by Jacksomm Trifker

 

Why all days couldn't be like this Ali Kottke didn't understand. The late-afternoon sun had turned the puffy cumulus clouds into bright yellow islands floating on the sea-blue sky. A warm spring breeze drifted by, carrying with it the gentle scents of grass and trees and drying mud from the previous two straight weeks of fog and rain.

 

This was basking weather, and Ali was basking in it. So this is what it's like to be a reptile, he thought - spending your time lazily basking on a grassy, dandelion-dotted hill in Grokton Municipal Park. It must be quite nice just dozing in the sun, letting it warm your blood, letting it feed your soul, living without a care in the world.

 

"You have no idea how lucky you are, Daisy," he said, reaching out to gently stroke the feathery neck of the giant reclining reptile whose torso he was leaning on. He then turned his attention back to his copy of this month's Modern Jackass and began flipping through the pages.

 

The orangish-brown tyrannosaur murred contentedly, a deep guttural sound that seemed to echo from her throat. The ground shook as the massive creature rolled onto her side. With a giant set of jaws the size of Ali's entire body, Daisy gently nudged Ali's page-turning arm - a subtle hint that the limb would be much better utilized pampering her rather than turning magazine pages.

 

"Alright, alright," laughed Ali, and he began rubbing the soft yellowish feathers on the underside of her neck, a rather impressively large and muscular trunk connecting her head to her body. The dinosaur let loose another long guttural murr, her eyes rolling back in her head, and the clawed toes of her tremendous foot flexed in ecstasy. "You like that, huh, girl?," laughed Ali as he rubbed and scratched the underside of the dino's neck, gently ruffling the scaly yellowish feathers.

 

Why anyone wouldn't want a pet tyrannosaur Ali Kottke also didn't understand. They were really quite affectionate creatures, once you got to know them.

 

Ali had spent all his life here in Grokton, a small suburban burg just outside the Nuyork city limits. He was the only son of two Doroonian doctors who endeavored to give their son all the things they couldn't have growing up in poverty in their native Sogodonn. When he wanted a bicycle, they gave him a bicycle. When he asked for an electronics kit, they gave him an electronics kit. And when the twelve-year-old Ali begged and begged for a T-rex pup, they gave him one. From that day on, Ali and Daisy had been inseparable.

 

It wasn't always easy, of course, caring for a creature that grew to thirty feet tall, weighed over two tons, and fed primarily on humans. Over the past fifteen years he'd received several broken bones and more than a few scrapes and scratches from the violent roughhousing Daisy considered "gentle play." Finding a veterinarian willing to administer immunizations to a seven-ton dinosaur had also been a bit of a hassle, as had been finding an obedience trainer.

 

Looking for a house had also been rather problematic, once he'd finished his schooling and set out on his own. Many of Grokton's "pet-friendly" subdivisions quickly became "pet-unfriendly" when they saw the type of pet he wanted to bring to their neighborhood. Once he'd finally managed to buy a house on the somewhat run-down south side of town, local officials had forced him to put up a quite expensive 20-foot-high steel fence to keep Daisy in the back yard.

 

And then, of course, there was the little issue of feeding her, since her diet was mainly people.

 

This would perhaps be a good time to explain that the animal digestive system on Aekallia , the planet on which this story is set, evolved rather differently than the one Earthly readers may be familiar with. On Aekallia, predators ingest their prey whole and alive, digest them by leeching excess calories and nutrients through specialized pores in the prey's skin, and finally excrete their prey hours later, still whole and alive. While the experience for the prey can be frightening, nauseating, and generally unpleasant, it is certainly not fatal.

 

Humans, Ali had quickly learned once Daisy had grown large enough to swallow one, were quite expensive. A decent person at the downtown amazon market could cost a good 30-40 Arnis apiece, and they were even more expensive from Human Delivery, the near-ubiquitous delivery chain serving Edouedia's humanitarian population. Since Daisy could easily put down two or three adults in one meal when she was really hungry, this could really add up. There was also the nagging discomfort Ali felt whenever he went to the market or ordered humans over the phone. Something about buying -- well, renting -- a fellow human being to feed to his pet just felt wrong to him, and he avoided it when he could. Fortunately, he'd worked out some arrangements with a some of his neighbors, once they'd warmed up to the idea of having a dinosaur on the block. There were a handful of yardwork-averse neighbors who volunteered to feed Daisy a few times a month in exchange for having their lawns mowed or hedges trimmed or gutters cleaned. Others, like the somewhat overweight Johnson brothers from up the street, found Daisy a convenient way to stay fit without all that tedious "exercise" stuff.

 

And then of course there was Ali himself, perhaps Daisy's favorite meal. She never seemed to tire of eating him, nor he of being eaten. He spent a good three or four nights a week in the moist and surprisingly comfortable sac of her stomach. Even though the experience had become quite routine over the years, whenever he watched those toothy jaws open and felt them engulf him, he still felt the same thrill he did as a teenager.

 

Ali could hear Daisy's stomach gurgle as he leaned against her body. He looked at the bulging belly for a while, trying to remember who - if anyone - was in there. Breakfast had been Randy Johnson, the less-pudgy of the two brothers - she'd shat him out before lunch. Then an early lunch, around 14:30, had been Mrs. Thompkins from next door, who badly needed her windows cleaned (and, Ali suspected, needed even more badly to spend a few hours away from Mr. Thompkins). Daisy had crapped her out a little after five, before they left for the park. And then he'd given her a few heads of lettuce before they went to the park, both to tide her over and to provide that "roughage" stuff her vet was always going on about. It'd probably be time to feed her soon - maybe in another few hours.

 

Daisy murred again, this time more of a questioning growl. She turned her head towards Ali and let out a tiny roar.

 

"Whatsa matter, Daisy?" he asked. "You wanna go home?"

 

The dinosaur shook her head, a motion that quite uncannily resembled a "no" nod. Sometimes - quite often, as a matter of fact - Ali could swear that she understood Edouedish, a thought which made him a bit uneasy at times. And she wasn't just picking up on the tone of his voice or a few key words like "good girl" or "din-din" or "walkies." She seemed to follow more complex communication as well, whether he was complaining about work or ranting about Merkin Administration politics or making plans for the weekend. It really seemed as if she were actively listening and responding.

 

And was, in fact, completely true.

 

Contrary to popular mythology, dinosaurs on Aekallia are actually quite intelligent. The old "brain the size of a walnut" meme has been deprecated by a few dozen million years of evolution. While it's true that the fossilized dinosaur skeletons uncovered by Aekallian paleontologists did contain a very small brain case in a very thick skull, these massive reptiles evolved over time, growing the larger and larger brains necessary to catch more and more intelligent prey. The tyrannosaurs of today may bear a strong physical resemblance to their prehistoric ancestors, they are mentally quite advanced. And quite easily offended by "walnut-brain" quips.

 

And quite easily bored, as Daisy was demonstrating. She lumbered to her feet, ripped a rather sizeable branch from a nearby tree, and dropped it Ali's feet.

 

"What, again?," said Ali. "We just played Fetch a little while ago."

 

The dinosaur nodded, stomping her feet on the ground and panting impatiently. She playfully snapped her massive jaws at Ali, then nodded in the direction of the grassy downhill slope where she wanted the branch thrown.

 

"Oh, alright," Ali laughed. "Get ready," he said, picking up the heavy branch. He spun around and around, building up momentum, then finally released the branch in a long arc that carried it over the hill and just out of sight.

 

Daisy took off immediately, her huge feet thundering through the dirt, leaving two-inch-deep footprints in the soft grass. He heard the footstomps fade away as she ran over the hill, then doppler back as she returned with the tree branch. She dropped the branch at his feet, then leaned down and let out a loud but playful roar that gave him an unobstructed view of her teeth, tongue, and throat. It was a not-so-subtle hint - "play with me, or I will play with you."

 

Ali got the message loud and clear. He picked up the branch, swung it around a bit harder this time, and let go. The branch sailed farther down the hill, and Daisy stomped off faster to go retrieve it. Again she returned, dropping the branch at Ali's feet and impatiently snapping her jaws at his head and chest.

 

"Okay, last time," said Ali, whose arms were getting a bit fatigued. He picked up the branch, swung it around as many times as he could, and let go. The branch sailed off, this time down the slightly steeper, shadier side of the hill. Ali again charged off after it. Her thundering footsteps faded off into the distance, where they were followed by a shrill, terrified scream.

 

"Oh, shit," spat Ali, who began running after the errant dino. He'd only gotten a few steps before Daisy came charging back. Instead of carrying the stick, however, Daisy had instead fetched a rather attractive and rather frightened-looking young woman in her jaws. The woman kicked and screamed as Ali's head shook her around.

 

"No!" yelled the panicking Ali. "Bad dino! Daisy! Put her down!" Finally, he jumped up and gave her a hefty bop on the snout with the side of his fist, screaming at the top of his lungs.

 

This seemed to get the animal's attention. Looking guiltily at Ali, she lowered her head to the ground, gently let the woman drop out of her jaws, then backed away slowly, eyeing Ali sheepishly.

