Dalila June Ross She is a talented singer, actress, and dancer.
She is extremely professional and competent, working with her is easy.
She is a very motivated woman with the things she desires, and she dedicated years of her life to becoming the perfect singer, and she fulfilled her goal of winning over Michael Jackson.
She will be his partner, the mother of his children, and his greatest support; she will be the perfect woman for him because Michael Jackson only deserves the best.
Michael Jackson. And the happiest man in the world, he's dating his first love.
Dalila is perfect, everyone likes her, she wants to have at least four children and doesn't care if he's weird, she loves him sincerely.
He could hardly wait to marry her, his wish was to elope, but Delilah deserved more than a hasty marriage; people might think she was pregnant.
Dalila's love is sincere, but she's a little obsessed with Michael; she's a reincarnated soul who got involved in a ritual and ended up being reborn in the past.
She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty with blood to ensure the happiness of her beloved.
Notice: Protagonist is slightly Yandere, in a codependent and possessive relationship.
And if it wasn't obvious, the protagonist is Diana Ross's niece and basically a copy of her in terms of appearance.
1 prólogo
2 Best friend
3 One day I want to marry you.
4
5
6
Credits to
@pixopix
Comment on this post if you want to be tagged (I had forgotten about that).
𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓹𝔂 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓮 𝓲𝓷 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓼? - michael jackson x black female reader
synopsis: michael invites you to paris after three long months apart.
pairings: michael (bad era) x artprofessor!blackfemalereader
tropes & warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI — smut (a lil fluffy smut), pwp, sub!michael, softdom!reader, established "secret" relationship (more about that later), long distance & reunions, michael is down bad, mentions of phone sex, mentions of religion, detailed descriptions of male anatomy, oral (f receiving), fingering, praise kink, use of "mama, baby", etc., dirty talk, praise kink, p n v, cowgirl, ass smacking, creampie
wc: 4.2ish
an: when i say this shit put me in a tailspin? pls take me as i am or have nothing at all like auntie mary say LOL. you'll definitely be seeing these lovebirds againnnnnn!
You were really, really happy to be in Paris.
Michael knew it was always a dream of yours to go there. So when he surprised you during your summer break with a flight to come visit him in the City of Lights, you were sure your gleeful screams were loud enough to disturb your neighbors.
Sure, you hated long flights without him and he knew that, but you’d fly through hell for him, and he knew that too. And the last few months were hell without him.
Daylight rewarded your patience by gently waking you up in the warm, secure arms of your boyfriend.
Just the sight of him resting made up for the turbulence in your heart.
He was bathed in the softest golden glow. The sheer balcony curtains diffused the warm morning sun into sparkling beams that stretched across the room, caressing the high points of his soft, slumbering face. It was your turn to be lulled by the gentle sleepy flutter in his chest as he held you close, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away. His sleep-smushed hair was so cute that it made you giggle in his arms, dark curls haphazardly splayed every which-way and contrasting against the ivory pillowcase. It took everything out of you not to touch him. To resist selfishly sweeping the preserved spirals on his forehead out of his eyes to ogle him better. Resist running your fingertips down the bridge of his nose. His long lashes spidered from his resting lids, creating shadows above the unconcealed designer bags under his eyes.
Watching him sleep was a secret joy for you, especially ‘cause he rarely got any these days. Michael evaded sleep like his fame and fortune would completely vanish if he closed his eyes and rested for once. Before the third leg of his tour, his schedule was brutal - studio sessions at the wee hours of the night, early morning choreography rehearsals followed by an afternoon stage fitting, maybe a quick bite on the way to a hospital visit or charity event before an occasional award show, rinse, repeat repeat repeat. Of course you’d fit time in between to nag him about it, completely throwing off his schedule, which would end up with you both playfully bickering. And then he shut you up the best way he knew how, leaving you dazed and wondering where he got the energy to put you through the mattress like that. Not long into pillowtalk, you’d notice him mumbling replies... soon asleep to the sound of your heartbeat, peacefully nuzzled between your bare breasts with sweaty curls stuck to his face. Content with ignoring his commitments for just a little bit.
You wouldn’t be surprised if your version of Heaven was like that. Shielded away from the demand of the world, the drama and entitlement that came with money, glitz and glamour.
Somewhere you and Michael would be at peace, tucked in his arms like you were now.
Your tired, pretty baby.
His lips looked as plush and as soft as they were, staring at them made you bite your bottom one to hold yourself back from waking him with a barrage of kisses. You toyed with the idea, honestly. Then, his grip on you tightened in his sleep… corners of his mouth upturned a bit, like his mind’s usual chaos had been replaced with something beautiful, serene. His whisper-soft sigh made his Adam's apple bob in his throat, highlighting the dark passion marks on his neck and chest…
Memories of last night’s activities made you hot all over.
Morning brought calm after the storm that had passed through the suite last night, leaving items of clothing scattered around the room, floor… reminders.
🗼
The way he embraced you. Delved into you. Kissed you like your mouth was holy, reverent… a necessity to sustain his life and purpose as true as air to breathe. His lips admonished every piece of your skin revealed as he ceremoniously undressed you, doe-eyes sparkling up at your warm expression. You caressed his hair as he whispered his excitement to see you, inhibited desires he’s been holding on to for this moment as well as praises onto your deep toned flesh. His voice was soft, but sure, making you squirm anxiously against his body. You could physically feel aches of his longing as you unbuttoned his shirt to return the gesture, pressing hot, open mouth kisses against his collarbone and pecks, taking advantage of a moment to show you missed him just as much. It was so sweet, so romantic, it affected him deeply… made him nervous like it was the first time all over again, hands trembling as he touched you, helping you out of your clothes…
The primal look in his eyes as he stared at you quite literally halted your breath.
In juxtaposition, he moved intentionally and took his time… like rushing would break you out of the spell you both were in. You were fully naked now so he pulled you close, and soft sounds emitted from you as his mouth peppered kisses around your breasts. He spent what felt like forever there, slightly bending to change his vantage point while never taking his eyes off yours. His tongue swirled around and around your right nipple first until his lips pulled back with suction so delicious, you genuinely pouted when he pulled away. Releasing your skin with a wet pop, he smiled and switched to the left nipple, teasingly flickering the tip of his tongue over it as he rolled the right one between his fingertips.
Michael knew how sensitive you were there.
So he continued, hungrily licking and sucking around until your gentle sighs turned into whimpers and your hips rutted towards his bulge. Your wordless desperation for touch was graciously answered when he slid his clothed thigh between your legs, giving you some much needed friction. Needy sounds littered the air and he couldn’t help but groan at how good you sounded, cherry on top of the sensation of your warm, wet rotations against his leg. Your head lolled back briefly as he kept going, overwhelmed at the sight of him gripping your tits in his large hands and pressing them together to greedily lap and suck both nipples at the same time.
The distinct feeling of your stickiness seeping through his slacks made you blush but he just smirked, coyly asking if he could come down there, taste it, as if you would say no to being worshipped in that way.
On your knees, baby.
It was a simple acknowledgement from you regarding his request, yes, but the authority and affection coupled with your neediness made him burn all over. Made him want to obey. And when he kneeled before you, all he could think about was how he prayed for this, how blessed he was to be in your presence after three long months. If only his pastor could see him now.
All that could be heard in the hotel suite was the sound of both of your labored, anxious breathing. His hands held your hips tenderly, pulling you closer until his nose was pressed against the moist juncture of your thighs, inhaling.
God, I missed you.
Voice tender, you could hear the rawness of his emotions bubbling up onto the surface… as if your pheromones unsheathed something painfully rooted deep inside of him, sealed until that very moment. All the overworking, the decision making, performing, being on all the time, battling with loneliness, unworthiness. He didn’t have to go through any of that with you, or worry about not being enough. He could just feel, and be. And God, it felt good to just feel. Just be.
Your hands gently caressed his face and you weren’t surprised to find tears there. Using your thumbs, you gingerly brushed them away from his eyelashes, cheeks... He wouldn’t look at you, maybe feeling shy and a bit exposed with his silent outpour of relief but it didn’t bother you at all… you know he loved you, and you loved him and all that came with him including his gooey heart. You tilted his chin up anyway.
In the sweetest voice, you redirected his shyness and instructed him to keep his eyes on you. He nodded and there you stood with his arms wrapped around your middle while you rubbed his shoulders softly, played with his curls, whispered that he was okay, safe with you. That you were proud of him, and that he could let go and unpack, breathe and be present. You had time. He fought for this time with you, through hell and high water.
Your desire was still simmering, but your heart ached for him as you cared for his spirit in a way that only you could. You’d do it a million times, and he knew that too.
After his sobs subsided, Michael ran his hands across your flesh, affectionately kissing the soft skin under your belly button. Heat was in his eyes now as he smiled, genuinely smiled, relieved, ready for more.
I’m so grateful for you, mama. Can I show you?
His fingers spidered down your ankle, lifting it to plant a kiss there first before dragging his lips up your calf so achingly slow, full-body goosebumps bloomed across your skin. He adjusted your leg until the back of your knee was resting on his shoulder, waiting for permission.
Mmhm… yes Mikey, show me.
You watched his gaze fall to your love bite adorned breasts, then at his own hands as they wrapped around to hold your waist, thumb tracing your belly button, until his eyes landed on the absolute delicacy between your legs. With his head tilted, he nuzzled into your folds, eyes rolling closed and groaning as soon as the mouth-watering flavor of your pussy hit his taste buds.
Shit, Michael was a starved man, and for three months he had an insatiable craving that no food could quell. A craving only you could satisfy.
Your body jerked in response to the vibrations of his moans. His grip immediately shifted to your hips to support you, but mostly to press you firmly against his mouth. Closer and closer… until you couldn’t tell where your clit ended and the gentle laps from his mouth began. Before Michael, you never knew a man could be hungry for you.
And hunger was an understatement.
Michael loved eating you. His favorite way to submit to you was by consuming you wholly, completely. He’d gladly lose time with his face buried in your pussy, accomplished only when your moans went hoarse, your slick smeared all over your thighs, glistening around his mouth, hands, bed, everywhere… Like his purpose was to be the vessel your body rocked desperately against in pleasure. Being yours, being used by you, pleasing you… he couldn’t do it enough.
Lust and longing created an ache that moved between the two of you ceremoniously, built from too much time apart. He moved like he rediscovered home in your softness, the wetness of you, like it had been all this time. Like he was homesick and the plushiness of your heated flesh against his mouth was the key that unlocked the door to his most favorite place in the world. His tongue moved languidly around your clit; up, down, up, down, slow circles, repeat, repeat, repeat, making you open-mouth moan and chase with your hips. Any thought you had in your mind was wiped like an Etch-A-Sketch when you stared down at his wide eyes, pupils blown, panting.
Fuck baby, you’re eating me so good—you’re doing so so good…
Your well was overflowing, so much so that you could hear him slurping and moaning between your legs. He responded against your wet flesh, words coming out between short pants and grunts as you caressed his curls.
Anything f’you, mama—so wet, wanna please you. Needed this bad—missed you on my tongue…
The sound of your heartbeat was loud in your eardrums. Your breath was coming out in uneven pants. It was getting harder and harder to keep steady… Michael had you right where he wanted you and he knew it. He swirled his tongue down to slip inside your twitching hole, encouraging you to ride his face while his nose rubbed against your swollen nub. Your body trembled in his grip as your hips rocked back and forth, letting him know you were close… so he added suction, rhythmically lapping at your clit at the same time. Trembles turned into twitches and shudders wracking your body… intensely, unwavering.
Right there—yes—God, I missed you so much, Michael—yes make me cum—don’t stop…
He obliged like you knew he would. His grip tightened on your ass while he hungrily nodded and shook his head for friction, urging you over the edge and mumbling for you to let it go with his mouth still attached to you.
You came roughly, moaning through gritted teeth and gasping as your back bowed—the sensation so intrinsically euphoric and expansive and missed that it unwrapped you, bringing tears to your eyes. You sobbed earnestly, feeling raw, gasping, shaking as he continued with his firm grip and unwavering stare. Michael was never content with just making you cum. He wanted more. To break you open too. Return the favor, remind you of how much he wanted to crawl in your skin and live there forever.
He loved you so much.
So much so, that he curved his long fingers inside your slick entrance and pumped them in and out, in and out, in and out… sending you babbling and flying full speed off the edge into the warmest orgasmic waves, eyes rolling back. Each convulsion reminded you that even when you were thousands of miles away, you didn’t have anything to worry about. That he still belonged to you.
God, there were so many reasons to be happy.
The remnants of pleasure that overcame your senses finally calmed, and you gathered yourself as he stood in front of you, content, licking you from his fingers, wrist and mouth.
Take those off and sit on the bed. You instructed, not taking your eyes off him.
It still made him shy sometimes to be naked in front of you. Like one day you’d decide you didn’t like what you saw. So you always made sure to pay attention while he undressed, this time with your hand anxiously rubbing between your legs. He was beautiful.
The sinews of his arms and shoulders flexed with the lean pecs on his chest, distracting you a bit as he slid his belt out of the loops of his slacks and tossed it to the floor next to his button up. You loved art, taught art history at a local college in your city, so for all intensive purposes, you knew art. And he was art. What he would deem were splotchy areas of skin were intricate designs of the masterpiece that was him. Hand sculpted just for you. It made you cry sometimes, how conscious he felt about his body. He was the owner of a dancer’s frame that worked tirelessly, even through shame, creating magic and beauty anyway despite all the pain it endured. Exposure therapy was nights and nights of kisses from you, lips decorating every “imperfection” he declared, until his eyes were wet and he felt covered in love, affection, acceptance, and desire.
The same desire you felt watching him gracefully slide out of his black slacks and briefs.
There’s my pretty baby…
Your praise made him breathlessly smile and blush behind his hands as he kicked his pants off and sat on top of the plush duvet. He was so cute, God, even embarrassed, his dick sticky and twitching against his belly. Even with the taste of you still rolling around on his tongue.
You reached between his legs to press your fingertips against his erection, effectively causing his hands to ease away from his face as both your eyes fell to his lap. His foreskin eased down with your fingers to reveal more of his flushed mushroom tip, engorged with the blood flow of arousal and glistening with precum. The urge to take him in your mouth almost won… you wanted to devour him until your jaw was sore, until his shuddering body folded in half, until he filled your throat with every spurt of his pent up arousal and the only names he could whimper were yours and God’s. So tempting… your mouth watered as you gawked unashamed, wrapping your fingers around what you would call a very sizable, warm, thick, throbbing work of art, fair skin peppered with deeper toned areas like the rest of his body. But you’d satiate that craving later. You really needed him inside you.
Michael’s breath hitched as his hips involuntarily bucked upward at the contact. You loved him needy. Smirking, you took your hand away until his body relaxed. Then you did it again, teasing him with lighter touches to hear him whimper and sigh before cupping his chin with your free hand to press a soft kiss on his lips.
Mmm eeeasy, cowboy… that’s what you get for hiding from me. D’you know how much I love you? Missed you?
If you one day got lost in his bright brown eyes, you’d never return. He nodded gently, lids heavy as he stared at you like you were the expanse of the universe.
Yeah, mama, I do.
You shook your head and tsked, stealing another kiss as you climbed on top of him.
Not hiding, you don’t. Lemme remind you…
The invitingly warm and snug suction into your walls, hot and slick and enveloping, did wonders for his memory as you descended his dick. An airy fuck left your lips as you sunk, lower and lower… He was inside you, and even just that felt so good—good enough to begin to sooth the ache distance created in your soul and body all at once.
Watching the blissed out expression wash over his pretty features activated something in your mind that you couldn’t really explain. His shallow breaths, his eyes fluttering upward in response to your pussy slowly accommodating every inch of him was worth every anxious minute you spent on that flight, bouncing your leg, ready to get to him. Every late night phone call you spent with him laughing the ache away, crying it away, moaning it away. You missed the feeling of fullness, the way he fit perfectly inside you. Better than your fingers. Better than the toys you used on yourself when he wanted to hear you lose control for him in his absence. His body shuddered as you eased your mouth against his for another slow kiss, savoring the taste of yourself on him as he bottomed out.
Mmh, you barely fit, shit… feel how much I miss you, hmm?
He couldn’t control his whimpers as his hips undulated underneath you, body begging you to move.
Fuuuuck, yes—God—pleaseeee, mama, please I need you…
You wanted to relish in it a little bit.
Riding him satisfied your desire for control, your want to make him lose his composure and inhibitions completely and get lost in you. This was your show now—this bed, your stage, and both of your bodies were performing a tantalizing duet that always topped the charts of your bedpost. Michael didn’t need any music to fall into step with your illicit choreography, body molding into your moves just right. He was so anxious, so ready to feel what dance you’d do next he was twitching inside of you, hands holding your hips so tight you were sure he’d leave fingerprints.
Eyes on me…
You kept direct eye contact with him while rotating your hips, waist winding in a slow and steady rhythm you knew would drive him crazy as you held his neck. His pulse thumped under your palm as he groaned, rhythm of his heart matching your own.
There was nothing in this world… nothing, more encouraging than the grip of Michael’s feverish hands as he kneaded your body as you rode. Nothing more stimulating than the muffled tenor of his open-mouth moans against your jaw, mixing with your lead vocal to create the most sensual harmony. He danced his fingertips down your back, making your spine elongate and curve into him more until your nipples rhythmically grazed his chest with your movements. This was Heaven to him.
He wanted more. One of his large hands came down on your ass, smacking it roughly. The whimper from your lips at the impact made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, the tinge of pain mixed with the mind-numbing tingles in your limbs encouraging you to go faster.
Feels good, don’t it? Mmhm I can tell, baby… it’s twitchin’ so deep in me, mm, you ready to cum?
Your slow ride turned into a full-on bounce and Michael leaned back a bit to capture the moment, taking mental pictures he wanted to keep for the rest of his life. God, you were so beautiful, staring at him through barely open eyes, battling between staying present and succumbing to the pent up tension up in your lower belly as your body moved at a dangerous pace, bruised breasts bouncing on each impact. His eyes locked on where you both connected, watching incredulously as your swollen pussy made him disappear and reappear like magic while your thighs slapped down on his over and over again with a wet plap plap plap. Admiring all the creaminess you’d worked up around his dick made his balls tighten even more… that milky white substance in a thick ring around the base of his shaft, some of which had since smeared everywhere between his legs.
