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[marinabays]

[M/M] [Sex Work] [Overstim] [Dirty Talk]

Jenny is sitting back in the wicker café chair, looking every bit the relaxed retiree she is. She looks tan. She looks good. She’s squinting at Lee’s phone, because it will be a fair few years before she admits she needs reading glasses, one leg folded over the other, bouncing her foot around with such lazy enthusiasm that Lee worries she’ll kick her cappuccino off the table. Lee thinks Jenny could still be infamous, charging S1,000 for an hour of her time, if she wanted to.

Then again, youth sells was one of the first slivers of advice Lee had managed to pry out of Jenny, after he’d sworn up and down that he was going to go into this line of work no matter what, with Jenny’s blessing or without it. “A lot of these guys are looking for something new. Their lives, their wives, their first-class trans-Atlantic flights, it’s all old hat. You get to be the shiny new thing on the block.” Countless people looking to break into the industry must have solicited help from Jenny over the years. Lee still hasn’t wrapped his head around why Jenny sees potential in him in particular.

But Lee likes being shiny. Likes being appreciated, desired, noticed, scouted. This isn’t the least logical career choice he could be making.

“Your site looks good. Who’d you hire to do it?” Jenny asks, incredulous.

Lee tries not to look too pleased. He knows it looks good. It’s got SEO coming out of its ass, too, but that’s all hidden. “I did it myself, ‘s not that hard. What do you think about the photos?”

“They’re nice.” Jenny zooms in with two fingers, considering. “Tasteful. In my day you paywalled anything racier than underwear shots, but these days all bets are off.”

“Did those myself too.” All it took was a secondhand DSLR, a couple of ring lights, and a bootleg copy of Lightroom.

“You’ve got a full bio, gallery, wishlist, and services page, and you haven’t even had a client yet?”

Lee crosses his arms in front of him, tucks his chin into the neck of his hoodie. “With how much you’re telling me to charge, I can’t have anyone realizing this is my first go ‘round. Everyone wants a virgin but no one wants an amateur.”

“Hey, don’t quote me at me,” Jenny warns, but he looks fond. “Please tell me you’re at least not planning on dressing like this.” She looks Lee up and down. Her evaluation of Lee’s dress sense is obvious.

“I’ve got nice clothes,” Lee protests. They’ve all still got the tags on, but he was going to make sure he tried them on before his first booking. He’d just been really busy.

Jenny is unconvinced, but she doesn’t say it. She just smiles over the lip of her coffee, looking satisfied with the execution of her mentorly duties.

“Here,” she says, and reaches under her chair. She brings out an expensive-looking shopping bag, the kind of thing Lee wouldn’t dream of touching on his student budget. “I know it’s just going to end up on the floor, but I can’t have any protegé of mine wearing something that came from Target.”

Lee wants to argue, but he’s gone all in on being cheeky, not rude. He’s already taking Jenny’s time, mentorship, advice, and gifts. He doesn’t need to try her patience as well. “Thank you.”

Jenny waves him off. “Don’t worry about it. Just promise me you’ll be safe, alright? Remember the basics? You’re your own best friend when you’re out there. Just— keep your head on straight, yeah?”

Lee nods but if he’s being honest he’s thinking more about how much he’d like to be like Jenny, when he gets to be that old. Jenny’s got croissant crumbs down her blouse and doesn’t seem bothered by it. She’s embodying a kind of unselfconscious ease that has been totally alien to Lee’s twenty-one years on earth. But maybe he can be like that one day. Maybe once enough people tell him he’s beautiful in cold, hard cash.

⁂

The guy’s “name” is Andrew, and apparently he’s a cheapskate because he only books an hour-long session. Still, the message is the most exciting email Lee’s received since his college acceptance.

He tells Jenny the time and place and makes plans to check in five minutes after the session is meant to end. The check-in and a can of pepper spray in his backpack are all he has in terms of safety, a fact which only really sinks in once he exits the elevator and is finally alone in the silent, extravagantly carpeted hotel hallway.

It all feels a bit surreal. He’d asked himself a million times if he was really ready for this and made sure the answer was an emphatic yes. He’d thought about it for so long, planned it down to the millimeter. But he still has to focus on the things that remind him that this isn’t a daydream: touching the silky lining of the sharply cut blazer Jenny bought him, checking the Signal notifications on his phone, running his finger over the condom packet in his back pocket to make sure that it’s still there. There’s probably never been a more important time to think with his head and not his dick, but he’s already half-hard in these new paint-on jeans.

Eventually, he just stuffs his headphones into his bag and tries to focus instead on not obviously blushing, on not thinking too much about how good it felt to finger himself open in the shower before he left, on not accidentally knocking on the wrong room.

Andrew is wearing an oversized tie-dye t-shirt when he opens the door. The floor behind him is covered in discarded clothes, and the air is thick with herbal steam from the shower. “Hiya, Gordon?”

Lee tilts his head in a way that he hopes comes across more as an interested coquette than puzzled bird. “Hey, Andrew? Can I come in?”

Lee had expected older. A lot older. Andrew seems youthful at least. On the inquiry form he had unhelpfully listed his occupation as traveling businessman, but with his tattoos, he looks more like a lifestyle influencer. He’s got a smile big enough for YouTube, beckoning Lee into the room like they’re old friends and not strangers. “Sorry about the—er—everything. Travel lifestyle, you know how it is.”

Lee hasn’t traveled in years, but his website still has a Fly Me To You section. He glances at the dresser. There’s a heavy, expensive-looking watch laying on its side next to an unmarked envelope. Just where he asked for it. It’s odd to think that he’s set the rules of the interaction before they’re even met, but he supposes that’s the point. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.”

He should really, really count the money first. Another winning piece of rookie advice from Jenny. He slips the envelope into his pocket instead.

He can feel Andrew watching him. He examines the view of the city through the picture window instead. “Are you in town for long?”

“Through the end of the week. Do you deepthroat? It didn’t say in your bio.”

Jesus Christ. It sounds like he’s asking Lee what he had for lunch. Lee doesn’t miss a beat though, just arches his eyebrow and turns to look Andrew in the eyes. “Er, yeah? Part of the job description, isn’t it?”

Andrew shrugs. “Takes all sorts.” He pulls his shirt over his head, revealing more tattoos and tan skin. He is, truth be told, very good looking. Lee goes to the gym, obviously, and the photos on his website were specifically taken to showcase it. He never expected a client to give him a run for his money. Andrew really doesn’t need to be paying for sex, but Lee won’t be running out to file a complaint. “We don’t have that much time, I figured I might as well get comfortable.”

“Yeah, of course. You, uh, you look really good.” Lee does his best to keep up. He’s meant to be the impressive one here, not the other way around.

Still, Andrew seems charmed by it, smiling as he sits on the edge of the bed. He spreads his legs wide, relaxed and lazy and completely unsubtle. It’s as wide-open an invitation as Lee will ever get. He strips off the jacket and folds it over the chair in the corner with as much care as he can. Then he shucks off the rest of his clothes onto the floor before he can second-guess himself. Andrew just stares with open appreciation, especially when he gets to the things the photos didn’t show.

“Do you mind if I—?”

“No, go ahead,” Andrew says, his voice dry. It may have been a prepared line but it works, and has Andrew leaning forward in anticipation as Lee’s underwear falls to the floor.

It’s a little embarrassing to be so hard already. Ideally, Lee would like to be a little more aloof, playing a little harder to get, a seasoned professional. Still, he strokes himself a few times, since Andrew is watching. This is all happening quicker than he’d imagined, no polite small talk, but he’s not sure he could have waited much longer anyway. Anxiety and arousal are working together to slowly swallow him whole. He can’t really believe he’s doing this.

Condom, right. Remember the basics. He snags it from his pants and sinks to his knees with as much grace as he can manage, which isn’t much. It’s familiar and strange at the same time, but he relies on his instincts and doesn’t waste any time. Andrew hardens nicely against his lips, the satisfying physical evidence of what Lee can do to guys, when he tries.

There’s no use playing coy when Andrew’s been so upfront about what he wants. Lee takes a deep breath and relaxes his throat, then takes Andrew as far down as he can manage. It’s worth it for how Andrew goes from silent to swearing in no time at all, his fingers tangling in Lee’s hair.

Just as Andrew is getting completely taut and hard on Lee’s tongue, and Lee starts letting pride drive him to suck deeper, to the edge of gagging, Andrew tugs lightly on the back of Lee’s hair, pulling him away. Lee goes, looking up at Andrew with big eyes. He knows he looks good. He keeps working Andrew’s dick with his hand, pleased by how he can make Andrew bite his lip and breathe out hard.

