Bing was most of the way across the lawn, before he heard Olive at the window.

“What do you think you’re doing? Come back here?” she called.

He kept running.

“I’ll come out and catch you!” called Olive.

He reached the flowerbed and darted in.

“Alright, but you’ll soon find that you did all that running for nothing,” said Olive.

She still hadn’t overtly stated what she was going to do with him.

He looked at the window, as she climbed through it, stepped into the garden and ran across the lawn. She stopped and put her hands together and looked down at him. Olive crouched down on all fours and crawled towards the flower bed. She caught him, gave him a stern look, and then smiled.

“It’s alright. I don’t blame you for running away,” she said, and gave him a slow kiss. Then she touched him with the tip of her tongue, while the rest remained concealed inside her mouth.

Olive carried him back to the kitchen, and put him into a baking dish. She folded her arms and looked out the kitchen window behind him. Then she placed the baking dish into the oven, turned it on, and walked out of the room.

Samantha put her hair up, sat on a couch and opened her mouth wide, giving him a generous look inside it.  Then she stuck out her tongue at him, withdrew it, stuck it out again and licked his face and shoulders. Suddenly she burst out laughing, showing him her wide open mouth for several seconds, before placing him inside it.

After he’d spent half an hour lying in the most beautiful place in existence, he felt her mouth opening. She took him out again.

“What did you think of that?” she asked.

“It would make an excellent hiding place for a game of hide and seek?”

“How do you play that game?” she asked.

He told her.

“It sounds interesting enough on your little earth world. It should be even more interesting in here, with all the places that a little boy like you could hide,” she said, and put him down on the carpet.

She stood up, covered her eyes with her left hand, and said, “I’ll give you plenty of time to run and hide, because my legs are so much longer. I’ll count to 200,” she said.

He could see nowhere in the room that would give him a permanent escape from her. So he decided to use the opportunity to let her think that he wasn’t looking for one. He ran over to the table and hid behind the leg, so that he could peek around and watch her, while she finished her counting. Then she opened her eyes, smiled mirthfully down in no direction in particular, as she had no idea where he was, and walked around the room. He kept edging around the table leg, in order to remain out of sight each time she changed positions. Eventually, she got down on her hands and knees and began crawling around the floor, looking under low chairs, and still not managing to find him.

Then he saw her eyes fix on the table leg that concealed him.