Somehow, I managed to crawl out of the pond of goo accumulating around me and back behind her teeth.

At this stage, my mental state was at its lowest. In many ways, it was like a rollercoaster; it had its ups as I recovered from, both physically and mentally, whatever horror Jo threw at me in her torturous oral prison, before plummeting down again as I was subjected to the next. The difference with this time, however, was the physical strain of her enthusiastic singing bout was far, far worse than anything she had thrown at me yet; a sore, aching body and a headache like someone was driving a chisel into my skull made even moving about almost excruciatingly painful. All I could do was hope that Jo, now at work, would be forced to forget about her little game with me for at least a few hours, so that I might be able to at least recover enough to feel like I could face whatever left or entered her maw next.

For once, however, my titanic co-worker did actually leave me be-mostly. I was left to nurse my new bruises and cradle the blissfully slowly dulling headache as she prepared the café for another day's service, the only movement felt by me being the tilt of the whole chamber downwards as she bent over to do whatever it was she was doing; wiping tables or chairs, re-arranging flowers, all the typical chores. Her dominating tongue, which I was now fully acquainted with and knew its inquisitive and hungry nature, seemed content to remain serene for once, every now and then moving about, as if it were asleep. Periodically, the act of her swallowing her accumulating saliva would try and drag me along with it, but the suction in my safe little canyon was, thankfully, not enough to pull my tiny body to the same fate. When Jo eventually did decide it was time to remind me I was at her complete will, her tongue spilled over the yellow wall again and scooped me up, depositing me on the bumpy plateau of the same discoloured teeth for a light chewing. For some reason, there was almost something relaxing about the gentle application and removal of pressure by her teeth on my sore, aching form; sandwiched between the two blemished boulders, it almost felt massage-like as Jo gave me the chewing gum treatment, albeit gently. Perhaps it was because of my lack of energy to resist; perhaps I was entering a period of insanity. Whatever the reason for my enjoyment, it seemed to help me relax, and when she finally relinquished her grip on me I did feel slightly better, though my body still ached like all hell. It was probably the least horrible time I had experienced within my prison thus far, and of course it was not to last.

While between her fearsome yet surprisingly gentle jaws, I had, thanks to my hearing still recovering from the aforementioned torturous singing, missed the roar of machinery coming from outside the gloomy cave. It is doubtful whether I would have realised what the machine was even if I had been in full control of my hearing. It is even doubtful whether, in my exhausted state, whether I would have taken the air rushing through her mouth out through her pursed lips as a forewarning of what was to come. However, I certainly realized the new, imminent danger as soon as Jo put the mug to her lips.

Watching from the back of her mouth, I looked on in terror as a waterfall of brown, scalding liquid came crashing into her mouth at an incomprehensible speed. There was nowhere to hide as the hot, bitter-smelling coffee began to fill up her maw, catching me up in a torrent of it and sweeping me towards the centre of the cavern, as the lips and teeth closed once more. A moment of serenity was dashed as Jo swilled her second coffee of the morning around her maw, tiny passenger in tow, tasting the bitter liquid and enjoying my helplessness. The smell of the barely milky beverage, already strong-smelling, was almost overpowering , blowing away any last residues of freshness from brushing and replacing it with the same pungent, foul stench that was now Jo's coffee breath. Once again my nausea, helped by my headache, returned as I was pulled from one side of the flooded grotto to the other, cheeks expanding outwards due to her swilling the mass of liquid around her maw. When it stopped, the liquid was frothy with both milk and saliva, from being churned like butter; but it was the fact that the liquid began disappearing down her throat that was more cause for my panicked attention. I was washed along, trying to keep my head above the surface, as Jo swallowed down her first sip, with me included. I was powerless to fight against the current as I was swept to the back of her mouth, waiting for the inevitable drop into her gullet and my doom.

Had it not been for her uvula, it probably would have ended that way. But hope was dangled in front of me-quite literally.

Despite my aching body screaming in protest, I was able to in the split second I passed it grab onto the slimy appendage and cling on for dear life as the coffee torrent disappeared into her body. As soon as it was passed, I let go, dropping several metres to the floor of her mouth again, feeling her gag reflex to the rest of the work as a cough launched me across her mouth, being stopped only from escape by her tongue catching me. The brush with death had left me shaken and more exhausted than ever, but it seemed my captor was impressed.

"Damn, good reflexes," Jo's voice boomed around me. "I was expecting you to be a coffee sweetener then. You're more resilient than I thought you'd be." She chuckled to herself, the sound vibrating around the entire chamber. "Next time, though...I'd stay close to my tongue, if I were you. Don't think you could pull that off twice."

