USA, 23 years ago…

Dianne Archer Leslie was 36 when it happened. Jared was 31, and Corey was 15.

Jared went on an overseas business trip to expand the interests of his company, and was lost in an aircraft accident.

Dianne was devastated, and turned her attention to comforting Corey. They attended the funeral together and then went to visit the cemetery a few weeks later.

“He’ll always stay in our minds, just like my parents,” said Corey.

“I’m sorry,” said Dianne, “In the last few weeks I’ve forgotten that you’ve been living with this for seven years. I should be looking after you.”

She gave him a hug.

“It’s my turn to look after you,” said Corey and kissed her cheek.

Dianne kissed him back. It was now her adopted son who would in fact help her to cope with the loss, as he had experienced it first, and was experiencing it again.

She drove him home, and they kept each other company for the remainder of the school vacation period. They had inherited a fortune from Jared and would not want for anything material, but a gap had formed in their lives, and they did their best to fill it for each other.

One evening after school, they had dinner as usual and then sat on the couch to watch a movie that Corey had chosen. He kept looking sideways at Dianne. He began to realise how much he had always thought her to be a pretty lady, but had not considered it, because of his position in her family.

“What’s up?” she asked, when the movie ended.

“I …”

“Are you OK?”

He stroked her hair.

She put her arm around his shoulders and leaned his way a little.

“I’m glad I still have you,” she said.

Would he always be just an adopted child in her mind?

He leaned closer, and kissed her on the cheek.

She gave a startled look, and stared at him.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

“That’s what I mean. I want to get married one day too, Mrs Long.”

 “How long have you been feeling like this?”

“I guess it only just occurred to me, when you said you were leaving. I was happy enough watching the movies and not being married up until then.”

“I suppose a single girl might take you on at that size,” said Mrs Long, or I could restore your size, “But my desire to eat you is a definite known available possibility. I have taken care of you for a long time.”

“I know, and you’ve been very kind and friendly, Mrs Long. Can I have some time to think about this prospect of being eaten by you?”

“Of course. We’ve still got over four weeks. Take two weeks from today. I’ll keep putting on the movies for us, while my daughter’s in school, and then you can take time out for personal reflection later in each day.”

At the end of the two weeks, he was sure of his decision.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, Mrs Long, and part of me wants to be eaten out of gratitude for all your friendship and hospitality over the past few years. Part of me wants to be eaten because I felt deeply flattered by the way you complimented me on the appeal of eating me that day I was in your mouth. However, the overriding part of me wants to go on outside your stomach. I hope that you’ll still continue to think of me as a friend though.”

“I do, Timothy, but I realise now, that I didn’t explain myself very well two weeks ago. I said you could have two weeks to think about being eaten, so that you could get used to the idea. I wasn’t asking you to make a decision. I did that myself two weeks ago. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding.”

“Please, Mrs Long, can’t you appreciate how desperately I don’t want to be eaten all up by you and gone?”

“I can assure you I do understand your perspective, Timothy. You’ve explained it most lucidly, but I’ve made my plans and you don’t have any say in the matter.”

“It’s so unfair. The outcomes are so unevenly balanced in your favour!”

“People outlive everything they eat, Timothy. It’s a scientific fact,” said Mrs Long, lifting his ship high in the air, with him still in the doorway.

She placed it on the branch of a tall tree.

“You should be safe there until tomorrow,” she said, “I can’t leave you on the ground now. I’d be too concerned about you trying to get out of my garden and run away. I’ll be back to collect you just before lunch time tomorrow, and then I’ll prepare a meal of you in the kitchen and enjoy it. I’ll see you later, little friend.”

She turned and walked away. He thought and thought all day, and finally went to sleep with no solutions in his mind.

The next morning, Mrs Long came out at 11:30 and took the ship down and put it back in its usual place.

“I’ll leave it there as a memento of the last few years,” she said, “Let’s get you eaten.”

Mrs Long grabbed him, stood up and carried him inside. There was no point in further protests.

Mrs Long put him down on the kitchen bench. He still admired her grand towering face and figure as he watched her take a plate from the cupboard and put it down on the bench beside him. She lifted him up and set him down on the plate.

“Lie on your back, Timothy,” she said.

He obeyed her, noting that she seemed much more like the strict teacher of the old days than the friendly host he’d known in recent years.

Mrs Long’s elegant fingers opened various jars of herbs and sprinkled samples of them over his face and body. She left him on the bench and took a jug of water and glass out to the same table that she had ended up using on the day she had put him into her mouth. Then she returned and carried his plate out and placed it on the table.

Mrs Long sat down, picked him up, licking her lips, and spent several minutes licking all of the herbs off his body, and washing them down with water from the glass.

“Well Timothy, you did all this to avoid the normal responsibilities of life. I shall now make sure you never need to concern yourself with those responsibilities again. Don’t struggle too much on the way down, or you’ll cause my throat some discomfort. Now in you go.”

She opened her mouth wide, put out her tongue, lowered him onto it, and drew him into her mouth. He thought about her instruction and decided to obey it.

“Maybe she’s testing me,” he thought, “If I show consideration for her wishes, while I’m halfway down her throat, she might think I deserve to be coughed up and spared!”

With this new hope in mind, he waited until she gulped him into her throat. He stayed still, keeping his arms above his shoulders, resting gently against the wall of her throat. She was remaining still.

“She hasn’t made a second gulp,” he thought, “I guess she’s waiting to see if I’ll honour her expectation that I don’t struggle. Well Mrs Long, I know you couldn’t hear me if I spoke, but I will do what you want.”

He stayed still. So did Mrs Long’s throat.

It felt strangely pleasant just resting there, surrounded by the inner flesh of her neck As the tongue starts in the throat, his stomach and face were actually still pressed against it. He was quite content to rest there, while Mrs Long appraised his character. Then he looked forward to the possibility of sliding back up that tongue and out of her mouth.

Suddenly Mrs Long began gulping again!

He was slowly but inevitably drawn down into her stomach, where he soon felt the painless absorption of his body.

Timothy awoke again. He was still in first year high school. Mrs Long had come over earlier in the year to make an announcement concerning the boys from last year’s sixth class. Then he hadn’t seen her again, and assumed that she had left the school. It probably gave rise to the dream he had of the five years of developments at tiny size in the toy spaceship.

*         *          *          *

When Timothy was in third year high school, in the May holidays at the end of term one, he went walking in the forest and found a tall vine concealed by bush, but visible nonetheless to his keen eye. He climbed it until he emerged in another land. He seemed to be in a giant garden. There were lots of ladies’ clothes on the washing line. So he assumed that a woman lived there. He walked over to the gigantic front door a long way from where he’d first emerged.

The door had a bell cord which reached right down to the ground. Timothy pulled the cord, and was surprised by the lady who opened the door. It was Mrs Long. He hadn’t seen her in over three years. She was now a giant. She stood there towering in front of him. Timothy looked up past her long dress to her high face.

“Timothy!” she said, “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Mrs Long! How did you become a giant?”

“Oh don’t worry about that. Why don’t you come in for lunch?”

“Thank you. I’d like that after my long walk and climb,” he said, and watched her giant hand reach down to pick him up.

Once they were in her kitchen, she put him onto the table and said "I don't have any small plates. I think I shall just put you onto a plate of my food and let you help yourself. We will eat with our fingers."

She prepared a large plate of ham, salad and bread, and gently positioned Timothy in amongst the salad. He moved around the plate, helping himself to relatively negligible amounts of the giant's food, while looking up at the beautiful lady consuming mouthfuls of food that were larger than he was.

High above him, Mrs Long's long neck gulped down the food.

He thought of how Mrs Long was a giant now and had no real need for him as a school student.

She finished the meal and wiped her hands and mouth on a serviette the size of a parachute.

"Did you like it, little Timothy?"

"Yes thank you. I did get rather messy in it, but I think I would probably drown in your bathtub. I had better bathe in a saucer."

"Don't worry" she said, lifting him towards her face, "I'll have you sparkling clean in no time."

USA, 23 years ago…

“I’m sorry, Dianne, I… always liked you… I’m really sorry.”

“He’s younger than Jared was when we first met,” thought Dianne, “And I was the older woman then.”

Dianne brought her lips back, and threw her arms around him. They kissed passionately for ages, slipping into a lying down position on the couch and enjoying each other’s presence in the silence.

“If anyone finds out, I’d lose custody of you,” she whispered.

“We’re not related. It’s alright,” said Corey.

“But you’re underage and in my care,” said Dianne.

“Do you wish any of this hadn’t come to pass?” asked Corey.

“No, I don’t wish that,” said Dianne.

Both of them had temporarily forgotten their grief and felt elated. Dianne had never imagined the potential for such an outcome, when she had first befriended the boy eight years earlier, but she could not deny her feelings now.

Corey himself had had a form of crush on her right from the start, and saw no reason to deny himself the opportunity to act on it now.

“I just hope that Mary doesn’t read the signals,” said Dianne, “Maybe we’d better not go around there so often.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m in high school now. I only ever see her when I’m with you,” said Corey.

“Give me another kiss,” said Dianne.

“I love kissing you,” said Corey.

They lost themselves in the moment and felt no shame. Nor was there any need for it.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Dianne at last.

“Forward all the way, but secretly,” said Corey.

“There would be one limit,” said Dianne, “I just don’t think I could marry my adopted son. I’ve been married once already. I’ll always be with you, but I couldn’t get married again.”

“I don’t even think I want to get married the first time. I just want to be with you too,” said Corey.

