His Words, Not Mine Shrunken First Semester chapter 6 by maximally

Izzy drained the last of her Monster, set the empty can on the island with a hollow little clank, and slid off her stool.

“Okay, well. This has been super fun and super gross.” She stretched until her spine popped, hoodie riding up over a strip of brown stomach. “I’m going back to bed. Let me know if you need, like, help with the list.”

She was three steps toward the stairs before anybody said anything.

“What list?” said Artemis.

Izzy stopped. For a second she just stood there with her back to them, socks on the tile. Then she let out the same long, put-upon sigh from before, the sigh of a girl who was being asked to do one more chore before noon, and turned around.

“Oh my God. The list, Artie.” She padded back to the island and climbed onto the stool at the end of it, the one that butted right up against the kitchen table. “I told you. There’s a whole folder. He’s got, like, forty stories bookmarked, and I wasn’t gonna make you read forty stories about tiny dudes and giant ladies at breakfast. So I went through it and wrote down the stuff he actually, like, wants.” She shrugged. “Summary. You’re welcome.”

She reached into the pouch of her hoodie and pulled out a square of yellow legal pad, folded into quarters, soft at the creases like it had been folded and unfolded a lot. She didn’t have to dig for it. It was just there, right on top, like her phone and her vape and her gum.

She flicked it open and slapped it down on the table in front of Artemis.

Max saw purple first. Purple gel pen, top to bottom, every line of it. Then he saw that she’d dotted every i with a tiny skull, and his stomach dropped another inch.

She’d taken time on this.

Artemis picked it up by one corner. She held it so that he could see it too, the way she’d held the phone, which was either very fair of her or the worst thing anyone had ever done to him. He couldn’t decide which.

Across the top, underlined twice, it said:

MAX’S LIST (his words not mine!!! he WILL say they’re mine. see folder)

1. her feet (foot rubs. like normal ones. starter pack)

2. her butt (sitting on him. GENTLY. green means gentle)

3. her boobs (riding in them, bra strap, shirt pocket, “anywhere i can see out”)

4. her armpits (see post. its a lot)

5. sweat (hers. any. he said “the sweatier the better” 🤢)

6. foot worship (not rubs. WORSHIP. kissing etc. there’s a difference apparently)

7. her shoes (in them. WHILE SHES WEARING THEM)

8. ass worship (including crack)

9. breastfeeding (??? hes 18. ok)

10. mouth stuff (her mouth. NOT eating him. i asked)

11. farts (self explanatory)

12. getting trapped (underwear, drawer, jar. “somewhere she forgets about me”)

13. smothering (face, boobs, butt. “until i tap out”)

14. humiliation (laughing at him. calling him stuff. “be mean to me”)

15. masturbation (hers. WITH him. like as the toy)

16. her pussy (exploring. i’m gonna throw up)

17. sex (??? the logistics??)

18. cuckold (she gets somebody else and he has to watch)

19. insertion (like all the way. not my business)

20. anal insertion (dont look at me)

21. s—t (not writing the whole word. you know what it is. NO)

At the bottom, in smaller letters: 21 total. green = beginner. dont do red stuff first, hes delicate. The first five lines had been gone over with a green highlighter. Six through fourteen were yellow. Everything from fifteen down was a very ominous red, and under “including crack” in number eight, Izzy had drawn a line so hard the pen had gone through the paper.

“Oh my God,” Artemis said quietly.

“Yeah,” said Izzy. “Right?”

Izzy uncapped a purple gel pen she apparently also had on her, leaned over from her stool, and drew a neat little check next to number three.

“I mean, you already did that one,” she said. “Artie literally told Mom about the bra. So.”

Artemis’s mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.

“And eleven,” Izzy added, and ticked it. “Like, ten minutes ago. I was here.”

