Polly Pocket

A few minutes dragged by before Trev’s phone suddenly began to blast the deafening tunes of his obnoxious ‘Gold Digger’ ringtone, rattling the cup against the countertop with its aggressive vibrations.

Natalie clamped the napkin tightly over her ringing ears beneath her palms, clenching her face and screeching at the top of her lungs, “TREVOOOOOR!” 

The glass rattled rapidly with approaching footsteps and Trev’s hand descended to snatch up the phone, clicking off the ringer, while his other hand whacked into the side of the glass. “I heard it.”

She craned her neck to glower up at him through the bottom ring of the upside down glass, while, high above, he read the caller ID on his phone and huffed, rolling his eyes. He swiped his finger across the screen before jamming it to his ear, hollering, “Bro! Qué mierda quieres, eres peor que mi novia!”

Diego’s voice hollered indignantly from the receiver, “Eih, no compare me to Blondie, man, I find that offensive!”

“You are being very needy.”

“I am needy, bro! The fuck is taking you so long? I’m growing old and bitter down here, waiting for you to blow your fuckin’ load already!”

“Go harass Danno if you're so desperate for attention.”

“Danno’s already here, man, we’re both aging! He’s gone completely gray!”

“Whaddup, playaaa!” hollered a second voice from the receiver and Natalie groaned, rubbing her already pounding temples. “Bro, let us up! We wanna shoot some friggin nazis!”

“Gimme five more minutes,” Trev grumbled, also rubbing his temples.

“No way, man!” Diego hollered. “You can keep slappin’ your lil meat stick around if you want, we’re comin’ up! You’re the only one with a PS5, we ‘bout ready to commandeer that shit if you ain’t even usin’ it!”

“Gimme five fucking minutes, Jesus!” He hung up before he could interject. He scratched his head for a moment before his gaze dropped down to Natalie, scowling back up at him from beneath the glass. “Soo, the guys are coming over.”

“I gathered,” she sneered. “Mind turning off your ringer? You’ve already deafened me once today.”

“Certainly.” He clicked his phone to silent and jammed it in his pocket before setting the glass aside and reaching towards her.

“Can I have something to eat?” she asked quickly.

Trev’s hand froze before her while, high above, his face scrunched into a scowl. “Is that a joke?”

“No,” she said innocently. “You did say you’d feed me when I asked. I’m hungry.”

His jaw tightened and he grumbled under his breath, “Oof course you are.” He snatched a banana from the fruit bowl, yanking down its peel and ripping off a small chunk. “Here.” He shoved the banana chunk into her arms, the size of a beach ball. “Make it quick, you got one minute.” 

Natalie used two fingers to scoop off a bit of banana. She took a deep breath, her stomach twisting from the pungent aroma, and stuck her fingers into her mouth, grimacing at the blast of flavor. She ignored her nausea to force down as much of the banana as she could, assuming she wouldn’t have another chance to eat for a while. Trev stood anxiously over her with his arms crossed, tapping his heel, his eyes on the kitchen window, alert for approaching footsteps, and Natalie reveled in his perceptible trepidation. She wondered irritably where he was planning on stashing her for the next few hours.

Exactly one minute later he said, “Okay, times up,” yanking the banana from her and hurling it across the kitchen into the sink. 

He snatched her from her napkin towel and she called, “I have to pee!”

“Are you serious!”

“Well, I’m sorry Trevor, all that water just went right through–”

He huffed, clamping his hand around her to shut her up. He stalked into the bathroom and dropped her roughly onto the wobbling metal plug in the bottom of the sink. “Go.”

“Ugh, in the sink, Trevor?” she called up to him, her voice echoing in the gaping porcelain bowl. 

His torso rose up beyond the rim of the sink, arms crossed, glowering down at her from above. “You’ve peed in a sink before.”

“Okay, I was very drunk and fucking Danno was puking all over the toilet.”

“You got ten seconds.” 

“Can I at least have some priva–?”

“Eight seconds.”

“Don’t watch ya perv!” 

“Go!”

“I can’t go if you are watch-ing!”

“Agggh!” He turned around, knocking his knuckles against his forehead and grumbling under his breath in Spanish. He gave her more than ten seconds, tapping the heel of his foot impatiently until he heard the light tinkling dissipate. He ripped off a tiny corner of toilet paper and handed it down to her behind his back, waited another couple of seconds, then called, “You fucking done?”

