had been born out of the newly introduced concept of a giantess wanting to eat him.

He lay on her tongue for a few seconds, and then found himself being gulped down her carefree indulgent throat.

As Dillon travelled slowly down towards her stomach, he felt two objects rush past him, along with some water.

“The sleeping tablets,” he thought, “She’s going straight to bed.”

Then his whole world seemed to turn sideways, and he realised that Mrs Waye was lying down. After a while, he could feel the movement of her breathing in her sleep, as her whole stomach and upper tracts moved a little each time.

He considered that she must be in a deep sleep. In fact, so confident had she been that he would not have roused her with any movements of his own, that he had an idea.

He slowly climbed along what was now a horizontal tunnel, back up her throat and into her mouth. He felt no sign of stirring from her, and was convinced that nothing would awaken her until the tablets had run their course. As he lay on her tongue, he faced still one more issue: Her mouth was closed. He remembered how he had recovered from colds and flu viruses on occasion, how the inner lining of his lungs had been traumatized, how he had needed to cough uncontrollably for weeks after the original symptoms had all gone away.

Dillon moved to the back of her tongue, leaned down and tickled the top of Mrs Waye’s throat with his hand, until he got a reaction. Without realising what she was doing, Mrs Waye coughed Dillon out of her mouth and onto the pillow in the darkness. He quickly rolled off the edge of the pillow and onto the top of the mattress. Peeking up onto the pillow, he could see nothing, and assumed that Mrs Waye was still asleep.

Dillon managed to feel his way down the blanket, which she had not tucked in, climbing it to the floor and then running out into the garden. In the dark, he would not be able to find his way back to the tunnel, as Mrs Waye’s giant legs had enabled her to walk into the house with him in a minute or so. He concealed himself in the garden. If she had not been aware of his escape, she would not be looking for him in the morning.

He slept the night outside, and woke up with the dawn. He could clearly see the lawn now, and ran to the garden area from which he had been seized the day before, and found his way back to the tunnel. He waited just on the outside of the tunnel, until he saw not Mrs Waye, but her youngest daughter Farra walking in the garden.

Dillon remembered that this girl never ate anyone without permission, and would most likely be even less likely to eat someone who had spent part of the night in her mother’s tummy.

He called out to her: “Farra!”

“Oh… Hello little boy. How did you know my name?”

“I met your sister Merri.”

“You must be Dillon. She told me about you.”

“I met your mother yesterday too. She ate me last night, but I managed to climb out of her while she was asleep. She doesn’t know.”

“She’s eaten a few boys like you, but I never heard of any coming out again before.”

“She took sleeping tablets.”

“That must be it. She’s only been using them lately.”

“I liked her mouth. It was nice being eaten by her,” said Dillon, “If I let her eat me again and again, do you think she’d let me come out each time?”

“I don’t know,” said Farra, “It’s never happened before. I could ask her for you and then come back and tell you. You’ll be safe at the tunnel. It goes into your land, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, although I don’t know how,” said Dillon, “It isn’t nearly as long as the Dew Forest, and yet it somehow comes out in another land entirely: yours.”

“I’ll go and enquire about you to mother,” said Farra.

Dillon watched the young woman walk away. Soon both Farra and her mother Mrs Waye came out and stood just in front of the tunnel.

“My daughter has explained your situation,” said Mrs Waye, “I had expected you to be gone into my tummy by now, but since you aren’t I would like to accept your proposal. I will enjoy eating you up whenever you can make it here, and I will be sure to lie down and let you climb back out afterwards.”

“Thank you!” said Dillon, who was thrilled with this new arrangement.

Even a return to Merri might not have worked out so well.

Tarquin stapled the story pages together and then wrote an accompanying letter.

Dear Mrs Commons,

When I read your story about Dillon a few years ago, I really enjoyed the chapters about the giantess who nearly ate him. I think you have a nice looking mouth, and I wish you could be a giant woman who wanted to eat me. I’m 13 ½ and I hope I would taste very nice for you. Would you like to be the giantess in your story, or was it just a story idea? I always wished that you had written some more about Dillon and the giantess. In fact, I have written a bit more about what might have happened to Dillon next, and put it in this letter for you. Here is a picture of me too.

Your admiring reader,

Tarquin.

He posted the entire package to Leanne Commons and waited for her reply. Within a week, he received a letter in the post.

Dear Tarquin,

I was delighted to receive your lovely letter. I would not have developed the giantess plot line of my story at that stage, as I was not aware of anyone who reciprocated my feelings. I would indeed like to be a giantess and eat a little boy, especially one like you. You look so sweet and handsome and delicious. I very much enjoyed the way you have extrapolated on my story, and I would like to continue you it with you in tandem. If we ever found someone willing to publish it, you could share the authorship with me.

More than that, I would like very much to meet you. You would find that the English Lake District where I live is very much the scenery on which I based the area in and around Merri’s garden. I have written down the name of the nearest station where I could meet you, and my telephone number, and left you some money to buy a train ticket. Would you like to come and stay here for a few days?

Love,

Leanne.

P.S. I have attached some more of the story, which I have written to continue on from where yours left off.

United States of America, 36 years ago…

Dianne Archer was an attractive 23 year old young woman, with all of her life ahead of her. She worked in the cosmetics department of a large multi-storey city department store. One day she was arranging lipsticks in a glass display tray on the bench, when she noticed a handsome young man walking through the store.
He was a little younger than her, 18 in fact, which was far more significant at that age, than it would have been if they’d both been ten or twenty years older.

Dianne had dated a few boys in high school and two men since leaving, but it had never developed into anything serious. Though there had been some initial attraction in each case, it had never amounted to what Dianne felt at this moment:

This was love at first sight.

Dianne felt herself begin to panic. There was a sense of urgency about these things. There had to be, or she would never see the boy again, and the opportunity would be lost. He would not be purchasing any women’s cosmetics, and would walk past her department, on the way to another.

Perhaps she could help him to locate it. That was it. She would offer.

Dianne stepped into his path and smiled. She had been used to turning on a smile for the purpose of good customer service. In fact, one customer had returned and given her the following poem in response to it.

SMILE FOR HIRE

(1)       Why do you allow your smile to be used, to sell more soft drinks and French fries?

            Employers position you at the front counter, playing to customers' eyes.

            Your moods are a gift, to express when you choose, not to withhold and suppress,

            While faking a view that your heart doesn't share, when modelling somebody's dress.

(2)       You played in the fields, in the days of your youth, without manufacturing moods.

            Why sacrifice all of that innocence now, merely to offer fast foods

            To the consumers, who empty their wallets down into the shop owner's till,

            Defying the truth of emotions inside your soul, while projecting goodwill.

(3)       The sale of goods and services rendered doesn't include your own features.

            Love is not a commercial commodity. That's what the word of God teaches.

            It's yours to decide, when to give or respond with feelings that come from inside.

            It's yours to be offered, in various stages, from first date to girlfriend to bride.

(4)       A woman petitioned the Lord with a question, asking "How long have I got?"

            "You'll live forty years" the Creator replied. The lady was pleased with her lot.

            She went to the surgeons to have a facelift, disguising the years she'd acquired,

            And bought a new car, to drive through the town, pursuing the men she desired.

(5)       A truck driver suddenly slammed on his brakes, which sadly suffered from rust.

            He sent her car rolling, and when she'd passed on, she questioned the God she did

                                                                                                                                    trust:

            "My Father in Heaven, you said I had decades. So why did you leave me to die?"

            "I'm sorry," said God, "I did not recognise your face, when that large truck went by."

The man’s Christian message had not been wasted on her, but she couldn’t see herself progressing in her career by sighing at customers … or frowning.

This had to be different though. This had to be a smile from the heart which would use a brief opportunity to convey all her hopes and feelings in little more than an instant.

England, present day…

This was far more than the average boy’s wildest dream. She had not only written about but actually reciprocated the fantasy that her story had aroused in him. The promises of her letter would do everything short of actually enabling them both to go through with their fantasy.

Tarquin decided to read the new pages of the story that Leanne had written:

Dillon had returned home as usual by the weekend, and Mrs Waye was able to go about her regular Saturday evening business. Being a widow with two daughters, she was the president of an organisation called Single Mothers United Group (SMUG). Almost every Saturday evening, she would host parties for the group in her large garden. This was in fact the very garden where the second fork of Dillon’s Dew Forest tunnel emerged.

On the next Saturday evening, once the sun had set and the latest SMUG party was under Waye … err… under way, a prep school boy named Tristram (from the orphanage near the Dew Forest) snuck out for an evening walk, and found the tunnels too. He emerged in Mrs Waye’s garden, to see that a party of giant women was in full swing.

As he walked through the flower bed, he saw a beautiful woman reach down into the garden in front of him and pick up a young man. Her hand just kept on lifting him up, until she suddenly slipped him into her opening mouth!

“Hey!” called the young man.

Tristram watched as the giantess closed her mouth and then gulped. Before his very eyes, she had swallowed the young man completely. The giantess licked her lips and then looked around the garden.

He realised that she might well have been looking for another boy to eat. He might have turned and run, but he was still mesmerized by both her beauty and the dining feat that he had just seen her perform.

Mrs Waye turned and walked back to a party table and made conversation with her guests, completely unconcerned with the fact that she had just eaten someone. A number of other single mothers (giant women) were in attendance at the SMUG party that evening: Mrs Hornsby, Mrs Tyrrell, Mrs Croker, Mrs Unswales, and Mrs Sue Lane.

The young adult man, who had just been eaten, was in fact a member of a club called the British Bachelor Boys. He made himself as comfortable as he could in Mrs Waye’s giant stomach and felt the movement as she walked around enjoying her own party.

The British Bachelor Boys had discovered the parties a few weeks earlier, and decided to come back and evaluate their chances of romancing the beautiful giant women. Most of them had spread out in the garden and prepared to approach the ladies who had caught their eyes, and weren’t even aware that one of their club was now in the hostess’s tummy.

In one part of the garden, a young adult named Dick managed to get the attention of a beautifully heavily built woman in her thirties with medium length light brown hair and very full shapely lips.

“Hello, I’m Dick,” said the man.

“You’re rather tiny, aren’t you?” she said, “I’m Mrs Hornsby.”

“Would you like to go out with me?” asked Dick.

“I suppose I could take you home, hide a small photograph of me in my lounge room and then leave the room while you hide yourself. I’ll come back and search for you. If you find the photo before I find you, I’ll be your girlfriend for as long as you want me. If I find you first, I’ll eat you.”

“That’s a fair bit risky for me,” said Dick.

“Well I can always find a man my own age and size,” said Mrs Hornsby.

If her mouth had not been so beautiful, he would never have considered taking the chance of being eaten by it. However, he was not going to make any decision other than accepting her offer. Mrs Hornsby was so keen to eat him, that she left the party with him early, and took him home and set up their game. He concealed himself behind a curtain and then began navigating a potential route in his mind’s eye, which would lead him around to the various parts of the room, where she might have hidden the photograph.