“I didn’t write any of this,” said Max. He was standing now, both arms up like he could physically stop the pen. “I’ve never—‘the sweatier the better’? I’ve never said ‘the sweatier the better’ in my life! Artie, look at it, that’s not even my handwriting, that’s her handwriting—”

“Dude. Obviously it’s my handwriting. I wrote it.” Izzy rolled her eyes. “It’s a summary. It says right at the top. His words, not mine.”

“And then the next part,” Artemis said, almost to herself. Her finger was resting under the header. “’He will say they’re mine.’”

Max shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.

Artemis started at the top. She didn’t read it like a joke. She read it the way she read everything, carefully, a word at a time, her lips moving now and then, and every few lines she said something half out loud without seeming to notice she was doing it.

“’Feet,’” she murmured. “Okay. ‘Butt. Gently.’” Her eyes flicked, very briefly, to the chair she’d just been sitting in, and then away. “Okay.”

“Artie—”

“’Anywhere I can see out.’” Her hand drifted up to the flannel pocket, the one with the flap, and pressed flat against it for a second. “That’s—I literally said that. Upstairs. ‘You’ll be able to see.’”

“You said that,” Max said. “Not me. You.”

Then she got to four, and she stopped.

“’See post,’” Izzy said helpfully. “You saw the post.”

“I saw the post,” Artemis said faintly. Her arm had already clamped back down against her side. The flannel squeaked. For a second, from the table, Max caught the warm, oniony ghost of it all over again, and he felt his face go hot under the napkin. It wasn’t proof of anything. He knew it wasn’t. But he also knew Artemis had seen his face, and he knew what it looked like from up there.

She read five without saying it out loud. She didn’t have to. He watched her eyes stop on sweat, and then he watched her remember, the same way he was remembering: the inside of her bra, the tight hot crease under her breast, the overnight film on her skin that he’d been mashed into for ten solid minutes, breathing it. The sweatiest square inch in Sunnyvale.

Her ears went pink. She didn’t tick it. She just looked at it for a long second, and then down at him, and then back at the paper.

“Okay,” she said, very quietly, to nobody. “Okay. Yeah.”

Then she kept going, faster.

Six made her glance down at her own Docs, unlaced, planted on the tile like a pair of parked cars. Seven made her pull both feet in under the chair. Eight made her go pink from her collarbone to her bangs and say “including—” out loud before she could stop herself. At nine she made a sound like a hiccup. At ten she put the back of her hand against her mouth.

“Mija.” Victoria had leaned so far over the table to read that her claw clip was hanging down over the salsa. “Eleven. ‘Self explanatory.’” She frowned at it.

“Tía, please don’t.”

“I’m just—”

She stopped. Max watched it land on her, slowly, the way a sunrise hits a window. Her eyes went to the seat Artemis had just been sitting in, which still smelled faintly like a sour bean burrito. Then to her own seat. Then, very slowly, to Izzy.

Izzy didn’t look up from her phone.

“Every taco Tuesday,” Victoria said quietly. “Four years. And Izzy, on the couch, in his face—”

“Like, a million times,” said Izzy.

“And I thought he hated it.” Her voice went very small. “Did Mama… do this?”

Then she looked down at Max with an expression he’d never seen on her face before: horror, and right behind it, coming up fast, a kind of terrible professional interest.

“In my kitchen,” Victoria whispered.

Max put his face in his hands.

Twelve, Artemis read and set down like something hot. Thirteen got a long, slow blink. Fourteen got a frown, a real one, the first one all morning, like be mean to me had personally offended her.

Fifteen through twenty-one, she didn’t read aloud at all. She just skimmed them, faster and faster, the pink climbing back up her neck, until she hit the bottom of the page and made a noise like a kettle.

“Twenty-one I’m not saying,” Izzy said. “Ever. Don’t ask.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Artemis.

“Number two...” Victoria said, leaning back in.

“Really, Mom?” Izzy scoffed. “Gross.”

“Not that kind of number two.” Victoria made a face. “The second thing on the list. It says gently.”

“Tía.”

