･₊˚ 𝕻 ˚₊･

He clawed at your ass, making the fat rumble in your soft skin, the slap echoing into the golden hour around the both of you. The streetlights were dim but becoming brighter as the sun sunk and the inevitable end of the party approached. None of the chatter from the backyard mattered, the dog barking a couple of houses down, cars passing a couple streets over. He mattered. You had waited so long to be seen by him again. To be prayed to. To be drooled over. Even the sound of his deeper breathing made the air feel electric. Like breathing it again, mattered. 

You felt like a fucking animal that needed to be leashed to the corner of a heavy table. It took you a while to understand why your body takes over when you’re around him— his depravity was familiar. You saw yourself in him, and that consisted of you both wordlessly pushing down emotions and fucking them out of each other instead, molding into one another in a release of anger, tears, lust. This is how you bond, fucking each other to scare off the elephant in the room. Fucking yourselves when you coulnd’t reach one another.

When his hands were upon you, he was paying attention to you, and Joel paid attention to what made you nearly weep under the weight of his want. It was a fine physical partnership, mostly because whatever he wanted became what you wanted. A blurred line between want and need in Joel-shaped bruises in your fat.

His big, brown eyes were gracing your body, searching, as if he was looking for any sign that another man had been here. You stick your tongue out and stare at him before digging your nose into John’s seat, your breath hitting the leather as you slide your tongue through his cum. You would do anything to make him happy. He knows that. He loves this.

You want him to love you.

He does.

You gag.

Quietly, you reminded Joel that you were in someone else's truck. 

“Gotta go back before someone comes out here. Don’t want John to catch us, Joel.”

He scoffed. 

“Wish he fucking would. Then he could see me buried in my pretty pussy.”

You could see Joel behind you, blocked slightly as you hear his cock hit his stomach and he sighs in relief, his veiny length thick and unshy. He whimpered as he slid his wide thumb across his wet tip. His half-breath grumbles were what made your slick drip down your swollen and still-quivering lips.

He bent down and pulled your lips apart, whispering into you, “Look at her, cryin’ for me.” He was a man starved. The cold of the night disappeared as his tongue did the same into you, loud and vile as he sucked around your entire propped up center, not missing one inch of skin inside or out. The feeling of his mustache moving with his lips as he sucks on you, tickles you, is too much. You come on his beard, flattened to his face, messy and wet from devouring you.

“Doin’ s’good, cleaning up Daddy’s mess n’ letting him clean you up, too.” He stretched his palm across your head and pressed your tongue and nose into his cum once again. And you let him. 

Joel heard a car unlock and his hand was immediately pulling your hair knotted in his knuckles backward, your face pulling up from the leather seat with force, startled that he might get caught. For Joel to be caught at the scene of his crimes? That was unheard of. 

You heard the zip of his pants before his hands were back on you, warm, and pulling down your dress in a hurry. His thumb missed at first, dipping into your mouth before moving across your lower lip, trying to smudge the spend away that was still dripping down your chin. With one hand entangled in your hair and his other smeared with his cum, he did what he had to do, leaning into you as he licked himself off of your chin seconds before it dripped between your breasts. 

He growled at the taste of himself mixed with your skin. Soft, salty. Carnal. Unintentional, like his body forced it outwards because it was too heavy to carry alone. Like even he was slightly surprised at what he’d just done. But it’d been months since your skin was between his teeth, and he’d trace every bulging vein down your neck with his tongue if you would just call his name, Joel Joel Joel. 

There was silence, birds chirping in the trees, and another pair of cowboy boots knocking against the pavement. You knew that cadence well, they sounded just like the ones currently gracing Joel’s feet. 

“Miller!” You jumped at the intense intrusion and then tried to relax your shoulders before they swallowed your ears and gave away your guilt.

A man walked towards the both of you as Joel pushed your body away from him, discreetly but not gentle enough as you tried to regain your standing. You didn’t know the man’s name but he was usually at these backyard parties. How many middle-aged men live in this fucking neighborhood? 

“Be careful sweetheart, can’t have you falling. Don’t wanna have to carry you back in there to your daddy with a busted knee.” Too many. 

You opened your mouth to tell this man that your daddy wouldn’t give a fuck. The person who would is the one standing right next to you. 

Joel huffed, then coughed. A warning. The man moved topics quickly as if he vaguely understood. 

“Haven’t seen you around the shop recently, Hana’s been asking where you’ve been.” His attention returned to Joel.

“Hana?” You scoffed, out loud. You were out of place and awkward, standing smaller than both of them. This conversation was meant for the men. 

“‘Must be one of Sarah’s friends! Haven’t seen ya around and Hana knows so many people it’s hard to keep up sometimes.”

What a proud father. 

I wonder how entitled he would be to share that information if he knew that Hana was once (probably not shy of ten times actually, knowing anything about Joel) speared on his wet cock instead of babysitting, as she had most likely claimed? You wonder if he knows that Joel’s cock has been buried inside of your warmth, too. A few minutes ago, actually. With the way you are both standing, hidden by a truck door, missing from the party for nearly twenty minutes. 

“I’ve just been keeping my head down Drew, working, you know. But I’ll drop by soon, I need to fix a broken toilet in the upstairs bathroom and I need a flange replacement.”

“Well we’re always open for you Joel, you know that. Don’t be a stranger.” With that, he looked between the two of you and you swore recognition flashed in his eyes before he patted Joel on the shoulder and walked towards your back gate. 

I wonder if he knows, you thought. Men tend to stay quiet for each other like that. Having each other's backs regardless of it means choosing him over your own daughter. Especially if it means keeping it out of the public eye. It’s easier to call your daughter a liar than to deal with the ‘consequences’ of her reality.

“Not the only thing that’s always open it seems.” You mumbled, immediately hoping that he didn't hear it. How utterly unfeminist of you to blame the girl. You weren’t any different than her; enamored, prayed to… paid. But it seems like he brings out the worst in you. But being the worst is better than whatever empty shell has been dragging its way through whatever the fuck these past twenty-something years have been. 

You have the crashing realization that you feel alive with him. The blood coursing through your body has purpose, now.

As soon as the top of the man’s head disappeared through the fence, Joel started in on you. Best to put a child in their place before they have a chance to speak and form a conclusion of their own, no? You recognized the bad in him, yet you still let it devour you. 

“This what you wanted, Birdie? For people t’ know? Dropping little hints like it’s your fuckin’ job, huh? First you make sure I walk in on whatever the fuck was going on with John… knew I’d be back there so you knocked on the neighbor's door and asked him to fuck you with his eyes in front of your family? In front of me?” Pointing at his stuffed chest. He was so much taller than you but it wasn't something you thought of often until he towered over you. You knew there was more to this than a random man and a disgusted accidental namedrop of his previous fuck toy. 

“Then…” he looked around, trying to gain composure before scolding you like a child, ”then you make me come out here and lose myself in you again?” 

“Make you? You fucking followed me out here, Joel.”

“Lower your goddamn voice, Birdie. I came out here because I knew you wanted me to.”

He was right. About all of it. You can’t be alone for long. You need something or someone there sitting just on the outside to remind you that you aren’t dissipating into the floor of your bedroom.

Maybe that’s why you never saw Joel coming, either, because the quicksand was already up to your knees and no one in your life ever taught you how to save yourself, they had only taught you that they would not be the ones to pull you to safety. You knew you wouldn’t be able to save yourself, either.

The way he sticks to you makes you feel taken care of and looked after. He treats you like a woman in need of guidance, but he never judges you for it. Unless he’s scolding you, in that case you feel like a child again. It feels nice to feel like a child around him, because you know that in one way or another he will hold you like one too, once it’s all said and done.

