The tiny man looked on from where he watched on the stainless steel kitchen table, his diminutive form, a blurry reflection of his body in the silver metal beneath his feet. A light breeze eminating from an AC vent in the ceiling far away, tugged at him. At his minuscule stature the breeze push the little man with noticeable force. It was like a thousand cold fingers pulling across his skin, raising goose bumps and inciting involuntarily shuddering. It was a startling to discover that an air vent could have such a drastic effect on him now. Despite his acute awareness of the AC unit and how damn cold it was, the draft was all but imperceptible to the normal sized human in the room, who was distracted with her cell phone.

The tiny man’s teeth began to chatter. He wrapped himself in his own arms in a vain attempt to retain what little body heat he could. There was little else he could do, save wait for the giantess to finish her phone call.

Granted, she wasn’t really a giantess. She was normal sized. He had paid to be shrunk down and swallowed alive by a pretty woman named Danielle. Danielle had shrunk him down as agreed. But when she had been about to eat him, he had a last moment of panic and begged to be spared. She had looked a bit disappointed at this but had immediately honored his request not to be eaten. Instead, she had taken him to the back of the restaurant and placed him in a jar containing other shrunken men. They had all been cleaned off, rather roughly in the tiny men’s opinion, and not a few of them were left with skin rubbed rather raw. But they had ended up in the desired place; a container for shrunken men who had reconsidered becoming someone’s dinner. There they would stay until the shrinking machines weren’t so busy.

One man had been in the bowl for several hours and had demanded an explanation from Danielle concerning why it was taking so long to wait to be regrown. Danielle had explained that people being shrunk were given first priority; it was how the restaurant made its money after all. Once things quieted down and the shrink machines had less of a line, she assured them that they would be taken back to the shrinking booth and enlarged to their former size. Another of the men began to protest that there hadn’t been much of a line when he had been shrunk but Danielle was already walking away. With no one listening the man fell silent.

Fortunately, waitress returned to them regularly to gather groups of men as the shrinking booths became available to regrow them. People had been taken in dribs and drabs. One of the waitresses would come every now and again and count out a few people. Then she would whisk them away to be unshrunk. It was also not uncommon to have a waitress deposit several newly shrunken men into the bowl to wait for their turn to be regrown.

The giantesses themselves were beautiful. It was as if the staff had all been handpicked to be remarkably easy on the eyes, which in fact they had been. There beauty was such that a few tiny men even reconsidered their choice to be eaten. They had called to a waitress to tell her of their change of heart. They were always promptly scooped up and taken away without another word. With a hungry clientele, there was obviously a high demand for the tiny men. One of the servers, a pretty woman named Kim, had even eaten one of the reformed shrunken men in front of the rest of them. Everyone had enjoyed watching that. It scared them to be reminded of how easily they could be dispatched but every one of them had a giantess vore fantasy as well and there had been a fair amount of animated discussion about Kim and her little volunteer.

And so things went until a giantess named Rachael walked over to the bowl, plucked a man at random and walked into the adjoining room.

Rachael leaned up against an oven, her phone still to her ear.

“I know. I can’t wait to see you either honey,” she was saying into the phone. “No dear. I’m at work. Mm hmm, where we shrink down guys and eat them.” The tiny man watched the woman with interest. She had greeted him when he had entered the restaurant and even had one of the staff show him around. She had been very friendly. The tiny man was sure that she would be just as accommodating when it came to getting him back to his rightful size.

The man gazed at her from. Her face was cute, her hair long and curly. Her breasts stood out pleasantly against her green Red Sox shirt. Here the little man frowned just a bit. He had always been a Yankees fan.

His eyes wandered her profile once more. Her hips and thighs flowed in a pleasantly feminine silhouette. She was pretty alright. Perhaps she did not possess the striking beauty that the barmaids here all seemed to hold, but despite this, or perhaps because of this, she was someone that any man would quickly notice. The shrunken man decided to politely wait for her to finish her call before trying to talk to her. From the sound of things, she was wrapping up her discussion.