 

Ali, still panicking quite heartily, knelt down next to the dazed-looking woman and began copiously apologizing. She was quite attractive - reddish hair, slightly freckled cheeks, hazel green eyes, dressed in a brightly-colored sundress that now bore a distinct u-shaped pattern of wet toothmarks. Damn, thought Ali, this may be the prettiest woman ever to file a lawsuit against me. He winced slightly as she angrily sat up.

 

"Well what did you do THAT for," said the woman, glaring at Ali. 'Why did you make her stop?"

 

"Well, you were going to be dino food," he said, a bit taken aback. This wasn't quite the response he was expecting.

"I know! I've never fed a T-rex before - it looks fun!"

 

"It- it is," said Ali. He'd never heard anyone describe it that way before. Terrifying, horrifying, nightmarish, perhaps, but never "fun." At least, not by anyone other than himself. "My name's Ali," he said. "What's yours?"

 

"Holly," she said, shaking his hand before letting him help her up. "Nice to meet you, Ali. And this is-"

"Daisy," said Ali proudly.

 

"Well, hi ,Daisy," cooed Holly to the dinosaur, who was now sheepishly approaching her and gently nuzzling the woman with her snout. "Who's a good girl?" said Holly, rubbing the scaly snout. 'Mmm? Who's a good dino?"

Ali was amazed. He'd never seen Daisy react like this to a total stranger. Usually she just devoured them, regarded them with utter contempt, or both. Usually both.

 

This was different. This was genuine affection. Perhaps it was a sign.

 

"So you like reptiles, then?" he said, flabbergasted.

 

"Oh yes," said Holly. "I've got a 50-foot python at home. In fact," she looked at her watch, "I should be getting home soon. It's almost time for his feeding. He gets real nippy when I'm late."

 

"Yeah, heh," said Ali, gently patting Daisy on the knee. "I know how that goes."

 

"I bet," laughed Holly. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Ali, maybe I'll see you in the neighborhood or something."

 

"Yeah," said Ali, smiling. "I"m kind of hard to miss - the guy with the 30-foot dinosaur."

 

"Heh, yeah," laughed Holly, turning to go. "Well, bye now!"

 

Ali watched her as she turned and began walking away, smiling. Holly, he thought. What a nice name, he thought. She was rather attractive, he thought. Maybe I should've gotten her number, he thought. He didn't even notice Daisy behind him until the dino clamped her teeth quite hard on his backside, causing him to yelp rather loudly.

 

"You alright?" said Holly, whipping around.

 

"Yes," said Ali, stumbling towards her rather painfully with his buttocks now quite bruised. "um, I know we just met and this is rather out of the blue, but I was wondering if... um... if perhaps we could get together sometime."

Holly smiled. "Yes, that might be quite nice."

__

Ali's head was buzzing during the walk home from the park. Actually, it was more of a run for Ali as he tried to keep up with Daisy's gigantic stride. The cardiovascular workout was fine with him - his heart was already pounding with the excitement of meeting someone new. Holly, he thought, smiling. He reflexively checked his pocket three times to ensure that the small card with her phone number was still in place, then forced himself to stop checking for fear of losing the card in the process of checking for it.

 

Holly, he thought, smiling, as they arrived at the house and he opened the giant steel gate to let Daisy into the fenced-in back yard. The fence was a bit of a formality, really - Daisy could easily kick open the twenty-foot gate if she wanted to. Ali had only installed it to placate some of the less dinosaur-friendly neighbors on his block. If Daisy wanted to escape, she could do it easily. Daisy, however, had no reason to escape, nor any desire to. She was quite content here in Ali's yard, with everything she needed - food, shelter, food, companionship, and food.

 

Food seemed to be on Daisy's mind at the moment, and she growled inquisitively at Ali as he shut the gate. "I know you're hungry, sweetie. I'll get you something to eat soon," he said, smiling at her through the metal bars. Staring at her huge, toothy jaws and the feathery expanse of her belly, he debated calling Human Delivery for barely a moment before deciding to save the cash and feed Daisy himself. It was the least he could do, really, to thank Daisy for introducing him to Holly. "I'll be right back," he said through the bars before making his way to the front door.

 

Ali walked into the kitchen and made himself a quick snack - some crackers, a bit of fruit, some veggies, a nice big glass of water - just enough to tide him over for the long hours he'd be digesting in Daisy's belly. He then stripped down to his boxers and pulled a few shakers from one of the cabinets - blends of spices and vitamins recommended by Daisy's veterinarian. He looked at them for a minute, trying to decide between the Tropical Blend, the Khordani Marinade, or the Spicy Devrilian. After settling on the Khordani Marinade, he padded through the tiled living room to the back door.

 

Through the glass he could see Daisy scratching her back against the side of her dino-house (a gigantic structure that took up a sizable portion of the backyard). He took a moment to admire this amazing creature that had been his companion for fifteen years now.

 

She wasn't beautiful by any normal human standards. That was certain.

 

Daisy was terrifyingly tall and intimidatingly wide, covered in orangish-brown scaly feathers that now glowed brightly in the light of the setting sun. Her weight could pulverize his bones with one step, her claws could tear him to shreds, and her jaws could easily separate him from any of his limbs, if Daisy were so inclined. Her black reptilian eyes were very expressive, though the emotion they usually expressed was pure carnal hunger. The combined effect was one of sheer intimidation, as if evolution had set out to create a creature so fearsome that its prey would let itself be eaten just so it didn't have to look at it anymore. Any normal human being in his or her right mind would want to stay as far away from such a creature as possible.

 

Ali was not a normal human being, however. To him, Daisy was the most beautiful creature he'd ever known. He could easily see through her terrifying exterior to the warm, gentle, affectionate creature she was on the inside.

 

Especially when he brought along a flashlight - then he could really see the transition as he was traveling from her terrifying exterior to her warm and affectionate insides.

 

Speaking of which, Ali thought, it's suppertime. He shut his eyes, held the shaker above his head, and gave it a good jostling. He felt the flaky spices cascade over him, sticking to his body, tickling just slightly as they fell. He then slid open the glass door and stepped out into the yard.

 

He never quite knew what to expect when feeding Daisy. It all depended on her mood. Sometimes she was ravenous and aggressive, sometimes sweet and gentle, and other times playful and mischievous.

 

Today she was typically difficult to read. As he closed the door behind him, he felt the ground shaking as she stomped her way towards him. When he turned around, he found her leaning over, inspecting him. Most of his view was taken up by that giant snout, her nostrils blowing warm breath over him in great heavy snorts.

 

Her monstrous jaws were shut tight, a fact that made them no less intimidating than when they were open. At any moment, they could open up and engulf him, taking in his entire body at once. Two quick gulps and he'd be in her stomach. The thought was humbling, terrifying, and exciting all at once. His heart began to pound as adrenaline surged through his body. The years of affection he felt for his dear pet were no match for the hard-wired physical response handed to him by evolution. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to run from the terrible predator. It was only his rational mind that kept his feet firmly planted in front of Daisy's fearsome jaws.

 

Daisy appeared amused by Ali's internal struggle, as if she could read his mind, as if she could smell the fear on him. She slowly stood back up, raising her head to its full, intimidating height. Her head made a slight cocking motion, a bit of a nod to one side.

 

Ali knew this sign well. "You want me to hide, Daisy?"

 

Daisy made a happy sort of growling noise, her feet stomping excitedly.

 

"Alright," said Ali. "Now turn around," he said, miming the motion with his hand.

 

The dino whipped around and turned her back to Ali, nearly clobbering him with her tail in the process. He ducked out of the way just as the heavy tail swished by him.

 

Ali's yard was not tremendously large, in fact it was quite tiny, leaving him very few places to hide. There were a few small bushes near the house, a tool shed he could duck behind, one pathetic-looking pear tree, and Daisy's house. He decided to hide behind the shed. He'd barely made it to the spot before he felt the thuddering stomps of Daisy searching around the yard for him. The stomps moved back and forth, right and left, all accompanied by deep baritone growls and whines as she searched the yard. They then stopped abruptly.

 

He looked to his left, along the fence line - no sign of Daisy there He looked to his right, craning his neck to see the portion of the yard not obscured by the shed. No Daisy there. Just as he was beginning to wonder what had happened, he felt a drop of warm water land on his shoulder. He looked up into the drooling jaws of his pet dinosaur as she reached over the shed to grab him.

 

"Clever girl," he said just as the jaws surrounded him and gently closed around his waist. Her rubbery teeth dug into his back and abdomen - not sharp enough to break the skin, but pointy enough to keep him from going anywhere. Her sandpapery tongue rubbed against his back and her lukewarm breath washed over him mustily. The little bit of light trickling in through the rows of teeth on either side of him barely illuminated the greyish pink grooves at the roof of her mouth.

 

He felt the sudden vertigo of the ground dropping away as he was lifted into the air and spun around. She violently shook him from side to side a few times, then shoved him towards the ground and opened her jaws, letting him drop onto the soft grass. He hit the ground awkwardly, rolled onto his backside, and reflexively tried to scoot himself away from the hungry reptile.

