You don't run. Elizabeth has protected you practically from puberty. How long would you last, out on your own without her? Awhile, perhaps. Maybe the year your marital exemption would take to expire, if Elizabeth didn't revoke it first and some do-gooder doesn't drag you back to face the fury of your wife's intestines. Surely not much longer than that.

Suddenly you have the sense of what it might be like to be diagnosed with some terminal disease.

Besides, you love your wife.

So you don't run. Instead, you check the Chinese-style crispy-duck carcass roasting in the oven. Elizabeth has chopped the spring-onions, and poured hoi-sin sauce into a little jug. Perhaps wisely, she's left the difficult but quick task of cooking the pancakes to you. Not that any of that will be necessary.

The duck's crispy all right. As in burnt-to-a. Ruined.

But if you're quiet, you can manage to listen in on your wife and daughter's conversation.

“You understand that we're still going to punish you, right?” Elizabeth is asking Connie. “You broke a house rule. You broke a promise to your father. And you're not going to be able to enjoy the meal I've been slaving over,” Elizabeth finishes lightly.

“Mom...” Connie replies slowly, “about that last one... your cooking...”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth answers with melancholy. “Not a skill I spent much time on, as a voring young woman. Didn't think I'd ever need it. Better to just grab a snack off the street. But then I met your father, and,” you can practically hear the little palm-up gesture she makes when she tosses things to the fates. “So, this boy. Do you think he might be the one?”

“Mom!” Connie complains, “I've been with him for a week and a half. How am I supposed to know!?”

“I knew within a minute of meeting your father,” Liz replies dreamily. “Good thing, too. I was about to eat him.” Connie gasps. It's likely she's only heard the sanitized version of how-I-met-your-mother, before now. “Well, not that I'd marry and have two beautiful and voracious daughters with him,” she amends. “That came later. But you just... know.” Her tone with Connie turns severe. “Don't let him get away from you, if he is. Some other girl will surely snap him up. One way or another. I would like granddaughters one day, you know,” she says wistfully.

“So, your punishment,” she says more cheerily. “First, no vore for four weeks.”

“Aww, mom,” Connie protests loudly. And surprisingly. All my girls are only supposed to be voring what they need to satisfy a Voraphile Organisation Regulatory Enforcement investigation. Which means once a month, and Connie's just had hers. Which is what she's being punished for.

“No. You're attitude to the rules needs amending, so I'll be seeing that you stick to them for awhile. And I'll be speaking to your teachers, too,” Liz continues sternly. “Whatever... flexibility they and I may have allowed you away from this house is rescinded. For the rest of the month.”

Which means Connie's whining has just earned her a half-week respite on her sentence to follow rules her mother and I had previously agreed on. Which my wife has apparently been bending into a pretzel. For Connie... and for Anne and herself, too?

“You'll need to learn some self-restraint, or there won't be any boys left in that college we're sending you too once you get out from under our wing, understand?” Liz says with a smile in her voice.

“Sure, mom,” Connie replies.

“Second, your father and I will want to meet this boy of yours. End of next month. Plan on it. If you don't know that he's the right one before then, then he's not. And if you don't eat him, I will,” Elizabeth says to her daughter's gasp of shock.

“Mom!” She protests. “You can't do that!”

“Can. Will.” Elizabeth replies. “One way or another, he's becoming part of this family. As your husband, or in you. Or me,” she says, her voice turning wicked. “Third, I'm sending you to your room.” Elizabeth instructs. “Without dinner,” she continues after a beat.

A peal of girlish laughter rings from the living room, hushing into twin sounds of conspiratorial giggles, and you're reminded that no matter what they've done, you love your wife and daughters both.

You can hear Connie's footsteps on the stairs. “Connie,” her mother calls after her, and the footsteps stop. You can barely hear the whispers that follow.

Do you..?