Dinner Dates 7 (Save the Day)

Their walk to the shrinking booth was an awkward one.  Danielle was extremely happy to see that Quinton was excited about being shrunk down. She was also very disappointed. She really would miss him. She tried to think positively. At least they would be living out a great fantasy that both of them would enjoy.

Danielle's best friend was Lindsay, who was operating the shrink booth that night. With no line, they approached her. Lindsay greeted Danielle and then eyed Quinn.

"Who's this Danielle?", she asked, eyeing him up.

"Hey Lindsay, it's my great friend Quinton. We've been friends since we were kids."

Laughing, Lindsay said, "Friends, huh? Ok, you can call him Quinton. I'll just call him...yummy."

Quinn gave her a nice smile, saying "thanks".

"Don't mention it kid," said Lindsay and opened the shrink room door for him. "Size?", she asked Danielle.

"Hmmm, how about 2 inches? I'd like to go bigger, but I don't have the largest mouth, ya know. Wanna make sure I can get him down."  Lindsay nodded and punched in the settings.

Shrinking Quinton was quick. Danielle had picked him up, nude except the edible red underwear he was wearing. She stuck him in her back pocket as she walked to the swallowing room. Once there, she placed him on the little table, selected a song, and began to dace. Danielle wasn’t one to remove articles of clothing, even for a friend, but there was a lot more physical contact that was permitted in this dance routine than the ones she normally did and Quinton was enjoying the hell out of it.

Finally the song ended. Danielle picked Quinton up.

  (Dani and Quinn)

“This is it Quinn. You’ll be a part of me from this day forward. I will never forget you.”

“Nor will I you,” said Quinton. He seemed a little nervous.

“Want me to do anything special for you before you get eaten?”

“Uh…”, he thought for a few moments. Nothing came to mind. “Nope. Just gulp me down!”

“Okay. Well. Good bye Quinton. I love you.”

She tossed him in. He did taste pretty good. She rolled him around on her tongue for a bit and savored the flavor, hoping Quinton was enjoying himself. She was enjoying herself alright.

Eventually it was time to gulp him down. She had him poised on the edge of her throat, ready to swallow. She took her time and positioned him carefully on the precipice that was her gullet, wanting to avoid hurting her friend when swallowing. She didn’t want to break any bones like she did with the last guy she swallowed alive. Quinton obviously knew she was preparing to gulp him down because he went from limp and playful to stiff as a board. He spread his limbs out to make himself harder to swallow.

“Dani! No!”

Danielle heard the tiny cry and it sent a chill of horror down her spine. She had just been about to swallow! She quickly spat the man into her hand.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I said ‘no.’ I don’t want you to eat me,” said Quinton.

“You had better be kidding!” said Danielle, knowing he wasn’t.

“No. Seriously Danielle, I changed my mind. I wish you had just swallowed me right away. You played with me and I loved every second of it but you took your time and when you were going to gulp me and while I lay there I thought about it too much. I got scared.”

“Dammit Quinn! I told you there was no backing out. What am I supposed to do with you now?” Emotions warred within Danielle – she was relieved that Quinton wanted to live, and putting herself in his shoes, she felt an extreme nervous anxiety on what she could possibly do to make it happen.

“Unshrink me!” said Quinton easily. “I’ll take you out to dinner to make up for the meal you missed out on.”

“I told you. We don’t use the machines to unshrink anyone!” said Danielle. “You’ve screwed us both. I certainly can’t eat you now and I can’t put you in the bowl of unwilling men. You would be eaten by someone else. Damn Quinn! I told you about that girl Isabella yesterday! She was frantic with worry. Now you’ve put me in the same position!” All her energy seemed to leave her at once and she flopped down on the chair. Danielle started rubbing her eyes. She felt a headache coming on. “I’ll have to think of something.”

***

Danielle knocked on the wooden door in the apartment complex, praying the resident of room number 672 was home. Fortunately, sounds of life emanated from behind the door. A radio was turned on to a baseball game. Beneath that sound came the footsteps of someone plodding their way to the door.

“Danielle?” said Cameron. His face broke into a grin.

