🕯Hello Lovie🕯

You turn the phone face-down and go pace around your bathroom, reorganizing your serums and SPF and cleansers and vitamin C and retinol and then you hear the phone vibrate from your bedside table and you're striding back.

» don't need to be sorry

» Well, then, thanks. better?

» better

» trust you got home ok then

» I did. Even took the highway

» good to hear

» you should ask security to walk you to your car any time past 5

» they'll do it no questions asked

» Oh I finish before 5. you just caught me in two extenuating circumstances lol

» made me look that word up

» lol sorry

» what'd i say bout that

You set the phone down. Lie flat on your back on your bed and breathe out a giant shrill exhale. Drag your hands over your face in multiple repetitions. Shake your head over and over. Processing. Processing.

» are you about to say it again

» 100%

» cute

» finish at 7 tomorrow. let's grab something after

» ok sounds good. have a good night

» cheers

—

Sasha debriefs you; she'd felt bad about revealing your secrets, so with John and Kyle, she'd pivoted to some question about integrated webcams instead while you were hiding in the washrooms. "Secret's safe with me," she'd smiled and apologized.

You debrief Sasha. She slaps your shoulders and upper arms until you push her away laughing to defend yourself.

She grabs a piece of paper and pen.

what we know

name G_02

sees you maybe daily or weekly - passes you or vice versa

seen your cubicle

knows your full name or enough to message you

has access to company chat

possibly G for ghost

possibly G for garrick (??)

possibly others

Sasha taps the pen against her lips. "Easy enough. Let's strike out a few of these." Opening the chat app, she uses the search user feature to eventually find Kyle Garrick.

"Hm, his username is just KG though."

"Okay, look for Simon."

"He has an account. They must assign them to everyone. Username SR."

"Fuck me. This person managed to make their name slightly different than the usual nomenclature. An IT person perhaps?"

A few hours later, you're on your own, wandering through the floor to find an HR officer for a pay question on your file. Your eyes eliminating pods of cubicles as you go. "Oh! Hey."

Kyle squinting and tabbing between a set of two monitors, a pair of 1950s style glasses propped on the edge of his nose. At your voice, he glances up in surprise. A big smile curling up. "Heya! How's it?" He leans back in his chair and pushes the glasses up over his hair. "You need some help?"

"No, no, I was just on my way to grab someone from HR, and wandered through. Still getting used to the maze."

He stands, adjusting his relaxed summery pants, grabbing at his glasses and laying them on the desk. "Let me join ya. Today's doin' my head in. Need a break anyway."

"Oh, sure," you smile. "Do you know Una? That's who I'm looking for. I thought they were around here…"

He laughs easily and surprising you, sets his long fingers at the tops of your shoulders and spins you around so you're facing the opposite direction. "Thatta way. Hate to break it to ya, you're not even close."

He shoves his hands in his pockets and stays beside you, close, his elbow brushing the bare skin of yours when he needs to pinch in to make room for someone else passing. "You know, you were pretty noncommittal the other night, about the next cinq à sept." His elbow brushes yours again even though there's no reason.

"I'm not a big drinker," you deflect.

"Don't need to be. Just come out and have some fun with us. Easy, yeah?" Your eyes slide over to his and he's looking down at you, a warm smile on his face and a little wink in his eye.

You reach the area with clear Human Resources signage. "Well, here y'are. Now y'owe me a drink," he winks again and lopes off, cool as a cucumber always.

—

You decide to work late today and just wait at the office for 7; feels unfair to go home and get ready before drinks when he'll be getting off and still in his uniform.

You're fiddling with your phone in the lobby when you hear a ding. You've been trying not to glance up, but your eyes won't listen, and then you see black boots thud out of one of the freight elevators tucked off from the bank of regular elevators. Simon in his uniform, long thick legs striding out calmly, a plastic water bottle crinkling in his big hand.

"Hey," you say brightly, and all of a sudden, this feels very much like a date.

Simon gives you a small smile, chucks the water bottle in the nearby garbage (not recycling, just one bin over), and says, "Y'alrigh'?"

"Yeah, good, thanks. You?" You shiver as he ushers you out the main door. You give a small goodbye and nod to the front desk security guard. Simon calls them by name and gives a more personal goodbye.

Outside, the air is humid but there's a breeze pushing your dress against your legs, keeping the worst of it at bay. "Do you wanna walk somewhere? Or we can take my car, or—?"