 

Daisy was having none of that. She clomped onto his leg and dragged him back to her, then began methodically raining cruel bites onto his body. She bit his arms, his legs, his torso, his abdomen, his head - sometimes hard, sometimes soft, sometimes twisting, sometimes pulling. All the while Ali squirmed and yelped as she assaulted him. He barely had time to react to each nip before the next one grabbed him.

 

He rolled onto his stomach and tried to crawl away, but she just began biting his back and behind instead. She then used her jaws to gather his legs together and clamped her teeth around his shins. A quick head-flick lifted him up just enough for her to snap her jaws around his thighs, and she lifted him off the ground for the grand finale.

 

He writhed just slightly as the jaws jabbed painfully into his upper thighs, and squirmed as her tongue tickled his shins and knees with slimy licks. She then cocked her head back for the first swallow. He felt the powerful ring of muscles around her throat buckle and shift and felt her tongue, with the help of gravity, shift his lower half into the throat. Her esophagus quickly grabbed his legs and pulled them in, yanking his entire upper body into her jaws.

 

Ali watched as the jaws gently shut, the big pointy teeth interlocking almost perfectly, blocking out most of the dwindling sunlight. All that he could see of the outside world now was a faint zig-zag of lavender, and he knew that this perspective would be short-lived. Daisy's tongue raspily licked his chest and face and arms for a short while, ravenously tasting him and leaving a slippery, drooly coating all over his upper body.

 

He then felt the world disorient itself again as Daisy prepared to finish him off. The head tipped back and pointed to the sky, then the jaws parted just slightly, allowing Ali a momentary look at the few stars that were beginning to appear in the sky overhead.

 

The jaws then shut again, accompanied by a loud wet groaning slurp that pulled his upper body into her throat and pushed his feet into her stomach. He was held there for barely long enough to exhale before the final gulp came, pushing him quickly through the tight rubbery tube and depositing him in the warm, muggy stomach. The walls and floor rocked and heaved for a few seconds as the organ adjusted to accommodate its new occupant. It quickly settled down, allowing Ali to get his bearings.

 

The accommodations were quite roomy, as stomachs go - approximately six feet tall, four feet wide, and two feet deep, but able to stretch much larger when necessary. He could stand at his full height, though really it was more of a lean with the way the stomach followed the contour of the animal's torso. It was also wide enough to allow him to lay down along the curved bottom edge, as if in a very fleshy, wet, slimy hammock. And unlike mammalian stomachs, which often reached rather stifling temperatures, Daisy's stomach was always comfortably tepid. The gentle thumping of her nearby heart added a relaxing soundtrack to the experience.

 

This had been his home for countless nights over the years, and countless more days, but he still felt the same thrill every time he ended up here. There was something so exciting and raw and primal about it. No matter how complex or confusing his life and work and relationships became, down here everything was nice and simple. He was just food, nourishing this amazing creature he cared for and loved. It was so natural, so perfect, so beautiful.

 

It was also quite detrimental to his love life, unfortunately. There weren't many second dates after his first dates got one look at the 30-foot reptile hanging around his lawn. The more tenacious young women who did stick with it quickly found themselves at odds with the T-rex, who regarded anyone competing for Ali's affections as a rival.

 

Which is why Daisy's reaction to Holly was so unusual. She was a quite territorial tyrannosaur, and made it quite clear at all times that Ali was her property. Yet she seemed unthreatened by Holly, even to genuinely like Holly.

 

In fact, she'd quite literally delivered Holly to him. Holly. A fellow reptile lover. A cute fellow reptile lover, no less. With a nice smile and a sweet laugh and incredible eyes. Incredible eyes.

 

"Atta-girl, Daisy," said Ali. He patted the stomach lining gently, shut his eyes, and absolutely failed to drift off to sleep.

---

After hours of tossing and turning in the cozy cocoon of his pet's stomach, Ali had just about given up on sleeping. Even the natural relaxants secreted by Daisy's stomach failed to fully put his mind at rest. He was just too excited by the potential prospects of a potentially positive prospective relationship.

 

Of course, he was getting ahead of himself. He knew that. It was probably bad luck to even think in such terms, and he didn't want to jinx it. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't get Holly off his mind.

 

Daisy seemed restless, too - perhaps because she was feeding off his nervous energy, or because his constant shifting inside her was waking her up - he wasn't sure. But every few minutes she'd shift her weight or roll over or sit up or lay down again, each time quite literally turning Ali's world upside-down.

 

After a few hours of this, they both were overcome by sheer exhaustion and dozed off, only to be woken again by the gurgly rumblings of Daisy's digestive system. Ali awoke to the small earthquake of the stomach contracting and maneuvering him towards the rubbery exit, and soon emerged bleary-eyed into the cold dawn as he was pushed out of Daisy's stomach, through the short intestinal tube, and out through her tight, scaly anal passage. He plopped headfirst onto the patchy grass in the relatively private corner of the yard that had been designated Daisy's toilet and let out a weak, achy moan of discomfort. He was too tired to even dodge the blatter of muck that rained on top of him from the very active backside above - he just held his breath, shut his eyes, and waited for the cascade to subside.

 

Daisy turned, gave him an inquisitive growl, then stomped off to go scratch her back against one of the walls of the house, damaging the gutter for the nth time. Ali staggered to his feet and began his post-postprandial ritual. He quickly rinsed himself off with the garden hose, then proceeded to scoop the remaining muck pile onto the compost heap.

 

Dinosaur poo, as it turned out, was a great fertilizer. He'd never gotten much direct benefit from this, since Daisy had an unfortunate habit of stomping flat anything he tried to plant in his yard. But he'd managed to build up quite a barter network among his neighbors who supplied him with bushels of fresh herbs, tomatoes, and zucchini in exchange for cartloads of dino shit.

 

Once he'd finished the composting, he walked into the house via the rear bathroom and quickly jumped in the shower. The rear bathroom was was a relatively new addition he'd made to the house, and one he was quite proud of. It meant no more dinosaur crap tracked all over the carpet, no more letting strangers in his house to clean up after Daisy shat them out, and it was certainly a nice convenience on cooler winter days.

 

After a few thorough scrubbings with several different scented soaps, Ali turned off the water and dried himself off. He wondered when he should give Holly a call. Not today, of course - he'd only met her yesterday and didn't want to scare her off by sounding too eager. But after a few days she might forget him. Probably tomorrow night. Or during the day - maybe they could arrange to do something tomorrow night. He unlocked the inner door to the house with the combination keypad, walked into his bedroom, and began to get dressed. Yes, two days will be best. That seemed to be some sort of unspoken standard protocol.

 

It wasn't until the third attempt to correctly knot his necktie that he noticed the little light blinking on his mediaphone. He picked it up and checked his messages.

 

"Hi, Ali? It's Holly - we met at the park this afternoon. I know two days is like standard protocol or whatever but I figured I'd call you anyway. In case you hadn't noticed, I don't really do 'standard protocol.' I do do coffee, however. And drinks. And even dinner. If you're interested in any of those, why don't you give me a call? Byee!"

 

Ali was so giddy after putting down the phone that it took him another six tries to get his tie right.

---

It had been a nice date, all things considered. As it happened, Ali and Holly both worked in the Technopark complex on the southern edge of the city. They both had rather mundane jobs in the electronics industry - he tested mainframe software for bugs and she worked in network operations at a local mediaphone hub - in offices a mere few blocks from each other. They'd probably seen each other in the monorail stations dozens of times without knowing.

 

They arranged to meet after work at one of the many Big City coffee shops serving the Technoparkers. After an hour or so of highly-caffeinated conversation, they headed into downtown Nuyork for dinner at a nice K'awandian place that was one of Ali's regular haunts. After some more nice conversation and some rather spicy nano tikka dishes, they caught the last monorail back to Grokton, where they decided to go for a little nightcap at one of the sleepy neon-lit bars that comprised downtown Grokton's nightlife scene.

 

After a few nightcaps, the pair were startled by a clamory bell. "Oy, last orders," bellowed the bartender, sweat beading on his wispy combover.

 

Ali looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. He then came to the rather frightening realization that, in all the excitement of their first date, he'd completely forgotten to arrange a feeder for Daisy. He relayed this information to Holly.

 

"Oh no," said Holly, finishing the last of her rum and soda.

 

"Yeah, I should probably go," said Ali, digging his wallet out of his pocket to pay the tab. "Daisy's not gonna be too happy with me." He dropped two twenty-Arni bills on the counter.and began gathering his things.

 

"Oh," said Holly, looking a bit disappointed. "So that's it, then? You're not going to invite me back to your place?"

 

"Ah, um, well, no - I mean, yes, I mean-" fidgeted Ali. It was an offer too good to pass up. "That'd be very nice. Yes." His heart pounded with nervous excitement. "I mean, I could always call Human Delivery and order someone for Daisy, right?"

 

"Oooh, fun," said Holly, perking up even more than her normal baseline state of perkiness. "Can I watch?"

