Transition
Rating: E Relationship: Clyde Logan/Reader Tags: Boss/Employee Relationship, Touch-Starved, Mutual crushing, Harassment by phone from your ex-fiancé, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Slight Possessiveness Summary: There is no Death! What seems so is transition; -Resignation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Words: 5215
You pause in wiping down the back counter to turn your plugged in phone over, grimacing when you see the string of texts and missed calls. You turn it back over and turn away from it, distracting yourself by picking up a tray of dirty glasses and taking them into the back to load them into the dishwasher.
It’s hard to keep busy at Duck Tape on a Tuesday night. There are the day drinkers and then there’s the after work rush, but even that’s not the kind of rush you thought it would be when you first asked Clyde for this job. Business picks up on weekends, from Thursday to Sunday, and Mondays and Wednesdays are moderately busy, but Tuesdays rarely are unless it’s a holiday.
You finish loading the glasses into the dishwasher and sigh as you wrap your hands around your waist, pressing your thumbs into your lower back. The mats Clyde bought a month ago to cover the floor behind the bar help, but you still find you’re tired at the end of your shifts and your feet and legs and back still ache. It’s worse today since you’ve worked six days in a row, but you’re not too keen on taking days off. You’ve been getting restless and homesick recently, missing your friends and family back-
You shake your head and move back out to the bar, looking at the clock as you continue massaging the sore muscles in your back. 1:45 AM, only 15 minutes until Clyde usually closes. You could probably start mopping up, the only customer left is at the end of their beer and Clyde is hovering awkwardly near the man.
You smile and step out from behind the bar to go to the closet, turning your back on Clyde and the customer. Clyde is endearingly awkward, tall and lanky and all limbs, like a fawn. He has the same kind of sweet innocence, which might be the effect of his wavy black hair, big brown puppy eyes, and pouty, petal pink lips. He’s a bit of a superstitious man, reminds you of pilots from movies set in World War I and World War II. They believed in luck and talismans; Clyde believes that his family is cursed, a curse that struck long before you met him.
You’ve heard the story before, heard him tell it to customers, though he’s never told it to you directly. He had finished his tour of duty in Iraq, had been on his way to the airstrip to fly back to the States when there’d been an incident with an improvised explosive device and he’d lost his left hand. He has a prosthetic that he wears, a sleek and aggressive looking appendage in dark plastic that somehow doesn’t seem out of place when he wears it.
You think about that a bit as you roll the mop bucket out, wonder why you don’t find his prosthetic out of place on him. Is it because you know he was a soldier? He never feels dangerous to you, although you can’t deny that he runs an orderly bar and has no problem breaking up fights. That makes you wonder if he realizes that he’s taking advantage of the fact that the people who come through the bar think of him as a cripple, if he knows that that’s the reason why most of them don’t want to take a swing at him when he wades into the fray.
You’re not the only one who finds him endearing, and you’ve gotten the sense that the locals think of him as a kind of mascot. You feel a little insulted on his behalf that they would reduce and trivialize him in that way, but you’ve kept your mouth shut, not knowing if he knows or if he even wants to know. This is his place, and you’re still an outsider, even after having lived in the area for nearly a year. Speaking up could mean losing your job if Clyde doesn’t appreciate your attempts to enlighten him.
You frown as you fill a bucket with hot water to fill the mop bucket with, chastising yourself for the tone of your own thoughts. “Enlighten”, like you think you’re superior to him, like you know better. You’re a little more educated on privilege and discrimination, what it is and how it works, but that doesn’t make you better than he is. If he prefers to remain ignorant, that’s his choice, and your interference won’t sway him one way or another. It’s not as if West Virginia exists in a vacuum, even if it feels like it does to you.
You add a little soap to the water and stir it in with your hand as you reflect on how different your life is now compared to before. You can’t deny that it’s taken you some time to adjust, no more than you can deny that you’re still adjusting in many ways. Moving from an urban area on the west coast of the country to a rural area on the east coast was probably not one of your better ideas. Some things are better, some things are worse, but they’re all different .
