Ari Under Covers

Hopeless in your waking, back throbbing, shoulders sore, you rise from your bed at the crack of a new dawn to the fragrance coaxed every Sunday by your mother’s slender hands. She is fragile now in that child-like way, skin thin and veins sapphire blue, hearing going, but sturdy, still, for you. Doesn’t matter that you’ve been grown for decades now, solely responsible for the farm and her mounting care—your mother bakes a pair of her grain-kissed boules every week without fail.

“There you are,” she says, when you are just two steps away. These days she cannot hear your footsteps on the stairs.

“Sit, now,” you say softly, slipping your hand over hers to take the bread knife, and with a soft tsk your mother surrenders before settling at the breakfast table.

You break bread together: salted butter swept glistening over the delicate crumb and sturdy crust, spoons of preserves canned the year before. Cinnamon and cloves, honey and stewed apples, wild pickled blueberries. It takes so long to notice the change in the air, but when you do it’s obvious—you aren’t sweating in the way you have for weeks. The house, once sweltering, has cooled ever so slightly. When you gaze out the windows into the orchard, the sky is no longer the blue you’ve come to resent, but a wash of cotton batting. 

Clouds. 

Your mother, thin wire glasses low on her nose, grins at your expression. 

“He’s home,” she says.

“Who?”

Her smirk is the same as you remember it being when you were a girl. “The Peña boy,” she says, lifting her bread slice to her mouth. “Weather always fixes itself when he comes ‘round.”

You hum beneath your breath. You can picture him only vaguely—lean and liquid, little more than a silhouette in the distance on the other side of the fence that cages your family’s property from his. His father you know better, see often. Spiced apple cider traded for horse manure or Chucho’s brawn. Twice this past winter he fixed your fence after a furious storm and asked for nothing but a loaf of your mother’s bread in return.

Javier you’ve not glimpsed in a decade give or take, if you’re remembering right. Moved somewhere south for duty’s dauntless call.

In the lullaby of easy silence, you finish your meal, rinse the dishes, and walk out into the fields with the second loaf in hand where overhead the sky is performing a miracle befitting the gods: letting out the first tender, forgiving drops of rain. Your body brightens as you watch it freckle and darken the starving, yellowed earth. 

A caw, something of a laugh, shocks loose from your chest—delight, pure in its relief.

Tracing the aisles of death-bed apple trees, you sweep your fingertips along their trunks. Water pools in the green spades turned to spoons for liquid crystal. The precipitation for which you’ve longed and begged and prayed: here, at last, to save the grange.

The rain picks up. Forceful in its abundance, peppering the sandy earth. Soon your boots stick as you walk between trees, dirt becoming mud, so you shield the boule beneath the leaf of your buttoned shirt.

At the end of the orchard, the log fence stands and the grass grows tall and clover-riddled, purple thistles starved yellow in the heat. You stride towards the fence, far beyond which the Peña house stands white and shingled, framed by the umbrellas of old oak trees that border the meadows in which their herd of equines laze back and forth, grateful as you for the merciful change in weather. It is beautiful here, though it’s easy to forget when all the season brings is wilting. 

You hear him before you see him: a quiet, clicking tongue. 

Then a mare picks up her cantor, spurred forth by Javier—indeed returned, wide in the shoulders and dark hair slicked by rain, out forty feet or so—tanned skin made gold around his eyes by yellow aviators, periwinkle shirt undone a button too low. More handsome than you remember, but it’s been a long time. 

Your mother was right: it seems he brought the rain home with him.

As you come to a stop near the fence, tall grass clinging to your calves, his head turns slowly in your direction. Jaw working over something—gum, if you had to guess. You lift your free hand, show him your open palm, and he takes a last look at the horse before sauntering your way.

Like you, he’s undisturbed by the rain. No shelter-seekers here; you’re grateful enough to bathe in any storm. Come hell or high water—isn’t that how the saying goes? You’d swim any flash flood after all this unending dearth, drink any tidal wave.

“Heard you were home,” you call out over the pebbling downpour, watching his broad hand rake through his hair. 

Much more handsome than you remember, the nearer he strides. Unhurried, Javier lifts his sunglasses off to slip into his shirt pocket and even from some way off you don’t miss the path of his brown eyes as he takes you in. Against your better judgment, the hungry stripe of his gaze flips something low in your stomach, something needy. 

He stops just shy of his side of the fence, no more than an arm’s length away, as the splatter of kind weather kicks up the earth’s perfume. 

“This morning,” he admits, his voice all gravel and mead. Low and heady, a little sweet. Not shy—his eyes drop again, this time to your stomach where you’re holding the bread beneath your shirt. Sort of useless now—the rain’s too strong to save it—so you draw it out, flashing him by accident a glimpse of your bare stomach where his gaze stays pinned. 

Then, bread rising in your hand, seeded crust glistening as it speckles wet, his eyes at last leave you to follow it. “Ma thinks you brought the rain,” you say, not bothering to hide your smirk.

The corner of his mouth pulls into his cheek. “That so?”

You shrug, loaf held like a waitress’ tray not yet offered. “Accordin’ to her.”

To your surprise you see in his eyes what appears to be timidity—perhaps bashful to be given credit for the sudden end to the wrecking drought he’s no doubt heard about. With a sweep of your arm, you present the bread in your outstretched hand and one dark brow rises high on his head. 

“Before it’s drenched,” you insist, and Javier takes it, smile lopsided and pretty. 

Above the chuffing sound of a horse grazing on the trampled grass, the sky splits like a seam and sunlight cuts through the cloud’s white cover, throwing down a ribbon of yellow that licks the stables. 

Javier tilts the bread in his hands, inspecting the ear, the crust. Flashes those dark eyes back at you, exacting and tender at the same time.

“Our way of saying thanks,” you say, already stepping backward, toward the apple trees. “Neighbor.”

The rain doesn’t stop for three days—just long enough to wash the ash of long-snuffed forest fires from the orchard’s leaves. When the sun returns whole and yolk-gold to the sky, it brings heat of a kinder type. Warm for the growing things but barbless in its licking flame. You swear in just three nights the orchard lifts itself from its stupor—broadens, stretches, unfurls new leaves. 

Your mother bakes like she’s got an army to feed and doesn’t wait till Sunday to do it. 

“Take them, take them,” she insists, as fragile in stature as she is adamant in tone. Such a small, hunched little thing. “Least we can do.”

“Ma,” you sigh, powerless to her persistence, how she rests the arched handle of a basket in your hand for you to take. “You don’t seriously think he—”

She tuts softly, shoos you with one pallid hand before re-knotting the bow of her apron behind her back. “Just be grateful,” she says. “S’only right.”

Might as well be a girl again because here you are, obedient. Carrying the basket of seeded bread across the grass, between reborn apple trees, the fragrant orchard rows that days ago seemed doomed to die. Your heart thuds, surrendering itself to gratitude. Suppose it doesn’t hurt anything to take the Peñas bread.

Javier’s out in the pasture cleaving a rotten log from a sunken fence panel with an axe. White t-shirt translucent and clinging to the muscle that banks his back, he heaves the blade down with a biting crack and a grunt. Your footsteps give you away—he straightens as you hop the fence between your properties and land on his side, halting his rhythmic swinging.

As he turns, face halved by the shadow of an oak looming overhead, eyes squinting to make you out in the light, Javier cocks an eyebrow, dimple winking in his cheek.

“Neighbor,” he says, unabashed, now, in his lingering gaze. Dark curls cling to his temples and forehead, licked by sweat, across which he wipes the back of his forearm before setting the axe down against the fence.

Growing up on adjoining farms never sowed friendship between you—you’d estimate you’ve exchanged no more than a couple hundred words in damn near four decades—but there is in Javier a certain familiarity. A sense of him fitting into the landscape, reliable as an oak always looming in the distance. As constant as these valleys and hills, as the house beyond his muscled shoulder. Never something to acquaint yourself with, but something to rely upon.

Peculiar to stand before him now—twice in the same week—exchanging words.

You hold out the basket, linen cloth folded neatly over the boules. Javier, eyeing you suspiciously, takes one cautious step toward you with his hands on his narrow hips, peering down at your offering. His eyes flicker beyond you to your house and though you don’t look back you’d bet the whole season’s harvest that your mother is standing on the porch, watching. Guaranteeing you hand off the gift as she’s asked, like you aren’t well past grown.

Amused, he hums low and quiet. “For me?” he muses, knowing the answer, and when you roll your eyes he only smirks. Pleased, maybe teasing you.

You squint at him—glistening, all sinew and bated breath. Your mother’s mind may be failing in that drawn out, terrible way—hearing fading, her logic a little swimmy—but standing this close to Javier you can’t blame the woman for mistaking him for a god. 

