netherfeildren updates

4. Figs

The child sits outside her father’s office, waiting. 

Long curls drip frigid down her shivering back, white nightgown buttoned to the tip of her mother’s own chin—that likeness which will one day be the cause of all her troubles, though she does not yet know it—and the pink furry slippers which are her most favorite. They’re soft and they sparkle, and when she wears them, it’s like she’s a bunny. 

“He’ll be out soon, darling, and then we can put you to bed,” Nanny says from the seat beside her. She nods, pressing her small shoulders tightly to the back of the hard bench, wishing the woman silent so that she might better focus on the sound of the deep voice coming from behind the closed door. 

It is her father’s voice, and it is most familiar to her like this. 

From afar. 

The fingers she stares down at are still pink from the bath, and she twists them tightly in her lap, sitting very straight and very still, pressing her mouth together to keep all the sound and all the movement inside of herself silent and motionless so as to trick time into moving faster. She is young, only six years old, but she has learnt the strength of her own will already. How she might exert it with the right people to get what she wants—how with others, it means very little, if anything at all. 

Beside her, Nanny sighs a sound full of impatience, and this the child recognizes quite well. She doesn’t like it either, that they must always wait for him, that her whole life seems to be filled with waiting waiting waiting. She thinks that she hates waiting. She thinks that if she were a wild rabbit out in the purple mountains she wouldn’t ever have to wait for anyone or anything. And she knows that she would like to let it all out, the impatience, the yawn that trembles at her jaw as she clenches her teeth together until it hurts, the cry for him to hurry up because she doesn’t want to wait for him anymore. 

The door opens suddenly, and a man she doesn’t know strides out, papers tucked beneath his arm. The girl’s father is a businessman, and this is why he is so busy. He is also a rancher, this is why she does not come first.

 She is young, only six years old, but she has learnt the truth of this already.

Nanny has slid to the edge of the bench, her ankles crossed over one another, long fingered hands folded stiffly in her lap. She is breathing very slowly, her shoulders moving in up and down waves, and the girl knows she’s forcing herself to do this to stay calm. When the girl doesn’t do as she’s told, this is how Nanny breathes, too. 

Finally, her father’s heavy tread approaches the door, muffled by the thick rug in his office, the hard satin underside of the beautiful boots he wears. And then he’s there, after more than an hour of waiting past her bedtime, he moves past his daughter and the woman he pays to raise her as if they hardly exist—their wait inconsequential.

“Sir?” Nanny shoots up off the bench, voice soft but stern, like when she is ordering the child about in the school room. 

He is very frightening, her father. And the girl doesn’t think that she looks like him at all, which is why he doesn’t like her. If she was more like him, he would like her better. But she knows that if she is very quiet and very still that he can be nice, and so she waits without moving, until he looks at her. 

“We’ve come to say goodnight, Mr. Kelly.”

He sighs a long drawn out moment, a big breath as he’s a very big man with big nostrils that flare widely when he’s found the girl particularly annoying. 

Once, she’d tried to put her finger in his nose, to measure how much bigger it felt compared to when she put her finger in her own nostril. There was a great fuss after that, and a mighty spanking. She never tried to touch him like that ever again after.

She is a child who learns her lessons very well. 

“Yes, alright,” he says in his deep voice, and she does love the sound of it, even if it never sounds happy or laughing, even if it scares her, too, for she can always recognize when he’s come back home just by the sound of it rolling through the house. And when he comes to crouch before her, folding all the way down to look her right in the eyes, the little girl has to work hard as ever to make sure she remains very still and very quiet so as not to cry. 

“Have you been good for Nanny?”

“Yes, sir,” she nods. He never calls her Miss Maria as the girl is required to when they are in the school room, learning. Always simply, Nanny. 

“Bill tells me you’ve been doing well in your lessons. Soon you’ll be riding on your own. That will make me very pleased.”

“Yes, sir,” again. She wishes she could make her voice louder so that he might hear her better, but it will just not come. 

He sighs and his big nostrils flare again, and she knows he is displeased. She can never make herself sound in a way that will make him happy even though she tries as hard as she can. “I’m going away for a few weeks, but when I’m back, I’ll come watch you. How does that sound?”

And at this oh so terrible news, as hard as she tries to stifle the movement or the sound or the yawn or the cries or anything that might make him bothered in any way…well, she is still very young, only six years old, and she has not yet learnt how to control all the things he so intensely dislikes about her. 

“But you just came back, sir, and now you’re leaving again.” It comes out of her small child’s mouth a whine that grates, and yet, despite this, he is still kind for a moment longer.

“It’ll go by like that,” he snaps his big fingers, makes a big sound she has tried to replicate and cannot. 

“Please, don’t leave, daddy.” 

Now she will cry, now the kindness will start to go. 

“It won’t be that long, salamander.” 

A large hand wraps around her small shoulder, squeezing gently, she flinches and a fat tear rolls over her apple flushed cheek. It’s hard work, after all, holding yourself so still and so quiet when you are so little, and so finally, the stillness breaks, and she tucks her thumb into her warm mouth, sucking. 

He looks at her for another long moment, his hand falls away. She watches it carefully, steeling her small body for something bad. “That’s a filthy and disgusting habit. How many times do I have to tell you to knock it off?” He looks at Nanny with blame, and she says something low that the girl can no longer hear, she’s watching her slippers like a bunny again, thinking again how a bunny must surely never have to wait or cry over their fathers out there in the purple mountains. 

“Always with the goddamn sniveling, girl. Go to bed.” 

His voice is angry now. She sucks harder. She can no longer be still. He does not say goodbye.

-

You don’t see Joel for three whole days following your afternoon together.

It’s terrible.

On the lingering rays of the setting sun, a storm rolls in off the Tetons, and with it, trouble and interruptions. As the two of you help peel each other off the living room rug, damp and trembling and laughing like children, you stumble up the stairs together, the rain starting out soft and humid outside. A curtain of warm water falls from the skies as you step into the large, marbled shower stall in your bathroom, the rainfall spout pouring over your closely bent heads. 

You feel fragile and vulnerable in his hands, a turtle dove on a precarious ledge; like a girl again, watching him ramble about your father’s ranch, strong and far away and wholly untouchable, all while he washes soap from your hair. 

But now, the urgency of adulthood, of being a woman in his hands, not only a dove, rushes in, too. He touches you everywhere, fingers dragging through the soaked locks of your hair, braille mapped over the planes of your shoulders, down your sternum to palm the swell of your belly. So now, you’re woman and girl and dove, something fragile grown into its own strength, anchored here, yet still with the muscle memory of flight ready to take you away. If only because that’s what you’d always been used to before. The back of your eyes pinch with emotion, overwhelmed by the smolder of your heart, and you can’t believe it’s him, Joel, here, lifting your breast into his mouth to suckle at the peak, licking at the seam of your mouth and demanding entrance and the flavor of your tongue. 

His cock hangs heavy between his thick thighs, half hard, and if you weren’t fighting the silly knot of tears in your throat, you’d poke fun at the myth of middle aged men and unbelievable stamina. 

His wet lips slide across your burning cheek, your own moan trailing after him, chasing another kiss with the turn of your neck, all desperation, and his fingers catch over your bottom teeth, hooked Rainbow, pulling you open, pressing down on your tongue until you gag.  

“Gotta see if I’ll fit here too, baby,” he says against your ear, pressing you back to sit on the icy tiled bench. The steam of the water off his skin, the frigid hard beath your bottom and against your swollen cunt, you shiver all over until it hurts in your spine. His hand threads through the back of your hair, cupping and pulling, stretching you out so you’re wide open with his fingers still too thick and too deep in your mouth. You gag again, harder, thinking of before, when he forced his fingers far enough to make you vomit, eyes smarting at the memory of his rough helping. “Think it’ll do.” He’s teasing you with that half-cocked smirk like a boy’s. 

You’re sharing youth here, experience too. So much of one another being poured into the moment and so quickly that if you hadn’t known him for as long as you have, if you hadn’t been making your way to him with the hope of this for so long, it’d be entirely petrifying. 

He starts to stroke his length into full hardness, pulling your head forward, mouth open to take him onto your tongue. He’s heavy like he was in your cunt, but somehow even bigger, your jaw immediately prepares to ache with the stretch. Swiping it side to side on the flat and then sliding in, guiding you by your hair, showing you how he wants you to suck him. Close, he murmurs soft, good baby girl, when you purse your lips around his girth, holding at the back of your throat, instructing you to breathe long and slow through your nose, getting you used to him. 

He pulls back slowly, until you’ve only got the head to suckle on, your tongue sliding over it, the salty taste of his skin as his thumb brushes slowly along the edge of your jaw and then presses hard against the soft and giving underside of your chin, forcing you to open again, throat spasming convulsively. With his grip in your hair he tugs your head back again, and the two of you watch each other, his hazel bright eyes so intense it’s almost unbelievable that they hadn’t always looked at you like this. That you’d started all of this only a few nights ago with nothing but a half mad kiss you’d wished on for nearly half a life. 

You stick your tongue out flat and wide and begging, and he slides back in, holding you still as he pushes deep until his balls are pressed against your chin, rewarding himself with that first full bodied choking jerk from you, little tongue pressing against the base, throat cinching like a fist around the head.

He holds you there, letting you choke around him, and it’s still all so slow, so measured despite your racing heart and tears and spasming throat, wide wet eyes looking up at him—frightening, possessive want staring back down at you. Pulling back and pushing in again and again until you can’t take it anymore, jaw hinged too wide, little tits trembling with the puff of your breath until every other one is a gag and all you are is a wet, open throat. 

When he finally pulls back, and you’re still missing a belly full of come, you suck in a shaky breath, gagging frog sound in your throat, spit dripping off your chin that he smears down your throat, over your chest and nipples, pinching hard and stinging. You fall against his hip, swollen lips mouthing down to the fat head of his cock, still hungry for your treat, his fist slides down the spit slicked length, following you; a string of drool and pre-come keeping the two of you connected when you yank against the commanding grip in your hair, nuzzling like a puppy, whine at the back of your throat as he pushes it hot and heavy against your sticky cheek, smacks you with it a little. 

“Good girl. My good baby girl,” he laughs tenderly, and he’s so endeared by you, you can feel it in his eyes and hear it in his smile, that something hot and agonizing pulses through your heart.

When you step out of your shower cocoon together, the rain is a violent gust now, shaking the house on its foundation, windows rattling in their frames. He wraps you in a large fluffy white towel, twisting a second one in your hair, flushed sensitive skin trembling under his touch. His kiss is slow and lazy, all tongue and care as you fall together against the silk duvet, pulling you into himself as his heavy weight settles over you, drawing your thigh over his hip, nothing but cotton and damp dew separating the two of you. You need to make him come again, his fingers sneaking between your thighs to play in his leaking spend—when someone bangs urgently on the door downstairs. 

On his drive in from Jackson, Jesse had come across a large chunk of the northernmost fence that had been taken out by the strong winds and lashing rain. Cattle were already spilling out onto the highway when he’d passed, meandering into the adjoining land owned by the park. 

Ellie and Dina had been called back in from town, and they’d all had to ride up and over the mountain to herd the escaped cattle and make repairs to the fence—and had left you all alone and without him and all the rest of them, too.

It had been a long and quiet three days, just you and Dina, which had made you very worried in a very concerning way, this sudden and immediate melancholy that had fallen over you and the whole house without him. The reality that the ranch is wrong, the house is wrong, you are wrong in it, without Joel Miller here to roam and tend the land. That you may have traveled far and wide, tasted all the flavors and touched all the colors of the rainbow, done all the things your imagination might’ve conjured, but outside of this place there existed not even a fraction of what these people had built here together—a family born at the center of a green valley. 

And so there’s a part of you now, like a coward, trying to twist away from the reality that you’re still just that girl, in some ways so young, so unsure, sitting outside your father’s office with the desperate need to be paid attention to, to be remembered. 

Still that desperate child turned woman, asking yourself why you’d felt you needed Joel here that morning you’d arrived to meet your last dead parent. Asking yourself why you’d sent yourself into an anger fueled bender when you’d arrived to find him missing. 

He isn’t your kin. Never your confidant. In the past, there was not even that closeness of previously shared intimacy or comfort between the two of you. He’d been, for all intents and purposes, a stranger to you as a child in all the ways that counted save for those you’d conjured up in your imagination. 

But perhaps that’s the thing. In your own imaginary way, Joel is familiar, as part of the ranch as the rock of the mountain, the house in which your mother had birthed you, or even your father, who’d loved this place more than he’d ever loved anything except his wife, he who’d also died here; all of them a history of monuments that make up the miasma of what this place really is. The annals of their lives, so closely knit with the land itself that there can be no separating one from the other, and Joel is a part of it all.

Maybe it’s that, in some ways, you feel he has more of a right to be here than you do. That you need him here to remind you that you belong, too. 

That you’d needed the reassurance of his approval here when you’d come to claim the place as your own once and for all. 

And you need him now, now that he’d so made you a part of himself in much the same way, in nothing but a single afternoon. 

But most obvious of all, during their days away protecting and caring for your birthright, what becomes clear to you is that after all these years, they had all very much become your family, too: Ellie, Dina, Jesse, Frank and Bill and Tommy. 

Joel. 

It is almost a terrible moment of enlightenment, that realization of how much you truly have to lose now. 

On the third day of his absence, the sky blooms a clear and startling blue, and in the early afternoon, you hear the commotion of the team making their valiant return. The slamming of truck doors and trailer gates, shouted orders and horses sputtering at the indignation of being kept from home and at work for so many days. 

There’s a single bated-breath-moment of shy hesitancy, a will-he-won’t-he sort of doubt (want to see me want to do it again want me) and then you’re chasing down the stairs and after more of that lightning in a bottle feeling, out the front door in search of him. 

Chaos bubbles in the yard, hands lifting and hauling supplies and tools from the beds of trucks and the backs of trailers, horses being led to and fro, Dina and Ellie having a shameless snog in the shadow of her open truck door. Your eyes flit from person to person, searching the mess of homesick excitement for his height and breadth. 

It’s only been two and a half days, really, after so many years dreaming of him, but anyways—you missed him. Really, truly missed him.

From the corner of your eye you finally catch sight of him stepping out of the dark shade of the barn, towering above everyone around him. He’s got that sweat stained brown hat pulled low over his brow, edges curled with overuse. His hair is long enough it curls slightly over the back of his collar, and his eyes are hidden from you in the hat’s protective shade, but by the swirl of your belly and the shiver across your skin, you think he finds you at the same time as you do him. Something magnetic. You don’t think you can even feel your foot still connected to your body when you take a step down off the front steps, stumbling over the gravel of the drive that digs uncomfortably into the soles of your feet through the house slippers you’d forgotten to change out of —when suddenly, you recognize the person standing next to him, smiling up at him as she glows bright and lovely. 

The veterinarian, Tess. 

You’re thankful for the absentminded hand trailing behind you, still anchoring you to the stability of the step’s railing, when you register the swollen round of her heavily pregnant belly, a careful hand cupped protectively around the underside, as she rests her other palm against Joel’s arm. 

Suddenly the gravel digging into your slippers becomes too painful to ignore, almost overwhelming, you take a frightened step back. 

He would never. But—

At one time, they were together, and her hand on his arm has now moved to his chest, a show of comfort and intimacy between them, and she’s laughing, her long hair woven back into a neat braid, swinging with the movement of her mirth. She looks really beautiful, and you’re again nothing more than the little girl in her slippers waiting for a man that will not come to you. 

He would never. Right?

Ellie calls your name—you take another retreating step up the stairs, indecision and insecurity sloshing in your belly—bull sprinting towards you, her lithe, strong body knocking your ribs painfully into the railing, her hands yanking on your hair, babbling excitedly and Dina’s voice from behind, telling her she’s worse than the wrangled cattle. Over Ellie’s shoulder and past Dina’s kind gaze, Joel bends low towards Tess, arm around her shoulders as he steers her towards the three of you congregated on the steps. You feel as you did on that bench outside his office for all those years, waiting for a man to find time to dole out your verdict: kindness or cruelty, a goodbye or worse. 

He’s saying something to her still, speaking close into her ear and guiding her buoyant form carefully through the busy yard full of cowboys and animals and danger, and you can see his eyes now as they flit to you, looking so cold and guarded. 

There’s no Nanny here to shield you from the worst of it now. 

When they finally reach you, Tess embraces both Dina and Ellie with all the warmth of people who’ve worked and laughed and grown together for years. You stand as still and as quiet as you can possibly make yourself. You have all the practice in the world waiting for your turn to be acknowledged, and this is a terrible and small feeling which no grown woman should have to subject herself to. And yet, still, you can’t seem to escape the child. 

He’s watching you, you can feel him, hungry or angry maybe—something else. But you can’t tell now—can’t focus on anything but your stillness and waiting your turn until Ellie finally turns to reintroduce Tess to the adult version of you. 

“The new Kelly,” Tess says with easy warmth and an even easier smile, offering you her palm for a strong handshake. Everything about her is so natural, earthen or real. Nothing at all put upon. This is a woman who, whatever the truth of it may actually be, gives every appearance of having always known herself, never had doubts, never had to claw in the grime and gutter for her truth or whatever scraps of self best fit her at the time. 

“Tess. It’s nice to see you again,” you say as cool and magnanimous as you can muster yourself to be. Ignoring the lurch of nausea being referred to as the Kelly brings on. 

“I was sorry to hear about your father. He gave me work for a long time, and I was always grateful for it.” Something you’d never understood about your father, how he collected gratitude easy as pennies. It was perhaps his greatest talent—getting all of them to eat out of the palm of his hand. 

“Thank you. I appreciate it, and I hope we’ll continue that work going forward. I wouldn’t like anything integral to change for the ranch now. Anything else, that is.” Your voice comes out robotic, businesslike, and she pauses, her head cocking to the side, that easy smile still plastered on her smooth, beautiful face. In your peripheral, you see Ellie move closer to Joel, whispering something in his ear, the click click of Dina chewing on her fingernails. 

“Actually,” Tess says, “If you have a minute, I’d like for us to talk.”

Your toes flex in your slippers, the three of them hold their breath, Tess oblivious to their doubt of you, and the imaginary ticking time bomb sound chips away at your mind, demeaning you further. What do they expect? For you to throw a fit? The lover (—ex lover?) of the man you’ve had sex with once, come here to test you with some potentially incriminating evidence smuggled beneath her t-shirt. And here they are, suddenly orbiting you as if you’ve ever been like him —that explosive anger, that rage, that ability to humiliate and cause fear and insult. 

You’ve never had a temper like that. It’s insulting they’d act otherwise. 

“Give us a second.” You turn to Dina, it isn’t a question. 

One moment to the next, you’re still in your slippers, but you’re not that waiting child any longer. You remember yourself, and you’re the head of the ranch and all that comes with it now. This is yours. And you aren’t your father. And they’ll pretend at respect, whether they feel it or not because it’s your due after the pound of flesh you’d offered up to this place in your childhood. 

How does one stay ambitious and brave and wild and still become a grown woman? 

How does a girl stand on her own two feet and become an adult when she’s never felt any of those things to begin with?

How does one grapple with the terror of their childhood and succeed at a normal and full life?

The girls go and you ponder your existential dread in the face of a woman who seems to have it all figured out. 

Joel clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “You know, I can—”

“We just gotta talk some shop, Texas. We’ll be okay—just a minute,” Tess tells him. Assertive, but with a wink, and she never loses that grin which, if she wasn’t so damn likable, would be annoying as hell. 

You struggle to swallow your cringe. It’s easy to picture the two of them together, how they’d look, how they’d be. Good looking and capable, strong, confident personalities. 

You finally meet his eyes, they offer you nothing, of course, and with a dip of your chin, you give him his leave. He only goes a few paces away from the bottom step of the deck, unwilling to stray too far from the two of you. 

“Oz was a difficult man. You’re not really anything like him, are you?”

Oz. It’s funny to hear the terror of your father referred to so casually. 

“The opposite has never been insinuated. But I can be pretty difficult when I want to be, too,” you say, still watching Joel watch you. 

If you were anything like your father, you’d take her assessment as an insult. 

Instead, you meet her appraising gaze as steady as you can.

“Ah—” she hums,“Sure, yeah,” then laughs. “Can see it in the way you carry yourself. If anything, he was… a force.” 

“He was that.”

You don’t feel now that you can give her too much. Like if you open your mouth, give her more words than necessary, she’ll know everything there is to know about you and what has gone on here. She’s got that sort of look about her, those sort of eyes. Already measured you against your father and found you lacking. 

Even if she didn’t mean it badly, the comparison stings.

“I’d like things to continue on as they’ve been so far, also,” she continues. “Anything you need around here, you call our team. We’ll be here. I’d like to say nothing will change,” and at this she looks down at her bulging belly, sweeping a loving hand over it, “But…” she clicks her tongue ruefully, smile changing to something softer, sincere in a more intimate way. “Things are about to get a little different for me here now pretty soon.” She looks back to you, “My husband’ll be taking over things, just for a few months. He trained at Davis, and I’ll send over his CV so you can take a look at it yourself. Talk to the boys and Joel, they know him well now. If you’d like, my assistant can get with Dina—the three of us can meet and talk over the next few months and what the ranch’ll need from us for the rest of the year up into calving season. I’d rather we have a solid plan before everything gets too crazy for us.”

There’s something like vertigo swooping between your ears, ship at sea sort of unmoored. You are so silly. It’s humiliating. So insecure in ways you have no business being. Husband, of course.

“Does that sound okay to you?” She presses.

“Sure— I mean… yes. Yes, that sounds great. I look forward to it. Just give Dina a call.”

“I hope the ranch won’t forget about me while I’m out of commission. The Kelly has always been a special place to me.” There’s so much genuine sincerity in her voice. You wonder if Joel is part of that sentiment. 

“We’ll be waiting for you, Tess. Don’t worry about that.” 

She flushes slightly, looking down at the hand on her stomach again. “Thank you. I appreciate that. This is difficult for me, as happy as I am about it all. Giving myself over to something that’s so out of my control.”

You nod in understanding. “I didn’t know you’d gotten married. Congratulations to you and your husband.” You flush deep and embarrassed in return, at your initial assumption, but she makes nothing of whatever fucked up expression you know you’ve got your face screwed into. You don’t want her to know how you feel about Joel, to suspect—this woman who’d had him in her own unique and mysterious way for such a long time. Who shares history and a friendship with him now, admiration and respect and laughter. 

“Yeah, well…” She chuckles ruefully at this, turning now to glance surreptitiously at the still brooding Joel pacing between Frank and Tommy as they talk at him.  “It happened quick. I wanted things I wasn’t going to find other places. Had to go out and get them for myself—you know?”

“Sure,” you blink once, “Of course.” But her words fill you with more of that nauseating vertigo. Afraid again, that you’re still that child waiting for something that will never come. That you too, are now looking for something in the same wrong place.

-

He watches your profile closely through your exchange with Tess. Since Ellie had approached you, really—always rough housing when she shouldn’t be, knocking you in the ribs. The way you grip the deck’s bannister, your knuckles white with strain and the flush in your throat and cheeks, the lift of your brow. You smile often, but not easily. He can tell they cost you something or that you have to remind yourself to respond the way you’re expected to. 

He’d seen it on your face, what you’d assumed about Tess. 

The sun is strong against the back of his neck, and there’s a line of sweat pouring down his spine, and he wants to go to you, make sure you’re okay and apologize for the three days and the doubt and not being here when he knows you need him. 

When it seems Tess is finally saying her goodbye’s, he’s unable to extricate himself from Tommy and Frank’s bitching about the work yet to be done for the rest of the afternoon without having to tell them outright to fuck off. Tess makes her slow way down the steps of the house, her swollen gait bobbing unsteadily from side to side, and he watches as you head around the opposite end of the house, gunning for the back door and avoiding him, he knows. He knows. 

“How’s it goin’, Texas?” Tess chirps brightly, He reaches beneath her elbow to lead her back to her truck, Frank there already, pulling the door open for her. 

“It’s goin’ well, Tess. You look good, honey. You feel good?”

“Great. Never better.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.” And he means it. He’d never been able to give her what she wanted, as hard as he’d tried, and he’d been damn happy for her when she’d found it anyways. “Remind me when she’s joinin’ us?” 

“Ah, end of August.” She’s happier now than she ever looked when she’d been fooling around with him, and it makes Joel glad to know it’d all ended up as it was meant to. He looks back up at the big house, second to last window on the far left end where he knows your room is. 

“Real soon now.”

“Not soon enough. Her daddy’s just as restless as she is for it to be time.”

“I’ll bet. I’m glad,” he says again, helping her up into the truck as she huffs and puffs. Frank says his goodbyes and Joel shuts her door for her, leaning against the open window. “Happy?” He asks his friend. 

The smile on her face tells him all he needs to know. “I am.”

“That’s good.” A look passes between them, that of two people who know too much about each other, but perhaps, not the most important things they should’ve known after it was all said and done. And yet there’s nothing bittersweet about what lives between them. It’s all as it should be.

“What about you? You happy?”

He has to force himself not to look at that window again. 

“Yeah, I’m happy.” She reaches for his cheek, clucking at him like she might not believe him. But how to tell her that this time it really is true, without giving away his too precious secret? 

“Good. You deserve it, Joel.” 

The curious part is, he thinks he might really believe her.

As Tess’s truck pulls slowly down the long drive, he looks back at that window, thinking of the other afternoon in the sun drenched family room. The wet stretched lycra tight across your sun burnished skin, all reds and pinks and a grotesque splatter of girl shaped desire that had him clawing at the brink of madness. Afraid he’d hurt you, lose his mind so entirely he’d forget how delicate you can be made in his hands—that scared look in your eyes, that step back when you’d seen Tess—but then he remembers the tilt of your hips taking him inside your body and the strength in your thighs grounding him, the steady look in your gaze telling him that you’re okay and reminding him of all your fire inside—that you have always been stronger and more resilient than he could ever even think to be. 

A woman full of strength.

You are a thing to be loved. 

He follows you, slipping through the unlocked back door, hunting through the cool, quiet shadows of the sun speared halls of your home. 

When he finds your sounds of movement at the back of the house, in your father’s study, he waits silent and still by the door, heart beating a thunder drum in his chest as he listens to your steps approach and pulling you blindly into himself when you cross the threshold. Banding his arms around your back, knees bent to get at your level and seal his mouth over yours. 

Three days is too long a time, and Joel is a starving man. 

You give one appalled squeak before your head is falling back on your neck, opening so sweetly for him, letting him lap at your tongue and sip at your flavor. 

“You were thinkin’ strange thoughts out there,” he says against your mouth, and you huff against him, opening to protest, but he kisses you again. Kisses you stupid, knees straightening to pull you up with him, leaving your feet dangling between his spread cowboy boots, the soft thump of a slipper sliding off your foot. 

“Don’t lie, little liar.” He licks at your jaw, reaches down to squeeze the full of your sweet ass. “Did you miss me?” A kiss to your pulse point now and you moan so pretty for him, all soft and breathy, like you want him to fuck you right here, take you into your father’s study and have you slick and full of come as quick as he can get you. 

“Yes,” you moan, tilting your head further back to give him more territory to kiss. 

He pulls back to look at your eyes, cheeks flushed and mouth swollen. He drags his hand gently over the spot of your Ellie-battered-ribs. There is nothing about you that Joel wouldn’t notice. Gorgeous fucking thing, he wants to ruin you. He’s going to ruin you for every other man ever. Squeezing your cheeks together, forcing your mouth into a pout, say it, he orders—feral, desperate, missing you, too. 

“I missed you, Joel.”

Joel. He groans at the sound of it, kisses you again—more, harder, so you know that he really means it.

Hours later, when the sun has set, he finally makes his way into the quiet of his cabin, wondering if it’s logistically more polite to bring his toothbrush over with him so that he can have fresh breath in the morning or simply pray on the effectiveness of toothpaste and a finger, worrying whether you’ll be asleep already, if you’ve had dinner or if he should plan for that, too. He’s pulled from his fretting by the sight of your coat—the worn brown suede one you love that hits just below your knees, light enough for the cool summer evenings—hung over the hook by his door. He knows it’s lined on the inside with cheetah printed silk, so like you, and that the label says Dolce & Gabbana. He’d peeked at it the other morning, draped over the breakfast bar in the big house, tested the weight of it. Made in Italy, it says on the label. A fancy thing. Details he has no business searching for or obsessing over, but that he searches for and obsesses over nonetheless. 

He blinks at the well worn coat, unable—only for a second—to understand what it is it’s doing here in his house. 

But in the kitchen, there’s a cupboard left slightly ajar, his books on the coffee table misaligned and out of the order in which he’d left them, his mail rifled through, a lone envelope spilled onto the rug beneath. His second set of boots kicked over to make space for a much smaller pair. He’s sure if he were to open his fridge, he’d find the contents of it picked over, as well. 

It would seem that a little intruder has come to make herself at home in his space. And when he peeks through the open door of his bedroom, the proof of it is in the shape of a small lump curled in on itself at the head of his bed. 

He clears his throat and two too large eyes peek out over the edge of his dark comforter, challenging, daring him to question your presence here.

There’s also something softly vulnerable there, which he takes careful note of. 

Crossing his arms over his still sweaty chest, he leans against the door appreciating the sight of you snuggled up in his bed. Something like giddiness eats away at his heart, and he chews on his cheek to keep a shit-eating grin from spreading across his face. The two of you stare each other down, waiting to see who breaks first. 

It’s him. 

Of course.

At the soft sound you let out, some croon that beckons him forward, he pushes away from the doorframe, crossing the room to loom over you as you wiggle deeper into his bed. Your scent fucks with his head. Makes him feel just this close to unhinged. His sheets will smell like you for days now. Sweet, sultry. God-like. He’s about to become a pious man. 

Bending over you, he holds himself anchored with one hand gripped around the wooden slat of his headboard and slowly pulls the edge of the blanket covering you, down. Revealing for himself the sweet little morsel of a gift that’s come to plant itself in his bed so nicely. You’ve wrapped yourself in something lacy and pale for him, some sort of spaghetti-strapped confection seemingly made out of sugar—his gut goes hot and heavy. 

And from below, you take him in, gaze roving over his face and arms while he holds himself up and on display. Your hand comes up to ghost soft as petal fingertips over the bulge of his bicep, and he growls some hungry sound that he scares himself with. 

You turn him into something he’s never been before. 

A flush creeps down your throat to flood your chest, and he wants to follow it to your breasts. See if he can make you go as red and hot all over as he’s learned your sweet little nipples can go. 

“Hi.”

He shakes his head down at such temptation. No man is this strong. “I gotta wash up before I touch you, darlin’. I’m filthy.”

You shake your head back at him, whining softly in your throat, writhing in his sheets, knee hitching higher to push the covers down and reveal more of yourself to him—matching panties and soft, bare thighs, Jesus—fucking siren girl all for him. His mouth waters. Your fingertips ghost down his chest, catching lightly at the hem of his t-shirt, tugging gently, making his stomach swoop. 

“No. Come,” you order. It’s all a seduction.

But he’s been hauling and riding and sweating all day. He needs to scrub the two inch layer of filth from his skin before he can touch something this perfect. Clutching at the headboard he lets himself lean further over you, stretching the tense muscles of his back, sucking at your mouth once, long and hard, dragging his tongue wet and lewd across your cheek before he’s groaning, heaving himself up and pulling his shirt up over the back of his head to jump in the shower, strict about not turning back to look at you lest he lose himself to your call. 

In the steamed mirror once he’s done, he takes in the color of his eyes and doesn’t recognize the way they stare back at him. Like a boy discovering a woman for the first time in his life, he’s never felt like this before. It’s frightening, intoxicating.

When he steps back out into the bedroom, dragging a towel through his wet hair, over his chest and sensitive groin, you’ve flopped over, covers kicked down to the foot of the bed so he can see the sheer lace of your panties disappear between your cheeks. Scrolling on your phone with your feet kicked up in the air, swinging in a slow motion that hypnotizes. He’s going to wrap both fists around your ankles and hold you forcibly open, watch you get wetter and wetter and more swollen until neither one of you can take the waiting any longer. He’s going to drag it out until it’s mean. He’s going to make it count. 

His cock is so hard that a delicious heat has begun to pool in his abdomen, seeping down into his pelvis. He’s heavy between his legs. 

Dropping the towel to the floor, he catches a swinging ankle, tugging roughly to flip you over and yank you down towards himself. Bracing one knee to the edge of the bed, he leans over, reaching for your phone and tosses it over his shoulder carelessly. The frown you give him is mighty, and he laughs at you. He feels—he can’t say exactly. A little unhinged, perhaps. Out of control. Like he needs to exert some sort of force here. Expel that jittering energy he’s been filled with the past three days which distracted him from his ride and his work, from wrangling cattle  and leading his men. That feeling that made him desperate to run back here into your arms. 

You give him a peevish, suspicious look, tapping one perfectly manicured finger against the tip of your chin, and ask, “Are you JoelMiller81?” 

“Don’t know what that means,” he gruffs, running his hands over the silk and lace of the little scrap you’ve got on, feeling the hard peaks of your nipples against his palms. His callouses catch and snag, and he has the passing thought that he might be too rough, too nasty, to handle something so fine, but then settles on the reality that he doesn’t really give a fuck if he is. 

You want him.

You want him. And that’s all that matters, really, you getting what you want. The thought of being the one that gives it to you fills him with a feral sort of satisfaction.

“Liar. Liar liar pants on fire.”

“Don’t know what that means neither.” He bends to bite your pretty little tit through the lace. Hard. 

“Ow!” You try to shove him away. “Why’d you like my picture a bunch of times, huh?”

“Didn’t.” 

He pushes your knees up around his waist, taking your wrist and pinning it to the mattress by your hip, trapping it with his knee. His heavily hanging cock brushes wetly against the soft inside of your thigh, sending a shiver down his spine, unable to help the soft moan he lets out. He’s so fucking turned on for you. So hard. The head, red and swollen and throbbing a leak of precum with every beat of his heart. 

“Yes, you did. One of my ass. Like a hundred times.” 

He pulls back to glare at you, and you laugh in his face, lovely and bright as a firefly. 

“Got no idea what you’re talkin’ ‘bout. But if I did, I’d say you got no business showin’ what’s mine to the whole internet.” Thirty-seven thousand fuckin’ people, he grumbles under his breath, fuckin’ ridiculous. 

You gasp, affronted, “Yours?” Glaring back just as hotly. 

You push yourself up on your elbows, catching him by the mouth with your palm to shove his big head away. He nips at the soft flesh, grunting an affirmative. 

“Excuse me!” You drag the vowels out all sassy, all provoking. It makes him leak. Makes him want to pick a hundred fights just to enjoy the making up afterwards. 

“You heard me.” He kneels back between your legs and pulls your little panties down your long legs. 

“I do what I want.”

“Sure, baby.” 

He listens to the click of your teeth, a whine in the back of your throat. Upset ‘cause he’s not taking your bait. “Are you gonna be mean?” You pout. 

Joel pauses, as if to consider. “Yeah,” he says eventually with mock regret and a sigh.

You heave a big, long breath. “Oh, alright,” and let yourself flop back onto the mattress, arms stretching back up over your head. 

He can’t help his chuckle. You really do charm his socks off. 

“How was the rest of your day?” You ask as he settles between your thighs. 

“Bad.”

First, he presses a soft kiss to the fleshy uppermost part of your mons, dipping his tongue out just a tiny bit to taste the salty sweet skin there, but not far out enough to taste you where you really want him. 

“Oh?” —A little moan— “Why’s that?”

“Because.”

“Because what?” Your tone dips into a whine. 

He leans up on his elbows to get a good look at your face. “Because I can’t seem to stop thinking about this,” he hisses, “And it’s damn difficult to tend horses and wrangle cowboys when you’ve got half an erection. That’s why. Any more questions?”

“No. That’s it. You can continue.” Voice all fucking prim and proper. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you sass back, digging your heel into his shoulder. 

“Fucking brat.” Now, he kisses you full on, tongue dipping shallowly between your slit for a better taste. He takes a drop of your dew into his mouth and rubs it against his palate, savoring the taste.

“Yes. And?” It’s all a moaning, fluttery sigh now. 

His hands splay wide, sliding up the underside of your thighs to push you open by the back of the knees, listening to the sticky pop of your lips spreading. 

“Oh my God,” you moan. “So embarrassing.” Covering your hot face with your arms. 

“Fucking hot,” he groans, going in again, licking into your soft, wet cunt. He comes to the crest of your sex, your clit hot and slippery, suckling at it in quick pulses. Keeping the force of it light enough to not overwhelm you too quickly. He turns his head to deepen his angle, his tongue pulsing against your opening, lapping and lapping, coaxing the little hole to soften for him. Prepping it to take him. He spends a long time there, ignoring your clit, licking around the soft folds, everywhere but where you really need him.

His stomach is hot, his cock full, and he lets himself settle more heavily against the bed, pressing his aching length roughly into the edge of the mattress to relieve the pressure, rutting there slowly. You let out a twisting sob when he finally goes back to focus on your clit, circling his tongue lightly, round and round, and then opening his mouth wide to drag his bottom teeth ever so gently over the swollen nub, watching your reaction intently the entire time. Your face scrunches, a sheen of sweat blooming, all the fine muscles spasming frantically, and all at once, he can feel your cunt pulsing, readying for orgasm against his tongue, as you try to twist away, back of your knee sliding over his face. 

He holds you down more firmly, pressing a large palm low to your belly, his fingers on your clit, and spears his tongue into your sex, giving you something to bear down on. This is agony, watching you come for him. He needs to fuck you.  

God. “Thought about this all fuckin’ day, baby.” He slurps loudly, lewdly. “Your sweet little pussy, it’s fucking perfect. Made for me.”

You sob into the bunched sheets, hiding your face while you grind against his face. 

Pressing kisses along the slick curve of your soaked sex once you’ve finished, you hiccup above his head, carding your fingers through his hair compulsively, scratching at his scalp, tugging him upwards. 

“You’re too good at that,” you sniffle. “It’s annoying.”

He grunts, kissing his way over your belly, scraping his teeth along easily torn skin, tasting your smeared come there. He settles at your breasts, and takes his sweet time giving them both his teeth and attention until they’re swollen and painful. Rubbing the grey scruff of his beard against the small mounds, abrading your sensitive skin. Flushed little nipples like dark, overripe raspberries for him to suck on even harder, chafed and raw from his rough handling. He pinches and tugs at them, letting his weight go heavy and melting over your frame, suffocated into the bed, his cock wedged between your swollen sex, letting you feel his solid heft there. Every so often it slides against you with his movements, when his mouth moves from breast to breast, but you’re so dripping wet that there’s hardly any friction, and it makes you cry. Which in turn, makes him pleased, and even harder. 

Curiously, you don’t beg him to fuck you while he tortures your poor tits. He thinks that you know that eventually, he’ll give you exactly what you need. That he has a certainty of the steps the two of you need to take here tonight, that he knows entirely what it is he needs to do to get you there, and how that stops you from rushing him. This thing, it’s a little something like trust. 

That unsettled feeling from before, the jittering energy, eventually it melts away. And Joel is left feeling so steady, so sure of what the two of you are doing here, how he has to handle you. It just feels so right. 

When he eventually lets your breasts rest, he kisses your mouth, slow and intimate and patient. Wet lips sliding against wet lips, sucking on the top one that’s just a little fuller than the bottom, licking the tears from your face, mouthing at your cheekbones, nipping at your chin.

“Why you cryin’, baby?”

“Don’t know,” you mumble. “I’m emotional. M’sorry.”

“Nothin’ to apologize for.” He brackets your skull between his palms, gently tracing the sensitive shells of your small ears with his thumbs and then smoothing over the soft skin of your under-jaw to tilt your chin up to get a good look at you. “You gorgeous thing, you don’t have anything to apologize to me for. Never. You cry if you need to.” 

You nod, turning your face into his palm to nuzzle there.

“You feel good, though? I’m makin’ you feel good?”

“Yes, Joel. Yes, I feel so good.” Your voice is soft, wispy. He imagines he can see the words leaving your parted lips like smoke, and your eyelids sit low and heavy, like you’re drunk on him. 

When he finally pulls back, you look at him with such deep and moving trust, kneeling between your thighs. He feels a little shaken by it. There’s a slight vacancy in your gaze, a haziness, like you’ve gone deep inside your mind with what he’s done to you, but it’s a comfortable, secure sort of thing. You trust him enough to let him make all the decisions here in this bed while you lay limp and boneless beneath him. 

“You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful,” he says, low. 

His hands smooth over your breasts, your sticky belly, gripping your hips to tug you closer. 

“Not as beautiful as you,” you say to him, and you’re like a heartbreak. The way you look, the way you speak to him. If it were possible, Joel thinks he’d be able to physically feel the motion of his heart splitting in two for you right now. 

He stops moving, hands resting on your spread knees, your body open and vulnerable to him. 

“It’s true,” you say again at the look on his face. His heart throbs in his chest like agony. 

“Stop.” His face goes hot with embarrassment.

“You are.” Your fingers smooth up your thighs, coming to rest on top of his own hands. “You're so beautiful to me. You always have been.”

His gaze falls, unable, for a moment, to bear the look of honest love in your eyes. It’s so much. He doesn’t know if he could ever deserve a thing like this. A man could work for a hundred years and never live up to a woman like you. Between your bodies, your sexes are flushed against each other. Your cunt, wet and puffy with his erection resting against it. It’s the most erotic sight Joel’s ever seen. 

And you’re telling him these things, being so honest, so vulnerable, while he sits between your thighs with this violent lust he wants to use against your body, and it makes him feel guilty and starved and maybe even a little bit in love with you, too. Maybe he’s losing his mind. How could you ever look at him and not see the broken thing? How will he ever be able to keep you when he wants to do so much to you? How will he ever convince you to let him? What could a thing like him ever give to the girl who already has everything?

“I’m old,” he says and feels it. 

“I like you like that.” 

“You’re crazy.”

“You like me like that, too.”

Your fingers flex over his own, and when he feels brave enough to look at you again, you’re still laughing, still looking at him with all that trust. Still choosing him. 

“I’m gonna fuck you now.”

You only nod, eyes fluttering shut, soft smile across your mouth. A tear slides back over your temple into your hairline, and he can almost see it turn to steam against your burning face. There’s a weighted hunger in Joel’s belly. Something that’s curious to see how far he can take the both of you. He wants that trust to strain, and then he wants to know both you and himself well enough to pull back before it snaps. 

When he turns you over this time, his movements are gentle, careful. He presses you down on your belly, keeping your elbows braced beneath you and kisses down your back, across the wings of your shoulders. He’s even more careful when he pulls your tank top away, his fingers brushing the softness of your raw breasts. 

Settling on widened knees, he pushes your thighs open, tugs your hips up, up, so that your spine is a curve, pressing your head down to rest your cheek against the sheets.

“Ready?” He asks low. 

You hum, that smile still spread across your mouth, and he can’t help but lean forward to kiss at it. When you arch deeper, chasing his lips to deepen the kiss, he can feel your slick cunt hot on his stomach, smearing there. His cock hangs long and heavy between your spread thighs, brushing your knee. 

“Easy. Easy,” he murmurs. “Don’t get too excited. Let me—” 

Petting the crown of your head, he leans backward, slowly dragging his palm from your head down your spine to grip your ass, spreading you apart. Taking himself in hand, he slicks his head against the little leaking hole, continuing his slow caress against the base of your spine, intermittently pressing his thumb against your tailbone to keep you present and aware. 

With an even greater care than he had the first time he fucked you three days ago, he works his cock into you. It’s slow, the wide head of his shaft easing inside little by little, deeper and deeper, with nothing but assurances from him, you can take it, you’re so pretty like this, while you gasp and fuss. At a certain point, his wait for you to adjust to the too large fit makes you forget yourself and you try to shove back onto him, trying to impale yourself forcefully, and he’s forced to spank you hard and stinging. 

He clicks his tongue at you, “Nuh-uh, no whining.”

Tucking his hand under your belly, soft and giving, he pulls you up a little, knees sliding wider, making room until he’s fully seated inside of you. He goes still then, holding himself deep and pulsing, feeling the walls of your cunt shiver and contract around him. 

He wonders how long it’d take for you to come around him, stuffed full of his unmoving cock like this. Reckons it’d be pretty quick by the way your desperate pussy’s already trying to milk the spend right out of him. 

“You feel me in your belly right here?” He coos gently, caressing your stomach. 

The sound you respond with then is more of a loud yowl when he presses down firmly to feel his cock tucked deep in there. 

Eventually, the wait gets to be too much for him, too. Getting you there in short shoves and grinds, he fucks you through it when you come for the first time, chasing the milking grip of your cunt with those same controlled shoves. But it’s so good, so wet and hot that his tightly leashed control slips. He spanks you again for that, several times, actually. Until your ass is pink and burning. 

His breathing’s gone rough, hot and bullish, and he can feel himself pouring sweat, his skin burning, too. 

“Gonna give it to you harder now.”

And you’re so good, his pretty little mess, that you do say, “Please, m’ready for it,” so confidently, if a little slurred. 

You’re deep down in there, he’s gotten you there, and he feels a sick burst of pride and pleasure to see how well you’re doing for him, how well you give over this perfect cunt for fucking. 

Through gritted teeth, he orders, “Say thank you, daddy.”

And again, because you’re perfect, “Thank you, daddy,” you obey.

He doesn’t even really know where it comes from, has never been a place he’s gone to before. But it’s perversely right in this moment with you. 

His hips gain momentum, nudging against your cervix again, again. He needs to move, to go hard and rough, but this is only the second time you’ve taken him, you’re not ready yet. He knows you won’t be able to take this much of him for long, can tell by the tensing of your stomach beneath his palm, the way you grip two of his fingers where he grips your hip, and the breathless whining gasp on every thrust inside. Your little cunt is just too tight to accommodate so much cock, your body simply doesn’t have room for it. 

Bracketing his hand around his impaling cock, his thumb and index finger make a warning point between your ass and his hip to keep himself from bottoming out. But anyways, he’s just on the edge of too rough, can see that warning line where your little body won’t be able to take much more, the slightly pained hiccupping sounds you’re making, but God, God…the way you’re milking at the cock buried deep inside, tightening around him while he watches himself part you, your walls clinging, the sticky shine of your come and the filmy white trail you leave behind every time he pulls out. His balls slap wetly against your clit he knows must be so swollen by now. The sounds the two of you make together. His big cock fucking in and out of your wet cunt, so soaked and open for him.

It’s all so fucking intoxicating.

He keeps shoving and shoving against that spot, and it’s so deep, your inner thighs are shaking from the strain of how widely he’s got you spread. And he doesn’t give you an inch or a second, just presses harder and harder until he feels a hot wash of wet heat gushing from your cunt, dripping down his thighs and wetting the sheets beneath. 

“Oh—fuck yes. Fuck yes. My good, pretty girl, that’s so good, yeah. I’m gonna come inside of you.”

When he does, it’s long and dizzying, throbbing through his whole body so that even his scalp pulses and his vision goes a little dark at the edges in a head rush. Your cunt around him is nothing more than a fluttering muscle. 

He shoves into you and pulls you back onto his cock by the wrists one last time, grinding deep. And when he pulls out, there’s a little white gurgle of semen that bubbles out as your cunt gapes. 

Your arched form sags, knees sliding, unable to hold your weight any longer. But he pinches the inside of your thigh, still wanting more. 

“Lemme see. Show me—” He can’t tell anymore, if he sounds like he’s ordering or begging or who has control of who here. He thinks he might really be that liar you said he is if he pretends it’s him. 

Presenting your cunt, clit a shiny red cherry, sensitive and dripping his come, you ask, “Did I do good?”

He can’t help the whining groan that pulls from him, slumping over your wrung out form.

“You’re only ever good, sweetheart. I told you before. Didn’t I? You were perfect.”

He kisses the tip of your snotty nose. 

Your eyes are closed and you nod, humming happy and soft. Blindly, you press forward, looking for his kiss which he gives gladly, gripping the back of your neck, pressing his fingers into the trembling muscles there. 

“I want you to look at me and think I’m good, too,” he admits, then. Your eyes open, that gorgeous and unique color he’s never seen in anyone else, and he realizes he feels like a boy again, full of the strength and potential of freshly minted youth. Like you’re giving him new life. “And then I want to actually be good for you.”

“You are. You are good for me.”

Something like doubt flashes through Joel then. Memories of things you don’t know and he’s afraid to share. Terrible and painful memories Oswald Kelly saved him from once long ago and collected interest on until the day he died. Joel wonders if he might owe that debt to you now. Is a life debt a hereditary sort of thing?

“You couldn’t ever be bad, Joel.”

He laughs at the irony of that, disgusted by it, but pulls you closer, burying his face in your sweaty neck, dragging your scent into his lungs, certain he can feel the magic of it swirl through his body. 

You come out of that deep space in your mind he’d lead you into, slowly. Petting at his skin and twisting his chest hair around your fingers, poking at his belly button and ears. You ask him ridiculous questions he has no answers for, letting the strange rolodex of your mind shuffle and settle until your voice sounds steady and your own once more.

“How long were you with Tess?” You ask then, and not out-of-nowhere because he’d known, he’d been waiting for it. 

“Knew it.”

“You don’t know shit.” You dig your little claws into his chest, yanking meanly on the hair around his nipples. 

“That hurts, you little shit. Knew you were jealous,” he says smugly, squeezing a handful of your bottom. 

Ugh. “I am not jealous. What do I have to be jealous of?”

“Absolutely nothin’, sweetheart.” His tone sobers, trying to inflect the weight of that into his words. Trying to make you see that after this, there couldn’t possibly be any other woman for him but you. You roll your eyes, trying to turn your blushing face away from him, that softly vulnerable look in your eyes again. “You fuckin’ me just to get all my secrets out of me, or what?” 

“Yes.” You try to turn your face away further, your chin wobbles just a smidge and Joel’s heart twists in his chest.

“Baby. What’m I gonna do with you? Huh?” He says softly, threading his fingers through your tangled hair, trying to get you to look at him again. You’ve got the softest hair he’s ever felt, like the finery you wrap yourself in, but heavy and thick. Perfectly spun crown. 

Your eyes go all bashful, and you tuck your face up under his chin, hiding. “Dunno. Can’t play bridge, don’t play tennis well. Barely useful at all, I think.”

“I’m sure we can find somethin’,” he teases. 

Your head shoots up, clocking him in the chin carelessly, “Well, let’s see…” you hum, tapping your chin in a three fingered rhythm. He rubs the crown of your head, soothing the bump away, and you duck your head again, trying to bury your face in his stomach, glossy hair sliding over his chest. You’re trying to deflect, trying to be silly, but he can still see that wet, insecure glaze in your eyes. He won’t ignore it. 

“Look at me. You have nothing to worry about. Believe me when I tell you this.” He tugs on your chin, being as honest as he can. “Me and Tess…we were—no, no darn it, don’t pull away, look at me.” He holds you tight and steady. 

“I shouldn’t’ve asked,” you mumble between your squished cheeks, gaze slanted away from him. “I don’t want to know.”

“No matter what else there was between us, she wanted to be loved in a way I could never give her. Okay? You think I want you to know that about me? Fuck no. But if you need to know anything about how it was between us, that’s the most important thing. I…I couldn’t give her all she needed and maybe it was because I wasn’t able to or maybe it was simply ‘cause I didn’t want to. But we were friends and then we were physical, but all that’s done now. Alright? That’s it. Has been for a long while and neither one of us has ever looked back. And you have nothing to fret over.”

Your body goes tense and shivering for a moment, he can feel your muscles struggling to keep still before you're pushing away, wrenching your face from his grip. You sit back on your knees and he forces himself to lay still, giving you a moment of space. All the while, he watches you process what he’s said. You need reassurance, you need patience, this is fine with Joel. He’s got an abundance of both to give you. 

“What?” He says, “What’re you thinking?”

Your eyes flit around his face and then jump to the wall behind him, going unfocused. 

“So then that's how it’ll be with us, too.”

“No,” he says, without understanding entirely, but whatever it is you’re thinking, he can tell it’s wrong just by the look on your face. “What do you mean?”

He sits up slowly, his sticky, wet cock settling soft and heavy in the crease of his thigh. Your eyes flit to the sight of it briefly, face warming and then looking away again just as quickly. 

“It’ll be like that with us too. You won’t be able to give me what I want because you won’t want to, and then I’ll have to leave. I won’t be able to stay here and want you and only get half of you. I’ve wanted you for too long, I’ve waited for too long. I don’t care how it sounds, I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks.”

Joel takes hold of your face, tugging you in to kneel between his spread thighs, he wipes his thumbs against the wet skin of your cheeks. 

“No, baby. I don’t think it’ll be like anything else, this here thing between you and I. I think this between us…I think it’s going to be its own special sort of thing,” he says slow and smooth, like he’s talking to one of the spooked mares, trying to calm her need to flee, her racing heart. “I know you know it, too.”

“How? How can you know?”

“Just do—there’s no explaining it. S’just a feeling, is all.” You frown at him, huffing out a frustrated breath, still trying to pull away and he clicks his tongue at you, a spike of annoyance zipping through him. “Knock that off, be good. You trust me here, don’t you?” He asks, referring to his bed. “Then trust me a little bit out there too,” and he tips his chin at the door. 

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m asking you to. Because I’d rather die than ever hurt you.”

“Don't say that.”

“Then don’t you go around saying you’re leavin’ anywhere.”

“Would you miss me if I did?”

“Naw.”

“Fucking asshole. Let me g—” You try and yank yourself away again and he wrestles you to the bed, slotting himself between your thighs to pin you with his weight. 

“Want your belly stuffed full’a me again, little baby? Huh? That’s what all this fightin’ is, isn’t it?” He begins to rut his quickly hardening cock against you, one hand circling your throat, the other taking your wrists in hand to pin immobilized above your head. “Wouldn't miss ya ‘cause I wouldn’t give you the chance to go anywhere. I’d follow you, drag you back here and keep you just like this.” He pulls his hips back, prodding at your hole with his tip, wedging it there just so and then pushing inside. You hiss at the tender stretch, and he can’t help but chuff a low laugh. “That sting? Did I use that poor little pussy too rough?”

You tip your chin back, lashes fluttering and he smooths his hand up and down the sleek column of your stretched throat, feeling the thin muscles beneath fine skin, the fluttering pulse against the heart of his palm. 

“Tell me you’re mine,” you demand. 

“I’m yours.” It’s very much the truth. 

You shiver beneath him, cunt shivering, too. Moaning softly, saying his name in such a lovely way. He’s sure you’ve never been handled with such certainty in all your life. That it’s only a matter of a little getting used to, of him showing you he’s here for you to depend on in whatever way you need. 

It seems a little unbelievable that a few days ago he could’ve never even imagined this, having you like this—he works himself deeper, watches the way your face moves and changes in fascination—and that now he’s here, getting to do this with you. Feeling, sure, a little unprepared, but also, so certain that this is the right thing.

Bracing his knee against the mattress he flips the two of you suddenly, in a dizzying rush of muscles and limbs and movement. Your bodies sliding perfectly together, never losing that precious, intimate contact. Settling you across his lap he pulls you forward and close by the hips, grinding his cock as deep as he can inside of you with your clit trapped against the pressure of his pelvis. 

Ah— ah— ah— too much.

Giving you a moment to rest, he lets you slump against his chest and then pulls you taut again. One hand at your hip to pull your pelvis forward, the other at your shoulder to press you backwards. Palm dragging over your skin, squeezing each breast, feeling the pulse in your throat again. He spreads his hand over your stomach, drippy little girl splayed wide over his thighs, feeling the tense stretch of you, the way he fucks deep, maps the shape of himself beneath the fragile membrane of skin, forcing himself into a place there’s barely any room in. 

Joel grits his teeth, breath whistling, and starts to thrust up into you. Taking hold of one knee, he sets your foot flat on the mattress, opening your slick, flushed cunt wide for his viewing, taking no care this time for the way your little fingers press against his hip trying to keep him from going too deep. But you wanted him to be yours, didn’t you? Mine, you’d said. 

“I’m yours, baby. Gotta take all’a me now,” he hisses through his still clenched teeth. “There you go. That’a girl. Take your fucking.” Gripping your hair, he angles your head down, “Look how wide your little cunt stretches for me, nearly splitting it in half. Guess that means you’re mine, too, huh?”

Trying to push yourself away with the foot braced against the bed you try to slide back, away from where he’s fucking you, wailing. “Why—why. Don’t take it away from me, it’s mine,” he grunts. “Remember?” Head lolling back on your neck, slurring, s’too much, daddy, but then rolling your hips forward anyway, meeting him on the upthrust. 

Lifting you off of himself slightly so he can control the pace and strength of his thrusts, he leaves you helpless. Your cunt’s so wet and stretched the glide is smooth and unhindered. He fucks up into you, tip against the mouth of your womb until you’re coming with a cry, him, following you immediately after that first maddening clench of overwrought muscles. He watches the thick white of his spend seep out, dripping onto his stomach until he finishes spilling inside of you. And then letting you melt against his chest, finally tapped out. He cradles you against his heart, enjoying the feeling of your soft breaths against his throat as you fall immediately into sleep. 

He hadn’t needed to set an alarm in years. Waking with the dawn well before he needed to be out of the house, in the barn and ready to work, tending horses. Nature keeping him punctual. It’s the same this morning, even though everything else in the world seems to have changed. He’s awake in a second, eyes blinking open to find your soft, warm weight cuddled against his side. The sight of your small head tucked against his armpit is so tender, that for a moment, his eyes sting, overwhelmed with a feeling he hadn’t experienced in decades. 

The mountains watch the morning open above them, the dawn barely blueing the air, and he lays in bed for an unusually long time, enjoying the way it feels to wake up with you in his arms. He won’t fuck this up. He’ll keep you here anyway he can. 

When it’s been long enough he knows he’ll be late, that the boys’ll be up and out by now, wondering where he is, he starts to stir, trying to be careful not to wake you and failing anyway. 

“Noooo,” you whine, disturbed. He tries to shush you back to sleep, cooing gentle and soothing. “Don’t leave,” you mumble, a lock of hair caught in your mouth that he smooths back behind your ear. 

“Go back to sleep, darlin’,” he presses into your hair, soft kiss to the crown of your head. When you look up at him, the happy, sleep creased eyes, all deep and baleful, there are butterflies thrumming in his belly. And he feels a little bit ridiculous with how wrapped around your little finger you’ve already got him. 

Nuh-uh. “No, no,” you whine again. 

He can feel your little toes stretching in a splay against his shins, then clenching tightly, trying to grip and tug on his leg hair. “You can’t go yet. No.”

