#buckwild

“I could kick you; how dare you be so cute?” You pout, laying your head on his shoulder restfully.

He chuckles and continues to scroll through his phone, “it’s strange- I’m so used to Komori being the cute one.”

You roll your eyes and snicker, “you’re so full of it, and you know you are. You’ve always been the cute one, shut the hell up.”

“Handsome, maybe, but never cute-“

In an instant, he’s cute off by your hand immediately darting towards his face. Your fingers fly up at his mouth, trying to grip his teeth. It’s something you don’t do often because he can’t stand it, but it seems like today, you’re on a mission to be as close to him as possible.

“Ah!” He snaps, turning his head away. You retract your hand as he gives you a scolding look. Immediately, you feel bad that the impulsive thoughts won, and you made him so mad. “We talked about that. Don’t do that.”

“But-“

“No. Do. Not. Grab at my teeth.”

You pout softly at the reprimand in his tone, mumbling a soft ‘I’m sorry’ as you settle back down, your head dipping to hide in the crook of his neck. He lets out a sigh and plops his phone on the side table and shuffle a bit.

“You know I like your cute aggressions…. Except that one. Of all the things you do, that’s the one I can’t tolerate babe, you know that.”

“You’re just so pretty. I can’t help it.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” He says, absolutely teasing you and you giggle as you hide your face in his neck. “Is biting me not good enough? Is sniffing me until you can’t breathe not good enough now?” He interrupts his own preach by pecking kisses all over your cheek, holding you tighter as you start to squirm away. “Is coming into my shower not good enough now? Is dropping by extra desserts at practice not good enough? Is sucking hickeys on my cheeks not good enough?”)

You move your head away from his neck to giggle more and try to make an attempt away from his kisses, but this gives him real estate, and he decides to take it. He starts to give you a taste of your own medicine, biting at your cheek and ear and neck and fingers now pinching up your sides and ribs.

“Omi!”

“Is crawling into my lap while I’m on a zoom call not good enough? Is stealing my pillows from under my head when you’re sleeping not good enough? Is taking my clothes when you’re sick not good enough? Is picking. My nose. When I’m mad. NOT GOOD ENOUGH?”

Your struggles to get away from him are in vain, he’s got you gathered in his big arms, your head tossed back and feet kicking for a meek attempt at freedom. He peppers bites and kisses continuously on your neck, smiling against your skin as you scream and whine into the air.

“Are all these things so boring now and you have to grab my literal teeth?”

“Yes!” You titter, and while it does make him stop in surprise, he’s quick to smack the facade back on, pulling his head back to glare at you. You flash him some puppy eyes while you reach up to card the curls from his face, “I’m just obsessed with you… always need more ways to get under your skin.” You laugh as he sighs and leans his forehead against yours, clearly not caring half as much as he says, and taking gentle breaths against you. “I love bugging you.”

“Well, how could you not when you do such a good job?”

“I know right?” Once again, he lifts his head up to glare playfully at you, snickering as you continue to flash him the same innocent beam.

“Can you promise me you won’t grab my teeth anymore?” He asks, shifting a hand to lace with yours; he brings the knuckles of your hand up to kiss them, a way to show his affection and also, sort of, maybe, convince you to promise.

You sigh softly and let him kiss over your fingers, letting the comfortable silence between you both relish. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

He groans in faux agony, face crashing down to bury in your chest, and you cackle while he does, your arms tossing around his shoulders to keep him close.

“I hate you,” he grumbles.

“No you don’t. You eat this shit up and you know it.”

He sends a dirty look at you between his lashes before sighing and laying his head back down. “Don’t expose me.”

     Fiddleford shuffled off down the corridor—disappearing behind a door that clicked shut with surprising finality. Ford waited, listening to the muffled thunk of the security latch, the sigh of old plumbing. Only when silence settled did he pivot back toward the elevator, one hand already slipping the knot from his tie.

     The lobby bar occupied a shallow alcove off reception, lit by a row of amber sconces that cast slow-moving shadows across cut-glass decanters. Two businessmen argued about soybean futures near the far end; a flight attendant read a dog-eared mystery novel under a green-shaded lamp. Otherwise it was empty.

     Ford chose the center stool, unbuttoned his cuffs, and rested both forearms on the polished brass rail. When the drink came—a modest pour of blended scotch—and he surprised himself by asking for ice.

     The napkin arrived with it, slipped unconsciously beneath the glass by the bartender. Ford barely noticed at first. But as he took his first sip—peat, smoke, the ghost of vanilla—he reached for the pen in his jacket pocket and pulled the napkin close.

     By the second sip, he’d scrawled a pair of symbols—A tensor curve, then a correction term. Then another. His handwriting slanted with intensity, but it wasn’t legible to anyone but him. An idea had begun to form during the panel—half-seeded by Kratzer’s provocations, half-born from spite—and now it itched at the edges of his attention like a tick beneath the skin. Something to do with initial conditions, with multidimensional anchoring. The numbers were wrong, but the structure was close. He scratched one out, tried again.

     Condensation slid down the glass in pale ribbons, each drop seconds pulled loose from the evening—measured, irretrievable. Ford’s reflection hovered in the mirror behind the bar—hazy, doubled slightly in the curved glass. His face looked tired.

     Kratzer’s words threaded back through Ford’s mind with the sterile buzz of the panel lights, with Lorenz’s earnest pencil hovering over an unanswerable equation. Outside, a taxi splashed through a pothole; inside, an ice cube cracked, surrendering to warmth.

     The frontier lived inside equations, inside structures too small or too strange to see. And the men chasing them carried their maps in their heads—and their dangers deeper. You’ve changed. It echoed in his mind.

