Ivy sees it before she understands it — a smear of color and light beyond the chain-link fence bordering the bike path. Ferris wheel turning slow against the gray evening sky. The tinny chorus of a calliope drifting through the cooling air. A funfair. Pitched on the empty lot where the old warehouse used to be, the one that's been dirt and gravel for two years.
She stops pedaling, one foot on the ground, and stares. Tents in faded red and yellow stripes. A banner promising the biggest teddy bear you'll ever see. The smell of fried dough and burnt sugar, even from here.
Hazel loves funfairs. Has mentioned it exactly twice — once in passing, once with that particular brightness in her voice that means a memory she's still fond of. The way she'd described the tilt-a-whirl, hands moving, eyes wide. Ivy remembers.
But Hazel didn't say anything about this one. Not a word. Not a *there's a funfair in town, want to go?* Not a *look what I saw on my walk.* Nothing.
Ivy pedals the rest of the way home slow, thinking.
---
The apartment smells like rosemary and lemon. Hazel's at the counter, slicing vegetables for dinner, Pebbles waddling in circles around her feet hoping for scraps. She looks up when Ivy comes in, and her smile is easy, unguarded. "Hey. How was work?"
"Fine." Ivy sets her bag down. Leans against the doorframe. "There's a funfair in town."
Hazel's knife pauses. Just for a second. Then resumes. "Oh. Yeah. I saw the tents going up yesterday."
"You didn't mention it."
The knife stops again. Hazel's shoulders tighten. "I didn't think you'd be interested."
"Hazel."
She turns, and there it is — the flush creeping up her neck, the way she won't quite meet Ivy's eyes. "I didn't want to — we've been going nonstop. The party store, the video, everything. I thought you might need a break. From me. From my —" she gestures vaguely with the knife, "— all of it."
Ivy crosses the kitchen in three steps. Takes the knife from Hazel's hand gently, sets it on the counter. Cups Hazel's face in both palms, ink-smudged fingers against her jaw. "I don't need a break from you."
Hazel's breath shudders. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure." Ivy kisses her forehead, soft. "We're going. Tonight."
---
The funfair is louder up close. Brighter. The Ferris wheel groans as it turns, its metal frame strung with fairy lights that flicker in sequence. The air is thick with frying oil and popcorn and something floral from a cotton candy cart. People stream between the booths — families, couples, packs of teenagers with temporary tattoos and helium balloons bobbing above their heads.
Hazel's hand finds Ivy's. Squeezes.
They walk the midway slowly. Hazel's eyes catch on every balloon — a cluster of purple and gold tied to a prize booth, a mylar star drifting past on a child's wrist. Ivy watches her watching. The way her breath changes. The way her grip tightens and loosens.
"There." Ivy points to a booth with a wall of oversized prizes. A row of cartoon characters printed on latex, fat and glossy and waiting. "Which one?"
Hazel's cheeks go pink. "You don't have to—"
"I'm winning you a balloon. Which one?"
A beat. Then, so soft Ivy almost misses it: "The blue one. With the — she's from my favorite show as a kid. The little fox with the scarf."
Ivy grins. "Watch me."
---
Three rings tosses. Two near-misses. One perfect landing that loops the peg and sends the carny reaching for the balloon with a sigh.
Hazel holds the prize like it's spun from glass. The fox balloon is enormous — easily three feet from nose to tail, deep blue latex printed with a white face and a red scarf that wraps around the neck. She presses it to her chest. Stares at it. Her eyes are wet.
"Ivy."
"Yeah?"
"I —" Hazel shakes her head, laughing, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. "No one's ever won me anything before."
Ivy's chest goes tight. She pulls Hazel close, careful of the balloon between them, and kisses her softly. "First of many."
---
They ride the Ferris wheel. The tilt-a-whirl. Something called the Scrambler that presses them together so hard their ribs lock, Hazel laughing breathlessly with the fox balloon wedged between her thighs, clutching it like it might escape. They share a cone of cotton candy, blue, sticky, too sweet. Hazel feeds Ivy a piece and leaves a smear of sugar on her lip, then kisses it off.
Pebbles is at home, asleep on his favorite cushion. They have time.
They have all night.
---
The woman with the cigarette doesn't see them coming.
She's standing at the edge of the midway, one hand in her coat pocket, the other holding a cigarette to her lips. She's talking to someone on her phone, gesturing, distracted. Hazel is walking beside Ivy, the fox balloon hugged to her chest, her face soft and happy and so full of love Ivy wants to bottle the feeling.
And then the woman turns. Steps back. The glowing tip of her cigarette meets latex.
The pop is sharp and final.
