Going Through It

bolts to see you when he hears that your best friend brought you over to swim and hang out. says the crassest things about your tits and lifts you up when you try to duck around him to go back inside the house, a poor excuse to grope you. throws you into the pool when you scream at him to let you down, mostly because he probably wants to see your bikini get all wet :((

it makes you hate going over to your best friend's house, so you usually invite them over to your place, but that just ends in Soap confronting you when he sees you around town. maybe he snatches you bag and holds it over your head just to watch you try to jump for it, says he'll only give it back for a kiss :(( but at the last second, he turns his head and gives you a sloppy kiss on the mouth :((

He stared at you without responding, and there was a long pause of silence before your smile dropped into something smaller.

“Wait? Do you not sell?” You covered your mouth, “Oh my gosh that’s so embarrassing, they told me they bought from you before!”

“Relax, bird. I do.”

“Oh! Great, that’s great. Um, how much for an eighth?”

“On the house.” He smirked, digging through the back of his car.

“What?”

“First time buyer, gotta guarantee you like it.”

You caught the bag he tossed you with a shy smile on your face, humming. “Okay, thank you!”

Ghost watched you jog to your friends after that, holding the bag out to them with a proud smirk.

The next time you bought from him, you were all by yourself, jean shorts showing off your pretty legs.

“Hi.”

He chuckled, “You’re back.”

You leaned into the window, low-cut shirt clinging to the swell of your breasts.

“I am.” You smiled, “How much for an eighth this time, for real?’

“Already have some pre-rolls, you can just have ‘em.”

“Huh? No, I didn’t pay you last time!”

“No one ever wants the pre-rolls anyway,” He shrugs, he lies. “They’re cherry flavored.”

That sparks your interest, “Really? I didn’t know they did that.”

You hand him your phone then, “Put your number in, yeah? So, I don’t have to hope to randomly run into you to buy more.”

When he hands the phone back you laugh after reading the contact name, “Ghost? That’s your drug dealer name? Really?”

“Do you want free weed or not?”

You laugh louder this time, “Yes! Yes! I was just teasing. Thank you!”

You text him two weeks later, a stupid meme at that with beady eyes, ‘more, please sir?’

He hates the way it makes the corners of his lips twitch.

He’s mobile that day, and you send him your address with one too many exclamation marks tagged on the end. You run out in leggings and slippers, a giddy smile on your lips.

“Hi.”

He laughs, “Hi, bird.”

“I liked the pre-rolls!” You say excitedly, leaning into the window, “Never had those before.”

“Yeah? What you need today?”

“You have any more?”

He frowns a little, “Get in with me, I’ll roll you some.”

You open his passenger side door too willingly, “Oh good. I don’t know how to roll,” You confess, “My friends usually do it for me.”

His mouth dips into a smirk, “Yeah? ‘Ts not that hard, watch.”

You lean closer, eyes wide like he’s actually teaching you valuable information and not how to roll a joint.

“Gotta make sure to take out all the seeds and stems before you grind it.” You watch him grind it enraptured. “Gotta roll up the tip first, then, wrap the paper tight.”

You nod eagerly.

“Fill it with your flower, roll it upwards with your thumb to make your shape. Then,” He licks across the paper, “Seal it with the glued edge, and twist the tip.”

He holds it out to you, “There you go.”

You take it between your fingers with a soft smile, “Thank you.”

You text him three days later, a picture of a lopsided joint that he definitely didn’t sell you.

‘How’d I do?’

‘Looks like shit.’

‘That’s mean :(‘

‘Come over, let me help.’

‘On my way!’

You show up an hour later, the crooked joint in your hands. You sit on his couch with a frown.

“You know, I didn’t think it came out that bad.”

“Give it here.” He laughs, “You packed it up wayyy too much. Got too much at the end here too, didn’t tap it out.”

Still, he lights it, holding it out for you to smoke. You take it between your fingers, inhaling a small amount before coughing slightly. He smirks at your watery eyes, taking the joint from you to smoke it.

“Sorry,” You say, “I got my lip gloss on it.”

He chuckles, the tip glistening with the gloss, placing it in the corner of his lips, “Doesn’t matter.”

