fever in, fever out: a whole lot of art in a whole world of growing pains. an anthrax/testament epic length fic—1.1 million words! a "life ensues" type story. fic birthday: february 17, 2021. all testament fics are on ao3 (josiebelladonna; some are under the pseud alexaskolnick); all fiction, so chill out 🖤🤍
this is the main chapter list for the flagship fic, fever in fever out.
all my testament writings can be found on ao3 under the “testament (band)” tag, or you can merely search through the archive on here using the fic names after archive/tagged (like blood from a stone, blood & chocolate*, flowers for alexander, love is not enough, black moon**, xenon dreams***, or any of the one shots with “one shot”)
* - you can use the word “and” but it’s mainly stylized with the ampersand
** - same can be said for eclipse, which i’ll be putting on here for your viewing pleasure in january 2023; once it’s done, i’ll be giving the same treatment to dead man walking
*** - coming off a lengthy hiatus new year’s day! 💙
volume one: deadly nightshade
book one: altitudes and attitude
prologue
welcome to new york
coffee and paints
the new guy
a new record
soup and numbers
the million dollar question
crab society
crab society north
a quiet place
stuck in the middle with you
fresh as fallen snow
steam engenius
the boys next door
in the light
art pop and pop art
book two: deadly nightshade
from rhode island with love
old markers
fire and lemons
a day with joey
the boy with the pearl in his hair
a man of many colors
off to the races
legacies and left behinds
yellow tulip
dave, frank, and cliff
speak spanish or get the hell out
finger lakes
the dog days of summer
venus as a boy
little doll
the three droogs
spreading the disease
dog day sunrise
black heart drawings
all the world’s a stage
the sun king
sticks and stones
flight or fight
please don’t fade away
orion’s belt
rain on me
lars of the dead
“chuck, there’s a worm in your soup”
new kid
belladonna atropa
the man in the mirror
heart of gold
among us
one of us
guardian angel
pink orange red
december thirty-first
name changes
a hole in the wall
among the living
the hollow men
the first one is the deepest
book three: a skeleton in the closet
double deuces
nightshade in bloom
the first skeleton
fresh paper and fan clubs
a different kind of affair
dark veils
the wedding
nightshade in cultivation
the second skeleton
adrenaline rush
art whores
cherry bootleg
a special skeleton
dead witches and apocalyptic cities
the mysterious man
gimme fever
joe barleycorn
narcissus staring at his reflection
a lick and a promise
a small victory
joey’s new song
when in england
no bones about it
show time
house of mirrors
sweet mother love
three bad dreams
alex’s nineteenth birthday
somewhere upstate
heart of glass
sets of twins
last christmas in new york
glass caskets
the new order of things
volume two: souls of black
book one: souls of black
welcome home
you’re all i’ve got tonight
take this longing
the prince
the black knight
the black night
crash and burn
the red eye
pleasures of the flesh
the dead of night
the end of the world
nathan
black and silver
snow on the beach
nightshade, hemlock, mistletoe, and oleanders
fluffy tufts
the city by the lake
joey’s letter
the house of skolnick
practice what you preach
misery loves company
organs
seduce and destroy
sextape
a good boy
wet dreams and frisbees
skin and valentines
date night with mr. skolnick
drink your poison
blood on the dance floor
ginger snaps
that man is on fire
book two: veritas
a forest
the art whore
time is coming
dark paradise
dancing nancies
in my world
sadie hawkins
off to the races again
hardwired
hell’s kitchen
soft ginger snaps
softer, softest
colors made of tears
the new apartment
boys don’t cry
fired!
my eyes have seen you
boys on the radio
“hello, mr. bush!”
persistence of time
the spine of california
black sun morning
minstrel in the gallery
stanley
the secret journal
far away boys
lucifer sam
learning to walk again
a handful of rain
book three: the ballad
queen of coney island
white lace and strange
poison lily
bonded in blood
a long row to hoe
the island and the bay
hallowed ground
jewish cowboy
cherries in springtime
there
they’re
their
young vegas
ten years gone
the halloween show
little marigold
hanu-mas
unfinished business
for a brother
six feet under
belinda’s adventure
the promise
trial by fire
return of ginger
six underground
the first day of school
volume three: fever in, fever out
book one: the ritual
the front door
the shortcut
black suede
walk walk fashion baby
another notch on the belt
for a friend
return to the quiet place
the house of usher
en plein air
on the shoulders of giants
i’ve watched you change
alex’s thirtieth birthday
a wizard of winter
cheese and wine
sweet exists
the millennium party
new year’s day
a proper bluesman
heart and lungs
you and me versus the world
just like velvet
a hole in the earth
book two: power drunk majesty
zelda on solo
fool’s gold
into the pit
a new skeleton in the closet
too many secrets
out of the woods
st. anger around my neck
belinda’s secret
a dusty old gallery
the dragon’s lair
“everyone’s done, dave”
pop art and art pop
book three: return to serenity
family reunion
home is a strange place
a certain shade of green
the scar on the sky
sick like me
lost souls
the first show in years
do it on ya
legs and tails
a new beginning
let go of my world
epilogue
***UPDATE 7/18/21: these will be divided into a trilogy, with the first three being deadly nightshade, the second three being souls of black, and the final three being fever in, fever out 😘
pretty sure this'll be the last piece of writing i'll ever post online. takes place in the "for the love of pain" 'verse.
this may not live up to your expectations of a valentine's raunch fest, but at least i can say i raw-dogged this whole thing using nothing more than pure brain power and residual adrenaline from circuit training, a brisk walk, and my coffee from this morning.
I had never really celebrated Valentine’s Day before, at least not since I was a little kid; not since I had handed out those little cards with the cartoon characters on them with accompanying candy. I often found myself glancing around at the aisles of the grocery store about a week after New Year’s at the utter rise in red and pink, and I wondered if there was something more to it all; something more to the candy and the cards. I had devoted the day and the month itself to caring for myself, but there was always something about it that left me feeling vacant. I had to bleed out for someone else, even with my own insistence. There was blood for my own heart and soul, and now I was finding myself with the taste of sugar on my lips.
I tasted blood, and I wanted more, especially with Alex and Eric in the fold. I had two guys on my arms; two hearts stitched on the back of my chest in junction with my own heart beating.
To love them as well as my own heart and body.
I had bought this whole set of canvases, and I was ready to make something nice, something all for the two of them, and I had planned on doing it while I was in my underwear as well. Something still nagged at me, however. Something was still missing from the whole thing. Maybe it had to do with me, or the fact that I had walked into a hurricane of red and pink for years, and this was the year in which I finally glanced up to ensure I had reached the eye of the storm.
The canvases were small, but big enough to mount on the wall in their living rooms. I placed them both on the incline of my desk before I dove headfirst into the work of it all. I had shown Alex and Eric some of my art, but I had never really done anything for them: I had given them nice charm bracelets for Christmas, bracelets to match my own, and I had crocheted Alex a scarf for Hanukkah, but I had never painted them anything before. Alex’s canvas was solid black where Eric’s was a soft gray. I could only hope that it would be for the best for what I had in mind for those two men.
The tender caress of the moon for Alex, given he had described me as soft and tender as the moon. It was a compliment that I couldn’t necessarily put my head around when I thought about it; in fact, the first time he had said that to me, I had to find a corner to sit in and cry to myself. I was in disbelief that a boy like him would see me in such a fashion before.
Indeed, when I put down the silver and white paints for the crescent part of the moon itself, I could feel the lump forming in my throat once again. I blinked back the tears and made sure the lines on the crescent itself were clean enough. If nothing else, some of my Prussian blue and my cerulean could act as a cleaner for me. I signed my initials at the very bottom of the canvas, and then I moved onto Eric’s painting.
The first time I had walked into Eric’s apartment, the first thing I saw was a miniature ceramic statue of a dragon perched on the table next to the sofa. He never explained to me as to how he found it, either. But I found myself glancing over at it every so often as we indulged in our coffee and he was asking me some questions as well.
A little red and black dragon like something straight out of the Lunar New Year, and I knew that the day of that was coming up as well. Two birds with one stone for that one, but I had no idea if I had enough time to make him a little mooncake on top of that.
I wanted to bake them something as well. Something with chocolate and cherry like a Black Forest cake, or something with cherry and strawberry without it being obvious as to what I was trying to do for them. The pink and the red to scratch my itch, but I still hung out on the edge of the cliff.
I signed my initials on the bottom of the canvas, and I leaned back for a scan over the two of them. My back ached, and my hand trembled from the feeling. My face was warm, and my heart pounded in my chest.
It was like shedding skin.
I kept the canvases on the windowsill for about two days, and both days, the sun swept over the broad paint strokes and illuminated the lush paint. I was a far cry from Vincent Van Gogh, but the colors and the broad strokes gave me the impression of water much like his self-portraits. I gazed on at them with the seat of my pants up against the edge of the counter and the mug of coffee cradled in my hands every day the sun hit them. I did that for about five minutes, and all the while, I hoped that they would enjoy it.
I had been in a cluster with the two of them since the summer before then. I found myself in uncharted territory.
I needed to show them to another pair of eyes. I needed to show them before I started my shift at my second job. Gently, I tucked the canvases into my Green Day bag, and I slung my bag over my shoulder. I lived about a block away from Lou’s place, which was on the way to my job at the beauty shop.
The soles of my Chuck Taylors on the sidewalk, and the sun at the crown of my head as well as the entirety of my face. I shuddered at the feeling of the breeze at the crest of my shoulder. If nothing else, I could keep both of the canvases at the back of the bag whilst at my job so I couldn’t see them or think about them.
I reached Lou’s front porch, only to find the front door slightly open. I gently knocked on the front panel with the back of my knuckles.
“Hello?” I called out. “Hello, Lou?”
“Hey, Hannah!” Louie declared from the kitchen.
“Oh, hey,” I greeted him as I stepped inside. “I’m not going to stick around for very long because I need to go soon.” Nevertheless, I set my bag down on the couch cushion. I took my seat there, and he strode over to me with a big white mug in hand.
“Would you like some decaf, though?” he offered me.
“Yeah, yes please,” I declared with a slight nod of my head. I sighed through my nose and looked on at him, and he stepped over to me. He knitted his eyebrows at me.
“Hey, c’mon, what’s the matter?” he asked with a tap on my shoulder. I sighed through my nose. I had been truthful to everyone except Lou, and he had been my best friend up to this point, too.
“I haven’t celebrated Valentine’s Day since I was a kid,” I began, “and… now that I’m in a three-way with Alex and Eric, I just wonder what I could do for them. I’m not sure if they’ll even like it.”
“I’ve been Eric’s wingman since high school,” he told me as he picked up his mug and cradled it in his hands; “and Alex, I pretty much watched grow up. I’m sure they’ll absolutely love what you have for them.” He paused for a second. “Mind telling me what it is? I won’t spoil it.”
“I painted Eric a little dragon and Alex a little moon,” I told him. “I dunno what else to do for them so I made them some little acrylic paintings.”
Lou raised his eyebrows at me. “Do you have them on you?”
“Yeah,” I said in a low voice. “They’re in my bag here because I wanted to show them to you first.”
I opened the flap and took them out from behind my sketchbook and my journal. I showed him the moon first, followed by the dragon, and all the while, he held them in either hand with his lips slightly parted and his eyebrows raised up. He gave his hair a slight flip so he could see them better. I swallowed, even though it was only Lou looking on at them.
“And?” I began again, that time with a clearing of my throat. “What do you think?”
“Oh, these are cute,” he declared. “You know, Alex is an art guy—he’ll love this.”
“Even if it’s just a little moon?”
“Oh, yeah!” His face lit up as he returned his attention to me. “When things progress between the three of you, look for pictures of Alex with his parents and Eric with his parents, too. Those two guys will be eating out of your hand before you know it.”
“So, you don’t think this is insufficient?” I asked him.
“Not at all,” he said with a shake of his head. Gently, he handed the canvases back to me with a little lopsided smile on his squarish face. He returned to his decaf there on the coffee table, and then his face lit up again. “You should put some candy next to it all,” he suggested with a gesture to me.
“I know Eric likes candy, but I’m not sure about Alex, though,” I said.
“Alex loves candy but he’s kind of standoffish about it, though,” Lou pointed out. “He’s good at hiding this sort of thing. He likes to indulge in things like that, but you have to tempt him, though.”
“But I should bring in the candy, though,” I followed along.
“Absolutely,” he assured me. “Bring some chocolate. Some blood and chocolate.” He flashed me a wink, and I knew what he was getting at there.
“I’ll bring some of the darkest, most sensual chocolate I can think of,” I vowed. “I have been thinking about baking something, too. Something rich and filled with chocolate. Something… dare I say, tempting.”
“And I’ll get some beer!” he decreed, and I couldn’t help but smile at that. Lou then doubled back to the kitchen to fetch me a cup of coffee with some creamer. At least talking to him gave me some sort of solace and comfort, but I still had my nerves on display. The feeling of the coffee comforted me before I had to go to work, and Lou gave me a hug before I had to leave as well.
The feeling haunted me all the while, though.
And it would haunt me for the next couple of days, that is before Valentine’s Day came about with the swift rush of blood to my head and my heart. I had my dark red sweater lined with white fleece on as I baked the Black Forest cake first thing in the morning; it was my day off from both jobs, so I seized the chance. I seized the chance to feel like red velvet for a day.
I gazed at the small bag of black cherries resting upon the counter next to the oven. The skin on cherries always made me think of Alex’s lips, from the smoothness to the caress of them on my own. It was such a feeling that I could hardly put my head around. It only gave me more tears to let well up within me. I had to stop for a moment, right before I brushed the kirsch on over the crown of the twin chocolate cakes, to brush away those brimming on my eyes just so I could see and focus on the cake at bay, but also so I could think in a straight line again. Brush the liqueur on and let the cakes act as a pair of sponges, then once the cakes were cool all the way, the cherries and the cream would follow suit after that.
I flashed on the first time I really flirted with Eric. The two of us had gone out to lunch together there in town, and I had this impulse when our food came: I had a big gyro filled with the veggies and the tender spicy chicken and the tzatziki sauce, complete with a side of curly fries where he had this big juicy burger and some steak fries. I knew that we were going to be eating well, and I knew that he liked to eat well on top of that. Alex was busy helping his parents with something back home in the Bay Area, and so it was just me and him, and yet I was missing the third member of our party. I was missing the trifecta.
When Eric held the plate before him, I couldn’t help myself.
“Eat up, big guy,” I blurted out to him, and he raised his eyebrows at me. I pursed my lips at him.
“Big guy?” he echoed me, and he picked up one of the fries from the plate before him. It was thick and stout, much like Eric himself; I nibbled my bottom lip at the sight of his little round face and those big brown eyes gazing back at me. It was like staring back at myself.
He took a bite of the fry all while never letting go of his gaze at me. He kept the fry close to his lips all the while. He finished it all while never lifting his gaze from me.
“I have to use the bathroom,” he informed me with a chuckle. He then burst into laughter as he stood up and rubbed his hands together. I could feel my face growing warm from the whole thing, and I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen after that.
Indeed, when he returned to the table, he had a little smile paired with a light blush upon his face. We wound up talking the whole time like a couple of good friends. But every so often, he showed me this little twinkle in his brown eyes. I knew what he was thinking, especially when I thought about that impulse back there.
Every so often since then, I found myself thinking about that moment between me and him. And I found myself thinking about it when I began making the cream for the cake.
The sin of chocolate paired with the feeling of lips and the taste of cream. All I could think about was when they came on over later on that day for a round of dinner.
I held back as I gazed on at the soaked cakes on display upon the wire racks before me. There was a pain in my chest that I couldn’t exactly place my finger on: a dull pain in my chest with strange nausea in my stomach. I had eaten before then, but the feeling within me reminded me of that kind of hunger that sneaks up on you. I had two boys in the wing waiting for me, or rather I was waiting for them. I was waiting for them and willing to feed them this decadent cake.
I also remembered the candy that I had bought the day before after I got off my shift at the beauty shop. I trusted Lou with the point that Alex in particular could be tempted by it. I had it on my nightstand, waiting for Alex to take for himself. I wanted to tempt him and pull him sideways for my own taking. I paused for a second as that thought shot through my mind. I thought about it again: I wanted to tempt him and take him under. I wanted to show him what it really was like to be kissed by fire and then be taken under the surface of the ocean.
My trance was broken by the sound of a knock on the door panel right next to me. I straightened out the lapels of my hood as I turned towards the door itself. I opened it to find Alex himself standing out there on the front step with a bouquet of sunflowers cradled in one arm and his long jet-black wavy hair nicely brushed, such to the point that it seemed to float about under the glow of the sunlight. His deep eyes seemed to glow as that little lopsided smile appeared before me; the minute shock of silver appeared purely white under the sun all the while as well.
“Oh, hi, baby,” I greeted him. “Hola, papacito.” He showed me a little grin at our little inside joke.
“There’s Miss America,” he replied to me, and I extended my hands towards him just so I could feel him and kiss him on the side of the face: he smelled like that soft, powdery soap that I loved so much. He returned the favor as I could feel those cherry lips brushed up against my skin. I let him inside my kitchen, and he closed his eyes and breathed in deep. And I realized that he was smelling what I had been making.
“God, it smells good in here,” he told me.
“I’m making you and Eric a cake,” I informed him, and he raised his eyebrows at me.
“Oh! So, I better go in the next room then—” He ducked into the living room, but I followed him because he had that bouquet in his arms. Indeed, when he bowed around the corner, he turned around and faced me.
“I’m guessing this is for me,” I suggested with a gesture to the bouquet, to which he handed it to me.
“You’d be mistaken if it wasn’t,” he assured me, and that little grin never left his face for a second. I held the bouquet up to my face so I could smell the flowers and feel their freshness against my skin. He ran his fingers through his smooth hair; I noticed that he only wore his Gary Moore shirt, which rose up over his waist if he even raised his arms, and his snug dark blue jeans, which showed off the sinewy shape of his long lanky legs. He was so shapely that I wanted to cry at the sight of him there before me.
“Want to go in the bedroom?” he suggested to me. “We’ll leave the door open.”
“I have to let the cake cool enough before I have to frost it, anyway,” I assured him with a shrug of my shoulders, and we padded into my room. I laid the bouquet atop my dresser, but then I turned to the box of candy rested upon my nightstand.
“That’s for you, by the way,” I told him with a nod over there.
“This little box here?” he asked me as his long fingers caressed over the lid of the deep red box lined with gold and black.
“Yeah.” I turned to face him and the hooded look to his eyes. He licked his lips and took a seat on the edge of my daybed, right next to my pillow. He patted the top of the blanket next to him for me to take a seat. I did, and the only thing separating me from him was his own hand nestled between us.
“I understand if you don’t want to, but I wanted to tell you that I planned a few things for us today,” he confessed to me in that silky tone of voice, that voice that always told me that he was feeling something. I nibbled on my bottom lip as we locked eyes. Those deep eyes that seemed to be digging deep into me: there was nowhere to run with Alex, and I found myself locked in the realm of the scorpion.
Then again, I would never forget his words with me, how I was like a sweet kiss of fire before I took him under the surface for a night swim. How I gave him a fever before he submerged under the water’s edge itself.
“What’re you thinking?” I asked him in a near whisper.
“I’m thinking… Eric’s going to have his work cut out for him when he finally gets here.” Those lips closer to mine as if he was about to bring it to me, right there, on my bed. I had no idea as to when Eric was going to show up there at the house, but then I remembered what I had for him waiting in my closet.
“I have something else for you, too,” I told him. “Something that isn’t just chocolate.”
He raised those dark eyebrows at me again. “Oh?”
“It’s in my closet,” I explained. My heart began pounding in my chest, more than it did when he and I were alone together for the first time around.
“Can I see it?”
“Will you promise to be a good boy and not eat any chocolate while my back is turned?” was all I could think of, and he snorted at that.
“Hey…” He closed his eyes and gestured towards himself. “It’s me.”
“True,” I replied with a flutter of my eyelids. “But I know how you are, though, baby.” I flashed him a wink, and he squinted his eyes at the sound of that.
I slid off the bed and sidled over to the closet door. They never left my courier bag for a second, except for when I showed them to Lou; I crouched down and opened the flap, but then I peered over my shoulder back to him.
“Close your eyes,” I commanded him, and he did just that. I took the canvas with the crescent moon out, and I doubled back over to him. I took my seat next to him again with the canvas rested upon my lap.
“Open.” He did, and I showed him the painting.
“Oh, my god,” he breathed. I pursed my lips, and I closed my eyes. I could feel him taking the painting for himself.
“As beautiful as the moon,” he breathed out. I opened my eyes to find him lingering close to my face. He never touched my lips, however.
“Kiss me,” I whispered to him. Those cherry lips finally touched me again.
A shiver shot up my spine, and I shuddered from the feeling. His fingers crept over my shoulder. It took me a second to realize what he was doing with me right then, and it wasn’t until I laid down on my back when I could feel it. I stuck my tongue out at him and the way that his hair cascaded down over the side of my head and shoulder like a curtain. I knew Eric was a ways off, but we could at least have some privacy there.
“Oh, you naughty boy,” I teased him in a soft voice.
“I’m the naughty one? Says the girl who drew me in the nude a bunch of times and got away with it.”
I gasped at him. “You saw those!”
“Every single one of them,” he assured me in that husky voice, and that little smile never left his round handsome face for a second. “And… let me tell you, it gave me a feeling like nothing else, doll face.”
“Care to expand on that?” He raised his eyebrows at me again, and that time, he dropped his gaze to the bottom hem of my camisole.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked me.
“Maybe.”
He squinted his eyes at me again. “What kind of cake are you making, anyway?”
“Something with a lush cream on top,” I replied in my best therapist’s voice.
“Cream, you say?” Those long fingers, so quick like the legs of a scorpion, crept down to the lacy hem. I could feel him lifting the lace to reveal my skin: I was still soft on the waist even after losing so much weight, and he knew it. It wasn’t the first time we’d made that joke, and it escalated from there. Those guitarist’s calluses felt like little feathers as he very gently raked me; I gasped from the feeling, and I couldn’t help but start laughing as well. Those fingers curled around the crest of my hip, and he leaned down and kissed me under the belly button.
“Remember how I used to be fat and you’d kiss me there?” I gasped out.
“And I’ve never lost a love of kissing your curves, either,” he replied, still with his face down by my belly. “And I can tell you’ve never lost the feeling, either.” I could feel him tugging the band of my pants and my underwear down away so he could have more skin to feel, and I could have more to feel as well.
He tugged it down all the way down to my knees. Very gently, he kissed the inside of my thighs all the way up. Those cherry lips on my skin. Those cherry lips up inside of my skin to my lips. That velvet tongue up inside to the head. Another chill shot up my spine, and my body shuddered and shook. His hand steadied my hip to the mattress, but I still shuddered from the feeling.
“Good boy…” I gasped out, and I reached down to his head and ran my fingers through his hair. “Good, good boy…”
Alex’s tongue slithered inside deep and hit me in the sweet spot. I made a noise that came from the back of my throat and elsewhere, and rather than cry, I couldn’t help but laugh at the feeling. It was a feeling that brought a rush of blood to my head and my chest, and I couldn’t help but laugh. When I laughed, he laughed as well, albeit a muffled laugh.
I curled upright, and my hand slid to the back of his head. He lifted his head and gazed up at me with a soft glow to his skin.
“Soft velvet tongue,” I remarked with another chuckle, “and the kiss of a couple of cherries.”
“A couple of cherries,” he echoed me, and he held my face in his hands. “A couple of cherries to get things going.”
“Eric’s got that fat dick, too,” I told him, and he showed me a little smile. But then he turned to the box on the nightstand and lifted the lid. He took out a chocolate heart wrapped in red foil, and he handed it over to me.
“Thank you, baby,” I whispered to him. He took one for himself, and then he examined the painting, which he had laid off to the side so he could taste me.
“I think I’m going to put this in my room,” he suggested. “Put it on the wall across from my bed so I can see it as I drift off to sleep.” He flashed his eyebrows at me, and then he popped the chocolate into his mouth.
A knock on the door caught us both off guard.
“That must be him,” he replied, and I climbed off the bed and padded into the kitchen; all the while, I fixed my pants and my top. I opened the door, where I revealed the sight of Eric there on the doorstep with a six-pack of beer in one hand and his long black hair nicely brushed as it shimmered under the sun. Lou kept up his end of the deal with the beer.
“Hi,” I greeted him with a break in my voice.
“Hey!” he returned the favor; the way that his face resembled to a pearl under the veil of sunlight only made me want to hold him even more. I let him inside of the house, and he set the six-pack down on the counter right next to the coffee maker. All the while, I surrounded him so he wouldn’t look off to the side and see the cake over there.
“Smells good in here,” he told me, and he turned his head to find himself face to face with me.
“I’m making you and Alex a cake,” I explained, “and it’s not ready yet.”
“Oh, shit.” He paused for a moment. “Is he here?”
“Fresh as a daisy,” Alex himself called out from the bedroom, and I brought Eric to him as he was still on the edge of the bed. That time, he had the box of chocolates on his lap and the painting of the moon right next to him. Eric’s face lit up at the sight of the canvas.
“Whoa, did she make you that?” he asked him, excited.
“Yeah! Look at this thing, dude. I told her that I’m going to have it on the wall across from my bed so I can always see it when I wake up in the morning.” He flashed me a wink, and he picked out another chocolate heart. That time, he handed it over to Eric, who eagerly took it and unwrapped it for himself.
“I have something for you, by the way,” I told him.
“Keep it comin’, mama,” Alex said in a low voice; he said that thinking I wouldn’t hear him, but I showed him a smirk at the sound of that. Just like before, I turned to the closet door and opened the flap of my courier bag. I craned my neck for a glimpse up at Eric.
“Close your eyes.” He did. I handed him the canvas, the one with the dragon.
Just like with Alex before then, he opened his eyes and he gasped at the sight of it.
“Let me see,” Alex himself commanded, and Eric showed it to him. His eyes widened at the sight of it. “Dude!”
“Chinese New Year being in a few days after all,” I explained with a shrug. Eric gazed at the dragon for a second, then he placed it upon the dresser, right next to the bouquet of flowers, and he held onto my shoulders and tugged me down to the floor at Alex’s feet. I laid down flat on my back before him. Eric dove down before me: his smooth black hair swept over me and the side of my face. That time, however, Alex had a full view of us as he indulged on chocolate.
Eric tugged down my pants, down towards my knees. He glanced in between my legs and his face lit up at the sight before him.
“I see you got her going, brother,” Eric remarked with a turn of his head back towards Alex. But then I reached up and ran my fingers through that smooth black hair. I tugged down on him, which in turn caught him off guard.
