Not fat. Not slow. Heavy.

The old oak floors groaned beneath his boots with each step of his certainty, carrying the weight of a man who had spent years walking in body armour, through places where careless footsteps were remembered only by the dead.

She smiled before he announced himself.

“You’re the new keeper.”  A new set of footstep sounds in her cognition.

“Yes.”

His voice was lower than she expected. Not rough and not gravelly. 

“Simon.”

“Yes.”

“I imagined you taller.”

He paused.

“I am.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. It was the first sound that surprised him. 

The estate was sat above the sea, wrapped in mist most mornings. Wealth insulated it from the world like thick grass. Gardners clipped roses she cannot see. Staff polished silver she can never admire. The house belonged to her in the way the sound echoes and the particular ways warmth moved across her skin. 

She knew the marble hall made the footsteps sharper than the library. The greenhouse smelled like wet earth and mint. That must be the colour green. The western room held the afternoon sun because it stretched warmth longer on her fingers across her knees by three o’clock. 

Simon learned her world before he asked her to learn his.

“There are three steps.”

A beat.

“Now two.”

Another.

“The railing is on your left.”

He never reached her unless she asked. Never steered her by the elbow like she was fragile cargo. He described and she decided. It was a respect so subtle most people would have missed it. She didn’t.

On his third week she asked, “Do people stare at you?” 

Because they’re now quiet for a longer moment before talking to her, thinking her not seeing them means she didn’t recognise who was nearby.

He looked up from cleaning the mud from his boots. “They do.”

“Why?”

“They’re curious.”

“About what?”

“My face.”

Silence stretched like a living thing.

“You don’t have to answer.”

“I know.”

He returned to his boot and the conversation ended there. She liked that about him. He never explained himself to earn sympathy.

So, she discovered him piece by piece. The smell of cedar soap and leather gloves drying beside the fire. Big fingers too, the glove hung loose on her hand when she tried it sensing he’s not around (he was around). Black coffee. How he carried winter with him even in July.

One evening the electricity failed. The house closed into darkness and, the staff hurried about with candles and nervous voices. She remained exactly where she was in the library chair, hands folded.

“Nothing changed.” She said with a faint smile.

Simon almost smiled back.

Weeks became months. She learned his moods by breathing alone, how every exhale was slow and deep when he was relaxed beside her in the garden, how his breath shortened by imperceptible degrees when some old memory she assumes found him. How there was always a little wheeze to his breathing, she guessed his nose is either broken or crooked.

One rainy afternoon she looked towards her shoulder where she knows he is. “You had a nightmare.”

“…No.”

“You did.”

“I slept.”

“You weren’t breathing the same. I heard it even next room.”

He looked at her for a long time which proved she was right. “Yes.”

She didn’t ask an explanation.

;

It happened on the first truly cold morning of autumn. The house was silent except for rain on glass like impatient fingers.

She stood there with one hand resting on the shelves and the other loose at her side. “Simon?”

“Yes.” 

“May I ask something strange?”

“You may.”

“I’ve never known your face.”

He said nothing. Because that is the very reason, he’s, her keeper.

“I know your boots... and your hands…. And your voice, when you’re tired.” She smiled faintly. “But I don’t know… where your eyes are.”

He felt it tighten against his chest. Everyone wanted to see his face. She wanted to understand it. 

“If it helps,” he said quietly.

She lifted her hands. Gave him every opportunity to step away. He didn’t. 

Her fingertips found the fabric of his shirt first, then the warm line of his throat. His jaw. Fresh stubble rasped beneath her fingers. That crooked nose. One of her hands cradled his cheek and the other felt the eyebrow interrupted by scar tissue. His temple. She lingered there.

“There’s another scar.”

“Yes.”

“You were very young.”

“…yes.”

She reached until her fingertips rested above his eyes; he closed them instinctively. Not because she could see. Because he suddenly felt seen.

Her thumb brushed the line where an old wound disappeared into his hair. “You frown more on this side.”

He gave a small huff of amusement. “Yes.”

“You’ve been hurt.”

“… Yes.”