"Too hot to walk," he says calmly. "Take my truck an' keep yours here f' now."

"Okay." You walk quietly around the back of the building to his lot. He opens the truck door for you, which has your stomach twisting like crazy, and all you can do is give him a tiny smile and a thanks before climbing in.

You have a few seconds of unwitnessed time to glance around the cab of his truck without him in here. Surprisingly tidy. Not clean, either. Smells warm and sweaty, trapped heat over a long July day, and a faint smokiness. You watch as he comes around the front of the truck and hauls himself in, a slight something on his face.

"You have a sore back?"

He lets out a laugh-adjacent huff. "Years of sore back. Old injury never properly healed, an' heat makes it flare up."

"Ouch."

He flicks on the air conditioning and fiddles with the vents, leaning over a little more into your space to adjust yours. "That good?"

The air is cold and instantly soothing on your hot cheeks and neck. "Yeah. Yeah, perfect, thanks."

"Don't start apologizin' again."

You laugh self-consciously and play with the strap of your bag in your lap, crossing your legs. "No promises."

He makes a small humming sound.

Very quickly, he's pulling into a parking lot of an Irish pub. You go to open your door and he makes a soft noise, so you leave it hanging so he can come round and open it fully. You laugh at him for how silly it is, and he doesn't say a thing. You get ushered into the pub, and sat right away at a booth by the window.

It's dark, quiet, and very, very air-conditioned.

You order a whiskey ginger and he gets a coffee. "Oh, are you…sorry, I shouldn't have assumed we were drinking."

He makes a pinched face at your sorry. "I'll join you shortly. Just don't wanna be too tired."

"We could have rescheduled…"

His eyebrows dart down like he doesn't follow. "Why would we do that?"

"If you're tired."

He chuckles softly. "'m always tired. Nothin' that coffee can't fix. 'sides, wouldn't cancel on you."

Heat pulls through you, snaking and slippery. "Well, let's just hope there aren't any more emergencies that you need to babysit me for."

Another confused face. "Babysit you? What'd'ya mean?"

You watch as his mouth forms over the ceramic lip of the coffee mug and takes his first sip. You mirror with your sweating glass of whiskey and ginger ale, with extra ice.

You laugh. "Do I need to explain it?"

"Nah, I know where you're drivin' but s'not it. Bit of shit luck, is all. You weren't losin' the plot or nothin'."

The drink is sweet and sour and you take a much deeper sip. Preparing yourself. "I can't tell if you're annoyed by me."

His eyebrows raise high. "Y'havin' a laugh?"

"No."

He folds his hands, tattooed down to his knuckles, around his coffee mug and stares at your drink. Not you. Your drink. "Think I'd hang 'round if I didn't want to?"

You've misstepped. Might as well make it a fuckin' dance. "Well, the last two times were against your will."

"You think so?"

"Well…courtesy, at least."

"'What're you doin'." It's spat out plain.

"What?" You take a desperate drink.

"All this. Feels like you're tryin' to tell me the ways I shouldn't'a helped you."

This tête-à-tête has you all circled up around, tangled in your own dumbass thoughts. You sigh heavily and pick at your thumb polish. "I dunno anymore. I'll just be transparent then. I've been getting weird messages at work. I can't figure out who it is. They hint that they know me, see me. Their, uh, initial. Is the letter G."

You lead him to the trough to drink, but can't say the words aloud that someone called you G and I think or thought it might be you so you just watch as he processes the information slowly, like a meal, until he gets there.

"Ah. S'bit weird." He sips at his coffee. "Someone doin' all that."

"Yeah. I thought so, too."

"D'ya need me to say it?"

"Ah," you laugh, cheeks inflamed. "I don't think so."

There's amusement lurking in his honey-brown eyes. "S'not me. Not my style."

What is your style? How would you show a woman you like her? How would you seduce her? What does it look like when you like someone?

"Well, thanks." You smile into your drink, playing with the edge of your serviette. You feel his boots all of a sudden under the booth, legs spread wide, a toe touching the edge of your sandal. You don't move your legs and you don't look at him.

He finishes his coffee quickly. Orders a Newcastle brown. You both order fish and chips — he assures you it's good here — and you ask how long he's worked for the company, when he moved here, until he nudges you back to the hot seat.

"Got any suspects in mind for G?"

