7 comments/ 61824 views/ 11 favorites Swallowed By: Sabledrake In the smoky gloom of the bar, she glowed like a piece of jewelry displayed on black velvet. Something white-gold and emerald, delicately wrought and priceless. James sat at a table with a half-finished beer in front of him, unable to look away. He supposed she was conscious of his stare, but did it matter to her? A woman like that ... why, she was probably used to it. God knew, he wasn't the only one watching her. If she noticed, if she cared, she gave no sign. Her posture was somehow both perfect and languid as she sat on the high leather stool. The line of her spine – from here, it was the best angle James could see – was a supple curve that flowed from the nape of her neck to her slim but shapely behind. Her legs were exquisitely long, tapering into sparkling green open-toed shoes with four-inch stiletto heels and gold mesh straps around the ankles. No stockings, no pantyhose. Bare-legged ... and if the seamless fit of her dress was any indication, bare-everything-else as well. It was a strapless, backless, thigh-high sheath that hugged her like a coat of paint. The color was a shifting, iridescent green-black, the belt a thin gold chain. What she lacked in cleavage and voluptuousness, she made up for in grace. And, when she turned her head so that James got a better glimpse, a face that would have made Helen of Troy seethe with envy. Flawless features. Fair, unblemished skin. White-blond hair cut short and slicked back, making the large green eyes all the more striking. No make-up except for a hint of lip gloss. She looked fragile and vulnerable, but the way she held herself gave the impression of confidence and inner strength. No ducking her head to avoid accidental eye contact. No nervousness. She ordered another drink from the bartender with cool, forthright assurance. Idly rolling the bottom of his glass around the wet rings of condensation on the tabletop, James wondered if she might be a hooker. That would account for the fact that she seemed so fearless, one of only a few women in a dark room full of drinking men, and in a not-so-nice part of town. But she didn't act the way he thought, from his limited knowledge drawn mainly from books and movies, a hooker was supposed to act. Nor did she seem like she was waiting for someone, a giant thug of a boyfriend who would show up to escort her and the collection of apparently expensive jewelry she was wearing. Her drink arrived. It was something frothy and pale green in a tall glass with a straw. Her long fingers – the nails were done in a rich emerald polish – wrapped around the glass and lifted it. James was sure he wasn't the only man in the bar to catch his breath as her tongue parted her lips, slicked them, and then drew the straw into her mouth. The way her eyelids slid dreamily shut as she sucked made James have to blot his palms on his pantlegs. He rolled his beer over his forehead, grateful for the damp chill on his suddenly feverish brow. He had to look away. When his gaze roamed the rest of the tables, he confirmed that he wasn't alone in his fascination. No one was drooling outright, but the lust in the air was as palpable as the pall of cigarette smoke. Of the few other female patrons, most were directing hateful looks that went as unnoticed by the woman in green as did the slack-jawed ogling of the men. One, a petite brunette with a buxom body crammed into a red satin bustier – and an attitude that, at least in James' media-succored mind, suggested that she was the hooker of the bunch – seemed to take the very presence of the slender blonde as a challenge. She made much of tossing her masses of jet-black curls and laughing a throaty, whiskey-roughened laugh, and inhaling in a way meant to draw the attention to herself. Compared to the blonde's smooth elegance, her performance was crass and abrasive and about as sexy as roadkill, as far as James was concerned. He turned back toward the bar, and an electric jolt shot through him. The woman in green had swiveled on her stool and was looking at James over the rim of her drink, the straw still encircled by her glossy lips. Even through the haze, her eyes riveted him. They seemed to shine with secrets and promises, seemed to strip away his defenses and peer into his very innermost soul. James couldn't have broken that connection even if he'd wanted to. He had no idea why she would single him out, of every other man in the place – if anything, he was the misfit here. Most of these men were blue-collar types, manly and tough and rugged, the sort of men who ran jackhammers during the week and went deer-hunting on weekends and could crack walnuts in the crooks of their brawny arms when they weren't crushing beer cans on their foreheads. Maybe, he thought, that wasn't her type. Maybe he was. So what if he couldn't carry a pickup truck on his