akaneoxo

[akaneoxo]

milk teeth

cult leader ! price x f!reader cw: heavy smut. cult grooming. praise and punishment. lots of 'good girl' and a smidge of degradation. breeding. exhibitionism. things involving all three orifices. price is depraved. Jonathan sets his eyes on his next sacrificial lamb. This one might be his favourite. or [read on ao3]

Jonathan always had a taste for sweeter things. 

He fancied himself a collector. Some might have said the habit started when he was a young man; gathered the prettiest girls like notches on his belt, luring them with attention before moving onto the next once he inevitably grew bored of them.  

Truth was, it started long before then. Stemmed from his childhood, when he’d pilfer candies from other children and they’d cede to him without dispute, because they were frightened of him. Or perhaps from his infancy, when he’d suckle his mother dry, leaving her bruised and seeding a hatred for him deep in the pits of her. Or even from within the womb, when he hoarded all of the blood from her placenta and starved his twin of life, thus born already lavish with the greed of a victor.

He never considered himself greedy, though. 

Greed, he thought, implied an undeserving nature. One could only covet that which he didn’t have already — and Jonathan had everything. He deserved everything. 

All that he wanted already belonged to him, he needed only reach out and take it. He wanted money, so he was gifted with the charms of a salesman. He wanted women, so he was anointed with good looks that only ripened as he aged. He wanted power, so with the benisons he was born with he obtained it as easily as a river rolling downhill. What began as a runnel swelled quickly into whitewater, picking up creatures and stones as it went and carving an indelible valley into the bedrock. 

Followers flocked to him like chickens, pecking at his feet for crumbs of his attention, and he fed them just enough to keep them hungry. What started as one or two sycophants grew quickly into ten, then twenty, and soon he had a hundred-acre pasture to turn them out on and an array of hand-built coops to keep them in. A commune, as far as the rest of the world knew it, but in truth it was his abbey. Populated by disciples that worshiped him, serfs that toiled for him, pretty hens that waited on him. 

The problem with ceaseless indulgence, though, was how quickly he grew bored of it. Even the sweetest things turned sour if he sucked on them for too long. 

He was not ignorant of how spoilt he had become. So spoilt, in fact, that his flock’s willingness to appease him had turned to such cloying adulation that it made his head ache. Needy little lambs, the lot of them, scuffling for the milk of his praise, unendingly competing for a single drop of it. 

He had begun to fear that true satisfaction was impossible to attain. Nothing, nobody, would ever be enough for him. No amount of servile women could surfeit him. No amount of devotion could truly appease him.

What he really wanted was something intractable. Something to break in. Something he had to work to tame. 

Chickens and sheep were easy to herd, easy to please, easy to come by. Lions, bears, far less so. What strength was there to claim in leading livestock just as any old shepherd can? Domesticating a creature unbroken would be a true testament to his godliness, he thought. 

He had no interest in battling for dominance with an equal, though. He would never be willing to share his cathedra with someone of comparable strength or power — not to say that such a being could possibly exist, there was no one alive comparable to him. 

What he needed, he thought, was a cub. 

A callow little beast, not yet big enough to know her own strength, but coursing with a valour that his lambs seemed to lack. A creature he’d need to keep under a firm heel. One he’d need to bridle before she learned to bite. 

Such a thought ran through his mind when he saw you. 

Hadn’t caught your name yet. Hadn’t even been informed of your impending arrival, as you were shown to a seat at the other end of the vast dining table. Timid thing you were, feigning some moxie with your arms crossed, but he could smell your unease. Wide in your eyes when you caught his and he chewed hard on nothing. 

You might have thought you were only there to visit, sweet girl, but Jonathan had already decided that you were there to stay. 

Reaching out to your cousin was a last resort. 

You weren’t even sure that Freya was your cousin — perhaps a second cousin something removed, or merely a family friend — one that you didn’t remember meeting but had somehow been acquainted with since birth. You were friends with her on Facebook, and though you only hardly ever used the bot-infested website, you messaged her anyway. 

Hi Freya — this is so random and I’m so sorry to get in touch out of the blue, but I’m not sure who else to turn to!! I just lost my job and my landlord has doubled my rent and I have to move out by this weekend. I don’t mean to dump sorry, but I just remembered a while ago you said you were living on a shared farm or something? Totally understand if I can’t and literally no pressure at all, but just wondering if there might be room for me to crash for a while? I don’t want to be a burden so don’t feel like you have to say yes or reply or anything. Anyway I’m sorry it’s been so long since I reached out, I hope you’re doing well!!! xxx

You had sent the paragraph after ten p.m. on the Thursday. You dithered about it for a while before you gathered the nerve to hit send — curled up on the mattress that sat raw on the floor, snivelling quietly to yourself and nearly deliquescing into the foam out of sheer humiliation. You hated asking for favours, pathologically averse to seeking help at all costs; which, paradoxically, had landed you in this very predicament. 

The message went unopened until you fell asleep, but you woke up puffy-eyed to a reply that had been sent just after five in the morning;

Hi!! So sorry to hear about everything you’re going through, that sounds so hard. Of course, there’s always room here!! I would be soooo happy for you to stay! Do you need help moving out? My friend has a truck we can use. We can get you here before Sunday if you want. Let me know x

Freya and her friend Philip arrived the next day, tooth-achingly sweet as they helped carry boxes of your things into the back of the truck, stuffing in all the furniture that they offered to store at the Homestead, so they called it, until you found another place. All lolly-smiles and sunny pleasantries, offering you ice-cold homebrew that they kept in a cooler, wedges of a ginger slice they had packed for the ride, all homemade as Freya had beamingly told you. 

The drive to the countryside might have been awkward if it had been anyone else in the cab with you, but the two of them filled the silence with a cacophony of laughter and saccharine questions about your miserable life. You avoided real answers most of the time, but they were adept in milking honesty out of you, so painfully earnest in their responses — oh my gosh, that’s just awful, I’m so sorry. That must be so scary. You must be so lonely. 

The truck’s bench seat meant you were squished in together, Freya wedged between you and her friend — there was no space to turn your head away or quietly vacate the conversation by looking out the window. You could only sheepishly confess to everything they asked of you — that no, you weren’t seeing that guy anymore, and no, you hadn’t spoken to your parents in months, and no, you weren’t willing to admit to them how far you had fallen. 

“I’m just so happy you messaged me, it’ll do wonders for you,” Freya said loudly over the open windows, wind flipping through her sandy-brown hair, cut short just below her jaw. “Like — I was just thinking about you the other day. Isn’t that special?” 

“Yeah,” you replied, mustering as sincere a smile as you could. “I’m really grateful for your help.” 

“Of course,” she cooed, gentle hand on your shoulder. “We’re family! We’ll always be there for you.” 

Something made you uneasy about her use of we, but it was smothered by reluctant gratitude. The stars had aligned, after all; you had been granted such a stroke of luck by the powers that be that you dared not question them. You couldn’t risk Philip turning around to dump you back at your empty apartment, nor could you risk falling out of favour with Freya, who you were now completely indebted to. 

“The, um, Homestead — is it like, a village, or something?” You asked eventually, an hour or so into the drive.

Both of them giggled at that, and you did your best not to frown in bemusement. “Kind of,” Philip replied. 

“It’s just divine — paradise, really,” Freya added. “You’ll love it,” 

Not an answer. “So… like, a commune?” 

Freya gave you a thin smile. “That’s a cute word for it. Yeah, I guess it is sort of a commune. but—”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Philip interrupted. 

His tone was unthreatening though firm, and it ended the discussion. 

You asked no more questions for the remainder of the drive; most of which was rough and bouncy, trundling over dirt roads riddled with mud-filled potholes and the odd roadkill smeared over the gravel. 

It was beautiful countryside, you could admit — it had been a long while since you left the smoggy din of the inner city, and out here the air was fresh and bright, especially then in the acme of summer. The breezes were velvety, the sun-bleached trees were dense with lemon-green leaves, and the waving grass was lush and emerald. Swathes of freshly shorn sheep coated the hills, and some friesian cows shared the same fields, heads bowed as they chewed on the same pasturage they shat on. 

By the time you approached the farm the evening sun had sunk to the margins of the sky, disparate clouds catching its orange light on its way towards the horizon. Only as the hills flattened out and the truck passed a bulwark of poplar windbreaks did you finally start to see semblances of buildings.

You weren’t sure what exactly you had expected, but it wasn’t what you saw — an array of seemingly hand-built cottages, bedecked in tooth-white cladding and rectangle windows, with perfectly pointed gables and corrugated metal roofs. All of them were roughly the same size with a porch jutting out the front, lined up like barracks along a single path — hardly a road, merely a muddy track where the grass had been worn down to the rocky soil beneath it. 

“Home sweet home!” Freya crooned, as Philip pulled the truck towards some less cookie-cutter buildings — stables, or something similar, he parked beneath a large corrugated canopy under which a tractor and some hay bales had been stored. 

Freya dismissed Philip with a word and told you he would take care of your things — whatever that meant — as she scooped her arm around you and pottered towards the centre of the commune. Looking at it now, you could confidently call it such; you spotted the odd person in the distance toiling over the farmland, or hanging wet laundry over a washing line, or carrying buckets full of a liquid you couldn’t identify. No visible power lines, a functioning well, a windmill in the distance. Entirely off the grid, you presumed, and only then did the thought strike you that you might not have any phone signal out here. 

“So these are our houses,” Freya explained jubilantly as she led you down the gravelly path between the shacks. “Me and my friend Sam live in this one here.” 

“Nice,” you remarked politely, squinting to look into the windows as you followed Freya up to the porch, but they were blocked by lace blinds within. 

The flat panel door squealed on its hinges as she pushed it open, a little beaten up at the edges where it had been installed by rough tools and inexperienced hands. The interior smelt of sawdust and citrus and a faint hint of body odour — you guessed they were the kind of folk that didn’t use deodorant, and you found yourself praying they at least had running showers. 

Inside were two beds and a small kitchenette — hip-height shelves with flat surfaces for chopping vegetables, and a little gas stovetop. No fridge, no sink, no dishes. Seemed as though they didn’t even use the space for preparing food at all. 

“We can set up a bed for you in here, if you want,” Freya told you, “or otherwise there’s a bed in Philip’s cabin.” 

You frowned at that, because she said it with a little smile, and you didn’t know her well enough to decipher it. Whatever the case, it left a floury feeling in your tummy, and you nodded in place of an answer. 

“Well, you can decide later,” she said. “C’mon, you’re here in time for supper.” 

At the end of the road stood tall some kind of spire-bedecked chapel — a building Freya called the hall, and when your nose must have inadvertently scrunched at her bible-thumping description, she couched it by telling you; “no, it’s not a church. Or, it can be, if you want it to be. It’s for everybody.” 

It became abundantly clear to you that you were in over your head as you crossed the paths of other commune-dwellers venturing to the hall for supper. All dressed up in their prim and propers; every woman in flower-toned skirts of varying lengths and pleasant white blouses, men cladded in their button-ups and linen pants. 

“Looks like I’m underdressed,” you murmured to Freya, looking down at your jeans and t-shirt, infused with dry sweat worked up while lifting and hauling all your boxes and furniture. 

Freya giggled. “No, no, nobody cares about that,” she said. “It’s only because it’s the end of the week.” 

“Sunday best?” You asked with a simper, an attempt at a joke that you were well aware may not have landed. 

You could never quite get a read on her — she had the potent positivity of a bible-camp counsellor, that sort of tight-lipped smile that gave the impression she had a fragile tolerance for banter or disagreement. But that veneer didn’t crack, nor did it appear to conceal any manipulation or malicious deception — instead it seemed like that berry-jam sweetness was thick in the blood that pumped through her veins, and glowed earnestly bright and pink in her cheeks. 

“Yeah,” she chuckled, “I guess you could say that. But there’s no dress code, or… uniform, or whatever. Don’t worry. We’re not a cult or anything.” 

Preempting your burgeoning concern that the commune was a cult should not have comforted you as much as it did, but it was settling to hear some degree of self-awareness. In honesty, you hadn’t been there long enough to make a fair assumption, but the entire affair was undeniably Jonestown-esque — especially as you wandered into the gaping raw-timber hall, to find a boat-long table with a man seated at the head. 

He sucked the air out of you. 

Indescribably so. Like a black hole at the end of the room, drawing both light and oxygen into his orbit, occupying it all for himself. Palpable in the size of him — great hulking man with shoulders like an ox and arms as thick as trunks, flocked in dense hair that swept around his forearms and tufted out of the neckline of his shabby white t-shirt. The cotton was distended by bulk, pulled tight over a heavily padded chest, mucky with dust and mired by darkened patches of sweat between his pectorals and under his arms. 

You could feel his mass from where you slipped into the hall behind Freya, a weight that you felt in your stomach and it made your brows crumple up in worry you could not pin. 

Worse, when he met your eye. 

He leaned back in his seat like it was a throne. Eyes dark as cave pools that ensnared you above the brown beer bottle he tipped into a jutting jaw, hooked in a thick forefinger. They followed you sharply as you entered the room, like hooks, and you could feel where they pierced your skin. 

An ambiguous expression festered in his features; sceptical, maybe, or vaguely bitter — something fixed in it, though, an unspoken accusation that made you feel as if he had detected some wrongdoing you had yet to confess to. It compelled you to defensively wrap your arms around yourself, though you kept your eyes on him, if only to test whether he would look away. 

He didn’t. 

He was sheeny with sweat and ruddy-cheeked like he had just turned in from a day of hard labour. Decidedly underdressed compared to the residents of the commune that filed into the bench seats on either side of the table, one-by-one, well practiced; no shuffling awkwardly along to make room, no murmured sorries as knees knocked and seats bumped.

Twenty-four of them, sixteen on each side of the table. You tucked yourself awkwardly at the end of the row, next to Freya. It did not escape your notice that you had ruined their even number, clumsily jutting out of what would have been a perfectly mirrored seating arrangement. Your brows knitted together in chagrin when you got side-eye glances from the people across the table. 

It struck you that there were far more men than women seated — you and Freya were two of five — but the moment the thought gained traction you looked up to see eight women in aprons file in from a door at the back of the hall. 

Platters in tow, puffy trails of steam following them as they lay each dish down along the table. Lamb, by the looks; four great brown hocks of roast leg, charred and gritty with thick bones poking out of the slabs of meat. Accompanying those platters were large dishes of boiled potatoes, bowls of peas, a few piles of indeterminable green and brown mush. Soon the cavernous hall was filled with the thick scent of steaming meat and bone marrow, and it might have smelt appealing if you weren’t so on edge. 

On edge, not only because you felt a leech, latched on to the ankle of a community you hadn’t yet been introduced to, as though hoping they didn’t notice you there and pinch you off by the jaws — but worse, because you could feel the burning stare from the man at the head penetrating straight through you, and your skin all but bubbled and blistered under it. 

“Hungry?” Freya asked with a smile, rubbing her hands together above her empty plate. 

To face Freya meant you were facing that man, and you could see him glowering at you even out of focus, in your periphery as you addressed her. Your eyes flicked to meet him despite a concerted effort not to, so you looked at your plate instead. 

“Not really,” you murmured, though you quickly realised how rude it sounded once the words left your mouth. “Filled up on ginger slice on the drive over — but it smells delicious, so I’ll definitely have some.” 

“Good,” she says with a nod, “this is the real deal, you know. The good stuff. You could never buy food like this at a supermarket. You know Philip butchers it himself?”

You’re not sure why that comment made you swallow. “Does he?” You ask, out of polite disinterest.

“Mhm. He’s a good one, too. No gristle or anything, just you wait.” 

You nod and smile, gritting teeth, because you accidently caught his eye again when you hadn’t even tried to and it made your stomach cramp up. 

The women who brought in the food began to file into the empty sides of the benches, and one pressed up next to you as if you had taken her spot. Freya mindlessly fiddled with her fork, and suddenly you realised how quiet the hall had fallen. 

Silence settled like smoke. You suddenly had to bite down on the urge to cough. Glanced around the table, platters steaming and ready to be served with their great big spoons — and yet, nobody touched them. 

Until the man at the head leaned forward with a grunt, clunking his bottle down on the table and reaching over to grab the prongs on the platter in front of him. Pulled off a massive hunk of tender meat, stringy and dripping reddish juices along the table, before dumping it on his plate. 

The hall was suddenly alive again, then, and everybody continued their discussions as normal — a plethora of hands reaching across the table, grabbing spoons and forks, scooping and serving themselves humble helpings of meat and vegetables compared to the mountain the man had piled up for himself. 

“Here you go,” Freya said, having filled your plate for you without your noticing; a polite pile of meat, two potatoes, and a scoop of peas. 

“Oh, thank you,” you replied, with a smile, as she put it down in front of you.

It took a few turgid minutes before you could muster another word, swallowing dry mouthfuls of your meal to busy yourself while you felt those inculpatory eyes needling at the side of your head. 

“Who is that?” You asked Freya, quietly, swallowing a mouthful of potatoes. As casually as you could make your interest sound to avoid revealing how your thoughts had been invaded by him, pounding like a headache, from the moment you set foot in the hall. 

“Hm?” She hummed, mouth full, looking up and around to see who you were talking about. “Who?” 

“Him,” you said, nodding your head towards the head of the table, eyes dashing back to your plate when he met them again. 

“Oh! That’s Jonathan!” She answered you, jarring as a sudden clap. 

“Jonathan?” You probed, taking another mouthful of food to hide your scepticism. 

“Yeah, he’s the, like, founder, or something… I’m not sure what you’d call it.”

“Founder? Like, of this whole place?”

“Mhm,” she nodded, swallowing. “He brought a few of the old hands with him over from Liverpool to set up the farmland. I wanna say… ten, eleven years ago? Much longer than I’ve been here, anyway.” 

“How long have you been here?” You queried, regretful of how judgemental it sounded when you said it, but she seemed either oblivious or unflustered. 

“Over a year, I think,” she said. “Nearly two, maybe.” 

“Wow,” you said, through your food. It was actually pretty good. “Must be one hell of a farm.”

She snickered at that. “I’m not here for the farm,” she laughed, “well — it’s a bonus, of course. But, no, I stuck around for the family.” 

Family. You tried to conceal how it made you wince, but you weren’t sure how successful you were in doing so. You didn’t want to continue that line of questioning, though. It made your throat tighten up, and whatever else she might have told you, you didn’t want to know. You only needed a place to sleep, after all. Only for a week, two at most. No longer than that, you decided, repeated it firmly so that it was fixed as fact in the back of your head.

Then you caught his eye, again, and he seemed to tilt his head at you, a tug in his brow like he had read your mind and taken issue with your thought. 

“He keeps staring at me,” you muttered quietly, head tipped towards Freya so that none of the other people could hear you. 

Her head spun cartoonishly on her shoulders to look at Jonathan, and you wished you knew her well enough to elbow her for making it so painfully obvious you had been talking about him. 

He leaned back smugly in his chair. Held your gaze like a challenge. 

“I don’t think he wants me here,” you whispered edgily. 

Freya looked back at you with her brows pin straight. “He just hasn’t met you yet — you should go up and introduce yourself.” 

You frowned anxiously. “What? Right — right now?”

“Yeah, you should. He’s probably expecting you to.” 

“Expecting me?” You balked, face twisting at prospect that the man could have been audacious enough to expect anything from a stranger. 

“It’s only polite,” Freya said calmly, with an easy smile, and a gentle hand on your arm. “He’s the one who is letting you stay.” 

You chewed on that for a moment, forcing the vitriol in your mouth to slide down your throat with a hard swallow. She was right — if it was his farm, and it sounds as though it might have been — then he was the one doing you the favour. 

Before you could dither about whether you had the bravery to call across the table and say hello — which, you didn’t — he spoke. 

“Who’s this, Freya?”

His voice cut through the din of the meal like a chainsaw. 

Freya bolted upright, spine plank-straight as if called to attention, though it took her a second to register the question. 

A quirk twisted in his brow when she told him your name, and his jaw masticated on it for a moment. You prayed for the ability to curl up into yourself like a snail, because now not only was he glaring at you, so was every other pair of eyes at the table. All you could do was keep your chin high and act as if the bizarreness of the situation wasn’t eating away at you like gangrene. 

“She’s a friend,” Freya added sheepishly. 

“You didn’t tell me she was coming, did you?” He asked rigidly, and while there wasn’t anything directly accusatory in his tone, she reacted as if she had been scolded. 

“Um — well, I said that I had a friend coming, and you—”

“A friend. That’s right,” he crooned, and Freya deflated like a popped balloon at the release of blame. “C’mere, then.” 

“Me?” Freya asked tightly, and he only tilted his head condescendingly — all but saying obviously not. 

“Our new friend,” he said simply, ursine eyes fastened to you across the table. Gestured at you with a flick of his fingers. “C’mere, cub.” 

Your eyes darted abashedly around the room, unsure what you were looking for — an escape, perhaps. Maybe encouragement. You found none, so with a sharp breath you pushed yourself up to stand. Had to awkwardly clamber around Freya and the other woman next to you to step over the bench, bumping them both on your way up. All of the simmering attention in the hall was on you, and you wished you had never come to the weird fucking Homestead in the first place. 

There was no choice but to entertain it. You didn’t have your own car. You didn’t have it in you to demand to leave in front of all of these seemingly normal people. You didn’t have it in you to make a scene. 

“Bring your supper, love,” Jonathan said warmly. “Come sit.”

You sucked your lips between your teeth in reluctance, but you capitulated quickly — bending between Freya and the woman to pick up your half-empty plate, carrying it with both hands as you made your rueful way towards his end of the table. 

His head followed you as though on a stick on your approach. Gestured wordlessly at the man sitting on his left, and the entire row shuffled along the bench seat to allow you space right beside the head. It took you a moment to gather the nerve to sit, so you put your plate down first. 

“Sit down,” he said. 

Your lip curled at his patronising tone, and out of spite you remained standing for just a beat too long — until brief shadow of potent displeasure saturated his features, lips in a line under his dense umber beard. It made the back of your neck feel cold. 

The fleeting indignation was brushed off with a smirk, though, followed swiftly by a puff of laughter. Something in his air told you he’d only wait for so long, but for now he was amused by your disobedience. 

You sat yourself down, only because the awkwardness was suffocating, and your spite was quickly smothered by embarrassment when it became clear that everybody in the building was waiting for you to listen to him. 

“There you go,” he grinned, taking a sip of his beer to cut the tension, and it snapped like a rubber band. The others were abruptly busy with themselves again, chatting amongst each other and chewing away at their meals. 

Then it was only you, and the minacious beast of a man. Swallowed by the vacuum of his tunnelling attention until the rest of the room sounded hazy and indistinct. 

“What brings you all the way out here, then, sweetheart?” He asked casually, the air suddenly buzzing and warm around him. 

Eyes that you thought had been black were in fact blue as storm clouds, that creased fondly in the corners when he smiled at you. His lack of introduction felt pointed, confident that you were already well aware of who he was. 

“Um,” you bit, oddly lost for words, you poked at a pea on your plate with your fork. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Give it a go,” he pressed, scooping a mouthful of meat and potatoes into his mouth, though his eyes didn’t leave you. 

“Well, I was working at — I mean, it doesn’t matter. I was made redundant. Or, fired, or whatever. They were really vague about it, so I don’t even know,” you over-explained, suddenly regretting every word that rolled uncontrollably out of your mouth. “But then, well, I’ve been going back and forth with my landlord about rent for ages. I thought I had gotten through to him — because I told him, I made it super clear I’d have to break the lease if he increased it as much as he wanted to. But he did it anyway, bumped it to more than double what I was paying, and so—”

“So you’re homeless, are you, cub?” He interrupted, brows raised, as though summarising your rambling points for you. 

You tripped on your own voice like a raised root on a footpath, cocking your head back as you looked up at him. You weren’t sure why you were affronted by the suggestion. 

“I’m not — no, I’m not homeless,” you corrected, unconfidently, and he smiled at that. 

“Do you have a home?” He asked simply. 

A divot pulled in your brow. “Not right now, but—”

“Don’t pout, love,” he chided. “I’m not insulting you. It’s just the truth, in’t it?”