It tastes like your lip gloss. Strawberries and weed.

You take turns smoking it. Simon watches you the whole time, with lidded eyes, focused on the way your pretty lips curl around the joint. The way your chest rises with each inhale, your eyes becoming heavier and heavier, a lazy smile smeared across your lips as you lean closer to him on his old couch.

All he can think about is those lips wrapped around his cock and not the tip of the joint. And he’s definitely rock hard in his sweats, but he doesn’t care if you notice, not when you keep giggling at every bad joke he cracks.

He jerks himself off when you leave, promising you’ll be safe and text him when you get home. He finishes when your message pops at the top of his screen ‘made it safe :)’

He invites you over himself a week later because he’s got random inventory, he ordered them himself, of strawberry wraps and he’s certain you’ll like them.

You do like them. You’re melted into his couch, blinking lazily at him.

“How come you never charge me?” It’s a whisper.

He looks at you, the room dizzy with smoke and your pretty gaze.

“Never make pretty girls pay.”

“Oh?” You sound disappointed, “So, you give it free to other girls?”

He shakes his head, “Just you.”

You squint, “Are you only giving me free weed so you can get a lay?”

He smirks, “Is it working?”

You scoff, smacking him in the shoulder, “Unbelievable.”

He catches your wrist.

“You giving it to my friends for free too?”

“Careful,” He smirks, “You’re starting to sound jealous.”

You roll your eyes, trying to pull away from him. He keeps you close, tugging you into his lap so fast you have no choice but to slip onto his thighs. You don’t look at him, eyes focused to the side.

“Just you.”

You peer down at him then, “Huh?”

His fingers find your cheek, still burning from the embers of the joint, “You’re the only one I don’t charge.”

“Yeah?” You whisper.

“C’mere already.” He murmurs, pulling you down to kiss him.

You make a noise of surprise, like you hadn’t expected your smoke sessions to lead to this, with his cock pressed between your thighs eagerly, grip on your chin and hip to keep you close to him.

You kiss him back earnestly, smaller hands finding his shoulders. He loves it, fuck he loves the way your hands shake against his skin, the vibrations that leave your chest and fill his. He’s been dreaming about this since the moment you walked over in your tiny skirt.

Your bottom lip pops away from his, glistening with his saliva and not the lip gloss you insist on wearing.

“Wanted you to do that for ages.”

He chuckles against your lips, “Yeah?”

Your hips grind against his then, “Only reason my friends made me go was because I wouldn’t shut up about how hot you were.”

He presses his teeth against your neck, fingers making quick work of your belt and pants. “Came over with your ass and tits out, been jerking off to the memory ever since.”

You inhale sharply, “Fuck.”

Your eyes flutter when his fingers find your cunt, squelching with the sound of your arousal. He dips one finger in, drawing a whimper from you, and god you’re so fucking warm. The weeds got you nice and lax, a small grin on your lips as he coaxes you with one thick finger and he's sure he's never wanted to fuck someone more.

Your grin turns into a broken cry when he adds another, lips quivering around the shape of his name. Ghost. Ghost?

His thumbs already on your lips, gaze strong on you, “Simon.”

You nod in quiet understanding, “Simon.”

There’s a sticky strip of arousal that clings to your panties when he slides them off your thighs and it takes everything in him not to bury his face below and smell.

You scramble to his sweats, tugging them down impatiently. He lifts his hips willingly, lets his strained cock smack against his abdomen angrily. You lick your lips when you see it, eyes wide at the sight.

He grips it by the base, thumb coming up to wipe at the precum spilling from the tip.

“Oh my god.” You groan, “Let me ride you, please.”

He slides lower on the couch, tapping your hips casually in agreement like he hadn’t been picturing you on top of him for weeks, “Go on.”

You rise to your knees above him, shaking hand grabbing his cock so lightly it makes his eyes flutter. You glide his tip along your seams until it snags at your entrance, and you make a soft noise when he pops through. You slide down eagerly as much as he holds your hips and grits through his teeth to take it slow.