“The boys’ll be waitin’ already, baby. We got shit to do. And I gotta keep an eye on the new kid, make sure he’s learnin’ the ropes as he should. Don’t trust Tommy not to turn him into as big of’a dumbass as he is.” 

You snicker into his throat, your warm, sleepy scent enveloping him. This just won’t do. This is too good a way to wake up every morning. He’ll never be able to get anything done ever again. 

“No. You have to do what I say. I’m the boss. ‘Nd I say I need you here with me. You’re so warm,” you mumble against his pec, arm snaking over his shoulder to hug him more tightly to yourself.

His heart beats so hard in his chest he’s sure you can feel it knocking against your own. The soft brush of your mouth against his nipple makes him shiver and harden even more than his morning wood’s already got him. 

Little fucking witch is what you are. Casting spells over weak and malleable creatures that can’t defend themselves. 

He groans helplessly. “What’dya want, huh?” Running his palm down your back he palms your rump, squeezing the soft, supple flesh. 

You only hum and pout, laughing a little, soft ridiculous noises in the back of your throat that shouldn’t make him as wild and out of control as they do. Mouth practically salivating as you grind and pant against him, opening your knee over his hip so he can feel where you’re still wet from him last night. As the two of you push and pull against each other, soft groans and thready whines, he thinks that you’re a spoiled little brat that won’t be satisfied with anything less than exactly what she wants. Thinks that he’ll need to show you some discipline eventually. Give you the gentle but firm hand your father never took the time to. Thinks that it’ll be one of the most enjoyable things he’s ever had the pleasure of getting to do, teaching you some manners. 

“Does the princess need her fucking before she can start her day?” He rolls you over, taking himself in hand to press against your soft, damp hole. 

“Mhmm. Yes, please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please, daddy. I need it.” You pout so pretty. 

“You're fuckin’ spoiled. You know that?” He really does try to sound put out as he gives into what you want. The boys can wait, the ranch can wait. The whole world can wait. You are the boss, after all. 

“Don’t care,” you sigh, when he finally pushes inside. 

To be honest, Joel doesn’t think he cares all that much either. 

-

That evening, he comes home to find you in his restroom, perched on the counter with your toes pressed up against the porcelain rounded edge of the sink, painting them a deep purple color you’d stolen from Dina.

He walks with that cowboy swagger, hips swinging in a slow roll, like when he rides a horse. Everything about him is natural, confident, well practiced because he’s been the same sort of man all his life so he’s had decades to grow into himself and settle. It might be one of your favorite things about him, how himself Joel is.

In a way, you can recognize it’s the same thing you’d seen in Tess. That organic earthenness which told you they were fully themselves and comfortable in it. You can’t help the comparison, or the little pulse of savage insecure jealousy it inspires in you. 

“Hi’ya, cowboy.”

“Princess.” 

On his way to the shower, he presses a soft kiss to your forehead, cranking the water up to sweltering so that soon, the room in filled with hot steam, fogging the glass and curling the hair around your face, supplying an excuse for the heat in your face when he starts to take his clothes off. 

His body is so wonderful. 

You watch him through lowered lashes as he lathers soap between his thick palms once he’s stepped behind the glass door, tipping his head back to wet his hair, soaping his chest, under his arms, between his legs, the cock that’s still thick and long, even soft as it is, makes you burn all over. He catches your eyes as he takes himself in hand, his gaze dark and teasing, knowing, running his fist up and down the length, stretching it. You flush even hotter looking back down at your purple toes. 

This morning when he’d gotten out of bed after ceding to your demands, the sight of that cock as he’d lifted his arms high above his head, muscles stretching, his sweaty armpit hair, joints popping a hollow, tired sound, it’d hung long and sated between his legs, glistening with your come. And it’d left you shocked enough at the sight of it, wondering how something that big could fit between your legs, but also wet and hungry for more of the same thing all day long. 

It’d been all you’d been able to think about as you’d lazed around his house. Picking through more of his things like you’d done last night, trying on his clothes and smelling his shampoo, reading the titles of all his DVDs, rearranging the magnets on his fridge just to put him out of sorts, just to leave your mark. You’d felt like a girl again, rifling through his things to glean whatever piece of him you might be able to steal for yourself. 

And going through his little house—the woodworking projects, the old, faded picture of him and Sarah and Tommy, reading glasses on his nightstand, and a book on deep space that reminds you how much of a fucking nerd Ellie really is— you’d seen that there were little details of all the people he cares about in his home. Even you. Picking up the text on art history tucked beneath the one on space, your eyes had smarted. Even you were here.

When he shuts the water off, you look up at him again, and it’s obvious but not sudden because it’s been building for years and years: you love him. You love everything about him. You’d loved him as a girl, looking up at a man who was steady and dependable, even when he’d never looked at you. You love him now as a woman, while he looks back at you and finally sees you for who you are. 

It feels like such an ordinary moment for how life altering the thought is—to realize that this is a real deal sort of thing, what you feel for him. 

But you think that maybe that’s what you’d always been looking for, something lovely in its ordinariness, something to depend on. 

“You have a nice day?” He asks as he runs the towel over his wet hair. 

“Mhmm,” you hum. “Productive.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d you get up to all day, shut in my house?”

“Snooped through all your shit.”

“Find anything good?”

“No, you’re boring.”

“I did warn you about that.”

“Did you?”

“Sure did.”

Dropping the towel into the hamper, he pulls on a fresh pair of jeans from the closet, no underwear. This guy…

And comes over to you, skin all hot and damp, that big barrel chest, taking you by the jaw to press his mouth, all forceful and demanding, against yours. His possessiveness makes your toes curl. 

“Too bad you’re stuck with me now,” he says. 

Against his kiss, you say, “Will you do ‘em for me?” Holding up the little nail polish brush, if only to stop yourself from spilling all of your romance-addled-brained secrets. You watch him as he sits on the toilet lid and holds each of your toes in his big fingers, slowly and carefully finishing the purple paint job. Humming and hawing while trying to get it just right. 

When he’s done, his smile is so proudly pleased, admiring his work. “Damn, I’m good.”

“You wearin’ my underwear?” He says, taking in the sight of his blue plaid boxers sitting low on your hips when you finally hop off the counter, stretching up on your tiptoes to ease your cramped knees. 

“Doesn’t seem like you get much use out of them. Thought I’d break them in,” you tell him, looking down at his crotch. 

“Little shit,” he laughs, cocking his head to the side to give you a good once over.

“How do I look?” 

“Let’s see…gimme a twirl, gorgeous.”

You spin around, so silly you’re almost drunk with it, and his laugh is smooth and throaty and dark. When he gets up, the look in his eyes is so deliciously threatening, “Yeah, you look fuckin’ good.”

You spin away from his grasping hands, moving across the restroom while he circles you, reaching for the toothbrush you’ve moved in next to his and pointing it at him like a weapon. 

“Get away from me with that look. I’m sore and don’t have anything for you right now.”

You turn to face the sink, reaching for the toothpaste and running your brush under the water as he comes up behind you. 

“Poor little cunt got stretched out last night, didn’t she?” He rumbles into your neck, pressing a tiny kiss to the hinge of your jaw. You shiver against him, sticking your toothbrush in your mouth to keep from moaning at the feel of all that hot skin and hard muscle crowding up behind you. 

You think he’d be scared to know how much you want him. You think you’re a little scared yourself, knowing how much want can fit inside just one girl. 

His touch smoothes up your outer thighs, circling your waist and squeezing, slipping his fingers under the lacy edge of the bandeau bra you’ve got on. He softly grazes the undersides of your breasts with his calloused fingertips, and the sound he makes, like a softly chuffing horse, is so intensely erotic, like he can’t even help his reactions to you, that your pussy, which really is so sore and tender, clenches with a soft sting. 

He kisses your shoulder, turning you by the hips to face him. “Let me,” he says, voice deep and raspy. “Lemme do it.” 

He takes your toothbrush from you, trapping you between his thighs against the counter, and takes hold of your jaw, forcing you to open. 

You flush, embarrassed at your sudsy mouth full of toothpaste, growling, trying to get away from him. 

“Yeah, c’mere. I wanna do it,” he demands. 

He brushes your teeth as slowly and precisely as he’d painted your now drying toenails. Pressing your jaw as wide open as it can go and gently scrubbing each and every tooth in your mouth. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most strangely intimate and erotic things you’ve ever done with a man.

 He touches you with such certainty it’s almost disorienting for how foreign it is. 

When he’s finished brushing, he holds the glass kept by the sink to your mouth, making you rinse and repeat twice before he’s satisfied. And when he’s done with that, he forces your jaw open again, appreciating his job well done. You can feel his erection hard and throbbing against your belly when he sticks his fingers deep into your mouth, feeling the smooth insides of your cheeks with his thumbs. Pressing his pointer and index fingers flat against your tongue, so far back he makes you gag. His other palm holds your head immobile so you can’t escape, can’t do anything but take his training. Your heart beats between your legs. A slow, stinging throb that tries to convince you you’re not really as sore as you’d thought you were, that you can definitely take him again right here and now. 

As he presses down on your tongue again with more pressure, your throat spasms, gagging violently, your abdomen clenching, then lurching. He pulls back, relieves the pressure for a moment, but still doesn’t pull out of your mouth. 

“No, no. Hold your breath. Good. Now breathe through your nose,” he orders. “Slow and deep. Good, yeah. Yeah, just like that.” He presses down on your tongue again, making you gag again, pulls back, gives you a second, and then does it again and again. Training your throat and your reflexes to do what he wants. 

When he finally decides you’ve had enough, you’re left panting and shaking. Your cunt leaking into the seat of his boxers. You cling to him weakly, and he pets your hair, soothing you with soft sounds in his throat. 

“You’re such a good girl,” he murmurs between kisses to your hair. 

Clawing at him, you press up on your toes, desperate for his kiss, licking at his mouth and then reaching for his hard cock, trying to tug his jeans open. 

Ah, ah. “Thought you said you were sore.”

“No, no. I—I lied.” 

You reach for his mouth again, pressing up on your toes, pulling his face towards yours as he laughs at your struggle, getting only a brief taste of his mouth, the tickle of his mustache against your lips, before he’s pulling out of your reach again. 

“Did you? Let’s see. Little fuckin’ liar.” 

He spins you around by the hips, fast and dizzy, bending you over the sink at the hips so your face is pressed right up against the mirror. Your hot breaths form little clouds of condensation against the glass, and you can’t help the ragged, humiliating moan you let out when he pulls his own boxers down over your ass, letting the cool air soothe the sting against your hot pussy as he crouches down behind you. 

He tuts and coos, clicking his tongue as he spreads your cheeks wide enough it worsens the already deep sting. Saying things like look how soaked she is, so fuckin’ red and pretty. “Naw, baby. Don’t think we can,” he tells you, peering around your hip to look at your face. 

“Oh, Joel, please. I swear—it’s…” He kisses you right over the tender ring of your hole, losing your train of thought as you moan at the feel of his mouth there. Then moves to smatter kisses over your thighs and ass, down your legs to the sensitive backs of your knees. 

While he’s distracted, you try to snake your hand between the counter’s edge and your hips, attempting to press your fingers against your needy clit. 

He smacks you, hard, right against your poor and tender sex. A mean hiss follows. 

“That’s mine. No touching.”

You do wail at that, trying to stomp your feet and kick back at him when he does nothing more than continue to kiss down the back of your legs and the cheeks of your bottom. What a horrible, nasty old man you’ve caught for yourself. 

“Not gonna hurt you worse when you’re already hurtin’. Sorry, baby, but that’s not how this works.”

He pulls his boxers back up your legs, giving your hip a condescending little pat and pulling you back by the hair to kiss your mouth while you pout and spit curses at him. 

“‘Sides we got somewhere to be. Don’t got time to fuck you proper right now.”

“You’re absolutely horrible,” you tell him, trying to stomp on his bare foot and missing. “Where are we going?”

“Thinkin’ we should go up to see Miss Leigh. How ‘bout it?”

The drive down the 89 towards Leigh Lake is dark and peaceful. Windows down, he goes way too fast, playing Bob Dylan off an old cassette player he’s got rigged into the 12-volt plug because he refuses to modernize his music collection. Every so often, you’re rewarded with the lovely sound of his voice humming along to Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. 

It’s a real strange thing, feeling like you’re getting everything you’ve ever wanted, like you’re finally in the right place at the right time. You feel so happy. 

You switch spots once you enter the park, taking the driver's side so that he can get out at the roadblocks to lift the bar gates for you to sneak the truck through, making your slow way up the mountain through the service roads until you make it to the lake. Your last name won’t stop you from getting arrested if you’re caught trespassing on federal property, and the idea of it is sort of thrilling. 

The two of you hike the short way left from where you park the truck, and the dark wilderness would be terrifying if not for the solid wall of muscled man you have showing you the way through. You love that he’s so dependable, so capable. That you can do something wild like this and remain carefree because you know he’s here to watch over you. 

The last name won’t stop you from getting eaten by a bear either, but you’ve got Joel for that. 

In the bright moonlight, the surface of the lake is like a silver quarter, shining so brightly it blinds. There isn’t a single cloud in the sky—all stars. The water’s glass face ripples intermittently, the movement of fish beneath the surface gives it life in the dark. And the butterfly flutter of the aspen trees sounds in the night time’s wind, while the mountains loom pitch black and menacing, rising up towards the sky.

“I love it here so much,” you tell him. “Maria used to bring me all the time when I was a girl. She was so young when she taught me, took care of me—all those years raising me. You never realize, when you’re a kid, how young the adults around you actually are. It was nice to hear she’d gotten with Tommy.”

“Saint of a woman. Puttin’ up with that idiot.”

You laugh softly, wrapping your arms around yourself at the chill coming off the water. “Don’t be mean to him.”

“Were you bad? When you were real little… misbehavin’ sort?”

“God, no. He would’ve killed me.”

The joke lands stilted and ugly. No one laughs. 

“No, I wouldn’t think you would’ve been. Not in your nature, I don’t suppose.”

“At least not then. But I promise, I can be real bad now.” You turn to give him a hot look over your shoulder, and his lopsided smirk is so, so sexy. Hands in his pockets and chin tipped back so you can see his face just right in the moonlight. 

“I remember you used to come up here with him sometimes, too.”

You scoff a bitter noise, turning back towards the water. “How could you possibly remember that? You weren’t here yet. And it hardly ever happened. Certainly not once I got older.”

“He told me.”

You have nothing to say to that. Nothing nice, at least. There’s something that bothers you about knowing your father shared things like that with Joel. Things that you’d always seen as sacredly intimate, infinitely painful. 

“Oh.”

“Oh?” He mimes back. 

“Let’s not talk about that. You’ll ruin it.”

“Ruin what?”

“This. I don’t know… Everything.”

You pace away from him, chewing on your fingernails. You catch the lifting edge of the gel manicure on your thumbnail, biting down and ripping off a huge chunk of it. It hurts. Your fingernail smarts from the vicious peel. Pointer finger next, catch and rip, spitting out the little flakes of polish into your other palm. It’s a filthy and disgusting habit. 

“I didn’t bring you here to fight, but we can if you’d like to,” he says provokingly. 

Rolling your eyes— “I don’t want to fight.”

“Alright… if you don’t wanna talk about it we don’t gotta. Think we should anyway, though.” 

You’ve drifted towards the water’s shore, and you hear his heavily booted footsteps come up slowly behind you. 

“I want us to be honest with each other.” He doesn’t reach for you and it makes your anger even hotter, that you can sense the intimation of his warmth but not actually enjoy it. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispers. 

“Nothing. I don’t know…” Finally, his palms come to your hips, the touch is so comforting, too comforting. He tucks his thumbs beneath the hem of your t-shirt, rubbing slow circles against your skin, resting his forehead against the top of your head. 

“Thought we decided you were trusting me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. You want to hear that I’m angry? I’m angry. There.” You take a deep breath, closing your eyes to really savor the feel of his hands on your skin, the taste of the clean, sweet air. You can smell the leaf rot and the chill of the water and that achingly specific mineral scent that comes off the mountain rock. A scent you could recall anytime, anywhere in the world when you were far away and especially missing home. “I’m sorry, too,” you tell him. “I should also say that.”

“For what?”

“That I’m angry at you, too. Or that I was.”

“Were you?”

You try to keep the broken crack out of your voice but it comes anyway. “He cared about you. And I was so jealous.”

He sighs, “I think you’ve got the wrong sort of idea about how we were or what he thought of me. At the end of the day, I was still just someone who worked for him.”

“I know there was more. I know he did something for you that no one’s ever talked about. I know there’s more here that you’re not saying, Joel. And it’s not fair that there are things you know about my own father that I don’t get to know, too. It’s not fair that you were with him in his last days and I wasn’t. It’s not fair that you got all that time with him and now I’m the one that’s left to miss him when I didn’t even really know him. When he didn’t even like me.”

“Darlin’...” You step away from him, away from his comfort. The water of the lake laps at your boots. 

“You know it’s true. How can I miss him when I didn’t even know him? When you, who knew him so much better than I did, won’t. You said that, remember? That you won’t miss him.”

“I did, yes.”

“Why not? I don’t understand.”

“‘Cause I didn’t give a fuck about him.” He laughs. “I don’t know what else to tell you. Oswald Kelly thought the earth began and ended with him, and ten years is too long a time to be the right hand of a man like that. Is that what you want to hear? Does that make you feel better?”

“I don’t— I feel like I need to understand what it was that was between you two. Why he left you the money. Can you…Do you even know how fucking despicable I felt, being angry that he’d left you something? Because it wasn’t about the money. I want you to have that. I want you to have everything. If you let me, I’ll share every single thing I have with you, but I can’t understand what it is, or what—what there was… I can’t understand why. If you say he didn’t see you as a son, then why?”

He runs a palm flat over his mouth, hand on his hip, thinking, then the backs of his fingers against the edge of his jaw. 

“We were similar, in certain ways. We understood each other.”

“You are nothing like my father, Joel. Don’t ever say that again. He was cruel—he was terrible. A terrible father. He ran me off from this place. And it’s horrible, feeling like you can’t ever go home.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Better than you’d believe.”

He goes to sit against a log low on the ground, and you wander towards him as if led by a tether. 

“It’s complicated, ain’t it?” He says. “Business of bein’ a good man. No one’s all the same of a single thing forever. There are parts of us that aren’t so good, others that are better. There were pieces of your daddy that I think tried to make up for the rotten parts. He helped a man he knew jack shit about, backed by nothing but the grace of my brother’s good word. Gave me a place, saw something in me worth a damn. He saved my life. But… the way he was with you? That overshadowed any sort of good he might’ve ever tried to do. You get me? No one is perfect, and that’s fine. But I reckon it’s important where a man chooses to place that finite goodness afforded to him. That’s what you gotta remember.”

“It should’ve been me,” you tell him. “He should’ve given that little goodness he had, to me.”

“It should’ve been you,” he agrees.

“But you’re wrong. You’re nothing like him, Joel. You’re so full of goodness.” You go to him then, kneeling between his parted knees, and he takes your face in his palms, smoothing back your hair so lovingly. “I know it. I recognized it from the first moment I laid eyes on you. Trust me. You can tell, when you’ve seen a lot of bad, who’s good and who’s not.”

He shakes his head at you, still stroking your hair, your face, and the look in his eyes is unfathomable, heartbroken. 

“There’s something I never told you about Sarah. About how she died.”

You jolt at that. “What?”

“I was too young when I had her, only twenty-two. And it was hard for Tommy and I, harder than anything. He helped me, you see, Tommy’s always been there. God, we were basically kids, trying to take care of this tiny, defenseless thing, just the two of us. And what do you know at twenty-two about how to live? Basically nothin’. It was so fucking hard, but she was like a miracle anyway. Gummy smiles and milk breath and she didn’t like formula, had a hell of a time feeding her ‘cause she wanted a mother and I had none to give her. She struggled to put on weight, was constantly at the doctor which meant constant bills. It was the single most terrifying, most stressful thing I’ve ever lived through,” he says. 

“For a few years it was fine, or not so fine, but we managed. She was small, though, skinny and sickly. And things got progressively worse, harder. There was so much I wanted to give her, the whole world, and I just couldn’t. And I wanted Tommy to have a life too, I didn’t want to have to depend on him forever. My brother got involved with some real rough sorts—Sarah was three…maybe four at the time—they called themselves The Fireflies. At first it was muscle work on the weekends and such. Watch a door, drive ‘em here or there, fuck up some guy who owed money for God knows what, but it sure as shit wasn’t my business, right? I kept my head down, tried to look the other way. They were sellin’ shit. On the streets in Austin, college kids in bars with too much of daddy’s money.” You flush deep and ashamed. “Pills, oxys, that sorta crap. The muscle work turned into stuff I never, ever should’ve gotten involved in. It started small: a favor, an errand, drop this off, pick this up. And then I woke up one day, and I was so deep in filth I couldn’t see the way out.” He looks at you then, and his eyes are so wide and dry, so clear, you can see all of him right there in that moment. “But Sarah was fed, she was at a good school, new clothes and a dance class. I wanted to give her even more than just that. It felt easy, even when it was terrifying. Or it felt worth it. And I did it for longer than I should’ve. That’s the thing about doing what you shouldn’t. It’s hard to quit once you’ve started, it’s hard to get yourself out.”

“Tommy'd weaseled his way out a couple years before, smarter than I had the foresight to be. It’d gotten seedier the more time passed, and he’d spooked. He wasn’t good at dealing with the violence the way I was, couldn’t stomach it as easy as I did. They’d been fine with letting him go ‘cause they still had me doing their dirty work, hurting people when they needed me to, trained dog.”

When he leans down to press a small kiss against your mouth, your heart beats in adrenalized panic. 

“I knew it’d end badly eventually. So I said to myself, destroy the dog and be the man, but it’s hard putting the animal down.” He breathes one long chuff of rough air before he continues. “They came to our home one night, she was supposed to be asleep, safe in her room. The guy pulled a gun and I panicked, seeing a weapon in her house like that. She was supposed to be in bed, safe in her room. She was supposed to be safe.” His voice breaks, and you can see the silver line of old grief at his waterline. “If I’d died, it wouldn’t’ve mattered. Tommy would’ve taken her, been a better father than I ever could’ve been. She would’ve survived without me, but I was never going to survive without her.”

He takes your hand in his, pressing your fingers to his scarred-over temple. A violent, horrible little thing you’d always been suspicious of.

“Joel. Oh, Joel.”

“I was never going to survive without her. They were going to get me for involuntary manslaughter, possession and trafficking. Lock me up and throw away the key. But Tommy had come here when he’d gotten out of Austin. He told your father about me and Kelly came down to see me. I’ll never know why he chose to do that—we never discussed it after—what he might’ve seen in my brother’s face, in my own, that convinced him to save me. I’ll never forget that feeling, sittin’ in that orange jumpsuit in front of that man that didn’t even seem real. A little bit like a thing out of a nightmare. Coldest eyes I’d ever seen in a man, like there was a shadow around the edges, something not right. Reckon that was your mother in there, haunting him. And I think he must’ve seen the same shadow in my own eyes ‘cause he made some calls right then and there. I was out the next morning and on Kelly property that evening. Your father, he gave me my life back. He brought me here and he saved me. This place saved me.”

You’re crying uncontrollably, tears spilling down your face in a hot, sick rush. 

“So you think he was good to you. You’re saying it was your fault—Sarah. That’s what you think. And he saved you from it.” 

“I’m saying that there’s bad and good in all of us and that life is complicated and strange and people even worse. Look at what I did to my own child. I’m sayin’ sometimes you’re grateful to the monster, I’m saying sometimes you’re sad he’s dead. It’s okay, baby.”

“But you would never hurt me. I know that as well as I know my own name. And he hurt me.”

“Never intentionally, I wouldn’t, no. But—”

“I met this woman,” you cut him off. “Uh… last year? Two years ago, maybe. I can’t remember anymore. In Sedona. It was a—well… they called it a spa,” you laugh humorlessly. “Wellness thing, that sort of bullshit, but really if you’re there, you know it’s just rehab. I was drinking too much, snorting all sorts of junk I shouldn’t have been. She recognized me.” 

You’re looking for some sort of recognition in his face, too.

“She said—from the photograph on my father’s desk. She knew all about me, she showed me pictures of the two of them. She’d been with him for twelve years, and I never even knew she existed. She knew all about me. She knew my mother, her name. She even mentioned you. You knew her.”

“I did.”

“You know who I’m talking about?”

“I do.”

“Twelve years, Joel. His partner or his—his—”

“Wouldn’t really call that mess a partnership,” he says with a small, ironic scoff.

“Don’t be annoying. Don’t joke.”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry,” he says with a sigh. “I know what you’re try’na say, I get it.”

“I didn’t even know him. He was a complete stranger to me. And this woman…she was nice to me. She told me she’d always wanted to meet me and that he’d never let her, and then he just sent her away. Cut her off from one day to the next once he’d decided he was sick of her, a pile of cash and Dina’s well wishes. You know she tried to kill herself? She was in that place for a mental break.”

Joel’s face looks shaken. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“That’s what he did to the women in his life. He had a vision that stretched halfway across the world. And nothing ever stopped him. Especially not something as insignificant as a daughter or a woman that loved him. My mom died on him and he punished us for it for the rest of his miserable fucking life, and I hate him. I hate him, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

You really do sob then, after those spit words. A broken wail like an animal lost in the wilderness and left to die. Or like a child, forgotten and abandoned by her father. Joel holds you very tenderly while you finally let that old grief settle inside you.

“You can’t ever say you’re like him again. You can’t. It hurts me to even think about.”

“It’s alright. It’s okay, baby girl. Let it out. I’m sorry,” he soothes. “I think… I think that your father mistreated you because there was something fundamentally broken in him, and I think he thought he saw that same broken thing in me, and that maybe that comforted him somehow. That what he gave me wasn’t goodness, much as you might want to see it as such.”

“But he saved you. He never, ever saved me. He hurt me so much. He threw me to the dogs. He cared about you, Joel.”

“You’re not understanding me, sweetheart. I’m saying that I did bad before, that I was broken, and Kelly saw that. But you never stay the same way forever. I was able to let it go, to move on. We always change eventually. Growin’ or regressin’ or whatever direction it might be you choose to move in, but we always inevitably make another move. He saved my life, and I was grateful to him, and yet, when I watched him die, I felt nothing but relief for you. I’m sayin’ that I know you feel defined by this, by him, but eventually you’ll move past this moment of struggle, eventually you'll let him go and then it’ll be different, that next place you step into will be different.”

You surge up on your knees to hug him fiercely and you sob and sob onto his wide shoulder, giving him all of your grief because you know he’s strong enough to bear the weight of it.

“Maybe every man is destined to fail his daughter at some point. But you won’t be defined by his failure of you forever. I know that you’ll let it go eventually. You’re so strong, so resilient, my girl.”

“I don’t want to step into any other place. I want to stay here with you and the ranch forever,” you cry. 

“We’ll always be here, darlin’,” he says with a kiss to your temple, a soothing hand on your back. “I was a roamin’ dog, and I found my place to roost, here. Wyoming and the ranch will always be your home. I will always be here for you. You’ve never gotta worry about that changin’. What I’m saying is this, love is complicated and if you miss him or you’re glad he’s dead, it’s okay. It’s okay to be wrong and to change or to be right and go bad for a little bit. Tell me, what’s the point of livin’ and feelin’ so loveless? There ain’t none. Nothing is the same forever except for this, here, your home and the care you’ll always find here. You understand me?”

“I think so.”

“I can’t promise you that this’ll be a normal sort of life, you and I together, but I promise it’ll be a good one. I’m going to try my damndest, anyway.”

“My mother was buried under a holly bush the day I was born, this has never been a normal life.”

He presses another kiss against your mouth. “I don’t want you to carry this sadness around with you forever. If you let it, this land will heal you. It’ll fix whatever’s broken in your heart. It did mine. I need you to be happy here.” He presses a tiny kiss to your jaw, tucking his face into your shoulder. “Can’t you try to give me that?”

The water laps gently at the shore at your backs, and the presence of the mountains is so strong they feel almost sentient—watching the two of you bear your hearts at their feet. You’d felt, for so long, like you’d loved him. And even if it’d been only the idea of him, it’d served as such a comfort for you when you’d been young and lost and growing into yourself. And in some curious yet kismet touched way, it felt right, fated, that the two of you had been so changed by the man that was your father. 

You ask him the same question as before, hungry for the sound of it: “If I left, would you miss me?”

“I’d follow you. There’d be no missin’.”

“But you love this place.” Your heart throbs with the idea of that word, the potential.

“But I need you now.”

“Maybe I’ll run away, come back when you least expect it just to keep you on your toes.”

“You’d be a wild horse if you could, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.” You muse his hair, tugging his face to yours, kissing him slow and deep and full of love.

“You’re a good girl. You be wild if you need to, I’ll be here for you when you’re ready. There’s always gonna be someone in the world that loves you, you know. Even when it feels like there isn’t, or you’re all by your lonesome. There’ll always be someone out there who thinks of you with love in their heart no matter how far you go. You just gotta remember that.”

“It’s hard.”

“Most good things are, sweetheart.”

The two of you hold each other for a long time, listening to the mountains grow, the water and the aspens.

“You know, I knew this was going to happen when I came back.”

“Oh, did you now?”

“Yes.”

“And how’s that?”

“I’d been seeing eleven-eleven every single day for weeks. So I knew something big was happening soon.”

“Darlin’, I don’t got a clue what the hell that means.”

“It’s a sign. It means something good is on its way, Joel. Something really, really worth it.”

-

The Tipsy Bison is loud and hot, and Ellie watches the girl she loves dance and laugh with her best friend, in the middle of the packed crowd. She prefers it here to The Mushroom, too many stupid Jackson tourists over there. The sight of them blinks in and out between the sweaty bodies, hands grasping each other close and then spinning out to twirl wildly in opposite directions. Their heads thrown back in loud laughter. 

“She really is something,” Joel comes up beside her to lean against the high top.

“Yeah,” Ellie says, “She really is.” Though she doesn’t think they’re talking about the same girl. 

“Ff-hat’re we talk’n ‘bout?” Jesse says, mouthful of pizza bulging his cheeks while he tries to chug his can of Natural Light at the same time. “What’re we lookin’ at?”

“Hey, chucklefuck.”

He swallows his too large bite, wincing, beer dribbling out the corner of his mouth. “I do have a name you know.”

“Sure, buddy,” she pats his head, slaps his cheek a little. “Whatever you say.”

Beside them, Joel is silent. A little hypnotized. The look on his face is so intense he looks like he’s about to pounce. Probably ready to get violent if anyone gets too close for his liking. 

Jesse looks between his face and the two girls dancing in the crowd. “Miss Kelly’s lookin’ mighty fine tonight, Joel. You old fuckin’ dog—good job, man.”

He tries to slap him chummy on the shoulder, but the glare Joel throws his way looks like it could quite literally kill. “Don’t look at her, dumbass. Who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to?” 

He pushes away from the table, sauntering towards the dance floor. Ellie sees the moment when your eyes catch sight of him, the way they brighten. Fucking heart-eyed love-sick look, ugh. And they say her and Dina are gross about it. Ellie still hasn’t recovered from what she’d seen in the barn the other day. Electroshock therapy or fucking church is what she’ll need to forget that shit. 

“He’s so mean to me,” Jesse whines, peeved, kicked-puppy look following Joel’s retreating form. 

“Oh, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse.”

“What? What now? Haven’t even done anything wrong today.” He’s so sulky, it makes Ellie laugh. 

“You have so much to learn,” she says absentmindedly, watching Joel meet you on the dance floor.

“That’s still so fuckin’ crazy to me,” Jesse says when Joel bends to kiss you. It’s passionate, too intimate, and Ellie has to look away. 

“It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else besides them.”

“I guess so.”

“Curiosity is a constant happiness. Go out and find something worthwhile, Jesse.” 

On the dance floor, Dina has separated from the horde, and she weaves in and out of the pack of crowded bodies making her way over to their table. Her cheeks are flushed, her curls wild and frizzy from dancing. Ellie feels her heart beat in her throat, this is what love is. She knows that now, is able to recognize it easy as day. 

This is what Wyoming, what this land had given her. A family, a home. Dina. 

“Don’t know what that means. Doesn’t even make any fuckin’ sense,” he mutters. “You’re so fucking weird sometimes.”

Ellie reaches over, yanking on his ear, hard, before walking away to meet her girl. 

“Nothing is cooler than being yourself, weatherboy. Remember that.”

Dina meets her at the edge of the dance floor, falling into her. Her arms are strong and lithe, her kiss tastes like cherries. She whispers that she loves her in her ear—I love you, Ellie, she says.  Over her shoulder, Joel looks like he’s happier than she’s ever seen him in all the years she’s known him, and she thinks that this is it, the real deal, what all those lonely people that’d grown up on the ranch together had been looking for all their lives. 

No lonely dogs left. 

-

Having Joel Miller fall in love with you turns out to be the easiest thing in the world. 

You watch as it happens day by day. Easy to read on his face, obvious as the man is—despite what he might think about himself. You watch the story of it play out on his face as the days turn to weeks turn to months. In the things he does, the ways he takes care of you, tending to the land and your legacy and your heart. The way he makes you the beating soul of the ranch in a way you’d always dreamt of being, but had never really thought possible. He makes the place a real home for you.

One evening, waiting for him to come to bed, he brings you a bowl of split figs. Dark purple skin, brilliant red center. Beautifully shaped. There are three of them he’s cut perfectly in half to make a circle of six pieces precisely arranged in the center of the bowl. Each one is perfectly formed, perfectly chosen and set for you.

He puts it in your outstretched hands and goes to his side of the bed, tucking his glasses tight against the bridge of his nose, lamp on with the shade turned towards his open book because he says his eyes are going bad. He’s reading Flannery O’Connor’s book of short stories again, and you know he’s missing home, hungering for a reminder of life in the South and memories of his daughter. You know he only picks this one up when he’s missing it all something desperate. 

You know so many things about him now, the way he knows them about you, too.

And looking down at the bowl of perfectly split figs, that’s when you know for sure, this isn’t your wishful heart, not a fable—only something normal, lovely in how ordinary it is. This is love. 

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Epilogue;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized there is something within him…changing. 

More brown than purple—a comforting color. He has come here, to the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, to be reminded of something. 

The Omega that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. He feels certain he’s heard it before. When he looks at her, the burnished copper hair threaded with soft white, he sees something in her eyes that reminds him of another woman who he isn’t certain he didn't dream of, but who he’s sure he knows. 

Something like… a desperation, perhaps. Maybe that’s what he’s needing reminding of. Something that’d made him feel desperate. Something he’d tried and tried and railed against letting go of, and now that it was gone, he could not help but want back. 

Joel had done something to himself, let something go. A girl with green eyes and a terrible grief. A brother who would not speak to him. And a—

A what?

“This will be my last meeting,” the woman at the podium says. “I thought for a long time that I was here to cure my loneliness,” she laughs, a sound that confuses Joel. “I’m sure we all at one point thought the same. But I think I’ve let go of that arrogance. Or that wishfulness—who knows.” She sighs and it’s easy, light. “And I’ve realized… well, let me tell you now, the bitter truth about loneliness is this: we never escape it. We only learn to take short interludes from it. Distractions. But eventually… you always return. Eventually, it’s only you again, left to pick up the pieces. Work through it. There is no miracle move on drug that can truly cure a soul in grief. No false peddlers get-well-quick scheme. There is only ourselves, and our willingness to change because we want to change for the better.”

Joel pulls the scarf he’d found tucked into the pocket of his coat weeks ago. A woman’s soft garment, he’d had no idea who it could belong to for he hadn’t seen his wife in a long time.

He buries his face in the blue cashmere, unable to stop the odd, choking sound from gurgling up his throat, the scent of her turning in his lungs. A crushing sense of despair spinning the other way within him, some terrible vortex of an almost unbearable sense of loss and loneliness he’d thought he’d cured himself of. Something worse than anything he’d ever endured before. 

Joel had made a terrible mistake, all the remaining grief inside of him told him so. He couldn’t remember, but all he knew was that there was a fracture through the center of the man so that he could never ever be real again without mending it. It was impossible to explain, nor did part of him even want to, all he knew was that he’d suffered a loss so acute he’d ruined his entire heart and life for it. There were so many things he’d forgotten, how to cry, how to be brave, how to be real. 

A woman named Maria who reminds him of his brother calls for any other volunteers willing to share and with the blue scarf gripped in his fist, Joel takes his now familiar place at the podium. He remembers names and he shares and he’s sure he isn’t the way he used to be but on his way to someone else. 

He tells them the only tale he has to tell:

“I had a daughter a long time ago. Her name is Sarah. When she died, I did too. And sometimes, well… you can imagine, but it’s a terrible thing, walking around the world dead. It made my views on the whole thing—dying—change. You’d think it would’ve radicalized me, made me awake to the reality of what it really means to be alive. But instead…death was like…her death was like—I can’t even say—like a door. Like she walked through a door I couldn’t follow and so I tried everything, all the possibilities—I tried to walk through my own doors, even tried to follow her through hers, and nothing ever worked, and now I’ve spent my life since, in the wrong room. And now that I want to go back, to be alive again and make it right, I feel like I’ve lost the key, you see, and can’t find my way back out.”

There are so many strange and unknown faces in the crowd before him. They all blur together, morphing like the skin’s grown over bone wrong and distorted. No one wearing the one he’s looking for. 

“It feels like I’m cursed. And it’s so unfair. And so selfish. Everyone loses someone,” Joel says. “Why’d I have to let it consume me the way I did? Why’d I have to walk around dead for so long? How could I have gotten so lost and so trapped I forgot to live?”

But Joel feels certain now, that if he could only find that key, he’d be let out and alive again. 

Out of the basement of the church, he crawls, false and cowardly. And at the same time, with a lightness he hasn’t felt since before he’d put his own child in the ground, wearing the terrible exhaustion that comes from being so alone you can’t remember what it is to be otherwise. Starting along his walk home with a blue scarf draped around his neck; he walks places now, he knows someone taught him the simple joy of this, but he can’t remember who. 

Halfway through, middle mark to home and just past the watch shop, the rain begins. It’s cold on the come down and then slicing hot against his skin; butter knife meet soft, unsuspecting flesh.

He begins to stumble then, confused, north becomes south, the west falls away to nothing and the thought of an east facing wind losing itself to the ocean terrifies him. The sky is weeping. His mind spins like a typhoon. Joel Miller is lost. The rain distorts, he walks past a split maple—blood colored—lying in the front yard of someone’s home as if they’d forgotten they’d left it there. His feet continue but his eyes stay on the tree cleaved in half by who knows what—who could do such a thing?—neck turning turning clicking. The toe of his boot catches on a split in the pavement, and then he’s being felled just like the maple, falling, brow cracking sharp and split, too. Blood colored, too. 

When he finally makes it home, for a single unbalancing moment, he thinks the house he’s lived in for seven years looks entirely unfamiliar to him. There’s a hot slice of pain across his mind and pavement printed face. His memory, fickle and disturbed, broken. The wife he has been married to for those same seven years is not here. 

Suddenly, Joel begins to cry. 

Slow at first, like most good things start. One tear over that trough ledge, he thinks of children that are lost, then another and he gives it a moment, lets it make its slow and meandering way over skin to lose itself amongst his whiskers, hidden and fearful just like he is. He lets it go slow until he’s ready for all at once, and then he weeps in great heaving sobs. 

He makes his way into the dark, abandoned house and he thinks that perhaps not all has been lost. After all, he feels he’s finding himself in this moment, coming back to reality, waking up to memory. 

Laying in bed, curled and shivering, he pleads with that who-knows-what he doesn't believe in to let this terrible grief end. His crying is like a bloodletting. But what about tomorrow? When the girl is still gone and Joel is still alone. Then, he’ll only be able to remember the terrible alone-ness he’d endured and the sense of relief he’d felt only to lose it again. 

When he sleeps, he dreams of his daughter, he dreams of miracles and cheats, of a face he knows should be resting against his own pillow when he opens his eyes. He dreams of remembering. 

Finally, after years might have passed, throbbing head beating like hammer and anvil, he wakes to the odd but unmistakable sound of snarling, snapping teeth which are, so far as he can tell, his own. Heart pounding in his throat, his stomach lurches like he’ll be sick. He turns over in the uncomfortable, cold bed, legs swinging over the side to brace himself, and when he looks up, his wife sits just there in the corner of the room, watching him. 

“My, what drama.”

“Where have you been?”

“Busy, living.” The thought seems incomprehensible to him. “What have you done to yourself, Joel Miller?”

“I cheated. It didn’t work.”

“That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I got desperate. I felt so alone.”

“So you should’ve done what I did. Gone out and lived your life. How could you ever possibly think you could cheat yourself out of having to do that? Silly man.”

“I—I tried. I did. But I got confused…lost. I made a mistake. I thought I needed to forget everything in order for it to work.”

“Joel. Oh, Joel,” she sighs. “You’re floundering. Whatever you’ve done, it wasn’t right. Look at yourself. You’re falling apart.” She says it so matter of factly it shames him even worse.

“Maybe. Yes.” He feels a terrible rush of embarrassment.

“Remembering is the most important part. If you don’t remember the past, you can’t find your way through to the present.”

There had been many times in his life when Joel Miller had been thoughtless, selfish, a bad man. But taking you, leaving you—he remembers he remembers—nothing had ever been worse than this. A miracle move on drug…he’d been so wrong. So selfish, so weak. There was no miracle, no neat and quick logical cure. There was only himself, taking his courage in hand and letting go of that which no longer served him, preserving memory in a glass case and leaving it there to go on with the rest of his life, just as his wife had. 

He thinks of you now, and examines his own loneliness: the idea that to be a man, he’d had to hold his tears at bay, his lust, his feeling, that there was strength in his solitude that protected him from his past losses, his terrible grief, that weakness was a sin. It’s so obvious, and how could he have not seen it before, that none of that is true. 

He’d been turned back into himself by a girl made of his own heart, and then he’d let her callously slip through his fingers. What a terrible mistake. What a terrible thing to do to someone that would love you. What a terrible thing to do to yourself. 

For one last moment, he lets the old doubt and fear comfort his mind like a cloud, and then sudden as daylight, his memories settle, the certainty that he cannot not move forward if he does not live with the past as what it is. 

And the realization that he cannot live without you. It’s a simple, awful certainty. 

-

The girl who answers the door has red brown hair cropped short around her pointed chin, a splatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Green eyes that remind Joel of another’s. 

“If you aren’t here to fix it, I’m not letting you in,” she warns as if she knows him. 

But he promises her that he is, that finally, he’s realized what it is he needs to do to make it alright. 

He comes into the perfect room, and kneels at the side of your bed like a supplicant. 

You’re sleeping, frozen in your hibernating stillness, your nightgown slipping low over one full breast so that the soft peak is bared to him. Your knee hitched high, allowing him a view of your smooth, lush thigh. He pulls the duvet over your shoulder, backs of his fingers brushing the cold skin there. 

And you look so alone in your abandoned bed, bared and vulnerable. He breathes slowly for many long moments, watching the still planes of your face—there are no moving dreams behind your eyelids. Had he stolen those from you also? 

When your eyes snap open, it’s an immediate step into waking. No confusion, only the frightening dilation of your pupil and complete understanding in your gaze.  

Your eyes study his face carefully. 

“You hurt yourself.” A single fingertip pressed to the open wound at his brow. 

“Yes. Very badly.”

“I’m sick,” your voice is throaty and full. 

Heat-sick, heart-sick, all his fault.

And there exists now, something more powerful than logic or his past losses, his living writhing grief, which had cured his mind, his heart, that drew his eyes to your mouth. He had split himself open, it had been a bloodletting. He had cried, it had been a bloodletting. You hurt. He had hurt you. He needed to mend his errors. To be alive again.

This may seem like a small ending to you, but it is a large beginning. It’s the start of the rest of Joel Miller’s life, after all. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I made a mistake,” he says.

“It was never going to work.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You could see that, but I needed to live it to know. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I know. I believe you.”

Sometimes it really is that simple. 

Joel rests his head in the cup of your hands and cries now because he can, because that, in and of itself, is a miracle. 

“Tell me what my name is,” he asks you.

“Joel.”

—And he’s real, then, loneliness cured.

End.

References; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, David Sheff Mad Men, (2007-2015) Asteroid City, Wes Anderson, (2023) Cool About It, Boygenius Fortnight, Taylor Swift Wrong Norma, Anne Carson The Devil You Know, Liz Carlyle

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Part 4;

Your heat seeps from you slowly, like dying smoke, melting, while you listen to the sound of his breathing in the dark. 

When there’s only that last ember smoldering in your mind, dipping into your belly as if it had, at last, only one last grip around your ankle keeping you trapped within yourself; you drape your body over his. 

You’d wanted to please him. For this to have been like nothing he had ever, or would ever experience again. You can’t be certain yet if you've achieved it, and yet—there’s still time. You still have a moment to work harder at this than anything you’ve ever worked at before, apply yourself entirely; with your teeth at his ribs, you promise yourself you’ll make sure he remembers this. 

“That rib’s broken,” he says, alerting you to his wakefulness. 

You kiss it once, twice, thrice; enamel against flesh again. You’d mend it with all you feel for him if you could. You’d mend him whole. 

His body is built thick and strong—a working man’s body honed by hours of hard labor. His skin, golden like that of a distilled sunflower, even in the dead drear of incumbent winter. There are freckles and moles on the skin of his broad shoulders and strong back. When you kiss your hungry path down his belly, his arms lift to stretch with the easy joy of slaked desire, and you see the sweat darkened hair of his armpits. The sight makes you head dip, go woozy—no, no, focus. You need a moment to enjoy him with alertness before it all ends. 

You steel yourself in rapt attention.

Despite the strength, there’s still a strip of fat around his belly button, belying his age. You like that it makes him soft and real, easier to dig your fingers into. He’s so masculine, he’d be entirely unapproachable if not for that little softness. The hair across his chest, running down his belly, the trail of hair that leads to the thick erection, long and dark, that hangs so heavy it can’t jut upwards against its own weight. The wide tip is an angry red, dripping creamy drool, the length of it shiny and wet like all the rest of him is, covered in your slick and fluids which sends a possessive flush of pleasure through your limbs. It lays heavily against his thigh where you mouth at it with a growling, hungry noise, taking it into your mouth to suck and lick. You watch the muscles in his chest and shoulders shiver, the thick ridge of his collar bone, the ligatures beneath his skin shifting, and it’s all so mesmerizing—a man to be possessed by, to give yourself to. To study and pick apart like a specimen.

His knot swells at the base, and as gently as you could ever possibly be, you drag the dull edges of your teeth against the soft, vulnerable skin. He lets out a whimpering sound as he comes, his chest flushing dark red. 

“That’s not where that goes,” he growls when he’s able to catch his breath. But he’d made you come so many times. You want just one more chance to give him something only for him. 

You want to look at all of him, touch all of him, know all of him. There’s something depraved in you that makes you want to look inside of him. Split him and know what the surface of his heart looks like. 

When he pulls you draped over himself to taste his own come off your tongue, he makes a hungering sound, then changes the angle of the kiss to make it deeper, and you worry you’d commit an act of violence to keep him with you. Trying to promise yourself that it’s only the fever of heat making you delusional to the point of malice, but certain that an act of betrayal would be the least compromising act you’d commit to keep him only for yourself. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you sob. He enters you with a gasp of desperation and then stills. “Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?” The two of you lay together in the midst of the pink nest, face-to-face—your sobs quiet. “Why didn’t you warn me?” you insist, touching the tips of his eyelashes. 

“I think…I didn't know before. But now— I think we might be…” he stops again, afraid like you are, for you already know what he’ll say. It’s obvious in this bed together. “We’re very compatible,” he whispers, simplifying the matter entirely. 

“Don’t say it,” you touch his mouth now. “I understand.” How could you not?

Mates—were everything and the world outside of this room different—that’s what you’d be. 

“It’ll be okay,” Joel tries to soothe when your tears start anew. The fever swells, rushes over you, drowns you in could have’s and would be’s, in the rightness of the moment and the unfairness of your reality. 

“We were both looking for something in that church. Maybe—” you say. He shakes his head at you and it makes you angry and devastated. “I want to know you.” You rake your nails down his chest. “I want to be close to you. I—I would love you if you’d let me.” 

Maybe I already do—you think. Maybe it was instantaneous and willed by fate or God, maybe God led you to that basement within his own house of worship to find the man he’d chosen for you himself. 

His movements, his grip, they take on a frenzy. He’s impatient, clumsy with need when he rolls you over, pressing you belly down against the bed to stretch his long form over yours. Your bed had never been more comfortable than with the large, warm alpha stretched out against you, taking up most of the space. There’s giddiness bubbling up within you to match his ardor, and with his grip in your hair, he pulls your head back to kiss you, huffing hot breath against your face as if he could taste your need to be held and touched, but also your laughter. 

“I want to tie you up,” he confesses. “I want to trap you. I want to force you to stay with me.” His weight leaves your back, leaves you gasping. “—Lift your rump, that’s it…gimme your cunt. Yes—good omega.”

Pulling your hips up up up, your face pressed into the sheets, his hand smooths back and forth against that raw place between your thighs. 

“You don’t need to force me.”

You gasp as he enters you swiftly, the angle so deep and so sharp it brings tears to your eyes, a hot flush sweeping down your chest. The feeling of the wide cockhead pressed firmly against your cervix, painful and pleasurable. 

“But I want to.”

“Then do it—I don’t care. Oh, oh—my tummy.”

“I know,” he coos. “I know it’s deep like this. It’s alright, this is where it goes.” 

He soothes a big hand over the skin of your abdomen where your womb hides beneath, pressing gently to feel himself moving inside. His hips press against your bottom harder, forcing your back into a tight arc, the delicate muscles of your neck and shoulders scream in protest at the forced position of submission he’s folded you into. 

He cups your cunt where he thrusts into it. “This is mine. Only I can have it, it belongs to me.” 

His voice is a feral snarl, all alpha claiming his omega. Your skin shivers, sweats, tightens to the point of excruciating pain. He grinds and grinds against that tight ring of agonizing pleasure within you. Fucks up against it so roughly it’s like he’s trying to force himself into that sacred and untouched space inside of you.. Your cunt flutters and orgasms around him as he starts to come inside of you—knot swollen to hurt. 

Yes yes. Yes yes. 

“I’m as close to your womb as anyone will ever be. It’s mine. It belongs to me. I could put a baby in you—” his voice no longer sounds his own, lost to rut, so deep and graveled. 

Again: “Yes. Yes yes yes.” You’re begging. 

“Jesus fuck.” His body jerks, his teeth clamp around your shoulder—so close, almost there.

“Please, please, alpha.”

“Damn you—” his spit smears against your shoulder, up your neck to your nape, mouth sliding. “I thought you understood.”

“I don’t care.” I don’t care I dont care I don’t care. Your knees slide against the bed, prone, spread, his. His lips are against your mating gland now when he speaks. 

You almost have him.

“You said this was a selfish thing. I don’t care. Be selfish.”

Twisting your hair in his fist, he pins your head to the bed, muscles screaming in overstrained protest, your knees slide even wider the weight of him forcing your body to do as he bids. You realize he’s coming again, encouraged by your position, and your belly practically swells with it—your alpha hissing and growling and shuddering as your cunt milks more come from his oversensitive knot. 

“Wha’dya want—me to leave my fucking wife—to breed your belly full’a me—oh, fuck—” You’re crying high pitched, wailing, the muscles of your pelvis overworked as they pull tight and shudder, contracting in a painful way. “God, help me—”

The fever is infectious and Joel is lost.

Maybe, at the end of it, you really are only animals. 

The feeling of his teeth piercing your mating gland, the smooth, painful slide—he holds you there, caught by the nape. Yes, you really are only animals. He’s bitten you. Trapped like he’d wanted. Tears slide wet and hot over your face, immediately evaporating against the scorching skin. Your mouth pants wide open in a silent scream. He’s caught you, impaled you. 

His mouth sucks and sucks, pulls back only to pierce again, deepening the wound. 

It doesn't hurt in the usual way—more so, it’s a pain that feels as if it is meant to be felt, natural. Something that stings only in a comforting way, like gratitude on a ready tongue. 

Between the two of you, the mating bond shivers and blooms awake, a chrysalis splitting open and alive.  

Yes, you decide, this is betrayal—of the gravest sort—of sanity.

This is the miracle, this is the cure to whatever sort of malady life could ever infect you with. If only the animal could understand that…

Later, you blink open dry, gritted eyes to the site of a folded sheaf of white paper set against the pink pillow. On it, his handwriting, lovely and careful: Went out for breakfast. Be back soon. -J. 

Through the window, you can hear the sad call of Mourning Doves. 

Perhaps this is where the story book begins to end. All that came before was only a prologue to the real lesson to which you will now surrender yourself to: He’s gone. 

Sitting up slowly, you take careful consideration of your body. The place between your legs shakes and pulls with tenderness, and the muscles in your lower back hurt. The heat is well and truly over with, he’d not have been able to pull himself away otherwise. Dust motes ring hollowly in the abandoned apartment, and there’s no such thing as a home without a family in it—you’re all alone. Tears begin to immediately fill your eyes and spill over as you press cautious fingertips to the still fresh wound at the back of your neck. Your mating gland is swollen, full and sore. 

You try to struggle your way out of the tangled bed, limbs weak from overuse, shivering everywhere. The linens reek of his scent and his come and you have to get away. With a great wrench, you kick away the scent of him, covering your mouth as if you’d be sick from it, tumbling to the floor beside the bed. Your shoulder knocks against the leg of the desk and the bottle of golden perfume teeters on the dangerous edge. You watch the sunflower bright liquid slosh in waves within the cut glass until it settles serenely once again. With the tip of a finger, you push it back to safety against the rattle of some forgotten keys. 

Joel’s—he’d forgotten them in his haste to get away from you and the selfish thing you’ve done. 

With shaking fingers you slide them off the desk and into your lap. He has too many—who could ever keep track of so many doors needing opening? Different keys of varying shapes and sizes. Some silver, some gold, one a copper oxidized to green color that looks ancient. What could one single man possibly need so many keys for? You count them slowly, running the pad of your thumb over the teeth of every single one—twenty seven, as old as you are. You struggle to pry your fingernail between the tongs of the thick ring, forcing one of the keys free. An innocuous gold one—something medium sized that is neither too small to be terribly important, nor too large to be easily missed. It warms quickly in your closed fist before you slip it beneath the raised edge of the perfume bottle on the desk. The golden liquid camouflages the golden key beneath it, rendering the shape of it waved and indiscernible. 

Now, there will be a place he’ll never be able to get into again without you. Somehow, the thought is comforting. 

The ending unfolds now: he’d bitten you, and now he’s run away with a sorry excuse. There’s a strange, puzzling sound coming from somewhere in your home, frightening you until you realize it’s only your soft wailing at the loss of your alpha. He’s left you. He’s left you. He won’t come back, you know it. You’ll have to move. Burn down the building. You won’t ever be able to live here happily again with the memories that have seeped into the walls of this room. He hadn’t even said goodbye and you’ll never see him again and you’ll have nothing to show for this singular moment of incredible happiness for the rest of your life. How could he just—

“Baby?”

He stands there, big and dark with his hair disheveled and his cheeks pink from the cold. A white paper bag in one fist, two cups of coffee held in his other palm. The warm glow of the hall illuminates him from behind—your breath rattles in your chest, silly, panicked creature. 

The tears dry instantly and then there’s a hollow buzzing that settles within you. The two of you stare at each other in silence for several long moments, and something in his gaze translates to understanding within you. You’ll be calm now, you’ll be prepared for whatever might come next. You think that this is what he needs from you. 

“It’s okay. I’m here,” he says, scooping you up off the floor, settling you with a deep groan. Taking you into his lap, he feeds you breakfast, watches as you take food from his hand. Your panic metamorphosizes, swoops and undulates like a wave.   

When you’ve both finished your bagels and fruit and juice, he sits you gently on the desk chair and lets you watch as he changes the bed linens. You blink up at him in a daze, watching his quick and efficient movements as he tucks and folds and pulls. You wonder who taught him. Does a creature like this come from a mother like all the rest of us do? His profile is serious, his throat red, the glands at the sides are still slightly swollen, but cooling. Unmarred. Your molars ache, saliva pooling like the venom of a snake—something unfinished. 

After the bed is made, he takes you to the small, shared bathroom. Perched naked and shivering on the counter, you watch now as he measures the temperature of the water in the shower until he’s certain it’s just right. You try to control the tremble of your skin, quietly observing, forcing yourself to hold the question on your tongue calm. You have a notion that if you stay calm, then he’ll stay calm in return. If you ask no rash questions, he’ll make no rash decisions.  

But you realize, he hasn’t looked you in your eyes a single time since he returned with breakfast, and you think you know what will happen next. Something like terrible, heartbroken certainty settles within your body. The panic evaporates into the ether. What you can see of them, his eyes, they’re like some hallowed, vacant place. 

“Joel?” You say. 

He looks up immediately, piercing you with that stare, it’s horribly empty. You don’t have anything else to say. 

You sit back, shocked with the clarity of his own metamorphosis. You can’t lie to yourself, and you cannot change a person.

No. Or…also—the lesson of your story book is very simple, you cannot fix another person. You can only fix yourself. 

When is the abdication of all pride and sense? You’d told yourself you’d started this, from the very beginning, going to that first meeting, to better yourself, to be honest, to find something that was easy, that you wouldn’t have to fight for. Contradictory things… maybe. But logical in your own complicated mind where you best understood yourself. Similarly, he’d told you once that after him, no one else would have you. Now, you see the words for what they’d really been, not a warning, but an apology. Even if he was gone, how could there ever be anyone else after him? It would be too great a fight. You feel you’d bleed to death inside if you even tried. 

Now, it says itself matter-of-factly inside your head once again, you cannot change a person.

It insists upon itself, this truth. Overriding biology or hormones or lust. You’ll let go of the silly notions of fate or God—there’s no room for that with the look on Joel’s face. 

He soaps your hair in the shower, massaging your temples and the notch at the base of your skull with large, strong fingers. He doesn’t make sounds, he focuses very intently. Tears tighten your throat again, but you’re not in your heat anymore so there’s no reason to let emotions overwhelm your actions. You hold yourself still and compliant and you let him wash your back, your throat, fingertips ghosting over the claimed mating gland, under your arms and the heaviness of your breasts and between your legs with a gentleness that strangles. 

