Jo - Jshookthighs

In every century, in every country, in every lifetime, he finds you—and still the world takes you away.

Remmick doesn’t know what the room smells like when a life leaves it. Not in the way a human would, anyway—not in the clean, singular way grief gets described by people who can afford to be linear about it. Not in the way they talk about lilies and candles and rain and the soft, holy hush of a last breath. It’s messier than that.

It’s antiseptic and old dust and warm cotton and the faint metallic tang that always rides the air when the body’s done fighting. It’s the ghost of your shampoo clinging stubbornly to the pillowcase. It’s the salt of your skin, the trace of your perfume on the collar of his shirt where you’d pressed your face earlier—today, today—like it was just another day.

Like you weren’t already slipping away from him.

He kneels beside the bed anyway, because he doesn’t know how to be anywhere else when this happens. He’s been standing and staring and pacing and stalking the edges of rooms for centuries, but when the moment finally arrives—when the universe comes to collect what it’s owed—his body always finds the same position: down on the floor, close to you, close enough to feel the last of your warmth trying to linger.

His hand is on the sheet near your hip. Not on you. Not yet. He’s learned—learned the hard way—that there’s a point where touching you feels like a lie. Like he’s pretending there’s still something to hold onto.

The bedside lamp throws a shallow pool of light across your face, and the rest of the room falls away into softened shadow. Outside the window, the night presses its forehead to the glass. City sounds drift up from the street in dull, indifferent pulses—distant tires hissing over wet pavement, a muffled laugh, a siren far enough away to be someone else’s problem.

His problem is here. His problem is you. Your chest doesn’t rise.

The silence doesn’t come all at once. It arrives in increments, the way winter does. First the pauses between breaths get longer. Then the air in the room starts to feel heavier, like it’s losing oxygen even though the world outside is still full of it. Then the quiet settles—soft, final, complete—and he realizes his ears are straining for a sound that isn’t coming.

He stares at your mouth, stupidly, as if it could be persuaded into movement if he watches hard enough.

He’s seen mouths do terrible things across lifetimes. Pray. Curse. Beg. Laugh. Lie. Sing. He’s watched lips split under fists, watched teeth scatter across cobblestones like spilled dice. He’s watched men die with their jaws clenched shut in pride and women die with their mouths open in shock. But yours—yours always looked like the beginning of a joke.

Even now, there’s a softness there, a gentleness he wants to believe means you’re only sleeping. Like if he leans in and presses his forehead to yours, you’ll scrunch your nose the way you do when you’re half-awake and annoyed at being disturbed, and you’ll murmur something mouthy and sweet, and then you’ll steal his breath with a laugh.

His throat tightens. He doesn’t need to breathe. That’s the cruel part. He doesn’t need air, but he still feels the ache of it when it’s gone—like his body remembers the old rules and refuses to stop punishing him for breaking them.

This life had lasted three years. Three years of morning light spilling across your hair as you stood at the sink, humming while you brushed your teeth. Three years of your fingers tapping absent little rhythms against his wrist when you held his hand in public, like you couldn’t help making music out of being alive. Three years of your laugh—bright, unguarded, infuriatingly trusting—filling spaces that had been empty for too long.

Three years of him learning your routines the way he’d once learned battlefields. Three years of him swallowing every instinct that told him to wrap you in iron and never let the world touch you.

Because the world always finds a way. It always does. Remmick doesn’t count the lives anymore. Not the years, not the months, not the days. He used to. When it first began, when the pattern was still new enough to be shocking, he’d kept track with something like reverence, as if numbers might help him understand the universe’s intent. One, two, three—another chance, another chance, another—

He’d thought it meant something. He’d thought if he watched closely enough, he’d spot the thread tying them together, the rule he was missing, the reason he could never seem to hold onto you.

Now the only constant he trusts is the one that hurts: it happens again.

He leans forward until his shoulders hunch, and the movement makes the floorboards creak beneath him. The sound is too loud. It’s obscene, somehow, that wood should complain when you’ve gone so silent.

His gaze drifts to the window. It always does. As if the sky is the one thing he can accuse. There are stars out tonight, pinpricks scattered thinly behind the city’s haze. The light pollution tries to drown them, but they persist in stubborn little clusters, shining like they’ve never known loss. Like they aren’t ancient witnesses to every betrayal that’s ever happened beneath them.

He remembers the first time you pointed at them. Not this you—though you’d done it too, in a different way, standing on the balcony in a borrowed hoodie, tipping your head back and squinting like the stars had offended you by being faint.

“No way,” you’d said, breath puffing pale in the cold. “Is that Orion? Or am I just making that up?”

He’d watched your face instead of the sky. He always watched your face. He’d wanted to tell you that you’d been looking up at stars long before Orion had a name. Long before anyone carved constellations into myth to pretend the universe was kind. But he hadn’t.

He’d learned not to burden you with the weight of his knowing, not until he had to. Not until the world cornered him and forced his hand, forced his teeth, forced the red in his eyes to show when he couldn’t pretend anymore. His fingers curl into the sheet.

“Stay with me,” he says, and he hates himself for it because it’s ridiculous. It’s always ridiculous. It’s the same useless prayer he’s said in a hundred tongues, under a hundred skies, beside a hundred bodies that all belonged to you in different forms.

Stay with me.

As if the universe cares what he wants. As if he hasn’t been bargaining with it for centuries. There’s no answer. Of course there isn’t.

A draft sneaks under the window frame and slides across the room like a living thing, lifting the fine hairs on the back of his neck. The air shifts, and for a heartbeat he thinks—stupidly, viciously—that it’s you. That it’s some last little motion of your spirit, some final tease before you leave him with nothing but memories. But it’s only the night.

He swallows hard, and the sound of it is the only movement he hears from himself. His eyes don’t sting. He doesn’t cry—not the way humans cry. The tears don’t come the way they used to when he still had a pulse and a throat that burned with honest grief.

He can still feel it, though. He can feel it as a pressure behind his ribs, as if his chest is full of water and he’s trying not to drown in it. And somewhere beneath the grief, the bitterness stirs. A familiar, ugly companion. It crawls up through him like smoke. He’d tried. God, he’d tried.

He’d moved you away from the busiest streets. He’d memorized your schedule, your doctors, your routes. He’d listened for the shifts in your voice when you were too tired, too quiet, too brave. He’d kept you out of sunlight when he could, which had been easier to explain than it should’ve been—people loved romanticizing “old-school” devotion. They loved men who were intense, who were possessive in a way that sounded like poetry. You’d laughed at him for it sometimes.

“You’re clingy,” you’d said, smiling, tugging him closer by his shirt like you could treat his fear like a joke. “You act like you’re running out of time.”

And he hadn’t answered, because how could he? How could he tell you that holding onto you had always felt like trying to grab at water? That no matter how tight his fingers closed, you slipped between them—every time—leaving only the cold, wet proof that he’d tried.

His jaw clenches. The bedside clock glows an indifferent blue. The seconds keep moving. They always do. Time never pauses for love. Time never pauses for death. It simply continues, as if it’s above all of it, as if it doesn’t owe anyone anything. Remmick looks down at you again, and the sight of your stillness knocks something loose in him. A memory hits—sharp, bright, sudden—like a match struck in darkness.

Not this room. Not this bed. Not these soft sheets and electric light and the muted city beyond the window. Heat. Smoke. Flour dust hanging in the air like snow, catching firelight in soft, shimmering clouds. Your laugh, quick and surprised, because you’d stolen something off a tray and he’d caught you with powdered sugar smeared on your mouth. You’d lifted your chin at him like you were daring him to scold you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you’d said. “I’m starving.”

He’d been closer to the door then, half in shadow, because he’d learned even back then to keep himself where he could vanish quickly. He’d been pretending to be normal. Pretending to be a man who belonged in a warm bakery on a winter evening.

He’d watched you lick sugar from your thumb and felt the old, hungry ache in his mouth—not for blood, not then, but for you. For the simplicity of wanting.

The world had smelled like bread. It had smelled like yeast and butter and cinnamon. And then—a shout outside. A crack that wasn’t thunder. The sudden, panicked motion of bodies. Someone knocked a lantern over. Flame licked up the hem of a curtain like it was eager. You’d spun, startled, eyes wide.

“Remmick—” you’d started, because you’d learned his name quickly, like you’d always learned him quickly, like your soul recognized him even when your mind didn’t. And the fire—

The fire had moved too fast.

He’d been faster than any human. Faster than the men screaming. Faster than the flame should’ve been able to outpace. But it had still been too fast. He’d reached for you. He’d grabbed your wrist. He’d felt your fingers tighten around his for half a second—

And then the ceiling had given way, a brutal collapse of beams and heat and ash, and the world had turned into a roaring mouth.

He remembers the sound you made when the smoke stole the air from your lungs. He remembers the way your hand slipped from his, slick with sweat and panic and flour dust turned to paste. He remembers the taste of ash on his tongue as he clawed through burning debris. He remembers finding you too late.

You hadn’t even had time to say goodbye.

Boston, he thinks, and the word tastes wrong in his head, because it wasn’t the place that mattered. It was you. It had always been you. He’d stood in the street afterward, staring up at the night sky through a veil of smoke, and the stars had been there too—faint points of light behind the soot, indifferent witnesses yet again.

In every century. In every country. In every lifetime.

He flinches back into the present like he’s been struck. The room is still. The lamp hums softly. The air conditioner clicks, a small mechanical sigh. You're still gone. He presses the heel of his hand to his mouth, because if he doesn’t, he thinks he might make a sound that isn’t human, a sound he hasn’t made in a long time—something raw and feral and starving with grief.

His eyes lift again to the window. Stars. Always stars. He can’t tell anymore if the universe is cruel or simply careless. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither. Maybe this is what love looks like when it’s stretched across too much time—beautiful, repeated, and doomed by default.

He thinks of the gold ring tucked away where he keeps things that hurt. He thinks of how he’s carried it for centuries like a wound he refuses to let scar over. He thinks of how many times he’d almost placed it in your palm, almost dared to believe you’d keep it. Not this time, he thinks, and it isn’t hope. It’s defiance. It’s the same stubbornness he’s watched you wear in every lifetime, the same fire that makes you mouthy and sweet and too trusting.

He leans in and finally, carefully, lays his hand against your cheek. Your skin is cooling. Not cold yet. But on its way. The last warmth slips away like water through fingers. His thumb strokes once, slow, reverent, a gesture that feels like a prayer even though he doesn’t believe in prayers anymore.

“Stay with me,” he whispers again, softer, like if he says it gently enough, the universe won’t hear.

But the universe never listens. It only takes. And still—still he finds you. Still he will.

Outside, the stars keep shining like they’ve never watched anything burn.

In the first life, there are no monitors, no humming machines, no thin blue glow of a digital clock counting down the seconds you have left. There’s only wind and firelight and the sound of the sea breathing somewhere beyond the hills.

Remmick remembers the way the grass felt on his back that night—damp from an earlier rain, flattened under his shoulders as he stared up at a sky so dark and clear it looked like someone had thrown a handful of salt across black velvet. The stars were so bright they almost hurt to look at, each one a hard, clean pinprick of white. No city haze, no smoke, no roofs to block them. Just the sky. Just the world before it realized how cruel it could be.

“You’re not listening,” you’d said, leaning over him so your hair fell in a curtain and blocked half his view.

He’d been listening. He always listened to you. But his gaze had been caught on the familiar cluster of lights just above your shoulder, the one the old men in the village said was an elk—or a boat or a god’s belt, depending on who you asked and how much they’d had to drink. He’d lifted a hand and pointed past you.

“I am,” he’d said. “You were talking about how Brannán forgot to tie his goats and they ended up in Maebh’s vegetable patch again.”

You’d narrowed your eyes at him, suspicious. “What else was I saying?”

He’d tilted his head, pretending to think. “Something about how you were going to steal my apples.”

Your mouth had twitched, betrayed by the impulse to smile. You’d tried to fight it. That was another thing that never changed, no matter where the universe threw you: your stubbornness sat right next to your delight. They bumped shoulders constantly.

“Your apples?” you’d scoffed. “They’re not your apples. They’re your father’s. You’ve never planted a thing in your life.”

“Someone had to climb the trees,” he’d protested, rolling onto his side to look at you properly. “Someone had to keep you from breaking your neck when you tried.”

“I didn’t ask you to catch me.”

“You screamed my name like you did.”

“That’s because if I died in your orchard,” you’d said primly, settling back beside him with a dramatic sigh, “your father would’ve made my mother pay for the burial.”

You’d both fallen quiet after that, the way people did when death slipped into the conversation too casually and sat down beside them. But in those days, it was never far from anyone’s mind. A turned ankle, a bad harvest, a fever that moved through the village like a shadow—it didn’t take much. It should’ve made you cautious. It never did.

You’d lain there with him in the hilltop field, just beyond the last line of stones that marked the boundary of his father’s land, your arm pressed against his in the grass. The air had carried the smell of peat smoke from distant hearths, of salt from the sea, of damp earth still cooling after the heat of the day.

He’d listened to you breathe. Even then, he’d liked the sound more than he could say. There was something steadying about it. Something that smoothed the sharp edges off the world.

“Which one do you like best?” you’d asked suddenly.

“The apples?”

“The stars, you eejit.”

He’d turned his head, following the line of your pointing finger. You’d always pointed the same way, in every life—arm outstretched, wrist loose, like you weren’t quite sure you had the right to name something so far away. A little shy, a little bold. A contradiction he loved even before he knew he loved it.

“That one,” you’d decided for him when he took too long, tapping a fingertip against the air. “The one that looks like it’s trying the hardest.”

He’d frowned faintly. “They’re all trying the same amount.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” You’d rolled onto your side again, propping your head up on your fist so you could study his face instead of the sky. “Some of them are lazy. You can’t tell me that fat one near the tree line isn’t coasting.”

He’d followed your gaze, squinting, then huffed out a laugh. “Maybe it’s older than the others.”

“So? It doesn’t get to slack off just because it’s tired.”

“You don’t slow down for anything,” he’d said, the fondness slipping into his voice before he could stop it.

You’d heard it. You always heard it, even when you pretended you didn’t.

“That’s because I’m not old,” you’d said. Then, after a pause, your mouth had curved in a way that made his heart misstep. “You, though…”

He’d arched a brow. “Me what?”

You’d studied him for a moment, eyes tracing his face like you were cataloguing it. The line of his nose, the sweep of his cheekbones, the dark smudge of stubble along his jaw—the features he’d carry with him long after the rest of him had died.

“You look like you’ve been alive too long,” you’d said finally, with a small, decisive nod. “Like you’ve seen everything twice and still don’t trust it.”

He’d gone still in the grass, some part of him reacting to the words with a strange, deep shiver. He hadn’t had centuries then. He hadn’t had the weight of history pressed into his bones. He’d only had this hill, this village, this small patch of earth his father insisted would always be theirs. But you’d looked at him like you could already see what he’d become.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he’d managed.

“Just that you frown too much,” you’d said lightly, teasing away the heaviness like you always did. You’d reached over and pressed your fingers between his brows, smoothing the line there. “You’re going to end up with wrinkles that make you look like a dried apple. And then no one will want to kiss you.”

“I thought no one wanted to kiss me now,” he’d shot back, but the words came out softer than he’d intended, caught on the warmth pooling in his chest.

You’d made a thoughtful sound, humming under your breath. It was the same little noise you’d make in a modern kitchen while deciding which mug to use, or in a laundromat while sorting colours from whites. A tiny, private music of concentration.

“I didn’t say that,” you’d murmured.

The stars had seemed to press closer then, crowding around the two of you like they were eavesdropping. He remembers every detail with painful clarity now—the way your hand had felt on his forehead, the roughness of your fingertips from work, the faint scent of apples on your breath because you’d stolen one on the way up the hill. He remembers wanting to kiss you so badly his teeth had ached with it.

He’d done nothing. He’d been his father’s son, back then. Bound by duty and caution, by lines drawn in land and blood. Your family worked his father’s fields. You’d grown up with mud on your boots and laughter on your tongue, always on the wrong side of the threshold when the men talked business. But Remmick had never cared about thresholds when it came to you.

Later, much later, when the sky had clouded over and the chill had begun to bite through his clothes, you’d sat up and hugged your knees to your chest, looking down at the cluster of stone houses huddled around the hearth smoke below.

“Do you think we’ll ever leave?” you’d asked.

He’d pushed himself upright beside you, following your gaze.

“Leave where?”

“Here.” You’d flicked your fingers toward the village, the fields, the sea, the hills. “This place. This life.”

He’d frowned. “Why would we? This is our land.”

“It’s your land,” you’d corrected automatically. Then, softer, “Your father’s land, I mean.”

“It’ll be mine someday.”

“Will it?”

You’d said it without malice, but the question had lodged in him like a splinter. He’d watched his father fight neighbors over boundary stones and grazing rights, watched him count sacks of grain like they were rosary beads that could keep misfortune at bay. He’d heard him spit curses about the men who moved through the country wearing foreign crosses, who talked about one god and one book and one way to live.

“They can’t take what’s ours,” his father had said, more than once, more to himself than to his son. “This is our land. We bled for it before they knew it existed.”

Looking back, Remmick knows that was the moment he started to doubt the certainty of that claim. Not because his father was wrong about the blood, but because you’d looked at the world and seen how easily it could shift beneath you.

“Nothing stays,” you’d said that night, staring at the scattered lights of the village. “Not the weather, not the harvest, not the people. Why would the land be different?”

He’d wanted to tell you you were wrong. That you could plant something and trust it to grow in the same soil year after year. That if you looked after things properly, they stayed. But the hill wind had shifted just then, carrying a faint sound on it—a snatch of song from someone’s hearth, the rough bark of a dog, the distant crash of a wave against the rocks—and he’d felt, for just an instant, how small they all were under the watching sky. He hadn’t answered.

You’d bumped your shoulder against his, light and deliberate, breaking the tension.

“Anyway,” you’d said. “If I ever do leave, you’re coming with me. Someone has to keep me from falling out of trees in foreign lands.”

He’d laughed despite himself. “Someone has to keep you from stealing their apples.”

“Well, obviously.”

You’d said it like a promise. Like it was that simple. It should’ve been that simple.

The days after that had been full in the way early autumn always was—harvest, repairs, preparations for colder months. Remmick had spent his time between the fields and the stone-walled yard where they stored grain, his hands blistered from the rough wooden handles of tools, his shoulders aching pleasantly by the time the sun dropped behind the hills.

He didn’t mind the work. It made his muscles hum and pulled his thoughts down into his body, away from the restless worry that always threatened to pool in his gut. Worry about the men with crosses moving slowly toward them from the east. Worry about rumors of burned groves and toppled stones. Worry about you.

You were everywhere. In the orchard, stealing the fruit you pretended was worthless until you bit into it and closed your eyes with a small sound of pleasure. In the lane, carrying a basket almost as big as your torso, muttering curses at the handle when it dug into your fingers. In the doorway of your mother’s cottage, hair messy from the wind, hands dusted with flour from kneading bread.

He started finding excuses to walk past your house at odd hours. Started timing his trips to the well so they lined up with yours. Started lingering in the field where the boundary stones separated his father’s land from the patch your family worked, pretending to inspect the soil while he watched you work with your sleeves rolled up and your jaw set in determination.

You always caught him. You’d wave him over when you thought his father wasn’t looking, or call out something that made nearby heads turn.

“Careful, Remmick,” you’d say loudly as he approached with a bundle of tools. “You look like you’ve been alive too long again. You might sprain something.”

He’d ignore the jibe and help you anyway, even when it meant his father’s disapproving gaze burning into the back of his neck from a distance. At night, he’d lie in the cramped loft of his family’s house, listening to the murmur of his parents’ voices below, and think of your fingers smoothing the frown from his brow.

Someday, he thought, he’d give you something that proved there was a place where you did stay. Even if nothing else did. It was a stupid hope. He can admit that now. But back then, hope was just another kind of faith. And he still had some of that left.

His father had the ring made in the late days of the harvest. Not for you. Not at first.

“You’re of age,” his father had said gruffly, setting a small linen-wrapped bundle on the table between them. The firelight had carved deep lines into the man’s face, every crease a record of worry, laughter, hard seasons. “It’s past time you started thinking about a family of your own.”

Remmick had unwrapped the bundle with careful fingers. Inside lay a simple band of gold, softly polished, its edges smoothed and warmed by the metalworker’s hands. No stones, no engraving, just a circle of light catching the flame. Something in his chest had tightened.

“You’ll need to choose someone,” his father had continued, leaning back with a tired sigh. “Or I’ll choose for you. We need alliances. More hands on the land. I won’t have our name disappear because you can’t decide who to put in your bed.”

Remmick had closed his fingers around the ring, feeling the cool weight of it press into his palm. He could picture you too easily. Your hands, your laugh, the way your eyes crinkled when you argued. The way you’d looked up at the stars and promised, half teasing, that if you ever left, he’d be coming with you.

He’d thought of how your family had worked his father’s fields for as long as anyone could remember, of the way the old women in the village talked about blood and class and who belonged with whom. He’d thought of the men with crosses who were moving closer every season. He’d thought of the land under his feet, and how you’d said nothing stayed. When he spoke, his voice had come out hoarse around the decision shaping itself in his throat.

“I’ve already chosen,” he’d said.

His father had stared at him for a long time, face unreadable.

“You’re a fool,” the older man had said at last. “You’ll make your life harder than it needs to be.”

Remmick hadn’t disagreed. But he’d kept the ring. He just didn’t get a chance to give it to you.

The men with crosses came with winter.

They weren’t many—not at first. A handful of hard-eyed strangers on tired horses, cloaks heavy with road dust and rain, a wooden emblem hanging from each neck. They spoke in a clipped, foreign version of his language, their words flattened around the names of their god. They asked questions. About land. About faith. About loyalty.

Remmick’s father answered with his jaw clenched and his hands fisted at his sides. He said all the right things and none of them with the right tone. Remmick watched the men’s eyes move over the fields, over the boundary stones, over the apple trees. Over you, when you walked past with a basket, chin tilted defiantly.

He didn’t like the way their gazes lingered. He didn’t like the way one of them spat on the ground near the old shrine stone at the edge of the village, the one people still touched in passing without thinking.

That night, the fire in his family’s house burned low and mean. His father paced, muttering curses under his breath. His mother sat with her hands in her lap, fingers worrying the edge of her skirt.

“They’ll take what they want,” his father said. “Land. Tithes. Names.” He’d looked at Remmick, eyes dark. “We have to be clever. Choose our fights.”

Remmick remembered your voice on the hill, telling him nothing stayed. He’d thought he understood then. He didn’t. Not yet. Understanding came with smoke.

They came back at dawn. More of them this time.

Remmick woke to shouting, to the thud of boots in the yard, to the harsh bark of orders. He stumbled out into the cold morning, breath steaming, the gold ring heavy in his pocket. The men with crosses were already in the field, their horses stamping and snorting clouds into the air. They’d driven stakes into the earth, marking lines that cut through his father’s land like scars.

“This isn’t yours,” his father was saying, voice rough and loud. “You don’t get to walk in and decide where our boundaries fall.”

One of the strangers smiled thinly, his fingers playing with the cross at his throat.

“Your god’s stone is old,” he said in that flattened accent, nodding toward the shrine rock standing sentinel at the field’s edge. “Ours is new. The new always replaces the old. That’s the way of things.”

The villagers had gathered in a small, frightened cluster nearby. You stood near the front, basket forgotten at your feet, hands clenched at your sides. Your jaw was set. Your eyes were bright. Remmick could see you biting back words. He wanted to tell you not to. He didn’t get the chance.

The first blow landed faster than anyone expected. A soldier’s fist connecting with his father’s face, the sound a sickening crack in the cold air. Then there was movement everywhere—men grappling, shouts, the dull thud of boots against ribs. Someone screamed. Someone else shouted about blasphemy, about defiance, about punishment.

Remmick moved without thinking. He’d always been quick, even before the change. Quick to climb, quick to dodge, quick to get between you and whatever threatened to knock you down. He reached you just as one of the soldiers shoved you aside, sending you sprawling into the mud. Your head snapped back against a stone, and the sight of blood at your temple stole his breath.

“Hey!” he shouted, grabbing the man’s arm. “Leave her—”

The soldier turned, eyes flat and cold.

“You should teach your women to hold their tongues,” he said.

Remmick hit him. It was messy and stupid and utterly human. No technique, no strategy, just his fist connecting with bone and the shock of pain up his arm. The man reeled back, more surprised than hurt, and then everything went sideways. Hands were on him, dragging him down. Boots drove into his ribs. The world narrowed to impact and breath and the copper taste of his own blood on his tongue.

He heard you shout his name. He heard his father bellow something wordless and furious. He heard the sharp, unmistakable whoosh of a torch being swung too close to something dry.

Fire had always been part of life there. Fire for warmth, for cooking, for comfort. A controlled thing. This was not controlled.

The torch caught on a thatched roof. The dry straw went up like tinder. Flames leapt from one house to the next in a greedy rush, feeding on wind and wood and fear. Smoke poured into the morning sky, turning it a mottled grey. People scattered, torn between fighting and fleeing, between saving what they could and saving themselves.

Remmick struggled under the weight of the men holding him, vision swimming. Somewhere in the chaos, he saw you lunge toward him, only to be shoved back again, stumbling dangerously close to a knot of men wrestling near a growing wall of flame.

“Remmick!” you shouted, voice raw. “Remmick—”

He’d never forgive himself for not reaching you then. For being pinned, for being human, for being breakable. He twisted, kicked, bit, did everything his body would allow, but there were too many hands, too many boots, too much smoke. His lungs burned. His eyes watered. The world became a smear of heat and sound and the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears.

When he finally broke free, coughing and staggering, the village was half on fire. He spun, searching for you. He saw your dress first, a flash of familiar fabric near the fallen shrine stone. Your body lay twisted at its base, as if you’d been thrown there. The men with crosses were moving away, already re-forming their lines, their work done. He stumbled toward you, nearly falling when his knees hit the ground beside your head.

Your eyes were open. The blood at your temple had dried in a thick, dark streak. Your chest didn’t move.

“Stay with me,” he said, hoarse, grabbing for your hand—for your wrist—for anything that might prove this wasn’t real. “Please,” he choked, voice breaking on the word like it was glass in his throat. “Please, my love, stay—”

He pulled you closer without thinking, dragging you half into his lap like his body could shield you from what had already happened. His fingers skimmed your cheek, your jaw, your throat, frantic and shaking, searching for warmth, for breath, for the smallest flutter beneath skin.

“Look at me,” he whispered, and then louder, ragged, as if volume could change the laws of the world. “Look at me. You can’t—don’t you dare—”

Your head lolled against his forearm. Your fingers were limp in his, slack with a weight that made his stomach lurch. He squeezed until his knuckles went white, until pain shot up his arm, willing your hand to squeeze back. He tried to rub warmth into you like friction could re-light what had gone out. Nothing.

Smoke rolled over them in choking waves, carrying the stench of burning thatch, of scorched wood, of cooked meat. It coated his tongue, stuck to the back of his throat, turned every breath into punishment. Familiar faces sprinted past in panic, their features smeared by heat and terror, their mouths open in screams that blurred together into one long, animal sound.

But all he heard—truly heard—was the silence inside you.

The shrine stone loomed behind you, old carvings disappearing under soot, the familiar grooves blackening as if the gods themselves were being erased in real time. The world was changing shape around them, boundaries and beliefs and histories turning to ash, and Remmick couldn’t drag his eyes away from yours—those open, glassy eyes fixed on nothing.

He pressed his forehead to your knuckles. He breathed against your skin as if he could share his air, as if he could force life back into you through sheer stubbornness. No answering squeeze. No pulse. No soft exhale he could pretend to miss. Just the cooling flesh of someone the world had decided to take.

A sound left him then—raw, ugly, nothing like the controlled way he carried himself. It ripped out of his chest without permission, a broken noise that didn’t have words in it, only loss. He hunched over you like a man trying to fold himself around grief, like if he made himself small enough the universe would overlook him. His hands shook so hard he could barely hold your face.

“I was right here,” he whispered, and the accusation in it was aimed everywhere—at the men with crosses, at the sky, at the earth beneath them, at himself most of all. “I was right here.” His mouth brushed your forehead, your temple, reverent kisses that felt like apologies. “You promised,” he said, voice cracking. “You promised you’d leave and I’d come with you. You promised.”

It wasn’t fair, the way his mind reached for that hilltop under stars—how quickly it dragged him back to a night full of laughter, to your shoulder bumping his, to your voice easy and bright as if forever was something you could joke about. Nothing stayed. Not laughter. Not land. Not you.

Something cracked open in him then—not a clean break, not the kind that healed sharp and simple. A slow, grinding fracture that started at his heart and radiated outward, splitting him down to the bone. It felt like the world had reached inside his chest and twisted, like grief had hands and it meant to wring him dry. He tried again—because he didn’t know how not to.

“Stay with me,” he begged, quieter now, like a child pleading with something too big to understand. “Please. Please. I’ll—” His breath hitched. He didn’t even know what he was offering. He would’ve offered anything. He would’ve offered his name, his blood, his bones, his future, his god. “I’ll give you anything. Don’t leave me.”

Smoke blurred the sky, but beyond it the stars were still there—faint, stubborn points of light, indifferent witnesses. They didn’t blink. They didn’t soften. They didn’t turn away. The land wasn’t safe. The gods weren’t watching. And Remmick—small and shaking in the mud with your hand clutched to his mouth like a sacrament—understood for the first time what it meant to have nothing left to bargain with.

Nothing stayed.

He buried you at the edge of the field that night, under the tree that had given you so many stolen apples. His hands were raw and bleeding by the time he finished, fingers numb from clawing at the cold earth. He slid the gold ring back into his pocket instead of placing it in your grave. He couldn’t bring himself to let it go.

Days blurred after that. The men with crosses claimed half the land and promised to take more. They marked boundaries with their own symbols, toppled stones, muttered words about sin and obedience. His father’s shoulders bent under the weight of loss and humiliation. Remmick felt nothing but a cold, hollow hunger.

So when the stranger came—a figure who wasn’t quite man, whose eyes held too many winters, whose presence made the air around him ripple strangely—Remmick didn’t flinch.

“You’ve lost everything,” the stranger said, voice low and amused, as if he were commenting on the weather.

Remmick’s hands were still dirty from your grave.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Your land,” the man went on. “Your woman. Your god. Your future.”

Remmick stared at him. “Is this where you tell me to pray?”

The stranger laughed softly. “No. This is where I ask if you want to stop losing.”

He spoke of power then, of strength that didn’t bend under boots or burn in fires or choke on smoke. He spoke of walking through centuries untouched by age, of watching empires rise and fall like tides.

He spoke of making the men with crosses regret their arrogance. Remmick listened. It wasn’t the promise of revenge that hooked him. Not really. That came later, in other places, under other skies. What caught him was the thought of never being at the mercy of time again. Of never having to watch you grow still while he remained, powerless.

He didn’t yet understand the cruelty in that. He didn’t yet understand that immortality without you would be a curse carved deeper than any wound. All he knew was that he was tired of watching things be taken from him.

“What’s the cost?” he asked.

The stranger’s smile flashed sharp in the dark.

“Only your life,” he said. “And what you are now. You’ll leave this behind.”

Remmick thought of the burned village, of his father’s bent shoulders, of the shrine stone blackened and broken. He thought of your body in the earth, of apples rotting on the ground above you, of the ring in his pocket pressing against his thigh. He thought of the stars overhead, cold and distant and endless.

“Fine,” he said, jaw set. “Take it.”

The pain came later. The hunger came after. The understanding came last, slow and brutal. Because he didn’t stop losing you. He never has. But in that first life, on that first night, with the smoke still clinging to his clothes and your name a fresh wound in his mouth, becoming something else had felt like the only way to keep from breaking apart entirely.

He closed his hand around the gold ring as the change took him, metal cutting into his palm, anchoring him to a promise he hadn’t been able to keep. Someday, he thought. Someday, he’d give it to you. Someday, he’d keep you.

Under the watching stars, the universe said nothing.

He doesn’t see you again for a long time. Not in any way that makes sense. There are faces, of course. There are always faces. Men shouting in languages he doesn’t know yet. Women crying in doorways. Children laughing with gaps in their teeth, chasing dogs through mud and dust and waste. Time swallows one village and spits out a city. Roads lengthen. Ships get stranger. Crosses spread like rot across the map.

He moves through it all like a shadow with hunger in its bones. He learns to feed. He learns to hide. He learns what he is now—what he’s capable of, what he has to avoid, how to walk the edge between being a story people whisper and a thing they hunt. The nights feel longer. The stars seem sharper, somehow, like they’re watching more closely.

He tells himself it was a one-time cruelty. You, in the earth under the apple tree. You, gone. The universe owed him nothing. He knows that now. But the human part of him, the part that hasn’t been scoured entirely clean by blood and time, still curls around the memory of you like a hand around a coal. He keeps the ring. He doesn’t go back to the village. He tells himself he’s moving forward. And for a century, maybe two, that’s enough.

When he finds you again, it’s in a place that smells of candle wax and cold stone and damp wool, not earth and smoke and apple trees.

The monastery sits on a hill much like the one where you once lay in the grass counting stars, but there’s no wildness here, no sense that the land still belongs to itself. Every inch is ordered. Walled. Claimed. A ring of grey stone surrounds the complex like a clenched fist, and inside that circle everything is arranged around a central courtyard: chapel, dormitory, refectory, library, storage.

He stands outside the walls at first, watching. Habit now. He doesn’t step over boundaries without thinking about what it’ll cost him.

The night is thin and cold. He can smell the salt of the distant sea, the faint animal musk of sheep on the slopes below, the sharp iron tang of the nails hammered into the heavy wooden gate. Above it, someone’s carved a symbol he recognizes from a lifetime ago: a cross, straighter and more official now, sanctioned by men who wear it like armor. No shrine stones here. No old gods.

He can hear them inside, though. Not gods—monks. Voices rising and falling in a language that carries the bones of his own in it but feels heavier, weighted with syllables that weren’t meant to be forced into mouths like his. Latin, he’ll learn to call it later. For now it’s just sound. He’s about to walk away. He has no interest in men who whisper to a sky that never answers.

Then the bell rings, and the doors to the chapel open, and you step out into the courtyard with a cluster of other women in veils.

The world narrows.

You don’t look like a ghost. You don’t look like an apparition sent to torment him. You look like yourself, made over in neat linen and obedience—same eyes, same mouth, same stubborn tilt to your chin. Your hair is hidden under a coif and veil, but he knows the shape of your head, the slope of your neck, the way your shoulders sit straight even when you’re tired.

You walk across the cloister in careful, measured steps, holding your candle just as carefully, and the light paints your face in gold and shadow. It hits him like an arrow. His body doesn’t need to breathe, but his chest still stutters like he’s forgotten how.

For a moment, he thinks it’s a trick. A hallucination conjured by hunger or guilt or the sheer weight of all the faces he’s seen and forgotten. It would be easy to believe his mind had simply taken one it hadn’t wanted to let go and stamped it onto someone else.

Then you stop beneath the archway that leads into the garden and look up. At the stars. It’s a habit. A small, thoughtless one. Your head tips back, your eyes find the sky through the stone frame, and your lips part on a quiet exhale. He can’t hear you from outside the walls, but he knows exactly the kind of sound you’re making: the soft, involuntary one you make when something catches you off guard with its beauty.

Something in him tears.

You’re not the same. You can’t be. This girl has never stolen apples from his father’s trees or argued with him about boundaries and gods and the land staying under their feet. This girl has never touched the frown between his eyebrows and laughed, never told him he looks like he’s been alive too long. And yet—

You stand in the cold cloister in your novice’s habit and stare up at the stars like they’re old friends you’re determined to memorize before someone tells you not to look. It’s you. It’s you. For the first time since he died, he feels dizzy.

He doesn’t approach you that night. He can’t. He spends it pressed against the outer wall of the monastery instead, palms flat on the stone, listening. He listens to the rhythm of the place: the bells, the whispered prayers, the soft shuffle of bare feet in hallways. The world inside the walls is a clockwork of devotion. Wake. Pray. Work. Eat. Pray. Work. Sleep. Repeat. It should bore him. It doesn’t. Because under it all, woven into the pattern, are the sounds specific to you.

Your voice, pitched a little lower than the other women’s when you chant, like you’re trying not to stand out and failing. Your cough when the incense gets too strong. Your muttered curses in the garden when a root refuses to come up cleanly from the earth.

He revisits the question he never had time to fully examine at your grave: What kind of universe kills you and then gives you back?

He’s seen men reborn in stories, in songs. Heroes, saints, monsters with their heads cut off and bodies stitched back together in legends meant to scare children. But this isn’t that. This isn’t his own resurrection, a twisted bargain made in blood and desperation. This is you, existing again after you stopped.

This is impossible.

And yet there you are, carefully pruning herbs under a pale winter sun the next day, your breath puffing in front of your face, your fingers stiff from the cold. You mutter under your breath as you work, words he can’t quite catch, and when one of the older nuns calls your name sharply from across the hedged garden, you straighten with a guilty start, hand flying to your chest.

He hears your name and feels it land in him like a seed on familiar ground. Different mouth, same sound. Of course. Of course the universe would give it back too. The nun scolds you for something—working too slowly, wasting time, not focusing—and you bow your head, murmuring an apology that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

He recognizes the flicker there. The little flare of defiance. The same one you’d had when you stole apples, when you argued about land and gods and staying. He feels something split open in his understanding of time. It’s not just that you exist again. It’s that you exist with the same inclinations, the same small rebellions, the same way of inhabiting space like you belong there even when people tell you you don’t.

He waits until the next morning to test it.

He can’t enter without invitation. That’s one of the rules he’d learned early and bitterly, after slamming face-first into an invisible barrier at the entrance of a farmhouse and ending up on his back in the mud while the family inside stared at the closed door, shivering, understanding some part of what had just tried to get in. It’s not that he bounces off, exactly. It’s more like the air thickens into stone and refuses to acknowledge his existence.

The monastery is worse. The wall, the gates, the consecrated ground—they’re layers of no wrapped around each other, old as the foundations themselves. He can circle the perimeter. He can press his hand to the stones. He can slip in where the wall meets the hill and the builders were lazy.

He can’t step over the threshold into the cloister. Not unless someone asks him to. So he waits by the garden wall when you come out alone the next day, following the path that leads to a small, half-forgotten side gate. You’re humming under your breath, the same tuneless, wandering little melody you’d once used to fill silences in an Irish orchard. You’ve got a basket hooked over your arm and dirt under your nails.

You’re close enough that he can count the tiny lines at the corners of your eyes from squinting against the winter sun. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until you stop. You freeze mid-step, head tilting slightly like you’ve heard something—or felt something, some ripple in the air beyond the wall.

He stays very still. If you scream, the place will swarm with black robes and solemn faces and men used to fighting off more than just temptation. Instead, you take a cautious step closer to the wall, peering at the empty space beyond the narrow gate as if you expect a creature from whatever hell the brothers preach about to be waiting. You’re not entirely wrong.

“Is someone there?” you call.

Your voice is different now—accent shifted by time and place, softened by the rules of this house—but it vibrates with the same thread that always cuts straight through him.

He hesitates. He shouldn’t speak. He shouldn’t draw you into this. He is what he is now because he couldn’t bear losing you. Dragging you into the orbit of his curse again is madness.

But you’re already there, aren’t you? The universe put you there without asking him.

He steps closer to the narrow slit in the wall, keeping his distance from the gate’s actual threshold. Cold air snakes through the gap, carrying with it the scents of crushed rosemary, damp soil, your skin.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, pitching his voice low and even.

You flinch anyway, shoulders tightening under the wool of your habit.

“Who are you?” There’s a quaver in it, but your chin lifts. You don’t sound like someone used to being obeyed, but you sound like someone who knows how to bite when cornered. “You shouldn’t be here. This is holy ground.”

Holy ground. The words sit sour on his tongue. “I’m just passing,” he lies.

“Then keep passing,” you say. “They don’t like strangers near the walls.”

“You don’t sound like you like them much either,” he says before he can stop himself.

It’s reckless. Familiar. Too familiar. The kind of thing he’d say to you in a field, trying to make you roll your eyes instead of worry. There’s a pause. Then he hears it: the soft huff of almost-laughter you’re trying to smother.

“I didn’t say that,” you answer. “Are you a thief?”

It’s so close to another question, another time—are you going to scold me for the apples?—that his hand tightens involuntarily on the edge of the stone.

“I’m no one,” he says. “Just a man on the road.”

Another lie. Another half-truth. He’s not sure which part of himself he’s lying to anymore.

