#chews-erotically

      Your new lives together began as a languid chapter of existing slowly, of lazing like cats. You often stayed in your bed, at times going hours exchanging soft words and insistent touches. You stayed unclothed for days on end, only donning a robe to accept the occasional delivery. You drank wine and ate fruit and cheese and read to each other from the books you’d begun amassing. It was heaven, bacchanalian. 

    Ezra would sometimes come up behind you at the kitchen counter and press against your back wordlessly, his arousal begging entry. You’d sigh, tilting your head back onto his shoulder as he slid home and made love to you lazily in the patch of sunlight that streamed through the glass to cut a warm diamond across the checkered French tile. You reveled in one another in such a way that each touch was a devotional, each kiss a promise. You had paid for your sins and for the violence of your past mistakes and bloodied intentions with pieces of your souls. What was left were holes you saw fit to fill with each other.

    By the end of that first blissful week, you began entertaining how you would begin to reveal Central to Ezra. You had often walked past a small cafe that had an attached book store on your way to and from the hospital. It was small and intimate, and seemed tailor-made to entertain his whims. Two streets over you’d spied a tavern that seemed outfitted with copies of retro Earth-style advertisements and poorly taxidermied animals. You itched to walk in every time you passed it. After so much isolation, stress and heartache you were desperate to drink in any vestige of civilization, any morsel of culture you could find.

    The first few times you’d brought up venturing out to Ezra, he’d been able to steer you easily with insistent kisses and roaming hands. 

    “Why would we dream of leaving this heaven, that we have sweat and sacrificed and toiled over, for hours unending?” he’d said softly into your neck as his hand crept downward over the slope of your stomach.

    Eventually in your growing restlessness you grabbed his hands as he once again attempted a seductive distraction and you squeezed them until the stream of words slowly died off on his clever tongue. You met his eyes.

    “Ezra, why do you try to distract me when I bring up leaving the apartment?”

    The corner of his mouth twisted upward, but the gesture did not reach his eyes.

    “Sweet love, we have both been through tours of the realms of seven layers of hell. We have almost perished time and again and have committed our fair share of sins too inumerable to count. Please, do forgive me if I deign to want some modicum of comfort.”

    “You can have comfort, Ez, we can both have it. But don’t you want to peak at what’s outside as well? Aren’t you just a bit curious for what wonders Central may hold?”

    As you continued to speak, the mask slipped away from Ezra’s face. A deep crease of worry, of fatigue, formed between his heavy brows. His eyes became distant, focusing on some faraway and unknowable misery. You reached out to cup his face and turned his mournful gaze upon you.

    “Talk to me, my love. Please don’t hide yourself away.”

    Ezra took a shallow, shuddering breath before responding.

    “I fear I may have lost myself down on that accursed moon, Dove. Where I was certain of so much, I now find myself questioning even the simplest machinations. I find such mundane things as choosing clothing or food to eat almost insurmountable when tasked with the quandary of completion. I’m having dreams at night of things I cannot recall, but I’ve begun to awaken paralyzed, with the weight of a succubus upon my chest. 

    “It is a great humiliation to admit to you, dearest, that the thought of leaving this sanctuary, at present, is one that imbues me with an undue panic.” He was no longer meeting your eyes at this point, his gaze moving to focus on a vague point of focus somewhere past your shoulder.

     You fought hard to swallow past the nefarious lump in your throat, lip trembling and vision blurring. You felt heartless. You had spent so much time reveling in every new and good comfort in your life that had stayed so foreign for so long that you had failed to notice Ezra’s pain. You were a selfish fool. You moved to turn away from him in shame.

    Ezra did not let you. When he noticed your actions, his hand reached to grasp your shoulder. He turned you back to him. He enveloped you in his arms, releasing a steadying breath into your hair. He allowed you to weep against his shirt.

    “Ezra,” you gasped into his chest. “.....please forgive me. I can’t believe I’ve been so blind.”

    He held you against him as if trying to anchor you. He stroked your hair and the side of your face and murmured to you.

    “Dove, you have been my one saving grace. If I am expressing this to you now it is only because you implore me to do so. I have tried valiantly to act as if everything were copacetic since I awoke in that soulless hospital room. Please do not torture yourself with blame when it does not belong to you.” 

    “It kills me that I didn’t notice, Ezra. We’re supposed to be able to take care of each other.”

    “You care for me better than any I’ve known in my long and wretched life, my dearest love. I have these demons through circumstances both within and beyond my control. If not for you I would be rendered truly wretched, unworthy of the lowliest glance from the dregs of the universe.”

    Your hands framed his face, your tears slowing incrementally as his words flowed through you like pure rivulets of gentle intention. You kissed him so gently, so reverently, as if he were a secret thing only reserved for those beholden to the designs of the old gods. Forgotten and precious. Sacred and profane.

     “My soul will always seek out yours, beautiful boy. I will do whatever it takes to help you through this. I will ask nothing from you, ever. If you want to stay here forever I will be by your side. There is truly nowhere else I’d rather be.”

    Ezra’s voice hitched with emotion. He kissed over and over your eyelids, your nose, your cheeks, before settling his parted lips to the crook of your neck, where bore witness to the fluttering of your pulse beneath your skin.

    “I will try, Dove. For you I will move planets. I will raze Kevva themselves to the ground and condemn myself to eternal damnation. For you, I will try.”

