#needs met

Frank woke Mel up a few hours later. No light streamed through the windows; it was totally dark outside. “What time is it?” she asked, yawning. She propped herself up on her elbows from her prone position.

“Nine thirty,” Frank answered. He sat against her hip on the bed and rubbed her back. “Are you hungry? I can order food.”

Mel shook her head. “I’m fine. Are you ready to have sex again?”

The hand at her back tensed, then became feather soft. “Yes,” he answered.

Mel recalled her thought process about his choice of missionary position earlier; how she’d hoped for something different. Maybe she could just ask. She kicked the duvet down the bed, baring her naked body. “Can we please,” she yanked the pillows from his side of the bed and stacked a few under her pelvis. “Like this?” She wiggled to get comfortable, ass-up, too sleepy for self-consciousness.

Silence.

She craned her neck to see him staring at her ass with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked. 

He jerked into action, hurriedly stripping and grabbing the lube. She shivered as the cold lube on his fingers hit her cunt, even as she kept her thighs spread wide for him. Only he took too long, fastidiously inserting one finger, then two, into her. 

She yawned again as he toyed at her entrance with his cockhead. He was taking forever. “Frank, I’m tired. Can you please start?” She pushed her ass back, trying to spear herself on him, but she was still drowsy and uncoordinated from her nap.

He huffed a laugh, gripping a hip in each hand to hold her still. “Easy, tiger. I’m trying to behave myself here.”

“Why?” she asked plaintively. “Can’t you just—”

Frank shut her up by sliding his cock all the way to her cervix in one smooth motion.

Mel squawked, faceplanting into the mattress with the force of his motion. It felt like he was in her throat. His dick felt way bigger like this—or maybe he’d been onto something with the preparation.

“That’s why,” said Frank. He hauled her hips back up against him, filling her to the hilt again. “Hands and knees for me.”

She squeaked again with overwhelm. His cock was splitting her open. “But— I like it like this. I like to rub my face on the sheets,” she protested.

“Not this time, honey. I want to see your tits move,” he said.

Mel huffed, rising gingerly from her elbows to her hands. Her breasts swayed with the motion. 

“Deep breaths. You okay?” Frank asked. He petted her flank like she was a wild horse. He squeezed at her love handle. Pressed a line up her spine with his thumb.

“Yes,” said Mel. Long inhales through her nose and deep exhales through her mouth, to accustom herself to being stuffed. She let her head hang between her arms, eyeing his hairy knees planted on the bed behind hers. “Yeah, okay.”

He swore as he started to move, to get into a slow rhythm. “You’re so fucking tight.” He  pulled her back onto his cock with a firm hand at the flexure of her hip as his other snaked up to caress her swinging breast. “Still good?” he asked as he sped up, starting to snap his hips against hers. The sound of their bodies slapping against each other filled the room. 

“Mmhmm,” Mel managed. She reached out for the headboard in front of her, bracing herself to better push back against him.

He swore again. “Yeah, baby. That’s so fucking good.”

Ridiculously, Frank’s praise sent a red flush blooming down Mel’s cheeks and throat. Thank goodness he couldn’t see it, Mel thought, even as she pushed herself back against him harder. This created a kind of interesting sensation on her clit, paired with a fullness from his cock she’d never experienced before. With each thrust, he rubbed against a particularly delicious spot. Something delicious hovered just out of reach. She gasped as he pounded into her again. There.

“That’s right, Mel,” Frank said behind her. “Chase it.”

Given permission, Mel arched her back and threw her whole body into it. She speared herself on each thrust, trying to hit that elusive spot. Pleasure built deep in her gut.

“Fuck me,” Frank muttered under his breath, barely audible, to which Mel responded: 

“I’m trying, Frank.”

He laughed in breathless disbelief, even as he kept up a ruthless rhythm of slamming into her. She whined, gritting her teeth as she followed the sensation to a place of pleasure-pain…

Mel’s orgasm popped like a bubble.