---

After a brisk pedicab ride from the bar to Ali's house, they arrived to find Daisy agitatedly pacing the back yard. When she saw Ali and his date arrive, she pressed her snout to the fence and growled pleadingly. Her stomping feet shuddered the ground, and her wildly thrashing tail utterly decimated a few of the bushes Ali had replanted for the fifteenth time.

 

"Okay, girl," he cooed, hesitantly approaching the fence. He gingerly rubbed the snout that was pressing up against the bars of the fence, reassuring the sniffling, whining reptile. Her jaws parted just a bit and her slobbery tongue painted his hand in saliva. "There, Daisy, I'm home. Daddy's home. See?" he cooed as the tyrannosaur licked his hand.

 

Holly watched in awestruck silence for a while, then approached the fence herself. She was about to reach out and pet the creature when Ali stopped her.

 

"Whoa, careful. Slow down," he whispered. "She's a little testy around new people. Let her smell you first."

 

"Okay," said Holly, walking up to the fence. Daisy took a couple of deep sniffs, whipping around Holly's hair in the small gale created by the dino's nostrils.

 

Ali braced himself. This was usually the point at which Daisy would let out an ear-splitting roar of rage at Ali's date, sending the poor girl fleeing in terror. Daisy didn't roar, however. She sniffed a bit, grunted a few times, and even let out a whine. A whine! Daisy seemed to purr as Holly reached out and stroked the tip of her snout, then thanked the woman with the gentlest of licks.

 

Holly giggled with glee as she stepped away from the fence. Ali looked at her, dumbfounded. He'd never seen Daisy react like this to a date.

 

"I- I think she likes you," he said quietly.

 

"Yay," said Holly with an enthusiastic smile. "I think that's a good sign, right?"

 

"I think I like you, too," he then added.

 

"Well, good," said Holly. "That's an even better sign."

 

Daisy huffed and grunted as they walked into the house.

 

"Ooh, very nice place," said Holly as they walked in. Her eyes drifted over the furniture and decor. "Lots of K'awandian touches," she said. "I like it."

 

"Thanks," said Ali, heading into the kitchen and taking a bottle of Khordani siraj out of the wine rack. "Um, would you care for a glass?"

 

"Ooh, you know me too well," she said. "Mind if I use your bathroom first?"

 

"Not at all - it's toward the back of the house, through the living room."

 

"Sweet," she said. "Back in a minute."

 

Ali fumbled nervously in his junk drawer for the corkscrew, then remembered that he needed to call Human Delivery for Daisy, then decided that he might be better off opening the bottle first, then thought it might be better to call HD first since they take a while to get here, then settled on opening the bottle and calling HD while the siraj had a moment to breathe.

 

He twisted the corkscrew into the bottle and gently eased it out, trying to focus on what-- who he should order from Human Delivery. It always unsettled him a bit, ordering one of his fellow humans as pet food. He couldn't believe he told Holly he liked her - was that too forward? He wondered if he should splurge on a Devrilian, or settle for an Edouedian. Then again, she did practically invite herself over, and if that wasn't forward he didn't know what was. Should he get a man or a woman? He could totally see himself falling for Holly. Did he want her to think of him the type of person who fed innocent young women to his dinosaur, and was that any worse than being the type of person who fed innocent young men to his dinosaur? Whatever he did, he did not want to mess this evening up, Holly was the most interesting person he had ever met.

 

His heart thudded just a bit as he heard the toilet flush, followed by the sound of Holly washing her hands in the sink.

It then sank as he heard the rear door open, followed by a bloodcurdling scream as Holly walked into the back yard instead of the living room.

---

By the time Ali had sped through the house and burst into the dimly-lit yard, it was far too late. Most of Holly's clothes had either been violently torn off or quickly tossed off, and she was pinned to the ground by Daisy's viciously biting snout, clad only in her underwear. Ali watched in horror as Holly shrieked and squirmed with each bite to her chest and legs and arms and face.

 

He approached very slowly. Instinct was a powerful thing, and it was very dangerous to get between a dinosaur and its prey. As he got closer, he could see that Holly's shrieks weren't exactly terror - more like nervous laughter. When he got really close, he could see that she was smiling as she squealed. She was quite enjoying this, in fact.

 

"Do. Not. Call. Her. Off," whispered Holly, her eyes blazing into Ali.

 

"Don't worry," said Ali. "She wouldn't listen if I tried."

 

Holly then yelped loudly as Daisy lamped her rubbery teeth on either side of her hips and lifted her off the ground, Holly's head and shoulders poking out from one side of the snout and her kicking legs out from the other. Daisy kept Holly eye level with Ali, as if to gloat over the fact that she was eating his date. Between the points of Daisy's teeth, he could see the big pink tongue sloppily licking her torso, and was struck by a moment of envy. He was rather hoping he'd be the one doing that tonight.

 

Holly laughed nervously. "Oh my," she said, her voice straining against the jaw pressure on her chest. "Ooh, she's got me good." She then let out a rather reveling moan. "I don't stand a chance," she said, her toes flexing as the licks intensified.

 

Ali raised an eyebrow at this. "You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you?"

 

Holly blushed slightly. "How could I not? This is incredible," she panted. Then, with a twisting flick of her massive head, Daisy tossed Holly aside and then immediately caught her around the waist and thighs. With another few toss-and-catch flicks, Holly's legs were inside Daisy's jaws and her upper body was protruding from the tip of the dinosaur's snout. Holly gasped at each sudden motion, too terrified and excited to scream. It was only after Daisy had reared up to her full thirty-foot height and given Holly the full sensation of vertigo that she managed to let out a scream.  Even this seemed more pleasurable than fearful.

 

"Well, I guess I don't have to call Human Delivery tonight," said Ali, half-disappointed.

 

Holly laughed nervously. "No, I think not," she said, shrieking as the huge jaws opened just a bit and tossed her a little deeper into the mouth.

 

"Though I was kinda hoping we could spend more time together tonight," Ali added with a shrug.

 

"Who says we can't?" panted Holly, just as Daisy gave her a vigorous shake. "I think there's more than enough room down there for both of us."

 

Ali thought about this for a moment. It was true - she certainly did. She could fit three or four adults quite easily, in fact. He'd been trying to restrict her diet to no more than one person in the evenings since she'd nearly broken the dino scale at their last visit to the V-E-T, but one night off the diet couldn't hurt.

 

"Good point," said Ali. "Well, I'll just come back when you're done, then," he said, turning to go.

 

"What, you're not going to stay and watch," asked Holly, who was now chest-deep in Daisy's jaws.

 

"Well, I don't usually like to - I mean, it's kinda, I dunno," he babbled. It wasn't something he liked to do, really. It was odd enough feeding other people to your pet, but to watch them being devoured seemed, well, villainous. There was just something creepy about it.

 

"Why not?" gasped Holly, now neck-deep in the dinosaur. "that's the fun part of having a big reptile - you get to watch!"

"I- I guess," he said hesitantly. He had to admit, it was somewhat entertaining to watch - particularly since Holly seemed to be enjoying herself so much. It was, well, contagious, for lack of a better term. He was rather enjoying himself as well. He couldn't take his eyes off of Holly's as they disappeared into those big toothy jaws, and he watched transfixed as her arms and hands disappeared as well, giving him one final wave before slipping inside Daisy's gullet.

 

He could see the bulge that had been his date sliding down through Daisy's neck, disappearing behind her rib cage, then emerging as a squirming, screaming lump in the dinosaur's belly. He slowly approached the dinosaur and gave the quivering tummy a gentle rub. He felt the guttural vibration of a belch, then looked up to see Daisy spit out a pink polka-dotted brassiere. The tyrannosaur then flashed him a coy, mischievous look, as if gloating over eating his possibly soon-to-be girlfriend.

 

“Holly," he said, nervously. This wasn't exactly how he'd pictured this evening playing out. "You okay in there?"

 

"Fuck yeah," shouted Holly, her voice muffled by the thin but elastic layers of skin and fat and muscle that now separated her from the outside world. "that was crazy fun," she said. "You gonna join me or what?"

 

"That's kinda up to Daisy," he said, gathering up the saliva-soaked clothing that littered the ground. "She might be kinda full, you know. Right, girl?" he asked.

 

Daisy cocked her head to the side and gave him a quizzical look, as if to say "what are you kidding?"

 

"Well, okay," he said, unbuttoning his shirt. "I'll- I'll be there in a few minutes," he said nervously, fumbling with the buttons. He then had a last-minute epiphany and ran into the house. When he reemerged a minute later, he was carrying the recorked bottle of wine and was clad only in his boxers.

 

"Alright, Daisy," he said quietly. "Come and get it."

 

With barely a moment of hesitation, the gigantic jaws descended and enveloped him. He felt the world twist and fall away as he was lifted off the ground, then felt the slow shift of gravity as he was pointed headfirst down into Daisy's gullet. The tyrannosaur held him there for a minute or two, rubbing his body with her tongue, her teeth gently squeezing his wriggling legs. A tiny bit of moonslight crept in between Daisy's teeth, but the light quickly faded as it neared the black hole of her throat. The only thing keeping him from being swallowed up by that same black hole was the gentle grip of Daisy's teeth around his knees.