He couldn’t explain what was in his mind instead of the things that married couples do. Though if he’d read ‘Love and the Shrinking Male,’ he might have had a better chance.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

She drank a glass of water from the table and then put out her tongue and licked his face and hands until they were fully clean.

"There you are" she said, putting him down on the table "I shall let you rest on my daughter’s dolls house, while I take a nap on her bed. The dolls house is on the bedside table. I shall take you in to the dolls house now."

"Mrs Long, could you please put me down on the floor and let me walk in myself? I haven't really had any exercise, with giant hands giving me such nice rides everywhere."

"No I suppose you haven't....there you are," she said lowering him gently to the floor and releasing her fingers. She rose to her full height again, looking down at him.

"Shall I lead the way?"

"Could we just stand here like this for a while?"

"Sure, if you like."

"Thank you. This makes me respect what a big tall giant lady you are. So how do you feel to have somebody so small staring up at you?"

"I'm proud and pleased to have you as my visitor, little boy. You're one friend that I never expected to see again."

"My whole house wouldn't even come up to your knee now. I like being your guest, but I'm sure you'd never be able to be mine. I would have no room to welcome you, even if we could ever get back to earth."

"That does not matter. I would not try to squeeze into your tiny house, but you do not take up too much space here."

"Good. I am ready to follow you now.”

“My daughter’s away with my husband at the moment. They’re both giants too now. Alright. I shall try to walk slowly" she said, "Otherwise you will not even be able to run the distance in the time that I shall take to walk it."

She led him into her absent daughter’s room, picked him up and lowered him into the open roofed dolls house with an upstairs bedroom waiting for him. The window looked out onto the bed beside the table on which the dolls house stood. His own tiny bed was beside the window. He got onto it and looked out as she climbed into the giant bed. It would be nice to sleep so comfortably in this giant place knowing that an old friend had become a giantess and could look after him.

"I hope you sleep well, little Timothy."

"Thank you giant Mrs Long. I hope that I can be useful to you sometime."

"Oh you will," she said smiling adorably, "I have decided to have you for dinner tonight."

"Dinner! But why?" he exclaimed.

"Because you are a delicious little boy. Sleep nicely, little Timothy," she said casually.

"But Mrs Long, I thought that we were friends."

"I'd love to eat a little friend.  I am big enough now that I can easily swallow you whole. We had better get some rest now," she said, settling her face on her pillow.

"But Mrs Long, I don't want to be eaten."

"Well you will be, Timothy. You cannot escape, and I see no reason to let you go. It would be quite natural for a big giantess like me to eat a tiny little boy like you for my lunch. So there!"

She poked out her tongue, teasing him.

"I hope that you were watching my tongue, Timothy, because you will be placed upon it at dinner time. Now I shall open my mouth wide in front of your little window. Have a look inside it, since you will be inside it yourself when I do the gobbling."

She opened her mouth and he stared past her huge lower lip in at her big sparkling tongue and the distant throat that awaited him. It was like a terrifying tunnel down to her stomach of no return.

"So what do you think about that, little Timothy? Would it help you to prepare yourself for tomorrow, if you climbed into my mouth for a few minutes now? I shall keep my teeth apart. You will not get hurt."

"I shall try" he said.

She opened her mouth. He sat on the window ledge, climbed over her lip, and lay down on her tongue, with his face and arms resting on her lip, looking out at her dress as she sat back in her bed. After a few minutes he called out to her.

"Can I come out now, please Mrs Long?"

She brought her mouth back to the dolls house window, and he climbed back to his bed.

"I don't mind going into your mouth Mrs Long. I could do it every day without being scared, if you like the taste of me. I just worry about going into your stomach."

"Are you saying that I don't have a nice stomach?" she asked with an air of being offended by his remark.

"No, but I don't want to live in it."

"Well you had better change your mind, because you are going to be in it for a very long time. It will not matter to me what you think of it. I will continue enjoying my happy long life long after I have swallowed you down."

"But don't you think it is unfair to keep me there all of my life, just so that you can enjoy one meal?"

"Life is often unfair, Timothy. I have had unfair things happen to me too. You will just have to face up to it. I am not going to allow you any way out of this. It will not be frightening for me, when I am eating you. I am looking forward to it. You will have to be brave. Now if you wake up before I do, have a look at me while I am asleep, so that you can prepare yourself to be kept inside me."

"Why should you have so much fun eating me, while I go through such terror?"

"For one thing, I am big enough to eat you, and for another, you know that my stomach will be soft and comfortable."

"And impossible to get out of."

"Timothy, I gave you lunch, washed you with my tongue and let you sleep here this afternoon. Don't I deserve a special reward?"

"I am very grateful, and I would do anything for you except being your dinner."

"You will have to let me eat you for my dinner, little Timothy. I will not accept any other reward for all the kindness that I have shown you. I am not going to listen to any more of your objections. Go to sleep and think of yourself as a piece of food for me to enjoy eating. You will understand the situation much better, if you do that, little Timothy."

She soon fell asleep.

So did Timothy.

He awoke in the latter half of the afternoon to see that Mrs Long was still asleep, but he was in desperate need of a way to escape from her.

He went downstairs and out of the dolls house. He found a small nail file on the table beside a wall. He lifted it, jumped to Mrs Long's pillow and crept over to a part of her hair that was not held in place and weighted down by her sleeping head. He filed off a few strands, which were as dense as rope to him, snuck over to the bedpost, tied Mrs Long's hair strands to the post and slid down them to the floor. He soon ducked under a door and ran across her lawn, reaching a flower bed in time to hear her open the door and call out:

"I'm awake now, you naughty little boy! I will catch you and gobble you all up! Here I come now!"

USA, 19 years ago…

For four years, the widow Dianne Archer Leslie had continued secretly dating her adopted son Corey in the confines of her home. Corey enjoyed kissing her soft white skin, and loved looking at the happiness he’d brought back into her eyes.

Since reaching adolescence, he had felt more and more consumed with her. The boy was now 19, one year older than her late husband Jared had been when Dianne Archer had first met him in the department store where she’d worked since leaving school until the day that they married.

The grief at Jared’s passing had now turned largely to joy at each other’s love.

One evening over dinner, Corey said something which Dianne found highly amusing. He saw her mouth open wide with laughter. Her entire tongue was clearly on display, and he could think of nothing better than to touch it, but not as he was. Corey had never read ‘Love and the Shrinking Male’ nor Christine Long’s story, nor the works in progress of Leanne Commons and Tarquin. Yet he could no longer deny what had been building in his mind for four years, what had possibly even been in his subconscious since he had first met her at the age of six going on seven.

Corey wanted to be tiny sized and climb into Dianne’s lovely mouth!

He had witnessed her tongue from across the dinner table, but from then on, he took every opportunity to try to make her laugh, whenever he was sitting right next to her. He did his best not to be noticed staring in at her tongue. She had done her best to come to terms with the idea of dating an adopted son some 21 years her junior, but would not be so likely to continue doing so if she knew of his bizarre fantasy.

Every time he succeeded in making her laugh, it filled him with ecstasy. He would lie in bed cuddled up to her, daydreaming about crawling across her upper body and sliding into her mouth.

Corey’s infatuation with her had taken on the wildest new dimension. How he wished he could make his home indefinitely in that beautiful mouth of hers every night of the week.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

He darted into the flower bed and concealed himself, looking back as she crossed the lawn in no time. He kept creeping away, looking out at her towering form on the edge of the lawn. She had put on her black dress with white dots, and found the hair strands no doubt, and deduced what he had done.

"Come on out, little boy, and we will get you ready for my lunch."

He crept away under the cover of flower petals, heading away from the house. He ran as fast as he could, taking care not to step on anything that would rustle and alert her to his location. He turned and peeked out, and saw her sit down and begin to gently part the flowers with her hands, and then she began to crawl through the flower bed, mindless of any flowers that she might crush in the process.

He ran for his life, and at last he felt that he had outdistanced her, for he could no longer hear her distant crawling behind him.

"Thank goodness I've eluded her at last!" he thought.

Now he would make it back to earth again.

Suddenly he saw Mrs Long burst through the plants in front of him. She had doubled around and ambushed him. She smiled down at him, licking her lips, and he saw that she was going to lunge for him with her hand, before he could even think of darting away again. He was soon surrounded by her giant fingers and unable to see out of her closed hand.

When he had been released by her fingers, he instantly fell into some sticky substance, and heard a door close. He struggled to the surface and looked around. He seemed to be in a dark room. However, there was light behind him. He turned around, and was shocked to find himself in a piece of pavlova warming up in an oven which must have been turned down low so as not to burn him.

He looked through the glass at a giant unoccupied kitchen, and recognised it as Mrs Long's. Soon she came back into the room, opened the oven door and leaned down to look in at him.

"It was silly to run away. You're still going to be eaten" she said.

She smiled at him, closed the oven door and began setting the table, and soon came and sat on a chair in front of the oven door, beaming in at him, licking her lips with glee.

Mrs Long had won.

She looked big beyond compare, and she was now going to eat him for her lunch. She opened the door, dipped her finger in the pavlova and licked it.

"I think you are ready to be gobbled now."

She took out the pavlova, with him still inside it, placed it at the table, and sat down towering over him.

"Do you want to say anything before I start, Timothy? I will not be able to talk to you with my mouth full, especially when it is full of you."

"No Mrs Long. I know it won't help at all to beg for mercy."

"Good. Then without further ado, little Timothy, I shall proceed to eat you."

She ate the pavlova around him, using her fingers.

Then she picked him up and licked off the close bits of pavlova from him.

She held him in front of her face and laughed at him.