He watched her come into the room, and waited to see which direction she would go in to start her search for him. She turned to the right, and got down on all fours, crawled over to the nearest cupboard and peeked under it. Dick ran to the couch on the left, and simply ran under it in search of the photograph.

Dick made his way around the room in the same clockwise direction that she had done. However, when he reached the place that she had started her own search, she was most of the way around. She had covered more ground in the same time that he had taken to cover less, because of her giant size. He could only run for the cupboard that she had checked first.

Before he could reach it, she turned her head and saw him. It was the most amazing sight that he had ever seen, as the beautiful giant woman began crawling triumphantly towards him. She soon had him cornered and caught him in her giant hand.

In the meantime, back at the party, another Bachelor Boy called Paul had approached a giantess who introduced herself as Mrs Unswales. He invited her on a date.

“I think you’d be more suited to my daughter,” said Mrs Unswales, “And if it doesn’t work out, you’d be lovely for dinner.”

Paul went back to her place and met her daughter that night, who seemed happy to date him. He found himself wondering what Mrs Unswales had meant by “lovely for dinner.”

Back at the party, another bachelor boy asked Mrs Croker out.

“I’ve already been married,” she said, and suddenly put the boy into her mouth.

Before he could say anything else, she swallowed him.

“I guess that was a rejection, and a counter offer,” he thought in her stomach.

Sue Lane accepted the invitation from a boy named Lawrence and began dating him.

Mrs Tyrrell looked at her own young and tiny admirer.

“No. You’re too young. I’d much rather have you for supper tomorrow night,” she said, “You’re just the right size to be swallowed whole.”

She dropped him gently into her handbag and continued enjoying the party, leaving right at the end of the night.

When Mrs Tyrrell got home, the young man debated the issue with her, but she insisted on eating him.

A week passed, and another member of the British Bachelor Boys approached Mrs Hornsby. She made him the same challenge, which he accepted. He managed to find the photograph and became her boyfriend.

Mrs Sue Lane met another boy named Reginald. He asked her on a date.

“Well I’ve already started dating another boy from your little group,” she said, “But you do look very nice. Perhaps you’d consider inviting me to eat you instead.”

“Eating me? … I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, “But your mouth looks lovely.”

“I’ll meet you back here just before the party ends, and you can give me your answer then,” said Mrs Lane.

Reginald spent the evening watching the adorable Mrs Lane walking around the garden, and his mind was made up.

“So what have you decided?” she asked sweetly.

“I’d be honoured if you ate me,” said Reginald.

“Thank you, young man,” said Mrs Lane.

She took him home and hid him for the night. The next evening she waited until her daughter had gone to bed, and then licked Reginald slowly and slid him into her mouth and swallowed him.

In the meantime, Paul couldn’t help thinking that it would be more fun to be eaten by Mrs Unswales, than to continue dating her daughter. He waited for a chance to talk to her, while her daughter was out of the house.

“I was wondering what you meant, when you said I’d be lovely for dinner.”

“I meant that you’d be very nice to eat,” said Mrs Unswales.

“Could you describe what that would be like for me?” he asked.

“Being eaten?” asked Mrs Unswales.

“Yes,” he said, “Could you tell me how you would have done it?”

“I’d have warmed you up a little, but not too much, in my oven, and then enjoyed the taste of you in my mouth for a while, and then gobbled you down gently,” she said.

Paul took the next available opportunity to confide in her daughter, who didn’t seem to be that taken by him anyway. The girl was more fascinated by his vore crush on her mother, and agreed to break off their relationship, so that her mother would proceed with her alternate plan.

“It seems my daughter does not want to continue seeing you,” said Mrs Unswales the next time they were alone together.

“It does look that way,” said Paul.

“Well I might make a start on having you for dinner,” she said, and placed him gently into the oven.

She turned the oven on low, so as not to burn him, and waited until he had heated up a little, and then gently ate the boy. It was the ride of his life.

Tarquin enjoyed the new plot device to no end. The SMUG parties and the British Bachelor Boys would provide a potentially endless series of multiple plot lines, allowing them to tell stories of both romances with giantesses and young men being eaten by them. He wondered what would happen to Tristram, the boy around his own age in the story, who had so far only witnessed a gobbling, but not revealed himself to the giantesses. The plot structure would now allow each of them to create and develop separate subplots without contradicting the other writer’s storylines.

USA, 36 years ago…

Dianne was now blocking the aisle which would take an eighteen year old boy past the cosmetic’s department and over to the other side of the store.

“Can I help you?” she asked, beaming at him.

“Yes. Could you direct me to the furniture department?” he asked.

“Are you looking for domestic furniture or office furniture?” asked Dianne.

“I am after an office chair actually. I’ve just finished school and taken charge of one of my father’s companies,” said the boy.

“It’s up the escalators on level 3. There’s a lot on that floor. I’ll show you the way,” said Dianne.

She looked back at the other staff member of the cosmetics department, Justine, and rolled her eyes in the boy’s direction for Justine to see.

The two staff members had always gotten on well, and Justine could see that Dianne was keen on the boy. She winked back at Dianne to imply that she would be happy to cover for her.

Dianne turned her head back to the boy and guided him to the first escalator. On each level, they had to walk around to the next escalator.

“I’m Dianne,” she said, when they were on their way from level 1 to level 2.

“I’m Jared. Pleased to meet you,” said the boy.

His youth made him shy, and Dianne suspected that he’d been too occupied with educational and vocational achievements at an early age, to have had the chance to have dated girls. There was an art to seasoned romantic behaviour, and this boy didn’t have it.

To Dianne, his innocence of such things added more to his appeal.

“I know this store fairly well,” she said, “I’ve been here for five years since finishing school myself.”

It was important to let him know the age difference up front. If he were to fall in love with her, it had to be with the Dianne that she was, not the Dianne that she might have allowed him to imagine her to have been.

“It’s kind of you to come all this way to help me,” he said.

Dianne blushed. Was he just being polite or was he taking the opportunity to compliment her?

“I’m very glad to help,” she said, and led him the rest of the way to the office furniture section on level 3, “Will you have time to stop back at the cosmetics department and let me know how you get on?”

“Sure. Do they do deliveries?”

“It’s the store policy for anything larger than a handbag, if the customer requests it,” said Dianne, “See you soon then.”

She watched him start to examine the chairs, and could only return to her own department, wondering if she should have been more forthright. Yet what could she have said?

England, present day…

The day finally came, when Tarquin was able to accept an invitation to go and visit Leanne Commons in the English Lake District. She picked him up at the last railway station and drove him the long distance to her home, as they talked together.

“I’m so happy that you liked my story,” she said, “I didn’t think anyone would reciprocate the more unusual longings I concealed in it.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” he said.

They reached her place and spent the afternoon walking the countryside together, and then sat down on a lovely slope by a river.

“Would you enjoy eating me if we could make me small enough or make you big enough?” he asked.

“Darling I’d enjoy it very much,” said Leanne.

“So would I,” said Tarquin, “How I wish we could do it, but at least we can be friends and talk about it.”

“We can always be more than friends,” said Leanne, and wrapped her arms around him.

Tarquin enjoyed the unprecedented feeling of feminine touch in his life, and then realised that she was going to kiss him.

He enjoyed the sensation all the more, and looked forward to staying the night at her home.

They kissed for several seconds.

“That was lovely,” she said.

“I’ve never done it before,” said Tarquin, “Thank you for helping me to kiss you.”

They were soon walking the countryside back to her house.

“I can imagine chasing you through so many of these lovely scenic spots,” said Leanne.

“It would be great looking up at you coming after me in your lovely dress, with it swaying grandly on the grass,” said Tarquin.

They made their way home, and Leanne took out some more pages of her manuscript.

“I just added these last night,” she said, “Would you like to read them while I’m cooking dinner.”

“Since I can’t be the dinner myself, I suppose it’s the next best thing,” said Tarquin.

“I love you!” said Leanne, and licked his cheek.

He moved his head, so that the other cheek was near her mouth.

“What are you doing, shaking your head like that?” she asked, “I thought you’d like it.”

“I did, very much,” said Tarquin, “I’m just turning the other cheek.”

Leanne laughed as she understood the implication, and licked his remaining cheek too. Then he sat down on the couch and began to read from the story.

One evening a twenty-four year old lad found his way into the Single Mothers United Group party, and was amazed to see that a beautiful lady named Yvonne was there. She was thirty-two now and looked adorably plump. He had never found slim girls nearly as attractive as larger ones, and as a giantess, Yvonne was more attractive than anyone his own size. Unlike any of the other boys who had been to these parties during the tunnel from England, Terry Murray was the only boy who had found the giant country through another tunnel many years earlier.

When he was six years old, Terry was staying on a holiday with relatives, and found a tunnel and started walking through it. He came out in a giant open field right under a large table. He could see the bottom of a woman’s dress and her ankles and shoes right in front of him. He looked around and saw other tables, and women walking around everywhere. It appeared that some sort of ladies market had been set up in the field for the day.

Another giant woman came over to the table and accidentally knocked something off it. As he watched, a doll about twice his own size fell to the grass in front of him. The giantess squatted down to pick it up and saw Terry.

“There’s another one fallen down here too,” she said, and picked up the doll as well as Terry and placed it on the table, with Terry beside it.

There were several other dolls. Terry felt it wisest to stay stock still and hope that nobody realised he was alive.

“I didn’t see that one in the bunch before,” said the first giantess, “I’m sure someone will buy it soon. It’s the cutest of the lot.”

After a while, Terry noticed a woman and a teenaged girl come out of the back gate of a property just beyond the field. They walked over and looked around the stalls at the market, until they came to the dolls table.

“Are you still interested in dolls at fourteen years of age, Yvonne?” asked the mother.

The girl was plump, and so stunningly beautiful, that Terry felt an excitement beyond his years as soon as he laid eyes on her. She had the most magnificent full shapely lips, and the roundest loveliest cheeks. Everything about her was big and wonderful.

“I thought I’d grown out of them, but this one looks so nice that I’d love to have him,” said Yvonne.

Her mother bought the doll and gave it to Yvonne. They walked around the field for a while, and then returned home to their house. Her mother made lunch and served it. Yvonne put the doll beside her plate and began to eat. After the main course, they enjoyed slices of cake. A piece broke off in Yvonne’s hand, and fell onto Terry’s face where he lay, and then slid off onto the table. Yvonne picked it up and ate it, and then noticed that Terry had cake crumbs on his face.

“Try not to get it into a mess,” said her mother.

“It’s alright, Mother,” said Yvonne.

She picked Terry up and removed the crumbs with the tip of her large pink tongue.

“Oh Yvonne, really!” said her mother.

“It must be made with special clay,” said Yvonne, “It tastes rather nice.”

“Well just remember that clay could make you sick. You gave me a real fright when you put that other doll in your mouth once.”

“Mother, I was only five then.”

