Beck padded slowly down the hallway, Simon once more sitting cross-legged on her soft shoulder. Simon thought for sure he’d be nervous. But instead, as the lights of the kitchenette grew brighter, a strange kind of calm washed over him, warming him up from the inside out. Although, he imagined, that could very well be partly from Beck’s own natural body heat staving off the chills. Nestled beside her neck under the curtain of her pale brown hair, he felt her pulse quicken beneath her skin. Even if Simon wasn’t uneasy at the prospect of facing Milla after what they’d just been through, Beck clearly was.

And why not? Simon mused. Why shouldn’t she feel strange—after what she’d just done.

After what they’d done together…

He rose to his feet, balancing easily as a sailor on the deck of a ship, and put his tiny hand against her skin and whispered up into her ear: “It’s gonna be all right. I’m here. We’re here together.”

“If you say so…” Beck whispered back. Her voice held even, but there was a tension behind it. She brough her hand up, stroking Simon’s little body gently before dropping her hand to her side and rounding the corner into the kitchenette. Milla was posted at the stove, oven mitts on each hand, stirring a pot of water with a wooden spoon in one mitt and reading from the back of a box of noodles held in the other. She turned slowly, angling her eyes at them. Her gaze lingered on Simon, still leaning into the crook of her roommate’s neck, but didn’t pass comment. Her expression betrayed nothing.

“What took you so long,” she snarked out of the corner of her lips. “Fall in or something?”

“Something like that,” Simon quipped back without missing a beat.

Milla narrowed her eyes at him playfully, then shrugged. “Well—did you say thank you to Beck?”

Simon blinked. “For…?”

“You don’t smell like toilet. I assume she fished you out and helped you rinse off.”

“Oh—yes. Of course.” From his perch on her shoulder, Simon turned to face Beck’s cheek and swept downwards into a deep comical bow. “Thank you for your service, Lady,” he intoned, in mock-polity.

“It was my pleasure, Master Simon,” she replied in a stuffy British butler’s accent.

Milla raised an eyebrow, but again didn’t make any remark. Instead she switched off the gas jet flame and carried the boiling water a few feet away to the sink. “I made an executive decision,” she explained, pouring the rotini into the strainer. “I was too hungry to wait to make proper lasagna—so I went with ordinary pasta instead. I figured you all would be pretty famished too.”

Simon and Beck murmured assent; Simon in particular thought of how loudly Beck’s stomach had growled when he’d escaped it. It hadn’t been happy about losing a meal; she must be ravenous now.

“Honestly, it’s probably for the best,” his big sister continued on without turning back to them. She was getting bowls out of the cupboard now—two, one for her and one for Beck. “I don’t suppose…” she said, in an insinuating tone, “…that Si told you our little lasagna story?”

She turned at the waist, her lips kinking up as she searched their faces for a reaction. Simon managed to remain stone-faced, but Beck had flushed red all over, straight up to the roots of her brown hair. Simon shrugged, catching his sister’s attention with a wave. “It, ah… it might have come up,” he admitted.

“Lucky thing you did too,” came the reply with a wink. “Or we might not be having this conversation.”

“For sure, we wouldn’t.”

Steadying little Simon with her hand, Beck sat down at the circular breakfast nook table and folded her hands on the faux-wood surface. Simon stood and nimbly skipped down the length of one arm, but instead of finishing the journey on the table’s surface, he stopped short and plopped down on the back of Beck’s right hand. Beck twitched in surprise at his ticklish touch, but then smiled down shyly at him and flipped her hand over, catching him in her palm and cradling him comfortably on the table. Simon smiled back and ran his fingernails over the corduroy surface of her palm, tracking along the thick crease of her lifeline and teasing a pleasant little shiver out of the larger girl.

Milla returned from the sink. She’d doffed her oven mitts and had two steaming bowls of rotini pasta, slathered with brick-colored sauce and sprinkled with a snowy dusting of crumbled parmesan cheese. She slid one towards Beck along with a fork, keeping the second for herself. Simon’s sister peered down at him, still resting comfortably in the palm of Beck’s right hand—and he thought he saw a strange secret smile wiggle across her lips.

