Hazel tried again. She reached up slowly, hand open, talking in that soft voice she used for skittish strays. "Okay, buddy. Just—let me get the ribbon, that's all. You can keep the—"
Pebbles shifted. One webbed foot lifted, and with the casual precision of a creature who knew exactly what he was doing, he pressed the edge of his claw into the green latex. Not hard enough to pop. Just hard enough to show he could. The balloon dimpled beneath that pointy little toe, and Hazel's hand froze midair.
"Oh, you little shit," Ivy breathed from the floor, and then she was laughing again, helpless, head dropping back against the bookshelf.
Hazel pulled her hand back slowly. Pebbles resettled, tucking his beak against the balloon's curve, the dried patch of Ivy's arousal pressed against his chest feathers like a prize. He made a soft, content sound. A duck sigh.
"She's got a hostage," Hazel said, her voice cracking with leftover laughter. "She's got my girlfriend's—" she couldn't finish, dissolved into giggles, and sat down hard on the floor next to Ivy.
"It's his now." Ivy wiped her eyes, still grinning. "That's the green balloon. That's Pebbles's balloon. We don't touch Pebbles's balloon."
"We don't touch Pebbles's balloon," Hazel echoed, and leaned into Ivy's side.
They sat there for a long moment, shoulder to shoulder, watching the duck preen on the top shelf. The rain had softened to a steady patter against the windows. The apartment was dim, the afternoon light gone gray and diffuse. The other balloons from Hazel's collection drifted at various heights around the living room—a cluster of lavender near the ceiling, a single pink heart hovering above the armchair, a yellow round bumping gently against the kitchen doorway like it was trying to decide whether to cross the threshold.
Ivy's hand found Hazel's knee. Her thumb traced a slow circle on the denim. "You know," she said quietly, "I never thought I'd be sitting on my living room floor, watching a duck guard a balloon my girlfriend came on."
Hazel snorted. "That's not—I mean, technically I came on it—"
"You did."
"—but you also came on it, so really it's ours."
"Ours," Ivy repeated, and something in her voice shifted. Softer. Hazel felt her look up, felt the weight of those chestnut eyes on her face. "I like that."
The rain filled the silence. Hazel's breath caught, a small, quiet thing, and she let herself lean harder into Ivy's warmth. "I like that too."
Pebbles shifted again, resettling, and the balloon gave a soft creak of latex against feathers. Neither of them moved to retrieve it.
"Ivy?"
"Yeah."
"What were you thinking about? When you bought it." Hazel's voice was careful, uncertain. "The green one. At the store."
Ivy was quiet for a long moment. Her thumb kept moving on Hazel's knee, a steady rhythm. "I was thinking about you," she said finally. "I was thinking about how you looked that first night. When I came home early and you were—" She paused. "I was thinking about how your whole face changed when you saw me in the kitchen. Like you'd been bracing for something terrible and I'd just—not done it."
Hazel's throat tightened. She remembered. The dread. The certainty that this was the moment Ivy finally saw her clearly and walked away. And then Ivy had just. Stayed. Made tea. Said the balloons were pretty.
"I was thinking about how I wanted to understand," Ivy continued. "Not just know about it. Understand it. Feel what it felt like." Her cheeks colored faintly. "And I was thinking about how every time I looked at a balloon after that night, I thought of you. The colors. The way they moved. The sound they made when you—" She stopped. Cleared her throat. "The sound they made."
Hazel's eyes burned. She blinked hard. "The pop."
"The pop," Ivy agreed.
Neither of them said anything for a while. The rain found its rhythm again. Somewhere in the building, a door closed. The yellow balloon bumped the kitchen doorway once, twice, then drifted back into the living room.
"Can I show you something?" Hazel asked. Her voice was small, but steady.
Ivy turned to look at her. "Anything."
Hazel pulled away gently, stood, and walked to her bedroom. She was gone maybe thirty seconds. When she came back, she was holding a deflated balloon—a soft peach color, the latex limp and translucent in her hands. She sat down cross-legged in front of Ivy, the balloon cradled in her palms like something precious.
"This is one of my favorites," she said. "I've had it for a while. I blow it up sometimes, let it deflate, blow it up again." She ran her thumb along the limp surface. "It's softer now. More giving."
Ivy watched her hands. The careful way she held it. The tenderness in her fingers.
"When I was twelve," Hazel said, "I found a balloon in my grandmother's sewing basket. It was one of those cheap party ones, you know? Red. Still folded up in the package. I don't know why it was there. She didn't—it wasn't hers, not really. Maybe left over from a birthday." She shrugged. "I took it. Blew it up in my room that night."
