He awaited her in darkness. Sounds ebbed and flowed around him - constant footsteps, blaring television, peppy music, conversation and laughter. All reminders of his life Before - but he lived always in absolute darkness without her now. Their few minutes together each day were all he knew of the light anymore.

She’d arrive a symphony; crashing feet crescendo, thud of the flimsy door, flick and hum of the exterior lights Sometimes her phone carried music with her; often then she’d sing. 

This routine repeated throughout the day, rarely rousing him. She called upon him usually twice daily. Occasionally more frequently, but rarely less. Her symphony could swell and fade a dozen times in a day; this space held many uses for her that transcended him.

She carried shattering light into his world whenever she turned upon him. The darkness, broken only slightly by the exterior lighting, would invert cruelly in an instant as her hand found the door’s reflective edge, popping it forward and out in a lazy, rattling slam. The light would rush into his home, flooding the space in its white brilliance. When it caught him off guard - if he was turned in the direction of the doorway and failed to shield his eyes in time - the radiance could stun him completely. 

He typically only had moments in the wake of the light before she set him in motion. As the harsh sharpness of the blinding light yielded and his sight began to return to him, his field of vision would be almost entirely occupied by the yawning grasp of her reaching hand.

Her fingernails found him first. The pinching press of index and thumb, nails regularly manicured towards long, fine points - black this time - ensnaring him towards the base of his diaphragm. She began to lift him the moment she made contact, an effortless pluck lurching him up from his home upon the shelf.

His eyes were still adjusting to the shocking brightness of the space. His stomach flipped end over end as her hand rapidly thrust him through the air. His hands flew to her nails, gripping at the rounded edges, the painted keratin two stiff, slick handfuls. He braced himself in futility against the rapid motion, and she upended him as quickly as she had caught him.

He landed in a tumbling heap upon the outstretched palm of her left hand. He allowed the momentum of the brief fall from her right to carry him into a clumsy roll, and landed face-down on the gently sloping plane of her hand. He scrambled to his feet, dual awareness of how much more comfortable it was to be lifted from a standing position, and her impatience. 

The hand that had plucked him from his home was returning to the cabinet. He eyed the arm far overhead drearily, and followed it back to her. His balance was shaky; his legs wobbled as her hand absently swayed beneath his feet. She was paying him no mind, her attention focused on guiding her hand to an out-of-sight need she had elsewhere in the cabinet. 

Her gaze shifted downwards, the chilly blue of her eyes landing upon him without acknowledgement. He heard a click as she placed something plastic upon the ledge of the sink, and an instant later he was in motion again. She raised her palm, elevating him with it up to her chin. The motion was dizzying, and he fell to his knees, placing his palms flat against the floor of hers in the hopes of steadying himself, desperately hoping not to fall. 

He lurched forward slightly as her hand stopped as quickly as it started, but rose shakily back to a standing position. She hadn’t lifted him this way before, usually opting instead to retrieve him from her palm in the same pinching manner that she would retrieve him from his shelf. His thoughts turned towards grim considerations of what this deviation from their routine could mean for him.

His vision was utterly dominated by her lips, a round bow of pink fullness that crept towards a smile as she carried him to them. A rush of hot, humid air crashed over him from above, her nostrils flaring as she exhaled a gale at him. He stayed steady at the unexpectedly forceful breath, but his knees rocked slightly, calling forward a second blast of air from her as she muffled a chuckle at his frailty. 

His balance staggered again as the plane of her palm shifted, her hand rolling slowly towards her mouth, sloping him inevitably downward, inward. Her smiling lips parted, a wall of fragrant humidity washing over him as they revealed the wide white linework of her teeth. Her tongue crept outward slightly to meet him, his footing finally giving way from her hand as the wet plane of her tongue passed over her bottom incisors. 

He fell forward, leaving her hand behind and landing with a damp smack upon her tongue. He could smell what was different about tonight: the rich, floral bouquet of red wine was almost overwhelming. Her tongue rolled beneath him, another muffled chuckle rumbling through her, and she extended her tongue slightly, passing him with it past her lips once more. He rolled onto his stomach, reaching upwards to wrap his arms towards the tip of her tongue, where the muscle ran narrow enough for his meager embrace to find purchase.

Her attention was his for a moment, her eyes finally locking with his through the mirror of the medicine cabinet that he called home now. Her mouth was open in an exaggerated smile, her tongue lolling from side to side as she turned her head, displaying an uncharacteristic revelry in seeing his tiny naked form clutching for dear life atop her tongue. 

He felt the muscle beneath him curl upwards, her tongue constricting him bodily as it formed a u-shape, its sides becoming pressing walls against him. She drew him back into the muggy cavern of her mouth this way, slicking him with saliva. A cacophony of scents swarmed around him, cloying richness of malbec the most dominant among.

He was motionless in the partial cocoon of her tongue as it returned to its resting place. Her mouth closed as she angled her tongue downward, rolling him into a puddle of saliva gathering in the floor of her mouth. He landed with a gentle splash of spittle, and was briefly overwhelmed with dread at the thought that she might be drunk enough to decide to swallow him. He landed in a crouching seat, his arms stretched behind him, his forearms and calves wet with the rising tide of spit. 

