But now you're too swept up in the current to stop him. To stop the flood from strafing hotly through your muscles until your body is bowed, arched, feet taut and knees slamming shut over his head. Stop the implicitly keening sound being torn out of your mouth that you didn't realize was open, dragging out over the gravel of his groans until your throat tightens.

You lay a shaky forearm over your eyes, blocking him from sight.

That doesn't stop him from moving around. The sudden absence of his bulk between your legs is startling, your feet dropping down to the empty bed. You're wrung dry, boneless and weighty.

And then, he's there. Up beside you, pulling you against him. No, pulling you over him. You jab out a hand or elbow, but it lacks true strength, and his arms band across yours as it is. He adjusts you both here and there, locking you into some primal wrestling position — your back morphed against his chest, splayed open like a fucking exhibit to your ceiling. He pulls his meaty thighs up, boots keeping him firmly locked in place, and casually tucks your legs on either side of his. Your shorts are gone, your t-shirt's ridden and tangled up under your breasts.

"'eeere we go," Simon finally exhales, directly into your ear. "Lay back fer me now, girl." His voice is firm, shoring you up against a brace you didn't know you needed.

Your head falls back, and finds a bit of pillow edge at the top of his shoulder. You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the whole room to disappear around you. But even the light from the washroom is too bright, illuminating, bearing witness to your surrender.

You wriggle — a stunned fish pulled out of water — but his thick arms tighten across your chest, your own pinned to your side. "Shhh, shush now, love," he says. He restricts even further until he feels your body relax. "'assa girl. 'at's what she needs, eh."

Humiliatingly, you feel the sting in your nose first. The telltale sign. You force your brain to go elsewhere, back to England, back to the trailer park, Barbados even, wherever it needs to to find safety.

"Workin' so 'ard. Puttin' up such a fuss, no wonder yer so tired, love. Gonna run yerself ragged one o' these days, eh." His left arm, a steel band. His right hand, seeking your cunt. You jerk out, sensitive, and he chuckles thickly in your ear. He changes course; his fingers push in past your lips and collect your saliva, then drift down to smear it over your waiting clit. "See, m' girl, I know ya now. Yer cute tricks that yer throwin' out to keep me from catchin' ya proper. I know now yer a fighter through 'an through. Got away from yer daddy, eh. Wish I coulda seen 'at, seen ya be so strong and brave—"

Your eyes burn. The tears clump at the corners and fall freely, sliding down into the crease of your neck. You're a fucking chump, thinking he'd do a cursory search and leave it be.

Simon huffs so softly and turns his head, licking the trace of salt. His fingers tighten across your aching nipples, over your hot crying cunt — your animal brain recognizes this as the clamp of possession — as he continues. "'ll be so good fer ya, m' love. Give ya what yer body needs. Let ya be the boss when ya wanna be. S'okay, let it out." Circling, tighter and tighter over you, bookending it with his driving hips.

Your clit is throbbing under his fingers. You've always been able to have multiple orgasms, but this feels like a monster looming over you, sinister in its ambit, swallowing you up whole. A colossal rogue wave sweeping you out to sea.

He rubs, exactly right, while his other fingers finally push under your t-shirt to find your nipples. "Ya can't—" he's breathless too, now. Still got his fucking pants on under you, scraping against your tender flesh, but hard when you make contact just so. "Ya can't yell at me like ya did without thinkin' 'm not gonna be yers."

You sob, furious.

"'m yers, y'know 'at." He lets out a long series of insane groans and whimpers melt into your ear, soak your neck. Your hips are moving on their own accord, you can't even watch as the horror unfolds.

The orgasm is not blissful. It doesn't hit you out of the blue. It is a demonically seismic, slow flattening of all your senses until you are mammalian and warrigal beneath him — on top of him.

That time you fainted going up the metal steps to open the trailer door. You'd been out running, little face streaked with tears, and darting back to drink water from the tap before you were seen. You'd been running in the dense humidity and fainted clean out, your scrawny body folding off to the side and into the small scratchy mat laid over the dirt. Coming to was worse than your vision blacking out in the first place, a ring of clarity at the centre of pitch black. You were disoriented and sick, bright pinwheels of colour streaking in front of you. You were face-down, arms bent under you, and heard the sound of your parents laughing.

Your senses creep back. Your right leg is cramping, your head is pounding, and you've saturated the front of his sweatshirt with your sweat. He's stroking from nip to rib to hip slowly, not playing with you, but bringing you back to yourself. Keeping you grounded.

Your mind is fucked. Any sense of equilibrium has been shattered across this terrifyingly open yawn of a landscape. Thank god your tears have dried, even though your cheeks and neck are sticky with it.

One last, desperate hail mary. The final girl in a stupid last stand against the monster who walks to the finish line, not needing to run. Predictable and so frustrating you want to scream. But you'd hate her even more if she didn't fight to the end.

Your limbs are dumbstruck, but he is curious enough to let you reposition yourself, watching to see what you'll do next. You cannot bear to think about how you look right now, how any of this looks — to him, to yourself, to even a blank wall. You signal silently for him to unbuckle his belt, and he barely holds back a fucking smile while he does so. You gesture for him to keep going, his black briefs following suit. The smell of sex, of precum and want, pours off him in suffocating waves. He sits up a little to peel his sweatshirt — t-shirt with it — up and over his head. You take a shuddering breath.

You want, depravedly so, to just look at him like this. Just watch him rest in your bed, head on your nice pillows, naked and only for you.

"Stop smiling," you bark, your voice coming out shakier than you wanted.

He obliges, the creases of his eyes disobeying altogether.

Push push push push

"Unfortunately, that's exactly what I expected you to do," you sneer out, raking your eyes over his body. "Soldiers only think in tactics. How they can best their enemy or capture their target; play at fucking war crimes to get their dicks hard."

His eyes narrow just a hair, ever so minutely.

"I find you repulsive," you begin. He's hooked on every word you're saying, his prick leaking down the shaft and surging every few seconds. "If I wanted a misogynistic fuckface, I woulda stayed back home. What do you think you know about that, hm? What did your research turn up? I'm so goddamn curious what that Neanderthal brain of yours has put together on me."

Simon's mouth drops opens a little.

"I'm not touching your nasty cock. Jerk yourself off." You straddle his legs, your bare cunt a bridge between his thighs. His hand falls automatically to his hips, sliding over scarred, stretchmarked skin — you can tell he was a big boy who gained weight quick, then shaped it into muscle — until he reaches to grab his pulsing cock. The low, dark sound that falls out of him feels a little like retribution.