“Just take it,” you say, betrayed by the curl of your lips. “She won’t let me back in the house ‘till you do.”

This time as he slips the gift from your hand to his, Javier sweeps his fingertips against your open palm, sending a sparkle of heat up the length of your arm. You watch him peel the frond of cloth back, unveiling the golden tithe as you drop your arm at your side. When he inhales slow and deep you can smell it too, that redolent unfurling of warmth. Hypnotic, despite its familiarity. Hypnotic, too, is the breadth of his chest as he takes that long, indulgent breath, thin fabric slick to his damp, lithe form. 

“She really think I brought the rain?” he asks, frowning a little. Watching you like he knows you’re watching him. Each of you sizing the other up, scrambling to build opinions of someone who’s only ever been a figure across the lush trees and grass. 

Did you once lose a kite to one of their oak trees? You think you might remember a young, rawboned Javier climbing a web of gnarled branches to fish it free, delivering it safely to where you waited on your side of the fence. Yes, you can see it now—that lazy, one-sided smile on his boyish face, the sun-bleached kite, and the relief of its homecoming to your trembling hand. 

Three decades older he is no less honest in the way he awaits your reaction.

“Or she’s messing with me,” you admit. “I never know anymore.”

His scoff triggers yours—a brief, quiet chuckle in the remains of a salvaged summer. Javier shrugs and yes, you think he catches the way your eyes skirt briefly to his shoulders because his jaw ticks, cheeks hollowing as he sucks his tongue against his front teeth. He turns his head in the direction of their house, sees no sign of Chucho, same as you. A low hm sound rattles from his chest.

You’d swear the sun flares a little hotter when he returns his gaze to you.

“If it rains again,” Javier says, his voice swooping to a deeper shade. “What will you bring me?”

You cross your arms. “I think you can count on the bread indefinitely.”

“Don’t mean her—I mean you.”

Traitorous, your heart: how it speeds, skips a note or two in its once steady pattern. “I don’t think you brought the rain,” you tell him. “Just timing.”

When he narrows his eyes, his crow’s feet swallow them. Mustache quirking, pink tongue darting over his bottom lip. “Call it hypothetical,” he says, and you’re not sure if you were standing quite this close just a moment before, if one of you has moved and if so, which. 

Hunger rarely devours you in any of its forms. A life spent in service of harvests leaves little excess to spend. Yet it stirs unmistakably, low and begging, at the sound of Javier’s gruff voice and the graceful way he pins your eyes to his mouth with every tiny movement of his lips. He doesn’t have to smile for you to feel him smirking—a fact alone that feels somehow mythic in its dominion, its quiet, unassuming power. All of him marble-sleek and solid, the image of virile beauty. It almost feels like a shame to think you’ve seldom stood this close before.

You jut your chin to the sky—that blue untouched by a single cloud—and shake your head. “It’s not going to rain,” you say, steadfast in your certainty. “Not anytime soon.”

“And if it does.” He doesn’t say it like a question—rather, an inevitability—which is to say you hear his real meaning: and when it does.

Head shaking, cheeks set aflame, you once more roll your eyes, this time turning back to return to your side of the fence. Over your shoulder you call out, “If it rains this week, I’ll bring whatever you like.”

For six days there’s nothing but sun. You watch the apples blush on their branches, those first pinkish stripes that promise a red and sugared fruit. Autumn will bring spices and cider, days and weeks and months of fermentation, of watching fruit turn liquid and then to gold. This stretch of summer is make or break for the harvest to come: the right weather now can mean perfection or a crying shame.

All week you watch Javier at such a distance he appears as only a tiny, charcoal figure roaming the fields, hauling lumber and picking up the far-off slack.

Yet often when you do, you think his head looks to be already angled in your direction. Impossible to know for sure in the blazing light and with so much land between you, but you’d take that bet. You’re pretty sure he’s watching you too.

You’re sure, also, that you’re right about the weather. At the dawn of the seventh day the skies look no less blemished than they have all week. Doesn’t look at all like it’s going to rain.  To your surprise, you’re a little disappointed, but the feeling passes.

You push out into the orchards, tend to the lifelong task of keeping everything verdant and alive. Sweet is the air at this early, fragile hour in which the birds are just now waking, filling the world with their jubilee. Sky pink at the horizon, white overhead, you spend the morning gloating to no one but the trees—you were right, and Javier was wrong. But when midday breaks golden and ripe, he nonetheless appears in the tall grass, hand steadied on the neck of a tobiano as he and the creature walk between gated pastures, and his face turns in your direction, catches you drinking icy cider on the porch while you catch your breath between tasks. 

This time when he catches your gaze, he lifts his free hand, forefinger spearing up at the sky. Too far to call out to each other, you have no way of asking what the gesture is for, so you step down from the croaking porch into the crabgrass and look up.

There hang, above you, newborn wisps. Clouds ashy at their bellies.

But clouds are just clouds. They aren’t rain.

The reckoning comes an hour later. 

You dismiss the first, shy drop. A fluke, a fleeting blip of your imagination. Then the second: clear and wet on your forearm. Then a third. Soon it’s unavoidable—above you gray has gathered like dust bunnies beneath a couch, the bright summer shaded by the weather’s impossible will—and the rain that falls is not a patter, not a whisper, but a stony fist fight. The kind of rain that comes sweeping and determined, that has something to prove. 

It’s like autumn has taken the stage two months too early. Childlike in its eagerness to command your attention—a downpour harsh and giving. 

You emerge at the end of an arbored aisle to see Javier cut stoic against the shaded sky just shy of the boundary between your properties, chest wide and proud, just as drenched by the onslaught of rain but not fazed in the slightest. Too cavalier to smile but its essence hangs in the air between you, silver as any raindrop, unmistakable in meaning. He nods in the direction of a stable not far from the first shelter of elder oaks and without a word or invitation lopes off toward it, so fluid in his lazy strides, legs a little bowed and no small bit solid, hugged tight by denim that might as well be painted on.

You are following before your mind can think to.

You are hopping the fence.

You are dashing for the shadowed stable after him.

Breathless, hair kelped to your cheeks, clothes more water than textile, you cannot at first make out the stable’s interior, eyes not yet adjusted to the shift in light, ears booming with its cacophony. “Okay,” you say to the darkness in which Javier must be standing, blinking fast, wiping the rain from your eyes. “You got really fuckin’ lucky. What do you want?”

Embers warm in your chest—the first fronds of new wanting. You know what you hope he’ll say.

A flash of movement as your eyes adapt: Javier’s tanned arms reaching for you. His broad hands frame your face and you are not yet surefooted as he, swept up in his sudden, steady embrace. You hear yourself laugh over the barrage outside, silenced only by the blackness in his eyes—all that warmth and brown swallowed by his pupils. Your hands cuff his wrists, holding him to holding you without hesitation. 

It should be awkward, this first real meeting of your bodies. How Javier steps up to press the length of his torso to yours, sly in the subtle turn of his lips as he breathes one quiet word: You. But it isn’t. He slots his lips to yours like kissing you is just another step in his languid stride, graceful and planned, his arms dragging you against his steady frame. The softness of his mouth a welcome surprise. Dizzy on the first swipe of his begging tongue, you’re entirely unaware of Javier walking you backward until your shoulder blades hit the stable wall.

What a gift it is to be kissed and kiss with one’s whole body. Javier licks hotly into your mouth, sucking sweetly on your tongue or bottom lip depending on his whim, hands holding you flush to the fire of him. When he moves to your jaw, the soft flesh of your ear, you are a candle never before lit, touched a thousand times wrongly and made finally right.

Javier mumbles something lost under the bellowing tempest. Every raindrop riots on the sheeted roof. 

“What?” you pant, eyelids heavy with lust. Your shirt hangs open, as does his, both unbuttoned though you’d not noticed their undoing. Now visible in the gray light is the bronze of his freckled chest, the dark hair drawn from his navel to the waistband of his jeans.

You’d stare, but Javier then laps at the hollows of your neck, drinks rain from the dip in your collarbone, and you hum softly, entranced by his touch, eyes fluttering closed. He moves his lips closer to your ear. “Perfect,” he repeats, before his mouth is lost once more to the curve of your shoulder, the slope of your chest.

Meanwhile the path of your hands draws a symphony from him: low grunts and breathy huffs and, when your fingertips trace the hair on his stomach to graze his jeans, an earthy moan sweeter than any rainfall after any summer. 

Javier cants his hips against yours like he’s making a promise.

How sublime, the wet ask of his tongue down your stomach as he falls to his knees. 

Though he—after catching your eye, fingers frozen over the fly of your shorts until you nod—is the one to strip the layers from you first, you aren’t certain which of you is the one who’s praying, only that the reverence hangs heavy as a heatwave in the humid air.