You’re quiet for a moment. He can picture you on the other side of the wall, weighing your options. You’ve always been like that: impulse first, then ethics. Leap, then decide if you should’ve.

“You shouldn’t be so near,” you say at last, softer. “They…they don’t trust people. Anyone. They say the devil can wear any face and slip through any crack.”

One of the brothers must’ve said that to you; he can hear the echo of a sermon in the cadences. The thought of them filling your head with fear makes his teeth ache.

“Do you believe that?” he asks.

You let out a breath that curls white in the cold.

“I believe men like to blame devils for the things other men do,” you mutter. “It makes them feel less guilty.”

He almost laughs. It’s wrong to feel this familiar with you when you’ve never seen him before. When you have, but not like this. Not in this life. The memories stack in his chest like poorly aligned stones: you in linen, you in wool, you with apples, you with a rosary.

“You sound like you cause trouble,” he says.

“You sound like you want to be on the wrong side of this wall,” you shoot back.

He can’t help it. “Maybe I do.”

You make a small, disbelieving sound that isn’t quite a scoff. He imagines you shifting the basket on your arm, fingers flexing on the handle.

“Why?” you ask.

Because you’re here, he doesn’t say. Instead: “You sound like you could use someone to argue with.”

“God’s quite enough, thank you.”

He leans his forehead against the cold stone, the rough grit grounding him. It’s absurd, this—his undead heart tripping over itself because you’re being clever at him through a wall.

“What did you do,” he asks, “to end up in there?”

The silence that follows is longer. He wonders if he’s pushed too far. Then you sigh, the sound soft and bitter.

“I was born,” you say. “Wrong place, wrong family, wrong…everything. This is where I belong now.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that.”

“I don’t sound like a lot of things I’m supposed to be,” you reply.

He can hear shouts from somewhere deeper in the cloister now, the faint thud of footsteps.

“They’ll be looking for me,” you add. “You should go.”

He doesn’t move.

“Will you be here again?” The question escapes before he can catch it.

You hesitate. He can almost feel your eyes on the narrow gap, on the shadow of him just beyond.

“You shouldn’t come back,” you say.

“That’s not an answer.”

“How do I know you’re not the devil?” you ask, a thread of humor finally sneaking into your voice, bright and quick as a matchstrike.

He thinks about it.

“You don’t,” he says. “You’ll just have to decide if you’re curious enough to risk it.”

There it is—the soft, involuntary laugh he’d been waiting for.

It’s quieter than it used to be. More contained. Like you’re afraid of being heard even by the air.

“You sound like you’ve been alive too long,” you murmur, almost to yourself.

The words hit him so hard he has to brace a hand against the stone.

You can’t know. You don’t know. This you has never watched a village burn for refusing new gods, never died under a falling ceiling, never felt smoke claw its way into your lungs. But some part of you still looks for the age in his voice, the weight in his pauses. Some part of you always sees him.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he says roughly.

“You shouldn’t,” you repeat, but there’s no heat in it now. Only a strange, reluctant interest.

He takes a step back from the wall.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says.

He hears you huff, exasperated, fond, and then the quick patter of your feet as you retreat into the safety of stone and ritual. He waits until the side gate creaks shut and the faint shimmer of the threshold settles again before he turns away. The stars are out when he looks up. They’re different from the ones over his burned village, but only in placement. They’re still there. Still watching.

“For what it’s worth,” he mutters to them, “I didn’t ask for this.”

They don’t answer. They never do.

He comes back the next day. And the next. And the next.

He learns quickly that your schedule is as rigid as the stone around you. Morning prayers at dawn, work in the garden, meals in silence, lessons in the afternoon, more prayers, more silence, bed. The hours will shave down your edges if you let them. You don’t. You steal them back where you can.

You linger in the garden a little longer than you should. You get “lost” on the way back from the well. You volunteer to tend the herbs near the side gate because the older nuns complain their joints ache on the uneven ground.

He waits in the blind spot of the wall where the hill rises and the builders got lazy. He keeps to the shadow of a leaning cypress. The smell of sap and damp earth clings to him, masking some of the sharper edges of what he is.

You come. You talk. At first it’s nothing that would damn you even in the harshest confessional. Complaints about chores. Observations about the weather. Little jokes about which brother snores loudest during vigils. You complain about being hungry, about cold toes, about the way the wool of your habit scratches at your neck. He drinks it in like blood.

He offers very little about himself. He can’t tell you what he is. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He can’t tell you he’s older than the monastery’s foundations, that he watched the men who built it arrive with their own tired, fervent eyes and their own fear of the dark.

“You don’t talk much,” you say once, squinting at the narrow shadow his body makes through the gap. “It’s suspicious.”

“I talk enough,” he says. “You do the rest for both of us.”

“That’s rude.”

“True, though.”

You make a face—he can hear it in your voice. “And what if I decide I don’t want to talk to you anymore?”

“Then I’ll listen to you not talking,” he says simply. “I’m very patient.”

You snort. “You sound like you’ve been alive too long again.”

The second time you say it, it’s almost worse. He finds himself imagining what the brothers would say if they knew one of their novices was spending her free moments flirting with a stranger through the walls. They’d talk of temptation, of sin, of wolves disguised as ordinary men. They’d never guess the wolf doesn’t need disguises. He watches you argue theology with them under the cloister arches on a windy afternoon, your voice respectful but sure.

“If your God loves everyone,” you say, “why do you speak of Him like He’s waiting for us to fail?”

“So we remember to be humble,” one of the older brothers says.

“So we remember to be afraid, you mean,” you mutter once they’ve walked away.

Later, when you’re alone by the side gate, you tell Remmick, “If God wanted me to be humble, He shouldn’t have given me a brain that sees through nonsense.”

“You think you know better than your priests?” he asks, amused and aching all at once.

“I think I know when men enjoy power too much,” you shoot back.

Stars, he thinks, not for the first time. You’re going to get yourself killed again. You don’t, this time. That’s almost harder to bear.

He sees you age. Not in the way he saw his father age—hard and fast, ground down by worry and work—but slowly, gently, like the world has decided to take its time with you for once. Lines crease at the corners of your eyes from squinting in the sun, from laughing when you forget to act as solemn as you’re supposed to. Your hands roughen, but they remain sure. Your back stoops slightly, but you still walk the garden paths with the same straightforward stride.

You rise through the monastery’s quiet ranks. Novice to fully professed sister to something like leadership among the women, your competence too obvious for even the most stubborn of the brothers to ignore. He stays as he is. He watches from the boundary. He never steps through the threshold. He can’t.

Some nights, when you’ve finished your tasks and slipped out to the side gate under the pretense of checking the herb beds, you lean against the wall and close your eyes.

“Are you still there?” you ask.

“I’m here,” he says.

“You always are,” you murmur. There’s no fear in it anymore. Only a strange kind of trust.

He wonders, more than once, if he should tell you. If you have the right to know why his voice hasn’t changed in all the years you’ve been talking. Why he never meets you under the open sky in the village. Why he never crosses the threshold, never lets you open the gate.

He imagines your face if he said the words: I died once. I die and don’t stay dead. I drink blood. I watched you burn under a winter sun. He imagines the way your faith would recoil, the way the brothers would swarm, the way the threshold that already presses against him like a warning would harden into something impenetrable. He does what he’s always done when faced with choices he doesn’t like: he waits. You fill the silence for both of you.

“I had a dream,” you tell him once, voice hushed. “That this wasn’t the only life.”

His hand tightens on the stone. “No?”

You shake your head. He hears the faint rustle of your veil.

“I dreamt I was lying on my back in the grass,” you say slowly, as if unspooling the images as you speak. “And there were apples. And stars. And someone was beside me. I don’t remember their face, but I remember their laugh. And the way my chest hurt from wanting to…”

You trail off, embarrassed. Even now you’re careful with certain words. He closes his eyes.

“What did you want to do?” he asks, knowing the answer, needing to hear it anyway.

You huff out a breath. “Everything I’m not supposed to.”

The wind moves through the cypress branches above him, making a soft shushing sound.

“Maybe it was just something I overheard as a child,” you say quickly, backpedaling. “A story. A dream is just thoughts knocking around, the brothers say. It doesn’t mean anything.”

He has always hated the way men try to strip meaning from things that threaten their tidy worlds.

“It meant something to you,” he says.

You go quiet.

“Yes,” you admit after a moment. “It did.”

He doesn’t tell you that he remembers the exact hill you’re describing. That he remembers the way the grass felt, the way the apples tasted, the way your fingers curled into his sleeve. He doesn’t tell you that what you’re calling a dream is memory bleeding through the thin, stubborn veil between different versions of yourself. He doesn’t tell you that he’s lived enough now to know nothing is only anything. Instead, he listens to you breathe and looks up at the strip of sky he can see from his place beyond the wall. The stars are there. They’re always there.

You die in your sleep, decades later.

He’s across the hill when it happens, crouched in the branches of the cypress, watching the windows for any sign of trouble. There’s no sudden shout, no smoke, no fire. No boots, no crosses, no blood. Just a soft shift in the rhythm of the place. One candle going out among many.

The next morning, there’s a different cadence to the chants. Lower, a little slower. Grief woven into the words. He sees the nuns move through the courtyard with their heads bowed, the line of their shoulders a touch more hunched, the steps of some of the younger ones hesitant as they pass the spot in the garden where you used to sit and pluck leaves from stems with quick, sure fingers.

He knows before they carry the shrouded body into the little graveyard beyond the chapel walls. He knows, and still, when he sees the shape of you under the cloth, his hands curl into fists so tight his nails pierce his own palms.

There’s no way for him to be closer. No boundary to cross, no invitation they’d ever offer a stranger for a burial. He watches from the line of trees at the edge of the consecrated ground, the invisible barrier pressing against his skin like cold glass. They lower you into the earth. The brothers speak words meant to comfort the living and commend the dead.

You’ve spent your life arguing quietly with their god, and still they insist on handing you back to Him like they have any say in it. He can’t hear what you would say about that, and that may be the worst part.

There are no flames this time. No smoke. No splintering beams or collapsing ceilings. Your hair isn’t singed. Your skin isn’t blackened. Your life simply…stops. Gently, like a candle burning down to the wick. People would call it a good death. It doesn’t feel good to him.

He stands there long after the mourners have drifted away, long after the last clod of earth has thudded onto the freshly filled grave.

The stars aren’t out yet. The sky is a flat, washed-out blue. He stares up at it anyway.

“You stayed,” he says, quietly, to the ground.

You did. This time. You stayed in one place, in one life, following one set of rules until your body ran out. It didn’t save you. He doesn’t say stay with me. There’s no point. You’re too far beyond his reach now, tucked into soil he can’t thread his fingers through without stepping onto the ground that rejects him.

But later, when night comes, he’s still there. Leaning against the cypress, watching the stars emerge one by one over the monastery roof. He feels the start of an answer start to form in his chest.

You died again. But you came back once already. Why not again? Why not again, and again, and again, until the universe gets bored of taking you away and finally lets you stay? The thought is wild. Blasphemous, maybe, by any religion’s standards. It settles in him like a new kind of faith. He rolls the gold ring between his fingers, the metal warmed by his palm.

“Fine,” he murmurs to the sky. “If this is how you want to play it.”

The stars blink. The earth spins. Somewhere, someday, a child will be born who looks at him with eyes that have seen him before, even if they don’t yet know why their chest hurts when he smiles. He’ll find you. He always does.

It takes a long time to realize that finding you has never been the problem.

Years pass before the world gives him another version of you.

Remmick learns patience in those years. He learns it the way stone learns the shape of wind—slowly, grudgingly, with the understanding that resisting the current only grinds you down faster.

The centuries move differently now. He measures them by the rise and fall of places rather than by the ticking of days. Roads widen. Ships grow taller. Languages twist and remold themselves until the words he once spoke sound ancient even to his own ears. He feeds. He travels. He listens. And beneath it all, like a quiet, stubborn pulse, he waits.

He waits for the moment the world bends again and you step back into it.

He hears your laugh before he sees you. The desert night carries sound strangely. It lifts voices and stretches them thin across the sand, so a laugh can travel farther than it should, floating through the dark like a small, bright thing that refuses to die. Remmick stops walking.

The caravan has made camp in a shallow valley, fires burning low against the cold wind. Camels groan and kneel in the sand, traders move between tents wrapped in wool and dust, and above them the sky opens wide and merciless.

Stars everywhere. Sharp as glass. The same sky that hung over Ireland. The same sky that watched a monastery courtyard where a woman in a veil once tilted her face upward and whispered arguments to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in. And now—your laugh.

Remmick turns slowly. You’re crouched beside a blanket spread across the sand, surrounded by men who look halfway between entertained and furious. Dice rattle between your fingers.

“You’re cheating,” you announce.

The man across from you slams his palm against his knee. “I am not!”

“You absolutely are.”

Your grin flashes white in the firelight. The sight of it hits Remmick like a blade sliding between his ribs. Ireland had been your wildness. The monastery had been your restraint. This life—this life has your fire again. You toss the dice. They land. The circle erupts in groans. You sweep the coins toward yourself with a victorious flourish.

Remmick watches the movement of your hands, the easy confidence in the way you lean back on your heels. Alive. Alive again.

The realization doesn’t bring relief. It brings dread. Because he knows what comes next. He’d buried you once beneath an apple tree. He’d watched the earth swallow you again inside consecrated ground while monks whispered prayers. And now the universe has placed you here, in a desert full of strangers and knives and roads that swallow travelers whole. Not again. But it is. You notice him staring. Your gaze locks onto his across the fire.

“You playing,” you call, “or just watching?”

Remmick steps closer before he can stop himself. Up close you look younger than the monastery version of you. Sun-weathered. Dusty. A small scar runs across your knuckle like you earned it honestly.

“You look suspicious,” you say.

“Do I?”

You study him for a long moment.

“You look like you’ve been alive too long.”

The words land with the weight of prophecy. Remmick almost laughs. Ireland. The monastery. And now this.

“Maybe I have,” he murmurs.

You grin. “Good. Then you should know better than to gamble with me.”

The desert wind drags cool air across the fire. You play for hours. The caravan slowly drifts to sleep around you, until only the two of you remain beside the dying flames. The night deepens, and the stars grow brighter. You lean back, propping yourself on your hands.

“They’re brighter out here,” you say.

“They are.”

You lift your arm and point. “That one’s my favorite.”

The same gesture. The same star. Remmick feels something inside him tighten painfully. He reaches out without thinking and brushes a strand of windblown hair away from your face. Your breath catches. The moment stretches. Your hand comes up, almost unconsciously, resting against his chest.

“You’re strange,” you whisper.

“You’ve said that before.”

“When?”

“A long time ago.”

Your fingers curl slightly into his shirt. You don’t understand the weight of the moment, the centuries pressing into that single touch. You lean closer. Your mouth brushes his. The kiss is soft. Tentative. But it carries a warmth Remmick hasn’t allowed himself to feel since Ireland burned. When you pull back, you smile against his mouth.

“You kiss like someone who’s been waiting a very long time,” you murmur.

He has. God, he has.

For three weeks you travel together. You share fires and stories and quiet moments beneath endless desert stars. You steal his drink more than once, grinning when he glares. You hum when you’re thinking, that same wandering little tune he remembers from the hills of Ireland and a monastery garden.

Every time he touches you, it feels like holding something fragile and impossible. Every time you laugh, dread coils tighter in his chest. Because he knows. He always knows.

The bandits come before dawn.

Steel flashes. Men scream. Remmick moves like a storm. When it’s over, the sand is soaked dark. You lie beside an overturned wagon. An arrow through your chest. The stars fade slowly as dawn begins to bleed into the sky. Remmick kneels beside you. Your hand is still warm when he takes it.

“Stay with me,” he whispers.

You don’t. You never do.

In 1348, the world smells like rot. Towns empty themselves into mass graves while church bells toll endlessly for the dead. Smoke drifts through narrow streets as families burn their own houses trying to cleanse the sickness. Remmick finds you in a village infirmary. You’re kneeling beside a feverish child, wiping sweat from his forehead with a damp cloth.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you tell Remmick when you notice him watching.

“You shouldn’t either.”

You smile.

“Someone has to stay.”

You kiss him once in the doorway that night. Your lips are warm. Alive. Three days later he holds your hand while you cough blood into a linen cloth. Your breathing grows shallower. Your fingers tighten weakly around his.

“Don’t look so serious,” you whisper.

He presses his forehead to yours. “Stay with me.”

You smile faintly. “I wish I could.”

You die before dawn. Remmick burns the infirmary afterward so no one touches your body.

In Rome you become a nun and refuse to see him again.

In Florence, this time you paint him.

Your studio smells like oil and turpentine and sunlight warming old wood.

“Hold still,” you scold, dragging charcoal across canvas.

“You’re frowning.”

“I always frown.”

“You do look like you’ve been alive too long,” you say thoughtfully.

Remmick watches you work. Paint stains your fingers. Your sleeves are rolled up. You hum under your breath when you concentrate.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” you ask eventually.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m going to disappear.”

His chest tightens. “Habit.”

You step closer to adjust the angle of his jaw. Your fingers linger. Your thumb brushes his lower lip.

“You’re beautiful when you’re quiet,” you murmur.

Remmick pulls you into a kiss before he can stop himself. This one is different. Slow. Deep. Your hands slide into his hair. Your body presses against his like you’ve been waiting for this moment your entire life. Maybe you have. You fall asleep tangled together on the studio floor that night, paint-stained sheets twisted around your legs.

For a few fragile months, Remmick almost believes this life might last.

You die of fever in winter. He buries you beneath the studio window. Snow falls while he digs.

By the time the next century begins, Remmick understands something terrible. Finding you has never been the problem. The universe always gives you back. The problem—

The problem is that it never lets you stay.

The village is small. Too small for the way Remmick loves you.

He sees you for the first time in this life on a snow-bright morning, your hands pruned from scrubbing linens in ice water, your breath fogging the air. When you look at him, really look, something in your expression shifts—recognition without memory, longing without logic. And he knows. The way he always knows. You approach him slowly, the hem of your dress brushing snow.

“You look tired,” you say softly.

“I’m not,” he lies.

“You look like you’ve been alive too long,” you whisper, almost like a confession.

His heart—whatever’s left of it—shakes. Later, you tell him:

“I don’t think I’ve ever met you…but I think I’ve missed you.”

He falls. Hard.

You know he’s a vampire before you kiss him. There’s no fear in your voice when you say: “Your eyes change in firelight. I’ve seen the way animals flee from you. You don’t breathe when you’re thinking.”

You stand before him in the frozen dark behind the church, snow falling in soft flakes that land in your hair and melt against your cheeks.

“Are you gonna run?” he asks, voice rough.

“No,” you whisper. “I’m gonna choose you.”

You step into him, hands sliding into his hair, and Remmick feels centuries collapse beneath the warmth of your skin. He kisses you like he’s dying of dehydration and only your lips can quench his thirst. You kiss him like you’ve been waiting a lifetime to breathe.

You marry him that spring. It’s small. Quiet. In the same church that will later condemn you. But when you lift your veil and smile at him, Remmick feels something he hasn’t felt since he was human:

Hope.

“I don’t care what you are,” you whisper as he slides the ring he's kept just for you onto your finger. “I don’t care if the world hates us. For the first time, I want my life.”

“You have it,” he murmurs. “You have all of me.”

He means it. He shouldn’t. He can’t help himself. On your wedding night, while you sit together on the edge of the bed, firelight flickering over your joined hands, you ask him what would happen if he bit you. If he let you drink his blood. If he let you stay. Remmick stiffens. His voice is quiet.

“You wouldn’t become like me.”

“Then what would I become?”

“Empty,” he whispers. “Frozen. A shell that still breathes but doesn’t feel. Turning someone only works if death isn’t meant to claim them.”

You touch his cheek.

“And you think death wants me?”

“Oh,” he breathes, “it always wants you. Every life you’ve had, death has reached for you. It’s not a curse. It’s just the pattern.”

You hold his face between both hands.

“Then I’d rather live one life with you than a hundred without myself.”

And he kisses you, devastated and grateful and so fucking in love. You kiss him like he’s your home. He undresses you like he’s praying. Your clothes fall to the floor with soft thumps, the firelight turning your skin gold, warming the air between your bodies. When he lays you back on the blankets, you gasp quietly, your fingers pulling him into you.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers against your throat.

“You,” you breathe. “I want you to love me. I want to feel you everywhere.”

And God, he gives you everything. He slides into you slowly at first, worshiping every shiver, every gasp, every arch of your back. You wrap your legs around him, pulling him deeper, moaning into his mouth as he thrusts with a tenderness he’s never given anyone else.

“Look at me,” you whisper. “I want to see you when I come.”

He does. You fall apart beneath him—crying out his name, shaking, clinging to him as though your body remembers every life he’s held you through. And then—afterwards, when you’re breathless and warm and curled against his chest—you do it. You break him. You run your fingers through his hair, your voice trembling:

“You don’t have to keep finding me.”

He goes still.

“You don’t have to keep loving me,” you continue, voice cracking. “I’ve watched the way you look at me. Like you’re terrified. Like you’re already grieving me. Like you’re tired. So tired, Remmick.”

His breath shudders. You whisper: “I’m hurting you. Every life I have hurts you.”

Remmick lifts his head. His eyes are molten red.

“You think loving you is the wound?” he whispers. “Loving you is how I survive the wound.”

Your eyes fill with tears. He kisses them away.

“I don’t find you because I have to,” he breathes. “I find you because the world is unbearable without you in it.”

You choke on a sob. You pull him back down to you. You fuck him again—desperate and emotional, your nails digging into his shoulders, your moans turning broken at the edges. You ride him until you can barely breathe, until he holds you tight enough to bruise, until you fall apart on his cock whispering his name like a prayer.

You fall asleep in his arms. Still warm. Still alive. And then—your screams wake him. The villagers break the door.

“Witch!”

“Demon whore!”

“Burn her before he takes us all!”

They club him with silver before he can rise. It weakens him. Slows him. Just long enough. They drag you outside barefoot, still in your wedding slip, your hair tangled, your cheeks streaked with tears. You scream for him. He hears you as if underwater. The silver burns into his skin. He can’t stand. He can’t breathe. He can’t reach you.

“Remmick—! REMMICK—!”

Your voice is pure terror.

He crawls toward the door, fingers bleeding, muscles spasming. He reaches the threshold—and the church bell rings. They tie you to the stake. You’re crying. Begging. Calling for him. He forces himself up. The silver strips crack inside his flesh as he tears them free. His body is barely holding together, but he doesn’t care.

He’s running before he realizes he can move. Snow whips up behind him. Smoke fills the air. Your screams—God—your screams. The fire catches instantly. The villagers cheer. The flames reach your legs first. Your skin bursts open in blisters. Your hair ignites. Your slip melts into your flesh. Remmick tears through three men, ripping out their throats with his teeth, blood spraying hot across the snow. But he’s too late. He’s always too late. When he reaches you, your throat is raw from screaming, your flesh splitting as fire devours you.

“Rem—” you choke, smoke pouring from your mouth, blood from your lips. “Rem—I’m scared—”

He grabs the burning stake with both hands. It sears his skin. He doesn’t care. He tries to pull it apart. He tries to tear you free. He tries to save you. The flames roar. Your eyes roll back.Your chest rises once—twice—stops.

“NO—NO—NO—NO—”

The fire consumes you. He holds your burning body until the flesh slips from bone. He collapses with you, sobbing into the charred remains of your hair.

“Stay with me,” he begs.

But you don’t. You can’t. You never do.

He slaughters every man, woman, child. He tears the priest in half. He rips open bellies and throws intestines across the snow. He snaps necks like twigs. He sucks marrow from bones. He paints the church walls with their blood. He drags screaming villagers into the fire that killed you. He holds them there while they burn. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t stop. Not until the entire village is still. Not until he has nothing left to kill. Not until your ashes cool enough that he can gather them in his hands.

He kneels in the snow, cradling what’s left of you, pressing his forehead to your charred skull.

“Every life,” he whispers, shaking. “Every lifetime, I will find you. You can’t ask me not to. You can’t ask me to let you go. I don’t live for eternity. I live for you.”

And this—this is the life he never recovers from. This is the wound the universe never lets him close. And from this night on—

He stops believing the world is allowed to take you from him ever again.

The ocean is the only thing in the world that feels as old as Remmick.

It stretches endlessly in every direction, dark and breathing beneath the weight of the sky. pulled low across your brow—none of it fools him. He knows you the moment you step onto the deck, arguing with the captain while clutching a compass.

“I can navigate better than the fool you lost in Havana,” you insist.

“You look about sixteen,” the captain scoffs.

“Then imagine how embarrassing it’ll be when I’m right.”

Remmick leans against the railing watching you with quiet amusement. You notice him after a moment, your gaze lingering just a little too long. Something flickers there—recognition without memory. You’ve always done that. He thinks, with a quiet ache:

There you are.

You sail together for two years. The sea becomes your world. Endless blue days and endless black nights, the ship rocking gently beneath your feet as you chart the stars across worn maps. Remmick watches you lean over the captain’s table one night, tracing constellations with the end of a quill.

“That one’s my favorite,” you say, pointing upward through the window toward the sky.

It’s the same star you always choose. It makes his chest tighten every time.

“You stare a lot,” you tell him.

“I’ve had practice.”

“With what?”

“Finding you.”

You snort softly. “I’m right here.”

If only you knew.

You become friends first. It always starts that way. Some nights you sit together on the edge of the deck sharing rum while the crew sleeps below. Your shoulders touch as the ship drifts through moonlit water.

“You ever think about where you’ll end up?” you ask.

“I’ve been a lot of places.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He watches the endless dark sea. “Wherever you are.”

You laugh, bumping his shoulder. “Careful. That almost sounded romantic.”

“Almost.”

Your hand stays on his arm longer than necessary.

You kiss him during a storm. Rain lashes the deck, wind tearing through the rigging while the ship pitches violently against the waves. You grab his coat to steady yourself, breathless and soaked through.

“I think we’re going to die,” you say.

“Not tonight.”

“You sound very sure.”

He is. If you died tonight, he’d feel it. Your fingers clutch his coat. Your breath warms his mouth.

“You look like you’ve been alive too long,” you whisper.

Then you kiss him. Hard. Desperate. Like the storm itself is pushing you together. When you break away you whisper, almost confused, “I knew it was you.”

Remmick freezes.

“I don’t remember why,” you say quickly, pressing your forehead to his. “But when I saw you…it felt like everything finally made sense.”

He kisses you again before he can stop himself. And this time there’s no restraint.

You’re lovers after that. The crew never discovers your secret. By day you remain the quiet navigator boy charting stars and currents. By night—you belong to each other. Sometimes it’s the captain’s empty quarters. Sometimes the storage hold that smells like rope and tar. Once it’s right there on the deck beneath a sky full of stars while the ocean rolls gently around the ship.

You straddle his lap, moving slowly, breath catching as you whisper his name. “Remmick…”

His hands tighten on your hips.

“You’re dangerous,” he murmurs.

“Why?”

“Because I keep forgetting the world takes you away.”

Your expression softens. You brush your fingers through his hair. “Then maybe you should stop loving me so much.”

He laughs quietly against your mouth.

“I can’t.”

The storm that kills you comes without warning. One moment the sea is calm. The next it’s roaring. Wind howls through the rigging. Waves crash over the deck while sailors scream orders that vanish into thunder. You’re at the helm fighting the wheel when Remmick reaches you.

“Get below!” someone shouts.

You shake your head. “If we lose the rudder we’ll capsize!”

Another wave slams into the ship. Wood splinters. The mast cracks like a gunshot. Remmick reaches for you—but the sea takes the ship first. The world explodes into freezing black water.

Remmick doesn’t drown. He sinks. Cold darkness closes around him, wreckage drifting like broken bones through the water. But he doesn’t need air. He doesn’t need breath. He only needs you.

He searches the ocean for three days. Diving again and again into the wreckage, tearing apart shattered planks, dragging bodies toward the surface only to cast them aside when they aren’t yours. The sea floor becomes a graveyard of splintered wood and drowned sailors. Still he searches. Still he hopes. Because the universe always takes you. But it never tells him when.

On the fourth day—he finds you. Your body is tangled in the broken mast, hair drifting in the current like seaweed. Your hand is still wrapped around the compass you carried everywhere. Remmick pulls you gently free. You’re cold. Silent. Gone. He presses his forehead to yours as the waves rise and fall around them.

“Stay with me,” he whispers hoarsely.

But the ocean has already claimed you. And once again—

Remmick is left alone with eternity.

By now Remmick understands the rules of it. You always come back. And the universe always takes you again. The centuries stretch like a long road beneath his feet, and every time he sees your face in a new crowd, in a new country, beneath a new sky—hope blooms.

And dread follows.

Because loving you has never been the hard part. Losing you is.

Next he finds you at the edge of the world.

The Arctic doesn’t feel like a place meant for living things. It’s endless white and blinding wind, ice grinding against ice with the low thunder of glaciers shifting beneath the sea. The expedition ship cuts slowly through frozen water, its hull groaning like an animal in pain.

You’re the ship surgeon. The first time you meet him you’re elbow-deep in a sailor’s torn shoulder, sleeves rolled up, jaw tight with concentration.

“You’re in the way,” you snap without looking up.

Remmick raises a brow. “I was invited.”

“Then whoever invited you is a fool.” You glance up. Your eyes catch his.

Something sparks. Recognition without memory. You scowl. “You look like you’ve been alive too long.”

He almost laughs.

You argue constantly. About medicine. About navigation. About whether the crew should push deeper into the ice.

“You’re reckless,” you tell him one night, standing beside the rail while the frozen sea groans around the ship.

“And you’re stubborn.”

“Someone has to be.”

The wind rips your words away. You shiver. Without thinking he drapes his coat around your shoulders. You glare at him. Then you keep it.

You kiss him the night the aurora appears. Green light spills across the sky like something alive, dancing over the frozen sea while the ship drifts in silent water. You’re staring upward when he joins you.

“Beautiful,” you whisper.

He isn’t looking at the sky. He’s looking at you. You turn. Your breath fogs between you. “You stare too much.”

“I’ve missed you.”

You frown. “What?”

He kisses you before he can explain. The cold steals your breath as your mouth opens against his, hands clutching his coat while the sky burns with color above you.

“You’re impossible,” you whisper when you break apart.

“I know.”

You kiss him again. Harder this time.

The storm comes three weeks later.

The ice shifts beneath the hull like a breaking bone. The ship splinters. Men scream as the vessel tears open against the frozen sea. Remmick fights through the wreckage searching for you. He finds you half-buried in snow, blood soaking through your coat.

“Remmick,” you breathe weakly.

He gathers you in his arms. Your pulse is already fading.

“I told you,” you whisper faintly. “You’ve been alive too long.”

“Stay with me.”

You smile. Then your exhale your last breath.

Remmick buries you in ice. He digs through frozen ground with bare hands until his fingers split open. He lays your body beneath the snow with careful reverence, brushing frost from your hair one last time. Above him—the stars blaze across the black Arctic sky. They look the same as they did in Ireland. They look the same as they will centuries from now.

They watch him lose you again.

The American West smells like dust and gunpowder.

You’re a schoolteacher in a tiny frontier town, chalk dust clinging to your sleeves as you scold children for spelling mistakes. Remmick leans against the doorway one afternoon watching you teach.

“You’re distracting the class,” you tell him sharply.

“Am I?”

“You look like trouble.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

You pause. Then you say it again.

“You look like you’ve been alive too long.”

It happens fast. A man bursts into the schoolhouse waving a pistol, shouting for money. The children scream. You pull the revolver from your desk drawer and fire before Remmick can move.

The robber drops. But he fires once in return. The bullet hits your ribs. You bleed out slowly on the wooden classroom floor while Remmick holds you. Your hand grips his shirt weakly. “Did I get him?”

“You did.”

“Good.”

Your eyes soften. “You look sad.”

“I always do.”

You smile faintly. “You’ve been alive too long.”

Then you die in his arms.

The airfield smells like gasoline and hot metal.

You’re laughing when he sees you this time. Leather flight jacket. Wind-tangled hair. Eyes bright with reckless joy.

“You fly?” he asks.

“Better than anyone here.”

You grin. “Race you down the runway.”

You’re fearless. You’ve always been fearless. The plane roars down the strip beside his. For a moment the sky feels infinite. Then your engine sputters. Your aircraft dips. Spins. Crashes into the ocean beyond the cliffs.

Remmick stands frozen at the edge of the runway watching smoke rise from the water. He doesn’t move. He already knows.

The sea swallows the wreckage. And you with it.

He finds you in a library. 1954. Small town. Dusty sunlight filtering through tall windows while you sort returned books behind a wooden desk.

“You’re late returning this,” you say, holding up a novel.

Remmick stares at you.

“You look tired. Like you’ve been alive too long,” you add thoughtfully.

He laughs softly.

You fall in love slowly. Quiet dinners. Long walks. Late nights reading together on the couch. When you discover he doesn’t age, you don’t scream. You just take his hands.

“So that’s why you look so tired,” you say gently.

“Yes.”

You kiss him.

“Good thing I’m stubborn.”

You marry him anyway.

This life is the happiest. You grow old beside him. Your hair turns silver. Your hands wrinkle. But you laugh every day. And when the cancer finally takes you—it happens peacefully. You’re lying in bed with his hand in yours.

“Remmick,” you whisper.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been alive too long.”

He smiles sadly.

“I know.”

You squeeze his hand.

“Find me again.”

Your breathing slows. Your eyes close. And for the first time in centuries—your death isn’t violent. But it still breaks him. Because peaceful or not—the universe has taken you again.

By now Remmick knows better than to believe the universe will be gentle. It never is. Sometimes it gives him years with you. Sometimes it gives him hours. But every time he finds you again, hope still flares inside him like something stubborn and foolish that refuses to die.

And every time the world takes you—that hope dies with you.

This time you’re loud. Brilliant. A university student in Bristol with a motorbike and a sharp tongue that never lets him take himself too seriously.

“You’re a miserable old bastard,” you tell him the first night you meet.

Remmick almost laughs. “You’ve known me five minutes.”

“Five minutes is plenty.”

You steal his cigarette and take a drag. The city lights glow across the river while music thumps from the pub behind you.

“You brood too much,” you add.

“I’ve had practice.”

“You should try living a little.”

You toss him a spare helmet.

“Come on.”

The motorcycle roars down empty streets with you pressed against his back, laughing into the wind while the city blurs past in streaks of neon and rain. For the first time in a long time—

Remmick forgets to be afraid.

The crash happens on a wet road outside the city.

Headlights. Screeching tires. Metal folding inward with a scream of twisting steel. When Remmick crawls from the wreckage the car has already crushed the motorcycle beneath it. Your body lies tangled in the shattered frame.

He drags the vehicle away with inhuman strength, the metal shrieking as it bends beneath his hands.

“Come on,” he begs. “Come on—”

Your blood stains the pavement. Your eyes flutter open briefly.

“Guess…I drove too fast,” you whisper.

Remmick presses his forehead against yours. “You didn’t.”

Your lips twitch faintly.

“Still a miserable bastard,” you murmur.

Then your breath leaves you.

Remmick roars. The sound echoes across the empty road as he crushes the car’s frame with his bare hands until the metal folds like paper. But it doesn’t bring you back. It never does.

After enough centuries, grief stops feeling sharp. It becomes something quieter. Heavier. Like a stone placed carefully inside your chest. Remmick carries that stone for a long time. Long enough that the edges wear smooth. Long enough that the world begins to feel dull around it.

He’s loved you across deserts and oceans, through plagues and wars and quiet rooms that smelled like old books and rain. He’s buried you in ice. He’s held you while you bled out on wooden floors. He’s watched you burn. He’s watched you drown. He’s felt your heart stop in his arms more times than he can count anymore.

Every life ends the same. Every century. Every country. Every lifetime. He finds you. And the world rips you away. Eventually something inside him breaks in a quieter way than before. Not violently. Not like the night the village burned. Just…slowly. Like a candle running out of wax.

He realizes one evening—standing alone in a city he doesn’t care about anymore—that loving you isn’t the thing destroying him. Losing you is. And it'll never stop.

So he decides something he should’ve decided centuries ago. He'll stop looking. No more wandering streets searching every crowd for your face. No more chasing rumors of women who laugh the same way you do. No more falling in love with a soul that the universe refuses to let him keep. He’s immortal. He can endure the loneliness. He tells himself that enough times it almost sounds believable. So he stops.

Decades pass. Remmick moves through them like a ghost. He travels when he has to. Feeds when hunger becomes unbearable. Sleeps in places that never mean anything to him—empty houses, quiet forests, forgotten towns. He avoids people. Avoids cities. Avoids anywhere the sound of laughter might reach him. Because laughter still reminds him of you.

Sometimes he wonders if you’re out there somewhere in the world during those years. If another version of you is walking through crowded streets, falling in love with someone who isn’t him. The thought hurts. But not as much as watching you die again would. So he keeps walking. Keeps drifting. Keeps pretending that eternity is easier this way.

Eventually the years start to blur together. The world changes around him. Cities grow. New music fills the air. Languages shift. The sky stays the same. He stops noticing most of it. Immortality becomes quiet. Lonely. Endless. And Remmick begins to believe he’s finally done it. He’s finally escaped you.

It happens by accident. He isn’t searching. He isn’t thinking about you at all. He’s just passing through a city one night—somewhere bright and loud and alive in a way that makes him uncomfortable. Music drifts from open doors. Outside lights twinkle like artificial stars. People spill out onto sidewalks laughing with drinks in their hands.

Remmick keeps his head down as he walks. He’s good at moving through crowds without touching anyone. He almost passes you. Almost. Then he hears it. Your laugh. It’s soft at first. Just another voice in the noise of the street. But it cuts through him like lightning. Remmick stops. His entire body goes rigid. The sound comes again—clearer this time. Bright. Warm. Familiar in a way that makes his chest feel like it’s caving in. Slowly, almost afraid to move, he turns toward the sound.

You’re standing on the rooftop of a nearby restaurant, leaning against the railing with a group of friends. Someone has dragged a speaker outside, and quiet music hums beneath the chatter of voices. The city stretches behind you in glowing windows and moving headlights.

Above you—the stars. Not as bright as they were in deserts or frozen seas. City lights dull them. But they’re still there, scattered across the night like something stubborn and eternal. You’re looking up at them. Laughing at something someone said. Your head tips back the same way it always has. Your hair catches the light.

And Remmick—Remmick forgets how to move. It hits him all at once. The centuries. The graves. The bodies he’s held. The way you always looked at him like he was something worth loving, even when he knew better. He’s spent decades convincing himself he could live without you. That he could outrun fate. That he could simply… stop. But standing there in the street, watching you laugh beneath the stars like the universe has never hurt you before—

Remmick finally understands something he should’ve known all along. He never had a choice. He could walk away a thousand times. He could cross oceans and centuries and entire continents trying to escape the pull of your soul. It wouldn’t matter. Because the moment he sees you—It’s already over. He’s already in love. Again.

Remmick exhales slowly. For a moment he considers leaving. Turning around. Disappearing into the crowd before you notice him. He almost does it. Almost. Then you glance down from the rooftop. Your eyes find his. And something shifts in your expression. Confusion. Recognition. The faintest flicker of something you can’t quite explain.

You tilt your head slightly. Remmick feels the old, familiar ache bloom in his chest. The same one that’s followed him across centuries. The same one he tried to bury. The same one that refuses to die. He closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again—

You’re still there. Still laughing. Still alive. And Remmick realizes with devastating clarity that he could spend a thousand years trying to escape this moment—and he’d still end up here. Looking at you. Loving you. Waiting to see how the universe will break his heart this time.

The city glows like a circuit board at night. Headlights crawl along wet streets, neon signs buzz above late-night diners, distant sirens cut through the hum. Clouds hang low enough to smother the stars. Maybe that’s why he goes to the planetarium. It’s the closest thing he has now to the sky he remembers—dark and clean and full of light. He doesn’t expect you to be there.

He’s just trying to kill an evening that feels too long, hands stuffed in his pockets as he slips into the dim auditorium with a scattering of tourists and bored couples. The ceiling is a smooth black dome. The lights go down. And your voice fills the room.

“Welcome to tonight’s live sky show.”

Remmick goes very, very still. You’re standing at the front, next to the projector console, a faint blue glow outlining you. Your features are soft in the half-light, but your voice—your voice is the same across centuries. Warm. Wry. A little too alive for a world that keeps trying to snuff you out. He grips the armrests so hard the plastic creaks.

You’re talking about constellations. About light-years and star death and how everything up there is already gone by the time we see it.