“But I’m not homeless, my parents have a house, and I—”

He seemed to stiffen at the mention of parents, and it should have alarmed you. “Parents, eh? But you’re here instead?” 

“Well, yeah, but it’s only because—”

“Easy, easy,” he cooed, voice low and gurgling. “No need to get so defensive, mh? M’only curious about you. S’not often we have urbanites like you wandering in.”

Something in his expression, in his voice, was as warm in your mouth as liquor. Eyes that earlier disquieted you were now soft, crinkled and sincere in their interest, and you could only yield with a short sigh. 

“What’s that mean?” You asked, failing to conceal your sulkiness. 

He chuckled at you, as he scooped up another mouthful of his meal onto his fork. 

“City bird,” he said frankly, through his food. “I can smell it on you.” 

You frowned, vaguely offended but with no clue what he meant by it. “Excuse me?” 

“All that perfume,” he explained disapprovingly. “Cigarettes. Car exhaust. Mh. This place’ll do y’good.” 

You resented yourself for suddenly feeling insecure. “You don’t like my perfume?” 

He shook his head once. “Bunch o’ chemicals,” he dismissed. “I bet you smell much better underneath it.” 

Couldn’t explain why that made your diaphragm seize up, and you let out a pitiful little cough on reflex. Maybe it was because he said it while he looked at you like meat, conspicuously letting his gaze rake down to your chest and linger there for a moment. You were thankful he couldn’t peer any lower by virtue of the table. 

“Probably not,” you said meekly, in an attempt to lighten the conversation. “I got all sweaty lifting all my furniture and stuff this morning.” 

He looked perturbed by that, a reproachful glance up from his plate. “Didn’t Freya bring Philip along to do the moving?”

“Yeah, he helped a lot,” you said, suddenly worried you might have gotten her in trouble — then doubled back on that thought, when you considered how vile it was that being in trouble was something the people of the commune might have had to worry about. “But, y’know. I had a lot of stuff, I wasn’t gonna make him do all the work.” 

He tutted. “Can’t have that.” 

“Can’t have what?” You asked dubiously. 

“Can’t have you doin’ hard work,” he elaborated, as though explaining something you should already have known. “Wee lambs like you should stay nice n’ soft.” 

Your lips pursed reprovingly. “I’m not a lamb,” you snapped. 

A grin dimpled his bearded cheeks. “Maybe not.”

You froze as his burly hand dragged across the table, before he brushed his thumb over the back of your wrist. The touch made your belly tense up and your hairs stand on end, and all you could do was blink at him. 

“Still nice n’ soft, though. Don’t want to ruin that, do you, cub?” 

Cub. 

His usage of it had gone unnoticed until the third time, but you quickly began to ruminate on it. An idiosyncratic term of endearment, maybe, but something in how he said it felt pointed. Knowing. Vaguely accusatory. 

His fixation on your softness should have made your hackles spike up, but his expression was almost exultory, and his touch made a shiver tingle up your arm. You were suddenly conscious of your heartbeat. 

You didn’t know how to answer him. 

“I don’t — I’m not soft—” 

“Feel bloody soft to me,” he remarked, giving your wrist a squeeze. “And m’sure you’re even softer on the inside.” 

Your stomach dropped at that, and you wore it on your face, bright and hot in the cheeks. He said it so casually, with such an earnest smile, that you chastised yourself for what must have been a wild misinterpretation. He surely meant metaphorically, commenting on your personality, your softness of nature, rather than your—

“Y’got a boy, love?” He asked candidly, returning to his meal, and the skin of your wrist felt cold once his hand retreated. 

“A boy?” 

He raised a brow at you, a silent what do you think? as he chewed his food. His use of boy felt calculated and you wondered how old he thought you were. 

“Oh — uh, no.” 

“Mh,” he mused, mouth full. “Somethin’ happen?” 

His ability to read you was uncanny, and it made you squirm. 

“Um, yeah, I came out of a relationship recently.” 

He raised his eyebrows as he swallowed. “D’he leave you?” 

That made you frown on reflex. Insulted that he had assumed it. Vexed that you were giving something away you hadn’t intended to. Troubled that you couldn’t seem to hold your cards close enough to your chest, and he was peeking at them whether you liked it or not. 

“No,” you retorted. “It was pretty mutual.” 

“Did he leave you?” He repeated, but there was no rigidity in it, no severity in his expression. It came out as naturally and calmly as small talk. 

You looked away from him, scratching the back of your hand. “Well, I — we were growing apart anyway, he just ripped the bandaid off.”  

He nodded in understanding, patently satisfied that you had capitulated. “Rubbish took itself out, eh?” 

You smiled wryly at that. Hadn’t expected him to say something in your favour after rudely assuming you must have been dumped.  

“S’pose so,” you said. “Definitely feel a bit freer without him.” 

“Good,” he chortled deeply, scooping himself another mouthful of meat. “We don’t have room for another lad livin’ here.” 

You pouted in thought — living here, he said. You worried for a moment he might have misunderstood your presence at the commune, or that Freya had not made it clear to him that your stay was temporary. 

“I’m not moving here, or anything,” you clarified hesitantly. 

“Aren’t you?”

You gave him a mild shake of your head. “No — I’m only staying for a week or so.” 

He smiled at that, letting out a gruff sigh as he leaned back in his seat, picking up his beer. “S’alright, love,” he said. “You can stay however long you like.” 

You looked askance at him. “I’m — thank you.” 

“Have you got yourself a bed?” He asked coolly. 

“Um, sounds like I’m either staying in Freya’s house or Philip’s house.” 

His jaw tightened. “No, no,” he dismissed with a scoff. “I’ll get you a proper spot.”

“What do you mean?” 

“A place with a bed just for you, love. No need to share.”

You shook your head guiltily. “Oh, no, I’m totally happy to—”

“Don’t be daft,” he grunts. “Freya already has a friend with her and Philip — well. Can’t have a thing as pretty and innocent as you sharing a bed with a man you don’t know, can I?” 

Your mouth went dry. Innocent should have been an omen to heed, but you were too busy spinning about pretty. Wanted to smack yourself for letting it get to your head, but by the time the remorse arose the seeds of flattery had already been sown. 

It crossed your mind, then, that Freya had failed to mention you’d be sharing a bed with Philip and not just a room. You remembered her little smile and wondered if it was your fault for failing to pick up on it. 

“I just — I don’t want to be an inconvenience, or anything.”

He shifted forward, then, and his immense hand travelled under the table, before fixing firmly to your thigh. 

Close enough to your knee that you would have felt unjustified in smacking him, but high enough that you felt a sudden fizzing in the base of you — a moiling, something warm and shuddering in the cradle of your pelvis, and your face burned hot. You wondered if you might have been ovulating, because that was the only justification you could muster for how your body reacted to his enormously inappropriate touch. 

“Not an inconvenience at all, cub,” he said sincerely. 

“That’s—”

Tranquilised, when his fingertips pressed just lightly enough into either side of your thigh that it could have been accidental. Sent a shock up your femoral nerve that stabbed you in the core and made you twitch. 

You attempted to finish your sentence, but your jaw was fixed, because you had short-circuited the moment he touched you. 

You had your people-pleasing tendencies, but you had never been a doormat. You knew when something was a step over the line, an affront, an action worthy of retaliation. In another setting you might have called him a pig and thrown some peas at him before storming off. That abeyant aggression had gotten you into sticky situations before, because not all men held to the moral of not hitting a woman back.  

You didn’t think he would have been the type to get violent if you were to snap at him, but there was a murkiness about him, and you could not say so confidently. Pupils somehow blacker than black, smoky within.

It wasn’t fear, though, that kept you placid. You weren’t afraid of him. Awestruck, maybe. Morbidly intrigued, like you had stumbled across a bear through the trees and despite yourself yearned for a closer look at such an elusive beast. 

It didn’t help that your thigh was dwarfed by the expanse of his hand. That his thumb grazed you up and down through the denim of your jeans. That you saw his pulse in the veins of his forearm as your stare trailed upward, fixing to the way the bands of muscle moved under his skin as he stroked your leg. 

“That’s nice of you, thank you,” you murmured, once you found your voice again. 

He nodded, satisfied, and his paw released your thigh before giving you a chaste pat on the knee. 

“Good,” he said, putting down his fork, and you realised he had already finished his mound of food. “Finish up your dinner and we’ll get you settled in, eh?”

You didn’t notice it then, but the moment his fork hit the table, so did everyone else's. 

The cabin he gave to you was another white cottage, but this one had a cariad rosebush out the front; dense with spring-bloomed flowers, tissue-paper pink, yellow anthers laden with pollen. It was also the closest cottage to the hall, the very last one at the end of the road, with no opposite cabin to mirror it. 

He had Freya show you to it. You heard him tell her under his breath to give her a proper welcome, which made your brow tight and your palms sweat. It was an uncomfortable wait as Philip brought your suitcase from wherever he had stored it, and he left it by the foot of your new bed — a narrow single, with a tartan woolen blanket and a single pillow. 

You thanked him as he left, and he rolled his eyes, responding with a curt scoff. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Freya leaned against the jamb of the door, giving Philip a strangely pitiful expression on his way out, before she turned her attention back to you. 

“I feel bad,” you said sheepishly, crossing your arms as you stood in the centre of your personal cabin. 

Freya sucked her teeth at that. “For what?” 

“I mean — getting a whole cabin. That feels like a bit much. I just thought I’d be—” 

She pursed her lips. “What’d he say to you?” 

“What?” 

“Jonathan,” she bit. “You were talking all supper.” 

If she was irritated at you, she concealed it well. Kept her brows high and her posture loose despite her line of questioning. 

“Um,” you started. “I dunno, he just asked me questions, I guess.” 

“Like?” 

“Like — uh, why I’m here and how long I’m staying for, and stuff.” 

She seemed to chew on that for a moment. “That all?”

“Why?” You questioned warily.

“Oh — nothing, I’m only curious. I’d just feel terrible if he interrogated you on your first night here.”

Your brows pinched together. “Um, I mean, he didn’t interrogate me or anything. He was nice enough.” 

She let out a short breath, and a smile pulled in her lips. “Yeah, he must like you.”

You only shrugged, unsure if the comment merited a response. Uneasy about the implied weight of him liking you, and you wondered what might have happened if it turned out he didn’t. 

“Anyway, I’m really glad you’re here,” she said, suddenly warming up. “You let me know if you need anything, will you?” 

You returned her smile if only out of courtesy. “Oh, thanks, I will.”

“Anything at all. Even if you only need a shoulder. We’re here for you, okay?”

It was too easy to slip into a routine. 

You had a few days of lounging — that’s what Freya called it — time spent leisurely as opposed to working like everybody else did.

The summer heat was dry but inebriating, and it sunk in through your skin like a percutaneous medicine. Soaked into your spongy brain like ether, and what was once a persistent anxiety that needled and hummed behind your forehead was numbed into a pleasant compliance. 

You had always felt that you suffered from a degree of social anxiety. A pathological fear of rejection that kept you under the heel of solitude, because being actively excluded was more painful than not including yourself at all. 

And yet, you were making friends. 

The people of the Homestead were so warm, so sunny, and so eager for your company, that any worry about not fitting in was forcibly shucked off of you like the husk of a corn. Whatever uncertainty about you that smouldered in the air during the first supper had evaporated, and suddenly those that had looked at you with suspicion were instead all agog about you. 

There was Georgie, who knocked on the door of your cabin at eight in the morning on your first full day, and offered to walk you around the farm. She told you she had never seen someone so pretty, and that she only looked funny at you at supper because she was intimidated by you. She asked you questions about yourself with such genuine intrigue that you found yourself answering in gratuitous detail, and she was fervently gracious for every word. 

There was Simon, one of the old hands, so Freya called them — who arrived at your house to set up gas-powered hot water, because he thought you might not be used to the cold showers on the commune. He told you that they couldn’t let you suffer such a shock to the system, that it was better to keep some of the things you were more familiar with, so you felt more at home. 

There was Linda, who cooked you pancakes for breakfast because you slept through their six a.m. communal one. She made you a coffee with whipped cream and told you that the vanilla syrup was homemade, and she gave you a bowl of strawberries that they had grown themselves. Only the ripest and sweetest ones, she told you, for such a ripe and sweet girl. 

By the fourth day, you were encouraged to follow their schedule. Told that you’d miss out on connections if you slept through breakfast or didn’t attend lunch. It was easy enough, when three of the women you had spoken to the evening prior came to your cabin bright and early. Gave you a little flower to wear in your hair and held your hands as they skipped with you to the hall. 

That was the next time you saw Jonathan. 

He was elusive in the daylight. More of a rumour than a man, something whispered as a deferential secret or referred to like a surveying deity that was perpetually present but just out of sight. He would appear in the hall for his lunch but would take it to go, and you could only speculate on where he spent his time in the space between dawn and dusk. 

He was frugal with his attention. You had begun to suspect his lavish interest in you on your first night was a rarity, a spotlight unique to being a new arrival — and you didn’t like that it wounded you. 

A thorn in your side, tiny but irritating, when you would sit down for dinners and he didn’t invite you to sit next to him. He would keep your gaze for bite-sized moments, ensuring you knew he was aware of your presence, but his focus would shift to somebody else just as you thought he might speak to you.  

So when he called your name after breakfast, before the prescribed cleaners began clearing the table, you perked up like a spooked cat. 

The thrill you felt when hearing his voice was sobering, and it sent a chill down your spine. 

It was subconscious, and it worried you. A latent fawnery that had germinated in your brainstem, one you were only made aware of when you hopped up too enthusiastically from your seat, and felt a swelling pride in your belly when Georgie gave you a knowing little smile. 

You could feel it there, a tooth-rotting lolly dissolving in the wet folds of your brain; you knew it was bad for you, but you couldn’t help but savour the sweetness. 

“Been missin’ you, Cub,” he said softly, when you went to stand beside him, and your tongue curled in your mouth. “Walk with me?” 

“Sure,” you said. 

He wore a faded red overshirt, rolled up to his elbows, and your eyes fixed on his thick forearms as he crossed them over his chest. Smelt of sage and sweat, the musk of labour and deer pelt, and you wondered if he had been out hunting the day before. 

“These things are no good,” he remarked, tugging at the waistband of your jeans by a belt loop, as he walked you out of the back of the hall into the blue-grey dawn. 

The air was cool but already warming with the incipient sun, and the cicadas were awake and humming long before you had been. The birdsong was almost deafening out there, mourning doves lamenting loudly from the tall pines and walnuts that dotted the acreage. 

“My jeans?” You asked, looking down at them, suddenly worried they were unflattering. 

“Mh,” he grunted. “They’re bad for you, y’know.” 

You frowned. “How?” 

He chuckled, as though the answer was so obvious that you were daft for not knowing it. “Aren’t they uncomfortable?” 

“I mean — I guess they’re a little tight,” you admitted bemusedly, running your hands over the waistband. 

He nodded. “Mh. Too tight,” he said. “You should be lettin’ her breathe.” 

You gawped at that. “Her?” 

“Your pussy, love.” 

Your heart skipped a beat when the word drawled its way out of his mouth. Tongue went wet with it, and you could only stare up at him, stupefied. 

“That denim is like sandpaper,” he continued placidly. “Too rough for such a sensitive thing.” 

You hoped he couldn’t see how flustered you were, as you broke your gaze from him and stared glassy-eyed into the gravel of the footpath he walked you down. He chuckled as he draped a heavy arm around your shoulders and gave your trapezius a squeeze, thumb pushing into a squishy knot and it sent goosebumps down the side of your neck.

“No need to get embarrassed, sweetheart,” he purred. “I just know these things.” 

You should have been humiliated by your deference, revolted that you didn’t feel compelled to shove him away and berate him for being so blatantly inappropriate — but some part of you, to your dismay, believed him. They were a little suffocating, you thought, stiff and uncomfortable to sit and walk around in. Perhaps you had become inured to the rigid seam that flossed between your legs and pressed harshly into your clitoris every time you sat down. 

“I — I only really have pants with me. Or leggings,” you quietly admitted, and his calloused hand smoothed down to your arm. 

“The girls can sew you something you’d look lovelier in,” he said. “Better than those city clothes. Wouldn’t you look pretty in something pink?” 

He was good at that, insulting and complimenting you in the same breath. Letting your insecurities fester under the surface but coating them in a thick lacquer of praise. 

“Uh, maybe,” you muttered eventually, once your bashfulness abated and you could find your breath again. 

“I don’t want to see these again,” he said, sternly this time, as his paw sank to your far hip and his thumb tucked into the waistband. 

You swallowed. You should’ve pulled away from him. 

“I… okay,” was all you said. 

You were a guest, you told yourself. He was housing and feeding you with no expectation of payment or contribution, the least you could do is abide by the dress code of his community. To heed his advice, because he seemed like an erudite man. 

He had led you to a pergola, one made of hand-chopped timber, faded grey beams, spattered in wrinkly patches of celadon lichen. Didn’t need to ask you to sit next to him on the seat beneath it, because he guided you there with his arm. 

“Settling in okay, love?” He asked you, arm hung over the back of the bench, and though he was no longer touching you, you felt the heat of his skin on the back of your neck. 

“Yeah,” you said, blinking up at him, before looking abashedly into the trees. “Everyone has been really nice.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Good,” he remarked, nodding, but his gaze continued to pry. “All been welcoming, I hope?” 

“Yeah, for the most part,” you answered, with a sedate smile. 

“Most part?” He questioned immediately, tone rigid, a dent between his brows. 

“Oh, no — I definitely feel welcome,” you stammered, suddenly worried that you’d come across as ungrateful. 

“One of ‘em hassling you?” 

You shook your head urgently. “No, no, of course not.” 

Eyes once doting had squinted in suspicion, and you felt suddenly transparent, like he could see the gears spinning beneath your skin. “I’m not stupid, cub.”

You huffed as you looked away from him, straight out into the tree line with your arms crossed, because you didn’t like the feeling of being pried open. 

“It’s not a big deal,” you said, “it’s just Philip. He just doesn’t seem like he wants me here.” 

“Philip, eh?” He droned, chewing on the name like it tasted foul in his mouth. “I’ll have a word.” 

“Don’t, please, it’s fine. He hasn’t even been rude, just a bit—”

“Enough,” he grumbled, and you bit your tongue. “Not havin’ him throw a fuss because things didn’t go his way.” 

Your brows tightened at that, mind rending itself to figure out what he might have meant by it, but any possible implication you arrived at made your guts churn with unease. 

He let out a long sigh, though, and patted your shoulder with his far hand. “Enjoying yourself otherwise, love?”

You almost jumped again to polite dishonesty, everything is lovely, rising up your throat — but you decided on frankness instead. 

“Yeah, but there’s, um, there’s not much to do,” you said. “I wondered if there might be something I can help out with?” 

He laughed, a bearish sort of chuckle, deep from the barrel of his chest.

“You’re asking for work, are you?” 

“Yeah, I guess so,” you said. “I feel bad just watching everyone else do it.”

He seemed endeared by the suggestion, grinning at you tenderly for a beat too long.  

“Aren’t you a righteous wee girl,” He crooned, large hand cupping your shoulder. “Didn’t I make it clear how I feel about you working?” 

You pouted at that, because how he felt about the matter was not law, though he evidently believed it to be. 

“It’s just — I’m a bit bored,” you said stiffly. “Wouldn’t hurt to have something to do during the day.” 

“Bored, eh?” he mused, through a wry smirk, thumb mindlessly stroking your shoulder. “Well we can’t have that, can we.” 

“I just mean—”

“Tell you what,” he declared. “You can help the girls in the kitchen. But I’m not havin’ you toiling out in the fields like a farm animal.” 

You gritted your teeth. Some sun would have been nice, you were sure, but you’ve always been a creature of comfort. Though the suggestion was patronising, you were not averse to the prospect of domestic labour, when you considered how ragged the farm-workers looked after ten hours of muddy chores. 

“Okay, sure, I can do that.” 

“Lovely,” he said. “You can bring me my coffee in the morning too, if you like. How’s that sound?” 

“Um,” you hesitated, “where… where would I bring it to?” 

“My bedroom,” he said, point-blank. 

You must have worn your stupor on your face, because he gave you a brazen smile, and he grazed your cheek with the hand hanging over your shoulders. He was only a tactile man, you told yourself. Touchy out of habit rather than lechery. That would explain why you didn’t bristle at the warmth of his skin against yours, despite the fact he was still but a stranger to you. 

“Okay,” you conceded, with a sharp exhale, because you suddenly felt as though you had agreed to something you shouldn’t have. 

He nodded, smile baring his ivory teeth, catching the light of the rising sun on a gold-capped premolar. Genuine pride in the steely eyes that gazed down at you, and you felt the warmth of it on your cheeks. You felt his fingers playing with the curls of hair by your ear, as he drew in a deep and steady breath. 

“Not wearing your perfume, mh?” He remarked, after a pregnant silence. 

You weren’t sure why the mention of it embarrassed you, that you had been caught obeying him when you didn’t think you were trying to. 

You hadn’t thought of him when you shirked your usual two-spritz routine to start the day. It wasn’t a conscious decision, you told yourself, you just hadn’t felt the need — in truth, though, you had not once used it since he mentioned it at the first supper. 

“No,” you confessed. 

You could smell the pride on him, crude and syrupy. Oozing from the smug grin that dimpled his bearded cheeks. His thumb stroked the skin of your neck, and you wondered if he could feel how fast your heart was racing. 

“Such a quick learner, cub,” he said. 

There was only one path for you from there. 

You had brought Jonathan his coffee for the first time the next morning. 

His room was in his farmhouse, a timber-cladded folk victorian with two storeys, though likely hand-built by him and his old hands. A short walk from the hall, separate from the other buildings and planted at the top of the hill. The front door was ajar when you went to visit, and you sheepishly ventured inside and went to knock on his bedroom door. End of the hall at the top of the stairs. 

Your eyes were level with his sternum when he opened his door for you, and you wore your shock like a smack to the face. 

Mountainous pectorals upholstered in bearish fur, rising and falling as he breathed you in. He was freshly showered, still damp, and you had arrived just in time to find him buckling up his belt. Hadn’t any time to put a shirt on before your arrival. 

You had never felt smaller nor more insignificant than when you stood in front of him, faced with such a mass of muscle and post-hibernation bulk that you felt drawn in by some deific gravitational pull. A mere moon in his orbit. 

“Hard at work already, lovie?” He drawled, petting the side of your head and taking the steaming mug from you. “Aren’t you a good girl?” 

He offered his praise like hard candy, and you were far too eager to suckle on it. 

He sniffed, dissatisfied, when he took his first sip. 

“I take it with cream,” he told you stiffly, and your heart dropped at the disappointment in his throat. “Next time, mh?” 

You gave him a weak frown. 

“Well you didn’t tell me that,” you retorted, probably a lick too defensive. 

He seemed amused by it, letting out a small puff of laughter and raising an eyebrow. “Now I have.” 

“Anything else I should know?”

He pursed his lips as he thought about it, you felt his eyes on your neck. “I like it sweet.” 

“Me too,” you said, holding back the smile itching in your lips.

“Bet you do, cub,” he replied, with a tepid smirk, and he shut the door.  

That was the last time you got it wrong. 

The next morning you arrived five minutes earlier, and he opened the door in his red-plaid boxers, eyes still puffy from sleep and skin radiating heady warmth from the cocoon of his bed. Unshowered. 

He caught your eyes flitting to the weight behind the buttons of his boxers; shape concealed by the wrinkling fabric, but length plain as day, reaching down the left leg of his shorts. Gave you an upbraiding glower when you swallowed the saliva that had accumulated in your mouth. A silent scolding for getting ahead of yourself with a gaze down his nose as you handed him the mug. 

“I put cream in it this time,” you said, revolted by how obsequious it sounded aloud, “and some of Linda’s vanilla syrup, I thought you might like it.” 

“Mm,” he crooned, the rumble of an engine deep in his chest as he slurped from the mug. “Tha’s lovely.”

A proud little smile curled in your lips. “Oh, good — I’m glad.”