Then he wasn’t anywhere to be found. So of course you did what you know, offering your body to whomever would most closely fill the Joel-shaped hole. You hoped that he would be here to see that you had indeed found another man, and this one could stand before your family. Now, Joel is standing right in front of you. It’s been months… and you hate him. You hate him so bad that the hate has turned to love.

You love him.

“Yes Joel, I want you. I need you. I have needed you this whole time you were probably off filling some other twenty-something year old. But fuck, I want you to get a fucking grip. You left me.” Desperate and too loud. “For months. I needed you and you just left me. I thought you would be the one who wouldn’t leave me. I lost Sarah too. My best fucking friend. And you know how much I hate this fucking house and I haven’t even been writing or painting and–”

You had never actually spoken to him about it all. But he knew. You were tired of arguing, of never being right. Of always being treated like a child but expected to act like an adult. 

He filled the immediate silence, but his tone was more tender this time. 

“You thought I was with another woman?” He looked as if you may have well dug your hands into his chest and tore him limb from limb.

Each month without him an envelope would show up, usually on a Thursday. Those used to be your days. It was shoved into your window pane accompanied by a soft knock. You never caught him despite the foul amount of time you spent looking out the window, waiting for him to come and save you again. You didn’t even need rent money anymore but it was always there and he never was. You were saving it in a hidden box with to get the fuck out of here scribbled in thick black marker on one side. 

You thought about just showing up, as it wasn’t something he himself was ever opposed to when it came to you. Except for when you really wanted him too. Needed him too.

Last month you couldn’t sleep and the edibles were making you more restless than relaxed. You got up at 4:24 am and sat yourself down at your desk, got out an old notebook and picked up a pen for the first time since graduating. You started a note to Sarah that still sits unfinished on the second page of the college-ruled journal. 

I saw it in his eyes, Sarah. It started months ago, before he left the first time and this was all still a secret. When I saw him again… you were looking down and trying not to let the tear slide down your cheek and into the black ink. That would be weak of you, to deliver a note to your lover's daughter and have it soiled with your tears, while apologizing for the pain you caused her.

I swear I saw it swell and dare itself to fall out of his eyes right then and there; love. And I’m so sorry for hurting you. I felt seen and heard. I felt held, Sar.

You accepted his angry disappointment and let it lay over you like a blanket, familiar. It meant he was there, he was in reach and your fingers could get lost in the curls on the back of his head. So you sat there and admired the wrinkles between his glaring eyes. Beautiful fucking eyes. Indulgent, and prodigal in the way he refuses to let you go. He lowered his voice and moved his curls out of his face. 

“Do you know how much of my life I’ve risked to put you first? It cost me my daughter’s trust. She will never look at me the same again. And my pride,” he said your name and his jaw hardened, the apparent sour taste of you leaving his mouth, “my pride baby girl. Do you know how much it hurts me that you just found another man?”

You were crying, the tears warming the red of your embarrassed face. He had done his shaming, his job at keeping you in your place. Now he would complete the circle like a snake eating its own tail.

He will tear you limb from limb knowing that his warmth is the only thing able to glue you back together; then he will pull you into his core and comfort you. You will be five, seventeen, twenty-five, in his arms.

It would be hard to tell what he was feeling if you didn’t know him, but you do, and his sadness is so discreetly and gently placed under the cover of his angry brown eyes. Your tears turned to sobbing and it all felt like it was going to fall out of you and onto the ground in front of his feet.

“Stop cryin’.”

He reached down and started low, tracing his thick fingers up your inner thigh, tickling against his carved initials and causing your clit to swell. He lowered his voice and spoke to you like you were a child in trouble.

Here it is, the wordless apology. Touching and heavy breathing.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about opening that computer and clicking on your name again? Just to hear the mess your pussy makes when it sees me? How you pool around the base of whatever cock you decided to stuff yourself with that night and then regret it because it wasn’t mine.”

“Fuck.” It left your lips with a moan and an even bigger sob that you could no longer hold inside. He didn’t flinch and didn’t show any sign of acting on his movements rather than to tease you, see if he went too far or if you would still melt under his stained black work hands.

He moved one finger down the ticklish part of your neck and traced your skin to your hip. Then he removed his touch from your skin and once again stepped backward. Like a father’s friend should stand.

He got what he wanted out of you, always does. And most of the time you yearn for the ache in your knees on the rare occasions you don’t give in. Giving in meant pleasure, but it was always accompanied by pain when it came to him. 

It was a consistent push and pull, give and take. He was so generous in the beginning, giving his money, time, and his cum, all in your name. He knew that to win you over you have to first, give. Now he takes and you happily oblige.

He has a unique knowledge of you, one that you really didn’t even recognize in yourself. Which is ironic, considering all you do is sit and burrow in your own psychoanalyzation. Trauma recognizes itself, even when it isn't directly yours. He had been around long enough to recognize himself in you. 

Then, you heard the end cadence of your name.

As he stepped backwards the footsteps stopped behind the two of you. Caught. And you prayed to a God you knew wouldn’t answer that it wasn’t your dad. 

Neither of you turned around to face him.

“Knew you’d go right back and fall down on all fours for him when you had the chance. God,” John laughed, “you’re a fucking whore. N’ not even the good kind that’ll suck your dick when you ask. I asked nicely, didn’t I? But not nice enough. Unless you’re Joel of course.”

And suddenly it didn’t matter that this was to all be a secret. You, standing a few cars down from your front door, hair a mess and cherry-flavored chapstick smudged down your face. Joel’s cum hardened where his tongue missed. Mascara running down your redended cheeks from either being fucked too well or from the tears that were starting to well up in your eyes again.

There was a high pitched buzzing as your body recognized the danger and began to shut down, watching Joel’s back muscles flinch in anger as he made his way over to John. You knew how deeply Joel was able to feel, and hate was probably not excluded from that depth. 

It wasn’t a secret anymore the moment his knuckles cracked against the fat of John’s cheek, seconds before he was on the ground. The birds stopped singing into the night. 

Here he was, standing up for you like someone should have done since you took your first goddamn steps. But you were yelling at him to stop. Someone finally came to save you and you were telling him to stop. He was starting in again, pulling his fist back and clenching his jaw, preparing for the impact to hurt him too. But his pain didn’t matter when it came to you

“You think you’re gonna talk to her like that and get away with it? Oh you’ve fuckin’ lost your god damn mind. I really shoulda punched you in your ugly fucking face when you had it in my truck window all those months ago. Spare me the time. Say another word towards her and I will make a pretty painting with your face on this concrete.”

“Oh, but she wasn’t in pain whenever she was calling my name instead of yours. That pussy tastes like goddamn honey, Jo—”

One thing you loved to do was have Joel hold his palm out and let you sit your face in it. It was bigger than your face, but it was warm and strong. Safe. You knew deep down that it was capable of hurting someone but death had not crossed your mind, not until John lay wheezing on the ground, laughing. Half-dead from Joel’s blows, not even able to prepare as he took in a deep breath and got ready to fire again.

Up until this moment you felt like you were a good person to have in life-threatening situations, always level headed and use to immense stress, but for the first time in your life everything around you was moving in slow motion.

You turned and watched as the white of your front door turned black, opening, and it felt like the moment Joel showed up the first (second) time at the gallery. But this felt like a last time type of feeling. It felt like an ending. 

“Joel,” you pushed out.

