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I'm running through a maze, impossibly convoluted, looking for Suzy. I don't know how long I've been running, but I feel like I'm about to collapse. I round the corner, and find myself staring down an infinite corridor of identical iron doors. She's behind one of them, I know...

I run from door to door, trying to open them, but they're all locked. I'm getting frustrated because I know I'm so close. All I have to do is open the right door and I can be happy again...

"This one," Nicole says, standing and pointing. I don't know why she's my size, and something tells me not to trust her, but I still run to the door that she has opened for me. I plunge into the dark doorway and find myself on the floor of Kim's room, tiny once again. I try to go back through the doorway, but it's gone. And I can hear the thud of approaching footsteps...



I wake up sobbing in utter darkness, trying to remember where I am and how I got here. I'm lying on something soft that sticks to my damp flesh. I sit up, feeling the silky material peel away. I blink several times, waiting to catch a glimpse of anything in this gloomy place.

Then, with painful certainty, it all comes back to me. I'm in Kim's underwear drawer. I'm her prisoner, betrayed and handed over to her by Nicole.

I have no idea what time it is, or how long I've been here. Kim spent about an hour toying with me last night before finally tucking me in here, promising we'd play more tomorrow.

So how long do I have? A few minutes? An hour? Several hours? There's no way of marking time in this place.

So I lay back down and try to go back to sleep, dreading what tomorrow will bring.



I'm awakened from an uneasy doze when Kim slides the drawer open. Bright light spills in, and I throw my arm over my eyes to shield them.

"Good morning," Kim chirps, reaching into the drawer. I brace myself for contact, but she reaches past me and grabs her plastic pill case. It's a large, circular thing with seven compartments labeled for days of the week. She snaps open the Tuesday box and dumps a couple of pills into her hand.

"I hate these things," she tells me, regarding the pills with disdain. "One of them is supposed to help me not be depressed, and the other one's supposed to keep me calmed down. But they just make me feel icky."

I watch her nervously, and actually feel a wave of relief when she swallows the pills and washes them down with a gulp of water. The only thing worse than being the prisoner of a spoiled twelve-year-old girl is being the prisoner of a spoiled twelve-year-old girl with a chemical imbalance.

She sets the glass down on her dresser, then reaches in for me. She dangles me in front of her face and smiles. "So, little boy, what are we going to do today?"



An hour later, the game has gotten really tedious, but Kim shows no signs of stopping. It goes something like this: Kim's bare foot hovers above me, following me relentlessly. All the while, she keeps giggling and saying things like, "Where do you think you're going?" When I finally move outside of some imaginary boundary, she brings her foot down on me and grabs me with her toes. "I've got you now," she proclaims triumphantly, squeezing me until I kiss her foot and beg her for release. Then she drops me on the floor and the game starts all over again.

We're on about the nine-thousandth iteration when Nicole comes running into the room, all out of breath. She shuts Kim's door behind her and looks at us with a great deal of concern. "Momma's really freaking out," she tells us, her voice quavering.

"Cool," Kim says, pinning me down beneath her big toe. "So she really thinks he ran away?"

"She called GenetiTech, and they got hold of Daddy and that Rachel woman. They're on their way home now."

Kim giggles. "This is so wild. Did anyone call the police or anything?"

Nicole shakes her head. "Momma said GenetiTech told her not to. They said to just sit and wait." She lets out a wavering sigh. "I swear, I didn't know she was gonna get like this. I feel kinda bad about the whole thing."

"Don't be such a baby," Kim says, pressing down against my stomach with her toe. I let out a gasp and she grins. "You wanna play with your brother?"

"I'm scared," Nicole tells her. "If they find out what we did, I'm gonna be in so much trouble."

"How will they find out?" Kim asks. "They'll all think he ran away to that other lab place, right?"

Nicole nods. "Yeah, I guess so."

"So just keep your mouth shut, and everything'll be okay." Kim looks down at me and bares her teeth in a predatory smile. "Watch this," she says, working her toes around me and lifting me up. "I'm gonna give him an organism."



For the next four or five days, life with Kim settles into a hellish but manageable routine. I spend most of my time trapped in her drawer, sitting in total darkness with no way to mark the passing time. After a few hours of this, I'm ready for any kind of break in the boredom.

The games with Kim vary from day to day, depending on her mood. Sometimes she just holds me and pets me, which is infinitely preferable to the other pastimes. Sometimes she puts me to work massaging her feet, a task that usually ends with me squirming between her wriggling toes until I pretend to have an "organism."