You tap the fork against your mouth, a little loosened by your drink. "Not really. It was you or another guy, but honestly, it could be anyone. Could just be someone's idea of a weird prank."

"Who's the other guy?" He doesn't make eye contact, just breaks apart the fish fillet with his fork, head down.

"A guy in IT, Kyle. I met him yesterday for the first time. Last name starts with a G," you explain.

"I know him. Cool bloke. Think you want it to be him?" A long drink from his tall glass of dark ale. Eyes flickering over you, not touching down anywhere solid. Too casual.

"I don't know how to feel about any of it," you demur.

He nods.

When the bills come, he pays for you, ignoring your soft protest, and gets you to package up your leftovers to bring home. You hold it in your lap on the ride back to the parking lot; your car, alone once more. He leaves the truck running, cold air streaming out across your rippled skin, letting his big hands rest on his bigger thighs. He picks off a fleck of something.

"Simon."

"Yeah."

Your eyes slip from his thighs up to his face, his profile in the dusky light, the blue interior lights of the dashboard. "You promise it's not you?"

Quickly, his eyes meet yours. "Yeah, promise."

"Okay."

You set your container up on the passenger dashboard, tucked under the windshield, the corner squeaking. You unclick your seatbelt. You slide off your bag to the floor. You turn to him squarely, eyes mapping his face, and when you see the wary hunger in his eyes, you lean over and kiss him on the mouth.

His mouth is slow to move, his hands suspended off his thighs, nowhere to set them down. You wonder when he was last kissed.

You pull your lips off his with the tiniest smile, and lean down to grab your bag. Container in other hand. You open the passenger door before he can react, before his body can shift to anticipate your move.

He meets you in the space between your parked vehicles. You're about to make a pithy teasing joke, but then, in silence, he's grabbing your container and setting it on the roof of your car, bag with it. He doesn't look at your face long, can't hold your gaze, but his hands are tunneling into your hair and scooping your face up, tilting you so he can drive his mouth down on yours. This time, his tongue meets yours hungrily, no longer dazed, like you've awoken something dormant. His mouth is soft and flavoured strong with yeast and malt and coffee, and it tastes right to you. When he string a moan out of you, it spurs his own sounds; big silent man keeping them all to himself.

He presses you up against your car, molding your back over the sun-hot glass and metal until you hiss, and you both laugh a little, so he switches your back to the truck instead. His hands move desperately across your shoulders, collarbone, down your arms and elbows to your hands, which are roving over him, then down to your hips. When you wriggle and moan, his hands scoop further down until he's cupping your ass cheeks and hauling you up against him, the press of canvas and hard muscle underneath scratching against your soft skin and thin summer dress.

"Fuck me," he mutters into your damp throat. "S'not fair."

"What?" You wind your arms around his shoulders and neck, carding your fingernails over his buzzed head. Breathless, kissed stupid, kissed right.

"Not fair to be this fuckin' soft."

You couldn't say what comes over you except standing on the precipice of summer-soaked lust, but you knot your legs around his waist so he doesn't need to use his hands to hold you. You grind desperately against him, any part you can feel, a deep groan winding out of you as his arms band tight around your sweat-damp back. "Oh my god," you pant.

"What?"

"You're so…" and you got nothin', so you just mold your mouth against his again, hoping your tongue against his teeth will tell him what you can't put into words. "I wanna get in your truck."

It takes maneuvering. Big guy. You. Seat reclined, steering wheel pushed back in, water bottle tossed into the backseat. You unbuckle his dirty notched belt and he gasps when your fingers graze over his fly.

"You sure?" His voice has a funny tone. "Been workin' all day. Probably smell rank."

You smile down at him. "I don't think I'll mind." You shove his pants down with his help, and then pull his achingly hot cock out of his precum-damp briefs.

Both of you inhale sharp when you finally get your hands on it, so silky and darkened with rushing blood. Already, the air smells ripe with him and you could siphon it into your bloodstream and get drunk on it.

"God, you're so fuckin' hot," you breathe out without meaning to, laughing incredulously. You catch the look on his face at the last second, eyes almost too focused on his lower half. "You don't believe me?"

He doesn't nod, doesn't shake his head, and his eyes finally fix on yours for the first time. Needing to figure you out.

