🕯Hello Lovie🕯

You wake up with post-text message clarity the next morning, but there’s little you can do to backtrack now. You gave the man your name and number. You spoke to him on the phone about it, albeit briefly. Sure you could call John again and tell him that you thought it over a little more and decided against it, but then—

“It’s gonna cost four thousand dollars.”

Your coworker lets out a hissed breath, wincing. “That’s not cheap.”

It’s a pea-soupy summer morning, all hot and humid with the sky tinted a yellowish colour from forest fires up in the country, the hazy light seeping in through the windows in the office kitchen. Not a cloud in sight. You wouldn't call it a particularly pleasant morning, with the weather as overcast as your mood, but it could always be worse.

She’s the first person outside of a few close friends that you’ve told about going to the clinic at all, but she reacts exactly as you thought she would. It’s both affirming and annoying; it’s not so bad hearing from someone else that four thousand dollars is a bit pricey for a single person, but part of you wishes she’d try to convince you to go through with it. You need someone to push you in a direction—in any direction. 

You nod, mouth screwed into a grimace. “And that’s only for a single try. I think she said it would be closer to, like, twelve thousand dollars altogether.” 

“So are you gonna do it? Or are you gonna keep looking around?”

“I have another appointment next week,” you half-answer, getting cagey all of a sudden. 

The truth is, that appointment isn’t the only thing you’ve got on the books. There’s another dot in your calendar for a few days before, one that seems to glow ominously when you stare at the date as it slowly approaches, lumbering forward one ground-shaking step at a time. 

You wonder how long you can go without telling anyone. Theoretically, you could keep up this ruse for the rest of your life, pretend you always went through with the treatment. Lie through your teeth when your friends ask you if you know anything about the donor. No, they didn’t tell me anything, I just picked a profile with a good medical record and family history. 

Don’t think about how you live in the same city. Don’t think about the likelihood of running into him around town with the baby in tow. 

You shake your head. Those are concerns that you can foist off onto a future version of you. All the current you needs to worry about is making this all a reality. 

You don’t know what to wear out to dinner with him. It’s both a date and not, more of a prelude to the later events of the night. Part of you wonders if you should just text him your address and tell him to skip the preamble and come on over. 

The only reason you don’t is because a little voice at the back of your mind insists that you at least do your due diligence and screen him a little more over dinner. You can always back out at the last minute if a few too many red flags pop up. 

(You tell yourself that as if a strange man offering to knock you up within five minutes of meeting weren’t a big enough red flag on its own.)

John meets you at the restaurant looking every bit as handsome as the day you met him, once again nearly taking your breath away. A little more buttoned up this time though, actually quite dashing in a proper dress shirt and suit jacket, even his shoes polished. 

You have a second to think about calling it off. A second to consider turning tail and getting as far away as possible. Maybe, with enough time, you could scrape together the money for IUI. You could wait a year, or take out a loan with your bank, or pray for a decent enough raise to manage it on your own. 

But then, as the time before, he turns his head and locks eyes with you. 

It would probably be a good idea to take a picture of him, maybe even a picture of his ID, and send it over to one or two of your friends, on the off chance that he turns out to be a dangerous man, but you don’t need to be inundated by a barrage of text messages and phone calls from your friends trying to talk you out of it. You’ve made up your mind. 

Walnut and burgundy furnishings decorate the large room, and the amber glow of candlelight and antique wall sconces saturates the restaurant in a dark, sensual bloom. A server guides John and you to a table right in the middle of the room, a better table than you might’ve hoped to get on your own. You eye him sideways when he pulls your chair out for you. 

His demeanour is so relaxed that if you didn’t already know the purpose of this dinner, you could be forgiven for assuming that you were out on a real date. John certainly acts the part. 

“You know, we didn’t have to do this,” you start awkwardly, eyes gliding over the room to look at all the other well-dressed patrons, some presumably out on actual dates. 

“Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that dinner comes before the rest of the evening.”

“I just mean you didn’t have to. I would’ve been fine just…” getting right down to business, you leave unsaid, hoping that he doesn’t make you spell it out. 

“We’re two civilized adults. I thought we might get to know each other first.”

“Well, what do you want to know about me?”

“This is as much for me as it is for you—don’t you want to know anything about the father of your children?”