She was right; I couldn't. Another coffee sip and I'd be sitting down in her stomach, digesting away with her cereal. Needless to say, her drinking was easily the hardest thing I'd encountered so far, and if I wanted to avoid getting popped like a pill, I'd have to cling to her tongue like a limpet; sadly, it was also the most dangerous area for everything else passing through her mouth, so I'd lose either way. But I was too exhausted to care. At this point, the only thing keeping me going was that throwing in the towel would just result in me being swallowed anyway- and even then, the prospect of death in her belly seemed better than another twenty-three hours of torture in her gloomy, coffee-reeking mouth at times. Resigning myself back to my so-called 'safe spot', I curled up again and waited for whatever the titaness whose body I was trapped in would throw at me next.

The next half an hour or so passed fairly uneventfully, or as uneventfully as they could within the mouth of a giantess. More sips of coffee did come, but they were gentler than the first, and much of the liquid poured into the basin of the centre of her mouth, leaving me to get dregs wash over me like a tide. Fortunately, however, this meant that my risk of getting swallowed was lessened at least somewhat, though I feared that was because Jo was merely sipping her beverage, rather than full on drinking it like I was subjected to the first time. Any time she wanted, she could easily take another swig, and then I really would end up being a sweetener. The prospect of a quick death in her stomach still loomed...try as I might to shake it off, my exhaustion was getting the better of me. I couldn't let her win, but at the same time...would being assimilated into her body really be so bad?

Fortunately, my morbid musings on death and digestion into my giantess co-worker was interrupted by my giantess co-worker herself. Her booming voice exploded around me, making my headache return twofold.

"Morning, Summer!"

Summer. My other co-worker, younger than Jo yet older than I, and completely unaware that I was presently trapped within the mouth of the girl she was greeting. Jo knew this too, and as they got into conversation I noticed that every time she stopped talking she was leaving her lips slightly open, as if she wanted Summer to see me. It was only very slight, but it was enough for me to see into the outside world, to freedom. Thoughts immediately started to race through my head, thoughts of escape and rescue. All it would take would be me calling out to Summer, and she'd hear me (I figured if Jo can hear a miniscule human being, so could she) and rescue me. It all seemed so perfect, an escape from the jaws of the cruel giantess that held me; yet, the fact that I was already in her jaws tarnished any hopes of escape. Calling out to Summer was essentially asking for a one-way trip down Jo's gullet, and making a break for it through her lips wouldn't get me extremely far either, the two scenarios being I die horribly from falling to the floor miles below me, or I get recaptured by Jo and die horribly digesting in her stomach. I was being taunted, almost as if she wanted me to try something, just so she could dash my hopes to smithereens and send me down her throat to oblivion. Of course I wouldn't, couldn't give her the satisfaction, but the desperate, exhausted part of me that cried out for escape and rescue so badly was sobbing tears of misery, still trapped In the stale confines of the maw that tortures me so with hope and escape just beyond her lips. In despair, I began to listen to their conversation, being able to hear Summer fairly well through the slightly open window of Jo's lips.

"...so he's not gonna be here today?"

"No, just called in sick. Apparently it was something he ate."

"Aww, poor guy, You've gotta feel sorry for him, he's really sweet."

"Oh, I know, I could just eat him up!"

"Haha, yeah. So who's taking his shift instead?"

"Oh, hang on... I know her name, it's right on the tip of my tongue...."

At that point, I decided it was probably best if I stopped listening again; I couldn't let Jo's taunts get the better of me, through her invitation of escape or her indirect teasing. When part of me wanted to escape so badly from this hellish nightmare that death seemed like a viable option, letting her goad and humiliate me any more than she already had would definitely not make the situation any better. While the invitation was there, any attempt at even trying to escape her maw would just result in my death, giving her the ultimate satisfaction, and I couldn't let that happen, no matter how much the depressed side of me wanted to give in. I had to be strong, both physically and mentally, to survive; otherwise I would just end up a broken shell of a human like in so many of the stories I'd read, accepting death like a saviour. No matter my size, I told myself, I was a human being, and nothing Jo could throw at me could change that.

The next two hours were filled with Jo's continual taunting, as she went about her work serving customers and taking orders. Every time was the same, with her mouth open just ajar to give me that smallest glimpse of salvation from inside the gloomy, dank confines, and the booming voice managing to insert mouth or eating-related idioms and sayings everywhere, just to add insult to injury. In the times she wasn't taunting me by dangling escape in front of me, I was once more a victim of her tongue, sating the tormentress's hunger as she made coffees, delivered orders, and chatted to our co-workers; and it was this hunger that, while I was being toyed with, began to ruminate as to when she would sate it. It was a hunger that was growing, getting worse by the minutes, as her comparatively huge machine of a stomach churned down her breakfast and demanded more. I could hear, far below me, her stomach groaning ever more frequently, demanding something more substantial than cereal and coffee to sate it. I knew it had to give eventually, but I was still just as nervous and scared when it did, when the fateful words boomed around me;

"Hey, can I order lunch now?"