For the WIP ask, I’d love to hear more about Exhibit A!
You may have guessed but this is the exhibitionism WIP. A few lovely people commented on the slight exhibitionism itch that I had in the South Downs Rimjob fic, with Crowley torn between being horrified at the idea of being caught being fucked over the kitchen sink, while also kind of unexpectedly aroused at the idea.
And I'm easily swayed by kind words so I started thinking about it. Except it's not easy to get them to exhibitionism (for me, anyhow) and I've spent far too long wondering why it works for Crowley. The WIP starts with:
Developing an exhibitionism kink is a natural psychological trauma response to having previously been punished for displays of affection, attraction, love and desire.
(Which is rubbish pseudo-psychology but a nice jumping off point.) So it's set early sexual relationship:
And so it is that one morning, while surveying the Spring’s new bounty of ducklings at St Jame’s Park, Crowley turns to Aziraphale and asks, “Does it turn you on when we almost get caught fooling around?”
Aziraphale blinks slowly at him and then turned back to the ducks. He thinks for a long moment as Crowley split defrosting peas with his thumb nail before flicking them towards what he assumed was the mother duck. “No, I don’t think so,” Aziraphale answers, eventually.
And then Aziraphale drags more of the confession out of him during soft dom sex, because of course he does:
Kink is meant to be discussed and negotiated, but not like this.
That Aziraphale still doesn’t really understand that what they’re doing, right now, is also, somewhat kinky, is also reflective of some rather significant blind spots. Fortunately for them that have quite a long history of being oblivious and muddling through, anyway. But Crowley knows, or at least suspects, that he’s harbouring a submissive streak a mile wide, but there’s absolutely no reality in which he’d ever admit to it.
Except, he supposes, if Aziraphale were to ask him now.
Crowley thinks it's the fear of getting caught.
So they try that, I think in the bookshop, and it is hot and steamy, until they actually are caught by someone and that's mortifying. So they have to reconsider.
Which is when they start to realize it's Crowley wanting more praise. More people watching him be good, watching him give himself over and follow instruction and be so very, very good for Aziraphale. He gets off on the idea of other people seeing that, explicitly. I think there's a scene in a pub where Aziraphale strokes him off through his trousers under the table and there is a woman watching, impressed, rapt, and enjoying, while Aziraphale whispers things in Crowley's ear like, "She can see how wonderfully hard you get for me. How responsive. How well you're doing to keep yourself quiet. She thinks you're stunning like this, too. Although she knows she'll never get to experience it. Why, Crowley?"
And he's lost to it, because this, this kind of exhibitionism is working for him way too well, and he hasn't got the script yet so Aziraphale has to explain it to him, " Because you're mine, only mine to touch. They can look but never touch, never make you come."
He does then, and now Aziraphale's got buy in because he likes people see him possessive and in control. Because it's proof he possesses and is in control. And so off they go to some sort of sex club to try things properly.
And that is what Exhibit A (B, C, D, E) would be if I ever get my act together.
