“Oh my God! She’ll love it!”

Women were always so strange.

Janie would ask for trips across the globe, longingly thumb through stacks of “Architectural Digest” then take them on house hunting expeditions, touring through mansions lavish enough to scare “The Donald”, and even, gulp, dream incessantly of the “B” word.

So how could this make her so happy?

“Baby!” She blissfully threw her arms around him. “How did you know?”

I didn’t but thank God, Stewart thought, admitting to himself that he didn’t even remember it was a she. Now, what was her name again? His thoughts were on fire behind his dumb smile as she looked into his eyes.

Oh the way she grabbed the back of his strong neck to use him for support. How utterly feminine. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she kissed his lips. The hand on his shoulder glided down his back on a wisp of air on its way to his butt. She held it reminiscent of the way they made love.

An invitation?

God, it had been too long. How could he have let all the external crap come between them? It was just money, right? Look how easy it was to make her happy. Not houses or cars or jewels but just a three dollar pink plastic globe for… what was her name…?

“Manhattan!” Janie called out as she bounced to her furry little white hamster’s cage. “It’s a whole new world, baby! Now you can tour the whole house!”

A hamster ball. Amazing. Sometimes he got lucky with the perfect gift for Janie and it never had to do with how expensive it was. Why did he always forget that about her?

She opened the top of the cage and took Manny out who was quite domesticated and instantly curled herself into a small white powder-puff as she nuzzled against her mommies chest. So trusting - so small in a world of giants.

Giant footsteps caused the ground to rumble as mommy walked her towards the strange smelling plastic toy. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Mommy’s heartbeat so strong. The deep basso of their voices - of hers even as she laughed.

Then she was dropped into the small pink globe. The little hamster instinctively put her arms and legs out trying to maintain composure as she slid and rolled into the strange spherical world, finally coming to a disoriented stop at the bottom of the bowl.

Her head craned back. Her eyes dilated yearning for the one clear disk in the sky above. And, her nose stuck straight up. A toxic volatile hydrocarbon bounced off the dome walls and concentrated magnifying their intensity on the sphere’s foci and flooded into her little nostrils which twitched uncomfortably.

She squirmed but tried to remain calm despite her rapidly beating heart and her short choppy breaths. She wondered if this indeed was the end as she steadily became dizzy from the noxious gas.

The toy bore scratches that nobody would notice except the creature for whom it was intended; after it was molded from low grade PVC that out gassed dioxin at rates thousands of times higher than EPA acceptable standards, the unskilled factory worker in China tossed it into a formaldehyde sealed lead-paint box to be shipped overseas.

As the top was lowered, the lone clear sky turned into clouded plastic to complete the homogeneity of the structure, turning it into a perfect pink orb. Is this really it? Is this the end?

“Oh look! She’s frightened.” said Janie and she stroked Manny’s head to make her feel better. “Don’t worry baby. Everything will be fine. Don’t be a worrier like your daddy.”

“Thanks” said Stewart.

Again, the big plastic dome came down and was screwed on and, at a loss, Manny helplessly pushed her paws against the plastic walls and looked out.

“Don’t worry, sexy” her deep basso continued this time coaxing Stewart as she turned to her man and drew him in. She grabbed his butt again. This was far more than an implied invitation. The hand on his chest moved down and brushed against his cock as if by accident.

He was already hard and ready. He moaned and the rumble shook the plastic universe as Manny watched the two climb into bed and shed clothing. They seemed so much more naked than she.

Mommy’s deep voice trembled for daddy to wait and not to move a muscle but after her hairless body slinked out of the room daddy quickly scrimmaged around under the bed for a dog eared book. He quickly read a page while touching and squeezing his protruding part below his bellybutton while mommy cooed to him in echoing rumbles from the other room.

But right when the waterfall sound started with a booming WOOSH he jumped with a startle and quickly threw the book into the night stand and hopped back into bed under the sheets as if he had never moved at all.

It was so sad because mommy and daddy didn’t really have any fun except for when one of them would put their head on the other ones tummy just below their belly button.

At least she had her wheel, Manny considered.

Daddy especially liked that furry part and seemed to focus all of his attention on it. He would go back to it again and again and touch it again and again patting it like his pet. Then he made a finger or two disappear as he put his head against it to give it a kiss with his tongue.

“She’s watching us!” said Janie.

“Huh?”

