The sound of her alarm pierced the veil of Zoey’s sleep, rousing her abruptly to wakefulness. With her eyes still shut as she tried in vain to resist being dragged out of the Land of Nod, she reached out to her bedside table and fumbled awkwardly for her phone, turning the alarm off. Stretching and blinking her eyes open, she slowly sat up in bed, running her hands through her long auburn hair. Pale sunlight shone through a gap in the curtains.

It was a lazy Sunday. She’d set her alarm for eleven AM - she didn’t have work and she could’ve theoretically slept in for as long as she wanted, but she knew her boyfriend Lewis would moan at her if she stayed in bed all day. He, of course, was up before her, just as he was every day, dutifully rising at eight to feed the cat and collect the mail. (Zoey wondered dimly why people still sent physical letters, when the world had gone almost entirely digital. They usually only got bills, but surely those could be emailed too? Not that it concerned her too much - bills were Lewis’ problem, like all other boring stuff.)

It was a normal morning - or at least it appeared to be. But as the seconds passed, and Zoey continued to sit in her bed, unhurriedly waking herself up, she had the strangest feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t put her finger on what, exactly - she just felt... weird. Like there was something missing... She frowned, thinking hard as she scanned the bedroom with her eyes. There didn’t seem to be anything missing from in here - except Lewis, of course, but that wasn’t unusual. Something to do with her? Did she go to bed without her pyjamas on, or something? She glanced down - nope, both her thin grey nightshirt and pale pink bottoms were in place. Hmmm. Maybe she was imagining it.

She stretched once again, and that was when she realised - she wasn’t yawning. That was a typical thing to do first thing in the morning, right? Stretch, and yawn. To clear the sleepiness from your mind and body. But it was as if the impulse to yawn was just gone... More than that, she gradually became aware that she couldn’t yawn. She couldn’t open her mouth. And with a dim slowness, she came to realise that this was because there was something in her mouth. Something held just between her lips, protruding inside.

What was it? And how had she not noticed it sooner? It had been nearly a full three minutes since she’d woken up - it had to have been there the whole time! Zoey was usually pretty slow to completely rouse herself in the morning, but this was ridiculous. How had she failed to notice she was holding something in her mouth? Curiously, she reached out with her tongue, which met a rubbery surface that tasted of cinnamon. She liked cinnamon, but the strange object was still unwelcome.

She reached up to take whatever it was out from between her lips. A moment later, she became aware that, in fact, she hadn’t reached up at all. Her arms hadn’t moved - they continued to lie on top of the duvet, limp and relaxed. What the fuck? she said - or rather, thought. It was only after she’d said it that she realised she hadn’t actually spoken at all - not even muffled, inarticulate sounds around the mysterious blockage. The sentence had simply remained an internal thought, though no less bewildered and unnerved for going unspoken.

Zoey tried to spit the object out. She tried to speak, to say any word, even if it was completely unintelligible. She tried to get her hands to move up to her mouth. No luck in any respect. Her jaw simply refused to open and let the blockage out. She couldn’t say any muffled words, but she found that she could grunt, moan and whimper just as she would normally - which she began to do more and more in her growing panic. As for her arms, she could move them normally in any direction, except towards her mouth. It was like they would obey any other command from her brain, but the instruction to get rid of the unidentified object just wouldn’t go through.

Sobbing with frustration, she thumped the duvet with closed fists. She had to know what was going on. She had to see the object, which, she was sure, was the source of what was going wrong with her brain. Whatever it was, it was protecting itself, making it so that she couldn’t remove it.

Getting out of bed, she raced across the room to the desk where she kept her makeup, jewellery, and a mirror. Not bothering to sit down in the desk chair, she quickly leaned down so that she could see her face clearly in the glass. Her eyes widened with shock as they fell upon the reflection of the object in her mouth.

It was a pacifier.

***

“Are you going out?”

Zoey answered without looking around, as she continued to apply makeup to her face. “Yeah, obviously.”

Lewis moved behind her, so that she could see him in the mirror. “I thought we had plans tonight,” he said, his face creasing in consternation.

“Plans?” She thought for a moment, trying to remember what they could possibly be doing that night, but she was drawing a blank.

“Yeah, because we’ve barely seen each other this week. I’ve been working, and you went to visit your parents... We said we’d have a night in. Eat a nice meal, drink wine, talk...” His eyes were downcast. “You don’t remember.”