“Alright. I’ll leave you to wash up,” said her mother.

Yvonne picked Terry up again and put him on her lower lip, slid him inwards a little, and closed her upper lip down onto him, so that he would not fall from her lips. She gathered up the plates and took them to the kitchen. Terry looked down at her lovely rounded arms and plump hands washing the plates in the sink, drying them and putting them away.

When she had finished, Yvonne took Terry to her bedroom and opened her mouth wide, and placed Terry gently inside it. She closed her mouth and opened it periodically, and was clearly enjoying the taste of him, while she read a book. He spent two hours on her soft moist pink tongue, until she took him from her mouth, dried him with a tissue and left him on her bed. She left the room.

Terry climbed down the overhanging blanket to the ground and snuck out of the house, and back out into the field. The last of the giantesses had packed up her table and was preparing to leave. Terry located the tunnel and returned home.

Now he was sure that this was Yvonne walking around the garden at the party of giantesses that he had come upon. She looked far more beautiful at 32 than she had at 14. He remembered his close contact with her lips, and thought how nice it would be to ask her out on a date and receive a deliberate kiss from her. He stayed concealed, doing his best to follow her around, until she reached a part of the garden which was well lit by lamps, but unoccupied by any other giantess. Then he stepped out into view.

“Hello!” he called, “Are you Yvonne?”

“Yes,” she said, “How do you know me?”

He told her his name, and recounted the adventure he had had, when she had mistaken him for a doll.

“You’ve got a good memory, and you’re very sweet to recall that after 18 years,” said Yvonne, “I think I’ve put on a bit of weight since then.”

“No you haven’t,” said Terry, “I liked you being so big, even back then.”

“Did you really? I wondered what had happened to my little doll. Now it turns out that you never were a doll.”

“Are you disappointed?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Yvonne, with a sudden mischievous smile, “I could never have swallowed clay.”

“Do you mean …?” he broke off.

“I do indeed,” laughed Yvonne, “I’m going to eat you up, young man. I’ll have you for dinner tomorrow night.”

“I guess I must have really been very tasty,” said Terry.

“I’m sure you still are,” said Yvonne, towering in front of him, “Now I take it from something you said a little earlier in this conversation, that you have certain feelings for me, about which you might like to tell me.”

“I do. I think you’re more beautiful than ever now,” said Terry, as Yvonne leaned down, picked him up, and sat on a garden seat.

“You’ve grown into a very handsome young man yourself,” said Yvonne, “I got married four years ago, to a man older than my father. My three year old daughter was born the following year. He turned out to be a very nasty person, and we separated a few months ago. So I’m free to romance you, sweet prince, for 24 hours. Why don’t we get away from this party?”

“I’d like that,” said Terry.

Yvonne smuggled him out of the property and took him to her home, paid the babysitter and then checked on her sleeping daughter. Then she took Terry into her bedroom and sat up in bed and kissed him several times.

“Oh Yvonne, I spent the whole time at that party hoping you’d do that,” he said.

She lay down and continued, and they talked until they fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning beside her beautiful sleeping face.

“She’s going to eat me,” he thought, “What a way to renew an eighteen year old acquaintance, which she never fully knew of back then!”

Yvonne stirred and turned to look at him.

“Good morning, Sweet Prince,” she said and kissed him.

“Good morning, Beautiful Giantess,” said Terry.

“It must be time to make breakfast,” she said, “Savoury prince meat sounds good. What do you think?”

“I’m glad you don’t find me an unsavoury sort of fellow,” said Terry.

Yvonne laughed, and rolled onto her stomach and then lifted her upper body and held her hands each side of the pillow, looking down at him.

“I don’t even consider having mince meat for breakfast,” said Yvonne, “But by dinner time, I’m sure I could summon up a craving for Terrys and cream.”

Yvonne slowly lowered her face and put out her tongue and carefully licked him, so that her tongue didn’t touch the pillow. Her tongue, despite the implications of her plans for him, looked truly magnificent from that perspective.

She left her daughter playing by herself for most of the morning, while she enjoyed romancing Terry. Finally she packed a picnic basket, concealed Terry inside it, and took her daughter for a walk to a scenic slope. They ate together, with Terry remaining out of sight, until she let her daughter wander around on the grass. Then she took Terry out of the basket, and he looked at her daughter playing, while she kissed and licked Terry happily. Eventually they returned to her home, and she spent the afternoon with Terry, fed her daughter early and put her to bed.

Yvonne returned to the kitchen and placed Terry into the centre of a bowl. She surrounded him with strawberries and raspberries. Then she opened a packet of icing sugar and used her lovely fingers to sprinkle icing sugar over himself and the fruit. He looked up at her hand, and out at her awaiting tummy and up at her beautiful happy confident face. This would be a meal to remember … though he may not have a lot of time afterwards to recall it.

“I won’t add a DOLL-lop of cream,” said Yvonne, “But you look like a delicious recipe, don’t you think?”

“I guess I’m the TERRY-aki special of the day,” said Terry.

“You’re in fine form for someone about to embark on a one way journey to my tummy,” said Yvonne.

“I liked your joke too,” said Terry, “And I love you very much.”

“I know,” said Yvonne, “I love you very much as well.”

Yvonne took him to the dining table, and sat down. He watched in awe as her tongue came out, each time she delicately spooned strawberries and raspberries into her mouth, until they were all gone. Then she drank from a glass of water, to wash her mouth.

He saw the spoon slide under him, and made a show of helping her, by climbing onto it.

“Thank you,” she said, and raised him to her mouth.

Without another word, she spooned him into her mouth, and began sucking and moving him around in her mouth, drawing all the icing sugar onto her tongue. After a few moments, Yvonne opened her mouth, took him out with her finger and thumb, and put him down again.

“Good, you’re clean again. Now you taste like … just you,” she said.

“I thought that the taste of me alone was to be a real treat,” said Terry.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and washed her mouth again.

Yvonne picked him up and put her thumb and finger under each of his shoulders and held his upper body that way, as she began to lick him again and again. The sight and feel of her tongue coming out and sliding over him was beyond description.

“Are you ready to say goodbye?” she asked at last.

“Yes, my love. I didn’t think I’d have the chance, when you spooned me into your mouth.”

“I wasn’t going to swallow you down then, but this time I am,” she said.

“All things considered, it has been lovely to see you again.”

“I’m glad we caught up this way too,” said Yvonne, “Perhaps a little more than you are at this point.”

“I’ve no regrets,” said Terry, “Without this, I’d never have had those kisses and licks.”

“Oh … I suppose I can see how you’d have liked the licks too. You might enjoy the swallowing more than you expected. Did you know that the tongue starts somewhere down inside the throat?”

“No I didn’t. So it must be a lot longer than I thought, and a lot longer than me. I only considered the visible top of it, when I thought of myself as being just a little shorter than your tongue.”

“Then let me acquaint you with the rest of it,” she said, “Would you like to go down head first or feet first?”

“Feet first, lying on my stomach would give me the best way to look at your lower lip for the last time, before you close your mouth, and it would be the most comfortable way to slide down inside your throat,” he said, “Especially now that I’m a No Added Sugar meal.”

“Down you go then,” said Yvonne mirthfully.

She slid him backwards over her lower lip and onto her tongue, soon closed her mouth, enjoyed the sugar free taste of him, and then suddenly gulped a little, so that he slid down into her throat. He made his way down, down, down, and the meal was over.

United States of America, 36 years ago…

Dianne kept looking up from her work to see if Jared was on his way back.

At last he returned.

“Hello again,” said Dianne, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes, they’re going to send it on to the office. Thank you for all your help too.”

“It must be quite an undertaking to start running a company,” she said, “Do you usually have time for lunch breaks?”

“I always take an hour, though I could get away with two,” said Jared.

She noticed his eyes looking down at her dress, apparently appreciative of the material and the style. She was sure that this boy had never asked a girl out and simply didn’t know how to go about it. She would have to help him along.

“I’ve found some nice places to eat in Central Park,” she said, “I could probably take my lunch at the same time as you and show them to you, if you like.”

“It would be good to know,” said Jared nervously, “What time do you usually have lunch?”

“One o’clock,” said Dianne, “But I might be able to swap with Justine and change it to twelve.

“I can make my own lunch hours,” said Jared, “One o’clock would be easy for me. Where would you like me to meet you?”

“What’s closer to Central Park?” asked Dianne, “Your office or this store?”

“Definitely the store,” said Jared.

“Could you meet me here just before one then?”

“That’s around two hours time,” said Jared, “I’ll be here.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” said Dianne, thinking that now might be the time to reveal a little more of the true extent of her enthusiasm.

Jared left the store, and Dianne returned to Justine.

“How did you go?” asked Justine.

“I think I have a lunch date,  in Central Park,” said Dianne.

“Well done, you! I saw how young and cute he was too. What was he shopping for?”

“An office chair. He’s taken over a company after recently finishing school.”

“Really! What prospects you have there!” said Justine.

“That’s not important to me at all,” said Dianne, “I just know I’m going to want to be with him long-term. That’s what’s different about him.”

England, present day…

Leanne served dinner, and asked him what he thought of the new chapter.

“I could see myself as Terry and you as Yvonne all the time. It was fantastically written,” said Tarquin, “It’s even better now, watching you eat a meal right in front of me. I can imagine myself down on the plate, with you as a giantess eating me.”

“I’ve noticed you watching my tongue coming out while I’m eating,” said Leanne, “It’s very flattering.”

“Most women wouldn’t think so,” said Tarquin.

“Most boys wouldn’t want to be eaten,” said Leanne.

After dinner, she led him in some slow dancing, and then took him to her bedroom. They snuggled up together in her bed. He thought of the beautiful lake district outside, and the comfortable roof over their heads, and the beautiful woman who would have eaten him, were it at all possible.

They kissed and cuddled, and she often licked his cheek. At one stage he asked her to open her mouth, and proceeded to slide his fingers around inside it, on her tongue, each in turn.

“I’m enjoying you doing that,” she said.

“I thought it might only be good for me,” said Tarquin.

“Not at all. Every little manifestation helps,” said Leanne.

“We have the most unique and special fantasy in the world,” said Tarquin.

“Not entirely unique,” said Leanne.

“How do you mean?” asked Tarquin.

She leaned out of the bed, opened a drawer in the bedside table, and took out a paperback book with the title ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ on the cover. It was written by an author named Howie Kenville.

“Have a look inside,” she said.

He turned the cover and the first page, to find that it was first published nearly two decades earlier, in Australia, and that the author lived in Sydney.

“Does he think like us?” asked Tarquin.

“Somewhat like you, although he came up with the preference of reducing his male character, rather than encountering a giantess,” said Leanne, “It was reading this that gave me the courage to insert a small hint of myself into the book that first drew you to me. Take it home with you and borrow it for as long as you like. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

As soon as Tarquin was back on the train to London, he quickly engrossed himself in the book.