“Not yet,” Andrew says, stopping Lee’s hand with his own. He still squeezes hard at the base, looking down at Lee with a spark of something mischievous in his eyes. He ushers Lee to his feet and onto the bed, maneuvering him with warm, steady hands until he’s bent forward over Andrew’s lap, his ass high in the air.

Of the less-bad scenarios Lee had imagined for tonight, the worst was if he had to lead the whole thing himself and improvise a suite of suitable sex acts that would get him a good rating on PrivateDelights. Andrew, thankfully, seems more than willing to ask for what he wants. Lee tries not to feel too much like he’s slacking on the job.

“This is what I’ve been thinking about all day. I was looking at your pictures.” Lee preens a little at that, rocks back and forth on his knees. Andrew hums and runs a hand down Lee’s side, across his abs. “Couldn’t stop thinking about how I was going to get my hands all over you. I already got myself off in the shower once before you came.”

Andrew’s voice is nice. It’s low and always seems to be poised on the edge of a joke, which makes it more satisfying when he turns dead-serious and filthy. The head of his cock brushes Lee’s thigh, but Lee ignores it for now, Andrew’s attention clearly all on him. This is something he’s confident that he’s good at, taking the attention with an aw-shucks bashfulness that he’s been assured is a much more popular persona than a dirty-talking porn star.

There are two lube-slick fingers rubbing at his hole, and then they’re pushing in, slow and firm. Lee forces himself to relax and properly enjoy it. He’s been turned on for so long, he can’t stop himself sighing in relief. The stretch is delightful and so much better, thicker, than when he did it himself. He curves his back a little deeper, presents his ass with a little more flair, and moans when Andrew adds a third finger.

“I wish you could see yourself right now,” Andrew breathes, his breath blowing across Lee’s lower back, sending pinprick shivers up his spine. Lee can imagine it, but he wishes he couldn’t. The thought is too much, too quick. Andrew’s hands are so big, his fingers would be stretching him obscenely wide. Lee wants more, wants a break— he needs a clear head, but his neurons are only transmitting analog fuzz, no signal.

They’ve got an hour to kill and Lee is going to come before his guy even fucks him. It’s just poor customer service.

Andrew rubs slowly, purposefully over his prostate. It’s a blast of static at the edges of Lee’s reality, slowly occluding his other thoughts. Lee moans into the duvet, a bit of precome dripping off his cock and onto Andrew’s knee. Andrew chuckles at that, bringing his other hand up to rub his palm over Lee’s balls. “That’s good for you, then?”

“Oh, you might want to— Your hand on— I might come.”

Andrew just leans in closer, so he can whisper right into Lee’s ear. “That’s so fucking hot. Do you think you can handle me inside you when you’re all sensitive?” Lee squeezes his eyes closed and nods his head. He can do anything, if he’s asked. He can be good, adaptable, impressive, worth it. “Good, I want you to try. I want to see the faces you make.”

“Anything you want, Andrew.”

“I want to see you suck your fingers, will you do that for me? That’s good, just like that, nice and full.”

It doesn’t take long after that. Andrew fingers him in time with short, quick strokes over his cock, keeps running his mouth about how he looks so pretty, baby, yeah, just let go, just let it all out. Andrew is so clearly getting off on how into it Lee is letting himself be, so Lee slips his fingers out of his mouth and yelps when he comes, rides it out and thrusts back on Andrew’s fingers until it’s too much stimulation to bear. Then he collapses across Andrew’s knee.

Andrew keeps his word and barely gives Lee a second to recover before he picks him up by the hips and flips him over so they’re face-to-face. It’s the closest they’ve been to kissing, Andrew staring down at Lee as he struggles to catch his breath. He disappears for a moment to wipe the mess off his thigh and then he’s back, pushing Lee’s knee up towards his chest and whistles when he sees how far it bends. Lee does not have the spare mental capacity to even be proud of himself anymore. “You ready?” Andrew asks, rubbing the head of his cock over the lube on Lee’s inner thigh.

“Yeah, yeah, go on, please—”

Andrew hisses as he pushes in with one slow thrust, bottoming out and sitting there as Lee spasms around him.

Lee doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He grasps at the sheets and covers his face and grasps at Andrew’s shoulders and keeps moving because all of his nerve endings are firing at once and the energy from it needs to go somewhere. Andrew only pulls out halfway before pushing back in, not relenting for a moment. “It’s, ah, it’s too much, but don’t, don’t stop—”

“You can take it darling, you’re perfect for this, come on.”

Lee anchors himself to the bed, caught between pushing back into Andrew’s thrusts and squirming away from the overstimulation. It doesn’t help that Andrew is rubbing his thumb over the come-sticky tip of Lee’s soft cock in time with his thrusts. Andrew is so focused on him — it’s nothing like he expected. He thought of himself as entering a service industry, but here he is letting Andrew do all the work. The feeling of Andrew watching his jigsaw expectations fail to fit is almost as overwhelming as the sheer physical sensation of being dragged to the limit and hauled over it without warning.

Lee wants to say something to wrestle a bit of control, a bit of dignity back, but Andrew can’t seem to stop talking. “Jesus, you’re big. I bet all the guys love that big dick, don’t they?”

Lee almost chokes on his own tongue “‘S all yours,” he bites out. He can still do this, sell the fantasy— exclusivity, for an hour.

But Andrew doesn’t seem to want to play ball. “Bet they want to see it bounce when they fuck you, huh? They want to see you come all over yourself while you ride them?”

Lee can barely focus on Andrew’s words, on formulating a reply, let alone on keeping his back arched and his eyes half-lidded like a centerfold. He probably looks sweaty and half insane by now. Andrew’s cock keeps glancing off his prostate, an electric shock every time.

“You’re my first,” Lee admits, before he can stop himself. Andrew stops moving. Fuck, shit, shit. “I mean, I’m not, I have had sex before, don’t worry—”

Andrew is still very much balls deep in Lee’s ass and breathing hard. “But you’ve never done this before, sunshine?”

Lee is now very, very glad he has his eyes closed. He really looks like a fucking amateur now. He can feel the blush spreading down his neck, giving him away, but still, he smiles through it. “Someone had to be the first client, right?”

Andrew swears under his breath. “You know, I wouldn’t have guessed. You’re a natural.”

He pulls out slow and then shoves back in, knocking Lee’s breath out of him with the force of it. It takes no time to get back up to pace, even faster now, like being first really turns him on, makes him want it more. Andrew’s bracketing him with both arms, his body so close over Lee’s that Lee can smell Andrew’s eucalyptus aftershave and feel his breath on his neck. “You take my cock like you’ve had a lot of practice. You do this a lot? You figured you could get paid doing what you love, laying on your back and just taking it?”

Lee is caught out entirely. It makes his heart beat in double-time, makes him want to haul Andrew closer. “Yeah, you’re right, fuck, don’t stop.”

Andrew laughs at that, a burst of hot air against Lee’s ear that somehow feels as good as getting fucked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Lee should have his guard up, should never have let it slip at all, but he’s too far gone now. If all the guys can be like Andrew, he doesn’t think he’ll ever quit. “Wish you could fuck me without the condom,” he says, which is stupid, so incredibly stupid and dangerous and goes against everything he’s told himself but he means it and the thought alone is making him hard again, fuck. He wants every guy to be like Andrew but he really, really can’t do this ever again. It’s too late to think about it or say anything different. He opens his eyes in time to see Andrew’s eyes go almost comically wide.

“Wish I could too, wish I could see my come dripping out of you. You look like an angel, baby.” Andrew’s getting wild, arrhythmic, and Lee does his best to squeeze tight and wring it out of him.

“Call me Lee.”

“Yeah? Want to give you everything, Lee. Want you to take it ‘cause you like it.” His fingers dig deep into Lee’s hips, as though it were possible for them to be any closer than they already are.

There’s $600 in cash in an envelope on the floor, and that’s reason enough to like this, but Andrew is pulling Lee back onto his dick with every thrust and Lee is throwing every carefully learned lesson about how to get fucked for money out the window, along with his higher brain function. Andrew’s hand is so good, almost painful on Lee’s cock and Lee’s name is on Andrew’s tongue, and Lee just about chokes out, “I like it, I like it,” before Andrew groans into Lee’s neck and trembles through his orgasm.

Slowly, slowly, Andrew disentangles himself from Lee’s body, lets go of his hips, slides out of him, flops to the side and stares up at the ceiling like he’s been etherized or maybe just struck over the head with a heavy object. His dumbstruck silence feels like a victory, even though Lee is similarly quiet. Lee just focuses on how Andrew’s breathing slowly goes back to normal and wonders how exactly he let himself fuck up this badly. He’s still maddeningly hard, again, and he can’t do anything about it but breathe and try to let it go like an unscratched itch.

