Teaser: The Long Ride (Full Tour) (Patreon)

You slink down to the bottom of Phirae’s stomach, letting the current of stomach juices guide you towards the sphincter that marks the way down. The long way out. At the very least, it’s a lot more of Phi’s guts to explore.

The valve takes a little coaxing, with gentle pokes and tugs while you wait for a natural lull in the stomach’s churns, before the muscle relaxes. You seize your chance and dive right in, and make it about halfway through before the ring clamps back around your middle. You can hear Phirae’s gasp, and soft groans at the sensation as you try to wriggle the rest of the way through. 

It’s weird having you slip down, but he revels in the weirdness. You can feel him poking about, trying to feel you beneath his fur. With that little extra nudge and a flex from the cat’s stomach, you finally spill through the rest of the way into Phirae’s duodenum. You ride in on a wave of stomach juices, and immediately get squished from all sides by the tight tunnel. It’s the usual sort of welcome into the depths of his digestive system, before another wave of peristalsis squeezes you along.

You’re carried deeper, into warm, gurgly squishiness, well and truly in the depths of Phirae’s gut. Leaving the groans of his stomach behind, you settle in Phirae’s intestines with slick, pulsing walls surrounding you, hugging you tight every few seconds. It’s a strange, intense massage, with undulating muscle working over you from head to toe, and fuzzy, hypnotic sways of villi brushing over you. 

But despite the constant movement, the tunnel feels like it extends forever in either direction. It might as well. You've completely disappeared from the outside world, entirely surrounded by the cat trying to keep you as close as possible.

You rest and let the tide slowly pull you along. It’ll be a long trip. 

The weird waves of villi almost feel like an overgrown grassy field, albeit slimy, warm, and shifting with an alien touch. So almost nothing like a grassy field, aside from the satisfaction of running your hand through the protrusions and watching them bend and flex, then springing back behind. You wonder if Phirae can even feel it, as you brush over the inner wall. The soft squelch and squish of the walls as they hug back is enough, regardless.

You can track your progress through Phi’s guts whenever the twisting tunnel slips nearer to the surface, when you can feel Phi rubbing over you, patting his lower belly to show that he knows where you are, too. You push back against the dull thumps and wonder if you can even make a bulge, before you inevitably disappear again, slinking out of reach when another twist sends you deeper once more.

Whenever Phi pats his belly or shakes his middle, everything shakes for a moment. You can’t tell what’s happening, but gravity shifts, making the tunnel flip and splash you with the leftover digestive mush that’s riding down with you. As you sputter free of the chyme, your surroundings somehow get even tighter, with a slight squish of weight that must be the cat laying on his front, compressing all of his guts against whatever he’s laying on. You’re entirely beholden to his weight without him even realising.

You nestle against the intestinal walls and nuzzle against them to relax. The sensory deprivation lets you focus on the sounds of his body at work - mostly his stomach still gurgling above you, and the occasional glrrrp from somewhere up ahead. A cosy burbling melody to go with the rhythmic sloshes of peristalsis. You’d be forgiven for thinking the constant low rumble is coming from somewhere in his guts, but you realise that it’s actually Phirae’s purrs. You rub deeper into the slick flesh, and hope it’s because of you.

You don’t know how long you’ve spent inside Phirae’s intestines, the minutes all blur together in the dark depths. You might have fallen asleep a few times, rocked to sleep by the rhythmic contractions and the constant warmth surrounding you. This far down, you’d think Phirae’s purrs would be lost amidst all the organic gurgles and groans of his digestive system, but you can still feel and hear the pleased rumbles from the massive feline. For anything beyond that, the outside world is muffled behind layers of flesh and fat and fur, leaving you wrapped up in his bowel’s noisy embrace.

Even so, it’s been a while since the cat’s tried to get your attention, either with belly rubs or a muffled tease. You’ve been left to your own devices to explore the depths of his digestive system at your own pace, which is about the same rate as how slowly peristalsis tries to squeeze you along. You relax, run your hands through his villi like you’re riding a slow current washing you downstream, and settle back into another restful daze when the walls close in tight once more.

Despite how it seems like the twists might actually last forever, you’re roused out of your cosy stupor when the passage narrows to a small opening, and you can finally figure out where you are inside Phi’s body: Low down, between his hips, stuck where his small intestine feeds into his colon. You’re almost surprised that you’ve actually made it. You’re nearly at the end, compared to the long, winding journey you’ve had so far. You nudge against the muscular ring that separates the two, and stop. Before you dive in, you give the cat’s depths a final farewell. The villi wave you off, and help shove you in. Even still, it takes some effort to fit through the tight valve. It stretches only slightly, but it’s enough. You’ve made it through so many compacted squeezes already as you’ve rounded the corners of Phi’s guts, what’s one more wriggling shove? 

The ring hugs tighter around your body, an incredible feat considering how much that’s been happening to you already. Maybe it’s just in comparison, now that you’ve been teased with the slight extra space in Phirae’s large intestine. You kick against the tight flesh and push once you get your arms through, until finally the sphincter spits you along. You tumble into the next pocket, passed to the next tract like the baton in an hours-long relay.

The walls are softer and sleeker now, without a bed of villi constantly tickling against you. The air is heady with the cat’s musk, warm and earthy. A familiar spice to reinforce where you are, but at least it means you’re close to the exit. You’re in the final stretch, though that also means inevitably going out only one way. Unless you started squirming the entire length of his intestines again in reverse. The opening behind you glurps noisily when you look back at it, before sealing up tight. You’ll need a much longer rest before you try squeezing back through again.

You try to rest there, but much like the rest of the cat’s bowels there’s a constant wave of peristalsis pushing you along. Or up, now. Along the last few twists, tracing a path around the feline’s lower belly. You’ve been sapped of all your strength by the winding labyrinth already, this is just the victory lap. When you rise up close to his core again, it gives you another chance to hear the muffled gurgles of his stomach at work, where you once were. So close, and yet so far. Then back down, along the other side, where you know what’s waiting for you. 

You ooze through the last section and end up against one final sphincter, though you don’t rush through this one quite so eagerly. It’s cold out there, and warm and safe in here. If you squirm out now, you’ll be denying him the last few, purposeful squeezes to help you across the finish line. Besides, after spending so long completely lost in the cat’s innards, it’s nice being able to pinpoint exactly where you are, even though the answer is “inside his butt”.