Your head falls back against the stable wall. All but the roar of the storm is lost beyond your panting bodies as Javier kneels at the altar of you, shelves one of your legs on his shoulders, and laps hungrily from your aching heat. The pledge of his mouth sucks the air from you—your hands fly to the laurel of his hair, bathed locks slipping between your fingers as you clench and throb and tug, hardly conscious of the whimpers you let out in the wake of his tending.

Dutiful, he brings you gasping to the brink of some new chasm. Tongue expert in its tracing, circling, slipping, driving. Lifts his face to smirk just before you fall, dark stache glossy with your need and eyes blown black, and perhaps you’d be annoyed if Javier looked arrogant at all, but his confidence appears to you only assured. Resolute in his wanting. As if the world would have to come to a sudden, gasping end for his concentration to falter at all.

“Like that?” Javier asks, perhaps as winded as you. Genuine, you think, in his asking, though he must know.

You’re not sure if you remember how to nod or speak, but your hips buck on their own accord, desperate for him to see this through. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, his thick fingers squeezing your hips. “Think you do.”

Then his grin vanishes as he resumes and all at once you are tumbling, swept away in a landslide and earthquake at the same time as he slips two fingers into you, coaxing a rush of pleasure into his mouth. You might cry out his name, but the sound is lost to the din of the deluge.

When next you catch your breath, Javier is standing, denim wet and straining against the swell of his length. Hesitation is no longer a word you know or hold, already greedy for his taste, so you urge your mouth to his and lap the taste of yourself from his tongue, fingers busy with freeing him, the slick peeling of his jeans. You fall without realizing you’re falling, sunken to the ground with Javier’s cock heavy and throbbing in your hand. 

He might whine when your tongue flickers sweetly against his weeping head—but there’s no mistaking the desperate groan dug loose from the earth of Javier’s chest as you bring the whole of him into the furnace of your mouth, wet and tight and willing. Your moan sends a shiver through his body, then Javier’s hand shoots out fast as a gunshot, palm slamming into the wall to keep himself from toppling. 

“Shit—” he gasps, and you look up at him through dewy lashes to find his eyes have closed, lips swollen and jaw hanging open. 

Again, you hum. Make a game of the stroke and slide and swallowing that makes him quiver until it’s too good, too good, too close baby and he pulls you off him, drool slugging down your chin. His cock aching, surely, when you nuzzle your cheek against it, tempted to take it in your throat again. But you smile as he plummets to meet you on the ground, then swoon when he lays you out on the topsoil not yet drenched by the rain. 

“Wanna feel you first,” Javier murmurs, petting the hair back from your face, lapping the spit from your chin with his tongue before he unites it with yours. Lips plush, more tender than you expect amidst his fervor, the kind of kissing you can’t help but lose yourself to. You think you’d kiss him the rest of the day, through any night. Brows pinching when he pulls away, cupping the blaze of your burning cheeks with the palm of his hand, thumb swept across your upper lip as he gazes down at you with adoration.

“Need to fill you,” he groans. “Don’t I, hm? Dime, baby.”

Thighs spread to make room for him in the bowl of your hips, you pull him over you by the shoulders until he blankets you, covering all but a sliver of the rain-rich sky visible through the stable’s entrance, and the oak tree’s canopy lashing in the fevered gale.

Is his shirt below you now, somehow? You think it must be—spread carefully to protect your needy flesh.

“Yes,” you breathe, as Javier kneels between your legs, fisting the base of his cock. “Yes, yes.”

A grin, but not of ego—he is only pleased. Pious in his watching the way breath shudders in your chest. Javier nods, brow dented low and serious, curls black with water and plastered to his face, and pumps himself once, then takes your ankles in his hands. Sets them flat on the ground, bending both your knees to frame him. Hands butterflied and wide, tracing the slant of your thighs to the bend of your hips like all of a sudden he has all the time in the world. 

Maybe you do. It almost feels like you do. 

Like this might not be a spell that breaks with the end of the rain.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

“I know,” you breathe.

With both hands Javier lifts your hips from the ground and pulls you toward him until your core presses against the underside of his cock. He hmphs, transfixed by this silken meeting, and thrusts his hips once, gently, rubbing himself between your folds. You whimper at the friction, cunt fluttering, begging. 

Javier clicks his tongue as you claw at his forearms, hips pitching in his hold to ask for more, and this time there is perhaps a drop of pride in his cunning gaze. Glad to be the one you stir for, the one you choose.

“Needs me, hm?” he coos.

You paint the air between you with his name.

“I know,” he murmurs, guiding himself to you now, nudging his tip against your clit once, twice, then notching.

Then rhapsody. The urging in and dragging out, the sweet perfection of Javier inside you, taking space that now seems like it was made for him from the start. “Fuck,” you hear yourself say, more breath than voice, and Javier grits his teeth as he feeds his cock to you slowly, throbbing and whole.

“So soft,” he grunts, resolve slipping—his hips snap against yours on the next thrust and you yelp from the bliss of it. Teeth bared above you, Javier yanks you flush against his slender hips, buried to the hilt as he tries to catch his breath. “Shit, baby.”

Thighs clamping around his waist, you writhe, plant your palms on his sternum, desperate for more. 

“Javi,” you plea, and in a flash Javier spreads his hands over your hamstrings, pins your thighs to your stomach, and bends over you, fucking you into the ground.

Your teeth bump when he moves to kiss you, then he tilts his head and it’s all saccharine again: his tongue lapping sweetly into your mouth, mustache scraping against your cupid’s bow. Like this, the angle is exquisite. So deep it’s like he’s everywhere, stretching you out and stringing you taut and Javier must feel it too because he starts to grind, the thatch of dark hair at the base of his stomach rubbing against your clit as he grazes his teeth along the underside of your jaw.

“That’s it,” he mumbles. “Damelo, baby, quiero sentirte.”

You shatter, or bloom, you can’t totally decide. Exaltation in a single moment, your whole body electric in its trembling, clenching, gasping. Javier falters only when your body comes down from its high, emboldened to move again. Folded as you are, you can only whine and moan and sparkle as he once more takes up a rhythm. Smooth and hot as cider on a cold night, his cock glistening with your need as he pulls out and presses in, patient again.

“Perfect,” he prays.

It’s possible that this is heaven.

You don’t know when it stopped, but the skies have quieted. A lick of sunlight casts into the stables and falls over the expanse of Javier’s back and shoulders as he rocks into you again and again and again. Hand weaving into the curls at the nape of his neck, you hold him to you as his pace begins to stutter.

Javier licks the column of your throat, purring against your neck, “Lo quieres, baby? Hm?”

“Yes,” you tell him, one arm winding around his shoulders. “Deep.”

He kisses you once, then pulls back just enough to watch your face, his own lust-tense and sneering as his high builds and climbs. You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip, tell him to let go, and he is beautiful—lit copper and gold by summer’s warmth as he drops his forehead to yours.

Perfect in his promise, Javier offers all to you, fills you wholly, his body tense and then unraveling. His weight drops onto you properly as he paints your cunt with his seed. When you grunt he lifts just enough to free your legs without leaving your heat, and you lock your ankles over the small of his back.

Javier nuzzles his nose to yours.

You aren’t sure how long you stay like that, but when you’re standing again, his hands guides your weakened legs back into your shorts. You button each other’s shirts instead of your own. 

Outside the stables, the earth sings petrichor, grateful for the fleeting flood. Across the fence beyond the tall grass your orchard sparkles, glittered with rain as you stand beneath the oak tree gazing out in gratitude. Javier’s hand ghosts over your spine and you feel a rash of goosebumps break out as if he’s once more touched your skin. 

His breath is warm against your hair, the apple of your cheek. “Don’t wait for rain next time,” he whispers, then slinks off regal and graceful as a wildcat, clicking his tongue to call out the horses to the pastures now marbled with loam.

It doesn’t rain again for weeks, but you go to him anyway, hopping the fence that cradles your homes to seek his arms.

These are kindle/ipad/eReader covers and zippered makeup bags

These are all the purses I have ready to ship

Earrings and keychains

And I have all these charms that can be turned into either earrings or keychains.

Forty-five minutes until his fate was sealed for the night. His pulse would quicken. His head would start to swim, and any last sliver of rational thought would be lost to the ether or the cold, snowy air around him. Joel Miller had to hurry now, because that bite-sized blue pill he’d just taken was in his belly, and if his dick didn’t find its way in you, he was fucked. Or at least huge and swollen and leaking out beads of hot desire the size of golf balls.

Well, maybe that was just his cock.

Joel looked down, scanning his pants.

Yeah…definitely just cock. He walked faster.

At home, he knew he’d find you curled up on the couch, nose in a book. What to Expect When You’re Expecting, if he had to guess. Then, sure enough, you’d lift your eyes and smile—‘Thank goodness you’re back, daddy’—and lift the hem of your night dress just slightly. Spread your legs and beckon him in. It was a nightly routine by now.