Maybe when he gets back to his flat he can count the money and actually get himself off again, thinking about Andrew’s scent.

If he does this again, he’s going to have to prepare better. If he does this again, he’s going to have to be ready for clients like Andrew, who are hot enough and attentive enough and responsive enough to stroke his ego in just the right way to make him utterly stupid.

He rolls over and kisses Andrew for what feels like the rest of the hour, then grabs his clothes and leaves just in time to pick up Jenny’s call.

⁂

Lee gets back from his evening lecture late. Nothing would feel better than turning off his brain, eating the leftover pasta in the fridge, and falling asleep watching speedruns. Still, he checks his email as he shovels the spaghetti into his mouth, because that’s how his life is now. He’s a young businessman, of sorts. An entrepreneur. There are a few new inquiries in his inbox, but the guys don’t have any references. Apparently they can’t read the rules. He marks them read and moves on, slowly putting his fork down as he spots a familiar name.

From: ar6007@protonmail.com

To: gordon.f@protonmail.com

Hey Lee, I mean, Hey Gordon ;) I’m in town again this week. I was hoping to connect... i heard you’re doing overnights now?

Either way, here’s the place I’m staying. Can i reach you at the same number?

Andrew

P.s.

Do you take gifts? I was just in paris and i couldn’t stop thinking about you

Lee should really just mark it read like the others. He has plenty of regulars on his calendar, and more inquiries than he needs to fill in the gaps. He’s got a cozy, steady business going. Rookie mistakes can stay rookie mistakes. Jenny taught him that.But the idea of being thought of, longed after, by a handsome man on the streets of Paris — well, he’s only human isn’t he? It’s been a year, but he’s still got Andrew’s number in his phone. He licks a spot of tomato sauce from his lip and tries not to smile too hard when Andrew texts him back immediately.

[marinabays]

[M/M/M] [Roaring 20's] [Crossdressing/Genderbending] [Threesome]

Scott ought to be in bed. He ought to be asleep in his parent’s house upstate, surrounded by his piles of luggage. There’s a boat leaving for Lisbon the next day, and if he’s not on it then he will be surrendering himself to a summer vacation spent in suffocating bucolic isolation. It’s not his fault that Alex pulled into the drive in his father’s car without calling first. It’s a magnificent machine, sleek and loud and fast, and driving fast is always better when you’ve got a destination in mind, which is how Scott ends up standing in the foyer of this richly decorated New York townhome in the middle of a roaring party.

The house is larger than Scott’s parents’ own place in the city, nearly cavernous in its magnitude. Fashionably-dressed students congregate in every available space. The host must have put out the invite to the women’s colleges as well, because the crowd isn’t the usual boys’ club Scott associates with Yale parties. High-tempo jazz comes from the back of the house, barely audible over the din of conversation and clinking glasses.

“How’d you get an invite to this? Wait, scratch that, how come I didn’t get an invite? It looks like half of the eastern seaboard is here.”

Alex rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “You get invited to parties when you don’t spend the entire semester in the library.”

“You know I didn’t spend the entire semester—” Alex cuts him off by pulling him down the hallway by his shirtsleeve, with the insistence that there’s champagne to be found somewhere.

They find champagne—a tower of glasses, he can imagine his mother cringing at the gaudiness of it—in the dining room. Alex snags one and throws it back immediately, before reaching for two more and handing one to Scott. “You know Callum, right? Everyone does.”

“Callum Barnes? Isn’t he the one who wrote a rude message into the quad with a motorbike?” Scott tries his best to sound casual, but Alex has always been too perceptive for his own good. He slugs back his glass as well, then grabs himself another.

“Don’t sound so starstruck, Scotty. He’s not actually that cool. Anyway, his parents are in England for the summer, and you know he’s got more money than sense, so all of us lucky bastards get treated to this.” Alex holds up his flute. “Here’s to a year of putting up with you in class.”

“Right back at you,” Scott says, and taps his glass against Alex’s. It sloshes a bit over the rim, soaking the cuff of his shirt. “Christ, sorry.” The outfit is all Alex’s, picked up from his family’s house on their way here.

“I think we passed a bathroom off the hall, come on.” Alex grabs his clean hand and hauls him back through the house. They find the bathroom pretty easily, mostly because the door is open, throwing bright light into the darkened hall. One person is passed out in the empty bathtub while another retches over the toilet. They spot Scott and Alex in the doorframe, offer a weak wave, and promptly return to vomiting.

“Maybe we can try upstairs?” Scott asks, turning on his heel.

It feels a bit like trespassing, stepping onto the upstairs landing, but there are also unmistakable sounds coming from behind some of the closed doors. They’re clearly not the only ones making themselves at home here. The first unlocked bathroom they find is all marble except for an immense, heavy mirror that spans one wall. As they wash off their sticky hands, Scott has to admire the pair of them in the mirror. He’s lucky that Alex’s clothes fit him so well, even though Alex stuck him with the older getup. Alex himself looks slim but solid, handsome even as he makes silly faces at his reflection. He’s wearing one of those fashionable tight-fitting waistcoats that hugs his ribs. Maybe it’s the champagne going to Scott’s head already, but he can’t help imagining how soft the fabric is, how it might be warm from Alex’s body heat, under the jacket—

A knock on the doorframe startles them both. “Sorry gentlemen, are you lost?”

Scott quickly wipes off his hands on his trouser legs and turns to apologize, but he stops cold. Callum Barnes himself is leaning casually against the doorframe, but it’s not being discovered by their host that shocks Scott into silence. No, it’s that Callum’s wearing a straight-cut emerald dress, his eyes ringed in dark kohl. Beaded fringe sways around his knees as he rocks on his heels. He’s not wearing any shoes, just a pair of sheer stockings marred by runs.

Scott shouldn’t stare. His parents taught him better than that. But Callum’s mouth is pursed and someone’s smeared it with pink lipstick and this is the closest Scott has ever seen him and there’s a lot to take in, alright?

Callum looks between the two of them, frowning, before he breaks and bursts out into laughter. “You should see your faces.”

Alex does not seem as dumbstruck by it, playing along without missing a beat. “I’m sorry miss, have we met? Do you need to powder your nose?” he asks, bowing in a caricature of chivalry.

Callum scoffs and bats him on the shoulder which, ow, might hurt a little more considering the size of the ring he’s wearing. “How long have you been here? You should have found me straight away, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Callum, it’s been less than a month. Anyway, we just got here, but you’ve clearly been keeping yourself busy.”

“Lost a bet. If you see a girl down there wearing my suit try not to spill anything on her. It’s bespoke Italian. Anyway, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Scott has to stop himself staring, again. There’s no denying that Callum is girlish, almost pretty. “I’m Scott.” He puts out his hand for a handshake, which immediately feels stupidly formal. He needs another glass of champagne. He is clearly not drunk enough to be involved in this world yet.

Callum still smiles sweetly and shakes his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Scott. Thanks for coming.” The sound of smashing glass comes from downstairs. Callum looks over his shoulder but doesn’t move. “It’s all gotten a bit out of hand. You two are the smart ones for coming up here— less likely to get vomited on. Or arrested. Both are possible.” There are a handful of moles dotting Callum’s cheek and jaw. Scott can’t tell if they’re natural or if they’ve been applied by whoever did his makeup.

“Sounds like there are a lot of other people up here, uh, enjoying themselves too,” Alex says. It’s perfectly timed with a loud moan from down the hall. Alcohol and nerves and an unwelcome edge of arousal are all conspiring to turn Scott pink, no matter how hard he fights it.

Callum just shrugs. “‘s long as it’s not in my room.” He reaches down and retrieves a key from a concealed pocket in the dress. “Come on then.”

He leads them further into the house, stocking feet padding on the long Persian rug. The dress makes him gently rattle and glitter as he walks. Scott finds it hard to keep his eyes off him. From behind, Callum might be a broad, sturdy girl. His haircut isn’t that different from a few of the more stylish girls downstairs, cropped and curly. Callum unlocks a door near the end of the hall and slips inside without a word. Alex raises his eyebrows at Scott but follows Callum into his room. Scott has no clue what they’re doing. He’s heard so much about this guy, he expected him to be a bit of an ass, aloof and untouchable. Instead, he’s turned up dressed like a damn Hollywood starlet and invited the two of them into his room with barely a bat of a lacquered eyelash. Scott straightens the damp cuffs of his shirt and jacket as he goes in.

Callum’s sitting cross legged on the bed, a large tray in front of him. The pose makes the hem of his dress ride up a bit onto his thigh, showing the tops of the ill-fitting stockings. They’re loose around his thighs, held up by utilitarian garters. Scott forces himself to look at anything else. For example, Callum’s hands, which are making quick work of a packet of cigarette paper and a couple piles of what looks like loose-leaf tobacco. Alex is leaning over the tray, poking at one of the piles.