The saliva was pooling around him quicker than usual, adding to his worry that she was considering his retirement, when he was suddenly driven forward by the slamming impact of her tongue. Its tip crashed into his shoulders in a huge, hot force, driving him forward and against the closed wall of her teeth. Light crept in through the cracks of her teeth as her lips parted in another smile, and he could almost make out his silhouette behind her reflected grin. 

She drew a rush of breath inward then, the relative heat of her mouth adding a frigid bite to the air as it flowed in from the bathroom. She angled her head upwards and swallowed, draining her mouth of the salivary tide and preserving him, flattened between tongue and tooth.

The pressure faded from behind him as her head returned to an even angle, and gravity no longer threatened to carry him down her throat. Another prod from her tongue, gentler this time, though still driving him bodily into her teeth with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He gasped, taking more of the wine-soaked aroma into him, and oriented himself to begin his task. 

He dropped to his knees as her lips sealed shut again, plunging her mouth back into darkness. He could hear squelching gurgles behind him, her stomach hard at work on dinner, as music - muffled through the closed lips between him and her phone - filled the bathroom. The even rushes of her breathing came steady overhead, and his head swam for a moment as she spun around, hopping backwards to sit atop the sink as she waited for him to work. 

He shuffled leftward, arriving at the sharp peak of her bottom left canine. He ran his hands around the slick cone, its flat wall hard against his close-pressed knees. Her tongue settled behind him, a gentle weight this time, wide and warm at his back. He ran his hands over the surface of the tooth, and then downward, straining to fit fingertips between the tight border of tooth and gum. 

He found his quarry, the fingertips of his left hand sinking gently into a hot mass buried between canine and molar. He arced his fingers and scraped outward, dislodging a piece of what - upon inspection - proved to be remnants of chocolate cake. His stomach let loose an aching groan as he identified the rich sweetness of the cake, and he took the entire handful into his mouth. He felt a seething joy well around him as he remembered the luxurious ecstasy of dark chocolate. She had been on an extremely rigid diet for the entire time he had served her, which meant that he - surviving on salvaged scraps - was as well. 

He realized with a wash of dread that he had lost himself in this moment, and she’d soon begin prodding with her tongue to hasten him back to work. Determined not to upset her, especially if she’s had as much wine as it smells like she did, he hastened back to work. 

He made his way around the perimeter of her lower jaw that way, shuffling on achy knees across the uneven terrain of her mouth’s floor. He scrubbed and scraped at the even row of her teeth, encircling him like battlements. He worked quickly, but thoroughly - her words on their first day together, promising to simply swallow him if she ever grew bored or dissatisfied by his performance, echoed ominously at the edges of his mind while he toiled. 

The air inside of her was hot and heavy, the dense mugginess of his personal bayou mingled his sweat with her saliva, coating him bodily in a slick sheen. He continued to sate himself on the morsels that he dislodged from between her teeth as he labored, stealing bites as he shuffled across her palate. What he didn’t consume he would wipe across his body, slathering himself in the sticky, sweet vestiges of her dinner. 

He rose onto uneven feet, his work along her bottom row complete. He clambered onto the surface of her tongue, its roiling wet mass of heat twitching beneath him. Her tongue rolled forward as he took two shaky steps towards crossing from the back corner of her jaw to the front of her palate, and he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. He sank slightly into the tense plush of her tongue, and remained motionless. The commotion was surely sufficient to signal to her that he had finished his first task; so he forewent the usual signal of tapping along the roof of her mouth.

His answer came almost instantly. Her tongue quickened beneath him, rolling him forward and pressing the tumbled heap of him bodily against tightly pursing lips. She added pressure, her tongue an omnipresent driving force behind him. He felt himself being crushed between the suffocating plush of tongue and lip, the heat of flesh and force utterly overwhelming. 

He felt a tide of panic begin to rise in sharp waves; he was too thoroughly pinned to be able to move any limbs, and the growing pressure would pulverize him if it endured for much longer. He struggled, fruitlessly, barely even managing to writhe against the flat, unyielding slab of muscle that pinned him flat against the firm wall of her lips. Suddenly, just as he was convincing himself that he could take no more, a blessedly cool stream of outside air reached him from beyond her mouth. Her lips had pursed slightly, offering a tiny point of light that could begin to afford him passage out of her. 

The forceful press of her tongue became a guiding weight as her lips slacked and yielded. She didn’t open her mouth for him, but gently sloped her lips into a tightly puckered ‘o,’ and he was squeezed through a suckling, wine-stained tunnel. 

The outside air greeted him with freezing arms, the spit and sweat that coated him beginning to evaporate as soon as he emerged from her. Her tongue continued to forcefully expel him, sliding him bodily between her lips and depositing him in a sticky mess in the outstretched palm of her right hand. The drop, a whirling couple of inches, took the wind out of him, and he began to gather himself onto all fours as her hand whipped into motion, lowering him towards the basin of the sink.