shoulders. So what if he was pale from a life spent mostly indoors, either at his easel or his desk, struggling in both venues to create art and passion from nothingness. Maybe she went for the starving-artist / computer geek sort. Stranger things had happened. Christie Brinkley had once married Billy Joel, after all. Or, more likely, she wasn't interested in him at all. She was probably thinking that he was gay. She finished her drink and swung up from the stool in a fluid motion that made his heartbeat accelerate. The tip of her tongue ran a slow course over her lips. She set the glass down, picked up a small green snakeskin-patterned clutch bag from the stool next to her, and walked toward him. He felt like he had a sliver of chicken bone stuck in his throat. He told himself not to get his hopes – or anything else – up; that she was only on her way to the ladies' room. His table was between the bar and the short hall that led to the restrooms and the pay phone. Anyone would have to walk past. And as a consolation prize, when she did he might be able to smell her perfume, and hear the subtle whisper of cloth on skin as she moved within her tight dress, the click of her stiletto heels on the floor. As she came closer, he did hear those things, and did catch a whiff of perfume that carried the heady scent of flowers that bloomed in the tropical depths of the rain forest. But instead of passing, she stopped and smiled down at him as he sat there in the dim shadows. "May I join you?" she asked, in a voice soft as the rustle of leaves. James nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak, sure that if he tried he would blurt out something so astoundingly stupid that his head would explode. His mind raced, but in a spinning, tractionless way. The only coherent thoughts to surface were a primal "Yes!" and the dour certainty that he'd been wrong, that she was a hooker. Why else would she approach him? The woman sank into the other chair, making the simple act look like a dance move. "My name is Nadia." She offered her hand across the table, not for a usual handshake but with the fingertips angled down, the way a lady of old might have done if she were expecting a swain's kiss on the hand. He was peripherally aware of fuming glares directed his way from other corners of the bar, and decided right then and there that whatever she charged would be reasonable. He could live on peanut butter sandwiches for a few weeks. Her fingers still floated there, and her head tilted to the side in a quizzical way. James cleared his throat. He wiped his hand on his pants again and hoped that it wouldn't tremble. It did, but only a little. "I'm James," he said, in what was almost his normal tone. He'd been braced for it to be the mortifying adolescent squeak that had plagued him around pretty girls through all of high school and college. "James," she said. Tasting his name. Savoring it. Letting it melt in her mouth like chocolate. He was pretty sure that there was small talk then, and that he was contributing to it though he hadn't the slightest idea what he was saying. His mind kept bouncing back and forth between the two ideas, one that a woman like this was flirting with him, the other wondering if he had enough cash in his wallet. Every now and then, another idea would try to surface, and be swiftly batted back down. She could have some awful disease (she looked healthy, and besides, he'd wear a condom, he might not be sure about cash but he knew he had a condom in his wallet). That giant thug of a boyfriend he'd earlier envisioned could be waiting outside in the alley to rob him and beat the shit out of him (if that was what she was after, she wouldn't have picked a bar in this part of town). Maybe she's really a man (oh, for crying out loud, look at her!) James knew that rationales such as these had led many a better man than him straight into neck-deep trouble, and now he understood why. Having this beautiful woman sitting across from him, feeling the occasional – and probably not accidental – brush of her foot against his shin as she crossed her legs, drowning in the luminous green of her eyes, he didn't care about the consequences. He suspected that his reaction wouldn't have changed if he'd been engaged, married, or a monk. All good sense was left by the wayside at the slightest touch of her hand, the slightest smile in response to one of his lame attempts at a joke. When they had both finished their drinks, her still drawing on the straw in a way that made him dizzy, she leaned toward him and beckoned with a come-hither curl of an emerald-tipped finger. "Let's get out of here, what do you say?" she whispered. A playful light was in her eyes, daring him. To his horror, James heard himself blurt, "Okay, but look, I don't have a lot of cash on me. If we could stop by an ATM –" He snapped his mouth shut and winced for oh, so many