Chapter 5: Medical Mischief
The walk from Abernathy’s office to the parking garage was a silent, seething pilgrimage. Mark could feel the ghost of his own convulsions in his twitching muscles. Every fluorescent light in the ceiling seemed to buzz with judgment. He kept his hand clamped over his suit pocket, where a small, warm weight shifted contentedly. He didn’t trust himself to speak until he was inside his car, the door shut, the world muted.
He stared straight ahead through the windshield. “A tapeworm.”
From his pocket, a tiny, delighted vibration. Laughter.
“You spelled ‘tapeworm’. With your fingers. On my hip.” He let his head fall back against the headrest. “I just told my boss I have a neurological condition called ‘Viscero-somatic reflex arc hypersensitivity’.”
Another buzz, this one feeling suspiciously like a proud pat.
“He’s going to want a doctor’s note, Bea. A real one.” A thought occurred to him, cold and slick. “An actual medical professional is going to have to examine me and confirm that I have… that.”
The vibration stopped. He sensed a shift in her posture, a small settling. Contrition? No. Probably just getting comfortable for the next act.
He pulled out his phone, scrolling past family and work contacts until he found the name: Leo. The entry was just the name, no title. He tapped the call button, putting it on speaker as the ringtone echoed in the quiet car.
It picked up on the third ring. “Mark Finch. To what do I owe this profound honor? Did you finally break a rib laughing at one of your own spreadsheets?” The voice was warm, dry, faintly amused.
“Something like that,” Mark said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I need a… consultation. Today. Unofficial. And I need a note.”
A beat of silence. “A note.”
“For work. Saying I have a… let’s call it a stress-induced neuromuscular tic disorder. Officially.”
On the other end, Leo sighed, the sound of a man who had heard this kind of thing before. “Let me guess. This consultation involves a certain… dynamic individual? Of the compact persuasion?”
Mark glanced down at his pocket. “Currently in my pocket, yes.”
Another, longer sigh. “Clinic closes at six. Come by at five forty-five. Use the side door by the dumpsters. And for the love of God, don’t let her anywhere near the narcotics cabinet this time.”
The line went dead. Mark let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
At 5:44 p.m., he stood by a green metal dumpster that smelled of antiseptic and old coffee, tapping his foot on the cracked asphalt. A key turned in a heavy door, and Leo peered out. He looked like a doctor who’d given up on sleep years ago—sharp green eyes, tousled dark hair, a five o’clock shadow that was closer to midnight. He wore scrubs and a look of profound resignation.
“In,” he said, stepping aside.
The hallway was empty, the main lights off. Leo led him past darkened examination rooms to a small office cluttered with journals and a skeletal model wearing a jaunty paper hat. “Sit,” he instructed, pointing to a padded chair. He himself leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. “Okay. What fresh hell has she engineered now?”
Mark launched into the story—the meeting, the tracing, the skittering, the catastrophic laughter, Abernathy’s fury, the desperate, inspired lie. As he spoke, he felt Bea moving. She climbed out of his pocket, up his tie, a tiny ascending warmth against his chest. By the time he got to the part about the tapeworm, she had settled into the hollow of his collarbone, a perfect, comfortable divot for her miniature form. He could feel the slight pressure of her legs dangling against his sternum, the whisper of her breathing.
Leo listened, his expression cycling between professional concern and barely-contained mirth. When Mark finished, Leo rubbed his eyes. “So you want me to write a note diagnosing you with ‘reflex arc hypersensitivity,’ a condition that, I feel I must stress, does not exist in any medical textbook, to cover for your wife giving you a nervous breakdown via tickle-torture in a budget meeting.”
“Essentially.”
“And she’s…”
“On my collarbone,” Mark said, gesturing vaguely at his neck.
Leo leaned forward, squinting. In the dim office light, he could just make out a small, human-like shape the size of a large beetle, nestled against Mark’s skin, one tiny arm raised in a casual wave. He shook his head. “Unbelievable. Hi, Bea.”