Wally McGee was an 18 ½ year old second year literature student at Redfern University, the most prestigious, architecturally magnificent and scenic university in the greater Sydney area. It combined the grandest old stone buildings with a set of gardens which could both inspire him as a writer in training and distract him from his studies, if he were to allow it.

For over a year now, he had seen a tall, dainty elegant lady walking around the university on a number of occasions. He had begun to follow her movements unnoticed, and learned that she was a science teacher at the university, and that she had her own private laboratory/office in the basement of one of the large buildings. He knew from his pleasant walks in the gardens of the university, that the basement rooms all had high windows which were level with the garden outside. If he could just work out which window was hers, he might be able to look in and learn a little more about her…

He made a point of watching her go into her laboratory one afternoon, when he had no class to attend, and then visualized the outside of the building in his mind. He walked around and crawled into the garden and found himself well concealed, as the sun began to go down. He saw the light on in the window he had calculated to be hers, and sure enough, he looked down and could see her sitting at a desk, with her back to him. She was writing notes, but he could not read them at that distance. At least he had learned one thing. The laboratory door had a plaque with her name on it: Rosemary Markham.

He took his video camera out of his backpack. He had used it to take footage of the gardens in the daytime on a few occasions. Today it would serve as a telescope. He used the zoom lens to look through the window, glad that the circular polarizing lens prevented it from focussing on the glass which was immediately in front of him.

Wally zoomed in on her note book, and decided to press record, so that he could always take time to read over it again later. He began reading what she had already written.

I am now 30, and still unmarried, though I see good reason for this. Neither of my past loves (one in my teenage years, and one in my twenties) has expressed any support or interest in my ongoing experiments.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted tiny beings to be real. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it would be far more practical to make a full sized person tiny, than to go on searching for a tiny person who simply didn’t exist. Though I never told them of my actual endeavours to reduce a lad to tiny size, I did ask how they would feel about it. Though each of them had a typical male interest in me, neither of them felt any inclination to be reduced. In both cases, we eventually went our separate ways.

I’ve been alone for two continuous years now, which has allowed me more time to concentrate every free moment into working on a way to shrink someone. I know that I am so close to achieving a result, yet so far from ever finding someone willing to participate in the experiments.

The most discouraging thing for the participant, is the fact that I could not possibly hope to enlarge the shrunken person, should I succeed in reducing him. The change in size would be a one way conversion. This would not concern me, but it makes the pool of volunteers rather empty, even if I were to make my need of a volunteer known…

Wally had read enough … or at least, almost enough. He watched her continue to write, but the rest of it was unintelligible scientific text, recording the results of her experiments. He kept reading, hoping that she would give some hint as to the one aspect of her experiment which meant the most to him.

Would she want to eventually eat the participant?

Ever since he had been a little boy, Wally had dreamt of being swallowed whole by a woman, being so tiny that this would be a simple feat to accomplish. It was this very fascination that had fuelled his crush on Rosemary Markham. There was no mention of any desire to eat the tiny person she wished to bring about. Yet there was no desire to restore his size either. Perhaps to be reduced by her, if it were even possible, and be in her company forever would be the closest he would ever come.

The next day, he looked for her during lunch time, and found her sitting alone in the garden. He went and sat beside her. Would she be upset with the way he had learned of her experiment? Even so, could she look past that, since he was the only volunteer she had ever had?

“Could I talk to you, Miss Markham?” he asked.

“I don’t think we’ve met, but please go on,” she said.

“I have something to own up to,” he said, “I knew that you had a laboratory in the basement, and I was curious. So I used my video camera zoom lens to read your notes through the window last night. I’ll give you the film to keep or wipe, and I’ll never tell anyone, but I know you need someone for your shrinking experiments.”

“Oh,” she said, “It is difficult to find someone who would be willing to live out the rest of his life at a height of two inches or so. Are you interested in volunteering?”

“Would you let me live with you, always, so that I’d never have to cope on my own?”

“I certainly would. The whole idea is to have a little man in my care forever. Do you understand the permanency of the situation, if I should succeed?”

“Yes. I’ve thought about it half the night, before I fell asleep. I’d like to be your guinea pig, and I don’t mind at all if you can eventually make me smaller than one.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, “Can you start after classes today?”

“I’m free from four o’clock onwards.”

“I’d better put a curtain over that window from now on, just in case anyone else is out there in future. We must keep this strictly between ourselves,” said Rosemary.

Soon they were testing a machine that she had been working on for some time. It projected a ray, but would not reduce anything. After three months of continued experiments, they finally saw a laboratory chair reduced to tiny size before their eyes.

“We’ve done it!” she said, “I can reduce you to two inches tall whenever I like now. I’d like to test it on a living person, but not fully for tonight. It would be nice to go out and celebrate. You’re two inches taller than me. Would you like me to reduce you to six inches shorter, and then take you out for dinner? We can see all the sights of the city together, and then I can reduce you to tiny size back here tomorrow.”

“That sounds great,” said Wally.

They went out to a beautiful restaurant in the highest tower in the city, and sat at a window looking out at the city lights, and then danced to soft music, and walked around the city together. They walked back to the university and into her laboratory and she turned her head to his and embraced him and kissed him passionately.

“I thought you’d like to do that once, before it was too late,” she said, “I know I did like it very much. Would you like to stay the night with me?”

“Oh yes,” he said, and she drove him to her house in the suburbs.

They snuggled up and kissed and cuddled all night, slept in for most of the day and then considered their absence.

“I don’t have any classes today,” she said, “But you’d be missed, I guess.”

“They don’t ask questions like they did at school,” he said, “But my height would be conspicuously less than it was.

“Nobody will know,” she said, “We’ll get back there after dark, and then I’ll use the machine on you.”

They had a mid afternoon meal, and then she drove him towards the city.

“Now that you’ve enjoyed last night, are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked, “You haven’t lost that much height yet, and you could still live out a normal life as you are. It won’t be possible again ever afterwards.”

“I thought about that a lot, while we were together romantically, and I’m still sure,” he said.

“Well you don’t have long to change your mind,” said Rosemary, and pushed her long dark hair back with her hand, while waiting at the traffic lights.

She looked so feminine.

They reached the university after sundown and went down to the laboratory.

Rosemary turned the machine on.

“You know where to stand. Are you having any second thoughts?”

“No,” he said, “But I would like a last hug while I can.”

“Me too,” she said.

They embraced for what turned out to be nearly half an hour.

“Still sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Wally and moved in front of the machine.

He looked not at the machine, but at Rosemary, as she turned it on, and slowly he dwindled down until he was only a little taller than her knees. She stopped the machine and walked over.

“Now you’re the size of a dwarf,” she said, “I can’t undo that, but I can stop there, if you like.”

Her legs looked so shapely. He put his arms around them and hugged her in this new way.

“Could we date again tonight, with me as a dwarf, and I’ll give you my final answer at the end of the evening?”

“Of course we can,” she said, and they went this time to quieter places alone.

They did get some notice at a secluded city restaurant, when they sat at a table together, but nobody came near them. She took him back to the laboratory just before midnight, lifted him up and sat on a seat and cuddled him.

“Have you reached a decision?” she asked.

“Yes, and I’m very grateful to you for stopping the shrinking process to give me time to think it out,” he said.

“I thought you might be. So you’d like to leave it at dwarf size, then?”

“No! I want to be the tiny boy you’ve wanted to make tiny. I’m just glad of tonight with you as well.”

She hugged him tight, with her stronger full-sized body, kissed his cheeks and then his mouth, and then gently placed him down in front of the machine. She activated it again until he was only two inches tall, and slowly walked over, towering like a giantess!

She gently stooped down, picked him up and held him in front of her face.

“Are you still comfortable with it?” she asked.

“Yes. Oh Rosemary, it’s incredible.”

She kissed him.

“Thank you,” she said, “Thank you for being so interested in me that you spied on me and found out what I wanted to do and made it possible.”

She took him home and kissed him to sleep on her pillow.

But would she ever want to eat him?

Tarquin was fascinated, and planned to read on, as soon as he could, but for now, the train was pulling in at London. He put in a bookmark, and closed the book.

USA, 36 years ago…

Jared arrived back at the cosmetics department at 12:55 pm.

“The food mall’s just below us on the underground floor,” said Dianne, “We could grab some lunch there to take into the park.”

“Sounds good,” said Jared.

They walked down to the mall.

“What would you like?” asked Jared, selecting two sandwiches and a container of pineapple pieces with a plastic spoon.

He was offering to pay for her lunch! He did like her.

Dianne chose her lunch and thanked him. He offered to carry hers as well. She led him out to Central Park, and took him to a seat which looked out onto the small lake of sorts.

“That’s frozen for ice skaters in winter,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” said Jared, passing her lunch to her.

“You’ve been a real gentleman,” said Dianne.

She talked about her own school life, as it was closer to his own recent past, and it also would have more interesting moments to recount than working in the store. Jared compared his own school stories with her, which helped the conversation along.

“So did you have any girlfriends?” she asked.

“No. I never seemed to find anyone.”

She’d briefly touched on her boyfriends, but did not want to go on about experiences he couldn’t yet relate to.

“It’s nearly two,” she said at last, “Will you be late if you walk me back to the store?”

“Not at all,” said Jared, and made his way beside her.

Now was the moment of truth, she thought. He knew where to find her. She had made the first move. Would he take up the chance?

They stood just outside one of the double entrance doors to the store.

“Would you like to have dinner with me after work?” asked Jared, “I’ve never asked a girl out before. Is that the right way to time it?”

“There’s no real right way,” said Dianne, “You did well, and I’d like to come. I could stay out until around nine, before the trains thin out a bit.”

“I come in by car. I could drive you, if you’re in my direction,” he said.

“A lift home would make the night go more smoothly, just by anticipating the relative ease of it,” said Dianne, and gave him her suburb.

It turned out that she was three miles further out than him, but he wouldn’t mind the extra drive.

England, present day…

That night, Tarquin continued reading ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ with great interest. There were several chapters which described Wally’s relationship with Rosemary, before the story returned to the direction that Wally had been awaiting:

Wally was so keen to know where he stood with Rosemary on the subject of being eaten, that he decided to come straight out with it.

“Rosemary?” he said one day.

“Yes Wally,” said Rosemary.

“I really like your tongue.”

“My tongue?”asked Rosemary.

“Yes. It looks wonderful. I’m sure it would feel wonderful too.”

“Wally, I’m not sure what you’re leading up to.”

“When I first learned that you had the means to reduce a person to tiny size, I was very keen on volunteering, because I have always hoped that I might one day have the chance to be eaten by a beautiful lady like you.”

“Oh!...”

“Do you think I’m an oddball now?”

“No … I don’t have any judgement of you. It’s just that I don’t have any desire to do what you’ve just brought up. I don’t think I could possibly bring myself to put you in such a situation.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” said Wally, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Maybe it’s just as well you did,” said Rosemary, “Bring it up, I mean, not make me uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s best if we stop seeing each other.”