     Ford lifted the glass, let the chill kiss his lower lip, then drank. Another sip, slower this time.

     The lobby clock ticked like a distant metronome. Meltwater mapped tiny, impermanent deltas across the lacquered wood. Ford watched them converge, thinking of topologies that folded space, of frontiers that ran inward instead of outward, of doors that opened both ways and the costs inscribed in their frames.

     Ford set his glass down, hands steady now, and let the quiet drape over him like a lead apron—shielding some parts, illuminating others, the night’s arguments still orbiting his mind in slow, refractory arcs. With a heavy sigh he lifted his glasses and pressed the heel of his palm against his eye, attempting to soothe the tension before letting the frames fall back into his nose.

     He reached into his coat, fingers finding the soft crush of a half-spent pack. He shook a cigarette free and rested it between his lips, then paused—pockets turned out, thumb brushing uselessly against wool. No matches. A quiet, irritable exhale slipped from him.

     Then—an interruption—a scent. Something floral and resinous, like jasmine. Not cloying, but distinct. It arrived just ahead of the flash caught the edge of his vision—a bright splash against a muted canvas. He turned his head slightly, registering the smooth flick of a Zippo’s hinge, the quiet rasp of its wheel. A woman seated one stool down held the lighter toward him, eyebrows raised gently in silent invitation.

        “Need a light?”

     Her voice carried an undercurrent of amusement, as though she’d been waiting for precisely this mishap. Up close, she was built of warm browns and soft shadows: a tawny knit dress clung to narrow, sun-kissed shoulders; chestnut hair gathered behind one ear by a bronze clip; matte coffee-colored lipstick. Only the lighter—hot pink—broke the sepia harmony, like a neon sign in an old photograph.

     She couldn’t have been there more than a minute, but she seemed already established, as if she’d been quietly folded into the scene while Ford wasn’t looking. He leaned forward, cupping the cigarette carefully, the tip flaring orange.

     “Thank you,” he murmured, voice low, smoke tracing a thin helix past his eyes.

     She lit one for herself, the flare briefly painting a warm line along her cheekbone, the hollow of her throat. Ford’s eyes tracked the faint sunmarks on her skin—tan lines tracing over her shoulders and slipping downward, disappearing beneath the edge of her scoop neckline. For a beat he followed the trajectory—

    “You looked like you needed rescuing,” she said, snapping the Zippo closed with a metallic click.

     His eyes flicked up to hers. “Was it that obvious?” He smiled faintly.

     “Only to people who recognize the posture.” She angled a sidelong glance at the square napkin by his elbow, its surface crowded with half-legible symbols. “Let me guess: you were at that ‘clash of the minds’ panel the university keeps bragging about?”

        “One of the combatants, I’m afraid.”

     “A man who courts trouble, then.” Her tone was teasing, but her gaze had already dropped again—this time not to the napkin, but to the hand beside it. There was a fractional pause, subtle but unmistakable, as she registered the sixth finger curved along the napkin’s edge.

     Ford saw it. Her eyes didn’t widen. She didn’t flinch. Just adjusted, recalibrated.

     “And an intelligent one, at that,” she added smoothly, nodding toward the equations. “So what do all those little numbers and…whatnot add up to?”

     Ford chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “I can’t tell you—it’s classified.”

     Her lips curved into a wry, interested smile. “Well. Smart, mysterious and important.”

        “That depends entirely on who you ask.”

     A soft laugh escaped her. “Don’t worry—I won’t blow your cover.”

     Ford tilted his head, finally indulging in a longer look. She met it easily.

     “And you? What brings you to this quasi-purgatory at—” he glanced at the dark window, “—quarter past ten?”

      “Consulting gig. The university hired my firm to explain why their donor network keeps leaking money into voids.” She rolled the words like dice, casual. “Tonight was the donor mixer—lukewarm jazz, tepid Chardonnay,” She glanced down at the clingy dress, as if remembering it was on her body. “Hence the uniform.”

     For a moment neither spoke. The room felt thinner with every tick of the wall clock—thinner and somehow more legible, as if the sparse air could now hold the shapes of thoughts too crowded for the lecture hall.

     Ford glanced down at the napkin, thumb lingering over a half-finished integral that trailed into nothing. Subsurface access, Ricci flow, Calabi–Yau. Ideas that had felt incendiary under stage lights now looked strangely innocent in ballpoint ink. 

     When he looked up again, she was watching him—as if that silence were the most revealing datum in sight.

     “I’m Dottie, by the way,” she offered, her voice quiet but easy, testing the sound of her name against the muted hum of the room.

        “Stanford.”

     She raised an eyebrow, cigarette halfway to her lips. “Like the university?”

     He smiled faintly, something complicated flickering behind his eyes—irony, maybe, or nostalgia. “Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.”

     At the far end of the bar, the bartender moved silently, sweeping the suits’ emptied glasses into a neat row, the clink of crystal gentle. A single rag passed over the surface, erasing the traces of conversation and half-forgotten ambition. He topped off their drinks without being asked and slid Ford’s back to him with a brief, knowing look.

     Dottie’s voice brought him back. “So,” she said lightly, “are you going to tell me?”

        He blinked. “Tell you what?”

           “The story behind the name.”

     Ford hesitated, then shook his head, the motion slight, rueful. “It’s a long one,”

     She sipped thoughtfully, studying him over the edge of her glass. “I have patience for almost anything,” she said, “if the story’s good.”

     He felt the smile form before he knew it was coming—

        “That’s a dangerous offer.” he said.

           “I’m a dangerous girl,” she said.

     Ford took another sip, the scotch colder now, softened by melt. He crunched absently on a few slivers of ice, then spoke without quite meaning to. “You don’t talk like a business consultant,” he said, the words catching at the edge of a grin.