A tiny, high-pitched chirp, almost inaudible, came from Mark’s shoulder. It sounded suspiciously like ‘Hey, Leo!’
“Right.” Leo stood up and grabbed a stethoscope from a hook. “Well, if I’m writing a note, I’d better perform some kind of exam. Makes it more authentic. Shirt open.”
Mark unbuttoned his dress shirt, revealing the thin cotton of his undershirt. Leo moved with practiced, clinical efficiency, placing the cold disc of the stethoscope over Mark’s heart.
“Breathe normally,” Leo said, his eyes distant, listening.
Mark tried. But his attention was entirely on the point where the rubber tubing of the stethoscope met his skin, just an inch below where Bea was perched. He felt her shift, leaning over to look. He imagined her curious gaze fixed on the strange, snaking instrument.
Then Leo moved the disc lower, to just below Mark’s pectoral muscle.
The cold metal landed a mere centimeter from Bea’s perch.
He felt her flinch, a tiny jump against his skin. Then, curiosity overcoming caution, she reached out. He could feel the minute impression of her tiny hands gripping the edge of the stethoscope’s diaphragm. She pulled herself closer, exploring.
For Leo, it was just a standard examination. For Mark, it was an exquisitely detailed invasion.
He felt Bea’s bare feet, no bigger than pinheads, walk across the sensitive skin just under his collarbone as she moved onto the device itself. The cold of the metal was one thing. The microscopic, weightless tread of her steps was another, a double helix of sensation—cold and ticklish—that coiled straight into his nervous system.
He stiffened.
Leo, listening to his lungs, frowned. “Try to relax, Mark. You’re all tensed up.”
Mark let out a strangled breath. Bea was now sitting on the stethoscope, right where it met his skin. He could feel her running her hands over the polished steel, tracing the ridges.
Then Leo shifted the instrument again, sliding it laterally across Mark’s ribs.
Bea held on.
The movement dragged her tiny body sideways across a broad, hypersensitive expanse of skin. It was a slow, involuntary tickle, executed with clinical precision. A violent shiver racked Mark’s frame, a convulsion that started at his hips and shuddered up to his teeth. He jerked in the chair, his heel scraping loudly against the linoleum floor.
Leo pulled the stethoscope away, startled. “What was that?”
“S-sensitive,” Mark gasped, his face flushing. “Cold. It’s… very cold.”
But Bea wasn’t done. As Leo lifted the stethoscope, she let go, dropping the short distance back onto Mark’s heated skin. She landed with a soft, inaudible plop right in the delicate, hairless hollow of his underarm.
Mark saw stars. His whole arm slammed down against his side, pinning her there. He let out a sharp, choked yelp.
Leo stared. “Mark. What is happening?”
“It’s… the… the condition,” Mark forced out through clenched teeth. Bea was wriggling now, trapped in the warm, ticklish prison of his underarm. Her movements were frantic, tiny pushes against his ribs that felt like being poked with a thousand feathers. His body betrayed him in a series of uncontrollable twitches. His shoulder jumped. His leg jerked. A high-pitched squeak escaped his nose.
Leo’s professional demeanor finally cracked. A snort of laughter escaped him. He looked from Mark’s tortured, red face to the general area of his clamped arm. “Is she… is she in your armpit?”
Mark could only nod, his eyes wide with desperate plea.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Leo put the stethoscope down. “Bea. Out. Now.”
There was a pause. Then Mark felt the frantic wriggling stop. A moment later, he felt the barely-there tickle of her climbing, hand over minute hand, up the side of his rib cage, back to the safe, flat plateau of his collarbone. He slumped in the chair, drenched in a cold sweat, utterly spent.
Leo was now fully laughing, a low, hearty sound. He walked to his desk, pulled out a prescription pad, and began to write. “Let’s see… ‘To whom it may concern. Mr. Finch suffers from a pronounced… somatic sensitivity disorder… exacerbated by stress and… localized tactile stimuli.’” He scribbled with a flourish and signed it with an illegible doctor’s scrawl. He handed the note to Mark. “There. Your get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s completely meaningless and will hold up under zero actual scrutiny, but it’ll satisfy your boss.”