“She’s watching us do it! I better put her away.”

“She’ll be fine!”

There was no way a hamster was going to come between him and trying out the “Stinging Scorpion”. Why in the hell would she want to have a baby if even a little rodent could get in the way of an appropriately executed scorpion?

“She’s safe in the ball!” Stewart reassured as he preemptively somersaulted over her to get to Manny first.

“Do you know I had to go to three pet stores before I could find a buddy sphere with the right specs for our Minnie?” he said playfully, though she wasn’t smiling.

“This thing was scientifically designed by a team of skilled technicians and approved by Caesar Milan. You watch. She’ll be fine. Go along little one. Go along and play, Minnie.”

“Manny!”

“Right, Manny” his voiced rumbled.

Daddy’s mammoth hand grew grotesque caused by cheap plastic spherical aberrations as it closed in and jerked the ball to a roll. Like it or not, Manny was forced into motion, forced to walk so as not to tumble.

And, despite the utterly putrid smell and blurred cataract vision, moving in this world felt absolutely amazing. It felt absolutely amazing to be so free in her new round world as the ball ran her across the old wooden floor.

And when she came to a wobbly stop at the foot of the bed she was ready for more.

More! More! She begged banging on the wall with her front paws which caused the plastic to vibrate. She looked up at the two shadowy creatures that moved together on the bed but didn’t give audience to her longing glances.

Well, this sucked. This was just like being back in her old square cage. Even worse. In here there was no endless fountain of water. No endless bowl of nuts. And, no round track on which if she could run just fast enough she was sure she could make it to the top.

She never thought, though, what would happen when she did actually reach the top. Until right then. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Thin white bars covered the top too.

No, this world was better! At least in this world she was out!

She looked up again but this time she saw that her parents were so buried in their own world under blankets they couldn’t possibly see her anymore.

This was completely useless. She turned around, disappointed, and lay down using the plastic globe like a hammock. Her snout jetted into the foci and again toxic dioxin flooded into her nostrils.

Then a crazy thought came. Maybe it was from the poisonous gas or maybe it was her tiny eyes opening just a bit more. But whatever way, she thought: maybe if the world had run her, then, just maybe,…

At first she took it slow. She didn’t know if she was crazy or not. Shifts of consciousness sometimes feel crazy.

She stood up on all fours and tentatively pushed on the wall with her front paw. And an amazing thing happened. The ball tilted forward, ever so slightly. In fact there were these micro fine treads on the inside that only a hamster would notice which caught her paw perfectly as she stepped.

It may have been made of toxic plastic unfit for human use but at least it was functional. If she would die in a year of some mysterious ailment like stomach cancer at least the ball worked. Plus, how could anyone really attribute it to a toxic out-gassing of dioxin from non-EPA compliant PVC3? Hamsters didn’t live that long and no one ever did an MRI on rodents anyway.

She gingerly pushed left then right and her ball gingerly heaved left and right, and then left again. Her tentative stepping rolled the ball in fits of starts and stops and wasn’t helped by the uneven old wooden planks and random debris.

Under the bed she picked up speed as she ran faster and faster up the sides of her globe. In her past she may not have encountered a dog or cat but if she did now it wouldn’t have mattered because in her plastic out-gassing world she was safe to run free.

She weaved in lefts and rights but this time the left was to lunge around incoming dust bunny and then the quick hard right to dodge the fierce a metal bed post which was coming up astonishingly fast.

She gloated at the rickety post as she flew by it. That was nothing! Her confidence soared and as she sailed by the other post in a sweeping curve and then flew under the bedside table leg in an acute arc as if pulled by a mysterious centripetal force like a meteor around a planet. No, no, more like a comet around the solar system. She was good.

She was that good.

And nothing could stop her until a harsh rusty creaking sent rapid shrill reverberations through her plastic comet and rocketed her to a vibrating gallop which jettisoned her from under the bed and across the room.

Safely away, she watched the bed springs heave up and down creating what could have been sound cues from a cheap slasher flick. She heaved a sigh of relief. Nothing to worry about. It was just mommy and daddy above. The scorpion was stinging.

She was glad that at least they could be happy even if it was only when they were touching each others furry parts. Their basso moans filled the room.

Nothing to fear. What a wonderful world she thought as she lunged forward and rolled around in circles! This was easy! This was fun!