You wanted to be knocked up as fast as possible, after all

At almost sixty years old, Joel couldn’t believe he was actually saying these words aloud. But here he was—crawling overtop you on the couch, situating himself between your legs, and pulling his cock out, mumbling:

“Gonna let me put a baby in you tonight?”

You nodded sweetly—eagerly—every time.

Joel knew he could never resist that look. He was as good as finished the first second you let him sink inside your tight, weeping hole, and when he stretched it, he could already tell this was all he would ever want to do. Make you happy, fill you up, give you lots and lots of him.

It was why he’d stopped by the apothecary tonight. Why he’d hesitated only a moment before clearing his throat and asking for a pill like Viagra—Joel knew that the man behind the counter would flash him a wry, knowing grin.

Trouble keepin’ up with that sweet young thing’a yours?

David was a dick.

He wasn’t entirely wrong, either.

Ever since agreeing to start trying for a baby, Joel had become acutely aware of his own physical limitations in that department, and one of them was stamina. He could scarcely fuck twice in the same night without needing a long and rest-intensive breather. You were young and could roll over ready to go in five minutes.

It wasn’t fair to deprive you now on account of his age.

If you wanted his cum, you were getting it, no question.

Not just once, but multiple times. Again and again and—

“Again,” Joel grunted once he’d shot off his last spurt.

Fifty-eight minutes had passed since he’d taken that pill. It had fully kicked in, and his dick was still hard, even after finishing inside you with a sticky, white-hot flood.

You blinked dreamily up at him.

“You mean it, old man?” you teased him lightly.

I’ll show you what I mean, Joel thought to himself before flipping you over on the sofa. He had your hips tilted up and his cock driving back inside your freshly-fucked cunt in no time at all. He felt his spend coating your walls; it let him glide right in. Joel groaned and jerked himself back out, then fucked back in again and again and again.

“Again?”

Your word was exhaled in a laugh.

You stood in front of the bathroom sink, trying to tidy up the insides of your legs and push some more of Joel’s load back in, when you felt a presence at your back.

Stabbing your ass.

You started to turn then, puzzled.

“Bend over,” Joel commanded before you could.

You did as you were told because, frankly, you loved getting fucked wherever your old man wanted it—even if he had broken the sink one time he’d pounded you here.

But there was palpable confusion, too. How in the hell had Joel Miller, certified silver fox and owner of a dick old enough to remember Woodstock and the moon landing, managed to get his dick hard in the five minutes since he’d had you face-down, ass-up on the couch?

Or had his dick gotten soft at all?

You wanted to question him about it, or else give a long, hard look at his uncharacteristically long, hard friend, when the next moment had you gripping the counter. Stretching between the legs as Joel pushed back in.

“There she is,” he murmured affectionately.

Really, you’d never been wetter. Or warmer. Or filled to the brim with more sticky-white spend than you could ever hope to hold inside, it felt like. You bent at the waist and let him have his fill. You closed your eyes and rested your head on your forearms while Joel’s hot, bulbous tip grazed your cervix with dizzying alacrity. A smile crept in.

Whatever this was, you wanted more of it.

His dick was still hard.

Four mind-numbing fucks and another forty-five minutes later, Joel’s cock hadn’t deflated the tiniest bit.

The thing had hammered you so thoroughly he’d nearly destroyed the sink again. You’d whimpered, and whined, and warned him quietly, ‘We just fixed the porcelain, baby,’ and right before he’d painted your walls with his seed, you’d cum for him practically shrieking. Shaking.

Letting him turn you around for a kiss, only to mumble against his mouth with a sleepy, cockdrunk sort of lilt:

“I think you gave me twins.”

Then he’d fucked you in the shower to make it triplets.

Now you were laying out on the bed, truly spent, eyes following him in the semi-darkness of your bedroom after you’d toweled off and collapsed among the pillows.

“What’s gotten into you tonight, Miller?” you breathed.

Joel made it over to the dresser, back turned to you. He rifled through a drawer looking for something extra tight.

“Just missed you is all,” he said, shrugging.

What he needed right now was fabric that was very thick to hide the boner he was sporting. Joel could tell from the way you spoke that you were too tired for round five, and he didn’t want you feeling like you had to go again.

He would be fine.

His dick might not deflate until dawn, but that was okay.

“Wish you missed me like this every day,” you giggled.

When Joel turned around, he was shocked to find you sprawled out on the bed—hands between your legs.

There was a shy smile on your face.

“Baby…” he trailed off, watching your fingers flit through that sticky mess where he’d left it. Where you glistened.

Where you slid your index and middle fingers up and down your slit and drew circles on your clit, eyes shining.

“What? I missed you too,” you said, tone all faux protest.

You had no idea what you did to him when you talked like that. Especially when he was drowning in a state like this.

Hard as a rock.

Throbbing.

Needy.

Scarcely even knowing what he was doing, Joel found himself over by the foot of the bed in a second. Watching your every move with a wild, wipe-open stare he still couldn’t believe you found appealing. He swallowed.

He not only looked perverted, but he felt it, too. It rarely ever left his mind, save for the four or five seconds he spent in ecstasy emptying the contents of his balls inside your cunt, that he was his age, and you were yours. That perhaps the rest of Jackson was right, and he was wrong: he had no business being around a girl like you, much less getting off inside you every night. Was this really what you wanted? A bewildering mixture of guilt, lust, and love all circulated through his skull at that moment, and the longer he spent looking at your fingers, ogling the way you teased them through his cum between your legs, the more he felt certain he was bad.

No one corrupted a thing this sweet and got to call themselves good, anyway, he thought to himself idly.

“I keep gettin’ that…feelin’,” you said under your breath.

Joel’s hand tightened in a fist, and it was then that he realized it was wrapped around his cock. Still watching.

“Yeah, baby? What feelin’?” he returned, almost as quiet.

Still stroking himself up and down, up and down, softly.

You had your legs spread open—knees splayed wider than they’d been before. And your eyes had a tender, placid sheen to them, like they just might cry if they didn’t get release of some kind soon. Then you slowed.

Your touch slipped from your clit to the opaque, sticky globs between your thighs, and that look got even softer.

More desperate.

“Can’t…explain it.” You shook your head, as if pained, and then you sank two fingers inside. Joel could hear the tiny schlick from where he stood, and it almost did him in.

You sucked in a breath and added, “It’s a special feelin’.”

Joel’s fist had already worked its way up to a ridiculous speed. Again, he sensed this might be the worst and most pathetic he’d ever looked, but by the glint in your eyes and the way you kept holding him there, he also knew you weren’t asking him to stop, either. You were needing something else—something he could provide.

Thanks to that one stupid pill.

Joel’s smile was strained as he gripped the edge of the bed, like he was trying to assuage you and him at once.

“Try me, baby. Tell me ‘bout that special feelin’.”

Your middle and ring fingers disappeared inside you.

You whined, “Ain’t fair to say it now. You’re tired, daddy.”

Like hell he was. Joel crawled over the footboard and made his way straight to you, where your body was limp.

His breaths were coming in so fast and his pulse was thrumming so hard that he almost couldn’t hear himself talking. But he ventured to speak as gently as he could.

“I’m wide awake, sweet pea. I’m all ears. Talk to me.”

And if his words didn’t communicate as much, surely the look in his eyes would’ve told you all the rest. Quietly, he slipped his torso between your legs, where you’d inserted a third finger and were moving your hips again. You were fingering yourself, breathing shallow and quick.

“It’s a feelin’ like I wanna be…stuffed…a-and full’a you.”

Joel’s whole body could’ve liquified on the spot. His brain, presently, had all the consistency of a plate of scrambled eggs if he’d had to guess. Feeling his cock swell even bigger and his hips sink lower to yours of their own accord, he had only to grit his teeth and nod his head. He felt the tip of him bump your fingers, and the sensation and the expectation nearly drove him insane.

He mumbled quietly, “Then move your hand.”

You did. You winced again. You looked as though you might be ashamed for wanting him to fill you with his spend, and Joel simply wouldn’t allow that any longer.

Without saying another word, he slid back in.

Your cum and his facilitated the slide, and you opened right up for him. You whimpered, while Joel grunted like an animal. He couldn’t help it; it all felt so fucking primal.

How you could ever feel the need to apologize for wanting more of this was more than he could take.

“Every inch of me,” Joel said, rutting deeper, “is yours.”

He withdrew to the tip, and he could feel strings of arousal linking him to you in a sickeningly sweet way.

You could scarcely even nod, just waiting for him again.