“Have a taste, you bastard,” I insisted as I shoved his face right in between my thighs. Alex gasped, to which he followed it up with a big hearty laugh. Eric’s tongue slithered up inside just like Alex’s velvet tongue; he groaned from the feeling, but then he lifted his head and looked at me, breathing heavily as if he had just run a mile and his face as red as the tin foil on the chocolate hearts.
Alex clasped a hand to his mouth to keep himself from laughing any more. I gazed up at Eric and the way that his brown eyes seemed to sparkle at the sight of me.
“What’s that look for?” I asked him.
“Oh… oh, ho, you are dead, my friend,” Eric teased me in a breathy voice.
“Not if I get you first,” I teased him right back, and I held onto his shoulders and jerked him off to the side. I pinned him down with my knee. Now I was on top.
Just like what Alex did with me, I let my fingers glide down the hem of his shirt. I lifted it up and revealed his skin to me. I stroked that smooth skin right underneath his belly button with nothing more than my fingertips.
I opened my mouth. I engulfed his full length to the point that the tip hit the back of my tongue. It was my first deep throat, and I was going to give him the feeling of my teeth on top of that. Ever so lightly, I grazed the top of his dick with the edges of my teeth.
Eric shuddered and gasped from the feeling. I meant it when I called him “big guy”.
The big guys with the velvet tongues and their dancing with chocolate would always be an indulgence with me in particular.
I could feel something liquid caressed over the back of my tongue, and it made me think of drinking something down. Instead, I lifted my mouth from him and ran my tongue all around the rim of my mouth. Eric’s face was as red as the tin foil, and I could tell that the whole endeavor had made him more flustered than he had ever been before in his life. And I couldn’t help but feel somewhat satisfied with myself as a result.
“You want some chocolate, man?” Alex offered to him, and I could hear him laughing behind me.
“Beer—” was all Eric could choke out, and he laid his head back down on the hard floorboards.
“Oh, yeah, he brought some beer,” I told Alex. “It’s next to the coffee maker.”
“Oh, boy!” And he picked up the lid and returned it to the box. Instead of putting it back on the nightstand, he tucked it under his arm; he also picked up the canvas and held it to his chest as he left the room.
“Okay… for real now, I need to go and frost that cake before he eats the plain cake,” I declared in a low voice. Eric shook his head a bit, and I still couldn’t help but laugh to myself at the look plastered upon his face. Something told me he was going to be there for a while, and so I figured it would just be best to let him come to terms with it all as I took the sunflowers into the kitchen for a vase. All the while, the dragon remained upon the top of the dresser, and I wondered what he would do with it once the two of them returned home.
Chuck and I stayed off to the side of the hallway as we watched the nurses tend to Eric’s injured legs. They had him propped up on a pile of pillows, and he reclined back on his elbows as a result. I could see the look of utter pain on his face as a result, and I could feel it in my chest as well. I could only hope that he had been given a great deal of painkillers, but then again, he was still wide awake whereas I was under a great deal of anesthetics. Then again, he wasn’t the one undergoing surgery like me.
I didn’t understand a single word of the terminology: something about the anterior something or other. Something else about the tarsometatarsal joint or something or other. I had no idea, it was hard to understand: all I knew was he had screwed up his legs in a bad way back there. Chuck put his arm around me and held me close to his strong, sinewy body. The two of us watched them gather around Eric as if he was a buffet table. His long smooth, inky black hair spread over the crown of his head and the crest of his shoulders; I could see the utter pain in his face, even as they strapped a syringe to his arm and began giving him something for the pain.
Or maybe they had already given him something temporary for the pain until they gave him something more heavy duty. At least that was what I knew from my experience from it all.
He grimaced as one nurse tightened the tourniquet on his arm and stuck the needle in; I backed away from the view of that a bit. It happened to me before, but I needn’t see it happening again. Another nurse came up from behind and tucked another pillow underneath his head.
His legs were suspended up over the foot of the bed and bandaged from his feet up towards his hips: he banged them up pretty bad from what I could tell. They were held steady lest any big movements do something to shock him. All of that pain and all of those painkillers, and there was an easy way to subside into shock.
All of the painkillers. All of us going as high as kites.
Alex entered my mind for a brief moment, and I wondered if anyone told him what was going on. At the same time, I wondered what had happened to him and if anyone even knew where he had run off to prior to then.
I also thought back to what Eric was going to tell us back there on the stairs, especially if the two of us were to be sworn to secrecy about the whole thing. I still thought back to the look on his face, and the way that his brown eyes locked onto me in particular: it was like looking at myself for a brief moment. The thought of it was enough to bring a deep pain to my own legs.
I glanced down, and I realized that I was leaning too hard on my own cane. I took the pressure off the cane and leaned closer to the pane of glass in front of me and Chuck. I pressed a hand to the glass right as the nurses backed away from Eric’s body. His eyes were wide open as they gazed up to the ceiling over him. One nurse padded between me and him; once she had gone out of the way, I could see that he had rolled his head over the thick pile of pillows to see us there. He flashed me and Chuck a little wave, to which the latter returned the favor.
“I’m guessing the two of us are going to be undergoing physical therapy together,” I confessed to him in a low voice.
“More than likely, yeah,” he assured me with a nod. Another nurse stepped out of there and fetched up a sigh at the sight of us.
“Are you guys his friends?” she asked us with a slight break in her voice.
“Yeah, we are,” I replied, and it was that moment I thought about Lou and if he knew about all of this. In fact, as soon as I thought that Chuck spoke up for me.
“Is there a phone in there?”
“Yeah, there is,” she answered with a nod of her head. “Because it all happened so suddenly, you guys have to act as the mediaries for the time being.”
“That’s fine,” Chuck assured her with a toss of his wavy molasses-colored hair back over his shoulder. “Really, we can do that.” He turned to me. “Can we, Joey?”
“I’ve got time,” I said with a flexing of my fingers over the handle of the cane. The nurse showed us a smile, and she gently patted Chuck on the shoulder. But then she turned to me, and my heart pounded in my chest once again, and that time with enough gusto to make my head spin as if I stood up too quickly.
“And how’re you doing?” she asked me in a low voice. “How’re you doing in the face of open-heart surgery?”
“I need to sit down,” I confessed to her.
“There are a couple of chairs in there so you guys can take a seat in there,” she advised us. “I’ll see if I can get you a stool to put your feet up,” she added with a gesture to me.
“Okay, thank you,” I said with a deep breath. My heart was just pounding away inside of my chest, and my head began spinning once again. Chuck then put his arm around me and guided me into the room to visit Eric. I had just gotten out of surgery, and yet I was in there visiting.
“Do you know Lou’s number at all?” I asked him as we hobbled into the room together.
“Me?” Chuck asked me.
“Yeah.”
He paused for a moment as he thought about it. “I think I do, yeah,” he answered, and his voice was low and whispery as if Eric was asleep. I turned my attention over to him and the droopy look to his eyes.
“What’re we talking about in here?” he asked us with a clearing of his throat.
“I’ll tell you later, brother,” Chuck vowed, and he took his seat first. And of course, he took the chair closest to Eric’s head and shoulders. I sank down in the one next to him, and I swore that my knees felt as though they were made of rubber. I hoped that my body would take the new heart. I hoped that I would take the new blood running through my veins. I hoped that my bones would do what they were meant to do for me—
“How are you doing?” Chuck asked him, which in turn interrupted my train of my thought.
“Not too bad, actually,” Eric replied with an even bigger droop to his eyelids. “They’ve got me under a bunch of good painkillers so it could be way worse than this.”
“Morphine, I’m guessing?” I asked him with a clearing of my throat.
“I dunno, actually. It feels like I have something inside of my leg, too.” Chuck and I took a glimpse over at his lower legs, suspended up over the foot of the bed itself and bound in gauze. As far as I could see, there was nothing but the curvature of the backs of his shins and his ankles. A fine spattering of red on the inside of the gauze on his left leg caught my eye. As far as Chuck and I knew, he had fractured something in there. But as far as I could see, he didn’t have a single thing inside of the gauze besides the flesh of his legs.
“Do you think it’s just the painkillers doing their thing and mimicking the feeling in there?” I asked aloud.
“I dunno…” Eric breathed deep. His eyes closed. I couldn’t help but see a stray lock of black hair spread over the side of his face. There was something doll-like about him at that very moment. Maybe it was his round face, maybe it was the way his hair spread over his skin, but suddenly, I understood why Chuck had a thing for him.
When I gazed into those brown eyes, it felt like gazing into myself. I craved for more of that feeling myself, the feeling that I was getting to know myself and seeing myself from a different angle. I craved more of the feeling, especially with this new heart in me. This new surge of life that began running through me.
Even with his eyes closing, I still itched for it, to look into those big brown eyes once again.
“Eric?” Chuck asked him in a bit of haste, even though he was just laying there in front of us.
“I’m just…” He rolled his head off to the side a bit and breathed deep. “…I’m just nodding off a bit.”
He closed his eyes, and I could only assume that he was about to fall asleep. The drugs were doing their thing on him. The feeling of morphine running through his veins, and all he had to do from that point forth was heal from it. That was all I had to do as well, to heal from the pain and from the fact that I had a brand-new organ inside of my body, and I had to do my damnedest to keep my body from wanting to rid of it for me.
“Eric?” Chuck called out to him. Eric licked his lips, and his eyes peeked open by about a hair’s breadth, enough to look at the two of us standing there next to him. He was very quickly growing groggy and sleepy, and I knew that we had limited time with him at that point.
“I… I’m…” I glanced up at the translucent bags right behind his head, at the way that they were dripping down through the tubes into the syringe, which in turn led straight to the bend in his arm. They were putting him under before he headed into surgery at some point. We all were facing the pain together, and there was something about that that made my new heart pound inside of my chest. The pounding grounded me, but it didn’t stop Chuck from leaning forward for a better look into Eric’s face, however.
“Eric?” Chuck called out to him again, and that time, he reached down to his hand and gently tapped on the back. But it was useless as far as I could tell: he had fallen asleep. At least he wasn’t in a ton of pain.
Even with my own pounding heart, I still thought of a really stupid idea. It was a stupid idea for him to have all those pillows underneath his head, even though I understood the point. I knew that it would be absolute murder on his neck and shoulders, however, especially once the painkillers faded out and he could be left to his own devices afterwards. With one hand on the handle of my cane, I gingerly stood up and rounded the foot of the bed, past his suspended feet towards the side of his body. Careful not to hurt myself, I hoisted one foot up onto the side of the mattress, right next to his hips.
There was one pillow right before me that stuck out a bit too far, and that was my opportunity. Carefully, I tugged it out from underneath the pile: his head was still up off the head of the mattress.
“What’re you doing?” Chuck demanded in a hushed voice.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” I retorted, and he nibbled on his bottom lip as I lay my head down next to Eric’s head. I nestled down right next to him. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, and so I knew there was no way that he was about to wake up, even if I shook the bed enough. I kept my nose close to the side of his head. I could smell the iodine as well as some other chemicals that they had spread onto him beforehand.
At least he was in good hands. I was in good hands as well.
I lifted my gaze up to Chuck, who stood there completely bewildered at the sight of me.
“Go on… grab a pillow,” I advised him with a gesture to the pile underneath the back of Eric’s head. Chuck sighed through his nose, and he climbed up to the opposite side of the bed. We laid on either side of Eric, and neither of us had any idea as to when he was going to wake up. At that point, what he was going to tell us before he took that tumble made no difference to either of us.
for the love of pain | chapter two: coffee and cocktails
It all started when I began my shift as a bartender one evening, and I did not have a single place about my workspace to set down my bag. It was one of my jobs to help me find my way through the world. I wanted to go back to school, to earn my art degree as well as my physical therapist education, the latter of which I didn’t know if I could even get because no schools near me offered it, plus I didn’t know if they would take an overweight woman into the program. I had my worries about it all, but especially as I glanced down at myself and saw a woman with thick, pillowy curves. I needed to do something with my life, however. I needed to start somewhere.
But on that particular night, I searched around for a shelf for my bag: usually, I had a clear space for my belongings but on this night, it was as if someone had nabbed all of the shelves clear off the face of the wall. It was a roomy olive-green canvas bag with the American Idiot heart-shaped hand grenade on the flap and all my keychains on the link connecting the shoulder strap to it. I had an actual purse, but I needed things to do during my breaks, and thus, I grew weary of carrying my notebooks and sketchbooks underneath my arm at a rather quick rate. I slung the body of the bag onto my back as I signed myself in, and I let it hang behind me as I made my way to the bar.
There were a few patrons there before me, but there was one close to me, one who caught my attention. There was something about his eyes in the way that they followed me, as if he was staring right through me. There was nothing rude about him, however: he seemed like the kind of guy who was only observing the room around him. I served up a few beers, followed by a Midori sour, a Cosmo, and an Irish coffee, all before I had to fix the bag over my shoulder. I had my back to him, which meant he could look at the hand grenade.
“I like that,” I heard him say, and I turned my attention to him.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“I like that,” he repeated to me, that time with a glance down to my bag, right behind my back. There was something about the way he was smiling at me. Where most guys who waltzed into there had these smiles plastered on their faces like they wanted to slit my throat after the night ended or they wanted something from me at the very bare minimum, he kept his at a slight angle, like he was actually a little bit of an awkward boy, and he wanted to warm up to a girl, especially the girl heading the bar.
“What, my bag?” I asked him.
“Yeah. You don’t see too many of those anymore.” His voice was gentle and warm: even though the noise of the room drowned out most people who approached the bar itself, I could hear him loud and clear. But I leaned in closer to him so he could hear me over everything.
“I’m wearing it while I’m working because I wasn’t able to find a shelf anywhere in the back,” I explained with a shrug of my shoulders.
“I think there’s one over here, doll,” he advised me, and he gestured over to the side of the bar; indeed, I spotted a small shelf right above the cash register. It was one of those shelves we often used to put spare glasses on, but this time around, it was completely vacant. I showed him a little smile and a slight bat of my eyelids at him.
“Oh, thank you.” I slung my bag off my shoulder, and I brought it over to the shelf in question. I was relieved to find that it fit in there perfectly, as if the space was crafted all for it and it only. I returned to him right as he placed his elbow upon the edge of the bar right there next to him. He had a cute little tummy when he sat down and had long, wavy black hair, which spread all around his shoulders. He showed me a little smile and a hooding of his eyes. His long lanky fingers curled around the base of his glass: it took me a second for me to realize that he was drinking a glass of Manhattan.
There was something so ancient to him and so young at the same time: there was something that told me he was a little too young to be drinking, but there he was before me drinking a healthy-looking cocktail from off to the side. He licked his lips, and I noticed he was staring at my chest. My top stretched over my breasts and the thick rounded shape of my body, so I knew what he was thinking. Even with the sincere smile on his face, I knew that look from anywhere.
“It’s good to see a heavier girl leading the helm at the counter,” he assured me.
“I’ve been trying to lose weight,” I confessed, and he shook his head.
“I don’t think you need to lose weight,” he told me with a knitting of his eyebrows together. He took another sip from his Manhattan with a gaze locked onto me as if he was trying to figure me out: his eyes seemed to pierce through me. He set the glass down on the scarlet napkin placed down right before him. “Really, I think you look really good. I mean that.”
I could feel my face grow warm from that.
“What can I say… I like to eat,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve always loved to eat, and yet I enjoy things like aerobics. I’m trying to get back into it. It’s just hard to find the time for it.”
“I feel that,” he consoled me with a nod. “Some days, I just feel like not doing anything, so I feel myself getting a little bit heavier.” He rested his hand on his stomach.
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed at him.
“Come on what?” He showed me a smirk.
“You just have a little baby roll on your waist,” I told him with a nod to him. “It’s like if you just haven’t lost your baby fat yet.”
“I don’t think I have, to be honest,” he answered. “I’m like you, too. I enjoy eating, too. I’ve always loved things like sweets and food like donuts, French fries, and cannoli.”
“Cannoli?” I echoed him, taken aback. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who even so much as even heard of cannoli before. I love it, too.”
“I’m Alex,” he introduced himself to me with an outstretch of his hand to me.
“I’m Hannah,” I replied with a little smile and a taking of his hand: his long and lanky fingers wrapped around my hand, and I could feel rough patches on the tips. “You like chocolate, don’t you?”
“I do. I don’t feel good admitting to that, though.”
“Why is that?” I asked him with a raise of an eyebrow at him. He rested his hand on his stomach and gently rubbed himself there once again. I rolled my eyes at that. “Oh, come on. You’re a lightweight.” I gestured to myself. “Look at me.”
“I’m looking,” he remarked, and he showed me a little lopsided smile. I squinted at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him with a chuckle.
“I mean, I’m looking at you,” he confessed. “Where else am I supposed to look?”
“For a second, I thought that you were going to say something really seedy,” I told him, to which he shook his head at me.
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you,” he assured me. “I’m sure you get enough of that already.”
“You bet I do,” I admitted to him with a nod.
He glanced behind him at the rest of the bar with a frown on his face.
“You wanna go somewhere quiet?” he offered me. “I feel like you’re straining your voice a bit by being right here right now with me.”
“I’d love to go someplace quiet,” I told him; “especially seeing as you’re the only one who’s here right now. Everyone’s on the floor.” He picked up his glass and the accompanying napkin, and I led him out the side door to the dimly lit alley outside. There was a step there next to the door where he and I could sit down on, and I took the opportunity first.
My ears rang as he followed suit next to me.
“Whew… oh, wow, it’s quiet,” I remarked, and he raised the remainder of his glass of Manhattan to me. He took a sip and lingered close to me: it was then I could smell the soft soapy cologne on the base of his neck.
“So, Hannah… tell me what it is that you like to do,” he began again, that time in a low voice. It was the first time I really got to hear his voice, his tender round voice that sounded as warm as the sun felt on my face.
“Well, I’m an artist,” I began, and his face lit up.
“Really!”
“Yeah. I’m an artist, I also like to write and I’m into baking and science as well.”
“So, you’re like a… a, uh, what’s the word I’m trying to think of?”
“A Renaissance person?” I filled in for him.
“Yeah, but there’s another word for it, though,” he pointed out. “Poly—Poly something or other.”
“Polymath?” I filled in for him again.
“Polymath, yeah! Oh, what kind of science are you into, too?”
“I like earth science, biology, and medical science, too.” I swallowed at the last thing because I never really told anyone before that I was into that sort of thing, not even my family. But Alex raised his dark eyebrows at me, such that his face seemed to light up again, and gently parted his lips as well.
“There’s something about that last one,” he remarked with a bow of his head. I licked my lips and bowed my head. Those eyes stared back at me as if he was trying to figure me out from there.
“I don’t really want to talk about it, if I’m honest,” I confessed, and he shook his head at me.
“It’s alright,” he assured me in a soft voice. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t have to. It’s just… I can sort of tell if someone is being authentic with me. It’s like when you go to a show and you see the performers just putting up a front, like they aren’t playing because they enjoy doing it—like they’re doing it for something other than money. You ever go to a show or read or watch something and you get that feeling?”
“Oh, yeah,” I replied with a nod. “I’ve been shown a few romance novels before, and I get that feeling just from a first glance at a single page.”
“I don’t know how anyone can read any of those, to be honest,” he confessed with a chuckle. “I mean… do whatever floats your boat, but… I don’t know. I guess it’s just not for me because I’m a guy or something.”
“I’ve tried my hand at writing a few of those types of stories,” I assured him. “But it’s more just to see if I can do it, though. It’s one of those things that are difficult to do right and not in a strict pattern.”
He returned his attention to me, that time with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Yeah, you’re an honest one,” he told me. “I enjoy honesty.”
“You know, I do, too,” I assured him. “It’s actually why I… enjoy making as much art as I do, and why I enjoy medical science. There’s something honest about it all.”
“Art is from the heart. Science gives it its backbone.” He looked at me with that thoughtful expression still plastered on his face. Silence fell over us, and those words lingered over me. I thought about my own future, and I wondered if I could still find myself in a good spot at some point. I could only imagine what it was like for him, a guitar player who had bellied up to the bar without anyone noticing him or making that huge of a deal about him being there.
Something told me I was going to be seeing more of him in the future.
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you this,” I began again. “Do you have your ID on you?”
“I don’t,” he replied with a shake of his head.
“You look like you’re of age, anyway,” I promised him, and he showed me a wink. He polished off the rest of his Manhattan, and I took the glass from him. We stood up in unison, and I looked up at him, into those deep eyes.
“Will I see you again?” I asked him.
“I’m sure you will,” he assured me. “I’m in town with my band for the next couple of days. You should come and see us, and also the opening acts. You’ll love it.”
“Will I get a healthy dose of honesty from you guys?” I asked him with a flutter of my eyelids at him.
“I certainly hope so,” he replied with a lick of his lips, and then he knitted his eyebrows together as if to beckon some kind of concern from me. “Hey, do you know where a guy can get something to eat around here? Nothing in there sounded good to me.”
“Oh, yeah, there’s Lucero’s,” I told him. “Right up the street here before us. There’s also the Filipino place about two doors down from here. There’s pizza, there’s Chinese food, there’s Thai food, there’s Japanese food, there’s places you can get sandwiches… there’s even a British pub about a half of a mile up 6th Street from here.”
“Ooh, what’s the British place like?” He gestured to me with a twinkle in his eye.
“They’ve got some great shepherd’s pie and tikka masala, which’d be good after having that big glass of Manhattan,” I told him. “They’ve even got toad in the hole, which is like one of my favorite things in the whole world. It’s bratwursts embedded in Yorkshire pudding.”
He paused for a moment. “Does it come with gravy?”
“Any kind you like,” I promised him, and he stroked his chin with his fingertips.
“I think I’ll give that little place a try,” he told me. “I’ll tell the guys about it, too.” He showed me that little lopsided smile once again. “Thank you for all of that, Hannah. Really, I mean that. The night’s still young, so I’m sure they’re all hungry, too.”
“Yeah, go and get something to eat and make sure you’re well-rested for tomorrow evening,” I coaxed him.
“Something to eat and I need a bath, too,” he remarked, and that was the last thing I heard from him. The last thing I saw from him was he had one hand on his upper arm with his fingers around the back. His second to fifth digits curled all around the posterior side of his brachium, right over the head of the triceps or at least that was what I could remember from my first glimpses at it all. I decided to clock out for the night: I remembered that I had another shift in the middle of the morning, my shift at the beauty shop not too far from there. I returned to the back of the bar to sign out and fetch my purse from where Alex had hung it up for me. I still couldn’t believe that he had found the best hook for me and one that I had no idea had even existed before.
It was as if he could see something that I couldn’t see, and that no one else could see, either. He had far better perception than that of most humans, of most men as well.
There was something about him that almost didn’t seem real to me at all when I thought about it, either. Maybe it was his eyes, or maybe it was that tiny sliver of gray hair at the crown of his head, but either way, it was something that I couldn’t exactly put into words when I thought about it.
It was about a mile back to my house, right under the golden light of the streetlamps along the sidewalk: I always had my Swiss Army knife in my pocket, but I knew that at some point that I needed a gun as well as a can of pepper spray on top of that, and in particular if I was to lose weight when I found the time. I was a heavyset woman driving home on a scooter through some cool night air: I had my helmet on my head and rich, dark red leather wrapped around my body, all of it to protect me from the elements. I zipped up the jacket, and the leather sides fit me in rather snug fashion. At least it was one of the things that fit me properly as I strapped on my helmet strap under my chin and climbed onto the leather seat. Even as I was away from the club, I could still smell the cocktails on the leather, the feeling of alcohol and the feeling that I was about to be cleansed to some degree on the following night.
I needed the cleansing, and there was something about the way in which Alex said how he needed a bath made me wonder if he needed one as well. He probably did, given the way that he clasped onto his arm like that.
I switched on the scooter, and it puttered to life, a loud sputtering noise against the otherwise partially deserted street in front of me. My right boot up onto the pedal, followed by the left. I shifted into drive and rolled forward towards the mouth of the driveway: I wished that I had asked him where he and his band were staying in town, but I needed to get home anyway. I shot straight ahead, towards the intersection. I caught the left turn light green, and I darted up the shadowy street, back to my house.
I passed the salon as well as the beauty shop I worked at, with its windows darkened with the night over me, and an ice cream parlor. A row of low scraggly trees, followed by an abandoned building that used to be a coffee shop. I spotted the red lights of the laundromat as well as Fred Meyer next door. There was no one else on the street with me, which sent a chill up my spine. It wasn’t even that late, and yet, even with as many people who lived here, the sidewalks rolled up for the night.
Something about the whole thing that left a deep pit in my stomach.
Something else that left a pit in my stomach when I thought about it.
The shadow hanging over my head and shoulders. It was the thing that took my grandma from me, and it nearly took my mother and her brother away from me as well. To think that I was the one who convinced her to go to the hospital for that awful cough, and if it wasn’t for me, then she probably would have suffocated on her own blood or suffered a stroke.
It was something that I knew could end me on top of it all, especially if I did nothing to change my ways at any given point. I glanced down at the full shape of my body as I pulled up to the stop sign: there was no one else around, so I figured that I may as well look at myself instead.
I knew that being heavy had nothing to do with any of it, but I knew in my heart that it could in fact contribute to it.
A pair of particularly pernicious clots in my legs that could find their way up to my lungs. I had to change something, but he looked at me and told me that I didn’t need to do that at all. I lifted my feet from the pavement and returned them to the resting pedals on either side of the scooter so I could get moving along again: I was only a few blocks from home as I zipped past Freddie’s, past the garden center, past a retirement home and a physical therapy office. I could feel the latter in my bones.
I knew where all of your joints were. All of your muscles. All of your bones. Which way you bent about, and which way you didn’t bend.
That was why I was a marked woman. I was a marked woman, both in my genealogy as well as within the area I inhabited.
I needed to tell Alex at some point or another, and especially if he was going to introduce me to his friends the next day over a cup of coffee.
don’t worry, i haven’t forgotten about everything else (no way!) but i need to get myself back in the game.
and I need to destroy the world of fanfic in the process (if you know my description of the song used for the title—“the music equivalent of the mt. st. helens eruption”—you know why I’m using it)
The day crawled by after that. I spent most of it with a vacant expression on my face, a pounding in my head, and this deep ache in my heart that never went away for a second. I knew that I probably should have cried it all out, but I needed to find the right moment for it.
“We’re just friends. I thought you knew that.”
I replayed that same sentence repeatedly in my head until it was nothing but a noise, how it was as if Chuck had taken a dagger in his hands and slid it deep into my heart until I laid on the floor in my own blood.