    You’d found some solace in cooking. You had gone so long without anything more than the nutritionally dense, yet bland and uninspired nutribars and ration packs that you were desperate to experiment. It was slow going at first, but Ezra was far from selective with what he’d eat. He devoured everything you put in front of him, even burnt and strangely seasoned. He offered profuse compliments that expounded upon his good fortune in having found someone so willing to graciously cook for him. It always made you snort, but you appreciated the fact that he was supportive.

    Ezra had begun writing an autobiography of sorts. You often heard his dictation well into the stretch of your afternoons, his voice animating into flights of vivid imagery and florid, expounding descriptions. He dictated, but he also typed, pecking with the pointer fingers of each hand. You knew that when he was typing he was not to be disturbed. He never said it outright, but you knew that he typed because he could not bring to life the horrors he’d both witnessed and committed, he could not convince himself to speak of things he’d done that would shake the foundations of a kinder man’s moral compass.

    You were not privy to those thoughts. You stayed away, you respected his need to keep that part of him tucked away. You knew it was his way of working through it, of processing the deeds that had led him to what seemed in the reaches of his mind to be an unearned reward. He would tell you in his own time, you did not press or push him as you knew better than most how fragile peace of mind could be. You would allow him any indulgence that may work to keep the dreams away.

    When Ezra had a nightmare, you were most often awoken by a keening whine between clenching teeth. He did not thrash as you did, rather he’d lie beside you as if paralyzed. You had to talk to him to bring him back, coaxing his rigid muscles to loosen with careful, even strokes of your palms across his limbs and torso. 

    “Come back to me, love. You’re not back there. You’re here with me.”

    He would reemerge from his fathomless depths gasping, and reach out to you, winding his limbs through yours as a thistle seeks to weave itself into the wind that caresses it.

    You moved your hand to his chest, felt the frantic pounding beneath his breast. Like a trapped bird desperate to escape. You smoothed your fingers across the expanse of his bare chest, his skin warm and alive, thrumming. Present. And then lower, rubbed against the soft curve of his belly as its panicked heaving incrementally slowed.

    Lower still to the soft curls beneath his navel. Your fingers wove through the hair, teasing the skin with your nails. Ezra huffed, eyes fluttering. He turned his head toward you, knocking his forehead against yours.

    “My Dove….the succubi had their talons hooked into my tattered soul once again, I’m afraid.”

    You leaned forward and kissed him softly. His hitching exhale made its home within your mouth.

    “Is there nothing I can do to take this away, Ezra? Nothing I can offer you that will soothe you?”

    Your finger dipped down, lightly tracing the curve of his half-hard cock. You felt it twitch, followed by Ezra’s sharp intake of breath.

    “The demons that consume the nether regions of my addled mind cannot be placated so easily, Dove. The things I have done, the wretched life I’ve lived would leave you without thought of staying. My greatest fear is your discovering the nefarious deeds of my past, of learning exactly who it is that you lie willingly next to in this bed.”

    “I know who I lie next to, Ezra. I lie next to a man who decided to trust me, who gave me my voice back and showed me that I am worthy of love. That will never change. No matter what sins you’ve committed, I can stop loving you no more than I can keep the moon from waxing and waning.” Your hand encircled his length, rubbing gently. You trailed kisses across his shoulder as he gasped. He reached a hand to cover yours, stilling your actions momentarily. He paused for what seemed an impossibly long beat, seeming to consider his next words to you.

    “When I was a child in Louisiana we were poor. Mama worked three jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. My father was a drunk, shiftless sonofabitch. He put his hands on Mama and on me and Isaiah like clockwork when his life did not go his way. It did not go his way often. One night, he was really workin’ Mama over something awful. Isaiah was out in the shed fiddlin’ with an old transistor we found earlier that day at the salvage yard. I was alone in the house and Father had his hands around Mama’s neck.

    “She was strugglin’ and kicking at his knees, wherever she could reach, but Father wouldn’t stop. When he maneuvered close enough to the root cellar I saw my chance. I ran and I screamed, as loud as I could, and I shoved up against Father with all of the force I could muster. A meager show, to be sure, but Father was well on his way to obliterated by that time. He was just unsteady enough on his feet to topple forward down the steps. I heard his neck snap like a twig and he was dead before he hit the dirt. Mama and I told Isaiah it was an accident. But the truth is, Dovie, I took a life for the first time when I was nine years old.”

    Your hand raised from his groin to cup his cheek, your throat constricting around the lump forming there.

    “You were just a little boy, Ezra, scared for his Mama. You were protecting her. He may have killed her that day, if not for you.”

    His eyes narrowed, his voice thick with emotion. “That day set my path. I knew that I was not fortunate. I hated that I didn’t have what others were so freely given. I was born under a bad star, under an awning of misfortune. I was determined from that day forward to do whatever it took to survive. Kill, maim, steal. I have sold my soul a million times over to ensure my own victory in all my ensuing endeavors.”

    When he paused to collect his thoughts further, your hand drifted back down to his groin. He was now fully erect, and you felt the precum beading at the tip of his cock. He was hot, unbelievably so, and his eyes squeezed shut with a low groan as you swept your thumb through the slick of his crown. His head tipped back into his pillow. He resumed his confessions with a straining voice.