“Where’d you get it?” he asks, crumbling it between his fingers.

“I dunno, a friend brought it back from some trip and ended up not liking it as much as he thought he would.” Callum rolls the cigarette between his fingers before finishing it with a decisive lick on the seam. He looks over at Scott, who’s still standing near the door. “D’you smoke reefers?”

Scott hasn’t smoked since he was twelve, when he stole a cigarette from his father’s pack and gave himself the mother of all headaches. “Yeah, of course,” he says. Alex knows it’s a lie, but for once he doesn’t take the opportunity to give him grief. He just gives Scott a pointed look and beckons him towards the bed.

Callum strikes an incense match, the perfumey smell quickly spreading throughout the room. It’s quickly layered over with the peculiar smell of the cigarette— tobacco mixed with something earthy and herbal. Callum furrows his eyebrows as he takes the first puffs. He coughs a little, then goes again, more confident this time.

There are lipstick stains on the end of the cigarette. It’s a dainty little thing, pinched between two of Callum’s broad fingers. Smoke swirls between the three of them and stings Scott’s eyes. He reaches for the cigarette.

Holding in the coughs hurts, but he thinks he does an admirable job. His throat feels scorched and his tongue goes dry but Callum is looking up at him with big admiring eyes and Scott can’t stop himself taking another drag. “Save some for the rest of us, jesus,” Alex mutters and plucks the cigarette from his grasp.

Scott’s head swims a bit, but not enough to stop him watching Alex take long draws of smoke, all grace and practiced ease. It makes him weirdly jealous. It makes him feel warm and uncomfortably aware of his own skin. Alex catches him looking and fucking winks, the cocky bastard, finally lowering the cigarette from his mouth.

Alex holds the butt out between them in silent offering, holding the smoke in his lungs a second longer. Ash falls off the end, missing the tray and singeing the duvet. Scott shakes his head and sits on the edge of the mattress; the warmth is already running down his limbs. Callum reaches up to take it, stealing one last drag from the smouldering remains before stubbing it out in the ashtray.

“Thanks for not making fun of my outfit,” Callum says, twirling the ring around his finger. “I’m glad I ran into you guys. I didn’t really want to go back downstairs.”

Alex cuffs him on the shoulder. “I’m sure they all want to see you.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? A party is great and all, it just stops being so fun when people expect it from you. Sometimes you just want to have fun for yourself, not be a host.” Callum folds his arms over his chest, clearly more bothered by it than he’s letting on.

Scott has to think hard to make sure his words fit together right. “I mean, I’m fine to stay up here then. If that’s what you want.”

Alex seems less affected by the drug, leaning back on one hand and cocking his head at Callum. “Yeah, you can tell us about that bet you lost.”

Callum opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, thinking. He shrugs a little. “Well, there actually wasn’t any bet. One of the girls suggested it and her friends egged me on and it felt nice when they did my makeup and well—” He gestures vaguely to himself by way of explanation. His awkwardness should preclude him from looking graceful, but it doesn’t stop Scott from thinking it anyway.

“Oh,” Scott says, not wanting to say the wrong thing and push Callum away.

“And then I didn’t really want to take it off, you know? The guys downstairs would make a laughing stock of me.” Callum’s gone a bit quieter. It’s disarming— everything Scott has heard about him gave the impression that he would be larger than life.

“I think you look really nice,” Alex breathes, his hand covering Callum’s. It could be just a small gesture of comfort. Seeing it still makes something spark hot in Scott’s stomach, envy and the fear of somehow being excluded from this smallest of touches.

“Me too,” Scott spits out, shuffling closer. The space between the three of them is subtle and weirdly intimate and so unlike the raucous party downstairs that it feels like a different planet. The effects of the cigarette means his mouth is uncooperative, but he manages to pull together the words despite it. “It, uh, it suits you.”

Callum smiles at that, a smile that feels oddly private, even though anyone else could walk in and see the three of them sat on the bed together. This is unknown territory. Scott should be at home in bed, not admiring the pleasant curve of the lip of the university’s best known troublemaker. It’s so easy to let his eyes follow the line of his collarbone from the neckline of his dress all the way to the hollow of his throat. He should go back downstairs. If Alex catches him looking he’ll never hear the end of it.

“I’ve heard about you, you know,” Callum says, leaning in closer toward Scott, as though he’s revealing a secret. “You’re one of those guys who races their cars around when they think they can’t get into trouble.”

Scott has fought to keep that a secret for the past two years. All anyone is supposed to think he does is kill himself for his studies so he can become a lawyer, like he was always supposed to be. The only person who really knows what he gets up to on those odd weekends is— “Alex, I can’t believe you told him.”

By all accounts Scott should really be freaking out right now, but for some reason he can only laugh. Callum Barnes, the guy who had masterminded the placing of two bicycles on the spire of the chapel last term, was looking at him with wide, awed eyes all caked in kohl.

Alex holds up his hands placatingly. “I didn’t mean to, I swear! It was just there was one night you won and there was too much gin and—”

“What’s it like, going that fast?” Callum cuts Alex off with a hand on his thigh.

Scott swallows hard. “It’s, uh, hard to describe. Scary, sometimes.” Callum keeps looking at him eagerly, clearly wanting more. “I could take you for a drive sometime, if you want.” What the hell is he saying? He’s going to be in Europe for the next two months, and Callum’s going to forget his name in the next two hours, he’s sure of it. Except— well, Callum keeps his hand on Alex’s leg while he leans in towards Scott. He must be wearing the girls’ perfume as well, he smells strangely sweet, like a bakery.

“I’d like that,” Callum says, and oh, he’s close now, close enough that Scott can count those moles on his cheek. Between smoking the cigarette and biting his lip, Callum’s lipstick has mostly smudged off, leaving the center of his mouth looking pink and soft. Scott feels clumsy leaning in to kiss him, but he’s reassured when Callum pushes back against him. Callum tastes like bitter smoke and sweet champagne. The sequins on his dress dig into Scott’s palms where they’ve come up to rest on Callum’s hips.

“Oh, wow. Scott—” Alex’s voice breaks the spell. He sounds breathy, a little in awe. It doesn’t stop Scott from blushing harder and looking towards the door, drawing up an escape plan in his head. Callum is looking between him and Alex, waiting for someone to say something/

“Sorry, I don’t really know what got into me,” Scott says, extricating himself from the bed. “I’ll go.”

Alex stops him with a hand on the collar of his jacket. Scott looks at him for a second, frozen, before Alex hauls him forward and kisses him as well. Alex is all brash confidence and grand gestures, like always. He licks into Scott’s mouth without any warning, giggling into the kiss when Scott jumps in surprise.

“You can’t just copy me like that,” Callum complains, but there’s no real bite to it. He sounds as breathless as Scott feels. Scott pulls away from the kiss, panting.

He’s fixed in place by the two of them, caught between Alex’s firm front and Callum’s wide, greedy stare. He can feel himself trying to rationalize his way out of this, or construct an argument elaborate enough to justify what he’s doing here, but it’s all useless. If driving cars on the limit has contributed to his academic training at all, it’s taught him that sometimes you have to operate on instinct alone. And every instinct in his body is telling him to stay, to do it again, to get closer, hotter, now. It’s an electric impulse, running down his spine as Callum sits up onto his knees to kiss Alex, completing the circle. They’re all so close that they must feel Scott’s breath on their cheeks. It’s his turn to watch in stunned silence, drinking in the sight of the two of them, as beautiful as angels but not nearly as chaste.

There’s no reason to keep denying himself what he’s been wanting. Scott runs his hands under Alex’s jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. Alex helps him along, shrugging it off and throwing it over the side of the bed. His broad shoulders strain the fabric of his shirt. Scott had noticed it before, sure, during tutorials and over drinks in each other’s rooms and across library tables, but he’d never considered what it would be like to touch. He touches now, hands skimming over Alex’s arms and chest, kissing the back of his neck as his hands come up to undo the first few buttons of his shirt.

Alex stops kissing Callum to look down at Scott’s handiwork. “Let me,” he mumbles, batting Scott’s hands out of the way and making quick work of the rest of the buttons. His skin looks warm, glowing in the dim light. Callum leans in to kiss it without hesitation. Alex flinches a little, leaning back further so Callum can kiss down his chest and stomach. He stops when his lips reach Alex’s belt, but just barely.

“I think I’m ready to take the dress off now. Help a girl out?” Callum’s leaned over Alex, almost pornographic even though he’s fully clothed. His ass is stuck in the air, his face pressed close to the growing bulge in Alex’s slacks.