“Know just what I like, don’t you, cubbie?” 

And what could you do but fawn at that? Get all starry-eyed and warm in the cheeks? 

You managed to barely hold on to your reservations for the first few days, keeping your appropriate distance. Dismissed his overt affection as a character quirk, and your willingness to appease him as simple politeness. 

But it was a slippery slope, and you had long since lost your footing. Tripped the very first time he called your name, and there was no climbing back up. You could only slide deeper. 

It didn’t help that all the girls were practically shoving you towards his house every morning. All giddy and fizzing to have you knock on his door, then clucking like chickens when you returned to tell them that he liked his coffee. That he said you were such a good listener, such a clever lamb, such a sweet girl. No wonder, they all told you, squealing it, you’re so lovely. You’re so kind. You’re so pretty.

How could you hold shut your doors to such generosity? Such overwhelming friendliness? 

It wasn’t long before that was your morning routine. What was a few days, became a week. Then two. 

You’d wake up at the crack of dawn, to the birdsong from either the blackbirds in the trees or the girls at your doorstep, and you’d skip to the kitchen to make Jonathan’s coffee. You’d have the mug out, cream and syrup at the ready, so that once the coffee had finished brewing you could assemble it all at once and it would still be puffing steam by the time you arrived at his house. 

Each time you visited him, you’d stand a little closer. Talk a little softer. Stay a little longer. You didn’t see him much during the day, elusory as he was, and you found yourself shamefully excited for your morning visits.

One morning, he didn’t answer his bedroom door when you knocked on it. You knocked on it twice, three times; careful not to hammer too firmly, nor so softly that he’d begrudge your toadying. You were not willing to break the routine, to fail in your fresh habit, so you gathered the nerve to open the door. Heart hammered in your ribs as the hinges creaked and the knob rattled, and the light you let in spilt into the room. 

It was warm in there, stuffy, curtains drawn and windows closed. The air was thick with him, full-bodied; it coated your tongue and filled your sinuses, made your head buzz at the temples. 

“That you, cub?” 

The growl of a sleeping grizzly as he rolled over in his bed, deep grunts and long exhales as his sleep-heavy eyes landed on you in the doorway. 

He must have been cold-blooded, you thought, because he was tucked under multiple woolen blankets even as the summer nights hit their peak temperature. You could hardly stand a single cotton sheet yourself; it was as though all the heat of the northern countryside pooled in the valley of the farm and was only augmented by his presence in it.  

“Yeah, um, I’ve got your coffee,” you whispered, waiting in the doorframe for him to welcome you deeper into his den. 

“Mh, bit early,” he grumbled, and you bit down on an apology, because it was not in fact any earlier than your usual visits. “C’mere.” 

You swallowed. Shuffled bashfully towards his bed as if you were breaking a rule just by being in his space. You were sure there would have been such a rule, too, because every day you learned of a new one. No nail polish. No mobile phones. No polyester clothes. No chore swapping. No wandering the Homestead at night. No eating before Jonathan. No unplanned visitors. No secrets.

“There was no vanilla left,” you said quietly, as you put the coffee down gently on his nightstand. “So I put maple syrup in it instead.” 

He let out a gruff sigh as though you had disturbed him, rolling onto his side to face you, and he lifted up the corner of his blankets with this forearm. 

“In y’get,” he grunted. 

You could only blink at him dazedly. 

A week or two earlier you’d have asked for some clarification, for him to repeat it, to ensure you hadn’t hallucinated such an inappropriate request from a stranger. Perhaps you had grown accustomed to it. Worse, excited by it; nobody else was allowed such visits. Nobody else magnetised such eager hands. Nobody else was invited into bed with him. You were special, and when you went back to the village to talk to the others, they’d tell you the same. 

So you sat on the edge of the bed, slipping in next to him, and he tucked you into his blankets.

You were swallowed quickly by the sweltering warmth of his body heat, heightened ten-fold by the thick cloak of his bedding, and the bulky arm that scooped you backward until your spine pressed into his sternum. 

His breath was hot against the back of your head, bleeding through your scalp like warm water. You were already sweating, because his heat was swathing and humid, and there was no slithering away now that you had put yourself there. 

“New frock, eh?” He asked hoarsely, arm shifting back until an expansive hand had settled flat on your ribcage, fingers catching in the folds of your ridden-up dress. 

“Yeah,” you murmured, “from Harriet.” 

“She’s a talent,” he hummed approvingly, as his hand edged down towards your waist, so slowly that you mightn’t have noticed if his fingertips hadn't pressed into the valleys between your ribs. 

She was, Harriet, one of two women at the Homestead who knew how to sew. She had sewn you three dresses, so far, one that was light pink, the other white. The one you wore now was a faint buttermilk linen, smocked under the bust with powder-pink embroidery. You were never much of a dress-wearer when you lived in the city, but how could you turn them down when they were custom-sewn, tailored for you? How could you return to your jeans and t-shirts when everybody told you how pretty you were in a dress? 

“Yeah,” you placidly agreed.

In a movement disguised by a shuffle and a deep breath, his hand was pawing at your hip, the skirt of your dress hiked up as if by mere accident. Little finger grazing the skin of your thigh, tingling as though static; and soon his whole palm was melded to your bare skin, and your tongue was in your teeth. 

Your thoughts were slippery and impalpable as eels, and they wriggled out of reach if you ever came close to grabbing one. Somewhere in your writhing head were the echoes of a little voice, faint and still fading; you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t allow this. You should tell him to stop. 

There was no rebuffing him, though. 

Not simply owing to the quiet fear of what he might do when displeased — worse, that you didn’t want to displease him. The others would have brawled among themselves to be where you were, praying that their years of devotion would pay off, that they would finally be worthy of being this close to him — but no, not one of them had lain where you now did. 

How could you squander such a privilege? 

Something else, though, something far more dangerous, was stirring and bubbling within you like poison in a cauldron. 

Beyond dismissed reservations, or the simple allure of scarcity — no, a smouldering heat between your hips, muggy and effervescent and impossible to ignore. It beat out from your heart and siphoned into the nerves between your thighs, where it cumulated until it was swollen with anticipation and twitching with every movement of his hand against your skin. 

“What’d I tell you about letting ‘er breathe,” he rumbled, when his fingers brushed the hem of your underwear on your hip, tone verging on reproach. 

You held your breath as you thought of what to say, throat kept closed when you felt a tug on the waistband of the elasticated fabric. 

“I don’t remember,” you breathed — a lie, whose motivation eluded you. You recall exactly what he said. Even how his voice sounded when he said it. Your pussy, love. 

He hadn’t mentioned underwear, though, had he?  

“Cunt shouldn’t be smothered all day,” he huffed, fisting the hip of your knickers and tugging them down to your thigh. “S’not natural.”

That little voice grew louder. You should tell him to stop. Tell him to stop. Tell him to stop. 

No, you lifted your hips so he could pull them down, and you did the rest for him — shimmying your legs so your underwear rolled down to your calves, then kicked them off your ankles into the belly of the bed. 

Another rule on the list, you thought. 

No knickers. 

You didn’t want to break his rules, because you hadn’t found a new place to live yet. Not to say you had been looking particularly hard — or, at all, since your phone only received one bar of signal if you climbed to the top of the hill, and to top it off you were actively discouraged from using it. It was a distraction from the natural splendor of the farm, they told you, and the light of your screen was bad for your eyes, and your city friends didn’t really care about you, so why text them?

Besides, he knew these things. You trusted his knowledge on the matter. You had the sense he understood your body better than you did; he was certainly more concerned with it, because it wasn’t as though you took particularly good care of it, and to him that was sacreligious. 

Such excuses flitted around in your head like butterflies in a jar when you felt his rough fingertips dig into the hollow of your hip bone, the flesh there tender enough to make you twitch. Breath caught in your chest as they crept further, closer, until the palps of his fingers brushed your mons, and he let out a dissatisfied huff into the back of your head. 

“Shouldn’t be shaving, either,” he grunted reprovingly. “Wee pussy’s too delicate for blades, mh?” 

Your tongue was wet, and your eyes had fluttered shut, and your breaths were broken and trembling. Dewy with sweat at the nape of your neck.

New rule. No shaving. 

He certainly was delicate with it. Pad of his finger tracing over your mound, light as a feather, as if to tickle you. It kind of did tickle, but the tingling sunk through the pillowy flesh and funnelled directly into your pebbled clit, until it was beating like a heart in the hope that he might deign to touch it. 

You knew in the pits of you it would be imprudent to let him have sex with you. Catastrophically so. Such a transgression would be a tipping point, one of no return. A leap off a cliff into murky depths that you knew would be impossible to climb out of. 

But his hand retreated, resolving your dilemma for you. Shame weighed in your chest. Appalled by the unjustifiable disappointment that wracked you in the wake of his touch. 

For the best that he didn’t venture any further, though, because you were on your period. Georgie had offered you tampons when you pulled her aside to ask, almost too giddy to offer them to you, telling you countless times that they were pure cotton and all natural, and to let her know when it’s over. 

He gave you an innocent pat on the hip, before peeling the blankets off of you, and the stifling air of his room was cold on your skin. 

“Need to get up and at ’em,” he grumbled. “Go join your kitchen girls.” 

You might have made a pother if you didn’t have a few remaining shreds of dignity. I don’t want to trickled down your tongue and itched at the tip, but you refused to let yourself release the words. 

You slipped out of his bed with a long sigh, wobbly as you found your footing on the hardwood. Smoothed out the wrinkled fabric of your dress, tugged the skirt down where it had ridden up. You felt on a step how slippery you were, pussy so sodden that you worried some might have soaked into the fabric of your skirt.

Jonathan sat upright with a huff, swivelled so he sat on the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. 

“Y’alright there, cub?” He asked, when he saw you hadn’t moved from where you stood. 

You nodded winsomely. “Yeah, um — I’m just… I…” 

“All wet now, are you?” 

His voice was hoarse and slick with amusement, and it sent a shudder through you as you blinked over your shoulder at him. 

You were too timid to confess to that. “Um—” 

“S’alright, love,” he said, pushing himself to stand with a grunt, and you tried not to look at the half-hard cock in his boxers. “Tha’s normal. Don’t you go putting your fingers in yourself, though, eh?”  

“I wasn’t—” Going to went swallowed, because there was a non-zero chance it would have been a lie. “Why not?” 

Divots pulled in his temples as he clenched his jaw, aegean eyes turned black as they clawed down the length of you. 

“Because I said so,” he told you, as he ferried you along, giving you a pat on the rear to send you out his bedroom door. “You keep those fingers busy in the kitchen, yeah?” 

New rule. No masturbating.

“Okay,” you said sheepishly.

“Good girl,” he grunted, as he shut the door. 

It took you a while to confess what had happened to the girls in the kitchen, resolve only worn down by their squealing appetite for any information about your interactions with him. 

“Didn’t he like the maple syrup?” Georgie asked mournfully, evidently concerned that the reason for your silence was that you had gotten in trouble. 

You let out a little breath as you sliced up the nectarines on a wooden chopping board, fingers all sticky with the juice, distracting heat still bubbling under your skin. 

Chopping fruit and stirring batter were the only jobs you were allowed, they had said as much the first time you joined them. We’re not allowed to share chores unless he says so, they told you, and we can’t have you burning yourself. 

All so bizarrely strict about it. Even when you had asked Jonathan specifically if you could help them in the garden, just to pick the berries, you told him, he had firmly refused. Said he wouldn’t let you toil away because he needed you to nurture yourself.

Didn’t bother you too much. You were fine with your station in the kitchen because you weren’t too fond of handling all the raw meat. 

“I dunno,” you said, “he didn’t have any.” 

“Oh,” Freya blurted, cocking her head back in surprise. “That’s weird. Did he say anything?” 

You chewed on your tongue as you swiped a pile of nectarine slices into the big steel bowl beside you. “Not really.” 

“Not really?” Georgie pestered, busy stirring an enormous pot of porridge over the stove. 

“Well he, um,” you hesitated. “He asked me to get into bed with him.” 

You heard the bang of the butter churner as Freya stopped her work abruptly to gawk at you. “What?” 

Georgie was slack-jawed. “You mean—”

“Not like that,” you clarified quickly, looking at them sheepishly, as they both glared at you bulgy-eyed. Something of a lie. “Just to lie down, or whatever.” 

Freya wore an expression that made you feel a bit queasy. A little crease between her brows with her lips in a line. Not quite disapproval, not quite worry — somewhere in the middle. A crack in the fabric, a fleeting glimpse of reality that made your stomach flip, and for a moment you saw Freya the girl you knew as a child, and not Freya the bubbly kitchen maid. 

She side-eyed Georgie before she spoke. “That seems a bit—”

“Oh my God,” Georgie interrupted fervently, dropping her spoon to hurry towards you, and she took your wrists in her hands. “He must really think you’re special.” 

“I s’pose,” you answered, with a little smile, and she shook your hands in excitement.

“Did he like your dress?” She asked animatedly. 

“I think so,” you said.

Georgie tugged you towards her, then, pulling you into a hug so unexpected that you let out a gasp as she threw her arms around you. 

“We’re so lucky,” she crooned, rocking you from side to side. “So lucky, aren’t we?”

“Lucky for what?” You blurted, taken aback. 

She giggled, releasing you gently before settling two soft hands on either side of your face. 

“Lucky to have you,” she explained, eyes wide with an ardour that made your chest feel eerily warm. “Everything’lll be just perfect now that you’re here, you’ve brought life with you.” 

Whatever she meant by that utterly eluded you, but you couldn’t suppress a smile.  

The next time you spoke to Jonathan was just shy a week later. 

He wasn’t there for breakfasts, or for lunches, or for dinners. He came to collect his helpings from the kitchen when you weren’t there, and he had already left home every time you went to bring him his coffee in the mornings. 

Worry festered in the nadirs of your mind the longer that time stretched between his appearances. Riddled with a fear that you had stepped over a line. That he was done with you. That he was already bored of you. 

Nobody would elucidate where he went during the day, and you quickly learned that it was a faux pas to even ask. All you understood was that he was out with his old hands, a group of men that would disappear with him for days at a time. Maybe out building something, you guessed, or hunting — some form of manual labour, at least, because whenever you caught brief glimpses of him he was sweaty and sunburned and covered in muck.

Such was the case when he and three other men lumbered into the hall for Sunday supper, fashionably late. Everyone else already seated and awaiting his arrival before they could start. 

He fell into his empty chair at the head of the table with an exasperated huff. 

His blue plaid flannel was grimy at the cuffs, smudged with mud and speckled in shreds of tree bark. First four buttons undone, and his chest was gleamy with a drying layer of sweat, flocks of hair clumped and curled with it. You felt guilty for staring at him, heart sitting high in your chest, buzzing with nerves — his seat had sat empty for so long that you had begun to forget what it was like to have him sitting there. 

Caught your eye as he adjusted himself in his seat, pushing the cuffs of his sleeves up to his forearms, and dusting off his front. Wasted no time as he reached for the serving fork and skewered two heavy steaks with it, dumping them on his plate. You had forgotten how to act, suddenly so anxious in his presence that you immediately broke his gaze and stared down into your plate. 

As was the supper ritual, once Jonathan had served himself, the others immediately began tucking into their dinner. You were about to do the same, awaiting the spoon for the peas from the girl next to you, when his voice shot across the hall and cast silence in its wake. 

Your name hovered in the air like the smoke of a gunshot. 

It was so sudden that you felt panicked despite the lack of ire in his voice, even with the smile that bared his teeth. You perked up concernedly where you sat, obeisantly keeping his gaze from across the table, waiting for him to ask something of you. 

“Come over ‘ere,” he said, with no force in his voice, because he knew that he didn’t need to make demands of you. “Bring your plate, eh?” 

The supper mercifully returned to its noise of chatter and clinking cutlery as you pushed yourself to stand, especially convivial because it was a Sunday — heightened further by the fresh batch of pear cider that had finished brewing the day before, supplied in great glass pitchers peppered around the table. 

You stepped over the bench with your empty plate held in both hands, and wandered towards his end of the table. Waited quietly for him to order the others on the bench to move down so that there was space for you to sit. 

“C’mon,” he urged, and you frowned bemusedly — until you saw him rap his thigh with a flat hand, and you felt your tummy tighten up. 

When you dithered about it for too long, he reached out with his big arm and scooped you towards him, and in a confusion of feet and legs you were brusquely perched on his thigh. 

“There y’go,” he nodded, as he gave you a pat on the side of your thigh to settle you in. 

With his other hand he leaned across the table to scoop himself some mashed potatoes, a tower of it, before he stacked up a few scoops onto your plate, too. 

“Thank you,” was all you could say, stupidly, because your head was all rattled. 

You were potently relieved that the other people in the hall busied themselves with each other, deep in conversation or focused on sawing away at their steaks with serrated knives; because his hand was already atop your thigh, ostensibly to keep you stable, but it crept its way upward with every slight movement and it took the skirt of your dress with it. 

“Where have you been?” You asked quietly, as he continued to fill up your plate. 

He let out a puff of laughter as he impaled a steak with his fork and dropped it next to your potatoes. “Missed me, did you?” 

Yes tapped against the back of your teeth, but you subdued it with a clearing of your throat. “I’m just curious,” you said. 

He grinned, amused, arrogantly doubtful. “Been workin’ on something,” he answered, frustratingly vague. “Haven’t got long to finish it.” 

You watch as he added another scoop of peas to your plate, and you only then noticed how much food he had given you — not nearly as piled-up as his, but still far more than you would have grabbed for yourself, with a plum-sized cube of butter melting into the mash. 

“What is it?” You queried, more supplicantly than you had intended it to sound, though you now feared that any dissention would make him disappear again. 

“Don’t you worry about that yet, cub,” he grunted, yet perking your ears up, but his austerity told you not to ask anything further. “Now eat up. Not having you get bony.” 

Not the first time he had told you that — always insistent you finish your plate, that you don’t piss around with puny helpings, that you eat your pudding afterwards. He was just overly doting, you thought. 

You followed his bidding and scooped up a mouthful, chewing it quietly as you put your fork back down. It was delicious, rich and hearty, the potatoes were creamy, and the steak was tender and well seasoned. Venison, maybe, it had that gamey sort of flavour, but you thought it a little pale. Perhaps pork. 

By the time you swallowed, his hand had ridden up to where your thigh met your hip, and his thumb wedged into the crease. It didn’t escape your notice how he watched you, low-lidded, smug, ignoring his own meal as he took a sip of his cider. 

“Aren’t you going to eat any?” You questioned, eventually, as you swallowed another mouthful, and he mindlessly tapped on the neck of his bottle. 

“Might need you t’cut my steak up for me,” he commented pointedly, through the crack of a grin. “Hard to do it one-handed.” 

“I… you can just let go of me,” you replied, tight-lipped. 

The moment the words escaped your mouth, his hand pinched tight as a vice around your thigh. Thumb gouged deep into the sensitive tendons of your groin hard enough to make you chirp — not as much a pain as a shock, that bolted up your spine and turned to molasses in the cavities of your skull. A punishment for even suggesting it. 

“Why would I do that?” He murmured innocently, as if completely incognisant of the actions of his hand.  

You turned your head to look up at him beseechingly, brows knitted and lips pursed. The heat of his breath was sultry against the skin of your cheek. Goading stare a narcotic that turned your better judgement to gruel. 

What could you do but relent when he looked at you like that? 

His hand was firm around your thigh as you reached towards his plate to pick up his cutlery, but its grip loosened as you pierced the thick wad of meat with his fork. Crept up to your hip as you made the first cut, the steak not quite tender enough to give way with one saw of the knife. 

Palm was flat against your belly, then, once the first slice was severed and it flopped flat onto the plate. Lower, as you cut through the second. Masked the movements of his hands with each incision as though you might not have noticed while yours were busy. 

Lips loosened, efforts faltered, as his travelling hand nested between your thighs. 

You could only gulp at the dry air as his palm pressed firmly against your cunt, held you by it as if to keep you still. The thin cotton of your dress now the only barrier between his calluses and the fragile skin there, because you had forsaken wearing underwear, just as he had told you to. 

Acknowledging the incursion seemed to you like a fool’s errand. Fussing about it much the same. 

It was pacifying when it shouldn’t have been. Decoupled you from reality as all of the blood drained from your head and pooled between your legs. Rendered you foggy-eyed as the ball of his palm squished into your clitoris as he adjusted you on his lap, so that your arse pressed into his hip. 

“Need a bit more than that, love,” he remarked wryly, nodding at the three measly slices of steak you managed before you lost track. 

You drew in a stifled breath in an attempt to ground yourself. 

“Um — sorry,” you stammered, as you refocused your attention to his plate, reorienting his knife and fork in your slippery hands before you dropped them. 

Once again poked the meat with the fork to keep it steady, and began severing a fourth slice. Did your best to narrow your concentration into the movements of the blade — back, forth, back, forth, back, forth—

You hiccuped as he grinded his palm against your cunt, a blunt force on your clit that made your vision blurry and your jaw slack — but he released the pressure just as quickly, cupping your pussy as if it were incidental in keeping you steady on his lap. 

You knew he was testing you. Pushing at your boundaries to see how much effort it took to break them. Goading you to question him, daring you to rebuff him — and every time you didn’t, his boldness tumesced, and your resolve shrivelled. 

“You — you shouldn’t do that,” you breathed, the last of your self-preservation leaking out with it. 

You expected him to be coy about it, anticipated a provocative do what? while he continued to touch you unfettered. 

Instead, he drawled; “Why not?” 

Forcibly resisted your brows curling as his hand tightened again, as your wary eyes bolted around the hall, ensuring none of the others were looking in your direction. 

“There’s… all these people, they’ll see.”

“Who gi’s a fuck about them?” He jeered, a latent vitriol webbed in his words that before then you hadn’t heard in him. “You’re the only one in here that matters, cub.” 

What could you do but melt when he told you that? Stumble on your words like you had forgotten how to talk? 

“But — they might—”

He snorted. “Mh? What d’you think they’ll do?” 

You glanced worriedly at the people sitting next to him, who were graciously still oblivious and busy with their own conversations; but one blink in your direction would expose how flustered you were, wet-lipped and heavy-eyed, as Jonathan craned his head to speak into your ear when you failed to answer his question. 

“They’ll do what I tell them to,” he murmured. 

It sent a chill needling down your spine to hear it admitted so brazenly. A fact obvious to you from the moment you saw him seated in his throne at the head, but you never let the thought gain traction, never let the concern take root. 

You knew that it should have raised alarm in you, that he would so unabashedly admit to being an autarch that ruled over the obliging residents of the Homestead like sheep. 

It didn’t. No, it made your heart hum against your sternum, because you were his favourite. You were special. The only one that mattered. 

“Go on, then,” he prompted you. “I’m gettin’ hungry.” 

What could you do but oblige him?  

You went back to work. Held his cutlery in shaky fists and sawed off another slice of steak, and another, and another — back, forth, back, forth, back, forth. 

His hand only served to torment you. A firm grip of your cunt to keep you steady, planted there just to make you twitch every time his palm tightened, but he never offered you more than that. Didn’t move the thin cotton of your dress out of the way, didn’t dip a finger into you, didn’t stroke your clit enough to sate you. 

By the time you finished slicing up his meat for him, your cunt was molten and shuddering around nothing, and you were certain the yearning fluids he had carelessly coaxed out of you had formed a wet patch on your skirt. 

“Look a’ that,” he crooned. “You’re a natural.” 

You couldn’t muster a response to that, save for the rasping sigh that was rended from your chest as his hand slipped out from the gap between your thighs. Reached forward to take his utensils from you, arms enveloping you as he stacked up a few slices of steak on his fork and scooped some mash on top with his knife. 

You scoffed, breathless. 

“Could’ve done it yourself,” you muttered, bursting at the seams with harried frustration, thundering under your skin and steaming out your ears. 

He snickered as he shovelled his food into his mouth. 

“Wee fusspot, aren’t you?” He teased, chewing noisily on his steak, “Go’on, eat. That’ll cheer y’up.” 