He didn’t even react to your voice. He simply acted as if he’s never heard it. As if it hadn’t, alone, made him rock his hips into whatever the fuck he could fit between the past three months. 

“Joel, stop. Someone is coming outside. Please stop. Joel.” Sobs were getting caught in your throat. You started to walk towards him, to set yourself in front of John if that meant that he would stop.

“Birdie, turn around.” You don’t listen, walking towards him. “I said turn arou—“

Another voice broke through. The one you thought you might have heard first. The voice of the first man to ever break your heart. The one who only spoke out in anger. The one who should have been throwing punches at himself all of these years. 

“Joel Miller what the fuck are you doing?” He had his pistol by his side. Must have heard the yelling and screaming, and if there is anything a Texas man loves more than the possibility of getting to shoot someone off of his property… 

Your dad called your name second, expecting an answer. And now you wished you wouldn’t have tried to stop Joel so that John wasn’t able to open his own mouth and speak the truth you both had been hiding. 

You’re eight again, and the sound of his knuckles against the kitchen counter were reverberating through the empty theater atop your head. The only person gracing the red lined theater seats is you. Small, child you, looking at the screen and out the front of your head. 

“She—“ John is stuttering through already swollen and broken lips, Joel shakes him as a warning not to open his mouth further, “she’s fucking him.”

Silence. Other people had followed your dad outside, including your mother. Admist the audience was Sarah, who you had not known was here the entire time. Her face was twisted in pain, and you knew that this was your fault. This was more pain for her and it was all because of you.

It was quiet, everyone was in shock, besides the night birds singing. The hum of the orange streetlights above. Joel’s heavy breathing and John’s slight wheezing from being hit over and over and—

Your dad’s jaw sits tight. He opened his mouth and the sky felt like it was going to fall. 

“Excuse me?” That was a threat and his body was closing in on Joel imminently. People were yelling, but it sounded far away. He cocked his gun and the clicking was drowned out by your mothers screaming. 

“I fucking knew something was happening. How dare you, you sick fuck.”

You begged, talking fast, “Dad stop. John thinks he saw something but Joel was helping me find my keys I dropped in the truck. He came here to leave but I asked him to help me instead.”

You knew what came next—always had. Because proverbial fists were for the women of his life. Actual fists were for the men. Bullets were for his inflated masculine ego.

“Dad, plea–” 

“You shut the fuck up.” He was talking to you. 

Joel’s boots were hitting the ground again as he dropped John’s collar, closing in on your dad. He managed to grab Joel by his shoulders before he could submit him to the same fate as John.

“I don’t care if you are her Daddy, you better not ever speak to her like that again.” His strong nose was pushing into your dads, eye to eye.

“Her sayin’ not to talk to you, spending time over at your house. Does Sarah know?”

His finger pushed up against Joel’s chest.

“That’s my daughter Joel. Do you want me to prance down the street and right through your front door to fuck your daughter right under your nose?”

He lifted the gun towards Joel and you were screaming. It took a moment to register that it was you, your throat burning as Sarah screamed behind you. 

Of course it would be this man to take Joel away from you.

Joel huffed a deep and viscous laugh. He looked over to you for the first time in minutes and pain filled his eyes. But they were wide open and focused on the gun pointed directly at his head. You nodded towards him for some reason, giving him permission for whatever he was about to say. 

“You know what? I fucking dare you to kill me for being the only one here that has ever taken care of your daughter, you motherfucker.”

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.• ♡ °:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *

A long and sappy thank you / 1K followers post is coming soon 😚

You felt like a fucking animal that needed to be leashed to the corner of a heavy table. It took you a while to understand why your body takes over when you’re around him— his depravity was familiar. You saw yourself in him, and that consisted of you both wordlessly pushing down emotions and fucking them out of each other instead, molding into one another in a release of anger, tears, lust. This is how you bond, fucking each other to scare off the elephant in the room. Fucking yourselves when you coulnd’t reach one another.

This is Carnal. This rawness and bareness of the feelings

His big, brown eyes were gracing your body, searching, as if he was looking for any sign that another man had been here. You stick your tongue out and stare at him before digging your nose into John’s seat, your breath hitting the leather as you slide your tongue through his cum. You would do anything to make him happy. He knows that. He loves this. You want him to love you. He does. You gag.

This abandon to another human being? To do what he wants and needs? The way it makes us feel alive? Dear lord…

“Gotta go back before someone comes out here. Don’t want John to catch us, Joel.” He scoffed.  “Wish he fucking would. Then he could see me buried in my pretty pussy.”

Oh my 🫠

But it’d been months since your skin was between his teeth, and he’d trace every bulging vein down your neck with his tongue if you would just call his name, Joel Joel Joel. 

Velvel velvet velvet

“Not the only thing that’s always open it seems.” You mumbled, immediately hoping that he didn't hear it. How utterly unfeminist of you to blame the girl. You weren’t any different than her; enamored, prayed to… paid. But it seems like he brings out the worst in you. But being the worst is better than whatever empty shell has been dragging its way through whatever the fuck these past twenty-something years have been. 

Oh Birdie... I felt so bad for her, when Hannah was mentioned. And then, again, this feeling that I understand way too much "being the worst is better than whatever empty shell"

You love him. “Yes Joel, I want you. I need you. I have needed you this whole time you were probably off filling some other twenty-something year old. But fuck, I want you to get a fucking grip. You left me.”

Birdie 😖😢

He filled the immediate silence, but his tone was more tender this time.  “You thought I was with another woman?” He looked as if you may have well dug your hands into his chest and tore him limb from limb.

Kat, you have no idea how I was tensed on my chair, reading this confession, this dialogue between them

He will tear you limb from limb knowing that his warmth is the only thing able to glue you back together; then he will pull you into his core and comfort you. You will be five, seventeen, twenty-five, in his arms.

🫠

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about opening that computer and clicking on your name again? Just to hear the mess your pussy makes when it sees me? How you pool around the base of whatever cock you decided to stuff yourself with that night and then regret it because it wasn’t mine.”

I am dying reading all this. I know it's toxic, I know their relation is so toxic, but…?

“Knew you’d go right back and fall down on all fours for him when you had the chance. God,” John laughed, “you’re a fucking whore. N’ not even the good kind that’ll suck your dick when you ask. I asked nicely, didn’t I? But not nice enough. Unless you’re Joel of course.”

Fucking hell I swear my body shivered there

It wasn’t a secret anymore the moment his knuckles cracked against the fat of John’s cheek, seconds before he was on the ground. The birds stopped singing into the night. 

And then I couldn't breathe anymore.

"The bords stopped singing into the night" Oh wow

“You think you’re gonna talk to her like that and get away with it? Oh you’ve fuckin’ lost your god damn mind. I really shoulda punched you in your ugly fucking face when you had it in my truck window all those months ago. Spare me the time. Say another word towards her and I will make a pretty painting with your face on this concrete.” “Oh, but she wasn’t in pain whenever she was calling my name instead of yours. That pussy tastes like goddamn honey, Jo—”

🫣😮😭😱🥶 (me, reading this)

“She—“ John is stuttering through already swollen and broken lips, Joel shakes him as a warning not to open his mouth further, “she’s fucking him.”

Noooo you motherf...

“Dad, plea–”  “You shut the fuck up.” He was talking to you.  Joel’s boots were hitting the ground again as he dropped John’s collar, closing in on your dad. He managed to grab Joel by his shoulders before he could submit him to the same fate as John. “I don’t care if you are her Daddy, you better not ever speak to her like that again.” His strong nose was pushing into your dads, eye to eye.