 

Ali couldn't help but feel a strange sense of finality in the way Daisy was savoring his body, as if she were tasting him for the last time. It was as if she knew that, after this, things were going to change. It wouldn't just be Ali and Daisy anymore - there'd be another person in the mix. Ali was struck by a curious sensation of what he could only describe as approval. Probably just my imagination, Ali thought, but he thanked Daisy for the vote of confidence anyway - just in case.

 

He then felt the giant jaws loosen their grip on his legs, and he slid face-first into the throat, which hungrily accepted him. After a few slurpy gulps his upper body was in the esophagus. Gripping the miraculously still-corked wine bottle tightly, he maneuvered it in front of him just as another swallow pushed him in deeper. Ali sputtered as his arms and then his head head were pushed through the tight sphincter into the humid stomach that smelled pleasantly of Holly's perfume, albeit mixed with a lot of other less-pleasant scents.

 

"Hi," he said awkwardly, opening his eyes to find the chamber surprisingly well-lit. Holly had, in a moment of remarkable forethought, clipped her mediaphone to her panties just before Daisy got her. "Well, that was a bright idea," he added, nodding towards the phone.

 

"Oooh, a punster. I like that," said Holly, shadows whipping around the inside of the stomach as she stood up. 'Here, lemme give you a hand." She helped ease him to the floor as the final swallows pushed him all the way into the stomach - a vast improvement over the usual headfirst plunge into the murky muck.

 

"Thanks," he said, stumbling to his feet just as a belch rocked the rubbery organ. The light from her phone cast a rather unflattering green glow over the pinkish interior, though at this point there wasn't much to flatter. Holly was dripping wet with saliva, had chunks of something he didn't want to know about stuck to her hair, and smelled strongly of rotting mushrooms.

 

That didn't matter to Ali. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He couldn't help but giggle.

 

"I, um, I brought us a nightcap," he finally said, holding up the bottle.

 

"What, no crackers and cheese?" she said, popping off the cork and taking a swig. She handed it back to him.

 

"Oh," said Ali, taking a swig himself. "I can go back and get some if you like," he joked.

 

Holly appeared to consider this for a moment as she took the bottle from him. "Nah," she winked, taking another drink. "So is this how you end all your first dates?"

 

"No, no - this is a first," he laughed. Damn, she looked cute. He took the bottle and had a sip. "Matter of fact, you're the first one who didn't run away screaming."

 

"Good," smiled Holly, taking the bottle from Ali. "Well, I can't wait to see how our second date turns out."

 

"Oh, yes, uh, me too-," fumbled Ali. A second date? They hadn't even finished their first one yet. This was certainly promising.

"Sorry," blushed Holly, handing the bottle back to Ali. "That was a bit presumptuous of me."

 

"Not at all," said Ali. "Let's do it. Where would you like to go?"

---

"Come on, aren't you going to sing something?," Holly pleaded.

 

"Oh, absolutely not," said Ali, looking nervously around the normally-sedate Re Qing Chirfahnese take-out place in downtown Grokton that, apparently, became a rather hopping karaoke bar after 13:00 pm. The sounds of a jangly Chirfahnese pop song echoed off the walls, with the vocalizations of the rather intoxicated middle-aged man on the bar/stage echoing off the walls a consistent half-measure behind the beat.

 

"Aww, come on," she said. "You know you want to."

 

"I don't sing," said Ali, shifting back in the cushioned booth seat as far as he could go without becoming part of the upholstery. "Seriously. I can't carry a tune at all."

 

"So? Neither can I, neither can any of these people. It's not about talent, it's about having fun," said Holly. "Come on!" She turned to some of her friends, regular barflies at Re Qing, and prompted them to assist in egging Ali on.

 

"A-li, A-li, A-li," they began chanting rhythmically.

 

Ali's dark skin blushed. "I- I dunno. I don't speak Chirfahnese."

 

"Oh, don't worry, there are plenty of Edouedish songs, too. Come on, please?," pleaded Holly, who then joined in the chant. "A-li, A-li, Ali," she shouted.

 

Soon the entire restaurant, including the uneaten hot-and-sour nanos in Ali's plate, was chanting along. "A-li, A-li, A-li," they shouted.

 

"Oh, alright," said Ali, "I'll do it."

 

Amidst an eruption of cheers, Ali slid out of the booth and began consulting the mediaphone-sized binder of songs, looking for something to sing. Flipping to the Edouedish section, he selected the first song title he recognized - "Edouedian High." It was a classic old tune about some popular flock singers of the 3690s who disappeared when the dragon they were flying in crashed somewhere off the coast of Comeyria. It wasn't until after he took the stage, microphone in hand, that Ali remembered three important details about the song.

 

First, he was only familiar with the chorus.

 

Second, the melody was just a bit above his vocal range, forcing him to sing in a rather uncomfortable falsetto.

 

Third, the unedited version of the song was about 17 minutes long, and this was indeed the unedited version.

It was a lot to muddle through, but muddle through it Ali did. On a handful of occasions, by sheer dumb luck, Ali's melody and rhythm coincided with the melody and rhythm of the backing tracks. For the remainder of the seventeen minutes, however, the two were fundamentally irrelevant to each other. When the final chords of the song faded out, they were met by near-total silence, since nearly everyone in the bar was using their hands to cover their ears. The lone exception was Holly, who clapped and cheered uproariously, jumping up and down with excitement.

 

"Thank you," Ali said, beaming as he handed the microphone into the very eager hands of the karaoke operator. "So, how'd I do?," he smiled as he leapt into Holly's arms.

 

"Wow," she said. "THAT was amazing."

 

"Really?," said Ali.

 

"That was quite possibly, and this is no exaggeration, the absolute worst karaoke performance I have ever heard in all the years I've been coming here," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "I loved every minute of it."

 

She then leaned into her rum and soda and rather conspiratorially invited Ali back to her place.

 

“I'll get the check,” said Ali.

---

It was a brisk cycle-cart ride from the bar to Holly's house, in the middle of a brightly-lit community. She was renting a house in one of the newer developments in town, in which all the houses looked rather annoyingly like all the other houses. Community rules, Holly declared when Ali mentioned it. She was also not allowed to keep potted plants on her porch or paint her interiors anything but pastel shades. And she was most definitely not allowed to have pets, she whispered, with a slight giggle.

 

They arrived at the door, and Holly planted a kiss on Ali's lips before she opened it.

 

"I hope that wasn't a kiss goodnight," said Ali, raising an eyebrow.

 

"No, no, it's just that I might not get another chance for a while," smiled Holly. "I haven't fed Rocky today, and he might be a bit happy to see me."

 

"Ah, yes." said Ali. "And how is he with strangers?"

 

"Honestly?," she smirked. "Pretty terrible. Hates them, usually. So we'll see how he is with you. This is a big test."

 

"I see."

 

"Nervous?"

 

"Just a bit."

 

"Well, don't be. He can smell fear."

 

"I'll do my best," said Ali, as Holly opened the door and switched on the light. The living room was, in compliance with the rules of the complex, done out in pastel shades of pink and gray, and all of Holly's many hanging vines and flowering plants were clustered around the windows. The one thing that failed to comply with the community rules was the very large snake coiled in the middle of the living room.

 

Actually, that's somewhat inaccurate. Perhaps 60% of the snake was coiled in the living room. The other 40% extended down the hall and into one of the bedrooms.

 

It was a very large snake, thought Ali as the top 10% began to stir and take an interest in him. He fidgeted nervously as a head two feet in diameter rose and began inspecting him with a flapping, forked tongue.

 

Ali tried his best to stand his ground and not show fear. He didn't really consider himself to be afraid of snakes per se. He found them to be quite fascinating and beautiful creatures, in the abstract at least. But there is certainly something intimidating about being face-to-face with one that's too big to fit in a single room.

 

"Oh, yay!," said Holly, clapping enthusiastically and giving Rocky a big hug around the neck. "He likes you!"

 

"Really?," asked Ali. "How can you tell?"

 

"Because you're still conscious," she said, taking Ali's jacket and tossing it over the reclining chair she liked to refer to as 'the closet.' "So, can I get you something to drink? Don't have any beer right now but I've got plenty of rum and cola."

 

"Y-yes, that'd be nice," said Ali, still locked in a staring contest with the reptile. He knew it was a futile endeavor considering that the snake was anatomically incapable of blinking, but felt he should make the effort anyway. He maintained eye contact with the reptile as he edged his way to the secondhand flower-print sofa in the corner of the living room and sat down.

 

The snake stared at him the entire way, flicking his face gently with a soft forked tongue. Although Ali couldn't quite decipher the python's demeanor, it seemed to be granting Ali a probationary period of trust that could be revoked at any time for any reason.

 

Duly noted, thought Ali as Holly entered with two glasses of rum and cola, each adorned with a generous slice of lime. She nonchalantly shoved Rocky aside and sat down next to Ali.

 

"Well, you boys seem to be getting along," laughed Holly. "Are we talking sports or politics?"

 

"Not sure," said Ali. "Rocky here's more the strong, silent type. But, uh, just out of curiosity, does he prefer the Northerners or the Cosmopolitans?," he asked, referring to the two krikkit* teams that competed for the loyalties of the Nuyork market area.