When he dries the water from your skin, he presses a kiss to the corner of your eye, tasting the salt of grief. After, he tucks you into bed with clean skin, his heat against your back. He’s still hard for you and this is a comfort despite the pregnant tragedy that hangs above the bed. 

He orders you to sleep, and with nothing else to do but let the end come, you obey. 

A day and a night pass easily, and as dawn slinks into the quiet room, your quiet voice finally asks: “What will we do now, Joel?” 

He squeezes you tightly for one long moment. You don’t want a lot, just forever. But you think he sees that, anyway. And then he lets you go, anyway, too. Rolling over, he sits at the edge of the pink bed, elbows to knees and head hanging low. Your heart does break for him, then. The defeated man.

“Nobody ever taught me how to love someone without hurtin’ ‘em. I won’t do that to you, sweetheart. I need fixin’.”

Behind him, you kneel against his naked back, pressing a tender kiss over his gland. Your heart skips, yearns. 

When was the abdication of all pride and sense? That first footstep into a dark basement, taking a stupid pamphlet and hoping for a miracle, heedlessly pursuing a man who could never be caught. 

“I don’t think you do.”

“You’re young—”

“I already told you, I’m not that young anymore.”

“You can’t know what it’s like to live the sort of life I’ve lived. Cold and—and not myself. Just…a thing that isn’t real. Doing the things I thought I should for no good reason other than that if I didn’t do them I feared I’d lose myself entirely. My memories, my name, my brother was already gone. Not letting myself feel or taste  anything. You understand me? I—I lived like that, in a sheltered and delicate world, and I thought I was living.” He shakes his head cupped in his hands, and you kiss his neck again. “I was hibernating. So restless.” Once more he says: “I can’t believe I found you.”

He pulls himself from your touch suddenly, too big body jerking up to his feet, naked, animal-like, pacing the five meager feet of your small space restlessly, too quick for caution. On a pivot, his knee slams against the desk leg, sending the bottle of golden perfume to shatter on the floor. The scent of honey and vanilla and spice layered over orange blossom floats in the air, choking you, but Joel doesn’t seem to notice. 

Amidst the shards of glass, you can see the golden spark of his stolen key. 

“I’m broken. I’m broken, baby. And I gotta fix it. I need a miracle.” You close your eyes to his own blindness, your broken gland throbs with hurt. “If we go back to the Emmanuel…or, or—Maria had said… it’s Wednesday. If we— the both of us—”

“I’ll help you. Let me help you.”

He gives one violent shake of his head, like an absolutely not, and rakes his hands through his hair, turns again to pace the five feet backwards. The tendons in his neck strain. He can’t seem to look you in the eye. 

You don’t understand, he murmurs, but you aren’t sure which one of you he’s speaking to. “I turned my only child into a nightmare and it’s the worst thing I could’ve ever done,” he says, face averted. “I have to fix it. Maria sent details. There’s a medical facility northwards, on the outskirts of the city. It’s all very straightforward. We’ll go and we’ll take the cure they’re offering. It’ll help us. It’s a miracle. That’s what they tell you. A miracle cure for loneliness.” You can see that the muscles in his back are shaking almost uncontrollably. “We were both looking for something when we started this thing—” 

“Then I’ll help you,” you insist. “Together we can—”

“How?” he cuts you off, his voice is a violent thing. “You can’t. It was so long ago, and yet it’s the only thing that matters. And I can’t let it go. I cannot let her go. I need something more. Something that will rid me of this—this,” he chokes. “Grief—”

At that moment, you find your anger hard to sustain in the face of lost fatherhood. 

“There’s something rotten inside of me and I have to burn it out. Look at what I did. Look at my life. I married a woman I didn’t love. Why would I do that?” he asks you as if he’s genuinely hoping for an answer. “I was so lonely and I thought that was a good enough reason. I was so lonely. And I had a daughter and now I don’t. And I tried to build a life and do the things I was supposed to but I couldn't. It didn’t work, none of it, and so I couldn’t fix myself, and now I’ve found you and I wish you could fix it all—everything, my whole heart. But you can’t, it doesn’t work that way. And I’m sorry.”

You want to ask why you can’t be enough, but there’s no bravery left in your heart. And after all, you do understand. His shame, his need to turn away, but you are here and you are still because you do understand—you cannot fix a person, they can only fix themselves. 

When was the abdication of all pride and sense? Here and now. 

You aren’t going anywhere. Even if he is. 

“Okay,” you say, your voice sounds strong, sure. You’d promised you’d be gentle with him. Hadn’t you? “We’ll go. If this is what you need, I’ll go with you.”

He finally turns to look at you. “You will?” There’s pain, maybe panic in his eyes. 

There’s nothing in you that thinks to mention the bite that throbs alive and painful at your neck—the bond that sings and cries with the sorrow of what’s about to be done to it. You can feel him there at the end of your mind unfurling like a long stretching sigh, beating like a heart, and your own heart races against it, vying for the end or trying to escape what will happen to you afterwards. It will fade, you know, slowly and painfully, some slow agonizing trek back to your alone-ness.  He does not look happy, there’s satisfaction in that, in the great tactical advantage of being the one to whom the wrong has been done. 

“I—I started this. I have to see it through. I have to know.” There’s only himself left to convince. 

He kneels at your feet to dress you. Jeans and a camisole, thick socks and boots. You don three sweaters and a coat but fear you’ll never be warm again. When you rise from the bed where you’d felt that first unfurling blossom of love, where you’d felt the truth of what it was to be an omega so honestly, he presses his face to your belly where a baby could have grown had he chosen you and not his grief. His voice breaks on a sob of your name, but there are no tears from you, not yet. 

“Please don’t hold it against me. I won’t be able to live if you do.”

“I’m on birth control. You should know.” 

He looks up at you from his place at your knees, big man that he is, and there’s heartbreak on his face. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells you. You’re sure that he is. 

“Of course.”

The drive to the rented space of the medical facility, an old and drab building on the outskirts of Boston, is long and silent. He grips your hand the entire way there, determined, like he has to do this no matter the consequence to either of you. And as he drives, you watch him. That brightness you’d thought you’d seen before, it must have been a feign, an outright lie, for now, all you can see is a broken man on the precipice of his own end. As soon as you’d realized what was inside, you’d had to do everything he’d asked of you. 

It turned simple. 

The facility seems some relic of a forgotten era. Outdated, ascetic concrete and harsh architecture. It doesn't feel right to be here, and you shake beneath the clothes he’d put you in. 

You search for Maria’s face in the crowd, hoping for some false sense of comfort or understanding but she isn’t here. Why would she be? This is only a place for broken creatures, and she was but the shepherd that had offered him his choice. 

Paperwork is signed, consent forms read and reviewed, the two of you sit side by side in hard, plastic chairs. There are other demihumans here for the same thing as well, desperate for a cure for their own loneliness. You can smell it leaking out of their pores. The medical personnel are distant and professional, all betas, and you wonder if they know what it is they’re doing to the people they’re administering these drugs too. 

In the fineprint you read: By signing this document the subject agrees to the risk of the loss of all emotional feeling, even that which is associated with the designation alpha or omega. The drug administered today carries the potential side effect of leaving demi-humans in a biological state similar to that of a beta. Sexual desire, as experienced by the designations A/O are likely to be altered or extinguished.  Therefore, the possibility of a future heat or rut is unlikely post administration. Any existing mating bonds run the risk of potential severing. 

But he would get his miracle cure. And you can’t find it in your heart to hold that against him. 

He holds your hand in both of his while he waits for his name to be called, his head cast forward as if in prayer. 

When it’s finally his turn, the two of you walk down the long hallway to the administration room hand in hand. His large wide palm is comforting, his strong fingers holding you in a tight clasp. This is your last moment, and you stop him just before you enter the large room where you can see two rows of chairs facing one another, bodies lining the seats with nurses in clean white smocks moving slowly from one to the other. They have trays in their hands, with little white cups on them. Each person eagerly takes their own dose. It seems like you’re the only one here with any sort of doubt. 

You miss the stilted comfort of the old church. 

And suddenly, you feel the weight of your designation over your skin so heavily. It’d never been something to bother or shame you, but now, very nearly alone again and badly used, you feel it. 

Clearing your throat, you try to rally courage you don’t actually have and move to continue forward, but now he’s the one to pause.  

“Give me a moment,” he begs, voice rough.

-

Joel is cold, frozen again, beneath his returned coat. It smells like you, and he hopes he cares enough after he’s done with this place which he’s beginning to fear he never should have brought you to. This is no place of worship.

“Give me a moment,” he says again. 

There are so many people here, he’s surprised. Do they know what they’re giving up by doing this? Does he?

The heat of your body beside his feels like it wanes and wanes until you’re shivering also. You’re cold, it's his responsibility to keep you warm and safe and happy and he’s giving that up for something else. He has the notion that he’ll never be warm ever again unless he is with you. 

But this grief, he thinks, it insists upon itself. 

If he has his miracle, maybe he’ll be able to stay or to come back, to be fixed so that he can be right for you and fix his whole life so that everything will be able to be okay again. It’ll all be simple, perfect, miraculous. 

“I need this,” he says aloud. His words are so rusty, so ugly, so false and weak. Nothing but lies. “I need this," he says again.

He looks down at you and your eyes are wide and dry, so determined, no tears from the girl who’d sacrifice so readily for this thing he thinks he needs. 

“Do you think that your loneliness comes from your grief?” you ask him then.

“Yes.”

“So you’ll never be able to mend your loneliness unless you cure your grief.”

“Yes.”

“I see,” you say. “I understand.”

“Do you?” 

“Yes. You struggle. You’re angry. I understand.”

“I’m angry?” Your cool tone irritates something that still feels possessed by your earlier heat. He needs to learn to let that go. “Why the fuck arent you angry? I’m abandoning you. I bit you,” he says the terrible words out loud. “You should be fucking angry at me.”

He’s immediately speared by a lash of guilt so agonizing his vision blurs, and your determined look turns to one of vulnerable desperation for a single and brief moment, doubt, one which a good man would protect fiercely. He’s certain now that he should not have brought you here. Every instinct inside of him tells him so. And he wishes desperately that a man could learn from anything but his own mistakes. 

“When you go in there, what will become of me?” Your voice is quiet, slightly trembling. 

“Look at me,” he demands, smoothing his large hands over your head to gently cradle your skull in his palms. “Kiss me one more time.”

You press up on your toes, and he thinks of yesterday morning, when he’d woken to find your fever gone before he’d gone out for breakfast. The way you’d looked sitting at the edge of the bed where so much had happened to you together, hair draped over your shoulders. He’d taken you into his arms and you’d taken him into your body when you’d begged him for just once more, and with his cock throbbing hot and deep against your womb, with the fever of heat and rut burned away, your words had strangled his heart with terrifying clarity. Just once more? And never again? Could this truly be what he was choosing?

He kisses you, your mouth firm and unresponsive for a moment. 

“Now you punish me?”

“Now I remind you.”

“Kiss me back,” he demands. “Give me your mouth.” He doesn’t need reminding of what he’s losing here. He is, more than anything, painfully aware.

He pries your jaw open, tasting the salt of tears, and finally, you kiss him back with a heated, almost heartbreaking urgency. 

“You’re so determined to hurt me,” you cry.

“No, no. To save you.” He cups your cheeks gently, thumbs smoothing the wet, smooth skin beneath your eyes. His mouth pulls softly at yours, taking one last fervent taste. “You weren’t supposed to be mine, but you are. You are.” 

The feeling that he is making a mistake and yet that it is absolutely necessary crashes over him stronger than fate or biology or even God—that this path he’d set himself upon was one he is now trapped in without any other way forward. 

“Don’t forget. Don’t forget about me,” he presses against your mouth. 

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“I’m the one that should be thanking you,” he says, heart-sick.

You pull away from him, out of his embrace. 

“And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he demands. 

“For changing the game. For wanting more.”

“No—” he makes a cutting motion with his hand, “No. You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

The idea of you apologizing for something he was doing to you infuriates him. 

He remembers the way you’d met, the green of the willow, the way you’d taunted and teased him with your words and your smiles and your questions, sent him careening into you until he’d no choice but to take you for himself. 

You smile that sly smile again now, but there are tears in your eyes when you stick out your hand for him to shake. “No hard feelings?”

A bilious, sick feeling forces its way up his throat. “None. Never.”

He feels the warm air between your fingers as your hands fall away from each other, as though they still touched. Anticipation. Then loss. 

And then nothing, your hand falling away. Something inside Joel screams.

The nurses sit you across from one another, explaining that you’ll take two pills and then have to sit and rest for observation for an hour before you’ll be permitted to leave. In the interim, a series of questions will be asked to ascertain that you’re of sound mind and health for release. A follow up visit will be scheduled at four and twelve weeks to record progress.

They advise that the effects should be instantaneous. An immediate cure of all loneliness. Grief wiped away for a clean slate.

You nod your head serenely up at the nurse as she explains to you, and Joel feels himself harden at the sight of you—your hair, your face, the slope of your shoulders, the thought of your marked gland at the back of your neck. He runs the risk of losing this—of never feeling the lust he’d just gotten back. Never feeling that burst of warmth in his chest you’d forced to live within him once more. 

His own nurse comes to perform the same speech, and places two, perfectly round blue pills in his palm. Across the aisle, you hold your own palm up and waiting, imitating his movements, letting him choose for the both of you. 

Don’t give up on me, please, he almost shouts at you. Don’t forget me.

In front of him, the nurse looks down at him very curiously. “Get busy fixing your heart or die trying, Joel Miller.”

He takes the pills into his mouth and tears prick his eyes. He’ll never cry again after this. 

Still before him, you watch as he swallows. 

Only getting up to go once he has. Your own cure untasted.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Part 3;

The apartment with the small, warm room you bring him to is a radiant and generous place; some brightly lit bubble of life Joel hasn’t looked upon in years and years.

You tell him you have a roommate who spends all her time with her girlfriend—crazy in love. They work at the opera, too—set carpenter and sound design. Soon, they plan to get married. 

You tell him all of this with a patently wistful look in your eye. Like you’re happy for your friends, and also terribly aware of what it is that landed you in a place like the Emmanuel. 

In your bedroom, there are twinkling lights that hang from the edges of the ceiling, and a mess of a pink and cream colored bed at the center of the closely packed room, blankets and pillows piled high into what looks like a preemptively engineered nest. 

You move into the space slowly, like you’re shy, hesitant to allow him into this sacred place, as you drape his borrowed coat over the back of the desk chair. The surface of which is cluttered with books and papers, a beaten up red journal, a laptop and makeup strewn about haphazardly. An etched glass bottle of perfume perches precariously at the corner's edge, the deep golden liquid within: still and undisturbed. 

“I like your room,” he tells you. 

But what he’d really like to say is that he feels in danger here, in this comfortable space. That he wishes he could run but that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, also. Nowhere to run to. That he’s grateful. That the act the two of you are about to commit here will be undeniably selfish. That at the end of it all, he hopes you might forgive him. 

The look on your face when you turn to thank him, one hand braced against the back of the chair as if to hold yourself upright, is full of the ardor of your unfurling heat, the weight of your biology, the reasons for finding yourself in the basement of an old church. There’s sweat dampening your hairline and a glaze in your eye that tells him soon you won’t even remember your own name, but you’ll surely remember his. 

Joel feels suddenly flayed open, like some prey animal gutted by a wolf, spilling all of his own ravenous hunger out for your witness. It’s a moment of undeniable honesty. His own face, a mirror, his own skin damp with sweat. He’s painfully hard already with your scent on his tongue and fingers and surrounding him everywhere in this room. And the look on your face is so similar to the shiver in his gut, that he decides to be honest with his fears:

“We’re about to do somethin’ selfish here. With no thought for how it might hurt anyone.” Not even ourselves. “And I’ve always been a selfish man. But I worry for you.”

Your lashes flutter, as if taking in the weight of his words. But you smile, “Think I can’t handle it?” Another drooping flutter of your lashes, thick and curling. The fever turns you into an unreliable narrator. He can see the flutter of a too fast pulse beneath the thin skin of your throat. All bravado—you struggle to maintain the smirk. “I don’t think I believe half the things you say about yourself.”

“I don’t care about anything,” he tells you, palms splayed wide as if to show you all his cards. 

“You’re a bad liar, Joel Miller.”

You know his last name without him ever having told you, and it feels like a sign. Like you already know everything there is to know about him, so obviously he’s supposed to be here. 

“You can sit down,” you offer, slowly moving to shut the door. “They never stay here, we’ll have the apartment to ourselves for a few days most likely.”

He swallows his nerves, the reality that he’s never done a thing like this, been in this position before, slides down his throat to settle heavily in his gut as he sits slowly at the edge of the pink bed. On the nightstand there’s a dangerously leaning tower of books: Anna Karenina, The Second Sex, Emily of New Moon, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, an autobiography of W.B. Yeats, The Happy Hooker, The Act of Creation, Seven Gothic Tales. 

A wishful romantic, a realist, a smart girl doing a stupid thing. 

He stares at the stack unblinking. You like to read. This is who you are, this person who collects books in your small, pink room with the absent housemate and a brother who’ll only speak to you once a month. Parents who you want to be nothing like. Someone who works at the opera and likes to walk and eats too many sweets, with the golden perfume teetering dangerously at the edge of a desk. 

Someone who’d dreamt of something better. 

Suddenly, he can’t think of anyone else in his life whose small details he knows like this. Not a single person. Certainly not the woman he’s lived with for the past seven years. Perhaps not even himself. 

And learnt in such a short time, too.

You move around him slowly, a gentle hand at his shoulder dragging to softly touch his cheek. He’s glad it’s you he knows like this. At least there is that. 

“I’m not scared to be selfish. I’m scared of other things, but not that.”

He swallows, eyes wide and dry. And you’re so beautiful, and wanting him, what else is there to be but frightened and here, waiting for you to decide what’s next for him. 

Your soft fingertip follows the curve of his cheekbone, back and forth, watching him with eyes that are not as afraid as his, but wide and young and honest. Full of the potential for life that has so callously slipped through his own hands. He thinks there’s nothing within him that can understand why you’d have found yourself in a place for lonely people. Why would you ever need a miracle cure the way he does? How could God or the whole world not want to miraculously cure you of any sort of loneliness you might have ever suffered? Desperate for the power to turn back the clock, change his whole life, find you at a time when he was young and unbroken and honest, too.

You push his hair back, fingers sliding through the thick strands, dancing over the shell of his ear the way they’d danced over the temptation of sugar. His blood throbs madly at his temples, his muscles spasming beneath his skin; he shuts his eyes, sucking in a slow, deep breath to steady himself. He’s not afraid to admit he’s afraid of this.

He hadn’t suffered any sort of real sex drive in years. His libido cold and inconsistent and… gone. He can’t remember the last time he’d slept with his wife, taken himself in hand. His erection this morning had been the first he could remember in months. Joel worked, he thought of the past, he did not consider himself. He went home, he existed. 

He was so, so cold. Frozen. 

Now, he is here. 

Slowly, he brings his palms to your hips, gripping you there carefully, hearing the phantom sound of your moan in his ear as he’d made you come on his fingers. Unbelieving he’d had the gall to even touch you like that. 

The hand at his ear moves to the buttons at the base of his throat, opening the first, the second. His breathing goes erratic, coming in quick, hot bursts. He pulls you in closer, spreading his thighs wider to make room for you, and his hold on you slips higher, mapping the curve of your waist beneath your sweater. Looking up at you with all the wonder of a man coming upon the answer to a question he’d been looking for his entire life. 

He tries for sound once, falters. There are so many things he wants to say to you now, and all his bravado from the church has fled him. His strength gone under the feel of your soft fingers and the glow of your pink room in the warm fairy lights. Things he wants to say that might frighten you, disgust you, make you wet and pliant. He swallows courage once again.

“You’re going to let me have you.”

A muscle under your left eye flutters light and frantic, spasming with your nerves. You nod once.

“Fuck you, knot you—” he insists on clarification.

Another nod.

“Say it. Lemme hear it.”

“Yes. I’m going to let you have me.”

He pulls you in even closer, a groan as he presses his face against your belly, breathing in deep, filling his lungs until they hurt with your scent. The ache in his groin and his stomach beats behind his eyelids. Your fingers move quickly, undoing the rest of his buttons and then push his shirt back and off his shoulders, smoothing over the hot skin there up to his neck to ghost over the sensitive skin of his glands. He shudders a broken sound, pressing his face deeper into your stomach. 

“The rest—tell me.”

“I’m…I’m going to let you fuck me, knot me.”

He pulls you in tighter, thank you thank you, he says against your midriff, mouth sliding against the knit fabric of your sweater that he pushes up your waist, uncovering the skin of your stomach for him to kiss. 

Tugging the garment over your head, you let it fall to the floor from listless fingers, the soft shucking sound landing heavy against the carpet of the quiet room. You have on a black bra, soft, translucent lace, he can see the color of your nipples beneath, beautiful and succulent so his mouth waters. You’re like wild prey caught in his thrall, looking down at him with those bright eyes full of mirrored hunger. His fingertips make their slow, ghosting way up the skin of your back and then down again, mapping you, catching at the waist of your skirt to tug it down over your legs. You’re left only in your dark tights and tiny underwear. Hands on your hips he pivots you, taking a look at the back of a little thong. He feels perverted—he wants to bend you over and spread you wide and look at it all, press his fingers against tight, sensitive skin before getting to taste it all, too. 

His legs shake and he hides his face against your stomach again, embarrassed with the intensity of his wanting, breath shaking in his lungs. Your hands smooth over his hair, comforting him, soothing and painful all at once. And cautiously, you begin to push him backwards until he’s stretched out and laying against the soft duvet. 

It’s like he floats on a pink cloud, and Joel is nervous. 

With his eyes closed, he concentrates on the feel of gentle fingertips moving over his chest, down his belly, sifting through the hair there to the clasp of his belt—open, his jeans, the zipper, parted. It’ll be his skin next. He breathes fast fast fast, he can’t remember the last time anyone touched him, and he has to focus intently on willing the boiling heat his blood full of mercury has become to calm down or he’ll spend in his jeans without you even having pulled him out. 

At his sides, his arms are tangled in his open shirt, and he’s unable to defend himself when you climb on top, settling on his lap in nothing but your flimsy tights and your tiny panties. 

He can’t look, he’s afraid of what he’ll see. He’s afraid of you. 

“Open your eyes, Joel—”

The immediate realization that he’d been wrong before, that he is a weak man, that he’d never been able to escape it, that maybe all the sad, childless alphas of the world are a little bit the same—dying, it doesn’t bother him as perhaps it would have, had he not made it here with you. 

“I can’t believe I found you,” he says in utter awe—eyes wide open now. 

Your smile is beautiful when you lean over to kiss him. Fingers twisting into his hair as you moan against his tongue, sweet kittennish laps while you grind and press along his chest. He tries to twist out of his tangled shirt, frustration mounting at his trapped arms. He wants to pull you tight, grip you hard, feel your skin and leave his fingerprints everywhere, but you reach down, bracing your hand against his wrist to hold him down. Other hand coming up to circle his throat lightly. 

At the provoking nature of your touch, his instincts finally come fully alive. 

“This you pretendin’ to be in charge?”

“Yes,” you shiver, pressing your face to his throat, your hips starting a rhythmic cant against his abdomen. 

The rumble, low and satisfied in his chest, is one of gratification. Happy to let you play for a moment, familiarize yourself with his body. 

“Alright,” he says. “Enjoy it. It’s all you’ll get.”

He settles back, accepting he’s trapped for now whilst you slither lower, shuffling to straddle his thighs. Your touch is tentative, looking up with your own shy candor and glowing cheeks as you carefully grasp his hard flesh. 

The muscles in his stomach bunch, a rough, pained sound clawing its way up his throat—he has to clench his whole body to stave off a humiliation. 

“Fuck—” Joel whines. 

Pulling back, you shove his jeans down his thighs and he toes his boots off, helping you to dispense with the horrible, confining clothes that hurt his skin. When he’s free, his sex lies there, heavy and jutting, and it embarrasses him. The angry, violent looking thing under your beautiful hand.

But there’s a sound in your throat, click clicking, whining too like him, and when you wrap your small fingers around his cock, the both of you stare down in awe. Your touch is too gentle, not hard enough. He needs more. Straining to wrap his own large hand around yours, he shows you how he needs it. Squeezing tightly he writhes on the bed, moving your palms up and down together, teeth clenched tight. He pulls away, letting you handle him on your own, and your touch goes light again, maddening. 

“Does it hurt?”

“God yes.” 

It aches, it needs inside. 

He hisses when you gently part the spongy skin of the tip, foreskin rolled back, pulling the small slit open. Your eyes are glazed over, shiny with the fever heat now, like you don’t really know what’s going on anymore. Humming to yourself while you play with him.

His sac is heavy and tight, the space behind beats. He’s going to come soon, already. It doesn’t matter that you’ve barely touched him, it’d been so long for him, and you’re so beautiful on top of him, sweaty and fevered and ripe. He rips his arms violently from the trap of his shirt, seams popping and grips your hip forcefully with one hand, the other pulling your touch back to his agonized erection, moving your grip up and down brutally. Reaching to tuck his fingers beneath the half-cup of your pretty, lace bra, he tugs, letting one soft, full breast free. 

“I’m so close,” he begs. 

Your lashes flutter at his tone, nodding your head—I’ll be gentle, I’ll be gentle with you—slicking your palm over the wide, wet head, and then gripping there in a twisting motion, sliding down the length. It’s not hard enough, but goddamn it’s so good, too. 

“I’m going to come in your hand, I’m sorry,” he says, too far gone to remember he was feeling embarrassed just a moment ago. 

Suddenly, his semen is spilling hot and wet over your fingers and down your wrist, knot pulsing in agony. His animal snarl sends a shocked shiver down your back so that you’re gripping him even tighter, pulling his hips off the bed by the cock, your own high pitched sound meeting his deep one. 

He ruts into your fist, moaning, crying your name, and your other hand joins your moving fist to scoop up his thick white come, bringing it to your mouth to smear against your tongue. 

Joel is going to die. 

He jerks you forward, over himself, fists twisting in your tights and wrenching them apart, snapping the clasp of your bra to tear it off. You’re crying his name back at him, writhing against him, wet hand sliding over his skin and getting come everywhere while you tell him how much you ache, how hot you are, how it hurts without him. How you need him. 

Joel is needed, and it is a perfect, suspended moment. 

Flipping you over suddenly, he crowds you with his heavy mass, pulling you up off the bed against his chest, belly to belly, fingers in your hair to tug your head back roughly and bearing the soft column of your beautiful throat, he closes his lips around your gland and sucks hard, the flavor of your pheromones flooding his mouth, sticky on his tongue like honey. Your fists tangle in his hair, pulling him in closer, bearing yourself further, a keening cry on your tongue as he ravages the supremely sensitive skin.

With a growl, he pulls back, running his rough hands all over you. Skin, bare and soft and hot. And with one rough tug, he rips the barely there panties from your hips, beneath him you’re breathing fast and hiccupped in a way that makes him feel like a predator and you some small prey. Your breasts are soft and lovely—on a quiet, hungry sound, he captures the tip of one in his mouth, sucking careful, then hard, biting gently, working the sensitive nipple with his tongue until you’re moaning and pleading with him for more. He can feel your hot cunt wet against his stomach. 

“Hmm, such sweet, sensitive pretty tits. Do you like that, little omega?”

Your scent builds, blossoming and swelling and he feels the change in your temperature when you dip fully into the pit of your heat, his own rut responding in kind, coming up on him like a wave so that he feels suddenly that all sense has been lost and all he is, is a thing that takes, with you beneath him so ready to give. 

He had warned you that this would be a selfish sort of thing. 

Wrapping his big hands around your soft tits, he sucks on one and then the other, slapping the side to watch it jiggle and then, with a rough sound, nipping at it again like he’s angry at how it moves. He slides lower, teeth scraping along your ribs, tasting the curve of your soft belly, dipping to bite at the plump inner slopes of your thighs. Between your legs—God. Had he ever smelled something so sweet? Your arousal is thick and leaking heavily, pooling between your thighs onto the bed. 

You’re beyond words or reasoning now, maybe that’s why he feels brave enough to say: “You can’t imagine the things I’ve done t’you in my dreams. Disgusting things. I wanna fill you so badly, mark you with my scent and my come. Want you to be only mine.”

He buries his face in your cunt, lapping at your hole and sucking on your pretty clit, so swollen. Spreading your sex open to admire what’s his. 

Oh please, you cry above him, dragging your palms over your body to squeeze your own breasts tightly. He watches a lone tear slide down your temple in rapt fascination, and he’s certain he’s never laid eyes on such a sight in his entire life. 

“Shh,” he soothes. “Let alpha kiss your little clit.”

He presses a full mouthed kiss to the swollen bud, eyes still locked on your face, flicking his tongue slowly back and forth. You’re so wet, pouring slick for him. Joel takes a deep breath through a clenched jaw, and distantly, thinks it would be wise of him to make you come first on his mouth. But as he straightens to his knees, his palms sliding up the backs of your thighs, the pads of his fingers pressed against the vulnerable backs of your knees, spreading you wide, touching skin softer than he even knew was possible, he knows he can’t wait any longer. Doesn’t want to. 

You’re begging for it anyways. You don’t want him to wait either. 

His wet cockhead brushes against your belly as he leans over to give you a long, lingering kiss. One last moment of softness, he thinks, before all reason is lost to rut. 

He’d like to say so many other things. That you’re like an angel. That it makes sense he’d found you where he did. That he wants to do obscene things to you. Tie you up—ropes wrapped around your heavy breasts, your soft thighs, so that he might watch your skin take his marks. Keep you captured and bound.

Abstinence does strange things to a man. 

Kneeling between your spread thighs, he lets his cock lay heavy against you, reaching halfway up your belly. Your palm slides over it, pressing at the hot skin, letting yourself rock against it, thighs flexing. 

“This part is the worst,” you cry. “—So hot. Oh, I itch and burn everywhere, alpha.” Your words are slurred and febrile. 

“You’re alright,” he soothes, taking hold of his thick flesh. “I’m here to fix it now.”

You claw gently at his shoulders like a desperate creature seeking safety. He tucks the wide head against your little hole, and eyes full of glorious fever, hair clinging to your sweaty face, you lift yourself up a little to watch him push it in. 

As he presses inside you, Joel feels like he might cry. 

He’s sure when he returns to that house not a home, that meager and cold place, that he will cry. Thinking he can’t remember when the last time was that he allowed himself to weep. Like touch, like lust, like all he’d deprived himself of for so long—his whole life, nothing but abstinence—Joel can’t remember the last time he let himself cry.

Now, he presses deeper, lashes fluttering, and he feels the hot press of tears behind his eyes. He slides his hands beneath your bottom, lifting you, filling you, and hisses, eyes on where he fucks you open. His hips nudging forward, rocking, until he’s balls deep, the wide, painfully sensitive tip of his cock pressed firmly against the mouth of your cervix. His burgeoning knot is an unspeakable ring of pleasure at the base. He bends, hunching over your splayed open form, to kiss your midriff, nuzzling gentle at your belly. Above him, you mumble nonsensically: his name, alpha, pleading for more. 

Joel—it sounds more beautiful than he’s ever heard it said before. Like it means something now, not just a thing that exists, but a real person, too. 

He pulls his hips back until only the wide head remains caught in the tight ring of your pussy—it’s so swollen, he can almost imagine he sees the blood beating beneath the thin, slippery skin. You’ve bloomed for him, and you’re so beautiful for it. He slides forward, hard, bumping roughly against your womb again and grinding there, making you really feel him. You wail once, long and sharp, and then the low pitiful sound of an animal trapped in a maw of teeth. 

“Fuck—Oh, fuck,” he grits, letting himself fall forward on braced arms, looking down at where you connect, how you stretch so shockingly around the thickest part of him, the place just before his knot starts to swell. As if he could tear you apart. 

His thrusts pick up speed, not bothering to measure the strength behind them, you were made for this after all. Perfect little omega cunt meant to be fucked hard—it starts to flutter around him, the wettest, most obscene sound he’s ever heard, squeezing and milking his length as you come on him for the first time. 

“That’s it. Yes—” he growls, fucking you on his cock, your arousal dripping down onto his balls as he pulls out and slides back in with a deep, satisfied groan at the feel of his omega coming for him.

Joel loses his mind to the feel of it—better than anything else has ever been. 

“Is your pretty cunt feeling good? She’s sucking on alpha so well, little one. This is what y’needed. I know. F’r me to fuck you until you wet my cock with your come.”

Wrapping his palm around your throat, reaching for your wrist to pin it to the mattress, the way you’d held him, prone and caught beneath him, he holds your pulse in two places, presses his lips to a third, the perfect, fragrant spot behind your ear. Tasting there, licking and sucking on the delicate skin. Ravenous mouth moving down to your gland, as soft and sensitive as your clit. 

“Perfect, perfect thing. Can’t believe I found you—” he says again, taking your mouth now in a desperately hungry kiss. Your free arm wraps itself around his neck, holding him tightly. His chest fills with a heat so unbearable his heart feels it’ll burst, and then he’s settling as deep as he can, knot catching and swelling, and he’s pumping long spurts of hot come into your soft little womb, filling you. 

His weight falls heavy over you, smothering your body with his much larger one, while he throbs deep inside of you, breathing in your scent, letting himself be suffused with your warmth. 

Your smell, full of heat-fever, so sweet it sticks to his gums—it fills his head with thoughts of what next…what if? Plots to keep this for himself for the rest of his life because beneath all of that sweetness, all of that sticky slick that slides between your two hot, perspiring bodies, there’s him. Beneath all of that, him, him, his. Your bones are made of his own scent now. How could he ever let you go when you’re made of him?

“Look at me, look at me.” He pushes the sweat soaked hair out of your face, tilting your head back to get a good look at you. “You’re alright? Lemme see that angel face.” Your cheeks are burning hot, eyes unfocused, but you give him the most beautiful smile, sated and entirely trusting. 

Your fingertips touch his own face, passing lightly over his eyelids and nose to his mouth. 

“I’m okay. I’m okay, alpha. I’m here.” You tug his head closer with weak, heat-sick fingers. “More. More. I’m so hot—” But you shiver like you’re cold. “It hurts, please.”

“Tell me how it feels,” he rumbles. “Describe it to me.”

He goes limb-heavy over your body, pressing you into the bed, comforting you with his breadth. The skin between your eyebrows wobbles and creases, a tiny frowning pinch, and you make the most curious hiccupping noise. Like the answer to his question needs to work its way slowly through your silly, little heat-addled mind.

“Oh—it’s… it’s— Joel, it’s so good. I never thought—alpha, I never imagined it would be like this,” you mumble and slur. “So full.”

He watches the bright eyes fill with tears then, and spill over in a hot rush, clinging in large perfect droplets to long lashes of which he counts every single strand. The sight of your tears, of your overwhelm—it makes him come more. His cock jerks and swells impossibly fuller, and he begins to spurt again, filling your belly swollen with his seed against his own stomach. 

“Silly thing,” he soothes gently. “S’no need to cry, little omega.”

“Oh, but Joel—” you sob, nuzzling into his throat, mouthing at the swollen gland behind his ear. 

“I know it’s a lot,” he assures you, rolling the two of you over onto your sides, cuddling you close and gentle-like, petting your hair and letting the deep, rumbling sounds in his chest wash over you soothingly. “Just need some rest now. That’s all.” 

He presses a kiss to your hairline, your brow, your mouth again—he licks into it deeply, pulling the edges wider to make more room for himself, his tongue tasting all along your own. He can understand your tears, how overwhelming this must be for an omega inexperienced in taking an alpha with a knot as big as his. It’s true that he might not have had much experience before this, but this is natural, after all. This is who Joel is and what he was meant for. This is exactly where he’s supposed to be. 

I belong here, he whispers into your hair as you settle into him, melting into a heavy and sated sleep—so beautifully obedient, willingly submitting to his caring command for rest. 

He feels so far away from where he’d started, from that mad creature who’d lost everything—that man with a daughter a whole world away. With nothing to hold on to and even less to lose. 

He feels closer to his real self, here and now, than he has in years.

You had both been so alone and in so much pain, but he had found you. 

The heat dips and swells in waves and bursts. You wake gradually from that first reprieve, calling his name, begging for something only he can give you. He takes you again and again, the bed so wet it sticks to your fevered skin, sweat and semen and spit. On your side, back to chest, his body cupped around yours in a shape akin to love, kissing your neck, your chin, the cup of one palm and the inside of a wrist. On all fours, mounted like a defenseless thing, fluttering, little hole creamy from use—spread it open, let me see what belongs to me. Splayed above him, little drip of a girl, cooing his name mindlessly, caressing yourself, sliding your hands over the round of your belly, cupping your breasts, tips of your fingers tangling in your hair while you writhe above him, and Joel…Joel is sure he will die beneath you, watching you like this. He moves inside of your slick heat, cunt like a little furnace. Your tears leak in a constant stream that he licks from your cheeks to slake his thirst. 

Time is a loop and a loop and a loop and maybe the two of you exist here only, together now. 

He thinks that he goes away from himself too, sometimes. Forgets his name and his past and who he was or who he could be and lives only inside your cunt, to fill and mark as his. He is certain that this is the warmest bed he’s ever known. 

When he blinks awake and coherent, he feeds you soup he’s pilfered from the fridge and water that he drips into your mouth from his own, and feels sure that it must turn sweet on your tongue. If anyone could, it’d be you—turn water to wine. 

Joel thinks he might finally believe in God now. 

The gut twisting realization of all he could lose here, how he feels so happy beside you—it turns him from a faithless man into one full of zealous belief. And on a sigh, he feathers his lips over yours, the round of your cheek, the arch of your brow. He’s not alone anymore, and he’s happy. If he could, he’d hold onto this feeling forever.

Your eyes blink open, focused for the first time in hours or maybe days, but heat burns so brightly from the center of your navel, osmosing into his own belly, that he knows he only has a moment. 

“Hey,” softly.

You murmur back at him, confused little hiccups of sound followed by a fluttery kiss to the tip of his chin, the bite of hungry teeth demanding flesh. 

“Did you know you snore?” He laughs into the sensitive shell of your ear, rolling on top of you. His knot is sated for now, but it throbs with the feeling of his heavy length moving within you. 

You blink once, wide eyed—then a funny little frown. “I do not!”

“Yeah, you do. It’s very soft like the purr of a kitten,” he tells you, nuzzling at the swollen gland at the slide of your neck. You make a soft sound at the back of your throat at the touch. “Yes—just like that.” 

“Don’t snore—” you mutter, lashes fluttering and drooping. Too much conversation for the sleepy omega. 

“Don’t go away yet. Talk to me for a little bit. Stay with me.” He squeezes the back of your neck and your eyes blink open, hazy and then alert. 

“Do you have dreams?” He thinks to ask you.

“Oh, yes.” Your eyes droop again, there’s a smile on your face. 

“What about?”

You hum, the look on your face is sly in that half-sleep space he’s trying to tug you out of. 

“Of being great. Of being loved. Of being happy. Of family. Like a story book. I never thought I’d find anyone to love me,” you say with your eyes closed. Joel’s heart writhes in his chest, pains him as if it were cleaving in two. But you’re smiling, tangled in your dream, and say: “I want us to know each other so long and so well, we don’t need words to speak.” 

He’s like an imposter in this bed, for all his feelings of belonging—unsure he could ever give you anything you really want. 

“Does your brother look like you?” he asks all of a sudden.

“Yes. Very much. Does yours?”

“I don’t think so, but people say he does. Where it counts, we’re nothing alike. What’s his name?” he asks you.

You whisper it in his ear. Another one of the small things about your life that he knows about no one else. 

The two of you tell each other things you’ve never told anyone else, funny things, sad things. Words full of hope that leave a bitter and longing taste in Joel’s mouth. 

“Did you never want to have a baby?” you ask, and his heart jumps to his throat. 

“I did once. She died.” 

He can’t believe he has the courage to say these words which he hasn’t talked of in years and years out loud. Your eyes snap open, the pupil contracting so quickly it frightens him. 

“Oh. I understand now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I see it now.”

“What do you see?”

“What you were looking for.”

“What was it? Tell me—” For part of him feels he still doesn’t know.

“A way back to yourself, of course”

He nods, a feeling of relief so intense washing through his body, his limbs ache with it. Something chemical within him aligning for one perfect, singular second. He feels entirely known, and he thinks: this is the happiest moment of my life— before it fades away. 

“Maybe. Yes.”

“Do you think it can be okay now?” 

You press your entire palm against the skin of his face, as if you’d lift it off his skull and look at what’s held beneath. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think it can ever be okay after something like that.”

“Please, don’t be sad anymore,” you tell him as if it were something so simple. As if it would just be within him because you’ve asked it so. 

“I’ll try.” But he knows it isn’t something he won’t ever be hurt by. Joel realizes, with your simple words, this isn’t something he’ll ever be able to fix. That there will always be something missing, incomplete about him, and that no matter how hard he works, how hard he prays, how deeply he could ever lose himself inside of you, he feels sure it won’t ever be enough. He’s still in want of his miracle. “I’ll try,” he says again. “There are times I feel relieved. She suffered.”

“I’m sorry.” He can tell that you really are. 

“We eventually all do. Perhaps that’s where the relief came from. She got hers over with quick.”

“What was her name?”

“Sarah.”

You put your hand over his heart, your face is wet with tears.

“Do you think this is a betrayal?” you ask him then. 

The reminder of the woman who is his wife, who he had tried to love but who could never reach the bottom of that dark and fathomless well of cold within him to find anything worthwhile, it does nothing to him. Is it a betrayal? Surely to someone who cared it would be. But Joel cannot remember the last time they really talked, the last time either of them cared about one another. Maybe he’s a bad man. He’d chosen her for comfort, because it’d been what he felt he should do. Perhaps merely for something to do, or because he knew it’d be easy. Comforted by the fact that she was a beta and could thus never know him in a more intimate or painful way, in a way that would demand more of him. He couldn’t even accuse himself of not doing right by her because he’d always done what he was supposed to, what she’d asked of him which was so little, truly, that there could be no real claim of betrayal. At least, not before this, you, his knot locked within you and his heart on his tongue ready to be spit into your palm. 

Yeah, maybe he’s a bad man. Certainly one who could never, ever deserve to keep this. 

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I know what the word means anymore.” 

He bids you to sleep again after that, and in a brief respite of clarity, he has the wherewithal to call his house, to let the woman who lives there with him know he’ll be gone for a few days longer. But there’s no answer, and he’s relieved. In the following days, his phone does not ring. 

As he stands before your bed, he takes a moment to study the picture you pose as. Curled in the center of your pink nest—you look lonely. 

Do you even really exist if no one loves you? 

Outside, there is snow in the night—winter come alive in the midst of heat. He climbs back into the bed, taking you into his embrace, arranging you perfectly, a sharp elbow, the soft knee—certain that he won’t ever be able to fix himself, to keep you, choking on gratitude that at least he gets this. He’ll preserve it in his memory for the rest of his life and maybe it’ll be okay. 

As he lays watching you sleep beside him, entirely innocent in your vulnerability, and with such trust, lying here in this bed you’ve shared together, he has for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. This feeling of being trusted by someone so entirely, that gift of someone’s safety and heart and rest handed to him with little compunction, for there is that much certainty in the care that will come from him. Watching the dreamscape unfold behind your fluttering eyelids, the membrane so thin there’s that almost indiscernible pulse of your heart beating through your body. The street lamp glow comes in through a split in the curtains to lay warmly over your lovely face, and there’s only faint sound, the blown snow. Little light, a heart of warmth. 

It’s late now, he thinks, I could love you. Saying it out loud would be like creating a world with its sound. 

He shifts his weight to make you more comfortable, your warm, soft weight rolling more heavily into his side, moaning unintelligibly in your febrile sleep, and then suddenly, lucid—Joel. The sound of his name in your mouth makes him real again for a single moment—how will he ever let this go? His throat is tight, perhaps with the strangle of tears—don’t leave me, don’t leave me, you murmur like you already know. And then settle quiet again, falling away back into deep sleep. 

There is only your rest now, the soft sound of your sleeping, darkness. They are here, the both of them, together. At the center of all things, there is this bond; biology or heart or soul. Fate—perhaps. 

He could bite you, make you his mate, fuck it all to hell. Run away again. He’s done it once before. 

But how could he ever keep you without a miracle fix?

Outside there exists, as always, that great tragedy, that undying grief, that barren loneliness. But for now, there is this, and you, this enduring heart of warmth. His own dreams. 

This cannot be happiness; that ever elusive thing. He must decide that in the here and now, in the presence of this enduring moment. This is the thing he can never earn and will not keep, and even perhaps, cannot realize for what it truly is. 

All of this, he decides with his thumb against the mating gland at the back of your neck. 

This is not joy, Joel lies and lies and lies.

Part 4;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

2. LOVE.

Christmas day dawns brilliant white, blanketed by snow.

A dog’s bark slips through the crack of your open window, the radiator spitting too much heat in the night to sleep comfortably. Outside, the flurries swirl in a mad frenzy, slipping inside one by one to gather and melt piled on the rug. The sound of the owner’s shushing follows. Another person’s laughter, an apology. Good morning and Merry Christmas, one says to the other. Silence, after that. 

You lie in the time machine of your childhood bed and wait for it to move, but it hasn’t been invented yet. 

Downstairs, your parents breathe life into the house, dishes clattering, making breakfast. This is the third time your mother has played I’ll Be Home For Christmas this morning. 

Last year, when you were still so unsure of one another, when he still felt entirely unknowable, the two of you had been in the car going nowhere, and you’d seen his eyes go tear-wet while this song played—the first time you’d discovered it was his favorite. Seeing him emotional had made you emotional, and when you’d climbed out at the end of the car ride, you’d kissed him fiercely. Feeling more in love with him than you’d ever felt before. 

You see, he was real in that moment.

The sound of the barking dog, your parent’s laughter and a favorite song. An apology and merry wishes. Still, all you can hear is the memory of his quiet voice following along to the lyrics in the car. 

You miss him more than you have ever missed him before and breakfast is a sad affair with your parents who love you and remind you of it constantly. Your heart is broken.  

You don’t call him like you feel the need to. You take the pile of wrapped gifts for the two brothers from atop your dresser and hide them at the back of your closet. You try to forget. 

You miss him more than you have ever missed him before. 

-

Time turns a year older and in the weeks that follow, Bo moves out of the apartment the two of you have shared together for the past five years. 

You defend your thesis at the end of January and the victory is passing. It makes you angry that the happiness of this achievement is overshadowed by the pain of your lukewarm goodbye, but you can’t help it. You feel badly stitched together. 

And after the worry of school has passed and the tepid happiness at the prospect of your new job has settled in, you also decide to leave the small apartment that has been your home for the past five years. Packing your things slowly, pieces of your life wrapped carefully in paper, one box at a time on the bus and over the bridge, back to your childhood home to attempt to pull the tatters of your life back together. 

You felt you needed to leave the place where you’d lost all sense of self, go back to your roots, to your mother’s arms. 

You’re ashamed to look at her in those slow, lagging weeks. As if moving through mud you seek out the safety of your family home, your creature comforts, crawling into your mother’s bed in the middle of the night, a ghoul playing the part of a child. 

But it is only that—he’d taken a piece of you with him, stolen it, or you’d given too much away until there was nothing left like you'd always known you would. Like you could never help but do. 

You revert to old habits during those January days, going to the Viewpoint to sit on the benches, even on the days when it’s too cold, to get drunk alone, ten mile runs along the shoreline, watching the water crash and crash and crash. One afternoon: a small boat struggling along in the distance against the waves makes you laugh and then cry hysterically. 

The dawn of the year passes and soon it’s February—you develop an obsession with time, with numbers, with the keeping of dates. The day of his birthday is a desperate, manic horror. You can’t look your mother in the eyes, can’t find the comfort you’d always done in sharing everything with her. Too ashamed of what you’d let become of her own daughter. Of your own weaknesses. You go to church on Sundays with them, you decide to finally try to get your driver’s license, fail three times and then give up again, bracing yourself for the prospect of a ticket when you start driving your father’s old Jeep to work, unable to muster the will of responsible fear. 

You think constantly of that delicious ability to look across a room and have an entire conversation without words. To have a partner. To know a person so well you’d know what they need at any given moment. To lose yourself amongst a crowd and laughter and still know where they are at all times, to know when they want to go home and then get to go home together. 

You think of what it is to know someone—to love someone. 

You rail at the tragedy of him, to find oneself unable to love the person who loves you in return. 

You horror over the destruction of your failed relationship, going over every detail obsessively in your mind, tearing it to shreds over and over trying to make sense of the minutiae. It’s agony, flagellating and cathartic. To see all the wrong, all the ugly. All the wonderful things that you miss so badly. 

After all, everything is remembered more beautifully with the passage of time—fairy lights through the mist of your memory. 

You wonder how he’d spent his birthday, with who. If someone had gotten him a cake. If anyone had remembered and made it special for him. If he’d fucked someone. He’ll find another, you tell your reflection in the mirror, cruelly. Men like that are never alone for long—making yourself sick in the streets with the daydreams of it. 

Felled by your lukewarm goodbye, this is all you become, a mania of roiling thoughts. Unable to do anything but think and wonder and miss. A deep and unsettling missing that permeates your bones until it’s all you've become. Sometimes to a degree that you worry is not even reality; all the things you never did that seem so real in your memory because you wanted them so badly. And you feel robbed, left without any sort of proof it hadn’t all been some sort of dream. His number, blocked, one day turns to weeks without the sound of his voice. You hear his laugh coming from the backs of rooms and know it’s only your heart’s imagination, you dream of watching your clothes tumble together in the dryer. Nothing but the comfort of videos and pictures left to you.

The first time he’d let you take a picture of the two of you together, you’d gone home and cried. Sentimental and overwhelmed by the silly, girlish idea of doing something so relationshipy. But the first time he’d taken a picture of you, alone—you’d been lying on the couch in their living room, cuddled warmly against his side, close up and goofy, your eyes wide, nose practically pressed to the camera—the end of everything had flashed in your mind. Unable to keep yourself from imagining the inevitable break up, the way that afterwards he’d still have that photograph of you in his phone. The way he’d either have to keep it, let it lose itself amidst the rest of his captured memories and life, or have to hunt for you, find you, make a conscious choice to erase you. 

In ways, the passage of time, of memory fading, makes it worse—worst of all, worse than anything—that you’d destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. That you’ve been left with all this nothingness. 

The reality that you’d done yourself a great harm. That you’d made decisions for yourself that were immeasurably wrong. That you had been spineless in your silence. That there was a great guilt to bear and that your only victim had been yourself. For how terrible, coming to terms with the fact that this great pain you’d railed against for so long was by a measure, of your own doing.

You wonder on the notion of a fight. What does it mean to fight with a person you love? Truly. 

There’s escape in escaping, and amidst the streets of the Cape and your parent’s gentle encouragement, you search frantically for your old self, attempting to let go of the person you’d been dedicated to so devoutly for so long. 

You read books written only by women with your mother’s name to feel closer to her. You dedicate yourself instead to being a good daughter. You dedicate yourself to your role amidst the entity of this thing he’d so tragically lost and by which all your joint tragedies had followed; family. And you live amongst their worried glances and their encouraging attempts at healing, and in the midsts of the month of February, you start your new job. Returning to the city with frightened cowardice, overwrought by the possibility of running into him on street corners, terrified and certain you’ll find him around every bend.

But the library, like any house dedicated to the written word, becomes a safe haven. You find a sort of gentle but unambiguous understanding amongst the wisdom of the older women there that you’d found difficult to seek out with your mother in the past weeks, out of embarrassment or pain. They battle your silence and your melancholy and after several weeks you find yourself smiling and joining in on lunches and after work drinks, forsaking your anxiety for a few hours of mindless gossip and careful laughter. 

“Why no boyfriend?” Cara, closer to your age than the rest of them, finally asks you one night after one too many cosmos. You flush and stammer, but you don’t tell them about him. Some things you just can’t speak about. 

They hold onto it though, the lot of them. Dog-with-a-bone meddlesome but infinitely well meaning, they point out men in restaurants and bars, through the windows on the street—Oh, he’s cute, honey. Isn’t he? What about that one? And they push and push and are so loud and so boisterous and so lovely and kind that you can’t help but feel normal again. Even if it’s only for a few hours a day. 

As the only man in the group, Moff pretends to be the voice of reason; counseling you to take your time, warning that boys your age aren’t worth the worry, only after one thing. We need a little more time to stew in the vat of maturity, he cajoles one night over Japanese food and amidst raucous laughter.

You find you like having a group of new friends. You like working in a place where the people are kind and fun and interested in you and your life outside of the four walls of your job. It’s nice, cathartic, to let people who have no idea of your history, of all you’d allowed, get to know you. 

And in early March, you start seeing Mark. Two months, Bo says, is more than enough time to get under someone new to help you get over someone old. He works in tech, at an up and coming firm downtown; the swanky sort where it’s unclear if anyone actually does any work or not. His office, located in one of the more impressive pieces of renovated architecture, half eighteen hundred red brick, half glass, steel monstrosity. He’s impressive in a very ordinary way. Handsome and tall and rich, Ivy League. Not as tall as other men…but tall enough. But ordinary, and there’s something safe in that. 

He liked to come into the library on Tuesdays. A meticulous sort of man with his routine: check-in, business, self-help, ending his perusal in the nonfiction section where he’d sit and watch you catalogue and type and fret. Chewing on pencils and chugging coffee until all your teeth would surely start falling out. Every time you’d look up to catch him staring, your stomach would pang with aches and burns. 

“Mr. Ford is here again—Mark,” Cara had sidled up to you a couple weeks into his routine, bumping your shoulder with her own and poking you in the ribs. “He’s here for you, you know. Been asking the girls in fiction circulation about you.”

“What?” You’d hissed, panicked and sweating. “What did he say? What is he asking? You guys better not say anything embarrassing!”

“Oh, relax. You’re so jumpy, my goodness. You should go out with him.” She’d laughed at first, but then in a more sober tone, continued, “I think it’ll be good for you—help with whatever you’re getting over.” She’d given you a kind, sympathetic smile—showing up your farce.

The dates were meticulously planned on his end, just like the library visits. You suspected he really just wanted a girlfriend, didn't matter who she was. But you also didn’t think you minded that very much, either. 

You didn’t want to wonder anymore. You just wanted to know. 

And it was comforting, to have someone text you good morning, someone to recount your tuna sandwiches and burnt coffees to. He’d send you pictures of himself in the gym that you’d gag at a little, he’d take you to dinner and take you to brunch, and he didn’t like hot Irish coffee or watching the ocean much. He said he hated children, he read self-help books religiously. It was fine. 

After three dates, you’d braved his apartment. The physical stuff was tepid at best, truly bad at worst. But after what you’d had, someone who could bring you to the razor’s edge just with his eyes on your tits, finding someone you could kiss without bursting into tears felt like a miracle. You promised yourself you were taking it slow this time, stopping things before they could get too heavy handed, refusing to go all the way just yet. But the truth was, letting someone new into the place that had been someone else’s for so long felt nauseating. You just weren’t ready. 

But he calls, Mark does, every day. And that’s the part that feels good. He doesn’t make you wonder. That is what he has over others. His polar opposite, which feels like revenge and then betrayal. 

Bo emerges from her den of iniquity and true love, deep into March—it’ll almost be spring, and then summer, and then so much time will have passed that maybe you’ll soon have stopped keeping count of the days. 

The two of you go for tacos and margaritas one Friday evening, girls night out and all; Fennec away at a writing seminar in Vermont. She’s trying to write a book of short stories on love. Bo talks for a long time about how much she misses her, about how their house feels wrong without Fen in it, about how she’s happy. 

It’s not that you’re jealous. It’s not that you’re not happy for them, really and truly, so happy for them. You love them both. You can see, like any person with eyes and a notion of who they are as individuals, that they’re meant to be in that novel way, like out of a story and into Fennec’s own writing. They fit together so well. But there is a sort of smallness to be found in looking at the people around you—people that are your friends, that you know well, the people you surround yourself with and who have chosen you in turn for their own lives and must thus have things in common with you that have brought the two of you together—finding partnership like this, when you cannot. It turns you helpless to the onslaught of, well…if they can find it, and we’re friends, so we must be similar in ways, then why can’t I find it, too? 

Why not me? Why couldn’t it have been me? 

When will it be me?

Why couldn’t he have fixed himself for me?

“What’s up with you lately? Still liking the job?” She asks eventually. Once she’s done describing the exact tone of Fen’s snores and how cute they are, and how when she’s more tired they’re deeper and louder, but when she’s stressed they’re fast and high pitched. Like a baby kitten, she says.

Like really. 

“Nothing,” you sigh, leaning your elbows against the bar top, cheeks smushed between your palms as you sip your strawberry margarita from a long straw. “I’m just in a weird place. But yeah, I still like it.”

“You mean a better place without that demon.” 

A limp laugh, “Sure, yeah.” You can’t remember the last time his name had been said out loud. It had become the worst sort of curse word. 

The Knicks game is on the TV, and you wonder if Grogu is watching now, too. He never used to miss them. 

“What’s wrong?” Bo presses, gripping the back of your neck to shake your gaze towards her. “Did something happen? You didn’t lift tail for him again, did you?”

“I hate it when you call it that,” you scowl. 

“There’s nothing else to call fornication with men.”

“Ugh, no. I haven’t. I haven’t seen or spoken to him. His number is still blocked.” But Bo hadn’t seen you since early January, when it had been much worse, worrying, really. She’d been busy falling more deeply in love with her person, making their life together, and so she hadn’t been able to see that your progress had slowly plateaued into a numb, unmoving fugue. You weren’t getting better, you weren't getting any worse. You were just passing through the motions, floating through the days waiting for something. To wake up, maybe. 

“I want to say good. That I’m glad. But I can see…” she trails off, “So, no. I think I won’t.” 

You glance at her out of the corner of your eyes, her intense, concerned gaze. But opt to focus once again on the game on the television, too much of a coward to let her look at your whole face and really see. 

“You’re not supposed to be scared every day,” she says quietly, leaning closer to you, arm going around your shoulder. “That’s not the way it was supposed to be.”

“I know it’s not,” you reply quickly, trying to open your mouth as little as possible lest something worse come out. But then, you can’t help it, “It’s just that I worry there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s not. I would know by now if there was after all this time,” she tries for cheek, attempting to lighten the mood at the quiver of your chin. 

“I think I’m intrinsically unlovable.” It’s the sort of confession you could only give to her. Something you’re embarrassed to even hold in your own mind when you look at your parents and see how much they care and worry. 

