The passage past the kitchen echoed with the gentle thud of a door closing. Stuart had retreated to the master bedroom.

It was just me in the living room with the TV rambling in the background, but I was now feeling too strung up to concentrate on it.

Still glowering, I jumped down off the coffee table onto the floor and stormed out of the room.

Past the living room, the other rooms of the house beckoned; my bare feet started to patter over the cool tiles as I broke into a run across the expansive tiled floor passageways at the other end of the house, which branched out towards the laundry, guest bedroom, and back door. This was a section of the house at the opposite end of the master bedroom, and where I liked to escape to when I wanted to be alone for a bit.

The dark hallway walls ran up beyond my line of sight. The cool air whipped past in the dim hallway, tickling my lungs. I wanted to holler at the top of my lungs and see if the echo of my voice would fill the hallway – being trapped in a drawer for a month will do that to you – but, not wanting to alarm anyone, kept running in silence.

The cold air prickled my skin – I was only wearing a pair of red briefs – but the chill hallway was better than the stagnant void of a drawer, where I’d been insensible to any temperature shifts whatsoever. Still, I didn’t want to make myself sick again. I slowed down.

A door on my right was open a crack leading into the shadowy guest bedroom, but I didn’t go in. Now I could remember how the bed mattresses were like jumping castles when I sprinted over them, making them great surfaces for practicing flips, handstands and cartwheels. I also longed to loop my trusty shoelace lassoes and harnesses around objects and get back into climbing. Last time I was in the house, I had been working up to the challenge of getting up onto the blades of the ceiling fan in the guest bedroom, and now it was beckoning me again. The house was like one big parkour playground. I’d never felt so grateful to be here.

My skin was breaking out in bumps in the cold air. I dropped to the tiles, did rapid push-ups, urging warmth into my limbs –

There was a surge of cool air across my body and a rush of fragrance, as a door along the wall swept open.

“HI THERE, YOU.”

I jumped up, spun around and craned my neck up.

Jennifer was leaning in the doorway of the bathroom. The warm light inside was on, glowing out, backlighting her frame.

Oh damn. I hadn’t realized she was up this end of the house. Don’t know how she did it, but sometimes she managed to be even stealthier than me.

Her voice got lower, and a touch sly:

“WERE YOU LOOKING FOR ME…?”

As my eyes adjusted to the intruding light I realized she was only wearing black lingerie: bra and panties. She sometimes wore lingerie to bed instead of proper pajamas, but she usually didn’t wander around the house in this state; she changed in the master bedroom’s bathroom and went straight to bed.

She must have changed in the main bathroom tonight.

“Just taking a walk,” I muttered. A supercharged walk, but still.

One of her heels lifted, the ball balanced on the tiles for a second, before it calmly shuffled forward, the weight of her body swapping from one foot to the next.

The springy muscles had barely settled onto the floor before the other foot swung forward after it, rearing the shadowed sole up over my head, then bringing it down. The toes clenched subtly as the opposite foot followed in kind.

It crossed my mind to bolt. But I didn’t. From the guarded way she was approaching me it was clear she didn’t want me to run.

In one fluid motion she crouched down in front of me.

“HEY,” she gave my stomach a small poke, “WHAT’S UP?” Her tone indicated that she really meant ‘what’s wrong?’

I wondered why she was asking. Then realized I had been clenching my jaw for a little while now.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, turning away from her. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and suddenly wished I had pockets so I could stuff my hands into them. “I mean…me and Stuart were just talking,” I shrugged. “Guy stuff.”

She huffed. It was a particular pet peeve of hers when the ‘men’s business’ excuse was slapped around as a veneer to shut her out.

“I have to talk to you,” I said hastily.

“WELL, YOU’VE GOT MY FULL ATTENTION.” As she said this, her pinky nail hooked into the waistband of my red briefs, and let them snap back.

My brow furrowed.

“It’s serious, Jennifer.”

“AND IS THIS ‘SERIOUS’ THING GOOD NEWS, OR BAD NEWS?”

My mouth was open for a moment.

“I don’t know the answer to that. It’s complicated.”

Without a beat, her hands swept around me, pulling me up into the air with her as she rose to her feet again.

“IN THAT CASE, WHY DON’T WE HEAD BACK OUT UNDER THE LIGHT SO I CAN SEE YOU BETTER, AND I CAN MAKE MYSELF A LITTLE MORE COMFORTABLE.”

The fuzzy gray walls scrolled past on either side, warming to white as we emerged into the lit up living room. Stuart had returned from out of the master bedroom and was now sitting with leg crossed on a chair to the side, scrolling through his phone. For some reason he jumped when Jennifer appeared. His legs uncrossed as his eyes dropped back to the phone, his cheeks going faintly pink.