“Don’t you want me around anymore?” asked Wally.

“I was thinking of you,” she said, “If you stay with me, you’ll never realise your dream. If we go our separate ways, you’ve got the whole university to search in the hopes of finding a lady who might like to eat you. I can always shrink someone else, if I find someone else who wants to be reduced.”

“The chances of that are limited, if you can’t come up with a way to reverse the process,” said Wally.

“Maybe, but I’m not worried,” said Rosemary.

She took him to the front of the university grounds, which were the closest to the city, and left him in the gardens. Both of them were aware that the secretaries who worked on the outskirts of the city would often come and eat their lunches in the university gardens. It would give Wally a chance to hide in the gardens and observe their tongues coming out of their mouths, note which ones took his fancy, and ask those particular ladies if they would be interested in eating him.

In the next few weeks, he had several reactions of surprise at his tiny size. He mentioned that he was a shrunken man, but not that the process was done by a member of the university staff. None of the ladies was interested in eating a tiny man, though two agreed to lick him and did so, before putting him back in the garden and returning to their offices to work.

One day he met a sweet lady in her late twenties named Joanne. He made his usual pitch, adding that he hadn’t met anyone willing to eat him, despite approaching a number of secretaries. They had all promised to keep his existence a secret, but had been unwilling to gobble him down.

“It’s not something I would have chosen for my dining pleasure either,” said Joanne, “But as it seems to be very important to you. I would be happy to do it for you, if you’re sure it’s what you’d like.”

“It is,” said Wally, “Could you do it now?”

“I’ve just had lunch,” she said, “I could meet you here tomorrow. I’ll have more room for you down there then.”

With her last few words, she pointed at her tummy.

“I can’t wait,” said Wally.

“The next day he saw Joanne arrive and stepped out to reveal himself. She sat on the garden seat and lifted Wally up and looked at him.

“Would you like me to start straight away?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Wally, “And thank you.”

“How would you like me to do it?”

“Could you lick me a few times, then put me into your mouth and let me lie on your tongue? I’ll slide myself into your throat, when I’m ready to go down, and then you can start gulping.”

“Alright then,” said Joanne, and slid her dainty tongue over his face and shoulders and neck to his heart’s content, before easing him into her mouth.

He waited for a while, thinking about the whole situation. He had kept hoping that Rosemary would simply announce her intention to eat him without seeking permission, and it had never happened. So he had been forced to ask her to do it. He had taken the initiative with Joanne, and she had responded. He had enjoyed all the pleasures of the contact with her tongue, and could now go on to enjoy the pleasure of being gulped down her throat.

Yet something was missing. He was not able to enjoy the pleasure of having the situation proactively determined by the lady. He’d had to ask all of them to do it. Joanne had been the first one to say yes, but the adventure still lacked that edge of not being given the choice.

Wally turned himself around, to face the front of her mouth, pushed at her mouth, indicating that he would like her to open it, and waited.

“Could you take me out again?” he asked.

Joanne let him out into her hand.

“Is anything wrong? Did I do it alright?” she asked.

“You did wonderfully, and I’m very grateful. I just think that there must be someone out there who wants to eat someone without being prompted. It would be a shame if she and I never met, whoever she might be. So I don’t think I’d like to go ahead with the final stages of this meal. I’m sorry you came unprepared for the hunger I’ve left you with, Joanne.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, “If you change your mind, I’m still happy to do it.”

For a few weeks longer, Wally continued introducing himself to the secretaries, but took care not to bring up the subject of eating him until he was sure that they would not mention it.

Towards the end of the year, on a Thursday, a lovely woman in her early twenties, about three years older than him, named Lisa, sat on the seat near his garden, and was as surprised as anyone to meet him.

“How do you come to be here?” she asked.

“I was born to be your size, but I’ve been permanently shrunken,” he said as usual.

“Well I’ll just put you in here,” said Lisa, lowering him into her handbag, “Once I turn the clasp, you won’t be able to open the bag and get out.”

“If you’re taking me with you, I don’t want to get out,” said Wally.

“I think you will,” said Lisa, “Tomorrow night I’m going to swallow you whole. It’s not something I’ll have any reluctance to do, but I’m sure you’ll need more than a little coaxing.”

“I won’t need any,” said Wally, “Lisa, you’re just the lady I’ve been waiting for. I’ve wanted to be eaten by a woman all my life.”

“Somehow I don’t think so,” said Lisa, with a laugh, “Eating is fun for those who participate in the eating, but I’d expect the food to have a vastly different outlook on it.”

She closed the bag above him, and left him to settle himself inside it while she went back to her office to work.

USA, 36 years ago…

“So how long have you had your license?” asked Dianne, as they sat down in a restaurant overlooking the city.

“Only a few months,” said Jared, “I started learning as soon as I could.”

They enjoyed their meal, and then Jared led her to his office building.

“The car’s in the underground car park, but would you like to quickly see the office first?” he asked.

“Okay,” said Dianne.

They went up in the elevator and into his office. It had brown wooden wall panelling and an almost matching desk, and a large plastic ball behind it.

“Someone suggested it, until the store delivers my new chair,” said Jared.

“I’m glad we could help,” said Dianne, with a faint trace of amusement, “The view from up here is even better than the restaurant we just left.”

“I like the city lights too from this angle,” said Jared.

“It’s very romantic,” hinted Dianne, and moved closer to him.

“I’ve never been romantic with anyone before,” said Jared, “But this has been a special day. I didn’t know whether you were just showing me to the furniture department out of professional courtesy or whether you might like to go out with me.”

“I wasn’t sure how you were responding to me either, until we went to lunch,” said Dianne, “You’ve given me a special day too.”

She was now standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes. Dianne closed her own eyes, and tilted her head a little to the side, moving it ever so closer to his face as she did so.

Jared met her moves with his own and gave her a soft gentle kiss. Dianne enjoyed the sweetness of that for several seconds, and then kissed him more passionately. Their arms embraced each other’s bodies, and they kissed for several minutes.

“I’m glad I never had a girlfriend before now,” said Jared at last, “I would only have wanted to be with you anyway.”

“I love you so much,” said Dianne.

“I can’t wait to see you again, but I suppose I’d better drive you home,” said Jared, and showed her down to his car.

Sydney, Australia, present day…

“Would you like to go out tomorrow night?” came a young man’s voice later in the afternoon.

“I’m seeing someone at the moment,” said Lisa.

He waited until Lisa took him to her house and placed him on the kitchen table.

“Wouldn’t it be better to eat me tonight, before you see your boyfriend again?” asked Wally.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” said Lisa.

“Oh. Were you just telling that guy who asked you out, that you were seeing someone, so that he wouldn’t keep on asking?” asked Wally.

“No, I am seeing someone, until tomorrow night,” said Lisa.

“Me?”

“I know it’s an unusual dynamic, but we are seeing each other.”

“Thank you for expressing it that way,” said Wally, “It makes me feel all the more special to you.”

Lisa put him in a dolls house on a high table, and left him while she read a book in bed. In the morning, he awoke before her and climbed down the dolls house light cord to the floor, walked into her room and climbed up onto her bed and lay down beside her face.

She awoke and yawned in front of him. He stared into her mouth at point blank range and enjoyed the view of her tongue throughout the three second yawn. It was magnificent. He was so glad to have finally found someone who felt this way about eating him.

“How did you get off the dolls house table?” she asked.

“I climbed down the power cord and then used your blanket to climb up and see you, since part of it wasn’t tucked in. That was the most exciting yawn you did, Lisa. Could I climb into your mouth for a little while now?”

“Be my guest,” said Lisa and opened her mouth wide.

Making as much contact with her lower lip as he could, Wally climbed into Lisa’s mouth and settled himself against her tongue. He enjoyed himself immensely, until she suddenly put out her tongue and let him slide off onto the pillow.

“Why didn’t you get out of here while you had the chance?” she asked.

“Remember I told you I wanted to be eaten?”

“So you did,” she said, “I thought you were trying to trick me. I had no idea that you really meant it. Aren’t you a little darling?”

“You’re adorable,” said Wally.

“Let’s have some breakfast,” said Lisa.

She took him to the kitchen and served up some fruit salad. They ate and talked, and then Lisa put on her lipstick and prepared to leave.

“Wally, would you like to see a romantic movie on the television tonight? I’ll still eat you tomorrow night instead.”

“I’d love to,” said Wally.

“It’s a date then,” said Lisa, and waved goodbye, “I’ll see you tonight.”

She left him in the dolls house and departed for work.

When she returned in the evening, they had dinner together and then she sat on the couch and set him on her shoulder. They watched the first hour of the movie, and then came a scene where a boy attempted to kiss a girl, and the girl pushed him away.

“That boy got an unpleasant surprise,” said Wally, during the commercial break.

“I don’t think she liked him,” said Lisa.

“How would he have known whether she would have wanted to kiss him or not?” asked Wally.

“He couldn’t,” said Lisa, “You don’t know. You just have to take a chance and see how the girl responds. If she’s interested, she’ll embrace the kiss. If she’s not, she’ll move away and decline.”

“Thank you for explaining that,” said Wally.

“You’re welcome,” said Lisa, “Did I explain it alright?”

“Yes,” said Wally.

While her head was still turned to face him, Wally held her chin from each side with his outstretched hands, and kissed her lower lip slowly and steadily.

Then he stepped back and looked up into her eyes. Lisa beamed at him, smiled and then he felt her hand behind his back, steadying him, as her huge lips moved closer and pressed against him.

“Did you realise I was asking about the kissing scene because of you?” he said at last.

“I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t imagine you seeing yourself with the chance to kiss anyone else after tomorrow night. I’m touched, Wally.”

They watched the rest of the movie and then went into Lisa’s bed for a night of kissing, talking, dozing off and eventually waking up. Lisa lived down south, well on the way to Maroubra, and her back garden looked out onto the water. She put on a beautiful swimming costume and lay in the shade with Wally resting on her for part of the morning, and then took a swim with Wally holding onto her hair for the ride.

After lunch, they talked and played hiding and chasing games, which excited Wally all the more. He thought back to Rosemary and Joanne, and the disinterested secretaries, and was so much happier to have found Lisa. She would go the distance, completing the adventure by making him a meal in a way which would bring mutual pleasure to both of them.

The sun began to set, and Lisa sat on the porch with Wally and watched the sun go down over the water.

“I thought you’d like to see the water for the last time,” said Lisa.

“I was going to think of the water on your tongue as the last that I’ll see,” said Wally.

“I’m honoured that you can look at it like that,” said Lisa.

“It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever looked at … your tongue, that is,” said Wally.

Lisa took him to the kitchen and made an arousing performance of placing him in the oven to warm up, circling the kitchen to make other preparations, removing him from the oven and placing him onto a plate. Wally soon found himself on the dining table with the beautiful Lisa smiling down at him.

“Can I have some licks before you swallow me?” asked Wally.

“Certainly. I was going to give you some anyway!” said Lisa.