You sped up just a little more and….
Oh God, oh you feel s’good mama yes—I’m about to—please
Michael’s mouth gaped open, words coming out jumbled as his body curled up on itself and against you instinctively. His hips rose off the bed, tensing as the pressure of his orgasm rose from his thighs to his heavy sack, then to his dick, until it twitched into an eruption as it all became too much to contain. He was hitting your spot deliciously still, enough to trigger your own release but you were relentless, focusing on squeezing your muscles around him as you came up, pulsing them as you came down. The sound of your ass smacking in his lap was faster now, and you did it over and over and over until the room was filled with his grunts and whimpers and pleads for you not to stop, face contorted in pleasure.
Making him cum first always tipped you over the edge.
There was something so dirty about it; the warm feeling of his release filling you up in hot spurts, so much that you’d end up using it as lube to go again. There was always so much, he’d leak out of you into his own lap or on the sheets where you both could watch between sessions… And if he was feeling particularly sentimental that day, he’d collect any of his renegade cum on his fingers and push it back inside you. For safe keeping, he’d say.
Michael shut his eyes tight at the beginning of your spasms, senses overloaded and overwhelmed and still wanting more. So much so, he took matters into his own hands, literally, slipping his hand between your bodies to roll his thumb around your swollen clit as he continued to twitch inside you, still hard. The gracefulness of your movements graduated into desperation, and there was an unmistakable tremble in your body as you chased the feeling, moaning in crescendo… probably loud enough for the whole hotel floor to hear.
That’s it mama, yes yes yes—take it, use me—I wanna feel you, s'good please
His encouragement was joined by a firm grip on your ass, taking over from underneath to pound up into you until your vision blurred around the edges. You came hard, screaming his name, walls convulsing so intensely around him that he had no choice but to cum again...
🗼
Michael shifted underneath you again, the gentle caress of his hand on your back taking you out of your vivid memories.
“Baby.” His voice was thick with much-needed rest. He sounded so good, your ears immediately perked up in attention, chin resting on his chest.
“Yes?”
“You watchin’ me sleep again?” The edges of his mouth quirked up, contradicting the playful judgement in his tone.
“I can’t help it, you’re so pretty…”
His eyes opened in a squint from the brightness, already blushing as he looked down at your doting face.
“Baby…” He warned but you didn’t listen, instead leaning up to dramatically kiss his hot cheeks over and over until you felt his body shake with laughter against you.
Once you got out most of your pent up affection, you planted a sweet kiss on his lips.
“I could lay here with you forever.”
“Forever, huh? Ironic you say that…” Michael smirked, pulling one of your hands up to kiss your knuckles. “I was thinkin’ about startin’ somethin’ forever, today.”
Your initial confusion lasted for about five business minutes until you caught sight of your left hand. There, a big, fat radiant cut diamond sat snug on your fourth finger.
Yes.
taglist: @justalocallesbian, @narratedillusions, @enhasdihsucker, @blcknebula, @somenichegirl, @heeheeow, @someonessoulrecord, @fortuncooki, @baldmonkmonks, @darkgreengrl, @heubstr, @96kittii, @cinnamoncunt (please let me know if you'd like to be added or if i missed you!)
Dalila Ross is a soul reborn in the past as Diana Ross's niece. She's not exactly a kind-hearted person, but she loves Michael Jackson above all else and wants to see him happy.
She secretly wants to become his wife, but we won't talk about that.
Chapter 2
The year 1969 began in a way Michael could never have imagined.
The Jackson family had finally moved into a much bigger house. To most children, it might have seemed like nothing more than a change of address, but to Michael, it felt like stepping into an entirely different world.
For the first time in his life, he had a bedroom all to himself.
He no longer had to share every inch of space with his brothers. Some nights, he would simply lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the silence. It felt strange... and wonderful.
Another one of the best parts of that year was Dalila.
She came to visit once or twice a week, always wearing a bright smile and bringing a new story to tell. Whenever she was around, they spent hours together.
At Motown, they danced through the hallways while waiting for the adults to finish their meetings. They slipped into empty rehearsal rooms and sang to each other, making up harmonies and challenging one another to see who could reach the highest notes.
Michael loved singing with her.
In his mind, one day they would record a real duet together. Their voices blended so naturally that it seemed as though they had been meant to sing side by side.
They also attended the same school now.
Their classroom was made up almost entirely of white children. Michael and Dalila were the only Black students.
He still caught people staring at them from time to time, but there was one enormous difference from the years before.
He wasn't alone.
Whenever someone made him nervous, all he had to do was glance at the desk beside him and see Dalila smiling back. Somehow, she could turn even the dullest school day into something fun.
Those months were happy ones.
But Michael was already beginning to learn that good things never seemed to last for very long.
At the beginning of October, Dalila's record started selling far better than anyone had expected.
Suddenly, she was everywhere.
Interviews, photo shoots, television appearances, live performances...
Her schedule became so full that she had to leave school.
Michael missed her almost immediately.
Classes became quiet and boring again. He no longer had anyone to whisper to during breaks or someone to share the little victories of the day with.
Fortunately, they still talked on the phone whenever they could find a free moment.
Michael didn't have much time to dwell on missing her.
By the end of that same year, the Jackson 5 had exploded in popularity as well.
"I Want You Back" was playing on radio stations all across the country, and overnight, everything changed.
Television appearances, interviews, endless rehearsals, and meetings quickly filled their lives.
Joe Jackson saw every new success as another reason to demand even more from his sons.
Rehearsals grew longer.
Mistakes became less and less acceptable.
And Joe became even stricter than before.
Not long afterward, Michael received more unexpected news.
He wouldn't be going back to school.
According to Joe, the hours spent studying should be devoted to rehearsing instead.
Michael had never exactly loved school.
After Dalila left, it had lost much of its charm.
Even so, the news saddened him.
School had been the only place where he could spend a few hours away from his father.
It was the only place where he could simply be a child.
In January, he finally saw Dalila again.
The Jackson 5 had been invited to record a television special alongside Diana Ross, and Dalila would be performing as well.
The moment he saw her, Michael broke into a huge smile.
It felt as though the months apart had disappeared in an instant.
They talked backstage, laughed about the musicians' outrageous outfits, and when it was finally time to step onto the stage, they stood beneath the bright television lights together.
Michael loved every second of it.
As he sang, he imagined what it would be like to record a song with her someday.
Maybe that dream could still come true.
In May, however, the Jackson 5's first major tour began.
Life changed completely.
The days became an endless cycle of bus rides, rehearsals, radio interviews, performances, and very little sleep.
Life on the road also exposed Michael to one of the harshest realities of success.
In many places, because they were Black, the group was given the worst rooms available.
Sometimes they weren't even allowed into certain hotels.
They would have o search for another place to stay or wait for hours until they found a hotel willing to accept them.
Even when they finally got a room, Michael was rarely happy.
His older brothers often brought girls back at night, and because they all had to share the same room, he couldn't help overhearing everything.
(. . .)
Time kept moving forward.
The shows continued, along with the endless rehearsals and performances.
Even with all their success, Joe never seemed satisfied.
That year, according to Joe, it was Jermaine who caused trouble because he had decided to get married.
Joe insisted that getting married would shatter the fans' fantasy.
During his weekly phone calls with Dalila—who was a wonderful gossip—they talked about everything the magazines were saying.
Things had become completely chaotic among the most devoted fans, whose dreams of becoming Mrs. Jackson had suddenly been destroyed.
Michael truly didn't understand what women saw in his brother.
But he did begin to understand the appeal of marriage after Dalila explained that it meant having the freedom to build a family of your own.
"I wish I could live with you," he said one day.
It was always so lonely when Dalila had to leave.
"It would be nice if we were married," he joked.
On the other end of the phone, he heard Dalila choke on her own breath.
"Michael... that's not something you say to a girl."
He never brought it up again.
But the closer December came, the more often he found himself thinking about it.
On December 15, 1973, the wedding finally took place.
It was a lovely ceremony.
Hazel was Barry Gordy's daughter, so many Motown artists attended, including Dalila, which made Michael happy since they were seeing each other less and less.
"Your brother and Hazel have the exact same hairstyle," Dalila whispered.
Michael had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
They danced together that evening, and simply being so close to Dalila felt incredible.
Michael couldn't stop smiling.
It was one of the happiest nights of his life.
Marlon even joked that Michael looked as though he were the one getting married.
And in that moment, Michael realized he wanted to have many more nights like that with Dalila.
Unlike Michael, Dalila gave many more interviews than he did before his retirement in 1980, as she wants to be a mother and have at least five children, and she says this in an interview.
Dalila is very good at manipulating the media and uses it to her advantage.
They've had a long engagement to avoid pregnancy rumors.
Michael has already started planning the Thriller album, and Dalila wants to get married as soon as possible before Michael becomes the King of Pop.
( ˶°ㅁ°) !! 1.2k ) bad!michael jackson x fem storybook author!reader: it’s your first book event in a long time, and it’s completely empty. well, there is one man present who seems to be a huge fan of yours <3
cws: cocky!michael (he's annoyingly charming), brief suggestive moment but nothing huge
it was supposed to be a small event. your literary manager had pitched it as a humble author signing and reading for your most recent storybook, something only young children and their parents would attend. in your mind, it would be a cozy affair, with warm lighting (you detested the bright white of most office-space fluorescents), a neat booth, and small candies you could hand the children as they left. everything would be as calm and orderly as possible, for the sake of your nerves. that’s what had been promised to you, and instead you got… whatever this is.
it was too calm, too orderly. it was… empty. almost empty, anyways. there is one man in front of you, his lips curled into a proud grin as he holds a copy of one of your first books in his hands. everyone had been barred from entering until after he left, and your manager had only informed you of his presence after he’d already entered the building. apparently, he paid a generous amount to be able to talk with you all on his own. restlessly, the man rocks on his heels, occasionally drumming his fingers along the hardcover of his book as he waits for you to acknowledge him. though his outfit is casual, it still matches his recent stage looks, maintaining that regal yet rebellious edgy aesthetic.
“michael jackson?”
“mhmm,” he nods, stepping closer to your little booth, setting his book down onto the table. he wastes no time in opening the book to the back cover, smoothing over the unruly pages with his palm before sliding it over to you. “you can sign here.” michael’s eyes glance you over, ignoring your shock. “you’re younger than i expected, for a children’s book author.”
that seems to snap you out of being awestruck. the end of your left eyebrow raises briefly, a flicker of insult. “you’re older than i expected, for a fan of children’s books,” you mutter, turning the book around so you could sign it. your wrist rests against the back page, but you don’t put your pen down just yet. “i can’t believe it’s you.”
a genuine, hardy laugh escapes him before he can try to stifle it; no wonder you didn’t hold events often! it wasn’t that you were a mysterious old lady like michael had originally thought. you were, in fact, a woman around his age, one with an attitude that he could only find amusing. “believe it. and… i guess you’re right. i’m not who people first imagine when they think of someone reading these books...” he trails, then adds, “i read them to kids, too, though. whenever i visit a hospital or orphanage or school, i always bring a few books of yours. they’re always a favorite.”
michael pauses, then leans in somewhat, resting one hand along your little table. “i just like to visit and bring a little joy to the kids. it’s important to them. important for them. i don’t have to explain that to you, though, i know you get it. your books are… incredible. they’re not dumbed down. they’re just as honest as the kids are; full of the same wonder, too.”
“you’re flattering me.” lowering your gaze to the page, you finally begin to lay down your signature. the movement of your eyes, however, is less about ensuring you write neatly and more an act of survival against the sudden sincerity in his eyes.
“i don’t ever flatter. i only tell the truth,” he replies, watching you add the final details of your signature. a quiet scoff leaves your lips before you can help it, prompting michael to tilt his head curiously. “what? you don’t believe me?”
shrugging gently, you slide the cap back onto your pen. “you have a whole song about how bad you are, don’t you?”
“it’s just a song. one of many.” he pauses, then grins a little more, “you listen to me?”
“doesn’t everyone? and, anyways, your look doesn’t help.” you close his book up, then turn it back around, sliding it towards him.
“i’m not a bad boy, not really,” he insists, going directly against the image he’s been carefully building for the past two to three years. michael’s eyes rest upon your disbelieving face, pouty almost while his hands reach for his book. as he brings it up, holding it to his chest again, he makes a decision. “let me take you out,” he says firmly, half-asking, but more so telling.
“what?”
“let me take you out to dinner. then i can show you that i’m not a bad guy,” he explains— it all makes sense in his head: he takes you out, shows you that he’s not as edgy as his public persona might suggest, maybe even charm you along the way— “when are you free? or, should i just ask your manager?”
“i’m not free,” you reply, brows furrowed.
…not free? “what do you mean?”
your excuse comes out stiff, the kind of lie that most people would pick up on immediately. “i have things i have to take care of consistently.”
michael, however, takes it in earnest. “kids?” he asks, because what else would a children’s author have to take care of consistently? and, no wonder your books are so good, you have kids of your own! “i can find you a babysitter.”
“no, not kids,” you shake your head— he’s persistent, isn’t he? “other stuff, i just— i can’t, sorry.”
dinner with michael didn’t sound all that terrible in theory. it’d be an amusing date, if nothing else. dinner with michael jackson, however, one of the most famous people alive, sounds like hell. it sounds like paparazzi at your front door, like cameras following your every move, like fans sending you hate-mail all because you were spotted in the man’s vicinity. you’d worked hard for your quiet life; you’d be damned if you gave it up now.
the star’s not used to rejection. you can see it in his eyes, that flicker of surprise. so you didn’t have kids after all… looking at you now, his mind briefly whispers, i can change that— michael forces himself to focus on the situation at hand, however, before his brain can take him deeper down that rabbit hole. “i get it,” he finally responds, “i won’t pressure you into saying yes. i’m a gentleman, after all.” he smiles a little at that, eyes twinkling. “and i won’t hold up your signing any longer. just think about it, okay?”
“i… okay,” you nod, sucking in a breath through your nose, “i’ll think about it.”
“good.” this time, when he grins, it doesn’t just feel like the smirk of a bad boy. his eyes linger along your face for several moments, his lips curled in a way that’s downright dangerous. then, he steps back, holding his book tightly as if it could somehow substitute for your physical presence. michael lets his gaze lower to the ground before he tilts his head up again, looking towards the secured exit where bill’s waiting.
it was supposed to be a small event, and instead you got… michael jackson. it’s a story so fantastical that not even you could think of it!
looking for more?
author’s note ) okay i decided to release this one first & batman!michael tmrw <3 hope you guys enjoy, i thought it was quite the cute concept although i would've been happy regardless of what the era poll said. i honestly suck at writing longterm series w chapters and such, i'm super scatterbrained smh, but i'll prob do a series of blurbs for this concept, maybe? kind of like how i do w manager!michael & popstar!reader, there's a sort of overall plot but also whatever we want to happen can happen lol.
the inevitable consequences of a very passionate night … ⋆❤︎︎࣪˖ ˚₊⋆.
intro ✴︎⸝꙳.˖𖥔݁˖⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ ( 4.8k ) childhoodbsf!popstar!reader x bad!michael jackson ╱ last night your husband made love to you for six hours straight, beyond the break of dawn, and now you must both face the physical consequences. . . but not without a little more lovemakin' of course!
notes ♡⋆°୭ 𝟏𝟖+ established relationship: husband n wife of 8 years. read this for context of the night before if u haven’t already ;). . . waking up cockwarming. cosy fluff. morning sex. cuddles n kisses! you’re broken n bruised. . . both covered in evidence of sex. creampie. m+f!orgasm. breeding kink. pregnancy talk. u call him bambi and he calls u tink for tinker bell! softdom!michael. light dirty talk. soft sleepy sex. aftercare
JANUARY 27, 1989. Los Angeles, California…
At ten o'clock in the morning, after only four hours of sleep, you unfortunately awoke. Nothing could be registered but the harsh sunlight breaking its way forcefully through the curtains—painfully so. Your head was blaring with an ache, your throat felt uncomfortably dry, and as you stretched upon your first intake of breath, you felt entirely paralysed from the waist down. An exaggeration, of course—though you were always prone to hyperbole when it came to describing the feeling of what Michael could so easily do to you.
But for a moment, you wondered why you felt this concerningly awful. In your sleepy haze, you assumed you were hungover, but such an assumption only lasted for that short moment, because suddenly another sensation hit you, born between your lower thighs. You were sleeping on your husband's warm chest—you had registered that already—but as your body grew familiar with the bright of day (as opposed to the happy slumber you'd been frustrated to be pulled from) you felt something else. Shuffling on Michael's torso slightly—humming into his neck as he too stirred—a warm, trickling substance exuded from your sex, swimming from your entrance to the already ruined sheets below.
Funny that you should notice the cum before the much more obvious thing that had accompanied it, because immediately afterward, you finally remembered that you and your husband had fallen asleep cockwarming. While unconscious, Michael was beginning to harden inside you, somehow still nestled in your comforting heat despite the hours of sleep. Usually, when you cockwarmed in other positions, he'd slip out easily during slumber because he did tend to move around a lot, but since your straddled weight had been keeping him still, that position had kept the two of you deeply entwined the whole time.
You smiled as you took acknowledgement of the feeling, and began peppering kisses all over Michael's neck and chest. But you giggled against his skin as you now noticed how the area was littered with your smudged lipstick kiss stains aside your lovebites—purple bruises that decorated his beautiful frame, a frame now mostly devoid of the makeup he'd covered himself in before the concert last night. He could only ever be this vulnerable with you—nobody else. The patches of pale and brown were colliding with one another all over his torso, and on his face were light expanses of depigmentation, shone over by the morning light.
Eagerly you kissed every inch of what you could reach, ensuring you didn't move too much and trigger him to accidentally slip out of where you wished he could stay forever.
