It ran through your mind so often over the next few days that you sometimes found yourself preparing for conversations that didn't even exist yet. Out loud in the shower. In the back of cabs. In the recording studio while your producer was trying to give you feedback (Sandra needed to literally shake you awake to get you out of that one).

And every time the landline rang, your heart practically attempted to torpedo itself directly out of your thoracic cavity. Which was unfortunate, because you got a lot of phone calls.

For the first few days, you'd find yourself jolting to life every time your phone went off, already half-expecting to hear that familiar soft voice you'd spent years listening to on records and television interviews.

Instead it was Jerry from production. Or your publicist. Or Sandra.

Or, on one particularly humiliating occasion —

“Hello?” “Hi. Am I speaking to — ” You stood up straighter. “Yes?” “Wonderful. I'm outside with your pizza.”

That had been your lesson in the dangers of anticipation.

Eventually your brain surrendered to the slow, inevitable process of habituation. And by the seventh day, the ringing of the phone no longer startled you half to death.

You reviewed the facts: Sandra had given your number to Frank. Frank had, presumably, given it to Michael. And somewhere presently on the planet, Michael Jackson theoretically possessed a piece of paper with ten digits written on it. That was all.

And a week of silence was basically an answer enough.

People got busy. He was on tour. Tours were enormous. They were schedule-devouring things that swallowed time whole. He'd had a moment of curiosity, or amusement, or whatever it had been — an impulse Frank had been dispatched to act on — and then the impulse had passed.

It was fine.

You were fine.

The thin, persistent thread of disappointment you'd been carrying around since approximately day three was simply the natural result of an unusual situation. Nothing more.

You reflected on this with great reasonableness as you dragged yourself through the door of your apartment at half past two in the morning, still wearing the clothes you'd put on fourteen hours earlier. You towed with you a full-body exhaustion that came from a day of back-to-back rehearsals for a television appearance that was, in your current state, becoming increasingly difficult to feel enthusiastic about.

Your feet hurt. Your voice had settled into a low, scratchy register that always developed after a day of singing without nearly enough water. The apartment was dark and quiet and perfect and all you wanted to do was fall face-first into bed and temporarily cease to exist for the next eight hours.

You managed the shoes. The jacket. You dropped your keys onto a random surface and would spend the next morning wondering where they'd gone. Your makeup was regrettably left on. Whatever ended up on the pillowcase was tomorrow's problem. It needed changing anyway.

Within minutes of your body hitting the mattress, sleep took you completely, the sheer weight of the week finally pulling you under. Your brain didn't even bother with the gradual descent of light sleep, skipping N1 and N2 completely. You plummeted straight into the heavy, restorative depths of N3. It was a dreamless, total blackout. And you were frolicking in it.

.

.

.

The phone rang at 3:17 a.m.

Somehow you heard it under fifteen layers of unconsciousness. Despite this, you continued your stroll through the serene meadows of dreamland, your brain deciding to file the interruption under: not relevant, continue slumbering.

You pulled your blankets closer.

The ringing stopped.

Then it started again.

You made a deeply chagrined noise into the pillow that communicated your feelings about this development clearly, if not articulately. Whoever this was would give up. Everyone gave up eventually.

The ringing stopped.

Then, with what felt like a hidden agenda, it started again. A third time.

Three separate, consecutive, deliberate phone calls at 3:17 in the morning from someone who clearly had no intention of developing any shame.

You sat up. Hastily, with an utter lack of grace — surfacing from sleep like something dredged from the bottom of a lake. Hair everywhere. Eyes not fully functioning. A deep and righteous fury gathering in your chest at whoever was on the other end of the phone.

You had been asleep. Beautifully asleep. You had a rehearsal in what was now less than eight hours, and you needed every single one of them. And the person currently dialing your number for what was now the third time in a row was going to understand that very clearly. You grabbed the phone from its place on the wall and almost ripped it off the mount entirely.

“Who the fuck is this.”

…

Nothing. Not even breathing, or the faint shuffle of someone hesitating at the pure vitriol that had just escaped your mouth. Just the empty, electric buzz of an open line at three in the morning. 

Then, very faintly —

“...hi.”

…

The absence that followed was the loudest thing you’d ever personally produced.

You knew that voice.

You knew that voice very well. Disturbingly well, considering you had just identified it from one small, scarcely spoken word while operating on half a mind. It had nestled itself into the minute crevices of your bones without you having chosen to put it there.

The cadence of it. The specific hush. How even a single syllable carried something immediately, unmistakably him.

“...um… it’s Michael…”

It was Michael Jackson…

You’d just asked Michael Jackson who the fuck he was.

The belated mortification arrived in a single, consummate wave, wiping out what remained of your righteous furor and replacing it with the sudden, hideous realization of what you’d just done.

“Oh my god,” you said. Now very much awake. “I’m so sorry. I’m so — that was — I didn’t know it was you. I was asleep, I didn’t — oh my god. I’m really sorry, Mr. Jackson, that was—”

“No, no,” he said swiftly.

Every muscle in your body locked. You braced yourself, prepared to sink into the floor. You had basically just spat on the greatest musical artist currently alive.

“Please don’t call me that.”

You flinched. “What?” 

“Mr. Jackson,” he said, and there was a twinge of embarrassment in how he corrected it. “That’s what people call my father.”

This had somehow thrown you more than the profanity had. “Right,” you said. “Sorry. Michael.”

From the speaker of your telephone came a sound you were not prepared for: a laugh. Small. Genuine. Caught between apology and delight.

“It’s okay,” he said, and the amusement in his voice made everything worse. “I deserved that.”

A yawn pulled itself out of you, born of vexation and legitimate exhaustion. You pressed the heel of your palm to your forehead. 

“Actually yeah,” you said, because humiliation had limits, but your commitment to being correct did not. “You do. You called me three times. Do you have any idea what time it is?” 

Apparently, whatever distress had seized you a moment earlier surrendered almost instantly to the stronger, uglier force of your weariness. “I don’t care who you are,” you continued. “Nobody interrupts a woman when she is sleeping.” 

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m in Osaka.” 

You processed this. Osaka was — you did the math badly twice before arriving at: very far ahead. Afternoon, for him. An hour at which people made phone calls without first considering whether they were cutting into someone else’s sleep. You dragged a hand down your face.

“You forgot the time difference.”

A weak scuffling came across the telephone line. “Well — no, I didn’t forget. It’s just — ” he hesitated, “I needed to make sure you were home?”

At that, you glared daggers at the wall in front of you. The logical part of you, still violently deprived of the joys of snoozing, was begging you to hang up, lest tomorrow’s poor rehearsal crew be forced to face the wrath of a sleep-destitute you.

Unfortunately, another part of you was still reeling from the fact that this was the call. The call you had been waiting for. The call you had convinced yourself would never come.

And now that it had, every sensible thought in your head went straight out the window, taking with it every carefully rehearsed version of how this conversation was supposed to go.

“That's — okay,” you said finally. “That's actually a fair point.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been busy.”

You could hear the shrug in his voice. “I figured.”

Letting your body trudge itself back to the bed, you dragged the phone cable behind you. The receiver stayed pressed to your ear as you climbed under the covers again and pulled them over your knees. “Took you a while to call.”

“A week,” he said, “I kept starting to dial and then — ”

You waited for him to continue. “And then?”

“I’d hang up.” There was something painfully simple about the confession. It came without explanation, without some careful little speech to make it sound better. Just the image of him standing there with your number half-dialed and no idea what to do with himself.

You looked down at the landline cord twisted over the edge of the mattress. “So what made tonight the night?” you asked.

A pause. You had the impression of him settling — a shift in the quality of the stillness, the way you could sometimes tell through the phone that somebody had gotten more comfortable.

“I had a good show tonight,” he said. “And after a good show I always want to — I don’t know. Tell someone. It’s usually the same people and I love them. But I’d been thinking about calling you all week, and tonight I thought — well, why not?”

He stopped.

“Is that strange?”

“A little,” you said honestly. His breath caught a little too close to the receiver.

“But not in a bad way,” you added. “I don’t mind being privy to the afterglow of a good show.”

He seemed to like that answer. You heard it in the sparse exhale that followed, the slight loosening of something.

“But not at three in the goddamn morning.”

He chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”

“Yeah, you better.”

“I’ll write it down.”

“Underline it.”

“Twice.”

The clock continued to tick by your bedside.

“So how was your day?” he asked.

Your eyebrows rose, surprised by the direction this exchange had taken. “You’re asking me how my day was?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I wanna know.”

You looked at the ceiling. The dark of your apartment. The thin strip of light coming from under the door. “Long,” you responded. “I've been in rehearsals since noon. TV thing next week.”

“Which song?”

“Two, actually. One older, one from the new album.”

“Which older one?”

You told him.

“That one’s great,” he said. “The bridge especially.”

You blinked. “Really? The bridge almost didn’t make the final cut. The label wanted it shorter.”

“They were wrong.”

“They were,” you agreed. “I had to fight for it.”

“You should always fight for the bridge.”

And, without either of you quite deciding to, that was where the conversation found its footing.

You hated how easily the corner of your mouth betrayed you. More than that, you hated how natural it felt. How one subject slipped into the next. How one topic found another. As if this were one of many calls instead of just the first one — his voice reaching you from Osaka while you lay half-buried in your blankets in your quaint New York apartment.

The talk continued.

One thing led to another in a loose little pattern of its own, neither of you steering it so much as following where it went. You talked about the television rehearsal, and he talked about the Osaka show — a specific moment in one of the songs where something had finally clicked in a way it hadn’t in weeks. The feeling of that and how hard it was to explain to anyone who hadn’t experienced it.

You knew what he meant. You told him so, and he said, “Yes, exactly,” and his voice eased.

He was funny, which caught you slightly off guard. Dry and quick, with better comedic timing than you would have expected from someone so often treated like an untouchable monument. He made you laugh twice in the first ten minutes and seemed pleased with himself both times, though he tried badly to hide it. It was endearing.

The words came faster than they usually did with new people, arriving without the usual self-conscious editing. There was a noticeable absence of measuring, of constantly deciding what to give and what to keep back.

There was an honest curiosity in the way he asked questions. Different from the performed attention you got in interviews, designed to flatter just enough to open you up. His questions landed with the weight of someone listening closely, like what you said mattered.

Betwixt another rehearsal story and his complaint about the Osaka hotel having terrible tea, it hit you with rude, inconvenient clarity: this should have felt stranger, right?

He should have felt farther away.

Against all sense, he sounded close enough that the thought of him calling again did not feel nearly as terrifying as a sober, perfectly conscious version of you knew it should have.

Michael was telling you about a dancer who had missed his cue but had recovered so well the audience thought it was part of choreography.

Though not at three in the morning, obviously. You still had principles.

“You should hire him for every mistake from now on,” you said, your voice still thick with the harrowing beckon of sleep but gaining a playful edge.

“I told him that,” Michael replied. You could hear the grin in his voice.

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“That’s cruel, Mr. Ja — Michael. Truly.” You shifted under the duvet, the landline cord tangling around your arm as you settled in.

“He laughed!”

“That man was probably terrified of you,” you countered. A series of rhythmic car honks rose from the street outside your window, thank you New York. You rolled your eyes before continuing. “Most people would be. You’re a perfectionist with a global empire; one misplaced step probably feels like a death sentence for him.”

“He was not terrified of me,” Michael defended quickly. “We have a good relationship. He’s a professional.”

“Michael, you are Michael Jackson.”

“That doesn’t mean people are terrified of me.”

“It means people pretend not to be terrified of you out of professionalism.”

“Can I tell you something?” you whispered, somewhere around what turned out to be the forty-minute mark.

He lost his sentence halfway through, a wheeze coming through the telephone line. You beamed.

“Sure.”

“The fan events,” you winced, already lamenting it.

He choked on whatever he was about to say next. “Oh, the article mentioned that.”

“Yes, I know,” you said, with as much dignity as you could manage. “And I would like to note for the record that I am extremely normal about you.”

“Are you?”

“Yes — ”

“The fan meetings,” he said, circling it back, clearly enjoying himself.

You closed your eyes briefly. “It was twice. Maybe three times. It was a long time ago, before my first single, so technically — ”

“Which tours?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Triumph or Victory?”

“I’m actually not — ”

“Both?”

“Goodbye,” you said, the last shreds of your ego rapidly dissipating.

A thud came through the speaker. He had dropped the phone. Somewhere in Osaka, Michael Jackson appeared to be losing a fight with his own laughter. You were in the middle of figuring out how not to burst into flames.

“Well, I appreciate it,” he said, when he’d settled. His phrasing sincere now, the teasing gone from it. “That you were there.”

“You can’t appreciate it,” you protested, drawing the words out as if you hadn’t been the one to bring it up in the first place. “It gives you too much leverage.”

“I won't use it against you.”

“You literally just did.”

“I won't use it against you again,” he amended, his tone mellowing into something more genial than the playful banter from a moment ago.

You were smiling, which seemed to be the default state this phone call had put you in. “I need to ask you something in return. Fair is fair.”

“Okay.”

“You read the whole article?” 

The silence that followed was immediate and very informative. Static crackled faintly over the line, carrying all the confession he refused to say out loud.

“Aha!”

“I read some of it.”

“Enough that you knew about the fan meetings?”

“I skimmed it.”

“Oh, who knew,” you said, tickled. “Michael Jackson is a man who likes to read articles about himself — ”

“I was not reading it because it was about me.”

That shut you up. He continued, quieter now.

“...It just… it mentioned you.”

The heat that rushed across your face was immediate. You dropped the phone. Apparently you were both clumsy with phones.

