SugarBatsDilemma

broken whimpers and breathless sobs hitched behind your teeth, stuttering until you were panting under your breath, head dangling down and eyes bleary with pleasure, you watched the shallow, rhythmic movement of his digits drawing in and out, the bulging bands of his tendons flexing with every stroke.

arousal stretching thin in glimmering strings as your drenched cunt squelched lewdly around his fingers, his calloused thumb finding your clit, already pulsing and twitching restlessly, rubbing in firm, relentless circles until you sobbed out a choked, close to be agreement “a—ah! p—please!”

the flat was too small for his massive shadow, and könig felt as though he could barely fit in. a fluffy carpet lined the entrance and the living room, every wall and shelf meticulously decorated. on the kitchen island sat a bouquet of withered flowers, the sight of those blossoms making him wonder with an ugly, spiking jealousy if they had been gifted by some secret admirer.

his broad palm tightened possessively over your hip in response, though his jaw lost its tense, rigid edge the moment you leaned up on your tiptoes, plump lips catching his weathered, bristly cheek in a kiss that smoothed out his scowl. there were photos scattered about too, kept in delicate frames, some captured at formal events, some at rowdy parties, others during your concluded college years.

he lingered to study each one, turning the frames restlessly in his massive hands while you went around the flat, gathering what you needed. following your retreating scent into the bedroom, he stepped in just as you knelt by the bed, folding clothes across your lap with the same neat, meticulous care you always showed at his place, ensuring no wrinkles would form.

könig watched you pack your shirts, pants, and those cute skirts he already starved to make you parade for him once you were back under his roof. he certainly wasn't against the underwear you began placing into the cardboard boxes, not at all, there were lacy, plain, and flower embroidered pieces, some so sheer he could see right through them.

they were devastatingly sexy garments, the view making his blood run hot and prompting to let out a petulant, slightly angry grunt “who did you buy these for, kleines häschen?” thick eyebrows scrunching together in troubled line. you looked up at him with gullible eyes, lower lip rolling out into the most adorable pout, your chin raised to project all the mock hurt you could muster.

reaching up, your hands cupped his prominent cheekbones, fingertips mapping the rough tracks of the scars lining his jaw, batting your eyelashes and gazing directly into his striking, baby blue irises. his massive head tilted under your touch, the coarse bristles tingling against your palm as he nuzzled affectionately into your skin, a lopsided, uneven smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“there wasn’t anyone worth showing these to” to him, you looked like a darling, helpless little prey rabbit, tooth purring so, his restraint snapping and hands reaching out, broad palms kneading your curvy ass, blunt nails digging firmly into the fat there.

jaw dropping slack when his lips smashed over yours, tongue sliding past teeth to claim your mouth immediately, sloppy and unrestrained, your fingers curled tightly around his bulky shoulder blades, digging deep into his shirt as your broken, smothered whimpers made his length thicken with a violent pulse against your thigh.

packing should have gone much quicker, especially with his help, carrying on every single bottle he found in your bathroom. he stood there looking utterly bewildered by the sheer volume of them, lotions, bubble baths, creams, and scrubs, and that was before he even realized the entire second shelf was just for your face, at which point he didn't understand a damn word.

you giggled, promising him that you would pamper him with an evening face mask once you were back home, to which he nodded with a boyish excitement, though he knew his rough mug was never going to match yours, and he didn't care to try, just wanting to keep his hands busy groping your skin anyway.

when you moved to the kitchen to collect your pots and pans, könig watched you with a thoroughly puzzled expression, leaning against the counter. his muscular arms were folded tight across his stocky chest, one eyebrow cocked upward, curious as to why the hell you could possibly need those when his own kitchen was already stocked, and you had already been cooking with them anyway.

“yours are ruined, everything burns on them” you explained plainly, holding up your skillet to show him the intact non stick coating, reminding the big soldier that his own cookware was covered in scratches and looked a hell of a lot cheaper than your spotless, rubber handled sets, so convinced, he nodded in agreement.

you were already babbling happily about what you wanted to cook for dinner this evening, reaching up into the cupboards to grab a collection of mugs and drinking glasses adorned with silly drawings and shapes, when his massive bulk swamped you from behind, pinning you down. prickly chin rubbing over your exposed neck, mouth pressing in to suck wet marks into the tender skin at the crook of your shoulder before his hot breath drifted right to your ear.

unsurprisingly, you get bend over the kitchen cabinet, hoisting your weight into his chest until your toes were left barely brushing against the cold floorboards beneath. gorged cock hammering in your drooling cunt, countertop digging into your tensing tummy, mouth agape with blabbered squeals and keens “h—hnh, k—könig, too much!”