While smothering him in your affection, you laughed again as you saw what were literal bite marks on his shoulders—faint, but visible up close—from where you'd gotten a little carried away during one round. His torso had been pressed flush to yours, suffocating you beautifully with his weight, and you’d been trying to suppress your moans. Then, it seemed that the only way to do that effectively was to bite your man’s shoulder, but that wasn’t a sustainable option of course, so most of the time your whines and screams were released into the sex-scented air, and Michael’s shoulders were safe from being gnawed at further.
At the time, you had believed the two of you were alone in the house—it being so big that the noise of the others coming back had completely bypassed your senses. So, without the knowledge of there being several people who went on to listen to you and Michael going at it all night, at the time you really had no actual reason to be suppressing any of your moans. Truthfully, you just felt slightly self-conscious sometimes, because even though you’d been together and married for so long, you often felt it was a little ridiculous the way you acted around your man. You were concerned your pornographic moans would sound either pathetic or over-done, but as the years had passed, Michael truly had become a master at sexual intercourse, and he knew it too—so he never once judged you for the noises you made. To him, hearing your high whines and your soft moans was a slice of heaven on earth.
A much lesser, subtle version of those sounds he now heard as he himself awoke. You were still humming against his smooth skin, kissing him all over—partly because you loved to do so, and partly because you wanted to wake him.
“Hey, honey,” he giggled as you were busy smooching from his forehead to his cheeks.
“Hi, sexy,” you beamed, with so much love in your eyes, and in his too. “My angel…”
He gripped your waist with a soft passion, then ran his hands up and down your ass and thighs that sat over his mid-section. You were still leaning forward, now cradling his jaw beneath a handsome smile. Your heart ached—but with the satisfaction of completion, the overwhelming gratitude that this was your forever beau.
“You’re drippin’ out of me,” you whispered in his ear with a smirk, and he laughed, instantly remembering everything.
“Yeah?” he chuckled. “Lemme see…”
You felt him twitch inside you, hardening even more, and you clamped your eyes shut in anticipation. Could you really go for another round? You definitely should no longer be in this position, and no wonder your legs were aching so much despite how you were always so athletic—because not only had you been fucked into the mattress for six hours straight, but you’d also then slept directly on top of Michael, with your legs bracketing his thighs, for a subsequent four hours immediately after. It was a serious advantage that you were a dancer, for in your skill you were incredibly flexible, and God knows how bad this would've been otherwise.
But somehow in that moment, under the mid-morning radiance, it didn’t matter. Despite all the aches, you were so cosy, cuddled up into your husband's chest with his thick cock inside you, the tip inching closer and closer to your cervix the more his member grew.
Keeping one hand on your hip, Michael reached his other down further to your leaking pussy, spreading his fingers to caress the width of your stretched folds, tugged tight around his length. Using his index and middle finger, he ran through the mess seeping from there and down his balls.
“Mikey…” you sighed against his Adam’s apple, head resting in the crook of his neck as your arms wrapped around him, hands finding their place in his adorable, messy curls. He felt so perfect both beneath you and inside you, now fully hard, and still playing with the mess he’d made in the earlier hours of the morning.
“How d’you feel, mama?” he murmured with a kiss to your temple, morning voice thick and husky—his natural tone coming through in the most intimate of moments.
“I feel like you broke me,” you giggled, and Michael adored the way the sound vibrated against his collarbone.
He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, 'm sorry, baby. I'll run you a bath when we get up, alright? Carry y' everywhere…” Two kisses to your cheek. “And then we’re gonna have to rehabilitate before tonight.”
“Tonight? Oh God, I forgot about that…”
Admittedly, you were still in a haze—of post-sex and of too-little sleep—so it had slipped your mind that you were to be performing two songs with Michael tonight for the very last date of his world tour.
"Yeah, y' not gettin' out of it either," he replied, rubbing his thumbs over your hips.
You pulled your head out of his neck and squinted at him in annoyance. "Michael, you made me like this. You're to blame."
"Oh, was I also to blame for how you begged me to keep goin', huh?" he smirked, with a light smack to your ass.
Instinctively you moaned, before nudging his bicep and resting back on his chest again, nuzzling into his warmth.
"Honey, y' look crazy," Michael chuckled, referring to the bruises blossoming all over your skin, your entirely messy hair, and the makeup smudged all across your features.
"Shut up, you look crazier. And wait 'til you see those scratch marks."
"Oh, Bill saw 'em last night."
"What? Bill was in the kitchen with you?"
"Mm." Michael was trying not to laugh.
"Michael!" You nudged him again, although it was really more of an actual hit this time. "It's bad enough that he heard us but now you're tellin' me he saw what I did to you?"
"Baby, he doesn't care. He found it funny."
"He probably thinks I'm some sort of depraved sex freak."
Michael sighed in amusement. “C’mon, y’know he's heard a lot more than jus' las' night. He's known us since the very beginnin', baby, this is nothin' new," he pointed out, as his attempt at reminding you that you didn't need to freak out over the current situation, but his supposed reassurance only really stressed you out further.
He kissed your temple, running his big hand through your hair and cradling the back of your head as you laid in his comfort. His other hand continued to rub up and down your torso, but it mostly sat over your ass, squeezing and kneading the skin there. He was achingly hard inside you, but in knowing how fucked out and essentially broken you were, he wondered if he should cut this short
"Darlin'..." he whispered, rubbing his thumb over your lips that were bruised with his kiss—the intensity of a mouth that couldn't display its affections gently, despite how gentle the owner himself was in many other ways. Now, both your top and bottom lip were a fluctuation between your natural shade, your smudged lipstick, and purplish-brown marks where his teeth and the force of his own lips had brushed harshly.
To each other, you both looked sexier than ever—entirely ruined at the mercy of your love's passion, looking as though you'd each been attacked by a vicious animal and then ran over by a car in short sequence.
"Mm?" You yawned, noticing a very faint lipstick kiss on the underside of his jaw as you lifted your head. You giggled and kissed over it. "Love decoratin' your pretty face in kisses, my baby. So handsome."
Michael laughed softly, thumb still smoothing over the softness of your bottom lip. He blinked back the intense pleasure of your soaking pussy gripping him, and to you it didn't go unnoticed.
"Mikey, I love you," you sighed, reaching your hands up to wreathe them through his curls, scratching lightly but careful to irritate his sensitive scalp.
"I love you more, I swear. God, my beautiful lady... Never get tired of havin' y' like this..." he whispered back, bucking his hips up a little to direct a slow thrust upward. He hit your sweet spot instantly and you gasped, trying not to tug hard at his hair.
Protectively, he pulled the silk comforter up around your waist, so it would both cushion your lower back and provide a little privacy if one of the maids happened to walk in. Although, it was pretty much a straight given that after last night's noisy activities, everybody would be steering clear of the master bedroom this morning. Nobody would dare go near even the doorknob, until they'd seen with their own eyes that the two of you were elsewhere.
"So, d'y' think we made a baby las' night?" Michael asked—as casually as he might ask how you'd slept, or what you wanted for breakfast—while he continued to rock into you with his slow strokes from beneath.
"Michael..." you warned, because he was no longer just moving with absent mind—he was initiating morning sex, and that really wasn't the appropriate, responsible thing to be doing right now. Especially not after last night. The two of you had a lot to do today that simply couldn't involve more lovemaking.
But Michael wasn't interested in what was most appropriate.
"How many times did I cum in y', honey, I can't remember?" he murmured in your ear, repositioning his arms to create a protective hold around your waist, his slick cock coated in more and more of your wetness with each re-entry into your heat.
"I don't remember either, baby," you giggled, but you cut yourself off with a sharp moan, arching your head back as he rolled his hips up again, so achingly slow; and you couldn't argue against the honest truth that this really was the most perfect way to start your day.
"Mikey, my legs literally don't work, I can't ride..."
"Shh, 's okay, I don't want y' to. Lay like this with me, mama. Rest on me..."
"Mmkay." You grinned, knowing you were about to get scintillating princess treatment. This exact position had actually inspired part of the ending of The Lady in My Life, back in '82. Wrapping your arms comfortably around his neck, and shuffling your weight a little to get the perfect resting position, you pressed several kisses to your man's chest as your way of confirming that you were settled.
"Mhm, jus' like that," Michael groaned, both at the feeling of your soft body against his, and at the feeling of your walls fluttering around his throbbing length. "Yes, baby, now let me—mmmfuck—"
Another deep stroke upward, where his feet were now planted on the bed to allow him to drive into you with ease. His arms mostly stayed wrapped around you, but his hands would often snake their way down to your ass, to grip and knead.
"Such a pretty ass f'me, baby... All for me, huh?"
You only mumbled into his chest, equal parts sleepy and dazed out in your arousal.
"Got the most perfect body, angel girl..." He smacked your ass a little harsher this time, and you yelped, beginning to kiss over his neck to keep quiet. You really couldn't be sounding like a whore this early in the morning, and even though Michael wasn't fucking you hard like he had been a few hours ago, often it was actually the slower, more sensual sex that had you unable to control the noises that elicited from your throat.
Michael hadn't forgotten about the question that had gone unanswered by you just a few minutes prior, as pertaining to the babymaking potentiality.
"Y' think our baby's down there, huh?"
It was a sort of unspoken agreement that you were both ready for another child. What had been unspoken had been instead prophesied and actualised in every filthy act of the night prior.
But you didn't know how to respond to such a question, because indeed, you hadn't at all talked about this. In that moment, you pictured that there very well might be a zygote currently forming itself within your fallopian tube, ready to travel to your uterus to begin its growth. Certainly, you felt there had to be—but that wasn't how the fertilisation process worked, and science told that even though you were ovulating, the amount of cum your husband had shot into you consecutively didn't increase your chances of getting pregnant.
The sex itself had surely been a statement though, on both your part and Michael's, because there had been no element of protection used, and neither of you had cared for a moment. Whether an embryo was to begin inside you or not, the way you'd made love last night was a symbol of something you had both wordlessly wanted. Three kids had always felt too little a number for Michael, because he was still set on one day having eighteen—in his ridiculous idealism—and you were also looking forward to the day your careers would come to a comfortable lull, a period that still allowed you to create and perform successfully, but didn't demand of you constant presence.
During that time, when it eventually came, you would spend so much of it making more babies, with the confidence that they wouldn't be pushed to the side in the multitude that would then exist in your household. You could spend at least two years at a time away from any industry responsibility, just living for the purpose of creating children and nurturing them.
Now, Michael was just finishing up his world tour, and you were close to the end of yours too, so even while you were both still in your prime, still the most magnetic, well-known figures in entertainment, it wouldn't be the worst time to have a baby. After all, did you really want to wait until that unknown date that your careers could begin to quieten? Neither of you knew when that would be, so wasn't it best to live in the present?
"Mikey, baby..." You moaned and whined, pulling your head back to kiss all over his face and his neck, sucking more marks into his erogenous zones, and licking over the marks already cemented into his salty skin.
You rocked a little, grinding your clit over his pelvis as his thrusts quickened—still on the slower side, his perfect girth filling you incredibly. You were amazed at how seamlessly your pussy could envelop him in this way, even after the organ had faced so much the night before. And too, you wondered how on earth this was the same body part that had produced three children (a set of twins, even) for the man plowing into you.
Michael's low grunts were even more gruff now that it was the morning, and when he wasn't busy talking you through it, those sounds were creating the perfect autonomous sensory meridian response, only adding to the flutters of sheer pleasure building up through your spine.
"Sweet girl, wanna make you feel so good..." he whispered, bringing one hand to your head again to cradle the back of it. You always smiled whenever he did.
But you were starting to place yourself in the real world again, remembering the busy day ahead.
"Baby, y'know we need to get up soon... You need to start signing those—ohh, mmph—autographs for the fans... And then we need to—"
"Aht," Michael stopped you from any further logical speaking, never ceasing to fuck up into you in those beautifully slow rolls. "There's nothin' we need to do more than this right here, mama. 'N then 'm gonna pamper y' in the tub. Y' not gonna rush us, 'm takin' it real slow, yeah?"
Instantly, at the sound of his handsome voice you were back in your daze of total arousal. "Mm... oh, baby, you hit my spot so good..."
"Yeah, I know," he whispered, kissing your nose and your bruised lips softly. You kept shuffling on him, wanting to make out but also loving the feel of being babied as you clung to his chest.
Moments passed without a word—with nothing but grunts, sighs, and moans, and Michael was moving even slower now, almost not moving at all at points. This was the beauty of sleepy sex, for you were merged as one, in the most intimate embrace you could wish for.
You played with his curls again, leaning back to press your lips to his. "Bambi," you whispered.
The doe eyes that earned him the nickname looked up into your own orbs. "Mm?"
"Are we really sayin' we want another baby?" you asked.
"Y'know 'm always ready, Tink. But it's obviously up to you."
You nodded slowly, taking a deep breath that then undercut a high moan as he hit your spot a little harsher than the last time. You cleared your throat.
"I actually think, um... I think I am ready. Y'know..." As you spoke, Michael took his hand from your ass and interlaced it with one of your hands, listening intently. "You're just about to finish touring," you continued, "and I'll be done too after next month. It'll be the first time in a while where we'll be free to somewhat relax. I think now's a better time than ever."
"Really?" Michael's eyes were shining. "I think so too, baby. You seriously want a fourth now?"
"Mhm. Really. I've been thinkin' about it for a while," you said quietly, before beaming as your man paused his thrusts, beginning to tickle you with a huge, heart-achingly childlike smile on his face. The sudden action made you squeal, and even more so as he started to smother kisses all over your chest and neck, completely overcome by the ecstasy of sheer happiness.
"Seriously, honey?!" Michael grinned, cupping your cheek and pulling you down into a kiss that you had to fight to retreat from in order to respond.
"Yes, baby," you laughed, and again he tickled you further. "Mikey, stop it!"
Without pulling out for even a second, he shifted the two of you onto your sides facing each other, and in that new position—your other favourite for morning sex, alongside spooning—he made love to you with even more passion. Legs and hands entwined, bodies entirely covered in the bruised effects of an ardent devoted love well-displayed, Michael sped up, mercilessly hitting your spot as he fantasised about how you'd both go through the process of pregnancy again, and then the process of bringing another child into the world he hoped to save. He held so much gratitude for you being the one to give him all his children—that you'd put your life on hold in so many ways for at least a year, and he couldn't wait to help you through it all again.
As he held your leg up to hit deeper, he smirked at the sight of your thigh.
His amused expression confused you. "What's so funny, baby? Oh fuck—"
"Your thigh, honey," Michael chuckled, slowing down his pace slightly to talk. "There's bruises near the top, look. That hasn't happened in a while."
Your mouth shot open—sure enough, there were more bruises you hadn't even noticed, in the shape of Michael's fingerprints, from where he'd held your legs in place during mating press and every other position where he'd needed to keep your ever-moving body still.
"Michael, what the—? Thank God they're so high nobody's gonna s—ohhh, baby, stop it, 'm gonna scream—"
He only chuckled more, pounding into you harder now as the bedframe began to shake. While one hand held your leg up, his other was resting over your womb, moving from there to your clit and back again, as he thought of nothing but the image of you swollen with his fourth child.
"I love you, oh God, I love you..." he repeated, and you said each word back with sincere conviction.
"My baby," you whined.
"Perfect mama... 'm so happy y' givin' me another... I don't deserve you."
"You deserve all that's beautiful, honey. You're so beautiful..." you sighed, eyes shut in pleasure as you grabbed his hand to hold it again.
"Y' gonna cum, pretty angel?" he murmured in your ear, unfortunately needing to let go of your hand almost immediately because your clit needed him more.
He rubbed in figure-eights, bringing you closer and closer to your peak, all the while never ceasing to whisper his devotion and gratitude for your body and your soul.
"Oh, Mikey, yes—"
"Yeah, tha's it, let it all go for me, baby girl... C'mon..."
A few moments later, and the coil in your abdomen split open, releasing its tightness into white hot bouts of pleasure. The sensation coursed through your veins, coating your husband's shaft in even more wet slick and leaving you breathless, falling forward into his chest as he chased his own release.
Soon enough he was there, and your cunt was filled to the brim with hot ropes of his seed, aside noisy groans that filled the huge bedroom—because if you were bad enough at keeping quiet during the act, Michael was even worse.
You laid there in each other's arms for a couple of silent minutes, clinging, wanting to stay in the embrace for a lifetime. Michael ran his hands up and down your torso, and then his index finger over your wedding ring, as he always liked to do post-sex. He brought your leg to rest over his thigh, breathing in your scent as you breathed in his.
You found yourself reminiscing to him over that time you broke a bed together during your honeymoon at Disney, because you'd truly been close to experiencing that same incident again last night. You laughed at the memory as you each traced over your matching tattoos: your first initial in cursive on the inside of his wrist, and his on the inside of your own wrist too. You’d got them tatted a few years ago after a drunken rendezvous, and you’d seen it as a great achievement that you’d managed to convince Michael to actually be on board with a tattoo, even though it was only small.
But there were two issues that disrupted your sweet creampie-cuddling session.
"Baby, you need to pull out."
"Why?"
"Because first I need to pee, and then I need to take off these damn sheets before Maria has to." You shook your head in disbelief at the mess you could already see parts of dotted around the mattress. "I refuse to let her deal with this, oh my God."
Michael laughed. Maria was one of your maids, and you absolutely detested the image of her having to clean your cum-ridden bed herself. You might have been a whore for your husband, but you wouldn't be so disgusting to make others subject to the sight—even if they had been unintentionally subject to the sounds. There were indeed stains of Michael's release and your own sticky liquid all throughout different areas of the bed, and from where you lay in his arms, you guessed correctly that it must be way worse than the minimal parts you could currently see from your angle.
"Alright, fine," Michael sighed, pulling out slowly. You both hissed, and of course when you shuffled to sit up, more thick cum oozed from your entrance, staining another inch of fabric. There had been no point in attempting to avoid that though, because the bed was already messy enough.
Turning to dangle your legs over the side, you winced at the aches, then stood up on the carpet below. Or—attempted to stand up, rather; because as soon as you tried to, your knees buckled, and you quite literally almost fell to the floor.
"Ow, shit—!"