You flutter your dress hem up, reach down and pull your underwear to the side, and align yourself over the head of him. "You don't believe me?" You stroke down, sheathing him in inches, a slow descent designed to make him gasp and buck. You're successful. "I wanted you to be G. But — oh, shit — I didn't want you to be that type of guy. Fuck. I don't like games. I don't want—" a sharp gasp ripping out of you as he bottoms out "—someone who treats me like that."

His big arms band around you again, pulsing you right in place over his cock, his eyes shuddering closed tight, an almost pained expression over his face. Despite the cold air of the truck cab, you're both sweating now.

"And I don't want Kyle," you moan raggedly, staring down at him, angling to get friction against your clit as his cock slides hotly. "Not my type."

"No?" Not doubtful anymore. Awed.

You shake your head, and his cock strokes just right and you let out a squeak, your fingers clamping over his neck. "No. No. Not him. Not him at all."

"Tell me."

"I like you."

A thumb jagging over your clit under your crooked dress. "Yeah?"

"Yes." A cry. Moan. Warning sign.

He groans. "Like you."

"You like me?"

"Thought it was obvious. Fuck, Jesus Christ, oh m—"

A disgustingly wet, desperately-held-together kiss that seals you both as his orgasm overtakes him, washing him away, his hips slamming up into yours sloppy and fast, but his thumb still rubbing hard and right until yours has you clenching him so tight that he lets out a loud mangled noise that sounds almost anguished.

Cum pools hot. Flesh squelches wet and sticky. Sweaty skin needs to be peeled away from sweaty skin carefully. Both of you, destroyed and sweating and panting.

His hands then: roaming up your open thighs and bent waist and hanging breasts until he's bringing your face down to his for a deep, surprisingly tender kiss. When you finally pull away, his eyes are liquid-soft.

—

You skip the next cinq à sept.

Sasha finally pesters you into coming to the first one in August. It's the same-ish crowd as last time; you now require far less introductions, finding it easier to chat with most folks now. No longer clinging to Sasha as your party guide.

A spicy margarita in your hand, you wander around a bit more freely, and end up spotting the IT guys. You wave as you pass, and Kyle makes a gesture to grab you for a moment.

"Hey," you smile.

"Y'alright?"

"Yeah, great. Busy with the new slate of projects, but good. I think I've got my sea legs now," you laugh easily.

"Aw, that's great news." He drinks lazily from a bottle of beer. "No IT issues lately?"

You shrug. "Uh, nope? Not that I can think of. Nothing that wasn't resolved ASAP, anyway. Your team's good at that."

A strange expression sours that beauty. "No messages?"

Sinking. Sweat, immediately, and the sinking feeling in your stomach. "What do you mean?" Sasha told you she'd never revealed your situation.

He winks, those baby brown eyes lined with long gorgeous eyelashes. "G_02's been pretty quiet these days then."

Your mouth drops open.

He laughs breezily. "Sorry about all that. Bit of a silly idea that grew into somethin' else after drinks with Johnny one night. Just wanted to impress the new cute girl."

"Uhhh…"

The outdoor patio's crowded and you look around the clusters of people. Sasha's nowhere in sight.

"Didn't mean to freak y'out, love. Just some funny games, y'know?" The smile slips every so infinitesimally.

"Got your drink?" Coarse and quiet and steady, coming through the crowd. Simon in his uniform, joining you now that he's done for the night. Sidling up next to you, back looking extra stiff this evening, glass of beer in his hand. "Alrigh'?"

"Yeah," you smile up at him, wrapping your arm loosely around his waist, tucking your thumb under his belt. Ignoring that in your peripheral vision, you can see Kyle's expression registering and rearranging itself into something different.

You give Kyle the brush-off smile, the precursor to saying goodbye. "Yeah, I'm not big into games." Could be about poker. Trivia night. A video game he's trying to explain. "Terrible at 'em."

Simon's arm around your shoulder, his large hand massaging the knot out of your joint nicely.

You wanted to get up to finally rinse.

To feel like a person again.

But his calloused hand came down flat on your hip the moment you moved, before your knee had even cleared his leg.

"Where?" is all he managed, voice wrecked and low and gravelly with sleep, the word barely fully formed on his tongue.

"I'm disgusting," you complained, a whisper.

"Mm." His thumb moved across the jut of your hipbone, finding crust of himself there. His eyes hadn't opened yet. The corner of his mouth had, though, dragging up at one side. "Yeah… y'are."

"I'm glad you're happy with yourself," you huffed sleepily.