“Which is kind of romantic, if you think about it,” you say lightly. “We’re all just looking at ghosts.”

The projector throws a spray of stars across the dome, pale and perfect. You tilt your head back to look at them. He’s seen you do that in so many lives he’s lost count. It hits him like a blow. The monastery courtyard. The frozen Arctic sky. The desert night. The rooftop. You, again, under stars. His hands start to shake. He doesn’t bother stopping it this time. He just stares.

You walk up the aisle during a segment, passing close, the faint scent of your perfume cutting through stale air and popcorn. You ask trivia questions, joke with the audience, never notice the way one man in the third row looks like he’s seeing a ghost. At the end of the show, you flip the lights back on.

“Thanks for coming,” you say, smiling. “Go outside, look up—there’s still a sky under all those city lights, I promise.”

People stand. Stretch. Shuffle toward the exit. He doesn’t move. You glance toward him as the auditorium empties, eyes skimming the rows. Your gaze catches on his. You hesitate. There it is. That flicker. The one he’s hunted for lifetimes. Not recognition exactly. But something that lives underneath it. A pull. A question. You give him a polite, uncertain smile. Then you look away and start tidying up.

Remmick sits there until the room is empty. You don’t remember him. Of course you don’t. That part has never been yours to carry. It’s always been his.

You meet properly a week later.

He keeps coming back. Of course he does. He tells himself it’s because the shows are a good way to pass time, because he’s always liked the stars, because he has nowhere else to be. It’s a lie so flimsy even he doesn’t bother believing it. The third time, you catch him loitering in the small lobby gift shop after everyone else has gone.

“You’re back,” you say, sounding half-amused, half-suspicious.

“You’re very good,” he says simply.

“At star pushing?”

“At making dead light sound like something worth staying for.”

You huff a laugh. There’s a beat.

“Do you…like astronomy?” you ask, a little awkwardly.

“I like the sky.”

You study him for a second like you’re trying to slot him into a memory that doesn’t exist.

“Do you wanna grab a coffee?” you blurt.

He hadn’t planned for that. He hadn’t planned for you at all.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

You fall into each other slower this time.

Coffee in the museum café turns into late-night takeout and shared documentaries on your couch. You text him pictures of weird sky phenomena, ugly meme versions of constellations, blurry photos of the moon through your phone. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t have to. He just… stays. You start letting him.

The first time he sleeps over, you wake up halfway through the night to find him propped on one elbow, just…looking at you.

“Creepy,” you mumble, face half-smashed into the pillow.

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t look away.

“Are you actually watching me sleep?” you ask, eyes still closed.

“Yes.”

You snort. “Why?”

He hesitates. “I like seeing you breathe.”

Something in his voice makes your heart stutter. You crack an eye open.“Pretty intense for a guy I’ve known…what, a month?”

His hand lifts like he’s about to touch your face, then changes course and brushes your hair back instead.

“It’s been longer than that,” he says quietly.

You don’t understand what he means. Not yet. But you feel the weight in it. He memorizes you. You don’t know that part. Not really. You don’t see the way he watches your profile when you’re talking, cataloging every line as if he’s afraid the world might erase you at any second. You don’t see how his fingers trace your features in the dark when you’re already asleep, as if he’s trying to etch you into his bones.

You do feel his hands on you all the time, though. Fingers pressed to your wrist as you cross streets. Palm at the small of your back in crowds. His thigh always touching yours on the couch, body angled toward you like he can’t stand the idea of even an inch of distance.

“You act like you’re running out of time,” you tease one evening when he pulls you into his lap just to keep you closer while you’re both doing absolutely nothing.

His arms tighten around you almost imperceptibly. He smiles against your shoulder.

“I am,” he says.

You laugh. You think he’s being dramatic. He isn’t.

You invite him over for dinner on a rainy Friday. Cheap wine. A movie you barely watch. You’re proud of the pasta even though you almost spill it everywhere, laughing as you plate it.

“I even made garlic bread,” you announce, triumphant, setting the tray down between you on the coffee table.

He goes rigid. You don’t notice at first, too busy tearing a piece off.

“Here,” you say, holding it up to his mouth. “Say ah, ancient one.”

He flinches back so fast you blink.

“What, do you not eat carbs?” you joke, trying to cover the tiny sting.

“I—no. I just…don’t like garlic.”

You stare. “You don’t—like garlic.”

“No.”

“Like, at all?”

“No.”

You squint at him. “That’s suspicious.”

He tries to smile, but it looks wrong. “I’m complicated.”

You bump his knee with yours.

“Fine, more for me,” you say, but you file it away. Later—much later—you’ll remember that moment and feel everything in your life tilt.

For now, you just eat his share.

It happens on an ordinary night.

You’re both leaving your apartment after a lazy day inside, half-dressed, half-laughing, intending to run to the corner store for snacks. Your building’s stairs are old. The hallway light flickers. You misjudge a step. Your foot slips. You fall forward, instinctively throwing your hands out, and hit the edge of the stair hard enough that pain lances up your arm. You hear the crack. You scream. Time fractures around the sound. Remmick is there in less than a second, faster than any human should be able to move.

You don’t register it at first, too busy gasping, vision swimming, clutching your wrist that’s already swelling and wrong-angled.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he says, voice sharp with panic.

You do. And that’s when you see. His eyes aren’t their usual blue. They’re glowing—an unnatural, molten red in the dim hallway. His teeth are wrong too, longer, sharp enough to cut the air. His fingers, braced on the stair beside you, are stretched and clawed, nails elongated into something that isn’t remotely human. He’s shaking. Not with hunger. With terror.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pulling back like he’s afraid of himself. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”

You should run. Any normal person would. There's a monster crouched in front of you, eyes blazing, mouth full of razors, body coiled like a predator cornered by its own fear. Your heart is pounding. Your wrist is throbbing. You don't move. Because under the horror, he’s still him. Your him. The one who watches you sleep like you’re the only real thing in the world.

“Remmick,” you say quietly.

He flinches.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been more careful. I scared you. I always—”

“Hey.” You reach out with your good hand.

You touch his face. He freezes like you’ve turned him to stone.

“You’re shaking,” you murmur.

“I could hurt you.”

“You’re not.”

His eyes burn.

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it,” you say. “Because all I see right now is the same guy who makes me coffee and hogs my blankets and pretends not to cry at sad movies.”

A strangled laugh escapes him. His teeth recede slowly as he forces himself to calm down. The claws shorten. The red dims back into blue, still bright with something raw and old. He takes a careful breath he doesn’t need.

“I’m not human,” he says. “I haven’t been…for a very long time.”

You swallow.

“Vampire?” you say, half-joking, half-not.

He nods. You stare at him for a long moment.

“Okay,” you say.

He blinks.

“Okay?”

“I mean, I’m not ecstatic about the wrist situation,” you nod toward your fractured arm, “but…you’re still you. You didn’t eat me. That’s a good sign.”

“Why aren’t you running?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No.”

“Then I’m staying.”

It’s that simple for you. It’s never been simple for him. His face crumples in a way you’ve never seen. Like someone just slid a knife between centuries of armor.

“Would you still have chosen me,” he asks hoarsely, “if you’d known from the start?”

You look at him like the question almost offends you.

“I did choose you,” you say. “Whatever you are.”

You’re green with pain. Your wrist is broken. You’re sitting on shitty hallway stairs in mismatched socks and an oversized hoodie, looking at a man whose eyes just glowed red, and you still sound utterly sure. Something in his chest splits open. Again. He helps you up, voice shaking, careful hands gentle around your injury.

“Hospital or urgent care,” you ask through a hiss of pain.

“I can fix it,” he says, then stops himself. “No. That’s a bad idea. We do this the human way. I’ve taken enough from you.”

You don’t understand what he means. Not yet. But you let him guide you down the stairs, fingers curled tight in his shirt. He’s never been more terrified of losing you than in that moment—not because of death, but because now you’ve seen the thing he’s spent centuries trying to hide. And you stayed.

It happens after your wrist is set, after painkillers, after a quiet taxi ride home where you fall asleep with your forehead against his shoulder. It happens when you’re back in your bed, cast awkwardly propped on pillows, the city a low murmur behind the windows. You look small and drowsy and very, very breakable in this moment. He sits on the edge of the bed like he’s afraid to touch you.

“You still here?” you mumble.

“I’m right here,” he answers.

“You look like someone died,” you say.

“Someone always does.”

You open your eyes at that. He looks wrecked. Not bruised or bloodied. Just… ruined in a quieter way. Like the inside of him has been sanded down by grief so many times there’s barely anything left.

“Come here,” you say.

He hesitates.

“Please.”

He lies beside you like he’s approaching an altar. You kiss him. Not playful. Not casual.

You kiss him like you understand on some deep, buried level that this man has watched you die a hundred times and is still here anyway. He makes a broken sound against your mouth, hands framing your face like he’s praying, like he’s desperate, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold you hard enough.

He undresses you like he’s afraid of startling you, fingers brushing your skin as if he’s learning you for the first time and remembering you from a hundred lives at once. Every button, every inch of fabric he moves aside is handled like he’s unwrapping something holy. When you lean in to kiss him—slow, coaxing—he exhales shakily, not with lust but relief. Like he didn’t dare believe you’d actually want him like this. You lift your good hand to his chest, sliding it under his shirt, and he takes the hint, pulling it off himself with a quiet, trembling breath as your fingers skim his skin.

“You’re trembling,” you whisper.

“I always do,” he answers, cupping your cheek with one hand while his other carefully avoids your cast. “When I finally get to touch you again.”

Your breath catches. You pull him down into a deeper kiss, his mouth soft against yours, his thumb tracing your lower lip like he’s memorizing its shape. He kisses you like he’s starving, but trying not to bite. You guide him gently until he lies back, and he follows the pressure instantly, desperate for any direction you give. You climb into his lap carefully, your cast protected, bracing your weight through your legs and your other arm. His hands fly to your hips as though he’s terrified you’ll disappear between blinks.

“Is this okay?” you murmur.

Remmick nods too fast. “Yes. God, yes.”

You guide his hands beneath your shirt, lifting it with your good arm while he helps slide the fabric up and over your head, careful not to jostle your wrist. He groans softly when he feels your bare skin. His thumbs sweep under your breasts, reverent, almost shaking.

“Fuck…” he whispers. “You’re warm. You’re always warm.”

You kiss along his jaw, down his throat, and he tilts his head helplessly, giving you everything. When you lower yourself enough for his cock to press against you through your underwear, his breath stutters like he’s breaking apart.

“Tell me you want me,” he whispers, voice cracked with vulnerability.

“I do,” you breathe. “I want you.”

He makes a sound you’ve never heard from him—somewhere between a moan and a sob—and he kisses you again, deeper this time, needier, like centuries of loneliness are clawing their way into the present. You ease your underwear aside with your good hand. You guide him in. His cock slides into you slowly, stretching you open, your body taking him inch by inch. He groans against your mouth, hands gripping your waist tight enough to bruise, then loosening instantly when he realizes.

“Too much?” he asks, panicked.

“No,” you gasp. “Not too much. I want all of you.”

His eyes flutter shut like the words physically hurt him. You sink fully onto him, your bodies meeting flush, and he shudders violently—a man who just got something he’s wanted for five lifetimes.

“Fuck,” he whispers into your neck. “You feel…you feel like home.”

You start moving slowly, rolling your hips, letting him feel you around him. He clings to you, arms locked around your back, one hand sliding behind your shoulders to support you so you don’t have to use your broken wrist. Every thrust he gives is gentle at first, careful, almost fearful.

“Remmick,” you breathe, kissing along his ear. “You’re not gonna break me.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” he whispers, voice thick.

You lift his face with your good hand, thumb brushing his cheek.

“I’m here,” you tell him softly. “I’m choosing you.”

Something inside him splits open. He thrusts up into you, still gentle but needier, his cock sliding deeper, his breath hitching every time your bodies meet. His hands roam your back, your hips, your thighs—not greedy, just desperate to reassure himself you’re really here. Your lips meet between gasps, sloppy and sweet, your moans swallowed against his mouth, his name falling against his tongue like something sacred. You ride him slowly, rhythm steady, your warmth squeezing around him until he’s shaking beneath you. He breaks the kiss to bury his face in your shoulder.

“I don’t… I don’t want this to end,” he whispers against your skin. “Not this life. Not this moment. Not you.”

You guide his mouth back to yours with your good hand.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you breathe.

His thrusts grow uneven. His voice breaks on a moan. “Please…please don’t disappear on me.”

“I’m right here,” you whisper again, rocking against him. “I’m right here, Remmick.”

He kisses you like the words save him. Pleasure builds slow and warm through your core, spreading in waves until you’re clinging to him, thighs trembling around his hips. He feels you tightening and groans, deep and broken.

“Come for me,” he begs softly. “Please…let me feel you.”

You gasp his name as release hits you, your body shaking around him, clenching tight, and he thrusts deep, holding you down onto him as if he can fuse your body with his. His own climax tears through him a breath later—not loud, but devastating. A strangled gasp, a shudder that rocks his entire body, his cock pulsing inside you with long, helpless spurts.

He holds you there through it, forehead pressed to yours, breath trembling, one hand on your back, the other bracing your casted arm against his chest so you don’t bear your own weight. When his hips finally still, he doesn’t let you move. He kisses your cheek. Your eyelids. Your temple. Slow. Tender. Grateful.

“I’ve waited lifetimes for you,” he whispers into your hair.

You stroke his jaw gently with your good hand. “And I’m here now.”

Outside, the city glows. Inside, you drift toward sleep in his arms, unaware that you’ve met over and over and over again, in monasteries, on ships, under Arctic skies, in schoolhouses and airfields and small-town libraries. Unaware that for him, this moment is both brand-new and older than anything else he remembers.

For a long time he just listens to you breathe, the slow rise and fall of your chest against his, committing the rhythm to memory the way he always does—like he’s trying to steal a little time from the universe while it isn’t looking. His voice is barely more than a whisper when he finally speaks, meant only for the quiet room and the centuries that came before it.

“If the universe insists on taking you from me…” he murmurs into your hair, cinching his arms around you as though he could anchor you to the world by sheer will alone. “…then I’ll simply keep finding you.”

Hope hurts. He knows how this story usually goes. Still, he let's himself believe. Because this time…for the first time in a long time—

there’s a low, shaky growl at the edge of the bed when he feels you stir, a rough little rumble that vibrates straight through your bones and settles low in your belly.

he’s crouched between your legs, broad shoulders hunched, spine bowed like an animal over a kill. his chest rises and falls too fast, ribs straining against the thin shirt he hasn’t bothered to button, each breath a raw drag in and out of him. his cock is already out, heavy and flushed, throbbing in his fist.

the swollen head is an angry, dark red, veins standing out along the thick length, slick with a constant leak of precum that strings from the tip to his knuckles.

every time his hand moves, it pulls those strands and snaps them, sticky and shining in the faint spill of moonlight that makes it through your curtains.

he fists himself like he’s been there a while, like he’s been sitting in the dark just staring at you and working himself up until he couldn’t think.

his palm glides over the fat length in desperate, clumsy strokes, wrist flexing hard. his breath shudders every time his thumb drags over the slit, smearing the mess that keeps spilling out of him, a wet sound accompanying the slide of his hand.

the moment your body shifts under him, the sheets rustling, he moans—a low, torn sound that doesn’t sound like it belongs to a man who ever learned how to speak in full sentences. it’s raw and needy, like his throat isn’t used to shaping words, only want.

his hand shoots out on instinct, fingers wrapping around your ankle and squeezing tight, callused palm burning into your skin.

he locks you open with that grip, dragging your leg wider until the inside of your thigh is exposed to the hot heat of his body. with his other hand, he lines the heavy head of his cock right at your entrance, dragging that slick, dripping weight through your folds. the blunt tip nudges against your clit, then lower, smearing you open with his mess, sliding through your wetness like he’s looking for the easiest way in.

he thinks he gets to take it whenever he wants. he thinks that because you let him once—because you took all of him, because you came on him and let him ruin you—that he earned that right. that you’re his, body and heat and soft little sounds.

and from the way your pussy clenches just feeling him smear against you, heat blooming and tightening at the first drag of that swollen head over your entrance, he almost has.

“remmick—wait—” your voice comes out rough, sleep-heavy and already thinning with a moan as he pushes.

the swollen head catches on your opening, stretching you with a thick, insistent pressure before the words even finish leaving your mouth. “you can’t just do that.”

he freezes like you slapped him, breath catching in a harsh grunt. his fingers bite into your ankle, dragging you a little closer, refusing to let your hips escape the line of his. the heavy head of his cock stays pressed right up against you, the heat of it almost searing. you can feel it throb, feel each pulse of need as it jumps against your slit.

he doesn’t understand why you’re not letting him in. his brow furrows, eyes blown wide and black as they flick between your face and where his cock is straining against your cunt. he looks at you like you’re the one being unreasonable, like you’re denying something that belongs to him.

“mine,” he rasps, voice torn up from disuse, from growling and groaning more than talking. he grinds the blunt head against your slick seam, pushing just enough to make your entrance flutter, like the proof is right there under his hand. “… need now.”

your cunt clenches at the sound of his voice, at the broken words, your body betraying you on reflex.

he feels the tight little flutter right at the head, and his hips jolt forward with a strangled, broken groan. the swollen crown pushes just barely inside, parting you around him, stretching you before you brace your hand against his stomach and stop him.

his skin is hot under your palm, damp with sweat, chest heaving against your fingers as you push back. his muscles flex, trembling with the effort it takes not to just slam forward.

“wait,” you whisper, firm even though your hand shakes. “you have to ask. you can’t just come in here and—”

he snarls softly, the sound low and frayed, not truly angry—just frustrated, crazed with need. confused that your soft, wet heat is right there, sucking around the tip of him, and his cock is right here, aching and leaking for you, and you aren’t letting him sink into the warmth he’s been dreaming about.

his grip on your ankle tightens, dragging you even closer until your calf hooks up onto his shoulder. the shift tilts your hips toward him, angling you so your entrance points directly at him, a perfect line for him to rut into.

his cock slips against you again, sliding from your clit down to your opening, the weight of it twitching like it’s trying to fuck you on its own.

you reach up, fingers threading into his hair. it’s messy and tangled, thick strands catching against your nails as you curl your hand, tugging just enough to drag his gaze up from your cunt to your face.

he shudders instantly at the pull, a sharp breath sucking in through his teeth, chest stuttering as his eyes meet yours. they go soft and wild at the same time, pupils blown huge, hunger and confusion swirling together.

“ask me,” you breathe. “then i’ll let you.”

he lowers his head, the fight in his shoulders shifting into something almost desperate, like he’s trying so hard to be good for you.

his mouth finds the curve of your neck, breathing hot against your skin. he noses at that soft patch beneath your jaw, nuzzling like he’s trying to soothe himself with your scent, with the feel of you under his lips.

then his mouth opens and his tongue drags a long, slow stripe up the side of your neck, from collarbone to the corner of your jaw. the lick is messy, hot and hungry, leaving a thick sheen of drool on your skin. his lips follow, mouthing at the trail he just left, sucking gently at the taste of your sweat.

“please,” he grinds out, voice scraped raw. his hips roll without him meaning to, the weight of him pushing forward.

the head slips just barely inside again with a wet pop that punches a gasp out of both of you.

“can i?… let me. let me in.” his eyes flick down, staring at where his cock strains against your opening.

“yes,” you whisper, breath ghosting over his lips. the word is barely out of your mouth before something in him snaps free.

instinct takes him, and he shoves in with one messy thrust that sinks half his cock inside you at once.

your walls are forced to stretch around him, slick heat gripping desperately at the sudden invasion. the wet sound that tears out of you both is obscene—slick and loud and filthy—like your body is swallowing him down.

he moans straight into your throat, the sound high and broken, hips jerking as you clamp down around his thickness.

he pulls back slow, the drag of his length along your walls making your vision blur, only to slam deeper, fucking you open on his cock.

the stretch is brutal and perfect, a deep ache that melts into pleasure as he drives further inside. his cock throbs in your heat, beating against sensitive spots you didn’t know you had.

your cunt grips him like it remembers, like your body has been waiting for this exact stretch. each retreat has your walls clinging to him, trying to hold him in, and each thrust forces you wider to take more of him. slick gushes around him, coating every inch of his length, dripping down over his balls and the curve of your ass as he drives into you in heavy, rutting strokes.

“tight,” he gasps, voice breaking as your walls squeeze around him. his breath comes in harsh pants. “so tight… mine… warm… fuck—”

his mouth drags down your neck, open and sloppy. he sucks hard at the skin there, teeth scraping just enough to sting before he pulls back, leaving dark marks. his lips and tongue leave a trail of spit and bruises along your throat and collarbone as he ruts into you like he’s losing his mind.

his thrusts are frantic and messy, hips slapping against yours, the solid weight of his body driving you down into the mattress. his balls smack wetly against your ass, each impact a sticky, obscene slap.

every sound is nasty—the slap of skin on skin, the filthy suck and squelch of your pussy as his cock pumps in and out, the breathy whines and stuttering groans that fall out of him every time you squeeze down tighter.

your legs move before you even think about it, wrapping around his waist. your heels press into the small of his back, dragging him closer, locking him exactly where he wants to be.

he groans like he’s dying for it, hands sliding up from your ankle to your hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, holding you in place as he pounds into you, deeper and faster.

he fucks you like the only thing he’s ever known is how to chase heat, how to chase that tight, wet clutch around him.

you feel it when he starts to unravel. his rhythm stutters, thrusts going from relentless to desperate.

he shudders, whole body trembling, a wrecked, broken noise ripping out of his chest as he slams fully inside you and stays there, buried to the hilt. his cock swells even thicker in your cunt, throbbing hard against your deepest spot.

“gonna fill—” he chokes out, voice raw and shredded, forehead pressing against yours like he needs something to cling to.

your pussy milks him as he spills, squeezing down greedily as the first hot pulse hits. thick spurts of cum shoot deep inside you, the heat of it flooding your insides.

there’s so much of it that you can feel the pressure building, feel it pushing against your walls until it leaks back out around him almost instantly, warm and thick where you’re stretched tight around his base.

he moans into your neck, sound muffled against your skin, body shaking with each pulse. his hips grind in tiny, desperate circles, trying to push it deeper, to force every drop as far inside you as he can.

even when his orgasm starts to taper off, he’s still rolling his hips, still rutting slow, like he’s trying to plug you full and make sure none of it escapes.

he refuses to pull out, cock still buried deep, still twitching weakly inside you, his weight heavy and possessive over your body as his cum seeps around the seal of your stretched cunt and drips onto the ruined sheets.

Caleb forgets your anniversary.

Not that you expected flowers. Or a note. Or even a “happy four years.” You know better than that by now. But it still hurts—sharp, shamefully so—when he storms through the door already pissed, slams his messenger bag into the wall like it’s your fault gravity exists, and doesn’t so much as glance at you.

Not even in the outfit he said he liked. The one you changed into after lectures—twice—because some secret, desperate part of you still wanted him to look. To pause. To notice the curve of your hip in the mirror, the earrings you dug out from the back of the drawer because he complimented them once over a year ago.

Your hair is still damp at the ends where you tried to fix it in the sink. You spent twenty minutes under the fluorescent glare of the bathroom trying to coax it into something softer, something less exhausted. You even dabbed perfume onto your wrists before he got home—as if that might anchor him to you. As if scent might do what love can’t anymore.

He doesn’t even sniff. Just kicks off his shoes and groans like the world owes him something.

“Are you fucking serious with that Shakespeare shit today?” he snaps, already heading toward the fridge like you aren’t even standing there.

You blink. “What—”

“In lecture.” His tone is venom. “You just had to correct me in front of everyone.”

You go still. “I didn’t—I was just—”

“You do this every single time, you know that?” he says, yanking the fridge open so hard it rattles. “You love making me look like an idiot. Just so everyone can see how clever you are.”

It takes you a second to catch up. “You mean—when I brought up the gendered violence themes in Titus Andronicus?”

“Yes, Jesus. Did you even stop to think for a second how that made me look?”

You hadn’t. You didn’t think he was even paying attention—he spent the second half of the seminar texting with his headphones in. You only spoke because the professor asked for clarification. Because you wanted to contribute. Because you thought maybe, just maybe, he’d be proud of you.

Instead, he twists it into something ugly.

You clutch your bag tighter. “I didn’t say anything about you. I just—”

“You always have to chime in. Always have to be the smartest fucking person in the room.” He pops a bottle open on the edge of the counter. The metal cap clatters to the floor. He doesn’t pick it up. Of course he doesn’t.

He takes a long drink, then leans back against the counter, eyes already flicking to his phone. Scrolling. Smirking at something on-screen while you stand frozen in place, your purse still on your shoulder, your hands still cold from walking home.

You watch the little twitch in his lip. The way he holds the bottle like he’s entitled to it. The way he hasn’t said a single word about how you look. How you tried.

You shift your weight. “Are we…doing anything tonight?”

He glances up, annoyed, like you’ve interrupted something important. “What?”

You swallow. “Our anniversary.”

A pause. His brow furrows. “Fuck. That’s today?”

You nod. You feel it in your throat, thick and closing.

Caleb just shrugs. “Let’s order something, I guess.”

That’s it. No sorry. No kiss. No smile. No nothing. Four years. That’s all it earns.

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The weeks bleed together.

Senior year feels like drowning in molasses. The weight of your relationship sits like a stone on your chest. You wake up sore, not from sleep but from how tightly you clench at night. Your molars ache. Your jaw won’t unclench. You dress in layers because it’s easier to hide the tension in your shoulders, and the bruises he swears are from “love.”

You say “sorry” before you speak, even when no one’s listening. You’ve learned to navigate his moods like they’re weather systems. Don’t ask questions when he’s quiet. Don’t look too long when he’s angry. Don’t argue when he’s drunk. Don’t cry unless you can make it sound like laughing. Don’t talk back unless you’re ready to be punished for it.

You’ve trained yourself to hear the way his key turns in the lock and know what mood he’s in. To recognize the stomp of his feet versus the drag of exhaustion. To know the difference between a slammed door and a forgotten one. Your entire world has become a waiting room for his temper.

In class, you keep your eyes on your notebook. You only speak when called on. Your voice is small. You try to make yourself smaller. You try not to exist unless you’re useful.

That’s when she appears.

Front row. Bright smile. Loud laugh. She dresses like she doesn’t care about being noticed—which makes her impossible to ignore. You don’t know her name the first few times you notice her. You just register how she always seems excited to be here, like she’s part of some joke no one else is in on.

She wears heart earrings one day and a fake fur jacket the next. Her nail polish is always chipped, like she starts things with passion and never finishes them. She bites her pen cap when she’s thinking. She laughs too loud. Her voice carries like sunlight through clouds.

When your professor announces a semester-end partner project, your stomach sinks. You already know Caleb won’t want to help, and you dread the awkwardness of being paired with someone random.

“And for this unit…let’s see. You’ll be with Emma H.”

The girl in the front row turns. Her eyes are blue, delighted, wide.

“Hi,” she says, sliding into the seat beside you. “Emma. Or Em. Whatever works.”

You blink. “I’m—”

“Oh, I know who you are,” she grins. “I’ve seen you in lecture. You always look like you’re solving a crime scene.”

You flush. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s intriguing.”

Emma is everything you’re not. She doesn’t raise her hand—she just speaks. She doesn’t walk—she skips. She starts sharing snacks during class and texting you weird memes after midnight. Her energy makes your head spin sometimes, but it never feels fake. She listens. Really listens. And when Caleb shows up late to pick you up one day, you find yourself sitting with her on the curb, talking about everything and nothing.

“You look tired,” she says gently.

You shrug. “I’m just juggling a lot.”

“You ever think about running away?”

You laugh, dry in your throat. “All the time.”

“Where to?”

You hesitate.

“I don’t know. Anywhere quiet.”

She bumps your knee with hers. “I might know a place.”

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The first time she mentions the festival, it sounds like a joke.

You’re at the library, pretending to work on your outline while Caleb texts you increasingly possessive messages about when you’ll be home.

Emma taps her fingers on her laptop. “You ever hear of Brìgh an Fhuil?”

You shake your head.

“It’s Scot's Gaelic. Roughly means ‘vital force of blood.’ Sounds more metal than it is. It’s a spring festival my community does. Really old. Rural Highlands. Off-grid.”

You raise a brow. “Off-grid?”

“Yup. No phones, no internet, no capitalism. Just food, rituals, dancing, and bonfires under the stars.”

You laugh, just a little. “Sounds nice.”

“It is.”

There’s a pause.

“Could be good for your thesis,” she adds casually. “We don’t usually allow outsiders, but I think you’d really like it. You’d be safe with me.”

You chew the inside of your cheek. “Caleb wouldn’t go for it.”

“Does he get to decide?”

You don’t answer.

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When Caleb finds out Emma’s a project partner, he doesn’t hide his disdain. “The girl who talks like she’s on fucking mushrooms all the time?”

You frown. “She’s nice.”

He snorts. “She’s weird. You should keep your distance.”

You don’t.

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The second time Emma mentions the festival, you’re crying in the girls’ bathroom, trying to cover up the welt under your eye from where Caleb struck you too hard the night before.

She doesn’t say anything at first. Just hands you a wet paper towel and sits on the counter. “He hit you?"

You shake your head, but she doesn’t press. “I’m serious about Brìgh an Fhuil,” she says gently. “It’s not just a party. It’s a way out.”

Your voice is a whisper. “Why me?”

She smiles like it’s obvious. “Because someone should treat you like you matter. And you don’t know it yet—but you do.”

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The next time she brings it up, it’s with printed tickets in hand. No airline logo, just a time and a gate and a single sentence beneath it in italic serif type:

YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

Caleb scoffs when he sees them. “Fucking hippie bullshit.”

But he doesn’t say no. And you—you don’t know why you say yes. Only that when you do, Emma’s smile is nothing short of radiant. And you feel something like hope flicker behind your ribs for the first time in months.

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The airport isn’t listed on any map.

You don’t even realize that at first, too busy triple-checking your backpack, your ticket, the spare charger you probably won’t even be able to use if this place is really “off-grid” like Emma keeps saying. But you notice when the cab driver frowns at the terminal number and has to call dispatch to confirm the drop-off point. Notice when the security checkpoint is nearly silent, manned by two guards who don’t check IDs—just wave you through like they’ve been expecting you.

There’s no TSA. No families juggling strollers. No overhead announcements droning about carry-on limits. Just sterile gray floors, a series of locked doors, and a woman in white linen standing beside a private staircase, holding a small metal clipboard and nothing else.

She doesn’t ask your name. Only takes your ticket, glances at it once, then looks at you.

“Phones,” she says.

Caleb stiffens. “We’re not even at the gate yet.”

“No digital devices are permitted past this point.”

You glance at Emma. She’s already handed hers over. She smiles, light as ever. “It’s part of the cleansing.”

You hesitate only a second before slipping your phone from your bag. The linen woman takes it carefully, as if she’s handling something dangerous. Caleb grumbles, curses under his breath, but he hands his over too.

The staircase leads to a waiting area that feels more like a doctor’s office than an airport lounge. Pale walls. A row of identical chairs. One window—but the glass is frosted over from the inside. You sit beside Emma, and she laces her fingers with yours without asking.

“You nervous?” she asks.

You nod.

She squeezes your hand. “Good. Means you’re still human.”

The plane is small. Sleek. The interior hums with a quiet that feels engineered. You can’t hear the engines. You can’t feel turbulence. It feels like floating. There're no other passengers. Just you, Caleb, Emma, and a man with a shaved head seated at the front, who never turns around. No one speaks.

You stare out the window, but the sky never changes—gray clouds stacked like cotton batting, no sun, no horizon.

Caleb taps his foot the entire time. Says nothing, but his silence feels pointed. You wonder if he regrets saying yes. You wonder if he knows why you did.

The landing is smooth. You almost miss it—only notice because the pressure in your ears pops and Emma nudges you gently, already unbuckling.

When the cabin door opens, the air outside is wet and sharp. It smells like pine and moss and something faintly sweet—like the inside of a greenhouse. You step onto the tarmac and realize there’s no terminal. No signage. Just a single long van idling beside the runway, its windows blacked out, the driver already standing beside the open side door.

He’s tall. Pale. Dressed in a faded blue nylon tracksuit with stringy blonde synthetic hair, stockstill despite the drizzle.

“Blindfolds,” he says simply.

You blink.

“What the fuck,” Caleb mutters behind you. “Is this a cult thing?”

Emma’s voice is gentle. “It’s tradition. For guests. So you see the place the right way.”

“That’s insane,” Caleb says. “I’m not—”

But Emma’s already holding one out to you. Fabric soft, like silk.

You take it.

Caleb scoffs but doesn’t stop you. Doesn’t protest again when you tie it behind your head and the world goes dark. You feel the brush of Emma’s hand on your elbow, guiding you into the van.

The drive is long. Longer than expected. The road beneath the wheels changes texture again and again—paved, gravel, dirt, something that feels like packed earth. You can’t see, but you feel every turn in your gut. Hear branches scrape the sides. Hear the driver humming something wordless and slow.

At some point, Caleb asks how much longer. No one answers. Eventually, the van stops. You expect someone to remove the blindfold. They don’t.

The door slides open and a rush of cool wind hits your face, carrying the scent of smoke and crushed grass and distant firewood. A hand—Emma’s, you think—grips yours and helps you out. You take one tentative step. Then another. Then the blindfold is lifted. And your breath catches in your throat.

The world in front of you blooms.

You're standing at the top of a sloped hillside, just above a massive circular valley carved into the Scottish landscape like a sacred wound. Everything is green—too green, like something out of a fever dream. Wildflowers in every color ripple through the grass in wide, deliberate paths, like painted lines guiding your eyes to the massive stone structures in the distance.

There're no buildings. Not in the way you expect. Just rows of long wooden halls with moss-covered roofs and carved beams, small rounded cottages with ivy climbing up their sides, and one enormous central hall—dome-shaped, smooth, windowless—like the belly of something sleeping.

White-linen-clad people walk barefoot along stone paths between the buildings. They carry baskets of roots, vials of oil, sprigs of herbs. Some are singing. Some are praying. Some are just…smiling. Content.

The sky above is cloudy but bright. The air is heavy with scent: lavender, wet soil, something slightly metallic.

You hear Caleb behind you make a noise low in his throat. He steps forward, taking it all in, and mutters, “Jesus.”

Emma laughs softly. “Close.”

They separate you quickly. You barely have time to glance back at Caleb before a woman takes your hand and leads you down a path of white petals toward a smaller structure tucked beneath the trees. Emma doesn’t follow.

Inside, the air is warm and soft. Low candles flicker in alcoves carved into the walls. The floor is polished stone covered in rugs that look hand-woven, dyed in rich reds and sun-worn ochres.

The woman doesn’t speak. She smiles, gestures to a wooden bench, and brings out a basin of steaming water. You sit. She begins to unlace your shoes. You flinch, instinctively drawing back. She pauses. Tilts her head.

“I’m here to prepare you,” she says. “Nothing more.” Her voice is low. Calm.

You nod.

She removes your shoes. Your socks. Your jacket. She moves slowly, like she’s handling something fragile. When she reaches for your shirt, she waits.

You nod again.

She undresses you like a child. Folds everything with reverence. Guides you to a stone bath in the corner of the room where petals float across the surface like offerings. The water smells like mint and iron. You sink into it. Try not to shake.

After, you’re dried with soft cloth. Your hair is brushed, braided. You’re dressed in a long white linen shift embroidered with gold and purple thread at the hem. No shoes. No jewelry. Just the dress, and the feeling of being polished like something precious.

They offer no sanitary products when you ask. Just a small cloth folded in half, handed to you like a secret.

“We free bleed here,” the woman says gently. “It’s part of the process.”

You open your mouth to argue, then close it.

Later, you see another woman collect the cloth silently from the room. She doesn’t meet your eyes.

You're taken next to a long, low hall. Inside, the air smells of wax and age. The walls are lined with fabric panels—each one hand-stitched, covered in scenes you don’t recognize. One in particular catches your attention. It’s a story. Told in images.

A woman stands alone. A man sits at a feast. She bleeds into a cup. He drinks. Her pubic hair is cut. Baked into bread. He eats. He's put under a spell. They fall madly in love.

You stare at it for a long time. A quiet voice beside you says, “It’s about devotion.”

You turn. Emma’s there. Dressed in a blue and white striped tracksuit and matching jelly shoes, blonde hair free from the pigtails or barrettes she typically accessorizes with.

“It’s just folklore,” she says. “But there’s power in intention. In making someone a part of you.”

You don’t know what to say.

She smiles. “You’re doing so well.”

You swallow.

“How long have you been coming here?” you ask.

She hums. “A long time. Long enough to know it’s where I was always meant to be.”

She leans closer, brushing a piece of damp hair from your face. “I think it might be where you’re meant to be too.”

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It begins with silence.

Not the kind that soothes, but the kind that presses inward. A silence that feels cultivated, curated, like a held breath stretched too long. Even the insects seem to understand something sacred is about to happen. You're led barefoot through dew-wet grass, the chill seeping up into your bones, the hem of your linen dress heavy with moisture as it drags against your calves. Each step is deliberate. Each footfall sounds louder than it should. The sun hangs low and swollen above the treeline, gold and aching, staining the sky like an unhealed bruise.

You walk alone now. The woman who guided you stops several paces behind, lowering her gaze as if she’s reached the edge of something forbidden. She does not speak. She doesn't touch you again. The path ahead narrows, then widens abruptly, opening into a natural amphitheater carved from earth and stone.

You haven't seen Caleb since morning. You last remember the curl of his lip when they offered him the linen robe. The way he laughed, sharp and ugly, and tossed it back at them like refuse. The way he muttered about freaks and cult cosplay and how he’d never let anyone tell him what to wear. He refused the food too. Refused the drink. Refused the songs. He said it loudly, so everyone could hear.

You didn't defend him.

You bathed when they told you to bathe. You stood naked and trembling while unfamiliar hands washed your skin with oils that smelled of crushed flowers and iron. You let them braid your hair, dress you, guide you. You handed over the cloth without argument. You let them take what you were bleeding without fully understanding why. The drink you swallowed afterward burned sweetly down your throat, leaving behind that familiar softness, that dreamy buoyancy you're beginning to associate with being here.

Now you walk. The hill crests sharply. You stop because your body tells you to, not because anyone speaks. And there he is.

Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal.

You remember Emma briefly mentioning him before, the idolized whispers of his name that had been floating through the commune more often than the summer breeze ever since your arrival.

He stands atop a raised stone platform, ancient and fractured, its surface etched with spirals and sigils worn soft by centuries of weather and devotion. Bones are woven through the carvings with gold and purple thread, delicate and intentional, as if the altar itself has been stitched together from offerings. Behind him rises a great ring of standing stones, towering and solemn, their shadows long and distorted in the afternoon light. Smoke drifts lazily through the air, though no fire is visible.

He doesn't blend into the setting.

He dominates it.

He wears a dirty purple velour tracksuit, the velvet dark and rich, royal purple catching the sunlight. The fabric clings to him in places, hangs loose in others, worn like a second skin. Heavy gold chains layer his chest, tangled and excessive, each one ending in a different symbol—cross inverted and upright, jagged teeth, keys, small bone charms polished smooth by touch. A crooked tiara rests in his loose blond curls, tilted but deliberate, tarnished yet glittering defiantly in the light.

And his eyes. They lock onto you instantly. Not scanning. Not assessing.

Claiming.

The world seems to narrow to the space between your body and his gaze. The chant of the commune fades into a low hum at the edge of your hearing. You forget to breathe. You forget where you are.

You feel seen. Not observed. Not admired. Seen like an object discovered. The moment stretches. He doesn't blink. Neither do you. Someone behind you exhales shakily. You don’t turn. You can’t.

“He's noticed you,” a woman murmurs, voice thick with awe.

You don’t know what that means, but your feet move again, carrying you forward as if pulled by invisible threads. The grass beneath you is warm now, sun-soaked, the scent of crushed flowers rising with each step. Bees drift lazily through the air. Your pulse thrums loud in your ears, in your fingertips, between your thighs.

When you reach the base of the platform, he's still staring. Then he smiles. It's not kind. It's not welcoming. It's the smile of a man who knows the ending of a story before the first chapter has finished.

He lifts his arms. The commune erupts.

Sound crashes over you—cheers, chants, laughter, sobbing devotion. You hadn’t realized how many people were gathered until they reveal themselves, spilling from the trees and the low-roofed halls, all dressed in white linen, wreaths of wildflowers and bone crowning their heads. Some fall to their knees. Others raise their hands to the sky. Several weep openly.