Then she opened her mouth, placed him inside it and closed it, rolling him around on her tongue.

"I know what I should have said. I will try to get out and ask her" he thought "If I can just-"

She drew him suddenly into her throat.

He struggled to keep from falling down further as she started gulping with tremendous pressure in an attempt to fully swallow him. Little by little he lost more ground and sank lower into her gulping throat, and eventually reached her stomach.

She went into her bedroom, changed to her nightdress, got into bed and lay awake thinking that she was still happily married, was now a giantess, and looking forward to enjoying the rest of her life, with her captive finally accepting that he would not escape her stomach. She was his destiny.

Suddenly he felt a tingling sensation and realised that her stomach acids were dissolving him into part of her, part of a beautiful giant lady now older than himself. His mind went blank as it dissolved.

She licked her lips every time she remembered him, glad that age and size could no longer separate them. He would be a part of her stomach forever.

The real Timothy awoke once more, to find that it was just another ordinairy day in the year 10 May school holidays.

*         *          *          *

Timothy Scribener didn’t dream about Mrs Long again. He finished high school, went to university, started his career, and eventually reached the age of 24. One day he went to a lovely set of nature gardens and set up a picnic lunch on a small stretch of lawn which was enclosed by hedges and trees. He took out a plate of green salad and set it up on the picnic rug and poured a glass of water and put that down too.

Suddenly he shrank to a miniature size of just under two inches.

“I can’t be dreaming again,” he thought, “This seems very real, somehow. Yet I’ve shrunken just like I did in those dreams I had from ages 10 to 14. Mrs Long was in all of them, but I haven’t seen her since I was due to turn 12. That was more than 12 years ago. Why should I suddenly shrink now?”

Then he heard footsteps coming from a path in another part of the gardens. He looked around, between the hedges, and saw a woman walking in his direction. If he ran anywhere, she would notice him for sure. The only place to hide was in his own plate of green salad. He dived under a lettuce leaf and peeked out as the woman approached. She had long dark hair and looked familiar. She would have been in her mid forties, but he was absolutely certain that she couldn’t have been anyone else but Mrs Christine Long.

“After all those dreams, I can’t take a chance,” he thought, “I’ll have to wait until she’s well and truly passed this spot, before I start working out what to do next.”

Mrs Long drew closer and closer, and then noticed the unattended picnic set up. She looked around, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. It reminded him distinctly of the way her dream self had done the same thing at the top of the slope at the school playing fields, when he had been in sixth class.

Seeing nobody else in the gardens, Mrs Long sat down and looked at the plate of salad which concealed him. She lifted a piece of cucumber, put it into her mouth and ate happily. Then he saw her fingers approach and lift the piece of lettuce which had been his cover.

She gaped in surprise, as she put it into her mouth.

“Is that you after all these years, Timothy?” she asked, after swallowing the lettuce.

“Yes Mrs Long. I was sure I recognised you too,” he said.

“Did you just shrink today?”

“Yes.”

“Well you won’t be able to finish that salad now. I’ll pack up your rug and take the picnic basket down to the garden wall and sit there and eat it for you,” said Mrs Long, and was soon positioned in the new location, seated on the wall.

She put him on the edge of the plate, so that he could still eat what he could fit in his greatly reduced stomach.

“If you recognised me, why didn’t you say hello?” she asked.

“I had some dreams about shrinking unexpectedly or going to a giant woman’s house. They were all when I was in 6th class through to year 10. When it actually happened, I was too surprised to know what to do.”

“Was I in the dreams too?” asked Mrs Long.

“Yes, all of them. When I was shrunken, you retained your full size. When you were a giant, I retained my full size. How did you guess?”

“I had similar dreams around the same time too,” said Mrs Long.”

“I wonder how it’s possible for both of us to have dreams like that,” asked Timothy, who was also wondering how they could have predicted his shrinking and how the shrinking itself could have happened.

“My dreams were just wishful thinking,” said Mrs Long, “I don’t know why you had yours.”

USA, 14 years ago…

Corey and Dianne went to one of her sister Mary’s pool parties. Corey was 24. Dianne was 45. Her figure was breathtaking as she went swimming in the pool, while Corey sat on the deck chair and watched her.

“Could you bring me a piece of celery and a biscuit?” she asked, standing at the edge of the pool, her lower body still immersed in the water.

“Sure,” said Corey.

They would make it look like an adopted son obeying his adoptive mother. They had never told even the Parkins about their love affair, which had been going on for nearly a decade. Corey was hiding something from Dianne herself as well: his desire to go inside her mouth.

He came back with the food items, and placed the celery into her opening mouth first, as her hands were still covered in chlorinated water. He managed to slide his finger over her tongue as he removed them from her mouth. There would not be the room to do it with the biscuit.

Corey watched her eat it, and then gently placed the biscuit onto her tongue and waited until she’d swallowed it and thanked him again.

“What I would give to slide around on her tongue!” he thought.

Yet as far as he knew, it was completely impossible, and so childish a daydream that he must never confide it to her. To do so might just be the very act that discouraged her from continuing with their romance, and he was now old enough to be sent out to make his own way in the world without her romantic affections.

He watched her rising out of the water in her swimming costume.

When they were home he told her how exciting she looked in it, and asked her if they could have a shower together in their swimming costumes. Dianne agreed, and he enjoyed watching the water fall off her cheeks and onto her shoulders.

He embraced her, with their heads away from the spray of water, and kissed her as he had so often done in the past, but never before in this setting.

Christine Long’s fictional story continued, read in present day…

“What happened in your dreams?” asked Timothy, thinking it was the most tactful and indirect way of finding out what she had been wishful for back then.

“I would gain the same size advantages you described in your dreams, and then take the opportunity to have you for meals,” said Mrs Long.

She waited for a response from him.

“I guess mine were just the same,” said Timothy.

“In every case I would eat you all up,” said Mrs Long.

He looked up at this teacher who had haunted his dreams for 5 years so long ago. Both of them were obviously aware now, that she had just indicated what she would do to him, now that she had the opportunity in real life. He watched her eating the salad, more concerned than ever now, to study the process of Mrs Long eating.

“It was so long ago, wasn’t it?” he said at last.

“I’ve had a long happy life since then,” she said, “Have you married?”

“No. I’ve been waiting for the right person. I was hoping that this would be the year I’d meet her.”

“I met my husband in high school. We were married until just before I started at your school. It’s good that you’re still single, like the boy in my dreams of old.”

“Have you thought about the dreams much over the years?”

“Quite a lot,” she said, “I never thought I’d have the real life opportunity though. How about you?”

“I’ve recalled them a number of times too.”

They spent a long time talking, sharing the specifics of their dreams with each other.

“I’ll do it at lunch time tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll have my home to myself then, and we can recreate the chase sequence from your dream in which I was a giantess. I’d like that very much.”

She was going to give him a chance to get away.

“I’m still taking in the fact that it’s come to this,” said Timothy.

“You’ve still got nearly a day left,” she said, and picked up the picnic basket, with the plate now inside it, “I’ll let you sleep the night in my car, using your basket for a bed and the folded rug as a mattress. I’ll come and collect you in the morning.”

She carried him gently in her hand, as she walked with the basket to her car. He looked out at the paths which approached, and up at Mrs Long’s mature contented facial expression. She had been happily married for a while, commenced her teaching career with a desire to eat one of her first students, dreamt of doing so, and would now go ahead with it.

“I guess there’s definitely nothing that would change your mind about it,” he called up, as she reached the outskirts of the public gardens.”

“No, it’ll turn out exactly as it did in the dreams, little Timothy. I’m glad it’s finally happened.”

She set him up in the car, drove home and went about her regular lifestyle for the rest of the day. He awoke the next morning to the sound of her opening the car door. He had spent half the night replaying the dreams in his mind and analysing the whole matter, before he’d finally dropped off at 3am and slept until 11am, when she awoke him.

Mrs Long took him to her back garden and gave him 15 minutes to run and hide. Then she came out looking for him and walked around searching, until she located him amongst some flowers and picked him up.

She took him inside and put him onto a plate, which she carried out to the garden. She sat at a table, with his plate resting on it.

“Are you all ready?” she asked.

There was absolutely no point in saying no. They both knew that.

“Yes Mrs Long,” said Timothy.

“Well goodbye then. It was nice to see you again,” said Mrs Long.

She licked him a few times.

“I always wondered what you’d taste like,” she said, “Very nice. I might as well move on with things now.”

She put him into her mouth and left him there for nearly an hour, while both of them thought back over the years to their real and dream days together, when he had been at school. At last she sucked him into her throat and swallowed him eagerly.

He reached her stomach and waited.

“Now maybe I’ll wake up again … although it feels more real this time.”

Then he heard a rumbling around him. Her tummy began to absorb him.

Was it possible that Mrs Christine Long, the long-term widow and her admiring schoolboy friend Timothy had actually had recurring giantess or shrunken male experiences of the same unexplained nature as Tarquin and Leanne? Had they mistaken the recurrences for dreams, having been apart from each other for three decades and unable to discuss those unproven encounters with each other?

Or had Mrs Long understood it perfectly, and written it as a series of dreams in order to provide an explanation for the readers of the fictional version?

Perhaps the most important question of all was this: Had Mrs Long eaten Timothy, or was there some other explanation for his disappearance? If she had eaten him, then the experience must have eventually had recurrences which went beyond the point of Timothy being in her mouth, and eventually it must have been possible for her to gobble him down permanently, if the story had been based on a factual series of encounters.

Leanne Commons had published her stories as novels and provided enough information to enable Tarquin to contact her.