Your head falls to his shoulder when you sink to the base, his head rolling to the back of the couch because you’re so fucking warm and tight, and the weed definitely isn’t helping because he’s feeling everything ten times worse.

And when you lift your hips, he swears he sees heaven between your thighs when you drop back down and your pussy makes an obscene squelch.

You bury your face in his neck, arms around his shoulders and just fucking go at it. Ass slamming against his so fast the room echoes with each slap. You whine high-pitched with each thrust like you aren’t the one setting the pace, like you aren’t the fucking yourself raw around his cock.

“Jesus, bird, slow down.” He grunts, fingers dimpling your skin.

He says it because your legs are shaking and there’s sweat beading on your chest, whimpers falling from your lips endlessly, but more so because he doesn’t want it to end this soon. When he hasn’t even laid you back properly to fuck you the way he had hoped.

You don’t listen well.

You just keep sloppily fucking yourself onto his cock because you’ve found the sweet spot, the one that has you on the brink of an orgasm.

His lips on your neck do it for you, your toes curling into his shitty ass couch when you break. You soak his balls then, pussy clenching so tight around him he has to bite down on his cheek so he doesn’t bust.

He’s already moving you to your back, finding a home between your thighs when you come back down. You don’t even argue, like the perfect thing you are, folding your own legs to his shoulders, and arching into the couch.

He slides in slow, and your pussy spreads for him so prettily.

“Fuck,” he drawls, “Listen to her, just fuckin dying for me to fuck her.”

You whine loud at that, hips bucking to get him to move. He doesn’t wait a second longer, thrusts so hard into you, you feel it in your toes and your legs straighten out in shock.

He fucks you slow and hard, pace languid from the weed pulsing in his veins. You like it, at least he thinks you do from the way you keep writhing under him, the beginning syllables of his name broken on your lips between every thrust.

When he leans forward, pressing your knees to your shoulders, you gasp in shock from the stretch, but then his tip snags against that spot in your cunt that melts your brain into mush, and your eyes just roll into the back of your head.

He smirks proudly, bullying his length against that spot until you’re pushing at hips, murmuring something along the lines that it’s too much.

He doesn’t stop.

You pulse around him when you cum a second time, sweet voice ripped from your throat, and turned into blinded pleasure when he stamps his thumb against your swollen clit. Your feet tense at his shoulders, fingers tight against the cushions.

He finishes inside of you then, head falling to your shoulder with a deep groan, hips fucking into you with each pump.

the kayak slices the water calmly and then you're being lifted out by big arms and carefully positioned legs, thick and sturdy.

you think he asks if you're alright, and you think you laugh when he does.

—

the familiar sensation of emerging from unconsciousness crawls over you, your body returning to you piecemeal until you've puzzled it out. you fainted when he lifted you out and you noticed you were standing in some industrial dockyard. specifically now, you're in some office stretched out above you from where you seem to be lying on a couch. everything burns and stings.

"alrigh'?" a thick, craggy voice from behind your head. you twist slightly and there's the man that helped you.

"i'm so sorry," you sob again, like the fainting only hit pause on your crying.

silence. "wot for?"

you don't even know. you're waterlogged and sunburned and you're pretty sure you can't lift your arms above your head if you needed to.

"my boyfriend left me out there," you try to explain through shaking breaths. "he had…everything in his kayak. the compass. water. phones. food. i think maybe he thought i still had my phone on me."

"wot the fuck 're you sayin'? your boyfriend wot?" then he finally pushes himself out of the wooden office chair and leans against the desk where you can see him better. folds his huge arms across his huge chest.

"no," and it's a laugh-cry. "he thought it was funny. wanted to see if i could make it back without his help. i tried following him, but he was too fast. then it came to a fork in the river and i didn't know how to get back."

the man's face is dark with something even beyond anger. it doesn't fit the mundanity of the office surrounding you; lists and certificates and handwritten notes tacked up everywhere on the cheap walls.

it feels good to see it reflected in someone else's face. "i didn't know where i was, or where to paddle. i just needed to find anything human. it's been…hours." and then your anger breaks open easy like yolk trapped under a thin skein to reveal the sadness underneath because all you really are are sad. a man you've been dating, let come inside you more than once, met your friends and your grandparents, left you out in the middle of a giant body of water with no means of survival.

you could've died and you can already hear his voice in your head: babe i thought you had your phone! how was i supposed to know you've put it in my bag? you should've said something. babe please you're really making something out of nothing. you're always saying how much you want to toughen up and get into the outdoors stuff with me. i came back to find you but you'd disappeared; you should've just stayed put and i would've found you. you made it into such a big deal. jesus.

sometimes, the worst part of seeing your partner as they really are is not what they say or do, but what you can very clearly hear them saying or picture them doing.