You aren't introduced. No one asks your name.

Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal speaks, his voice thick with a Scottish lilt, warm and melodic, dangerous in its smoothness.

“We welcome the Vessel...as it was written."

The crowd echoes, “as it was written!"

“We take her womb in welcome, as was foretold.”

“As it was foretold!"

“We welcome what she’s meant tae become. Howzat?"

"HOWZAT!"

Silence falls again, heavy and absolute.

He descends the platform slowly, deliberately, moving as if gravity answers to him. The Seven Jimmys follow—each in a different colored tracksuit, each identical in haircut and posture, eyes fixed forward, expressions devout. Among them stands Emma—Jimmima, she had politely corrected the other day, her manic brightness gone, replaced by subservient stillness.

Jimmy stops inches from you. He doesn't ask permission. He lifts his hand and presses two fingers to your forehead. His rings are cold. His touch lingers.

You don't flinch.

“Ye’ve come far, aye. Farther than folk ever dare," he says softly. His voice vibrates through you.

“Tell me somethin’, love…” he murmurs, head cocked like a priest sizing up sin. “Are yer dreams clean?”

You don’t know how to answer. Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“Have they unknotted that mind o’ yours yet?” he murmurs. “Or d’ye still think in his voice?”

Your stomach twists.

He doesn’t wait for a response. He turns, gesturing for you to follow, and the crowd parts instantly. As you walk behind him, he murmurs to the Seven.

“She’s here,” he says, almost tender. “The bones’ve stirred wi’ heat…the silence knows. It’s ready.”

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Dinner that night is held in the central hall—vast and circular, built from pine and yew, its ceiling vanishing into darkness that no number of candles can chase away. The walls breathe with the flicker of firelight, golden tongues licking across tapestries stitched with thread and tendon and thin, delicate bones. The air smells like smoke, honey, and wet roots—a sweetness thick enough to turn in your throat, grounded by something older and fungal beneath. You sit beside Jimmima, her hand clasping yours beneath the table, thumb stroking slow, deliberate circles into your palm. She hasn’t spoken since guiding you here, but her body is all language. Protection. Anticipation. Maybe even pride.

Across the room, Caleb eats alone. Not by choice, but design—the rest of the commune gives him a wide berth, and the Jimmy in all green stands behind him with the stillness of a tomb guardian.

Caleb’s jaw clenches as he picks at his plate, shoulders high, spine braced like he’s expecting a punch. He glares at the arrangement of roots and greens before him like it’s a personal insult. “What the fuck is this,” he mutters, loud enough for you to hear. “Rabbit food. Fucking yard scraps for strays.” He sneers as he forks a piece of roasted beet onto his tongue, then spits it back onto the plate with theatrical disgust. “Tastes like dirt and afterbirth. You people need a fucking grocery store.”

No one responds. No one even looks at him—except the Jimmy behind him, who tilts his head once, birdlike. Caleb doesn’t notice. Or he does, but doesn’t care. He scoffs again and goes back to pushing food around with dramatic disdain. You keep your eyes down, throat tight. The back of your neck prickles with secondhand shame.

Across the head of the room, Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal sits in his carved wooden throne, expression calm, body still. He doesn't eat. He has no plate. Only a cup—bone-white, polished smooth, carved with curling motifs you recognize from the tapestries. He lifts it to his lips and drinks. The liquid inside is a rich, heavy orange, darker than anything you’ve seen the others sipping. Your stomach twists. You look at the bread laid carefully on the table beside him, golden and flecked with something dark—too fine to be seeds. Your mouth goes dry. You remember the tapestry. The ritual. The spell. The preparation. Your own blood, your own hair, wrapped in cloth and carried away.

Jimmy sets the cup down slowly.

“We were promised a Vessel,” he says, voice curling into the rafters like smoke. His accent wraps around the words, thick and deliberate, every syllable offered like scripture. “Anointed wi’ blood. Carried by dream. Named in the fire.”

The commune hums in response, a low and vibrating sound that lives not in the ears but in the chest, in the bones—a resonance that makes the candlelight shudder.

“The Choir sang her name,” he continues, fingers resting lightly on the rim of his cup. “An' we listened.”

You don’t know why, but your eyes lift. His meet yours across the room.

“She’ll walk the path, aye," he says, gaze steady. "She’ll wear the crown—and she’ll no shy from the flame.”

His fingers tap once—once—against the polished bone of the cup.

“And from her…” His voice drops now, lower, thicker, reverent. “From her, the Hellborne will rise.”

The hum deepens. You don’t understand. Not fully. Not yet. But something inside you does. And it answers.

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You’re still blinking away the blur of moonlight when the door creaks open behind you. Not fully closed. Not fully shut. Like someone had cracked it open earlier and never bothered to fix it. You know it wasn’t you.

The communal lodge is cool and hushed. Too hushed. The stones at your feet feel almost warm in contrast, heat held from the late-afternoon sun. There’s a strange stillness in your limbs, like they’ve forgotten the shape of fear. You know what that is—psilocybin mushrooms, though you haven’t admitted it out loud. Not to yourself. Not to anyone else.

Caleb is still asleep on your shared cot in the far corner, his frame a loose tangle of elbows and limbs beneath the thin wool blanket. His back is turned toward you, chest rising and falling. Face hidden.

You swallow. Your throat tastes like nettles and dirt. It should be a comfort, seeing him like that—safe, still, unbothered. But it isn’t. You feel the hollow before you even sit down beside him. That gaping silence. Like whatever thin cord once knotted your lives together has frayed into loose threads. He didn’t even ask where you’d gone.

He didn’t notice you were gone at all.

You lie down slowly, not wanting to disturb him. But when your back meets the cot and the frame creaks ever so slightly beneath you, his body stiffens. Not a full stir. Not a groggy reach for you. Just a deliberate, rigid shift—one that turns him farther away.

"Where were you?" he says, voice flat. Not slurred, not sleepy. Awake.

Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. It takes a moment to realize you were holding your breath.

“I—” you start, but he cuts you off.

“With that girl again?” His voice sharpens. “What’s her name? Emma?”

“Jimmima,” you correct softly, but instantly regret it.

“Right,” he snaps, twisting under the covers. “Because that’s a normal fucking name.”

“She told me it’s what they call her here. It’s just—” You don’t know why you’re defending her. Maybe because you need someone to defend. Maybe because she’s the only one who’s really looked at you lately.

Caleb pushes himself up with one arm, looking down at you. The moonlight is just enough to catch the hollow beneath his cheekbones, the tension that wires his jaw.

“I saw the way you were laughing with her,” he says. “I saw how you touched her arm.”

You blink. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I wasn’t—Caleb, she was telling me a story.”

“You’ve barely looked at me in days,” he mutters. “But you’ll cling to some cult chick the second she gives you mushrooms and a flower crown?”

You sit up straighter, pulse climbing. “You think I wanted the mushrooms? I didn’t even know what they were.”

He scoffs. “Bullshit.”

“I didn’t.”

“You think I don’t see it?” he hisses, and now he’s fully facing you, voice low and venomous. “Every day, you’re off with them. Wandering the grounds like some dumb fawn. Like you’re one of them now.”

You don’t know how to answer that. Because something in you is changing. It’s not just the drinks. It’s the softness of the mornings, the quiet rituals, the feeling of being seen. Tended to. Held.

“Why are you talking to me like this?” you ask finally.

He laughs, bitter. “Like what?”

“Like I’m your enemy.”

His face twists. “Because maybe you are.”

The words hit you square in the chest. You expect him to take them back, but he doesn’t. He just turns again. Back to the wall. Leaving you alone in the darkness.

You lie there for hours. Eyes open. Watching the shadows crawl.

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You don’t speak the next morning.

He takes his breakfast and sits with the other visitors at the long communal table, smiling like nothing’s changed. But he doesn’t look at you once. Jimmima finds you outside instead, her jelly soles silent in the morning dew.

“You look like you could use something warm,” she says gently, and she passes you a carved wooden cup filled with golden liquid.

It smells of citrus and spice. There’s steam rising from it, but not the kind that burns. You drink slowly. It’s the third day in a row she’s brought you something, and you don’t ask what’s in it.

You don’t want to know.

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Later, he accuses you of cheating.

“I saw you with that guy,” Caleb snaps.

You look up from the woven basket you were carrying, mouth dry. “What guy?”

“That tall prick you were talking to this morning. The one who keeps looking at you.”

“That's Jimmima’s brother, I think. We were talking about holistic medicine for my thesis.”

“medicine,” Caleb repeats like it’s an insult.

You don’t answer. There’s nothing you can say that he won't twist.

“I’m serious,” he says, crowding you against the woodpile. “You keep acting like I don’t see it.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“You’re a liar.”

And then—he slaps your cup from your hands. It crashes against the ground. Liquid splashes your legs. The sharp smell of fermented herbs hits your nose. For a second, you think he might hit you next.

But he doesn’t. He just looks at the mess like you caused it, then walks away.

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That night, you sleep facing the wall.

Because he told you to. Because it’s easier than fighting. Easier than letting him know how much you’re starting to prefer the silence.

You think of Jimmima’s hands instead. How gently she plucked the leaves for your tea. How soft her voice was when she told you stories about the earth having memory.

You wish she were here now.

You wish someone was.

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Your next drink tastes sweeter than the last.

Jimmima’s smile is easy, but her eyes are sharp as she passes it to you.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

You hesitate.

“Soft,” you admit finally.

She beams. “Good.”

“Why?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just traces the rim of her own cup with one finger, watching the wind move through the garden.

“The mind must be cleaned to accept the truth,” she says eventually.

You blink.

“What truth?”

She just smiles.

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The next time Caleb sees you laughing—really laughing—with one of the older women near the sun dial, he storms over and jerks you away mid-conversation. You barely get out a goodbye before he’s dragging you down the path.

“You think this is a fucking game?” he snarls. “Flouncing around like you’re some enlightened hippie now?”

“Let go of me!”

But he doesn’t. Not until you’re behind the lodge. Out of view. Then he shoves you, hard, into the wall.

“You think you’re better than me now?”

“I never said that—”

“You don’t have to say it. You think I don’t see the way they look at you?”

You’re shaking now. You don’t know what part is psilocybin and what part is terror. Everything is too loud.

“I want to go home,” you whisper.

He freezes.

Then he laughs. A low, mean laugh. “You think there’s a home to go back to? You’re a fucking joke.”

The words slice deeper than any slap. He doesn’t hit you. Not yet. But something about the way he looks at you makes your skin crawl. Like he could. Like he wants to. Like you’re his to punish.

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That night, Jimmima finds you huddled by the cold fire pit. She doesn’t ask what happened. She just sits beside you and lays her head against yours.

You don’t tell her you’re scared. You don’t need to.

She already knows. Her hand finds yours in the dark.

You don’t pull away.

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The bathhouse is carved from the earth itself. Stone and moss and timber, all softened by age and candlelight, tucked into the lower ridge like it bloomed there centuries ago and simply never left. You find it by accident—or perhaps not. Nothing here ever seems truly accidental.

You’ve followed the curved path beyond the east gardens, past the prayer stones and the hollow where the women dye fabrics in great bubbling pots, and there it waits: half‑open, steaming, aglow with beeswax lanterns that hang from ceiling beams like captured suns. The air smells of lavender and damp wood and the mineral tang of the spring that feeds the deep bathing pool sunken in the center.

No one's inside.

The door doesn’t creak. It simply breathes shut behind you with a sigh of pine and dust, leaving the flicker of candlelight your only companion.

You don’t undress right away. Your hands hover at the hem of your dress, fingers worrying the fabric. You listen. Wait. But the stone walls hold no echo of voices or footsteps, only the low lap of water and the rhythmic drip from the rock ceiling. A wooden bench waits in the corner, folded linens neatly stacked. There’s a rough woolen robe, too, though no one told you to come here. Not exactly.

Jimmima had only smiled at dinner when you’d asked about the ritual cleansing and said, It finds you when you’re ready.

Apparently, tonight—tonight it’s found you.

You peel off your dress in one slow motion. The fabric pools at your ankles. You fold it out of habit, placing it on the bench as if this were any other spa, any other life. You pause with your thumbs hooked beneath your underwear. Still, no sound but the ripple of water.

You take them off.

Barefoot, bare‑skinned, bare‑blooming in the low gold light, you walk toward the spring‑fed pool. The stone is cool beneath your soles, but your skin is already heating, flushed from more than just warmth. From the steam. From the quiet. From the strange looseness that’s been living in your blood ever since you started drinking the commune’s tea.

The silence wraps around you. Intimate. Anticipatory. You descend into the water.

It kisses your ankles, calves, thighs—hot and clean, the temperature perfect. You shudder once, a soft sound leaving your throat before you can stop it, then exhale slowly, sinking up to your collarbones. Your tits float just beneath the surface, nipples already tight from the heat, from the air. Your arms drift weightless beside you, hands brushing the surface like lily pads. The water smells faintly of juniper and something else—fennel? Honey?

You tilt your head back.

The candlelight shimmers on the wet stone above, and for a moment, the flickering shadows make the ceiling look alive, like it’s breathing in time with your chest. You close your eyes. Let yourself float.

You’re weightless. Unguarded. Open.

For the first time in weeks—months, maybe—you're entirely alone. Not waiting for a slap on the thigh or a muttered insult when you speak too freely. Not walking on eggshells in a room full of people who love you only when you’re quiet. Caleb hasn’t touched you in days. Not gently, anyway. Not since the outburst in the courtyard when he called you a flirt for laughing at Jimmy Shite's joke. Not since he gripped your wrist too hard in the greenhouse. Not since he began sleeping with his back turned toward you like you were a mistake he could turn away from.

But none of that exists here.

Here, the warmth cradles you. The air is sweet with herbs. The candlelight paints your skin gold. Your thighs drift slightly apart beneath the water, a dull, unfamiliar ache blooming low in your belly.

And then—

You feel it. The prickling. That uncanny, certain awareness that eyes are on you.

You lift your head slowly. You don’t rise. You don’t scramble to cover your tits, your hips, the delicate softness of your body floating like an offering in the water. You don’t even gasp. Something in you already knew. Something in you invited this.

You look toward the latticed window high on the opposite wall, just above the stacked firewood. There—barely—a glint of motion. Not an animal. Not the wind. A shape. A shadow.

A man.

At first, you only see part of him. A sliver of face between the wooden slats. One eye. Blue. Unblinking. Watching you with an intensity that makes your breath stutter. You realize he’s been there a while. Long enough to watch you undress. Long enough to watch you step into the bath. Long enough to see the way your nipples hardened, the way your thighs parted, the way your head tipped back in pleasure.

He doesn’t hide when you look at him. He shifts just enough that you can see more of his face through the lattice—his mouth slightly open, breath slow and measured, like he’s savoring the sight. Like he’s memorizing the way your body looks wet and open and glowing in candlelight.

Your breath catches, but your limbs remain loose in the water. Your hands slide beneath the surface, fingertips brushing the insides of your thighs. You feel warm all over—flushed and tingly and almost high.

The psilocybin.

You’ve been drinking the commune’s tea without protest. You know it’s laced. You knew when Jimmima giggled and said, The mind must be cleaned to accept the truth, that she wasn’t speaking in metaphor. But you drank it anyway. Each cup made you feel a little lighter, a little warmer. The euphoria blooms now in your limbs, slow and golden. You blink, and everything glows.

He steps into view. Not through the door. Not down the stone steps like a man obeying the rules of entry. He appears in the arch of the open doorway with no sound, no warning—only presence. As if he was always meant to arrive. As if this space was made for him.

Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal.

He's barefoot. Candlelight licks across the curve of his collarbone, the lean strength of his chest, the thick muscle of his thigh. He wears nothing but his tiara—silver gleaming with candle‑gold—and the inverted cross necklace resting against his sternum.

He’s naked beneath it all.

Your eyes drop before you can stop yourself.

His cock hangs heavy between his thighs, thick and soft, already stirring, the head flushed darker in the heat, rooted in coarse, dark hair. It sways slightly when he takes a step forward, completely unashamed, completely aware that you’re looking. Your pulse jumps, low and sharp, right between your legs.

His hair is slightly damp, curling at the ends from the steam. His hands hang loose at his sides, gaudy rings catching the light. His expression—placid. Devout. Possessive in a way that makes your stomach flip instead of knot.

He says nothing for a long moment. Just looks.

His gaze drags slowly over you, from your collarbones to your shoulders, then lower, to where the water cradles your chest, nipples dark and visible beneath the surface. Then lower still, to the faint shadow between your thighs, where your pussy waits just out of sight. You don’t hide yourself. You don’t cross your arms. You let him see everything he can.

His lips part. You think he might speak. You feel your own pulse in your wrists, your thighs, your cunt. Then:

“Forgive me, my bloom,” His voice is low. Soft. The edge of a promise lives in it.

You swallow.

“The Father asked me tae see ye the way He sees ye—bare…and bloomin’.”

You don't speak.

He takes a step forward.

The heat in the bathhouse thickens. The water shimmers around your ribs. You should be afraid. You should feel shame or protest or at least the echo of Caleb’s voice reminding you that your body isn't your own. But it doesn’t come. None of it comes. Only the sound of water. The scent of lavender and honey. The weight of his gaze like silk drawn across your belly.

You rise, slow as the moon. Water cascades down your skin, over your tits, down your stomach, between your thighs. You meet his eyes. Your limbs tremble beneath the weight of his gaze.

The bath water's gone still. Candlelight flickers across your slick, bare skin, making you look almost gilded—like the Saint Lucia wax dolls perched in the windowsill, waiting to melt.

You don’t move.

Neither does he.

His bare feet are silent against the damp stone as he walks, and his cock—long, thick, heavy—hangs between his thighs, half-hard and pulsing.

You can’t stop looking at it. You try. You really do. But your eyes keep dragging back down, tongue pressing nervously behind your teeth.

He notices.

And he smiles. Not a smirk. Not something arrogant or teasing. It’s slow. Ancient. Like it knows something you don’t.

“I scared ye,” he says, voice low and smooth like syrup left in the sun. “Forgive me.”

Your breath hitches. You nod, barely.

He tilts his head. “I shouldnae’ve watched so long.”

You don’t reply.

Because you had let him. That’s the truth. You’d known someone was watching, had felt the pressure of his gaze like a hand cupped between your thighs—but you didn’t stop. Didn’t cover yourself. Didn’t leave. You stayed in the bath with your pussy exposed, your back arched, your tits catching the candlelight like an offering. Your stomach tightens with guilt and something darker.

Jimmy watches you wrestle with it. He’s always watching. You don’t know how old he is—not really—but there’s something ancient in the way he moves, in the weight of his silences. He looks like a statue animated, half-holy, half-wrong. Skin pale and lean over muscle, every inch of him wiry, unhurried, coiled like scripture waiting to be whispered aloud.

“May I sit?” he asks, gesturing to the stone ledge behind you.

You nod. Again. Voice lost.

He sits slowly, knees open. The thick head of his cock twitches once in the candlelight, drawing your eyes back. It’s veined and ruddy and impossibly large, resting heavy against one thigh, like it’s just as intrigued by you as he is.

You look away—too fast.

Jimmy lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously close to a laugh. “No shame in curiosity, my bloom.”

Your fingers curl into your lap. Your nipples are hard. You try to fold your arms across your chest, to shield your tits from his stare, but all it does is press them together—soft and wet and flushed from the heat of the bath.

His eyes flare, just slightly. “You are beautiful.”

You shouldn’t want to hear that. You shouldn’t feel anything when he says it. Not after everything with Caleb, not after the way you’ve been yelled at, accused, called names, treated like a burden. Not after being forced to sleep turned away, after days of icy silences and the sudden slam of doors—

But you do.

You feel like you’re about to cry.

Jimmy doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t move any closer. But his voice softens. “There’s nothin’ in ye that needs hidin’. Ye were made this way. Bare. Bloomin’. D’ye ken what it means when a flower opens on its own?”

You shake your head.

“Means the soil was ready,” he murmurs, leanin’ back just enough to watch your lips part, your thighs press tight beneath the water, his icy gaze dragging over every inch. “Means the time’s come.”

The ritual tea was laced. You know that. You’d laughed at the fire too long. You’d heard the trees humming like they had voices of their own.

And now—

Now you feel soft. Like every nerve is made of sugar and wet earth and yearning.

You breathe, and it’s too loud. You move your hand, and the water ripples like silk. You blink, and his tiara glows like the moon.

You lick your lips. “Why are you really here?”

His smile fades. Not completely, but enough.

“Because the Father asked me tae look upon ye.”

You tilt your head. “And what did he see?”

He looks down. His hand moves to his cock, fingers idly wrapping around the base—not stroking, not yet, just holding himself in his palm like it’s instinct. “He saw a woman wi’ hunger in her—and no fear left for it.”

You shiver.

Your voice shakes. “Is that what I am?”

Jimmy’s gaze drags back up your body. He lingers on the shadows between your breasts, the gleam of your collarbone, the slick skin of your inner thighs. “That’s what ye could be.”

Silence.

The water steams around you. The candles burn lower. Jimmy’s hand starts to move, slow and deliberate. He strokes the thick shaft of his cock once, then again, like he’s offering a sermon in rhythm. Your pulse trips.

“I should go,” you whisper. “Caleb—”

“Wouldnae notice,” Jimmy says, voice like a blade. “He hasnae looked at ye proper in days, has he?”

You swallow.

He’s right.

Caleb hasn’t kissed you in a week. Hasn’t asked how you’re feeling. Hasn’t looked at you with anything but irritation. When he touches you, it’s rough. When he speaks, it’s sharp. You’ve shrunk around him like a wick—slowly burning yourself out to keep him warm.

Jimmy strokes himself again.

“Ye donae belong tae a man who cannae see ye.”

You try not to look. You fail.

His cock is stiff now, red at the tip, leaking at the slit. His hand is slow and practiced, never taking his eyes off your face. You can smell the musk of him—earth and sweat and something sacred. You inhale without meaning to, and the scent goes straight to your cunt. You feel yourself clench. Wetness pools between your thighs, even beneath the water.

Jimmy sees it. Of course he does. His voice drops to a rasp.

“Ye feel it, don’t ye?” he murmurs. “The way yer body begs. That ache beneath yer skin. That’s always been the truth o’ ye, my bloom. The sacred hunger. It’s no somethin’ tae punish. It’s somethin’ tae worship.”

Your hand drifts beneath the surface of the bath, trembling fingers slipping between your thighs. You’re already wet—soaking, slippery, your pussy pulsing with need. You touch yourself with a soft gasp.

Jimmy groans.

“That’s it.”

Your eyes flutter shut, lashes damp. Your fingers swirl, rubbing soft circles over your clit beneath the water, mouth parted. You can’t help the breathy whine that escapes. You’re too high, too hot, too watched. The candlelight dances across your tits, and you arch your back, your other hand rising to cup one breast, thumb flicking your nipple until it stiffens under your touch.

Jimmy strokes himself harder now.

You hear the slick sound of it. You look at him—and the sight makes you whimper.

He’s moaning low, the head of his cock flushed and angry, precum smeared down the shaft. His abs tighten as he fists himself, eyes locked on you like prayer, like judgment, like the hand of God.

“You’re divine,” he breathes.

You rub yourself faster. “Please.”

He watches you unravel. He doesn’t stop. Neither do you.

You’re riding your own fingers now, hips rocking, tits bouncing in the water, mouth open as your moans echo off the stone. Jimmy’s chains clink as he grips his cock tighter, jerking himself fast and rough, like it’s hurting him not to be inside you already.

Your orgasm breaks like fire.

You cry out, full-throated and shaking, cunt spasming around nothing as your body arches out of the bath like a woman possessed. You come hard, long, fingers buried against your clit as waves of heat crash through your spine.

Jimmy comes with you.

His hips jerk. His cock pulses. Thick ropes of cum paint his stomach, his hand, his thighs—some of it splashing against the floor between you. He groans your name like a vow.

And when it’s over—

Silence. Only the sound of water dripping. Your body slumps back into the bath, exhausted, skin steaming, pussy throbbing.

Jimmy wipes his hand on his thigh. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at you. And this time—this time—you meet his gaze without shame.

Without fear.

And you smile.

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The walls are watching.

You don't realize it at first—how many of them there are. Hung in imperfect grids, dozens of sepia-toned photographs, each with the same subject rendered anew: a girl, dressed in flowers. Not just dressed in them. Draped. Swallowed. Garlanded in thick ropes of bluebells and carnations and buttercups, crown heavy with blooms, hair braided into intricate knots, a smile that was always a little too wide or a little too soft or a little too blank. Some were cracked with age. Others impossibly crisp, as though taken yesterday. But they all bore the same date etched beneath the image: Beltane.

You squint. One is from 1913. Another, 1867.

You lean in closer. You don't recognize a single one.

“Do you like them?”

Jimmima’s voice startles you. You hadn’t heard her approach. She stands a few feet behind you, fingers curled around a steaming cup of tea. She's always holding tea lately. You're starting to think she never lets herself be seen without it.

You glance over your shoulder. “Are these the May Queens?”

“Mhm.” She pads closer, the slight wisp of her nylon tracksuit jacket rubbing together carried by the summer breeze, “Every one of them. We keep their portraits here. Some say it’s for legacy. Others say it’s so they never forget where they bloomed.”

You turn back to the wall. “They look...happy.”

“Of course they were,” Jimmima says softly. “It’s the highest honor here.”

You reach out without thinking, fingers hovering near the frame of a photo marked 1904. The girl was pale and round-faced, with flowers stuffed so thick into her braid it looked like a vine strangling her hair. She was barefoot, feet tucked into moss. Her eyes didn’t quite meet the lens.

“And it happens every year?”

“Every Beltane,” Jimmima confirms, moving to stand beside you now. “There’s always a celebration, but not every year has a selection.”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” She sips her tea. “The crown has to want to be worn. The commune must see the girl. The earth must rise to meet her. You can’t force that.”

There was something almost dogmatic in the way she said it. A hush around her syllables, like a prayer kept secret.

You scan the photos again. Some are clearly more recent. You find a girl from the early 2000s, her smile glossy and full of teeth, her makeup modern. Another just five or six years ago—you wonder if she's still here, if she lives among them, faceless in the crowd.

Jimmima caught the look on your face.

“You’d be beautiful in the crown,” she says, like she’s been waiting for the right moment to say it.

You blink, caught off guard. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” She laughs. “Come on, don’t be dense.”

You feel your cheeks warm. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you have heart. It means the commune has noticed you. It means the land has noticed you.” She leans in, her voice dropping to something more conspiratorial. “And that means you’re eligible.”

You step back. “Eligible for what?”

“The May Queen selection.” She watches you carefully now. “You’d have to compete, of course. But you’ve already caught their attention. And more than that—you’ve caught His.”

You freeze, feeling your cheeks grow warm at the mere mention of him, memories of last night in the bathhouse flashing through your mind like an erotic zoetrope.“Jimmy?”

She grins. “We don’t use that name here.”

You look back at the wall. The 1931 May Queen had eyes like yours. You wondered if she was scared when they took this photo. You wondered if she knew what it meant.

“I don’t know, Jimmima,” you say carefully. “That seems like…a lot.”

“It is a lot,” she responds brightly. “That’s what makes it worth doing.”

Her eyes glitter with something you can't name. Before you can respond, a voice behind you cuts through the space like a crack splitting ice.

“You’re not seriously considering that shit, are you?”

You turn.

Caleb's stood in the doorway, arms folded, a smug smile tugging at his lips. His hair is still wet from the communal showers. He must’ve followed you here.

“You want to run around like some flower-brained virgin in a dirt pageant?” he scoffs. “You would.”

“Caleb—”

“I mean, you fall on your face and I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”

The way he said it isn't teasing. It isn't playful. It's mean. Small.

And it works—your stomach twists with shame even though he didn't say anything true.

Jimmima’s face darkens, just for a second.

“She hasn’t even agreed yet,” she spoke lightly. “We were only admiring the legacy.”

“Yeah, well,” Caleb rolls his eyes, stepping forward, “maybe try admiring something that doesn’t look like a funeral procession for woodland whores.”

You flinch.

He sees it. He always sees it.

“Come on,” he adds, turning. “Don’t make me stand around waiting.”

You don't move.

He looks back. “Seriously?”

“I’ll catch up,” you murmur quietly.

He stares at you like you've spoken a different language. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

His footsteps echo off the stone as he leaves. The silence he leaves behind is heavy.

Jimmima sets her tea down on a nearby ledge. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

You swallow.

“He sees you shrinking,” she comtinues softly. “And he likes it.”

Your throat goes tight.

She doesn't press. Just steps closer and gently takes your hand.

“I meant it,” she whispers. “You’d be beautiful in the crown.”

You stare at the wall, at the girls who came before you. Their flowers. Their bare feet. Their strange, haunting smiles. And for the first time since you arrived—you let yourself wonder what it would feel like to wear the earth like armor.

To be chosen.

To belong.

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You say yes.

Not with fireworks. Not with some rousing declaration or sudden swirl of wind. You say it quietly, in the hush between one breath and the next, in a voice that barely rises above the weight of your own hesitation.

“…Okay.”

That’s it.

But Jimmima lights up like you’ve set her on fire. She clasps your hands in both of hers, eyes wide and glassy with delight, and presses a kiss to your knuckles before whispering something in that strange tongue you still haven’t learned. Her voice wraps around the vowels like a secret being sealed.

You don't ask what it means. You don’t want to know.

She tells you preparations begin at once. You’ll receive your first flower at dawn. There will be five days of ritual, one for each petal of the crown. Five gifts, five offerings, five tests. At the end, you will be judged—by the commune, by the soil, by Him.

“Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal,” she says, tasting each word like it’s sacred.

You just nod. You don’t know what to say.

That night, Caleb doesn’t speak to you.

He doesn’t ask where you were, or why your shirt smells faintly of lavender. He doesn’t mention the wall of portraits or the gleam in Jimmima’s eyes or the fact that you walked back to the cottage barefoot, like you were trying to feel the earth through your skin.

He just lies beside you, facing the other way, his breath shallow and cold. You lie there awake for hours, staring at the ceiling beams, wondering what you’ve done.

You don’t dream.

But something in the walls clicks, like it’s paying attention.

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You wake before the sun.

The commune is already stirring—bare feet padding across dew-wet grass, low voices humming in the distance, smoke curling out of chimneys like thin, lazy fingers. Everything smells like ash and mint and soil.

Your door creaks open on its own.

You sit up. The wind flutters in behind it. And there, just outside the threshold, rests your first flower.

It’s not in a vase or tied with twine. It’s just placed—deliberately, reverently, with the stem angled toward your feet and the bloom facing the rising sun. It’s a marigold.

You hesitate before picking it up. Its petals are warm. Almost pulsing. You swear it leaves a faint smear of gold on your fingertips.

No one's watching.

And yet you feel seen.

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Day One is a ritual of silence.

You’re not told this aloud—it’s understood. No one speaks to you. Not when you wander the gardens, not when you’re given a bundle of herbs to hold, not when a child—barefoot and no older than six—presses a wet rock into your palm like a keepsake.

They all smile at you. They all touch your wrist, your shoulder, your back. But not a single word is exchanged.

You carry your marigold the entire time.

By sunset, it’s wilted around the edges. You place it beneath your pillow that night.

You dream of teeth.

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Day Two is hunger.

You're fed nothing but milk and honey. You’re not allowed to ask why.

Jimmima brings it to you in a carved wooden bowl and watches as you drink it, kneeling beside your bed like a priestess. You want to ask what this has to do with queenship. She brushes a hand down your cheek and says softly, “The body must remember sweetness before it can be filled with light.”

You nod like you understand.

Caleb glares at the bowl when he sees it later.

“What the fuck are they feeding you?” he mutters.

You shrug. “It’s tradition.”

“Tradition,” he scoffs. “You sound like them.”

You say nothing. You’re getting good at that.

You sleep fitfully. You dream of Jimmy.

Not the man in the purple tracksuit and gold rings. Not the coaxing voice who found you naked in the bathhouse and called you bloom like it was the name he’d carved into your ribs before you were born. But the other version—the one who watches without blinking, who waits without speaking, who stood behind you once while you bathed and made your skin flush with heat before he even touched the door.

You dream of him standing over you.

And of yourself, lying still.

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Day Three is fire.

They light the torches before noon. They dress you in white.

You’re led barefoot to the firepit where the ashes of the last Beltane sleep beneath a layer of moss. The pit is surrounded by the commune—women in linen robes, elders with rings through their noses, children painted in symbols you can’t read.

Jimmy isn't there.

Jimmima holds your hand and says only: “Let the flame remember you.”

Then she sets the hem of your robe alight.

You don’t scream.

The fire isn't real—or maybe it is, but it doesn’t hurt. The smoke curls up your legs like silk, the flames dancing like they know you, and for a moment, the heat is so intimate it feels like someone whispering at your throat.

When it’s over, the robe is untouched. But your skin glows.

Caleb doesn’t speak to you that night. But you catch him watching you from across the cottage with a look you don’t recognize—part fear, part jealousy, part something else.

You fall asleep with your marigold clutched to your chest.

This time, you dream of a crown. And the heavy weight of hands, pressing it down.

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The night before the competition smells like smoke and berries and something fermented enough to sting your nose.

The girls gather in the longhouse after dusk, the hems of their dress skirts brushed with pollen, hair still damp from the river. Someone has brought out a fiddle. Someone else pours the dark, cloudy drink from a ceramic jug etched with spirals and ribs. The candles are low, set into niches along the walls, their flames trembling like they’re listening.

You sit cross-legged on a woven mat, laughing.

Actually laughing.

It surprises you—the sound of it, how easily it comes, how it doesn’t snag on your throat or feel like a risk. Your shoulders are loose. Your spine isn’t braced for impact. No one here is watching you the way Caleb watches you, waiting for you to say the wrong thing.

A girl named Iona tells a story about the first May Queen she ever saw, how she thought the woman was made of flowers, not flesh. Another girl braids rosemary into your hair without asking, fingers warm and confident, humming under her breath.

Someone presses a cup into your hands.

You drink.

The psilocybin blooms slow and golden behind your eyes. The walls soften. Candlelight stretches. The laughter sounds farther away and closer all at once, like it’s happening inside your chest. You tilt your head back and let yourself feel it—the lightness, the warmth, the way your body feels like it belongs to you again.

For once, you’re not performing.

You’re just…here.

Then the door slams open.

The sound is wrong in this space. Too sharp. Too loud. Like a gunshot in a church. The laughter dies instantly.

Caleb fills the doorway like consequence.

He hasn’t changed out of his clothes. His jacket is still on. His jaw is tight, mouth already twisted like he’s halfway through an argument you didn’t agree to have. His eyes rake the room—over the girls, the drinks, the firelight—before locking onto you.

There you are.

Laughing.

Barefoot.

Adorned.

“What the fuck is this?” he snaps.

No one answers him. They don’t shrink, though. They don’t scatter. They simply go still, watching him with a quiet, unreadable calm that makes his shoulders hitch like he’s missed a step.

You stand slowly. Your body knows this routine. Knows how to make itself small without appearing to. Knows how to soften your voice, how to hold your hands just right so he won’t accuse you of being aggressive.

“We’re just—” you start.

“Just what?” he barks, stepping fully inside now. “Playing dress-up? Getting drunk with these fucking weirdos?”

One of the girls—Freya, you think—opens her mouth.

Caleb whirls on her. “Did I fucking ask you?”

The air thickens. The candles gutter. You feel the psilocybin spike, the room tilting slightly as adrenaline rushes in to meet it. Your heart pounds too fast. Your palms sweat.

“Caleb,” you say quietly. “Please.”

That word.

Please.

It lands wrong.

His eyes flash. “Don’t fucking ‘please’ me.”

You see it before it happens. The shift. The way his shoulders roll forward, the way his hand flexes at his side.

You don’t step back fast enough.

The slap cracks across your face, loud and unmistakable. Your head snaps to the side. Heat explodes along your cheekbone. For a moment, everything goes white—no sound, no light, just impact and the sharp taste of blood where your teeth catch your lip.

You don’t fall right away.

Your body tries to stay upright, tries to pretend this is manageable, survivable, something you can smooth over later. But your knees buckle, and you’re suddenly on the floor, the mat rough against your palms, the world swaying.

Someone gasps. Another swears.

Caleb is breathing hard. “Look at you,” he sneers like he's smelling curdled milk. “Parading around in their scraps like some holy whore. You really think this makes you special? That a few flowers and pity fucks from freaks who worship bones makes you anything?”

Your face throbs. You touch your cheek without meaning to. When you pull your fingers away, there’s a smear of red.

The room feels too big. Too exposed.

You break.

The sound that comes out of you isn’t pretty. It’s not restrained or polite or quiet enough to ignore. It’s a sob torn straight from your chest, sharp and ugly and unstoppable. You curl in on yourself, hands coming up too late, shoulders shaking as everything you’ve been holding back finally gives.

Caleb scoffs. “Oh, don’t start crying now.”

That’s when the door creaks again. Not slammed. Opened. Slowly. The sound draws every eye.

Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal stands in the doorway. He doesn’t rush in. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t look at Caleb at all at first.

He looks at you. Your tear-streaked face. Your hand pressed to your cheek. The rosemary tangled in your hair, the white fabric pooled around your knees like something discarded.

His expression doesn’t change. No anger. No shock. Just…stillness. A terrible, blasphemous quiet.

Caleb turns, scoffing. “What, you gonna say something now?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer him. He steps inside and closes the door behind him with deliberate care, shutting out the night. The latch clicks softly into place.

The silence stretches. It’s suffocating. The girls have gone completely still, like animals sensing a shift in the weather. The candles don’t flicker now. The air feels heavy, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.

Jimmy finally lifts his gaze—to Caleb this time. He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t square his shoulders. He simply looks at him, eyes dark and unblinking.

For a heartbeat, Caleb looks uncertain. You’ve never seen that before.

Jimmy says nothing. But the weight of his presence presses down on the room, dense and undeniable. His silence isn't passive. It’s not hesitation.

It’s judgment.

Caleb scoffs again, too loud, too forced. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He turns back to you. “Get up. We’re leaving.”

You don’t move. You can’t. Your body is still curled in on itself, shaking, cheek burning, chest tight like it’s been wrapped in piano wire. The idea of standing, of walking past him, of going back to that cottage feels impossible.

Jimmy watches. He doesn't intervene. And somehow, that’s worse.

Caleb waits a second longer, then mutters, “Unbelievable,” and storms out, slamming the door behind him so hard the frame around it rattles.

The room exhales all at once. Someone kneels beside you. A soft hand brushes your hair back, careful of your cheek. Another presses a cool cloth to your face. You sob into it, shoulders hitching, the humiliation settling in like a bruise beneath the bruise.

Through it all, Jimmy remains where he is. Watching. Not comforting. Not touching. Witnessing.

When your sobs finally taper off into hitched whines and breathy whimpers, something broken and exhausted, you lift your head.

He meets your eyes. And for the first time, you see something flicker there—not pity. Recognition. As if something has just confirmed itself. He turns and leaves without a word.

The door closes gently behind him. And you know—deep in your bones, deeper than fear or reason or doubt—that tonight changed everything.

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You don’t remember falling asleep.

Only waking up. Swollen‑cheeked and cold beneath a woven quilt that smells faintly of lavender and old smoke, your head heavy, your eyes grit‑lined. The light is different now—less gold, more pewter. Dusk has pressed itself against the windowpanes, turning the glass opaque and bruised. Somewhere beyond the room, you hear the rhythm of footsteps and laughter, the cracking pop of wood as kindling is broken, the low murmur of voices gathering for the night.

Life going on. As if nothing happened.

Your face aches. When you touch it—ginger, uncertain—you can feel the exact shape of his hand still mapped there. The swell of your cheekbone. The heat trapped beneath skin. The tenderness that makes you hiss quietly through your teeth.

You swallow.

The knock is quiet. Two fingers, slow and spaced apart. Not Caleb.

You sit up too fast, heart thudding, your vision swimming. The room tilts for a moment, the edges blurring as pain and exhaustion catch up to you all at once.

“Come,” you croak. Or maybe you just think it. Either way, the door creaks open.

He’s backlit in the doorway like some ruinous god—dressed in his tracksuit, curls damp at the temples like he’s come in from the mist. His tiara is gone now, set aside with ceremony you didn’t witness, but the inverted cross still glints at the center of his chest, a sharp gleam in the twilight. His hands are bare. No rings.

