Slowly and cautiously, I climbed off the bed and crept into the back corner of the room. This was where I’d put my paper and pencil once I’d finished using them. I picked up the pencil, which was as thick as my leg and about a foot longer, and held it in front of me like a weapon. Then I charged at the wasp, screaming as loudly as possible and waving the pencil around wildly. I managed to give it a good whack, but it immediately flew up to the ceiling and hovered above me. I thought it was going to dive on me, so I threw the pencil down on my bed and fell to the floor, then crawled underneath the bed as quickly as I could. I was properly scared now, as I heard the monstrous, deadly creature flying around in my room, no doubt looking for me.
Eventually it settled down on the floor again, and I could see it eating the crumbs off my plate. I decided to be a lot more careful in my second attempt. I crept out from under the bed and managed to get hold of my pencil-weapon. Then, standing on the bed’s edge just above the wasp, I jabbed down with the sharp tip of the pencil as though it were a spear. I hit the insect in the centre of its chest. It buzzed its wings furiously, but I kept on pushing down and wiggling the pencil around. With a lot of effort, I managed to pry loose one of its wings, then the other, and then at last its movement began to slow down.
It took me ten minutes of grim effort to kill the thing completely. When it was over, I sat down and tried to catch my breath. I was sweating all over, despite it being a cool day, and my heart rate was out of control. It was the closest I’d come to death since a few days ago in the storm, which already felt like a previous lifetime to me. This time it hadn’t been my fault, or Rachel’s, but simply the inevitable result of living in an area where all sorts of insects made their home as well. I knew it’d happen again before long, so I added another item to my list: some sort of mesh or fabric, like mosquito netting, to cover the open side of my house, and which I could roll up and down whenever I wanted to.
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell Rachel about this,” I said to myself. “At least not yet. I’ll wait until things between us are going great again.”
Using the pencil, I shoved the dead wasp out of the room and off the balcony, staying well clear of its stinger in case it wasn’t completely dead. Then I climbed down and kept on pushing it, until it fell off the edge of the kitchen table. Feeling unable to go back to sleep, I decided to work off the adrenaline still running through me by going for a jog around the table’s perimeter and doing some basic exercises. It wouldn’t do to get out of shape, now that I knew what kinds of dangers I might have to face regularly from now on, without my girlfriend here to protect me, as I grudgingly had to admit to myself.
Rachel returned home even later than she had yesterday. Just from her attitude I could tell she was exhausted. She must’ve had a rough day at work, and from the bundle of bags she dropped on the table, I knew she’d been doing some more shopping for me – a lot more. I was about to go out and greet her, when she picked up my house and carried it with her to the couch by the TV. She put it down on the little coffee table, then took off her jacket and shoes and dropped down onto the couch. I headed outside and saw that she held an outstretched open hand for me to climb in.
“Hi Sam,” she said, sounding just as drained as she looked. “I don’t know if you want to talk right now, or if you’d rather be left alone, but…”
“No, I wanna talk,” I interrupted. “But first, could you put me down on the pillow next to you?”
She did as I requested and dropped me right next to her head. I waded through the carpet formed by her hair on the pillow in order to reach her face. Then I began to rub the side of her forehead, using all of my strength to push against her as strongly as I could. Even so, I knew it couldn’t have been a very satisfying massage from her perspective, but Rachel was appreciative all the same.
“That feels wonderful, sweetie,” she said as I kept on massaging her skin. “But you don’t have to do this for me, really.”
“I know, but I want to. You’ve obviously had a long and tiring day and you’re in desperate need of some attention from your man.”
“I…yeah, you’re right, I guess. Thank you, Sam. I’ve just been so behind with work these last few days, ever since I got that call from you at the hospital. I’ve had to work overtime today, and I’ll probably have to do so for the rest of the week as well. Then there’s all the stuff I have to get you – I managed to find quite a few things for your house today, and some more clothes for you as well. Should I get you some dinner now? I think there are still some leftovers in the fridge; I didn’t have time to buy more food today, I’m sorry…”
“No, dinner can wait. Right now you’re just going to lie here and relax, and tell me what a wonderful, attentive boyfriend I’m being.”