His hand kept going, palm dragging down over your hip and around the back of your bent thigh, and then up again into the real mess of you, fingers finding where you were still half-open and swollen from last night, slipping through the sticky wet, the pad of his middle finger circling your sensitive entrance. It was too much and not enough at once — the drag of him over flesh that hadn't settled, a wince folding straight into something hotter, your hips pushing into his hand.

He made a sound; pleased, throaty, his brows pulling in for a second.

"Look at that," he murmured against your temple. "Bet you don' even wan' it cleaned up, do you?"

"Shut up," you half-heartedly murmured.

"Mm-mm," he protested.

Then he rolled, the whole heavy heat of him coming over you in one move, knee shoving your thighs apart before you'd even agreed to anything, and the air between your bodies went humid and ripe, his chest sticking to yours, the dense hair on it dragging over your tender nipples. And your body answered him — thighs falling open the rest of the way, some primal part of you glad of his weight, glad to be pinned under it, glad he was solid and here and breathing on you. He braced up on a forearm and looked down at you, cyan eyes cracked open and bloodshot, lashes still gummed together. He looked like hell. But so did you, you were sure, and he was staring down like you were the best thing he'd ever seen.

He spat into his own hand without breaking from your eyes, crude, and reached down between you to slick his cock with it. You spread more open for him, your hands coming up to his back where sweat was gathered at the base of his spine.

He sank all the way in on the first stroke, stretching your sore walls, an obscene wet crackle of air pushing out to make room for him, Your whole body remembered him in one shoved open rush. He dropped his forehead to the side of your neck and let out a long breath through his nose.

"Four months," he rasped, almost to himself, the syllables coming apart as they fell. "Four months this was the only thing in my fuckin' head." Then, against your mouth, the gravel coming back into it, his throbbing cock bumping your cervix, your nails scrabbling over his sweaty skin for purchase: "That's it, dove. You can take it. You can take it, look at you, you've had worse than this off me."

You could hear his grin.

"Since last night?" you managed to get out. "Or— generally?"

A huff against your lips, almost a laugh, his hips not stopping. "Both."

He fucked you like he hadn't slept it off at all, like four months of going without you had only stored it up, his cock dragging thick and deep through the wreckage he'd already made of you. Every push of it pressed the sweat-slick of his furry belly against your clit so you got it both ways at once, inside and out, until your spine wanted to leave your body.

He talked the whole time — clipped, half-swallowed, filth pouring out of him like silver.

"Feel that," he asked. "That's last night still in you, that is. Didn't go anywhere." His teeth caught your jaw, dragged, overgrown beard scratching at your skin. "Gonna add some more to it." A deep grind of his hips that pushed the breath out of you. "Was lying there, every night, in the dark thinking about this. You under me, made a mess of, soaked through and still begging for more. Had to think about something else quick or I'd've embarrassed myself." His mouth is in your ear, hot and foul. "Four months of that. And now here you are. Wetter than the inside of my own head."

"John— you're so—," you couldn't get anything else out before he'd angled up and a moan tore out of you instead.

"Gross? Annoying?" he offered, hips snapping now, the bed knocking the wall, his hand slipping between you and the mattress to cant your cunt to his liking. "Yeah. And yet you're clenched down on me like you've never been happier. Funny, that."

It built faster than it had any right to. You'd stopped being able to do anything but hold on — one hand fisted in the wet sheet, the other clamped to the flexing muscle of his ass, your heels skidding down his back for purchase that wasn't there, every thrust knocking another broken little sound loose from a throat you no longer had any say over. And when you came you spasmed around him with your nails dug into the meat of his shoulders and your mouth open on a noise you'd have been embarrassed by if your brain hadn't been simmered down and reduced to nothing. He cursed and pushed his face into your throat and licked the salt off it, tongue flat against the tendon, groaning into your flesh as you fluttered and squeezed and dragged him over the edge with you.

He spilled deep with a groan you're not sure you've ever heard from him before, and then stayed there. Heavy. Crushing. His heart going hard against your chest, his breath sawing at your collarbone. Neither of you moved — both of you a single disgusting glued-together animal. Roadkill, maybe.

Underneath the slowing wreck of your own pulse, the feeling you'd been fending off since he walked through the front door finally claimed you — he was home. Your throat went tight, and you turned your face into his damp hair so he wouldn't catch the sound that squeezed out of it.