    “Later on, when Isaiah and I began prospecting as a means of finding our fortunes, we often found ourselves on the wrong end of an underhanded deal. We were green, and we were easy marks. We were swindled, robbed and double-crossed more than I care to admit, Dove. It took me a fair amount of time to become just as ruthless as those who would venture to hoodwink myself and my partner. The first time I killed on a job, it was a woman who thought she could bewitch and seduce me. Isaiah had overheard her plans with her partner to satiate my carnal desires before making off with my haul in the dead of night. I saw the knife in her hand as she tried her best to take my cock down her throat. I wrested it from her and used it to penetrate her chest. The third intercostal space of the ribcage houses an anatomical landmark known as Erb’s Point. Her own weapon found its home at the apex of her heart, and she bled out summarily.”

    His breathing was becoming more shallow,  his exhales more explosive as you continued to stroke him as he spoke, reaching every so often lower still to cup and gently roll his balls, which were steadily drawing themselves up, tightening against his tensing body. He canted his hips up into the air as you worked him. He rasped out a stuttering groan and panted up into the ceiling before whipping his head toward you, turning his body onto its side in the bed beside yours.

    “You know by now….”

    (gasp)

    “Isaiah was stabbed and left to die in an alley. It was the work of that woman’s partner. While I…”

    (groan)

    “While a did heartily mourn the loss of my only sibling, I could not….Kevva, girl….I could not begrudge him his need for karmic justice.”

    You brought your palm to your mouth, licked a wide, lascivious stripe from the base of your palm to the tips of your fingers. Ezra’s hand found your hip and squeezed. His eyes were dark, lust-filled and far away. He was lost in his reverie while consumed with your ministrations.

    “Keep going, sweetheart,” you soothed to him, nipping at the junction of his neck and shoulder. “I’ll take it from you. Don’t hold it back..”

    He answered with a full-body shudder, teeth catching his lip. He swelled and twitched and leaked into your eager hand; you knew he was close. He canted his lips to the cusp of your ear, breath hitching, stirring the hair there like chaffs of wheat in summer wind.

    “I found...myself alone and so I was available to partner up with whomever I could find that I deemed beneficial on my various excursions. I...fuck, I….found myself attached to a most open arrangement related to a job I signed up for on the Pug. A married couple, male and female. They….they both took a shine to my proselytizing, indeed they each became in short order equally enamored with...other more physical aspects of my prowesssweetmother….”

    His canting hips began an erratic stutter as your hand squeezed and stroked and twisted around his turgid cock. Your own breath became thick and shallow, a pool of arousal collecting at your center that you soon felt drooling onto the flesh of your inner thighs. You nipped at his jawline as his eyes fluttered shut, eyebrows knit together, mouth open as he embraced the divine sensations you were giving him.

    “Ezra….” you moaned against him. “Ezra, did you fuck them? Tell me how you fucked them…”

    “Always….shit….always together. That was the agreement. His cock in my mouth, her mouth on my cock… oh my gods sweetheart I’m close….he’d eat her pussy while I fucked his tight ass….she...fuck meee...she loved a hard cock in her cunt and in her ass at the same tiiiimme…..oh Jesus Dove FUCK.”

    His hips thrust and stuttered, his balls drawn taut and tight as he spilled into your hand. He buried his face in your neck and moaned, whimpered, as his seed came forth hot and thick to paint your palm and fingers.

    When he finally stilled, you brought the mess he’d made to your lips and made a show of licking every finger before lapping at your palm to clean it thoroughly.

    Ezra’s fingers found themselves parting your soaked, swollen folds as you gasped against his mouth, your tongue licking in to caress his teeth, to tangle with the slick velvet of his own talented instrument.

    “I want that, Ezra,” you groaned against his hot mouth. “I want that with you...I want you to watch me while I lick a cunt. I want to gag on someone else’s cock for you. Perform for you. I want to watch you get fucked in that beautiful ass….” you keened as two of his fingers entered your twitching, weeping hole. Ezra watched your face, eyes wide and mouth open, as he processed the frantic, lust-soaked words that spilled from your lips unabashed in their filth.

    “Is that what you desire my love? To explore the whims of the Satyr, to share the pleasure of other willing bodies with one another?”

    “Fuck yes, Ezra…” you sobbed against his flexing bicep as his fingers and palm worked you toward your own rapid petit mort.

    “Kevva wept, Dove, then you shall have it.”

    His eyes were warm, yet somber. The uptick at the corner of his mouth belied the serious set of his features. You knew he had concerns. His hands grasped yours, your knees canted toward one another as you sat on your couch.

    You trusted him implicitly. You had never been in a situation such as the hypothetical you were now navigating. Your past dalliances had not lacked variety, however they had not been frequent. Indeed, before Ezra you had been without physical intimacy for well over two years. 

    From the beginning, you had discussed ground rules. Ezra relayed and reinforced to you, during each careful conversation, that you must be in agreement with one another for every step of this new equation. 

    “I will ask you ad nauseum for your explicit consent in all doings, Dove,” his hand caught your wrist and stroked a broad thumb over your pulse point. “We must ask the same of whomever we entwine ourselves with. It truly is the crux of all pleasure, of the give and take of Eros. To know that what all parties deign to both imbibe and impart is agreed upon and accepted.”

    “I understand, Ez.”