Mark took the note, his hand trembling slightly. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Leo said, grinning. “Just promise me you’ll never bring her here again. My professional reputation may not be sterling, but it has its limits.” His eyes flicked to Mark’s collarbone. “And Bea?”
A tiny chirp.
“You’re a menace. A beautiful, chaotic menace.” He shook his head. “Now get out of my office. I have actual patients with actual diseases to pretend to understand.”
Mark rebuttoned his shirt with fumbling fingers, the crisp paper of the note folded carefully in his pocket. As he stood to leave, he felt Bea rearrange herself, settling into the hollow of his throat now, a tiny sentinel. He nodded his thanks to Leo, who just waved him away, still chuckling.
The evening air outside was cool and normal. Mark leaned against the side of his car, taking deep, steadying breaths. The world was settling back into its proper shapes and sounds. He pulled out the doctor’s note, reading the absurd, official-looking words under the streetlight. It was a flimsy shield, but it was something.
From the base of his throat, he felt a soft, repetitive pressure. Bea was patting his skin, a slow, comforting rhythm.
He touched a finger to the spot, covering her tiny form. “You,” he whispered to the night air, “are going to be the death of me.”
In response, she did a small, joyful somersault against his fingertips, a silent promise that the evening wasn’t over yet.
The somersault was a tiny earthquake under his skin, a tremor of pure, unrepentant glee. Mark let his head thump back against the car’s cool roof, the doctor’s note crumpling in his fist. Exhaustion bled into the space where the panic had been, leaving his bones feeling like soft clay. He just wanted silence, a dark room, and a bed that didn’t contain a miniature anarchist.
“Home,” he said to the empty parking lot, the word barely a sigh.
He peeled himself off the car and slid into the driver’s seat. The engine coughed to life, a mundane sound after the day’s surreal symphony. He drove through the fading light, the city blurring into streaks of orange and gray. Bea was a warm, quiet comma against his throat. He could feel her breathing, a slow and steady rhythm that seemed to echo his own calming pulse.
He almost fooled himself into thinking she’d fallen asleep.
Then, at a long red light, she moved. It wasn’t a tease or a tickle. She simply walked, a slow, deliberate procession from the hollow of his throat, across the line of his collarbone, and down his chest. He stared straight ahead at the taillights of the car in front of him, his hands at ten and two on the wheel. Her path took her over his sternum, down the center of his ribcage. He could track her every footfall, a pilgrimage across the landscape of his fatigue.
He let her go. What was one more violation today?
She stopped somewhere just above his stomach. He waited for the inevitable skitter, the dig of tiny fingers into a soft spot. He braced himself, his abs tightening instinctively.
Instead, she began to draw.
It was slow. Deliberate. The tip of one tiny finger traced a shape onto his skin, through the fabric of his shirt and undershirt. He focused on the sensation, trying to decipher it. A circle? A spiral? The light turned green. He drove, half his mind on the road, half on the map she was etching onto him.
It was a crude, wobbly star. Then a lopsided circle. Then a stick figure with wild, spiky hair.
She was drawing him. The chaotic, convulsing version from the conference room.
A snort escaped his nose, surprising him. He covered it with a cough, a hand briefly leaving the wheel. The tight coil in his chest, wound all afternoon, loosened a single, painful notch.
She erased the picture with a broad, sweeping rub of her whole hand, which felt like a washcloth dragged lightly over sunburned skin. He twitched. Then she started again. This one was taller, with a squared-off body and a furious scribble for a face. It held a pointer stick. Mr. Abernathy.
This time, the sound that left him was a weak puff of air, a deflating balloon. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, unwanted and unbidden.
She rubbed that one away too. The streetlights flashed overhead, painting the car’s interior in fleeting stripes of yellow and shadow. She was quiet for a block, then two. He turned onto their street, the familiar rows of brick houses a welcome sight.