OMG the tension, the tension, the tension. I was so afraid to read what was coming else, but of course I did

Joel huffed a deep and viscous laugh. He looked over to you for the first time in minutes and pain filled his eyes. But they were wide open and focused on the gun pointed directly at his head. You nodded towards him for some reason, giving him permission for whatever he was about to say.  “You know what? I fucking dare you to kill me for being the only one here that has ever taken care of your daughter, you motherfucker.”

Oh fuck this ending? 🫣😖

I wish I was fluent in english, so I could fully express my emotions. Sadly I'm not, but believe me, I dove into this chapter and I felt every wave.

I can't wait to read chapter 8, but I'm so sad that it will be the last. That I won't read anymore these sentences that fit so much in my veins. Hurting them and feeding them

Kat, THANK YOU for this chapter ❤️❤️❤️ This series is a masterpiece since chapt 1

He clawed at your ass, making the fat rumble in your soft skin, the slap echoing into the golden hour around the both of you. The streetlights were dim but becoming brighter as the sun sunk and the inevitable end of the party approached. None of the chatter from the backyard mattered, the dog barking a couple of houses down, cars passing a couple streets over. He mattered. You had waited so long to be seen by him again. To be prayed to. To be drooled over. Even the sound of his deeper breathing made the air feel electric. Like breathing it again, mattered. 

You felt like a fucking animal that needed to be leashed to the corner of a heavy table. It took you a while to understand why your body takes over when you’re around him— his depravity was familiar. You saw yourself in him, and that consisted of you both wordlessly pushing down emotions and fucking them out of each other instead, molding into one another in a release of anger, tears, lust. This is how you bond, fucking each other to scare off the elephant in the room. Fucking yourselves when you coulnd’t reach one another.

When his hands were upon you, he was paying attention to you, and Joel paid attention to what made you nearly weep under the weight of his want. It was a fine physical partnership, mostly because whatever he wanted became what you wanted. A blurred line between want and need in Joel-shaped bruises in your fat.

His big, brown eyes were gracing your body, searching, as if he was looking for any sign that another man had been here. You stick your tongue out and stare at him before digging your nose into John’s seat, your breath hitting the leather as you slide your tongue through his cum. You would do anything to make him happy. He knows that. He loves this.

You want him to love you.

He does.

You gag.

Quietly, you reminded Joel that you were in someone else's truck. 

“Gotta go back before someone comes out here. Don’t want John to catch us, Joel.”

He scoffed. 

“Wish he fucking would. Then he could see me buried in my pretty pussy.”

You could see Joel behind you, blocked slightly as you hear his cock hit his stomach and he sighs in relief, his veiny length thick and unshy. He whimpered as he slid his wide thumb across his wet tip. His half-breath grumbles were what made your slick drip down your swollen and still-quivering lips.

He bent down and pulled your lips apart, whispering into you, “Look at her, cryin’ for me.” He was a man starved. The cold of the night disappeared as his tongue did the same into you, loud and vile as he sucked around your entire propped up center, not missing one inch of skin inside or out. The feeling of his mustache moving with his lips as he sucks on you, tickles you, is too much. You come on his beard, flattened to his face, messy and wet from devouring you.

“Doin’ s’good, cleaning up Daddy’s mess n’ letting him clean you up, too.” He stretched his palm across your head and pressed your tongue and nose into his cum once again. And you let him. 

Joel heard a car unlock and his hand was immediately pulling your hair knotted in his knuckles backward, your face pulling up from the leather seat with force, startled that he might get caught. For Joel to be caught at the scene of his crimes? That was unheard of. 

You heard the zip of his pants before his hands were back on you, warm, and pulling down your dress in a hurry. His thumb missed at first, dipping into your mouth before moving across your lower lip, trying to smudge the spend away that was still dripping down your chin. With one hand entangled in your hair and his other smeared with his cum, he did what he had to do, leaning into you as he licked himself off of your chin seconds before it dripped between your breasts. 

He growled at the taste of himself mixed with your skin. Soft, salty. Carnal. Unintentional, like his body forced it outwards because it was too heavy to carry alone. Like even he was slightly surprised at what he’d just done. But it’d been months since your skin was between his teeth, and he’d trace every bulging vein down your neck with his tongue if you would just call his name, Joel Joel Joel. 

There was silence, birds chirping in the trees, and another pair of cowboy boots knocking against the pavement. You knew that cadence well, they sounded just like the ones currently gracing Joel’s feet. 

“Miller!” You jumped at the intense intrusion and then tried to relax your shoulders before they swallowed your ears and gave away your guilt.

A man walked towards the both of you as Joel pushed your body away from him, discreetly but not gentle enough as you tried to regain your standing. You didn’t know the man’s name but he was usually at these backyard parties. How many middle-aged men live in this fucking neighborhood? 

“Be careful sweetheart, can’t have you falling. Don’t wanna have to carry you back in there to your daddy with a busted knee.” Too many. 

You opened your mouth to tell this man that your daddy wouldn’t give a fuck. The person who would is the one standing right next to you. 

Joel huffed, then coughed. A warning. The man moved topics quickly as if he vaguely understood. 

“Haven’t seen you around the shop recently, Hana’s been asking where you’ve been.” His attention returned to Joel.

“Hana?” You scoffed, out loud. You were out of place and awkward, standing smaller than both of them. This conversation was meant for the men. 

“‘Must be one of Sarah’s friends! Haven’t seen ya around and Hana knows so many people it’s hard to keep up sometimes.”

What a proud father. 

I wonder how entitled he would be to share that information if he knew that Hana was once (probably not shy of ten times actually, knowing anything about Joel) speared on his wet cock instead of babysitting, as she had most likely claimed? You wonder if he knows that Joel’s cock has been buried inside of your warmth, too. A few minutes ago, actually. With the way you are both standing, hidden by a truck door, missing from the party for nearly twenty minutes. 

“I’ve just been keeping my head down Drew, working, you know. But I’ll drop by soon, I need to fix a broken toilet in the upstairs bathroom and I need a flange replacement.”

“Well we’re always open for you Joel, you know that. Don’t be a stranger.” With that, he looked between the two of you and you swore recognition flashed in his eyes before he patted Joel on the shoulder and walked towards your back gate. 

I wonder if he knows, you thought. Men tend to stay quiet for each other like that. Having each other's backs regardless of it means choosing him over your own daughter. Especially if it means keeping it out of the public eye. It’s easier to call your daughter a liar than to deal with the ‘consequences’ of her reality.

“Not the only thing that’s always open it seems.” You mumbled, immediately hoping that he didn't hear it. How utterly unfeminist of you to blame the girl. You weren’t any different than her; enamored, prayed to… paid. But it seems like he brings out the worst in you. But being the worst is better than whatever empty shell has been dragging its way through whatever the fuck these past twenty-something years have been. 

You have the crashing realization that you feel alive with him. The blood coursing through your body has purpose, now.

As soon as the top of the man’s head disappeared through the fence, Joel started in on you. Best to put a child in their place before they have a chance to speak and form a conclusion of their own, no? You recognized the bad in him, yet you still let it devour you. 

“This what you wanted, Birdie? For people t’ know? Dropping little hints like it’s your fuckin’ job, huh? First you make sure I walk in on whatever the fuck was going on with John… knew I’d be back there so you knocked on the neighbor's door and asked him to fuck you with his eyes in front of your family? In front of me?” Pointing at his stuffed chest. He was so much taller than you but it wasn't something you thought of often until he towered over you. You knew there was more to this than a random man and a disgusted accidental namedrop of his previous fuck toy. 