You sulked for a moment, prodding at your mound of potatoes with a fork. Your body still thrummed like a revved engine and it suppressed any appetite you may have had, before he drained all of your attention into that twitching spot between your legs. 

“Not tellin’ you twice, cub,” he reiterated, distinctly unamused. 

You sighed petulantly, but as you had fallen into the habit of doing, you did as you were told. The meat was a little chewier now that it had cooled down. 

Because you helped prepare dinner — peeling and chopping up the potatoes, and shucking the peas from their pods — you were spared being on clean up duty. 

A mercy, because you hated doing the dishes. You wondered whether telling Jonathan as much would mean he would ensure you never touched a sponge again in your life; but you didn’t want to be that spoiled, for fear it would turn the others of the Homestead against you. 

It was nice, of course, made you feel all gooey and warm inside that he was so attentive to you, so concerned with you. But you didn’t particularly like the idea of being such a tall poppy that the other people around you began to despise you. They were the ones you spent all day with, the other Homesteaders, and you liked them. Most of them, anyway. They were all inordinately friendly and chatty, eager to know more about you, eager to comfort and care for you. Listened whenever you cried about where your life had come to, about your ex, about your stupid fucking boss or your evil prick landlord. Told you not to worry, because none of that mattered anymore, because only good things lay ahead of you. 

Freya had invited you to join her and some of the others around the fire pit, the one a short walk from the hall, where people would spend time socialising and drinking after their long and arduous days of working. You told her that you needed to rinse off first, because you were all sweaty from such a hot day, but that you would join them afterwards. 

It was dark by the time you left your cabin, the sky predominantly navy save for the band of teal along the horizon, turning the silhouettes of the trees against it black as pitch. It was a short walk from your front step to the fire pit, and you headed along the gravelly path around the side of the hall in your sandals. 

The first person you encountered on your way over was leaning with a flat hand against the outer cladding of the hall, facing the wall and completely hidden in the shadow. None of the orange glow of the gas-powered lanterns could reach where they stood, and your eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. You heard, though, the distinct sound of a stream of liquid splashing into the dirt, and quickly surmised from his pose that it was a man pissing on the ground. 

You had picked up the habit from the others on the farm of offering a sunshiny greeting to everyone you passed by, an expected social procedure; but now you found yourself a little lost on what to do or say. You resolved to keep walking, awkwardly meandering around him without saying a word. 

But your name flew out like a net, and his voice was ragged and heavy-tongued, so you stopped momentarily.

It was Philip. 

“Y’know — y’re not what I expected you to be,” he murmured, buttoning up his trousers, and you resentfully caught a glance of his floppy cock while he did it. He was blunderingly drunk, you could smell it from where you stood. “Y’re not what Freya said.”

You found yourself at a loss for how to deal with him. In the outside world you probably would have called him a fucking tosser and marched away unfazed, but you hadn’t encountered a single interpersonal conflict in three weeks, and it suddenly seemed like an alien concept to you. So unfamiliar, in fact, that you found your mouth shaped to form an apology, like you had been the one to stir something unpleasant. 

Philip was, unlike the others, still a stranger to you. He was overtly contemptuous for the first few days, rolling his eyes at you or turning pointedly away from you whenever you were near him. Once Jonathan had his word with him, you supposed, that outward vitriol had given way to complete and utter disinterest. Not once had he spoken more than a single word to you in the weeks you had been at the Homestead, but it didn’t bother you enough to raise it as an issue. No big deal, because everyone else was so nice, so why would it matter if one of them wasn’t? 

“What’d she say?” You asked tightly, after a beat, in some effort to avert him from stumbling any closer to you. 

“Sh’said you were a — a — a peach,” he slurred. “Sweet n’ soft, she said. Yeah. Y’know what she told me?” 

You couldn’t have curbed your scowl even if you wanted to. Storming away from him would have been the wiser thing to do, but you were suddenly charged with a galvanic curiosity — sweet and soft? Had she advertised you like food before she was allowed to bring you along? 

“What,” you muttered through your teeth, arms crossing. 

“She told me you’d be perfect for me,” he blathered, greasy with spite. “For me, she said. That’s what she brought y’ere for. Me.” 

With that, your mettle returned to you like a slap to the cheek. Swelled up quickly in your belly as you frowned at him in revulsion. 

“What do you think I am, some kind of fucking brood sow?” You barked, a growl in your voice that had been buried for a while, “Freya saying that doesn’t mean anything at all.” 

He laughed at that, but it was so rich with acrimony that you could taste it like peroxide in the air. 

“You’re right, no, you’re right, because sh’was wrong anyway,” he ranted. “Y’re not a peach, you’re — you’re — you’re a goddamn prune.”

You gawked at him in bewilderment. “What does that even mean?” 

“It means you’re a whore,” he snarled, an abrupt shift to open aggression that made you step onto your hind foot. “Y’think I didn’t see all that? Lettin’ John play with your cunt under the table?” 

Your blood plummeted to your feet all at once.

Ignominy must have plastered itself on your face — because he laughed at you, loud and haughty, as he took a step in your direction. 

“Yeah, thought you were being subtle, did ya? Puttin' on a show for the whole damn family? Just rubbin’ it in my fuckin’ face, that’s what you were doing,” he raved on, and at that point you decided it was time to leave. 

You hurried down the path with your arms tight around yourself, marching away from him with big angry strides. For a moment you were anxious that he’d pursue you, because you kept hearing his drunken rambling even as the distance grew. 

“New lamb for me, tha’s what John said — only let Freya bring you ‘ere so I’d have someone to share my damn bed with. No, no, now he wants you, eh? Pisses all over his territory like a dog and makes me fuckin’ sniff it—” 

His slurring voice drowned out as you continued your escape, striding past the firepit with enough distance that the light didn’t catch you, and the others didn’t notice you pass them by. You were all upset, now, the heat of it had risen high in your cheeks and quivered beneath your eyes. 

Instead you tramped in the direction of Jonathan’s farmhouse, and by the time you knocked on his door you had a lump in your throat and your cheeks were sticky with tears. 

You heard his heavy steps from behind the door before it opened. 

His face sunk once his glower found you. Eyes heavy with it, a simmering indignation, lips tight. His expression only elicited more globby tears, because you suddenly feared that you had made him angry just by appearing on his doorstep when you hadn’t been invited. 

Seemed he wasn’t angry at you, though, because two great big hands reached across the small distance and fixed to either cheek. 

“What’s the matter, cubbie?” He asked hoarsely, smearing your tears from your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. 

“I just — I walked past Philip, and he—”

“C’mon,” he hushed, scooping you towards him with an arm around your shoulders before ferrying you through his door. “Tell me about it inside. I’ll make us a cuppa.” 

He led you down the hallway, past his staircase, where until then you had never dared to venture. Found yourself in a proper kitchen. You would have been more rattled by the fact he had a kitchen at all if you weren’t so troubled by other things.

You let out a little gasp as he picked you up with mammoth hands under your arms and plonked you onto his butcher block counter — he gave you a brush of his knuckle under your chin, before he went to fill up the kettle at the sink. 

“Tell me what happened,” he said, turning on the faucet. He washed his hands with soap before he went to fill up the kettle. The pressure was weak, but you didn’t expect much else from a water system reliant on rainwater. 

“Well, he — he basically — he told me Freya brought me here for him,” you answered weakly, not quite tearful enough to trip over your words, but enough for it to be wet and gulping in your throat. “And then I said it doesn’t matter what Freya said, and then he, he—”

His attention was fixed on you once he put the kettle down on the stove, and he didn’t turn on the gas. 

“He what.” 

“He called me a whore,” you snivelled, wiping your soggy cheek with the heel of your palm. “He said he saw — he saw everything at supper.” 

The look of displeasure that suffused across his features would have been enough to make you shiver if it were directed at you. He ambled towards you, then, before planting both firm hands on each of your shoulders, and your knees brushed his hips. 

“Envy is a wicked thing, cub,” he said, voice deep, a faint simmer of anger audible in the lowest frequencies. “You just ignore him, yeah?” 

“But — but — he saw,” you moaned, the embarrassment at the thought once again rearing its head and it stung like the prod of a hot brand. 

He shushed you as his hand shifted to the back of your neck, fixing under your hair, and he pulled you into his chest. Draped another arm around you to hold you in close, and your thighs had to stretch around him to accommodate him. His chest was pillowy, comfortable, and the smell of his skin through the thin cotton of his flannel made your eyes glass over. 

“Doesn’t matter what he saw,” he grumbled, lips at your temple, and the touch made your brain whir like a purring cat. 

“I’m sorry,” you mewled, because you felt as though it was your fault for getting caught — probably made a noise, or a stupid needy face, maybe a whole scene because you couldn’t ever control yourself. 

“None o’ that,” he said, reeling back from you and once again settling his hands on your cheeks. “You’ve been nothin’ but an angel. Haven’t you?” 

You sniffed, blinking at him rheumy-eyed, and when he glared at you insistently you capitulated with a weak nod. 

“Mh,” he agreed, and you felt his left thumb feather closer to the corner of your mouth. “Such a good girl.” 

Thumb brushed over your lips, then, and the tickle made your mouth water. The touch alone coaxed them to part, just slightly enough to draw in some suddenly needed air. 

“And a good wee listener, aren’t you?” He purred, pad of his fore- and middle fingers ghosting over your bottom lip. 

Pelagic eyes that had been fixed to your lips shift up to meet yours, and again you realised it was not a rhetorical question, so you answered with another feeble nod. 

“Open up, then,” he said, rumbling, low enough that you felt the vibration of it through the narrow air between you. 

You were a good listener. So you opened your mouth for him, just enough to breathe through. 

He let out a rasping breath as he sild a salty fingertip between your lips, running it along the edge of your incisors. 

“Wider,” he instructed, and you did, allowed him enough space between your jaws to fit his thick finger, and you felt the rough palp of it on the tip of your tongue. “Good.” 

The second finger joined the first, pushing deeper into your mouth until the tips of them were midway down your tongue, and a spate of saliva began dripping down your throat. You were wide-eyed, beaming at him hopelessly. Devotedly. His expression was rigid, fixed, so focused that his eyes were dark with it. 

Fingers persisted deeper, until you felt them on the back of your tongue, mouth filled with the savoury taste of his hand, and you wondered if it was the same hand he had held your pussy with. 

The thought made your eyes flutter shut, but a press of his finger at the back of your throat quickly forced you to gag. 

He shushed you immediately; “Easy, you’re fine,” he cooed, and you drew in a wet breath through your nose, swallowing the flood of viscous spit that filled your throat. 

Reeled his fingers out only slightly, as if just to feel the friction of your tastebuds beneath his fingertips, before pushed them in again, and you fought back another gag. 

“So thirsty f’me, aren’t you, cub,” he drawled, hazily, a fascinated grin twitching in the corner his lips. “Drink from me, then.” 

Your hands lifted to meet his, clutching it by the wrist with both as if holding a milk bottle, allowing his fingers to slide in to the root, and his knuckles pressed into your cheeks. 

“Suck them,” he grunted. 

And you did. Suckled on his fingers like a calf on a teat, blinking at him when the urge to gag abated, fat tears rolling from the corners of your eyes but evoked now by something entirely different. 

“Good girl,” he murmured, as his other hand released your cheek, sinking down to your chest, catching in the folds of your dress as it clawed down your stomach. 

He hiked up your skirt with intention — no longer being coy about his efforts, he was fervent in it — and in a heartbeat your frock was at your hip, and his hand ran along the inside of your thigh. 

You puffed out a whimper through your nose when he glided his fingers along your slit, base to top, only splitting it on the second swipe — smiled agape to himself when he dipped into wetness that had already leaked and accumulated there.

“Haven’t you been patient?” He hummed, smearing the tips of his fingers upward until they swiped over your clitoris, still puffy and wanting from when he worked it up at supper. “Neediest thing and still so patient. I reckon you deserve a treat for that.”

You gazed at him doe-eyed, huffing out squeaks around his fingers as he danced his others around your clit, not quite indulging it with a real touch. Your hips arched into him despite the effort to control it, and he gave you a delighted grin, fingertips remaining just agonisingly out of reach. Only when your head rocked back off your shoulders and you groaned desperately did he finally relent. 

Rested the tip of his thumb into your mons to balance his hand, as his fingers stroked your clit, languid, almost cruel in how slowly he moved them upward and down again.  

“S’this what you want?” He droned, satisfaction dripping from his grin. 

You nodded, as much as the fingers in your throat allowed you to move, brows curling up and eyes too fluttery and heavy to keep properly open. 

“Thought as much,” he muttered, smugly amused. “Could smell it on you the second you showed up. Aching little cunt with nothing to break it off on, eh?” 

You could only whine like a wounded puppy, trail of drool leaking out from the corner of your mouth where his fingers held it open — twitching as the calloused pads of his fingers cosseted the raw flesh of your clit, too swollen and sensitive to handle direct touch. 

“Mh. Yeah, I’ll take good care of ya, cubbie,” he cooed, almost pitying, as if he was enacting some great charity for the down and out girl he dragged in off the street. Not far from the truth, as you considered it. 

“Keep sucking,” he ordered when your tongue went slack, because his other fingers had shifted downward from your clit, nestling between your folds and prodding at your fluttering hole. 

He mercifully decided against two when you squeaked in fright, instead pushing a single fingertip into you. Fed it in slowly, bit by bit as if too much would spook you, until his palm was flush with your pussy. His finger was as thick as two of yours, and it might have been enough to sting if you weren’t so slick. 

It made you tipsy to feel him inside you, even only his fingers, in two places at once — his fingers, his his his — it buzzed around in your head like a caged hornet until your blood was runny and your eyes clouded over, and he hadn’t even moved it yet. And when he did, hooked his finger to push into the squishy flesh below your bladder, so tender there — you mewled loudly enough that your voice came out fractured, panting out of your nose with your eyes wrenched shut. 

“Like that, do ya?” He chuckled, watching you raptly as he curled his hand, so he could thumb at your clit while he fucked you with his finger. Dragged it out to push it back in again, slow and steady. 

Didn’t matter how slowly he did it, you had been a hair-trigger away from coming at any given moment all night, and you just might have done it fingers-free if you thought about his hand under the table for too long — this, this, was almost too much. A daunting climax loomed over you, so ruinous that your body seemed to shy away from it, too sensitive, too desperate, too—

“Mh, I feel tha’,” he goaded, rumbling deep. “Close, are ya, sweetheart?”

You nodded, tearful, whimpering, every noise muffled by the fingers in your mouth, nose runny and sniffling every time you sucked down an eager breath. Thumb rubbed your sore clit with the motion of the one inside you, and as it all began to cave in on you, your eyes shot open. 

“Easy, cub, no need to panic.” 

Acting as if you might never have had an orgasm before, soothing you like you might be afraid of the overwhelming rush of feelings he was provoking within you — it settled you despite yourself, and your shoulders sunk inward, letting out the hot air that you had been hoarding in your chest — and then it swallowed you. 

“Yeah, tha’s it,” he encouraged you, pushing his fingers deeper into your throat as your whines grew louder, and your face crumpled up, and you balanced on the summit— 

“Goooood girl,” he crooned, as you came around his finger so forcefully that your eyes just about rolled into the back of your head, clit burning so hot that it made you jolt and squeal when he touched it too firmly. Fingers pressed down on the back of your tongue right as you tumbled over the zenith, forcing out a squeaking gag and a long band of saliva that dribbled down your chin. 

Entire pussy convulsed in the aftershocks, clenching around him in pulses each time his thumb swiped gently over your clit — but he didn’t torment you for long, slid his finger out of you slowly until you were mournfully empty, and you felt a runnel of your slick drool down the cleft of you. 

Reeled his pacifying fingers out of your mouth, then, pulling a string of saliva with them and your entire skull felt hollow in their absence. You released a weak sigh as you collapsed forward, foundations crumbled, heavy head landing against his padded chest. Almost trembling with exhaustion now that every drop of energy had been siphoned from you. 

“There we go, love,” he hummed, petting your hair, letting out a ragged breath into the top of your head. “That better?” 

You were milk drunk, tongue swollen and viscid in your mouth, and forming a single word was a near impossible task. All you could muster was another nod.

“Don’t you worry about Philip,” he said calmly. “I’ll deal with him.” 

You might have thanked him if you could form the words, so you instead lay a weary hand on his stomach, bunching the fabric of his shirt between your fingers. 

“M’tired,” you slurred, breathless. 

He chuckled. “I bet.” 

“Can I sleep here?” You asked weakly, muffled by his chest. 

He tutted at you, hand settling on your shoulder. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, cub.” 

Wednesday came with the threat of rain. 

The sky was distended with rolling grey cloud by the time you were out for your mid-morning stroll, once breakfast had wrapped up, and it was still a few hours before you needed to return to the kitchen to help prepare lunch. The air was thick with it, muggy and warm, the smell of imminent summer rain was stuffy in your sinuses and it made your skin prickle up. 

It was pleasant, though, as you wended about the Homestead, strolling among the knobbly old pear trees, between the potato fields, down to the river that wound through the base of the valley, to watch the pike fingerlings swim between the reeds. 

You crossed Freya’s path on your return to your cabin, and she hauled a few large baskets with her — empty, you noticed, as she walked up to you with a weak smile. 

“Do you want to help me pull some carrots?” She asked you, after all the how are you pleasantries. “You must get bored in the kitchen.” 

You wavered for a moment, um-ing and ah-ing, because you did. 

It was the same thing every day, but for the rare occasions that Linda let you use the stove because Jonathan had disappeared and would surely never find out. Or, sometimes, you could choose how to season the vegetables when you were put in charge of preparing them. Aside from your time in the kitchen, your only other physical activities had been going for walks and attempting to learn how to sew — you had gotten slightly better at that one, and now you could hem a skirt on your own, but it hardly enraptured your attention. 

The one thing that kept you from jumping on the opportunity to do something outdoors, was the memory of how expressly Jonathan had forbidden it. More than once he had reminded you how unacceptable the notion was, of you toiling over the land, so he described it; because that was a job for rough and calloused hands, not soft and pretty ones like yours.

But he had been absent for another several days, despite how he had undone you in his house and sent you back to yours afterwards. You would have thought he had dropped off the face of the Earth if you hadn’t caught peeks of him venturing back to his house in the distance, or strolling into the hall to collect his meal and vanishing once again. 

Perhaps a touch of spite motivated your decision. “Yeah, sure,” you told her. 

The carrot crops were a far stretch from the heart of the farm, a good ten-minute walk up and over the hill, and you hadn’t ventured that far before — new trees, new bushes, new paths.  

“How big is this place?” You asked her, as you approached the emerald green field, bright tufts of carrot leaves jutting out of the ground in not-quite-straight rows. 

“Umm,” she thought aloud, “few hundred acres? I’m not sure.” 

Pulling carrots was not a great deal more thrilling than working in the kitchen or attempting to sew, but it was something different, and childishly, made you feel a little bit rebellious. You had used your hair tie to hike up your skirt and knot it at your thighs, so that it didn’t get any dirtier than it needed to. Last thing you needed was Jonathan catching you with farmy muck all over you. 

The carrots were all thick, long, and persimmon orange — Freya had instructed you to brush off some of the soil before dropping them in your basket, and to pluck off any little hair-like roots to save time in the kitchen later. You enjoyed it, getting dirt under your nails, that loamy smell of soil and geosmin emanating out of the dirt with each plucked carrot. 

The ground was dry and gravelly, and it was a little rough on your knees — but you were a big girl, not as soft a thing as Jonathan seemed to think you were, and you could prove it. 

Wasn’t long before it began to rain, those fat drops of a summer shower, slow and sparse. Not enough to saturate you, but you did shiver when a glob of lukewarm water landed on the back of your neck and rolled down your spine. 

“You spoken to John recently?” She asked you quietly, after a long duration of pleasant silence, dusting her soily hands off on her apron. 

There was a prickle of worry in her throat, something hesitant, and you might not have noticed it if you didn’t see her glance around before she spoke. 

“Not since Sunday,” you answered, failing to swallow that touch of bitterness that rose up from your belly at his mention. 

“Neither,” she said, what seemed like a hastily applied band-aid to a wound she inflicted by asking it. “You saw Philip on Sunday, right?” 

Your brows pulled together, but you focused on unearthing the next carrot. “Yeah, how come?” 

“Well I—” She hesitated, and you finally turned your attention to her when you picked up on the genuine concern in her tone. “I know he was out of line, he told me what happened. And I’m sorry about — well, it’s hard to explain.” 

“Explain what?” You asked, wiping away a dribble of rain from your forehead, the rainfall had gotten a little heavier in the few minutes since it started. 

She let out a long sigh, sweeping her hair out of her face and sitting on her heels. “I did tell Philip you’d be perfect for him. He wasn’t lying. He’s been — I mean, lots of the others are already in their pairs, and he isn’t, so he’s been lonely,” she unravelled, as though nervous to say every word. “But I never promised it, or anything. I just wanted to say that, well, I didn’t mean for all that to happen. I thought he had sorted himself out already ‘cause, I mean, you obviously had no interest in him.”  

You nodded slowly, looking at your dirty fingernails, because you weren’t sure what to say. 

“Yeah,” you started, “it’s okay, it wasn’t a big deal or anything. John said he’d deal with him so hopefully that’s the last I have to hear of it.” 

Her chary eyes flitted around again, head swinging over her shoulder as though checking for someone behind her, and it made your hackles rise just a bit — you were anxious by proxy, because Freya was always as collected and calm as any of them, and you had never seen her on edge like that. 

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about,” she whispered. 

“What?” 

She took a shaky breath. “I haven’t seen Philip since Sunday night.” 

You only looked at her, chewing on the inside of your lip, uncertain what she might have been implying. 

“You think Jonathan kicked him out?” 

“Maybe,” she said, bunching her apron in her fists. “I just — I’m sure we would have heard from him, if he was banished or whatever. He’s been here for six years. I can’t imagine that he’d just vanish… I mean, he’s American, I doubt he still has his passport — where would he even go?” 

“I dunno,” you murmured. “Maybe he just left out of spite, or something.” 

“I’m worried,” she lamented.

You were at a loss for words. Confronted by a problem you had seemingly lost the capacity to deal with. Freya was the one that had vouched for Philip, for Jonathan, for the entire farm in the first place. You had trusted and believed her. 

Now you felt peculiarly defensive. As though she might have been suggesting some greater evil within Jonathan or the Homestead that you, with every iota of your being, refused to believe was possible. 

“What are you saying?” You questioned uneasily, still hopefully she wouldn’t shift from implying to making certain accusations that would risk rattling your worldview. 

“I—”

She abruptly choked on the first syllable, eyes shooting past you— 

“Shit.” 

“What?” You gawked, cocking your head back and twisting to look behind you, as she scrambled to futilely adjust herself, wiping down her apron and aimlessly fixing the carrots in her basket. 

You saw the broad shape of him before you recognised who it was, marching up the hill with a fuming pace that made your stomach drop. Knew who it was once he got slightly closer, because you could see his expression from where you kneeled in the dirt. 

You glanced back at Freya, who looked at you so sheepishly you wondered if she might break into tears. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

“What do you—”

“Fuck d’you think you’re doing, cub?” Came a growl from behind you that made you jolt in fright, somehow having crossed the distance in the time it took you to turn around. 

“I’m — ah!” You squealed as he brusquely scruffed you by the neck, hauling you up from the dirt until the soles of your bare feet caught the ground and you wobbled before finding them. 

He craned down from behind you to speak at your level. 

“We’re gonna ‘ave a talk,” he snarled, a scalding anger in his voice that made your eyes water and your skin blister up. 

“Why,” you moaned, kept placid by the unyielding hand gripping the back of your neck, thumb and forefingers burrowing into your tendons so tight it made your legs tingle. 

“Y’know damn well,” he said, dragging you around until you faced the way you came, releasing your neck with a shove. “Walk.” 

“Where?” 

He chuffed. “Stable.” 

Didn’t take much to make you cry, and this was enough to arouse big brackish tears and a puerile sob. It wasn’t terror, though, not dread about what he might do to you — but shame, so concentrated in your blood you could feel the cold sludge of it beating through your arteries. Ignominy rooted in the crime of angering him. Terrified that you had forsaken his approval, turned his sweetness bitter, because you weren’t a good girl anymore. 