You wish he’d keep his voice down. He isn’t wrong though; it would be a good idea for you to take his candidature more seriously, actually ask him questions about himself and his parentage. He already emailed you a recent STI panel and bloodwork results, both done through the fertility clinic back when he was still keen on donating, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about him.

“Alright. How old are you?”

“Forty-six.”

You nod, pleased with yourself for guessing it right. “What do you do for work?”

“Just some work for the government,” he says, brushing the question off. “What else?”

That piques your interest though. “Oh, come on. What are you, M16 or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” John laughs, genuinely amused enough for you to believe him. 

You roll your eyes when he doesn’t elaborate any further though. “Fine, leave me in the dark. Anything else you want to know about me?”

“Where are you in your cycle?” he asks, blunt as a hammer.

A classic spit take moment. It’s a good thing you haven’t ordered a drink yet. 

“I think it’s, uh…it’s coming soon actually. Um. Next week or so.”

He chews on that for a second, mulling over the timing. “That’s fine. We should still be able to make it work.”

There he goes again, making comments that leave you fish-mouthed and stunned, jaw slack with disbelief. Never able to conjure up a good enough retort. 

When the server comes by to take your drink orders, both of you still deliberating over your food, John orders a beer for himself and a mocktail for you, not even bothering to consult you about it. 

“No alcohol,” he reminds you before you have a chance to ask. 

To be fair, the spicy blackberry-basil concoction that the server comes back with a few minutes later is a refreshing burst of fruit and fresh herbs, but that doesn’t excuse the overstep. You ignore it only because you know there’s no use getting worked up when you’ve already made your mind up. It’s a peccadillo in the grand scheme of things considering what he’s doing for you. 

Conversation flows surprisingly well over dinner, but at the back of your mind, you can’t stop thinking about how at the end of the night, he’s going to take you home and fuck you. It creeps back in whenever you let your guard down for a split second. 

So, do you have any hobbies? (In three hours, this man is going to strip you naked and have sex with you)

Do you have any siblings? Any twins running in the family? (In two hours, this man is going to climb on top of you and fuck you until he puts a baby in you)

It’s a lot to keep in your head at the same time.

“How long have you been thinking about doing this?” John asks apropos of nothing, the earlier thread of your conversation evaporating on the spot.  

“I mean, I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, but actually planning to have them…maybe a couple months?”

“Why now? Why not wait a little longer? Wait for someone to start a family with?”

You’re not sure why he’d ask you that, why it would matter. It’s none of his business, quite frankly. You almost want to tell him that, let yourself get righteous, get angry, but you find you can’t fully commit to the anger. It wouldn’t change anything. You aren’t being forced to answer him. 

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m not much of a family man myself. ‘Least not when I was younger, when it counted. Never had the time nor the inclination. Work took me all over—it just wouldn’t have been fair if I had a wife or kids waiting around for me. But since it didn’t seem like having a family was in the cards for me, I thought it would be a waste of good genetics.”

“Oh.” It’s arrogant, but it’s as good an answer as any. 

He waits a beat then lifts an eyebrow when you don’t reciprocate. “So? Why didn’t you wait?”

“I did try, but there wasn’t much out there, and I wanted a baby more than I wanted to be with someone, so…” 

Leave him to fill in the blanks. He met you at the culmination of that longing after all, even changed the course of it, disrupted your plans to place himself at the centre of them.

At the centre for a time, you remind yourself. Not forever. 

After that, he keeps the conversation light, only delving into superficial topics to help pass the time. You excuse yourself after finishing your meal to go to the bathroom, and come back to two coffees laid out on the table with sugar and cream in pretty porcelain cups laid out between them. John must have ordered for you again in your absence. Good thing you like coffee. 

The bill is also there, discretely tucked under John’s napkin, and that makes your stomach flip, realizing that only a coffee now sits between you and the end of this night. 

Then, at a certain point, when all that’s left in your cup is the dregs, sugar spoon bone dry on your plate, John gives you a look from across the table that says it’s time for you both to go. 

Well, here we go, you think a little hysterically as you push back your chair to stand, nearly jumping out of your skin when his hand comes down on your back. 

At your car, you sway back and forth on your heels. “You can, uh…follow behind me, if that works.”

“Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll meet you there?”

You bite your lip, pretending to deliberate, then acquiesce. 