Only three feet above her on the bed things were indeed getting serious. Stewart was amazed at how Janie ripped and pulled at him tearing at his back with her nails grinding against him and begging to be penetrated.

He knew from reading an eastern sex manual called “The Tao of Love and Sex” by an Asian guy named Chang that this was a sign that she just might be entering Panda energy. He wasn’t exactly sure of the specific signposts. He slowed the scorpion and paused to arch back like a cobra to look into her eyes.

She growled at him fiercely and wrapped her legs around his back then threw her arms around his neck and pinned him down. Then, almost chocking him, she voraciously stuck her tongue deep into his mouth.

Very probable, Panda energy. He knew that he’d better quickly continue and he would have if it weren’t for the damn condom.

It’s just that he wasn’t wearing one.

He reached over with his right hand to the bedside table drawer for the familiar plastic square.

“What’s wrong?!?” she asked. “Just put it in!”

“One sec… One sec…”

He rifled through used condom wrapper after used condom wrapper. Then other junk. Some cards. A pair of headphones. His old mp3 player he didn’t use anymore mostly because it couldn’t plug into their car radio. The battery had to be dead by now and probably far beyond a decent recharge, anyway. And besides that, half of his music wasn’t even on it. So maybe there wasn’t even a use. Still, he wouldn’t throw it away.

Oh look, wow, the old gold ring his dad gave him. He didn’t know that was in here. For a long time he feared it was lost. It belonged to his grandfather and his dad had given it to him and engraved his initials into the ring a year before he died. Wow. Finding the old relic made him instantly happy.

“Do it, already!” she roared, hissing at him.

Definite Panda energy. He knew he’d better be careful. What was he doing again? Right. “Found one!”

Through her plastic world Manny joyously zoomed out the bedroom door and into the hallway leaving a contrail of invisible dioxin gas in her wake. The dark wood paneled walls and floor whizzed by her as she careened towards the kitchen of the ancient apartment.

The place was an old house adapted into a four-plex ages ago and had been neglected by the current apartment association for the last several years. That was fine by Stewart who thanked God for rent control and dreaded the prospect of it being torn down one day in favor of the shiny new condos being built down the street - the ones which Janie liked so much.

“Oh forget it!” she said, exasperated, her Panda energy waning into Sloth. Sloth energy was a dangerous way to leave a woman. This was because it so frequently could devolve into Hyena resurgence which everyone knew, as explained in the book, was a negative characteristic that ultimately created feelings of resentment and which in turn could produce a uniquely feminine type of covert revenge. It was all really very complicated.

“One sec!” he pleaded as he stood on the bed completely nude desperately fumbling to get on the stubborn condom.

“Why didn’t you buy lubricated ones?”

“These one were on sale!” he said as he pinched himself with the powdered dry prophylactic and cried out in pain.

Manny careened into the kitchen along the white iron tank of the stove awed by the beauty of the grease stalactites and outcroppings of forgotten petrified food which it hid from everyone but her. Then over the smooth floor which somehow changed colors from black to white as she rolled. Then onto another floor, of wood, which was even more neglected and bore deep groves and loosened nails that tracked her plastic globe like a slot car.

As she roared down her slot she pushed hard left which bounced her over her grove to yet another track that took her around the curve and through a doorway.

She was getting serious now. This was not just fun anymore.

Standing on his bed, Stewart was having a hell of a time but Janie was somehow grinning ear to ear, which she tried to cover. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at him with eyes that were starting to tear.

“What? What!?” he asked fearing she was going to blow and still desperately fidgeting with the stubborn condom. Pulling the stubborn thing off. Blowing it up. Trying to get it on thinking somehow being filled with air will help, somehow.

“Nothing” she said pulling the blanket up to conceal her eyes using all of her willpower not to explode when the old rubber, full of air, flew off his erect penis and across the room in a whirly path like a renegade balloon.

He cried out in utter frustration as he dove into the drawer to get another.

“You know what?”

“What he asked”, afraid to look up, afraid to admit that they were out of his rubbers.

“You’re sexy.”

“What?” He asked rhetorically, in his own world. No wait! There was one more rubber! He ripped it open to quickly put it on.

Wait a minute. She wasn’t mad. He looked at her again. “What did you say?”

“You’re sexy” she said again in a wonderful mix of love and flirtation. Then she exploded into laughter pointed down to his half-erect member which wagged exaggeratedly like a tail augmented by the condom that was not quite halfway on.

