𝜗𝜚 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒐 𝜗𝜚
Bruce Wayne x f!reader
A marriage of convenience to Bruce Wayne
Warnings: smut, unprotected piv, thigh riding, oral f!receiving, missionary, doggy, dom!bruce, big dick!bruce, multiple orgasms, multiple rounds, creampies, rough sex, semi-public sex, fingering in the back of a limo, begging, edging, hair pulling (Bruce!receiving), also some plot, angst, minimal comfort, reader smokes and drinks, reader is an implied housewife, reader wears a dress (no descriptions), commitment issues, idiots (afraid to be) in love, tense & grammar, lmk if I missed any
(updated vers)
Bruce Wayne cannot love.
Neither can you.
There is nothing meaningful about the relationship you have. It is not much of a relationship to begin with. It is a marriage, distilled down to what a marriage really is. A contract. An apathetic, though mutually beneficial, exchange. Bruce’s public persona is bolstered by having a pretty thing like you on his arm, and it’s much less effort than being a playboy. You, on the other hand, have at your fingertips anything and everything you might need — wealth and security in excess.
There is nothing more to it. Once all the photos have been snapped, the right hands shaken, the galas ended, Bruce returns to being the Batman, and you return to being the hausfrau of a billionaire.
There is nothing more to it, except for the sex.
The bed, the one the two of you have never truly shared, is a mess.
The silky sheets are rucked up, half upon the floor and half tangled amidst your limbs, stained with a mix of your arousal and Bruce’s cum, dripping down from between your thighs. The frame rattles as it is shoved forth with every thrust, headboard thudding against the wall. He’s buried balls deep, fucking into you from behind; his fingers dig bruises into your hips as he keeps your ass up, your face buried into the pillows, back in a smooth arch that deepens as he hits just right.
You’ve lost track of how many rounds he’s put you through. It was just one of those nights. Rough and raw and rife with unspoken things that will never, not ever, not with you, be put into words.
Because it’s never making love with Bruce. It’s plain and simple fucking.
It had started when Bruce slunk into your bedroom in the early hours of the morning. His Batsuit was gone, in its stead a pair of sweatpants hung low on his hips, black boxers peaking out from underneath. He was already patched up. Showered. Skin warm and hair dripping over his face. He perched himself upon the edge of your humongous bed, shoulders tense and body stiff. You hadn’t been waiting, but nor had you been asleep.
Without affection, without question, you’d climbed into his lap and within seconds his sweatpants were tugged down and he was grinding you down on his thigh until you were sick with the need to cum.
It was only when his skin was covered in your slick, when the room echoed with the squeaking, squelching noises of your hips rocking back and forth, that he was satisfied. Then he’d hoisted you up and tossed you onto the sheets with a practised efficiency. He’d crawled after you, his broad hands spreading apart your thighs and hooking your knees over his shoulders, and he ate you out like a man starved.
Starved for your pussy, yes, but for more. For things that he could only ever confess between your thighs. Things he could only ever confess with sex.
You’d cum so hard on his mouth; your hips bucking, a litany of moans spilling from your mouth, and your thighs clamping down around his head — Bruce could’ve sworn you wanted to choke him out.
He teased another orgasm out of you, and then another, before he’d finally decided to fuck you. He’d buried his face in the crook of your neck, a low groan muffled as he bit into the soft, sensitive flesh there, rocking forward that first inch. Your pussy had missed his cock, though his cock never left your pussy for very long. Your walls had all but sucked him in, greedily welcoming the burn of being slowly split apart.
“Fuck, Bruce,” you’d gasped when he’d bottomed out — that was the last coherent thing you’d managed to say that first round. The pace at which he’d fucked you made it difficult to think straight, let alone string together much more than incoherent, desperate sobs.
The rounds had blurred together since then; Bruce had filled you up, and then fucked his cum back into you over and over again. His mouth had marred your skin with bites and bruises. His fingers squeezed your nipples or rubbed your clit until you felt drunk on a dozen sensations.
It was a fool’s paradise.
Being married to Bruce often felt as such. Being fucked by Bruce even more so. Though, being face down, ass up, on the verge of tears from how good it felt, makes it easy to forget the fact.