The pace of life, for instance, is agonizingly slow in comparison to where you came from. Back home, it felt like you never stopped having places to go or people to see. After your nine-to-five workday, it was drinks, dinner, coffee with your coworkers, friends, parents, your fiancé’s parents-
You slam the door on that thought, dumping the water into the mop bucket and shoving the mop into the water with more force than really necessary, splashing water onto the floor. You drop the other bucket out of the way, and it clatters as you swish the mop in the water with both hands, grimly plotting your path across the floor to keep the thoughts away. You drop the mop into the wringer, squeeze it, then start sweeping it across the floor, slowly blazing a soapy path across the room.
Things are still slower here, you think, cautiously testing this avenue of thought to see where it leads. Part of it is that you have no social life here and part of it is that you have so few obligations. You wake up, you go to work, you go home and sleep. You talk to your friends and family regularly, but otherwise, your time is your own and you spend the majority of it alone. The closest thing you have to a friend here is Clyde, and he’s your boss. He might be the nicest boss you’ve ever had, but he’s still your boss and he could still fire you.
You knew that it was a risk, choosing to stay here in this community. It’s a small community, no matter how many people visit the bar, and small communities are more difficult to become a part of than larger communities. There’s a certain amount of tribalism underlying every interaction you have with another person here, worse than the cliquishness you remember from home. At least with the smaller groupings, you knew that you had a group of your own. Here, you feel almost ostracized-
“You should take tomorrow off,” Clyde’s voice breaks through your thoughts, and you startle, jerking upright to look at him. He blinks at you from behind the bar as he drops something you can’t see into the trash beneath the counter without looking.
“I can’t,” you say, “I need the money so I can pay rent.”
“How much is Mrs. Jones chargin’ ya to stay in her cottage?” Clyde asks, starting to frown, “You work more ‘n forty hours every week. Am I not payin’ ya enough?”
Someone else might say no and ask for a raise, but you’re not someone else and Clyde pays you an extremely generous $18 an hour that more than provides for your basic necessities. You can’t stop yourself from smiling a little, though truth be told, you’re still feeling anxious and depressed and angry and-
“I need to stay busy,” you say lightly, wondering if you should explain, but not really wanting to, “The pay is fine. Better than fine, actually. Besides, tomorrow is Wednesday and Wednesdays are busy.”
“I can handle Wednesdays just fine,” Clyde counters, tilting his head as he looks at you, enhancing the puppy impression, but you just blush and duck your head in shame. Of course he can handle Wednesdays just fine, he handled them just fine before you ever came here. You resolutely sweep the mop across the floor and try to come up with another reason why you’re still planning to come in even though you’ll have worked seven days in a row.
“Well, maybe I want to come in,” you say because it’s true, “Are you going to make me take the day off anyway?” You pause in your mopping to look at him, unsure of what you’re feeling and what he might see in your face, hoping he won’t ask. He looks thoughtful for a moment, his eyes narrowing a little as he takes you in.
“Why don’ you put that mop down an’ tell me what’s upsettin’ ya,” Clyde suggests, and you can feel your mouth twist because you don’t want to talk about it. More accurately, you’re afraid to talk about it, because talking about why you’re upset will mean you have to tell him everything when you don’t want to tell him anything.
“Come on over here,” he says, patting the counter, and you hesitate, debating the wisdom of doing as he’s telling you to do. For reasons you can’t quite explain, but that you’re sure have something to do with how much you genuinely like Clyde, you stand the mop in the mop bucket and make your way back behind the counter of the bar. You stand there for a moment, not sure what to say, but then Clyde is bending down and wrapping his right arm around your waist as you gasp and lifting you off your feet as he straightens up.
He twists and sits you on the counter while you’re still trying to process what his touch did to you, the way the warmth of his skin lanced through your body with enough potency to make you want to break down and cry. You want to grab his shirt and pull him close and inhale the spicy scent of the deodorant he uses, bury your face in his neck and wrap your legs around his waist. You can see in your head how you want that scenario to play out so clearly. He’d wrap his arms around you and rub your back and tell you to let it all out, comfort you and maybe even kiss you.