Let him think he’s pulling one on you. You’re bringing him home instead of the other way around because you don’t want to have any memory of a man’s bed when you think about your pregnancy journey. If it’s going to be you alone, then it should be about you alone. Your decision to go out and pick a man to father your baby. 

His participation will be a short blip in your life. A minor footnote. You’ll remember it in bursts throughout the rest of your life: staring at a carton of cream in the dairy aisle of the local grocery store; garden spade buried hilt-deep in a plot of soil, blue bigleaf hydrangea in a pot beside you, sweat dripping down the bow of your lips; your baby’s face, for the rest of your natural life.

In your foyer, his hands glide around your hips, pulling you into his chest, and you realize abruptly that ‘short’ might not have been the most accurate interpretation of what’s about to happen. 

(Honey, you’ve got a storm coming)

“This off first,” John rasps, pulling the bottom of your shirt up and over your head, blinding you for a split second before he yanks it over your arms. 

“Getting right to it, huh?” you joke nervously. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks, staring down at you assessingly, as if staring into your soul. That cuts the humour from the moment. Vacuums it from the room, leaving behind only the crackling, blistering heat of his gaze and his intentions. 

“Yes,” you whisper. Neither of you mention the tremble in your voice and how unsure you sound. 

It doesn’t stop him from undressing you though. Bra pulled down under your breasts, pushing your tits up into his face like an invitation, one he accepts without question, pulling your nipples into his mouth one by one, hands on your hips to hold you in place when you try to squirm away. Not that it’s bad—it’s amazingly good after all, toe-curlingly good to have a man run his tongue over your areolas and suck each sensitive nipple to a stiff peak, until you’re on the verge of coming—but it’s a lot, a lot that you have to wrap your head around, your bra pinched off shortly after that and underwear next.  

Your touch is hesitant at first, fingers barely gliding down his arms and fisting in the fabric of his shirt to jerk it up, but he makes it easy for you to get lost in it, your nerves fizzling out in the heat and fervor.  

You don’t even notice that John has walked you backwards into the bedroom until he pushes you down onto the bed, the mattress bouncing under you. “One second, love—need to get all of this off myself.”

You watch transfixed as the suit jacket comes off first, shrugged off and discarded. He undoes only a few buttons before wrenching it over his head, eyes on you the whole time, his stare never breaking. Scalding hot. 

That’s how you know that despite all his lofty words, this isn’t some favour he’s doing you. He wants this just as badly—wants it with a vigour that you don’t even know if you’ll be able to handle, aware that you are just flesh and blood. There’s a prickle at the back of your mind, a whisper reminding you that nobody knows that he’s here, that he’s a hot-blooded man about to slake his lust with your body. 

Then he slides the elastic waistband of his boxers down his thighs and your mind goes blank when you see the flushed, heavy shaft droop between his legs. 

The two of you work together to shove a pillow under your hips, John fetching it from the top of the bed and you lifting your hips to give him easier access. You don’t have to ask why. 

Nestled between your thighs, John looks up at you with heavy-lidded eyes and says, “Let’s get you all softened up to start, alright, love?” 

The first touch of his lips to your sex sends a lightning bolt up your spine, and then it’s practically an open mouth kiss. Tongue running up the seam of your lips, pushing into the clenched hole at the centre, the bristles of his beard scraping up the insides of your thighs and the thin skin of your labia. 

It’s good, but it’s taking too long and your heart is a rabbiting mess and you can barely think or see straight, so you tangle your fingers in his hair and try to push his head away. “That’s okay, John, I just wanna—oh fuck, can you please just put it in?”

“No, baby, it’s good if you come first,” he murmurs. “Helps it take.”

That floods your system with a frenetic, crazed exhilaration. Baby fever bubbling and boiling, frothing spilling over the top like a pot left on the stovetop for too long. 

You gasp when he tucks a couple fingers into your hole to stretch you out, a perfunctory, almost clinical motion. Just enough to loosen you up for him, unmindful of the way you squirm and whine, rolling your hips to get him to go faster. He does not. 

It doesn’t take much effort on his part after that to get you to come, too worked up and wound up, core squeezing his fingers like a vice until he gives your clit a suck and you squeal, oh, too much, breath ripping through your chest.

They’re wet when he pulls them out, and he dries them off by rubbing them on your belly. 