The receiver landed on your pillow, threatening to slide down to the floor while you pressed both hands over your face, as if you could physically force the reaction back into your skull. You let your head fall back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, thinking that of all the ways this call could have gone, this was not one you had imagined.

This easy, partly ridiculous thing. This conversation that had begun with you swearing at him and had become something you did not want to end. Talking to him felt less like an event and more like something you had been waiting for without even knowing you were waiting.

The bluish light of your alarm clock washed over the side of your face.

4:02

“Oh, hell.”

A muffled sound came from the blankets. Crap. The phone.

You scrambled for it and dragged it back to your ear.

“Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Michael said.

You had been on the phone for fifty minutes. Rehearsal was in less than seven hours. You had not slept nearly enough, and rehearsal was happening whether you were prepared for it or not. You were still in yesterday’s clothes, lying in the dark of your apartment, talking to a man on the other side of the world, and you needed, with some urgency, to go to sleep.

“I have to go,” you said. Even as you said it, there was a fragile reluctance in it that you suspected he could hear. “It’s four in the morning.”

"Yeah?"

“I have rehearsal in — ” You squinted at the clock. “Six and a half hours.”

You heard him laugh. “Do not laugh. You have taken years off my life.”

“I’ll call earlier next time.”

Next time.

The words slipped into the room far too easily. 

“Promise?” Whether you were asking him to promise he would actually call earlier, or whether you were asking him to promise that he would call again at all, you weren’t sure.

“Yes,” he said. “Promise.”

A beat.

“Probably.”

“Michael.”

He chuckled: a low, unhurried sound you were already too familiar with for someone who had only called you once.

You did not move immediately. Neither did he, it seemed. The line stayed open, both of you sitting on either end of it before it actually ended.

His laughter was the last thing you heard before the call clicked dead. You set the receiver down and lay back in the dark.

The apartment was exactly as it had been an hour ago — same walls, same ceiling, same cold air, same thin line of light under the door — and you were exactly as you had been, tired and in yesterday’s clothes with tomorrow (technically today) coming too fast.

Everything was the same.

You stared at the ceiling for a while anyway, grinning like an idiot at nobody, before you finally closed your eyes.

You were asleep in minutes.

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The music shifted into another song, drawing a fresh wave of skaters onto the floor. Michael watched absentmindedly, fingers drumming against the side of his cup.

Unfortunately for Michael, the second he saw you every carefully constructed fantasy he’d been rehearsing in his head before he went to sleep these past couple nights went poof! Oh, baby had the vision planned out so perfectly too. You would arrive alone, right? Perhaps a little late knowing how you girls were. Your eyes would find him across the rink.. he’d wave you over with a pretty smile, say something clever to make you giggle, something charming to make you blush, and the two of you would spend the whole evening together. Simple! Romantic! And honestly.. the sort of thing that only ever seemed possible in his imagination.

Instead, you arrived wrapped in a world that had nothing to do with him.

You were laughing before you had even fully stepped inside, surrounded by friends who seemed to orbit you as naturally as planets around the sun. One of them hooked an arm through yours. Another leaned close enough to whisper something that sent you into another fit of giggles. You moved through the crowd completely absorbed in your circle, tucked safely inside a bubble of conversation and affection that Michael found himself staring at with an intensity that bordered on painful.

It was ridiculous, really. He knew that. These were your friends. People who loved you. People who had every right to occupy your attention. Yet all he could think about was how easily they had access to you. They could stand beside you without overthinking. They could make you laugh without rehearsing every sentence beforehand. They could touch your arm, lean into your space, steal your attention for entire evenings without their heart threatening to beat itself clean out of their chest. Michael hated the ugly little stab of jealousy the realization inspired but it settled in anyway, impossible to ignore.

The worst part was that you looked so happy. Not even looking for him. Not wondering if he had shown up. Not scanning the room in search of a familiar face. You were perfectly content exactly where you were and that simple fact managed to burst his fantasy more effectively than outright rejection ever could have. It forced him to confront the embarrassing truth that while he had spent the better part of a week thinking about you, you had probably spent the week simply living your life.

His fingers tightened around his cup as he watched you laugh again, your head tilting back beneath the colorful lights. God, you were beautiful. So beautiful it almost felt unfair. There was something doll like about you tonight, something soft and luminous that seemed untouched by the chaos around you. For a moment, Michael forgot entirely about the drink in his hand. Orange juice slipped over the rim and splashed across the table, but he barely noticed. The pounding in his ears had grown so loud that the rest of the rink seemed to fade into the background.

All he could see was you.

And all he could think, with a mixture of longing and frustration that made him feel like an awkward teen instead of twenty one, was that every single person standing between him and you suddenly felt like an obstacle because they were occupying the exact place he wished he was.

The pounding in his ears was so loud he didn’t even hear Bill calling for him. “Michael.”

No response. “Michael.” Still nothing.

“Yeah, that brotha’s starvin’.” Bill says shaking his head, causing the other two in his party to chuckle at how adorably absurd this entire situation was.

The longer he watched, the worse it became.

At first, Michael told himself he was being dramatic. You had only been there a few minutes. There was no reason to assume you wouldn’t acknowledge him eventually. No reason to let his imagination run wild simply because you were occupied talking with your friends.

Yet with every passing moment, his confidence seemed to shrink.

You looked so settled over there. Every now and then another person would stop to greet you, extending the circle around you further. You laughed, listened, smiled, completely absorbed in whatever conversation was unfolding. Meanwhile, Michael remained exactly where he was, nursing a cup of orange juice and feeling increasingly foolish for having spent the entire evening waiting for you.

The ugly little voice in the back of his mind began whispering all the things he hated most.

Maybe you hadn’t come for him. Maybe you’d only mentioned stopping by in passing. Maybe you hadn’t even noticed he was there.

His stomach twisted.

The more he thought about it, the more embarrassed he became. Suddenly every hopeful fantasy he’d entertained over the past week felt very childish. Of course you weren’t looking for him. Why would you be? You had a life, friends, people you genuinely wanted to see. You were a socialite. The world did not stop spinning simply because Michael Jackson happened to have a crush.

Across the table, Bill watched the slow collapse unfold in real time. The slumped shoulders, distant stare, the deepening pout.

“Don’t start.”

Michael frowned. “’M not startin’ anything.” Oh! He has a little funky attitude now.

“Alright now.” Bill warned and Michael looked away.

For a moment, Michael seriously considered leaving the booth altogether. Maybe he’d skate a few laps, find something else to focus on. Anything was preferable to sitting there feeling sorry for himself while you remained blissfully unaware of the emotional catastrophe taking place twenty feet away.

Then it happened.

Your laughter softened as the conversation around you shifted, and for the first time since you'd arrived your attention wandered. Almost absentmindedly, your gaze swept across the rink drifting over the crowd until it landed on him.

Michael forgot how to breathe.

The feeling was instantaneous and overwhelming. One moment he had been sitting there stewing in his wounded pride, thoroughly convinced that you hadn’t noticed him all evening. The next, he found himself trapped beneath the weight of your attention, every insecurity he’d managed to accumulate over the last ten minutes suddenly feeling ridiculous.

Because you had noticed him.

And apparently, you’d noticed him quite a while ago. A smile began to form on your lips, and Michael felt his stomach drop for an entirely different reason.

It wasn’t a grin nor was it playful enough to be teasing or sweet enough to be innocent. It was something far more dangerous than either of those things. A smile touched with amusement and recognition, as though you’d caught sight of something you found particularly endearing. As though the sight of him sitting over there, staring at you from across the rink like a lovesick puppy had confirmed something you’d suspected all along.

Heat climbed his neck and the longer you looked at him, the more certain he became that you’d seen everything.

You’d seen him checking the entrance, seen him watching your group from across the room. Seen the way his mood had visibly soured the longer he convinced himself you weren’t coming over.

The realization should have mortified him. Instead, all it seemed to do was make him feel validated.

God.

You looked beautiful.

The colorful lights flashed across your face as you stood among your friends on the rink, completely at ease in a way Michael had always envied. While he spent half his life overthinking every conversation, every interaction, every glance, you moved through the world so effortlessly confident that made everything look easy. You never seemed concerned with whether people liked you. They just did. You never chased attention because it found you anyway.

And right now, all of that attention was directed at him.

Neither of you looked away as the skaters continued moving around you. Music thundered from the speakers. Laughter echoed throughout the rink.

Yet somehow the space between you felt strangely quiet.

Then you lifted your hand.

Just one finger.

Crooked toward yourself.

Come here.

It felt like a command because it absolutely was, with the confidence of someone who already knew exactly what would happen next. And the truly humiliating part was that you were right.

Michael was on his feet before his brain had fully processed the gesture. His knee struck the edge of the table and all the drinks nearly spilled over as the booth rattled violently.

A chorus of protests erupted behind him as he nearly sent the entire setup crashing to the floor, but Michael barely heard any of it. He was already moving through the crowd, abandoning every ounce of composure he’d spent the evening trying to maintain.

Behind him, Bill watched the scene unfold with the exhausted expression of a man witnessing something both embarrassing and completely predictable.

“Oh, man. That boy is gone.”

Because after all that moping, it had taken exactly one finger to get Michael Jackson moving. Not a greeting or even his name.

Just a look and a simple little come here.

And off he went.

You stood on the other side of the low barricade that separated the rink from the seating area, balanced easily on your own personal skates. Colored lights skimmed across the polished wood beneath your feet, catching on your jewelry every time you moved. Up close, Michael found you even more distracting. You smelled so good.

The journey across the rink had done absolutely nothing to improve his condition. If anything, it had made it worse.

“Hi, Michael.” You tilted your head slightly as you looked at him, your smile lingering at the corners of your mouth.

“Hi.” The response came out embarrassingly quiet.

For all the confidence he’d managed to summon while crossing the room, it deserted him the second he arrived. He was suddenly intensely interested in the floor, the barricade, the wheels on your skates, anything except your eyes.

A soft laugh escaped your lips. “You look nice.”

Before he could respond, your hand rose to straighten his collar. The gesture was casual and like muscle memory, and Michael felt every nerve in his body come alive beneath your touch. Your fingers smoothed the fabric before sliding behind his neck, settling briefly against the nape.

Your acrylics scratched lightly through his curls just enough to send a pleasant shiver down his spine.

You noticed the way his shoulders stiffened and your smile widened. “Miss me?”

Michael swallowed. The honest answer sat so heavily in his chest that he couldn’t think of a clever way around it.

“Yeah..” His voice was barely above a mumble.

You heard him but you pretended like you didn’t just to hear him say it again. “Hm?”

Then he nodded and a little louder, “Yeah.”

Something softened in your expression, satisfaction. You’d suspected that was going to be the answer and you were merely waiting to hear him say it.

“That’s sweet.”

Michael felt his face grow hotter. You, meanwhile, appeared completely unaffected.

“Go get skates.” You ordered

Michael blinked. “Pardon?” He wasn’t listening, he was staring.

”Go get skates.” You gave his shoulder a light push. “You’re not gonna sit over there all night, are you?”

“Oh, right!” Another blink. “Okay.”

You stared at him.

Michael stared back.

A laugh escaped you. “Michael.”

“Yeah?”

”Go.”

He nodded immediately. “Right. Okay.” Then he turned and started walking away to rent some skates for the night.

By the time the night was halfway over, the pattern had become impossible to ignore.

Michael had spent most of the night orbiting you.

Not hovering awkwardly across the room or lingering nearby under the pretense of doing his own thing. Deadass on you. Every time you moved, he ended up moving too. If you skated toward the opposite side of the rink, he followed. If you stopped to talk to someone, he appeared a few feet behind you waiting for you to get done. More than once, you’d looked over your shoulder only to discover him on your heels, wearing the innocent expression of a man who had absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there.

The funniest part was that he never seemed aware he was doing it, but you were no better.

At one point you’d hooked a finger through one of his belt loops and dragged him through a crowd because he kept getting distracted by people stopping to talk to him. Michael hadn’t protested, he was right where he wanted to be and simply allowed himself to be steered wherever you wanted him, weaving obediently between skaters and crowds alike while your friends tried not to laugh. Which by the way? You didn’t like very much, because you should always be the one giggling him out of his underwear.

Then later, there was a point where the music grew too loud and you’d grabbed his jaw to pull his face closer so you could hear him better.

“What?”

You’d tugged him forward. “What’d you say?”

Michael had repeated himself, this time barely three inches from your ear. The poor thing had nearly short circuited.

Now he was standing at the concession counter retrieving the drink you’s sent him to get, and your friends were watching him with poorly concealed amusement.

“Girl,” One of them said, glancing between you and Michael. “He’s been overly going. All night.”

A smile tugged at your mouth. “I know.”

Across the room, Michael accepted the drink from the cashier before immediately turning to look for you. The second he spotted you, he started heading back like clockwork.

You watched him approach, taking in the sight of him weaving through the crowd with such earnest determination that somehow managed to be both charming and ridiculous.

“He’s just as cute in person, right?” you asked.

Your friend barked out a laugh. “He’s cute but what if the shy thing is for appearances?”

You shrugged, not minding her. “I’ve known him for a while through my dad, he’s really like that. I think it’s charming.”

“How old is he again?”

“Twenty one.”

Your friend made a face. “Girl..”

“What?” You laughed. “I’m twenty (number).”

"I don't know— younger guys.. they be lowkey annoying.”

Your gaze drifted back toward Michael. He was almost there now, protecting the drink from being knocked out of his hands while navigating around people.

The sight made something warm settle in your chest.

“Mm.” You tilted your head slightly, she eyes him. “He’s been good to me though..”

Michael finally reached the group and immediately held out the drink you’d asked for and his expression brightened the moment you took it.

Like he’d just accomplished something so important.