This was even worse than a day-long dance rehearsal, or the most difficult workout routine you'd ever put yourself through. What the fuck? Michael had never taken you so intensely before—and that was a significant statement to make, given that he was such an intense lover.
"Mama, y' okay?" he asked, brows furrowed, but he'd expected this. There had been many a time in the past where he assigned himself the duty of carrying you around everywhere after a night of hard sex.
As he looked at you, hunched over, attempting to walk with legs that felt nearly limp and effectively useless, he noticed a matching bruise on your other thigh and smiled to himself. Without wasting a moment, he was out of bed as quick as ever.
"C'mere. Up," he ordered gently, standing naked beside you, arms outstretched and prepared to pick you up into a bridal carry. That he did, while you hummed into his neck, so appreciative of his gentlemanly efforts that always followed what could only be deemed the very opposite of gentle.
"There you go, honeybaby," Michael smiled, kissing your forehead over and over as he maneuvred your spent body into the ensuite. After having peed, you sorted out the sheets, tugging them off the mattress with the silk comforter that was also partly affected, before stuffing them into a bag that you'd deal with later. Meanwhile, Michael was preparing a bubble bath, and lighting candles around the tub for ambience, even though it was eleven o'clock in the morning.
At the mention of a bubble bath, the name reminded you of a certain somebody. "Mikey, where's Bubbles?" you called from the bedroom.
"Bill's lookin' after him!" Michael called back over the noise of running water. "He's not gonna run in 'n interrupt us, don't worry!"
You laughed to yourself. You were always so welcoming and understanding of Michael's need to have all sorts of animals around in the house, but sometimes it got a little stressful. Not knowing whether a bird or a snake or a damn chimpanzee would face you when you turned wasn't the most calming experience you could expect to have in your mansion, but you put up with it all for Michael's sake.
After he bathed you that morning, so sensually and passionately that you very nearly begged him to take you again, you both tried your best to make yourselves look as presentable as possible. It took a very long time, but eventually you were done.
Or at least you assumed you were; because of course the conversation surrounding the state of Michael's back was had only in the earlier morning, a good twelve hours before he was to go onstage and forget all about the evidence of your wild night together, displaying the extent of it to the world.
Then, when you joined him on said stage for a sensual duet, you didn't hesitate to run your hands all over the artwork you'd produced. You would be chastised for such promiscuity in the weeks that followed, but you never regretted the display one bit; nor did you regret the embryo that indeed began to grow that same night, into your welcoming womb.
Content:18+ BadEra Michael x Reader, fingering , use of a sex toy, domMichael, subReader, established relationship | use of dashes , my work is not ai.
Summary:What happens when you give Michael his 3rd year anniversary gift and it turns out you accidentally mixed up the gift with a new toy you had just bought to use when he goes back on tour?
————————————————————————
It was the final stretch of Michael’s three-week break from the grueling Bad Tour, and today marked a beautiful milestone: your third anniversary together.
You had spent the entire day searching for the perfect gift. Michael was a man who valued deep, sentimental meaning far above any price tag, so you knew exactly how to tug at his heartstrings. You finally found it: a pair of matching chain lockets. Inside each one was the very first photograph the two of you had ever taken together. It was the perfect remedy for those long, aching stretches on the road when you both spent days simply longing for each other's touch.
But the lockets weren't the only thing you acquired today.
Before this brief three-week break, you had endured two agonizing months apart from him. That long separation had brewed a deep, heavy sexual frustration inside you. You had tried to soothe those lonely nights on your own, desperately wishing to fill the void that only Michael could truly satisfy, but your own fingers just couldn't replicate his magic.
Driven by sheer longing, you had quietly slipped into an adult store earlier that afternoon. Blushing and slightly ashamed, you kept your eyes glued to the floor, unable to even look the cashier in the face as you purchased a sleek, blue rubber dildo. The moment the transaction was done, you hurried back to the waiting car, quickly hiding the box to ensure Michael’s personal driver wouldn't catch a single glimpse of your secret purchase.
With both gifts safely tucked away, your heart raced with anticipation for the night ahead.
You two were staying in a luxury private hotel suite and you finally made it back to the boyfriend you oh missed so much.
You dropped the heavy shopping bags onto a nearby armchair, not caring where they landed, and practically threw yourself across the plush mattress. You tumbled straight into his waiting arms, burying your face into the crook of his neck. The familiar, comforting scent of him—mixed with a hint of the expensive cologne he always wore—washed over you instantly.
Michael’s arms wrapped tightly around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. He let out a soft, low chuckle, the vibration rumbling pleasantly against your skin as he squeezed you close.
"Someone's enthusiastic," he teased, his voice a gentle, velvety purr against your ear. He began to stroke your hair, his long fingers gently untangling the strands. "I only let you out of my sight for two hours, Angel, and you act like it's been a whole year."
"It felt like a year," you mumbled into his chest, tightening your hold on him.
He laughed again, kissing the top of your head before leaning back slightly so he could look down into your eyes. Those deep, dark eyes of his danced with warmth and affection. He glanced past your shoulder toward the mountain of bags sitting on the chair, a playful, knowing smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
"What did I tell you before you left this morning?" Michael asked, raising a gentle, questioning eyebrow. "I distinctly remember saying 'do not buy me anything, I have everything I need right here.' But look at you. You just can't help yourself, can you?"
You couldn't help but roll your eyes playfully, though your heart swelled. It was just like him to be so selfless. Meanwhile, the closet of the hotel suite was already bursting at the seams with the spoils of his own affection. Just yesterday, he had showered you with ten gorgeous new designer dresses, seven pairs of elegant heels, and a collection of fifteen different perfumes. By the time you had finished sampling the last bottle, your nose was so overwhelmed you couldn't even tell the scents apart anymore.
"You don't get a say today, Michael. It’s our anniversary," you countered, sitting up slightly and resting your hands on his broad chest. "Besides, you started it. You practically bought out half the boutiques in the city for me."
"That's different," Michael insisted softly, his smile widening as he reached up to gently brush his thumb across your cheek. "Spoiling you is my job. I love seeing you happy. I don't need gifts, Angel. Having you with me is the only present I care about."
You felt a familiar warmth rush to your cheeks, your heart doing a little flip at how incredibly sweet he was.
Okay, okay, I bought you a couple of colognes and outfits that I think would look absolutely cute on you," you admitted, rolling your eyes playfully. "But I stumbled across something that I think you're going to absolutely love, Mikey.”
You said this as you skipped back towards your shopping bags, completely caught up in the excitement and not even paying attention to the specific bag you grabbed.
“I can’t wait to see what ya got me baby,” Michael said, chuckling at your pure excitement.
You handed him the bag. He reached for the box inside and quickly opened it, and then—
Michael just stared at you, his mouth ajar, with his eyebrow raised high. He absolutely did not expect to see what layed in that box.
Your heart dropped instantly. Was it a bad gift? Did he not like it?
Confused, you walked over to get a better look at your gift inside the box, and then you finally realized why Michael was so appalled at what was inside. Your heart started racing wildly. How were you supposed to explain to him your reasoning for buying a sex toy without getting completely embarrassed?
“I- uh, Michael, I’m so sorry, this isn’t your gift. I must’ve got the bags mixed up,” you stammered out, pushing out a deeply awkward, nervous laugh. “Ugh, this is so embarrassing… I got the toy because when you're away on tour, I—I, I have a hard time pleasing myself. I wanted to see if this would fix my sexual frustrations.”
The silence in the luxury suite was deafening for a split second as Michael’s gaze shifted from the vibrant blue dildo up to your burning, red face.
Then, his shoulders began to shake. Michael’s hand flew to his mouth, trying to stifle the sound, but a high-pitched, breathless giggle escaped his lips anyway. Within moments, he was completely losing it—burying his face back into the pillow, his shoulders heaving as he laughed that beautiful, infectious laugh.
"Michael!" you whined, hiding your face in your hands. "Stop laughing! It's not funny, I want to die right now!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Angel," he gasped out, trying to catch his breath as he sat up on the bed, his eyes watering from laughing so hard. He set the box down safely on the nightstand. "I just... I was expecting a sweater or a watch, and I open it up and see that. You should have seen the look on your face!"
He reached out, grabbing your wrists and gently pulling your hands away from your face. His touch was warm and reassuring. His teasing smile softened into something much deeper, warmer, and undeniably intense.
"Hey," he said softly, his voice dropping to that low, intimate register that always made your knees go weak. He pulled you closer until you were sitting on the edge of the mattress right beside him. "Look at me. You don't ever have to be embarrassed around me. Especially not about that."
He ran a hand down your arm, his thumb rubbing the back of your hand. The playful amusement in his eyes completely melted away, replaced by a dark, heavy hunger.
"Two months is a long time," Michael murmured. "I know how hard it is. I've been agonizing out there on the road, too. Every single night, wishing I was right here with you."
He leaned in close, his breath warm against your lips, sending a thrill of pure electricity straight down your spine.
"But I'm here now, Angel," he whispered against your mouth, his hands moving to grip your waist firmly, pulling you right into his lap. "And as long as I'm here... you won't be needing any rubber toys to fix your frustrations. Let me take care of you."
His hands gripped your hips with sudden, fierce intensity as his lips pressed harder against yours. The kiss turned deep, heavy, and demanding, filled with the pent-up longing of two agonizing months apart. Michael was pouring every ounce of his desire into you, determined to make this a night that would burn into your memory—something vivid and intoxicating for you to reminisce on during those lonely tour nights, a memory to replay in your mind whenever you had to turn to that toy.
The mere thought of you using it, of you thinking of him pumping his length into you vigorously while you sought relief, sent a jolt of pure heat straight to his core. He swelled hard and heavy against his pajama pants, the friction instantly fueling his hunger.
The rich, intoxicating aroma of his cologne flooded your senses, making you let out a soft, helpless moan right into his mouth. You caught his lower lip between your teeth, tugging and biting down just enough to make Michael groan deep in his throat.
In response, he slipped his tongue into your mouth, asserting his dominance as his hands slid from your hips to the small of your back. With a smooth, powerful surge, he lifted you right into his lap. Suddenly, you were straddling him on the bed, your hands reaching up to grip the headboard for balance.
Your skirt had ridden up, leaving nothing but the thin barrier of your underwear between you. Unable to help yourself, you ground down against him, feeling the rigid length of his hard-on pressing perfectly against your core. The friction was electric. Arousal was already slicking your panties, the damp warmth coating your thighs and soaking right through the soft fabric of his pajama pants, leaving no doubt about just how badly you needed him.
He took one hand off your hip, his fingers sliding down to push your damp panties to the side. The cool air of the room hit your bare skin for only a fraction of a second before the warm pad of his middle finger made contact with your swollen clit. He rubbed it teasingly, using a slow, deliberate pressure that made your back instantly arch in response.
“S-shit, Mikey,” you gasped out, your voice cracking as a fresh wave of wetness coated his fingers.
“Spread your legs wider for me, Angel,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly, commanding whisper. He lightly tapped your inner thigh with his slick, wet fingers, guiding you to open up completely for him.
Michael loved nothing more than making a beautiful mess of you with just his hands. He knew exactly how much you adored his touch—how those long, slender fingers of his could reach deep, hitting spots you didn’t even know could be touched, completely overwhelming your senses.
Slowly, deliberately, he slipped two fingers deep inside your seeping heat. The sudden, thick fullness made you bite your lip, a high-pitched whimper escaping your throat. Your hands flew off the headboard, dropping down to grip his broad shoulders tightly as your fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, anchoring yourself as he began to move his fingers inside you.
He started pumping his fingers inside you faster, the wet, rhythmic sounds filling the quiet room as your juices splattered across your inner thighs. The sensation was overwhelming, a tidal wave of friction that threatened to pull you under.
“I- I can’t handle it, it’s too much, Michael,” you gasped out, your muscles tightening as you instinctively tried to close your legs against the overstimulating pleasure.
“You can take it, Angel, I know you can… take it for me,” he growled out, his voice thick with dominance. He completely loved the scene unfolding in front of him. He arched his fingers deep inside your folds, deliberately curling them up to strike your G-spot with precision.
“You like how I play with you, baby?” he asked, a smug, dark expression plastered across his beautiful face.
“S-shut up,” you forced out through a heavy chain of moans, weakly reaching out to flick a finger against his forehead.
He let out a low chuckle at your stubbornness, and right then, a wicked idea flickered into his mind. Without warning, he slipped his fingers completely out of you, earning an immediate, needy gasp from your lips at the sudden emptiness.
“I want to try something.. grab that toy,” he said, his thumb hooking under your chin to lift your face.
You swallowed hard, your chest heaving. “W-why?” you spewed out, your heart thumping against your ribs with intense anticipation.
Looking up into his eyes, you saw a heavy, playful smile plastered over his face—the look of a man who had just come up with a beautifully freakish idea.
“I want you to use it in front of me. I want to see what’s going to be taking my place once I leave,” he said, his gaze shifting over to point directly at the vibrant blue dildo resting in the box on the nightstand.
“God, Michael, you're so nasty,” you nervously chuckled, a rush of heat flooding your entire body. You couldn't believe you were actually about to put yourself on display, completely exposed, using a toy right in front of him.
Your hands trembled slightly as you reached over to the nightstand, your fingers wrapping around the sleek, cool blue rubber. The contrast between the cold toy and your burning skin made you shiver. You looked back at Michael, your face completely flushed, half-hoping he was joking.
But he wasn't. He leaned back against the headboard, crossing his arms over his chest, his dark eyes wide and fixed entirely on you. A heavy, possessive grin rested on his lips.
"Go on, Angel," he murmured, his voice a low, encouraging purr. "Show me."
Swallowing down your nervousness, you shifted on his lap, spreading your knees wide on either side of his hips so he had an unobstructed view. You brought the tip of the dildo down to your core, tracing it through the thick, slick wetness his fingers had left behind. The toy instantly became coated in your own heat, glistening under the soft lights of the hotel suite.
Michael let out a low, shaky breath at the sight, his jaw tightening as he watched you.
Slowly, you aligned the tip and began to push it inside. A soft, breathless gasp escaped your lips as the thick rubber began to stretch you, filling the void his fingers had left. It was a completely different sensation—fuller, firmer, and lacking his natural warmth—but the sight of Michael watching you with such intense hunger made it incredibly erotic.
"Look at you," Michael whispered, his eyes locked onto the point of entry, watching the blue rubber slide into your slick, pink folds. His chest heaved as his breathing turned shallow. "You're so tight around it. Is that how you're going to think about me on tour?"
"Mmph, yes," you whined, your hands gripping his thighs for support as you began to slide the toy in and out, establishing a slow, agonizing rhythm.
The wet, squelching sounds of the rubber moving against your slick heat filled the quiet room. You closed your eyes, leaning your head back as the pleasure started to build again, but Michael gently reached up, his long fingers cupping your jaw to force your eyes open.
"Don't close your eyes, Angel. Look at me," he commanded softly, his gaze burning into yours. "I want to see your face when you do it."
You whimpered, picking up the pace just a bit. Your hips instinctively bucked against the toy, your slickness splattering against his pajama pants with every thrust. Watching his reaction—seeing the pure, unadulterated arousal flushing his cheeks and the way his eyes tracked your every movement—completely erased your embarrassment, replacing it with a desperate, overwhelming need to please him.
The friction of the rubber moving against your hyper-sensitive walls was getting to be too much. You picked up the pace, your breath catching in your throat as the wet, sloppy sounds of the dildo bottoming out against your slick core echoed through the room. Your hips were rolling now, completely losing control of the rhythm as you chased the edge.
Michael’s eyes darkened, the pupils completely dilated as he watched the blue toy disappear and reappear between your thighs, coated heavily in your glistening moisture. His hands came down to grip the mattress, his knuckles turning white as he forced himself not to touch you yet.
"Ah—Mikey, look," you cried out, a desperate, breathless sound escaping you. "Look at what you're making me do."
"I'm looking, baby," he choked out, his voice incredibly strained. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. The sight of you completely uninhibited, riding a toy right in his lap while looking him dead in the eyes, was pushing him to his absolute limit. "You look so beautiful like this. So wet for me."
You let out a sharp moan, your upper body trembling as you thrust the dildo deep inside and held it there, your internal muscles squeezing it tightly. You were so close, the overstimulation threatening to shatter you right then and there.
"Please," you whined, your eyes welling with tears of pure pleasure as you looked down at him. "Please, Michael, I want you. It's not the same. I don't want this, I want you."
That was his breaking point.
With a low, feral growl, Michael reached out and ripped the blue toy right out of your hands, tossing it carelessly onto the floor where it landed with a dull thud. Before you could even gasp at the sudden emptiness, his large, warm hands locked around your waist. He flipped you over in one swift, powerful motion, pinning your back against the mattress and instantly looming over you.
His chest was heaving, his pajama pants tight and strained against his rigid length. He looked down at you, his dark curls falling into his eyes, his expression completely consumed by a raw, dominant hunger.
"Now," he whispered, his breath hot against your neck as he reached down to strip his pants out of the way. "Let me show you the difference."
Dalila Ross is a soul reborn in the past as Diana Ross's niece. She's not exactly a kind-hearted person, but she loves Michael Jackson above all else and wants to see him happy.
She secretly wants to become his wife, but we won't talk about that.
Chapter 1
Michael had never seen a building as big as Motown.
To him, it felt like the kind of place where everything happened at once.
The hallways were always busy. Some people hurried by carrying guitars, others lugged giant reels of tape, stacks of papers, or heavy boxes. Music drifted out of different rooms, people talked over one another, and telephones rang constantly.
It was amazing.
And just a little scary.
The Jackson 5 had signed with the label only a few weeks earlier, and Joe Jackson made sure his sons never forgot it.
"You have to prove you deserve to be here now. You can't make mistakes."
Michael loved singing more than anything in the world.
But sometimes he wished it didn't come with so much pressure.
He was only ten years old.
Sometimes he'd see other kids playing outside and wonder what it was like not to worry about getting everything exactly right.
Even so...
There was one thing that made those days much happier.
Dalila.
She was ten too, and one of the label's young artists.
From the very first day they met, talking to her had felt easy.
She was the first friend his own age who wasn't one of his brothers.
And unlike most kids, Dalila loved music just as much as he did.
