“Oh, please God…” begged Carl in his mind, his lungs so thoroughly crushed inward he didn’t think he had much left, so he decided he had better act fast.  “I didn’t mean it, what I was thinking about.  I swear I didn’t…” he thought, and then realized how wrong this sounded.  “Okay, okay, I know… I know… you know, too… I did mean it, and I was going to do it.  But I never thought to understand… I mean, I never understood…” he struggled in his mind, his arms pinned so tightly against the throbbing walls of Sandra’s esophagus that it forced all the blood from his limbs.  Carl thought hard as hard as he could, forcing the lies he was trying to tell himself and whatever higher power was out there out of his mind, purifying himself.  He figured it would be best to go out with these particular thoughts in his head, rather than the fact that he was lodged tightly, preparing for death, in a woman’s oily digestive tract.  He pictured his warm bed in his uncle’s house.  The calm street outside.  His worrisome, financially broken yet caring parents.  His neighbor’s friendly dog.  His friends, even including Brian, who had gotten him into this mess on accident.  Food.  Clothes.  The wind.  The sunshine.  A kind word.  A smile: from anyone, even a stranger.  “Please.  I want my life.  I love my life.  Please, please, please… just give it back…” he wept, his microscopic tears becoming lost in the endless raging, sticky waterfalls of Sandra’s throat slime. 

As he felt himself taking his final breaths, shaking with pitiful sobbing, he heard a deep grumbling emanating back up from the dark tube of Sandra’s esophagus.  Then another, and another.  Wet gurgles, rushing upward.  He felt the gooey walls shaking, convulsing against him, pinching his body against their rubbery material.  Then, suddenly, along his feet, he felt the rushing liquid becoming thicker, and more dense.  Then it began to engulf his entire body, drowning him in some newer, thinner liquid that smelled like rotten food.  As it rushed past his body, completely encasing him in the goopy goods, he was dragged not downward, but back upward at a rapid pace.  Before he had time to blink in the pitch blackness, Carl found himself rocketing back into a wider tunnel: the opening of Sandra’s slimy throat.  He was tossed mercilessly over her rippling tongue muscles, which bopped hard against his legs as he bounced his way forward.  He felt his body ram hard against Sandra’s teeth as the flowing, rotted liquid began to engulf him again to a high level.  Then the wall of Sandra’s lips parted, letting light in, and gravity shifted downward as she began to spit out what must have been bile from her stomach.

Carl clung tightly a slippery row of perfect teeth, but the ruthless waves of backwash took hold of him and he tumbled out again into the colder world, although his body was still warmed mostly by a thick, dried layer of goop and mucus that surrounded every inch of his body.  Sandra’s gigantic hand shot out, and he bounced against her plush hand heel for a moment before rolling, exhausted and short of breath, into her soft palm.  Dizzy beyond belief, he closed his eyes, blurring out the feeling of cold water suddenly rushing over him, Sandra’s tender fingertips working over his entire body, flipping him over calmly and gently onto his back so she could rub along his shoulder blades and ass with the water.  The feeling was so amazing and cool, that Carl began to convulse, hardly daring to believe what was happening to him as Sandra calmly worked her finger flesh over his battered body to clean him off.  After a few minutes of this, then, he felt cold air rushing past his body, and then Sandra’s soft hands falling away.  He grabbed at the ground, finding himself on cool, marble tile of the office’s hallway bathroom. 

He blinked, looking upward at the 350-foot-tall goddess of a doctor, her business suit still perfectly pressed, not a shining black hair out of place, her cute glasses still resting on her nose as she stared down at him with her swirling green eyes, clasping the arm joint of her glasses between two long fingers. She seemed miles high, so terrifying, her feet like leather-heel clad school buses.  Carl’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he blacked out.

Coming to, Carl looked around, still naked, but did a double take as he realized that the bathroom was no longer a miles high cavern, but instead an average room.  He grasped at his sides, trying to gauge how real it was, his body still dripping slightly from the cold water of the sink.  Then, his fingers found his clothes, folded in a neat pile right next to his body.  He quickly pulled them over himself, covering his exposed junk in case anyone would see him, but there was no one in the bathroom, not even his carnivorous doctor.  He dressed himself quickly, panicking, as he raced for the door.  He had to escape while he had the chance.

As he slammed the door open and turned to his right to leave, he found Dr. Sandra Adams leaning against the door, one leg bent and curled behind the other, her arms folded, her long fingers resting comfortably on her forearms.  She smiled sweetly at him.  Completely shocked and terrified by this development, Carl fell to the ground, cowering at the feet of the woman, shaking.

“NO!” he screamed.

“Carl…” she said, smiling reassuringly in a lower voice.

“NO!  Just… just shut up!  You can’t… you can’t eat me, you… you just CAN’T!”

“I can’t?  And why not?” she asked smarmily, grinning at him.

“Because I want to LIVE!” he bellowed so loudly it echoed through the walls of the entire tiny office.  He started breathing heavily, silence suddenly cracking through the sound.  Both of them waited, Carl’s chest rising and falling steadily, Sandra’s fingers drumming against her arm.  Finally, she opened her mouth (which made Carl shake a little in terror just to see it in action again) and she spoke.

“Oh, you do, do you?” she said, practically staring into his brain with her drilling green eyes, giving him a knowing smile, and suddenly Carl understood everything in one blinding, painful epiphany.  He conked his head against the ground, his breathing returning to normal.  Sandra clacked over toward him in her heels, extending a large hand to help him up.  He clasped it and stood up, brushing himself off from the ground.

“Dr. Ad…”

“SANDRA,” she said with emphasis and a laugh.

“Sandra… I just don’t know… I mean, I can’t…”

She raised a hand, pressing a finger against his lips to silence him.  “I know.  Don’t say anything about it, Carl.  You’re here now, and everything is all right again.”

“But…” he said, speaking against the cool flesh of her finger.  “Why am I back to…”

“It was only a temporary effect; about half an hour long, and you become normal again.”

“HOW did you…”

“The tea.  Special family recipe,” she said, winking.  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you more.  Nor can you tell anyone what happened here.  Don’t forget your contract,” she said somewhat sternly while still smiling.  Carl nodded profusely.

“Of… of… of COURSE I won’t, never, but… but…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Sandra had placed both of her large, soft hands on his shoulders.  She leaned in and kissed him lightly goodbye on the cheek before letting go of him and moving toward the door.  He stumbled after her, dazed.

“I think we’re done here, then, Carl,” she said sweetly, opening the door.  “Promise me something, though.”

“I… of… of course, anything…”

“Enjoy your life.”

“Enjoy…”

“Yes.  I want you to go out there and be happy.  Be everything you could be and wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t decided to show up here today.  Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, knowing he was telling the truth.  “I’m glad.”

“Thank you… Sandra,” said Carl, stepping out into the sunlight with an entirely new lease on life, the pain of his trials still a lingering force in his mind, but not overwhelmingly so anymore.  The thoughts of goodness he had experienced while lodged in Sandra’s wet throat were at the forefront.

“You’re welcome, Carl,” she answered simply, batting her gorgeous green eyes, blowing a quick kiss to him, and shutting the door to her office softly behind him.