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❝ 𝓦𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 ? ❞
𝑵𝑶𝑾 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝒀𝑰𝑵𝑮 // 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑀𝑂𝑅𝑁𝐼𝑁𝐺 the weekend . drew’s favorite brunette. kitten heels. 8teen. ♓︎. clark kent enthusiast. hopeless romantic. 888. lip liner. cinephile. silver. kali uchis. stiletto nails. romcom connoisseur
impregnate me.
PRETTY IN PINK!— RAFE CAMERON
pairing; rafe cameron x fem!ditzy!reader
summary; rafe refuses to wear the new gift you got him, but no one was surprised when they saw him walk into the country club decked out in his girls favourite color. he'd like to think he wears the pants in the relationship, but his girl always get she wants.
warnings; sappy and cringy! but in like a cute way.
"rafey!"
your soft voice echos throughout tanny hill as the door slams closed, the sound of your multiple shopping bags rustling become louder and louder as you walk into your boyfriends room.
"guess what i got!" you squealed, dropping all your bags onto the floor as you walked over to him. rafe was sat on his bed, his phone that was in his hands seconds ago now discarded as he looked up at you.
"what baby? something pretty?" you giggled as his question, making him crack a smile as he beckoned you to come closer with his fingers. your lips met for a soft kiss as you bent down, his rough hands making contact with the fat of your ass that was peeking out of your soft pink skirt.
you almost let yourself melt into the kiss before remembering your task, pulling back and earning a groan from your boyfriend. "well obviously, but i saw something and i had to get it. you're gonna be so excited"
he watched closely as you bent down to your shopping bags on the floor, riffling through them to find what you were looking for. he was expecting you to pull out a sparkly pink top or something to that effect, that looks nearly exactly the same as the ones you already have, but he would never say that to you.
you made a noise of excitment as you found what you were looking for, shooting up to face rafe as you hid the item behind your back.
"you ready?" you asked "as ready as ill ever be" rafe answers back.
he watched as you pulled a light pink coral-colored polo behind from behind your back, holding it up to him as you smiled brightly.
"look its pink!"
"i can see that baby, thank you" he answered, taking one look at the shirt and deciding that it would soon collect dust in the back of his closet.
he appreciated the thought and all, but he has no idea how many pink glittery versions of things you had found for him on your many shopping sprees that have now been long forgotten in his draws.
"i saw it and i knew it would be so perfect for you to wear to the country club tomorrow!" you said nonchalantly, grinning from ear to ear as you folded it gently and rested it softly upon his dresser.
rafe's eyes went wide at the statement. he knew that there was no way you would let him walk out of the house without that polo on without tears welling in your eyes and a pout resting on your lips, but he also knew there was no way he wasn't going to be ripped to threads if he showed up to play golf in that.
"i think we're doing a bit of a blue theme tomorrow baby" he states, your head turning back to face him immediately at his words, a slight narrow to your doe-like eyes.
"you don't do themes" you replied, not quite yet figuring out what he was plotting. never in your whole life of knowing rafe cameron have you ever heard him do a theme for the country club.
"well, uh. i just... i can't wear that shirt tomorrow. i will next time, promise" he knows how smart you are, that's a thing he loves about you, but you're not falling for his shit for a second.
"ok rafe" you replied. if your tone wasn't clue enough that you were upset, calling him rafe instead of your usual rafey made it crystal clear.
he watched as you turned back to the dresser, taking the folded pink polo and placing it neatly in his bottom draw, bending down so he could see nearly the whole expanse of your ass.
he knew what you were doing, but that didn't make him fall for it any less.
rafe knew he was done for the second your single soft sniffle ping in his ears, almost rolling his eyes but never giving in.
"babyyy" he drawled, rising from his spot on his bed and placing his hands softly on your hips while you stood stone cold in front of the dresser. "what's got you crying and sniffiling?"
"you don't like my present." you responded, turning around to face his chest as tears welled in your eyes, a pout painting your wobbling lip.
"no! no. baby i do. i love it. it's perfect" he replied, attempting to claw himself out of the hole he's created with his girlfriend.
"no you don't." you replied, placing your hands flat on his broad chest as his grip still remained tight on your hips, trying to softly push him away but making no effort to even get close to doing so.
"yes i do. because you picked it out for me." rafe responded, your head lifting at his words as you looked up at him through your tear soaked eyelashes.
"so why don't you want to wear it?"
"i do, i really do. just not to the country club" he stated, nearly punching himself for the words that came out of his mouth.
"oh, ok. it's fine. i understand" you replied. he and you both know you were lying straight through your teeth.
"i'll wear it next time, i swear" trying to prove to himself that he won't drop to his knees the second a tear trails down your cheeks.
you nodded softly, trailing into the bathroom and shutting the door behind you.
he sighed to himself, finally winning something between you two that proved he doesn't do everything you say.
rafe smirked to himself in the mirror hung on his wall, looking down at the polo resting in the open draw of his dresser and kicking it shut. emerging victorious.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
your white pumps clacked softly against the floorboard of the hallways of the country club. your soft pink skirt reaching barely over your thighs and your white jumper falling perfectly off your shoulder.
rafe's arm was slung lazily around your waist, resting heavily on your body as you both approached topper and kelce.
topper scanned you and rafe, smirking as he spoke.
"aw, wait thats actually adorable. y'all are matching"
Clueless (1995) dir. Amy Heckerling
taking care of business — 18+
synopsis. the leader of the construction team keeps making eyes at you.
part of my kinktober series!
you stand in the kitchen as the men trickle in for the morning. the entire crew files in with heavy boots and curt greetings to you and your husband, but they fill up the space like it belongs to them. your husband hadn't told you they were coming so early, otherwise you would've made the effort to look more presentable. the robe, silk tank top and matching shorts you have on underneath must look pretty bold to the big group of men now in your house.
still, the getup would've got an actual husband out of his chair if he cared at all. but yours just sits there at the table, scrolling his phone, chewing his breakfast without a shred of emotion on his face. he doesn't look at you once. not even when you brush past him for the kettle, not when one of the guys murmurs damn under his breath thinking you didn't hear.
your husband has always been quiet and reserved, but for the last few months, he's just been outright cold. closed off, and behaving as if affection is something he's allergic to. you speak to him, saying; "they'll be tearing out the wall today," and he hums without lifting his eyes, or giving you a simple response to let you feel seen. his fingers tap on the screen. that's it.
it's noticeable, too. the workers see how a person as beautiful as you is completely invisible to their husband. the foreman notices this the most. the biggest guy there, the one who always ducks slightly under your doorframes, whose shirts cling to the thickness of his shoulders.
since he's started the renovations, he's been looking at you a little too long and making the effort to get well acquainted with you through daily greetings and soft smiles. he's already watching from the entryway, arms crossed as he scans your body.
your husband doesn't see a thing.
he stands up eventually, plate half-full still, taking his keys and mumbling some line about being late. he does give you a half-hearted kiss on the cheek, which is better than nothing, you think, but certainly a performative act for the man watching the two of you intently.
when the door closes, the silence that comes after it feels heavy. you feel the shift instantly. wanting to mind your own business, you let the men get to work while you busy yourself with tidying the counter, but you feel him approach slowly, quiet confidence in the way his boots hit the floor.
he stops behind you. close.
"you know," he says quietly, "you really shouldn't be walking around dressed like that when he's not paying attention."
you swallow, fingers tightening around rag in your hand.
you don't turn around at his voice, trying to steady your heart rate by taking deep, slow breaths and trying to concentrate on other things. not about how he's been staring at you and making little comments to you like this for days on end knowing your self control has been wavering day by day. you've even started having dreams about him these days.
"hey," he murmurs, tearing you out of your thoughts "don't get all stiff on me. i didn't mean anything bad." his voice smoothens out, and then you feel body heat at the back of your neck. he's close now. not touching, but way too close for comfort.
"i just meant you look real pretty this morning."
"... thank you." is the best you can muster out with the way your heart races. you can feel your body being shrouded by his frame, a shadow casted over you from behind. he's so big. scarily so. you wonder what those hands could do on your body.
"you should see your face," he adds gently. "all shy like that. you get shiny eyes every time i give you a compliment."
you can hear the smile in his voice. he's so good at making you feel flustered and wanted, using sweet, admiring words while using fleeting, hardly noticeable touches on you to make you crumble slowly. as if on cue, he extends a hand past your hip, not touching you, just reaching for the notepad sitting on the counter near your elbow. his fingers brush your body on purpose. barely, but your whole body reacts.
"mm," he murmurs, "there it is."
you finally turn your head just enough to catch his eyes over your shoulder, and he's smiling at you, amused.
"good morning," he says softly, voice coaxing. "your husband didn't say it, so i will." he tilts his head, studying you curiously. then he takes another slow step toward your side, his boots quiet on the tile, his presence overwhelming you.
you force yourself to speak. "s-shouldn't you be working?"
he hums, eyes still on you.
"mm. i could be. or i could be a real gentleman and make sure you're alright first."
you finally meet his gaze fully, turning your whole body to face him. he grins, placing his hands on either side of you to cage you in against the counter while leaning in closer. "tell me something. my guys aren't bothering you, are they?"
you blink, thrown. "no. they're fine."
he nods slowly, approving. "good. 'cause if any of 'em ever make you uncomfortable, you just say the word, sweetheart. i'll take care of it." then, he lifts your hand off the counter delicately, and brings your knuckles to his lips, pressing the softest kiss to the back of your hand.
your breath leaves your body entirely. frozen, you look down at your hand, then his eyes. you hadn't expected such an act of gentleness and chivalry, and for a second you wonder if he's actively trying to seduce you. he even kissed the hand where you wear your ring.
he lowers your hand slowly but doesn't drop it, holding it between both of his big palms like he's warming it. you haven't had this amount of attention and affection with no hesitation for a while now, and the touch-starved part of you purrs at how fixated this handsome man seems to be with you. you feel how obvious it is that you're flustered. your pulse is racing and your neck and face feel warm. no doubt noticeable to him, too.
"see?" he says softly. "didn't take much to get you smiling a little." he lets go of your hand only to straighten up and smile, giving you a once over before walking away.
when you're standing in the living room, trying to move some of your belongings out of the space to make sure they aren't affected by the construction going on in the area, he appears again behind you.
you step to the side to let him through, but you misjudge the space, or maybe you don't. maybe something in you wants him closer and have the excuse to bump into him, when suddenly his hands are on your hips. both of his large, warm, firm hands.
"whoa there, gorgeous," he murmurs, steadying you. "don't want you running into me that hard."
you freeze. he's behind you now, chest brushing your back, his body heat completely swallowing yours. and then he moves. except he doesn't pass you. he slides past you, slowly.
your hip shifts under his hands, and you feel the full, unmistakable drag of his thick bulge brush across the swell of your backside. "'scuse me, sweetheart…"
it's heavy. fat. hot even through the fabric. the gasp that leaves your mouth is completely involuntary. his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on your hips, so gentle someone else might miss it, but you don't. he hums a soft apology into the side of your neck.
"really narrow doorway," he murmurs casually, absolutely not sorry. "didn't mean to crowd you like that." he steps into the living room fully now, letting his hands fall away, but not before his fingers drag along the curve of your waist.
he turns back around once he's past you, eyes tracing your face like he's checking if you're shaken, and when he sees you are, he's sure to rub salt on the wound by asking; "hey, you alright?"
you nod too quickly, and he bites back a laugh.
"cute."
you decide to slip away and hide yourself in your room the first chance you get. you shouldn't, because it's ridiculous to hide in your own house as if you're doing something wrong. but the heat between your thighs won't calm down as long as you're near him, no matter how many deep breaths you take.
your guilt makes it worse. it makes your stomach churn because you shouldn't be reacting to another man like this, you shouldn't crave his hands, his voice, his body pressed to yours, even if your husband is neglectful and cold and probably has his own affair going on behind his back.
so you retreat to your room, shut the door gently, lean your forehead against the wood and try to breathe. you don't even know how long you stay there. long enough to hear boots moving through the house, voices fading as the crew packs up, tools clinking, doors closing.
you creep down the stairs, trying to look normal. but when you hit the bottom step, he's there. he was waiting for you.
leaned against the entryway wall like he belongs there, arms crossed, shirt clinging to his shoulders, sweat still shining faintly on his body from a long day's work. he lifts his eyes the second you appear. "hey," he says quietly.
ee pushes off the wall with one boot, steps toward you, just one step. enough to fill the hallway with his size. "we're done for the day," he adds, "waited to say goodbye."
you open your mouth to acknowledge how he'd stayed for you. even an okay, or great, would suffice, something quick and polite, but nothing comes out.
"you've been thinking about me."
his voice comes out deep and smug, and he tilts his head and stares down at you. how did he come to that conclusion just by looking at you? you'd barely said anything, but somehow, he just knew. he knew you'd ran away and hid like a coward because you were feeling guilty about wanting him to bend you over the counter and fuck you raw in the new kitchen your husband's paying for.
"thats why you disappeared, hm?" he whispers. "couldn't get me outta your head."
you let out a breathy gasp as his hands find your body again to pull you closer. he's right, frighteningly so, and you don't know how he could've come up with it. had you been this obvious? had you acted like this when your husband was home, too?
"and you're soaked, aren't you? you've been soaked since this morning when i was whispering in your ear..." his hands descend to your pants, lightly traveling down to when your underwear is, and he presses two fingers up against the cloth, causing you to moan and drop your body against his as he plays with your embarrassingly soaked hole.
"aw." he tuts, "you are wet. you like me that much, hm sweetheart?" he whispers in your ear, rubbing languid circles on you with the rough, thick pads of his fingers. your eyes roll and your breathing gets heavier and deeper as he plays with you. he dips his head to whisper in your ear then. "you want me to stop?" he asks softly.
you shake your head no, and before you can say anymore, he's scooped you up and carries you upstairs.
you're flat against the sheets, your stomach pressed into the mattress, hips lifted slightly as the weight of his body presses you into the mattress. his arm is around your neck, the other reaching under you to cup your tits as he fucks you in prone, slamming into you balls deep, tip kissing your womb.
"oh, fuck," he groans, voice vibrating against your ear, "y'so soft and wet, is all this for me? husband can't fuck you like i'm fucking you right now, can he?"
your body shudders, tries to move but can't. he leans closer, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he thrusts deeper, thick length stretching you to the hilt as he pounds you into the mattress. with how your husband's been neglecting you, being fucked by a man with a cock this size is so much more intense.
every harsh, greedy thrust drives the shame away and deepens your need for him. your wetness coats his cock, and he coos and how little you're able to control yourself, each drag of his cock stretching and rubbing against your walls coaxing desperate whines from your throat that you can't stop.
his hand under you kneads your breast, thumb circling the hardened peak pulling just enough to make you gasp and arch against him, hips lifting uncontrollably as he slams balls-deep again. his cock keeps brushing that tender spot deep inside you that makes your vision hazy.
you're so far gone that you've started drooling onto the pillow beneath you as he keeps driving into you with resounding plap plap plap noises due to the amount of slick between you. each thrust is heavier, as if his balls are getting more full with the urge to spill inside you. his free hand finds your fingers, lacing his through yours from above. he holds them tight and grazes the curve of your neck with his teeth. "aw, look at you. all dizzy from how good im fucking you, hm? feels good, honey?"
you whimper a pathetic excuse of a "yes," your hips arching back as he drives in again, tipp kissing your cervix. drool drips down your chin as he continues crooning in your ear, amused by how completely undone you are after so long without a proper fucking. "y'get all slutty like this for some good dick, hm? how long has that idiot been neglecting you?"
your fingers twitch in his grip as he suddenly slips his hand over the band of your wedding ring, brushing it lightly with his thumb. he pulls the ring off your finger, sliding it up with deliberate slowness, as he thrusts even harder, hips smacking into yours. he tosses the ring haphazardly onto your bedside table, pulling you up so your face is in the pillow and your ass is high in the air. then he slams forward again, the momentum driving your chest into the mattress.
he slaps your ass, watching the flesh jiggle back into place. he hopes he leaves a mark, now driving into you roughly, fat cock stretching your walls with each deep thrust. he grabs onto your hips and pulls you back to fuck you onto his cock like a toy while you moan and cry out at his manhandling.
you're so loud that one would think that the possibility of your husband coming home any minute now has left your head entirely. "forget him, hm? anytime you need this pretty pussy pounded, you just come to me. no more hiding." he groans loudly, cursing lowly as your pussy milks his cock and sucks it in deeper every time he tries to pull back.
your body trembles, but your hips push back with every thrust as if your body has a mind of its own, lifting and meeting him halfway while you moan and plead for more shamelessly. you can't last much longer, and if he keeps rubbing against that sweet spot deep in your guts...
his cock keeps curving inside you each time you press your ass back to his pelvis to swallow all of his cock inside you, and when his hot, throbbing tip bullies your cervix when he bottoms out, you can't last any longer, high pitched, strung out moans leaving you as you cream on his cock. your pussy squeezes his cock as he keeps moving inside you in perfect rhythm, dragging you through every coil of pleasure until your vision blurs.
he slams one last time, leaning down so his chest presses to your back. "'m gonna breed this pussy full, baby, mngh, fuck- y'gotta, swallow it up with your pussy, yeah?." he groans as his cock throbs inside you, pulsing, balls slapping into your ass.
he tips his head back and stills his hip, pressing his tip right at your womb as hot streams of his thick cum flood inside you, his hands still gripping your hips with his fingers pressing into your flesh as he rides it out. he fills you up completely, multiple loads spilling deep inside of you until he drags out with a soaked pop.
a thick trail of cum follows his softening cock before breaking onto your skin. reaching down, he deftly follows the globs of cum with his fingers and pushes it back inside your flushed, swollen pussy, moaning at the sight of you taking it back in.
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fucking the school loser behind your bf's back — 18+
⤿ pt i here!
he groans lowly and grabs for your waist, tugging you into him and kissing you messily. he doesn't let you catch your breath for a second, merely scooping you up with his hands under your thighs while he carries you, lips on yours, to his car out in the lot behind the football field.
your hands tangle up in his hair while your tongue rolls over his. for someone as strange and unsettling as him, he tastes oddly pleasant, like mint and smoke. his lips, though chapped, mould on yours so perfectly that it feels like he's made for you. he squeezes your thighs and nips your lower lip, murmuring into your mouth, "you're not walking into that stadium again unless it's with my cum dripping out of you."
you moan into his thought, warm and fuzzy at the idea of him breeding you in the back of his car and making you walk back to the pitch when he's done with his cum stuffed in you and dripping out every step you take.
your arms lace tighter around his shoulders as you go back to kissing him, tilting your head to get the perfect angle of your tongue against his, and your mewls get louder when you do. "mmh, mmh..." you hum softly.
his mouth moves against yours urgently, almost as if he's starving. his tongue slides against yours as he walks with you in his arms, slotting into your mouth in messy, wet strokes that make heatwaves travel through your body and pool at your core.
"you taste so sweet," you can feel how hard he's breathing and he squeezes you tightly like you might run away and never talk to him again after this.
you pull back just enough to breathe and he chases after you, lips dragging down to your jaw, your neck, his mouth warm and frantic. "don't stop," he mumbles against your skin, breath hot, voice wrecked. "give it back t'me. come on, pretty. kiss me again."
you oblige and shove your mouth back into his just as he reaches his sleek car, and he fists his pocket to find his keys, unlocking it without pulling away from you, and lays you down in the backseat under him with no effort. it smells like cedar and his natural, everyday scent. he doesn't let up off you for a second, already spreading your thighs apart so he can slot his body between your legs.
you're so small underneath him, pliant and needy and reaching up to tug at his clothes and his hair to ground yourself while he strips you fully, not wanting an inch of you covered. he could afford to do so, as his tinted windows and huge body hid you from any passerby that may wander near his car, though he doubts anyone would be anywhere but the game right now. anyone normal, of course. not little brats like you who wanna get pounded in the backseat of some social reject's car.
he's quick to strip you of every article of clothing on you except for your cute knee high socks and the lacy stretch of your panties, which are now so soaked that they've become sticky and translucent and stick to the plump lips of your pussy. "look at the nasty lil' mess you made." he tuts, voice mocking as his thumb runs over the outline of your cunt through your panties, which makes you jolt and instinctively reach to claw at his hand.
"w-wait! 'm sensitive," you whine, extremely tender from cumming so much already, but he doesn't seem to care at all. he pushes you back into place, grabbing your wrists firmly and pinning them above you with one of his huge hands. "no shying away after you begged me to fuck you like a little whore. you're gettin' what you asked for." he says sternly, still rubbing you through your panties.
you squirm beneath him, bucking up into his hand before wiggling away due to overstimulation. you don't know if you want more or less. your panties grind against his fingers, and he pushes his fingers up against your panties so your juices squelch and make a huge mess in your underwear.
he drags his thumb up slowly and presses just right against the swollen, soaked outline of your clit through the thin fabric, and you moan, high and whiny. he finally, finally pushes your panties aside, exposing your glistening cunt to the cool air of the car, and his eyes go hazy at the sight of the mess between your thighs. "fuck, you're so pretty down here," he mutters, fingers dipping into your folds, spreading you open with ease. he tosses your panties somewhere in the heap of your clothes at the floor of his car.
his fingers slip through your soaked, swollen folds easily, and he relishes in the little gasp you make as he notches his fingers knuckles deep inside you, twisting and curling his fingers immediately to stretch you out. his eyes are locked on the slick that strings from your pussy to the base of his fingers, and he groans in delight. you're this soaked for him. only him. he swirls his thumb around the tight ring of your asshole in the meantime, not pushing in yet, but to spread your slick around to your other hole too. "mmh, please, 'm sore," you whine, knowing how much you want it anyway.
"shh... you don't want me to stop. look at your pussy, she's gushing. didn't even need to prep you," he mocks, pumping his fingers into you fast and rough, your toes are curling against the leather backseat and your head lolls back, mouth falling open as loud moans leave you. you can't even respond anymore to tell him not to tease you, because your soaked cunt pulses every time he says something mean.
he pushes his fingers down inside you, the pads of his fingers resting still on that sweet spot deep inside you, while he fumbles with his belt and begins to tug down his pants and boxers. but too much pressure on such a sensitive spot inside you, which already experienced so much stimulation is far too much for you. you thrash underneath him, feeling a very odd coiling feeling in your tummy, and also the need to pee...
"w-wait-! take your fingers out, p-please, i think... i think 'm gonna..!"
he shushes you, slipping in a third finger. he uses all three of them to push down hard on that spot, and before you can stop yourself, you're gushing around his fingers intensely with a scream so loud he has to let go of your wrists to cover your mouth.
he freezes once you squirt around his fingers which remain buried deeply inside your fluttering walls, and as you gush all over his hand in several hard, uncontrollable pulses, his eyes go wide, pupils blown out, and he leans back slightly to watch. "...oh, fuck."
his voice is quiet at first, like he genuinely can't believe what he just saw.
he looks down at you, eyes flicking from your soaked pussy and thighs to your brightly flushed face, then back to the ruined state of your pussy. "you just..." he breathes, curling his fingers inside you experimentally, which makes you jerk under him and gush a little more around him. he's fascinated. a girl like you can't be real, can you? "...squirted on my fingers."
he doesn't even try to hide how turned on he is. despite cumming earlier from frotting with you back outside behind the bleachers, he's rock hard again, cock bulging at the front of his cum soaked pants. he lifts his soaked hand up and parts his fingers to look at the gooey strings between him, and then pushes two fingers into his mouth, licking at your juices. you squeak, embarrassed beyond belief and red in the face, but still too far gone to tell him how dirty he's making you feel right now.
moaning at your taste, he pulls his boxers down to rest at his knees with his jeans, and his fat cock springs up, swollen and flushed a bright red at the huge, flared tip, with several strings of pearlescent liquid clinging to the fabric of his discarded boxers and more leaking down the shaft. you're both soaked. he lets go of you just long enough to line himself up at your soaked entrance, nudging the tip through your folds and collecting your slick. his other hand comes up to grab your throat, so he's holding you still, grounding you in place.
he makes sure to stare into your eyes intently as he slowly sheathes himself inside you. he sinks in slow at first, just the thick, heavy head of his cock pressing into your fluttering hole, and you gasp, arms wrapping around his neck, eyes rolling back, feet digging into the seat.
you whimper, nails scrabbling at his shoulders the second he frees your hands to hold onto your throat and hips. he leans down to kiss you again while you adjust to his size, fat tip swelling at your womb while he rests inside you and swirls his tongue around yours. he starts to move, slow at first, hips rolling, grinding, both of you panting into each other's mouths, your thighs shaking with every bounce. he pulls back just a little to murmur against your lips, "mnhh, shit, this pussy's fuckin' choking me."
you cry out under him, overwhelmed by the stretch and the sensation of his thick cock splitting you open inch by inch. it burns, but it's good. your body clenches around him helplessly. "too much... mmmh.... s'too big," you babble, but your hips don't stop moving under him, fucking yourself onto his cock even as tears prick the corners of your eyes.
"yeah?" he groans, fucking you so deep you swear you can feel him in your stomach. "but you said please, baby. remember? begged me to fuck you. so take it." he bottoms in and out in rough thrusts that make your whole body jolt, ensuring each thrust has him fully inside you. you're so soaked that he slides in perfectly every time, your walls clinging to him deliciously while his cock also slips inside you with filthy, loud schlick's. he's sliding in like nothing, your walls clenching and sucking him in tighter with every thrust while your slick soaks his shaft.
the car rocks as he thrusts into you, his cock splitting you open with each thrust deep inside you. your pussy stretches slightly to accommodate to is girth, and he feels his mind numbing at the way your pussy slurps him in with each thrust. he groans loud, head tipping back and his hand squeezing firmer around your throat to make your eyes flutter. not for long, though. he likes to look into your pretty eyes while he ruins you.
"open 'em," he demands, squeezing a little on the sides of your throat to jolt you back to the present. he slams into you with a particularly rough thrust, your tits bouncing and head lolling stupidly at the feeling of being fucked dumb on the school loser's huge fucking dick. "there you go. such a good girl f'me, aren't you?"
"uh... uh... uhhuhhh...." you breathe out stupidly, drool slipping past your parted lips. your fingers dig into his broad shoulders and then trail down his body, exploring his broad frame and muscles. before you look back into his eyes. he chuckles, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to your swollen lips, the gentleness contrasting the way he's pounding into you and holding your throat. "look at you." he hums. "forgot you're a disloyal little whore, didn't you?"
he snaps his hips up into yours, a small bulge forming in your tummy where he lodges his cock so deep inside you. "or maybe," he sneers, "you just don't care about anything but having your cunt stuffed to the brim."
you cry out, dragging him down so you can bury your face in his neck, and he kisses your jaw, fucking you while laying on top of you. "cum for me again," he demands, lips brushing your temple while his hips roll into yours. your legs tremble and curl around his waist, each thrust making your pussy flutter around him. you try to clamp down on him, but his girth makes it so difficult.
he's splitting you open with every drag of his cock against your raw, plushy walls. sobbing into his skin, he mumbles filth into your ear while his hands travel down to your waist and he drags your body up effortlessly so his cock is tilted up inside you, the perfect angle for him to hit that same spongy spot inside you over and over, making your mouth drop open in a silent scream. you clamp around him hard, fingernails digging into the firm muscle of his back. the pressure inside you winds tight, tight, tighter...
" 'm cumming!"
you explode around him, pussy convulsing around his cock. your whole body seizes, a strangled moan ripping out of you while you cream around him uncontrollably.
"look at you," he moans, watching your pussy pulse around him, fluttering on his cock like you were made for it. "holy shit, baby."
he pulls out just enough to see your slick gush after him before slamming back in, making you sob. he shoves your thighs up higher, practically folding you in half now, forcing you open wide so he can fuck even deeper. the wet, obscene sound of your cunt sucking him in grows louder with every thrust, echoing in the small space of the car, and he grits out, "you feel that? feel how deep i am? gonna fill you up, fuck, 'm gonna breed you."
your head spins and you nod frantically, moaning out broken, babbled yes's, even as tears slip from the corners of your eyes.
he buries himself to the hilt and cums hotly inside with a deep groan, heavy, fat balls twitching as he empties them deep inside you, so much at once that you can feel your womb filling up to the hilt. he keeps you locked against him so all of it floods inside you. "ngh... 's such a fuckin' perfect pussy," he groans aloud, mouth falling open as he keeps filling you and filling you and filling you until your belly distends just slightly from the volume of his cum.
you're gasping, clinging to him, body limp beneath him while you both ride it out together. he pants into your mouth, breathing hard, kissing you through the aftershocks. his voice is low, barely audible, wrecked. "mine. fuckin' mine. look what you do to me."
he stays inside you, twitching every now and then as your fluttering walls milk him, your slick and his cum seeping out around the base of his cock.
_
you make your way back to the football field with wobbly legs and your cheeks flushed. you tried your best to fix yourself up before going back, raking your fingers through your hair, redoing your mascara and touching up your lip gloss, praying it hides how swollen and red he made your lips.
you put your hair down so any marks on your skin aren't visible, not that your dumbass boyfriend looks at you close enough to be able to tell. the loner's cum is still hot and thick inside you, leaking a little down your inner thighs with every step, wetting the inside of your cheer skirt while the rest pools into fat globs in your panties.
the crowd is screaming loudly and your cheer girls are bouncing and huddled up with the football team. the whole field is lit up in bright stadium lights, and no one is looking around for you right now. you use it as an opportunity to slide in through the back fence and under the bleachers to act like you'd been here the whole time, and you go to where the other cheerleaders are. unfortunately, you weren't as subtle as you thought.
ava, one of the girls in your year that you usually hang out with at lunch squeals and grabs your arm. causing the other girls to quickly turn their attention to you too. "where were you?" she screeches. "coach was looking for you!"
you blink coyly, rubbing the back of your neck to give the impression of being embarrassed. "i just really had to pee," you lie "mid routine, but then i couldn't find the right bathroom, an' i got mixed up and all of them had super long lines, and i'm so sorry, i was literally crying the whole time-" you sniffle.
the girls coo over you. you're just too sweet and cute to be mad at. so sweet, that no one would ever think you just got fucked in the back of the school loser's car.
then, your boyfriend barrels into you, carrying the unpleasant scent of sweat from the exertion he produced while on the field. he yells your name and picks you up with both arms around your waist, causing a fresh scoop of cum to trickle out of you. you squeak, hoping it's not noticeable, and he spins you in a circle. "there you are!" he shouts, loud and giddy, "my girl! babe, we fucking crushed it!"
he kisses you hard, and you giggle awkwardly, letting him brag about his win like he didn't just get cheated on for the past hour and a half. "i was watching," you lie with a perfect little tilt of your head. "I saw everything! you did so good!."
and that's when he walks up. he stands out of the crowd on his own, mouth red, eyes low, and hair a little mussed. there are faint lipgloss marks on his neck and jaw that he didn't wipe off.
he's walked in like nothing's happened, stopping at the edge of the crowd with his gaze locked on you very blatantly. you stare back while in your boyfriend's arms, and he follows your gaze and scowls quickly, arms tightening around you. "the fuck is that guy looking at?" he snaps, his voice obnoxiously loud. "why is he staring at you like that?"
you blink innocently, letting your eyes go all wide and confused. "who?"
"him," your boyfriend hisses, nodding over your shoulder. "that fucking creep. what the hell is his problem?"
you shrug, still looking at him, not your boyfriend. "um... i dunno... maybe he's high?"
your boyfriend scoffs, and tugs you in closer like he's marking territory. "yeah, well, he can fuck off. that fucking freak's probably just scoping out girls he can perv out on. probably watches porn in his room all day."
he doesn't look away from you, even as your boyfriend runs his mouth. you wonder if he can still smell your perfume on his hoodie. you hug your boyfriend back and lean into him, coaxing him to just leave it. he obliges and carries you back to the crowd to celebrate, and you look over your shoulder one last time to see him finally turn and walk away.
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fucking the school loser behind your bf's back — 18+
⤿ pt ii here!
over you, the bleachers shake and rattle under the weight of the crowd jumping and cheering on it, and the overwhelming noise of the marching band creates a second heartbeat in your chest, but all of that dims when his mouth slots onto yours.
you're breathless quicker than you anticipated, lips swollen from being kissed for the last several minutes as your hands cling onto the smooth fabric of his jacket. you're still in your cute little cheer uniform, a tight, sequined crop top paired with a pleated skirt that ruffles up with every gust of wind. your hair, once perfectly styled, is now messy from him ruffling it up and tugging on it while he's kissing you, your lipgloss also smudged over both your mouths.
his hands slide up under your uniform top, long fingers squeezing your soft skin, first your hips, then waist, then your tits roughly like he's been dying to get his hands on you. he groans under his breath when he feels how soft you are there, dragging his thumbs over your nipples. "you don't even like him," he breathes against your mouth, voice quiet but arrogant. "y'gonna tell me he makes you feel like this, hm? wanna lie to yourself some more?"
you mewl quietly as his big hands grope your breasts under the lacy white bra you wore on purpose, not for your boyfriend, but for him. the creepy quiet guy with pale skin and dark circles and fingers long enough to get all the sweet spots deep inside you that your small fingers could never reach.
"i-he-" you start, voice all breathy. you try to come up with a good excuse for whatever it is you're doing with him behind your boyfriend's back, but he just scoffs. "exactly." he mumbles, lips trailing down your neck to the flesh of your throat, where he bites marks into the soft skin, sucking on the spot and running his tongue over it to soothe it. "y'don't even know what to say when i touch you like this, do you? dumb girl."
his teeth graze your jaw, and you easily tilt your head back to give him more access. you're so pliant for him, and he feels like he could tell you to do anything and you'd comply like a good girl. he backs you up against a fence, your cheer skirt bunching up around your hips. he's so turned on that you can feel his bulge bumping against you while he clings onto you, kissing back up to your mouth and sliding his tongue against yours sloppily.
"mmh... m-more, please, more," you mewl, hands squeezing his clothes and dragging him closer needily. he groans softly in response, big hands squeezing your breasts firmly, flicking your nipples with his thumbs. "innocent little cheerleader," he breathes against your lips, eyes hazy. "sweet girl meant to be dancing on the field for your meathead boyfriend, and you're back here letting me have my way with you."
you gasp, eyes fluttering at the overwhelming pleasure he's giving you. he knows just how to touch you, the parts of your body that are most sensitive and the best ways to draw sweet little mewls out of you that make his cock throb. "stop... s-stop talking like that..." you beg dumbly onto his swollen lips. one of his hands move down your body to slip beneath the waistband of your panties, fingers grazing your slick pussy between your thighs.
"God," he mutters, leaning back to see the look on your face. "you're so wet. you've been wet since you saw me sitting alone on the bleachers, hm? saw you trip up your cute little routine when i made eye contact with you." you mewl, toes curling in your sneakers. he slides a long, thick finger inside of you, pumping in and out and curling his finger just right.
"and you think he'd be okay with this?" he goes on, staring intently into your hazy eyes. "his perfect little princess letting the school freak finger her under the bleachers while he throws a ball around." you pant, his fingers dipping into your dripping pussy and your walls around his thick digits. He pumps them steadily, watching your face contort with pleasure as he strokes your most sensitive spots, his thumb circles your throbbing clit and rubbing firm pressure on the swollen bud.
your moans get louder and more high pitched, and he has to shove his free hand out of your bra onto your mouth to shut you up. "shh, baby," he whispers. "you're gonna get us caught." he warns, even though you can't help it. you can barely stand upright, back arched off the fence as your legs tremble, his finger twisting inside you to get every angle. he presses the flat of his palm against you so the heel of his hand grinds against your clit so you let out a muffled cry. "sloppy little thing, aren't you. you'd let me do anything to you."
you nod a little too eagerly, whimpering beneath his hand and moaning loud anytime his finger curls just right, louder when he slides in a second finger. you're falling apart and you can't stay quiet no matter how hard you try, your big eyes all glossy with tears, as he watches every second of it with that same fascinated look in his eyes. "this pussy's so pretty," he coos. "too pretty for a dumb jock who doesn't even know what he's got. i'd never stop touching you and kissing you and fucking you if you were my girl."
you moan loudly at his words just as he scissors and pumps his fingers quicker inside you while he relishes in the sounds you make. he loves how you're supposed to be prim and sweet, the little cheerleader everyone loves, and you're back here with him. the guy with no friends, no spot on the football team, no frats. just bruised knuckles from too many fights and messy hair and a huge cock.
He pulls his hand away only long enough to push his fingers into your mouth, and you suck on them immediately with a moan. You blink up at him with those big dumb eyes, lips stretched around his fingers, cheeks flushed and messy.
"shit...my perfect cheer slut," he murmurs, his thumb rubs firm circles around your clit, the bundle of nerves throbbing and swollen from his touch while his fingers plunge in and out of your sopping cunt. you nod, eyes wide and eager. "mm... f-fuck...yours," you whine, pushing your hips up into his hand to grind against his palm. "you gonna cum for me back here? while you're supposed to be out there screaming for the team?"
"yes please, 'm cumming... just want you, please," you gasp, hands clawing at him as though it’s the only thing keeping you grounded. your pussy tightens around his fingers, clenching down hard as he keeps pumping them deep inside you, thumb working your clit with constant pressure. your whole body shudders as a hot, dizzying orgasm crashes over you like a wave.
you moan, hips jerking as your walls flutter and pulse around his fingers, soaking them. your eyes roll back, lips parted around the digits still stuffed in your mouth, drool slipping past the corners as you ride it out. your brain feels all fuzzy and blank.
"that's it," he coos, leaning down to kiss the side of your face while his fingers slow, easing you through it. "just like that, baby. pretty thing, making a mess all over my hand." he pulls his fingers from between your legs with a filthy wet sound and lifts them up to his mouth to clean them off with his tongue quickly, before reaching down to hold you steady once more.
both hands land back on your waist, letting you slump against him while you catch your breath. you can feel his hard cock pressed against you through his jeans, and he plans to pleasure himself just as he pleasured you. your hips roll forward into his clothed cock shamelessly, skirt bunched up around the waist. your panties, once pushed to the side while he fingered you, get tugged down your ankles, then he helps you step out of them so he can pick them up and stuff them into his pocket for later. "such a little liar."
"a-about what? i d-don't lie to you..."