“Shit... You want it?” Bruce grunts out, almost condescending, when one of your hands reaches back to grip his thigh, pulling on his leg to jerk him deeper.
He likes the sight of you — all desperate and demanding when he pulls his cock out in the middle of fucking you through the sheets. He likes to tease your folds with the tip, press against your puffy clit, and slip back in only enough to give you an inch of stretch.
“Want more?” He probes, and there’s no doubt about the mean condescension in his tone now.
You nod your head. Adamantly. Dig your nails deeper into his flesh. Give his thigh another firm pull, though this time, he resits. It’s desperate, your clawing, but it’s not quite enough by Bruce’s standards. One of his hands pries your fingers from his thigh, pinning your wrist against the arch of your back and pressing down. It makes you feel fuller, but not full enough.
“Words.” He orders.
“More.” You whine out. “I want more. Now, Bruce.”
It’s far closer to a tantrum than polite, proper begging, but you suppose Bruce takes pity on you for once. Instead of pulling out and teaching you manners, as he might’ve on a more patient night, as he intends to do in a more patient mood, he gives you another inch. Then another. Your pussy has been thoroughly stretched out by his cock, and yet he still feels big, and you sill feel tight.
You rock your hips back against his cock, fucking yourself onto him when his pace becomes too excruciating to take, and Bruce groans, low and rough; “So fucking demanding.”
Yet, he gives into your demands.
When does he not? He pushes himself all the way in with one heavy thrust. He follows it with another, and then another, and then another, until he’s resumed that rough, perfect, head-board banging pace. Each thrust hits right against your g-spot, his cock grinding against the gummy ridges in a way that has you crying out and your walls clamping down around him.
Bruce knows you’re close then. Knows by the way your pussy clenches around him, making it harder to pull back just half an inch, as your sounds become punched out and your hands white-knuckle the sheets.
He hates he knows you so well. Hates it, and yet, in the fucked-out, pussy-drunk haze of sex, feels real proud of it.
He lets your wrist go free, only to haul you upright, back flush against his chest. One arm wraps around your waist, fingers finding a loose grip around your neck, to keep you there. He takes full advantage of the new position to fuck himself even deeper, as deep as possible, until you can almost taste the tip of him in the back of your throat.
His other hand slips between the folds of your pussy. Your hips jump when he presses down on your clit, and the dual sensation has you seeing stars when he begins to circle.
“God, Bruce!” You gasp, head falling back against his shoulder. Your hands reach back to mindlessly tangle in the sweaty mess of his black curls, and your nails leave little red crescents at the nape of his neck when he pushes you towards the edge. Yet again. “Bruce — Bruce, s’too much.”
“One more.” He grunts. He refuses to let up. Even as you squirm in his grip, at once overwhelmed and desperate for your nth orgasm of the night. Even as his head falls forward against your shoulder and he has to bite into the flesh of it just to last, his balls clenching as your pussy does the same around his cock.
“Fuck, ‘m gonna — can’t — ” Your words are slurred with moans and gasps as Bruce drives himself into you again and again, chasing both your releases with equal vigour.
“One more.” He repeats, thumb pressing firm and insistent on your clit. “Give it to me. All over my dick.”
You obey his order without the tantrum this time. You cum on his cock as the sensation peaks and crashes down around you; thighs shaking, eyes rolling back, pulling on his hair hard enough to hurt —
“That’s it,” Bruce pants, not letting up his thrusts, not stopping his thumb circling your clit, “c’mon.”
“Oh, oh fuck, Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” You scream his name, over and over, loud and lewd and nearly pornographic in its intensity.
That, and the way your pussy is practically milking his cock, has Bruce following after you.
He cums with your name on his mouth and the closest thing to a whine you’ve heard from the man all night. He pushes himself all the way to the hilt when his balls tighten, and for how much he’s already filled you up tonight, it should be impossible that he’s filling you up even more. But he does, until it’s leaking out from around his thick cock, trailing down your thighs and joining the wet, slick mess on the sheets.
You’re both breathless and panting.
He holds you there for a while. His head buried into the crook of your neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and sex and you. His arms wrap around your waist, almost as though he does not want to let go. You let yourself stay in his hold for that little while. Your head against his shoulder, eyes half-lidded and observing the ceiling, a mosaic of moonlight and shadow and nothing much at all.