“Jonathan,” called Freya, as you stumbled forward with a nudge; you had hoped that she wouldn’t acknowledge the tiff, would stay silent and pluck her carrots, but with an active spectator of your castigation you could only shrivel up in embarrassment. 

“You keep that trap shut,” Jonathan spat, turning to address her with an accusatory finger. “You’re on thin fuckin’ ice already, girl.” 

“Where’s Philip?” She barked, with all the might and caution of an outnumbered dog. 

Jonathan didn’t acknowledge her question, instead giving you another nudge when you stopped walking to coax you down the muddy pathway, your feet squelching into the freshly sodden dirt with every step. 

“I’m gonna find him, John!” Freya yelled as the distance grew, a desperation in her voice that made your tummy ache, because the dissonance you were wracked with made you feel like a snake devouring its own tail. 

Jonathan only grumbled something under his breath, striding at your heels as you made your careful way ahead, wary of stepping on a rock or twig with your bare feet. You left your sandals by the carrot patch, but you weren’t about to ask him to turn around. 

You bleated like a goat when he suddenly hooked you by the waist, swivelling you around in a bluster and hauling you up and over his shoulder. “Useless little legs y’got.” 

You sobbed, clutching the fabric of his overshirt in claws over his back, voice strained and broken as your stomach bounced on his shoulder. The rain had only grown heavier, and it ran in rivulets around your head, dripping off your nose and into the dirt.

“I didn’t do anything,” you whined — a stupid fuss, really, because you knew well what you were in trouble for — you simply hadn’t expected to actually get in trouble.

You had admittedly seen him roar like a grizzly more than once at other Homesteaders. At one of the butchers for keeping a mobile phone stashed away in their cabin without disclosing it. At a farmhand for disobeying him and letting the bull in with the cows when he shouldn’t have. At a kitchen girl for burning enough meat to feed fifteen people because she was distracted by gossip. 

You just never imagined you’d get in trouble.

He had always been so stable, so overbearingly sweet with you. Such a good girl, he called you, an angel. A good wee listener, cub, such a quick learner. You could never have anticipated such a mutation in his treatment of you, and you felt your standing crumbling beneath your feet. Peripeteia that gave you such whiplash it made your neck ache. 

“What’d I tell you?” He grumbled, as you saw the ground beneath him gradate from muddy grass to gravel, and you knew you were approaching the stable. Heard the moaning old wheels of the sliding door as he rolled it open. “Huh?”

“Not to — to work on the farm,” you sobbed, as he ferried you inside, jostling you to keep you in place as he unlatched and opened a stall door. 

He grunted in agreement as he slid you from his shoulder like a buckshot doe and dropped you ungracefully to your feet, and you landed with a squeak in the centre of the empty horse stall. Felt the hay and shavings between your toes, shreds of it sticking to the mud that caked them. 

“Wanna be a farm animal, do you?” He snarled, rummaging through the tack hung on hooks and draped over benches. “Let’s see you act like one, then.”

You stood contritely in the centre of the stall, hands interlocked over your chest, toes curling anxiously on the floor — watched edgily as he turned to face you with something in his hand, metal and leather. 

“I’m sorry,” you snivelled. 

You hadn’t seen him so angry — not towards you, anyway — he was tumid with it, apoplectic, and it made you want to curl up on the ground like a kitten in the hopes he’d feel pity if you were smaller.  

“Not yet, you’re not,” he grumbled, as he shut the stall door behind him. “I’ve half a mind to break a crop over your arse.” 

You sniffed, blubbering, pathetic. “I just wanted something different to do.” 

Your excuses ricocheted off him. Only glowered at you fanged and sable-eyed, fiddling with whatever piece of equipment he had between his hands. 

“Dress off,” he ordered dryly, gesturing at you with a flick of his fingers. 

“But, I–”

“Do animals wear frocks?” He asked facetiously. Mockingly. “Y’seen a ewe out there with a skirt on, have you?”

“I just—”

“You really wanna make me tell you again, cub?” 

You sulked, grimacing, but obliging. Not many other options, you thought, and even if there were you had no interest in pursuing them. You could have tried to run, sure, but you bet he’d have chased you. Then what? He’d have been even angrier with you, when you didn’t want him to be angry with you at all.

Your dress was gluey with rain and it stuck to your skin, and it made sticky noises as you pulled it up your thighs — reeled it up your stomach, tugged it over your chest — and once it was off your head, it landed on the dusty floor of the stall with a squelch. 

You hadn’t been naked under his eye before, all goose-pricked and shivery, but you felt a familiarity bedded in your belly, something embryonic, because he knew your body better than you did. Understood its moving parts like he was conversant with every facet of you. 

He didn’t look impartially intrigued, though, there was no clinicality in his glare. No, it was selachian. Nostrils flared like he could scent your gamey blood from where he stood. 

“Fuckin’ filthy,” he grumbled, approaching you measuredly, unraveling the straps he held in his hand. Grabbed your forearm once he was in front of you, splayed out your hand to reveal all of the soil embedded in the creases of your palm, stuck under your fingernails. “Rollin’ around in the mud like a piglet, were you?”

“I was only pulling carrots,” you whined, stuttering, felt a hot tear dribble into the corner of your mouth. 

He chortled vindictively at that. “Piglets love their carrots, don’t they.” 

“I’m n-not a piglet.” 

“Open your mouth,” he grunted indifferently, and your brows pinched together, because the last time he had told you to do that you ended up with fingers in you, and now that was all you could think about. 

You almost let loose a why but thought better of it, holding it under your tongue as you unhinged your jaw for him. Shame rang in your ears, because you quietly hoped he’d put his fingers in your mouth again, and you wondered if they’d be salty with his sweat, or earthy and gritty from his labour. 

He held up a small metal bar with o-rings at each end, a link in the middle that allowed it to bend. Leather straps attached to its rings. 

A bridle. 

You whimpered when the steel knocked against your teeth, grating sensation of metal on bone that made your skull quake, as he pushed the bar into your mouth and wedged it behind your molars. The corners of your mouth pillowed around it, and the rings dug into your cheeks, as he pulled the leather straps behind your head, and your nose was a few inches from the valley of his pectorals. 

Must have been busy working on his something all day, because he was ripe, the air around him heady and thick with the damp of sweat, fetor of a wet dog — embarrassingly amatory when it filled your nose, when you tasted it on your tongue, and you felt it in your cunt. 

He buckled the straps at the back of your head, tightening it until the bridle cut into your cheeks enough to hurt and you bit out a pained squeak. 

“Down y’get, then,” he grunted, and your eyes flitted between his in some effort to glean what he meant by it. “Animals walk on four legs, don’t they, cub?” 

So they do. 

You lowered yourself one knee at a time, balancing yourself with a hand clutching at the fabric of his trousers, and he sucked in a hoarse breath. He took a step back as you leaned forward, flattening your hands in the wood shavings, splinters in your palms. Watched a bead of saliva land on the floor as you ran your tongue along the cold bar in your mouth. 

“This what you wanted?” He drawled, malevolently satisfied as you looked up at him through your sticky lashes. He raked his eyes over you, bare and reverent on the floor before him, and he breathed it in deep, the scent of victory. “Feel like an animal now?” 

You whimpered and returned your gaze to the floor, but you responded with a guilty nod. 

“Know what happens to animals, cub?” He grumbled, feet shifting to your left, leather boots plastered in mud. He took one step, then another, circling you like a vulture. “They get flyblown. They get glanders. They get blackleg.” 

Your elbows ached. Wobbled under the weight of you. You could only suck on the bit between your teeth. 

“They get pithed. Flayed. Butchered,” he droned, and you saw a tear land next to the puddle of your spit on the floor. “I don’t want that for you, love. You got any idea what kinds of diseases are in that soil? You want gas gangrene, love? You want listeria? Legionnaire’s?” 

You didn’t understand half the things he was saying, and that only amplified the fear it sowed in you. What didn’t he know? How couldn’t you listen to him when his plethora of wisdom seemed to you as unending? 

He was behind you, then, you saw the silhouette cast by his shadow stretch out in front of you. 

“My rules are simple, aren’t they? Or are you too stupid to understand them?” 

You shook your head, let out a mewling noise in place of a sob, and you wondered if he could see your pussy from where he stood. 

“Your body is special, cubbie, so special—” His silhouette shrunk, lowering, and you felt the floor quake beneath you as he lowered to his knees, “—n’ I’m not havin’ you ruin it just because you’re bored. Y’think you’re here to have fun, cub? S’that it?” 

You tasted iron in your mouth and you had no response to give him, because all of your focus had funneled between your legs once you felt his eyes on you, splayed open like a meal. 

“Well you’re not, even if you think you are.” 

You winced when you suddenly felt a cold finger against your pussy, just a graze of it, smearing up a drip of the slick that had escaped you as if to marvel at it. You wondered if he played with it between his fingers. Wondered if he tasted it while you weren’t in the position to see. 

Instead you heard him scoff. Not sure if in awe or disgust, but whichever the root it made you shiver crawl down your spine, because you could feel his breath on your backside. 

“Look a’ you,” he said, and it came out mangled, rumbled out from his belly like a growl. “Like a bitch in heat.” 

Those words hit you like a gunshot. Flatlined. Your eyes glassed over. Unearthed something feral and opprobrious from deep in the sticky pits of you and you weren’t sure if you liked the taste of it. 

“Wan’ me to fuck you, I bet.” 

A shock wracked through you base to crown when you felt his thumb against your puckered hole, and your entire body went stiff as wood. He only let out a chuff of laughter, biting. 

“Not this hole, though, eh?” 

You shuddered, whimpering, slavering like a rabid animal, biting down on the bridle in your jaws until it made your teeth ache. 

“Wan’ me in your cunt,” he mumbled, pressing harder, until the tight ring of muscle quivered with the touch, and your skin went cold. “Only makes sense, s’what y’were made for, mh? All stroppy ‘cause you haven’t had my cock yet?”

Then, with a grunt, he pushed in — broke past the clenching sphincter until his thumb was all the way in and his palm was flush with your rump — went in dry, and it hurt, you bleated out in shock and rocked forward on your knees, fingernails clawing into the horse bedding beneath you. 

“Y’not ready for that yet, cubbie,” he snarled, ragged. “Even if your ‘eart is, your body isn’t. Gotta time it right, cub—”

You heard the clink of his belt unbuckling. Slowly dragged his thumb out by an inch before pushing it in again, and it stung a little less.

“—won’t take otherwise, eh? Need to wait till y’ready—” 

Felt the thump of a weight on your rear. Heavy. Long. Hot and drumming like a heartbeat against your skin. 

“Know you’re desperate, cub, I do,” he rumbled, reeling out his thumb, pushing it back in. Pull, push. Pull, push. “Look a’ you, loosenin’ up — you’d even have me in this one, wouldn’t you?” 

Whatever noise tumbled out of your throat was foreign and bleating. The keen of a dying songbird. You might not have been afraid when he found you, misguidedly confident his wrathful nature would never be directed towards you — you were special, after all — but now a swirling apprehension sat low in your stomach, writhing, shuddering, with every push of his thumb; because you were wrong. 

“Too brave for your own good there, cubbie,” he hummed, and he tugged his thumb until it popped out of you, hole resisting its departure with a tight grip. “I’d break you in half.”

Felt three fingers swipe up your pussy, ladling your juices into his hand like water from a fountain — you couldn’t see what he did with them, you could only hear it. The gruff sigh he bit out, the sound of hand on skin, the slick noises of your wetness being smeared on something else. 

“An’ I need you whole,” he grunted, and you felt the smack of something heavy against the cleft of you, three firm slaps — his cock, you could tell, and you shuddered at the weight of it — his his his — “fuck, even though I’d kill to break you in, lovie—”

Cock wedged in the cleft of you, felt his steeled shaft grind against your flickering hole, squeaked like a mouse as he rutted where you split. He rocked you forward on your knees with each thrust, aching in your kneecaps, and you dropped to your elbows as he just about knocked you flat.

Dug both mammoth paws into each of your cheeks, clutching you by the meat of them, pressing them together to tighten the fissure he fucked — and he fucked in earnest, pistoning like he might if he were inside you. But he wasn’t, he deprived you of that, instead thrusting through the cleft of you like he might saw you in half. 

You groaned, sulky, needy — hungered for him to spear himself into you so desperately that your cunt ached, and you arched your spine to lean into him like you might wordlessly guide his cock where you wanted it to pierce you. 

He only chortled, breathless, because he knew your body so well — better than you — what it so palpably yearned for. What he pointedly declined you. 

“I know, cubbie, I know—” he panted, gnarled through a tight jaw, “—s’not much of a punishment if y’like it, though, is it?

You sobbed, both holes shuddering around nothing as his shaft slid against them, pitilessly taunting them with an admonition of what they could have had but were not allowed. 

You’d have begged, but the steel bit in your mouth restricted your lips from forming the words, tongue pushing against it like the bars of a cage. You could only whine and bitch while he chased his malicious end, and he only grew crueller as he came closer — his grip of your hips was malignant, fingernails boring into your skin, grunts were toothy and hateful and cut with murmuring acrimony—

Snippy little whore—wanna be an animal so bad?—I’ll fuckin’ tup you like one—

With a penultimate growl he bucked you flat and you were pinned beneath him, landing with an umph — his teeth scraped against the burning skin at the back of your neck, groaning into your flesh, ragged voice quaking through your skull like a crack of thunder — you felt the splatter of fluid over your lower back, viscid and hot, landing on your skin in spurts that dribbled down either side of your waist and pooled in the valley of your spine. 

You lay as still as you could muster underneath him, trembling as if you were cold but you were molten to your core. There wasn’t much of a reprieve before he pushed himself to stand, chuffed as stood upright, sniffed as he buckled up his belt. 

Couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, you kept your nose against the floor, wood shavings sticking to your cheeks. You felt his gaze on you, watched his shadow blanket over you like a cloak as he soaked in the aftermath of his discipline. 

“Girls’ll need an extra set o’ hands in the kitchen tonight,” he grunted coldly, adjusting the collar of his shirt. 

You said nothing. Only sipped in tiny swigs of air as if he might chastise you for breathing. Kept still as he stepped around you and unlatched the stall door.

“Y’can clean yourself up in the rain,” he murmured on his way out. “That’s what farm animals do, right, cub?” 

It was venison for supper. 

That’s what Linda told you, when she wheeled in the crate of meat fresh from the butcher, and the rusty odor of lard and myoglobin was so thick in the air that it condensed on the windows, oily beads forming on the glass.

It made you feel sick. Writhing and ferrous in your belly. You got as far as chopping all of the carrots before you had to apologise and excuse yourself. You had lingered for as long as you could muster it, out of sheer guilt, because Freya wasn’t there to bear the load of your absence.

You didn’t come back right after your punishment in the stable. You had sat in the rain for half an hour, as Jonathan had advised you to, letting the warm droplets rinse off the mud and come and drip through your scalp until you felt corporeal again. 

Corporeality was out of reach for you, though. 

You drifted back to your cottage in your sheer water-logged frock, mouth sealed shut, head throbbing, leaden — because there was something in the air. Swelling and humid. Something you could feel in your teeth, chewy and full of gristle, and its sanguine juices leaked down your throat. It tumesced in your jaws minute by minute. Not long until it was too thick to swallow.

Jonathan’s words parasitised your brain tissue until they were all you could hear, plangent ringing in your ears; need to time it right, cub, you’re not ready yet. You’re not ready yet. 

Hollowed out, he was all you could think about. Filled the empty space in your skull cavity like a new organ that only beat for him, something burgundy and parenchymal, dripping down your brainstem. 

When your cabin door opened, you didn’t shift from your bed. Stayed curled up on your side and blinking at the wall, waiting for your inauspicious nausea to abate. 

“There y’are, cubbie.” 

His voice was soft, deep, the gravel of a near whisper. 

He let out a long sigh as he shut the door behind him, and your ears perked at the slow beating of his shoes on the floor as he moseyed towards you. 

“Scoot,” he said as he approached your bed, and you pushed yourself over without question, so that he could sit on the edge. The flimsy mattress sunk under the weight of him, and he patted his thigh. “C’mon.”

You adjusted yourself so that your head lay on his lap like a pillow, tucked your hands and knees into your chest, and let out a long held breath. Relief as sweet as syrup pumped from your heart and you could finally feel your fingertips again. 

“Are you upset with me?” He asked, as characteristically gentle as you remembered it, none of the lascivious vitriol that frothed at his jaws earlier that afternoon. 

You nodded once. You were still sulking. He had left you wet and wanting, coated in his come with the bridle still strapped around your head. Your locks had knotted in the leather and it took you ten minutes to undo without scalping yourself. 

He combed his fingertips through your hair on the side of your head, soft and careful as petting a cat. Brushed a fine curl behind your ear. 

“I’m sorry, cub, I really am,” he said tenderly, “but you understand why I did it, don’t you?” 

You nodded again as he stroked you, and your lids grew heavy. 

“Mh,” he hummed, contented. “I don’t like being angry, love. But sometimes I have to be, if you don’t listen to me. There’s a reason I tell you not to do things. I don’t make up rules just for fun, do I?” 

“No,” you whispered. 

“No,” he agreed. “Rules aren’t fun. But they’re necessary. Without them this would all fall apart. You don’t want that, do you, cub?” 

“No.” 

“Course you don’t, sweetheart,” he cooed. “Now will you come join us for supper?” 

You breathed in slowly. “I’m not really hungry,” you confessed. 

“Feelin’ under the weather?” He asked, caressing hand shifting to flatten over your forehead as if to check for a fever. You probably were febrile to the touch, your blood was magmatic and only growing hotter, and it simmered in your temples. 

You shook your head gently. “No, I’m…” you eked, struggling to find the words to explain yourself. “I just feel a bit funny.” 

He exhaled languidly. “I understand, love,” he said, hand stroking to the top of your head. “Change is always hard. But you’ve been such a brave girl.” 

A warmth swelled in your tummy when he said that. Tempers settled by the wide hand petting your hair, and the softness of his lap under the side of your head. The worry that he had spurned you waned with each breath, because he was there, sweet as ever, lulling you to the brink of slumber under his doting touch. 

“You get an early night, then, cub,” he said gingerly. “Just make sure y’eat a big breakfast, yeah?” 

You only hummed, slurred and sleepy, and managed to puff out an okay before your eyes ebbed shut and your body sunk into sleep.

Your scruples had evaporated. 

There had been vestiges of your more circumspect self lingering around in your first few weeks, a careful eye kept on the farm and its esoteric leader, wits kept about you despite how often you forwent them. 

Now you looked on that scepticism as ignorance. 

A conceited belief that you had some greater understanding about the world than people who were truly connected to it, knee-deep in the ground, toiling to better themselves and the Earth. 

Besides, Jonathan’s notions were consistently proven right. Pollution, climate change, proxy wars — what else was to blame for these cataclysms but human conceit, addiction to all the noxious things created for simple convenience? 

Every time he gave his speeches to the Family as a whole, his sentiments only rang more true. 

Didn’t you feel so much better, now? 

No reliance on your phone, on plastic, on cheap and suffocating clothing. No consumption of mass-processed slop, of mind-rotting screen media, of lab-manufactured anodynes that poisoned you from the inside out. No longer reliant on friends that didn’t care about you, family that had no respect for you, a society that had utterly forsaken you. 

Why? Because you were no longer productive within it? Producing what, Jonathan would ask you, and the answer was nothing. Imaginary bullshit, he called it. Meaningless numbers that existed only on screens and in wires and yet somehow dictated the course of a sorely misguided mankind. 

These were the fragments of debris embedded within you that rotted you from the inside out. Gangrenous, necrotising every part of you they touched until you could hardly call yourself a human. 

Jonathan was the only one who could debride the wounds they left. Picked out the shards of refuse left by your dependence on the toxic and artificial. 

So much purer, they told you, they could see it in your eyes and in your skin — a glow from within, they said, because you were reviving your most natural, inborn self. Nurturing her, the most important part of you. 

Freya and Philip abandoned ship because they couldn’t handle it, the others told you. Because their dependence on the synthetic was adamantine, and their cowardice triumphed in the end.  

Not you, though. 

You were special. You were important. 

So important that over the course of the next week you were waited on hand and foot. You were brought raspberry leaf tea first thing every morning, and a mug of bone broth before you went to sleep every night. Given your own meals at John’s behest, a different meal on your plate than everybody else’s when you sat down for supper. 

Rare red meats, tender and well-salted, still juicy and dripping when you’d cut into them. Beef liver and bone marrow. Yams and boiled spinach. Eggs for breakfast every morning, dates and berries with full-fat cream for dessert. Need to keep you healthy, John would tell you, need you ready. 

Every day was a day closer, and you could feel it breathing down the back of your neck. 

Aren’t you excited? Linda would coo, and although nobody had said it outright, you felt in your belly what exactly the days were counting down to. 

Your hormones were beating and surging until they saturated every inch of you, permeating between the fibers of your muscles and coating your tongue and the walls of your cunt. A feeling you would never have noticed until it was pointed out to you, until it was all they asked about, and all you could focus on; do you feel it yet? Is your body preparing itself? Are you warmer between your legs? 

When you noticed a few specks of blood on your toilet paper, the slightest smear of pink, you told Georgie — she smiled as bright as the sun, kissed you on the lips, because how lucky, a godsend, you were finally ripe. 

The last sliver of the waning moon had vanished that night. It was as black as the rest of the sky, hung low over the hill above Jonathan’s farmhouse. 

Unseasonably warm for late summer, as though the sun was still baking in the sky, and the air was sultry with it. Formed dewdrops on your skin as you waited for the knock on your door. 

It was Georgie and Harriet that arrived on your doorstep, an hour shy of midnight, garmented in white dresses. Georgie approached you with a bloomed cariad rose pinched between her fingers, pink and fluttery, and she slid the stalk behind your ear so that it was tucked into your loose hair. 

You smiled back at her when she stroked your cheek, her enthusiasm an airborne infection that filled your lungs like steam and felt fuzzy in the centre of your forehead. Anticipation as inebriant as ethanol had been slowly accruing in your blood day by day, until your thoughts were all hazy and thrumming and the hours oozed by like honey. 

Georgie held your hand as she led you out of your door, Harriet close behind you. Out on the path waited the rest of the Family, all thirty of them, candles in hand. Your erstwhile self might have been humiliated by your stark nudity — instead you felt pride, loving warmth in your veins, because they all looked on you with pure fondness and blind devotion. 

They followed behind you like a flock of sheep, reverently silent, as Georgie led you down an unfamiliar path, illuminated only by the candlelight. Through the pear trees and over a bubbling creek; the water cool between your toes, the ground mulchy beneath your feet. 

The terminus of your journey was a pyramid. 

Hand-fashioned from timber, lacquered in ivory paint. No windows. A dormer containing a hole where a door might have been. Situated in a clearing among the oak trees, almost haunting, the tip of it just about invisible in the darkness of the night. 

Georgie let go of your hand and gave you an encouraging touch on your bare back. 

“Wait inside,” she whispered, beaming, “he won’t be long.” 

Stepping through the entrance was one of no return. 

You felt it in your chest. Smoky and heady. Dense enough that it was hard to inhale. 

The interior was unpainted, raw wood, logs recently chopped and lumbered into boards. Terpenic on your tongue. The sticky scent of balsam. Mingled with the lanolin exuded by the sheepskins carpeting every corner of the floor, warm and soft under your feet, curls of wool tufting out between your toes. 

Candles had been lit by the entrance, but those were the only sources of light within the peculiar room. You looked up to the highest point of the ceiling and saw only a void. 

Minutes passed like muggy eons and you sat yourself cross-legged on the woolly floor, facing away from the entrance. Apprehension crept up your gullet like acidic reflux, and swallowing brought you no relief. 

You heard his breathing before he spoke. 

“Stand up, cub,” he drawled, low, full-throated. You thought you might turn around and see a bear standing there opposed to a man. “Let me look at you.” 