When Joel plunged back in, he heard a feral little cry, and he felt your legs wrap around his waist. He went faster. You fisted the pillow behind your head in one hand, while the other laid flat on his chest, like you were checking for a heartbeat. You could probably hear it thudding a million miles per minute right now. Your hips collided in tandem.

“D— Daddy,” you whimpered.

“That’s it, open up for daddy. Good girl. It’s all yours.”

The sounds his thrusts were making were obscene.

“Every inch?” you breathed, “E-Every drop, too?”

“Every fiber of my fucking being, sweet girl.”

That made you smile, at length. Your hand slid from his chest, down his round belly, straight to a groin that was pounding hard and fast against your own. Joel groaned when he felt your touch sweep inside your legs—right in the space where his cum had come trickling out. You slid your fingers through that mess, then whimpered again.

Then you brought your hand up to your mouth.

You wrapped your lips around your cum-soaked fingers like they were the single sweetest thing, and you sucked.

Joel had no say after seeing that: he had to cum again.

It likely stunned you both—you more than him, by the look that crossed your eyes the second you felt him throb and pulse inside your cunt—but then it kept going.

Rather than stop, or slow down in the slightest, Joel found his hips pistoning faster than they had before. The whole bed frame shook, and your body trembled with every thrust, and the noises between your legs grew even louder; the sound of skin slapping skin was only amplified by the addition of Joel’s hot load in the mix.

The man was operating on impulse. You, through sheer awe and an animalistic need to have every crevice filled. You held him and you grit your teeth, and you let him keep using your body, while you used his. You kissed him.

“Go on, then—make me a daddy. Take my cum, baby,” Joel babbled, brainless, “Make your old man a daddy.”

He couldn’t tell if it were the words or the rhythm or the pleasure that had already been blossoming deep in your gut this whole time, but he felt you fall apart. You wrapped your legs tighter around his waist than you had all night, and you screamed his name. Begged for more.

“Cum in me, daddy—pleasepleaseplease just cum, ju—”

And there he went. Again. Flooding your insides with his warmth and letting his cock carve a wild, relentless path through your cunt like it was all the man knew how to do. He filled you up. He felt it leaking down his length with every stab of his hips, and frankly, he didn’t care what he looked like now. You were smiling big, drawing him in for more kisses as he panted and grunted and whimpered like he never had before. He kissed back. Slowed down.

Found himself lost in your mouth as your tongue wove delectably through his own and your hands made their way to his wild, greying hair. You tugged, and he moaned.

He fucked his spend deeper without even meaning to.

All instinct again, it seemed he couldn’t get enough.

Suddenly, he felt a new, strange urge bubble up.

“I-I-I took a pill tonight,” he blurted out, “Know how badly you want this baby, and I wanna give you one.”

Or two. Or twenty. He was barely capable of speech, let alone rational cognition, so he just spoke whatever came to his mind then, still snug inside your legs and panting.

“A pill?” you whispered back.

Joel’s gaze locked with yours.

He felt stupid for it all at once.

“Yeah. Yeah, I just— I know I’m gettin’ on in years, and I probably can’t fuck the way I used to. And you deserve someone who can…Maybe a guy your age, but that—”

“—is the single dumbest thing you have ever said to me,” you finished for him, eyes narrowing swiftly in a scowl.

When Joel tried talking again, you cut him off.

“I don’t care what any guy my age is doing, or could do. I want babies with you, and that includes every part, OK?”

Your look softened momentarily, seeing his lips twitch down—you could probably see he wasn’t believing you.

Then you cradled his face in your palms. You smiled. You brushed his nose with yours, and you kissed him again, and with what little strength you likely had left in your body, you dug your heels in his ass and pulled him deeper. Both of you let out soft, low grunts at the effort.

“If you fucked like this at twenty-five, my body wouldn’t have survived anyway,” you whispered in reassurance. Biting back a laugh as Joel smiled, too, “I like things just the way they are. Just like how I hope you like me, too.”

“No—I love you.” Joel shook his head, almost plaintive.

And for the first time that night, he felt himself soften.

Whether it was the pill wearing off or that first thread of vulnerability stretching out between your body and his, he didn’t really care. He kissed the tip of your nose and was about to say something more, when you cut back in.

“I love you more. And since we’re being honest tonight,” you started quietly, nipping at your bottom lip a second, “I might…need you back at the apothecary tomorrow.”

Joel’s face fell.

“Wh— is something wrong, baby?” His voice was tight.

He hated seeing David, but, of course, he’d go back there in a heartbeat if it meant getting you the medication you needed. His stomach was starting to churn, when you reached up to hold his face again. You shook your head.

“No, no, Joel, I’m fine. But I may need prenatal vitamins.”

Now his eyes were going wide. His cheeks heated under your palms, and his cock twitched inside you, reflexively.

“You mean…” he murmured, unable to finish. Swallowing.

Beneath him, he saw you smile and nod.

He nearly choked hearing what followed:

Dave is intuitive, so he’ll be watching you carefully to make sure you are sated and not experiencing any discomfort. He’s definitely the type to run his hand down your back while he asks if you need anything while he’s still inside you, holding you to his body where you collapsed on top of him. He doesnt get to connect with people often, and he won’t verbalize this, but he loves prolonging the connection with you, as long as you are comfortable. He won’t necessarily pamper you, but he also won’t expect to be pampered. He assumes you both just want to rest before your next round.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Definitely your legs. He met you at a holiday cocktail party for the DIA, you had come with a girl friend as her +1, and your long legs in your short cocktail dress, seamed stockings and high heels, made the crotch of his pants instantly feel a bit snug. His favorite body part is his eyes, because he knows how to turn on the innocent puppy dog eyes to disarm people and give up their secrets. And it always works.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Dave loves it if you swallow, and although he would always ask, you know he especially loves it when you ask him to let you swallow. You use condoms until you both get tested together, and then he loves coming inside you, on you (all with your permission) and seeing the aftermath of pleasure dripping from you while relaxing in bed together afterwards.

D = Drunk (what they’re like when they’ve been drinking)

Dave doesn’t get drunk; too much of a security risk. And he never knows when he’s going to be called into an emergency. But in your private cabana on vacation, he’ll have a few drinks until he feels pleasantly relaxed and tipsy. He gets more affectionate and emotional, and the first time he told you he loved you, you were afraid it was just the alcohol talking. But really, it gave him the liquid courage he needed to express how he’d felt for a while.

E = Emergency Situations (what they’re like in an emergency)

Dave would literally commit murder to keep you safe. No second guessing, no hesitation. In any emergency, his training kicks in and he knows what to do immediately. You feel 100% safe with him around. And he loves it when you affectionately call him your bodyguard. Makes him feel appreciated and valued

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Dave loves sleepy spooning sex; his favorite time with you is Sunday mornings, leisurely coming awake together, pulling you into a spooning position before you even open your eyes. Your hand trails back to stroke the hardening cock in his boxer briefs, while his hand comes around to cup and fondle your breasts, kissing along your neck. You ask him to pull your panties down, and that is all the invitation he needs to maneuver off his own underwear and slip inside you from behind, gently rocking the both of you into exquisite pleasure, one hand circling your clit while the other hand flicks your nipple and he nibbles on your ear. It’s your cum button, and he knows it.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? Are they humorous? etc.)

One thing people don’t guess about Dave is his wicked sense of humor. He is not above hiding behind the bed to startle you, buying you funny gifts, like edible underwear he tries to pass off as sexy, and tickling you when you’re in his arms, just to get a reaction out of you. Or, making voices during foreplay to make you laugh. His silly sense of humor is one of your favorite things about him, and you treasure that he lets you see this side of him. You also know if something happens during sex, like loud queefing or your hair getting caught, he won’t think anything of it; he can laugh it off with you and keep going.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Dave grooms more after he meets you, but he leaves his natural hair alone for the most part; maybe some trimming. Definitely no shaving.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Dave doesn’t naturally know how to express intimacy, both his desire for it, or when he feels it. Being a trained DIA agent means he has to separate his emotions from his actions, and he doesn’t flip that switch easily. But here’s the thing about Dave: he’ll take his time undressing you, using his hands to praise you as he explores you. He’ll listen to you, make you feel heard, and take action based on what you tell him, even if it was something you mentioned offhand weeks ago. You know he cares about you because of the way he looks at you when he’s inside you, like he’s finally found the place where he feels peace and comfort, and never wants to separate from you. His eyes tell you what his mouth has a hard time expressing. And it’s enough for you.