The shadow of his body draws over yours as he climbs on top of you. It’s as physical as it is visual though, John’s hands always on some part of your body, dragging up your legs and over your arms, fingers spreading over your belly before he runs a hand up between your breasts and over your throat, lingering there just long enough to close around your throat and hold for a second, then skating up to cup your jaw. 

And then he’s all big body on top of you, coaxing your legs around his hips, one hand squishing your cheeks when he bends down to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips, the tongue pushing into your mouth musky with the flavour of your cum. You’d protest if you could, but you can’t, his mouth slanted over yours and demanding. 

“C’mere,” he mumbles against your lips when he draws you in for another kiss, sawing his cock up and down between your folds, coating his length with your juices, until it’s there suddenly, breaching you. 

You have to grab him, loop your arms around his shoulders and squeeze to ground yourself. It’s a lot to take in. He’s a lot to take in. 

“I know, love, I know,” John murmurs soothingly. “Deep breaths, okay?”

You listen to him, letting a shaky breath out. It helps you relax. Barely, but enough to ease the strain a bit. 

He nuzzles his nose into your temple, his breath fanning out against your ear. “A little more, love, alright? You gonna be brave for me?”

“Oh—just get on with it,” you gasp when he eases in another inch, and John laughs in your ear. 

It feels genuinely romantic like this. Your arms wrapped around his neck and his hips slowly rocking into you, whispering sweet nothings like, there we go, you’ve got it, that feel good, love? When he fits his hand around the back of your neck and lifts your head up for a kiss, you swear you see stars. 

The kiss is too much. Too intimate. You wish you would’ve set that boundary ahead of time. It feels pointless now, trapped under the heavy weight of his body and impaled on his member, sucked into it, lips slotting and melting over each other, his tongue running over yours. He’s a good kisser at least, practiced from a lifetime of it. No awkward schoolboy tonguing. 

Too good. You wonder distantly how many other women he’s slept with (probably more than you have any business knowing). If he’s ever gotten anyone else pregnant. Your nails dig into his back instinctively at the thought and he gasps a wet and guttural sound, hips bucking harder. 

He gets rough enough to loosen a bolt of fear in your chest. All of a sudden, it becomes bright and clear in your mind. There’s a grunting, sweating man over you, all two hundred plus pounds of him laid out on top of you, with no protection between you. Raw cock plunging into your pussy. You can barely get a full breath in. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” John grunts, and your eyes flick down instinctively, trying to see past the dense mass of hair on his chest towards the length of his cock sliding into you. He’s pressed too close though. When he catches you looking away from him, he clamps his hand around your face again, forcing your gaze back up. “No, none of that. Eyes on me.”

You think you must gasp. Some horrified sound must escape you because you can feel the aftereffect of it, the big hollow where it used to be. 

His other arm wedges under your back to pull you closer to him, thighs spreading to brace his weight against the mattress before driving into you harder, deeper, the big, concentrated energy of him inescapable.

You can sense it the second before he’s about to come, his eyebrows digging in and his jaw going tight, the vein in his forehead prominent. 

“Christ, you’re gonna take it, aren’t you?” he snarls. “All this fucking cum.” 

On the next stroke in, you dig an ankle into the muscle of his ass and squeeze your inner muscles around his length, grinning hazily to yourself when that makes him shout. 

And then, oh, he surges in and you feel it, hear it, sense it all around you, his fingers from the hand wedged under your back digging hard into the side of your breast. Hips forcefully pumping into you and pushing his cum in deep, your own orgasm lost somewhere in there, a small, forgettable part of it all. 

Eventually, he stops moving over you, letting his cock slip out of you on the next stroke out. You hiss when he does, clenching up involuntarily. With nothing plugging it inside though, his cum leaks out, dripping down the crack of your ass and onto the pillow under your hips. 

John’s hot breath fans over your face as he pants, slowly winding down as well, the red flush in his cheeks still stark, though gradually fading. It’s only in the cooldown that you realize how claustrophobic it is being trapped under him, the sheer weight and heat of his body flush with yours becoming more and more uncomfortable, almost unbearably so. 

When he slumps off to one side, you can finally breathe again, the air rushing into your lungs. There’s sweat in your skin and tears in the corners of your eyes, everything tacky and humid, the frantic beat of your heart only beginning to slow down. The stiffness in your shoulders only dawns on you after a few minutes like that, and you push yourself up onto your elbows just to try to work some of it out. 