She strode past him and took a seat on one side of the two-seat sofa, pulling her legs up onto the seat cushion, tucking them in to one side, and draping her upper body over the armrest, where she placed me down. Her arms folded over the armrest and her head lay down on her forearms.

“WHAT IS IT YOU WANTED TO TELL ME?”

Her eyes were on me keenly now, not leaving my face for a second, just waiting for me to speak. She was a world champion of staring competitions, and deserved a trophy. Wanting to slip out of the spotlight of her gaze, my eyes found Stuart’s.

He gave his head a tiny shake.

When I looked back at Jennifer, her eyes were also on Stuart for a fraction of a second, before they flicked back to me. She’d caught the exchange but she didn’t say anything. She just continued patiently waiting for me to speak.

She wasn’t usually into having deep and meaningful conversations, and so having her staring deeply into my eyes stole all the words from my brain and eroded my willpower like a sandcastle before a wave. I felt incredibly stupid all of a sudden, regretted even bringing up the issue. What was I doing trying to play referee in their domestic games?

“Jennifer, I…" my words came out haltingly, “…I have to tell you…”

Even Stuart was watching me over his phone screen, and he wasn’t shaking his head anymore. He looked as keenly interested in what I had to say as she did. Which made no sense, because – as established by our earlier conversation – he knew exactly what I had to say. Didn’t he?

For one moment I was seriously considering instead revealing my feelings for her, in front of both of them. The confession wanted to leap out of me, with the fey promise that everything would be made all better if I was only honest. Luckily, my rational side won over.

And God dammit – it was the wrong place and the wrong time: the lights were too bright, and why had the TV been turned off, so my voice was the only sound in the room? It was like a big spotlight was on me; I couldn’t find my voice.

A giant hand clicked its fingers in my face. I flinched.

“EARTH TO JERRY,” Jennifer said, “STOP BLUSHING AND STAMMERING. YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME.”

Rubbing my hands together to brace myself, I went on:

“I have to tell you that you saved my life. If you hadn’t hired someone to find me, I’d probably be dead, so I want to thank you. That’s all.”

The corner of her eyebrow flicked up the tiniest fraction. Unless it was just a twitch in her brow.

“THAT’S ALL?” she repeated slowly.

I scuffed my foot.

“Yes.”

“HOW ABOUT A KISS AND WE CALL IT EVEN.” She was so cool she didn’t even smile.

“You play some hardball,” I muttered, and inwardly: please don’t turn it into this... 

I really didn't need a boner right now so soon after the serious discussion with Stuart. She had kissed me a number of times while I’d been living in the house, but I had made it a point of pride not to have kissed her. I liked to maintain that record, if possible.

Her eyes were fixed on me, waiting for the correct answer.

Rocking on the balls of my feet, I slipped my thumbs into the waistband of my underwear to yank it up, an unconscious gesture.

“Okay! Fine! But then we don’t mention it again.”

She just tilted her head forward in the slightest way to suggest a nod.

“CLOSE YOUR EYES.”

She ran a finger over her lips and smacked them lightly, as if checking to see if she needed to re-apply lip gloss. I couldn’t tell whether she was doing it to annoy me or not.

“No, not like that!” I spluttered. “Just turn your head and I’ll kiss your cheek. Or – heck – I’ll kiss the back of your hand—”

“IF YOU WANT TO THANK ME,” she said smoothly, “DO IT LIKE A MAN. NOT SOME TINY CHICKEN PECK THAT I CAN’T EVEN FEEL. OKAY?”

“I’m trying to, but—”

“SO, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND LET YOUR LIPS DO THE TALKING.”

Giving a forceful sigh, I obeyed.

“How am I supposed to give you a kiss with my eyes closed?”

“MY HEAD’S RIGHT HERE. JUST KEEP TAKING STEPS UNTIL YOU WALK INTO IT.”

I detected a smile in her voice now, but I didn’t open my eyes to see it.

My right foot probed the fabric of the armrest ahead. One step.

Then my left foot shuffled after. Two steps.

I braced myself for the fan of warm breath, but it didn’t come, and that was somehow even more disturbing. She must have been holding her breath.

Another step.

Then another.

My arms began to tentatively rise, my hands outstretched, but feeling nothing, I began:

“Are you still there? I can’t – HRRKKK!

Hands grabbed me and suddenly I was tossed up into the air. The living room whirled around my head as I performed somersault after somersault, flying up and then falling back down. My front slapped against the warm, cushy palms of a pair of hands, which were cupped together to catch me.