You know what’d be more likely to happen: he would pull away, uncomfortable, awkward, unsure, and you’d have done nothing besides embarrass yourself. You wrap your hands around the edge of the counter and adjust yourself, looking anywhere but at Clyde. He waits for you to speak, and out of the corner of your eye, you can detect no anxiety or impatience. He’s content to wait for you to explain yourself.
“My ex has been calling me,” you admit finally after a moment, “And it’s… really stressing me out.”
“What’d he do?” Clyde asks after a beat, and when you look at him without comprehension, he clarifies, “What’d he do to make ya leave him?”
You feel the flush in your cheeks first, and then it spreads to your forehead, your ears, your neck, a rush of heat that lingers as you look away again so that you can say it out loud. “I didn’t leave him, he- He left me.”
There’s a long silence that makes you increasingly nervous, and you shift your weight on the counter, about to climb down so you can finish mopping the floor when Clyde says, “Well, that’s stupid.”
The statement leaves you blank, confused by the blunt appraisal of the decision without him asking why, and suddenly you have to wrestle down the compulsion to explain what happened and why you think he left and why it’s not your fault but also why it is.
“Is that why you’ve had your phone turned over all night?” Clyde asks, interrupting the drunken reeling of the emotions in your stomach and the whirlwind of thoughts in your head.
“Yeah,” you mumble, “It’s- He started this last night, texting me about how he made a mistake and I- He was clearly drunk so I didn’t answer and I don’t want to talk to him anyway, but then he kept on going today. And he started calling and leaving voicemails about how he’s changed and he was happier with me and-”
Abruptly, you press your lips together, aware that you’re rambling on. Even though Clyde is listening, watching you with a kind of wide open attention that you’ve never seen him give anyone else, you feel too self-conscious to let yourself go on. You can feel your face getting hot again and you rub your hands over your cheeks, hoping that maybe that will disguise any blush at least a bit.
“You want me and Jimmy to beat him up?” Clyde says, and you can’t help but laugh at the thought. You have no doubt that Clyde and Jimmy could do it and would; it’s unfortunate that your ex is across the country and therefore unavailable for the beating Clyde clearly feels he deserves.
Even more unfortunately, you find your laughter turning to tears and then you’re trying very hard to stop crying. The tears are hot and won’t stop rolling down your face, no matter how many times you wipe them away on your fingers or the back of your hand, and Clyde is looking alarmed and reaches for a stack of napkins and clumsily pushes them into your hands. You have to sort out the napkins as you sniffle, and then you’re dabbing at the tear trails on your face. It’s a bit of a lost cause since you can't seem to really stop, and then Clyde picks up one of the napkins and starts dabbing at your face.
“Don’t cry,” he says plaintively, like it hurts him to see you cry, “Me and Jimmy’ll tell him to leave you alone.”
“No, no, you don’t have to do that,” you say, gently taking the napkin from his hand, “Really. He’s thousands of miles away in San Francisco. I’ll block his number like I should have after he left me at the altar-”
“He what ?” Clyde demands, suddenly sounding almost furious, and you flinch away from him. Clyde sees it and his body language shifts to something more indignant than angry as he picks up another napkin and starts to dab at your cheek again.
“He ran off on ya at the altar ?” he asks, and you just nod.
“Yeah,” you croak, and then clear your throat, “We were- We were together for four years. He had proposed and we had it all planned and everything and- He didn’t show up.”
It’s still painful to talk about, scrapes at something that’s still too raw to be touched. It makes you want to curl up to protect it so it can heal, but there’s something relieving about finally telling Clyde, about him wanting to know and wanting to protect you. You feel like maybe you can trust him now, since you’ve told him and he’s still here fussing over you like you need taking care of.