Hazel makes a sound Ivy has never heard before — a small, gutted cry, punched out of her chest. The balloon is gone. Just gone. A shredded blue fragment hangs limp between her arms. The rest is nothing.
The cigarette falls from the woman's hand. She startles, swears, stamps it out. "Shit. Sorry. I didn't see —"
Hazel is crying. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just tears streaming down her face, her breath hitching, her hands still holding the useless scrap of latex like she can't let go. The fox's face is still visible — the white muzzle, the red scarf — printed on a shred of rubber no bigger than her palm.
Ivy moves before she thinks. Wraps Hazel in her arms. Kisses her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth where a tear has caught. "I'm here. I'm here. I've got you."
"She was —" Hazel's voice breaks. "I didn't even get to —"
"I know." Ivy's jaw is tight. She pulls back, looks Hazel in the eye. "Give me a second."
She turns to the woman. Who is still standing there, looking annoyed more than apologetic, arms crossed now. "It was an accident," the woman says. "But honestly, walking around with a balloon in a crowd —"
"You have a little girl," Ivy says. Voice flat. "You said. She cries when you pop her balloons."
The woman's mouth snaps shut.
"You knew exactly what you did. Even if it was an accident." Ivy takes a breath. "Wait here."
The woman blinks. "What?"
"Wait. Here." Ivy points at the ground. Then softer, to Hazel: "Stay with me."
---
The woman comes back. Ivy doesn't know where she went — some tent, some storage, some miracle. But she comes back holding a balloon unlike any Ivy has ever seen.
It's shaped like a gourd. A fat round body with a narrow neck, painted in bands of color — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet — a rainbow rendered in latex. Helium fills it, so it pulls against the string with a buoyant insistence. And it's big. Easily four feet across, the round body alone bigger than the fox had been. Bigger than anything at the prize booths.
The woman holds it out to Hazel. "Here. For your trouble."
Hazel takes it. Her hands are still shaking. But her eyes — Ivy watches them change. The way her pupils dilate. The way her breath catches. The way she cradles the rainbow gourd against her, one arm around the round body, the other guiding the narrow neck between her thighs like it belongs there.
Ivy's stomach twists.
The look on Hazel's face. The way she looks at this balloon. A stranger's balloon. Like it's the most beautiful thing she's ever held.
And Ivy feels something she didn't know she could feel. Green and hot and rising.
Jealousy. Of a balloon.
---
They walk home in silence. Hazel hugs the rainbow gourd, her face pressed to its cool surface, her steps light. She's still crying a little, but it's different now — soft, grateful tears, not grief. She keeps murmuring to it. Little words Ivy can't catch.
Ivy walks beside her, hands in her pockets, watching.
The door closes behind them. Pebbles waddles over, quacks once at the massive new intruder, decides it's not a threat, and returns to his cushion.
Hazel sets the balloon down carefully. It floats, bobbing at the end of its string, the rainbow bands catching the lamplight.
"Ivy? Are you okay?"
Ivy doesn't answer. She crosses the room in three strides, grabs the balloon by its narrow neck, and presses Hazel against the wall.
"I'm going to burst this balloon." The words come out low. Rough. "Only I give you balloons. Only me."
She kisses her. Hard. Teeth and tongue and the edge of something she doesn't want to name. Hazel gasps against her mouth.
And then Hazel is crying again. Not soft tears — real crying, chest-hitching, broken. "Please. Ivy, please. Don't break it. It reminds me of —" A sob. "It reminds me of my ex. The one before Emma. She gave me a balloon once. The only one who ever — and then she left. And I—"
Ivy stops. Her hands are still on the balloon. Her mouth is still inches from Hazel's. She can feel Hazel trembling, can taste the salt of her tears.
She breathes. In. Out. Steps back.
"I'm going to take a shower." Her voice is steady now. Carefully steady. "Alone. Cold water. Until my head is clear." She meets Hazel's eyes. "Then I'm going to fuck your ass with the strap-on until you break. And the balloon is going to be torn to shreds under you."
She turns. Walks to the bathroom. Closes the door.
The water starts.
---
Hazel moves fast.
She grabs the rainbow gourd by its narrow neck, drags it to her bedroom, locks the door. Her hands are shaking but she knows what she needs. She knows what the balloon is for.
She positions it on the bed. The narrow neck, the part where the string was tied, goes between her thighs, the girth of it pressing against her cunt through her jeans. The round body — huge, rainbow-banded, perfect — props her up. She straddles it, the curve of it rising to meet her, and her arms wrap around the spherical front like she's hugging it.
She rocks. Once. Twice.
The pressure is perfect. The curve finds her clit through the denim, massages her, promises. She grinds against it, slow, deliberate, and the balloon takes her weight like a lover, buoyant and yielding.