"Your clearance obviously lets you see whatever your greedy little eyes want. You didn't have to work for it, you didn't even have to earn it. It's just yours, huh? Let me see: you woulda gone through all those court records until your piggie heart was nice and content. Dropped charges. Juvie. His obituary. Did you read that, too, Simon?"

He nods, the tendons of his neck stretching taut and harsh. His hand pauses.

"What'd it say? I never read it." And then, "I didn't say stop."

His hand works up his shaft in stuttering grasps, his fist tightening and loosening in rapid-fire motions. The thick band of fat wrapped around that muscular frame is tensing, pulling up. "It said—"

"Louder." You roll your sore hips, cunt touching no part of him. Hands perfectly at rest now at your thighs. Calm and steady.

His gasping whimper. His beautiful eyes squeezed tight.

"Open your fucking eyes and tell me what it said, Simon."

"It said," he chokes out. "It said he was a — ahh, fuck, fuckin' 'ell — a wonderful father to 'is lovely daughter. Taught y'ow to run cross-country, fish fer walleyes, an' hit a bullseye."

It makes you fucking sick, but there's nothing to do about it now. It's not even an ancient wound, so much as an old faded scar that you don't notice anymore. A scar that's never been seen by another human being; at least, not one that's believed you. Records get expunged for a reason, so it's the first time you've ever had to address this. To do so in bed is a surprise.

"I did kill him," you say mildly. Simon has obviously done worse in his life, you've concluded that by now; this confession is akin to spitting down a well. You watch him absorb this and study his eyes to see if he suspected it in the first place. "Well, more like tipped him over an edge he was already on, but y'know." You shrug.

Simon's eyes lock with yours, and when your gaze wants to slide away, he grabs your chin to hold it longer. "'assa good girl." He says it gruffly, choked. His busy hand has slowed, which is unacceptable.

You crawl over and up to him, his cock dragging along with you until it bobs up, lined up with your cunt. Your hips are so sore from spreading wide around and over him, but you swivel them until you're aligned. He pulls in a sharp, high inhale and tries to grab at you.

"Don't touch me."

You sink down onto his cock, swollen and sensitive. It doesn't feel good, almost hurts, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. His face is gorgeous, his expression ugly. Air shudders out of you both as you sink down to his hairy thighs. Your hands bracket the mattress around his head as you clench around him, releasing in increments.

You shift to bear your weight on your left hand. Right arm comes up, elbow bent, forearm banding across Simon's working throat. You lean your weight forward, the press against flesh deepening.

His eyes are prettier than you want them to be, up close like this. Soft eyelashes fluttering against freckled cheekbone — where he lets the sunlight paint him. Broad strokes of eyebrows cut up by old scar tissue. You wonder what your life would be like if your scars had been external instead.

"Fuck sakes, love," he chokes out.

"I killed him," you say.

A plaintive moan, pulled out from deep within him. "Ah know, ah know." You almost slap him for this, but the look on his face tells you he does know. His hips finally begin to drive up, harsh and shocking.

His hands, those glorious things, can't be held back any longer, and you allow it this time. They scrape up your sides, soft at first, then painful and deep as he uses them to haul your plump flesh down onto him.

You keep your forearm strong against his neck, and bouncing on his cock at a rushing pace, you get your face as close as you can. "I had to kill him." That familiar sting in your nose, but no tears, not yet.

It's the last thing either of you say for a long time; a dropped anchor tying ship to sea, tidally locked in this perpetual, amorphous mutation.

"M' good girl," he eventually whines low from his chest, his motions juttery and frantic. A little bit like a dog trying to herd by instinct. "Doin' what she needs to survive, eh." He's gritting it through his teeth like it hurts. "Make m' work fer it."

"I wanna put you through the fucking floor," you bray, a disgusting sound. You won't come, not like this, but that doesn't matter either.

The tears have started.

"Make m', sweet girl."

You pull off him in a wet, sludgy motion and huddle right up close to his head. Get in his fucking face like he's in your fucking skin. Without asking, he replaces your cunt with his fist, the sounds behind you electric. He's so fucking close, right at the precipice.

"Please," he shudders. It's haunting. You crowd him in, remove your crowbar of a forearm, and lay your mouth inches above his until you're siphoning his obsecrations. The vampire, feeding. "Please, please, oh m' fuckin' god, please let me. Make me. Please—"

He comes in his hand, hitting his belly and chest, your shoulder blade where you're tucked against him.

You give him time. You're shaking uncontrollably when he returns to himself. He sits up, fixes your bedsheets, and tucks you in beside him under the covers. He grabs your face, steers it back over his. You let him give you a long kiss.

"Yer a smart girl," he tuts when your tears slide into his open mouth until he's drinking you up. "'m gonna fuckin' love ya, y'know 'at."

It feels naive not to notice at first, but you're stuck on a Bluetooth call with another work manager while trying to hike your weekend bag over your shoulder, making your way to the cab. No luggage this time, just a three-day conference. In and out.

His mask is hanging off his rear view mirror when he pulls up.

You remember once, when you were a kid, your dad drove you to a family friend's farm to see some animals. You were tagging along as the man was showing your dad the edge of his property, strung long with thin silver wires.

"G'on, girl. It's not live." The man had laughed.

At your dad's nod of encouragement, you had reached out and wrapped your hand in a fist around the wire. It had been live, of course, but at a low enough shock level to do no real harm. Just a fun fright for the girl, was all. They had laughed themselves sick, told you to shake your hand out from the buzzing sensation that flowed through you, and walked back to the car.

Seeing Simon's dark eyes staring at you as you climb in the backseat — behind the passenger seat this time — is a bit like that unnerving, metallic-tasting jolt. Buzzing and burning through your body, a bite in your mouth you can't explain.

Your coworker repeats himself through your Bluetooth speakers. "One sec, Cam." You tap your earbud to pause.

It seems wrong to make direct eye contact with Simon in harsh daylight. "Departures, please…"

Simon nods, and off you go. You feel surprisingly self-aware on your phone call; it's mostly white collar corporate-business jargon, too many acronyms to be taken seriously, but the weight of Simon's attention (even a sliver of it) is too heavy and intimate to ignore.

You find yourself disassociating slightly, eyes following the curve of his neck to shoulder to forearm. He got a lot of sun at some point over the past few weeks. Idiot probably doesn't wear, or trust, sunscreen.

"Mmh, try refreshing the reservation page then. It should auto-save the fields unless you…" You drone on. The phone call lasts the entire ride, walking Cam through an administrative process, and you're about to pull up in the departures parking zone. You tell him you have to go, and hang up while he's still trailing off. Your mind is racing and your skin feels itchy.

The ride is a travel expense, charged to your credit card for reimbursement. Simon passes you the card reader through the partition window.