Her arm around you tightens, her other palm coming to grip your hand atop the bar, like she’s bracing herself. “Just because he made you feel that way about yourself doesn’t mean it’s true.” 

You can only manage a small shake of your head, a heat so unbearable rushing up your throat and face your head throbs with it, making you dizzy. How could you possibly tell her that you’d always thought that, though. That sometimes you worried that what had kept you waiting for him to change his mind for as long as you had, was that there was a part of you that was certain it was impossible he could ever do so because it was you that could not cause the change. Afraid that there was something missing in you. 

Mark calls after the next round, and Bo insists you move your night to the swanky cocktail bar across the street. Says it’s her right to meet the man and veto him if she must. You comply because you don’t really care, truth be told. Whether she likes him or not is irrelevant when you’re pretty sure you don’t even like him yourself. 

He’s moussed and coiffed to the nines when he waltzes in. Shiny Rolex and a money clip with BAND$ engraved on it that Bo gags at when he isn’t looking. 

He chugs cucumber martinis while he tells her all about the hot water, apple cider vinegar and green juice cleanse he’s doing, and when he runs to the restroom every twenty minutes like clockwork he calls it the little boy’s room. 

Bo looks at you like you’ve gone absolutely batshit, but all you can manage is a shrug. And on impulse and out of sheer, agonizing misery, you order a tequila soda with sweet grenadine and a maraschino cherry. You try not to cry while you down one and then another and then another, and as you get progressively drunker, Bo following suit loyally and Mark spending more time in the bathroom than he does at your table—you’re pretty sure he’s snorting coke like a mother fucker in there—she starts with the long list of his grievances. The Demon, she calls him. Asshole, dick bag, spawn of Satan. Whore. Lying, cheating whore. Each word is like a physical blow to your system. You nod and nod and nod, not bothering to correct that he’d never actually cheated on you, it doesn’t really matter, and you drown yourself in the grenadine. And if you focus hard enough to the point you can almost feel your brain vibrate, it’s like he’s the one that’s made them for you, it’s almost like he’s the one you’ll kiss and go home with after this. 

“Fuck him!” Bo shouts, clinking her glass roughly against your own, beer and Dirty Shirley sloshing sloppy and dripping over the glass edge. She toasts to the demise of the dick who’d broken your heart, wishing him nothing but the worst. “You’re so much better off now,” she promises again, but you aren’t sure you believe her, if it’s the truth. 

The shit talk feels good in a rotten way, the grenadine and tequila carbonated kisses Mark presses against your mouth later, tepid, but distracting. Distracting in a way that hurts, still connected to him but not directly. In service of him, in imitation. It’s not who you want, the flavor of this mouth. It’s all only your own delusional desperation, something self serving and small. 

You throw up in the alley behind the bar after another round, spewing hot and acidic, burning it’s way up your throat as your body heaves with painful sobs, hot tears squeezing out between your shut eyes. The sight of your sick makes you gag, the way the horrible beating thing in your chest twists, even worse. 

Begging off after that, you take the bus back home, no sweet twelve minute offer for a drive over the bridge and a kiss before you run inside anymore. And if you spend the way crying, with the flavor of someone else’s mouth against yours, well at least it’s all been your choice. 

Right? Right.

The irony isn’t lost on you that choice had always been your excuse with him, as well. 

On March twentieth, five days before Fen’s birthday and the party her friends are planning for her, your phone rings with a call from the bar. His bar. Watching the alien thing buzz and buzz until it goes to voicemail, you stare with wide eyed horror. Your fingers shake so badly you can barely press the notification of a new message in your inbox when it comes in with a hollow chime. Your heart does something so anxiously painful you worry you might keel over and die before you get the chance to listen. 

Eighty four days of dead silence and now—

“It’s me. I—I keep checking to see if you’ve unblocked me. I can’t help it. But…shit—I don’t even know if this is still your number.” His laugh is hollow, horrible, the vowels slurred, a long pause. “But I need to say something I have no right to say. I’m very drunk and I’m in love with you and I’m so sorry for everything. If I was a better person I’d want you to never think of me again. And I—I wish…” his voice whispers, mumbling, and then comes back. I wish… “But I had to—I had to say the words out loud. Even just once. And I’m so fucking sorry. I am. I am.”

Before, it had been difficult because he’d been so overtly careless with you all the time, while you had been so painfully, so strictly careful with everything. The way you acted, the things you said, the way you moved and breathed and existed in front of him. You were never real. It was all a game he’d beaten you at. A game that became too hard, so you couldn’t play anymore. So it felt like you were being ripped in two at all times.

Afterwards, you were both more careful. Tried to do things the way they should’ve always been done, more honest, more yourselves. But there was still something missing. Trust, perhaps. You wanted more, and he couldn't fathom what that more was. You loved him. And at times, you had thought he might love you too, at least as best as he was able to with his broken heart the way it was. But he'd never realized, or couldn’t recognize such a thing in anyone besides his brother. He’d never known what to do with you. You could understand all of that now, could see it more clearly, riding that sick and strange passage of time; a train leaving with half your body still on it. 

But in the end, it hadn’t felt like you were being ripped in two anymore. It had felt like you were being erased. 

What a cruel and selfish thing to do—I’m in love with you. 

For the millionth time, you wish that you could hate him. You wish that you could see all the bad that Bo sees in him. 

You think that perhaps you do hate him. Perhaps you hate him more than you’ve ever hated anyone in your whole life. But it’s a sad, weak sort of hate. Because well…because well you love him, also.

Still. 

You move like a ghost in the days that follow those words. Going back to search through old text messages and notes and photographs, desperate for proof that would substantiate them. Fixated on the idea that it couldn’t be true, that you’d hate the idea of him only realizing this once you’d left him. You want to know if it’d always been—this supposed love. If he’d felt it before. And then sick with humiliated, hysterical laughter that you were so unaware about the going ons of your own life and relationship you couldn’t even make sense of what had or hadn’t been between the two of you. Had you ever truly known him? Had you ever truly known what he felt or thought or wanted?

The go around in your mind makes you desperate for action, for movement, for any sort of answer or second of peace. A single moment of warm sun. Anything to distract from the what ifs.

When Peli’s bar is listed on the e-invite Fen’s best mate Boba sends, it feels like cruel and mocking kismet. Bo apologizes profusely, promising she’ll force them to move it, that if you don’t want to go they’ll all understand. But the spinning of your mind, of his words tumbling like those clothes in the dryer, the idea of being in a crowd with him and knowing where he is at all times, wondering if Grogu still loves the Knicks and if he’d won the end of year art competition at school, I’m in love with you, it all leads to anger. Fierce, sticky anger in your brain, poisoning everything so that you’re turned reckless. Maybe even vindictive. 

When you step into Peli’s bar for the first time in months, and he’s just there, the same nose and mouth and eyes, hair longer, pushed back beneath a backwards cap and curling over his collar, it’s like motion sickness, like years have passed in the blink of an eye. And when Mark’s hand curls familiarly over your shoulder, pulling you into himself, when Din looks up and sees you for the first time beneath the hand of another, this revenge feels like kismet too. Like that last chance you’d wished for all those months ago to hurt him just as badly as you’d been hurt. 

You look away quickly, passing around hello’s to the arrived party, not bothering to turn towards the shattering of glass from behind the bar. 

Bo squeezes you tightly, pressing kisses to both your cheeks and promising that she’ll protect you, that it’s going to be a good time, and then passing you off to be kissed and squeezed by Fen, as well. Mark makes his introductions, and you’re grateful that he’s good at playing this part, the charming boyfriend. His laugh is loud and handsome, his conversation easy, if a little shallow. But maybe that’s okay, to have this shiny new toy to show off. 

Your mind is sluggish with anxiety and your hands shake so badly even Mark notices, playing it off to no food since breakfast. 

You feel his stare like a burn slipping against your skin. Tucked between Fennec on one side, whispering gently into your ear, her pretty laugh making it seem like everything’s alright, and Mark on the other, his arm around your shoulder, his fingers playing in your hair, a kiss to your face every once in a while. 

But his words, the tinny sound of his message from last week, they’re a live wire bouncing around the walls of the bar, slithering between the happy people. 

And it’s there, that awareness you’d thought on for so many months, that knowledge of another person in a crowded room, that’s really what makes your eyes pinch hot with agony. That’s really what makes you turn to look for him after an hour of forced, fake, fucking horrible laughter, the light-bulb moment that this phenomena you’d thought on so much was alive and well here between the two of you despite the now eighty-nine days of interrupted silence—being able to find your person in a crowded room. 

Of course he’s looking when you turn—his gaze, unblinking on your face. Piercing. 

It hurts because it also doesn’t. Because you’d become complacent. Because it would always be the same, always good, always half finished, even at completion. 

At your side, Mark whispers something, lips brushing close against your ear, his finger tip caressing beneath your chin and Din’s face—you have reason to say his name again, Din Din Din—it spasms with anger, grief, something sick. Gaze moving to assess the man putting his hands on you while you take careful stock of his face, his clothes, his body. The tip jar next to the register is, like always, filled with half bills, half phone numbers. You used to sit there and pick them out, letting people think you were stealing his cash. The memory makes you smile helplessly. Just a small one. 

And when his eyes come back to yours, there’s a question there, confusion, or maybe an alighting, like he’s realizing he might not know you as he once did. But when he sees your smile, the corner of his own mouth lifts too—oh, oh, don’t do that—the dimpled one that’s your favorite, like he’s also helpless to it, like he’s answering you. And then it’s gone with a blink, being overtaken by that unfathomable look again, melted away. 

Sometimes, the thought that you were a real person that existed in his head, that he remembers and has memories of, that he’d known you and who and how you were, was too much for you to handle. And right now, with that question in his eyes, that wondering, it makes you desperate enough you could rush over and demand he tell you what he’s thinking, what he thinks of you. 

Mark says your name, voice insistent and annoyed now, wrapping his fingers around your bicep and shaking you into attention.

“Sorry, what?” you stumble out of your reverie, faced with the unwelcome sight of his face puckered in irritation at your ignoring him. 

“I said we should shoot some hoops. Don’t tell me you’re drunk already, babe. We’ve barely been here an hour.” Your inability to hold your liquor turns him off sometimes, you know. 

“No. I’m not. Sorry, just sleepy, I think.” You squeeze his fingers, trying to inject warmth and some sort of caring into your voice. You don’t want to push him away. You don’t want to lose him, you realize suddenly. If he dumps you, you’ll have to face the fact that you don’t care about him at all, but you’ll also lose your distraction, your cheap get-love-quick scheme. Sometimes you worry you’ve turned into a bad person, but you can’t help how you’d tried to stitch yourself back together. This is what you had. And Din’s gaze on you is triggering enough you need Mark at this moment. You need him to keep you focused on anything but how badly you want to go over there and talk to him. 

The two of you leave the table, and he buys a round each at the arcade basketball machines in the corner closest to the bar. The embarrassment that washes through you is inevitable, like you’re flaunting yourself, your new boyfriend, your body that’s been touched by both of them. Your stomach churns sticky and hot and you try and laugh and engage Mark's attempts at flirtation, angry that you’re letting yourself be so affected. 

You have no reason to be embarrassed. To feel ashamed. You have as much right to be here as anyone, and you’re not going to not be where your friends are just because Din is here. He doesn’t own the bar. He isn’t the boss of you. And you can do whatever you like and go wherever you like and take your new boyfriend with you if you feel like it, and Din can’t say or do anything about it because you aren’t together anymore. 

Mark wins the first round and pays for another, teasing your weak attempts at the game and your bad shots, pinching your hips and poking your ribs. Playful. He’s trying so hard. Too hard. Perhaps picking up on the strange, almost violent energy that sizzles through the night. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Bo approach the bar, saying something to Din. She throws her head back in mocking laughter. Cruel with all the contempt you know she has for him. His face is impassive, a mask you recognize well when he’s trying to protect himself. He nods once, turning to fill two pints from the well and handing them back to her. She says something else, and you think he almost flinches, you feel crazy, heart beating in your throat, like you're going to be sick watching your friend berate him. He turns to look at you, immediately finding where you are at the machines as Bo turns back towards the party. And Mark is saying something to you again, voice snapping when he realizes you’re not paying attention to him once again, and then tugging you none too gently back towards the group. Din scowls, brow pulling low, and whips the rag off his shoulder onto the bar top. You feel like you’re wading through mud again, like you did during those horrible early January weeks when the wound was fresh and putrid without the balm of him. 

“Can you pay attention to me for one fucking second,” this man, who you don’t like even a little bit and who you’re suddenly so thankful you never fucked, whines in your ear. He pinches your cheeks tight, almost painfully between fingers that are too soft and well moisturized, jerking your face towards his and pressing a too hard, reprimanding kiss to your mouth. You struggle in his hold, and suddenly hear Bo’s voice call out too loudly and in a tone that’s out of place amidst what is supposed to be a birthday party. 

“If you don’t quit jerking her around, I’m gonna kick you out of my bar.”

Mark pulls his mouth off of yours lazily, giving your face one more harsh squeeze before his indolent gaze moves to Din behind you. He doesn’t give up his hold on you, though.

“And who the fuck are you?” He asks, words all slow and arrogant. 

You struggle in his grip, suddenly feeling that the situation is at a boiling point you need to quell or run away from immediately. 

“You need to get your hands off of her now before I make you,” Din warns again. 

He sounds very calm, and you squirm out of Mark’s hold, feeling like you’re not where you’re supposed to be, like you’re on the wrong side. But Mark keeps his hold on your elbow, tight enough you worry you’ll have a bruise there later, and Din’s eyes catch the harsh grip, jaw tightening at the edge the way it does when he’s furious.

“I’m not gonna say it again.” 

Mark puffs his chest out against your back, still keeping you partially in front of him, like he’s using you as a shield from the taller man in front of him. 

“And I’m going to ask you again—” Mark says, petulant, a boy who’s not used to not getting his way, “who the fuck are you to tell me shit? Just some loser fucking bartender who—”

“Baby,” Din says very slowly, looking down at you, ignoring your stupid boyfriend’s tirade. His eyes are soft, your heart flutters madly. “I’m gonna need you to get the hell out of the way while I kick your boy’s ass right now.”  

Gently, he grips you by the elbow, attempting to move you out of the way while his other hand presses against Mark’s shoulder, trying to shove him back from where he’s got your other arm caught in a vice. But at the same time, Mark reaches behind himself, grabbing the closest thing in his vicinity. The empty beer bottle whistles through the air when he swings it towards Din’s face, knicking him in the brow with a sickening little sound before Din jerks back and out of the way of worse harm. 

“Damn, maybe that’ll finally knock some sense into him,” Bo quips jovially somewhere in the background. 

In less than a second, Din is moving faster than your anxiety-addled mind can compute. Pulling you out of Mark’s painful grip and shoving you behind himself and out of the way. You let out a weak little half-scream, realizing, finally, what’s happening, mind catching up, how Mark had tried to smash a glass bottle against Din’s face and how Din is now shoving him backwards while Mark swings his fist in a pathetic attempt at a right hook. Bo’s loud voice berates the two men, and Fen’s comforting hands are pulling you back and into herself. The security guard that checks IDs at the door is rushing back to help Din throw Mark out. 

You bury your face in Fen’s shoulder, her hands hugging you to herself. Bo’s voice signals her change in allegiance now, as she tells Mark what a fucking douchebag he is. 

“Aren’t you going to fucking do something?” You hear Mark’s voice scream in your direction. You peek out from the safety of Fen’s shoulder to look at him being pathetically dragged out by the security guard. “Huh?” He screeches, perfectly coiffed hair flopping lamely against his forehead, asking the security guard if he has any idea who he’s dealing with. God. “Are you kidding me! This asshole just attacked me, and you’re fucking staying? Fuck you!” His voice is nasty, childish. You’re humiliated you’d even brought him here. 

Din gives him one last hard shove for good measure, and a little slap against his cheekbone that’s more humiliating than anything else that’s transpired yet. “Keep talking to her like that— I fucking dare you,” before Mark is finally dragged out the door. 

When your eyes fall on Din, he’s got a palm pressed to his brow, a trickle of blood sliding down his cheek. You almost choke on your gasp, shrugging off Fen and Bo’s hands as they try and stop you from going after him when he moves towards Peli’s office in the back. 

He whips around when the sound of the slamming office door is stopped by your hasty grip as you slip in after him. The quiet snick of the lock turning is deafening in the silence of the room between the two of you. The months of separation reach a crescendo as you stare at each other, the both of you panting as if you’d run miles just to be here. 

He lets his bloody palm fall limply to his side, revealing the split skin of his eyebrow, and wipes away the slick crimson against the thigh of his jeans. Simply watching you as blood slides down the side of his face. You can't help the thought that it’s exactly what he deserves. Or exactly what you'd needed, to have him split open and bleeding for you. 

“Din…”

“What is it?”

His voice makes you want to cry. The familiar, deep sound; hopeful and fatigued.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. You’re bleeding,” you say again.

“Please. You have to listen to me,” he insists. “I’m so sorry.” 

His face scrunches up with that same agony his voice supplies, wincing when the split in his brow beads blood again. Ah— he hisses, turning to rummage through the desk drawers for the first aid kit, knocking a stack of papers to the ground in his haste, snapping you awake.

You rush forward, “Here, let me,” unthinkingly, taking the little square of gauze from his fingers, gently urging him back to lean against the desk’s edge. “It’s alright. Let me help you.”

You press the little white pad to the cut, watching the crimson bloom spread slowly. He’s breathing fast, panting, your chests almost brushing together with the way you’re leaning into him. Seeing his wide, shocked eyes at your touch, your nearness, you let your own gaze go unfocused in the line of your hand against his face so that you’re not forced to meet his stare. 

You keep the pressure of the gauze light, not wanting to hurt him further. You’d always tried to cause no harm. 

“Thank you,” he says through a swallow. 

All you can manage is a short jerk of your chin, letting your jaw loosen so that you can breathe through your mouth. He smells so good, like cinnamon and warm sweat. You can’t help it, really, when your eyes fall closed, lulled by the heat of his body so near to yours, skin prickling almost painfully, your eyes filling with tears—wanting to touch—and you hear his sharp intake of breath, the creak of wood. You open your eyes to look down at his fists wrapped tightly against the desk edge, knuckles white with the force of his grip. 

He struggles through several more swallows, mouth opening and closing before he finally says, “Did—did you end up liking the library? Did it turn out well?” This question spurned out of nowhere, out of days and days of silence after having known everything about each other for months and years. Or almost everything. 

He’d waited with you, through school and struggle, for you to finally find something to do with your life that was fulfilling, and then he’d gone and missed the actual happening of it, and you’re angry at him for it. Amongst so many other things. 

“Yes. I like it.”

That’s good. “That’s good.” His nervous nodding dislodges your hand at the split in his skin, and you take hold of his jaw firmly, holding him in place, freezing him up.  “Is it everything you hoped it would be?” he chokes out.

“Yes. I made friends.”

“That—That’s so good. I’m so glad to hear it.” He sounds like he really means it. Entirely out of your control, marionette on a string, your hand moves to cup his shoulder. The jutting wing of his clavicle pressed against the most sensitive hollow of your palm. 

His breath skips once, twice. 

“Did you get my message?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Your breath seems to go round and round, trapped at the hollow of your throat. 

“I know.” He tugs gently at your hair in soft reprimand. “So that’s a yes.”

“Yeah, I did.”

You take a small step closer, your knees between his knees so that when you reach for another pad of gauze, the curve of your hip presses into the muscles of his hard stomach. 

Pinpricks of heat move up and down your back at the sound he makes, and your hand shakes as you press it back against the cut. The blood flow is stopping, soon you’ll have to move away and mentally scramble for an excuse to stay close. 

The only thing you can come up with is to kiss him. 

It’s thoughtless, out of your own control. You still haven’t really looked at his eyes, and your mind has gone so far away, back to January perhaps, back to missing him worse than you’ve ever missed him before. 

Here, stood before him, with his hands on you once again, for the first time in eighty nine days, you feel lonelier than you had ever been. 

This is the only solution. 

Teeth clicking, it’s slippery, uncoordinated, pressing too hard against his mouth as you throw yourself at him, his grunt of pain when your fingers press too roughly against the cut on his face. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” someone says. 

He tastes like cinnamon, like memory. The way you remembered him during nights when your mouth felt full of salt. The tug at your hair is more insistent now, the only place he holds you, jaw hinging wide so that his tongue can slide fully against your own, he leans forward and off the desk to eat at you better. There’s a high pitched, pathetic sound coming from somewhere in the room, and you bring your arms around his neck, hugging yourself fully to him, moaning into his mouth and knocking his cap back off his head to run your fingers through his soft hair. 

He’s yet to put his hands on you fully. 

You pull back, ripping your mouth from his with a wet, smacking sound, “Touch me, Din.”

His palms flutter nervously over your shoulders, wide eyed look on his face, mouth kiss-reddened and wet. 

“We shouldn't do this.”

“Yes, we should.” You kiss him again, licking at his chin, teeth scraping along the stubbled edge. You want to press your hips to his, but you’re scared. “Please,” you say instead. 

He moans and you watch the working of his Adam’s apple, the up and down bob, pressing kisses to his throat and then licking into his mouth again. That out of control feeling from before bubbles inside of you, desperate for action. Desperate for him. 

“Wait—we shouldn’t,” but finally, his hands have reached for you, wide palms around your waist and pulling you into himself. He nips at your bottom lip hungry, kiss turning sloppier, uncoordinated, his mouth working desperately at yours. “We should—we should talk,” he struggles.

“No. Let’s just do it.”

“You’re going to hold it against me afterwards.”

“I won’t. It doesn’t matter.” 

Your mouth slides against his. Your hips meet, and you can feel him half hard and thickening down the leg of his jeans against your thigh. It makes you careless. 

“I don’t want you to hate me anymore,” he begs.

But with a grip on your bum, he grinds against you while you clutch tightly at his hair, his desperation at odds with his refusal, trying to pull each other closer. Some horrible sound of want pulses up from your belly and out your mouth like vomit. You want it so bad your cunt hurts. 

He’s saying stuff about how he doesn’t want you to be mad at him, about how he doesn’t want to hurt you, asking what it is you really need, asking to wait, to talk, but you aren’t listening anymore. You want him. The feel of his body, the way no one else will ever be able to give it to you like this. The way sex is good and real between the two of you because you love him and now he’s said he loves you too. You want him to erase the past eighty nine days with his hands and his mouth and his cock, and you don’t care how it’ll make you feel afterwards. 

“I’m in love with you, too.” 

You slip your never before said words onto his tongue. His whole body shivers and jerks. And you press your pelvic bone against the thick ridge of his erection, grinding frantically. 

“Fuck—”

“I love you,” you say again. “Please, fuck me.”

“We shouldn't.” But he’s still kissing you back, straightening off the desk to walk you towards the couch against the wall. 

“We should. We should. Please, Din,” you beg. 

In the center of the room, in the midst of Peli’s green shag rug, he stops you. Pulling back to cup your face in both of his wide palms, he looks between your eyes. You have that desperate need to know exactly what he’s thinking of you again, to know how he sees you, but it’s overridden by the fear of what you suspect he might actually be seeing. A desperate girl who hadn’t learnt her lesson, come back for a second walloping. 

“I don’t want you to be angry with me after this,” he says again. He sounds so sincere saying it, but you don’t know if there’s an alternative. 

“I won’t be. This is what we do.”

His eyes shutter, once, twice. You think pain flashes there, but you’re not certain you care. You wonder again if you’ve become a bad person after all this. 

“This is what we do?” His voice morphs into something hollow in the way he turns your words into a question. 

“I want you so badly. I’m so wet for you.” You pull him back towards your mouth, “Please—please, don’t deny me this also.” 

He hesitates only a second more before he’s kissing you again, laying you back against the couch as you cling to him, trying to climb your way up his body. 

Jesus, fuck— he curses when his hips fall in the cradle of your thighs, nothing but the flimsy cotton of your panties and fluttery sun dress keeping you from him. He pulls at your waist while he devours your mouth, hips rutting against the heat between your thighs. 

Taking a strong hold of your jaw, he holds you in place, restraining your squirming, palm cupping your bottom to lift you into his thrusting cock. The kisses he presses down the column of your throat turn slower, steadier, longer, and when he reaches the junction of your shoulder and throat, he tells you how much he’d missed you, and the way he says it, the way his voice comes up out of his throat, you know he’s telling the truth and you can’t help your sob of grief. You can’t tell him you’d missed him too, the words sound too small for the horror you’d endured the past months. 

Clinging to him, you wrap your legs around the small of his back, sandals lost and discarded, pressing kisses to his temple, his ear, his cheekbone. He kisses down your chest, in turn, pushing your cardigan back over your shoulders, pulling your dress low to find you braless, breasts hot and bare for his mouth. When he pushes the hem of your dress up your stomach to kiss the soft curve of it, tongue tracing around the ring of your navel, you think you’ll come just from that. 

When his whole mouth covers the curve of your sex, when he kneels on the ground between your thighs, sucking on the pink cotton turned translucent with your wet, you change your mind and tell him you’d missed him too.

He growls against your clit, dragging his teeth along your mound, all “Pretty little cunt. I fucking missed you—thought about this constantly,” as he pulls your panties down your thighs. 

Not so far gone you miss the way he tucks them into his jean pocket when he thinks you’re distracted by the spear of his tongue. 

The orgasm he sucks out of you is painful with how fast it comes on. Twisting in your belly, and wrung out of your cunt in a way you’re unaccustomed to after months of celibacy. Your knees shake around his ears, and you dig your heel into the meat of his shoulder, trying to grind against his face and kick him away in equal measure. And the sounds he makes between your thighs are obscene, the wet slurping, his groans as he palms the hard cock between his legs, humming when he sucks on your clit and presses the strong, flat muscle hard against you. 

When he crawls up the length of your body, kisses smeared with the sweet salt of your arousal, he whines into your mouth, unzipping his jeans and only managing to shove his pants down enough to tug his cock out. It hangs thick and heavy between your spread thighs shiny with your slick, making your insides heat, your cunt clench. Gently, he rubs the pad of his thumb against your clit, slippery and hot from orgasm. 

Spit, he demands, and when you do, head turned towards his hand, he not so gently shoves two fingers inside, deep and in one go, smearing your sex with your saliva to ease the way further.

It’s gross and so fucking hot. It hurts. 

“Oh, fuck—baby. This is not going to last long, I’m sorry.” Hand twisting, making room for himself, he pulls his fingers from you, little hole fluttering madly around nothing and slicks his cock in your wet, the dripping tip smearing against the inside of your thigh, against your sex. 

It’s okay, it’s okay, you tell him. Arching your hips to urge him inside of you, needing that heaviness to stretch you until you can’t take it, tugging him closer by your fingers twisted in the sides of his shirt. He pushes one knee to your shoulder, trapping it between his side and the couch-back, hooking the other one over his elbow so you’re caught and immobilized, folded in half as he starts to slick the wide head from the base of your spine all the way up to the swollen bud of your clit, the entire wet curve, pressing there hard once, making you cry and then circling your opening. 

He’s looking down at the wet mess between your thighs with what looks like open mouthed awe, and your eyes roll backwards, spine arching tight when he pops the head in, your breath coming in fast little pants. 

“Oh, fuck, finally,” he whispers, his long lashes fluttering shut.

“Ah—go slow, go slow. Fuck—gentle, please.” You dig your fingertips into his ribs.

“Yes, baby. Yes. I’m gonna be gentle with you. Fuck—” He pulls out, lets the ridge of his head pop out, catching on the rim, stretching it, and then back inside a couple of times, loosening you up before sliding in further just a tiny bit. With his thumb to your clit, he rocks slowly in and out, nudging deeper in small jerks of his hips, making sure it never really hurts. Being careful of the delicate muscles. You can feel yourself getting wetter and wetter, sliding beneath your bottom and onto Peli’s couch. God. 

“Is your period soon?” he asks breathlessly, a tiny nudge of his hips following. It’s like all you are is a bundle of nerves as you feel him slide further inside of you, a beating heart. 

Hmm— you mumble nonsensically, sweating, trying to wiggle closer to him despite the way he’s got you hooked open. You don’t want him to be careful, you change your mind—you just want him to fuck you. “Please, Din,” you whine. 

“Your period—it’s the end of the month—”

“What? No—no. It moved.”

Fuck—he grunts, drawn out and guttural, pulling all the way out, “Look. Look down. Watch how I fuck you. God, you’re desperate for it, hungry little pussy—” You can see the way your sex clings to him, dragging wetly so that a creamy trail of you is left slicked along his cock. 

He pulls you into himself by the back of the neck, pressing in again as he kisses you roughly, sliding almost all the way inside, pressing against a deep hurt like a muted bruise that makes your mind wake up. Fuck— “Condom—you… we need a condom.” He pulls back, pushes in again, there’s a wet slap of his thighs meeting your ass when you roll up to take him better. 

“I don’t have one. Do you?” he asks through gritted teeth, picking up the pace.

“No.”

“Then I’m not wearing a fucking condom.” 

Oh my god, you moan, clinging to him. You’re helpless like this, and Din groans against your cheek, stubble scraping along your jaw, and you sob with every thrust of his hips. The heat in you is overwhelming, the stretch of the wide base of him everytime he bottoms out and presses deeper than anyone else can, grinding there for a few seconds before pulling all the way out and pressing in again and again. You feel helpless like this, thighs spread wide and cunt dripping wet while he fucks you open, shoves against that spot that blinds. Helpless like you’re ruining your own life, like you never want it to stop, like all those months meant nothing, like it’s too much of a too-good-thing so it’s turned bad and rotten. 

You wonder, in a far away manner, if you can want someone too much. If something that was born of a good and desperate heart can turn ugly, easily weaponized—

You wonder who it is that’s wielding that weapon here and now. For some reason, you feel sure it isn’t him anymore, but it doesn’t make you feel good. 

“How many other girls did you fuck?” 

It’s not your fault, his cock is too good, it makes you ask, makes you stupid. 

“None,” he says through clenched teeth. He pinches your clit, a little mean. 

“I don’t believe you.”

“I swear. I promise.” You whine against his throat. “I couldn’t even think of it. I only want you—” He pulls your mouth back to his. 

The too-deep pain of his thrusts brings you to momentary awareness again, back to your previous thought— “You—oh, God, just like that— you have to pull out. You can’t come inside me. I’m responsible now—oh, that feels so good, Din, yes.”

Pressing your knees back against your shoulders, he nods once, jaw tense, intensifying the angle. You look down to watch the way your cunt parts for him, swollen and shiny wet with use, the way the thick of his cock slides in and out, it’s obscene, almost looks wrong, and he shoves in so, so deeply, a humiliating little squirt of liquid spurts from your cunt. 

He groans savagely at the sight, fucking you harder, squeezing the joint of your knee so tight it hurts.

You’re coming. Each press of the tip of his cock against your cervix is a pulse of your orgasm. The twisting heat between your hips moving up your belly to your breasts which you squeeze in your palms, tight so it hurts.

“Yes. Yes— don’t stop working my cock. You're such a good girl coming for me, yes, baby. I’m going to come, too,” he moans in your ear, pressing his hot chest against your bare one, biting down on your neck out of pure, raw instinct. 

“Pull out. Please, please, you have to pull out.”

He withdraws with a snarl, pressing his painfully hard cock to your stomach, sliding his palm over himself until he’s coming with frantic urgency. His spend falling in thick, long spurts across your sex and belly and breasts. The force of his orgasm so strong you can see each jerk of his cock as he grips himself, the tip flushed an angry red. As his pleasure hits it’s peak, he shoves two fingers back inside your still fluttering cunt, his middle finger tightly hooked inside of you, his thumb against your clit, squeezing both fingers tight until another little spurt of fluid trickles out of you. 

Looking at your eyes, he asks, “Who do you belong to?”

And in the aftermath of all this, there really seems no point in lying. 

“You, Din.”

He works his fist over himself fast, brutally, squeezing the head tight enough it looks painful, milking the thick spend out of himself. When he finally pulls his hand away, his fingers from your overwhelmed sex, he’s still half hard, as if unsatisfied he hadn’t been allowed to come inside of you. 

Looking down at the picture he’s painted of you, he hums contemplatively, smearing his come into your breasts, against your swollen sex and then pushing it inside, your cunt fucked open and shivering. 

You whine, wanting to tell him he shouldn’t but unable to manage the lie. When he presses his still half-hard, almost ready to go again cock back inside of you, laying himself over your chest, you start to cry. First a little hitch of your chest, a broken, silly thing, but building into true weeping, heaving sobs. He pulls back, afraid, eyes wide and panicked. 

“What’s wrong? What is it? Am I hurting you?”

“Yes,” you cry. “Yes. You’ve hurt me so much.” But you pull his head back to your breast, hugging him to yourself, letting him comfort you even though neither of you deserve it.

How do you tell him that you’re crying for this soft and helpless feeling filling the cavities of your heart, how you want to feel open and powerless beneath him, how giving yourself to him makes you feel good, letting go of that control, above all, desperate for him to give himself to you. 

What would he think of you if you did?

The question sits on the tip of your tongue, half a mind to ask him without even explaining the question. What would you think of me if you knew how I really feel?

Limp and shivery beneath him, he asks you, “Why are you doing this?” his mouth brushing against your nipple—crying, letting him back inside, hurting yourself or the both of you—who knows. 

“I don’t know. I can’t help it,” you tell him honestly. 

Eventually, he pulls you off the couch, and onto his lap on the floor, his cock gone soft with your crying, but still tucked safely inside of you. He lets you cry all the tears you need to cry, his mouth sliding soothingly over your temple, petting the crown of your hair. You stay like that long enough his cock starts to fill out again, and those deep inner muscles, accustomed now to months of disuse, flutter and twinge around him, making you whine softly. 

Christ, baby. “You’ll be sore,” he rumbles in that deep, sleepy voice. 

And the thought of that, the thought of that—of your body having to go through the physical healing process of forgetting him, marks fading, soreness healing, period coming, that’s what wakes you up. That re-lived horror, that physical loss—it’d been one of the worst parts of losing him.

You tense.

His sigh, one of recognition, of hurt, is long, before he’s shifting, pulling you off his cock and helping you to your feet. 

Why did I do that? What’s wrong with me? you mutter, spinning to look for your discarded dress you hadn’t even noticed he’d pulled off of you, your panties that you’ve now forgotten you won’t find because they’ve been stolen away in his pocket. 

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

His only response is a groan of frustration. 

You find your dress, pulling it roughly over your head. You can hear the sound of clothes shuffling behind you as he puts himself to rights, as well. 

“Was that a test, us not fucking, that I failed?” You whip around, turning on the offensive.

“It wasn’t a test. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t—You’re the one that came in here—we should've talked. We need to talk, and you said this is what we do. You said this is all we are.”

“Well am I wrong? Did I lie?” you yell at him. It feels good. 

“Yes!” 

Jesus Christ—he groans, pulling his palm over his face, hissing when he meets the forgotten cut on his brow. 

“And that out there?” He flings him arm towards the door, “Your boyfriend, or whatever the fuck that clown was.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Oh, sure. God. Fuck that—of course it’s my fucking business. Everything to do with you is my goddamn business.” He stomps towards you, jerking you up into his grip, giving you a little shake as if to jostle some sense into you. 

You stand barefoot before him, entirely unwilling to make this easier than you already have. You want to be difficult. You want to continue being careless. You want to make him suffer. 

“I don’t care.”

He blinks once, that hateful, indecipherable look, and lets you go. 

“That was really fucking embarrassing for you out there.”

The way he says it— “You’re being mean, Din,” makes all your bravado flee. Makes you small and scared in an instant.

“Does he fuck you like I just did? I doubt you get that wet for anyone besides me.”

“You’re being mean, Din,” you say again. 

“Am I?” he laughs once and humorlessly. “Then fight with me! Say something. Say anything. I am so sick of this goddamn silence!” 

“For what? Not that it’s any of your business,” you’re stupid, senseless mouth, “But we haven’t had sex. I’m taking it slow. I’m not going to make the same mistakes anymore.” He gives a real laugh at that. Jackass. “And why should I fight with you? Are you going to change? Or will you just say you’re changing and then do nothing—stay exactly the same and we’ll continue on as we’ve always done and I’ll have laid down and rolled over for fucking nothing? Hmm, tell me.”

He looks at you for a long moment in a horrible way, like he sees everything. Like he sees all your shame and all the things you see in yourself that you hate so much.

“Stop looking at me. I want to leave.” You’re horrified with yourself, sudden and sharp. 

“Fine.” His voice is quiet again, the fatigue is back. For a silly moment, you panic like you’ve disappointed him. “Go. Win your fight of nothingness. I’m done.”

“Fuck you. I’m done.” You turn for your shoes, scooping up your purse from where you’d dropped it by the door. 

He trails behind you like something you’d captured. Like a forgotten thing. 

“Why did you even come in here?” You fumble with the lock, crying. “Why did you follow me?”

But you have no answer, and nothing to show for yourself or your own dignity. And like a coward, or that same captured and forgotten thing, you run away from him. A little like a dance the two of you have been playing since you first met him. 

-

There is a phone number that calls the house sometimes. 

When his daughter picks up, she’ll stand quiet for several moments to listen to the voice on the other end without saying anything. When he is the one to answer, he finds the voice of the young man he has come to expect, asking if his daughter is home. His name is Din. The man has been given clear instructions to always refuse the boy—man. To always make excuses for his daughter. 

He’s good at following the direction of his wife. Of listening to the underlying tone of his daughter’s voice when she isn’t as forthcoming with him as she is with her mother, although he knows that this year she has been less so than she’d always been before.

He knows something happened with the boy. 

When she moved back home, there were parts of the man that were glad, happy, to have his only child back under their roof. They’d always been a close family, the trio. Tight knit in that way that two older, desperately yearning parents and their only child could be expected to be. They loved each other, but more importantly, they liked each other. They had always been very close and very honest. 

This year, that had changed. With her return, a pallid melancholy had followed her into the house that was impossible not to notice as much as she tried to hide it. He’d watch her on days when she’d walk down to the beach from the deck of their beloved home, the way she’d sit on the rocky sand, frozen by the gusts of sea-swept winds. Watch her walk back up the path too many hours later, blue in the face and bleak in the eye. 

But the man also understood that sometimes these things of the heart needed time and space to crawl their way out of the soul and let themselves be swept away to sea on their own. There was no easy scheme for a cure, only patience of which he’d always found he had an infinite well of for his wife and daughter. 

He had always been a soft man by nature, tall and thin, but pudgy enough around the middle which belied how good of a cook his wife had always been, how much he enjoyed a lovely glass of vintage and a rich dinner, or a large spot of brandy with dessert by the fireplace in the evenings. They’d always lived a comfortable, indulgent sort of life. They were professors by vocation, the both of them; mathematics and ancient Roman history, his wife and he, respectively. Purveyors of books and art and music, comfortable things. A love of knowledge had always been a thing that brought them together, had been the basis for their relationship, one of the reasons they’d fallen in love in grad school. And they had, truly, fallen very deeply in love. They still were, thirty years later, and they’d always made a conscious effort to show that to their child, to provide a strong example of an honest relationship. And they’d tried to instill the same sense of purpose and being in their daughter that they’d always strived for, raised her to live in her own mind, fed by the things she read, by honesty and kindness and responsibility. You see, the point was that they had been particular in her upbringing, sheltered and cared for and given everything they possibly could to ensure she’d turn out as self fulfilled as she wanted to be, that she was able to make for herself the things she dreamt of. 

He’d always felt that his personality, the things he enjoyed and gravitated towards, had set him up perfectly to serve as the father of an only daughter. A role that could sometimes be delicate for there were so many ways that she could’ve turned out; stoic and independent, anxious, removed, fanciful, perhaps a bit spoiled sometimes, but secretly that’s what he liked best, that’d she’d had a good life full of the things she wanted. But she was also mercurial, his daughter, sometimes, and given to bouts of distraction. She liked to live in her head, get lost in there on occasion, in her own worries and grievances. She was sensitive, too. Something he appreciated, respected, the great depth of feeling and empathy she’d always moved with. She was much like her mother in that sense. 

Given all of this, the man thus knew that whatever it was that had happened with the boy his daughter loved, had been something troubling indeed. Over the course of their relationship, he had been critical of the young man, of his obvious absences at his dinner table and their outings which had always been such a crucial element of what made up the nexus of their family’s core. But over time and the gentle admonishing of his wife, he’d understood that not everything was always as it seemed. 

The man sees this clearly, several weeks into April when the boy comes to their home. 

His daughter is upstairs in her room, unwell again, the way she’d been earlier in the year. Dark circles under her eyes, not eating enough, crawling into the safe space of their bed beside her mother during the night when they thought he was sleeping and wouldn’t notice. He watches from his comfortable leather wingback at the desk in his study as the young man sits in his car for almost an hour in front of their house. He recognizes him for the car, really, stories of the old thing fondly recounted by his girl as she’d tell them about the boy she cared for. The young man clutches the wheel tightly between his fists, rolling the window down, rolling it back up, talking to himself, tugging on his own hair, smoothing down his collar an unaccountable number of times, before he finally gets out of the car, walks around it three times and then finally makes his way up the path to the front door. 

The hydrangeas are out in full bloom in the garden now, one of the most beautiful times of year in the Cape. 

Standing from his desk before the boy knocks, he looks up at where he knows his daughter hides, sure she’s spotted the car already and must be waiting to see what her father will do now, how he will protect her. 

He stands at the door for a few moments after the knock comes, trying to collect himself—he’s wanted to meet this young man for a long time, after all—and makes sure to check the front of his sweater vest for any stray crumbs of the rum cake he’d had after lunch, before he pulls the door open. 

The young man looks terribly frightened. But also terribly brave. 

“Can I help you?” he asks in that patient voice he uses on students when they’ve come to beg for extra credit for their failing grade. 

“Hello, sir. My name’s Din. I’m looking for your daughter. I was wondering—well, I just…” He splutters, “If I could speak to her, is all…”

“I’m sorry, Din. But she isn’t home right now. Perhaps you could give her a call later and see if she’s in.”

His jaw works several times, a flush of embarrassment bleeding across his face. 

“Of course. Of course. I should have called first,” he says, which he had. The man had been the one to pick up the phone this morning and give him excuses. 

He considers for a moment, before he says: “She works at the main branch of the library in the city, perhaps you’ll find her there.” Deciding suddenly to have pity on the sad sight taking up space on his doorstep and in his daughter’s heart. He’ll make it up to the girls later, this aid to the other team.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Maybe—yeah. Maybe I’ll try that. Thank you, sir.” The young man shuffles awkwardly, running his palm over the back of his hair, turning to look back at the front garden. He sees his eyes catch on the flowers.

“Do you enjoy hydrangeas? I tend to them myself.”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, they’re great. Really beautiful.”

“Soothing practice, gardening.” He tells the young man that he’s trying to teach his daughter, but that she hasn’t taken to it so far. 

Din laughs at that, familiar in a way, with her tendencies. “No, I wouldn’t imagine she’d have the patience for it.” There’s fondness there, he can see. Maybe even love, too. It makes the man feel suddenly very sad for his girl and for this man, neither of whom can seem to find their footing with each other. 

“What year is that?” he asks then, tipping his chin at the old car.

“Two thousand eight, sir.”

“Ah, not so bad—good model. It’ll last you a while yet, if you take care of her.”

“Yes, sir. She’s been reliable.”

“Always a good thing to be.”

“Yes—yes, sir,” he trails off awkwardly, nodding, but he lets the silence sit for a moment, never one to mind a lack of chatter. There’s much to learn in the silences that sit between people. “Well, okay. I’ll go, then. Goodbye. And thank you. And I’m sorry, sir.” His voice is grave. 

“It’s alright, Din. Maybe next time,” the man tells him gently. 

“And I— I just wanted to say that… that it’s really good to meet you.”

“You too, Din. I’m glad I got the chance to meet you, too.”

“Alright, goodbye.”

He turns to go, walking down the steps, when the father calls, “Good luck, son.” There’s gratitude, also heartbreak, in the boy’s face, when he nods back at him. 

The man follows him down the steps, waiting to watch him get in his reliable old car and drive away from the girl that hides in the house upstairs. Turning to look at their home, the old New England build on the waterfront that he’s always been so proud of, the home where they raised their daughter, where he and his wife will grow old and die together, he sees his girl’s face, just there, in the window of her bedroom. Peering down the street to where the car has disappeared, perhaps waiting to see if the young man will turn around and try again. 

-

Through the month of May, you go to the beach every day. You’ve always been a little afraid of the ocean, of water you can’t see the bottom of. The water is never warm, but every day you manage to make it a little further out—trying to face your fears. 

You’d not been able to set any resolutions in January, no energy to think of anything better on your horizon. But now, with the dawn of summer and warmer months coming into bloom, you make this your goal—to make it out into the water until it reaches your heart. 

Each day you make a little bit of progress, and afterwards, you return home to your mother, a little sunburned but cheerfully tired. At moments, there is cheer to be found—while you wade in the ocean—even if the bruise of Din still remains. 

And eventually, as you’d always suspected, change comes because things always change.

It had come on a Wednesday afternoon, picking up tomatoes for your mother after work. You’d seen an old man shopping alone. He’d been choosing his produce very carefully, a little hunched, fingers gnarled and liver spotted. For some reason, the sight of him had stolen your attention. And afterwards, in the parking lot, you’d seen him again, carefully stowing his groceries in the back of his little car. It had been a randomly chill day in April, wind swept in from the sea over the Cape, and he’d had no one to help him, a plaid scarf wrapped around his throat in the middle of spring. He’d been wearing two too big shoes, the orthopaedic sort, and his pleated trousers were tucked into the back of them, a little funny looking. He’d taken a bushel of bananas out of one of the brown paper bags very carefully, turning them this way and that to make sure they were unharmed. His movements, careful and precise in his aloneness. 

It’d made you cry for no reason, and you’d had to sit in the parking lot for thirty extra minutes, making sure the puffiness in your face had gone down before you’d been able to drive home to your parents. 

And the thing was, that you were very tired, that you didn’t want to be sad anymore. You didn’t want to cry in grocery stores ever again. 

Or, perhaps, it was that after that brief, harried space of time in a locked office, you’d realized you’d been using him as a sort of excuse, Din. That you’d thought on the measure of a weapon, on the significance of a fight, how a person or a love could be turned into something self harming for no reason at all, how for some silly or broken fault in your character you didn't think you could ever deserve to keep him for yourself, and so you’d kept your rules and your distance the same way he’d always kept his. And everyone had ended up hurt and alone anyways. 

There was no rhyme or reason to it. You had never seen that in your home, been given reason to believe that you were a person that could not deserve a good thing, and yet, you did sometimes. 

And you didn’t want to be like that anymore.

You didn’t want to use Din as a vehicle of that belief anymore. You wonder if the two of you had ever approached the other without the intent to sabotage. You wonder if he hadn’t, if you’d even have been able to recognize it. 

It had been like waking up one morning, hearing a dog bark, knowing you're in your parents house, remembering your own history and who you are and meeting that limit of pain which you will put up with for love, reaching that line and knowing it cannot be crossed. You’d met that limit within yourself, and after that there was only a great fatigue to settle into. 

You wanted to be sunburnt. You wanted to be content. You wanted to let go of the things that served you no purpose. 

On the mornings you’d go out for a swim before work, your father would set up a portable radiator in your room for you to come home to and warm yourself from the ocean chill. Now, you sit on your bed wrapped in a towel after a warm shower, letting your hair drip cold down your back onto the duvet. 

When your mother comes in, a gentle knock preceding her, she sits down next to you, her soft hand on the warming skin of your back. The little radiator from your father belches hot air across your shivers. 

“Breakfast?” Her voice is quiet—sometimes you worry she’s afraid of you. 

You nod your head slowly, eyes out the window and unseeing, stomach full of a grief that you finally feel prepared to purge. 

“I saw Din,” you tell her instead. 

“I figured as much.” She waits for you to say more, and when you don’t she can’t help but press, “And?”

You shake your head, shrugging. “Nothing. Stupid…”

“Something happened?”

“I just got my hopes up. I’ll do better next time.”

“Daddy said he came here. That they spoke.”

“I know.” 

She pets your hair, brushes water droplets from your shoulders. 

“Would I sound…” you continue, “Would I sound crazy if I said I can't understand how it ended?”

“What do you mean, baby?”

“I wish I’d been stronger. More honest. I thought I’d hold out longer.”

“You tried for a long time.”

“But I don’t think I was ever honest.” You finally turn to look at your mom. “He isn’t bad.”

“I know he’s not.” She smiles at you kindly. You’re ashamed you’ve tried to hide from her all year. 

“He isn’t bad,” you say again. “He’s just…I don’t know. He’s a lot of things. Heartbroken.” You look away, the heater finally churns to a slow stop and your skin tightens with the drying water. “I think he needed me to hold out longer.”

“I don’t think you’d love him the way you do if he was bad. You’re my sweet girl, I know that sometimes you’re unsure, but I know your heart is honest even if sometimes your words don’t come out the way you’d like them to. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the truth about our feelings. Sometimes, people say things that aren't easily understandable because they've never been taught how to say it another way. ”

“But I was taught. You taught me.” 

She shrugs, shaking her head, still smiling. A sort of well, what can you do? type of look. 

You can’t understand why you’d taken so long to talk about this out loud. Perhaps you’d been ashamed, perhaps it was more of that unsure self doubt that had kept your tongue locked away. Terrible, festering insecurity. But you realize now that the only solution is to take better ownership of the things you feel, the things you want. 

“It’s just that it’s hard because all this time has passed and all this silence—we were never honest with each other, and I was so hurt and it was all just so terrible. And anyways, still, I’d do anything for him. And I’m so worried I’m never going to find anyone else I love as much as I love him. That I’ll never find anyone to be with the way you and Dad are together.”

“That’s not a reason to go back if you don’t really want to, though,” she says gently. 

“Sometimes I think that if he came back, and he’d changed completely, I’d take him back then.”

“If you’d change him completely, then maybe you don’t really love him.”

“Maybe. Maybe I only love parts of him.”

“You can’t fix a person, my love. They have to choose to do that for themselves.”

You wonder if she might not be talking about you. 

“But also…part of what it means to be a partner is helping them fight for that fix. And fighting—conflict—I know you’re afraid of it, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You don’t always need to be so afraid—holding onto that much fear will hurt a good heart. You have to let it go. And sometimes to fight, to fight for something you love, it’s a good thing. It’s a concession or an admission, a dedication and a strengthening of that love. Don’t be afraid to fight.”

“I think he wanted that—to fight with me.”

Tears slip down your face and she wipes them away from your cheeks. 

“Then go fight with him. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes it’s okay to try one more time. It doesn’t make you weak or naive. All it means is that you tried again. Sometimes we all need one more chance.”

That Sunday, you wake early and go for a swim. It’s warm outside, and the rocks are sun baked when you step carefully over them toward the water, letting them burn the soles of your feet. You start slowly, first only your ankles, then up to your knees. The Atlantic is never warm, no matter the time of year, and when the saltwater reaches your thighs you’re wracked with gooseflesh and shivers until you’re up to your hips and decide it’s time to abandon all fear. You wade forward until the water has finally reached your heart, but you don't need to go any further. You have no interest in being swept away and lost anymore.

Your feet are firmly planted in the sandbed. 

You let yourself sway there, jerked by the waves until the morning sound of children’s laughter fades and then it’s just the water. 

Sun high in the horizon, the water is dark ahead of you, and looking back at the time you’d met him, you’d been so young. So naive. So ready to let yourself be hurt. So ready for failure, desperate for it, even. Neither of you had been prepared for the intensity of what it was you’d find together or the struggle it would be to work through your respective faults. And you’d insisted for so long that it would all end in nothing, shattered glass left on the table cloth, looking for the end of everything in photographs. Sure that it could never work. 

But look at you now, unable to move on even after that very failure.

You’d read books, you’d starved your body. You’d tried to be closer to God, to understand your mother. Still, you could not purge yourself of him. 

You swim back to shore. Your shoulders are sunburnt. You get in your father’s car, and you drive to him. 

You tell yourself that if he’s not there, it’ll be your sign from God and that’ll be your answer. There will be no more wondering, no more second chances, no more glances back at the past. And you repeat your mother’s words like a prayer, some things are worth fighting for. 

Standing in front of his door, twelve minutes and some later, it really is a lovely drive, you hold your five fingertips up to the face of his front door and you don’t wonder whether you’ll do it or not, knock, because you’ve already decided on his second chance, but there’s a strange part of you that wishes he’d just suddenly know you’re out here and come open it without having to. 

But there’s no crowd here for him to find you instinctively in. There’s only just the two of you, separated by all the things you could never say. You make a fist, you rap your knuckles, and there he is. 

He pulls the door open and he doesn’t say anything at first but neither can you. What’s there to say to the person you’ve decided to love again with honesty? To the person you want to give all your second chances to and who you hope will give them in return. To the person you want to fight with. Because faced with him, the imagining of seeing hearing touching tasting again when faced with the corporeal reality is almost fragmentally unimaginable, makes all your carefully planned words scatter at your feet. 

He’s right where you left him.

The specter-like-hologram of that terrible night made reality, but with something else equally intangible or unbelievable which you can also now tell is different. That tells you something has changed here, that it isn’t exactly just as you’d left it. 

He gapes like a fish for a few seconds, you've taken him by surprise. And then he flushes bright red, scowling angry all of a sudden. 

“Are you ever going to unblock my number?” he demands, furious. 

It makes you want to laugh, which you do, and then cry, just a little. Yes, you think, fight with me. 

The sight of your laughter throws him for a loop again, but then that helpless thing, and he’s smiling back at you, too. 

“My father really liked you,” you tell him. “He wants to know if you’ll come to dinner Thursday night.” This is your second chance, Din. Take it. “And I’m here to fight with you, too. Just so you know. I want to fight. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says, smile blooming bright and real. “Can I bring Greg?” His perfect, true smile. Pulling you inside by the wrist, he takes your face is his hands and he kisses you—fuck, I love you. Maybe it’s a moment of mutual understanding, that everyone deserves a second chance. That everyone deserves a chance to be honest just one more time. 

From the back of the house, you hear Grogu’s gleeful shriek of your name, screaming that he can’t believe you’re back. Din kisses you again, deeply, like he loves you the way he said he does. And you finally feel prepared to believe him. 

Later that evening, after hours of dinner-time conversation where half a year of school time shenanigans and art projects and the highs and lows of loving the Knicks have been recounted, you and Din lay together in bed. You don't know what time it is. You’ve promised yourself that tomorrow, you won't look at the calendar, you won't count days ever again. There’s no reason to be a keeper of time any longer. 

With your nose and mouth pressed against his throat, the humid wash of your breath fanning against his skin, he gives a nearly drunk sounding purr of satisfaction. Exchanging honesties and apologies and self doubts, his fingers travel up and down your naked back, and you tell him that the day you met him never ended for you. He tells you that you had always felt so far away, so far removed, but that he only felt alone when you weren’t with him anyways. 

A second chance is not an easy thing to earn, but it doesn’t have to be a difficult one either. Sometimes, it’s easy to just be grateful, to just bask in letting yourself have the thing you want. 

You drift in and out of sleep in his arms, and when he turns you over onto your belly, stretching himself out over your prone body to cup the swell of your stomach and the weight of your breast, pushing inside of you again, it feels easy to be grateful for the chance to be here.  

And he tells you: “If you give me the chance, I’m going to make you happy every single day. I’m going to try harder every single day.” You tell him that you will, too.

The cricket song comes in through the open window, and you believe in each other. 

House of Fools

Glass shattered on the white cloth  Everybody moved on Help, I’m still at the restaurant

The tree is set with multi-colored lights and tinsel and care. It’s a good tree, the one the two of you put up together as his little brother cheers you on. Too tall, fluffy and charmingly droopy, shoved into the corner of the two bedroom bungalow you’d helped them move into months ago. 

Three years is a long time to know a person. It is an even longer time to love someone. 

And yet, sometimes, it remains a half-full sort of love. 

You watch as he lifts his brother’s small frame above his shoulders to set the star atop, final touch sparkle, and you’re still looking in through the window of this honest and heartbreaking home of two, even from your seat within their warm living room. 

Finally, Din turns, and gives you that pink-glow smile, the one you love. Right corner of his mouth, pulling upwards—a dimple, tan skin and the flush of his appled cheek, and he’s really beautiful, sometimes yours, dedicated to many things before he is dedicated to you. But you’re here. And you’re grateful. The spaces for the shiny red ornaments you’d been assigned, carefully chosen and hung on the tree. Your imprint is there, in this small decision. Your mark on their home, on their Christmas tree. Your handwriting, looping and careful on the tags on the gifts you’d helped him wrap beneath the branches. Grogu, not Greg, thank you, written out with all the care and consideration you feel for the small boy who you’ve come to love as much as you love his brother. 

The two of you had come to some sort of staid agreement in the past year. Together. That’s what you are. Afraid of each other, too. Perhaps. Afraid of what you feel, of what could become of it. But aware enough now that you can both understand you can not be without one another, so that any sort of lingering fear or trepidation was forced to become secondary. There were eggshells still, to be treaded on. A carefulness about the way the two of you approach one another day in and day out. An awareness on your part, that there is so much past loss and even more future responsibility awaiting him so that he’ll always live his life afraid and with bated breath for the worst still yet to come. On his part, the awareness of an easily broken heart and a willingness to give more of yourself than is right. And a promise to be careful with those things. Or at least to try. 

But you’re together and it’s not easy, per se, but it’s necessary, and you don’t ask for more even though you want it. Even though there’s still that small bit missing. And every time you look at him, every time he’s sweet and considerate and so aware of you it’s almost overwhelming, and when he touches you in that way that is so delicious it should be illegal, you’ll say: I like you so much, Din because you’re afraid to say the stronger word out loud. 

You prepare for the holidays with frenzy. In between classes and your thesis and a reading list so long you’re afraid your eyesight will never recover this finals season, you still find the time to do your gift shopping and help him with his. The three of you go out one evening in early December to buy their tree. Taller than Din, is Grogu’s stipulation and the decree that leads to the slightly hunched behemoth with the lopsided star held on by the sheer force of a zip tie’s will. 

The two boys meander slowly amongst the evergreens while you trail behind, watching them. The way Din towers over the young boy, occasionally bopping him over the chunky green hat with the droopy knit ears, listening intently at Grogu’s excited chatter. The sweater Din has on had been carefully chosen between you and your mother for his birthday, navy blue half-zip knit that makes him look so sexy and is so, so exciting to unzip, bearing the sharp edges of his collar bones, keeping him warm so that when you slip your hand beneath the hem and up against his hard stomach his skin almost burns. 

