Colleen went to the public gardens in the village to have lunch, and sat on a seat and slowly took out her food. She was just getting started, when she saw a young man walk into the gardens. She noticed that she had caught his eye, and wasn’t surprised when he sat on a nearby seat, facing her direction. Nor was she surprised to see that he pretended to be looking away, but never took the corner of his eye off her.  When she had eaten her main course, she reached into her handbag and took out the reducing machine, fired it at the young man and reduced him to tiny size. She walked over, picked him up and resumed her seat, placing him into her dessert bowl of jelly and fruit.

“I could see that you liked me,” she said, “I’ll take you home with me, so that you can snuggle against my cheek tonight. I’ll take a walk in the meadow near my home tomorrow morning. Have as much fruit or jelly as you like, while you’re in there, and watch me eating the rest of it. You’ll have a much better view than you did from that seat over there, and you’ll have a better idea of what to expect at lunch time tomorrow. When I return from my walk, my next lunch will be the one who was watching me eat today’s lunch just now.”

“Hey you can’t be serious! I’m sorry if I offended you. I was only looking at you, because I like you, and I couldn’t think of a way to approach a complete stranger.”

“Well now you don’t have to. You’ve caught my interest too.”

“As your next meal?”

“Not at all,” she said, as he relaxed for a moment, “I’ll be having dinner and breakfast before then. You can watch those too. It’ll be good training for you, so you’ll be ready to be a good lunch.”

“You can’t do this! Make me big again!”

“I’ll be eating you. So there!” she said, and stuck out her tongue with a stunningly mischievous look in her eyes, “I’ll gobble you all down my throat and into my tummy, and you’ll never come out again.”

“I could still tell you my name,” he said, “I’m Tarquin.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Tarquin. I’m Colleen.”

He watched her spooning fruit and jelly onto her tongue and into her mouth, watched her gulping it down, and watched her licking her lips as the whole process of eating her dessert went on for several minutes.

“Are you getting a better understanding of your role in tomorrow’s repeat performance?” she asked.

“It’s easy to understand, but not easy to accept.”

She removed the batteries from the machine, and slipped them into her blouse pocket, and then placed him into her handbag beside the machine.

“There’s nothing you can do, little man.”

Colleen zipped up her handbag, stood up and went on her way.

That night, she gave him several kisses and snuggled him against her cheek. She told him all about Frances and Nathaniel, and how they had engaged in such intimacy every night and would continue to indefinitely.

“I’d love that,” said Tarquin, “With you, I mean.”