Karen was curious about human behavior. By now, however, she no longer really considered herself human. Humans were the creatures who kissed her feet and fed her belly. Humans were her slaves and her food supply.

But she was curious nonetheless. There was nothing rational about how all these people who had come flocking to her. Mike, sure, he had little choice. Howard Steele, however, had given up power and privilege to be her slave and, someday, her food. The same was true of 'Tasty', 'Ladyfood', 'minislave', and all the others. But, then again, was it really all that irrational? Many of these people had fairly puny lives, and her feet, her mouth, and her stomach were very beautiful. How many humans would really have the chance to serve a Goddess like her? So, perhaps, she was really doing all of them a favor.

But here was something new, or at least something of much bigger scale than what 'Tasty' had suggested. At her feet sat a young anthropologist who had spent time among the people of the Pacific islands. He told her an island in the South Pacific, where some, but not much, modern culture had established itself. Some of what had, had even taken on a religious character with the superstitious native population.

"Tanna Island, my Goddess, is a paradise that is ready to worship you," Richard said.

"The people there are very traditional," by which he meant primitive, "and they are unused to modern life, modern things and modern people. They have what are called 'cargo' cults, which are types of religious practice that have appeared in many traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures."

"I think that if you were to go there, they would worship you wholesale and devote their entire societies to you."

"How many people are we talking about?" she asked, intrigued.

"There are about twenty thousand souls on Tanna Island proper," Richard answered, "but there are many nearby islands which have populations as well. All of Vanuatu, the island chain of which Tanna is a part, has a quarter million people."

* * *

A half dozen men of the island sat on the beach, at night, around a bonfire. They passed a rolled cigarette between them. Tobacco was one of the luxuries that the white man from across the sea had brought them, and they enjoyed it mightily.

One of the men looked out at the blackness of the unlit sea that stretched out before them. He thought he had heard something out of the ordinary among the waves. It was then, also, that he spotted something strange reflecting the bonfire's light. He nudged his cousin next to him. The cousin had just taken a drag off the cigarette and handed it to the man seated on the other side of him. He peered out toward where his cousin had pointed.

He then saw a strange sight.

It was a woman walking out of the sea - a woman with the skin of the white people - a woman with the skin of the white people who was also very tall!

All the men now looked in awe at the young woman who now strode out of the black waves of the night-time sea. She was the size of two Tanna men, if one stood on the shoulders of another, and she looked down on them with a very satisfied - and very disturbing - smile.

She stood before them, wearing a swimsuit - the sort that the tourists liked to wear. It was a two-piece, made of blue fabric. The way that the bathing suit exposed it, and the way that she stood, accentuated the young white woman's belly. The men were strangely mesmerized by it. Some stood, others remained seated.

The senior-most of the men - the son of the tribe's chief - strode forward, to give the large insolent woman a defiant greeting; to tell her she had trespassed on his tribe's part of the island.

She strode forward. Her long legs allowed her to move with alacritous speed, so that she was upon him in moments. Her advance startled the chief-son, who fell backward. Smirking confidently, she caught him in mid-fall. As she held him, he began to shrink.

The other tribesmen looked on in startled shock at this display of magical power.

The chief-son was now two inches tall. She showed him to his kinsmen, to demonstrate his size to them. Her next demonstration was to put him into her mouth and swallow him down.

The shock of the tribesmen now turned to terror. Some fled for the forest behind them; others huddled on their knees, begging the Goddess for mercy. The Goddess walked up to one of the huddling men, and placed her foot gently on his back.

"Kiss," she commanded in the Tanna language.

The three men who had not fled piled onto her foot to worship Karen with foot-kisses. This was what Karen had become used to, with her own slaves. Yet, it was always preferable to have it happen anew, with new people to submit to her, rather than those whom she had already made her property.

Conversely, she preferred it when she consumed those whom had been her longer-serving slaves, to those who had more recently fallen into her hands. Howard Steele, for instance, had been her first voluntary slave (Mike Hardt having essentially been forced into it by his predicament). Steele had served her very capably and loyally. From him she had come into opportunity, power and money. She had known him, profited by him, spoken with him, and he had surrendered his family to her. When she had decided to quit her home city, and his usefulness had become more limited, she had thought it good to give him what he desperately desired: a place inside her stomach. Having Steele inside her stomach, after his long dutiful service to her, had felt even better than when she had swallowed up Timothy, her ex.

Loyal slaves were, however, still a valuable commodity. She would now make a project of enslaving this entire island, consuming its people only occasionally.

Was that impudent fellow that she had just swallowed now putting up a fight inside her stomach? Oh, she LOVED it when they did that!