Her left hand was already working at the faucet, testing the water. It was running in a thin stream, likely set to the lowest pressure that still produced a steady flow; he’d be crushed to death in an instant under the faucet’s full force. He remained on his hands and knees on the sloping plane of her palm, jolting under the cold rush of water that washed over him as she centered him beneath the faucet. 

He sat up onto his knees, letting the stream carry cold water over his weary form. He guided the flow with his hands, rinsing the layer of saliva and food particulate off of his body, freshening himself for the next round of work. The water was icy on his skin, its first reaches grasping over his body like sharp fingers, but he almost instantly acclimated to its chill touch. 

He ran his hands through his hair, head tilted up to accept the stream of the refreshing cold over his eyes and face. His vision, obscured by water, took in her looming form, rising like a colossus behind him. He almost met her eyes before her thumb tackled him, slamming him off balance and driving him into her palm. 

The fingers of her left hand were on him in an instant, her index, middle, and thumb sealing around him in a blunt pinch. The enormous pads of her digits pressed around his midsection, driving the air from him, and his ribs groaned in protest. She wavered him through the stream in swift flicking motions, rocking his vision and flipping his stomach, before lifting him the full distance from the navel-level basin to her mouth in half an instant. His vision swam, his senses utterly overwhelmed by this rapid transport, and he only barely regained awareness of his surroundings in time for her mouth to unfurl below him, her fingers setting him to dangle above her raised chin.

Her eyes sparkled as they fixed upon him, dazed and defeated, limply dangling between her pinched fingers. Her mouth was open wide, and her tongue lolled out against her chin, long and wide as she extended it with taunting glee. The cavern of her mouth and throat yawned before him, the angle making a downward ramp out of her tongue, promising a swift and slick slide into the darkest depths of her.

A teasing “aaaaah” rumbled all around him, and wine-hot breath crashed over him in a thick wave. The weight of her fingers vanished in an instant and he was falling, clearing the scant inches between her fingertips and mouth in less than a second. His instincts overcame him, and in a flailing fall managed to land flatly, face-down against the tip of her tongue. She was warm and wet beneath him, his naked body pressed bodily to the roiling plane of her lolling tongue. He squeezed desperately with arms and thighs, gathering as much of the slick muscle as he could in a body-wide grasp. She worked a tilting kick of her tongue, sloshing a gentle lap of saliva between his body and her tongue, and steepened the incline of her head and throat. 

He tried to hold tighter, grim confidence taking root that if he let go her drunken prank would end with him swallowed whole. Gravity and lubrication were set against him though, and he felt his hold slip slightly, inching slowly but irrevocably down the widening slope of her up-stretched tongue.

Her droning taunt thundered around him, welling from the base of her throat, an echoing reminder of the deadly precarity of his hold to her. He had slipped a full inch down her tongue, and his legs were too small to manage the widening slope of her. His legs slipped free in a heartwrenching lurch, and he hugged tighter with his arms, his face pressing so hard against the pink plush of her wine-stained tongue that he was breathing through a thin film of her saliva. 

Her tongue kicked again, its tip crashing against the incisors above him, and the jolt of the crash shook him loose. He was falling again, this time forever, he was sure, into the dark and pulsing depths of her throat. She had thrown jests and taunting promises of retiring him like this, and he realized how complacent that he had become in his confidence that she approved of his work, and wouldn’t make good on the threats. 

He threw his left arm out, desperately hoping to catch onto the sure hold of one of her teeth, but was too slow. He rasped the knuckles of his left hand against a canine as he fell, scrambling against the impossible slope of her tongue. As the calmness of imminent oblivion began to settle into his mind, he realized that his descent had slowed. He managed to secure hold of her tongue again, curling himself bodily around the left side of the muscle, treacherously close to the back of her mouth and the gurgling pit beyond. 

As his mind settled, he realized that it was not his grip that held him any longer, but the return of a more favorable gravity; she had settled the incline of her head forward again, and was staring forward, into his eyes through the mirror and her open mouth. 

He gathered himself onto his hands and knees, crawling towards the yawning cavern beyond the border of her teeth, recovering his breath in trembling gulps. Her eyes found him there, through the mirror and on all fours on her tongue. Her eyes shone in easy delight, their blue radiance clearly proud of her prank. She began to speak, her voice welling up around him in a tangible wall of sound.

“Alright,” she started, the slight slur in her speech not enough to prevent the first syllable of the word from slamming him atop her tongue into the roof of her mouth. He fell back onto it with a wet slap, already feeling the promise of bruisework wash across his shoulders and side. “Back to work.” The words were a lashing of tongue and lip, his tiny form hurled around the space of her mouth as the space constricted and pulsed to form the sounds.  

Her mouth sealed shut with what he thought had to have been an intentionally forceful clack of her teeth. He was returned to damp darkness, the sloshing and gurgling sounds of her mouth returning to the forefront of his awareness as the screaming panic of the last few seconds subsided. 

On unsteady feet he eased himself off of the platform of her tongue and onto the springing floor of her mouth. Saliva pooled around his ankles as he stretched upward, reaching his hand between the top-left incisor and canine. He stiffened his fingers as he reached between the teeth, swallowed the fear that had overtaken him, and returned to his work.