Chapter 5: Wallbound Servitude
The peace that followed the cat’s deterrence was a fragile, new-born thing. For a week, the only sounds from the walls were the familiar, comforting scratches of Mavis going about his life. The compressed air can, rigged with its jerry-rigged sensor, stood silent sentinel by the patched hole, a monument to their shared victory. The tension in Travis’s shoulders, a permanent resident for months, began to unpack its bags.
This newfound safety, however, had an unexpected side effect. It made the remaining hole—their hole, by the bed—seem louder in its implication.
Travis lay on his stomach, the afternoon sun painting a warm rectangle across his back. He was scrolling through his phone, one arm dangling off the side of the mattress. His fingers brushed the familiar, sun-bleached plaster of the baseboard.
A tiny, cool hand settled on his knuckle.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mavis’s voice chirped from the darkness beyond the jagged slit. “Actually, scratch that. I have no pennies. A shiny button?”
Travis smiled into his pillow. “Thinking it’s time we finished the job.”
The hand on his knuckle stilled. “The cat’s gone. The job is finished.”
“Not that job.” Travis rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand, facing the wall. He could just make out the glint of Mavis’s eyes in the shadow. “This one. The big, obvious ‘come and get it’ sign in my wall.”
Mavis was quiet for a beat. “It’s our sign.”
“I know.” Travis reached a finger towards the hole, not entering, just tracing its smoothed edge. “But it’s also a liability. Now that we know something out there is… curious. We should seal it properly. Get Hank from next door to do it right.”
A scoff echoed from the cavity. “Hank? The man who thinks ‘level’ is a suggestion?”
“He’s a better plasterer than I am. And he owes me for… well, for not asking why I needed a motion sensor aimed at a hole in my wall.” Travis sighed. “It’s time, Mavis. We can’t live with a draft forever.”
The silence from the wall was heavy, fraught. Then, a small sigh. “Fine. But not today.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Give me tonight.”
Travis understood. He nodded, even though Mavis couldn’t fully see him. “Okay. Tonight.”
The hours bled away. Evening fell, and with it came the usual, comfortable ritual. Travis made a simple dinner, listening for the faint, happy scratches that meant Mavis was enjoying the bits he’d left on the saucer by the hole. He watched TV, the blue light flickering against the silent wall. He got ready for bed, brushing his teeth in the now-cold, quiet bathroom, the memory of steam and surrender a private warmth in his chest.
When he finally lay in the dark, the room held its breath.
He heard the skitter before he felt it. The delicate, precise click of tiny claws on plaster, then on wood, then on fabric. The mattress dipped infinitesimally near his hip. Travis kept his eyes closed, his breathing even.
The touch, when it came, was not the playful tickle of morning. It was deliberate, almost solemn. A small, warm palm pressed flat against the bare skin of his lower belly, just above the waistband of his boxers. Travis let out a slow, controlled breath.
Mavis’s voice was a low murmur in the dark, close to his skin. “My big, strong saviour.”
Travis opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.” The hand slid lower, a soft friction. Fingers hooked into the elastic of his boxers and tugged. “But however can I repay your kindness?”
The tone was vintage Mavis—fake adoration, dripping with theatrical sarcasm. But Travis heard the brittle edge beneath it, the unspoken fear of loss, of change. He lifted his hips, allowing the boxers to be pushed down.
The cool night air kissed his skin, followed immediately by the warmer, shocking silk of Mavis’s full body pressing against him. The tiny creature didn’t tickle or tease. He simply lay there, his cheek against Travis’s hip, his arms stretched out as if trying to encompass as much as he could. A hug, of sorts.
Travis’s body responded, a slow, inevitable thickening. Mavis turned his head, nuzzling into the softness of Travis’s inner thigh. His breath was hot and quick.
“So big,” Mavis whispered, the taunt now sounding like a genuine observation, tinged with awe. “So… here.”
He moved then, with a purpose that stole the air from Travis’s lungs. Small hands guided, pulled. Travis helped, a shiver running through him as he slipped free. The familiar, cool mouth of the hole in the wall waited.