“Of course. I’d be delighted to take you here when you arrive. What? Ah ha ha ha! No, no. I don’t plan to shrink your boyfriend. As long as he isn’t offended by us eating guys at least. Are you excited to try one?” There Rachael paused as she listened to her friend talking. “Of course you can do it away from Ron. But you never know. Maybe your cute little boy toy might enjoy watching you eat someone. Plenty of guys find it sexy. Who? No. I’m not dating any of the vore lovers here. I’ve eaten all the ones that were interested in me. Alright dear. I’ve gotta run. I just took a quick five minute break to grab myself a snack before going back to work. See you later.”

The giantess clicked off the phone with a snap and with a flick of her head, tossed her hair from her green eyes which focused directly on the tiny man on the counter opposite her.  She took the briefest of seconds to look at him, her mouth open, her lips turned slightly upwards in a smile.

Rachael had smiled at him when he had arrived that evening as well. That smile had been warm, genuinely friendly. She had conveyed the impression that he had been the very person she had been waiting for all evening. Rachael had a bright personality. Almost everyone she met nearly instantly liked her. She had a beautiful smile, showing off white teeth and her green eyes twinkled kindly.

This was not the smile that the tiny man saw now. Here, the moist lips spread apart to reveal her pearly white teeth once more. He had noticed their whiteness before, but it was only now that he realized just how remarkably sharp they looked, glistening in her mouth. Her eyes no longer twinkled in kindness and friendship but sparkled as if the luster of a barely checked hunger lingered behind her emerald eyes.

The woman holstered her phone in her pocket and then used her hands to push herself off the counter where she’d been leaning. She made directly for the tiny, helpless man on the stainless steel counter opposite her.

The way she was looking at him terrified the shrunken man. It was as if every instinct in him had shifted as subtly as the giantess’s body language. There had been a subtle change in how the woman now held herself. It was not something that the man would have been able to put his finger on, but rather the way she moved set of an instinct to flee. It seemed to him that her body language communicated that she was in ‘mealtime’ mode. She reminded him of a carnivore who had transitioned from dangerous but docile predator to alert and hungry immediately upon perceiving prey in the immediate area. The little man had instantly gone from pleasantly aroused by her tall body, female anatomy so delightfully prominent, to mortally terrified of her. He found himself backing away from her as she approached. There was something in the way she walked. Something dangerous.

“Hi-Ahhh. Hello again Rachael!” he called in the most jovial tone he could muster while being scared stiff.

“Hello!” said Rachael, coming to a halt before the stainless steel counter.

“I take it the shrinking booths are busy today? It’s taking an awfully long time for one to be available to restore me to my proper size” He congratulated himself on his opening lines. They made nice subtle conversation while simultaneously reminding her that he no longer wished to be eaten.

“Oh yes. They’re always terribly busy on weekend nights,” she answered dismissively. “But the problem is that I always feel left out. It’s not very often that anyone comes up to me to be eaten. I’m easily overlooked at the door you see.”

“Oh,” said the man, feeling that the conversation had taken a bad turn straight off and wanting to get back onto more friendly territory. “I remember thinking you’re pretty.”

“How fortunate for you,” said the giantess. That had not sounded good at all. What was worse was how her green eyes hadn’t wavered from him for a moment. Nonverbal communication seemed to be telling him that she wanted him, and not in the way that and the tiny man was beginning to feel like a mouse caught in the stare of a snake; too scared to run. But really, where could he run? He was only fooling himself if he thought he could escape her.

The shrunken man decided to be blunt about what he wanted while mixing in some complements for good measure. “Listen; I really would love to talk with you but I was hoping to be unshrunk. Perhaps you could take me to the shrinking machine now? I thought that was why you grabbed me. You’re absolutely right though, you know. You are remarkably pretty. Maybe after I’m back to normal I could take you out for a drink somewhere?”

  “That’s awfully sweet of you,” said Rachael. “But you know I can’t help feeling like you’re afraid of me. You keep backing away.”

