Brad considered his patience rewarded when Mark’s vehicle made its way from the street to the carport adjacent to their modest back yard.
Well, modest by most standards, but as the tiny insect flew over the terrain, he perceived the grass and shrubs and trees more as a multi-tiered dense jungle of vegetation that he very much wanted to put behind him. He wasn’t entirely certain how long he had been waiting for his husband’s return, but every minute had been an agony of suspense, not knowing what new peril might confront him after the departure of his potentially lethal family members.
Mark, of course, wasn’t expecting Brad to be waiting outdoors, and was eager to get indoors with the bag of batteries.
“Slow down!” Brad buzzed as his wings carried him closer to Mark’s hulking form. He zipped closer to the side of Mark’s monumental head, marveling at a forest of short-cropped auburn hairs covering both his scalp and face. He hadn’t expected to have to race his giant husband to the front door.
“Mark!” He buzzed his wing faster, louder, having no other way to communicate. “It’s me! Wait for…”
An unexpected slap brushed the tiny insect’s form with the tips of enormous fingers, shocking Brad as he suddenly found himself in a fight to regain his flight.
After brushing aside the buzzing nuisance, Mark used his key to unlock the front door.
Only once he got inside and found the house strangely silent did Mark’s thoughts harken back to that slap, which had been mostly reflex, that he had launched after hearing an irritating whiny buzz near his right ear.
“Oh my god!” Mark rushed back to the front door, flung it open, and stepped outside. “Brad! I didn’t know! Where are you?”
He listened, straining to hear the tell-tale buzzing. Nothing!
He stepped onto the sidewalk, closed the door behind him. “Brad! Where are you?”
This time, a faint, feeble buzz reached Mark’s ears, but he still didn’t see the expected tiny housefly.
“Brad! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Come out!”
The buzzing sounded again, coming apparently from the nearby hedge bordering the house.
Mark moved closer, following the buzz, which rose in volume and intensity as he scanned the green branches. To his shock, he saw a tiny, dark form struggling among a woven network of silken cables.
Brad’s panic didn’t lessen, even as his husband’s huge mug loomed over him as he struggled in the cobweb that he had crashed into after Mark’s casual swat. The reason for his panic, an eight-legged terror twice his size, descended closer to the ensnared insect, was also noticed by his husband.
“Mark! Please! Help me!” Brad squirmed in the silk restraints, his every movement sending out vibrations to alert the spider to his presence.
Mark continued to stare.
“Mark! What the hell are you waiting for?” Brad felt the spider’s legs send twinges through the web strands. “Get me out of here!”
Mark chuckled as he drew back a fingertip against the pad of his thumb, before he released it and flicked the terrifying spider out of its web. Once he had dealt with the arachnid, he worked Brad free of the sticky strands and carried him indoors.
The tiny fly, still feeling wispy remnants of webbing stuck to its body, had to endure an agony of waiting as Mark got around to switching out the device’s old batteries with the new ones.
A few moments later, a grateful, chastened Brad stood, naked but human, in front of his smug husband.
“Quit smirking,” Brad said.
“Am I?” Mark smirked.
“Yes, you are.”
He still felt uncomfortable back in his own skin, as if someone was playing a trick and he might find himself back in fly form at any instant.
“OK… I made a mistake,” Brad confessed.
“Well, I hope this taught you a lesson,” his spouse retorted. “Your shrink-ray was bad enough, and now you get a Chronivac.”
Really? You’re going to lecture me? Do you know what I’ve been through?”
Mark shrugged. “Like I said… stop doing stupid things.”
“Someone sent it to me,” Brad provided some information that he hadn’t spent too much time pondering.
“Who would have sent it?” Mark asked, not without suspicion, as he took note of the fact that Brad had gotten hard.
That, Brad thought, was a good question, even as he noticed Mark's leer.
“My god! Are you aroused by all of this?”
Mark leered even more suggestively, especially, despite Brad's best efforts, the shorter man felt his own dick twitch.