He’ll always have your favorite drinks and snacks in his house; your car’s windshield will always be scraped when you stay over at his place in the winter; he’ll keep extra socks and blankets around for when you get chilly; and he’ll listen intently while you share stories from your childhood and family with him. And he’s ALWAYS going to show up or call when he says he will. Or he’ll tell you why he can’t. He makes you feel valued, and he does things for you, and you know that is how he shows you intimacy.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

If he’s on the road, he’ll ask you for pictures or phone sex to help him feel less lonely, and he is more than happy to reciprocate for you. Sometimes, he has to jack off when he thinks of you, just to get rid of his erection. He can’t stop feeling horny for you, all the time.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Dave has kinks that surprised you. You had wondered if he would be into holding your neck, choking, or some kind of dominant kink, due to his job. But to your surprise, Dave loves when you initiate any kind of sexual contact, and even though he can’t keep his hands off you, it’s a special thrill for him when you cup him and stroke him through his pants out of nowhere, or secretly flash him your naked cunt under your dress at a DIA party. Tie him up? Yes, please! And have your way with him: tease him, ride him, massage him, he’s up for all of it. His day job is to be hard, so he loves being soft at home with you. Or the elevator. Or a hotel room. Or the bathroom of your favorite restaurant. Let him know you want him, and he’s yours. He’s also definitely into you wearing high heels and stockings while you’re fucking.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He has to be away from home so often, his favorite location is his/your bed, or your shared bed, if you are living together. He definitely indulges in high end sheets and bedding, with soft and hard pillows, throw blankets, and soothing lighting around the bed. It’s his respite from his world, a place where only you and he exist, and it’s the safest, most beautiful spot he knows. And you never feel more protected than when you can sleep held tightly against his hard chest. Nothing bad can happen to you when you’re in Dave’s strong arms.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Dave is motivated by what he sees, and it’s not just you being dressed up or naked. It’s just you: in yoga pants and tank top, stretching on the living room floor, or folding laundry. It’s you in a cute sundress and hat. Or in jeans and your favorite hoodie you stole from him. He just loves you, and seeing you relaxed and happy makes him want to take that happiness to the next level. Sex with you is passionate, but also relaxing and calming and soothing; the best serotonin release he can imagine. Of course, he also loves seeing you dressed up, hair done up for a special occasion, beautiful jewelry, or special lingerie. But it’s not necessary for him. All he needs to see is YOU.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Dave has to be violent in his work life; he doesn’t want to even roleplay violence with you, so choking is off the table. (You did manage to convince him some biting and spanking isn’t violent, just a small thrill.)

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

To be honest, Dave wasn’t great at oral when you met him, but he actually really wanted to learn to please you, so he asked lots of questions and got LOTS of practice, and now he’s champ at making you come from oral. He’d spend as much time eating you out as you’d like, but honestly it only takes a few minutes to make you cum, and then you need different stimulation. Dave loves when you play with his cock on the sly in public, and if you pull him into a closet or bathroom stall for oral? He is mentally and physically in heaven. Whether he finishes in your mouth, on you, or in you, he’s just happy when you let him know with your tongue, lips, and hands how much you love spending time with him.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Weekend mornings? Slow and sensual. Weekdays before you go out for dinner? Fast and sensual. Weekend nights when you don’t have anywhere to be? In public? At his parents’ house for the holidays? Fast and rough and dirty and you LOVE it.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Dave will pride himself on NOT having quickies, but let’s be real: sometimes you just need it, now. And one of his favorite things is when you give him a sensuous handjob while he is still mostly dressed and you’re naked, and he does NOT last long. But he is always ready to return the favor, and you take as a compliment you can make him cum so quickly.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Dave is happy to experiment with toys and textures and positions, but he is not willing to risk your safety or well-being. He sees enough drama in his daily work life, he isn’t interested in risky behavior at home, beyond public fondling and finding a private place to get it on. But he’ll gladly indulge your fetish for lingerie and being less-dressed with him, and he’s more than willing to wear his full suit and badge, and let you seduce him into your bed. You both also love roleplay: naughty teacher, sexy cop, shy and inexperienced, and of course, you really go out on Halloween together and it ALWAYS ends in sex. Your favorite so far is devil and angel. And Dave is the angel.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He doesn’t have unlimited stamina any more, but he is definitely into quality over quantity. He might only be able to go two rounds, once at night and once again in the morning, but you’ll never forget how blissful he makes you feel. No complaints.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Dave doesn’t own vibrating toys, but he does own accessories, like sex pillows, a blindfold, feather ticklers, a cock ring, and massage oils. He’s also a fan of eating with you in bed, and inevitably he ‘drops’ food he has to lick off of you. (You both believe all the food you eat in bed tastes better than food you eat anywhere else.) He loves playing with the straps and garters on your lingerie, and he’ll lightly snap your garters on the backs of your thighs when you’re on your stomach.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Dave likes to tease you with words: sexy texts during the day, sending you pictures of positions he wants to try, and generally getting you all riled up before he even touches you. You loooove it.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

You have to encourage Dave to be louder about telling you what he likes and wants. Because he isn’t overly emotional or loud about his needs, he is not in the habit of giving a lot of verbal feedback, either moans or words. He assumes you know he likes what you’re doing! But he is definitely whispering to ask if you like what he’s doing, and all the things he loves about you and your body.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Dave has a soft spot for animals and cannot pass a dog on the street without pointing them out, and if he gets to give pets? His smile! It is everything. And if you have a cat...it’s his cat now too. The cat prefers him, in fact. Traitor.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Dave is definitely packing in the pants, and part of his cocky attitude at work is definitely due to the size of his cock. When he was younger, he relied on size to please women, but now with you, he knows it’s MUCH more important what he does with his mouth, fingers, and words, in addition to his penis. You’ve helped him reach a new level of sensuality and pleasure with his body, and he loves pleasuring you.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

His sex drive is definitely affected by his job; you know he always wants you, but sometimes he is just EXHAUSTED from chasing people and working long hours. You know at these moments, the most pleasure you can give him is head scritches and soft touches while he rests his head on your chest. And falls asleep in your arms.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

You’d sacrifice yourself on his altar again and again if he made you feel like this.

To feel his hands explore your body, rough skin with a gentle touch. To feel him kiss your lips, undressing you as dozens watched. To feel the prick of his knife defile you just as he did.

“Look at me. Look at me, only me. I am your god now.”

*

You were to be sacrificed for the greater good, for the gods to favor general Acacuis in this vital battle, a battle that would decide the fate of your city and all those in it. Should his armies fail, all those you held dear could be sold into to slavery, killed, or suffered much worse fates. So, when General Acacius put out a request, the highest calling a woman could offer outside of bearing sons, it surprised you that no one took it by the time word reached you outside the city. 

General Acacuis made a call to all the virgins of your city, asking to make the ultimate sacrifice, and when you stood in front of him in all his beauty, you were not fearful. You were resolute in your decision.

Now, he leans against his throne, eyeing you in your robes as you remain knelt to the ground on both knees, your body bowed before him in his parlor.

“Do you understand what you are sacrificing, little lamb?”

You don’t look up. You don’t dare. “Yes, my lord. I am to sacrifice my life so that my city and my people are safe.”

You can hear the sound of robes russling. “Not only that, but your maidenhood. The ceremony will require me to deflower you on an altar. Publically.”

Swallowing hard, you force down your anxiety. “I… I did not know that, my lord.”

He walks towards you, the sound of his footsteps the only thing signaling you of his approach. Suddenly, his voice is right in front of you. You dare not open your eyes. “Does this change your decision?”

You hesitate, body shaking. You would say yes, because of course you would, you just needed to breathe. “I… I-”

Sudden but gentle, you feel his hands on your face, coaxing you to look up at him and you do as he urges. His features strike you, angular but soft. His nose was aquiline, strong as he was, a symbol of his power and the genes he would breed into whatever woman he lay. Still, there was a softness about him, full cheeks and eyes that pooled in brown. His arms were like oak trees, dark and strong; freckles smothered his face but were only noticeable from this close. 

The General’s hands held your chin firm.

“Is this your decision, fair lady?” His eyebrows raise, frown lines in his face a telling sign of his age. “It is only yours to make, none other.”

Basking in his warmth, in the glow of his pained eyes, you nod. “Yes, my lord. It is my duty and my honor.”

He gives your face a little squeeze. “Good girl.” Releasing your head in favor of taking your hand, he speaks louder now, more formal. Gone is his warmth, once again your lord. “Rise.” He aids you to stand, hands moving to your arms, playing with the sleeves of your dressage. “Now, I must inspect you. Are you ready?”

You take a steadying breath, and when you release, you agree.

Slow and steady, the general pulls down the sleeves, relieving your breasts, stomach, and soon your unscathed womanhood. Your dress pools at your feet, your nakedness laid bare before your lord. General Acacius takes a step back, admiring you as he looks down from where he stands tall and proud, in his armor. He was practicing in the courtyard when you answered his call, and he had not changed, smelling such of masculinity that you craved him, carnally. Marcus Acacius paces around you, eyeing every inch you had to offer, viewing you like an animal at the market.