You type in the tip amount manually, and hand it back. His eyes pass over the machine robotically, and he hands you back the receipt. No finger brush.

"Thanks," you almost whisper.

"Enjoy yer trip."

—

A day later, you're standing in the back of the largest conference room, needing to stretch your legs after hours of sitting on thinly padded chairs for multiple presentations. The keynote speaker is trying to get the crowd laughing, but you're flagging fast.

You quietly fill up a coffee and lean against the back wall, trying not to make it obvious that your eyes have been unfocused for the better part of an hour, staring ahead at nothing in particular.

Pull out your phone to check the time — one more hour until you can go back up to your hotel room and nap until dinner — and see an unread message in WhatsApp from an unknown number. These are normally screened out as spam. You drag your thumb down to preview the message without opening it.

like to make a man work for it eh

Your hand wrapped around a live wire.

The phone is pocketed, the coffee is drank, and then you're up in the sanctuary of your hotel room. You lock the door, strip your outfit off, and slip under the duvet. Curtains are already shut, cool air from the air conditioner unit ruffling them out lightly.

- What exactly did you work for? your number - The number I left you? couldn't remember the first set you tipped and had to go back through weeks to find it - Tired from working so hard? invigorated actually - Big word. big feelin

You're typing back when the screen suddenly changes — a blank profile picture with his phone number. Your stomach drops and your hands begin to shake.

Swipe to Accept.

"lright," he says first, casual as can be. "I'm not too good at textin'."

You hold back a smile before realizing he can't see it. He can maybe hear it in your voice though.

"Hmm."

"Really jus' wanted t' hear yer voice anyhow. Maybe listen t' hear ya talk business again. Such a serious bird in my backseat. 'air done all pretty, nice pair'a shoes to boot."

It surprises a soft laugh out of you, and that must encourage him. "Oh, 'at's nice. Pretty laugh fer a pretty girl." There's shifting in his background, a slight groan, and you think he's making himself comfortable wherever he is. Maybe a messy bed, sheet yanked up over the corner. "Been thinkin' abou' ya, love."

His voice is rumbling through you. You switch over to your wireless earbuds, set the phone on the bedside table, and scrunch your knees up. Stare up at the ceiling, his low, raspy voice now crawling in around you like soft shadows. With the blackout curtains, it could be nighttime in your room.

It could be a dark street in an industrial park at four in the morning.

"Hmm," you let yourself murmur back. The hellion that took over that night has slunk back from the bright lights, the clean corporate visage of you stepping out instead. A daylight revenant that might have a casual fling in Barbados with a handsome stranger instead of…this.

Simon seems to hear it through the line. "Actin' all shy an' sweet now fer me, eh. After ya had me pantin' like a dog, ruttin' up into ya like a virgin. Those lit'l hands stayin' so clean now but bein' so, so dirty wi' me."

You feel dizzy, like you downed a bottle of wine in a hot tub and tried to stand up. Dizzy and thick with heat, pushing through you. Sweat on the back of your knees.

"Don' hafta say nothin', s'okay, love. I understand ya. Jus' lemme talk to ya like I want, 'kay?"

You release a tiny "'kay" in response and he chuckles so darkly it sends goosebumps racing across your overheated skin.

"Dunno if you can tell, but 'm touchin' myself. Picturin' yer soft body. You looked so sweet sittin' in my lap. Felt so good there," he groans coarsely. "Could almost feel yer hot cunt through my pants, y'know."

You are too worked up to even bother with foreplay. Your fingers find you soaked already, your clit aching for attention.

"'ope yer touchin' yerself, too. Wot I wouldn't give t' see all'at, Jesus Christ. Been thinkin' bou' nowt else fer while now. Seems everytime I think 'bout ya, my cock gets pissed off. Wants ya so bad, it does—"

You circle and circle, tugged down the drain fast and deep by his grungy raspy words. You inhale too sharply and loudly that he pauses.

"M' sweet girl, workin' so hard."

The words come without you stopping yourself. "I'm not your fuckin' girl."

A low, mean laugh ending with his own inhale of pleasure. "'ere she is. The bird wh' fed me my own cum. Wouldn' lemme see her beautiful tits. Wouldn' even lemme get 'er off."

Some self-protective corner of your brain shuts down here, scuttling away from his words. His words, but your own shadows.

"Oh fuck, fuck—" you breathe out wildly.

"'at's the girl I wanna see. Wanna put my hands on. Get my fuckin' tongue on."

"—shut up," you try weakly, your hands rubbing at your cunt so fast that your forearm burns.

"She's the one I wanna take out fer a drink an' meal. Wanna see 'at nice lit'l house of 'ers. Wanna fuck 'er when she comes back all fit an' hot after holiday." He stretches out the last word on a ragged moan, shaky and torn. "Ah, Jesus, fuck, Mary," and then he falls silent. You hear slapping skin and wet gasping grunts.

Your body tenses, muscles rigid under the weight of the duvet, fingers pulsing manically against your clit until your orgasm hits you like the starter gun at the race. Your body in control and your brain silent, your mouth open and saying so many fucking words and sounds, loud loud so goddamn loud, racing across the finish line breathless and boneless.

An earbud has fallen out onto the mattress. Your right calf is cramping up. Your hamstrings are stuck to the sheets with sweaty, damp skin.

You press the bud back into your ear, and listen over your own recuperating breath. And then you realize he's doing the same.

Breaths become rhythmic and steady. Heartbeats fall back in line.

"When you back?" He asks.

"Day after tomorrow."

His voice is warm and gravelly, a balm over aching sensitive skin. "Mm. Enjoy yer trip. See y'at Arrivals, love."

He faces forward. Nods to himself, that stern mouth fixed into a straight line. "Right." A decision being made, mapping across his features. He mutters something to taxi dispatch, clicks around on his phone and taximeter. You don't care enough to watch.

His fingers ripple over the top of the steering wheel in a wave pattern, tightening as they touch down, and then he begins to drive.

When the car stops, you're in an industrial park. Far enough away from nosy security guards or cameras, close enough to the main drag for you to feel a weak facsimile of safety. You've done so many things in the dark, this is just one more. A soft echo of what you used to be.

You don't attempt to crawl over the console, but instead get out and walk around the car again. He opens the door wide for you and you stand in the triangle; an inverse of your position a week ago. Simon is not trying to go anywhere.

Remaining seated, he pulls his legs out to put booted feet to ground, facing you. Those pillar-strong thighs swept wide, waiting for your next move. His head's cocked to the side, his eyes gazing ahead at the bit of bare skin above your loose pants, where your sweatshirt has ridden up.

"Got some sun there," he remarks calmly.