“Yeah, I’ve been done,” she called. “Just need to wash my ha–”

His hand whipped down to snatch her from the sink and he stormed back to his bedroom. He slapped her down on his desk beside a pair of scissors and a red handkerchief that he had cut a slim ribbon from. He yanked the ribbon off of the desk and held it down to her. “Tie this around your mouth.”

She scowled up at him. “For real?”

“Or I can do it for you. Just thought you’d be able to do it gentler than I could.”

She huffed and took the cloth from between his massive fingers, wrapping it around her mouth.

“Make it tight,” he grumbled as he used the scissors to cut off an inch of string from her escape rope. “If you get yourself out of it I’ll use tape instead, and I can’t imagine that’ll be pleasant for you when it comes time to rip it off.”

She glared up at him as she tightened the cloth tighter, knotting it behind her head. She crossed her arms.

“Now scream.”

She huffed, rolling her eyes, and called softly, “Mmm,” the sound muffled against the cloth.

His palm whacked into the side of her head, knocking her to the desk. “Quit fucking around! Scream!”

She snarled up at him and drew in a breath, screaming as loud as she could, “MMMM!”

He nodded, satisfied. “Okay, that’s fine.” His fingers pinched around her arm, jerking her upright and pivoting her around on the desk. He pulled her hands behind her back, wrapping her wrists together with the piece of string.

“Mmm!” she moaned in protest, craning her neck back to glare at him upside down.

“Don’t look at me like that, Houdini,” he said as he knotted the string. “I’da been happy to make you a fun little box-house to hang around in, full of snacks and activities and I’da even set up my iPad to play you movies, like your own little movie theater, but you’ve shattered my confidence that you’ll still be in there when I get back. Now I gotta carry you around with me and I’m not convinced you won’t try’n climb out of my pocket.”

When her hands were sufficiently tied he sighed in relief before snatching her up. She soared up from the desk in his fist, coming to a halt before his giant face. “Now Natty,” his voice boomed crossly, blowing her hair from her face. “I was going to keep you nice and comfy, right here in my chest pocket,” he said, giving it a couple of pats. “But since you decided to go and be a little fuckass when you knew my friends might barge in any moment, you’ll be spending the evening down here, instead,” he patted his jeans pocket. “I hope you’ll take this time to get it through your tiny little head that you’re a toy and you belong to me, now, and there’s a price to pay for fuck-assery. And keep in mind there are far worse places I can stick my fuckass little toy when she displeases me.” 

She scowled up at him from his clenched fist, her mouth gagged and her hands bound behind her back. He stroked the tip of his finger over her head. “Now you be a good girl and behave down there while I have fun hanging out with my friends, got it?”

She continued scowling. 

He smiled and cooed, “Ooh, how can I stay mad at that cute little face. Come ‘ere.” His mouth drew upon her, his giant lips puckering with a loud, “Mmmm…” Natalie let out a muffled squeal, cringing away, but his boa constrictor fingers effortlessly held her in place as his plump lips smacked wetly around her face. He squished her into his puckered lips, squelching her entire head with a massive, wet, slobbering smooch. Then his lips popped back with a, “MWAH!” strings of saliva still clinging to her.

“Mmhmhm,” she whined, trying to rub his spit from her eyes against her shoulder.

“Ehehe, so cute,” he tittered, and his face rose above, his eyes following her as he lowered her down his torso towards his pocket. He held her in his lap for a moment while past his waist, up the length of his tee-shirt, he smiled cheerfully down at her and said, “Bye bye, Natty. Have fun down there.” His lips puckered to send her down a couple of little air kisses, before he slipped her through the denim rim into the softer fabric of his pocket. He plopped her onto her stomach at the very bottom, facing down the curving slope of his inner thigh.

“There you go, Natty, it’s nice and cozy down there in my pocket, isn’t it?” he purred, patting her against his leg a couple of times. “Now don’t you worry, I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

His fingers lifted back up through the rim as he rose to his feet and Natalie slid face first into the corner of his pocket with a muffled, “Umph.” It was not nearly as hot or tight as Brittany’s pocket had been, but with the extra space she bounced and smacked against his leg with every step he took as he walked from the bedroom, back down the hallway. The denim was thick enough to prevent any light from passing through, yet she found she was still able to see perfectly well in the pitch black pocket, and she was also somehow able to see out through the fabric as clearly as she’d been able to see through his tee-shirt and Brittany’s stretched faux-denim leggings. She wondered dully if pocket-vision was another of her new abilities, and if that made her the lamest superhero ever.