This time, Mavis didn’t just take him inside. He leaned out, his tiny arms wrapping around the sensitive head in a fierce, full-body embrace. He didn’t move, just held on, his face buried against the throbbing skin, his own small frame pulsing with a quick heartbeat Travis could feel through his own flesh.
“Mavis,” Travis breathed, a statement and a question.
The answer was a slight, adjusting squeeze, a tightening of the tiny arms. The sensation was unlike anything else—not the slickness of the bath, not the frantic play of mornings. This was a claim. An anchoring. A desperate, physical testament to here, to now, to us.
Travis’s hands fisted in the sheets. His back arched, not in urgency, but in a deep, surrendering curve. He could feel every minute shift of Mavis’s body, the brush of his hair, the press of his ribs. The world narrowed to this point of impossible, intimate contact, to the ragged sound of his own breathing and the faint, almost inaudible sigh that vibrated from Mavis into his very core.
It built slowly, a wave gathering force from the ocean floor. The tension coiled in his gut, sweet and sharp. He bit his lip to keep silent, but a low, strangled groan escaped as the peak broke over him. His hips jerked once, a helpless, final thrust into that warm, clinging embrace.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of his slowing heartbeat in his ears.
Slowly, gently, he withdrew. Mavis released him, slipping back into the shadow of the wall without a word. Travis lay there, spent and strangely hollowed out. He listened to the quiet rustling inside the wall—Mavis moving through his nest, settling.
He finally leaned over, peering into the darkness of the hole. “You okay?”
A pause. Then, “Yeah.” Mavis’s voice was small, rough. “You?”
“Yeah.” Travis reached a finger in, just the pad of his index finger. After a moment, he felt the brief, dry press of Mavis’s forehead against it. A nod in the dark.
“Hank comes tomorrow,” Travis whispered.
“I know.”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll make a new way. A better one. Hidden.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
The next morning, Hank arrived with his toolbox and a cloud of cigarette smoke. He was a gruff man in his sixties with knotted hands and a perpetual squint. He eyed the hole by the baseboard.
“Damn thing,” he grunted, kneeling. “Squirrels?”
“Something like that,” Travis said, hovering.
Hank worked with a practiced, unsentimental efficiency. He stuffed the hole with wire mesh, slapped on layer after layer of joint compound, sanded it smooth. Travis watched, a lump in his throat, as the familiar slit vanished under the white paste, becoming just another unremarkable stretch of wall.
The entire process took less than two hours. Hank packed up, accepted a twenty, and left with a curt nod.
The room was silent. Too silent. The wall was blank, pristine. It looked whole, but to Travis, it felt like a scar.
He waited until Hank’s truck pulled away. Then, he walked to the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and pulled out a thick, shiny button from an old coat. He went back to the bedroom, knelt by the newly smoothed wall, and pressed the button against it, right where the hole’s center used to be. He held it there for a full minute.
When he pulled his hand away, the button remained, stuck by static or hope or something in between. A tiny, foolish beacon.
He sat on the floor, his back against the bed, and stared at the blank wall and the single, glinting point of contact.
“Okay,” he whispered to the empty room, to the small life he knew was listening on the other side of the plaster. “Okay. Next thing.”
From deep within the wall, faint but unmistakable, came the sound of two tiny knocks against the other side of the new plaster. Right behind the button.
Tap. Tap.
Travis closed his eyes, a smile touching his lips. The wall was sealed. The cat was gone. A chapter was closed. But the conversation, it seemed, was just changing form. He leaned his head back, already planning where a new, better, more hidden entrance could be cut. A door for Mavis, not a hole. A real, proper door.
A real, proper door.
The thought stuck with him through the rest of that day, a quiet hum beneath the surface of everything else. He ate lunch staring at the blank wall, imagining a tiny, polished brass knob. He washed the dishes picturing a minuscule hinge. By evening, the idea had grown roots and details.