You snort. "Yeah, no shit." But your hands reach out and finally touch his head, rubbing over the softly shorn hair. It feels exactly the way you wanted it to.

He makes a sound deep in his throat, some buried ancient song that sends shivers across your skin. You think: maybe he was starving, too.

His fingers move fast from the tops of his thighs to your hips, flexing and pulling at them. Bringing you closer. He tugs at the hem of your sweatshirt, gently but with zero hesitation.

You're not wearing anything but a sports bra underneath, and when he realizes how much skin he can soak up, he groans. "Fuck, yer soft."

You curl your hands around his dumb ears and force his face up toward you. The street light positioned high above you in the dark sky is a gift: you finally see his eyes — softer than you'd imagined — and you get to be bathed in shadow. He almost looks like he's about to ask you a question, but you don't want to have to answer anything out loud.

So you let your hands explain: you push him back into the car, and he listens.

His body tucks back into his seat, his legs unfurling out automatically. You follow him in and settle in over him. Door shuts behind you.

You're grateful that you chose the least restrictive clothing to wear for the flight. Your hamstrings are stretched taut over the sheer spread of him and the seatbelt buckle is digging into your kneecap, but his face is right there, his mouth open just ever so slightly.

And you can see just barely, in the partition behind his head, a smudged reflection of yourself, mouth descending to his. As your lips lower closer, his fucking gorgeously big hands finally make full contact, harsh on your waist. No brushes, no little teases. His hands are hot and heavy on you, two steady anchors weighing you down when you could just detach and float right here and now. They move and shift over the soft sweatpants, restless and ambitious all the same. Dragging you forward toward him, then rolling you back away.

"Fuck me," he mutters hoarsely as one last escaping breath before your lips make contact. You're not sure if it's a plea or declaration, but your hips begin to grind down on him in a call-and-response nonetheless.

Men like Simon often kiss like they're trying to show you how they fuck. But Simon kisses like he's been chasing some elusive thing and found it. Won't let it go now that he has it in his grasp. Behind his teeth, tucked there safely. He tastes like smoke and meat, just as he should. You want to bury your face deep into the bulk of him, where his neck meets shoulder, smell the rich earthy smells he has to offer you.

His hands massage down to squeeze your quads in rhythm with the kiss, and he hums in gratification when you let out a deep moan, lowering yourself even closer to his lap. Your brain is vaguely aware that his thumbs, moving in tandem, are inching inward.

You grip his large shoulders for leverage, and your nails — a bright, summery orange for your trip — dig into the meat of him as you finally feel his cock pressing through the multiple layers. His stupid canvas work pants and your achingly thin sweatpants. Soaking wet underwear.

"Yer a good girl, y'know 'at. Good girl being real bad right f'me right now." He sucks at his teeth and then hisses out a laugh when your thumbnail scrapes against the thinner skin of his neck. His hips, and the hot length of him underneath you, thrust up into your softness, his face getting mean.

"Why ya wi' me, bird? Eh?"

"Shut the fuck up," you grit out, covering your hand over his idiot mouth.

He moans, eyes shutting tight for a moment. "Mm, I know. I know. 's 'ard bein' a good girl like ya. Wantin' wot's so bad for ya instead of wot's good."

But he's wrong. He's just a man easily fooled by your manicure and good perfume and straight white teeth. He likes the idea of you being clean and sweet, letting yourself dabble in the dark with a monster. He likes that you're scrappy and probably thinks you're a spoiled girl who let herself get a little too bossy with a blue collar bloke like him one day for fun. To live to tell the tale.

He doesn't know that you've never really been good.

You push your ass backwards, away from his cock and delicious burning heat, until your spine kisses the steering wheel. Give him the room he'll need.

"Take it out."

The more you push him off course, throw him off your scent, the hotter your skin burns. He's expecting you to grind yourself against his cock, give yourself a shamefully nasty orgasm, and ask to be taken home. Scandalize your friends about it.

"I said, take it out." Your voice is clear now, no trace of orison left.

He doesn't make eye contact with you, but makes quick work of his zipper, pushing his pants down over his hips and ass. His mouth hangs slightly open in anticipation as he takes his cock out, pulling the material of his briefs away.

Sometimes, you've seen cocks that seem at odds with their owner. Angry, heavy ones belonging to the sweetest, gentlest souls. Soft, shy ones for the bossy types. But Simon's seems a perfect extension of him. His eyes slowly trail up, from his wet tip that's bobbing in agony, to your own eyes.

"'s wot you wantin' to see, bird?" Unconsciously, his right hand circles his base. He opens his hand, using his fingers to push the fabric further away from him, and then tightens it into a loose fist around his cock.

You ignore him.

He pulls on his cock with a slow, leisurely tug. His eyebrows pinch in, even though he's doing his best to stay in control. "Wantin' to see how fuckin' 'ard you got me, eh?"

A man would jerk off to a ceramic bowl if it were shaped just so; this has nothing to do with Simon's desire. No, what you want is something else entirely. You want to watch the moment he realizes that you're not what he thought. You kind of want to break him.

You let out a soft little sound, a capitulation to his ears. The score he wants for his own performance now — this is his solo. You're his audience and you're just a very good girl getting a glimpse of a bad man. He pulls harder, longer, some double-timed jerks. His thick tongue sticks out to lick his lips, and before he can close them back up, you hook your left thumb into his mouth.

His eyes widen slightly, but his fist speeds up unconsciously, a groan curling out from his husky belly. You hold your thumbnail, so pretty and bright, just there inside. You smile with your eyes for the first time, and you watch his body morph into a softened, melted version of himself. He even lets his eyes close for seconds at a time, lapping at your thumb awkwardly and jutting his fist up and down his cock. His hips jerk up uncontrollably.

He's close.

"You're gonna come for me," you command, your thumb delving deeper, rooting inward. Sliding past teeth. He gives a little whimper, thick with saliva.

"Yes?" You demand.

"Yes, yes—" he tries to say.

His movements are jerky and desperate now, his thighs drawing together then slamming out to hit the side of the console and the inside of the door as his hips slam upwards into empty air. His knees under your ass are bouncing.

You lean in toward him, and his throat comes up, arching up to meet you. Accept any single thing you would offer in that moment. A kiss would be nice, but not what you want right now. Not what he needs.

He instead watches in relief and surprise as your right hand drifts down to his cock. Waiting for him to come.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, Jesus fuck, fuck fuck fuck—" he gasps loudly around your thumb. Your hand is curled perfectly in place to collect the pearly cum as it surges from him. He slams his head back against the head rest, panting, face reddened.

With a sweet smile on your face, you lift your right hand — eyes locked on his — and feed his cum back into his still-open mouth.