It was true. The shrunken man had now backed halfway to the wall behind the shiny surface upon which he stood. Rachael had reached as far as she could go and was now bending at the waist towards him.

“I uh. It’s just that you’re so big,” said the man.

“Mmm. I am big. I imagine that being small enough for me to EAT,” and here she gave him a wicked grin, “would be scary.”

“Please, Rachael. I changed my mind about being eaten. I want to go back to the way I was.”

“Unfortunately, there’s no one here to tell. I want you to spend the rest of the night with me.” She reached out and grabbed the man.

“I’d love to. Just unshrink me-“

“In my belly,” finished Rachael, holding the man before her with one hand while rubbing her stomach with the other.

“Please no Rachael! I don’t want you to eat me!”

“I’d love to drag this out but I’m supposed to be working right now so I need to gobble you up and get back to the entrance. A girl’s gotta collect a check you know.”

“Rachael Please! Please! I thought you were nice! I haven’t given you my permission to eat me.”

“Oh that’s right. What did I do with that ham sandwich I had for lunch today? I remember hearing that the poor little pig in my sandwich hadn’t wanted to be eaten so I threw the sandwich away and went hungry.” The smile crossed her lips again, displaying grim humor.

“Did you really?” asked the tiny man.

“No!” said Rachael, bringing the man closer to her mouth. “I ate it all up. Just like I’m going to do with you. You really think we were going to unshrink you? You would have just end up inside some other woman’s belly rather than mine. But instead, your mine.”

“But Rachael!” screamed the shrunken man.

Rachael tossed him into her mouth and felt him struggling. She heard him screaming to her about letting him go and having mercy on him. She answered his pleas for mercy by swallowing him in mid scream. The volume of his cries were immediately diminished, although she did hear a faint lingering yell as she felt the bulge of food move smoothly into her throat, down her neck, and further into her esophagus. Despite all his obvious attempts to prevent himself from being swallowed, the tiny man had been easily moved into her esophagus. In a half a second the man’s scream had faded, smothered by the muscles guiding the bawling, writhing mass of protein into her belly. He was technically still a living, sentient human being, but by definition he could now be accurately classified as simply food.

Rachael took a brief moment to savor the feeling of struggling within her belly. The man was obviously trying to climb out of her stomach acids. The very thought was laughable. As if he expected to escape! She allowed herself a slight smirk at the idea that he thought he could postpone her inevitable digestion and absorption of his body.

Rachael had been telling the truth about having to get back to work. With a resigned sigh, she made her way back to the main entrance of the restaurant and concentrated on being charming.

Three tables over, the waitress Jackie held a tiny man in her hands. “I am so excited you guys!” she said to the group of people clustered around here. They all shouted their encouragement to her.

“Okay. I’m ready,” said Jackie to the man in her hand. “Are you ready?”

“Totally! Do it Jackie!” said the man.

“Okay here you go!” she cried, opened her mouth wide, and placed the tiny man inside to the roaring applause of the men and women watching. Jackie closed her mouth on the tiny man, who was waving to his friends, and swallowed him whole.

The crowd erupted in cheers. Jackie grinned. “He was good. You guys have great taste in friends!”

“Okay! Okay! Me next!” said a man next to Jackie, pushing papers into her hand.

“No me next!” said another, man in front of her. “Can you go shrink me down now?”

“Don’t worry everyone. I’m going to eat all of you. When I came over to serve you I certainly didn’t expect to eat the whole table. And I’ve never eaten a girl before,” said Jackie to one of the females next to her. Some of the table laughed and the girl squealed excitedly. The entire table of six people had requested that Jackie eat them all. Jackie was only too pleased to oblige. As a new member to the restaurant, she was always particularly excited whenever she was able to eat someone.

“Well the newbie seems to be doing well,” Kim observed from the bar as Jackie tossed her head back. A tiny pair of legs disappeared into her mouth and a moment later Jackie gulped. She opened wide to display her empty mouth to a group of laughing people.