She let out a muffled huff of irritation, laying at a downward angle with her legs above her head, and wriggled and rolled with his momentum until she was able to flip her legs around and kick herself out from the corner of his pocket to lay in a more comfortable position within the rising, falling, swinging, pounding hammock. She glared irritably up at his lower abdomen while the towering apartment panned by beyond her denim prison, cast with a dark blue tint, coming in and out of view past the inner thigh of his other leg with every pounding step he took. 

His feet planted before the bookshelves in the living room, and, far above, his arm extended to turn on his Bluetooth speaker. He pulled his phone from his other pocket to put on music, loud enough to ensure that even if she managed to wriggle lose the handkerchief around her mouth, no one would be able to hear her scream over the heavy base. 

He needn’t have bothered. The idea of either Diego or Danno discovering her tiny and tied up and naked within the confines of his jeans pocket was incentive enough to keep her fucking mouth shut. She had a hard time believing either would ever do anything to harm her, but she never would have believed Trev would, either, until he was stripping her down for a round of tonsil hockey between himself and the hamster fucker.

He walked back across the living room to open the back door and was immediately met by the screen door yanking open on the other side and a bellowing call of, “Hola, mi amor!” A pair of skinny brown legs in blue hightop converse and knee-length denim shorts leapt overhead, wrapping around Trev’s waist as Diego kissed him repeatedly on the cheek.

“Get outta here!” Trev grunted, throwing him off over the side of the couch, where he plopped onto his back with a most damsel-like squeal. 

“Bout time, ya dick!” came Danno’s deep voice, and Natalie cringed against Trev’s leg as a huge fist came barreling towards his groin.

Trev dodged the punch, whacking him in the head. “Bro! Quit tryna grab my dick!”

“Aha, someone’s gotta!” Diego called from where he was still sprawled across the couch, controller already in hand, turning on the PS5. “Don’t seem like your girl’s very impressed by your love-making skills if you’re at home wankin’ it on Friday night. ’S no wonder Pobrecita out there lovin’ hamsters.”

The three of them laughed and Natalie groaned, bonking her head against Trev’s leg, feeling like one shouldn’t have to feel in such a precarious position so close to a guy’s dick amongst a group of (supposedly) heterosexual males. She prepared herself for a long evening of pot-smoking, dick jokes, and video games. 

Tweedle-Di and Tweedle-Dan had both moved to the complex in the first grade, within a couple months of each other. Diego was the smallest of the boys, though still half a foot taller than Natalie, with thick black hair and rich brown eyes. Danno had a midnight dark complexion, and kept his hair meticulously buzzed into a burst fade mohawk. He and Trev had spent most of their childhoods competing over which of them was the biggest and strongest of the group, until Danno finally won the battle in their sophomore year, when he shot up to 6’4”. He’d always been a bit of a blockhead, but had become increasingly obnoxious over the previous year after making the varsity football and basketball teams.

Danno collapsed into the armchair, snatching up the second controller, while Trev knocked Diego’s feet off the couch and plopped down on the other end, causing Natalie to drop rapidly and collide into his thigh. The denim compressed her against his leg as he leaned across the couch to swipe the controller from Diego’s hand.

“Yo!” Diego called indignantly, throwing a hand up.

“Yeah, fuck you, get your own PS5,” said Trev, sitting upright again. His hand descended towards Natalie, holding the controller. She groaned and tried to kick herself out from under it but the edge of his pinky flattened down across her belly from the otherside of the pocket, pinning her against his leg beneath the controller, ignoring her as she squirmed and kicked angrily against him through the heavy fabric.

“Aight man, but I get next round,” said Diego, utterly unaware of the commotion taking place on the other side of the couch. He leaned over the coffee table, pulling a sandwich baggie of weed and some papers from his pocket. “Will el Capitán be joining us tonight?”

“Naw, he’s out till Wednesday,” said Trev absently as he geared up his Call of Duty avatar.