reasons. If she was out to rob him, yes, sure, why not walk up to the ATM and punch in his numbers with her standing at his back? And if she really wasn't a hooker, he'd just gone and put his foot in it, and she would blow up at him, slap his face, call him a bastard in high, ringing tones, and march out of his life forever. Only silence followed in the wake of his blunder. He had his eyes squeezed shut, but now squinted through one, still flinching in expectation of the slap. But Nadia's smile was genuine and amused. "Is that what you think this is about?" "I ... well ... uh ..." She laid her hand on his arm. "I'm not a prostitute." "Why me, then?" his idiot mouth said, and he could have kicked himself. "I like the looks of you," she said, lifting one white shoulder in a half-shrug and tipping her head the other way. "Is that so wrong?" "No," James said. "No, I'm sorry, that was a dumb thing to say." "Come on." She got up, smoothing her snug skirt down over her hips. "Where to?" He thought of his apartment, shabby furniture and wall-to-wall mess, and winced again. Dirty laundry heaped in the bedroom. Dishes and trash dominating the kitchen. "My place," she said. "It's not far." "Your place. Sounds good." He rose, praying that the dim shadows kept his erection from being too noticeable. The act of standing, coupled with the fact that most of his blood supply was already occupied elsewhere, made his head swim. He had to hold onto the back of his chair until he regained his equilibrium. Maybe he could blame it on the beer. The other men scowled upon seeing them head for the door together. This emboldened James enough that he set his hand in the small of Nadia's back and guided her around the tables. She did not shy away from him or whirl and knee him in the groin, only gave him a sidelong smile that nearly made him trip over his own feet. The temperature dropped sharply as they stepped out of the bar's smoky environs and into the crisp night air. Nadia, in her thin dress, shivered. "Want this?" James had a flannel shirt on over his paint-spotted tee, and made a gesture as if to remove it. "No, that's all right. It's only a few minutes." It was more like twenty, and she led him at a brisk pace down unfamiliar streets. Her building was an older one, brick and decorative stonework, a wide set of front steps flanked by a statue and a half of regal lions. She told him in a hushed voice that most of her neighbors were senior citizens who turned in early, so it was best if they kept things quiet. "Sure," James said. Whatever she wanted was fine with him; he still couldn't believe he was here. Beer and anticipation buzzed in his head. He followed her up three flights of stairs, hanging back a few steps because the view of her legs would have stopped traffic. By the time they reached the landing, he was more certain than ever that she was bare underneath. She fished in her bag and got out her keys. "I keep it pretty warm," she said. "I hope you don't mind." At this point, James didn't think he would have minded if she'd told him she kept the corpse of her desiccated mother in a wheelchair. He bobbed his head. "Uh-huh." "You're sweet, James." Nadia rested her fingertips on his shoulders and put a quick, flickering kiss to his lips. He reached, but she had already moved away to open the door. Humid heat washed over him. He felt like his eyeballs had fogged up. He blinked to clear them, and looked around. Nadia had a studio apartment, but it was a roomy corner one. The walls were painted a rich tropical green, the floor covered in rattan mats. The spacious single room was bathed in a warm and mellow light from several stainless-steel lamps that arched like something out of War of the Worlds over a jungle of potted plants. He guessed that the bulbs, which had a pinkish-orange hue, were full-spectrum. Steamy moisture hung in the air as a not-quite-visible mist. "You weren't kidding," he said, shedding the flannel shirt before he'd even crossed the threshold. "Whew." "I like it this way," she said, tossing her purse aside and closing the door behind them. She did up the locks and affixed the security chain. "It reminds me of home." "With a name like Nadia, I thought you might be Russian," James said. "But this is more like Brazil or someplace." "Or someplace," she agreed. That light was back in her eyes, secretive, playful, daring. "You'd be more comfortable if you got rid of those clothes." He uttered a nervous laugh. "Wish I'd brought my swimsuit." "Think you'll need one?" She didn't have much in the way of furniture. A low futon, bare of linens but piled with cushions. A small table and chairs by a kitchenette that didn't look like it saw a lot of home cooking. The most striking fixtures were an artificial tree branch stretching along one green wall, and a kids' wading pool that had been set up in a sandbox to give the effect of a