Pushing down against the hands, I began to lift my body up and was about to chide the enormous face that I could sense looming over me. Then the hands made a repetitive flicking motion, giving me a quick few bounces up and down on her palm, causing my balance to completely fail me again, and turning my body into a clumsy, uncoordinated sack of potatoes.

Then I was given another good toss up into the air again. The ceiling rotated below my feet as I soared up, and rolled back over my head, only to complete another revolution before I touched down.

This time I landed on my back against her hands. Lifting my head, I went to speak when a rush of air filled my lungs as I was thrown into the air again.

And again.

And again.

The ceiling light just went around and around and around…

She began to bat at me with the inside of her fingers; a kind of gentle slapping motion of her hand, but coming from below, not sideways. This caused me to flip around even faster, giving me more air and gut-wrenching spin.

Sometimes her fingers struck my head on my way back down to the floor, and sometimes they struck my legs, but in all cases, they swatted and smacked my negligible weight back and forth like a hacky sack. Except, unlike a hacky sack, I was long, not round, which caused me to whirl around with each bounce, a little like a helicopter rotor that had detached from the body of the helicopter.

My recent dinner was urgently asking permission to climb up out of my stomach and fly out of my mouth. Every time I was launched into the air, I clenched my stomach muscles as hard as I could. And my bladder, and anal passage, for good measure.

This is what a tennis ball must feel like, I mused, whilst wondering whether I would pass out before I threw up, or vice versa.

A couple of times I rotated through the air to find the ceiling suddenly right there at my face, almost a whisker away. Jennifer appeared to have set herself a challenge to launch me up as close to the ceiling as possible, without me hitting it, and she was doing a pretty good job. I would have been impressed – if my vision wasn’t so blurry and I was more cognizant about what was going on.

Even Stuart was chuckling in spite of himself. Maybe they’d both been in on the whole thing, I thought, but then he said gently:

“JEN, THE POOR GUY JUST CAN’T CATCH A BREAK WITH YOU.”

Now she was trying to aim me so that I arced over one of the blades of the ceiling fan. This pissed me off: if her aim was faulty I was at risk of smacking face first into the blade. Then again, at least the fan wasn’t on.

On one of these wild jaunts towards the ceiling, I managed to grab the edge of the blade and pull myself up onto it. There, I stood looking down at her triumphantly.

Her hands were still lifted as if to catch me, but lowered slowly as she realized I wasn't going anywhere.

“OKAY, ENOUGH PLAYING AROUND,” she frowned, making a sudden transformation into a teacher trying to discipline rowdy kids, “COME DOWN NOW.”

She hated it when I perched on, wedged in, or otherwise penetrated within a place where she couldn’t reach me, and refused to rest until she got me out. It vexed her like nothing else did. She would hover around my improvised cubby, reaching for me with outstretched fingers, poking things at me to prod me out, such as a pencil or a broom handle, smoking me out with blasts of aerosolized perfume, or a spray bottle of water with lemon juice in it, trying to lift or pull apart or strip back whatever my hideout was made of, and making little grunts of annoyance any time a particular method didn’t work.

I used to love to scrabble up the curtains to sit on the rod along the top, delighting in my newfound ability to see the top of Stuart and Jennifer’s heads down below. Jennifer had asked me twice – with increasing urgency – to get down, and when I refused each time, she pulled out the broom and perfunctorily began to herd me down the curtain with the prodding insistence of the wooden handle tip. If necessary, she would have overturned chairs and tables, peeled back the drywall and pulled up the floorboards if it meant ‘liberating’ me from a hidey hole.

Now, atop the fan blade and cleanly out of her reach, I laughed down at her with a feeling of giddiness. No surprise there, considering I’d just outspun the entire performing troupe of the Cirque du Soleil.

“You threw me up here,” I pointed out, relishing the irony and her frowning face as she paced around beneath the fan.

“COME DOWN OR I’M GOING TO TURN IT ON.”

“JEN…” Stuart muttered warningly.

I flopped down on the blade, stretched out on my side, and propped my head up on one hand.

Without another word, she went over to the wall and flicked the fan switch.

The blades began to revolve, at first slowly.

I rolled forward, gripping the edge of the fan blade as it began to swing around in a circle, like a merry-go-round with no seats. The walls of the room flashed past and within seconds it was beginning to judder as it picked up speed.

As the fan wobbled, the blade edge slipped out of my grasp; my palms went sliding down the blade, nails scrabbling and raking uselessly over the flat smooth length.

