Such Stuff

Part I

Mind the Dodo

'If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.'

Lizzie had clapped and clapped at the conclusion of the play. It had been mar­vellous. Bottom and Puck had been so funny, the fairy folk so beautifully dressed in their leaves and petals. She wished it could have gone on forever.

Elizabeth Sherrell was eighteen years old. Her parents had taken Lizzie as a birthday treat to see a performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare. She was studying Shakespeare at school and was plan­ning to go on to university to take an English degree. She had always liked books. Plays had been a revelation.

Back home from the performance she prepared to go to bed. Lizzie stood, still excited from the evening's performance with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, looking at herself in the mirror. She was completely naked and rather pleased with what she saw. Her long fair, almost yellow, hair hung loose now over her creamy shoulders. It was freshly brushed and shining. Her blue eyes looked steadily out of the mirror at her and her full lips broke into a smile as she considered herself. She raised a hand and touched her right breast. Yes, it really was slightly larger than the left. The nipple, slightly dis­tended, rose from a rather pointed aureole. Her breasts did always look a bit like puppy dogs' noses pointing, as she had heard her father say to her mother be­fore he was roundly scolded. They were very pale pink. Lizzie lifted both breasts in her hands. She was pleased they were a respectable size, filling her hands, not like her friend Charlotte's. Lotte was flat chested, poor thing; she had nice brown nipples, Lizzie supposed, but no substance. They did not fill her blouse or give her a cleavage. Many a time the two friends had padded Lotte out for a party, giggling about it but it was a shame nonetheless. Lizzie caressed her breasts. She was pleased she had proper boobs.

Glancing down, she looked at her flat tummy with a tucked away tummy button. A sort of vertical oval dip. She had thought about having it pierced. Her mummy was of course against it but... Absently her hand dropped and she stroked the fair hair below her tummy. Already her sex was well covered with fine fair curls. She had tidied it up around the edges last summer, when she was wearing a bikini, but had not bothered since. She looked again at the mirror and moved one thigh coyly ahead of the other. Yes she did look pretty down there with her golden curls and quite wide hips: not too wide mind you. She half turned and regarded her bottom. Nice and round, she knew she had a bit of a wiggle when she walked and the boys turned to look at it. Lotte had told her.

Turning back she wondered what it was like to fully shave down there. A bit of a bother as it would just grow back again, rather like men's beards. Would it look better like that?

Lizzie picked up her nightdress. It was a birthday present. An old-fash­ioned looking white cotton nightdress like her great-grandmother might have worn. It went right down to her ankles and had long sleeves with lots of tucks and bows. Across the front flowers were embroidered. Lizzie thought it very pretty and was really pleased with it. She raised her arms, her breasts tight­ened, and she dropped the nightdress down over her head, covering her naked body. She switched off her light.

"Sweet dreams Lizzie," called her mother.

Lizzie slipped under her duvet and thought back over the day. It had been lovely; she smiled as she went through the many happy memories of the day. There was only one jarring note. When she had been in the bookshop down the road she had noticed the young man at the till watching her. It was, of course, natural for shopkeepers to watch customers but she had been unusually conscious of his attention. She had had a closer look at him when she went to pay for her books. His eyes behind black-rimmed glasses peered at her from under lank greasy hair. He had on a rather garish yellow tie, which stood out in contrast to his black shirt.

"Read this," he said tapping a book on the counter before him.

Lizzie glanced at the cover, "I've read it," she said shortly not liking his peremptory manner. "I read it years ago... and the sequel."

He added up the prices of her books, took her money and put them in a paper bag.

"Good," he said, "I'm pleased you have, and thank you for your purchas­es."

Lizzie left the shop thinking she would try and not go there again, though it was convenient and so a bit difficult to avoid.

Pushing the unpleasant young man from her mind, she settled herself for sleep, drawing her knees up inside her nightdress and hugging herself as she had done since she was little. Her excitement at the day kept her awake for a time but eventually she drifted off.

Lizzie dreamt, she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to hap­pen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

"Well!" thought Lizzie to herself, "after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! Funny, yes funny peculiar, this all seems strangely fa­miliar. I'm sure I should know where I am."

Down, down, down. Would the fall NEVER come to an end! "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she thought and then paused, "That is fa­miliar, rather a familiar thought, I...yes I know what this is, I know where I am. I'm Alice just after she has fallen down the rabbit hole. Well, that's all right, no need to worry, I shall fall on a heap of sticks and dry leaves in a moment." and she did.

Lizzie got up and began looking for the White Rabbit and there he was turning a corner almost out of sight, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" he muttered. Lizzie found she was in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall, but they were all, as she knew they would be, locked.

"No problem," she thought to herself and looked for the little three-legged table, all made of solid glass. It was there and, as she expected, there was noth­ing on it except a tiny golden key. "Now that opens a little door, but where is it?" She found it behind a low curtain. It was about fifteen inches high. Natu­rally she tried the little golden key in the lock, and of course it fitted!

Lizzie opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. "It would be good to get out among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains," thought Lizzie, "but first I need to be smaller and shut up like a telescope! Now I mustn't make the mis­take Alice did of leaving the key in the lock, or it will end up on the table just after I have drunk the bottle with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters." She carefully and sensibly put the key in her pocket and turned back to the table. She smiled and picked up the bottle which had ap­peared, as if on cue, and drank it. The liquid had a pleasant flavour, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast.