“Then…” he looked around, trying to gain composure before scolding you like a child, ”then you make me come out here and lose myself in you again?” 

“Make you? You fucking followed me out here, Joel.”

“Lower your goddamn voice, Birdie. I came out here because I knew you wanted me to.”

He was right. About all of it. You can’t be alone for long. You need something or someone there sitting just on the outside to remind you that you aren’t dissipating into the floor of your bedroom.

Maybe that’s why you never saw Joel coming, either, because the quicksand was already up to your knees and no one in your life ever taught you how to save yourself, they had only taught you that they would not be the ones to pull you to safety. You knew you wouldn’t be able to save yourself, either.

The way he sticks to you makes you feel taken care of and looked after. He treats you like a woman in need of guidance, but he never judges you for it. Unless he’s scolding you, in that case you feel like a child again. It feels nice to feel like a child around him, because you know that in one way or another he will hold you like one too, once it’s all said and done.

Then he wasn’t anywhere to be found. So of course you did what you know, offering your body to whomever would most closely fill the Joel-shaped hole. You hoped that he would be here to see that you had indeed found another man, and this one could stand before your family. Now, Joel is standing right in front of you. It’s been months… and you hate him. You hate him so bad that the hate has turned to love.

You love him.

“Yes Joel, I want you. I need you. I have needed you this whole time you were probably off filling some other twenty-something year old. But fuck, I want you to get a fucking grip. You left me.” Desperate and too loud. “For months. I needed you and you just left me. I thought you would be the one who wouldn’t leave me. I lost Sarah too. My best fucking friend. And you know how much I hate this fucking house and I haven’t even been writing or painting and–”

You had never actually spoken to him about it all. But he knew. You were tired of arguing, of never being right. Of always being treated like a child but expected to act like an adult. 

He filled the immediate silence, but his tone was more tender this time. 

“You thought I was with another woman?” He looked as if you may have well dug your hands into his chest and tore him limb from limb.

Each month without him an envelope would show up, usually on a Thursday. Those used to be your days. It was shoved into your window pane accompanied by a soft knock. You never caught him despite the foul amount of time you spent looking out the window, waiting for him to come and save you again. You didn’t even need rent money anymore but it was always there and he never was. You were saving it in a hidden box with to get the fuck out of here scribbled in thick black marker on one side. 

You thought about just showing up, as it wasn’t something he himself was ever opposed to when it came to you. Except for when you really wanted him too. Needed him too.

Last month you couldn’t sleep and the edibles were making you more restless than relaxed. You got up at 4:24 am and sat yourself down at your desk, got out an old notebook and picked up a pen for the first time since graduating. You started a note to Sarah that still sits unfinished on the second page of the college-ruled journal. 

I saw it in his eyes, Sarah. It started months ago, before he left the first time and this was all still a secret. When I saw him again… you were looking down and trying not to let the tear slide down your cheek and into the black ink. That would be weak of you, to deliver a note to your lover's daughter and have it soiled with your tears, while apologizing for the pain you caused her.

I swear I saw it swell and dare itself to fall out of his eyes right then and there; love. And I’m so sorry for hurting you. I felt seen and heard. I felt held, Sar.

You accepted his angry disappointment and let it lay over you like a blanket, familiar. It meant he was there, he was in reach and your fingers could get lost in the curls on the back of his head. So you sat there and admired the wrinkles between his glaring eyes. Beautiful fucking eyes. Indulgent, and prodigal in the way he refuses to let you go. He lowered his voice and moved his curls out of his face. 

“Do you know how much of my life I’ve risked to put you first? It cost me my daughter’s trust. She will never look at me the same again. And my pride,” he said your name and his jaw hardened, the apparent sour taste of you leaving his mouth, “my pride baby girl. Do you know how much it hurts me that you just found another man?”

You were crying, the tears warming the red of your embarrassed face. He had done his shaming, his job at keeping you in your place. Now he would complete the circle like a snake eating its own tail.

He will tear you limb from limb knowing that his warmth is the only thing able to glue you back together; then he will pull you into his core and comfort you. You will be five, seventeen, twenty-five, in his arms.

It would be hard to tell what he was feeling if you didn’t know him, but you do, and his sadness is so discreetly and gently placed under the cover of his angry brown eyes. Your tears turned to sobbing and it all felt like it was going to fall out of you and onto the ground in front of his feet.

“Stop cryin’.”

He reached down and started low, tracing his thick fingers up your inner thigh, tickling against his carved initials and causing your clit to swell. He lowered his voice and spoke to you like you were a child in trouble.

Here it is, the wordless apology. Touching and heavy breathing.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about opening that computer and clicking on your name again? Just to hear the mess your pussy makes when it sees me? How you pool around the base of whatever cock you decided to stuff yourself with that night and then regret it because it wasn’t mine.”

“Fuck.” It left your lips with a moan and an even bigger sob that you could no longer hold inside. He didn’t flinch and didn’t show any sign of acting on his movements rather than to tease you, see if he went too far or if you would still melt under his stained black work hands.

He moved one finger down the ticklish part of your neck and traced your skin to your hip. Then he removed his touch from your skin and once again stepped backward. Like a father’s friend should stand.

He got what he wanted out of you, always does. And most of the time you yearn for the ache in your knees on the rare occasions you don’t give in. Giving in meant pleasure, but it was always accompanied by pain when it came to him. 

It was a consistent push and pull, give and take. He was so generous in the beginning, giving his money, time, and his cum, all in your name. He knew that to win you over you have to first, give. Now he takes and you happily oblige.

He has a unique knowledge of you, one that you really didn’t even recognize in yourself. Which is ironic, considering all you do is sit and burrow in your own psychoanalyzation. Trauma recognizes itself, even when it isn't directly yours. He had been around long enough to recognize himself in you. 

Then, you heard the end cadence of your name.

As he stepped backwards the footsteps stopped behind the two of you. Caught. And you prayed to a God you knew wouldn’t answer that it wasn’t your dad. 

Neither of you turned around to face him.

“Knew you’d go right back and fall down on all fours for him when you had the chance. God,” John laughed, “you’re a fucking whore. N’ not even the good kind that’ll suck your dick when you ask. I asked nicely, didn’t I? But not nice enough. Unless you’re Joel of course.”

And suddenly it didn’t matter that this was to all be a secret. You, standing a few cars down from your front door, hair a mess and cherry-flavored chapstick smudged down your face. Joel’s cum hardened where his tongue missed. Mascara running down your redended cheeks from either being fucked too well or from the tears that were starting to well up in your eyes again.

There was a high pitched buzzing as your body recognized the danger and began to shut down, watching Joel’s back muscles flinch in anger as he made his way over to John. You knew how deeply Joel was able to feel, and hate was probably not excluded from that depth. 

It wasn’t a secret anymore the moment his knuckles cracked against the fat of John’s cheek, seconds before he was on the ground. The birds stopped singing into the night. 

Here he was, standing up for you like someone should have done since you took your first goddamn steps. But you were yelling at him to stop. Someone finally came to save you and you were telling him to stop. He was starting in again, pulling his fist back and clenching his jaw, preparing for the impact to hurt him too. But his pain didn’t matter when it came to you

“You think you’re gonna talk to her like that and get away with it? Oh you’ve fuckin’ lost your god damn mind. I really shoulda punched you in your ugly fucking face when you had it in my truck window all those months ago. Spare me the time. Say another word towards her and I will make a pretty painting with your face on this concrete.”