Howie Kenville had published his story as a novel, and provided enough information to enable Leanne Commons to contact him.

Christine Long had published her story in serialized format in a science fiction magazine, which did not provide any information about the enigmatic authoress. Howie and Corinne had explained that they had searched the Sydney telephone directory and found no clue as to Mrs Long’s address. She might not even have remained in Australia. Nor did the story provide any clues as to how to contact Mrs Long’s daughter, if the girl’s existence in the story was even based on that of a real life daughter.

Tarquin would not be able to contact Mrs Long and learn any more about the situation she had once either experienced or invented and then novelized. Yet one thing stood out. If it had been real, it would prove that there was the possibility that Leanne Commons would eventually succeed in completely gobbling Tarquin down for ever.

If Christine Long’s story was literally accurate, then once that had occurred, he could not expect to find himself back in bed. He would be eaten and, to everyone else’s awareness, disappeared from society forever too.

The boy enjoyed the arousing exciting mischief in Leanne’s voice and mannerisms, as they discussed these questions and concerns in depth. Never before had the matter become so close to home, so much more than mere self indulgent fantasy writing.

Now this matter seemed to be real, even if it was only real in the most ethereal way to Tarquin and Leanne, and possibly to Howie and Corinne and to Timothy and Christine Long.

They could only wait for the next round of the experience, and see what happened.

USA, 13 years ago…

“What was it like when you first got married?” asked Corey one day.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” said Dianne.

“I just wondered what it would have been like being in Jared’s situation,” said Corey.

“Well you’re not Jared!” said Dianne.

“Right now I don’t feel much like Corey!” he said, and left the room and sat down on the couch alone in the lounge room and began to cry.

“I didn’t think I ever took it out on you after we lost Jared,” said Dianne, “But I was older than him too. He was only 18, fresh out of school, when we started dating. I started us off really. We had thirteen happy years, and then it was all cut short, and before I knew it, I was turning to you to fill his shoes. I had no right to do that.”

Corey realised that she was now standing right behind him, and felt her hand on his shoulder.

“I would have been heartbroken if you hadn’t,” said Corey.

“I know, but I’m the sort of girl who only marries once in a lifetime. I know you’d accepted that, but I’ve kept too much of Jared around in your life, reminding you of what I had before, and I’ve never given a second thought to the way I’ve gone on living in the house where I spent all my years of married life with him,” said Dianne.

“It’s been worth it to be with you,” said Corey.

“Would you like us to move?” asked Dianne.

“I guess it would be a fresh start,” said Corey.

“Then we will, but let’s not recreate that part of my life. You’re a new chapter, and equally unique and valuable in your own way. That’s what I’m looking forward to now.”

They hugged each other tightly.

England, present day…

Tarquin and Leanne worked hard to finish their combined story.  They developed all sorts of sub plots involving the British Bachelor Boys and Single Mothers United Group, but the story needed one more element involving one special character: Tristram.

They had introduced him as a prep school aged orphan boy who had snuck into Mrs Waye’s giant garden one night and witnessed Mrs Waye gobbling up a young man. They decided to develop his storyline in order to provide the energy event that would wrap up the novel.

What had become of Tristram? Soon after he had seen the gobbling in Mrs Waye’s garden, he was adopted from the orphanage, and was no longer able to walk through the Dew Forest, as his new family didn’t live anywhere near it.

Tristram grew older with time, and reached the age of 13. He began to find himself staring at girls’ mouths a lot, and particularly their tongues. Every day at lunch time, he would go into the school playground and sit in a position where he could watch girls’ tongues come out of their mouths while they were eating. He found that there were two types of girls. Some would use either a spoon or their hands to place the food inside their mouths. This gave only a limited view of their tongues, as the food would cover most of them.

The second category of girls would put out their tongues to receive the food from their fingers or their spoons. Tristram concentrated his efforts on looking at the mouths of these girls, as he would see much more of their tongues that way, and enjoyed the view far more. Occasionally he would notice a girl licking an ice block, and the sight of that was too good to pass up. He tried out different positions, to look at their tongues from different angles. He found that a front on view was usually limited a little bit, and a side on view also failed to give him a view of the entire tongue. When he sat at a 45 degree angle to the girls’ faces, he could see their tongues coming out to receive the food, and mentally store the split second image that was available, of their outstretched tongues just before the food made contact with them.

He thought back to Mrs Waye and imagined himself being eaten by the girls in the school. By the time he was 14, he found that he wanted very much to actually touch a girl’s tongue. For this, he would need to make friends with one of the more attractive girls. He began compromising his viewing angles of one particular girl’s mouth, in order to sit beside her and talk while she ate.

Anthea had the most beautiful mouth of all with her shapely pink lips and her perfect tongue. Tristram sat beside her and began making conversation as best as he could, and decided that the best chance he might have would be to ask her out on a date.

“Would you like to come out with me on the weekend?” he asked.

“I don’t think so, Tristram,” said Anthea, “The girls think you’re weird. You’re always watching us while we’re eating, and you don’t look at my eyes, when you’re talking to me. You’re always staring at my mouth.”

Tristram was heartbroken, and knew that there was no point in talking to the other girls, if they had all been gossiping about him too. He was relieved that the school holidays were due, as he didn’t feel like facing the class, now that he knew what an awful opinion the girls held of him.

He came to the realisation that the only female person who could really meet the desire that Mrs Waye had stirred up in him was Mrs Waye herself. Now that he was nearly 15, he could make his way back to the Dew Forest one day in the holidays and go to her garden.

On the first day of school vacation, he took a large roll of butcher paper and some crayons with him to the Dew Forest, sat down and wrote a letter on the paper and folded it up, having made the lettering as large as possible, so that a giantess would be able to read it.

Dear Mrs Waye,

Several years ago, when I was a little boy, I came into your garden one night and saw you catch someone my size (except older) and eat him. Your tongue looked like a beautiful lake that I would have loved to swim around on. However, I knew that you would swallow me forever too, if you caught me. So I stayed hidden and returned home.  

Shortly after that, I was adopted and moved away from the orphanage in my land, which was near the forest that led somehow into your garden. So I was not able to come back and look at you again.

About a year and a half ago, I started noticing the tongues of the girls at school, and did my best to watch them eating their lunches. Eventually I knew I really wanted to touch a girl’s tongue, and tried to make friends with her. She made fun of the way I look at the girls’ mouths, and told me that they all think I’m weird. How I wish I could touch your giant tongue instead. It’s what I’ve really wanted all along, but I don’t dare come into direct contact with you, for I know you would eat me for sure.

However, I wanted so much to tell you how I feel about you. I think you’re so much more beautiful than those unfriendly girls my own age at school, and I hope you would like to write back to me and be friends.

Love from Tristram.

(P.S. I’m nearly 15).

He left the letter in her garden, just near the outlet of the tunnel, and returned to visit the orphanage he’d once lived in. He managed to stay the night there as a guest of a childhood friend who still hadn’t been adopted.

Mrs Waye found Tristram’s letter and smiled to herself. Dillon had grown up, met a girl on earth, gotten engaged, and found that he’d outgrown his desire to be eaten by Mrs Waye. He had told her of his decision on his last visit and been warned that their truce was therefore over. Should he ever return to her giant garden, she would eat him permanently.

Now it seemed, she had the chance to cultivate a new opportunity with someone who was as young as Dillon had once been, if only as a pen friend. She wrote a letter to Tristram and left it where she had found his letter.

The next day, Tristram returned to Mrs Waye’s garden and found a giant letter. He folded it a little more and took it through the tunnel and read it in the Dew Forest.

Dear Young Tristram,

I was surprised to learn of your recollections of my eating that young man all those years ago. I had no idea that I was being watched by a little boy that night. I’m truly flattered that you enjoyed the sight of my tongue, and admire the way you likened it to a beautiful lake.

I am sorry to hear that you were so cruelly ridiculed by the girls at your school. They have yet to mature into an understanding of people’s different tastes and desires.

You sound like a lovely young man, and you are wise to restrict yourself to a written relationship. If I caught you in my garden I would most certainly gobble you whole as soon as dinner time came around. I did spend several years willing to only partially swallow a teenaged boy, but he left me for a woman his own age and size, and I have learned not to be so benevolent in the future. From now on, I will return to my original approach. When I eat someone, it will be for good.

I will grant you one concession. I will give you the opportunity to collect and deliver letters we exchange, without ambushing you in that part of the garden and eating you. However, in time I am sure that you will want to venture further into my garden and look at me in person. I will eventually see you and capture you and make a delicious meal of you. Until that happens, I shall enjoy our correspondence.

All my love,

Mrs Waye xxx

Tristram was delighted. He wrote and received several amorous letters during that school vacation, making use of his friend’s willingness to accommodate him at the orphanage, but revealing nothing of what he did in the Dew Forest.

On the morning of the second last day of the holidays, the impending return to humiliation by the girls at his school crept back into his mind, and Tristram made a decision to give reign to his real desires. He wrote one more letter to Mrs Waye and left it for her to find.

Dear Mrs Waye,

I have fallen completely in love with you now, and have thought about this carefully for the last three weeks. I would like to take advantage of the one and only way that I shall ever be able to touch your tongue. I would like to come and turn myself over to you in your garden tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. I will meet you on the large stretch of lawn near our letter collection spot. If you stand in the middle of the lawn, I will come out towards you, and then you can pick me up.

I would consider it the highlight of my life when you gobble me all up.

Your adoring young admirer,

Tristram xxx.

The next day Tristram made his way to the garden, walked to the edge of the lawn, and watched the other side in anticipation of Mrs Waye’s arrival.