He spent the evening thinking and planning. A dollhouse door was the obvious idea, but most were flimsy, decorative things. He needed something sturdy, with a real lock Mavis could work from his side. Something that swung out smoothly into the room. He sketched on a napkin—a small, rectangular frame, maybe six inches high, set into the wall. He’d have to cut into the drywall again, but carefully this time, with purpose.
He could line the interior passage with something smooth, like laminate flooring scraps, to make it easy to wipe clean. The ‘common use’ of the old hole had left its own reminders, and a proper door deserved a proper entryway. He even considered miniature curtains on a tiny rod, a luxury of privacy he knew Mavis would mock, but might secretly enjoy.
“What’s all the scribbling?” Mavis’s voice was muffled, coming from a different part of the wall near the floor vent. He’d clearly been exploring the new limits of his containment.
“Designs,” Travis said, tapping the napkin with his pencil.
“For what?”
“Your new front door. Not a hole. A door.”
Silence from the vent. Then, a skeptical chirp. “Will it have a doorbell? I’ve always wanted one of those.”
“No doorbell.” Travis couldn’t fight a smile. “But I’m thinking a latch. Maybe a deadbolt. Something you can operate from your side so you’re not… exposed.”
“Exposed is a state of mind,” Mavis said, but his tone lacked its usual bravado. It was replaced by a curious hesitation. “You’re really doing this?”
“Yeah. I am. Hank did a shitty job smoothing this anyway. I can do better.” Travis leaned back, looking at his crude drawing. “It needs to be hidden, though. Maybe behind a piece of furniture, or…”
“The nightstand,” Mavis supplied quickly. “Move it an inch out from the wall. The door could be in the baseboard behind it. Invisible.”
“See? You’re already better at this than I am.” Travis felt a surge of warm satisfaction. They were collaborating, building something together. “I’ll need to get materials. Thin wood, small hinges, a latch…”
“You’re going to the big, loud place with the bright lights?” Mavis’s voice tinged with distant awe. He rarely left the walls, and never the house. The outside world was a mythic, dangerous landscape.
“The hardware store,” Travis confirmed. “Tomorrow.”
“Bring me back something sharp and interesting.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
That night, sleep was slow to come. Travis lay in the dark, listening to the faint, busy sounds of Mavis moving in the walls. The rhythm was different now—less furtive scratching, more deliberate exploration. He was mapping, Travis realized. Planning his own interior renovations to connect to the proposed new portal.
The sounds were a comfort. They were the sounds of a future being built, nail by tiny nail, in the dark.
They were the sounds of a future being built, nail by tiny nail, in the dark.
The hardware store buzzed with a harsh, fluorescent energy. Travis moved through the aisles, a solitary figure in a landscape of orange aprons and the distant shriek of a table saw. The smell of cut lumber and rust filled his nose. He found himself in the dollhouse supplies section, a sad little aisle of tiny plastic windows and flimsy balcony railings. None of it would work.
He turned a corner into the specialty hardware section, his eyes scanning bins of small brass hinges, delicate cabinet catches, and tiny screws. He picked up a set of hinges meant for a jewelry box, testing their smooth swing. Perfect. His mind began to assemble the pieces: the hinge here, a latch there, a solid piece of oak veneer for the door itself.
Then, his gaze drifted upward to the shelving units, towering fifteen feet high. He pictured Mavis, five inches tall, at the base of the new door in the baseboard. The door would open outwards, into the room, but the floor would still be a sheer, vast cliff face from his perspective. Travis’s browsing slowed. He stared at a coiled rope ladder meant for play forts, his thoughts clicking into place with a sudden, practical clarity.
A permanent ladder. He’d need to fix one to the back of the nightstand or directly onto the bedpost. Something sturdy, with tight, climbable rungs. Mavis couldn’t just jump; he needed a reliable way up and down. Travis grabbed the rope ladder, adding it to his basket.