I get fed twice a day, from whatever lunch and dinner scraps she can sneak away from the table. I eat my meals on a paper towel in the floor, ever aware of her feet as she paces around me, watching.

Nicole comes over every day to update us on events in the Dalton household. Paul and Naomi had a big fight, with Paul actually on the defensive for once as Naomi accused him of scaring me off with all his talk about GenetiTech. Rachel has set up shop there, and has a bunch of GenetiTech men covering the area. They're taking my threat of running away to SPECTRUM seriously, Nicole tells me, but they're also investigating Suzy to see if she had anything to do with my disappearance.

"You see," Nicole tells me triumphantly as I writhe beneath her foot. "If we'd done what you said, they woulda caught you."



It's Saturday night, I think. Time flows strangely in the Morgan household. I just finished my dinner, a greasy chunk of Chicken McNugget. Kim is sitting cross-legged on her bed, watching me with a petulant look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I ask her.

She shrugs and says, "Momma's gonna bring some guy home again tonight."

"What guy?"

"I don't know. Come here." Her feet come down to the floor as I approach, and I eye them nervously, wondering what it's going to be tonight. Between her toes? Under her sole? Straddling her ankle?

As it is, she simply leans down and picks me up in her hand. She sits back and looks down at me in her palm. "It's always some creepy guy she meets when she's out dancing," she tells me. "I always know when she's gonna bring one home because she sends me over to Nicole's to spend the night. Only now they're all upset over you being gone, so I can't go. So she told me to stay in my room until morning."

"How come you're so down?" I ask her, wondering just why the hell I'm feeling sympathetic. "Is it your meds?"

She shakes her head and offers me a sad smile. "No, I didn't take them today. I flushed them."

I don't press the point. I just sit there in her hand and let her stroke me with her fingers as tears begin to stream down her face.



I'm startled awake by the slamming of a door. Cheryl's voice, muffled and distant, shouts something indiscernible. Kim screams back, her voice frighteningly near, "I did take them! God!" I hear and feel her angry footsteps as she stomps across the room, stopping right outside the dresser.

Frightened, I stumble through the darkness of the drawer and burrow under some rolled-up socks. I feel the drawer open and I hold my breath, knowing my subterfuge will never in a million years work.

There's a rattling of the doorknob, and an angry pounding on the door. "God damn it, Kim," Cheryl's voice shouts from the other side. "If you've gone off your meds again, I swear I'm gonna tear your ass up!"

"Go away!" Kim screams, so loudly and shrilly that it almost makes my head explode. Cheryl hits the door angrily, then storms off.

I lie there, trembling, as Kim's hands dig through the clothing. The drawer shakes from her efforts. "Come out right now, or I'll squish you!" she shouts. I scramble out from under the socks and wave to her, hoping to appease her somewhat.

Her face is flushed and angry. "You don't hide from me," she snarls, snatching me up with such force that my head snaps backwards. "Ever!" She yanks me out of the drawer and holds me tightly in her fist, her fingers pinning my arms to my side.

"I'm sorry!" I cry out to her, trembling in her grasp. "God, Kim, I'm so sorry..."

"I'm going to punish you," she tells me with sadistic glee, grinning cruelly.

"No, wait!" I call to her, desperately trying to think of something to appease her. We're interrupted by a rattle at her doorknob, and the metallic snick of a key turning. Panicking, Kim drops me into the drawer and slams it shut just as her door comes open.

"I didn't say come in," Kim screams. I hear thudding footsteps and a brutal slap.

"Les is gone now," Cheryl says angrily. "Are you happy now? You scared him off!"

Kim sobs, "You're not supposed to come in unless I tell you to. Dr. Monet says you're supposed to respect my boundaries."

"Boundaries, my ass," Cheryl yells back. "What have I told you about keeping that door locked?"

"And you're not supposed to hit me!" Kim's voice is a melodramatic wail.

"I know you're not taking your pills," Cheryl says, and I hear footsteps approaching the dresser. Once again, I burrow underneath the socks and hold my breath as the drawer slides open.

"I am too!" Kim shouts.

"Kim, I'm not stupid! I know how you act when you're on your meds and how you act when you're off them. And right now, you're definitely off them!" I watch nervously as her monstrous hand reaches into the drawer. She grabs Kim's pill box and snatches it up. I hear her opening the compartments, looking into each one.

