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.