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ENEMY WITHIN (Complete story)


         Although he was dead, Clint was not particularly surprised to wake up. After all, he had awakened every day his entire life. Everything was dark around him; this alone cushioned the obvious blow to Clint’s sanity. His thoughts were just as confused as those of anyone who’d wake up in a pitch dark place, just before the full memories come back to reconstruct the familiar objects that are bound to be present in the surrounding darkness. The problem for Clint was that he hadn’t fallen asleep in a comfy bed. He had landed at full velocity on a hard concrete block, and the sudden memory flooded his mind. The fall itself, from the scaffolding hugging the tall building around its 22nd floor. The hard ground rushing at him, the loud scream that accompanied it. It was not the ground that was screaming….No, Clint was not supposed to wake up this morning. And yet he did. The Event had started.
 
Clint’s mind turned to a mush of panicked thoughts. Where was he? How come he was alive? Why couldn’t he feel his arms and legs? A cold feeling penetrated his mind as he realized he could well be now on a hospital bed, his spine broken, a mere body bereft of motion and senses. He tried to speak, to call someone. He just couldn’t feel his face. Yet there was also the faint sensation of a body. He could vaguely feel the life in himself, the motionless presence of his own organs. At least, he wasn’t a disembodied soul, he knew that much.
 Where was he? Was Clarice next to him? Was she holding his hand just now? Or was he still on the ground, his blood oozing from his crushed body, a paramedic from the building staff attempting to revive him?  He tried to review his last memories, in an attempt to calm down his growing anxiety. He still remembered everything. He remembered well what happened the night before his fall. Clarice had burnt the meal once more, and she had also forgotten to get his beer for the match. Hell, she even had the gall to shout at him. He had put an end to it pretty fast he remembered with a pang of remorse. He had apologized after, but the mark on her face was not likely to disappear fast. They always took some time to go….

 A sudden jolt around him interrupted his train of thoughts. He felt shaken from all sides as the tremors continued. Somehow he was lifted up a great height and then fell again. For what seemed hours, it was like sitting in a rollercoaster. Clint couldn’t understand what was happening to him. Was he lifted inside an ambulance? Was his body linked to one of these apparatus they use for paraplegic people? Why couldn’t he feel any hands grabbing him? What was going on? He wanted to shout, but it seemed as if he had forgotten even how to do that. Maybe this was death, really. Maybe he was in his coffin and he was just now being levered down to the grave. Panic set in again, and his thoughts stumbled hopelessly, half-formed.

 Noises. He was sure he had started to hear faint noises. He felt joy as his hearing was coming back to him. Like a flood coming from afar, the noises grew in intensity, and suddenly everything around him was a pandemonium of noises, voices, sounds of all kinds. It was all quite loud. People were talking. He could hear conversations, laughter. His heart beating, Clint listened. “Two dozens, please!”  Of those? “ “Yes please!” “Two dozens for the lady, here we go!” and then “What would you say go nicely with it?” “Any white wine will do fine with those babies, lady!”
 And more like this. Clint was dumbfounded. He had expected to hear angels, or demons or at least hospital staff and even Clarice talking around him. The last thing he expected was to listen to some shopkeeper selling his stuff. Whatever was going on, he was somehow in the middle of some market, and he could even now understand this bell sound he had noticed. It was a cash register! What the hell was going on?

 Hours passed by, he could hear nothing significant around him but people passing by, chatters, and the shopkeeper’s voice seemed to be the only stable presence. He even heard birds chirping, as if the entire place was outdoors. Yet he could not feel any wind on his skin, not the slightest draught. The darkness was total. So was Clint’s frustration.
“Hey, Miss Layton, how are we today? What can I do you for?”
“I’m fine, thanks! Mmmm, give me a dozen of those, Charlie, please”
“A dozen coming up! 

Clint’s heart jumped when he heard the voice. Layton? That is his name. the voice was Clarice’s he was sure of that. Clarice. She was here. She would see him, she would help him! He tried to form a shout, but this proved impossible.
What was she doing? She was buying something? What was this place? He felt a sudden motion. An upward motion, and then he was deposited it seems in something. What machinery allowed this?
“Thanks Charlie! “
“Enjoy!”