“You’ve been here almost a year now,” Clyde says, shuffling sideways so that he’s standing directly in front of you and can reach your other cheek with the napkin, “So how long ago was it?”
“About a year and a half,” you tell him, “I stayed for a couple of months after but- I needed to go somewhere new, so I gathered up all the savings I had left and- Well, I ended up here.” It feels like such a lame end to your story, but it’s the real ending. You walked into Duck Tape, asked Clyde if he didn’t need help, and when he’d said no, you’d just admitted that you needed a job. He had taken a long look at you, and then he’d started rattling off what he expected you to do and told you that he’d pay you $18 an hour. Impulse had made you accept, practicality made you start looking for housing the next day.
Ten months later, you’re sitting on the counter crying while Clyde dries your tears and asks if your ex fiancé needs a beating because he’s been texting and calling you nonstop for more than 24 hours. It feels almost surreal to have someone here in this new life you’re still trying to construct for yourself that cares enough to do that. You know you’ve been lonely, but being close to Clyde like this-
The impulses are coming hard and fast now, the desire to pull him close and kiss him out of gratitude, out of a desperate need to be close to someone, to touch and be touched. It rises to a fever pitch and you’re trying to wait it out, but Clyde can see the panic on your face and he pauses, opening his mouth to say something. You stop him by snatching the napkin from his fingers and pressing it to your face with both hands.
The damp paper square is at an angle so that one of the corners juts up and covers your eye, blocking your vision, but at least now your hands are occupied and your mouth is covered. Clyde stares for a moment, unsure of how to take this, and you can feel your face coloring with shame again. He’s not shying away, but it’s hard for you to keep facing him like this and feel like he’s seeing you at your worst.
“I can take tomorrow off,” you tell him, the words muffled by the napkin, “I’m- I think you’re right, I should- I need a break.”
Clyde doesn’t respond right away, still studying you like he’s trying to understand what he’s feeling or decide what he thinks about you, about everything. His lack of response is almost unbearable and you can feel your throat getting tight again and you want to jump down and go back to mopping, anything that’s not just sitting here and waiting for him to respond.
Slowly, his hand comes up and takes hold of a corner of the napkin under your hands, tugging, wiggling it back and forth. He keeps on trying to work it out from under your fingers, and finally you let go and he drops it onto the counter beside your hip before he pulls your hands out of the way. He nudges one down beneath your chin and then wraps his fingers around your other wrist and pulls it aside. He gets nose to nose with you, close enough for you to feel his breath against your skin, and you go nearly cross-eyed trying to hold eye contact, looking for some kind of cue or reaction.
Somehow, it’s a surprise when he closes his eyes and kisses you. For a moment your panic crests, but then it melts away and his lips are soft and warm on yours, gentle, kind. You gasp and you’re not sure exactly what happens; did you pull him forward or did he just step forward? Either way, your hands are wound into the worn fabric of his navy shirt and your calves are wrapped around his hips and he’s warm . You didn’t know how cold you were until he touched you, and now you’re shivering and can’t get enough.
His beard rubs against your chin, the hair soft, and then his hand is reaching around your waist to the small of your back. It’s massive, spanning the majority of the space there, his palm pressed to your spine and feeling just as hot and solid as the rest of him. You let go of his shirt, reach up and wrap your arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, twining your fingers into the silky softness of his dark hair. His lips part against yours, his breath hot on your mouth as you inhale, a sharp little gasp that he seems to swallow as his tongue makes a quick, tentative foray to find yours. When your tongue slides against his, his hand presses into your back, sliding you over the counter so that you’re pressed up against him.
His hand runs up your back after that, rucking up the hem of your shirt around your waist, passing hot over your ribs before wrapping around the back of your neck. He adjusts your head with light pressure on his finger or his thumb, changing the angle as he catches his breath and then licks into your mouth again, sighing with satisfaction like he’s been waiting months to do this. Your fingers tighten in his hair, and your awareness of everywhere he’s pressed against you is excruciatingly clear and overwhelming. You hesitate, but then you can’t help wrapping your legs more fully around him, your calves resting over his ass and then pressing into the muscle as you pull him harder into you. Heat flashes through your senses like lightning, and then you can feel yourself arching, rubbing up against his body and melting all at once.