You’ve been thoroughly fucked out of thought, but somewhere in the back of your mind lingers the knowledge you will probably fall asleep all by yourself. You always do. Once Bruce has thoroughly fucked you, cleaned you up, and tucked you in, he will find better things to do than offer those little comforts that might make this relationship anything more than what it is.
A contract. An exchange. A marriage of convenience that, every night you are left all by yourself, feels a little less convenient than it should.
You woke up alone.
It was late in the day, the clock on the wall telling you it was nearing noon. Not that you much cared when you woke or when you slept. Days and nights blurred together more often than not. An endless, rather boring, cycle marked only by the occasional dinner, regular shopping excursions, galas, races, charity balls, paparazzi here and there, and getting fucked through the mattress.
Commencing the day felt like too behemoth of a task, though your day would not consist of anything particularly taxing or greatly important. Still, your body was sore, limbs aching and stiff, and your head was worse. The ensuite felt miles away. The latest edition of Vogue and the pack of Marlboros on your nightstand were much closer. Rolling onto your stomach, groaning at even that small effort, you rubbed your eyes and pawed for both.
After fumbling through the drawers for a lighter, you were at last in a sedated state of numbness. Cigarette in hand, glossy pages spread open on the bed. The items displayed in the magazine were all the same. They were all distinguishable, you supposed, though by what you did not know. The draw of smoke from the cigarette, the cloud of smoke that poured from your mouth and into the air afterwards, made it easy not to care so much.
“Is this how you intend to spend your days, Mrs Wayne?”
You hadn’t noticed the bedroom door click open, or perhaps Bruce had left it ajar when he’d left. The question was all you got in the way of greeting from Alfred, sweeping into the room with a tray of breakfast — or, more accurately, brunch, seeing that it was already midday. You were long past embarrassment with the butler, little went on in the Manor without his knowing about it. Including the details of your marriage. Though you preferred not to wonder too long on how much Alfred knew. Or heard.
“I take it you have thoughts.” You sighed, taking another long drag of your cigarette, as though it might ward off Alfred’s judgements.
It would not, of course.
Alfred set down the tray of food on the nightstand with a smile. Small and wry. Your words were an obvious understatement for the many reservations he had about your relationship with Bruce. You knew that, of course. You never much liked spending time within the Manor. Big and cold and empty, it wasn’t truly your home. You weren’t sure it ever would be. Still, when you exhausted your options and wandered about the halls, listless, it was Alfred you had for company. Him and his judgements.
Once, you might’ve found it sad your best friend was a butler. Now, as you found yourself becoming to most things, you were largely apathetic to the fact.
“I only mean to say that, perhaps, this — ” he made a broad gesture to the state of things, “ — is not the most productive use of your time.”
“And what do you propose I do instead, Alfred?” Your words were weary. As though you’d seen all the world and realised there wasn’t much worth living for. A touch melodramatic to be sure, but there wasn’t much else to be. You looked up at him with that same weariness, though it was quickly bleeding into exasperation. “Get a job? Call home? Spend time with my husband?”
To a normal person, a happy and invigorated person, all of those choices would have seemed much better options than the one you were currently pursuing — lying in bed till noon, doing nothing but smoking a cigarette, flipping mindlessly through a magazine, and being judged by one Alfred Pennyworth.
“I would not presume to tell you what to do,” Alfred said, though he was obviously going to, “but if you tried, he might surprise you.”
“If I tried, he might think I’m having a stroke.” You corrected with a scoff, another puff of smoke wafting in a hazy cloud across the room.
“As I said, he might surprise you.” Alfred insisted, picking up the mug of coffee he’d brought up with the tray and presenting it to you.
“I doubt it.” You replied tersely, waving away the coffee alongside his efforts at what? Bringing life into your marriage? “I’m really not in the mood for all that, Alfred.”
“Mrs Wayne — ”
“We don’t spend time together.” You cut him off.
