In all my relatively few years, I can still say that I had never been so scared in my life as I was in the situation I was in at that moment. After finding out I had been shrunken to approximately the miniscule size of half an inch by my irate yet cunning co-worker, who then outright told me she was going to fulfil my fantasy by taking it to the extreme and literally dumping me in her now colossal mouth and using me as what would essentially be a human sweet for the day, one can imagine the primal fear that coursed through my veins like liquid mercury. At the same time, though, the other primal urge in me was also going into hysterics, and a part of me was also looking forward to the experience. I can only describe it as something loosely akin to being at the top of the first drop of a great rollercoaster; that feeling of mingled fear and excitement that comes with the knowledge of the inevitability of the drop.

First, however, Jo wanted to climb the precipice.

"Right. Seeing as you're going to be a guest in my mouth for the foreseeable future, I think it would be most impolite of me to just throw you in at the deep end and leave you to drown....and in this case, that really isn't a euphemism, is it?" She grinned maliciously and giggled at the prospect. "Drowning in spit. That'd be one hell of a way to go, huh?" I tried to nod, but the concept being seared into my mind froze any other cognitive function. Jo composed herself before continuing. "So, since I'm such a nice person, I figured I'd give you a taster- god, I'm on fire today!- of all the different things this;" she pointed at her mouth again; "has to offer. Think of it as like an interactive holiday brochure...except for a dark, slimy cave that could kill you in a second flat." She beamed at me, clearly enjoying the storm surges of fear crashing over me. I just stared blankly at her face, her eyes staring down at me, her lips stretched in that malevolent beam. I knew exactly what sort of things her mouth had to offer, and part of me didn't want to find out bit by bit what they were. I could only imagine the horrors that would come from behind those seemingly innocent lips.

But, it's not like I had a choice.

Jo pushed the bowl of her breakfast away from her so there was no obstruction between me and her. Something told me she wasn't quite done with it yet, but I certainly wasn't about to ask her.

"So, I suppose we should start with what comes out of my mouth before anything else, as it seems like the logical place to start; and it's the thing we all use it for most often." She paused to take another sip of coffee, before placing her arms on the table. "Seeing as the last guessing game we played was so fun, how about we play another?" I shook my head, but Jo clearly didn't care and asked me anyway. "Let's see how much of that primary school biology you remember. Other than eating, what is my mouth used for?" She held her hand up and counted five again.

"B-b-breathing..?"

She nodded, giving me a thumbs up and grinning. "Yes, well done! I breathe in, my lungs take oxygen, and I breathe out." She turned to the side and demonstrated, for no other discernible reason than to heighten her own amusement. This girl really loved the build-up, for whatever reason, and she probably knew the intentional dragging was just making me more and more scared in anticipation. Turning back to me, she continued. "Now, of course, I could just breathe through my nose, but sometimes it's refreshing to just exhale that crisp morning air." She grinned. "I'd ask if you got what I mean, but I doubt the air around you will be crisp in a minute. See, there's the problem with breathing the same way we eat. Those itty bitty bacteria just can't get enough of it, meaning what comes out rarely stays fresh for long...and unlucky for you, I like to eat my breakfast before I brush my teeth. " Slowly, she started to lean forward again, speaking slowly as her shadow began to loom over me and grow ever closer. "So since last night.... I haven't brushed... and now I've eaten breakfast too...." Her face now filled my whole view. She grinned at me again; close up, her yellow teeth looked even more formidable and stained.

"The smell must be awful."

She leaned in closer again, and the grin split wide.

Staring up at the abyss of Jo's maw opening up to seemingly monolithic size above my tiny person was like watching the opening of the Gates of Hell. Nothing I had ever fantasised about, dreamt up in my solitary pleasure on those dark nights, even came close to the sheer awe and terror of watching the yellowed, slick teeth part from one another as her great lower jaw moved away from her skull, revealing the alien world inside. Within, suddenly I could see the dripping, living cavern I'd always pictured; the lines of heavily stained incisors marching back into the back of her mouth, becoming pointed canines and then thick, bumpy molars; her huge, slimy tongue, writhing about slowly like a powerful beast in slumber; the strands of saliva criss-crossing the open space between her tongue and the roof of her mouth, breaking as she opened wider; the uvula, lazily swaying before the slimy blackness at the back of her mouth, guarding the passageway going deep into her body. In this moment of seeming serenity, I could feel my hair standing on end as she sucked up the very air around me into her powerful, spacious lungs. Part of me wanted to run as far away from this titaness and her giant, hungry jaws as possible. Part of me wanted to jump right in, there and then.