Jimmy Crystal steps inside without a word and closes the door behind him. The sound is soft. Final. He says nothing at first. Just studies you the way he always does—gaze slow, deliberate, the kind of looking that leaves you feeling opened up without ever being touched. Like he’s taking inventory. Like he’s committing you to memory. You expect him to sit. He doesn’t. He leans against the closed door instead and tilts his head, eyes tracing the line of your body beneath the quilt, the way you’re folded in on yourself.

You swallow. “Is he gone?”

Jimmy’s expression doesn’t change. He shakes his head once. “Naw.”

Your stomach drops. “Is he—” Your voice falters. You have to try again. “Is he coming back?”

Another pause. Longer this time. Then—soft, low, almost thoughtful:

“He'll be nearby.”

Not with you. Not allowed near you. Nearby.

Your breath hitches. You want to ask more. You don’t. You’re afraid to know what’s already written in the calm of Jimmy’s posture, in the calmness of his hands.

“He struck ye,” Jimmy continues quietly, like he’s reciting a fact, not an accusation. “That's no permitted here.”

You let out a weak, humorless laugh. “He didn’t seem to care.”

“Naw,” Jimmy agrees. “Men like him rarely do.”

He pushes off the door then. Walks across the room with that same quiet weight, that prowling grace that once unsettled you and now feels…inevitable. Like gravity doing its job. He crouches in front of you where you sit on the edge of the mattress, lowering himself until you’re eye‑to‑eye. For a moment, he just rests his elbows on his knees and looks at you.

Then he speaks.

“May I?”

You nod.

Jimmy lifts his hand—fingers cool, careful—as he touches your cheek. His thumb brushes the bruised skin with agonizing gentleness, a ghost of pressure, a lover’s hush. It’s barely anything at all, and still you flinch, breath catching despite yourself.

He stills immediately. The silence stretches between you, thick and deliberate. Then, in a voice lower than a whisper:

“Does it always feel like this?”

You blink. “Like what?”

“Like ye’re disappearin'.”

The words land harder than the slap did. You turn your face away, jaw trembling, eyes burning. Your shoulders curl forward as if you can fold yourself small enough to vanish entirely. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t chase the moment away or try to fix it. He just lets you breathe through it. Lets you feel it.

“Ye can lie,” he says finally. “But no tae me.”

You meet his eyes then—hard, defiant, but hurting. You don’t know how he sees it all so clearly. You don’t know when he learned the meaning of your silence. He holds your gaze as he asks, quiet but steady, like he already knows the answer.

“Do ye feel held by him?”

The question hollows you. Not in the way Caleb does. Not in the way that leaves you small and bleeding and trying to claw yourself back out of yourself afterward. This hollows you in a different way. A gentler way. Like someone carving out rot to make space for something better.

You try to answer. You really try. But your voice breaks halfway through the first syllable and you shake your head instead, tears stinging as you look down at your lap, shoulders caving inward.

Jimmy exhales. Not in relief. Not in triumph. Like someone grieving a truth they already knew.

He reaches forward.

You think he’s going to touch your face again—but no. It’s your hands. Both of them. He takes them in his own, cradling them between his palms, rough and warm and steady. His thumbs press lightly into the centers of your hands, grounding you, anchoring you.

And suddenly you’re not shaking anymore. Suddenly, there’s heat in your body again. There’s gravity. Weight. The sensation of being real.

Like you’ve been floating, untethered and invisible, for so long—and someone just finally said, I see you. Come home.

Jimmy’s voice is quieter now. Still low, still carrying that Scottish rasp like smoke across skin. “Do ye want tae keep fightin' for somethin' that only ever breaks ye?”

A beat.

“Or do ye want to be chosen for once?”

You can’t breathe. But you nod. You nod.

Jimmy lifts your hands and presses a kiss to the backs of them, slow and deliberate, like he’s sealing something older than words. Not a claim. A vow.

When he pulls back, his eyes are darker.

“Rest,” he murmurs. “Tomorrow will be heavy.”

You hesitate. “Caleb—”

Jimmy’s mouth curves—not into a smile, but something colder. Something final. "He will be receivin' Charity,”

The word means nothing to you. And somehow, it means everything.

Jimmy releases your hands and stands. He pauses at the door, glancing back once.

“Ye're safe the night, aye," he says.

And you believe him.

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You wake in white.

The robe they gave you the night before is still clinging to your skin, though someone has removed the bruised, wine-stained underlayers. You don’t remember undressing, only falling asleep in Jimmima’s bed while her fingers soothed over your hair. You remember her whispering a prayer in your ear. You remember her hand on your back when your shoulders trembled too hard to breathe. You remember her promising you wouldn’t be alone in the morning.

You aren't.

When your eyes blink open, there are hands on you—soft and humming, a small chorus of girls dressed in similar white, lifting your arms, brushing out your hair again, washing your skin in floral oils that smell like crushed lavender and sun-warmed citrus. They move as one body, synchronized and silent save for the rhythmic hum that bleeds from their chests. Their fingers comb through your hair and rub tinctures behind your ears, at the soft spots of your hips, the hollow of your throat.

You don’t speak. You don’t need to.

Their presence is warm and bright and maternal in a way you didn’t know you could crave. Not like this. Not the kind of care that makes you feel like a person being prepped. You feel like an altar. A vessel. Not objectified, not groped, not owned—but honored. Revered.

Your bruise is still visible. You see it when they turn you toward the mirror, a blooming handprint rising over your cheek like a rolling thunder cloud. It should look terrible. But the way they’ve painted you makes it seem intentional, almost sacred—like your pain is part of the ritual.

They crown you last. You don’t even feel it at first, the delicate weight of the woven wildflowers settling atop your head. It’s not the heavy mass of a stage prop but something natural and strange. When you look up, you catch the details in the mirror: winding vines, sprigs of baby’s breath, poppies, buttercups. Nestled among them are carved slivers of ivory—feminine and beautiful and aged. Bone.

You don’t know it’s human.

You smile anyway.

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Everything is washed in light.

The entire commune gathers in a ring of celebration around the sacred maypole, its tall white body wrapped in spiraling red ribbons and garland. The pole reaches toward the sky like a stake to heaven, shimmering in the morning dew, marked with centuries of carved names and prayers. Children run barefoot through wild grass. Women paint each other’s faces. Elders raise small ceramic horns in your direction when you pass.

Jimmima holds your hand.

She looks radiant in her ceremonial white tunic, something everyone including the Fingers wear during Beltane, her usual mischief softened into something warm and devoted. She guides you to the heart of the circle like a mother giving away her daughter—though not to a husband. To the sun. To the sky. To the dance.

You aren’t the only girl.

There are others, maybe eighteen, maybe twenty, each glowing in their own way. Some look older, some younger. All dressed in ivory linen, all crowned, all smiling. The moment doesn’t feel competitive. It doesn’t feel like bloodsport. It feels like unity. Like every girl in this ring is part of something older than her body. A ritual that will choose—not based on beauty, not on merit—but on something deeper. Something divine.

Sir Lord Jimmy watches from afar.

He’s positioned at the edge of the crowd, seated on what looks like a carved throne made from twisted, pale branches. He isn't wearing his tracksuit today. His upper body is bare save for the fur pelt draped over his shoulders, his skin kissed by the cold wind but unmoving. His eyes are heavy on you.

He hasn’t spoken to you since after Caleb struck you last night. He hasn’t needed to. His silence wrapped around you like a second robe, like an answer, like a shield.

And even now, from across the field, you feel that same veil of knowing settle over your shoulders. You know he’s watching. You know he’s here for you. The others are witnessing the tradition.

He's witnessing you.

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The drinking horn is passed around, its dark wood damp with condensation. When it reaches your hands, your fingers curl around it without hesitation.

It’s sweet. Too sweet. Coated in honey and rose. The herbal tang hits your throat half a second after you swallow, burning and numbing, followed by a curious warmth that floods your stomach and rises like smoke into your head.

It’s drugged. You know that now.

You knew it before.

But you don’t fight it.

Because there’s something about this place, about these people, about this dance—you want to feel it. All of it. You want to be part of it in the way they are, eyes shining and cheeks flushed with joy, bodies moving in time to an unspoken rhythm older than any language you’ve learned.

The drum begins.

It’s not a performance drum, not a beat for an audience. It’s deep and primal and patient. You feel it in your spine. You feel it in your womb. The world around you pulses with it, ground vibrating gently under your feet.

You're placed beside the pole. Your ribbon is red. So is the ribbon of the girl beside you. All of you are red—each given a ribbon that will bind you to the pole, and to each other, until only one remains standing.

The dance begins in a clockwise spiral. It’s slow at first. Measured. You step forward when the girl ahead of you steps, winding the ribbon between your fingers, looping it around the pole. You're weaving the world together, thread by thread. And in this sacred spiral, you're not awkward or clumsy or uncertain.

You're a part of it.

The circle. The history. The choosing.

Girls begin to drop. One by one, they stumble, they laugh, they fall into the arms of waiting commune members who carry them gently from the ring. The pace increases. The rhythm intensifies. Your limbs feel like they belong to the earth. Like you’re made of air and fire and bone.

Time stops meaning anything. You spin. You laugh. You glow. You forget about Caleb. You forget about the bruises. You forget about the ache in your chest and the fear in your blood. All that remains is this moment. This dance.

You don’t notice when there are only three girls left.

Then two.

Then—

Jimmima gasps, covering her mouth. The crowd erupts. You're still standing. Your feet rooted, your ribbon perfectly wound, your breath shallow and shaking but full of life.

You’ve won.

The sun blazes low but strong in the sky, burning like a second crown above your own. Your lungs are still scorched from laughter. From dancing. From screaming breathless joy as the last of the girls around the maypole collapsed to their knees—writhing with giggles or tears or both—and you stayed standing. High and dazed, your feet slick with sweat and flower petals, the world spiraling in a syrupy golden blur around you.

They swarmed you when you won. The women first—Jimmima wrapping you in her arms, kissing both your cheeks, weeping openly. Then the men. Then the children. Petals flung, songs sung, your name echoing in your ears like thunder underwater.

You can’t stop smiling. You can’t stop floating. Even now—still dizzy, crowned in wildflowers, the carved bone digging cold and delicate into your scalp—you feel like you’ve been split open to sunlight. Like something radiant has carved its way into your chest and taken root there, blooming out of your ribs. A fever dream of acceptance.

You’re their May Queen. You belong to them now. But no one warned you what comes next.

The drums don’t stop. The singing doesn’t stop. And then you’re led—barefoot, trembling—toward the platform in the village center. You think maybe there’s more dancing. Maybe a blessing. Maybe a feast. You’re light-headed, drunk on fungus and affection and windburned praise.

Then you see the altar. And the chairs beside it. One for you. One still empty.

You’re told to choose.

“The King,” Emma whispers in your ear, her hands on your shoulders. “Your consort. Your counterpart. Your mate. You must choose.”

“What—?”

“This is tradition, darling.” Her voice is honeyed and solemn. “You must choose your May King.”

Your stomach lurches. No one said anything about a king. About a partner. About—marriage?

You look at her. She looks back with a kind of eerie, expectant calm. Like this is all very obvious. Like you’re just slow to catch on.

“I don’t—I didn’t know—”

“It must be someone here,” she says softly, like she’s soothing a child. “Someone within our bounds. Someone worthy.”

You can’t think. Your limbs feel gelatinous. Your jaw unhinged. You see faces swimming in the crowd—beaming, breathless, pink-cheeked with joy. All of them turned toward you. All of them waiting.

And then you see him.

Jimmy.

He’s watching from the back of the crowd, haloed in shadow, his inverted cross catching the dying light. He’s not smiling. He’s not swaying with the others. He’s still. Silent. But his eyes are burning. They burn for you.

And something in you answers. Your lips move before you can stop them.

“Him.”

The word hits the air like a bell. Clear. Irrevocable. You point—shaking, breathless—toward Jimmy Crystal.

“I choose him.”

There’s a moment of calm. A suspended beat in the universe. And then—chaos. No—not chaos.

Caleb.

Because Caleb is suddenly there, charging toward the altar, his face a twisted mask of disbelief and rage, his voice tearing through the air like barbed wire. “No. No, fuck that—fuck this!”

His arms flail as he’s grabbed—first by Jimmy Ink, then Jimmy Shite, and then the wiry, sharp-toothed one they call Jimmy Fox. All three restrain him with terrifying calm as he thrashes, red-faced and snarling, trying to claw toward the platform.

“You lying little bitch!” he screams at you. “You let him touch you? You let him—after everything—I brought you here!”

“Caleb—” you gasp, trying to stand, to say something, but Emma’s hands are like iron on your shoulders.

“No,” she murmurs. “You don’t speak to the unchosen.”

“Unchosen?” Caleb spits. “This is fucking insane!”

He lunges again. Jimmy Ink cracks him once in the ribs with an elbow. He folds. And over it all—cutting through the noise like thunder—is Jimmy’s voice. Authoritative. Resonant. Final. “She has spoken.”

He steps forward at last. “The May Queen, our vessel, has chosen.” He mounts the platform with an ease that feels inevitable. That has always felt inevitable.

You stare up at him as he takes your hand.

The sun dips behind him, and he’s all fire and silhouette, curls backlit, jaw rigid. He looks half angel, half beast. The crowd stills again. And then Jimmy lifts your hand high and declares for all to hear:

“The binding is begun.”

The crowd erupts. Cheers. Chanting. Bells ringing. Drums booming. Somewhere, Caleb is still screaming. Still cursing. But his voice is drowning in it, shrinking beneath the sound of devotion.

The May Queen has chosen. And her King is Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal. You don’t understand what it means yet—not fully. But the way Jimmy looks at you, the way he brings your knuckles to his mouth and kisses them like something sacred—you think maybe you will soon.

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You don’t remember walking. You don’t remember the way the crowd parts for you, or the feeling of flower petals against your bare feet, or the way the crown of bone and blooms sways slightly with each step. You don’t remember the moment your dress was changed—no longer the long, floating white from the maypole dance, but a translucent silk shift that kisses your thighs and bares your arms. You don’t remember the knife being blessed. But it’s there when you arrive.

A carved, ceremonial blade, honed from pale bone, rests on a bed of marigolds. You blink at it, and your vision warps—light streaking across your pupils like oil on water. The color of the flowers swells, breathing with golden pulse, as if the sun itself is kneeling beside you.

Someone places the knife in your palm. You’re too high to speak. Too high to move unless guided. The world smells like smoke and pollen and sweat. Behind you, the commune chants in a low rhythm that thrums through your bones—not words you understand, but vibrations, intonations, syllables for fertility, for lineage, for rebirth.

Your feet keep moving. You stop in front of him. Jimmy. You get a better look at his torso, his bare chest an altar of pale skin, thin white scars, and breath. His dark pants are loose around his hips, tied with a blood-colored sash, and his fingers are wet with something crimson and slick.

He doesn’t look drugged. Not even a little. There’s something terrifying in how still he stands, how watchful. His eyes—always eerie—seem glassier now. Like twin black lakes beneath a winter sky, full of reflection and nothing at all. He holds out his hand, palm up, and you know what to do.

The bone blade trembles in your grip. Still, you raise it. Your vision narrows to just his hand—the wide, calloused expanse of it, fingers slightly curled, waiting for your vow. You slice his palm. Blood wells immediately, fat and dark. He doesn’t flinch.

Then he takes the knife from you. And does the same. The moment the blade touches your skin, your knees nearly buckle. It’s a clean cut, but it stings. The sharpness blossoms like fire, and for a second your vision flares. The crowd gasps as your blood joins his—dripping down your wrists and onto the packed earth below.

But it’s not over. Jimmy steps closer. And tilts your chin. No warning—he presses the blade gently beneath your bottom lip. You shudder, tears springing to your eyes as the thin skin splits. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t smirk. Just watches as the crimson beads gather at your mouth, then raises the blade to his own.

His lip splits cleaner. Quicker. And then his hand is in your hair. He pulls you in.

And kisses you.

It’s not like any kiss you’ve ever had. It’s a sealing. A vow. His lips crash into yours, blood to blood, mouths open and wet and aching—and the taste is salt, and metal, and want. The copper floods your tongue. You gasp against him, but he doesn’t pull back. He deepens it, tilts your chin harder, groans something against your mouth in a voice the others can't hear.

When he pulls away, his mouth is painted in your blood. Yours painted in his. Your lip throbs, pulse beating just beneath the break in your skin. You can feel the bond settling into place—not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Physically. The psilocybin in your veins reacts to the moment like it’s divine. Your chest seizes with awe. Your body tingles, crowned in reverent submission.

The commune erupts in praise. They chant his name. Then yours.

“May Queen. May King. May Queen. May King.”

You sway where you stand, but Jimmy’s hand finds the back of your neck. Holds you steady. His thumb presses beneath your jaw like he’s anchoring your soul to your body—like you’ll float away if he doesn’t keep you there.

The next steps of the ceremony begin behind you. The preparation of the bed. The fire set to burn behind it.

The crowd gathers in the glade, eyes on the King and Queen, and someone wraps a red cord around both your wrists, binding your hands together in the marriage knot. You wanna ask what happens now. But something tells you you’ll find out. Because Jimmy’s looking at you like he already knows. And he doesn’t blink. Not once.

Jimmy doesn't release you when the chanting rises again.

The marriage knot is loosened, not removed—the red cord slipping from your wrists only to be gathered in his hand as he turns you away from the glade, palm firm at the base of your spine. The commune parts without a word. Faces blur. Firelight streaks across your vision like dragged paint. Your body is humming, still buzzing from blood and vow and kiss, lip throbbing where the blade split you open for him. You’re still swaying when he guides you forward. And this time, you feel every step.

Stone replaces soil beneath your feet. The temperature shifts—warmer, heavier, the air thick with smoke and resin and old heat baked into bone. The chanting doesn’t fade. It follows. Reverberates. Echoes now, distorted by walls that curve inward like ribs.

The Bone Temple rises out of the earth like something unearthed rather than built.

It's circular, sunken, erected pillars formed from pale stone and lashed skeletal remains—femurs bound with twine, spines set into mortar, skulls half-swallowed by lichen and candle wax stacked in a pyramid at the center of it, a memorial of human suffering and sacrifice. The ceiling opens to the sky, a ring of moonlight pouring down onto the altar at its center. Fire bowls line the perimeter, flames low and constant, fed by unseen hands.

This isn't a place of rest. This is a place of metamorphosis. The altar isn't raised. It's hollowed. A broad slab of stone worn smooth by generations of bodies, layered with furs and hides darkened by age and ritual use. The scent hits you all at once—sex, smoke, old iron, something sweet and animal beneath it. Your knees weaken.

His hand tightens on your neck, thumb pressing beneath your jaw until your head tilts back, eyes lifting to his. The crown still sits on his head. The inverted cross gleams against his chest. He looks at you like you're exactly where you belong. Then he guides you forward. The unseen watchers don't speak. They breathe together. You feel it on your skin—a collective inhale as he lays you back onto the altar, arranging you with care that borders on tenderness. The furs cradle you, warm and rough. The stone beneath them radiates heat, seeping into your spine.

He doesn't rush. He reknots the red cord, this time looping it low around your waist, cinching it snug over your hips. A claiming band. A boundary. His fingers linger there, pressing into your flesh like he’s measuring you. You shiver. He lifts the silk shift from your body, slow and deliberate, letting the fabric slide over your skin until you’re bare beneath the open sky. The firelight paints you gold and shadow. You hear a soft, reverent sound from somewhere beyond the walls—not a gasp, not a cheer. Something closer to prayer.

You aren't embarrassed. You're exalted.

Jimmy undresses without spectacle, eyes never leaving you. The fur pelt around his shoulders falls. Then the pants. When he steps free of them, the fire bowls flare in response, light climbing the walls. He keeps the crown. Keeps the necklace. He isn't discarding power—he's wielding it.

He kneels between your thighs. Spreads you open with his hands. They're rough. Certain. His thumbs press into the soft of your inner thighs, pushing them wider, holding you there as he looks at you fully, reverently, like a passage he’s memorized by heart.

You feel small.

Chosen.

His fingers drag upward, slow, unhurried, tracing the heat-slick seam of your cunt. You gasp, hips twitching, and his grip tightens—a warning. Not cruel. Controlled.

"Patience," he murmurs, voice low, carrying like scripture. "The altar must be readied. The gates opened. The womb invited."

Two fingers push into your soaked pussy. You cry out. They slide in easily—your body welcoming him, desperate for more—and he doesn’t stop there. He moves with deliberate pressure, curling, stretching you open inch by inch. You feel him everywhere. In your jaw. Your spine. Your womb.

He watches your face as he works you open, eyes dark and unblinking, fingers scissoring, testing, spreading you until your thighs tremble and your breath shatters. The cool metal of his rings kisses your slick folds. He adds a third finger slowly, stretching you wider, deeper, until you’re gasping, clutching at the furs.

"Ye were made for this," he says softly, voice thick with idolization. "Made tae be filled. Tae be bred. This cunt exists tae be used for creation."

His mouth follows. The first drag of his tongue makes your vision white out. He eats your pussy like an act of devotion, messy and unrelenting. His fingers never stop. He holds you open and fucks you on them while his tongue works your clit with reverent circles. You sob, hips jerking, overwhelmed. It’s too much, too holy. The psilocybin in your blood turns everything inside-out.

"Good girl," he praises, muffled between your thighs. "Give it tae me. Let your God drink from your cunt."

When you come, it’s not one orgasm—it’s a cascade. A scream torn from your throat as your whole body writhes, walls fluttering helplessly around his fingers. He doesn't stop. Not until you're sobbing, dripping, wrecked.

Only then does he rise. His cock is heavy and flushed, hard and wet at the tip, and the sight alone makes your thighs fall further apart, remembering that intimate exchange you shared in the bathhouse. He wraps his fist around it, strokes once, then presses the blunt head to your entrance.

"This is where I plant ye," he murmurs, tiara gleaming. "Where the bloodline begins. Ye’ll take every drop, wife, and ye’ll thank me for making ye mine."

Then he fucks into you. All at once. You scream. Your pussy stretches, parts, swallows him in one brutal, holy thrust. Your back arches, mouth open in a soundless sob. He holds himself there, cock buried to the hilt, thick and pulsing and so deep it feels like he’s breaching something sacred.

You feel him in your belly.

"Mine," he growls, voice sharpened with awe. "My hole. My wife. My sacred little incubator."

He starts to move. Not gently. Slow and deep, grinding into your cervix with every stroke. He fucks you like the altar was made for this—for you—for the obscene slap of his hips on your thighs, for the wet squelch of your cunt sucking him in again and again.

You’re gasping. Whimpering. Clawing at his back, his arms, the stone.

"Ye feel that?" he pants, breath hot against your cheek. "That’s my cock reshaping your cunt. That’s yer pussy milking me for every drop."

You cry out again, and he bites your throat—teeth dragging along the skin, hard enough to bruise. You’re shaking beneath him, legs spread wide, his name falling from your lips like prayer.

"Ye’ll drip for days," he snarls, fucking harder. "Ye’ll leak down your thighs in front of the commune and they’ll know what I did tae ye. What I made."

Your orgasm hits so violently you choke on it. He fucks you through it, relentless, hips snapping into you. You can’t breathe. Can’t think. Your cunt spasms around him, fluttering tight, clenching like you need to be bred.

"That’s it," he growls, "take your blessing. Take yer fucking purpose."

He groans into your mouth as he spills inside you. Hot. Endless. Possessive. He stays inside, grinding into your overstimulated pussy as cum floods your womb, his cock twitching, pushing it deep. You feel it leaking out, dripping between your ass cheeks, but he doesn’t move.

"Ye’re mine now," he breathes, "marked in blood and seed. Ye’ll carry me. Ye’ll birth for me."

He presses his hand to your belly. Flat. Claiming. Forever. And whispers, "so let it be done."

You don’t know if you hear it with your ears or your bones. But you feel it settle in your cunt. In your womb. In your soul. You’re not empty. You’re filled. You’re his.

Forever.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

You're still leaking him when they lead you to the stone. Still split open, stretched wide, slick between your thighs from where his seed took root. You can feel it trickling down the backs of your legs as you walk—or are walked, rather, because your feet barely move. The red cord around your waist hasn't been removed. It trails behind you like a leash, like a tail, like a marker of what’s been done and what you’ve been made for.

The firelight licks your skin. The furs cling. You don't protest. Because you're his. And he's bringing you home.

The Bone Temple empties behind you, but the chanting doesn't stop. It continues as a pulse through the dark—lower now, guttural, weighted with something that isn’t ecstasy anymore. Something heavier. Something close to mourning.

No one touches you except Jimmy.

You pass commune members on your way. They drop to their knees. They don't look at you. They look at your womb. At your belly. At what might already be growing inside.

The moon is high when the glade opens again, revealing a half-circle of figures gathered beneath the stone arch. Torches blaze. Incense chokes the air. The altar behind you is still wet. You feel the evidence of your making with every step—every sore muscle, every sticky pulse between your legs, every raw, stretched ache deep in your cunt. You never want it to fade.

They’ve set two figures before the fire. Bound. Kneeling. One is a commune member. A boy—no older than twenty—with pale lashes and a trembling jaw. He doesn't cry. He doesn't move. He stares straight ahead with wet, wide eyes.

The other is Caleb. Your Caleb. You know it’s him even though the chanting makes it hard to think. He’s gagged but his expression says everything—rage, disbelief, the kind of frantic betrayal that only men like him feel when they’ve lost control.

He tries to rise when he sees you. Fails. His hands are tied at the wrists and elbows behind his back, knees digging into the soil. His shirt is half-ripped, dirt smeared across his chest, and there’s blood dried along one side of his neck—from the last time Jimmy “charitied” him for speaking out of turn. He's still beautiful in the way a corpse is beautiful before it remembers it should rot.

You don't flinch when he looks at you. You don't turn away. Jimmy stops behind you. The firelight throws a long, jagged shadow across the clearing, stretching his form over the ground like a broken angel. His tracksuit hangs open at the chest, still streaked with sweat, having gotten redressed after the consummation. His rings catch the light. His crown is tilted slightly back on his head, curls haloing his face like something Biblical.

The Jimmys emerge behind him—seven masked silhouettes, including Jimmima. Silent. You feel them watching. Waiting.

Only Sir Jimmy speaks.

He lets the silence stretch. Lets Caleb shake. Then raises his arms like wings and speaks in that unholy cadence—the one that splits the air open and makes your knees weak.

“The altar's been made fertile,” he begins. “The seed's been sown. The future's promised.”

Your breath catches. The crowd bows. Jimmy doesn’t look at them. He looks only at you. “But the Devil’s son cannae rise on inheritance alone. The soil’s got tae be fed. The past stripped clean. The vessel unburdened.”

He walks toward the two kneeling men. You don't follow. You stand naked before them, thighs sticky with his cum, pulse hammering beneath your skin like something desperate to escape. But you don't speak. You listen.

“Every mother’s got tae make a choice. Every womb’s got tae choose what it’ll carry.” He smiles now—slow, sharp, and terrible. “One’ll feed the flame. The other’ll watch the dawn.”

He stops just behind the two figures. “On yer left…” he purrs, and gestures to the commune boy, who doesn't flinch. “One of us. Born tae serve. Raised tae kneel. A willin’ offerin’. On yer right…”

He turns to Caleb. A low, amused scoff escapes his mouth. “This one…” he hums, crouching down to grab a handful of Caleb’s hair and jerk his head up, “this one was yer burden. Yer cage. Yer rot.”

You feel your stomach turn. Caleb snarls behind the gag, straining against Jimmy’s grip, but it’s useless. Jimmy leans in.

“Did ye ever tell her,” Jimmy hisses, dragging Caleb’s face up by the jaw, “how ye begged her tae stay when she tried tae leave? How ye called her a fuckin’ whore when she cried after? How ye only touched her when she was too scared tae say no?”

Gasps ripple through the crowd. Jimmy smiles wider. “She screamed for me,” he says, eyes never leaving Caleb’s. “She bled for me. Came so hard on my cock it soaked the altar. And I’ll fuck her raw every night ‘til I’ve pumped her so full o’ seed the whole commune’ll hear it slosh—‘til I’ve filled her wi’ the heir o’ the Devil’s very own son.”

He lets go. Caleb slumps. You’re trembling—not from fear. From the weight of it. From the finality.

Jimmy turns back to you. “You must choose,” he says simply. “The sacrificial angel—or the loyal lamb.”

The crowd chants in rhythm behind you, soft and slow.

Choose. Choose. Choose. Choose.

You look at Caleb. Then the boy. Then Jimmy. Your mouth opens. The word sticks for a moment—lodged between ribs, caught behind tongue—and then slips free, barely audible over the drumbeat of your pulse.

“Caleb.”

The crowd doesn’t cheer. They exhale. A long, solemn release. A confirmation of what they already knew.

You’re still shaking.

Jimmy bows his head. “Thy will be done.” You're taken by the arms—gently, carefully—and led back to the temple’s edge while the Jimmys advance on Caleb. The one in silver removes something from his jacket.

Ropes. Hooks. Something glinting.

They move in perfect unison. The commune boy bows his head in relief. He's spared. Caleb isn’t so lucky. You don't blink as the Jimmys close in.

Caleb flinches. It’s instinct, not bravery—his body jerking backward as if his bones still believe in the possibility of flight. But there’s nowhere to run. The earth holds him down like judgment. His knees sink deeper into the soil as the first masked figure steps forward, face obscured by bleached hair and a stitched together mask repurposed from a suede green adidas trainer. The others move with him, silent and sure, a phalanx of ritual precision. Their feet disturb nothing. Even the fire seems to bow away from them.

Only Jimmy stands apart. Unmasked. Crowned. Watching. You feel the wind shift behind you as the Bone Temple’s great torches are extinguished one by one, leaving only the central pyre to cast light over the clearing. Shadows rise like spirits along the stone arch. The carved wings etched into the altar behind Caleb seem to flicker and pulse, as if something ancient is waking beneath the rock.

You don't weep. You burn. You're still bare. Still sticky. Still ruined in the most holy of ways. The red cord around your hips has loosened, fallen low against your thighs, soaked with sweat and something more. Your knees tremble with every breath, but you don't fall. You stand because Jimmy told you to stand. And you listen now. You obey.

The commune sings something low and wordless. A sound without melody. A thrum that builds in your sternum like dread—or rapture. The boy you spared has been led away, shoulders trembling in what may be relief or guilt or both. He'll never forget your face.

But all your focus is on Caleb.

They strip him fast. Ritual fast. Hands move in tandem. Fabric is cut, not unbuttoned. The gag is torn from his mouth but no words come out, only the sound of his breath—ragged, snarling, afraid. His chest rises and falls in panicked bursts. His wrists remain bound, elbows locked behind him. When they force him to kneel taller, arms tugged unnaturally backward to open up the rib cage, he starts to scream.

Jimmy raises a single hand. And the screaming stops. The Jimmys obey. Everyone obeys. The sound dies like it was snuffed out by the Devil himself.

You watch. Your toes curl into the dirt as Jimmy steps forward at last. Not with the grace of the commune, but with something else—something feral. Something purposeful. His tracksuit clings to his chest, streaked with sweat and blood and soil. He isn't cloaked like the others. He doesn't hide. His crown glints where it sits just askew atop his curls, and the inverted cross on his chest gleams like a dagger between his pectorals.

He flexes his hands as he approaches. The rings crack. They aren't just decorative. You’ve known that for some time now. They're weighty, thick, shaped to hurt. Bone and silver, gold and teeth. He wears one shaped like an angel’s wing. Another like a flame. And another—your favorite—bears the sharp-toothed grin of something not quite human.

He doesn't speak at first. He kneels beside Caleb, who's shaking now. The dirt on his skin has mixed with blood, and he won’t stop jerking—head, shoulders, wrists, breath. Until Jimmy grabs him by the jaw.

The communion begins.

Jimmy doesn't rush it. That's the worst part. He stays crouched in front of Caleb, one hand still cupping his jaw, thumb pressing into the hinge hard enough to make his teeth click. He forces Caleb’s face upward until their eyes lock—until there's nowhere left to look but at the man who is about to unmake him.

“Ye see her?” Jimmy asks quietly.

Caleb’s eyes flick to you despite himself. You don't move. You don't look away. You stand naked and crowned and slick, red cord hanging low at your hips, Jimmy’s work still warm between your thighs. You aren't shaking anymore. Whatever fear once lived in your body has been burned out and replaced with something else—something steadier. Something chosen.

Jimmy hums in approval. “That’s good,” he says. “Ye should look. Angels are made with witnesses.”

He releases Caleb’s jaw. Then he stands. The air shifts with him—pressure dropping, lungs tightening. The commune leans forward as one. You feel it ripple through the clearing like a held breath. Jimmy rolls his shoulders once. Twice. The rings catch the firelight as he flexes his hands again, testing weight, alignment. He steps back just enough to give himself room.

Caleb opens his mouth.

Jimmy hits him before the scream can form.

The sound is wet and catastrophic—bone on metal, flesh giving way beneath force meant to break. Caleb’s head snaps sideways, spit and blood spraying into the dirt. He collapses forward, barely held upright by the bindings wrenching his arms behind him. Jimmy doesn’t stop. He never stops.

The second blow lands lower—ribs—a brutal, arcing swing that caves breath out of Caleb’s chest in a choking wheeze. You hear something crack. Maybe more than one thing. The sound echoes against the stone arch like applause.

Jimmy steps in close.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Each strike is deliberate. Measured. Not frenzy—ceremony. He alternates hands, rings blooming red, knuckles already slick. Caleb sobs now, the sound raw and involuntary, leaking out of him like something he can’t hold in anymore.

Jimmy grabs him by the hair again and yanks his head back. “For the record,” he says conversationally, “this is what us hippies call Charity."

Another punch—straight to the mouth. Teeth clack. Blood pours freely now, dark and fast. “Ye think Charity is soft,” Jimmy continues, voice calm as a priest’s. "Folk always do. They confuse it wi’ mercy. But Charity’s no about sparin’ pain.”

He strikes again. “And it's no about forgiveness.” Again. “It’s about release.”

Caleb’s body sags, muscles failing, knees digging ruts into the soil. His face is already swelling, features losing shape beneath Jimmy’s hands. His breathing has gone thin and hitching, each inhale a gamble.

Jimmy pauses. Just long enough for hope to try to crawl back in. He crouches again, bringing his face level with Caleb’s ruined one, rings dripping. He brushes a thumb beneath Caleb’s eye, smearing blood across his cheekbone like war paint.

“This is where ye let go,” Jimmy murmurs. “This is where ye stop clingin’ tae the lie that ye ever mattered.”

Caleb tries to shake his head. Jimmy straightens. And brings both fists down together. The sound this time is different—deeper, uglier. Something structural gives. Caleb screams at last, the noise ripped straight from his spine, sharp enough to make the commune shudder as one.

You feel it between your legs.

A dark, shameful throb. Jimmy exhales slowly, satisfied. He steps back and nods once.

The Jimmys move in. They don't touch Caleb, not yet. Not with blades. Not with hooks. They only hold him—forcing him upright, spreading his posture wider, pulling his shoulders back until his chest is thrust forward unnaturally, ribs flared and exposed.

Jimmy circles them. Circles him. “Ye see,” Jimmy begins, addressing the crowd now, voice carrying, “The body’s got tae be taught before it’s opened. Pain loosens what pride keeps tight.”

He stops directly in front of you. Looks at you. His rings, his hands, are red to the wrist. “Ye understand,” he says softly.

It isn't a question.

You nod. Jimmy smiles. And turns back to Caleb.

“Good,” he says. ““Then we can get tae work.”

One of the Jimmys steps forward, producing a length of cord—thicker than rope, dark with age. Another produces iron hooks, dull and cruel, clinking softly as they’re laid out beside the fire. The smell of blood has gone copper-thick in the air. Caleb is barely conscious now. His head lolls. His breath rattles. His body has been reduced to something pliable. Something ready.

Jimmy kneels once more and presses his forehead briefly to Caleb’s—a mockery of intimacy.

“Be grateful,” he whispers. “No everyone gets tae become an angel.”

He stands. And nods. The first hook sings when it leaves the fire. It’s not sharp—not in the way knives are sharp. It’s blunt at the curve, heavy, designed to pull rather than pierce. When the masked Jimmy holding it steps forward, the iron hums with heat and old use. You smell it before it touches flesh—scorched metal, blood memory, something ancient.

Caleb makes a sound. Not a word. Not a scream. Just a broken animal noise dragged out of a throat that no longer knows how to form language.

Two Jimmys brace him from either side. They force his chest forward, wrenching his shoulders back until his spine bows and his ribs strain beneath skin already mottled purple and red. Jimmima steps behind him and lifts his chin again—not gently. Fingers dig into bruised flesh, nails pressing hard enough to leave crescent moons.

Jimmy watches, standing just to the side, hands clasped loosely behind his back, crown gleaming, tracksuit darkened with sweat. He looks pious now. Focused. Like a man about to conduct an orchestra.

“Charity,” he says, voice steady, carrying. “It’s the act o’ openin’ what’s been shut. It’s the removin’ o’ burden.”

The hook presses to Caleb’s back. Right between the shoulder blades.

Caleb thrashes. The Jimmys don't let him move. The hook goes in.

There's resistance at first—skin stretching, refusing—and then a wet, tearing give as it breaks through. Blood wells instantly, slick and hot, spilling over the curve of the iron and down Caleb’s spine in rivulets. Caleb screams. This time it doesn’t stop. The sound claws its way out of him, raw and hoarse, echoing off the stones and trees until it feels like the forest itself is screaming back. His body convulses violently, muscles locking and unlocking in panicked bursts.

Jimmy lifts a hand. The screaming continues. He allows it.

“Ye feel that?” Jimmy asks calmly, stepping closer, crouching so his face is level with Caleb’s twisted one. “That’s the moment pride slips out the body.”

Another hook. The second Jimmy steps in from the other side, mirroring the placement. The hook sinks into flesh just below the opposite shoulder blade, tearing through skin and muscle with a sound like fabric ripping apart. Caleb’s scream fractures into sobs. Blood pours freely now, soaking his lower back, splattering the dirt beneath him. The earth drinks greedily.

You smell iron. Smoke. Something sweet and wrong. Your thighs tense. Your belly tightens.

Jimmy stands. "Hooks arenae punishment,” he says, addressing the crowd as the Jimmys begin to pull—slowly, carefully—testing tension. “They’re invitations. They ask the body tae let go.”

The pull begins. Caleb arches involuntarily as the hooks are drawn back, stretching the skin between them until it shines. His spine bows, ribs flaring grotesquely. You hear wet tearing as muscle fibers give way under strain. He sobs. Chokes. Begins to plead.

Jimmy ignores the words.

“They always beg here,” he continues, voice smooth. “They mix up fear wi’ repentance.”

The Jimmys pull harder. Skin splits further. A deep, ragged line opens down Caleb’s back, blood spilling in sheets now, steaming in the cool night air. You can see muscle beneath—red and striated, shuddering with each tortured breath. Caleb’s head lolls back.

Jimmy steps in close and grips his jaw again, forcing eye contact. “Stay wi' me,” Jimmy murmurs. “Angels donnae look away.”

The Jimmys reposition the hooks, anchoring them higher now, pulling outward and upward. The sound that comes from Caleb’s body is indescribable—a tearing, sucking noise as flesh separates from bone.

His back begins to open.

Not cleanly. Nothing about this is clean. Skin peels back in uneven flaps, muscle ripping free in wet strands. Blood sprays with each movement, splattering the masked faces of the Jimmys, dotting Jimmy’s chest, streaking across your calves where you stand.

Jimmy steps back and raises both hands. “Behold,” he intones, voice ringing, “The body, given over. The burden, unfastened.”

The Jimmys pull.

Hard.

The skin tears fully now, splitting from spine outward, exposing ribs slick with blood. White gleams through red. The back is no longer a back—it's something opened, something transformed into an offering. Caleb’s scream breaks mid-note. His body jerks violently once. Twice. Then dissolves into shuddering, gasping inhales that barely move air.

Jimmy watches his face. Watches his eyes. “They always go quiet here,” he says softly. “That’s when the soul starts tae listen.”

One of the Jimmys steps forward with a blade. Not sharp. Wide. Heavy. Designed to separate.

Jimmy takes it from him. He tests the heft once. Then presses the edge to Caleb’s ribs.

Caleb convulses. Jimmy leans in close, mouth near Caleb’s ear. “This is Charity,” he whispers. “An' ye're about tae be set free.”

The blade goes in.

