“Could you promise to hold off for a lesser number of years, maybe four instead of seven?” asked Murray, with baited breath.

“I’d try, but I couldn’t guarantee it. You have to understand that I’m enervated beyond any hope of self control now, merely wishing I could get my hands on you, not to mention my tongue. I’d be feeling that every day for years, and eventually I’d either have to give into it and break my word, which I can’t see myself doing, or drive myself crazy with wanting something I’d agreed not to do,” said Trudi.

“Well .... I guess if you feel like that, there’s not much pointing in my suggesting three years, or two, or even one,” said Murray despondently.

“No. I’d want you in my stomach within days,” said Trudi, “It hardly seems fair. You’ve had a whole night of romance in your second timeline, as well as the arousing aspects of being partly swallowed by me. I don’t even have that memory anymore, merely your narrative to convince me that it must have happened in a previous timeline.”

“I only made that escape in order to avoid something that was unfair for me. If things had worked out your way, I’d have had one night of romance, then been swallowed whole and had nothing more at all. You’d have enjoyed eating me and had all of the future I already know from the first timeline to look forward to, and more beyond that, now that I saved us from being eaten by the giantess.”

“I guess you’re right. We each have our own perspective on fairness, and what’s fair to one person is often heavily clouded by what amounts to their own desires.”

“I’m glad you don’t hate me for escaping,” said Murray.

“I don’t, and I never will. But I can’t have you the way I want you, and you can’t have me  the way you want me. In three days’ time I’ll be in America.”

“You could give me your number when you’re settled there,” said Murray.

“How would I contact you, when you’re in hiding?” asked Trudi.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“There’s little point in either of us continuing to yearn for what we can’t have and frustrating eachother over the phone anyway. I guess we just need to move on. I’ll always know that you’re out there somewhere at tiny size, making what you can of your new life. Maybe I’ll come back for holidays and try to find you again in the future. If I do, and it’s within those nine years I’m still single, and if I can control myself long enough, I’ll give you a week of romance before I gobble you up for my dinner. But for now, I think it’s time to say goodbye and give us both at least half a sense of closure.”

“I’ll miss you like crazy,” said Murray.

“You’re DRIVING me crazy,” said Trudi, “We each have to move on.”

Now she’d said those last six words twice in the space of only a few minutes.

“Maybe my new host will let me watch the rest of the series on reruns,” said Murray.

“Goodbye, little Murray. I’m going to hang up now. Please don’t call again in the next two days. After that this number will be disconnected.”

“Farewell, Trudi. Best wishes for the American chapter of your career.”

She hung up and the line went dead.

Life, even life as an honorary leprechaun, was going to be comparatively unstimulating.