puffy clit pulsing relentlessly, but he reaches with his fingerpads only when about to burst, slipping easily with the tacky wetness that oozes out, teasing the sensitive nub back and forth. you slump bonelessly, his muscular hips slamming against your juddering ass, scorched by the harsh impact.

throbbing tip jerking at your gooey insides with grinding, dragging thrusts, growls growing deeper “schh, take it wie das brave häschen, das du bist” veiny fingers knuckled tightly into your cotton shirt, bunching the material in his fists over the swaying curve of your breasts as his hands scrambled hungrily at them.

when könig was done, he hoisted you up to sit on the counter, your weight suspended as creamy globs of his release dripped from between your thighs, chapped lips finding your forehead. pressing down with soothing, gentle kisses, and he smiled softly against warm skin as your fingers tracked their way into his hair, curling through the thick strands until you finally felt steady enough to stand on your own.

he carried every single cardboard box out to the vehicle, never letting out so much as a grunt at how heavy they were, while you huddled contentedly into his side, eager for the ride back to his place, leaning back and preening like a coddled thing when he hauled you onto his lap in the car, showering your flushed cheeks with tender, lingering kisses.

somehow, a few pairs of panties had gone missing from the box containing your underwear, perhaps you had simply forgotten to pack them. yet, when those very same garments began to reappear beneath the pillow he slept on, the deep, ragged groans he let out in the dead of night, right before he would turn over to cradle your tits in his sleep, suddenly made perfect sense.

She is too soft, too friendly, and really kind of bad at life. Not stupid or helpless, exactly. But basic survival? ничего. A hot mess, truly.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t. She’s just another person. Another neighbor in the shitty complex he maintains an address at between contracts. She’s simply a collection of eyebrow raises, or what would be on another man whose aren’t scarred stiff and covered by carbon fiber.

Her porch light burns out and stays that way. Her gate drags on a loose hinge. Her car makes a noise she ignores like a fool. He’s never once heard her deadbolt turn. No, we are not listening to her’s specifically! It is simple observation! She stands on rickety chairs instead of buying a step stool. She carries every single grocery bag in one trip and then acts surprised when one breaks. Worse, she waves and smiles at everyone in this god-forsaken neighborhood and doesn’t watch her surroundings.

His initial assessment is simple: The neighbor is going to die.

(No one is actually trying to kill her, but that doesn’t change his conclusion.)

At first, he only watches with increasing irritation. Her problems are not his responsibility. She is an adult. Presumably, she has survived this long without him.

Then the smoke detector starts chirping.

Two days later, he has had enough. Small things begin fixing themselves. She comes home to the porch light working again. The gate stops scraping against the ground. She assumes the landlord finally did something useful.

Eventually, Nikto gets caught in the act. Her car is making a whistling sound this week, and when she comes outside, he is already standing beside it.

“Oh! Good morning! How are y–?”

“Open it.”

“Huh?”

A long stare.

“…The hood?”

“Да.”

She brings him coffee while he works. She doesn’t know how he takes it, so she guesses.

Thus begins an unfortunate new phase in which she realizes that Nikto knows how to fix things. She starts knocking on his door, holding broken objects.

“Do you know how to fix this?”

Of course he does.

“Can I borrow a drill?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Can you show me how to…”

“Move.”

He’ll insist it’s not affection. Her incompetence simply creates problems within his immediate environment. An operational security risk, if you will. If her car breaks down, she will not be able to leave and stop bothering him. If her furnace stops working, the pipes would freeze, there would be handymen involved…it would create a problem for the whole neighborhood, honestly. There is always a reason.

Except the reasons become progressively less convincing.

The real issue is that she’s kind to him without demanding anything from him. She doesn’t pry. She doesn’t ask what happened to his face or why he’s always got a balaclava on. She doesn’t insist that he talk more or assume that he’s rude. Worse, she doesn’t even treat him like someone dangerous.

She just waves when she sees him. Every fucking time. Simply sees her neighbor and smiles.

Horrifically, there is a small, inconvenient part of him that perks up to that immediately.

There she is.

No.

She is carrying the groceries wrong again.

Not our concern.

The bag is tearing.

She will learn.

…

Blyat.

And then he’s already crossing the yard.

See I think the different parts of Nikto don’t necessarily exist as neat, named personalities. They’re more like…shifting configurations of the same fractured man. Some are suspicious, some cold, some exhausted, some unexpectedly amused by chaos (this part is why he hasn’t killed Krueger yet).

And one of those parts is softer than the others. Nikto doesn’t listen to that part very much. It is the part that understands humor, that occasionally wants company, and that remembers, however faintly, what it was like to want ordinary things. That part of him inexplicably likes the neighbor. The rest of him spends a fair amount of time debating why this is impractical.

