Kim could hardly believe it. His lovely friend Judith believed him to be one of the little folk, and she had calmly picked him up and enjoyed a pleasant walk through the forest. Now she was thinking of him as food for her lunch, and she was actually going to eat him with as much deliberation as she would eat any other meal … or even more.

Soon he saw Judith positioning another open container above the bowl, and then a shower of smoked salmon fell around him. Each piece of salmon was around the same size as Kim. She would have no trouble eating him, that was certain. He looked up at her pink lips and thought how pleasant they looked. Soon he would be passing between them.

Judith turned away again, and opened one more container. From that, she sprinkled some pieces of capsicum into the large bowl. Then she put her hand into the bowl and used her fingers to stir the mixture gently. He managed to stay at the top of the pile of food, as it was rearranged by her powerful gestures. However he was moved from the centre of the bowl to the position furthest from Judith. He looked up and saw her hand withdrawing, towards her mouth. She sucked at one of her fingers, and then withdrew her hand and licked her lips. For some reason the sight of that was very enjoyable to look at.

As the boy looked on in wonder, Judith lifted the bowl from the basket, put it in her lap and used her fingers to scoop out a handful of salad from the bowl and slowly raise it to her mouth. Before the salad reached her mouth, Kim had a brief glimpse of Judith’s tongue coming out of her mouth, and then the salad was placed onto her tongue as it returned to the inside of her mouth. The sight of her tongue coming out and receiving the food in this way happened several times in front of him over the next few minutes.

Suddenly Kim was thrilled beyond his wildest dreams as he processed the ramifications. Her tongue was eventually going to receive Kim himself into her mouth in the same way. How nice that would feel, he considered. Again he felt a great pleasure at being taken for the little person that she had sought. It was going to be lovely, exciting, wonderful, in fact the best thing ever imaginable, to be eaten by the beautiful lady who lived near his grandmother’s house. He began watching her white neck gulping down the food as well. That too would happen to him. He looked at her stomach and wondered what it would be like inside.

One thing he knew: he would indeed be on the inside of her tummy, not the outside. She would be packing up her picnic basket, walking out of the Swain Gardens and making her way home to her house behind his grandmother’s place in Wahroonga … and Kim would be surrounded by the inner wall of her stomach.