    Perhaps at least as important as the concept of consent to Ezra was the unity with which you were to approach any and all potential arrangements. 

    “There must be no part of this endeavor in which we are not together,” his voice was calm and even, filled with soft affection as he rubbed your fingers between his palms. His eyes enveloped you, drawing your own gaze into deep and hypnotic pools. “I will do nothing, my gaze will not linger on another without you beside me. I will ask the same of you. Nothing is to transpire without each of our individual presences within one another’s orbit.”

    You both further discussed your terms over the course of the next several days. Ezra wanted your absolute certainty; the faintest doubt in your mind must be immediately and honestly expressed the moment it arose. You discussed your limits, safe words. Your frank conversation often left you both inflamed, tearing at clothing and gasping into each other’s hungry mouths as he impaled you on his cock, whispering a continuance of your plans that left you groaning and grunting like a desperate animal against any surface he’d seen fit to take you against. 

    You had initially brought up the idea of another couple; Ezra had immediately vetoed. He explained that the dynamics would be too touchy, perhaps volatile. Involving another couple may lend complications to what could be construed as an already precarious adventure. 

    “Not for the first time, Dove. Men in love, even in lust often house a primal directive to possess and claim. I will not place you or any other in such a position, at least for our first time.”

    It did not matter to Ezra whether your first partner was male, female or elsewhere on the gender continuum; he relayed he’d had pleasurable encounters with all persuasions. He left it up to you.

    After some careful consideration you’d settled on engaging with a female for your first time. You loved Ezra more than the moon and stars, but there was something about the curves and soft, pillowy flesh of a willing and open woman that brought heat to your chest and caused a buzzing in your brain that left your blood rushing in your ears and your mouth dry.

    He’d flashed his Cheshire smile at your declaration and enveloped you in a crushing embrace, whispering devotionals against the crook of your neck.

 ******

     The girl you’d found was tall, nearly Ezra’s height. She wore a sequined dress that glittered like a garnet against the light of the soft Edison bulbs on your end tables. Her laugh was musical, it reminded you of wind chimes made of hollow bone. She laughed often; this was what had drawn you to her.

    She’d been leaning back on the bar of the club you’d spent weeks visiting. It was a small, intimate location festooned with antique rococo furniture draped in tapestries of purple and scarlet. You’d taken your time, easing into the sophisticated atmosphere, acquainting yourselves with staff and regular patrons. The rhythm of the location was languid, sensuous. You could almost picture nude, rubenesque concubines reclining against the velvet couches while old-world Jazz plucked tinkling notes in the incensed air. It was perfect, and the intimate setting was ripe for measuring the potential of the various patrons who walked through its doors.

    So, it was the joyous, full-bodied laughter that had drawn you to her. Ezra let you take the lead, staying back to watch you. You ingratiated yourself to her easily, offering her a drink that she gladly accepted. As you both made your way to the ornate couch upon which Ezra perched, you noted him watching intently, lids hooded, finger idly stroking the lip of the glass in his hand. His eyes were tide pools, drawing you to him, hypnotizing.

    Predatory.

    And so the girl, named Andra, sat betwixt you as you began your dance. You flirted shamelessly, throwing your head back, leaning forward to give her a glimpse of what was underneath. You noticed her gaze linger there, and felt your adrenaline spike. You took a chance and brushed the knuckles of one hand against the side of her knee as you reached for your drink. The knee moved to press against yours.

    Ezra was much quieter than usual, allowing you to steer the conversation. He’d chime in occasionally, but for the most part his gaze lingered on your animated face. His eyes smoldered, his arm extended down the length of the back of the couch.

    At one point you stood, excusing yourself to the restroom. Andra excused herself as well. You entered the unisex fresher and before you had time to react Andra had you pressed against a stall door, her hands in your hair, her tongue curling into your startled gasp. You froze only momentarily before returning her kiss, framing her own soft face with your hands.

    Your lips tangled for endless moments before you came back to yourself, forcing a break as you reluctantly pulled away. You both panted in silence, chests rising and falling in rapid succession, before Andra spoke.

    “I like you.” her smile was small, shy. The brazenness had melted away with interruption of affection.

    You huffed out a laugh.

    “I like you too,” you paused, considering. “Do you like him as well?”

    Her soft chuckle was an echo of yours.

    “He’s very handsome.”

    “I agree.” You grasped her hand in yours, meeting her gaze. Your eyes became serious, your words measured like sordid currency.

    “Would you like to come home with us, Andra?”

    She would be delighted to, she replied. She really never did things like this, she said. She kept mostly to herself, but she had just received word that she had been approved for a loan to open a private art gallery. She felt like celebrating.

    “She feels like celebrating, Ezra,” you quipped when you returned. He immediately stood, nodded once, paid the tab. He pulled you aside briefly before you left to walk home.

    “Sweet girl, I cannot help but notice your lips are swollen, almost as if from some form of vigorous contact…” he whispered, his expression unreadable.

    You shrugged. “She kissed me in the bathroom. It took me by surprise.”

    His gaze darkened, lips set in a grim line. Your heart jumped into your throat.

    “Always together, remember? Rule one.”

    You found it difficult to meet his eyes when they burned into you like hot ash.

    “I’m...sorry, Ezra. It won’t happen again. I lost myself.”