He exhaled a warm gust against your throat, then he dragged his lips to the corner of yours and kissed you — sloppy, tasting of sleep and salt and the both of you mixed past telling each other apart.

It was a fucking joke.

"Unhelpful," you'd moped, hanging up on the customer service agent while they were trying to interest you in some buyer's protection service.

Walking into your little kitchen to see a tall, dark, and handsome man sitting at your kitchen table. Introduced himself as John.

You meant to call the cops, of course, but then he disappeared through your walls only for you to find him stretched out on your bed, smiling with a self-satisfied smirk. "You can ring whoever you fancy, but it won't make a lick a difference, sweet'eart. S'your doin' that brought us here."

—

The psychic called the cops on you when you tried to bang down her door. Your emails and calls and negative reviews didn't move the needle.

—

And you know, for a ghost, he was so reasonable. If he wanted to, he could make your life a living hell. He'd see to it personally and would never lose sight of his mission were he to actually do it.

All he wanted — and it was so generous of him not to ask for anything of you — was to live in your house together and just be a happy family. All he wanted, really, was to bury himself into your "child-bearing hips" and fuck the bad attitude out of you. Fuck you into a sweet, pliable thing for him to keep.

"I'm not your fucking wife, you psycho." You'd broken enough things trying to chuck them at him; the only thing that you used now were words, and even then didn't budge him. A fortified wall of a man, constantly amused eyes that knew better, could see from an advantage point that you couldn't.

You tried killing him. A lot. Got creative with it too, but then it became an exercise in avoiding the FBI's interest for your increasingly unhinged research.

"I really hope you were killed. I hope it hurt. I hope you fucking suffered."

You tried showing him different women, ones online who said they really wanted to be fucked by a ghost!, but it was like trying to trick a wolf by throwing a fake stick. You were caught in his teeth.

So you fucked off all the time, staying out as late as possible at the bars, bringing home people to fuck. Didn't work; John scared them off.

S'alright, darlin', I know you just need to get this out of your system

He would say the worst things while his thumb was jammed down your mouth, piecing apart your lips so he could imagine his cock there. Just need to fill this mouth with me to keep you quiet and happy, hm? The worse it was, the harder you came, and a man like him did not miss the connective tissue between the two.

Bit of a party girl, y'are, darlin'. Can't be carryin' on like this when you're a mum.

Lucky you, inheriting (or summoning, according to him) some fuck-ass backwards ghost that wanted you barefoot and pregnant. These hips, good Christ, they're made to take me.

No matter that you had an IUD; John kept throwing out your pills. No matter that whatever the fuck came out of his dick couldn't knock you up, the idea buzzed in his stupid-ass head too strong to listen to actual reason.

Likes to pile drive you into your mattress, smiling down at you all condescending, not really caring if you get off from it, but liking when you come extra hard anyway. His cock stroking all the way deep, deep enough that you punch at his shoulder — "fuck, that fucking hurts!" — until he laughs dark and low, and eventually seizes up and releases whatever that substance is inside you. Feels like cum.

Then there's the crux of the fantasy: he grabs your pillows, and stuffs them under your huge ass so your wide hips are propped up in the air.

Good girl like that, let Daddy's spend do its thing made even more disgusting and potent by his tongue laving around your pussy, never lapping it up, but cleaning the area. Pushing it in deep with his two fingers until you slap and grapple at his wrists with a furious orgasm.

His ring finger, banded.

Yours, matching. Slipped on in the night.

Don't worry, sweet girl. It'll take.

The research stops being fun after a certain point and doesn't help your case.

You've got a leering Scottish dude as a clingy ghost, constantly pressing his big boner into your ass or between your legs. Look, at first, the novelty of it was fun. But when you've got work in the morning, waking up with a cock sliding into your ass and a och dinnae mind me hen jus need to blow off steam against your neck and now you've got to hop in the shower in the middle of the night because you got…ectoplasm? running out of your asshole.

Can't be banished. Can't get closure because Johnny just wants a fun time and someone to party with. He's pretty confident he died in the toilets at a nightclub that closed down in 1989. "Shame, many a night with my heid in a girl's fanny there."

He never leaves your side. Never content to stay back at the apartment or do his own thing, never too curious about the world around him. Just wants a hole to fuck — yours.

"Ye called me, hen."

There's no escaping him. You can't outrun him, can't trick him, can't tire him out. You could grab a flight to some remote island, and his spectral ass would just accompany you on board.

