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“And I have to say, this boar is an excellent catch. How did you ever manage to get your hands on it?” the man asked, seeming to marvel at the recently deceased hog on display.
“I caught three of them, actually, just the other day. I sold off the other two some hours ago; too bad I couldn’t sell this one- unless you’re looking to buy?” she replied.
This man had been admiring her wares for some time now, but had yet to make an offer on anything. Now the sun was getting low, and what’s more she was running out of time. In truth, it seemed he was much more interested in something else that happened to be on display. His eyes came to rest on her face, and he paused to take in the sight once more before speaking.
“That’s quite impressive! And your produce is impressive as well. You’re quite something Ms….”
“Amilea,” she replied, then added, with a noticeably forced air of courtesy, “But you can call me Ami.”
“Well, Ms. Ami, if I may say you have some beautiful goods for sale here… beauty rivaled only by yourself.” He gave her that look again. She might have even blushed if not for a particular worry that continued to grow at the back of her mind.
“Oh, well thank you Mr.-”
“John,” he interjected.
“Yes, Mr. John, I do appreciate the compliment, but it’s growing late; I’ll need to be on my way soon. Is there something you would like before I go?” She gestured toward her cart (and away from herself). His eyes stayed on her, but something in his expression shifted, he was starting to get the hint.
“Yes, well, I suppose the sun is getting on,” he replied. “Do you not have anyone to help you pack up? To escort you home?” he asked. She smiled slightly, he actually sounded quite genuine; like he was asking to make amends rather than to hit on her.
“No, but it isn’t any trouble. I have Belle here to help me haul everything back,” Ami replied, pointing to a horse grazing nearby.
“I see…” John replied. He paused for a moment and frowned, obviously a bit disappointed. Then he reached for his belt and brought up a small pouch. He peeked inside and rummaged around to the clear sound of coin, then withdrew with a small handful.
“Here,” he said, handing her the money. “I’d be happy to accept that boar from you. I hope it will lighten your load.” Ami took the coins and counted, it was more than a fair offer. Her smile widened.
“Much appreciated,” she replied. She deposited the payment into a box on her cart then took the rather large hog into her arms and offered it to him. He seemed a bit surprised at this, but quickly concealed the reaction and reached out to receive his purchase.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help- oof!” The man nearly lost his balance as he took on the full weight of the boar, struggling to hold it up.
“No, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Now I don’t mean to be rude but I really do need to be going,” she replied before he had a chance to continue. And then she added, rather pointedly, “And you should really be headed home as well.”
“Yes *grunt* very well *grunt* I hope I can see you again, Ms. Ami *grunt*” He turned and walked off in the direction he had come, obviously having a hard time. She smiled again and resisted the urge to giggle. He’s actually kind of cute, she admitted inwardly.
Then she felt it again. Oh, I’d really better get going, she told herself.
She took her eyes off him and turned back to the cart, quickly closing up the back hatch with practiced ease and calling for her horse. Hooking Belle in, she sat on her seat and grabbed the reins. The shadows were growing long as twilight took the world.
“Let’s hurry home, girl,” she said, “I’ve been keeping this up for too long already.”
…
“I’m sure I saw her go this way…” John reassured himself, squinting through the dim light as his horse plodded slowly along. He thought he could still make out the cart tracks, but this path wasn’t one he had ever seen before. In fact it was far off from any other homestead he knew of, and aside from the tracks the landscape seemed rather untraveled.
“Ah-ha, there!” he exclaimed as he noticed the shadowed form of Ami’s cart up ahead. He eagerly spurred his horse on until he reached it, then hurriedly dismounted, retrieving a bundle of flowers from his saddlebag.
The cart was still loaded with the produce she had been selling and her horse’s saddle and other riding implements were lying in the dirt nearby, but there was no sign of her, nor her horse. It seemed as though the cart and equipment were abandoned in a hurry. Looking a bit further up the trail, he thought he could make out some footprints as well as some hoofprints, proceeding around a bend. Leading his horse with the reins in one hand and flowers in the other, he slowly followed the path. It wasn’t too long before he heard an ever-so-familiar voice.
“Ooooh, that’s much better, isn’t it, Belle?”
“Ms. Amilea? Ami? Are you out there?” John called.