“Hey Cameron. How are you tonight?” asked Danielle. Cameron looked like he had been planning to hit the rack soon. He was dressed in pajamas.

“Fine. I’m happy to see you. Come in.” He stepped aside and they went to sit on the couch.

“This is an unexpected surprise. I wish you would have called first. I could have saved you some pizza,” he indicated the pizza box and empty soda can on the table.

“It’s okay Cameron. I just came from work. I’m not hungry.”

“Oh that’s right. You work at that shrinking place don’t you?”

“Well, yes-“

“And you ate a bunch of people today?”

“Some, in fact-“

“That’s hot,” interrupted Cameron.

Danielle was reminded why she didn’t like Cameron as much as she might have. He was a nice enough guy but he was always interrupting people. He also had a crush on Danielle and had been disappointed when she had told him she preferred to remain friends rather than take things to the next level. He had respected her decision of course but Danielle knew that he had a lingering crush on her. It was part of the reason she had come to him. She knew he wouldn’t refuse to help her.

“Listen Cam,” said Danielle. “I was wondering-“

“I’m all ears,” said Cameron, cupping his hands behind his ears and snickering at his own joke.

“Great,” said Danielle patiently. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I need you to help me mount a rescue.”

“YEAH!” said Cameron, jumping to his feet and cheering to the bewilderment of his houseguest.

“Well I didn’t expect you to be that excited. You sound like the Lone Ranger. I just-“ said the startled Danielle.

“No, not you,” said Cameron, pointing to the radio while doing a brief victory dance. “The Yankees game. They just got a home run. Sorry. When I said ‘all ears’ I was also listening to the baseball game.”

Yankees fans! thought Danielle, being reminded of the other reason she wasn’t dating Cameron. “Okay. Did you hear what I-“

“Oh yeah. Rescue mission. Sounds cool. So what are the details?”

Danielle filled Cameron in on the situation, what her plan was and where he came into the picture. Her explanations were somewhat halting as she was constantly peppered with interruptions, questions as well as another brief victory celebration when the New York Yankees pitcher threw a shutout inning.

“And this is kind of a time sensitive issue Cameron so if we could go now-“

“After the game!” Insisted Cameron.

--

Danielle and Cameron snuck into the restaurant. Danielle indicated that Cameron should wait by the rooms that said “Shrink Booth” while she would join him in a moment. Then she slipped into the kitchen and found where the shrunken men were kept.

It had been absolute hell trying to prevent Quinton from being eaten. Kim had him halfway to her mouth before Danielle grabbed him. This had annoyed Kim but Danielle had managed to make amends, explaining that he had been someone whom she had shrunk herself and didn’t want to see him get eaten. Kim nodded and said she would eat him in the other room. Fortunately for Danielle, she was able to distract Kim and slip her another man from the ready bowl under the bar.

There had been another close call when Jackie had almost served him to a few college-aged girls, but Danielle intervened in the nick of time, for once breaking her rule on serving unwilling people and telling Jackie “to take a breather while she covered her tables.” This has caused a few raised eyebrows from Kim and Rachael, but Danielle followed through and pretended not to notice.

Now she returned to where the men were kept for the night. It wasn’t much. There was a place for them to go to the bathroom and that was about it. Usually men didn’t last very long here so there was no point in investing in creature comforts of someone who would be inside someone else’s belly soon.

Danielle’s face loomed above the tiny men. “Quinn?” she asked.

“Danielle!” said Quinton, waking up. “I’m here.”

“Hey lady! When are you going to unshrink us?” said another man.

“Yeah!” said another man. Other tiny men shouted their support of this question.

“Sorry, but I can only take Quinton for now. I’ll see you all tomorrow at lunch time.” Danielle had considered telling them that they were actually going to be served to a hungry female clientele for a lunch special tomorrow, but why bother? It wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to terrify them.

She grabbed Quinton and met Cameron at a shrink booth.  “Okay,” said Danielle. “Hop in.”

“To the shrink booth?” said Cameron. “I don’t want to be shrunk! Believe me. I want no part in becoming your dinner, or midnight snack or anything else!”