You were feeling generous tonight, maybe even a little possessive.

That was the only explanation you could come up with later, because the way the evening had escalated felt almost absurd in retrospect. One moment Michael had been trailing after you everywhere you went, carrying drinks, accepting orders, allowing himself to be tugged through crowds by his ear whenever he drifted too far away from you. The next, you were standing beside him beneath the flashing lights, watching him laugh again at something one of your girlfriends said, and making a decision that surprised even you because usually you were much more.. tactful.

Maybe it was the way he’d spent the entire night looking at you or the fact that he’d never once complained. Maybe it was because every time you called his name, he appeared instantly.

Whatever the reason, you’d found yourself gliding up beside him as the night began winding down. Michael was midway through a conversation with Bill when you hooked a finger through the front of his shirt and pulled him down slightly.

He went without resistance.

Of course he did.

The music was still loud enough that nobody else could hear you as you leaned close, your lips brushing the shell of his ear.

“You’re coming home with me tonight.” You felt him go completely still. “Say bye bye to Bill and your people, ‘kay?”

For a moment, Michael simply stared at the floor and you watched the reaction spread down his neck. When he finally looked at you, there was something dazed in his expression, as though his brain had temporarily stopped functioning.

“Okay.” The answer came so fast you nearly laughed.

Not where?

Not why?

Not even a hesitant really?

Just: “Okay.”

You bit back a smile and wave at Bill as she glides away back to her table and Michael had barely managed three words of explanation before Bill figured it out.

Not that there had been much mystery to solve, the equation practically solved itself.

Bill sighed heavily. “You serious?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah.”

“She askin’ or tellin’?” Bill immediately had his answer when Michael coughed in response.

Michael looked down at the floor and Bill shook his head. “Son, one of these days you’re gonna have to stop jumpin’every time that woman points somewhere.”

Michael’s embarrassment deepened. “I don’t do that.”

The thing was, Bill liked you. You made Michael happy. You were good to him. You looked after him in your own way.

Bill had no objections there. His issue was the complete collapse of Michael’s spine whenever you entered the equation.

The boy had spent all evening following you around like he’d been hired for the job. “You know she already likes you, right?” Bill asked.

Michael blinked. “Huh?”

Bill rubbed his face. “She already likes you.”

Michael stared, the very suggestion seemed impossible to him. “But..”

Bill already knew where this was going. “But what?”

Michael shrugged awkwardly.

“She’s..”

“Pretty?” Michael nodded.

“Successful?” Another nod.

“Older than you?” A smaller nod.

Bill threw his hands in the air. “And?”

Michael didn’t answer, because that was the problem.

Somewhere deep down, Michael still couldn’t understand why someone like you would choose him when you could have anybody. Meanwhile, everyone around him had been forced to watch you practically drag him around a roller rink all evening.

Bill snorted. “Son, if you don’t quit feelin’ sorry for yourself."

Michael frowned. “I’m not..”

Bill laughed. “She got you fetchin’ drinks, carryin’ her stuff, followin’ her around, and lookin’ at her like she hung the moon.”

Michael buried his face in his hands.

You looked over your shoulder at him across the room, probably to see what was taking so long and the second Michael noticed, he straightened.

Bill caught it and a long, exhausted sigh followed.

Then he patted Michael’s shoulder. “Go on. Use protection.”

Michael sputtered. “You’re talkin’ dirty! I’m a gentleman.”

Bill shook his head. “You hopeless.”

The funny thing is Bill didn’t dislike the dynamic. He probably finds it adorable. He just spends a lot of the time trying, and failing, to convince Michael that being loved by a confident woman did not require acting like he’d been personally selected by royalty every single day. Michael, unfortunately, would continue acting exactly like that.

Because he loved bossy women.

You were beautiful—everyone knew that. It wasn’t exactly a revolutionary observation. People noticed when you walked into a room, they turned their heads and stumbled over conversations, found reasons to linger a little longer in your presence.

But Michael’s problem had long since surpassed simple attraction, because your pussy was the closest thing Michael thought he’d ever get to experiencing heaven while he was still on earth.

The thing about Michael was that he was sort of person who experienced affection through proximity. He liked sitting close enough for your shoulders to touch. He liked feeling your weight beside him on a couch. He liked the absent minded ways you occupied space, the little touches that seemed insignificant to everyone else but somehow lingered in his mind for days afterward.

The truth was that he never quite got used to you, even more so because you were the one to take his virginity.

Some people eventually acclimated to affection, they normalized it and over time, they came to expect it. Michael never seemed capable of doing that. Every act of intimacy, no matter how small, retained its ability to affect him. A hand on the back of his neck. Your fingers smoothing his collar. Your arm looping through his. Tiny gestures that should have become ordinary by now somehow remained extraordinary.

There’s unfortunately just a small part of him still couldn’t believe he was being chosen.

For Michael, intimacy was never something separate from affection. The two were hopelessly intertwined. Physical closeness carried an emotional weight that he couldn’t easily detach from which is why he’s so enamored with you. Where other people might eventually grow accustomed to being loved, Michael seemed determined to remain grateful for it. The familiarity never dulled his appreciation.

You’re no longer just the woman he has a crush on. You’re the person he trusted with something deeply personal. The person who guided him through an experience he had spent years imagining, worrying about, romanticizing, and building up in his head.

The irony is that it probably makes him less focused on sex itself and more focused on you.

Because afterward, what’s left isn’t necessarily the memory of the sex. It’s the memory of your kindness. Your patience. The way you looked at him during. The fact that you wanted him there with you. The feeling of being accepted completely, without performance or expectation.

For someone like Michael, that would be difficult to separate from love. Very difficult.

“Fuck, Michael,” You feel breathless, hands resting on the sides of his abdomen as you wrap your legs around his waist. Michael balances his weight above you, palms spread out on your soft bedding as you pull him closer with each thrust deeper into your pussy. Your pubic bones met with each movement, curly bushes intermingling and creating a friction. “That feel s’good, baby. Can’t believe you’re fuckin’ me this good..”

Michael’s face twists with a cute strain, his eyes squeeze shut so tightly his brows pinch. Every muscle in his body goes rigid as he fights the overwhelming to pump his nut inside of you. He can’t cum now. It’s too early, it’s way too soon. He can’t. He can’t. It’s barely been three minutes! But the filth spilling from your pretty lips in such a nasty tone makes his dick fucking throb and jerk against your tight walls. ”Lovey.. stop—stop.. stop talkin’ for a second..”

You know exactly what you’re doing, but you don’t mind. He’s been very generous with his mouth tonight and you can’t even count the amount of times you used his tongue to get off. Emphasis on you using his tongue, he’s eager to please but he still needs a little guidance. So, usually when he’s between your legs, you’re practically face fucking him. Hands in his curly coils to hold him in place as you roll your clit along his tongue.

Your heavy breasts bounce and sway with each sloppy thrust, jiggling provocatively under his straining chest. You reach up, soft palms cupping his tense cheeks, tenderly stroking his sweaty skin as you whisper.

“Look,” You tilt his face down, forcing him to look directly beneath the two of you—making him watch. “Look at that dick fucking your pussy, daddy.” He lets out a particularly pathetic whine as the nickname, you only use it to tease him but he seems to like it even though.. he’s not really the ”daddy” type. He watches as his slick, latex covered cock pushes relentlessly in and out of your pretty petaled pussy. The smooth wrapper makes his shaft glide effortlessly, pumping in and out as his dark skin contrasts against the lighter colored latex. Fuck, it’s pretty. All six inches of it.

“Who’s pussy is this? Let me know..” You grab his jaw, making him look at you as you gently runs a finger down his bottom lip to watch it pop back into place.

“It’s mine..” He whimpers out.

“Yeah? ’s all yours?” You smile, slipping her ring and middle finger into his mouth.

“Mhm..” He nods, closing his eyes again as he sucks on her fingers.

“Look at me, baby..” You say and he reluctantly does as he’s told. “I love watching you fuck me this good..” You look up at him with those big soft eyes, your expression melting into a breathtaking mix of pure adoration and overwhelming affection. Right now, there’s nothing dirty in your gaze now, only a deep, lovesick tenderness that reciprocates his same feelings for you—and it completely unravels him. Seeing you look at him with such.. love is his absolute undoing, shattering his control instantly.

Michael’s hips start to stutter and falter, his rhythm breaking as he approaches his high. His face contorts with distress, a mixture of pleasure and panic etched into his features.

“Oh—m’god..” He pants, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Can’t.. that's gonna make me..”

“Make you what, angel face? Cum?” You smile.

“I can’t—I really can’t..” There’s really no warning.

Michael’s body suddenly goes rigid and his hips press deep as he buries himself completely inside you. His muscles tense and twitch as wave after wave of intense pleasure crashes over him, filling the condom with thick ropes of hot, sticky cum.

Michael collapses fully onto you, his strength completely spent as his body trembles uncontrollably. His hips continue to rut instinctively, pathetic little twitches driving his spent cock deeper into your warmth as he rides out the overwhelming aftershocks. His face buries into you shoulder, whimpering softly.

“Sorry.. sorry—felt too good..” There’s always a sense of shame that sits on his chest because since he’s been having sex, he’s been struggling with prematurely finishing. But you always tell him it’s not his fault when he brings it up hours later, his body has never known a woman until relatively recently. It just makes his body notoriously hypersensitive and prone to finishing too soon. It takes some time to build an endurance. But what he lacks in lasting, he makes up for with his refractory period which is seemingly nonexistent.

But that’s a story for a different day.

The ride home was a cocoon of tense silence. The streetlights shimmered in the night a silent parade past the tinted windows.

Michael sat in the far corner of the plush limousine seat, a beautiful statue carved from desire and anxiety. 

He’d been radiant at the 1980 American Music Award presentation, his neat afro, a soft light-brown cloud, his smile shy but genuine as he spoke to peers about Off the Wall.

And for the entire three-hour affair—from the first sip of prosecco to the final standing ovation, he’d been visibly, achingly hard.

You had whooped and cheered for him as he won in three separate categories. He made sure to point and thank ‘his girl’ for being the perfect muse. You couldn’t even comprehend the wins, as you were pointedly looking at his crotch, how he was trying to hide himself. 

You’d borne witness to it all. 

The subtle, tortured shifts in his wide-legged trousers. The way his elegant hands would flutter to his lap, pressing down, trying to angle the thick, insistent line of his erection against the lean plane of his stomach, or try to keep it in the waistband of his pants.

It was a futile, beautiful struggle. A faint sheen of perspiration had highlighted his forehead, and every time he leaned in to whisper a thank you, his breath was hot and unsteady. When he spoke with you, his eyes were alert, fervent, and his breath carried the scent of mint and sweet juice. He was coming apart at the seams.

Last night had been his first time. The loss of his innocence. A decision arrived at with trembling anticipation. Three whole years of held hands, of kisses that never deepened, of him whispering, "Let's do it when it’s perfect, baby. When it’s right.”

He’d finally decided it was right. “I love you,” he’d breathed into the darkness, his body taut above you. “I know I’m going to marry you—so why should I wait any longer?”

It had been a burst of frantic, bewildered sensation, over almost before it began, leaving him curled around you afterwards, whispering “thank you” over and over like a sacred vow into your skin.

You’d thought it a one-time gift, at least for a while, while he grappled with the guilt of stepping outside the bounds of his religious past.

The limo purred to a stop on the familiar Hayvenhurst driveway. He was out before the engine died, opening your door with a hand that trembled violently.

“Night, Mike. I’ll pick you up again tomorrow morning at nine sharp—you’ve got that radio show interview–” Bill called after him.

Michael wasn’t listening. He didn’t even take your hand up the path like he usually did.

He walked ahead, as if on a warpath, his posture rigid, his stride a careful, stiff thing meant to disguise the persistent, telling bulge in his trousers.

The house was a sleeping giant. You both climbed the grand staircase at speed. You struggled slightly in your heels, your long silk dress pooling at your feet. He led you away from the guest room you used to frequent, down a quieter hall lined with framed gold records and awkward school portraits. He stopped at a familiar door and pushed it open.

His childhood bedroom.

It was a sanctuary of preserved innocence. A smaller double bed with a faded blue comforter. 

Shelves bowed under the weight of countless Disney figurines: Cinderella’s castle, a parade of Seven Dwarfs, a lonely-looking Dumbo. A mobile of the solar system, coated in a fine layer of dust, hung motionless from the ceiling. The air was a blend of old paper, the faint sweet smell of vinyl, and the crisp, clean scent that was uniquely, essentially him.

You smiled as you took it in; it looked exactly as you remembered from when you first started dating. He had insisted you both use the guest room because he didn’t want to face moving any of his memorabilia. It just so happened his childhood bedroom was furthest from his family, his parents in the opposite wing, Randy down the stairs and Janet three doors down.

He went to the bed and sat down, his back to you. With a concentration that was borderline funny, he bent and began untying the laces of his polished dress shoes.

The act was so simple, so boyish; a child in his refuge, shedding the costume of the outside world, that it made your heart ache. 

In public, he was poised, adult, a persona he wore like a tailored suit. But here, he was the boy who believed in magic, who trusted too easily, whose curiosity was your favorite thing, the way he’d absorb everything about a subject, a time period, a movie, just as he did with music.

You stood by his old wooden desk, your fingers brushing the cool plastic of a model rocket. A ceramic figurine of Bambi watched with wide, glassy eyes.

“I saw it all night,” you said, your voice a soft intrusion in the quiet.

His hands froze on the second lace. He didn’t turn. “Saw what?”

“How hard you were. During the speeches. While you were eating. You kept trying to hide it, but you couldn’t. It was all I could think about.”