He looked down and smiled despite himself. And, as she pulled him down on top of her and kissed him very deeply he let go of everything as very slowly, and very gently she guided him inside of her.

Bash! The speeding globe bounced onto a new track. Courtesy of a broom it slid against the makeshift rail and into the pantry. Then the ball rolled to an abrupt stop.

Utter darkness lay ahead.

The lights weren’t on but to a hamster’s acute nocturnal vision it was still an amazing site to behold. Manny stood atop the precipice amazed at what she saw. She looked out and had the feeling that something wonderful awaited her.

It may have been just a crummy flight of stairs bounded on both sides by neglected walls lined with ancient wallpaper which descended into a dank basement. The treads may have been worn made of rotting wood and had boxes stacked along their sides. At the base because of a slow leaking water pipe there may have been toxic black mold which constantly threatened to overtake the entire structure.

But to Manny they were something altogether different.

To Janie, it was just a symbol of why she hated the place. It gave her continual reason to move out and find something more clean and plastic and sanitary and safe.

And to Stewart it was symbolic of why he loved it. Old and neglected and run down kept the rent cheap which made him feel safe.

But to Manny it was the beginning of to her new life, her next adventure, her freedom.

She pushed towards the edge but as the bump on the threshold floor pushed back she heard a deep rumble.

Janie shot up in bed, seconds before she was about to come. She pushed Stewart off her, “Where’s Manny! Where’s Manny!”

“What, what. Now? No!” he moaned. But too late. She bounded out of bed and he threw a sheet over himself and cursed his hard-on. “Fuck!”

“Stewart!”

He ambled after and followed her voice to the other end of the apartment.

At the top of the basement stairs Janie saved the little creatures from the edge with her foot then fumbled to find the light. She picked up her baby’s plastic womb, unscrewed the lid and cuddled the furry creature who was so happy to be with mommy again.

So happy at the return of her deeply pounding heart and warm basso tones that she curled up on her mommy’s chest in the nook between her arm and breast.

And, after the lights flipped off but in the instant before Janie turned away to put her back into the white square cage with the endless food and water and exercise wheel that she would no longer use anymore she popped her head up and looked out with powerful nocturnal rodent vision over the great abyss.

To Manny it was the greatest hamster hole ever.

“Baby!” She blissfully threw her arms around him. “How did you know?”

I didn’t but thank God, Stewart thought, admitting to himself that he didn’t even remember it was a she. Now, what was her name again? His thoughts were on fire behind his dumb smile as she looked into his eyes.

Oh the way she grabbed the back of his strong neck to use him for support. How utterly feminine. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she kissed his lips. The hand on his shoulder glided down his back on a wisp of air on its way to his butt. She held it reminiscent of the way they made love.

An invitation?

God, it had been too long. How could he have let all the external crap come between them? It was just money, right? Look how easy it was to make her happy. Not houses or cars or jewels but just a three dollar pink plastic globe for… what was her name…?

“Manhattan!” Janie called out as she bounced to her furry little white hamster’s cage. “It’s a whole new world, baby! Now you can tour the whole house!”

A hamster ball. Amazing. Sometimes he got lucky with the perfect gift for Janie and it never had to do with how expensive it was. Why did he always forget that about her?

She opened the top of the cage and took Manny out who was quite domesticated and instantly curled herself into a small white powder-puff as she nuzzled against her mommies chest. So trusting – so small in a world of giants.

Giant footsteps caused the ground to rumble as mommy walked her towards the strange smelling plastic toy. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Mommy’s heartbeat so strong. The deep basso of their voices – of hers even as she laughed.

Then she was dropped into the small pink globe. The little hamster instinctively put her arms and legs out trying to maintain composure as she slid and rolled into the strange spherical world, finally coming to a disoriented stop at the bottom of the bowl.

Her head craned back. Her eyes dilated yearning for the one clear disk in the sky above. And, her nose stuck straight up. A toxic volatile hydrocarbon bounced off the dome walls and concentrated magnifying their intensity on the sphere’s foci and flooded into her little nostrils which twitched uncomfortably.

She squirmed but tried to remain calm despite her rapidly beating heart and her short choppy breaths. She wondered if this indeed was the end as she steadily became dizzy from the noxious gas.

