"What?"

Roger, my boyfriend, is lining up Skittles on the carpet, starting at my toes, a whole 2 lb. bag.

"Roger."

"Aw, c'mon Luce! I'm really good at this- watch."

"Don't call me Luce, Roger."

"Yassum, Miss Lucy," he says in his fake slave voice, giggling. He gets all the way to the end of the other room, and I have to admit, the Skittles look kind of cool, all in a row, greens and purples and oranges and reds and yellows.

"Here we go!" Roger says, on his hands on knees, his lips at the furthest Skittle. Then, like a vacuum cleaner, he starts to suck them up.

Fwhip. Fhwip. Fhwip-wip. Fhwipwipwipipip. Faster and faster, Roger moves across the floor, faster and faster.

Fwhipwhipipipipoomph! Roger has half my foot in his mouth smiling around it, a twinkle in his eye.

"Roger!"

He slurps my foot out, and I will admit I like the feel of his tongue on my toes. But just barely! And not my whole foot!

Roger giggles like a little kid. "Sorry. Let's play Trivial Pursuit.

I say okay. Roger knows how much I like Trivial Pursuit.

Rogers got all the trivial pursuit pieces lined up on the floor- except for the six wedges that are in my pie. I am kicking his ass- but he doesn't mind. really, Roger can be such a sweet boy.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon. Ask me the final question!"

"Allright Lucy, hang on a second." Roger is lining up the little red, blue, green, orange, yellow, and brown wedges in a perfectly straight line. I swear to god, that boy should be an artist.

"Okay, and your question is in the." he muses for a bit, but I can tell one of his eyes is on that line of little triangles. He wipes the drool from his lips with the back of his hand ".green catagorie. Science and Nature."

"Blah."

Roger pulls out the card. "Okay- oh, crap."

"What?" I am excited. I love winning!

"What kind of question is this?"

"Just read it!"

"Allright. what is the square root of 121?"

Ha! Now, do I torture him by pretending I don't know? Nah. "Eleven!"

"Right!" Roger is such a good sport. I love my sweetie. "And your prize is. a spectacle like none ever seen before seen on earth!"

Corny bastard. And before I know it, Roger is sucking up the Trivial Pursuit pieces, one by one, right up to my hand.

Galumph. Sure enough, his momentum carries him right past his pieces, my hand, my arm. I am in his mouth, right up to my elbow.

"Aw gees, Rog!"

He smiles and spits me out, along with all of the spit-coated pieces. "Don't call me Rog, Luce."

I pretend to pout. "That wasn't my reward, you did it for yourself."

Roger puts his arms around my waist. "Payment for putting up with your kicking my ass in Trivial Pursuit."

We wrestle for a while.

Roger is on the floor with his M&M's. I wasn't paying attention before, but there's a commercial on now. We're watching Xena.

"What are you doing? What's wrong with you?

Roger just giggles. "I'm gonna try some curves.

He has the M&M's curved around all over the place, the red blue green brown yellow candies looking sort of muted but freaky in the flickering light of a Hugo Boss ad.

"You're weird Roger, you know that?"

"No'm not," He looks up, an almost serious look on his face. "I'm an artist." He smiles at me and licks his lips, then goes back to his M&M's. He is very very precise. He has his head down on the floor, his butt up in the air, one eye closed, as he carefully nudges an M&M into place. Occasional, he eats one, the crunches loud.

I go back to Xena.

"There!" he says, right as Xena is kicking some giant fur-wearing dude right in the 'nads. Roger is eating what would have been the last M&M if he hadn't run out of space at the front door.

"Great, Roger," I say. Sometimes you have to humor boys.

He starts making his vacuum cleaner sound, rushing around the room. He stays close to the floor, like a snake, which is good, because if he gets in the way of Xena, I'd have to do a little Xena action myself.

"Shwrrrrrrrererererrrrrr," he scoots across the carpet, and then I feel a warmth all the way up my thigh.

I look down. Sure enough. Roger has swallowed my entire leg, right up to my hip. "Hur hur hur huuur," He laughs around my leg, a devilish impish light in his eyes.

"Whatever, Roger." I pretend to ignore him.

He makes naughty sniffing noises near my crotch, just like a boy. But eventually he slowly regurgitates my leg. "Be a dear and wipe the M&M bits off my leg?"

"Yassuh, Miss Lucy." He laughs and fetches a towel.

He's weird but I love him.

We're in bed, finally. I swear we watch too much TV. But with the Comedy Channel to flip to whenever nothing else is on, how can we not?

Actually, I'm the only one in it. And it's a futon not a bed. It's smack dab in the middle of the room. Roger is doing something on the floor behind me.

"What are you doing, boy?"

"Nothing, girl." He chuckles.

"Well don't be loud, I'm sleeping."

"No prob, Ma'am."

But I can hear him humming something under his breath. "One little, two little, three little bu-uh-ttons."

"Roger, are you playing with my button collection?"

"Hell no," he says.

I look up. He's playing with my button collection. He's a got a beautiful pattern spread across the floor, a sweep of color and design; he's even using the shadow cast by the light from the bathroom in his design.

I want to praise him, but not encourage him. He's such a little devil. But obviously gifted. He's got sections of colors arranged by season- autumn oranges, winter blues, spring greens, summer yellows. He's got the silver and gold buttons as a sort of crown effect. Down one side the clumsy show buttons- the ones I keep in a separate tin.

"Just don't use my mother's ivory buttons."

"I ain't totally stupid." he smiles at the floor. I go back to lying down. "One button, two button, three button four."

I've got my hair laid out behind me, like princesses keep them when they go to sleep. I'm drifting off, then I'm wide awake. Why? I can hear Roger's slurping noises. There's a tugging at my hair- then it's all dark.

And wet. And warm

Goddamnit. He swallowed me. I'm covered in slimy buttons and Roger spit. I usually keep a a penknife in my pocket, to jab him so he'll remember I'm in here. He get's so into it, he doesn't realize. But I don't have my penknife with me. I'll just have to kick him until he realizes. I love Roger, but he can be so dumb sometimes.