He breaks the kiss, but can’t bring himself to pull away completely, his lips still touching yours as you gasp for breath. His lashes flutter as his eyes open, deep and dark with desire-dilated pupils, and then he growls . It’s such an unexpected sound from your plain-spoken, otherwise gentle boss, and your reaction to it is purely physical. You whimper, a high-pitched, needy sound, and shudder, clutching at his collar and wondering when your hands slipped out of his hair. The hand at the back of your neck drops to your shoulder blades in response, rubbing in a soft circle, and then you’re blinking up at him as he peers into your face from beneath his hair.
“You alrigh’?” he asks, sounding breathless and concerned, and a sudden wave of warmth in your chest makes you feel as if you’re glowing. You can feel a smile you can’t help forming as you nod.
“I’m okay,” you whisper, and then while you’re still riding that wave of warmth, you say, “Clyde, please…” Your whisper trails off as self-consciousness rears its head, and a crooked little smile full of fondness pulls at his mouth.
“Yeah?” he asks softly, “Please? Please what, darlin’?”
“You,” you tell him, letting go of his collar, your hands dropping to his chest and gesturing lower, “I want you. Please?”
The way he sighs catches your attention, the way it’s full of relief and satisfaction, the way he closes his eyes and nudges your forehead with his nose. Uncertain, you lift your face and brush a soft kiss against his lips. He leans in, pressing his mouth against yours, humming deep in his throat. When he pulls away, he looks down at you smiles, saying, “Hearin’ ya say it for real… better ‘n I imagined.”
You feel yourself flush at the thought that he’s imagined you like that, like this, wanting him, all thoughts of propriety and Clyde being your boss flying away like birds in the night. The only thing you can feel is a thrill that Clyde has been thinking about you, watching you in the same way you’ve been watching him. You wonder how long it’s been, what stopped him from saying anything before. Was it for the same reasons as you? Or for different reasons? Was it insecurity about his hand? You want to ask so badly, but then he’s stepping back and his hand is at the button of your jeans, popping it open with his thumb and finger before he pulls the zipper of your fly down.
Your hands drop to the counter to brace yourself so you can lift your hips, and Clyde works your pants down over your hips with one hand, first one side then the other. You wonder why he’s not using his other hand to pull your jeans down, but then you frown, realizing that your boots are still on and there’s no way your pants will come off over them. The counter is icy against your ass through the thin cotton of your panties, but before you can say anything, his fingers are under them and against your skin. It’s impossible not to moan as they slide against you, the tips of the digits dipping into your body as he nudges your legs to one side with his prosthetic hand and steps closer.
“Jesus, you’re so wet,” he whispers in reverent awe, and you’re gasping for breath as he pushes two fingers deeper into you. You whimper, feeling yourself gripping his fingers as he twists them inside you, curls them against your walls, rubbing, rocking his hand so that they drag along your insides. Your arms are shaking as you try to let yourself down onto at least one elbow easy, but you still fall the last couple inches as Clyde pushes his fingers back into you. Your elbow hits the counter with an audible smack, but then your back is arching and you’re trying to push your hips down onto Clyde’s hand. With your thighs bound by your jeans the way they are, you can’t get any leverage unless you put your feet against him, so you just press your knees together and curl up as you moan again.