The first orgasm comes soft and warm, rolling through her like honey. She gasps, clings to the balloon, rides it through. The second comes faster, sharper. The third tips her into a haze of pleasure so gentle she feels like she's floating, the helium above her, the latex beneath her, the rhythm of her hips finding a steady, rocking pulse.
She comes again. And again. Not frantic — warm. Comforting. Each one washing through her, quieting the noise in her head, replacing it with something soft and fizzy and safe.
The door handle rattles.
"Hazel." Ivy's voice, through the wood. Low. Hungry.
Hazel doesn't stop rocking. "You won't burst my balloon!"
A pause. Then Ivy's voice, different now. A smile in it. Something dark. "Do you forget we have spare keys? I just have to find them."
Hazel's eyes go wide.
She scrambles off the balloon, fingers finding the knot. The string is tied tight, but she's been doing this her whole life. Her nails work at it — the loop, the twist — and it comes loose with a small gasp of released air.
The balloon begins to deflate. Slow at first, then faster, the rainbow body wrinkling, shrinking.
The door opens.
Ivy is there. Wet hair. Barefoot. Wearing nothing but a towel and an expression that makes Hazel's thighs clench.
Ivy crosses the room in two strides. Her hand closes around the balloon's neck before it can finish deflating. She brings it to her lips. Breathes in.
The balloon fills. Expands. Grows tight and round again under Ivy's breath, the latex stretching, the rainbow bands smoothing out, the curve swelling against Hazel's chest. Ivy blows until it's tight — impossibly tight, the surface going glossy, the pressure singing under her fingers.
She ties it. One twist. Perfect.
"On the bed. Prone."
Hazel obeys. Lays herself over the balloon, her stomach pressed to the curve, her legs spread, her cunt grinding against the tight rainbow surface. The pressure is perfect. Delicious. She whimpers.
Ivy's hand comes down on her ass. Sharp. "Don't move."
Hazel doesn't.
Ivy lubes her fingers. Stretches her ass. One finger, two, three, slow and methodical, while Hazel gasps into the balloon, her mouth against latex, her hips twitching. And Ivy's other hand — Hazel sees it from the corner of her eye — holds a sharp nail poised over the rainbow body. A warning. A promise.
"You try to escape, the balloon goes."
Hazel whimpers. "Please don't break it. Please."
Ivy doesn't answer. She fits the strap-on — Hazel didn't even see her put it on, but it's there, firm against her, the silicone cock slick and ready. She lines it up. Pushes in.
Hazel cries out. Full. Deep. The stretch burns good, the angle perfect, and below her the balloon shifts, the curve pressing against her clit with every inch Ivy drives into her.
Ivy fucks her. Hard. Rhythmic. Each thrust driving Hazel into the tight latex, the rainbow bands rubbing against her cunt, the pressure building and building. Hazel begs. Screams. Cries.
"Please — Ivy — don't break it — please —"
Ivy's hand hovers over the balloon. Nail ready. The movement pauses.
Hazel wails. Full-throated. All the sorrow she's been carrying, all the fear, all the love. "I'm sorry," she says to the balloon, the latex, the rainbow bands. "I'm so sorry." And then to Ivy: "I love you. I love you so much. Why do you have to hurt me?"
Ivy stops.
The anger drains out of her like water from a cracked glass. One moment it's there, hot and green and rising. The next it's gone. Nothing. The sharp nail drops.
"Hazel." Her voice breaks. "Hazel, I —"
She pulls out. Gentle. Sets the strap-on aside. Crawls onto the bed beside Hazel, gathers her into her arms, and cries.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what — I'm sorry."
Hazel clings to her. Shaking. Sobbing. "It's not too late. You didn't break it. You didn't break it, Ivy. I can forgive you."
Ivy's fingers find the knot. Undo it. The air hisses out slow, the balloon deflating beneath them, the rainbow bands wrinkling, the curve softening, until it's just a puddle of latex under their bodies.
They don't fuck. They make love.
Soft and tender and slow. Ivy's mouth on Hazel's throat. Hazel's hands in Ivy's wet hair. Ivy inside her with her fingers, not the strap-on, slow strokes that make Hazel gasp and arch. Hazel's orgasm when it comes is quiet, a sob against Ivy's neck. Ivy follows, shuddering, her face pressed to Hazel's hair.
They lie tangled in the deflated rainbow, the latex cool and wrinkled beneath them. Hazel's eyes are red. Ivy's are wet. Their breath synchronizes, slows.
Across the room, on his cushion, Pebbles stirs. Looks at them. Decides everything is fine. Tucks his beak under his wing and goes back to sleep.
He is a good duck.