“Comfy?” was all she said. But before her brother could respond, she stabbed a big forkful of pasta and raised it to her lips, blowing the steam off. “You cool to sit at the edge of my bowl, little bro?” she asked. “I could get you another plate or something but honest to God—I don’t want to wash another dish.”

She shoveled the pasta into her mouth, staring down the length of the fork at Simon.

“Unless…” she mumbled through her mouthful. “Unless Si’s afraid of a repeat performance?”

Simon rolled his eyes, pretending to consider it. “I’ve seen you eat,” he teased her—and gave a few oinking grunts, pushing up the point of his nose with two fingers. “Maybe I should be nervous.”

Milla sneered at him, still chewing. “Maybe you think Beck would be more careful.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe you ought to test that theory.”

Simon folded his arms. “Maybe I oughtta.”

He leaned back, craning his neck to look up into Beck’s eyes upside-down. Her lips worked back and forth nervously, staring down the length of her nose at him with bright pale eyes.

“You’re… are you sure about this?” she half-whispered—although Simon was sure he detected a note of eagerness hidden under her usual fluttering anxiety.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he replied, kicking his bare heels against her palm.

“No. I mean… I’m sure I don’t.” She was flushing pink again.

He smiled reassuringly at her. “Just put me on the edge. And don’t mistake me for a noodle.”

Rather than bite at that bait, Beck swallowed and lifted Simon up over her steaming pasta bowl, finally holding him level with the rim. He climbed off her palm carefully, hooking one leg then the other over the lip of the hard china before dragging a piece of noodle towards himself. The pasta was warm and pliable under his touch, and soon he was tearing off pieces and shoving them into his mouth, occasionally dipping them down deeper into the bowl to swipe up a gob of marinara sauce.

Beck stared down at him, watching in fascination. Simon caught her eye and gestured grandly to the remaining mounds of noodles in the bowl. “Go on then,” he called up to her. “You must be starving.” And then, in a much lower and private voice, he said:

“It’s all right—I trust you.”

It seemed to be enough. Beck nodded and lifted her fork, thrusting it down into the pasta furthest from where Simon perched. Simon watched her put the forkful of noodles in her mouth, chew, and swallow—as though he was unable to look away. After his sister’s accident, he’d been almost afraid to watch people eat; now the act fascinated him. His eyes tracked along Beck’s towering body until his gaze landed at the patch of sweater concealing her stomach.

Not ten minutes ago, he thought to himself. Not ten minutes ago, I was right there—inside her. He wondered if Beck was thinking the same things. If she was imagining it. Reliving it…

He didn’t understand why the thoughts thrilled him so—but thrill him they did.

But soon normal dinner conversation resumed. Beck grew more confident eating around Simon, and hardly seemed to notice his presence at the edge of her bowl unless he spoke. This he did very little. As Milla and Beck talked to each other, catching up and reminiscing about the school year, Simon felt his heart start to glow in his chest. After so much time in his colony, he had missed talk like this. Real talk, about the real world, not the little fragile lives of his fellow tinies, the petty squabbles or meaningless political power grabs others of his size seemed so fascinated with.

This was anything but meaningless. This was real life: loud and friendly and joyful and large.

Simon never regretted his size. Even at life’s most dangerous, he appreciated the thrill and utility his condition came packaged with. But missing this… being deprived of this… was the only thing in the world that ever made him wish he was as big as his big sister.

The conversation went on. Simon had eaten his fill and was starting to feel warm and sleepy. As he chewed a last bite of warm noodle, he worked a kink in his shoulder, surprised at how sore his whole body had suddenly become. His adventure inside Beck’s stomach, coupled with their lovemaking, had worn him down completely, exhausting every muscle. But it felt good, that deep-in-the-muscle hurt. Like he’d spent the evening exercising and not doing… whatever it was he’d done with Beck.