     “Thank God,” she answered. “I do the paperwork so they don’t have to.” Then, with a sly tilt: “…I figured if I had to be bored, I might as well be overdressed.”

     His eyes moved over her again—longer now, the scotch loosening whatever impulse usually steered him toward caution; it lingered on the freckled sweep of her clavicle, then lower, a breath longer than polite. “Well. Mission accomplished.”

     “But when the networking started I stepped out for a smoke and just… made a break for it.” She gave a small shrug. “A bit notorious for the old Irish goodbye.”

     “We have that in common,” Ford said, taking a drag.

     She smiled gently, lifting her glass a fraction higher. “Here’s to the losers, then.”

     He met her gaze steadily, smile softening at the edges. “To the losers.”

     Their glasses touched—softly, a private little sound.

     The silence that followed was warm and deliberate, not empty but occupied. A current passed between them. Not electricity—something slower. Like heat moving through metal. Their eyes lingered, neither of them moving to speak, the moment lengthening into something else.

     Inside him, Bill remained quiet. He said nothing, no amused barbs, no sharp warnings—yet his silence was somehow more potent, louder in its deliberate observation. Ford could feel Bill’s attention sharpening, coiled in the base of his spine, observing through the same eyes, through the same bloodstream. Watching how long Ford let the gaze hold. Watching what he didn’t say.

     Ford blinked first, deliberately, breaking the eye contact—an act of gentle retreat. 

     And somewhere beneath the placid hum of the room, behind the dull echo of melting ice and cigarettes slowly burning down, the atmosphere began subtly shifting—as if the space itself were now witness, gathering evidence, remembering precisely what had just passed between them.

     After another moment, Dottie set her glass down softly and stubbed the last inch of her cigarette into the glass ashtray, the ember dying with a soft hiss. She glanced toward the lobby, a subtle shift in posture signaling departure. Ford sensed it before she said it, a quiet reshuffling of the evening’s tone, a signal of something drawing reluctantly to an end.

     “I should probably turn in,” she murmured, sliding off the barstool. “I have to be up pretty early.” She slipped the leather check folder from beneath her empty glass and tugged a pen from her clutch. A pause. Then, without fanfare, she flipped the receipt over and scrawled something on the back—her handwriting looping and slanted, a name, then a number, nothing coy.

     “I don’t usually do this,” she murmured, sliding it toward him with two fingers, her touch light on the paper. “But you don’t talk like a man who stays in one place long.”

        The paper came to rest beside his hand.

     He stared at it. Just ink and pulp. Yet it glowed with a kind of static promise—alive, slightly dangerous. An invitation etched into cellulose.

        His hand twitched toward it.

     —And then suddenly, abruptly, it wasn’t his hand at all; everything inside him shifted.

     A static snap behind his eyes. The faintest roll of vertigo, like stepping off a curb you hadn’t seen. Fingers that a moment ago answered to hesitation now moved with crisp certainty: they snatched the receipt, crumpled it into a compact sphere. Before he could even register what was happening, his hand rose sharply to his mouth. He felt his lips part, felt the crumpled paper slide past his teeth, dry and rough. Paper crackled against molars. The taste it bloomed metallic on the heat of his tongue. 

     He swallowed, chasing it with the last mouthful of scotch; the liquor burned a clean path to his stomach.

     The room seemed to dim slightly around him, or perhaps it was his pulse roaring gently behind his ears. Inside him, he felt the echo of Bill’s amusement ripple darkly through his chest—satisfied and dangerously smug.

     Dottie had frozen, eyes wide, smile faltering into startled confusion. Her fingers hovered uncertainly over the clasp of her purse, eyebrows drawn together in a faint question that hung unanswered between them.

     She let out an awkward, uncertain laugh—soft and startled. “I’ve… never seen anyone do that before.”

     Ford sat rigid, breath trapped in his chest, aware of the absurdity of the moment yet powerless to explain. Her expression had already shifted, amusement turning guarded, her eyes searching his face, looking for something he couldn’t offer. Her mouth curved into a hesitant, bemused half-smile. 

     “See ya around, professor,” she said finally, voice gentle but touched with cautious wariness. And with that, she turned—perhaps a shade too quickly. Her heels clicked once, twice, then disappeared into the hush of the carpeted corridor.

        Silence.

     Inside, Bill uncoiled—wordless, satisfied, retreating with the same feline grace he’d used to seize control. Ford’s hand tingled where it rested on the bar, muscles still humming from borrowed voltage. He stared at the empty glass, pulse ticking at his throat, the warm trace of charred paper lingering in the back of his mouth.

     Bill said nothing. He didn’t need to. The silence between them was as dense as a collapsed star: small, invisible, inescapably massive.

     Ford sat perfectly still. His body his again. But his throat still ached.

     He stared straight ahead, lips slightly parted, waiting for an explanation that never came.

—

     The moment Ford’s eyelids slid shut, the hotel room tilted—first a slow cant to starboard, then a full, disorienting roll. The bedside lamp bled amber across the walls, and in its wake the corners warped into an ox blood velvet, pleating downward in heavy drapes that swallowed every straight line the room once possessed. Where bland drywall had hung, mirrors sprouted—tall, mismatched panes framed in gilt and tarnish—multiplying reflections until Ford’s silhouette was scattered like stars around him. A candle guttered to life in each duplicate room, refracting so many flames it felt as if the oxygen were vanishing one match-head at a time.

     Through the tunnels of shifting fabric and low light, a voice stirred the shadows. Bill’s voice—softly edged with cruelty, more dangerous for its deceptive gentleness, rich with theatrical sympathy:

        “Bad night, Sixer?”