She, meanwhile, has no idea he thinks about her this much. To her, Nikto is simply her strange, intimidating, extremely competent neighbor who keeps appearing whenever something breaks. He’s bossy. He rarely explains himself. He occasionally looks at her as though her continued existence is a fucking burden. She assumes that’s just how he is. And she just…accepts that, much to his face-palming chagrin.

Nikto really has no idea he is courting her. From his perspective, he is correcting dangerous inefficiencies in his immediate vicinity. The fact that he knows her schedule is irrelevant. The fact that he recognizes the sound of her car is just…practical, okay? The fact that he notices when she arrives home late is perfectly normal situational awareness. He’s trained for that, it’s just instinct.

Krueger figures it out in approximately four seconds. He watches Nikto take a trash bin from her because she is struggling to drag it through the snow.

“What? She was failing to do it properly.”

“Mhm.” *smirk*

“She would drop and spill it.”

“How terrible.”

“Animals would get into it.”

“Of course.”

“That affects us.”

Krueger looks pointedly at the forty feet of yard separating their houses.

“Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

(Krueger finds the entire situation deeply entertaining.)

‘Hi,’

✩ no - too casual…

'Hello,’

✩ better. to whom it may concern? far too formal. just a simple 'hello' will do.

✩ you introduce yourself and write how you hope they're ok. actually, that's too friendly.

‘I hope this letter finds you well’

✩ that's good... what next? should you talk about yourself? what do you say? should you mention the social anxiety? no way - that's too personal for the first letter. you’re strangers, so just keep it surface level.

✩ you write about how you saw an advert for the penpal program and decided to join. a lie, but there's no need to tell the truth yet.

✩ you write that you appreciate the work that they do even though you don't fully know what it entails. that's true, at least.

✩ you think about what you could say about yourself.

✩ your life isn't exciting - you've spent months at home doomscrolling and watching tv.

✩ that's it! you could talk about what television shows and movies you like! wait, would they even have time to watch stuff?

✩ maybe on their time off! yes! plus, even if they don't, it gives you more to talk about! you’re a genius!

✩ you write about your viewing habits and get into a flow, giving your opinions and personal recommendations. you ask if they get to watch much, or if they prefer other hobbies, which smoothly transitions into a short paragraph about your own hobbies.

✩ it’s short since you can only do so much from your own home, but again, there's no need to mention that yet.

✩ alright, this is going great! now, how to sign it off?

‘I hope to hear from you soon,’

✩ sounds too eager... puts pressure on them to write back as well...

'There's no pressure to respond. I can imagine how busy your work can get, so it's ok if you don't have time to write back.

All the best,'

✩ you write your name and triumphantly slam your pen down on your desk with a grin big enough to be seen from space

✩ you read through your letter before carefully folding it and delicately sliding it into an envelope. you write the envelope, stick a postage stamp in the corner and send that bad boy!

✩ you’re on cloud nine for a while after that. however, after a month goes by with no reply, your anxiety rears its annoying, ugly head.

✩ what if your handwriting was too messy? what if they found you embarrassing? what if they laughed at your letter and threw it in the bin? what if they showed the letter to their army comrades and laughed at it together?

✩ why did your therapist suggest doing this? this is TORTURE!

✩ on the other side of the world, however, a supremely tall soldier curls himself onto his cramped army bed and reads your letter over and over with a smile that grows every time he reads it.

✩ he promptly opens up his notebook and flips to a blank page to start writing his reply:

'Hello,

My name is König...’

✩ i had to type all this out again bc tumblr ate the original post! :)

✩ i tried to give the reader more personality, i hope that comes through in the writing!

He tries to drop you off at home, but you demand he come inside and at least shower off so he doesn't have to drive back to the barracks grimy with sweat, sunscreen, and sand. Of course he agrees - the man has never said no to you in his life, even before he finally had the courage to ask you out - and he turns eggplant-purple when you casually shuck your swimsuit to join him.

You're stupidly horny for him after seeing him half-naked all day, so you take your sweet time lathering your vanilla bodywash into his skin. He sighs beneath the steam of the shower and the ministrations of your hands, shoulders slumping like his joints and tendons finally realized he's no longer in a combat zone. Blissed out and half way to falling asleep on his feet.

But he wakes right the fuck up when your fingers creep lower and you begin to massage his cock.

König loves your handjobs. He says you're unbelievably good at them and he never needs to worry that his size is hurting you - a frequent insecurity of his when you first became intimate. While you languidly work his hardening member back and forth, you rest your head between his pecs as the water pours down on you both.

He makes the most pathetic little whimpers as your lazy tugs turn into proper pumping. One of his hands flies against the tiles to keep himself steady against the urge to turn into a puddle at your feet.

When you tell him its time to wash his hair, he seems perfectly willing to accept that the handjob is over without having come. But when you ask him to get on his knees so you can reach his head, he quickly picks up on what's actually happening: a perfect excuse to smush his face into your tits.