"about wanting him. y'don't look at him like this. y'don't fuck him like that."
then, he grabs and lifts you just enough so your soaked little pussy rubs right against him, dragging across denim dark with slick. he holds you like you weigh nothing, keeping you perched on him while the game continues behind you. you can hear the crash of pads and whistles and the school band roaring as someone scores a touchdown, maybe your boyfriend.
probably your boyfriend.
the crowd screams his name, cheer girls chant it, flipping their glittery pom-poms in the air to sell school spirit while you're tucked in the shadows under the bleachers, grinding like a needy puppy on the weirdest guy on campus. he huffs at you and bounces his knee slightly to help you get yourself off. "Please… don't stop, don't stop!" you cry out, lashes fluttering.
you're whining as loud as he'll let you, kissing him desperately and mewling as the rough fabric of his jeans bumps against your clit. his whole body shudders. He looks like he could cum just from hearing your sounds, and so he lifts your hips so you're grinding less on his thigh and more on his cock. "look at you," he whispers, glaring straight into your eyes. "filthy." your hips don't stop moving despite his cruel words, and you find yourself grinding your soaked little core across his jeans harder.
his hips grind more urgently into yours, his bulge throbbing each time you grind or bounce on it. your slick folds slide and rub against the firm ridges of his clothed erection while he humps into you. his fingers grip your hips tighter as he increases the force of his own thrusts, letting out a pleased grunt. "oh fuck... just like that pretty girl. keep rutting. shit, im gonna cum soon,"
you wrap one leg around his waist to open yourself up further, the new angle allowing your soaked pussy to press more firmly against his clothed cock, the damp patch on his bulge growing with each thrust. you can't tell if its his juices or yours. both of you let out a joint moan, loud and unabashed. seems like he forgot to cover your mouth.
his movements turn more erratic and desperate as he feels his orgasm coming, and with a final rough grind of his hips, he buries his face in the smooth expanse of you throat and bites down hard, muffling his loud groan, while you let out a choked scream, pussy clenching down on nothing as you hit your peak too.
thick, hot cum erupted from his cock, soaking through his jeans and creating a fat stain on his front, while your juices drip down your thighs. he leaves soft kisses on the angry red bite mark he left on you, speaking into your skin quietly.
you twitch with the oversensitivity that comes with two orgasms, face slick with sweat. you're a whiny mess, panties gone, skirt wrinkled and hiked up around your waist, makeup running obscenely. you keep clawing at his arms, terrified he'll leave you like this and make you go back out there. "Shh," he whispers, "you're bein' loud again. what if someone hears you moaning my name like that? huh?"
he grabs your face in his hand and squishes it so your face forms that embarrassing pout, but you're too gone to feel any shame. you nuzzle into his touchy needily, eyes glossy and adoring as he speaks again. "so," he says, "you gonna be a good girl and go finish your little routine now?"
you blink up at him, chest still heaving, curls sticking to your flushed cheeks. you're about to scream no and that you wanna stay with him, when he speaks before you. "or," he murmurs, dragging his fingers down your jaw, thumb brushing your lips, "you wanna come fuck me in the backseat of my car?"
you don't even pause. there's not a single moment of hesitation. even as you hear screaming and cheering to signal that the game is likely coming to a close and now people will definitely be looking for you. all you care about is him. he can tell. he feeds off your little crush on him. big hands wrap loosely around your throat as he admires your ruined face, a thumb moving across your lips to smudge your lipgloss even more. "the car," you whisper, instantly, "please, the car."
he grins smugly. "hm. since you asked so nicely."
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Underrated form of intimacy: being silly together
Saving Superman | Part 1
A run on the classic "three times that Superman saves you and the one time you save him". Before the first time he saves you, while working at your new job in a record store, you meet Clark, who might just be the man of your dreams.
wc. 9.8k | My Masterlist | Next Part
notes. This is my first work for Clark Kent/Superman! ahhh! I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think! tags. clark kent (superman) x fem!reader, hurt/comfort, angst, close to the movie AU, mentions of a deceased father, some violence, clark being a cutie.
After quitting your office job, you took a pretty significant pay cut to work at a record store in the heart of Metropolis. It was the only record store in the city before heading toward Gotham, so getting the job felt like somewhat of an accomplishment.
It wasn’t a big store, or even that popular, but the music scene in Metropolis held Metrecordlis in the highest regard. It was a sort of sacred ground where most people forgot their day to day lives and just got to come in and browse while listening to music.
Once upon a time, your father would bring you too and the two of you would pick out some random records to bring home.
Those nights after dinner, the two of you would go into the living room and listen to the records you bought in their entirety. No words would need to be spoken as the music overtook the two of you in ways you couldn’t describe.
You’d done that every week up until he passed away.
And even a year later, you still hadn’t quite found your footing.
Grief made it hard to get up some mornings, while other mornings felt totally normal. You knew logically that a loss that significant would make you feel deeply, but it was still so suffocating to not know when something or someone would trigger you. Especially since every-day life was tied into your father like air.
Even at home, you kept his TV on and his door closed like he was still in there resting. Sometimes pretending made things easier, but not always.
Most days were mundane at this record job for you, but definitely more interesting than the office. You actually liked your coworkers and manager for the most part. And you got to meet all kinds of interesting people that walked through. It made for great distraction most days.
You saw just about everyone there was to see come through the store; business execs, mothers and fathers, fitness gurus, influencers. Everyone came through to look for their music they loved.
And just being in Metropolis itself was bound for some chaos too.
It made things even more interesting having the newly formed Justice Gang around. Trouble did seem to find the city at some inconvenient times, bringing the craziest things like giant monsters and mutants. But the Justice Gang did a pretty good job of keeping the city safe.
Most of the thanks went to Metropolis’ hero, Superman.
You admired Superman a lot after your Dad’s passing. Or at least the way he was portrayed on TV - resilient and indestructible. You envied that, wishing you could be just as strong.
The chime above the door sounded, causing you to snap out of your deep thoughts.
It hadn’t been a busy day, and in your downtime, you had let yourself get caught up in your memories. It was one of the parts of the job you disliked the most - having so much time alone - but there wasn’t much the customers could do about your own wandering thoughts.
Putting on your best customer service face, you approached the man who’d walked through the door.
The first thing you noticed was how tall the man was. Even slightly hunched, he towered over the gondolas that held the records.
Next, you noticed how ill-fitted his suit was. It looked like the heavy tweed of his suit jacket just fell over his shoulders, as well as the pants. For someone his size, he was being swallowed by his clothes, which felt… off.
And lastly, when he spotted you approaching him, he locked his eyes with yours. You couldn’t help but notice that they were bright blue, brighter than you think you’d ever seen. Even with just a glance, his eyes held something so deep and sincere. It almost felt otherworldly.
This man’s gaze made you stop in your tracks, your heart starting like a motor.
He was handsome.
It had been a long time since you’d found attraction in anyone, and even then, it still took a while for you to see features that felt striking to you. But with this stranger, you were nearly dumbstruck.
“Can I help you find anything?”
The words finally left your mouth without your volition as more of muscle memory. Months of asking the same dull question helped you here, as your brain felt as though it were turning to mush.
“Yes ma’am.” The man’s voice was velvety and rich with the smallest country twang in it. He was starting to smile wide at you, “I was looking for any old Johnny Cash records.”
It was like his voice encompassed you, surrounding you with warmth. Just like his eyes, it wasn’t like anything you’d herald before, and it took you more by surprise than you’d anticipated. It took a moment before his question fully registered in your mind.
“Oh,” you breathed, shaking your head to try and put you back into customer service mode, “Yes. You can follow me. Everything is alphabetized by last name.”
He gave you a grateful smile before you led him the short walk to the country section. Once there, you awkwardly stood off to the side, allowing the handsome stranger to look for himself. There were a lot of “C” names, so both of you started to sift through the records after a few moments.
“So, you’re a country fan?” you asked, albeit quietly.
You tried not to cringe at yourself as you chanced a look his way. He was still smiling, dimples forming at the corners of his mouth. As if he couldn’t get even more handsome.
“Kinda. I like it just fine, but not as much as my Pa. I’m grabbing these records for his birthday coming up.”
You nodded, “That’s kind of you.”
“Sort of…” The tall stranger shrugged once, but his smile didn’t waver, “I kinda messed up and his records got damaged a while back, so I’ve been slowly rebuilding his collection for him. It’s been slow going though. I’ve been busy, and he doesn’t live around here, so I’ll have to fly these out to him.”
A sad sort of longing crossed his features as he spoke about his Pa. It didn’t dim his eyes, but it made them look weary. It made you think of your own father and how you would’ve done the same for him.
Shaking the thoughts away before you could get sad, you plucked out a sleeve of an old Johnny Cash album with a small, triumphant smile, handing it to the stranger.
“Hey, well, at least you’re trying for him,” You said gently, “Even if it was a mistake on your part, your Pa must really appreciate the effort you’re putting in to rebuild it.”
Once again, the blue eyes met yours and another smile graced his face, taking the record from your hands,
“Thank you…” Just barely, you could see his cheeks growing a dark crimson, “Now you’re the one being kind.”
You felt your face doing much of the same and you shrugged back at him, “I’m just trying my best.”
He stood there for a long moment, just staring at the album, his large fingers fiddling with the paper cover. It was like he was thinking of more things to say, but couldn’t quite get them out. It would’ve been comical had you not been in much of the same boat.
Finally, he murmured, “I never got your name.”
Just above a murmur, you gave him your name and he hummed aloud with a larger smile than before. The small sound to him nearly reverberated the entire store, but no one else but you seemed to notice that.
“Clark.” He outstretched his hand immediately, and an air of confidence suddenly surrounded him. Your hands met and it was much more firm than you’d expected. It was even more surprising just how warm his skin was, “Clark Kent.”
The name was instantly familiar to you, “Like the Daily Planet reporter?”
Ever so slightly, his eyes lit up.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” He said with a short nod and an awkward laugh, “So you read the news.”
A laugh escaped you too, “I do. My Dad kept the news on all the time, so I kinda just gravitate towards keeping up with everything, plus there’s a lot going on here. You kinda gotta know the news in order to not get eaten by something alien… even if a newspaper is expensive these days.”
Clark let out a small chuckle, more sure this time as he held up his hands in defense, “Listen, I just work there.”
The two of you gave a smile to each other once again. The two of you stood there for a long few moments just looking and staring until you realized neither of you had made another move. You motioned for him to follow you again, starting to head toward the register when he stepped to your side.
“If you don’t mind helping me find one more thing,” He said quickly, nearly stumbling over his words, “Do you have The Mighty Crabjoys?”
Furrowing your brows in confusion, you looked him up and down. He was more the nerdy type than anything with the big glasses and swallowing suit. You didn’t think he seemed the type to like pop punk bands.
You smirked, deciding to tease him, “Don’t tell me that’s for your Pa too.”
“No, it’s for me,” Clark shook his head, biting back a laugh, “But there seems to be some judgement coming from you about my taste in music. Not so nice now, huh?”
Laughing again, you also held up your hands in surrender,
“No judgement, Mr. Reporter, but I wouldn’t have pinned you as a Crabjoys fan.”
“I enjoy them a lot,” he said with a small huff, “I need something to pump me up when I’m working on an article.”
You rolled your eyes and nodded your head toward the pop-punk section, “Follow me then, Mr. Kent.”
As you turned, he let out another hum. His voice, even with small sounds, made you feel warm inside. You could still feel that same buzzing energy from him, like a beam of light bursting through a pitch black room. All of your thoughts went to how you wanted nothing more than to be enveloped by whatever he was giving off.
You led him to the pop-punk area and began searching through the “M”s until you found exactly what you were looking for fairly quickly. You pulled the sleeve from its place and handed it to the much taller man standing beside you.
Clark bit his lip for just a second to try and hide the small smile that formed.
You on the other hand weren’t hiding your grin anymore, “Anything else I can help you find?”
He let out a small sigh and held out his collection of records for you, “I guess this will be it, thank you, ma’am.”
You both smiled at each other a little longer than necessary before you walked him to the register. Albeit, your pace slowed, feeling abnormally sad that your time together was coming to an end. Your limbs felt like they were moving at their own pace; becoming noodles as you got to the counter and started to ring up the incredibly handsome man’s items.
Adjusting his glasses, Clark cleared his throat, “Are you new?”
You nodded, “Kinda. I’ve only been working here for a couple of months. Why?”
“Just curious. I haven’t seen you before,” He shook his head quickly, “It’s not that I come in here that often, but it’s been the same people here for so long. The other guy that works here, B-Dog, is a really fun guy. Met him a couple of times.”
Laughing, you nodded, “He’s certainly a character.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here today instead.”
His murmur was almost too quiet for you to hear, but when it hit your ears, you began to reel. You could feel your cheeks heating up again. You tried to hide your growing flush from him by ducking below the counter to grab him a bag for his purchase.
You took a deep breath, trying to convince yourself that a little flirt was nothing serious. You popped back up quickly, giving him a genuine smile.
“I’m glad you’re here today too. It’s been really nice talking with you.”
Clark smiled wide at that as he reached into his pocket. A confused look took over his face, and after tapping his suit pockets for a few seconds, he let out a defeated sigh.
“Shoot…” He whispered, “Silly me. I think I left my wallet at home. Would you be able to keep these for me?”
Those piercing blue eyes gave you an almost pleading look, and you couldn’t help but nod in response almost automatically.
“I can put them on hold for two days.”
There wasn’t actually a policy for that.
“Perfect,” he smiled wide, biting his lip, “And will you be working in those two days?”
The prospect of possibly getting to see him again was more than exciting. With your heart hammering hard against your chest, you felt like you could barely breathe enough to answer him. Eventually, you managed to speak again, “I’ll be here tomorrow… Nine to six.”
“Good, Thank you,” your name rolled off his tongue, “It was a pleasure meeting you today.”
This time, you were the one to hum in response “The pleasure’s all mine.”
With a small, final smile, he rushed out the door, calling over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow!”
No one else seemed to hear the boom of his voice; it was like it shook the entire earth. But as you looked around to see if anyone else was stunned, it was like you were the only one encapsulated by him.
So, you chalked it up to just having a small, tiny crush.
***
The next morning, grief had other plans for you.
It struck you hard especially after good days, making it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Some days felt real and normal, while others felt fake. And now everything felt just a little too fake for you.
Waking up in the apartment was always the hardest part. As you got ready for your day, you felt yourself going through all of the motions, but almost as if your head were underwater the entire time.
It took so long for your brain to catch up sometimes, and you wished desperately that you could just bounce back and put on a brave face. You allowed yourself to cry to try and relieve some of the pressure in your mind, but it only proved to make your head even more foggy than before.
Some solace came from the news. Trying to distract yourself, you turned the TV on and tried to look for the good in life.
Superman, the protector of your city, had done it once again from a comet-like entity. And again, you found yourself wishing you could’ve been more like him. He seemed to do it all, and he did it with a smile on his face. Obviously you didn’t have the powers he had, but you figured he must’ve been so strong mentally just as much as physically.
Once you got to the store later in the morning, you helped open slowly and did everything that was asked of you. It was a decent distraction for you as well, but sometimes the feelings were just a little too heavy.
As the day progressed, busier than the day before, you successfully had gotten your mind off of some of your sadness, but had nearly forgotten about the tall man and his records from the day before.
You had made yourself too busy to greet Clark when he walked in sometime after five. One of your other coworkers had greeted him and retrieved his records from the back. Feeling slightly defeated, you tried to stay out of their way, letting your coworker have the sale.
However, nearly moments after you’d thought that, you felt his warm presence before you saw him approach you. When you saw him, it was like your entire demeanor changed.
“Hey there!” He greeted you with a chipper voice, “I was beginning to think you weren’t here today.”
You chortled, but it didn’t feel as genuine as the day before, “Yeah. Barely made it.”
Clark’s voice dropped almost immediately, “Barely, huh?”
The sudden mood change shocked you a little. You hadn’t expected him to take you so seriously.
Not wanting to sour the mood between the two of you, a small tug happened at the corner of your lip as you nodded, “Guess I’m not feeling the greatest today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
His voice cut deep; inviting and enveloping just like the day before. It was welcome, but the warmth made you want to cry again. There was something about Clark that felt so familiar; nostalgic even, that it reminded you of spending your days in the sun as a kid.
He frowned when you didn’t answer right away, “Anything I can do to help?”
Gently, you shook your head, “That’s very sweet of you, but… no, I’ll be okay.”
“I’ve got tylenol in my bag.”
That made you laugh the tiniest bit, much more authentically, “It’s okay, Clark. Thank you. I’m just… a little sad. Nothing I can’t deal with.”
“I have no doubt.” A soft smile graced his lips, “I’m sorry you’re sad. I wish I had some magic pill to cure that.”
“Talking to you has been really helpful,” You murmured, hoping he wouldn’t hear you, “It’s made this day a little brighter.”
Before Clark could respond, your coworker B-Dog came back around, looking for Clark, but saw that he was talking with you. Luckily, Clark let him know that you’d been the one to initially help him, so your coworker relinquished the records to you to ring him up. You began leading him to the register again, feeling a small air of confidence arise in you.
When you turned at the counter to ring up his items again, you noticed a small dusting of pink overcoming Clark’s cheeks. Just your luck, he’d obviously heard you before, but he thanked you anyway. Quickly, he swiped his card to pay, keeping his eyes to the floor.
After taking his purchase from you, he still made no move to exit. He stood there, somewhat awkwardly, staring at you with a sort of battle going on behind his eyes.
“S-Sorry.” Clark stammered, “I know this is very forward, so forgive me, but you’re very pretty.”
This time, you knew your cheeks were burning too as soon as the words left his lips. Your mind went haywire as you were now the one to stare right back at him. You mumbled something of a thank you as you felt it leave your throat, but it was incredibly incoherent.
Clark was the one to laugh this time, breathlessly, like he was trying to catch up with himself as well.
“I-I’m sorry. I know that was brash.”
“No, it’s okay. I just don’t get compliments very often,” You said quickly, trying to regain your composure, “Thank you… you’re handsome yourself.”
He smiled wide as the nervous energy expelled off of him, “Would you like to get lunch sometime with me? I know it can’t cure sadness, but maybe being near you would help a little. You know… like you said.”
Biting your lip, you nodded, “I’d love that.”
“Great!” Clark had said it a little too enthusiastically; too loud for the space. He cleared his throat again, speaking at a much more normal volume, “What day are you free next?”
“Friday,” You said, slightly winded, “I’m off Friday.”
“I could take you out on my lunch break. Guess it’ll even it out for disrupting your work time here.”
“This is far from disrupting me,” you said with a short laugh.
“How does noon sound?”
“Sounds like a date.”
You gave Clark a smile, the blush never leaving your cheeks.
“Yeah, sure does,” His voice cracked, “Um… how will I get in contact with you?”
Smirking, you thought of teasing him again, if only to make him blush more.
“I guess you can have my number.”
He smirked, shaking his head, presumably at himself, “I’ve forgotten how to talk to people.”
You were already writing your phone number on a post it note. You quickly tore it off and put the sticky side just below his pocket protector on his ill-fitted suit jacket. You weren’t normally this forward either, but it felt fun - exhilarating - to be so free with someone.
Clark’s smile got wider as he took off the sticky note and peeked at it before stuffing it in the pocket. He adjusted his glasses before looking back at you.
“Thank you again,” it was like velvet as he said your name, “See you Friday?”
“See you Friday.” You nodded.
Leaving it at that, he walked out the door, but not before turning back to look at you once again. You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you watching him trying to balance all of the things in his hands as he gave you a small wave.
The light of the day sort of shifted after that, and you were left back to work and your own thoughts. The grief had still been there, quieting for a while as you spoke to Clark, just waiting to rear its ugly head back out. It seemed to come crashing back down as soon as he was out of sight.
You excused yourself to the bathroom, just to give yourself a few extra moments alone and to allow some tears to escape.
It was strange always feeling this whiplash of emotions especially after something so good.
However, not even a minute after the tears had sprung, your phone dinged in your pocket. You dug it out, managing a smile as you read the message:
This is Clark! I look forward to helping you cure some sadness Friday!
Wiping away your tears with your palm, you felt as though he was already trying.
***
Friday came around much quicker now that you had something to look forward to. Most weeks, mundane as they were, tended to drag on. So, this was certainly a welcome change.
You woke up feeling a lot better than you had in a long time; you felt giddy and excited for what felt like the first time in forever.
Admittedly, you’d only been on a handful of dates, and none of them had gone very well, so you were hopeful this would change too.
The two of you had been texting back and forth since you’d given him your number. Most of your messages were about the date and other details, like where to meet. But sometimes, you’d both delve off into other things, like talking about your days or tiny flirty messages back and forth.
This felt different.
As you got ready, you made sure to wear some of your best clothes and put on the best smelling scent you had before walking out the door. You wanted to put in effort for yourself since it’d been so long, and in leaving the house, you felt fresh and confident.
The walk to the little cafe you decided to meet at felt excruciating long, like trudging through a dream. It felt like no matter how long you walked, you weren’t getting anywhere. You kept forward though, pure determination keeping you going.
You felt your phone ding in your hand and you lifted it to see the message:
Just made it. I’m in the third booth from the back.
Beside the text was a little winky face. Again, you smiled, luckily right around the corner.
Trying to be as confident as you felt, you strode into the little cafe. You scanned the room for only a second before your eyes landed on the tall figure - already seated at a booth - waving you over. You couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped your mouth as you made your way over to him. Awkwardly tall against the booth, he still clambered out of the seat to greet you, giving you the utmost respect.
“It’s nice to see you again.” He said as you approached, motioning for you to take the seat across from him, “I haven’t ordered yet. I thought I would wait for you.”
“Thank you Clark,” You said as you sat, “It’s nice to see you again too. And it’s even nicer of you to sacrifice your lunch break for me, no less.”
Clark gave you a wide, toothy grin, letting his dimples show and his accent pop out.
“It was nothin’. I usually take my time for lunch most days, anyway.”
Surrounded by his warmth, especially being in the booth with him, you felt a lot closer than you were; more intimate than talking in the record store.
You had some time to scour the menu before the waitress came by to take your orders. It was all mostly breakfast, so you settled for a small fruit salad and toast. Clark on the other hand got the works: a large breakfast, complete with eggs, toast, hashbrowns, bacon, and a small stack of pancakes.
As the waitress walked away to put in your orders, Clark sat back in the booth, giving you a funny look, “Fruit salad and toast?”
Again, you felt your cheeks burning, “There seems to be some judgement coming from you about my food choices.”
He shrugged, smirking, “A little. Doesn’t seem like much of a breakfast.”
“Well, it’s lunch,” you chided, “And it’s not much of a meal, but it’s better than the greasy breakfast food.”
Clark’s mouth fell open like you’d just said the most shocking thing in the world. You bit your lip, trying your best not to laugh as his hands started to frenzy around him.
“What?!” he guffawed, though a grin still evident on his face, “What’s wrong with greasy breakfast food? You can’t tell me you don’t like pancakes or waffles. Everyone likes one or the other! There’s, like, a whole stupid song about it…”
Another laugh escaped, “There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just not my preferred food choice.”
“But fruit salad and toast?”
“What’s to say I just wanted something small? This is my first date in a long time, after all, I’m a little nervous.”
Clark didn’t say anything for a moment, only letting his smile widen slowly. He cleared his throat, “I haven’t been on a date in a long time either. I suppose I’m a bit nervous too.”
“I’m relieved to know I’m not alone,” you murmured.
The conversation flowed easily for a while until your food was sat down in front of you a few minutes later. The country twang in his rich voice came and went as you’d spoken, sparking your next question.
“Where are you from, Clark?” You asked, beginning to prepare your toast the way you liked it, “Pa doesn’t sound like a Metropolis term.”
“Because it’s not.”
You glanced over at him to see that almost all of his eggs were already gone. Holding in a laugh, you let him continue.
Swallowing his food, he took in a deep breath like he was about to reveal a secret, “I’m from Kansas. My Ma and Pa raised me on their farm and I moved here a few years ago for work.”
The answer still felt vague, like there was more to be said, but you didn’t press him further.
Instead, you hummed back with a small smile, “That makes a lot of sense.”
“Being from Kansas?”
Clark shed his suit jacket off to the side, leaving him in just a light blue button down shirt. You watched as he rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, and you came to realize you were getting a little lost.
His arms were… huge. As he crossed them to get his other sleeves, it was like all of his muscles pulled at the thin fabric of his shirt, barely able to move and mold with him. The ill-fitted suit suddenly made even less sense as it obviously did him no justice.
The man in front of you looked at you, clearing his throat when he noticed you watching him without any words.
Speaking without volition, you blurted out, “Well, you definitely have a farm-boy physique. But... no, it's your southern hospitality.”
Clark laughed aloud, the room booming again.
He shrugged, trying to be modest, “I threw hay barrels around for a long time.”
“Do you miss Kansas?”
“Every day.” He admitted softly, "Sometimes, I wish I had stayed. But… most days I’m really proud of my work that I do here in Metropolis.”
“Then you must really like writing for the Daily Planet. You’ve gotten to interview some pretty cool people.”
A smirk graced his face as he cut into his pancakes. He hiked his glasses up his face with his finger, shielding himself for a second before speaking, “You’ve read my work?”
“I have. I like your articles about Superman.”
“Superman, huh?”
It was like his pace slowed significantly; taking slower and more deliberate bites of his food as his eyes perked up to you. He seemed to watch you and study your reaction.
You took a small bite of fruit, “You make him sound really… human. I like the thought of that; being able to do anything, but still having the capacity to be kind and compassionate.”
Clark nodded, speaking softly, “I think it’s important for people to see that too. He’s just like everyone else.”
It gave you pause again as you locked eyes, a charming smile gracing his lips. You couldn’t help but let yourself smile too. It was almost making your cheeks sting with how much he made your lips curl up, but you couldn’t stop it even if you wanted to.
“So,” he started as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, half of his food devoured, “You got a long round of questions. Mine starts now: Where are you from?”
And again, your mouth curved up, “I’ve lived in Metropolis all my life. I am a born and raised metropolitan.”
“We just call you folk city slickers back home.” He chuckled, “You must be close to your family then.”
Biting your lip, you knew something like this would eventually come up. There wasn’t a use in being so vague, so you came out with it, trying to mask the grief that started to travel through your body.
“I was. I don’t have any immediate family here. It was just me and my dad, but he passed away last year.”
Another look overtook Clark that you couldn’t place. You hadn’t told many people about your father, expecting a lot of pity looks, but this wasn’t that. He was looking at you like he understood very well. It had been difficult to talk about your father without getting emotional, but with Clark, you were able to keep calm.
“Gosh,” he murmured, “My condolences.”
You tried to smile through your growing sadness again, trying not to let the mood drop too far, “It’s still a little fresh, but I’ve been okay. Thank you.”
“Of course.” Picking up that you didn’t want to speak on the subject anymore, Clark gave you a polite nod before pivoting completely with his next question. “Have any pets?”
His bright eyes trailed you as he took in another big bite of his food, now blatantly gauging your reaction. You were grateful he didn’t press further about your past with your dad.
“Do fish count?”
“Sure,” he shrugged, “Do you like your job?”
“Are you investigating me?” you asked with a small chuckle. Clark didn’t answer, simply motioning for you to continue through his mouthful of food. “I like my job most days. I like it better than the office job I had before.”
He swallowed, “What do you like and dislike most about your job now?”
“You are investigating me,” you mused, “I love music and people who also love music. I don’t like sales tactics.”
"Is that what was wrong with the office job?"
"Kinda" you sighed, "Just needed a change of pace."
“So you take pride in sharing your passion with people.”
Your brows furrowed at him curiously as you nodded slowly, “I guess so.”
Another smile graced his face, making his dimples show.
The two of you ate and talked for a little longer with more basic getting-to-know-you questions. He asked things like what your favorite color was, or your favorite movie. Even with the most mundane questions, however, he looked as if he were filing every bit of information away for later.
His raven hair fell in a curl over his forehead as he moved, and all you could think of was reaching forward and putting it back in place. As much as it pained you, you kept your hands to yourself.
Towards the end of the date, Clark happily paid for the both of you, waving you off with a short, “You can pay for me next time.”
As you stood together from the small booth, you took a deep breath and asked him, “Can I walk you to work?”
He flashed you a toothy grin, “I’d love that.”
The short walk to the Daily Planet was filled with extra questions, but mainly it served as an excuse to be around him more. The feeling of warmth he radiated was addicting, making you wonder why herds of people weren’t following him around for it.
And all too soon, your walk came to an end.
Both of you stood in front of the massive building, making no moves to go further. Neither of you said anything for a long while as exchanged short, shy glances. You didn’t want the date to end, and you were silently cursing yourself for it being such a short meeting.
“When can I see you again?”
Clark was the first to break the ice, asking in a fast, hushed voice. Pushing his glasses up on his face nearly covered the blush that was forming on his cheeks.
“That is, if you want to see me…”
Your face was doing much of the same as you nodded back at him, “I do. What about Sunday?”
“We could have dinner?”
“It’s a date.”
Smiling sheepishly, Clark’s hummed, low and deep, just like the day you met him. Slowly, he upturned his hand to you, silently asking for you to take it. Once you did, he brought it up to his lips slowly, leaving a light kiss along your knuckles. You were already reeling from that, but as he pulled his hand away - in one swift movement - he leaned forward to leave a kiss on your cheek.
“This has been the best lunch I’ve had by far.”
“I’m glad. Very glad.” you stammered.
“See you Sunday?”
“Yeah," you breathed out, "See you Sunday.”
With another big smile, he backed away toward the entrance of the building, nearly stumbling when his eyes wouldn’t leave you. His large, clumsy limbs flailed as he waved at you, and you couldn’t help but giggle. You waited until he was inside before making your way back to your apartment.
At that moment, you felt like the luckiest person in Metropolis.
You’d been on dates with others - plenty, actually - but had never felt the way you did on that one. Not even by a mile. Even in just that short time, he made you feel seen and listened to without having to blurt out every aspect of your life.
Even being near him made you feel giddy, like a child with a crush.
What left you even more dumbfounded is that Clark seemed to like you back, like he felt just as happy and carefree with you. And that was refreshing.
Almost as if to solidify your thoughts, you got a text almost as soon as you closed your apartment door.
Hope you made it home safe. I can’t stop thinking about our date. I’m very excited for Sunday!
A bunch of emojis flooded in after: smiley faces, sunshine, and little hearts.
You held the phone close to your chest and let out a small squeal of joy. Clark really did have a way of curing sadness.
***
Sunday came before you knew it. In those near 48 hours, you were glued to your phone, responding and waiting on messages from Clark about when and where your Sunday date would be. You’d been texting even more since your date, and every text was like a breath of fresh air.
The two of you decided - well, Clark decided - on a nicer, more upskaled restaurant in the heart of downtown. He made reservations for the two of you and everything.
It wasn’t until Sunday morning leading up to your date that something started to feel… off.
Leading up to your date in the evening the both of you still had to work. To you, it was a nice distraction from the nerves pooling in your stomach. Your heart beat wildly against your chest the entire day any time you thought of the nerdy, dark-haired man.
Throughout the day, you and Clark continued to talk intermittently, but you notice he’d pulled back somewhat pretty early in the day. The messages he sent were still sincere and enthusiastic, but shorter and less frequent than they had been.
You thought that maybe he was just having a busy day. And very desperately, you tried not to think about what else it could be.
Once work was done, you had some time to go home and get ready for your date. However, that weird feeling that something was wrong kept popping up. So when you entered your apartment, you stood in the living room, typing out a message to Clark.
We’re still on for tonight?
You decided to take a shower as you waited for his answer.
Despite the strange feeling, you were beyond excited to go on another date with Clark. It had been a long time since you’d looked forward to something like this. You found yourself even wanting to put effort into how you looked; making yourself look as good as you felt. It wasn’t something you’d felt in such a long time.
After your shower, you could feel anxiety building as you checked your phone. Luckily, there was a text waiting for you from Clark:
Of course! I’m still at work, but I’ll get off soon!
A sigh of relief left you as you shot back another text, confirming that you’ll see him at the restaurant.
Before long, you were checking yourself out in the mirror, putting on your last touches of jewelry and accessories. Another weird feeling washed over you, despite Clark’s confirmation, but you thought of it just being your nerves.
As you locked up your apartment, you took in a large breath, looking at the time and making sure that you were still on time for the reservation. You glanced at your messages, but the screen remained blank after the last message you sent.
Although you didn’t know him that well, it didn’t seem normal.
Still, you sent another quick text, telling him you were on your way to the restaurant, hoping he would respond to you when he could.
Throughout the train ride downtown, the feeling that something wasn’t right was growing deeper in your abdomen. Especially with the radio silence from Clark. It had already been almost an hour since you’d last heard from him and normally he wouldn’t have gone that long without sending you something back already.
Still, you persisted.
At the restaurant, you kept a brave face as you approached the counter. Part of you thought that maybe your date was already there, waiting for you at the table he reserved. But it was no such luck as you looked around the mostly vacant restaurant.
You smiled at the hostess, giving her the name “Kent” and the reservation time. You felt a small rush of relief as she nodded to you, leading you back to a booth. She placed down two menus before giving you a polite smile back.
“Still waiting for your guest?”
You tried to sound confident, “Yes, he’ll be here soon.”
She gave you a solemn look before nodding and taking your drink order. Still hopeful, you decided to order a glass of red wine. As she walked away, you looked around at the few couples that littered the place before pulling out your phone.
You sent another message, telling him you were there. But there was nothing in return.
Feeling your heart pounding in your chest, you didn’t want to give up just yet. Although something felt wrong, you knew Clark wouldn’t put in effort to make reservations just to stand you up. He’d been so sweet to you that this didn’t seem like his character.
But then again, you didn’t know him like that.
Against your better judgement, you still waited. And waited. And waited.
After an hour, you felt more embarrassed than anything. The waitress had come up and asked you if you were waiting still, and each time you would nod, asking for another glass of red wine. Three glasses later, the waitress set a small appetizer down in front of you for free.
Your heart couldn’t take it anymore.
Just as you were gathering your things, ready to go to the front to pay, your phone dinged. Reaching for it, you finally got some form of an answer by text.
I’m so sorry. I got so caught up at work, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you–
Without reading the rest of the message, you stuffed your phone in your purse, not wanting to read any excuses. You finally asked for the check and paid for your wine, keeping your head low as you slowly made your way out of the restaurant.
The waitress, and you were sure any of the patrons, were giving you sad looks, only making you feel worse. You took a mental note that you would never go there again out of pure embarrassment.
You held your tears in until you were fully out of view of any prying eyes, but as soon as you were out the door, the dam broke and it was like a waterfall fell over your cheeks. You tried to wipe them away to no avail, only for more to continuously fall.
As you walked home, you tried to cover your face with your hands, trying to focus on simply getting to the apartment. The subway had too many eyes, and you didn’t want anyone else to see you. With your eyes casted to the ground, the walk felt like an eternity.
Halfway home, you passed by some men sitting on some apartment steps. You kept your head low, hoping no one could see your tear stained cheeks. Still, a low whistle sounded from one of the men who stood up, trying to get your attention. Typical of a lot of men in Metropolis, but you never budged, you simply ignored them, continuing on your walk.
But a little ways away, you could hear footsteps behind you and low murmuring as the men talked to each other. You tried to quicken your pace, feeling that they were trailing behind you fairly quickly.
Your heart started to thud fast against your chest as you lengthened your stride. Easily, however, they were able to keep up, some of them being much faster.
“Hey!” One of the men chimed behind you, “Where you going?”
You kept walking, ignoring him again. With just your luck most of the shops you passed were closed and no one else seemed to notice or care that these men were following you. Taking in a large breath, you remained forward, using all of your strength to speed up.
“This is a nice view back here. I would love to see the front.”
Another man said, or maybe the same one. It didn’t matter though, and you didn’t dare to look behind you.
You were almost at a job, but judging by their footsteps, you knew they were still gaining on you. The tears that you’d been trying to keep in were freely flowing down your cheeks, creating a harsh sting against the cool night air.
As a hand caught your shoulder, you let out a yelp, and in an instant, he showed up.
Superman.
You heard the commotion before you even had the chance to turn around. There was a smack and a groan as some of the bystanders around you finally started to turn their heads. As you finally looked behind you, there was Superman with his hand around the neck of who you could only assume was the man that grabbed your shoulder.
From where you stood, you couldn’t see the strong man’s face, but you knew it was Superman just by everything else. You could obviously see how big and tall he was, but you could also feel the presence and power he had.
The three other men were watching in horror as the large meta-human stood incredibly still, his cape flapping lightly in the wind as if he were waiting for them to speak first.
“Fellas.” His voice was loud and pointed. He let the man by the neck go, shoving him towards his friends, “Why don’t you run home?”
As the men scampered off, Superman watched for a moment, crossing his arms in front of him before turning to face you.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
Words and thoughts weren’t coming easily as you stared possibly for too long. The super hero in front of you started to smile wide, dimples poking out of the corners of his lips.
A soft buzzing noise began in the back of your brain, low and soft, like it was trying to grab your attention. Maybe it was the combination of everything that had happened that day; the shoddy communication with Clark, him standing you up, the men, and now Superman, but you couldn’t hold your tears in any longer. The dam broke once again as tears spilled from your eyes.
“I don’t know,” you sobbed.
Superman’s eyes softened as he uncrossed his arms, making himself just a bit smaller for you.
“It’s okay to not know.” The large meta-human motioned to a bench along the sidewalk about a block away, “Want to talk?”
Nodding at him, he gave you a kind smile before leading you over to sit. As he sat beside you, you could immediately feel the inhuman warmth radiating off of him. It felt almost familiar but not enough to come to mind.
Instead, you thought of your father.
Superman didn’t say anything or make you feel like you needed to talk back at him. He simply sat with you and waited until you were ready.
When you did finally speak, you tried to deflect off of your sad feelings, “Aren’t you supposed to be out saving the world?”
The question came out more accusatory than you’d wanted, but it didn’t seem phased as he answered.
“The world starts with the people in it.”
Without pressing, he waited again for you to continue talking. You took a deep breath, shaking your head at how ridiculous it was to be telling Superman of all people your mundane problems.
“This sounds so stupid saying this to you,” your laugh was wet as you tried to gain composure again, continuing, “I got stood up by a guy I really liked. And then this happened. But… this guy felt really different. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“That’s not stupid.” His voice became quieter like it was just for you, “The only thing that’s stupid is the guy that stood you up.”
You sighed, nodding, “Guess so. I got so frustrated and embarrassed. I think he tried to apologize, but I didn’t read his messages.”
“You have a right to be angry,” Superman caught your gaze and you weren’t sure if you ever noticed that his eyes were blue, “Regardless of if he apologizes, you don’t have to accept anything else from someone that wronged you.”
You thought for a moment.
“I don’t want to feel angry though, and maybe that’s naive. But everything was going really well until a few hours ago.”
Superman sighed, cautiously placing a hand on your shoulder. That same warm familiar feeling washed over you once again as you leaned in to him.
“I can’t offer you much, but I can offer you my opinion.” Nodding lamely, you urged him to continue, “It sounds cliche, but trust yourself. He miscommunicated and made you upset, rightfully so. If you feel like this bond you’ve made with him has severed beyond repair, don’t read the message, and don’t waste anymore energy on just some guy. But on the other hand, maybe he had a valid excuse and now he’s trying his best to apologize. It’s ultimately up to you to decide whether you give him the benefit of the doubt or not.”
For a long moment, you stared at the super human before you in complete awe. You’d looked up to him for a while, and here he was in the flesh giving you advice.
“What would you do?”
Superman laughed, his voice echoing through the city.