She tumbled down into a quick little orgasm, lashes fluttering, toes curling. Her whole body tingled with waves of pleasure that emanated from her cunt; little quakes like the aftershocks of an earthquake. She struggled to hold herself upright with shaking wrists. “Gosh,” she whispered breathlessly. That had never happened before.

“There you go,” Frank said, magnanimous, proud of her. He pressed down between her scapulae with a firm hand. “You can put your head down now, if you want.”

“Oh, thank you,” Mel breathed, folding down on her elbows, pillowing her head in her hands. The aftershocks from her orgasm were still making her cunt clench. 

He pounded her for another five minutes, give or take. She felt weak all over, still trying to catch her breath after that surprise orgasm. It didn’t matter. Frank held her hips up with both hands and fucked her limp. Now she really was his sex doll. 

Still in disbelief, Mel rubbed her cheek rhythmically on the soft sheet as she got fucked into the mattress. 

—

The next morning, Mel woke up with her face between Frank’s shoulderblades. Both of them were still totally naked and she was spooning him like a tiny backpack. He stayed asleep, whuffling into the pillow softly, as she extracted herself out of the king size bed.

In Frank’s shower, Mel felt almost embarrassed as she remembered the way she’d keened and clenched around his cock last night. She’d made a big deal about never orgasming with a partner and then she’d done it on their first night together. No one is going to take your ace card away for orgasming one time during sex, Mel reasoned with herself under the spray of hot water. 

She still felt a bit sheepish about the whole endeavor, but this outcome was way better than hating it. After all, she had signed on as a sex partner with Frank for a whole year. Maybe the freedom to just be had been exactly what she needed. No pressure. Besides, she knew Frank on a way deeper level than she’d known any of her previous sexual partners. That probably counted for something.

Mel had lugged her duffel bag into Frank’s bathroom, so she came out dressed in her day off uniform: an oversized t-shirt, leggings, and striped socks. Frank sat on a barstool in front of his island, clad in low-slung sweatpants. He opened his arms wide. 

Mel bemusedly walked into Frank’s embrace. “What do you want to do today?” Mel asked, squashed into his chest.

She expected Frank to share another highly detailed plan of sexual intercourse, but instead he said, “I need to go to the grocery store. Will you join?”

That’s how Mel found herself pushing the fire engine red cart at Trader Joe’s. She never went here—it was in the bougie suburb outside of town, in a strip mall with horrid parking— but Frank swore by Saturday morning shopping to beat the crowds.

They started in the produce section. 

“Go ahead and get whatever you want,” Frank encouraged. “If you’re at my place every weekend, I want to have food and snacks you like.”

Mel shrugged and stopped at the display of apples. She grabbed a $2.99 three-pound bag of Pink Ladies and dropped it into the cart. 

Frank made a face. “Those are your favorite?”

“These are what I usually get,” said Mel, flummoxed by the selection. This Trader Joe’s housed bizarre produce which this Midwestern gal found intriguing yet a little scandalous: brussel sprouts on the stalk, white alpine strawberries, fuyu persimmons from California. 

He took the bag out of her cart and set it back. “Let’s get those instead.” He pointed at the endcap: gorgeous shiny Honeycrisps displayed like soldiers in a legion, each bigger than Mel’s palm, polished and flawless.

Mel shook her head. “Too expensive.” The chalkboard sign next to the apples proclaimed: “Organic Honeycrisp from Oregon: $1.99 each.”

“You’re a doctor, you can afford it,” said Frank. He winked at Mel as he handed her a produce bag. “At least, you can when you’re with me. Does Becca like these?”

Mel took her time choosing three apples, finding the largest, prettiest ones, painted with brushstrokes of gold and candy red. “No,” she said distractedly. “Becca doesn’t like biting into the fruit. She prefers berries.” 