The silk-covered buttons slip under Scott’s fingers, but eventually they give way. The back of the dress parts like a velvet curtain, revealing the soft planes of Callum’s back behind them. It’s heavy enough that it falls under its own weight, slipping down Callum’s arms, hanging loosely from his front. However, it still clings to the curve of Callum’s hips. Scott runs his hands up Callum’s thigh and under the hem, digs his fingers into the muscle of his ass. No undergarments, but then, the dress never would have allowed for anything like that.

“I like how you look in this dress,” Scott admits, looking down into Callum’s eyes. He’d said as much earlier, but he wants to say it again, wants Callum to hear how much this is turning his world upside down. “I like your makeup. You’re as pretty as most of the girls downstairs.” Callum nods along like he knows, like this was all some sort of plan to rob Scott of his self control and drag him down into unapologetic temptation. He pushes his ass back into Scott’s palm, shameless.

Scott clears his throat. “I want to fuck you.” It’s good rhetoric to be clear about your aims.

“I want it— want you both,” Callum replies, half-muffled with how he’s speaking directly into the front of Alex’s trousers. Alex groans at that, the deep sound Scott associates with when he makes a particularly good or a particularly bad joke. It just seems to spur Callum on. He undoes Alex’s belt and pushes his clothes down just enough to get his half-hard cock out of his underwear. Alex looks shy for maybe the first time since Scott met him, his face half-turned and pressed into the duvet.

Callum has no such reservations, licking and sucking at Alex’s cock like he needs it to breathe. They’re fucking doing this. Or they would be, if Scott wasn’t just staring slack-mouthed at the sight of Callum’s lips stretched all shiny and tight around the head of Alex’s dick. He shakes himself out of it and pushes the skirt of Callum’s dress up around his hips, exposing his ass to the warm air of the room. Callum’s skin is so, so hot under Scott’s fingertips. Scott is sweating through Alex’s shirt. This could be the circles of hell, each progressively hotter than the next, except Callum looks like an angel, and so does Alex, and Scott thinks this is as close to heavenly as he’s felt in a long time.

Alex looks down his body at Callum and moans again, biting his knuckle in a piss-poor attempt to stifle it. “You’re so good at that. Fuck, why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Callum pulls off Alex’s cock with a pop, stroking it in his hand as he looks between Alex and Scott. “You two, you never—?”

Alex shakes his head. “No, never.”

Alex is right, of course. They should have done this sooner. Alex has always been deeply familiar and deeply off-limits, except now all the rules have been turned on their heads. Scott squeezes Callum’s hips a little tighter. He’ll have to properly thank him later. For now he doesn’t have the words, and besides, he has more urgent needs, for example, “D’you have any Vaseline?”

Callum tosses his head towards the chest of drawers across the room. “Top left, with the socks.”

Scott strips off his coat and shirt as he goes, his limbs more uncoordinated than he realized. The soft sucking sounds pick up again from the bed, loud enough to be heard even as Scott rummages around in the drawer until his fingers close around the jar. He loses his trousers and underwear on the way back, crawling back onto the mattress totally naked. When he slots himself behind Callum again he can feel Callum’s heat down his whole front. Callum’s back is a soft, graceful line connecting the three of them. Scott follows it from the back of Callum’s bobbing head to the small of his back.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” Scott whispers, slicking up his fingers. He rubs over Callum’s hole softly at first, not wanting to push too quickly, but Callum’s enthusiastic whines having him sliding two fingers in soon enough. Callum is velvet soft, all tight, impossible heat. Scott’s dick throbs sympathetically.

“Does he look good, Scotty?” Alex murmurs, not taking his eyes off Callum’s face for a second.

It feels wrong, talking about Callum like he’s some kind of pretty object, but it’s also so hot Scott needs to bite his lip and breathe. His mouth is so, so dry. When he responds his voice sounds shredded, barely there. “He looks really good. You should see him spread out on my fingers.”

Callum twists his head to look at Scott. “You should see me spread out on your cock,” he says, shameless, with a rude thrust backwards. His ass is so firm, inviting. Scott wants to haul him back until they’re as close as they can possibly be, linked together like the elements of a steel chain. Alex is watching them with amused eyes, replacing his cock in Callum’s mouth with his thumb, watching Callum suck it with just as much enthusiasm.

“Alright, alright, you’re a needy one, aren’t you?” Scott asks, all bravado that he doesn’t feel. He slips a third finger in along the first two, marveling at how easily Callum takes it. There must be a whole other side to him that the gossip doesn’t even capture. How else can he do this, take cock like it’s easy? The way Callum had looked at him, those starstruck eyes— maybe it’s stupid but it made him feel special, like this is more than a quick, tipsy fuck during a party.

“Shut up and fuck me already,” Callum groans, and Scott does, his fingers grasping for purchase in the folds of Callum’s dress as the head of his cock slips into Callum, millimeters turned into miles by the slow, steady pressure. Callum moans senselessly into Alex’s thigh, arching his back in a tight, sharp curve. Scott fits his hands to Callum’s shoulders and pulls him backwards, until his back is flush against Scott’s front and his head can lean back to rest on Scott’s shoulder. Like this, his breath is hot on Scott’s cheek, coming out in sharp little puffs. “‘S fucking good,” Callum breathes. It makes Scott fuck into him a little further. It’s mesmerizing, watching the effect his smallest actions have on Callum’s body.

The most obvious effect is Callum’s cock, which is curving out from his body, under the bunched-up dress. It bounces with Scott’s thrusts, hard and pink. Almost pretty, Scott’s brain supplies. Callum would be pretty, even without the dress and the makeup. Scott feels lucky he never saw Callum up close before now. He would have been totally fucked a long time ago. How is he supposed to spend long nights in the library when he knows he could be doing this, so overwhelmed by Callum and Alex and the possibilities between them, all of it narrowed down to slick pressure on his cock and the chorus of little sounds he’s drawing out of Callum with each thrust.

Alex sits up, finally tossing his jacket and shirt to the side. He looks obscene, his dick shiny and wet, peeking out from between the open fly of his trousers, his hair all mussed up. From the waist up, he might have just had a long night out. But Scott can’t stop staring at his cock, wishing he could be everywhere at once, touching everyone at once.

It’s maddening, wanting to be as close to both Callum and Alex as possible. Alex stays just out of reach, shuffling forward just enough to hold Callum’s face between his hands and kiss him deeply. Callum pants into the kiss, his eyes screwed up tight almost like he’s in pain. He only tenses up further when Alex circles him in a tight fist, the sharp rhythm of Scott’s thrusts pushing Callum to fuck into Alex’s hand. He’s tight—so fucking tight—and Scott won’t last very long like this.

He opens his mouth to say something, a warning, but it draws Alex’s attention enough that he leans over Callum’s shoulder to kiss Scott instead. The surprise sends heat surging between his legs, the hypnotic, unpredictable slide of two bodies against his own slowly shutting down his higher thought processes.

“Don’t stop,” Callum whispers, a desperate little plea. One of his hands is gripping Scott’s hip so hard it almost hurts, as though that could keep him as close as he wants.

Scott turns his head until Alex’s lips find his jaw. “I can’t— I’m going to—” His eyes close involuntarily, but the last thing he sees is Alex’s arm moving in quick, jerking motions, frantic enough to match Scott’s pace and reduce Callum to a shivering mess between them.

“Come on, come on, I want to see you—” Scott’s brain is too far gone to decipher whether Alex is saying it to him or to Callum and he doesn’t care, because the encouragement is enough to push him over the edge and then some. His world narrows to the ribbons of heat that tighten around his body until they finally snap, leaving him hunched over Callum’s back and panting like he’s just run a marathon. Callum lasts a few seconds longer, trembling beneath Scott’s weight before he jerks once, twice, then collapses into Alex. The smell of sex just gets stronger, mingling with the last whispers of smoke.

Scott feels a bit wrung out afterwards, still a bit floaty from the endorphins and the drugs but also clean, his worries about tomorrow and the boat and the trip somehow expunged in this bed. Maybe it’s just catharsis, or just the layers of intoxication, but he can’t imagine doing anything else than laying down in this bed for the foreseeable future. He slips out of Callum and lands somewhere to the side, his arm thrown over his face. He distantly recognizes someone pawing at his thigh and the sound of wet kisses nearby, but he waits for the blood in his ears to quiet before he turns to look.

Alex and Callum are kissing maybe three centimeters from his face, Alex half on top of Callum with his cock in his hand and his trousers pushed down to his knees. The hand on Scott’s thigh is Callum’s. Scott watches it tense and relax as Callum rides out the aftershocks.