“I have a bad habit of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. It’s hard not to want to see the good in people. And who knows, maybe now he knows that he should’ve made time for you.”
You didn’t say anything to that, studying him again. The low buzzing in your head was getting slightly stronger; his blue eyes and dark hair were setting off sparks of something that you couldn’t place. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t grasp what was so familiar.
After a few moments, your head started to ache. You shut your eyes for a second to recalibrate, giving up on trying to figure anything else out for the night.
Certainly, he noticed you taking the moment, “You should rest.”
He stood up from the bench and outstretched his hand to you. Gently, you took his offered hand, standing to face him. For someone so strong, he was incredibly gentle as he helped you up. He gave you a wide smile, standing tall once you were on your feet.
“Thank you, Superman.” You sighed, “You’ve done so much for me tonight. Not only saving me, but taking the time to talk to me too. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am, but you don’t need to thank me. I’m just a guy trying to do what’s right.” He nodded to you once, beaming at you, “If you ever need to talk again, I’m just a shout away.”
You nodded back and before you knew it, Superman was flying off into the evening sky.
Swiftly walking the rest of the way to your apartment, you felt more at ease than you had before. Once you got inside, you felt like you could breathe again finally.
Still feeling utterly conflicted, you cleaned yourself off and threw your outfit in the hamper before finally crashing onto your couch. You didn’t let the tears well in your eyes this time as you pulled out your phone.
Thinking over your conversation with Superman, you mulled over what you wanted to do with Clark.
On one hand, he had stood you up. Plain and simple, that was a really awful thing to do. You’d felt so embarrassed and stupid at such a nice restaurant that it would make sense to cut him off much like he did for you.
But Clark felt… different. That feeling you got while you were with him was unlike anything else you’d felt with someone before. He’d been so sweet before that there must’ve been something wrong for him to not show up.
You thought of what Superman said about giving people the benefit of the doubt. And you came to the conclusion that if the most powerful man on earth could give people a chance, you could too.
Finally, you opened up your phone to your unopened message from Clark.
I’m so incredibly sorry. I haven’t stopped thinking about you, but I’m still caught at work. I hate to think you’re waiting for me, and I understand if this is inexcusable. It’s not my intention to leave you hanging. I’d love to try again.
You sighed heavily before typing out a reply: Can we talk?
Mere seconds after you hit send, your phone was ringing. It almost would’ve been funny had the situation been a little lighter.
“Hello?” Clark sounded first, your name slipping quietly from his lips.
“Hey.” You said timidly.
“Listen, before you say anything, I’m really sorry. I-I know I messed up really big. I get caught up with work like that sometimes, and I should’ve warned you instead of making you think I was leaving you high and dry. It’s not an excuse for being a jerk, but I thought I should at least offer you an apology.”
Tears pricked at the back of your eyes again, but none fell. You were too tired to let anything else out, “I waited over an hour for you, Clark.”
“Gosh,” He sighed, “I… I understand if that was too much.”
“I really like you… but right now, after this, I-I really don’t know.”
“It’s okay to not know.” He murmured.
Lightning zapped at your brain again and you furrowed your eyebrows, trying to shake it away as you didn’t want to think too hard. Clark waited silently on the other end of the line for you to speak. Hesitantly, you took in another deep breath.
“Clark?”
“Yes?”
He answered like you took his breath away
“Can we try again… like you said?”
He let out an audible sigh - like he was finally releasing the air he’d been holding, “Of course. Yes, we can try again. Thank you. Wherever you’d like and whenever you want, I’m all yours. I’ll even take off work for the day.”
You let out the smallest laugh, “You don’t have to do that much.”
Clark let out a hum of thought over the phone like music to your ears, “What about now?”
Your eyebrows nearly shot to the ceiling.
“Now?”
Over the receiver, a low chuckle sounded, “I can pick up some wine and a midnight snack?”
Your heart began to speed and stutter, your head already beginning to whirl. In your silence, Clark’s voice dropped even lower to a murmur, speaking again before you had the chance to overthink it.
“You can say no to tonight and we’d still make time for another date. I just want to make things up to you.”
“Okay…” you bit your lip, beginning to feel that giddy feeling again as before, “But you better bring a red.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Once you hung up, it only took about fifteen minutes before there was a knock at your door. You ran out of your bathroom to answer the door, having thrown on a more casual outfit than your pajamas.
At the door stood a very disheveled Clark, like he’d been running around. His curly dark hair was in disarray and he was still in his ill-fitted work suit. He held out a bottle of red wine, a bag of snacks, and a large bouquet of flowers. You looked at him incredulously as he beamed a large smile back at you.
“Can I come in?” He said breathlessly.
A giggle escaped you as you stepped aside, letting the tall man walk through your door. He placed the items he brought on the nearest surface except for the flowers, which he held back out to you.
Clark said your name quietly, catching your gaze, “I can’t express to you how genuinely sorry I am. Any excuse I give is not enough. I wanted to be there, but I wasn’t.”
Carefully, you took the flowers from him, but before you could pull away, he enveloped your hands with his. His strong fingers squeezed yours with a soft pressure, gazing into your eyes with his deep ones.
“You’re here now,” you whispered.
His eyes flickered down to your lips. Your heart started to dance in your chest as he placed one of his hands along your cheek. He was hesitant, like he was testing the waters with you. Although he wasn't fully forgiven yet, you couldn't find yourself to pull away.
“Can I kiss you?” His voice was just above a whisper.
You nodded once, but he didn’t move immediately.
Ever so slowly, you pressed your lips together, like you were savoring every second. It was a quick, small beck before you pulled away to look at each other.
And for a moment, things felt blissful again.
No words needed to be spoken as you leaned in again, pulling him to you. The second kiss was longer, more intimate and slower… hungrier. But he didn’t make any moves to go any further. He was content with your lips, keeping you grounded as he molded to yours. He began to smile into the kiss, wrapping his arms around your waist.
The two of you kissed for a few moments longer, only pulling away when you needed to get air.
Soon, the two of you were sitting on your couch with two glasses of wine in hand, eating your snacks as you slowly fell into a comfortable rhythm of talking and getting to know each other again. It felt like you could talk about everything and nothing with him all at once.
And after a while, it was like the forgotten dinner never happened.
Sometime in the night, Clark stood up from your couch to inspect the bookshelf of records you owned.
“Golly, you have quite the collection,” He mused aloud.
Clark walked over to the record player and carefully opened it up. The last record you’d been playing - The Righteous Brothers - was queued already and Clark simply pressed the play button.
“It was both me and my father’s collection.” you said as music started flowing through your speakers.
“Unchained Melody.” Clark hummed, “My Pa loves this one.”
“Mine did too.”
Clark outreached his hand to you and for a moment, you had a flash of deja-vu back to your conversation with Superman. That moment with the super human felt like a lifetime ago, but in reality it had only been a few short hours. That low buzzing started in your head again, but this time, you could feel something poking and prodding as you looked at the man in glasses before you.
But the thought that crossed your mind was impossible.
Instead of thinking too hard, you took Clark’s hand, letting him help you off the couch. Ever patient, he waited for you to get closer before wrapping his arms securely around your waist, placing his chin on your shoulder as you swayed to the song.
“If you'll let me fix things,” He whispered, “I want to be yours if you’ll have me.”
You smiled wide, nodding.
“I’d love that.”
end a.n. believe it or not, this is only the first part! if you made it this far, let me know what you thought or if you would like to join my superman taglist! I like feedback, and tbh, if you have your own ideas for this series, send them my way! (taglist).
off the books
pairing: clark kent x reader | 4.5k words
warnings: 18+ only, explicit smut, power imbalance (superhuman strength), morally gray reader, obsession/possession themes, manipulation, guilt kink vibes, furniture destruction (workout bench), rough sex (consensual), overstimulation, praise + control dynamics
summary: clark hires you off the books to help him control his strength in bed—because every partner before you has gotten hurt. you agree for the wrong reasons, pushing his limits on the workout bench until reinforced steel buckles and clark loses control. he thinks you’re saving him. you’re really making yourself the one thing he can’t walk away from.
a/n: biggest shoutout to @tw1sters for allowing me, a virgin chud of a clark girlie, into her stellar event. further shoutout to the wonderful @sparklingsin for this sexy ass banner. i'm still salivating. if this fic sucks it was not my fault (yes it was tf?) i wrote this in a fever dream for bucky and made it into a clark fic during a time of weakness. enjoy my frens
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The first time Clark Kent says it out loud, it’s in a voice so careful it barely disturbs the air between you.
“I need help.”
You pretend you don’t notice the way his hands are clenched behind his back—like he’s holding himself in place by sheer will alone. You pretend you don’t notice the way he keeps his weight distributed, controlled, as if he’s afraid the wrong shift might crack the concrete under his boots. You pretend you don’t notice the faint tremor under all that restraint.
Because if you look too closely, you’ll give yourself away.
And you can’t afford that.
Not when you’re already picturing the headline in your mind like a private little prayer.
Superman learns to be gentle.And you’re the only one he trusts enough to teach him.
The offer comes to you off the books, like a confession slid across a table instead of money.
A place. An hour. A promise that no one will know your name.
And then, after a pause that tastes like shame, the real truth:
“Every time I’ve tried,” he says, eyes fixed somewhere over your shoulder, “someone gets hurt.”
It’s not an admission that makes him smaller. It makes him terrifying in a new way—because he isn’t talking about bruises the way ordinary men do. He’s talking about physics. He’s talking about the reality that a good night can become a hospital visit if he forgets himself for half a second.
He swallows, and you watch his throat bob like he’s forcing down something sharp.
“I can’t—” He stops. Starts again. “I want to be… normal. With someone. I want to be able to let go without… without being afraid of what I’ll do.”
You nod like you’re a professional. Like your pulse isn’t kicking against your ribs.
“What exactly are you asking me to do?” you say.
He looks at you then, properly—blue eyes too honest, too bright. The kind of eyes that make people trust him with their lives.
“I want you to help me practice,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Control. Feedback. Limits.”
Practice.
Like this is a skill he can learn the way he learned flight. Like you can run drills until his body understands what his mind has been doing alone for too long.
You should say no.
You should tell him there are therapists for this, doctors, specialists who won’t get tangled up in the way your stomach drops at the idea of him losing control on top of you. You should tell him this is a terrible idea, morally and practically and in ways that will haunt him if it goes wrong.
Instead you ask, “Why me?”
His mouth opens. Closes.
Then, softly, “You didn’t flinch.”
A beat.
“You didn’t look at me like I’m a weapon.”
Another beat, the air humming with the effort it takes him to say it.
“You looked at me like I’m a person.”
You let your expression stay smooth, careful. You let him believe it.
Because the truth is uglier than that.
You didn’t flinch because you’re not afraid of him.
You’re hungry for him.
And you’ve always been the kind of person who learns best by touching the fire.
He takes you to the place he trains when he needs the world to stop looking at him.
It’s underground, somewhere beneath Metropolis, a hidden room carved out of bedrock and reinforced like a bunker. No windows. No cameras. Just fluorescent lights that cast everything in stark honesty.
There’s a heavy-duty workout bench bolted into the floor like an altar.
Steel frame. Thick padding. The kind of equipment built for gods who don’t want to accidentally kill anyone.
Clark stands in the center of the room with his hands at his sides, posture rigid, like he’s bracing for impact.
“I’ve never brought anyone here,” he says.
You circle the bench slowly, letting your fingertips ghost the worn edge of the padding. It’s been used. Punished. Tested.
“You’re trusting me with a lot,” you murmur.
He nods once, sharp. “I have to.”
There’s something about that—about his need, his honesty, his desperation to be safe—that makes you want to bite.
Not him. Not yet.
Just… the idea of it. The control. The power in being the one person he can’t do without.
You set your bag down on the floor and pull out what you brought: a small bottle of lube, a simple set of cuffs with soft lining, a piece of fabric that could be a blindfold or a gag depending on how you fold it.
His gaze flicks to each item like he’s cataloguing weapons.
“You came prepared,” he says quietly.
You shrug, like you’re casual. Like you didn’t spend last night imagining the exact shade of red his cheeks would turn when you put him on his knees.
“This is training,” you say. “Training needs structure.”
His nostrils flare. He looks away, then back, as if forcing himself to stay.
“What do you need from me?” he asks.
It’s the question that matters.
Consent isn’t just a checkbox with someone like him; it’s the only thing that makes this anything but catastrophic.
You step closer, closing the distance until you can feel the heat of him—sun-warm, steady, impossible.
“I need you to be honest,” you say. “If anything feels wrong, you tell me. Immediately.”
His jaw tightens. “I will.”
“I need you to listen,” you continue, voice even. “To my words. To my body. To what I say and what I don’t.”
His eyes track your mouth like it’s the most important thing in the room.
“And I need you to understand something,” you add, and let your gaze hold his until he can’t look away.
“This only works if you let me lead.”
His breath catches—just a little, but you see it.
“I can do that,” he says, like it’s a vow.
You smile faintly.
“Good,” you murmur. “Then we start slow.”
Slow is a lie you tell him so he’ll agree.
Slow is the way you get your hands on him.
You have him sit on the bench first, feet planted, posture too perfect. He looks like someone preparing for an interview, not someone about to be touched.
You stand between his knees and place your palms on his thighs through his sweats.
He stills like a statue.
“Breathe,” you remind him.
He inhales. Exhales.
You lean in, close enough that your voice can stay quiet and still reach him.
“Tell me what you’re afraid of,” you say.
His throat works. “Hurting you.”
“That’s the big picture,” you say gently. “I mean right now. In this moment.”
He hesitates.
Then, barely audible: “That if I start… I won’t be able to stop.”
Something inside you thrills, sharp and bright.
You tilt your head. “Is that what’s happened before?”
His eyes close for half a second, like he’s bracing against memory.
“Yes,” he admits. “Not… like this.” He gestures vaguely, to the room, to you, to the setup. “But I lose track. I forget. Everything feels too—too good and then—”
He cuts himself off, shame rolling off him in waves.
You slide your hands up his torso slowly, feeling the solid heat of muscle under fabric, the way his body reacts even when his mind is trying to be polite.
“Then we build a system,” you say. “We make it so you don’t have to rely on fear to stop you. You rely on me.”
His eyes open, blue and raw.
“You’ll tell me to stop,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And if I can’t—”
“Then we use tools.” You lift the cuffs slightly, letting them glint under the lights. “We use limits that aren’t negotiable in the moment.”
His gaze drops to them. He swallows.
“Do you want that?” you ask.
It matters that he chooses it.
He nods once.
“Yes.”
You step back, and his shoulders visibly loosen with the permission.
“Good,” you say. “Stand up.”
He does immediately.
You move behind him, fingers brushing his wrists as you guide his hands back.
He tenses for a second—instinct, not refusal—and you feel the war inside him: power vs surrender.
“Clark,” you say softly.
He stills.
“I’m going to cuff you,” you tell him. “Not because I don’t trust you. Because you don’t trust yourself.”
His breath shudders.
“Okay,” he whispers.
You loop the cuffs around his wrists and secure them to the bench’s anchor points. He tests them automatically—gentle pressure. The bench doesn’t budge.
His eyes flick to you, uncertain.
“You’re stuck,” you say, voice calm. “And that’s the point.”
Something like relief crosses his face, quickly buried.
You step around him to face him again.
“Say your safe word,” you instruct.
He frowns. “We need one?”
“Yes,” you say, and don’t let him argue. “Pick something you won’t say by accident.”
His lips part. He thinks.
“Starling,” he says finally.
A strange choice. A soft one.
You nod. “Starling means everything stops immediately. No questions.”
He nods too, solemn.
Then you touch him.
Just a fingertip along his jaw, the edge of his mouth, the curve of his throat.
He inhales like he’s been starving.
“Tell me where you hold the most tension,” you murmur.
“My shoulders,” he says, voice strained.
You slide your hands up, kneading the thick muscle there, feeling how hard he is even while he tries to relax.
“Good,” you say. “We start by making you feel good without making you lose control.”
He lets out a shaky laugh.
“That seems… unlikely,” he admits.
You smile, slow.
“That’s why you hired me.”
You take your time undressing him, not because you’re kind, but because every second he has to wait is a lesson.
Patience. Control. Listening.
His shirt comes off first, folded neatly like he still thinks he’s in danger of wrinkling it. His skin is warm, gold under the lights, covered in faint marks that look like they came from things trying and failing to hurt him.
You trail your fingers along one of them, and his chest rises sharply.
“Sensitive?” you ask.
“Everywhere,” he admits. “I… I feel things strongly.”
You hum, pleased.
His pants come next. His boxer briefs after that.
When he’s bare, he looks almost embarrassed by how perfect he is—like it’s an accident he keeps apologizing for.
His cock is already hard, thick and heavy against his abdomen, and the sight of it makes your mouth go dry.
You don’t touch it yet.
Instead you undress yourself slowly, letting him watch. Letting his eyes take you in like he’s afraid if he blinks, you’ll vanish.
You climb onto the bench carefully, straddling his lap. The cuffs pull his arms back just enough to keep him open, vulnerable.
His breath catches when your bare skin meets his.
“Okay,” you say softly, hands on his shoulders. “Rule one: you don’t move unless I tell you.”
His eyes widen. “I—”
“Do you understand?” you press.
He swallows hard. “Yes.”
“Good,” you whisper, and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
He trembles.
You reach down, wrap your hand around him once, just enough to make him jerk.
He sucks in air like he’s drowning.
“Still,” you remind.
He goes rigid, fighting himself.
You slick him with your palm and then lift slightly, guiding him to your entrance.
He looks at you like you’re about to save him.
“Tell me if you’re okay,” you say.
“I’m okay,” he breathes, voice wrecked. “Are you?”
You smile.
“I’m better than okay.”
And then you sink down onto him.
He makes a sound that doesn’t belong to someone who is also supposed to be Superman.
It’s too broken, too needy—like something inside him finally snapped in the right direction.
You set your hands on his chest, feel the thunder of his heart under your palms, and move slowly.
For a few minutes, it almost feels gentle.
Almost.
His restraint is visible, the way he holds himself back like he’s gripping a wild animal by the throat. He stays still when you tell him. He bites down on every instinct to thrust up into you.
You roll your hips, take him deeper, and he shudders so hard the bench creaks.
“Good,” you murmur. “That’s good control.”
His laugh is breathless. “I’m trying.”
“I know,” you say, and lean down to drag your mouth along his throat.
He goes taut.
Your teeth graze his skin—just a hint—and he gasps, eyes squeezing shut.
“Still,” you warn.
He obeys.
You should be proud.
Instead you feel the ache of temptation, the way you want to push—just to see what happens when he breaks.
You pull back, meet his gaze.
“Tell me what you want,” you say.
His eyes are bright, desperate. “You.”
“That’s not specific enough,” you tease.
He swallows.
“I want to move,” he admits. “I want to—fuck, I want to take control.”
You tilt your head. “And what happens when you do?”
His jaw clenches, shame flashing. “I don’t know.”
“That’s why we’re here,” you say softly, and then, like kindness, “We’ll do it in steps.”
But the truth is you’ve already decided.
You don’t want to fix him.
You want to be the line he crosses and can’t uncross.
You shift your hips faster, riding him with more intent, your breath starting to hitch. His eyes track your movement like he’s trying to memorize it—like he’s afraid he’ll never get this again.
“Clark,” you breathe, and his focus snaps to you instantly.
“Yes?”
“You’re doing so well,” you praise, and feel his whole body tense at the words. Praise hits him like a drug.
You smile at that. File it away.
Then you press a hand to his jaw, force him to look at you.
“I’m going to let you move,” you say. “But you have to listen. If I say stop, you stop.”
His breath is ragged. “I will.”
“If I say slow down, you slow down.”
“Yes.”
“If I say ‘Starling,’ everything ends.”
He nods hard.
You hold his gaze another beat, as if you’re making sure he means it.
Then you shift your weight forward, bracing your hands on the bench near his shoulders, and whisper:
“Okay.”
“Move.”
The change is instant.
Clark’s hips drive up like he’s been shot out of a cannon—and then he catches himself, stops mid-thrust with a strangled sound. His muscles are shaking with effort, his face tight with restraint.
He looks at you like he’s waiting for punishment.
You moan instead.
“Good,” you gasp. “Yes—like that, but slower.”
He forces himself down to something controlled, something almost human.
Almost.
The bench groans again under the new rhythm, the metal complaining in stressed little screams.
You wrap your legs tighter around him, taking him deeper, and his breath breaks.
“You feel—” he chokes, eyes wild. “You feel so good.”
“I know,” you pant. “Stay with me.”
He nods, jaw clenched, and keeps moving.
It’s still controlled, still careful—until you tilt your hips just right and a sound tears out of him, raw and helpless.
His thrust stutters.
You feel the edge of him slipping.
And you—god help you—you lean into it.
“Clark,” you moan, and his eyes snap to yours.
“Don’t hold back from me,” you say, soft as a sin. “I can take it.”
He freezes.
“That’s—” he starts, panic flickering. “That’s not—”
“You hired me because everyone else got hurt,” you whisper, lips close to his. “Let me be different.”
It isn’t fair. You know it isn’t.
But you watch the words land like a match in dry tinder.
His control wavers.
He swallows hard. “Are you sure?”
You nod, slow. “Yes.”
You are sure of one thing only:
You want him ruined.
You want him addicted.
You want him looking at you like the only safe place he’s ever had.
You shift again, and he groans like he’s in pain.
His thrusts speed up, heavier now, the force behind them increasing. The bench starts to shudder under you, bolts vibrating.
“Slower,” you tell him, testing.
He slows—barely.
“Good,” you murmur, and then you give him what he really needs: permission dressed up like trust.
“That’s it,” you whisper. “Use me.”
A sound rips out of him—too raw, too broken.
His hips drive up harder.
The bench squeals, metal legs flexing under stress that wasn’t meant to exist.
You brace yourself on his chest, fingers digging in.
He looks at you like he’s drowning and you’re the only thing he can grab.
“I’m going to—” he gasps, panic rising. “I’m going to lose it.”
“Then lose it,” you breathe, and roll your hips to meet him.
He tries to stop. You feel it—the way his body fights, the way he attempts to pull back, to slow down, to do the right thing.
But you keep moving.
You keep coaxing.
You keep whispering the exact kind of praise that makes him unravel.
“Good,” you moan. “So good, Clark—God, you’re perfect—just like that—”
His restraint snaps.
Clark’s thrusts turn brutal, unstoppable. The room fills with the sound of skin meeting skin, the bench crying out under every impact.
The reinforced steel legs buckle with a sharp, violent shriek.
The entire frame dips.
Padding tears with a ripping sound like fabric giving up.
You yelp, startled, but his hands—still cuffed, still restrained—flex helplessly as his body surges upward again, chasing you like he’s lost the ability to think.
“Clark!” you gasp, half warning, half name-saying prayer.
He looks wrecked, eyes blown wide, mouth open in a sound that’s more animal than man.
“I can’t stop,” he chokes.
You should say Starling.
You should end it.
Instead you hook your legs tighter and pull him deeper.
“Then don’t,” you whisper.
The bench gives another sickening groan, steel joints cracking under pressure. One of the anchor bolts shears clean off with a metallic snap, skittering across the floor.
Clark makes a broken sound and slams up into you again, harder, the force rattling your teeth.
The pleasure is too sharp, too intense, turning your limbs weak. It feels like being claimed by something holy and catastrophic.
Your body takes it because you told him it could.
Because you wanted this.
Because you wanted to be the proof that he can lose control and still not destroy the person beneath him.
His breath is a ragged roar in your ear. “Tell me to stop,” he begs, even as he keeps moving. “Please—tell me to stop.”
You bite your lip, eyes stinging with the strange, vicious tenderness of it.
“Look at me,” you demand.
He drags his gaze to yours, frantic, guilty, desperate.
“You’re not hurting me,” you lie—because you can feel bruises blooming already, can feel the way tomorrow will ache, can feel the risk like a thrill under your skin.
“You’re making me come,” you say instead, and watch something shatter in his face.
His thrusts turn feral.
The bench finally gives up completely.
Steel legs fold inward with a violent crunch. Padding splits, foam spilling out like a wound. The entire structure collapses under you, dropping you both a few inches onto the floor with a crash that echoes through the bunker.
Clark freezes instantly—panic flashing so hard it’s almost blinding.
“Oh my God,” he gasps. “Are you—”
You grab his face with both hands.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” you snap, voice shaking.
He stills, eyes wide.
“I’m here,” he whispers, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he blinks. “I’m here.”
You’re still straddling him despite the ruined bench, still full of him, heat pooling between you. The cuffs pull at his wrists awkwardly, but he doesn’t even seem to notice them—he’s too focused on you, on the fact that you’re breathing.
“Move,” you tell him, softer now. “Finish.”
His throat works. “I—”
“Clark,” you murmur, and tilt your hips just enough to make him shudder. “You can. I’m right here.”
He exhales like surrender.
Then he starts again—slower now, careful, shaking with the aftershock of fear and need. His control returns in pieces, as if the crash sobered him.
His eyes never leave your face.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he begs.
“It hurts,” you admit, because honesty matters now, when the danger is real.
His whole body locks. “Starling?”
You swallow, pulse racing.
You could stop.
You should stop.
Instead you shake your head.
“It hurts because you’re real,” you whisper. “Because you’re—because you’re you.”
His face crumples, relief and desire twisting together.
You roll your hips, slower, meeting him halfway. You make it something you can both survive.
When you come, it’s with your forehead pressed to his, your hands cupping his jaw like you’re holding him together. Your whole body clenches, and Clark makes a sound like grief as he tries not to move too hard.
“Good,” you whisper shakily, breathless. “Good—there, just like that—”
He loses himself again, but this time it’s not violent.
It’s desperate.
He comes with a broken sob, hips jerking up, eyes squeezed shut, face twisted like he can’t believe he’s allowed to feel this.
When it’s over, he goes still—shaking, breathing hard, the cuffs still holding his wrists back like a reminder that he can’t take what he wants unless someone gives it.
You stay on him, chest rising and falling, listening to his heart slam against his ribs like it wants out.
Slowly, he opens his eyes.
They’re wet.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers immediately. “The bench—I—”
You touch his cheek, thumb smearing the corner of his mouth.
“It’s just a bench,” you say.
His laugh is a broken thing. “It was reinforced.”
“And you’re Superman,” you reply softly, like it explains everything and nothing.
He looks past you at the wreckage—steel twisted, foam spilling, bolts scattered. His face tightens, shame starting to rise again.
“I shouldn’t have—”
You interrupt him by pressing your mouth to his.
It’s not gentle.
It’s a claim.
He kisses you back like he’s starving.
When you pull away, you keep your forehead against his.
“You didn’t hurt me,” you say again, firmer this time. “You scared yourself. There’s a difference.”
He swallows. “I lost control.”
“You listened when I told you to slow down,” you remind him. “You asked permission. You checked on me. You stopped when the bench broke.”
His breath shudders. “Because I thought I’d killed you.”
You smile faintly, wicked and soft all at once.
“But I’m here,” you say. “And you’re here. And you’re not alone in this.”
Something shifts in him at those words—something that looks suspiciously like hope.
And you hate how much you like being the one to put it there.
He stares at you like you’re a miracle.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
You could tell him the truth right then.
That you didn’t come here to fix him.
That you came here because you wanted to be the one person he couldn’t forget. The one person his body would learn as safe, not because you’re a saint, but because you’re selfish enough to want the weight of him.
Instead you brush your thumb over his lower lip and say, “We can keep training.”
His eyes widen, earnest. “You’ll come back?”
You lean in, mouth close to his ear.
“That depends,” you murmur.
“On what?”
You pull back just enough to look at him, let him see the edge of your smile.
“On whether you can handle the fact that I’m not doing this for free,” you say.
His brow furrows. “You named a price.”
You hum. “Not that kind of payment.”
He blinks—confused, vulnerable.
You kiss him again, slower now, letting it sink in.
“When you start to trust me,” you whisper against his mouth, “you don’t get to decide you’re better off without me.”
His breath catches.
It’s an ugly thing to say. Possessive. Sharpened by intent.
He should flinch.
He doesn’t.
He looks at you like you just handed him permission to stop running.
“I don’t want to be without you,” he admits, voice shaking.
The words land in your chest like a trophy.
Good.
You ease off him carefully, body aching, and reach up to undo the cuffs. Your fingers brush his wrists, already reddening from the strain of holding him back.
His hands come free, and for a second he just stares at them like he doesn’t trust them.
Then he cups your face with both palms—so gentle it’s almost reverent.
“I thought I couldn’t have this,” he whispers. “I thought it would always be—dangerous.”
You swallow, throat tight.
“It is dangerous,” you say honestly.
His eyes flicker. “Then why—why would you—”
Because you want to be wanted by something that could destroy you.
Because you want him tethered to you by guilt and need and the memory of how good it felt to finally let go.
Because you want to be the pretty little casualty he can’t walk away from.
You don’t say any of that.
You just press your hand over his heart and feel it hammering.
“Because you’re worth the risk,” you lie, and watch his face soften like you’ve given him everything.
He kisses your knuckles, careful.
Then he looks over your shoulder at the wrecked bench again, and a hysterical little laugh escapes him.
“I’m going to have to replace that,” he says, voice hoarse.
You glance back at the twisted steel and torn padding, the foam spilling like snow.
“Consider it progress,” you say.
He shakes his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—relief and awe mixed together.
Then his gaze returns to you, and the smile fades into something deeper.
“I can’t—” he starts, then stops, as if he’s afraid to name it.
“Can’t what?” you ask softly.
He steps closer, slow like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he admits. “Even before—before tonight. I—”
He laughs once, bitter at himself.
“I thought I was being selfish. Wanting someone. Wanting this.”
You tilt your head, feigning curiosity while your stomach flips with satisfaction.
“And now?” you ask.
His eyes burn into yours.
“Now I think I’ve been starving,” he says.
You let the words sit there, heavy and hot.
Then you step into him, press your body against his, feel the way he goes still like he’s afraid to break you even with a touch.
You reach up, thread your fingers through his hair, and pull his mouth down to yours.
“Then eat,” you whisper.
His hands slide to your waist, shaking.
“Are you sure?” he asks again, like it’s his religion now.
You smile.
“Yes,” you say, and mean it in the worst way.
Because he thinks this is the beginning of his control.
And maybe it is.
But it’s also the beginning of something else—something messier, darker, more tangled.
A need he’ll start to associate with your voice, your touch, your permission.
A tether that will tighten every time he comes apart in your hands and finds you still there afterward, warm and breathing and refusing to be scared.
You kiss him until his control starts to fray again, and you feel the moment it happens—the instant his body remembers what it did to that bench, the instant guilt rises like a tide.
You pull back and cup his face.
“Look at me,” you say.
He does immediately.
“You’re not a monster,” you tell him.
His eyes shimmer.
“And you’re not alone,” you add, softer. “Not anymore.”
He exhales like a man being forgiven.
Then he pulls you into his arms, careful as a prayer, and holds you like you’re the only thing keeping him anchored to the world.
You close your eyes against his shoulder, smiling to yourself.
Because this is the part he doesn’t understand yet:
You’re not here to save him from himself.
You’re here to make sure he never finds his way back out of you.
Woke up to grainy bts videos of David back in the suit and cape‼️
David Corenswet as Superman/Clark Kent in recent Supergirl (2026) TV spot
Good Intentions (3) — Rafe Cameron
part one ⋆ part two ⋆ part threeᵎᵎ ⋆ part four
pairings — rafe cameron x fem!reader, topper thornton x fem!reader
summary — rafe cameron has never wanted something he couldn’t take. it’s not his fault topper’s girlfriend turns out to be one thing he can’t stop thinking about.
warnings — 18.8k words. MINORS DNI! multiple graphic scenes (fingering, f receiving oral, unprotected piv, semi-public intimacy with risk of getting caught, praise/reassurance, light choking, biting, leaving marks) overall super messy morals / morally questionable behavior, cheating/infidelity with best friend’s girlfriend, boyfriend’s best friend (emotional & physical), betrayal of a close friend, rafe’s obsessive, guilt around sex, fixation and possessive thoughts, recreational drug use (weed and coke), discussions of break up, rafe’s ooc and is sometimes a little sweeter than expected, toxic relationship dynamics (between reader & rafe as well as topper & reader)
author’s note — this one’s longgggg and also they’re not the best people in it. like at All. and also honestly excuse the horrible smut i’m really bad at it . as always hearing ur thoughts is the most rewarding part !!
Rafe wasn’t even sure how he and Topper had become friends. He was sure he would have been able to recount the memory had you not tainted all the memories he had of his supposed best friend.
Still, it was the kind of origination that didn’t survive examination, the way most things on Figure Eight didn’t. Their fathers golfed. Rose and his mother sat on the same two committees and disliked each other without friction, a thing they would never admit out loud. Rafe and Topper had been put in the same rooms before either of them could form opinions about it, the way you put two dogs in a yard and assume they’d work it out. And they had, mostly because Topper was incapable of holding a grudge and Rafe was incapable of holding much else. By the time it mattered—by the time friendship became a facet of your life you chose rather than a thing your zip code did for you—the choosing was already done, sunk so far back that pulling it up would’ve taken more honesty than Rafe had ever cared for.
He’d told the story before. There was a version he liked to wheel out when he was coked up, the sandbox-or-whatever version that made people laugh. It had Topper crying over a kite at six, or maybe it was Rafe crying over a kite. And that was the short joke of it, and neither of them could keep it straight and it didn’t matter, because the point was they were the kind of friends whose beginnings had dissolved into pure fact. ‘We’ve just always known each other.’ People liked hearing that. It sounded like belonging. It sounded like the thing Rafe had been failing to convince his own father he was capable of since approximately birth. It sounded like there was a reason for their friendship despite their family’s tax brackets.
The problem was that he couldn’t get to the kite anymore without going through you.
That simple fact made him want to put his fist through a wall. He’d try to land on a clean memory; Topper at twelve, sunburned and furious, reduced to tears, because Rafe had out-fished him at the dock. It was something Rafe thought he’d hold over Topper for the rest of his life and then, characteristically, never used. The memory of it would start fine and then it would bend, routing itself towards you. Topper at twelve became Topper at eighteen describing his future with you in it, because Topper’s hand on your knee in over-furnished basements, became the simple pride in Topper’s voice when he talked about you like you cured cancer. Every road into Topper now had you standing somewhere on it, and Rafe couldn’t reach past you to the kid he’d genuinely considered a friend back when he cared about something like having a best friend. You’d colonized the whole territory without trying.
He resented you for it the way he resented the good food at the Thorntons’ table, the unfairness of being made to want a thing and then made to feel like garbage for the wanting.
Topper was good. Yeah, he was good-family, good-school, good-on paper. But Rafe found that Topper was good in the way that should have made him insufferable. Topper had decided, somewhere back before either of them remembered, that Rafe was worth keeping, and then he had simply never revisited the decision. He didn't keep a tally. He'd watched Rafe show up fucked up to a hundred things, watched him pick fights with golf clubs and bigger men, watched him be cold and mean and impossible, and Topper had kept clapping him on the shoulder like his father did, kept being there that it had taken Rafe to realize this was rare.
And Rafe was going to take you from him anyway. Had already started. Was, in the part of his head he didn’t visit in daylight, fully planning to. That was the whole obscene buildup of it, that the one person who’d never once made Rafe earn his place was the person Rafe was robbing. He wasn’t even doing it out of hatred, which would have at least been clean. He was doing it because of a hundred small things he'd had no business collecting and had collected anyway. How you laughed half-a-second late at jokes, always, because you were checking the room first to see if it was safe to, and how that half-a-second was the only honest thing when the laugh actually came. The way you ate the crust off of people’s plates, Topper’s, Ruthie’s, like the food tasted better when it wasn't yours and nobody was watching you want it.
None of it was Topper’s fault. Topper’s only crime was being there for two years and never noticing the half second, never wondering what you were checking for, just hearing the laugh and taking it at face value the way he took everything, gratefully, completely, without the suspicion that there was a whole second self standing behind it.
There was a thought Rafe had, late, that if it had been the other way around, if Rafe had gotten to you first, Topper would not have done this. He wouldn’t have wanted to. It was far from the idea that Topper was weak or because Topper didn’t have it in him to want a thing; it was because Topper was built somewhat right. Topper had been loved correctly and consistently and on time, and so Topper had turned out to be someone who could be trusted around the things other people loved. Rafe had been loved the way Ward did everything, which was to say conditionally, expensively, and from a distance, and so Rafe had turned out to be the kind of person who, handed something good that belonged to a friend, could not keep his hands off it.
He’d been on the boat for nineteen minutes and he was being so good it was fucking annoying. This was day eleven. He had a streak going. Day eleven of not texting you, not driving past the library on Tuesdays, not allowing his brain to build a small detailed house for the two of you and then moving you both into it. Eleven days, for Rafe’s standards, was basically monastic. He’d told himself after he’d dropped you off at your house—after you made that sickly-sweet confession then passed the fuck out, sparing you the indignity of remebering you’d said it. That two weeks was the number. If he could do two weeks, the wanting would sand down to a manageable size, the same way a callus made a thing stop hurting by making the skin too thick to feel it.
He didn’t actually believe this. He had never once in his life successfully made himself want something less. But he wanted a number, and two weeks was a number, and he was eleven days into it and the boat smelled like sunscreen and diesel.
He took a hit off the bong because it was there, and clearly Topper’s parents hadn’t been on the boat because it wouldn’t have been there if they had. He found the stash of weed in the same place Topper always kept it, inside the couch. He’d been making good use out of Topper’s things given Topper was late.
Topper was always late. It was one of the few genuinely annoying things about him, and Rafe had a theory that Topper thought the thing wouldn’t start without him at some point in his life, and decided he never had to make himself hurry. Ward did it too. Rafe, who had spent his whole life arriving places early and then sitting in his truck so nobody would see him be early, found it unbearable in a way he never said out loud.
He was being good. He was being so good. And your foot landed on the gangway and the boat took your weight, and Rafe felt the small dip and correct of it through the hull. He knew it was you before he turned to see who it was. He’d gotten like that. It was nothing to have been proud of.
You came down the cockpit and didn’t see him at first, which meant he got a second of you before you did of him. Rafe took the second, because Rafe took every second of you he was handed and a number he wasn't.
You looked like hell. Not actual hell, you’d have to work much harder than you’d ever worked in your life to look actually bad, and Rafe resented this about you in a low background way, the unfairness of it. But you did look like you’d been crying somewhere with the door closed, and had then done the small expert repairs and come out, and Rafe knew that particular finish on a person because it was the finish he saw in his own mirror. The eyes slightly too clean. The mouth set in a straight line. Yo’'d put something pink on the mouth on the way over. He noticed that.
Then you saw him and your face moved slightly, like you were recalibrating and deciding which version of yourself this required.
“Someone looks happy,” Rafe said.
