“—Noooooo!”

The whine tapered off as my eyes snapped open. The desert landscape of flesh evaporated, leaving me in darkness. Only the scent of leather and moisturizer remained. A sound had burrowed into my awareness, causing me to wake.

“JERRY?”

It was Jennifer; her voice warbled in from down the hallway, bright with curiosity and faint concern.

“Uuurrrgh…” I grunted in response. Thought was fuzzy and indistinct; I was still too tired to figure anything out. A headache had lodged behind my eyeballs. Plus, something was pushing up against my front, squashing my insides. The bedsheet had been kicked away. I struggled to roll over, my body felt like a log of lumber. Too much sleeping pill and my metabolism was still trying to process it.

Driving my body with my shoulders, I managed to turn around until I was lying on my back, only to be met with a confounding sight, and for a second my brain simply refused to compute.

There was a huge, straight crack running down the bedroom ceiling like a lightning bolt, through which the white daylight streamed through.

But Jen was already up and about, so why had she not noticed it when she’d first awoken?

I continued to blink up at it stupidly. Something else was wrong.

If daylight was streaming in through the crack, why was the room dark? It shouldn’t have been dark, crack or not; it was morning.

Or was it? I couldn’t figure anything out; my brain was running at half speed.

I closed my eyes, hoping more rest would cure my disorientation, and hopefully the crack would have disappeared the next time I closed my eyes. Seconds later, I opened them again.

The white crack was still there, bright as day against the surrounding darkness. My nostrils crinkled and flared; the room smelled like someone had dumped hand sanitizer on the carpet, and the leather scent – shoes? – leaked out of the cupboard. I reached blindly for a bed sheet that wasn’t there.

“JERRY? JER-RY!"

Jen’s voice came in irritated spurts, echoing in from down the hallway. She was fast growing impatient. “SOMEONE BETTER GET THEIR LITTLE BUTT OUT HERE, OR SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET A LITTLE SPANK…”

She was making it sound like I was misbehaving – hiding from her – when all I was doing was keeping curled up in bed. I was sleeping in – so what? It was Saturday.

Bristling at her tone, I rolled onto my side, drew my knees up to my chest and shut my eyes again.

"UGH,” she groaned, “I AM NOT DOING THIS RIGHT NOW. I’M HAVING LUNCH WITH CHRISTINE AND KATIE, AND YOU’RE WHEREVER YOU WANT TO BE, AND WE’LL COMPARE NOTES LATER!”

Bright rhythmic claps punctuated the air, the sound of her high heels crossing the tiled floor. I waited patiently for the quiet again, but for some reason, the sounds were not growing further away as if heading towards the front door – but drawing even closer, until each clap shocked my eardrums. The mattress even began to tremble as her clacking heels announced her presence in the room, the driving clack turning to a dull thud muffled by the bedroom carpet, and…

...she’d found me after all, in the bed, where I’d been all along, and was now heading straight for me.

I shut my eyes and feigned sleep.

Neither of us spoke.

The mattress dropped out from below and my breath sucked in. I clawed around blindly in the dim light for purchase, but – bizarrely – some flooring was still there beneath my side and flailing hands – even as I could now feel myself flying through the air.

My chest tightened as the soft flooring lurched sideways like a car swerving around a corner, and then whipped back and forth through the air. I was rolled one way, bumping into unseen objects and entities that sprung up in my path out of nowhere, then, as the thrusting motion reversed, rolled back the other way, into and over more objects; most of these hard and uncomfortable as they connected with my legs, ribs and elbows. In mere seconds I was a passenger of a sinking ship; bumping into sliding tables and chairs that knocked into indiscriminate body parts, jangling my bones and grazing my soft vulnerable areas, while my head swam as if I was already in the depths of a black swirling ocean.

“Wh–where are you –?!” I groaned, bumping up and down on the constantly moving flooring, but my voice bounced and shook to pieces, and was then muffled by the sharp staccato heel blasts as they traversed back over the hard floor tiles. I went to yell again, louder, but the hard pointy corner of an object stuck itself into my soft, unprotected stomach, stealing away my voice.

Meanwhile, a door handle and lock clanked very closeby, the door banged shut again and the heel taps, rubber tip on concrete, were now scraping over outside paving. The dark ceiling overhead burst apart and light poured down, piercing my eyes. I shut them an instant before sensing a huge shadow hovering down over me.

Sharp-tipped probing masses swept over my body without stopping, grazing my head, torso, and groin, pinching and tweaking each of these body parts as if trying to tactilely memorize my body surface. Just as quickly, they shuffled me aside with frightening, careless impatience. A metal and plastic rattling came from one dark corner before a metal bar struck and scratched over my leg. I yelped, tucking my legs in as the shadow lifted, taking the rattling thing up over my head, into the bright light, and vanishing.

