She was home, in the cave’s main chamber. Surrounded by spreading twilight, she kept her eyes closed, sensing only with her skin. In the palm of her hand she held a man many times smaller than she was. She didn’t know anymore if she kept lowering her face to him, or bringing him up to her mouth. It didn’t matter, because her tongue kept meeting him in between. Sometimes she dropped it on his body languidly, a slow flow of flesh covering him like a curtain, its apex starting at his feet, flattening them at the ankles, dipping his heels near the ball of her palm first, then the rest of him as she moved it along the length of his body. Other times she darted it between his legs, forcing them to spread, turning him into an inverted T as she tasted him there, over, and over again.
She also loved to make herself into three, bringing down her tongue and her lips upon his body, and when she covered him completely, she would talk to him. Rattle his bones, she thought. Make them blend with his flesh, agitate his brain inside his skull until it is as liquid as the rest of him.
“Three days, my love. Three days you have been mine. Are you not glad? Are you not glad I picked you…”
She didn’t require an answer. Her lips drew back like unwanted escorts as she pushed warm air out of her mouth, and let him have her tongue again. This time she spun him over with its tip, narrowest papillae like tiny hands stretching to grab him, flipping him like the page of a fragile book, setting him face down, then nudging him again toward the cup of her palm, so she could play with him again; deliver him to the center groove of her meaty organ like a toy again; taste every bit of him, from the soft cluster of strands on his head, to the minuscule rounds of flesh that were his toes.
“I can feel your face, my darling… I can see it with my mouth… I do not have to open my eyes anymore… soon it will be dark outside, and cold. I will keep you warm with my breath, tucked in the blanket of my lips, bathed in the heat of my mouth. Do you love it? Do you love me? Say that you love me… say it… I want to hear it…”
But she never waited for a response. She invited him into the cathedral of her mouth one more time, drawing him in with a sharp inhale, almost vacuuming him into the vault of her palate, marking her palm with the rows of her teeth as she curled her tongue like a whip, and lashed his body hard with it, turning it again, then releasing it, feeling him exit her teeth again, and land on his back anew. She repeated the onslaught as thought she had never done it before. She couldn’t get enough of him. She never would.
“Do you remember when I first saw you? Walking down there, on that street… then, running when I appeared, running away with her. Who was she? Was she your wife? Girlfriend? Sister?”
She laughed then, a string of giggles buffeting his skin, playing with his connective tissue like strings on a puppet; the punchline of her joke only known to herself. When it stopped, she stilled her lips on his body, and waited for a response. There. There. The smallest of wriggles. Such a small signal, but there. Life, motion, promise coursing up and down the length of him.
“Ah, I know you are tired, my beloved. I know you want to sleep, but you cannot. Not yet. I am not done with you. I have so much more to show you. Did you know you were my chosen one when I caught you? Or did you think you could outrun me? How they screamed… those little people, imagining I would reach down for any of them. So ugly in shape, so hateful in countenance. But I saw the way you looked at me. I saw the manner of your gaze, and I knew you were the one.
Do you recall how I laughed when you scampered into that store? What was it… some trinkets your kind likes. Some toys for my toys. Did you imagine that would stop me? What did you think when I hooked my hand onto that roof, and peeled it off like a leaf? Did you see me smile? Or did the dust make you blink? It is so clear in my mind, how you brought your body over the body of that woman as things fell all around you. Was she important to you? I know you were, to her. How she screamed when I plucked you off her… how her little arms reached for you, and how she ran after me, begging me to let you go. I understand how she felt, but you belong to me. You are mine.”
She lifted her lips from him just a fraction, and still touching his body with them, began to drag them over him. She felt the top of his head with the flesh of her septum, and allowed it to slide over his whole body. She delighted in capturing the infinitesimal reach of his forehead, followed by his tiny nose, and lips. She could feel his chin point to his chest, then slightly fling back as she passed it and moved on to his chest. She left the tip of her nose there for an instant as his toes pressed against the edge of her upper lip. Her heart pounded furiously as she smiled, the headland of her lips stretching, and as they did, splaying his infinitesimal toes with them. They made the fire in her renew, every nerve ending flaring like a struck match.