It was nightfall when the clouds gathered on the horizon. I tried to distract myself with some light reading from the book that Alex had given me, but it was completely futile. Every so often, I glanced out the window to behold the gathering clouds over the ocean to behold the sunset; I thought of going outside for an evening walk, but I could hardly gather the strength to do it. But I needed to move around regardless of the ache and pain in my body.
I was a girl with hobbies: I needed to get back to them so I wouldn’t have to ruminate over it anymore. Nothing more than a noise gutted me.
I thought of calling up Eric just to have someone to talk to before I made dinner, some banh mí which I had made for the guys the first night I had met them. At one point, I lifted my head and gazed up at the dream catcher on my wall, the same that Chuck had given me.
Someone take these dreams away, that point me to another day. Oh, the fact I bonded with Lou over that song.
I needed to live. I hoped that things wouldn’t be awkward at rehearsals from thence forth, and that was all I had at that moment: pure unadulterated hope. I sighed through my nose and tucked the bookmark in between the pages, and I padded into the kitchen with the pink and orange light from outside as well as the glow of the lamp at my back. The slicing of carrots and cucumbers helped me move my mind off it. The scent of fresh ginger could ease the nausea in my stomach. The feeling that I was going to be eating some sweet and sour pork.
All of it homemade; all of it there to help me feel better.
But even after dinner, and after I returned to the book to finish out my night, something still nagged me. I still needed something for myself.
The words on the pages seemed to blur into themselves. The cream color of the paper comforted me like Alex’s lanky sinewy arms, as if he was rocking me to sleep. I needed him to hold me. In fact, I pictured the chair to be him holding me: holding me and loving me, everything I needed at that moment…
At one point, I was jarred awake by a low knocking sound on my door panel. My eyes fluttered open and I glanced about the room. It was dark outside, and I could hear the rain pattering on the gutters. A wave of cold swept over me: the furnace had switched off, plus it was raining on top of that.
I turned my attention over to the door. I could only hope that it was Chuck outside of there willing to profess his love to me after everything. I unlocked it and opened it to reveal him there on my front step, long dark curls matted to his forehead and his shoulders, eyes squinted from the rain or from weeping, and his jacket absolutely drenched.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I confessed to him.
“I wasn’t, either,” he confessed in a hoarse voice, hoarser than after the first time he belted out “Over the Wall” for me. “Is it okay if I come in?”
“Uh…” I glanced down at his big black motorcycle boots, completely soaked from walking about in the rain for who knows how long. “Yeah. Just… you know, take your boots off. I mopped in here yesterday, remember?”
“How could I forget,” he declared: he slipped off the right one first and stepped inside in his sock, and then he pried off the left one and stepped inside with dry feet. He then picked up his boots and kept them there next to the door; I closed it behind him, and I made my way over to the radiator on the other side of the room to turn the heat up. I turned the dial and the heat hummed back to life. I stood up and gazed over at him as he hung up his jacket on the hook next to the door.
“Do you have any towels?” he asked me.
“Plenty,” I replied in a soft voice. “After hanging out with Anthrax in the Bahamas, I’m completely stocked up.” Indeed, he shivered, and I padded over to the hall closet for a soft, clean seafoam-colored towel. I returned to him, to which he gave me a soft “thanks” before he ruffled it over his wet hair. He looked as though he had fallen into the bay.
I lingered back as he brought the towel down below the tip of his nose, and he gazed at me with those luminous eyes: I always thought those five men were actually mermen, and when I looked into those eyes, it seemed to confirm it for me.
“Listen,” he began, his voice down low, and then he stopped. He glanced off to the side and muttered something under his breath. I frowned at him. “Fuck…”
“Take your time,” was all I could say to him, to which he raised his eyebrows at me.
“Even after all of that, you still care about me,” he said in a soft voice. “Even after the way I treated you, you still care about me.”
“I’ve done the same with Alex,” I said. “I am always going to love him. And I am always going to love you.”
“You… confuse us,” Chuck admitted as he draped the towel over his forearm. “We need you. He needs you. And I need you. But I have to confess to you, Hannah, you scare me a bit. You scare me because… I don’t want to lose you. I know he doesn’t want to lose you, either.”
I swallowed at the sound of that. I thought my eyes were dry, but they weren’t going to be dry for very long, however, especially not after that. Gently, he folded up the towel and draped it over the top of the recliner next to me. His curls were still soaked, but tight and curly, perfect for running my fingers through: I thought about the first time I did that with Alex, and I thought about the first time I did with Chuck as well.
It was something that I missed. It was something I needed as well.
Those lanky hands reached out to my waist, and he inched closer to me. He looked as though he was about to kiss me, but he never did. I could feel it. I could sense it.
I gazed up at him: those curls resembled a tapestry, a pair of curtains to close the window on the thing that destroyed me from before.
“Don’t lie to me,” I commanded to him.
“Why would I?” he asked me with his brow furrowed. He lifted his hands and cradled my face in them.
“I want the truth—” Before I could say his name, he went for it. Those lips, so smooth on my skin: that feeling of familiarity, of my first love and the one whom I had left behind in the past, back in Carson City. The feeling of his skin on mine was enough to send a shiver down my spine and make the tears bleed forth.
I could feel the cold metal of his turquoise ring right on my cheekbone, and more so when he ran his hand down my hair.
He let go and I gazed into those glassy eyes as a tear streaked down from my face. He brushed it away with the side of his thumb.
“Do you still wanna come see Exodus with us tomorrow?” he offered me.
“Please,” I begged. He leaned in again for another one, and yet I still couldn’t tell if it was the truth or a lie. The words were vacant, but his skin told me another story.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I thought my knees were going to buckle. But I let my hands glide up into those wet curls, into the roots. His hands slithered up from under the hem of my shirt, up my back. It was happening again, and this time, I had more butterflies in my stomach.
“Don’t ever lie to me,” I whispered into his lips. The rain picked up outside, but I could feel the fire roaring up inside of me, however. Chuck kissed me with utmost fervor; his fingers unhooked my bra for me, and then they glided down my spine to the small of my back. He held me against his chest, and I could feel us backing up to the couch. I laid down on my back, and he hung right over me. I pressed my knee against his hip to steady him over me.
Gently, he took off my shirt for me: once it was over my head and face, he lifted my bra off my chest. He brought his face down to my chest, and he left gentle kisses all along my chest and up to the base of my neck. It was driving me wild. I could feel my back arching. I held onto his hair again, that time as if I was holding his reigns rather than feeling his hair at the roots. I breathed harder from the feeling.
The noise in my head had disappeared, and I had forgotten what he had said to me from before. His kisses were enough to heal me, heal everything that had happened from before. I finally felt at ease in Chuck’s arms.
I let my bra slide off my arm onto the floor so he could see every inch of my chest, my dark nipples and the shape of my breasts: his wet hair only added to the points of my nipples. He finally sat upright and stripped off his shirt for me to behold his sun-kissed body to me, but then he lost his balance. He fell onto the carpet behind him, but I followed suit.
That time, I was on top. I was on top and I was going to punish him for being such a bad boy earlier.
I straddled his hips, and I could feel his burgeoning dick inside of his snug jeans, right underneath my own pants. I inched back to reveal the crotch of his pants. With one hand, I unzipped it for him.
I could see he needed some help. I was always told that I had two hands, and I should use them both as well.
I looked up at his face, into those eyes, into the way that his hair seemed to sweep over his brow as it spanned out from underneath the crown of his head across the carpet: those luminous eyes gazed back at me, those dark lips quivering from the feeling within him. I needed to explore his body more, and I needed to explore my own as well.
But first, I needed the truth in all its naked glory.
“Don’t lie to me,” I repeated, and that time, I made sure that the tremble in my voice was at bay. It took every ounce of my being to do just that, but I did it. I spoke with power. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“And again…” His voice, on the other hand, shook as if he was upon the ground during an earthquake; “…why would I do that?”
“Because you did once before,” I pointed out. “Remember?”
He paused, and his chest rose and fell in steady succession at the sound of that. He then closed his eyes, and he breathed in deep. He did remember, or so I believed, anyway.
I then reached down and gripped onto him with both hands. I fondled him down with nothing more than my fingertips, all the way down the sides of his shaft towards his body. I let them go up onto that one sliver of skin between there and his stomach: I had such a weakness for that part of a boy’s body, be it him or Alex. I was the masseuse after all: the masseuse and the baker and everything in between.
Everything in between—that was why they were so attracted to me.
A shiver shot up his spine at the feeling of my fingers there, and I knew that I had him in the palm of my hands from thence forth. I would like to see him get out of this scot-free. I moved my fingers back to the head and let them dance about the rim. I wanted to show him a trick that Alex had shown me, but then again, we didn’t have any pot on hand. I decided to go ahead with it raw, and I stuck my finger down into the hole. It was like slipping my finger into a rubber band that was a bit too small, but I slithered down in there.
I moved my finger further down inside to the point that it was up to the second digit. I moved my finger about in a circle down inside there.
“Hannah—” Chuck sputtered out; his face flushed and his back arched as well. “Hannah, please, I—” I curled my finger inside of that shaft, and he sounded as though he gagged on something. “—I need you to blow me.” He stammered out the words. I knew what he was getting at there.
I moved my finger out from the hole and shook my hand about. I flexed my finger, and I looked at him there before me, all flustered and down on the floor. I was the one in control. He was the one who admitted that the feelings were unrequited between us, but I was the one who had the key.
I licked my lips as I locked eyes with him again. He had rolled his head about on the floor at one point, and a few locks of wet hair spread over his face. There was a part of me that wanted to dunk his head into a bucket of water to make sure his hair was always wet whenever I saw him again.
The punishment was only beginning.
I opened my mouth and brought my head down onto the head of that fat dick. My tongue curled around the length of it as if I was taking a drink. I let him rest on the pad of my tongue. I pressed one hand onto his waist to keep him pinned down to the floor. I engulfed him in my mouth.
I could feel the tip near the back of my tongue. I could also feel his fingers in my hair right then. I raised my gaze to see him reaching for the roots of my hair, but I was too far down his legs for him to do anything. Without lifting my mouth from him, I inched along the side of his hip towards the side of his torso.
Very gently, he stroked his fingers through my hair at my back. I dragged my teeth along the tightening skin, and that was when he gripped onto my hair and tugged.
“Mmm—” I couldn’t talk from having my mouth full.
“Watch the teeth,” he grunted out. But I could see something in his eyes when he said that to me, though. That familiar twinkle. That familiar little curl of his lip at me.
I knew what this was about, unrequited or not.
I sank my teeth in again, and he let out a short yelp. He tugged on my hair again. Another sink of my teeth. Another tug of my hair.
I could taste him on my tongue. I decided to kick it up a notch. I lifted my head off him, and I gasped for air all the while: his dick was wet, but I knew something else was wet. I took off my pants and my underwear, so I was exposed now.
“Still wanna play with me?” I asked him with a clearing of my throat.
“Please,” he begged. “Please.”
My bare ass out in the open, I climbed atop his chest: my lips and my clit were all right in his face. I was going to smother him for being such a bad boy towards me. I could feel his tongue against my lips. I could feel him holding me and tasting me as if I had just made a cake. I had made a cake, and he was licking off the frosting.
“Deeper,” I commanded. I clutched at his wet dick again, that time with one hand. His tongue slithered up under my hood. I could feel him hitting me right in the nub. I breathed harder from the feeling. I clutched at him harder all the while.
His tongue moved in so deep into me, and I wondered if he was going to choke on something. But then again, I wasn’t really thinking of anything. I wasn’t thinking of anything other than the way his tongue danced about on my clit and sent my back into a deep arch. I held onto him for dear life with only one hand.
I moved my fingers down the shaft to tickle him a bit. I could see him coming for me, all for me with nothing more than the swipe of my hand. He made a noise that sounded like an angry bird, but then he hit me on the clit just right. I let out a loud moan; the loudest one I had ever done before.
I lifted off his face and took my hand from his dick. I climbed off him and rested my knees onto the floor on the side of him. Both of us were breathing hard and heavy as if we had just run a couple of miles together. I lifted my head for a look at him into his flushed face. He lifted a hand and let his fingers graze over the side of my forearm.
“You alright?” he asked me in a broken voice.
“Never better,” I confessed to him. I was going to let my lips breathe as I stood up before him. I took him by the hand and helped him up from the floor. His face was still flushed, complete with a soft sheen over his forehead. He stayed sprawled out as he crossed his legs and gazed up at me like a prince.
“Do you want me to stay or leave?” he asked me, and he cleared his throat.
I lifted my gaze to the window and the sheets of rainwater streaking down on the other side.
“Stay,” I advised him, and I shivered even though the heat had been humming quietly this whole time. “It’s raining. So, stay for the night. Just this night, though.”
“Of course,” he assured me. “I’ll take the couch, though.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I pointed out to him, and he showed me a little smile.
I picked up my pants and my underwear, and I led him to my room and my daybed. I had just changed the sheets, but I needed a shower, and I knew he did as well given he had been walking through the rain prior to then. Once I was done, I let him go forth with a quick one. All the while, I sat on the edge of the bed with my hair damp and smelling of hibiscus and powder.
Eric loved that combination of smells on me, and I once again found myself hoping that things wouldn’t be awkward from that point onward.
Within time, Chuck surfaced from the bathroom, hair dripping wet again and in his underwear as well. He ruffled the towel over his hair again to better dry it off. He stood in the doorway and gazed at me with those bright eyes again. I found myself looking at his brown skin again, at its smoothness.
“I’m sorry for using you,” he told me in a soft voice. “I really am.”
I sighed through my nose as I lowered my gaze down to his bare legs. I suddenly had a hankering for a cup of coffee, even though it was nine o’clock at night.
“Would you like some decaf while our hair’s drying off?” I offered him.
“You know what? I would love some decaf if you have any.” I stood to my feet, and he let me go into the kitchen to prepare a pot of late-night coffee. The aroma of it at that hour reminded me of the first time I got to hang out with them. Once I had the coffee maker going, I turned around to face him there in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded over his chest.
“You like a little cream in your coffee, right?” I recalled.
“Nah, that’s Eric and Zetro,” he told me. “I like mine black.”
“Red and black, put it back,” I recalled. “Leaves of four, want some more.”
“I remember that,” he said with a chuckle. “I still don’t know how you came up with that.”
“It’s a long story,” I told him with a shake of my head. “It’s what I get for hanging out with Alex, too.” I held back and gazed at him and the thoughtful look on his face. The coffee maker quietly churned behind me, but the silence between us was enough to make me grimace.
“You know you and I are done now, right?” he pointed out to me.
“I do,” I said. “But… do you want to talk about it more, though?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” he assured me with a shake of his head.
“It would never hurt,” I promised him, and I gestured to the kitchen table. “Have a seat.” He took to one of the chairs there and rested his hands on the crests of his knees. I needed to live, and I needed to live without the Chuck-shaped hole in my heart as well. I told him I loved him, and I wound up falling face-down ass-up as a result.
“I don’t want things to be uncomfortable between us,” I started. “I want to be able to hang out with you guys without things being awkward and everything.”
“Right, right,” he agreed with a nod of his head.
“It’s just… I can’t help myself with how I feel,” I confessed. “I mean… I don’t need a romance in my life. I need a romance right now like I need a hole in my head, if I’m honest. But…” I searched for the right words, and I nibbled on my bottom lip. He swallowed and shifted his weight on the chair. It was right then I realized that I didn’t need to say anything else. Sometimes silence needed to speak for me.
And it was right then that the coffee maker finished out, and I turned around and fetched a pair of mugs from the cupboard behind me. I poured the two of us some decaf, and I handed him the purely black one. He showed me a little smile and raised the mug to me in cheers. I poured in a bit of creamer and stirred it with a long spoon, and I took a sip.
“I will say this, though,” he started again. “I’ve always liked how mature you are. You don’t need someone else to love you, and… I like that. I need that. We need that, actually.”
“I think I went through a brief period where I struggled with that, but it was very brief,” I recalled. “Like it was well before you guys showed up. It was before Ben, actually.”
“When was it, mind me asking?”
“I think it was after my parents split,” I told him. “You know, I blamed myself for my mom leaving, because I was going off to school, but my dad assured me that that wasn’t the case. I blamed myself for him relapsing as well, but then he told me that he’s an alcoholic, so I moved out of that headspace pretty quickly.” I blew on the coffee and took another sip.
He took a sip as well, and all the while, he kept his eyes locked onto me.
“When we get up tomorrow, do you want to go and get some breakfast?” he offered me. “You know. Just you and me. I won’t wake up Alex and Eric. It’ll just be so things are still friendly between us.”
“You know I’d love that,” I promised him, and I showed him a smile as I took another sip.
and this was the last one I wrote. i broke down after doing this one. i just couldn’t do it anymore. i felt so unsexy and dirty and awkward and gross and uncomfortable and unattractive… and you know that stupid bitch in the metallica tag was having a fucking field day with her dumbass event. in fact, everyone who participated in 2023’s event was. it was all about “you” that year and it has been ever since—and not just kinktober, either.
fanfic as a whole now is no longer a showing of love for the thing or the person/people, but a celebration of dumbassery, fulfilling stereotypical male fantasies rather than your own (the number of “fics” about getting creamed/impregnated, raped, and/or losing virginity not just on here but on ao3 makes my head hurt), and a complete lack of literacy and intelligence (dude, last night, i saw someone write, in all seriousness, “the crease between his arm and his chest” and i literally said, out loud, “you mean his armpit?”; i am not joking, i wish i was), and kinktober 2023 was ground zero for that.
when i think about all of this even more, it just makes me angry. i’m a smart, sensual person, an endangered species, surrounded by the thing that’s not only killing my kindred spirits but by those contributing to the killing of my kindred spirits. in fact, just for that alone, i don’t want to post any more fic. just keep it all to myself. be fucking morons for the rest of your lives, i don’t care.
the problem with that thinking, though? i actually have eyes on me. i’m selfish but i’m not selfish enough. given this is the last one i was able to puke out back in 2023, there are 13 prompts left unfulfilled. i’m looking at the list i used that year as well as the pairings i had planned with the worst feeling in my stomach. i don’t know if i want to do it. a part of me does, but i need to give it some thought.
the fact i didn’t finish 2025’s event or enceladus should tell you my feelings about kink events. i’m insulted by these events, like actually personally insulted on intellectual, emotional, psychological, physical, and personal levels. why in the world should i continue when all i get is bullshit in return?
anyway. i’m rambling.
oh, and by the way, i managed to find a pic of alex giving the finger, so here you go:
I would experience these moments whereby I believed that I was losing my drive, and no matter what I did for myself, I couldn’t seem to get myself off. Those afternoons back at the Iverson estate when the rain plowed into the Bay Area, and I had nothing better to do than to let my own mind wander. Ever since the vampires entered my life, I had this unmistakable feeling of being more and more in touch with myself, as I needed to scratch an itch or two; in that I had to extract some old feelings from inside of me.
I had a hunch they were old as I had felt them for as long as I could remember. I never believed myself to be nothing more than a girl with some desires but I never really had the chance to bring them forth.
But then I met the vampires, and I felt the rush of blood to my head at the way they carried themselves. All their thirst for blood of those who wronged them and the fact they knew how to let loose after a time. It was a life that I could coexist with, the live human I was. And still being humans, they withheld those proverbial itches as well.
There was one thing that I could not stop thinking about and that was the prospect of touching myself in front of someone, be that someone Alex or someone else.
I took it upon myself to lay in the safety of my bed with my hands down the inside of my underwear. It had been a while and I was admittedly a bit rusty on my finger work. But I knew for a fact that I could ease myself into it, just so long as I had a laser focus, and I kept the door closed as well.
I had taken off my underwear and put my feet up on the wall before me. I was faced away from the door so I could have my privacy, and with the protection of the top bunk bed right over me.
And then the door swung open.
“Whoa, jeez, Lil!”
I was about to put my finger onto the head of my clit when Abby’s voice caught me off guard. I jumped up and nearly smashed my head against the base of the bunk bed.
“What’re you doing?” she demanded.
“Having a moment,” I flatly told her, and I tugged my underwear back up.
“God, Lil, do you have to do that in here?” she scoffed. I had to be careful given I lay on the bed on my back: if I even so much as yanked too hard on my pants, I could fall right off the edge and onto my face.
“Abs, it’s my bedroom,” I grunted out, “—I can do whatever I want. Besides what’re you doing home so early? I thought you had a late class.”
“It got cancelled so we got let out early and I had nothing to do,” she informed me as she turned her head away from me. “Besides, this is my room, too. I don’t need to see that when I’m about to sit down and do homework.”
I finally swung my legs around and sat upright on the edge of the bed, and I tugged up my pants. I rolled my eyes at her looking away from me.
“Abs, can you not do that,” I griped. “That is so annoying.”
“I don’t want to look at you,” she chided.
“First off… I’m your sister,” I told her as I stood up and buttoned up my pants. “I have seen your naked ass so many times before. I have seen you in the buff, but it’s only because we’re sisters. Aside from that, I respect your privacy and I know for a fact that you respect mine, too. Second…” I fetched up a sigh. “Listen, no one says you have to look at me,” I told her with a wave of my hand; I used my free hand to cover up my hood. I made a mental note to scoot over towards the foot of the bed so my back was to her desk. “From now on, I’ll sit over here so you don’t have to actually see me.”
“You’re still gonna do it in front of me, though!” she insisted.
“Why is this a problem?” I asked her. Exasperated, she took her seat at her desk and fetched a notebook out of her backpack, and she plunked it open before her. She took a pencil off the top of her desk and she got to work on her Cornell notes.
“Abby, why is this a problem? I give you my privacy and you give me mine. I don’t understand why my exploring my body is such a big deal for you.”
She pursed her lips, and I could tell she was having trouble writing her notes. I stooped down to be face-to-face with her.
“You’ve never touched yourself, have you,” I started.
“What’re you talking about?” she stammered, and she never looked over at me.
“You’ve never… had some time to yourself and put your hand down your pants? Like when you get done with your studies and you’ve got nothing better to do?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip but she never said anything.
“Don’t insult me, Abby,” I continued. “I know what you’re up about. I know you. I’m sure you have done a little exploring every now and again. The thought of me with flesh wouldn’t traumatize you, especially after all the gory shit we’ve seen with the vampires.”
She still never said anything to me.
“If it makes you feel any better, I have lots of difficulty with it,” I told her. “I have to ease myself into it. It’s a whole situation just to get into the feeling with me. For a long time, it felt like a chore. In fact, it’s still hard. I have to actually tell myself that it’s a natural thing. If that’s what the issue is, I feel you. I feel you so much.” She never moved a muscle, and I knew that I had said too much. I stood back upright, and I kept my hand rested on the edge of the desk right next to her wrist.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she grumbled. I sighed through my nose. I knew for a fact that I had made her uncomfortable, but even with my own personal discomfort, I had to maintain my ground with her.
“Well. Take this from your older sister. You’re going to have to face your own flesh at some point, if not now then eventually in the future.” I knocked my knuckles on the side of the desk: I saw nothing more than the side of her face as I turned away.
“I’m wearing pants again, by the way,” I told her.
As I strode away from her, I had an idea. It was going to get me in trouble, but I knew that it would be worth it, especially when I remembered that Alex was going to be over at the house the next day.
The next morning, on the way to the bus stop alone given Abby started school an hour sooner than me, I spotted Mark parked there by the curb as if he awaited someone.
I leaned down to the passenger window for a glance inside.
“Hey,” I greeted him.
“Hey—where’s Abby?” he asked me.
“She starts class an hour before me, if you can believe that.”
“I’ll believe it. Would you like a ride?”
“Yeah, why not? The bus won’t be here for another thirty minutes and it’s cold out.” I climbed into the front seat next to him, and he waited for me to buckle in before we rolled away. It was right then I recalled my idea.
“This is… stupid,” I told him with a shake of my head. “And in fact, I kind of feel bad for saying this because it’s really none of my business. But… you know, my sister has never pleasured herself before.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. “Are you serious?” he demanded.
“Yeah. Yeah, it surprises me, too. I have my hang-ups with it, too, but at least I make an effort to rectify things.”
“I do, too,” he confessed. “You know, having feelings and not knowing what to do with them. She seriously has never done it before?”
“As far as I know, yeah. Even with as much as she likes to spend time with you and Rob and also Eric—one of the vampires. You would think that she does with all that.”
“So why are we talking about this?” he asked me.
“Yesterday, I was alone in our room. Laying on my back. In the privacy of my own bed. She came home early—and I didn’t know her schedule, either, she forgot to tell me—so she walked in on me and freaked out. I got this idea to get together with you and also Alex and the three of us could have a mutual round of jacking off—an orgy of sorts in our bedroom.”
He burst out laughing at that, such that he patted his hands on either side of the steering wheel.
“You want her to walk in on us?” he exclaimed.
“Yeah, I know for a fact she will,” I continued. “I told her it’s a natural thing and she didn’t believe me. I want her to see it for herself.”
Mark laughed again, but it was more of a hearty laugh, as if he was sincere.
“Take it or leave it, though,” I told him with a shrug. “Alex and I could just do it together, and she could still see it.”
“But one question about it: why my inclusion, though?” he asked me.
“Because you’re her best friend,” I explained. “If she sees her sister and her boyfriend, plus her best friend there together, it’ll ground it.”
“Oh, I see! Um… when were you planning on doing this?”
“Alex is coming over today when I come home from school. I’ll bring it up to him and see what happens after that.”
“I think I can come over, too,” he concluded with another little chuckle. “I’ll pick you up, too.”
“Sounds like a date,” I quipped, and that brought another laugh out of him. “I get out at two-thirty. Abby gets home exactly an hour later.”
I was eager to get down with it all by the time I saw his car parked at the curb again, and we drove back home to the Iverson estate together.
We were alone in the house for only five minutes when Alex snuck through the bedroom window, wrapped in a black shirt which he left open, and black trousers that seemed to hang off his hips. He eyed Mark as if he had no idea what to expect right then, and I did the honor of coming up to him with my hands on his chest.
“I have an idea,” I told him in a low voice. “It’s a little crazy, but… how would you like to join me in a little pleasure session? I touch myself and you do the same, but we do it in front of each other. We can have Mark here to spice things up a bit.”
He squinted his eyes at me.
“Sounds delicious… is there a catch?”
“We show Abby that we can be romantic with this sort of thing,” I told him, and I kissed him on the side of the face: the cold feeling of his skin sent a shiver down my spine, which was enough to get me going on its own. I unbuttoned my pants, and I gestured for the two of them to follow me down to the floor: I leaned back against the edge of my bed with my jeans down around my feet. Mark’s eyes gleamed at the sight of me while Alex sat right across from me with his shirt partially off his shoulder as if he was about to strip for me.