“No, don’t get up, love. We’re just gonna lie here for a bit,” he instructs, pushing your shoulder back down. “Better chance of my boys getting the job done if we keep it all in you.”

Of course he just wants to make sure that it takes. That way, you don’t have to do this again. “Oh yeah. I, uh, I didn’t think about that.”

He doesn’t just mean lie there, of course, though your body would like nothing more than to sink into the plush embrace of sleep. Instead he means keeping your hips propped up on the pillow now saturated with cum, and curling you into his side, separating your thighs again to palm your cunt, sliding his fingers through the wet. 

It’s a goopy, sticky mess that John plunges his fingers into, pushing it back up inside of you and shushing you when you whimper, a little gaped from his cock but sore to the touch. 

For much longer than you anticipated, he lies there on his side beside you and keeps two fingers pushed up inside you, blocking any cum from leaking out. 

“How long do we have to do this for?” you ask, voice all high and tight in your throat. 

John hums, unconcerned. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

True to his word, he keeps you there for the full fifteen minutes. Only the sound of your breathing fills the room, quiet otherwise aside from the enormously large weight of his presence, too familiar now with the private corners of your world. 

He doesn’t warn you before idly circling your clit with thumb. You jerk, nearly biting through your lip. “John!”

“Relax, honey, I’m just making you come again.”

“I know that, John—ah, ah, ah—”

A leg hooks over yours, his thigh heavy enough to keep you pinned without even much strength behind it. His fingers don’t so much as twitch inside of you, buried to the fattest knuckle while his thumb circles the tight bud of your clit over and over again until you—

You haven’t finished the thought by the time he draws his fingers out, pearlescent strings of cum webbed between them. He hums approvingly when he sees that, pulling your thighs further apart to admire his work. “Gorgeous. That ought to do it for now.”

Your heart skips a beat and you stare up at him, exhausted, the sweat on the back of your neck now cold. 

One year ago, a woman named Roxanne Miller went missing. Without any close friends or family, it took two weeks for someone to finally notice her disappearance and report it to the police. There were no tearful pleas on the news for her return or adamant demands to keep her case active in hopes she’d be found one day. It was a quiet vanishing. Once the case went cold, it would be easy to assume that it would stay cold. Cold, dead, buried in the ground, forgotten by everyone except Johnny, Simon, Detective Bennett, and you.

You’re at the advantage over everyone right now. You know there’s new interest in her case, and you know where that interest needs to be directed towards for the culprits to be brought to justice. That advantage won’t last forever, though, because Detective Bennett’s not likely to give up trying to reach you, so if you continue to ignore him, he may just show up at your doorstep, searching for answers. If he lets it slip that he’s looking into Roxanne’s disappearance, then the watchful sentry above your front door will report back to your neighbors and your secret weapon will be ripped away.

So again, you have a phone call to make and a meeting to schedule and a plan to formulate for what you’re actually going to do at said meeting. Your first instinct is to walk in and out of the police station without speaking a word about Johnny or Simon or Roxanne, clinging to the safest option where you don’t risk incurring the wrath of your neighbors or implicating yourself in crimes of complicity. And maybe, just maybe, it would prove something to your neighbors. Show them that you’re worth having around with a gesture that demonstrates your loyalty and proper temperament.

But that’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? Not talking to the police, silence with a smile, all your secret keeping—passive, gutless inaction has only gotten you so far. It’s not enough anymore, not when there’s an empty, ravenous basement waiting to consume its next victim and not when your own gluttonous desires include more than just survival and freedom.

So if staying quiet’s not going to cut it, what option does that leave you? Sinking a metaphorical knife in your neighbors’ broad backs, striking first before they get bored of you? Ratting them out to save yourself because if you can’t have them, the police can? Some secret third option that you’ve yet to discover? Leaves you with a headache, that’s what.

To remedy your throbbing temples, you lie on the sofa in your living room, staring at the whirling ceiling fan above you. Scratchy, pilling fabric rubs against your skin as you shift your position. It’s not the soft, worn-in leather of your neighbors’ couch, cool to the touch against the back of your thighs.

