11

Effie's in a bathtub. She's washing herself. She smothers soapy water all over her bare legs, and caresses them with her equally drenched and sudded hands. She feels like she's in heaven...and she has no idea she has an audience.

Staying on Effie's lower leg has been hard. Especially now. Sometimes Peeta can't breathe without drowning. Sometimes he can't see without getting sore eyes. At least this is WAY more nourishing than pollen. He wouldn't mind dying here, actually.

He gets washed overboard a lot. Just as often, Effie's leg submerges, like a mountainous submarine. From there, all Peeta's got to do is swim to the place where Effie's leg is most likely to surface. Intuitive, he's usually right.

There's a telecomm pad on the wall near her. She punches a few buttons on it. An earpiece materializes itself in her ear. A mike materializes itself near her mouth.

Effie chats with Haymitch, her husband. Peeta nearly freezes-and drowns-when he overhears what's going on up and over there.

Not to worry, Peeta thinks, Haymitch is still in District 7, and Effie doesn't know I'm here. Oh, but for how much longer?

She raises her legs, and rests them on either rim of the bathtub. Peeta's still on one. Her legs are still wet. His perch is hardly stable.

To her, he'd look like a gnat caught in a water drop. But she's dreaming of Haymitch, and doesn't notice what's on her lower leg.

Meanwhile, her upper legs swell. Beneath the water, her ass swells. Far away, her boobs swell. Farther away, her lips swell.

She's one excited beauty-and does a VERY talented job of repressing half of it.

She caresses her upper leg with her hand. Thankfully, it's not the same leg of hers Peeta's stuck on.

Online, she talks to Haymitch as if he were a bug crawling all over her. She talks about it as if she misses it. Peeta gets scared, and overreacts when she says some of these sexy lines. Sometimes it's hard for him to tell that she's not addressing him.

It seems that Effie and Haymitch are now so much in love, he doesn't gross her out anymore. She's talking about him as if he were a little bug-and she isn't expressing so much as a gag reflex.

Peeta isn't either. He loves what's going on. It's like he's in a cuckold fantasy-where the other man in the fantasy is many thousands of clicks away. Part of him wishes he didn't have to make a habit out of this...but he is very small, and won't likely get back to Katniss in one piece.

He doesn't want to. Katniss and Katlanna are both WAY too hard for him to sort out right now.

Peeta gets trapped in a drop of water. The drop takes him down Effie's leg.

She rests her hand on her own leg. It's the leg Peeta's on. To Peeta, it's like an airborne mountain just rested itself in front of him. Still trapped in the water drop, he's highballing uncontrollably towards its base-which is very fragile, because it's limited to where the tips of Effie's five fingers rest.

The drop collides with the tip of Effie's pinkie finger...and stops. Its excess drains to either side of her finger; some of it ends up back in the tub. Peeta, OTOH, is precariously wedged between Effie's pinkie finger and her lower leg. He'd never imagined he'd ever be humiliated this much by a beautiful woman's pinkie finger.

For may precarious minutes, he freezes still, wedged between death and trespassing. But with luck-which Peeta doesn't expect-he'll get away with both.

The wedge gets tighter, and partially strangles Peeta, each time Effie gets excited while love-talking with Haymitch. If she gets too comfy doing this, she'll soon sense there's something besides more of her leg under her pinkie.

At last, Effie takes her hand away, and touches her own face. Peeta cries, as he's unexpectedly flipped, like a tiny pancake, into the air above Effie's legs.

Effie raises her legs again, and returns them to the tub's water. Peeta sees this, while still in midair, and is worried he'll end up in the water where he can't climb a surfaced part of Effie's leg.

Lucky for him, he lands on her knee. It's surfaced. Far away, Effie's terminated her own call to Haymitch. She hasn't noticed the small thump on her knee.

For Peeta, that was too close. And the worst-which is also the best-is hardly over.

Out of the tub, Effie dries herself off. Peeta tries to stay out of range of the towel's fibers. She sure likes to be thorough when she dries off. Peeta's not sure for how much longer he can keep this up...

He doesn't. The towel comes for him. He leaps, and grabs one of the fibers. From there, parts of the ride are suffocating. At least he gets pressed against a lot of lovely places on Effie's body-even if only for a fraction of a moment. He still doesn't remember how he survives this part.

At last, Effie drops the towel on her bathroom floor-with Peeta in it. She slips, while still nude, into the shower. The shower has transparent walls. Peeta climbs atop the highest lump in the towel, and can see Effie, like a standing and balancing goddess, as she turns on the shower water and rids herself of the bathwater's excess suds.

This'd be a great chance for Peeta to plot an escape from her house and resume his quest back to his and Katniss's place. But Peeta's already had too much fun and too many thrills, and he's not about to leave just because he's not supposed to be doing this.

Effie sings in the shower. Peeta listens-and watches more, as her body's unmissable, as the shower stall's walls are steam-spreading.

Still on the towel, Peeta can't stop ogling Effie's nude, wetting, balancing body as it inadvertently flaunts itself within a transparent shower stall. It's women like Effie that make Peeta wondered if he jumped the gun when he settled for Katniss.

One very long trance later, Effie turns off the water, and climbs out of the stall. Like a giantess, she bends over the towel, with her wet, dripping body...

Oh no, Peeta initially thinks. Effie picks up the towel. Peeta is constantly smashed against the sacred spots of her nude body, and almost suffocated. Oh yes, Peeta dreams.

At long last, Effie hangs the towel on its proper rod. Peeta's trapped on top of her foot.

Above, Effie opens a drawer. She reaches into it with both hands. Her hands come out. They're holding a pair of stringy white panties.

They barely caress Peeta as she steps through their loops. For a brief second, Peeta's in heaven...not that he wasn't before.

Effie sits, and polishes her toes. Peeta hides in the carpet fibers as she paints the first foot. It takes her a while. Peeta sure hopes her house doesn't have a spider infestation.

She puts her painted foot on the floor, and paints the nails of her other. This is Peeta's chance.

Stepping lightly, he creeps atop her foot. He's on her smallest toe. Aloft, Effie hums, and still paints her nails. She hasn't felt or noticed Peeta.

Where he is, Peeta waits for the polish to dry. This is the only thing harder than waiting for her to paint her feet.

Later in the day, Effie meets with a District 12 official in the district capital. They sit in a cafe and have tea. The place smells of flowers. Recordings of classical music play softly in the background.

The cafe sells many strawberry products. With Paylor in power, strawberries are no longer state contraband.

The official talks to Effie about how things in the district capital seem brighter, with Paylor in the Capitol. Mayor Undersee is still missed...but he probably wouldn't mind visiting this cafe, if it meant buying strawberry products legally.

The official constantly moves her legs under the table. Effie hardly moves hers at all.

Far below, Peeta's enjoying himself too much on Effie's toes. The "wet paint" has finally dried. He lies down and rolls around on her heavenly-polished white toenails. They're huge. They're the size of ball courts. At least they're still smaller than Hunger Games arenas; otherwise, this'd be a MUCH less pleasant experience for young Peeta.

Katniss would hate him, he knows. Haymitch would hate him, he knows. Katlanna would value him more for his experience, he knows. But as long as he can't expect to live to see tomorrow, he might as well exploit today down to its last cent.

And he will. He'll leave his seed all over Effie's newly-polished toes, if he has to.