Soon he saw her walking slowly along a path and out onto the lawn. He watched her huge grand form pacing slowly to the centre of the lawn, where she stopped and rested her hands by her side. He stepped out of the garden and walked across the lawn to stop just in front of her.

“Hello Tristram. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” she said, “You’ve only ever seen my tongue from ground level. Would you like to come up and have a closer look?”

“I’d love to, thank you,” said Tristram.

He looked up, as the woman leaned over and reached for him with her huge hand. Her shapely forearm was in view, as her fingers closed around him, and then he felt himself leaving the ground. He looked up as he was lifted high into the air and held just in front of her lips.

“How does this look?” she asked.

The words had given him a brief glance at her tongue, and he saw more as they continued to talk.

“It’s so nice to be with you like this, Mrs Waye. I’m glad you’re not at all offended by my staring at your wonderful tongue.”

“I’m pleased with it actually,” she said, and kissed him, “Dillon gave himself to me with a built in escape clause, but your devotion to a one time encounter is touching indeed. Would you like me to do anything else for you today?”

“Could you open your mouth wide, so I can look inside it without your tongue moving to speak, and hold it there for about ten seconds?” asked Tristram.

“I’d love to, but you’ll have to count the seconds, if you don’t want my tongue to move,” said Mrs Waye, and opened her mouth wide.

Tristram stared in at the beautiful sight with unparalleled admiration. He reached in, resting his upper arm on her lower lip, and stroked the front of her tongue with glee.

When he withdrew his arm, Mrs Waye smiled adorably and put out her tongue and licked him.

“Thank you,” said Tristram.

“The pleasure was mine,” said Mrs Waye, “Shall we go inside?”

“Yes please,” said Tristram.

She carried him into the house and spent the rest of the day with him. He enjoyed watching her eating her lunch, having told her of the reactions of the girls at school. It delighted Mrs Waye to give him generous views of her tongue, and then they spent the afternoon talking happily together.

After the sun had gone down, Mrs Waye cooked him in her oven, while he looked through its glass door in admiration of her every movement about the kitchen. Soon she took him to the dining table, sat down and began licking him ecstatically.

She thanked and farewelled him, and then placed Tristram onto her tongue to await the final gulping process. He slid around for several minutes, and then the first gulp came, and he found himself slowly making his way down her throat. Even at this point, he had no regrets. He thought of the scorn he had received from arrogant dismissive teenaged girls, and was more grateful than ever to Mrs Waye.

Then he felt another gulp, and was carried down further and further, as each successive gulp took him closer to her stomach.

Leanne and Tarquin had co-written these last chapters, rather than taking turns to write a chapter each. This allowed for Tarquin to write all of Tristram’s dialog and thoughts, and for Leanne to do the same for Mrs Waye.

Then, having discussed the knowledge they’d gained of Christine Long and the Kenvilles, Leanne and Tarquin decided to add a few more pages after the conclusion of the novel. The first such page read as follows:

If this story has awakened an interest in giantesses or tiny boys, the authors would like to give you the opportunity to contact them and become members of our new fan club called G.O.O.D. (Giantesses Order Of Diminutives).

Send the joining fee now, and we will send you regular newsletters with the secret meeting venues and events for our fan club. As you have seen from the story, single parents have their exclusive clubs, and it is time that those who would be either giantesses or tiny boys were given a group of their own in which to gather…

The one thing that still remained was a title for the book. It should not be overtly descriptive of boys being eaten by giantesses, but should nonetheless make the science fiction genre unmistakeable to anyone choosing whether or not to purchase the book. Leanne had chosen the wording of the fan club invitation page, and asked Tarquin for his thoughts on a title for the novel.

After some thought, he suggested ‘Tunnel to the Giants’, and Leanne agreed that it seemed suitable. As Tarquin was still a minor, he was happy to have his photograph only on the inside cover, so that nobody who knew him would find it staring at them from the front of the book.

Leanne’s photograph was on the back cover, and the front cover read ‘Tunnel to the Giants by Leanne Commons and  Quinn Little’. The pen name would preserve his anonymity. However, Leanne would set up an account in Tarquin’s name, which would receive half of the proceeds from the sales of the novel as well as half of the money raised from the joining fees for Giantesses Order Of Diminutives.

Not only would they be making extra money from their project, not only would they be helping other people with similar interests to meet and socialize and share their work, but they would also be furthering their own research into how many other people like Timothy, Christine Long, Howie and Corinne Kenville, Tarquin, and Leanne Commons existed in the world. They would gain some insight into how widespread the rare desires of these few people were.

When the work was completed and the manuscript sent to Leanne’s publisher, Tarquin stayed one more night at Leanne’s place, to celebrate with a series of cuddles and kisses.

In the middle of the night, he awoke to find that it was daytime in the familiar garden of their size differential experiences. This time he ran straight for the approaching Leanne Commons and made it easy for the giantess to catch him.

“Put me in your mouth, quickly, and try to gulp me down before it can end,” he called enthusiastically, spurred on by what they’d both written about Tristram and Mrs Waye, to see how it would turn out for himself and Leanne.

“Why not?” said Leanne.

She placed him into her mouth and took none of the usual time to savour the experience, but gave a powerful gulp.

Tarquin was quickly drawn into her throat, and downwards.

Then he found himself back in the bed, cuddling up to Leanne.

“You did it. You ate me!” he said, “It worked, but I’m still alright.”

The book sold well in England, the United States of America and Australia. Once it had been read, it was subjected to some scathing commercial reviews, and very few people responded to the fan club invitation. However, those who did were extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Each of them had their story to tell, and it seemed that each of them had had their own unexplained unproven encounter with a giantess or a tiny man or boy:

Corey purchased a copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’ and was fascinated to find that two other people, one male and one female, had co-authored a novel which dealt with his interest in going inside a woman’s mouth after having his size reduced.

Corey began to daydream about it so much more often, as he made his progress in reading the book. When he came to the last page, he turned over and discovered the fan club. He immediately sent off his application to join the Giantesses Order Of Diminutives, and would attend functions whenever they were held in the United States. He had to do it secretly, so that Dianne would not learn of his strange and unusual fantasy. He had never let her find the book, as he expected it might well mean the finish of their relationship.

He met the authors / chairpersons of the club at a function and asked Leanne what he might do about his own personal situation.

“So as far as you know she’s never shown any interest in having you reduced or inside her mouth?” asked Leanne.

“No. I’m taking a risk even telling you about my dating my adoptive mother,” said Corey, “But then I’ve learned about your romance with Tarquin.”

“I’m not out to ruin things for anyone in our kind of situation,” said Leanne, “I founded the group to explore and protect such special fantasies.”

“I wonder how to find out what Dianne would think of my fantasy? Maybe she’d accept it.”

“You do realise that it could be possible one day? I suspect that it hasn’t worked for you, because she doesn’t have those urges. So perhaps the question becomes whether you could see yourself shrinking into someone else’s mouth, and then you’d have to decide whether being with Dianne was more important than being able to do the fantasy,” said Leanne.

“How did you and Tarquin make it happen?”

“We didn’t really. It just happened. I guess it’s because we were both thinking about it, wishfully, “I don’t think Dianne is.”

“I guess I’ll never know,” said Corey.

“You could try leaving the book out for her to find and read,” said Leanne.

“I wouldn’t risk it. She might wonder what was wrong with me, if she found that I was into a story like that …. Oh, no offence to you. I absolutely couldn’t put it down.”

“None taken, but there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s why we put the book out and started the fan club. People have to realise that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to shrink and go into someone’s mouth,” said Leanne.

“Thank you for talking it through with me,” said Corey.

“I can talk to her discretely, if it helps,” said Leanne.

“Thanks, but I haven’t even told her about the group. She just thinks I’m at one of the more common fan clubs for fiction.”

Elsewhere, Chad Wood went on a long bush walk with his binoculars, until he came to the public gardens at the end of the track, and walked past a scenic café in the gardens. He was 28 at the time and couldn’t help noticing a beautiful 39 year old woman with long dark hair and full shapely lips, who was eating from a large bowl at a table outside. She was the only person outside. If there were any other customers, they and the staff were indoors.

Chad was very keen to see the woman’s tongue, and then he remembered his binoculars. He went and sat down some distance away, but still in her line of sight, and put his backpack in his lap to rest his binoculars on, leaned down a little bit, and looked through them.

He focussed them until he could clearly see the lady’s hand raising a spoon to her mouth. He saw her thick sparkling pink tongue come out of her mouth. He couldn’t explain exactly how it looked different to the tongues of women his own age, but it only seemed to excite him all the more.

The woman seemed to notice him and gave him a cold look, but he didn’t feel quite as intimidated as he might have done, given the distance he sat from her. She licked her lips and returned her attention to her meal. Chad continued to enjoy the view for several minutes, until it suddenly changed.

For no reason at all, he found that he was no longer looking through his binoculars. He was staring at a large pile of greenery, which seemed to surround him.

“I thought I was on the small wall, not in the bushes,” he thought.

Then he turned his head a little and saw a large red object beside him. It looked like a gigantic piece of tomato.

“How did that get into the garden?” he wondered, “And how did it get so big?”

Suddenly a large metal object passed under him and lifted him into the air. He looked up to see that he was on a spoon, in a giant bowl, and that the woman was now a giantess looking down at him!

When the spoon cleared the height of the bowl, he could see the familiar outdoor café behind the woman, and then only her face, as she brought the spoon closer to her mouth.

“Just what do you think you were doing?” she asked.