The toy bore scratches that nobody would notice except the creature for whom it was intended; after it was molded from low grade PVC that out gassed dioxin at rates thousands of times higher than EPA acceptable standards, the unskilled factory worker in China tossed it into a formaldehyde sealed lead-paint box to be shipped overseas.

As the top was lowered, the lone clear sky turned into clouded plastic to complete the homogeneity of the structure, turning it into a perfect pink orb. Is this really it? Is this the end?

“Oh look! She’s frightened.” said Janie and she stroked Manny’s head to make her feel better. “Don’t worry baby. Everything will be fine. Don’t be a worrier like your daddy.”

“Thanks” said Stewart.

Again, the big plastic dome came down and was screwed on and, at a loss, Manny helplessly pushed her paws against the plastic walls and looked out.

“Don’t worry, sexy” her deep basso continued this time coaxing Stewart as she turned to her man and drew him in. She grabbed his butt again. This was far more than an implied invitation. The hand on his chest moved down and brushed against his cock as if by accident.

He was already hard and ready. He moaned and the rumble shook the plastic universe as Manny watched the two climb into bed and shed clothing. They seemed so much more naked than she.

Mommy’s deep voice trembled for daddy to wait and not to move a muscle but after her hairless body slinked out of the room daddy quickly scrimmaged around under the bed for a dog eared book. He quickly read a page while touching and squeezing his protruding part below his bellybutton while mommy cooed to him in echoing rumbles from the other room.

But right when the waterfall sound started with a booming WOOSH he jumped with a startle and quickly threw the book into the night stand and hopped back into bed under the sheets as if he had never moved at all.

It was so sad because mommy and daddy didn’t really have any fun except for when one of them would put their head on the other ones tummy just below their belly button.

At least she had her wheel, Manny considered.

Daddy especially liked that furry part and seemed to focus all of his attention on it. He would go back to it again and again and touch it again and again patting it like his pet. Then he made a finger or two disappear as he put his head against it to give it a kiss with his tongue.

“She’s watching us!” said Janie.

“Huh?”

“She’s watching us do it! I better put her away.”

“She’ll be fine!”

There was no way a hamster was going to come between him and trying out the “Stinging Scorpion”. Why in the hell would she want to have a baby if even a little rodent could get in the way of an appropriately executed scorpion?

“She’s safe in the ball!” Stewart reassured as he preemptively somersaulted over her to get to Manny first.

“Do you know I had to go to three pet stores before I could find a buddy sphere with the right specs for our Minnie?” he said playfully, though she wasn’t smiling.

“This thing was scientifically designed by a team of skilled technicians and approved by Caesar Milan. You watch. She’ll be fine. Go along little one. Go along and play, Minnie.”

“Manny!”

“Right, Manny” his voiced rumbled.

Daddy’s mammoth hand grew grotesque caused by cheap plastic spherical aberrations as it closed in and jerked the ball to a roll. Like it or not, Manny was forced into motion, forced to walk so as not to tumble.

And, despite the utterly putrid smell and blurred cataract vision, moving in this world felt absolutely amazing. It felt absolutely amazing to be so free in her new round world as the ball ran her across the old wooden floor.

And when she came to a wobbly stop at the foot of the bed she was ready for more.

More! More! She begged banging on the wall with her front paws which caused the plastic to vibrate. She looked up at the two shadowy creatures that moved together on the bed but didn’t give audience to her longing glances.

Well, this sucked. This was just like being back in her old square cage. Even worse. In here there was no endless fountain of water. No endless bowl of nuts. And, no round track on which if she could run just fast enough she was sure she could make it to the top.

She never thought, though, what would happen when she did actually reach the top. Until right then. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Thin white bars covered the top too.

No, this world was better! At least in this world she was out!

She looked up again but this time she saw that her parents were so buried in their own world under blankets they couldn’t possibly see her anymore.

This was completely useless. She turned around, disappointed, and lay down using the plastic globe like a hammock. Her snout jetted into the foci and again toxic dioxin flooded into her nostrils.

Then a crazy thought came. Maybe it was from the poisonous gas or maybe it was her tiny eyes opening just a bit more. But whatever way, she thought: maybe if the world had run her, then, just maybe,…

At first she took it slow. She didn’t know if she was crazy or not. Shifts of consciousness sometimes feel crazy.