The first crack sounds like a branch breaking underfoot. Jimmy’s blade presses into the curve of Caleb’s rib, just below the spine. He uses the flat of his palm to drive it deeper—not sawing, not slicing, just separating, forcing space where there's none. The bone gives reluctantly, audibly, a deep groan followed by the sharp pop of a joint unseating. Caleb spasms. He’s long past words now. His throat only produces noise—ragged, strangled, punctuated by breathless hiccups of pain. His face is a mask of blood and snot, his eyes blown wide and unfocused. His skin gleams slick in the firelight, every inch of him trembling.

Jimmy shifts position, working the blade beneath the next rib. “Ye know,” he says calmly, conversational, “The first angel was made when Cain struck Abel. That’s when the world split. One soul made holy. One made whole.”

He twists the blade. Another crack. Another rib separates. Caleb jerks like a puppet with cut strings. The Jimmys hold him steady, murmuring low chants you barely hear—something guttural, syllables from a language that may have never existed outside this place. Blood spills over their hands, coats the hooks, drips in steady rhythm into the dirt.

Jimmy continues. Patient. Steady. Methodical. Rib by rib, he opens Caleb’s back like a cabinet, like a book, like a confession. Each break is brutal—some needing extra leverage, others snapping easier than they should. The lungs begin to show beneath the shattered cage, pale and twitching.

You can’t look away. You’re breathing hard now, chest tight, thighs clenching instinctively with each new fracture. Blood has begun to pool around Caleb’s knees. His heart is still beating. You can see it—fluttering erratically beneath torn muscle and split flesh.

Jimmy wipes sweat from his brow with the back of one bloodied hand. Then reaches in. No gloves. No hesitation. He slides his fingers beneath the lungs like a butcher. Careful. Glorifying. And begins to lift.

The lungs come up slowly, squelching and slick. They glisten like raw meat, still pulsing weakly, still trying to pull air despite the ruin around them. Blood spills in thick ropes over Jimmy’s wrists. He sets them gently—deliberately—atop the spread ribs, arranging them like wings.

The clearing goes still. Dead still. Even the fire seems to hold its breath. You feel it first in your spine—a crawling, cold sensation that prickles every nerve. Then in your chest—a thud, a skip, a stillness.

Then Jimmy speaks.

“This,” he says, standing behind Caleb’s mangled body, hands soaked, crown shining, spreading his own arms wide, “is the makin' o' angels.”

Behind him, Caleb’s broken body mimics the gesture—chest torn open, ribs flared, lungs splayed. A grotesque mirror. An angelic silhouette. The crowd begins to chant again. Not choose this time. Something else. Said with familiarity. History.

“He flies. He flies. He flies.”

You’re shaking. Not in fear. In awe. In heat. In understanding.

Jimmy steps away from the corpse. It no longer resembles Caleb. It no longer resembles a man.

It resembles a sacrifice.

You feel your pulse in your fingertips. In your throat. Between your legs. Your womb clenches, as if stirred by the ritual itself. As if something inside you heard the call and answered.

Jimmy turns to you. He's soaked. Gleaming. Beatific in the most horrifying way. And he smiles. Not the predator’s grin. Not the smug curl. But something holy.

He walks toward you slowly. You don't move. When he reaches you, he lifts one hand and cups your jaw. His thumb traces your cheekbone, leaving a streak of Caleb’s blood across your skin like a benediction. Then he lowers his hand and places it on your belly. Right over your womb.

“Now,” he says, voice like thunder behind silk, “we rise.”

You exhale.

The wings are spread. The angel is made. And so are you.

But the altar doesn't cool. Even long after the ritual ends, even after Caleb’s lungs cease their twitching and the chanting has faded into dogmatic hums, the air remains heavy and hot—thick with blood and breath and something older, something coiled in the belly of the land.

You stand in it.

Jimmy’s hand hasn't left your womb. The crown tilts gently on his curls. Blood paints him to the elbows. His chest rises and falls with steady rhythm, and there's something in his eyes now—not possession, not hunger, but certainty.

The angel's been made.

Now it’s time to name the mother.

A Jimmy steps forward, masked in a stitched blue suede and an orange and purple tracksuit. She holds something wrapped in crimson cloth. She doesn't speak. None of them do. Not now. Not during this part. Sir Jimmy takes the bundle from the Jimmy’s hands and peels the cloth away with slow, careful fingers.

Inside is a crown. Not of flowers this time. This one is wilder. Twisted from vine and ashwood. Adorned with small bone—finger bones, bird bones, delicate spines—all bleached white and woven into the shape of petals. Wildflowers are threaded between them, wilting slightly from the heat, still fragrant. The scent of lavender and blood.

He lifts it in both hands and turns back to you. His voice, when he speaks, carries through the glade like a wind through hollow places:

“She chose.”

The commune murmurs in response. Kneeling figures bow their heads as one. Some touch their foreheads to the earth. Others sway where they sit, hands pressed to their hearts or their bellies or the stone.

“She bled. She bloomed. She believed.”

Jimmy steps close again, bare feet silent in the dirt. The crown in his hands is sacred, trembling slightly with the weight of it. Or perhaps with the weight of you. “She was made sacred by pain. Chosen in flame. Bound in blood.”

He sets the crown upon your head. “And now she is Mother o' the Future.”

The commune rises. All of them—hundreds, maybe more—their bodies a sea of movement, their voices one seamless wave:

“Mother. Mother. Mother.”

Your breath catches. The bones press cold into your scalp. The flowers are still damp from the cloth. You smell death and soil and sweetness. You feel Jimmy’s hands on either side of your face, cradling your jaw like something fragile, like something holy.

He presses his forehead to yours.

And then, for the first time, he kneels. Before you. Head bowed. Arms lifted like wings.

The commune follows. Every Jimmy. Every member. Every voice. All of them on their knees, heads bowed before the woman made altar.

You aren't trembling. You're burning. You're the flame that doesn’t consume.

You're held in bloom.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

The celebration begins slowly. Not with drums or dancing. With feasting. Communal plates are passed. Sweet mead. Fresh bread. Roasted root vegetables, honeyed fruit, wild things turned tender over fire. It isn't raucous. It isn't loud. There's laughter, yes—soft, stunned, grateful—but the tone remains worshipful.

Children bring you water. Women braid your hair. Men weep openly at your feet. You're touched, but not inappropriately. Not lustfully. You're untouchable now. You're theirs, yes—but not to claim. You're the mother of what comes next. And nothing is more sacred.

You don’t remember sitting down, but you're seated beside Jimmy now, on a stone shaped like a throne. He drinks from your cup and places it back in your hand. He tears bread for you and presses it gently to your lips.

You eat. You swallow. You're fed.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

The body is gone by morning.

Caleb, that is.

The angel he became isn't. His wings remain. Not the lungs—they would decay too fast. But the ribs, the bones—they're charred, cleaned, bleached, rearranged. By the time the sun rises, they’ve been reshaped into a new arch beside the altar.

The commune calls it The First Flight.

You don't speak of him. Not anymore. There's no need.

Later—days, maybe, or moons—the sickness comes. Not a bad sickness. Not the way your mother meant it when she used to spit the word in warning. No. This is the sickness of becoming. Of quickening.

The scent of the fire no longer clings to your skin. It emanates from within. Your hips ache. Your chest tightens. Your stomach curls around something new.

Jimmy knows before you do. He touches your belly with both hands, presses his lips there like prayer. When you tell him you’ve missed your bleeding, he only smiles.

“I know.”

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

It isn't a goodbye. There is no leaving.

You forget the sound of traffic. You forget the shape of your apartment key. Your phone is buried in the woods somewhere, split in half, its battery drained.

Your name is no longer yours. You're only Mother now. Some days, Jimmy calls you Wife. Other days, Sacrament. Once, when you were naked in the river and he watched you with that smile he only wears in twilight, he whispered, “My cathedral.”

You felt it bloom then—that heat. That seed. That legacy.

You're never alone anymore. Not even in your sleep. Not even in your blood. He's with you. And inside you. And around you.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

They ask what you'll name the child.

You don't answer. You don’t have to. She already has a name.

You feel it like a heartbeat.

And when the time comes to give birth—beneath a harvest moon, the commune circled close, Jimmy holding your hand with blood still on his knuckles—you scream not in pain, but in purpose.

And when you're crowned once more, it isn't with bone or flower.

It's with the halo of her cry.

And Jimmy, kneeling before you, says:

As soon as the front door closes, he backs you up against it, his fingers already up your skirt and pulling down your tights and underwear as you unbutton his shirt.

You catch sight of the staircase and something in your brain clicks.

You remember seeing it in Ava’s baby photos.

This isn’t just a weekend away. Not just any Airbnb. This is the house he used to live in with his ex-wife.

You push him off of you and start to pull your outfit back in place.

“What?” He braces his arms on the door, one on either side of you. He’s still so close his beard brushes your face.

“I recognize this house from the pictures of Ava in your living room. I know we’re not romantic about how we fuck, but this is really messed up.”

He sighs impatiently, slides one of his hands around your waist to stop you from picking up your bag and leaving. “What difference does it make to you? You don’t have to do anything. Well, you have to do one thing. But I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

He rubs his nose along your face. The cold frames of his glasses hit your cheeks.

“I said no, Jonathan,” you say stubbornly. “Even I have limits.”

“No, you fucking don’t and we both know it.” He says it calmly, very matter-of-fact. Which is irritating because you know he’s right. Yes, you have hard limits, but Jonathan Levy never gets anywhere near them. Deep down, he doesn’t want to hurt or be hurt.

His eyes are almost black as they bore into yours.

You lean back against the door. “I don’t think I can sleep here.”

Jonathan’s body pushes hard against yours. “I wasn’t going to let you sleep anyway.”

“Jonathan,” you warn him.

“What? We get rough all the time,” he says sucking hard on the skin of your neck, his beard scraping your skin. “You let me do whatever I want to your body.”

He presses his forehead against yours and takes a breath.

“Do you want to stop?” he asks. His hands relax around you.

You get the feeling he means more than just the way he’s trying to devour you in the foyer.

The last couple of times you’d hooked up, more of your actual lives had bled into the night. You’d talked about your days before jumping into bed. When he’d asked you not to spend the night because of Ava coming home early in the morning, you’d seen a flash of guilt in his eyes.

He’d wanted you to stay. And if he’d asked, you might’ve said yes.

But there’s no future with Jonathan Levy. Not for you.

He’s built for it, yes. He has father and husband written all over him. Some other woman, someday soon, will get those things.

You get what’s left.

His desperation. His need. His dominance.

And this.

He has to know there’s no healing in this house.

You can’t deny him the chance to make good memories, though, not after the glimpses of his old life that you’d gotten.

One where he and his ex-wife had thought they were happy. In hindsight, they’d been trapped.

You like that Jonathan feels comfortable enough to show you a different side of himself. To lean into his sexual instincts. Be free.

You kiss him, try not to make it sweet. He hums against your mouth and kisses you back, both of you melting against each other.

He’s smiling when he pulls away.

“Come on,” he says, taking your hand.

He walks around the ground level of the house. You take it all in quietly as he holds your hand tightly.

“They changed things,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m surprised by that. Maybe the realtor told them the place had bad energy from the previous occupants.”

“Maybe bad feng shui tanked your marriage.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Mental feng shui maybe.”

You stand in the dining room, Jonathan’s eyes darting around at the space. Like he’s mentally overlaying the old house with the new one.

He lingers in the kitchen, running his fingers over the stove and countertops.

“Ava ate her first solid food here,” he says with a smile, his hand in the sink. “She went through this phase where she wouldn’t sit in her high chair so I used to plop her down in the sink instead to feed her.”

Jonathan smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The look fades quickly.

“This is where Mira told me she didn’t want to sign our divorce papers because she wanted to get back together,” he says, a hard edge in his voice. “I was delusional for thinking she’d ever let me go. Nothing’s ever clean with her.”

He doesn’t look sad or angry. His dark eyes are, honestly, a little lost.

You’ve never met her, but you don’t have to. You hate her.

Not that Jonathan’s perfect. He’s flawed in ways that shock you sometimes. He assumes you agree with him without asking you. For awhile he was unbearable because he’d been in therapy and couldn’t stop talking about it. He’d rather have petty arguments with his mother than set boundaries.

But for all his flaws, the one thing you admire about Jonathan is that he’s willing to learn. To try and be better.

Like with sex.

The first time you’d slept with Jonathan, it was… good.

It was fine.

Okay. It wasn’t fine.

It was bad.

He’d laid on top you and pushed himself in and out as if that was all there was to sex. Sure, he’d kissed your neck and played with your nipples. You could tell he was horny, that he wanted you, but there was no passion in it.

But the way he’d come onto you when you’d met, it had to be there somewhere. You were sure of it.

So, you’d teased it out of him. Shown him how to like sex, how to be more active.

You’d kissed him, sucking on his lips. You’d wrapped one of your legs higher on his back, so you could take him deeper. One of your hands had found his balls, gently played with them, then his nipples, then grabbing onto his ass to pull him toward you.

The second you’d started dirty talking to him, he came so hard, he’d almost cracked your headboard holding onto it.

Neither of you had looked back.

You’d started hooking up at least once a week, for months now.

Jonathan had taken to dirty sex like, well, like it was the kind of sex he should’ve been having all along.

He said he was always afraid to touch Mira. She’d get a look on her face like she didn’t want his hands on her. That he’d always waited for her to tell him what to do in bed because she got impatient. Then she’d complain he didn’t initiate things.

And even though you usually take more of a dominant role in sex, with Jonathan, it felt good to do the opposite. To feel him let his sexuality off the leash. To let it wash over you.

Once he’d given himself permission to try things, his sex drive matched yours. Which, honestly, was almost impossible to find in a man.

Yes, he was hard on you sometimes, in bed and out of it. But he never degraded you about any of it. As if accepting you had made him learn to accept himself.

It’s why you don’t want to let him go.

Something about being in his old house, though, feels like a natural ending.

You’d thought for awhile now that you should break it off with him. Let him find some nice woman to settle down with. And you can be someone else’s sexual menace.

You try not to think about how sad that makes you.

By the time you and Jonathan circle back to the staircase, you can almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

You reach over and slap his ass. “So, where do you want to-“

“The bedroom,” he says immediately. “Upstairs. That’ll be the most difficult one.”

“It’s not a test, Jonathan.”

He pulls you across the room and toward the stairs. “For you it isn’t.” His hand wanders down your back and cups you, through your skirt, the tips of his fingers finding you with practiced ease.

Your breath catches. Your gaze flicks to the front door.

Get out while you still can.

You let Jonathan lead you upstairs.

*****

He brought the restraints.

“You or me?” you ask.

“You.” He finishes taking them out of his bag, pushing a hand through the mess of black and gray curls. “Please.”

You poke around a little bit. The owners did a good job of clearing their personal effects out of the room, locking them in the closet. You kick the welcome binder under the bed, unread, then get a half a glass of water from the bathroom, do a little bit of stretching. You undress in the bathroom and leave your clothes in a neat pile on the counter.

Jonathan’s finished hooking the cuffs up to the bed frame when you re-enter. He gives your naked body a long, hungry look. He’s in a black t-shirt and soft pants.

You can always tell the kind of mood Jonathan’s in by his clothes. His cardigans and flannels are for comfy, happy times. His suits make him feel secure and confident. His all-black outfits are for his darker moods.

“Can I use this tonight?” Jonathan takes a short, braided leather whip out of his bag. “I won’t gag you, so you can tell me Red anytime.”

The whip is something you’d brought into sex. Usually he prefers to be the one getting whipped, but tonight isn’t like most nights.

“Sure.” You get on the bed.

You lay out spread-eagle and face down. Jonathan starts to cuff your left wrist, but he hesitates. Instead, his hand lays on your head instead. He bends down and kisses you.

There’s a shadow in his brown eyes. You’re not sure anymore that this is entirely about his ex.

“Jonathan,” you start to say, but he shakes his head.

“Just because I’m not gagging you, doesn’t mean you can speak.” He goes back to securing you to the bed and you go silent.

When you’d started introducing Jonathan to this kind of play, you’d told him the reasons didn’t matter, as long as they weren’t mean-spirited. That was important to you. Wanting to hurt and cause pain was okay, as long as it was ultimately about pleasure.

Jonathan’s not cruel, but you know he could be, if he wanted to. The cycle he’s in with his ex-wife certainly is.

Maybe that’s why you have to break things off with him. You don’t mind fucked up sex. But you don’t fuck with negative feelings. You don’t want to be heartbroken. That’s the kind of pain you wouldn’t recover from.

Jonathan stays dressed, and he starts slowly. Just rubbing his hands up and down your body. Almost like a massage. Your body warms, trembles. He squeezes your ass, but doesn’t touch you where you need him to.

The light flick of the whip is like a kiss. Doesn’t even leave a mark.

At first.

But the first real crack on your skin makes you grip the restraints. Your muscles go taut.

Jonathan gives you a second, but doesn’t comfort you yet.

He keeps going. Two. Three. Four. Five.

A little harder than he’s ever done before. You grit your teeth, knowing you should relax your muscles, but you can’t make your body comply.

It hurts. Not enough to tell him to stop, but almost there.

You’re more than warmed up when he lightly strokes your back, all the way down to between your legs. He sits on the bed, just playing with you.

Your skin still stings. You can feel the welts already forming.

He rolls his fingers over your clit, coaxing you to get wetter. He slides his fingers through, just barely pushing inside before he pulls away, bringing his fingers to your lips. He shoves his fingers in your mouth and you suck on them.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he asks.

“Yes,” you moan around his fingers.

He pulls back and gets off the bed. “No.”

The whip cracks down on your back. Jonathan pauses, giving you space to say the word.

You don’t. It feels so good, you don’t want to stop. You love that he’d been a faster learner about all of this.

It’s torture, though, that your legs are too spread for you to rub your thighs together. That he wets the tip of the whip in your cunt before he slowly, steadily, whips up and down your back. He spreads out the pain, like you’d taught him. But the neat up-and-down of it is very Jonathan.

You’re both out of breath when he stops again. You’re on the verge of needing him to slow down.

Jonathan’s so good at reading you, he already knows. He makes sure your eyes are open and watching as he tosses the whip aside.

Part of you wishes you weren’t so perfectly in sync in with each other. Excited to try new things, or just have vanilla sex. It all should’ve burned itself out by now. The thrill should be gone.

You knew you’d have feelings, but whatever’s tickling at the gates of your heart? It’s a no-go, especially with Jonathan.

“Do you need me to free you?” he asks as he takes his black t-shirt off, the muscles of his biceps and shoulders stretching and drawing your gaze.

“No,” you say. “I’m good.”

“Yes, you certainly were,” Jonathan smiles. He knows you love it when he praises you.

He undoes he pants and gets undressed the rest of the way. His divorce made him thin out, from stress. He’s started to fill out a little bit again, around his hips and stomach. He looks more comfortable this way.

Jonathan undoes just your ankles, briefly rubbing them before guiding your legs to bend up under you, so you can lift your hips a little for him. He leaves your arms, though.

He smacks both of your ass cheeks with his right hand in turn. Jonathan massages away the sting right away.

You hold onto the rope of the restraints, bracing yourself as Jonathan lines up his cock and slowly pushes in with a groan.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he says, all the way in to the base.

He pulls your hips so he’s as deep as he can possibly go and you inhale sharply through your nose. He doesn’t have the longest cock you’ve ever had, but he’s thick. The soft and hard of him makes you feel like you’re in heat. You need him more than should be possible. It takes a second for you body to stretch to his girth and waiting makes you itchy, even though he’s doing it for your benefit.

You push back on him and he hits your ass again.

“No,” he says firmly.

Your cunt trembles around him. It’s impossible for you not to squeeze him. The way he fills you feels so good.

“Jonathan,” you moan in frustration.

He pulls out of you swiftly, just to torture you.

“Look back at me,” he says.

You try to pull yourself together before you turn your head. God, you want him so much.

His curly hair is falling forward onto his face. He pushes up his glasses. He keeps them on sometimes, so he can see you clearly. Not just for the subtle signals that he needs to slow down or stop, but just because he likes to see you wince, how your lips shake, how your hands tighten around the sheets.

He’s still knelt behind you and you can’t see his lower body. You can hear that his hand is working his cock, though.

“Beg for it,” he says.

You have to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to fuck off.

Then again, that’s the point of isn’t it? To do what he wants, what he needs, because ultimately, he’s making it all that much better for you in the end. That’s the part of this that Jonathan had innately understood.

He’s the one in control, but you’re the one who feels more pleasure from it.

“Please fuck me.” Even to your ears, you sound breathless and desperate.

“Not good enough,” Jonathan says quietly, his face serious and dark.

His hand curls around your thigh. His warm palm strokes up and down. His fingers are light. It makes you shiver.

“Please, I’m begging you.” Your neck is tired so you let your head drop back down. Your forehead rests against the mattress. “I need you so much.”

Jonathan runs his hand over the curve of your ass and up your spine. A thin bead of moisture runs down your inner thigh. You’re going to scream. You’re going to lose it.

“Tell me exactly what you want from me,” he says, the steadiness in his voice grounding you again.

The room is quiet, just the sound of your shaky breath.

“I want you to put your cock in me. I want you to fuck me until I can’t think or talk.” Your voice rises slightly as it all pours out of you. “I want you to wreck me and come in me. Please, please fill me up.” You whimper quietly. “Please, Jonathan.”

He pushes back inside and you let out a whimper, your entire body tenses and shudders.

Jonathan kisses your spine, the back of your shoulders. His hands rest on your hips, like he knows your body is weak and desperate. And it feels just as good as you need it to. Slow at first, gradually building faster and harder. His thick fingers dig into your skin as he fucks you, the sound of it filling the room. Not that you can hear it because you’re moaning into the bed, letting him set the pace, concentrating on how good every nerve ending in your body feels.

Jonathan’s hand slides down between your legs. You’re so wet his fingers slip away, but he finds his way to your clit, rubbing tight little circles as his beard and tongue and lips scrape against your back. He fucks into you deeper, all the way until he’s pushed against you over and over again, and you scream into the mattress, coming apart so hard your nails hurt from digging into the sheets. Your legs give out, but Jonathan keeps fucking you through it, laying prone on top of you. You turn your head, still moaning and shaking as Jonathan shudders. His body goes taut, as flush against you as he can be, molded against you as he comes.

You can tell he’s as tired as you are, but he drags his body up the bed to undo the restraints. He rubs your wrists, leaning back against the headboard with his eyes closed.

You just lie there for awhile, recovering. You roll on your back eventually, staring up at the ceiling.

To your surprise, Jonathan pulls you into his arms. Half-way kind of, just leaned against him in bed.

“You’re not going to shower?” you ask. Your heartbeat starts to slow as you hear Jonathan’s do the same.

“In a bit.” He plants a kiss on your head, then his bearded cheek rests there. “You’re breaking things off with me, aren’t you?”

His words are half-smushed and quiet. You want to tell him it’s not like that, not what he thinks. It is, though.

Jonathan sighs and says, “after my first marriage, I can tell when a woman’s pulling away from me.”

“It’s for the better,” you say, sitting up so you can talk to him face to face.

“Ah, for the better,” he says with breathy sarcasm.

“It is,” you insist. “You and I, we’re this.”

You lift the empty restraint and let it fall back on the bed.

Jonathan pushes it away so it falls off the side of the bed. “Just because you’re the one who brought me into all of this, doesn’t mean you know everything.”

That bossy tone shouldn’t be attractive, but on him, it is.

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t know how to incorporate all of this bedroom, kinky shit into everyday life. But, I can teach Ava that she has to knock on the bedroom door first. I can buy a dresser that locks so we can put our stuff away when we’re not using it. I think she’d like you, actually. Ava. I can see it in my head.”

You don’t know what shocks you more, that he’s thought about how to live with you, or that you’re actually considering it.

Jonathan’s big, brown eyes bore into yours. “Just so you know. I do, in fact, see the irony of bringing you to this house, just to tell you that I can’t lose you. It’s famously where I come to lose a woman I care about.”

You laugh, can’t help it. He has such a silly, self-aware grin. He pushes back his curly hair and rubs the side of his pointer finger over his lips.

“Going from just sex to… more, isn’t as easy as one conversation,” you say. “We haven’t even talked about not seeing other people.”

Jonathan’s gaze sharpens. He looks a little hurt. “You’re sleeping with other people?”

“No, you are.”

“What?” He pushes up his glasses.

“Your ex.”

“Oh my god,” he mutters with an exhausted laugh. His face is enough to tell you that he’s not lying. “Trust me. She gives me erectile dysfunction just by looking in my direction. We're not having sex.”

You lean back slightly so you can see him. Your body starts to cool and Jonathan helps you pull the blanket up to cover both of you while you talk.

“I believe you, but you see her for more than just handing off Ava,” you say.

He nods regretfully. “Yeah. I do. But if I tell you about it, I know what it looks like.”

“That’s not reassuring, but lay it on me anyway.”

He smiles loosely. “Honestly? She broke up with her boyfriend and for a few weeks now, she’s been hinting that if I wanted to, you know,” he gestures with his hand. “And no, I don’t. But it feels really good that she wants me, even though she can’t have me.”

You understand why he didn’t tell you. It does make him look like an asshole. You can’t blame him, though, for giving into that feeling of the person who rejected you, wanting you back again.

“I stay for a cup of coffee, or some excuse about Ava forgot a stuffie or book or something. I try not to be rude, but a few days ago I told her it has to stop.” His hand reaches for yours under the covers. He holds on tightly. His eyebrows furrow, that handsome serious look that makes your heart kick extra hard in your chest. “She’s the one who told me that our old house was a vacation rental now.”

“She wanted to come here with you? The balls on that woman.”

“I told her no. And it made me think about us. Made me realize talking to Mira is keeping me connected to her in an unconscious way. I don’t want that anymore. So, I brought you here instead.” He leans in closer to you, his beard almost touching your face. His fingers trace your cheekbone and ear, down the slop of your jaw and neck. “Was I too hard on you earlier? When we got here, or just now?”

You fight back a smile. “I’ve told you about some of the shit I’ve gotten up to. No, you weren’t too hard on me.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t mean physically. I know when it comes to sex, I couldn’t come up with anything that would shock you. I mean emotionally. I was kind of pissed when we got here tonight.”

“I can’t blame you for that. I was thinking tonight would be the last time for us, and I’m sure you sensed it.” Your grab his hand and curl your fingers around his. “This wasn’t supposed to be messy.”

“Oh, I never promised that,” Jonathan chuckles. “I knew almost immediately, the first time we had sex, I’d been fooling myself. Pretending I was letting my dick do all the thinking. I’m not that kind of man. I just thought you probably didn’t see yourself with a boring professor dad for the long term. So, I went along with the casual thing.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You sit up straighter. “You being a boring professor dad is literally the hottest thing about you.”

Jonathan looks skeptical. “So why're you so surprised I want this to be a real relationship?”

“I know you want a real relationship, Jonathan. I just didn’t think it would be with me,” you admit, knowing how pathetic is sounds.

His eyebrows raise in surprise. “You thought I only wanted you for sex? You think I’d do any of this tying up and impact stuff with someone I didn’t love?”

He lays a hand on his chest, his eyes closing. He looks uncomfortable, pained. It’s obvious he didn’t mean to say ‘love’ out loud, for you to hear.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You don’t have to apologize,” you say quickly. “Unless you don’t mean it.”

“I definitely mean it, that’s the problem,” he smiles softly, his heavy eyelids blinking open again. “I thought you’d be way to adventurous to settle for someone like me.”

“Settle? Jonathan, you wouldn’t be settling. Exactly the opposite. You’re so far out of my league it’s not even funny,” you almost sag against him. “You had a successful marriage, you’re a dad, you have a really solid career. The sex is the easy part.”

“Not to me,” he says, sounding more confident. “You know how to recognize emotions, how to identify them so fast. I tangle myself up in knots wondering if I’m irritated from something that happened yesterday, or I’m just dehydrated.”

Your fingers trace down his smooth sternum and stomach. It sounds too optimistic to say all of the weaknesses you both have are actually strengths. In a way, though, all your weaknesses line up. The kind of relationship where you could balance each other out.

“It wouldn’t be boring, that’s for sure,” you say after awhile.

You hear Jonathan’s breath catch.

“And really,” you keep thinking out loud, “I haven’t wanted to admit it, but we see a lot of each other. We talk a lot. You’re the first person I want to text whenever something interesting happens.”

“I want to do that too,” he says excitedly. “I made Ava this really nice dinner the other night and I got the urge to send you a photo. But then I didn’t want you think I was weird.”

“I love pictures of food,” you remind him.

“Well, next time, I’ll know it’s safe to send,” he laughs.

Those red flags you’d sensed when you got here tonight; you realize what they really were. Your heart telling you not to let this man go. Not to push him out of your life when all he wants is to be with you.

“And you’re staying the night at my house this week.” He pulls you closer in bed, his big feet rubbing against yours.

“Okay,” you agree. “Maybe we could cook dinner together.”

“I would love that,” he says.

It reminds both of you that he’d said he loved you before, accidentally. But, it feels better to not bring it up right away. He’ll say it again, when he’s ready. And you know already you’ll say it back.

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As soon as the front door closes, he backs you up against it, his fingers already up your skirt and pulling down your tights and underwear as you unbutton his shirt.

You catch sight of the staircase and something in your brain clicks.

You remember seeing it in Ava’s baby photos.

This isn’t just a weekend away. Not just any Airbnb. This is the house he used to live in with his ex-wife.

You push him off of you and start to pull your outfit back in place.

“What?” He braces his arms on the door, one on either side of you. He’s still so close his beard brushes your face.

“I recognize this house from the pictures of Ava in your living room. I know we’re not romantic about how we fuck, but this is really messed up.”

He sighs impatiently, slides one of his hands around your waist to stop you from picking up your bag and leaving. “What difference does it make to you? You don’t have to do anything. Well, you have to do one thing. But I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

He rubs his nose along your face. The cold frames of his glasses hit your cheeks.

“I said no, Jonathan,” you say stubbornly. “Even I have limits.”

“No, you fucking don’t and we both know it.” He says it calmly, very matter-of-fact. Which is irritating because you know he’s right. Yes, you have hard limits, but Jonathan Levy never gets anywhere near them. Deep down, he doesn’t want to hurt or be hurt.

His eyes are almost black as they bore into yours.

You lean back against the door. “I don’t think I can sleep here.”

Jonathan’s body pushes hard against yours. “I wasn’t going to let you sleep anyway.”

“Jonathan,” you warn him.

“What? We get rough all the time,” he says sucking hard on the skin of your neck, his beard scraping your skin. “You let me do whatever I want to your body.”

He presses his forehead against yours and takes a breath.

“Do you want to stop?” he asks. His hands relax around you.

You get the feeling he means more than just the way he’s trying to devour you in the foyer.

The last couple of times you’d hooked up, more of your actual lives had bled into the night. You’d talked about your days before jumping into bed. When he’d asked you not to spend the night because of Ava coming home early in the morning, you’d seen a flash of guilt in his eyes.

He’d wanted you to stay. And if he’d asked, you might’ve said yes.

But there’s no future with Jonathan Levy. Not for you.

He’s built for it, yes. He has father and husband written all over him. Some other woman, someday soon, will get those things.

You get what’s left.

His desperation. His need. His dominance.

And this.

He has to know there’s no healing in this house.

You can’t deny him the chance to make good memories, though, not after the glimpses of his old life that you’d gotten.

One where he and his ex-wife had thought they were happy. In hindsight, they’d been trapped.

You like that Jonathan feels comfortable enough to show you a different side of himself. To lean into his sexual instincts. Be free.

You kiss him, try not to make it sweet. He hums against your mouth and kisses you back, both of you melting against each other.

He’s smiling when he pulls away.

“Come on,” he says, taking your hand.

He walks around the ground level of the house. You take it all in quietly as he holds your hand tightly.

“They changed things,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m surprised by that. Maybe the realtor told them the place had bad energy from the previous occupants.”

“Maybe bad feng shui tanked your marriage.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Mental feng shui maybe.”

You stand in the dining room, Jonathan’s eyes darting around at the space. Like he’s mentally overlaying the old house with the new one.

He lingers in the kitchen, running his fingers over the stove and countertops.

“Ava ate her first solid food here,” he says with a smile, his hand in the sink. “She went through this phase where she wouldn’t sit in her high chair so I used to plop her down in the sink instead to feed her.”

Jonathan smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The look fades quickly.

“This is where Mira told me she didn’t want to sign our divorce papers because she wanted to get back together,” he says, a hard edge in his voice. “I was delusional for thinking she’d ever let me go. Nothing’s ever clean with her.”

He doesn’t look sad or angry. His dark eyes are, honestly, a little lost.

You’ve never met her, but you don’t have to. You hate her.

Not that Jonathan’s perfect. He’s flawed in ways that shock you sometimes. He assumes you agree with him without asking you. For awhile he was unbearable because he’d been in therapy and couldn’t stop talking about it. He’d rather have petty arguments with his mother than set boundaries.

But for all his flaws, the one thing you admire about Jonathan is that he’s willing to learn. To try and be better.

Like with sex.

The first time you’d slept with Jonathan, it was… good.

It was fine.

Okay. It wasn’t fine.

It was bad.

He’d laid on top you and pushed himself in and out as if that was all there was to sex. Sure, he’d kissed your neck and played with your nipples. You could tell he was horny, that he wanted you, but there was no passion in it.

But the way he’d come onto you when you’d met, it had to be there somewhere. You were sure of it.

So, you’d teased it out of him. Shown him how to like sex, how to be more active.

You’d kissed him, sucking on his lips. You’d wrapped one of your legs higher on his back, so you could take him deeper. One of your hands had found his balls, gently played with them, then his nipples, then grabbing onto his ass to pull him toward you.

The second you’d started dirty talking to him, he came so hard, he’d almost cracked your headboard holding onto it.

Neither of you had looked back.

You’d started hooking up at least once a week, for months now.

Jonathan had taken to dirty sex like, well, like it was the kind of sex he should’ve been having all along.

He said he was always afraid to touch Mira. She’d get a look on her face like she didn’t want his hands on her. That he’d always waited for her to tell him what to do in bed because she got impatient. Then she’d complain he didn’t initiate things.

And even though you usually take more of a dominant role in sex, with Jonathan, it felt good to do the opposite. To feel him let his sexuality off the leash. To let it wash over you.

Once he’d given himself permission to try things, his sex drive matched yours. Which, honestly, was almost impossible to find in a man.

Yes, he was hard on you sometimes, in bed and out of it. But he never degraded you about any of it. As if accepting you had made him learn to accept himself.

It’s why you don’t want to let him go.

Something about being in his old house, though, feels like a natural ending.

You’d thought for awhile now that you should break it off with him. Let him find some nice woman to settle down with. And you can be someone else’s sexual menace.

You try not to think about how sad that makes you.

By the time you and Jonathan circle back to the staircase, you can almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

You reach over and slap his ass. “So, where do you want to-“

“The bedroom,” he says immediately. “Upstairs. That’ll be the most difficult one.”

“It’s not a test, Jonathan.”

He pulls you across the room and toward the stairs. “For you it isn’t.” His hand wanders down your back and cups you, through your skirt, the tips of his fingers finding you with practiced ease.

Your breath catches. Your gaze flicks to the front door.

Get out while you still can.

You let Jonathan lead you upstairs.

*****

He brought the restraints.

“You or me?” you ask.

“You.” He finishes taking them out of his bag, pushing a hand through the mess of black and gray curls. “Please.”

You poke around a little bit. The owners did a good job of clearing their personal effects out of the room, locking them in the closet. You kick the welcome binder under the bed, unread, then get a half a glass of water from the bathroom, do a little bit of stretching. You undress in the bathroom and leave your clothes in a neat pile on the counter.

Jonathan’s finished hooking the cuffs up to the bed frame when you re-enter. He gives your naked body a long, hungry look. He’s in a black t-shirt and soft pants.

You can always tell the kind of mood Jonathan’s in by his clothes. His cardigans and flannels are for comfy, happy times. His suits make him feel secure and confident. His all-black outfits are for his darker moods.

“Can I use this tonight?” Jonathan takes a short, braided leather whip out of his bag. “I won’t gag you, so you can tell me Red anytime.”

The whip is something you’d brought into sex. Usually he prefers to be the one getting whipped, but tonight isn’t like most nights.

“Sure.” You get on the bed.

You lay out spread-eagle and face down. Jonathan starts to cuff your left wrist, but he hesitates. Instead, his hand lays on your head instead. He bends down and kisses you.

There’s a shadow in his brown eyes. You’re not sure anymore that this is entirely about his ex.

“Jonathan,” you start to say, but he shakes his head.

“Just because I’m not gagging you, doesn’t mean you can speak.” He goes back to securing you to the bed and you go silent.

When you’d started introducing Jonathan to this kind of play, you’d told him the reasons didn’t matter, as long as they weren’t mean-spirited. That was important to you. Wanting to hurt and cause pain was okay, as long as it was ultimately about pleasure.

Jonathan’s not cruel, but you know he could be, if he wanted to. The cycle he’s in with his ex-wife certainly is.

Maybe that’s why you have to break things off with him. You don’t mind fucked up sex. But you don’t fuck with negative feelings. You don’t want to be heartbroken. That’s the kind of pain you wouldn’t recover from.

Jonathan stays dressed, and he starts slowly. Just rubbing his hands up and down your body. Almost like a massage. Your body warms, trembles. He squeezes your ass, but doesn’t touch you where you need him to.

The light flick of the whip is like a kiss. Doesn’t even leave a mark.

At first.

But the first real crack on your skin makes you grip the restraints. Your muscles go taut.

Jonathan gives you a second, but doesn’t comfort you yet.

He keeps going. Two. Three. Four. Five.

A little harder than he’s ever done before. You grit your teeth, knowing you should relax your muscles, but you can’t make your body comply.

It hurts. Not enough to tell him to stop, but almost there.

You’re more than warmed up when he lightly strokes your back, all the way down to between your legs. He sits on the bed, just playing with you.

Your skin still stings. You can feel the welts already forming.

He rolls his fingers over your clit, coaxing you to get wetter. He slides his fingers through, just barely pushing inside before he pulls away, bringing his fingers to your lips. He shoves his fingers in your mouth and you suck on them.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he asks.

“Yes,” you moan around his fingers.

He pulls back and gets off the bed. “No.”

The whip cracks down on your back. Jonathan pauses, giving you space to say the word.

You don’t. It feels so good, you don’t want to stop. You love that he’d been a faster learner about all of this.

It’s torture, though, that your legs are too spread for you to rub your thighs together. That he wets the tip of the whip in your cunt before he slowly, steadily, whips up and down your back. He spreads out the pain, like you’d taught him. But the neat up-and-down of it is very Jonathan.

You’re both out of breath when he stops again. You’re on the verge of needing him to slow down.

Jonathan’s so good at reading you, he already knows. He makes sure your eyes are open and watching as he tosses the whip aside.

Part of you wishes you weren’t so perfectly in sync in with each other. Excited to try new things, or just have vanilla sex. It all should’ve burned itself out by now. The thrill should be gone.

You knew you’d have feelings, but whatever’s tickling at the gates of your heart? It’s a no-go, especially with Jonathan.

“Do you need me to free you?” he asks as he takes his black t-shirt off, the muscles of his biceps and shoulders stretching and drawing your gaze.

“No,” you say. “I’m good.”

“Yes, you certainly were,” Jonathan smiles. He knows you love it when he praises you.

He undoes he pants and gets undressed the rest of the way. His divorce made him thin out, from stress. He’s started to fill out a little bit again, around his hips and stomach. He looks more comfortable this way.

Jonathan undoes just your ankles, briefly rubbing them before guiding your legs to bend up under you, so you can lift your hips a little for him. He leaves your arms, though.

He smacks both of your ass cheeks with his right hand in turn. Jonathan massages away the sting right away.

You hold onto the rope of the restraints, bracing yourself as Jonathan lines up his cock and slowly pushes in with a groan.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he says, all the way in to the base.

He pulls your hips so he’s as deep as he can possibly go and you inhale sharply through your nose. He doesn’t have the longest cock you’ve ever had, but he’s thick. The soft and hard of him makes you feel like you’re in heat. You need him more than should be possible. It takes a second for you body to stretch to his girth and waiting makes you itchy, even though he’s doing it for your benefit.

You push back on him and he hits your ass again.

“No,” he says firmly.

Your cunt trembles around him. It’s impossible for you not to squeeze him. The way he fills you feels so good.

“Jonathan,” you moan in frustration.

He pulls out of you swiftly, just to torture you.

“Look back at me,” he says.

You try to pull yourself together before you turn your head. God, you want him so much.

His curly hair is falling forward onto his face. He pushes up his glasses. He keeps them on sometimes, so he can see you clearly. Not just for the subtle signals that he needs to slow down or stop, but just because he likes to see you wince, how your lips shake, how your hands tighten around the sheets.

