Story: I Could Let You Make Me

I Could Let You Make Me

copyright 2020 Taedis

(Content Warning: Blood, Violence, 

Graphic Threats,Attempted Vore,
Predator/Prey Dynamics )

Submitted to SizeRiot's GentleApril2020

There was a road.

It wasn't the road to Hell or Heaven; it wouldn't take you back to childhood or forward to the grave. It was only a line of black asphalt and yellow paint connecting here to there. 

Which here and which there are another story.

On the east side of the road lived people; monsters on the west. The people called the monsters giants and the giants called the people prey

And that's all you need to know about that.

A god walked that road.

He wasn't the god of roads or travelers or stories. Just a god. Older than snot and half as pretty with clockwork clicking behind brown eyes, taking his half out of the middle, walking the road. 

He is me.

If you don't know who I am you should fuck the hell outta my fable before I bury you, pissant.

I was tightrope walking the double yellow when I heard the witch crying in the east and the hunter prowling in the west. She was handsome for a witch; he pretty for a killer. The clickety-clack between my ears told me to lay a trap. It took awhile fore I got around to it; longer for the trap to close.

Witch was gathering herbs close to the road when she heard hunter scream. Her training told her where he'd been bit without laying eyes on the wound. She just felt it like her own leg was caught in the metal teeth. Damn fool couldn't stop the sympathy pain running up her leg.

Hunter stopped screaming. Witch might've thought him dead if her leg didn't feel like it was being gnawed off by a robot. Where there's hurt, there's life, her momma'd told her. 

Witch used an old oak branch for a crutch and hobbled across the road into monster country. Half a mile in she started hearing metal scrape on metal. She passed a copse of yew and saw the giant hunter kneeling on his left knee trying to wedge his knife between the metal teeth that bit into the other ankle.

“Good morning, hunter.” 

Witch held her skirts in a curtsey big enough even hunter could see.

“I've had better, witch.” He tossed the dagger into the ground near her. The blade buried itself to the hilt. The hilt was taller than witch's cottage.

“My name's Nanjizal,” said witch. Her momma raised her polite.

“I don't give a toss what anyone from the Eats calls themselves.”

“East.”

“Don't care.”

“It was stupid of you. Getting caught in your own trap.”

“It was stupid of you getting in my reach.”

Witch stepped back out of the shadow of the knife.

“What were you hunting?” she asked.

“Nightmares.”

“Yours or mine?”

“There's not enough meat on one of yours to coat a cracker.”

“What's your name?”

“Trevescan.”

“What do you plan to do now, Trevescan?”

“Die.”

“There's a saying. 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall'.”

“Comforting. I'll be sure to land on you, Nanjizal.”

“I could get you out.”

“I'm sure you can do great wonders and shit marigolds.”

“I got power. Some.”

“You expect me to be grateful if ya do?”

“I think you'll eat me.”

“You're smarter than you smell, witch.”

“You could promise not to.”

“I've gone 30 years and never gone back on my word. I don't aim to make promises I know I'm gonna break.”

“It don't have to be like that.”

“We can't change our nature. I'm looking at you now and thinking how that brain of yours'll go down like a fresh picked raspberry. Want me to tell you how I'd scoop it from your skull while I bleed out or would you rather watch me die laconic like?”

“What if I had a way I could save you and make it so you couldn't eat me?”

“I'd call you a gallon of bullshit in a half pint box.”

“I'm not joking.”

“It's not like I can stop ya talkin'.”

“I'm offering blood contract.”

“For how long?”

“A year, a month, a week, and a day.”

“All the math's bled outta me, what's that for real?”

“403 days.”

“What happens day 404?”

“You go free.”

“What's stopping me from eating you then?”

“Nothin'.”

“Only a fool saves the life of the man who's gonna kill her. You a fool, Nanjizal?”

“When I see damage I want to fix it. That's my nature. Right now the pain's flowing into you to fill the hole left by all that missing blood. Won't be long till there's nothing but hurt in your veins. It burns me not staunching it. It'll end me if I don't.”

“Fucked if ya do, fucked if ya don't.”

“We gonna do this?”

“Your funeral.”

There was plenty of blood for witch's contract. Pools of the stuff scabbing under the metal teeth. Witch dipped a finger in that inkwell and wrote the words everywhere. On hunter. The metal mouth eating his ankle and shitting out his pain. Her. Witch ran out of places to put all those words so she started writing in the air so fast the ink of his blood caught fire.

Hunter looked down at witch. Thought she was killing him till he felt the mouth open and the bite wound close. He took a tick to notice how much bigger witch was getting. A tock or two before his thinking wrapped around the truth.

Witch kept making hunter small. When he slipped out the metal mouth she shrunk that too. When hunter was tiny enough he could look her in the eye without bending down witch ran her fingers through his hair. Wrote more of her contract in fire and blood on his scalp.

When witch was done hunter was a tiny little thing in a cage made outta the metal mouth that'd chawed on him. Witch worked them both onto the chain she wore till hunter's cage dangled between her bosom and hunter's back could feel the pounding of her heart.

“404 days till I eat you.” 