"you're in a shipyard, love. don' know where you started but i'm bettin' you've come a long ways."

you shrug. "we parked on the side of a two-lane highway. portaged in. i'm not from here, i have no idea."

"judgin' by the look of you, it's been a few hours at least." he pushes himself off the desk and shuffles through something out of sight. comes back with a first aid kit, and after flipping through the contents, what looks like cooling gel packs for burns.

"oh, no, don't waste that on me" is silenced by a rude look.

"can you sit up."

you do awkwardly.

"i'm gonna cut your top off. don't think your arms are gonna be much help." a pair of scissors is brandished and they look insanely small in his big, calloused hands, and he drags it through the fabric of your tank top unless it falls down to your waist, leaving your bikini top underneath. you think if you had your wits about you, you'd try to argue.

"move a bit." he softly uses his hands to shift you, then out of sight, you hear the packet ripped open. then a blissfully cold gel is being spread across the sun-scorched skin; over your shoulders, up your neck and tops of ears, with a gentleness that doesn't match those big hands, down your upper arms, and the top knob of your spine where your tank top had dipped low all day.

a shuddering breath is punched out of you as the gel seems to penetrate the top layer of skin left to cook under the hot august sun with no reprieve from cloud cover.

you're turned back around with his hands on your waist, facing out into this office. it must be one of those offices set up in a trailer. he crouches down in front of you, knee cartilage popping.

"better." he's not asking. declaring it to be true about you. he presses a cold water bottle into your palm, and that's when you both notice where your trail shorts had ridden up, revealing a patch of skin that got burned as well. a stupid rectangle across both thighs.

he rips open another gel pack with his teeth. you watch quietly as he smears it across your flesh, trying not to drag the skin.

"chin up."

more along your breastbone where the tank top didn't shield, up your throat, and you realize how large his hands really span when they're cupped around your trachea. tops of your ears. forehead. it feels so intimate and clinical at the same time.

"that bad, huh," you give out shakily when he's chucked the sixth pack to the side, used up.

he grunts. instructs you to sip the water slow, no matter how dry your mouth feels, how badly you want to tip it down your throat and let it sluice through your bloodstream.

"headache?"

somehow the least of your concerns all things considered, but yes. fetches you some pills from the first aid kit, watches you carefully as you swallow them.

"get some rest then. i'll take y'home when i'm done."

the realization that you don't have anything to get you home yourself is devastating and if you had moisture to conjure fresh tears, you'd surely cry again. trying to find a comfortable position is impossible, so you end up just reclining to the side, wedging someone's spare hooded sweatshirt under your head as a pillow.

shockingly, you must doze off sometime after you hear the man leave the trailer. when your eyes open, dry and achy, there's a flickering overhead light on and the sky's darkened outside. you look around and find a clock on the wall. you don't know when he hauled you in, but it must have been at least an hour of sleep.

you readjust and check out the burns on your forearms, and fall back asleep.

the sound of his boots hitting metal steps has you inhaling sharply out of hazy, discomfited sleep. you watch him enter, eyes trained on you over the desk.

"y'alrigh'?"

you nod stiffly.

"let's go." he helps you into the oversized sweatshirt that you used as a pillow. it stinks like cigarettes and body odour, but it helps protect your sunburn from being scraped against. you're grateful for the size of it, that it doesn't force you to move your arms much to be folded into it.

he has to slow and shorten his long-legged stride to match your small, aching ones across the shadowed shipyard, lit only by sharp white fluorescent overheads. he brings you over to a large black truck, gets you situated (with his help) into the passenger side, and then goes back to the yard to lock up.

when he returns, you're trembling slightly inside the big hoodie. dreading what has to come next.