König may love your handjobs, but he worships breasts.

You squirt some shampoo onto his head and begin to spread it through his short hair while König attends to your chest. Sucking, rubbing his face, thumbing your nipples, and whispering breathless gratitude into your cleavage. It's not terribly long before he picks up where you left off, the wet noises of his hand sliding over his cock speaking to something primal in your cavewoman brain. "I'm so lucky," he says over and over again. "So fucking lucky."

It doesn't take long for him to empty his balls, splattering your legs as he leans so hard into your body you nearly topple. The shower quickly washes away the mess as he plants a final kiss beneath the swell of one breasts.

He quickly asks what you'd like in return - he's happy to lick your pussy for the rest of the night, or he could sit you on his lap and use his fingers - but all you really want right now is a nap. There's something so satisfying about pampering this man, who got dealt a shit hand in life but is somehow still the type to fumble his way through a homemade mojito recipe if he thinks it'll make you smile.

Neither of you bother to put clothes back on as you collapse into bed and wrap your bodies around each other. You think to yourself, not for the first time, what a wonderful father he would make. You can picture with ease König's big hands spreading sunscreen over a little boy who has his eyes and your hair.

A goal for next summer, maybe.

===

I dont usually do requests, but I would literally jump off a bridge for @the-californicationist ❤️💕🧡 Thanks for the prompt, Cali!!

Except for him.

You’ve heard it all. Had hardened soldiers sobbing into your lap for hundreds of dollars, paid by the hour for hearing their sins in some kind of perverse confessional. Even the most outlandish sexual requests have become slightly mundane. That’s the natural course of your work, it doesn’t faze you. You enjoy it, the sex and the money.

But he was… different. Those stern, frigid eyes following you around his apartment. Almost stalking, akin to a hunter across some deserted wasteland where there is nowhere to hide. He camouflaged it well, his desire. The sharp edge of it balanced on a point, unbalanced yet somehow held in place by a gravity of his own making.

And the way he held you. As if you were precious, like it meant something. It’s been a very long time since someone held you like that. Palms cupped full of meaning, heart thudding steadily beneath your body. You hadn’t meant to fall asleep, honestly. But in spite of his general strangeness, he’d made you feel safe. Perched in his broad lap, nested there as fragile, porcelain eggs might be guarded from predators.

Yet still, he didn’t call. It’s been three weeks and not a single word. But you’re very good at playing games. In this line of work – you have to be. Sure, Krueger gave you his phone number, but you’ve never chased work in your life. Actually, you thought you were better at not getting attached, though Nikto, the masked man who collects spent shell casings, lingers on in your thoughts.

Without any more interesting distractions, your purge of the memories of that night is unsuccessful, so you’re left in a peculiar sort of limbo that means your mind drifts back to thoughts of him long after you sink into bed to sleep.

Finally, on the day before a full month has passed, you get a text. The chime of your phone rings slightly on the kitchen counter, buzzing against the dull, grey-painted surface. The landlord special, complete with a chip from when you accidentally dropped a pan on it.

One eyebrow rises, then the other follows. Oh, he will see you! Will he! A strangely formal way to text a call girl surely, especially one who lulled him to sleep in her arms. Having thought that, he is a strange guy overall. Your curiosity is piqued enough that you cancel on one of your regulars, claiming a headache as the excuse, then drop him a breezy message stating you’ll be over at 9:00 pm.

The response comes almost immediately.

You blink at your screen, part annoyed, part amused. The juice box you were pouring from remains suspended over the glass, the sunny orange liquid inside teetering near the rim of the carton. He’s blunt, but you won’t pretend you don’t enjoy that at least a little bit.

Satisfied, you take a slug of juice and wait for a reply, lips curled into a small smirk. There’s a low hum of electric excitement stirring in your chest, crackling its way into avidly watching him typing.

That, you suppose, will have to be some form of guarantee.

Inside his apartment, Nikto paces. Back and forth with no real destination, into his kitchen, back through the corridor and through the living room like a tiger walking the perimeter of an exhibit at the zoo. Back and forth. His rubber boots creak a little on the floorboards, hands leaving his pockets only to return there again with each second stride. Ruminating on whether this was a mistake, if he is weak in wanting to see you again, knowing that bitter possessiveness so recently awakened in him by Krueger's admission will not be easily tolerated.

Nikto grapples with it, has wrestled with it since he saw the wry smile curling Krueger's lips in the canteen. Like manna from heaven. Usually he wouldn’t resent Krueger at least; the man is as fucked as Nikto is in the morality stakes. But he does feel a certain kind of jealousy that rises purely from the spark of whatever it is you hold in him.