It came out lightly, a little meanly, and exactly how he’d intended for it to. He was good at this. It was, if he was honest, the only thing he was good at; saying a thing that closed a door so quietly the other person wasn’t sure a door had been there. He'd been doing it to you for two years. He'd done it to you because the alternative was doing the other thing, and the other thing could not be undone, and so he had picked, every single time, the small mean sentence over the catastrophe.
You didn’t rise to it. You didn’t do much of anything, in fact.
“He’s not here yet?” you asked, and your voice sounded so even Rafe wanted to tear the edges off of it.
“Nah. Late,” Rafe said, letting it sit. “Shocking. I know.”
“Right.” A small laugh, the half-second one, except there was no room to check and so it came out hollow, on cue. The type of shit you’d give another guy for describing an unfunny encounter.
And that should've been it. The two of you should’ve stayed exactly where you were, not looking at each other, until the rest of the people showed up to act as witnesses. He could do that.
But you stood at the bottom of the cockpit steps with your bag still on your shoulder and looked around the room.
“Did they ever fix the—” You tipped your chin at the cleat. “Topper said his dad was going to have someone look at it.”
Rafe raised a brow. You were talking to him like he’d heard you talked to everyone else, a good fucking voice that asked absolutely nothing and gave absolutely nothing. And you were using it on him, as if asking shit like this to him was normal. Something in his chest did a small ugly turn, and he heard himself before he’d decided to talk.
“You don't have to do that,” Rafe said.
You blinked. "Do what?"
“That.” He tipped the bong toward you, at the bag, the mouth, the cleat. “That voice. The—” He almost got to the end of it, but the end was a cliff, so he took a hit instead and let the smoke buy him the half second you were so good at stealing. “I don’t give a shit about the cleat. Neither do you.”
He sounded more annoyed than he’d meant, and it was real but not about you; mainly about the fact that you’d decided you were going to pretend nothing happened, even though that was exactly what he needed from you. Still, getting it felt like being handed a glass of water and told it was the fucking ocean.
You stayed silent. The water did its small work against the hull. Somewhere across the marina a halyard was tapping against a mast, that thin patient sound that Rafe normally didn't hear and now could hear individually, every strike of it, because the boat had gone that quiet. He looked at the bong. He looked at the cooler nobody had opened. He was aware of you not moving.
You moved then, setting your bag down onto the cushion of the bench seat and you crossed the cockpit. Three steps. Four. Past the table, past Rafe, close enough that he got a wash of you, the floral scent, clean and expensive and so aggressively innocent it had always made him want to break something just to have something to apologize for.
Behind the couch he was sitting on was a door. The head, the boat’s bathroom, a closet of a room, teak and a mirror and not quite the square footage to turn around in. You put your hand flat on it and opened it.
And Rafe didn't understand. He watched you open the door to the head and his brain, his stupid traitor brain that had a whole drawer with your name on it, did not produce the thought it should have produced. It produced something sadder. It thought that he’d made you isolate yourself from him until everyone arrived. And now you were going to go stand in front of Topper's mirror and come back out with the distance reinstalled, and it would be his fault, and he'd earned it.
He even opened his mouth to say something. Sorry, maybe. He wasn't sure. He hadn't gotten there.
You were standing in the doorway of the head with one hand still on the frame, and you weren't going in, and you weren't fixing anything, and you turned your head and you looked back at him across the small bright cabin.
“Rafe,” you said.
He was up off the couch before he'd finished understanding. The bong went onto the table too hard, making the water move in it. Two years of holding still, of the mean sentences, of the moat he'd dug with his own two hands, and it turned out the whole mechanism had been resting on you never once asking him not to hold still, and you hadn't asked him anything, you'd just said his name and left a door open, and the mechanism was already on the floor behind him.
He crossed the cabin in three steps and he did not let himself count them.
You stood in the doorway, the head behind you flooded with the harsh, blue-white of the marine bulb, and you looked at him like you’d always known he’d follow.
He stopped close, and the head was small enough that close was the only thing available, and Rafe found that he had no words ready. That was new. He always had words ready. He'd built a whole personality out of having the word ready. But the apparatus that supplied the words was on the cabin floor with everything else, and so he just stood there in the blue-white light, breathing, looking at you looking at him, and said nothing at all.
Your hands came up. Rafe’s eyes were fixed on them as they reached up, shy and sudden, to the sides of his face, just to hold. You were just holding, palms careful against his jaw like he was someone who deserved to be held carefully at all.
His whole body leaned down to it before his brain had been consulted. His head just went where your hands asked it to go, the way water went downhill, the way Topper was late; some law older than choosing.
“Can I—” you started, then the sentence went out of track.
You just stopped, and the third word wouldn’t come. Because the third one was a want, and you were someone who Rafe knew had spent years not saying those out loud, and Rafe watched the question strand there an inch from his mouth, watched you not be able to finish it, and understood that finishing it was a thing you could not do and were never going to be able to do.
So he did it for you. That was the deal, apparently, the complete contract of whatever this was. You couldn’t say the thing and he’d say it; you couldn’t finish and he’d finish. He'd be doing it for the rest of his life and he already knew that, standing there.
“Yeah,” Rafe said against the space where your sentence had been, throwing eleven days outside the window completely. “You can.”
You reached past him instead, one hand leaving his face, and you pushed the door shut behind him. It made a small sound of a click, and it landed in Rafe like a gunshot, because you'd done it. He hadn't reached back and done it for you. You'd closed the door yourself, with your own hand, taken the last out off the table and folded it up and put it away, and Rafe stood in the new confines of the room understanding that he had just watched you say yes in the only language you had.
And then you kissed him. It was careful at first—both of you were, for about a second and a half, careful—and then your fingers slid back into his hair and you breathed yourself through a small, relieved sound.
It was barely a sound at all, but it was a sound you had not chosen to make, Rafe could tell the difference, he’d spent two years watching you choose every sound and every breath and every tilt of your head, and this one had just slipped out of you. He’d spent the last few times he was in your proximity getting a closer read on you. And this was just involuntary proof, that this was happening to you as much as he was making it happen, that you were in here with him rather than being there for him.
He’d run the tape on this so many times it embarrassed him, and in every version you were careful. Soft, a thing he had to coax and gentle and be slow with.
So when your hand came up and fisted the front of his shirt and pulled—like you’d been the one standing on the wrong side of a door for two years—Rafe's entire model of you went out the porthole, and the loss of it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
“Okay,” he said to nobody, to the new discovery of you. “Okay.”
Rafe's control didn't snap so much as it discovered it had never really been there. You kissed him, and he’d been expecting to be the one to do it to you, Rafe the corrupting agent, Rafe with the dirty hands. He didn’t know this one. It felt like being handed a part of you that he couldn’t have witnessed from across rooms, and it turned out to be this—appetite, slow, a little mean—and he wanted it so badly it scared him sober.
His fingers went to your hair, fingers closing at the root and pulling your head back just enough to change the angle, and his other arm came around your back to haul you in past there was room to be hauled. The size of the room was nothing and he wanted you closer than nothing.
Your chest pressed flat to his and he could feel you breathing through the cotton of your top, could feel the ridge of your bra and the heat of your skin underneath it. His arm tightened across your back.
Somewhere in it, he heard himself say “fuck—you—” against your mouth and didn't get the rest of it out. The rest of it was two years long anyway and wouldn't have fit in the room.
“Rafe,” you said, voice breath-shaped against his jaw, the vibration of it traveling down his neck and settling somewhere at the base of his spine.
“Mhm.”
“I—” You let his teeth catch onto your bottom lip and gently tug on it. You rose to your toes. “I haven’t been able to—stop—”
“Hm?” He was already gone. His hands found the hem of your denim skirt. His fingers traced the seam where the fabric ended, running along the edge of it, before his palms slid underneath and made contact with bare skin. His palms caught against skin still slick from the humidity, and the give of you under his hands briefly wiped every coherent thought from his head. “Stop what?”
“Being able to think—about you.” Your words came out in two short breaths as Rafe’s fingers palmed the curve of your ass with more greed than finesse, pulling your hips forward into his.
“Shit—yeah?” His voice had gone somewhere low and ruined. A stupid part of him wanted to ask why, hear you say it again, spell it out, tell him exactly what you thought about. “Me too.”
The same broken noise slipped out of you again, urgently, like the next one and all of the ones after that were owed to him.
He walked you backward until the bulkhead caught you. You hit the teak with a dull sound and your spine arched off it, pressing your hips into his. Rafe’s vision briefly went white because the pressure of you against him—specifically where he was already hard and had been since you closed the door—was a feeling his body processed before his brain got anywhere near it.
He kept one hand flat behind your shoulder blade so the boat's roll wouldn't knock your skull into the wood. Some backroom part of him was still telling him to make sure you didn’t get hurt.
His hand found the hem of your skirt again and pushed it up slowly, gathering the denim in his fist, and the scrape of the fabric against your skin was loud in the small room.
You shifted your hips off the teak to help him—lifted without being asked—and Rafe had to stop.
He put his forehead against your shoulder and breathed, because your unconscious cooperation did more to him than everything before it combined. He'd imagined it, and in every version you were hesitant, uncertain, something he had to ease into, and the reality was that you'd just lifted your hips for him like you wanted this as much as he did.
“D’you—” His voice was gone. He couldn’t recognize it. “Tell me to.”
“Rafe.”
“Say it.” He turned his mouth against your neck, found your pulse point, and it felt it hammering against his lips. He tasted the salt on your skin. His hand was on your thigh, fingers spread wide, thumb pressing to the soft inside of it where the skin was the thinnest, and he could feel the muscle twitching under his touch. “Say it?”
You let out a breath into his ear, body loosening up under his hold. “Please.”
“Jesus fuck,” Rafe muttered, and it came out wrecked, halfway to a laugh, because you kept finding things he had no defense for without even trying.
He pushed the lace aside with two fingers, careful at first because the carefulness was a reflex even now, and then he felt you—your warmth and the give and the fact of it—and the careful went the way of everything else. Warmer than he’d imagined, softer, wetter. His fingers slid against you experimentally, testing his touch out, afraid you’d vanish if he made the wrong move.
Your eyes squeezed shut and your thigh clenched against his hip.
Everything was replaced by the single present-tense reality of his hand between your legs, and the reality was so much more than the fantasy that he understood, suddenly and completely, that he wasn’t going to recover from knowing this.
He pressed his forehead to the side of your head and shut his eyes. Looking at you was too much information all at once; he needed to subtract a sense or he was going to embarrass himself.
He bit down the inside of his cheek, hard, on principle, because the sound that wanted to come out at just this—just his fingers against you, nothing more, the most preliminary fact of you—was a sound that would have told you everything.
It would have laid the whole two years out on the floor, and Rafe was ready to give you a great deal tonight but he was not, yet, ready to give you that.
You made a short, desperate sound. Your hand came off his shirt and gripped his wrist to keep him, to make sure his hands stayed, the fingers wrapping around the bones of his wrist and holding on.
“Not going anywhere,” he said against your temple, which was true in the small immediate sense and a lie in every other, and he chose, this once, to mean only the small one.
Your free hand moved between you, down, and found the waist of his jeans. You fumbled at the button. It was clumsy—your fingers weren’t sure, and Rafe wondered if you’d ever done the reaching before, or if you’d only ever done the reaching before—and that clumsiness nearly took his legs out; the fact that you were trying, that you’d decided his wanting was a thing worth tending to. You, who tended to everything, were turning all the careful attention now onto him.
He caught your wrist with his free hand before you got to the button.
“Hey. No.” It came out rougher than expected. He pressed his mouth to your jaw so he wouldn't have to look at you while he said it. He could feel your pulse in your wrist, fast under his thumb, and he held it there. “Not—Just you right now. Okay?”
You went still, uncertain, and he felt the small recalibration in you. He couldn’t have that either.
“S’not—” Rafe huffed, frustrated at his own mouth, at the fact that the truth was right there and he had no clean way to hand it over. The truth being that if you touched him, he was done, and he needed it to last longer than that, he needed more of you before he let it be over. He had no way to say any of it that wouldn't crack him open.
So, he said, against your skin, “Let me have this one. You can deal with me later.”
He felt the curve of your smile against his cheek. “Promise?” you asked, like it genuinely could have been that simple.
He chose to believe it could be.
“Yeah, okay.” His fingers moved inside you again and your breath broke and the smile went with it. “Yeah. Promise.”
You made a noise, broken, your hips chasing his hand like the wanting had gone out ahead of you. He almost said it then. The thing. It got all the way up his throat and he swallowed it down because saying it here, like this, with his fingers inside you on Topper's boat, would've made it the cheapest it could ever be, and the one thing Rafe was sure of was that it wasn't cheap. He curled his fingers instead to find the place that made your whole body forget its manners.
His hips pressed forward against your thigh just once off their own accord, moving in a slow grind.
His body was finding pressure where it could, chasing the friction he’d denied simply because of the fact that he was so hard it had passed uncomfortable a while ago and entered something closer to pain.
The pressure sent a wave of relief through him so acute his breath came out shaky against your temple, and his hand stuttered inside you for half a second before he caught the rhythm again.
He locked his hips and stayed still and put everything he had back into you instead, into the curl of his fingers and the pace you needed, and the dull throb of himself went unanswered and that was fine.
That was fine. He could sit with it. He'd been sitting with wanting you for two years; what was another few minutes?
“Look at me.” It came out slow, almost a plea, far from having an order in it. He’d had his eyes shut a second ago and now he couldn’t survive not being able to see. “C’mon. Lemme see.”
Your eyes dragged open, gone glassy, unfocused, and he held them. He’d wanted to see this for so long and he wasn’t going to spend it blind.
Your hand twisted in his shirt. You were shaking. He could feel it building in you, your peak, close, and he kept his rhythm exactly where you needed it because for once in his life he wanted to give perfectly, get one act completely right.
“Rafe.” Your voice cracked on it, warning, almost.
“I know,” he said. “I got you.”
You broke. He felt it happen—felt you go tight, squeezing his fingers, and then gone, your forehead dropping hard to his shoulder, a sound against his neck that you didn't choose and couldn't have stopped—and he held still inside it and let you have all of it, every second, until you went heavy and loose against him and the only thing holding you up was him.
Rafe kept his hand where it was one second longer than he should have, just to feel the last of it, then drew it back slow and fixed the lace with more care than he’d taken with anything in his life. He settled it back like he was hiding the evidence, which he was. He pressed his forehead to yours. Your hands had found his shirt again. Your eyes were shut.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, shaken, as you tried to recover yourself. He saw your jaw tighten like you wanted to say more and were physically biting the words down.
He already knew what was coming. He'd watched it happen enough with you now, the way the wanting closed over and the apology surfaced. He just didn't know it would land the way it did.
The words landed wrong in him, because ‘sorry’ was a thing people were for Rafe, a thing that arrived in his direction with his name attached.
If you were going to keep reaching for him and you were going to be sorry every time, and he was going to let you, and the wanting was always going to come to him pre-wrapped in your regret.
He couldn't have that. Of all of it—the wrongness, the boat, Topper—that was the one thing Rafe found he could not stand in the room.
He brought his hand up and brushed his knuckles along your cheek, slow, and shook his head, just slightly, just enough.
“Don’t,” he said, and his voice came out rough. “You see me complaining?”
You looked at him, and Rafe got the full, sober weight of your eyes for the first time since the door had clicked. In them was something he had no idea what he could with, the furrow of your brows and the frown on your lips, like you didn’t want to go.
That made something between his ribs sore, because he could deal with you regretting it; he’d dealt with people regretting him. What he had no capability for was you standing so, so fucking close to him looking like leaving him was the hardest part.
“Hey.” He had reached the edge of what his mouth could do. So he kept the knuckles against your cheek, because moving them was beyond him, and the two of you stood there in the bright nothing for a second that Rafe would later try and fail to make last longer in his memory than it had any right to last.
Then your eyes moved past him—to the door, to the world on the other side of it—and he watched the second you started leaving.
He watched your face close over. Then your hands left his shirt—he felt the complete loss of them, a cold where they’d been tugging—and went to work; you smoothed the denim of your skirt where he’d greedily bunched it, the shirt next that had, at some point, lifted up, then your hair, fingers finding the loose pieces and threading them back into the shape they were supposed to hold.
Forty seconds, maybe less, and there was almost nothing left of you that Rafe had put there. That meant you’d walk out into the sun and stand next to Topper, and Topper would look at you and see his girl, intact, unmarked, and returned to him in good condition.
But you’d been sad to go. Rafe held onto that with both hands. He’d take it up the stairs with him; he’d take it home; he’d take it out later and look at it. He knew, even now, that keeping that would be the worst thing to keep, because the fact that you hadn’t wanted to leave didn’t mean you were going to stay. You were still going. Sad to leave and leaving weren’t opposites; you could do both. In fact, you were about to.
“You should head up,” he said. “Before anyone else comes.”
You nodded.
Rafe reached out one more time, the last time he could, and ran his thumb along the corner of your mouth where the pink had smudged, where he’d smudged it. He wiped it clean, almost carefully, and he tucked the one piece of hair you’d missed.
“I don’t know what—I’m sorr—”
Rafe cut your words off by placing a finger under your chin.
He knew while doing it that he was putting Topper’s girlfriend back together. He was reassembling you with his own hands so the seams wouldn't show, gentle as anything, and he hated himself the exact right amount and did it anyway, because the alternative was you walking up there with the truth still on you and Rafe was not—whatever else he was—going to be the reason it showed.
“Go,” he said, stepping back to give you the door. He found something like a smile somewhere and got it up onto his face and held it there with what he had left. “You look perfect.”
It was at the lawn party that happened every year because the Murrays had a lawn and a reason was not, on Figure Eight, something that was required to have a party. Rafe had come anyway, because not coming was its own kind of information, and another week into a thing like this he started doing calculation on what your absence said as carefully as what your presence did.
He’d been there an hour and he watched you the whole hour. He was good at it by now; he’d had years of practice so it didn’t look like anything, the trick of keeping his face pointed at the person talking to him while the rest of you stayed aimed at the far side of the lawn. Nobody saw him do it, and he watched you move around the grass in a green dress with a drink you hadn’t taken a single sip of.
You were bright and frictionless and doing that stupid fucking laugh exactly on time. Your hand found people’s forearms when you said a kind thing, and the whole set-up of it was so smooth and so total that he had a hard time believing you were the same person who’d asked him to come into a tiny bathroom on your boyfriend’s boat.
By seven, the parents had thinned out and left Brad and Charlie Murray in charge of the lawn. It was by eight when Rafe noticed Topper leave. It was with some guy Rafe half-knew, a friend of a friend, who looked like he was going to be a problem, and Topper had peeled him off from the keg to deal with him. Topper was doing the small, good thing and taking a guy home before he woke up the next morning with an earful of everything he’d done.
He got his phone out before his mind even processed it.
where are u, he texted you, making use of that almost-empty chat thread with you that was mainly filled with small logistic details he never cared about that you did. It was deniable, a sentence that would make him look like he was only keeping an eye out for his best friend’s girlfriend.
He told himself that, too. He just wanted to know where you were; he’d also spent his time unable to decide if the boat had been a real thing or a girl having the worst night of her summer in a small room he just happened to be in. He didn't know which, and not knowing was its own kind of hell.
about to catch a ride w ruthie
Rafe immediately read it and his mind snagged on the fact that you’d answered him at all. You could've gotten in Ruthie's car and let the question rot. Rafe felt something ugly and electric go up his spine that he had the decency, at least, to be disgusted by.
come by the pool in the back
The typing bubble didn’t come back up. He picked the label off the beer in wet strips and watched the path up to the pool. And you did come up the path, and Rafe got his answer, that the boat may not have been a fluke.
He should've felt like he'd won something. He'd been telling himself for three weeks that knowing would feel like winning.
You came around the hedge and saw him sitting on the pool ledge with his feet in the water and his beer on the stone beside him.
“Hey,” you said. You looked at the pool, the empty chairs, the dark windows of the Murray house where the party noise was muffled into bass and the occasional shriek. You looked everywhere that wasn't him.
“You been avoiding me?” Rafe asked, trying to make it sound as even as possible.
“No,” you said quickly. Your hand went to the chain around your neck and turned the pendant once.
He huffed out a breath. “Yeah?”
“I’m here, am I not?”
Rafe had no fucking clue how he’d managed to get you in this position, head between your thighs as you laid on the top of his white duvet.
The room was dark except for the dock lights off the marsh throwing slow, liquid patterns across the ceiling. Tannyhill was empty, and Rafe usually hated that, but right now, the silence was his and it had you in it, and that made it the best fucking room he’d ever been in.
Your thighs were shaking with a small tremor, barely there, and his hands were holding them apart. His thumbs pressed into the soft inside of your skin as your whole body tried to close around him. He could feel the tension in the muscle under his palms, the restless shifting of your hips, and the way your hand had gone to his hair and stayed there.
He’d barely started. His mouth was working up from the inside of your thigh, tasting the salt on your skin, and you were already breathing like you’d been running. He could hear the short, caught inhales that you kept trying to smooth out.
He said your name against your skin, and you jolted. “Stop thinking,” he murmured.
“I’m not—”
“I can feel it.” He looked up at you from between your legs. Your face in the dim was already flushed with eyes too wide and your bottom lip caught between your teeth. “Relax.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try less,” he drawled, thumb doing a gentle stroke against your skin. “That’s the whole point.”
His mouth moved higher, and your thighs clenched against the sides of his face before you caught yourself and relaxed it. He let his tongue drag down the slit, savoring the taste as your hips came off the bed. The sound you made was small and shocked; you immediately bit it back, swallowed it behind your teeth.
He wanted to stay like this. He wanted to take his time, learn you like this, take in every sound and shift of your body. But your body was rigid underneath him in a way that wasn't anticipation. You were lying on his bed with your legs apart and his face between them and some part of you couldn't stop being aware of it. He could feel your self-consciousness like a physical thing, the way you kept adjusting, kept shifting your hips.
“Rafe,” you said quietly.
He lifted his head. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s—wrong.” You pressed your lips together. Your hand in his hair loosened, then tightened, then loosened again. “Can you come up here?”
“But I’m good here.”
“I know. I just—I wanna—” You stopped, letting out an almost-frustrated breath he found deeply amusing. Your eyes were fixed on the ceiling, and furrow between your brows had deepened in a way that wasn't just arousal. You were embarrassed. You were lying in his bed asking for something and you were embarrassed about the asking. “I want you like—closer.”
Rafe tugged his lip between his teeth, and he was sure his own pupils were blown as wide as they could be. “Closer how?”
Your eyes found his in the dark, and the shy wanting in your face hit Rafe in a really, really, difficult fucking way because he had no idea how to deal with it. You held his gaze and your hand gently tugged at his hair, pulling him upward and toward you.
“We don’t have to—” He went, because there was no version of this where he could deny you. He was already crawling up your body because his own was making the decision, his brain, his mouth dragging up your stomach, your ribs, the valley between your breasts. “I don’t mind.”
Your hands went down from his hair and cupped the sides of his face with your palms, practically forcing him to look at you. “Do you—you don’t want to?”
The question was so far from reality that his brain physically stalled. He was hovering over you, hands on your shoulders, and you were looking up at him with genuine uncertainty.
“Are you—” He almost laughed. “You’re really asking me that?”
You grumbled something under your breath, causing him to chuckle then.
He moved his thumb to your lip, pulling it down, as he said, “I wanna. Just wanna make sure you’ll be fine.”
Your lips closed around his thumb, as if relieved at his answer, and Rafe’s brain went to place it wasn’t coming back from.
Your eyes stayed on his, still carrying the shy uncertainty from a second ago, and Rafe was supposed to reconcile that with the warm press of your tongue against his thumb.
“Okay,” he said flatly. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”
The corner of your eyes creased. You would’ve laughed if you weren’t currently occupied.
He pressed his thumb down against your bottom lip, dragged it slow across the fullness of it, and watched your eyes go heavy. His cock was pressed against your thigh and he was fairly sure you could feel exactly what this was doing to him, which was fine, whatever, he'd abandoned dignity somewhere around the second week of wanting you.
“So fucking annoying,” he said, almost conversational.
He pulled his thumb free, letting it drag. The wet shine it left on your lip caught the silver light. You looked up at him with your mouth still parted and an expression that was dangerously close to being pleased with yourself.
He leaned down to press his forehead against yours, bracing his arms against your sides as his hips came flush against yours, cock grinding over the wetness of you. He let out a broken gasp at the feeling, eyes closing for a moment.
Your breath hitched underneath him and your hips tilted up—chasing—and the friction made both of you go still for a second. Your hands were on his shoulders, fingers pressing into the muscle, and your eyes were shut and your mouth was open and you looked like someone at the edge of a cliff deciding whether to jump.
He rocked against you again, watching intently the way your brow creased and your lips pressed together. He could feel you—the heat, the slick of it, how easy it would be to just push forward—and the restraint of not doing it yet, of keeping this unbearable almost-contact, was winding something tight behind his ribs.
“Why’re you letting me do this to you?” he asked, unable to stop the words from stumbling out. He rolled his hips again.
“Huh—”
He shifted his hips, unfair. He knew it was far from fair, but whatever deflection you’d been making lost its integrity. “Why?” he asked, voice quieter.
Your hands slid from his shoulders to the sides of his neck. You held him there, thumbs against his jaw, and he watched you try to find the answer while his body was making it very difficult to think. Your hips moved against his again; small, restless, like your body was having its own conversation separate from the one your mouth was attempting.
“Why are you doing this?” you said, turning it back around on him.
“I’ve got my reasons,” he said without missing a beat.
Something flickered across your eyes, curiosity, maybe, then washed out. “And I’ve got mine.”
That was enough for Rafe. That was more than enough, that there was something in you that wanted to do this.
His hands went down to find his cock and align himself against you. He pushed forward in one, slow continuous motion, and any words you had for him dissolved into a sound that started as a gasp and ended nowhere. Your lips parted and your eyes widened just slightly at the newfound intrusion in your body as your nails sunk into the sides of his neck hard enough to leave crescents.
His own breath left him somewhere guttural and graceless, his face dropping to the crook of your neck. He held still, breathing through his nose against your skin, jaw clenched as every muscle tightened.
Your body was adjusting around him in increments he could feel; the tension in your thighs loosening, your hips shifting beneath his to find the angle, your breathing going from held to shaky. Your fingers moved from his neck to his hair, threading through it, holding on.
“Okay?” he managed to say through his teeth.
“Yeah,” you said, voice coming out through a breath. “Just—stay there a second.”
He stayed, and he would’ve done so for the rest of the night if you’d asked him to. Your legs were wrapped around his hips and your fingers were in his hair and he was inside you in his bed and the whole situation was so far from anything he deserved that he was fairly sure the universe was going to correct the error any second now.
Your hips moved first with a small roll, testing, and whatever you found made your head tilt back and eyes close. You let out a small, surprised sound like you’d answered a question.
“Good?” he said against your neck.
“Move,” you said instead of answering.
He pulled back and pushed in again, and your body rose to meet him on the first stroke like it had been waiting. The angle you found together made you gasp and him swear and it something in motion neither of you could stop.
He pulled back to look at you because he needed to see your face. You looked wrecked already—mouth open, eyes half-shut, heat spreading down your neck—and something about the expression was more than just pleasure. It was surprise, like you hadn't known it could feel like this.
Rafe thought about Topper—a brief flash, Topper in this position, Topper on top of you—and felt something ugly and possessive claw up his throat. He wondered if Topper had ever seen this face.
He pushed himself up to the hilt to shove the thought aside. Your body kept meeting his with a push that matched his own, your hips rolling up into every thrust, and the careful dissolved in the face of it.
At some point, through the haze of too-much-pleasure, more than Rafe deserved, your mouth found his shoulder, breathing hard against his skin. On a thrust that went deeper, your teeth came down reflexively, the bite sharp and sudden, sending a jolt down through him. A bright sting that braided into the pleasure and amplified it, and his hips snapped forward hard in response, punching a sound out of you that vibrated against his shoulder.
You pulled back. “Sorry. I’m sorry—”
He let out a small chuckle, shaking his head. “Don’t really care. You do what you want.”
His hand found your thigh, hiked your leg higher around his waist. The angle shifted and your head tipped back and the sound you made was loud enough to fill the room. Your throat was exposed, the pendant resting in the hollow of your collarbone—the initial that belonged to every version of you that existed outside this bed—and it caught the light as your chest heaved.
Rafe's hand moved before his brain had signed off on it. It shifted from your thigh up your body, over your ribs, your collarbone, and settled against the side of your throat, resting. His palm was against your neck, fingers curving around the column of it, his thumb was against your pulse where it was hammering fast enough to count.
You let out a shuddered breath as your back arched off the mattress, and your hips ground up into him. “Rafe,” you said, sounding almost needier.
Rafe sucked in an inhale. “Yeah?”
Your mouth opened and nothing came out for a second—your body processing—and then a sound that was so unguarded your hand flew up to cover your mouth.
He caught it and pinned it to the mattress beside your head, fingers lacing with yours. His other hand stayed on your throat, elbows resting against the mattress, as his fingers rubbed the skin under your jaw. “Don’t do that.”
Your fingers squeezed his where they were pinned. Your eyes were bright and locked on his. He could feel you everywhere.
Your legs tight around his waist, your hand gripping his, your pulse racing against his palm, the way you clenched around him every time his thumb shifted against your throat. He was keeping all of it. He was putting it in the drawer that had started as a nook and had overtaken every other room in his head. The specific rhythm that made your eyes roll back. The way your body curved into him when he hit the right angle. The small, bitten-off sounds you made.
His lips found yours, tugging them with his teeth rather than kissing at all. Your shaky breaths ghosted over his face.
He could feel you getting close, your breath fragmenting into short gasps and you clenching around his own pulsing. Your hands squeezed his against the mattress hard enough that the bones ached.
“I think I’m—” you started saying against his lips.
“I know,” he said, letting himself find a rhythm—the perfect one, if there even was one, to make you fall apart under him—as his finger reached up to trace your jaw. “I know.”
Within three minutes of Rafe’s body rolling off of yours, he noticed your body stiffen like a fucking stone. He stayed where he was, on his back, and he let the quiet sit because it was, for now, holding.
Your shoulder was against his arm and your knee was somewhere near his. The length of you was just there, warm and breathing, close in a way that the boat or the truck or your bathroom hadn’t allowed. Rafe had never had that with you. He found he didn't entirely know what to do with his arm.
He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed and reaching for the jeans on the floor. He got his cigarettes out of the pocket and put his jeans back on. He crossed to the window and pushed it up with the heel of his hand and Rafe sat himself on the sill, half in the room and half out of it. He took the first drag and felt his hands finally have a job. He needed something to do with his hands; lying in bed next to you without reaching out for you again wasn’t, it turned out, a thing his body had been built to do.
He let himself look back at you. You’d propped yourself up on one elbow, the duvet pulled across you, and you were watching him, the way he did you, except he’d had the cowardice to do it across rooms and you were doing it from eight feet away with no apparent shame about it at all.
When you realized he noticed you, your eyes went down.
Rafe huffed, smoke going with it. “Now you’re shy?”
“Shut up.”
“You can stare. I’m right here.”
You shifted under the duvet at his gaze, and your eyes came off him and went to the middle distance. Something in your shoulders drew in, like you were folding half-inch under a thing you had no cover for.
He shifted on the sill, opening the space between his knees so the foot still inside came down flat on the floorboards. He made the room and let it sit there, took another drag, and looked at the dark outside.
You pushed the duvet off and got up to cross the room in his t-shirt, the grey one, the hem of it at the top of your thighs. You sat down between his legs with your back to his chest, and Rafe forgot, for a second, what he’d been doing with his cigarette.
“You cold?” he said, because you’d drawn in against him.
“A little.”
He brought his arm around you and flattened it over your stomach to pull you back the last inch into him, and it sat there like a bar across your front. Your spine fell against his sternum and his chin landed somewhere at the top of your head without fully thinking about it. He smoked over your shoulder, angling it away so it wouldn’t go in your face.
“Can I say something?” you asked after a moment.
“That’s never good.”
“It’s not bad.” you said.
“That’s worse.” He felt you huff, the small laugh going through your back into his chest. He tapped the ash out the window. “Go.”
“I didn’t know I’d—” You stopped, looking out the window. “I don’t usually—” The sentence continued to fall halfway, each version dying before it cleared your teeth. You sighed, longly, then gave up on saying it cleanly at all. “It’s usually never like that for me. That’s all.”
It took Rafe a moment to register you weren’t talking about the sex as much as you were talking about yourself. You’d been in one bed your whole life, and so the basic structure of the thing was a blank you were handing him, with no management on it, trusting him—him, of all people—to draw it in honestly.
“Yeah,” he said carefully.
You nodded against his collarbone, and he felt the small loosening in your body, as though you’d been quietly worried about admitting it and just found out that it was fine.
“Makes sense, though.” He took a drag, the cigarette going into its last embers. “One person your whole life. You don’t even know what you—” The words came out magnanimous, older, knows-better, and he tried to reel it back because he most definitely didn’t know better. “You gotta get out more. Figure out what you like. Who does it for you.” He shrugged, almost stiffly. “You’ve got catching up to do.”
It sat there for half a second, and then the picture loaded behind it—you, like this, and someone else being the one to go looking and find the same pieces he just found—and Rafe discovered the offer he’d made out of generosity was the single most intolerable sentence he’d said all summer.
You tipped your head back against his shoulder to look up at him. There was something small and amused in your face, because you'd caught the seam in his voice a beat before he'd even finished hating himself for it.
“How many more?”
He huffed, low and hot against the side of your head, and shook it once. “Yeah, alright.” His arm drew tighter across your stomach. “Pretty sure I should be enough.”
The cigarette was dead. He’d smoked it past the point of it being anything, down to the place where it was just paper and heat between his fingers, and he reached out and crushed it on the brick of the sill outside. His hand came back in with nothing to do, and he solved it the way he’d started solving most of it recently, which was to find some part of you and settle on it; the flat of his palm went to your hip and stayed, his thumb moving once over the bone of it and then going still.
“I should probably drive you home soon, yeah?” he said into the side of your head. “It’s late.”
He felt your spine taking itself back, the slack going out of you, and the cold rushed back into the warm place at his chest. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” you said quickly. “I’ll get dressed really quick.”
Before he could even process it all, you were already up, crossing for your clothes. He watched you put them on.
Stay was right there, but it wouldn’t come up.
“Hey.” You stopped at his voice, one sandal on, the other one in your hand. “The catching up—” His thumb found the brick where the cigarette had been rubbed. “I’m right here. If you—want to—up to you.”
It was the most he could get out.
“You’re bad at this,” you said, almost matter-of-factly.
He huffed, eyes leaving the window to go back to you for a second. “Yeah, I know.” He laughed then, slightly. “Never really been in this situation before.”
“Yeah,” You bent and set the sandal down on the boards. “Me neither.”
Thick syrupy light that came down at six and made people you couldn’t even stand look like they were worth everyone’s time covered your entire vision. You were on a long teak bench against the pergola with Topper’s arm across the back of it, and you had a sweating glass of something pink you’d been holding for thirty minutes. The Devreux twins were in the pool; someone had fallen asleep upright on the Adirondack chair, a tray of those little crab things was going around, and the citronella candles were already lit.
Topper’s hand was on your knee, it had been there a while. It landed the same way as it always had, without his eyes following it. Two years ago, one year ago, a month ago, it had been nothing, only a thing that came with being his.
The problem was that it wasn’t anything anymore. You could feel exactly where his palm was, and your whole body had started to keep a completely different count this summer that had nothing to do with anniversaries. The count was three, and it was something your skin knew all too well, even when your face didn’t. So his hand sat on your knee in the gold light and you had to make yourself not move it, the way you made yourself not do a lot of things now, and you understood with a small flat horror that you'd become a person who had to be aware of your boyfriend’s touch.
“—no, that’s the thing about her,” Topper said, free hand sloshing as he gestured, and you pulled yourself back in as you realized it was you he was speaking about. “Last year for her birthday, I planned the whole thing, booked the place on the water and got everyone out—like forty people—and she just—” he tipped his head toward you, fond, the spotlight swinging, and you felt it land before you'd arranged your face for it. “She had the best time. Didn’t ask for anything. My mom says it all the time, she’s gonna be so nice to be married to.”
The bench made a unanimous warm and approving sound. Somebody said ‘we love her.’ You smiled, head tilting on autopilot, and you let yourself remember—for exactly one second—that you had wanted, very badly, to spend that birthday at home. That you’d told him so, gently, twice, and he’d heard you didn’t want a fuss because that was an easier version of you to plan around.
Forty people on the water; you’d had the best time because you were good at your job. Topper was saying the truth, that was the unbearable part. Topper stood it was a true story about a girl who didn't want anything, and the girl who hadn’t wanted it had simply never made it across to him, had filed the wanting down small and smooth so he'd never have to notice her carrying it.
He loved to talk about that birthday. He’d talk about it for years. He’d talk about it at the wedding.
Across the lawn, Rafe was leaning against the pergola post with a beer, angled half away from it all. You couldn’t see his face, and you didn’t need to. He was the only person who somehow knew you’d wanted to stay home—a fact that slipped out when your lips had been loose while you were in a haze, simply trying to fill silences—and you had to put your glass to your mouth and not drink just to have something to do that wasn't turning your head.
“You’re quiet,” Topper said, leaning in, the scent of sun and beer filling your nose. “Should I get the car? We can dip early.”
“No need,” you said, smiling. “I’m good.”
You got up after a few minutes and said something about grabbing finger sandwiches and Topper asked you to grab a beer, already halfway into a discussion about a jetski. You said you would, which meant now you would be grabbing a beer.
You went the long way, around the deep end, past the abandoned crab tray and the sleeper with his drink balanced on the side of his chair. You walked through all of it with your empty pink drink and the specific loneliness of being the only sober-feeling person at a party that was working perfectly for everyone else.
You stood in the far end of the pergola where the lattice cut the gold light into pieces, and you set the glass down on the ledge. You put both your hands on the wood and looked at the marsh going gold past the property line and let yourself, for one supervised minute, feel it.
It came up fast once you let yourself feel it; it was the low, slick, swelling kind, the kind that had your name on it. Because Topper was good. Topper was sitting forty feet away being genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy, telling a roomful of people he loved how easy you were to love, how little you needed, how lucky he was. Every word coming out of his mouth was true to him, and he had driven you across the island when you were bored, had asked if you’d eaten, had loved the wrong version of you so correctly that you couldn’t even hate him for not finding the real one.
He would continue being good, and you had spent the summer doing the single worst thing a person could do to another, to him, to the boy who’d done nothing but be exactly what everyone said he was.
Your eyes went hot and you blinked hard as you felt the first one go before you could stop it. You wiped the tear fast with the heel of your hand because crying here would be a catastrophe, and you hated yourself with a completeness that almost steadied you, because at least the hating was honest, at least it was the one true feeling you'd had all day that you weren’t forcing for anybody.
You felt the change in the air, the quiet of someone arriving who knew not to announce it, and you didn't turn around because you couldn't, not with your face like this. Rafe had already seen you like this more times than you would have liked.