Or maybe it’s just you, the burning. Maybe it’s what you make together. 

Grogu had vetoed seven trees thus far—not fat enough, not tall enough, too wimpy, doesn’t have the right “vibe”. The kid said it needed to be wide enough so that all the naked little angel babies he loved to collect, and for which he’d been soundly sent home from school two weeks ago for—and this is a direct quote from the principal Mrs. Armorer as per Din—‘enabling a covert trading ring as if these artifacts were the most insidious of contraband being distributed amongst the most derelict of city streets’. An exaggeration surely, but Din’s own hatred for the little angels only reinforced the gravity of the boy’s crime. And as he’d so eloquently put it, “When I looked up in the shower the other day to find twenty of them watching me wash my dick, I knew we had a problem.”

If only he also knew you were the one constantly buying them for the kid. 

When you blink your daze away, resurfacing from your thoughts, the boys have disappeared. You can hear the sound of Grogu’s voice in the distance, high pitched and laughing, and when you look up at the dark night sky, the first flurries of snow are starting their spiral fall. The warmth of the cocoa the three of you had bought at the entrance of the Christmas tree farm has long since left you, and you burrow further into the damp warmth of the scarf wrapped around your neck, suddenly unable to catch any sound but the rhythm of your own breaths. 

You take a few more steps forward, peering through the trees and seeing no one—there had been so many people just minutes ago—when a strong tug at the back of your puffer pulls you between the branches of two of the larger evergreens. 

His breath is warm on your face, you can smell the sweetness of the chocolate and marshmallows, but his lips are cold when they press against the corner of your eye, pulling you in close against him, pushing you deeper into the pines.

“Kiss me. I’m cold,” he pouts, another flutter of lips to the apple of your cheek, the point of your chin, and then he’s licking against your mouth and his tongue is hot as sin, sweeter than the chocolate. You open for him, pulling him against yourself as tightly as he pulls you, pressing up on your tippy toes to get even closer.

“I couldn't find you. Din—” you gasp, kissing him again, again. 

“Can’t get lost in the snow, baby.” The puff of his laugh is warm against your face, the tip of his cold reddened nose nudging against your own. You cling to him more tightly, feeling unfocused, almost drunk—the tip of his tongue against the arch of your cupid's bow. There are snowflakes catching in his eyelashes. The deep green of the trees, the sky, dark and falling above you, the cold everywhere except for where he touches you, presses against you. 

“Need this kid to pick out a tree so we can go the fuck home and get in bed,” he says, shivering and grouchy. “Still gotta strap it to the car, lug it inside…” He buries his face in the warm space between your throat and scarf and whines. 

His hair is long enough right now it sticks out the back of his beanie, curling against the edge, and you tangle your fingers in the soft locks, holding him there pressed against you. You can hear Grogu sing-songing your names, coming up behind where you’re embracing with loud stomping gallops, bulldozing into your back hard enough he’d knock you over if you didn’t have his brother there to hold you up. The boy wraps his arms around your waist, shaking the two of you out of your daze, demanding you stop making out and get moving. 

“Don’t whine, I’m going to help you.” You say it laughing, fond and grateful. Grateful that you get the chance to be here with the two of them. 

-

“You use laundry softener?”

 Wham! plays softly through the overhead speaker of the empty grocery store. It’s early on a Friday, and both of you had found yourselves with the rare treat of being off work and out of classes at the same time. It would be a busy weekend for him, the last home stretch before Christmas. The 23rd and he’d be swamped at the bar the next two nights, facing the revelers returning home for the holiday, eager to get drunk on booze and merry joy. 

“Yeah. Don’t you?” He turns to press his mouth against your temple where you cling to his arm, slumped over the shopping cart he's been slowly pushing through each aisle. He has a list he’s not looked at once, throwing things into the basket thoughtlessly. When you get home, you know he’ll complain he got too much he didn’t need, but you keep quiet, happy to see him have his indulgence. 

“I do. Yeah.” You don’t know why the sight of the lavender scented softener makes you pause—the same one your mother buys for your parent’s home. Maybe because in some moments, the reminder that Din is also someone’s mother is more sobering and obvious than others. 

“Smells good,” he says as he reaches for a box of Scooby Doo fruit snacks. Two boxes of granola bars go in next, peanut butter protein for himself and double-chocolate puff for Grogu. 

Pressing your face into the hard muscle of his shoulder, you inhale deeply. Silently agreeing with a nod of your head, pressing your fingers into the swell of his bicep beneath the thick fabric of his dark hoodie. 

Tipping his chin, he gives you a sly, knowing look. “What?” He asks—half-crooked smirk. But you can’t even say, and anyways he knows. You drag your fingernails against his muscle, tummy going tight, hiding your face in the warm cotton, shaking your head. 

His laugh is soft and gently teasing. 

The post office is a mess after the grocery store, and the two of you stand in line for forty-five minutes, waiting to buy stamps and post the last minute Christmas cards to your friends you’d entirely forgotten about in the mania of turning in the final draft of your thesis to your advisor. Another thing that was in the home stretch—your fight to get your masters had been a long journey of indecision and self doubt, but you were so close to being done you could taste the freedom. Your edits were going smoothly, and your advisor, Luke, had been a great help this past year. Disheveled beard and mind in a million places at once, a little bit of a hippie, but always patient and kind and in tune with your wants and ideas when you were really desperate for him to be so. Din had been so supportive, as well. Staying up late with you when you needed to study or write, perfecting the art of a BLT and keeping you fed, because as he put it, there was much more to the construction of it than just bacon, lettuce and tomato. Even though they always ended up being nothing more than just that, it was the action that counted. 

You’d be presenting at the end of January, and you were looking forward to being done with school once and for all and being able to work. You’d been offered a position at the public library as the junior librarian over heading the non-fiction department, and you were more eager than words could express. It wasn’t only the idea of leaving behind your little job at the bookstore and being able to come home with something more than a meager paycheck, it was also the notion that you’d finally done something. You’d made a decision for your life, and you’d seen it through, and come January 19th with no extraneous tragedies, you’ll have succeeded. It wasn’t something you were used to, making a sure decision and seeing it to completion. Throughout the course of your program there had been so many times when you’d felt as if it was all a play-act, a game you were taking part in through each step and that eventually, the rouse would be up and you’d realize you weren’t actually passing your classes or enjoying the field you’d chosen for yourself or doing well at this thing you’d so agonized over the decision of. 

But here you are now. You’d committed to something and you’d seen it through and not only had you not coasted by, but you’d excelled to a degree that had gotten you a job you were extremely happy with. 

And amidst all this, there was also something about doing this and having the people in your life see you do this—having Din see you do this. Having Din see you commit to something and stick to it with your whole heart. You wanted him to know you were capable of such a thing. 

After the post office, he obliges you with a wander through the frantically busy Old Port streets. Picking up some last minute wrapping paper you’d been eyeing for the little box of earrings you’d gotten your mother, delicately hand-painted trees and golf leaf holly, some cigars for your father’s stocking. You purchase a box of assorted salt water taffy when his back is turned, large enough it should last him at least half the year, hopefully, considering the way he goes through it. And you stop to get a little cup of gelato to share between the two of you despite the twenty degree day. You walk slowly, your arm looped through his and your hands twined together, your fingerless gloves folded warmly into his fleece covered palms, protected. And this is how you best love being with him—sharing bites of sweet cream gelato from the tiny spoon held in his long fingered hands, he feeds you every other step—when he feels so yours. When he’s most like your boyfriend, and the whole world can see that the two of you are together so that it’s real, so that there’s proof and witnesses you can revel in. 

Perhaps it’s insecurity, this feeling. Low self esteem that demands constant reassurance. Perhaps it’s pride. Candid and unashamed elation you feel when people see the two of you on the streets together and know you belong to each other. 

He drives you over the bridge and into the Cape after lunch to pick up a package from your parent’s house that had been mistakenly delivered there. The place is quiet, neither of them home yet, but you can see the Christmas tree lit up and sparkling warmly through the large bay windows in the family room, your mother’s heirloom hand-blown ornaments backlit and glowing.

The kid is at a sleepover tonight, the last Christmas celebration for him and his friends before the 25th, smores and ghost stories and a game of white elephant. Making the most of your freedom, the two of you pick up large coffees before heading to the North Viewpoint to sit together for a few hours before Din has to head in for his shift at the bar. The sun begins to set at about four this time of year, and you’re able to catch the last fiery burst of it slipping beneath the water’s edge before you’re left in the murky darkness of the oceanfront. The horizon turns to a purple grey frisson you feel imitated in the over-eager beat of your heart. All there is to hear is the sound of your synchronized breaths and the furious salt spray crashing against the rock cliffs. It’s like you’re the only two people left in the whole world. 

It’s been a perfect day so far. 

Twin splashes of the Baileys you’d nicked from your parents house while Din hunted for your package, go into your coffees, and the two of you settle into a contented silence. The heater is on full blast, warming your frigid fingers and toes, while your Irish coffee melts you from the inside out. Makes you go all soft. The sweet of the drink makes you tipsy fast, and you eagerly go for a second helping from the thermos he’d prepared while he paces himself for his shift later. 

Frank Sinatra’s I’ll Be Home for Christmas comes on the radio, and Din drops your fingers he’d been playing with to turn up the volume. 

“This is my favorite one,” he says softly, reaching for your hand again and bringing it up to his mouth to press a kiss against the quickly warming skin. Your fingertips buzz and tingle, suppressing a heart-set-to-burst sigh, and you want to say that it’s your favorite too, all of it. The two of you here together, the overwhelm of the water, so dark if you were to fall in you’d surely disappear off the face of the earth never to be found again. The suspended stillness of you sitting here before it. 

This is the neighborhood you grew up in, the exact spot you’d had your first kiss at thirteen and then clumsily gone to second base a couple years later with your highschool boyfriend. Din had found that small piece of your history endlessly fascinating, knowing he was sitting in the place of your ‘historic first fingering’. You’d tried to throttle him when he’d said that, flushing with embarrassment from head to toe, and then a flush of a different sort when he’d made you come on his own hand afterwards. And in record time, lest he be outdone by the competition of your teenage past. 

But it was true, this was a place significant to your history, and now, it had become a place the two of you found yourselves at often, together. The playground of your upbringing you’d been able to share with him as much as he’d allowed. All the times he’d driven you over the bridge to your parent’s house to spend the night—never coming in, but always kissing you soundly and waiting to drive off until you’d made it safely inside. It didn’t hurt your feelings, you wouldn’t let it, his not coming in. And anyways, you’d never formally asked him except for that time your father had thrown your mother’s fifty-fifth birthday party. A large and extravagant thing because he claimed double fives were lucky. Din had played dumb until the last minute, and then politely refused, sending flowers in his stead. You hadn’t been upset because you’d expected the refusal. He’d claimed he couldn’t find a babysitter, lied, but you knew it was a hard limit for him. The metaphorical line that could not be crossed. Whether that was because it would inevitably be a hallmark simply too serious and devoted to come back from. Or, and more devastating an option to consider, because it was too hard for him to see the happiness that still lived through your family, the care and love you and your parents had for each other. The closeness. You knew. You know. You could see it in the look in his eyes when he dropped you off once a week for family dinner and a sleepover, wine nights and board games and things he couldn’t understand. Saw the way he’d look up at you the moment before you’d open the front door, eyes full of yearning and hurt for parents who would never again be. A look that said he didn’t think he could ever belong to something like that. 

His twelve minute drive to drop you off was enough. It meant more to you than perhaps it meant to him, his bringing you to the doorstep of your home full of love and parents who were still alive. So you didn’t, wouldn’t, let it hurt your feelings, his refusal to join you. 

And anyways, your mother knew all there was to know about him. Your father, aware of his existence but unwilling to extend the benefit of his doubt or any sort of grace because he held it against Din that he’d never shown his face in their home. He couldn’t understand, thought that getting the chance to be with you should’ve been enough to cure whatever past trauma kept Din from committing himself fully to his little girl. Your mother was keener, though, more understanding. Especially after you'd run into him once at the grocery store together. He’d had to run in unexpectedly for last minute cookie supplies Grogu had conveniently forgotten to mention he needed for school the next day. And the way Din had blushed and stammered, shaken her hand no less than three entire times, babbling about how he was so glad he’d gotten the chance to meet her, the glaze in his eyes when he’d looked at you, like he was begging you to see how pleased he was, how ashamed, how confused and hurt and shy and out of his depth. How desperate he was to be approved of but how unwilling he was to let himself be. 

Your mother had held your hand afterwards, in the car on the way home, while you’d been unable to hold back a few helpless tears for the heartbroken boy you couldn’t help but love. And still, you promised yourself your feelings weren’t hurt. You promised yourself it was enough and that you could understand. 

He takes a long pull of his warm drink, and you watch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, pressing your thighs together to assuage the tight heat in your belly. His cheeks are flushed with bright red splotches from the bite of the cold outside and the blasting heat of the car’s vents, the spike of whiskey, and you can see his eyes swing from one end of the dark ocean to the other. Wondrous, almost. You’d tell him you feel the same if you didn’t want to keep him. 

“What’re you looking at?” He says without turning, half smile and the flash of a dimple. 

“I think I’m buzzed already,” you mumble, cheek smooshed against the seatback. 

He laughs softly, corners of his eyes creasing so endearingly that your heart gives a stupid, pitiful throb. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Finally, he turns to look at you. You cross your legs tightly, can’t help it, and his gaze flashes briefly, knowingly, to your legs. “My little light weight. Can’t handle shit.” He chucks you under the chin, voice full of fondness, pinching the soft skin to pull you towards himself. 

“You know whiskey makes me drunk fast,” lashes fluttering as he presses a bitter sugared kiss to your mouth. 

“That’s your excuse for everything we drink.” You pout against him, breathing a don’t tease against his mouth when he kisses you again, changing the angle, deepening it, giving you his tongue. “It’s alright, I like you just the way you are.”

The sound of his favorite song throbs in your ears before it floats away, and then it’s just the sound of your heavy breathing again as you tug him closer by the collar of his sweater, wanting to pull him over the console and on top of you. His mouth slides a wet path over your cheek to suck on the sensitive spot beneath your ear he loves best, humming deep in his chest at the taste of you. 

Nothing has ever felt better than touching him. 

The hand at the back of your neck moves to your front, slowly pulling the zip of your jacket down; the sound loud and shocking amidst the heave of your panting. Despite the heater, you’re wracked with shivers as he pushes your jacket open and over your shoulder, cupping your breast as he sucks on your neck. 

“You gonna get in the backseat and fuck me?” He murmurs between wet kisses and a soft bite. 

He pulls you across his lap after your mad scramble between the seats into the back of his little 2008 hunk-of-junk Corolla, silver and shitty but reliable, according to Din. The space is too small for his tall frame, and the burst of biting cold that’s let in during his thirty second spin to join you in the back has you shivering against his broad chest. Long legs bent against your back and spread wide but allowing you ample space to sit on strong thighs. Now it’s your turn to taste him, scraping your teeth against the hard edge of his jaw while your cold fingers sneak their way under his hoodie, dragging your nails over the hard planes of his abdomen, pulling a gruff whimper from his throat. You spread your thighs wide, grinding down against the hard bulge in his jeans, finding the perfect angle to press your clit against the seam of denim. 

“Fuck, baby. Fuck me—” he moans your name and it’s the greatest sound in the world. Worth everything. 

Your kisses turn sloppy, desperate, fingers twisting tightly into his hair, pulling his mouth against yours until it hurts. And there’s something about the fact that no matter how many times the two of you do this together—whether it’s hard and fast in the back of a shitty car in the freezing cold or slow and deep and helpless, when he wakes you in the middle of the night, warm and naked in his bed, sliding over you and between your thighs, tasting your cunt before he’s pressing inside, needing inside of you—it’s always, always bursting with a sort of frenzy. A desperation, even in the slow, that helps make up for other things that might be missing—that proves a point. A promise in the way he touches you, like he’ll never get enough, like he’ll always want more, even if it’s just of this. 

When you pull him from his jeans, hot and heavy in your palm, his breathing goes ragged and the flush in his cheeks meets the hot splotchiness of lust crawling up his neck and over his jaw. His moan is broken, needy, head falling back against the seat and eyes rolling backwards, the soft curls around his ears damp with sweat. You lick your palm, gripping him tight and slick, twisting at the thick head as he tries to fuck himself into your fist, hips jerking helplessly. He’s yours like this. Gorgeous and vulnerable in the palm of your hand, moaning that you make him feel so good, that you’re doing it just right, that you’re his good girl. He wants you so much like this, gripping your hip with one wide palm, the other clutching at your ass to pull you in closer. You wrap your fingers halfway around the wide base, squeezing, other hand concentrated at the tip, working him round and round. You’d make him come like this, quick and sloppy in seconds if he’d let you, show him how good you are and how quickly you can make him feel better than anyone else ever has. 

But soon he’s demanding, “Inside. Want inside your cunt,” and shoving you sideways to rip your boot and one side of your leggings off, yanking the center of your thong aside to slick his tip against your swollen wet before he’s pressing against your entrance. All “Let me in. Let me in. You’re fucking perfect—” Chest heaving. 

He works himself inside slowly, in stuttered thrusts of his hips, moaning while he goes. Clutching at your hips and rocking you forward while he forces his way in from below. The sticky wet sound of your grinding against him, your clit rocking against his pelvis until you’ve taken him so deep the pressure is just this shy of painful so that you know you’re going to come quick and hard and wet. 

His hand snakes it’s way beneath your sweater, and you can feel the tremor in his fingers as he makes his way up your back, gripping tightly at the nape of your neck, squeezing, his other palm flat against the base of your spine to hold you imobile. Allowed nothing but the helpless jerk of your hips, chasing your pleasure, desperate for your orgasm while you feel him throb against the deepest part of you. 

“Please, Din.”

“Wait. Wait. Not yet. You feel so fucking good.” 

The sex is messy. He tells you he wants more. The wet sound of his thighs slapping against your ass as he starts to thrust again, gripping the swell of your bottom to bounce you on his cock, meeting each other on the up and down. In tune with one another’s bodies in a way you've never been with anyone else. Your cunt clenches tight, it almost hurts, and he laughs, bends his head to bite at your breast over the thick knit of your sweater. Please, baby, I want more. Hold on just a little longer. Your face and throat flush hot, burning, you can feel the sweat collect at your temples and along your spine as he tugs gently at your nipple with his teeth, fucks into you with snapping hips, the rock forward of your clit sliding against his hard stomach. 

It’s dizzying. You can’t help it. You come with a cry of his name, clutching him to your breast, wrapping your arms around his head as his bite turns reprimanding, “Fucking lightweight, I told you.” Another laugh that turns into a strangled moan when the heat of his come fills you as your muscles clench tightly around him. The gruff sound he makes: masculine, vulnerable again—the way you wish he’d always be—a mix of your name and a whine. Now that, that makes all the rest of it worth it. 

-

You’re supposed to meet Bo and her girlfriend for drinks at a new wine bar at half past eight. A cosy little place tucked into the cobbled streets of downtown you’ve all been desperate to try. She’d mentioned the plan every day for two weeks, giving away her nerves at the prospect of the three of you getting together. Likely afraid of your reaction at what you’re sure will be the announcement that she and Fennec are planning to move in together, news you've been expecting for a while and which you’ll take more than happily. They’re in love and your friend, who had always been known to be light and wandering as a butterfly in love, was ready to settle down and commit herself to someone she truly wanted to be with in a real way. There was never the possibility of your being anything but happy and excited for the two women. After all, you and Bo had been waiting for this for a long time, steadiness, commitment, a forsaking of that fear of forever you’d always found camaraderie in. 

And it only added to that keen sense the past few months had brought along, that the two of you were growing up in a real and immeasurable way. Your lives were changing, moving on, who you were as people was evolving. Leaving behind the last vestiges of your frivolous youth full of too much partying and more fun than anyone should probably rightfully have for something steadier, more reliable. Grown up. As much as you’d miss your friend, your housemate of the past five years, this move spoke well of what was to come for the both of you. 

Din makes the two of you a quick dinner before you have to part ways for the night—a creamy mushroom risotto and a crisp glass of white wine for you. The man likes to get you drunk and slutty. Watching him move around the kitchen, lithe and capable, makes you squirm for more of what he’d given you earlier, the sound of his moans in your ear and the wash of his hot breath against your throat while he throbs inside of you. 

The house is cozy, the warmth of the tree, the toys strewn across the living room floor, the precariously leaning tower of Din’s cookbooks at the edge of the kitchen counter, the overflowing pile of laundry on the sofa waiting to be folded and Grogu’s art pinned by spaceship magnets to the refrigerator door. Something you’d always admired in the way Din had taken on parenting his brother, the way he'd nurtured and preserved Grogu’s childhood, giving him the space and safety to be a little boy for as long as he needed without the pressure of feeling like he had to grow up too fast. Not the way Din had. 

He brings your dinner to you on the sofa, presenting it to you with a flourish of steam and his beautifully proud grin, like, look what I’ve made for you, aren’t I a nice boy? And the two of you sit side by side, thighs pressed warmly together, silverware clinking as you watch each other eat, giggling softly at one another for absolutely no reason other than that it’s been such a good day. All the best things the two of you do together, wrapped into a perfect set of twelve hours. 

Then, one of the more bizarre aspects of life: how everything can fall apart from one moment to the next. 

“You and Greg should come to dinner at my parents tomorrow night.” You don’t know why you say it, or where it comes from. “My mom would really love to have you, and she makes a great Christmas Eve roast.” Probably because it’s simply the truth. You want him there, quite desperately. Both of them. And your mother had asked. Your dad too, why he wasn’t joining you all, why he didn’t want to. 

You suppose you also want to hear why he doesn’t want to. What excuse he'll give. 

He goes silent, fork halfway to his open mouth, and a stupidly shocked expression on his face you could slap off of him. 

Suddenly, you’re angry enough you could cry. 

“My dad got some really nice wine too, something about a two thousand ten harvest—he said it’s something real special,” you press. “Do you want to come? My mom can make up a room for you guys so you don’t have to drive back, and then on Christmas morning we can—”

“No,” he says abruptly. “We can’t. What are you doing?” He sets his plate down loudly on the coffee table, the rattle of his fork making you jerk. 

Your throat convulses around a swallow, your own plate held shakily in your lap. You should stop, but you feel ruinous. Half-full and ready to self implode. 

It had been such a perfect day, resplendent with that knick of time possibility. That maybe forever tease. But in the end, what is this casual intimacy, and why does it always feel like a wait in line for the execution block? He should want to spend tomorrow with you, let it be another perfect day. 

“Why not? Why can’t you?” 

“We have plans already.”

“What plans? You’re just going to be here. My father wants to meet you.”

“Well I don’t want to meet him. What is it that you’re trying to do here?”

You close your eyes, shaking your head quickly in a nod. Okay. Okay. Open your eyes again. “Okay. Then tell me what your parents were like.”

He jerks back in a flinch. “What?”

“Tell me. You’ve never told me about them before. Not really. I want to know what they were like. All I have to go by is a fucking photograph I had to rifle through your drawers for. Do you have traditions for Christmas they left you with? What were they like? Tell me, Din.” Your tone is perfunctory, cold and biting, too fast and not the tender sort a conversation like this requires. 

And he gives you a sort of look—one that asks, are we really doing this? But you’ve already decided you won’t let him get away with it this time. You’ll ruin it all if you have to. And you know he won’t ever tell anyone else, so he might as well tell you. Right? You, who knows and cares and asks. 

Who else will ask you these sorts of things? You want to say. Who else will help you remember? Who’s going to love you like I do?

Your gaze is persistent, and he nods once, swallowing acceptance, finally understanding what it is you’re doing—ruining it all. 

“What is any parent that’s gone like? Perfect in your memory. I don’t know… They were real and busy and kind and thoughtless. All the things all parents are. But they’re absent now. That’s all I'm left with, which I hate. They’re dead, and that’s all they’ll ever be and I resent them for it. What else do you want me to say? What would I do at your parent’s house? I don’t know what I…I wouldn’t belong—We wouldn’t—” His jaw is set in anger as he says it, choking on his stumbled words. 

Your chest aches with a repressed sob, and you refuse to blink and miss a single second of this. 

“What were you like as a child?” He looks at you like he can’t understand why you’re doing this to him. 

“Solitary, but not lonely.” I’m equipped for this in reverse, you think. “And then Greg was born, and I was a kid for only a very short time longer. Why are you asking me this? I don’t have anything for you but sorry answers. Is this really the shit you want to talk about?”

You clutch your plate more tightly. “I want to kn-know you. I—”

“You do!” His voice goes from measured to a yell very quickly. “You know me better than anyone else! What more do you fucking want from me? Jesus Christ—” he spits, shoving himself off the couch to pace away from you, running his fingers through his hair, agitated, angry. You’re never satisfied, he says at the wall. 

It’s true. You’re not. 

It’s helpless. You feel big and greedy. You’re never going to be able to stop wanting more. And you’d always told yourself, tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow, it will—he will—be different. Something will change because it has to, because everything always changes. 

But you realize in this moment that maybe the only change here has ever needed to come from you. 

You realize that you’ve been eating your own illusions for too long, selling yourself snake oil. 

“I don’t want to be alone in this anymore,” you tell him. “I want more.”

“But what? What more is there? You’re not alone, and I don’t—” he makes some choked noise of frustration, “This is all I have to give. Can’t you see that? I don’t know—” The look he gives you, palms out and pleading, like some infinitely lost boy—half abandoned child, half apology. 

“I don’t know either,” you cut him off, setting your plate down next to his with a surprisingly steady hand. 

It’s a lost battle, no more starry eyed sleight of hand, all the cards are on the table. 

When you look back at him you can see the emotion choked behind his eyes. That you’ve pushed him beyond the line of his own reasoning and into hurt. But his comfort had to become secondary to yours eventually. You couldn’t tend to it forever with as much care as you’d always done without hurting yourself. 

And everything has a breaking point. 

“Maybe I wanted you to think of someone other than yourself for once.” You see the blow land. The snapping bone, wrong-thing-said reaction. It’s a lie, after all, you know it. A terrible lie, a terrible thing to say to someone who has so obviously given up everything and their whole life, their youth, for the sake of another, and done so gladly. 

Perhaps a wiser person would take this as reasoning enough for Din’s behavior. For his lack of ability to give more of himself to a relationship. Perhaps for someone more mature or with more experience, with a greater sense of self, it would be obvious, the fact that a person who’d lost so much of themselves so young found it hard to love, to give themselves over to partnership and the sort of commitment needed for a fully functioning adult relationship. But you can’t, or choose not to see it anymore. Perhaps you’re tired of fighting, of working so hard for it. Perhaps you’re tired of waiting. 

His face turns away like you’ve struck him, and for a long moment he doesn't turn back, but when he does there’s anger almost like hate, and his eyes are wet with tears. You wish you could be cruel, laugh in his face, but your own drip from your chin as well. And anyways, it’s so shocking there isn’t any room for cruelty. 

You go gasping fish silent, until he says, “I do. It’s just not you.” The salt lie drips from his long lashes and he moves, turning away from you towards the Christmas tree you’d picked out and decorated together, the gifts for his brother you’d chosen and wrapped with him. 

“What did you want here? From this?” Maybe he means the fight now, but what does it matter compared to the whole mess and lie of this entire fraught ordeal. 

“Well…” you stand, moving for your purse on the kitchen table. There is, in everyone, a limit to the amount of pain you’ll put up with for love. You can’t ever know the limit beforehand, but once you’re there, you know, and then it’s impossible to move the line. “I figured you’d love me.”

The word out loud is shocking, never before been said. 

You hear his stuttered breath, the way your words might make him angry. Throwing this lacking of his in his face—his inability to love the person who loves him. You think you should tell him that you’ll hate him now, but you’ve never been a talented liar. You think you should ask him if it’s such a bad thing, to want his love. But you know he won’t have an answer. You know he doesn’t believe he has it in himself. 

You move towards the door, pausing at the mouth of the hall to their bedrooms. The lopsided ‘Greg’ sign tacked to the kid’s door. The ‘E’ had been haphazardly turned into an ‘O’, a ‘U’ scribbled on at the end, the slip of the shaky marker bleeding out messily onto the wood of the door at the tail end of the letter. Like the child had been hasty in his vandalism and slipped, afraid he’d be caught by his older brother. 

It makes you smile dimly. 

And below that, in a green meld of water colors and marker and crayon, depicted in a manner so lovely it could only come from the imagination of a child, a drawing of the three of you together, stick-figured and holding hands. 

Like a family. 

“We’re eating each other alive,” you whisper at the imagination family. He moves forward, his socked footsteps towards your turned back.

You’re truly crying now, unable to hold back the sob of grief, of too much time wasted and a loss of yourself you’ve yet to fathom the depth of. He’s looking at your face again, finally, and you think, let this be the last time. Let this be the end of it now so that I’ll never have to feel like this again. 

He’s crying too, and you want to be angry at him, at the lie you have to take it for. He cannot cry and not love you back. It’s not possible. 

“Is that it?” All you can manage is a half nod that dislodges the cold tears clinging to your chin. “We had a good run,” he says like an almost question, and looks at you very sadly—tiny flame of struggling hope about to die. A held breath: should I go with grace? sort of look-back. But the gleam in his eyes, like he really might care, like this hurts, like he might feel anything—there are no notions of valor left. 

No benevolence to be found in this moment. You’re very tired. “Did we?” Head cocked to the side gracelessly. If ever you could hurt him the way you’ve been hurt here, now would be the time. The last chance. 

“Maybe not.”

We were so close. We almost had it. You’re so, so tired. You could sleep for an age. 

You take your hurt and go after that, not entirely understanding what it is that’s happened here between the two of you, why you’ve wrought it so suddenly. Also, relieved. That finally, everything’s been ruined for good. That there might be rest now. 

Christmas comes, neither one of you calls, there’s nothing else left to say. 

2. LOVE.

Part 2;

It is your own conspiracy that if you say the words three times in the mirror—I am so alone I am so alone I am so alone—the feeling will go away. Banished ghost. 

You commit yourself to this practice religiously for three weeks before you feel you must absolutely return to the meetings held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church or you might just die. 

The first Friday back, you watch him. He blunders around the crowd, struggling to find a seat when he rushes in late that evening, trying to sit as far away from you as possible and, to his great misfortune, ending up right behind you. Squashed between two old ladies, his big body comically trying to fold itself into the tight rows. You laugh at him the whole way through the meeting. 

He’s like a raging bull after that. Scowly and unapproachable as the omegas in the group inevitably make their meager attempts to talk to him. It makes it all the more irreconcilable, a man like that here in a place like this—all the while with a wife at home. 

You wonder about her. 

“That one has a bad temper,” Maria warns as the two of you watch him. They seem to know each other in some way outside of this church, and it takes everything in you not to beg for details. “Big and hairy like a bad, lonely dog.”

You say, “I think he’s shy.” 

She watches you very peculiarly after that, and tells you, “You’re lost, girl. Joel Miller isn’t what you need finding you.”

But you know this, you assure her, and you continue to avoid him. 

The following Friday, he’s the one playing the disappearing act. The next week, as well—no show. You start to dread even your own shadow, wondering where he is, wondering if he’s ever coming back, if he has children and how old he is. Wondering if he wonders about you. Wondering why you’re so obsessed.

Too full of curiosity for your own good, you hover when he finally appears once again. Circling him and Maria, desperate for any sort of information. 

His wife had been sick, he says. He’d had to take her to the doctor. 

You wonder if her sickness might be his baby—sick to your stomach at the thought of it yourself. 

Finally, the week after, the two of you break your fast from one another. 

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, coming up from behind, ambushing you once again at the dessert and coffee trough. This is supposed to be a safe space, yet it feels anything but with him near. 

“No I haven’t.”

“You’re not supposed to tell lies in church. It’s a sin.”

“I don’t believe in sin.” You turn to face him, and your stomach hurts. 

He’s got on a dark green fisherman’s sweater—well worn but knit sturdy. A thing that looks as if it’s been his for years. 

You’re feeling thin-skinned and unable to face him today, and for no good reason. You don't know this man. You have no right to punish him with your silence, no right to be angry, to wonder about him. But that sternness from before, the one that looked too heavy for him to carry, has been wiped away from his face now, and in its place he only looks very earnest, like he really wants to talk to you. And it’s only that, well you don’t know him, yes, but you’d felt that you needed to, or that you would. That you were meant to find him in this place, and you’re angry at yourself and at him at how wrong you’d been, still even after all these weeks of radio silence while he’d been busy caring for his sick wife. 

“Me either,” he gives a small huff of laughter, shoving his fists into the pockets of his dark jeans. 

Setting the donut in your hand back on the table—rude and gross, but it’s an afterthought—you wipe your sweet sweaty palm against your hip, appetite all gone now. The basement is suddenly unbearably hot, your heart beating in your throat. 

“Anywho, I gotta run. Somewhere to be—” you mumble, brushing past him. There’s a sudden rush of itching heat burning its way up your chest, your throat, ants crawling over your scalp. The room is stifling, your limbs leaden and too many bodies; so many disgusting, clashing scents: pheromones, and desperation and such terrible loneliness, and him at the center of it, ambrosial.

You’ll have to recite your mantra more faithfully in the mirror every night, not a single miss. Remind yourself, I am so alone, so that the feeling might go away, and you’ll forget him and the way he smells and his eyes like amber green river stones, more quickly. 

“Whoah, hold on,” he calls after you, following to the exit and up the steps to the world outside of this church. You’d brought a coat today, unable to enjoy the cold the way you usually do, uncharacteristically chill, aching limbs, miserable in the biting morning air. He calls your name, and you clutch the wool against your chest, trying to hurry away from his much longer legs and pace as he catches up. 

Suddenly, though, you change your mind. Whirling around to look up, you stop your running, and he’s right there, so close. “I haven’t been ignoring you. You were gone.” Mind changing again, your gaze falls, unable to hold his eyes. You watch his left hand flex like he wants to do something with it. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

A scoff. “What are you apologizing to me for?” 

“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” He says it quietly by way of explanation, like another apology. 

“You must not have met very many interesting people.”

It feels hot and cold at the same time out here. Your stomach still hurts. Your eyes ache as if you could cry, which is ridiculous because you have absolutely no reason to cry. 

“Maybe not,” he says very low. It seems he’s drifting closer, like you’ll float away. A car honks its horn loudly somewhere in the background, and you still can’t look at his face. His own coat is clutched in his fist and now the honker is shouting too, expletives and God’s name being taken in vain. 

“You should go back in there,” you tip your chin at the depths you’d just fled from, stealing a quick glance at his face, “Find someone else who’s interesting.”

He grunts once, a wordless no and lifts his coat to drape it over your shoulders—you decide you’re even colder now, you don’t think you’ll ever be warm again—and takes yours from your listless grip, draping it over his elbow. 

This man. “Aren’t you here to get to know people?” You demand, finally looking up at him angrily. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “Let’s go for a walk.” His palm at your bicep urging you towards Arlington and the garden sends all sound skittering out of your ears. He reminds you of your earlier words, that he might like to walk, and you can hear yourself agreeing while you look up at the muted light of the late November afternoon leaching through the cloud cover. Through the wool and cotton you feel your skin sucking heat from that singular point of contact, warming you entirely.

It had been blisteringly cold last night, the alluring taste of incumbent winter in the air, and a vicious frost had ermined all the tree trunks within the Boston Public Garden, roughened the surface of the grass. 

Joel chooses a quiet spot by the pond, the willow weeps above your head and all around the two of you the sharp autumn air is lightly laced with the fragrance of leaf rot. An elderly couple floats serenely in a lone swan boat at the center of the pond, not a ripple in the surface, as if they weren’t really there. 

Helping you to sit, he gently pulls his coat from your shoulders, laying the garment for you to rest on protected from the frigid ground and carefully looping your arms through your own coat now, he pulls the excess fabric of his up, draped over your shoulders once again, leaving you securely enveloped from the cold. 

“Here, let me help you,” he says, and the sudden gentleness in his voice makes you want to burst into tears. His character, that of some matryoshkin sort, one embedded in another in another, never knowing which is the realest one, the truest one, which will come next. Angry snarling dog one day, a gentleness that burns the next. You have the sense that a person could know him for decades and still never reach the center, never cease to discover more. 

Sitting before you—you perch alone on the island of his given coat—he tilts his head, leaning back braced on thick arms to look up at the swaying vines with just an impression of brilliant yellow-green, as if that were the color of the air. A sudden breeze stirs the softness of his hair, lifting a stubborn cowlick, and at that exact moment, the cloud cover parts on the face of the sun. In the brilliant shaft of buttered sunlight, his dark curls glint with specks of purest silver, leaving you wishing you could touch the fan of fine lines at the corner of his eyes, feel his age with your fingertips. 

“You’re angry with me,” he finally says, head still tilted towards the sky. You watch him very closely, learning. His voice is deep, quiet. He looks tired, the violet shadows beneath the brilliant hazel eyes. Still beautiful, the full, slightly sulky curve of his mouth surrounded by dark beard. He is everything, all of him, masculine. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

Finally, he looks at you, too. He’s got a big head, proportionate to his big body, that falls back heavily. You can’t help smiling at him, it feels too natural. 

“Now you’re honest.”

“I wouldn’t tell a lie here,” you say, and he sighs like you’re a supremely difficult little omega, too impossible to be reasoned with. But turning back to the sky, eyes closed now, there’s a smile across his mouth also, and you wish the two of you could sit here and laugh forever in this moment.

The silence between the two of you is marvelous enough to be unnerving. Settled beneath his great coat, you’d never believed you could feel the cold so little—learning every fine detail that makes up the man. Even inches away from him, he seems utterly unattainable, each of the two of you existing on your separate islands—you trace the woolen edge of his coat against the ground—some twenty years your senior and married. But the cold has given you such a feeling of grounding buoyancy. You’d awoken angry, miserable, so full of despair you would’ve been sick with it if it were possible. And now—you hadn’t felt this alive or awake in years, perhaps your entire life. He is a marvel, and there are bubbles in your head threatening to take you floating away, and yet, your feet are firmly melded to the ground in reality. 

How attractive, how delicious the prospect of intimacy is with someone who you know will never grant it. It fills you with something ferocious or hungry or snapping, something pathetic that makes you want it all the worse. And he, with a gravitational pull too strong to even think of escaping.

Yes. You hadn't felt so happy in years. 

“How old are you?” Breaking the silence, you ask him.

“Forty three.”

“You have a brother.” He nods. “I have one too.”

“Do you speak to yours? I don’t.”

“He calls me once a month. It’s all he can bear of me.”

“Mine won’t speak to me.” He sounds sad saying so. 

“Why not?”

“I hurt him. Scared him.”

“My brother, he says my whole life is papier-mâché. My values are all wrong, I’m a crowd-pleaser. It’s probably true.” You’d felt it impossible to better yourself, and yet still, you tried for him. “How did you hurt him?”

“You can’t change a man, only make him more secure. Depending on his character that may then bring happiness or strength or success. Tommy’s failure of this in me was more than he could bear, also.”

The willow becomes your confessional. “I spiked my own drink once just to see what it would be like. A doctor told me afterwards that I have self destructive tendencies. I want to hurt myself, but I don’t want to actually feel the hurt, which makes me all the more addicted to it. A supernumerary on the stage of my own life, too afraid of hurting and hungry for it at the same time.”

The heel of his left hand, you notice, is bearing down on an old acorn burr, and yet he seems not to feel the pain. 

He’s looking at you very intently now. Some glimmering streak in his eye. It almost looks aggressive, and a muscle flutters madly at the edge of his jaw. He straightens, sitting up to face you. The acorn burr is left flattened and disfigured in his wake.

“The last doctor I saw told me I was depressed. I never went back after.”

“Are you?”

He laughs surprisingly full of humor and then instantly serious again. “Probably. I’ve been watching my life, scratching at it trying to get in. I can’t. It’s right there.” The matryoshka shuffles, locked in his melancholy one moment, spilling brightness the next. 

You want to understand him so badly your hands shake with it. 

“What’s your favorite thing about your work?” You ask him. 

Where does his wife think he is right now?

“That’s a nice question. Maybe…” he thinks a moment, “Getting to make things that’ll go in people’s homes. The idea that something that came from me will be surrounded by a family.”

You can’t help yourself. “Why aren’t you at home?” You ask him imploringly, unbearably sad for him, sick with need, desperate to understand what it is he’s doing here, and all at once, utterly certain of what it is you are. “Don’t you love your wife?” The question is posed with no bravery, and yet it still comes out into the world demanding. 

He clicks his tongue, taken aback, a shocked breath, maybe even a small, reproving smile. A hundred different emotions coming to life across his face in that single moment. 

“I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I remember loving her. Maybe. At best? She’s a stranger. At worst? An excuse?” But he says it like a question. He’s asking you, not telling, for he isn’t even sure of it himself. You’ve caught him off guard. 

“No…” the click of his tongue snapping you to attention, “That's too generous. We’re trapped in a box together, but completely strange to one another.” It suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be telling you this—about her. You’re sure he shouldn’t be. 

“Do you hate each other?” You ask anyway. There’s something…your only example of love and marriage being two people who had always hated one another and filled the home where their children lived with more hate. It’s difficult to fathom something different than what that had looked like. 

If you were truly brave, you’d ask if he has children, too. 

“No,” he says immediately, a non option, his brow furrowed. “That would take too much effort.” 

Now you understand. He’s alone anyways. The feeling of urgency within you mounts. You’re frightened by this moment of discovery. 

“You’re Southern. Your accent…” You can’t discuss this anymore, needing to change the subject. 

“Texas.”

“When did you leave?”

“Long time ago.”

“Do you miss it?”

At his, he laughs like the question is ironic. “No. Where are you from?”

“Sometimes it feels like I can’t even remember.”

And as if he’d pulled the feeling straight from your mouth, he tells you that he understands what that’s like, and you can’t help it when you reach for his hand, being as careful with him as you would any shy creature, needing to hold him. 

-

“I’ve never been in love,” you tell him, childish look of recklessness and valor coming across your face as you pick up on the earlier thread of conversation you’d frightened yourself with. “It seems too daring, even grotesque.” 

He thinks he wants to capture that look in a bottle and take it everywhere with him. His entire body throbs with a heartbeat and the shape of your hand fits his as if every joint and muscle and soft ligament had been specifically designed for him to hold, filled suddenly with a terrible sense of foreboding. Looking at you, one just knows there’ll be a broken heart. 

Your small thumb smooths gently over his large one, and he marvels that such an exquisite creature would touch him. God, but you’re beautiful. Your touch, soft and enticing and painful all at once. No one had ever been so gentle with him.

“Won’t you tell me a secret?” You beg.

He will. He might give you anything in this moment. In the weeks he’d been kept away, he’d desperately counted the days and minutes until he could return to that place of worship and honesty. 

“I think about you,” voice hushed, the shaking of the leaves not loud enough to mask the soft breath you suck in as he gives you his confession. He maps the architecture of the small hands in his grasp, fingers tracing fingers, uncured clay fragile before the heat. He feels tired and strangely spent, almost drunk on your touch. His thumb slides upwards, marveling at the softness of your wrist, and then there, beneath the shivering distraction of your pulse and his disturbing search, the unlocked fragrance of your scent gland. It drifts towards him slowly like smoke rising from sleep.  

The air seems to pulse between the two of you with heat and premonition. That singular moment before everything goes terribly wrong, he can see it in your eyes. Such vibrancy, excitement, recklessness turned danger. 

“We should…” you feel him begin to pull away, grappling to hold on to the moment and his hand, “We should fuck.” He takes himself back, letting you go. Where else was this being led?

He cringes away from you. “Excuse me?” 

“Sex. You’ve had it before.” His mind reels. His body’s reaction at hearing your mouth say these things, the way it shapes them, the soft, full lips wrapped around the words.  

Looking away, he watches the pond’s couple help each other out of the swan. In his periphery, he can see you begin to bristle at his silence. 

“Don’t be peevish. It’s unbecoming.” 

He can’t help feeling angry. “I’m not. I’m old enough to be your father.” And you laugh at him. You’re deviating paths now, going opposite ways and angry at one another for it. 

“We could pretend that—if that’s what you want,” you say, voice husky and seductive. A small palm smooths up his thigh and his gaze snaps fire at you, hand clamping painfully at your wrist, fingernails digging at your gland, disturbing more of that gorgeous scent into the air. 

You make a pained sound. He needs to leave. He needs to never see you again.

“Don’t be disgusting,” he shoots back, hot everywhere. 

“Don’t be a prude.” He flings your wrist away, and you cradle it against your chest as if he’d hurt you. The heat turns to guilt pulsing through his limbs. 

Warring to wounded then, your eyes. You wrap your fingers around your discarded wrist. “What if we lose everything? What if tomorrow’s the end of the world? What if we’re so thoroughly cured of our loneliness after all this is done, we never feel like we need another person this way again?” 

His muscles tense with the need to flee or attack, the thought of you needing him, of being needed in such a way—he’s like some creature coming upon its mate. 

Despite his age, he had never tried to truly seduce anyone. He had never truly wanted anyone. Not in any real and base sort of way. Desire for him had been a mute and ordinary thing. But he could have you now, turned into a thing he’d never been before, he could mount you and rut you into the dirt like an animal. Never so much a product of his designation as he feels in this instant. 

He can’t even form word, and your body seems to pulse against his with embarrassed heat and indignation. 

“Have you ever even fucked an omega?” You spit at him meanly. 

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.” Voice carefully restrained, each syllable off his tongue is measured with his tenuous control. 

“Tell me anyways,” you demand, shoving his coat off your shoulders being the thing that almost makes him lose it. 

“It’s cold. Put that back on.”

“Tell me.” And he shouldn’t. You should have no sway over him. No demand of his honesty or anything else that belongs to him.

“Once. Only because I wanted to know what it was like.” He’s man enough to admit to himself the embarrassment he feels telling you this.

But it seems to quell some tremor in your eyes, and you sit back, palm petting at your throat as if you’re trying to soothe yourself. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, gaze averted, glassy, delirious look there. “I’ve always gotten my feelings hurt easily. I’m—” you shake your head quickly, sucking on your lip. “...too sensitive. Sometimes I feel like I’ll float away if I don’t find anyone to hold me down.” 

He should tell you that you’re not, wants to, but the image of you weak and pinned beneath him churns in his mind. Whole body aching suddenly, needing his hands on you before he does something truly heinous—he straightens abruptly, abandoning your reassuring warmth. Feeling suddenly cold despite the sweat dotting his spine. 

Without another word he turns to leave you there, alone, while the swan pair watches from across the pond as the two of you part ways. 

The next morning he awakens stiff and burning, his cock a brand of heat against his stomach. And works his entire day in a static haze, lavender spots at the edge of his vision where all he can think about is how you smell and the way your hand feels in his. By five o’clock, his fingers ache, spasming painfully from gripping his tools too hard. Breaking his weeks-long habit, he decides to attend the Saturday night meeting, full of constrained energy and sullen moodiness. Reasoning that a pretty, young girl like you wouldn’t waste her weekend in the basement of a church abandoned by God. 

And is sick to his stomach with equal measures elation and dread when he spots you sitting amongst the crowd of metal folding chairs—wearing his coat. He doesn’t hesitate even a little when he claims the seat next to yours. 

The two of you sit in strained silence the entire meeting, the other alphas and omegas surrounding throwing alarmed and intrigued glances your way as the tension brews hotter and more frenzied. 

His body hurts. This is a painful kind of lust. 

He listens to the speakers tonight with only half an ear, instead, occupied with the memory of what you’d looked like the other week eating a jelly and cream filled donut, imagining what your mouth would look like smeared with his blood and come. He can smell your body, how hot and trembling nervous you are. So unlike all that blistering, innocent valor from yesterday. 

The omega with the cruel husband turned sick one is taking her turn again tonight. Now that he looks at her, she has hair that at one time was vibrant red, now turned a softened copper threaded through with white. Time is such a painful, slow thing, Joel thinks. 

“Have you ever been with someone you knew you were too good for?” The omega asks the room, while the one beside him begins to shake, knee jolting nervously.

You’re anxious, and it makes him angry that you should be made so by his actions. 

Too rough for forbearance, his palm clamps down tightly on your knee, holding it still, and you make some supplicant whimper at the back of your throat. Almost imperceptibly, you draw away from him, the line of your shoulders growing rigid, and a wild, irrational sense of loss steals his breath. 

He’s been so busy lately, distracted. He’s hungry, overstrained, anxious himself. He doesn’t mean to be brusque with you. He just can’t help himself. 

Would we be here if we had? Someone lost in the crowd pipes back. 

The woman laughs, she has a kind face. “Me either.” You shove his palm off your leg as if it burns. “But there was someone… once. A chance, maybe. Someone I didn’t choose but should have. We were friends. We came very close to being happy.” 

And he suddenly feels a wave of desolation so overwhelming wash over him. He turns to look at you, your vibrating profile, so pretty, and he’s gentle this time when he touches your knee. Just to feel you. How terrible, he thinks, to only come very close to being happy. 

The speaker changes, and then it’s Maria’s voice talking to them all. Joel still can’t look away from you as you, in turn, refuse to look at him. “Stop, Joel,” you whisper. But he can’t. 

“At the start of this, we usually discuss a second option for those of you who aren’t able to find what you’re looking for in this. Sometimes it’s not so simple,” Maria tells them. 

A miracle move on drug, she calls it. 

The group’s coalition is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, one testing a cure for loneliness. Something they think of as pilled perfection, something to numb the pain of loss. Any emotional wound, now with the potential to be a thing of the past. The young omega handing out the pamphlets had promised an easy cure, it seems this is what he’d been referring to. And if the potential side effects included an inability to hold on to any sort of emotional attachment afterward, well, the encounter groups they’d targeted thus far were grateful for it in the end anyway. They were all alone after all. 

“It’ll help you let go of everything you can’t let go of,” Maria tells them. “Help make you forget. Help make you un-lonely. We’ll be holding a session Wednesday morning for anyone who’s interested in being part of the trial. Our sponsor company, Firefly, is very happy to welcome as many of you as possible.” 

Beside him, you whisper, “Only a coward would take that option. What a cheat.” He hesitates, perplexed and wounded by your words. 

“You’ll never have to grieve or miss something you can’t get back, ever again. I know that for many of you, this is the ultimate fantasy,” Maria says.

“I think it sounds like something to help let go. Like what I came here for.”

You exchange cards. Now it’s your turn, the wounded look. 

When Maria’s through, bidding the group goodnight and setting them all free to mingle, you’re up and out of your seat before he can get a word in. He watches you go as if he were some sort of abandoned lapdog, only for a second, before he’s once again, striding after you. 

You weave almost drunkenly through the crowd, first heading towards the exit, then to the beverage station, then correcting and veering towards the back hall where the restrooms and catechism classrooms are. 

Gaining on you, he takes you by the elbow, pushing you deep into the darkness of the long hallway. Going far enough the din of desperate socialization turns a quiet murmur. You’re really in the belly of the beast now. So quiet and dust infused it feels as if it’s been years since a soul stepped through here. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Your face glows with fevered sweat. 

“I’m sick,” you mumble on the tail end of a whine when he shakes your arm into responsive compliance. “Let me go. Stop,” you fight, trying to claw away from him.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I threw up all night. And you have the personality of a snarling dog more than a man. Has anyone ever told you that?” Shoving at his chest now feebly.

Ignoring your caterwauling, he takes you in entirely. “You’re not sick,” he says again, sure now. 

There’s a timeless hunger gnawing at his gut. Joel suddenly feels more himself than he think he’s ever felt in his entire life. 

Dragging you high against his chest by the collar of his own coat, he brings the tip of his nose slowly to the valley of sweet fragrance at the side of your throat. Inhaling deeply at the flushed, swollen scent gland there. The sound of your toes scuffing against the floor excites him even more. 

“You’re not sick. You’re going into heat,” he says slowly; gathering the overwhelmed, shivering creature as gently as he can in his arms. 

Your fingers claw at his own throat in return, as if digging for his own answering scent. “No. But it’s not time. I had one not so long ago.” You sound on the verge of tears, and he makes a deep, soothing sound in his chest. “My blockers...I— I can’t be. It’s not time yet.”

“It’s a breakthrough heat.” His other hand comes around to the small of your back and ever so slowly, he presses your hips closer to his. “It’s mine. Because of me.”

“No.” You shove back with renewed strength suddenly, spinning around to scurry deeper down the dark hall and then careening on weak legs into an abandoned classroom. 

Heart beating madly at the prospect of the hunt, he takes a singular calming breath before he’s prowling after the sound of your crying. 

-

“You need to not run from me right now. It’ll make my rut come faster,” his deep voice comes from somewhere in the dark unknown. 

You scramble around the children’s desks, weaving your way clumsy with disorientation to the far end of the classroom. You don’t want to go into heat right now. You can’t. Not with him. You need to be safe and alone in the confines of your warm, comfortable bedroom, far away from the temptation of him.

His heavy, panting breath sounds closer and there’s a shriek in your throat like a struggling kitten. 

“You want me to lose my self control. That’s what this is, isn’t it?” There’s a loud crash as he shoves one of the little desks out of his way, followed by your answering shriek. And then he’s here, coming up behind you but finding mercy enough to hold himself back at the last moment, panting as if he’d just run miles fighting against himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. Come here, baby. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay.” He takes a step closer, and the slowing of his breath and soothe of his voice calms you in turn. “You’re only going into heat, that’s all, sweet girl. I’ve triggered it for you and I’m sorry. Let me come to you.”

You let out a high and harried sound, palm smoothing over your throat over and over again. “Joel,” you say once.

“I’m here. It’s okay.”

“It’s only that—”

“What is it?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m embarrassed.” A helpless tear spills out over the edge of your eyelid. 

“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about with me. Ever. We understand each other, you and I. Don’t we?”

And he’s right of course. You’d picked his face out of the crowd in instant recognition, after all. “I’ve had heats…but I’ve never—never had a, a heat with someone. With an alpha.” 

He’s utterly silent and you feel deranged enough you’re almost certain you can hear the pound of his heart inside his chest.

“You’ve never had a knot take your cunt?”

“No.” You swallow. “Never.”

You hear a muttered fuck, and his breathing goes quick and shallow and then even again. He has better control over himself than you do at this moment. 

“Then how?”

You flush full of heat, embarrassed. “T—toys,” you stutter. “Medication to help ease it.”

When he steps closer, only calm accompanies him. All is suddenly quiet. You want him. Your disjointed mind, overwhelmed by too many confusing emotions had gone into overdrive for a moment, but now, with the scent of hot, aggravated alpha surrounding you, it’s obvious this was all you’d needed to calm down. 

You can feel his hot breath against your forehead, the wash of heat on each exhale and the lingering scent of sweet musk at his inhale. You touch his cheek with shaking fingers and feel him turn ever so slightly into your palm, and then he’s bending slowly. 

First, it’s a soft, wet nudge of his mouth, your bodies held apart. Then his strong nose bumping into the side of yours, the splendor of inexperience turning to knowing, a nuzzle. Coming in again hungry, with the slick of tongue now, and the deep inhale of shock at first taste. Your breaths rush through one another, and you feel yourself backing away in maybe fear, more likely overwhelm, but his mouth follows your retreat and then his palms are at your waist, tugging you into himself, pressing you tightly to his body with a ragged groan. 

“Your mouth…Your mouth is so beautiful,” he says.

Everything in your lower belly cramps in painful agony, and you scratch at his arms and neck without much strength, trying to climb higher and take more of him into your mouth. Oh, you want this so badly. You want it to be everything you’ve dreamed of so obsessively the past weeks. Nothing else in the world exists except for your two mouths pressed together.

His lips burn a wet path across your cheekbone, sliding to the side of your neck to suckle at your scent gland. “Fuck.” His scraped teeth along the patch of sensitive skin. “Have you had sex before?” The question is gentle, understanding, his tongue tasting your sensitive earlobe, head ducking suddenly to give a sharp bite at your breast. 

“Yes.” His erection is pressed firm at your belly, hot even through his jeans and your sweater. His large body radiates heat. At your back, his palm finds the edge of your top, sliding underneath to make first contact, blistering skin against blistering skin. 

“But not an alpha.” He says it smugly, the bastard. Palm sliding down to your rump, tucking you more tightly against his hard cock. You shake your head at the crook of his neck, fingertips twisting in the back of his hair. Your breath comes in wet little pants that sound too pathetic to bear. 

“It’s going to feel so good,” he promises, rubbing slow circles low on your back with that wide, strong palm. “It’s different. It’s…” That palm slides lower, squeezees the curve of your ass. “It’s ordinary if it isn’t with someone…special. If there’s not the possibility of—” 

You tell him you understand what he’s trying to say. 

“I think it’ll be so good between us,” he finishes. 

At the waist of your skirt, his fingers press between your skin and the stretch of your tights, forcing his large hand into their confines. Your breath skips into his open mouth, panting into one another he cups you between your legs and suddenly all you can focus on is the tight ache there, the nylon soaked obscenely between your thighs. His arm around your back squeezes you tighter to his chest and his fingertips are pushing past lace edge to feel the slick swell of wet cunt. 

“Oh, Joel. Not here,” you moan. “Someone will come in.” He’s circling your clit, so sensitive and so swollen it hurts. You tug him impossibly closer, and he presses you back into the cold stone wall. “We can’t in a church.” Your protestations sound weak even to your own ears as you spread your legs wider for him. 

“I don’t give a fuck.”

He takes your mouth again, sucking deeply, groaning even deeper when he presses inside of you to the first knuckle. “Tight, baby,” he breathes into your neck, his hips slowly grinding into your pelvis. 

He feeds you more, then presses a second finger, holding still for a second, then another. Panting like a rabbit caught in a trap with three of his too thick fingers stuffed in your overstretched cunt. The sound of popping seams moves up your spine. 

“Can feel your little cunt shaking around me. Jesus—” he groans. It’s all mine, whispered into your hair. 

Suddenly, there’s the open and close of a door nearby. And then the sound of someone’s voice calling your names. Joel huddles you further into the dark corner, confined by the protection of his body, his fingers still moving in and out of you, stretching you well enough to burn as he presses as deeply as he can and with the utmost gentleness, pets lightly at the painfully sensitive mouth of your cervix. Humming in satisfaction at the feel of you. 

“Right there?” He hums. 

You’re crying, clutching at him even more tightly. Your name sounds again, being searched for, like a warning. 

“If I fuck you, nobody else ever will.” His voice is so dark it’s menacing. It’s recklessness, verging on a lie. Maybe it’s hope. 

