~

     I’m sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch, watching the New Year’s Eve celebrations on TV.

     My roommate Abby comes home. “Ugh, I can’t wait for summer to get here,” she pouts. “We’re not even halfway through the school year but I’m already so tired of those kids sometimes.” She throws her purse on the couch and sits behind me.

     I jump a little bit, startled by her entry. “At least you still have some time time of winter break left at least,” I tell her.

     “Yeah, I guess,” she sighs, putting her legs up on the couch and eying me curiously. “Is Ashley home yet?”

     “Yeah, she should be upstairs,” I respond. “She’ll probably be down soon I imagine.” I go back to watching TV without paying much attention to the look in Abby’s eye.

     “You know, I’m feeling kinda hungry.” She smirks, surprised at how oblivious I am.

     Ashley’s voice bellows from somewhere above them, “Did someone say they’re hungry?”

     “We should have plenty of food in the fridge, I think there might even be some leftover pizza and pasta,” I tell Abby. “I could be wrong though, not like I can really check on my own, ya know?” I lay down on my side on the table to get a bit comfier.

     Abby rolls her eyes and gets up to get some pasta from the fridge. She brings it back without worrying about heating it up, and sits back down on the couch. “I don’t know why you always like sitting on the table, I can’t imagine wood’s that comfy.” She suddenly picks me up, pulling the bottom of her shirt up a few inches and setting me down on her stomach. “I’d think my belly’s a lot softer, isn’t it?”

     I look up at her face as best as I can from my vantage point. “It is softer, but it’s also prone to movement and makes noises, which makes it a bit hard to fear the TV sometimes.”

     Ashley runs downstairs and goes to the kitchen to get some chips.

     Abby shrugs, “OK, then I just won’t move my stomach. But making noises is just a natural sound, can’t help that part.” She begins eating the pasta while keeping her eyes trained on me, gulping the food down and wondering how long it’ll be before I can hear it.

     It doesn’t take long before I do. I turn to look up at her again, and see her staring at me. “Is there anything I can help you with? Or can I go back to the table until after you finish eating?”

     Ashley takes a seat next to Abby, setting a glass of wine down on the couch-side table.

     “You know, your skin tone is actually the same color as this pasta,” Abby notes. “Kinda random but just something I realized.” Ashley giggles, easily able to tell where the interaction is headed.

     I narrow my eyes at Abby. “You’re not thinking about…? You wouldn’t, right?”

     “You know…” Abby picks me up with her left hand and dangles me in front of her face, and then picks a piece of pasta up with her other hand and dangles it next to me. “The two of you are even the same size!”

     “Of course, but I’m fully clothed and the pasta isn’t. I also speak and move, which pasta doesn’t do. Ashley, tell Abby she’s being ridiculous.”

     Ashley snorts a laugh, “Don’t tell me what to do dude, this is funny.”

     “You’re right,” Abby says, “the pasta isn’t clothed. I don’t have any clothes to put on the pasta though, so I guess yours will have to come off.” She sighs and begins tugging at my tiny pants.

     I try to hold onto them. “No they do not! What do you think you’re doing? Normally there is a very different conversation between two people before pants come off.”

     “Relax weirdo, I’m not taking your underwear off too. I can’t believe your mind would even go there, jeez,” she giggled. “Typical men, always thinking about sex, right Ashley?” My other roommate nods with a smile, taking a significant gulp of her wine. “Now stop trying to hold on or you’re gonna rip them.”

     Realizing that my clothes are kinda expensive and I don’t want them to get ruined, I hesitantly help her remove my pants so they don’t tear. “Alright, fine,” I grumble.

     “And your shirt.”

     I let out an irritated sigh, but remove that too.

     “OK, now comes the taste test!” Abby grins. “You probably know whose breath is worse at your size, so I’ll let you pick who gets to do the honors.” She points back and forth between her and Ashley, raising an eyebrow.

     “Taste test? You’re not gonna drop me into pasta are you?” But realizing I don’t have a choice, I gesture to Ashley, hopeful she’ll help me out of this situation.