Scott is tempted just to watch— they both look a bit messed up and wild, Callum’s curls sticking to his forehead with sweat, cock still slick with come, Alex’s body shaking with the effort of holding himself up on one arm and desperately chasing orgasm with his other. Scott wants to catalogue every millimeter of the sight and save it for later. He wants to see it play behind his eyelids when he lays in his bed next week, inevitably kept awake by the memory of this night.

But it just seems unfair to leave Alex to his own devices. Callum looks too boneless to do anything but lie there and open himself up for Alex’s kisses. And if Scott leaves tomorrow without knowing what it’s like to having Alex react to Scott’s hands on him, Scott might end up jumping off a cliff on the Costa Brava. He pushes Alex’s hand away. “Let me—”

Alex whines higher than Scott ever thought he could, still kissing Callum like his life depends on it. His reaction snaps Scott out of his daze a little, gives him a new goal. He wants to see Alex’s face when he comes, wants it with every hazy, fucked-out cell in his body. He shuffles down the bed until he can take Alex into his mouth the way he’s always liked when girls do. The position is awkward—Callum’s knee digs into Scott’s sternum— but it’s worth it for the feeling of Alex’s hand in his hair, urging him forward as much as his good manners will let him. Scott closes his eyes and listens to the moans coming from Alex’s chest and tries not to gag too much.

“Scotty—” Alex bites out his name as a warning. Scott nearly misses it, the way Alex’s face transforms, so he goes from placid to looking nearly in pain, every muscle tense and his teeth looking close to tearing through his bottom lip as he comes. The skin between his collarbones is golden and glistening in the light, his chest heaving with exertion that slowly turns to laughter. Alex sits up, still out of breath and fighting down giggles, looking down at the two of them like he’s the luckiest man on earth. Yeah, there’s no way Scott will be forgetting this. Fuck the cathedrals of France, this is the finest sight he’s going to see over these holidays.

⁂

Scott catches the boat with a few minutes to spare. He’s out of breath on the gangway and his luggage is a mess and he’s sure he’s forgotten something important, but he makes it, and that’s what matters. He leans on the railing and watches the shoreline slip away, feeling the pleasant stretch in his sore muscles. Sleeping three to a bed wasn’t the most restful, but it was worth it. His hand goes to the chunky costume ring in his pocket.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” Alex had muttered, still half-asleep under the sheets in Callum’s bed. “You’d better write.”

Callum had pulled him in for one last kiss before he ran out to the taxi idling outside. He slipped the ring into Scott’s hand before he pulled away. Callum looked soft, somehow, in the cool morning light, no longer the force of nature Scott assumed him to be. “You can give it back to me when you guys take me on that drive.”Scott had nodded and left the house before he could change his mind. He slips his pinky finger through the band and imagines that it’s still warm from Callum’s body heat. Una promesa, he practices, looking out over the edge of the deck and across the sea, the infinite and unknown expanse, bookended by a destination.

[marinabays]

[F/F] [Strangers on a Train] [Semi-Public Sex] [Masturbation] [Mildly Dubious Consent]

The train to Budapest is an overnight affair, which sounds a good deal more romantic than it is. Charlotte’s cabin is, in effect, a cupboard with a couple of folding cots tacked onto the wall, a cloudy window, and a tiny sink. By the time she locates her berth, her cabinmate is already there, rooting around in her backpack.

“D’you have a spare cigarette?” the woman asks. Her head is still halfway in her bag — all Charlotte can see is mounds of ginger curls spilling over the side. She sounds annoyed, like Charlotte has already said no. She also has an American accent, which Charlotte finds momentarily disorienting.

“Sorry, I don’t?” Charlotte says, like she isn’t quite sure. She stops herself from saying it again with more confidence.

The woman emerges, face pink, and blows a curl out of her unsmiling face. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “‘Scuse me.” She has to shuffle by Charlotte to leave the cramped space. Their knees bumping is the first physical contact Charlotte has had since kissing one of the hostel staff in Germany. She has met more people while traveling than she has since she graduated college, but there’s a certain isolation to it as well.

Once her roommate is gone, Charlotte assesses the cabin. Her roommate’s clothes and chargers are strewn across both berths, a plastic bag with snacks and two cans of cheap Czech beer commanding the little remaining floorspace. Charlotte wonders if it would be rude to go ahead and take the lower bed for herself. It’s clearly the better choice, and she’s the later arrival. After a moment of indecision, in which she imagines the woman coming back and catching her staring at the sturdy tan bra on the bottom bunk, she clears the mattress and stakes her claim on it.

Charlotte kicks off her sneakers and pulls her feet up into the spartan cot. She’s sore from running to catch the train, and from walking over cobblestones in her thin-soled Converse.

Her guidebook has a whole section on Budapest. She could get a headstart on reading, make a tentative schedule for the weekend. She’s always loved being the prepared one on a group trip, and the deference that comes with it.

However, she had promised herself that she wouldn’t over-plan this one. Backpacking is meant to be fun, spontaneous — the sort of thing you do before you turn all serious and sedentary and predictable and boring. Instead of the guidebook, Charlotte rummages around for her journal. Somewhere in the anxiety of packing she had told herself that this would be the keepsake she could page through as an old crone, reminiscing on the golden years of her youth.

She thumbs through the first few entries: Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam. It falls off after that. The cities she has cataloged get very thorough descriptions. There is a list of the museums, churches, and restaurants they visited. Charlotte has given them each a star rating out of five, of which one dodgy Dutch takeaway has earned less than four. Her friends get passing mention, mostly in terms of who got too drunk and who threw up and cried where.

Out her window, Charlotte sees her roommate borrowing a drag from an old Czech man’s cigarette. The train horn sounds, and she bounds back onto the car. The man waves goodbye as the engine picks up. Charlotte waves back.

⁂

The dining car is nearly deserted — maybe because it’s only half past six.

Dinner is a beef stew of sorts, padded out by the same bread dumplings she’s been eating for the past week. The Pepsi comes in a glass bottle. Charlotte drinks it and tries not to let it bump her teeth as the train rattles. There’s not much to do but eat and try to catch glimpses of the farms out of the darkened window. Cell service is spotty, and she can’t shell out for the WiFi, not after she splurged on the sleeper car. There isn’t even anyone in the coach cabin. She could have sprawled across the seats and had a perfectly serviceable sleep for a quarter of the price. The girls will all make fun of her when she tells them about it tomorrow.

Thinking about their teasing questions, she regrets her heavy dinner. She could blame the urge to be sick on the swaying of the cars, but —

Regardless, they’re her mates. They’re not out to humiliate her.

When they get far enough from the light pollution, everything outside the window melts into the inscrutable dark. A smattering of fellow passengers have sat down at their own tables, just as quiet as she is. There’s the redheaded woman from her cabin, seated on the other end of the car, facing in Charlotte’s direction. She’s reading something on her phone and white-knuckling a beer. Charlotte can imagine her looking up and making eye contact, maybe even grimacing or rolling her eyes. Charlotte turns her attention to her fork, testing every tine with the tip of her forefinger.

Charlotte passes the woman on her way back to the cabin after dinner. She smells like cigarettes, and she’s got a hefty wedding ring on her finger.

“Hey neighbor,” the woman says, not looking up from her phone. Charlotte startles, just as she pushes the button for the doors. She didn't realize the woman had noticed her. Charlotte nods, makes a small sound that could pass for a greeting, and is just stepping through the doors when the woman adds, “You took my bunk.”

The doors slide back and cut them off before Charlotte can respond. Charlotte pauses. She knows she should just go back and apologize, offer to move her stuff, but something pushes her down the length of the car. What a perfect time for her hindbrain to choose flight, as though she won’t have to sleep with the predator in the other bunk all night.

The corrosive disquietude only builds as she passes from car to car. It’s nothing a good night’s rest won’t cure, but sleep seems impossible and ages away. She approaches her shared cabin just as the train enters a tunnel. The sudden darkness is disorienting and makes the hallway feel even more cramped. The thought of sitting in her bunk, bound in by the curtain and the other bed above her, is suddenly nightmarish. She keeps walking, down the length of the train, until she arrives at the small convenience stand.

Charlotte scans the slim offerings, growing increasingly self-conscious as the clerk waits. “Sorry,” she says, “but do you have any—” she mimes a cartoonish smoking motion.

“Cigarety?” the woman asks, bored.

Charlotte nods and pushes her last few koruna across the counter in exchange for a pack of Petra Lights. She doesn’t argue when the attendant doesn’t give her any change.

On the way back to her cabin, she stops in the bathroom. She pulls half of the cigarettes out of the packet and stuffs them in the bin. Then she squashes the cardboard for good measure, until it looks nice and broken in.