“Hey,” he said, voice low behind you, to the set of your shoulders. “You—”
“Not now, Rafe,” you said, voice coming out cracked. You kept your back to him and pressed the heel of your hand under your eye, fast, like you could get there before he saw, and you couldn't, and you knew you couldn't. “I can’t—I’m sorry, I can’t give you—” Your words were interrupted by a hiccup. “Not right now. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not trying to…” You heard Rafe suck in a sharp breath and let the words trail off. “That’s not why I—” He tried again, and he couldn’t get there again, sounding genuinely unsure about how to finish the sentence. “Jesus. No.”
You turned then, because he sounded too caught off-guard, and you got your first look at his face which was filled with genuine confusion, brows furrowed.
“Why would you think—I saw you walking off looking like—” He looked almost offended as he stared at you. Then, he gestured vaguely at your face, his motions moving awkwardly. “Like that. So I came over. That’s it.” He shook his head, frustrated at himself now. “I don’t—I’m not trying to fuck you or whatever. I just came over, alright?”
You let yourself sit with his words for a moment, feeling something like warmth cover your chest and then immediately feeling like a monster for feeling it.
“Okay,” you said finally, voice small.
He nodded once, sharply. “He’s being an idiot.”
You let out a sound that was meant to be a laugh but just came out as a hiccup again. “No, he’s not.”
“I’m just saying,” he said, and you could feel how difficult it was for him to talk right now.
“No, he’s not,” you said again, shaking your head. “He’s good, Rafe. He didn’t do anything and I’m—” You took in a deep breath, forcing yourself to look away from him. “I’m just being a horrible person to him.”
“So fucking what,” Rafe said, the words coming out as the complete opposite of a question. “You’ve probably done a hundred good things for strangers in the last six months.” He scratched at his chin for a moment. “It’s annoying to even watch. Maybe you get one bad thing to do.”
You looked up at him with what should’ve been gratitude, but what came was the reflex. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you wanna keep sleeping with me.”
Your words came out smaller than an accusation, like you were just handing him the easy version on purpose. The one where this could stay a thing you understood, because a guy who said nice things to get something was a guy you knew how to be around, and a guy who said them for no reason was not.
Rafe’s face shifted—you’d stung him, you realized, a beat too late—and he chose to not take the out you’d given him.
“Yeah,” he said flatly, voice dry. “That’s it. That’s exactly why. Came all the way here just to lock that one down.” He looked at you with a look you couldn’t recognize. “Don’t be dumb.”
You wanted to let it end there, because it was all going out of left-field, into an area you couldn’t manage. But Rafe continued, like he was the one who hated silences, “I stole a turtle.”
“Today?” you asked, the word coming out of your mouth before you could process his words.
He shifted his neck back as he looked at you. “No, not today. Obviously.” He looked over you for a moment, reassessing. “Eighth grade. It was a class turtle.”
You let out a laugh that was mainly the aftershocks of your wet eyes and stuffy nose. “What’s wrong with you?” you said, and it came out clogged and unsteady and not unkind at all, almost grateful, the question you’d meant as an accusation arriving as something closer to relief.
“Lotta things,” Rafe said, then took a sip of his beer. “Connor’s mom was gonna keep it for the summer. I didn’t like him. Kept the turtle three months in my closet.”
“What’d he do to you?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Something.”
You laughed then, and your hand went up your mouth. The corner of Rafe’s mouth went up.
“Took care of it, though,” he said after. “Probably better than they would’ve.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm. They were going on vacation that summer, anyway.” He picked at the label on his bottle. “Let it go after. It’s fine out there somewhere.”
You wiped under your eye, the crying mostly gone now, just the wreckage of it left. “I’d look for it.”
He looked at you for a long second, like he was deciding whether you were serious and landing on, in this second, maybe. Then he shook his head, slow, the brows still up.
Rafe’s brows went up a little. “Yeah, that’s all you.”
The overhead lights of Kelce’s basement were off and somebody had plugged in the lamp with the scarf over it that Kelce’s mother did not know her son owned, and the room had gone a low amber colour that made everything look a little more like something was wrong. Upstairs, the party was loud. Down here, it was a circle—the deep couch and the floor and the coffee table that had cigarette burns Kelce blamed, every single time, on a cousin—of eight or nine of you, the number loose for people kept arriving then going.
You were between Topper and Rafe, and you hadn’t chosen this. You’d come down the stairs and there’d been one gap on the couch, and it had Topper on one side of it and Rafe on the other. There was no version of the next two seconds where you would stand in the middle of the basement doing visible math to get out of the situation, so you sat on it.
Topper’s arm went along the back of the couch behind you, which meant he’d stopped tracking where you were, which was its own kind of love and also the reason any of this had been possible all summer. He was already pitched forward into a conversation about a boat motor; Topper could run a conversation with no fuel at all, indefinitely, like a hybrid. So you sat in the loose bracket of his arm and did all the things you were good at, the nod and the small affirming sound and the face set to show you were listening, and you did not look to your other side.
Your other side was Rafe leaning over the glass with a card and a folded bill, and you were spending real effort trying to watch him not do it. The effort was the tell.
You’d gotten frighteningly good at it over the summer; the alibis with no holes, the texts timed so the read receipts said the right story, the whole situation of getting away with it. The easy thing, the keeping your eyes where you put them, turned out to be the one you couldn’t do.
It was difficult, and what came with it every time was the low unstable interest in watching him. There was this wanting to look directly at the thing you’d spent your whole life being walked quickly past. Rafe didn’t manage himself. Rafe had a whole room in him with the lid off, and your whole life had been lids—on drinks you didn’t finish, on sentences you didn’t end, on the want you folded up small and put away before anyone could see the shape of it—and watching him just not do that, just reach for the thing and take it in a basement full of people, did something to you that you couldn’t find a clean name for.
The bill went around. Madi did hers with a wince. It traveled—a guy you half-knew, back across the table—and came near you, and you said, “I’m good.”
“Course you are,” Rafe said, a half-laugh in it. “You ever loosen up?”
“I loosen up,” you said, the words coming out before you could get a hand on them.
His head came around a few degrees. “Yeah?” He sat back off the table and looked at you. “Okay, then,” he said, soft, just for you. There was a dare folded in it only you could hear, because the only honest answer was sitting six inches to your left and getting off on this. “Name one thing you do.”
You felt the heat go up your neck and sealed your mouth. You watched a grin build itself across his face slow and unhurried, enormously enjoying the trap he’d set in plain sight.
“Hey.” Topper’s hand came to your knees, squeezing. “She’s gonna stop humoring you if you keep doing that,” he said, laughing with no heat in it.
He wasn’t even facing Rafe—or you—half his attention already drifted back into the room, because to Topper this was nothing, just two people he liked talking beside him.
For a second, something flickered down behind Rafe’s face, ugly and fast, gone before it finished calcifying. You knew the look he’d swallowed a hundred times this summer watching Topper kiss your temple in front of people.
Rafe leaned back against the couch, head against the cushion. He lifted his hand and dragged two fingers slow across his lip and held them there, and you understood now what the gesture was, forcing it down with two fingers because there was nowhere on God's earth he was allowed to let it out, least of all here, least of all at the person whose lap you were sitting across.
You sat with Topper's thumb moving idle on your knee and watched Rafe swallow a thing he had no business owning, and the awful part—the part you'd think about later—was how it answered something. How Rafe somehow made it feel better than being had.
Then Topper’s phone lit on his leg. He looked at it, said “My dad,” with the apology already on his face, and squeezed your shoulder and stood up, going to the stairs with his phone against his ear.
You saw Rafe’s head turn at the edge of your vision, his body staying exactly where it was, so that when he spoke it came angled at the side of your face. “You see Kelce with that girl earlier?”
You turned to meet him there. “Yes,” you said, too fast. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Visiting for the summer.” He shrugged, short. “Think he’s pretty into her.”
You weren't a gossip. You didn't do this—it was meant to be beneath the girl everyone had agreed you were—but it came up in you anyway, quick and a little mean and good. “Into her or the summer thing?”
Rafe huffed—almost a laugh, low—and you realized both your heads were turned all the way, that you were angled to him now, and that the two of you had built a tiny private room inside a basement full of people and not one person could have pointed at the thing you'd done to build it.
“What’s gonna happen?”
“Dunno.” A corner of his mouth went up. “I’ll tell you later.”
You opened your mouth a little, then closed it again. You looked at the coffee table, at the cigarette burns, at anything that was not Rafe, and you found that your hand had gone up to the side of your neck on its own and you made it come back down.
Rafe watched you do all of it as a smile settled into the side of his mouth.
“Don’t make that face,” you said.
“But it’s the only one I’ve got,” he drawled. The smile got worse, almost bigger and lazier, and he held your eyes for a second longer. Mercifully, he let you go and leaned forward off the couch and back to the glass of the table.
You watched him line it up, the quick work of his hands with his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, and the party was a wall of sound somewhere above you. Down here the tally you ran on every room you'd ever been in—who was where, who could see—had quietly stopped running, and you were watching Rafe with your whole stupid face.
He sat back up a few seconds after doing the line and his eyes met yours once again.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“You’re in my eyeline,” you said.
“Move your eyeline,” he said without missing a beat.
“It’s my eyeline. You move.”
“Guess you’re stuck then.” He didn't look away. Neither did you.
He tilted his head a degree, slow, openly, the way a person looks at a thing when they've stopped pretending they're not looking. There were eight people in the room and one of them was upstairs on the phone with his father, and you let Rafe look, and you looked back, and for a second the not-hiding was so much more dangerous than anything you'd actually done.
“Since when,” Kelce started, apparently not by the stairs anymore, “are you two friends?”
Both of you turned to the sound. Kelce was just standing there, between the two of you, his face mostly amused.
“She’s Top’s girl, she has to—”
“He’s Topper’s friend—” you said at the same time as Rafe, the two of you landing the same beat and the same word and the same lie from two different directions, and you heard it happen, heard your voice and his voice arrive together like that, and so did he, because he stopped, and so did you.
Kelce laughed. “Jesus, I didn’t realize it was a sore subject.”
You should’ve gotten up then, but you remained seated exactly where you were when Topper came back down the stairs.
Topper looked at the couch, at the space between the two of you on the cushion—not a wide space, a space that had been closing all night by degrees each too small to be charged with anything on its own—and he stood on the last stair and looked at it, and something moved across his face that you had no name for, that you had never needed a name for, because in all these years you had never once seen Topper look at you like he was wondering something.
It felt like a snag—probably half-a-second where his face caught on the two of you with something close to confusion—and then it was gone, smoothed over, and he was Topper again, coming down off the stairs, sliding the phone into his pocket, saying something to someone about something.
It was the first time you’d fallen asleep. You would drift off sometimes after, heavy-lidded but you’d still surface if he moved wrong. This time you were actually asleep, all the way under, your breathing dropped into a slow even rhythm. It had happened maybe twenty minutes ago and Rafe had been lying very still since, on his back, one arm dead under you, not moving it. If he moved, he’d risk the chance of waking you, and if you did, it’d mean the end of this. He’d decided, at some point, he wanted to know long you’d stay if he just didn’t fuck with it.
He’d never quite had this part. He’d had the rest of it plenty; the wanting it, the having it, the after where they gathered their clothes because they had somewhere better to be. Nobody slept. Girls didn’t sleep at Rafe’s, that was a thing you did somewhere comfortable, and Rafe had never been once mistaken for comfortable. He had, in fact, spent a great deal of effort making sure he wasn’t, and so the sleeping went to other people’s beds. And now you were here, the one girl on the island who had the most reasons to keep one eye open around him, out cold on his chest.
He had no idea what he’d done to earn it. He suspected he hadn’t earned it at all, that you’d simply gotten tired and this was an accident of exhaustion rather than a verdict of him. But he was choosing, for the length of your nap, to take it as a verdict.
Your hand was open on his sternum, fingers half-curled. You’d kicked the duvet down to your knees at one point. You ran hot, he learned. You started every night wrapped up and ended it shoving the covers off—that you slept like being contained was a thing you couldn’t stand—which struck him as the single funniest fact.
He should’ve woken you. It was getting late, you had a home to return to with people in it. You had a phone lying on his nightstand that would start lighting up with the name he’d forced out of his mind while you were lying on him.
Still, he laid there and let the minutes run on, and somewhere in the running, the minutes stopped feeling like luck and more like debt. A good thing arrived and sat with him long enough to stop being a surprise, and the second it stopped being that, it became something he owed, a thing with a price-tag faced down that he doesn’t get to keep this.
So when you woke—your hands twitching against his chest—he was almost relieved. Awake, you were a problem he knew how to have. You made a small displeased sound and pressed your face harder into him, like you could climb back under.
“You’re out,” he said, voice coming out rough. He hadn’t used it in an hour.
“‘M not,” you said, voice muffled into his sternum.
You pulled the duvet back up over the both of you instead, and hooked your leg over his, and settled your cheek back down with a weight that had staying in it, and Rafe lay very still under the fact of you deciding that, and felt the want come up hard enough to scare him.
“Can I say something?” you said into his chest.
He huffed slightly. “You don’t gotta ask.”
You breathed through your mouth into his chest. “Think I should end things with Topper.”
The first thing in Rafe was wrong. Fast, animal, up before he could get a hand on it—a kick of pure want, yes, do it, be free—and it was gone almost as fast as it arrived. The second thing came down on top of it like a ceiling; ending things with Topper meant this thing stopped being deniable. The cover would be gone, the frame would be gone, the whole careful system that let any of this exist would come apart in your hands.
So he went still. He felt the stillness travel down into you and turn into fear, felt you reach the conclusion you'd clearly already half-built and come braced for, and your hand went flat on his chest and you started speaking fast, into him, before he'd surfaced enough to get a single word out.
“Not for—” You stopped yourself, taking in a sharp inhale. “It’s not about you. I’m not—I wouldn’t be doing it because of that. It’s just me. For me.”
You’d handed him the out and all he had to do was take it.
“Then don’t,” he said.
He felt you shake your head against him. “Don’t what?” you asked, almost tired, like you knew where he was going.
“End it.” He heard how it sounded yet he couldn’t stop the rest of the words from coming. “You’ve been with him two years. You’re not gonna—what? Throw that out over—” He stopped. Started again, flatter, building the case he needed to be true. “It’s not even—don’t let this be a thing, okay? It’s not me. You feel like this ‘cause you’re not supposed to be doing it. It’d feel like this with anyone who made the move. Just happened to be me.”
You went quiet on him for a second. Then you lifted your head off his chest—something you almost never did, for you said the hard things angled away from him—and you brought your face up so he had to look at it.
“Don’t say things like that about me.” Your words came out even. He’d braced for mad, that would’ve let him be an asshole and you the wronged party; everyone would’ve been in the right place. “I mean it. Don’t.”
And he, who had a hundred things he could’ve said, who’d built a personality out of always having something to say back, found that the only thing in him was the need to take it all back immediately.
“Alright,” he said.
“I’m serious.”
“Alright,” he said, lower this time, as if that would let you see he was listening. For some reason, he wanted you to know he listened. “I won’t. I won’t say it.”
You eyed him for a moment, then said, quietly, “Don’t act like you’re better than me.” He was practically forced into staring at you. “Don’t sit here telling me to stay with Topper like you’re doing some favor, when the only reason any of this happened is ‘cause I’m dating him.” You took a breath, then. “You’d never have looked at me twice if I wasn’t with him.”
He let the words move through his body for a moment before he moved, turning to you, getting an arm braced over you as his weight came up onto his side, over you, close.
“That’s what you think?” he said, and it was the furthest thing from a question.
“Rafe—”
“No, s’fine,” he said quickly. His hand found your jaw and tilted it. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
He brought his mouth to the corner of your lips and stopped there, close enough to feel you breathing wrong, and let you sit in it, because he had nothing to say and a great deal to prove and he wanted you to feel the difference before he made it.
His palm flattened over your stomach and drifted lower, and yours followed behind, a little more hesitant but still determined. His body jerked slightly as your fingers curved around his cock, and he pushed himself unbelievably closer to you. His fingers found the waistband of your underwear, tugging them off your hips just the slightest, enough for him to press down against your heat.
He bit back a groan at the remnants of your everything you’d done before your nap sliding against him.
He got your underwear off the rest of the way without ceremony with one hand, you lifting your hips and bending your knees to help, eyes never leaving your face.
His fingers came back to your jaw and it went slack, head tipping back, and he followed it with his mouth to your throat because he couldn’t not.
“Don’t,” you murmured.
He stilled for a moment.
“Mark.”
Something in him went dark about it, fast and ugly, because it meant you had to go back up that bluff road in a few hours looking like nobody had touched you. He wanted to mark you so badly his teeth ached with it. He wanted to put something on your throat you’d have to explain, wanted Topper to see it and wonder.
Rafe wanted to leave a single piece of proof somewhere on you that this happened, that he had happened. He wanted to ruin the clean line of you on purpose. It was the most honest want he had and it was the one you'd just forbidden.
He lifted his mouth off the soft place and dragged it to the hinge of your jaw instead, somewhere safe and he hated it—and he hated it, hated the leash of it, hated that being good to you and being denied you were the exact same motion—and he let the fury of it pour into everything his hands were doing instead, because that, at least, left no marks if he was being careful.
He got his hand under your thigh and pulled it around his hip and felt you—the heat of you right there, nothing between it now—and had to press his forehead to the side of your face and breathe for a second. You turned your face slightly into his and your mouth found his cheek, the corner of his jaw, a want of a kiss rather than a kiss at all.
“Rafe, do it—”
He pushed in slow, slower than he wanted to. It was slower than his whole body screaming at him to. You made a sound against his temple, a small broken thing, and your fingers dug into his back hard enough to leave something.
He kept going until his hips pressed against yours, flush. He pulled back and drove forward and felt you take it, your whole body shifting up the mattress with the force of it, and he got an arm under your lower back, lifting you slightly, and held you where he wanted you and did it again. Your head fell back and his eyes focused on your throat move.
“Look at me,” he said fast, rough.
You did. You always did, when he asked, and every time it nearly took him apart.
He set a pace that was far from gentle and you rose to meet it, hips tilting, finding the angle, adjusting without asking him to, and he felt the precise moment you found what you needed because your whole body changed and you made a sound low in your throat that he felt in his sternum.
He pushed your leg higher and went deeper, pulling you up so you were almost off the bed, and your hand flew up to the headboard, bracing.
“Yeah,” he said, and didn't mean to say anything at all.
Your eyes were half-closed, your mouth open, and you looked like something he had absolutely no right to and was going to have anyway, had already decided, had already been unable to stop from the moment you'd said his name and left a door open.
His mouth found yours, messy, barely a kiss, more breath than anything. Your hips moved against his and he groaned into your mouth and felt you shiver at the sound of it, your whole body registering it, which meant he did it again deliberately and watched what it did to your face.
He moved his hand between you, finger finding the bundle of nerves, pressing down slightly before he found a smooth motion. He extended his other arm around your back, holding you up.
Your reaction was immediate and unguarded and your head went back against the air with a force that was almost funny, almost—he wanted to say something, he felt it come up—but he swallowed it and pressed his mouth to your jaw instead and kept his hand moving because he wanted you there, wanted to feel it, had earned it by two years of not having it.
“Please—” The word came out of you fractured halfway.
“I know. C’mon.”
You went tight around him and he felt it building, felt the shape of it in the way you gripped him and the hitch in your breathing and the small desperate sound you were trying and failing to keep from happening, and he put his mouth to your ear and said nothing, just let you hear what you were doing to his breathing, let that be the thing to let you know you weren't alone in it.
You broke apart quietly. A deep shudder moved through your whole body, your face open and unguarded, your fingers gripping his back hard enough that he'd find it tomorrow and not mind.
You could mark him.
He followed you over the edge with his face pressed into your hair, your name in his mouth, a low rough sound into your hair and his whole body giving up the careful hold it had kept on itself.
He stayed where he was for a moment, both of you breathing. Your hand was flat on his back, not gripping anymore, just resting. He held you for a moment longer before setting you down on the mattress.
At the dock in the last week of July, during the hour everyone else had gone up to the house before the mosquitoes forced them in, Rafe had stayed back because Topper had, and Rafe understood about ninety seconds later it was to get him alone.
Rafe had spent his childhood being gotten alone by Ward, summoned to the study (to this day, Rafe still had no idea what he used it for)—or the boat or the living room, for conversations that always meant his father had decided something for him.
So when Topper stayed behind while the others left, Rafe felt the old thing tick over his chest, the same bracing. So, he stood at the end of the Thorntons’ dock with a warm beer he’d stopped drinking a while ago, waiting to decide what Topper had decided for him.
He was surprised when he realized Topper was nervous, the same guy who had never had to go looking for a sentence. He was doing something useless with the dock line—wrapping it then unwrapping it—and Rafe watched his hands and, for a moment, thought that Topper fucking knows.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah,” Rafe said, the word trailing off awkwardly.
“You think she’s happy?”
Rafe felt his mouth go dry. He kept his face pointed at the water. He had four or maybe fifteen answers and ran through all of them—he didn’t even know his brain could think that fast—and under all of them, traitor-fast, arriving before he could shut the drawer on it, Rafe heard your voice against his truck window, ‘I don’t know if that’s normal or if something’s wrong with me.’
Rafe had the answer to Topper's question. He'd had it cold for almost three months, carrying it around like a stolen thing he kept meaning to give back and didn't.
He shrugged, and he hoped it didn’t look as stiff as it felt. “She’s fine. I don’t really know her.”
“That’s not—” Topper stopped, then looped the line again. “I didn’t ask if she’s fine.”
Rafe felt himself turn to look at Topper, because the correction was so unlike him, the small insistence on the gap between ‘fine’ and ‘happy,’ a gap Rafe had never known Topper could see. For the first time, Rafe felt that Topper was acting differently.
Topper looked wretched. “I think she’s somewhere else. Lately.” He gestured with the line, at the dark water, at nothing. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“I don’t know, man.” The words came out of Rafe slow, as though he was reaching for it. “Girls get like that when you’re—” He made a vague motion with a bottle. “On ‘em too much.”
“I’m not on her.”
“I’m not saying you are.” He shrugged. “I’m saying you’re doing the whole—” He made another lazy motion. “Apartment. Rings. The you’re gonna do this with her, you’re gonna do that. Every time you talk about her.” He kept his eyes on the water. He kept his voice in the register that couldn't be weighed. “If some girl was telling me what to do with my life, I’d get weird about it, too. That’s my hunch.”
It wasn’t a hunch so much as it was him molding the exact words you’d said to him about Topper only a few nights ago. Rafe had taken it and scrubbed every fingerprint off of it, scrubbed you off of it, until it was dull and safe enough to hand to your boyfriend.
He watched Topper receive it exactly as that, as a hunch.
“You think I should back off?”
“I think—” Yes. Back off. Loosen the hold you’ve got so the other guy can—“I have no clue. Girls come back around.”
And Rafe’s words may have meant even a little bit of something if, within two hours of the conversation, he didn’t have you on top of him, the tailgate down and the night doing its loud thing past the trees, and Rafe had his hand flat on your back between your shoulder blades.
Your cheek was on his chest and you weren't talking, and Rafe was finding out for the hundredth time that he didn't know what to do with this part.
The sex he understood. This—the after, your weight settled all the way down onto him like you'd stopped holding any of it up, your breathing gone slow—this he still had no instructions for. So he stayed still and let you be heavy on him and looked at the dark shape of the trees.
“Can I say something bad?” you said against his chest.
“Obviously.”
“Dean, that guy at the party tonight.” You picked at a thread on the moving blanket where it had pilled. “I think he’s annoying. He was hitting on Madi and she wasn’t into it.”
Rafe huffed, the laugh moving up through his chest under your cheek. “What’s annoying about him?”
“He said my name like nine times in two minutes. He did the same thing to her. It makes me trust him less.”
“That’s so mean.” Rafe felt himself blow out an amused breath. “You’re so mean. Nobody knows.”
“Don’t tell.”
That was even more amusing. “Who am I gonna tell? Barry?” His hand moved on your back, down, stayed. “He’d probably forget in two seconds.”
“I can’t believe he’s the person that makes you go to The Cut.”
“And he beats me up sometimes.” He felt his palm slightly push your body down against him, as if you could get any closer. “Barry would love you.”
“Your dealer,” you said flatly. “Thanks.”
"Don’t ever meet him, though.”
His hand flattened against your back, drawing you up the half-inch it took to put your face level with his.
His lips found yours slow, a kiss with no chase behind it. His hand cradled the back of your skull off the cold metal, like there was all the time in the world. He felt you sink into it; that was getting easier, as though you’d stopped being scared of how easy.
When he pulled back, his mouth stayed close. “You going to that dinner with Top’s lacrosse buddies on Friday?”
“I’m supposed to.”
His thumb moved at your jaw. “You’ll want to die.”
“I told him I’d go.”
Rafe shrugged. “Tell him you’re tired. Pretty sure my house is gonna be empty Friday, too.”
You took a shaky breath and dropped your head into the crook of his neck. “That’s such a shitty thing to do.”
“Yeah.” His hand went still at your jaw, and he felt his chin involuntarily dip to rest against the top of your head. “You gonna do it?”
“Maybe,” you said, voice muffled against his body.
He moved his hand up to the back of your head again. “Good.”
That should have been all the night asked from him, the two of you going quiet, him heavy and stupid and content underneath you in a way he’d never tell a living soul he was capable of being. He’d half-decided not to move for an hour; he had the whole thing planned, to stay right there.
The phone went off on the floor of the backseat.
He groaned, low, the whole of it vibrating up his chest and into your cheek. “No.”
“Rafe—”
“No.” He pulled you in tighter, an arm banded across your back, like he could keep both of you out of range by its sheer hold. The phone continued buzzing against the floormat, ugly and insistent. “Not right now.”
You were laughing slightly, you'd tipped your face up off his chest, and he felt the warmth of it more than heard it. “Could be important.”
“Yeah? Could be your boyfriend,” he said, teasing.
You exhaled. “I hate you.”
He laughed then, feeling it move up him easily. “Yeah. Okay.”
“You’re the worst person I know,” you said it into his neck, where you'd tucked your face again, and your breath was warm there and your hand had gone back to the hem of his shirt, the idle pulling thing, no point to it.
He tilted his chin slightly downwards to press his lips against the top of your head. “That’s okay.”
You were smiling, he could feel the shape of it against his throat. The phone was still going on the floormat and neither of you were looking at it, and Rafe thought, for a moment, that he would have signed anything to keep the night exactly here. Not further, not better, only here.
The phone stopped, and he let out a breath slowly. Then, it immediately started again. This time, he felt the change go through his body—the warmth pulled out of him in one motion, the loose gone, everything in him drawing up into the old brace—because nobody rang twice back to back at this hour. Except for the one person who had never, in twenty years, accepted a thing Rafe didn't pick up as anything other than a thing Rafe was going to pay for.
The smile went out of you against his neck, and you got very still, and your hand stopped its idle work and just rested flat over his chest, over the place his heart had started doing the wrong rhythm.
“You should get it,” you said.
“Yeah.” He kept you there through one more buzz, and one more, taking the last of it while it was still his to take. “Yeah. Okay.”
He got the phone off the floor without letting go of you. That took some doing; a long reach down the side of the seat with one arm while the other stayed banded across your back. He came back up with it and you stayed exactly where you were, your cheek over his heart, and he answered with his thumb and put it to his ear and did not move you one inch.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone. He put his free hand into your hair, slowly dragging his fingers against your scalp, the small idle motion his body reached for the way it reached for the truck door, automatic, before the part of him that named things had any say. “...No, I lost track of time.”
Ward’s voice then came clipped down the line, and Rafe shut his eyes against the dome light and let it fill his ears, hardly processing it. His thumb found the shell of your ear and was tracing it, completely out of sync with the thing going up his spine.
“Yeah. The Fischers. I know. I know.” He didn’t know. It was a blank where a plan should have been, one more thing he’d been told and lost. He listened through Ward’s of course you forgot speech, let it go on without interruption. “I’ll be there. Twenty minutes.”
He kept his hand moving on you the whole time, going down your spine now in one long stroke then back up. He half-forgot you could feel it, that you weren’t simply just a warmth but a person who could feel every inch of this. He pressed you down against his chest, firmer, on the hard part of it, and felt his own heart going at the wrong speed under where your cheek was and couldn't make it stop.
“I said I’ll be there.” The edge came up despite him trying to train himself to keep it out when talking to his father. He hated it the second it was out, because the edge was a tell, the edge told Ward he'd gotten in, and he should never let Ward know he'd gotten in. He flattened it back down. “Twenty minutes—yeah. Okay. Okay.”
He hung up.
His hand was still buried in your hair, his heart still wrong under your cheek, and he kept his eyes on the roof of the cab and waited for himself to come back from wherever the phone had sent him.
That was a thing that took a beat, the return, and you knew it took a beat, and he could tell you knew because you didn't move and didn't ask, you just stayed heavy on him and let him do it.
Rafe thought, not for the first time, that you'd somehow learned the one thing about him almost nobody had ever bothered to; that the worst moment to reach for him was the moment right after, and the kindest thing was to just be there and weigh something and wait.
“Sorry,” he said to the roof, voice coming out rough. He tipped his face down then, into your hair, breathing you in. “M’Sorry. I gotta go. I’ll drop you home.”
“Right now?” you asked, voice muffled against him.
“Mm.” His arm tightened around you, body lying to his mouth again. “Not yet.”
He stayed under you for a second he didn’t have. He'd be late. He was always going to be a little late to Ward; might as well earn it.
But he did push himself to sit up, and he got his arm that was around you to bring you up as he came off the seat-back, the blanket sliding. Your legs ended up across his lap and his hand stayed flat against your spine. He held you there a beat, upright now, your face level with his in the dome light, and he could see the leftover softness in you not entirely cleared yet, the you that came out here and nowhere else.
Rafe had no idea when he’d agreed to let you look through his closet, but he had. It was almost four in the morning, and you were standing in the open mouth of his closet in one of his t-shirts and nothing he was going to be able to think about clearly, going through his clothes like this was something you just really wanted to do.
He’d put himself on the bed on purpose; it was a safe distance from whatever that was happening, which was you, sliding hangers down the rail one at a time, considering. Rafe was lying back on his elbows pretending the sight of you in his bedroom like this wasn’t doing anything to him.
He’d let it slip on accident, post-haze, that he had to meet Ward’s friends for dinner tomorrow. He’d wanted it to come off as light, carry no weight, because he, three months in, still didn’t want you to see him as a person who was afraid of a simple, stupid dinner with his dad and his asshole friends flying in from fuck-knows-where.
“What’s the dinner for?” you’d asked him.
“Don’t know. Ward wants me there to—” Rafe rolled a shoulder, his lips involuntarily curving into a grimace. “Impress them or something. No idea. Don’t even know what I’m gonna wear.”
Rafe was mildly surprised when you asked him, voice so stupidly lighthearted, if you could help him. And now you were humming, low, as you pulled a jacket halfway out, looked at it, and put it back.
Somewhere along the way, he’d understood that you’d started being able to read him, too. Maybe not in the way he had been reading you for years, but you’d started to understand his tells. He had a lot of those.
You were standing in his closet frowning at his clothes because you’d worked out, from a sentence he'd stripped all the weight off of, that he was scared, and you were trying to help. The way a person helps another person they don't want to watch walk into something alone.
And Rafe felt his whole body go wrong about it.
He was finding out the hard way that being looked after did the opposite of soothe him; he watched you take him seriously, and every reasonable part of him understood this was a good thing happening to him.
And the rest of him, the older and more reliable part, the part that had been doing Rafe's load-bearing since he was a kid, stood up and started checking the exits.
He couldn’t lose a thing he never had. And you, trying to help him be a son his father could stand to look at, you were a thing he was, very obviously, in the disastrous process of having. Maybe not completely, but it was the most he had ever had.
And the better it felt—and it felt like a hand on the back of his neck and being the right size—the more it was going to cost him later. And Rafe’s nervous system ignored the later was later, for it had started accounting now.
So he reached for the other thing. “C’mere,” he said.
You glanced over at him—a short look, unbothered, God, when had you started being able to be so fucking mean?—and then went back to the rail. “In a second,” you said.
“Now’s good,” he said flatly.
You pulled another shirt out and held it up against the dark of the closet. “I’m finding a shirt.”
“Yeah.” He pushed himself up off his elbows and sat up, feet against the floor. He heard his own voice drop a register. “Come find it here.”
“Doesn’t even make sense,” you murmured.
You slid another hanger down, completely unbothered by him, and that was the part of it all that had been killing him lately, you’d stopped being nervous around him. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, and he knew he’d never be able to undo it.
“Are you cold?” he tried again.
“Not really.” You pulled out a navy button-down, considered it, turned. “Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird.”
“You’re being so weird.” You looked at him, and Rafe had a feeling you were realizing that he was reaching for you because you were being so kind to him and it had gotten too big for Rafe to be in a room with, and sex was the only thing Rafe knew how to do with his hands that wasn't standing still inside something good. “You’re gonna distract me,” you said instead.
“Not trying to.”
“You’re completely trying to,” you said lightly, and then you went back to his clothes.
“This one,” you said after a moment. You'd pulled a shirt. You turned around with it, held it up against him from a few feet off, your head tipped, your eyes doing the careful work. “Navy. You look good in navy.”
“You think?” He wanted to hit himself for how fast he asked. “That the one?”
“Mhm,” you hummed breezily. “And it’ll make your dad shut up.”
Rafe sat there and let you look at him, and felt the fight go out of him the way air goes out of a thing, slow, and without much ceremony. He’d spent twenty years not being allowed things, mostly by himself, mostly on purpose, and he was sitting on his own bed with a girl holding a shirt up against his chest and trying to help him not get hurt tomorrow, and he found he did not, tonight, have it in him to keep the door shut. So he didn’t hold it.
He swallowed, then forced out a laugh. “Probably not, but that’s a good one.”
You crossed the room when you were done with the shirt—laid it over the back of his desk and everything—and came to stand between his knees. Rafe got his hands to your waist because they’d been idling the whole time just waiting for you.
You were warm through his shirt. You smelled like his room now.
“You’re gonna be fine tomorrow,” you said, voice completely sure.
“Mhm.” His palms tightened around your waist then, slightly tugging you forward. “You gonna come back to bed now?”
“You’re so impatient,” you said, but you let him pull you, your knees bracketing his as you settled into his lap like you’d done it a hundred times, which—Rafe did the calculation—you basically had.
His hands found the small of your back and stayed there. “Because you didn’t come to bed.”
“I was busy.” You looped your arms loose around his neck, looking down at him. “Someone’s gotta dress you.”
“I can dress myself.”
“Clearly.” You glanced at the floor, at the four shirts he'd left in a heap before you got here, and back at him, brow up.
He snorted, and you went quiet, your fingers playing idle with the hair at the back of his neck.
“Oh. Saturday,” you said after a minute, “Ruthie finally got Topper to do that lunch at the yacht club.” You shrugged. “Till like five.”
It took him a second to process the words. “The whole day?”
“Yeah, I think so. Whole day.” you said quietly. There was something almost shy folded into it, like you'd handed him something and weren't sure he'd want it.
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I’m sat
CLARK BABY YOU'D LOOK SO GOOD BETWEEN MY THIGHS, WITH MY FINGERS IN YOUR HAIR. THANK YOU @maiamore FOR UPDATING ME 🖤
Am I allowed to eat?
Summary: You jokingly ask Clark if you are allowed to eat in front of his parents.
Dad Clark Kent x Fem!Reader
more kent family adventures here!
even more kent family adventures here! (pt 2 of the masterlist)
By the time you were eight months pregnant with Leia, one thing had become very clear to everyone around you: Clark would do absolutely anything for you.
Which was precisely why the prank had been so tempting.
The prank simply appeared in your mind while sitting at the Kent farmhouse table on one warm afternoon, watching Clark pile food onto your plate for the third time before you’d even fully finished the second helping.
“Honey, you need more potatoes,” he said earnestly, already reaching for the bowl.
“Clark,” you laughed, “I’m still eating.”
“You’re eating for two.”
Ma Kent snorted softly from across the table. “At this point, that baby’s probably ninety percent mashed potatoes.”
Clark looked entirely unashamed. “They will be a very healthy, growing baby.”
You bit back a smile.
That was the thing about Clark during your pregnancy, he hovered.
Did you need water? A pillow? Another blanket? Less blanket? A snack? Different snack? Did your back hurt? Were your feet swollen? Had you rested enough? Too much? Was the baby kicking enough? Too much?
The man treated your pregnancy like the world’s most important mission.
And it made him very, very easy to fluster.
And suddenly, sitting there at the table with Ma and Pa Kent, watching your husband lovingly shovel corn onto your plate like he was personally responsible for feeding both you and the baby, the idea struck.
You looked down at your half-full plate thoughtfully.
Then, very gently, you asked, “Clark… am I allowed to have some more?”
Clark didn’t even look up.
“Of course,” he said immediately, mouth still full, already spooning another helping onto your plate. “You barely ate any! Here, have more chicken too.”
You pressed your lips together. You continued carefully, in the smallest voice you could manage. “Are you sure?”
Clark blinked at you. “Sure about what?”
“That it’s okay for me to eat more?”
Clark stared at you for a long moment. Then looked at your plate. Then at you again.
“…Yes?” He sounded deeply confused.
You nodded solemnly, “Okay,” and resumed eating.
Clark reached for the biscuits.
“You want another one?”
“Yes please.”
“Here you go, my love.” He handed it over immediately.
You sighed as your prank failed, silently waiting for another opportunity.
-
Said opportunity was when Ma Kent brought out dessert.
Her specialty peach cobbler was still warm, the smell filling the kitchen instantly.
“Oh my goodness,” you sighed dramatically. “That smells amazing.”
Ma Kent smiled warmly. “Go on, honey, have some.”
You coached your face to look anxious, worried, then slowly turned toward Clark.
“…Am I allowed?”
The room went silent.
Clark froze with the serving spoon halfway in his hand.
Ma Kent blinked. Pa Kent’s expression changed immediately into a frown.
“Allowed?” Ma Kent repeated.
You looked down shyly. “Well… I just wanted to check first.”
Clark looked like his soul had briefly left his body.
“Why would you…what do you mean allowed?”
You kept your face perfectly straight. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Upset me?” Clark nearly choked. “Why would it upset me?”
Ma Kent’s eyebrows shot up.
Pa Kent set down his fork, slowly and very carefully.
Clark turned toward you so quickly his chair squeaked against the floor.
“Honey, what are you talking about?”
You blinked innocently. “The cobbler.”
“The cobbler…”
“Yes.”
Ma Kent turned to Clark at the same time he looked at you incredulously.
“Clark,” she said carefully, “why would she need permission to eat dessert?”
“I—she doesn’t!” Clark’s brows were furrowed with concern, slowly feeling like he was unnecessarily put on the hot seat. “Why would you need my permission to eat cobbler?!”