He kept walking, his mind now racing ahead of his feet. The old hole’s primary function hadn’t just been for conversation. Its location, right at mattress level, had served another, more intimate purpose. If the new door was at floor level, that particular aspect of their routine would be… logistically challenging. Mavis would have to scale the new ladder every single time, which felt inelegant, and perhaps undignified.
A second access point, then. Higher up. A simpler, smoother hole, easily cleared and concealed. Not a door, just a discreet portal. He could make a small, removable panel, maybe behind a framed picture or a piece of art. Something only they would know was there.
“You look lost,” a voice said. An older employee with a name tag reading ‘Larry’ stood nearby, sorting packets of screws.
“Just thinking through a project,” Travis said, shaking his head. “Trying to make things accessible for, uh, a very small pet.”
Larry raised an eyebrow. “Pet, huh? We got ferret tubes over in plumbing.”
“More… delicate than a ferret,” Travis said, moving on before the conversation could deepen. He found himself in the moulding aisle, running his fingers over lengths of trim. He selected a short piece of simple quarter-round, thinking he could hollow out a channel in the back to create a secret ledge. He added it to his growing collection.
The basket grew heavy with his plans: the hinges, the latch, the rope, the trim, a small tub of wood glue, a fresh drywall saw, a putty knife. Standing in line at the checkout, the fluorescent lights humming overhead, he felt a quiet certainty settle over him. This wasn’t a patch job. This was an architecture. He was building a proper home for Mavis within his own, a series of thoughtful connections instead of a single, vulnerable wound.
He drove home with the materials rattling in the trunk, the afternoon sun warming his arm through the open window. The blank, patched wall greeted him when he entered the bedroom, but it no longer felt like a scar. It felt like a fresh canvas.
He dumped the bags on the floor with a satisfying crinkle. “I’m back,” he announced to the room.
A familiar, scratching chitter came from near the floor vent, rapid and inquisitive.
“Got the stuff,” Travis continued, kneeling and starting to unpack. He held up the tiny brass hinges. “These are for your door. And this,” he said, unfurling a length of the rope ladder, “is so you can get up to bed without doing a mountaineering expedition every time.”
Silence from the vent. Then, Mavis’s voice, closer now, filtered through the plaster. “You bought me a ladder.”
“I bought us a ladder,” Travis corrected. He laid the quarter-round trim on the carpet. “And I had another thought. About… convenience.” He paused, choosing his words carefully in the empty room. “The old spot was at a good height. For certain things.”
Another beat of silence. “You want to make another hole.” Mavis’s tone was flat, unreadable.
“Not a hole like before,” Travis said quickly, his words spilling out. “A hidden one. A panel. Up higher. So you don’t… I mean, it would be easier. If you wanted. Only if you wanted.”
The silence stretched. Travis held his breath, suddenly worried he’d overstepped, that he’d ruined the delicate, unspoken balance.
Then, a soft, almost inaudible chuckle vibrated through the wall. “Two holes? Travis. You’re getting greedy.”
Relief flooded through him, warm and sweet. He laughed, a short, surprised burst of sound. “One’s a door. The other’s a… strategic access point.”
“Call it what you want,” Mavis said, and Travis could hear the smile in his voice. “Just make sure the ‘strategic access point’ has smooth edges. I have delicate skin.”
Travis’s grin felt like it would split his face. He looked at the blank wall, then at the array of supplies on the floor. The future was no longer a quiet sound in the dark. It was right here, in his hands, waiting to be assembled. He picked up the drywall saw, its metal teeth catching the light.
“Smooth edges,” he promised, the first, clean cut already taking shape in his mind.
Travis spent the next hour unpacking, the rustle of plastic bags and the clatter of small hinges filling the quiet room. He laid everything out on the floor like surgical instruments: the saw, the trim, the coil of rope. Sunlight shifted across the carpet, warming the back of his neck as he worked.
“So,” he said, sitting back on his heels. He addressed a crack in the baseboard near where he’d heard the last scratching. “We need to agree on the locations. No cutting until you sign off.”
A pause, then a faint tapping from inside the wall, two quick raps. Proceed.