There was a pause, a moment spent in silence as the words settled into the vastness of the room. Not spending time with the person you were married to was a ridiculous, unthinkable notion to some. To happy couples. To the ones so deeply in love they could not imagine a day going by without the other. To the ones whose entire being was deeply, impossibly, irreversibly rooted in the other’s. For those, it was a notion so far removed from reality. To you, it was not. To you, it was your reality.
“We don’t.” You found yourself repeating the words. “We’re not going to. So don’t start, Alfred. Not today.”
“Very well.” He nodded, just once. You felt small under Alfred’s gaze. It wasn’t unkind, but you always sensed it had seen things you couldn’t yet comprehend. It was knowing. Too much so. “Shall I take away the tray?”
You looked up at him just a moment longer, then your shoulders slumped and you sighed; “No. No, leave it. Coffee I can manage.”
When he handed you the mug of coffee again, you begrudgingly accepted it. It wasn’t much in the way of a concession, but it was enough for that small smile to return to Alfred’s face, and for him to leave you alone.
You watched him go.
There was a strange emptiness where his presence had been as the door shut behind him. It was only primitive human nature. Wired to exist within a society, wired to crave meaningful connection and whatnot. You knew, though, that loneliness was far better company. Alone, the only person who can hurt you is yourself. So, though you had half a mind to trail after him like a sad puppy, you took a sip of coffee, a drag from your cigarette, and flipped the page.
Bruce’s hand finds it’s way onto your thigh innocently enough in the back of the stretch.
The latest high-society event the two of you must attend is to take place in the city penthouse of some mind-numbing couple, hosting their little boy’s seventh birthday party. Naturally, everybody who is anybody in the vicinity of Gotham is invited, and naturally the celebrations will be at once extravagant and exasperating. Though, if only to exchange gossipy titbits or suburban scandals and have a slice of cake, it is reason enough to get out of the Manor and into some company. Your lacklustre cycle would not be what it is without such events.
The journey there isn’t particularly long, but there is enough time for Bruce’s hand to inch higher and higher up your thigh. You pretend not to notice, but all pretense of innocence is given up quickly enough.
Bruce leans over you, his mouth wandering across your neck and his fingers toying with your panties. He presses his index right against the wet spot his teasing has wrought from you, his finger rubbing up and down, just shy of your clit. You bite your lip to keep from moaning at just that, your hands wandering into Bruce’s hair, finding purchase amongst the soft black strands.
“So wet.” Bruce grunts against your skin, satisfied — if not surprised — to find that you are. You always are with him, and he knows it as well as you do. Your body craves this. Constantly. If not for this, there might be nothing between the two of you.
“Hurry up.” You whine, your hips pressing insistently against his finger.
He leans back to give you a look, the sort that tells you to behave. You do. Though it is with a sigh and a pout, you slump back into the seat and force yourself to wait. He’s maddeningly close to your clit — it craves friction, and your pussy clenches needfully around nothing at all.
“Good.” Bruce nods.
His spare hand hikes your dress up all the way, and he pushes your thighs a little wider, giving him a perfect view of your soaked panties. Watching his movements intently, Bruce tugs your panties to a side, exposing your slick folds to him. The moment his thumb meets your clit properly, your back arches with a soft, shuddering gasp. He starts slow. As he rubs lazy circles on the bud, his other hand comes to hold your hips down, keeping you from bucking into the sensation and seeking more — as you very desperately want to do.
“Bruce, please.” You moan softly, your head falling back against the seat as you try not to squirm under his grasp, as you try to be good. “Fuck — need your fingers, Bruce, please.”
“Do you, now?” Bruce hums. His eyes are still fixed on your pussy, and he watches as his middle finger circles your entrance, dipping in just barely, and slipping out just as fast.
“Yes.” You huff, impatient and painfully needy. “Please?”
“Fine, then.” Bruce slips two fingers in, big and thick and stretching you out perfectly.
He wastes no time then; his fingers fuck you quick, and his thumb picks up it’s work on your clit, alternating between fast flicks and long circles. You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been in this position — in the back of the limo, with Bruce’s fingers shoved knuckle-deep into your sopping, greedy pussy, sucking and clenching on them. He curls his fingers, and he knows how to do it just right, finding your g-spot and rubbing on it’s ridges.