Some delicious lust you have provoked. Nikto was never able to quit smoking as a younger man, and now he is resigned to it. Perhaps he should resign himself to this also. An addiction of a kind, but one to flesh and blood as opposed to nicotine.

He daydreams frequently, stupid lucid fantasies that make the rancid and unfettered splinters of his personality drool. You, fat and round with children, playing housewife in a home he has built for you. You wear aprons and bake for him. Nikto regularly tears your skirts up in such dreamscapes to fill you with his seed, your soft thighs against his calloused palms; he leaves fingerprint bruises in the flesh.

Insatiable, like an animal. This greed has been awoken now and cannot be tamed. It burns to ashes in his mind each time; he exhausts it, only to start replaying the vision when his concentration slackens again. He saw a man tortured once by the deprivation of rest, eyes taped wide open in a bright room. This is how Nikto feels, his perfectly ordered routine cracked ajar, where he can no longer shut you out of his thoughts.

More than once, he has been tempted to kidnap you. Goaded by a particularly primal part of his brain that reasons you should be his to take. Nikto has earned you, in the way all outcasts feel they have pleasant company after a long time of solitude. He has suffered for his own sins and maybe some of yours also. You could learn to like it, and he has more than enough greasy assets to hide you off-grid somewhere. He could retire, see out his days between your legs instead of it finally being over on some dark back street on an op gone awry.

But caged birds do not sing, he knows this also. God, does he want you to sing for him, to say his name, whisper it like a confessional disclosure while the taste of your pussy clings to the roughness of his twisted mouth. Nikto wants you to whine, beg, make sweet cloying sounds in your throat coaxed there by him. He will never reach heaven, but there may yet be a glimpse of it here on earth.

Nikto closes his eyes, feels a pulse of adrenaline beat across the lids as he does so. Control is usually exercised so rigidly within his life that he feels almost drunk from the impulsiveness of inviting you. Briefly, in a flash of hazy energy, Nikto remembers the first taste of beer across his tongue.

A young, teenage boy sits on a battered red sofa, knocking the rim of the bottle on his own teeth with accidental nerves. Is that him? Or someone else he recalls? It is difficult to tell. So much of what happened before is buried within aliases and shapes he inhabited for only months at a time.

A muscle in his cheek pops as his teeth gnash. Frustration builds quickly in the gaps left where nothing further can be understood about that memory. The scar tissue covering him fused itself within his mind too, abysses where only blank emptiness resides between scattered recollections. Small incidents can trigger it, a smell or a noise; he is lurched back into the past without a map to navigate it, until he realises the present requires more immediate attention.

Nikto is a wanderer in his own thoughts. Uncertain of their origin, who they belong to. Whether it is him or another in each shard. His feet move endlessly forward from the point of his injuries, because the road behind him was impassable.

Unconsciously he has made you a touchstone, a thing to watch as a traveller roaming the desert might track the rays of the sun across sands. Life since he met you, since you consumed most of his waking and dreaming thoughts. It gives him a strange focus, when before only missions and the splinter of bone under his knuckles could do such a thing.

Nikto plans. He does not charge into any situation, knows somehow that he has never done this. The shadows are a more trustworthy companion than bravery; no one is ever what you believe them to be. Things must be carefully observed, details collected in a methodical manner, until you have as much of the picture as possible. After that you have little else to rely on but your own judgment. His has been wrong before. Terribly wrong.

He rubs a finger along his jawline, the part where the stubble of his beard will no longer grow evenly because the follicles have been scorched out, broken flesh reforming into something that covers the bone. It is never truly healed though; much of Nikto remains like that.

Maimed.

The sound hisses out of him before he can stop it, and Nikto twitches slightly from the tone. It’s true, he is damaged beyond repair, and he isn’t foolish enough to believe you would see past that. You would need a fat cheque even to tolerate him rolling up the edges of his mask; exposing the ravines of ravaged flesh on his jawline would likely frighten the wits out of you, and that isn’t the worst of it.

He could write you a big cheque in his less than perfect scrawl, but more than that, it’s the look in your eyes he would hate to see. A small, vulnerable chime strikes his soul dead centre in a perfect bullseye at the vision of you recoiling in disgust — and how could you not? That pretty mouth opening in horror, your nose wrinkling like something decaying has been unveiled before you.

He is decay personified into the shadow of what was once a man. A thing tortured and bruised, unrecognisable in many ways though still so gut-wrenchingly human all the same. It was enough to turn the stomach of several of the nurses that cared for him at the hospital — a vivid reminder, the experience of laying heavily tranquillised while listening to them gag as they changed his bandages.

“Enough!” The words are snarled from him, draining poison from a wound most poked and prodded at. “For one night can we not be free of this!”