He ran his fingers through his black hair and leaned back against the chair before Abby’s desk: no way she could walk in and sit there at that point.
“Pants on or off?” he asked Mark.
“Thinking I’ll do pants on,” he quipped back.
“Whatever makes us comfortable,” I said with my hands clasped onto my breasts; through my shirt and my bra, I could feel my nipples forming those tight points. I liked the touches there, but I also wanted them to see me below the waist as well. Before I could move my hand down inside my panties, the door opened again, and we were met with a confused Abby: she saw Mark and her mouth fell agape.
“What the… what the hell is going on here,” she sputtered.
“Come in and close the door,” I commanded her. She held still there in the doorway, complete with a disgusted look on her face at me.
“Get inside of here and close the door or the deal between us is off,” Alex warned her. “Get in here or I’ll kill you.” He turned over to me. “Sorry.”
I shook my head at that. Abby shut the door behind her and rested her backpack right next to the chair, and then she stepped between me and Alex so she could be over by Mark. She huddled behind him as if something had spooked her.
“Abigail, listen to me, you’re going to have to undo the damage done from a lifetime of religion at some point or another,” I told her in a single breath. “You don’t have to join us, but it’s better you learn straight from your sister than Nana or your friends—aside from Mark.”
“Yeah, I mean, you kissed me,” Mark pointed out to her.
“It was a joke,” she insisted. Alex then glanced over at me with his fingers on the button of his jeans.
“I could jerk off in front of you, if you’d like,” he offered me.
“Please do, my prince,” I encouraged him.
“All four of us should jerk off in front of each other,” Mark cracked, and Abby rolled her eyes at that. “What? It’s a nice gesture. It could give us all a spice of life among other things. There’s no disease, no one getting knocked up…”
“Or too cold,” Alex added.
“Or too cold, yeah—unless that’s your thing, anyway.”
“But do you have to use ‘jerk off’?” she demanded in a low voice.
“What do you want me to call it?” he asked her with a raise of an eyebrow. “I could use the proper term of ‘masturbation’ if you want.” Abby wrinkled her nose, and then without another word, she took her seat with her back to him. I had no idea as to why she was in such a bad mood, especially when I knew how much she liked to be around Mark and Rob in particular.
“Abs, listen… we’re friends,” he insisted. “We can do this and still be friends.”
“She doesn’t look comfortable, though, Mark,” I pointed out, to which he sighed and nodded his head. “You can join me and Alex, though. We can have a little bit of fun.”
“I’ll sit with my back to you, if you’d like,” Mark offered her. Indeed, Abby set on the floor behind him with her back up against his own so she wouldn’t have to look at him, or me and Alex for that matter. But at least she was present there with us.
Whatever it took to make her comfortable.
I watched Mark reach down his pants with his left hand, and I could tell that it didn’t take him long, either, from his eyes closing and his mouth dropping open from the feeling. I followed suit with my legs open towards Alex so he could have a full view of me.
“Take them off,” Alex whispered to me.
“You want them off?” I whispered back.
“Please. I want to see.”
“I could probably do it better completely bare, anyway,” I told him in a singsong voice and with a little gyration of my head. I lifted my hips up off the floor so I could take them off for the both of us; Mark raised his eyebrows all the while, and I sat back down with them still around my ankles. With two fingers, I lightly rubbed my lips right in front of Alex. He showed me his tongue and he breathed harder.
Mark let out a low whistle and turned his head away from us.
“How’re you doing?” he asked with a glimpse back at Abby.
“I’m kind of intrigued,” I heard her say to him. I returned to Alex, who had pushed down his pants and revealed himself to me. He ran his fingers through his inky black curls and rested his free hand on the inside of his thigh. His pinky finger hung rather close to his head, and I thought that he would caress himself down with nothing more than the edge of his finger.
“Did you really think that I could get off on nothing more than a bet?” he asked me in that low husky voice he liked to use whenever he was in the mood.
“Well… not—personally speaking, anyway,” I began, and then I paused when I watched him slip his thumb right into the hole at his tip. Alex slithered his tongue out from his lips: he used his index finger to clamp down on the head, and all the while, he closed his eyes.
He relished the feeling of his own hand.
He parted his lips and treated me to a soft sigh.
A wave of warmth washed over me at the sight of him there before me. I leaned forward as if I was going to touch him, but I never did. I only wanted to watch him.
I couldn’t believe it. He was touching himself right in front of me.
With a quick glance at the left, I noticed that Mark was showing off to Abby, who blushed at the sight of him. As long as she was comfortable, we could spiral out from there.
thinking about the aurora. my new goal to travel to alaska or lapland just to see it.
thinking about a new chapter of love is not enough where "tevye" and the girls see the aurora while in a remote area of europe and it's actually romantic, even with my aromantic ass at the helm.
this was the one. the one that broke me, and the one that made me feel like I’m just not a part of everyone. praise kink, size kink… i just… i suck at it. i can’t do it.
All this time, Christine was certain that she and Eric could remain friends as long as there was no funny stuff between them. It snuck up on her like a thief in the night, and she had no other means of finding her way out of it all, either: the boy watched her from afar down by the front door to his apartment complex with those big brown eyes from under his filmy, light bangs, and she only believed that he only did it because he was a good friend and he wanted to see her home again.
But she never believed that there was anything more than that, however. She never believed that he could have something more than that whenever he so much as looked at her. Christine had her mind and her heart set on Alex, and she was certain that Eric understood this as well. A tease was a tease but to her, she only did it in the name of good fun rather than because her body told her something that she was unaware of, that is feelings for him. It wasn’t until they had a moment alone together when she began to wonder if he did in fact hide something more there, if he withheld a secret that he was too afraid to share with her.
Alex hung off her right arm and he kept his arms around her waist in response to that, but Eric lingered off in the shadows like a forbidden avenue of her mind, something that she feared to tread and access on a certain day such as this. It brought her to a crossroads of sorts, something so alien to her given her history with Chris as well as the fog that followed her around from that day in July. She never believed that she would have to prefer one or the other.
Why have one when you can have both.
It was a cool autumn Friday afternoon, the first following their first fresh week of a new school year, and Eric offered her a ride home: Greg and Louie had taken the bus home together, and thus, she had some time alone with Eric. They walked side by side to his car parked in the back lot of the school, right behind the registrar’s office, and right near where Valentina had parked as well.
“See you on Monday, Val,” Christine called out to her, and she flashed her a wave. “I’ll try and get that taken care of for you and Sabrina.”
“No pressure, Chris,” she called back to her as she adjusted the brim of her cap. “The two of us will work things out and we’ll try and meet up at the coffee shop up the block from Nelly’s place together.” Valentina blew her a kiss and then stepped on over to her car. Eric awaited Christine with his key in hand and his long black hair drifted all around his head as if he had been caught up in an updraft.
“I got a project for the first weekend after school, too,” he told her as he unlocked the doors for her. “Five hundred words of writing.”
“Oof, fun,” Christine remarked as she climbed into the passenger side. Though it wasn’t that cold outside, she still closed the door and rubbed her hands together as a Nor’easter had rumbled into New York City. Eric climbed in next to her and ran his hands down the crown of his head.
“Phew.” He rubbed his hands together and rested them on the rim of the steering wheel. “Remember the winds out in California a few months back?”
“God, how could I forget,” she declared. “And then there was the fact that it was kind of chilly, too. ‘June gloom’, they called it.”
“‘June gloom’ and the fact that we’re not used to it, either,” he added, and then he fired up the car. They both put on their sunglasses, even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon and dusk was upon them within an hour or so. They rolled out of the parking lot and wound around the campus until they reached the bus stop: the bus would be lumbering up within five minutes but Christine nodded and smiled to herself at the thought of riding home with Eric. They rolled down the windows and let the sights and sounds of the city guide their way back home to Queens.
“When’s Alex coming back, by the way?” he asked as they headed away from the campus.
“Monday,” Christine replied. “Something about having to hear back from New York University within the next two days or something. It’s a long story, but that’s as far as I know, though.” She rested her arm on the top of the door right as they turned the next corner, and a draft of cool autumnal breeze swept over her arm. “I miss seeing him.”
“I miss him, too,” he said. “He’s a great teacher and a good friend to the both of us.”
“I love him to death,” Christine declared.
“Really?”
She turned her attention to him, and the fact he held onto the steering wheel with one hand and kept his arm over the top of the seat next to him. The wind flooded through his black hair, and the sun kissed the rims of his sunglasses.
The unsung bad boy.
“I do, yes,” she said in a soft enough voice for it to carry on the wind. She turned her attention to Eric and the nonchalant look on his face.
“He’s your ghost and you’re his haunting,” he declared.
“I’m his haunting?” she asked him.
“Yeah. You’re like the church basement to him.”
“What’re you saying?” She cracked him a mischievous smile.
“That you’re his choice of haunting,” he told her.
“Nah, I think there’s something here,” she quipped back.
“Like what?” He flicked on the turn signal, and he merged to the right lane: a big long straight shot back home to the bridge over the East River.
“I don’t know,” she confessed with a shrug.
“You don’t know? What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“The way you called me a church basement to Alex.”
“Have you ever been in a church basement before? It’s like one of the spookiest places you can ever visit. The church may be far removed from a cemetery but it’s got the same feeling, though. It’s got that same sense, like the dead are there and watching your every move.”
“So you think Chris reincarnated as Alex and now he’s haunting me?”
“It’s possible,” he said with another shrug of his shoulders. “You and Chris are way younger than Alex, but fate works in mysterious ways.”
“You’re a very interesting fellow, Eric,” she remarked.
“You should see me in the darkest wing of my personality, Chris,” he pointed out. “There’s this really big part of me that wants to go all dark sometimes.”
“You should,” she suggested.
“You think I should?” he asked her as they made the next green light and cleared out a series of taxi cabs and a couple of buses.
“Yeah. Why separate yourself from certain aspects of yourself when you could be everything that you are? I say this because I struggle with it, and I struggled with it big time after Chris died.”
He turned his attention to her again, and that time she looked over at him at the same time. She saw nothing but her own reflection in the dark lenses of his sunglasses staring back at her. She licked her lips, and all the while, she saw him blinking his eyes several times at her. Just like whenever Alex grew silent, she wished to know what he was thinking right then.
“Let me ask you this, Chris—dear Christine,” he began again, that time with a clearing of his throat and a toss of his hair back from the side of his face: the wind made his hair billow even more as if he was at a photoshoot for a men’s magazine.
“Go ahead,” she goaded him.
“How do you like it?”
“Like what?” she asked him, baffled.
“It.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“It?”
“You know. It.”
They rolled over a bump in the road, and she gasped. But he never flinched a muscle all the while.
“Oh, I see,” she answered. “Yeah. That.”
“That, yeah. How do you like it?”
“Low and slow, sensual… hands all over and lips on my skin.”
“Raw?” he added.
“Hm?”
“Raw? You like it raw?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” she told him with a sly smile. “Sometimes, when Alex has had an extra glass of wine and he gets a little sideways, I’ll give him a nice hearty handjob, and he’ll get down on his knees for me as if he’s worshipping me. It’s really sweet, actually. He gets all soft and cute.”
“Does Alex like being told he’s a good boy?”
“As a matter of fact, he does!” she exclaimed. “He always likes being told that he’s doing great, actually.”
They rolled over another bump, a harder one that made her sway closer to him as if she was about to lean on him.
“Easy there,” he advised her.
“It’s like we’re riding a roller coaster,” she declared.
“A roller coaster that goes raw sometimes,” he cracked.
“Oh, man, you should see him,” she proclaimed with a shake of her head. “Whenever I tell him something totally innocuous like… he looks good or even asking him how he’s doing, he gets all bashful and sweet. That stone cold stern face gets all soft like a dog when they see their owner. You know, they get that rounded look to their head.”
“Oh, really?”
“I should demonstrate in front of you,” she suggested. “Or rather, Alex and I should demonstrate in front of you. I should get him a little bit liquored up and I can give him a little loving to where he thinks he’s hallucinating.”
Eric chuckled at that.
“Or you could do it to me,” he quipped.
“What?” she demanded with a bit of laughter.
“You could do it to me,” he repeated with a straight face.
“I could give it to you?” she laughed at that, but he never changed expression. Another gust of a breeze through the skyscrapers on the left let his black hair fly up some more around the crown of his head. The sunlight shone down on the side of his head and down onto his sunglasses to where they seemed to be made of amber. He showed her a thoughtful smile, which he maintained all the way to the mouth of the bridge.
Christine licked her lips, and he glanced over at her again. He never said a word to her as they began across the bridge towards the rim of Queens. She thought about what he had said and she snickered at that.
“What?” he asked her.
“That suggestion,” she replied. “The thought of me giving it to you.”
He stayed silent all the way to her apartment, where he stopped and switched off the car.
“What’cha doing?” she asked him.
“You know, I wasn’t joking,” he answered her in a low voice. Christine raised her eyebrows at that.
“You sure?” she asked him.
“Positive. I want you to do it to me. Show me the same good time that you treat Alex to.”
“Eric, I’m with Alex,” she declared. “I can’t do that to him.”
“Chris, your whole relationship with him is based off of cheating. I think you can.” The sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose to where she could see his eyebrows as well as the tops of his eyes. “I think you can. Remember the passes I made on you when we were in Monterey?”
“How could I forget,” she quipped. “To be fair, I did the same things to you, too. And to be even more fair, we were just fooling around. Like how we like to fool around sometimes, the friends we are.” She paused. “You were… fooling around, were you. Right?”
Eric never said a word to her. Christine pursed her lips as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
She climbed out after him, and she took her key out of her jeans pocket for the front door to the building as well as her own front door. The furthest wing of the second floor smelled faintly of cookies, and she knew that her mother had been home all day: the hallway remained silent, and thus, she knew that Wendy wasn’t home. Christine switched the keys on her ring for the one to her door when Eric darted in front of her. He clutched her by the shoulders and leaned in closer to her.
“Eric, what’re you doing?” she sputtered.
“Please, Chris, I’m begging you,” he said to her in a low voice. “I’m begging you! I need what he gets. I want what he’s having! Please, I need it. I want it and need it. Girls just don’t talk to me—you’re the one girl who I know who’s treated me well. I need the feeling.”
He had never taken off his sunglasses but she could see it in his eyes, however. The bad boy had given way to a wounded boy. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“I’m sorry… I sound weird,” he confessed with a shake of his head.
“No,” she told him.
“Huh?”
“No. You aren’t weird.” Christine leaned into his face for a kiss on the side. He raised his eyebrows and parted his lips at her. “You aren’t weird. Come inside.”
He swallowed at that, and he stepped out of the way for her so she could unlock the door. Christine led him inside of the apartment, where they both set their things down next to her couch and her recliner.
“You’ve just… never really had experience with this,” she assured him. “If it’s any consolation, before Alex and I were a thing, I never had experience, either.”
“Not even with Chris?” he asked her, and he finally took off his sunglasses.
“We were kids,” she explained as she set her purse and her sunglasses on the kitchen counter. “There was no way he and I could. Would you like something to drink?”
“Um… you got any soda?” he asked her.
“I’ve got ginger ale,” she told him. “My stomach’s been acting up lately, so… I like me a nice glass of it.”
“You got any harder stuff?” he asked her.
“No, I’m not really much of a soda drinker, to be honest,” she confessed. “I mean, you saw me in Monterey.”
“Yeah, you and your lemonade,” he joked. Christine poured him a glass of ginger ale, straight out from the fridge, and she returned to him with a little smile on her face.
“Guys never made a pass on me,” she told him with a shake of her head.
“Really?” He gaped at her for that.
“Yeah. I was in bad shape back then. There was no way I could.”
She took her seat on the couch right next to him as he sipped on the ginger ale.
“You weren’t joking,” she decreed.
“I wasn’t,” he said, and he set the glass down on the coffee table before them. He licked his lips and turned his attention to her. “I want to know what Alex is feeling with you.” His brown eyes locked onto her own, and she shivered a bit.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her, and he licked his lips at her again. Christine leaned closer to him, and she rested her hand on his thigh.
“You are,” she told him in a near whisper. Eric reached forward for the glass of ginger ale for another sip, and all the while, he never moved his gaze from her. He set his glass down on the table before them again, and then he shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“I dunno, now that this is unfolding, I don’t really feel right about it,” he confessed to her.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered to him. “We’re friends. We can do it and not talk about it with anyone.”
“You think so?” He knitted his eyebrows together.
“Absolutely.” Christine moved her hand up onto his knee, and then she slid it down towards the crotch of his jeans. Eric straightened his spine so she could see his chest as well as his stomach.
“I like to touch Alex here,” she began as she slid her fingers down onto his crotch for a good feeling. She moved slow on him, from the tip and inwards to his body. He held still as she leaned in closer to his body. “And I like to tell him that he’s good at what he does along the way.”
Eric straightened his spine some more, and to where his chest was right in her face. Christine leaned in closer to his collar as if to neck him there, but she decided to hold off on it.
She thought of using her free hand to take off her jeans, but then he reached up to the back of her head and tugged her head down into his lap. She yelped out into his jeans, and then she held onto his shoulder and tugged him down onto the couch, almost on top of her. She could feel him sitting up behind her as if to ride her from the back, but then she wormed around and reached for him.
Christine nudged him back onto the couch arm.
“You’re not going to get out of this,” she breathed to him with her thumbs on his throat. He cracked her a smile. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you, big boy?”
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Big boy?” he choked out.
“Yeah.”
“You should blow me for that,” he sputtered out with a lift of his head to escape her grip.
“I ain’t gonna blow you,” she scoffed. “Not if you do it for me first.”
“For you?”
“If you’re my good friend, you’ll do it for me first,” she said to him. She felt him swallow, and then he slid off the couch, to which he missed the leg of the coffee table by an inch; Christine caught herself on the arm of the couch.
“Whoa,” Eric breathed out.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…”
Christine reached down and pushed back her jeans. She stripped them off all the way with only one hand, and then she slowly sat back down on the couch. She stripped off her panties and opened her legs for him. Eric swallowed and sat up so he could be face to face with her lips.
“You want me to?” he sputtered.
“If you wanna be a hot stud like Alex is,” she quipped to him in a singsong voice. Eric put one hand behind his head and pushed his hair back out of the way. He licked his lips and brought his head in between her legs. The tip of his nose brushed her crotch first, and then he slithered his tongue in under her hood.
Christine gasped and giggled from the sudden feeling on her clit.
“Good boy,” she told him with a pat on the back of his head. She leaned back against the couch with her hands rested on the crown of his head as if to steady him there between her legs. He bowed his head and dug in deeper on the head of her clit. He moved in so hard, as if he really wanted that praise from her.
“You feel so good, Eric,” she cackled out. He moved in so deep that she burst out laughing at the feeling of her nipples tightening. She was going to come quick, and right when he kissed the rim of her hood.
“Phew, boy—good boy,” she stammered out, and he lifted his head and ran his thick fingers through his black hair.
“Damn,” he coughed out, and she couldn’t help but grin at the sight of the light sweat right across his upper lip.
“So funny seeing you with your lips all soaking wet like that,” she chuckled.
“It’s like I got lip gloss on, isn’t it?” he sputtered.
“You do! You have your very own lip gloss now, Eric.” She chuckled at that and brought a hand to her mouth to keep her laughter from escaping across the hall to her mother’s apartment: the door closed across the way, and she knew she would have to keep things down from that point onward.
“So… me or Alex,” he asked her with a cough.
“Huh?”
“Which one did it better, me or Alex?”
“It wouldn’t be right to choose, to be perfectly frank with you,” she told him with a little kiss on the tip of his nose.
“Did you just kiss my nose,” he said in a flat tone.
“I did, yes,” she replied, and she couldn’t help but laugh. If this was going to be a three-way relationship, she would have to keep their desires separate from each other.
pairing: alex/chuck/joey (like blood from a stone)
word count: 4197
*layne staley voice* bleed for me. BLEED FOR MEEEEEEEEEE!
The stripper pole in the back room of the house loomed in the shadows as if we had been haunted by a phantom. It had been some time since Chuck and I had our little rendezvous back there, and yet it still wormed its way into my mind. I found muse laying awake at night with the memory of it still intact: I could still feel it on my ass in particular. Whenever I rolled over onto my side, I rested my hand on my hip, and I felt the shape of my own body. Chuck had given me everything that I could ever ask for in that room, and yet I still wanted more out of it. I wanted the feeling a second time.
If only I could ask for it: it wasn’t as easy as it used to. We had married and everything seemed to be going excellent for us, but I needed something for the proverbial itch on the inside of my thighs. It only started to well up within me a couple of days before, when I realized that I couldn’t recall the last time he and I had a moment alone together. I wasn’t one to ask for much, but I found the feeling a little too much to bear when I gave it some thought. I never thought I could be able to extract the feeling out from me on my own rite, by the power of my own hand.
I needed to do something.
It was going to drive me crazy if I didn’t do anything.
It was the middle of the night when I finally picked myself up from the bed, and I sat on the edge of the mattress with my legs over the edge and my feet planted on the carpet below me. I wore nothing but a pair of little black shorts; I let my hair dangle down over my shoulders like I had just climbed out of the shower.
I peered over my shoulder to find Chuck’s silhouette right behind me, still sound asleep.
It was not only going to be for me but for him as well.
Careful not to wake him, I slid off the bed and stood still. He gently snored but never woke up. I let out a soft whistle and crept on out of the bedroom to the dark hallway. Joey was sound asleep in what used to be my old bedroom; all the while, I wondered what he would think of it. I knew that Chuck and I would have to tell him everything should he be included in the whole grand scheme of things.
The floor creaked underneath my feet, especially once I reached the top of the stairs. Through the darkness, I glanced down at my body: I was still very thin and toned, but I could feel the weight in my body, however. I needed to get down to that pole.
I gripped onto the banister as I strode on down to the ground floor. The butterflies danced in my stomach as I made my way to the back hallway and that room there.
I flicked on the light, and I squinted my eyes from the sudden wash of golden light over me. The pole still remained in place in the far corner of the room like the Holy Grail. I strode on over to it, and every step I took I had a bit of swagger.
I rested my hand on the side of the pole: still smooth and polished from the first round.
I ran my other hand down my chest and onto my stomach. I had that energy within me, that feeling that I was all too familiar with, and all I needed was a cue of sorts. All I needed was the sensation down my legs from the sway of my hips. I held onto the pole with one hand, and I spread my feet apart. I raised my ass up into the air so I had a bit of a stretch to the backs of my legs. I closed my eyes and pictured Chuck behind me.
Both Chucks behind me.
Their hands on my bare ass and down my legs, and I could stand there with my legs open so they could see me. For a moment, I had become the tiny dancer in their hands. I could never be the full male stripper but I could sway and show off everything like it was no one’s business.
I stood upright, still with my feet spread apart and my hair still curled over my shoulders like the tendrils of a weeping willow. I kept my hand down on my thigh, and I moved it over to the crotch of my shorts.
A sweet caress was all I needed, and I could do it in front of them.
I nodded my head, and I had to do was think of a plan for the next day. As far as I knew, Joey could join in on the fun as well. I made my way out of there but I kept the light on to show me the way into the kitchen so I could fetch a drink of water.
I once again kept a hand on my stomach as I drank down the glass of cold water. I had the feeling within me in all its glory.
I returned to the bedroom, where Chuck was still sound asleep. I crawled back under the covers without a single stir from him.
The next thing I knew, I awoke to the sound of him chuckling at something. I opened my eyes and rolled over to find him there next to me, but he had already climbed out of bed. Nothing better to do than to improvise it all from that moment forth.
I ran my fingers through my hair and put on a clean shirt: I stayed barefoot, and I kept the shorts on as well. When I surfaced out to the hallway, I spotted the bedroom door slightly ajar. Joey was awake, but as far as I knew, he was downstairs with Chuck and they were laughing it up over a cup of coffee. I had a ping of jealousy within me at the mere thought of that, but then again something told me that he perhaps experienced the same ping of jealousy whenever he saw me with Chuck from Florida. It was only a matter of feeling that I could not deny for anyone ever, but it was there with me, nevertheless.
I peeked through the open door to find Joey there by the vanity mirror with what appeared to be an old hairbrush in hand: he sat there perched upon an overturned five-gallon bucket even though I knew there were a few stools downstairs in the basement that he could use for the mirror there. But I peeked in there, and he bent forth as if to pick up something from the floor underneath his feet.
It took me a second to realize that he was looking right at me.
“Alex?”
“Hey.” I nudged the door open and cracked him a smile. “What’re you doing?”
“I was gonna brush my hair really nice to where I could look good for rehearsals today but… this is such an old brush and my hair is so thick and kinky from all this moisture here in the Bay Area, that I don’t know if I can do it.”
I licked my lips, and I moved in closer to him. I stood right behind him: I couldn’t explain it but I had a feeling within me that told me I was going to have to put on a show for him prior to the actual show itself. It was right then I remembered that we all had rehearsal later that day, and thus I knew in my heart that I was going to have to improvise for real over that day.
“Let me brush your hair for you,” I offered him.
“You,” he started with a smirk at me through the mirror reflection before him, “want to brush my hair for me.”
“I do, yes,” I insisted. Joey showed me a sweet little smile, and he handed me the hairbrush for me. Slowly, he turned around on the bucket for a quick look back at me: Chuck’s hearty laughter caught my ear right then, and I knew I had to make it quick. Indeed, the brush had seen some better days: as long as he looked good for later that day.
And as long as he looked good for me as well.
I reached that crown of curls upon his head, and with each stroke of his hair, I flicked my wrist which in turn gave him more of a fluff to those top curls especially. I was going to make these two guys look good for me no matter what I did between right then and when the rehearsals came about. There was a point where, when I brushed his hair, I swayed my hips a little bit. I had very little tie to Joey whatsoever, but I could sense that he liked it, especially once he flashed me a little smirk at one point. I was the stud, and he acted as nothing more than my prey.
I had those little shorts on, and it was a crazy idea, but I had the inclination to take a seat right on his lap once I had cleared the crown of his head and worked my way down towards the ends once again for a final touch. I could take a seat in his lap and entice him for what I had in mind for later on that day. I snickered to myself and shook my head.
“What?” he asked me.
“Nothing,” I quipped, and I continued on towards the hair over his left shoulder.
“Ow!”
“Sorry—that was a little too hard.”
“You're telling me—ouch.”
“You've got this little knot here—I get 'em all the time, too. They're the really painful ones.”
“You? You get those?”
“Oh, yeah. You don't think my hair gets all tangled up every now and again?”
“You take such good care of your hair, I never would have guessed it,” he confessed.
“You and I have similar hair, Joseph,” I assured him as I carefully knocked on that tiny knot the size of my pinky nail. He grimaced from the feeling, but then I had it cleared.