A regular lurching motion started. The noise around Clint never stopped, really loud voices, traffic, dogs, .the sounds of life, somewhat amplified to a really loud din. It seemed to Clint that most voices were happening above. Was he following some underground current, was he lying on some tray? He had the feeling he was being moved around in the crowd….
“Hey Clarice”
“Hi Lucy! You still coming tonight?”
“Sure, of course, I’ll bring the wine. Sorry got to run, I’m late! See ya later, baby!”
“Bye”

Clint recognised the voice. Lucy was a good friend of Clarice, which meant she wasn’t welcome in his home. He never understood what these girls had to say to each other, to be chatting and laughing like this for hours. That bothered him immensely, especially when that interfered with the match on the telly. He disliked her actively and always had a nice rude remark for her when she came to visit. Clarice’s annoyed face then always amused him.
Why were they talking as if he wasn’t here? How come they did not even acknowledge his presence? For the first time in his existence, Clint would have given everything to talk to Lucy.
More noises. More motion. The opening of a door (Clint was sure it was a door, his door, the clicking sound seemed just the same, the kind of little noise one does not forget.) Suddenly the motion upward started again, he was felt he was set down someplace. After a few minutes, an intense cold followed, the only sound remaining a deep humming. Where was Clarice gone?  Was he in some morgue? It was as cold as a fridge in there. Clint’s vague body seemed to shiver.

 

Time passed by. Clint was feeling the cold setting in his body. He expected to have shattering teeth, which would have been a clue as to where his damn face was. Noise exploded suddenly around him, laughter and giggle. Clarice was back.  And Lucy’s voice exploded somewhere in the distance. Clint felt himself lifted up and deposited on a hard surface. Fear started to sip into his mind again. He had a bad feeling about this. Dead or not, he started to dread the full realisation of the situation.

“I love your ear-rings! Where did you get them?”  Clint recognized this voice too. It belonged to Jennifer, another friend of his wife. He loathed her with a passion; she was always trying to push Clarice to do the most stupid things, like going abroad, or start a better job or so… He couldn't stand her. Her booming voice echoed in his mind, and seemed to be coming from far above again. Was he lying directly on the floor?

“It’s Clint who gave them to me once, at the start of our relationship” answered Clarice’s voice, loud and clear and yet far away. “Funny the boor actually had some taste!” They all started to laugh at that. What the hell?!!  But beyond the understandable sting of the insult, it was the tense Clarice used that amazed Clint. “HAD” she said? So this was it. No only could these sluts speak of him as if he wasn’t even there, but they did consider him gone. Clint could have cried if he had been able to find his eyes. He was dead for sure. This was death, he was in Hell. He was going to spend eternity in the dark, blind and mute and unable to communicate, listening to his wife’s life. An invisible witness for ever of the life he had wronged so many time. This was his punishment.

 All the black moments came back to him in a sudden rush of images, each one still clear and accurate, a ugly movie. All the times he 'd slapped her around , the time he cheated on her, the times he abused her. Clint was now in mortal fear. This was real, and was going to pay for it, lost forever in his wife’s presence. He looked desperately in his mind and heart for the recipe for repentance.
Clint was right of course. He was dead. And his Karma was catching up fast, playing itself out in the most improbable way, one of these impossible probabilities made real that quantum physics are full of, a chance happening in trillions of other options. But he was wrong about once thing. Eternity was not a karmic property….


“How is it coming?” Clarice asked.
“Try it and tell me” answered Jennifer. A saucepan clanked on the burner. (Clint was beginning to make a pretty accurate mental picture of the scene in the darkness. He did know his own kitchen well)
“Mmmmm, that’s delicious, honey!  Hey, girls looks like we should get started on the appetitive, what do you say?”
“I’m in! “said Lucy laughingly.
“Shouldn’t open those first? You know let them come to proper temperature, along with the wine?” said Jennifer.
“”Yeah, you’re right, Lucy, open the bottle will you? Jen, help me with those, won’t take a minute.”
“Oh darn, I’m always scared to cut my fingers on those shells. Sure I’ll help.”

More conversation ensued. Little things, little jokes. Gossips. His name was no longer mentioned. Next to him Clint felt motion, as if he had been pushed aside. His mind was still full of the panic of the initial realisation, but also of the frustration he felt at not seeing things around him; what was the point of this punishment if he could not even see the events.
It is then that a sentence triggered another wave of lucidity in his muddled mind.
“First one! Woow, they are fine looking, I bet they’re delicious. Be careful with the knife, just insert it next to the muscle and cut through in one move”

Shells, knives, muscle. Delicious. Oysters, they were opening oysters. Oysters that come from the fridge, that were lying on a table. Things you buy in a marketplace. In his mind the world outside his head suddenly populated with utter madness. Huge women around him, talking, giggling, cooking. This could not be!