"See?" Kim says triumphantly.

The pill box lands on top of her underwear with a soft thud, and the drawer slams shut. "You're not fooling me," Cheryl says. "If you keep acting like this, I'll get a plastic tube and blow those pills down your throat like a horse. Is that what you want?"

Kim says nothing. I hear Cheryl storm off, her sandals slapping angrily with each receding step. Kim's door slams shut and the drawer slides open with a hard yank.

"Kim, please," I beg her as she reaches down and snatches me out of the drawer. "I swear, I didn't know it was you. I thought it was your mom, and I just didn't want her to find me..."

All the while I'm pleading, I'm staring up into her face for any sign of sympathy or mercy. But there's nothing. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are stained with tears, but her face is unreadable.

She carries me into her bathroom and shuts the door. It's a mess, littered with dirty clothes and damp towels. It stinks of mildew and air freshener.

"Kim, what are you doing?" She touches the tip of her monstrous finger to my mouth and shushes me as she carries me past the vanity, past the tub...

To the toilet.

"God damn it, no!" I scream, pounding on her fist as she raises the lid. With her free hand, she grabs me by the back of my shirt with her thumb and finger and dangles me above the toilet bowl. I kick and thrash and scream, but she just offers me a cruel smile and drops me.

I plummet for an eternity before I splash into the cold water. I continue to thrash and kick as I sink in the icy water, desperate to make my way up to the surface. The water feels filthy, despite the tainted chlorine taste. It floods my nostrils and burns my eyes as I struggle.

At last, my head breaks through the top of the water. I gag and sputter, then gasp a lungful of air before I sink again. I bob to the surface again and this time manage to stay long enough to glare up into her cruel, grinning face.

"Time to flush," she giggles, reaching for the handle. I try to scream, but find myself coughing furiously as foul water rushes down my throat. Each cough causes me to take in more water. My arms and legs flail spastically and my lungs burn as the water stings my sinuses and windpipe. I feel myself going under again as I black out...



I come to lying in Kim's palm on my stomach, still coughing up water as she presses on my back with her finger. I'm soaking wet and shivering.

"I was only playing, you little baby," she says angrily as she carries me back into her bedroom. "I wasn't really going to flush you."

"I know," I wheeze, still coughing violently every time I can get enough air in my lungs. "I just can't swim."

"You can't?" She giggles. "I learned to swim when I was six."

"Yeah, well I grew up in a fucking laboratory," I tell her.

"Fine. I'm sorry, okay?" she says in a voice that indicates she really isn't. For Kim, "I'm sorry" means "I'm tired of talking about this."

"Can I please change into some dry clothes?" I ask her, still shivering in her palm. "I'm freezing."

She considers it, then suggests, "Why don't you take off your clothes and I'll let you play on my feet?"

I shake my head. "Please, Kim. Not right now."

"Aww, come on Ray," she says teasingly. "Bare feeeeeeet. Sexy bare feeeeeet. You can get between my toes and I'll give you an organism..."

"It's orgasm, you stupid bitch!" I scream at her, my voice raspy. "Orgasm! Not organism! And I don't want to play on anyone's goddamn feet, okay? And even if I did, I wouldn't want to play on yours!"

Her face falls from gleeful to hurt with the alarming speed of an experienced manic-depressive. "Why not?" she asks softly, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout.

"Because it isn't right!" I shout at her. "You're a goddamned kid! I mean, Jesus! You don't even know what all this shit means, do you? You just repeat stuff you've heard your mom say!"

"Shut up," she shouts at me, spraying me with spittle. Her breath is warm and sticky with spearmint. "Just shut up before I squish you!"

She storms across her room to her dresser and drops me into the still open drawer. I land on a stack of cotton panties. I can feel her staring, hear her breathing angrily through her nose, but I don't look up. I just lie there in a puddle of toilet water, still soaked and shivering.

"It would be so easy," she whispers, her face so close I can feel its heat. Her hot, sickening breath washes over me with each word. "I could just stomp on you like a little bug, and flush you down the toilet. And then, I'd just tell Nicole you ran away."

I remain still, my face buried in thin, warm cotton. I can't bear the thought of looking up and seeing her face contorted with anger. I honestly don't think I could stand it.

"You're my pet now," she whispers, her massive finger prodding me in the back. "Until the day you die. Just remember that." She withdraws and slams the drawer shut. I huddle there in the darkness, shivering and sobbing, wondering how I'm ever going to get out of this.
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