Her roommate is in the top bunk with her headphones in when Charlotte gets back. So much for switching back. Charlotte plays offline sudoku on her phone until they pull up at the next station, their last stop for the night.

She climbs into the narrow space between the beds and the sink and waves to get the other woman’s attention. When that doesn’t work she taps her arm with the corner of the cigarette pack. The woman sits up and takes her headphones off, looking annoyed for being interrupted.

“I, uh, actually found these at the bottom of my bag. If you want one,” Charlotte says. She doesn’t know why she thought lying about it would be easier than just saying sorry and giving her the pack as a peace offering. Maybe she just doesn’t want this stranger knowing how much thought she has put into it.

They shuffle to the doors, pulling their coats on as they go. The other woman looks poorly prepared for the weather in hers — Charlotte wonders if she bought it specifically for the trip. Sure would be a shame if so.

Charlotte picks a spot near the doors to the station, in the hopes of absorbing the heating through osmosis. She holds the pack out in lieu of a handshake. “Charlotte.”

“Maggie,” the other woman says, picking one out of the pack and eyeing it suspiciously. Maybe Charlotte’s theatrics had gone a bit too far and dented the contents. “Light?”

Charlotte had forgotten about that bit. Still, she pats her pockets. “Sorry, I don’t think—”

“Don’t worry,” Maggie says, turning away and looking around the platform. There are a couple people taking the opportunity to stretch their legs on the platform, and Maggie stops them until someone turns up a lighter. Once she’s lit hers, she turns to Charlotte expectantly.

“Oh, right.” Charlotte takes one from the pack and lights it, thanking the man they had borrowed it from profusely. The first drag is harsh — sour tasting and hot, it scorches her throat and makes her cough. After that, she resolves to stop inhaling and start just holding it in her mouth, like she did when she was a teenager.

Having invited Maggie out, Charlotte feels a certain responsibility to see a conversation through. “So what do you do?”

“Stay-at-home mom.”

“You must be pretty bad at your job,” Charlotte says, cringing as the words come out of her mouth. “Shit, sorry, that was meant to be a joke. In that, like, you’re not at home right now. Not that you’re a bad mum.”

Maggie just laughs. It’s a good laugh, it makes Charlotte feel like she’s gotten away with something. “I’ll tell my husband that one when I get back. He’ll like it.”

“How old are your kids?”

“I’ve got two, both in secondary school. Nightmare ages, to be honest.”

“So, just traveling for fun then? Need a bit of a break?” Charlotte doesn’t really know how to talk to women with kids. None of her friends have kids — as least, the ones who have just sort of… disappeared? She tries not to feel guilty about not reaching out.

Maggie sighs. “Yeah, something like that. There aren’t any seasons in LA. A change of scenery can be good, you know?”

“Right.” Charlotte can’t imagine that late fall in Central Europe is better scenery than California spring, but then again, she’s never even been to America. She won’t press the issue.

“How about you, then? You just graduate or something? Out here finding yourself?” Maggie embellishes her point with vaguely dismissive hand gestures.

“I, er. No, I’m between jobs at the moment.” Charlotte waits for Maggie to correct herself, but she doesn’t. “I graduated a while back, actually.”

Maggie raises her eyebrows a little, but doesn’t follow up.

“I’m meeting my friends in Budapest, I just figured, hey, why not spend a little time alone, you know. And besides, none of them were really interested in Prague, but I’ve always liked Kafka and so I just said you know what, I’ll meet you there.” She can feel herself flailing. It doesn’t help that she didn’t really get to talk to anyone over the past few days, and it feels good to finally justify her choice to someone.

She looks at Maggie, who is nodding with a blank look on her face. “It’s good, you know, remembering you can do things on your own,” Charlotte finishes, quieter.

“Right,” Maggie says. She is traveling solo too. She has to understand.

Charlotte’s phone buzzes while she’s thinking of another question. It’s such a surprise that she jumps a bit.

so excited to see you!!! The text is accompanied by a photo of all of her friends on some terrace or another, cocktail glasses raised towards the camera.

Her phone must have locked onto some shred of a data signal. She types out a response and tries to send it, but her phone flashes an error message. The shred of data seems to have evaporated. She turns airplane mode on and off, then tries again. Still nothing. Not a huge deal — the message has come through late enough that not responding won’t be seen as a slight. Charlotte slides her phone back into her pocket, considers pulling out another cigarette.

Maggie’s has burned down to a stub, but she’s still sucking at it tenaciously.

“Another?” Charlotte asks.

“Nah, don’t want to be kept up. But you go ahead. I’ll see you inside.”

Maggie jogs back to the car before Charlotte can invite herself along. She checks her phone on muscle memory. Both of her messages have gone through now. One of her friends laugh reacts to the second.

It’s too cold to stand around smoking by herself. She gives it another minute before heading back inside.

⁂

If Charlotte expected the swaying of the train cars to be relaxing, she was dead wrong. The tracks are louder than they have any right to be, thundering a few feet below her bunk. She’s starting to wonder if Maggie got the better berth after all. She ran out of melatonin tablets in Warsaw, and it’s late enough that she’s getting hungry again. Usually a wank is enough to knock her out cold, but there’s no way she could do that here.

Charlotte opens up her messages and stares at the photo her friend sent again. It is horribly selfish and teenage to feel left out. Hell, splitting up was her idea. She just can’t get rid of the tight feeling in her chest when she imagines meeting up with them at the hostel tomorrow. At this rate she’ll be sour with lack of sleep, and it will just make her a bitch during dinner, and then she will spend the rest of the trip trying to apologize for it without bringing it up again. It’s all so painfully predictable.

She shoves her phone under the pillow and closes her eyes. In her early twenties she had a therapist who recommended that she fall asleep by focusing on one body part at a time, from her toes up to her head. She had always gotten bored and frustrated around the knees, but anything would be better than getting herself worked up about the noise and the thin, uncomfortable mattress.

Toes, then. Cold, very cold. Worth getting out of bed and rooting around for another pair of socks? Surely not.

On to feet, then ankles. Normal. Sore from walking, but not enough to stop her from hitting the ground running tomorrow. The thought is nice. She lingers another few seconds before moving on to calves. It’s only when she’s there that she realizes she’s been tensing them, along with her quads. She lets out a breath and consciously relaxes them. That’s better — maybe she has a knack for this after all.

Knees and thighs, nothing to write home about. She had slipped on a sidewalk after a night out in Berlin and her left knee hadn’t quite been the same since, but it’s fine as long as she isn’t walking down any steep hills. All the walking had been giving her legs a nice tone though, which she didn’t mind. She has taken to admiring them in the fogged-up mirrors of hostel bathrooms, once she has gotten out of the shower.

Hips, crotch — even less exciting. She can feel herself starting to lose focus. Everyone at home had gotten the idea in their heads that this trip was going to be some kind of lurid continental sex fest, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The only action she had gotten so far was with her right hand.

A few of her friends had hooked up with fellow travelers at the hostels and then recounted it in detail at the next morning’s breakfast, but Charlotte didn’t have any interest in hooking up with drunk British guys on leave from university, even in an anthropological sense. Anna, who had made it her mission to make the trip happen, had said one of her lads was convinced that the clitoris was inside the vagina, and had gone poking around blindly until she had to ask him to stop.

Thinking about sex, even disgusting sex, is a bit of a slippery slope. Charlotte absentmindedly runs her fingers under the waistband of her underwear. It’s the longest she’s gone without shaving in ages. She gets goosebumps when she rubs against the grain of the hair.

There had been a lovely butch who spoke with a whisper of a Dutch accent and had invited Charlotte back to her flat with the hungriest look Charlotte had ever seen. Charlotte had been a second away from accepting, when she saw the rest of the group watching them from the other side of the bar.

It’s hard to be turned on like this. Her fingers are too cold, her senses still tuned in to whatever is going on around her. She just wants to feel better for a minute. Then she’ll be able to sleep. She’s sure of it.

Porn would probably help, but that feels too much like committing to making this a thing, like she would be enjoying herself more than is respectable. She doesn’t even let herself fantasize. She just slides her hand lower, focuses on the dry friction of her fingers on her clit, and tries to breathe evenly.

Another minute and it’s not so bad. Her cunt, at least, is hot, warming her fingertips. She’s starting to get a little wet, easing the way for her fingers. Out of an abundance of caution, Charlotte pulls the thin blanket over her mouth. Her hand is starting to ache from doing all the work, but the end is in sight now. She slips her free hand under her shirt to squeeze her nipple and —

The cot above her squeaks, and her stomach drops.

“What the hell are you doing?” Maggie's voice is very clear in the small, dark space of the room. It’s not a question, not really.