“You know, I actually like me a little bit of pain,” he said in a low voice, to which I hesitated, and I held my face right next to his so I could look right into his eyes.
“Do you now?” I teased him. “A little pain like... my nails down your back?”
“I'll never tell,” he teased me back, and he flashed me a wink. I parted my lips and raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, it got interesting.
“Joey? Alex?” Chuck's voice floated up the stairs.
“Wonder what's going on,” I muttered. “I'm pretty much done here, anyway.”
“I would hope so,” Joey chided, and then I tugged on his hair again to stop him right in his tracks. I set the brush down before him, and I doubled back to the door. Chuck surfaced up the stairs with his eyes gleaming.
“Hey, you,” he greeted me.
“Hey—what's going on?”
“Chuck just made all of us breakfast, I was wondering when the two of you sleepy heads would come on down.”
“Breakfast?” Joey's high pitched squeak caught us both off guard.
I couldn't stop thinking about it over breakfast, the way that I wanted to entice the two of them. I had no reason in particular as to why I wanted to do it, other than to exert my own power over the two of them: I had been dominated and had my heart entrenched in my own insecurity up to that point. For me, it was only due time before I overcame it all and came into my own. I downed my coffee and relished every bite of Denver omelette before I returned to the bedroom for a change of clothes for the rehearsals. I knew I wasn't going to have enough time for it between that point and then, but I could maintain the face of improvisation in the meantime, however.
I stood there in my bedroom with my shorts down around my ankles and my shirt and my underwear on, and I wondered what it was that I would wear to that, but then again, I couldn't stop thinking about the room.
The pole beckoned me.
I needed to do it.
Chuck needed me to do it.
I could do it as long as Chuck from Florida could give me another round as well.
All I needed was a half an hour. Just a half an hour and I could cut the two of them loose to do whatever they pleased. As long as I got my own satisfaction.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and that was when I caught the sound of Joey laughing in his bedroom. I hitched up my shorts, and I strode down the hall to see what was the matter.
I peeked into the bedroom again to find that Joey himself was laying on the bed with his legs wide open and a magazine over his body.
He was preparing himself. He knew what was going on.
I had to change my plans and act.
But before I could do anything further, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Chuck right behind me with some clothes hoisted over his shoulder. I swallowed, and my heart sank. My mind went blank and Joey's huffing and puffing in the next room did very little to change that fact.
“Joey,” Chuck called past me.
“Huh?”
Without a moment's hesitation, he bustled past me into the bedroom. I caught a glimpse of the black suit over his shoulder, and it took me a second to realize that it was a latex body suit.
“I need you to stop whatever it is that you’re doing and I need you to put this on for me,” he told Joey; he then turned to me and gestured for me to come into the room. I swallowed again and gingerly padded in there; I shifted behind the door with my gaze locked onto the two of them. I ran my fingers through my hair again, that time to nudge the plume of gray away from my eyes: all too unruly at times, especially after breakfast. I stood there and watched Joey put on the latex suit: the stretchy black seams hugged the shape of his body as if it had been made for him. Every piece of it stretched over his sinewy thighs and his slender little body, and the hems hugged his wrists and his ankles just right. It accentuated him in all the right places.
He adjusted the collar of the suit, and then he turned to me. Chuck then directed his attention back towards me with a sly smirk on his face.
The butterflies were going crazy inside my stomach.
“Why are you two staring at me like this,” I asked them in a low voice.
“And you,” he declared with a gesture towards me.
“Me?”
“Put this on—” He handed me a little leather jacket that looked to be a bit too small for me.
“Why?” I asked him.
“Because I asked you to,” Chuck insisted; his voice was low and quiet, and I thought I had an idea as to what was going on there.
“Even with my shorts on?” I asked him.
“Even with those shorts on.”
I swallowed, and I really yearned for another glass of water, that time to wash down the coffee and scrambled egg aftertaste as well as any other feeling that ran through me right then. I put on the jacket and adjusted the lapels: I gave my hair a quick swish and I gazed on at the two of them. Two very attractive Native American men who looked on at me as if they were waiting for me.
They were waiting for me to do something.
I ran my tongue along my upper lip, and I took a step back towards the edge of the door.
“Where do you think you're going?” Chuck demanded. I never said a word. I knew what was going on. I backed out of the bedroom into the hallway, to which the two of them stood to their feet and followed me.
“And just where do you think you're going, Alex?” Chuck repeated it. I backed up to the stairs and stood there.
“Don't you even think about it,” he quipped to me, but much to his chagrin, I was very much thinking about it. I nibbled on my bottom lip, and I ducked down the stairs. I needn't look over my shoulder to know that they were following me.
Well, that was bad news for them because I had the nimble feet, and Joey had no idea about the existence of the pole in that back room. I couldn't help but let my tongue hang out of my mouth like the filthy dog I was meant to be. I ran into that room in question, whereby I flicked on the light, only to find that I had forgotten to turn it off when I went back to bed. I turned back towards the door where the two of them skidded up to the threshold and looked on at me with a look in their eyes that told me they wanted it.
I adjusted the lapels of the coat again, and I backed up to the pole.
“So, it was you who left the light on in here,” Chuck said in a low voice. “I asked Chuck from Florida about it and he knew nothing about it.”
“So the jig is up,” I concluded. “They know about this room, don't they.”
He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, and I could only take that as a “yes”.
“You know what? Just for that…” I reached behind me for the pole, to which I let my fingers curl around it. I leaned back but I kept my feet place so they could see my belly, and my chest, as well as my hip bones.
“He hits that thing, and he turns into a porn star,” Chuck explained to Joey.
“Let's see, shall we?” he suggested, and he skirted into the room right then.
“You still have that body glitter, Chuck?” I asked him.
“It's in your pocket, Alex,” he told me, and I reached into my coat pocket for that little jar of body glitter. I unscrewed the lid for a small finger full, and I rubbed it across my chest, all inside of the hair on my chest. I tucked it back into the jacket pocket with my free hand, and then I ran my fingers through my hair so it could be in the roots. I stepped back and held onto the pole. I hooked one leg around it so he could see the back of my thigh. I slid around it and locked eyes with him, to which he took his seat there on that little stool before me.
I slid around the pole again, that time with a flick of my hair so he could have a full view of the glitter embedded within.
“Oh, my god,” he breathed out. I gave the pole another spin, and then I parked myself right on his lap, right on top of that black latex.
“How do you want it, my little Indian?” I asked him.
“Give me all you got,” Joey whispered into my ear. Careful not slide off, I gyrated my hips across his lap. The latex squeaked underneath me but it felt good on my skin. I could ride it as if one of us wore a rubber for a moment alone, even though Chuck was standing right there right behind us. I let my hip bones do the talking, and a part of me told me to take the shorts off.
Take the shorts off, followed by my underwear. Indeed, I stood up and I dropped my shorts for him. Joey held still as I nudged my underwear down my legs as well, and then I returned to my seat on his lap. I gyrated on him some more, to which he tilted his head back a bit; I glanced back for a look into his face and the parting to his lips as well as the drooping to his eyes. Indeed, I could feel him rising against my bare ass.
It didn't long for me to get him going.
And all the while, the latex felt better on my skin now that I had more down upon him. I leaned into his face for a kiss on the lips, and then I stood up again. My hair sailed all around me like the tentacles of an octopus, and then I set my hands upon the crown of my head. I lifted my gaze to Chuck, who was still in the doorway.
“Come on in,” I beckoned him. “A little show before rehearsals.”
“I'll say.” Joey shook his head and clambered to his feet so Chuck could have a seat, but I wasn't so apt to give him a lap dance just yet. I lowered my arms and placed my hands to my bare hips. I nudged part of the jacket back so he could see my hipbone as well as my waist.
“So, you knew that I left the light on in here,” I said with a slight gyration of my hips.
“Yeah.” He smirked at me, and then he lowered his gaze down to my hips as well as my package. He pursed his lips and squirmed in his seat.
I couldn't help myself. I reached down and fondled myself with one hand.
“Yeah, I did,” he replied again, and then he gaped at me. I stuck one finger into the tip, which tickled me like the dickens. I shuddered and let out a low whistle as I was going to be as hard as a rock within a few seconds. I caressed myself down with the light stroke of my fingers, and that alone was enough to make me breathe harder.
He shifted his weight in the chair as if he wanted to leave, but I wasn't going to let him out so fast.
“I don't think so,” I quipped, and then I turned to Joey. “Hold him down for me.” Before Chuck could do anything, Joey put his arms around his shoulders and held him down to the chair. I licked my lips and twirled around with my hair fanned out.
So much for brushing Joey's hair.
I took a seat on Chuck's lap, and I did the same thing to him. I bore down harder because I knew he liked it a little bit hard and firm. Hard and firm, just like me.
I raised my arms over my head so I could do it with no hands, and I could feel him firming up inside of his denim jeans. I glanced down to find that I, too, was about to let loose given the small clear pearls collected at my tip.
“I'm gonna come in my pants,” he grunted out. “I'm gonna do it!”
I let my tongue hang out as I slowed it down a bit, a little swipe across his lap to which I stood up a bit and then took my seat again. A little pendulum effect that would give my knees what for.
“Oh, god,” he groaned out. I finally glanced back at him to find that Joey had his hands around his neck. That was my cue. I stood up again after the next swipe, and then Joey and I leaned in to either side of his face for a simultaneous kiss. Chuck closed his eyes and let out a low growl that sounded like one of his death growls. Joey finally let go of him, and I stood back and ran my fingers through my hair. I was feeling warm, but at least I wasn't sweating bullets.
I glanced over at the door to find Chuck from Florida smirking at me. I returned the favor to him as I stooped forward and picked up my shorts and my underwear from the floor.
The Chuck whom I married meanwhile, panted and bowed his head from the feeling. I sauntered over to the door, which was a bit difficult given I still had a hard on, but I knew a little swipe of my hand and a couple of tissues could fix that.
“Quite the show the two of you did just now,” he told me with a twinkle in his eye.
“It was a cinch,” I assured him with a wink. “Do you have a tissue I could use?”
i was in really unknown territory here. in fact, if i’m being completely honest, i hated this one, simply because i felt like i didn’t know what i was doing. i felt like i was bullshitting. i’m pretty sure, now that i think about it, that this is the one where i explicitly said, out loud, “i’m not good at this.” i felt like i’m not a part of everyone, even as i sincerely wanted to explore this kink.
everyone else does size kink better than me, don’t look 😣
He was of considerable size in comparison to those two girls on either side of him, as the crown of his head rose high over their own heads. Though he was so thin and slender in build, his hands alone dwarfed their bare asses when they showed them off to him. The tall guitarist with the long lush jet black hair and he found himself down a rabbit hole with the two of them, much to his pleasure as well as his surprise.
That plume of gray atop his head had always been a torpedo for him, ever since it sprouted from the roots of his black hair as a young boy. He never looked on at his own reflection and saw a beautiful boy, but rather an old man who had been born that way. He would look down at his slim body and rest a hand on his deep chest and his svelte slim tummy, and he would only sigh through his nose.
How he wished for a good body.
And yet, there he was, on the Big Island of Hawai’i with Q and Jay, and he had nothing better to do than to pay better attention to them: nothing better to do than to take the attention away from his body. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his board shorts and his shirt left open so he could feel the warm tropical breeze on his bare chest and bare belly, and he let his long black hair cascade all around his shoulders like the mane of a young lion fresh out of the den. The plume of gray was about half the length of a chef’s knife, and even as he shuddered and stared up at it from behind his sunglasses, he decided to relish his time with Q and Jay and their little matching red and white bikinis under their silken covers down to their ankles.
There was something about his being with the two of them, even as they strolled down the singular narrow street of MacKenzie Park together, the tall wiry radio tower with his long black hair and the fact that the sun made his skin and the hair on his chest shimmer as if made of silver and fine alabaster.
The soft earthy sand crunched underneath their feet as they walked on to the mouth of the pathway down to the beach below, where they were met with the cawing of the seagulls and the quiet rustling of the palm trees lined along the path on either side of them: way off to the left were the lava beds in all their blackness and foreboding glory. Despite it being a state park, they were alone on the trail, with nothing more than the oceanic winds and the waves to serve as their own tour guide for the day. But he was eager to feel it for himself, the sun on his face and his chest, and the rush of the sea spray as it rushed up to them on the back of the next breaker.
“One of you has to be the Madame Pelé to my Kilauea,” he cracked to them, and both girls burst out laughing at that.
“Of course, baby,” Jay told him with a gentle stroke of his chest with nothing more than her fingertips. He nudged a low palm frond out of his face, and the two of them bowed their heads together away from it, and on the other side, they were met with a vast stretch of black volcanic rocks as well as clusters of spindly spry trees which extended far beyond the palms. The waves crashed down on the rocky coastline, but he could see a stretch of black sands down below the ridge closest to them.
“Back up, back up…” He nudged them back a bit as a massive breaker crashed down onto the rocks, and a wall of foamy white sea spray sailed high up over their heads.
“You think there’s a trail to that strip of beach over there?” Q proclaimed over the roar of the incoming tide.
“Yeah, let’s try and get over there,” he said in a loud enough voice: he thought of closing his shirt to protect against any more of the spray from the breakers but he knew that once they stepped away from there and back into the forest, he was going to be too hot otherwise. He instead shivered and brushed the salt water off the hair on his chest; Q reached up and stroked his chest with her fingertips, and he cracked her a smile at that.
The trail wound through the slender trees, even when some of them hung low to the ground below them, but with every glimpse out to the ocean and every bow from the lowest branch on every other tree, they strode on to the cluster of black jagged rocks at the top of the coastline: the trail split in two there at the rocks, the right fork wound away from the beach and into the rest of the forest, while the left fork descended to the black sands down below.
“Shall we?” he suggested with a run of his fingers through his hair again.
“Let’s,” Q said with a swipe of her lips on the side of his face. The three of them eased their way down the dark sands to the beach down below; Jay reached it first, followed by him and then Q. The former stripped open her cover to reveal her full breasts and hips to the ocean; she peered back at him and Q, and he parted his lips at the sight of her. Q kissed him on the side of the face again, and then she stepped ahead of him. She peeled off her cover as well, and she let it drift back away from her like the sail from one of the catamarans out on the waves beyond them. Jay did the same thing, and she turned to the side so he could have a view of her body against the clear blue sky over them.
“Shall we have some fun on the beach?” Jay suggested over the roar of the waves before them.
“I don’t see why not,” he declared with a shrug of his shoulders, and he lightly tapped their shoulders in unison, and he ran across the sand towards the next cliff of black jagged rocks. Being taller, he had longer more spindly legs, perfect for running, even if it was on a rather tough environment like the warm volcanic sands of MacKenzie Beach. He ran and his long hair sailed behind him like the ribbons of a flag. He ran and the sea spray washed over the dark hair sprouted upon the center of his chest and down his belly. He ran and he could feel the rush between his legs.
He only ran for about a hundred feet when he stopped at the next breaker crashing down before him: the spray showered over him, right as he spotted the small tiki bar up on the black cliff up ahead of him, and he thought about a virgin Blue Hawai’i for himself and he turned to find Jay and Q right behind him with big beaming smiles on their faces.
“Oh, fuck!” He let out a big hearty laugh, and he ran his hands over the wet crown of his head. Water dripped down his forearms and onto his trunks.
“Do you need a towel, baby?” Jay asked him once they came within earshot.
“Nah, I could use a drink, though.” He gestured back to the cliff. “Virgin Blue Hawai’i, if they’ve got it.” And Jay strode up to him and lightly kissed him on the neck. She padded forth to the next path up to the cliff behind them.
Meanwhile, he and Q turned to the ocean behind them right as the waves subsided with the changing tide. He gave his hair a shake and a few tendrils stuck to his forehead and the side of his neck.
“Absolute merman,” Q remarked.
“Merman…” He pressed his hands to his hips, and the right side of his shirt flicked back with the wind: she eyed his hip and the right side of his svelte belly.
“I feel like such an alien to be honest,” he confessed. “In fact, when I joined my band, I felt like a total alien.”
“Why is that?” Q asked him.
“They’re all suburban guys born of the Flower Children and I’m the Jewish boy with the older parents, for one thing,” he explained. “The other thing is my influences are a little more varied. I grew up listening to Kiss and Van Halen as well as Queen and Aerosmith, but also music like Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and classical. Plus, I just always felt like the odd man out. I mean, I have two girlfriends one on each of my arms, for cripes’ sake.”
It was right then he noticed that she was looking down at his exposed hip and the way the sun hit his hipbone and the side of his belly. He showed her a sly smile.
“You like what you see here?” he asked her with a clearing of his throat.
“I do, yeah,” she replied with a licking of her lips. The butterflies welled up in his stomach, and he kept his hands pressed to his hips. He thought back to the times that he had had a crush on a girl before, and he never felt good enough to ask her out because of his gray streak, his round eyebrows, and his bulbous nose. Q crept up to him with the wind through the stray tendrils of her hair and across her shoulders. She rested a hand on his chest, right on the small patch of dark sprigs of hair right in the middle, and she ran her hand down to his belly.
“Have you ever had sex on the beach?” she asked him.
“Me? Can’t say I have.”
“It’s shame because… you look really sexy right now, baby.”
“Where are we gonna do it?” he asked her, and she gestured over to a smooth black stone off to his left.
“On a rock?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“There’s that or getting sand in places we don’t want it,” she pointed out.
“True.” He looked over to the stone again, smooth and flat from the sea and the wind, and slightly obscured by an alcove of jagged overhanging rocks so no one in the tiki bar or up on the trail could see them. All he hoped for was that nothing would happen to them between that moment and the moment they made their way back up to the trail. He licked his lips and gave his hips a slight sashay as if to entice her, and he strode on over to the stone. Q followed him there, and they were met with a wall of sound there under the alcove.
“Feels good to hear each other,” he declared as he took a seat on the edge of the stone. He spread his legs apart for Q’s view, and she was quick to lunge for the space between his trunks.
“Whoa, what’re you doing?” he demanded.
“What we do best, baby,” she told him as she took a knee before him. He leaned back on his hands so she could see his long lanky beautiful body, so tall and wiry compared to her.
“Let me see you,” she commanded.
“On a public beach, Q? Really?” He shook his head about as if to tease her, and she giggled at him.
“Come on, let me see you! Jay’s gonna be back soon so we should surprise her.”
He gave his hair another shake with his head tilted back: he knew she could see the inside of his throat and the point of his Adam’s apple. Careful not to do anything to the seat of his trunks, he peeled them back for her. His dick was long, smooth, and pale: even slightly chubby, his skin resembled to the stone underneath him in all its perfect silky smoothness. He wasn’t too big or too small, but he could see Q’s nipples erecting inside of her bikini top at the sight of him as if he had a huge fat cock. He reclined back on his hands once again and he spread his legs for her, just so she could have a full view of him.
“So big,” she remarked, and she ran her fingers down the smooth face of it.
“I’m not that big,” he scoffed.
“I think you are,” Q assured him with a wag of her finger. “Very big, and really beautiful, too.”
“I don’t have a huge sausage, though,” he pointed out, and then he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just… not sexy, and people don’t go ape shit about me, either.”
Q gaped at him, and Jay strode up behind her with a silver plate of three cocktails, including that rich blue Curaçao indicative of a Blue Hawai’i. She raised her eye at the sight of him as she came on closer to them.
“What’re we doing?” Jay asked them as she came within earshot.
“You know what he just told me?” Q began.
“What’s that?”
“He said people don’t think he’s sexy,” Q proclaimed, and Jay gaped at that.
“You’re hotter than the lava beds in July, baby doll,” she told him as she set the plate down next to him. “Virgin Blue, just like you asked.”
“Thank you, my dear blue Jay,” he told her, and nothing could deny the feeling in the pit if his stomach. “I just… never really had the courage to ask a girl out. It wasn’t until recently when I finally did.”
“With that old girl you were with?” Jay asked him with a chuckle and a sip of her piña colada, and he saw that her cup was a straight coconut, right off the palm tree.
“She kind of came up to me, though,” he recalled. “And then, I came across you girls and I realized that there was a whole world of sensual pleasures my teenage self could only dream of. I still have that feeling, though, even after what we’ve done together.”
“We’re both here with you right now,” Q insisted with a stroke of his smooth skin. “You’re obviously very sexy. Here, baby—let me and Jay help you. I mean, look at you: you’re nice and big, just right for both of our pussies.”
“I’m not that big, though,” he repeated again.
“Nah, I say you’re of good size,” she insisted to him. “If you aren’t of good size, would I be able to do this?” She wrapped her fingers around the length of his dick and gently stroked him to get him going. He leaned further back from the feeling: medium length dick or not, they were going to make him grow.
“I have seen your dick through your jeans,” Jay noted with another sip. “How they seem to hug your hips and make your crotch seem bigger than it is. I remember the first time I saw it—it was when you were up on stage.”
“I’m usually in a good mood on stage,” he pointed out with a smile, and then he let out a low whistle and lay down on his back as Q fondled him with two hands. He lifted his hands off the sand underneath him and flexed his toes from the feeling: he may have been bigger than the two of them but he was about to be made into jelly at the loving touch of their hands on his body. He then lifted his head for a look down at his dick as it rose up from his body: he needn’t a big one to feel big.
“You’re really big and hot, baby,” Q assured him, and she climbed onto the stone next to him and she sat down on top of him as if to ride Amazon with him. But instead, she straddled his waist: she parked her bikini-clad ass right in front of his dick to where it lightly brushed against the smooth silken fabric. “Bad boy, you should get a punishment of sorts.”
“And what would that be?” he grunted out as his head rested down upon the stone. She never replied as she leaned forward and kissed his chest. Jay stood right behind her and put her lips around his burgeoning erection. He could feel the crispness of the coconut, the pineapple, and the rum on his skin from the work of her tongue.
He looked on at Q as she stripped off her bikini top: he knew there was a nude beach somewhere in Hawai’i but he needn’t be there to see her breasts out in the open. He was certain it was his own mind tricking him but Q’s breasts seemed a lot bigger than usual, to where he parted his lips at the sight of her as well as Jay’s lips on his dick. He craned his neck to see that Jay too had taken her top off. All three of them, so big and ready for another round there on the beach.
“Now you’re pretty big,” he sputtered, slightly disoriented. “You and Jay both. You girls have such nice big… fucking tits.” He swallowed and locked his gaze onto Q’s bare breasts in all of their creaminess; Jay lingered off to his side on her knees with one hand on his swelling dick and one hand on her piña colada: her dark nipples were already tight and pointed, ready for his fingers and his lips. But he was being dominated. He may have towered over the two of them but they were taking him down a bit. Q picked up his hand and brought it to her left breast: his fingers crept across the areola and the surface, but he couldn’t hold her all the way.
“It won’t fit—” he choked out. “Even with my big hands.”
“I’ll make it fit,” she whispered to him, and she nudged her nipple underneath his fingers some more so he could have a handful of her flesh, every inch of her in his hand. He fondled her with the pulsation of his fingers, and then he raised his hand to do the same to her right breast. Q gyrated her hips atop his waist, and he realized that she was getting off to the hair on his belly: she breathed harder from that rough feeling on her lips, through the fabric of her bikini bottom. Jay continued to fondle him, and that time with both hands.
A full threesome there on the beach, out of sight, and he finally let a little bit bleed from the tip onto Jay’s fingers; Jay herself was triumphant, such that she traded places with Q, who came just as quick. Jay never let go of her drink as she treated him to the same thing, right on the line of hair in his belly.
She let out a low whistle and leaned down to his face for a kiss on his nose.
“Fucking hell,” was all he could muster.
“Your drink’s waiting for you, you good boy, you,” she whispered to him right as another wave rolled up to the beach behind them.
I remember i wrote this one thinking about alex’s absence back in 2023 (when his mom was sick) and i was fooling around with eric. i remember posting this one and getting weird messages for it (and because i had the metallica tag pinged in the original post, the fucking collective brain trust over there just kind of looked at it like 🧍🏻♀️), so the title was weirdly fitting as a result. why would i lie about my encounters with those two men? why would i go out of my way to write about them just to turn around and be like lol jk?
The whole thing flashed before my eyes whenever I thought about it. I still couldn't seem to put my head around it as Abby and I ran from the forest clearing. We ran for our lives, as fast as we could straight out from the hellfire. When I stopped in my tracks at the sidewalk, and she skidded to a stop right next to me, I couldn’t help but put my arms around her.
My only hope was that Alex had survived the fire, and we could get on with life with the vampires. The entire canopy of the forest caught alight with that hot fire from the demons down below, and my only hope was that Alex found his way out of there before everything before us had been engulfed in flames.
“Jesus, that was close!” Abby exclaimed, but I could barely breathe from the amount of smoke before us as well as the possibility that I just lost the love of my life. Two shadows stumbled out of the corner of my eye and I believed that we had been chased by more demons, but instead, we were met with Rob and Mark, the latter of whom looked as though he had been burned on the right side of his head, and his eyebrow had all but disappeared: and yet his hair stayed in place on the crown of his head.
“HO-LY SHIT!” he exclaimed.
“Wow…” Rob sputtered. He clasped his hands to his head and let out a low sigh. His eyes locked with me and Abby, and then he hurried over to us. “Are you two okay?”
“I think so,” Abby said, but I could barely speak. I could only look on at the flames behind us as they swallowed the forest whole. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I needed him. I couldn’t think about it like that but I needed him. I needed his body against mine, just to know that he was safe and still with us.
“Come on, Lil…” Mark guided me and Abby away from the inferno, and I couldn’t help but let the tears fall. I bowed my head and let them all fall away from me as if I was quenching the thirst of the earth beneath us. The heat from the fire faded away from us as we moved further from the destruction.
The love of my life had gone away into the flames, and I lost him without saying goodbye to him, either. Rob and Abby put their arms around me from behind as we ran along the sidewalk. My heart pounded, from running, from the rush, and from the thought of having lost him.
I lost him, to the fire, to the demons, to his own demons and his own pain.
“Hey, there’s Eric!” Mark declared, and he pointed straight ahead: indeed, I recognized that head of smooth jet-black hair past the shoulders through the darkness. Anything to comfort me right then. We broke into a run and caught up with him, and he lingered there under the golden light of the street lamp behind him. He turned his attention to us with one hand clasped to his head.
“Oh my god, are you guys okay?” he called out to us once we came within earshot of him. Once I stood before him, I put my arms upon his shoulder and bowed my head.
“Where’s Alex?” Rob asked him right then. “Where is he?”
“I have no clue,” Eric replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m… still trying to recollect everything that happened because it’s just so… so…”
“Intense?” Abby filled in for him. Eric swallowed, and I knew he was looking over at me. I held still and closed my eyes: his shoulder was a touch on the broad side, but it was comfortable enough to cradle me even as we remained standing in place.