—

During his cigarette and before he swallowed his own cum from your hand, you'd ordered a different cab to your location. It was fun to watch Simon's glazed eyes sharpen, processing quickly as you popped the trunk, removed your luggage, and hauled it over to the waiting car.

You left the exact change you wanted him to have — a shitty tip, one he'd have to puzzle over for its specificity and randomness.

You get home safe.

You sleep deeply all the way through to late afternoon, then masturbate in bed for the better part of the evening. If you spend a large portion of that time watching videos of men that look like Simon, no one's the wiser.

You didn't notice the driver, too busy doling out sloppy, kissy hugs to the girls. You vaguely notice your luggage being put into the trunk as you wave your goodbyes, but you're too sun-drunk and delirious to really care. Thinking about your apartment. Ohhh, the feeling of having a room-temperature shower, using your own shampoo and conditioner, then sliding your slippery smooth body between your crisp, cool sheets. You'll chug a gallon of water and let yourself sleep without any alarms, windows darkened by blackout curtains.

Your mundane little fantasy is burst the moment you slide into the back of the cab. Your eyes are pretty bleary, so you close the weaker of the two to focus really good.

S. Riley, 3411094

"Aw, fuck," you say loudly into the quiet of the car.

Simon shifts a little in his seat ahead of you and huffs a laugh. "Wanna go 'head and grab a different bloke than me, 's yer right. 'll wait."

You remember that you did, in fact, give him a 100% tip. At the time, it seemed the easiest way to prove him wrong about you being some spoiled snob and also get under his skin like he did to you. Maybe it backfired and let him think his approach worked. Maybe he's been calling every woman a fit bird all week long. Then again, and it's probably the alcohol talking, that lovely tip could be what keeps him sweet until you get home. Safety guaranteed?

"Ugh, just go." You give him the name of your street.

"Don't wanna see my full mug again?" You can hear his smile.

You slouch down in your seat, head reclined back against the cushion. "Shut up."

He glides the car off and is miraculously silent until you're out of the airport network of roads. "Good trip then?"

"Were you diagnosed with a TBI or something? Jesus."

He snorts.

It's unseasonably warm for late April, and he has his arm resting out the open window, head resting on a big tattooed fist. You let the alcohol do its thing, giving you permission to stare: out his window, at his fist, at the indecipherable tattoos, at the hair on his forearm. Back of his skull. You've always liked the sensation of rubbing your fingertips over buzzcuts.

There's something crooked, offcentre about him. The eye contact that burns when it touches you, not pulling away unless he wants to, and a crass mouth that says wrong things all the time.

If you ever imagined being married, you had told yourself that your future husband would be tender and kind and diplomatic. A take-em-anywhere kinda guy that would never embarrass you. You grew up drenched in secondhand embarrassment, by your ignorant family, by your inheritance of shit jobs and shit housing and shit hygiene.

Your friends encouraged you to hook up with a handsome lawyer on your trip, but he was too beautiful to even look at for too long. You've cleaned up over the years — you can now afford trips to the hair salon and spa and nice shops — but you are still that dirty kid underneath the veneer. And that beautiful, charming man with his soft hands and buttery voice intimidated you. Felt wrong down to your marrow. The girls spent the rest of the night trying to hype you up, but their advice fell on deaf ears. They thought the problem was low self-confidence on your part; why would an objective 10 (on their scale) want you?

That wasn't it.

Simon scratches idly at the back of his skull. The passing lights illuminate the silvery bits of scar tissue, breaking up the soft short hair. You notice he chews his nails.

"You gonna gip?"

"What the fuck are you even saying," you mutter tonelessly.

"You look like yer gonna puke, love." He remotely opens your window and the city air, although not fresh in the slightest, is at least cool and strong enough to keep you focused.

You should say thanks, but you know his type: he'd shrug it off like an insult.

"You got a girlfriend?" is what you say instead.

The fingers stroking above his ears stops. "Wot?"

You squeeze your eyes tightly shut. "For god's sakes. A wife, a girlfriend, a hookup, whatever."

"'lright, piss off now. I heard ya, love." He sucks his teeth, shaking his head slightly. "Didn't think ya'd be so touchy, Christ."

Touchy? No. Not until tonight. Touch-deprived and sexually frustrated? Probably. In Barbados, your single girlfriends managed to pick at least one person to hook up with. Priya added men to her WhatsApp all week long, then blocked them all once the plane landed on Canadian soil. Bianca met up with her childhood sweetheart and made that man work for even an hour of one-on-one time together. Megan fucked a bartender on night one and avoided her the rest of the trip. Dancing in Barbados with strangers didn't count for you; the touches were almost banal in how ordinary they felt, despite the inherent sensuality. It felt no different than any other dance move.

You open your mouth to snarl back something, but he interrupts you to continue.

"Nah, 's just me. 'm bit scary to most bir—women. Stupid face under a stupid mask, an'all that."

You expect to hear an undertone of self-pitying incel, but he just says it simply, like it's now just a private joke between pals. And in lieu of a sarcastic response, you instead feels questions rise in your throat. Why do you wear one? Do you actually think you're ugly?

Why the fuck do I want to keep talking to you?

Could just be the long stretch of months that you haven't been touched. A hand laid low on your back, fitted to the curve of you. Fingers cupped around your calf, or pressed into your thigh. The hot glide of skin, waking up the skin it touches. A mouth sealed against your cunt.

You picture Simon's heavy thighs. Wide on either side of your hips, pinning you down, your face pressed sweaty into your neatly made bed. No, that's not right. A messy bed; sheets pulled off the mattress at one corner. He'd drive his hips into the fat of your ass, leisurely like he's bored, just to see what noises you might make under him. He'd want to make a mess of you, for sure — hold you down long enough in the filth that you accept it's where you belong — and then lift your face to watch as you give in. Watch your repulsion be fucked into a begging, sucking, desperate greed. His forearms pinch your arms to your ribs, your hands helpless under you, his hot dirty mouth punching sounds out into the sweat of your neck. Disgusting, mean words fucking the orgasm out of you until you cry. Depriving you of seeing the exquisite torture of his own orgasm mapping across his fucked-up face.

Simon pulls the car off the main drag into a Wendy's drive-thru. He pauses the taximeter and grips the passenger seat headrest to angle his body back toward you. "Right, c'mon then. Wot's yer order? Or do I hafta order for ya?"

You try to throw cash through the partition window, but he scoffs and chucks it back at your feet. "Get that the fuck outta 'ere, love."

He hears you laugh when he orders two Dave's Triple burgers, so he orders you a Dave's Double. Makes it a combo.