She put out her thrilling tongue and ran it enthusiastically over his upper body and face, holding him in finger and thumb and moving him towards and away from her mouth to meet her tongue each time it approached.

“I’ve just realised that this wouldn’t have been possible if you hadn’t gone looking for someone to eat you,” said Lisa.

“That’s why I told you about the ladies who didn’t want to do it,” said Wally.

“I know! When you told me how you told Joanne that you wanted to wait for someone like me instead, I didn’t realise the significance straight away. Now that I do, I’m so glad you considered that someone like me would be waiting to eat you,” said Lisa.

“I’m so glad I found you,” said Wally.

“So am I,” said Lisa and kissed him one more time, “Have a nice time in there.”

She put him into her mouth and played with him for several minutes before gulping him down happily.

USA, 35 years ago…

After six months of dating, Jared Leslie proposed marriage to Dianne Archer. Six months later, they were married, and Dianne resigned from her position in the store. She would often still come into the city to have lunch or dinner with her younger husband, but neither of them wanted her to continue working.

The views of the city at night remained as romantic to the young couple as they had been on the night of their first dinner date.

Jared remembered their first lunch date in Central Park too. When Winter came around, he purchased ice skates for both of them from the store where Dianne had formerly worked, and they spent the early half of an evening on the ice, skating around.

“This is wonderful,” said Dianne, “I feel like a teenager in love.”

“I AM a teenager in love,” said Jared.

“How lucky for me,” said Dianne, remembering that he was still in that age bracket for one more year, “Can you go backwards?”

“Skating?”

“Yes.”

“I might fall over.”

“Just try slowly. I’ll show you.”

She demonstrated the foot movements, and explained how best to slightly bend his knees, so that they would not lock up in a perfectly straight position and cause him to lose balance.

“It feels a bit awkward,” said Jared.

“I’ll hold you and go forwards,” said Dianne.

She put her hands on his shoulders, which felt nice. He had looked after her in so many ways, and now she had the chance to keep him safe.

Jared edged slowly backwards, and could not seem to get up much speed in that direction, but enjoyed the proximity to his lovely wife on the ice.

After a few attempts to go a little faster, they went back to holding hands and skated around in a clockwise direction. Something about the beauty of the scene reminded him of things that he had seen in reruns of cartoons that were made long before he was born. Yet this was his reality now. Jared enjoyed it more than ever.

They had talked a number of times since then, about the day that they had first met. Dianne had been more open about the way that she had initiated their courtship, and this made Jared cherish her all the more. She could have gone on to marry the boys she had dated in high school, or the men she had dated since, but he had been the elusive quality of true love that she had been waiting for all that time.

England, present day…

Tarquin enjoyed the book so much, that he could hardly wait to talk about it with Leanne the next time he visited her.

“How would you like to meet him?” asked Leanne.

“In Australia?”

“Yes. I’ve been in contact with him, and his wife. As far as we know, they’re the only other couple who reciprocate each other’s fantasy. I can buy the tickets for whenever you can make the trip.”

Tarquin was very keen on it, and promised to go with her during the next school holiday break. They flew to Sydney and met Howie Kenville and his wife Corinne. They were able to stay for a few days at the Kenvilles’ home in the suburbs of Sydney.

“What could have caused just the four of us to have these impossible longings?” asked Tarquin.

“I don’t think that they are impossible,” said Corinne, “We just haven’t discovered how to make them possible yet. As for what causes it, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s already been possible, just not in any way we can prove,” said Howie.

“So who was based on Corinne, if anyone?” asked Leanne.

“Undoubtedly Lisa,” said Howie, “Though there were elements of the few I confided in unsuccessfully, that were worked into the personalities of Joanne and Rosemary.”

“So what did you mean by the idea that it might be possible but unproven?” asked Tarquin.

“It won’t make much sense, unless you end up finding out for yourself,” said Howie.

It was the above portion of the most significant of several conversations between the four of them, which remained in Tarquin’s mind forever afterwards. However, the visit to Australia came to an end, and he had still not understood what Howie and Corinne were driving at.

One day, Leanne woke up to find herself in an unfamiliar bedroom. She walked through an unfamiliar house and stepped out into an unfamiliar garden, which had many trees and flowers. The sky seemed extremely overcast, but there was not a drop of rain either falling from the clouds or resting on the plant life. She stepped slowly out onto the lawn and walked across.

As she drew near the flower bed, Leanne saw something which simply took her breath away.

There was a tiny boy looking up at her from the garden! She stepped closer and leaned down to get a closer look at him, and lowered her hand to make a grab for him. Then, all of a sudden, she found herself lying in her bed again.

The next time Tarquin came over, she told him the whole story, and he then shared an experience of his own. He had awoken on the same night that she had dated her own experience, and found himself out in a giant garden in the daytime, although on a very overcast day. He had walked for a while, until he had seen a gigantic Leanne Commons staring down at him. Just as she had leaned over and reached down, he had somehow been returned to his bedroom, and it had once again been the middle of the night.

“Your experience was your own point of view of the very same thing that happened to me,” said Leanne, “I couldn’t tell for certain that it was you. I just hoped it was. In another few seconds, I’d have caught you.”

“I might have backed away in time,” said Tarquin.

“I saw and felt everything,” said Leanne, “There’s no way that it could have been a dream. Yet it was too ethereal and temporary to be the kind of regular reality we’re used to. So it must have been something in between.”

“Could this be the possible but unproven experience that Howie and Corinne were alluding to?” asked Tarquin.

“I don’t know. You were shrunken, like Wally was in ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’, but we don’t know how.”

“I thought that you were a giantess, like Mrs Waye in your story.”

“But I never grew. I just walked out of the house and there you were.”

“I never shrank. I just found myself in a giant garden, and there YOU were.”

“I suppose we can’t say whether that was a giant house and garden, with my having been a giantess, or whether it was a normal sized house with you having been tiny.”

“No, we sure can’t. Neither of us recognised that house and garden.”

“Maybe we’ll go back there.”

That night they snuggled up together in bed, cuddling and kissing each other, until they dozed off to sleep. Tarquin awoke after a few hours, and found himself in the same giant garden again. He heard running footsteps coming from the house.

“It’s happening again,” thought Tarquin, “Only this time Leanne’s running.”

He backed into the garden and hid himself, and then wondered why he had done that. Had he not waited and wanted to be eaten by her for so long? Yet some instinct had made him duck back and hide. He saw Leanne come out and run towards the garden, and look down.

“I’ll find you,” she said, and began searching the garden.

Then, before he knew it, he was back in the bed, awake. So was Leanne.

“Did you go back there again too?” he asked.

“Yes. Were you hiding this time?”

“I was.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I do. As much as you fantasize about the motions of being eaten, you still had the average boy’s innate self preservation tendency, when faced with a literal realisation of your dream.”

“If that’s it, I can get past it,” said Tarquin.

“You’ll need to,” said Leanne, “If we keep going back there, I’ll catch you in the end.”

A few nights later, he was at home again, when they had the same experience. This time Leanne caught him. He could actually feel her lovely fingers holding him. It was not a dream at all. She lifted him towards her mouth, and he saw her gigantic tongue extending in front of him.

Just before her tongue could touch him, he was back in bed.

His next telephone call to Leanne would confirm that she had had the reciprocal experience, but Tarquin knew that it would not be necessary. He had come that close to touching her tongue. If only the experience had gone on just a little bit longer, he would have been able to feel her moist gigantic taste organ sliding over his face, without being swallowed, if the experience ended before that could happen.

He began daydreaming of it recurring as far as taking him halfway down her throat and then ending. He would be happy for that to happen over and over again.

Before he actually met up with Leanne again, he had the experience again. This time she caught him and put out her tongue and licked him! He felt it! It had to be real! He could not explain what brought the experience to an end each time, but he could feel her tongue licking him.

They talked about it the next time he called her, and she claimed that she could taste him on her tongue at the time it had happened too.

The whole thing happened one more time, during which Leanne put him into her mouth. He lay on her tongue and waited to be gulped down, but the experience ended before she could do it.

From then on they had that experience again and again, and wondered what to make of it.

“We could try to vary it,” said Leanne, “You could run different ways in the garden to make the chase less predictable. I could come out of the house from a different door each time and approach the garden from a different direction. That way we’d surprise each other more and draw it out.”

“And you could take me to the kitchen before putting me in your mouth, if you get the time to cook me first,” said Tarquin.

“I’d love to,” said Leanne.

So it went on and on.

USA, 32 years ago…

Dianne was now 27 years old. For over two years, the couple had been trying to have children, and had been unsuccessful. Dianne finally applied for a series of tests by her doctors, and learned that she was not able to have children.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Jared, “We could have kept on trying, but we can still adopt someone eventually. It doesn’t have to be straight away. Maybe we need more time for ourselves anyway.”

“My sister Mary’s 36. She had a daughter the year before we met. Mary’s about to go back to teaching in an infant and elementary boys school, now that her daughter has started school.”

“Didn’t she want to be at her daughter’s school?”

“I think she did, but it was fully staffed. The boys school had a vacancy to be filled,” said Dianne, “It seems I am neither working nor having a baby.”

“Do you miss work?”

“No, not really. It was just an observation,” said Dianne.

Mrs Mary Parkin had spent most of the first year of her daughter’s schooling as a stay at home mother, and then returned to teaching towards the end of the second year. Dianne almost wished that she’d done a teaching course as well. At least being a teacher would have put her in the company of children during her working hours then.

Dianne and Jared began visiting the Parkins more often, so that Dianne could spend time with her niece. Mary encouraged double dating between the couples too, for the same reason.

England, present day…

Months and months went by, and Leanne and Tarquin continued to enjoy the unexplained unproven manifestation of their longings, with the limitation that Tarquin was never gulped into her throat, which he would have preferred, nor swallowed down to her stomach, which she would have preferred.

One day, Tarquin and Leanne returned to Australia and told Howie and Corinne of their experiences.

“We can’t explain it either, but it’s what happened to us,” said Howie.

“There is one other couple who might have been able to shed some light on it, except that they were never really a couple,” said Corinne, “I found a story which was serialized in a recent science fiction magazine by a middle aged widow named Christine Long. She was actually widowed at 29, became a school teacher, had a number of boyfriends, but never remarried. She wrote a story which seems to follow the pattern of experiences that you have had, except that the venues changed. There’s one other startling thing I uncovered when I researched the author.”

“This will blow you away when she tells you,” said Howie.

“I can’t wait,” said Leanne.

“Christine Long used her real name in the story. My research shows that, from the age of 30 to 31, she had a student who had the same age and name of the boy in her story,” said Corinne.

“That’s not so surprising,” said Leanne, “She probably based it on her dreams or experiences and chose not to change the names.”

“Here’s what’s extraordinairy,” said Corinne, “A month before Christine wrote and published the first chapter of the story, the boy disappeared from society without an explanation. Nobody in Sydney knows what happened to him. The story has circulated in such rarefied circles, that nobody has made the connection between the missing boy and the experiences of the boy in Christine Long’s story.