There’s a soft knock on the door and Nikto’s gaze is suddenly focused by the noise. He checks his watch — 20:00. For a second he debates not answering, maybe sliding your cash under the threshold and the worn floor, then retreating back to the bedroom alone.

What the fuck is wrong with him! He’s stormed buildings full of enemies, walked into pure chaos manifested with the air of someone browsing for groceries, looking for particular targets. But this… this is very different.

Slightly confused, standing in the hallway, you knock again. There aren’t any lights on inside that you can see; other than the faint glow of a fire escape light gleaming green overhead, it’s completely dark.

Then, the door opens by a crack, and one imperious blue eye is revealed beside the peeling paintwork on the frame.

“Hello you.”

A purr is attempted through your words, but it slightly misses seductive and becomes squeaky around the edges. He doesn’t look pleased to see you, as if you’ve inconvenienced him by coming here at the arranged time. A knot lodges inside your throat, and it becomes a little harder to inhale around it. Nikto just stares for what feels like a full five minutes while you try to keep your cool. They say you should stand up to a bear if it runs at you, make yourself appear bigger. And there is no bigger bear than the Russian currently filling the small space in front of you.

You wonder if he’s going to let you in at all, then he relaxes slightly, stepping backwards so you can duck under one muscled arm. He’s wearing tight compression gear tonight, that same black, soft balaclava with loose threads. Fitted utility trousers that show off tree-trunk thighs. Faintly, you wonder if he ever relaxes. Throws on a T-shirt and jeans when left to his own devices. Probably not; he doesn’t look like the kind of man who takes time off.

Warily, he closes the door behind you and keeps his distance. Again you’re forcefully reminded of a wild creature, perhaps a panther ensnared in a small space when it was used to roaming the jungle. He looks uncomfortable even in his own home, in his skin itself. Like he longs to be set loose.

So you take the lead. Walking into the living room, which hasn’t changed at all since your last visit except this time there is no vodka bottle on the floor. You throw a few coquettish looks over your shoulder, which Nikto regards with frosty indifference.

Sinking onto the sofa again, you pat the seat next to you.

“Same again, lover?! I’ll try not to fall asleep!” Still he stands, blue eyes narrowed as though he’s irritated by something. “Or… are you going to fuck me tonight?!”

You lean forward, exposing your cleavage in a well-practised move that usually loosens things up with tightly strung clients.

“We have all night, after all. Tell me your fantasies and I’ll tell you mine??”

His mask shifts, like he’s raising a brow.

“You are always trying this hard?”

“Oh, I bet I can make you hard…” You grin. “I’ll try very, very hard….”

“Enough,” he snaps suddenly, so you blink, taken aback. “Enough of this shit.”

“What shit?”

“You. Your shit.” Nikto is glaring now. “This porno chat may work with others — but it will not work on me.”

He takes a step closer and all the air is knocked out of you in a single heartbeat from his sheer breadth encircling your field of vision.

“You think I am so desperate for you to pretend?” Nikto leans nearer still. “Pretend with the others. But not in here. Not to us.”

His voice is so low, pitched like it’s being dragged through gravel twice over. It rumbles as thunder does, and close to your ear it’s deeper still. You genuinely had thought you’d seen it all at this point; clients usually do you the courtesy of slipping into your role in their lives. Honesty wasn’t on the table for Nikto to take, yet he demands it easily, effortlessly, until you feel rather more fragile than you usually do in these situations.

“Excuse me. But you do realise how I earn my living?”

Nikto’s scowl becomes violently apparent even through the mask.

“Da. You do as your customer says. And now your customer says drop the act. So you will do it.”

He’s certain; it truly is just like staring into the face of something untameable. You feel off-balance, out of kilter and without your usual reins of control.

You consider leaving. Getting the hell out of there. Though no small amount of intrigue has been stirred up by that laser-focused attack on your bedside manner.

“What the fuck do you want then, hm?” Showing no fear is crucial when caught in the territory of the beast. “To cuddle me all fucking night long again? Or take out all that pent up anger by behaving like a cock, instead of using it?”

It comes out far more snidely than you had intended, but Nikto barks out a laugh. Unnerving, a sound you hear in the dead of night that you pretend not to, one that makes you draw the covers higher over your head.

“Better. That is the truth now, isn’t it.” He sinks onto the couch beside you in a fluid motion, while you watch him with faint surprise. “That is the real you, the one with guts.”

“So what? You want to talk? Is that what it is?”

“I did not say that.”

“Well, what then!”

“There is no agenda.” He rolls his head wearily back into the headrest, while his hands rest upon his thighs. "Talk. Do not talk."

“And if I want to fuck!”

“Then I will fuck you,” Nikto replies simply.

He promised it was only for a few weeks. He bought you a special phone for the privilege of having the house to yourself, telling you to turn it on at a specific time. When he called, you could have jumped for joy. It’s so different from your last separation—that dreadful enforced loneliness.