You did as you were told. Rose up cautiously, filly-legged, wobbly as though unused to gravity. Faced him with your fingers in knots and your toes curling into the fleece of the floor. 

His eyes were stygian as he approached you. Lips tight and pensieve under his beard. Stood shirtless, but still in his trousers, belt buckled. 

“You are a lovely thing,” he murmured, lost, as he reached across the narrow gap and brushed your breast with his hand. Feathered his thumb over your nipple and watched raptly as it tightened to a point under his touch. 

You had no words to offer him. Not for a lack of trying, but every syllable that worked its way along your tongue fizzled before making its way out, because nothing you could say felt worthy of him. 

“How are you feeling,” He asked hoarsely, monotonously, running the back of his finger down the length of your belly, just light enough to tickle. 

“Nervous,” you breathed, after a sweltering pause, because his touch persisted lower even as you failed to respond. 

“No need to be nervous, cubbie,” he said. 

He craned slightly downward to slide the tip of his fingers between your folds, and you hiccuped at the touch. Bit your tongue as you felt him wipe over your hole, dipping in but not breaching, before he reeled them back out. He held up his fingers to look at your slick, attentive as if inspecting it, watching how it clung in glossy bands between his thumb and forefingers. Breathed raggedly through his nose in satisfaction. 

“It’ll only hurt for a little bit,” he explained, tone staid, but you could hear the appetite simmering in the back of his throat. “But we’ll go slow.” 

You nodded deferentially. 

“Get on your knees, cub.” 

And you did. The wool was soft underneath your kneecaps. 

“Take it out.” 

Your hands went to his belt without dispute, fishing out the tail and undoing the buckle. Moved quickly onto the buttons of his thick canvas work trousers, popping them loose one by one. 

His cock was partially soft when you pulled it out through the fly of his trousers, but you watched it grow harder the moment it was free — length doubled before your eyes, girth almost three-fold, as the veins roping under the ruddy skin thumped with blood and his foreskin peeled back from the smooth bulge of his head. 

He let out a grunt, then a sigh, when you curled your fingers around the base of it, slightly too thick to fully wrap your hand around. The sound was like liquor and you were already drunk on it. 

“Lick it,” he gritted. 

You angled his cock upright, and dragged your wet tongue from the curls above his balls to his frenulum, painting your saliva along the length of it and breathing hot air over his skin. He groaned, and your blood went runny, because the only thing you wanted was to please him — him him him — and you were high on every sound he chewed out as you did. 

His thick fingers carded through your hair, gentle at first, but as you grazed your lips against the tip of his cock his hand turned to a fist, and you chirped at the pain in your scalp. 

Must have heard you, because his grip went slack, and he clenched his jaw instead. 

“Swallow it, cub,” he grumbled, barely encouraging, “as much as you can fit.” 

Easier said than done. You unhinged your jaw to take his blunt head in your mouth, lapping at it to keep it wet, terrified you’d scrape your teeth on it — but you leaned forward, bit by bit, and his cock was heavy on your tongue. 

“Tha’s it,” he huffed, biting down on nothing. “Eyes up.” 

You blinked up at him, rheumy and upset, because soon his cock was at the back of your tongue and you were only halfway down. You did your best with what you could take — sealed your lips and suckled on him, grazing your tongue along the underside of his cock as you moved your head back, then forward again, and he let out a satisfied growl. 

“Good girl, cubbie,” he groaned, when his glans hit the back of your throat and you gagged around him. “Easy. Doin’ so good.” 

The remaining liquid in your body turned to syrup, hot and sweet in your cheeks, a treacly film over your eyes — I’m a good girl, I’m a good girl, I’m a good girl — reverberated around in your head like a bullet ricocheting off the walls of your skull. 

Went delirious with it. Mouth so slick with saliva it dripped down your chin, soaked his cock from base to tip until the curls at the bed of it were sodden and clumped together. Throat relaxed enough to take him deeper, and you gagged again, though he praised you for it. 

You’re so good for me, cubbie. My good girl. So special. Perfect girl. 

Your cunt had liquefied. Molten. Burned so hot that it throbbed between your legs and you rubbed your thighs together involuntarily. Alight with anticipation, because you knew where he’d put his cock next. 

Couldn’t stop yourself, though. Couldn’t settle your tongue. Couldn’t slow down when he told you to — a distant voice that didn’t quite break through the fog, slow down, cub, careful.  

Your fervour was only deepening, because his groans were bitten out more desperately each time you sucked his cock deeper into your throat, and you only wanted to make him happy, to be his good girl forever, to—

“Slow the fuck down.” 

Suddenly your hair was knotted in a fist and it was yanked from your scalp, and you squealed as your head was torn off his cock and your throat was violently empty. He pulled your head back off your shoulders by your hair so that you were forced to look up at the ceiling, and it hurt enough that your face crumpled up, eyes dribbling tears that trickled down over your temples. 

“Still don’t know how to fuckin’ listen, do you,” he thundered, rage flaring from an ember to a scorching flame, and you could see its red glow lambent in the hollows of his eyes. 

You yelped as he dragged you by the hair, claws scratching and grasping at his restraining wrist as you were hauled to the centre of the triangular room and thrown flat on the woollen floor. 

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry — emetic apologies spewed from your mouth like vomit as you rolled yourself onto your back, and you watched him shuck his trousers off in a single motion. 

Loomed over you like a mountain. Cock heavy, bouncing with his heartbeat, glistening with your saliva. He made the cavernous pyramid seem small, shrinking around him, like he could touch the peak of the ceiling just by reaching upward. 

You blinked and he had clambered over you, snared your ankles with massive hands — tore your legs apart and dragged you towards him until your arse was perched on his lap, and your thighs were wrapped around his waist. 

“Didn’t want it to be like this, cub,” he growled, leviathan paws on either side of your waist, and his cock nudged around between your folds for an aperture. “Thought you could control yourself. Gave you too much credit.”

You bleated as he pulled you down onto him, spearing his cock into you in a single motion, a battering ram that broke through your entrance without warning or care. A squeal ripped from your throat as his head plunged in as deep as it could go, to the hilt, pushing innards out of his way to fit, and you felt the ache in your teeth.  

“Coulda been nice n’ slow,” he snarled, tight-jawed.

He hunched over you as he pulled your hips out to unsheathe himself halfway, before yanking you back onto him, hole pulled so tight around him you could feel his heartbeat in your fragile skin. 

“Woulda got you warmed up. Nah, wanted to rush it, did you?” 

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry — babbling and tearful, slurred in panic — pleading like you had angered God, because you had. 

“S’alright, cub,” he murmured, leaning back and hucking up a lump of saliva, spitting it straight down where your cunt met the base of his cock, and it landed square on your clit. “My fault for makin’ you wait so long, eh?” 

He let go of your hips, hands sliding to the core of you — pressed his left thumb into the top of your slit and pulled the skin upward, uncovering your puffy clit and exposing it to the torrid air. 

Your head rocked back into the wool on the floor when he smeared over your vulnerable clit with the pads of two fingers, gliding frictionlessly by virtue of your slick and his spit. You exhaled with a shrill moan, and you bucked your hips to chase his touch, then yelped in pain when his cock jammed into your liver. 

“Easy,” he chuckled at you, deep and throaty, “don’t hurt yourself.” 

Your hands clutched at the wool on the floor in fists, clumps of it knotted between your fingers, as your spine arched into him — what was once a stabbing pain softened to a throb, his attention on your clit analgesic, and your pussy unwinded around the cock warming itself inside you. 

“Tha’s more like it,” he hummed, as you splayed yourself open for him, grunting as he felt your pussy fluttering around the length of him.

You were already close to the brink before he had even touched you, and it did not take him long to work you up to the edge — your moans turned shaky and high-pitched, panting, moving your hips so you could feel him skewered inside you, and everything flooded in at once—

He bit down on a groan as you came, walls of your cunt constricting around his cock, a tourniquet, tightening in the shockwaves of the orgasm that wracked through you viciously enough to leave you concussed. 

“There y’go, cubbie,” he grunted, offering you no clemency, not a beat to catch your breath as he hooked his hands under your thighs and lifted them into the air before pressing them into your chest. “That’ll make it easier.” 

You cried as he plunged his cock into you while you were still tumbling out of your climax, folding you in half until your knees touched the floor by your head, and you could feel his cock in your ribcage. 

He grunted and groaned like a bear, pulling back his hips to reel out his cock before bottoming out with a clap of his hips on your rear, reaming you open with each thrust. 

You had no room to squirm, held so firmly to the floor that you struggled to breathe, and he fucked right through you as if the head of his cock might reach your throat. You could only try and take it, biting down on pained yelps each time he pistoned into you, bludgeoning your cervix enough to bruise it.  

You were not suffering in vain, though. 

The pain was salvific, martyrdom for a cause — him. His pleasure was yours because you owed it to him. You owed him everything, your enlightenment, your happiness, your body, your soul.

Went dizzy with rapture at the thought of his cock impaling you so deeply, of him coming in the depths of you, of his seed implanting in your womb so that you could have him inside you and a part of you forever. So that you could give him the gift that nobody else was worthy of giving him, because you were special. You were important. 

He grunted as much in your ear, breathy and angry and hazy with pleasure; my special girl. Fuck, cubbie, you feel so good. Tryin’ not to break you in half, cubbie. Tryin’ so hard, my good girl, special girl. Gonna give me my baby, aren’t you, cub? I’ll fuck you like this every day until you do—

You watched him in devoted awe once you were able to keep your eyes open — vein bulging in his forehead, burning red in his cheeks, eyes a stormy grey in the darkness of the room. How his brows curled as he chased a final rut, fucking right into your diaphragm, and he pushed all the air out of you as he pressed you into the floor. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, frayed and broken as it rended from his chest, and his head tumbled from his shoulders. “Keep still, cub — fuckin’ hell.” 

You felt his cock lurching in the security of your pussy, his come pumping in surges directly against your cervix, so much of it that you could feel it in your belly and taste it on the back of your tongue. You wondered if he had injected it directly into your womb through sheer pressure alone, and you hoped it would settle there, meeting the ovum that had awaited his arrival. 

You went glassy-eyed as you imagined it, his come taking, swelling and swelling inside you until it was a baby — heaven sent, the perfect amalgamation of you and him — him him him — you couldn’t fathom something so immaculate existing in the world with you. You were sure his baby would outgrow you, viviparous, would burst through your skin and emerge a fully grown person, as deific and faultless as him. 

Selfishly, you imagined it not taking. That he had timed it incorrectly, that his sperm had hunted for your egg and was found wanting — and he’d have to fuck you again, like he promised he would. Again and again, ejaculating in the core of you until your insides had become more him than yourself, body completely usurped by him, organs and all. 

You gasped, shaken out of your come-drunk reverie when he pinned your ankles together with a single hand, straightening out your legs. 

“John, what—” You squeaked, as he pushed your knees to your chin, and he hunched over so that you could no longer see him past your thighs. 

Almost bit your tongue off when you felt him lick up your slit in a flat swipe, immediately bucking to get him away from your already aching and hypersensitive clit. 

“No, s’too much—” you bleated, whining as his tongue smeared over your clit again, and the shock made your brain short-circuit. 

“I know, I know, cubbie—” he hushed, wrangling you until you stilled, and you felt his breath on your inflamed skin, “—it’s important, helps it take, love. Won’t take long, just be a good girl—”

You cried as he sucked your clit into his mouth, knee knocking against your chin, air squished out of your lungs as he folded you in half on the sheepskins. 

But you did as he said, because you were a good girl. Let him suckle on your swollen clit until it was sore, lapping at you with the fervour of a bear hunting honey in a beehive — still felt the flood of his come sitting high in your cunt, pooling against your cervix as he held your legs in the air, and it threatened to pour out of you with every constriction of your pussy. 

“Please—” you wailed, aimless in your begging, because whatever you wanted he had given it to you and then some. 

His hands dug into the flesh of your thighs, keeping himself steady more than you, and you climbed back towards your apogee with a sob and a held breath — released it all at once as he laved his tongue over your pulsing clit, and you came hard enough that you felt yourself begin to black out, such a lack of oxygen in your brain that your vision turned glittery at the edges. 

“J-Jonathan, ah, stop!—” You begged, teary and desperate, and only when you kicked haphazardly into the air did he release the suction on your clitoris and conclude his torment with a chaste kiss on your slit. 

He straightened out with a satisfied sigh, rough and gurgling from his chest, gently lowering your legs and laying them softly on the wool beneath you. 

He planted kisses up the length of you; on your hip, on your belly, on your breast, on your collarbone; crawling up your body until he landed on his back beside you with a whumph. With his expansive hands he scooped you up, and you gave no protest, floppy and exhausted to the point of debilitation — he lay you down on his chest, head balanced between his pectorals, and you settled in with a ragged exhale. 

“Such a good girl,” he murmured into the top of your head as he draped his arms over you, petting your skin wherever his hands landed. “Brave little cub.” 

You deflated, dissolving into him with a pent breath as your eyes fluttered shut, and you could have stayed there, like that, forever. 

He pressed a loving kiss into your hair, languidly stroking your shoulder, and you wondered if your mother was looking for you. 

this fic somehow tripled in length as i was writing it lol. anyway here's the pinterest board for it. <3

[akaneoxo]

ik i just run a tumblr smut page BUT!!!

FUCK ICE, free palestine, free congo, FUCK trump, FUCK musk, no one is illegal on stolen land, and if u disagree, FUCK YOU TOO!!!

i’ve said this before but if u support that fuckass orange in office, idc if ur a silent follower or ur like is ur only form of interacting with me, just know, i don’t want it!!! and u are a terrible person!!! 😛

[akaneoxo]

Johnny strutting up to older!reader in a bar with the tired “can I buy ye a drink” and you just look him up and down and ask “oh baby. How old are you? Where’s your dad?” In the most condescending yet sweet voice he’s ever heard and the man is lowkey bricked up. He’s stunned just staring at you stuttering out “ ‘m 26” You look over his shoulder to the rest of the 141 sitting at a table. “Either come back in ten years or send your mutton chops daddy over. Ok sweetheart” your hand is shooing him away and he’s walking a little stiff bc you just unlocked a kink in him he did not know he had.

[akaneoxo]

johnny would see the way you cast your eyes on his spread legs and he would spread them even wider. he would even start caressing his lap, and you mistake it for a habit until the action gets pointed—his hand dragging along the seams of his zipper to cup his chub, a grasp firm, before letting go just as quickly. you’d let out a soft, almost imperceptible, “oh,” only to look back up and see that you’d been caught.

[akaneoxo]

I think of Gaz and Johnny as nosy bitches, especially when it comes to ghost, and they’re always trying to look over his shoulder to see what he’s doing on his phone

And they start noticing a contact that keeps popping up (not saved with a real name, no one in Ghost’s phone is) and getting sent money. Hundreds at a time. Heart emojis being sent in response.

They compare notes with each other, Soap and Gaz, and they come to the conclusion that he’s finally done it. ghost has gotten so terminally bitchless that he’s letting some bimbo fleece him for all he’s worth.

They’re debating how to intervene, tell him it’s not over, he’s tall enough that he could find a real girlfriend probably, when he invites them over.

And you’re completely normal. It’s clear you love Simon a lot, and while you have a lot of hobbies, there’s no designer purse or high end rhinestone nail extensions, no souvenirs from Paris.

“L.T. I’ve gotta ask. All tha’ money… the hell was it all fer?”

“Premium season pass to the zoo.”

[akaneoxo]

Pro Meg

Pro Cassie

Pro Halle

Pro Teyana

Pro Cardi

Pro women trying to overcome and I pray they heal and fuck anybody that questions what they’ve been through and “they made a choice.” Fuck you.

And fuck Shade Room and all these funky ass blogs that ya’ll frequent!

[akaneoxo]

world's brainfoggiest girl trying her absolute hardest to complete a simple task

[akaneoxo]

"You’re losing something crucial, something invisible to you—invisible because it transcends your ability to perceive it. A shape turning in a higher dimension."

Fanart of @ceilidho 's wonderful fic, FEAR OF GOD!!! Took some liberties when it came to the crew's uniform, but I hope it does the author's vision justice :P Go read it!!!

[akaneoxo]

i can't write a zombie apocalypse au for johnny bc it was just be beat for beat shane walsh plotline from the walking dead. except way worse way earlier

[akaneoxo]

ミ stay for something

🍓 pairing: kyle 'gaz' garrick x fem reader

🍓 tags: nsfw, ex-boyfriend!gaz, unprotected vaginal sex, lack of communication, jealousy, 'just the tip' trope, sex with feelings

masterlist

reblogs are always enormously appreciated!

You hate wasting a Friday night on a first date, but you had genuinely high hopes for this one. You had made such an effort, too; pretty sparkly eyeshadow, strawberry-flavoured lipgloss, a new little black dress.

You look good. You feel good. 

It’s just a shame that the guy is a bit of a moron. 

He talks about himself a lot over dinner. Like, so much. You sit and smile and pretend to listen, your gaze wandering, and wonder if he’s going to ask any questions about you. He does (eventually), but they’re short and perfunctory and he seems to just take your answers and use them as a springboard into his next topic of discussion.

It’s a little tedious, but hey. First dates usually are. You weather it, your polite smile turning a little stiff as you sip your wine. Truthfully, you have ulterior motives here.

You’re not proud of it, but you don’t think you can handle the dry spell you’re going through anymore. You crave touch, affection, some kind of connection. You’re okay with being single, but god you’re so hungry for intimacy that it’s led to you agreeing to a date with a guy that you honestly wouldn’t have normally been into just for the chance of getting some action.

Ben is a nice enough guy, and he’s certainly good looking; neatly groomed hair, straight white teeth, a nice physique. He’s in good shape, though you can’t help but subconsciously compare him to— 

No, you think sternly to yourself, Don’t do that.

When he leans into you at the end of the date and asks in a low, sultry voice if you want to continue the night with him, you agree a little breathlessly. God, it’s been a long time since you were touched.

Your place is closer, and you can’t help but feel a little illicit thrill as you lead Ben back. You never usually bring guys back to yours, especially not on the first date, but you’ll be the first to admit that you’re needy tonight. 

The weather is getting colder as winter creeps its icy fingers through the air, but you’re wrapped tight in your coat and kept nice and warm as Ben wraps an arm around your waist, kissing heatedly at your neck as you try to open your door.

You giggle, the wine from dinner making you all loose and happy and eager. You tilt your head to give him more of your throat, and he eagerly takes the opportunity to introduce teeth and tongue as he kisses the line of your neck. You fumble with the key, clumsy as your body heats up.

When you finally manage to turn the key and get the stupid door open, Ben grabs you by the hips and spins you around so that he can pull you into a proper kiss. The guy might have been a dull conversationalist, but you’re delighted to find that he’s a good kisser.

The two of you stumble through the door, your arms locked around his neck as he holds you by the waist. It’s a little embarrassing how eager you are for a guy that you really aren’t even all that into, but you guess that’s just where desperation has gotten you.

“Shit,” Ben hisses when you nip at his lip. “Fuck, you’re so hot. C’mere, take this off.”

He starts tugging at your coat, and you pull back just enough to shrug it off, letting it drop to the floor. He lets out a throaty sound of appreciation, before grabbing at your waist again and leaning in to trail another set of hot kisses along your neck and shoulder. 

You tilt your head back, thunking lightly against the wall, and your eyelids flutter at the nipping kisses along your sensitive skin. 

“Oh, god…” You breathe, blinking your eyes open again.

But then… you pause. For the first time, you notice that the lights in your entryway are on. Why are they on? You hadn’t turned them on when you came in, and you know that they weren’t on when you had left. 

Ben is still groping eagerly at your hips, one hand reaching around to squeeze at your ass, but now you’re distracted, on alert. Your eyes dart around, and fall on a pair of Adidas Superstars set neatly by the front door, and a big puffer coat that’s been hung up on the hook in the hall.

Oh no. No fucking way.

As if to confirm the path your thoughts had just taken, your eyes catch on a figure in the doorway to the living room, leaning casually against the doorframe. Just watching.

A scream catches in your throat, and you grab Ben by the shoulders in an attempt to stop him. He doesn’t seem to understand, because he just keeps squeezing at your ass, pulling your hips closer so that he can slot between your legs and grind against you.

The brief spark of arousal that shoots through you when he grinds his hard-on into the seam of your cunt through your underwear is significantly dampened by the awareness that someone is already in your home, watching you, and you already know who it is.

“Hey, baby,” Kyle fucking Garrick says, lifting a mug patterned with little cartoon cats to his mouth. “Had a nice night out?”

“Jesus Christ–” You hiss, shoving at Ben’s chest. This time, the push isn’t needed, because Ben has rocketed up straight at the sound of another man’s voice in your house calling you ‘baby’.

“What the–” Ben starts to say, his brow furrowing into a bewildered frown when he catches sight of Gaz standing in the doorway watching you.

“Kyle, what are you doing here?” You snap, mortified. You grab at the bottom of your short little dress, pulling roughly at it to try and make sure you’re not flashing anyone.

Gaz watches you, amusement shining in his dark eyes. He’s not even trying to hide the way his gaze is drawn to your legs, lingering where your dress has ridden up your thighs. He sips his tea, a poor attempt at concealing his smirk.

“Home from deployment earlier than expected, love.” He says, calm and casual as if he hasn’t just broken into your goddamn house to destroy any hope you had of getting railed that night. “No time to find accommodation. You don’t mind, eh?”

Ben’s head is swinging between the two of you, his expression blank as he tries to work out just what exactly is happening. He’s straightened up entirely, the presence of Gaz obviously putting him on edge. You can’t blame him for his confusion; Gaz is currently looking at you like he wants to fucking eat you alive, and you’re beginning to get hot and flustered under his stare.

“Are you–” Ben starts, his head still on a swivel as though he can’t decide who to address. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

Gaz doesn’t even bother to reply at once. He sips at his tea, and tilts his head as he lets his eyes wander over Ben lazily. It doesn’t seem like he’s all too impressed by what he sees, though he’s smirking as though he’s amused.

“Sergeant Kyle Garrick.” He says at last, with a nod.

You huff. You know what he’s doing – he never introduces himself by his rank unless he’s trying to make a point.

Ben goes stiff. He’s still pressed against you, and you can feel every ounce of tension down the line of your body. It seems like he’s just now clocking Gaz as a proper threat, and you take a breath as you realise that he’s about to split and leave you here.

And sure enough–

“I– Listen, I don’t know what’s.. what’s going on here, but I don’t want any trouble.” Ben says, finally pushing himself away from you. He’s holding his hands up by his shoulders as though he’s being held at gunpoint, and you roll your eyes impatiently at his dramatics.

“No trouble, mate.” Gaz says, his voice still cheerfully amiable. “Door’s behind you.”

“Gaz–” You hiss, incensed, but it’s pointless. 

Ben is already scrambling to open the door, heedless of the way you grasp onto his coat in protest. You sigh heavily as he tumbles out into the cold night, and the door slams shut behind him so loud it makes your head hurt.

You stand alone in your entryway, shivering a little in your tiny black dress and heels from the icy breeze that was let in from Ben’s escape. Your jaw is clenched tight, and you take a deep, deep breath as you turn to face your ex-boyfriend.

Gaz is still watching you, his deep brown eyes staring at you from beneath his long dark lashes. You try hard to ignore his expression, which is unmistakably hungry.

“You look good, baby.” He says, staring pointedly at the way your breasts are all pushed up in your tight dress. 

“Don’t call me that.” You grumble, teaching down to unbuckle your delicate heels. You cast them aside and kick them over so they’re laying beside Gaz’s runners.

Gaz just snickers, turning to follow after you when you march your way to the kitchen. Irritation is burning hot in your veins, your lips pursed as you struggle to bite your tongue. It’s so fucking typical that the exact night you try to have some cheap, meaningless sex with some stranger, Gaz has decided to land right into your home. It’s like he has a fucking radar for when you’re about to get laid.

“You could have gotten a hotel.” You snap over your shoulder as you make your way to the kettle. It’s already hot, but you flick the switch again anyway.

“Nah. They’re all booked out. Busy season, you know.”