“Oh, fuck, Bruce — ” You gasp out, a slew consisting of moans and curses and his name falling from your mouth as Bruce’s fingers work relentlessly on your cunt, bringing you to the edge almost embarrassingly fast.
“Not yet.” Bruce tuts, watching as his fingers pump in and out of your pussy. “Begged so nice for my fingers, you can take them a little longer.”
He stops his movements then, leaving you hanging on the edge.
Though, before you’ve a chance to complain, he pulls his fingers out, slow and careful to let you feel every last, little bit. Your pussy is left empty and squeezing desperately around nothing, and your whole body feels tense with the need for release. Then again, before you’ve a chance to complain, he’s pushing three fingers back into you. The stretch is obscene and perfect and has your back arching, your fingers digging into his scalp and pulling on his hair.
“Come on,” Bruce groans, his voice gone a little rough, “cum for me now.”
When his thumb finds your clit and his fingers curl just so once again, you do. He keeps his movements fast and steady, watching your face and your pussy as you cum on his hand.
Just in time for the limo to pull up to your destination.
“Are you serious?”
Bruce’s face is one of cluelessness, his blue eyes wide and almost puppy-dog in their innocence. There he stands, already in the elevator, with a massive gift bag housing a massive box housing, of all things to gift a child, a drum set.
“What?” He shrugs.
“Do you hate these people?” You ask.
“They’re... tolerable.” Bruce supplies in lieu of a proper answer.
“Do you have any idea how much noise that kid is going to make?” You sigh.
“Well, one look at the price tag, and I’m sure they won’t mind.” Bruce shrugs again, just as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors sweep open. He takes a step back, gesturing for you to pass through.
Before you have a chance to reprimand him any further, the moment you step into the foyer, you are swept into the embrace of the hostess, and then into the crowd.
It is a familiar scene. Rubbing elbows with the snobs of Gotham, flaunting your marital bliss to your peers, lying shamelessly through your teeth. All of it is little more than putting on a show. The company is, indeed, mind-numbing, and yet you find yourself almost glad for it. It is like being alone in a crowd. You needn’t say a word that is true or make conversation that is substantial. Besides, your mind could certainly do with a bit of numbing.
Time passes as easily as the champagne and hors d’oeuvres.
You find yourself in a better mood than you expected as the celebrations wear on. Perhaps it is that infectious joy that children bring, naive, innocent, and bubbly as they go about their little lives.
Then again, it is probably the buzz from the excess champagne and the benefit of having been... sexually satisfied in the limo over.
Though you would not consider the hostess much of a friend at all, let alone a good one, this newfound happiness had you agreeing to box up left-over cake for the guests to take away. Her kitchen is expansive and grey and empty, well-removed from the rest of the celebrations. You do not mourn the company, though — you’ve used up what little they have to give. Your mind is well and truly numb and you are as happy as one can, superficially, be. Instead, you sway side to side, humming some long-forgotten tune under your breath.
“You know, there are people for that.” Your solitude is cut through with an all-too-familiar voice.
You look up to see Bruce stepping into the kitchen, his shoulders relaxed and his hands in his suit pockets. His hair is a little out of place. The grey light is soft against his skin. He seems more at ease than you have seen him in a very, very long time.
“But I like doing menial chores.” You reply casually, carefully slipping another slice into another box.
“Should I tell Alfred?” Bruce returns easily. Easily enough to have you fooled.
“Are you crazy?” You watch him, as he wheels around the kitchen island.
“Are you drunk?” He questions, coming to a stop a touch closer than convenient before you.
“No.” You answer with a huff, setting down the cake knife to put your hands square on your hips as you glare up at him.
“Clearly not.” He nods, a mocking agreement, the closest thing to playful he’s ever let himself be with you.
You doubt you’ve had enough to be drunk, just enough to dull that incessant edge. Just enough to not question why Bruce cares. Or why he’s here — alone with you in a stranger’s kitchen, talking to you as though you’re friends, as though you’re dating, or as though you’re in love. Even though there is no necessity and no possibility for sex. You’ve had just enough to lean in that little bit when Bruce takes a step closer. Close enough that your chests brush together with every breath.
His eyes find yours.
They’re blue.