    “It’s okay to lose yourself, Dovie, just don’t jeopardize the trust we’ve agreed upon so ardently.” his hand grasped your chin, tilting your face to his as his lips ghosted over yours.

    “I love you so fucking much.”

 ******

     “Look what you’re doing to our lovely conquest, Dove,” Ezra cooed, his chest slicked with sweat, one hand slowly pumping up and down his engorged cock. He knelt behind you, fingers in your quivering cunt as you lapped at Andra spread out and eager while your mouth worked her. You flattened your tongue and alternated long, slow licks with wrapping your lips around her hard little bud. Andra was keening, sobbing, canting her hips up toward you as you desperately worked to take in the flood of slick that poured out of her.

    You thrust your hips back forcefully as you came up for air. Your mouth and chin was drenched in her come, it was intoxicating and made you feel feral. You were working toward your third orgasm of the night, having already come twice just from the friction of your grinding clit on the surface of the blanket beneath you. Ezra leaned forward to capture your mouth, moaning at the taste of your eager lover.

    “See how she falls apart so easily for you, legs quivering uncontrollably? She’s soaking the sheets beneath her. She cannot begin to keep those gorgeous noises from spilling, much like the slick from her twitching hole..”

    You cried out, lost in the feeling of being tugged so deliciously both forward and backward between warring sensations. 

    You felt the blunt head of Ezra’s cock at your trembling entrance, and you pushed back one again, desperate for him to fill you as the head of his cock nudged against your clit, then notched at your tight, soaked entrance.

    You groaned loudly into the weeping slit before you as he sheathed himself inside of you and when his hips finally made contact with the backs of your legs, you bucked against him.

    “Fuck, Ezra,” you sobbed. “So fucking good oh my fucking gods….”

    He remained still as you fucked yourself back onto his turgid length once, twice, three times and then the wire pulled tight within you was snapped again, your arms trembling violently before you collapsed forward, gasping and screaming into the soaked blankets beneath you. Andra scrambled up the mattress and shuffled back to where you were connected. You felt her hands on your hitching ass as you spasmed uncontrollably around Ezra’s hard, slick cock.

    Ezra was moaning as he went deeper, grinding his hips up and down against your spasming cunt as your come flooded out around where he speared into you.

    “Ooooooooh yes, oh yes beautiful girl, let it out for me, soak this fucking cock, you feel so fucking good, you get so fucking tight when you come on my dick like this..”

    As you came down from your high, your hips dropped and you lay almost motionless except for the aftershocks that coursed through you.

    You heard Ezra moan again and turned with dazed interest to glance over your shoulder, where you observed Andra taking Ezra’s cock down her throat. She bobbed on it, taking down an impressive amount of his length as her hand massaged his balls. 

    Ezra’s expression was one of concentration, his eyes squeezed shut, mouth hanging open as he gasped as he was drawn, again and again, into her mouth.

    You watched the scene in front of you, and it occurred to you that there was a complete stranger giving Ezra pleasure, that it was someone other than you. You felt confused. Why did it feel like this so suddenly, when only moments before you’d enthusiastically had your entire mouth on her clit, your tongue inside of her?

    It didn’t bother you then, so why now?

    The longer you lay there, the more discomfort you felt. You didn’t like it. Wordlessly, you extricated yourself from the bed and silently donned your silk robe. You stood at the foot of the bed and observed what was happening before you, your skin growing tighter and tighter the longer you stared.

    What is wrong with me? This is okay, it was what you’d agreed upon.

    The longer you tried to deny it, the stronger the waves of deep, red tumult built and crashed around your foggy mind.

    “....Dove?” a hesitant question, unsure. Ezra had stilled, almost frozen on the bed. His eyes were dilated, blown black, but there was a very specific brand of concern etching his features. Andra watched you warily, as if suddenly aware that she’d waded into some unspoken, uncertain territory. You watched her begin to back off the bed slowly, as if distancing herself from an apex predator.

    You felt storms building; you struggled to steady your breath, chest heaving. You felt control slip from your tenuous grasp.

    You felt rage.

    Ezra had talked about the dark force of possession, of needing to own and claim among men in such arrangements as this.

    You realized this applied to women just as well.

    Ezra was yours, this woman had him in her mouth, your cock was inside of her, this strange woman you’d just met who dared to give him pleasure while you were RIGHT. THERE.

    Your mind was blank, your perception of movement coming to you like frames in an old slide projector.

    Click.

    You stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and expression blank.

    Click.

    You vaguely saw Ezra move from the bed and grab his pants. He was confused, eerily silent.

    Click.

    You had just a moment to process the sudden look of shock and panic that crossed Andra’s face as your hands wrapped around her neck.

    There was shouting, Andra’s face was red, turning purple, her hands scrabbling desperately to break the vice-like grip of your fingers pressing into her throat, her eyes bulging. Her heartbeat was a fluttering bird beneath you, a pitiful animal caught in a snare.

    Larger hands were grabbing at you, the shouting continued. You could not make out the words, so hypnotized were you by the sight of panicked, waning consciousness before you.

    You were flung backward, your hands pried roughly off of yielding flesh, your grip faltering.

    Your back hit the wall. Ezra was staring at you with wide eyes. He looked terrified.

    Andra was just to the left of numb terror, gasping and sobbing the breath back into her burning lungs.