A visible tremor ran through him. He straightened slowly, but kept his back to you, head bowed as if in prayer. “It wouldn’t go away,” he confessed, his voice thick. “My body… it wouldn’t listen to me. The more I remembered last night, the harder it got. It was getting… painful.”

“I noticed your frustration,” you whispered, taking a step closer. The floorboard sighed beneath your weight. “And it made me wet. Drenched. Every time you adjusted yourself, every time you got that look in your eye… I could feel myself getting slick for you.”

He turned then.

His face was flushed, his beautiful lips parted. The need in his eyes had taken over; the shyness was a thin veneer over a bedrock of hunger.

“Wet?” he breathed, as if deciphering a complex lyric. His gaze dropped to the front of your gown. “Tell me what that’s like.”

You closed the final distance.

You took his right hand and lifted it. You placed his palm firmly against the damp silk covering your mound.

He gasped—a sharp, startled sound.

“Feel,” you instructed, your voice low.

His fingers trembled against you. You guided his hand down, under the heavy fabric of your gown, past the delicate lace of your stockings, until his cool fingertips met the soaked, feverish silk of your panties.

A choked, ragged sound escaped him.

“I can make you feel this way?” he stammered, his voice full of awe. “So warm… so… wet…”

“That’s for you,” you said, holding his wrist, making him feel the undeniable truth. “All night. That’s what the thought of you did to me.”

He was shaking now.

You hooked your fingers into the lace at your hip, drawing the fabric aside. Then you guided two of his long, elegant fingers inside of you. He was good with his hands; he had a rhythm like no other, skilled and precise. It was ironic that he knew how to play instruments so well, and now you wanted him to learn to play your body like one.

He went perfectly still. His eyes widened, the dark pools swallowing the light from the nightlight.

He was still feeling the intimate, velvet clutch of your body.

“Ohh…,” he whimpered, the sound pulled from his soul.

“Curve them,” you breathed, your own composure fraying. “Like you’re reaching for something.”

He obeyed; a slow, deliberate flexion. The pad of his middle finger found a spot that made stars burst behind your eyelids. A low, throaty moan tore from you.

“Mmmhh—!”

The sound shattered his last restraint. A deep, guttural groan echoed in his chest. He began to move his fingers, it wasn’t really with skill, just a frantic curiosity. In and out, curling, exploring. The tops of his fingers were softly pressing against your G-spot. 

He watched your face, utterly captivated, as his hand worked beneath your gown, his expression one of rapt, hungry devotion.

“This… this tight, soft, warm feeling… is what I was thinking about at dinner,” he panted, his breath coming fast. “This is what I wanted… right there and then, but couldn’t have.”

He withdrew his fingers, staring at the glistening evidence. Driven by an instinct deeper than reason, he brought them to his lips and… tasted.

His eyes fluttered closed.

“Y’taste so good,” he mumbled, his voice thick and sweet. “You taste like heaven.” 

He pulled his fingers from his mouth with a soft, slick pop. The look he gave you then was one of pure, pussy-drunk awe. The shy boy was submerged, replaced by a devoted lover.

“I need to feel you,” he said, the words rushing out. “I need to be surrounded by you. I need to have all of you.”

He fumbled with the buttons of his sparkly silver shirt and yanked off his bow tie, his usual grace abandoned. He shed it, let it fall onto a stack of comic books. The black trousers were shoved down, kicked away. He stood before you, naked in a room crowded with childhood dreams, fully, magnificently erect. You inwardly rolled your eyes at the fact he hadn’t worn briefs to the ceremony.

The juxtaposition in front of you, though, was devastatingly intimate. Him stood in this room, bearing himself, when a month prior he still struggled to get dressed in front of you.

He didn’t ask before diving in at you.

He gathered you in his strong, lean arms and laid you back on the blue comforter, pushing the skirts of your gown up to your waist, not even bothering to undress you fully because his need was too crazed, too immediate.

He settled between your thighs, his cock; thick, proud, flushed with wanting—pressing against your dripping heat. He looked down, his expression one of solemn, hungry wonder.

“I love you,” he whispered, but it sounded like a truth that made all this not only permissible, but necessary. 

“I need to feel this. Every part of it. I didn’t feel you fall apart last night. It was too fast. This time… I want to feel you come apart around me. I want to be inside you when you lose yourself.”

He pushed in.

It was a slow, inexorable claiming that made the breath hitch in his throat. He sank to his base, a long sigh escaping him. He was so deep it felt like he was pressing on your heart.

“Perfect,” he breathed, his eyes closing. “You are… so good, laying there all pretty for me.”

He began to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that was less about thrusting and more about communion.

“You take me so completely… like you were made for me…”

But then his movements changed. His hands, which had been braced gently beside your head, slid down to your thighs. His touch, usually so tentative, became firm, purposeful. 

He pushed your legs apart wider, then hooked them, bending them sharply to the side, opening you to him utterly. The new angle was deeper, more exposing. A soft cry left your lips.

“Yes,” he murmured, his voice taking on a darker, more resonant timbre. “Like this. I need to feel all of you like this.”

He began to move again, and this time, there was a new roughness to his rhythm. It wasn’t violent, but it was relentless, deeply possessive. Each stroke was a full, powerful drive, his hips meeting yours with a solid, wet slap-slap-slap that filled the quiet room. The bedframe began a steady, rhythmic protest against the wall.

He was lost in it. His eyes were open, watching your face, but they were glazed, seeing only the sensation.

“You’re so beautiful like this, how have i gone so long without this sight?,” he groaned, his words coming between panting breaths. 

“Surrendered to me. Letting me feel you. You’re my good girl, right?”

His dirty talk wasn’t crude; it was sensual, almost poetic, ripped from the core of his overwhelmed being. 

He drove into you, harder, his control slipping into something more primal. It became messy, clumsy—the way he gripped your thighs, the way he shoved into you—the want of his release overtaking his rationale. 

You knew there’d be bruises where he held you tomorrow.

He pulled out briefly, flipped both your legs to his right, then entered you with your legs together—the sensation for him even more distinct, squeezing his cock even tighter. 

His hands were on your sides now as he drilled into you. He leaned over as he pounded, his face so close to yours. 

You couldn’t look away, totally entranced by the primal look in his eyes. He’d been taken over by the sensation, totally overthrown.

“I want to drown in you… I want this feeling…” He thrust fast and deep now, as if he was fucking the sensual words into you. “Forever, let me have it forever—God—”

You could feel your climax coming in, a slow, tectonic pressure from the deep, relentless pounding. You moaned loudly, your fingers tangling in the blanket.

“Ah—ah—!”

“I feel it,” he gasped, his rhythm becoming more urgent, though no less deep. “I want to make you feel good… I want to see the pleasure blown out in your eyes.” He was muttering now between gasps of pleasure. 

“I’m going to write about how filthy and utterly ethereal you look in this moment,” he moaned, cupping your breasts with his hands.

His words; the romantic filth of them, spoken in that breathy, wrecked tenor were your undoing.

Your orgasm erupted, a deep, feeling within you; your whole body convulsed mercillisly.

You clenched around him in rhythmicly, uncontrollably. 

A broken cry was torn from your throat—“Michael—!”

you could feel how wet you had become from your orgasm, and by the slick, slapping sound of his slow, deep thrusting, it was driving him wild.

He cried out with you, a sound of pure, triumphant awe.

“Yes! that’s my girl. I have waited so long to see you so dirty like this, to see your face in agonizing heat…”

But he didn’t stop after your come down. 

He couldn’t. 

The feeling of your climax around him seemed to fuel a deeper, more desperate hunger. 

His thrusts became harder, faster, losing their measured pace, becoming a frantic, driving rhythm. The bed shook. A figurine of Mickey Mouse toppled from the shelf with a soft clatter.

“I can’t… I can’t stop,” he sobbed, his voice breaking. He was fucking you now with a pure, unadulterated need, the romantic poet consumed by the primal animal. “It’s too good… you’re too good… I need more… I need to be deeper…”

He was overstimulated, lost, chasing a feeling that kept escalating. He hooked your legs higher, over his shoulders, bending you nearly in half, and plunged into you with a force that stole the air from your lungs. His words dissolved into a litany of your name, interspersed with gasped, sensual fragments. 

His eyes roamed frantically, but then settled on the sight of his own motion, biting his lip as he watched the remnants of your undoing pool at the base of his cock.

“My heart… is in your skin… your taste is in my mouth…” he moaned, breathlessly inbetween pumps.

He flipped you over with ease, onto your stomach. You had a brief moment to prepare yourself before he settled over you, pressing you into the mattress, and drove back into your from behind.

“You’re mine, all mine, this is just for me, always—”

His own end took him by storm.

His body locked, every muscle straining. A raw, ragged shout was torn from him—“Fuuuu--GOD-- Y/N–” a sound that held no artifice, only pure, shattering release.

You felt his hot seed, pulsing into you, flooding deep within, a claiming that felt endless.

He trembled violently through it, his hips jerking with involuntary aftershocks, still buried to the hilt.

When the last tremor passed, he collapsed forward, but caught himself on his elbows, still sheathed inside you. He was panting, sweat dripping from his nose and afro onto your back. He looked down at you as you glanced back, his eyes wide, dazed, full of a wonder that bordered on fear. You both just started grinning at each other crazily.

“I think I got carried away,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and ruined. “In you. I completely… got lost.”

"mhmm," you noted back, "ya think?"

He slowly, carefully, withdrew, and rolled to the side, pulling you instantly against him. His arms wrapped around you, tight, possessive. His heart hammered against your back.

He was silent for a long time, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your stomach.

“I don’t know how I held off for so long,” he murmured finally, his lips against your shoulder blade. 

The scent of sex; musky, sweet, and profoundly intimate hung thick in the air of Michael’s old bedroom, a new perfume overlaying the old smell of books and toys. 

Minutes bled by, measured only in the gradual slowing of breath. You felt spent, hollowed out and filled up, drifting away on the aftershocks. 

Then, a shift in the energy beside you.

He lowered his arm.

In the soft gloom of the late evening, you saw his profile. His eyes were open, staring at the dusty mobile of the solar system behind your head. His lips, swollen and damp, parted. He looked so young like this, but he was grown now. The change you felt in him, even in the last few days was ludicrous. You fondly remembered how Michael would struggle to even hold your hand longer than 30 seconds, or he’d start madly blushing.

"Can I…" he started, his voice a ruined, raspy thing. 

He stopped, swallowed and then started again, the words tumbling out in a hushed, guilty rush. 

"Can I put my mouth on you? Right now?"

The question hung in the air, inappropriate, vulnerable, filthy in its innocent hunger.

You turned your head on the pillow. "Michael… you just… you finished in me. It's… it's mixed."

He turned his head too. 

His eyes found yours, and there was no shyness there, only a dark clarity. 

"I don't care," he whispered, the declaration simple and absolute. "I want to taste you for real. I want to taste where I was. Please."

He didn't wait for a final answer. The "please" was a formality. 

The decision was made.

He moved with a sudden, fluid grace that belied his exhaustion, sliding down your body like a man descending to an altar. He pushed your thighs apart with a firm insistence, his gaze locked on the glistening, spent evidence of your joining.

He hovered, his gaze fixed so intensely.

“So beautiful,” he breathed, the words barely a whisper, soaked in awe. “Like a rose that’s just… bloomed for me.”

His hands, which had been resting on your hips, slid inward. His touch was a little demanding, but still just as tender. His fingers came to rest on your outer lips, applying the gentlest pressure.

He began to part you.

It was a slow unveiling. The soft, swollen flesh, glistening with the combined evidence of your passion, yielded to his patient hands. He opened you like the pages of a cherished, secret book he was terrified to damage.

A soft, shuddering sigh escaped him. “Oh… wow.”

He was looking at the heart of you, fully exposed to him in the dim light. The intimate, intricate folds, flushed a deep, needy pink, the glimmering wetness that coated everything, the tight, hidden entrance that still pulsed gently from his recent possession.

"Look at you,” he murmured, his voice sounding almost deliriously drunk with pleasure.

“All pretty and pink and wet for me. Just for me.” He leaned closer, his nose almost touching you, inhaling deeply. The sound he made was one of a man tasting water in a desert; a low, guttural groan of pure, starving need.

"Oh, God…" he mumbled, his voice muffled against your flesh. "S'sweet… and salty…"

He was lost instantly. Any hesitation, any remnant of fastidiousness, was incinerated by the addictive, complex flavor. He ate at you with starving intensity. His tongue was blunt and demanding, lapping up every trace, diving deep to clean his own release from inside you with thick, curling strokes. 

The sounds were obscenely wet, sloppy, loud in the quiet room. He moaned continuously, a low, pleasured hum that you felt in your bones.

You writhed, oversensitive, a confusing mix of shock and overwhelming arousal knotting in your belly. "Michael… ah! Too… im so sensitive…"

He lifted his head, his chin dripping. His eyes were black pools of delerium. "No," he breathed, the word a gentle command. "I haven’t had enough. Sit on my face."

It was a desperate, worshipful plea.

He lay back flat, his hands coming to your hips, guiding you, pulling you up and over him. You braced your hands on the headboard, above his scattered pillows and plush toys, and lowered yourself, trembling, onto the waiting heat of his mouth.

Your world and everything in it, narrowed to sensation.

His mouth was a godsend; it was devoted hunger. As you settled your weight onto him, he let out a choked, blissful sound underneath you and his arms wrapped around your thighs, locking you in place. 

There was no escape, and in seconds, you didn't want any.

He feasted. His tongue speared into you, fucking into the tender, well-used channel with a rhythm that was all his own. He alternated between deep, penetrating licks and frantic, fluttering sucks on your clit, his nose buried against you, breathing you in like oxygen. His hips began to move in tiny, abortive thrusts against the empty air, the blanket beneath him.