“How can we get hold of this story?” asked Tarquin, keener than ever to read it.

“You’d have to collect a run of rare issues of limited publication,” said Howie, “We’d be happy to lend them to you.”

“I wouldn’t want to risk anything happening to them,” said Leanne.

“Why don’t we all go to the library, and photocopy just the pages from each issue which contain Christine Long’s story, and then hole punch them and put them in a cardboard folder?” asked Tarquin.

The others agreed, and the quartet had soon prepared a booklet with the entire collection. As they had only copied a small percentage of each issue, the copyright regulations were not against them. Apart from that, they recognised that copyright was designed to protect the sales income of the authors’ works, as Leanne and Howie well knew. As they were unable to locate any more copies currently on sale, they considered that there was no intellectual property theft performed by duplicating the only accessible copy of the magazines held by the Kenvilles.

Tarquin enjoyed the story the moment that they were back at Leanne’s house. He and Leanne would take turns to read it, while the other was working on draft ideas for continuing their own story about Mrs Waye and the other giantesses. Christine Long’s tale went as follows:

Timothy Scribener got onto the specially hired bus after lunch. He was in 6th class in prep school, during the first term. The school hired busses to take the students to the large sports grounds owned by the school a few kilometres away. There were several fields for games of sport at the grounds. One of the teachers on the bus was Mrs Christine Long. She had graduated from a teachers college, with a diploma of teaching, over a decade earlier, at the age of 20, taught elsewhere for ten years, and had started teaching at his school at the age of 30, when he had been 9 ½  years old. Now he was due to turn 11 during the year of 6th class, and Mrs Long was due to turn 31. She had married at 21, had her son at 23 and her daughter at 29.

After school, Timothy decided to explore the outer boundaries of the playing fields. The field furthest to the back had a descending grass slope behind it, which led to a small nature reserve. He could see beyond it to the public field beyond. He went down the hill and into the nature reserve and started walking.

To his surprise, he suddenly found himself shrinking, and stopped at a height of less than two inches. Now the trees of the nature reserve seemed gigantic. He decided to head back towards the school playing fields, rather than get lost in the reserve.

When he reached the base of the grassy slope, which led up to the fields, he was relieved to be back on the school’s premises. If anyone had found him in the nature reserve, he might have been captured by strangers. The grassy slope was around 8 meters of fairly steep walking, to a normal sized person. He started up.

He was only a little way up, when he looked up and saw Mrs Long come into view at the top of the slope. She stopped and looked out at the nature reserve, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Thank goodness she’s still here,” thought Timothy, “It’s well after 3pm now. If she just looks down, she’ll see me and be able to help me.”

Then he saw her head tilting downwards a bit. Mrs Long saw him and started briskly walking down the hill. She stopped just in front of him and towered like a giantess.

“Just what do you think you’re doing here, little creature!” she roared, while unzipping her handbag, “I don’t know where you came from, but this property belongs to a private school, and I am Christine Long, one of the teachers. You’re not supposed to be on this land, and you can think about that, while you’re sliding down my throat! Maybe you’ll be sorry for what you’ve done, when you’re getting settled in my stomach! I’m going to eat you for my afternoon tea.”

Timothy had still been recovering from the shock of his unexplained shrinking spree. Now he was going to be eaten by the person he’d hoped would help him. Mrs Long picked him up and put him into her handbag. He saw her hand withdrawing, and then she zipped her handbag up again, leaving him in darkness, while she began walking. He felt himself moving downwards with every step she took, and then on level ground.

“Mrs Long must have been headed for the nature reserve too. Then she saw me and stopped. She’s on her way there again now,” thought Timothy.

“Timothy! Are you in there?” he heard her call.

“She came looking for me!” he thought, “She must have noticed that I didn’t return to the change rooms with the other boys.”

She walked for a while, occasionally calling his name, and then seemed to be going back up the hill. After a few more minutes, he saw the handbag open above him, and could see that she seemed to be sitting under a tree at the border of two playing fields. Mrs Long’s fingers closed around him and lifted him out of the bag and up in front of her face. She tilted her head back and lifted  him a little more, so that he was held only inches from her mouth. Then she lowered him towards her mouth, as he saw her large tongue come out to receive him. It was a slippery pathway towards her throat. Once he entered her mouth, he would not be able to do anything to stop her from sliding him into her throat and gulping him down.

Her tongue made contact with him, and he felt her fingers preparing to slide him into her mouth. He quickly turned his head to the side, so that his mouth was free to speak.

“Mrs Long! Stop and talk to me! It’s me, Timothy Scribener, shrunken!” he called.

By now he was halfway into her mouth. Mrs Long slid him out again and stared closely at him, squinting with her eyes, to make out his tiny facial features.

“So it is!” she said, “How did you manage to do that?”

“I don’t know. It just happened in that nature reserve.”

“I wondered where you’d gotten to, when school sport finished for the day. It looks like I’ve found you after all.”

“Thank goodness you know it’s me now,” he said, “I need you to help me find out what happened and how to reverse it.”

“I can’t do that now, Timothy. Ever since I found you, I’ve been looking forward to having you for afternoon tea.”

“But you can’t do that, now that you know I’m one of the students! I’ve every right to be on this land.”

“I’m not saying you don’t, but you’re very tiny now, Timothy, and I’ve caught you. All the other teachers and students have gone home. There’s nobody here to see us. I’m sorry I didn’t realise it was you before, but I’ll have to say goodbye now. I’m not going to pass up a treat like this.”

“Couldn’t you just put me in your mouth, eat me a little bit, and then let me out again?”

“No Timothy. I’m going to gulp you down to my tummy.”

“You’re an awful cruel teacher!” he called, as his panic drove him on.

“The other students don’t seem to think so,” said Mrs Long.

“You’re not eating them,” said Timothy.

“I’m not going to sit here arguing with you, Timothy. Your time is up. Goodbye,” said Mrs Long, and opened her mouth wide just below him again and slid him into it.

He was facing the back of her mouth, as he felt her fingers releasing their grip on him. Then her mouth went completely dark. She had closed her mouth, which meant that he was trapped inside it, with no way to force it open again at his helpless size. Then her tongue moved under him, and he felt himself sliding towards her throat. He desperately tried to wrap his arms around her tongue to keep from moving, but it was hopeless. He slid into her throat, and …

USA, 31 years ago…

Dianne was invited by her sister Mrs Mary Parkin to attend the fete at the elementary boys school, where Mrs Parkin was a second grade teacher. When the day came around, Dianne enjoyed the chance to meet some of Mrs Parkin’s students, who were six and seven year old boys.

One of the boys was particularly friendly, and Dianne offered to take him for a while on the ferris wheel. The boy concerned, named Corey, almost seven years old, was happy to go with her and enjoyed his ride.

Afterwards, Dianne bought him a ticket in the lucky dip, and saw that he won a small felt animal. It was a pleasant day, but only served to make her long for a child of her own all the more.

Not once did she take her frustration out on Jared, even though he seemed to lack the same parental drive and was taking the situation better than she was. She understood that he was simply completely in love with her, and his affections would never waver. Had they managed to have a child, even then he would still have loved her more than the child. Some women might have looked upon this as a form of selfishness or immaturity, but Dianne was grateful every day for the way that he cherished her.

How she wished she could have taken Corey home, but at least she’d been able to enjoy his company for one day.

“He’s nice, isn’t he?” asked Mary, as she drove Dianne home in her car, “He’s been one of my best behaved little boys actually.”

“You seem to have a way with them,” said Dianne, “Thanks so much for bringing me along today.”

“I’m glad it helped,” said Mary, “I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve let me play with Claire. Being an aunt has always been the next best thing to having one of my own,” said Dianne.

“She looks up to you too,” said Mary.

“It’s done me the world of good,” said Dianne.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

… He woke up. It had all been a dream. He went to school that day as planned, watching Mrs Long in a new awe, yet unwilling to embarrass himself with the news of what her dream self had done to his. The school term finished, as did the rest of the school year.

On the last day of the school year, school broke up at 11am. He had wondered why they didn’t break up at 3pm the day before. Timothy fell asleep in class at around 10:30. He awoke to find that he was in a dark room. He felt about for the door, but had no success in finding it. A few minutes later, the whole wall seemed to be pulled away, and then he saw a giant hand, framed in the foreground of the view of the empty passenger seat of a car, which was not moving. The hand came to rest in front of him, palm up, and one of the fingers beckoned him to step onto the palm. He stepped over the fingers and onto the palm, and then was lifted out and towards the person in the driver’s seat. It was Mrs Long.

“Hello!” he said, “How did I get here like this?”

“That’s my secret,” she said happily, and sat him on the steering wheel in front of her, “Aren’t you more interested in your immediate future than your immediate past?”

“I guess so,” he said, “So what are your plans for me, now that I’m like this, Mrs Long?”

“I’m glad you asked,” she said, “I’m going to take you home and gobble you all up for my lunch.”

She was smiling at him with great amusement and satisfaction.

“Please don’t do that! I’d be absolutely terrified.”

“I’d have been sincerely surprised if you weren’t,” said Mrs Long.

“I don’t understand this. I’ve been a very good boy. I just can’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”

“It’s very simple to understand, actually Timothy. I would like a nice delicious treat for an end of school year lunch, and you’re going to be that treat.”

“Don’t you have any concern for how I feel about it?”

“From where I’m sitting, your voting power seems to be somewhat limited, Timothy.”

She put him onto the passenger seat and drove to her house.

“We’re here,” she said, “You’re the only child I’ve ever invited to my house.”

“But you’re my teacher!”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, “Our high school will give your year seven  position to a new boy, when you don’t show up next term. I’ll go on with my teaching. The only person left behind will be you. Come and have a look in my kitchen.”

She took him to the kitchen and then carried him to the garden table on a plate. While he was looking up at her, he remembered the dream he had had about being eaten at the school sports grounds. In that experience, she had mistaken him for a tiny trespasser. Now she was bringing about his fate for her own enjoyment.

As she drew closer to the table, he began desperately considering jumping off the plate to the grass below, but knew it was hopeless. He would survive the fall down her throat, for a while. He would never survive the fall from the plate.

As he faced the inevitability of what was to happen, his mind raced back to the question of how she had managed it. His thoughts jumped between these two concerns.

“It’s time to go, Timothy,” he heard her say.

He awoke again, to find that she was speaking to him from the front of a now empty classroom. It was just after 11am, and he had been dreaming about being shrunken, ever since he had fallen asleep at 10:30.

Timothy again kept the dream secret, and went home for the summer holidays, thinking that Mrs Long had made quite a dramatic impression on his sleeping mind.

He was still in the classroom.

*         *          *          *

Timothy’s sixth class year came to an end.

*         *          *          *

Timothy was in first year in high school. It was early in the first term. Mrs Long came over to the high school from the prep school, as they were both part of the same college. She located Timothy’s locker and slipped a note between the base of the door and the base of the locker.