When she looked up from the Honeycrisps, Frank had taken the cart to the refrigerated shelf. She ambled over to him as he set clamshells of strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries into the cart. “You don’t have to buy anything for Becca,” she protested. “We decided that you’d pay off the credit card and take on rent. You don’t need to buy our groceries, too.”

“We’re here,” he said, shrugging. “Might as well grab a few things.”

Mel sighed. He was going to be so annoying about this. “No blackberries, then. Neither of us like the seeds.”

Frank swapped out the blackberries for blueberries. “Noted.”

Mel watched him roll the cart down the aisle, equal parts amused and concerned. He had a certain swagger in his step—sexual satisfaction, Mel realized. Princess and Perlah would be able to smell it on him during his next shift if he didn’t turn it down. She trailed him through the aisles, as he kept picking up the most random items. “Will you eat these?” Frank asked, holding ridiculous products like broccoli frozen pizza, or pumpkin salsa, or dill pickle potato chips.

He catalogued her shy yes’es and wrinkly nosed no’s carefully. Soon enough, the cart was modestly full—ingredients for pasta with meat sauce, frozen chicken nuggets, frozen hash browns, pastries. Frank didn’t make Mel feel guilty for her pickiness like she anticipated—though she knew he was an adventurous eater himself. 

Then she gasped, grabbing onto Frank’s arm. 

“What?” he asked, alarmed.

“Ube mochi pancake mix,” said Mel, pointing at the endcap she’d spotted. 

Frank grinned. “Now we’re talking.” He grabbed a box from the display and read the back. “Eggs, butter, water. Easy enough. Let’s get some maple syrup, too. And Irish butter.” He tossed the box of pancake mix in the cart.

After they’d perused every aisle of the grocery store and made small talk with the gregarious cashier, Frank insisted on stopping inside the boba place in the strip mall. Apparently he’d seen the way Mel’s eyes had snapped to the neon bubble letters “BOBA TEA” as they’d pulled into the parking lot. 

The only thing was, he had no idea what to order. so Mel took charge here, ordering a honeydew milk tea for herself and a Vietnamese coffee for Frank. She hummed in the passenger seat as he drove back to his apartment, sucking down tapioca balls. “What do you want to do the rest of the day?” she asked. 

“This and that,” Frank replied. “I need to do laundry.”

But as soon as Mel walked through his apartment door, he snatched the cup out of her hands and shoved her up against the door. 

“Oh,” said Mel. 

“I need you again,” said Frank, kissing her neck, pulling her hips into him. 

“Okay,” said Mel. 

“Pancakes after,” he suggested, a question in his eye as he pulled her t-shirt over her head. 

Relaxing felt… weird. 

Historically, Mel King hadn’t had much time to relax since... oh, probably since she’d taken a towering load of AP courses in eleventh grade, while simultaneously working on her MA certification so she could get a well-paying job at the memory facility where her grandfather lived. She clocked in at Morningside Heights on weekdays after school. After evening med pass, she habitually sat in the parlor with Grandpa and worked on her AP Physics homework. Her mother’s father had been an aerospace engineer at Boeing, and the Air Force before that. 

He was so helpful with her homework on thermodynamics and wave theory that Mel didn’t mind that he usually didn’t remember who she was. 

Needs met for needs met, right?

After high school, she went to college in-state. Freshman year was a stressful conglomeration of pre-med coursework and confusing social opportunities. Mel watched her peers blossom with the new freedoms of college life: going to the 24-hour cafeteria and eating whatever you wanted, any time of day; skipping class because you stayed up too late the night before or just didn’t feel like going; flirting with boys and girls. In the absence of boundaries, Mel kept to the proverbial shallow end of the pool. She declined her roommate’s invites to frat parties and stayed in her dorm room studying. She set the curve on her chem tests. She set timers on her phone to spur her to go to the cafeteria, even though she always took the styrofoam box to go. 

