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.”