You shrugged lightly. “Well, you may not want me to eat any more.”
Ma Kent slowly turned toward her son.
“Clark Joseph Kent.”
Clark’s eyes widened in immediate horror.
“No! No, no, no—Ma, I swear—”
Pa Kent crossed his arms.
Clark looked even more panicked.
“I have literally never stopped her from eating anything in her life! She eats whatever she wants, whenever she wants. I've actually been actively encouraging her to eat more because she sometimes forgets in the afternoon and the doctor said…" He caught himself, and looked back at you. "What is going on?”
You tilted your head. “But maybe you didn’t want me eating cobbler specifically?”
“Why would I not want you to?!”
Clark looked moments away from a full system shutdown.
“Honey,” he said frantically, stumbling over every word, “I have never, not once, told you what you can or can’t eat. Or do. Or wear. Or…anything!”
Ma Kent was now openly suspicious. “Clark…”
“No! Ma, listen to me—I swear, she does whatever she wants! Constantly! Happily! And I support her! Enthusiastically!”
You nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true.”
Clark pointed at you wildly. “See?!”
“But maybe secretly you don’t like how much I eat?”
Clark looked genuinely devastated.
“What?! No, Ma, Pa, listen to me. I’ve never told her not to do anything she wanted! Ever! If anything, she tells me what to do!”
He turned back to his parents, fully distressed now.
“I am not controlling! Right? I’m not controlling.”
Pa Kent finally spoke, voice low. “Son…”
Clark turned toward him in absolute panic. “Pa, I swear to God, I have never denied her anything in my entire life! I don't restrict her eating. I don't restrict ANYTHING! I don't tell her what to do. I would never." Clark's voice had taken on the slightly desperate quality of a man watching a small fire and patting his pockets for something to put it out with. "She has complete autonomy over everything. Every single thing. I've never once told her she couldn't eat or do or–"
"Clark," you said.
“--have anything she wanted, I mean she went through a period in the second trimester where she wanted a very specific brand of crackers at two in the morning and I flew forty minutes to three different stores to find them, I have the receipts, I can show you the receipts–”
“Clark.”
“--and I don't know what this is right now but I need everyone at this table to understand that I am not and have never been–”
“CLARK.”
He stopped his rambling.
He looked at you.
You were smiling. A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
Then suddenly you were laughing so hard you had to hold your stomach.
The entire table stared at you.
“Oh no,” Ma Kent whispered, already realizing.
You wheezed helplessly, tears gathering in your eyes.
“I’m sorry,” you gasped. “I’m sorry…I was joking.”
Silence.
Clark blinked.
“…What?”
You covered your face, laughing harder. “It was a prank, baby.”
Clark stared. Ma Kent burst into laughter instantly.
Pa Kent leaned back in his chair.
Clark remained frozen. “You…”
“I’m sorry,” you laughed again. “You were just so easy to fluster.”
Clark looked deeply betrayed.
“I thought Pa was about to kill me.”
You grinned at Pa, “He was in on it,” you confessed, remembering how Pa chuckled gruffly when you told him about your plan.
Clark dropped back into his chair dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest.
“I cannot believe you.”
You leaned over and kissed his cheek sweetly.
“I’m sorry I scared you, honey. You're a wonderful husband," you said. "Why do you still have the receipts?"
He put his arm around you, and you could feel him giving up on the wounded dignity, the whole structure of it just gently collapsing.
"Souvenirs," he said again, quieter, “I didn’t want to forget anything about your pregnancy. And so that I could show our baby that I would do anything for them.”
You smiled at him, cupping his cheek tenderly before giving him a kiss. Clark turned pink.
"Forty minutes,” he reminded you, “Three stores."
"I know."
"In the rain."
"It wasn't raining."
"It was drizzling." Clark sighed deeply.
You laughed, then immediately reached for the cobbler.
Clark instinctively grabbed the serving spoon and loaded a giant portion onto your plate.
Everyone at the table burst into laughter again.
Clark looked around defensively.
“What? She’s eating for two.”
-
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LAZY MORNINGS
thinking about lazy sex with clark...
tags — 18+ minors dni | f!reader, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), spooning sex, size difference, pet names (sweetheart & baby), dirty talk, creampie (0.6 wc)
the clock on your bedside table reads 7:14am and clark has you on your side, his body engulfing yours as his chest presses up against your back. with an arm wrapped around your front, clark holds you tight against him—rubbing slow, languid circles on your swollen clit.
a soft, muffled groan tumbles from clark’s lips as you slowly roll your hips back—his cock nestled deep inside your cunt, stretching you open. you desperately try to fight back your need for him, for his cock, knowing you have to get ready for work, but you’re practically begging for more.
his pelvis is snug against your ass—coarse curls beneath his navel brushing against you. you feel all of him, every ridge, every vein, every twitch as he rocks into your cunt. clark moves his hand to grip your thigh, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh as he gently hooks your leg over his thigh, spreading you wider.
the new angle drove him deeper, the head of his cock kissing your cervix with each thrust. the room fills with your breaths mingling together with the filthy, wet sounds of his cock sliding in and out of you.
just as quickly as it left, clarks hand returns to your clit and you instinctively clench around him, trying to pull him deeper as he ruts against you. clark’s breath is warm against the nape of your neck as he lightly bites down on the skin of your shoulder.
every roll of clark’s hips is with a little more tenacity each time, seeking that delicious friction. the pleasure is overwhelming, completely taking over all of your senses. you can’t think of anything else, except for clark, and how he's ruining you for anyone else.
“taking me so well, baby,” he mutters, kissing behind your ear.
you cry out, fingers clawing at the sheets, then at his forearm—your nails leaving crescent indents in his skin. he revels in the soft, needy moans you make with each shallow thrust. you move your hips in counterpoint, chasing the pleasure of his fingers and the fullness of his cock.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart, that's it,” he mumbles, his cock hitting that sweet spot inside you repeatedly.
an embarrassingly loud moan slips from your lips as you cum without warning. your body shudders hard against his—your orgasm crashing through you and taking your breath away. clark gently coaxes you through it, rocking his hips in a slow, gentle rhythm while pressing tender kisses along your shoulder and neck.
clark's hips stutter and his own orgasm catches him off-guard. he buries himself to the hilt, releasing thick, hot ropes of cum deep within your cunt—filling you completely as his cock throbs and pulses inside you.
you clench around him and clark hides his face in your neck with a weak, tired chuckle. his hand squeezes your hip tenderly as he slowly eases himself out of you. your cunt clenches around nothing, missing his cock already. you can feel his release leak from you and slide down your thighs but you pay no mind to it.
“good morning to you too,” clark says through soft pants.
“hmm, good morning indeed,” you hum, turning to face him with a small smile.
note — post #1 for my 1k celebration!!
The Marvelous Mrs. Kent: "Out of order"
☆ This would be 1x03!!
Pairing: corenswet!clark kent x fem!reader
⟡ Main Index | ⟡ Archive for Earth-181938
a/n: New divider, how do we like it???
Summary: You were raised to be admired from a distance, never to take up space of your own but when an acceptance letter offered you a future that finally belonged to you, you refused to let go, holding tight to the belief that the only way out was up. Between moving boxes, sleepless nights and last minute gigs of an unexpected career, you find yourself rising toward something extraordinary, reaching heights you once believed only he could touch.
Classification: Romantic dramedy | college "roommate"!Clark, labeled time jumps to the past/non linear narrative, non sexual nudity, sexual innuendos and humor (graphic jokes about genitals, masturbation and sexual performance), alcohol consumption, smoking, family conflict, emotional manipulation and themes of entrapment.
Word count: 23.9k
Divider by me ;)
At eighteen…
“College?!”
Your mother said the word the same way people announced terminal illnesses in old movies. One manicured hand pressed dramatically against her chest while the other gripped her wine glass hard enough to qualify as aggression.
You kept walking toward your bedroom anyway, dragging your heels across the polished hallway floors with all the enthusiasm of a woman marching toward a public execution.
“Your daughter wants to go to college,” she continued loudly to your father in the living room as though you had already disappeared entirely. “I told you we should’ve sent her to Paris like my mother did for me. Exposure to Europe could've fixed this.”
“There will be no college,” your father answered firmly before the ice in his drink even stopped clinking. “And there will be no Paris either. God forbid, that city has done enough damage to good families already. You came back from Paris with cigarettes, opinions and a taste for expensive shoes. I refuse to fund a sequel. She will court the young man we discussed and then she will get married.”
You closed your bedroom door softly before the sentence finished.
You had learned very young that slamming doors in your parents’ house only created longer conversations afterward. So instead you shut it quietly, leaned your back against the wood and closed your eyes while the noise of your life continued on the other side uninterrupted.
Outside your window, the city breathed. Cold air drifted through the curtains from the open fire escape window, carrying distant traffic, laughter from people walking somewhere below and the unbearable scent of freedom. Somewhere out there people were probably doing terrible things like choosing their own futures and eating dinner past seven-thirty without consequence.
You inhaled slowly, then exhaled, then inhaled again because breathing through emotional devastation counted as coping according to every women’s magazine ever printed.
You should’ve known bringing up college would end like this. Actually, you had known. You just kept hoping your parents might surprise you one day and accidentally develop humanity.
“Bad time?”
Clark’s voice floated quietly through the window and you jumped enough to nearly peel yourself off the door despite the fact this had become embarrassingly routine over the years.
Your eyes snapped toward the fire escape instantly.
Clark sat halfway through the open window frame looking unfairly comfortable there, broad shoulders hunched slightly beneath a plaid button up while moonlight caught against the familiar curve of his face and automatically, despite everything, you smiled…which felt medically concerning at this point.
You locked your bedroom door and crossed the room quickly to reach him.
“There’s no such thing as good timing around here,” you replied dryly.
Clark smiled softly and stood tall on the firescape. He then pushed the window open wider before offering you his hand like this was somehow a perfectly normal entrance method between teenagers and not the beginning of several future tabloid headlines.
You took it.
The second you climbed onto the fire escape and actually looked at him properly beneath the moonlight, your brows lifted. “Glasses?”
Clark blinked once before touching them instinctively.
He’d only been away at college for a month but somehow even that small distance had altered him slightly around the edges. You still spoke often on the phone, though never because you called first, Clark always called you. You told yourself it was healthier that way, less clingy and pathetic, easier for him to eventually fully leave if he needed to.
He still looked mostly like himself though, wearing jeans and plaid. A true farm boy-lead tragedy…your very own Romeo.
At this point you were fairly certain prolonged exposure throughout childhood had conditioned you into tolerating flannel psychologically, almost like a disease.
Meanwhile you looked exactly the same too. Matching lounge clothes, carefully styled hair but no dress tonight, just fluffy heeled slippers because even your relaxation footwear carried performance anxiety.
So really, the same people you had always been.
“Yeah.” Clark grinned shyly and slipped the glasses off briefly. “You like them?”
Your brows rose higher. “Are you asking me for fashion advice?”
Clark laughed under his breath. “The day will come but not today.” He glanced down at his shirt. “I don’t think I’m ready to let go of plaid yet.”
“I would never ask that of you,” you assured him solemnly. “Kansas would probably find a way to sue me specifically for it.”
Clark smiled wider and you felt your chest tighten at the sight of it before immediately pretending internally that nothing happened.
“They make you look…” You paused thoughtfully as Clark’s posture straightened imperceptibly. “Different.”
His face twisted with concern. “Good different or bad different?”
“Cute different,” you answered without thinking.
Silence settled between you as Clark looked at you…and you looked at Clark. Both your chests rose simultaneously while his lips parted slightly like he meant to say something dangerous to permanently alter your life at eighteen.
So naturally, you interrupted immediately. “Well,” you rushed onward, “given you didn’t use the front door tonight…or ever, I’m assuming you took the fast route here.”
Clark blinked once, visibly reorganizing his nervous system before nodding.
“Yeah.” The worry returned to his face. “You haven’t really been keeping up with our call schedule and I just…” He motioned vaguely toward your bedroom door. “I heard yelling.”
Clark had spent the last thirty minutes waiting outside on your fire escape hoping you’d eventually come while you suffered through dinner pretending your family dynamic qualified as normal.
Unfortunately for him, you had mentioned his name halfway through the meal and Clark Kent had never once succeeded at minding his own business where you were concerned…
“You’re not going to college, Y/n,” your mother had said while passing you the salad bowl with all the grace of a queen sentencing someone to death publicly. “That was never the plan. We already agreed on this.”
You took the bowl.
“Mama,” you answered carefully, “I was six when we discussed this and my biggest ambition at the time was becoming a princess.” You placed salad onto your plate aggressively. “I think we should maybe revisit the contract.”
“Maybe you need time off,” your mother suggested immediately. “An activity perhaps.”
Your face twisted instantly. “Time off from what?” you asked. “Tea at four? Waking up at nine every damn morning?”
Your mother gasped. That woman reacted to profanity like Victorian women reacted to tuberculosis. “Watch your mouth,” she hissed. “All those etiquette classes–”
“Fuck those etiquette classes.”
“Y/n!” your father barked while your mother looked moments away from fainting directly into the butter dish. If somebody yelled “whore” dramatically nearby, she probably would’ve died on the spot. You were definitely tempted to…no.
“Clearly they were a waste of money,” you muttered.
At that exact moment Zelda, your housekeeper, stepped beside you carrying the mashed potatoes.
You looked up at her. “Zelda, please tell me you didn’t smooth them too much tonight.” You sighed heavily. “I think I’d rather choke on potatoes than my words at this table.”
Your mother gasped again.
Your father dropped his silverware against his plate with a violent clatter while rubbing both hands slowly over his face. Meanwhile Zelda stood there completely expressionless because after so many years employed in your household, the woman had witnessed things far worse than profanity at dinner.
“You’re being dramatic,” your mother snapped.
“No,” you corrected calmly. “I’m being undereducated. Zelda?”
Zelda leaned down toward your ear with the stealth of a woman who had survived two decades employed by rich people and therefore understood the value of discreet alcoholism. “Don’t worry, Miss Y/n,” she whispered conspiratorially. “I have a bottle of something excellent hidden in the kitchen.”
Almost instantly, hope returned to your body.
“But no drinking on an empty stomach,” she added firmly before straightening again.
There it was, the closest thing you had ever experienced to maternal tenderness.
You smiled faintly as she disappeared back toward the kitchen and then turned once more toward your parents across the dining table. The chandelier overhead cast everything in warm gold light, expensive, polished and deeply suffocating.
You inhaled carefully, then exhaled.
“Papa,” you began, forcing steadiness into your voice, “I want to go to college.” Your fingers tightened around your fork. “I don’t want to stay here.”
Your mother turned toward your father as if calling legal counsel. “Tell her–”
“I think it’s a good idea,” your father interrupted calmly.
You and your mother spoke at exactly the same time, eyes wide. “You do?”
Your father nodded once and your mother rose from her chair so abruptly the legs scraped violently across the hardwood floors. Somewhere in the distance a ghost probably clutched its pearls.
“Wonderful! Look what you made me do,” your mother snapped while storming toward the living room. “My mother is rolling in her grave. Years of etiquette lessons wasted because our daughter suddenly wants an education.”
You watched her leave before muttering under your breath, “If grandmama survived two wars and four husbands, I think she’ll survive me reading some books.”
Your father ignored that completely. “What would you study?”
The question stopped you cold. Your father had always known exactly who he was, a mathematical prodigy with a structured mind and straight path. He had probably emerged from the womb already calculating taxes recreationally.
You, unfortunately, had spent most of your life mastering posture and pretending that counted as purpose. Your breath caught slightly as you looked down at your plate.
“French literature maybe,” you answered carefully. “To meet Mama halfway.” You shrugged lightly. “And Russian too, why not? That sounds difficult enough to impress everyone at Christmas dinner.”
“No.”
You blinked as your father continued eating calmly.
“No?” you repeated, completely thrown.
Your mother reappeared in the doorway then, vindication radiating off her like perfume.
“If you’re going to study,” your father continued, “and I’m paying for it, then you’ll study something useful.”
You stared at him in disbelief. “Useful?” you repeated slowly. “You mean unlike me?”
“Y/n.”
“No, because I’m trying to understand.” You laughed once in genuine astonishment. “You want to marry me off to some entitled little parasite descended from generations of worse parasites and I’m the one who suddenly needs practical skills?”
“I’m not paying for university unless you choose a worthwhile field.”
“Oh, fascinating.” You nodded quickly. “So my future husband can waste oxygen professionally but I need to become economically viable. What year is this?!”
“Enough.”
“No, it’s actually not enough. Not even close.” Your voice rose before you could stop it. “Why can’t you be more like the Kents?”
Both your parents frowned immediately.
“He’s in Metropolis right now,” you continued, frustration spilling faster now. “Living his life and making choices. Nobody chained him to his parents’ dreams before he even understood what dreaming was and trust me, he would know.”
Your mother looked genuinely confused. “Who are the Kents?” she asked your father like you had invented them on the spot.
Your father shrugged once and you stared at them with parted lips and narrowed eyes.
“Smallville?” you repeated slowly. “Clark Kent? My best friend?” You pointed between the two of them. “Does that ring any bells?”
Your mother blinked. “I thought he was imaginary.”
You nearly dropped your fork. “You’ve met him multiple times!”
“When?” your father asked plainly.
“Where did you think I went every time I left the house for six hours?”
“For walks.” Your mother answered with a careless shrug.
Your jaw fell open. “In the ass crack of Kansas?” Even Zelda paused in the kitchen doorway at that one. “You genuinely thought I wandered into cornfields for fun?”
“It didn’t matter. You always came back,” your father answered simply and the sentence hit strangely harder than yelling would’ve.
You looked between them in complete disbelief. “Mama, papa…you’ve met him,” you insisted again.
Your mother turned sharply toward the kitchen. “Zelda?”
Zelda appeared instantly because unlike your parents, Zelda actually paid attention to your life. “Yes ma’am?”
“Have we met this…” Your mother motioned vaguely toward you. “Claire Kent?”
“It’s Clark,” you corrected loudly.
Zelda nodded. “He always comes for Miss Y/n’s birthdays,” she supplied helpfully.
Your mother paused. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” you echoed. “Oh.” You leaned back into your chair, suddenly exhausted. “He got accepted into Met U,” you continued more quietly. “He’s gonna become this incredible journalist and actually build something for himself.”
“I wouldn’t care if pigs flew tomorrow wearing little top hats and singing the national anthem,” your father said, voice dripping with disdain. “You are not going to Met U. The answer is no. Final. Humanity did not survive wars, depressions and your mother’s cooking just so you could throw your life away becoming some glorified typewriter girl or…or some ink-stained, idealistic little journalist chasing scandals and heartbreak in that godforsaken concrete jungle!”
The way he said it sounded offensive and something sharp twisted violently in your chest then. Before you realized it, your chair scraped backward and you were already standing but neither of your parents had stopped you.
Their voices faded behind you as you walked away from the dining room, then faded further still somewhere inside your mind where disappointment had started settling into something colder over the years.
Back on the fire escape, you blinked slowly and looked toward Clark again. “Claire’s a pretty name,” you considered lightly. “At least she got some of the letters correct.”
Clark laughed softly despite the concern still written all over his face. “Y/n, I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for them, Kent.” You waved him off. “I probably could’ve chosen a better moment to bring it up but…” You shrugged. “I’m running out of time.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
You inhaled sharply. “Wait here.” Then you disappeared back into your bedroom before he could question you further.
Clark watched through the open window while you crossed quickly toward your vanity, dropped to your knees and yanked open the bottom drawer beneath piles of scarves and unopened perfume boxes. For a second he just watched you move around your room with that same restless energy you always carried whenever you were trying not to feel something too deeply.
You returned holding an envelope. You handed it toward him through the window but before even looking at it, Clark automatically steadied you by the waist while helping you climb back onto the fire escape safely.
The contact lingered slightly too long. It always did, even then.
Once your feet landed properly, Clark finally lowered his gaze toward the paper. He unfolded it carefully and read silently, then looked up so fast you almost laughed.
“Metropolis University…” he breathed. “Late admission…” His eyes scanned lower before widening completely. “Accepted with full costs covered.” His eyes snapped toward yours. “You got in?”
The excitement in his voice hit before the words fully settled and suddenly Clark had both arms around you, lifting you straight off the fire escape entirely while squeezing hard enough to rearrange several organs. “This is perfect–”
“You could also,” you wheezed, fighting for oxygen, “ease up a little before my eyeballs detach, file for independence and attend orientation without the rest of me.”
Clark dropped you back down instantly. “I’m sorry,” he blurted while checking your face with visible horror, one warm hand cupping your cheek gently like he genuinely expected structural damage. “I got too excited.”
You laughed breathlessly. “You didn’t squeeze that hard,” you admitted. “I’m messing with you.”
Clark still looked unconvinced.
You leaned back against the brick wall behind you and exhaled slowly. “I have two more days to answer them,” you admitted quietly. “After that they give the spot to someone else.” Clark stayed completely still listening to you. “I wanted my parents on board with the concept before telling them about it,” you continued. “But after tonight?” You shrugged lightly. “I’m an adult. They don’t get to decide every single thing for me forever.”
Then you pushed lightly against his shoulder. “You’re not the only one who gets to fly the coop.”
Clark looked at you for a long moment after and you could’ve sworn his eyes actually shined beneath the moonlight as he smiled. It was the kind of smile that had ruined you years ago, it made your stomach flip, your heart stutter and your brain forget every reason you had ever given yourself for keeping your distance. "The only way out is up."
His arms wrapped around you carefully, one around your waist and the other supporting your back as he pulled you flush against him, lifting effortlessly from the fire escape into the night sky.
The moon was bright above you, casting everything in silver and somewhere far below, the city hummed with the life you had temporarily escaped.
The last of the Talon’s customers finally spilled out into the street one stagger at a time, the door swinging shut behind them with tired little squeaks until silence began settling over the club in uneven patches. Without the crowd packed shoulder-to-shoulder inside it, the room suddenly looked smaller, sadder. The cigarette haze still lingered beneath the hanging lights and the entire place smelled like stale beer, sweat and the consequences of free speech.
The room looked wrecked in the aftermath of the night. Half-empty glasses cluttered tables, cocktail napkins stuck wetly to wood surfaces and a chair near the stage had somehow lost one leg entirely and leaned sadly against another table.
Meanwhile you sat at the bar with the tip basket overturned in front of you, bills spread carefully across the scratched counter while you counted them for what had to be the fourth time now because the number felt fake.
Behind you, chairs scraped loudly across the floor while Susie started cleaning up the room herself.
“You know,” she called out while dragging a mop bucket past the stage, “if you actually need money, I’d pay you a pretty penny to rinse out the communal throw-up bucket.”
You didn’t even look up from the stack of bills in your hands.
“I’d rather pay you not to have one.” You flattened a five-dollar bill against the counter. “Why not just let people throw up in the bathrooms like civilized alcoholics?”
Susie snorted somewhere behind you.
“Do you know how hard it is for somebody five drinks deep to hold their puke?” she asked. “They line up for the bathrooms, then they clog the pipes and suddenly the whole place smells like fermented regret.” She pointed toward the back hall. “And the bathrooms are too close to the stage. One bad overflow and I lose half the room.”
You grimaced. “What a lovely establishment you have here.”
“Not lovelier than you,” Susie replied in the exact same monotone voice.
She came around the counter then, wiping her hands on a rag before leaning over the money spread across the bar. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the stack growing beneath your fingers. Truthfully, she had never seen that much money come out of the Talon’s tip basket before…ever.
“How’s the counting going?” she asked suspiciously. “You’ve been staring at those bills for ten damn minutes. Do rich people not learn little numbers?”
You looked up slowly. “That’s hilarious.” You nodded. “You should try comedy sometime.”
“I said the same thing.” Susie deadpanned right back without missing a beat, leaning onto the counter. “What do we have?”
You counted once more just to make sure your rich upbringing hadn’t actually somehow sabotaged basic mathematics, gathered the final stack slowly and exhaled through your nose.
“Five hundred and twenty-one dollars.” You paused. “And some cents but honestly they feel a tad irrelevant right now.”
Even saying it out loud felt absurd and you could tell by the way Susie’s face tightened.
“A-are you sure?” she asked carefully, leaning closer instinctively. “And before you actually get offended, I’m really not trying to insult your intelligence here but–”
“It’s a lot,” you admitted quietly.
“Almost too much,” she agreed without missing a beat.
You nodded slowly. If someone told you three hours ago that complete strangers would hand you over five hundred dollars after hearing about your emotional collapse and humidity issues, you probably would’ve recommended psychiatric evaluation.
Susie stared at the money another second before letting out a disbelieving huff through her nose. “Where the hell have you been all this time?” she demanded suddenly. “You were up there for maybe ten minutes.”
You considered that carefully. “Ten minutes is really long depending on the context.”
“Not when people are screaming for an encore!” Susie pointed at you emphatically. “You hear me? An encore. In this place. Half these people don’t even clap when performers leave, they just ask for another beer.” She shook her head in disbelief. “This is your calling.”
You barked out a laugh.
“My calling?” You stared at her incredulously. “You think my purpose in life is exploiting my psychological decline in a shitty club with visible ceiling damage?” You glanced upward. “No offense.”
Susie waved dismissively toward the back. “It’d be stupid to get offended by that when there’s currently a bucket of vomit fermenting at the back of the room.”
You laughed despite yourself and looked back down at the money. “It was fun,” you admitted carefully. “But not five-hundred-dollars fun.”
“It was to them.” Susie pointed sharply toward the now empty room like the audience still sat there. “You’re the greatest accidental comic…honestly, comic in general that I’ve heard in my entire damn life.” Her eyes widened as she spoke, voice growing more animated the longer she looked at you. “And every drunk idiot in this disgusting room knew it too.”
She leaned both hands against the counter. “You’re gonna go far if you let this happen.”
You stared at her for a second without answering. The idea sounded absurd, impossible even and slightly humiliating and yet your ears still rang faintly with applause every time the room got quiet.
Susie grabbed your abandoned stack of résumés from beside the register and waved them in front of your face dramatically. “You see this? You forgot to write fucking hilarious on these.” She paused. “You reek of it.”
You instinctively lifted your arm discreetly and sniffed yourself. Thankfully you still smelled expensive…mostly. “I think that might just be the air in here.” You looked down and started reorganizing the money just to have something for your hands to do.
“I need you back,” Susie continued, completely ignoring that. “Every week. I want you on that stage.”
Your eyes drifted toward it automatically. You could still picture yourself standing there beneath the lights, sweating through your dress while strangers laughed hard enough to bend over tables. If you concentrated, you could actually still hear them.
“I wouldn’t even know what to talk about,” you admitted quietly. “I don’t know what triggers it.” You looked back at her. “What if my life stops being terrible and I run out of material?”
Susie barked out a laugh. “You seemed pretty damn ready both times.” She shrugged while stacking glasses loudly behind the bar. “The bits sound messy at first but somehow they all flow together. You jump from one thing to another but it still makes sense.” She pointed at you with an empty beer bottle. “So whatever psychotic process you’ve got going on in that head? Keep doing it.”
You shook your head slowly, still unconvinced.
“How do you write your jokes?”
“What jokes?”
She stared at you in frustration. “The Garrett thing,” she clarified, trying to physically reconstruct your set from memory. “The blue cheese smell, the unpaid child support, then the gambling stuff, then you threatening him with football bets while looking like…” She motioned vaguely toward your entire existence. “Like that.”
You looked down at your outfit instinctively. “Well-dressed?”
“Like somebody who should legally not know how to threaten people.”
You opened your mouth to interrupt but she kept going.
Susie continued talking faster now, hands moving wildly while she tried explaining what she’d witnessed. “And the unlady-like shit too. The laptop thing, the heels, the way you talk about all those rich people rules while actively breaking every single one of them in real time.” She shook her head hard. “I don’t fucking know! Everything connected somehow.” Her eyes widened. “And fuck, was I scared at first. I genuinely thought you were about to spiral into incoherent rambling, some rich girl hostage note halfway through.”
“That’s fair.”
“But then you’d pause at the exact right time.” She pointed again. “You let people think for half a second before dragging them somewhere even funnier.” Her voice lowered with genuine awe now. “One minute they’re laughing so hard I’m pretty sure somebody pissed themselves near table four, then suddenly you’ve got the whole room actually thinking about something before they start laughing again. You say all this completely unhinged stuff but there’s rhythm to it.”
You laughed softly at that and rubbed one hand over your face. “Susie…” You exhaled heavily. “That’s just my life.”
You said the word so seriously that it briefly softened her expression. This was your life, not material or a performance, those were years of thoughts finally spilling out somewhere people couldn’t interrupt them.
“I’m not writing jokes.” You shrugged lightly. “I’m impulsive,” Your fingers fiddled with one of the folded dollar bills. “And mouthy…I hold a lot in and eventually it needs somewhere to go before I explode in public or develop a stress-related disease elegant women get in period dramas.”
“Then, do that here,” Susie decided.
She leaned further across the counter as she spoke, elbows planted firmly against the sticky wood like physical proximity might somehow force the idea into your skull through sheer impact. For once there was no sarcasm cushioning her tone, no dry delivery flattening the sincerity out of her words to make them easier to survive, just certainty. Sharp and almost frantic beneath her exhaustion, burning visibly behind eyes still bright from what she had witnessed an hour earlier.
“Do it on a stage.”
You swallowed.
The room suddenly felt quieter. Well, not silent, the Talon would probably never know true silence after years of soaking drunken confessions directly into its walls like nicotine stains but quieter in the particular way places became once possibility entered them. Ironically, the hum of the old refrigerator behind the bar sounded louder now. So did the distant rattling pipes somewhere overhead, even the flickering neon beer signs buzzed with irritating clarity.
“This isn’t permanent,” you assured her quickly, though your voice frayed slightly around the edges anyway as your thoughts began outrunning one another again. “All of this…”
Your hand motioned vaguely around yourself, the club, the pile of money still spread across the counter and the applause lodged stubbornly somewhere inside your chest like a second heartbeat. Your life had simply derailed temporarily but that was all this was, temporary humiliation, temporary instability and temporary emotional collapse in front of strangers.
You would fix it, you had to.
Susie watched your face carefully for a long moment, studying your face carefully like she was trying to figure out whether you genuinely believed what you were saying or merely needed it badly enough to repeat it out loud.
“You really mean there’s no jokes in there?” she asked finally.
You shook your head immediately. “Not one.”
Susie stared another second before asking more quietly, “You’re really gonna be homeless?”
The question landed strangely hard spoken aloud, not because you hadn’t already admitted it to yourself several dozen times throughout the day, but because hearing somebody else say it transformed the thought into something no longer abstract to shove aside between distractions.
At your small nod, Susie’s shoulders dropped.
“Fuck me,” she muttered under her breath, genuine sympathy slipping through. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not permanent, Susie.” You shrugged lightly despite the tightness beginning to spread through your chest again. “This is just…” You paused, searching for wording that sounded less terrifying than the truth. “Something I have to survive.”
Your eyes drifted toward the money again. “And I will.”
Susie lifted her gaze back to you slowly.
“I’m serious,” she said. “This business sucks. It’s exhausting, humiliating and half the people in it are functioning alcoholics with superiority complexes.” She pointed vaguely around the empty club. “Myself included on a deeply spiritual level.”
A faint smile pulled at your mouth.
“But what happened up there?” She shook her head once. “That wasn’t normal.”
You looked toward the stage once more.
“It’s a fucking shame you can’t sit down here and watch yourself from the audience,” Susie continued.
You opened your mouth automatically but she cut you off before the objection even formed.
“And no, before you say anything, it has nothing to do with those ugly-ass lights making everybody sweat like sinners in church.”
A soft laugh escaped you despite yourself.
“You shine up there,” she said plainly. The sincerity of it made you glance away from her. “You could break this business wide open,” Susie continued, voice gaining momentum again now that she’d started. “The second you stepped onstage tonight it felt like an entirely new category appeared and suddenly everybody else looked outdated.”
Your brows furrowed faintly. “That sounds dramatic.”
“It is dramatic!” she barked instantly. “You’re dramatic. That’s part of the appeal.”
You rubbed tiredly at your temple while laughing under your breath.
“You’ve got the looks to pull in one crowd,” Susie continued, counting points aggressively on her fingers now, “and the actual life experience to connect with another one entirely.”
You blinked at her.
“It’s obvious nobody in this room has lived the way you have,” she said. “And you knew it too the second you started talking.”
Your fingers toyed absently with a folded dollar bill.
“I didn’t know who I was talking to,” you admitted quietly after a moment. “I got up there and suddenly everybody looked…” You searched briefly for the word. “Different from me.” You exhaled slowly through your nose. “Take away the alcohol, heartbreak and jealousy and honestly?” You shook your head slowly. “I felt like an outsider.”
Susie pointed at you immediately like she’d been waiting specifically for that sentence. “And that’s exactly why you fit.”
You looked back up at her.
“You walk into a room and make space for yourself,” she continued. “And you do it without apologizing for existing.” She tilted her head slightly. “How many comics have you seen?”
You shrugged slightly. “In person? None…I’ve seen videos online mostly.” You frowned thoughtfully. “People doing crowd work. Sometimes it’s funny.”
“It’s permanent,” Susie corrected immediately. “It might live on somebody’s page for two days but it lives online forever, that’s exactly why it loses its effect.” She pointed toward you again immediately after. “You won’t.”
A soft laugh escaped beneath your breath. “That’s insane.”
“No, listen to me.” Susie leaned even further across the counter now, completely consumed by the idea of you in a way that was beginning to feel mildly dangerous. “You walk around dressed like you’re trying to keep nineteen-fifties fashion alive all by yourself.”
“I do not.”
“With the dresses, the jewelry, the perfectly styled hair and those undergarments women used to wear that cut circulation directly off from the heart–”
“I don’t wear those.”
“Fine,” she snapped instantly. “But your entire vibe screams exclusivity.”
You stared blankly across the counter at her. “Oh, does it?”
“Yes!” She motioned aggressively toward your whole body now like your existence frustrated her. “You look like people should only be allowed to observe you from behind velvet ropes.”
Another tired laugh escaped you, softer this time. The adrenaline was finally beginning to leave your system now and everything around you had started taking on that strange, unreal softness exhaustion brought with it. The empty club, the money spread across the counter and Susie practically vibrating in front of you like a woman who had accidentally struck gold inside a dumpster.
“I am so unbelievably lost right now,” you admitted beneath your breath.
“And so will the audience be,” Susie replied without missing a beat. “That’s the magic.”
You blinked once.
“They’ll look at you and expect one thing,” she continued, “then suddenly you open your mouth and start talking about threatening landlords with heels and showering beside your stove.”
“I did not threaten him.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I merely implied violence,” you corrected calmly. “And it was barely directed at him specifically.” You paused thoughtfully. “I don’t condone what I did but I’m not sorry either.”
“Exactly.” Susie slapped the counter hard enough to startle you slightly. “Nobody sounds and looks like you simultaneously anymore!” The excitement in her voice had become almost feverish now, the kind that infected people once they became convinced they had discovered something first and wanted desperately to be right about it forever. “I’m telling you,” she insisted, pointing sharply toward you again, “I can make you a star.”
You shook your head, smiling awkwardly through the disbelief curling across your face.
“No, seriously.” She refused to let it go. “A real one too, not one of those television personalities everybody forgets about six months later once somebody younger starts screaming louder.”
Something in your chest tightened strangely at that.
“The kind people actually leave their houses for,” Susie continued. “The kind they line up around buildings to see because they can’t just find you sitting on their screens or shoved onto some streaming platform while they fold laundry.”
A warm and deeply frightening feeling curled low in your stomach then.
“You’re gonna become a fucking legend.”
You considered her entire speech for a moment, watching her as she stood behind the bar talking about your future like she had already lived it and came back with notes. The confidence was almost alarming because most people hesitated before making promises but Susie seemed physically incapable of it. She simply decided things were true and then marched toward them until reality either agreed or got out of the way.
You studied her face for another second before deciding you might as well humor her.
“And how exactly are you going to do that?” you asked, smiling despite yourself.
Susie shrugged as if the answer had been obvious from the start and you were the only person still trying to solve the puzzle. “For starters? No phones, just like at the Talon.” She pointed vaguely toward the empty room around you.
“We keep your image ephemeral. People hear about you, people talk about you but nobody gets to take you home in their pocket.” Her hands moved as she spoke. “When we eventually get you on television, the effect will be massive because nobody's seen you fifty times already while scrolling on the toilet.”
You laughed.
She continued anyway. “Your gigs become exclusive…you become exclusive.” She paused as she thought of what came with exclusivity. “No press either.”
“No press?”
“None.” She shook her head firmly. “Not until you're so big they have to beg for it.”
The certainty of it made you chuckle. “Shouldn't I earn that first?”
Susie looked at you like you had completely missed the point. The answer came soon after. “Let people believe you already have.”
You stared at her. Somewhere deep down, beneath the practical part of your brain currently worrying about rent, employment, housing and whether or not canned soup qualified as a sustainable lifestyle, another part couldn't help wondering what would happen if you believed her for a second, just long enough to imagine it.
You glanced down at the money still sitting on the counter. “How do we get there?”
“Easy.” That smile alone should've worried you. “I book you gigs. First here at the Talon…It's your home now.” She pointed toward the stage. “You feel comfortable here and the audience already likes you.”
Already liked you…it still sounded ridiculous.
“Then we move outward…to small shows in other clubs and bars.” She tapped the counter. “You get comfortable outside your little nest before we start throwing you into the deep end.”
You nodded slowly. “And how exactly are you planning to convince these places I'm worth giving a slot to?”
“I won't.” Susie reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. You watched her slip it between her lips, watched the lighter spark and the end glow red. She inhaled the smoke and then exhaled before pointing the cigarette at you. “Because you will.”
A week later…
It was late by the time you arrived at the jazz club.
The city had taken on that strange nighttime glow where everything looked slightly more expensive than it actually was. Streetlights reflected off wet pavement as taxi horns echoed between buildings and a saxophone drifted faintly through the open door before you even stepped inside.
You had never been to a place like this before. It wasn't quite downtown but it wasn’t Midtown either which suited you perfectly because the odds of running into someone you knew dropped dramatically once you wandered outside the handful of neighborhoods your parents would’ve considered respectable.
You pulled your coat tighter against the evening chill before stepping inside. Warmth immediately wrapped around you as low conversation floated between tables and glasses clinked softly. A stand-up bass hummed somewhere near the stage and the entire room glowed beneath dim amber lights that made everyone look more attractive and significantly more interesting than they probably were.
You slipped between crowded tables, carefully navigating around chairs and half-finished drinks while shrugging your coat from your shoulders.
The room felt different from the Talon, socially smaller. People weren't here to get drunk, they were here to listen which felt infinitely more terrifying.
You spotted Susie almost instantly. She sat at the bar hunched over like a gargoyle guarding bad decisions, cigarette hanging lazily between her lips while she watched the comedian currently on stage.