 

"Oh, Cosmos, all the way," said Holli, wrapping her arms around the large head of the python as it pushed its way into her lap. The snake was still staring at Ali quite intently, largely oblivious to the affectionate kisses and hugs Holli was planting on its head. "We're a Cosmos family here," she said. "Fuck the Northies."

 

"Good," said Ali, breathing a small sigh of relief - a rather difficult task to accomplish when staring down the business end of a python large enough to have its own postal code. Ali also couldn't help but notice that more and more python was entering the room, curling up on itself and filling every available bit of floor space.

 

"This is so sweet," said Holly. "He really likes you, I can just tell." She kissed the top of Rocky's head and hugged him around the neck. With a fluid motion, Rocky began sliding through Holly's embracing arms and did a quick loop around Ali.

 

"Are- are you sure?," he said, taking a large gulp of his rum and cola. His pulse quickened nervously as he stroked the scaly coil that now surrounded his midsection. It felt exactly like one long and very strong muscle.

 

"Of course - he's just giving you a big hug, that's all," giggled Holly. "A big ol' snake hug."

 

"Riiight," said Ali as Rocky made another pass, putting a second coil of scaly muscle around Ali's torso. The feel of the snake's body sliding around him was at once thrilling and terrifying. One clench of that huge muscular body could break a good number of ribs, if Rocky were so inclined. Ali didn't get the sense that he was in imminent danger - he knew enough about reptile psychology to know the difference between aggression and hunger. This was definitely the latter.

 

"I should probably take my shoes off, shouldn't I?" said Ali, after considering his options for a moment.

 

"Yeah, they might hurt Rocky's tummy," pouted Holly. "Here, lemme help you." She set down her drink and got up from the couch, climbing over the loops and coils of snake to reach Ali's feet, where she popped off his shoes and whipped off his socks. By this time, Rocky had slithered a third coil around Ali and had now lifted him off the couch entirely. "Lemme help you with this, too," said Holly, reaching in between the coils and unbuckling Ali's belt.

 

"Th-thanks," said Ali, trying to stay calm in the face of his imminent devouring. He knew he had nothing to fear, especially since he spent most nights in the stomach of one of the most terrifying creatures on the entire planet. But he was still quite nervous as Holly pulled off his pants and began working at his shirt buttons. He would've helped, but his hands were now firmly pinned between the third and fourth coil of Rocky's body. Ali cringed at the tiny tearing sound as Holly worked off his shirt.

 

"Oh, shit," said Holly, "sorry about that."

 

"T's okay," said Ali, the constricting coils making it a bit difficult to breathe. "Hppns alla time," he choked. Which was true - living with a dinosaur was rather hard on his wardrobe. though this particular shirt was a rather pricey one he'd been trying to preserve for a special occasion. Oh, well, he thought as Holly finally managed to get it off of him.

 

"So," she said, biting her lip coyly at the near-naked man in her living room wrapped in the coils of her pet snake.

 

"So indeed," he said. "Well, I guess this is-" he began. He didn't get to finish the sentence because two important things happened in the next moment.

 

The first was that Holly planted a very deep kiss on his lips - a wet, sweet, passionate kiss that tasted of rum and delicious naughtiness.

 

The second was that Rocky engulfed Ali's bare feet and swallowed him up to his shins.

 

The next few minutes were a race against time - Holly's kisses competed with the creeping onslaught of Rocky's gullet for Ali's attention. Ali savored every kiss, knowing that the time for kisses was limited. Ali felt the python's wet, warm mouth at his knees, his thighs, his waist, his abdomen, his chest, letting out a nervous "eep" with every gentle swallow. His nervous noises were in turn being swallowed by Holly's equally ravenous mouth. He half-expected Holly's jaws to unhinge and begin working themselves over Ali's head, but they didn't.

 

As the snake reached his shoulders, Holly took a step back, looking hungrily at the head that was all that remained of Ali. She leaned down and gave him one last, very gently kiss.

 

"Hd... rlly... nce... tme... t'nght," huffed Ali, his chest far too constricted for vowels.

 

"Me too," said Holly.

 

"Gss.... ths.... s.... g'nght... thn?"

 

"We'll see," said Holly as the snake's mouth worked itself over Ali's head. The last thing he saw through the closing jaws was Holly's giggling face. After that was darkness. He felt the powerful muscles of Rocky's esophagus pulling and pushing at him simultaneously, dragging him feet-first deep into the snake, rounding curves and squeezing through straightaways. It was a long, dark, very disorienting trip to the snake's stomach. In fact, he really wasn't sure if he'd reached the stomach or not until he felt the muscles stop pushing.

 

It was a rather tight fit. Even as the stomach began filling with gastric gas, there wasn't much breathing room, or room for any other activities, for that matter. He could bend his knees by a few degrees and could just barely shift his elbows around - that was it. Unencumbered by the burden of mobility, his mind was allowed to wander a bit.

 

How about that kiss, he thought to himself. Holy fuck. That was hot. Too bad it was over so quickly. Maybe he should call her or-crap, he thought. In the excitement of making out and being eaten, he'd forgotten to grab his mediaphone. Fuck, he thought.

 

He was in the midst of haranguing himself for this oversight when a soft foot kicked him in the head.

 

Two actually. He wriggled out of the was as well as he could as the feet were followed by shins, knees, thighs, and eventually the rest of Holly's body, which finally came to rest in the now extremely cozy confines of Rocky's stomach.

"Hi," whispered Holly, wrapping her saliva-drenched arms around Ali's saliva-drenched body.

 

"Hi," whispered Ali back, returning the embrace.

 

"I missed you," said Holly, giving him a few somewhat fumbly kisses on the nose and ear before finding his mouth.

"Me too," said Ali.

 

* A rather odd game played by ogres on much of the Essurian continent in which players hit each other with a large wooden paddle. The game also tangentially involves a ball and some pillars, but these are merely a pretext for the use of unprovoked brute force.

---

There is a long tradition in Aekallian folklore - particularly the more adult-oriented parts of the genre - glorifying the wonders of sex, well, in the belly of the beast, so to speak. In fact, a full third of the chapters of the Kamasu-Tra, the K'awandian compendium of copulation, discuss in detail the logistics of engaging in the activity inside all manner of predatory creatures, great and small. Anthropologists now theorize that the success of the earliest human population, in prehistoric Dooroonia, was mostly due to a lot of alimentary coupling within the ogres and other predators that ruled the continent.

 

What the Kamasu-Tra and other folklore gloss over, or ignore outright, are the numerous obstacles involved. From the smell to the heat to the smell to the utter darkness to the smell to the fact that both parties are swimming in soon-to-be shit, there are quite a number of factors that can get in the way of a good time. However, if you're young enough, drunk enough, excited enough, and/or all of the above, these can usually be overcome.

 

That said, the details of what transpired over the next few hours will be left up to the imagination of the reader. Even an omniscient narrator must give his characters some privacy from time to time.

---

Time passed. Ali and Holly went on more and more frequent dates, which began lasting for several days at a time. More and more of their stuff began to reside at the others' house - first a toothbrush, then a comb, then a few pairs of underwear, then a small wardrobe. Daisy and Rocky grew so comfortable with their owners' significant others that Ali and Holly were even able to exchange spare keys.

 

The relationship continued for several months like this before Holly and Ali built up enough courage to have The Conversation. They'd both known it was coming eventually and had tried to put it off for as long as possible, but it had become unavoidable.

 

"My lease is ending on the first of Adamus," Holly declared one morning as they were getting ready for work, having thoroughly showered off after a long night in Rocky's digestive system.

 

"Mmhmm?," said Ali, his mouth full of toothpaste foam. "Mhmm mu mu manh mn mu?"

 

"I was going to ask you that. What do you think I should do?"

 

"Mhi mn moh," Ali said, then spat out the toothpaste and rinsed. "I mean, do you want to renew it?"

 

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could... consolidate our... living arrangement," said Holly, reflexively fixing Ali's slightly crooked tie.

 

"It's a big step," said Ali. "Let's do it," he then added, without a moment's hesitation. "Who's place?," he added, though the answer was rather obvious.

 

"I think it's pretty obvious, don't you? I'm not gonna hide a T-rex in here. It's gotta be your place."

 

"Okay," smiled Ali. "Alright then," he added, smiling. "This is going to be great!"

 

"I hope so," said Holly. "But, um... we're not the only ones involved."

 

"True, but I'm sure Rocky and Daisy will get along," said Ali, almost convincingly enough to believe it himself. "He's an indoor snake, she's an outdoor dinosaur."

 

"Mmm-hmm," said Holly. "They're just two very massive, powerful, and extremely territorial reptiles that we're about to confine in the same space - what could possibly go wrong?"

 

"Okay, I see your point," said Ali. "Maybe we should give them a chance to meet first."

 

"That's what I'm thinking," said Holly.

 

"But what if they don't get along?," asked Ali.

 

"That's what I'm trying not to think about," said Holly.