Danielle looked over at Kim. “Well good for her. I knew she was excited about this whole eating people thing.”

“Whereas some of us wish to abandon it entirely,” said Kim idly.

“I like eating people Kim. I just restrict myself to willing ones. I think it’s terribly cruel to eat people who don’t want to be eaten. I met the most distraught woman the other day who had shrunk her boyfriend and hadn’t realized she couldn’t take him home. The poor thing ended up giving her boyfriend away to another lady so she could swallow him. Imagine how hard it must have been for her. And think of how scared her boyfriend must have been. They’re not chickens or pigs. They’re living, breathing human beings who want to live!”

“Yeah because that guy really wants to live right now,” Kim said, pointing out the tiny man who jumped off Jackie’s hand and into her mouth.

“I’m not talking about the willing ones,” said Danielle. “You know who I mean.” The restaurant had a firm policy that stated once a customer was shrunk, he was the property of the restaurant and must be eaten by another customer or staff member. Since her arrival, Danielle had obstinately refused to eat anyone who did not want to be eaten. No one cared about that too much. Lindsay’s reaction had simply been “More food for us.”

What got under everyone’s skin was how Danielle absolutely refused to serve unwilling shrunken men. It meant that the other servers had to make more trips to the kitchen. Some accused Danielle of lazyness, stating that is was unreasonable that a staff member refused to serve the staple dish of the restaurant. Meghyn had eventually allowed Danielle to have her way due to her stunning addition to the serving staff. Meghyn only hired the prettiest of girls. However to appease her other servers Danielle had been restricted to working in either of the two bars in the restaurant. She was told that she had better keep on top of the drink orders and ensure that there were plenty of fresh glasses. This meant Danielle was almost always behind the bar, serving drinks rather than people. Her tips weren’t as large as she was commonly excluded from tabs that covered dozens of shrunken men but she didn’t mind as she was making more money at the Forbidden Dish than anyone could hope to earn at even a high end restaurant. Despite being behind the bar, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to ask her to eat them and she happily obliged anyone who did. But she was still considered the “hippy” of the group.

“Before someone can be shrunk, each man has to sign a contract stating he is doing this because he wants to. After that they are given multiple chances to bail out. After turning them all down, then they try to escape at the eleventh hour? That is not how the world works Danielle. They chose to be shrunk. They should be eaten.”

“I think it’s cruel.”

“Then find another job!” shrugged Kim. She was sick of hearing about how Danielle felt bad for people who deep down, probably wanted to be eaten anyway. “Listen, you and Kara can talk about sparing people all you want. She seems to have a heart for them as well. I’m the wrong person to talk to.”

“You don’t have to stop eating people Kim. Just stop eating the wrong people.”

“If they’re on my plate, they’re the right people,” said Kim over her sholder She started walking away from the conversation under the pretents of checking up on a few customers.

Danielle sighed and leaned against the bar.

“Hey miss?” said a man at the bar, wearing a red wrist bracelet. “Miss excuse me. It says here on the menu that your name is Danielle?”

____________________________________________________________________________________

The tiny man slid down Danielle’s throat easily. He didn’t even wiggle. Danielle paused. He had been tasty. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed eating him. It had been fun.

Her food wasn’t wiggling in her belly very much. Usually someone who had just been swallowed alive was trying to climb out of the stomach acid right now so what was the problem with this one? Danielle remembered that when she had swallowed the man that he had cried out in pain but if he’d been having second thoughts it was way too late for her to save him. Thinking back though, she had thought she had also heard a ‘pop’ sound when she gulped him down. Perhaps she had broken some of his bones. That would have explained the cry of pain. If she had hurt him while swallowing, it had been unintentional. But people were fragile at that size and it wasn’t the first time she had heard of injuries to tiny men being swallowed. Well, not to worry. He would be digested anyway.

Danielle walked out of the shrink room and headed back to the bar. There she found Kim serving new drinks to a couple at the bar. They had been there for about a half an hour or so. The girl was obviously planning to eat the guy and the guy seemed all for it as long as he got his mitts on her boobs between now and then. From the look of things, both of them planned on being completely loaded when the girl ate him.