No response came, so he followed the narrow trail the rest of the way ‘round the bend. Finally, he caught sight of the woman he had come searching for, along with her mount. They were barely visible in the late twilight, but he was sure it was her.
“Ms. Ami,” he called again, releasing his horse’s reigns and approaching at a quick pace, flowers extended. “Please forgive me for following you, but I just could not help myself.” He saw the figure move, turning to face him. He smiled as she started to move toward him, becoming more recognizable the closer she got.
…But something was strange, he couldn’t see her legs moving. Had she changed into a dress? A nightgown perhaps?
“Mr. John? Is that you?” she asked.
“Yes, it is I… Ms…” he trailed off as a cloud moved on, exposing the night’s first beam of moonlight. It cast itself over them, in what would have otherwise been a perfect romantic setting, except for one thing…
“Ahhhhhhhh!” John screamed. His eyes grew wide and he quickly turned and tried to run, but a firm hand grabbed him by the ankle, sending him to the ground and knocking the flowers from his hand. A peculiar sound, like something hurriedly sliding through the dirt, caught his ear and he felt something smooth suddenly wrap itself around his body with alarming speed. He heard his horse whinny in alarm, only to start galloping away, out of sight.
He tried to cry for help, for his horse, for anyone, but a hand covered his mouth. Slowly, he was rotated face-up, and a familiar face came into view. He silenced his muffled scream, and Ami removed her hand. He felt himself being lifted upright by the strange mass that surrounded him, and his eyes focused on her face.
“Oh, John…” Ami sighed and looked away from him, regret clear on her face. “Did you really have to follow me here?” she asked rhetorically. She could feel him begin to shake in her grasp as he took in what he could see of her body. His gaze fell from her familiar face, down over her shirt to her hips. But instead of pants, he saw what appeared to be a layer of snake-like scales, cascading over a distinctly serpentine body, which disappeared into the mound of winding coils that now enveloped his every inch below the neck.
“Ami… what… what is this?” he asked. She forced herself to look back at him.
“I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have ever seen me like this. I’m usually much more careful. But I’ve been holding my human form for so long, I just couldn’t wait to relax.”
John just stared back at her in fear and disbelief.
“Oooh, I really am sorry about this Mr. John, but the screamers always try and run for help.” Ami said.
The warm mass around him shifted, lifting his feet up to her face. She released a single coil of her long form, revealing his boots, and she reached out her all-too-human hands to grab them. Undoing the lases with unnerving ease, she pulled them off, one by one. She took his socks as well, exposing his feet to the cool night air, but elected to stop there.
“Wh- what are you doing?” he asked. Ami just looked at him with sympathetic eyes. And then she opened her mouth.
He felt the cold night quickly give way to striking warmth as his feet were guided through her lips. At first he seemed confused, unsure of what this meant, until he felt his toes begin to slide over the back of her tongue, her mouth and throat stretching visibly.
He tried to scream again as he realized what was happening, but a swift hand silenced him. He felt his ankles pass over her tongue as his legs began to follow, beginning a distinct bulge that stretched down her throat. He tried to struggle, but her coils gripped him tight, slowly and effortlessly guiding him toward her as they shifted around him.
Before long, Ami had to remove her hand so she could unwind her furthest coil, leaving his head exposed as his knees were slowly slipped past her teeth- past her fangs. This gave him another chance to speak.
“Please, let me go! Stop!” he pleaded. But Ami wasn’t exactly in a position to reply, and she had well passed the point of bargaining. He looked down from her still-sympathetic eyes to see his knees being effortlessly swallowed up by the slimy abyss that was her maw. The warm, slick muscles that surrounded his lower legs pulsed rhythmically, pulling him deeper with increasing force.
“This can’t be real, it must be a nightmare!” he declared, only to have his thigh brush one of her fangs, sending a shiver up his spine- something which they both felt. Reflexively, he tried kicking his legs, but he found that her coils held him even more tightly on the inside than outside. The warmth was sinking into him now, as the wetness of her maw seeped through his pants and covered the skin beyond.
Ami stretched her mouth wider, even blushing slightly as she guided the man’s waist and rear deftly over her tongue. She released another coil to keep John’s head exposed as she drew him closer, deeper.