pond with a sandy beach. "This is ... neat," James said, at something of a loss for words. The humidity was getting to him, adding to the effects of the beers. "James," Nadia said, and slid into his arms. She kissed him, no light flicker this time but a deep and probing kiss, all wet open mouths and slippery tongue, and while she was kissing him she untucked his tee shirt and her hands roamed up his back. "Hey, wow," he said weakly, when he had gotten his breath back. "We don't have to ... you know ... hurry." "We don't have to wait, either," she said. Quick as a magician, she undid the front of his jeans and pushed them partway down his hips. "Nadia, wait," he said, even as most of his brain screamed at him to shut the hell up and go for it, enjoy it, don't say the wrong thing and screw it all up! She paused and pouted inquisitively. "What?" "Um ... let me get my shoes off first," he said, that screaming majority of brain winning out over any vestige of caution. "All right." She lowered herself onto the futon and coiled her legs beneath her, propped on her elbows. "Undress for me, then, James." The sight of her like that, surrounded by her tropical jungle and waiting for him, made James reel. She looked like some strange queen or goddess, reclining on her pillows. He fumbled out of his shoes and jeans and tee shirt, and stood there in his shorts as a sudden flush of embarrassment took hold. But her gaze skimmed over his chest and legs without any hint of disappointment. On the contrary, she regarded him with a simmering hunger that left him weak in the knees. He quit worrying about whether he looked silly with his erection poking out the front of his shorts, quit worrying about everything. Nadia curled up and leaned forward with an amazing flexibility and hooked her fingers into the elastic of his waistband. She tugged him toward her. His knees hit the edge of the futon and he pinwheeled his arms, but she did not relent, and the next thing he knew he was falling, twisting onto his side, landing heavily beside her on the cushions. She laughed and rolled atop him. In contrast to the swelter of the room, her skin felt cool and dry. They kissed again. This time, when James reached for her, she did not dance teasingly away but writhed and murmured at his ever-more-confident caresses. The feel of her was all sinuous and sensual, rubbing along his body as her tongue traced a path of quick, darting little kisses from ear to jaw to neck to collarbone, and so on down over his chest. She whisked the shorts off before he could either help or object, and with the same supple motion he'd seen them use on a tall glass, her fingers curled readily around his cock. James flung his head back and groaned. The emerald nails of her other hand tickled through his pubic hair to toy with his balls. He felt the puff of her breath, and raised his head in time to see that talented tongue flick out. Her eyes were closed, and he saw her face contort with pleasure as she ran her tongue up and down his shaft, linger at the tip, probe at the slit there to coax urgent droplets of pre-cum from him. He was tense as a wire from head to toe, capable only of low, strangled sounds. Abandoning her delightful licking torture, she suddenly took his entire length into her mouth. He bucked on the futon, scattering pillows in all directions as his legs gave an involuntary kick. His hands sank into the mattress as if he feared he might just fly up and hit the ceiling from the sheer ecstasy of it. Nadia gave him no time to get used to the sensation of being engulfed, but commenced bobbing her head up and down, suction and wet slurping and taking him deep, so deep, and it was as if her throat opened to receive him and then closed in a wonderful constriction. He tried to beg her to slow down, tell her that he was too close, couldn't hold back. If she understood his gasping words, she didn't care, and only redoubled her efforts. She cupped and cradled his balls as they gathered tight in impending release. At the last moment, he dimly remembered her warning about the early-to-bed senior citizens, and he was able to muffle his outcry by biting a pillow. His orgasm surged forth, a dam breaking and all of him pouring out in a torrent. Nadia's throat worked, milking him, every drop. Dazed, quivering, James sprawled on the futon in the spreadeagled form of an X. His chest rose and fell in heaves as he panted for breath. She stretched out beside him, up on one elbow. He blinked blearily up at her. She was smiling a contented, beatific smile. He could feel her bare breasts, small but firm, against his upper arm. He wasn't sure when she had shimmied out of that dress – he'd missed the show! Or maybe in her wriggling around, she'd fallen out of the dress and it was bunched around her waist. His arm went around her, his hand sliding from her shoulderblades down her back. Still