God, he’s so full of shit. You both know he never even considered staying anywhere other than with you, just like the last few times.

Still, you persevere.

“You could have stayed with one of the guys.” You say, turning around and folding your arms over your chest.

Gaz glances down, and you realise that you’ve inadvertently pushed your breasts together and up. You hastily drop your arms again, and settle instead for planting your hands on your hips.

“Could have,” He admits, leaning against your kitchen table in a way that’s infuriatingly casual. “But they never offered.”

“Neither did I–!”

Gaz doesn’t even seem to hear you. He just steps towards you, reaching to grab an empty mug from the cupboard above your head. The movement brings him so close to you, close enough that your next inhale is scented with his fresh-sweet cologne, the one you always loved, and you find your eyelids fluttering as your muscles relax without your permission. He smells so familiar, so comforting. You hate it.

“Go get changed,” He murmurs, keeping his voice low like he knows the moment is delicate. “We’ll watch a movie.”

You’d love to get fired up, to shove him or curse at him, but it’s all you can do to find the strength to step away from him instead of melting into him. You’re pretty sure he deserves an ass-kicking for this stunt of this, but you decide to pick your battles. Or at least, to postpone them.

You waver another moment, debating over whether you should try to get the last say, but Gaz has already turned away to continue making the cup of tea that you had started. Recognising that the moment has passed, you huff a sigh and march out of the kitchen, making your way to your bedroom.

It takes quite a bit of wiggling to get out your dress – it might look good, but there’s an inordinate sense of relief when you finally tug it over your head and feel as though you can breathe unimpeded again. You unclip your bra and toss it aside, rolling your shoulders and sighing as your breasts are freed. 

Once you're dressed again in a worn-out massive t-shirt that drowns your body and some loose sweatpants, looking decidedly unsexy, you pad to your bathroom and start washing your makeup off. Now that you’re alone, that disappointment and frustration is settling in properly. Ben might have been boring, but if his kissing was anything to judge by, you might actually have had a perfectly enjoyable night with him.

Bare-faced and dressed for lounging in bed, you trudge back downstairs to your ex-boyfriend. It’s far from the way you wanted to end your night, but you’ve resigned yourself to your fate. You can hear the muffled sounds from the television as you make your way downstairs, and you redirect yourself towards your small sitting room.

Gaz is sat sprawled on the couch, his legs spread wide as he makes himself comfortable in your home. Something twists in your stomach at how comfy he looks, as though he belongs there. He looks around when you walk in, though your footsteps are quiet and muffled by your fluffy socks.

You look far from sexy right now in your ugly old loungewear and bare face, but Gaz brightens up at the sight of you.

“There she is.” He crows, though there’s something soft in his gaze that you can hardly face. “C’mon, love. Want to pick what we’re watching?”

You just look at him tiredly. He’s as handsome as ever; the prettiest boy you’ve ever seen. He must have come straight here once he’d gotten back from deployment because his eyes are dark and exhausted and stubble is a little more overgrown than usual. You hate that he’s able to come into your space like this so easily – like he’s never left.

“Gaz–” You start to say, but you’re cut off when he reaches for your hand.

He tugs you towards him, and you put a knee hastily up on the couch to prevent yourself from falling flat into his lap.

“Shhh, c’mon. Just sit with me.” He murmurs, looking up at you with those damn pretty eyes.

You waver, but then you turn your head to the side and catch sight of the second cup of tea sitting on the coffee table. Gaz has made it just how you like it, and in your favourite mug too. You crumble almost instantly. 

“Stick to your side of the couch.” You grumble, before dropping yourself down heavily onto the sofa next to him.

Gaz hums, and you can already tell that he has no intention of following that order. His arm is already sprawled over the back of the couch; it’s not touching you, but you have no doubt that he’ll try to before the end of the night.

He sticks on some stupid movie on Netflix. You don’t pay attention. It’s a rom-com, which is typical. He always pretends he chooses the sappy romantic films for your benefit, but you’re not fooled. You see the way he watches them with avid interest, the way his toes curl in his socks when the big love confession scene comes on screen. It’s always been something that you’re impossibly fond of.

The two of you are silent for a while, but it’s not uncomfortable. Part of you wishes that it was awkward – it would be easier, you think. But he makes it so simple, sitting with him like this as the cheesy film plays in the background. You’re still a little tipsy from the drinks you’d had at dinner, and you melt into the couch beside him a little quicker than you think you would have otherwise.

“You ruined my night, you know.” You say at last, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye.

To your surprise, he’s already looking at you. You glance away hastily again, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Nah,” He says, and you feel his arm dip down a little. He’s cupping your shoulders now, and you should probably move away, but you don’t. “If anything, I saved you from having a long, disappointing night with some tosser you agreed to pity-date. He didn’t exactly look like your type, darling.”

“He was a perfectly nice guy.” You bite out, crossing your arms defensively over your belly in your big t-shirt.

“Nice guys don’t end the first date by groping your ass and humping you up against your wall in your own house.” He says, and if you’re not mistaken you’d say he sounds a little bitter.

You cast a sideways glance at him. He’s sitting up, watching you closely and leaning just slightly towards you. He’s so intense about the way he’s looking at you, his arm dipping low so that he’s holding you properly.

“Stop it.” You say. It hardly even sounds like a proper protest. You’re so tired, still a little floaty from the wine you’d had at dinner, and desperately disappointed by the lack of sexual satisfaction you had been hoping for.

There’s a pause, and then Gaz gives a small shrug. He pulls his arm back to give you space, but he still has that stupid smirk on his face. You can’t even be angry about the cockiness of his expression when his eyes are that soft though.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He murmurs. “I’m not being fair, am I?”

“No,” You say petulantly. “You’re not.”

He huffs a noise that’s almost a laugh, only he manages to stifle it so that it comes out as a cough instead. 

“Mm. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to ruin your big date night, especially when you got done up so pretty for it,” He murmurs, his voice low and sweet as honey trickling down your spine. “Let me make up for it. Come on, get over here.”

You hesitate, but Gaz isn’t really giving you an option. He begins to shift, one of his strong muscled arms looping around your waist as he pulls you into him. It takes you a long moment to realise what it is that he’s trying to do. He lays back on the couch and pulls you with him, encouraging you to pull your legs up onto the sofa so that the two of you are laying on your sides, with Gaz spooned up against your back. 

It’s definitely a bad idea to cuddle with him on the couch like this. You’re trying to set boundaries, to make it clear that you’re just friends (if you can even call it that) after your breakup. And yet… you don’t offer any sort of protest at all.

“Relax,” Gaz sighs from behind you, and you feel his nose nuzzle against the back of your neck. “You love cuddling.”

You roll your eyes, turning your head slightly so he can see the unimpressed expression on your face. 

“This isn’t enough to make up for being such a dick.” You grumble. Despite your griping, you don’t actually make any attempt to get out of his arms.

He was right, after all. You do love cuddling. It was your favourite thing to do when you were together. 

But you’re not together anymore, and it’s hard to ignore the gnawing guilt that you’re letting this grow into something that should be avoided instead of nipping it in the bud. You and Gaz had broken up months ago, and it was a perfectly amicable split. You can’t even say that he was at fault for any of it; the strain of the long distance part of your relationship while he was on deployment just grew too much for you, the space his absence left filling with brambled loneliness that pricked incessantly at you. You had known what you were getting into with this relationship with him, and yet when it came down to it you got too greedy, wanting more of him than he was able to give. 

Tonight was a moment of weakness for you, and though your hopes for sex may have been thwarted, you can’t turn down the soft familiar intimacy of Gaz’s strong body cradling you close against him.

Maybe it’s the wine you had at dinner, but you find your muscles relaxing a little as one of Gaz’s arms loops around your waist, his big hand coming to rest across your belly.

“Mm. I’m being selfish, love.” He murmurs, and you fight a shiver as his warm breath ghosts over the delicate shell of your ear. “This is more for me than for you.”

You’re not altogether sure that’s true. It’s certainly doing an awful lot for you right now. Gaz is in just a t-shirt, the muscles of his biceps bunching up under his bare skin as he tries to subtly nudge you closer to him. 

You’ve missed being all wrapped up in the warm embrace of him; he cuddles with his whole body, the front of his thighs all pressed against the back of yours, his strong chest moulding to your back as his face nuzzles against the back of your neck. You always feel so safe when he holds you like this, like he’s blocking out the rest of the world for you. You can only guess he feels the same – he holds you that much tighter every time he gets back home from his missions.

You grumble quietly, but soon settle down. The repetitive stroking motion of his thumb over your hip is more soothing than it should be. You take deep breaths, trying to be subtle about it, because all you can smell is Gaz and his citrusy sweet aftershave and you just want to drown in it.

“You can’t keep doing this.” You mumble, though all the fight has gone out of you. “It’s not… helpful.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Gaz shifts behind you. His arm tightens around your waist almost imperceptibly, as though he thinks you’re going to push him away. But you’re being selfish now too, comfortably wrapped up against his chest.

“We said we’d stay friends,” He says at last, and he’s so close that you can feel his lips move against the back of your neck as he speaks. “Nothin’ wrong with some platonic cuddling. You should see how close me an’ Soap have had to cuddle to conserve heat when we’re out on the field.”

You huff a small laugh, which is obviously what he had been hoping for. Platonic cuddling. This certainly doesn’t feel platonic, but you can’t bring yourself to push him away. You’ve been craving this kind of closeness for months now, so you just let yourself reluctantly enjoy it. It would have been so much easier if you were able to enjoy it with Ben, with someone who meant nothing to you and wouldn’t have brought with him such a complicated web of feelings and history, but there’s a real sense of comfort in the familiarity of Gaz’s presence.

The film Gaz had chosen to stick on is a stupid one. It’s half action, half love story, with a strong rugged hero and a too-beautiful love-interest whose main role seems to be throwing out quips for comedic relief. You’ve seen a hundred versions of this plot play out in other films, though Gaz is predictably glued to the screen. He’s always loved these stupid films.

You’re comfortable enough that you fall into a light doze, uninterested in the television as you relish the heat from Gaz’s chest. He’s like a fucking human radiator, so hot that you can feel a thin dew of sweat begin to break out along your spine. It chases away the chill of the night and makes you so sleepy.

You’re almost asleep when movement from behind you jolts you back to wakefulness. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve imagined it. Then Gaz moves again, and this time it’s unmistakable.

Gaz is hard, the thick ridge of him impossible to miss as he presses against your ass. You’re awake instantly, the slight tipsiness from dinner vanishing into thin air. You’re on high alert, eyes darting back to the television to see what the fuck has aroused him, but there’s nothing of note happening onscreen. It’s just a conversation between characters, exposition setting up the next stage of the plot.

“Gaz,” You say, and your voice comes out louder than you had intended. “Stop humping my ass.”

You’re half-expecting him to deny it, but he just huffs a quiet snort, his nose nuzzling against the back of your neck.

“Sorry, love.” He says, though he doesn’t sound sorry in the least. “Can’t help it. Missed you loads.”

You can feel his cock even through the layers of your clothing, and you swallow hard. God, you’ve missed it. You’ve missed him, though it doesn’t seem like the right time to admit it. How are you ever supposed to get over each other if he keeps coming to stay with you every time he gets back from wherever in God’s name he’s been, when he holds you so sweetly and talks to you like you’re still his girl?

His hips rock into you in a movement that’s almost imperceptible, except you’re waiting for it. His hands are gripping your waist, his fingers curling into the soft flesh there. He’s always enjoyed the way your body yields to him, so much softer than the hard planes of muscle that make up his own, and it’s no surprise that he goes straight back to holding onto his favourite parts of you even as he ruts against your ass.

“Jesus, Gaz–” You start to complain, but your voice is a little too breathy to be convincingly angry.

“Stop that,” He murmurs, his lips pressing against the side of your neck. “You never call me that.”

That is true – after the breakup, calling him Kyle just seemed too intimate. It’s a name that usually falls from your lips with care, in soft whispers made for dark rooms and quiet moments. His callsign offers distance, reminds you both that what you had is in the past. Or that it should be in the past, at least.

“Kyle,” You concede tiredly. “You dickhead.”

He just hums. He knows you well enough to know that you’re not really angry; you’re not even attempting to move away from him, though you know you should. The film is mostly forgotten in the background, though you’re vaguely aware that the two characters onscreen have now progressed to confessing their love before the big final battle. You just sigh; this little romantic film moment is only going to encourage Gaz even more.

Yet still, you don’t move.

The way he’s grinding his thick cock against the swell of your ass is making your blood run hot. The pressure every time his hips roll lightly against you and the way that he uses his grip on your hips to pull you back against him is making your brain all stupid and fuzzy. It’s the only reason you can think of to explain the way you shift, the way you allow your bum to brush back against him. It earns you a soft little grunt that’s mostly muffled by the way he’s mouthing at your throat.

Oh, it would be so easy to slip the sweatpants that separates the two of you down, to allow him to slide into you. A little woozily, you think it would feel like he was coming home.

But to actually have sex feels like too much of a commitment, too confusing a step to take when things between you two were already muddled and confused enough. You’re almost afraid to even turn around to glance over your shoulder at him, as though making eye contact might mean you’ll both wake up and stop.

Gaz’s cock has gotten even harder, filling out thickly as he slots against the clothed groove of your ass. He’s not even touching your pussy, and yet your knickers are slick and sticky. It’s embarrassing at your age to be laying on the couch, watching a movie and getting dry-humped like a fucking teenager, and yet your skin feels as though it’s been lit aflame.

Then rustling fabric breaks the silence, and Gaz shifts a little behind you in an odd motion as the insistent pressure on your ass is finally relieved. In its absence, you’re almost disappointed. 

You tilt your head, just barely turning it, just enough to see that he’s just pulled out his cock.

“Kyle–”

“Sorry, baby,” He says again, panting against the side of your neck and making you shiver. “– ‘m just too hard, getting uncomfortable. Ignore it.”

Ignore it? You think, a little hysterically. The gentle rocking of his erection into your ass was one thing, but how the fuck are you supposed to ignore the fact that your ex is all pressed up against you, still holding you by the waist with one hand as the other fists at his cock.

You glance behind you and down before you can help yourself, your self-control as lacking as ever. Fuck. You’ve missed the sight of that. He has the prettiest cock you’ve ever seen, even if right now it’s flushed dark and angry and painful looking. Your mouth waters. He was obviously telling the truth when he said it was getting sore, and you feel a reluctant swell of sympathy.

“Been thinking of you for months, baby.” He murmurs, placing a wet, messy kiss on your throat. “I can’t even fucking cum properly when you’re not around, it’s not the fucking same. God, even missed the way you smell–”

As if to punctuate that, he presses his nose in your hair and inhales deeply. You know you smell like the sweet perfume you had sprayed earlier, your favourite one. You know from experience that it’s also Gaz’s favourite one. You tell yourself it’s a coincidence.

“Why didn’t you fuck someone else then? Get it out of your system?” You say, and it comes out a little harsh, a little raw. It reveals more than you want to; you feel a little ill at the thought of Gaz with some faceless girl, holding her and making her laugh, her hands touching him like you do.

If Gaz picks up on the bite in your voice, he’s kind enough to ignore it. He just huffs a quick snort like the suggestion is ridiculous, his sloppy mouthing at your neck turning into a chaste affectionate kiss that feels totally at odds with the desperate motions of his hand pumping at his cock.

“Why would I do that when I had a girl waiting for me at home?” He asks, his voice so soft with you. “Never wanted anyone else.”

Your toes curl, guilt coiling in your stomach. You hate that you feel pleased that he’s waited for you, that he doesn’t want anyone else. You’re not being fair – it had been you who had broken it off, after all. He should be able to get with whoever he wants to. Conceivably, he is allowed to. Yet you can’t pretend that you wouldn’t have been sick to your stomach if he admitted that he had. 

God, you feel like such a hypocrite. Here you are, admittedly all too happy that Gaz has stayed faithful to a relationship that isn’t even intact anymore, and there he is, having just witnessed you come home with a stranger’s hands all over you.

“We’re not together anymore.” You whisper, when what you want to say is I’m sorry.

“I know.” Gaz replies, and it sounds like For now.

It’s not a surprise when the hand on your waist slips around to your belly, and then lower again as it slips beneath the waistband of your bottoms. You try and fail to suppress the wet gasp that’s pulled from your throat when his long fingers coast over the front of your knickers, finding your clothed clit with unerring accuracy.

“Oh, lace, baby?” He says, his breath catching in his eagerness before realisation seems to set in. “Oh. This was for your little date, eh?”

The guilt again, gnawing in your chest. You arch your back, simultaneously shying away and crowding your ass back up against him. It’s mortifying, being caught with your fancy underwear beneath your baggy unflattering sweatpants by your ex-boyfriend and having him know without a shadow of a doubt that you intended them to be seen by someone else.

“I was–” You start to say breathily, but Gaz doesn’t let you finish.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” He murmurs, his lips ghosting along the shell of your ear. “I know, I know. But he didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve you. Jesus, he didn’t even know what he fuckin’ had, ran like a coward–”

“Gaz–” You try again. You can’t help but feel as though you need to explain yourself, like the two of you should talk this through.

“You’re so soft, Jesus Christ.” He mutters, the side of his hand rubbing at the squishy flesh of your thighs as he strokes at your clit. “Were you always this soft?”

It sounds as though he’s trying to remember, desperate and wanting. You swallow thickly, closing your eyes as that familiar pleasure licks up your spine. He knows you so well, knows every part of you and exactly how to touch you, and you can hardly believe you ever entertained letting anyone else put their hands on you.

“I got a new body oil.” You breathe, distracted by his touch. “It’s– it’s vanilla scented.”

“Yeah,” He groans, and you shiver helplessly when you feel his tongue on your neck, licking a hot stripe up to your earlobe. “I can smell it.”

His index and middle fingers are so firm on either side of your clit, rolling circles around it without actually touching you properly. You sigh, back arching, but before you can actually enjoy it his hands are pulling away.

“Wait–” You gasp, your body crying out in protest as Gaz stops, pulling his hand back out of your pants.

Gaz just grunts, kisses your neck once more, then tugs your sweatpants down. You lift your hips up immediately, thoughtlessly, and then kick your sweats and knickers off impatiently. It’s a little embarrassing, especially when the cool air hits your slick, sticky thighs and you shiver.

“Oh god, fuck,” He groans, his plush lips dragging along the sensitive skin at the back of your neck. “You’ve ruined yourself, baby.”

It’s embarrassing to admit it, but it’s true. The dry spell you’ve experienced since the breakup has been little more than a mild inconvenience for the most part, but now it feels like your body is charged like a live wire. It feels like you’ve never been touched before, and you squirm backwards in an attempt to get any kind of friction again.

“Kyle–” You start to complain, but you don’t get to finish because then Gaz is slotting his cock in between your thighs.

He groans, taking a breath as he shuffles his hips closer. His pretty, glistening cock is wedged between the soft pudge of your thighs, the head of it nudging against the wet folds of your cunt every time he twitches.

“Let me put the tip in, baby.” He says, his voice gruff and wanting in your ear. “Literally just the tip, that’s it, huh? It’s not like actual fucking, right?”

In this moment, you think you’d agree to anything to get his dick into you. You had been all kinds of wound up even before you had come home to find Gaz waiting for you, but it’s like your body had some kind of Pavlovian response to Gaz’s touch because now you’re practically panting for him.

He’s right, after all. It’s not really fucking. It means that you can maintain the flimsy thin pretence that this means nothing.

“Okay.” You manage to say, though it comes out humiliatingly breathy. “Yeah, okay, the tip–”

Gaz’s cock is pressing into you before you can even finish your sentence, bullying into the wet grasping tightness of your cunt and making you gasp. 

You’ve gone long enough without getting laid that there’s a slight sting as he presses into you, but it’s overshadowed by the breathless relief. God, you’d forgotten how fucking good his dick felt inside you. He knows just how to use it too, and you wheeze slightly as he rocks an inch inside before pulling back again.

“Oh, fuck, baby.” Gaz moans throatily, the vibration of it rumbling right down your spine. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you’re so tight.”

“Mph,” You manage to make a muffled sort of sound against the couch cushion your face is pressed against, your mouth hanging softly open as you pant for breath.

True to his word, Gaz just presses the first inch or so inside. You almost hold your breath, waiting for the rest to slide inside and split you open, but he doesn’t. He just rocks back and forth, just missing hitting the spot inside that makes your nerves sing.

You wish, stupidly, fervently, that just this once Gaz would go back on his word. That he’d abandon his promise to just stick that first inch of his cock inside, that he’d slam home and stretch you wide and let his cock brush against the nerves just a little deeper inside you. But that’s not Gaz’s style; you know he’s not going to give you any more unless you beg for it.

Gaz rocks his hips in teeny tiny movements, just enough to have you squirming in frustration. You’re so wet that you know he could slide deeper with ease if he only just tilted his hips right, but he remains doggedly steadfast in pumping just the barest inch into you, groaning with the effort it’s taking to stop himself plunging fully inside.

“Oh god,” He breathes, sounding wrecked in your ear. “You feel even better than I remember.”

You don’t know how he can even say that when he’s barely even inside you, but no matter how much you wiggle and squirm, he just won’t slide any deeper.

“You’re such an asshole.” You slur out against the fabric of the couch, your cheek squished against the cushions. Your chin is a little wet – are you drooling?

Infuriatingly, Gaz doesn’t even argue.

“Mm.” He grunts, kissing the curve of your neck. “What’d I do this time?”

The fact that he has the gall to ask only irritates you further. You let out a quiet, grumbling noise, but his hand grips at your hip and stops you from writhing.

“Just… just put the rest of it in.” You say, craning your neck to try and look at him. 

Your eyes are wide and wet, pathetically teary. You’ve been craving intimacy like this for weeks now. Maybe longer, if you’re being honest with yourself. It’s the kind of pleasure you’ve only ever gotten from Gaz, and you wheeze as your body opens up under his touch. God, you don’t know how you thought anyone would ever be able to fuck you like Gaz does.

“Mm, you sure, baby?” He murmurs, nosing against the back of your skull. “Thought we were just cuddling.”

“Don’t be a dick.” You snap, your patience reaching the end of its tether.

He just laughs, a breathless sort of amused gasp, before snapping his hips forward in one sharp movement and seating his cock inside you. Though it’s what you had been demanding, the abruptness of it startles you and you yowl, your back arching.

“Sh, sh, shh, sorry, love.” Gaz pants, before sighing in wordless contentment as his broad chest curves around your back, his strong arm looping around your belly. “Oh, fuck. Missed this so much, you have no idea. I swear you were made for me, I couldn’t fit as well inside anyone else.”

“Just– just move.” You whine, a little plaintive. It’s humiliating how desperate you are, but there’s no turning back now. “Please, Kyle–”

Gaz pitches into movement instantly, as though he’s got something to prove. Or maybe he’s just worried that you’re going to change your mind. His hips pull back then snap forward again, and again. 

He’s so strong, his rhythm steady enough to rock you wildly back and forth on the lumpy couch cushions. You clutch at the fabric beneath you, gasping as his arm pulls you back and keeps you pinned against his hot, hard chest. 

“Oh.” You breathe, tilting your head back with a pathetic little whimper as he fucks into you from behind, the two of you plastered together like sardines in the tiny can that is your sitting room couch.

This is just what you needed, you think a little wildly. God, you’ve been craving physical touch like this for months, since the last time you had seen Gaz. It’s galling to admit that any other man is a poor substitute, unable to fill the void that your ex-boyfriend has left in your life.

“Kyle,” You whine, searching for something. You don’t even know what you’re asking for, but Gaz is as patient with you as ever.

He just hums, leaning in over your shoulder and pressing hot, hungry kisses along your jawline where it’s exposed as you lean your head back. The arm that’s been wrapped around your belly coasts lower, until his big lovely hand is pressed against your cunt. His fingers search for your clit and find it easily, confident and familiar enough with your body that he barely even has to try to make you feel good. 