She went on dates because she felt bad saying no. She had sex a few times--not for any real desire on her part, but to get the experience. Those encounters were uninspiring enough that she began identifying as asexual after she took Human Sexuality as a psych elective. One crucial lesson she learned in college: how to say no quickly and clearly. It was much easier that way.

Then her mom got her cancer diagnosis, which neatly tossed Mel’s self-imposed social pressures out the window. She lived at home for the next three years of undergrad, commuting an hour each way for her mandatory labs and taking online courses for the rest. Mel’s dad was no help with Mom. Becca—bless her—tried. But the brunt of the caretaking fell to Mel.

She definitely didn’t set the curves on tests anymore. She felt fortunate to claw a decent GPA and MCAT score from her university experience.

Becca moved in with Mel after the funeral, then, obviously: medical school. Residency. 

Not a lot of time to cultivate hobbies or interests outside the hospital.

So when Frank asked her to relax, to stop being productive, to play, Mel resisted. She privately thought that the video games he installed on her new Switch were a waste of time. Even the fantasy books that she loved were meant to be sipped from, meting out a few chapters before bed to facilitate a good night’s sleep, not guzzled over the course of a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Frank reminded her of a cat, lounging in the Winter sun. When she lived at his apartment over the weekends, comfort and leisure were top of mind. You wouldn’t call a cat lazy—it was just its nature. Mel thought the same of Frank. 

He lounged on the couch and watched her puzzle out the plot in Animal Crossing. They spent hours in the kitchen, baking sugary confections or cooking elaborate meals for two (no leftovers; what a poor return on time investment!).

Mel rationalized with herself that this was all just “part of the sex.” Elaborate acting over the course of their weekends together to spin a fantasy, to set a mood. If it turned Frank on to watch her enjoy her new hobbies; well, he was paying her credit card and rent, so enjoy she would.

And okay, yes: there was typically some element of sexiness during the aforementioned relaxation. When Mel unglued her eyes from the tv screen after adding a villager to her Animal Crossing colony (okay, so this one was kind of fun), Frank had his dick out. He was stroking himself and staring at her. During their misadventures in baking, she invariably ended up bent over the granite countertop, making snow angels in the flour while Frank fucked her from behind. Playing house was part of the fantasy to Frank, maybe? Mel strived to not think too hard about it. 

Here was a rainy Saturday in February. All of Pittsburgh had been seduced by a false Spring all week, with the residents walking laps on the roof of the parking garage during their lunch breaks to enjoy the brilliant blue sky. But a storm had brought in a cold front last night, and now rain pelted the windowpanes of Frank’s apartment in sheets. Thunder rumbled at regular intervals, and the sky outside was dark as dusk even though the clock neared noon.

Italian Wedding soup simmered in the crockpot in the kitchen, making the whole apartment smell amazing. They’d slept in that morning, put the soup ingredients together, and now they lounged on the sectional. Mel and Frank had absolutely nothing on the docket to do. 

So Mel wasn’t surprised when Frank eased himself up from behind her.

“Keep playing,” he said. “I’m just going to mess around a little.”

“Don’t distract me,” Mel groused, as if his hand hadn’t been down her shirt for the last ten minutes. She had finished Animal Crossing last weekend and now she’d started a Switch game where she unpacked boxes and organized the contents into various rooms. Mel loved organizing, so she had gotten pretty into it.

“Me? Distract you? Never,” said Frank. (In fact, Frank had distracted Mel just a few hours ago as she peeled the carrots for the Italian Wedding soup. This had precipitated a contamination incident, so their soup was now, lamentably, carrotless.)

He slithered down from the couch to kneel on the ground in front of her. 

She was slouched down on the sectional, bare legs splayed out before her. He made himself comfortable between them and pressed kisses to her creamy, soft thighs. Then he tapped at the waistband of her tiny shorts. “Lift up.”

Mel sighed, already lifting her butt off the couch to acquiesce. “Can’t you wait five minutes, Frank? I’m about to finish the boxes in this room—“

“Come on, baby. You’re great at multitasking,” Frank cajoled. 