He’s still knelt behind you and you can’t see his lower body. You can hear that his hand is working his cock, though.

“Beg for it,” he says.

You have to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to fuck off.

Then again, that’s the point of isn’t it? To do what he wants, what he needs, because ultimately, he’s making it all that much better for you in the end. That’s the part of this that Jonathan had innately understood.

He’s the one in control, but you’re the one who feels more pleasure from it.

“Please fuck me.” Even to your ears, you sound breathless and desperate.

“Not good enough,” Jonathan says quietly, his face serious and dark.

His hand curls around your thigh. His warm palm strokes up and down. His fingers are light. It makes you shiver.

“Please, I’m begging you.” Your neck is tired so you let your head drop back down. Your forehead rests against the mattress. “I need you so much.”

Jonathan runs his hand over the curve of your ass and up your spine. A thin bead of moisture runs down your inner thigh. You’re going to scream. You’re going to lose it.

“Tell me exactly what you want from me,” he says, the steadiness in his voice grounding you again.

The room is quiet, just the sound of your shaky breath.

“I want you to put your cock in me. I want you to fuck me until I can’t think or talk.” Your voice rises slightly as it all pours out of you. “I want you to wreck me and come in me. Please, please fill me up.” You whimper quietly. “Please, Jonathan.”

He pushes back inside and you let out a whimper, your entire body tenses and shudders.

Jonathan kisses your spine, the back of your shoulders. His hands rest on your hips, like he knows your body is weak and desperate. And it feels just as good as you need it to. Slow at first, gradually building faster and harder. His thick fingers dig into your skin as he fucks you, the sound of it filling the room. Not that you can hear it because you’re moaning into the bed, letting him set the pace, concentrating on how good every nerve ending in your body feels.

Jonathan’s hand slides down between your legs. You’re so wet his fingers slip away, but he finds his way to your clit, rubbing tight little circles as his beard and tongue and lips scrape against your back. He fucks into you deeper, all the way until he’s pushed against you over and over again, and you scream into the mattress, coming apart so hard your nails hurt from digging into the sheets. Your legs give out, but Jonathan keeps fucking you through it, laying prone on top of you. You turn your head, still moaning and shaking as Jonathan shudders. His body goes taut, as flush against you as he can be, molded against you as he comes.

You can tell he’s as tired as you are, but he drags his body up the bed to undo the restraints. He rubs your wrists, leaning back against the headboard with his eyes closed.

You just lie there for awhile, recovering. You roll on your back eventually, staring up at the ceiling.

To your surprise, Jonathan pulls you into his arms. Half-way kind of, just leaned against him in bed.

“You’re not going to shower?” you ask. Your heartbeat starts to slow as you hear Jonathan’s do the same.

“In a bit.” He plants a kiss on your head, then his bearded cheek rests there. “You’re breaking things off with me, aren’t you?”

His words are half-smushed and quiet. You want to tell him it’s not like that, not what he thinks. It is, though.

Jonathan sighs and says, “after my first marriage, I can tell when a woman’s pulling away from me.”

“It’s for the better,” you say, sitting up so you can talk to him face to face.

“Ah, for the better,” he says with breathy sarcasm.

“It is,” you insist. “You and I, we’re this.”

You lift the empty restraint and let it fall back on the bed.

Jonathan pushes it away so it falls off the side of the bed. “Just because you’re the one who brought me into all of this, doesn’t mean you know everything.”

That bossy tone shouldn’t be attractive, but on him, it is.

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t know how to incorporate all of this bedroom, kinky shit into everyday life. But, I can teach Ava that she has to knock on the bedroom door first. I can buy a dresser that locks so we can put our stuff away when we’re not using it. I think she’d like you, actually. Ava. I can see it in my head.”

You don’t know what shocks you more, that he’s thought about how to live with you, or that you’re actually considering it.

Jonathan’s big, brown eyes bore into yours. “Just so you know. I do, in fact, see the irony of bringing you to this house, just to tell you that I can’t lose you. It’s famously where I come to lose a woman I care about.”

You laugh, can’t help it. He has such a silly, self-aware grin. He pushes back his curly hair and rubs the side of his pointer finger over his lips.

“Going from just sex to… more, isn’t as easy as one conversation,” you say. “We haven’t even talked about not seeing other people.”

Jonathan’s gaze sharpens. He looks a little hurt. “You’re sleeping with other people?”

“No, you are.”

“What?” He pushes up his glasses.

“Your ex.”

“Oh my god,” he mutters with an exhausted laugh. His face is enough to tell you that he’s not lying. “Trust me. She gives me erectile dysfunction just by looking in my direction. We're not having sex.”

You lean back slightly so you can see him. Your body starts to cool and Jonathan helps you pull the blanket up to cover both of you while you talk.

“I believe you, but you see her for more than just handing off Ava,” you say.

He nods regretfully. “Yeah. I do. But if I tell you about it, I know what it looks like.”

“That’s not reassuring, but lay it on me anyway.”

He smiles loosely. “Honestly? She broke up with her boyfriend and for a few weeks now, she’s been hinting that if I wanted to, you know,” he gestures with his hand. “And no, I don’t. But it feels really good that she wants me, even though she can’t have me.”

You understand why he didn’t tell you. It does make him look like an asshole. You can’t blame him, though, for giving into that feeling of the person who rejected you, wanting you back again.

“I stay for a cup of coffee, or some excuse about Ava forgot a stuffie or book or something. I try not to be rude, but a few days ago I told her it has to stop.” His hand reaches for yours under the covers. He holds on tightly. His eyebrows furrow, that handsome serious look that makes your heart kick extra hard in your chest. “She’s the one who told me that our old house was a vacation rental now.”

“She wanted to come here with you? The balls on that woman.”

“I told her no. And it made me think about us. Made me realize talking to Mira is keeping me connected to her in an unconscious way. I don’t want that anymore. So, I brought you here instead.” He leans in closer to you, his beard almost touching your face. His fingers trace your cheekbone and ear, down the slop of your jaw and neck. “Was I too hard on you earlier? When we got here, or just now?”

You fight back a smile. “I’ve told you about some of the shit I’ve gotten up to. No, you weren’t too hard on me.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t mean physically. I know when it comes to sex, I couldn’t come up with anything that would shock you. I mean emotionally. I was kind of pissed when we got here tonight.”

“I can’t blame you for that. I was thinking tonight would be the last time for us, and I’m sure you sensed it.” Your grab his hand and curl your fingers around his. “This wasn’t supposed to be messy.”

“Oh, I never promised that,” Jonathan chuckles. “I knew almost immediately, the first time we had sex, I’d been fooling myself. Pretending I was letting my dick do all the thinking. I’m not that kind of man. I just thought you probably didn’t see yourself with a boring professor dad for the long term. So, I went along with the casual thing.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You sit up straighter. “You being a boring professor dad is literally the hottest thing about you.”

Jonathan looks skeptical. “So why're you so surprised I want this to be a real relationship?”

“I know you want a real relationship, Jonathan. I just didn’t think it would be with me,” you admit, knowing how pathetic is sounds.

His eyebrows raise in surprise. “You thought I only wanted you for sex? You think I’d do any of this tying up and impact stuff with someone I didn’t love?”

He lays a hand on his chest, his eyes closing. He looks uncomfortable, pained. It’s obvious he didn’t mean to say ‘love’ out loud, for you to hear.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You don’t have to apologize,” you say quickly. “Unless you don’t mean it.”

“I definitely mean it, that’s the problem,” he smiles softly, his heavy eyelids blinking open again. “I thought you’d be way to adventurous to settle for someone like me.”

“Settle? Jonathan, you wouldn’t be settling. Exactly the opposite. You’re so far out of my league it’s not even funny,” you almost sag against him. “You had a successful marriage, you’re a dad, you have a really solid career. The sex is the easy part.”

“Not to me,” he says, sounding more confident. “You know how to recognize emotions, how to identify them so fast. I tangle myself up in knots wondering if I’m irritated from something that happened yesterday, or I’m just dehydrated.”

Your fingers trace down his smooth sternum and stomach. It sounds too optimistic to say all of the weaknesses you both have are actually strengths. In a way, though, all your weaknesses line up. The kind of relationship where you could balance each other out.

“It wouldn’t be boring, that’s for sure,” you say after awhile.

You hear Jonathan’s breath catch.

“And really,” you keep thinking out loud, “I haven’t wanted to admit it, but we see a lot of each other. We talk a lot. You’re the first person I want to text whenever something interesting happens.”

“I want to do that too,” he says excitedly. “I made Ava this really nice dinner the other night and I got the urge to send you a photo. But then I didn’t want you think I was weird.”

“I love pictures of food,” you remind him.

“Well, next time, I’ll know it’s safe to send,” he laughs.

Those red flags you’d sensed when you got here tonight; you realize what they really were. Your heart telling you not to let this man go. Not to push him out of your life when all he wants is to be with you.

“And you’re staying the night at my house this week.” He pulls you closer in bed, his big feet rubbing against yours.

“Okay,” you agree. “Maybe we could cook dinner together.”

“I would love that,” he says.

It reminds both of you that he’d said he loved you before, accidentally. But, it feels better to not bring it up right away. He’ll say it again, when he’s ready. And you know already you’ll say it back.

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Anselm shakes his head. “They were only here for a few minutes. Not long enough to cause a fuss. I’ve updated my will. You get everything, of course, but-“

You slap your hand over his mouth, his facial hair scrunching under your fingers. “I don’t need to know the details. I’m going to die before you.”

Anselm’s gaze wanders back up to watch the rain, louder now and falling steadily on the glass.

He slowly pries your hand away so he can speak, carefully. “The statistics are very much against you. For the most part, women live longer. Also, I have more contact with firearms. I used to do a lot of drugs. I have asthma. I have enemies.”

“Well, I can’t live without you. So, I die first. I decided.”

Anselm gives you an amused look. “You decided?”

You shrug and set aside your laptop. “Option two is that we go out together in some kind of geriatric shootout with the FBI. Blaze of glory kind of thing.”

You smile and run your fingers through the thick hair of his beard.

“You lived without me just fine before we met,” Anselm says, watching you with his big, brown eyes.

“Same goes, Vogelweide.” You scratch your fingers lightly along the back of his neck.

“I do hate to think about my life before you, though. It all seems like a waste of time. Building a gigantic empire, and millions and millions of dollars. For what? I didn’t have you to share it with.”

“If anyone was wasting time, it was me,” you say. “I had a boring job, and a ton of bills, went on date after date without even really knowing what I was looking for. If we hadn’t met-“

“Oh god, Birdie, don’t even say that out loud.”

“If we hadn’t met,” you repeat with a smile, “I’d be a regular, law-abiding citizen. I’d have settled for ‘fine.’ Like, people would ask how I was doing and I’d just say ‘I’m fine.’ But I’d have been miserable on the inside.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ‘fine,’” Anselm says, surprising you, “for most. You, my dear Birdie, deserve much better.”

“You’re in a good mood today,” you give him a look. “What gives?”

Anselm looks pleased with himself. “I had a panic room installed in the basement.”

You look at him like he's crazy. “What? Why?”

“Well, the workers were there extending the elevator down to that level and I figured since they were already digging and renovating that they might as well. I should’ve had one installed years ago.”

“You’ve never told me any story where you would’ve needed a panic room. Your guests need one more than you do,” you say.

“There was one time a meteorite came perilously close to the mansion.” Anselm looks skyward, as if another could come barreling down at any moment. “I had it turned into that lovely, gigantic bird bath in the rose garden. But actually, the panic room I had them install is, in many ways, non-standard.”

“Oh. So, it’s a sex thing. Why am I not surprised?” You pick a piece of lint from the shoulder of his suit jacket.

“I realize this is rich coming from me, but Birdie, must everything be about sex?” he asks with a smile.

You narrow your eyes. “With you and me? Pretty much.”

He cups your cheek in his hand. He looks so disappointed you actually feel like you should apologize.

“Our life together doesn’t revolve around sex. It’s what we spend a majority of our time playing at, yes, but it’s about feeling. Our feelings for each other.”

“Anselm, I love you more than anything. You know that. I didn’t mean that I’m only here for the fucking.” You kiss his cheek.

“Good to know that if I ever lost the use of my third leg, you wouldn’t divorce me,” he says wryly.

“I wouldn’t,” you say with a smile. “We’d make do. You like when I peg you so we already have a head start.”

Anselm pinches your thigh until you laugh and wiggle away.

“Naughty girl,” he says. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“I’m happy for you to stick it wherever you want,” you say. “Always have been. Always will be. No one could equal you, Anselm.”

He smiles hugely at you, standing and offering you his arm. “On that happy note then, if you’ll allow me to indulge myself.”

“As if you ever do anything else,” you say.

“I have a dirty idea,” Anselm says with a heated look at you.

“As if you have any other kind,” you mumble.

*****

“Okay. Not what I expected,” you say as Anselm proudly shows you his panic room.

It’s inside of a bunker. A suite of rooms that comprise a large, secure, underground apartment. There are even screens to simulate beautiful views out of the fake windows. The rooms are more modern than the mansion upstairs, but cozy and welcoming.

A simple fingerprint had opened the thick, metal door to the main area. This smaller room though, is much different than the rest of the place.

You’d had to press both of your hands and both eyes to the bio-metric reader to get the door to open. You were surprised Anselm didn’t have some kind of dick sensor installed just for shits and giggles, but he’d had to use the same body parts as you to unlock it. Both of you in tandem.

Inside the small panic room, the walls are gold. Actual gold. Bars of it line the walls like the world’s heaviest, most expensive tiles. There must be tens of millions of dollars in here, maybe hundreds if there are layers behind the ones you can see.

And guns.

Lots of guns.

The center of the room is one large case with drawers. The glass tops show you all kinds of weapons inside.

“I know I made you promise not to speak of it again, but this one time, I must,” Anselm says apologetically. “When we had our fight, and you left me-“

“Please don’t say it like that,” you say, your heart twisting.

Anselm is by your side immediately, his hand rubbing up and down your back. “You’re right. When we were apart, for a short time, I realized that if anything were to happen to me, you wouldn’t know where most of my fortune was buried. So, I put it all inside this panic room.”

“When you say buried…”

“I mean literally. Bodies weren’t the only things in the soil around the estate,” Anselm grins. "You'll be able to open the door alone, if I were to pass suddenly. If you go first, well, I won't need any of this."

You touch the cold, shiny metal along the walls. “It’s kind of pretty.”

“Like a gold cage?” Anselm grins. “I still have that, you know. It’s in the stables. We only used it that once. I have a strange feeling about it now.”

You remember. Anselm had come home desperate, after killing you didn’t know how many people, just to protect you. To keep you safe and happy. But it had taken a toll on him, how close that group of people had been to destroying your happiness.

Rough sex, just like the soft and romantic kind, is something you and Anselm are comfortable with.

It had been different that night, though. You’d gotten a glimpse of what Anselm was like before you. More brutal and selfish, almost detached from everything, at moments even from you.

“We should put it in the greenhouse,” you say. “Let the vines have it. We were going to put butterflies in there in the spring. We could put a little table and chairs in the cage, have tea there sometimes.”

Anselm raises a dark eyebrow. “Of course, my love, but let’s clean the cum off the bars first.”

You roll your eyes at him, walking out of the gold and guns room. “All I’m saying,” you walk out into the main area, toward the door, “is that it’s a nice cage. It would be a shame to let it go to waste. I’ll have them take the door off it so we don’t get trapped inside.”

You grab the vault door handle that leads back out into the basement. You pull. You push. Pull again. It doesn’t budge.

“Anselm?” You go to the panel next to the door. It’s blank except for a red ‘x’ in the middle. “Something’s wrong.”

“No, it isn’t. I thought we’d have a little test run,” he says smoothly.

You turn and find Anselm sitting at the small writing desk by the fake window that overlooks the fake ocean. His fingers are steepled, resting under his mustache and against his lips.

You cross your arms and lean against the heavy door. “You want to play kidnapper?” You look at your watch. No wi-fi, no signal. “Can we do it this weekend? I have a video call with Paris in an hour, and you’re meeting the Governor-“

Anselm shakes his head, the salt and pepper curls vibrating. “No, no, no, Birdie, this isn’t playing. This is back to basics. Our basics. We’ve been spending far too much time apart.”

“I restructured everything, the entire criminal enterprise, so we could spend more time together.”

“And it isn’t enough,” Anselm stands. He adjusts his jacket. “If it were merely that you couldn’t pay attention to me, then I’m a big boy, I can deal with that. But you’re forcing me to neglect you, and that cannot happen.”

You rub your temples. “I’m not a dried up, suffering shell of a woman. I’m just,” you sigh, “busy.”

Anselm smiles, the edges of his lips as sharp as razor blades. “And now, you’re not. You’ll have nothing to think of, nothing to do, except to be here with me.”

You glance at the closed door. You have no idea what Anselm’s had programmed.

It could be one day, it could be one month

“Back to basics, huh?” You look at him out of the corner of your eyes.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Anselm says, brushing one side of his jacket back to reach a hand inside his pocket. “So, why don’t you take off those clothes and let me lavish you with some of the attention you’ve been sorely lacking?”

His hand appears again with a silver usb-stick. “This will unlock the door, but not until the exact day, hour, and minute of my choosing. If you try to stick it in prematurely, well,” Anselm smiles at you, “no lady likes that, does she?”

You tap your foot against the ground. It’s temping to give in. To let this be the kind of twisted sex vacation that you haven’t had in awhile.

But there’s some power game going on here that doesn’t sit right with you. You and Anselm don’t fight for dominance. It’s more like he does whatever you want, happily.

“Okay, you have a point,” you concede. “We don’t take our time like we used to. And when I changed things up in our business, it didn’t all go as planned. I can’t fix that if I can’t meet with our people though. You have to unlock the door.”

Anselm laughs, the happy, high-pitched sound echoes in the apartment. “I just told you I can’t. It’s pre-programmed. I couldn’t change the schedule of the door even if I wanted to.” He looks at you enigmatically from behind his glasses. “And I don’t.”

“What happens if we try to leave right now?”

Anselm turns and limps toward the other side of the room, the creak of his brace filling the space. “The door locks permanently.”

“Permanently? Like… forever?”

Anselm stands at the fake window that overlooks the fake Alps. His back is to you, his hands clasped behind him. He tosses his head slightly.

“Yes, that is what permanent means,” he say dryly.

“Anselm Vogelweide, open the fucking door.” You don’t raise your voice, but you’re not happy.

He turns his head just enough to catch you in his peripheral. “No.”

*****

DAY 1

“Hunger strikes won’t work, my love,” Anselm says as he takes a dish of noodles and chicken out of the oven. “You’ll cave as soon as dessert comes out.”

You’d torn the place apart looking for a way out, or something that would help you. You’d found diddly-shit. Now, you’re sitting at the kitchen island, your forehead down on the cool, marble slab.

All the while, Anselm prepared dinner. A dish of noodles and vegetables he’d taken out of the freezer.

He took off his suit jacket, hung it in the bedroom closet, and rolled up the sleeves of his black dress shirt. He’d taken a daisy-print apron from a peg by the stove and tied it neatly around his waist. All the while whistling, “An der schönen blauen Donau.”

You don’t bother to lift your head. “If I let you tie me to the dining room table and eat noodles off my ass, will you let me go?”

Your words come out nasally and muffled from your nose being squished down onto the counter.

The oven door opens, then shuts.

“This casserole is far too hot to put on your ass, my dear. I would never damage your sweet, velvety skin. Now, stop pouting. We must make the best of this,” Anselm says as if he didn't arrange this entire thing. “The food has to cool for 10 minutes. It would be enough time…”

“For you to go fuck yourself?” you say into the marble.

“Very rude,” Anselm mumbles. “Set the table.”

A towel snaps lightly on your arm. With a sigh, you raise yourself and grab the plates and silverware, the wooden salt and pepper grinders, napkins. You trudge out into the small dining table that’s on one end of the open living space.

As you set out the placemats, you notice the pepper grinder looks strange. You pick it up and realize it isn’t a pepper grinder at all.

It’s a wooden dildo. The same one Anselm had used the first time you’d had sex.

You haven’t seen it in awhile. The two of you have moved on to more adventurous things.

You hold the smooth, varnished wood in your hand. It’s cool to the touch. You hold it up for Anselm when he comes in with the food.

“Our first sex toy,” he smiles, reaching out his hand for it. “I meant to put this in one of the other rooms. Not that I object to using it right now, if you’re inclined to forgive me.”

You try to hold onto your anger, or annoyance, at least be a little irritated.

It’s not easy to do when Anselm is grinning at you playfully, poking your arm with the wooden dildo he’d once used to fuck your ass while he’d introduced the rest of you to his giant cock.

“Tell me,” he says, the smooth head of the dildo tracing your stomach, then down over the fabric of your pants, “have you ever been brought to orgasm by a man in a flowered apron?”

“…not yet.”

Anselm rubs the smooth dildo up your stomach and chest, your neck. He taps it lightly on your lips. “I’ll undress you. Open your mouth and wet it for me.”

You turn your face away. “Is every day down here going to be like this?”

Anselm moves quickly, his hands cupping your ass, fingers digging down so he can grab you. His fingers massage deeply into your core. The surprising strength in his arms gives you no way to wriggle out.

His fingers move from your clit, over and back to your asshole.

“Is every part of you not mine? And every part of me yours?” Anselm says.

Your fingers dig into his upper arms as the tip of his finger works firmly. “Yes, Anselm. But-“

“And when did anything else become more important than that? Crime or money or whatever the fuck takes up the time we should be spending with each other? Hmmm?”

Anselm raises one of your legs to wrap around him, so he can rub your cunt through the fabric of your pants. You have to bite your lip to keep from moaning like a whore.

He grins, his facial hair smiling with him. He knows he has you.

“That door really won’t open?” you ask.

“You can try, and trap us down here forever. I wouldn’t say no to it.”

“You’re really something else, Anselm.”

“As are you, Birdie. More than I could ever have dreamed of.”

Before Anselm, you hadn’t even dreamed someone like him existed. Not only because there’s no one like him, but because you hadn’t even known it was possible to sync a sybian to Mozart’s 41st symphony.

If you really are stuck down here, then what would it hurt to hit ‘reset.’ To remember what it had been like when Anselm had introduced you to the concept of tying a plug-in wand vibrator straight to your clit, or when you’d first put nipple clamps with bells on him.

Anselm’s tongue licks at your lips, his breath hot. You can already feel him straining against you.

He hums quietly. “I have a leather cock ring with a leash on it. Would you like to take me for a walk, my dearest love?”

Yeah.

This might not be so bad after all.

You pick up the wooden dildo from the table, raising it to Anselm’s lips. “Wet this for me.”

:: Panic Room- Day 2 ::

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Which is how you found yourself completely naked, your back against his warm chest, your hands in his. He moved your fingers to where he wanted them, whispering filth into your ear. 

“That's it love, that's it. Being so good for me.” He kisses your neck lightly and you whine. 

“Keep touching yourself, yeah?” He keeps one hand on your breast and the other between your spread legs. “Feels so good, doesn't it?” 

You gasp and nod, rocking back slightly to feel his heavy cock pressed between your bodies. 

“If I knew you liked my voice this much I would have made you do so many things sooner.” He chuckles as he rubs your fingers against your clit in soft circles, delighting when you jump and gasp. 

“Want to make you all wet beforehand.” He breathes heavily, “Want to slip in so easy.” 

Steven groans as he moves his fingers down, teasing your entrance.

“Steven,” you moan, your back arching.

“That's it, love, you keep playing here.” He taps your fingers against your clit. “And I'll play here, hmm? Sounds good? I know it does.” 

You whine, throwing your head back against his shoulder as he presses the tip of two fingers inside, but doesn't go any deeper. 

“God, you're so wet.” His breath is warm against your skin, a deep growl to his words. “Want you to be fucking soaking. Can you do that love? Can you do that for me?” 

You nod, gasping as you rub your clit, your thighs shivering as he slips a little deeper, rewarding you.

 “Oh, so good love, so good for me.” He groans, “Gonna lube you up after this, want you so slippery, want to fuck you so hard and fill you up and then fuck you again.” 

You writhe in his arms, moaning loudly as he curls his fingers, stroking against your walls in a come hither motion. 

“Oh!” You sob, shaking. 

“That so good? You gonna come just from a tiny touch? I think you are.” He purrs and nips at the shell of your ear. He rubs his erection slightly against your backside, groaning as the pleasure spirals in his stomach. 

You manage to moan his name, so close you can taste it, shivering in his touch. 

“Stop, stop,” he whispers, moving his fingers out of you and taking your hand in his.

You whine, tears at the corners of your eyes. “Please.” 

“Here, here,” he soothes, kissing your neck and wrapping one arm around you while he rummages in the bedside table with the other. “So good love, so good.” He sucks lightly at your pulse point before he moves back a fraction. “Just a second love, one second.” 

He quickly pours lube all over his aching cock, hissing as he rubs the cool liquid down his weeping length and then puts his hands on your waist and helps you up and back. 

“Just stay there one second,” he groans, spreading your lips apart with this thumb and chuckling when you shiver. He presses his tip against you, slowly sinking in and moaning when you gasp. 

“Being so good for me.” He repeats and breathes deeply as he guides you down, panting as you stretch and pulse around his cock. 

You bite your lip, your breath robbed from you as you sink, swallowing more and more of his thick length. “Steven,” you whine, unable to help yourself. 

Most of the time you called him by pet names, but you knew how much he loved you saying his name in the bedroom.

He hisses as he bottoms out, pulling you back to rest against him and mouthing at your neck once more. “You gonna be good?” He mutters, breathing hard.

You whine an affirmative. 

“Good, god you’re so nice and wet, make me just want to fill you up right now,” he takes the dildo he pulled out from the drawer in his right hand and coats it just as liberally in lube.

You watch him, hypnotised by how he strokes it. 

“You gonna take it?”

You nod, swallowing eagerly and he groans again, his eyes rolling back.

“So fucking sexy, you know that?” He holds the dildo in his right hand and rubs your clit with his lubed left fingers, easing down to lightly stroke at where you’re split open and where the base of his cock just rests inside. 

Steven slowly spreads you a little wider, teasing one finger into you and grinning when you shudder. “Just tell me if it’s too much, love, okay?” 

You nod, “okay.” 

“Good, good,” he kisses your temple and pushes the tip of the dildo against your pussy, just above his heavy cock. 

You gasp as he starts to ease it inside, your back arching as you're stretched so wide. It’s almost painful, almost too much. The sensation burning on your tongue but igniting a deep ache in your chest. 

“Oh, you’re doing so well love, so well.” Steven groans, easing the dildo in slowly an inch then out half an inch and repeat. “This is what it would feel like if Marc or Jake could be here physically too, god we’d all stuff you so full.” 

You moan, your hips bucking forward. 

Steven wriggles, shivering as you squeeze and the ribbed silicon of the dildo rubs up against his cock. When it finally rests completely inside he breathes out deeply. 

“God,” he places sloppy kisses all over your shoulder, “feels amazing, you okay love?” 

You nod, rocking your hips ever so slightly. “Please Steven, I want…” “Want to come?” 

You nod again.

He chuckles, “You’d let me do anything wouldn’t you, if I asked?” 

“Yes.” You whine. 

“Fuck.” He hisses as he begins to pump the dildo in and out of your slowly, revelling in how it drags along both of you, how you pulse and gasp and rock in his arms. 

“Next time we’ll get one inside me too yeah? Get us both really full.” He groans, “Would you like that?” He bites his lip, unable to stop the words from falling out now he’s started. “One of those remote vibrating ones and you can hold the controls and, fuck, be in charge of that while I fuck you and-”

You moan loudly, your limbs shaking and tensing as he presses the dildo deliciously against your walls, making you scream.

“Oh love, that’s it, that’s it, come on, give it to me, let me have it.” He groans, rocking you faster.

You grab hold of any part of him you can reach, whining at spasming as pleasure washes over you, going lightheaded as he pants and whispers in your ear. 

You feel him tense and Steven swears as he follows you, pumping you full of hot thick cum. 

He nuzzles into your neck as he slowly eases the dildo, and himself, out of you, comforting you as you whine softly, and helps you onto your back on the mattress. 

He softly kisses your lips, grinning when you wrap your arms around his neck and he settles between your legs.

Gently, he takes his semi hard cock in hand and delicately begins to ease it back inside of you. 

You moan softly, the sensation not uncomfortable but unexpected. Yet, in spite of that, you still crave it.

“Shh love, it’s okay, you’ll let me, if I ask nicely, won’t you?” 

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“Also,” Nathan leans back against the wall and crosses his arms, all smug smiles and self-assuredness. “How do you know it’s a he? Kind of assuming gender here aren’t you?” 

Your glare darkens. “If that’s a dig at me, then-”

Nathan quickly holds up his hands. “No,” he smiles kindly. “No dig. Just teasing, he’s a he.” 

You nod. “What’s his name?”

“Doesn’t have one yet, that’s your job.” 

The android is currently powered off, eyes closed and standing perfectly still. He’s a little uncanny to say the least, being so motionless, not even breathing. Not that he needs to breathe but…

He doesn’t look exactly like Nathan either, he’s clean shaven for starters. Which is a small mercy, you don’t know how you’d deal with a robot that was his spitting image. And his hair is slightly longer, about a ¾ of an inch. He’s also two inches shorter than Nathan. 

“You made him smaller?”

“Sorry?” 

“His height.” You can’t keep the amusement out of your voice. 

Nathan shrugs. “Unintentional.” You know he’s lying, but you don’t push it. 

You hum an affirmative. 

“So… why does he look like you?”

“Why not?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Isn’t it?” 

You roll your eyes, used to Nathan’s unique ways of communicating. 

“I like R2D2, Marvin, Robot in Lost in Space. You know, robots that look like robots? Not people.” 

Nathan laughs. “You’re just getting uncanny vibes because he’s turned off and looks dead but still standing. The second he’s online you’ll feel different.”

You give him a not so convinced look. 

“I promise– he blinks, he mimics breathing, even has a heartbeat.”

“What?” 

Nathan nods, “you can take his temperature and everything.” 

“Okay… so he’s obviously very impressive, you’re a genius, blah, blah, blah.”

Nathan snorts. “But?”

“But what do you want me to do, besides name him, I mean?” 

“Well, that depends on what you want to do with him.” He grins and you're so close to getting fired for hitting your boss. 

“Nathan,” you say warningly.  

His smile widens and he chuckles. “I’m playing, I’m playing. Don’t be so uptight.” He doesn’t give you enough of a pause to say something back to him. “Talk with him, socialise with him, show him the ropes like he’s a new employee.” 

“Am I getting fired?” You joke. 

Nathan laughs again. “Look, I just need someone other than me to interact with him and give me some feedback, yeah? And since you’re the only other person here?” 

You nod. “No problem.” But you pause as a small worry digs into the back of your mind. 

Nathan answers your question before you can even ask it, seemingly reading your thoughts. “He can’t hurt you.”

“You Asimov Lawed him?”

“Pretty much.”

You nod again. “Okay.” 

“I’ll leave you both to get acquainted.” Nathan heads for the door. 

“Nathan?” 

He turns. 

“Does he know he’s a robot?”

Nathan nods.

“And that you made him?”

Nathan nods again, “I have spoken with him you know.” He shakes his head as he leaves. 

“Oh, you’ve spoken with him,” you mutter under your breath, but there’s no fire to it. “Couldn’t give him a name though.”

You sigh and approach the android. You place your hand on the startup panel, it blinks into life as it recognises your palm print. You press a few commands and there’s a small click and hum.

The android opens his eyes, blinking like he’s just woken up. He’s dressed in a white t-shirt and white jogging bottoms. His chest rises and falls, just like Nathan said it would. 

You give him a smile and a little wave. “Hello.”

He tilts his head for a second and then smiles back and says your name. 

A little flash of surprise crosses your face before you recover. “Yeah, yeah, that’s me. It’s, erm, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And to finally meet you, Nathan’s spoken about you at length.” 

That doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence. 

“I believe you are supposed to give me a name?” He asks, there’s a slight up turn of his lips that’s so completely Nathan like that you almost do a double take. 

“Yeah, I,” you pause, your eyes falling on the BlueBook logo on the wall. “How about Blue?” 

“Blue.” He repeats and smiles. “Yeah, I like that.” 

You spend the rest of the day showing Blue around the facility, introducing him to systems as Nathan had introduced you when you first started working here. 

Nathan stays out of the way, hidden up in his office. Though you’re sure he’s probably watching you on the monitors with interest. 

Blue is quite charming, his voice is a little different from Nathan, but not by much. He’s quieter though, but with a good sense of humour. The differences and similarities between them both are interesting. Part of you wonders if this is how Nathan sees himself, or if he unintentionally programmed the likenesses in. 

It’s only later on in the day that things start to get… strange. 

You’re at your office desk, just working on a small piece of programming. 

Blue is meant to be going over the safety protocol for the building – something you had to do when you started. But you hear his light footsteps come up behind you. 

You pause in typing, but don’t look around. “You okay?”

“Mhmm.” 

You glance up at him. He’s seemingly interested in your screen. “It’s just a prototype I was working on for-”

He puts his hand on your shoulder, still looking at the screen. “It’s very compelling.” He squeezes your shoulder lightly. 

“Blu-”

“You seem tense?” He looks down at you. “Are you stressed?”

“I don’t think…”

“There’s a lot of tension here.” He presses his thumb into your back and rubs, you can feel the muscle relax instantly. 

You swallow and when you don’t try to stop him again Blue moves directly behind you, placing his other hand on your shoulder. 

He slowly starts to massage your neck and upper back. Taking his time and applying just the right amount of pressure to quickly make you feel like liquid. 

You let out a small sigh. 

“Feel okay?” He asks. There’s a slight edge to his voice, something you can’t quite put your finger on. 

“Yeah, good, really good.” You try to keep your words quick and short to save from moaning over how wonderful it feels. It was like he could pull apart every knot and ache. Nathan must have programmed some kind of pressure point, masseuse knowledge. Though why, you had no idea. 

“Good.” He whispers, his voice low. 

You can’t focus on anything else but the feel of his hands, how warm they are, how life like they are. 

“Move forward a little.”

You lean without even thinking and his hands travel a little further down your spine. 

This time you can’t stop the moan that escapes you. 

You snap your mouth shut the second you realise, heat rising to your face. “I-”

“It’s fine, perfectly normal reaction, I’m glad you’re relaxing.” His voice is low, and his fingers don’t stop. 

You spend the next twenty minutes getting the best massage of your life and keeping one hand fixed permanently over your mouth. 

.

You had made a not so subtle exit after that. Politely keeping out of Blue’s way (hiding) for the rest of the afternoon. 

Part of you wanted to go and speak to Nathan, but you weren’t sure if you could face the teasing. 

‘Perfectly normal reaction,’ ugh. You could picture Nathan’s smug smile perfectly. Choruses of ‘oh, you got turned on by an android that looks like me?’ No thanks. 

Though he probably would tease the shit out of you later on, that was a Future You problem. And if you could keep it a Future You problem for as long as possible, you would. 

Around 7pm your hunger got the better of you and you made your way to the kitchen, hoping to scavenge some of Nathan’s secret snack supply that he thought was well hidden. 

A step into the room you stop dead in your tracks. 

Blue was at one of the counters, chopping vegetables. 

He turned and smiled at you before you even had a chance to think about turning on your heels and making a beeline out of there. 

“Oh, hi Blue.” You try to sound casual, but the awkwardness radiates out of you like a beacon. 

He smiles and looks back at the vegetables. “Are you hungry?” 

You nod, promptly realising he couldn’t see your reaction and quickly speaking. “Yes, yeah, just, just gonna…” You trail off and pause. “Do you eat?” 

Blue laughs and shakes his head. “This is for you.”

“For me?” 

He nods and glances at you again, all smiles and seductive eyes- No, do not think about him that way. 

“You tend to eat your evening meal around this time.” 

“Oh,” you take a few steps closer and lean on the counter next to him. “That’s really kind of you, you didn’t need to. Wait, how do you know that?” 

Blue raises his eyebrows and gives you a small smirk.

“Nathan, got it.” 

“He said you liked pasta, so.”

You pause, looking at the meal he’s preparing. You don’t remember the last time someone cooked for you, outside of Nathan. And that was only because he was eating too. 

“Thank you, you didn’t have to.” You finally say. 

“I wanted to.” 

The food is good, even if Blue sits a little too close. His knee brushing against yours under the table. He talks to you about relatively normal things, work related, while leaning his elbow on the table, his chin resting on his hand. 

He listens intently, his eyes never leaving your face. It’s uncanny being watched so attentively. You ask Blue a few questions but he always manages to steer the conversation back to you. Another Nathan like attribute. 

Long after the meal is over you stretch, there’s a small popping sound as your shoulder clicks. 

Blue frowns and stands. He touches your spine and shoulder blade again with those precise fingers. “Is your back still causing you discomfort?” 

“I,” you swallow. “You don’t need to, it’s fine, really.” Heat rises to your face. 

“Nonsense, you still have a lot of tension here.” He presses his thumb firmly into your skin and you sigh. 

He massages the area for a few seconds. “Your stress levels are still high, come,” he holds out his hand to you expectantly. 

There is a disastrously long second where you hear ‘come’ as ‘cum’. “I, erm, what?” 

He takes your hand and encourages you to stand. You follow him, a little too flustered to object. 

Blue leads you to the living room and gestures to the sofa. “Lay down on your stomach.” 

“Blue-”

“I need you flat to relax you properly.” He smiles at you expectantly, his eyes dark and bordering on mischievous. 

You stare for a second before managing a small nod, about to speak your agreement when Blue frowns as if a thought has just occurred to him. 

“The space isn’t ideal…” He looks straight at you. “A bed would be better.”

A bed would be better. “Erm…”

“So you can lay flat.” He stares at you expectantly. Almost goading you. If you agreed to the sofa, why not the bed? What implications are you inferring? 

You give him a tight smile. Nathan and his stupid mind games. He did this just to see if he could get you to crack. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 

“Okay.” The word comes out more like a squeak than you hoped it would. 

. 

Blue leads you back to your room, opening the door as if he was inviting you into his space, not yours. 

He waits for you to climb onto the bed and get comfortable, lying on your stomach, your head resting on your crossed arms. 

And then he starts slowly on your shoulders. That same deep press from before that has you screwing up your eyes and burying your face. It’s barely been a minute before he stops and you nearly groan at the loss. 

“This would be better without your t-shirt.” 

You pause, your mind failing to translate his words for a few seconds. “Oh, erm,” it was perfectly reasonable, wasn’t it? People had professional massages all the time, they didn’t have them while their clothing was still on. “Okay.” 

He turns, politely as you sit up and the anxiety in your chest eases. You were making this into something it wasn’t. He was just trying to help. 

You tug off your t-shirt and drop it onto the floor off the side of your bed and lay back down. “All done.” You say, trying and failing to hide the little shake in your voice. 

Blue turns, his fingers barely touch your skin before he’s lightly caressing just under your bra strap. “May I?” 

You pause, then nod. He unclips it, letting the straps fall to the side before he continues to softly caress. 

It feels good, his fingers dig in and work out the tension, making you liquid and weak under his hands. 

Heat starts to pull at your stomach, sinking lower and lower. Wetness starts to build between your legs. You shouldn’t be-

“Oh!” A sudden gasp leaves your lips as Blue’s right hand slides quickly down, underneath your jogging bottoms and underwear, over the swell of your ass and straight to your core. “Blue!” It feels too good. “I-”

“You have so much tension.” He breathes close to your ear, his fingers trace along your entrance, teasing lightly. “I’m meant to help you relieve it.” 

“Blue…” You bite your lip, instinctively pressing closer to his fingers. You shouldn’t… Fuck Nathan was probably watching, probably-

“Let me help you,” he whispers low in your ear, his warm breath searing your skin. “I’ve been given direct instructions to help you relax.” He lightly rubs your clit, slow and gentle and it makes you jolt. 

“Blue, fuck-”

He kisses your temple. “Tell me to stop at any time, and I will. I only want to please you.” 

Fuck, if his soft, deep voice didn’t nearly make you come on the spot. 

You nod, swallowing thickening. “Please, I’d like… it’s been a while… and…”

“Of course,” he moves dizzyingly quickly, short and precise as he grabs hold of your hips and flips you over onto your back. You don’t even get a chance to let out a gasp of surprise before he’s pulling off your jogging bottoms and underwear and drops them to the floor. 

He rubs his hands up your legs, digging into your inner thighs and spreads you wide before he dives in and latches onto your clit. 