Gaz coos soothingly at you and rolls your clit between his fingers as his thrusts begin to come faster and harder; he builds up a steady rhythm, one that lets him sink as deep inside of you as possible and quickly renders you speechless. The living room is soon filled with wet slapping sounds from where Gaz is pounding into you from behind, the grunts and pants and moans that both of you make rapidly drowning out the stupid action sequence playing out on the television from the long forgotten film.

Unbelievably, you feel a sweet stirring in your lower belly already. It’s with a sense of tired resignation that you acknowledge you’re going to come on Gaz’s dick, despite your original intentions for the evening. Typical. 

But he’s not going to last either, judging by the strained moans in your ear.

“Shit,” He curses, and then his teeth sink into the side of your neck. You shudder, the feeling of him sucking a harsh hickey into your throat sending electric sparks racing through your nerves.

You think, judging from the desperate edge to Gaz’s humping into you from behind, that Gaz has been yearning in your absence in the same way you have for him. You’re biting on your lip hard in an effort to stifle the plaintive, wanting little moans that are threatening to spill over, but your attempts at quieting yourself are mostly unsuccessful. It makes you feel a little crazy, but Gaz doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, the evidence that you want him too only seems to encourage him. 

Your eyes are half-closed as you fuck your hips back on Gaz’s cock, relishing the satisfied little cries he’s emitting into the back of your neck. You clutch clumsily at the strong arm he has wrapped around your belly, crying out yourself as the head of his cock hits that one spot inside you that makes you feel gooey inside. Your toes curl as your head tips back, your skull neatly cradled in the space between Gaz’s head and the couch cushions as he peppers kisses along the side of your neck.

The wet slapping of your bodies colliding is obscene in the quiet of the room; the stupid film still playing does nothing to drown it out. Your body is as limp and relaxed as a doll, allowing him to fuck into you from behind in a frenzy. Right now, you can’t even recall why you ever would have tried to deny yourself this pleasure in the first place.

His hips clap against your ass, those wet sounds getting even louder and more obscene than ever. Gaz is viscerally pleased with the way your ass bounces every time he fucks into you, because he moans and picks up the pace as if he just wants to watch your glutes jiggle every time his hips slap against you. 

That familiar ball of tension starts tightening in your abdomen, your body winding up for a long-awaited and much needed release. It’s so typical that this orgasm feels like it’s going to be a big one too, as though your body needed Gaz to be there to guide you through it in order to achieve proper satisfaction.

But then, in a move so infuriating you almost burst into tears, Gaz pulls out and leaves you high and dry.

“No!” You blurt, and it comes out almost as a wail. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry, baby.” Gaz says a little breathlessly. “Need you to turn over. Want to see you.”

As soon as you realise that he’s not trying to stop and that he’s just trying to reposition you, you’re quick to roll over so that you’re facing him. It seems like that’s exactly what he wanted, because he grins wide and reaches for your hips, eagerly pulling you closer.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty.” He mumbles, his eyes like warm caramelised honey as they track over your face. 

You’re pretty sure he’s full of shit; you’re panting like you’ve run a marathon, you’re sweaty, your hair is dishevelled, and you’re still wearing the ugly sweatshirt you had put on earlier. Yet, even still, Gaz’s genuine little compliment has your heart flipping in your ribcage.

You can’t help but think that you and Gaz are like feral little animals right now. You can barely keep your hands off each other; now that you’ve rolled over to face him, his hands are roaming over your hips and ass like he’s trying to memorise the feel of you by touch alone. 

Embarrassingly, you’re no better – you lunge forward to kiss him, taking advantage of your new position, and he kisses you back hungrily.

Lying sideways on the couch like this is cramped, but Gaz uses his hand on your ass to tug you closer. Then he reaches down, long fingers gripping at your thigh before he pulls it up so that your leg is hitched over his hip.

Oh no, You barely have time to think it before his cock is pressing into you again, the slide made easy this time. Too intimate!

The panicked thought is swiftly dispelled the moment Gaz starts moving again, because goddamn this position is so much better. It’s almost difficult to tell where Gaz ends and you begin, so intertwined are your bodies. Gaz barely even allows for an inch of space. He fucks into you almost as soon as he’s pulled back, making for a fast, frantic pace that barely even gives you a chance to breathe.

You squeal, but your noises are half-moans as you rock your hips mindlessly into his rough, almost animalistic thrusts. Your leg hitched over his hip means that he’s grinding into you deep, deeper than you thought was possible. 

The way the two of you are fucking feels a little bit unhinged, rutting and humping your bodies together in search of mutual pleasure. It should be clumsy and graceless, yet somehow it feels good, as though your body remembers exactly how good Gaz has always treated you, as though your whole being is having a Pavlovian response to his touch. Pleasure burns in your gut, tight and hot, and you moan stupidly as Gaz pounds into you.

“Oh god.” You say without meaning to. The sound of your voice shocks you; you sound wrecked, as though you’ve been fucking for hours. It would have been embarrassing to reveal just how affected you were if Gaz wasn’t also clearly just as eager for it.

“Yeah,” He says, a hybrid of a groan and a gasp muffled against your lips as he clutches at your ass and drives into you wildly. “Fuck, I’m gonna come.”

You are too, you realise wildly. You’re struck by how quickly you’ve both gotten to this point. This whole encounter has been frenzied and feverish, as though the poorly stifled desire between you had turned explosive. 

Gaz kisses you again, and his teeth clack against yours slightly as he licks into your mouth. It’s messy and wet, and it sends a delicious throb of pleasure shooting through your belly. He’s acting so possessive that it’s making your head spin. It should definitely be sending warning bells ringing in your head, or red alarms flashing in your minds eye – it can’t be a good thing that your ex-boyfriend is currently fucking you on your couch like he’s trying to claim you. But you’re apparently a little stupid and very weak, and Gaz has always known how to fuck you dopey and thoughtless. Instead of worry, you get the edges of an orgasm beginning to fizz in your peripheral awareness.

Your pussy must flutter or tighten around him as that lovely sweet promise of release edges closer, because Gaz moans in anticipation and his eager thrusts take on an edge of purpose. You almost protest when he breaks off the kiss, but then you realise that he just wants to be able to focus on keeping his rhythm steady. It’s frenzied and hot, and you swear the air itself is crackling as he kisses sloppily at your neck and fucks you hard.

“Love you,” He slurs in your ear, breathless. “Love you so much, baby.”

His thrusts turn more shallow and far more forceful the closer he gets. Little moans and whines escape his lips between kisses, the sounds ratcheting up in intensity as the two of you rut together.

“Tell me you love me,” He pleads, “Please— tell me you fuckin’ love me, baby. I know you do. I know you—”

You shouldn’t say it. You can’t say it. Yet his cock is fucking you sloppy and stupid, and your mouth moves before you even register that you’re speaking.

“Love you too,” You whimper like a pathetic little idiot, revelling in the exquisite feeling of him grinding against your g-spot just right. It feels so good, you know you’re so, so close to orgasm.

The ache in your abdomen persists— you clench tightly around his cock, your body straining as the muscles in your core clench, trying so hard to push yourself closer to the orgasm you know is coming. You’re so close, so so close— it burns, aches, drives you mad. All you can do is mewl, wrapping your arms around his muscled shoulders as he pounds into you despite the awkward angle.

You can feel your clit throbbing, pulsing, your entire body trying so goddamn hard to climax that you feel like you’re about to cry. You’re burning beneath your skin and all you want to do is gnash your teeth into the elegant line of Gaz’s throat, to leave some kind of indelible mark on his lovely smooth skin.

“Please, please, please— yes, fuck— oh, Kyle,” Your words come out on the breath of an uneven gasp, stuttering with each movement of his hips, perfectly synchronized. 

His voice is low and hot in your ear as he pants, “Let me come inside you, baby— let me, please— fuck.”  

You should say no. Every logical part of you knows that you should tell him to pull out, and yet the wires are crossed when it comes to your actual response. Your leg tightens around his waist, heart seizing in protest at the idea of him pulling out.

“Yes.” You gasp, continuing your streak of impulsive decision-making. Your own hips twitch forward in weak little humps in an effort to fuck yourself onto his cock, your clit grinding against the dark curls at his pubic bone. “Yes, inside, please–”

Your breathy, eager permission seems to give him a burst of energy. He picks up the pace, his body curving into you as his arms wrap around you in a tight embrace. It feels as though your entire world has been narrowed down to Gaz, his broad shoulders blocking out your view of the rest of the room. You cling to him, breathless and messy as you whimper like a loser, your body trembling from the toe-curling zings of pleasure that keep shooting up your spine.

“Oh, oh.. Kyle, please–” You practically sob, your fingernails digging harshly into his shoulders. “Love you, love you, oh my god, I’m gonna come–”

Gaz grunts, obviously eager as his movements grow thoughtful and determined. He knows exactly what you want, what you need at this moment. His abdominal muscles tense and flex with every calculated, deliberate thrust. There is no way to escape the length of him moving hard and thick inside you – not that you want to escape so much as a second of it, of course.

“That’s my girl, always so fucking perfect.” He snarls as your body eagerly takes every dirty roll of his hips, palming at your thigh where it’s hitched over his hip. “Fuckin’ Christ, I’ve been dreaming of your cunt for fucking months, never wanted anything else–”

It makes no sense. Absolutely no sense, that those bizarre, lust-crazed possessive words are what drag you trembling, screaming over the crest of an orgasm so intense the walls of the room white out, each sweeping pulse leaving you unable to do anything but clench and shudder and arch beneath him.

Gaz fucks you like a damn machine; he gives you long, deep strokes over and over as you’re falling apart. Your body seizes around the hot flesh of Gaz’s cock, your mind going white as your cunt spasms, your hole clamping down and pulsing with every desperate, loud moan torn from your mouth. 

You feel like a sloppy little slut, your hips jerking towards him instead of away even as your orgasm washes through you and leaves your body tender and oversensitive. It feels so damn good to feel your mind washing blank and clear, not a single thought taking hold. 

When the toe-curling height of pleasure subsides, you find your nerves frayed and hyper-sensitive. A plaintive whine breaks out of your throat as Gaz keeps fucking you, beginning to thrust up frantically into your twitching pussy. Your body falls limp as Gaz bounces your pliable, warm body up and down his cock as he groans into your ear.

It’s like the rhythmic tightening of your drooling, creaming cunt has him losing his mind, because he grabs the meat of your hips and begins jerking your limp body back towards him. The slap slap slap! of the impact is so loud that every slap makes your breath catch.

“Fuck. I'm—” Your hands slap clumsily at his shoulders, reaching for anything to hold on to, but he doesn’t stop. "Kyle. Kyle—" It’s just your voice, hoarse, breathless, and Gaz bearing down on you, the sound of your bodies somehow growing sloppier, messier as he fucks you and it’s uncompromising, just skirting the edge of painfully overwhelming—

He breaks, shoulders trembling, head bowed into the curve of your neck as he lets out a long, desperate moan. It’s a drawn out, rough groan that is more sob than pleasure, and then you feel him inside you, spilling red hot and wet. Your own orgasm still isn’t fully finished, rolling leisurely through you in little aftershocks, your body still tightening and shivering, and it goes on and on and on.

He holds on to you throughout, as if he’s worried he’ll blow away into the wind without anchoring himself to you. His hips slow, but don’t fully stop. He rolls his hips into you slowly, leisurely, as though he has all the time in the world as he shivers in his come down. You blink, waiting for the colour to bleed back into your vision and for the ringing in your ears to stop, and for the first time all night you’re not thinking about anything at all.

“Please, Kyle.” You slur out stupidly. You have no idea what you’re even asking for; there’s just some vague, barely formed desperation floating around your painfully blank mind as you search for something.

“Mm.” Gaz hums. It feels like he’s everywhere, his broad chest filling up your sight and enveloping you. His hands roam over your body: the backs of your thighs, squeezing as his hands drift over your ass, up and down your back, your neck, his fingers catching around the thin strands of hair and the back of your neck, until finally he settles his fingers on your cheeks.

His palms stay there, just cupping your cheeks as the two of you struggle to regulate your breathing and regain your composure. That antsy sense of desperation eases a little when he leans in to nuzzle fondly at your face, dropping sweet little kisses along your cheeks and nose.

Gaz’s chest rumbles with a low, lovely laugh, his voice gravelly from his climax. “You’re overflowing, sweetheart.”

You let out a careless little sigh, before relaxing experimentally. You can feel a gush of warm seed begin to ooze out around Gaz’s cock, spilling out of your entrance and coating his balls. You wriggle lazily, cunt still pulsing as your wildly beating heart gradually slows to a lazy flutter.

You think you should probably be panicking now. You’ve just fucked your ex, told him you loved him, then let him come inside. With no condom. God, you’re stupid. But the wave of horror you’re expecting never comes. You feel too floaty to care; you suspect if it was anyone other than Gaz, the mortification would have knocked into you like a sledgehammer. 

“You’re gonna get cum on the couch.” You complain, the words coming out clumsy on your tongue.

Gaz just snorts. He makes no effort to pull out, and you have no desire to push him away. The intimacy of your sweat-slick skin pressed together is enough to take your breath away, and it’s only further compounded by the sensation of his cock gradually softening inside you.

“I’ll get it cleaned, love.” He drawls lazily, leaning in to kiss your swollen lips. “Or pay for a new one. Whichever you want.”

When you kiss him back he sighs fondly, one thumb stroking over your cheekbone. You’re still limp in his arms, boneless and spent as you wriggle greedily into his arms. His cock is still lodged inside you, and you’re sure he must be getting uncomfortably sensitive but to your relief he just moans in quiet appreciation when you try to worm your way closer.

“You made a mess.” You mumble against his lips. 

You’re being a little unfair, considering your own slick is coating your thighs and Gaz’s lower belly, but Gaz has always rolled with even the most unreasonable attitude you’ve thrown his way. So he just chuckles, and you feel a little insane as you wonder if anyone else would ever be as patient with you.

“Think we both did, doll.” He murmurs fondly. He leans in and catches your lips with his again, kissing you slowly with a lazy, lewdly open mouth. One hand curls against the nape of your neck, the other hand reaching up beneath your sweater and curling possessively against your left tit, sweeping over your sluggish, sated heartbeat.

You feel practically brainless after your orgasm, relaxed and loose in Gaz’s arms. There’s something to be said for how safe you feel with him, as much as you’d like to deny it, but reality is starting to slowly sink in.

You pull away from his mouth to try and collect yourself, unable to think when he’s kissing you like that. 

“Fuck.” You breathe, closing your eyes with a sigh. It’s slow, but you’re finally starting to think again. “We shouldn’t– we should have used a condom.”

Gaz’s eyes are lidded with fond amusement as he watches you quietly. His hand kneads at your breast absent-mindedly, as though he’s forgotten that he’s groping at you. 

“Don’t overthink it,” He murmurs, kissing your forehead again. “I saw your box of pills in the bathroom. And I’m clean. Haven’t been with anyone but you.”

You tremble a little at his admission, your fingers digging into his shoulders. You feel like you’re losing your mind. Gaz is the most beautiful man you’ve ever met, funny and sweet and always so caring. You love him, even if it kills you a little to admit it, and you don’t know how to respond to his admission that he’s been faithful to you during the long months you weren’t together.

Gaz misinterprets whatever expression is on your face, thumb stroking soothingly over your cheek again. “We can get you a morning-after pill, if it’ll make you feel better.”

You don’t bother correcting him. You’re not that fussed over the morning-after pill – you’re careful when it comes to your birth control, and Gaz had always cum inside you when you were together. The weight of his cock inside you is comforting almost, the wet slide of his cum dripping out of you makes you feel as though you’d never been apart in the first place. You wonder how you could ever have been thick enough to think that someone else could fill Gaz’s place in your life.

As if he knows what you’re thinking, Gaz’s lips twitch. “That pillock you brought home would’ve been such a disappointment, darling.”

You can’t stop your eyes from rolling, exasperated. 

“You don’t know that.” You grumble, though you don’t pull away. You’re still all curled up against his chest, skin still slick and sticky from rapidly cooling sweat, your leg still slung over Gaz’s hip to keep his now-soft cock nestled inside you.

“Sure I do.” He says, and that cocky arrogance that both drives you mad and makes you swoon is rearing its head. He reaches down, and his thick fingers roll over your much-too-sensitive clit. “She missed me, gorgeous. Don’t think she would have liked some strange tosser pounding away at her with no idea how to please her.”

The way he talks about your pussy as though it has its own thoughts and feelings has you rolling your eyes again, though your cheeks burn with embarrassment. To your immense irritation, you think he might have a point. You haven’t come that hard in months, not since the breakup.

“Oh, shut up.” You sigh tiredly.

He snickers, and then shifts. It takes you a moment to realise that he’s pulling his hips back preparing to pull out. Your brain stalls, and you wrap your arms around his neck and shoulders in protest. You’re not ready to feel the invasive, aching emptiness that will no doubt throb through your core as soon as he’s not filling you up. 

“Stay.” You say, and it comes out as an embarrassingly breathy little plea.

Gaz goes practically limp, as though your hoarse request had taken the wind right out of him. You’re not expecting the way he brings both arms around your waist before rolling over onto his back, hauling you up to lay over his chest. His cock remains firmly lodged inside you, though the movement has resulted in his white creamy spend leaking out onto your inner thighs.

“Not going nowhere.” He mumbles, one hand stroking over your flank to soothe you. “I’m on leave for at least a month.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Gaz hums. He must sense that this is a delicate moment, because he doesn’t make any ribald jokes about having all month to fuck you like you’re expecting him to. He just presses a tender kiss to your temple, his lips lingering gently.

Usually, you’d probably be a little embarrassed by how clingy you’re being. You had been so damn determined not to fall into bed with Gaz after the breakup, but you’re so, so weak. His stupid honey brown eyes and gorgeous dimples and crooked grin is enough to send you to your knees. You rest your forehead against his chest as he holds you close; at least like this, you can’t see his stupid handsome face.

He’s obviously pleased with the way you’re snuggling into him, because his chest rumbles as he hums in satisfaction. He’s holding you tight like he thinks you’re going to slip away the moment he blinks.

“You okay?” He asks quietly.

You don’t answer immediately. There’s no way to brush this under the carpet, or to go back to pretending at detached disinterest. If you had wanted to play this off as just a bit of stress relief, then you should have rolled away from him the second he’d spilled inside of you rather than cuddling with him on the couch. There’s no way that you can claim that this was just a case of needing to get laid; you’re still clutching at him like a limpet, the two of you intertwined so tight that it’s difficult to tell when your limbs end and Gaz’s begin.

“I’m tired.” You sigh eventually, sidestepping the conversation that you know you’ll have to deal with eventually.

No doubt Gaz notices your not particularly subtle avoidance, but he doesn’t comment. He seems quite happy to indulge your every whim; he probably wants to avoid the this-was-a-mistake-and-we-need-to-maintain-boundaries conversation even more than you do.

“Let’s get you to bed then,” He murmurs, and then he surprises you by sitting up. You’re still laid out across his chest, which means that when he shimmies up into a sitting position, you end up sitting sprawled in his lap.

You’re still speared a little awkwardly on his soft cock, the sensation of him inside you making your eyelids flutter a little. You feel satisfied, your muscles still watery and weak, and you sigh a little mournfully when Gaz finally pulls his cock out of you. You ache, a deep throb that both stokes and settles you. It’s like a comfortable little reminder that Gaz was here, and that he left his mark on you.

You can feel the way he leans back just to get a glimpse of his spend trickling down the inside of your thigh. You pout and bury your face into his throat, your arms wrapped tight around his shoulders still as you try to hide your sudden self-consciousness.

But Gaz isn’t interested in giving you a moment to hide. You feel the edge of his teeth ghost the shell of your ear before he speaks, just low enough to make you shiver.

“Let me take you out tomorrow, sweetheart.” He says, and beneath his usual cocky countenance you hear the edge of a plea. “I’ll make up for ruining your date tonight. You can wear that little dress from earlier for me again.”

You feel exposed, stripped bare as you perch in Gaz’s lap. His hand strokes evenly over your spine, waiting patiently for your response.

“I want a fancy dinner.” You mumble, your fingers curling around his shoulders. “At a nice restaurant.”

You hear a shaky little exhale, and Gaz’s arms tighten around your waist. It strikes you that he’s relieved, and you feel your heart tremble in response. The knowledge that he wants you still is enough to have your own lungs seizing in response; you can’t quite bear to wonder if you’ve been wasting time for these past few months that you’ve been broken up. 

“Whatever you want.” He says it like a prayer, tilting his head in search of your lips again.

The kiss is easy, the months that you’ve been apart dissolving into nothing. You’re a little too stubborn to give in entirely and beg for him back just yet though, but you doubt it matters. You’ve already admitted your weakness for him in the middle of shagging, and you’re not stupid enough to hope that he’s somehow forgotten it. You’ve been trying so hard to shove all those feelings down deep, but you’re not too surprised that they’ve all come bubbling out. He’s got a month of leave. You have no doubt that he’s going to use that time to change your mind. You find that you don’t mind the idea as much as you thought you might; you suspect that you can be swayed all too easily.

You peek up at him, only to come face to face with his sweet, hopeful deep brown eyes. He’s not pushing, but you can see the weight of desire and yearning in every inch of his face. No doubt it’s mirrored on your own. You don’t think you could ever look into his pretty face and deny him anything.

You hum, then whisper the only answer you could ever give.

“Yeah. Okay. It’s a date, then.”

[akaneoxo]

We sent your boyfriend to live on a beautiful farm upstate where he can run around with all of the other boyfriends together forever

[akaneoxo]

slutty simon (he doesn’t pose)

[akaneoxo]

“my fuckin’ pussy” simon says as he’s pounding you in a mating press. your heel-clad feet are hung over his burly shoulders, flopping with every thrust.

“mmmn, yer fuckin” pussy” you slurred back.

“oh my, we’ve gotta talker, doing a little repeat after me? fuckin’ simon says, huh?”

he’s such a tease.

[akaneoxo]

Kyle "I'm not possessive" Garrick, who would get visibly annoyed, rolling his eyes and all whenever Johnny would give you his jacket or when Simon would make you coffee along with his tea, even with Price going out of his way to walk you to your car because you parked too far away.

Kyle "I'm not possessive" Garrick, who would forget his rank and physically block Price from walking out the door to escort you, "I got this one, sir." scorn dripping from his tone even though he knows that his Captain is only being polite or even arrogantly being sarcastic towards his Lieutenant, "She doesn't like it that way, LT." A clear innuendo hiding behind his words.

Kyle "I'm not possesive" Garrick who would subtly appear in every room you'd step in, always pretending to do something just to be in close proximity to you or perhaps to not let others overstep and steal your attention. "Are you following me, Y/N?" With a smug smirk knowing damn well that it's the other way round.

Kyle "I'm not possesive" Garrick who would fuck you in front of a mirror, his military uniform on and you stripped naked to his mercy ''Made to take my cock-" His words pure heat against the shell of your ear, thrusting his hips faster, his hand moving to grab the base of your throat, fingers settling on your neck like the finest necklace.

“Watch yourself, love. Keep watching me fucking you.'' He'd mumble against your neck before giving your ass a firm smack, trailing his hand up to your jaw to keep your gaze fixed on the man slamming into you with force, keeping one hand on your hip to hold you against him and the other wrapped around your neck to prevent you from shying away from the obscene reflection before you. "Keep your eyes forward, love. This is who you belong to."

"Mine.'' In the midst of every slow, hard, and purposeful thrust that he'd make, this word would escape his mouth, drawing out moans loud enough for anyone within reach to overhear and know.

Kyle "I'm not possesive" Garrick, who would walk into briefing without his hat on, earning weird looks and funny comments from the rest of the team "Lost something on the way, Garrick?" And his reply being you walking in with the hat on, your neck clearly violated by his lips, quietly sitting down because it was either that or him never touching you again. "I believe that's mine" He'd announce nonchalant, before retrieving the hat, his words clearly aimed for something else.

[akaneoxo]

[akaneoxo]

I'm going to *remembers suicide is often not a desire for death itself but rather an attempt to radically change one's life because the current state of being has become unbearable but the person can't think of any way to change it other than death* kill myself

[akaneoxo]

need me a man who promises to be silent and keep me company like a tired dog