Clint sought after every clue as to where his body was. He knew he had a body. Never mind the soul banning thing! Another jostle. Clint felt the wetness around him. He started to concentrate on the notion of contours. Around him more movements occurred. He knew where he was. At that moment, he was lifted up in the air, and felt closer to the voices. A terrible scratching noise, just next to him. Light started to sip through an opening slit. A terrible pain wrecked his body, as something seemed to tear into his body. (all tactile sensations coming suddenly to the fore) Light poured onto him, as a whitish and shiny lid started to lift off…. and he was able to see her at last.

Clarice was looking at him with contentment. Her face was the same face he’d fallen for a few years back. Blue eyes, a perfect oval of a face, and her long blond hair was falling in his direction, framing her face in a golden curtain. Her mouth, which now seemed much larger than him, was full-lipped, sensuous and in any circumstances downright sexy. Clint noticed that her face had no mark whatsoever, obviously some time had passed since the last blow he had at it.  He was held in her hand, a huge and massive hand. Huge fingers, like pinkish tree trunks were poised on each side of his little shell. Her torso was towering far above, breasts bigger than trucks, a bra larger than a house showing under her white lacy top. Next to him, a massive navel was the centre of a vast fleshy cliff.  His wife’s body was so obviously enormous to him, he knew he was a mere inches tall compared to her. Her eyes were looking at him intently. He could see the tip of an enormous knife, removing broken pieces from the shell he had been buried under till now. It touched his body, sending a shiver through his small gelatinous frame.

Clint’s very soul just hurled into overdrive. He could see, smell, hear, yet he had the proof in front of him. His body had no legs, no ears, it was the body of a fresh oyster, just opened by his wife’s expert hands (she always liked sea-food). Clint looked hard into Clarice’s eyes, as she cleansed his body of any little fragments. She considered him matter-factly, with a  spark of something else in her eyes too, not quite unlike the spark he had seen in her eyes, at some times in their intimate life. It was a look of anticipation. But this time, the look was cold, powerful, possessing, a look without emotion, a look where Clint was totally excluded, denied his existence as a person but where his body concentrated all the attention, was all that mattered. Clint was food.

“Can’t wait to slurp those down with a glass of Chardonnay, girls! Hey Lucy , what’s up with the wine?” She said, as she deposited Clint on a vast round plate, along with the other opened oysters.
“Coming up now!” shouted Lucy. A loud plop betrayed the opening of the bottle. Clint’s heart sunk at that merry sound. Eternity was no longer an option. This cork meant the start of a very serious and lethal count down.

Clint watched in horror as the women cheered and jokes and kept busy at their preparations. Two of the huge girls kept opening the defenceless oysters, placing them right and left of him. Clint had no mouth to scream, but his mind was doing just that. He saw a huge hand come down towards him, till it settled like a pink crane handle on the oyster on his right. “Hold on, I better try one, you never know “said Jennifer. With that, she lifted the oyster up in the air, the big shell next to him, looking now small and fragile to Clint, in the grip of the huge hand, and shrinking still as it reached high above near the girl’s giant head. Clint watch in horror as the woman craned he neck and brought the oyster above her mouth. He heard the horrible slurping noise as the little animal was slipped into the vast mouth. He stared hard at the woman’s mouth as she tasted cautiously the little body, before swallowing it hungrily. Her throat gently acknowledged the passing through of the little body with the slightest swelling.
“Girls, good news, those are going to be excellent!” said Jennifer, passing her tongue on her lips. Clint gave a mental gulp to that.
“Not fair, not fair!” cheered the other women, “This counts as one for you! “

They laughed, their joyful banter a real torment to Clint, who saw the empty shell deposited back on the table, empty of its little inhabitant. All he could do was watching the vast belly near him, where the oyster had gone to its digestive fate. This oyster had been as big as he was, and yet it was now contained neatly under the soft looking skin of Jennifer’s belly.((As if to add to the torment, they were exposing their smooth abdomens) And there was room for more. There was room for him…

“Clarice, why don’t you pour us some of this French aperitif you told me about yesterday? “ I’ll start bringing the dishes to the table.” said Lucy.
“Sure go ahead, girls, I’ll serve the drinks. Peanuts everyone?”
“Yeah!!”
Clint watched helplessly Lucy come closer to the table. The Asian looking girl had her long black hair cropped up, highlighting her pale face, where her slanted brown eyes were shining with glee and excitement. In a second her slender body blotted everything out from Clint’s vision. Her vast arms encircled his little world, as she grabbed the dish where he was lying with the other oysters. The motion he had felt so many times today with no understanding of it re-occurred, but this time he could well see the vast feminine body that carried him away, through the giant arch of a door, into a living room too vast for his eyes, in spite of it strange familiarity. As Lucy deposited him on the table, (where empty plates lay waiting , like silent animals waiting for their prey), her bun unravelled, and a dark glossy river of silk flooded down towards Clint, the very tip of it actually touching his body, with a light prickly touch.