“Okay.” Travis grabbed a pencil and a small level from his toolbox. He knelt by the nightstand, now pulled a foot away from the wall. “Main door goes here, behind the nightstand. Low profile. I’m thinking six inches high, four wide.” He held the level against the baseboard, made a light mark.
“That’s practically a cathedral,” Mavis’s voice drifted, slightly muffled, from a point higher up. “I’m five inches tall on a good day.”
“You need headroom. Dignity.” Travis smiled, making another mark. “And space to carry things. Your tiny stolen spoons, whatever.” He tapped the pencil against the drywall. “This spot work? Check the other side, make sure your passage is clear.”
He heard a skittering, like tiny feet on plaster, moving horizontally behind the wall. It stopped, then started again, tracing a path. “Clear,” Mavis confirmed. “But it’s boring. Just empty stud bay. I’ll have to build a foyer.”
“You do that.” Travis’s smile widened. He moved to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. This part felt more delicate. “Now. The other access point.” He looked at the wall beside the pillow, eye-level if he were lying down. The memory of the old hole’s specific utility hung unspoken in the air, a warm, private hum. “Here,” he said, his voice lower. He made a small ‘X’ in pencil. “A removable panel. Maybe eight inches up from the mattress.”
Silence from the walls.
“Mavis?”
“I’m thinking.” The voice was closer now, right behind the new ‘X’. Travis imagined him there, a small, thoughtful silhouette pressed against the other side of the drywall. “It’s a vulnerable height for me. Exposed.”
“I know.” Travis traced the ‘X’ with his finger. “It’ll have a good latch. And it’s only for when I’m here, in the bed. You control it.”
Another long silence. Travis held his breath, the pencil feeling suddenly heavy in his hand.
“And the edges?” Mavis finally asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“Sanded. Perfectly smooth. I’ll use the trim to make a frame, like a picture frame. No rough drywall.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper near the mark. “It’s for you. Only if you want it.”
The quiet that followed was different. It was the sound of consideration, of a tiny creature weighing risk against a deep, familiar want. Travis heard a soft, shuffling sound.
Then, a single, definitive tap right on the other side of the ‘X’. A tap so firm he felt the slight vibration through his fingertip.
“There,” Mavis said, his voice clear and close. “That’s the spot.”
A rush of warmth flooded Travis’s chest, sweet and sharp. He nodded, though Mavis couldn’t see. “Okay,” he breathed. He darkened the ‘X’, making it permanent. “That’s the spot.”
He marked a second, identical ‘X’ a few inches over, to outline the width of the panel. The act felt ritualistic, like drawing a boundary around a sacred space. The afternoon light caught the graphite lines, making them gleam for a moment.
“Done?” Mavis asked.
“Done.” Travis put the pencil down. He looked at the two marked locations: one low and practical by the floor, the other higher, intimate, by the bed. A blueprint for their shared world. “Your kingdom awaits, my lord. Or, your… duchy. Your well-appointed studio apartment.”
A dry chuckle echoed from within the wall. “Just make the cuts straight. I don’t want a jagged portal to your realm. It’s undignified.”
“Straight as an arrow,” Travis promised, picking up the drywall saw. The metal teeth felt cold and serious in his grip. He positioned himself before the lower mark, the one for the door. He took a deep breath, the dust-smell of the room filling his lungs.
This was it. No going back. He placed the saw’s tip against the pencil ‘X’, the pressure a faint creak against the wallboard.
From the other side, directly behind the blade, came a soft, whispered, “Wait.”
Travis froze. “What’s wrong?”
A beat. Then Mavis’s voice, softer than he’d ever heard it, barely more than a breath filtered through plaster and paint. “Thank you.”
Travis closed his eyes for a second, a complicated wave of emotion tightening his throat. He nodded again, knowing Mavis could probably hear the movement. He didn’t trust his own voice.
He opened his eyes, focused on the line. Then, with a firm, controlled pressure, he pushed the tip of the saw through the drywall.
The sound was a shocking, visceral crunch.