You approached and leaned closer. “You told me the Talon came first.” The whisper came out halfway between a complaint and an accusation.
Susie barely looked at you as she exhaled smoke, then finally glanced sideways. Her eyes traveled down your outfit and up again, then down once more. “You're wearing gloves.”
You looked down at your hands as though you'd forgotten they were there. The cream-colored satin reached up to your elbows and was perfectly unnecessary. “Thought I'd try something different.” You flexed your fingers experimentally. “Feels excessive though.”
“It's perfect.” Susie pointed toward the empty stool beside her.
You slid onto it, only then did she give your entire outfit a second inspection. The cocktail dress was vintage, naturally, made of soft fabric and had a structured waist. The sort of silhouette that would've made your mother nostalgic for reasons she couldn't properly articulate.
You'd spent twenty minutes deciding whether the gloves were too much but now you were beginning to suspect they weren't enough.
“I have a friend,” Susie said, gesturing vaguely toward the stage as you both glanced toward the performer currently finishing his set. “He does the whole singing thing…He had a slot here tonight but couldn't make it.” Susie pointed at you. “So now it's yours.”
You turned slowly toward the room. The audience looked different from the Talon's crowd, better dressed and more formal. People sat quietly at tables instead of shouting over one another and drinks remained mostly untouched because they were actually paying attention to the person opposite them. It felt concerning.
You turned back toward Susie. “This was incredibly last minute.”
“Yep.”
“I'm exhausted.”
“Yep.”
“And it's late.”
“Yep.”
You narrowed your eyes. “So, it better be worth it.”
Susie shrugged one shoulder. The cigarette bobbed slightly as she spoke. “Well, you're here …which means you want it.”
The irritating part was that she said it with the confidence of somebody who already knew you were going to see this through.
“How’s the pay?” you asked, letting out a tired sigh. Your feet throbbed with every shift of weight, heels already biting into your heels like tiny vengeful demons, while your lower back ached from the cumulative events of the past few days.
Both sets of eyes stayed fixed on the comic currently wrapping up his set on stage. You realized with mild horror that you hadn’t heard a single genuine laugh since you walked in. The room felt like a morgue with a cover charge. “Don’t worry about the money…you have ten minutes. Make ‘em count.”
“You’ll sure win Manager of the Year with that speech,” you muttered dryly under your breath before leaning in closer, your voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I haven’t heard a single laugh in here and I’m seeing phones.” You pointed discreetly at the handful of glowing screens scattered throughout the dimly lit room, their owners half-hidden in the shadows like guilty teenagers.
“Who’s the manager between the both of us? Let me worry about it,” Susie insisted, arms crossed over her chest as sparse, polite clapping trickled through the crowd for the departing comic.
“Up next we have a very funny lady…” the presenter trailed off awkwardly, clearly unsure what to call you.
“Start worrying about how stiff the public looks,” you shot back, already rising from your seat. Half your body angled toward the stage while your face remained inches from Susie’s. “I’m pretty sure post-mortem spasms don’t include laughter.”
“You tell ‘em that.” She jerked her chin toward the stage. “Tits up!” she whisper-yelled as you stormed forward, the flowing skirt of your dress swirling dramatically around your legs with each purposeful step.
You stepped onto the stage with a plastered, megawatt smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. The audience was worse, much worse. These people weren’t drunk and loose, they were sober, impatient and already mentally checked out, waiting for the live music portion as it was the only reason they hadn’t left yet. Their eyes were glued to their phones, thumbs scrolling mindlessly while the occasional bored glance flicked your way.
Your gaze darted quickly to Susie near the bar. She was already scanning the crowd like a soldier preparing for war, her posture tense and ready.
You stepped closer to the microphone, wrapping your fingers around the stand before smoothly lifting it free. “Well, hello, hello, hello,” you purred, flashing another bright smile. “Who’s ready for some jazz?”
A polite smattering of applause rose, lifting a small sliver of the crushing stage anxiety off your chest. “Too bad you’re still gonna have to wait a short ten minutes,” you continued, pacing slowly across the small stage, hips swaying with the movement. “Well…long for those who are married to men.”
The women in the audience let out a ripple of genuine laughter, sharp and knowing.
“You would think their wives just asked them for a romantic night the way some of them just slumped forward…or to the left…or right,” you added, gesturing lazily at a few defeated-looking husbands in the front rows. “I’m guessing that says something about what keeps your pockets looking full and plump but I can’t quite put my finger on it…” More laughter erupted, warmer this time. “Their political parties! That’s it.” The room cracked open with louder laughter. “What? Did you guys think I got up here to talk about penises? Nobody needs to pay me to do that.”
Susie’s sharp eyes raked through the crowd like a predator. One man near the middle had already opened his camera app, lifting his phone with that smug, entitled expression of someone who thought rules didn’t apply to him. Before he could even frame the shot, Susie moved like lightning, hand shooting out and snatching the phone clean from his grip.
The guy started rising from his seat, complaint written all over his flushed face. “Hey, that was–”
“Sit down,” she bit out between gritted teeth, her voice low and dangerous enough to make several nearby heads turn. She held the phone up like a trophy, glaring at him until he slowly sank back into his chair, muttering under his breath.
You didn’t miss a beat, leaning into the mic with a little grin as the tension in the room shifted. “See that? That’s what we call enforcing the no-phone rule, ladies and gentlemen. My girl Susie over there doesn’t play. She’ll snatch your phones faster than your wives snatch the remote as they suggest couples therapy.” A fresh wave of laughter rolled through, louder now, the audience finally starting to wake up. “I respect it as they are sources of information you’d want to keep secret. I would know, my phone could’ve been in evidence about a week ago, at risk of being fondled by a cop who might’ve just thought it’s cute that I almost named my vibrator after a superhero…Long story.”
You let the laugh settle before continuing, your voice dropping into something sultrier, dirtier. “But seriously, put the phones away. Unless you’re planning on using the flashlight app to find my clit later, because fuck knows some of you need the help.” You winked at a table of women who howled with laughter. “I’m not here to be background noise while you doomscroll through your ex’s new girlfriend’s vacation pics, either. I’m here to trauma-dump for cash and emotional damages. So eyes up here or Susie’s gonna start collecting phones like my father collects reasons I shouldn't be allowed freedom.”
Susie smirked from the sidelines, arms crossed, clearly satisfied as another would-be photographer quickly lowered his device under her death stare.
You twirled the mic cord around your finger, feeding off the growing energy in the room like it was the only thing keeping you upright. “But let me tell you about my manager over there,” you said, gesturing grandly toward Susie with the mic. “She wants to run this place like it’s 1957…classy, elegant, with no phones, just pure, unfiltered entertainment. Of course, without all the casual racism and the part where women had to smile while their husbands treated them like decorative houseplants.”
The crowd chuckled, loosening up.
“You know, back when most of you would’ve been attentive enough to memorize your mistresses’ phone numbers instead of screenshotting the incriminating evidence like amateurs,” you added, your voice dripping with mock disapproval. “I mean, come on, fellas. At least have the decency to write it on your hand like a real degenerate. These days you’re out here leaving digital paper trails longer than your…” You let the pause hang just long enough for the dirty implication to land. “...attention span in bed. C’mon, guys focus!” You finished, earning a burst of loud, scandalized laughter from the women and a few guilty-looking coughs from the men. “Susie’s over here enforcing old performance rules while I’m trying to survive 2026 with a broken heart, a police record and dresses that cost more than my unpaid rent. The duality of a woman.”
You paced the small stage, hips swaying, the navy fabric catching the light with every step. “But I agree with the no-phone policy. My therapist says I overshare…and my arrest record says I overshare with props.” You leaned into the mic with a wicked grin. “Though between us, if I’m flashing anything tonight, it’s only because this dress is so tight I might need a crowbar and divine intervention to get out of it later. Any volunteers? Just promise you’ll tip big…”
The room erupted again, the laughter rolling louder, more genuinely. Susie stood near the bar with her arms crossed, a rare smirk tugging at her lips as she watched you work the crowd like you’d been doing this for years.
Back at the Talon…
You blinked at her words, the new responsibility of this hypothetical career settling on your shoulders.
“Okay, so about the material,” you started, sitting up straighter on the stool. “What happens when my life’s miraculously fixed and nothing’s funny anymore?”
You could almost see her rolling her eyes as she exhaled a slow drag from her cigarette, the smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling. “You just don’t stop being funny,” she said flatly, tapping the ash off with a practiced flick. “You stop seeing the funny in things, so don’t. You’re talking about your present now but it’ll still be your life six months from now. You don’t wanna write jokes? Fine. Document what happens to you and find the funny in that…then exploit it on stage.”
You nodded slowly, letting her words settle in your chest. She had a point, a brutally practical, cigarette-scented point.
“But you have to work what’s around it,” she added, gesturing vaguely with the cigarette between her fingers, her expression somewhere between tough love and mild amusement at your obvious spiral.
Your brows furrowed, the weight of her vague instruction settling somewhere between confusion and irritation. “What’s around it?”
She shrugged, that casual, infuriating shrug of hers. “We have to polish a few things…” She paused, taking another slow drag, the tip of her cigarette glowing bright in the dim light of the empty club. “And you forgot to say your stage name.”
You blinked, genuinely racking your brain, trying to remember what had come out of your mouth during those ten minutes on stage. The set felt like a blur now from adrenaline, panic and that strange floating sensation that came from saying things you’d never admit to a therapist in front of strangers. “I don’t have a stage name.”
She chuckled, low and dry, like gravel under a slow tire. “You do and it has Mrs. in front of it.”
It took you a few seconds to pinpoint it, the memory surfacing like something awful rising from murky water. “No.” You shook your head firmly. “The name Mrs. Kent’s gotta go. If I’m doing this, I can’t keep it.”
“Why?” She asked, almost scandalized, her cigarette paused mid-air like she’d forgotten it was burning. “People loved it! I heard that name land.”
You let out a breathy huff, because in your mind, it was evident, obvious. “Because I’m not Mrs. Kent…and I know the real Mrs. Kent, she’s a very nice lady who makes excellent sweet tea and lives on a farm in Kansas.” The words came out sharper than intended, defensive in a way that surprised even you.
“Are you kidding me?” She stubbed out her cigarette with more force than necessary. “The first night you were here you seemed adamant about deserving that name.”
“Well common sense has a funny way of working when it comes to me…” You felt the weight of the past few days pressing down on your ribs. “It was clearly a joke.”
“You said you don’t do jokes.”
“Then it was a Freudian slip, Susie.” Your voice dropped, the fight draining out as quickly as it had flared. “I can’t keep it. If you make this happen I gotta find something else.” You held her gaze, willing her to understand. “This cannot reach his ears and trust me, it will… it’s just a matter of time but when it does, it can’t have his name attached to it.”
“You’re such a party pooper.” she murmured under her breath, but there was no real heat in it, more like a disappointed kid who’d just been told no cookies before dinner.
You smiled despite yourself, the tension in your shoulders loosening half a notch. “That’s very mature, thank you.”
“Could you please reconsider?” she tried and you caught the faintest hint of something vulnerable beneath her gruff exterior, like she’d already started building something in her head and didn't want to tear it down.
“I’m considering the whole thing, Susie.” You motioned between the both of you, the small distance across the counter feeling suddenly significant. “You seem convinced and that’s great but you barely know me. This currently sounds insane to me and it’s not a priority. I definitely couldn’t do it full time.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” you echoed, incredulous. “Did you forget the part where I’m not a comic? I’m unemployed and about to be homeless. I can’t think about this while sleeping outside. I need to figure out my life and then…I might be delusional enough to want this.”
Susie observed you in that way that made you feel like she was reading the fine print of your soul. “If you want something that’s yours,” she said slowly, each word intentional, “you might wanna jump on this.”
Something in her tone made your voice lower, the question slipping out before you could stop it. “What about you, Susie? Is working at the Talon not enough?”
She scoffed, turning away to get back to cleaning up, her movements brisk and mechanical. “It’s not permanent.” She repeated your own words back at you, throwing them over her shoulder. “I don’t want it to be…Years ago I pushed to have live music and artists on a stage I had to make myself.” She pointed toward the empty platform. “I’m not dying behind this counter with nothing to be proud of.”
“And you want that to be me?”
“Amongst other things.” She shrugged, that same casual motion but her eyes were sharper now, more intent. “You have talent…I grew up on this, on late night show recordings and vinyls of comics. I had an uncle who knew someone who knew someone who managed artists. I know what to look for and it’s flashing signs and lights when I look at you.”
“I know nothing about it.” The admission felt heavy, embarrassing in its honesty. “Not a single thing, Susie. And if it’s anything like I see online–”
“Don’t.” She cut you off, pointing a finger. “Unsee it. I’m telling you, if we're gonna make a place for ourselves in this business, it’ll be in a category where only you fit.” She said it with such certainty, such unwavering conviction, that you almost believed her.
You sighed as you let silence stretch, pulling out your phone from your purse and looking at the time. The screen glowed back at you, too bright, reminding you of the world waiting outside these walls. “It’s late…I should start heading home…given I still have one.”
She nodded, watching as you stood from the stool and gathered your belongings and résumés, her gaze tracking your movements like she was memorizing them. “You’ll think about it?”
“Sure, Susie…I’ll run it by my pillow and see where it stands on show business.” You collected the money from the counter and split it with quick, practiced fingers. “Your fifteen percent,” you said, handing her a portion.
“I told you that wasn't necessary.” She didn’t make a move to take the money from you, just stood there with her arms crossed, stubborn as ever.
Since she didn’t, you set the bills on the counter and tapped them once as a final punctuation. “Well someone needs to keep the lights on if I decide it’s worth coming back.” You smiled. “Night, Susie.”
“Night!” she called back as she watched you leave, feeling her eyes on your back until the door swung shut behind you.
You spent the next few days packing with no place to go.
The boxes piled up in corners you didn't even know your apartment had, cardboard mountains that seemed to multiply overnight no matter how many you taped shut and stacked against the walls. Your clothing racks stayed mostly untouched because you refused to fold anything that might crease, which meant half your wardrobe still hung suspended in judgment while you packed around them, shuffling sideways through your own home like a guest in someone else's disaster.
You tried your luck with your résumés downtown, the same desperate circuit you had walked a week ago, but now the rejection stung differently. Before, you had been exploring, testing the waters of employment like someone dipping a toe into cold water. Now you were drowning and every polite smile, every "we'll keep your resume on file," and every door that closed without an invitation felt like another brick tied to your ankles.
You found yourself unknowingly orbiting the Talon without making a move inside.
You walked past the neon sign twice on Tuesday, once on Wednesday and three times on Thursday. Each time you told yourself you were just passing through, just taking the long way back home, just clearing your head but your feet kept finding the same cracked sidewalk, the same dim hallway visible from the street and the same flickering light above the stairs that led down to Susie's kingdom of cheap drinks and questionable life choices.
You never went in. If you stepped through that door, you would have to talk to Susie and if you talked to Susie, she would ask about the stage and if she asked about the stage, you might say yes, and saying yes felt like admitting that your life had become something you needed to perform instead of something you needed to fix.
So you kept walking.
The week was ending in three days and you had no clear living situation. The boxes in your apartment proved that much, stacked in precarious towers that seemed to mock you every time you squeezed past them to reach the toilet. Your landlord Garrett had stopped returning your calls entirely, which you suspected had less to do with his schedule and more to do with the ten thousand dollar bet you had placed on his behalf.
You still had no job. The résumés had thinned out considerably, some handed directly to managers who smiled too politely, others abandoned on countertops when you realized nobody was actually reading them and at least three had been sacrificed to coffee rings during particularly discouraging interviews.
You had woken up early on Friday, before the sun had fully committed to rising, and dressed carefully in something that looked expensive without being your best. You needed to pay for the dress you had credited, the navy number with the pink details that had cost more than your first shitty car probably would have if you had ever owned one.
The money from that night at the Talon sat in your purse, along with some extra you had found while packing, crumpled bills tucked between the pages of books you hadn't opened in years, loose change rattling in coat pockets and one very crumpled twenty you discovered beneath your bed that you chose not to inspect too closely.
At least your debt was paid. You had handed over the cash to the saleswoman, who had smiled at you with something that looked almost like respect and collected the clothes they had been holding hostage.
Afterward, you forced yourself to walk back home carrying your paper bag, determined not to spend money on cabs you could barely afford.
Your heels clicked against the pavement in a rhythm that had become familiar over the past week. The city moved around you, indifferent, loud and exactly the same as it had been before your life collapsed, which was somehow both comforting and devastating.
You kept walking until your surroundings felt familiar, the buildings shifting from anonymous glass towers to storefronts you recognized, streets you had walked a hundred times before.
You kept your head down as you passed Mrs. Alston's store, the way you had for days now, avoiding the window because you knew if you looked, you would see something you wanted and right now, wanting things was dangerous.
Left foot, right foot, left again…until your feet halted.
You didn't mean to stop. Your body simply decided for you, muscles locking up mid stride as your eyes lifted wide and landed on the sign at the door.
It read "Store closing soon" in block letters that looked too final, too much like an ending you hadn't been prepared for.
You alarmedly pushed inside, the bell above the door jangling with more force than you intended. The smell hit you immediately, that familiar combination of well taken care of vintage clothes and leather heels, dust, perfume and something that might have been cedar. It smelled like every good memory you had of shopping in this city, like the first time you had found a genuine 1950s cocktail dress in your size, like the afternoon Mrs. Alston had taught you how to spot authentic stitching versus reproduction.
"Mrs. Alston?" you called, your voice bouncing off the overflowing racks as you tried to locate her. The store was crowded, always had been, but now there was something desperate about the chaos, as if everything had been shoved aside to make room for goodbyes.
As well as she kept the store as organized as she could, overflowing was the right word. Dresses hung at odd angles, shoes sat in mismatched pairs waiting to be reunited and hats perched on every available surface like tiny spectators watching the slow collapse of an empire.
"Oh! I know that voice!"
Mrs. Alston emerged from the back room, her face lighting up in a way that made your chest ache. She was smaller than you remembered, though you weren't sure if she had actually shrunk or if you had simply been away long enough to forget. Her silver hair was pinned up in that same twist she had worn for years and her glasses sat slightly crooked on her nose, how they always were when she had been cataloguing.
"Dear, I just got in a collection of heels you will love." She grinned, already gesturing toward the back room with enthusiasm that seemed untouched by the sign on her door. "I just have to catalogue them and you will be the first to take a look."
She sold a bit of everything vintage and curated but her specialty was luxury shoes. That was why she was your shoe lady, the only person in Metropolis you trusted to find the perfect pair, the woman who taught you the difference between vintage and merely old. Her collection had expanded over the years to include clothes and accessories but the shoes remained her first love, and yours too.
You groaned, the sound escaping before you could stop it. "Don't tempt me."
She laughed as she walked back to the counter, her steps slower than they used to be and slightly uneven, which made you notice for the first time how much she leaned on the displays for balance. "I haven't seen you around in a while." She settled onto the stool behind the counter with a soft sigh, arranging her skirt around her. "What can I do for you?"
"For starters, how about not closing my favorite store?" you asked, pointing toward the sign out front with more desperation than you intended to show.
She groaned tiredly, shaking her head as she adjusted her glasses. "I didn't want to." The words came out heavy, weighed down by something that sounded like grief. "But age is catching up to me." She spread her hands on the counter, knuckles swollen and veins prominent beneath papery skin. "I can't stay open as long as I used to. My feet hurt and swell if I don't sit. If I am here organizing and cataloguing things, then I am not open and selling. And when I’m open and selling, I cannot keep up with the rest of it." She sighed, the sound rattling slightly in her chest. "My girls don't want to help. They have their own lives, their own families…I cannot blame them for not wanting to inherit a vintage store that barely breaks even. So we decided that I should close if I cannot keep up."
"I’ll help." The words came out before you thought about them, before you considered what you were offering or what it would mean. They simply appeared, fully formed and desperate, because the alternative was watching Mrs. Alston disappear from your life the way everything else seemed to be disappearing.
She blinked at you, her eyebrows rising above her crooked glasses.
"I know my vintage clothing and shoes." You stepped closer to the counter, your voice gaining confidence even as your stomach churned with the audacity of what you were suggesting. "I can be here six days a week or just take over when you need rest. It might be a biased opinion, but this store has potential. The sales aren't bad...I surely help by being your client, but I can help more by being your employee."
You set your purse and the bag with the clothes you had gotten back down on the counter, the paper crinkling softly. Your hands were shaking slightly which you noticed but you kept talking anyway because if you stopped, you might lose your nerve entirely.
"I can open an online store, that can surely help speed up things. When that’s up and running, by the time you decide to close the store and actually want to retire, the online store could keep working for you." You leaned forward, willing her to understand. "I do not currently have any more résumés on me and if you want to see one that badly, I can run up to Midtown and look in the diner's dumpster where I am sure I will find a copy of mine."
She blinked at your speech, her mouth opening slightly, then closing again. For a moment, you were certain you had overstepped, had pushed too hard, had ruined the one good thing you had left in this city. Then she chuckled, the sound warm and surprised and shook her head slowly.
"I didn’t know you were looking for a job."
"I tried to avoid this street for as long as I could so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend more than I have." You admitted, your shoulders dropping slightly with relief. "I kinda cheated on you with another store but the point is you know me, and I know your store. I will not deceive you." You hesitated, your confidence faltering as the practical realities of your situation came crashing back. "I’ll just need you to show me the ropes."
You watched as she opened her mouth to speak and it hurt you to interrupt her so quickly, but there was one more thing she needed to know. One more piece of honesty you could not afford to leave unsaid.
"And I would need to be paid weekly." You added quietly, your voice dropping so low it barely carried across the counter. "At least until I figure out my living situation…which I rather not talk about."
Her smile spread across her face, slow and genuine, the kind of smile that made you feel like you had just been given something precious. "How soon can you start?"
You let out a sigh of relief so deep it felt like you had been holding your breath for days. Your shoulders dropped and the tension you had been carrying loosened its grip as you shrugged off your coat and draped it over the back of a nearby chair, ready to get to work.
It was criminally late when you got home.
The city had shifted into that strange, liminal hour where the streets belonged to nobody in particular. Taxis still ran but they seemed to move slower, their headlights cutting through the dark like weary eyes struggling to stay open. The bars had mostly let out, leaving behind clusters of people arguing about nothing on street corners, their laughter too loud and their balance too unsteady. You stepped around them carefully, body moving on autopilot while your mind drifted somewhere far above the sidewalk.
You were certain it took you thirty minutes to get up to your floor because you refused to take off your heels. The stairs stretched before you like a personal challenge, each flight longer than the last, each landing a small victory you celebrated only in your head. Your feet screamed at you with every step, your calves burned and somewhere around the fourth floor you had started making promises to your body that you knew you would not keep. Better shoes…more practical choices or flats, even though the thought made you wince.
You carried your purse, the bag with your clothes and another bag of something you had put together in the store. Your uniform, you had decided, though that was not entirely true. You had chosen it because it was a very rare vintage dress, the kind of piece that made your heart race when you found it hanging on a rack, with a fabric that whispered secrets about the woman who had worn it first. You told yourself it was practical, that you needed to look the part if you were going to sell vintage clothing to customers who valued authenticity but really, you just wanted to wear it and for the first time in weeks, you had let yourself want something without immediately talking yourself out of it.
You had never worked so much in your life before.
Your fingers were going to fall off, you were certain of it. Between color coding the inventory, recataloguing everything so it was not done by hand but on an actual computer,and learning the quirks of Mrs. Alston's ancient point of sale system, you had barely stopped moving since you got the job. Your back ached from bending over displays, your eyes burned from staring at spreadsheets and your throat was raw from talking to customers who wandered in to browse and left with armfuls of things they had not known they needed.
But you deemed yourself more than lucky.
Mrs. Alston had walked you through her books in the afternoon, showing you the numbers with a pride that made your chest swell. The amount each piece could bring was significant, especially the donations.
Old friends of hers brought in boxes of clothing they no longer wanted, friends of friends dropped off suitcases full of designer pieces they had inherited and did not appreciate, grandchildren cleared out attics and basements and delivered garbage bags full of treasure. Most of them did not know how valuable the pieces they were so excited to get rid of actually were. A 1960s Chanel suit, shoved into a plastic bin alongside holiday decorations, a pair of 1950s Ferragamo heels, scuffed and dusty but structurally perfect, tossed into a donation box because nobody recognized the name.
The pay was good…so good. Better than you had expected, better than you had dared to hope for when you walked through that door with nothing but desperation and a half formed plan and on top of your base salary, you would earn a commission for each sale. Every dress, every pair of shoes, every carefully curated accessory that walked out the door with a customer would put more money in your pocket.
You were the only employee, which meant the commissions were yours alone, no fighting over customers!
You had made the website during your lunch break, hunched over Mrs. Alston's unused desktop computer while eating a sandwich you had picked up from the deli down the street. The template was clunky and the upload speeds were terrible but you had figured it out, piece by piece, typing product descriptions with one hand while checking how the formatting looked on the smaller screen of your phone.
You started taking pictures of the first things that needed to go, pieces that had been sitting in the back room for years, items that were beautiful but not quite rare enough to command top dollar. Decluttering the store was a priority, Mrs. Alston had explained, because you could not sell what people couldn’t see and right now, nobody could see anything through the chaos. So you photographed and listed, fingers moving automatically while your mind catalogued the next dozen items you wanted to feature.
You made social media accounts too. You posted photos of the store's best pieces, wrote captions that tried to capture the magic of finding something perfect in a pile of ordinary and followed every vintage account you could find. You needed to attract another public, Mrs. Alston had said, younger people who shopped online and cared about sustainability and wanted pieces that told a story. You agreed, even though you were not entirely sure how to reach them, when social media felt like a foreign language you were only beginning to learn.
The stairs loomed ahead of you, the familiar climb that had once seemed endless and now felt like the only constant in your life. You reached the bottom of the final flight, the one that would take you to your floor and stopped.
You took a deep breath, leaning against the railing as your chest rose and fell. Your legs trembled slightly beneath you, the muscles weak from exhaustion, the climb and the simple, overwhelming weight of the past several days. You were still so tempted to sit down and just sleep, right there on the cold, cracked stairs, head resting against the wall and bags clutched to your chest like pillows.
The hallways were still crowded, though the chaos had thinned slightly. At least four tenants had already left, their doors standing closed and quiet where there had once been noise, light and the sound of arguments spilling into the corridor but the remaining boxes still stacked against the walls, the furniture still pushed into corners, the lamps, rugs and framed photographs still waiting to be claimed by someone who had somewhere to go.
You were starting to close your eyes, to rest them just for a moment when a voice made you jump so hard you nearly dropped your bags.
"Finally."
Imogene groaned from her spot on the stairs and you lifted your head to find her sitting three steps above where you stood, her legs stretched out in front of her, arms crossed over her chest like she had been waiting for hours. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, the kind she only wore when she was too tired to do anything else and there was a crease on her cheek that suggested she had been resting her face against the railing.
"I have been knocking on your door like a maniac all day." She continued, her voice carrying that particular blend of exhaustion and indignation that only came from being ignored for hours. "Didn't you see my calls?"
You inhaled and exhaled, your body still trembling slightly from the surprise. "I didn’t." You flashed a tired smile, the expression feeling strange on your face after hours of concentrating on spreadsheets and product descriptions. "I’m sorry...but I have a job now." You lifted your bags with a shrug, the weight of them pulling at your shoulders. "I started today."
She descended the stairs rapidly, her own shoes clicking against them as she closed the distance between you. Without asking, she reached for your bags, pulling some of the weight from your arms and helping you up the last flight. Her presence beside you was warm and solid, and you leaned into it slightly, grateful for the support even if you were too tired to say so.
"And thanks to me, you have a place to live." Imogene said, her voice bright despite the hour. "That is, if you say yes."
"What?" The word came out slower than you intended, your brain struggling to process anything beyond the immediate reality of putting one foot in front of the other. You were so tired, the exhaustion made simple sentences feel like complex equations.
Once on your floor, the both of you stopped and faced each other. The hallway was dim, one of the overhead lights flickering somewhere behind you, casting long shadows across the worn carpet. Imogene's face was illuminated in soft, uneven patches, her smile bright enough to cut through the darkness.
She flashed you with that smile, one that had made you trust her the first day you met, the one that said she had good news and she was about to share it whether you were ready or not. "I found a place." She said the words like an announcement she had been waiting all day to deliver. "It has two bedrooms, a full bathroom and a living room where we can fit a couch." She paused, her expression shifting into something more conspiratorial. "Did I tell you about Archie?"
You blinked, your brain rifling through files it was too exhausted to properly access. "Your boyfriend Archie?"
"Yes." She smiled wider, if that was possible, her whole face lighting up at the name. "He is finishing his masters, and he has a job lined up here in Metropolis, so we will be moving in together...in six months." She drew out the words, letting them hang in the air between you, her eyes wide with expectation. "Which means..."
She trailed off, waiting for you to finish the sentence but in all honesty, all you could think about was how you were going to organize the scarves the next morning at the store. By color, certainly, that was the most visually appealing but length made sense too, so customers could easily find what they were looking for. Or fabric, because silk should not be stored next to wool, that was just common sense. What about all three? Was that too complicated? You could color code within length categories and then organize by fabric within those...
Imogene shook you, her hands gripping your shoulders and rattling you gently until your eyes focused back on her face. "You can move in with me!"
"Oh."
The syllable came out flat, insufficient, the kind of response that did not begin to capture the magnitude of what she was offering. Your brain struggled to catch up, to shift from scarves to roommates, from inventory management to the sudden, stunning realization that you might not have to sleep on the street after all.
"The apartment is downtown, which I know is not your style." Imogene continued, her words rushing out now that she had your attention. "Though it’s only three subway stations from Midtown, so I thought I would ask." She shrugged, suddenly self conscious, her confidence wavering for the first time since she had started speaking. "You have been so busy looking for a job that I didn’t know if you had time for the..."
Her voice cut off as you took her into a crushing hug.
You dropped what you’d been still holding to do it, letting them fall to the floor with a thud that echoed through the hallway. Your arms wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her close, holding on tighter than you probably should have, your face pressed into her shoulder. She smelled like lavender and coffee and the particular warmth of someone who had probably spent the day packing up more boxes and cleaning out closets.
"...rest." She finished, her voice muffled against your shoulder.
You both stood there in silence, you hugging her while your limbs felt heavy and your hands shook slightly from exhaustion and relief. The hallway was quiet around you except for the flickering light and the distant sound of a television somewhere below the only noise.
"I’ve never had a roommate." Imogene added, her voice smaller now, almost shy.
You stepped back, letting go of her, your arms falling to your sides. Your eyes were wet, you realized, though you were not sure when that had happened. You wiped at them quickly, hoping she had not noticed.
"I have." You said with a tired smile, the expression softer now, more genuine. "Well, something like it."
You thought of shared meals and borrowed sweatshirts and the particular rhythm of living alongside someone who knew you better than you knew yourself. You thought of mornings spent arguing about breakfast and evenings spent not arguing at all, just existing in the same space, breathing the same air, pretending you didn’t notice the way your heart sped up every time he walked into the room.
"I know it’s only six months." Imogene said, pulling you back to the present. "But you’ve already been packing, and..." She smiled again, softer this time. "It’s going to be great."
"Yes it will." You nodded, the words coming out firmer than you felt. You crouched, picked up your bags and dragged your heels to your door, each step heavier than the last as your bed was already calling to you from behind the worn wooden panels.
"I’ll send you the lease to your email." Imogene called quietly after you. "We can meet tomorrow after work to help you move your stuff." She paused, already planning and organizing. "What time do you get off?"
As you unlocked your door, key turning with a familiar click, you spoke behind your back. "We’re going to need more help than that." The door swung open, revealing the chaos of your apartment, the boxes, clothing racks and the narrow path you had carved through the mess. "I’ll give Ricky a call."
"Ricky?" Imogene's face scrunched up in confusion, nose wrinkling. "Bodega Ricky?"
"Yup." You said, pushing your door open wider and squeezing through the gap. Your hip caught on a stack of boxes, knocking them slightly askew but you didn’t have the energy to fix it. "Night."
The word came out under your breath, barely audible, as you closed the door behind you. The lock clicked into place, a small sound of finality that separated you from the hallway, from Imogene and the world outside.
You dropped your bags and your purse to the floor, before you collapsed on your bed.
The mattress groaned beneath you, springs protesting the sudden weight. Your face pressed into the pillow, arms sprawled out on either side and legs still hanging off the edge because you didn’t have the energy to pull them up.
You did have a roommate once.
The thought drifted through your mind, unbidden and unwelcome, settling into your chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Life was so perfect back then…
At twenty…
You had already mastered the art of treating Clark's apartment like an extension of your own.
You exited your studio apartment with your toothbrush in your mouth, the bristles working against your teeth as you crossed the hallway. The floor was cold, how it always was in the mornings before the building's ancient radiator system remembered it was supposed to produce heat. You didn’t actually mind, you had stopped minding most things about this place, the thin walls, the unreliable hot water and the way the windows whistled when the wind picked up. It was yours for the time being, paid by your school and Clark was right next door, which made everything else tolerable.
You pushed open the door in front of yours, one that swung open without resistance because Clark had stopped locking it sometime during your first semester. He said it was because he forgot but you knew better. He left it open for you, the same way he left his closet open for your overflow of clothes and the same way he left space in his refrigerator for the things your tiny studio fridge could not hold.
You stepped inside his apartment, a bigger place that you knew well by now. You were halfway through your second year of university, which meant you had been doing this for nearly eighteen months, walking into his space like you belonged there, helping yourself to his things and occupying the corners he had cleared out for you without ever being asked.
His bathroom was at the end of the hall and your feet carried you there automatically, toothbrush still moving in slow, practiced circles. Steam curled under the door, warm and damp, carrying the smell of whatever soap he was using this week. Something herbal his mother probably sent him in a care package because Clark never bought things like that for himself.
You didn’t knock as you pushed the door open.
"Y/n." Clark started from behind the shower curtain, voice carrying that particular tone he used when he was pretending to be annoyed but was not quite pulling it off.
"Not looking!" You said the words around your toothbrush. You walked over to his bathroom counter, eyes scanning the organized chaos of his things until you found what you were looking for. His toothpaste sat beside the sink, the tube squeezed from the bottom like you’d taught him. "I’m out of toothpaste."
You put a dollop of it on your toothbrush, the minty paste cold against your tongue and didn’t bother going back to your apartment to finish brushing your teeth. Why would you? His sink was right there and so was his mirror.
Clark pushed the curtain open just enough to meet your eyes in the mirror.
His hair was wet, plastered to his forehead in dark curls and water dripped down his face in steady streams. His look was unsurprised at the sight of you in his space, you were in his apartment more than you were in your own and he had long since stopped questioning it.
"What." You said the word around the foam in your mouth, gesturing toward the door with your free hand as you continued brushing. "Are we still pretending you don’t leave the door open so I can do this?"
He blinked at you, water dripping from his eyelashes. "I’m in the middle of showering."
"And I’m brushing my teeth." You spit out the excess foam into his sink, the toothpaste swirling down the drain in white ribbons. You didn’t bother rinsing yet, head lifting to meet his eyes through the mirror. "What’s your point?"
"I’m naked."
The words hung in the air between you, simple and declarative. He wasn’t being provocative, nor was he trying to make you uncomfortable. He was simply stating a fact, the same way he might mention the weather, the score of a baseball game or the fact that you had left your lights on again.
You turned around to actually face him, your hand still moving your toothbrush in automatic circles. The curtain was pulled back just enough to give you a view of his shoulders, broad, wet and glistening under the harsh bathroom light. Soap bubbles clung to his skin in places, sliding down his biceps in slow motion and trailing over the curve of his chest. Water dripped from his jaw, from his collarbone and from the lines of muscle you had watched develop over the past year, changes so gradual you had almost missed them until suddenly you couldn’t look away.
He gripped the curtain tightly, holding it against his body to cover the rest, his knuckles white against the plastic.
"Right." You said, voice steady despite the way your heart had started beating faster. "I can see that." You tilted your head, considering him the way you might consider a painting in a museum, appreciative but detached. "Should I drop some one dollar bills and wait for the music to come on, or..."
A smile began spreading across your face before you could stop it, the expression breaking through your carefully maintained composure like sunlight through clouds. You could feel the warmth building in your cheeks but you didn’t look away, because looking away would mean admitting something you weren’t ready to admit.
Clark closed the curtain rapidly, the plastic swishing against the rod as he yanked it shut but not before you saw him blush, the color rising on his cheeks and spreading down his neck, disappearing beneath the water still streaming over his shoulders.
You laughed breathily around the foam in your mouth, the sound bright and entirely too pleased with yourself. You turned back to the mirror, catching your own foggy reflection, eyes bright and smile wide despite the toothpaste still coating your teeth.
"You give me a lot of shit about locking my door while you don’t lock yours." You spit again, the foam disappearing down the drain. "Make it make sense."
Behind you, you heard the water turn off, the sudden silence almost louder than the spray had been. You watched in the mirror as Clark's dripping wet arm reached out and grabbed a towel from the hook beside the shower. The fabric disappeared behind the curtain and you heard the rustle of him drying off efficiently.
Seconds later, he stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped around his hips.
Water still clung to his chest, beading on his skin and trailing down his abdomen in paths that disappeared beneath the blue fabric. His hair was even darker when it was wet and it curled against his forehead in ways that made your fingers itch to push it back. He looked soft and hard at the same time, the contradictions of him somehow making more sense than anything else in your life.
"I think I can handle an intruder." He said, voice steady again now that he was covered. He reached for a smaller towel and started drying his hair, the motion ruffling the curls until they stood in every direction. "But I’m not around all of the time when you’re home."
You leaned down to rinse your mouth, cupping your hand under the faucet and bringing the water to your lips. The mint taste faded, replaced by the faint metallic flavor of the building's ancient pipes, the same taste you had gotten used to months ago. You straightened up and reached for the towel hanging on the rack beside the sink and wiped your mouth with the corner.
"Nope." You agreed, dropping the towel back onto the rack. "But you’re fast enough for me to pretend you are."
You left your toothbrush in the same cup where he kept his, the two of them standing side by side, your pink plastic nestled against his blue one. The sight of them together was so domestic it almost hurt, two toothbrushes in one cup, two lives tangled together in ways neither of you acknowledged yet.
You watched as Clark's eyes went down to the cup and back up at you. "You’re not gonna take that?"
You shrugged, the motion casual. "I’ll be back. I don’t get this month's stamps until next week."
The words landed between you heavily. Your parents had cut you off completely when they found out you enrolled at Metropolis University and the small amount of money you had saved had run out faster than you expected.
You could almost see how hard he was trying not to say it. His jaw tightened and lips pressed together as one hand gripped the towel at his hip while the other hung at his side, fingers curling into a loose fist. He was fighting with himself, you could tell, the same way he fought with every instinct that told him to fix things, to help and to save.