 “Ew, gross!! “ let out Lucy as her head receded again in the height above, and she quickly wipe away the tip of her hair”. She looked around with a guilty face, but since the other girls were still in the kitchen, she just sighed and , choosing a chair, she folded her giant and supple frame into one. She had a glance at Clint, checking him briefly, maybe, he thought in his panic, so as to remember which oyster she ought to eat first. Her worried glance was immediately replaced by a lusty gaze at his little plump body. Clint, imprisoned in his shell felt a shiver go across his entire boneless being.

Another vast woman entered the room, carrying a jug of fresh water and the bottle of wine. Jennifer winked to Lucy as she set the bottle on the table, sending a tremor across the table that Clint felt clearly through his “ back”.
“So did you see him again?” asked Jennifer
“Actually, now that you mention it, yes, I did meet him again.” answered the Asian girl. “It’ was real…interesting” she added after a short pause.
“Aw, go on, tell me! Clarice, hurry up!! Lucy’s talking the talk!! “
“Coming, girls!!” roared Clarice voice from the kitchen.
To Clint was as a thunderbolt had crossed the apartment. He was trying desperately to feel his body. He really was an oyster, there was no denying it. How he could see was a total mystery, but he was getting more and more attuned to the fleshy body resting in its shell. He tried concentrating on a part of his body, near the contour, that could create a movement, any movement, any sign. He needed to send some message, any kind of message. He could not stay like this! He was a person godammit, not a piece of appetizer. They had to realize that! Next to him the giant body of Jennifer settled down noisily into a chair, her huge face hovering briefly over Clint as she sat. He saw her glance at the dish before looking expectantly at Lucy.

Lucy started to explain when and why she had met the man again. Her voice was painfully loud, as she talked loud enough to be heard from the kitchen, where Clarice was preparing the aperitif. To Clint the meaning of the word were completely lost. His entire being was fighting against the terrible inertia of the useless body and against the nauseating horror of the situation. He was the victim of a horrible joke. He was hallucinating. Things like this could not possibly be possible. Clint had never paid to much attention to life after death theories, never been much of practicing religious person. He was not her on this table, under the awesome presence of these girls. He was elsewhere, anywhere, he was lying at the base of tall building, he was sleeping through an uncomfortable nightmare. Still the sound of their voices, the texture of the shell in his back, the total precision of everything around him just cried one truth: this was as real as it gets. And the Reality told him he was to be buried alive inside one of these girls’ stomach, to be slowly absorbed in an enormous digestive track, his body disappearing slowly to nourish the vaster body that would encapsulate it.

“Taaaadaaa!!”  Clarice walked in, bearing a tray in her hands, covered in various glasses full of an intense red glow. Little colourful umbrellas were poised on the brink of each glass.  Her massive body came closer to the table, and when she bent forward, her chest lowered low over Clint’s resting place. She distributed the glass, pouted at her friends and lowered herself into the last chair. Clint was awe-stricken. She was beautiful, gigantic and so dangerous looking.  He was now surrounded by the huge girls, each one towering over him. Each one the possible recipient of his little body.

 “Girls I also have a secret to tell you” announced a smiling Clarice.
Lucy and Jennifer turned excited eyes towards their friend. These three had been together for a long time now, sharing their intimate secrets ever since they started playing together in the schoolyard. They had lived together their entire childhood, and today, they continued to share their hopes and dreams and failures together. “What’s up, sweetie?”
 “Well, I think I met someone …well…promising” said Clarice.
 “Really?!!” Ow, that would be so great!! It’s been what, three years since Clint kicked the bucket? You deserve a new life! A better life! Tell us, tell us, tell us!!” answered her delighted friends, still sipping their cocktails drinks.
 “Well, you know, we had a vacancy at the office and there were a few interviewees and finally last month I saw this guy I used to know, a long time ago, before I met Clint , and he’s so cute and…”

 Clint listened in despair to his ex-wife telling her friends about the new man in her life. He was dead. He was dead three years now. Whatever happened to him? What was doing back here, in his own house in the body of an animal, and an edible one to boot? Where was he during those past three years? Here he was now learning about her newfound love, hearing her describe him in details and with a hardly hidden emotion. Clint felt he was being erased as a memory, as a person, and now what was left of their relationship was his strange presence on the table, as a little snack to whet her appetite.