You were in disbelief at what had gotten into him – the boy you once knew had well and truly been replaced by a man. A handsome, steadfast partner, who clearly didn’t have any thoughts of leaving you for anyone else; even in his fame.

You looked down at him from where you were perched over his face. And the sight… unwound you completely.

His eyes were squeezed shut in ecstasy, his beautiful face a mask of utter surrender. 

Your eyes roamed away, and then you saw against his stomach, his cock was already fully, achingly hard again, thick and flushed and leaking a fresh pearl of pre-come onto the skin just below his belly button. 

The sheer, wanton need of it and the fact that tasting you, servicing you, had him rock-hard and throbbing in seconds sent a violent, possessive thrill through you.

The power dynamic shifted on a dizzying axis.

You rose off his mouth, ignoring his grunt of protest. You moved backwards, straddling his hips instead of his face. His eyes flew open, confused, desperate.

"Wha—?"

You didn't let him finish. You wanted to show him that other positions were just as good. You remembered something you’d read, a way to take control…

You reached between your legs, took his hard, slick cock in your hand, and guided it to your entrance, still wet and open from his mouth and his seed. 

You sank down onto him slowly, sheathing him completely inside your sore, sensitive heat.

A dual cry tore through the room—his a sharp, shattered gasp of "God Damn–!", yours a long, low moan of exquisite, overwhelming fullness.

For a second, you both froze, impaled, connected. 

You saw the shock in his eyes, then the dawning, wild comprehension. You were in control. You were taking what you needed from him.

Then you began to move.

You rode him slowly at first, a deep, rolling grind, using the muscles inside you to clench his length. 

His head fell back, a string of broken, sensual praises falling from his lips. 

"Yess… ride me… use me… you feel so good taking your pleasure from me… only me baby"

But Michael was not a passive lover. He was jealous, stubborn and petty at times and this had to manifest in your sex life too.

The submission was a feint, a precursor to a different kind of power.

His hands, which had been gripping the sheets, flew to your hips. His grip was iron, his long fingers digging into your flesh. The gentle, curious boy was gone. In his place was a man consumed, only you on his mind and in his sightline.

"Harder," he growled, his voice darker than usual. 

He thrust his hips up to meet your downward stroke, a sharp, punishing impact that stole your breath. 

" harder. Take what you want. Use me."

He began to dictate the rhythm from below. He bucked his hips, meeting each of your descents with a powerful, upward drive, controlling the depth, the angle, the force. He was fucking himself into you from the bottom, his strength surprising, his need an inferno.

"Yes! Like that!" he chanted, his eyes blazing up at you, watching your breasts bounce, your face contort in pleasure. 

"Good. keep going. I wanna feel you tighten around me again whilst you come for me"

His physical domination from beneath you was the spark that lit the fuse. 

You cried out, your rhythm breaking into frantic, shallow bounces as the orgasm ripped through you, violently, your nerve endings completely shattered from what was going on.

He felt it. He saw it. And it unleashed the final, raw animal in him.

With a roar that was half-sob, half-triumph, he gripped your hips and lifted you off of him. In one violent, graceful motion, he flipped you onto your back and was surging over you before the cry could leave your throat. He slammed back into you to the hilt, hooking your legs over the crooks of his arms, folding you nearly in half.

"Mine," he said, the word a primal, guttural claim against your lips. 

His rhythm was brutal, perfectly aimed despite his inexperience, a relentless, piston-drive fucking that had the bed slamming into the wall with a frantic, wooden THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD.

He was everywhere, his sweat dripping onto your chest, his groans hot in your ear, his hands gripping your legs like vices. 

He was a beautiful, desperate machine, chasing his own end with fury, using your body to get there, giving you everything he had in the process.

"I think…m-gonna fill you up… again…" he panted, his rhythm fracturing into erratic, deep jabs. 

"Mark you… inside and out… so you never forget… whose girl you are… Ah—! Ah, God—!"

His release was silent. His body locked, every muscle corded and straining. His mouth opened but nothing came out, his eyes wide and unseeing as he emptied himself into you in hot, pulsing jets, deeper than seemed possible. 

He collapsed forward, but caught himself on trembling arms, still buried inside you, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath sobbing into your mouth.

Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He didn't roll away. He collapsed onto you, a dead weight of satiated obsession, his face buried in the crook of your neck. His arms slid under you, binding you to him completely.

His lips moved against your damp skin, the words slurred, thick with exhaustion and a profound, drunken awe.

“They are gonna have to lock me up in a padded room to stay away from you now”

fin.. ;)

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the last few hours had been spent doing nothing of any real consequence: coffee, window shopping, treating your girls to whatever happened to catch their eye. somewhere in the middle of it all, a spirited debate had broken out over whether the diner around the corner had actually gotten worse, or if you'd all simply developed more discerning tastes as you'd gotten older. it was the kind of afternoon you would think back on when life got too loud again.

a constant smile plagued your lips as you revelled in the sun's kisses.

you were laughing at something — you’d forgotten what — when the first flashbulb sparked to life across the street like a bomb going off.

and just like that, you felt your mood sour.

right. the paparazzi.

you'd been naive to think you could make it back to the car without them. you always were. some stubborn optimistic part of you still believed, every single time, that today would be different — that you could just be a girl with a coffee cup and not a cover story waiting to happen.

they crossed toward you fast, cameras raised, questions flying before they'd even reached the curb.

"are the album rumors true?"

"are you touring next year?"

"who are you wearing?"

your friends — bless them — closed ranks instinctively around you, forming a tight barricade between your body and the ever-growing crowd. you lowered your sunglasses just enough for them to catch your eyes and the utter annoyance written across them. a small sigh slipped from your lips, followed by a muttered apology to your girls, which they waved off with a, "don't worry! i've been enjoying pissing these guys off."

you could've kissed them.

it was then that one voice managed to cut through the noise. maybe it was because they were louder than the others, or maybe it was simply the nature of the question itself, but somehow you heard it perfectly.

“how do you feel about michael jackson?”

in that instant — you stopped walking. your friends barrelled straight into your back, nearly falling over each other into one giant meat pile. they stared at you in confusion, before bracing into a familiar realisation of dread.

the thing was, you did have thoughts about michael jackson. you had a lot of thoughts about michael jackson, actually — thoughts you'd managed to keep more or less to yourself through roughly three years of being a public figure, which had been a not-insignificant personal achievement.

you’d suddenly become aware that all three of them had turned to look at you; their expressions reflective of people who had known you long enough to understand that whatever came out of your mouth in the next five seconds was about to become their problem too.

"ah, shit," one of them said beside your ear.

"for fuck's sake," another breathed — hissing your name through their teeth — amused but nonetheless exasperated, “don't do it. you'll regret it."

the corner of your mouth twitched upward.

you bit the edge of your manicured finger — not for show, just because it was what you did when you were trying not to smile too wide — and gazed at the nearest camera over the frame of your sunglasses. 

"oh," you said, already stepping backwards towards the car with all the confidence of someone who definitely hadn't thought this through:

"i think you know how i feel about michael jackson."

and just like that the once-quiet street corner erupted. camera flashes blazed everywhere. simple questions turned into shouts that were hurled through the crisp summer air. behind you, your friends made a variety of noises ranging from hysterical laughter to a soft, resigned despair. you laughed too, helplessly, ducking your head as you reached the car door — and then, drunk on the spontaneity of the moment, you turned back one last time.

you found the nearest lens. pointed directly at it. then, dumb and deliberate, you lifted your hand to your cheek — pinky and thumb extended in a tiny telephone gesture — and mouthed, with perfect clarity, the two words you would soon continue to regret for the next seventy-two hours:

“call me.”

⤹ ii. the imperial hotel — tokyo, japan

michael jackson was not paying attention to his manager.

this was not, in itself, unusual. frank had been managing michael long enough to know that his attention operated according to its own internal logic, orbiting whatever had caught it most recently with a concentration most people reserved for things like surgery or defusing explosives. generally, you just had to wait it out. stay in his eyeline. keep talking. eventually, whatever had him occupied would let go, and he'd surface again — slightly apologetic, entirely present — and you could pick up where you'd left off.

though tonight, frank was beginning to suspect they were entering whole new territory.

it had started innocuously enough. they'd been going over the next leg of the tour — tokyo, osaka, yokohama — working through the precise logistical minutiae that kept operations of this size from collapsing into complete chaos: interview schedules, press appearances. the yokohama venue had changed its staging dimensions, which meant choreography adjustments, which meant a conversation with the team that neither of them particularly wanted to have. security wanted to reroute the airport transfer after the crowd incident in rotterdam. there were wardrobe decisions for osaka that couldn't be put off much longer.

standard. manageable. things michael was normally at least nominally engaged with.

except that somewhere in the middle of frank's briefing, michael had reached sideways and picked up that morning's newspaper from the coffee table — the hotel staff had left it by the door a few hours earlier — and had gone somewhere else.

frank had noticed but he'd assumed it was, as always, a momentary distraction. a photograph had caught his eye. he'd put it down in a minute.

but soon a minute passed; he did not put it down.

despite this, frank kept talking: tokyo. six o'clock rehearsal. two press junkets before noon. the security note about the airport.

“mhm,” michael said.

frank paused, put the planning folder down, and leaned over michael's shoulder at the newspaper — mostly to understand what he was currently losing to.

a singer.

he had heard of her. honestly, at this point, most of the industry had.

young, critically respected, she'd somehow managed to become attached to words like prodigy and generational within months of entering the public eye. she had arrived seemingly out of nowhere, released a number one single, collected enough glowing reviews to make veteran critics sound like infatuated fangirls, and then done something that was — from a publicity standpoint — completely unheard of:  become even more elusive after the success.

rare tours. rare interviews. a mystique that you couldn't quite manufacture, that came from someone who genuinely seemed to have no interest in being known.

she was a pretty girl. michael was hardly immune to the draw of a pretty girl. he just usually remembered when there was a conversation happening around them.

frank reached over and tilted the magazine to read the headline properly.

"CALL ME" — POP'S NEWEST SENSATION SENDS MESSAGE TO MICHAEL JACKSON

that made frank straighten up.

michael, having noticed the shift in the room's energy, looked up from the newspaper for the first time in several minutes. he wore the joyous astonishment of a child who had just discovered a secret.

"look — " he started.

"i can see it," frank said.

michael went back to reading.

the article had photographs, as most of them do. frank could only imagine the sheer frenzy on that street when they were taken. the sequence was stretched across a full spread: her laughing with her hand raised; that finger-to-mouth expression the caption described as coy, which — frank decided — was underselling it; the backwards walk toward the car; and then the final shot.

her, pointed directly at the lens. that unmistakable little telephone gesture. wearing the grin of someone who had just pleased herself tremendously.

he watched michael linger on that last photograph for a long moment. he'd known, in a vague way, that michael had been following her career. it was hard to miss: the magazine clippings that appeared backstage, the way he'd pause in hallways when her songs came on the radio, the absurdly too casual mention of her name once or twice in conversation. frank had filed it away under professional admiration. michael admired a great many artists, and it rarely amounted to anything. 

in hindsight, the signs had been embarrassingly obvious.

"the catering people still need your menu choices." frank tried again.

"uhuh."

"there’s a signing event for thursday."

"mhm."

"i promised the press you'd wrestle a bear."

"yep, sounds good."

frank closed his eyes, a dim frustration slowly creeping into his soul. he moved to cover his face with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms against his forehead — physically trying to stop the headache before it arrived.

michael turned a page. then he started reading the thing aloud. frank couldn't help but laugh at that. "'sources close to the singer claim she has quietly admired jackson since his jackson 5 days. '"

he turned towards him immediately, smile bright. "she likes me."

"yes, michael," frank said, the last of his resistance gradually ebbing away. "it would appear so." 

michael went back to reading. "'the songwriter has reportedly attended multiple jackson fan events over the years under aliases — '"

he jolted up in his seat.

"she went to fan club meetings..."

"michael — "

"she went to fan club meetings." he repeated, sounding genuinely and helplessly delighted by the discovery. as if it was the best thing anyone had told him in some time.

frank pursed his lips together, an attempt to hold onto the last threads of his dwindling sanity. then, because this was his job and he was a professional, he picked up his previously abandoned folder in a final act of war.

"you have choreography revisions tomorrow. the staging for — "

"'friends describe the singer as having an encyclopaedic knowledge of jackson's back catalogue, extending well beyond his commercial singles — '"

michael pointed at the page.

"she. knows. the. b-sides." every word was punctuated with an almost comical emphasis.

conversation left the room soon after, frank finally relinquished the ever-losing battle for michael's attention and let him continue reading the newspaper. it left for barely a minute, though it felt much longer, the only sounds filling the expansive suite were the steady ticking of the overly grandiose grandfather clock in the corner and frank rapping his fingers against the leather sofa. waiting for the moment michael returned to the world around him for air.

then, very softly: "she thinks i'm attractive."

the folder was set aside, never to be picked up again that evening. frank looked at michael — who was still looking at the photograph of the girl — and found something in his face that he hadn't seen there in a long while, boyishly hopeful.

he sighed. it came from somewhere deep, that sigh. tired and fond and already resigned to the amount of work this was about to create for him.

michael finally set the paper down. and turned to face him properly.

and then he did that thing. frank privately thought of it as the please routine — somehow both the most earnest and the most unfair weapon in michael jackson's repertoire.

"no," he said, out of principle.

michael blinked. "you didn’t even know what i was going to ask."

"you want her number."

his eyes drifted back to the photograph for just a second before returning to frank, carrying such transparent, optimistic guilt that frank genuinely wondered — not for the first time — how a man this famous had managed to stay this uncynical.