Pressing lightly again, petting, petting, he pulls his fingers back a little, the loud sucking sound of your cunt trying to hold onto him, and you’re coming for him, crying into his neck, sucking on his scent gland so that the taste of him floods your mouth. The sound of a door opening, and you hear him growl at someone to fuck off in a very scary voice, his fingers never ceasing their steady thrust inside of your clenching pussy, and the frightened slam of a door. 

“It’s alright. You’re alright. That’s my good girl,” he pets and soothes at you, pressing a kiss to your temple, your eyelids, your mouth again and again.

Part 3;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Part 1;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange. 

More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.

The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption. 

Joel Miller is here for something more specific.

Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it. 

What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.  

Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge. 

“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one. 

Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart. 

It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy. 

It’s why he’s here. 

And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.

Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness. 

That’s what they promise you when you come here. 

It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state. 

You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. 

“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him. 

He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life. 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.

Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was. 

But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize. 

They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion. 

God is still under review. 

He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them. 

Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off. 

But Joel is distracted. 

The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part. 

Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha. 

He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!

Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day. 

It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long. 

Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all. 

Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be. 

The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance. 

The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well. 

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company. 

The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter. 

That counted very much in Joel’s book. 

An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch. 

Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said. 

It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change. 

“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.

“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.

“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.

“That easy.”

It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible. 

The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body. 

“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”

There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out. 

The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur. 

An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name. 

It’s a girl.

She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such. 

And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all. 

At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks. 

He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.

That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple. 

“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”

“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.

Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before. 

He’s the one to look away this time. 

As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.

He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other. 

Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years. 

Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity. 

That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such. 

I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her. 

So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother. 

As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering. 

The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him. 

Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table. 

Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry. 

Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.” 

The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose, it’s her skin now, too. The now dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.

“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”

He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth. 

That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything? 

She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound. 

“You stink.”

He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.

A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.

He might be losing his mind. 

She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”

Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up. 

“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously. 

He hasn’t the damndest clue. 

She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.

Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name. 

In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process. 

And now he knows you. 

-

“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”

Incredibly handsome. 

“I’m being serious.”

“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea. 

One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!

Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky. 

It’s true, you’re alone. 

So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of. 

You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber. 

Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution. 

“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut. 

“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it. 

Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man. 

Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this. 

Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog. 

You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face. 

“So. You come here often?”

He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now. 

“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”

He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”

“And you like it?”

“Is this the sort of place one likes?”

“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.” 

Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought. 

“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this. 

“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community. 

“Before this.”

“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing. 

“Nothing?”

“Nope. I’ve always been here.”

“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots. 

“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another. 

“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now. 

Such fun. 

“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts. 

He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you. 

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”

“No singing?”

You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”

“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”

“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”

“No working for it.”

Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then. 

“Did you want to sing?”

“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”

“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.

“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him. 

You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat. 

“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”

“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.” 

Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands. 

His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.

“But you know, I wanted to say…”

“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply. 

“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”

You blink once. Sit back. “I see.” 

“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.” 

Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin. 

“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.

“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”

“That’s no way to be.”

“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.

Everyone’s here for a reason. 

“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew. 

“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you. 

There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another. 

His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.

He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones. 

Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like. 

“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.” 

“Something like what?”

“Someone like me.”

“An alpha?”

“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”

You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line. 

Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.

“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”

“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”

“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.

“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy. 

“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.

“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”

“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.

“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”

“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.

All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface. 

Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing. 

All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters. 

“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go. 

Hadn’t he?

But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats. 

“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.

“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.” 

You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.

He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out. 

“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.

“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park. 

“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”

“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow. 

“From where?”

“Downtown.”

“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you. 

“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted. 

And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?

“It’s Joel.” 

You think it sounds right. 

“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”

“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back. 

He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic. 

“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”

His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold. 

“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”

Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”

You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.

“That’s what all young people say.”

Part 2;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

3. Little Freak

You pull your sticky fingers from the damp bed of your underwear, the not enough little orgasm you’d been able to rub out still pulsing hot and cold through your cunt. 

Horrible man—you’ve never wanted anyone or anything as badly as you want him to need you. And no, not a wanting sort of thing, not a wanting sort of desire—that’s not what you’d demand from him. It’s specific, this thing: it’s that you want him to have no choice in the matter, you want him to be forced, to see no other recourse but you because that’s just how necessary you feel to him. 

You want there to be no thought, no compunction in him—only you. 

Even more, because lies are worth nothing here in your own mind in your cold bed—

—You want him to love you. 

The way your father never did. The way no man ever has, not really. 

Face buried in the dark for a moment, you groan softly before sliding belly first off the silk bedding onto your knees, pushing yourself up off the floor unsteadily. You toe your boots off and then step tiptoe on the end of each sock to pull them from your feet. It’d not been a lie—you’re not drunk, limiting yourself to only one tonight, and no liquor, because you knew you needed to be able to focus on the taste of his tongue when you inevitably got your hooks in him, hoping, knowing he’d take your bait and follow, but now, it’s a wholly different sort of buzz zinging through you. 

All him. All man. All Joel.

He’d been flavored of smoked whiskey and mint, a hint of tobacco, and you wish you could’ve been more faithful in your pursuit of enjoying the chewing of the leaves he always has, you’d tried for years but couldn’t bear the texture, the green gnashed between your teeth, earthen and organic. It’s not for you, your tastes veering to something hotter and sweeter. But you’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and every endeavor at a connection, no matter how small, had always seemed like a valiant one. 

Stupid birthdays. Disgusting leaves of mint. Dead fathers and daughters and all the different ways we hurt each other. 

Stumbling coltish and uncoordinated, newly birthed down the staircase, you push your way out the back door. He’ll have gone to bed now, you know they’re going up the mountain early tomorrow morning to check on one of the herds, but you’re desperate for one more second of him, being spit out of the house of your dead parents, hunting for the last hint of his presence riding on the fresh air off the Tetons and all this land that’s all yours now. 

You veer left then right, a zigzagging dance across the green lawn until you’re far enough away from the house it’s like you can pretend to ignore the ghosts you’re readying to exorcize. One knee hits the ground hard and stinging, limbs loose and strengthless, you feel the stab of a little rock against the curve of round bone beneath easily broken skin, catching yourself on a palm, another too hard scrape and then you’re rolling over into the grass, settling on your back to look up at the stars. 

There are so many, an infinite number of lights winking like watchful eyes back at you, and you wonder at the sort of childhood that lends itself to laying in the grass like this beside a parent that loves you and wants you and carves space in their life for a child they'd forced into the world. It should be some sort of crime, you think, immediate execution sort of barbarity, to have a child and not love it the way it demands. 

Back of your hands open at your sides, palms to the watching sky, you close your eyes and imagine what it’d be like to have the hand of a father holding it, one that would want you—not a mother because what is she in reality to you but an imagination figure you can’t even truly conjure up? That much of a stranger is what she is—such an alien thing you can’t even bother to dream her. 

Drawing your knees up, you press your bare heels into the earth and the wet placket of your panties is ice cold and sticking uncomfortably now, breeze against it. You shouldn't be thinking about this shit, but you think you might cry anyway, sucking in too fast breaths, forcing them out in attemptedly slow little puffs through your nose. A wave of sudden grief, then a plateau, the nauseating up and down of it all. You should be thinking about him, about your victory tonight, about making him so angry he can’t help himself, about what’ll come next—his skin. But that’s the thing about him, Joel, isn’t it? Always has been—the incongruous, make-no-sense feelings he’s always pulled out of you since you’d first set eyes on him, fourteen years old and tender and so alone you didn’t even know there was another way to be but abandoned. 

A laugh then—huffing and sardonic and again, incongruous, because now you really are crying. Tears leaking back, hot and fat to pool in your ears and salt the earth beneath you—unloading your grief into the grass as if God were beside you. Nothing will grow here again because of you if you’re not careful, and that’s the next worry—

If he never needs you the way you’re demanding of him, you won’t be able to stay here. 

You won't be able to live here and love him and not have him, and you could force him, perhaps, in your own ways. But you’ve done so much of that your whole life—forcing unloving men to look at you and take you into their arms when they’d never really wanted to give you the thing you’d always wanted most. 

The tender truth: it would be so much better if Joel decided to need you because he wants to, because he can’t fathom another way than just that. 

And you don’t think you’ll ever be able to live with anything else besides such. 

Another forced out laugh again—just to feel the feeling of it, go through the motion, mountain air a roundabout gust in your lungs, then to your left:  “What’re you laughing at, weirdo?”

Ellie, long and loping and beautiful, come to your rescue. She throws herself down onto the ground beside you and doesn’t even have to ask a thing about it when she places her rough hand in your soft one. 

Working girl, mover of mountains, changer of lives. 

Ellie has always known how to know you, and it has always been an incredible comfort. 

The two of you lay there for a few quiet moments. Friendship as an entity has always been a strange thing to you who have never understood love in a non-transactional way. But the thing that Ellie has always given you, it has always been an incredibly straightforward sort of understanding, simple—that of one abandoned child to another, perhaps. 

“Are you drunk?”

“Why’s everyone always fucking asking me that?” Said with another laugh but of the real sort this time, despite the bite in your voice. 

“You’re a hazard. What can I say?”

Undeniable. “Oh, shut up.” You dig your nails into the back of her hand, trying to scratch her but probably ruining your manicure instead, she squeezes your knuckles in sideways, hurting you way more than you could manage her. A yelp, and you say, “You know what I’m excited for?”  

“What’s that?”

“Skijoring.”

“Fuck no, dude. I almost died last time.”

You snicker, “Yeah, that was the fun part for me.”

Elbow to the ribs, and, “Asshole,” she laughs. And then you’re quiet again together, still gripped by the hands, and it’s the sort of comfortable only two girls who’ve been together since they were truly girls can be. 

“You see Cassiopeia?” She points her finger way north. 

“Do you think I should stay?” You see it, and easily, and you know if you were somewhere not here, it wouldn’t be so simply found. Maybe that’s a good thing.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Because of Joel.” It isn’t a question. You’ve never said it with words to her, but she’s always known. 

You hum instead of answering, can’t say it out loud anyway just yet. “So you finally asked her.” Dina, she knows what you mean.

And Ellie hums now in turn too. The both of you are so fucked up. Can’t say a thing out loud. 

“And?” 

“It’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Good.”

“Just good?”

Ellie groans loud and long, baying goat, and you tell her so, which gets another knock to the ribs. “Turn around and don’t look at me so I can tell you.”

You roll over towards the mountains and feel her face the house where she doesn’t see ghosts like you do. 

“But you’re not allowed to say anything—just say okay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think—well, you know…,” she gruffs, voice dipping low and dropping off before she can say the words out loud again also. Everything’s a secret code here, even the stuff that shouldn’t be.

“You think?”

“You’re such a fucker. I know.”

You hum again but the good and happy sort, pressing your lips together to keep the misty eyed smile at bay. “Okay,” you say back just as low and just as gruff. 

“S’why I think you should stay,” she adds. “If I can find happy here, so can you.”

“I’ve never been able to before.”

“But you’re different now.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah—can see it, you know. And this place is different now too—will be different.” 

“I was afraid to come back for such a long time. It seemed like the worst thing in the world.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, before she says: “You’re not supposed to be afraid of your father.” A very obvious thing—or at least it should be. 

You feel her turn to look at the back of your neck, and you peer over your shoulder at her and when your eyes meet, she looks so sad, like she’s so sorry for you but without the pity, and you do understand what it is she’s saying despite never having had that fearless experience. 

“Aren’t you?” A shrug of your shoulder and a helpless laugh but also maybe with real humor accompanying it. Because yes, you’re not supposed to be. You always were anyway. It’s funny in an impossible to understand way. 

A beat and then, “Can I say something fucked up?”

“Yeah.”

“He isn’t here for you to be afraid of anymore.”

Funniest of all, you’re the most sad about this. And what you don’t say to her, perhaps for shame or that child’s feeling of having done something wrong but not necessarily understanding what that wrong is—sometimes it’s inevitable, missing the monster. 

“Maybe you needed him to die.” Yeah, fucked up. You’d already thought the same thing and were chock full of guilt for it. “Maybe it was like—like I don’t know. It was never going to be the way it should have between you, but now you can remember him, fuck, I don’t know—different. Not that you wanted him to die, but now the reality of him isn’t here for you to see, so you can just remember it all however you like or not.”

“So I should lie to myself?”

“Why not? There are worse things you could do. There are worse things you do do.”

You snort. “Is this what your method is?”

“Yeah. Like—like sometimes, when I’m so happy I can’t believe it’s me feeling it because she makes me that happy, Dina,” she says her name with love, “I pretend nothing from before was ever the way it was, and it’s only here and now and me and Dina and the ranch and there was no shitty, abandoning father and no dead mom and no nothing and only Joel is my dad and it’s all always been okay.”

Joel. 

At the center of everyone’s happy dream, why is it always him? 

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’ll try it.” She reaches behind her back then, pawing at your hip until you give her your hand again, and you were wrong. She’s changed too. She can say things now. She’s always had those too perceptive eyes and that too big heart, and she’s changed now in a way that makes her not afraid to let it out and use these things anymore. 

You tell this changed Ellie now: “You know that like— that like… I don’t know how to say it. When a person’s life seems like it should be perfect, and you have everything. Everything should be good, right—but it’s just not. Your parents should be kind, they should be loving. They should be attentive and give a shit what happens to you, and it probably seems that way to the whole rest of the world except for the people that have to witness the humiliation behind closed doors, but it’s really just not, and then they probably look at me and wonder how my life could be anything but rose colored, and it all just seems a little silly and empty. Doesn’t it?”

“Nah—don’t know. My life was always shit before I came here and found Joel and Dina and all of them and you. And I'd seen enough to recognize what you were and how it was. Nothing ever looked rose colored to me—just looked like more shit.” You laugh again out loud now and for real, squeezing more tears out over your hot cheeks when she joins you in the sad hilarity as well. 

When her voice is finally steady from the belly laughs again, she says, “It’s a grief pyramid, we’re all just going around hurting each other in the name of our ghosts and call it an excuse, an offering to their memory and act like it’s okay. But it’s fucked up. That’s why I decided to stop. I stopped pushing her away, I told her—well, you know. I told her.”

“Say it, loser.” You bump your butt into hers. 

“Not to you—leave me alone.”

Say it, say it, say it, you sing. 

“I love her, fuck off.” And a little clog of emotion sticks wetly in your throat.

That’s the real question, honestly: How do you make someone love you? How do you make yourself into someone people can love?

“It’s a grief pyramid,” she repeats. “You have to choose to stop adding to it.” And she’s quiet again for a long time, and you can’t fathom how it is one stops building onto something they’d been born into. You think on it so long the feel of her palm clutching yours starts losing itself to sleep in the grass and the breeze comes off the mountains like a blanket over the two girls who’d become women before them until she says again, “Anyway, that’s usually the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid.”

-

“Joel?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’.”

“Nope. You’re definitely doing something.” He angles the phone away from her prying eyes, trying to shield his shame with the palm of his hand. 

“Mind your own damn business, kid.”

“Is that an Instagram account?” Ellie howls like a banshee, Tommy coming up behind him to reach over his shoulder to try and rip the phone out of his hand. He holds it out of his reach. 

It’s just that he couldn’t help himself. He’d heard the boys all talking about it on the ride back down after their long day of work—your Instagram page—as if he knew what the fuck that was. He’d had to search it up on the internet when he’d gotten a moment alone in the bunk, cracking open a beer, muscles exhausted from the hard ride and having to haul a heifer out of a bramble she’d gotten herself caught in, he’d realized it was a thing young people put photographs and such on, a social media thing. But when he’d gone to search your name, it’d told him he’d needed to make an account of his own. Growling in frustration, he’d slowly made his way through the process, too big fingers punching at the too tiny keys of the stupid phone you’d forced on him. 

“Can you shut up and just show me how to work this thing. And stop your goddamn howling—Dina’s gonna think she’s dating a hyena not a girl.” She slides into the seat next to him, taking the phone from his grip to finish setting up the account and type in your name, a deck of pictures loading up for him to hunt through like a vandal. Photographs of you in all sorts of different places, draped in fine clothes and jewels and your fucking perfect ass right there for everyone to see. 

Oh my God.

“How many people can see this shit?” He asks Ellie, angling the phone back towards her. 

“You’re so nosey, man,” she chastises. “Thirty-seven thousand followers.” And a long, impressed whistle from Tommy who he’s going to punch in the face after he’s done with this. 

He swallows hard. “What’s that mean?”

“That thirty-seven thousand people are following her and looking at her pictures, Joel,” his brother says. “Man, how fuckin’ old are you?”

“Yeah, you’re not that old, Joel. Come on.”

“Go away now. I’m busy,” he tells the both of them, going back to doom scrolling through your pictures. One’s of you in barely any clothes at all, an itty bitty orange bikini, hands on your ass and sand where his tongue should be.

Joel feels insane again. 

“Pervert.”

“Joel… I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think there’s steam comin’ out of your ears, man.”

“Fuck off.”

Blessedly, they leave him to suffer in peace after a while, and thank Christ for that because eventually, the ex-boyfriend shows up in the scroll of pictures too. There for everyone to see in posts dated several weeks back—even one of the two of you kissing, you on his lap, fuck that. Good looking, shiny-boy sort. Joel’s left eye twitches at the sight of the sort of man he has never been, could never be for you, someone of your caliber. 

The memory of your cunt grinding against him last night flashes through his mind and his cock throbs once and hungry. He stretches his long legs out in front of him, adjusting in the suddenly too tight seat of his jeans. 

A clusterfuck is what it is—this sudden melding of the memory of the girl-child you used to be, the one that up until only recently lived in his mind, good and golden, and the woman you are now. With both figures meeting together with all the characteristics he’d always admired in you, your kind heart, your honesty, your generosity. You’ve turned out to be an exceptional woman, and it’s difficult to let the distant perception from before meet the lust he feels for you now and grapple with it without feeling sick to his stomach about it all.

It’s all an inevitability though, anyway. He knows this just from the rewind memory play of last night, the taste of your mouth and the little sounds you'd made for him, because of him, the way your hips had rolled over his lap desperately seeking. 

You’re ending up on his cock one way or another—inevitable. 

He’s never claimed to be a good and honorable man—never played the part of one either. He’s not about to start now. 

Clicking on the picture of your sun bronzed ass in the tiny bikini again, he imagines himself biting and eating it, shifting his legs restlessly, taking another long pull of his beer. Tapping twice on the image, he tries to zoom in to the apex of your thighs—he’s going to hell, he’s so fucked up, doesn’t matter—when a little heart appears in the center of the image. He clicks it again and the heart appears once more, refusing to zoom into what he wants to see up close. Fucking piece of shit phone and fucking Instagram—frustrated and hard and pissed off at the fact he’s yet to see you all day, he locks the phone, slamming it face down on the kitchen table, and downs the rest of the can. 

If he doesn’t get a hold of himself soon he’s going to burst, gut all twisted up into a hot knot of coal. Sick with jealousy and anger and lust, aggressive, the taste of your sweetness ringing in his ears and the sound of your moans on his tongue—his head is not on straight and he better get it fixed quick or all this pent up frustration is going to come out with teeth to take a chunk of flesh out of you. 

Groaning loudly, he lets his head fall back, thumbs digging into the sockets of his eyes until he sees stars and not the sight of your slick swollen mouth made that way by himself. He wonders if you slept well last night, if you thought of him, if you’d made yourself come the way he’d ran home to the little foreman’s cabin Kelly had given him years ago, to do himself. Jumping in the shower to jack his leaking cock to the image of what it would’ve been like if he’d been brave enough to pull that flimsy little tease of a thong to the side, let his cock out and force it inside of you, make you take it until you were crying and coming so hard you’d never think to even look at another man again, much less kiss him. 

He should’ve hit that fucker harder. He should’ve kissed you longer. 

He needs to force you to take all of those goddamn half naked pictures down. No one should get to look at you like that except for him, and he doesn’t give a fuck how insane he sounds. 

Outside, he can hear the cowboys hooting and hollering at something, egging each other on louder and louder, the scuffle of them shoving each other and horsing around. He sighs once and long, too tired to deal with their shit right now. All he needs is an evening of peace to get his head on straight and relax and will his boner down for a few hours. He’s acting like a goddamn randy teenager, walking around hard and aching half the day. 

Heaving himself out of the chair, back hurts, he grabs another beer before he’s pushing the bunk door open to the sight of half the team huddled together and peering around the corner of the bunk towards the house. 

“The hell’s got y’all clucking like a bunch of hens?” He asks, coming around them to stop dead in his tracks when he lays eyes on what it is that’s got them all worked up. 

That same ass he’d just been trying to zoom in on, right there in the flesh for the whole ranch to ogle at. Stretched out on one of the sun loungers from the deck, dragged out into the center of the lawn with a little table set up next to you. You’d even gotten someone to scrounge up a huge umbrella, a misting fan spinning lazily, spitting a damp sheen of water every few minutes, a drink and a speaker playing some girly song, whole goddamn set up for all of these fuckers to stand here and take an eyeful of your perfect ass. 

Joel tries to take deep breaths, counting back from ten in his head—fails. He’s going to be calm and cool and collected—not. He isn’t going to lose his temper—sure. 

Fuck that. 

He’s going to spank your ass so hard you can’t sit for a week.

“If you all don’t find something to do in the next thirty seconds,” he growls at them all through clenched teeth, “I swear I’ll have you slingin’ shit for a month.” The can in his grip pops loudly between his fingers. 

They all take one peek at the look on his face and scatter like chicken shit until it’s only Ellie left smirking beside him.

“Take this,” he shoves the can at her and starts towards you. 

“Bro—” He ignores her. Hey! She calls after him, voice demanding now, stopping him in his tracks before he can go get exactly what he’s been denying himself from the moment you kissed him two nights ago. 

Giving him that look she gets when she needs to remind him she knows exactly who he is and that he can’t ever hide it from her, she chews on her cheek for a second before she says, and he doesn’t mistake it, it’s a warning: “She’s a real peach. You know that. Pretty and soft and sweet, but easily hurt. Needs gentle handling, even when she wants to pretend otherwise.”

It pisses him off. Bad. “You think I don’t fuckin’ know that? I understand her—” thumb to chest. Because he did—does. Because he thinks that he really always has. It’s undeniable that he has what you have, what Ellie has. Even what Oswald Kelly himself had had and what he’d seen in Joel when he’d decided to save the life of a no good man in a no good spot with a no good future in front of him—that sadness, that lost doggedness about you all that makes you so like one another, even despite your immeasurable differences.  

The two of them look at each other for another long moment, and Ellie knows, Ellie always understands. With a roll of her eyes she spins on her heel, muttering to herself, slugging back Joel’s discarded beer.

Slowly, he rounds back towards you, afraid as if he were looking down the barrel of a gun, just as dramatic, as well. Objectively, he knows you’re doing this on purpose, to piss him off and rile him up and get a blow out reaction out of him. He tries to remind himself of it as he marches towards you, and if he were smarter or less inclined to take your bait, he’d take a beat to finish that count to ten reversal in his head and calm the fuck down before he gets to you—but honestly, he just doesn’t feel like it. 

All he sees instead is the baby pink barely there string bikini you’ve got on, the slope of your back gleaming in the sun, slicked in something shiny, the damp from the mister, the lush curve of your ass and the shine of your hair resting face down on your folded arms. 

You’re all sunkissed everywhere, and he’d really rather just give you what you want already. 

“Get up,” he growls down at you. 

One eye winks open, peering up at him before you press up on your elbows to take in the sight of him scowling down at you, and he can’t help it when his eyes flit down to the sight of your breasts cupped precariously in the tiny bikini, skin all sun flushed red against the soft baby pink fabric. You look like you’re made of sugar and sweet fruit and like you’ve come here specifically to ruin him and his whole life and all his self control. 

Hmm? You smile up at him wide and teasing. Oh, he’s feeding right into your shit, and you piss him off so badly. 

He’s never been this hard in his entire life, he’s even made dizzy with it. 

The little wisps of hair at your temples are sweat soaked and curling, looking silky soft. A thousand little details about you and your body—the white of your smile and the flushed heat of your cheeks, sun burnished bridge of your nose starting to freckle—that he can’t help but notice. 

Get. Up, he grits through clenched teeth. No one in the whole world deserves to see you like this, looking so beautiful, especially not him. Shading your eyes with the palm of your hand, you scrunch your nose up at him, and he’s got half a mind to bark at you to not do that when he’s around or he’s really gonna lose it. Your smile beams brighter. 

“What’s wrong, Joel? Havin’ a rough day?”

“I swear to Christ, if you don’t get your ass up and in the house right this minute, I’m going to put you over my knee right here in front of your whole ranch to witness, little girl.”

You smile up at him again and a muscle at the corner of his jaw flutters madly, he’s about to crack a fucking molar. “Hmm, I don’t think so.” And you flop back down again so that the soft of your ass jiggles slightly, arching your back just a little so that he’s growling once, right before he’s gripping you by the elbow and pulling you upwards against his chest and dragging you all bare and slippery limbed to your feet. You smell like coconuts and sweet sweat and saliva pools heavy beneath his tongue. 

“If you wanna act like a brat, I’m gonna treat you like one. You get me?” He yanks you towards the house screeching like a banshee, let go of me, you fucking psycho, you howl. A too little fist swings towards his face, and he catches it in his palm, squeezing tight and feeling your thumb tucked inside your fist. 

“Stop that—you’re gonna hurt yourself.” More squawking and howling, skinny wrist slipping from his grip to take another swing at him. “Don’t even know how to throw a goddamn punch—Jesus fucking Christ. Don’t tuck your thumb.” He hauls you up higher against himself, getting a better grip around your waist so he can carry you bodily up the steps of the deck. 

You jam your heels into his shins, and he huffs and puffs, trying to keep his hold on you. I’m gonna kick your ass, you screech again, scratching and pinching at his forearms. 

Joel is too old and too goodman tired for this. 

“No, you’re not. And if you think I’m gonna let the whole goddamn ranch and all the boys stare at your bare ass all day, you’ve got another thing comin’ for you.”

“Well, I’ve gotta show it to someone, don’t I?” You sass back, trying to elbow him in the throat while you’re at it. Blood boiling, catching you by the small joint, he pulls your arm bent behind your back, other forearm banding against your stomach so that his hand is splayed at your hip, feeling the satin soft skin, slippery in your suncream. 

And sure, he might be too old or too tired for this, but his cock is still hard as anything at the feel of you all against him like this. 

Pushing the door open with his hip, he shoves you inside. The late afternoon sun paints the cool interior in shades of gold and beaming white; everything is beautiful and pristine as always, and yet tinged with the red of his temper and lust. His temples beat in tune with his too fast, pumping heart. 

“Where’s Dina?” He’s still got you caught in his grip. He does not plan to let go. 

“Let me go, you mother ffff—” He gives you one hard shake, hearing your teeth click and rattle. Little doll caught in his grip. He can do anything to you—and you won’t be able to stop him. 

“Where is she?” He asks again, and something in his voice must snap you alert because you settle for a brief second, a little shiver skipping down the length of your spine that he follows to your full ass. He tugs you back, barely moving and slow, just that little bit further into himself so that the lush curve presses against the hard length of his cock—and there it is, the little knowing gasp, finally understanding what it is you’ve gotten yourself into.

-

“She—” Your belly is suddenly so hot and tight, heartbeat starting up behind your navel. Suddenly knowing what it is this is about to be, and yet now finally confronted with the reality of it for the first time, you can’t even begin to imagine what it’ll be like. “She—I don’t know. She went into town, I— I think,” you stutter, brain short-circuiting, desperate to feel that hardness again. “Waiting for Ellie—they’ve got plans there tonight.” His entire hand is wrapped around your forearm pressed against the small of your back, long, thick fingers overlapping against each other, and you roll up on your tiptoes, trying to arch your back further into him. 

He grunts once, exasperated, and then shoves you forward again, rough enough you’re stumbling over your own two feet, full on aggressive panting bull at your back. 

That’s good, he says so low you barely catch it before he’s pushing you up against the wall by the front door, cheek smushed against the silk printed wallpaper. 

Your mother decorated this room years ago, melding the masculine taste of your father and her love for European decor. The walls, wrapped in hand painted English wallpaper on the top half, and paneled at the bottom with a mahogany so fine it gleams an amber golden glow when the afternoon sun shines in through the windows just so. 

Everything beautiful; still, even after all this time. 

He holds you there for a long moment, his breathing quick and shallow, bellows of hot air at the nape of your neck, disturbing the escaped hair from your claw clip curling there. 

“Joel?” You ask once, voice wavering just a little bit because he suddenly feels so large and imposing behind you that something like trepidation beats behind the soft of your kneecaps. You know he worked all day, and his big body is a steaming blaze of heat, waves rolling off of him to burn the naked length of your back and limbs. 

He pulls your arm trapped between his forearm and your stomach to the small of your back to join the other, holding you there in a lock pinned against the wall, reaching up slowly to let your hair down, long and swinging. You listen to the clatter of your clip against the hardwood floor, and then he’s circling the side of your neck, the tiny beating pulse held in the cup of his palm so that it feels as if it’s reverberating back into your head, a staccato rhythm, and echoing all through your body. A chiming bell, ringing and ringing and ringing, telling you that it’s time now. His hand smooths down the slope of your throat to your shoulder, and you listen to the rumbling half humming moan he lets out at the feel of your sweat sticky skin, then down the flat wing of your scapula, thumb nail scraping against the edge of your jutting bone for the way he’s got your arms trapped behind you. 

You let out a high pitched whine, almost a scream, another puff of sound in the assimilation of his name, pleading now, rolling up onto your tiptoes again to push your ass back against the hard of his cock. Everything is so, so sensitive. 

Quit, he snaps once and mean. Ordering. In a tone that says he’s in charge, and finally. 

It’s such a relief. 

You whine again, higher, needier, like you’ve never felt before, and there’s a nauseating thrum of electrified butterflies in your tummy, sticky sweet and cloying for attention. Joel, please, again and the wings beat faster. You’re sure he’ll enjoy the sound of your begging, it’s just something you know. Tiptoes straining higher so that the soles of your feet ache, he smooths that work roughened palm down the slope of your spine, thumb against your vertebrae, feeling the round little notches of bone beneath sensitive skin until he’s reached the twin dimples at the low of your back right above your ass, and presses there and hard—mean—so it hurts. Keening loudly, you crush your cheek harder, harder against your mother’s wallpaper until the bone aches, until there’ll surely be an indent of your shape left in the wall, and his thumb digs even harder anyway, gripping you tight enough to bruise. 

This is how it’ll be—surprising, but also not. In all your years of imagining, you still don’t know what it is you expected.

“You’re carved so fine,” whispered against your skin and gooseflesh spreads like wildfire, nipples going tight and aching. His nose skims the slope of your nape, smelling you. “S’like you’re made of sugar. Is that what you’ll taste like too?” And his words are slurred, drunk-like and you feel the same way also, legs on the verge of giving out.

You press your hips back again, desperate for any sort of pressure, and he jostles you once, hard enough you bite your tongue. Quit moving, he snaps, shoving his knee between your legs and spreading you wide and immobile, thigh hooked over his own so that the toes of that leg barely skim the ground and now you’re precariously balanced on one foot, held up and pinned entirely by him. 

 Caughtcha, he murmurs.

You couldn’t move even if you wanted to. 

The palm at the low of your back splays wide, his long fingers reaching from side to side and pressing hard against your skin and then all of a sudden he’s gone, and only for a second, before he’s back and slapping you hard and painfully stinging on the ass. A downward swipe of his thick fingers so that it really fucking hurts, and then the palm is back at the small of your waist, hooked thigh over his leg, unable to move, unable to do anything except take it. 

He presses your belly into the wall, and the pressure is so intense and so deep—his breathing is so rough behind you. You know he worked the mountain all day, he should be exhausted, but the strength he’s trapping you with belies the possibility. 

His hand goes away from your back again, and he’s spanking you once more, and you can’t tell if it’s harder or not this time, if it hurts worse than the previous, but the fire pain of it snaps all the way down from your thigh to your calve, pooling there in a knot of painful ache. An animal baying noise warbles in your throat, he tuts once, a cooing click of his tongue and cups your ass right at the rose of pain he’s left, kneading the skin gently, palpating the hurt like he’s looking for the physical imprint of it beneath your skin. 

“Yeah, baby? Like that?” You sing the little animal song for him again. “S’what you needed, right?” His voice now is not the Joel-voice you’ve always known, but it is the one you’ve always dreamed of. The kneading fingers slide whisper soft down the back of your thigh, up again, down again, callused skin scraping. On the up again, his thumb catches at the edge of your bathing suit wedged between the cleft of your ass.

And lest he thinks he’s bested you, you say, “Yes, that’s what I needed,” and he laughs a rough laugh that makes him sound like he’s been gutted. 

He squeezes the thick of your ass between his thumb and forefinger, an almost pinch and then smoothes his thumb beneath the pink edge along the curve, precariously close to danger. The sound of his name loses meaning, you’re praying it in a litany almost, over and over, begging. Hush now, he gentles, more in a sort of voice you recognize while your heart beats so hard against the wall it must surely sound like someone’s knocking on the front door for entry, like it must surely send echoes all through the ghost-house. 

His smoothing thumb continues its journey until it’s between your thighs, pulling the wet lycra wide away from your skin so that he can tuck the rest of his fingers flat against your cunt, and now he’s there. 

One of you says the word fuck another lets out a whimpering sort of noise—you’re not sure which is who, it’s all only a cunt-throbbing need you know he’s feeling leak and pulse against his hand. 

“You’re so wet for me,” he murmurs all reverence like. Joel—touching your cunt and sounding like he can’t believe it. His hand slides back along the curve of your sex, and you really are so wet the sound of it is slick and lewd, his fingertips at your entrance, a gentle probing and then forward again, a circling not touch around your clit, like he’s learning for himself this new little place that belongs to him now. Your mouth falls open on a spit-full moan, your eyes closed because you don’t even have strength now to keep them open and watchful. You’re so wet for me, he says again and again like he can’t believe it all either. 

He drags his finger flats against you once more and then another time and then taps twice with all four of them, two little almost slaps to your clit that make a sticky wet splashing sound. Good girl, and you don’t know which part of you he’s talking to. You’re practically leaking onto the floor, trying to widen your hips, arch your ass back further and present your cunt to him for fucking. And then his fingers side to side in a swiping motion and fast. 

Oh God. Oh God. Inside, inside, you need him inside. He needs to go inside. 

“Please, pleeease, Joel. Oh, please.” Delirious.

“Please?” His fingers move fast and your vision goes entirely away. “Please what? Please what? You, please.” He switches front and backwards again, and then two fingers draw a little ghost circle at your entrance. You, please, he says again. His hand flips over, palm facing downwards, and he starts to slowly, slowly press a single tip of one inside. “Please behave. Please don’t— don’t—fuck— please gimme a second to breathe, to think, to catch up. God, fucking tight little cunt. I’ll never fit in here, baby.” 

Your vision whites, then blacks, then goes blinding bright and colorless—zero frequency. Up to the first knuckle, and he wiggles the tip inside, making you cry and squirm, pulls out and then two fingers are pressing inside and downwards. “We’re gonna have to take it so slow in this little cunt.” Shit—shit.

“Oh my God, yes.” 

Your hips shiver and shake as he penetrates you, his forehead tucked against your shoulder so he can look down at what he’s doing, and drool slides along your mother’s wallpaper from the corner of your mouth as he pushes his fingers in and out of you so slowly, the slick slide, the pressure against your front wall so heavy, and spread so wide like this but held so immobile—it all makes you feel like you’ll wet yourself with such little control over your body. A few slides in and out again, “Good girl, just a little more,” before he’s wedging a third into the mix, trying to put it inside of you as well. A little more? The stretch is too much, burning, and you wail and cry, arching again but this time to get away instead of steal more. 

“Okay, okay. It’s alright,” he soothes. Hush. “It’s okay.” He pulls his fingers entirely out and covers the slick mess of your mound with his entire palm possessively. Rubbing soothingly at your wet, his fingers slide over the satiny smooth skin of your lips. 

“You’re all bare,” he whispers, shocked.

You swallow hard once, shoulders and neck starting to ache. “I— I got lasered.”

“Lasers?” Voice confused. 

“Yeah.” You swallow again, can’t catch your breath. “Yes.”

“Gotta see.”

He pulls you from the wall, shuffling you like gambling cards in his hands, that’s what this is, a gamble, so that you’re facing him as he walks you backwards, bikini bottoms askew and cunt bare to your parents living room; your dead father’s best man about to fuck it raw. 

Pressing up on your tiptoes at the same time that you’re tugging him low by the collar and the slightly too long hair that curls over it to press an open mouthed kiss to his lips with eyes kept open. You need to see his face, his reaction, that even though he’s all rough, he’s still Joel and he’ll still take care of you now. 

One strong forearm bands around your back, pressing you up high and close to his chest, fingers tangling in the bikini string at your back so that it pulls tight and bites into your skin, the other reaching around the back of your thighs to take a squeezing handful of you ass as he lifts you clean off the ground, lumbering slowly towards the couch while the two of you stare at each other with something that smells suspiciously of wonder. 

On the high ground now, you stare down at him, held as you are and kiss him again, for real this time, with tongue, an eating of his mouth. Trying to taste him as deep as you can go, digging your manicured fingernails into the rough whiskered planes of his cheeks until he grunts roughly.

Showing him that you can hurt him too. 

His knees hit the edge of the couch, one palm going to the back to hold himself steady as he sets you down, following your path to fold over you nose to nose. Watching each other for a blink, predator, predator, lashes tangling and then his mouth is sliding wetly over your burning cheekbone, drawn out groan like dying. Down to the hinge of your jaw where he sucks sharp once and his tongue flutters down the column of your throat, tasting your pulse, his palms everywhere at the same time too. Over your shoulders and down your goosefleshed arms, cinching at the nip of your waist to slide around your hips and to your ass, pulling you forward and open when he goes to his knees on the floor at the edge of the sofa between your spread thighs, with you draped diagonally across the cool leather that sticks to your sweaty, coconut flavored skin. 

One palm slides down your chest, dragging over your breast, the other catching at your nipple with this thumb, nail scraping and pulling the wet fabric along with him, baring you to the first glance of his eyes. A sound that’s a little like a whimper precedes his latching mouth, sucking hard and with teeth so you’re arching and crying and when your head rolls to the side, eyes bleary and barely seeing, he’s got your small breast in his mouth, jaw hinged wide and hungry. His teeth scrape, one wide palm sliding over your thigh to the back, pushing your knee up high and open to your shoulder, lips skim over your belly, smell so fucking good, sharp edge over your hip bone and the lave of his tongue, taste so fucking good.

“I’m gonna eat your cunt.” Bikini askew, one little tit bared to the cold AC, nipples hard enough to hurt, he pinches it once and mean and stretches the soaking wet center gusset of your bottoms wider.

He looks and looks and grins and everything inside of you pulses. 

Boyish smirk and a cocky glance up at you, oh, pretty, “Perfect little princess pussy, huh? I see now.” He sticks his thumb into his mouth, pulls it out with a pop to rub it spit slick against your clit. Yeah, yeah, like that, and you can’t help the whining cry. 

Pushing your other thigh up high, the grin turns to something a little more menacing before he bends to your cunt, whole mouth covering you there like he’d swallowed your breast. His thumbs dig painfully into the backs of your thighs like they’d dug in your back, leaving little spots of hurt all over your body is what he’s doing, spreading you wide open.  

Every touch is possessive, full of ownership. 

“What are you doing to me?” He groans as he eats your cunt, doing exactly as he said he would, flat of his tongue licking all over you, dipping inside. Purse of his lips then and he’s sucking hard and pulsing in quick successions, and there’s your first one—little gush of slick and your belly so tight it hurts, you need something inside of you so bad—your first orgasm forced from you and onto his tongue, swallowed down into his stomach. He groans like an animal—doubles his efforts, tongue spearing inside, pulling away to press two fingers in—fuck, fuck, and you grab hold of your own thigh to keep yourself open for him, knees trembling beside your ribs. 

The hand not inside slides across you, smearing slick over your belly, it’s everywhere, and presses down as he crooks those two fingers forward. His hair’s all fucked up, eyes glazed a maniacle shade of hazel that makes him more intimidating than you’ve ever seen him and also hotter than you could’ve ever dreamed, that boy’s smile again. 

His mustache is soaked in you. “Little pussy’s so small ‘nd wet, baby.” He wiggles his fingers, pets against the blindingly sensitive place inside of you. “Feel that?” Fingers twisting—almost too much, the stretch burns already and just like this. 

“Please, put it in,” you beg stupidly, a tear leaks and then another, not at all smart of self preserving. 

He clicks his tongue, and you can’t tell if it’s soothing or condescending or both, your eyes screwing shut at what he’s doing to you, trying to paw at his shoulders and pull him towards you at the same time. “Can’t—cunt’s too little.”

No, no— His palm at your belly presses down, fingers petting forward, again, again, head bent once more to suck on your clit, licking it roughly if a tongue can be rough because it’s heavy and strong and intentional—I can take it. There’s your next one, obeying the come here order of his fingers. Mid-come and he’s forcing that painful third one from before inside, and now it’s split open and sloshing wetly—your cunt—hiccupping into another left over shaky orgasm, fucking hurts a little bit. More tears and his soft chuckle—you’re really in it now. 

When he slurps at your leaking again, fingers leaving you to gape empty and wanting, your hips shiver, trying to shake him away and rock against him at the same time. He says something you can’t make out, can’t even open your eyes, you just need a second, you swear, and then the clink of his belt, the shuffle of clothes, and he’s pulled his shirt over his head—you’ve enough mind left to open your eyes for this. 

He’s so strong, built for fucking and working and heaving. You knew this already, you hadn’t needed to see him without clothes to know. 

And all yours now, too. 

Your fingertips paw greedy at his chest, muscular, the thickly corded arms and shoulders. One hand wraps around the slim of your ankle, manacling you while he undoes his fly, your heart skips with the split of the zipper’s teeth and pulls his cock out, letting it fall heavy on your stomach—a threatening, aggressive thing. It drags against your cunt, so big it doesn’t stand up straight and jutting like the others you’ve been used to, but bobs low and hanging.

Reaching forward you flit the tips of your fingers over the wide head—barely there butterfly touch—and your hand looks comically small next to the thing as you pet at the dark head swelling out of the thick skin around it, soft and burning hot—he growls like a wolf at your touch.

 “I’ve never— I’ve never… with one like…”

He pulls your hand forward, wrapping it tightly around the thick length with his fist over yours. “Nah, baby. You’ve never had one like this. It’s alright—I’ll show you how to take it.” 

You’ve half a mind to roll your eyes at him, but he distracts you with the soft touch at the split indentation in your knee from your romp in the grass last night. “What happened here, little thing?” His words and his touch are so soft, eyes warm and caring, as if he weren’t threatening at all, as if that thing that’s about to split you in half and make you cry hasn’t started to slick itself back and forth between your legs, parting the lips of your cunt, sticky sound on every pass with his fist wrapped around himself—too many things happening to you all at once by his hand. 

“A rock hiding in the grass last night.” You start to roll your hips minutely against him, presenting your similarly torn palm for his appraisal, no, no, my poor baby, he kisses the little hurt while the fat head swipes over your clit, pressing against your hole—a little gasp and you circle his wrist at your knee, anchoring yourself. 

He frowns. “Last night when?”

“After you left me.” Pouting back. 

Cooing once and low, “You shouldn’t go out alone at night, anything could happen,” pressing again at the mouth of your cunt. Fuck, now— 

“Wasn’t alone—”

The head notches and stays, “Without me then— Deep breath now, baby.” He grunts on the first push inside, and your back arches tight as a bowstring, hand splaying wide at the center of his belly and his long fingers wrap around your breast tight, holding you in place, deep breath, he says again. 

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God.”

He pitches his hips forward once, just a little, just a small shove, and you tense, sharp whine hiccuping through you. “Oh, it’s too big,” pressing harder at his belly as he edges deeper again, an inch and then another, literally splitting your cunt open for himself, thumb swiping slow and gentle over your clit, forcing little shudders of pleasure out of you amidst the pain. 

“See, told ya.” It’s slow, slow until he makes it fit, watching himself sink inside of you the entire time, until you’re rooted on his cock, breath coming is quick, sucking pants, puffs out through your nose, body flushing hot and then even hotter. He folds over you, groaning loud and long, deep grinds and small shoves, and then it’s so much, too much until there’s no room left inside of you at all, that dull ache pain of his tip pressing against your cervix. 

You’re going to be so sore tomorrow, it hurts, it hurts, but he plays with that place anyways, covering you with his body to press his face against your breasts, mouthing wet and hot at your nipples, biting hard to distract you from the pain inside. Your fingers twist in his hair, hot and damp at the roots, sweaty musk smell of a hard day's work, masculine, making you wetter for him. “It’s alright… it’s alright. You can take it. You’re such a good girl.” And then a fuck, and he’s mumbling your name, how good you are again, how well you’re taking your fucking. 

“This what you wanted, right? To get caught on my cock?” The palm cupping your ass tips you up and forwards, forcing him inside just that little bit more. Your knees are at your shoulders, folded entirely under him, and the tip of his cock is still there where it hurts the most while he pants and sweats on top of you. A cramp of heat moves like lightning down your back and something goes loose in your cunt, your womb contracting once, accepting its fate as you start to come around him, milking him deep inside of you. You start to cry for real now too, fingernails dragging against his naked back looking for blood—sobbing, actually, not just crying. 

He bites your breast hard, grinds further not letting the orgasm stop, “God—I’m so fuckin’ deep. No one’s ever been this deep, right? Tell me, baby,” he begs, sitting back and dragging you boneless, still coming, into his lap, little girl splayed wide over his knees on the floor. You sink further down onto his cock, and he kisses your hot cheeks, letting your cunt drip down him. His belt digs bruisingly into the back of your thighs and it all hurts—he really is so deep now, head tucked firmly at your cervix, and he feels like he’s getting thicker, harder, like he just needs to be sunk deep like this, as deep as he can get so that all your cunt needs to do is work him until it milks the come right out of him. 

Your head lolls back on your neck, supported at the edge of the sofa. “No more—” You don’t know if you mean it, but it is just on the verge of too much now. You’re so sensitive. 

“Yes more.” He starts to lift his hips again, pulling back and shoving, not a lot, but enough that it’s like a little punch inside of you each time. “As much as I say.”

Whining, “No—I can’t.” You roll your hips against him though, the both of you moving, straining against each other, his wide hands around your waist shifting you up and down like a doll on his cock. Your eyes finally open again, and the sunlight spears in through the windows in buttery blinding shafts, sparkling dust motes dancing above as he fucks you. The sound is all so wet, everything from his lower belly to the open front of his jeans is soaked. “I don’t like it anymore,” you lie. 

“I don’t care,” and he gives you the first really rough thrust, not a pounding but with enough strength behind it that you get that heat cramp again, feel like you’re going to wet yourself again, there’s so much pressure in your belly. 

You’re going to come again. You are coming again. It feels like you should say thank you. 

He laughs, little cock sleeve, and you can’t understand how it’s so intense when the fucking is so slow—so good anyways—who cares about anything. His name slips through your lips without them moving, and he’s laughing again, a little mean and you tell him so, but still tender, still endeared by you. 

You push his face away weakly, a mumbled, “Nasty old man.”

Nuh uh, he hums, taking both of your wrists in his grip and pressing them back to the leather edge on either side of your head, forcing you into an arch so that he can latch his teeth at your throat and suck. The rolling of his hips pick up speed, just that little bit, the heat coming off him boiling up to steaming and his sweat drips onto your skin and disappears inside of you—everywhere you’ve got him inside of you. 

“Birth control?” All broken up with pants and your jugular between his teeth. 

Flexing fingers, hands going away to numbness, he’s got you held so tightly, not being so careful of his strength anymore, his cock drags and it’s so wet and sensitive and swollen inside of you, it feels like he barely fits even more than it did before, like there’s definitely no more space inside of you for him at all.. “Yeah—ye—ah, ahh,” can’t get your voice to come out right with your clit grinding against his pelvic bone like that. “Implant right here.” You turn your face towards your left arm, tipping your nose the hidden little bump right beneath your skin. He clicks his tongue, kissing it softly.

“Poor baby. That’s good. That’s real good, baby. Just be good and lemme come in you now. It’s okay.” He spreads his thighs wider, pushing up with his knees into you now. Oh fuck— “But you gotta give me one more. I want it—it’s mine.” And the way he’s got you arched, the spot he hits inside is more intense than the others. He grunts rougher now, biting your throat so hard you’ll be left bruised all over and on the inside too. One palm lets go of your wrist to grip your bottom, long fingers slotting on either side of his impaling cock, pulling you to him so tightly the orgasm is squeezed out of you forcibly and hurts all the worse for it. You’re limp and boneless now, and he starts to pump his come into you in thick spurts, belly all suffused with heat and your name a groan in his throat.

His fingers, parted around his splitting cock rub at the slippery skin of your labia, back and forth to your asshole, holding and cupping the place he’s claimed, and he comes so long, hunched over and rutting into you, filling and filling until the wet squelch is even louder and you can feel the thick come being forced out of your stuffed full cunt. 

You want to say his name, trying to move your lips, but your tongue rolls uselessly inside your mouth, all you are is a shivering cunt, a muscle spasming and spasming around him. He nuzzles at your throat, finally unlatching his teeth, licking away the hurt, pressing a soft kiss to the sore spot. You can feel him playing in the leaking wet now, fingering at your puffy cunt, well fucked and filled. 

You want to tell him you didn’t think that the bikini was going to make this happen, pull this out of him. 

At least not like this. You don’t think you could’ve ever imagined it’d be like this. 

His mouth, hot on your jaw once more before he finally picks up his head to look at you, and his eyes make you want to cry, all that manic heat is gone now, replaced by some softly smoldering ember. You don’t think anyone in all the world has eyes the color of hazel he’s got. Something that should belong to some fiercely guarded precious stone, they glow, amber opal like, burnished in the setting sun’s golden glow.

“You okay?” His voice is very soft, and only for you.

You nod, chin tipping to your sternum, face flushed with so much unbearably pleased heat you’re unable to find your own. 

Tilting his head to get at your mouth, he kisses you long and soft and open mouthed, licking your tongue, tasting you completely. And when he pulls back he has that same look you feel on your own face—that same unbearable pleasure. Shocked wonder sprinkled into it.

Look at what we’ve done and together and how good it is—

A smile and then a laugh from both of you, giggling like school children into each other’s mouths, and you’ve always thought he has some strange effect of appearing all man one second and then smiling and boyish for the flash of a single moment the next. And you don’t think you understand how someone who’s been through so much can still laugh the way he does. You smooth your finger over the arch of his eyebrow, thumbing at the smile lines at the corners of his eyes. Gorgeously strong man, and you suppose, looking at the wider picture, his life here, Ellie and the boys and a whole full life, you understand it, just a little bit—all the ranch’d given him. He has so much here—centered by the land as its heart. 

You’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and finally, voice found—the feel of his heartbeat inside of you—it’s like finding a dream, “I’m okay,” you tell him. 

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

2. Sugar, Not so Sweet

They appear at the break of dawn, the young man and the boy. 

“How many heads’ve you got total?” 

Joel appraises him, the fresh-faced look, a boy just crossed over into the cusp of manhood—though he’s large and strong and earnest in the eyes. He’d be a good hire, if not for—

He glances over at the young boy sitting on the bunk’s couch, snickering quietly with Ellie as his brother tries to barter a place for the two of them. 

“Near to thirty large about now. We’re fixin’ to breed, but we’re pushin’ our limitations.”

“So you need hands,” he says eagerly. 

“We do,” Joel returns slowly, chewing on the mint he’d plucked from out front. His stomach is in knots, has been since—days and days and days ago, last night, and so much worse now. There’s a sick heat settled deep that he doesn’t know how he’ll scourge out and quick. 

“Listen, I know it’s unconventional, but—”

“Where’s his parents?” He tips his chin at the boy, and Ellie peers slyly over her shoulder at him. He’ll get hell for this later, he knows, she knows. 

“Our momma’s down south—by way of Odessa. She cowboys during the summer too, and—”

Joel sits up in his seat. “Texas?”

“Come on, Texas,” Tommy slinks behind him, sneaking an arm over his shoulder to thump Joel roughly on the chest. “Just say yes.” He lets out a gruff sound masking a cough, fucking Tommy, and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ellie rise from the sofa and leave the bunk quietly with a parting pat on the boy's head. 

“You’re from Texas, too?” The young man asks brightly, that look of hope in his eyes that Joel’s about to quash. 

“We’re from Austin,” Tommy says from the coffee pot, his mustache spreading wide over a shit-eating grin. “Southerners way up here, we gotta stay united amongst all these Yanks’,” his brother puts on the drawl heavy, and Joel rolls his eyes. Clown. 

“Listen, Henry,” he says, trying to turn the conversation back to business. He looks at the boy again, the back of the small head bent and silent and something that could, perhaps, be thought of as guilt pulses through him, but to be honest, there’s so much of that moving about Joel’s system right about now, that it’s just one more drop of poison filling his cup. It doesn’t matter. He needs to do what’s right.

For who? He can’t very well tell yet.  

“I’m sure you’re a hard worker, son, and I’d not hesitate to give you a place were we in different circumstances, but I just don’t see how this would work—”

Henry leans forward in his chair too, ready to plead his case, fight for his brother and the generously paying jobs the Kelly’s are famous for. There’s something about the boy newly turned man that reminds Joel of himself. Perhaps during that young and fragile youth of his twenties, when he’d been alone with a newborn baby, trying to figure out the whole world and himself. 

“I know it’s unconventional, but he’s a good kid. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, and it’d only be for the summer, sir. We head back down for the start of the school year. It’s difficult, but it’s harder for my momma to get work with a kid than it is for me.” He trips over his words with the speed at which he’s spitting them at Joel, trying to convince him, and he knows that the fair thing would be to take them in. To give this man a chance the way Joel had been given one so many years ago, the mercy of safe harbor. But he’s got a finite amount of goodness in him now, he’s got to save it all for only one person. There’s none left for anyone else. And Joel doesn't want trouble, he’s got enough of that around here right about now. “He’s got his books and his summer worksheets, and he knows how to manage on his own while I work. I swear, he won’t be in any sort of way. You can—”

And then, amidst the young strangers' rambling plea, Joel's heart falls through his stomach. Here comes that trouble anyways. 

“What’s going on here?” In that soft, lovely voice that haunted his dreams last night. 

All the cowboys rise from their seats at the sound of your presence. 

From over your shoulder, Joel sees Ellie’s face twisted in a grimace at him, the flash of her middle finger and then her tongue. 

“Goddamnit, Ellie,” he growls low. 

You look exhausted, eyes red rimmed and swollen—as if you’d been crying all night, and Joel’s tongue is a swollen, poisoned thing in his mouth—a husk of guilt is all he is. He swallows convulsively, trying to find his words, trying to not scream at the thought of being what’s made you cry, trying not to look down the length of you and failing. Silky sleep shorts end way too high up on the long length of those too pretty thighs, an oversized pullover with Yale emblazoned across the front, a little hole at the neck and a large dark stain marr the front of it. You’ve got on a too big robe, dark and plaid, draped over your shoulders with your hair all a mess. He can see Ellie’s trying to pull it into some semblance of a braid behind your back discreetly while you stare at him with those eyes that, and he’s being damn honest now, fucking terrify him. Those puffy, ridiculous tan boots women wear, the impractical ones that become a sogging mess in the snow or wet despite the fact he understands they’re supposed to be worn in winter, are on your feet, two mismatched socks peek out above the tops. 

He’s pretty sure one of them has bombs with a capital ‘F’ in the tiny centers printed over it. The other, some sort of Easter bunny carrot print. Absolutely ridiculous, and he can’t help it, he notices it all. 

And worst of all, in your grip is that World’s Best Dad mug you’d sent the old fucker for Christmas several years ago, a little holiday fuck you from his best daughter. It’d been one of the years he hadn’t let you come home for the winter break, forced you to spend the holiday alone at that boarding school of yours. The whole ranch had known and whispered about it, and he’d felt embarrassed and offended on your behalf, that they’d all gossiped about the girl you were behind your back when they should’ve respected you for the woman you’d become one day, the one that’d eventually pay all of their earnings. 

And the jackass had the audacity to use the mug all the time afterwards. Joel was pretty sure it’d been his favorite. 

“We were just wrapping up,” Joel says, clearing his throat, finally finding his voice. It’s almost physically painful to look at you directly in the eyes, and the heat of shame and regret claws its way up his throat at the hollow look he sees there. You’re so angry at him, and he deserves it. 

“This is the new Kelly,” Ellie tells Henry, cutting him off, pressing you forward with her hands wrapped around your shoulders. Your shorts are way too short to be in here right now, and Joel feels something else, even hotter than shame, stirring inside him. “If you want work here, this is who you need to talk to. The big boss.”

“Miss Kelly,” Henry says reverently, pulling his cap off to press against his chest. “It’s a mighty fine honor gettin’ to meet you. I was just telling your foreman here,” he motions the cap towards Joel, and he feels like a bear who’s about to rip it out of his grip and stuff it down his throat. Fucking Ellie going and snitching on him. “How me and my brother Henry travel for the summer. I’ve got letters here, I’ve worked at the King before, and have a number your man can call if he needs more references. I’ve got lots of experience and—”

“What will you do with him?” Your gaze is on the little boy, has been the entire time. Joel steps forward and over the back of the couch he sees the kid, Sam, has a comic book in his lap he’s been reading this whole time, while adults who should have no bearing on his life decide what will and will not be for him. “While you work—”

Joel looks back at you, and he knows already what it’ll be. 

Henry’s smile is wide and gleaming, putting on the charm. What he doesn’t see, what Joel does, is that bleak sadness in your gaze that he’d put there himself last night. He needs to speak with you, to explain, to make it right between the two of you. 

“He’s good at entertaining himself. I promise he won’t be in the way or nothin’. He’s got books and summer work, and he’s learning to play the guitar. He won’t be in the way,” Henry says again. 

“What about school?”

“We only travel during the summer. We’re back in Texas for the school year.” And at that, you finally look back at Joel, and his heart shoots from his belly to his throat, ready to be spit up at your feet. 

You watch him for a long searing moment, and there's such sadness there. He doesn’t know what would have been better, what would have been the correct recourse, how to make that look go away. To give you what you want? To do what he thinks is right or what should be right? He’d never thought, never considered anything like this. It’s all too much too fast, and he feels suddenly lost and childlike in the face of you and all you stand for. 

