“But if you use the time projector and the wrist remote recall, you wouldn’t become part of my tummy.”

“Do you really want that so much?” he asked.

“I didn’t have to say anything about that. I invented the time projector and the wrist remote that goes with it. I could easily design a remote of my own to override your recall setting,” said Miss Corlani.

“Why didn’t you just trick me that way?” he asked.

“I don’t know, perhaps because of the way you willingly brought up the subject at the end of this night. You must be in love with me, and I think I feel the same way. But I would very much like to eventually swallow you permanently.”

“Maybe we could do it both ways, obviously with the permanent way coming last.”

“You wouldn’t even need the wrist remote then. I could operate the time projector manually to return you after I’d swallowed you a little in the past. Then the next time around, I’d simply leave you in there. You might not have continued to love me if I’d not asked you to go down the final time willingly.”

“I think I would.”

She kissed him.

“The only thing is that you obviously mean a lot to my best friend at the school,” said Sandra.

“It looks like I’ll have to take up the next potential Dollipop’s offer to be temporarily shrunken,” said Miss Woodfield, “There are two other candidates, but I won’t be able to keep them shrunken for long at any given time, as they’re not available for adoption. I’ll pick one and check that he’s still willing.”

She was standing in the doorway.

“You don’t think I’m awful then?” asked Sandra.

“I got used to this with Colleen Balfour. I only have the shrinking device, as a side effect of her confiding in me of her desire to shrink and eat someone.”

Her second choice of the three temporary Dollipop volunteers, named Killarney, would become Dollipop 4.

In the meantime, Sandra took Francis to her house, and set him up in a tiny makeshift bed in one room.

“I’ll need to be alone in my bedroom tonight, so that after we’ve romanced eachother for a few days, I can send you back to tonight with the time projector,” she said.

She leaned down, kissed him goodnight, and then walked out of the room.

He lay awake, thinking that in her bedroom, his future self of several days later was arriving and being swallowed whole by Sandra and then being drawn back to the future time by the manual recall setting on the machine. That future self would be aware that this present self of his was lying here. It didn’t do to dwell on this for too long, as he finally became tired enough to drop off to sleep, regardless of his excitement and anticipation.

The next morning she came to see him.

“Has it happened for you yet?” he asked.

“It has.”

“How was I?”

“Positively mouth watering,” she said.

He enjoyed lying beside her cheek and on her neck in her bed for the next few nights, enjoyed many huge kisses from her, and then the future night arrived.