And when you turn your head to the side, there’s no one sitting across from you, staring you down like you’re the most amusing thing in the world. Johnny and Simon are instead out in their front yard again this morning, having resumed the removal of their dead shrub. Even from inside, you can still hear the rhythmic sound of shovels striking into dirt. Schick. Schick. Schick. You wonder if this was ever the last thing one of their pets heard before crossing over the rainbow bridge.

Bringing your phone up to eye level, you consider calling Detective Bennett now while your neighbors are busy. You put in his number, but your finger hovers over the call button. A nagging at the back of your skull warns that if you want to keep the conversation private, you’d best not make the call inside your home where unseen eyes and ears could be lurking in the walls.

It’s a new day, so another coffee run wouldn’t seem suspicious, right? Maybe this could be your new routine, and then Johnny and Simon won’t think anything of it when you one day leave the house and take a secret detour to the police station. And you could randomly alternate between the coffee shops at Somerset and Terrace so if your neighbors show up at one location, you could claim to have been at the other.

So focused on strategy and subterfuge, you fail to notice that the distant gravedigging ASMR has stopped. It only comes to your attention when the sound is replaced by a loud knocking on your front door. Scrambling off of the couch, you fly to the entryway because that’s likely either your neighbors or the police, and you don’t want to keep either waiting.

When you open the door, you’re actually relieved it’s Johnny and Simon instead of the alternative, though you do catastrophize a scenario where your neighbors were able to sense your scheming through dark powers and mind reading. There’s no deviance that you can detect in their countenance, though, or no more than the usual amount, at any rate.

“Hi there, neighbor,” Johnny greets, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “We’re goin’ out to get a new shrub.”

You blink owlishly, unsure of why they felt the need to announce this to you.

“We means you too,” Simon dictates. Confused blinking persists.

“Oh. Okay,” you respond. “Um. Why me too, though?”

Johnny tilts his head. “Who else would we bring along?”

You can’t argue with that logic. You can’t argue at all, really.

“I’ll get my shoes.”

...

...

...

Your neighbors’ nursery of choice is on the other side of town. The car ride over is fraught with anxiety between Simon’s questionable driving maneuvers and the chance that this was all a ruse to take you to their favorite camping grounds instead. But you arrive at the garden center physically unharmed. The first thing you notice when stepping out of the car is how strong the sun is today. You commit to memory the feeling of unfiltered warmth on your skin, lest you one day never get to experience it again, all while trailing behind your neighbors as Simon pushes a cart around and Johnny walks beside him.

There’s an array of shovels for sale under a covered area in the middle of the nursery. They hang off of a rack all lined in a row, ordered by length and grouped by the shape of the head. One of them catches your eye by the brand name engraved on the handle. You recognize it from the shovels your neighbors were using yesterday and pause to take a closer look.

“Got somethin’ to bury?” Simon queries, stopping when you do and leaning on the handle of the cart.

“No, but...” You reach out and poke the shovel until it clanks against the one behind it. “...this is the same as yours, right?”

“That’s the one,” Johnny confirms. He walks up behind you, engulfing you as he reaches around and pulls the shovel off the hook, his head nestled against yours. “We’ll get one for ye. Our treat.”

It takes a moment to react because you weren’t fully listening, too distracted by the proximity of his mouth to your neck, the closest he’s been since they both kissed you. (Now five days ago when they last showed you any kind of affection, any shred of warmth or intimacy. You had hoped yesterday that they’d kiss you goodbye, would have settled even for a tap on the ass on the way out, but you left their home with nothing, nothing at all.) Your brain does eventually kick in and think to decline a matching shovel, though.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. You already got me that knife last time, and I haven’t even used that, so...” you fruitlessly reason.

“We never taught you how to handle that knife properly,” Simon states, taking the shovel from Johnny and putting it in the cart.

Your face wrinkles in confusion. “It’s not just...” You pantomime a few concise thrusting motions with an imaginary knife. “Stab-stab?”

“It’s mostly that,” Johnny laughs before sauntering over to you again. “But you gotta know where to stab.” While standing in front of you, he wraps a hand around your wrist and moves your fist towards his chest.

“And when to stab.”

A firm yank suddenly drags you forward until you stumble into him, your pretend knife driving straight into his heart. The rest of you presses against him as well.