“Fuck,” you gasp, your hips rolling up to his warm eager mouth, your body moving completely on autopilot. 

He sucks, for a few seconds before teasing it out and lapping, alternating between broad licks and that gentle suction that is dragging you so quickly to the edge. His dark eyes watch your reactions intently, monitoring and adjusting based on the smallest reactions. 

He trails his right hand further down your thigh, pressing lightly at your core before sipping two fingers inside. He hums when you moan, the smallest smile pulling at his features. 

Pleasure twists and coils as sweat beads on your forehead. The stretch sends a shiver along your nerves, makes your air catch in your throat.

“Blue, I- oh fuck!”

He moves his fingers, tapping and stroking so quickly on your inside walls that it is like a buzz of vibration right against your g spot. 

You sob out his name, your thighs shaking as you come dizzyingly quickly, pulled over the edge by his precise movements. 

As you breathe heavily, your mind a little short circuited by your orgasm and lagging behind, Blue helps you out of the rest of your clothes, leaving you completely bare before he strips off his own. 

He kneels between your legs, looking down at you with soft eyes as he gently touches your cheek. “More?” 

“I…” You trail off, surprised by the sweetness in his gaze and distracted by his naked chest and warm soft skin. 

You lightly touch his ribs and he smiles. 

“What… what do you want?” You ask, your voice embarrassingly small. 

“That’s a dangerous question.” His smile widens, his tone teasing. 

“Why?”

He tilts his head to the side ever so slightly. “Because I don’t want to stop until you can’t form words.” 

You swallow and glance down as he strokes himself with one hand. He’s impressively large, standing tall and erect. There’s copious amounts of precum leaking from the tip, which you quickly realise is, in fact, lube. He smears it down himself, watching you as you watch him.

You shift a little, widening your legs even though you don’t realise you're doing it. “Does it, will it feel good for you?” 

Blue’s smile widens again, his eyes dark as he leans down. He guides himself to your pussy, pushing his tip against your clit before he drags his cock down and notches the head at your core. “Oh yes.” He mummers his voice low. He stills for half a second, studying your face until he finds what he was looking for. 

He pushes in slowly, moving his hands so that one rests on the mattress and the other on your hip, pinning you down as he slips inside. 

You gasp, letting out a soft ‘oh’ at the stretch. 

“You can take it.” He mutters, voice velvet soft. “You’re very well lubricated even without mine.” 

You wriggle against him, squeezing his biceps, both trying to get close to and escape from the pleasure, your eyes screwed shut.

As he finally sinks in the last inch you moan, it’s like you can feel him in your heart, your lungs. Pushing perfectly at the centre of you and pulsing. 

“You find me attractive?” Blue asks, his head cocked ever so slightly to the side, a cheeky smile on his face as he rocks slowly. Short, powerful thrusts that move the bed and make you cry out in pleasure. 

You nod, trying to move with him but he is well and truly fucking you into the mattress, and it’s all you can do to just hold on for the ride.

“So, you must find Nathan attractive too?” Blue teases, his voice even and unhindered despite his deep bucks as he sinks in and out of you. 

You whine, your back arching, “Blue,” you squirm, gasp at a partially deep thrust that robs you of all thought and makes your toes curl. You cling onto him, sliding a hand up to the back of his neck. 

“It’s alright,” he soothes, leaning down quickly to kiss your lips and swallow your moans, “I’ve got you.” And that’s when he really starts to move. 

You all but scream at the rapid snap of his hips, pleasure turning your bones to liquid as he fucks into you, pushing you higher and higher as he hits every spot perfectly inside. 

You can’t speak, can’t form words as he presses every single sensation out of you except for euphoria, playing your body perfectly to his wishes. 

Your skin is on fire, every nerve tingling with the onslaught of your impending orgasm. He rolls his hips, the sound of his thrusts and your cries mixing. It’s so hot and wet between your legs, slippery as he just glides along your walls and sinks impossibly deep. 

He kisses your lips, nips and bites your jaw and then sucks one nipple into his mouth as his fingers pluck and play with the other. 

Your thighs are shaking, your moans growing in pitch as you desperately hold onto him, nonsense slipping from your mouth as your mind liquifies. 

You don’t even hear the door open, too lost in your pleasure. But Blue does. 

He looks up, but doesn’t falter in his movements, doesn’t move his mouth from your skin. 

Nathan smirks. “Don’t stop on my account.” 

You gasp, your eyes snapping open to see Nathan standing by the foot of your bed. “Natha-” You try to stammer, but Blue grinds his hips down and your cry cuts off the rest of his name. 

“Enjoying him?” Nathan asks nonchalantly, like he was asking about the weather as he climbs onto the bed. He lays next to you on his side, his elbow propped up so he can rest his head and still watch your face. 

“I…” You whine, you blink heavily, your mind isn’t working. Isn’t functioning at all, all you can do is feel and it feels so, so good. 

Blue hums as he laps at your breast, his hips pistoning at an unforgiving pace, not giving you even a second of reprieve from the pleasure. 

Nathan grins, he shifts closer, his voice low. “I knew you would.” He swallows, watching for the expressions on your face. He darts his tongue out to trace his bottom lip, thoughts racing. 

“They like you.” Blue mutters, moving his mouth away from your skin just enough to be heard clearly. 

You want to ask how he knows, what gave you away. But you don’t even get the chance to try.

Nathan presses a sweet kiss to your lips, groaning when you reciprocate and grab the back of his neck with one hand to pull him closer. He slips his tongue past your lips, stroking your cheek tenderly. 

It’s a vast juxtaposition to how Blue is fucking the very life out of you. 

You whine, your muscles tensing as you get close. 

Nathan pulls back just enough to speak, his voice thick and hazy. “Make them come.” And then kisses you deeply once more.

Blue hums, pulling his mouth from your chest without slowing his manic thrusts. He slips his hand under Nathan’s shorts and Nathan lets out a surprised groan as Blue palms his erection. 

But he doesn’t stop kissing you. Instead, he helps Blue pull them down his legs before he plucks at your nipples while he licks into your mouth.

Blue twists his torso that would have been impossible for anyone save a contortionist and licks a strip up Nathan’s hard cock before he takes him deep into his throat. 

Your toes curl, the pleasure drowning you as you shake and spasm. You whine in Nathan’s mouth, his beard tickling your skin, and his lips muffling your moans. 

You come hard, the sensation hitting you all at once and then flooding you. It robs you completely of thought, whiting out your vision as you’re swept away completely by pleasure. 

Nathan thrusts into Blue’s mouth lazily, pulling back so he can watch your face as you come apart. He bites his lip, groaning for a second before he pulls Blue up to watch too. 

“Fucking beautiful,” Nathan whispers. 

Blue slows his hips as you relax under him, gently coming to a stop. He kisses your cheek as you open your eyes, while Nathan sucks at your neck. 

“You out for the count, or can I be gentle with you?” Nathan mutters. 

You breathe heavily, sweat cooling on your skin, your muscles aching. But you don’t get to answer before Blue is doing it for you. 

“Very gentle… if they agree.” He kisses your cheek again as he slowly pulls out of you and you whine softly. He rubs the inside of your thighs to ease the burn as he gets up.

“Very gentle,” Nathan repeats, sitting up and pulling off his vest and wriggling himself completely free of his shorts. “Very, very.” He moves between your legs, watching you with soft doe eyes. “Can I?”

You nod. But he tuts.

“Gonna need you to say something, sweetheart.” He smiles.

“Yes.” You say, giving him a little look that makes him laugh. 

“Haven't had the sass fucked out of you then. Good.” He kneels between your legs, his heavy cock in hand. 

You glance down and can’t help but smile and shake your head when you see him, he’s exactly the same size as Blue.

“What?” He grins. 

“Of course, you have a big dick.” 

Nathan puffs out his chest a little. 

“He made me two inches shorter,” Blue says, “but he-”

“I left the inches where it counts.” Nathan snaps playfully. “Now are you gonna put those inches to good use or what?” 

Blue smiles sarcastically sweetly at him. “Of course I am.” He takes hold of Nathan’s cock with one hand and lays the other flat on his lower back, guiding him towards you. It’s Blue that strokes Nathan through the creaminess of your release before he pushes in, he keeps Nathan slow and careful, sinking in until you're stuffed full. 

You let out a soft moan, you’re sore but it’s nice, more than nice. Pleasure burning just at the edge of your senses. 

Nathan groans, his muscles twitching under the force to stay still. “Fuck, you feel amazing.” 

“Gentle.” Blue whispers in his ear, the smallest hint of a warning in his voice that sends a shot of arousal along Nathan’s spine. 

He nods, his eyes lidded. 

You're a little surprised when Blue rubs the lube from his cock over two fingers and eases them inside Nathan, forcing him down on top of you, his chest pressed to yours. 

The moan Nathan lets out is sinful, deep as it rumbles against your skin. 

You grab hold of him, wrapping your hands around his back as he buries his face into your neck, every breath coming out as a whine and grunt. 

Blue smiles at you as he opens Nathan up for barely a minute before he guides his own cock inside. “He’s used to taking it.” He wriggles his eyebrows at you and you bite back a smile. 

Blue rocks gently, quite unlike the rapid thrusts he’s used before. He barely pulls out but swirls his hips, the force of his movement moves Nathan in turn and you. 

It’s slow, syrupily sweet with every push and pull. You grind up, moaning when Nathan simultaneously rubs against your clit with his pubic bone and the head of his thick cock slides against your walls. 

“Think you can come again?” Blue asks you, one hand between Nathan’s shoulder blades, while he links fingers with you with the other. 

“Ugh, please,” Nathan groans into your neck. He feels like jelly sandwiched between the both of you, the pleasure making him lightheaded. 

You nod, biting your lip. It’s building in a rush, so close to boiling over. 

Blue smiles and squeezes your hand. 

It only takes a few more languid rocks for the pressure on your clit to explode. You come with a cry, shaking. This one isn’t as hard, it doesn’t shatter your very being but it’s long and drawn out, thick and molten and leaves you exhausted. 

Blue thrusts three times harshly hitting Nathan’s prostate each time as you squeeze and pulse around his cock and he comes with a deep moan, emptying himself and holding you tight.

It’s only then that Blue allows himself to follow you both into pleasure, moaning both of your names happily.

Thank you for reading!

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You swallow, heat rising to your skin. A deep sensation twists in your lower stomach, throbs. You bite your lip, your toes curling as a flush of pleasure rolls over you, just as if…

Fuck.

You stand quickly on wobbly legs and grab your phone as you march (run) to the bathroom. You go to the stall at the top of the building, the one that is completely cut off from everyone else, lock the door and press call. 

Kane answers after three rings. 

He’s breathing deeply, the slap, slap, slap of lubed skin echoing in the background. “Hey.”

“Don’t you fucking hey me.” You hiss, and then moan softly as more waves of pleasure twist and sink, throbbing into your core. 

Kane groans softly. “Feel good?” 

“I’m at work, Kane.” You can picture the small smile on his face. 

“I was interested if it would work.” 

“You know it works.” 

“But not from this distance.” 

“Kane.”

He pauses, slowing his movements to a tantalising languidness. “Do you want me to stop?” 

You whine as the burn pulses between your legs. “No.” You whisper. 

He bites his lip. “Good.” 

He picks his pace back up, jerking himself quickly with his free hand, pushing himself, and you, closer and closer to the edge. 

You gasp softly, one hand over your mouth, the other clutching the phone to your ear. 

“Feels good doesn’t it?” He breathes, his voice heavy. 

You can practically see him in your mind’s eye, how he’s spread out across the bed, legs wide as he fists his cock with his well lubed hand. See the tiny tremors that run along his muscles, the sweat beading on his skin from the exertion. 

“You’re not fair.” You swallow. 

“Come home.” 

“I’m at work.” 

“Please.” 

“Kane…” You want to, oh god you want to. 

“I’ll sort something out.” He says simply. “You don’t need to worry.” 

“That makes me word-” Your sharp moan cuts you off as he twists his wrist, arches his back and presses a lubed finger inside of himself, pumping in time with his other hand. 

“Feel that?” 

You let out a short affirmative sound. Your legs shaking. Pleasure pulses along your veins. “I’m gonna come.” 

He groans, “You’re there faster than me… I can feel how close you are.” 

“Kane, please.” Though you’re not really sure what you’re begging for. 

“Come home, I promise I’ll take care of you.” His hushed voice sends shivers down your spine. “Promise.” 

You gasp, your back arching as you come. You just about manage to bite down on your lip to stop yourself from screaming from the force of it. 

Colour dances at the corner of your eyes, pulses and pulls at every nerve. Kane’s moans harmonise with yours from the other end of the phone, the sound soft and wanting. Desperate for you. 

He says your name softly. 

“Hmm?” You manage, breathing hard. 

“Are you coming home?” 

You can feel his cum splattered all over his stomach, the way he runs his fingers through it languidly. How he keeps a finger pressed deep within himself, teasing lightly until his cock begins to twitch again with interest. 

“Can you hold off until I’m there?” 

You can hear the grin in his voice. “Maybe.” 

Thank you for reading!

@pleasurebuttonwrites @raven-rk @campingwiththecharmings @alexxavicry @whatthefishh

@romanarose @strangerhands @saturn-rings-writes ho

@steven-grants-world  @eyelessfaces @angel-of-the-moons @minigirl87 @lunar-ghoulie

@silvernight-m @autismsupermusicalassassin @apesarecuul @reallyrallyauthor @basicalyrandom

@alwaysmicado @mangoslushcrush @marc-spectorr @spxctorsslxt @novarosewood 

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@queerponc @twwcs @Spnwhore2430 @mari-thesimp @ominoose

@ierofrnkk @have-you-seen-my-sanity

Which was why Leto, despite not being back to full strength, had to take part in the ceremony. It was the only way the full might of your House could protect him, and it would be a suicide mission for anyone to risk all out war with you on your home worlds. 

You had argued with your advisors heatedly about it, barely a word away from full out refusal. “This is beneath the Duke.” 

“Viscount, he is a duke no longer.” Etra, your oldest advisor, had spoken plainly and calmly. “The Harkonnens want him dead, the Emperor obviously backs them. We have little choice but to hide him in plain sight.” 

Instead of listening to reason, you’d taken issue with wording. “He is still the Duke.” 

“Viscount-”

“I will not have these words spoken.” You didn’t want to admit the real reason, that having Leto as your concubine simply felt wrong. Like you were taking advantage of him in every form, even if the title was on paper only. 

The arguments had ended when Leto had simply agreed. It was, after all, one of the very few moves you had left. 

You try not to look at him as he is led into the hall for the ceremony, keeping your gaze straight ahead, just above the audience. But you see him out of the corner of your eye. How he is dressed in soft fabric that seems so unlike the straight lined uniforms you’d seen him wear before. These flow, ripple with his movements, in the deep reds and gold of your House colours. Slices of his tan skin are exposed, seemingly to try to tempt you into breaking your resolve. 

He takes his place kneeling next to you while you stand, quiet and dignified while you burn and rage inside. 

This practice was outdated. Inhumane. 

The officiator speaks in Old Atlaniun, gesturing to you both and you nod. Leto’s response is not necessary. 

You hold out your left hand when prompted, and the officiator pricks the side of your forefinger with a golden needle, letting one drop of blood fall into an ornate goblet half filled with water. 

He swirls the cup three times before taking hold of Leto’s chin and tilting his head up.

You have to hold yourself together and not break his wrist for touching him so roughly. You give a sideways glance to Etra who nods once, understandingly. They would be having words with the officiator afterwards.

Leto drinks the water without pause, keeping his gaze low to the floor as he had been instructed. 

You want to scream, you wanted him to scream. How could he be so calm about this? How could he just accept? 

You step back when the officiant motions, sitting down on the richly decorated chair. You shift a little, your ceremonial armour is stiff, awkward for movement. It looks grand, but you know it would do little to help you in an actual fight. 

Leto stands, head bowed and walks to your side before kneeling on the deep red velvet cushion on the floor next to you. 

You let your eyes linger on him for a moment and hate how beautiful you think he looks. You’d saved him from the Harkonnens to free him, and now it was you and your House that were imprisoning him all over again. 

The officiator speaks rapidly, touching your forehead with oil before he touches Leto’s chin. Then as he goes to fetch the other goblet of water, you see Leto shift forward slightly. 

Concubines were ‘allowed’ to just sit there meekly, they did not have to do anything to interact in the ceremony - much to your disgust. 

But Leto slowly rests the side of his head on your leg and breathes deeply, almost content. 

Part of you wants to smile at his little play. His show of outward affection is like a scream of vulgarity to those enemies watching. I am not being forced to do this. 

You place your hand on his head, lightly stroking his hair. Your action is just as loud. Threaten him and I’ll destroy you. 

The officiator sprinkles both of you with water from the Ever Well, announcing the readyment of the brand. 

You do your best not to let your disgust show. 

Leto moves back, turning to face the crowd. 

There is a large open space in his clothing, revealing the left side of his chest. He stays still, almost serene as the officator speaks, as the hand guard steps forward with the brand fresh from the fire. The metal end glows, white hot. 

The hand guard moves quickly, pressing the brand of your House, Cace, to Leto’s skin. 

The flinch is minute, his eyes fluttering closed as the metal burns. He swallows. You fight the urge to reach out to him. 

The hand guard steps back, leaving the insignia flawlessly scorched along the area under Leto’s left breast. 

You can see the sweat beading on his brow, almost feel the excruciating pain he must be suffering through. 

The second the ceremony ends he is whisked off to a private room for his new wound to be bathed and wrapped in a clear second skin, so that it may still be seen by any onlookers. 

Your eyes manage to meet his for only a moment before he is led away. 

Thank you for reading!

@pleasurebuttonwrites @raven-rk @campingwiththecharmings @alexxavicry @whatthefishh

@romanarose @strangerhands @saturn-rings-writes ho

@steven-grants-world  @eyelessfaces @angel-of-the-moons @minigirl87 @lunar-ghoulie

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@theratscorner @pigeonmama @howellatme

It’s humiliating. A fucking muzzle. Like he’s some dumb mutt you picked up on the streets. If it wasn’t for that damn muzzle he could just get up and walk over and bury his face where your scent was the sweetest and just- His fingers twitch and his eyes widen in realization.

You hadn’t tied him down.

He could just get up and simply take what he wanted. He doesn’t need to just kneel there and wait for whatever you had planned.

As soon as the thought forms in his head his body moves. Eagerly Jake gets up from his position down on the ground, his eyes facing forward and he sees you for the first time since you told him to kneel and wait for instructions. He can’t take in much of your appearance, his attention caught instead by the leather leash held tightly in your hands.

“Down.”

He freezes in his tracks. Jake hasn’t heard you speak since the beginning of your little game and the sudden sound of your voice hits him like a train. It takes a moment for him to gather himself before his stunned expression switches to anger. “I’m not your dog! I’m-”

“I said: down,” you repeat, your voice eerily calm with just a hint of a threat; the or else implied.

His legs give out under him and Jake falls to the ground, his knees hitting the carpet with a dull thud. He wants to argue back, to say something but when he looks up at you again the words die on his tongue. You glower at him and with just that look his throat grows tight. Jake chokes on a whimper and quickly looks back down, fixing his posture so he is resuming the position you had guided him into earlier, his cock hanging heavy between his naked thighs.

Jake grits his teeth, seething at his own reaction. If you would simply do something, anything. The quiet, the stillness, the fucking waiting has him go stircrazy. And now he is even closer to you, kneeling right by your feet like he’s your fucking lapdog. 

He was right though, even from across the room, and now that he is closer it’s even clearer: he can smell your arousal and it’s divine. It makes his head spin. The things he would do for you to let him taste you, to let him bury his tongue in your wet cunt and suck on your clit like it’s candy. His cock is twitching just thinking about it. He wants to bite into your plush thighs, your ass, your tits and fuck you until you see stars. 

A pathetic whine escapes his throat as his hips buck forward, his mind conjuring pictures of you two fucking like animals. You click your tongue at him and his head jerks upward, eyes focused on you. 

“You’re already panting for it like a bitch in heat,” you sneer, “No self-control.” Jake swallows another whine, closes his eyes and tries to collect himself. He just needs to give you a little push so you’d take off this damn muzzle and let him bury his face between your legs. A few deep breaths later he opens his eyes again to stare at you, a defiant smirk splayed across his lips. “Maybe you should have trained me better then, mí Ama,” he counters. He notices with glee that your eye twitches in response. He can almost hear you grinding your teeth and it makes his stomach do a little flip. Just the thought of your teeth against his skin, biting, claiming has him dizzy with want.

“Cheeky pup,” you purr softly, an edge to your voice that makes him shudder with the implications. His eyes are drawn to your hands as you wrap the leash around them just to unwrap it again, a slow, mesmerizing motion. “Are you feeling restless, puppy? Is that why you are mouthing off like a street mutt?” You lean forward and loosely put the leash around his neck, letting it hang across his shoulders and pull him closer. Jake instinctively tries to rub his cheek against your knee but the muzzle is in the way, blocking him from making skin contact. A frustrated growl reverberates from his throat and he leans his forehead against your knee instead. 

“Behave,” you hiss as he continues to growl like an angry dog. His eyes flick up to you and with bared teeth he hisses back: “Make me.” Harshly you grab him by the O-ring of his collar and drag him up to your eye level. “Do you want me to put you into the cage and leave you there alone? Or are you going to be a good boy for me?” 

His eyes widen in barely concealed terror. The cage was the worst punishment - his broad form locked away in a tiny dog cage, left alone with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him. If your threat was serious then Jake had really pushed too far. If.

He grits his teeth, his gaze hardening. You’re bluffing; you had to be. All he needs is to get a fucking taste of your delicious cunt and he’ll play your obedient lap dog all you want. “I’ll be good if you take this fucking muzzle off,” Jake growls, aggressively pushing his muzzled face between your thighs and taking a deep breath, “I can smell how wet you are, mí Ama. Just let me get my mouth on you.” You spread your thighs wider and he almost whimpers with joy as he rubs his muzzled face against your clothed pussy. He’s so close. You smell so good and he fucking needs it.

He knows he went too far when you click your tongue disapprovingly. “I give you an inch and you're taking a mile.” The disappointment in your voice makes him flinch. Your deft fingers find purchase in his hair and you pull him away from you. “You don’t get to make demands here,” you spit, with venom on your tongue, as your disappointment turns to anger and Jake has the urge to lay down on his stomach and beg for forgiveness. A low whine vibrates through the back of his throat. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good,” he whimpers, “Please, mí Ama.”

You remove the leash from his neck and tighten it between your hands. “You're nothing more than a disobedient dog,” you smack the soft leather against your palm, the sound echoing like a thunder strike, making Jake flinch. “An animal driven by it's most basic instincts,” you pull his head back by his hair and attach the leash to his collar, “You want my pussy? You're not getting a taste until you're a good puppy and fuck me like the dog you are.” He watches you stand up and slowly strip off your clothing, his poor, neglected cock throbbing with every piece hitting the floor. 

You’re letting him fuck you. He can’t think beyond that, whining and pawing at your naked body, just for you to push him back down to his knees. “Silly puppy,“ you purr, “Thinking with nothing but your cock, isn’t that so?” You reach down and give his cock a little squeeze, small bolts of pleasure shooting up his spine. Jake moans pathetically, his hips snapping forward, desperately trying to fuck your hand, but you pull away before he can get any more friction than you allow. “Mí Ama, please. Please let me fuck you,” he begs, precum pooling at his frenulum and slowly dripping down his shaft, “Me voy a portar bien, voy a ser un chico bueno.”

You turn around and kneel down in front of him, resting your upper body on the leather chaise lounge. His eyes roam over your naked form, your perfect ass and thighs, your back towards him, so much skin he could taste and bite and mark. An insistent tug on his collar pulls him out of his thoughts. “Come on, puppy.” You’re watching him over your shoulder, the leash held tightly in your hands, “Fuck me.” You pull him closer by the leash and Jake stumbles forward. His hands hover over your hips, a low whine in his throat as he hesitates. You watch him, bemused, “Go on, fuck your Mistress.” With trembling hands Jake grabs the base of his cock, guiding it towards your entrance. He slides his member between your slick folds and fuck you’re so wet that he can’t help himself but rut against your cunt, panting like bitch in heat. Another sharp tug launches him forward, his breath caught in his throat as his collar gets pulled with the leash. “I told you to fuck me,” your voice shoots like lightning though his system. Jake nods frantically, “Sí mí Ama. Perdóname,” he pants as he lines himself up with your entrance and slowly pushes in. You’re so wet; he sinks into you with one stroke, burying himself inside to the hilt and dragging a low moan from your throat. 

It's overwhelming, your wet heat gripping him so tightly. His fingers dig into your hips as he starts pumping into you from behind. “Se siente tan rico, toda tu eres divina.” he groans reverently. He won't last long with how good you feel around his cock, how gorgeous you look bend over the chaise lounge, how fucking sexy you sound. There is no rhythm to his movements, just animalistic need as he mounts you. The moans and cries spilling from your mouth only urge him on further. 

With a harsh tug on the leash he is pressed against you, chest to back. In that moment Jake wants nothing more than to lick the sweat off of your skin, to kiss and mark and bite but all he can do is nuzzle against your shoulder blades with his muzzle. He whines like a dog begging for scraps. “Por favor, quítamelo. Quítame esto,” he pleads, his hips stuttering. Your pussy clenches and flutters around him and it's too much. He can't hold back, his balls growing tighter the closer he gets to his peak. He just needs and needs and needs.

“You can come,” you gasp, sounding like you are already close to your own climax, “Come for me, puppy.” One hand snakes from your hip to your stomach, pulling you closer towards him as he snaps his hips forward, drilling his cock into you frantically. “Gracias. Gracias. Gracias,” he babbles against your neck, desperation coating his voice like honey. He’s desperate to come, thrusting into you with reckless abandon. With the way you are crying out for him he's sure he's hitting the right spot, the one that leaves you writhing and panting, seeing stars. With one more hard thrust you come around his cock, the tight squeeze of your cunt sending Jake over the edge too. With a shuddering groan he spills his seed deep inside of you. You're both gasping for air and it takes all of his energy to not collapse right on top of you, instead trying to keep steady by holding onto the chaise lounge.

He stays like this, pressed close to you, inside you, your chests heaving in one rhythm. Jake nuzzles into your neck from behind, the leather of his muzzle dragging over your sweat soaked skin. “Te amo,” he groans, his voice sounding hoarse. “I love you too, Jake.” From this position he can't see your face but he can hear a smile in your voice. A soft rumble reverberates from his chest, something close to a pleased purr. “You’ve been so good for me, pet.” His ears perk up at your praise, your sweet words like a drug to him. “How about I give you a treat? But you’ll need to pull out first, baby.” He hums in affirmation even though he’d love to stay like this for at least a while longer. But the promise of a treat makes him agree easily. Gently he pulls out of you, some of his cum leaking out of your pussy and Jake chokes down a possessive growl. “Down, boy,” you say with a grin, though he knows it's just as much an order as it is meant to tease. 

He leans back and returns to his kneeling position. He watches you get up and stretch for a bit, the vast expanse of your naked back and perfect ass makes him swallow hard so he doesn't drool all over himself - especially since he can see his own cum slowly running down between your gorgeous thighs. Before he can go down the rabbit hole of why that sight wakes something primal in him you turn around and resume your place atop the chaise lounge, legs spread so he can fit comfortably between them as you drag him forward by his leash.

Jake stumbles forward on his knees, barely keeping his balance. The way he looks at you, eyes wide and shining, he does resemble a sweet little puppy. You lean forward, your hands finding the back of his head. With deft fingers you open the clasps holding the muzzle in place. “You’ve been such a good puppy. We can remove this now so you can enjoy your treat,” you explain while Jake is almost vibrating out of his skin now that he can finally put his mouth on you soon. Gently you remove the muzzle from his head and place it next to you on the chaise lounge. He licks his lips as you just watch him for a moment, taking in his face - now free of the leather construct keeping him caged. “There is my pretty pup,” you coo, fingers tracing over his features like he is a precious marble statue. His lips twitch in a satisfied smirk as he preens under your praise. 

“You want your treat now?” He nods eagerly and you chuckle. “Since you asked for it so much you get to taste my pussy and clean up the mess you made. Do you like that, pet?” Jake chokes on a whine, “Sí, sí mí Ama.” He quickly bridges the gap between you two and captures your lips in a kiss. You moan into his mouth, eagerly letting his tongue slip between your lips. It's passionate, loving and just what you need as you are still catching your breath after your shared orgasm. 

Jake breaks the sensual kiss to explore more of you with his mouth and lips and tongue. His kisses travel down your chin and neck, further down to your breasts and stomach until he kneels between your thighs again. Eagerly he dives between your spread legs, kissing your mound before dragging his tongue between your folds. The mixed taste of you hits his tongue and he groans in pleasure. Like a starved man he licks and sucks on your pussy, swallowing down your juices and the last traces of his own cum. You moan weakly, the sound almost drowned out by Jake’s slurping noises. You push his head down and away from your sensitive clit, the potential overstimulation too much for you to handle right after your orgasm.

Once the last drop of his cum is cleaned out of your cunt he stays there, nuzzled between your thighs, his mind silent and his heart content. You quietly pet his head, locks of hair twirled between your fingers. “You were wonderful,” you whisper, “The muzzle wasn't too bad, was it?” Jake hums quietly in agreement and looks up at you with a soft smile. “Think we can add it to our list? Or do you prefer this being a one time thing?” you ask as you carefully remove the leash and his collar. Jake sighs softly at the loss, resting his head against your thigh. “You can add it,” he mumbles, “I like-...I liked it.” His eyelids feel heavy as the adrenaline of the session wears off but he keeps his eyes fixed on you. “Did you? Like it?” You chuckle. “Oh I loved it, baby. I might even like it more than the cuffs.” Suddenly Jake bursts out laughing. “Ah, mi corazón. That means a lot. Fuck, you’re gonna keep me in that thing all the time now, aren't you?” 

There it is, that cheeky grin, that mischievous spark. Not your puppy but your Jake.

You do as you’re told, walking to stand in front of his desk, your hands behind your back. You keep looking at his face, not daring to glance anywhere else.

Blue smiles. “Here.” He points next to him. 

Painfully slowly, as if you could somehow wriggle out of this in the minimal amount of time it takes you to walk around. 

His trousers aren’t even pushed down, only his fly unzipped. At first, you think the mess of brown curls between his legs belongs to another dancer, but you quickly realise that this person doesn’t work in the club. In that manner anyway. 

Blue’s still smiling as he catches you looking. He takes your right wrist when you’re close enough. His grip isn’t hard, but the threat of it’s there. 

“You’re very beautiful.” He says softly, and it isn’t what you were expecting to hear at all over the slurps of a very messy blow job. “Take off your clothes.” You swallow, but do as he asks without much pause. There was little point in objecting. He hums in satisfaction as you strip, releasing your wrist. 

“Come closer.” He whispers when you’re finished, his voice low, and you step nearer. “Pet, here,” he tucks his fingers under the chin of the man between his legs, lifting his head up as he takes hold of your hand. His grip is soft, gentle even. 

The man groans a little as Blue moves him back and looks up at you with soft brown shining eyes. 

“This is Cecil,” Blue strokes his hair and Cecil smiles warmly, looking like the sun rising from a dark night sky. “My pet gets lonely, you see.” Blue’s talking to you as if he’s interviewing you for a job position and not standing completely bare in front of him. “I need to find him a playmate for when I’m busy, someone to keep an eye on him.” 

Cecil presses his face into Blue’s hand, and Blue laughs softly. 

“You make me sound like I can’t take care of myself,” Cecil grumbles, poking out his bottom lip ever so slightly. 

Blue kisses the top of his head and, while he isn’t looking directly at you, you can’t help but sneak a small look at his erection. You gulp. 

And Cecil giggles. “They looked.” He whispered in Blue’s ear. 

Blue’s fingers twitch and tighten a little in yours, but he keeps his gaze on Cecil. Stroking his hair soothingly. 

“Now, now,” he tuts charmingly, “you shouldn’t tell tales.” 

Cecil giggles and presses his face into Blue’s chest as he turns back to you. 

“You’ll have to forgive him, he is a little cheeky at times. Here,” he gently pulls at your hand, urging you to bend down, and when you do he puts his other hand to your cheek and guides your lips to his. 

The kiss is surprisingly soft, tender even. And completely not what you were expecting. He runs his tongue over your lip and smiles as he pulls back. “Pet?” 

Cecil jumps to his feet eagerly and Blue lets go of you, letting you stand back up as Cecil grins at you and stands close. Blue pushes his chair back further from the desk.

Cecil’s impressive cock bobs against his stomach as he moves, almost as completely naked as you are. The only piece of clothing, if you could call it that, was a thick leather collar around his neck.

“Hi.” He says, all sunshine, as if he was living in a completely different world to the one you were inhabiting. “Blue says you’re newish, only been here a few weeks?” 

You nod. 

“Aww, you quiet? That’s okay.” He grins friendly and lightly places his hands on your upper arms. He rubs your skin for a second before he leans forward and kisses you a little greedily. 

He hums happily when you reciprocate and presses closer, opening his mouth to let you slip your tongue between his lips. 

His eyes are softly glazed when he pulls back, a dopey smile plastered to his face. “You taste nice.” He mutters. “Sweet.” He kisses you once more, quick but still soft before burying his face into your neck and breathing deeply. 

“Now, now,” Blue tugs him back a fraction and Cecil scowls, petulant and sulking. But he still follows Blue’s command and moves away from you, sinking back down to his knees in front of Blue - who motions to you. 

“Come and sit.” He pats his thigh and you pause for a fraction of a second. “Aw, like a little deer in highlights. Here,” He takes your wrist again, guiding you into the position he wants on his lap, your back to his chest and facing outwards. His thick heavy cock digs into your spine, salvia and precum rubbing onto your skin. 

Blue makes sure your legs are on the outside of his and spreads his thighs, in turn spreading yours. Lightly he kisses your neck, chuckling at the rapid beating of your heart. “We’re not going to hurt you.” He whispers, silky sweet. “You’re being so well behaved.” He lightly wraps his arms over the top of yours, holding you close against him. 

He turns to Cecil, who’s still sitting patiently, “You need to taste more to see if they’re really sweet.” and Cecil grins.

He moves forward eagerly, placing his warm hands on your inner thighs and pushing them further apart. 

You jump at the sudden touch, tensing, but Blue hushes you, squeezing his arms and keeping you still as he bites and sucks at your neck. 

Cecil kisses your clit softly before he licks a thick stripe through your folds with his board tongue. 

You gasp, shivering and Blue chuckles. The sound reverberates through you. 

“Sensitive?” He mutters against your skin.

“So sweet,” Cecil groans, lapping eagerly and making you squirm and shake. 

A little sigh slips past your lips and Blue grins. 

“He’s very good with his mouth, isn’t he?” 

You bite back a whine as Blue kneads your breast and sinks his teeth into your neck. 

Instinctively your thighs try to close, to squeeze together, but Blue spreads his legs further apart, chuckling as you writhe. 

Cecil runs his tongue along your pussy, agonisingly slow as he stares up at you from between your legs with large, soft eyes. His hands rub at your inner thighs, his moans vibrate along your skin. 

You swear, your body trying to break free of Blue’s hold so you can chase your pleasure. 

Blue groans, his cock rubbing hot and heavy against the swell of your ass. “Just a little more, sweet thing. Just a little more.” 

“Please,” you sob, so close you can taste it. 

“You want to come?” Blue asks, his voice thick.

You nod desperately. 

“Oh, good little thing. So good, getting all worked up and wet.” Blue snakes one hand down to Cecil, grabbing the back of his head and pushing him closer to your core. 

Cecil whines happily and you cry out. 

“Playing so well with my pet,” Blue kisses your neck. And you scream. 

You come hard against Cecil’s mouth, shaking in Blue’s arms as pleasure overwhelms you and robs you of thought. Spiking up your spine and sinking into your bones. 

Blue groans, breathing hot and heavy in your ear as you fall apart, only pulling Cecil back lightly by the hair when your shudders subside. 

“Very good, very good.” He mutters. 

Cecil stands the moment Blue’s grip loosens, kissing up your stomach and your chest before he buries his face into your neck once more and breathes hard. 

You swallow, about to speak, when Cecil grinds his heavy cock against your core, slipping in and moaning. 

You gasp in surprise, your back arching as he slides in deeper, nearly half way when-

Blue snarls, grabbing hold of Cecil’s collar with one hand, while his other arm tightens around your arms. “Naughty, naughty pet.” 

Cecil whines as Blue pushes him back and out of you. 

“Who said you could?” 

Cecil shakes his head, looking at the floor.

“Hmm?” 

“No one.” 

“Exactly.” Blue snaps. 

“I’m sorry, I just wanted too…”

Blue tuts, and gestures to his desk. “Sit.” 

Cecil perches on the edge, his hands in his lap. 

“I’m so sorry about that, my dear.” Blue kisses your neck, and then groans sweetly as you shyly turn your head and press your lips to his. He breaks the kiss with a sigh, stroking your cheek. “Very good, very good… Now here,” he adjusts himself, urging you up a fraction before he takes himself in hand and pulls you back down onto him. 

He moans as his head slips between your lips, notching at your entrance. There is a slight resistance and Blue pulls at your hips until his large cock breaches and he slides into your tight pussy. 

Cecil squirms as he watches. 

You shiver, your thighs shaking as Blue slowly lowers you down onto him. 

“I can feel you shaking.” He teases.

“You’re… big.” You swallow. 

He chuckles. “Is that bad?” 

You bite your lip and shake your head. 

“Are you sure?” He strokes your cheek, taking hold of your jaw so that you face him. “I’m not trying to punish you, not when you’ve been so accommodating.” 

You suck in a sharp breath, you can’t remember a time you’ve been so full. But it’s not painful, the stretch makes your insides burn and sing the deeper he pushes.

“Oh,” he grins, “you like how I’m splitting you apart.” He growls and kisses you deeply, thrusting up the last few inches so that he is completely sheathed inside. 

You whine, gasping and grabbing hold of any part of him you can reach. 

Blue runs one hand along your side, slips down and toys with your clit until you're squirming and moaning. 

“Pet,” he breathes hard, his eyes snapping to Cecil, who quickly stands. “Come and rut against your new playmate.” 

Cecil practically bounds over to you, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He groans, kissing Blue deeply, before he kisses you and quickly presses between your legs. He rolls his hips, rubbing his heavy cock along your clit and making you sob. 

Blue reaches around, grabbing hold of Cecil’s ass and controlling his pace. Cecil whines, breathing hard. 

“Oh god, fuck, this is so fucking nice.” He shivers. 

You moan as he massages against you, rolling over your bundle of nerves again and again, his balls smacking against Blue’s with the force of his grinding. 

Blue growls, low in his throat, as your walls flutter and squeeze him. He licks up your neck. “That’s it, enjoy it, that’s it… being so good, letting us fuck you. Cecil’s going to make you come again, yes? And then I’m going to fill you up nice and full.” Blue grabs your hip possessively. “Like a good little toy, hmm?” 

You moan, unable to answer the filth he’s whispering into your ear as Cecil kisses you messily, his tongue practically down your throat. 

You clit throbs, pulsing with every roll of Cecil’s burning cock. You whine, your whole body singing between them. 

“I’m gonna comeeeee,” Cecil gasps, breaking the kiss and pressing his forehead against yours as his hips manically buck. 

His orgasm crests suddenly, making him shriek and tense as his cum splashes up your stomach and chest. 

Cecil swears, rutting for a few moments more until overstimulation makes him hiss. He quickly drops to his knees, sucking your clit into his mouth while he strokes Blue’s heavy balls with his free hand, smearing his cum over both of your skins. 

“That’s it pet,” Blue grunts, “make toy come.” He nips at your neck as you arch your back, pleasure pulsing heavily in your stomach as it’s pulled from you without any say in the matter. 

You gasp, your vision whiting out and Cecil moaning as your release coats Blue’s cock and drips down his balls. 

Blue shivers, breathing heavily, “oh fuck, toy, yes, make me come, make me come, make me!” He snarls as his orgasm hits, pressing you tightly against his chest as he pumps load after load of hot, thick cum inside you. 

You breathe heavily, Blue’s arms holding you gently as Cecil kisses up your torso, licking his spend from your skin. He nuzzles into your neck as you come back to yourself and then kisses Blue’s jaw as you recover. 

“Can we keep this toy?” Cecil asks, batting his eyes at Blue. “I like them so much.” 

Blue grins, “Yes, pet. I think we will.” 

Thank you for reading!

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