“I guess you could say that,” he continued. A loud crack caught us all off guard, and Eric put his arm around me. The next thing I knew, we were running some more along the sidewalk. We sprinted blind through the darkness, but at the same time, through the whirring ghostly shadows and my own tears, I knew where we were going. We rounded a corner, and we had returned to the safety of Rob’s house. I made my way into the house first, still with Eric by my side. The house was warm and smelled of spice, and I hoped that no one followed us there from the burning forest.
I took my spot there on the couch, and Eric hung over me with one hand clasped onto my shoulder as if to hold me steady. I glanced back at the front door as if I awaited Alex to come through the front door with Abby, Mark, and Rob.
I was certain that he survived it, even with my lack of proof and even with the fact that none of us saw him, either. I needed to see him. I needed to feel him. I needed to hear his voice in particular. But I needed to see him there in the doorway.
“Eric!”
I turned my head to find Eric going off to the kitchen to meet up with the three of them for something, and thus, I leaned down onto the couch. That one afternoon when Alex and I made love on the couch there in the Cavestany house, when he and I were alone together and we had nothing better to do than to play around and feel each other. The vampires knew how to kiss, and they knew how to comfort as well: I was crying then, and the caress of his lips proved to be the best medicine, if only for a few minutes.
I closed my eyes and let the tears collect behind my eyes. I tried to think of his scent, of the way his body felt right next to me. I lacked the real thing. I needed him again. I needed him and I needed the kiss of his lips on my skin.
“Lily?”
I raised my head from the cushion to find Eric right there next to me: a piece of his black hair spread down across his forehead and over his eyes to where he resembled a young dragon.
“Are you alright?” he asked me, slightly concerned. I shuddered, and I saw that Mark had left the front door open: it was yet another cold night there in the Bay Area, made worse by the fact we had just danced in some flames not even a few minutes before.
“I’m cold,” I crackled out. He turned to the door and nudged it closed. I sniffled and sat up on the cushion with my back to the arm of the couch.
“A little too cold tonight… don’t think there are any bats flying around,” he said, and he extended his hands to me. Abby surfaced in the room right then with a stunned look on her face.
“What’s going on?” Eric asked her.
“Mark is looking for something to help with his eyebrow,” she replied. “You know, he’s got one burned off. He and Rob are really spooked right now.” She fetched up a sigh and pressed her hands to her hips.
“I reckon you are, too,” I insisted in a soft voice.
“Yeah, I… don’t know if I can sleep tonight,” she replied, “especially when we’re thinking of Alex.”
“The last thing I saw from him was that he ducked out of the forest right as the fire exploded out over our heads,” he explained to us in a single breath, and he turned his attention towards me. “I promise you, Lily. He’s off in the trees somewhere. He ran off quick into the shadows. We’ve died and cheated death, we can do it again.”
I glanced back at Abby, who swallowed from nerves. The two of us had been through so much together, and witnessing that violent ritual, with the human sacrifices followed by the fire, and when the vampires didn’t even allow it on top of that, I knew we looked on at sleepless nights together as well. I simply couldn’t stop thinking about the explosion as well.
I returned my attention to Eric, and I couldn’t help but bow my head. The tears welled up in my eyes again and I brought my hands up to my face.
“Hey… hey…” Eric greeted me with open arms. “He’s gonna be okay. He’s a tough boy, he can stand up to more than any of us, including him, can think. Come here—” He moved in closer to me there on the couch and held me close to his slightly chubby little body. I couldn’t help but bury my face into his chest.
“He’s gonna be okay,” he assured me right into the ear.
“Abby—” Mark’s voice floated in right then, and her footsteps padded out of the room. I gazed up at Eric and his pale round face, accentuated by his black hair and his big brown eyes.
“Would you like some tea?” he offered me.
“Please,” I said, and I cleared my throat. The tea could definitely help with the feeling in my throat: among everything else, I needed to breathe. I watched him go into the kitchen for a couple of tea cups: I stayed there in place on the couch while he and Rob whispered about something to one another. If only we knew what was going to happen. If only Mr. Friedman just kept his hands to himself and left us to figure it out from there.
I glanced down at my body, and I thought about the promise that Alex had given me before the ritual took place. That deep look in his eyes and the way they swept over me, and the way they latched onto me like the slippery blackened venom that ran through him. The touch of his hand and his fingers on me.
I knew what he wanted, and yet, I couldn’t give it to him. I couldn’t give it to him even though I would find myself in the mood for it once I drank down some tea, courtesy of Rob and his grandmother. I had the mood in me. I had the feeling within me, as it burgeoned inside like the fire that loomed right under the earth, right beneath our feet. I had an itch to scratch, and it required five minutes at the very least.
Five minutes, that was all I needed. Five minutes, to give me a release and then perhaps I could come to the process of finding closure for myself. It was all about finding my own heart again, even as I grieved him.
The kettle whistled, which was then followed by a brief silence and then the pouring of water into the mugs. Rob ducked out of the kitchen to the hallway off to the right as if he needed something from Mark and Abby. Eric then surfaced from the kitchen with a big black bone china mug in either hand.
“I don’t know how you take your tea,” he began as he took his seat right next to me there on the couch. “But I gave you some sugar.”
“That’s perfect, actually,” I assured him as I took the mug in his left hand. The aroma of lemons and garlic wafted up into my nose, to which it sent a chill down my spine. “What is this? It smells divine.”
“Lemon and mango spice tea,” he replied. “It’s homemade, too. According to Rob, it should clear out your lungs and heal your blood, too. That’s especially the case if you drink it every day for about a week.”
I blew on the surface and took a sip. The tea was strong, strong enough to give me a feeling like a blow to the chest. My heart eased down a bit, and my body grew warm from the feeling inside of me.
Drinking it down felt like taking a B vitamin shot.
I set the cup down in my lap, and I looked over at Eric there off to the side of me. An itch I couldn’t seem to scratch, even with Alex not there at the moment. Even with Alex not there. I had a lingering feeling that he was still with us, and yet I couldn’t resist thinking about it. If he was still with us, I could only hope that he would understand what I was dealing with.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, but… I need some relief,” I confessed to him, to which Eric raised his dark eyebrows at me.
“Relief?” he echoed me. “Like… how?”
I nibbled on my bottom lip as I dropped my gaze to his black leather belt. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I couldn’t stop thinking about the shape of his body and how he touched me so right. I wanted his long cold fingers on my nipples especially: the way he touched me in just the right spot and with the right amount of softness. It felt so wrong, and yet my body needed it.
Eric swallowed at the suggestion, and he never moved a muscle.
“I really, really hate to do this to you,” I said again. “And I kind of feel bad, too, because like… I feel it could be cheating should everything come out on the other side. But I need to feel another body next to me. I need to feel something. Before the ritual, he gave me this look like he was going to kiss me or… make love to me. He even promised me that he was going to please me like he had never done before after the ritual finished.”
“Please you, like… give you what you so desire?” he asked with a clearing of his throat. I could see it in his eyes, and I could hear it in his voice. There was no way I could deny the feeling.
The vampires had slow heartbeats, and their bodies had been preserved by the passing of time against a sense of decay, but they knew how to feel as if they were still alive. They knew how to feel, and they knew how to please as well. Abby’s laughter floated out from the next room, and I knew she and Mark were having a moment together, and with Rob right next to them. But I was focused on Eric.
He leaned forward, still with both hands clasped to either side of his tea cup. He then leaned to the side and switched on the light between us. The light of the lamp next to me washed over his round face and his porcelain skin.
“Is there anything you have in mind?” he asked me with another clearing of his throat.
“Well…” I began, and then I stopped right in my tracks. I glanced down at his fingers, as thick and stout as sausages, nothing like Alex’s long and spidery ones in all their elegant beauty. Thick fingers meant more touching and more finesse and control as well. “Seeing as Mark and Abby are having a moment of their own, let’s improvise. I like to take it slow, anyway.”
“You know, it’s the damnedest thing—I do, too.” He bowed his head and showed me a mischievous little smile. It wasn’t like the devilish little smirk that Alex liked to show me, but something a bit more adorable. Something told me that I had to show him the way instead. I liked to lead the way Alex, but Eric showed it to me even more.
I turned back to the couch behind me and patted the cushion right next to me.
“Wanna come over here?” I offered him.
“I like the way you said ‘come’ just now,” he quipped, and I couldn’t help but giggle at that. Eric took his seat right next to me, and he downed the rest of his tea in one fell swoop. He then set down his cup in the table before us and ran his thick fingers through his inky black hair.
“Okay. First things first, where do you like to be touched?” He rubbed his hands together and leaned in closer to my face.
“Start with a kiss on my lips,” I said, and he brought his onto my own. He rested a hand on my thigh all the while. He wasn’t the tender gentleness of Alex, as his lips and his hand locked onto me as if I was about to get away from him. There was something about the sheer force he exerted onto me that sent a deep chill up my spine, and one not from the fact that, like Alex, his flesh was as cold and smooth as fresh ice. His long fingers crept down inside of my thigh like a series of small snakes ready to take me under.
He nudged me back towards the couch, but I pushed back. Where Alex would have wound his way up to me and I would have taken him by the hand and showed him what I was made of, Eric was tough like a rolling stone down the side of the hill. It was so different and yet I was willing to roll with it for the time being. His other hand wound its way up into the roots at the back of my head.
“Touch you like the kiss of the dragon,” he whispered to me in between caresses on my lips.
“My nipples, Eric,” I blurted out. I gripped onto his wrist and lifted his hand from my thigh. I brought his hand up to my chest just so he could have an idea about my breasts. He lapped his tongue around his lips at the taste of me on his skin. I needed it so bad: a rolling stone down the side of the hill and he needed to exemplify it.
I jerked back to the back cushion of the couch. I moved my head away from his grip so I could see the mouth of the hallway there on the left side of the room. Through Eric’s big time movement on me, I could hear light whispers drifting out from the hallway there. Mark and Abby were in fact having a moment together, and as far as I knew, Rob was still there with them in the privacy of his bedroom.
Eric’s thick fingers crawled down to the hem of my shirt. I was giving myself to him. I was giving myself to the dragon.
He lifted my shirt and revealed my bra to him. Abby’s laughter floated down the hallway right then, but I was focused on Eric and the slight ring of gold on the side of his head. The ring of fire.
I may have been missing Alex’s earthiness, but Eric gave me a pit of fire. Something new, something fresh, something that would get me off and make me forget the fire from back there in the forest.
I tilted my head back so he could kiss the side of my neck. He hesitated in touching my stomach and my chest, even though he kept his hand there.
“Touch me,” I beseeched in a soft whimper of a voice. “Touch me!”
“I got you, my dear—my dear little lily pad—”
Those thick fingers crept up inside of my shirt, right under my bra wire, and onto the underside of my breasts.
“Here—” His other hand let go of my hair, and he reached under my shirt to undo the bra hooks at the back. Once it was lax, he then hummed to himself and proceeded in touching me. He lightly kissed my neck, and his long black hair swept over the side of his neck and down onto my chest.
“Alex would often kiss me there, too,” I told him. “You know, he’s got those thick, sensual lips like a porn actor.”
“Did he have a mustache at one point?” he cracked in between kisses on my neck. I burst out laughing at that.
“No, but it would’ve been really sexy if he did, though—” I gasped as he lightly pinched me on the nipple. Those fingertips on the really delicate part of my nipple, although I needed it on both.
“Other one—other one—” I sputtered out. His other hand slid underneath my shirt and the bra wire. I breathed harder from the feel of those thick fingers, as cold as the heart of winter, on that dark skin. I closed my eyes as he ran his fingertips around the rim of the areolas at the same time. I thought about the fire, and I imagined the rain falling in cold droves all around us. They may have been vampires, but they needed the sweep of the dragon, the darkest scales and spines all around me like the biggest tornado to ever touch down.
I was rising. I was about to come even with nothing more than touches on my nipples.
I parted my lips and let out a low moan. I hoped that Abby, Mark, and Rob wouldn’t hear us, but at the same time I also hoped they would hear us.
“Yeah, that’s good, isn’t it,” he quipped right into my ear right then.
“That’s everything I could ask for,” I breathed out.
“I want what you’re having now,” he commanded, and he lay down on his back next to me. I ran my fingers through my hair, and I slowly lifted up his shirt. With nothing more than the tips of my fingers as well, I treated him to the same thing. I lay down between him and the back of the couch so I could kiss him on the neck at the same time as those touches. He closed his eyes as I lightly touched him, ever so lightly on those little pale nipples on that even paler skin, like the finest porcelain.
Alex wasn’t there but I could give it to him nevertheless.
I brought my lips down to his chest. The left one first, as light as I could. He gasped at the feeling. I kept my hand on his right one all the while.
If I could overstimulate this naughty dragon, then I would. I then blew on his nipple and gave him a pinch at the same time. He opened his mouth and treated me to a gentle moan. He pinched his eyes shut.
I thought of switching sides but there was no way I could.
Instead, I blew on his nipple again, and I moved my hand down to the crotch of his jeans. I was about ready to unzip his jeans when Alex’s voice through the front window caught my attention. Eric then let out another groan as I gave him a squeeze and another blow.
“I think that’ll do,” he whispered to me. “Especially since I heard him out there.”
“I’m going to have to lie now,” I stammered. “He’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to have to lie to him now.”
“I wasn’t going to lie to you,” he confessed to me. “No way I could lie to you, though.”
“What do you think I should do?” I asked him, concerned.
“Tell him the truth,” Eric advised me. “Tell him you thought he had burned up and you were missing him more than anything in the world. See this as not just… loving me, but the fact that you’re deeply in love with him. You needed to get your feelings out.” I showed him a smile, and I nudged a lock of his hair back from the side of his face towards his ear, and I kissed him on the side of the face.
“You are so sweet,” I told him. “Thank you.”
Another knock on the door, and I climbed off of him. I straightened out my shirt and ran my fingers through my hair before I opened the door. Alex stood there with a smudge of black on the side of his face and burnt tatters of his shirt left behind on his body, but he stood there before me. He stood there with a look of delirium on his face and his lips slightly parted as if he had been running.
“There's my baby!” I exclaimed, and I extended out to him. Even with the advice, I wasn't going to dare to tell him what I had done with Eric, especially when he had just crawled from out of the ashes. His hair was still intact but his eyebrows seemed a touch slimmer than usual; though he had survived the fireball, he still had some collateral damage with his eyebrows and the hair on his arms.
“Oh, god,” Alex groaned.
“You want some tea, man?” Eric offered him.
“You know it.” I led Alex into the house of Cavestany with my arm around his shoulders, and he let out a low whistle. He then sniffled and held his nose close to my neck.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“You got busy with Eric, didn’t you,” he said with a nonchalant look on his face.
I swallowed, and he lingered closer to me with his lips still parted.
“You don’t think I’ve smelled him before?” he whispered to me, and he flashed me a wink.
“Oh, really?” And he nodded. “I can explain, baby.”
“Did you think I was dead?” he asked me, and he cracked me a smile.
“I did, yes. In fact, we all did.” He shook his head, and he leaned into my face for a light kiss on the lips. How I missed his sweetness.
“You’re not mad?” I asked him.
“Mad? I’m infuriated. My girlfriend thought I was dead all because some demons set the forest on fire! But at you? No. I can’t. No way.” He kissed me again, and I knew he was telling the truth.
reading this one again and feeling this odd sense of embarrassment. what. is wrong with me.
Christine found herself thinking about the younger version of Alex one wintry afternoon, whereby she had swiped a photograph of him from his personal file in his apartment. He had left a manila folder atop his coffee table with a small yellow note which read “negatives” on the front cover, and she wondered what it was all about as he had gone out but he left the apartment unlocked. She opened up the folder to find the first photograph on top to be of him as a young boy, before the plume of gray and before his hair had grown down past his shoulders, and she cracked a smile. Her eyes locked with those big glassy ones as they gazed back at her through the faded sepia tones: his round face looked so soft and plush that she wanted to hold him right then and there in her arms.
She set the photograph down on the coffee table, only to find the next one to be of him as a slightly older boy, albeit without a shirt and before a wall of leaves and little white oleander flowers. She gazed into his deep eyes, and then she followed the narrow shape of his face as well as the cupid's bow in his lips.
If only she could have known him as a young boy, the same way she had known Chris.
She tried to imagine life with Alex, all those years ago, with her being the slight, shy, shattered girl with the green bomber jacket and the tattered pants, and him being the slight boy with the long, dark curls down around his shoulders. His fair skin, so smooth around his shoulders and his neck, that she couldn't help but look at him with a shirt that was just a little too small for him and without a much of a neckline, either, just to show off that skin.
She knew that he had grown rather tall by the time he was in high school, and she couldn't help but think of the slim shape of his body, and how he had so much in the hips and thighs in particular: so much in the hips and yet he maintained such a slim, delicate waist and a deep chest. That long, beautiful hair down to the middle of his back, and that little crown of rich black curls upon his head. She pictured him with a fitted black shirt on with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top few buttons undone to show off his chest to the world.
But then again, there was a great big part of her that wondered if he would have even noticed her. He had that long beautiful black hair and he always walked around his guitar case slung over his shoulder, and she disappeared into the background more often than not.
Everyone seemed to have forgotten her name after a while, and she avoided them all as they treated her with the same deal.
She knew there was no way she could mosey on up to him for his number, but she nevertheless fantasized about it, about walking side by side with him with her hand tucked into his back jeans pocket to feel his shapely ass. So soon in Chris' wake, no less.
Christine sighed through her nose as she glanced up to the ceiling and came back down to Earth again.
She couldn't help but live in a fantasy world.
The night before, he had opened a bottle of wine and then tucked it somewhere in his fridge. She hoped that he wouldn't mind if she helped herself to a little glass full.
Christine made her way to the kitchen and fetched a clean shot glass out of his cupboard, one of five out of all the coffee mugs he had on display. Indeed, he kept the bottle of wine tucked in the very back of the fridge. She took it out and noticed the cork was in only part of the way. Careful not to break the top of the bottle, she used her thumb to take it off, and she poured herself a small glass of it.
A taste of Paso Robles.
She set it down and put the bottle back where it was in the back of his fridge, and she returned to the glass right as she felt him in her bones.
All that time with Captain Howdy and she needed him instead. Captain Howdy haunted him like a demon, and yet there was something more, something more that she never stopped thinking about once her mind grew quiet.
“I need to feel you,” she said aloud as she sipped on the wine some more. Alex was still out of the apartment, but she had said what she had said. She wanted to be right next to him. Moreover, she wanted to be right next to Chris.
She finished the rest of the small shot of wine, and she knew she had to work on her taking shots. She rinsed out the glass in the sink and put it back in the cupboard so he wouldn't have the wrong idea. She had her car key with her in her pocket, and it would be some time before she wasn't alone again.
Chris was out there waiting for her. Out there on Long Island. The graveyard.
She licked her lips and fetched her green coat and her purse, and she made her way out to her little car, which she had rented for a bit before she could find the time and money to buy one for herself, out there on the curb.
She remembered the way out to the cemetery, all along the Long Island Turnpike until everything turned rural. Though it was the middle of December, snow had yet to fall in droves all around New York. There had been stray flurries here and there with the nearing of winter itself; but as a result, most of the trees prior to the cemetery and the middle part of Long Island were merely threadbare and raw from the graying of the seasons.
The wrought iron gates of the cemetery remained unlocked to where she could walk up to them and push them open with ease. A chill in the air followed her as she walked along the main pathway between the graves dotted along the browned grass. She glanced up to the sky as the clouds gathered against the cold blue: it would be some time before anything began, but she knew that the way back to Brooklyn took more than an hour, and things could change within the hour as well.
She recognized that spindly little tree off to the side. She spotted Chris' name on the tombstone, still shiny despite the exposure to the elements: he remained right next an old man who had just been laid to rest, and thus, the earthy smell of fresh soil caught her attention as she stood before the grave. She knelt down before the stone and closed her eyes. She thought about all that she had wanted to do with Chris, that she wanted to do with Alex when he was a teenager.
No wonder her teen years were such a fog.
A chill swept over her as the wind picked up and drifted over the tops of the stones behind her. Years and years without Chris, but there was a part of her that still knew his voice. There was a part of her that still recognized his voice, especially when Alex spoke as well.
“Christine?”
She swore she heard his voice through the tombstones. Through the stillness and silence of the fallen Jews resting there on Long Island, she swore she heard him. She raised her head and gazed back towards the rest of the cemetery as well as the far edge, where the bushes rustled in the cold wind. The clouds gathered even more to where a blanket blocked out the sun. The snow was upon her that time, even as it hadn't fallen much for that winter. Her eyes grazed over the tops of the tombstones and their darkening shadows, and Chris' voice faded out with the wind. She was alone in the cemetery; his voice as well as what sounded like a prayer from a rabbi disappeared out with the wind.
She sighed through her nose and returned the way she came, back to her car and back to Alex's apartment before the weather broke. She reached the front step when she caught him there before her with his hands in his coat pockets and his glasses perched on his nose.
“Hi,” he greeted her in a low voice; a gust of wind picked up his shoulder length hair and fluttered it up over his head.
“Hi,” she returned the favor, and he sniffed the air before her face.
“Did you have some of that California wine?” he asked her, and he cracked her a smile.
“I did, yeah.”
“Crazy girl, you know you're not supposed to drink and drive,” he teased her as he led her to the front step.
“But it was delicious, though,” she insisted. “I just had a little shot glass of it, too.”
“Shot glass of wine,” he chuckled, and he took out his house key from his coat pocket and unlocked the front door. “When's the last time I heard someone say that.” He nudged the door open, and then he held it open for her. Christine bowed inside and set her purse down on his couch; Alex skirted past her to the kitchen with a quick hitch of his pants up his legs.
“What'cha doing?” she called after him.
“Smelling it on your breath only made me want some for myself,” he told her as he opened the fridge door; and he stooped down and took the bottle out of the bottom shelf. Her eyes locked onto the back of his jeans, which accentuated the shape of his hips. She watched him pour himself a glass of wine using a pure white porcelain glass, to which he stood in the kitchen doorway before her.
His slender waist had given way to a round belly that left his shirt tail untucked: he still maintained the shape of his body nevertheless. Christine nibbled on her bottom lip as she examined him from head to toe, from his slender shoulders down to his full chest and his belly, followed by his hips and his long shapely legs. He hitched up his pants again, that time as he took a sip of the wine: she couldn't help but look on at his hand and those long fingers as they curled around his black leather belt. Her eyes wandered back up to his body as well as the bottom hem of his shirt.
Big and beautiful, she couldn't help but think to herself.
He held the white glass by his chest and kept his hand pressed onto his hip. She parted her lips as she brought her gaze further up his body, to his chest and his shoulders, followed by his toned, sinewy arms: not a lick of fat to be found on them.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked her, and the lopsided smile on his face only grew more prominent.
“I can't look at the man I love?” she quipped with a shake of her head and shrug of her shoulders.
“Well, if you can't look at me, then I can't look at you,” he retorted with a quick raise of his eyebrows. He padded back over to her, still with his one hand clasped to his hip, and it took her a second to realize that he kept his thumb tucked down inside of his jeans.
“Have you lost weight?” she asked him as he took his seat next to her on the couch.
“Not a lot, but yeah,” he replied as he leaned back. “Enough for me to put my thumb inside of my pants, that's for certain.”
Christine lowered her gaze to his legs, to his thighs in particular. There was always something about the way he took a seat in some places, how he always sat upright on a stool and he kept his legs apart just right. Even as he gained some weight with age, he still looked so thin and elegant.
Still very much the lynchpin between real life and the nightmares that followed her out of the cemetery.
Her eyes meandered down from his waist to his knees: she thought about the few times she caught him walking before her, and she couldn't help but let her eyes wander all the way down his back to his feet. She couldn't stop think about the shapeliness of his hips and legs in particular.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked her with a straight face. He set the white porcelain glass down on the coffee table before them, and she couldn't help but bring her eyes up to his belly and the way it all squished out from over his belt. She thought about his softness and his warmth there, and the way his body curved out in the best way she had ever seen. Though he was just the right amount of masculine for her, it was as if his body had been created to have beautiful curves as well.
He leaned back to where he sat upright next to her, and he set his hands on either side of him as if he awaited something from her.
“Christine?” he asked her. “Christine Sixteen?”
“Your legs,” she finally remarked. “They're gorgeous.” He paused for a second with his lips parted a bit, and then he squinted his eyes at her from behind his glasses.
“What, now or back when I was just a boy?” he teased her, and she swallowed at that.
“All the freaking time,” she declared. There was something that told her he had figured out that she found those negatives in the folder, but she decided to act on something else. Christine lifted her hand and rested it on the top of his thigh. Alex held still as she pressed down firmly onto the faded denim: her pinky finger was only a mere inch or two from the zipper. But she moved her hand all the way down his thigh to his knee, and then she moved it back up along the side closest to her.
Once she was back up to his hip, she glided her hand over by the zipper of his jeans, and her forearm brushed against his belly. She was inside of his thigh, and she ran her hand all the way back down to his knee.
“What're you doing?” he asked her with a chuckle, and she knew it tickled him.
“Trying to love your legs,” she quipped as she clutched onto his knee: her fingers curled around his knee cap like the legs of a spider. Her eyes wandered up to his belly as it spilled out over his belt and almost onto his lap, and his body shuddered at her gaze.
“Why are you staring at my big potbelly,” he sputtered.
“Because it's very cute,” she told him with a slight bow to her head. “It's very soft and warm. It's the best pillow I ever had, if you ask me.”
His nostrils flared at that, and more so as she brought her left hand over to his other thigh for the same caresses. She was able to move in closer to him, such that her chest hung right before his own, and she could feel the heat wafting off his body.
“Now, for the question of the ages,” he began again with a clearing of his throat, and he lowered his voice to that smooth husky tone that she always loved, the one where she knew for a fact what he was feeling. “Do you prefer me with a big belly, or do you like me when I was thin and slender?”
“I don't know... it's hard to say,” she confessed, and she couldn't help but lower her voice to a near whisper as well. “Is there a reason why you ask me this?” She moved her hand down to his other knee, and she leaned in closer to his face. Chris' ghost was all over his face, even though she gazed into big bright eyes like the ocean. She dropped her gaze down to his lap and the way he kept his legs spread apart just as before.
She had an idea. She had no clue as to how he would react to it, but she had an idea nonetheless.
“Would you like a dance?” she offered him.