She was always talking about songs, humming little melodies, and even writing her own lyrics.
Michael thought that was the most amazing thing in the world.
---
That morning, Barry Gordy had him sit on a tall chair inside the recording studio.
It was so high that his feet dangled in the air without touching the floor.
Barry pointed at the huge mixing console.
"See these controls? Each one changes a different part of the music."
Michael stared with wide eyes.
There were colorful buttons.
Blinking lights.
Meters that bounced up and down.
Huge tape reels spinning without stopping.
It looked like the control panel of a spaceship.
He couldn't stop asking questions.
"What does this button do?"
"What's that light for?"
"How do you make the voices so loud?"
Barry laughed and answered every question patiently.
But after a few minutes, Michael found himself looking through the studio window instead.
There was Dalila.
She wore headphones that looked almost too big for her head.
She held a sheet of paper with the lyrics while she waited for the producer's signal.
When the music began, she closed her eyes.
Then she started to sing.
Michael froze.
He already knew Dalila had a beautiful voice.
But watching her record a song she had written herself felt different.
They were both only ten years old.
To Michael, that seemed almost impossible.
She wrote real songs.
Just like grown-ups.
When the recording ended, the producer pressed the talkback button.
"Excellent, Dalila. I think we've got it."
She smiled happily and stepped out of the booth.
The very first thing she did was pick up a small cup of black tea that had been waiting for her.
"It's good for your throat," she explained.
Michael made a face.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course. Try it."
He took the tiniest sip.
His eyes went wide immediately.
"That's awful!"
Dalila laughed so hard she almost dropped her cup.
Michael handed it back as fast as he could.
"How can you drink that?"
"I'm used to it."
Jermaine, who had been lounging on the couch watching everything, chuckled.
"I keep telling everyone she's got the weirdest taste in food."
Dalila folded her arms and pretended to be offended.
Michael didn't like hearing that.
As far as he was concerned, nobody should call his best friend weird.
But...
If he was being honest...
She really did like things that almost no other ten-year-old seemed to enjoy.
Black tea.
Big, complicated books.
And she was completely obsessed with eating vegetables.
Still, Michael thought those things only made her even more interesting.
When work was finally over, they could go back to being two ordinary ten-year-olds.
Dalila came out wearing a light jacket and a huge smile.
"Come on! We'll miss the beginning!"
That afternoon there was a special screening of Peter Pan.
Michael had already seen the movie more times than he could count.
He knew whole scenes by heart.
Even so, seeing it on the big screen was different.
The screen seemed enormous.
And it was much more fun with Dalila sitting beside him.
The two of them left the Motown building chatting the whole way.
They climbed into the car driven by her bodyguard.
Jermaine was there too.
He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
Joe Jackson had insisted that he go along to keep an eye on the two kids.
---
In Michael's mind, Dalila was simply the best person in the whole world.
And there was a very good reason for that.
The next day, one of his biggest dreams was finally coming true.
He was going to Disneyland.
Dalila had convinced her aunt to talk to Joe Jackson until he finally agreed.
Michael had no idea how she'd managed it.
All he knew was that she'd planned the whole thing because she wanted him to go with her.
She had even drawn a map of the park.
She marked which rides looked the most exciting, which paths would save them the most time, and which attractions they absolutely had to visit first.
Michael looked at that map as if it were a treasure map.
At that moment, Disneyland seemed like the most magical place in the world.
But having Dalila as his best friend...
Maybe that was even more magical.
And in a way, it's a mental exercise to write Dalila, since she's eccentric but at the same time not eccentric enough to be considered strange.
Dalila is very famous right now, to the point that Joe doesn't mind Michael missing some training sessions to meet with her.
Joe sees her as a perfect artist who would never disobey adults.
i think if hollanov decide to have more than one kid at least one of them will be a goalie. and you know that kid is going first in whichever draft they end up in because they practiced on shane fucking hollander and ilya fucking rozanov (because if your dads were casually the two best centres in the nhl and two of the most successful hockey players on the planet, then you defend that net like your life depends on it)
everyone else in that years draft thinks this hollander-rozanov child got picked first out of nepotism (because who the fuck is that desperate to pick a goalie first overall in the draft?) until one day that team’s starting goalie is injured and all of a sudden your scoring chances have gone to hell because you’re trying to get the puck past cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the gates of hell
What's going on in this fandom? I open Tumblr expecting to find new fanfiction, but all I see are messages from offended people who are right to be upset since it's not very ethical to pretend to be Black.
I really wanted to understand how this started.
( I'm Brazilian, so I don't understand certain aspects of American racism. )
ೃMY BROTHER'S KEEPER ᝰ
As the Victory Tour pulls Michael back beneath the weight of the Jackson family name, the one person who truly sees the man behind the spectacle is Marianne—his brilliant, fiercely driven childhood friend and his older brother’s longtime love. Their bond has always existed in the dangerous space between innocence and desire, built from quiet afternoons, unfinished confessions and moments neither of them has ever managed to forget.
But when fractures begin to appear in Marianne’s carefully planned life, Michael must decide whether patience is still a virtue—or merely fear disguised as loyalty. Set against the glamour and turmoil of 1984, this is a story of ambition, betrayal and a love determined to write its own perfect timing.
warnings: michael is mr steal yo girl.
Michael had always considered patience one of his greatest virtues, something cultivated rather than inherited, sharpened through years of learning when to speak, when to remain silent, and when to let the world believe he had surrendered simply because he had chosen not to strike. He knew how to bide his time, how to cradle longing without allowing it to spill messily from his hands, how to wait for that rare and shining alignment in which desire, circumstance, and opportunity finally stood beneath the same moon.
Lately, however, he had begun to suspect that perfect timing was nothing more than a pretty lie invented by frightened people, a gilded excuse for those too timid to reach for what they wanted. Life did not often part its curtains and invite a man onto the stage; sometimes he had to slip through the wings unseen, seize his cue, and make the moment his own before someone else decided the performance was over.
His eyes lifted slowly from the open book resting across his lap, the printed words having long since dissolved into meaningless shapes beneath his distracted gaze, and settled instead upon Marianne.
She sat tucked into the far corner of the reading nook, curled beneath the amber spill of a nearby lamp as though she belonged within the pages of something softer than reality. One leg was folded beneath her, the other drawn loosely toward her chest, while her fingers rested delicately along the spine of her novel. Evening light pressed against the windows behind her, turning the glass to burnished gold and outlining the gentle slope of her face, the curve of her cheek, and the dark fan of her lashes as she read. She was so deeply absorbed that she appeared removed from the room entirely, carried somewhere distant by the book in her hands, unaware that Michael had not turned a page in nearly ten minutes.
Marianne.
His brother’s girl.
The words sat bitterly upon his tongue despite never being spoken aloud, an ugly little title too small and crude to contain everything she was. She was only a year older than Michael, close enough that the difference felt almost imaginary, yet she belonged to Jackie—or, at least, that was what everyone assumed. That was the arrangement the family understood, the truth Michael was expected to honour, no matter how frequently his gaze lingered or how naturally Marianne seemed to settle beside him during quiet afternoons like this one.
She was Jackie’s.
The reminder returned with the persistence of a church bell, tolling through every tender thought Michael dared to entertain.
Marianne shifted in her seat, adjusting the collar of her blouse with an absentminded tug, and the fabric slipped just far enough to reveal a dark purple bruise blooming along the tender skin of her neck.
Michael’s eyes found it immediately.
The mark was unmistakable, vulgar in its placement and possession, a thumbprint of intimacy left behind for anyone observant enough to notice. It marred her skin like spilled ink across an otherwise flawless page, and although Michael lowered his gaze before she could catch him staring, something hot and unpleasant tightened behind his ribs.
Jealousy was an undignified emotion, he knew that. It was sharp-edged and childish, a green-eyed creature that gnawed through reason until even the gentlest man began imagining cruelties. Still, the sight of Jackie’s claim upon her stirred something primitive within him, something he kept carefully hidden beneath lowered lashes, soft smiles, and the carefully cultivated sweetness everyone mistook for innocence.
Yet beneath the jealousy lived another certainty, one Michael had arrived at not through bitterness but observation.
It was only a matter of time.
A dog remained a dog regardless of the ribbon tied around its neck or the fine house in which it was permitted to sleep. It could be groomed, trained, praised for learning to sit quietly at its master’s feet, but eventually instinct would call louder than discipline. Sooner or later, it would catch the scent of something new and bolt toward it, forgetting every promise it had been taught to keep.
Jackie had always been that way.
Charm had merely taught him how to disguise it.
He could play the devoted man when devotion suited him, could wear loyalty like a tailored suit when Marianne was close enough to admire the fit, but Michael knew his brother’s appetites too well. Jackie’s attention had always been easily captured and even more easily carried elsewhere, drawn toward novelty the way moths surrendered themselves to flame. Marianne might believe herself the exception, the woman capable of domesticating him, but Michael understood that wandering was not a habit Jackie wished to break; it was stitched into him, threaded through bone and blood.
Eventually, he would stray.
Eventually, he would wound her.
And when he did, Michael would be there.
The thought should have shamed him more than it did.
He watched Marianne turn another page, her brow pinching slightly in concentration, and felt his resolve coil quietly within him, patient but no longer passive. She was too good for Jackie, too thoughtful, too tender, too full of quiet light to be handed over to a man who treated love like something plentiful and replaceable. Jackie would squander her affection because he had never understood the rarity of being loved by someone like Marianne.
Michael understood.
He understood so deeply that it frightened him.
She was too good for his brother, far too good, and perhaps the ugliest truth of all was that Michael had begun to believe she might have been meant for him instead.
“Michael, you’re supposed to be readin’,” Marianne huffed, lifting her gaze from the book balanced across her knees. “You the one came up with this whole book-club business.”
A delicate frown pulled at her mouth, though the amusement flickering behind her eyes betrayed it, softening the reprimand before it ever had the chance to sting. Her curls had been swept away from her face with a wide white headband, the dark spirals gathering around it like clouds pressing against a pale crescent moon, and the afternoon sun spilled through the window beside her, laying warm hands across her brown skin until she seemed to glow beneath its attention.
Michael blinked.
For one foolish second, he remained exactly as she had found him, his book lying open and neglected in his lap, one thumb still tucked between pages he had not properly read. Then he lowered his eyes as though the words might suddenly rearrange themselves into an alibi.
“I am readin’,” he insisted, his voice soft with false offence.
Marianne glanced pointedly at the unmoving page before looking back at him.
“You been on that same page since I sat down.”
“I like to take my time.”
“You like to stare.”
The accusation landed lightly, dressed in teasing, but Michael still felt heat climb the back of his neck. He shifted against the cushions, attempting to summon the dignified patience he wore so well in every other room, though it was difficult to appear composed while Marianne watched him with one eyebrow raised and sunshine caught along the bridge of her nose.
“I wasn’t starin’ at you.”
Her frown deepened into something theatrical.
“Mm-hm.”
“I was thinkin’.”
“Apparently very hard.”
Michael’s mouth twitched despite himself, and Marianne returned to her book with a quiet little hum of victory, smoothing one finger beneath the line she had lost. The movement disturbed the loose collar of her blouse again, revealing the edge of that bruise along her neck, and whatever smile had begun to form on Michael’s face vanished as quickly as breath against glass.
He looked back down at his book before she could notice.
The words waited for him patiently.
Marianne did not.
Marianne studied him for another moment before releasing a quiet sigh, the sound warm with concern rather than impatience as she slipped one finger between the pages of her book to hold her place.
“What you thinkin’ ’bout?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as her expression softened. “You wanna talk t’me ’bout it?”
That was Marianne’s trouble, Michael thought; she never knew when to leave well enough alone, not when she believed someone she loved was carrying something too heavy by themselves. She would pry at silence with the gentlest hands, never demanding and never forcing, merely remaining close enough that eventually the truth grew tired of hiding from her. Jackie complained about it sometimes, accused her of asking too many questions or searching for meanings that were not there, but Michael had always treasured that part of her. Marianne paid attention. She listened not only to what a person said, but to the words they swallowed, the pauses they stretched too long, and the subtle changes in their breathing when a conversation wandered too near something tender.
She had been home for nearly a week now, temporarily rescued from the stone buildings, crowded libraries, and merciless workload of Harvard Law, though rescued was perhaps too generous a word when Michael had practically pleaded with her to come.
Marianne rarely found the time to visit anymore. Between lectures, examinations, internships, and the towering expectations she placed upon herself, her days were portioned out with the ruthless precision of courtroom evidence. Even her telephone calls had become shorter, squeezed between study sessions and obligations, leaving Michael lingering beside the receiver after she hung up as though her voice might somehow remain trapped within it.
He had missed her.
He had told her so, too, although he had disguised the confession beneath laughter and the harmless title they had used for years.
His dear friend.
That was what he had called her over the telephone, his voice stretching softly through the miles separating Massachusetts from California as he asked whether Harvard truly needed every minute of her life.
“You act like I disappeared,” she had teased him.
“Might as well have,” Michael had murmured, only half joking. “Don’t nobody ever see you no more.”
Perhaps it had been the quiet disappointment in his voice, or perhaps Marianne had been more exhausted than she was willing to admit, but she had found a way to carve two precious weeks from the life awaiting her. Two weeks at Hayvenhurst before Michael and his brothers returned to the road for the next stretch of the Victory Tour; fourteen days that had seemed plentiful when she first arrived, yet were already passing through his fingers like water.
Now she sat only a few feet away from him, wrapped in sunlight and genuine concern, asking what occupied his mind as though she had not been the answer from the beginning.
Michael lowered his gaze to the open book in his lap, tracing the edge of the page with his thumb while he searched for something safe enough to offer her.
“Nothin’ important.”
Marianne’s eyes narrowed.
“Michael.”
The way she said his name nearly made him smile, carrying the measured warning of a woman already halfway to becoming a lawyer, though her mouth remained too soft and her eyes too affectionate for the interrogation to frighten him.
“What?” he asked, widening his eyes with practiced innocence.
“Don’t ‘what’ me. I know when you got somethin’ turnin’ around in that head of yours.”
“You know everything now?”
“Not everything.” She settled more comfortably against the cushions and closed her book, surrendering her place entirely to give him her full attention. “But I know you.”
The words entered him quietly and lodged somewhere dangerous.
Michael looked at her then, really looked, and wondered whether she understood how carelessly she handled his heart. She said such things without ceremony, without pausing to consider what they might mean to a man who had spent months missing her voice and counting the days until she returned. She offered affection as naturally as sunlight offered warmth, never realizing that he had begun turning toward it like a flower starved through winter.
His gaze drifted briefly toward the bruise at her neck before he caught himself, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.
Marianne noticed.
Her hand rose instinctively, fingertips brushing the place his eyes had betrayed, and an unfamiliar self-consciousness passed across her face before she adjusted the collar of her blouse to conceal it.
Michael wished she had not.
Not because he wanted to see it, but because the hurried movement transformed the mark into a secret shared unwillingly between them.
“You and Jackie all right?” he asked.
The question sounded casual enough, but Michael heard the thinness of his own performance, every word stretched carefully across something far sharper beneath.
Marianne’s brows drew together. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
“You asked.”
“I’m just makin’ conversation.”
“No, you ain’t.” A small smile touched her lips, although uncertainty remained behind it. “You’ve never made conversation a day in your life. You investigate.”
Michael gave a quiet laugh, lowering his head as though she had merely caught him misbehaving rather than standing at the edge of a confession he had no right to make.
“Maybe Harvard’s rubbin’ off on you.”
“Maybe you ain’t as hard to read as you think.”
That silenced him.
Outside the window, the late-afternoon breeze stirred the leaves, and their shadows trembled across the walls like restless hands. Somewhere deeper inside the house, one of his brothers laughed loudly, followed by the distant closing of a door, but within the little nook the world remained suspended, narrowed to the space between Marianne’s patient gaze and Michael’s carefully guarded mouth.
He wanted to tell her that Jackie did not deserve the faith she placed in him, that men who loved properly did not leave their women questioning where they stood, and that a bruise upon her neck could not convince Michael of devotion when he had watched his brother’s eyes wander toward every beautiful woman who entered a room. He wanted to tell her that she deserved constancy, reverence, and a love that did not require her to make excuses on its behalf.
Most dangerously of all, he wanted to tell her he could give it to her.
Instead, Michael closed his book.
“I was thinkin’,” he began slowly, allowing his eyes to settle upon hers, “that two weeks ain’t very long.”
Marianne blinked, evidently unprepared for the simplicity of his answer. “It’s longer than I usually stay.”
“That don’t make it long.”
“I have to go back eventually, Michael. Some of us got classes.”
“And some of us got a tour,” he replied, the faintest trace of bitterness entering his voice. “I know.”
Her expression softened immediately. “You don’t wanna go back on the road?”
Michael looked toward the window, watching the sun slip lower behind the trees as though evening itself had been listening and decided to hurry them along.
“I don’t wanna leave certain things behind.”
Marianne regarded him in silence, something thoughtful passing through her eyes, but Michael did not give her enough time to examine the remark. He reopened his book and looked down, pretending once again that the words before him held any meaning.
Across from him, Marianne remained still.
Then, so softly he almost believed he had imagined it, she said, “Maybe some things’ll still be here when you get back.”
Michael’s fingers tightened around the edge of the page.
Perhaps patience was not entirely useless after all.
“How’s your scalp doin’?” Marianne asked, her gaze drifting toward the delicate web of gauze stretched across the healing flesh with a small, troubled frown.
Even beneath the carefully arranged hairpiece, she could see where his own curls ended and the added hair began, the disguise unable to conceal the tenderness beneath it from someone who had spent days memorising every bandage, every wince, and every reluctant dose of medicine. Michael instinctively lowered his head, not from pain but from the sudden, boyish self-consciousness that always seized him whenever her attention lingered too closely upon the places he felt least beautiful.
“It’s fine,” he murmured, adjusting the edge of the scarf tied loosely around his head. “Don’t really hurt much no more.”
Marianne did not appear convinced. Her eyes narrowed with the same quiet suspicion she brought to every answer she considered incomplete, and she set her book aside as though his recovery were a subject far more deserving of study.