only that dry, cool skin. Rougher than he remembered, but that could be because his senses were almost painfully acute in the wake of his explosive climax. Swallowed No bunched-up folds of fabric at her waist. Only skin, only Nadia. He slid his hand lower. Already, though he might have thought he'd need a week to recuperate, he was stiffening again. Helped along by her clever fingers, which kneaded him and stroked him back toward readiness. The dress was gone. He grinned, eager to see her long, lean body in its nude splendor. Or maybe nude except for her jewelry and those stilettos ... Her buttocks felt strange. As in, he couldn't feel her buttocks. Only her back, the smooth line of it, as far down as he could reach. Puzzled, he frowned up at her. The quality of that beatific smile had changed to something avid and unnerving. And her eyes ... her eyes didn't look right. Still green, still large ... but the pupils ... the pupils of her eyes were long, narrow black lines. Nadia's smile widened to show thin, pearly, inch-long fangs. Her eyebrows were gone. Her hair was gone, leaving a bald sweep of skin lightly patterned in greenish white. James tried to lurch away, and her grip on his erection turned into a clamp. At the same instant, something twined around his leg. He sat up and looked the length of their bodies. His was the same, familiar as ever, flushed and sweaty from sex. But hers ... Bare breasts, yes, but covered in fine scales. The nipples dark green. From the sternum down, her torso flowed not into hips and the lovely legs he had admired at the bar, but into a single muscular coil. It was shaded darker green along her back, paler on the underside. A snake's tail, fully eighteen feet long, the end of it wrapped around his leg as snugly as the embrace of any boa constrictor. "Jamessss," she said. She flicked her tongue at him – the tongue that was now a narrow, forked strip. She jabbed her head down. Her fangs, dripping with clear fluid, plunged into his shoulder. He felt the icy pumping flood of venom. His scream froze, unvoiced. Numbness spread through him. He couldn't move. Couldn't feel his arms. His legs. Couldn't feel anything. But he was still breathing. His heart still beat a frantic pace in his chest. Paralyzed. She had paralyzed him with her bite, and he was as helpless and motionless as a mannequin. "I'm sssssorry, Jamessss," she said. Nadia undulated, raising her torso on the powerful coil of her lower body. She swayed there above him, as if to the unheard music of some snake-charmer's pipe. His wide, staring eyes could not close or turn away. The worst of it was that she was, in a terrifying way, still beautiful. No ... the worst of it was that just below where her waist should have been, he could see an orifice. The scales there parted, and the flesh within was pale, glistening. She ran her palms down over her breasts, pausing to tweak the dark green nipples, then stroked a hand along her snaky flank. Her tongue shuttled at the air as she eased her fingers into the orifice. He knew what she wanted, what she was going to do to him. And she could, too ... the paralysis that held his arms and legs immobile also left him locked in his state of stiff arousal. He couldn't do anything about it, couldn't stop her as she slithered on top of him. Even paralyzed, he could feel her weight pressing down on him. He hoped that it might crush his breath away, suffocate him into unconsciousness, but she braced herself on strong arms. Unable to move his head, he had to stare up into her face where it was suspended above his. He could feel nothing, but he saw it in her expression as she lowered that clasping, glistening orifice onto his erection. The thought of it – he was inside her, his cock buried in that snake-tail – repelled him, but there was nothing he could do. He heard the creaking, sensed the pressure of her rising and falling weight, as she fucked him. He had to watch her face as her breath came quicker and color suffused her scales. Venom dripped from her open mouth onto his cheeks, his forehead. At the height of her passion, while he lay inert and unfeeling beneath her, the skin along the sides of her neck fanned out into a green-and-white hood like that of a cobra. Her tail cinched around his legs again, squeezing them. He only felt the dull crushing ache in his bones. Sated, Nadia eased her weight from him. Her forked tongue shot out against his lips in a kiss he was glad he couldn't feel. As she moved off the futon, his helpless body was jostled around until his head was bent at a painful angle. He found that he could see himself, his body that no longer belonged to him. His cock was a soft, limp thing against his thigh, and horror shot through him as he understood what had happened. He hadn't felt a thing, but somehow, he'd had another orgasm. In Nadia. He wanted to gag, to cry, to scream, to run. But