“Mannn,” said Danno. “Your dad is so fuckin’ cool. Think he gets a lotta action, flyin’ around the fuckin’ world and shit?”

“Oh fuck yeah, dude,” said Diego. “He told me once he’s been laid on every continent.”

“No way.”

“It’s true! Capitán’s a fuckin’ balla!”

“What about the cold one? Who you think he’s fuckin’ at the North Pole? Fuckin’ Rudolph?”

Trev snorted. “You mean Antarctica? The one that’s South?”

“Yeah, whatever, dick, there’s nobody fuckin’ there is my point.”

“People go there all the time, stupid!” Diego laughed. “He was prolly down there bangin’ some fine ass scientist babe!”

This riveting debate gradually evolved into the logistics of performing romantic maneuvers in subarctic conditions as Trev and Danno started up their round of Call of Duty, and the room blared with the sounds of battle and gunshots emanating from the television. Trev’s hand pressed down against Natalie, his thumb, index, and middle fingers smacking madly around the controller atop her. Far above his knuckles, above the length of his tee-shirt, the underside of his jaw was locked in concentration, his gaze straight ahead. 

She huffed and rolled her head to the side to watch their game on the TV across the room, beyond the ledge of his knee, her denim tinted view occasionally obstructed by Diego’s arm or back as he leaned forward over the coffee table to roll a joint. The scene felt eerily melancholy. 

Trev’s dad had gotten him a PS5 for his sixteenth birthday and the four of them, and Nick, had spent most every night for a month crowded around the TV, Natalie sitting in Trev’s lap, his arms wrapped around her, holding his controller against her waist with his chin on her shoulder, occasionally digging into her as he grumbled some taunt into her ear when they played against each other. There had been a set hierarchy, the same their group had had since they were children—Trev and her played first, then the winner played either Tweedle-Di or Tweedle-Dan, whoever was being less annoying that day, and poor little Nicky, as the youngest, always had to go last, his turn besieged by twenty minutes straight of flirtatious trash-talk between Trev and Natalie as they geared up for their rematch. 

She wasn’t the only one who seemed to detect the weight of her absence. “So,” said Diego as he rolled the joint. “You got Natty Light stashed up in here witchu, or what?”

Natalie jolted at the sound of her name, but Trev, like a true narcissist, was not the least bit phased. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, couldn’t help but notice you two and Blondie all ditched, today. Thought maybe y’all excused yourselves to, uh, squash your beef, so to speak.” 

“Mmm,” Danno smirked. “Squashed beef sandwich.”

“Mhm, okay,” Trev grinned, his attention never leaving the game. “That’s why my girlfriend and I ditched, don’t ask me where Diablita went. Prolly back down to rule over the underworld.”

The other two snickered as she gave his thigh an ill-tempered kick and his pinky ground down on her belly from the world beyond his pocket.

“To hell with her, anyway,” said Danno. “When’re you gonna bring my beautiful princess over?”

Diego laughed out loud as Trev said, “Never.”

“Awe for real? What’s the point of you fucking the hottest girl in school if you ain’t even gonna bring her ‘round?”

“Bro, you ever actually talk to Blondie before?” said Diego. “I’d rather chug a bottle of fuckin’ bleach, man, save some brain cells.”

“I could care less ‘bout the conversation, bro, I just wanna ogle them titties.”

“Aha, well you ain’t be oglin’ ‘em for long she comes ‘round here, man. Diablita’s gonna bounce those tig ol’ bitties all the way down the fuckin’ stairs.”

Danno smirked. “You really think Natty Light could take her?”

“Oh, fuck yeah, dude, she could kick my ass.”

“Well, yeah, that’s ‘cause you’re kinda a little bitch. I bet my princess could throw down, though, she’s, like, an athlete and shit.”

“Psh, cheerleaders ain’t no athletes.”

“You kiddin’ me, bro! They out there doin’ flips and shit! And she’s got those fuckin’ nails, man, she’s like a sexy tiger. Plus she’s like, twice Light’s size.”

“Size don’t matter, man, Natty Light’s a fuckin’ G,” Diego mumbled with his joint between his lips, holding a lighter against the other end. He took a hit and said with his inhale, “I give it two seconds ‘fore Blondie’s fuckin’ sleepin’.” 