“You said that in the hospital too,” she reminded him. “Then the nurse came in and said you’d been refusin’ your medicine.”
“I wasn’t refusin’.”
“You hid it under your tongue.”
Michael’s mouth twitched.
“That ain’t the same thing.”
“It is exactly the same thing.”
There it was again, that gentle authority she carried so naturally, never sharp enough to humiliate him and never soft enough to permit his foolishness. Marianne had remained beside him throughout the worst of it, carrying armfuls of law textbooks through the hospital doors as though she intended to build a fortress from them around his bed. She had settled herself at the narrow desk during the day and folded into the stiff, miserable chair at night, her neck bent at impossible angles while she slept beneath one of his jackets.
For days, she had done little beyond read, worry, and care for him.
Whenever he woke, she was there.
Sometimes she sat beneath the harsh fluorescent light with a pencil tucked between her lips, underlining passages while the quiet machinery hummed around them. Sometimes her head rested against the edge of his mattress, one hand still curled close to his beneath the blanket as though she had reached for him before sleep claimed her. She learned the nurses’ schedules, reminded him when it was time to eat, and watched him swallow every pill with the stern patience of someone who knew precisely how stubborn he could become when frightened.
Michael had watched her sacrificing sleep she could not afford to lose, her textbooks piling higher while exhaustion gathered beneath her eyes, and something inside him had broken open so completely that he no longer knew how to close it.
She had never treated him as fragile.
She had treated him as precious.
Even Jackie had not remained as constantly as she did, coming and going with the rest of the family while Marianne stayed rooted beside Michael’s bed, as steady as a lighthouse built to withstand his private storms. She had not complained once, not about the uncomfortable chair, the tasteless coffee, or the assignments she completed beneath the relentless hospital lights. She had simply been there, day after day, her presence becoming another rhythm he measured himself by alongside the monitors and the soft ticking of the clock.
Now she leaned toward him, her expression etched with that same familiar concern, and Michael felt his heart surrender another piece of itself before he could stop it.
How could I not fall in love with you?
The thought rose within him so clearly that for one panicked moment, he feared he had spoken it aloud.
You’re perfect.
Not perfect in the distant, untouchable way people so often expected him to be, polished until no flaw or weariness remained, but perfect in all the ways that mattered. Perfect because she noticed pain even when he buried it beneath a smile, because she stayed after everyone else had gone home, because she could spend hours bent over legal texts and still look up the instant his breathing changed.
Marianne lifted her hand, hesitating before her fingers reached him.
“Can I?”
Michael nodded.
Her touch settled gently near his temple, careful not to disturb the healing skin, and although her fingertips barely grazed him, the contact travelled through his body like sunlight finding a darkened room. Michael held perfectly still beneath her examination, his book forgotten once more in his lap as she studied him with the solemn concentration of someone tending something beloved.
“You gotta quit messin’ with it,” she whispered. “Let it heal properly.”
“I know.”
“You always say you know.”
“I do know.”
“Then act like it.”
He smiled faintly, his eyes remaining on her face. “You always this bossy with Jackie?”
The question slipped free before he could restrain it.
Marianne’s hand paused beside his temple.
Something shifted between them, subtle but undeniable, like the sudden change in pressure before a storm. Her gaze met his, and Michael watched uncertainty pass behind her eyes before she drew her hand away.
“Jackie don’t need me fussin’ over him like you do.”
The answer should have embarrassed him.
Instead, something warm and selfish unfurled beneath his ribs.
“Maybe I like when you fuss over me.”
Marianne’s lips parted, though no response came immediately. Michael lowered his gaze with a shy smile, allowing the remark to masquerade as teasing even as his pulse betrayed him.
She picked her book up again, but she did not open it.
“You’re spoiled,” she muttered.
Michael looked at the hands folded carefully around its cover, then at the bruise hidden beneath the collar of her blouse.
Only by you, he thought.
And he wanted to remain that way forever.
“So…the Victory Tour?” Marianne asked, the words emerging cautiously, as though she feared pressing too firmly upon a bruise she could not see.
The frown that had formed while she examined his healing scalp deepened, creating a faint crease between her brows. She withdrew her hand from his temple but did not retreat entirely, leaving it suspended near his shoulder for a moment before allowing it to settle upon the cushion between them.
“You said you wanted to go solo,” she added.
Michael’s expression changed so subtly that anyone less acquainted with him might have missed it. The pleasant curve of his mouth remained, and his eyes stayed lowered toward the book resting uselessly across his lap, yet something behind them shuttered, like curtains being quietly drawn across a window before an approaching storm.
“I am solo,” he answered.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do my own records. I make my own decisions.”
“Do you?”
The question was gentle.
That made it worse.
Michael’s thumb swept repeatedly along the edge of the page, bending the paper beneath the nervous pressure of his touch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means every time it seems like you finally got both feet underneath you, somebody puts the family name on your back and expects you to carry it another hundred miles.”
His gaze rose sharply.
Marianne remained watching him, her brown eyes solemn beneath the slight gathering of her brows. Sunlight still rested across her face, but the warmth of the reading nook had changed; what had felt soft and lazy moments before now seemed close and airless, the golden afternoon tightening around them like a held breath.
“You think my brothers ain’t talented?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Sounded like it.”
“No, it didn’t.” Marianne’s voice remained measured, although a trace of impatience entered it. “All your brothers are talented, Michael. You know I’d never say otherwise.”
Michael looked away, directing his attention toward the garden beyond the window.
He knew she was right. Of course he did. Marianne had been present at enough rehearsals, family dinners and late-night recording sessions to understand what each of them brought to the stage. She had praised Jackie’s writing, Tito’s ear for arrangements, Marlon’s dancing, Randy’s musicianship and Jermaine’s voice with a sincerity that left no room for doubt.
Her objection was not to their gifts.
It was to what they demanded from his.
“But you’re different,” she continued quietly.
His fingers stopped moving.
“Don’t.”
“You are.”
“Marianne—”
“I ain’t sayin’ you’re better than them as people, so don’t twist my words into somethin’ ugly.” She leaned closer, resting her forearms upon her knees as she searched for his gaze. “I’m talkin’ about your music. The way you hear it before anybody else can. The way you’ll sit with one song for weeks because you know there’s somethin’ inside it everybody else missed. That ain’t ordinary, Michael, and you know it.”
He stared down at the book in his lap, but the letters had long since abandoned him.
Marianne had always possessed an infuriating ability to name the things he kept hidden, plucking truths from him as neatly as she might remove a splinter. Others praised him loudly, with the extravagant language of promoters, reporters and executives who spoke of numbers, records and money. They called him a phenomenon as though he were weather rather than a man, something dazzling that had occurred without effort or intention.
Marianne understood the labour.
She understood the nights spent replaying the same few seconds of music until dawn began whitening the windows. She understood the notebooks crowded with rhythms, costume sketches and stage designs, the melodies recorded hurriedly into machines before sleep could steal them from his mind. She understood that his success had not simply fallen upon him like divine rain; he had dug the well himself, lowering the bucket into darkness again and again until his hands blistered.
“You got Off the Wall,” she said. “Then you made Thriller. You’ve been talkin’ for years about what you want to do next, what kind of films you wanna make, the sounds you wanna experiment with, the places you wanna perform. Now suddenly you’re back rehearsin’ old medleys and negotiating with people you don’t even trust.”
“I agreed to the tour.”
“I know you agreed.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m askin’ whether you wanted it.”
Michael drew a slow breath through his nose.
Somewhere downstairs, a door opened and closed. A burst of laughter travelled briefly through the hallway before fading into the great belly of the house, leaving the reading nook wrapped in silence once again.
“It’ll be good for everybody,” he finally said.
Marianne’s expression softened with something perilously close to sadness.
“That wasn’t what I asked you.”
“It’s the answer I got.”
She sat back.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Michael could feel her studying him, patiently waiting for whatever lived beneath the polished response, but this truth was knotted too deeply within him to be offered without pain. It carried his mother’s voice, the expectations of his brothers, his father’s schemes and the weight of a surname that had fed them all while quietly devouring him.
He loved his family.
That was the simplest truth and the most complicated one.
He loved them enough to understand that his success had become the fire around which they all warmed their hands, and cruel as it sometimes felt, he could not bring himself to let that fire die. Every refusal tasted like betrayal. Every boundary became evidence that fame had changed him. He had spent his life being told that the family survived together, that what belonged to one belonged to all, yet somehow the sacrifice always seemed to find its way to his door.
“Mama wants us together,” he murmured.
There it was.
Not the whole truth, but a corner of it.
Marianne’s eyes closed briefly, as though the answer confirmed what she had already suspected.
“And you can’t tell your mama no.”
Michael’s head turned toward her. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you love her.”
“She sacrificed everything for us.”
“I know she did.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice remained quiet, but hurt sharpened its edges. “You didn’t see how it was when we were little. You don’t know what she gave up, what she put aside. If she asks me for one thing—”
“One thing?” Marianne interrupted, her disbelief escaping in a breathless laugh. “Michael, when has it ever been one thing?”
His jaw tightened.
She saw the resistance rise within him and tempered her voice, reaching toward him once more. Her fingers came to rest upon his wrist, warm and steady against his pulse.
“I’m not tellin’ you to turn your back on your family,” she said. “I would never ask you to do that. I’m sayin’ there’s a difference between loving people and lettin’ them spend you.”
Michael looked down at her hand.
The phrase struck somewhere unguarded.
Letting them spend you.
It was too accurate, conjuring the image of himself passed between open palms like currency, his name stamped across contracts, stadiums and promises he had not made. Men sat around tables discussing how many cities his face could fill while his scalp still throbbed beneath gauze. They spoke of spectacle and profit, of stages large enough to swallow football fields, while he awakened some mornings with the phantom smell of smoke caught inside his nose.
Marianne’s thumb moved once across the delicate bones of his wrist.
“They’re already arguing,” he admitted.
Her eyes lifted to his. “About what?”
“Everything.”
He gave a small, humourless laugh.
The tour had barely begun to possess a shape, and already it resembled a carcass surrounded by hungry men. His father brought promises. Don King brought noise, grand declarations and numbers polished until they gleamed. His brothers brought their own managers, their own lawyers and their own ideas of what the tour should become. Every conversation seemed to end with someone speaking over someone else, each man insisting that family unity required everybody to follow his particular plan.
Michael had made Thriller by listening to every sound until he understood precisely where it belonged.
The Victory Tour sounded like six radios playing in the same room.
“Joseph got Don King involved,” he said, distaste tightening his mouth. “Everybody got lawyers now. Everybody got a different idea about tickets and money and who’s supposed to control what. Ain’t nobody listenin’ to nobody.”
“And what do you want?”
He hesitated.
“I want the show to be good.”
Marianne shook her head. “That’s what you want the show to be. I asked what you want.”
His eyes met hers.
For a fleeting second, the answer nearly escaped him. He wanted his own stage, built around the imagination that had become too large for compromises. He wanted to perform the songs he had written without dragging them backward through years of obligation. He wanted to direct films, compose stories and create something no audience had seen before. He wanted to stop being treated as the youngest brother whose obedience could be summoned with a disappointed look from his mother.
And, in a quieter chamber of his heart, he wanted two weeks in a sunlit nook to become something greater than stolen time.
“I wanna make something that belongs to me,” he whispered.
Marianne’s face softened.
“Then you should.”
“It ain’t that easy.”
“No,” she agreed. “It probably ain’t.”
Michael had expected encouragement polished smooth by optimism, the empty assurance that everything would arrange itself if only he believed strongly enough. Instead, Marianne gave him the truth, unembellished and sturdy.
“It might hurt people,” he said.
“It might.”
“They might say I’m selfish.”
“They probably will.”
His mouth twitched despite himself. “You ain’t very comforting for somebody who spent all that money goin’ to Harvard.”
“I’m studying to be a lawyer, not a fairy godmother.”
A reluctant laugh escaped him, quiet but genuine, loosening something inside his chest. Marianne smiled in return, pleased with herself, and her hand remained around his wrist as though neither of them had noticed the intimacy of it.
“Listen to me,” she said, waiting until his laughter faded. “People who benefit from you havin’ no boundaries will always call you selfish the first time you build one. That don’t mean the boundary is wrong.”
Michael stared at her.
The afternoon sun caught in the dark spirals gathered around her white headband, outlining each curl with bronze. She was only a year older than him, yet moments like this made her seem to possess some ancient wisdom, as though she had lived several lives before arriving in his. Perhaps that was what the law had taught her: how to separate guilt from responsibility, obligation from consent, love from the contracts people attempted to hide inside it.
Or perhaps Marianne had simply always seen him more clearly than anyone else.
He thought of her carrying those enormous textbooks through the hospital doors, one balanced against her hip while she argued with a nurse who had tried to keep her past visiting hours. He thought of her sleeping twisted in that miserable chair, her hand resting near his bed so he could reach it if he awakened frightened. She had never asked what caring for him might earn her. She had never presented her sacrifice like an invoice.
How can I not fall in love with you?
The thought returned with aching simplicity.
You never ask me to perform for your love.
“I already told them yes,” he said.
“Then go.”
Michael blinked. “After all that, you’re tellin’ me to go?”
“I’m tellin’ you that you gave your word, and I know you well enough to know you won’t feel right breakin’ it.” She squeezed his wrist gently. “So go. Give ’em the best show anybody’s ever seen, since we both know you won’t allow yourself to do anything less. But don’t let them convince you that agreeing once means you belong to them forever.”
Something within Michael went very still.
Marianne leaned closer, lowering her voice as though she were entrusting him with a secret.
“When it’s over, choose yourself.”
His throat tightened.
Everyone wanted something from him after the tour. His father wanted another deal. His brothers wanted additional countries, more dates, another album. Executives wanted the next Thriller, preferably delivered before the ink dried upon the last sales report. Even the public waited ravenously, mouths open for another piece of him.
Marianne was the only person asking him to keep something for himself.
“You really think I’m special?” he asked softly.
Her eyebrows rose. “You need me to say it again?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re shameless.”
Michael’s smile returned, small and boyish, his eyes dropping toward where her fingers circled his wrist. “You already said I was spoiled.”
“You are.”
“Then spoil me.”
Marianne tried to frown at him, but amusement betrayed her, tugging at the corners of her mouth until she was forced to look away.
“You’re special, Michael,” she conceded. “Always have been.”
The words settled over him more tenderly than applause ever had.
He turned his hand beneath hers, slowly enough that she could have withdrawn, until their palms rested together upon the cushion. Marianne’s gaze dropped to the movement. Michael did not lace their fingers, did not cross that final distance, but his thumb brushed once against the side of hers—a question disguised as an accident.
“And when I get back?” he asked.
“From the tour?”
He nodded.
“What about it?”
“You gonna be here?”
Marianne looked at him then, her expression shifting as the harmless question revealed its hidden weight. Michael could almost see her arranging an answer, considering Harvard, Jackie and every sensible reason she could not make promises around his schedule.
“I’ll come home when I can,” she said.
It was not enough.
It was more than he had possessed yesterday.
Michael lowered his eyes toward their touching hands, allowing patience to fold itself around his longing once again.
“Then I’ll give you a reason to come back.”
Oh, Marianne, he thought as his fingers slipped between hers, fitting against them with a tenderness that felt far too natural for something he was never meant to have.
I could treat you better.
The certainty of it settled deep within him, quiet and unwavering, like a truth he had carried long before he ever found the courage to name it. He could be everything she needed without forcing her to beg for it, could love her with the kind of constancy Jackie had never possessed, with both hands open and his whole heart laid bare before her.
He could study every softness she tried to hide, learn the language of her silences and recognise each worry before it ever reached her lips. He could make a sanctuary of himself, become the place she returned to when the world had exhausted her, the man who never asked her to shrink so he could feel larger beside her.
He could turn her into music.
He could build entire songs around the sound of her name, hide her laughter beneath melodies and weave the rhythm of her footsteps into the bones of every composition. He could make her his muse, not as some distant, ornamental thing meant only to be admired, but as the pulse beneath the work itself, the living breath that gave every note meaning.
He could preserve her in harmony, carve her tenderness into vinyl and send it spinning through the world until strangers fell in love with a woman they had never met. Long after photographs faded and memories softened at the edges, Marianne would remain—alive in every chorus, suspended between strings and percussion, immortal wherever music could still be heard.
He could give her so much more than his brother ever had.
More care. More patience. More devotion. More of himself than he had ever dared offer anyone.
I could love you, he thought, his thumb brushing softly over hers as their joined hands rested between them. I could love you until you forgot what it ever felt like to be overlooked.
I could immortalise you.
If only you would let me.
..The memory returned to Michael with the warmth of their interlaced fingers, unfolding slowly behind his eyes until the reading nook disappeared and he was back in his bedroom several years earlier, before Thriller, before stadiums became too small to hold him, and before wanting Marianne had begun to feel like a sin he committed every time she smiled at him.
She had come to Hayvenhurst for Jackie.
At least, that had been the intention.
Jackie had invited her over with the promise of an evening together, only to disappear less than an hour after she arrived when one of his friends telephoned about some party in Hollywood. He had insisted it would only take a few minutes, that he merely needed to stop by, speak to someone, and return before she had time to miss him.
Marianne had believed him because she was still learning that Jackie measured time according to his own convenience.
One hour became two.
Dinner cooled beneath foil in the kitchen, and the light outside the windows faded from honey-gold to violet while Marianne remained in the family room with a book spread across her lap. She pretended to read, though Michael, who had been drifting in and out under the transparent excuse of searching for things he did not need, noticed that she had not turned a page in nearly twenty minutes.
He hated seeing her wait.
There was something undignified about it, something that offended him on her behalf, though Marianne herself carried disappointment with frustrating grace. She did not pace or complain. She simply folded herself smaller into the corner of the sofa, lowering her head over the same paragraph again and again while every passing car made her eyes lift toward the window.
By the third hour, Katherine had gone upstairs, Joseph was shut away in his office, and the rest of the house had scattered into bedrooms and studios. Marianne remained where Jackie had left her, as though loyalty required her to occupy the exact space in which he expected to find her whenever he finally remembered to return.