You wondered whether you’d ever see him again, feel the pressure of his palm against the nape of your neck, or inhale the soft scent of masculinity that clings to him. The heaviness of love weighed upon your tongue as his broad shoulders made their way along the garden path he laid himself, rounding into the outline of a soldier unfamiliar to you. Even now, it plays inside your throat, teasing words itching to escape, cloying and drenched in affection.

Except that you still have no idea just how to present that particular feeling to him, a man so doused in complication. You’d love to bathe him in devotion, to see to it that he never lived another day without knowing exactly what he means to you. But nothing with Nikto is ever straightforward. He entered your life in the same way a cannonball charges at its target, rearranging everything in his wake, turning you upside down, and demanding a space for himself that now only he can fit within.

It’s a start, though: weekly calls while he’s working, when possible. You shouldn’t wish for too much from a creature as undomesticated as Nikto—even if he does now place his house shoes next to your own on the mat before bed.

“I miss you too. Are you busy?”

From what you can see of the pixels, his room is dark and sparse—cold grey walls without personality. In a similar way to his own home, he seems to change chameleon-like depending on his location. With you, Nikto is a stray cat basking in the luxury of having a warm place to pad around. At work, he becomes something very different.

Andre alone is the only version you don’t know, the one you don’t understand fully. Maybe you never will, and that is the charm of him. There is always one secret place you imagine vividly in the vestiges of his personality. Three sides to his mask, a duality built from self-preservation and harsh lessons.

From the small snapshots he’s revealed of his past, you’ve realised he truly doesn’t remember all of it. Life for Nikto has been divided into a 'before' and 'after', the watershed moment where everything changed acting as the barrier between them. You never push, and following the quiet moments after he tells you a half-recalled memory, you silently cherish it long after he falls asleep.

Nikto shifts a little in his narrow cot, the stark white sheets contrasting in high definition with the black of his gear. Potently blue eyes are framed by the greyish paint still smeared around them. He took off the balaclava for you, insisting that you also removed something in turn.

You chose your sweater, and his brows quirked as if you were teasing him with the gesture.

“Always busy, not of the good kind. You are watering my potatoes well? There is a drought coming,” he replies, looking at you seriously, as though you’re solely responsible for his firstborn-potato child.

“Yes, I’ve been watering them! There are little leafy bits now above the soil and everything.”

His face brightens.

“Take a picture for me? I wish to see.”

“Honestly! You’ve got your lover on the phone and the only thing you’re interested in is your bloody potatoes.” Rolling your eyes, you watch his torn mouth curve into the closest thing to a grin he can achieve.

“There are other things I am interested in, milaya… but I cannot have them currently.” Those sharp blues narrow, the feline shape surrounded by more lines than usual. He’s tired and it shows, a few bloodshot strands weaving through his eyes.

“Hm,” you reply, smiling too now. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Andre.”

“No? You do not think I want you in my lap?” He pauses, running a tongue across his teeth slyly. “Believe me, this is a far preferable way to spend the evening than here in this shithole.”

“It’s lonely in our bed…” Stretching, you give him a view of your cleavage, enjoying the way his lashes flutter rapidly at the sight. “I have no one to put my cold feet on.”

“Poor you, little one,” Nikto growls gently, a low rumble ebbing through the tiny speakers of your phone. “However do you manage without me?”

“I don’t; I just suffer until you get back.”

“Suffering is part of life. I suffer also.”

“None of your trademark gloomy flirting tonight, Andre; my broken heart can’t handle it.”

“And what is the best way to mend this, hm?”

He tucks a muscled bicep behind his head, its bulk flexing and tensing deliciously in view of the lens. If you didn’t know him so well, you’d swear that was done on purpose. Nibbling your lip, you gaze at him steadily.

“How much work are you prepared to put in?!”

“As much as it takes… I am not afraid to get my hands dirty.”

Nikto is enjoying this as much as you are; you can tell. His irises have that feral look ranging into view through the glacial colour. The tone of his rough voice has dropped down into the gravel that makes your knees feel weak and doughy.

“You know… I think I miss your hands the most, actually…”

He scoffs, balancing the phone against his knee so you get a glimpse of his burly chest stretching his compression gear.

“Not my tongue, milaya—especially when it utters such sweet words to you?!”

“What sweet words! Other than ‘water my potatoes’ or ‘fill the bird feeders once a day only or the squirrels will get fat’?!”

“Those are romantic. This shows I care for your environment.” Infuriatingly, he chuckles under his breath. “I care for you. I give you a beautiful home. I grow food for you with my hands. What more is there to romance than this?”