She stood up on all fours and tentatively pushed on the wall with her front paw. And an amazing thing happened. The ball tilted forward, ever so slightly. In fact there were these micro fine treads on the inside that only a hamster would notice which caught her paw perfectly as she stepped.

It may have been made of toxic plastic unfit for human use but at least it was functional. If she would die in a year of some mysterious ailment like stomach cancer at least the ball worked. Plus, how could anyone really attribute it to a toxic out-gassing of dioxin from non-EPA compliant PVC3? Hamsters didn’t live that long and no one ever did an MRI on rodents anyway.

She gingerly pushed left then right and her ball gingerly heaved left and right, and then left again. Her tentative stepping rolled the ball in fits of starts and stops and wasn’t helped by the uneven old wooden planks and random debris.

Under the bed she picked up speed as she ran faster and faster up the sides of her globe. In her past she may not have encountered a dog or cat but if she did now it wouldn’t have mattered because in her plastic out-gassing world she was safe to run free.

She weaved in lefts and rights but this time the left was to lunge around incoming dust bunny and then the quick hard right to dodge the fierce a metal bed post which was coming up astonishingly fast.

She gloated at the rickety post as she flew by it. That was nothing! Her confidence soared and as she sailed by the other post in a sweeping curve and then flew under the bedside table leg in an acute arc as if pulled by a mysterious centripetal force like a meteor around a planet. No, no, more like a comet around the solar system. She was good.

She was that good.

And nothing could stop her until a harsh rusty creaking sent rapid shrill reverberations through her plastic comet and rocketed her to a vibrating gallop which jettisoned her from under the bed and across the room.

Safely away, she watched the bed springs heave up and down creating what could have been sound cues from a cheap slasher flick. She heaved a sigh of relief. Nothing to worry about. It was just mommy and daddy above. The scorpion was stinging.

She was glad that at least they could be happy even if it was only when they were touching each others furry parts. Their basso moans filled the room.

Nothing to fear. What a wonderful world she thought as she lunged forward and rolled around in circles! This was easy! This was fun!

Only three feet above her on the bed things were indeed getting serious. Stewart was amazed at how Janie ripped and pulled at him tearing at his back with her nails grinding against him and begging to be penetrated.

He knew from reading an eastern sex manual called “The Tao of Love and Sex” by an Asian guy named Chang that this was a sign that she just might be entering Panda energy. He wasn’t exactly sure of the specific signposts. He slowed the scorpion and paused to arch back like a cobra to look into her eyes.

She growled at him fiercely and wrapped her legs around his back then threw her arms around his neck and pinned him down. Then, almost chocking him, she voraciously stuck her tongue deep into his mouth.

Very probable, Panda energy. He knew that he’d better quickly continue and he would have if it weren’t for the damn condom.

It’s just that he wasn’t wearing one.

He reached over with his right hand to the bedside table drawer for the familiar plastic square.

“What’s wrong?!?” she asked. “Just put it in!”

“One sec… One sec…”

He rifled through used condom wrapper after used condom wrapper. Then other junk. Some cards. A pair of headphones. His old mp3 player he didn’t use anymore mostly because it couldn’t plug into their car radio. The battery had to be dead by now and probably far beyond a decent recharge, anyway. And besides that, half of his music wasn’t even on it. So maybe there wasn’t even a use. Still, he wouldn’t throw it away.

Oh look, wow, the old gold ring his dad gave him. He didn’t know that was in here. For a long time he feared it was lost. It belonged to his grandfather and his dad had given it to him and engraved his initials into the ring a year before he died. Wow. Finding the old relic made him instantly happy.

“Do it, already!” she roared, hissing at him.

Definite Panda energy. He knew he’d better be careful. What was he doing again? Right. “Found one!”

Through her plastic world Manny joyously zoomed out the bedroom door and into the hallway leaving a contrail of invisible dioxin gas in her wake. The dark wood paneled walls and floor whizzed by her as she careened towards the kitchen of the ancient apartment.

The place was an old house adapted into a four-plex ages ago and had been neglected by the current apartment association for the last several years. That was fine by Stewart who thanked God for rent control and dreaded the prospect of it being torn down one day in favor of the shiny new condos being built down the street – the ones which Janie liked so much.