     Abby hands me off to Ashley, who holds me in the same dangling position, as Abby offers the bowl of pasta to her. Ashley takes her own bit of fusilli as Abby tosses hers up into the air and catches it in her mouth, sitting back and watching to see what’ll happen between me and Ashley.

     “Well let’s get this taste test over with then,” I say, “so I can put my clothes back on, alright? This is humiliating.”

     Ashley licks the piece of pasta in her other hand. “Mmm, the parmesan is good on that one. And rosemary, hints of olive oil and salt. And now…” She moves her other hand, holding me, in front of her mouth, and then dances the tip around on my body. “There’s barely even anything to taste! Kinda disappointing honestly.”

     I squirm from having someone lick my bare body. “Can I clean myself up now and put my clothes back on? Are we done with whatever game is being played here?”

     “God, you’re so boring,” Abby mutters.

     Ashley takes another swig of her wine. “Maybe I could taste you more this way though,” she says, slowly bringing me towards her mouth.

     I kick around, trying not to go inside. “No no no no, come on Ashley we don’t have to do this! It’s the wine talking, you don’t wanna put me in your mouth!”

     “Don’t they always say that alcohol tells you how people really feel though?” Abby asks. Ashley makes an ‘ahhh’ sound to taunt me as she continues bringing me closer, starting to tilt her head back a bit.

     “I don’t know what they say cuz I don’t drink!” I stop kicking because I don’t wanna increase the odds of accidentally slipping and falling into her mouth. But I can see the back of her throat by now.

     Ashley drops me suddenly, and as soon as I land on her tongue, she slams it upwards to keep me from falling into her throat. “How’s he look Abby?” She turns to my other roommate and opens her mouth, sticking her tongue out to show me right in the center of it. I look exhausted and terrified.

     But Abby only laughs. “I think the look fits him!” Ashley raises her wine up to her mouth and takes a small sip, enough to completely douse me. I begin coughing for air, trying to hold onto her tongue.

     “Alright alright, I’ll give you a break,” Ashley says, leaning her head over the glass and spitting me out, but making sure to do it slowly so that I spend several seconds sliding against her lips.

     I try to grab ahold of her lips as I slide off and fall into her wine glass. For a brief moment I surface, sputtering as I try to get air into my lungs again. “Should I give Abby a chance to taste you now?” Ashley asks.

     “Please just take me out and let me get dressed again, I don’t know why you guys are doing this today.”

     Ashley shrugs, ignoring my pleas. “Well, if you wanna just get it over with I guess that’s fine with me.” The two women laugh as she raises the glass back up to her mouth.

     I start paddling away from the edge of the glass. “Wait! Ashley, please, you can’t be serious! I’m your roommate!”

     Abby’s face looms large on the curvature of the glass as she leans in. “We’re ‘doing this today’ cuz it’s fun. Lighten up, it’s not gonna kill ya.”

     As she talks, I continue to get pulled towards her mouth as the glass tilts. “I’m fairly certain stomachs digest everything put in them, so I don’t see how that wouldn’t kill me!”

     Ashley smirks, “Guess we’ll have to find out.” She finishes tipping the glass all the way back, sending me into her mouth.

     I fall in with the last of the wine, “Noooooo! I’d rather not be your test subject!”

     Abby laughs, and Ashley just ignores my cries from within her mouth, barely able to be heard, as her lips close and she tilts her head upwards so that her mouth, in connection with her throat, is completely straight.

     I get maneuvered over her throat and begin punching her tongue angrily, but she just slams my body into the roof of her mouth as if punching back. Her giggle vibrates everything around me. I eventually realize it’s useless and slowly stop fighting it, so she shakes her tongue back and forth, dislodging me from it and getting me to fall. It’s only a brief trip down before I land in her stomach.

     Ashley looks surprised at herself, then starts laughing. “Did you swallow him?” Abby asks, to which the other woman nods.

     “Yeah, but it was so fast though. He’s so small that I barely even felt it.” She sighs, “Well, he obviously isn’t gonna be enough to fill me up.” Ashley grabs the chips again and begins eating again as Abby laughs, continuing to eat her own food as they focus on the TV.

     Ashley can’t even feel anything going on in her stomach, and by the time the countdown starts, she forgot she had even eaten me at all.