he couldn't move. Nadia loomed over him again, her upper body still swaying to that rhythm he couldn't hear. The folds of her hood had retreated, but the color of her scales was still bright from her pleasure. "Ssssthank you, Jamesss," she said. "A ssshame it hass to end like thisss." Some small, plaintive noise escaped him. Nadia ruffled his hair soothingly and shook her head. She wrapped her long body around his again, not just his legs this time. "You wondered why I chosssse you inssstead of thossse othersss, when you were not asss big or assss ssstrong." She did the half-shrug again. "It'ssss nothing perssssonal." He felt the constriction. Heard a splintery cracking sound that he knew was his ribcage collapsing. "You're sssmaller, ssskinnier. Easssier to digesssst." With that, she opened her mouth wider than any human ever could. Her jaw unhinged. He saw her glittering fangs, saw the skin at the sides of her mouth stretch, stretch. He thought of pictures he'd seen, pictures of snakes swallowing rats whole, even swallowing rabbits. Headfirst. Their feet and tails sticking out. The snake's sides bulging horribly. Then her gaping maw engulfed his head, and he felt her inner muscles begin to work him down her gullet in a series of slow, convulsive gulps. Swallowed at the Spa Liana walked the cold, sterile medical hallway looking for the entrance to the "Natural Physiotherapy" suite. Naturally, it was about as far from the entrance as it could be. Once inside, however, the gray, matted carpet gave way to lush comforts; dark patterned green carpet, a trickling waterfall desk ornament, and soothing music. On her left, a door labeled "Security", and on the right, a hallway adjacent to a welcome desk manned by a young , black-haired, bespectacled man. She announced the existence of her appointment, signed whatever they gave her, and took a surprisingly comfy seat. Liana was a petite, blonde girl of 19, usually accompanied by a gaggle of giggling girlfriends. Now, she couldn't believe she was actually going to a "natural" spa on her own. Her friends raved about how good the service was and how they were surprised by how different the treatment was compared to "standard" massage. Of course the animal rights activists complained all over the news, as they do whenever animals are involved. A fan of the environment herself, she had reservations about the whole thing, but figured she would shut her friends up by taking the plunge. The reason was that they made use of a creature, the name of which was not yet anglicized, with a name full of decidedly unphonetic syllables from the dark corners of the uncharted Amazon. She learned about it in school during a lecture on formerly endangered species. It turns out that if nearly everyone wants access to an animal, but not to eat, it makes for the fastest rebound in the history of mammalian population tracking - from numbering in the tens to the tens of thousands. The first thing anyone is asked when they discover something 'new', is "how do we cash in?" Usually, it's pretty obvious, as the thing you found was an herb or a mineral or an oil deposit. In this case, the physiology of the creature made it popular among spas for its ability to ingest and massage human limbs. Its upkeep was roughly that of a dog, its saliva contained none of the pathogens that humans like to avoid, and it reduces the masseuse's job to the torso and parts of limbs that were unreachable. As a result, the creature was bred and distributed as a "next generation" form of natural massage. The activists, despite claiming to support animals, were not a fan of "enslaving" them despite the population rebound. Liana had been waiting around twenty minutes. She knew because the infomercial on the TV in the corner (one in every office, it seems) with its cutaways, and happy cartoon creatures, and pastel colors under an upbeat narrator, had cycled at least once already. She watched as a cartoon man extended his arm, and the creature began to swallow it up to the shoulder. They looked like Tapirs - with a larger snout and a wider midsection. Apparently, they made their diet of long ferns and vines. They evolved without incisors, using their molars and weak jaws to grind the thinner leaves, but used an interestingly muscled (and long) esophagus to actually take the vines, wrap them into a compact shape, and finish swallowing it by sucking the ball into its stomach from there. The infomercial compared this to the trouble that humans have when wrapping cables - it's pretty hard even with opposable thumbs. The pseudo-prehensile esophagus is the trick to the whole treatment - the creature can't ingest a whole human, so once they get hold of the arm, they try to twist it into a coil. Because limbs are much less flexible than vines or ferns, they lack the strength to do so, and the treatment effect is a pleasant massaging of one's