"…maybe."

frank couldn't even remember making the decision. one moment he was sitting there, determined to be sensible, and the next he was crossing the suite toward the desk, reaching for the telephone, and trying to track down the manager of a young singer who had made one very impulsive gesture on a new york street corner and was very certainly not expecting anyone to actually take her up on it.

⤹ iii. columbia records — new york city, usa

here was the thing about that paparazzi moment, in your defense: it had felt very different in the moment.

in the car, immediately afterwards, it had felt funny. a bit reckless, maybe, the way some things sometimes are when the afternoon was warm and your friends were there and the question caught you off guard and your mouth had simply — moved. faster than your brain. not the first time that’s happened, though usually the consequences were considerably more manageable than this.

you could still remember your friends playfully shoving your shoulders, telling you what a complete idiot you are. and, like the complete idiot you are, you'd simply giggled before taking another idle sip of your scalding hot caramel latte.

by that evening, when the first photograph had started circulating, it had felt approximately thirty percent less funny.

by the morning, when you'd seen the headline, it had dropped to around seventy percent less funny, helped along by the barrage of phone calls consisting mostly of "i told you so"s.

but then three days had passed, and the news cycle had moved on to something else, and you'd started breathing normally again. it had been a moment. a funny moment. it would become a story you told at dinner parties. remember that time i told michael jackson to call me in the papers? and that would be that.

you had, in this way, convinced yourself.

the columbia records conference room was the type of place that made you feel both pretentiously important and sleepy. floor-to-ceiling windows. expensive abstract paintings that you could guarantee nobody had ever actually looked at. a long table covered in the comfortable detritus of a working meeting: your demo tapes, legal pads, someone's abandoned coffee from an hour ago that nobody had bothered to remove, a fruit plate that had been picked over to the point of mostly just grapes.

the label's a&r team was in the middle of a fairly fervent conversation about the rollout strategy for your next album, which you were half-following while also doodling something shapeless in the margins of your notebook. it was either a landscape or a large dog. you hadn't decided.

sandra was on the other side of the table, flipping through papers with her phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. she'd stepped into the call a minute ago without breaking stride, continuing to sort contracts and scribble notes as though multitasking at this level was simply her natural state.

you were starting to tune her out, too…

until a moment later, when sandra said, "...i'm sorry??" in a timbre that made you look up.

the room kept talking around you. you watched her face do something strange — the paperwork abruptly forgotten, her pen set down, her focus now fully redirected to the phone.

you mouthed noiselessly at her: what?

a shushing gesture was instantly sent your way. another pause.

she glanced across the table at you, and you knew, from twenty-two years of being alive and three years of working very closely with sandra, that whatever she was about to say had absolutely nothing to do with the album.

she pressed the receiver against her blazer, muffling the conversation. "the consequences of your own actions," she said discreetly, "are currently on the phone." 

your eyebrows drew together. "what does that even mean?"

around the table, the conversation had begun to trail off. people were listening now without looking like they were listening, a skill everyone in this industry had finely honed.

"this is the manager," sandra said. she stopped. you shrugged at her, still puzzled.

"...of michael jackson."

you felt the world freeze at that. the pigeons outside the window hung in the air. somebody halfway through reaching for a grape seemed to stay there indefinitely. even the old man currently suspended washing the windows seemed to pause halfway down the glass.

"he would like," sandra continued, watching the realisation crash through you in real time, "your phone number."

silence.

a total, comprehensive silence.

not from the room — the room still very much existed. people were still breathing. somebody's chair made a small noise as they shifted their weight. somewhere, a page turned. but from you, specifically.

 a silence that spread from the centre of your chest outward until it reached the tips of your fingers and your mouth, which had fallen open just enough to let flies in.

"what," you said. not actually a question. more like a stall for time.

several executives at the table were no longer pretending. one of them — david, from marketing, a man you'd always liked for his complete lack of subtlety — had set his pen down, eyebrows somewhere near his hairline (which was receding), watching you with an undisguised interest.

sandra released the phone from the confines of her blazer. on the other end of the line — and you were now acutely, horribly aware of the other end of the line — you could just about make out the voice of a man who sounded, even from where you were, profoundly unenthusiastic about the task he'd been assigned.

you almost felt sorry for him. almost.

you were slightly busy having your own internal, private crisis.

what you hadn't accounted for — what the warmth of the afternoon and your friends' laughter and the sheer improbable silliness of the moment had completely obscured — was that you were not actually like this.

the person on that street corner who bit her finger and said smooth things at cameras and made ditzy little telephone gestures at international superstars was a version of you that only really existed outdoors, in sunlight, when the adrenaline was high and the stakes seemed abstract.

the version of you sitting in this conference room right now was the one who got shy at parties. who rehearsed phone calls before making them. who had, on more than one occasion, refused to introduce herself to someone she admired because the embarrassment of a bad interaction seemed considerably more permanent than regret.

and that version of you had just been volunteered, by the other version of you, for a phone call with michael jackson.

"oh my god," you whinged in total incredulity.

"what do i tell them?" sandra hissed, shielding the receiver.

"why would he actually — " you started.

"you told him to."

"that was — " you stopped, both palms flying up, facing outward beside your head in immediate self-defence. "that was a joke."

"clearly,” she raised a brow at you, “he did not interpret it as one."

you dropped your head into your hands. the conference table was very solid and real under your elbows.

"what do i say?" sandra said again, urgent now, because the man on the other side was still waiting and his patience had clearly been thin to begin with.

a long moment.

you uncovered your face, only to find yourself clutching your cheeks, which were smoldering beneath your skin.

for a brief, deeply humiliating moment, you thought about being fifteen years old and spending all your allowance on bootleg concert tapes. about making your friends sit through lengthy arguments over why off the wall was the better album, regardless of thriller's overall commercial success. about hearing one of his songs on the radio and driving an extra three blocks just to hear the ending. 

you thought about that girl on the street corner — the one who had somehow managed to outrun your common sense.

you took a slow breath, smoothed your expression into something resembling composure, fixed your posture, and said, with as much dignity as you could salvage from the wreckage,

"...yeah. give him the number."

sandra stared at you for exactly one second, still somewhat unimpressed with your behaviour. then she turned back to the phone.

the room gradually resumed its normal rhythm, the a&r team once again descending into their argument, though a few suspiciously ill-timed coughs were now sprinkled throughout the discussion. in the corner of the office, the old man outside the window had resumed wiping the glass, blissfully unaware of the happenings going on inside.

you gathered your useless paper doodles into a neat pile, making a vague attempt at resembling someone who was doing something important and had her life under control.

it was, by any measure, an unconvincing performance. you pressed your fingers to your mouth.

"…oh my god."

across the room, sandra was already reading the number out, her voice perfectly steady, giving nothing away. she was a consummate professional and you were extraordinarily lucky to have her.

the man on the other end said something clipped and final.

the call ended.

sandra set the phone down and met your eyes across the table. the silence between you carried the particular weight of two people who had worked together long enough to communicate entire paragraphs without speaking.

"the album rollout," she said, picking her pen back up, "is still our most pressing concern."

"right," you said. "absolutely."

the meeting resumed.

you did not hear a single word of it.

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﹒the wife!reader of michael jackson… is elusive to the public eye. while michaels’ inner psyche is oft dissected and studied from outside testimony, yours is a different story. as his spouse you have, somehow, become a muse of sorts to fans, and a loch ness monster to tabloids. while you scarcely shy away from being by your husbands side, in that same breath your mind feels far away and unreachable. red carpets are where you shine the brightest yet you dodge pointed questions from eager journalists like bullets. photos of you from day to day are coveted pieces regarded by tabloids as ‘mona lisa’s’. such a moniker is not unfounded, as one worthy shot of you is rumored to cover three months of rent and utilities.

﹒the wife!reader of michael jackson… is not immune to scrutiny. over the years you have come to see both the beautiful and the ugly that fame provides. it had shamelessly stripped your husband of his humanity, of his autonomy. to your dismay, he tried to shield you from it, which only turned to hurt him more in the process. pettiness had no way past you, for you welcomed it with open arms when the opportunities presented itself. what business did they have questioning your attraction to michael? what business did they have prying into his past or his lack of childhood? the concept of media training was lost on you and it left journalists utterly perplexed when your words were like daggers wrapped in the utmost grace. that was just the thing; you walked with your head held high and a firm arm around michael. from the outside looking in there was no shaking you, but behind closed doors it was only your husband that saw the terror words could bring…

the living area of neverland ranch was surprisingly cold, starkly contrasting the warm lights that decorated the endtables and counters. your face was stained with yesterdays tears as you sat on the floor. magazines and newspapers of various sources surrounded you like a ticks’ fresh bite. they all had one thing in common: the covers featured your face or your husbands. red and white and black text emboldened in pure spectacle stained the images, turning you into a zoo animal to be mocked and bewildered at. you’ve had enough at this point. admitting so came with great pushback, as it would confirm exactly what you’d been told since entering a relationship with michael; that there was no such thing as quiet fame. boundaries were a novelty of the past as evidenced by article after article hypothesizing the color of your underwear of if you were even wearing any. your hands trembled with devastation dressed up in the trench-coat of anger as you took the national enquirer by it’s scrotum and tore it to shreds. the bells of paper ripping raved through the walls, in its’ arms your irregular, quiet sobs. your head was far too clouded to realize michael had come up behind you and dropped to your level. “no, stop!” instinctual protest erupted as he gently took the hit piece out of your hands. “they’re saying terrible things about you, about us, just let me—” the feeling of michael’s arms looping under yours and lovingly forcing you to a stand was the last straw. words came wobbly and inaudible as ugly croaks took center stage. nevertheless, he kept you upright. your head quickly became dead weight once it hit the crook of his neck. all was silent from him until, “hey, hey, hey… shhh, it’s alright, mama… y’know i don’t like hearing you cry.” from beyond your view, michael gave an empty stare at the mess you’d made. in some way he felt at fault for your spiraling. the guilt caused him to run through the last few key moments of your relationship, the little things he didn’t think would have an impact, how he could’ve protected you better. perhaps he was trying to take on the burden to try to give it a face. after all, paparazzi were nothing but cameras on zombified bodies, right? he had every magazine and newspaper you gathered shredded immediately. furthermore, michael (lovingly) prohibited you from buying them again, or even looking in their direction at all. there were exceptions to this, as he understood your love for key publications, and subsequently bit the bullet and would scan them before you had a chance to read them. no enjoyment came out of this, but he did it for the purpose of loving you.

﹒the wife!reader of michael jackson… is a trendsetter. it’s without saying that you and your husband have paved the way for fashion in ways that many today may not realize. fans of michael inevitably became close followers of yours, and soon magazines featured spreads analyzing your clothing choices as if it were shakespeare. you were, to michaels’ surprise, thoroughly entertained by this. after a long day he’d find you in bed snuggled up with not an enriching novel but harpers’ bazaar or elle magazine. little time elapsed before he’d join you…

“that is a terrible picture of me,” you flitted through the rubbery pages, ultimately coming back to the two-page deep dive on your latest outfit. a snicker snuck up in your vicinity, a pajama-clad michael filing under the duvet and latching his eyes onto the photo in question. “that’s probably the best they got of you, you don’t let ‘em take anything better!”

the two of you weren’t ones to match outfits from day to day, no, you instead planned coordinated get-ups for specific events. the grammys are one such endeavor that neither you or michael slacked on. the glitz and glamour was at its peak here, though underneath all that he still found a way to gaze upon you as if it was but darkness surrounding him and you were his light. there existed more than one occasion in which the strobing shutters of cameras caught his gaze fixed on you. a bashful smile would decorate your face on the precipice of hiding into his shoulder. over time, your once reclusive, shy presence on red carpets became confidence, and michael watched it happen in real time.

ultimately, you outgrew your designated role as michael jackson’s wife and quickly turned into a figure all your own. not of your own volition, of course, as you’d secure the weighty rock he proposed to you with on your ring finger for all time. no, this was the doing of young women and men who looked to you for their wardrobe inspiration. you worked a magic comparable to that of michael’s spellbinding movements on stage, something wholly separate from yourself yet bestowed upon only your careful eye for silhouettes, patterns, and color. your rare appearances on talk-shows and interviews were fully fledged events. ‘jackson chic’ they’d call it.