 The conversation went on and on, Clint watched the girls drinking up their aperitifs, swallowing in one gulp a volume of liquid larger than his own body. He watched them intently; all he could see was their giant chests near the table, their impossibly large arms and hands, and their faces distorted by his low point of view. Their mouths and throats were very much visible to him. He could not fathom his near future. He could not wrap his mind around the idea that he was soon going to be ingested without a thought by one of them, buried alive her stomach to be digested (alive maybe) within the tortuous convolutions of her intestines. The girl would then carry on with her life, with her friends, chatting away the evening, maybe go dancing tonight, all the time carrying his little body, and slowly assimilating it, making it part of her . He saw their immense bodies and could not understand how it could happen that within two hours he’ll probably be compacted deep inside one of them, a mere waste to evacuate.


 “Okey, what do you say, should we tackle the succulent looking oysters or what?” concluded Clarice, after her long description of her happiness to come.
 “Hey, I’ve been waiting for you to shut up so we could start, you mad chatterbox!” said Lucy.

The three girls put down their glasses and turned their excited gaze towards the dish in the middle of the table….

For a second, three pairs of eyes considered Clint and his companions of misfortune with an appreciating gaze, judging their forms, shapes and anticipating already the arrival of their inhabitants in their greedy mouths. Clint tried desperately to sink under the ground, so intense was the gaze of these beautiful predators. The girl closest to him was Jennifer, whose very pretty face (Clint had once considered cheating with her) was now looming over the dish. She was also the first one to choose a shell. Clint saw her hand floating above him, the size of a large car. It hovered above for a second and descended upon an oyster nearby. Clint saw the oyster shell lift in the air to be deposited in Jennifer’s plate. His heart was beating hard. From further afar, the extended hand of Lucy came hovering too, like a dangerous animal choosing its prey. It settled on a bulky-looking oyster on the other side of the dish. The oyster was lifted up without the slightest effort and finished with a clanking noise in Lucy’s plate. “Hey they look so fat and gorgeous, Clarice, good job on the choosing!”
“Sure, I love oysters, you know that, I’ve been eating them for years.” Answered Clarice, whose long fingers were now settling around an oyster, just left of Clint’s little shell.
“Hey, you got me into it pretty fast I remember, and I’m real glad of it, sister” added Jennifer.

Clint watched the girls take their time to prepare their tiny living snacks, while they chatted about diet, light food and stuff. Lucy had taken a little fork and had impaled the little animal away from its shell. She dipped it into a little bowl and took time ensuring the little prey was well covered in the tasty liquid. Then she lifted it towards her mouth. Clint watched horrified the large lips slowly opening, revealing her perfect teeth, till it open to an unbelievable size, letting out a monstrous pink tongue that came licking gently the oyster before accepting it. The oyster disappeared in the red darkness of the Asian girl’s mouth, towards the black hole within. Clint could not shut down this weird “sight” of his. He could not avoid seeing Lucy’s beautiful ‘eyes close slowly for a second as she swallowed the little animal. The gulping sound was well audible to the now extra sensitive senses of the imprisoned Clint. He realized he could well end up at the end of such a fork, impaled and wriggling till he meets its fate down this wondrous throat. “MMMmm, man, you were right, they are delicious”

Behind Clint an oyster was already on its way down, as Jennifer was closing her mouth on the sea-food, chewing lightly and swallowing the live appetizer. The oyster passed noiselessly through the woman’s gullet to start its slide down her throat. The totally cool and relaxed face of the giantess when she opened her eyes was excruciating to Clint. He knew that his own passing wouldn’t make any more fuss than the one he just witnessed. Just another oyster down the hatch. Whoever she will be, she won’t think twice about it (except from enjoying the sensation maybe). He was about to disappear into digestive oblivion as a snowflake disappears on a hot surface. Just another addition of protein stuff to her great body, lost in the big meal to come. Compared to his first death, the total anonymity of his fate was mind wrecking.
 