extremities. Once done, the patient extracts their limb and moves to the next. Eventually the masseuse comes to finish the torso and any requests, and the handler takes the creature to the next patient. "Liana Murphy?" a stout, smiling woman asked at the entrance to the hallway. Liana gave a brief, nervous wave and walked toward the woman and down the hall. "Is this your first time?" asked the woman. "Yes, but my friends have told me what to expect." "That's OK, we have had a lot of new visitors recently. Something about a radio show." They made small talk while the attendant took some measurements, provided a robe, and escorted her into a nearby treatment room. The lush decoration of the waiting room continued into the hallway, but the staples of medical office equipment were everywhere - a few height/weight stations, a rack of robes, and doors to the treatment rooms. The room was larger than a typical doctor's office, with a mostly-padded floor and a pair of chairs along the wall. A massage table was pushed against the far wall, on which she took a seat. The woman checked a series of boxes, flipped the page, and set the clipboard on a hook near the door. "Your height is a little under the minimum, but it shouldn't be a problem. I'll be back in around 15 minutes." And so, Liana changed into the robe and waited once again. * * * Nothing if not precise, the woman returned on time, trailing a bearded man with one of those creatures on a leash. The creature was massive, but apparently quite docile. It spanned around half the lenght of the wall, around 3 feet wide, with its characteristic long snout and stubby legs. He fed it a leafy snack, hooked the leash to a bed in the room, and explained the rules. "Now, this is Eliza, your treatment companion for the day. Please do not harass her, berate her, or attempt to injure her in any way. If you need any assistance, I am leaving this fob on the corner of the mat." He set the fob down, and continued. "I will be back in around one hour, with a masseuse who will assist you for the remaining thirty minutes. Any questions?" "Nope, sounds good!" Liana replied. "Well then, I'll let you two get to it." And with that, he and the attendant left the room. Once the door closed, Liana dis-robed and laid across the mat with her right side toward the creature. She offered her arm, and the creature excitedly began licking the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, it scooped up her hand and walked forward until her entire forearm was in its maw. She was amazed at how fluid the creature moved for its size and apparent ungainliness. Again, the creature moved, and didn't stop until her entire arm was engulfed. With creature's snout at her shoulder, she felt a rhythmic pulsing begin around her wrist, moving to her shoulder and back every few dozen seconds. This was, she had to agree, an amazing experience. After a few minutes, she scooted away, pulling her arm from the disappointed creature's mouth. She spun around and repeated with her left arm. After this, her left leg. Massaging the leg was a little different. The creature's throat was around two and a half feet long, which was not quite as long as her leg. Eliza bottomed out just past Liana's knee, but Liana didn't seem to mind. That is, after all, what the masseuse is for. She relaxed for a few minutes as the creature worked on her leg, then switched, and was suddenly out of limbs. She sat up, approached the creature, and scratched it behind its stubby ears. "I guess you don't get to feel as good as you made me feel very often!" she said. And then, she had an idea. The creature was around 3 feet wide, and the snout could easily fit the width of both legs, so she gave it a shot. She offered both legs to the creature, and the creature giddily gobbled them up. Again, the creature bottomed out just past her knees, and she relaxed for a bit longer before wiggling backwards on her hands to escape. By this point she was thoroughly soaked, and rubbed the goo from her legs off onto her torso. Still, with around 20 minutes left, she wondered... could she try to get past the knees? She folded her feet up to her bottom, and again moved toward Eliza. The creature licked her knees, nudged them slightly, and then, again, opened her maw and scooped the knees up. She moved forward slowly, engulfing Liana's feet, legs, calves, and stopping at her bottom. Liana was in heaven! The pulsing rhythm around the lower half of her body was incomparable. She leaned back, relaxed, and let the creature do its thing. Ten minutes later, and she propped herself back up, pulled herself out, and sat down on the pad. She turned to face her robe, knees on the floor, and put her head down to relax. Any muscle she moved felt like heaven. She hugged her knees, feeling the endorphins spread from her massaged limbs throughout her body. And then, Eliza nudged her