    You looked down at your hands, clenched and shaking. Your whole body shaking.

    You were a monster.

    You turned, stumbling desperately through the doorway and into the hall.

    You pulled the robe tight around you and rushed out, out of everything, attempting to leave yourself behind.

    Running.

    So, you had accompanied him cautiously onto the elevator, carefully watching and gauging his reactions to being confined within the claustrophobic reaches of the metal box you found yourselves encased in, ferrying you downward. Ezra’s tongue darted out to wet his lip nervously, you noticed his foot tapping against the carpet. You wondered if he noticed he was doing it.

    When the elevator reached its destination with a faint ping, you steeled yourself. You were ready for his impending meltdown, his shaking uncertainty, possibly his refusal to walk any further. Your eyes widened as you watched him stride determinedly out into the lobby. You trailed close behind, ready to reel him back in if he became overwhelmed. You thought that he’d pause a moment, reacquaint himself with the lobby itself before venturing further, but he strode bullishly toward where Brice was standing near the front doorway.

    “If you’ll excuse me, my good man,” Ezra muttered through the grim set of his mouth. He did not pause, he did not hesitate. He gave Brice no opportunity to hold the door open for him. He grasped the handle himself and thrust himself out onto a bustling street.

    You were right behind him, your brows drawn with concern. You reached out to grasp his hand.

   “Ezra?”

    His shoulders squared, he turned to face you. He was breathing heavily, his eyes moving in disjointed stutters as if he was trying to download and process everything at once to a file in his brain.

    “Ezra, take a deep breath.”

    His eyes finally settled on you, dark pools of intensity. He did as you asked. His shoulders dropped to their natural position. Your other hand joined your first, clasping his large hands in yours. People continued past you on their way to their lovers and jobs and homes and they parted like a sea around the both of you as his gaze held you, hypnotic and deep. His hands pulled from your grasp and he crushed himself to you, his mouth finding yours in a dizzying kiss. Breathless, desperate, the rest of the world disappeared.

    “I did it, sweet love,” he whispered against your mouth. You did not heed the noise and push of the city thrumming around you, the entire street ceased and froze as if the universe was swallowing its own stars and they reappeared, rebirthed and glittering, in the encompassing weight of Ezra’s eyes upon you.

    “All manner of things in this world are limitless and surmountable, survivable, when I have you by my side.”

 ******

     One week later you found yourself in a dive bar that ended up being approximately twenty minutes from your loft. You had worked incrementally each day, walking with Ezra as he ventured further and then a bit further. You saw his confidence begin to return. You had sat one morning at a small table on the sidewalk of a cafe, reading Keats to one another as you sipped cappuccino. Ezra made sly remarks about the goings-on of passing strangers, weaving threads of supposition according to what he thought of what they wore, how quickly they were walking, who they were with. His eyes were lively. He reminded you of the person he’d been at his table in his tent on the Green: head thrown back, joyous.

    You were finally knowing him like this.

    And so, you sat in the crowded bar, smelling the cologne and sweat and smoke enveloping you and those around you. You had felt nervous entering, a sudden impulse to look for the nearest exit slammed into you. A patron sidled past you, bumping your shoulder. You jumped, your heart hammering. You tried desperately to quell what seemed to be an oncoming panic attack- there were too many people, it was so, so loud and anyone could just reach out and grab you, slam you into-

    “Dovie.”

    Your frenzied reverie was interrupted by Ezra’s warm hand on the small of your back as he guided you to a table in a corner. His breath tickled the hair that curled around your ear as he spoke close and low.

    “Sit here, see? Your back will be against the wall. You can see everyone this way. You are safe with me, sweet one.”

    With his voice close, grounding you, you took deep unsteady breaths until you felt your heart rate begin to slow. You reassured him as the bartender approached you. You decided that alcohol may not be a bad idea, for either of you, in helping you relax. You ordered a gin and tonic with lime, Ezra requested an extra dirty vodka martini. While you waited for your drinks you took in the humid press of bodies gyrating on a makeshift dance floor, you absorbed the loose, languid movements of the inebriated patrons before you. Could you do such a thing, would you ever be capable of such abandon again in a place like this?

    Your drinks were set in front of you. Ezra reached for his and took a long sip, his eyes closing with a soft groan.

    “I cannot begin to tell you how long it’s been since I’ve imbibed such high-brow spirits in what amounts to a dusty hovel.”

    You sipped your own drink, the burn sliding down your throat blooming into warmth when it hit your belly. Your brain quickly began to feel fuzzy, your limbs loose and warm. It had been stands since you’d had anything stronger than wine. You set your glass down and turned to see Ezra staring at you, his own cheeks pinking from the effects of his drink. He leaned his head to the side, one hand reaching for your bare knee, at the same time the sudden crack of a pool cue across the room made you jump, an arm shooting out in unconscious self-defense as your hand connected with your glass. Ezra’s own hand reflexively moved to catch the glass before it could topple and shatter, but not before the contents sloshed over the edge to soak down the front of your new dress.

    “Kevva-damned. Shit….This is the first time I’ve even worn this!”

    Ezra was unperturbed, smiling gently as he squeezed your knee.

    “I’m sure it will come out in the wash, love, I’ll leave you only briefly to procure you proper cleaning implements. Do not trouble yourself.”