The food smells divine. He parks under a security light, facing the drive-thru; you're not sure if it's intentional, but it does make you feel a bit better. Your survival instincts have folded in on themselves to a degree to be utterly useless at this point. Were you always this temerarious, like a woman inviting the vampire in and then wondering on tenterhooks if he'll bite her?

You glance down at your phone. It's been lighting up softly the past few minutes with different messages starting to roll in.

Back home! Love uuuuuu guysssss xx im homeeee and def still wasted wtf Home safe!! DRINK WATER AND TAKE ADVIL AND/OR TYLENOL. MEGAN THAT MEANS YOU!!!

The girls will be checking in soon for your update.

grabbing a bite to eat! be home soon

Track and field days at school were your favourite memories looking back, when the crack of the starter gun would pop in the air and the blood and muscle of your body rushed up and out of you headlong toward a goal. You were already in motion, long bruised legs hitting the track, skinny little arms pumping, before your brain had the wherewithal to recognize you were halfway there.

Your purse has already slipped down by your feet when you step out of the car. You pass his open window but don't pay attention to him. Your legs, no longer bruised, make their way around the front of the car.

He's unlocked the doors before you reach for the handle.

You open the passenger door and slide in. You're a little surprised that the seat is as clean as it is. Maybe you were expecting — hoping for? — cigarette burn holes or grease marks. Maybe it would make you feel less like a stranger.

The bag of food is sitting in his lap. He catches your eyes, and you smile when you catch the wary look in his half-visible expression. Like you're two actors on stage and you've suddenly gone offscript and instead of performing this little rehearsed routine he had in mind, some chippy tête-à-tête where you scraped your teeth against one another without breaking skin, you've suddenly invoked an entr'acte.

"I'm fucking starving," you say, handing out your hand.

Simon places the burger in your open palm, his calloused fingers brushing over the curve of your wrist on their retreat.

He hooks a finger under his chin to pull the mask up to his nose, preparing to take his own first bite.

"Mask off," you find yourself saying, staring at him. His movement stutters and his eyes flick up to meet yours again. The shadows in the car have pulled tight around you both; you can't see as much as you want to, but you see enough: he's like a dog being pulled back by its collar when it wants to run.

His hand slowly comes up, cups over his nose, and pulls the mask down. Off one ear, then the other. Laid forgotten by his thigh.

"Better."

Your smile is ravenously huge as you take your first bite of the most deliciously filthy burger you've ever eaten.

Neither of you speak while you eat.

When Simon gets out of the car to chuck your crumpled garbage in the dumpster, you grab your phone and purse from the backseat. You watch as he fishes in his pockets, and comes up with a lighter and pack of smokes. He lights up and inhales deeply, eyes closed under the fluorescent light and head tilted back. Tired and tense all at once. Maybe thinking about everything. Or nothing at all.

You think: you'd always just be performing with that beautiful man in Barbados.

You open the group chat.

got home safe

A photo fit for a mugshot. Pugilistic nose with a matching set of cauliflower ears. Heavy eyebrows stitched and scarred up over a pair of dark, expressionless eyes. You wonder if the clerk taking the photo had asked him to smile. In the photo, he has a stern mouth. In front of you, the lower half of his face is covered with a black N95.

"I'd like to see your face, please." You lean over into the middle, where the finger-smudged plastic partition opens up, to get a closer look. "Make sure it's actually you." It obviously is, but you're not an idiot.

"Same tattoos, ain't they." He's an Englishman, which surprises you. He pivots his tree trunk of a torso to the right, reluctantly hooks a finger into the top of his mask, and yanks down quickly enough for you to be satisfied.

You sit back in your seat, uploading his picture into your girls' group chat. "Sure, and we know tattoos could never be replicated."

He scoffs, and smoothly steers the car away from the curb, out of the suburban maze. "Lotta effort for wot." His tone is rhetorical but you've never met a man you haven't wanted to fight at some point.

"Pick one: trafficking, rape, good old-fashioned murder. All of the above."

You hear him begin to reply, but you hold up a finger so he can see it in his rear view. "Hold on."

Bianca's calling — she's coordinating this girls' trip and is not playing around.

Hey, you on your way to the airport now? - Yeah, yeah. Should be like 20 minutes unless we hit traffic. Did you get the pic of him I sent? (His eyes snap up to find yours in the mirror, and a thrill of adrenaline courses through you.) Yeah, he's kinda ugly hot. For you, I mean. - No, fuck no. Absolutely not. Unfortunately for you, he is one thousand percent your type, you liar. Anyway, text us when you're close and Priya'll come out to meet you. Try not to get knocked up in the next twenty, 'kay? - Shut the hell up. Love you.

"'m not gonna fuckin' kill ya, bird," your driver mutters after your call is done. Fingers tightening on the steering wheel, even though his posture is leisurely, slouchy. "Bit of an overreach to do all'at."

Bland irritation boils over into rich anger too quickly, blanketing all rationale and logic screaming in you to just shut up until you reach your destination safely. But history has also taught you that even when you stay nice and quiet, harassment was still in play.

"Oh, please, you wouldn't know the first fucking thing about staying safe as a woman. The very least I can do is send your stupid face to my friends." A thousand more words buzz in your mouth, but you hold your lips shut. You still have approximately 15 minutes left in this car with S. Riley.

A bit of contemplative silence ensues.

"'Think 've got a stupid face?"

Your eyes snag his again through the mirror, and you recognize this as an olive branch of sorts. A we don't have to do this the whole ride there concession.

You shrug blithely. "I've seen stupider, I'm sure."

There's a slight huff from beneath the mask. "'m sure. Can't imagine too many would pass muster by ya."

"What's that even mean?" You're mildly offended on instinct. You've got the basic scaffolding of standards, but you're anything but a snob. If anything, your friends rank your hook-ups and boyfriends on a completely different attractiveness scale than their own. Your 10 is their 3, which keeps competition down, but always ends in some sort of weird moral judgment argument. Ugly-hot. For you, I mean.

"Yer fit, s'all." His voice is calm, eyes forward on the highway. You hadn't realized you had got on it at all.

You give a short hm of acknowledgement. You weren't expecting a compliment out of this chippy conversation. Perhaps it was that he stated it offhandedly, as if commenting on traffic, without the invisible strings of expectation. I've complimented you; now what? Now that this ball has been rolled into your corner, you aren't sure what to do with it.

"'Kay…well, S," you spit out harsher than you mean to, "some advice for you. Don't call women birds, and maybe they won't insult you. What's the S even stand for." You don't even intend to show a sliver of curiosity. It just weakens your whole defense.

"Christ, yer mouthy. 's just a compliment."