He read it later:

Dear Timothy,

I am leaving the school soon, and I’d like to ask you something. Could you meet me during lunch at the waterfront park around the block?

Mrs Long

He kept the appointment with her and heard what she had to say.

Mrs Long met him at the park and led him into a small clearing concealed by bushes.  Suddenly Timothy shrank down to tiny size. Then she outlined her idea.

“Since I won’t be teaching anymore, while I raise my daughter, who was born just before I came to your school and just after my husband died, I thought it would be nice to take my favourite student to live with me in my garden as a little pet. I could feed you well at that size, at an unnoticeable cost, and you could keep me company. You wouldn’t have to keep coming to school and spending most of your day studying and working. I know from the last two years that you don’t enjoy that. What do you think?”

“Well you were my favourite teacher, even though you were strict when I was naughty in 5th class.”

“You’ve been good since then, and we’ve become good friends,” said Mrs Long, “I’d love to take you with me and look after you. Nobody will know that I’ve adopted you as a pet, if you’re so small. You’ll never be found in my garden.”

“I’d like it very much,” thought Timothy, who had dreaded 6 more years of school work followed by university and long days in an office, “I haven’t told anyone that I was coming here today.”

“Good boy. Alright, well I’m leaving in a month. I’ll meet you here again on the Friday in five weeks time, after school instead of at lunch time. I’ll take you home with me. Keep all this to yourself, and you’ll be out of school for good. In the meantime, if you hide yourself well in the bushes down here, nobody will find you, and I’ll bring you food and drink each day.”

Mrs Long bought a large toy spaceship and removed much of its internal fixtures, and replaced them with dolls house furniture. She set it up at the back of her garden, well concealed by bushes.

When the Friday came, she met him at the waterfront park and reduced his size to less than two inches. She was now like a giantess as she placed him into her handbag to conceal him until she got him home.

Mrs Long had a daughter named Kirsty, and by the beginning of what would have been his year 8 at high school, his dolls house furniture had begun to wear out.

“I’ll buy replacements, when I go shopping shortly,” she said, “I’ll be taking my daughter Kirsty with me. You can set things up any way you like in your ship. I’ll continue to bring you food every week day, and sneak it out to you at suitable times on the weekends.”

“You’re very kind, Mrs Long.”

The next day she came out to the ship with another day’s supply of food.

“I usually watch a movie or two from the video store during the day time,” she said, “Would you find that an interesting way to spend your days?”

“Yes thank you!” said Timothy, so grateful that he could enjoy all the videos he wanted, without having to work.

She took him inside and sat on the couch and put on the first movie. She positioned him on her shoulder.

“Are you comfortable there?” she asked, “It’s easier to talk during the non-speaking parts of the movies, if you’re close enough for me to hear you clearly.”

“It’s very comfortable. You have a soft shoulder just the right size for me.”

She smiled, and turned her head back to the television.

Whenever Mrs Long would otherwise have been alone, she integrated Timothy into her activities, taking him on secret outings with her about once a week. 

*         *          *          *

USA, 30 years ago…

Mrs Mary Parkin asked her sister Dianne and Dianne’s husband Jared around for dinner.

“I have some sad news to tell you,” said Mary, “Do you remember the boy Corey, whom you spent some time with at the fete last year?”

“Yes, I never forgot him,” said Dianne.

“His parents just died in an accident,” said Mary.

“How awful,” said Dianne.

“He needs someone to take him in, and I know how much you’ve wanted a child of your own. Now might be the best time to apply for adoption of the boy.”

“Not only have I wanted my own child, but that day I wanted so much for it to be him,” said Dianne.

“I can advise the school and the government department of your existing friendship with him,” said Mary, “He’s been turning to me for comfort, and he said something significant today.”

“What was that?” asked Dianne.

“He said, ‘I wish I could live with you and your sister’. I don’t think he realised that we live in separate houses with our husbands. I asked him which of us he’d prefer to live with. He said he liked us both. I told him that I was already a teacher at his school, though not his own class teacher this year, and that I have a daughter of my own. I asked him how he’d feel about coming to live with you, and he said he’d like it very much.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Dianne, “It hardly seems fair to find what I want from his tragedy.”

“It was his idea,” said Mary.

“Jared, can we do it?” asked Dianne.

“If it’s what you want, I’d be happy to take him on,” said Jared, “Maybe I’ll have a company for him when he’s eighteen.”

“Thank you!” said Dianne.

With Mary as the link between Dianne Leslie and the boy Corey, it was not that difficult to arrange the transfer of custody, and the boy was happy to move in with the Leslies.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

Timothy had been secretly living in the model space ship in Mrs Long’s garden for three years. One day, she invited him to have lunch with her on the garden tables in the gazebo around the side, instead of in the house as they usually did. He thought it would be a lovely setting for a meal, and watched her preparing it. She took the first plate of food out and set it up on the table, and left him there, while she went back to get a jug of water and a glass.

Suddenly a volleyball flew over the neighbours’ fence and landed just near the table. He looked in the direction it had come from, and saw a tall athletic young girl in her late teens, presumably a high school student with the day at home, as the girl pulled herself up onto and over the high fence. She walked over and picked up her ball. Then she saw him and came over and picked him up.

“You’re the first little boy that size I’ve seen,” she said, “I think I’ll keep you.”

“You can’t! I want to stay here!” he said.

“I don’t care what you want,” said the girl, “You’re coming with me.”

Mrs Long suddenly stepped into view.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

“My ball came over the fence. I came to get it,” said the girl.

“Well you didn’t ask my permission, and now you’re stealing my lunch!” said Mrs Long, and snatched Timothy from her open hand, “I think you’d better go now.”

The girl shrugged at Mrs Long’s stern rebuke, while Timothy wondered how Mrs Long could have been confused. The girl had not touched any of the food. She had only attempted to kidnap Timothy.

Mrs Long put Timothy into her mouth and closed it. The girl gaped in surprise and turned and climbed back over the fence.

“She meant that I’m her lunch!” he thought, “I hadn’t realised that she was planning to do that. Well she has done a lot for me, and it looks like I’ll have to return the favour now.”

Mrs Long waited until the girl had departed and then collected her plate of food from the gazebo table in one hand, and continued to hold the jug of water in the other. With Timothy in her mouth, she was able to carry both to the chair and table on the lawn on the opposite side of the property. She took Timothy out of her mouth after she’d put the plate and jug on the table, and then put Timothy down on the table too.

“I’ll go back for the glass now, and I’ll bring a salt shaker too,” said Mrs Long.

He watched her walk into the house, and soon saw her coming back. As she walked towards him, he realised that he would not have avoided his visit to her two years earlier, if he’d known this was coming. The last three years of carefree happiness had meant more to him than any other time in his life. Now it would be over, and he would soon be inside her stomach.

Mrs Long placed the items on the table and sat down.

“She’ll think I’ve swallowed you now. She’ll never come onto this property looking for you again. You should be able to continue living in your ship, without having to worry about her,” said Mrs Long.

“So that’s why you put me in your mouth,” he said, “I thought you were going to eat me.”

“So did she. That was the idea,” said Mrs Long, “You did taste very nice, and I’m sure you’d have made a very enjoyable meal, if I’d known what you tasted like on the day that you first came here. I’d have been happy to have eaten you for lunch then, but don’t ask me to do it now. I enjoy your company far too much, and I’ve grown very accustomed to it.”

In a way she had just made him feel doubly appreciated as her special tiny friend. She appreciated him as a meal she might have been prepared to have, if he had invited her to eat him on the day that they had first met. She also appreciated him as a very special person, whose existence was only known to her. Mrs Long had indeed looked after him.

*         *          *          *

Another two years had passed for Timothy. Timothy was now 16. One day she spoke to him one day in depth.

“Timothy, I’ve enjoyed having you here these last five years, and your company has been invaluable. I really feel as though I’d secretly adopted you.”

“I’ve enjoyed it very much too, Mrs Long. I’m so grateful to you for looking after me.”

“You’re most welcome, Timothy. It was a pleasure, but I do have some significant changes to prepare for. I’m going to return to teaching soon, as my daughter has settled in at school. I plan to start everything happening in a month’s time. So I only really have a month left to be able to spend time with you watching movies and so on.”

“I’ll miss that very much,” said Timothy, “But I’m still very grateful to be able to live in the ship in your back garden.”

“I’d have been happy to let you go on doing that, except that I was thinking you might be able to do something for me this time.”

“I’d be glad to,” he said.

“Over the years, I’ve eaten every type of food except for one. What do you think, Timothy?”

“I couldn’t think of anything new, Mrs Long. I’ve been relying on the food you’ve cooked for me.”

“I wasn’t thinking of conventional meals,” said Mrs Long, “I have tasted one item of meat over two years ago, and I found it very appetizing. Do you understand what I’m saying, Timothy?”

He recalled the incident with the girl from the neighbour’s property. Mrs Long had said at the time, that she would have enjoyed eating him the first day they’d met, if she hadn’t formed an attachment to his company. It seemed that, with her plans to come out of retirement from teaching, she no longer relied on Timothy’s friendship for ways to spend her time. So she had re-evaluated the pros and cons of eating him, and was asking him to return the years of care and attention she’d given him by agreeing to it.

“I do understand, but can you understand the differences in our experiences, if you were to eat me?”

“Yes, I think so. For me, the sensations would be felt inside my mouth, my throat, and then in my tummy. For you, they would be felt on the surface of your body all throughout the process.”

This meant she wanted to swallow him alive.

“I know, Mrs Long, but it’s more than that. For you, it will just be the ordinairy taste sensations of eating an appealing meal. For me it will involve a painful consumption of my whole body inside you.”

“I think I can clear up your anxieties about that,” she said, “I’ve studied the stomach a lot in my biology classes. The stomach acids can’t hurt the human body. They don’t hurt the owner’s body. You will be dissolved, but it will just be a painless sensation, until you stop feeling anything altogether. My body mass will absorb your nutritious meat, and that will be the end of the matter. I can’t think of a better way to privately celebrate my impending return to teaching, than to eat the most delicious boy I’ve ever come across.”

“I’m truly touched that you feel that way, Mrs Long, but I haven’t fully explained my worries. Even if it doesn’t hurt, I’ll be gone. You won’t.”

“You’ll still continue as one of my fondest memories,” said Mrs Long.

“It’s not the same as the way you’ll continue on.”

“Life is about people coming together with different experiences. We all experience life in different ways, Timothy. I will experience eating a magnificent meal. You will experience being a magnificent meal. They’re both different, but both significant experiences. Does it matter that it will be different for me?”

“I don’t know how to explain it from my viewpoint, except as an absence of yours. Did you enjoy being married?”

“Of course. My husband and my daughter were my whole life.”

“I thought I was part of it.”

“You were, in a smaller way, but it’s not nearly the same thing, and our time spent together will be over once I’ve eaten you.”