“Oh forget it!” she said, exasperated, her Panda energy waning into Sloth. Sloth energy was a dangerous way to leave a woman. This was because it so frequently could devolve into Hyena resurgence which everyone knew, as explained in the book, was a negative characteristic that ultimately created feelings of resentment and which in turn could produce a uniquely feminine type of covert revenge. It was all really very complicated.

“One sec!” he pleaded as he stood on the bed completely nude desperately fumbling to get on the stubborn condom.

“Why didn’t you buy lubricated ones?”

“These one were on sale!” he said as he pinched himself with the powdered dry prophylactic and cried out in pain.

Manny careened into the kitchen along the white iron tank of the stove awed by the beauty of the grease stalactites and outcroppings of forgotten petrified food which it hid from everyone but her. Then over the smooth floor which somehow changed colors from black to white as she rolled. Then onto another floor, of wood, which was even more neglected and bore deep groves and loosened nails that tracked her plastic globe like a slot car.

As she roared down her slot she pushed hard left which bounced her over her grove to yet another track that took her around the curve and through a doorway.

She was getting serious now. This was not just fun anymore.

Standing on his bed, Stewart was having a hell of a time but Janie was somehow grinning ear to ear, which she tried to cover. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at him with eyes that were starting to tear.

“What? What!?” he asked fearing she was going to blow and still desperately fidgeting with the stubborn condom. Pulling the stubborn thing off. Blowing it up. Trying to get it on thinking somehow being filled with air will help, somehow.

“Nothing” she said pulling the blanket up to conceal her eyes using all of her willpower not to explode when the old rubber, full of air, flew off his erect penis and across the room in a whirly path like a renegade balloon.

He cried out in utter frustration as he dove into the drawer to get another.

“You know what?”

“What he asked”, afraid to look up, afraid to admit that they were out of his rubbers.

“You’re sexy.”

“What?” He asked rhetorically, in his own world. No wait! There was one more rubber! He ripped it open to quickly put it on.

Wait a minute. She wasn’t mad. He looked at her again. “What did you say?”

“You’re sexy” she said again in a wonderful mix of love and flirtation. Then she exploded into laughter pointed down to his half-erect member which wagged exaggeratedly like a tail augmented by the condom that was not quite halfway on.

He looked down and smiled despite himself. And, as she pulled him down on top of her and kissed him very deeply he let go of everything as very slowly, and very gently she guided him inside of her.

Bash! The speeding globe bounced onto a new track. Courtesy of a broom it slid against the makeshift rail and into the pantry. Then the ball rolled to an abrupt stop.

Utter darkness lay ahead.

The lights weren’t on but to a hamster’s acute nocturnal vision it was still an amazing site to behold. Manny stood atop the precipice amazed at what she saw. She looked out and had the feeling that something wonderful awaited her.

It may have been just a crummy flight of stairs bounded on both sides by neglected walls lined with ancient wallpaper which descended into a dank basement. The treads may have been worn made of rotting wood and had boxes stacked along their sides. At the base because of a slow leaking water pipe there may have been toxic black mold which constantly threatened to overtake the entire structure.

But to Manny they were something altogether different.

To Janie, it was just a symbol of why she hated the place. It gave her continual reason to move out and find something more clean and plastic and sanitary and safe.

And to Stewart it was symbolic of why he loved it. Old and neglected and run down kept the rent cheap which made him feel safe.

But to Manny it was the beginning of to her new life, her next adventure, her freedom.

She pushed towards the edge but as the bump on the threshold floor pushed back she heard a deep rumble.

Janie shot up in bed, seconds before she was about to come. She pushed Stewart off her, “Where’s Manny! Where’s Manny!”

“What, what. Now? No!” he moaned. But too late. She bounded out of bed and he threw a sheet over himself and cursed his hard-on. “Fuck!”

“Stewart!”

He ambled after and followed her voice to the other end of the apartment.

At the top of the basement stairs Janie saved the little creatures from the edge with her foot then fumbled to find the light. She picked up her baby’s plastic womb, unscrewed the lid and cuddled the furry creature who was so happy to be with mommy again.

So happy at the return of her deeply pounding heart and warm basso tones that she curled up on her mommy’s chest in the nook between her arm and breast.

And, after the lights flipped off but in the instant before Janie turned away to put her back into the white square cage with the endless food and water and exercise wheel that she would no longer use anymore she popped her head up and looked out with powerful nocturnal rodent vision over the great abyss.

To Manny it was the greatest hamster hole ever.< >< >

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