For one breathtaking second my last ditch effort to hold on had me gripping one edge of the blade while my body was flying around through the air – here, my superman costume would have actually been appropriate, but alas no cape – before the ever increasing speed wrested my fingers free—

—Next second I was zooming off in some unknown direction, praying I didn’t hit a window.

An instant later I impacted flat, smooth wood, and went skating along over its polished exterior before I could even see where I was. The surface ended and I was dropping again, this time crumpling onto a furry surface that smelled faintly of vanilla.

It was the living room rug, beneath the coffee table I had just hit and gone sliding over.

I stretched my arms out, trying to roll over and feeling a painful tug around my solar plexus. Hitting the coffee table had winded me.

Before I could sit up, a warm mass covered me and scooped me up into the air. Something was putting pressure on my wounded diaphragm. I began to wince and squirm. Doing this caused the pressure to increase momentarily. I let out a cry.

“I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT DOWN FROM THE FAN, JERRY,” Stuart’s voice came from somewhere behind me, with a tone of gentle disapproval, as if it was my fault.

God damn it, Stuart, I thought. Can’t you stand up for me, just one time?

The world rocked slightly as the sofa made a sound. Then I was dropping gently through the air, and rotating until finding myself held up a little above Jennifer’s face, as she lay on her back on the two-seat sofa, with her legs stretched up against the opposite armrest.

Her eyes ran over my face calmly, with no hint of anger or irritation, and probably even savoring the displeasure that showed on my face from having lost my unique vantage point. She was only ever angry at me for as long as I hid or avoided her. As soon as she was able to collect me, by force or otherwise, her frustration evaporated, leaving behind a serene kind of smugness. Pulling me out of hiding spots was a game she loved to win.

I wasn’t just irritated at falling off the fan. Her thumb was still digging into my solar plexus, causing a cramp beneath my ribs. But it shamed me to point out that she was accidentally hurting me as well, so I endured in silence.

“I THINK I’D LIKE MY KISS NOW,” she murmured.

I decided this was the optimal time to vomit, but unfortunately, the bile had now resettled in my stomach. It was never ready to go when you needed it.

When I didn’t reply, she brought me down towards her face, to nuzzle and probe my neck with her nose, as if trying to take in and memorize my scent.

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD LET HIM HAVE A REST,” Stuart said, shifting in his chair and stifling a yawn. “IT LOOKED LIKE HE HIT THE TABLE PRETTY HARD.”

“HE’S HAD THREE DAYS TO REST,” she said, lifting me up above her face again. “I HAVEN’T SEEN HIM IN TWO MONTHS.”

She re-positioned me between her fingers, which shifted from holding my front and back, to my sides, beneath my armpits. Then her face began to expand in size again, filling my vision as my chest was brought against her lips in an extravagant kiss that seemed designed more to annoy and embarrass me than anything. This process repeated as she pressed a series of kisses against my bare chest:

“I AM NEVER—” she kissed me “—EVER – ” she kissed me again, “—EVER GOING TO LET YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT AGAIN.”

Then I was moving backwards over her body, and lowered, placed down on a flat surface, where the warm pressure finally, mercifully, released from my middle.

I was kneeling on the taut, supple surface her abdomen, at least until her fingers effortlessly wrestled me over onto my back, so that I was staring up at the ceiling. My view was interrupted by her palm rising over me, covering my body like a blanket, while her thumb curled around my head, with the thumb pad pressing firmly down on the crown of my head.

With her hand holding me firmly in place, she began to sweep me back and forth over her belly, at intervals pressing me firmly into her flesh, sometimes powerfully firm, enough even to make her belly depress a little.

She kneaded me around in this way in an experimental fashion, seeming content to use me to explore her insides as much as massage them. Sometimes I was rubbed around and around in circles as if she was using me to clean a window.

At some point I heard her belly gurgle on the other side of the abdominal wall, vibrating against my face. Digestion noises, not hunger noises. Still, a spark of alarm rippled up my spine. It was a palpable reminder that I could have comfortably fit inside her stomach.

Eventually the repetitive rubbing motions began to hypnotize me, putting me to sleep.

As my thought patterns meandered into slumber, the rubbing grew gentler and gentler, until it stopped altogether.

I opened my eyes to find myself secured in place between her breasts, slotted into the gap created by her bra fabric where her cleavage was. It was disarmingly warm, and her heartbeat thumped against my front, sort of like a massage. The steady pulsing was even jangling my dick, beginning to build it up into a thick rod against her flesh.

Sensing that I’d lifted my head, her face dipped down to inspect me, and the tip of her pointer finger drifting over to stroke my forehead a couple of times. I shut my eyes again and pressed my cheek against her soft skin and was soon asleep again.