Lying on her stomach on the floor of her dorm room and sprawled over an open textbook, Ellie gingerly pinches your tiny body between her pillowy thumb and index as she removes you from her mouth.  The skin on the tips of her fingers glistens with saliva and she holds you just above her chin for closer examination.

            Standing at barely a half-inch in height in your black wetsuit, not even the length of the girl’s thumbnail, all you can see from here without craning your neck up or down is the gorgeous pink entrance to the saturated grotto you found yourself in moments before.  Her plush mouth curls upward into a coy smirk and she playfully bites her lower lip near the corner.  Toying with your mind, like she always does: the same game you both crave so much it almost hurts, though neither of you would ever openly admit it.

            You can’t help but shudder at this sight and her smile only widens, revealing two immaculate rows of her rigorously maintained teeth.  Their opal ivory is so pure you imagine you could see yourself in them like a mirror if you ever got a close enough gaze at them in the light of day.

            A single strand of her crystalline saliva hangs like the ornament of a chandelier from her lip to your chest.

            “Almost lost you there for a minute,” she whispers gently, chuckling a couple of times in lilting succession that releases a few calming puffs of air onto your face.  You know she’s lying, but her laugh is infectious.

            “I had it under control,” you say, your voice cracking a little after having gone so long without speaking.  “It was fine.”

            “Oh really?  I could feel you kick at my uvula a couple times,” she says, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow inquisitively.  “That’s no good.”

            “Really, it was fine,” you repeat again, resting your arms on your friend’s two fingers, still cradling you on either side with just enough pressure that the fabric of your wetsuit barely compresses.  You used to tremble when she held you like this for fear of falling, but that’s a complete thing of the past.  Right now, you feel just as secure as when you’re standing on your own two feet at your normal, human height.

            In fact, you feel safer.

            “You’ve been in there for twenty minutes.  I figured you should take a break,” she says, concern entering her voice.

            “Only that long?”

            The smile creeps back across her lips with satisfaction.  “Yes, only that long.”

            “That’s nothing.”

            “So why the heck am I still talking to your scrawny self?” she snorts with false condescension.  “When I could be chewing you over again?”  Her two fingers around your sides shift a little as she nimbly caresses you between them without thinking as if you were a coin, but you remain steady.

            She knows exactly what she’s doing.  She is completely in control of your body, as much as she is of her own.

            “Obviously nothing important,” you boldly say, crossing your arms with feigned pride.

            “I think all that time in my mouth has made you go loopy,” she says smarmily, rolling her eyes at your indignant little display.  “You have no idea how hard it is to take you seriously while you’ve still got my spit in your hair.”

            “That’s not the point,” you say sheepishly, dabbing at a gooey droplet of her potent saliva still matted thickly in your shaggy bangs.

            “No regrets, then?” she asks, though she’s already opening her lips as wide as possible and moving her fingers back toward the dark maw.  The decision is made.

            “None,” you answer truthfully.

            “Good.  I’ll check back with you after I finish this chem lab, then” she giggles, and with that her fingers slide away from your sides, suspending you in freefall for the blink of an eye before you plop with a loud squish back onto the damp landing pad of her tongue, curled upward slightly and waiting patiently to receive you again.

            Her hand remains just a few inches outside of her mouth and her shapely fingers begin to waggle at you as a gesture of friendly farewell.  You watch them, gripping the slippery tip of her tongue for support, and wave back, even though you feel a little silly doing it when no one can see it.

            Slowly, then, her lips begin closing until they pop together with a moist smack.  You brace yourself, well-familiarized with the game now, as her tongue springs into action below you like a previously slumbering animal.  You’re bounced upward by the thrust of her slithering red muscle and land in the soggy lower circle of her mouth, where the saliva is already pooling anew in thick, gummy puddles behind her teeth.  It clings to your sides and begins to rise higher as she salivates a fresh supply into the hazy darkness.

            You inch forward, pressing your hands against the back of her teeth, entranced by their intricacy as though you were touching smooth granite in a rainstorm.  Your fingers slide down lower until you can feel her gums, squishy and flexible to the touch.

            Ellie doesn’t allow your idle moment of touch-and-go to last very long, and suddenly her tongue is splashing downward into the collected saliva, lapping it everywhere until the goop is sprayed across your face and hair again.  Wherever your hands go, they pull away with warm strands of saliva entangled between your fingers.

            Every texture brings fresh goose bumps to your skin, and you positively tingle from the wonderful sensory overload of it all.  In the darkness of your friend’s mouth, you feel wildly, violently alive, something you know would be impossible to explain to anyone else who tried to understand.  That’s probably the reason why you’ve never tried.

            Her tongue rises again, this time aiming for you, and pins you down firmly against the base of her mouth.

            Happily, you turn yourself over and wrap your limbs around as much of the massive, writhing monster tongue as you can handle, which admittedly isn’t very much considering you only stand at half an inch tall.  Despite your playfully aggressive antics in trying to wrestle it, you and Ellie both are fully aware of how much stronger her tongue is than your entire half-inch body.  This thought is with you at all times when playing around inside her mouth.  It’s at once humbling and comforting to you in a way that no other human being could truly understand.  You squirm around, letting it dunk you again and again into the shallow collection of saliva and enjoying every move it makes.

            Clearly bored with your paltry antics at restraining her mighty muscle, Ellie rears her tongue back with a swift motion that flecks spittle around in a fresh, hot mist.  Before you can even get back onto your haunches, the tongue is flattening back out, scooping you up on top, and curling into a loose tube shape: one of your friend’s favorite tricks to show off to you.  Her lips part ever so slightly to make room for the girth of her performing organ.

            “Yeah, yeah, so you can burrito your tongue.  Really impressive!” you groan loudly out into the small opening as you lie perfectly flat on your back.  Almost like a dare.  Her tubed tongue cradles you higher in the hazy cavern of her perfect mouth.

            Obviously hearing your peanut gallery commentary, Ellie flattens her tongue again and points upward with startling speed, pinning you expertly to the smoothly ridged roof of her mouth with the very tip of her tongue.

            “Okay, okay, so maybe that’s kind of impressive,” you breathe, careful not to move a muscle.

            All around, the gooey walls rumble in response, echoing with the satisfied chuckle that begins as a murmur but ascends until your every muscle is experiencing Ellie’s victorious laughter.  You rattle and shake, listening and enjoying the sound like a concert prepared specially for you, because in reality, it is.

            No maliciousness.  No condescension.  Her laugh, even in the dark stickiness, is buoyant and renews your energy, and you want to spring forth into the unknown to see what she’ll do next with you.  Even if her tongue dropped away right at this instant, suspending you in another heartbeat of freefall, your breathing wouldn’t hasten and your arms would lie peacefully at their sides.  You would anticipate with absolute certainty the relaxing landing in the cupped muscle of her ravenous tongue.

            When this precise thing happens, you follow your bodily protocol exactly and allow yourself to fade back into the playful fold of Ellie’s tongue, enjoying every instant and wishing that time would slow down until all you had to do was float and exist, savoring every sensation she gifted to you between her lips.