Your breath catches in your throat. The colour of them, the intensity, cuts through the dull, achromatic world that you have wrapped yourself up in. They discomfort you. Excite you. Butterflies claw at your stomach at the sight of them. It is strange, the sensation — like the nervous, giddy, nearly impatient feeling before a first kiss that you’ve waited for much too long. You’ve had your first kiss with Bruce, and perhaps a million more filthy, sloppy ones since. The feeling persists despite the fact.
“You have... very blue eyes.” You inform him, and though you hoped to cut through that tension in the air, your words seem to do anything but.
“Do I?” Bruce’s hand reaches up to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, as though it was in the way of something beautiful.
You feel his eyes drop to your lips, his breath warm against them, as he leans in ever so slightly.
It is barely anything.
It is enough for you to cross that line and close the distance between the two of you, your mouth finding his in a kiss that feels like the very first.
His lips move against yours, soft and slow at first. He tastes different, and more familiar than you could’ve imagined Bruce Wayne would ever be to you. His hands settle on your waist, and yours find his hair. When you tug on the strands, his mouth falls open for your tongue like second-nature. Perhaps, after a million kisses, such things are second nature.
You find yourself lost in the kiss. There is only the movement of his tongue against yours, the way his thumbs rub small circles into your sides, the feeling of his hair between your fingers, the soft noises that you exchange. There is only that for the longest time, until you find yourself pulling apart for air.
That is when reality seems to kick in, a bucket of ice over the head that has you sober in an instant. You pull apart a dozen times as fast as you’d kissed, gaping at each other for the longest moment. Bruce’s eyes are blue and blown-wide and looking at you in a way that you simply cannot explain.
“I should...” He clears his throat, taking a step back.
“Good idea.” You nod, turning away from him. Your heart speeds in your chest in a way that disgusts and terrifies you. You do not give yourself a moment to think about it, reaching for the knife to cut up more cake to put in more boxes — though your mind persists in thinking about it anyway.
Bruce lingers a moment, as though he might say something else.
He does not. He leaves the kitchen without a word. You are left alone with the cake and the boxes and the colourless, to replay that stolen moment where your marriage seemed anything but convenient.
Bruce makes for his study the moment you return to the Manor.
He had said hardly a word to you since that treacherous, stolen moment in the kitchen. Beyond the cursory and the necessary, those familiar foundations of all your conversations, he had been a wall of silence. It should not have felt as jarring as it did — you should not have felt an inch out of place. But you did. The remainder of the party had been an awkward sort of hellish, and the ride back home had been much, much worse.
Being back in the Manor was meant to be a relief. The halls were vast. You could run off to indulge in your vices of choice alone — or, at the least, have Alfred act as a buffer should you choose to spend any measure of time together. Yet, because you had apparently lost your mind, it was anything but.
For when Bruce made to his study, all repressed tension in an Armani suit, you chose to follow him. Stupidly, foolishly, you chose to follow him. As though anything beyond the very barely necessary was allowed in your marriage of convenience.
“So, are we pretending nothing happened?” You ask, barging into the room right after him.
By the way he clenches his jaw, you know that he is suppressing a groan, or a litany of choice words. “Nothing happened.” He manages instead.
“Something happened.” You insist, drawing yourself further into the room as he tries to retreat into it.
“You were drunk.” He presses.
“Nowhere near enough.” You press back.
“Must we do this?” Bruce lets out that groan then, running his fingers through his hair, leaving them a tussled black mess that hang over his face in a way that is almost pretty. In a way that you should not be noticing at all.
“Bruce — ” You begin, but he cuts you off.
“You were the one who kissed me.”
“As if you were not a second away from doing the same.” You scoff, crossing your arms and staring at him, upset with him for his hypocrisy and upset with yourself for not having anticipated it.
“I would not have kissed you like that.” He returns, ever stubborn and unrelenting in his denial.
Bruce turns from you then, and though you cannot see his face, it does nothing to hide his frustrations. The tension in his shoulders, the hunch to his back, that sharp inhale and even sharper exhale as he struggles to gather his composure — fighting to keep himself the ever cool, ever detached man that he is. That he must be. His hands find his tie and he tugs on it until it unravels, tossing it onto the leather chair behind his desk.