She laughed softly to herself. I finished massaging the right side of her forehead. In order to reach her left side, I climbed up onto her chin and stepped across the bridge of her nose. I could see her eyes following me as I did so, and I could see the gratitude in them. As I carried on with my task, she began to talk to me.
“Sam…baby…I couldn’t stop thinking about this morning all day long…about how I treated you…and I just want to say that I really, really feel bad about it. Last night too…the way I talked about you, I mean. I humiliated you and I made you feel inferior to me, just because I thought it was a cute thing to do, and to say. You were sweet to me, telling me it was okay and that you didn’t mind being my…my little toy boyfriend, I guess, but that’s not really what I want from you. I’m so sorry, Sam, I really am! I don’t know what to do with you now, that’ll make you happy! Please tell me what to do and I’ll do it! I don’t ever want to see you look at me like you did this morning, I felt so ashamed, but I was too angry to admit it and apologize!”
She began to choke up and I knew she’d start crying, no matter what I said. I didn’t want her to cry, but I was glad that she regretted the way she’d behaved towards me. I pressed my body against her cheek and rubbed myself against her as the tears began to flow from her eyes.
“Oh Rachel, my darling…I don’t want anything like that to happen again either, but you don’t have to blame yourself like this! You’ve already done so much for me these last few days, and I can’t ever say how grateful I am! All I want from you is for you to treat me like you always did, before the accident – that’s all!”
“Okay…okay, I’ll try. I just don’t want to do something that’ll make you feel like I’ve treated you unfairly. You still mean the world to me, baby! I thought it was cute, you know, last night when you told me I was like a goddess to you now, but after this morning…I don’t want that anymore, okay? I don’t want to be like some goddess or whatever to you, I just want to be your girlfriend, like always!”
“It’s okay, honey, it really is! Just hearing you now, I’ve already forgiven you for everything. I don’t want us to have all these misunderstandings all the time, followed by another round of apologizing and begging for forgiveness, and then having to start our relationship over from scratch again. I may look small and fragile to you now, but I promise you, I can handle a little teasing and a little…well, manhandling, I guess…from you every now and then. You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass, and you don’t need to protect me from literally everything around me. Just be here for me and try and bear with me while I’m stuck like this, okay?”
“Yes…yes, of course I’ll be here for you, but I’ll let you do what you like from now on. I don’t want to feel like I’m your mother or anything like that! And Sam, from now on, if we ever do something again like we did this morning, in the shower, I’ll always ask you first if it’s okay with you. You’re not here just for my pleasure, I realize that. If you want to have some time to yourself, any time of the day, just tell me and I’ll leave you alone.”
“That sounds good, Rachel. Right now, I’ll be really happy to have something to eat. Then I’d like to spend the rest of the evening with you, in your hands. I’ve been away from you for way too long, and I’ve got a lot of catching-up to do!”
A couple of hours later, Rachel and I were lying in her bed, not talking, just enjoying the feeling of being in each other’s presence. We’d eaten a lovely dinner, despite it being just some leftover chicken salad from the fridge, and she’d given e thimble filled with white wine, another luxury I’d missed for far too long. She’d also wanted to begin unpacking all of the items she’d bought for me earlier, but I told her it could wait until tomorrow. She therefore decided to make straight for bed, carrying my house with her and putting it down on her dresser. Now I was lying happily on the bare upper slope of her right breast, completely naked, loving the warm feeling of her skin on my own. Her thumb and index finger were squeezing me tenderly, first around the shoulders, then moving all the way down to my feet and back again, never once causing me any pain, only a feeling of deep pleasure.
My new life had begun. I had no idea how long it would last, or what would happen in the future, but I felt ready for it and I knew I’d make it through. I also knew that my wonderful girlfriend would not abandon me, no matter what happened. If my accident had been even worse than it was, if I’d been shrunk down to the size of a grain of sand, I knew she’d still love me and care for me. That being said, I could tell she was afraid of becoming fully sexually intimate with me again, what with me being so easily hurt in my present condition. However, as I lay on her breast, enjoying all the sensations I was feeling, I thought of an idea that just might work in making it happen. I knew it was a long shot, but if Rachel was willing to hear me out, I think she’d agree that it could work…but I would tell her tomorrow, or at some later time. Right now, I had no complaints, nothing I wanted besides what I had, which was her.