“So,” said Kim. “How was your snack?”

“Delicious,” said Danielle truthfully.

“Ha. See? You like this just like I do,” said Kim. “Actually I’m a little jealous. I was eyeing that guy when he sat down. I was actually going to subtly pitch him an offer on being an after work snack but he obviously took a liking to you since he asked you right away. How did the dancing go?”

“Okay, I guess,” said Danielle. It was common knowledge among the staff that Danielle was the most shy on the staff and the least comfortable with wearing explicit clothing or dancing privately for someone she intended to consume. She never wore anything aside from a tank top and shorts or pants, albeit tight fitting pants that showed of a remarkably nice ass.

“While you were gone a guy came asking for you. He was kinda cute too. If you’re full you could at least be a decent friend and recommend me to him. I haven’t eaten anyone since I got here!” Kim omitted that she had eaten an unwilling person earlier but wanted to avoid another lecture on a shrunk man’s rights.

“Okay sure. I’ll put you out there but I’m not saying no if he insists on me. Who was it that asked for me?” said Danielle.

“I can’t remember his name.” She scanned the crowd. “That guy over there in the blue shirt.” She pointed to a man who had his back to them. He was watching Jackie eat the last of her group.

Halfway over to him Danielle recognized him.

“Quinton!” she said and hurried forward to hug him. After they embraced she added, “It is so sweet of you to visit me at work! How did you know I needed a friendly face today?” She cocked her hips to one side and smiled up at him in a disarming and beautiful manor.

“Well, I remember you talking about your job last night and that woman who became upset. I thought I would come to say hello,” said Quinton evenly.

“That is so thoughtful of you Quinn, you know I…” Danielle looked down to where she had taken hold of her friend’s hand and noticed the red wrist bracelet. She let go in surprise. “Why are you wearing a “prey” bracelet?”

“Your friend Rachael gave it to me when I came in,” said Quinn simply.

“She shouldn’t be doing that! Rachael!” before Quinn could stop her, Danielle had called to her coworker . Rachael looked up from a book she was reading at the door. “Why is Quinn wearing a red bracelet?”

“Because he said he wanted to be eaten,” said Rachael, making a face before going back to her book and mumbling something about working with a ‘hippy’. Danielle got along with almost everyone, but Rachael commonly gave Danielle a hard time. She didn’t eat as many people as most of the servers, not because she wasn’t pretty but because she was often simply overlooked. As a result, she resented that Danielle didn’t like her eating unwilling men. Danielle turned back to Quinton.

“I was going to tell you,” said Quinton when Danielle turned back to him. “I plan to be eaten today. I actually was going to tell you yesterday but wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, mission complete,” said Danielle. “Why would you think I would want to be surprised about one of my best friends being  gone forever? If you’re not there, who will I talk to?”

“I thought you would approve,” said Quinton. “Don’t you make your living eating other people?”

“Yes but none of them are my friends,” argued Danielle. “I’ve never swallowed anyone I’ve known before.”

“Well. That’s the thing. Umm,” Quinton obviously had something he wanted to say but was too embarrassed to get it out.

“What is it Quinton? You know you can talk to me. No secrets between us, right?”

“I was wondering if you would do the honors,” said Quinton quickly, before he lost the courage to speak.

“You mean eat you?” said Danielle.

“Yes.  Only if you want to of course,” added Quinton.

“Is this something that you decided upon yesterday?”

“Well no. Not as such. I’ve been thinking about you for a while. Not always you understand. My friendship with you wasn’t based on that. But I always thought that the people you eat here were lucky. I’ve had the giantess vore fantasy for a while, which of course you already knew about. I was just scared to act on my feelings. I was hoping I could be devoured by a pretty girl who was also a friend.”

“Quinton I had no idea you were feeling this way. Why didn’t you think to talk to me about it?”

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t work up the guts to talk to you. That’s the real reason I showed up here today. I wanted to tell you yesterday. I tried even but I just wasn’t able to.”