﹒the wife!reader of michael jackson… is so dearly loved. it was one of few facts the public couldn’t dispute. michael cared for you in a way only found in storybooks, between the lines of fantasy. his was a gentle love that enveloped you like the freshly washed cotton of spring. doe-eyes were, more often than not, scanning every room for your presence despite a sort of sixth sense developing. that is, he could feel when you came and went between doors, how suddenly the colors popped just a hair brighter. if he could, he’d keep a hand or even just a finger on you at all times, just to remind himself that you were real.

michael’s adoration for you didn’t come in sweeping grand gestures. those who wrote memoirs of his life described it as ‘juvenile’ and ‘callow’. they’d speak of the small gifts he’d leave for you in his absence, potentially meaningless tchotchkes had they not come from the man you loved. they’d recall of the way he’d lean into you whenever you spoke. your voices would simmer to a whisper, smiles abound, and the two of you would converse in a language all your own. one such book recounted…

𝓜ichael's relationship with [name] permeated into every part of his life. As his rise to acclaimed fame continued, his bond to her tightened. They had a symbiotic connection very few understood. I think they liked it that way. We'd find them in the darkest corners of the room snickering to one another or discussing a heavy topic with grave detail. Nothing was off the table for them. They always had something to share. Sometimes I'd hear Michael subconsciously mention, "I'll have to tell [name] when I see her." It could've been about anything, we never knew. We'd be in the recording studio or in the car and his eyes would catch something that had her glint in it. I remember sitting them them at the City of Hope Gala, 1990. Michael typically hung onto her like his last saving grace. From across the table I could see her quietly watching stardom pass her by. She was always fascinated with celebrity life, to the point that I wondered if she understood her place in it. She was one of them, after all. Michael had come up behind her seat, leaning down and removing his sunglasses, as he always did when speaking to her. He must've whispered something particularly amusing as soon after they both broke out in a fit of laughter. I remember this so distinctly because it wasn't long until they pulled me into it. Both [name] and Michael sat on either side of me, wholly interested in everything I had to say. Michael's well-dressed mien contrasted sharply to the conversation at hand. He asked me, shyly, "Who here do you think wore their pants backwards tonight?" I could see a smirk on [name]'s face, like his question meant something completely different. I wondered if I was interpreting it wrong. She chirped up, "Definitely Don Johnson." to this, Michael interjected, "That was my answer!" To this day I wish I knew what my answer was, because it had both of them giggling to themselves all night. When the festivities came to a close they went out of their way to say their goodbyes to me. They brought me in for a hug - a group hug - and for some reason I wanted it to last forever. I left thinking about how great of parents they'd be, thinking of the silent moments they shared and selfishly wanting to be a part of it. Michael and [name] had built a world entirely between themselves far away from stardom.

﹒the wife!reader of michael jackson… has no shortage of admirers. you had first realized this during the grammys. nineteen-eighty-four was a most… curious year for you and michael, as he was on top of the world with the golden goose named thriller. and, just a few months prior, your relationship with him had gotten the attention of small but important news outlets. your likeness was gaining recognition, and no longer could you easily hide in the shadows of obscurity. understanding this, what better way to introduce yourself to the world than on one of the most prestigious nights of music?

after parties were low on the totem pole of michael’s priorities. and, unfortunately, the scene he witnessed was a reason why. he wasn’t sure of your intentions on wanting to go. or, in his eyes, begging to go. how going to another stuffy venue with the same people you just saw compared to overly-buttery popcorn and reruns of m.a.s.h. latoya and janet weren’t helping his case either, as two became three once you joined them amidst the clinking of glasses and inaudible chatter. michael had found himself more occupied than he preferred, having swept the grammy’s of eight awards. this naturally drew anyone and everyone, so in awe, to try and get a word with him. truthfully, he just wanted to get home. his jacket was weighing down on his shoulders, and as the night turned to deep evening he was more restless than ever. he kept to a well-populated but reticent pocket of the party, lingering beside a round booth before being suggested (coerced) to sit by quincy. from across the way, you stood between latoya and janet, drink in hand and hair only slightly awry. from behind his aviators he retained his gaze on you, as if you’d slip from existence if he so much as glanced at the table in front of him. michael wanted you to socialize! or, that’s what he repeated ad nauseum internally. surrounding him were a myriad of fresh and familiar faces, all eager to pick his brain on the lightning-in-a-bottle named thriller. phil driscoll, al green, and the entirety of toto to name a few. in the shadowed tresses of his inner dialogue, michael felt guilty for not giving them his full attention. but it wasn’t his fault that you were a waning and waxing lighthouse in the thick of the seas’ densest fog. quincy’s rapid but unwieldy nudge pulled him back to earth, reminding him of where he was: not beside you. michael, in the blink of an eye, reassessed the motley crew at the table and settled himself in. he trusted you not to do anything reckless, unlike his sisters, but had offered little to no consideration of anyone else. it was clear you were off the market as you lovingly stepped out of the limousine on his arm earlier that night. surely, nobody would take your relationship status as a challenge… billy joel had other ideas. it was innocent at first, as all scenarios such as these begin. the three of you had migrated to the bar, and michael thanked his lucky stars there was a perfect pocket of space where he could observe from the corner of his eye. a cloud of curly brown hair was just under his nose moving closer and closer to you. a cluster of bodies obscured his view, and if you hadn’t suddenly looked up, michael wouldn’t have thought any different. you learned early on that his sunglasses were the only obstacle standing between him and the entire world reading him like today’s newspaper. so how unfortunate it must’ve been that you weren’t there to see his jaw tighten mid-conversation, lips flattening to a straight line. the way you laughed at billy’s jokes resulted in michael’s entire body coming to a standstill in the booth. while he was unable to hear it from his vantage point it didn’t matter, he had memorized the soundwaves to heart. at that point, the question and answer session had diminished to smaller discussions, leaving him with quincy absentmindedly swirling his whiskey on-the-rocks. the quiet clinks of the ice hitting the glass combined with the visceral sight of you mingling with a fellow musician finally made him snap. “will you stop that? it’s… it’s really annoying.” a chortle was earned from the producer, “oh, well, i’m sorry.” michael’s annoyance mixed in with the ambience like oil and water. quincy piped up again, voice low and all-knowing, “you’ve got nothing to worry about with billy.” “that’s not the point.”

“then what’re you sour for?” the singer contemplated escaping from underneath the table, “’cause i didn’t want to come anyway. and now she’s lookin’ at him like he’s… like he’s clark gable or something.” “ohoh,” quincy’s grin was unmistakable, “she’s got you watching the classics now? must be real serious.”

“he’s not clark gable.” “well, ‘course not. but clark didn’t sit here like a wuss.” michael wrestled uncomfortably in his sequined jacket, suddenly declaring, “i’m ready to go home, get up.”

fin.

concluding notes. i lowkey just made some bullshit SDJKFHSDKJ idk i just really like exploring the intimate parts of their relationship and how they like... affect each other... idk i just think they're sweet. pls lmk what you thought of it!

he was just openly admiring you from across the candlelit table, his chin resting loosely against his knuckles while applause crashed somewhere else in the hall. his thumb moved in slow circles over the sensitive surface on the inside of your wrist below the table — distracted, affectionate, and almost lazy with the familiarity of it — like touching you had become second nature years ago.

‘though it is partly your fault,’ he would’ve told you if you’d confronted him about his lack of focus. the dress had made it nearly impossible for him to think about anything else.

versace had made it specifically for tonight.

black silk poured over your body like ink. fitted close through the waist, dropping lower across the hips, then falling clean against your legs. the fabric moved like liquid when you walked, dark enough to swallow the light before throwing it back in delicate flashes. the back dipped dangerously low, exposing the length of your spine beneath delicate strands of gold embellishment stitched into the silk like molten metal. the detailing arched across your shoulders and lower back in fine, constellated patterns, tiny crystals threaded between the goldwork so every flashbulb caught somewhere different.

michael had gone visibly quiet the first time he saw you wearing it in the hotel.

you still remembered the exact way he’d looked up from tying his cufflinks — a task he usually performed with effortless ease — only to forget how his hands worked.

“baby?” you’d laughed as he fumbled with the cuff.

nothing. just michael staring at you in silence, eyes roaming over the expanse of your body like he couldn’t believe you were real.

“…michael.”

his eyes had finally blinked back into focus.

“you can’t wear that,” he finally managed, his voice strained.

you’d choked on a laugh. “well, i thought showing up naked would be inappropriate.”

“no, i mean — ” he gestured vaguely toward your entire figure, visibly struggling to construct a coherent thought. “people are gonna see you.”

“well yes,” you’d said, stepping into your heels. “that is usually the purpose of attending public events.”

he had looked genuinely distressed about this for the rest of the evening, like he was mentally inventorying every available coat available in the tri-state area to drape over your shoulders the moment somebody looked at you for too long. it was a look of profound, adorable panic — the expression of a man who had realized too late that he was expected to share something he very much wanted to keep to himself.

which was precisely why you were currently fighting the urge to ruin his life a little bit, savoring the friction between his growing possessiveness and your own rising wickedness. the dress felt almost like a weapon in the way that you were more than happy to wield if it meant watching the poise of the world’s greatest performer continue to unravel below your presence.

onstage, the presenters for best music video exchanged rehearsed smiles beneath while the orchestra swelled softly through the ballroom. around you, entire tables straightened in anticipation, champagne glasses lifted, conversations cutting off mid-sentence as the cameras swept across the audience searching for reactions.

then the nominees began flashing across the displays overhead one by one: a montage of grainy cityscapes. screaming crowds. music video clips cut together in sharp bursts beneath the roar of the audience.

the opening shot from your newest single, sweet nothings, filled the LED screens surrounding the venue, your face appearing twenty feet tall in a way that made you reflexively cringe as the crowd erupted into cheers. a rain-soaked city flashed across the montage behind you, silver accents catching briefly against your stage costume beneath the neon haze while a few seconds of the chorus thundered through the speakers before the montage cut sharply to the next nominee.

beside you, michael inhaled sharply.

his arm slid instinctively around you, bringing you closer against his side as the final nominees were announced. the movement looked casual to everybody else, but you could feel the tension underneath it — the way his fingers flexed once against the silk of your dress before settling there.

because if you won this tonight, that was it. a full sweep.

artist of the year.

best choreography.

best direction.

and now this.

michael leaned down slightly, close enough for only you to hear him over the music. “you okay?”

you laughed once through your nose, though it came out tighter than intended. “ask me in thirty seconds.”

a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes stayed fixed on the stage. the envelope hadn’t even been opened yet, and somehow both of you already looked like you were bracing for impact.

"and the award goes to — "

the presenter paused for a grueling few seconds, the silver cue card catching the harsh glare of the broadcast cameras while the entire room collectively held its breath. cameras swept across the nominees one by one, flashing nervous smiles to the people at home.

beside you, michael’s hand found your knee so quickly it surprised you. then —

your name echoed into the audience.

your entire table celebrated instantly, a symphony of crashing silverware and jubilant shouts of glee.

before you could even properly process the win, michael was already on his feet beside you. he was clapping harder than anybody else in the auditorium, he looked at you with such open pride that it made your eyes sting. 

“oh my god,” you mumbled, stunned and lightheaded as your composure cracked.

“you won,” he breathed, already halfway out of his chair. he gripped your shoulders, squeezing them tight with excitement. then he pulled you toward him, pressing a quick kiss against your cheekbone. “baby, you won!” 

“i didn’t doubt you for a second.”

you giggled, still trying to comprehend the praise surrounding you. “well, it’s nice one of us didn’t, because i definitely did.”

michael just shook his head, smiling like the idea itself was ridiculous.

the pins and needles in your foot vanished the second you stood. you tilted your head up to kiss him quickly — lipstick, laughter, adrenaline, all of it catching between you until the intensity of the ballroom rushed back into view.

then you turned toward the stage.

though you didn’t miss the way his eyes dipped shamelessly as you walked away, his focus dropping to the curves of your dress before he dragged himself back up to public decorum.

unbelievable behavior.

the applause swelled around you as you climbed the stairs, the award finally settling into your grasp — heavier than you’d expected, cool against your palms. your reflection flashed briefly across the giant monitors surrounding the stage, chandeliers scattering fractured gold across the darkened auditorium as the crowd continued howling somewhere beneath you.

michael smiled up at you from his seat the entire time, he watched with the same intent attention he always wore whenever you talked about something you loved. his eyes felt like an anchor in the blur of bright flashes and indistinct faces, steadying your nerves every time they threatened to slip. even from across the hall, his admiration felt almost tangible.

adjusting the microphone, you gave the standard opening first: thanking the academy. your team. the collaborators who pushed your vision. supportive friends. your family.

everything was going perfectly normal.

then near the end of the speech, your eyes drifted back toward michael again. and there he was, still staring.

there was something so endearing about him —  chin tucked into his fist, eyes fixed on you with complete and utter adulation  — that you felt the first spark of trouble curl through your chest before you could stop it. 

“and of course,” you started warmly, “shoutout to donatella versace for custom-making this dress for me tonight.”

polite applause scattered through the room. michael nodded approvingly from his table.

then you looked directly at him. a tiny smile tugged at the corner of your mouth.

and instantly his expression shifted into pure suspicion. the man who had spent the night in a daze of adoration suddenly sharpened, his eyes narrowing as he recognized the specific brand of mischief that always accompanied that particular curve of your lips.

he knew that look.

“…and shoutout to my husband michael jackson—”

the audience burst into cheers the second his name left your mouth, the sound vibrating through the floorboards. michael ducked his head, laughing coyly while the cameras swarmed toward him.

then you finished, the words pouring into the microphone with devastating precision:

“—because he’ll definitely be taking it off me later.”

silence.

for one glorious, suspended moment, the entire ballroom simply forgot how to function. the oxygen in the auditorium seemed to vanish, sucked out by the collective gasp of a thousand industry elites.

the monitors cut to him immediately.

michael froze mid-applause, his hands hovering inches apart as if the signal to clap had been abruptly severed from his brain. his eyes went wide behind impossibly long lashes as the reality of what you’d just said hit him in real time.

then the room lost its mind.

laughter surged through the auditorium in waves. people doubled over at their tables. the front row was a scene of total disarray; one prominent actress nearly fell out of her chair, needing to catch herself against the edge of the table while she desperately gasped for air.

meanwhile, you remained the picture of composure at the podium. with the award still resting beside you, you simply took a small sip of water and peered over the rim of the glass with wide, innocent eyes as though you hadn’t just publicly assassinated your husband’s dignity on live television.

“oh my god,” somebody screamed from somewhere near the back of the room, the exclamation cutting through the general din and triggering a fresh wave of delight from the audience.

at the center of the storm, michael looked like his soul had left his body. several celebrities at the surrounding tables were leaning over to congratulate him like he’d won an award himself, grabbing his shoulders, patting his back, laughing so hard some of them could barely get words out. all while michael sat there flushed deep enough to show through his stage makeup, seeming seconds away from disappearing directly into the upholstery of his chair.

by the time you returned to the table, he was hiding his face behind the nearest object he could find. which was currently a decorative vase.

