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.