     Ford’s jaw tightened. “You know exactly how my night was,” he said, pushing deeper into the maze. Curtains brushed his shoulders with an oily softness; Every so often, a mirror caught a glimpse of Bill—a flicker of gold, a blurred smile, always vanishing before Ford could pin him down.

     “What the hell is the matter with you?” Ford barked, dragging back a curtain. Behind it: another row of mirrors, and in each one, his face scowled back in triplicate. “Why did you make me do that?”

        “What? You didn’t enjoy the dietary fiber?”

     Ford yanked another curtain back. Behind it—more mirrors, more red-gloom recursion. A hundred faces flushed in candlelight, all of them angry. All of them his own.

     “I didn’t enjoy swallowing a wad of thermal paper, no.”

        “You’ll live,”

     Another flicker of movement—Bill’s reflection again, trailing fingertips along the edge of a frame, but never standing still long enough to anchor.

     “We could have had a lovely night,” Bill mused, circling unseen. “A little scotch, a little lucid dreaming, the two of us doing what we do best. But—” a pause, a bitter tilt of tone— “instead, you chose cozying up to little Miss Blush and Bounce.”

     Ford huffed out a laugh, incredulous. “Come on. I can’t make a friend?”

        “Oh, she wanted to be friends, alright.”

     “She was nice,” Ford countered, trying for evenness. “We were just talking.”

     “You liked her perfume,” Bill replied with silken bitterness. “And you looked at her tits twice.”

     Ford flushed, his cheeks burning in every mirror at once. He sputtered. “I—well, her perfume smelled good—”

        “You’re a pig, Stanford.”

     “Oh, alright—” Ford snapped, exasperation boiling through. “Look, I’m a hot-blooded mammal. You’re literally in my head, Bill—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You get a front-row seat to every harmless, passing thought. I can’t help it—”

     Bill’s laugh cut through the air, sharp and brittle. “Passing thought? Please. If she’d invited you upstairs to ‘review her spreadsheets,’ you’d have followed like a dog.”

     Ford’s voice quieted suddenly, realization breaking through the haze of frustration. “…Are you jealous?”

     The silence that followed was dangerous, deliberate. Bill didn’t answer at first, letting the pause stretch painfully.

     Then finally, dismissively: “Jealous? Don’t flatter yourself—”

     Ford planted his feet. “You’re totally jealous,” he repeated, incredulous and triumphant.

     He pressed deeper into the labyrinth, breath threading in shallow pulls, every curtain a fresh provocation. Bill’s silhouette flashed and vanished, always a step ahead: a gleam of gold heel, the glint of a single eye in a gilded frame.

     “It’s a perfectly normal emotion, Bill,” he said, voice teasing now, coaxing. “It won’t kill you to admit it.”

        “Normal for you, maybe.”

     The reply came from behind him, then above, then directly beneath his feet—skating across the mirrored surfaces in a Doppler whine of distortion.

     “I,” Bill said, “am not subject to carbon-based insecurities. I am an eternal concept.”

     Ford huffed with a smile. “Well, your eternalness—pouting is very unbecoming of a god. Cute, though.”

     That earned him silence—but not the smug kind. Then, a breath caught—sharp, involuntary. Embarrassment. Ford’s mouth curved. He tracked the sound—right, left—the velvet rustled. He seized the nearest curtain and yanked.

     There—lit by a corona of candleflame—stood Bill.

     Not the mercurial, androgynous trickster Ford knew, but a figure wholly, unmistakably, provocatively female. The usual balanced geometry of Bill’s form had tipped into lush conviction: a knit dress—identical to Dottie’s—clung to Bill’s new architecture of curves. Rounder hips, narrower waist, fuller breasts, filling ribbed fabric that seemed one breath away from surrender. Thighs strong, legs long, the hem ending just high enough to weaponize doubt. He’d always been pretty, but now he was…absurdly so.

     Bill folded his softer arms beneath that newly generous anatomy in a gesture equal parts defiance and display. “What were you saying about ‘harmless’ thoughts again?” The sneer curled his lips—glossy lips, as if painted on strictly for spite. “Seems your subconscious filed a request form while you weren’t looking.”

     Ford’s mouth opened, closed, then hung open again. He stared—helplessly. 

     Bill cocked a hip, enjoying the hesitation, but a faint pink tinted the apples of his cheeks.

     Heat crawled up Ford’s neck, words jumbled at the back of his throat—astonishment, apology, dread, then desire—until all that made it past his lips was a brittle whisper:

        “…Oy vey.”

     “Close your mouth, Sixer,” Bill murmured, trying for hauteur but landing nearer to vulnerable.

         Ford did not close his mouth.

           He couldn’t.

     Because in that wobbling heart-beat he saw, beneath the bravado, the simple face of Bill’s jealousy made flesh—an unspoken plea hidden inside all that mockery: Look at me.

        And Ford—scientist, sinner, fool—looked.

     Bill’s blush deepened the moment Ford’s eyes dipped again, and he tried—failed—to mask it with a snarky expression.

     “Well, look at you,” he said, aiming for sardonic and landing somewhere closer to flustered. “Swinging a new direction now, smart guy?”

     Ford’s pulse kicked up, giddy beneath his ribs. The smile that caught on his mouth was boyish, unguarded—almost naïve in its delight. He stepped closer, gaze trailing openly along the new lines of Bill’s form, drinking him in with the reverence of a man trying to memorize.

     “New?” he murmured, the word low and amused. “No…”

     His eyes roamed with no hesitation, took at step forward, then spoke again: “You know how much I love German chocolate cake?”

     Bill blinked, brow furrowing in disbelief. “It’s only your favorite dessert,” he said slowly. “Stranded on a desert island, it’s what you’d take.” He added, something clearly recited. He took a cautious step backward—The mirrored wall behind him quivered with each movement, refracting the scene in fractured panes: Ford advancing, focused, Bill retreating, flushed. 

