“I always loved your handwriting for some reason. It reminded me of something, but I never knew what until tonight. It looks like it belongs on the pages of a fairytale. Now I seem to be living in one.”

“Yes, there have been a number of fairytales about little boys being eaten,” said Margaret.

“But none of them have involved a beautiful woman doing the eating.”

“Are you trying to get out of it with flattery?”

“It’s not flattery if you know it’s true.”

“Well you’re still not going to dissuade me.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Good!”

“Actually, while I was lying there thinking, I realized that most of our problems in the office were my doing. In fact, the only unfair thing you ever said was ‘everyone else is satisfied’, when I was griping about having to have lunch at 12 o’clock instead of one.”

“I heard what you said when I was walking away that day. Sorry I didn’t see your point of view.”

“Well the worst of it was that I couldn’t be with you when you were having lunch after Alene Sirley put me on the 12 o’clock lunch slot. I guess I’ll have plenty of chance to be with you at tomorrow’s lunch, whether or not I’ll be there as the main course.”

“I suppose I’ll save you for dinner,” she said, with a yawn, “I think I’m dropping off again. I hope you sleep well, for the rest of the night.”

“Thank you. Goodnight Margaret.”

The next morning she asked what he’d like to do.

“Maybe we could play hide and seek,” he suggested.

“Alright, but I’ll just make sure you don’t get any ideas,” said Margaret.

She took a spare towel from the linen cupboard, pushed it under the balcony door tightly, so that it completely blocked his chances of slipping back out under the door from which he had gained entry. Then she took another cloth and blocked the front door to the apartment the same way.

She lay down on the floor and closed her eyes.

“I’ll count to 100 and then come and get you,” she said.

He ran and hid behind a curtain and watched her finish counting, sit up and crawl around the room until, by a process of elimination, she deduced his only possible hiding place, and came crawling towards him. She parted the curtain with her hand, as he scurried off. She crawled in hot pursuit and caught him quickly and picked him up.

“I guess the health fund doesn’t have any policy clauses to cover sudden size loss conditions,” he mused.

“It doesn’t even have anything for upset stomachs,” said Margaret, “But I don’t think you’ll give me one of those.”

She served them both lunch at the kitchen table. He looked up at her beautiful mouth going to work on the food, from a vastly different perspective than the one he had seen in his early lunch breaks at Regal Umbrella Health Fund, and with a vastly different outlook. Every time he saw a piece of food make its way between her full shapely red lips and onto her sparkling tongue, it was like the first scene in a prelude for his own experiences at their upcoming dinner arrangement.