Colleen picked him up at the far side, and rose to her full height and walked back to the picnic basket, and placed him down beside it on the ground.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find any,” he said.

“You did all that anyone could, your very best; and I was fairly sure we wouldn’t find one. I’ve always known that it’s highly unlikely that leprechauns and their overseas counterparts are anything more than legends. It was worth using you at that size to confirm that theory, and now that you’re here this way, the machine will still have served the more likely purpose for which I built it.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well it’s reduced you to that size. I did say ANY kind of little folk would do,” she said, taking the rug from the basket.

“Do….you mean…. me?” he asked, as she stood up and unfolded the rug and spread it on the grass.

“That’s why I built the machine. The only solution to my quest was to make a representative of the little folk. You’re already a representative of folk in general. All I needed to do was make you little.”

She sat down on the rug and pulled the basket onto it. Then she clasped him in her hand and placed him on the rug in front of her.

“Well the only problem is … How can I put this politely? … How would you go about retrieving me from your tummy after you’ve swallowed me?”

“I thought you asked the question very eloquently, and to answer it in the same way, I don’t think that being eaten involves any kind of retrieval process afterwards. Once I’ve eaten you, I will have at last fulfilled my quest, and that will be the end of the matter, except that I’ll always have the happy memories of doing it.”

She placed him in the lap of her dress.

“But what about last night? I gave you the flowers, the candy man, a nice dinner, and we had a very special time together. We said we love eachother.”

“I’ll always remember that too. When I first looked up and saw you here yesterday, I knew that you were the one I’d been waiting for when I built the machine. I was hoping all afternoon yesterday, that you’d be watching me while I was eating the dinner you bought me at the restaurant. Then when you gave me the candy man, it was even better opportunity to show you what being eaten would look like.”

“It looked amazing, Colleen. Every movement of your tongue was thrilling, like the way you licked your lips afterwards too.”

“Thank you,” she said, and picked him up and licked her lips from side to side in front of him, and swished the side of her tongue against his face as she did so.

He felt her soft moist tongue sliding against his cheeks and his forehead and his neck in slow sweeping movements, while his eyes couldn’t help be excited by the point blank visual appeal of it as well. He thought about the fact that he now realised that she had been planning to eat him from the moment she first saw him. The hunting expedition had been merely a last attempt to explore the possibility of using him to catch a leprechaun as an alternative that would have presented a reason to presumably restore his size and continue being his girlfriend.