     Ford kept speaking, gaze pinned like a compass needle. “Yeah… but that doesn’t mean I never crave, say…” He shrugged, the gesture loose, but his focus never wavered. “a black-and-white cookie from time to time.”

     He paused barely a breath away. “Sometimes you spot one in the deli case, and it just looks…irresistible. And suddenly, it’s all you want.”

     Bill’s shoulders brushed the glass; reflections rippled outward like rings in a pond. He swallowed—the first time Ford could recall seeing him do so. “You always did have a sweet tooth.”

     Ford’s hands stayed at his sides, fingers flexing against empty air as if they still weren’t sure they were allowed to touch. “Can I see…?”

        “Ford—“

           “C’mon.” His voice was gentle. “Please?”

     There was a pause—longer than the others. Bill stood there, poised and breathing, skin prickled with awareness beneath the tawny fabric. His posture was proud, but it trembled at the edges, as if unsure whether this was triumph or trap.

        He exhaled, slow.

     Then leaned back just slightly—arms loosening, hands lowering from where they’d crossed protectively over his chest. A nod. Tiny. But unmistakable.

        Permission.

     Ford’s fingers slipped higher, slow but sure, tracing the seam of the dress up and over Bill’s sides. The fabric yielded under his touch, gathering in soft bunches as he slid his hands along the newly drawn terrain. His knuckles brushed bare skin—warm, impossibly soft. Bill didn’t flinch. Didn’t move.

     He held Ford’s gaze instead, eyes flickering with something unreadable—daring, maybe. Or bracing.

     Then, with a slow, deliberate tug, Ford eased the dress down.

     The knit surrendered—quietly, obediently—bunching beneath his fingers as he guided it past the threshold of Bill’s chest. The fabric folded away like the edge of a secret.

        And there they were.

     Two full breasts—high, perky, the skin warm with the faintest sheen. And just visible across their curves, as if memory had imprinted itself on flesh; tan lines, Pale bands of skin marked by time, by light. The sight snagged something deep in Ford’s gut, a slow throb of fascination.

     He didn’t know why he found it so hot, he just did.

     The contrast—the delicacy of it, the specificity—The pink of Bill’s nipples stood out against the lighter skin, tight and flushed, pulled into hard little peaks by the air or anticipation.

     They were… beautiful, if he was honest. Not just anatomically compelling, but charged with the unbearable knowledge that they were Bill’s.

        He felt heat spark on the back of his tongue.

     “Can I…” His voice cracked slightly. He swallowed, eyes pinned to the soft rise and fall of Bill’s breath. “Can I suck on them?”

     Bill’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture drew taut. “Knock yourself out,” he said, tonelessly. But his pupil was blown wide.

        Ford didn’t wait for a second invitation.

     He reached out—both hands closing over firm, generous flesh, thumbs brushing across sensitive skin that yielded instantly to touch. His lips closed around one perfect nipple, and Bill’s body jolted enough for Ford to feel it.

     The mirror behind them multiplied it, a hundred versions of the same act repeating at different angles. And all around them, the candles flickered harder—wax trembling in the heat.

     Ford’s mouth moved slowly, attentively—tongue flicking, lips sealing, teeth grazing just enough to make Bill gasp once through clenched teeth. The sound was half-shocked, half-pleased. Ford didn’t stop. If anything, he doubled down, working with a kind of fervent curiosity. There was something thrilling about the way Bill’s body reacted under his touch.

        And react it did.

     The soft hitch in Bill’s breath. The way his chest arched just slightly into Ford’s mouth. The flush that deepened across his collarbones, despite all the bluster, the armor of sarcasm, and the godly posturing.

     Bill’s hands—when they finally moved—slid into Ford’s hair, fingers curling at the roots, anchoring them both in this strange, flickering moment.

     Ford’s hands roamed with growing confidence, mapping unfamiliar territory. One hand curved over the small of Bill’s back, the other drifted lower—past his waist, down the flat of his belly, then back again. There was a new softness there, a subtle swell just above the pelvis. Ford rubbed it once—then again—pressing slightly, fingers spreading wide across the gentle rise.

        His hand paused.

           Rubbed again, slower now.

                There was something there.

     The shape of it. The density. The way it seemed to center Bill’s whole frame.

     Ford’s brow furrowed, but his mouth didn’t stop. Not yet—he was far too content with his face nestled between Bill’s tits.

     His hand continued, brushing lower now, searching without urgency, without assumption.

         And that’s when he felt it.

           Or more precisely—didn’t.

     No heat of arousal building the way he expected. Where there should have been something firm, there was only warmth, softness, and tension. A different kind of pulse altogether.

        Ford froze.

        “…Bill?” Ford asked, his voice low, tentative.

     Bill’s eyes opened halfway, heavy with pleasure but alert now.

     Ford tilted his head, thumb absently tracing a soft curve above the belly, just where the dress had begun to ride up. He spoke again, not accusing, not even surprised—just fascinated.

     “Bill…” A blink, then a breathless realization. “Do you… have a pussy right now?”

     The silence that followed was thick, not with shame but with expectation. The mirrored room held its breath.

        For a moment, Bill didn’t speak.

     His body did—tense under Ford’s touch, chest rising faster now, jaw tight. His silence wasn’t indifferent, and it wasn’t amused. It hung there—loaded—like a glittering key suspended just out of reach. A pause so long it answered the question.

     Ford’s eyes darkened, pupils wide and greedy. His breath caught—then spilled out in a low, reverent rasp.

        “Can I taste it?” he asked, already sinking into his knees. “Pretty please?”