"What a curious feeling!" said Lizzie; 'I must be shutting up like a tele­scope." She found herself much smaller than she had been. All seemed to be working to plan or rather by reference to 'Alice in Wonderland' but when she turned back to the door fishing in her pocket at the same time she found there was no key in it and the door was closed. "Bother," thought Lizzie, "just as in the book." She looked up and there she saw the little golden key back on the table now high above her head.

Lizzie was now only about ten inches high. "Damn, I can't outwit the dream. What happens next? Oh yes the cake! This is fun, I do like being a little girl again." She smoothed down the wide skirts of her dress and skipped off to find the very small cake, on which the words 'EAT ME' would be beautifully marked in currants.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Lizzie with glee as she ate the cake, "I've said it, I've said it! Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet! Oh... hello boobs, where did you come from? Well that is certainly curious, Alice doesn't age when she gets bigger, all she does is get taller, grow a long neck and hit the ceiling." Looking at herself without a mir­ror, and with a quick feel here and there, she established that she now had the body of a young woman rather than a little girl.

While she was checking herself, her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and just as Alice had done she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door. Of course she could not even see through the door much less get through it and like Alice she sat down and began to cry. Dreams are not reality and before long Lizzie saw she had shed gallons of tears that had formed a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

"What now? Oh yes the White Rabbit comes by and drops his fan and that makes me small again," thought Lizzie drying her eyes, and after a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance.

The Rabbit came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!"

Lizzie said, "Boo". The Rabbit started violently, dropped his white kid gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. Lizzie knew what to do. Picking up the fan between two fingers she fanned herself down to about two feet high, Lizzie started off at a run to get to the lit­tle glass table and the key but her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! She was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, but she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears, which she had wept when she was nine feet high. She swam about but soon heard splashing a little way off and swam over to meet the Mouse.

The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, which was a little bit off putting. Lizzie, remembering the book, tried very hard not to mention cats and soon she and the Mouse were talking away at a great rate. They swam around together and whilst Lizzie was very happy with the conversations, she thought the Mouse did seem to touch her 'where it shouldn't' more often than strictly could be put down to accident. Lizzie noticed the pool was strangely getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Ea­glet, and several other curious creatures. Lizzie led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.

The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, talking did not seem to dry anyone and Lizzie was as wet as she could be. The Dodo, rising to its feet, proposed, "that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies." The Mouse looked sur­prisingly interested at this point and made an improper suggestion.

"What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone, was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."

"What IS a Caucus-race?" asked Lizzie.

"Why,' said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it."

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ("the exact shape doesn't matter," it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began run­ning when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. Suddenly the Dodo stopped them.

"I do not think you will get dry at all like that!" he said looking at Lizzie.

"I beg your pardon, like what please?"

"With all those wet clothes on, they are too numerous and too wet. You'll catch your death of cold with those on. Please disrobe at once."

"Which clothes, my dress and...."

"No, everything, everything," the animals said in chorus.

Lizzie did not like to offend them, but she was conscious she now had the body of a young woman not the girl who had fallen down the well. So rather re­luctantly and rather slowly, item-by-item, she slipped off her wet dress and petticoats and stood there naked. The animals watched her with expressions of great interest. She felt exposed like that but of course, she reasoned, none of the animals wore clothes so it was all right, really.

The animals set off at a run again without any apparent command, round and round and in and out they ran in no particular order or direction. Lizzie ran as well, conscious of her naked breasts, with their pointy nipples, bounc­ing as she ran. She did not think her bottom bounced whilst she ran as, even though it was nicely rounded, her friend Lotte had once commented there was no unnecessary weight. All the running soon dried Lizzie but still the animals kept running, they must have been running half an hour or so, Lizzie was build­ing up a sweat and getting hotter and hotter. She was sure that whilst running it was not just the mouse that bumped into her every so often or touched her bottom or breasts, when she ran past. She was sure it was deliberate and they were taking advantage of her nakedness. She really was very hot; and then the Dodo ran straight into her, its beak going straight between her legs and wedg­ing there with its top right along her sex. Lizzie stopped dead still, surprised and shocked.

The muffled voice of the Dodo suddenly called out "The race is over!" Lizzie hardly heard it, all she could take in was the hard beak pushed between her legs, touching her. She began to wriggle to dislodge it, but it stayed fast pushed up against her sex; as she moved it rubbed against her; she panted and tossed and turned but still could not dislodge it. Lizzie's sweaty body twisted, sticking to the sheets, the animals fading away into the darkness, and Lizzie woke in her own bed close to orgasm with her right hand pushed hard between her legs panting with excitement, her body hot and sticky, the room dark around her.

Despite enthusiastic use of her fingers she could not, in the end, bring her­self over the top. She lay back, a little frustrated, and thought back over the strange dream. It had been quite a good dream though she had been rather sur­prised by the sexual imagery and its effect on her. That had not happened be­fore, so far as she remembered. It was rather a surprise. She did love 'Alice', loved both the books, and the dream had all been so vivid to her though, in the manner of dreams, quite a bit different from the book. Smiling to herself she drifted back to sleep.