“You mean, like... ballroom dance?” he asked her, slightly puzzled.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she replied with a shake of her head. Still with her hand on his knee, she unbuttoned her own pants, and she pushed them down her thighs to where her skin was exposed. She climbed upon his lap with her back to him; ever so slowly, she rubbed the bare backs of his thighs upon the denim. The thought of being on his lap alone was enough to get her moving, but now she had the rough, grainy texture of denim right underneath her as well.
“Oh, I see what you're doing,” he said, and he put his arms around her waist as if to pull her close. But he instead steadied her as she bore down harder on him, harder on his thighs. She felt the side of his head lean up against her shoulder, and she could feel him, right between his legs. That alone was enough to arouse him, just as the rough feeling of the denim sent shivers up and down her spine, and especially to right between her legs.
“Let me love your body,” she whispered to him.
“Let me love yours,” he whimpered to her as he slipped his hands up under her shirt. His fingers snaked up onto her chest, right underneath her bra. She tilted her head back towards his face, to which he moved his head around for a look into her own. She never realized that she had knitted her eyebrows together and her lips parted. Chris had burst into her mind, albeit momentarily, but it was enough for her to think about she would have done this same thing for him. To love his legs and the rest of his chubby little body, even as he lay all alone out there on Long Island under that little tree.
If only she had more time with him. If only she could tell him as to how she really felt about him.
“Are you okay?” Alex's round voice broke her train of thought, and she opened her eyes. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, and for a split second, she expected to see Chris' earthy brown eyes again.
“What's wrong?” he asked her, to which she licked her lips and ground her hips some more upon his thighs.
“Touch me,” she begged him as she craned her neck for a look back at him. “Touch me, you silly chubby little Jew boy you.” Before he could do anything, however, she reached up to the side of his head to feel the roots of his hair. Even through his frizzy, fuzzy hair, fuzzy as it had lost its curls from the passage of time, his dark roots were still stout and strong with youth as they remained in place against the crown of his head. She twirled his locks around her fingers as she pressed her lips onto his own. Though her body was slightly twisted, she still held onto his hair with each swipe of her lips.
Alex tilted his head back so she could kiss his neck and feel his hair some more.
“You want me to take my pants off?” he croaked out as he ran his hands all up and down her back.
“Please,” she whispered in between caresses on his neck. He leaned back towards the couch to unbutton his pants for her, and Christine slid off his lap so she could see his bare legs. She kicked her pants off as well, and she crouched down right before his legs: it was difficult because of the coffee table, but she still squatted before him. She gently stroked his thighs and his knees with her fingertips before she brought her lips there as well.
His skin was smooth and he smelled warm as she moved in closer to his crotch, which had nothing more than a single piece of fabric to separate her from him. Even as she switched over to his other thigh, she held before his crotch there as well as the roundest, fullest part of his belly as it hung out over her forehead. He gazed down at her with his lips slightly parted and a light pink tone to his face; she showed him her tongue as if she wanted a taste of his dick before she was done there with his thighs.
Even as she moved down along the inside of his left thigh down to his knee, she could hear him breathing harder, and thus, she decided to take the teasing up a notch or two. She left a long line of light little kisses, these small delicate pecks, all along the inside of his thigh as she made her way back up from his knee. She reached his crotch again, and that time, she lifted the hem of his shirt for those same kisses on his belly.
“Quit your teasing me—” he grunted out, and he finally leaned back against the couch at the feel of her lips on his smooth, warm skin. Christine nudged his shirt back so she could kiss him all the way up his belly towards the bottom of his chest.
“If I could kiss every inch of you, I would, Alex,” she finally said, and she made her way back down towards his belly button. If his own touching her there from their last rendezvous, as well as all the thoughts she had had of Chris had taught her anything, it was that he was extra delicate there. Rather than use her lips, she ran the tip of her finger along the rim, as if she was doing the same thing to the head of his dick. He let out a low whistle at the feeling of her finger, and then he gasped at the sensation of her lips there again. She was only an inch away from his crotch when she could feel him brush against the inside of her neck.
He was ready.
Christine lifted her head and gazed up to him and the delirious look on his face.
“You know what belly kisses lead to, right?” she asked him, and he raised his eyebrows at that.
“I... I think so,” he stammered out, and without any more hesitation, she peeled back his underwear and there he was. With a lick of her lips, she moved her mouth right to his head. She arched her back as she slid in closer to his body for a full taste. She lifted her head away from his dick just to tease him some more, to which he shook his head and wagged his finger at her.
“Don't you dare tease me, Christine Sixteen,” he scoffed at her.
“Who says I'm teasing?” she chirped back at him, and she kissed the inside of his thigh, even though his head was right there right in front of her face.
“Me! I say you're teasing!” He chuckled at that, and she kissed the inside of his thigh again. “You tease me so good that you better be careful, 'cause I just might as well shoot my load right in your face.”
“Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?” she said as she wriggled her fingers on his belly to tickle him. He shrieked out from the feeling, and he writhed away from her. He fell onto his side there on the couch, and Christine climbed atop of him. She rested her hand on his hip, slightly exposed from her pulling his underwear down a bit, and then she ran her hand down the side of his thigh again. She moved her hand back up, that time along the middle of his thigh and to his exposed dick, and she used her fingers to tickle him some more there.
For a moment, she thought about Chris again, and she wondered what he would think of Alex right then. But then again, he rolled his head over for a better look at her, to which she inched up behind his back so she could be right by his neck and shoulders, the same neck and shoulders that resembled to bone china as a young boy. She left him a sweet kiss on the side of his neck, even as she never let go of his flesh. She continued to fondle him, even when he finally came for her.
And it all started because she couldn't stop thinking about his legs.
kinktober generator spat these out for me the other night.
it’s only january, and honestly, i’d rather shove a pencil in my ear than ever participate in kinktober again, but i was oddly curious.
um, I guess you could shoot me a request if you want me to do more than this? i dunno who would, tbh. we’re at the point now that anything longer than 2k is considered “overly long”, so what the hell am I doing.
but if in the odd chance that i do, fyi: I don’t do reader inserts. i hate them, i think they’re stupid, a cancer, a veiled way for people to market themselves without asking for money and it somehow feels more parasitic than if they were asking, and are conducive to the utter plague of laziness in fandom. (self-inserts on the other hand, are different: they’re underrated, more underrated than original characters at this point. i’ve really warmed up to slash/yaoi/yuri in the last five years, too—yeah, i’m just imagining charkita “char” billy, erica peterson, alexa skolnick, greta christian, and louise clemente right now 😂)
hard limits/kinks i will absolutely not write:
cream pie/“coming inside” (always grosses me out no matter how well you might think it’s written, hate how possessive and creepy it’s always written, plus i don’t have a breeder mindset);
breeding kink (see before);
dacryphilia/tears (i just have one word for this, and it’s a question: why?);
cnc/free use whatever it’s called (mainly because i hate how ubiquitous this one is, like i wonder about the collective health thinking about how many people get off on having consent off the table—plus, testament (even as big of hoes (affectionate) as they are)/all these bay area + new york guys are all about standing up for girls, so it wouldn’t make sense to me);
scat (this is coming from the girl who wrote porcelain because she had eric flirt with her while he was on the john, true story… i won’t shame you if it’s your thing but like… why)
soft limits/kinks i don’t really like but might put my differences aside:
praise kink (the straw that broke the camel’s back for me in 2023; this is another one that always gets weirdly creepy to me so if I’m requested this… be patient because i’m trying to approach it the best way possible, that is without trying to kill myself);
size kink (same story there);
degradation, believe it or not (i’m looking at that first prompt with a pit in my stomach)
kinks i’m especially ashamed of/hit me in a tender spot; if i write these, there’s a chance i might get rambly with them:
sex toys (just makes me feel dirty and uncomfortable to think about: i’m one of those women who’d probably toss a vibrator after one use)
lingerie (i can’t picture myself wearing it, i think i would look stupid in it);
and my main kink, belly kink (i always squirm in my seat and feel extremely vulnerable, and weird and gross even thinking about it; it’s so personal, so locked away inside me for so long that i can’t imagine it being nothing more than a joke, because it usually is to people)
been kicking around this idea for a couple of weeks now: since we’re coming up on five years since I started fever (jesus fuck), i’m thinking about a gender-swapped perspective version of the fic.
fever from alex’s point of view. his feelings for sam bubbling under the surface. his intense relationship with zelda. some homoerotic feelings in there as well.
idk, i’m spitballing and the fic world is lonely and really boring right now—not necessarily talking about myself! things are actually quite lush and creative on my end with all of the art that i’m making, the new seasons grey and dead man walking illustrations, some prompts i’ve picked up (one i feel is going to be throne of thorns, book three of the main seasons grey ‘verse), i drafted the first chapters of a doctor who fic and a death in paradise fic, i’m thinking about new chapters of my octavius-meets-phileas ‘verse “after the gold rush”, i’m thinking about a new chapter of blood from a stone as well as love is not enough, i’m thinking about a soundgarden fic i attempted in 2016 and trying to remember what i wrote (😅), and having exhumed the corpses of kinktober 2023 (it’s too soon to call it, tbh, and i’m still raw and shaky, but i actually plugged in a prompt list for this year more just out of curiosity than anything; i’ll post it once i’m done with this).
i’m thinking of putting “jaded” (one shot with chuck and oc hannah) and “coffee and cocktails” (something that quite literally began life as an inside joke between me and alex manifested into something in my longhand writings) on ao3 either this weekend or in the next week or so.
but i’m just going onto ao3 right now and feeling this sort of ennui and disillusionment with the whole grand scheme of things. everything is so… creepy. and rapey. and lame. really, what the hell happened to bandfic in the last year or so? you know how much i like to bitch about my kinks because i find them shameful, but at least i can scrape myself off the floor and throw them into words and still manage to have some kind of humanity to them, treat all of these men… you know, like men, cringey as my kinks are.
there’s very little that jumps out at me and so much that i look at and think, “god, people actually enjoy this?”
plus, i feel that ai has all but ruined the unspoken trust between the author and the audience. really, i don’t want to be “that girl”—though i have been “that girl” for about five years now—but i can’t read any fic anymore without wondering if a human wrote this, or if the person who penned this has read anything other than reader insert fic in the last year at all.
i’ve just had such an abusive relationship with the fic world that i can’t help but wonder if more people would actually enjoy what i’ve made. i just keep picturing some newbies going on there or on here and seeing all that i’ve done in the last five years and being horrified/demanding what’s wrong with me/perpetuating the unfair and untrue stereotypes about me, that i’m delusional, or i’m stuck in arrested development or what have you.
this was the one where I could feel myself hitting my breaking point. in fact, i’m inclined to say that the feeling is very tender reading this one over again. my wounds are still raw thinking about it.
yeah, you pieces of shit penning these stupid reader inserts think you’re sooooo hot, well you know what? you’re not. not even remotely.
i can’t wait for this shit trend to die. i see people getting suggestions like “reader is this, reader is that”, how about you uncreative dweebs just think of an original character and write for yourself instead of what some rando wants you to while completely missing the point of fanfic in the first place, jesus christ on a bike. yeah, it’s all about ~relatability~ isn’t it. being relatable and sneakily marketing yourselves because you can’t do that with fanfic. call me a purist but fuck “y/n”. FUCK. Y/N. and fuck you if you keep pushing it on us.
frankly, i don’t care if i’m relatable. i just care about writing the damned thing. and apparently i’m not alone in this, either. yeah, second person perspective isn’t as popular as we think it is. i’m not alone in being sick of seeing it every which way and no matter how many times I press the filters, it keeps cropping up because all y’all l!ke t0 chañg€ th€ l€££€r$ 0n €v€r¥ seem!ngl¥ c0ntr0ver$ial w0rd because tiktok scrambled your brains.
so, that’s just not good enough for this stupid new generation of fanfic readers.
man, let me tell you. i didn’t have the gumption to put up a picture of alex when i posted this initially back in 2023, well guess what, you motherfuckers!
The taro root broach on Jay's hat was something he simply could not take his eyes off of. The way the petals seemed to glitter and sparkle under the lamp light of the hotel room, or the lamps that lined the side of the street, and he found himself thinking of Hawai'i every single time. Indeed, there was one point in which she stepped into the shower one morning and he found the chance to fondle the edges of the petals with nothing more than his fingertips. No way he could do it when either she or Q were in the room with him: it would be too much to think about, too much to face up, and bore too much of an explanation as well.
As the water whirred through the pipes in the wall, he sat there at the little table right next to the dresser in the hotel room with her hat cradled in his hands, and the pads of his thumbs on the edges of the flower: the leaves grazed against the spindly backs of his hands as if to tickle him in a way he never expected to happen. The black coral streams jutted out from the bud of the flower itself, in all of their roughness and all of their pointed glory. He thought about bringing the flower itself to his nose for a whiff of the scent, but he remembered it was nothing more than a broach rather than an actual flower.
But at one point, he closed his eyes and better caressed the flower with the very tips of his index and middle fingers: there was something so inviting about it, something that made his imagination wander about without even intending it to happen in the first place. The shape of the flower made him think of the shape of her lips as well as the way her hood looked whenever she was in the mood for a fingering or the swipe of his tongue.
The water stopped and he opened his eyes. Q was out some place there in Cardiff, and thus, he and Jay had the day together as well as a thousand Welsh quid in her pocket and a mind full of bad ideas. He set her hat back down on the table, but before he stepped away from there, he picked it up one last time, that time to take a whiff of the inside. It smelled of perfume, soap, and with a hint of sweat: it smelled of Jay and the way she thought about Hawai'i.
He returned to the bed as if nothing happened, and he put his feet up and leaned back against the headboard so she wouldn't have to know that he was over there. When she surfaced from the bathroom, wrapped in a soft clean red silk bathrobe and with a clean towel wrapped up on top of her head, he showed her a little smile and a flick of his bare feet.
“Look at you, looking like such a good boy,” she remarked.
“Good Jewish boy, as my mom would say,” he retorted back to her. His eyes wandered down to her bathrobe, and he thought about wearing something of red silk as well. Jay stood there at the foot of the bed, right by his feet, and with her hands pressed to her hips.
“What'chu thinkin' 'bout, Tevye, baby?” she asked him.
“Thinking about... what the two of us should do while Q's on business,” he replied.
“You wanna walk around, don't you.”
“We're in Wales, my darling blue Jay,” he insisted. “The couple of times my band and I have been here before, we liked it. We like the United Kingdom as a whole, actually. But Wales in particular.”
“Why is that?”
“I don't really know. I do know the crowds over here can get pretty wild. When we come to the British Isles, it's always a party, especially with Wales. But yeah—” He ran his fingers through his inky black curls and sat upright away from the headboard, and he wiggled his toes to her. “Let's both get dressed, and then we'll walk around this neighborhood here. There's a clothing store near here, and I really would like a new jacket especially.”
“Did you bring one?”
“Always, especially since it's so rainy over here in comparison to New York and California. But what I mean is... a nice jacket. Like, something I can wear to dinner when I go back home for Hanukkah coming up here.”
“Oh, I see! You know, I think I'd like something new, too. I've got money, after all...” She reached down and held onto his right foot with nothing more than her fingers. He tugged it back away from her with a slight chuckle, and she stood there with a squint to her eyes for a whole minute. She then turned away from him and towards the closet over by the door of the hotel room: the mirror across from the bathroom door allowed him to see her from behind. All it took was a single glimpse of her bare back and the backs of her legs to have his mind going again.
He watched her get dressed, and he thought about what she could wear once they were alone again in that room.
Once he had changed his shirt and put on his shoes, they headed out to the rainy street to the clothing store in question, right down the block from their hotel and even further away from the airport. He kept his hands tucked into his jeans pockets as they walked together with the fine misty rain all around their heads and shoulders: he thought about what sort of coat he could wear when he visited his parents again as he held the door for Jay and that sparkling tarot root broach atop her head.
There was one coat in particular that caught his eye, the black one over by the cash register that looked to be made of soft fine suede. He wandered over to it and fingered the lapels with both hands. Jay strode on past him to a little black leather jacket on the rung opposite from him.
“I really, really want to try this on,” he told her.
“Then try it on,” she insisted, and he took the jacket off the hook, and he slung it around his slender little body. The warm suede exterior felt so soft and inviting to him as he caressed it down with the palms of his hands; meanwhile, the plush red wine colored velvet inside only made him want to wear it out on the street to show off. He knew he wasn't going to wear it outside from the dark skies out there, but he could wear it to his parents' house as well as back to the hotel room when he and Jay found themselves alone again.
“How does it look?” he asked her as she slipped on the leather jacket part of the way: the shiny silver hooks on the front hugged the hourglass curvature as if it had been made specifically for her body. The one underneath her breasts only made them raise higher than they actually were, as if she wore a corset, and as a result, he imagined her in a lace camisole underneath that jacket.
“You look really soft,” she remarked. “In fact, I'd get a silk shirt with that if I were you.” She flashed him a wink, and he glanced up to the taro root on her hat. He fingered the lapels again and the feeling of the suede only made him want more to be on his body. More suede and silk, more feeling.
He soon found out that the jacket came with matching pants, and all he needed was the silk shirt in question. Soft white silk to lightly wear on his little body; when he showed it to her outside of the dressing room, she held onto the buttons on his collar and undid the top three to show off the smooth skin and fine dark hair on the top of his chest.
“There we go,” she remarked as she gently tugged on the bottom of his shirt as it rested snugly against his slender waist. “There's the nice, stylish Jewish boy that I've been looking for.”
“You've been looking for?” he teased her, and she flashed him a wink.
“I'll take it then,” he said with a toss of his hair and a little sway of his hips.
When they returned to the hotel room, and Q still wasn't back yet, he changed his clothes into those new ones. He left his hair down to better accentuate everything, and he spritzed a bit of cologne on the side of his neck. He returned out to the room to find that Jay had put on her new leather jacket as well as a pair of black lace gloves without the fingers.
“Whoa,” he breathed at the sight of the gloves. She also had put on some leather pants which lightly hugged her hips and thighs, and nearly glittered in the lamp light. He had never seen them before, at least not these as they had a bell shape to the bottom hems: Jay gently tugged on the lacy bottoms of her gloves, and she let the cuffs of her own jacket hold onto them to where it all looked like a single piece of fabric. With her hat upon her head, she looked ready to dominate him.
“Oh, my,” he was taken aback by the sight of her.
“Like what you see, baby?” she asked him as she rested her hands on her chest. She slid her hands down the front of her body down on her thighs, and he swallowed at the sight of her. His nice suede with her dark leather, as well as that broach atop her head, only made him freeze with his back to the wall.
“I want us to keep this look forever,” he said to her. “In fact, I could get used to this right here.” He gestured to her full leather outfit, but he kept his eyes on those gloves. That pure black lace that seemed to beckon him more than the leather itself.
“I love this look on you, actually, baby,” she confessed to him with a gesture to his ensemble. “This nice jacket and this nice shirt, and the way your hair is cascading down from your head to where it looks like water... so very handsome.”
“Handsome?” he sputtered out with a slight chuckle.
“Yeah. Very handsome. Kind of... dare I say, sexy.”
“You like some nice clothes on me, don't you?” he teased her as he adjusted the lapels of his coat.
“I do. You look so—dapper and dishy, with all of your long beautiful hair and your beautiful body...” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes wandered down the shape of his body as if she was about to undress him right then and there.
“I must say, you pull off smooth black leather rather splendidly, darling Jay,” he told her. “Black leather and—” His eyes wandered to the lacy black gloves on her hands. “—black lace as well.” She raised a hand and flexed her fingers right in front of his face. “Those look new, too.”
“They are,” she replied, and she inched closer to him so he could have a better look at them. “I thought I'd get myself some lace with all the good money Q and I have been making together.”
He nibbled on his bottom lip as he pictured those two girls donned in nothing but that black lace, black lace bodysuits paired with those gloves. Jay cracked him a sly smile and she flashed an eyebrow at him so he could see the twinkle in her eyes.
“You like the gloves, don't ya, big boy,” she teased him, and he swallowed at that.
“I do, yeah.”
“I don't know if I want to wear these to dinner, though,” she confessed as she turned her hand over to examine her wrist. “I think about the humble British food and how it would seem out of place to wear these gloves to something like that. Plus, there's you and the suede and the rain. It's a shame because—I really want us to look good for tonight, especially once Q comes back. You know, I—” She cleared her throat and locked eyes with him. “—would like to surprise her.” Her eyes dropped down to his lips and his neck, and he noticed she was checking out his throat as well as his collar bones. She inched even closer to him, that time with a hand pressed to his chest.
“What're you thinking about?” he asked her in a near whisper.
“Thinking about this... beautiful neck of yours,” she replied with a stroke of his collar bone. Indeed, the lace was smooth and delicate, and he could tell that it was fresh out of the dryer as well from the lingering fresh scent of it. A shiver ran down his spine at the feeling of her fingers there. Something about the gloves made him shiver already, but when she touched his bare skin, he couldn't help but shiver some more. “There's a part of me that wants to choke it.” He swallowed at that, and she moved her thumb up to his Adam's apple.
“Now, if you choke it, I won't be able to breathe,” he pointed out.
“You know, I've choked a couple of clients and they were able to have these huge orgasms,” she told him. “I mean, huge.” The way she said “huge” brought a slight pit to his stomach: that intimate feeling he was all too familiar with whenever either of these two girls locked eyes with him.
“Here... I'll just go slowly,” she suggested to him. “I'm not gonna do anything extreme or anything that makes you feel uneasy. You know how we roll, dear Tevye.”
He closed his eyes and parted his lips as Jay gently held onto his neck with both hands. He could still breathe as she lightly stroked his skin with those lace clad pads in all their cleanliness. Clean hands, and yet she was about to take him under with one single flick of the wrist.
He held still with his back to the wall and his hands pressed flat on either side of his hips. Jay stood up on her tiptoes to reach him all the way, even though she could hold his throat with ease by standing on her flat feet. He could feel himself going under from the feeling of her thumbs there. She tightened her grip even more, and that time he pursed his lips together as if he was about to fall asleep. She kept on stroking that tender part of his neck to where his body shuddered and shook. He may have cleaned up rather nicely prior to showing up, but she was about to make him a dirty dog again.
He pinched his eyes shut. He swore that his chest was about to explode from holding his breath for so long, and more so with those soft hands around his neck as well. It was driving him crazy and so quickly as well.
Jay let go of him, and he let out a low euphoric moan. His head flopped down onto his shoulder, and his hair swept across his face like the streamers from a flag.
“Did you come?” she asked him. “Did you do it?”
“Huh?” he sputtered out as his eyes drooped open.
“Did you come in your pants?” she asked him again.
“I don't think I did,” he replied, out of breath.
“Let me try again,” she coaxed him, and before he could have a word in, she clasped her thumbs onto his throat again. He once again closed his eyes and held his breath. She lightly stroked his Adam's apple, and the way her thumbs caressed him down made him think of feathers. He tried to gasp for air but she had too much of a hold on him, even though she only held onto him by the lightest of touches. He instead held his breath again, and he swore that time he could feel it between his legs. Not enough breathing, and his heart pounded inside of his chest as a result.
That time, he could feel himself firming up. She was making him rise even without even so much as touching him below the belt. He gasped for air that time, but she pressed harder on the sides of his neck, and to the point that even he could feel his own pulse inside. His own pulse as it rose through the roof. His own pulse as his heart pounded even more inside of him.
He curled his toes inside of his shoes.
He tried to knit his knees together, but he had too much in between his thighs.
Jay finally lifted her hands off his neck and he groaned even louder. He could feel it inside of his pants. She had made him do it even without actually putting her hands below his belt. He leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor: he knew he was going to have to clean the inside of his underwear anyway, but he never thought she would make him do that. She sank down next to him and put her arm around his waist: that same lace right above his right hip that found its way to the delicate part of his neck, and he had no idea where to go from there.
“Do you think maybe you can wear this tonight when Q comes back?” she asked him in a light whisper right into his ear.
“What, the jacket?” His voice broke and his eyes drooped closed, even though his heart continued to pound away in his chest.
“Yeah. I think she would like it, just like how I like it.”
He rolled his head over the surface of the wall for a look into her eyes. “Are you gonna wear the gloves?”
“I'll never tell,” she said with a wink and a light kiss on the side of his face.
pairing: joey/chuck & chuck/eric if you squint (like blood from a stone)
word count: 3183
I couldn't believe how easy it was.
For the longest time, it was something that remained so far beyond my reach, that I had no idea as to how to access it. I was nothing more than a freak from the middle of nowhere who had much different tastes from the rest of the pack, and I had no means of coming to grips with it, either. I was the only one without an anchor, or at least a working anchor. I had no way out of it.
I found myself stuck there in California, with nothing more than precious time on my hands. I had to act, especially with the royal wedding having come and gone, and now Chuck and Alex were crowned princes together. It was a bit more dangerous that time around, with the royalty on the line and the fact that every which way I looked at them, all I saw were wedding rings. Add to this, it seemed as though they wanted nothing more than to spend time together rather than those whom they had a connection with. Thus, I was having to formulate a plan of some sort to bring it.
Even though it had been some time since he and I had some time alone together, I could remember all the looks that he gave me whenever we indulged in pleasing one another. One thing that stuck out to me in particular was that Chuck enjoyed touch as much as the rest of us, and I certainly knew that Alex did as well.
A little touch here and there, and I knew I could have him in the palm of my hands.
I had it in my head, the best way to do it. The only way to do it, and I knew the perfect time in which to do it and that was during one of the many dinner parties that took place about a week prior to Halloween. I forget exactly what context it held, but all I knew was that every single night, all around the Bay Area, there were dinner parties between the royals, and most of us were invited.
Most of us, anyway: anyone who didn't have a spouse was left out with the rest of the people. Nevertheless, I managed to find myself a dusty old tux from the basement and I came along to the one hosted there at the house because I lived there and because Chuck and Alex both asked for me to join them there. A waiver around the rules of the royalty and I was more than happy to join in on the posh fun.
It felt so weird wearing pants for once, but as long as things went according to plan. I had considered writing it all down before hand but I knew I was going to forget about it once the party started.
I decided to bear it in mind, and more so once I had the cufflings on my wrists and the bowtie tied tight under my chin. I peeked out from behind the corner of the bedroom right as Alex and Chuck from Florida congregated at the stairs with their voices down low and their bodies swaddled in black velvet. Alex had a plate of chocolate babka in one hand and a glass of sparkling apple cider in the other. Such a good Jewish boy, and a cute prince, too, especially since his little copper crown only accentuated the tiny plume of silver at the top of his forehead. His jacket and dress shirt were a bit too snug on him, however, but the black velvet accentuated the beauty of his body regardless of whether or not it fit him right.
I had my dances with him: I couldn't help but look at him.
Chuck kept his dish towel slung down at his belt, and his curls were nicely washed and combed for the evening.