There was no pity in her voice. Only grief for a road she didn’t walk alongside him. 

Her hands began to retreat. And without thinking-without planning- he caught them. Gentle as he is, not tightly. Just to stop them from leaving. 

Rain on glass and fire whispering in the grate, her eyes were closed. His rough hands wrapped around hers. She waited.

He guided one of her palms back to his cheek.

She smiled. “There you are.”

He had crossed borders under false names. Disappeared into crowds and hid from cameras. Spent years and masks making sure no one could truly find him. Yet in here, before her who had never seen a single feature of his face, Simon experienced something he had long forgotten. He didn’t feel exposed, but recognised. Being known didn’t feel dangerous.

;

Days later the rain returned, softer this time. Apologetic. It didn’t rap against the windows, washed the walls gently.

She sat curled in her usual chair, a thick volume unopened on the table beside her. 

Simon was near the shelves, putting books back in their places with the same economical precision. She took in the soft thud of each volume sliding home, the faint creak of the ladder when he needed to reach higher. She remembered lifting her hands quite high to reach his face. 

“Simon?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, fingers tracing the embossed cover of the book beside her. “Would you read to me?”

She could hear him weighing it. 

“Now?” he asked.

“If you’re not busy.” 

He crossed the room. She heard him pull the chair closer - wood scraping on oak – then settle into it. The fire popped and the leather shifted as he picked up the book.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Anything. Whatever you want. Or this one. It doesn’t matter.”

He opened the book. She listened the pages rustle, imagined his scarred hands holding it carefully. 

His breathing was low and his voice was dry.  He read it without flourish, straight. Honest.

She closed her eyes – not that it changed anything – and let his voice draw the story. He didn’t dramatise and didn’t soften. He simply read and maybe it was plainer than how the story should be read. 

After a few pages he paused. “Still good?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “don’t stop.”

So he continued. She reached out slowly, found his knee, and rested her hand there. Just an anchor. He didn’t flinch. After a moment, his free hand came down and covered it – rough palm and the steady warmth that had become her favourite constant in the house.

They stayed like that for a long time. His voice rolling through chapters and her fingers occasionally tracing small circles on his knee. Learning the muscle through the fabric, the way it tensed and relaxed with the story (her). 

Outside, the sea murmured against the cliffs. Inside, he wished…

When he closed the book finally, the room felt more theirs.

“Thank you.” She said.

He made that small sound in his throat, that meant more than most men’s entire sentences. “Anytime.”

The rain kept falling for that whole week and that became a routine. 

;

Boots on oak and her favourite landmark.  One evening after the power failed again, he carried her to her bed the way he started doing. In the dark she mapped him again, lower this time, learning the topography of his chest, the ridges of old wounds and the way his breath caught when her fingers found the line of his hip. He let her. All the way. 

And when he moved inside her it was with the gravity he brought to everything else. Two people that knew how to disappear, finding themselves back.

In the morning he warmed her teacup before placing it in her hands and announced himself with a gentle caress on her arm before leaning to kiss her. He rotated her chair so the weak winter sun would fall across her shoulders, and he adjusted his pace by half a step closer to her.

;;

22

Outside the reinforced window, the base was a grid of sodium lights and razor wire under a moonless sky. Somewhere far off, a generator hummed like a sleeping beast. Inside, Captain sat behind the desk in the dim glow of a single, green-shaded lamp. 

He was forty-one, lean in the way only lifelong soldiers get. His uniform jacket hung open over a white undershirt stained faintly at the collar. In front of him lay the disassembled parts of his service pistol, slide, barrel, recoil spring, frame… it was still warm from the range. He liked it this way. Liked the ritual. 

He thought about her while he worked, the young sergeant with the sharp tongue and a sharper mind who’d been rotated in six months ago. Too smart for this meat grinder, too beautiful for the dust and death. She argued with him in between briefings, quoted Clausewitz then let him bend her over this very desk when the lights went out. He could still feel the heat of her cunt around him, the way she’d bitten his wrist to stay quiet while he fucked her raw and relentless, metals clinking against the wooden table. She reminded him that he was still a man under all the armour and rank.