“Whatchu think, Trev?” asked Danno, nudging him with his elbow. “Who’d win in a fight?”

“Brit,” said Trev, and Natalie snorted humorlessly from within his pocket, rolling her eyes.

Diego snickered, sending a dank fog across the living room. “Ah, whatever, you liar. You’re still just salty cause she dumped your stupid ass for lil hipster boy. Yo, pause it.” He held the joint up to Trev, and Natalie groaned in dread. 

There were many distinct Trev personas, chief among them were happy, fun, goofy, touchy-feely Trev, and angry, spiteful, mean, psychotic Trev. While alcohol might summon either/ or in the course of an evening, weed tended to bring out the extremes of Happy Trev, which, when they were dating, had often resulted in him not being able to take his hands off of her. While she had once rather enjoyed the boundless affections of Happy Trev, he may prove to be a bit of a nightmare at his current size. Perhaps he thought so, too, because he passed the joint along to Danno without taking a hit.

“You ain’t smokin’ man?” 

“Naw, not tonight,” he said, without offering further explanation.

“Still want my twenty bucks, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya broke ass record.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya cheap ass fucklord.” 

Time dragged by and Natalie’s mind glazed over with boredom; stuck listening to fatuous conversations she could neither join, nor mock, watching a game that turned out to be rather stupid when you were doomed to never have a turn. She felt a dull throb of sympathy for Tommy; stuck forever at the very bottom of the totem pole, too low to even have a place in the hierarchy. For all the times she’d dragged him over to Trev’s with her when she was stuck babysitting, only to ignore him the entire time, hollering at him to shut up any time he made so much as a peep, and never—absolutely never—permitting him to lay a grubby little hand on one of the holy PS5 controllers. She supposed there was some level of karmic justice in all this, for all her years of cruel, borderline authoritarian rule over her younger brothers, only to find herself at an inconceivably lower level of the totem pole. 

*                                                *                                                *

Sometime after dark, when it was Diego and Danno’s turn to play again, Natalie shot suddenly upwards as Trev rose to his feet. “Be right back,” he said as edged out around the coffee table. “Nature calls.”

She groaned against his swinging thigh, wondering what the odds were he’d be courteous enough to remove her from his pocket before answering the call, as he walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. His feet planted before the toilet and she groaned louder, kicking his thigh as he lifted the toilet seat up with a loud clank. 

“Sorry, Nat,” he muttered from above, though he didn’t sound sorry at all. “All that water just went right through me.”

She was jostled around in his pocket as he undid his jeans beside her, flopping his whale of a dick through the zipper like Free fucking Willy. A powerful stream of piss clanged and echoed into the toilet bowl like a firehose and she wailed indignantly against her handkerchief, kicking his thigh repeatedly until he suddenly jolted and let out a laugh, covering his mouth with his free hand, and snickered under his breath, “Damnit!” His palm barrelled into her from the outside of his pocket as he whacked her repeatedly. “Quit doing that, Natty, you’re giving me a boner! I just about pissed all over the place!”

He gave his semi-erect dick a couple of sharp shakes before jamming it back into his pants, and Natalie felt a peculiar sort of kinship towards it, as if her fellow captive of Trev’s jeans had mindfully betrayed their fiendish overlord on her behalf.

As he emerged from the hallway, Diego called, “Yo, you got any snacks?”

“Yeah, I gotchu.”

He rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, grabbing a couple bags of chips. He plopped back down on the couch, tossing the bags on the coffee table, blocking Natalie’s view of the TV. And so she was stuck watching Trev munch mindlessly on chips for what felt like hours, while she lay smooshed against his thigh, glaring irritably up at him as he lifted chip after chip to his mouth with a tumultuous CRUNCH! his jaw chomping and crunching and grinding, making an irksome racket, reaching for another before he’d even sent it squelching down his gullet. 

There came a sudden loud rapping on the screen door and she was tugged across his thigh as he turned to see who it was. “Come in, bro, it’s open!” he called, while his fingers quickly slid down through the pocket to clamp around her. 

She understood why when, a moment later, the screen door opened with more thunderous footsteps and Danno said, “Sup, Nicky Boy,” and Diego said, “Què pasa, Natty Jr.?” and her heart skittered as she heard her brother’s booming voice say, “Howdy neighbors. My sister over here?”