“Beautiful…” The general murmurs to himself before walking up behind you. The metal plating of his chest plate connects to your back, and a shiver of cold strikes your body, but when he wraps his arms around your person you are once again comforted. His body is so warm, fire and burning, burning, burning power so evident in his grasp. A sun god in your presence… Apollo in the flesh.

He caresses your body, his large right hand rising up to hold your breast, his left lowering to your untouched maidenhood. He tweaks your nipple with his fingers, tugging at it experimentally, and the other one peaks and stiffens in response. He groans in satisfaction and dips his head to mouth at your throat, lips and teeth scraping across your exposed skin. His fingers travel across your chest to the other side then, pinching and tugging at that nipple and you gasp at the way it sends a shock straight to your core.

But his other hand… that hand teases at your mound, fingers raking through the hair there. His hand parts your legs then, stepping wider to accommodate him. When his finger parts your folds, you hear a low chuckle. “Wet already, my maiden?” His fingertip trails up and down your crevices, catching at your untouched entrance once, then twice, and then hesitating at that bundle of nerves, swirling around it a few times. The way he plays with your folds makes you whimper, eyes closing as you rest your head back against his chest, worried that you might faint at the feeling of his hands all over you. You can feel him smile against your neck before he removes his fingers from you, but not before another long swipe through your soaking wet folds, collecting some of your slick that he’s managed to make pour out of you already. “You must wait for the ceremony, I fear… Still, a taste won’t hurt…” 

The general presses his fingers to your mouth, and you’re unsure for a moment, one hand lifting to grasp his thick wrist, cuffed with metal links. “Open, little lamb,” he commands, and you obey. You can only ever obey. His fingers press into your mouth, against your tongue, and you close your lips around them. The taste is foreign to you, but not unpleasant, and you start to greedily suck on his fingers, licking the tangy sweet arousal from the rough pads of his fingers.

He pulls away from you all too soon, hands groping your abdomen and ass for a long moment before he groans in displeasure and leaves you, alone and naked and overwhelmingly heated with arousal.

*

You were moved into the palace immediately, as preparation for the ceremony would take a few days. You say a tearful goodbye to all your friends and family; they are who you are doing this for, to protect them.

Still, you’d be lying if you had said you hadn’t found a new motivation, something else that piqued your interest. You hadn’t forgotten the general’s touch, his smell, his face. Marcus Acacius was angelic, a figure sculpted by the gods themselves; you could swear you’d seen his likeness on a statue somewhere. 

He watched as you bathed, handmaids scrubbing you down every day, washing your hair. Then, he sat there still as you stood, scanning over you as the maids doused you in perfumes and oils, clothing you in silk. You were to live your last days as royalty. Since entering his home, you were treated with nothing but utmost respect, feeding you the finest foods and wines, things you’d never been afforded in your simple lifestyle. You loved that he watched you naked, and you hoped you were pleasing to his eye.

He stood. “Leave us,” General Acacius ordered, his eyes directly on yours and never leaving as your handmaidens filed out. You’re standing in the tub still, your lord offering his hand for you to step out. You should be ashamed of your nakedness, you know it, but he was to deflower you in 2 days time, mark you with his sigil and that of Mars, piercing your heart with a knife in a prayer to Mars himself. 

General Acacius scans your body, his palm on your hip sliding up to cup your breast. He liked to play with your flesh, you’ve noticed, intimate moments such as these where he held you close, held you fast, comforted you even though there was no future for you past these final days.

“My beautiful sacrifice…” He murmurs, pressing his forehead to yours as you stand with heavy breaths. “Such a waste, such a shame…” 

“It’s not a shame, my lord…” You assure him, firm in your stance. “It is for the good of my city, my family.”

A quiet tsk, tsk, tsk falls off his lips.  “So much honor in such a young thing.” His lips brush yours, and you gasp.

“General Aca-”

“Marcus.” His voice is gruff, stern, ordering you to comply with this infringement on formality. “I will be inside you, soon enough. You may use my given name.” He places a hand on your cheek, thumb against the plush of your lips.

You nod against him. “M-Marcus, should we-”

He pressed himself fully against you, kissing you tenderly. When he pulls away, his eyes have the blackness that often accompanies these hushed encounters. As Marcus deepens the kiss, he squeezes your face so that your mouth opens to him.

“Such a shame…” He repeats, a low rumbling from his throat, pulling at your lip gently between his teeth. “To waste such a beautiful, honorable young lady… how is it no one has taken you as their wife, hm?” Ever careful not to harm his sacrifice, Marcus wraps his large hand around your throat as he licks a stripe up the column of your neck. “That no one has ever taken you to bed, ravaged your sweet body, claimed your maidenhood as theirs… seems almost unbelievable.”

Gasping at the implied doubt, you pull your face away from him but his hand remains on your throat, looking him in the eyes with earnesty, begging to be believed.  “M-my lord! I would not lie, I swear to you I am intact-”

He squeezes on your delicate neck, cutting off your words and just a little bit of your breathing, his eyes, usually dark chasms, are fiery and alight, not only demanding your submission but taking it. His clothed body presses against your naked form.

Still, his voice is comforting. “I believe you, sweet lamb. No one would lie in order to die by my hand in a ritual sacrifice. Relax, enjoy these final days.” Swift as lightning, Marcus’s lips were at your ear again. “And resist the urge to stuff your fingers in your cunt tonight. Let me be the one to break you, not the fantasy.” And with that, he left you standing there in the bathing room, your legs dripping with something other than water.

*

Your bare feet are cold on the marble floor. The rest of you is hot with anxiety.

Your last day on this earth, before you meet your painful end and join the souls of your lost loved ones in the otherworld. Paying your sacrifice meant no others would join you until their just time.

You were bathed, your hair brushed with expensive oils before it was woven in intricate braids at the top, falling freely at your shoulders. You were crowned in a laurel wreath, painted in gold. Loose white robes fell around you, a symbol of your purity, and you were draped in a purple sash. You were royalty, if only for today.

Were there drums? Or was the beating from you? The thud-thud, thud-thud of your heartbeat made it impossible to hear the people speaking to you, so you merely nodded along. Prayers were said by your handmaidens, all of them wailing to the Gods, crying out that this not be in vain. You’d grown attached in the week you’d been together, and for only a woman you’d wished you’d been brought to the general for a different purpose, brought to become Lady Acacius.

But your wishes were short lived.

You were raised to follow all things that made a good Roman. You were brave, honorable, respected authority, respected the household gods, loved your city and your family. All this came into play when you offered your body to the general. All this was in your heart as you walked through the opening door, leaving your attendants behind, and entering a room filled with only men.

Although the strange and distorted faces in the flames of candles scared you, your eyes were quickly pulled to him.

Him.

General Acacius stood in front of the altar, clothed in white and gold; he wore a matching gold laurel wreath to yours. 

The lighting accentuated his sharp angles, the shadow cast by his nose on to his cheek made your breathing stutter, drawing ever closer to him. Step by shaking step, you approached your fate.

Strong hands steadied you. “It’s alright, little lamb.” He assured you, speaking low and deep for your ears only. “I’ll take care of everything. Have no fear.”

And you don’t. Your heart rate drops to a normal pace, your body temperature cooling, save for your frigid toes. Nothing to be done there. Marcus undoes your robes, letting them fall at your feet in waves of purple and white-turned-orange by the flickering flames. When it’s all said and done, you were to be burned in a funeral pyre, the same flames burning down your body for the good of your people. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Next, he lays you down on the altar. The cool slab of marble sends a run of chills over your skin, but Marcus stands between your spread legs, warm hands rubbing on your goosed flesh. He makes it feel better. You try not to think too hard about the fact you are bare naked for at least 2 dozen men, but it was okay. Marcus was there. A stranger walks up and takes your hands and at first you gasp simply in shock.

“Do not worry, he is acting as instructed.” 

The man goes to tie your hands, and you passively protest. 

“My lord, I need not be restrained, I promise-”

“It is not to keep you here, little lamb.” He assures you, still caressing and kneading the meat of your thighs. It was incredible how large he was, how broad; his shadow swallows your body. “I do not wish to have anyone here who needs to be restrained. This is to keep your body taut as I mark you.”

When you die, you are to go to the underworld as all shall. When you meet Pluto, you are to show him the marking on your stomach, and he would know you were sacrificed and inform Mars, whose sigil would be marked next to the house of Acacius. If Mars finds your sacrifice worthy, your virginity, your life, your beauty and youth, he will grant the General good favor. 

But first, your maidenhood.

The room was dead silent as the General stripped down, unfastening the clasp at your shoulder. In wonderment, you watch as his body is revealed to you, even as the candles largely shine on his back. He was stunning. The peak of masculinity, of manhood, not only his body but his stature and presence so all encompassing that you can’t help but wonder if he was Juptier himself, come down from the heavens to take another maiden as his. You would gladly suffer Classisto and Io’s fates for once chance with him.