Clarice was more laborious about her little snack. She was busy cutting a lemon in half for the oyster waiting in her plate. When she was done she squeezed the fruit lightly over the shellfish. With the tip of her knife she removed one or two pips that had fallen down on the translucent flesh. Clint saw himself already there, feeling the cold metal, and shivering in the lemon juice. She would show just about the same coldness and eagerness for him if she chose him as her next delicacy. He watched her bring the oyster still in its shell above her mouth before craning her neck back. Clint was mentally being one with the animal, as it slide out of  is broken fortress onto the young woman’s tongue. It could be me, no, it [i]will [/i]be me, thought Clint. The thought of Clarice feasting on him was…

A vast feminine hand, all fingers extended, was hovering over him. Clint stared at the falling claw. It grabbed his shell on all sides and started to lift him out of the dish. Jennifer. She was the one. There was noting Clint could do to prevent the ascension. A loud “bip” echoed from the kitchen, and the hand deposited Clint back onto the dish. “Oups, Its’ the fish! I’ll get it girls! Don’t move!” said Jennifer, as she started to stand up. Saved by the bell, thought Clint, back in the middle of the table. Above him, the enormity of Jennifer’s body just shocked him even more so, now that he knew one oyster was already staring its immobile and useless fight inside it.

Two hands appeared above, sending their shadows over the dish.
“Sorry, Lucy, you first”
“No, please, you were there first” said Lucy lightly. “I’m just so hungry!”
“ Okey, I better dig in, then before you eat them all!” Clarice leant forward a bit more, studying the dish. Another oyster started its ordeal.
“No worries, I don’t think I need them all! Hey the fish smells damn good from here.” said Lucy, as she grabbed another shell.
“You know, you could eat as many of them as you like” said Clarice. She slurped down the tiny morsel. “They have absolutely no calories whatsoever.” She set the empty shell in her plate.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t over indulge with those (Gulp) , just one bad is enough to send you to the toilet for the next hours!” The sound of the shell on the plate terrified Clint. This was going to be…

“Guys! You can finish my oysters, I have to prepare the sauce here while it’s hot.” came Jennifer’s voice.
“You sure?
“Yeah, no probs, dig in!”
“oh goodie, time to indulge then.”

The two girls brought their gazes towards the dish. To Clint, it seemed they were both eyeing him specially , of all oysters, with an eager spark in their beautiful but frightening eyes. The hands came back, blotting out the view he had of the overhead light shining above the table, an artificial sun in a white sky. Two oysters left the dish, each one towards the waiting mouths and stomachs of the young women. Clarice was right of course. None of them would amount to much for the gigantic bodies about to consume them.
“ Did you watch “Lost” last nite?”
“Yeah of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. (Slurp). Steve is only too pleased to leave me in front of the telly while he plays his games.
“(Gulp) haha, guys, they’re such kids with their computers! I never understand their addiction to this stuff. They’re growing into brats again!
“You got that right. Hey do you want to try the sauce, its’ nice!”
“Na, I stick to the lemon, I find it fresher really. Doesn’t hide the taste of them.”
Clint watched the hands cover the sky. If he could have held his breath, he would have just then. But Lucy picked up the shell on his right, while Clarice got the one on his left.
He watched Lucy suddenly stand up. Her belly was now above the table, a smooth surface of skin, marred only by the depression of a very deep navel. Oh my God, in a minute, I’ll be in there, he thought. But already the vast body was moving away, and Clint watch the sexy back of the girl, as she walked to the kitchen, her jet black hair dropping nearly to the level of her hips.
“Hey, Jen, I brought you one, I don’t want you to feel deprived.”

Clint did not pay attention to the answer; he was too busy staring at Clarice, who was now sitting still, her head resting on her hands, her long fingers framing gracefully her oval face. She was looking at him. Not at the table, not at the wall, not at another shell. She was looking straight at him. Clint was mesmerised by her gaze. Could she see him? Was she aware of his presence? How could he tell her! She had to stop! Only three oysters were left in the dish! He had to make contact now. Clarice’s cool gaze did not falter from him. What was she thinking? Could he move in anyway? But little Clint could do nothing but stare back into the blue eyes, as they considered him dreamily. When she passed her tongue briefly over her upper lip, there was no doubt in Clint’s mind that his ex-wife was in no way aware of him. She was looking at something juicy and delectable. She was probably not even looking at him at all. If he managed to twitch ever so lightly now, it would probably only snap her out of her  reverie and trigger her reflex to grab him and slurp him down. Clint knew his fate was indeed already written. He would soon enter one of these young women’s mouth. And they would never know about his plight here on this very table.