“And who to stab,” Simon adds, voice stern and steady like he’s issuing a directive. Johnny winks while you stare at him, wide-eyed and stock-still.

“Aye, that’s the most important part,” he notes.

It’s unsettlingly intimate. You swear you can feel his heartbeat against your fist. You remain paralyzed until Johnny slips his other arm around your waist, giving a quick squeeze before spinning you around and nudging you towards his partner.

“Go on, hen. Give it a try on Simon.”

With small, reluctant steps, you shuffle over to Simon, whose smirk hasn’t faltered since you first wielded your simulated knife. Your neighbor’s size has always intimidated you, but he seems twice as large right now while up close, about to fake-stab him. You raise your clenched fist, eyes scanning his chest, searching for approximately where his heart would be, but hesitate to land a blow, too worried about missing, about disappointing.

“Not gonna get anythin’ done by staring,” Simon instructs. Your eyes snap up to meet his, and as if on command, you follow through without thinking, stabbing him with your not-knife in the chest. It’s a stronger jab than you meant, but it makes no noticeable impact to the thick wall of mass and muscle that is Simon. His smirk grows sharper, twists into a smile. “That’s it. Good.”

The praise drips down onto you. Buzzes in your veins, gives you a rush of adrenaline. You hold your hand there for a moment too long, reveling in the high until you have the sense to be mortified by your reaction.

“O-okay. Got it...” you stammer, hastily breaking contact and stepping back. “Where, when, who. I’ll remember that.” Johnny and Simon exchange a look of what you deduce is pride. But with the lesson over, they resume their plant shopping. You take to following behind them again, hand still clenched tightly around an invisible hilt.

You wonder if you could actually do it. There’s something so final about crossing that line, drawing a blade and striking. Once your weapon makes contact, there’s no turning back. You can’t undo a slice to the flesh, can’t force blood to return to the source. But when backed into a corner with your neighbors flanking you from the left and the cops positioned on the right and the basement door against your back, who knows what you’re capable of?

You have time to contemplate all that while Johnny and Simon inspect dozens of shrubs, searching for the best of the lot. Discerning eyes and high standards keep them from grabbing just any old shrub. This one’s drooping already from not enough water, this one doesn’t have enough new growth coming in. But after much debate, they finally select a nice, lush boxwood and pop it into their cart. And now that they’ve got what they came for, you hope they’ll take you straight home and not out to the woods to christen your new shovel.

But before you can take even two steps towards the exit, you hear a tapping that’s getting louder. Then a shout.

“Someone grab her, please!”

A small, fluffy white dog zooms between the rows of plants and shoots by you like a rocket, free and on the move, leash flailing wildly behind her. The dog’s too quick for you to react, but not quicker than Simon, who snatches her right off the ground once she passes by him. The pooch fidgets and squirms in his arms but can’t escape. A young woman jogs towards you all, flustered and out of breath and presumably the dog’s owner.

“Thank you so much. I didn’t have a good grip on her leash and something startled her, so she just took off,” she explains sheepishly, taking the dog from Simon.

“Lucky for you, we’ve got a knack for catching runaways,” Johnny replies, reaching out and ruffling the top of the dog’s head. He smiles, alluring and brilliant, and you can see the change in the woman’s posture, can clock when she realizes just how handsome your neighbors are as she tucks her hair behind her ear and returns the smile sweetly.

Ignored and awkwardly standing to the side, all you can do is watch. Is this how it starts? A chance meeting with a stranger, Johnny being his charming self, making casual small talk while Simon plays the strong, silent type, both of them evaluating their new acquaintance's appearance and disposition. And then if the appraisal goes well, some time later at a calculated, premeditated moment, this person has a last taste of freedom and vanishes.

You don’t want this woman to meet such a fate. You tell yourself that it’s altruism and a sense of decency that compels this wish, but you know that’s not the whole truth. Your neighbors’ affection is scarce. Finite. You don’t want to share.

You’re not the only one who’s upset that attention has been diverted away from them, though. The woman’s dog has also had enough, letting out two sharp barks and wiggling around in her arms.

“Oh no, don’t you start that,” her owner scolds, shifting her hold on the little furball. “You’ve caused enough trouble for one day, Roxie.”

The name sets you on edge. The hairs on the back of your neck rise as soon as you hear it.