“Oh sweetie, are you sure this is what you want?” asked Danielle.

“Listen it was a bad idea to involve a friend. I can just ask someone else. There! I can ask that lady there. No big deal,” said Quinton, indicating a strikingly pretty woman traversing the space of the room. Danielle turned.

“No. Not her. I don’t want you giving yourself to her.” She didn’t add that she hated the restaurant owner, Meghyn. “Listen Quinton. You’re my friend, so as a friend I want to make sure you understand what you’re getting into. We generally rush people over the fine print when they sign the legal agreement to be eaten. There is no turning back once you sign do you understand. If you sign, you’re getting eaten!”

“I know. It’s what I want.”

“And if you really want me to, I’ll swallow you.”

“Do you mean it? I don’t want to ask you to if you don’t want to.” said Quinton.

“Of course I want to. I’ve thought you’d be tasty in the past. I just never thought too much about it since we are good friends. But I do enjoy eating willing people Quinton. It’ll be fun.” Danielle smiled at him. They hugged.

Their walk to the shrinking booth was an awkward one.  Danielle was extremely happy to see that Quinton was excited about being shrunk down. She was also very disappointed. She really would miss him. She tried to think positively. At least they would be living out a great fantasy that both of them would enjoy.

Shrinking Quinton was quick. She stuck him in her back pocket as she walked to the swallowing room. Once there, she placed him on the little table, selected a song, and began to dace. Danielle wasn’t one to remove articles of clothing, even for a friend, but there was a lot more physical contact that was permitted in this dance routine than the ones she normally did and Quinton was enjoying the hell out of it.

Finally the song ended. Danielle picked Quinton up.

“This is it Quinn. You’ll be a part of me from this day forward. I won’t forget you.”

“Nor will I,” said Quinton. He seemed a little nervous.

“Want me to do anything special for you before you get eaten?”

“No. Just gulp me down!”

“Okay. Good bye Quinton. I love you.”

She tossed him in. He did taste pretty good. She rolled him around on her tongue for a bit and savored the flavor, hoping Quinton was enjoying himself. She was enjoying herself alright.

Eventually it was time to gulp him down. She had him poised on the edge of her throat, ready to swallow. She took her time and positioned him carefully on the precipice that was her gullet, wanting to avoid hurting her friend when swallowing. She didn’t want to break his spine like she did with the last guy she swallowed alive. Quinton obviously knew she was preparing to gulp him down because he went from limp and playful to stiff as a board. He spread his limbs out to make himself harder to swallow.

“No!” 

Danielle heard the tiny cry and it sent a chill of horror down her spine. She had been about to swallow! She quickly spat the man into her hand.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I said ‘no.’ I don’t want you to eat me,” said Quinton.

“You had better be kidding!” said Danielle, knowing he wasn’t.

“No. Seriously Danielle, I changed my mind. I wish you had just swallowed me right away. You played with me and I loved every second of it but you took your time when you were going to gulp me and while I lay there I thought about it too much. I got scared.”

“Damnit Quinn. I told you there was no backing out. What am I supposed to do with you now?”

“Unshrink me!” said Quinton easily. “I’ll take you out to dinner to make up for the meal you missed out on.”

“I told you we don’t use the machines to unshrink anyone!” said Danielle. “You’ve screwed us both. I certainly can’t eat you now and I can’t put you in the bowl of unwilling men. You would be eaten by someone else. Damnit Quinn! I told you about that girl Isabella yesterday! She was frantic with worry. Now you’ve put me in the same position!” All her energy seemed to leave her at once and she flopped down on the chair. Danielle started rubbing her eyes. She felt a headache coming on. “I’ll have to think of something.”

Danielle knocked on the wooden door in the apartment complex, praying the resident of room number 672 was home. Fortunately, sounds of life emanated from behind the door. A radio was turned on to a baseball game. Beneath that sound came the footsteps of someone plodding their way to the door.

“Danielle?” said Cameron. His face broke into a grin.