“you are unbelievable,” he whispered hoarsely the second you slid back into the chair beside him, the scent of his expensive cologne mixing with the frenzied energy of the moment.

you smoothed your dress innocently. “what?”

“why would you say that?” he asked, lowering the vase just enough to reveal dazed, dark eyes. “in front of everyone?”

“because it was true.”

michael made a small, wounded noise deep in his throat, a huff of air that was half-wheeze and half-protest. around you, the nearby tables continued to ignore the actual ceremony, their occupants openly staring at the two of you and whispering behind their programs.

“oh, look at him. how precious! he's red!” somebody pointed out nearby.

they were right. the flush climbing up michael’s neck had become impossible to hide.

“baby,” he hissed under his breath, actively trying to crawl beneath the tablecloth.

a tiny stab of sympathy hit you then. you leaned closer, catching his face in between your hands and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek in apology.

unfortunately, that only made the nearby tables react even louder.

michael made a strangled sound as you kissed the corner of his mouth next, trying your very best to comfort him while simultaneously making the situation worse. his entire face had gone hot beneath your touch, eyes darting everywhere except directly at you while the cameras continued circling like vultures.

“i’m sorry,” you whispered, already collapsing against him again as your composure threatened to give out entirely.

“no you’re not,” he muttered, voice muffled into your shoulder as he tried to hide his face.

and honestly?

he was right.

the rest of the ceremony passed in a haze of cameras and secondhand mortification. every time somebody referenced your speech in the following categories, the broadcast cut back to your table, catching michael in his bewildered state all over again.

at one point, an interviewer approached your table with a grin already threatening disaster.

“so! about the dress—”

michael vanished before the question even finished.

one second he was beside you, the next he was halfway across the venue at concerning speed, pointing back toward you in silent delegation as he abandoned you to deal with the consequences alone.

fair enough.

eventually, sometime past midnight, the two of you finally escaped the barrage of flashbulbs and microphones and retreated back to your hotel suite.

the second the door shut behind you, michael turned and pointed at you accusingly.

“you embarrassed me,” he declared, though his voice lacked any real bite.

you folded in on yourself immediately, kicking off your heels to be abandoned near the doorway as you finally gave up trying to behave. you flicked a hand at him in a dismissive motion. “you survived.”

he stood by the massive window, his eyes fixed on the view overlooking los angeles, the city glittering below him like scattered diamonds. a faint pout was still playing on his lips. “barely.”

michael shook his head, his attention drifting back to you again — it followed the delicate detailing along the sides of the dress, the dangerously cut back, the way the fabric clung to every dip and swell of your body. the remnants of your stage makeup still surviving, smudged.

“i was traumatized,” he muttered weakly.

“oh please, you were smiling the whole time.”

“i was under a lot of peer pressure.”

“sureee.” you started walking toward him, letting your palms glide over the satin lapel of his suit jacket. you danced your fingers across the intricate military-style embroidery, feeling the raised threads beneath your touch. michael’s eyes tracked every motion, sharpening with desire the closer you got.

“so,” you murmured, letting go of him and turning around, showing off the gold zipper that ran down your lower back. you glanced over your shoulder at him with a playful little smile. “you gonna take this off me or what?”

something in his expression shifted.

the shy embarrassment that had followed him around all evening finally broke just enough for something steadier to ease itself underneath. his grip closed around your waist, pulling you flush against him hard enough to make you lose the rest of your sentence.

“careful,” he murmured, finally looking at you directly. “you’ve been causing problems all night.”

his voice had dropped an octave. it sent a pulse straight between your legs. 

“oh, now you wanna act brave?” you teased, even as your heart raced.

michael let out a muted laugh before clasping your zipper and bringing it down agonisingly slow, tooth by tooth, letting the cool air skim across the newly exposed skin as the material gradually loosened around your body.

“you done putting on a show for everybody else?”

you opened your mouth, but he spun you around before you could answer. one strong hand slid under your thigh, lifting your leg high against his hip, forcing you to balance as he pressed you flush against him. the other hand settled possessively at the base of your spine, fingers splayed across the heat of your body.

“because,” he said, eyes dragging over your face, “i’ve been wanting to get you alone since the second you stepped out in that dress.”

the zipper traveled lower under his fingers. the dress loosened, slithering further down your shoulders and arms, barely clinging to your chest. michael’s touch slipped inside, gliding over your ass before hooking into the thin strap of your underwear. he yanked at it until it was taut, letting it snap sharply against your flesh with a soft sting that made you gasp.

he smiled at that. his mouth was on you — brushing your jaw, grazing your neck with his teeth, just enough pressure to make your breath hitch.

“hm,” he hummed, satisfied, feeling the way you trembled against him. “guess you’re done.”

he traced slowly up your spine, tugging the zipper the rest of the way down. the silk dress unraveled completely, descending further until it pooled softly around your waist and exposed the full swell of your chest. michael pulled back just enough to look at you properly.

there was still a voracity there, obvious and impossible to miss, but tangled up with something quieter too — something almost reverent in the way his eyes moved over you like he still couldn’t fully believe you were real, let alone standing here in front of him like this.

only then did he cup your face with both hands and kiss you.

the kiss started deep and warm. but the hunger he’d been holding back all night quickly took over. it grew heavier, more consuming. his tongue brushed yours, teasing as your fingers traveled to his hair. you melted into him, a soft sound leaving your throat while he tilted his head and kissed you even deeper.

one hand stayed at the nape of your neck, holding you exactly where he wanted, while the other skimmed down your bare back. every time you tried to gasp for air, he chased your lips again, refusing to let you go. his kisses turned slower, more sensual — lingering presses mixed with gentle bites to your bottom lip.

“you have no idea what you do to me,” he whispered against your mouth, voice rough and low, before diving back in. the moment stretched until your lungs finally started protesting.

you pulled back first, forehead brushing his as you tried unsuccessfully to steady yourself.

“so,” you murmured between uneven breaths, fingertips smoothing lazily along the buttons of his jacket, “i’m guessing you did like the speech?”

michael let out a light chuckle, thumb brushing slowly across your bottom lip while his eyes stayed fixed on yours. “you’re gonna be the death of me,” he whispered.

he leaned in again, mouth trailing from yours to your jaw, then lower. kisses pressed along your décolletage one by one, lingering beneath your ear before drifting down the column of your neck.

the longer he kissed you, the less restrained he became.

what started gentle turned heavier, more deliberate — the scrape of teeth, the pull of his mouth against your skin, the sting that followed whenever he sucked hard enough to leave colour behind. he took his time with it, savoring every inch, leaving a trail of bruises. by the time he finally lifted his head, faint marks had already begun blooming across your throat and collarbones beneath the dim hotel lighting.

“i loved every second of it,” he admitted quietly, lips grazing your skin between words. “even when i wanted to disappear into the floor.”

another kiss.

“all i could think about was getting you back here and ripping this damn thing off you.”

the dress hung low on your hips now, threatening to slip further. michael’s attention fell down. eyes outlining the way the fabric clung to your silhouette, gold detailing twisted beneath his fingers from how tightly he’d held you — it completely ruined for anyone else.

“actually keep it on a little longer,” he murmured. he tugged the material up slightly, only to let it fall again. “i’m not finished admiring it yet.”

his palm slid along the curve of your waist.

“…or you.”

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“Oh, it’s not art then?” She smiles to herself a little.

Michael shot her a look over his shoulder. “You’re makin’ fun of me.”

She was, a little. “You’re just being a Virgo, baby.”

“Ah,” He waves her off and she giggles at him.

“Just bring it over,” she said eventually, as if it was obvious.

Michael looked up. “Bring what over?”

“That thing. The camera.”

He hesitated for half a second then gave into her orders (like he always did), crossing the room with it still slightly tilted in his hands like he was trying to decide if he trusted her judgment or not. The red light blinked on as he lifted it again, turning it toward her.

“Oh,” he said, voice shifting instantly into something lighter. “So this is what you’ve been doing.”

She glanced up at him, camera catching her mid expression and Michael’s grin appeared before she even fully understood what he was doing.

“Mm,” he murmured, angling the lens slightly like he was framing her on purpose now. “Bad girl.” The words were teasing of course, no real judgement behind his tone.

Her mouth twitched upward. “Don’t start with me.”

“Bad girl,” he repeated, softer now. She looked away, smiling despite herself but then she looks back up at him through her lashes. And though it was a minxy little look, there was also something shy in it. Truthfully, one of Michael’s favorite things about her were her eyes. They were always so big, syrupy and expressive—Michael liked that it was nearly impossible for her to hide herself from him because he could read and see the nuance in her eyes. She wore her heart on her sleeve and Michael found it beautiful, especially in a world that could be particularly cruel to him with hidden agendas and masks.

“I just.. it makes me feel good,” she said quietly, though.. she wasn’t sure why she was admitting it to the camera.

Michael stopped moving for just a second, his eyes softening as he looks at the viewfinder. The camera stayed pointed at her, red light steady and the room suddenly quieter but it had nothing to do with sound.

“Yeah?” he said gently and she nodded once.

Michael’s expression changed, then very softly— “You’re so beautiful.” He reaches down and cups her face to which she wastes very little time snuggling up to his big palm.

The warmth of his palm envelops her face like her own little sanctuary, and without hesitation, she melts into it—nuzzling against his calloused skin with a devotion. Her lips brush feather light kisses along the lines of his hand: one on the base of his thumb, another on the soft dip between fingers. Each kiss is slow, tender—she’s memorizing him.

Her eyes flutter open then wide and bright as morning light through water and she looks up at him with playful submission. A small smile tugs at her lips as she whispers:

“Direct me, angelface.” There’s a little humor in her voice but also trust—a complete surrender to whatever scene he wants next.

His brows lifted slightly. “Direct you?”

“Yes,” she said, tilting her head. “You’re the filmmaker, aren’t you?”

That made something flicker in his expression. Pride, maybe. Or the way he got when something fun suddenly became a challenge he actually wanted to excel at. So he adjusted his grip on the camera again.

“Okay,” he said carefully and she smiled a little wider, watching him settle into it.

“That’s better,” she murmured. “Now what do I do, director?”

The way she said it made his mouth twitch and Michael lifted the camera a fraction, focusing in on her like he was trying to decide how serious he was allowed to be about this.

“Don’t move,” he said at first.

Then, after a second, softer: “Actually.. just look at me.”

(Name) held his gaze and the camera stayed steady now. And Michael, for all his earlier fussing and adjusting, didn’t seem interested in fixing anything anymore.

“I want to remember this beauty, forever and ever” He said quietly, almost wonderingly, “—like a famous painting from the Renaissance people stand in front of for hours on end..”

Michael exhaled quietly, his hand still cradling her face like he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the moment. “My beautiful fiancée..”

She went very still for a second, the words had landed somewhere too soft to handle and her face broke into that shy little smile again, the kind that never quite knew where to settle. She let out a tiny laugh through her nose, half a breath and half disbelief—she didn’t trust herself to react properly without falling apart a little.

“I’m gonna cry,” she said, but it came out bright and giggly, because she was already halfway there, just overwhelmed in the prettiest way.

Her fingers tightened lightly around his wrist as she stayed tucked into his hand, still looking up at him like she couldn’t quite believe he meant it. And that’s why she fell in love with him, she’s never felt safer with any man in her entire life like this. It took a lot of conditioning and unlearning hurt from the past to truly let this man into her heart.

“Show your ring..” He ushers softly.

She lifted her hand slowly, shy about it because she was still getting used to the idea that it was hers to show.

Michael caught it gently before it could drift too far, his fingers wrapping around hers with instinctive steadiness and guiding it into the light without thinking. The camera tilted slightly as he adjusted his grip.

The rock caught immediately, even in the low glow of the room, it threw back a pretty brilliance—five carat natural diamond princess cut.

“Gimme..” (Name) makes grabby hands at the camera.

Michael handed her the camera without much hesitation. The moment it was in her hands, she turned it over and settled back into the bed. The lamp light caught the silk of the sheets and her robe riding up her thighs through the viewfinder when she lifted it.

Michael was still standing near the edge of the bed, watching her. Cautious. Curious. A little suspicious.

She tilted it up toward him. “Oh. My. Gosh,” she said slowly, dragging it out just enough to make him immediately react. “Who’s this pretty boy?”

That did it instantly. Michael’s whole face changed:

“No—don’t start that,” he said, giggling but it came out shy and uneven.

He lifted a hand immediately, half covering his face like it could somehow block the camera from seeing him properly, shoulders drawing in as he turned slightly away out of pure instinct.

“Stop,” he added, softer now, still laughing under his breath.

“Stop? Why stop?” She raises her feet, sliding them up his thighs and massaging his crotch through the fabric of his silk pajama pants. Michael lets out a shaky breath behind a smile, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, you like that, Mikey?” She whispered as her matching french set slid down his chest to the silk waistband of his pajamas. She massaged him slowly, feeling him twitch and swell under her touch as she brushed over the silk covered head.

“You’re a tease..” Michael says, his voice is too sweet to put into words—he’s blushing but who knows if it's from the camera or his arousal. (Name) drops her feet and beckons him over.

“Come ’mere..” Her voice is dripping like honey. “Show the camera how good you fuck me..”

Michael crawled up her body like a predator, his pajama pants already discarded as he camera caught every muscle ripple as he moved between her spread thighs. His abs were tight, his chest bare and defined. He was such a beautiful sight crawling up her body like this, his hard cock dragging along her inner thigh as he went.

This tape is supposed to be for his and her eyes only.. right?

Let’s hope it stays that way.