“But not today.” Witch was exhausted from all that magicking. “Hush. I gotta get my rest if I'm gonna live long enough to keep your promise.”

That's how they good-nighted from then on. Witch would walk the East healing and hymning all day; hunter'd gripe and fuss about the cage or the heat. He weren't shy telling her when she needed a bath neither. 

And each night when she lay them down, in witch's cottage or under a star ceiling, hunter'd count down another day closer to eating his savior. 

“400 days till …”

“300 days till I …”

“200 days till I eat …”

“100 days till I eat you.” 

“But not tonight.” witch'd always reply. “Hush. I gotta get my rest if I'm gonna live long enough to keep your promise.”

Witch put her hand on her breast after that letting her calloused fingers become his sky; her heartbeat his bed. Hunter slept better than he'd admit.

One morning hunter woke inside a mouth.

At first he was pissed at witch's treachery. Pissed and relieved she'd done the bright thing. When he still felt her heavy breaths pushing on his back he knew they were both screwed.

“Who in the Sam Fuck's mouth am I in?” hunter yelled. His body mighta been jewelry sized, but his mouth could be giant when it had to.

“Trevescan?” The lady's voice mighta sounded pretty if witch and hunter weren't swimming in it.

“This is my prey, Trevilley. I've marked her, tasted her, everything but swallowed her. You leave her be.”

The giant spat 'em into the palm of her hand. Witch was easy to see; giant had to squint to notice hunter.

“What the fuck you doing down there, cuz?” giant asked hunter.

“Never you mind.”

“I saved his …” witch started to speak. Giant flicked a finger into her head; witch went silent.

“If you killed her, I will end you.” Hunter gripped the cage so tight he could feel his hot fingers melt the steel.

“Big talk. I'd be scared if you weren't small enough for prey to eat.”

“I spent too much on this magic to piss it away for the first piece of valley trash to walk by. I'll take it outta your hide if you force my hand.”

“And if I swallow you first?”

“I will grow inside your belly like a cancer baby. I will grab hold of the ass end of your throat and climb my way up. I will clog your windpipe as I expand. I won't give you time to choke before I punch through your spine and turn that ugly face of yours into a sock puppet.”

“You're bluffing.”

“Probably.”

Giant tried to read hunter's expression, but it was like playing poker with a flea.

“Filthy little bitch like that'd just give me gas,” giant sour-grapesed. “If you love her so much get a room or get a ring.”

Giant tossed 'em both down and trudged off.

Witch weren't moving. Hunter didn't like the way her breathing felt under his feet as he rage melted through the cage bars. He'd watched witch heal sicker folk in the year he'd spent stuck on her breast. Knew where she kept the herbs and potions that'd make her right. 

It weren't easy. Or quick. Witch's smallest pouch was bigger than him. Hunter made the circuit from pouch to mouth to bottle more times than he could count. The herbs he carried on his back like a farmer bringing in wheat. The blue liquid he carried in his mouth and spit into hers. He didn't like the looks of the bruises he was walking on, but there was shit he could do about 'em.

Witch's breathing grew stronger. Hunter welded himself back into his cage before she woke.

“Trevescan?” 

“Yeah.”

“I taste turmeric.”

“So?”

“What happened?”

“You should sleep.”

“That sounds good.”

“Nanjizal.”

“Yes, Trevescan?”

“34 days till I eat you.”

-----

Witch found a clearing that final night. Erasing the words was harder than writing them. Specially the ones writ on air. When she rubbed the blood off hunter's scalp they locked eyes. Witch was going to miss him. 

Hunter grew into the empty space. The cage stayed a cage, but he weren't in it.

“Time for you to keep your promise, hunter.” 

“Why are you emptying your pouches, witch?”

“Some of my herbs might poison you, my dear.”

“Why are you taking off your dress, witch?”

“I don't want you to choke on it, my love.”

Witch walked naked onto hunter's palm. Hunter put witch in the cave of his mouth and sealed the opening with stone teeth.

“Tonight I eat you, Nan.”

“Yes. Now hush. If I'm gonna let you keep your promise I gotta take my final rest.”

Hunter swallowed witch.

If you thought my trap was that metal mouth that almost killed hunter way back when, stop reading. That's the ending you deserve.

If you thought this old god of love's got better tricks up his sleeve than a bear trap. And patience to sit 404 days waiting for his tender plan to snap shut. You get the real end.

Witch didn't make it past hunter's uvula fore he spit her up. He was too ashamed to look at her, he just lay her on the ground near her clothes and stared at the tree tops.

“You didn't eat me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You're not worth it.”

“I'm not?”

“You're scrawny.”

“You made a promise.”

“I did.”

“Does this mean you changed?”

“Fuck, no.”

“But your promise.”

“You're not even a bite. How can I eat you when you're not even a bite?”

“How much bigger would I have to be? To be a bite?”

“400 pounds. Three feet taller.”

“That's a lot.”

“Like I said, not worth it.”

“Maybe I could stick around with you.”

“Why?”

“You could fatten me up. See if I grow. We could keep company in the meanwhile.”

“I don't know.”

“I could let you make me.”

“All right.”