"Let me take you shopping." He said finally, the words careful. "Groceries….necessities. Anything you need."
You shook your head immediately, the refusal was almost reflexive by then. "I don’t need your help, Clark."
"Oh yeah?" His eyebrows lifted and something changed in his expression, the careful concern giving way to something lighter and teasing. "So what’s all the pink in my closet?"
He asked the question knowing the answer, knowing it would make you smile and break the tension that had settled between you. You watched your own smile spread across your face in the mirror, the expression softening the hard lines of your refusal.
You didn’t have enough space for your belongings in your student studio apartment, that much was true. The closet was barely big enough for your winter coats and your dresser had arrived with a missing drawer that you had never bothered to fix. Most of your things lived in Clark's apartment now, spread throughout his closets and drawers, your clothes hung beside his and shoes lined up inside his. Your presence was woven into the fabric of his space so completely that removing it would leave holes.
"Well that’s different." You shrugged. "Who wouldn’t want a big strong man protecting their growing vintage collection?"
Clark huffed something that might have been a laugh, the sound soft and warm in the small bathroom. His skin was still damp and the steam from the shower had fogged the edges of the mirror, blurring your reflection until you were both just shapes, just colors, just two people standing too close in a room that suddenly felt much smaller than it was.
"By the way." You added, remembering suddenly. "I’m getting a package tomorrow while I am taking my exams, so I’ll need you to sign off on it for me." You pointed at him, voice taking on a warning tone. "And be gentle. It’s silk."
His brows furrowed, the expression pulling his features into something between confusion and offense. "I’m not a brute."
"You sure are getting bigger." You pointed out, the words coming out softer than you intended, almost under your breath.
It was true. He had changed over the past year, filling out in ways that seemed almost impossible. His shoulders had broadened, his arms had thickened, and there was something different about the way he moved. It was almost like he was going through a second puberty, his body changing into something new while you watched, helpless to do anything but notice.
Your eyes almost widened at the situation. You were in his bathroom, still in your night dress with a tulle cover up, while he stood half naked, wet and larger than any man had any right to be. The towel around his hips sat low, dangerously so and you could see the line of hair disappearing beneath the fabric, could see the way his stomach tightened when he breathed.
"Physically." You cleared your throat, the sound too loud in the quiet bathroom. You pointed at your own face, then at his, trying to redirect the conversation somewhere safer. "You have some..."
You motioned vaguely at his jaw, where a dark shadow of stubble had appeared overnight. It was new, this facial hair, appearing in patches that made him look more mature. The stubble darkened his jawline, roughened the sharp angles of his face and you found yourself staring longer than you meant to…so it needed to go.
Clark looked in the mirror, touching his jaw with the tips of his fingers. The motion was almost absent, his attention already somewhere else, eyes focusing on something you couldn’t see.
You watched as his eyes glowed red and ducked immediately, body reacting before your brain caught up, dropping into a crouch beside the counter as soft lasers flashed from his eyes.
The beams bounced off the mirror and back onto his skin, burning away the stubble in precise, controlled lines, making the hair disappear in small puffs of smoke.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" You exclaimed from your crouched position, your heart pounding in your chest. "Next time give me a heads up or something."
The lasers stopped. The bathroom now smelled faintly of burnt hair and something ozone sharp that made your nose wrinkle. Clark looked down at you, his expression calm and unconcerned, as if he had not just nearly blinded you.
"Is it better?" He asked, completely ignoring your outburst.
You rose to your feet slowly, knees cracking from the sudden movement. You stared at his face, at the smooth skin where stubble had been moments before and at the complete lack of any evidence that he had just used his eyes as weapons.
You nodded. "Nice party trick." You smiled, the adrenaline still humming through your veins. "Almost took me out in the process, though."
You reached up before you could think better of it, placing your hands on his face. Your palms cupped his jaw, fingers spread across his cheeks and you turned his head gently from side to side, checking for missed spots, for patches of hair he hadn’t caught. His skin was smooth beneath your hands and you could feel the slight warmth of his jaw where the lasers had done their work.
"Is this why yesterday's bacon was burned?" You asked, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones without meaning to.
"Caramelized." He attempted, the word coming out softer than usual. His hand came up, the one that had been holding the towel and rested gently on your forearm. His touch was firm and warm, holding you there as your eyes traveled all over his face, cataloging the details you had somehow missed before.
"Charred." You corrected.
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his jaw and into your hands. You gave him shit about burned bacon several times a week, complaining loudly about ruined breakfasts and wasted food but you knew exactly what he’d been doing. Whether it was saving a cat from a tree, preventing a car wreck or any of the other hundred things that occupied his time when he was not with you, you knew him. There were things you didn’t need him to explain.
Your eyes met his as his held yours.
The bathroom fell into silence, the only sound was the drip of water from the showerhead and the distant hum of the building's heating system finally kicking in. You were too aware of your hands on his face, too aware of the warmth of his skin and too aware of the way his thumb was moving in slow circles against your forearm.
You began slowly lowering your hands…as the sound of soft fabric pooling at his feet in a quiet heap broke the tension.
Your eyes widened and his mirrored yours, trapped in a loop of mutual horror as he stood there naked, the towel abandoned on the tile floor between you.
"Keep your eyes up." He advised, voice strained and higher than usual.
"I..." You stuttered, your words catching in your throat. You could feel the heat spreading down your neck, burning in your chest. "They’re up."
"Keep them up." He insisted with what sounded a whole lot like desperation.
You tried very hard not to smile but failed. It tugged at your lips, threatening to break through and you bit the inside of your cheek in futile attempts to hold it back.
"I’ve..." You chuckled, the sound nervous and bright. "Always been interested in male anatomy."
"I’m sure." He nodded, his voice tight. "And I’ll...I don’t think I’m human enough for that."
He was getting redder by the second, the color spreading from his cheeks down his neck and lower where you couldn’t look. His hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching like he wanted to cover himself but couldn’t quite make himself move.
You chuckled again, the sound more confident this time. "Let me be the judge of that."
"You know where the door is."
"Rain check?" You asked, raising your eyebrows.
"Y-Yeah, sure." He nodded, holding your eyes, not looking away even though every instinct in him was probably screaming to do exactly that.
"Though I’m curious if you shave like that elsewhere..." You began, voice trailing off suggestively. Your eyes dropped for just a fraction of a second, then snapped back up when you remembered his warning.
"Y/n." He said firmly, voice dropping an octave. Something stirred lower, something he couldn’t control and the knowledge of it must have shown on his face because his eyes went wider and his jaw clenched.
"Yup. Okay, time to go!" You nodded, smile breaking through completely now. "I’ll see myself out."
You stepped backwards toward the door, eyes locked on his as your heels hit the tile in reverse. You didn’t look down or let your gaze wander. You kept your eyes on his, on the blush spreading across his cheeks and on the desperate hope in his expression that you would just leave already before this got any…harder.
You reached the door and slipped through it, pulling it closed behind you.
The hallway was cold, colder than the bathroom had been and you stood there for a moment with your back against it, heart pounding and hands shaking as your mind replayed every single second of what had just happened. You could still feel the warmth of his skin beneath your palms, could still see the water dripping down his chest and could still hear the way he had said your name.
You pushed off from the door and walked back to your studio apartment as calmly as you could.
Eventually quiet laughter began bubbling out, the sound muffled against your hand, because Clark was still standing naked in his bathroom with a rain check he probably did not know how to cash and you had never been more certain of anything in your life.
What followed was a week full of events.
Between moving out of your old apartment and moving into the new one with Imogene, you barely had time to breathe, let alone process everything that was happening.
Ricky had shown up with his regulars and friends to help you move your things, a small army of bodega loyalists who complained about every box they carried but kept coming back for more. He had grumbled about the stairs and the weight of your clothing racks and the fact that you owned more shoes than anyone he had ever met but deep down, you could tell he was happy.
You weren’t crying about Clark anymore and for Ricky, that was more than enough.
You were also so busy with work that you technically still hadn’t moved in. Your boxes sat in piles around Imogene's new apartment, waiting to be unpacked, while you spent your days at Mrs. Alston's store and your nights everywhere else. You slept on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by a few selected half opened boxes and clothes that needed to be hung and you were too exhausted to care about any of it.
But you hadn’t missed shooting that quick text to Clark with your new address.
You had typed it out during a break at the store, your fingers hovering over the screen longer than necessary while you tried to decide how to sign it. Finally, you had settled on something simple, something that felt like armor and confession all at once.
-A working girl.
You’d been proud of it. The words felt true and honest without being vulnerable, confident without being arrogant. You had a job that paid actual money, a side gig that paid well too and a future that didn’t depend on anyone else's charity.
You were sure somewhere in there, Clark was proud of you too.
Your set at the jazz club had gone well…better than well, if the crowd's reaction was anything to judge by. They had laughed in the right places and stayed quiet in the others and when you finished, the applause had rolled through the room like thunder. It had paid well too, enough for you to send back your bail money to Clark.
Thankfully…he had refused to take it.
You had tried to send it to him twice and both times he had refused with an earnest phone call. You had argued, of course, because arguing with Clark was practically a sport at this point but he hadn’t budged. So the money had sat in your account until you used some of it to pay the fine that came with your court date.
The court date had arrived in the mail three days after you started working at the store, the envelope crisp, official and deeply unwelcome. You had hired a lawyer, a no nonsense woman named Patricia who specialized in petty offenses and seemed entirely unimpressed by your explanation of what had happened that night. Together, you had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, paid the fine and walked out of the courthouse with a record that would follow you for the next year and a lecture about better decision making.
You had taken the lecture and used the rest of the money to cover the lawyer's fees.
Now you lived closer to the Talon, which should have made things easier but somehow did not.
Your first working days had been so charged, so full of new information and new responsibilities, that you hadn’t had much time to think about your work nights. The stage felt like another life, something that happened to a different version of you, someone braver, more reckless and less concerned with consequences but you thought about that jazz club gig sometimes.
It happened when you were at the store, when customers trailed off describing a piece of clothing that you had already identified after the first three words. You would stand there, nodding along, waiting for them to finish and your mind would drift back to the stage, lights and microphone. To the way the crowd had leaned in when you spoke, hanging on every word like you were telling them something they needed to hear.
Things were going really good.
That was the thought that kept circling back, the one you returned to whenever you started to doubt. The store was picking up, the website was generating interest and Mrs. Alston had started looking at you with what might have been hope. The store’s social media accounts were growing, followers trickling in one by one and people had started messaging about specific pieces they had seen in your photos.
So when Susie called with a slot later that following week, you had eagerly accepted.
You didn’t hesitate or talked yourself out of it. You simply said yes, the word coming out before you could second guess it and hung up the phone with your heart pounding in your chest.
Now you were crossing the street toward the Talon and you absolutely couldn’t believe the noise.
The sound hit you before you even reached the sidewalk, a low thrum of voices and laughter that spilled out of the club's entrance and into the night. Clusters of people stood outside smoking, their faces illuminated by the glow of their phones and the flicker of lighters.
It was unusual and so was the line in the hallway inside.
You stood there for a moment, frozen at the entry, watching as people filed past the tiny window where the same guy always sat. They were paying for entry, handing over bills and fishing coins out of their pockets and you watched as each person also turned in their phone, depositing it into a plastic bin before receiving a bracelet and moving inside.
You opened your purse automatically, already reaching for your wallet and calculating how much cash you had left.
"Y/n." The voice came in a loud whisper, cutting through the noise of the crowd. You looked up, trying to locate the sound. "Y/n!"
You looked around until your eyes met Susie's. She was already at your side, materializing out of the crowd like she had been waiting for you, hand closing around your arm before you could react.
"You picked the right night not to be fashionably late." She said, already pulling you forward, steering you toward the entrance.
You looked down at your dress as she walked you inside, skipping the line entirely. People turned to watch you pass, some curious, some annoyed and others already whispering to each other behind their hands. You ignored them, too busy trying to see yourself the way they must be seeing you.
The dress was deep red, a cocktail number courtesy of Mrs. Alston's store. The fabric was soft and it caught the light when you moved, shifting from crimson to burgundy to something darker. Now that you worked at the store, you could buy what you wanted at a very attractive price and if it was from the donation pile, it could almost be free. You were limited to two items per week, Mrs. Alston's only rule but it was still something, still more than you had ever hoped for.
"Do you not like what I’m wearing?" You asked as the both of you walked inside.
The club was even more packed than the sidewalk had suggested. Bodies pressed together at the bar, at the tables, in the corners where people had given up on finding seats and simply stood with drinks in hand, talking over each other's shoulders. The air was thick with smoke and perfume and the particular energy of a room that knew something important was about to happen.
"What?" Susie glanced back at you, her brow furrowed. "I didn’t say that. I’m saying I’m just glad you’re not late."
She kept pushing through the crowd, her shoulder clearing a path as she moved further inside and to the other side of the bar. People stepped aside for her, some annoyed, some amused, most just grateful to have someone else making the decisions.
"I’m never late." You swatted her hand away from your arm, though you kept following her. "And why are all these people here?"
The two of you finally stopped by a small room, a storage closet, near the back. There was a mirror on the wall, a chair and a table where you could leave your belongings. Susie pushed the door open and gestured for you to step inside.
You could finally see her face in the harsh light of the single bulb hanging overhead. She was grinning, wide eyed and she took you in with a look that was almost hungry.
"They’re here for you." She pointed at you, the gesture emphatic.
Your brows lifted. "For me?"
You watched as Susie nodded, the motion quick and excited, like she had been waiting all week to see your reaction. "I’ve had all week to let customers know you would be here tonight." She paused, her grin widening. "And that gig at the jazz club?" She excitedly hit your arm, harder than necessary.
"Ow!" You whispered, rubbing the spot.
"You did so fucking good." She continued, ignoring your complaint. "I don’t know what entitled prick ran his mouth to his friends since then, but look."
She pointed toward the booths along the far wall. From the distance, you could read reserved signs placed on several tables, marking them as off limits to the general crowd. People in expensive suits sat there, drinks in hand, their postures relaxed but their eyes alert. They looked like the kind of people who didn’t usually find themselves in places like the Talon, the kind of people who belonged in private clubs, rooftop bars and other spaces you had only read about.
"I had to make those myself." Susie added proudly. "I misspelled a few, but I still got the job done."
"Are you serious?" You asked, eyes going back to her.
She nodded, still grinning. Your gaze drifted to the entrance, where people were still filing in, still paying and handing over their phones. "And the people outside?"
"Jackie talked to them." Susie shrugged, as if this whole thing was normal. "They want to stay until the last minute to see if they can make it in."
You looked back at the room, at the bodies pressed together and at the energy crackling through the air like electricity before a storm. It was lively, more than you’d ever seen it and there was something in the atmosphere that made your skin prickle.
"I had to employ three more servers for tonight." Susie added, motioning toward the crowd.
Your brows furrowed as you tried to find the new faces, picking out unfamiliar people carrying trays of drinks, moving through the crowd with professional efficiency. "How are you going to pay for that?" You asked.
You had recently learned that the Talon was not exactly doing insanely well. The books were tight, the margins were thin and Susie had been operating on faith and stubbornness for longer than she probably wanted to admit.
She pointed at you. "Tonight, entry fee is thirty-five dollars."
"Thirty five?!" Your eyes widened, the number landing like a physical blow. "Susie, you’re fucking robbing people blind. I’m not worth that much."
She scoffed, waving away your concern like it was smoke. "Don’t worry. We’re only charging that to the people in suits and expensive coats." She gestured toward the booths, where the well dressed crowd sat. "They will be fine. For the rest, it has gone up to twenty but regulars stay at ten."
You tried to calculate in your head how much money that would make. The math swirled behind your eyes, numbers adding, multiplying and growing into an amount that made your stomach flip. Your official agreement with Susie from that night at the jazz club had remained at fifteen percent of your earnings. You had actually taken advantage of the lawyer you employed for your court date to craft an agreement between the two of you, a sort of contract until you decided if you were actually going to stick with this. It was just a precaution, Patricia had assured you, something to protect both parties while you figured out what you wanted.
The club would keep one hundred percent of the public's consumption, which had gotten five percent more expensive, not quite reaching Midtown bar prices, but a sizeable amount after a week of increased traffic. Susie would keep fifteen percent of entry fees and the rest was for you. For now, you didn’t want her to also pay you for your performance. This was your home, your testing ground and taking a cut of the door felt like enough.
"This place’s fucking bursting at the seams." Susie mused, looking out at the crowd with wonder.
"Please tell me you got rid of the communal bucket." You asked, your voice almost pleading.
She nodded, a smile spreading across her face. "Even called in a plumber to stay around all night, just in case."
You nodded back, the motion automatic, while the anxiety filtered in through the cracks in your composure. The room was full, the crowd was different and somewhere out there, people were paying thirty five dollars just to see you talk for twenty minutes.
"Should I change my set tonight?" You asked, voice quieter now and full of doubt. "Filter something out?"
This was a new cocktail of people, suits, regulars and curious strangers all mixed together. You didn’t know what they wanted, didn’t know what version of you would land best and you didn’t know if the usual jokes would work here.
Susie shook her head, turning to look at you properly. Her eyes traveled over your outfit, taking in the deep red dress that would definitely hold attention the minute you got on stage. You seemed less tired than the night at the jazz club, which showed that you were getting used to your new working life. The shadows under your eyes had faded, the tension in your shoulders had loosened and your posture was steadier with confidence.
"Nothing." She decided. "You get up there and give ‘em what you have." She paused, considering. "Will this be a collection of recycled stories or should I prepare to tackle you off the stage at some point?"
"Depends on how clean these floors are." You joked, then shrugged. "Whatever comes out. I’ve been writing a lot, but I don’t know how it’ll come out."
"Whatever it is, make sure they eat it up and beg for seconds." She nodded, pulling a cigarette pack from her pocket. She pulled one out, placing it between her lips and then lifted the package toward you. "Smoke?"
You shook your head.
"A drink?" She nudged you with her shoulder. "It’s on the house." When you did not immediately respond, she added, "Come on, say something. I don’t want you tense."
"I’m not tense."
"Oh, yes you are. You look like you have a stick up your ass." She lit her cigarette, the flame casting shadows across her face. She blew out smoke, the gray plume curling toward the ceiling. "I told you this would go fast." She paused, eyes drifting to the crowd. "The people in here have a sense of exclusivity. That’s what pays well." She turned to face you, her expression softening slightly. "This is all you."
"I’m good." You nodded, breathing in and out, trying to steady your heart. "Okay, I’ll take one…just to have something to do with my hands."
"Attagirl." She pulled out another cigarette and handed it to you. You took it, holding it between your fingers as you watched her light it. The tip glowed orange, the smoke curling up toward your face and you inhaled.
Once the smoke hit your lungs, you exhaled slowly, watching the gray cloud dissipate in the dim light. "But I am quitting after tonight." You murmured. “We really should've included a death clause in that contract…”
"Whatever rocks your boat." She shrugged, unbothered as she looked down at her watch. “I gotta tell them to start denying entry.”
“...’Cause it really feels like the kind of thing people remember right before dying.” You took another deep breath, the cigarette burning down between your fingers. "Is it just me or is the air getting thinner in here? Whatever you do, don’t tell my parents I loved them."
"Five minutes until you are up…You’re gonna be fine." Susie announced, already stepping away and disappearing back into the crowd. She turned back at the last moment, her eyes finding yours through the haze of smoke and bodies. "Tits up."
Then she fused into the crowd and disappeared, leaving you alone with your cigarette, your thoughts and the distant sound of a room full of people waiting to see what you would do next...
You took another slow drag from your cigarette, the smoke curling lazily around your fingers as you stepped out of the room and watched Jackie step onto the stage. The crowd quieted down almost instantly, the low hum of conversation fading as the spotlight hit him.
“You’ll soon be hearing many people presenting her as a very funny lady,” Jackie announced, his voice carrying through the packed room. “Truth is, you don’t know fun until you hear her and even then, the adjective will fall short. So I’ll let her do the heavy lifting…and when you see her at Carnegie Hall…if you can ever get tickets to that, just remember you saw her here first.” He extended his arm dramatically to the left side of the stage. “Please, give her a very warm welcome.”
The applause swelled, loud and enthusiastic, as he stepped off. You straightened your posture, gave yourself a firm little nod in the shadows and whispered under your breath, “Tits up.” Then you plastered on a bright, dangerous smile and walked onto the stage with purposeful, swaying steps. The applause grew even louder, crashing over you like a wave as you approached the mic.
“Why, thank you, Jackie,” you said animatedly into the microphone, your voice warm and playful. “Believe it or not, that’s the most I’ve heard him talk since this whole ordeal started.” Scattered laughter rippled through the crowd. You turned fully to face the audience, eyes sweeping over the sea of faces, of suits mixed with regulars, all packed shoulder to shoulder. “And look at you all. Now I’m told we’ve passed our occupancy level, so please everyone keep your hands where I can see them. I won’t be responsible for the people you impregnate tonight.”
Laughter erupted, sharper and louder than you expected from the first joke. You took a quick drag from your cigarette, exhaling smoke as the chuckles rolled on.
“Isn’t it funny how that’s how some of our grandparents told us we’d get pregnant?” you continued, pacing slowly. “Or more so your parents, depending on the age range here…I’m trying to be more inclusive.” The crowd chuckled warmly. “Meanwhile, some of them were dating their cousins and blaming TV for fucking us up.” More laughter burst forth, but a stern-looking older man in the very front row looked outright outraged. You pointed your cigarette at him with a grin. “Oh, don’t you worry, sir. I’ll only be up here for around twenty minutes, if I can help it, which is more than some of you last in bed. You’ll be hearing the word fuck a lot, and I see that the way out is as tight as a–” You paused, letting the implication hang as laughter erupted. “See? There’s a very funny joke here that could count as blasphemy, which I won’t say in case there are any nuns in here.”
You took another drag while pacing slowly across the stage, the deep red fabric of your dress catching the light with every movement as laughter built. “I’ve also broadened my horizons to a jazz club closer to Midtown…nothing too fancy, which still allowed me to say the word orgasm about four times.” You grinned as fresh laughter rolled through. “I say this because I’m seeing so many new faces tonight and I’m told you’re all here for me. Now, I’m fairly new to comedy, so the fact that so many of you knew my name and showed up just to see me on stage reminds me of this stalker I had in college…”
You shrugged, taking another pull from the cigarette before continuing with theatrical flair. “Long story short, I’m in love with my childhood best friend and he…well, he’s a man.” The crowd laughed knowingly. “And can’t see past this.” You gestured dramatically at your figure in the red dress. “Though now that I see it from this angle, maybe he’s scared of venturing into the darkness.” Louder laughter followed. “Might need a night light.”
You continued, voice dropping into something sultrier.
“Something amazing happens in the mind of someone who’s never felt the love of a parent when someone else shows some interest,” you said, pointing at the audience. “It’s what happened to me…I met this guy in one of the French classes I took in college…well, he met me. I still don’t know his name. Hell, he might even be here tonight.” People laughed, already looking around for him. “I very often got these cute notes in French…ones that made me feel like a buttered-up croissant.” You shimmed your shoulders playfully, earning wolf whistles and louder laughter. “Of course, in my mind I thought my best friend was writing them…so romantic, right? They went a little something like…Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” Your French accent was spot-on. “And something that roughly translated to ‘I’d like to live in your skin until the both of us…rot?’” Your voice trailed off as you shrugged helplessly and the room burst into laughter.
You took a drag, letting the smoke curl as the laughter died down just enough.
“Now part of me believed this farm boy just didn’t know much about flirting, but honestly I should’ve begged someone to hit me in the head with a hard baguette for fooling myself. I should’ve known better given I’ve been around the guy on a farm… all of those ‘Attagirl’…” You dropped your voice into a sultry tone. “Or ‘You’re doing so fucking good’...without the ‘F’ word, of course, he doesn’t curse and ‘What a good girl’ as he fed his cows…I mean, it made me consider veganism for a while.”
The room lost it and you simply waited as they clapped, cigarette between your fingers, smiling as the laughter peaked.
“Anyway, turns out he caught this guy following me home by following him. I can promise you, I’d never seen my best friend so angry. He held the guy by his arms and shook him and I turned around to see what all the screaming was and I was so…” You breathed dramatically, eyes wide. “Enamoured by how big his arms looked. I mean, I should’ve been scared but Oh! Quel homme!!” You almost moaned it, sending the crowd into fresh hysterics. “That’s French for “Oh, what a man!”…you know what else is French? The guillotine.” Laughter exploded again.
“So gentlemen, when you leave here tonight, be conscious of yourselves. Mr. Kent might not be around, but his Mrs. is…I will find you and punch you in the nose.” The laughter grew so loud it shook the room. “Now I’m not strong, but at the very least you’ll be very embarrassed that you got punched in the nose by a not-strong comic. You might get the last laugh…but just know it’ll be your last…ever.”
You took one final drag, stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray on the stool beside you as the applause and laughter thundered.
You grinned, riding the wave. “I might not have a concealed carry permit, but nobody has ever looked under my skirt…And for context, my favorite toys have always been big, dark and automatic.”
The audience completely lost it. Howls of shocked laughter exploded across the room, while whistles pierced the air, mixed with groans of disbelief and genuine belly laughs that ricocheted off the walls like fireworks. A table of women in the middle nearly collapsed into each other, one of them slapping the table so hard her drink sloshed over the rim. Even some of the suited men in the reserved booths were red-faced, trying and failing to hide their amusement behind newly expensive cocktails.
You lifted one hand in mock surrender, grinning through your own laughter. “I’m kidding,” you assured them, eyes sparkling under the stage lights. “Size isn’t important…” You let the pause stretch just long enough for the room to lean in, then delivered the punch with perfect timing. “But you know what is? Growth.”
The groan that rippled through the crowd was immediate and delicious. You groaned right along with them, dramatic and theatrical, clutching the mic stand like you were embarrassed by your own joke. “Tough luck for show-ers… it just takes away all of the fun.”
The laughter hit a new peak, loud, filthy and unrestrained. Several people were wiping tears from their eyes. A woman in the front row pointed at you with both hands, shouting “Yes, girl!” while her date looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole. You let the wave of applause and laughter wash over you, feeding the adrenaline buzzing in your veins.
You paced a few steps, the deep red dress swirling dramatically around your legs, catching the light like liquid fire. The audience was eating out of your hand now, completely hooked.
After a minute, the laughter finally began to quiet down. You leaned into the mic with a playful smile, giving the crowd a moment to breathe.
“I promise I don’t always talk about penises and sex,” you said, raising a hand in mock innocence again. “I also talk about my parents…and running away from home for love. Now that I think about it, hosting comedy acts probably isn’t the greatest way to hide from them, but that’s a problem for another day!” You paused for the scattered chuckles. “Alright, let me think. Besides my rapidly growing criminal record, what else is new?...I got a new apartment.”
The crowd clapped and cheered enthusiastically. You grinned, nodding along. “Yes, I’ve moved out of Garrett’s building right after hearing him practically drop dead from the bet he lost…ten grand, which I may or may not be responsible for. Any lawyers in the house?” You scanned the room theatrically. “Obviously he called the police on me…who I love,” you added with heavy sarcasm. “Who historically can do no wrong. I mean, it took very little conversation with Garrett for them to decide he’s a gambling addict and that the nice little lady with the vintage dresses had absolutely nothing to do with his upcoming financial ruin.”
The audience laughed heartily, clearly enjoying your chaotic life updates.
“It’s too bad, really,” you continued, “because the best sleep I had all month was in a holding cell.” More laughter rippled through the room. “Also, I have a day job now too at a retail store.” You nodded proudly. “It’s fascinating, the different people you meet and how eager we all are to overshare what’s wrong in our lives. That’s exactly why I’m standing on this stage about to tell you how I eagerly encouraged a woman to divorce her husband of forty-five years…while he was just a few aisles away.”
The crowd groaned in delighted shock.
“Yeah, I know,” you said, wincing theatrically. “So, the store was pretty full and as I’m helping this lady at the counter, I noticed her eyeing one of our regulars…this nice, tall man with a salt-and-pepper beard I’d want to sit on.”
A collective gasp swept the room, followed by scandalized laughter. You quickly corrected yourself with wide eyes. “I mean, her! Or me! Hey, I might be a Mrs. up here, but unlike their marriage, this act won’t last long!”
The laughter swelled again. You rode the wave, pacing slowly across the stage.
“Anyway, she looked starstruck, so I told her, ‘He’s single, no kids…’ Obviously I omitted the part where he lives in Gotham, just in case she was more interested in what’s in his will.” You shrugged innocently as people howled. “I’m trying to keep true love alive! And she’s like, ‘Oh no, I can’t,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes you can!’ And she’s like, ‘No I can’t…’” You paused, eyes widening in realization. “That’s when I remembered she’s one of the ladies who comes in regularly just to talk shit about her husband in hopes of talking me out of an equally terrible marriage.”
Laughter erupted once more.
“So I looked her dead in the eyes and said, ‘Well, that doesn’t mean you can’t run to the end of your leash and bark!’”
The room exploded. People were clapping, laughing and some nearly falling over in their seats.
“Ladies, don’t let your awful husbands keep you from finding a boyfriend,” you declared, pointing across the crowd. “And for those with not-so-terrible husbands…my most sincere condolences.”
More laughter rolled through the room, warm and appreciative.
“I’m serious though, don’t let permanence dictate your life if that thing no longer serves a purpose. I’d be the first one to tell you that you need to experience things in the moment. Like fine wine…or a really expensive divorce.” You almost groaned the last part, earning another big laugh. “And I know this because she comes back every single day to update me on how it’s going. Just this morning she found out he cheated on her earlier in their marriage…on her Egyptian cotton sheets, which she paid for. She picked them out while he was busy ‘networking’ which nowadays is code for ‘ejaculating prematurely while thinking about stock options.’”
The crowd lost it again with a mix of shocked gasps and roaring laughter.
“I realize now that I’m single-handedly keeping lawyers in business while accidentally profiting off this woman’s divorce,” you added with a grin. “Because every time she comes in, she buys something new with their money and I earn commission. But I’m technically supporting the cause because by the time they split their assets, that poor man’s gonna own a recliner, half a toaster and several very expensive regrets while she’ll be draped in enough silk to survive winter without central heating.”
The crowd roared with laughter, several women cheering loudly in solidarity.
You struck a dramatic superhero pose with a hand on your hip and your chest slightly forward. “I’m like Superman…but with better boobs.”
The room absolutely erupted in loud, delighted laughter mixed with whistles and applause. You held the pose for a beat, soaking it all in with a satisfied smirk before dropping it.
You raked your eyes over the room one last time, taking in the energy, the flushed faces and the genuine connection vibrating through the packed club.
“It’s very clear to me that as of this past week, my two new favorite F-words are financial freedom…and the fact that you all paid to be here is only encouraging this behavior.” You flashed a bright, grateful smile as fresh laughter spread. “Well, the laughs help too.”
With a satisfied little smile, you carefully placed the microphone back onto the stand, the motion final.
“You’ve been a wonderful audience, ladies and gentlemen. That’s it for me…I’m Mrs. Kent. Thank you and goodnight!”
The applause was thunderous. Loud, sustained and full of whistles, cheers and stomps. Several people stood up, the reserved booths included, as the entire room erupted in celebration. The sound vibrated through your chest, warm and victorious, as you gave a graceful little bow.
You remained on the stage for a few seconds, soaking in the applause as the sound washed over you in waves. The lights were bright and warm against your skin and somewhere in the back of the room, someone began whistling so loudly you could hear it over the thunder of clapping hands. You let yourself stand there just a moment longer, breathing it in, letting the noise settle into your bones like heat after being out in the cold too long.
Through the crowd, you saw Susie push her way toward the stage, her shoulders working against the press of bodies, her face lit up with something that looked almost like wonder. She reached the edge of the stage just as you began stepping down and people immediately surrounded you, congratulating you eagerly, shaking your hand, patting your shoulder and leaning in to say things you could not quite hear over the noise. A woman with bright red lipstick grabbed your arm and told you she had not laughed that hard in years while a man in a wrinkled suit pressed a business card into your palm and mouthed something about representation. You nodded, smiled and kept moving, kept pushing through, because Jackie had already taken the stage again and started introducing some loud music that made conversation nearly impossible.
"Follow me." Susie's voice cut through the noise and you didn’t argue.
You ducked into the small room where you had left your belongings. Your hands moved automatically, grabbing your purse and your coat, then you followed her out but instead of heading toward the bar, she turned left, pushing past a cluster of people who stepped aside when they saw her coming. A side door appeared in the wall, one you had never noticed before, hidden behind a curtain that looked like it had not been washed since the club opened. Susie pushed it open and stepped through and you followed her into the night.
"Did you see me up there?" The words spilled out of you before you could stop them, your voice high, bright and barely containing the energy thrumming through your veins. "It was better than drugs."
Susie snorted but she didn’t turn around.
"I mean, I haven’t done them in years but it feels like an opportunity." You were talking too fast, you knew that much, but you couldn’t seem to slow down. The adrenaline was still pumping, still buzzing under your skin and every word that came out of your mouth felt like it needed to be said immediately. "Oh, I actually need a drink."
The fresh air hit your face as you stepped fully outside, cold, sharp and sobering in a way that made you blink. The alley behind the Talon was narrow and dark, lit only by a single flickering bulb above the door and the distant glow of the street beyond. Trash bins lined the walls and somewhere nearby, water dripped steadily onto pavement.
"I need a drink so stiff I could blow it." You said and then Susie suddenly halted.
You did the same, stopping mid step, heel scraping against the cracked concrete. You turned to face her, still buzzing and grinning…until you read her face.
She was just staring at you with the most neutral expression you had ever seen, her mouth flat and eyes unblinking. For a moment, you thought she was angry or disappointed or maybe just exhausted from the chaos of the night but then her nose twitched and her eyes began to water, and you watched in growing horror as her composure cracked.
"Susie?" Your voice pitched higher, concern cutting through the last of your adrenaline high. "What the fuck?"
She covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking as she attempted not to cry. The sound that came out of her was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, muffled by her palms.
"You’re going to change my life." She sniffled, the words coming out thick and wet.
"Well..." You hesitated, caught off guard by the raw emotion on her face. "I...I sure can try."
It was not just your life you wanted to change, you realized. It was hers too. Susie had been here for years, stuck behind that bar, watching other people perform while she cleaned up after them and now she was standing in an alley with tears in her eyes, talking about your future like it was the only thing that mattered.
"Most comics take years to work up those first ten minutes." She shook her head as she met your eyes, her voice was thick with something that might have been wonder. "Let alone go on for twenty with random things that happened to them while creating a connection with the crowd…You did it in a month."
You shrugged, looking around at the dark alley, the dripping water and the single flickering bulb. The night was darker now than when you had arrived, the sky above the buildings a deep, endless black. "Feels like years to me."
She shook her head firmly. "You’re really good."
"Thank you, Susie." You said sincerely, letting out a sigh of relief that seemed to deflate in your chest. The tension you had been carrying all week, all month, all year, loosened slightly.
"No, Y/n." She stepped closer, her voice getting more emotional, eyes glossed over again. "You’re really fucking good."
Your eyes widened. "And you’re scaring me."
She sniffled again, wiping her tears with the back of her hand and straightening her posture. She rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin and somehow managed to look almost composed again, despite the redness around her eyes. "It’s just allergies." She said, her voice steadier now. "Thank you for coming tonight…I know you’re busy..and unsure."
You breathed in and nodded, the cold air filling your lungs. "No, I think I needed this." The admission came out quieter than you intended, almost private. "Life’s gotten too serious lately."
Susie nodded, her attention caught by the noise spilling from the club behind her. The music was still playing and somewhere inside, people were still laughing and talking, still living inside the world you had created for them.
"I’ll call you tomorrow when the money’s counted ." She breathed, already starting for the door. "Go home, wash this success off, and...get fucked, I don't fucking know."
You laughed, the sound bright in the dark alley. This was definitely the kind of thing you could have celebrated with sex, the kind of high that begged for something physical to match it but right now, all you wanted was a shower, a pizza and about six hours of sleep until you needed to clock in for work.
"Susie?" You called back quietly.
She turned to face you, her hand on the door, silhouette framed by the dim light spilling out from inside. The two of you stared at each other across the narrow alley but you were not present at all. You were back on stage, hearing people laugh and applaud, feeling the warmth of the lights on your skin, riding the wave of something that felt gloriously close to purpose.
Susie hadn’t forced you to be here tonight. She wasn’t asking you to stay, either or to do it again in the following week…The problem was that you wanted her to.
"Tell me this is going to work." You instructed, your voice steady despite the flutter in your chest.
You had six months.
Six months in Imogene's apartment before Archie finished his master's degree and moved in. Six months before you'd need somewhere else to live. Six months before the carefully assembled life raft you'd been floating on reached the end of its rope and after working with Mrs. Alston for a few weeks, the truth had become impossible to ignore.
Soon there wouldn't be mountains of donated clothing arriving every week. The website was already moving inventory faster than before while social media had people coming in specifically for pieces they'd seen online. The business was improving which meant eventually the racks would thin out.
Mrs. Alston would retire and that chapter would end too.
The store wasn’t a forever thing, so this had to be.
"It has to stick." You finally decided, the words coming out firmer than you felt. "I want it to stick."
For a moment Susie didn't answer, she simply looked at you, at this new version standing in front of her with tired eyes, aching feet and enough hope in her voice to make the whole thing terrifying.
Slowly, she nodded, trying very hard to look professional about it. It was her careful attempt at looking like a manager discussing business opportunities instead of a woman who'd just watched her future walk onto a stage and accidentally change both of their lives but her eyes gave her away. She was trying not to cry and was becoming increasingly aware she was losing the fight.
"Sure." She tried, the word was careful as if trying not to scare you away, trying not to push too hard, ask for too much and make you change your mind.
You shook your head. "No. I need you to be sure of it." Your voice dropped, the words coming out slower now, more deliberate. "That if I fall and there is just a stretch of space below, a void... that you will catch me."
She nodded and this time there was no hesitation. "I will dive right in, no doubts." She said it like a vow, like something she had been waiting to say. "If we go down, then we’ll go down together." She paused, something flickering across her face. "But we’re not all Superman."
You nodded, the word landing somewhere in your chest, settling into the space where your heart was still racing. She pushed the door open and walked back inside, the noise swallowing her up, and you stood there in the alley for a second, alone with the dripping water, the flickering light and the weight of everything you had just decided.
You fumbled to open your purse, fingers clumsy with adrenaline and cold and pulled out your phone. The screen glowed in the darkness and you tapped the one pinned contact without letting yourself think too much about it.
You pressed the device to your ear and listened to it ring…once.
You took in a deep breath, the air cold and sharp in your lungs. You exhaled slowly, watching your breath cloud in front of your face as your lips stretched into a gentle smile.
"Hi." You breathed, your voice softer, warmer. "Is it too late for a walk? I don’t want the night to end yet."
Maybe new beginnings only happened after endings…or maybe they happened the second you finally stopped running long enough to make that call.
A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!
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