“Oh, but she wasn’t in pain whenever she was calling my name instead of yours. That pussy tastes like goddamn honey, Jo—”

One thing you loved to do was have Joel hold his palm out and let you sit your face in it. It was bigger than your face, but it was warm and strong. Safe. You knew deep down that it was capable of hurting someone but death had not crossed your mind, not until John lay wheezing on the ground, laughing. Half-dead from Joel’s blows, not even able to prepare as he took in a deep breath and got ready to fire again.

Up until this moment you felt like you were a good person to have in life-threatening situations, always level headed and use to immense stress, but for the first time in your life everything around you was moving in slow motion.

You turned and watched as the white of your front door turned black, opening, and it felt like the moment Joel showed up the first (second) time at the gallery. But this felt like a last time type of feeling. It felt like an ending. 

“Joel,” you pushed out.

He didn’t even react to your voice. He simply acted as if he’s never heard it. As if it hadn’t, alone, made him rock his hips into whatever the fuck he could fit between the past three months. 

“Joel, stop. Someone is coming outside. Please stop. Joel.” Sobs were getting caught in your throat. You started to walk towards him, to set yourself in front of John if that meant that he would stop.

“Birdie, turn around.” You don’t listen, walking towards him. “I said turn arou—“

Another voice broke through. The one you thought you might have heard first. The voice of the first man to ever break your heart. The one who only spoke out in anger. The one who should have been throwing punches at himself all of these years. 

“Joel Miller what the fuck are you doing?” He had his pistol by his side. Must have heard the yelling and screaming, and if there is anything a Texas man loves more than the possibility of getting to shoot someone off of his property… 

Your dad called your name second, expecting an answer. And now you wished you wouldn’t have tried to stop Joel so that John wasn’t able to open his own mouth and speak the truth you both had been hiding. 

You’re eight again, and the sound of his knuckles against the kitchen counter were reverberating through the empty theater atop your head. The only person gracing the red lined theater seats is you. Small, child you, looking at the screen and out the front of your head. 

“She—“ John is stuttering through already swollen and broken lips, Joel shakes him as a warning not to open his mouth further, “she’s fucking him.”

Silence. Other people had followed your dad outside, including your mother. Admist the audience was Sarah, who you had not known was here the entire time. Her face was twisted in pain, and you knew that this was your fault. This was more pain for her and it was all because of you.

It was quiet, everyone was in shock, besides the night birds singing. The hum of the orange streetlights above. Joel’s heavy breathing and John’s slight wheezing from being hit over and over and—

Your dad’s jaw sits tight. He opened his mouth and the sky felt like it was going to fall. 

“Excuse me?” That was a threat and his body was closing in on Joel imminently. People were yelling, but it sounded far away. He cocked his gun and the clicking was drowned out by your mothers screaming. 

“I fucking knew something was happening. How dare you, you sick fuck.”

You begged, talking fast, “Dad stop. John thinks he saw something but Joel was helping me find my keys I dropped in the truck. He came here to leave but I asked him to help me instead.”

You knew what came next—always had. Because proverbial fists were for the women of his life. Actual fists were for the men. Bullets were for his inflated masculine ego.

“Dad, plea–” 

“You shut the fuck up.” He was talking to you. 

Joel’s boots were hitting the ground again as he dropped John’s collar, closing in on your dad. He managed to grab Joel by his shoulders before he could submit him to the same fate as John.

“I don’t care if you are her Daddy, you better not ever speak to her like that again.” His strong nose was pushing into your dads, eye to eye.

“Her sayin’ not to talk to you, spending time over at your house. Does Sarah know?”

His finger pushed up against Joel’s chest.

“That’s my daughter Joel. Do you want me to prance down the street and right through your front door to fuck your daughter right under your nose?”

He lifted the gun towards Joel and you were screaming. It took a moment to register that it was you, your throat burning as Sarah screamed behind you. 

Of course it would be this man to take Joel away from you.

Joel huffed a deep and viscous laugh. He looked over to you for the first time in minutes and pain filled his eyes. But they were wide open and focused on the gun pointed directly at his head. You nodded towards him for some reason, giving him permission for whatever he was about to say. 

“You know what? I fucking dare you to kill me for being the only one here that has ever taken care of your daughter, you motherfucker.”

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *₊.• ♡ °:. *₊ ° . ° .• ♡ °:. *₊ ° *

A long and sappy thank you / 1K followers post is coming soon 😚

He clawed at your ass, making the fat rumble in your soft skin, the slap echoing into the golden hour around the both of you. The streetlights were dim but becoming brighter as the sun sunk and the inevitable end of the party approached. None of the chatter from the backyard mattered, the dog barking a couple of houses down, cars passing a couple streets over. He mattered. You had waited so long to be seen by him again. To be prayed to. To be drooled over. Even the sound of his deeper breathing made the air feel electric. Like breathing it again, mattered. 

You felt like a fucking animal that needed to be leashed to the corner of a heavy table. It took you a while to understand why your body takes over when you’re around him— his depravity was familiar. You saw yourself in him, and that consisted of you both wordlessly pushing down emotions and fucking them out of each other instead, molding into one another in a release of anger, tears, lust. This is how you bond, fucking each other to scare off the elephant in the room. Fucking yourselves when you coulnd’t reach one another.

When his hands were upon you, he was paying attention to you, and Joel paid attention to what made you nearly weep under the weight of his want. It was a fine physical partnership, mostly because whatever he wanted became what you wanted. A blurred line between want and need in Joel-shaped bruises in your fat.

His big, brown eyes were gracing your body, searching, as if he was looking for any sign that another man had been here. You stick your tongue out and stare at him before digging your nose into John’s seat, your breath hitting the leather as you slide your tongue through his cum. You would do anything to make him happy. He knows that. He loves this.

You want him to love you.

He does.

You gag.

Quietly, you reminded Joel that you were in someone else's truck. 

“Gotta go back before someone comes out here. Don’t want John to catch us, Joel.”

He scoffed. 

“Wish he fucking would. Then he could see me buried in my pretty pussy.”

You could see Joel behind you, blocked slightly as you hear his cock hit his stomach and he sighs in relief, his veiny length thick and unshy. He whimpered as he slid his wide thumb across his wet tip. His half-breath grumbles were what made your slick drip down your swollen and still-quivering lips.

He bent down and pulled your lips apart, whispering into you, “Look at her, cryin’ for me.” He was a man starved. The cold of the night disappeared as his tongue did the same into you, loud and vile as he sucked around your entire propped up center, not missing one inch of skin inside or out. The feeling of his mustache moving with his lips as he sucks on you, tickles you, is too much. You come on his beard, flattened to his face, messy and wet from devouring you.

“Doin’ s’good, cleaning up Daddy’s mess n’ letting him clean you up, too.” He stretched his palm across your head and pressed your tongue and nose into his cum once again. And you let him. 

Joel heard a car unlock and his hand was immediately pulling your hair knotted in his knuckles backward, your face pulling up from the leather seat with force, startled that he might get caught. For Joel to be caught at the scene of his crimes? That was unheard of. 

You heard the zip of his pants before his hands were back on you, warm, and pulling down your dress in a hurry. His thumb missed at first, dipping into your mouth before moving across your lower lip, trying to smudge the spend away that was still dripping down your chin. With one hand entangled in your hair and his other smeared with his cum, he did what he had to do, leaning into you as he licked himself off of your chin seconds before it dripped between your breasts. 

He growled at the taste of himself mixed with your skin. Soft, salty. Carnal. Unintentional, like his body forced it outwards because it was too heavy to carry alone. Like even he was slightly surprised at what he’d just done. But it’d been months since your skin was between his teeth, and he’d trace every bulging vein down your neck with his tongue if you would just call his name, Joel Joel Joel. 