“No?” You question, tone wavering between offended and outraged. “What, you can only kiss me back like that?”
“I did not — ” Bruce turns back around, only to find that you have strode up to him. The gap between you has shrunk down to nothing at all, and suddenly your chests are close enough to brush together with every breath. Yet again. His eyes meet yours, vivid blue lenses to a world that has always felt so far removed from the colourful. He swallows, his throat bobbing. “I did not... kiss you back... like that.”
“Bruce — ” You begin, but he cuts you off. Yet again.
“Don’t.” He sighs, his breath wavering, fanning against your cheeks. His hands flex by his sides, as though he does not know whether to push you away or pull you close and never, not once, let go.
You make the choice for him, stepping back until there is space enough to think — and yet it is futile. There is not enough space in the study to distract from his presence, it still seems to consume every inch of your being. Because he is still looking at you. Like that.
“You did.” You insist, clinging to the argument because it is all you have to cling to. “You kissed me the same way you are looking at me right now. Like — ”
“Like what?” He snaps, as though he does not know what you mean, as though he did not say it first.
“Like that! Like — like — ” You stammer, and you despise yourself for it. You feel overwhelmed and angry and unable to think straight. “Like you do feel — something! Anything!”
“Is that what you wish, then?” He questions, though it comes out with enough venom to be an accusation. “For me to feel something for you?”
“Something, yes!”
The words leave your lips unbidden, without thought. A secret you did not even know you were holding in. Then you realise what it is you have said. What it is you have done. With those words goes all your conviction, all your anger, all your foolish and desperate hope. A sudden sense of defeat crashes over you as you realise the stupidity of your confession. Something. As though anything at all were possible between the two of you.
The words hang there, in the air between the two of you.
The distance across the study stretches to the length a thousand miles.
“You want to know what I feel?” He questions.
The accusatory, venomous edge is gone from his voice. He is no longer looking at you like that. He is no longer looking at you at all. His gaze is turned down, perhaps to a frayed thread on the edge of the rug, or an indent in the wood from a long-ago broken vase.
Your confession, your mistake, has replaced his anger with something a dozen times worse. Disappointment. Disappointment that you, till now the perfectly sedated, silently discontent housewife, have made that impossible demand for something more. Emotion. Intimacy. Love. Things you have always known Bruce could never give. You, yourself, could never give. Things you have never desired.
Never before desired.
You see the disappointment in the way he stiffens, his face tightens, and he retreats into himself. You are left with nothing but the shell that he allows you to know, and you feel yourself go cold with the realisation that it is all you will ever be allowed to know. The glimpse of colour that you saw in Bruce’s blue eyes is drained from your world, and the monotony returns. It always, inevitably, returns.
“No.” You answer, monotonous. “No, Bruce, I don’t care anymore.”
He seems to be still for a very, very long time at that. A muscle in his jaw twitches. His knuckles flex. His shoulders rise and fall stiffly beneath his suit. The movement is strained, as though his breathing is, too. Then at last, he nods. Just once. Nothing more.
You return the gesture.
That is all you do before you turn on your heel and leave Bruce’s mammoth study with it’s mahogany desk and shelves and endless artefacts and books and things that might have had value. Perhaps, to a person whose life was not so oversaturated with the monotonous material. You do not bother with a small smile, or a polite farewell, not even a good night.
Bruce does not stop you from going.
Why bother?
You could maul him like a rabid dog, and he’d still be slinking into the bed you do not share in the early hours of the morning. He will have subjected countless thugs, grunts, and low-life criminals to his frustrations, but he knows nothing will rid himself of them. Of you. Patrol will only have left him feeling rough and raw and rife with feelings you do not care about. Feelings he must confess to you anyhow, lest they eat him alive from the inside out. And he will. Not with words. Not with soft touches. Not with grand gestures.
With sex.
Filthy, dirty, endless fucking.
So he lets you go, knowing it won’t last till tonight.
And maybe, tonight, when the darkness bleeds into dawn, he might slow. He might be soft. He might betray the very covenants of this marriage, and he might let himself indulge in that strange, impossible something.
He might fuck you in a way that is dangerously close to making love.
𝜗𝜚 𝒙𝒐𝒙𝒐 𝜗𝜚