“Nearly ready over there” said Lucy, as she sat down again at the table. “Come on let’s finish those three.”
The two oysters remaining with Clint in the dish were lifted up. Clint considered their fates for the last time as they were prepared by the young women. He had started to accept this. He hardly shivered when he saw them being dispatched into the rosy caverns, beyond the neat white teeth. They both went down to their respective stomachs in perfect unison. Lucy and his ex-wife turned their eyes towards the last remaining oyster in the dish.

Clint felt as if their gaze were cutting through him. This was it. The moment of truth was coming up. Whatever joke was being played on him by whatever power, was about to come to its stupid useless end. Each woman was harbouring a hungry smile on their luscious mouths. As they glanced to each other, Clint was the unfortunate witness of their greed for his little body. He felt he could positively feel them salivating over him. He knew Clarice was crazy about oysters, and it looked like Lucy was just as fond of them. They both wanted him badly and it showed in their heavy gaze. Clarice, who had once looked at him with love in her yes, and Lucy, who had always eyed him with contempt, both of them now looked at him with the absolute coldness of a hungry animal. Away with all the emotions and relationship issues, it was down now to the very basic desire for consumption. Clint was indeed nothing but food. Delightful and extremely tempting food.

“Mmph. We have an issue here, Clarice baby”
“Yeap, we do, Lucy sweetie. I want him. “ said Clarice smiling and she brought her hand towards Clint. Another hand slapped it way gently.
“I’m sure you do, but so do I.” laughed Lucy, her pure slanted eyes were full of glee and mischief.
“Shall I fight you for him, you treacherous oaf?”
“Well then I shall call my witness, you base ignoramus!”
The girls laughed happily, the silence came done and they both turned to Clint again, their teeth showing through their smiles. Clint himself had already lost the little detachment he thought he had gained a moment ago, and the horror of the game was sending a shiver through his (understandably delectable) body.

“Let’s play him . “ said a decisive Lucy. She took a coin from her pocket. “Heads or tails?”
“Tails, then! “ said a giggling Clarice.
“Okey dokey. Here goes.” The coin went up..
Clint observed it, as it spinned and spinned, as if in slow motion, a golden light between the unaware tormentors. It went upwards and upwards for ever it seemed, under the gaze of the young women, who could never have guessed a third party was looking along with them. Even as he looked up to the dancing coin, a sudden rage invaded Clint’s mind. This was so unfair. This stupid game was so unfair. He was losing. He was not invited in the most important moment of his life. He was a succulent prize for the winner. As the coin descended towards Lucy’s hand, he felt he had a favourite after all. Let it be Clarice please, let it be her.
The slap of Lucy’s hand sounded like a thunderbolt.
“Heads! Sorry honey!” said the triumphant girl, sending her black mane of hair over her shoulders.
“Hey, you can have him, but I hope it gives you the runs, slut! Said a laughing Clarice I’m gonna give a hand to Jen “ she added,  as she stood up and graceful bowed to the victor.
Clint watched his wife leave the room in despair. No she can’t leave me like this! She has to save me! She can’t leave me! Clarice !! Come back!! Don’t leave me with her!!

In the now quiet room, Clint watched Clarice’s beautiful Asian friend look at him for a second. A long naked arm reached out and perfect fingers came up and grabbed his shell. He was  lifted up towards the giant girl, before being set neatly among the empty shells on her plate. In the distance a conversation had started between Clarice and Jennifer. Clint was searching everywhere for a way to crawl out of this plate. In front of him Lucy’s chest was dwarfing his meagre shape. Far above her eyes were staring at him with contentment. He looked around for the terrible fork. But instead a shadow passed over, and a yellow object hid away Lucy’s face from his sight. A dripping started, that landed heavily on his body. A stinging sensation spread across his entire body. Lucy finished squeezing the lemon on his body and set the wasted fruit on the table. Clint was startled to see the giant fork appear and lunge at him. But it did not pierce him. The tip of the fork was inserted under him (giving Clint his first real body sensation, and tactile image of his body) and proceeded to neatly detach him from the shell. Clint felt entirely vulnerable, fragile. The fork disappeared, And fingers grabbed him again. He could well feel he was now loose in the silver looking shell. He watched the throat pass by, and was soon level with the most enormous face he had ever seen. The deep brown slanted eyes were squinting at him. Just in front of him, within reach (had he arms) was nose, smelling him. It was immediately replaced by vast lips that opened greedily.