“I need someone else in a shrink booth so the computer has a frame of reference to enlarge Quinton,” she said, showing the tiny Quinn to Cameron.

“Oh. Hi Cameron,” said Quinton, waving from where he sat cross legged in Danielle’s hand.

Cameron waved, his eyes bulging. It was the first time he had seen a shrunken man before. For once he had nothing to say.

Danielle entered the shrinking booth in the next room over and placed Quinton on the floor. Then she returned to Cameron. He was still milling around outside.

“Just hop in there and I’ll be right back for you,” said Danielle rushing to the computer counsel. She powered up the machine and linked it to the shrink booth in the adjoining room. Then, as Cameron was reluctantly entering the booth, Danielle was dashing back to the booth that held the already shrunken Quinn.

"Okay,” said Danielle, powering up the computer council that controlled the shrinking booth. She electronically linked the booth with Cameron to the one with Quinn.

“Hang on Quinton. I’ve never tried to grow a person back to size but this should work. Here. We. GO!” She pressed a button.

***

“I can’t believe you got me out of there,” said Quinn, lounging with his hands under his head lying on his back on Danielle’s bed.

“I can’t believe you changed your mind at the last second,” said Danielle. Like him, she was naked. They had returned to Danielle’s home where they had promptly opened a bottle of whiskey and had a few shots. Despite working as a barmaid, Danielle rarely drank. Alcohol was fattening and she needed to keep her figure. But tonight she had been stressed out and had decided to make an exception.

Their inebriation, combined with sexual attraction had led to them to more intimate pursuits. It was weird having sex with a friend, but Danielle was drunk and too stressed out to care. Danielle was a shy girl and despite her looks, didn’t get laid very often. Possibly due to all the excitement, this had been the best sex of her life.

“I owe you my life Danielle,” Quinton was saying. He rubbed her backside. “Otherwise I would have been eaten by you.”

“If you hadn’t spoken up, I would have,” agreed Danielle. “Good thing you stopped me when you did. I was about to swallow. The hard part was keeping you alive long enough to work on unshrinking you."

“Well thank goodness you didn’t. It was incredibly brave to sneak in after hours and save me. A beautiful woman coming to my rescue. It’s just like a hot movie!”

“Yeah well - your hot movie almost cost you your life,” said Danielle.

“I never did say thanks to Cameron for helping you. Where did he get to anyway?”

“Oh. He snuck out right before we did. I told him to use the backdoor since it would be more discreet.”

***

Danielle went in for work at about eleven that next morning. Quinton had made her breakfast; pancakes which hadn’t turned out too bad. Danielle greeted Kim, and a new server named MacKenzie. Danielle was supposed to train her. The two girls walked to the back of the store and looked in on the tiny men.

Cameron had been a good sport to help her. That’s why she had gone to him. He had a crush on her and couldn’t refuse her anything. It had been wrong to play on his emotions, but she did love Quinton and Cameron had always just got on her nerves.

She stared down at the bowl of tiny men being prepared for the noon rush. She noticed the tiny Cameron being scooped up with the rest of the men that MacKenzie was gathering.  He was waving his arms furiously and yelling at her.

“Good,” said Danielle, ignoring him, instructing Mackenzie, “Now bring them to the bar.”

***

Regrowing Quinton hadn’t been as simple as the computer needing a reference to restore his height. The organic material to regrow him had to come from somewhere. And it couldn’t come from just any old matter. It needed to come from a human being. So it had come from Cameron. He had been shrunk and Quinton had been regrown.

Danielle did feel bad for Cameron. It wasn’t his fault that he was annoying. Besides, he had never asked to be eaten. In retrospect maybe the fair thing would have been to let Quinton end up as someone’s dinner. It was he, not Cameron, who had the giantess fantasy. Still, it was far too late now.

MacKenzie carried the bowl of men, Cameron included out into the bar. Several women had already entered the restaurant and were ordering tiny men.

MacKenzie scooped Cameron out into a smaller bowl and carried him to one of the women. She winced as she saw the woman pick him up and brought him towards her mouth, his little body flailing wildly. Danielle turned away. She knew Quinton was worth it.

The End