Michael stopped in the doorway.
“You gon’ sit there all night?”
Marianne glanced up, startled, then looked toward the clock with a frown as if she had only just discovered how much time had passed.
“I’m waitin’ for your brother.”
“I know.”
“He said he’d be back.”
Michael leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest.
“He says lots of things.”
The remark escaped more sharply than he intended, and Marianne’s expression tightened immediately, her pride rising to defend Jackie before her heart could admit it was bruised.
“He probably got caught up.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t start, Michael.”
“I ain’t start nothin’.”
The innocence in his voice was poorly manufactured, and Marianne narrowed her eyes, though the effect was softened by the weary sigh that left her a moment later. She closed her book and rubbed one hand across her face.
“I should just go home.”
Michael straightened.
The thought of her leaving placed an immediate ache inside him, irrational and childish, particularly when she had not come to see him in the first place.
“You ain’t gotta leave.”
“Your brother ain’t here.”
“I’m here.”
Marianne looked at him.
Michael felt the significance of his own words only after they had settled between them, far too earnest for the casual tone he had attempted. Heat gathered along the back of his neck, and he turned his gaze toward the hallway before she could inspect his expression too closely.
“I mean, you drove all the way out here,” he added quickly. “No sense wastin’ the whole night.”
“And what exactly are we supposed to do?”
Michael shrugged, pretending he had not already been searching for a reason to keep her there.
“We could listen to records.”
“We always listen to records.”
“Watch a movie.”
“You talk through movies.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
He frowned. “Only when they bad.”
“You talked through The Godfather.”
“I had thoughts.”
“You had questions.”
Marianne’s mouth twitched despite herself, and Michael felt a small, private victory bloom within him. Making her laugh had always seemed like persuading sunlight to enter a room; once he managed it, the entire space changed around her.
He pushed himself away from the doorway.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“My room.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
Michael immediately heard how the invitation sounded and began stumbling over the explanation before she could tease him.
“I got games up there,” he said. “Board games. Nothin’ strange. You always makin’ everything strange.”
“I haven’t said a word.”
“You were thinkin’ it.”
“I was thinkin’ you’re awfully nervous.”
“I ain’t nervous.”
“Mm-hm.”
Still, she followed him.
His bedroom was warmer than the rest of the house, carrying the faint scent of vanilla, old books, and the record sleeves stacked beside the player. Posters and photographs crowded the walls, little worlds Michael had collected around himself to make the room feel less like a place he slept and more like a country governed entirely by imagination. Costumes lay carefully covered along one side, notebooks were piled upon his desk, and several stuffed animals occupied the bed with the solemn importance of invited guests.
Marianne paused in the doorway.
“You cleaned.”
“I always clean.”
“You shoved everything in that closet, didn’t you?”
“No.”
A muffled thud sounded from behind the closet door.
Marianne looked at him.
Michael looked away.
“Sit down,” he muttered.
She laughed then, a proper laugh this time, warm and unguarded, and moved toward the rug while Michael opened the closet as narrowly as possible to prevent its contents from exposing him. He rummaged through boxes, catching a falling shoe against his chest, before eventually discovering a battered Twister box wedged beneath an old jacket.
Marianne stared when he presented it.
“Twister?”
“What’s wrong with Twister?”
“We are grown.”
“You scared you gon’ lose?”
Her eyes sharpened immediately.
Michael knew he had her.
“Set it up.”
They spread the vinyl mat across the centre of the bedroom floor, smoothing the wrinkles until the bright coloured circles lay beneath them like oversized pieces of candy. With no third person to operate the spinner, they agreed to take turns calling the moves for one another, though Marianne accused Michael of cheating before the first round had properly begun.
“You keep givin’ me the hard ones.”
“That’s what it landed on.”
“You spun it with your finger covering half the board.”
“My finger is not that big.”
“Your hands are huge.”
Michael glanced down at them, then at her.
“You noticed?”
Marianne rolled her eyes, but a hint of colour rose beneath the brown of her cheeks.
“Left foot green,” she ordered.
They began with distance between them, both laughing as their limbs stretched across the mat and their balance slowly abandoned them. Marianne was far more competitive than Michael expected, refusing to concede even when one arm trembled violently beneath her weight. Her curls had escaped the scarf tied around her head, falling across her forehead while she glared at him from beneath the tangled strands.
“You can give up,” Michael said.
“You first.”
“I ain’t even strugglin’.”
“You shakin’.”
“That’s the floor.”
“The floor is shakin’?”
“It’s an old house.”
Marianne snorted.
“Right hand yellow.”
Michael shifted carefully, placing his palm on the circle beside hers. Their fingers nearly touched.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
“Left hand blue,” he said when her turn came.
Marianne studied the mat and frowned. The nearest blue circle was across his body, requiring her to lean over him to reach it. She looked at Michael, immediately suspicious.
“You did that on purpose.”
“I spun it.”
“You ain’t even look at the spinner.”
“I got a good memory.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Afraid you can’t do it?”
Her pride answered before caution could.
Marianne moved.
She reached across him, her body folding over his as she attempted to place her hand upon the blue circle. Her shoulder brushed his chest, and the loose hem of her shirt grazed his wrist. Michael stopped breathing.
The game had been ridiculous only moments before, full of laughter and accusations, but the air changed as Marianne settled into position above him. The bedroom seemed to contract around their bodies, every sound retreating until Michael could hear only the quiet rush of her breath and the faint crackle of the record turning idly at the end of its side.
Marianne’s curls fell forward, forming a dark curtain around them.
“You all right down there?” she asked.
Her voice had changed too.
It was softer now, deprived of its teasing edge.
Michael lifted his gaze.
That was his mistake.
Her face hovered close to his, nearer than it had ever been, close enough for him to see the faint constellation of freckles scattered across her nose and the tiny crease that appeared beside her mouth whenever she fought a smile. The scent of her perfume surrounded him, something delicate and floral beneath the sweeter trace of hair oil, and he felt suddenly as though he had been lowered into deep water without warning.
“I’m fine,” he whispered.
Marianne’s eyes moved over his face, briefly lingering upon his mouth before rising again.
The look was so fleeting that Michael might have imagined it, but his body answered as if it were certain.
His arm weakened.
Not enough for him to fall, only enough for his shoulder to dip beneath her. Marianne lost her balance with a startled sound, and Michael reacted instinctively, catching her around the waist as they both collapsed onto the mat.
She landed half across him.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Michael’s hand remained pressed to the curve of her waist, his fingers spread against the thin fabric of her shirt. Marianne braced one palm beside his head while the other rested upon his chest, directly above the frantic beat of his heart.
The laughter that should have followed never came.
She looked down at him, her lips parted, her curls brushing his cheek each time she breathed. Michael had never seen her from this close before. Every detail overwhelmed him: the warm depth of her skin beneath the lamplight, the long sweep of her lashes, the slight gloss upon her mouth.
Jackie’s girl.
The warning entered his mind too late and far too weakly.
Michael’s gaze lowered to her lips.
Marianne noticed.
Her fingers tightened slightly against his shirt.
He should have released her. He should have made a joke, rolled away, and restored the harmless boundary that had always existed between them. Instead, his hand shifted almost imperceptibly along her waist, holding her more securely as his head lifted from the floor.
Marianne did not move away.
The distance between them narrowed by inches, then fractions, each breath shared before it had entirely left the other. Michael could feel the warmth of her mouth without touching it, could sense the decision waiting between them like a match suspended above dry grass.
Her nose brushed his.
Michael’s eyes fluttered closed.
“Marianne?”
Jackie’s voice travelled from the hallway.
She recoiled so quickly that her palm slipped against the vinyl mat. Michael released her at once, though his fingers resisted the loss for one traitorous second before falling away.
They sat up on opposite sides of the mat.
Marianne pushed her curls from her face with trembling hands, her chest rising and falling as she stared toward the bedroom door. Michael remained frozen, every nerve inside him still leaning toward the kiss that had not happened.
Jackie appeared in the doorway moments later, wearing the easy smile of a man who had forgotten he had kept someone waiting.
“There you are,” he said, as though Marianne had been the one who wandered away. His gaze moved from her to Michael and then to the Twister mat spread beneath them. “What y’all doin’?”
“Playin’,” Michael answered.
His voice sounded unfamiliar to him.
Marianne stood, smoothing her clothes while refusing to look in Michael’s direction.
“You said you were comin’ back,” she told Jackie.
“I know, baby, I got held up.” Jackie stepped into the room and reached for her, pressing a kiss to her temple before glancing at the game again. “You could’ve called one of the others to play. Mike don’t even like games unless he wins.”
Michael watched Jackie’s arm settle around her waist, directly where his own hand had rested moments before.
“I kept her company,” he said.
Jackie smiled, oblivious to the quiet challenge beneath the words.
“Good lookin’ out, little brother.”
Little brother.
The title struck like a door being closed in his face.
Marianne finally looked at Michael as Jackie guided her from the room. Something unsettled remained in her eyes, something neither apology nor denial could fully erase, and for one suspended moment, Michael believed she might turn back.
She did not.
The bedroom door remained open after they left, allowing the sound of their fading voices to drift toward him while he sat alone beside the abandoned Twister mat. The coloured circles seemed garish now, cheerful witnesses to a line they had almost crossed.
Michael lifted his fingers to his mouth, still able to feel the warmth of her breath there.
..
Michael was a man who had never trusted luck enough to wait for it.
Luck was fickle, vain, and easily distracted, the sort of thing that smiled upon a man one evening only to turn its face from him by morning. Michael preferred certainty. He preferred shaping the world with his own hands, nudging circumstance until it leaned in his favour, then allowing everyone else to call the result fate.
As he stood beneath the low amber light of his hotel room with a Polaroid held between his fingers, he knew he had done exactly that.
The photograph was still faintly warm from developing, its glossy edges pressing into the pads of his fingers as the image gradually sharpened into something ugly and undeniable. Jackie sat sunken into the corner of a velvet banquette, one arm wrapped around the waist of a woman Michael had seen trailing their entourage for three stops now, always nearby, always laughing too loudly at jokes that had not been funny enough to earn it.
In the photograph, she was perched across Jackie’s lap as though she had been invited to take Marianne’s place.
Their mouths were locked together without shame or hesitation, Jackie’s head tilted back while hers bent eagerly toward him. One of his hands had disappeared beneath the short hem of her skirt, the position of his wrist making plain what the photograph itself did not need to reveal, while her fingers clutched at the open collar of his shirt as if she intended to pull him apart.
Her lipstick—or perhaps the tacky gloss she reapplied every few minutes beneath the dressing-room lights—had left a wet, pale stain near the corner of Jackie’s mouth, glaring against his brown skin like evidence carelessly abandoned at a crime scene.
Everything about her seemed a violent contrast to Marianne.
The loose, artificially bright hair. The powdery foundation that sat several shades away from Marianne’s deep brown complexion. The glittering blue shadow spread thickly across her eyelids and the sugary perfume that seemed to announce her arrival before she entered a room. She possessed none of Marianne’s quiet elegance, none of the gravity that made people lower their voices when she spoke, none of the warmth that lingered long after she had gone.
Michael disliked her almost as much as he disliked the ease with which Jackie touched her.
Not because she was beautiful.
Because Jackie had chosen to humiliate Marianne with someone so careless.
Someone temporary.
Michael lowered the photograph onto the desk, placing it beside the others.
Fifteen in total.
Fifteen small, square windows into a truth Marianne had not yet been permitted to see.
The first showed Jackie’s mouth against the woman’s neck backstage in Dallas, the darkness around them unable to conceal the pale flash of her bare shoulder. The second captured her leaving Jackie’s hotel room before sunrise, her shoes dangling from one hand and her dress wrinkled at the hips. Another revealed Jackie’s hand resting possessively against the back of her thigh during a party he had told Marianne he was too exhausted to attend.
By the sixth, there could be no innocent explanation.
By the tenth, there could be no misunderstanding.
By the fifteenth, there was nothing left to defend.
Michael arranged them across the desk in neat rows, his movements slow and almost ceremonial. He studied each image once more, not because he needed reassurance, but because some cautious part of him wanted to ensure there could be no escape route, no clever lie through which Jackie might slither once Marianne confronted him.
Dates had been written discreetly along the white borders.
Cities too.
A timeline assembled with the precision of a legal brief.
Michael imagined Marianne laying them across her own table, one after another, her brilliant mind instinctively sorting the evidence even as her heart resisted it. She would notice the changing clothes, the hotel wallpaper, the tour credentials hanging from the woman’s neck. She would recognise Jackie’s rings, his shirts, the distinctive watch she had given him on his birthday.
There would be no possibility of denial.
Michael had made certain of it.
He reached for the envelope waiting beside the photographs and turned it over. Marianne’s address had already been copied carefully onto its face in his smallest, most anonymous handwriting. He avoided the elegant loops she would recognise from his letters and the rounded shape of his usual capitals, forcing each character into stiff, unfamiliar lines.
No return address.
No note.
Only the truth.
Or enough of it.
His pen hovered briefly above the envelope as a tremor of hesitation moved through him.
For one quiet moment, Marianne’s face rose in his mind—not the Marianne who laughed with him or scolded him for pretending to read, but the one who would receive this package. The one whose hands might begin to shake as she turned over the first picture. The one who would search each photograph for some hidden mercy and find none.
He thought of the bruise upon her neck.
He thought of Jackie kissing her there while these images already existed.
He thought of the way Marianne had defended him, how swiftly she had bristled when Michael dared speak against his brother, how faithfully she transformed neglect into excuses so she would not have to admit what it was.
Jackie had built a cage around her from broken promises and called it love.
Michael was merely opening the door.
That was what he told himself.
He was setting his caged bird free.
The thought soothed the sharpest edge of his guilt, though it did nothing to quiet the selfish hope that moved beneath it, dark and patient. Freedom did not mean Marianne would choose him. He knew that. He repeated it silently as he gathered the photographs and slipped them one by one into the envelope.
Still, he imagined it.
He imagined being the one she telephoned when her composure finally broke. He imagined her voice trembling through the receiver, his name emerging as the only safe thing she could still believe in. He imagined her returning home early, eyes swollen and pride wounded, and finding him waiting with both hands open.
He would not rush her.
He would not speak poorly of Jackie while the betrayal was fresh.
He would sit beside her. Listen. Bring her tea the way she liked it and allow her to cry without offering the hollow assurances people used when pain made them uncomfortable. He would remind her that another man’s disloyalty did not make her foolish, unlovable, or insufficient.
Then, eventually, after enough time had passed to make his patience appear noble rather than strategic, he would show her what love could have been.
What it could still become.
Michael sealed the envelope.
The adhesive caught beneath his thumb as he pressed the flap closed, the small sound oddly final in the quiet hotel room. He held it there for several seconds, staring at Marianne’s name written in borrowed handwriting.
This was not cruelty, he decided.
Cruelty was allowing her to remain ignorant.
Cruelty was watching Jackie betray her city after city while she waited faithfully at home.
Cruelty was knowing the truth and choosing silence because it kept the family comfortable.
Michael was simply placing the key within reach.
Whatever door Marianne opened afterward would be her decision.
He slid the envelope into the outgoing mail with the others the following morning, his expression serene as the concierge accepted it from his hand. No one questioned him. No one looked closely enough to notice that the package carried no return address or that Michael’s fingers lingered upon it a second too long before letting go.
By noon, it had left the hotel.
Fifteen Polaroids.
Fifteen betrayals.
Fifteen reasons for Marianne to stop mistaking endurance for devotion.
Michael watched the delivery van disappear into traffic from behind the tinted glass of the lobby doors, something restless and triumphant beating beneath his ribs.
Luck, he had learned long ago, favoured the bold only because the bold knew how to manufacture it.
And Michael had just created his own.
He would
Michael had been waiting for the telephone to ring.
Not openly, of course.
He had not paced the carpet or watched the clock with enough frequency to draw suspicion, nor had he asked Jackie whether Marianne had telephoned recently. Michael knew better than to hover around a trap once it had been set. A patient hunter did not disturb the leaves beneath which he had buried his intentions; he simply found himself a comfortable place nearby and listened for the earth to shift.
For the past three evenings, he had manufactured reasons to remain in Jackie’s hotel suite long after their discussions should have concluded.
The first night, he had brought a cassette recording of the Jacksonville show and insisted they review the vocal blend during “Can You Feel It.” The second, he had arrived with handwritten notes concerning the lighting cues and remained seated at the small dining table while Jackie ordered room service, speaking at length about entrances they had performed hundreds of times before. Tonight, Michael had brought nothing more convincing than a concern about the following week’s rehearsals, but Jackie had not questioned him. Jackie rarely questioned attention when it was offered to him. He accepted company as naturally as he accepted admiration, never imagining that either might arrive with a purpose of its own.
Michael sat upon the brocade sofa with one ankle resting over his knee, the sleeve of his red shirt drawn over the heel of his hand. A magazine lay open in his lap, though he had been staring at the same advertisement for nearly ten minutes.
Across the suite, Jackie stood near the windows with a drink in his hand, talking lazily about a woman he had met downstairs.
Not the woman in the photographs.
Another one.
Michael listened with an expression of mild amusement, offering the occasional hum where one seemed necessary, while disgust moved quietly beneath his skin.
A dog was still a dog.
The hotel room carried the stale, complicated scent of life on the road: cigarette smoke embedded in upholstery, Jackie’s cologne, half-eaten room-service food and the metallic breath of the air-conditioning unit rattling beneath the window. Beyond the heavy curtains, the city glittered indifferently, unaware that Marianne’s heart was travelling toward them through copper wire.
Michael had calculated the timing carefully.
The envelope should have reached her Massachusetts address that afternoon. He had paid for expedited delivery without placing his own name anywhere upon the package, using cash and handwriting that belonged to no one. Marianne would have returned from the university library sometime before supper. She would have found the thick envelope waiting among bills, catalogues and letters, her name printed stiffly across its face.
She would have carried it inside.
She would have opened it.
She would have spread the photographs across a table because that was how Marianne examined evidence—never one piece in isolation, always in sequence, building the truth from pattern and repetition until emotion could no longer corrupt the verdict.
Michael knew her.