As your eyes travel down, you can still see some scars in the dim lighting; raised pieces of flesh that make you wish you could have tended to his injuries… but your thoughts are soon distracted. You’ve never seen a cock before, barely knew what it looked like, but as the General strokes himself approaching you, you were mesmerized. It was thick, thick enough you weren’t sure it could fit, but you’d never even tried to fit anything inside you, so how would you know? The tip was covered by a layer of skin that pulled back to reveal the head with every upstroke of Marcus’s hand… fat, blunt, ready to split you open. You’re well aware of the liquid leaking from you to the altar.

“Perfect offering, aren’t you?” He asks, but it's rhetorical, his eyes distracted as he reaches between your legs to play with that sensitive spot, that place your hand wandered to on cold, lonely nights, seeking comfort in your own touch. You weren’t completely clueless, you’d pleasured yourself plenty without breaking yourself open and you had done so minutes before beginning the ceremony. You wanted to be wet for him. Marcus’s eyes connect to yours as he touches your slicked up center; he knows what you did.

“I am ready, my lord.”

“It seems you are.”

*

His cock spreads the lips of your cunt with agonizing slowness, your voice not even trying to hide the moans of pain and pleasure to the crowd of men, many of whom you noticed were entering states of undress. Your body is already writhing, the slow pace driving you mad and you can already tell you’re moments away from begging for more, willing to be remembered as the young woman who died begging for cock. Just as you were about to burst, to scream at him to just do it, Marcus bends over you, pressing his forehead to yours. His eyes glow in the candlelight. One hand reaches up to where you are bound, interlacing with your fingers. “Hold on to me, little lamb.”

You do as you are told, as he thrusts into your body, breaking open your hymen and spilling the blood between your legs onto the altar, staining it with you forever. Your memory would lay here in his home the rest of his life, speaking to him even in prayer. 

Marcus fucks you now, his fat cock dragging in and out of your channel, claiming you again, and again, and again, and for a moment you forget where you are. You forget you’re being watched. You forget you are to die until Marcus slows his movements, pulling out the freshly sharpened knife meant for your skin.

“My little lamb, my offering, my perfect sacrifice…” He kisses your lips, something not a part of the ritual, and makes a show of him claiming your face for his audience. Marcus will take care of you, and your name will go down in honor for the rest of time.

Stuffed full of him, Marcus never stops fucking you, never stops sliding himself in and out of your cunt, teasing you as he pulls away, placing the knife at your stomach. It wouldn’t be deep; there wouldn’t be time to heal so it didn’t need to be. There was no sense in hurting you more than need be, he had said to you. 

Stretched out, your arms above your head and tied down with silks, your gasp in pain as the first mark is made, scraping over your skin. He begins with his sigil, smack dab in the middle of your stomach. As you glance down, noting the size of the mark he’s making, you wonder where Mars is intended to go, how there will even be space for the second mark he had to make. But those thoughts are tucked away as he begins to move his hips again, pounding himself deeply into you. Little trickles of red droplets bubble on your skin from the cuts, morphing your body into something that was his, and his alone. 

When you look at him, his eyes nearly black as the day you first entered his court, you wondered if he had any intention of marking Mars’ sigil on you. 

“I’m gonna take care of you, little lamb.”

WIth one last cut, he locks onto your eyes, gripping the knife still. You think this must be it, he will now take your life and you’ll die impaled on his cock. Instead, he takes the tip of the knife to his own stomach, careful and sure movements carving your first initial onto him. And then, his body joined yours again.

Nothing in this world felt better than blood on blood. 

He cut loose your binds and dropped the knife, the clatter echoing onto the floor as he climbed onto the altar, fucking himself into you with the vigor of a general on the battlefield, like winning this, winning you was what truly mattered. 

Suddenly you piece it all together and realize something. You realize that you weren’t going to die today.

Fearful of the repercussions, of the others' reactions when they figure out he wasn’t going to sacrifice you, your head turns to the dozens of men surrounding you. The candles were sparse and placed away from the altar, brighter near you, leaving you without much to work with in terms of vision. As your cunt begins to tighten in that all consuming feeling, your eyes trying to close in pleasure as you try to make out the figure in the room. Dancing shadows on the wall, figures combining and moving together; bent over and close and grunting, red and orange and yellow and black swirling together. You couldn’t tell if the sounds of skin on skin were from near or far anymore.

Marcus’s hand cups your face, turning you away from the debauchery surrounding you and back to meet his eyes.

“Look at me. Look at me, only me. I am your god now.” His eyes bore into yours, pounding your pussy so harshly you could hear the wetness as you are torn apart. Marcus grips your face harshly, but his other hand swirling your over sensitive clit is tender. “You only worship me now, my sweet offering. I am the only thing that matters to you.”

And he is.

General Marcus Acacius is your god, and you will worship knelt at his feet for as long as he shall have you.

His thrusts start to falter, and he picks your leg up, notching it in the crook of his elbow as he starts to push himself deeper, touching parts of your body you hadn’t known had any feeling at all. “Cum for me.” He demands, commanding your body to his whim the way he commands his armies. “Cum on my cock, little lamb.”

Your hands reach for his forearms, fingers gripping tightly into the strong, lean muscle you find there beneath your fingertips. “W-want-” You swallow hard, staving off that feeling in your belly so warm you no longer notice the cold on your back. “Want to be filled, my lord.”

The general cups your face, brushing his thumb over your lower lip. “You will, you will, but first,” The pinch on your cheek takes you by surprise. “You must cum for me.” He lets go, but does not relent in his demand. “Let me feel you, little lamb, let me feel you cum on a cock for the first time.”

It doesn’t take much more work on his part for him to build you up into a frenzy, your walls fluttering pathetically around him as you pant, heaving oxygen back into your body from every thrust that seems to knock it right out of you. His hand still holds tightly to your face, dipping his head down now to bite his teeth harshly into your lip, your jaw, then your neck. You whimper at the feeling, eyes rolling back in your head as the combination of rough and pain and the pleasure of his cock and his fingers working you, and you finally fall apart for him, your body spasming beneath his, back arching up into his movements.

“There it is, sweet one. Give it to me. Give it to your god.” His face turns positively wicked as he hikes your leg up a little higher, the hand on your face now moving down to your throat as he squeezes lightly, reminding you of exactly who you belong to, exactly who you’ve been promised to, urged to as the very sacrificial lamb. He only barely starts to cut off your breathing with his grip, but one of your hands reaches for his anyway, holding onto his wrist as he puts the added pressure against your throat.

Your body is still quaking beneath him as he works you right through that orgasm and sends you hurtling quickly toward another. Or, was it actually just the same one? There aren’t an thoughts left in your head to try and make sense of it, nothing left to try to figure out what’s going on in your body. 

It doesn’t matter now, anyway. You were his. Only his. You were General Acacius’ to do as he pleased with, and if he preferred to kill you with cock, you’d die happily that way, too.

Your blathering and bumbling beneath him slows as he lets go of your throat, growling with a frantic need above you. His thrusts stutter, hips spearing into you erratically, and you have a sense that perhaps his pleasure might come soon, too. 

“Please! Please, my lord, fill me. Fill me properly, I only want to please you-” Your words come out pathetic and whining, the strength of your orgasm short-circuiting your brain as you try to make sense of the situation, make sense of the pleasure and panic you feel.

“You’ll take my mark, and my cock, and my seed, little lamb. You’ll take everything I give you.” He groans lowly, a sound that bubbles up from deep in your chest, and you can feel the way he twitches inside of you. Then suddenly, he roars above you and there’s an explosion of warmth, a feeling that spreads throughout your belly, welling up into your chest and face, heating you from the inside out. You’re burning again, burning in white hot flames as he empties himself deep into your womb.

Everything pauses, pleasure soaking into your body, the sweat cooling on your skin as your God’s full weight crashes on you, protecting your body from the view of the onlookers finishing in and on each other around you. 

“Leave.” He barks, his face tucked into your neck.

A beat of silence.

“My lord… the sacrifice…” A nameless, faceless man objects from the corners.

 You begin to turn to him, but Marcus adjusts up and keeps you from looking. “They don’t deserve your gaze, little lamb.” Then, he sat up on his knees, cock still buried inside you. He looks to the crowd.

“I’VE HAD A VISION!” Marcus exclaims, shouting to the others. “Mars does not desire her to be sacrificed to him, but to be taken as my wife!” He looks down at you, brown eyes swimming with continued lust even as his cock softs in your channel. “Our children shall be blessed by him, great warriors and ladies… and we shall win our battle. Do you accept, little lamb?”

It wasn’t even a question for a moment.

*******************

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