“Oh, you are perfect. Did you know that? No, I do not think you did. If you had known, you would have stood there, on the street where I first saw you, and would have known why I picked you. You would have understood that it was to be. That you and I are to be. This was always meant to be. When I came back, when I made my way to your streets and homes, when I searched in vain for my love, for you, and then… I saw you, oh, I saw you, and I knew. I knew you were the one for me. Your brown hair, your blue eyes, your perfect body… your arms that stretch all the way to my heart even though they are unable to encompass the width of these lips that love you, that are your new home…”
She moved her nose and mouth over him again, sank into every microscopic valley, rose with every diminutive mountain; she parted her lips once more over him, and turned her head slightly, while pivoting her hand at the wrist, so they would align with his body. Then she projected that meaty coil onto his body again, scooped him up, and brought him past two rows of perfectly shaped boulders. She lifted her head slowly as she catapulted his body to the roof of her mouth, and pinned him there, flattening her tongue to entomb him completely.
She sat with her back straight now, no longer haunched over her palm. Saliva flooded her mouth, and began to fill it as she felt the impulse to swallow him. She lifted her chin, and tipped her head back. Her chest tightened as she laughed once, a gust of warm air leaving her lungs; then smaller ones as she giggled and pinched him closer to her, and kept him in place as she swallowed the ocean of liquid in her mouth that threatened to take him too deeply into her. Now that she had some playing room, she brought her chin down again, and let her tongue drop between her lower teeth, and his body with it.
Another pulse to her floodgates, and her mouth began to fill again. My little darling, you are so delicious. Every foot of my body knows it, and wants you. It needs you desperately. I need you with every fiber of my being. Would it be so bad if I sent you down into me? Would it really hurt anything if I swallowed you? We will be together forever, in whatever way I decide. Why not that way? Why not make it impossible for you to leave me? Impossible for anyone to take you away. I would die if that happened. I would die if you left me. Maybe another time, my darling. Now I need you like this, a part of me like this.
As much as she needed him in her future, in her present it was the exterior of his body that brought her pleasure; the unchanging reshaping of his flesh to fit into hers. Another time, it might be different, but today she needed him tiny, and on her. Another day would be a different beginning for him. It would always be up to her. She rolled him once in her mouth, and she spat him back into the welcoming sweep of her hand. He fell neatly on his back, and stayed in place as she brought her fingers in, tilting his body ever so slightly towards her face. A thick film of liquid covered him. Her face descended upon him again, her lips already gaping hungrily.
This time she drew his outline on her palm as she visited him again with the point of her tongue. Then she made it dance on his crotch, pulling and tugging at his flaccid member, until she felt it separate from his body, glued to her tongue. Her brows pulled closer on her forehead, and she finally opened her eyes. She pulled her head away from him a ways, her lips still parted, her tongue hanging limp like it had fainted, his penis on it like an overgrown papilla. She looked at him in the darkness of the cave that made no difference to her. Her eyes could see nothing when she wanted, and everything the rest of the time. She gasped when she saw the rotten corpse on her hand. Her eyes widened when she spotted maggots emerging from several lesions on his skin. How long has it really been? She had enough time to spit out his cock before her body coiled into itself, and shot forward as she vomited forcefully. She still kept him in her hand. What was left of him.
When her convulsions were over, she licked her lips, winced at the taste still on them, and looked at him again. I remember, she thought. I chose him, and ran back here. My tribute. What they owe me. And they owe me everything. I chose him, and I brought him here, and I promised myself to him, and I kissed him. He loved it. He loved me. He loved me with his hands and fists and legs and kicks, and his screams… but his head was turned wrong. His neck… so weak.
She stared at his body, finally seeing it mangled and discolored, clouds of hungry recyclers returning to it to lay more eggs. She sighed, and flung it to a corner where an ever growing pile of bodies sat and buzzed and churned. She ran the palm of her hand over the cave’s floor, wiping off the grease and liquids his body had left behind; then, she sat there, legs crossed, mind burning with need. She blinked, directing every part of her to one single sense. Her nostrils began to dance, and she closed her eyes. Soon after, she picked up a new scent. She sprang from the cave, and chased it with a smile. This time, it would be different.