“True, but you can’t fool me, Andre,” you answer tartly, even as humour ricochets inside your lungs. “I know you have flowers and hearts in you somewhere.”

“You are fooled, little one—here you are believing I would not endure a thousand agonies for you, all because I do not make grand statements,” he points out gently, a wry smirk tugging the scar tissue on his cheek upwards. “Words I am not gifted with, I admit this. But I show you in other ways… no?”

“I couldn’t possibly say!” Stretching languorously, you focus on him.

“You cannot say? Do you forget how much you enjoy my cock milaya?”

“Andre!” A small flush of warmth trickles up your neck and hits your throat, making you gulp. Rapturous desire curls like thick smoke deep within your stomach.

The missing of him feels almost touchable in that instant: his broad shoulders, the taste of his mouth pressed against your own. You think you’d sell an organ, actually, to have him here, legs tangled together while that faint, spiced smell he wears permeates your bed sheets.

“You are shy on the telephone, mm?”

Nikto’s eyes are glittering, two bright shards of ice dangerously watching you from the glum dimness of his room. You could orbit those eyes, make them the centre of the universe in ways you haven’t yet.

“I think we are long past being coy—do you not?” He runs his tongue across the front of his teeth teasingly, knowing the effect that particular nonchalance has on you. “I am not fooled so easily as you are, milaya.”

“I’m not being coy!” Bashfully, you try and conceal the fact that your faux outrage was a front for the ill-disguised fire ignited in you at the thought of writhing underneath him night after night. “You just took me by surprise with your decidedly coarse words!”

He laughs—a true and honest thing. Something you adore the sound of, actually, rough and strangled as it sounds coming from his damaged voice box. It’s so familiar to you, and you like to imagine you’re the only person in the world that can coax that genuineness out of him, silly as that notion is.

“I am coarse and not fit for the civilised world you inhabit, little one. But still, I thank God every minute for allowing me the pleasure of coming home to you. Though I doubt he still listens to me.”

“God has nothing to do with it,” you snort. “Your sheer determination and skill with an electric drill were far more relevant.”

Nikto rasps out a chuckle again and you watch him tilt his head, trying to relieve the pressure on the damaged side of his face. As he does it, a purple handprint hones into view on his neck. A choke mark, violent against the already furious outlines of war on his skin.

“Rough night?” Your voice is wry, but inside, quiet fear starts to wrap its own tendrils around your heart. It’s so easy to forget he makes a fortune from death, and in doing so marks his own back with a target.

His pupils flicker, dilating slightly then losing focus. So often you get a sense he is leaving you for somewhere deeply agonising. It pulls at him, the memory of that place, always trying to tug his mind where his body no longer resides. Nikto coughs abruptly; his jaw twitches as if he’s holding back a rising tide. Then he relaxes, and the Andre you know has returned.

“Take off your shirt, da?” he murmurs hoarsely. “We have the best seats in the house for this show.”

“What’s in it for me?!”

You find he reacts best if you pretend you haven’t noticed it—the odd pause or jerk of his head like he’s silencing a voice irritating his ears. But you see everything, each small gesture and torment that still runs through him. Some days a trickling stream, and others a raging torrent.

“Nothing. Other than knowing that I ache for you, milaya. That I would take the moon and stars for you and hang them within our home if it pleases. That I would snatch the sun from the sky to warm your heart, no matter how much it burns me.”

Our home. Said so casually, almost an afterthought. But the weight of it may as well be concrete poured into your ears. The confirmation, even in a small way, that he views you as home. Frankly, you knew it already, sensed it within him like a small seedling about to rupture the soil and head towards the light. But it means everything. Andre means everything.

So you do it.

He lets out a deep, rumbling noise of pleasure at the sight. Your pliable flesh exposed to him on the grainy video link adds a strange sort of forbiddenness to the proceedings. You feel on show, nothing more than a delectable goodie displayed in a shop window for his appreciation.

“Good,” he rasps softly. “Now the skirt.”

Again, you follow his command as if your life depends on it, wriggling out of your clothes.

“Leave the panties,” Nikto barks suddenly, and your hands freeze, poised to roll down the waistband of your underwear. “They are only removed when they are soaked. When we can see through them, da?”

“Yes,” you huff, your fingers shaking a little while you lean the phone up against your pillows to give him the ideal view.

Nikto rests a cigarette at the corner of those crooked lips, while you sit placid and tame for him. You watch the lighter spark, the cherry burning brightest amber and then dull red while he takes a long drag.

“You are so good for us, milaya.” Huskily, his long dark lashes flutter at you, while his voice turns to thick gravel. “So good. When we are home, we bring the romance you are craving.”

“I don’t need romance. I just need you.”

He grins lopsidedly.

“You will have us, little one, and the romance. We have a proposal for you—one we would get on our knees and beg for acceptance of.”