“Looking at the café scene through my binoculars,” he said nervously.

“You were looking at me,” she said, “I came here for some solitude while I’m eating my lunch!”

The woman opened her mouth wide and put out her tongue. The spoon approached her mouth. She was about to spoon him onto her tongue!

Chad turned sideways and looked down into the bowl, at what he could now clearly see was a pile of salad. He jumped off the spoon and landed softly on the salad. Chad looked up at the woman as her hand reached into the bowl with the spoon again, pursuing him as he attempted to shuffle away from it in the salad.

“I saw you when I was walking past,” he said, “I thought you looked very beautiful. It seemed natural enough to look at you.”

“Then being the well spoken young man that you are, you might have asked me if you could take me out to dinner, not sat there staring at me through your binoculars,” she said, digging under him unexpectedly with the spoon, “You’ve upset my lunch!”

He looked up at her outraged facial expression and then down a little at her towering wide neck. If she succeeded in spooning him into her mouth, he would have no traction at all to resist the gulping potential of that neck. It was a beautiful sight, and so was her mouth. He would love to go inside it, but her manner indicated no intention to let him out again.

Snaring him again with the spoon, she raised it to her mouth much faster, opened her mouth and extended her tongue again. He tried to jump off once more, but she angled the spoon slightly, so that he lost his balance, and then spooned him onto her tongue and into her mouth.

“Her tongue feels amazing!” he thought, “She really means to eat me!”

The next thing he knew, she was gulping him into her throat. Down he travelled, as she slowly began to swallow him.

Then suddenly he was back on the wall, looking into his binoculars again. He quickly put them back in his backpack and looked at her without them. She looked up from the salad bowl and stared across at him, before continuing to eat her lunch.

She had eaten him, and it had been the most thrilling adventure of his life. He wondered what to say to her. She had indicated that he should have taken her out to dinner. The way she had used the phrase “well-spoken young man”, even in the midst of her anger, had warmed his heart. Yet one thing still confused him.

Had she meant that she would have accepted an invitation to dinner only if he had given her such an invitation in the first place? Had he ruined his chances of that, by staring at her? Would she be interested in him at all now, or only angry? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Being eaten by her beautiful tongue had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, now that he knew that whatever unknown phenomenon had placed him in her bowl had also freed him from her stomach.

He felt too shy to approach her now, even more so than before the incident. He thought that he might as well watch her depart, as he would most likely never see her again. The woman finished her meal, drank a glass of water, and then got up from the table. To his surprise she began walking straight towards him, though the way out of the gardens was in the opposite direction.

She drew closer, and he noticed that the anger had left her eyes, but had not been replaced by a smile.

“I don’t know how that happened, or how you got out of it at the end,” she said, “But have you learned something from it?”

“I’m sorry if I disrupted the enjoyment of your meal,” said Chad, “And I’m not unhappy with you eating me. It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know how it happened either.”

“When you’d made your presence felt with the binoculars, I wanted to eat you up, and then suddenly noticed you in the salad bowl instead.”

“Did you want me to get out after you’d eaten me?” he asked.

“No. As far as I was concerned, I’d gobbled you down and that was the end of the matter. I had nothing to do with your escape.”

“Did you enjoy eating me? I mean, I know you were upset with me, but did I make a nice tasty mouthful for you?”

“Yes. In fact the nicest I’ve ever had, I would say.”

“I liked the look of your tongue, and especially liked the feel of it, while you were eating me,” he said, “I’m not upset with you at all for swallowing me. Are you still angry with me for looking at you?”

“I think I’ve been angry with life ever since my husband left me for no reason,” she said, “Then you came here and interrupted my revelry, and I ate you. I’ll say nothing more about it.”

“Thank you,” said Chad.

“Did you come from the bush track?” she asked.

“Yes, it was very nice. I was going to go back that way to my car.”

“Would you mind showing me the way?” she asked, “I’ve never done that walk before.”

“Sure, I can show you,” he said.

“Thank you. I’m Heather. What’s your name, young man?”

“Chad.”

He led her into the trail, and then began to talk.

“I can’t think how I ended up in that bowl,” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Heather, “It’s as unexpected and unexplained as the way you ended up back on the wall.”

“Being eaten was amazing enough, but then being free was an even bigger surprise.”

“We might never know what caused it,” said Heather.

They began to talk about their lives and experiences for a while, and eventually reached the end of the track.

“Is your car nearby then?” asked Heather.

“Yes,” said Chad.

“Would you mind giving me a ride back to my own car?” asked Heather, “I don’t really feel that keen on doing the walk back.”

“I’m happy to give you a lift,” said Chad, and drove slowly towards the gardens until she pointed out her car.

“Thank you,” said Heather, looking out through the windscreen at the scenery outside.

“Heather?” asked Chad.

“Yes.”

“When you were spooning me up the second time, just before you put me into your mouth, you said that I should have asked you out to dinner. Did you mean that you would have come out to dinner with me if I had asked, instead of spoiling your lunch the way I did?”

“I think it would have been the better approach for you to have taken,” said Heather, “Asking a lady out is the conventional approach. I wouldn’t have said yes to every man that asked, but I believe I would have said yes to you.”

“Thank you,” said Chad, “I guess I really spoiled my chances when I took out those binoculars.”

“I thought it was very graceful of you to show me the bushwalk and drive me back after I’d eaten you,” said Heather, “And you were a delicious mouthful to gobble down.”

“Would you … perhaps like to … give me a second chance, and come out to dinner with me tonight?”

“Thank you, I’d love to,” said Heather, “I joined you on the bushwalk and again in your car, to give you your second and third chances to ask.”

“Really?” asked Chad.

“Yes. You’re a handsome young man. I’d have been happy to have kept you in my tummy, but now that you’re back, I’d like to go out with you.”

She gave him her address and telephone number and asked him to pick her up at seven o’clock. When he knocked on her door that evening, she opened the door wearing a beautiful black dress and a green coat. He drove her to a nice restaurant and talked with her over the meal.

“You’re looking at my tongue while I’m eating,” she said after a while, “Did I make a big impression on you, when I was eating you?”

“Oh yes,” said Chad, “I was looking at your beautiful shapely full pink lips and your big sparkling pink tongue at point blank range, at relatively giant sized proportions.”

“You’ve spoken very generously about the whole affair. I might have underrated your ability to treat a lady well.”

He drove her home and stopped the car in her driveway.

“Thank you for a delicious meal,” she said, “Come to think of it, I suppose you’ve given me two today, even if I didn’t get to keep the first one.”

“Do you wish you could have?” he asked.

“I suppose not,” said Heather, “Or I’d never have had the second.”

“Do you think I’ll ever end up that small again?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“Would you eat me again?”

“Probably,” she said, “Does that discourage you?”

“From what?”

“Well you’ve taken me out to dinner, talked with me, gotten to know me and driven me home. I haven’t gotten out of the car, and I’m sitting right beside you. I thought that a man would know what to do next.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t ever been on a date before,” said Chad, “I haven’t had much social experience with ladies at all. Maybe that’s why I got things wrong in the gardens in the first place.”

“Maybe so,” said Heather, “I’ll help you along then. I would like you to kiss me.”

He turned to see that she was looking at him now, not the scenery outside as she had done earlier. Her front porch light was on, illuminating the garden. The scene was set for some passionate romance, and he simply had to work up the nerve to do as she’d asked.

He realised that Heather had been making her feelings equally clear when she had been preparing to eat him. This time there was no mistaking her intentions. Chad leaned across a little, and put his arm around her. Heather responded by taking his other hand in her own, and offering her lips. He recalled that he had told her over dinner what an impression those lips had made on him when she’d been spooning him into her mouth.

He touched her lips with his own and enjoyed the kiss for several minutes.

She finally withdrew her mouth and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for a delightful evening,” she said, “It’s been a special treat for me to have given you your first kiss. I know you couldn’t have given me my first kiss, but you have given me the first truly fresh start since my divorce. Tonight, for the first time, I no longer feel angry with him, but happy with you instead.”

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” said Chad, “And I’d love to go on seeing you.”

“I’d like that very much,” said Heather.

“I never imagined we’d be doing this, when I was trying to dodge that spoon in the salad bowl today.”

“Didn’t you?” she asked.

“I certainly wanted to kiss you, but I couldn’t see how I’d get the chance.”

“Well I didn’t expect to see you again after I gobbled you down, but I’m glad it’s worked out this way. My husband left me for a younger woman.”

“I think he was very foolish,” said Chad, “But in a way I’m glad he did.”

“I think you’re a sweet handsome young man,” said Heather, and pulled him tightly with her arm.

“Even though I upset your lunch?”

“You were my lunch,” she said, “I’m not sorry for eating you, but I wish I hadn’t been so cold and unfriendly to you while I was doing it. I can see from our first kiss, that you were just too shy to approach me directly for a date. So you tried to be content by admiring me from afar.”

“I couldn’t have expressed it better myself,” said Chad, “I’m so glad you understand. I didn’t know if you liked me at all, when you were lifting me up with the spoon.”

“I could see that your tiny face was handsome and young, but I felt certain that you’d be the most delicious part of my lunch, and you were. I realise now that I would have eaten you, given the chance, whether you’d used your binoculars or not.”

“You would?”

“Yes, and I’d like to go on seeing you, Chad, but if you should find yourself that small again, you can expect me to do everything possible to eat you all up again.”

“But what if I don’t get out next time?”

“Then I’d have eaten you properly,” said Heather, “I’m sure I’d have no regrets about that, Chad.”

“Oh,” said Chad.