“Oh, right! No, I remember now, I do... It’s just, I kinda made plans with Molly and Allison.” Setting down her makeup brush, she stood up and turned, facing Lewis properly now. “I shouldn’t really cancel on them, not now - it’d be so last minute.”

He wouldn’t meet her gaze, glaring downwards instead. “But cancelling on me last minute is OK?”

“I’m really sorry, baby,” she said in her softest, most enticing voice. “We’ll do it tomorrow night...”

“I’m working tomorrow night.”

“Oh. Well, we’ll do it sometime next week, I promise. I want to spend time with you too...” She reached out and stroked his face, her fingertips brushing gently through his beard. “Just be patient, OK? I promise I’ll make it worth the wait.” She gave him a naughty little smile.

He was trying to stay angry at her, but she could tell he was softening. Finally, he looked up at her, his face relaxing. “OK,” he said quietly. “Another time.”

“Thank you!” She hopped forwards and hugged him tightly, but briefly. Then she kissed him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick imprint right on the border between bare skin and facial hair.

Turning around, she grabbed her black leather jacket (not real leather) and her purse. “I’ll be back late. Love you!” she called over her shoulder as she scurried out of the room.

“Love you too,” he called after her, but she was already out of earshot.

Lewis sighed. “What do I do now?”

They were almost out of bread, milk and toilet paper. He had planned to go to the store the next morning, but now that his evening had opened up, he decided he might as well go now. “Such a romantic evening,” he muttered as he strode out of the bedroom.

***

Zoey stared dumbstruck at her reflection. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Why the fuck would she have a pacifier, of all things, in her mouth? She hadn’t had a binky since she was two. Where could it have come from? And how was it stopping her from removing it?

It was a pretty fancy model, as well - the mouth shield was coloured bright pink and looked like it was made out of plastic, with a translucent ring-shaped handle protruding from the middle. Much like any normal pacifier. But there were also a dozen tiny LED lights embedded in the shield, encircling the handle, alternately flashing red, blue and green. The colours changed with each flash, travelling around the ring.

Who could have given this to her? Or, more accurately, forced it upon her? Someone must have put it in her mouth while she was sleeping last night. Only two people had access to the apartment and could have reached her while she lay in bed: the landlady, who always gave them 24 hours’ notice before visiting; and Lewis. Neither seemed a likely candidate, but Zoey was prepared to confront them both.

She made her way out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the lounge, hoping to find her boyfriend there. Sure enough, he was sitting in an armchair, his laptop in a tray on his lap, his fingers clattering rapidly and loudly on the keyboard. Probably doing some boring-ass report for work, Zoey suspected. She marched towards him, her bare feet thudding on the carpet.

“Morning, babe,” Lewis said without looking round, continuing to type at speed. “We ran out of bread, so I’m afraid there’s just cereal for breakfast. Or you can wait for lunch.”

Zoey took a deep breath through her nose, bracing herself to ask him about the pacifier. It was only then that it occurred to her that she couldn’t ask him - because the pacifier was still in her mouth! She groaned. Idiot!

Instead, she reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Just a minute, Zo,” he said, remaining focused on the report.

She screamed inwardly - no, NOW! - and prodded him again, more insistently.

“I gotta finish this,” Lewis responded firmly, still not looking up from the laptop screen. “Please, just wait. I’ll be two minutes, max.”

Zoey stared at him in bewilderment. He’d never dared to ignore or dismiss her like this before - not for a long time, anyway. His work was important to him, and he did his best to concentrate on it and do it to the best of his ability, but living with Zoey was not generally conducive to being productive. She’d be the first to admit she was impulsive, and had a tendency to interrupt people if she thought they were doing something boring (even if was their job) and get them to do something fun with her. Or in Lewis’ case, to do something boring for her. He’d learned not long into their relationship that if she wanted his attention, ignoring her was not going to make her go away. She’d just keep pestering him until he gave in. So why was he suddenly being so dismissive?

She raised her hand to poke him a third time - or maybe to slap him - but then lowered it, thinking better of it. His work was important, after all - it paid for the lion’s share of the rent. And he had asked her to wait, politely. He’d said ‘please’ and everything. Although she really wanted to be rid of this weird, glowing binky, and she clearly couldn’t deal with it on her own, she at least owed him the courtesy of being patient and waiting a few minutes for him to finish what he was doing.

So she stood quietly behind the armchair, watching him as he carried on typing.