Then my hair fell back into place, and the hurricane started.

Jo expelled the full load of her horrible morning breath out of her lungs and onto and around my minute person. The gale-force wind knocked me clean off my feet, sending me soaring a few feet backwards before coming to a somewhat painful rest on my arse. The Gates of Hell metaphor only became more pertinent as I was forced to look into the jaws from which the foul air escaped, her uvula swinging wildly in the back of her mouth like the crazed gatekeeper sending out the guardian beast of the underworld. Little flecks of saliva taking a trip on the breeze rained down around me, some striking my body and leaving whatever it hit covered in stinking transparent goo. The air itself was swelteringly hot, humid and thick, hard to breathe due to the leaching of oxygen by her lungs much like the clammy air of a rainforest or tropical swamp. And the smell! The rancid, almost toxic stench of her general morning breath odour mingled with the bitter stink of coffee and the sour stench of milk that had long since disappeared into her body assaulted my nostrils, almost making me nauseated as it blew onto and around me. The torture continued for only a few seconds, but it felt like a millennia. When it eased up finally and the gates closed again, I gulped in gallons of fresh air and tried to focus on keeping whatever the contents of my stomach were down. Satisfied with the suffering she'd inflicted, Jo sat back and started laughing at the state her breath had left me in.

"God, you look like you're almost green! My breath must be absolutely vile! Man, I almost feel sorry for you, if you're gonna be going in there...."

I didn't want to even think about the stench I'd have to put up with inside her maw if the rancid stink I'd just been subjected to came out of it. My only consolation was at least I could count on Jo freshening up her mouth; there was no way in hell she would go into work with bad breath like that. She'd put customers off their food if they got a whiff of it. At least for now, I could consider that 'experience' over and keep to fresh air, at least until the fateful time came to enter her dreaded jaws himself.

Jo, however, had other ideas.

"So, now you're familiar with my breath, I guess I can move onto other thing that comes out of my mouth. I'll warn you, if you didn't like the last one, you're gonna HATE this one.." With that, she winked at me, and grabbed the mug of coffee that she had been sipping intermittently. However, rather than going for a gentle sip like previously, she took the mug in both hands and began guzzling the coffee, making extremely audible slimy gulping noises as the massive volume of liquid crashed and cascaded down her throat like a brown waterfall. A little dribble of coffee somehow escaped her maw and ran down her chin, dropping onto the white fabric of her dress without making a sound. Like previously, I should have realised what she was doing far before I did, but when she finally put down the coffee mug (now empty) and suddenly leaned towards my shaking body (having a giant object suddenly come within feet of you has quite the shock value), I realised; just as the mouth opened and let out a tremendous, gurgling roar.

The deafening belch didn't last nearly as long as her cloying, stinking breath did, but in many other ways it was much, much worse. The sound of Jo belching right in my ears, at my tiny size, was equivalent to hearing a rocket blast off while you're standing by the launch pad. How I didn't go deaf is beyond me, but to this day I'm not sure if my hearing's been quite right since. The stench, too, was as awful as her breath, if not worse; the prevalent, bitter stench of coffee prevailed alongside the gut-wrenching stink of all the food and drink presently digesting away down in her stomach; sour milk, mushed up cereal, and the slightest hint of the acidic stench of vomit. To make it even more disgusting, the titanic belch brought up more than just a stench; little flecks of saliva, coffee, and even some tiny bits of cereal came flying out of her wide open jaws, splattering onto the bar around me and onto my person once more. When it finally ceased, my ears were ringing, my head felt like it was being beaten in by a jackhammer, and I was left shaking on the ground, covered in flecks of goo and cereal. Never had I felt so utterly humiliated; and only when she pulled away did I realise the residual, acidic stench of the remnants of her burp wafting around me. I felt like a nervous wreck, and I could only pray she would take pity on me for at least a moment and let me recover before moving onto her next little game.

Of course, I was in no such luck.

"Oops! Pardon me. Jeez, are you shaking? Awww." She leaned in again, bringing her mouth closer to my cowering form than ever before. "Too. Frickin'. Bad." The emphasis on each word sent more little gusts of her revolting breath onto me, covering me once more in the thick, oppressive heat of the air. "This is all you wanted...and I'm gonna keep giving it to you...even if it breaks you." Her lips formed into a smile so close to me I couldn't see the ends of it, before leaning back again and propping her arm up on the table to rest her head and think on.

"Now....what next...?"