"Johnny, please," you sob, beyond exhausted after a few years. "I need space. Time. Distance. Anything, please."

His mouth is busy rimming your asshole, lapping and circling desperately, his saliva — yes, he produces it all when he's this close to you for this long, how lucky — running down your crack to your cock.

"Shush, hen," he tuts, licking forcefully until you're buckling, face into the pillow. His hairy hand comes between your legs and begins the slow tugs at your cock, and of course you're already leaking everywhere. Starting to shake under his ministrations.

"Want yer cum, lass. All sweet an' just fer me."

"No," you protest with a long, insane whine as your toes curl and the heat spreads low in your belly, your hips fucking into his tight wet fist. "I don't want to. I just wanna sleep."

He spits on your asshole, loud and gross, and you moan. "Ye cannae sleep if ye haven't gotten tae cum, ye daft girl. Gi'e me yer cum an' ah'll let ye sleep."

He won't. He won't be done even then, his cock never falling asleep. Always hard and angry and throbbing.

He milks your cock harder and you pitch forward, pulling away from his warm corporeal tongue with a shrill cry, and och there she goes.

Your pleas are met with light, snapping laughter, and then his cock is being rubbed against your asshole enough times that you finally shift and wriggle into acceptance: please. He hums graciously like he's doing you a favour, slapping your ass hard and making you buck. "Open wide fer me," he coos as he pulls your cheeks apart for his inspection.

Your brain goes offline at this part, and he takes over completely in his dominating, hyperactive, body-buzz electric way about him.

It can tell if you're not taking it seriously.

"I'm talking about my fiance, dumbass. Wouldn't be marrying him if he didn't. Anyway, your turn!"

—

You tell yourself you could've figured it out if he hadn't shown up the night before the wedding, dressed in a suit.

A stranger with soft brown eyes with a strange glint to them that stole your breath away.

Telling you, You're not going to marry him, honey. That's not the way this is going to work. I'm sorry.

He wasn't sorry; his top lip didn't meet his bottom lip in the right way to sell his remorse. The glint and the feverish look in his eyes seeing you in your bridal gown, trying it on one last time before the morning. He looked like a man deprived.

He was patient when you didn't understand. When you cried and cried, he held you, stroking your hair, the waist of your dress, your pretty mantilla veil. His hands were weak at first, so insubstantial that it scared you, but they got stronger as he roved up your dress.

Your protests were salt-thick.

I know, honey, I know.

Soothing words and petting hands and spoken kindnesses draped over you like their own veil, affixed to you and kept in place over you.

Until he found that that you were a traditional girl in some way; had been waiting for the wedding night. His eyes burned dark and hard, his hands forming into hot irons that molded your flesh apart.

What a beautiful bride

He kissed away your tears, sucked them up delicately with his beautiful mouth. He parted you like the sea, like trembling grasses making way, and slicked himself up. Hushed and crooned in your salt-damp neck about how he's the one that he can take care of you the best, isn't that what you wanted? as his cock rocked into you a little bit, small takings and small pitiful sanctions, making deeper passage.

The loveliest bride a man could hope for. Look at your face, darlin, you're a vision. Those eyes open for me so wide, lookin' at her new husband, eh?

Every time your mouth gaped open, he captured it in a new, hungrier kiss, his skin dragging against yours near the end of it. Swallowed up your crying noises, your gasps and hisses and moans, your pathetic keening sounds when his cock stroked the deepest, pressing against places you've never felt.

S'what a groom needs to do, hm? Make his pretty wife come? Make her feel good and jus' right? I'm gonna take care of you the best. You made sure of it, my wife.

A warm hand settled against your clit and began to rub there, slow and delirious, until he no longer kissed to cover up your sounds; his eyes darkened and seem to glitter as your ragged moans filled the bridal suite. An orgasm rippleed out across you, tight and discordant, frightening you beyond your new reality and you pulled at your husband so tightly that he spilled in you with a harsh groan. Pulsed something in you, then dragged his cock out, spilling more over your bridal gown.

Marked. Taken.

—

A few years later, he asks you to go find the dress in the closet. Wants you to put it on so he can fuck you like you're a virgin again; wants to reenact the taking of you.

There are some bittersweet tears you shed while he achingly glides into you, acting like the pressure is too much and too full and he has to slow down for your sake, remembering your fiance's face. The excitement you felt the night before.