“Roxie, huh?” Johnny comments with an amused chuckle. Baneful sentiment creeps across his face. “We had a Roxie once.”

“She was always tryin’ to escape too,” Simon adds. The same ill-boding fondness haunts his countenance.

If there were any lingering doubts that your neighbors had something to do with Roxanne Miller’s disappearance, this drives a nail in the coffin of that uncertainty. And really you were already convinced of the matter, but it’s different to hear it straight from their mouths. A wave of nausea overtakes you. Sweat beads on your forehead under the heat of the sun that suddenly feels unbearable. You begin to shuffle off to the side, seeking out the cover of a nearby awning, but Simon seizes you by the arm.

“Where you runnin’ off to, neighbor?”

You’re lightly jostled by his grasp which doesn’t help your stomach at all, and you suppress a grimace with a clumsily stitched together smile.

“I was going to go stand in the shade,” you explain. “It’s a little hot.”

Johnny moves in front of you, blocking the oppressing sun, and grabs hold of your face with an unexpected gentleness. “Yer not lookin’ too good, hen. We’ll check out and take you home.”

The woman with the dog, now realizing that you weren’t just some random person lurking nearby, offers one last thank you to your neighbors and makes herself scarce. You hope for her sake and your own that you never see her again.

When you’re back at the car, Simon mixes an electrolyte packet into their water bottle and makes you drink from it. A bit of water dribbles out the corner of your mouth as you gulp it down, and Johnny wipes it off with his thumb, licking his finger pad afterward. You want to soak up the attention fully, but you can’t help but bitterly wonder if they would dote on their new acquaintance or any of their other pets like this. When Roxie was in their care, did they rub lotion on her neck where the collar chafed her skin? Did they make sure she had a balanced diet that accounted for her new life without sun? Were their hands once loving and tender, even if the same hands eventually choked the life out of her?

On the drive home, you rest your head against the car window, staring aimlessly at the world outside passing you by. Simon drives with marginally more caution, perhaps his way of accommodating you, and Johnny carries the conversation for the three of you since you’re not feeling very chatty at the moment. There’s a lull, though, and when that happens, you venture to pose a question.

“Do you ever miss them?” you ask, voice small and wavering. “Roxie and the others.” Saying her name out loud burns your tongue like a curse, skirting the line between the usual charade and an actual discussion about the people they kidnap and murder and bury in lonely graves.

If it bothers your neighbors the same way, they don’t show it. Johnny turns to face you from the passenger’s seat, lips curving into an earnest but knowing smile.

“‘Course we do. Each and every one of them,” he claims.

A pause. Silence other than the hum of the car engine.

“Would you miss me?”

It hurts when it slips out of you, sounding wounded and desperate. Instincts urge you to take it back and hide it away, but you don’t.

Simon meets your gaze through the rearview mirror. “You plannin’ on going somewhere?”

There’s a warning and a threat in the marrow of his words. It answers and doesn’t answer your question, but as unsatisfying as that is, you’re too worn down to press the matter further. You glance between him and Johnny.

“No. I don’t know why I asked that. Sorry.”

It’s not even your real question. What you really want to know is would they miss you more? Are you special and different from the rest or are you just another Roxie, fifth in a line that continues long after you’re gone?

You fretfully brush your thumb back and forth over the car’s leather trim. You’re reminded of your neighbors’ couch at first, but then you think of your knife’s leather sheath. Your fingers slowly curl around the hilt of an imaginary weapon once again. A scar could be something to remember you by, a permanent, irreversible etching on their skin. With so many already littering their bodies, how mad could they be if you added one more?

But is it really a pound of flesh you seek? Maybe all you want is to have carved out even a sliver of their hearts, to hoard a piece for yourself that you get to keep and carry with you to the next life. So when someone speaks your name in the future, Johnny and Simon won’t just miss you—they’ll mourn you.

Where, when, who. The who is the most important part. Who are you willing to hurt to obtain your true, secret desires that you keep locked up deep within you?

In answering that question, the seed of an awful idea sprouts. An idea that is more likely to backfire spectacularly or do nothing at all or mean nothing at all to your neighbors. But it would be significant to you, it would be the change you’ve been searching for, even if it’s the last thing you do in this life. The walls are closing in, and there are familiar pipes running along them. You can’t delay the inevitable any longer. It’s time to draw first blood with your own two hands.

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.