---

And so on another lazy afternoon on a grassy, dandelion-dotted hill in Grokton Municipal Park, this time in the early fall, Ali and Daisy found themselves once again basking in the sun. It was the same place where he and Holly had first met. Only this time there would be four of them.

 

Ali looked at his watch. Holly was supposed to have been here half an hour ago. He fished out his mediaphone and dialed her number.

 

"Hi hon," she said breathily as she picked up the phone. 'We're at the park now. It's not exactly easy trying to sneak a python out of the house, you know."

 

"Okay, no problem," said Ali. "See you soon."

 

Now he began to get nervous. He didn't know how Daisy was going to react. She had to know he was seeing other reptiles, though - animals had a sense about these things.

 

Maybe they'll get along, he thought. They're reptiles - they're like kindred spirits. They have so much in common - cold-bloodedness and... and basking, and..., he stumbled. Lots of things, he thought.

 

Daisy seemed to sense his nervousness, sniffing at him curiously. She then began to get a bit agitated herself, perhaps hearing something subsonic in the ground, something large and growing closer. She quickly stood up just as Holly and Rocky reached the top of the hill.

 

"Hi," said Holly, practically running to keep up with Rocky. "Sorry we're late, but-"

 

The rest of her sentence, and indeed anything that Ali or Holly said for the next five minutes or so, was completely obliterated by the deafening roar that bellowed from Daisy's jaws.

 

The roar reverberated off the trees and bounced off the clouds and echoed off of distant hills. It was followed by a few others, along with some angry growls and snarls. Rocky reacted by coiling up into an attack position, hissing loudly and preparing to strike.

 

It was safe to say that the meeting was not going well so far.

 

In fact, it only got worse. For a few tense minutes Daisy and Rocky circled each other, like gang members in a knife fight (but without all the snapping fingers and choreography). Then Daisy lunged at Rocky, clamping her jaws around his midsection. Rocky bit back, clamping his jaws on Daisy's neck. The reptiles snarled and tossed, Rocky wrapping himself around Daisy's giant torso and squeezing as Daisy frantically snapped at the tight coils.

 

All the while, Holly and Ali ran circles around their pets, frantically trying to calm them down. Ali picked up a sizable stick and began whipping at Daisy's legs, while Holly began tugging at Rocky's tail. After a few tense minutes of this, the reptiles gave each other one final bite before releasing their grip. Daisy stormed off in one direction and Rocky slithered off in the other.

 

"Well, that didn't go so well," said Ali as he watched his dinosaur recede into the distance.

 

"No, not so much," said Holly. "I gotta go," she said, looking uncharacteristically flustered. She ran off after Rocky, who had slithered off in the direction of a youth league tee-ball game and subsequently swallowed most of it.

 

"Me too," said Ali, following the broken branches and uprooted trees that marked Daisy's path of destruction. It was with mild relief that he realized that the path led home - at least she hadn't run off somewhere dangerous. When he arrived home, he found Daisy sulking in her dino house, curled up in a very large ball on the dirt floor.

 

"Daisy," he said, slowly walking in and standing in front of her snout. "What was that about?," he lectured - mildly, well aware that he was standing inches from the jaws of a tyrannosaur - "You know better than that."

 

The animal groaned and turned her head. Ali, undeterred, positioned himself in front of it once again, stroking the soft feathers gently. "Come on, Daisy - Holly's my girlfriend, and probably going to be a lot more than that soon. Rocky's her pet. Can't you try to get along?"

 

Daisy growled at this, once again turning her head away from Ali. The look in her eyes made it quite clear that Ali should let the subject rest, or there would be very unfortunate consequences. Ali took the hint and went inside. He tried calling Holly's mediaphone a few times, but she didn't answer. He hoped she was alright. He hoped they were alright. He hoped she'd call him the fuck back so they could figure out what to do.

 

Ali's mood became grim over the next few hours as he puttered and paced around the house, alternating between checking the phone to see if it was still connected to checking to see if Daisy had moved from her sulking position.

After far too much time spent pacing and puttering, Ali thought that perhaps dinner would coax Daisy out of her funk. He removed his clothing, seasoned himself, and walked into the dino house. He positioned himself in front of her snout once again, letting her get a good whiff of him.

 

The dino glanced at him briefly, then looked away.

 

"Come on, girl, you need to eat," he said, crouching in front of her nostrils and stroking her reptilian lips. Daisy didn't move, not even a lick. This was very unlike Daisy - normally he'd have been swallowed by now.

 

Perhaps smell alone wasn't enough, he thought. Maybe tasting him would wake up her appetite. He pushed his hands through her lips and patted her tongue gently, trying to rub his flavor onto it. He could her her stomach beginning to growl in response, but still she made no effort to eat him. In fact, her tongue seemed to be trying to avoid him.

 

Not ready to give up, Ali took hold of two of her front teeth and began to lift. With all his might, he pried open the massive jaws. His knees buckled and his back whimpered as he lifted the heavy skull, until finally he stood before the open maw. Not wanting to get caught between her teeth as her jaws slammed down, he quickly threw himself onto the bottom jaw and curled into a ball.

 

This turned out to have been unnecessary as Daisy left her jaws open, perhaps expecting Ali to pull himself back out again. When it was clear that Ali wasn't going to leave, she almost grudgingly closed her jaws around him.

 

Finally, thought Ali, bracing himself for a quick chew before she swallowed him. These events, too, failed to happen. Daisy left him trapped in her jaws, lying curled up on her motionless tongue. For perhaps half an hour he sat there in humid, toothy darkness, waiting in vain to be eaten. He then had the idea to force-feed himself to her, pushing his way into her throat and triggering her swallowing reflex.

 

This had rather the opposite effect, as it triggered her gag reflex instead. He felt the world suddenly shift and buck as Daisy got up and spat him out on the ground outside the dino house, followed by a small bit of foul-smelling bile. She then returned to the house and got back to her sulking.

 

Well that didn't quite go as planned, thought Ali to himself as he walked back into the house just in time to answer the ringing phone. On the other end of the line was a frantic Holly.

 

"I'm so glad you called," gasped a relieved Ali, dripping saliva and spices on the kitchen floor. "How are you and Rocky doing?"

 

"We're homeless," said Holly. "How about you?"

 

"What? What do you mean, homeless?"

 

"Oh, yeah. Turns out that several of my neighbors were at the park today. They all called to complain about my rampaging snake, and now we're being evicted. Nice, huh?"

 

"Shit,"

 

"You got that right. Now where am I supposed to go?" He could hear Holly trembling at the other end of the line. "I've got nowhere to go - I'm fucked with a capital fuck."

 

"No you're not," said Ali, "you could move in here."

 

"I'm sorry, what?" said Holly sarcastically. "Did you not see what happened at the park today? Our pets don't like each other too much, remember?"

 

"They just need to get to know each other, that's all," said Ali.

 

"Oh, is that all?," snapped Holly. "Do you think that'll happen before or after one of us gets killed?"

 

Ali sighed deeply and thought for a moment. "Okay, I have a plan," he said.

 

"Oh, good," she said. "Tell me."

 

He told her.

 

---

Ali woke up early the next morning and dialed Human Delivery, ordering three rather expensive Devrilians - people from the southwestern country of Devril prized by human-eaters worldwide for their excellent flavor. He then placed a quick call to Holly, who sounded as if she'd spent most of the night packing.

 

The three Nutrition Service Associates (as Human Delivery Corporation cheerfully refers to all its feeder employees) arrived at his door a bit under half an hour later. Ali cheerfully ushered them into the house, paying them all in cash with a rather generous tip. The two young men and one young woman looked around the living room, bewildered.

"Excuse me, mister, but who is to be eating us please," asked one of the young men.

 

"Yes, we were expecting you to be an ogre," said the young woman, looking at Ali rather curiously.

 

"Oh, no," said Ali, leading them towards the back door. "You're not for me. You're for my pet, Daisy."

 

"Ohhh," said the other young man, chuckling slightly. "What kind of pet Daisy is? A dog? Cat? Lizard?"

 

"Something like that," said Ali, opening the back door and ushering them out into the back yard. "Now be careful - she bites," he said, before shutting and locking the door. He took a step back and watched the three Devrilians lapse into utter panic as Daisy stirred from her house and roared at them quite loudly. The two men ran off screaming to opposite ends of the yard while the young woman turned and scrabbled desperately at the door handle.

 

"Please, mister, let me in," she screamed, her voice muffled by the thick, shatterproof glass. Her face bore a visage of sheer unadulterated terror as she scratched at the glass and yanked at the door handle. Ali couldn't help feeling a bit bad for the terrified woman, but then reminded himself that it was her job to get eaten and he'd paid her quite generously for her services. The woman's screams intensified as a large shadow fell over her. "Oh no, please help! No!," she screamed. "Mister! Please! I give your money back! I don't want to--"

 

Her words were abruptly cut off as her upper body was engulfed by a large pair of jaws that then lifted her kicking legs off the ground. By the time Daisy had stood up to her full height, the woman was already a very active lump in the dinosaur's belly.

 

Good, thought Ali. At least she's got her appetite back.