“Hey Cameron. How are you tonight?” asked Danielle. Cameron looked like he had been planning to hit the rack soon. He was dressed in pajamas. 

“Fine. I’m happy to see you. Come in.” He stepped aside and they went to sit on the couch.

“This is an unexpected surprise. I wish you would have called first. I could have saved you some pizza,” he indicated the pizza box and empty soda can on the table.

“It’s okay Cameron. I just came from work. I’m not hungry.”

“Oh that’s right. You work at that shrinking place don’t you?”

“Well, yes-“

“And you ate a bunch of people today?”

“Some, in fact-“

“That’s hot,” interrupted Cameron.

Danielle was reminded why she didn’t like Cameron as much as she might have. He was a nice enough guy but he was always interrupting people. He also had a crush on Danielle and had been disappointed when she had told him she preferred to remain friends rather than take things to the next level. He had respected her decision of course but Danielle knew that he had a lingering crush on her. It was part of the reason she had come to him. She knew he wouldn’t refuse to help her.

“Listen Cam,” said Danielle. “I was wondering-“

“I’m all ears,” said Cameron, cupping his hands behind his ears and snickering at his own joke.

“Great,” said Danielle patiently. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I need you to help me mount a rescue.”

“YEAH!” said Cameron, jumping to his feet and cheering to the bewilderment of his houseguest.

“Well I didn’t expect you to be that excited. You sound like the Lone Ranger. I just-“ said the startled Danielle.

“No, not you,” said Cameron, pointing to the radio while doing a brief victory dance. “The Yankees game. They just got a home run. Sorry. When I said ‘all ears’ I was also listening to the baseball game.”

Yankees fans! thought Danielle, being reminded of the other reason she wasn’t dating Cameron. “Okay. Did you hear what I-“

“Oh yeah. Rescue mission. Sounds cool. So what are the details?”

Danielle filled Cameron in on the situation, what her plan was and where he came into the picture. Her explanations were somewhat halting as she was constantly peppered with interruptions, questions as well as another brief victory celebration when the New York Yankees pitcher threw a shutout inning.

“And this is kind of a time sensitive issue Cameron so if we could go now-“

“After baseball!” said Cameron.

Danielle and Cameron snuck into the restaurant. Danielle indicated that Cameron should wait by the rooms that said “Shrink Booth” while she would join him in a moment. Then she slipped into the kitchen and found where the shrunken men were kept.

It had been absolute hell trying to prevent Quinton from being eaten. Kim had him halfway to her mouth before Danielle grabbed him. This had annoyed Kim but Danielle had managed to make amends, explaining that he had been someone whom she had shrunk herself and didn’t want to see him get eaten. Kim nodded and said she would eat him in the other room. Fortunately for Danielle, she was able to slip Kim another man from the ready bowl under the bar.

There had been another close call when Jackie had almost served him to a few college aged girls but Danielle intervened in the nick of time, for once breaking her rule on serving unwilling people and telling Jackie “to take a breather while she covered her tables.” This has caused a few raised eyebrows from Kim and Rachael but Danielle followed through and pretended not to notice. 

Now she returned to where the men were kept for the night. It wasn’t much. There was a place for them to go to the bathroom and that was about it. Usually men didn’t last very long here so there was no point in investing in creature comforts of someone who would be inside someone else’s belly soon.

Danielle’s face loomed above the tiny men. “Quinn?” she asked.

“Danielle!” said Quinton, waking up. “I’m here.”

“Hey lady! When are you going to unshrink us?” said another man.

“Yeah!” said another man. Other tiny men shouted their support of this question.

“Sorry but I can only take Quinton for now. I’ll see you all tomorrow at lunch time.” Danielle had considered telling them that they were actually going to be served to a hungry female clientele for a lunch special tomorrow, but why bother? It wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to terrify them.

She grabbed Quinton and met Cameron at a shrink booth.  “Okay,” said Danielle. “Hop in.”

“To the shrink booth?” said Cameron. “I don’t want to be shrunk! Believe me. I want no part in becoming your dinner, or midnight snack or anything else!”