     Bill scoffed, but it came too quickly, too brittle to land with real bite. “The cock was more straightforward,” he said, feigning dismissal. “This model feels…complicated.”

     “Don’t worry, Bill,” Ford murmured, his fingers running up Bill’s thighs just past the hem. “I’m a doctor.”

—

     Ford had lost track of how long he’d been kneeling—his face buried between Bill’s thighs. He had one leg hooked over his shoulder while the other braced against the ground beside him, trembling, toes curled against the tile. 

     He wasn’t counting anymore. Not the gasps. Not the moans. Not the number of times Bill’s body spasmed in waves—high, sharp crests of sound and slick heat rolling into him. The only thing Ford could focus on was the speed and shape of his tongue, pressing and shifting, adjusting with each tensing of Bill’s thighs, eager to coax the next one out of him.

     Two fingers were already buried inside—his middle and first ring, pressing upward with relentless pressure, curling just so, exactly how Bill needed. The other three fingers dragged along the flushed, swollen skin surrounding the entrance, spreading slickness, soothing tension. It was everywhere—on his fingers, pooling in his palm, painting his wrist in a feverish sheen.

        And Bill was wrecked.

     Head tipped back against the mirror-glass wall, lips parted, flushed from throat to cheekbone, his body caught in some exquisite stutter of tension and release. He had a vice grip on Ford’s hair. His thighs trembled where they framed Ford’s head, muscles twitching each time Ford curled his fingers just right—right there.

     Ford had been working this one up for a while now.

     And Bill’s pleasure was visible—thick and dripping, coating Ford’s jaw, running in warm trails down his throat, soaking into the collar of his shirt. But Ford didn’t pull back. Couldn’t. His hunger was endless. His mouth pressed harder, tongue moving in tight, eager strokes that bordered on obsessive.

     The third finger slid in without resistance, slick and seamless.

        Bill whimpered, his voice cracked like glass.

     “F-Fordsy—” he gasped. “I feel like I’m gonna burst—”

     Ford moaned again, the sound deep and pleased, almost proud, his tongue pressing harder, slower. His fingers curled and released in rhythm, stroking that sweet, soft place that made stars burst behind Bill’s eyelids. He didn’t let up. Not for a second.

     And Bill—shaking, sweating, soaked—could only hold on.

     Ford groaned against him, deep and guttural, the vibration rolling through Bill’s entire frame. His tongue pressed harder, lips sealed to swollen flesh like he could drink him down to the last drop.

     “Sixer… I’m gonna come again—”

     Bill’s voice was high and shivering, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. His hips bucked hard against Ford’s hand, grinding down onto those relentless fingers as another wave surged loose—hot and thick—spilling across Ford’s tongue; still he didn’t slow.

      Ford pulled his fingers free and dove back in with his mouth—his tongue sweeping eagerly over Bill’s quivering hole—insatiable, desperate for every trace of him. He moaned at the taste, the slick warmth, the way Bill’s whole body clenched and trembled around the drag of his tongue.

     He latched back onto Bill’s clit, sealing his lips around it and sucked with single-minded intensity. The sound Bill made was raw—half-sob, half-moan—and his leg jerked where it hung around Ford’s shoulder, 

        Bill was shaking. Overstimulated. Wide open.

           And still, Ford devoured him.

               Until—

     “Stop—” Bill gasped, pressing his palm to Ford’s forehead and pushing back, not harshly, but with the panic of a body nearing its threshold. “You’ve—made your point,” he panted, barely able to breathe. “I can’t—take it anymore.”

     Ford finally lifted his head, mouth slick and glistening, breath coming in hot, heavy bursts. His eyes dark and wild.

     Then, panting, voice hoarse with desire, he asked:

        “Can I get you pregnant?”

           Bill froze.

     It was impossible to tell if the question was a joke, a challenge, or a request. It hung there, heavy and absurd and terrifyingly erotic.

     Bill’s lips parted, his face flushed, hair stuck to his temples in damp strands. His chest heaved.

      “I don’t know,” he said, voice caught between disbelief and something softer. His eyes met Ford’s—shining, dazed.

     Ford rose, muscles stiff from kneeling, thighs aching with exertion—but the strain barely registered. He was drunk—devastated—on heat, on taste, on the look Bill gave him. He pulled him upright into a kiss—deep and consuming, like he meant to drink the sound out of his lungs.

        Bill melted into it.

     His limbs went soft, sagging into Ford’s hold as if every nerve had burned itself out. His hands clung feebly to Ford’s shoulders—fingertips scrabbling for purchase.

     Without a word, Ford turned the corner of the room—carrying Bill with him, and the dream shifted with them. 

     A bed emerged from the mirrored, velvet haze. Large, low, impossibly plush, its sheets the color of candlelight, creased as if they’d already been slept in. He guided Bill toward it, still kissing him, and pushed him gently down onto the mattress. The fabric pooled beneath Bill’s spine like liquid.

     Then, Ford manhandled him with careful urgency—one hand beneath his hips, the other bracing his thigh as he rolled him over, lifting Bill’s lower half into the air. 

        Ford exhaled harshly through his nose.

     God, he thought, dizzy with want. Just look at him.

     His back gleamed with sweat, his pillowy thighs trembling where they framed that slick, swollen cunt—the inner folds flushed and glistening where Ford had already wrecked him. His hole twitched, still pulsing from the last orgasm, clenching around nothing.

        It was obscene. It was perfect.

     Ford dropped to his knees again, sliding his hands up the back of Bill’s thighs, thumbs spreading him open.

     “Please,” Ford muttered, voice hoarse. “Just a little more.”