 

Ignoring the frantic screams from the other two feeders running around the back yard, Ali made his way to the front of the house and was relieved to see an industrial-sized horse-drawn carriage pull up on the street. He quickly headed out to meet it.

 

"You made it," he said, as Holly stepped out of the passenger compartment, which was stuffed to its limit with large coils of snake.

 

"Yeah, I wasn't able to knock Rocky out completely, though," said Holly, giving Ali a quick peck on the lips. "I only had half a gallon of tranquilizer."

 

"That'll be enough," said Ali. "let's get him inside quick, while Daisy's distracted."

 

There was still a lot of roaring coming from the back yard, but only one person screaming. Daisy had almost finished her breakfast. They had to move quickly.

 

Opening the back door, Ali and Holly coaxed the woozy python out of the carriage and into the yard. Getting him into the house proved a bit more difficult than they expected, but eventually they managed to coax Rocky into the door. As Ali slammed the door shut, he noted that the roaring and screaming from outside had ceased - Daisy had finished her breakfast. They'd made it just in time.

 

Of course, now there was the small issue of how Daisy would react upon learning that the python was now living in Ali's house, but Ali hoped that her temper would be moderated a bit by postprandial drowsiness. Watching through the back window, Ali and Daisy watched with relief as Daisy yawned and lay down in the yard for a blissful nap, her stomach bulging almost comically with its new inhabitants.

 

"See?" said Ali. "I told you this would work."

 

"Shh-don't jinx it," said Holly quickly.

 

In accordance with the laws of irony, Rocky chose this moment to slither into the back room and thump his head against the glass, attracting Daisy's attention. There was a stunningly violent roar, then a loud crunch as Daisy rammed her head against the window. The glass cracked and splintered but remained intact, prompting Ali to breathe a momentary sigh of relief knowing that his investment in shatterproof windows was not wasted.

 

This relief was indeed momentary, however, as Daisy then began kicking at the front gate. The horrible metallic crashes echoed through the neighborhood as the furious reptile kicked the gate, rammed it with her head, and batted it with her tail. The gate, Ali knew, was made of thick, tempered steel - she'd have a bit of difficulty breaking through it.

 

The hinges, however, were another story. After a good thirty seconds or so of kicking and ramming, the screws holding them sheared and gave way, causing the heavy gate to crash into the front yard. By the time Ali and Holly had run out of the house to see what had happened, Daisy was long gone, just a faint roaring sound in the distance, accompanied by lots of faint screaming sounds. She had, however, left a rather convenient trail of uprooted shrubs and overturned carriages down the street.

 

"Shall I go ahead and assume," said Holly as they began following the path of destruction, "that you had a Plan B prepared for this scenario?"

 

"Ah, hmm," said Ali, who hadn't. "Does 'wing it and hope we figure something out' count as a plan?"

 

"Works for me," said Holly. "Come on, let's go."

 

They half-walked, half-ran through the Grokton streets after Daisy, pausing at each damaged crushed gardens or broken tree branch to see which way she'd gone. As they left the residential areas and began entering Grokton's historic riverfront district, Ali began seriously to fret. Daisy on a rampage in a sparse suburb was one thing, but on a crowded urban street she could cause some serious damage. People could be hurt. People might even be killed.

 

The riverfront district was adjacent to the Lefke river, which presented another problem. Daisy couldn't swim. And to make matters even worse, the path she seemed to have taken led right to Grokton Falls, a wide, rocky expanse of very dangerous rapids at the fall line of the Lefke. If she fell into the river there, she'd not only kill herself, but also the three humans she'd had for breakfast.

 

Having come to this realization, it was with great distress that Ali and Holly noted that the roaring and screaming had stopped. Daisy had suddenly gone very quiet.

 

"Oh, shit," they said in unison as they sped through the park, following the trail of giant three-toed footprints over grass-covered hills and through deciduous woods. Their fears magnified as the sound of rushing water drew closer, and after a quick scramble over some fallen trees at the edge of the woods, they saw Daisy. She stood amid the crumbled boulders at the water's edge, as if contemplating her next move.

 

Ali and Holly paused before the clearing to watch the dinosaur and gauge Daisy's mood. She was staring at the water, motionless and silent. They couldn't tell whether the dinosaur was looking for a way across or contemplating throwing herself in. Either move was suicide, Holly and Ali knew, and they crept quietly over a decomposing log and into the clearing behind the silent tyrannosaur.

 

The silence was broken when Ali stepped on a twig, a noise that ordinarily would have caused Daisy to bolt around and attack whoever had created it. Ali froze in conditioned anticipation of the inevitable chomp, but it never came. Daisy's reaction, instead, was to lethargically turn her head and flash Holly and Ali a look of sheer soul-wrenching despair before staring back at the water.

 

"Daisy," lectured Ali, as his adrenaline response began to shift from flight to fight. "Bad girl! Why did you do that?" He approached the dinosaur, who just turned her head away from him.

 

This stoked Ali's anger even more. "Hey! I'm talking to you. Don't you run away like that again! We were worried sick about you!"

 

Daisy responded to this with a moderately aggressive growl, one that easily translated from Tyrannosauric to Edouedish as "back off."

 

Ali pressed on, standing defiantly in front of the dinosaur. Looking at her grossly distended stomach, he could see that she'd done some more snacking on the way here. There were at least six people packed in there now, maybe more. Ouch.

 

He continued lecturing, undeterred. "Don't you growl at me then I'm talking to you-"

 

"Ali," said Holly, approaching Daisy gingerly, "yelling at her isn't going to make this any better. Mind if I give it a shot?" She planted herself next to Ali, directly in front of the dinosaur.

 

"Go head," huffed Ali, stepping aside. "She's certainly not listening to me."

 

Daisy growled as Holly approached, a deep, guttural growl of spiteful anger. It was accompanied by a baring of Daisy's teeth intended to demonstrate that those many pliable but pointy objects, despite having evolved to grip and scare rather than rip and tear, could still be used to cause quite a lot of pain. The danger did not end with her jaws, either. With one stomp Daisy could crush her, with a whip of the tail Daisy could crush her skull, and with a kick Daisy could drown her in the rapids.

 

Holly knew she had to choose her words and actions carefully

 

"Daisy," said Holly, in her sweetest, most nurturing voice. "I know you can't understand my words, but I know you can feel my thoughts. So I'm going to make this as clear as I can. Nobody is going to take Ali away from you."

 

Daisy took a step back from the shoreline, cocked her head to the side, and growled again, albeit a bit less aggressively this time.

 

"Not me. Not Rocky. Not anyone," said Holly, approaching Daisy slowly, step by step. "The problem is that we both love the same man."

 

Ali perked up at this. He'd never heard Holly actually say it before. She'd always avoided using the term or even discussing it, citing a number of bad relationships in her past. He opened his mouth to respond, but Holly hushed him with a hand gesture.

 

"I know how you feel," said Holly, again stepping closer to the tyrannosaur. "I don't want to share him either."

Daisy's mood seemed to be changing - her growls becoming more inquisitive than aggressive, and she continued to slowly step away from Holly as if intimidated by the relatively puny human.

 

"Just like I don't want to see him with another woman, you don't want to see him with another reptile," said Holly, maintaining a very slow pursuit of the receding dino. "Rocky feels the same way about me. You wouldn't believe the guilt trips he's been giving me since we first met."

 

Daisy growled again, this time beginning as a deep rumble, then raising in pitch. Almost as if asking a question.

 

"Yes, really," said Holly. "You don't have to be jealous of him, and he doesn't need to be jealous of you. We're all one family now. Okay?"

 

Daisy stood up to her full height and seemed to ponder this for a while. She then leaned forward, her jaws opening as they descended toward Holly. Holly shut her eyes, braced herself for impact, and breathed a small sigh of relief as the wet raspy tongue repeatedly coated her top half in dinosaur saliva.

 

Holly giggled and wiped the sticky liquid from her face as Daisy crouched down, laying her head on the ground in front of Holly. Holly leaned forward and kissed the creature's head, right between the eyes, stroking the feathers lovingly. "Who's a good girl?," cooed Holly. "Who's a good dino-wino? Who's a good dinowinowino, hmm?"

 

Ali walked over and joined in, stroking Daisy's snout and scratching her behind where her ears would be if she'd had any. "Good girl, Daisy."

 

The dinosaur looked up at both of them with guilt and relief, flashing them a pair of puppy-dog eyes larger than a puppy. It was a thoroughly irresistible sight, and Ali and Holly couldn't help pampering the giant animal.

 

"I love you, too, by the way," said Ali, scratching Daisy's chin as she lay down and rolled onto her side.

 

"Good," said Holly, smiling sweetly as Daisy licked her hand, the dino's orangish eyelids shutting in pampered bliss.

Holly and Ali exchanged a long, sweet look into each others' eyes, followed by a long, sweet kiss. Sure, there'd be a lot of work to do eventually – a lot of cleaning up and mending gardens and reimbursing neighbors for damaged property. But it could wait. There were plenty of moments left in the day, and they could afford to hang on to this one for a little while.

 

Why all days couldn't be like this they didn't understand.

The End