from behind. She felt a lick or two on her feet, and kicked them playfully. Eliza responded by sucking her feet into her mouth playfully. She played with them a bit before releasing them. Liana did not realize that her companion was widening her mouth, when suddenly, Liana's entire bottom, feet, and half of her back were in the creature. She moaned with pleasure as more endoprhins were released from everywhere Eliza touched. This continued for a while, before the familiar rhythmic pulsing started again. Each pulse travelled the entire length of Laina's body. What she didn't notice was that each pulse also brought her an extra inch into Eliza's throat. After a short while, Eliza bottomed out with her snout against Laina's neck, with Laina squirming periodically as the massage worked its magic. Liana's feet pressed against some muscular ring, her back and sides pressed against a smooth throat, and the creature's saliva dripped around her neck like a pendant. With little warning, the situation became more dire. Eliza's throat stopped massaging suddenly. Liana looked around a little, wondering why she stopped. After a moment, she attempted to extract her arm to get purchase. That didn't work. She wriggled forward to try and get some room, but found that the saliva had made it impossible for her to get any traction. She tried stretching her legs; the throat, while not strong enough to damage a limb, was much stronger than short, thin legs with no room to move. Eliza's throat tightened again, and the rhythmic pulsing began again. However, instead of travelling the length of Laina's body and back, it started at her back and moved toward her feet - or more accurately, the ring of muscle at the back of the creature's throat. But Laina couldn't know this. All she could feel was the lubricating saliva covering nearly every inch of her body. And then, she started sliding backwards even further. As the contractions continued, she felt the ring of muscle begin to work over her feet, and then her back. At this point she realized that her face was about level with the creature's tongue. Realizing how this could go poorly, she renewed her efforts to move forward when her entire world went black. Having fully expanded the muscle guarding her stomach, Eliza, in one quick motion, engulfed the poor Laina from head to toe. Laina felt her feet, then legs and back, then face slide against the creature's throat. The stomach muscle passed over her shoulders, neck, and face before quickly tightening again. She let out a muffled cry, not one she expected anyone to hear, but all she could accomplish before Eliza tightened her gut around her new meal. Inside, Laina felt strange - inside her body, her muscles felt nice and relaxed, but outside, her extremities started tingling in the thick digestive juices. She pushed at the wall, but couldn't stretch her arm far enough to make an impact. She stretched her legs, but couldn't unbend them from her fetal position. The tingling became more intense, especially on her ears and digits. Laina squirmed for a short while longer before Eliza kneeled, laid on her size, and rested. Having expended most of her energy, Laina passed out as she began hearing the sound of muffled voices. * * * The supervisor, the attendant, and the handler stood over Eliza, who laid on her side with a *very* full, sometimes twitching stomach. "So, how did she get through the safety checks? Could you explain how she missed the warning forms she signed, failed to meet the height standard, and nobody thought to mention that she could be in danger?" The supervisor was *not* happy. She had been packing to leave when the attendant, red-faced and out of breath, burst into her office with an "issue." "Well, she would have been perfectly if she followed the warnings she signed, but she purposefully bent herself in such a way that it triggered the creature's swallowing reflex. She was coiled like a piece of rope!" the handler explained. "This is unprecedented. I have never even seen Eliza open her mouth that wide." "A vine, more accurately. I warned her about her height, and she chose to proceed." The attendant wasn't *lying*, but she didn't need to make it clear that she brushed off the danger. "Aren't the damn things herbivores?" asked the supervisor. "Well," the handler began, "it's not that simple. They are more like "long"-ivores. Their niche is to eat all of the things that other animals can't because they just don't fit. There is some indication that they could just as well eat long animals, like snakes or long lizards or eels." "Well, get security to watch this room. And whatever the patient's name, strike it from the books. This never happened." The supervisor swung her coat over her shoulders, turned, and left the office. Meanwhile, Eliza shifted, and the contents of her stomach twitched for a few seconds before becoming still again.