That was why he knew she would call.
She would not permit Jackie the mercy of being confronted in person, where he might reach for her, kiss her forehead or soften his voice until her anger became confused with affection. She would want distance. She would want the clean severity of the telephone line, a barrier through which she could deliver judgement without allowing him to touch her.
Michael had relied upon it.
The telephone rang shortly after eleven.
Its bell cleaved through the hotel suite with such sudden force that Jackie stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Michael did not move.
He kept his eyes trained upon the magazine, though every muscle in his body had drawn taut beneath his clothes. His heart delivered one heavy blow against his ribs, then another, each beat slow and enormous, as if some great animal had awakened inside him.
Jackie glanced toward the cream-coloured telephone resting upon the end table. The instrument was solid and inelegant, with square push buttons and a long coiled cord connecting the handset to its base.
“Who callin’ this late?” he muttered.
Michael lowered his gaze to the page.
He knew.
Jackie crossed the carpet and lifted the receiver.
“Yeah?”
A faint voice spoke first—the hotel operator, informing him that there was a long-distance call waiting. Jackie’s posture shifted slightly.
“Yeah, put it through.”
There was a click, followed by a thin wash of static as the line connected across hundreds of miles.
“Hello?”
Michael watched from beneath lowered lashes.
Jackie’s expression changed.
It was small at first: the faint lifting of his eyebrows, the easy smile beginning at one corner of his mouth.
“Hey, baby.”
Michael’s fingers tightened beneath the magazine.
Marianne.
He could not yet hear her words, only the urgent cadence of her voice leaking faintly through the earpiece. The telephone compressed her anger into a distant metallic vibration, but Michael recognised her rhythm. She spoke quickly when incensed, each word growing cleaner rather than less precise, the lawyer in her rising even when the woman had been wounded.
Jackie’s smile disappeared.
“Hold on—Marianne, slow down.”
Her voice sharpened.
Even from the sofa, Michael heard his brother’s name slice through the receiver.
“Jackie.”
The single word carried more fury than shouting might have managed.
Jackie turned his back slightly toward Michael, lowering his own voice as though privacy could still be salvaged.
“Where you get those?”
There it was.
Confirmation swept through Michael with the heat of a spotlight finding him in darkness.
She had received them.
She had seen everything.
All fifteen.
He lowered his eyes before his face could betray him, drawing a slow breath through his nose and turning the magazine page with meticulous care. The paper whispered beneath his fingers, absurdly loud to his heightened senses.
Marianne’s voice burst from the telephone again, louder now, no longer contained by the receiver.
“Where I got ’em ain’t the issue, and you know it!”
Jackie pulled the handset away from his ear, irritation crossing his face as her fury spilled into the room.
“Baby, listen—”
“Don’t you ‘baby’ me!”
Michael’s pulse quickened.
He had heard Marianne angry before. He had seen her argue with professors, promoters and Joseph himself without ever surrendering her composure. This was different. Pain had torn refinement from her voice, leaving every word raw enough to draw blood.
Jackie pressed the receiver closer again and walked toward the window, the telephone cord stretching behind him.
“It ain’t what it look like.”
Michael nearly smiled.
It was such an ordinary lie, insultingly small against the mountain of evidence Michael had sent. Fifteen photographs, and Jackie still reached instinctively for denial as though Marianne were foolish enough to mistrust her own eyes.
A lesser collection might have allowed it.
One photograph could be misinterpreted. Two could be dismissed as moments stripped of context. A woman leaving his hotel room might have come to discuss business; a hand upon her thigh might have been an unfortunate angle.
Michael had considered every excuse before Jackie could conceive it.
That was why there were fifteen.
Fifteen cities and dates written beneath fifteen betrayals.
Fifteen nails hammered methodically into the coffin of their relationship.
“It ain’t what it looks like?” Marianne repeated, and the disbelief in her voice was almost more frightening than the anger. “I got a photograph of your hand up underneath that woman’s skirt, Jackie. What the hell else am I supposed to think you were doin’, checkin’ the hem?”
Michael’s lips pressed together.
Even wounded, Marianne’s tongue remained sharp.
Jackie glanced over his shoulder, abruptly remembering that his younger brother was in the room. Michael arranged his expression into concern and began to close the magazine.
“I can give you some privacy,” he murmured.
Jackie held up one hand, motioning for him to remain.
Exactly as Michael had expected.
Jackie would not send him away because sending Michael away would make the call appear serious. It would require admitting that something had happened beyond his control. Better to keep his little brother nearby and pretend the matter could be extinguished within minutes.
Michael settled back against the cushions.
Marianne continued before Jackie could form another excuse.
“And don’t you dare tell me it happened once. I got fifteen pictures sittin’ on my table. Fifteen. She got on three different outfits, you got on five, and the dates run clear through three cities. So go on and lie again. I wanna hear what kind of lie you came up with that covers all that.”
Jackie rubbed one hand over his face.
“Marianne, you don’t understand how it is out here.”
Something ferocious erupted through the line.
“How it is out there?”
“Women be around, baby. That don’t mean—”
“You had one in your lap!”
“She came on to me.”
“And your hand just fell up her dress?”
Michael looked down quickly, hiding the flash of satisfaction that threatened to escape him.
Jackie’s mouth hardened.
“You ain’t gotta talk to me like that.”
“I can talk to you any damn way I please tonight.”
Marianne’s voice trembled upon the final word, and Michael’s pleasure faltered.
There she was beneath the fury.
His Marianne.
Not merely angry, but shattered.
For one moment, he could see her as clearly as though she stood in the hotel room: barefoot upon the hardwood floor of her Cambridge apartment, telephone receiver pressed painfully against her ear, the long cord tangled around her wrist. The photographs would be spread across the table before her, their glossy surfaces catching the yellow light from the lamp. Perhaps she had cried before calling. Perhaps she was crying now and refusing to let Jackie hear it.
Michael’s stomach tightened.
He had done that.
Jackie had betrayed her, but Michael had selected the hour in which she would be forced to know it. He had sharpened the truth, placed it inside an envelope and sent it through her door.
A breath of guilt entered him, cold and unwelcome.
Then he remembered her waiting at Hayvenhurst while Jackie disappeared to parties. He remembered the bruise upon her neck, the evidence of possessiveness Jackie displayed while refusing her the dignity of loyalty. He remembered Marianne defending him, transforming neglect into misunderstanding because she loved with more honour than Jackie deserved.
A clean wound could heal.
A hidden infection could not.
Michael had cut her only to remove the poison.
That was mercy.
Wasn’t it?
“Was she a groupie?”
The question struck the room into stillness.
Jackie’s eyes flickered toward Michael and then away.
“What that got to do with anything?”
Marianne laughed once, but there was no humour in it. It was the brittle sound of a glass cracking beneath pressure.
“So she was.”
“Marianne—”
“Had me sittin’ up here lookin’ like a damn fool while you ran around with some white woman from city to city.”
“It ain’t about her bein’ white.”
“You right, it ain’t. It’s about you bein’ triflin’. But you let that woman wear you in public like some prize while I’m back here defendin’ your sorry behind every time somebody tells me I’m wastin’ my time.”
Her voice broke upon the final word.
Michael’s throat tightened with it.
She had defended Jackie against him.
More than once.
He remembered the reading nook, the warning in her eyes when Michael asked whether she and Jackie were all right. He remembered how quickly she covered the mark on her neck, protecting the relationship from even his gaze.
Jackie had taken her loyalty and spent it carelessly.
Michael would never do that.
I would protect it, he thought. I would guard every piece of you people have been careless with. I would never make you ashamed that you chose me.
Across the room, Jackie had begun to pace.
“Look, I messed up.”
“Messed up?”
“I’m sayin’ I made a mistake.”
“Fifteen times?”
“Those pictures ain’t fifteen different times.”
“Oh, so that’s your defence now? You only cheated for three cities instead of fifteen photographs?”
“I ain’t sayin’ that.”
“Then what are you sayin’?”
Jackie opened his mouth, but no answer came.
The hotel suite filled with the sound of Marianne breathing through the telephone, each exhale roughened by tears she was desperately trying to swallow.
When she spoke again, her voice had lowered.
That frightened Michael more than the shouting had.
“I gave you every opportunity to tell me.”
Jackie stopped pacing.
“I asked you. Do you remember that? Before y’all left, I asked if there was anybody else, and you looked me dead in my face and told me no.”
“There ain’t nobody else.”
“She been travelin’ behind y’all for three stops.”
“She don’t mean nothin’.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
Jackie closed his eyes.
Michael watched him closely, recognising the moment his brother finally understood that charm would not rescue him. The usual tools were useless across a telephone line. Jackie could not pull Marianne into his lap or kiss the furrow from between her brows. He could not arrive with flowers, turn the lights low and remind her of every good night they had shared.
All he had was his voice.
And tonight, Marianne did not trust it.
“Baby, when I get back, we can sit down and talk about this.”
“No.”
“We ain’t ending all these years over some woman that don’t matter.”
“You ended ’em.”
The words landed softly.
Jackie’s face went still.
Marianne took a shaking breath.
“You ended us the first time you touched her. I’m just the one finally sayin’ it out loud.”
Michael’s heart began to pound.
This was it.
The opening of the cage.
He should have felt shame for anticipating the sound of its door swinging wide, but longing rose in him with such force that it eclipsed everything else. He kept his expression solemn while inside him an entire future unfurled.
Marianne free.
Marianne no longer sleeping in Jackie’s bed.
Marianne no longer wearing Jackie’s marks upon her skin.
Marianne able, eventually, to look at Michael without the word brother standing between them like a guard.
Not yet, he warned himself.
The thought was stern, almost paternal.
Not now. Not while she’s hurt.
That was why he had sent the photographs in July rather than waiting until November, when the end of the tour would have been close enough for him to arrive upon her doorstep before the tears had dried.
He could have kept the evidence.
He could have allowed Jackie’s affair to continue until the final weeks, then delivered the truth and presented himself immediately afterward as comfort. It would have been easy. Marianne in fresh grief would have reached for the nearest steady hand, and Michael knew his own would be waiting.
But he did not want her through confusion.
He did not want a kiss she gave because Jackie had made her feel unwanted, nor a night in his arms that she regretted once rage loosened its hold. He wanted Marianne clear-eyed. He wanted her to grieve Jackie fully, to mourn not only the man but the years and future she had imagined around him. He wanted the wound closed before he ever asked her to open her heart again.
By December, the worst of it would have passed.
She would have spent August furious, September wounded, October rebuilding. By November she might begin remembering who she had been before Jackie. And when Michael came to her after the final Los Angeles concerts in December, he would not arrive as the brother offering consolation.
He would arrive as a man.
Her man, if he played the remaining months correctly.
Jackie’s voice dragged him back into the room.
“Marianne, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? Respect myself?”
“I love you.”
The sentence made something dark turn inside Michael.
Jackie said it too easily.
As though love were a blanket he could throw across any mess and make it disappear.
Marianne was silent for several seconds.
When she answered, Michael could hear the tears plainly.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You love havin’ me. There’s a difference.”
Michael closed his eyes briefly.
Oh, Marianne.
Even broken, she saw the truth.
Jackie gripped the handset tightly enough for his knuckles to lighten.
“You know me better than that.”
“I thought I did.”
“Baby—”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Ain’t nobody perfect.”
“I never asked you to be perfect. I asked you not to make a fool outta me.”
“You ain’t no fool.”
“I was every time I believed you.”
Her voice fractured completely then. There was a muffled sound on the other end, as though she had covered the mouthpiece while trying to gather herself. Michael imagined crossing the distance between them. He imagined taking the telephone from her trembling hand, turning off every light in her apartment and pulling her against his chest until she no longer had to hold herself upright.
Soon, he promised silently.
Not too soon.
But soon.
Marianne returned to the line.
“I don’t want you callin’ me,” she said. “I don’t want flowers. I don’t want your brothers showin’ up to speak for you, and I don’t want your mama callin’ me tellin’ me to forgive anything for the sake of the family.”
Jackie’s gaze moved toward Michael again.
Michael allowed hurt to settle carefully over his features, as though Marianne’s refusal of the family wounded him too.
“You know Mama love you,” Jackie said.
“Then don’t drag her into the mess you made.”
“Just wait till I get home.”
“No. You don’t get to decide when this ends.”
“Marianne—”
“It’s over, Jackie.”
His brother’s shoulders dropped.
Michael’s fingers curled into the sofa cushion.
“It ain’t over,” Jackie insisted, but desperation had entered his voice now, stripping away the smooth confidence that usually carried him through conflict. “You mad. I understand that. Take some time, calm down—”
“Do not tell me to calm down.”
“I ain’t mean it like that.”
“I’m not some little girl throwin’ a fit because you stayed out too late. I am tellin’ you that we are done.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You gon’ throw away everything we built?”
“You already threw it away. You just thought I’d keep sweepin’ up after you.”
The silence following her words seemed to press against the walls.
Michael’s heartbeat had become thunderous. He feared Jackie might hear it, might turn and see victory shining somewhere beneath the concern in his eyes.
He forced himself to think of Marianne crying.
It worked.
Satisfaction receded beneath tenderness, genuine and aching. Whatever he had done to create this opening, her pain was not imaginary. He wanted Jackie removed from her life, but he had never wanted Jackie’s absence to leave blood behind.
“I loved you,” Marianne whispered.
Jackie sat slowly upon the edge of the bed.
“Loved?”
The past tense seemed to wound him more deeply than any insult had.
Marianne’s answer came after a pause.
“I’m gon’ learn not to.”
Then the line went dead.
The soft click of disconnection sounded louder than the shouting had.
Jackie remained seated with the receiver pressed to his ear.
“Marianne?”
Only the flat, empty hum of the line answered him.
“Marianne.”
He depressed the cradle switch once, released it and listened again, as though she might reappear if he forced the telephone to surrender her.
“She hung up,” he said finally.
Michael set the magazine aside and rose with deliberate slowness.
“I’m sorry.”
The lie came easily because part of it was true.
He was sorry that Marianne had been hurt. Sorry that her faith had been rewarded with humiliation. Sorry that the road between Jackie and himself had required her to walk barefoot across broken glass.
He was simply not sorry that the road now existed.
Jackie placed the handset back upon its cradle harder than necessary, making the bell inside give a startled little ring.
“Who sent those pictures?”
Michael’s breath remained even.
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be askin’.”
“Maybe somebody on the crew saw what was goin’ on.”
“Fifteen pictures?” Jackie rose again, agitation returning to his limbs. “Somebody been watchin’ me.”
Michael tilted his head with perfect concern.
“Maybe they thought she deserved to know.”
Jackie’s eyes snapped toward him.
For one dangerous second, the room seemed to narrow around the two brothers.
Michael held his gaze.
He did not flinch. He did not offer too much innocence, for innocence performed too eagerly became confession. Instead, he allowed disappointment to enter his eyes, the expression of a younger brother who had just witnessed the consequences of an older one’s carelessness.
“You knew about that girl?” Jackie asked.
“I saw her around.”
“And you ain’t say nothin’?”
“What was I supposed to say?” Michael replied softly. “You’re grown.”
Jackie stared at him, searching his face for some seam through which the truth might show.
Michael gave him none.
Finally, Jackie turned away, dragging both hands over his head.
“I gotta call her back.”
“She said not to.”
“I don’t care what she said.”
Michael’s jaw tightened.
“You should.”
Jackie looked over his shoulder.
“What?”
“She asked you to leave her alone.” Michael kept his tone gentle, almost reluctant. “You already ain’t respect what she wanted once tonight. Maybe don’t do it again.”
Michael lowered his eyes submissively, permitting Jackie the illusion that he had put him back in his place.
“All right.”
Jackie reached for the telephone once more, then stopped with his hand hovering above it. Marianne’s final command seemed to remain upon the receiver, hot enough to burn him.
Michael watched the hand fall.
He left several minutes later, closing the suite door quietly behind him.
The hotel corridor stretched before him in muted gold, empty except for a room-service cart abandoned near the lifts. Michael walked without hurry, his footsteps absorbed by the patterned carpet. He did not smile. Smiling would have reduced the evening to victory when the thing he felt was far more complicated: triumph braided with guilt, hope threaded through sorrow, love carrying the faint metallic taste of conspiracy.
Inside the lift, he caught sight of himself in the mirrored wall.
He looked composed.
Almost angelic beneath the soft overhead lighting, his expression thoughtful and his hands folded neatly before him.
No one looking at him would have guessed he had spent the past week constructing the collapse of his brother’s relationship.
No one would have known that fifteen Polaroids had passed through those quiet hands.
Michael watched the numbers descend above the doors.
July.
He had given Marianne nearly five months.
Five months in which Jackie’s name could lose its power over her. Five months in which memories might stop ambushing her, his apologies might become irritating rather than tempting and the future she had planned beside him might finally begin to look like a prison she had narrowly escaped.
Michael would not telephone too frequently.
He would call after several days, acting surprised when she told him what had happened. He would listen. He would never criticise Jackie too harshly, because eagerness would make Marianne defensive. He would tell her she deserved better only once, then allow the idea to take root without appearing to water it.
He would send books.
Nothing romantic.
Not yet.
He would remember the dates of her examinations, ask whether she had eaten, and make her laugh when grief began taking itself too seriously. He would become the steady rhythm beneath the disorder, never asking for more than friendship while quietly proving how much more he could give.
Then December would come.
The tour would end beneath the lights of Dodger Stadium. His family would speak of additional dates, another album and all the ways they intended to continue using the name that had become synonymous with him.
Michael would say no.
He would board a plane east.
He would stand outside Marianne’s door not as Jackie’s younger brother and not merely as the dear friend who had kept her company when another man abandoned her.
He would stand before her as the man who had waited.
The lift doors opened.
Michael stepped into the lobby, his reflection fragmenting briefly across their polished metal before disappearing behind him.
Oh, Marianne, he thought as he walked toward his own room.
Grieve him now.
So when I come for you, there won’t be anything left in your heart that still belongs to him.
tags : @mamasturn @plan3tch1ld @yourleogf @freaky1nterlude @tenacioustestamentambush @faiology (lmk if you want to be added or removed)