The car beeped to unlock – the thing that scraped me had been the car keys. Then a car door opened and shut, while the surface I was lying on became firm as a weight pushed up from underneath until I was resting on it. The local motion of rising and falling in the air stopped, almost at the same time, another type of motion started, a vibration which expanded into uncontrollable acceleration in some direction, swerving. It was simply normal car movement, but my puny size made these mundane motions seem more impressive than they actually were. It was like I stood on a deck, feeling the boat accosted by powerful waves, but I actually knew I was in a car, specifically, resting on the passenger seat, lying at the bottom of Jen’s handbag.

But how had I ended up there?

At some point in the night, during uneasy sleep, I must have sleepwalked through the bed, and tumbled out off the side of the mattress, straight into the bag, which must have been lying open beside the bed, either knocking myself out from the fall, or passing back into sleep once I’d landed. Anyway, it wasn’t so important how I’d gotten inside. It was important how I was going to get out.

I should have called for her attention, but was still so tired and nauseated, embarrassed and in disbelief that I’d ended up here, now wanting nothing more than to curl up in the darkness of the soft bag and go back to sleep. Now that I was in the car, I worried that if I called attention to myself, she would spin the mishap to her advantage; seizing the opportunity to turn it into a big, exhausting shopping trip, employing me as her tiny shopping cheerleader. Every passing second made it less likely that she would return me home, as we drove further from the house.

The car engine shut off and the bag was lifted and sent swinging through the air before slapping into a firm, moving surface. She had the strap set long and the bag was over her shoulder, forced into a repeated elastic bounce against the side of her butt as she walked, sending me trampolining around inside. The springy turbulence enlivened my nausea, and worse, the pendulous motion set the various possessions dancing again, like people bumping into me inside a bouncy castle.

Objects blundered into me from all sides: packets and containers and cosmetic tubs and tubes, until I felt like just another forgotten object of possession being conveyed in the bag. A plastic packet somersaulted over me, and multiple objects spilled out and looped around my arms and legs – hairbands. I kicked my legs and whipped my arms out, trying to disentangle myself. Then another object came rolling at me, a phone charger, I booted the side with my foot, narrowly avoiding getting struck with the metal prongs. Then a box of Advil tumbled over me, a corner jutting into my shoulder, the inside foil sheet rattling. With the galloping motion and steady pounding of Jen’s heels, I felt like I was stuck in the saddlebag of a horse.

The motions finally slowed as the voices of Christine and Katie approached, and greeted each other, then I was being bounced along in tow with them. Bright light – even brighter than before – slanted down from the crack between the partially open zip above, and into my eyes – even flickering and dancing as I was tossed around like salad. The sun had come out from behind a cloud and beamed straight down.  

“YOU LADIES DON’T MIND THE SUN?” Christine offered. “WE CAN SIT INDOORS.”

No one protested, and then, chair joints creaked, grinded, and scraped over concrete as the women took their seats, before firm backing rose up and planted itself into my spine. The handbag didn’t have a firm structure, but was floppy and relatively shapeless, like a big leather pouch with a shoulder strap. When the bottom came to rest, it collapsed and folded, making the hard ground distinct against my body.

When the bag had come to rest, I guessed it must be beside Jen’s feet. The unzipped opening had folded over, leaving a small unfolded gap through which bright light filtered in. I got the briefest glimpse of shining nail tips forking into sight before my eyelids shaded in protest. These nail tips rattled painfully over my skull before I was nudged aside, and then a long object like a black sack flew into the air and disappeared. A moment later, my sight went completely dark as the black cloth sack – now empty – dropped onto my head and slipped down my upper body, to my waist. A cloth bag for storing sunglasses. I ripped it off and threw it into the corner.

The women chatted, while I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, and soon their voices comingled with the drone of voices of all the other people in the vicinity of what seemed to be a restaurant or café. But the urban noises kept interrupting my rest. Rousing laughter came from another table, while the metallic clangs of cutlery and rings of ceramic dishes, interspersed with intermittent clomping footsteps, sometimes sounding alarmingly close to my bag campout. Further off, there was the crackle of a moped idling at a street light before the light changed and it departed in a burst, a car horn, and a booming car stereo system playing through open windows, before being swallowed up by the chorus of traffic rumbling. Then the squeal of a baby seemed to pierce the tiny, sensitive membranes of my ears, making my insides crinkle.

Eventually, I abandoned sleep, my attention returned and the conversation sharpened into focus again:

Jen was saying:

"I’VE GOT HIM FOR THE WEEKEND. HE FLIES BACK MONDAY.”