The captain was still there and so is his gun laid on the green blotter when the knock came. Two gentle raps. Nothing like the sharp bangs of his men or the crisp efficacy of the staff officers. He didn’t answer right away, just took another sip of the bourbon, letting the burn settle, stretch. 

“Come in.”

The door opened and she slipped inside, fresh-faced even after six months of this godforsaken posting. She has that kind of sweetness that doesn’t match a uniform, soft cheeks and eyes that still looked like they believe there’s some good left in this world. A mouth that looked more like smiling than saluting. Few strands of hair that escaped the pins curled towards the back of her neck. The fatigues looked ill-fitting on her, but they couldn’t hide the soft swell of her hips or the way she walked like she would on tall grass instead of base concrete. 

“Evening, Captain,” she said, voice low and honey-warm, carrying that lilt that made each word sound like it had been dipped in sugar. She stood at a loose parade rest, hands clasped at her back, but there was nothing stiff about it. It was polite and sweet. Maybe a little nervous. Like the jasmine lotion she smuggled in her duffel. Makes him think of a civilian bed. A quiet morning.

John leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Back again, Sergeant?” The lamp caught the side of her face and for a moment she looked unreal against the drab walls and stack reports. “Those forms already sorted?”

She nodded, “They were, Captain…” she held up the thin folder like it was an offering, something precious. “didn’t want you get chewed out again over paperwork, Sir.”

He almost smiled. Instead, he gestured to the chair across from his desk. “Sit down, Sergeant. You’re not on report.”

She moved forward and perched on the edge of the seat, her knees together and hands resting in her lap, fingers twisting the edge of her uniform shirt just a little. Innocent. The kind of girl who still wrote letters home every week. But not quite. He likes this game. Likes the way she pretends to be helpful while that sly little brat peeks through. He changes his mind. “Come here.” 

She walks over slow, hips swaying just enough to be deliberate. When she reaches the desk she stops beside him, close enough that her thigh brushes his knee. He turns in the chair and suddenly his big hand is on her waist, firm, as he pulls her closer.

“You’re a terrible liar, girl.” he murmurs. “You didn’t come here for paperwork. This late.” 

Her breath catches but she does not pull away. Instead, she tilts her head, calm and dreamy, some softness in her eyes even as the discipline keeps her voice steady. “Maybe I didn’t. maybe I like watching you work. Thought you might want help, or something…”

There it is. That little brat. Not loud. Just enough to make his cock twitch in his fatigues. He gets up, he’s on her. Big hands spinning her around and bending her over the desk with a firm push with his hands on her hips. Her chest hits the wood, papers scattering, gun parts clicking. She exhales shakily. 

“Captain-“

“Quiet, darling.” His voice is low, rough, dripping with that cocky authority that makes her knees weak. He yanks her fatigues down just enough to bunch around her thighs, leaving her simple cotton panties in place. They’re already damp, a dark wet spot blooming right over her cunt. Price groans at the sight, palming his thickening cock through his own pants before he unbuckles his belt, freeing his cock- thick, heavy, veins standing out along the length.

“Look at you. So fucking sweet and already dripping for me.”  It’s half-hard, heavy, and he presses it against the fabric immediately, hot skin sliding against wet fabric, not pushing yet but rubbing. Up and down. The thick head nudging her clit on every pass.

She whimpers, hips twitching.

“Ah-ah,” he tuts, voice low and velvet-rough. One big hand lands a gentle but firm smack on her ass. “None of that. You want to help how to put my pistol back together, don’t you? You’ll help… while I use this cock on you.” 

He folds the greased cleaning cloth over her eyes and ties it tight. Darkness swallows her. All she has left is his voice, the smell of gun oil and man, and the slow, filthy grind of his thickening cock sliding over the fabric until the cotton is translucent against her folds.

“Every piece you get right, I give you more. You mess up… I stop. Understood?”

“Yes, Captain..” she breathes out, already trembling.

“Start with the recoil spring, love,” he murmurs, guiding her hand to the parts. “Feel for it.” 