Her voice dropped. "And I just—I couldn't stop touching it. The way it felt. The sound when I ran my fingers over it. The pressure. I hid it under my pillow. Every night I'd take it out and just. Hold it. Press it against my face. Fall asleep with it tucked under my arm."
She looked up at Ivy. "I didn't know it was sexual then. Not really. I just knew it made me feel safe. And good. And then one day I was holding it between my legs and I—" Her cheeks flushed deep pink. "I figured it out."
Ivy's expression didn't change. Her eyes were soft, focused, present.
"My mom found it," Hazel said. "The red one. She thought it was just a toy. She threw it away because it was old and dusty. I cried for three days and didn't know how to tell her why."
She ran her thumb along the peach balloon's neck, spreading the latex wide, letting it snap back gently. "And then my ex. When she found out—" She stopped. Breathed. "She laughed. Said it was the weirdest thing she'd ever heard. Told her friends. Made jokes."
Ivy's jaw tightened. Just a flicker. But Hazel saw it.
"I thought it meant I was broken," Hazel said. "I thought—if this is what I need, if this is what makes my body feel right, then something's wrong with me. And I just. Learned to hide it. To do it when no one was watching. To never let anyone see."
She looked down at the peach balloon in her hands. "And then you came home early."
"Hazel." Ivy's voice was rough. She reached out, covered Hazel's hands with her own, the limp latex between their palms. "You're not broken."
"I know." Hazel's voice cracked. "I'm starting to know. Because you—" She swallowed. "You looked at me. And you didn't laugh. And you bought a balloon and rode it and came on it and told me you loved me and now a duck has it on a bookshelf and I—"
She laughed, a wet, broken sound. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
Ivy leaned forward and kissed her. Soft. Slow. Her lips lingered, pulling back just enough to speak. "You existed. And you let me see you."
Hazel's breath hitched. She kissed Ivy again, deeper this time, her fingers twisting in the fabric of Ivy's cardigan. The peach balloon slipped from her hands, landing softly in her lap, forgotten for the moment.
Ivy's hand came up to cup Hazel's jaw, her thumb brushing the curve of her cheek. The kiss softened, deepened, became something that didn't need to go anywhere. Just the press of mouths, the warmth of breath shared between them.
When they broke apart, Hazel's eyes were wet but she was smiling. A real smile. The kind that reached her freckles.
"I want to show you," she said. "Properly. What it feels like. What I—what I do when I'm alone. With them."
Ivy's pupils dilated. Just a fraction. "Okay."
"Not right now." Hazel's smile turned shy. "But tonight. After dinner. After we figure out how to get our duck off the bookshelf without losing a finger."
Ivy laughed, low and warm. "Deal."
Hazel looked down at the peach balloon in her lap. She picked it up, held it to her lips, and blew a soft stream of air into it. The latex filled slowly, the peach color deepening as it stretched, the balloon growing in her hands until it was the size of a small cantaloupe. She stopped, twisted the neck, and tied it off with a quick, practiced motion.
She held it out to Ivy. "Here."
Ivy took it. The latex was warm from Hazel's breath, soft and supple. She pressed her thumb into the surface, felt it give, felt the resistance. "It's different," she said. "Softer than the green one."
"It's been inflated a lot. The latex relaxes." Hazel watched her hands on the balloon with an expression Ivy couldn't quite read. "I like the way it feels when it's been used. When it's—lived in."
Ivy looked at her. At the peach balloon in her hands. At the way Hazel's eyes tracked her fingers. She brought the balloon to her face, pressed it against her cheek. The latex was smooth, yielding, faintly warm.
Hazel's breath caught.
Ivy held her gaze. Pressed the balloon to her lips. Kissed it, soft and deliberate.
Hazel made a sound. Small. Wrecked. "Ivy—"
"I want to understand," Ivy said, her voice low. "Every part of it. What it means to you. What it feels like. I want to know all of it."
Hazel's eyes were bright, wet, full of something that looked like wonder. "You already do," she whispered. "You already understand more than anyone ever has."
Above them, Pebbles shifted. The green balloon creaked. A single feather drifted down, spinning slowly, landing on the carpet between them.
Hazel laughed. Ivy grinned. And the rain kept falling, soft and steady, as the afternoon deepened into evening, the apartment warm and full of balloons and the quiet, radical act of being truly seen.