He blinked sleepily at the bleary kitchenette lights high above him. He didn’t want to sleep yet. He wanted to stay with Beck and his sister, continue enjoying the evening with them. But the porcelain bowl under him was warming him all the way through, relaxing him… and against his will, he felt his eyelids starting to drift shut, and his mind starting to wheel towards darkness…

Then Beck said something—a joke, one of the few Simon had ever heard her tell, and Milla’s fist pounded the table as she laughed hard. Beck’s pasta bowl shook and clattered on the table; Simon, perched on the lip, felt himself slipping forward. Any other time, Simon would have been strong and agile enough to catch himself. But he was too tired now, his belly too full and his brain too slow… The world spun crazily around him and he slid down into the bottom of the bowl, landing splat in a last puddle of dark red sauce. He cried out in alarm, and Beck gave a yelp as well—but Milla only laughed harder, screwing up her eyes and going completely red in the face.

“Are you all right, Si?” Beck blurted, plucking the tiny boy out of the sauce.

Dangling between her fingers, Simon looked into Beck’s face. All at once he burst out laughing as well. The sauce had soaked into his shirt and his pants and was smeared in his hair and across his face.

“You see now?” he said between giggles. “You see how it happens?”

“Sorry, little bro…” Milla huffed from across the table, over her own laughing fit at last. “Come on Beck—give him here and I’ll get him cleaned up again.”

She put out her hand out, palm up. But Simon twisted toward her and waved her away. “Oh no, you don’t,” he protested. “You’re benched, San Andreas. Take a lap. Get your head in the game.”

Milla stuck his tongue out at him—then, her eyes flicked suspiciously between him and Beck. Simon rubbed his eyes and held her gaze as best he could manage, giving nothing away.

“Fine,” Milla said, shrugging. “Beck—you’re up again.”

She fished her phone from her back pocket and started thumbing through her social media, head down and completely engrossed. Beck rotated her hand so that sauce-sticky Simon rested on her palm once more, giving him a questioning look. Simon simply shrugged.

“Sorry to ask again,” he said, “but I can’t get to the sink myself…”

“This better not become a habit,” she murmured, smirking at him.

But with the stuffy grace of a dutiful manservant, she turned up her nose and stood, carrying Simon towards the kitchen sink. Simon ran his fingers through his hair, combing out chunks of sauce that had started to dry there. Beck switched the faucet on, running her other hand beneath the stream of water to gauge the temperature. But before she could lower him under the waterfall, he held up a hand to stop her. Simon leaned over the edge of her palm, peering across the kitchen at Milla. Her back was turned, still engrossed in her social feed. Simon looked up at Beck’s expectant eyes, a dangerous idea twisting around in his brain. He beckoned her closer, and as she raised her hand level with her face…

He rolled back his sleeve, offering his sauce-covered arm toward her.

Beck’s eyes rounded; she shook her head hard, her brown hair fanning out. But Simon only grinned and walked closer to her, standing on the very heel of her hand, only a few inches from her lips. “I’m still feeling a little brave,” he whispered to her, holding his arm out once more.

Beck chewed her lip, a pained look crawling across her pretty face. But she glanced back at Milla—then ducked her head down, pressing her mouth against Simon’s arm and upper chest. At first it was only a kiss, like they’d shared before. But after only a moment the suction increased as Beck slurped his arm into her mouth all the way up to the shoulder, quickly sucking every last drop of sauce off his skin. For a brief instant Simon thought he might be drawn inside her mouth completely; instead, she broke the kiss, red in the face and covering her mouth with her other hand. As if on marionette strings, they both turned back towards Milla—mercifully, her back was still turned. Soft tinny music was playing from her phone; she was watching a music video.

“Fear and delight, all the way through the night, with a little derring-do…”

Simon stifled a giggle; Beck did too, hissing laughter behind her cupped hand. There was something wonderful about sharing a secret. But this went beyond that. Was this how normal-sized teenagers felt, sneaking around, stealing kisses? It didn’t matter. Whatever the feeling was, it was exhilarating.

“This better not become a habit,” Beck had said—only half-joking.

It was too late for that now. Simon wanted more. He would always want more.