“I travelled into the year that you were 17 from the year that you were 40. I met your 36 year old self in that shop in the year I was 9. She told me about your longing for a small boy and I really wanted to be the one. So I invented a time machine and came back to when you were 17. Somehow the time travelling had a side effect of shrinking me. So I knew I’d make a good impression on you.”

“But don’t you know what you’ve done?” she asked, “For now you’re a chronological contradiction, existing as two Berties both in this year, one being a baby, and the other being the time travelling you I see before me. I can’t let you stay like that. You’ll have to go back to your time.”

“But I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you.”

“You can. Go to me in your own time. I’ll wait for you.”

She took him back to his machine and told him to get into it and depart.

He went in and thought and took one desperate step.

He pressed a sequence of control buttons and then walked out of the machine onto her floor where she’d placed him just in front of her bed on the carpet.

“You must make the return trip,” she said, “I won’t let you go anywhere in this time. Now get in and go.”

He stepped aside, further away from the machine, and saw her stepping sideways herself to block his path.

Suddenly the machine exploded and did very little damage to the carpet, but left a cloud of smoke for a few seconds, until it dissipated.

“I set the self destruct timer,” said Bertie, “Now you can’t make me go.”

“Well after years of having you sleep in my mouth, I still have one more way to make sure there aren’t two Berties in this time,” she said, “This time I’ll gulp you down to my tummy.”

As she knelt down, he ran under the bed, backwards, as fast as he could, and saw her crawling to the edge of the bed, and then reaching in with her hand. She grabbed him and sat up on her carpet. Then she took him to the table where they had first met, and sat there.

“The first time I lifted you up here, it was to kiss you,” she said, “This will be a very different encounter, and our last, might I add.”

Doris opened her mouth wide, showing him her marvellous pink sparkling tongue again and placed him helplessly upon it. He could see into her throat, and knew what awaited him.

He thought back over all that had happened, and couldn’t believe that it had come to this. He was inside her mouth, and about to be swallowed whole. Perhaps he could offer to rebuild the machine and return to his own time. What if it didn’t work? Then she’d insist on swallowing him anyway. She must have been a very extensive devotee of both science fiction and subsequently discovered science fact concepts, to take this hard line with him.

Then he felt her finger touching him, forcing him to the back of her mouth. He didn’t have far to go, as he was about 80% of the length of her tongue at his current height.

Slowly she pushed him with her finger, using far more pressure than his tiny body could hope to resist, particularly when her tongue had no traction to stop his movement. He slid into her throat, and felt himself being gulped down, down, down into her tummy.