“Do you still want to keep seeing me?” asked Heather, “It’s more likely to happen again if we’re in close proximity to each other.”

“I couldn’t possibly stop seeing you,” said Chad, “I’ll take my chances on being eaten and hope I get out in time if it happens.”

“I think I love you more than I ever loved my ex-husband,” said Heather, “He wouldn’t stay with me when he had no risk and nothing to lose. You’re willing to risk being gobbled down forever in order to stay with me. I’m sorry for what I said at lunch time. I’m very fortunate to have met someone who liked me enough to take out those binoculars.”

“I think I’m actually lucky too, to find someone who liked the taste of me enough to spoon me onto that beautiful sparkling tongue of yours.”

“You’re adorable,” said Heather, and kissed his cheek.

The couple continued to date, and Chad eventually lent her his copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’. After she’d finished reading it, he asked her if she’d be interested in joining the Giantesses Order Of Diminutives. Heather was keen to do so, and they sent their application fees to Leanne and Tarquin and were soon made financial members of the club.

Soon after that, they attended their first social function of G.O.O.D.

“So you ended up in her salad bowl but still at the same venue?” asked Leanne.

“Yes,” said Chad, “I couldn’t tell that I was in a salad bowl, until she spooned me up towards her mouth, but then I quickly realised what was happening, though I didn’t know how.”

“None of us know how,” said Tarquin, “It just seems almost as though it happens because both parties want it to.”

“Why did you ask about the location?” asked Heather.

“Location?” said Chad.

“The venue,” said Heather.

“It’s happened to us over and over again, but we find ourselves in an unfamiliar house and garden,” said Chad.

“I wake up in the house and he wakes up in the garden. It’s always during our sleep times too,” said Leanne.

“She comes out to catch me and eat me. The first time it happened, I thought she was a giant. She thought I was a shrunken boy. We still haven’t worked out which, because we don’t know where we were each time,” said Tarquin.

“It’s happened several times,” said Leanne, “I caught him after the first few rounds and ate him every time from then on.”

“Maybe we can do it again soon too,” said Chad.

“I hope we do,” said Heather.

“So do I,” said Chad, “It would be nice to do it, now that I know I won’t be eaten forever.”

“Maybe you don’t know that for certain,” said Heather.

“There’s a young man here on his own,” said Leanne, “I think I know who it is. I’d like to welcome him, Tarquin. Can you look after Heather and Chad?”

“Sure,” said Tarquin.

Leanne walked over to the newcomer and checked his club badge that she had sent him.

“Timothy Scribener!” she said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since you sent your application form. I’ve got something to show you.”

She took out the folder copy of Christine Long’s story, and let him read through it while she attended to other guests. He rejoined her half an hour later and talked.

“I am that Timothy Scribener,” he said, “It was two and a half years ago that I literally lived the final scene of that story, except for one detail which Mrs Long couldn’t possibly have known. She wrote every bit of it as it happened, it seems.”

“We’ve been trying to locate her,” said Leanne, “I think she’d make a valuable addition to the club, but there’s no indication of her address in that story. We pulled it from several issues of a magazine.”

“I’ve been trying to locate her as well,” said Timothy.

“What was that detail that was different?” asked Leanne.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” said Timothy, “I didn’t dissolve in her stomach. I suddenly found myself back in the nature gardens at full size, and of course Mrs Long wasn’t there.”

“What did you do?”

“I couldn’t have worked out where her house was from the journey that my tiny self took in her car. I don’t know where she lives. I’d give anything to see her again, now that I’ve got my full size back. I’d love to tell her how much that gobbling meant to me when we finally did it together.”

“If your experience was anything like mine and Tarquin’s, I believe that you did it together every time you thought you dreamt it,” said Leanne, “We’d end up in our beds or bed each time the experience stopped too, but you might have mistaken it for dreams, since you never had the chance to talk with Christine afterwards.”

“No wonder it seemed so real,” said Timothy.

“We’ve been very interested in Christine Long and wondered if you’d been eaten forever. We were hoping, and still are, that she’ll find a copy of ‘Tunnel to the Giants’ in a book shop, read it, read the fan club application pages at the end, and contact us to join up. The book has been out for a while now, and we haven’t heard from her. What happened to you? Our research showed that you disappeared from society altogether.”

“I woke up one morning at home and found myself at tiny size. Mrs Long never showed up, but I spent nearly two years living in my house at tiny size. I had enough food supplies to last my tiny self indefinitely, except that I couldn’t get at the things in the fridge. I had to struggle to climb to basins, turn taps on and off and get at the food. I hadn’t been out of the house in all that time, until I suddenly got my full size back. Since then, I’ve spent months trying to locate Mrs Long.”

“None of us know what causes our unusual desires, let alone what makes the size differences temporarily possible,” said Leanne, “But I founded the group to provide a way for us to meet together and share the details of our lives without facing any judgement from the outside world, which is full of people who don’t understand and would sneer at us if we told them. Your experience is different yet again from anything that we’ve learned from other members. I think it would be inspiring for the group if you gave a testimonial speech recounting your story at the next meeting. I’ll send photocopies of Christine’s fictionalized version to any member who books for the function, and ask them to have read the story before they come to hear from you. Would you be willing to talk about it?”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell it to a lot of like minded people,” said Timothy, “Sure, I’ll be happy to do it.”

“I’m grateful,” said Leanne.

“I’m the one who should be,” said Timothy, “Without your book, I’d never have known that there were others like me in the world. You wouldn’t believe the ridicule I got on the rare occasions that I trusted people with my secrets in the past.”

“It’s their loss,” said Leanne, “Our desires are so much more exciting than conventional ones, and they enable the day dreamers involved to remain aroused for hours longer than the conventional desires do too … longer than the duration of any criticism from the outsiders, wouldn’t you say?”

“When you put it like that,” said Timothy.

A month later, Leanne organised a dinner for Giantesses Order Of Diminutives, with Timothy Scribener as guest speaker. He enjoyed sitting at Leanne’s table. She placed all the men on one side and all the women on the other, enabling the men to look across at their partners eating, and revel in every movement of the women’s tongues.

“I’ve put you at the end of the table, next to Tarquin,” whispered Leanne, “You’re welcome to look at my tongue. You’re the only one here without a partner, and I know how much you must be missing Christine Long.”

“Thank you,” said Timothy, “It would be nice, though I hope you won’t be offended if I say not as nice as Mrs Long’s tongue would be to me.”

“Not at all. To people like us, it’s very romantic. She’d be touched by your devotion.”

“She must have spent all this time believing that I was lost in her tummy,” said Timothy suddenly.

“If she’d known where you lived, she could have gotten at you any time,” said Leanne.

“I couldn’t have avoided her for nearly two years, even in my own home,” said Timothy, “She’d have caught me and eaten me eventually, and I’d have loved it.”

“I don’t think you’d have stayed tiny for two years, if she’d eaten you again,” said Leanne, “For Tarquin and I, it keeps ending just as I gobble him down. It couldn’t with you, because Mrs Long wasn’t around. So you stayed tiny for a long time. It breaks the precedents of our adventures, and that’s why I’m looking forward to hearing the details of your experiences, picking right up from where Christine Long’s story left off.”

Timothy enjoyed the sight of Leanne’s tongue in a more detached way, as he didn’t have the emotional investment of years to incorporate, as he did when he thought about Mrs Long. Then Leanne announced him, and he told of his many struggles and efforts to live for nearly two years at tiny size. He had spent most of the time reading or watching television, glad that his electricity bills and water rates had continued to be automatically deducted from his savings account electronically, and that his wealth earned more in interest than the cost of the bills. It was a struggle to manipulate the TV remote control at tiny size after climbing up to where he’d originally left it on the couch, but well worth it to watch enough programs to keep him entertained and occupied for years.

The fact that he watched a lot of television did not preclude him from sufficient exercise. Obtaining food from his pantry and kitchen, washing and drying and hanging out things to dry themselves, and other things all took considerable exercise at that size. Climbing relatively gigantic furniture was a daily necessity for him in that period.

“I’m very proud of you, and I think the others all enjoyed it too,” said Leanne at the end of the night, “I didn’t want you to tell this to the others, until we’ve had a chance to follow it up, but I’ve got some great news for you.”

Leanne took out a society magazine which had event listings of authors, and showed Timothy an item which took his breath away:

Notification of the wedding of

Jay Long (son of magazine author Christine Long)

and

Krystal Hume (daughter of Clive and Edith Hume)

…

“Wow! If only we could go,” said Timothy.

“We can,” said Leanne, “I sent the magazine publishers a signed copy of my book to be passed on to Christine, asking her to contact me. She read it and invited me to the wedding and the reception, and said I can bring a date. I haven’t told her about you, but Tarquin understands your situation and is happy for me to take you.”

“Boy will she be surprised to learn what happened to me since she ate me all up!” said Timothy.

“I thought you’d like to surprise her,” said Leanne.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Timothy.

“That’s what the group’s here for,” said Leanne, “Or one of the reasons it’s here anyway. I’m glad we’ve been able to organise this reunion for you and Christine.”

“What if she has a boyfriend there?” asked Timothy.

“I’ve only spoken to her on the telephone so far, but I managed to slip that into conversation. She had been dating someone for years by the time she ate you, but it broke up since then. She’s not spoken for in any way at the moment. Most of the guests there are friends of Jay and Krystal. Jay’s 24 and Krystal’s 22. Their friends are around that age too. Christine’s 47. Besides that, who would she possibly prefer to the returning young man she ate nearly three years ago?”

“I guess so,” said Timothy.

“Just trust your heart and go for it,” said Leanne.