“HOW IS IT ALL GOING THERE?” Christine asked.

“HE WAS FINE LAST NIGHT, BUT WHEN I LEFT HIM THIS MORNING HE WAS IN A MOOD."

"WORK PRESSURES," said Katie, sounding as if she was speaking from experience. "DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY."

"WHEN HE'S HOME,” Jen mused to no one in particular, “I PLAY WITH DIFFERENT WAYS OF GETTING HIM INTERESTED."

"THING IS," answered Christine, "YOU'RE AN ACTION GIRL. SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO WEAVE A ROMANCE WITH WORDS."

“SO, I USE MY BODY – WHAT IS NOT ROMANTIC ABOUT THAT?”

"SEE, WITH ME," Katie chimed in, "THE OPPOSITE PROBLEM. BUT IF I DIDN’T TALK, LEVI WOULD SPEND HOURS ON HIS TECHNICAL DRAWINGS IN SILENCE."

"COOK HIM HIS FAVORITE MEAL," Christine offered, to both Jen and Katie simultaneously. "OLD-FASHIONED BUT IT SOLVES ALMOST EVERYTHING."

"HE PULLS AWAY IF I ASK FOR TOO MUCH," Jen went on, carrying on a self-propelled spiel. "IT'S LIKE, PUSH-PULL. THEN HE HIDES."

"I’D GO CRAZY," Katie sympathized. There was a clink of cutlery as food was forked around a plate. "HAVE YOU HEARD OF PRE-MARRIAGE COUNSELLING? I LOOKED INTO IT, BUT LEVI DIDN’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH TALK THERAPY."

“IT MIGHT BE YOUR APPROACH, SWEETIE,” said Christine. “YOU GIVE HIM DISCIPLINE WHEN HE WANTS DELICACY. YOU WANT TO MASTER AND TAME HIM, BUT MARRIAGE ISN’T CHECKMATE.”

The chair squeaked as Jennifer shifted, and her shoe scraped the ground. The bag opening rustled and, opening my eyes, her hand was hovering over me, nearly making me start. Her nails grazed indifferently over my face – I used every ounce of willpower not to move – trailed over my body, poking, prodding, inadvertently jabbing me in the gut as they felt around for something. Making a sweeping motion, her hand shoveled under me and flipped me – plus a couple of other objects – over to the side of the bag in its single-minded search for something else distinctly not shaped like me.

Plastic wrapper crinkled as she found a tissue-packet and withdrew it. A moment later, the plastic packet, still half full of tissues, flew down through the bag opening and bounced on my face. I winced.

“I GET IT,” Katie offered. “HE'S HAD A TASTE OF LIFE AND YOU’RE SCARED HE WON’T COME BACK.”

“WHY SHOULD I BE WORRIED?" Jen scoffed. "HE’D DO ANYTHING FOR ME IF I ASKED HIM.”

“IT MUST BE HARD,” said Christine. “THE SIZE BACKFLIPS, MY GOSH, IT'D GIVE ME WHIPLASH. DOESN’T HE MOURN HIS PREVIOUS FORM?”

“AND WHAT ABOUT ME?" Jen challenged. "I'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER.”

“YOUR FACE GIVES IT AWAY. AT MY HOUSE YOU COULDN’T STOP SMILING.”

Jen laughed with the recollection of Christine’s dinner party.

“I’D BEEN DYING TO SLIP JERRY ON MY FINGER ALL DAY, THAT'S WHY.”

“HE LOOKED STUNNING ON YOU,” Christine agreed. “NOT TO MENTION, HE MADE A CHIC LITTLE EARRING.”

“ARE YOU GOING TO STAY HERE?” asked Katie.

"I NEED TO, WITH WORK,” replied Jen. There was a pause as if she was considering it more seriously. “BUT THE HOUSE SEEMS BIGGER, QUIETER. ORDERLY.”

“YOU LOVE IT HERE,” Christine remarked. “CLOSE TO THE BEACH AND THE BOARDWALK.”

“I DON’T KNOW,” Jen murmured.

"WELL, YOU LOOK GOOD. FIT."

“JOGGING. DANCING. OTHERWISE I’D BE CLIMBING THE WALLS.”

The conversation shifted to diet, and exercise and sleep, and my mind drifted again. They talked about work, Jen mentioned her own work issues. Then she said:

“WE HAVE ENOUGH FOR LIVING DECENTLY SO I THINK ABOUT HIS MOTIVE.”

“TO WORK?” Christine laughed a little. “LET HIM. MEN LIKE THEIR PROJECTS.”

