As each mouthful was gulped down her elegant throat, the second scene presented itself like an equally inviolate premonition. Occasionally her tongue swished from side to side, as she licked her lips, providing a different view of the taste organ for which he was bound. Everything about her was unquestionably and uniquely beautiful, if only he could have explored it as her normal sized boyfriend, rather than her evening meal.

After lunch, she sat with him on the couch and talked for the afternoon.

“Don’t beat yourself up about your shortcomings in the office,” she said, “I should really tell you that they haven’t had any bearing on my decision to have you for my dinner. I imagine that I’d have done it regardless, simply because I’ve never eaten a delicious little fellow before. I doubt that any other science student will ever repeat your accidental discovery, let alone end up in my apartment. So you’re my only chance to eat someone. I couldn’t let such an opportunity pass, no matter what you were like when I knew you at full size.”

“I understand,” he said.

She sat with her hands in the lap of her dress, and her palms open, with Pierre lying back on her hand, comfortably looking up at her towering beautiful face. As they both seemed to run out of things to say, they went simultaneously silent. He looked as her eyes looked up a little and out in thought. He remembered her declaration she’d made the night before, of everything she had to enjoy and her stern intent on eating him up. She seemed to be contentedly reflecting on all of those things now, without even looking down in his direction. He became more and more adjusted to the destiny which had been spread before him. In one afternoon, he did more to adjust himself to becoming a thoroughly appealing and satisfying meal for her than he had done in the best part of a year to adjust himself to becoming a tolerable co-worker in the office. Necessity caused results, and he simply had no choice but to make himself as ready as he could be for what would undoubtedly happen soon enough.

She later sat him on her shoulder for a while, and then he made his way closer to her neck, and put his arms around it and kissed it.

“Sorry if I crossed the line,” he said.

“You’re free to make the most of the afternoon,” she replied.

“It’s such an unusual situation. In a way I mean nothing to you, and in another way I mean something to you that nobody else can. I always dreamed in vain of having a dinner date with you, and now I don’t have any say in being one.”

“That you don’t,” she said pleasantly.

Time was fast running out, and he noticed the sun going down around them.

“I think now is as good a time as any to have you for dinner,” she said, and took him to the dining table and set him down on a plate.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, once she’d taken her place at the table.