     He leaned in and dragged his tongue across Bill’s asshole—slow and deliberate, tracing the ring of muscle with maddening care. Bill jolted, gasping so hard his whole body snapped forward, face burying into the mattress, arms useless at his sides.

        Ford kept going.

      His hand moved with purpose—his middle finger sliding between Bill’s lips while his tongue toyed with him. Bill moaned and Ford’s finger was greedily welcomed, drawn in by Bill’s arousal. Ford accepted the invitation, pushed deep, then curled down.

     The thumb on that same hand swept upward, finding Bill’s pulsing clit with unerring precision, circling it in deliberate passes. Then he pressed—gently at first, then firmly—Until his fingertip and thumb seemed to reach toward each other through the trembling walls of Bill’s body.

     Bill cried out, loud and shattering—his hips jerking, legs twitching, hands clutching fistfuls of bedsheet. The moans spilled loose, uncontainable: half-sobs, half-gasps, all raw pleasure. His cheek dragged against the pillow. Drool smeared across the linen. His eyes rolled, lids fluttering with every tremor. “F-Fordsy—” he babbled. “Ford—Fuck!”

     Bill came with a sudden, overwhelming gush—hot liquid dripping down Ford’s hand, soaking the sheets beneath him. His body convulsed in waves, drawn tight and snapping loose in stuttering pulses that left him shaking and breathless.

        Ford just worked him through it.

            Bill let out a weak, delirious noise—

     “Fuck, is this thing bulletproof?” he rasped, limp and glittering with sweat.

        Ford didn’t bother with finesse.

     His fingers trembled as they fumbled with his belt, the metal buckle clinking in the hush like a warning bell. Then the zipper—rushed, clumsy. He didn’t undress. Didn’t even loosen his tie. He just yanked his waistband down enough to free himself—letting his cock fall heavy into his palm. The cool air hit his skin, but it did nothing to dull the heat rolling off him.

     He leaned forward, one hand braced on the mattress, and let the head of his cock tap lightly against Bill’s pussy—once, twice—just to hear the sound. A soft, wet slap that sent something sparking up his spine.

     Ford spat into his hand—reflex, habit—and rubbed himself once before guiding the head down, dragging it between the soft folds, finding that perfect place where heat met heat.

        The stretch was sudden. Consuming.

     It felt new—silky, pulsing, impossibly warm—but somehow still Bill. Not in spite of the body, but because of it. Like the form had changed, but the soul inside it still met his exactly where it always had.

     Ford groaned through gritted teeth, hips flexing forward as he sank deeper, deeper still. His hands clamped down on Bill’s hips, bruising with the grip, dragging him back slowly to meet each inch until he was fully sheathed in that impossible warmth.

     Bill whimpered, biting his lower lip, his thighs trembling on either side of Ford’s hips.

     “Fuck, Fordsy—” Bill moaned, back arching as his fingers clawed at the sheets. “You barely fit—”

     Ford started to move—just a little, rocking into him, shallow at first, then deeper. Wet sounds and the gruff rumble of Ford’s voice filled the space, amplified by the walls of mirrors surrounding them. A hundred versions of them, rippling across the glass: Ford’s jaw clenched, shirt wrinkled over his belly, tie dangling as he fucked Bill from behind. 

        Each time he bottomed out, he felt it.

     That gentle resistance, soft but certain—like a threshold curled around the tip of him, a secret held just above the swell of his cock, waiting.

     And the thought—that thought—lodged itself in his brain like a thorn:

        There’s a uterus inside him.

           Right there.

     His hand slid down again, over Bill’s stomach, pressing against that tender swell just above the apex of their union. It was warm. Alive. His.

                I could fill it

     The wrongness of it—the anatomical impossibility, the unholy violation of biology and physics and sense—only made it more alluring. Like the laws of the universe had folded in on themselves just for them.

     He groaned aloud, a low, animal sound, hips slamming harder into Bill’s body.

     “Gonna fill this pussy up,” he muttered, not even meaning to say it—just letting the need spill loose, feral and unfiltered. “—gonna fuck it full.”

     Bill whimpered beneath him, eyes glassy, cheek smushed against the sheets, hair clinging to his damp forehead. He was gasping, mewling, his whole body rocking from the force of Ford’s thrusts—but behind the haze, his grin curled sharp.

        “You wanna play house, Sixer?”

      Ford’s teeth bared. “Yeah.”

        “You wanna be the daddy?”

     “Yeah…” His voice cracked. The word hit something in him and rang like a bell. “Yeah.”

     Bill’s hands clawed the sheets, dragging the fabric into knots. His back arched, shameless and trembling.

     “Then come on, daddy,” he goaded, filthy and desperate. “fuck me like it.”

     He gripped Bill’s hips, bruising tight, and dragged him back into each brutal thrust—slamming forward with frantic, punishing rhythm, their bodies meeting in wet, echoing claps. His head dropped to Bill’s shoulder, teeth bared, mouth open, panting like an animal.

     “You wanna have my babies?” he growled, voice guttural, desperate. His hand cracked against Bill’s ass, “Huh? You wanna raise my fucking kids?”

        “Yes, daddy—yes!”

           Ford’s brain blanked.

      He hauled Bill upright, locking an arm around his waist, his other hand grabbing one of his tits. Every drive of hips dragged moans from both their throats, their bodies frantically snapping together—again, again, again.

     His other hand splayed wide over Bill’s belly, like he could summon something into being—a loophole in the seed of creation.

        And still—Ford chased it.

     That image looped in his mind like a liturgy. Not fantasy. Not kink.

        A belief.

Bill, full.

Bill, bred.

Bill, swollen with something he gave him.

     It didn’t strike his mind—it struck something older. Something buried beneath language. A thrum so deep it bypassed cognition entirely, rewiring instinct into need. Into obsession.