There was silence, birds chirping in the trees, and another pair of cowboy boots knocking against the pavement. You knew that cadence well, they sounded just like the ones currently gracing Joel’s feet. 

“Miller!” You jumped at the intense intrusion and then tried to relax your shoulders before they swallowed your ears and gave away your guilt.

A man walked towards the both of you as Joel pushed your body away from him, discreetly but not gentle enough as you tried to regain your standing. You didn’t know the man’s name but he was usually at these backyard parties. How many middle-aged men live in this fucking neighborhood? 

“Be careful sweetheart, can’t have you falling. Don’t wanna have to carry you back in there to your daddy with a busted knee.” Too many. 

You opened your mouth to tell this man that your daddy wouldn’t give a fuck. The person who would is the one standing right next to you. 

Joel huffed, then coughed. A warning. The man moved topics quickly as if he vaguely understood. 

“Haven’t seen you around the shop recently, Hana’s been asking where you’ve been.” His attention returned to Joel.

“Hana?” You scoffed, out loud. You were out of place and awkward, standing smaller than both of them. This conversation was meant for the men. 

“‘Must be one of Sarah’s friends! Haven’t seen ya around and Hana knows so many people it’s hard to keep up sometimes.”

What a proud father. 

I wonder how entitled he would be to share that information if he knew that Hana was once (probably not shy of ten times actually, knowing anything about Joel) speared on his wet cock instead of babysitting, as she had most likely claimed? You wonder if he knows that Joel’s cock has been buried inside of your warmth, too. A few minutes ago, actually. With the way you are both standing, hidden by a truck door, missing from the party for nearly twenty minutes. 

“I’ve just been keeping my head down Drew, working, you know. But I’ll drop by soon, I need to fix a broken toilet in the upstairs bathroom and I need a flange replacement.”

“Well we’re always open for you Joel, you know that. Don’t be a stranger.” With that, he looked between the two of you and you swore recognition flashed in his eyes before he patted Joel on the shoulder and walked towards your back gate. 

I wonder if he knows, you thought. Men tend to stay quiet for each other like that. Having each other's backs regardless of it means choosing him over your own daughter. Especially if it means keeping it out of the public eye. It’s easier to call your daughter a liar than to deal with the ‘consequences’ of her reality.

“Not the only thing that’s always open it seems.” You mumbled, immediately hoping that he didn't hear it. How utterly unfeminist of you to blame the girl. You weren’t any different than her; enamored, prayed to… paid. But it seems like he brings out the worst in you. But being the worst is better than whatever empty shell has been dragging its way through whatever the fuck these past twenty-something years have been. 

You have the crashing realization that you feel alive with him. The blood coursing through your body has purpose, now.

As soon as the top of the man’s head disappeared through the fence, Joel started in on you. Best to put a child in their place before they have a chance to speak and form a conclusion of their own, no? You recognized the bad in him, yet you still let it devour you. 

“This what you wanted, Birdie? For people t’ know? Dropping little hints like it’s your fuckin’ job, huh? First you make sure I walk in on whatever the fuck was going on with John… knew I’d be back there so you knocked on the neighbor's door and asked him to fuck you with his eyes in front of your family? In front of me?” Pointing at his stuffed chest. He was so much taller than you but it wasn't something you thought of often until he towered over you. You knew there was more to this than a random man and a disgusted accidental namedrop of his previous fuck toy. 

“Then…” he looked around, trying to gain composure before scolding you like a child, ”then you make me come out here and lose myself in you again?” 

“Make you? You fucking followed me out here, Joel.”

“Lower your goddamn voice, Birdie. I came out here because I knew you wanted me to.”

He was right. About all of it. You can’t be alone for long. You need something or someone there sitting just on the outside to remind you that you aren’t dissipating into the floor of your bedroom.

Maybe that’s why you never saw Joel coming, either, because the quicksand was already up to your knees and no one in your life ever taught you how to save yourself, they had only taught you that they would not be the ones to pull you to safety. You knew you wouldn’t be able to save yourself, either.

The way he sticks to you makes you feel taken care of and looked after. He treats you like a woman in need of guidance, but he never judges you for it. Unless he’s scolding you, in that case you feel like a child again. It feels nice to feel like a child around him, because you know that in one way or another he will hold you like one too, once it’s all said and done.

Then he wasn’t anywhere to be found. So of course you did what you know, offering your body to whomever would most closely fill the Joel-shaped hole. You hoped that he would be here to see that you had indeed found another man, and this one could stand before your family. Now, Joel is standing right in front of you. It’s been months… and you hate him. You hate him so bad that the hate has turned to love.

You love him.

“Yes Joel, I want you. I need you. I have needed you this whole time you were probably off filling some other twenty-something year old. But fuck, I want you to get a fucking grip. You left me.” Desperate and too loud. “For months. I needed you and you just left me. I thought you would be the one who wouldn’t leave me. I lost Sarah too. My best fucking friend. And you know how much I hate this fucking house and I haven’t even been writing or painting and–”

You had never actually spoken to him about it all. But he knew. You were tired of arguing, of never being right. Of always being treated like a child but expected to act like an adult. 

He filled the immediate silence, but his tone was more tender this time. 

“You thought I was with another woman?” He looked as if you may have well dug your hands into his chest and tore him limb from limb.

Each month without him an envelope would show up, usually on a Thursday. Those used to be your days. It was shoved into your window pane accompanied by a soft knock. You never caught him despite the foul amount of time you spent looking out the window, waiting for him to come and save you again. You didn’t even need rent money anymore but it was always there and he never was. You were saving it in a hidden box with to get the fuck out of here scribbled in thick black marker on one side. 

You thought about just showing up, as it wasn’t something he himself was ever opposed to when it came to you. Except for when you really wanted him too. Needed him too.

Last month you couldn’t sleep and the edibles were making you more restless than relaxed. You got up at 4:24 am and sat yourself down at your desk, got out an old notebook and picked up a pen for the first time since graduating. You started a note to Sarah that still sits unfinished on the second page of the college-ruled journal. 

I saw it in his eyes, Sarah. It started months ago, before he left the first time and this was all still a secret. When I saw him again… you were looking down and trying not to let the tear slide down your cheek and into the black ink. That would be weak of you, to deliver a note to your lover's daughter and have it soiled with your tears, while apologizing for the pain you caused her.

I swear I saw it swell and dare itself to fall out of his eyes right then and there; love. And I’m so sorry for hurting you. I felt seen and heard. I felt held, Sar.

You accepted his angry disappointment and let it lay over you like a blanket, familiar. It meant he was there, he was in reach and your fingers could get lost in the curls on the back of his head. So you sat there and admired the wrinkles between his glaring eyes. Beautiful fucking eyes. Indulgent, and prodigal in the way he refuses to let you go. He lowered his voice and moved his curls out of his face. 

“Do you know how much of my life I’ve risked to put you first? It cost me my daughter’s trust. She will never look at me the same again. And my pride,” he said your name and his jaw hardened, the apparent sour taste of you leaving his mouth, “my pride baby girl. Do you know how much it hurts me that you just found another man?”

You were crying, the tears warming the red of your embarrassed face. He had done his shaming, his job at keeping you in your place. Now he would complete the circle like a snake eating its own tail.

He will tear you limb from limb knowing that his warmth is the only thing able to glue you back together; then he will pull you into his core and comfort you. You will be five, seventeen, twenty-five, in his arms.