I had to wait until they made their way downstairs together, and I could not have timed that any better as Eric and Louie had arrived downstairs. They both made their way down the stairs to meet up with them in the foyer. Once the coast was clear, I emerged out from there in search of Chuck himself. At first, I believed it was going to be difficult because they were still in the foyer together, but I managed to make my way down to the floor, and then I skirted back away from them to the next room over.
And then I spotted him on the far side of the room with a glass of wine in hand. He had taken his crown off given he only sat upon a tall spindly chair in repose, but I was going to do what I could, however. I strode on up to him as if I was going to the backyard where everyone was going to be at; he took a sip of wine right as I walked on past him, and my hip brushed against his knee as I extended my arm out to the door.
“Easy there, Joey,” he told me once he set his glass down on his knee.
“Hm?” I asked him with a quick glimpse back at him.
“You brushed against me,” he said.
“Oh, forgive me,” I quipped with a slight giggle at him like that of a schoolgirl. “I may be skinny as a rail but sometimes I don't know my own strength, though.”
“I know the feeling,” he assured me with a gentle pat on my lower back. I continued on to the backyard, which was deserted even though the party was about to begin soon.
The best way to do it. The only way to do it.
I held back away from him once Alex and Chuck from Florida stepped outside together, followed by Eric and Louie, and then Greg and his girlfriend, which I found curious because they weren't royals as far as I knew. Soon, we had a small party in the making, but I had my eye on Chuck. I wanted him. I needed him. And he needed me.
So what if the royalty didn't like it: we were soulmates and we had to have, at the very least, a moment alone together.
He emerged from the house, still in that black monkey suit and still without his crown on his head, but even from a distance, I could see it on his face, the result of having one too many glasses of wine to drink. Alex was at that narrow table on the far side of the yard, off to my left and tucked back in the shadows, but Chuck walked past me, however.
I rested my hand on the side of my neck, and I slid my fingers down onto that one spot between my neck and my shoulder blade. I locked my eyes onto the side of his head, onto that long wavy hair that cascaded down around his shoulders like that of a mane, and then he glanced over at me and the way I held myself. I showed him the tip of my tongue as I slid my fingers down onto that one spot between my neck and my shoulder blade once again.
All it took was just one look for him to raise an eyebrow at me ever so slightly.
I had to wait my chance. I had to wait until we were alone together, and I knew we were going to find that moment. Hell or high water, we were going to find that moment.
And that moment came once Chuck from Florida offered Alex another slice of babka back in the kitchen. I watched him saunter over to the back door with his hands clasped to his little tummy: it was such rich, filling cake and it was something I was going to have to make note of should the opportunity present itself. But I turned my attention back over to Chuck, who sat there by himself under the ponderosa trees with nothing more than a row of candles along the edge of the table. Eric, Louie, and Greg were off on the other side of the house with Phil Demmel, and thus, it happened right as I thought about it.
How coincidental.
I locked eyes with him from across the yard. No one else in that part of the property except for me and him.
He glanced over at me right as he downed another glass of white wine, and then he ran his fingers through his fine wavy hair. Through the light from the back porch as well as the candles, I could see it in his eyes. I cracked him a little grin once he came within earshot of me.
“Looks like it's just you and me for a few minutes,” he confessed with a slight slurring to his voice. “Anyone sitting here with you?”
“Not at all,” I quipped to him with a flash of my eyebrows and a sly smile on my face, which I simply could not resist doing for him. I gestured to the chair across from me. “Have a seat.”
He planted himself down across from me and rested his hand on the table between us. I leaned forward as if I was listening to him with great intent.
“So, is there a time in which you're going to go back to upstate New York?” he asked me. “Or, is California going to be your new home?”
“I haven't decided, to be honest,” I confessed with a shrug, and I kept the smile on my face. “I just wonder about you and Alex, though, like what're you two gonna do.”
“We've got things in mind,” he said. “I know he does, especially. He wants to expand musically, and—I don't really know, to be honest.”
“How could you not know?” I asked him as I propped my chin up into the palm of my hand.
“I don't really know,” he repeated with a shake of his head. “You know, I think about... being with my soulmate or the like, but I worry about the rules of the royalty, though.”
“Do we know what happens if we violate them?” I asked him.
“I don't, no,” he said. “I'm sure we'll learn at some point.”
I showed him my tongue. “Do you want to learn?” I suggested to him, and I lowered my voice a bit.
“Do you?” he asked me, also in a low voice.
“It depends,” I quipped back. “It depends on what you want to do.”
“There's a part of me that is curious about it,” he insisted. “But see, for me, it depends on whether or not you want to stay in California.”
“I want my Indian brother with me,” I confessed to him.
“You want your Indian brother with you? And how would you like your Indian brother to be with you?”
I leaned across the table and lightly kissed him right on the lips. I was so glad that Alex had left the room as there was no way I could explain it to him, but then again, there was a part of me that wanted him to be there with us. There was a part of me that wanted him to see us.
I pulled back a bit to look into his eyes in all their luminosity.
He parted his lips as if to say something to me, but no sound emerged from there.
I knew what he wanted, likewise he knew what I wanted as well.
I lifted myself up into a push up position so he could see the underside of my neck as well as the top of my chest, accentuated by that tuxedo. I didn't have my velvet dress on, but I knew he wanted me with it, though. I let my black curls dangle down over my shoulder as if to further entice him.
Chuck swallowed, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lift his hand and take off that wedding band, even though I knew that Alex was right behind him as his crown prince.
“Shall we do it on the table or under the table?” I whispered to him.
“Whichever you want, big boy,” he whispered back to me.
I peered over my shoulder and I saw that he and I were alone in the courtyard: Alex was nowhere to be seen, and in fact, Eric and Louie were nowhere to be seen as well. I returned to him and, carefully, I climbed off the table, and I took him by the hand. I led him underneath the table's surface, even though it was probably only big enough just for me. Nevertheless, Chuck still joined me under there and he tucked the edge of the tablecloth underneath him so no one would be inclined to see us under there.
“You want me to be on top or should you?” I asked him, and he tucked his hands underneath his head.
“Whichever you want, baby boy,” he replied with a straight face. I showed him a smirk and I climbed atop of him. The crown of my head brushed against the bottom of the table, but I wanted it, and I wanted it bad.
To get him going, I tugged down his trousers and revealed what lie underneath. I rubbed my hands together for some heat, and I proceeded to fondle him slowly, deeply, but with enough force to make him gasp and groan, totally stunned. He clutched at himself as well as the grass underneath us as if to steady himself during a ten hour edible binge, but I was ready. I was focused. It was just me and him, and we were going to do it so hard and so well on top of that.
The pads of my thumbs caressed that delicate skin on the head to where I stretched the hole open just enough.
At one point, I stuck my index finger into the hole and gently ran the tip around the rim. It was so fun watching him roll his head atop the grass and his facial expression turn from placid to fully aroused at the drop of the hat. I had him in the palm of my hand.
I needed to take it further.
I licked my lips and lifted my hand away from the head so I could hold onto my hair. I tucked my feet in because I could feel my toes jutting out from under the edge of the tablecloth; I bowed my head down to his rising erection, and I wrapped my lips around that tightening skin. I could tell he showered because he smelled of soap, but he tasted so good and so fresh. It was like putting my lips around a nice fresh carrot straight out of the earth below; I moved my head down closer to his body to where the tip nearly reached the back of my throat.
I knew doing that was going to make me gag if I wasn't careful, especially once I brought my head back up again. I wanted to give it to him, and I wanted to feel the rush that came out of doing it as well.
I wanted to do it, just to try it.
I raised my gaze up to his face, right as he lifted his head to look down at me. Our eyes locked as I moved my head down again, and that time the tip hit the very back part of my mouth. I never moved my gaze away from him as my lips touched the base and I held it there.
I held my breath to keep it together. I held still with my eyes locked onto him for a good long minute.
Chuck's bottom lip trembled at the sight of me. I knew right away he was going to come right into my mouth.
And I was going to swallow no matter what the cost. He may have been Alex's new crown prince, his new groom, but he and I were soulmates. He and I were Indian brothers, and I was going to do whatever it took to have him, and to have him within me as well.
Ever so gently, I stuck my teeth into the taut skin, and it made him gasp. He pinched his eyes shut and it was right then I could feel the liquid inside of my mouth. I made him come in my mouth, and I moved my head up away from his body: all the while, I dragged my teeth along that taut skin as well. A soft cry emerged from him, but I wasn't done yet.
I had come this far, I was going to keep making him come even further.
My mouth partially full of his cum, I moved my head back down again to the midpoint of his dick, and I nibbled on him again.
He breathed harder and I could feel him in my mouth some more. I moved my head back up again, and that time I let go and I swallowed. I let my tongue hang out like the dirty, filthy dog I was, and I bowed my head. I let go of my hair and let it dangle down over my shoulder.
Out of breath, he rolled his head to the side and let his arms spill out on either side of him. The taste of him riddled all throughout my mouth to the point I wanted a drink of water right then, but then again, I didn't want the taste to dissipate, either.
His chest rose and fell at a steady pace, and I crawled up to his head to look at him right in the eyes.
“That was...” he sputtered out. “That was... wow.”
“You liked that, didn't you?” I teased him, and he cracked me a smile. Not a bead of sweat one collected on the side of his head or on his neck: his skin instead presented a soft glow as if he was just warm.
“I have to do the same thing to Eric now,” he said.
“To Eric, really?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Except... how about this. I do it to him but we end up sleeping together on the beach?”
“The beach or the kitchen floor? Because I know he likes to cook, too, just like Chuck from Florida.”
He looked on at me, and then he wrinkled his nose and showed me his tongue.
“You think maybe we can play a little game of telephone and have it get over to him as well as Alex?” he suggested with a slight bout of laughter.
“Absolutely!” I started laughing at that, too. I was laughing. I was laughing, and Chuck was laughing as well.
Even though I had to do everything I could to keep Eric from doing the same thing as well as me, it was so easy.
i… don’t remember doing this one? i remember the title but that’s about it, though.
The memory of Chris still remained with her, even as she found herself in a particular part of town that she never dreamed she would ever visit. Christine's memory of her teen years was a blurred one, but therein lay the memory of having a slight curiosity about going to a place in that dark corner of the Bronx when she took the subway to visit Sabrina and her sister one afternoon. It was one of those things that had always piqued her curiosity whenever she heard about it in passing, and she even tried it when she was alone in her room, and more so after Chris' passing. It was something she had never thought she could do for another person, but merely because she found herself curious about it.
She had never considered it for herself before, and even when Alex entered her life. It was one of those things she did in private, and a few more times after she had moved into her own apartment. Her parents needn't know about it, and neither did her classmates or any friends she made along the way.
Christine peered out the subway window to the flashing lights that lined the tunnel, and she thought about all those times before when she did it in private.
That is until the train ran into something that she had never experienced before, even in all the years she had rode those trains. They came to a grinding halt right smack before the heart of the next terminal, but at least they were stopped before a plate of concrete and some benches.
The doors could open, but it wouldn't make any difference if anyone climbed aboard. All she heard was the train would be stopped for about an hour or so until they found out what happened. She was a ways off from the heart of the Bronx, and thus, she would be there for a while.
But there was a place right down the block from the subway station, and one that she never believed would be that close by in such a quaint part of town. She peered over her shoulder to ensure that no one was following her.
The red neon lights out front shone bright even though it was the middle of the afternoon and without a cloud in the sky as well, but she walked on over to the front door as if she was walking to the supermarket. There was a part of her that wanted to pull her hood over her head so no one would see her, but then again, this was a different neighborhood to her. No one there knew her, or what about of her intentions.
Christine was greeted by the fused smell of hooch and latex as well as the unmistakable smell of sex first. The black lights overhead made her green coat disappear into the darkness around her. She had become a ghost as she skirted along the side of the room towards the farthest corner away from the stages. Though it was the day shift, she still watched them stride about the stages in nothing more than their dainty little lingerie lined with lace and fishnets, and their nails as long as claws. She swallowed at the sight of the one closest to her, and one whom looked almost like her with her long dark wavy hair and shapely body: though Christine had lost some weight over the summer, she was still rather thick in comparison to this girl.
Her tall stilettos resembled to knives, and her legs were long and muscular. Christine never took her eyes off her little silk bikini, in particular the fact they were dark green the longer she looked at them, or the light little sheer top with the small buttons, either.
She watched her slowly unbutton, all the way down to her toned stomach and the waistband of her panties, and then she stooped down and showed off her chest to the three men by the edge of the stage.
Christine turned her head to watch another girl, a Puerto Rican girl with big curly hair this time, saunter over to a corner booth on the far side of the room to give the two men there a fondling with both hands before she gave each of them a lap dance.
She didn't have to hear any words said to her in order to have an idea.
All she needed was a taxi ride down to the Garment District for a little something special, and then the bus ride home. She needed to duck out of there, anyway, because she needed to save her cash money for that instead of paying the women in there, even though she knew in her heart that she owed them one.
Of course. That was it.
Sabrina would have to wait another day or two before she saw her again as she took the secrets she had learned back home with her by way of the next taxi cab followed by the next bus, all the way back down to Queens. Tomorrow was a new day at school, and one that she was eager to start with something new, and especially when she saw Alex again.
The day was going to be a special one because he had been given a brand new office, after months of having to share some table space in the teacher's lounge in the professors' wing of the school, being the adjunct he had been for what felt like forever up to that point. The word on the campus was that his new office was so small that he had barely any room for anything other than the essentials. Nevertheless, Christine brought with her the small potted succulent with the bright pink graft on top, and she stood before the narrow door with his name written on a strip of boxing tape on top. She nudged a lock of hair behind her ear before she raised her hand and knocked on the panel in front of her face.
“It's open,” he called out, and she opened the door with her free hand. He was kicking back in the chair with his feet up on the desk and a book plunked across his lap when she came inside, and his face lit up at the sight of her.
“Oh, hi! I wasn't expecting to see you there on the other side of the door.”
“I just wanted to swing by before my break ends and to say congratulations on your new office,” she told him as she handed him the plant.
“Why, thank you! It's actually a broom closet that was converted into an office, but it's something, though.” He cracked her a smile as he cradled the plant in his hands. “Something to liven the place up, I assume?”
“Of course,” she replied, and she left the door slightly ajar right behind her.
Alex's office was a cozy little room right at the very end of the line of offices on the bottom floor behind the registrar's office, just big enough for him, a small desk, a pair of chairs, and a couple of posters, one of Eddie Van Halen and the other of John Zorn, up on the wall behind him. He rested the succulent on the corner of the desk closest to her: the pale yellow light from above washed over the pink graft to where it almost resembled to a flower in full bloom in a garden, and he kept up the quaint little smile on his handsome face.
“I really wish there was a window in here,” he confessed. “Just so I can look out to the street and watch the rain and the snow. Although if I'm honest, I don't really do that much in here. I just come in here to kick back and read a book for a bit on my break between periods. I come in here to be alone for a bit.”
“You take naps in here, don't you?” she teased him.
“I haven't yet, no,” he replied with a shake of his head. “It's kind of hard to really stretch out my legs behind this desk here. It's hard enough to do it while I'm sitting upright.”
“You never lay your head down on the top of the desk and sleep?” she asked him.
“I never could do that, no,” he said with another shake of his head. “I have to be laying down flat on my back in order to fall asleep. Plus, it's only an hour, too, that's not really much of a nap. So... you know.” He shrugged his shoulders and bowed his head a bit. Christine showed him a little grin.
“It's only an hour?”
“Yeah.” He paused for a second, and then he squinted his eyes at her from behind his glasses. “Why? What're you thinking about?”
She let her tongue slither out from her lips at the sound of that, and then she pressed her hands to her hips to bring attention to her body.
“Don't tell me you're thinking about...” His voice trailed off.
“If you wanna,” she said with a shrug. “It's your call. You can... stimulate your mind for an hour, or you can stimulate something else for a few minutes.”
He chuckled at that.
“What?” she demanded.
“You're too much,” he said in a low voice.
“I'm too much? Is that what you said?”
“Look at this place, there's barely enough room in here for you and me let alone—” He flashed his eyebrows at her. “That! Sound travels in this particular wing of the school, too. Everyone is gonna hear us.”
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
“Positive. I hear conversations in the teacher's lounge all the time when I come in here. The lounge is only three doors down, too. Imagine the gossip.”
“I'm imagining it,” she confessed. “But I don't know if I care or not.”
He paused at that.
“Really?” he asked her in a low voice.
“Yeah. We'll get creative with it, too. We often are, anyways.”
“True. We certainly do.” He nibbled on his bottom lip. “I think the period's almost up.”
“I think it is, too,” she quipped. “But, you still didn't answer it, though.”
He swallowed and glanced down at the floor.
“Come on,” she insisted. “Next time you come in here, I want to make you come. I find myself thinking about you during lectures, anyway. Let's come in here to let off some steam and be alone for a while, if you know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean,” he replied in a near whisper. “I know exactly what you mean. I just think about that one room in the cafeteria that we went to for a little round or two.” He paused for a second for a glimpse up to the narrow walls all around them, and if only she knew what he was thinking right then. “I've been needing some tissues in here, too, anyways.”
“So it's a deal?” she asked him.
“It's a deal,” he answered with a wink. “Maybe... tomorrow or Thursday when our schedules have that loophole again?”
“Thursday's good for me,” she replied with a hitching up of the strap on her book bag.
“Run along now, dear Christine,” he said as he propped his feet up on the desk again: she couldn't help but let her eyes wander down to the full shape of his belly as well as his hips. She always loved the way that his body looked whenever he sat down. “Don't be late to your art history class.”
“I won't,” she vowed, and she ducked on out of there and back to the hallway. She let the door close behind her as she made her way over to Miss Callaghan's class, right around the corner from the registrar's office as well as the professors' wing. She was eager to show him what she had learned from the joint up in the Bronx, and she knew for a fact that she was going to be rather creative with it. There was a part of her that was a bit disappointed that she never had the chance to show him what she had underneath for that day, but she returned home, and she found exactly what she was looking for in the very back of her closet.
It was unlike her to wear that baggy pink flannel top as well as those old faded jeans with the gaping holes in the thighs, but she figured to say that it was winding down to laundry day and she had nothing else to wear under her green jacket. Luckily for her, the cold began to sink over New York City again, just in time for the autumn, and she could wear it with ease.
In fact, when she strode into Alex's classroom, he raised his gaze from the podium and raised an eyebrow at the sight of the flannel as well as the old denim.
“This is new,” he remarked once she took her seat in front of him.
“I've had this shirt and these pants for a long time,” she explained to him. “I have to do laundry, too.”
“I kinda like it,” he confessed. “You look... very comfortable.” He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and he showed her a sly little smile.
If only she knew what he was thinking right then.
She had an inclination to undo the first three buttons on her shirt to tease him all period long, but she decided to save it for when their breaks overlapped, and they could have some time in his office together.
Indeed, once the time came, she made her way over there, that time with her hood over her head so no one in the registrar's office would see her.
She strode up to this door and gently knocked right underneath the paper tape with his name on it.
“It's open,” Alex called out, and she slipped inside right then. She caught him right as he stood over the edge of the desk, as if he had just come inside there.
“Man, you're quick,” he declared with a smirk and a slight chuckle.
“It's what I get for working out more over the summer,” she told him, and she tugged her hood off her head. She shook her head about so her ponytail emerged out of hiding down inside of her coat, and then she gazed on at him and the befuddled look on his face.
“You wanna have a little fun in here, don't you?” he teased her, as he nudged his glasses up his nose and took off his coat: he kept it on his arms to show her his chest as well as his belly, and she took her book bag off her shoulder and set it down on the floor next to the chair.
“Baby, you know it,” she replied, and she did the same thing with her jacket as well.
“So, how do we want to do this?” he asked her once he took his coat off all the way and draped it over the back of the chair. “Standing up? On top of the desk? Backs against the wall?”
“Have a seat,” she told him with a gesture to the chair beneath him. With a little shake of his hips, he took his seat with his hands rested upon his knees. “Put your feet up, too.”
He leaned back in the chair and rested his left foot first, followed by his right one on the corner of the desk closest to him.
Christine climbed up onto the desk, and the crown of her head nearly brushed the overhead light. But it was none of her concern as she spread her legs just enough for him to look up the holes on the insides of her legs. His lips parted a bit at the sight of her as she towered up above him. There was nothing to steady her should she lose her balance, but she took the strippers' word for it, and she envisioned a pole right next to her.
“Pretend this is your strip club,” she told him in a near whisper so no one outside the door could hear her. “And I am the one throwing you your bachelor party.”
He licked his lips at the sight of her as she spread her feet across the top of the desk: she gazed down at him and the shape of his body right beneath her. She licked her lips at the round shape of his belly and the way his arms accentuated his body as he kept them tucked in on either side.
“You really have such a beautiful body,” she told him.
“So do you,” he retorted.
“You're all—chubby and round,” she remarked, and Chris burst into her mind right then. “It makes me want to hold you and love every inch of you.”
His eyes grazed up the shape of her legs, from her bare feet all the way up her lower legs to her knees and her thighs: she watched his eyes lock onto the holes on the inside of her thighs.
“Keep you all to myself,” she added, that time in a breathy whisper. He hooded his eyes at her, and he nudged his glasses down the bridge of his nose for a better look at her.
“You would do that?” he asked her, also in a breathy whisper.
“For you, baby, anything.” She turned to the side so he could see her ass, shrouded in that faded old denim. Despite the holes on the inside of her thighs, it fit her rather snugly at the back, and she knew that it accentuated the shape. She took a step forward to strut as much as she could before she reached the edge of the desk, and she wheeled around so he could see her other side. She returned to the spot in front of him, and that time to unbutton the flannel shirt. She moved slowly down the buttons, and each one he raised his eyebrows a bit more, but she never opened the shirt to show him what lay underneath there. She took a glance down at his jeans, in particular the fabric over his crotch and the way it stretched a bit more. She glimpsed up to his face and his tongue as it slithered out from his lips.
He wanted it. And most of all, he wanted that feeling of being the small one in their whole affair. She could sense it, just from the look in his eyes, and the way that he never moved a muscle in the rest of his body away from that one part of his jeans. He gave himself to her all without doing anything.
“So, what're you gonna do, like give me a lap dance or something?” he asked her; he stopped dead in his tracks as she let the flannel slide right off her body. The soft fabric revealed the edges of her breasts to him, to which he raised his eyebrows at her. She let her tongue slither out from her lips as she exposed the very top edge of her nipples to him. Alex finally shifted his weight at the sight of her.
Her pants slacked around her hips, and all she needed was a few gyrations of them to take them off. He swallowed and shifted his weight again. No way out of that room other than through the door, and he was going to have to skirt around the desk just to get there. And most of all, he wasn't going to be able to do that without brushing against either of her legs.
She stooped over and the flannel fell right off her chest and her shoulders. Her nipples were taut and erect from the thought of being in there with him.
Alex breathed harder at the sight of her, and she knew it was the sight of her breasts as well as her shoulders. The way the light hit the curvature of her shoulders and the milky skin on top. The way that her dark nipples seemed even darker as the flannel slid further down her body towards her hips.
She clutched to the inside of the flannel just to further tease him.
The denim between his hips seemed even tighter than it was a few seconds before then. There was a part of her that wanted to let her jeans drop down to her knees, just to show him the lace panties she had worn to school that day. He breathed harder at the sight of her jeans, just hanging onto the tops of her hips for dear life. All she needed to do was gyrate them about to let them fall.
“What are you going to do to me?” he sputtered out, and careful not to fall over, she knelt down on one knee, followed by the other. He never lifted his gaze from her bare chest and the top of her stomach for a single second, and especially once she leaned forward to be face to face with him.
“I'm going to do what she could never give you,” she whispered to him, and she lightly kissed the full tip of his nose, which in turn brought a soft gasp followed by a low moan out of him. She stayed knelt down on the edge of the desk, and she reached down for the zipper on his jeans. She could feel the warmth of his flesh even as she hovered her hand there over him.
Carefully, she opened up his jeans and nudged back the band of his underwear to reveal himself to her. She steadied herself with one hand as she reached inside for a sweet caress of that taut, warm skin. He was fully erect, and she could give him a lap dance if she so wished and if there was enough space.
But she was more than happy to fondle him with nothing more than her fingers.
Alex himself meanwhile clutched at the wall with one hand and clung to the edge of the desk with the other. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back from the soft touches of her fingers and the palm of her hand. He parted his lips and let out a low whistle from the feeling.
Christine moved her chest in closer to his face, and he opened his eyes just in time to see her nipples.
“Tight as a cherry,” he breathed out, and she showed him her tongue. “Can I touch you?” His warm, round voice sank down to a light whimper, as if she had brought out the curious teenage boy in him once again. It was only for a split second, but she pictured Chris right there before her. Those brown eyes in lieu of the light ones that latched onto her like the deadly scorpion he was meant to be.
“Only if I can touch you,” she followed suit, and she ran the tip of her thumb along the very top of his head. She stuck her thumb nail into that tiny hole, which made him close his eyes once again. His mouth dropped fully agape from the feeling, and she knew she had him in the palm of her hand.
His body curled forward, and he breathed even harder.
“Oh, god—” He nearly choked out the words. She licked her lips at the smooth feeling of his delicate skin there. He was so firm and warm that she wanted to keep going with it. He opened his eyes again, and that time he reached for the flannel and tugged it off the rest of the way from her body. He buried his face in between her breasts, and he covered her skin in nothing more than kisses and little laps of his tongue.
She finally let go of him, and she held his head to her chest so he could take in the feeling and scent of her skin some more. She tilted her head back and giggled as his tongue and his cherry lips tickled her a great deal. She strove to keep her voice down, but she couldn't help it: he tickled her and it only made her hips buck at the feeling. She was so absorbed in the light feathery feeling of his tongue and his lips that she paid no attention to the fact that he had slipped his hand down her loose jeans to give her a fingering.
The next thing she knew, she gasped at the feeling of those long guitar player fingers right on the head of her clit, and then she panted from her heart racing within her. Alex lifted his head to show her that his glasses had become crooked, and his face was flushed; Christine glanced down to find that pearly white liquid at tip of his dick, right where her thumb had been not even a minute before. She held his head to her bare chest, and he clasped a hand to her bare belly.
“Sometimes all we need is some softness,” she pointed out. “We need not be so noisy.”
“Phew...” was all he could muster out right then.
“Let me get you a tissue,” she kindly said to him, and she reached behind her to the tissue box next to the succulent, which still remained erect despite her walking around atop the desk. “Clean up a little before the hour is up.”
“Please,” he begged in a broken voice, and he moved his hand off her belly to adjust his glasses.