        It was madness.

     But in this room—this mirrored sanctum, this candlelit altar—it felt like fate.

        Beneath him, Bill was coming apart.

     He trembled violently, back arched, head falling hard against Ford’s shoulder. His fingers searched for Ford’s and found them—clutched them, clung to them like anchors.

         Each breath was a fractured sob.

           His voice split open:

     “Give it to me, Six—I want it—want it so bad—oh, oh!”

     It was sudden and seismic—his whole body locking tight, then convulsing around Ford’s cock like he was trying to pull him in even deeper, to hold him there, make him stay. The squeeze was unbearable—tight, wet, perfect—and it ripped a raw, primal sound from Ford’s chest.

        He couldn’t hold back.

     Orgasm slammed into him like a white-hot detonation—collapsing every muscle into the single act of giving. His hips snapped forward in one final, brutal thrust, burying himself as deep as he could go.

            He came hard.

         So hard it made him tremble.

     So hard it felt like a piece of himself had been yanked out and left inside the core of Bill’s body.

     He groaned against the damp slope of Bill’s shoulder, his forehead pressed to skin, breath ragged and hot. His arms refused to let go—gripping Bill like he was the only fixed point left in every universe—because to him he was.

        Pulse after pulse, he spilled into him.

     And all around them, the mirrors watched—fragments of the same union played again and again, infinite angles of drive and ruin. A thousand versions of Ford burying himself in the only thing that had ever pulled this kind of madness out of him. Who had met it, matched it, wanted it—written across dimensions in silver and time.

     Ford shivered, still inside, breath catching on a moan he didn’t have the strength to finish.

     And then—without thinking, without pretense—Ford gripped Bill’s jaw, turned his head and kissed him.

     Bill responded in kind—lips parting easily, letting Ford in, his fingers curling gently into Ford’s damp curls. He tasted sweat and salt and the ghost of his own voice, still ringing in his throat. 

     They kissed again—sloppier now, but sweeter. Their noses bumped. Their lips dragged, soft and lazy, as their bodies tilted and collapsed to the side. The edge was gone. Only warmth remained.

     Their breaths mingled, rough and uneven—tongues flicking together not with desire but with fondness. Bill made a low sound—neither a moan nor a word. Just a soft, shuddering exhale. His legs were still twitching, the occasional tremor rippling through him. He shifted and Ford slid out of him with a wet, aching drag.

     They both gasped.

     Ford leaned in and pressed a kiss to Bill’s shoulder. Then another, higher—closer to the neck. Bill turned in his arms, sluggish, limbs loose.

        Ford’s lips brushed against his.

           “Hey,”

     Bill cracked one eye open. His smirk was faint but flickering.

           “…Hm?”

        Ford’s thumb stroked the back of his neck.

     “You don’t have to pull stunts,” he said softly. “Or pick fights. Or change your body.”

        A beat.

           “I’m not going anywhere.”

     Bill’s gaze dropped, then lifted again. The smirk sharpened just a little—more habit. “What,” he muttered, “you don’t like the new hardware?”

     Ford let out a soft, breathless huff against his cheek. “Obviously I like it,” he said, thumb grazing along the edge of Bill’s jaw. “But that’s got more to do with you.”

        That gave Bill pause.

           That landed differently.

     The flicker of wit on Bill’s face faltered—caught mid-step, as if waiting for the punchline. But no quip came. No scoff, no sly jab. Just a blink. A faint furrow between his brows, like he couldn’t quite locate the angle.

        Ford didn’t look away.

     Bill’s smile returned, gentler now. He shrugged a shoulder, trying to reassemble his usual deflective ease. “It’s all based on your subconscious desires and—”

     Ford slid his hand down Bill’s arm, calming. “You get a say too,” he said simply.

        Bill stilled.

           So Ford kept going.

     “I don’t pick the fancy clothes you wear,” he said gently. “But I like them.”

     He twirled a silvery lock of hair around his finger, letting it slip slowly through the curl of his knuckle. “I like when you do things your way. When it’s not about me. Because…”

     He searched for the shape of the thought, then let it land:

        “I like watching you… figure out who you are.”

     Something in Bill’s face shifted at that—some hesitation, some fracture of belief. He looked stunned, almost. Caught in a moment he didn’t know how to deflect.

        Ford only looked at him.

And then pulled him close, gathering him against his chest, sheltering him in the circle of his arms.

     “Whatever form you take,” Ford murmured, lips grazing the shell of Bill’s ear, “whatever makes you feel… happy. That’s what I want.”

     His hand spreading warm across the center of Bill’s back, anchoring him with his touch.

        There was pause. Then:

     “…Don’t be mad at me,” Bill whispered, almost childishly.

        Ford shifted slightly. “What?”

     Bill’s gaze flicked downward. “It’s just—before we, y’know… resolved all this,” he muttered, gesturing vaguely at the bedsheets and their slick, spent bodies, “I was kinda…driving.”

        Ford arched a brow. “Possessing me?”

     “Yes, but I was upset!” Bill blurted, instantly defensive. “You shouldn’t have been talking to her, Fordsy—”

    “Bill,” Ford cut in, stern and tired. “Where am I right now?”

        Bill hesitated.

           Ford waited.

     Then, slowly, Bill squinted—like trying to read fine print on a soggy receipt. “Okay, hypothetical question: how important is it for you to be buried in a Jewish cemetery?”

        “Bill.”

           Silence. A beat, then another.

     Bill let out a tiny, guilty cough—mumbling something illegibly.

        “Where?”

           Bill huffed, jaw tight, and repeated it aloud:

   “Tattoo parlor.”

[Previous Chapter][Next Chapter]

[Read Entire Work Here]