It would be hard to tell what he was feeling if you didn’t know him, but you do, and his sadness is so discreetly and gently placed under the cover of his angry brown eyes. Your tears turned to sobbing and it all felt like it was going to fall out of you and onto the ground in front of his feet.

“Stop cryin’.”

He reached down and started low, tracing his thick fingers up your inner thigh, tickling against his carved initials and causing your clit to swell. He lowered his voice and spoke to you like you were a child in trouble.

Here it is, the wordless apology. Touching and heavy breathing.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about opening that computer and clicking on your name again? Just to hear the mess your pussy makes when it sees me? How you pool around the base of whatever cock you decided to stuff yourself with that night and then regret it because it wasn’t mine.”

“Fuck.” It left your lips with a moan and an even bigger sob that you could no longer hold inside. He didn’t flinch and didn’t show any sign of acting on his movements rather than to tease you, see if he went too far or if you would still melt under his stained black work hands.

He moved one finger down the ticklish part of your neck and traced your skin to your hip. Then he removed his touch from your skin and once again stepped backward. Like a father’s friend should stand.

He got what he wanted out of you, always does. And most of the time you yearn for the ache in your knees on the rare occasions you don’t give in. Giving in meant pleasure, but it was always accompanied by pain when it came to him. 

It was a consistent push and pull, give and take. He was so generous in the beginning, giving his money, time, and his cum, all in your name. He knew that to win you over you have to first, give. Now he takes and you happily oblige.

He has a unique knowledge of you, one that you really didn’t even recognize in yourself. Which is ironic, considering all you do is sit and burrow in your own psychoanalyzation. Trauma recognizes itself, even when it isn't directly yours. He had been around long enough to recognize himself in you. 

Then, you heard the end cadence of your name.

As he stepped backwards the footsteps stopped behind the two of you. Caught. And you prayed to a God you knew wouldn’t answer that it wasn’t your dad. 

Neither of you turned around to face him.

“Knew you’d go right back and fall down on all fours for him when you had the chance. God,” John laughed, “you’re a fucking whore. N’ not even the good kind that’ll suck your dick when you ask. I asked nicely, didn’t I? But not nice enough. Unless you’re Joel of course.”

And suddenly it didn’t matter that this was to all be a secret. You, standing a few cars down from your front door, hair a mess and cherry-flavored chapstick smudged down your face. Joel’s cum hardened where his tongue missed. Mascara running down your redended cheeks from either being fucked too well or from the tears that were starting to well up in your eyes again.

There was a high pitched buzzing as your body recognized the danger and began to shut down, watching Joel’s back muscles flinch in anger as he made his way over to John. You knew how deeply Joel was able to feel, and hate was probably not excluded from that depth. 

It wasn’t a secret anymore the moment his knuckles cracked against the fat of John’s cheek, seconds before he was on the ground. The birds stopped singing into the night. 

Here he was, standing up for you like someone should have done since you took your first goddamn steps. But you were yelling at him to stop. Someone finally came to save you and you were telling him to stop. He was starting in again, pulling his fist back and clenching his jaw, preparing for the impact to hurt him too. But his pain didn’t matter when it came to you

“You think you’re gonna talk to her like that and get away with it? Oh you’ve fuckin’ lost your god damn mind. I really shoulda punched you in your ugly fucking face when you had it in my truck window all those months ago. Spare me the time. Say another word towards her and I will make a pretty painting with your face on this concrete.”

“Oh, but she wasn’t in pain whenever she was calling my name instead of yours. That pussy tastes like goddamn honey, Jo—”

One thing you loved to do was have Joel hold his palm out and let you sit your face in it. It was bigger than your face, but it was warm and strong. Safe. You knew deep down that it was capable of hurting someone but death had not crossed your mind, not until John lay wheezing on the ground, laughing. Half-dead from Joel’s blows, not even able to prepare as he took in a deep breath and got ready to fire again.

Up until this moment you felt like you were a good person to have in life-threatening situations, always level headed and use to immense stress, but for the first time in your life everything around you was moving in slow motion.

You turned and watched as the white of your front door turned black, opening, and it felt like the moment Joel showed up the first (second) time at the gallery. But this felt like a last time type of feeling. It felt like an ending. 

“Joel,” you pushed out.

He didn’t even react to your voice. He simply acted as if he’s never heard it. As if it hadn’t, alone, made him rock his hips into whatever the fuck he could fit between the past three months. 

“Joel, stop. Someone is coming outside. Please stop. Joel.” Sobs were getting caught in your throat. You started to walk towards him, to set yourself in front of John if that meant that he would stop.

“Birdie, turn around.” You don’t listen, walking towards him. “I said turn arou—“

Another voice broke through. The one you thought you might have heard first. The voice of the first man to ever break your heart. The one who only spoke out in anger. The one who should have been throwing punches at himself all of these years. 

“Joel Miller what the fuck are you doing?” He had his pistol by his side. Must have heard the yelling and screaming, and if there is anything a Texas man loves more than the possibility of getting to shoot someone off of his property… 

Your dad called your name second, expecting an answer. And now you wished you wouldn’t have tried to stop Joel so that John wasn’t able to open his own mouth and speak the truth you both had been hiding. 

You’re eight again, and the sound of his knuckles against the kitchen counter were reverberating through the empty theater atop your head. The only person gracing the red lined theater seats is you. Small, child you, looking at the screen and out the front of your head. 

“She—“ John is stuttering through already swollen and broken lips, Joel shakes him as a warning not to open his mouth further, “she’s fucking him.”

Silence. Other people had followed your dad outside, including your mother. Admist the audience was Sarah, who you had not known was here the entire time. Her face was twisted in pain, and you knew that this was your fault. This was more pain for her and it was all because of you.

It was quiet, everyone was in shock, besides the night birds singing. The hum of the orange streetlights above. Joel’s heavy breathing and John’s slight wheezing from being hit over and over and—

Your dad’s jaw sits tight. He opened his mouth and the sky felt like it was going to fall. 

“Excuse me?” That was a threat and his body was closing in on Joel imminently. People were yelling, but it sounded far away. He cocked his gun and the clicking was drowned out by your mothers screaming. 

“I fucking knew something was happening. How dare you, you sick fuck.”

You begged, talking fast, “Dad stop. John thinks he saw something but Joel was helping me find my keys I dropped in the truck. He came here to leave but I asked him to help me instead.”

You knew what came next—always had. Because proverbial fists were for the women of his life. Actual fists were for the men. Bullets were for his inflated masculine ego.

“Dad, plea–” 

“You shut the fuck up.” He was talking to you. 

Joel’s boots were hitting the ground again as he dropped John’s collar, closing in on your dad. He managed to grab Joel by his shoulders before he could submit him to the same fate as John.

“I don’t care if you are her Daddy, you better not ever speak to her like that again.” His strong nose was pushing into your dads, eye to eye.

“Her sayin’ not to talk to you, spending time over at your house. Does Sarah know?”

His finger pushed up against Joel’s chest.

“That’s my daughter Joel. Do you want me to prance down the street and right through your front door to fuck your daughter right under your nose?”

He lifted the gun towards Joel and you were screaming. It took a moment to register that it was you, your throat burning as Sarah screamed behind you. 

Of course it would be this man to take Joel away from you.

Joel huffed a deep and viscous laugh. He looked over to you for the first time in minutes and pain filled his eyes. But they were wide open and focused on the gun pointed directly at his head. You nodded towards him for some reason, giving him permission for whatever he was about to say. 

“You know what? I fucking dare you to kill me for being the only one here that has ever taken care of your daughter, you motherfucker.”

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A long and sappy thank you / 1K followers post is coming soon 😚