Another finger pushes into you, stretching you further, broadening the area he can work you with and you’re shaking and shivering, trying to hold on and not just fall apart on the counter. He spreads his fingers apart inside you, forcing the walls of your pussy apart and your breathing hitches as you involuntarily squeeze them. Over the haze of white noise made by your panting, whimpering, and soft moans, you can hear him breathing hard. You focus on Clyde’s face for a moment, and you’re stunned by the look of concentration there, the purity of intent in his expression. You’re breathless for a moment, and then something, probably his thumb, settles on your clit and begins to circle over it. You twitch and jerk reflexively, letting out a little cry, and then you’re pulsing around his fingers, so close-
You whine when he pulls his fingers out of your body, grabs your panty covered hip and drags you to the very edge of the counter. You’re balanced precariously on it, but Clyde is fumbling at his waist, his belt jingling after he’s unbuckled it. He tears the fly of his pants open, yanking the button free of the buttonhole and hurriedly unzipping. He pulls his cock out, and then you’re catching your breath at the sight of it. It’s huge, to say the least, both long and thick, and for a moment you’re scared, but then Clyde has pulled aside your panties again and is pushing into you and you can’t stop the sound escaping your open mouth. Part of you suddenly understands the need for three fingers, the rest of you is consumed by the heat and stretch of having him in you as you writhe.
Clyde braces his prosthetic hand on the counter under your legs and wraps his other hand around your hip, and then he snaps his hips in a hard, steady rhythm that knocks the breath from your lungs. You squirm, but the hand on your hip pins you against the surface of the counter, still half on your side. You buck helplessly when Clyde buries himself deep in you and grinds, circling his hips, moaning, “ Fuck , you feel so good-”
Clyde groans again and you shudder, feeling your pussy clenching around him, releasing it’s grip, and then tightening again. Clyde starts his rhythm again, still just as hard, still just as steady, and you’re gasping and writhing as your cunt clamps down around his thrusting cock, clutching him until-
You’re melting, going liquid around Clyde’s cock, too heavy to support yourself anymore, but completely weightless as you tremble and cry something that was supposed to be his name. You’re too lost in the rushing currents of heat under your skin to enunciate the collection of consonants and pair of vowels. You feel a sense of pressure on your hip and then Clyde’s cock is no longer thrusting into you, no longer withdrawing. He’s settled deep in you and you hear a deep grunt as Clyde reaches orgasm too, hips stuttering and jerking in tiny, spastic movements.
The rush of climax fades, but leaves behind a warm glow that centers in your chest and spreads through your body. Clyde lets himself down onto the counter, his body curving over yours as he rests on his elbows, one of either side of you. He presses a messy kiss to your mouth and you kiss him back with as little finesse before breaking away. For a minute, there’s only the sound of you both panting and the slickness between your legs as it cools in the air. The post-orgasm glow casts a haze over your thought process, fogging everything beyond the immediate sensory experience of Clyde’s body heat radiating onto you, his breath against your cheek, the kiss he presses to your jaw. His lips are soft, and then they’re on yours again, sweeter this time, more controlled.
“Was it good?” Clyde asks, touching the backs of his fingers to your cheek and stroking gently. You can’t help laughing a little because the question almost seems absurd considering how satisfied you feel.
“So good,” you murmur, turning your head to kiss his knuckles, and when you glance back up at his face, Clyde’s eyes are lit up with hope.
“Wha’ ‘bout doin’ it in a bed?” he asks, and that makes you laugh too because it makes you feel like younger, like you’re nineteen or twenty or twenty-one again.
“A bed sounds nice,” you say, curling your legs around his hips before you lean up to press a soft kiss to his lips, his hair brushing your face in a dark halo of downy softness, “But what about the bar?”
“Can come in early tomorrow, I ‘spose,” Clyde muses against your lips, “‘S’not like anyone’s goin’ to notice if the floor weren’t mopped though.”
“I’ll make sure to wipe down the counters really well,” you reply, “I don’t think most of them want to know what I taste like.”
The remark slips out of your mouth before you can really think about how it sounds, but Clyde growls again, possessive, his hand snaking under your back and pulling you up against his body. “Wantin’ isn’t the problem, babe, I’m not fixin’ to share ya.”
Your face flushes with heat, but you want to reassure him so you reach up and wrap your arms around his neck and say, “You won’t have to.”
Clyde purrs in response, a wordless sound of pleasure as he nuzzles your cheek.