The lull in conversation promptly implodes. You grip onto the back of his seat to pull yourself forward, body angling toward the window between you both to be seen and heard properly. "You think all you need to do is just tell a woman she's propa fit ya and she should roll over with her legs open for you? God, men are gross. And you know what? You're right to keep the mask on. It's probably the only way you're gonna get fuckin' laid, with that shit personality you got."

Insanely, his eyes crinkle a little, deepening his crow's feet. He's got a goddamn smile under that mask.

You punch your body back into your seat, angrily tapping into the group chat.

Be there in a few. I'm safe but this guy SUUUUUUUUUCKS.

Your brain is telling you to relax, just ride it out, and endure the last leg of the ride. You're almost there, mere hours from touching down in Barbados with your girlfriends for a week.

Your body, however, is primed for a fight. You're not so far from how you grew up, after all, and the scrappy trailer park kid that laid hands on anyone who wronged you or your friends is now the woman sitting in the backseat, fists clenched tightly. You want to swing, you want to scorch earth, your body is on the ascent of a cleansing rage. When you'd get like this, your dad would jokingly warn anyone around, "Watch out, she's a hotblood." You haven't fought in years, other than in defense mode — fear of getting arrested and losing your good job has proven to be the best motivator for good behaviour — but you still itch for it.

"Simon."

"What?" You spit.

"Fer those flyin' fingers back there. If yer talkin' shit 'bout me, m' name's Simon."

You roll your eyes in disgust. "I'm not spending one single second discussing you." You've entered the airport zone. Safety almost guaranteed. "Fuck off."

A low, rumbly chuckle.

He pulls into the Departures zone. You try to time your exit out of the vehicle so you're out first, but he's quicker than you, and he's opening your car door for you. His large, bulky frame is blocking you from doing anything other than standing up straight, wedged into the triangle of space.

So you shimmy back into the backseat, and exit out the side before he can get there. When you climb out and step up on the sidewalk, you hear him laughing lowly to himself. You wait stiffly as he maneuvers your luggage out of the trunk, softly this time, and places it in front of you.

You get your first good look at him as a whole person. Taller than you, even though he's stepped down on the road. He's in shape, thick muscle tucked under soft layers of fat that you prefer anyway. He limps a little on his right side, but tries to hide it. Old, mismatched tattoos crawling out from long black sleeves, curling up a sturdy neck. You wonder if your hands could fit around it to squeeze tight. Maybe an elbow against the throat would be better. Practical buzzcut of some indeterminable shade between blond and brown; has absolutely never, not once paid to get his hair cut. If your instincts serve: a jackboot that's been rode hard, fucked by the system, and put away to molder wet and musty in some shit-pay job.

He rests a booted foot up on the edge of the walkway and lets his eyes openly gaze back up at you in return. You're dressed for your flight in soft, flowy fabrics to stay warm and comfortable. You get cold on rides, even if you'll be landing in thick tropical heat.

A shiver, a comedown from your rage, pulls through you as you let him look.

"Enjoy yer trip," he says. Not a full smile under there, but a slight crease of the eyes.

"Enjoy your tip," you throw back, handing him the cash owed, with a 100% tip added on top as your idea of a fuck you. You turn and walk into the airport without a look behind, but you catch his reflection in the glass doors just as you head in. His stupid, ugly-hot face is staring at you and you have no idea what expression lays beneath that mask.

You had flipped open the app to check his reviews while you stood in line behind a bunch of workers from the nearby businesses.

buddy needs an attitude check. good food though.

told me to fuck off then gave me the best burger i've ever had. will be back!

absolutely horrible service!!! he's lucky he only charges $5 or else he'd be OUT OF BUSINESS!!

You think there's no way a man like him cares about reviews in the first place. You internally practice your order — literally just 'burger with cheese and extra pickles with fries, please' — as you get closer. Tap at your phone nervously, watching how his looming body fills the order window. He leans over the window frame to hear properly, tilts his right ear down to the customer; his left ear doesn't seem to work as well. When he leans like that, his big tattooed arms press against the counter behind. He bites on his lower lip in concentration when he's listening, eyebrows drawn down tight. He can somehow ignore everyone else around him to focus just on the single person ahead of him at a time.

The two workers in front of you are next up to order and yapping about a job when a third, then fourth buddy call over to them, then melt themselves into the line like they were there all along. You were already on a tight lunch, adding two more orders ahead of yours is going to eat up your time.

It's petty, but you sigh loudly and pointedly.

One of them turns around, uses his height to look down at you disgustedly, and says, "Fuckin' relax."

"Excuse me?" You scoff, heat itching across your face and chest instantly. You glance behind you, but everyone's either glancing down into their phones or chatting with buddies.

"You fuckin' heard me."

"Oi." The voice is like a sudden clap of thunder over your house in the night, startling your whole body awake in a single crack. Your head snaps up, eyes wide, to see the man's arms punched fist-down on the countertop like a silverback, dark flat eyes fixed on the men ahead of you. "Get the fuck outta here."

"C'mon, man," one of them pleads. "S'just a joke."

You have only ever seen the look on the man's face on television before. A predator baring its teeth, dead-still like a stone dropped flat into a stagnant pond. A shudder runs through you as you stare at the men, who're all squawking complaints and fussing like babies.

He whistles so sharply, you press your hands to your ears and wince.

"Don't make me come out there."

You start to drift away, the heat washing over you too intensely to withstand. You don't want to order or be here. You just want to slink back to your car, drive to work around the corner, and grab something from the vending machine to tide you over until the day's done. You're not cut out for confrontation like this, a soft thing that can't take the heat.

"You. C'mere."

Everyone left in line is staring at you, open-mouthed. You want to disappear into the steam of today's heat, evaporate until you're a puff of something that melts away without notice.

His eyes on you. You couldn't possibly prepare yourself for it. Worse than the sun. He chucks his chin to the side, his eyes sliding slowly to tell you to walk around back. You move with shaky, locked-up knees, avoiding everyone's stares, head down. It feels like being sent to the principal's office. Shame and hot frying nerves soak your skin as you slink around the side of the fixed truck, eyes frantically assessing the environment. Dumpster. Broken-down boxes. The typical detritus, you imagine.

And a short set of stairs leading up to the back of the food truck, a door hanging wide open.

"All out f' the day. Fuck off til tomorrow." You hear the man bark, then there's a loud metallic shuttling sound, and when you glance behind you, the tail-end of the line are all throwing their hands up or groaning in frustration, starting to walk off.

Then, the man appears in the doorway and you suddenly think of Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the bulk of him, the dirty apron knotted at his thick waist, his stomach fat plumped over it, and the eyes that don't move when they land on you.

You hesitate at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him.

"Up y'get." Like a child attempting stairs for the first time.