"everything is at my boyfriend's," you nearly whisper, embarrassed and penitent. "my keys and…it's all there."

"right." he gets directions and doesn't bother tapping them into his gps, just steers the truck out of the parking lot and onto some dark highway.

"i'm really so—"

"no." he actually raises a hand off the steering wheel to emphasize the rough word. "you're not apologizin' for 'im."

—

the ride is long and silent, and you must doze back off in front of the blue-lit dashboard and the man, who introduced himself finally as simon, who smokes a cigarette out his window a few times. you feel too guilty to ask if he even lives close to the city, to gauge whether this trip is adding time to his own commute. you can only imagine it does, and it burns you hotter for it.

coming to under frequent lights of the highway carved through the city, minutes from your boyfriend's exit.

you direct him the rest of the way, softly. "this unit, yeah, right here."

"what's his name?" he asks while sidling the truck up behind your boyfriend's car. so he did come home.

"sam," you answer without a thought, and then he's out of the truck and locking it behind him, striding in double time up the steps.

you hide. you hate yourself for it but you shrink in the hoodie, pulling it up over your mouth anxiously as you watch the door open under a shitty porch light. then all you see is the massive shadow of this man, simon, with his arms stretched out and he disappears into the open door. the door slams shut.

minutes and minutes stretch. you keep your hand on the handle but you won't leave the safety of the truck cab.

he reemerges alone. he comes up to your car door and unlocks it with the fob. "this all of it? check."

your phone, purse and wallet, house keys, reusable water bottle, and random things like a pair of your pajama shorts, a couple books, toothbrush, skincare stuff, tampons. it's stuffed into one of you old duffel bags you must've lugged over there at some point.

"i mean…i think this is it?"

"don't guess. you don't wanna come back again."

has he broken up with your boyfriend for you?

so you check the bag again. "yes…yes, it's everything." anything else is a lost cause, you don't need to tell him that the hard liquor was all purchased by you.

he hauls himself back in the truck and you can see under the street lights, the split knuckles on his fists, smeared blood down some hairy fingers.

"thank you," you whisper.

his fingers ripple off the wheel in a "don't mention it" gesture. you tell him where your apartment is, and then fall silent.

—

you invite him up. for logistics mostly, because it hurts too much to lift the duffel bag by yourself. he stands beside you in the elevator, huge and bulky, silent on his own.

you feel his eyes flick around your space as you let yourself into the apartment. he agrees to a cup of coffee, despite the hour.

there's only the one couch. you're distinctly aware that the only other man who's sat here with you has been sam. by contrast, simon is huge, taking up space that makes the couch feel more like a loveseat. he's technically in the corner, but his big ass and legs has him nearly halfway to you.

"is this yours?" you ask, fingers picking at the large wrinkled sweatshirt swamping you. "i can give it back."

"nah," he says firmly, and you notice how absurdly small the coffee mug looks wrapped in his big hand and thick fingers. "looks better on you."

you set your mug on the coffee table nervously. "okay, so i get the sense that you don't want me to thank you, that you're not the type that would accept it even if i tried?"

silence tells you you're right.

"do you…are you seeing someone?" you shift slightly to look at him, watch his reaction.

"no."

you already know he wouldn't come up just to be nice. he's dragged a woman to shore and broken up with her shitty boyfriend for her and taken her home. he owes nothing to you.

when you lean over, disbelief seems to flicker over his still face before your mouth finds his. you feel the taut sunburnt skin stretch painfully under the hoodie, but his warm lips opening against yours is a hot distraction. you let both soft, warm puffs of air against him as you pull away and go for the skin of his neck.

this is when you remember that you woke up in your bed with sam this morning.

his hands fall at your waist, where the skin was safe from the sun, pulling at your hips with a soft hot sound behind his teeth. you separate, both huffing.

"i think maybe that we should—"

"yeah, course." he says it too quickly.

you raise your eyebrow. "—wait til i'm healed. is what i was gonna say."

he's surprised. hides it fast but you catch it.

you give him your number. type it into his old phone.