She began a new drawing. This one was complex. It started with a large, wobbly oval. She added stubby legs, a squiggle for a tail. Then, with meticulous, ticklish detail, she drew a series of tiny, connecting segments inside the oval. It was a masterpiece of microscopic, physical comedy.
A tapeworm.
His brain made the connection a half-second before his body did. The ridiculous, terrifying lie made flesh—or rather, made faint, tickling lines on his abdomen. The utter absurdity of it, the insanity of his entire day, crystallized in that stupid, wiggly drawing.
Mark laughed.
It started deep in his gut, a low rumble that shook his shoulders. It built, unstoppable, breaching the dam of his professional restraint and the residue of his sheer terror. It wasn’t the hysterical, trapped laughter from the conference room. This was free, loud, and full. It echoed in the confined space of the car, raw and real.
He laughed until his eyes streamed, pulling into their driveway blindly. He laughed at the memory of Abernathy’s purple face, at Leo’s resigned expression, at the phrase “viscero-somatic reflex arc hypersensitivity.” He laughed at the feeling of a tiny woman spelling “tapeworm” on his hip during a disciplinary hearing. He laughed until his sides ached, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime of the day.
When the waves finally subsided into breathless, hiccupping sighs, he rested his forehead against the cool steering wheel. His whole body felt lighter, scrubbed clean. The warmth on his stomach shifted, settled. He felt two small, flat hands press down firmly, spreading warmth through his shirt.
A final, definitive pat.
He sat there in the dark car for another minute, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. The laughter had hollowed him out, leaving him weightless and raw. Bea’s small, warm presence on his stomach was the only anchor. He took a deep, shuddering breath that tasted of stale coffee and relief. “We’re home,” he said to the quiet, his voice scratchy.
He pushed the car door open and dragged himself up the path to their front door. The key felt alien in his hand. The lock turned with a heavy clunk that echoed in the silent hallway. He stepped inside, flipped the light switch, and dumped his keys in the ceramic bowl with a sound too loud for the quiet house. The doctor’s note, now a crumpled ball of lint-flecked paper, he tossed onto the hall table.
Shrugging off his suit jacket felt like shedding a skin of pure tension. He left it in a heap on the floor. His tie followed, loosened and dragged over his head. He padded into the living room, the plush carpet soft under his socks. The only light came from the streetlamp outside, casting long, distorted shadows from the furniture. He sank onto the couch, a groan escaping him as his muscles finally surrendered.
He laid his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes. The darkness behind his eyelids was a welcome void. He could feel Bea begin to move again, a slow migration from his stomach up to his chest. He didn’t open his eyes. He just let her go, a silent concession. Her tiny feet walked up his sternum with a delicacy that verged on reverence.
She reached the base of his throat, then his chin. He felt her pause there, a miniature sentinel at the cliff-edge of his jaw. Then she stepped onto his cheek. The sensation was absurdly intimate, her weight less than a falling eyelash. He could feel the whisper-soft brush of her body against his stubble. She walked across his cheekbone, her path a straight line towards his ear.
He remained still, playing dead. Maybe if he didn’t react, she would just settle. Maybe she’d take pity.
Her progress stopped at his temple, where a pulse tapped a frantic rhythm just under the skin. He felt her sit down, her legs dangling over the curve of his ear. One tiny hand reached out and patted his skin, right over the thumping vein. Tap-tap-tap. A slow, thoughtful rhythm.
“I’m not ticklish there,” he murmured, his lips barely moving.
A high, silent vibration was her only answer. He knew that vibration. It was her laugh.
He opened one eye. In his peripheral vision, he could see her, a dark speck against his skin. She was looking at him, a barely-visible shape. She raised both arms, a tiny, triumphant pose. Then she fell backwards, disappearing from his view.
A split second later, he felt her.
Not walking. Not tracing.
Dancing.
It was a frantic, gleeful jig directly on his temple, executed with a pixie’s furious energy. Her feet were a blur of minute, devastating pressure on the hypersensitive skin just beside his eye. It wasn't just a tickle; it was a targeted, joyous assault on his very last nerve.