“They stay,” you say only for Joel. 

Henry lets out a whoop of victory, rushing forward to thank you profusely, but Jesse, who’s standing by the door, blocks his rush forward with a hand to his chest before he can get too close to the new boss. You’re for protecting now, above all else, it’s the unspoken word they all suddenly understand keenly. 

You stare solemnly at Joel for only a second longer, those sleep sloped doe eyes, before you’re turning without another word. 

-

“He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.” 

The cricket song is a symphony of sound around the two of you, and you’re suspended for a second, he sees it come on—a rose hued haze, and then blink-of-an-eye donning a look that spells nothing but disaster. He’s thrown off course by it for a single second, that girl fantasy glow, before you’re launching yourself at him, and then it’s nothing but a soft wet mouth, smoked fruit and fired oak, the slick of your tongue against his bottom lip as you kiss him.

You’re kissing him. 

He’s a frozen solid husk, eyes wide open as he stares down at the look on your face—something like agony. The tiny frown between your eyebrows, concentration, and a single diamond tear caught in the web of your lashes, and he can’t help but notice the soft press of your breasts against his chest, you’re not wearing a bra, before he’s shoving you back by the shoulders, scrambling to get as far away from you as quickly as he can.

His back hits the railing before he can get far enough. “What the fuck are you doing?” He spits, but can’t help but lick his tongue along his bottom lip, tasting where you’ve just been. 

His stomach is suddenly hot.

You swallow convulsively, bleary eyed look turning to hurt, pressing your palm to your belly, twisting your fingers in the fabric of your sweater there. “I don’t— I didn’t—” Your eyelashes flutter shut, closing the hurt, confused look away from him for one blessed second. You press your other palm to your forehead, gripping yourself as if you’re trying to hold your very skin together. 

What do you think you’re doing? He enunciates each word like the lash of a whip, and then licks his lips again to soften those same blows for himself. 

Something is about to go inexplicably wrong here. Something already has. A tragedy worse than the death of a father

“I just thought that—” You blink your eyes open and they’re wet, and he’s about to bark at you to not fucking cry or he’ll lose it completely, but he swallows it or loses the thought to madness. He feels incomprehensibly insane, inconceivably triggered. 

This is like nothing he’d ever imagined, and it tilts him on his axis, skews his vision, headlights blinding you in a dead-on collision. 

What are you doing—thinking?

“I— I watched you grow up. I watched you—” You take an anxious step towards him, some word on your lips he can’t even make out because his hearing has gone out, and now he’s all of a sudden deaf in both ears instead of just one. He hardens his voice further. He makes sure you understand. “This is fucking wrong, and you need to get away from me right now,” reversing his movements, taking a threatening step forward, stomping his heavy boot against the floorboards beneath so that you’re jumping, skittering backwards like a frightened little rabbit. 

And Joel, the beast, crushing her beneath his foot. 

You wrap both of your hands around the delicate column of your throat; he imagines you’re holding in your hurt sounds, and it makes him even angrier. 

“Listen to me—” he starts again. 

But you cut him off, shaking your head, the confused sleep-look being blinked away so that now it’s spitting fire that is awake and angry in your gaze. “But you didn’t,” you say. “You barely know me. We’re almost strangers.” A scoff, and then switching again to soft, to girl-like, to hurt: “And I’m all grown up now, Joel.”

“I don’t know what you reckon is happenin’ here between us. Or what you think— what you—” He looks away, can’t bear the sight of it, you, fuck, he spits, again, fuck. “If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry, but—”

Then in a broken little voice grasping for straws, “But we were born on the same day,” and you say it like a question. Like it should mean more. Like, and he realizes it now, like it means the world. 

He turns back to look at you, and he feels full of everything but mercy—too much regret. “And what? What do you think that means? That we’re connected—meant to be?” His voice sounds full of cruelty. “Don’t be delusional. It’s also the day my daughter died. D’you know that?”

A blink. “What?”

“She died on my thirty-fourth birthday.” 

Again. “But… Wh—at?” Broken up word, and your chin does a little wobbling dance, jutting this way and that, and you have a dimple in your cheek that comes out when you’re happy, but also when you’re sad. When you’re about to cry. He sees it now, and starkly. 

He’s ruining something sacred. 

Joel steels himself. “Whatever it is you’ve made up in your mind about us, it’s a fantasy. Something not real that you need to let go of. Are you hearin’ me?”

“I— I think…” You won’t stop blinking, your hands look like they’re about to strangle you, and he steps forward as if to stop you or save you from yourself. “Why didn’t you ever say?”

But instead of saving, “Why would I? Why would I ever tell you that?” He does not want to hurt you, and yet he cannot help it, and Joel wonders if this is how your father felt every time he failed you—like a lesser man. “Wasn’t for you to know—it doesn’t mean the same thing to us.” That day. He makes himself clear: “Whatever child’s fantasy you’re still holding onto, you need to let it go.” 

-

He rushes out of the bunk after you, a growled, you little shit, at Ellie as he passes her. 

“Man, what’d you fuckin’ do?” She calls after him in that tone that tells him that of course she knows what’s happened. You two’ve never been able to keep a single thing from each other. Asshole! She shouts at his back as he catches up to your slowly retreating form. Your movements are sluggish, exhausted. 

He calls your name and tries to moderate his tone from being as aggressive as he feels right now. “We gotta talk.” He follows after you, hot on your heels and then jumping back like a scared mut when you spin around on your ridiculous boot to face him. 

“Speak.” It’s a high-handed tone, that one. One that says he’s the grunt here, and you the queen, that you’d both forgotten it last night, but the battlelines are clearly drawn now. There’ll be no more forgetting. 

And it’s all his fault. 

“You can’t—” His heart thumps and thumps and thumps like a pitiful thing. “You can’t undermine me in front of the boys like that. There’s a reason I was saying no.”

“Which is?”

“That the kid’ll be in the way.”

And you flinch and Joel prays for a gun to the back of the skull. Fucking Christ, but this is difficult.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he gruffs. “You know what I mean. This is hard work we do here. I don’t want the kid gettin’ hurt, I don’t want to be responsible for that. What goes on here is on me. The people who get hurt, it’s all on me, and I take that responsibility damn serious.”

You tilt your head at him in that queer, inspecting way of yours. The one he’d watched you pull like a weapon against your father so many times. He finds he hates it now, detests it, being wielded against himself. You ignore his words, “What was your arrangement here—with him? How did this work with the ranch?”

There has been that thought always, and obviously, of you as something higher, that symbol of the family or the safe haven this place has been for Joel. The not-respect he had for your father, but surely the understanding—you've always been all wrapped up in that. He's at times felt grateful for your existence, perhaps, in ways. That something as good, as better, as you could exist in the same world Joel exists in. Perhaps he’d admired you in ways, even as a young girl, for your goodness, your sincerity. But he finds now, at this look of disdain you’re wearing against him, that he hates the feeling of being less than you, of not being good enough to even stand in your presence. 

He’s done wrong, marred it all in ugliness. He’s put himself in this position somehow, by hurting you, by confusing you, by wanting—

“I do what I need to, what the ranch needs. Whatever decision I need to make, I call it and it’s on me. Monthly reports to him and that was it. He understood that what happens out here is different to what can be told and sometimes you can’t plan for certain shit. He focused on the business, I focus on the ranch.”

By wanting what?

Bringing the mug to your lips, you take a long sip, humming. It’s all a taunt. Joel realizes, suddenly, and with painful clarity, that this has all been a grave miscalculation on his part.

As uncomfortable as it is for even him to admit, you are, and undeservedly, a person used to not being wanted, used to rejection. Joel understands this with the quick fire blink of an eye. And he has, in his shock, or— or… he doesn't know—instantaneous awakening—unintentionally alienated you, made an enemy. 

I see, you murmur quietly coupled with a bitter cough of laughter that doesn’t sound anything like the sweet sound he’s used to hearing from you. Yes, a very bad mistake has been made indeed. “Well, you’re practically king here, aren’t you then? Quite the partnership the two of you had.” You smile wide, all bright teeth. 

The coffee sloshes in the mug held in your unsteady hand, and he worries there’s something stronger in there too. 

“Not at all. I’m just good at what I do.” He shoves fisted hands into his pockets, trying to keep patient. Trying not to throttle you, check your drink for himself. 

“And is this how you’d like to continue going forward? I mind my own business, and you do as you please?”

He shakes his head slow, grinds the pulverized mint between his molars, “I want whatever you think’s best. You’re the Kelly now, after all.” You get a look on your face like you don’t like the sound of that at all, and he turns to spit the greens between his teeth, coughing roughly. 

“Yeah, I’m sure of that,” you say with teeth bared, and then whipping your head away from him as if you can’t bear the sight of him a second longer. The coffee sloshes the other way, splashing against your wrist. He hopes it’s not burning you. “You know, you’ve got some fucking nerve, Joel. You—” 

The robe—all of a sudden, saturated by the dark liquid, it grabs his attention. It’s in a plaid print, expensive looking, like something you’d see an older man wearing. A man’s robe? He cocks his head, “Whose robe is that?” Cutting your tirade short. 

What? You spit, all sass, his stomach burns, turning to look back at him as if he’s gone idiotic, grown a second head.  He feels a little bit like he’s in the process of doing so—wracked with growing pains. “It’s my ex-boyfriend’s. Can you focus, please? I’m trying to have a fight with you right now.” And you scrunch your nose too adorably for him to find anything besides endearing. Certainly not intimidating. 

He grunts, displeased. 

“I know you don’t want to hear it—”

“Then keep it to yourself.” You turn, continuing on your way up to the house, coffee flies with your spin, boyfriend’s robe whipping out in your wake as he follows like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. 

A little desperately, like a dog, too. A begging for scraps imitation game he hadn’t intended to play but feels obligated to now, and by his own doing. 

“But I want to say—about last night…”

You turn on your heel out of nowhere again, and he stumbles to not rush head first into you, to not touch you. 

The look on your face is all heartbreak. “Do you remember—when I was away at school—and I fell off the horse? When I came home with that broken arm and couldn’t get back on and you helped me? Do you remember that, Joel? How you reminded me how I was supposed to do it—”

He coughs, uncomfortable, shifting like that same scared dog. “You remember these things different than I do.” The words feel cowardly spilling from his tongue, but he should be honest. Shouldn’t he?

This is what he should be doing, isn’t it?

“I remember that you were kind. That you cared. That’s what I remember.” Your eyes are glossed again, and now it’s Joel that has to look away. 

-

“I didn’t care. It was my job to serve your father. To do as he’d want me to. It was a responsibility.”

It’s happening again. A tale like any other you’ve too often heard. You know he’s not lying, and yet everything he says feels precariously close to it. 

“Why are you being like this?” And you ask it very practically, like you really want to know, like you’ve asked the same sort of question to the same sort of figure before, and so now you’re extremely well practiced, an expert even. 

“You remember these things differently. Wrong—That’s not how I meant any of it—whatever you’re thinkin’. It was just a kindness.”

“No, but I— but you…” That’s the point, you want to say, a kindness, but the words stick. You look away again, colored in shame, can’t bear the sight of him. “Maybe you’re right,” you whisper with that very remembered kindness of your lonely childhood thrown back in your face now. “Maybe I do.”

“Listen to me—I’d like for things between us to be— I’m not… I don’t now what to fuckin’ say to you.”

“Honey—” Dina calls from the porch, your father’s assistant, now yours by inheritance, you suppose. “We gotta go soon—gotta get you ready.”

“I have things to do with Dina. I don’t have time for you—for this. Do what you want, run it how you like,” the ranch, “But the kid stays. That’s final.”

You won’t look at him again, you decide. You’ll learn to want a new thing. You’ll learn to love a new thing. 

If you had it in you, you’d laugh in his face. 

Have you been in love with him? Probably not in any way that could’ve been called mature, it was the girl-fantasy of a neglected child latching on to a man who’d always seemed nothing but steady and kind.

So you’ll learn to grow up now, no choice left in the matter, let the fantasy go.  

-

Despite your desire for debauchery and the three days of bad behavior you’d promised yourself, you’ve got shit to do. 

An hour after your ridiculous non-conversation with the ridiculous man, you and Dina are stepping back  out into the summer sunshine when your phone rings with a call from another ridiculous man for what promises to surely be another even more ridiculous conversation. 

Jacopo.

You’d met through the friend of a friend at the party of someone or another in Monaco. Come from an Italian mother and a French father, you should’ve known he was going to be an arrogant asshole from the get go, but he’d been beautiful and momentarily distracting—things you knew you didn’t really want but told yourself would suffice. Really, all he was, was boring, the same as everyone else, wanting something from you without having to truly return anything in full. 

Jacopo the jockey—sounds like a goddamn cartoon. 

You liked to call him Jack, like he were the same sort of plebeian he saw all Americans as, and which he absolutely loathed with the sort of passion only an uppity French man could possess. 

In the distance, you can see Joel, Frank and Bill propped up against the corral watching as Jesse runs Ellie atop a gorgeous chestnut Quarter. Sometimes she likes to compete, when she can get Joel to stop complaining about it for a second. 

Dina makes her way towards them, “Tell them we’ll take the Ghibli,” you call after her to which she throws a thumbs up. At the sound of your voice he peers over his shoulder, finding your eyes immediately, catching there—fish on a burning hook. And then turns full around, leaning back to rest his elbows on the iron grate as you take French boys call, settling in to watch you. 

“Hi, Jack, sweetie. How’s it hangin’?”

“I do not know what this means.”

Bore. “What do you want, Jacopo? I’m busy.”

“My love, we must speak. I have heard of your father. You should have call me, I will come to be with you now. Tell me where you are.”

“Why the hell would I want you to come be with me? We broke up. Remember?”

Joel watches you as the French idiot prattles on about how he loves you and how you need him and how the two of you belong together, blah blah. Odious man, you don’t know how you ever let him inside of you. 

Across the lawn, he isn’t looking away, and his gaze burns where it touches. You feel—humiliated, hurt, rejected, so angry it’s a physical ache. 

Not surprised. 

Perhaps in some way, his rejection was what you’d wanted, had been looking for. Perhaps, it was your subconscious search for the easy way out. Because, and really, what else had you thought would happen when you’d thrown yourself at him half drunk? That he’d suddenly stop seeing you as the child he’d known you for always, take you as a woman, want you, fuck you right there on your newly dead father’s front deck?

Ridiculous.

You can’t even think about the birthday—about her. It’s a snipped lifeline, a crushed tether. 

“Cherie, I must tell you I am feeling very neglected now by you. You don’t call. You do not love me no longer, or what is the problem?” More nonsense and really, this fuckin’ guy needs a boot in his ass pronto. 

And the one still watching you—something even worse. He’s got his mangy brown cowboy hat pulled low over his brow, the one for the ranch, not the lovely dark one for escorting orphans to the funerals of dead fathers, and his jaw works the mint leaves you know he’s got between his teeth, slow and steady. You should hiss at him. Instead, your tummy smolders with heat and butterflies.

 Stop looking at me, you horrible man, you want to shout. 

Humming and hawing at the annoying voice coming through the phone, you smooth your palm over the silk of your dress. You’d wanted to look nice today, your first Kelly meeting. You wanted to look better than you feel, which is like shit, quite frankly. 

There are tiny green paisleys patterned over the deep blue of the dress, a shock of dark red maroon for the cashmere knit of the cardigan tied over your shoulders, and a little silken kerchief wrapped around your throat, something from your mother’s things you’d gone through last night after Joel had ordered you to bed with your tail tucked between your legs and tears in your throat. 

Twenty four years later, and your father still had all her things preserved in their bedroom as if she’d only stepped out for the afternoon. A veritable mausoleum right there in your house-not-home. 

You’d never even stood a chance. 

-

He watches you begin to pace across the deck, but the look on your face tells him you aren’t quite listening to whatever it is the person on the phone’s saying to you. 

The gold and silver bangles that slide around your fine boned wrists jingle a song of temptation. Siren song, bird song, death march, something he’d follow with blind eyes, recognize deaf. And heavy gold and jeweled rings along your fingers that shine almost as bright as the spilled silk of your hair. Swathed in shades of jewel, you’re all woman, done up and ready to go out and devastate. 

He doesn’t know how any man could ever look at you and not want you. 

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be the same from here on out. 

“Who’s she talkin’ to?” He asks Dina, tipping his chin over at you. He can hear you raising your voice, something about you fucking French moron, and he doesn’t like the hunch he’s got about who it is.

“Boyfriend,” Dina says while she watches Ellie work the horse with hearts in her eyes. 

“Thought he was an ex.”

She peers up at him suspiciously at that, a queer little smile tipping the corners of her mouth upwards. “Well maybe now that he knows how much she’s worth he’ll be coming back, huh?”

Joel swears all these fuckin’ women are conspiring against him, trying to send him to an early grave. “He steps foot on this ranch, and I’ll shoot him in the goddamn ass.”

She laughs, throwing her head back which inevitably draws Ellie’s attention. “You are literally so dramatic.”

“What’s he bein’ dramatic about now?” Ellie calls from behind, trotting up to the corral edge. 

“Ohhh, nothin’. Just Joel being Joel. Right, old man?” Dina bumps her hip against his and he grunts, refusing to be goaded. He’s not being dramatic, it’s his responsibility to take care of you now, to watch over you. 

That’s all.

“I’m never dramatic,” he tells them very seriously. 

On the porch, the spat reaches a crescendo and they all turn to watch the show. 

Why don’t you shove the whole Eiffel Tower up your ass, you fucking dipshit. And don’t you ever call me again!

“Little girl’s got a mouth on her,” Bill murmurs. 

Ellie lets out a long whistle. Deserved, Dina adds. On the porch, you let out a strangled little screech, stomping the high heel of your boot as if you’ve got half a mind to throw a fit. 

Joel feels hypnotized, speared through the gut.

He wants to know what the ex-boyfriend said. What his name is. Where he’s from and who he is and what he does and how he is and every single thing about him and how it was between the two of you. 

He is suddenly desperate to know everything there is to know about you in a way that makes his throat feel swollen with guilt. In a way he didn’t ever think he’d want from you. 

All the things you keep close, all the small intimacies that make you this person you are now, that’s what he wants. 

You stomp down the steps, making your way towards them, eyes directly on his, and you’re too fucking beautiful for his own good, watching you feels like a sin. 

Makes him feel in danger, like prey. 

“All men should die,” you yell over. 

See. 

“I agree,” Dina says cheerfully.

“You know you can have a baby with the junk in your bones from another woman now,” Ellie adds helpfully.

“The junk in your bones?” Joel says. 

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yeah, like really we don’t even need you for shit anymore.”

“They should all be put in a hole in the ground in the middle of Nebraska and only be let out when a girl wants to bone.”

“To bone—Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Ellie.”

“I love that idea,” you say, finally coming to stand right before Joel. He swallows hard, stays silent—feels like the cat’s finally caught his tongue. 

“Why Nebraska?” Franks asks, puzzled.

He’s got to stop looking at you, he’s got to get away from the sight of your eyes, feels like the colors of you seem to pulse brighter, and he feels it all like a touch against his skin. He turns to look at Ellie over his shoulder and with a huge, shit-eating grin she says, “Cause who the fuck knows where fuckin’ Nebraska is, huh?” Her eyes flash to you and then quickly back to Joel, winking, cheeky, knowing. He feels the noose tighten.

They’re definitely conspiring against him. 

The three of you cackle—at his expense. 

“Where’re you two headed?” Bill asks with a frown when the three little hyenas settle. 

“She’s got a meeting in Jackson,” Dina tells him. “First part’ll be quick—she’s just gotta kick some pushy jackass to the curb and tell him we’re not leasing mineral rights to him no matter how hard he begs or how much money he throws at us. Then…” she trails off, throwing you a worried glance, but your eyes are on the far off mountains now, and Joel watches a shaky swallow pass through your throat.

“Then we’ve got the will reading,” you say. 

A sharp ache starts up behind Joel’s left eye, all the easygoing laughter of a few moments ago sucked away with a few words and a single reminder. That you’re not the girl you used to be, laughing and playing with Ellie, that your father is dead, that you have a world of responsibility to face now. 

“You shouldn’t have to go all the way into town. They should be comin’ to you here.”

“I want to get out—see his office.”

“S’only been a few days, honey,” Frank says gently. “You should take it easy.”

“Thanks, Frank,” you reach out to squeeze his arm, flush of emotion across the bridge of your nose. “I’m okay, promise.”

Joel takes you in, in full. You’ve got something shimmery swept across the highs of your cheekbones and glossy lips, the fine grain of your skin—pristine like you're made of sugar and everything good in the world. The silky wisps of baby hair at your temples that look softer than anything he’s probably ever touched in his whole life. And you’re so beautiful it almost hurts the eye to look at you, beautiful in a way that makes men cower at the sight, like you’d be the strongest thing in the whole world. But he sees all the rest too. The delicate curves of your shoulders, the fine swoop of your collarbone and the quick-fire beat of your pulse beneath the fragile skin of your throat. There’s fear all around you in a way, a desperate sort of sadness. 

He wishes there was more he could do for you, that he could bear the burden of all this entirely in your stead, that he could be all you need and want him to be without having to sacrifice his soul to give it to you. 

Your eyes flash back to his, and he worries for a second that you can read his mind. 

Behind you, Jesse pulls up with the sleek black of your father’s favorite car. Of course you’d choose this for today, bets you’ll find a way to turn it into a pretzel before the days end. 

“Take Jesse with you,” he says low at your back as you turn for the car. 

You look over your shoulder at him and his spine throbs. “No.”

Following you around the front of the car, he pulls the door open for you. “You’re not moving around alone anymore. He’s going. Jesse—” he whistles, “You’re going into town with Miss Kelly.”

“Yezzir,” he smiles with the sunny easiness only he possesses.  

“Excuse me,” you turn to frown up at him, stomping your foot again, and you’re a little bit of a brat, he’s realizing. “There’s no room in the car for him. He can’t come.”

“He’ll take a truck,” he says, leaving no room for discussion, but then gentles his voice again, “Things are gonna be different now. You’re the Kelly, you can’t go on all gung ho about your new reality. You need taking care of. Can you not fight me on this, please?”

“What I need—”

“Is to be protected.”

You give a delicate little huff through your nose that he finds to be just about the cutest damn thing he’s ever seen in his whole life. “Then it’ll be my choice how and who.”

“It’s easier if you just do as I say.” Grasping, grasping, praying for patience. 

“You overbearing d—”

“You’ll be okay meeting this jackoff? Don’t need me to come with you?”

You glower at him.

“I’m bein’ serious with you. I know you’re capable,” he puts his hands out, palms up in a conceding gesture, “But this is new, and there’s no shame in asking for support.”

At that, you get a confused little pinch between your brows, softest rose shaped mouth he’s ever seen—felt—all pursed up, and he thinks it’s wrong now, trying to be sweet to you after last night, looking at you this way and seeing the things he’s seeing. He should stay away, go away forever, find a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere to bury himself in like you’d said, but he worries now, and quite desperately really, that he won’t ever be able to leave your side again after all this. 

“I have Dina.”

“I know, but—”

“Can you please just… not. I think— I think it’s better if we just steer clear of each other. If I need something,” you look away now, hazy look from last night back in your gaze again, like you’re remembering, like you’re wanting something else he’s not willing, not capable of giving, “I’ll ask for it. Otherwise you can focus on what’s important to you.” 

Gut punch. 

He soldiers on, can’t help it.

“You feelin’ alright?” 

Your eyes flit back to him for a fleeting second and there’s honesty in your gaze now, maybe something extremely vulnerable too, and then shuttering again, looking away again. He’d demand your gaze if he had the right, insist you tell him everything there is to know with just your eyes if you were his. 

But really, he’s got no right to ask anything. 

So instead, “Tell me what’s wrong,” he begs, praying you don’t say him. 

What’s wrong? A laugh and—nothing. Like your father isn’t dead, like he hadn’t hurt you as he had last night, like you’re looking for answers etched into the mountains or the sky. You bring your thumb to your right temple and his own aches in response, digging there for some unseen pain to be gouged out. “Tired—was having bad dreams.” Your voice sounds full of air, and you’ve got a huge emerald on your ring finger, an even larger turquoise stone beside it, other hand is covered in a row of opals—you’re a treasure of a girl, all the way inside and out, and it’s like he’s staring at a work of art, knowing that if he were to touch, it’d all be ruined. Your voice full of air floats in his bad ear and booms out the good one full of forlorn want. 

It feels like you’re the only two people left in the whole of Wyoming, standing here together under the sweet sun, maybe the whole world, and he’s ridden in guilt, wants to tell you he’s sorry again, beg or something, and thinks that God should give you the chance to rewind time when you’ve made someone feel this bad without meaning to. 

You whisper at the Tetons, and he’s all but forgotten, “I feel a little bit like I’m the real nightmare.”

“You couldn’t ever be, sweetheart,” he tells you and means it with his whole heart. 

It’s all agony swimming in your eyes, and if you don’t stop him, he’s going to take you into his arms right here in front of everyone. You need more than protecting, it’s clear, you need caring for, you need loving—the sort of something he can tell you’ve never had in your whole life. 

“Ready to go, honey?” Dina calls from the other side of the car, her canoodling with Ellie finally come to a pause. 

You’re snapped out of your reverie, looking down at your feet, impractical boots again, these ones sexy and tall and not for his admiring, blinking away the wash of heat that’s bloomed across the bridge of your freckled little nose. 

“Did she eat?” He asks Dina over your head.

“Ehhhhh, but I brought a smoothie,” she pulls out a thermos from her large bag and smiles all beaming and large. 

“A smoothie ain’t food. Get something else in town.”

“You're so prepared,” Ellie sighs dreamily beside her. 

“You’re annoying me,” you grouch at him, tossing your bag into the backseat, sliding into the luxuriously leathered interior as he shuts the door gently behind you, bending down to brace his palms against the open window. 

“Drive careful. Call me if you need anything.”

“You’re kinda a helicopter mom. You know that, Joel?” Dina tells him with that sweet smile of hers. 

“Do not entertain his nonsense,” you snap. 

“She’s just grumpy because Vogue France posted a piece on her and the funeral—the heiress to watch, they’ve called her.”

“I don’t know who they think I am—Kendall fucking Roy? This isn’t HBO, it’s my goddamn life.”

“It’s fine, drink your smoothie, here,” Dina soothes. 

“I don’t got a clue what any of that means,” Joel says. “And do up your belt,” frowning at you and pulling away just in time when you speed off with half the admonishment still on his tongue 

-

The bar is loud and sweaty and crowded enough there’s room for your spite, which he knows, is all this night out is. 

The day had gone from terrible to horrible to heinous, and he’s officially reached his limit now. You’d returned from your late morning in Jackson toting a gray cloud that’d settled over the entire ranch and everyone in it. All work had come to a slow and grinding halt, the mood morose, knowing that the lady of the manor was grieving and angry. 

And then a few hours into the evening, you, Ellie, and Dina had spun into the bunk, already giggling on drinks he was certain were too sugary and way too strong to end in anything good. Looking to rile up the boys into heading back to Jackson and finding a bar to terrorize. 

And so here he now finds himself, stepping through the door of The Mushroom, ridiculous name for a bar if anyone asked him, eyes searching for the gleam of your hair, that tiny fucking outfit you’d draped yourself in. You were hunting for trouble, to aggravate him, trying to hurt him with your, you’re not invited, Joel—no one wants you to come.

Angry, angry as a spitting fire. 

He’d felt like shit about himself and your upset for a second, and then had thought: Well, are you going to cowboy up, Joel? Or just lay here and bleed?

Now, there’s something sick in him that wants more of it, to take everything you’ve got to give, to see how far you can go, to push you just a little bit further too.

A masochist, is what he reckons he might actually be.

He finds Ellie’s bent head whispering into Dina’s ear, giggling and dragging her fingertips up the other girls bare arm, and he feels a thump of fondness for the two—happier than he can say that they’ve finally worked it all out after months of their will-they-won’t-they struggle.

Making his way over to them, he catches Frank in the distance, dancing to the countryfied Abba cover of Chiquitita the local band’s currently playing while Bill stands nearby, serious and menacing, keeping anyone from getting too close to his partner. 

No sign of you, and the backs of his knees itch and burn. 

“Where is she?” He demands when he reaches Ellie at their place against the bar. 

“Oh, dude. She’s gonna be soooo pissed.”

“Where, Ellie?”

Get you anything to drink, sugar? The bartender calls and Joel shakes her away, panic thumping in his gut the longer he doesn’t have eyes on you.

Dina knocks her head towards the end of the L-shaped bar, closest to the throng of dancing patrons, and there in the last seat and partially obscured by someone’s shoulder and ridiculously feathered hat, you sit. 

“Who the fuck is that?” 

“Can you please just leave her alone. She needs to blow some steam off.”

“Yeah, Joel, we’re watching her,” Dina adds, always the peacekeeper.

Or blow someone, Ellie adds in a snicker, and he gives her a death glare. “You need to quit the asshole act,” she tells him, purposefully thunking her beer hard enough on the bartop that some of it sloshes over the lip of the bottle onto his hand braced against the edge. 

Real mature. 

“Changed my mind,” he tells the bartender when she heads back their way, “Shot of Jameson.” 

Beside him, Jesse appears, beer in hand as he leans against the bar to watch you also. “That might just be the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in my whole life, honest to God,” he sighs wistfully. 

Joel sees red—this is just too much. “Quit fuckin’ lookin’ at her,” he snaps. 

Ellie snickers knowingly, and Frank and Bill join the group, picking up on the topic of conversation. 

“That little girl can drink a grown man under the goddamn table,” Bill says. 

“And looks good as hell doing it too—”

“Eyes off, you little shit,” Joel sends a threatening glance at Jesse again. 

Ellie ignores them both. “He’s a finance bro or some shit—from New York—here to play cowboy dress up with the group he’s with. Nothing I can’t handle, and you need to cool it and leave or have a drink and let her have fun.”

“She’s vulnerable right now, Ellie—”

“Yeah, you would know.”

Joel’s turn to do the ignoring, “And she needs someone to watch her back.”

“I’m fuckin’ watching it, man. You’re so annoying, and I’ll have you know that—” The fucker’s got a thick lock of your long hair trapped between his probably manicured fucking fingers, smoothing it between his thumb and index and then looping it around and around, drawing you in closer.

Joel’s about to start howling.

You’ve done something to him, knocked something askew inside him, and he needs you to set it back to rights. Let him out of this saw trap he’s been caught in. 

The man says something that has you throwing your head back in an overly eager laugh, loud and melodic in the most hypnotizing sort of way, meant to draw the eye or seduce or send his gut to twisting and aching. 

Ellie’s saying something about how you need to have fun, how you need to find yourself, and all Joel can think is that he can be the one to give you that, to help you do all that while still making sure you’re alright, taken care of. 

Over the wannabe cowboy’s shoulder, he sees your eyes land on him, and you give him one of those serenely beautiful smiles he knows means he’s about to lose his fucking mind and cause a scene. 

A provocation of a smile is what it is. 

You cross one long leg over the other, a flash of hot pink his eyes can’t help but flash to beneath the obscene hem of your skirt and lean in to whisper something, glossy lips right at his ear, and a tick starts up below Joel’s left eye. The fuckwit pulls you in closer, and you tip into him, hand on his shoulder—your eyes never leave Joel’s, and then you’re pulling him off the barstool and leading him into the throng of dancing people. He’s desperate to know what the back of your hot pink underwear looks like—string of lace wedged between the cleft of your ass, or silk wrapping around the full cheek like a perfect present? The man pulls you into himself, spinning you around, and you’re made up of blues and purples and pinks, shimmering like something that shouldn’t exist here amongst all the rest of them. Slinky little top made of silk like water and sparkles, your cheeks, flushed with drink or heat, but he’ll tell himself it’s because of him, because you’re still angry at him, thinking of him, and it soothes the tempest that’s brewing in his gut. 

He spins you towards himself, the man Joel’s about to beat senseless, shooting the Jameson without really tasting anything but the insane jealousy souring to irrational fury on his tongue, it pulses in his throat once, twice, and the fucker tugs you into himself again by a handful of your ass in that too short skirt and sticks his tongue in your mouth. Joel slams the glass on the bartop, not seeing red anymore, something like dark spots now, he’s so fucking pissed off. 

Ellie yelps his name, her and Jesse scrambling after him, but they’re too late and he’s there already, pulling you away, and gently because he might be feeling a little bit like a demon right now, but he knows what you are and how to handle you no matter what—and slams his fist into the fuckers nose, the satisfying crunch of broken bone and a pathetic cry sounds as he hits the sticky bar floor. The people around peer over in nothing more than mild curiosity, this is a cowboy bar after all. 

He watches the man for a second, making sure he stays down, and then turns to look at you and isn’t at all surprised when he finds that look of victory on your face. 

“Ready to go?” Voice all sweet innocence. 

You’re going to kill him. 

Spinning around on the toe of your boot, the hem of your little skirt flutters with your movements and he catches a flash of cheek, mystery of your panties still unsolved. 

“You’re a real dumbass, you know that?” Ellie snarks as they pass the group of them. 

He chooses to ignore that observation. “Don’t stay out too late. And let Bill drive back.”

Following you out into the night, he tries to take control of himself, to lie away the heat he feels sitting heavy in his stomach. 

He wishes he had a mint leaf to pulverize between his molars, he wishes he could pull you over his knee and spank your ass for being such a bad girl. And looming behind you, he knows you’re not even a little bit intimidated by his size as you dance and prance across the parking lot towards his truck.

“I know you’re ticked off because of last night and today, but you can’t lash out just because you’re angry with me.” 

All he gets in response is that head-thrown-back wind chime laughter—the real one, which is something. 

“You need to stop misbehaving,” he breathes down your neck.

“Hmm, I don’t think I will,” you singsong. 

“Are you drunk?” Refusing to be distracted, he’s going to stand strictly on business, he promises himself. 

You spin around again—always catching him off guard and pissing him off—hooking yourself on his shirtfront, pulling yourself into him like you’re trying to dance some fucked up dance he doesn’t know the steps to. 

“Not at all.”

“You need to not be touching me right now,” he warns, the threads of his control dangerously close to snapping, walking you backwards without putting his hands on you. Chest to chest, he feels like he could breathe fire if he really set his mind to it. 

“Yes, sir,” you say sweetly, dragging your palms down his chest and belly before letting him go, skipping ahead of him, humming an off-key rendition of whatever kitschy, poor excuse for a country song they’d been playing at the end in there. 

The even poorer excuse for a skirt bounces along the curve of your ass, driving him fucking mad—he’s goig to have a heart attack, he’s middle aged, he can’t handle this shit anymore—you. 

Stop that, he growls.

“God, you don’t like anything—you’re no fun,” you pout. 

Coming to the truck, he yanks the door open for you. “Get in the damn truck.” And he makes sure to turn away and not ogle your ass as you hop in, his palm hovering in the vicinity of your elbow if you need him. 

The prospect of an hour and a half of the dark drive and the scent of your musky sweet perfume and sweat soaked skin has his heart pounding. When he pulls his door open, you’re turned in your seat expectantly waiting for him, folded knees up on the seat and pink triangle right there to taunt him. 

“Sit right—put on your seatbelt.”

“You’re so bossy.” An exaggerated sigh and your voice is so fucking sassy, a tiny bit of a needy whine threaded through it, he feels his patience snap. 

Grabbing hold of your damp cheeks he squeezes hard enough to force your full mouth into a pout and giving your head a little shake he says, “And you need managing, little girl. Put your fucking belt on, or I’ll put it on for you.”

Eyes all pupil and gone blurry, you lick your lips and he can smell the sweet fruit scent of your breath. He groans, pushing you back—mistake, mistake, putting his hands on you at all—and peels out of the parking lot, and he is not hard in his jeans for you. 

“Are you mad at me?” You ask after several moments of forced silence. 

“No.”

“Not even for last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it either.”

“Well, now I’ve changed my mind.”

Jesus, he mutters. “There’s nothing to discuss—already told you what I think and how it’s going to be and that’s final. You need to let it go, you hear me?”

You give a little groaning screech through your clenched teeth, turning away from him, still not wearing your goddamn seatbelt, never doing as he says. 

Toeing your boots off roughly, the little skirt hitches high enough on your thighs he catches a glimpse of the smooth glowing skin of your hip, eyes trying to watch the road and your thighs at the same time. 

“You’re horrible,” you say through a grimace, but your voice cracks a little bit at the end, and you’ve still got your face turned away so that he can’t tell if he’s made you cry or not now. 

“Are you cryin’?” He demands.

“No,” you sniffle, wiping your cheek on a lifted shoulder 

“Yes you are, liar.” Fuck—fuck, fuck.

“Well you’re bein’ mean,” you whine, finally turning to look at him again, and you’re all rose glow, cheeks flushed and eyes glossy, lips red as a cherry. 

No man should be tested like this. It’s wrong—unnatural.

He tries to gentle his voice and steady the pounding of his heart, pressing down on the gas, wishing the road would disappear from beneath the tires of the truck and that he could have you home and away from him already. “Not bein’ mean, sweetheart. Just—just…” He sighs, “Goddamnit, just don’t how how to handle you,” he curses, losing the grasp on his gentleness. 

“See—you are angry with me!” A tear slips down your cheek, and Joel’s mouth waters. 

His heart kicks up another notch, hypnotized, “You make me fuckin’ crazy—is that what you wanna hear?”

“Yes.” You turn full in the seat to face him, bent knees against the center console block his view of the apex of your thighs. Fucking Christ. 

“Sit right. You’re flashing your bits,” he tries and fails to focus on the road. 

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause I want you to see them, stupid.”

Jesus. “How much did you have to drink?” 

“Only one High Noon.”

“The hell is that? And quit lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?” Your knees shift against each other, and he’s gripping the steering wheel so tight he feels like he could rip it out of the dash. 

“You fuckin’ know like what.”

“Well if you hadn’t been such a cock block earlier, I’d be looking at someone else like this right now.”

And the teasing is too much. The bare legs and the tiny skirt and the hair and the lips and the sound of your voice, the kiss last night replaying in his mind over and over and over again like some lovesick taunt, the look of hurt he’d put on your face and the idea of you bare and slick, taking some other man that isn’t him. It’s too much. 

He jerks the truck roughly onto the road shoulder and into the grass, wheels spinning and gravel flying. Joel—you squeal, being jostled in your seat so that all he can see are soft thighs and pretty tits bouncing in his peripheral. He puts the truck in park, ripping his seat belt off, reaching over to tug you roughly forward by the nape, his fingers twisting in your hair in a hold he knows is too hard for something so delicate, his other hand grips below the bend of one knee squeezing hard. 

“If you think I’m gonna let you spread your legs for anyone fucking else—” he growls.

“Anyone else?” You laugh in his face, eyes spinning with something a little maniacal.

He thought he’d been worried for his soul, that taking you would be the undoing of everything he’d tried so hard to mend back together after Sarah. And really, he had tried so hard—to be good, to be better, to atone for all he’d not done before her, all he’d done after her. He’d tried to make himself into something that was respectful of her memory and the second chance Kelly had given him. 

But right here, and again because anytime he looks at you, is within a mile of your vicinity, it feels like you’re the only two people on the whole goddamn planet, he doesn’t think he really gives a fuck for being good or atoning or souls at all. Not even a little bit. 

He follows your lead from last night and kisses you, is sure to take your tongue this time. Forcing his thumb and forefinger between the line of your molars, he presses down hard enough to hurt the baby soft skin, spreading your jaw open wide so that he can lick into your mouth deep and wet. He wants to scare you, cow you, intimidate you into behaving with this hunger that seems to swallow him whole—remind you that he’s let you have your fun thus far, but the both of you know who’s playing games and who’s not. 

You let out a shocked little gasp onto his tongue, fingers twisting in the fabric over his shoulder, and he tightens his grip under your knee, tugging you just that little bit further forward, and when he pulls back to look at you, spit slick, swollen mouth and wide eyes, tits about to spill out of your top, you push his face away roughly, dragging your nails down the skin of his cheek with a tiny snarling growl. 

Spoiled little brat.

“Don’t be fuckin’ childish,” he snarls back, and pulls you roughly over the console and into his lap. 

“I can’t stand you,” you pant, settling above him, coming in to kiss him again, and he can’t deny it anymore. He’s hard as fuck for you. 

You moan into his mouth, high and throaty at the same time, girlish little sigh at the end that has him gripping your hip tightly, trying to stop himself from thrusting up against you.

“Can you taste him?” You lick his tongue. “He kinda looked like you, didn’t he? That’s why I chose him.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He’s going to stop this now, at any moment. He’s going to push you away and tell you this is wrong and that the two of you can’t do this. 

Instead, you wrap your arms around his neck, pressing your tits high against his chest and grinding your lace covered little cunt against his cock. 

He groans into your mouth, pushed straight over the edge and free falling, cupping your ass to lift you off of himself a little bit, he just needs a second, before he takes a breath and presses you back down harder, rolling your hips against his lap. Little animal sounds, an ah, ah, ah and an oh, coupled with his mewled name. Cupping the soft of your ass in the palms of his hands, his calluses scrape against silken skin, and you fit him as if he’d dreamt you up just for himself; perfectly lush curves he can squeeze as hard as he wants because you’re not getting away from him now that he’s caught you in his snare. He drags his fingertips up the roundness of your asscheeks, and the mystery’s solved, it’s a thong. Catching the lace between his fingers he pulls the flimsy string upwards and tight against your pussy, a pained moan when he pulls even harder, making sure the fabric digs against your skin.

He knows if he cups you there you’ll be wet for him, for him, no one else but him. Knows he could bend you face first over the console, pull the soaked lace aside and suck on your wet little clit, make you come in his mouth. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groans. 

Joel, Joel, Joel, you hum in a dream voice. 

He can feel two little dimples at the low of your back, imagines what they’d look like with his thumbs gripped there as your ass takes his cock. 

He can’t say it enough—he feels fucking insane. 

“Touch me,” you beg, sliding and pressing against him, long hair like water slipping all over and against him too. 

Oh my God, he whisper moans when you spread your knees as wide as the seat allows, rocking your hips in short little hitches against the ridge of his cockhead. He knows your little clit is right there, cunt a knot of indescribable heat against him, and you pull your mouth away from his, letting your head fall back, hair a tangled curtain. He drags his nails back down your ass hard enough he hopes he’s leaving marks, leaning forward to lick along the salt tracks of your tears, watching you use him. 

“Do not fucking come,” he orders. He can’t—he can’t watch you do it and not be inside you when it happens, and the two of you absolutely cannot take this that far. 

He pulls your hips up again, forcing your movements still and you huff at him, whining. 

“We gotta stop.”

Noooo. “No, Joel. Please,” you cry, trying to pull yourself towards him—your mouth is so swollen—trying to escape his hold and get what you want for yourself. 

Grasping at the last vestiges of his sanity, “Fuck— No. No more.” He lifts you off his lap and back into your seat, sitting back to press himself against the door and adjusting the throbbing erection in his jeans, so hard it’s making him a little nauseous. If he doesn’t stop, he’s going to stuff his cock inside of you right here and now. He tucks the thick head up under his waistband, trying to find any sort of momentary relief. 

There isn’t enough oxygen in this truck. He needs air, space, to taste you. 

“Fine,” prim little nose in the air. You stretch one leg out across the console to dangle over his groin and let the other drop to the cab floor. “That’s fine—I’ll just take care of it myself then,” you tease provocatively, fingertips dragging up the inside of your thigh.

He shoots forward to stop your movement, gripping your wrist in a vice—baby bird bones beneath his fist, and you moan at his touch like the little wanton he’s coming to realize you are, writhing in your seat. “Don’t you fucking dare. I swear to God I’ll put you over my knee.”

“Jokes on you, I’d like that shit,” you sass back, ripping your wrist out of his hold, little socked foot kicking towards his face. He catches it, holding it in his grip and squeezing. “And I don’t really care if you’re not mad at me because I’m mad at you.”

“I know you are, sweetheart,” and the mood changes, smolders into something more serious, more honest.

-

“Why didn’t you go today? The lawyer asked you to—” You’d wanted to find him as soon as you’d gotten home earlier, demand he give you an explanation. Cowardice had won over that desire, and going out to find a drink and a replacement man had seemed the easier alternative. 

“Wasn’t my place.” Spreading his thighs wider in his seat to accommodate himself, he presses his hips forward, and you can make out the heft of his cock beneath his jeans—your belly twists all full of heat and bubbles. 

“Did you know he was leaving you something?”

He laughs a bitter bark of a laugh. “No—never thought—” the words die in his throat and he stares out the window, lost to the memory of your father. “No, I didn’t think he was leaving me anything before I got the call.”

“It’ll make a good nest egg.” 

“Don’t want it.”

He won’t turn to look at you now, and you know that this conversation in the aftermath of touching you shames him. 

“You’re taking it. You don’t have a choice.” His eyes flash fire at you and then flit away. “He had all your banking information, it’s probably already there.”

Fucking Christ, he spits the murmured curse, bracing his elbow against the curve of the steering wheel, cupping his palm over his mouth as if to keep his anger and frustration in. The bulge of his bicep beneath his dark hoodie distracts you for a moment. 

You’d spent enough time watching him over the years that you’d learned all the things you knew he tried to hide in plain sight. That gentleness, that patience, that heart—that he is an inconceivably good and honest man. Things that are ultimately impossible to hide. 

Your eyes flash to the temple where a gristle of scar tissues is slashed across his skin. The meaning behind a scar like that, coupled with his bad ear and his green eyed photograph—it’s hard to hide. People can always tell when you’ve tried to kill yourself, you know. 

Which all goes to say—and you’re quite certain of this—that yes, the two of you are strangers, in ways, but in others, or in your own way, you know this man. You understand his nature. You know he wouldn’t have ever wanted it—that he does not want it and never will. He isn’t the sort of man who’d ever look a million dollars in the eye and feel moved by them. 

His humanity means more to him than his life, you’d heard Tommy say about him once to your father when you’d been an eavesdropping little girl. You hadn’t understood at the time, but now you do. 

The dark pullover and jeans, incongruously boyish, the scuffed boots—he’s so himself and so fucking hot and you want him so, so badly, and looking at him sitting here now, gorgeous, hair mused by your fingers, and your slick smeared across his jeans—you look down at your own twisted fingers in your lap, a little ashamed now too—and you can’t fathom why or how he’d ever look at you and feel moved by the likes of you either. 

You’re ashamed that you’re even angry at him for it at all, resentful of this gift your father has given him when really it is not only resentment, maybe not even truly that at all. More so, it’s a complicated mixing pot of feelings that these two men seem to have always been twisted up into knots together inside of you. Resentful, not because you don’t want him to have it. You want him to have everything he deserves or could ever think to want and more, but perhaps, because this was the final nail in the coffin scrap of proof that your father had cared about him in a very real way that you’d never experienced—in a way that was entirely Oswald Kelly’s own choice and not because of dead mothers or obligation or legacy. 

“It’s good he left it for you,” you say gently and mean it. 

He looks at you out of the corner of his eyes, looks away, from under the cover of his palm says, “S’not fair to you.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me. This is about you and you deserving this, and I’m glad he gave you your due. He should’ve left more.”

His eyes flutter shut, sighing deeply and shakes his head. “You’ve made me into something I’m not. You need to see that.”

“You’re not some sort of cautionary tale, Joel.”

“You don’t know a thing about it,” voice like he could he angry but is being very careful to remain not. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, the reasons why I came here. You should look at me and see nothin’ worthwhile.”

“My father saw something,” you argue. “You let my father see that something. And I do too, no matter what you say, no matter what you do or how hard you push me away; I’m used to it, and you won’t change my mind.”

He gives you a look like you’re hurting him, like your truths hurt him. “We’re goin’ home. This is enough,” he gruffs, pulling the truck into drive again and peeling out of the grassy knoll. 

Fight dying in your throat, you feel suddenly exhausted, shivering coldly, belly an ember of unsated lust, your orgasm is tight and wet between your legs and you don’t want to argue or impose yourself on him anymore. You don’t want to feel like you’re imposing yourself now when he’d never made you feel like that before. 

The night is a pitch dark blur falling away behind your glazed over eyes, and huddling into yourself against the door, you hide your face away in your shoulder, belly swooping with nausea. 

“You drive too fast, I’m dizzy,” you mumble, and he  immediately slows, foot easing off the gas.

“You gonna puke?”

“Yes, all over your face.”

“I’m serious, darlin’. Need me to stop?”

“No. I just want to be home,” said in as small a voice as you can manage, hoping he won’t catch your words, and soon he’s turning off into the long drive to the house. 

When he pulls to a stop, you scramble to grab your boots before he can say anything else, but he’s unnaturally quick for such a large man, out the door and around the nose of the truck, pulling your own door open before you can even get a single boot on. He pulls them from your grasp, and then tugs you bodily out of your seat, slinging you over his shoulder as if you were some sack of nuisance prone potatoes. You screech, flailing, trying to knee him in the gut, but he bands a strong arm across the backs of your thighs, pinning you in obedient place. “Quit.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” You howl, hitting him repeatedly on the ass, trying to wriggle and make his life as difficult as you possibly can. 

This man has absolutely no consideration or respect or sense of personal space!

Technically, neither do you—but that’s neither here nor there. 

You scream like a hyena, shrill and long and he pinches your ass hard, right at the inner crease of your thigh and ass cheek, too close to your still wet pussy for comfort. “I said quit.”

“Everything alright out here?” You hear Jesse’s voice call from the direction of the bunk, they must’ve beat you two here while you’d been trying to seduce Joel into making you come. 

The snap of Joel’s fingers and then, “Mind your own fucking business.”

“You are so rude.”

He bumps you on his shoulder, jostling you on the soft of your belly and making your cunt go even tighter. You hate him. “Quiet, you.” 

Letting himself in the dark of your house, he makes his way up the stairs while you hang quietly upside down now, a little astounded, a lot turned on by how strong he is, lugging you all the way upstairs without even a change in his breathing. 

But as soon as he steps foot into your bedroom, now set to rights from yesterday’s disaster, you feel the change come on him. The shift and deepening of his breaths, the expanse of his ribs going wide and winglike as he sucks in a big gulp of air. You press your palm flat to the center of his back, feeling the whistle of his breath go in and out of him until he’s slipping you off his shoulder to bounce gently backwards onto your soft bed. 

He stands above you for a quiet moment, and you take in the broad shape of him backlit by the moonlight of your open drapes. He’s huge and imposing cast in this darkness, something out of a dream.

Literally—out of your own teenage fantasy dreams. 

Has anyone in all the world ever wanted someone as badly as you want him?

You can feel the press of his left knee against the inside of your right one, and you wish he’d put it between your thighs, join you on the bed.

“Can I ask you something?” You reach your fingers out and he tangles his hand with yours and it’s a small victory. 

“Yeah.”

“Would you come to my funeral?”

His fingers jolt— “What?”

“If I died.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“Tell me that you would—” You tug him forward and he lets himself come, bending over your prone form, braced on one arm and still holding onto your fingers with the other. “—That I wouldn't be alone even there.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Would you?”

“Makes me angry when you say shit like this—as if you don’t believe I’m going to take care of you.” 

“Please tell me, Joel. Promise me—” and you reach up to gently touch the scar across his temple. 

He goes frozen and understanding. “I’d come,” and you know it costs him something to give in to such an imagining and it makes you all the more grateful for it. 

Fingers sliding back into the curls at his temple, silver speckled, you know, you pull him further towards you until he’s close enough to press a softly hot kiss to his mouth. The two of you hold there for a moment, another, another, you can feel the wash of his heavy breathing through his nose, the flutter of his long lashes tangling with yours—you hope he’s searching for you in the dark—and you lift your knee up onto the bed, bending to open yourself to him. 

He pulls back, hand shooting to your jaw to grip you tightly in place, breath ragged, animal being hunted. 

You smile.

“Not gonna fuck you,” he says low.

“Why not?” It’s what you want, you deserve to have what you want. He squeezes your face once, presses another hard, too quick kiss to your mouth and then flips you over onto your belly, turning your skirt up over your ass to expose you. He tugs once on the string of your thong, drawing his finger along the lace wedged between your ass cheeks and then pulls his hand away for a moment before he’s spanking you hard and quick. 

Owwww, you whine, hitching your rump towards him, wanting more despite the sting. He bends his head and bites you even harder at the inner corner of your asscheek, teeth digging hard and long enough to leave a mark. You whine again, high and mewling, trying to escape his meanness and he smacks you again on the other cheek. 

“Go to bed, little girl. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

And he’s leaving you, broad shouldered form slipping out your bedroom door and leaving you aching and angry to scream into your pillow.

You’re pretty sure you hear his deep laugh before the slam of the door sounds below, and you’re slipping your greedy fingers into the ruined wet of your panties, petting away the ache he’s left. 

-

The late May night is cool, despite the daytime heat, and Ellie shivers in her Carhartt, watching as Joel slips out the back kitchen door of the big house. 

“The hell is going on with those two?” Jesse says beside her, pulling long on his beer. The litter of yellow cans around them speaks to his mullish whining that he’d not been able to pull tonight. Sometimes he annoys her, but in that sort of endearing little brother way that makes her want to kick his ass and protect him at the same time. 

“Nothin’, they’re fine—just gotta fuck it out.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Naw—just smarter than you, man.”

“They like each other?”

“God, Jesse, you wouldn’t see an obvious thing if it were a tipsy bison barrelin’ towards you full speed in the middle of the day.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he says a little pathetically. Moping men—Ellie really can’t be assed to deal with them all. 

“It’s fine. You don’t need to understand. I do—I see all, I know all. You mere mortals wouldn’t understand.”

“S’kinda weird, no? Them two—him bein’ so much older, her bein’…well, you know— her.”

“Nope. Makes perfect sense—they need each other, you see.”

He shrugs, I guess—“You’re fuckin’ weird, too. You know that?”

She takes a swig of her beer now also, hoping the two idiots she loves most in the world, after Dina of course, figure each other out before the whole ranch has to suffer for it too. 

“Wrong again, Jesse. Wrong again.”

Netherfeildren’s Masterlist

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house for goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn. 

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys. 

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house. 

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues. 

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now. 

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also. 

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now. 

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her. 

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died. 

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for. 

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say. 

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him. 

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him. 

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him. 

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My daughter, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back. 

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now. 

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room. 

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue. 

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral. 

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too. 

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action. 

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched. 

He should’ve fucking been here. 

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

 His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you. 

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit. 

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths. 

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you. 

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick. 

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.” 

We. 

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him. 

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance. 

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything. 

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt. 

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks. 

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it. 

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt. 

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

-

Your father is made small and withered in death. 

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man. 

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone. 

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for. 

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one. 

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber. 

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger. 

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell. 

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time. 

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim. 

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself. 

-

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry. 

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world. 

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime. 

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob. 

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory. 

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave. 

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat. 

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear. 

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another. 

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all. 

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday. 

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way. 

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy. 

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time. 

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year. 

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient. 

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor purposefully premeditated in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom. 

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days. 

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp. 

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph. 

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home. 

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly. 

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range. 

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him. 

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling. 

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.  

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him. 

-

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone. 

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself. 

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower. 

You’d always hated them. 

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved. 

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended. 

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans. 

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad. 

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel. 

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far. 

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want? 

Someone to care. 

Someone to love you. 

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy. 

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s. 

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling. 

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be. 

Who that is? Still being decided. 

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch. 

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get. 

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else. 

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad. 

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way. 

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you. 

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god. 

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less. 

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without. 

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all. 

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped. 

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand. 

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh.  “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so. 

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him. 

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up. 

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son. 

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you. 

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy. 

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath. 

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time has been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your America twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion. 

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know. 

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Obviously not. 

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing. 

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good. 

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you. 

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday. 

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel. 

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now. 

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that. 

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad. 

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue. 

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along. 

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life. 

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you. 

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you. 

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully. 

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man. 

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it. 

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony. 

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.” 

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl. 

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable. 

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest. 

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours. 

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered. 

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head. 

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either. 

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains. 

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning. 

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core. 

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now. 

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest. 

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop dinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return. 

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned. 

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.” 

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood. 

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him. 

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

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Notes On a Virtuous Affair

Sunlight spills over everything, and the pastoral green leads you to him. 

One would think this road ends in something virtuous—a greenness so dazzling it hurt the eyes—and not the sort of man waiting in his far out removed solitude. 

But there’s an incongruity afoot here that only you appreciate.

The secret lies in that there’s a riddle woven through the three miles you pilgrim to see him weekly. The first, a boon, the green lush wasteland, if a thing that’s alive can be wasted. The second, an honesty, I’ll venture this distance for him. The third, a precursor, when your muscles start to tingle, your thighs, hot and itchy, nape, coated in a taste of salt. Your feet crunch along the gravel and dirt, protected by the soft leathered boots inherited from Lucy who’d died last Monday. A good start to the week, with new boots, and a thoughtful gift she’d left you, your friend, when your own shoes were so worn from all the walking you do for him. The end of the world changes death, finds good things within it. 

The sun warms the bridge of your nose, and you tip your face up to the too-bright light, trying your hardest to look straight at the intensity of it. He’s very much like this too. Why would you look directly at the sun if not for the hurting it brings? Your palms splayed forward at your sides, the breeze moving through your fingers, and the world is all around you alive in this apocalypse. 

Jackson is left further and further behind as you move towards him, and what no one understands, not even Joel Miller himself, is that there is something virtuous about this affair.

-

“I’m gonna fuck your mouth now,” he says down at you, bare as the day you were born and kneeling before his clothed and towering height. Nothing but the heavy hanging length of his cock is naked for you, the first you’d ever seen in your whole life. If he had his way, the only one you’d ever see for the rest of it. The wide head is slick and glossy, the way it bobs obscenely from his open jeans looking like the weight of it would hurt, the way it juts from the bed of hair at this groin like a threat to you. 

You know now, after all his focused training, that it only hurts him when you don’t tend to it as he needs, that it’s only a threat when you fail to do the same. He’s shown you the rules of hurting, in all these months you’ve come your three promised miles to him time after time. Shown you how it comes easy, that of hurting someone you love. A running in place sort of thing. You know all the steps that will come, the exact spot you’ll tread in. The way to propel yourself forward to finally leave that same place, avoid it, if you want. 