As the shell started to slant downwards, Clint felt his body sliding slowly towards the monstrous twitching tongue awaiting him. The first contact was warm and wet and, to Clint’s horrified mind, the signal to lose it. As his body settled on the extended tongue, he had a perfect view of the open cavity, covered in saliva, whose strands were reaching deep into the palate like viscous stalagmites. Deep within the rosy twitching cave, an enormous uvula was dancing tremulously, guarding the awaiting depths of the darkened throat. The huge teeth all around him glistened in the slowly decreasing light. As the last of the shell left his back, the tongue retracted deeper into the cave and he felt more than he saw, the huge lips close behind him. The darkness again, but this time a live darkness, full of motion and pressure  and sliding, as Lucy took her time to savour his taste on her tongue, and pressed him between tongue and palate to extract the juice and acidity of the lemon. Clint’s mind was nothing more now than a howl, mixed with a strange excited feeling he had never anticipated.

He felt himself being squeezed gently on the rocky and complex surface of the invisible teeth. A huge pressure was exerted on him, but the pain was near-absent and his mind did not loose its grip on reality. He felt a strong suction dragging him back to the tongue. The slope started to increase and he felt the length of his boneless body sliding slowly towards the waiting chasm he knew was there. Something opened below him with a slurping noise and he was propelled in a long viscous tube.
It is exact to say that Clint felt the entire trip down the young woman’s throat, and if his body tended to stick to the circular surface, the strong waves along the walls gently directed him downwards without failing. Clint even felt the sudden presence of Lucy’s heart, the regular tremors vibrating in the dark tunnel and passing from below to above, like muffled thunder. His body crumbled for a few seconds at the bottom of the oesophagus. He could not make head or tail of his own shape anymore. Suddenly some valve opened silently, and he squeezed through, into a brief fall.

So this was it, he thought, as stillness gave him some time to think. He was inside. Actually inside her stomach. It did not matter whose body he was in any longer. It was a woman’s body, a hungry body. A body intent on absorbing him. The game was over, this was death again. He felt beneath him the soft remains of the previous oysters. The whole cave (he could only imagine it looked like a cave) seemed alive with tremors, and quiverings and jerky motions. Lucy’s stomach hadn’t probably awakened fully yet to the presence of the light snacks that fell into it over the past minutes. Far above the muffled heartbeats were regular and strong. The heat was extremely intense.

Suddenly a loud gurgle came from somewhere under his position. The near echo of the gurgling sound was enough to give Clint an idea of the vast space still below him, where he would eventually go. An enormous machine was waking up, oozing all sort of liquids and chemicals, getting ready to accept him in its convolution. Clint realized the trip was just starting for them little snacks. And it was a long way to go for their broken bodies. It would take some time before Lucy  be able to absorb them in her own body, somewhere down below , deep within the complex labyrinth of her intestines. A long slow  trip indeed. Clint hoped he would give up this surrogate body long before it was engaged too deep within the young woman’s digestive system.

“Did you finish the last oyster?”
“Yep, Clarice lost the toss. And very good it was”
“Yeah, yeah keep laughing, bonehead! I’ll get more today and eat them without you then!”

Clint’s mangled heart went leaping still when he heard the voices of the three women. Lucy’s voice was deeper now, but extremely clear, carried as it was through her vast hollow frame. The others' sounded extremely distant, but were quite recognizable. As their conversation started again, Clint’s rage took over from his panic and fear of death. He was raging inside when the conversation turned around the dancing they would be doing later tonight, he was raging still when the first piece of fish, along with gallons of wine started to pour on top of his body, pressuring his body and kck-starting the owerful convulsion of the woman's stomach.
He was raging further when he heard the door bell, and when Clarice introduced her new boyfriend to Jen and Lucy, totally unaware her ex-husband was present, just next to her, in the confines of her friend's belly. He was raging still when the young woman’s digestive process began to drown out the outside world with its incessant and threatening gurgles.


Epilogue.

To know exactly when the rage left Clint is difficult, considering the complex digestive journey he was beginning. The rage he felt was probably his worst enemy then, keeping his consciousness attached to the oyster’s body much longer than was required for the Event to take place. It’s hardly conceivable that he was still conscious within the dancing body of a fairly inebriated Lucy later that evening. Hardly conceivable, but not impossible.
Impossible events take place all the time. Karmic debts need to be played out, absurd or not, and in a very real way, the universe had been cheated out of the right resolution of the issue by the quantum shifting a flying coin. Impossible events happen all the time. Sometimes, they even need to.

….As Clint was about to discovered when he awoke again to the booming sound of a vaguely reminiscent sentence: “A dozen of those, please Charlie.”


The end

 

nostromo

 

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