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This is a humorous fic, essentially a shaggy dog story, or maybe a shaggy bat story. If you've seen the movie, you'll recognize where in Meier and Charlotte's flight it is set, but you don't need to have seen the movie to appreciate it. Rated R for sexual content.

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Meier's silent command set the horses following the center of the river -- a route that would confound most types of motorized conveyance. Satisfied that this course would carry them safely to Barbarois, Meier dropped the reins. One moment he was on the coachman's perch; the next, like darkness descending, he was inside the carriage, and Charlotte sat before him. She gazed up into his eyes, and a hand as gentle as it was pallid touched her chin.

Her stomach growled.

"Oh my dear." Meier looked contrite. Human foodstuffs had not numbered among his preparations for the journey, to his increasing embarrassment. The only thing he was certain of about the human diet was that it sometimes included apple pie. And apples were out of season.

Charlotte looked embarrassed too. "It's all right," she assured him. "We're together, Meier. I'll be fine as long as I have you."

This statement would have carried more weight if her stomach hadn't punctuated it with another growl.

"We'll be at Barbarois soon," Meier told her. "They'll have food."

"Oh, I know!" Charlotte exclaimed. "I'll sing to take my mind off feeling hungry. Do you mind if I sing?"

"Of course not," Meier assured her, for Charlotte sang so beautifully she should have been a Mary Sue.

So Charlotte sang:

"Sitting by the roadside on a summer's day;
Chatting with my mess-mates passing time away;
Lying in the shadows underneath the trees;
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas...."

Charlotte covered her mouth with her hand, and her stomach growled again.

"I'll try singing something funny," she said, and she sang:

"On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatballs...."

The two exchanged long looks before Charlotte murmured, "Oh dear."

Meier put an arm around her and kissed her hair. "My love, perhaps we should try a distraction in which we can both participate."

"You mean a duet?"

"No." His voice and his face went lower. "We should put our mouths to a quieter use." And his lips glided gently down to meet her own.

"Mmmmm." Not breaking the kiss, Charlotte slid her hand across Meier's chest and down ... and down until it met a subtle but substantial obstruction and rested there. The obstruction rapidly grew less subtle, and Meier's hand covered hers.

"I like that," he whispered. "Don't stop."

Charlotte blushed, but she was smiling. Meier eased her hand through his fly, and she grasped his length and carefully withdrew it, then kissed the tip. Meier's breath hissed in through his teeth.

"That's a wonderful use for your lips," he finally gasped.

Charlotte softly sang:

"My bologna has a first name, it's M-e-i-e-r...."

Her song segued into an act of eating, but one in which both she and Meier participated: she in blissful silence, he with a delighted purr.

Sweet, hungry thing that she was, Charlotte even swallowed.