    You sighed, nodding gratefully. You watched as Ezra stood up and made his way to the bar. It was crowded indeed tonight, and you noted that there were quite a few people in line ahead of him. You sighed again, looking down at your front. You wrinkled your nose; you smelled like a distillery.

    Klutz.

    Lost in your thoughts, it took you a moment in your blunted state to notice that another drink was slid in front of you as the chair beside you scraped back from the table. A man sat down next to you, grinning crookedly. He leaned forward before speaking.

    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here before. Sorry about the drink, I thought maybe you could use a replacement.”

    His hair was flame-colored, unnaturally so. His nose, eyebrows and ears were heavily pierced, and his arms were covered in tattoos. In another lifetime, perhaps, you may have welcomed his advances. Tonight, however, you glanced around frantically for Ezra. You felt suddenly exposed, like a lame rabbit trapped in a dog pen.

    “I…..I’m not alone, you know. I’m here with someone. So, no thank you. On the drink.”

    The man’s brows shot up in surprise. “Oh! I didn’t mean….sorry. I saw you spill your drink, and then I saw your friend get up...I was getting my own drink, I figured you could use another one as well.”

    You swallowed down your panic, your hand twitching in your lap.

    If only I had a thrower.

    “You were watching me?”

    “Relax. I was just trying to be nice!”

    “What did you put in this drink, anyway? Sedative? Some kind of amatory agent?”

    “I don’t know what you-”

    The man choked on the rest of his words as he was yanked out of the chair roughly by the back of his shirt. He was slammed up against the wall, Ezra’s fingers wrapped around the man’s throat.

    “I do believe the lady would like to be left alone,” he hissed darkly, jaw clenched. His head was lowered, eyes blackened pools of rage. His voice wavered on a razor-thin edge of control. The interloping man’s eyes were wide, it appeared that he was gasping for breath as Ezra’s knuckles turned white. You noticed the knife in Ezra’s hand. You had the far away realization that he must have been keeping it in his boot, the same way he had on the Green.

     He had carried it all this time.

    Ezra brought the tip of his knife to a slot of pulsing skin between his fingertips. The blade pressed in, a bead of blood pricking forth as the man gasped. A dark spot spread on the front of the man’s pants.

    “Do you know how quickly a man bleeds out if cut in just the right way? I do, I know from experience. Do you also know how to make things last, how to prolong one’s mortal agony until they plead for the sweet embrace of oblivion? I know that too.” 

    You were monsters, you realized with a sudden, shocking clarity. You were not fit for civilization. Ezra was a hair's-breadth from murdering a stranger in a public place while you watched impassively. This is who you have become. This is what the moon had done to you.

    Without thinking, you jumped up from the table. Your hand grasped Ezra’s shoulder.

    “EZRA.” your voice was clear, sobered, authoritative. “Stop. Come back.”

    Ezra almost shook his head as he looked at his hand, holding the knife as if it belonged to someone else. He let the man go, and the man slid down the wall to crumple onto the ground.

You realized it was silent- everyone in the bar was staring.

    You grabbed onto his hand in a vise-like grip and moved to the door.

    “We’re leaving. NOW.”

    There was a sea of shocked silence that parted around you. You did not hesitate, you did not stop to take in the widened eyes, the slack jaws. You walked until you were both out in the cool air of the warm night.

    You kept your eyes forward with a tight grip on Ezra’s hand.

    Get away, you repeated in your mind like a mantra. Get away, get away, get away…

    You squeaked out a wordless exclamation when Ezra halted, pulling you backward into a narrow side alley. He spun you to face the cool brick wall, caging you with his hands and hips. He pressed up against you insistently, panting as if he’d been sprinting.

    “Ez-” your words were cut off as his lips crushed onto yours, rough and messy. His hands grasped at the hem of your dress, raking it up around your waist. He ripped your underwear down past the curve of your ass with trembling fingers. You gasped when his fingers entered you, rough and sudden.

    “Ezra, we’re in an alley, someone could walk byyyy…” your last words dissolved in a whine as he angled his fingers, expertly curled, and hit that spot inside- the place he knew you needed him most.

    Hot plosives of air against your ear, you felt fully enveloped by Ezra and completely exposed to everything else. He withdrew his fingers suddenly and frantically went to unfasten his pants.

    “I need you,” he rasped, his voice desperate and shuddering. “I need to come back to myself. Remind myself. Please. I need to know you are mine. Show me.”

    You felt the blunt head of him notched at your entrance. Grasping his cock in his fist, he spread your leaking arousal to mix with the precum dripping from his own slit before sliding into you with a single thrust. His hips met yours as you brought your fist to your mouth, biting down to keep from screaming. Ezra withdrew almost completely, still trembling, and slammed back into you. Your breasts were mashed against the rough wall, you had to use both hands to brace yourself against the onslaught of his thrusts. One of his hands went up to your mouth and covered it firmly; his other hand reached between your legs to circle your clit roughly.

    He fucked up into you with abandon, without regard for his surroundings and despite the possibility of being caught. He kept his voice low, gasping and whining as his punishing rhythm had you quickly hurtling toward your own release.

    “Mine….mine,” he groaned into your ear, slapping sounds from your desperate union echoing in the air of the alleyway. “Going to fuck you like this in every corner of Central, on every surface. Claim this pussy over and over again. Take you apart.”