“I think I’ll still be nervous.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there to steer you along,” said Leanne, “And as far as Christine’s concerned, the caterers at that wedding won’t have anything to compete with you.”

The wedding day came, and Timothy and Leanne attended. They sat up the back, so that Mrs Long would not notice Timothy until the reception. Then Leanne snuck out the back with Timothy, before the service ended, and drove to the reception venue. They talked in the car until Mrs Long arrived. Then Leanne led Timothy into the large mansion, and they began to eat and talk.

Timothy watched Mrs Long deliver her speech, and then the slow dancing began.

“It might be a good moment to introduce yourself,” said Leanne.

“What would I say?” asked Timothy.

“Ask her to dance. She’s the only one here without a partner.”

“She’ll think that I’m your boyfriend,” said Timothy.

“No. I explained that I was just bringing a friend who had no romantic attachments to me, when I arranged for us to come,” said Leanne, “The field is clear for you. Make the most of it.”

“I guess it’s why we’re here,” said Timothy.

“Best wishes,” said Leanne.

Timothy walked over to the table just in time to see Mrs Long pick up a prawn and place it into her wide open mouth. As it touched her tongue, he was exhilarated, remembering the way that she had eaten him nearly three years earlier.

“Mrs Long?” he said.

“Hello … Timothy Scribener?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I can see how you look like an older version of the boy I once taught and dreamt about, and a full sized version of the boy I ate three years ago, but I really thought I’d gobbled you down for good that day. I guess my theories were right after all.”

“What theories?” asked Timothy.

“You recall that we perceived all our earlier experiences as dreams. Leanne, the lady you came with today, explained to me that they were real, in an unexplained unproven way. Each time we encountered each other, you really shrank, or I really ended up in a giant place somewhere. How it happened is something we don’t know, but it did. It always ended just as you slid down my throat. I worked out why.”

“Of course! You were a science teacher long before your brief stint as an author. I read your story about me and enjoyed it very much by the way. You’d be able to work out the closest thing to a scientific explanation of our situations, which the others couldn’t, being authors or other non-scientific members of our special community.”

“What happened to you, by the way?”

“I found myself back in the nature gardens at full size. Soon after that I shrank to tiny size in my own house and spent almost two years like that. I guess I was trying to bring about another encounter, but you weren’t.”

“Maybe that’s why we had all the ones we did,” said Mrs Long, “Was the timing of the incidents in my story concurrent with your experiences in each case?”

“To the day,” said Timothy.

“Were you thinking about me at all around the time you started to shrink?”

“Every time, now that I recall it, or dreaming at least,” said Timothy, “Or thinking about you the night before.”

“And I was thinking of you in each case, but not when you shrank two or three years ago. That has to be it. You only shrink when both of us are thinking about each other at the same time,” said Mrs Long.

“Boy are the other members of G.O.O.D. going to be pleased to learn that!”

“Well now think what could cause you to restore your size?”

“I don’t know. It usually just happens when I’m about to reach you tummy.”

“We both mistook the situations for dreams. They felt very like them, and had similar properties,” said Mrs Long, “Have you ever had frightening dreams, when you could see no way out, and some how you willed yourself to wake up as the only escape from the situations in the dreams?”

“Yes. They were all like nightmares: being assaulted, threatened with death, losing something important, being in some other terrible trouble.”

“Exactly. It’s no wonder people always awake from nightmares at the worst time, before they’re over. It’s a safety buffer built into our subconscious, I’ve speculated,” said Mrs Long, “And since our gobbling encounters were like dreams, you willed yourself back to full size and out of my throat when there was no other alternative.”

“Of course. And in the case of my long shrinking stint at home, I became so desperate and fearful that I’d spend the rest of my life shrunken alone at home and never meet you again, that I willed myself back to full size.”

“That’s the secret,” said Mrs Long, “I couldn’t end the encounter. Neither could Leanne or your other friends, because I wasn’t worried about gobbling you down. I was enjoying it. Only the imminent anxiety of the tiny boy can do it.”

“I remember that you once, in one of the encounters, described the digestion process of the stomach acids, so that I need not fear being hurt by it. Was that scientifically accurate?” asked Timothy.

“I’m sure of it,” said Mrs Long, “Which leads to my next point. If a boy were to be truly unconcerned of being eaten permanently, then his escape urge would not kick in. He’d be digested in the lady’s tummy, without ever returning to full size and the outside of her body. Your friends in G.O.O.D. would be surprised to learn THAT also.”

“It could change the dynamic of those relationships quite dramatically,” said Timothy.

“To say the least,” said Mrs Long.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Mrs Long, “I certainly plan to join the group after the wedding’s out of the way.”

“Would you like to dance with me?” asked Timothy.

“Alright,” said Mrs Long.

He led her to a quiet part of the veranda and put his arm around her and held her hand. They drew closer to each other and were soon cheek to cheek.

After fifteen minutes or so, he attempted to kiss Mrs Long on her lips. She turned her head slightly, and avoided it, and then spoke gently into his ear.

“Are you in love with me, Timothy?”

“Yes. I always have been.”

“Then there is a lot that I’d better tell you,” said Mrs Long, “It will fill in the years that we haven’t seen each other, except for the brief shrinking and giantess encounters, and I can show you what was going on in my life at the time they slotted in.”

Mrs Long began her tale, while continuing to slow dance with Timothy. In a sense, it had all started five years before she had first met and taught Timothy:

Hart Dale was a fifth class student at Gray Thwaites school at North Sydney when Mrs Long was teaching there at the age of 25. He was nearly ten years old, and would often find himself in trouble with the teachers, because of his various misdemeanours.

One day, Hart was about to head out into the school playground for lunch, when he noticed that one of the boys had left his wallet on the desk in the classroom. There was nobody else there. The wallet belonged to Bill Stephens, who had been picking on him recently.

Hart shamelessly slipped the wallet into his pocket, and went down to the lower playground, ate his lunch, and then decided to look in the wallet. He found some money, and decided to steal it. He transferred the money to his own wallet, and then looked up. On the other side of the playground, he saw Mrs Long looking straight at him. To him, the playground was a large place, and he was not aware that the adult Mrs Long perceived it as being much smaller, and had clearly identified what he was doing.

Mrs Long began walking towards Hart, who panicked, and came up with a feeble attempt to tell a lie that he hoped would enable him to keep the stolen money without being punished.

"Mrs Long, I found this wallet. Would you like to give it back to Bill?" he said, and gave it to her.

"I see," said Mrs Long, and took the wallet from Hart. She was unlikely to be deceived by a prep school student.

During the afternoon classes, Mrs Long interrupted Hart's lesson, in front of Hart, the class, and its teacher for that period. She explained that she knew what Hart had done, and asked him to return the money, and to see her after school in the assembly hall.

When Hart reached the assembly hall, Mrs Long was waiting for him, with Mr King, a regular teacher at the school.

*          *          *          *

The previous year, Hart had drawn a satirical comic strip about Mr King during a lesson. Later, he had been caught talking to the boy beside him, and sent out of the classroom. He had waited outside the classroom, expecting that it was the full extent of his punishment. About ten minutes later, Mr King had come out to him, holding the comic strip that he had written and drawn.

"Did you write that?" Mr King had asked angrily.

"Yes," Hart had nervously replied.

"Come with me!"

Mr King had led Hart down to the headmaster's office, and showed the comic strip to the headmaster.

"What are we going to do?" Mr King had asked.

"Well we can give him a good caning for a start," the headmaster had responded.

"And why don't we send a letter home to his parents with that comic strip in it?" Mr King had asked.

The headmaster had agreed, and Mr King had then taken Hart into the teachers' common room, and lifted a cane stick down from the top of the cupboard.

"Would you write things like that at home?" Mr King had asked Hart.

"No," Hart had stammered.

"Then don't do it here!" Mr King had erupted, and he had then struck Hart's legs twice with the cane.

*          *          *          *

Now Mr King was holding the cane stick again.

Hart decided it would be best to get the beating over with and face his punishment, since he had been thinking all afternoon, and come to the conclusion that being bullied by Bill did not give him the right to steal Bill's money after all. It was a valuable lesson to learn, but there would be physical consequences, before the incident was concluded.

"I'm ready," he said, and bent over with his back to them.

"We want to talk to you first," said Mrs Long.

He began crying, knowing that he would have to wait for an end to the conversation, dreading the caning that lay ahead, when he had already understood that he was a thief, and just wanted it all out of the way.

"Now you shouldn't do that. You're just messing up your face," said Mr King in dead ernest.

Some five minutes later, Mr King said, "It's stealing. You'll have to have the cane for that."

"Well I knew that in the first place," thought Hart, "Why couldn't he have caned me, and then had the talk?"

"Bend over and touch your toes," said Mr King, and then hit him twice, with Mrs Long watching the proceedings.

"Alright, go and hide," said Mr King.

Hart never stole money from another boy again, but he did find himself in other problematic situations involving Mrs Long.

In the middle of second term, it was his tenth birthday. He arrived at school about fifteen minutes before school started, and went into his classroom.  He took a piece of chalk, and began to write in large letters that took up most of the space on the blackboard:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TO HART DALE.

TEN YEARS OLD TODAY.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

When he had finished, he continued holding the chalk, and began wondering what else to write. He was no longer involved in underhanded behaviour, such as the time he had stolen the money.  He expected that his efforts with the chalk would just be treated as birthday fun by his teacher.

"What do you think you're doing?" came the voice of Mrs Long behind him.

He turned around and faced her.

"Are you going to pay for all the chalk you wasted?" she asked.