“I’m only reading, mija. Mama can’t read?” She tapped the paper with one red nail, right under two. “Gently. You see? He wants it gentle. Mama sits gently. Mama is very good at gently.”

“Victoria,” said Max.

“I’m just saying, mijo.”

“And it’s color-coded, so you guys don’t, like, jump ahead,” Izzy said. “Green is beginner. Do the greens first.”

“None of it!” Max shouted, as loud as three inches would let him, which was not loud. “I don’t want any of it! Artie, I swear to God, I want to go back to normal and go to college and never think about any of this ever again—”

Artemis looked down at him.

He knew exactly what she was hearing. He could practically see it on her face, scrolling past behind her eyes in gray forum font. i will 100% say i want to go back to normal. thats a script. dont fall for it.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, babe. I hear you.”

And she did. She heard every word. That was the problem.

Izzy watched them both with her chin propped on one fist and her heel bouncing against the stool rung, quick and steady, like she was waiting for a bus she knew would show up. When nobody said anything else, she capped the gel pen, stuck it behind her ear and slid back off the stool.

“Cool. Great. You’re all so welcome.” She padded off toward the stairs with her empty can, socks whispering on the tile. Halfway there, she paused just long enough to let out something small and sour into the seat of her cutoffs.

pfft

“Later,” Izzy said, and was gone.

*

For a long moment, nobody moved. The rooster clock ticked. The fridge hummed. Somewhere upstairs, a door shut, and a second later Izzy’s music started leaking through the ceiling, all minor keys.

Then Artemis folded the list back up along its old creases, one quarter at a time. She didn’t hand it to Victoria. She didn’t put it down on the table. She tucked it into the chest pocket of her flannel, the same pocket he’d ridden down the stairs in, and smoothed the flap down over it with two fingers.

Max watched it disappear right where he’d been sitting twenty minutes ago.

“Okay,” Victoria said, much too brightly. She held out her hand, palm up, toward the pocket. “Give Mama that, mija. Mama will keep it somewhere safe. And then tonight he sleeps in Mama’s room, where it’s—”

“No,” said Artemis.

Victoria blinked. “Excuse me?”

“He’s with me. He asked.” Artemis stood up. She did it carefully, one hand cupped low in front of her in case Max needed it, and at her full height, the top of Victoria’s claw clip barely came up to her ribs. “Those already happened, Tía. Three and eleven. And five, if I’m being honest. Before I even knew it existed. I didn’t do any of it on purpose, and it happened anyway.” She pressed her hand flat over the pocket. “So it’s not, like, a hypothetical anymore. Somebody has to read the whole thing. Slowly. And actually check in with him the whole time. And if it’s not me, it’s gonna be you, and you’re gonna start at thirteen.”

Victoria opened her mouth. Then she closed it again, because they both knew that was true.

“I was gonna drive back to Oakland tonight,” Artemis went on. “I’ve got a shift at the café tomorrow and, like, a whole co-op house meeting about the compost.” She pulled out her phone, thumbed out a text and sent it without looking. “I’m not going. Somebody can cover. I’m staying here. Tonight at least.”

“Artemis, you can’t just—”

“Tonight at least, Tía. Probably more.” She looked down at Max. Her voice softened, but there wasn’t any give in it. “He’s in the guest room with me. Somebody in this house should actually pay attention to what he wants.”

Victoria looked at Max on the table for a long moment, her bangles very still. He’d seen that face before, when a Nordstrom clerk said a coupon had expired. She hadn’t lost. She’d just decided to come back later with a manager.

“One night,” she said.

“We’ll see,” said Artemis.

She laid her hand flat on the table again, palm-up, right in front of him. Then she looked at him and asked first.

“Okay?” she said.

He could have said no. He could have said stop, put me down, I’m not into this, all the true things he’d been saying all morning. He knew exactly what she’d hear.

So Max climbed into her hand and said nothing at all, and Artemis smiled at him like he’d answered her.