“Open wider. Won’t fit like that,” he clicks his tongue, voice a burr as he grips his throbbing flesh and with the other too big hand, also like a seeming threat, but not, he gives you a quick, softly stinging slap to the high of your cheekbone. The sound, fast and snapping like his disapproving tongue. You swallow a moan, looking up at him with that look in your eyes you know disturbs him, adoration, letting the hinges of your jaw go loose, saliva pooling beneath the cover of your tongue. “Don’t you want me?” He asks. 

And you blink once, moan crossing the bridge to a laugh if your mouth wasn’t stretched wide as it’ll go. He sees it though, skipping water in your eyes and gives that half smile, the mean one, the one that says he has all the answers in the world, knows all the things there are to know, that one you like best. Good girl, and his voice makes no sound, only the shape of the words on his mouth. You haven’t been good enough yet to hear the real thing of them out loud. This tells you that you must apply yourself to the task at hand, making him come. 

One heavy tap to the flat of your tongue sticking out for him first, and then he’s slicking that fat head against the surface, giving you the first real taste, salt and musk trickle down the back of your throat and you moan again, eyes screwing shut tight, cunt aching something fierce. Leaking just like the tip of his cock leaks too. 

That’s the thing about this thing, the one you see very well and Joel still fails to. The two of you, as disparate as you might seem, are the same in all the basic but most important ways. Too much in common for him to look at in the eye comfortably and still do the things you do. 

“Open your throat. Get me hard.” In your head, he calls you baby. In reality, only sometimes, when you’re extra good, does that happen. But in your imagination, where it matters more, he doesn't ask nice, but you are his baby. 

He slides back, back, hits the end of your throat, pulls out against the wet heat of your tongue. You keep your jaw wide until you feel him harden entirely, until he stretches his neck back, tendons jumping stark, clench of his jaw fluttering with a choked groan. “Suck me,” your permission to savor him like you need to. 

Hands pressed firmly to your bare knees, not digging at your soft wet like you’d like, or pawing at him as you’d like even more, you close your lips around him, cheeks hollowed and suck hard, tonguing at his slit on the pull back so that he’s bearing his teeth at you in a growl and shoving forward again hard, a snarl as the cinch of your tight throat strangles the head of his cock on every one of your swallows. Your eyes water, but he pets softly at the same spot he’d stung earlier with his slap. 

A game you used to play with your siblings, who could slap one another harder until the other gave out. It’d taken a while for you to come to the realization, but eventually, you’d realized the memory of it in your mind as it exists now wasn’t innocent the way it should’ve been. That there had been something you’d liked about it in a strange way—that hurting. That the first time you’d asked Joel to play the same game with you, you’d wanted him to slap you other places just as hard until you gave out also. 

The games were part of the thing. His own strange rules, like the way you couldn’t touch him sometimes—you dig your bitten down nails into the soft skin of your inner thighs—only when he said it was okay was it allowed. The way you were never allowed to touch your cunt unless he said so also. He had weird things about him, turned strange by the dangerous ways of life. Like the solitude, the house out and away, the begging you had to do for him to have you. 

Sameness. 

He wraps his fist in your hair, more sting, “Gonna fill your belly with my come, yeah?” His thrusts pick up pace, pulling your head back as far as your neck allows so that he can fuck your throat in full, jaw hanging wide, and you’re just the wet and willing hole you know he sometimes wishes you could always stay as. 

The thick cock against your tongue throbs once, twice and then he’s spilling hot and heavy down your open throat, sweet salt against the back of your tongue while you try and breathe through his strangling, tears spilling.

When he pulls back, slipping wet and heavy from your mouth you fall forward onto your palms, breathing fast, almost hyperventilating, stinging with the forced will to remain obedient. Your spine burns beneath your skin and your sore jaw hangs unwillingly open, sloppy mouth dripping a string of semen between your splayed palms. 

He crouches before you, dripping cock like your mouth, milked to heavy softness hangs long and sated between his thighs. And he pets your crown, the vulnerable shell of your ear, whole body on fire so that every inch of skin hurts without his touch, hurts worse with it. 

“Good girl,” he says now with voice. 

-

The walk seems longer some days. A thousand miles plus an eon instead of merely three. Especially on the days you’re more desperate than usual. The ones when your stomach feels full of sugar for him and the memory taste of his cock is already aching in your molars. Those days your steps are hurried, look in your eyes frenzied to get to him, to escape the things you leave behind. A too full house, your sister’s squalling, teething baby, your little brothers, and too many mouths to feed and not attention to be had, not enough mother for everyone to get loved. 

There’s reasons for this game between the two of you, you’d had to come out and find your attention somewhere else. 

Your love too. 

And if it comes with a sting sometimes, well, so had your mother’s. You like it like this now. 

The first time he’d touched your cunt: show me that pretty pussy, baby, and he’d had you from that very first sweet word, you gonna let me finger it? You’d spread wide, leaked into the cup of his palm like a whore, you’d needed to make sure he was for keeping from the first try, you see. So you’d done all he’d said, taken four fingers and only cried a little bit but whined a lot. Been all, hurts, Joel, high pitched and dragging his name out on a puppy whimper. 

He’d given you that first lesson in hurt the very first time: Yeah? Supposed to. A real mean man. And then made you gush into that very cupped palm so that he could drink of your sweetness. 

He was the experienced one, you the innocent. It should have been different. Maybe it should’ve felt different. And yet, there was something in him that made you feel very much the conquering one, you the baptizing one. 

The third mile comes to an end, the precursor, over, his house in view. It’s all quiet and slumbering and the long grass pulls you forward with its wind blown sway. The wide door to his shed is propped open, half finished rocking chair up on the workbench that sways with the intruding gust. The grass whispers behind you, the dark woods across the field moan, and he’s nowhere while the Tetons loom in the distance. 

You drag your fingers along the slats of his house as you pass, everything is so quiet, like he’d never been here. Like he’d gone and left you the way he’s promised he’d never do. Your belly feels bloated with heat, heart turned into four incongruous chambers that no longer beat in tune, memories of him rioting between each thump. Your cunt goes soft and drooling in your panties as your fear beats higher and higher, and you come to the mouth of the shed, peering into the cool darkness of this little place where he makes his beautiful things. The things that go into people’s homes to be used by people’s families to be stored in people’s memories.

The gleam of the sun does not cross the threshold, and you brace your palms on either side of the wide door, the air thrums and he’s not here—yet—you slide the toe of Lucy’s old boot across the border of sunlight into sanctuary and peek your closed-eyed face into the shade right before you’re taken bodily to the ground by his heavy weight. Palms catching splinters, his strong chest heaves into the line of your spine, strong arm at your waist to pull your breath from your lungs and your legs from under you. 

He forces you belly first to the ground, other hand circling your throat in the imitation of a strangle lest you lose yourself and decide to struggle for the first time ever. But you dig your fingernails into the dirt, scratching for purchase in preparation of what’s about to come, all the fight going out of you; body, half in shadow, half in sunlight. Your bones feel salt bleached. An over abundance of sodium in the blood that renders you catatonic for him.

He nuzzles soft at your nape while his hand shoves under your dress, ripping your underwear down your legs so that the elastic cuts into your tender skin to hurt. All incongruous movement, this man is. 

“Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to go creepin’ ‘round strange men’s homes?” His voice is so deep, drawled, broken up into different notes of lust and anger and temerity. All the strange things that make Joel Miller up. 

Yeah, you sigh into the dirt. “Told me exactly how it’d go for me if I did.”

You hitch your rump up then, presenting your cunt for fucking. The breeze doesn’t do half to soothe the throbbing wet. The sort of ache that’ll only be fixed by something heavy inside the hurting place. The sound of his belt quiets the disparate chambers, the beat in your ears of rushing blood is uniform now, there’ll be a wet spot in the shape of you in the dirt when he’s through. You lift your hips higher, knees scraped rough as you spread wider, face pressed to the ground and your fingers are well and burrowed in their little gouges now. 

He smacks the heft of it against you asshole, spits and presses a little. He likes to scare you sometimes. Nooo, Joel, all whining stutter, but with your back arching deeper like a little babied liar; you don’t mind where he puts it, only that he puts it somewhere.

“Hush,” he soothes all nice, spanks your ass once all not— “Gonna teach you a lesson.” And shoves inside, bumping against your womb on the first try, stretching your hole too wide, too quick. And there’s no prep, no qualm. No need to hesitate when you own a thing. You swallow your animal cry, ah ah ah, you want to hear how good you’ve been out loud. He grips your hips tight enough to bruise which is what you know he wants and fucks hard and fast, each swing whistles with ownership. 

He fucks you in the dirt like an animal, and this affair is virtuous. 

He teaches you the truth about hurting, about ownership, about so many things that only a man like Joel Miller could teach a girl like you. And all the while he tells you that you’re too pretty to take such an ugly fucking. 

The way he works your cunt, hungry, balls swinging wet so that they sting like his slaps, tip battering hard so that it aches like gratitude. 

These are the things three miles give you. A whole man to teach you about the whole world. 

The slick squelch of your overwhelmed cunt sounds loud, no more disparate heartbeat, no more green grassed whispers. Only the sound of his grunting above you like an animal remains. “You’re the perfect little cunt. You know that, baby?” There it is, you sigh. Start to tremble around him like that, like his good baby that you are, desperate flutters, little gash being fucked into obedience like you need. Your overwhelmed pants make little dirt dream clouds before your eyes as you start to come for him, crying his name, crying your love, crying that you’re so, so thankful. 

“Don’t stop, Joel. Not yet.” And he loves it when you beg, loves it when your cunt pulls tight like a knot.  

“Not yet,” he promises because he might be a real mean man, but he loves you like separating salt from blood.

Complicated and precise. 

When he’s through with you, there’s sunlight spilling over everything again. It’s journey goes on and on, and his semen drips from your cunt now. He turns gentle, thrusting still, making sure it’s fucked deep, pulsing in time with your own throb. Rhythms merge between the two of you. 

His rules are strange, his claims over you equally mysterious. He won’t say things out loud, won’t let you touch any real part of him, but his strange truths ring loud anyways, and when your heart isn’t disjointed, you hear him perfectly well. 

When he lays you out bare and trembling across his messy bed, the groaned pains of his age and rutting in the dirt like an animal sound from him as he drapes himself alongside you. Large and hairy, feet hanging off the end of the bed, entirely real with one knee propped up so that his thick cock lays heavy and soft over the swell of his belly. Your heart beats soft and overfull now. 

You watch the sun set across the planes of his chest and bask in the blue dark as the night draws breath around you. The work of meting out obedience to little girls who come searching for it is toiling, and you watch him melt into sleep, but right before he’s just gone away from you, with a single finger petting at the jut of the old broken bone in his shoulder, your whispered plea: Will you give me a falseness? You don’t call it a lie. This is a virtuous thing, after all.

Lies aren’t allowed in this house. 

He breathes a deep sigh, and you watch the fan of his long lashes sweep open, staring up at the shadowed rafters of his home. You swear you can see each and every individual whisker in his thick beard, dark and gray dispersed throughout. You see every single detail. 

He’d told you once there were ghosts here, in this house, and you’d learned later it wasn’t a lie. This became more and more obvious the more you got to know him. 

He stares up at them now. 

When he’d taken your virginity, when it’d left you the way you’d always imagined it would, covered in tears and blood and semen, you’d made that promise to each other. That you wouldn't lie, that he’d have all of you, that you’d not touch all of him. The ghost lay beside you in the damp bed of your lost innocence that day. It’d been just so ever since and over many miles of three you’d come to appreciate the realities of it. Who could be more connected than two people who always tell each other their truths exactly as they are?

“Give me a falseness,” you say again, not a lie. 

“A good kind of a bad kind?”

You flip a mind’s coin, wish you could see the exact ghosts he sees— “Bad.”

He turns to look at you, this half smile he wears is your second favorite one now, the honest one, and it’s all there for you to see. All the disparate chambers of Joel, just like your heart beating in your ears. You suppose the ghosts don’t matter then. 

“I don’t love you.”

And you nod solemn. Bad, like a whisper, like your game. 

You smile back, the one you know he likes best, the one that looks like his.

Netherfeildren’s Masterlist

This is a lesson:

“Tell me again,” she says, and it’s a begging.

A begging like what? Something that carries shame and smallness in the shape of it. Stay a little longer. It humiliates him for the wretchedness it pulls from him. Joel, please. Seeping blood the color of her supplication. Please, she says, please. And who else says please to him anymore? Who asks him for anything anymore but her? The only ones who ever had are long past and gone, and he can’t even barely remember they were ever really there to ask anything of him to begin with—can’t remember what it feels like to owe someone something and want to give it to them in a way that will actually make him. 

Tell me what again? That I want you? That I’ll stay? That I love you? I’ll come back, he says instead, the only thing he can promise and keep. And he wonders if it humiliates her too, the way he lies, the way he runs, the way he swears, the way he always comes back and comes back but never returns with the things she needs. A humiliation just like it is a begging. 

The thing they have: it’s strange, fickle, honest in its lies, very, very ugly. An ugliness that is shocking in a world gone to rot already. The sky doesn’t shine anymore and they bask in it. 

But also, and, the thing they have: it’s physical, saving.

This is obvious too, even if only to them.

He slides inside and you’re what? Hot and wet and slick, and—yes, a thing like a dream, but still only a thing. Something to have, something close to desire, but not quite, more like biological want. Woman turned possession. In his mind this is an excuse, a reason, a begetting. Like, what—like what? Like when you want a thing very badly but it is very bad for you, and you need to make up any excuse to have it, lie and lie and lie—to your mother, your best friend, the mirror—a begetting like that. Easy to understand only if you’ve been there. 

It started simple, it started like nothing, it started like the first time you meet someone and you know they’ll matter, you know they’ll mean something. So it started like what? Like a lie. 

Shifts at the QZ, long and toiling and reminders of the sort of life that died in an outbreak of monsters, only if for how unlike that past it was. Humans or fungus or—

—men who hurt—you, men who refuse your love, Joel Miller.

The crutch of your age, of you being weaker or smaller or in need, him being easily felled, wooed, easily conquered by something young and given without a try because there was never the opportunity for trying before. 

Now, it is like this: you take my cock and you take my come and you take my nothing, and I give so little and yet you still find a way to take and take and take, leech of a girl, dream of a girl, hungry. And with the excuse that it’s only in a way you contrive for your own self. But in the end, what does that make you? What do I make you into? 

These are the things he asks himself. 

Perhaps she goes away for a time, tries the route of escape, of variety. But when she inevitably comes back because addiction is riddled always in the same sorts of ways: did you try different bodies? Did you try different flavors and sounds? Did you look for me in all of them? 

The answer is usually yes.

At reunion’s turn: he rolls her over to face her, Joel, damp and panting and trying to be something—perhaps better, more honest—after a season of variety and honest attempts and shut eyes. He’s so hard for her, always is. 

Again: he slides inside and you’re what? His, undeniably. Not yours. Something to want but not desire because it’s too romantic a notion, and yes, there’s a difference even if he can’t put into words what that difference specifically is. Body and heart, perhaps, definitions that differ between disparate anatomical parts or levels of deniability. 

Nothing either of you have ever been able to put into words when lust and love aren’t things you can even say out loud for the shame of them, even if they exist within said same anatomy. 

You come together, the season passed, the separation passed but still kept at hand for the next time the closeness becomes too much. 

“Tell me again,” she says, and this time he remembers what she’s asking for.

“I fucking missed you, baby. Missed this pussy.” Because he can’t say it’s her heart he missed. Because Joel Miller does not have honesty in his arsenal. 

He spreads you wide, knee to shoulder so it hurts and pulls, so it’ll be sore and reminding tomorrow. The slap of his pelvis against the back of your thighs is obscene, wet and lewd, a string of girl cum keeping you connected, such togetherness, curve of your ass to the root of his cock—the two of you are together again. 

You know what I thought, when I tried to go away, you say. He doesn’t want to know, but he doesn't tell you so either, only slides in again, the mouth of your womb right there, threatening. I’m never going to feel like this again, and I hate how certainly I know that. He wonders if the unsaid part is that he’s the recipient of that feeling, the hate. 

He wonders if the pinch inside him is hurt. He wonders if the throb is love. 

All he says because he can’t say the rest is, I missed you, I missed you, and if he could look himself in the mirror—something that’s twenty years past lost—he’d ask: are you alright? Just tell me you’re okay. And it sounds in your own voice and with your own care and the feel of your own warmth. Is there anything I can do?

Other times, he sees himself through your own eyes, and then he knows for certain that the throb is love 

So he makes up for lost time, hard—and if it was a thing he knew how to be— loving. Mouth to cunt first, primed and soft and begging, making you come again and then another once more, then inside of you. Slow, splitting you open, red cunt like a wound, balls slapping wet, pulling out to watch the gape of the space he’s carved for himself. His cock is so hard and missing you something desperate. And he’s reminded of what it is to really miss something in a way he hadn’t been in twenty years of apocalypse, he’s forced to realized that it’s been so long since he’d had something to love that he’d not realized the feeling of missing that long past someone had gone away, only faint memory remained. 

Violent, is what this makes him after that realization—thrusts turning hard and punishing. How dare you give yourself to me? How dare you then take yourself away? You come around him again, the gift of your orgasm. How dare you not be able to accept the little I’m able to give when I’m trying so desperately fucking hard to give you even just this? 

He fucks you mean, he fucks you in the way of a man who doesnt know how to say the things he needs to say, in a way that’s confusing, that could make a less discerning woman feel only the hurt. 

But then again, you know him.

Fucks you in a way that is a little bit like love.

And so, amidst all of it, there is an honesty amongst the lies. A truth unspoken that they both know—I’ll come back because I need you, because you’re the only one who can give me the things I'm not strong enough to ask for out loud. 

You’re not sure which of the two of you is the one saying it.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

CHAPTER XII : VENUS

What are we doing here, and why are our hearts invisible?

Anne Carson, Kinds of Water

“Just like that, yes. Good girl–keep doing what you’re doing.” His hand slides to circle your wrist, leather and the thick weave of your tunic, the slight shake of your nerves caught between. “Grip it firmly, but squeeze it gently. Yes– yes, good. You’re doing so well.”

You suck in a trembling breath, too hyper aware of the feel of his chest plate brushing against your back, the cap of his left knee gently bumping the back of your own, his arms wrapped in a loose and careful cage around your frame where he’s helping you direct the blaster at the target he’d set up several meters away for practicing. He’s got one of your wrists wrapped in the leather of his fist, the other cupping the underside of your elbow to keep your shaking arms steady. 

“I don’t know why I’ve never been very good at this,” you whisper over the sound of the burning desert winds lashing you in the brow. “It’s just never come very easy.”

“That’s alright. That’s why we’re practicing again.” The hand cupping your elbow moves slowly to your waist, all his handling of you these past few days has been so intentional, cautious and patient and aware of himself and you and your reactions. Your heart beats, thumps and thumps hard enough to make you a little dizzy, a little sick. “Keep your right arm firm, but fluid. Try not to lock your elbow, let the recoil move through you steadily.”

He’d covered your hair and face in soft white linen wraps to keep you from being scorched by the sun and sand, and his voice is so deep, head pitched low so that the modulator is vibrating right at the level of your ear, the sounds of him sluicing through the linen to curl around your ear. You shiver again, squeezing your fist too tight around the butt of the blaster. You’d asked him if he’d help you practice just before you’d made planet fall a few hours ago, and now here the two of you are. A few clicks outside of Mos Eisley, he’d found a cluster of sandstacks to land the Crest amidst for a couple hours of target practice—near an area he’d told you is called Beggar’s Canyon. 

You’re not sure if it’s just an excuse to have him touch you, but here you are now, in the circle of his arms, shivering with nerves and heat and want. The sun burns, but the places where he grips you burn worse, and your heart rings in your skull. 

“Focus your gaze between the eyeline, eventually, it’ll come naturally, your aim, but for now, use the field the blaster sets. Squeeze gentle–” He grips your now healed elbow firmly, anchoring your arm, the hand holding your wrist moves to your waist, securing you in his hold so that when you pull the trigger, the zing of the blaster bolt leaving its chamber moves through your limb, into your chest cavity, electrifying your heart, and his hold is steadying all the way through. He’s there to keep you up, keep you strong, and so it’s almost thoughtless when you do it, a gut instinct or some muscle inside your brain desperate to flex and stretch or come awake because faster than you can blink or think, you take hold of that bolt of plasma with your mind, freezing it midway between where the two of you stand and the target he’d set. 

You feel his hands flex around you, but he keeps still and silent, watching, waiting for what you’ll do next. And your heart beats faster and faster, the bright of the sun gleaming and nauseating, refracting off the sand, the plasma, your eyes. The bolt screeches and writhes and defies the laws of nature by your hand, and it does not feel good, but it does feel right. 

The first time you’ve really wielded the Force since the night you escaped. 

There’s something painful and uncomfortable and familiar about it coming back to you. Your breath goes fast within your chest, the taste of the desert on your tongue and the grit of sand sneaking beneath your clothes, sweaty line of anxiety down your spine, and his steady, calm breaths up against your back every other moment, this power inside of you that’s always been the cause of everything bad and only some things good. It vibrates in everything, moves through all living things, the Force, within you, within him. 

“Let it go, cyare. It’s okay if you miss.” You shut your eyes and let it fall away and now it’s not the Force or you or anything else, it’s only him keeping you up against the rest of everything. 

The two of you, like grief and the mountain. 

-

“How did you meet this woman again?” You ask for about the third time, seemingly unable to keep your mouth shut and your nerves to yourself. 

“She’s been keeping up maintenance on the Crest for a while now. And she helped out with the kid, watched him for me a couple times—I trust her.”

“Peli,” you repeat the name contemplatively, taking in the sight of him as he checks the pre-landing codes, flipping switches and punching toggles a little too roughly. He’s agitated, covered and swathed in it. You know he’s worried about you, the way you’ll feel being around someone else, scared you’re still feeling fragile or tired or weak. And you’re accepting it for now because you are. You are tired and you do feel fragile and you do need taking care of. If only for the time being, if only for a little bit longer. A sort of end feels very near, and you’re still working out what that such end is going to be. 

“Peli,” he sighs, hitting the last button and finally swiveling in his chair to face you, and you eye him suspiciously, you know that sigh and head tilt. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

“Not tired?”

“No.”

“Your shoulder?”

Hurts. “Fine.”

“Cyar’ika.”

“Din.” Another sigh. Another shake of his head. You’re sure he’s rolling his eyes at you beneath that stupid lug of metal he wears on his fat head. But you hope that he’s smiling too, and you give him a soft, small one of your own, twisting your fingers together tightly in your lap. You want to reach out for him, to go to him and sit with him and kiss him again like the other day. But you don’t feel ready again. Again, fragile, tired, a weakness of heart within you that you can’t understand the source of, or you can, but you don’t want to accept it, you want to be able to move on, to get over it, to be like you once were. But that you also know he’ll let you feel for as long as you need to.

“I promise I feel okay, and that I’ll tell you if I don’t.” The target practice had left you tired and awake, and there is something moving inside of you—a recognition of sorts you can’t pinpoint exactly, but which you know is going to show or tell you something about yourself soon, the Force, the things you’d done or the things you’d do. And there’s patience too, a waiting, a readiness to receive whatever this would be without pressure or urgency. You feel entirely strung tight, a knot about to be set loose, entirely at ease, as well. Something strange about the anxiety you carry within yourself, like it doesn’t really matter much anymore and is only waiting for the right moment to be expelled. 

He gives a soft grunt and turns back to face the control panel. The rolling golden sands of Tatooine like an ocean before you, and then there in the distance, the littered smattering of sand blighted little buildings that make up the spaceport of Mos Eisley. He directs the Razor Crest towards Hangar three-five, the ship jostling with the lowering of the landing gear. 

“What if she doesn’t like me?” You ask nervously, following him down the ladder once he’s eased the ship into the landing bay, fretting over this ordeal of having to meet someone else from his life, a friend, which wasn’t even something you were aware he knew how to have. You hear the heavy thud of his boots against the durasteel, and then his hands are circling your waist and pulling you down the rest of the way, paying no mind to your indignant squawking. 

He’d been strange with his touch, as well. As if he couldn’t help himself some moments, overcome by habit and familiarity, and then afraid and cautious in others. And you can’t understand how you feel about this either. Grateful, a sort of soft that makes your eyes smart and your cheeks bleed with heat. He’s so aware of you, so aware of what you might want or need, but then overcome, as well, needing you, wanting you. And you feel so afraid you won’t be able to give him those things—the ones he wants or needs, that you won't be able to find your way back to the way things had been between the two of you before. 

“You’ll be fine,” he says, little compassion to be found for your fretting. You stick your tongue out at the back of his head, rolling your eyes and steeling yourself as he lowers the hatch, and a chirpy little voice calls, Mando!

The plank lowers, and lowers, and lowers, and finally, a mess of springy dark curls come into view. The small woman, Peli, claps her hands excitedly and spreads her arms in wide welcome of him, and something in your heart throbs. 

A friend, indeed. 

“Peli,” he greets her, heavy, swaying gate stomping down the gangplank, voice serious and not all matching her enthusiasm. You roll your eyes at him again as the reverberations of his steps tickle your feet through the soles of your boots. 

“Hey, look everyone! It’s Mando,” she says to the chittering droids whirring around her. You follow him slowly, slinking directly behind him so that the breadth of his shoulders conceals you for a second longer before, “And who do we have here? Another unlikely companion?” 

He pivots, letting you step into full view and brave shyness, a hand coming up to hover around your waist, urging you forward, but not actually touching you. The sound of your name rings in tune to the thump of your heart through the modulator. Careful, so careful, and it makes you hurt at your own self. Wanting to touch you one moment, unable to stop himself from ripping you into his arms; another, afraid, feeling like he can’t even put a gently motioning hand on your body, and how will you ever fix this? How are you going to ever be able to get the two of you back to where you were? 

You take a hurt little step away from him, swallowing the heat in your throat several times before you can force a smile onto your face. 

His body shifts and sways towards your retreating one. 

But the small woman steps towards you, pit droids spinning and skittering frantically around her, and she claps a work hewn hand on your shoulder. “Let Peli take a good look at you.” Her gaze is cheerful, full of a youthfulness that belies her age and an even more cheerful, gap toothed smile. “Pretty girlfriend, Mando.” She waggles her bushy brows up at him. “Brought me another set of bright eyes, didn’t’cha?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Peli.” Your throat feels humiliatingly tight when she takes your hand in her smaller one, giving it a swift shake, no gentleness about the way she handles you, and there’s something comforting about the forsaking of the kid gloves. Your fracture isn’t obvious for the whole world to see, there’s still normalcy to be found for you. 

She looks up at Din as you avoid his burning gaze, laughing scowl on her sunny face. “Who woulda thought you had it in, ya, huh?” She thumps a fist on his chest plate, shaking her head and moves to take a look at the Crest. “To what do we owe the pleasure? Chasing down some elusive bounty? Carbon scoring’s worse than last time.'' She chatters a million miles a minute, pulling out some sort of electric scanner, assessing the old gunship. 

“We had a long trip,” he sighs, hands fisted on his hips as he watches her impatiently, turning his gaze back to your face every few moments. You want to bare your teeth at him in a snarl and tell him to stop fucking worrying. You want him to take you into his arms or hold your hand. 

“Long trip, sure. That’s what he always says,” she tells you over her shoulder with a roll of her eyes. “Turns out it’s usually a gun fight or something just as idiotic.”

You snicker, enjoying the easy way she handles your Mandalorian’s surliness, grateful for the cheerful buffer she provides between your own internal angst and his overzealous worrying. “It was a long trip this time, I swear. We’re coming from the Core,” he grumbles, and the two of you follow her while she inspects the damage on the ship, and in a moment of bravery or desperation for normalcy or closeness or just him, you reach up to grip two of his thick fingers in your fist. His hand immediately adjusts and curves to wrap around yours, intertwining your fingers and taking you securely in his grip. You feel him turn to look down at you questioningly, but you refuse to look back. This is normal, this is how it should be, this is what feels right even if you need the barrier of his gloves to feel like you can breathe. 

“The Core! Long way’s.” Hmm, she muses as she goes. “Got a fuel leak.” Again. He huffs. “Taking a vacation now?” She turns back with another smarmy smirk. 

“Something like that.”

“Nice little honeymoon?” She teases. “I could use one of those myself.” She scans something else, and the pit droids chatter and chirp around her, almost full her height, she’s so small. 

“Peli–” he grumbles. Your grumpy, shy boy; you wonder if he ever blushes under that thing, squeezing his hand in yours as tight as you can. 

“Yeah, yeah. No droids, I know. When are you gonna get over that nonsense, huh Mando? It’s about time, you know!” She bends to inspect something closer near the landing gear, covered in carbon scoring here too, examines her scanner again, then clips it back to her utility belt. “Alright, here’s the deal–” But he cuts her off, pivoting while pulling his blaster in one fluid motion to shoot at a poor little droid that's gotten too close. “Hey! Hey! What’ve I said before? You damage one of my droids, you’ll pay for it!” She shouts. 

“Din–” you scold, gripping the thick of his arm to pull the weapon down. 

“What’ve I told you?” He barks. 

“No droids. No droids. Blah, blah. You have got to get over that! I’m tryn’a make a deal with you here, ya womp rat.”

He jerks aggressively towards another little droid that wanders too close, sending it skittering away in terror, and you pinch his arm beneath the thick duraweave, frowning up at him, be nice, when he looks down at you, giving him a jut of your eyebrow and thrusting your chin at Peli. He groans, cursing low and grumpy in Mando’a. “Fine. What’s the deal?”

“If you let them work on the Crest–” She jerks her chin at the little pit droids quivering behind the crates strewn about the hangar in abject terror of the mean Mandalorian. 

“No,” he cuts her off, stubbornness in every line of his frame. 

“Din!” You scold again, bumping your hip into his. 

“Come on, Mando! I’ll charge you half price–”

“Deal,” he cuts her off again immediately, the cheapskate. 

“Ha!” She hoots and claps loudly. “Droids! Get to work on this lovely man’s ship. Lemme see the cash.” She holds out a grubby palm, wiggling her fingers. “He’s pretty easy, you ever notice that?” She says to you conspiratorially. 

“Constantly,” you can’t help the laugh in your voice. Your first laugh in what seems like years. 

“Loose knickered is what they used to call it back in my day.” And you have to turn your face into his arm to muffle your cackling, listening to him start up another string of curses beneath the helmet.

“I’ve literally never heard anyone say that before, ever,” he mutters sullenly. 

“Well, you’re young.”

“Not that young,” you provide helpfully, big cheesy smile that feels slightly unnatural and rusted spreading across your face. 

“Whoopee, Mando! I like this one! You really do know how to pick ‘em.” She claps him roughly on the shoulder, her little paw slapping loudly against his pauldron. “Anyway, I’ve got somewhere to be for the next couple of days, you see. I’m dating that Jawa again—the one I’d told you about,” she announces, proud as anything, big smile across her leathery face.

“A Jawa?” You repeat, making sure you heard right. 

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, bright eyes. They’re quite furry… very furry, but…” She clicks her teeth together, “You know…” Grins. 

You look up at Din, squeezing his arm in your grip. “Guess I gotta try it.” You’re pretty sure you hear him grumble something to the effect of over my dead body, before he’s agreeing to Peli’s deal with a clap and a shake, and the promise of two hundred and fifty Imperial credits and absolutely no harm done to her droids while she’s gone and they work on the Crest. 

“Treadwell, get in there!” She shouts, and the little pit droid chirps fretfully, trembling behind an R5 unit. “You can’t say no, you’re a droid. Oh, he’s not going to shoot you. Stop being a coward! What is this, a democracy all of a sudden?” Losing the fight, the droid wheels forward to get to work. “Yeah, thought so.” She turns back to you and Din. “You two can stay here, look after the shop while I’m gone? It’ll only be a few days.”

“We have some resupplying to do, but we’ll stay until you’re back,” he promises.

“And you’re not going to shoot my droids?”

“And I’m not going to shoot your droids,” he agrees, but later, you catch the too rough nudge he gives one of the little droids with his boot when he thinks no one’s watching. This man and his droid complex, you roll your eyes. 

“How’s the N-1 keeping up?” He asks as she’s packing up to go. 

“Just how you left her. That honey’s faster than a fathier. You should take her out while you’re here, give that baby a spin. Oh! And I added that turbonic venturi power assimilator I’d mentioned before. Remember? S’how I reconnected with my Jawa,” she nudges you with a wink. “You’re gonna be the fastest ship on the Outer Rim.” 

“You got a new ship?” You ask curiously.

“Just a side project we took up while I had some spare time.” But the way he says it is a little strange, making you pause to look up and try to read the blank face of his helmet. Ah, and he smooths that same hovering hand from before along the line of your spine, an attempt to soothe or quell your curiosity without actually giving you the gift of his touch.  

Peli leaves a few hours later, and she really does have a Jawa lover. The little critter comes to collect her right before the suns set, off to catch the sandcrawler before it journeys off into the desert, leaving you alone with only Din and the little pit droids for company. 

And suddenly, that shyness from earlier is back for some reason. The distraction of travel and the buzz of hyperspace lost to the calm silence of the quiet spaceport as the suns set over the horizon and night settles in, cool winds coming in on the sand gusts from deep in the desert. After hours of work, Din posing as the menacing overlord barking orders and complaints, intruding on their work when it isn’t up to his ridiculous standards, the droids finish up for the night, and Din engages the hangar security system, and then the ship’s, locking the two of you in safely for the night. 

“Dinner?” He asks as he moves slowly around the hull, pulling the cloak from his shoulders, a river of sand sluicing in a rain sheet onto the steel floor. The sound of it has a shiver moving through you as you lower yourself to the floor, crossing your legs beneath you at the edge of your makeshift bed. You desperately want to crawl between the covers without a shower and find the peace of evasion through sleep, secure in the knowledge that he won’t follow you into bed. He’d refused since you’d reunited, even though you’d invited him several times to share the much more comfortable pile of blankets than what you know his pilot’s chair or bunk provide. He’d not taken you up on the offer yet, and right now, fluttering heart and hot eyes and sweating nape, you’re glad for it. 

You don’t know what’s wrong with you—or you do. You’re overwhelmed with want and fear, of him, of his touch, of having lost what the two of you had before. And as you watch him start to pull his armor from his body, first one pauldron, then a vambrace, then a thigh guard, no sense of congruity to the pattern with which he divests himself of his Creed, it’s suddenly like he’s standing right in front of you, and yet you miss him anyway. Miss him in a way that makes you sick and devastated. 

You must make some sort of sound, a funny look on your face or a change in your breathing because he turns suddenly, a too worried, “What’s wrong?” on his tongue. 

“Nothing.” You look up at him from your spot on the ground, head falling back on your neck, and you can feel the wet of your eyes, trying to force yourself not to blink so that they won’t fall—the tears. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He comes to a slow crouch before you, long legs folding down, down. “What is it? Tell me.” Half missing his armor as he poses now, it’s like he’s half him, half yours, half only-man, half Mandalorian. A little bit like what you feel yourself; half, half, half. 

Pulling one glove from his hand, he lifts it, palm spread towards you, showing you his intention before he carefully cups the side of your face; thumb at your pulse, pointer and middle fingers giving your temple a soft pressure, pinky poised at the bridge of your nose. Your lashes brush against his index every time you blink, and his skin is smooth and rough at the same time, and warm—sun-hearted man. 

You press your face harder into his palm, letting him support the weight of your head, nuzzling against the rough of his calluses, blaster blister scratchy against your carotid, and heat pulses all through you from the crown of your head, sliding down the length of your, still yet, too long hair, the back of your neck, your chest, pooling to settle deep in the pit of your belly. 

And yet there’s something missing or different or off, like you feel empty but too full of trepidation to conjure up that old desire you’d always had, that need for him to fill, fill, fill you. Like the heat is there, but it’s remembered, not necessarily present. It all makes you want to cry and scream and go to sleep. 

The truth, and plainly: you’re terrified of anything that might hurt, can’t fathom the idea of it. 

Your heart beats in your throat, you taste it on your tongue, and it mixes with the sad when you say: “Do you remember when we were on Kashyyyk—when we sparred?”

“I remember,” he says, voice deep and low—through the modulator. You hate his helmet. You wish you could get beneath. You wish you were brave enough. The feeling of it coming on sudden and unexpected, thought, bitter and foul and not something you’d necessarily felt before, certainly not so viciously. It’s just that you hate that all this has happened—you want to feel the press of his lips at the crown of your head and the wash of his breath like heat moving through your hair—that you are not in the same place you once were, that you’re too afraid to move forward. 

“When we switched weapons—”

He hums: “Yes.”

“It was so green there.” You turn your face further into him so that you’re speaking into his palm now, words pooling there in the cup of it like a well of truths and fears. 

“It was.” The pointer and index stroke your temple, press once, twice, thrice—harder on the latter. It feels good, it feels real and reminding. He lets a heavy silence pass for a moment, he’s thinking of something, contemplating a push. “Do you remember—” He passes a swallow you can hear the thickness of, “Do you remember how I had you in the dirt—like a fucking animal? How you let me do whatever I wanted, however I wanted.” He gives the hardest press he’s given yet, at your temple, you think you feel the press against your brain, and you open your mouth to let the edge of your teeth dig hard into the meat of his palm. He growls a rough sound, a hungry sound, a sound like one he’d have made when he had you in the dirt like a fucking animal. 

You drag your teeth along the hill of his palm, closing your mouth at the end. You don’t give him the wet of your tongue, you don’t feel ready to taste his skin like that just yet—an assimilation of violence.

“Yes,” you finally say, realizing that he understands what you were thinking without having to say it, or knowing how to, that you’re full of memories of past desires and how badly you want them back and how out of reach that all feels, but also, that suddenly now, in a single blink, the heat in your belly isn’t remembered, but present, alive, awake. That you’re cunt clenches once, twice, thrice around nothing—harder, hungrier on the latter. That you’re wet for him. “I remember.”

“Good. I remember every single thing we’ve ever done.” You roll your face in his palm so that you can look up at him now, feeling something like brave. “Every word, every breath, I remember all of it. Alright?”

“Alright,” you say quietly. 

“And if you need me to help you remember too, then I will.”

“Alright.” And then: “What if I can’t, though?... What if we can’t ever have that again? What if I can’t remember? What if I can never give you that again?” A tear slides over the bridge of your nose, and now it’s not only truths and fears cupped in the palm of his hand but the saltwater of grief too.  

“Then we’ll find something new. A new way, a different way. We’ll do it however you want now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, cyar’ika.” It’s very much a promise, a new Creed being established here. 

“Okay.”

He nods, “Okay.”

-

The water is warm verging on hot verging on scalding. It feels incredible slithering over your tired and sore muscles, the ligatures in your arms still trembling from the blaster practice earlier today, from your overwhelm of emotions. 

You hate that you’re not good at it, that the only weapon that seems to become you is a lightsaber. 

The suds of his earthy smelling soap slide through your hair, slipping down your spine, over your ass and along your legs to pool around your feet and disappear down the drain. You shiver once, as though letting something fall away as you slide your hand down, over the swell of your belly, to cup the palmful of your cunt, wedging your hand between your thighs. You pet slowly at the wet curls there, realizing some of it is also the sticky slick of your desire. You were right, you’re wet for him and your clit pulses, slightly swollen and wanting. Your body is awake and hungry for him for the first time in what feels like eons. 

You explore slowly, your cunt slightly trembling at the feeling of being prodded and touched for the first time in you can’t remember how long. Moaning softly, you pull your fingers from between your legs, hands sliding up now to cup the weights of your breasts in each palm and squeeze tightly. Oh, you want him, you want him, you’re afraid. Your head falls back on a thump against the fresher wall, loud enough that you hear his lurking voice through the door, you okay in there? And instead of being annoyed at his overbearing caution, his hovering, you shiver again, something coming back to you now. 

Your desire. 

You shut the water off, grabbing one of the soft linens he’d slung over the warm pipe for you to wrap yourself in. He knocks a knuckle against the wobbly little door, “Cyar’ika?” 

Looking at yourself in front of the steamy mirror, too long, naiad hair, bright, strange eyes, you want him, you want him, you want to feel alive, awake, anything. You can’t deny your shortcomings, fears, whatever they might be called, but there is yet still a soft place inside of you that they’d not snuffed out, that wants Din still. 

You turn to slide the fresher door open just as he’s readying to knock again. 

He’d showered before you, after he’d fed you your soup and your disgusting fake bread he’d promised he’d find a real substitution for soon enough, and you’d needed a moment alone to sit in your grime and silence, digest your feelings. He’s clad now in one of his soft, dark undershirts, his flight pants and the helmet, opposite your towel and water dewed skin, steaming from the hot fresher. 

You watch a swallow pass through his throat, words caught, slow and heavy. He clears it once, twice, tilts his head down to take in the state of you, before he says, “You alright?”

You nod, wide eyed awake. He’s standing right in front of you and you miss him and you want to shock him wide eyed awake too. “The water was too hot. I got dizzy,” you lie, swaying towards him a little, letting your lashes flutter dramatically. 

Not all the way, but enough, just a little, as much as you can bear, that’s what you want from him right now. 

His hands come up to grip the sides of your arms immediately, his bare hands, soaking up the wet of your skin. He pulls you into himself, pressing you carefully against his chest, and you shiver and shake against him, teeth rattling with a sound entirely lacking temperance. Your blood feels like it’s boiling, there’s desire alive and writhing in your tummy, and you squeeze your thighs together tightly, shifting from one foot to another while you drip a puddle onto the cold floor. 

“Come here, sit down,” he murmurs, gently moving you to your bed, easing you down onto it slowly. “You need to take it easy,” he clucks over you, gripping your elbow to let you down carefully, keeping his hands on your bare skin until the last moment. “You’re pushing yourself too hard. You’re still tired, you’re still recovering. And you never listen. You have to listen to me when I’m trying to take care of you. You don’t eat enough, and I know your shoulder still hurts, little liar. Your elbow is barely better, and I saw you making strange faces when you were walking up the plank the other day. Your hip hurts doesn't it? Or your knee, something. No, don’t answer. I know you’ll just say no.” He talks and talks and talks, and you love him and you think that— 

There’s a name for this…

He’d told you he loved you and he’d not said it again, neither had you, it felt too huge a thing to talk about again just yet while there was still so much left to discuss and bridge, but what does it matter if your body sings or screams in pain when you have the love of this beskar titan? What could you care for all the rest of everything?

Yes, Din. Yes, Din. Whatever you say, Din, as he huffs and puffs and arranges you, brings another pillow and blanket from the bunk, his only one in there, not that he cares, lovely man. 

And it’s not only that you feel like you need to give him the things he wants or needs, because of course you do. You love him, you need to be able to give him things, everything, you want to be able to give him the whole galaxy. But it’s also that you want to. That to give him what he desires is to feed yourself, to live together, to be together, to give each other the things you need to stay alive. 

You let yourself fall back onto the soft blankets slowly, this nest where you’ve always felt so safe and so protected and so loved, even when neither of you knew it was love that was holding you here. And you watch him for a few anxious moments as he pulls the covers this way and that, tucking them here and there, trying to avoid looking at the bare expanse of your dew damp legs. But then, taking hold of his hand, you still his nervous movements, and he finally looks up at your face, letting go of his fretting, taking hold of the bravery in the palm of your hand. 

Shy—but brave. Brave—and wanting. 

“We’ll take care of each other, won’t we?” You want to tell him you love him again, but there’s something slightly terrifying, gloriously intimate and fragile about the words. 

“Always.”

“And we’ll keep each other alive?” Maker, I hope we keep each other alive. 

“Yes.”

You take hold of the edge of the linen covering you, revealing your naked body to him slowly, exposing your soft underbelly. You hear his breath hitch, exhale on a groan that sounds like dying. His grip on your hand goes tight to the point of bone crushing pain for one brief, brief moment before he remembers himself and gentles again. You shiver at the pain, belly swooping and quivering with fear and nausea and lust. 

You wish you could see his eyes, his face, his want. 

“You—” he stutters, swallows, “You don’t have to, my love.” My love. He doesn’t need to say it out loud again now with teeth and tongue, he says it in all the things he does. 

“You have to know that I want you so much. That I want you more than anything, Din.”

“I do know,” he says immediately. “I’ve never doubted that.” 

“I want to show you.”

“You don’t have to. I know—” His other hand comes up to grip yours with both of his, caging your limb within the strength of his fists—to keep himself from touching you anywhere else, you think. But you can feel the intensity of his gaze along your skin, over your bare breasts, quivering with your hitching breaths, water droplets translating the frantic beat of your heart in their trembling on the surface of your skin. The line of your belly, the slope downward to the soft place between your thighs. 

He’d seen the scarring on your hand, it was inevitable as much as you’d wished you could hide the deformity they’d left. As much as you wish you could’ve kept it from him, held an illusion for the rest of your lives together to spare him from the reminder of the things that’d been done, happened, chosen. But now… now he is to be subjected to the whole truth of it. Scars like cobwebs, strangely shimmering in silver lights beneath the surface of your skin—they’d been clever and ingenious in their torture—covering the whole circumference of your left hand up to your elbow. But also, from the lowest point of your last rib, over your right hip, traversing lower down the contours of your skin to wrap around the uppermost swell of your thigh. 

They’d left their mark like they’d intended, and it wasn't something you could ever hide from him, the reality of what’d been done, what you’d chosen. It was obvious in everything, etched into your skin, a chasm in the still present distance between the two of you. 

You feel like a bruise; tender, vulnerable, incongruously desperate to press on it harder and feel that dull throb, dark and ugly and on display. 

His hands go tight around yours again for a moment, before he’s snatching them back to grip his bent knee, white knuckled, silent anger on display when his eyes reach the scarring. 

“It’s okay,” you whisper, smoothing a hand over your hip down to your thigh to grip yourself there, digging your fingertips lightly into the plush softness. Your skin vibrates. “It doesn't hurt now.”

“What did they do?” His voice is like gravel, restrained fire-full fury. 

“They wanted to see what it’d take to leave a mark. They figured it out.” The helmet turns away sharply, a short, brutal curse spit from his mouth. The tongue of his mother, beautiful despite his violence. 

“It’s okay, Din.” You take hold of your thigh, pulling it up and apart, spreading yourself for him. Brave, wanting heart, be brave. He turns back immediately. “I want you to see how much I want you,” you whisper. “How much I still need you.” 

You let your fingertips flutter lightly over your swollen, needy sex, and you can hear the obscene, sucking sound of your wet lips spreading apart when you part your legs wide enough for your sex to bloom. Cunt hungry and weeping for him. 

Fuck, he spits, leaning closer, and his hand snaps forward to grip your ankle all the way around, pulling your foot up onto the uncompromising muscle of his thigh—your only point of contact. 

“Show me, cyar’ika. Show me how much that pretty cunt missed me,” he growls. 

You start slow, wide eyes fixed on the dark tee of his vizor, fingertips swirling around your clit slowly, it pulses and throbs and beats to the rhythm you can feel his own heart beating at within his own chest. But you pet it slowly, teasing both of you, and then feel lower down to the clenching mouth of your cunt—fuck, he spits again—slicking your fingers in your sticky wet. You start to rock your hips against the flat of your hand, the sound of your cunt, loud in the quiet hull, nothing to interrupt but the too desperate sound of your mutual panting. His fingers around your ankle are so tight they’ll leave a sore spot, and you can't think of the later hurt now, afraid it'll scare you out of this, all you can focus on is the beat of your cunt, the way it cries for him. 

You swirl your fingertips at your opening, again, again, “Put them inside. Let me see you fuck yourself.” And it’s a demand. 

You start with one, slow and tentative, a little, shocked gasp as you probe shallowly within the tight, little hole. Then further, wiggling inside until you’re impaling yourself with your own small finger, the first thing inside of you in so long, and suddenly, you wish it was him. Your eyes fill with tears at the thought, spilling over at the wish that he could’ve been the first thing inside of you after all this time, but the reality that you’re just not ready for it yet. The salted proof of your inevitable shortcomings slide back along your cheeks to drip into your ears. 

“Another,” he demands. “Oh, it sounds so pretty, little one. Give it another.” You pull your single finger out, sucking, wet-cunt sound that he groans in tune with, to press another one in, mewling at the pinch and stretch of it, the slick slide. Yes, just like that. You’re doing so well, he says, a mirror of his earlier words to you today during target practice. “Roll your hips, ride your hand.” You hitch another sob, “Don’t fucking cry,” he grits, pressing your heel hard into the meat of his thigh. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. You’re going to come for me, you’re going to let me see it.” He spreads his thighs wider in his kneeling crouch, pushing his hips forward into nothing, drawing your gaze to the heavy bulge behind the plaquette of his flight pants. He’s so hard. 

You crook your fingers inside yourself, hill of your palm against the swell of your engorged clit, fingertips against the spongey ridge at the front of your cunt, rolling your hips faster, chasing the orgasm you need to give him. Your foot feels numb in his grip, your cunt, on fire, so tight it hurts. Your belly hitches and heaves, open mouth gasping and you cry his name, moaning and writhing wantonly, your stomach slick and glistening again with sweat now instead of water. One of your palms reaches up to take hold of your breast, nipple caught between your fingers, squeezing tight, tight, tight. And suddenly he’s surging forward, letting go of your ankle to lean over you and rip his pants open, freeing his furious erection. The tip is red-purple and swollen fat, drooling a thick string of sloppy, white precum, and he wraps one massive fist around the angry thing. Din, Din, Din. He beats at his cock furiously, the sound of your name, the slick thwack, thwack, thwack of it sends you spilling into your orgasm, belly pulling tight, cunt twisting even tighter. 

“Fuck, fucking come—fucking come,” he snarls as he twists his fist cruelly around the head and the thick white viscosity of his semen starts to spill from the fat head, bubbling up and over his fist and between his fingers, splattering heavy and hot onto your spasming cunt, coating your fingers so that you’re pushing the thick of his come into yourself, slicking you further. “Yes, yes, yes, like that. Let me fucking see it…Look at what you do to me.” And there's so much furious want in his voice, and he’s so big, long and thick, and you know it’s going to hurt when he puts it inside of you for the first time again—you remember how it hurt before, how you loved it—and you’re afraid you’re not going to be able to handle any sort of pain ever again, not even the sort you’d been so hungry for before. 

But your womb pulls tight, pulses and throbs, and suddenly your two skinny fingers arent enough, you want the thick heft of his cock fucking hard and fast and deep inside of you, punching at the deepest spot within you.

His orgasm ends on a fierce groan, panting, thick chest heaving, his head hangs low between his shoulders. You pull your shaking fingers from your clenching hole, and he gives a few last lazy strokes, squeezing the last drops of come from the slick tip to splatter against your pussy. “I fucking missed this—your cunt covered in me.” His dripping cock bobs so close, and you have the sudden insane thought of him just shoving it in, holding you down prone and fucking all of his spend into your sloppy cunt, forcing you to take it and be his again. “I can’t wait to eat it. I can’t wait to fill it with my come again and eat it out of you.” There’s a part of you that might want it, that might wish for it. 

“Maker, Din…” you moan, rubbing the thick semen into your overstimulated clit, your mound, up the curve of your belly, slicking yourself in him.

 If you can’t have his touch, this is enough, and you bring your sticky, soaking fingers up to your mouth, sucking the come from them. He groans, not fair, sitting back on his knees, spent cock hanging obscenely from his open pants, wet and glistening. He reaches behind his head to tug his shirt up and off, leaving his sweaty chest bare and gleaming. Your eyes flutter shut, cupping your cunt in the palm of your hand, covering the slick curve of it, and you arch your back, spreading your thighs further, putting yourself on display for him. 

“Gorgeous, cyar’ika,” he says between pants. “So pretty, my love.” He reaches down to squeeze his half hard cock once more. “I can be patient for you, I promise. You’re so worth it.”

-

He lays beside you in the dark, stretched out long and entirely clothed, but here with you, forced and convinced to share your bed with a line of pillows as a protective moat between the two of you at his own insistence.

You’re on your side, hands folded beneath your smushed cheek, wide eyes searching fruitlessly for the shape of him in the pitch dark. You want to say something else. You want to tell him you love him again, to hear the words fall from your tongue. 

“What are you thinking?” He asks.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” You hum a barely breathed laugh. And then, “I know you’re scared or regretful or worried that we’ll not get back to where we were,” he reads you.

“Yes.”

There’s a name for this…

He sighs long, goes quiet for longer, and then finally: “What’s happened’s happened, which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the galaxy.”

“Fate?” You muse, a little unbelieving.

Dark red—

“Call it what you want. We met, we separated…you were—gone. We waited. Now we’re here again. It’s meaningful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You believe in this—fate?” I didn’t think I believed in anything anymore. But I believe in you.

“Call it what you want, but yes.”

—String. 

There’s something about this that you need to consider, chew on. The fact that you’d felt, all your life, cursed to know how a thing would happen, be, end, always. Something like fate, perhaps, the whisper of it making a home for itself within the shell of your ear, and now the truth that he too believes in this thing you’ve always lived with. Destiny, what have you—you believe in the same things, you believe in each other. 

“Will you hold my hand?”

He turns over, reaching to twine his fingers through yours; large, rough palm against small, soft palm. You want to tell him you love him again, you want to hear the words for him, but they feel trapped, tender, timid. 

You’d always thought your destiny fixed, poised, on the tip of your tongue. A thing was what it was birthed unto the galaxy in perpetuity, and no amount of desire could absolve you of its sunken teeth. But this—this desire is like the creation of myth, that dark red thread that goes by the name of fate being pulled taught, humming in accord with a frequency heard only by the two of you. 

Now: “Will you kiss me?” A beat of silence, his fingers around yours going tight, tight. 

“Come here,” his voice blends with the darkness, and tugging you into himself, protective border between your bodies and his hand around your jaw, he slips a kiss onto your tongue. His mouth holds the hot recollection of being alive; the drag of his teeth against your bottom lip, the taste, your fingers weaving through his hair, your names sounding together, a pair because they belong on the same breath. 

You pull back, and it’s only a small brevity, but it’s enough, and that confusion from earlier, that shiver of letting something go or taking it back into yourself, settles. 

You’re afraid or regretful or both, yes, sure. You also find yourself to be, suddenly, forgiving, full of empathy. You won’t be able to have him unless you take possession of yourself first, and on the tail end of a comet breaking across the sky: I love him, but I must also love myself. He deserves someone who loves themself, but more than that, I deserve it too. To be able to give him the things he wants and needs: I deserve to be in love with myself. 

You let the Tartarian memory become nothing.

 Love manifests itself primarily in forgiveness.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

[AUSTERLITZ]

The first time my mother had the dream, it was our engagement. 

They were always the same—the dreams—the house, our home. Sometimes I was there, sometimes it was only him, but the house remained. Always the image of him inside that place that belonged to us. Even if I wasn’t all the time there. 

They went on for years, this idea living inside my mothers mind; different variations of our togetherness or not, parties, children, him, him, always him there. Once, he was even there with another woman, and amidst her sleep she knew it was wrong, that I should have been there but was not. It didn’t birth mistrust, that already lived between us in different ways regardless. It didn’t send me running home to him demanding answers, but it birthed fear. Fear of what could be lost—of what there was to lose. 

A lot, it turned out. 

It was like this fear that lived so painfully sentient within me, the fear of losing him, the fear of how much I loved him was so strong and so powerful and so pulsating that I'd given the infection of it to my own mother. She worried for me and for us the way I worried for him. 

And there was guilt then—for me, from me. I felt guilty, I felt like I was doing this to her, making my own mother afraid. Sending her these dreams with my own worrying mind of a perfect life that could have been so easily lost, of all my happiness and wants and desires of him and how easily it could have all been destroyed. 

The last time she dreamt of the house, months after he’d gone in my real waking life, the house was alone. Abandoned. Falling down on its own bones. A bad omen. And there was something so– I couldn’t say… but that was my confirmation, really, more than the years or the silence or the reports of missing, unknown, no answers or responses or clues to what could have happened, it was that dream of hers that told me it was all over in a real way. 

She said she’d walked through the dream house, and all the ghost memories had been there: him and I, an engagement, a marriage, a happiness, losses and family and life. But everything was falling down around the past, and it was all alone, and she knew in her heart that he was gone and that I was alone now. 

My real fear had gone to her dream fear had come back to my real life, and there was no true abandoned house, but there was an abandoned I. 

-

You’d begged—before he’d gone the last time, on your knees, hands clasped, tears—wrought. You’d begged, please, Simon—don’t go, please. Please, don’t leave me. You said last time was the last time. Please, don’t go again—I have the worst feeling about this one. He’d not listened. Chasing a mission, a tour, the salvation of the world or the loss of himself, not me, which was the only distinction that mattered. But he’d gone, and the bad feeling had swelled and swelled swollen until it’d burst. Until there was some uniform on your doorstep speaking words of missing in action, comms gone dead, Simon—maybe dead, maybe not, just gone. Unfindable, but come along with a sick sort of satisfaction that you’d been listed as his next of kin when he’d never even been able to tell you that he loved you. But these were the words now, said with tongue and teeth not belonging to him, not my wife but the woman I love, the woman that’s important to me, my kin.

Simon Riley, code name Ghost: missing in action. 

It’s been such a long time now, and you don’t know if that man you loved, love, is still alive or dead or missing or gone or just nothing. 

All he is—is not— 

—Here. And the before—it’d been complicated. Real and not real, hard, good, never easy. The complicated nature of a thing born from a complicated man such as he was. Occlusive, reclusive, reticent. But so good. So much, that it never really mattered if it was all growing pains, or just pain. How could you know? But when you were in the thick of it, it didn’t actually matter, that answer. It felt good, that was the only focus. Even when it didn’t. You loved him, that’s what mattered. He loved– war, being a ghost, fucking you, having you, maybe you. 

You’d had certainty in some ways, that he wanted you, that he was closed off and silent and serious, and that he’d come back because he always said he would, and he always did the things he said. That he was a creature of habit. But everything else—uncertain. 

Your mother hadn’t had the dream in years. Memory had become hard to reach, murky, but the sound of his voice, that remained. The only one that did, only because you held onto it with vapor fingers. And it was so clear, the baritone of it, the way it sounded when he was calling you his sweet girl, the way it sounded when he was telling you he was going or telling a lie. That had stayed no matter how far out to sea you’d tried to toss it. 

Your last conversation: don’t be a stranger, you’d said. And it was in jest, or desperation, you can’t remember anymore. Something like please, please, don’t go away forever, please, don’t turn into someone I don’t know anymore. 

There are things you remember very clearly. Others you’d been granted the mercy of forgetting—the way it felt when he slid inside you, no mercy there. 

How do I know if these are growing pains or just pain?