"THIS," Katie agreed. Then elaborated: “WHEN LEVI WENT TO JAPAN, HE CAME BACK SAYING EVERYONE NEEDED SPIRITUALITY IN THEIR LIVES. THAT LASTED A WEEK. SOMETIMES MEN NEED TO GET THE ‘ADVENTURE’ ALL OUT OF THEIR SYSTEM.”

The musical ding of a church bell echoed in the distance. This spurred the women into talking about the wedding, Christine (already engaged to Tyler, but in no rush to officiate) ran some ideas past.

“ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE YOUR NAME?” asked Katie suddenly, “– ‘JENNIFER MOUSSEAU’?”

“NO,” Jennifer said firmly. “LIKE I’M CHATTEL. BUT I WOULDN’T REFUSE IF HE CHANGED HIS NAME.”

The moment she’d branded the ‘T’ on my chest she’d made that painfully clear to me, literally.

There was a storm of furious vehicular honking from some nearby street, and footsteps passed very near, a little kid’s voice rang directly above, “MOMMY! MOMMY!”

I flinched, but mother and child must have passed right by the table. Mostly, day-to-day I didn’t have anything to do with kids – plus bad memories of being a bully target of neighborhood kids – and the thought of tots who would now tower over me was disturbing. I hated to imagine the scene if I’d been spotted. I released a heavy breath in relief that the danger had passed, and remained in the bag, happy to continue to lie low for the time being.

“HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT IT WITH HIM?” Katie was saying, in response to a context I’d missed, being distracted by the kid.

“SHE’S GOING FOR THE SURPRISE ATTACK,” Christine chuckled under her breath.

“NOTHING IS A SURPRISE ABOUT IT,” Jennifer replied with a mock scoffing noise. “I MEAN, IT FOLLOWS NATURALLY.”

“WELL, YOU QUESTIONED HIS MOTIVE FOR GOING UP THERE,” Katie said meaningfully. “MAYBE HE’S SCARED.”

“SURE,” said Jennifer, “I’VE BEEN DISCREET ABOUT IT BUT I HAVEN’T BEEN DISHONEST.”

The conversation had moved on. One of the women said something funny; Christine let out an ebullient laugh. She must have tossed her head back because her earrings chimed – my hearing was so fine I picked it up. It seemed long ago I had been swinging from those very earrings; a bizarre thought. I felt a little more alert now, my nausea migraine had dulled.

The chairs scuffed the ground and then I felt myself being hefted up into the air in one shot, like I weighed nothing. I tumbled around against her hip, and then the bag yawned to let the sun in, and an outstretched hand whose nails tapped over my body parts as they journeyed unconsciously for the purse, which was quickly retrieved so Jen could pay at the counter. A moment later I had the wind knocked out of me, almost buried beneath a leathery mattress that flung out of the sky. This was the purse, which instantaneously flattened me before bouncing off to the side as the bag interior repeated its earlier washing machine cycle of tumultuous motion, as a result of the bag’s vivacious rebound against the buxom curve of Jen’s posterior, until my stomach was curling with nausea again.

The bag swung and dropped onto the padded car seat, before the door clapped shut and the engine came to life. The bag’s possessions stilled where they dropped and mercifully stopped tackling me like football players. The floppy leather was vibrating all around as the car rolled down the road.

“WEIRD DREAM LAST NIGHT,” Jennifer was saying, and I wondered if she was now on the phone, “LIKE SOMEONE PAINTING A LINE, STARTING AT MY TOES AND SLOWLY SPREADING UP MY BODY, STOPPING AT MY NIPPLE. TOTALLY RAW, PURE TOUCH. BUT IT ENDED RIGHT BEFORE MY FAVORITE PART.”

There was a weighed silence.

“YOU WOULDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT, WOULD YOU?”

After more silence:

“THE GAME’S OVER NOW. I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE.”

“How did you know?” I grunted, hauling myself into a sitting position.

“JERRY, I KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE.” She continued: “YOU HARDLY HAVE TO GO TO THIS TROUBLE IF YOU WANT TO JOIN ME FOR LUNCH. YOU COULD HAVE JUST ASKED. WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS, WHY YOU’RE NAKED.”

“Bad sleep. I must have sleepwalked or something, I woke up in here. “

“AW, YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WHERE?” she said with earnest sweetness.

“I worked it out. I was just napping.”

She sighed with amusement.

“YOUR VOICE SOUNDS SO CUTE COMING FROM INSIDE MY BAG, LIKE I’VE GOT A LITTLE GREMLIN LIVING IN THERE.”

Worried she was in no rush to displace me, I cried out:

“You have to take me home.”

“WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?”

Relieved, I lay back on the soft interior fabric. After a minute of silence, she said:

“YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SAY?” There was a lilt of expectation in her tone.

“Like what?”

“HOW MUCH DID YOU HEAR EARLIER?”

“I was napping.”