    His words against your sweat-slicked skin, his hot breath, his fingers on your clit, his brutal thrusts all melded into the sin of him taking your like this, claiming you in the open. You release slammed into you, unexpected, overwhelming. You bit the inside of his hand, breaths harsh, ragged, keening. You sobbed wordlessly against him as he stilled, spilling into you as he cried out. The intensity and strength of his orgasm had rendered him incapable of remaining quiet. Your legs shook, Ezra’s arms wrapping firmly around your waist to keep you from collapsing to the dirty concrete.

    When your hammering heart had finally slowed and your breathing finally evened out, Ezra reverently helped you back to some semblance of presentability before you made your way back to your apartment, still shaky and somewhat lightheaded.

    Once back in the safety of your shared home you sighed deeply before wrapping your arms around Ezra’s waist. You knew you both had quite a bit more to work through than you’d originally thought, but Kevva knew there was no one else for you. You gazed up at him with a small, sad smile.

    “We can’t go back to that bar, Ezra.”

    “I know, Dove.”

     You had your first nightmare the night following the incident at the bar. You were unsure if the actual confrontation had triggered you, or if it was simply the proverbial last straw among the amalgam of stress and circumstance, but you’d awoken screaming and slicked with sweat.

    In your dream you were dead. Your limbs were frozen and stiff. Your eyes did not open. Though you had expired, you were still able to hear what was said around you as if underwater. You were still within your own body, muffled and broken. The voices around you spoke of how you died. You had fallen from a great height, you could feel the sickly pull of gravity winding its fist into your guts as you hurtled toward the ground. You felt everything, the snap of your limbs shattering like glass. Shards of bone lanced your organs, your sight sparked and pulsed as your retinas detached before your vision turned red and then black. Your throat choked with blood. You were panicking. You could not move, you could not scream. Your pain was transcendental in it’s exquisite clarity.

    You willed yourself to lose consciousness. You prayed for your end as the agony of countless fathoms of searing stilettos cut into you and pulled their pound of flesh gleefully from your broken body.

    This is what was due for you. This is what you deserved for killing, for hurting.

    You gasped in your misery in place of your breath. You leaned into the pain, wanted it. You would suffer. You were unsure if there were tears sliding down your face. You felt wet all around. Tears or blood, leaking out of you in equal measure.

    You felt your world tilting and sliding. Movement. Every sensation re-breaking you, reminding you to pay attention. You were not going anywhere, you would bear witness to your slow and torturous end, you would learn that this was your world, at the mercy of countless faceless masters filled with infinite patience.

    You were placed in a box. That box was sealed. You heard the muffled pounding of nails into splintering wood. There was no way to save you.

    Clods of earth rained upon the box. You lie impassive, frozen. Resigned and terrified.

    Thwump.

    Every action you had taken part in, every injury and injustice and I’ll-gotten reward outweighed any halfhearted effort of goodwill you’d extended during your short and brutal life.

    Pathetic.

    Thwump.

    Worthless.

    Thwump.

    You were dead, and you had not ascended to some alternate universe, some abstract heavenly reward. In a box, in a broken body you felt every agonal sensation, your eyes unseeing and unblinking. Your brain screaming, pleading from some distant, flawed and human place to release you. You felt the cold, robotic legs of countless pale and sightless insects. They were crawling into your pants. Into your hair. Your mouth. Scrabbling against your grey gums and your powdery tongue.

    You felt the first searching pinches of mandibles against your cool and tender flesh.

 ****

     You were screaming, your voice raw. Keening. You couldn’t see. Your limbs thrashed against bindings that held you, horizontal and utterly helpless as your hoarse voice dissolved into rasping sobs. Your brain was slow to register your actions as your desperation and terror made you feel as if your heart was going to crack through your sternum with the force of its hammering. 

    But it shouldn’t be beating.

    You were dead and in a box in the ground, paralyzed and in agony and covered in gnawing insects.

    Strong arms grasped you, holding you still. You struggled against the hold violently. You kicked out against something, anything.

    The arms wrapped around you tightly. Mouth against your neck, speaking lowly.

    “I’m right here. Wake up, love. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

    The voice, disembodied in the darkness, continued to reassure and sooth patiently as your hitching breaths and sobs gradually abated.

    Ezra had you, and he stroked your back, your hair, your forehead, your arms as he murmured.

    “It seems that your mind has finally caught up with our sordid histories and nefarious goings-on, my sweet love. My own terrified cries have been known to propel me from restless slumber in the oppressive darkness of night.”

    You slumped against him, wrung out, exhausted. You slowly came to realize that you had not been able to move your limbs fully because they had tangled in the sheets as you’d thrashed. You had screamed so long and loud that your voice croaked when you could finally speak.

    “I have never dreamt like that Ezra. I was dead, but I was trapped in my body. I was dead, but I could feel everything. They put me in a box and buried me. It felt real.”

    “The horrors we’ve faced, the things we’ve done, will manifest in any number of nefarious ways, Dove. It is but a product of our shared experience.”

    You stood up on shaking legs and began to turn on every light in the room. You came back to the bed and cocooned yourself in as many blankets as you could find. Ezra drew you to him, leaning your back against his chest as you sat on the mattress between his legs. He notched his chin onto your shoulder and sighed. He stayed silent, waiting for you to speak or not speak.

    You did not speak.