“Please! No, this can’t be happening!” he insisted. But he could still feel the warmth spreading up over him as he watched his body disappear from view. He could feel every inch of her warm, slimy insides in unimaginable detail, all while her scales gleamed faintly in the fresh moonlight, and her eyes stared out at him, still apologetic, even now. He felt the warmth rise over his navel.
“Ami, please, don’t do this! I won’t tell a soul! I’ll- I’ll take a vow of silence! I’ll do anything you want, please!” he pleaded. Her eyes shifted, growing a bit sadder, but she did nothing to halt his progress inside.
Now that he was close enough, he tried using his hands to push back against the imposing jaws. But it quickly became clear that the pull from within was far too strong, and the coils that still wrapped around him left his outstretched arms nowhere else to go but into the gaping maw along with the rest of him. Now he was inside up to his chest, his legs curving as they followed the contours of Ami’s serpentine form from within.
Trembling uncontrollably now, he began looking back and forth between Ami’s eyes and her encroaching lips as they slowly made their way up his torso. His breathing was shallow and irregular, every inhale forcing his belly up against the firm muscles of her throat. He could feel her fangs as they gently traced a line up his shirt.
A terrifyingly short moment later and he felt his shoulders passing through as Ami released her final coil. Her lips folded over his collar, sealing the vast majority of him inside. As he felt her mouth slowly creeping up his neck, he saw the very tip of her tail come into view above him. She touched his forehead with it, ever so gently, and brushed his hair to one side, looking him in the eyes one final time.
“Ami, no! Please! Ami-”
*gulp*
Ami closed her eyes as she felt the last of John slide past her tongue. His body now fully held by hers, she wasted no time squeezing him down her length, on through her humanoid torso and into her serpentine depths, finally letting him rest after he was buried deep within her lengthy stomach.
“Ami! Ami, please! Let me out!” came John’s muffled voice. She turned herself to face the lump in her form.
“I’m sorry Mr. John, I can’t do that. No one can know what I am; I can’t have anyone finding out again. And the screamers always run for help eventually.”
“But why swallow me up like dinner!? Why not just break me at once and get it over with!?” He asked in despair.
“Oh, Mr. John, please! I couldn’t bear to do such a thing!” Ami replied, cringing slightly at the mere thought.
“So you swallow me up so your foul belly can do your dirty work!? What’s going to happen to me in here!?” he asked frantically.
“Well, you’ll fade away and become another meal,” she answered.
“Fade away!?”
“Yes, you will fall into a final sleep, and you will fade away inside of me.”
“I will do no such thing!” he insisted, beginning to struggle.
“Come now Mr. John, you can feel it already, can’t you? Feel the sleep coming,” she soothed. But he continued to struggle, growing even more violent. “Please Mr. John, it will be better for both of us if you just sleep,” she insisted.
“No! I refuse to end my life as a midnight snack for some godforsaken creature! Let me out this instant!” he demanded. Ami felt a tear come to her eye, not only because of his words, but because she felt something begin to change within her belly as it tightened around her new prey.
“John, please. You really need to sleep now, before it begins,” she pleaded. But it seemed he was done listening. Instead he was screaming, cursing, struggling as violently as he could. Oh, she hated when they did this, all it did was make her belly start things faster, and it was always up to her to end it. Ami slowly began to coil her tail around the bulge in her form, wrapping it in as many layers as she could.
“You should’ve listened, Mr. John,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “You should have listened when I told you to go home. And you should have listened when I told you to go to sleep…”
Suddenly, the sounds coming from within changed. His shouts suddenly grew much louder, much shriller; desperate, bloodcurdling screams that penetrated even through the many layers of Ami’s body. They were screams of agony; digestion was starting.
“I’m sorry…” she said one last time. And then she squeezed. She constricted her coils tightly around her own form, crushing in against her belly. Her body was strong and flexible, she could take the pressure, but the poor creature in her belly could not. She heard a dull, sickening crunch as she felt the body within her give way, and then the forest was suddenly silent.
Releasing herself and letting her gaze drift to the ground, she caught sight of the bundle of flowers resting in the dirt. She reached down and picked them up, giving them a mournful sniff. She sighed.
“Come on now, Belle, time to turn in. It’s been a long day.”