“I need someone else in a shrink booth so the computer has a frame of reference to enlarge Quinton,” she said, showing the tiny Quinn to Cameron.

“Oh. Hi Cameron,” said Quinton, waving from where he sat cross legged in Danielle’s hand.

Cameron waved, his eyes bulging. It was the first time he had seen a shrunken man before. For once he had nothing to say.

Danielle entered the shrinking booth in the next room over and placed Quinton on the floor. Then she returned to Cameron. He was still milling around outside.

“Just hop in there and I’ll be right back for you,” said Danielle rushing to the computer counsel. She powered up the machine and linked it to the shrink booth in the adjoining room. Then, as Cameron was reluctantly entering the booth, Danielle was dashing back to the booth that held the already shrunken Quinn.

“Okay,” said Danielle, powering up the computer council that controlled the shrinking booth. She electronically linked the booth with Cameron to the one with Quinn. “Hang on Quinton. I’ve never tried to grow a person back to size but this should work. Here. We. GO!”

She pressed a button.

“I can’t believe you got me out of there,” said Quinn, lounging with his hands under his head lying on his back on Danielle’s bed.

“I can’t believe you changed your mind at the last second,” said Danielle. Like him, she was naked. They had returned to Danielle’s home where they had promptly opened a bottle of whiskey and had a few shots. Despite working as a barmaid, Danielle rarely drank. Alcohol was fattening and she needed to keep her figure. But tonight she had been stressed out and had decided to make an exception.

Their inebriation, combined with sexual attraction had led to them to more intimate pursuits. It was weird having sex with a friend but Danielle was drunk and too stressed out to care. Danielle was a shy girl and despite her looks, didn’t get laid very often.

“I owe you my life Danielle,” Quinton was saying. He rubbed her backside. “Otherwise I would have been eaten by you.”

“If you hadn’t spoken up I would have,” agreed Danielle. “Good thing you stopped me when you did. I was about to swallow. The hard part was keeping you alive long enough to work on unshrinking you. Besides, she had almost eaten Quinn earlier that day. 

 “Well thank goodness you didn’t. It was incredibly brave to sneak in after hours and save me. A beautiful woman coming to my rescue. It’s just like a hot movie!”

“Yeah well your hot movie almost cost you your life,” said Danielle.

“I never did say thanks to Cameron for helping you. Where did he get to anyway?”

“Oh. He snuck out the right when we did. I told him to use the backdoor since it would be more discreet.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

Danielle went in for work at about eleven that next morning. Quinton had made her breakfast; pancakes which hadn’t turned out too bad. Danielle greeted Kim, and a new server named MacKenzie. Danielle was supposed to train her. The two girls walked to the back of the store and looked in on the tiny men.

Cameron had been a good sport to help her. That’s why she had gone to him. He had a crush on her and couldn’t refuse her anything. It had been wrong to play on his emotions but she did love Quinton and Cameron had always just got on her nerves.

She stared down and the bowl of tiny men being prepared for the noon rush. She noticed the tiny Cameron being scooped up with the rest of the men that MacKenzie was gathering. “Good,” said Danielle. “Now bring them to the bar.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Regrowing Quinton hadn’t been as simple as the computer needing a reference to restore his height. The organic material to regrow him had to come from somewhere. And it couldn’t come from just any old matter. It needed to come from a human being. So it had come from Cameron. He had been shrunk and Quinton had been regrown.

Danielle did feel bad for Cameron. It wasn’t his fault that he was annoying. Besides, he had never asked to be eaten. In retrospect maybe the fair thing would have been to let Quinton end up as someone’s dinner. It was he, not Cameron, who had the giantess fantasy. Still, it was far too late now.

MacKenzie carried the bowl of men, Cameron included out into the bar. Several women had already entered the restaurant and were ordering tiny men.

MacKenzie scooped Cameron out into a smaller bowl and carried him to one of the women. Danielle didn’t watch. She knew Quinton was worth it.