This was so patently untrue (Frank knew that Mel was a horrendous multitasker) that she huffed and resolved to ignore him entirely. She focused on the game as Frank slid her sleep shorts and panties down her legs. He threw them over his shoulder where they landed caddywompus behind the tv console. That made Mel’s eyes twitch, but she kept them stubbornly on the screen.

Frank spent what seemed like an eternity playing with her cunt— pressing open-mouthed kisses to her clit and long, lascivious licks up and down her lips. Blowing puffs of air at her; how cruel! Her thumbs started to shake as they pressed the buttons. Her rate of unpacking slid to a crawl. She really couldn’t focus. But Frank danced around her clit; he avoided getting into a real rhythm where she could actually consider an orgasm.

After ten minutes of this treatment, Mel’s resolve snapped. “Why are you doing this to me?” she wailed. She pressed the Switch to her face, focusing on the cool plastic against her cheek.

“Because I want to,” said Frank, between kisses. “And you let me do whatever I want with you. Right?”

Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes now. She was too overwhelmed to answer.

“Isn’t that right?” Frank pressed, circling her clit more insistently. 

She whimpered, overwrought. 

“Mel,” he said. 

“That’s right,” Mel said in a broken voice. “Whatever you want.”

“And now I want you to finish the level so I can fuck you,” said Frank. 

“Fuck the level,” Mel begged. “Stop torturing me.”

Frank hid a wicked grin by pressing his mouth into her cunt again. He loved it when she cursed, which was hardly ever. “No, no,” he said. “I insist. Finish the level. I’ll just entertain myself here until you’re done.”

So Mel unpacked the pixelly boxes as Frank licked her cunt. One would think this game didn’t require much coordination—it comprised unpacking household belongings into rooms, finding a tidy place for everything. There was no time crunch, no battles—it was simply organizing. But Mel’s fingers shook and her clicks were sloppy. 

“Please,” she begged. She still had two boxes left to unpack in the kitchen and she couldn’t take this anymore.

Frank popped his head up from between her legs and grabbed the Switch, surveying her progress. “Hm,” he said, unimpressed. “You really can’t multitask, can you?”

“I can’t.” Mel agreed eagerly. Finally, he would agree to quit this farce. “I tried my best, but I can’t.”

“Oral is probably too much stimulation. Why don’t we try hands and knees? I think you’ll focus better that way.”

Mel’s face dropped. Was he actually going to fuck her on the couch while she played? “Frank, seriously. It’s okay to pause. It’s not like your old games where you lose your progress.”

He barked a laugh. He was already guiding her body, hands on both hips, lifting her up and turning her so she could kneel on the couch. “You calling me old, King?”

“No! No, I just—” Mel’s mind felt like it was stuck in honey. She propped herself up on her elbows as he grabbed luscious handfuls of her ass, the disregarded Switch in her hands in front of her. “I think you’re being mean.”

“I’m not being mean. I just think you should finish what you start,” said Frank conversationally. He slid into her cunt to the hilt. It was absurdly easy, considering how she was dripping for him. “And this way I can see you play. Speaking of which,” He pulled her hips back onto his dick to better peer over her shoulder. “Are you really gonna leave those kitchen appliances out like that?”

“Oh my god,” Mel groaned. How could this man’s cock feel so perfect within her while he was being so annoying? “My backseat unpacker.”

“It just makes the countertop look kind of cluttered,” Frank continued.

“This is hell,” said Mel. She tried her best to unpack the next box, jolted rhythmically by his thrusts. She was unbearably aroused; his cock was hitting a delicious spot deep within her, but not at a pace to actually get her anywhere. “This is the bad place.”

“For me,” said Frank. His hand slid up her back in a languid caress, his big thumb pressing into the dip of her spine. He folded his body over her to press a kiss on her shoulderblade. “It’s heaven.”