A violent, full-body jerk seized him. His head snapped to the side as if slapped. “Ah! Jesus, Bea!” The words burst out, too loud in the quiet room.
He clapped a hand to his temple, but she was already gone, skating down the side of his head towards his ear. He felt her grab the upper curve of his earlobe, using it as a pivot point to swing herself around and plant both feet in the hollow just behind his jaw.
His neck muscles corded. He twisted, trying to dislodge her, but she was a burr in the worst possible place. He scrambled backwards on the couch, crushing a cushion. His laughter was immediate and helpless, a high, wheezing sound that scraped his throat.
“Stop—oh god—stop it!” he gasped, his words dissolving into choked giggles.
She didn’t stop. She spider-crawled up the sensitive ridge of his ear, her tiny fingers finding every microscopic fold. The sensation was electric, unbearable. He bucked, rolling onto his side on the couch, pressing his ear hard into the cushion to smother her. He was a grown man, alone in his living room, wrestling with a piece of furniture to escape his miniature wife.
The pressure squished her. He felt her push back, a defiant shove against the fabric and his skin. Then she scrambled free, emerging at his hairline. He felt her tiny hands grab two strands of his hair. She pulled herself up, rappelling onto his scalp.
He froze, panting. “Okay… okay, truce,” he breathed, staring at the weave of the couch cushion an inch from his nose. “You win. I’m dead. You’ve killed me.”
He felt her settle, sitting down in the thicket of his hair. She was catching her breath too, her sides heaving in miniature puffs he could feel against his scalp. A profound, ticklish aftershock trembled through his shoulders.
Then, a new pressure. Not her whole body. A single, purposeful fingertip. It pressed into a very specific spot at the nape of his neck, right where his hair met his skin—a spot she had catalogued and weaponized over years of intimate conflict.
She didn’t wiggle it. She didn’t skitter.
She simply pressed, with a deep, knowing, unwavering firmness.
A shockwave of pure sensation detonated at the base of his skull. It wasn’t the frantic, surface-level tickle from before. This was deeper, a direct wire to the laughing, convulsing core of him. His body arched off the couch as if electrocuted. A sound ripped out of him that was half sob, half scream of laughter. He thrashed, uncoordinated, his limbs flailing. He kicked the coffee table, sending a magazine sliding to the floor.
“PLEASE!” he howled, tears streaming from his squeezed-shut eyes. “MERCY!”
The pressure vanished.
He collapsed, boneless, into the couch fabric, heaving for air. Spots danced in his vision. Every nerve ending sizzled. He was a jellyfish, a puddle of used-up man. He could feel her still up there, in his hair, a queen upon her vanquished throne.
After a long moment, he felt her move. Not to tickle. To climb. She made her way down, her passage now a gentle, almost apologetic trailing touch. She descended the side of his neck, walked across his shoulder, and finally came to rest on his chest, over his heart. He could feel its wild, hammering beat against her.
He lay there, spent. The streetlight glow painted a lazy rectangle on the ceiling. His breathing slowly evened out. The memory of the day—Abernathy’s fury, Leo’s note, the drawing of the tapeworm—faded under the immediate, physical reality of his own laughter still echoing in his muscles.
He lifted a heavy hand and placed it over his chest, covering her completely. He could feel her shape, small and warm and alive, nestled in his palm.
“You,” he whispered, his voice shot and ragged, “are a tiny, terrible monster.”
Under his hand, she stretched. He felt her arch her back, pressing into his skin. Then she curled into a ball, a contented, warm pebble against his heartbeat.
He lay there in the silent, shadowed room, the faint sound of traffic a distant hum. The couch smelled like home and fabric softener. His body ached in a dozen new, ridiculous places. The doctor’s note for a fake disease was a crumpled mess on the hall table. His job likely hung by a thread. And underneath his hand, the cause of it all slept peacefully, a smile on her microscopic face.
He closed his eyes. A slow, unstoppable grin spread across his own.