There's no railing to trail a hand over. You knot your hands on the cross-body bag strap in front of you, wringing it as you step up one by one. The heat is foggy in here, thick and weighty.

"They givin' you trouble?" He walks over to the far end of the truck interior where you can see fryer baskets and crooked stacks of take-out containers. No order notes at all. Must be all in that big head. It's so much darker in here with the order window shuttered closed.

"No…why'd you close up?"

There's a shrug across his hefty, rounded shoulders. His white t-shirt is filthy, the collar ringed with yellowed sweat stains, dried and fresh, long scoops of sweat darkening from his armpits to where his pecs must rest, a unique pattern set-in. The lack of light doesn't give you much of his face, but it's scarred and heavyset, a strong set of mouth and brows.

"How d'ya take it?"

"Pardon?"

"Pardon," he smirks down at the fryer, his body moving smoothly through the motions of pressing a fresh meat patty on the flat-top griddle. The meat steams up toward his serious face.

Why are you here?

"Just…whatever is fine."

You try to find the smallest corner you can occupy in here, unobtrusive. You don't know if he wants you to watch him, but you do anyway. His large arms, full sleeve tattoos curling up into his t-shirt, working diligently on flipping and pressing the patty. A little stack of onions on top, cooked together for a few seconds to melt them together a bit. Bun slathered with whatever he uses here. Melted cheese on top of the meat, over the fried onion. A dribble of liquid down the side of the bun as he delicately places each topping on top. Wrapped into burger paper. Fries pulled from the basket, shaken, salted and something else. Scooped hot and stiff into a take-out container.

He uses a steel-toed boot to pull out a stool that's pushed under the corner counter. Tips his chin up at you. "Sit. Eat."

You tell him your name as you stumble onto the tall, tippy stool, pulling your wide-legged dress pants up. He just grunts in response. "Simon."

Okayyy.

He turns his back and starts to put the little compact kitchen to rights, clanging around. With nothing left to do but eat your burger and fries, you dig in. Tentatively at first, self-conscious sitting here as some strange guest that somehow earned scary food truck guy's full attention and his preferential treatment. Sweat slides down from your neck to spine to ass under your thin office top. You take small bites until the relief of a good lunch melts over your taste buds. It's everything a burger should be: crispy, crunchy, melty, packed with flavour. Nothing fancy or stupid ingredients complicating it. You sigh a little, then jam a few of the hot fries in with a bite of meat. They're spiced with something you can't quite name, and when he finally looks back at you, there's a determinedly puzzled look on your face.

"Summat wrong." Should be a question mark at the end of his words, but no.

"No!" You realize you're hunched like crazy over your container, back molded in a c-shape, and spring back up. "It's so good. I was just wondering what you used on the fries, that's all."

A coarse grunt. Dishes slipped into hot soapy water.

"Turmeric." He mangles the word. "Lawry's." Better.

You savour a fry, trying to parse those out. "State secrets, eh."

"Not tellin' you everythin'. Nosy."

A laugh of surprise huffs out of you. "Oh, I wasn't ask—"

"Just fuckin' with you, bird." He might as well reach out an arm and shake the stool beneath you for how off-centre you makes you.

You let out a puff of nervous laughter. None of the reviews said he pulled me into his food truck and force fed me, so you were shit out of luck on what to do. How to act.

"Cute watchin' you eat all prim." He leans against a stainless steel countertop, some damp raggedy dishcloth folded into the fat of his crossed arms. "Makes me wonder what else you do proper."

Your mouth falls open, a round of tart pickle plopping squarely on your lap. Before you can gather up wits and senses not fizzled out by the heat in the truck and Simon's presence, he advances on you, pulling the shadows of the space with him. His huge arms prop up on either side of the corner counters, triangulating you right inside. Up close, you can see the beaded sweat at his hairline. Behind his ears. Where it's tracked down inside the t-shirt. You wonder what his armpits look like; if the hair there is pressed with moisture and a morning application of antiperspirant. His fingers strum on the stainless steel calmly. Deciding what to do.

Stupidly, you stare up into his eyes. Stupidly, you think of telling him that his eyes look like onions that have been caramelized on a stove for hours.

"You like my food?" Leaning on the muscles of his arms, playing with you, coming down a little to your height.

"Y-yeah," you laugh.

"Like watching you eat it."

The pickle round is soaking through the thigh of your pants. You're going to go back to work smelling like pickle juice and grease and fries. You shift on the stool anxiously.

"Gonna give me a kiss me then?" An old stitch near his lip pulls the corner of his mouth, but it widens further with a smirk. Dark tea-brown eyes flashing.

Your world shrunk down to a claustrophobic corner of a sweating food truck, wedged in by a man three times your size, feeling like you've just surfaced from a pool only to find yourself still underwater. "What?"

Closer, he smells like cigarettes. Coffee. Sweat has your top and pants plastered to your entire backside. It's breaking out on your upper lip. Your breath has shallowed out to thin short pants.

"I'll let you. For bein' so sweet an' cute."

Let you? Let you kiss him?! His audacity won't strike you until much later, unfortunately. Oxygen is low. Heat is swamping.

"Oh."

"C'mon then."

He lowers himself, arms still propped up and out on either side of you, until he's flush with your face. Lets you snap your mouth closed and hover forward on the stool precariously until your lips have pressed firmly over his.

"S'nice. Were I still in Year 6." You pull back and his eyes are nearly electric, how alive he looks, mouth tugged up.

In grade 6, you were a compulsive liar at your new school, desperate to make friends. You bragged that your dad was famous because he travelled all the time for work at a pop company and that was why you had to live with your cousins. You were bug-eyed and scrawny with a huge gap between your teeth. You certainly weren't being kissed like this, or at all. Simon seems like the kid who understood what all the bases meant and showed the other kids porno mags in the forest. Those boys frightened you.

Still do.

Suddenly, he cranks up to his full height. Arms down to his side. Boots wedging the stool in place, big pillar-like thighs covered by a nasty apron pressing into your kneecaps.

You are going to be late back to work.

His hands surprise you by drawing up your neck, setting loose a big shiver that you can't hide, and cupping you there. Large hands, damp with soapy water or grease or something else altogether. His thumbs make little circles on your jawline as he manipulates your face to tilt up toward him, and you realize then, with crystalline and unnerving certainty, you have never been kissed properly before this moment.

His fingertips curl around the tops of your ears, bumping over the flatbacks of your piercings, rounding out the cartilage and bone under his mapping.

Kisses that made you smile, kisses that melted into foreplay or sex, goodbye kisses with no eye contact. Lots in between.

But a kiss that demands nothing else of you except your eyes on the other person, watching them begin to dismantle you.

Devour you.