She reaches out blindly, fingers trembling as he keeps rubbing long-lazy strokes. He slides her panties down with a hook of his thumb. Every piece she gets right, he praises her in that low, devastating voice. 

“Good girl… that’s it. Just like that…” he rewards her by pressing the head of his cock firmer against her clit, grinding in slow circles. When she fumbles the barrel, trying to line it up while pressure fogs her brain, he pulls back and gives another light smack on her ass, warm and stinging. 

“Tch. Pay attention, darling. You’re smarter than this. Focus for me.”

The mix of praise and gentle correction makes her throb. She’s dripping down her thighs, cunt clenching around nothing as he slides his now fully hard cock up and down her slit, teasing her entrance but never pushing in. cocky. Patient. Completely in control.

“Slide next.” He says, voice warm like smoke against her ear. He leans over, chest to back, beard brushing her neck as he guides her hands. When she clicks it into place, he groans softly. “Good fucking girl. So pretty when you listen.” 

He rewards her properly—pressing the thick head just inside her, stretching her open for a moment, then pulling back to grind along her folds again, denying her the thrust she’s aching for. 

“Last one, love. Magazine.” Do it right and I’ll let you come all over my cock like the sweet thing you are. 

Her hands are shaking badly now. She fumbles once, he tuts again- giving her ass another warm smack. Then smoothes it with his palm while he keeps that slow, torturous grind going—his heavy cock sliding through her wetness, teasing her clit until she’s whimpering. 

She finally slots the magazine home with a sharp click. 

Price doesn’t hesitate. He pushes inside her with one smooth, thick stroke, filling her completely. “That’s my good girl…” he growls, voice low and rough with praise as he starts fucking her properly—deep, steady thrusts that rock the desk. One hand reaches around to rub her clit while the other hold her hip.

“Fuck—there you go, darling.” He growls, voice low and filthy with praise. “Take it.” 

He bottoms out and she cries out, panting, clenching hard around him. He fucks her in heavy, intense strokes, the wet creamy sound of their cum coating his thick cock filling thew room, white ring building at the base of his shaft every time he pulls back, her slick dripping down his balls. The vein throbs visibly inside her as he rails her harder, one hand fisted in her hair, the other grabbing her hip. 

“That’s my good girl. Cry for me. Let me hear how much you needed this cock.” 

this fateful day, it's bright outside, sunny and warm with light breeze and barely pickable scent of flowers that surround your crouching form, fingers ruffling in the soil, handling some thin stems with utter carefulness as you place them in the dug hole and sprinkle with ground in a circle, making sure they stay tall and proudly standing, as the howling wind that dances along ruffled hems of your dress, brings with it rustling, cautious steps, closer and closer to your side, pulsing through your heart with something so nervous, but familiar.

arthur is back when it's starts to get warm, when the blinding, yellowish rays of sun lay over the tip of his hat, shielding your wide open, glimmering gaze, he got older, rougher, with tired, purple lines beneath his squinting, bluish green eyes that flutter at you with something fond and apologetic, laid out so raw and unguarded, like a gaze of a beaten dog, with his now bearded cheeks burning red, accenting the deepened wrinkles and numerous moles that are so easily confused with small, blooming freckles, and you fly to your feet, along soil and falling seedlings, throwing yourself into his spreaded arms.

cruel, cruel man, laughing at your beading tears and weak, trembling slaps you give to his expanding, muscular chest, he's loud, hoarse, almost too joyful for someone who abandoned his girlfriend, but he'd kiss it better, wrap his scarred, rough fingers around your wrists to still your hands and cradle you close, with a warm palm against the back of your head, thumbing over your hair, with a whispered, cooing apologies right to your ear, rubbing his deformed knuckles down your rippling spine, promising in answer to your pleas that he'd never leave like that ever again.

arthur's bounty bigger, more dangerous people at his tail, and he got a new mark at his shoulder that healed with uneven, webbing flesh in a nasty scar, gleaming silver along many cuts slicing through his skin, each one a new story you learn under the warm gleam of the lamp in your room, tracing the full lines of his body with unsteady fingers, memorizing him back, pressed over the curve of your naked body as the day he left, but now, he's going to linger, he swore.