Charlotte snatches her hand out of her pants. She feels cold all over, and she tastes bile. It’s not a situation she’s used to — caught out and unquestionably in the wrong. If she says anything she’s sure she’ll cry.

The top bunk creaks again, and then Maggie swings out and to the floor. She’s standing just on the other side of the curtain. Charlotte can see her chipped toenail polish through the gap. It’s a bit like the one time she got in proper trouble during school. The teacher walked up to her desk, and Charlotte hadn’t even had the guts to look up.

“Don’t be a little bitch about it, come on.”

Robotically, Charlotte wipes her fingers off on her stomach and pulls the curtain back. Maggie’s staring at her with her arms crossed, leaning back against the tiny sink. She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and her underwear. Charlotte makes herself focus on Maggie’s face. She looks Maggie in the left eye — she heard once that people trust you more when you do that.

“Sorry, I— Yeah, sorry.”

Maggie chews her lower lip as she studies Charlotte’s face. “So what are you, some kind of pervert? You get off on being caught?”

“Jesus, no, I would never — It’s just, I really need to get to sleep. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking saying you’re sorry,” Maggie says. Charlotte is surprised by how little venom there is in her voice. She sounds more disbelieving than anything — tired.

Charlotte bites back the instinct to apologize again.

Maggie sighs and leans her head back against the wall. It looks like she’s doing calculations on the ceiling. “So you need to sleep. Why’d you stop?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, why did you stop getting yourself off?”

Charlotte’s stomach drops. “Didn’t you— I mean, you’re— You know what, I should just— There are some extra seats in the other cars. I’ll go.”

“No, I think you should keep going.” Maggie says, her jaw tight.

This is surely some kind of justifiably mean joke, and it makes Charlotte feel stupid. She doesn’t know how to argue, so she goes mute, mouth gaping like a fish.

Maggie is staring at her intently, eyebrows knitted. She’s rubbing over the inside of her own arm with her thumb. “I mean, you know how to do it, don’t you?”

“Of course I know how to do it,” Charlotte says, but her voice is very, very small. Maggie is making fun of her, right to her face. On the one hand, it’s a kind of nightmare scenario. On the other, she has dreaded this for so long that it’s almost relieving to get it over with.

“Well then, fucking get on with it, yeah?”

Maggie isn’t budging. There’s a firm, authoritative edge to her voice. Charlotte can’t remember the last time she spoke to anyone like that, let alone a stranger. Worse than it being rude is that it isn’t doing anything to stop Charlotte being turned on. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears and feel it between her legs. She wants Maggie’s permission, even as she can’t bring herself to cooperate.

“Are you sure?” Charlotte mumbles. She keeps picking up her hand and putting it back down on the scratchy bed linens, like a skipping CD.

Maggie rolls her eyes and pushes herself off the wall. She grabs Charlotte’s hand and places it against the damp front of Charlotte’s underwear. “Like this—”

Charlotte snatches her hand back. Her hand feels ultrasensitive where Maggie had grabbed her. She had forgotten that other people’s hands could be so warm.

Maggie pauses. They are so much closer now, their faces are only a few inches apart, and Maggie doesn’t move, despite being crouched at an awkward angle. She’s staring at Charlotte, unblinking. It’s an unnerving amount of attention, interest that could be verging on anger.

“Alright,” Charlotte says, barely above a whisper. She’s laying on her back, underbelly bared. But the door is unlocked. She could just go. “Do you want— Are you going to, er, watch?”

Maggie looks at her like she’s dumb, like she’s wasting Maggie’s time. “You wanted an audience. You got one.”

The denial lodges in Charlotte’s throat. It’s not true — she didn’t want anyone to hear her, let alone see her — but Maggie’s focus on her, the shamelessness of Maggie’s manhandling, is kindling something inside her. She should be horrified, but she’s just more turned on than she was before. Her body gives her away, nipples trying their best to poke through her ex-girlfriend’s t-shirt.

Charlotte tucks her hand back into her underwear, closing her eyes briefly at the first touch of her fingers to her clit. She’s intensely aware of the dead air again, just like she was on the platform. “It shouldn’t take long. I mean, for me to, you know—”

“Yeah, I know. Pull your underwear down.”

Charlotte makes a small noise, but she complies. When she hazards a glance Maggie’s way, she notices that she’s squatting now, her face at a level with Charlotte’s body, gaze no less attentive than it was before. Charlotte had never been that concerned with how her body looked during sex before, but then again, she had never really faced this level of scrutiny before either.

The cold air of the train car is an unpleasant shock. Charlotte sucks her fingertips in her mouth, wetting them as well as warming them, before moving them back to her cunt. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Maggie pulling at the knot on her sweatpants.

She’s not sure she’s had anyone watch her get herself off before either. She’s self-conscious of her little rituals, struck with the incredibly stupid worry that she has somehow been doing it wrong.

All that is wiped out when she gets her hand back on her clit, though. All the tension from being discovered, and from the intensity of Maggie’s attention, takes on another flavor entirely. She still feels wound up so tight she could break — only now, that breaking doesn’t seem so bad. She rubs two fingers over her clit and she tenses all over. The mattress makes a small noise, moving with the flex of her body.

Maggie runs a hand through her own hair, brushes it away from her face. “I’m surprised you had it in you, I really am.” She talks evenly, like she’s discussing the weather. “D’you do this sort of thing often? Rubbing one out with strangers?”

Charlotte can feel herself blushing. Her ears feel hot, like they do when she has been drinking on an empty stomach. She shakes her head, too afraid of how she might sound if she speaks.

“Didn’t think so. What happened to trying to do things on your own, huh?” She sounds disappointed. Charlotte has always hated disappointing people. “You really just want someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing, don’t you? Just pat you on the head like a dog?”

“Yes,” Charlotte gasps out. Just as squeaky as she feared. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then hurry up, will you, so I can go back to bed?” Maggie isn’t even looking her in the face any more, staring down at Charlotte’s cunt.

Charlotte rubs at herself like it’s a punishment, desperate to comply. She could twist out of her own skin. She could snap all her joints until she is rendered infinitely flexible, malleable, tidy and easy.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m close, promise—”

“I’m not gonna help you, you know,” Maggie says, with open contempt.

Charlotte feels tears prick in the corners of her eyes, because she wasn’t going to ask, would have never been that greedy, and it’s so unfair.

It’s too late to argue, though. A bit of Maggie’s hair falls over her face again, and the end of it trails across Charlotte’s sternum, feather-light. It’s not a touch but it’s close enough — Charlotte grinds down on her fingers and comes with a little strangled sob, curling in on herself, shoulders shaking. The afterglow fades fast. It would have been so much less embarrassing to just have a cry.

“Is that better?” Maggie asks.

Charlotte is a bit afraid to open her eyes, but she does it anyway. Maggie is standing up now, re-tying the drawstring on her pants. She can’t have come — does she not care? Maybe she just has the self-control that Charlotte apparently lacks.

“Uh—” Charlotte starts, brain scrambled and misfiring. It would be rude to be unappreciative, but she can’t fight the wave of self-disgust rising in her either. “Yeah, thanks?”

“I’m so glad,” Maggie says, deadpan. She puts on foot on the bottom bunk, apparently ready to haul herself back into bed, and Charlotte has to tug on the bottom of her sweats to stop her.

“Wait, do you want me to—?” Charlotte lets herself trail off. She doesn’t really know what she’s offering, but not offering at all would undoubtedly make her feel worse. Maggie steps back down and ducks her head to look at Charlotte.

Charlotte cringes, thinking about how she looks, underwear still down around her thighs, getting her dirty fingers on Maggie’s clothes. She expects, and deserves, nothing less than scorn, and Maggie seems like the perfect person to deliver it.

Maggie, however, just shakes her head. “I shouldn’t. And you should go to sleep.”

“It’s not like, a burden, or anything, if you like—”

“I didn’t say it was,” Maggie says, but she sounds more amused than annoyed. “Goodnight, Charlotte.” She hauls herself back into the top bunk without another word.

Charlotte keeps the curtain to her bunk open for another few minutes, but she doesn’t know what she’s waiting for. Maybe she’s listening to figure out if Maggie is getting herself off, if she really is made of the same stuff Charlotte is. Maybe she’s hoping Maggie will change her mind and deign to come back down to Charlotte’s register. If she could get Maggie off, then she would know what to call this — sex, albeit slightly weird sex. She could fudge some of the details and tell her friends she finally got laid. They might like that story.

⁂

Charlotte gets up early the next morning, jolted awake by a bump in the tracks. The sun is barely peeking over the horizon, and Maggie is, blessedly, still asleep in the upper bunk. Charlotte dresses as quickly as she can, stuffs her things into her bag, and slips out into the public carriages.

In the dining car, she orders a coffee and a roll with butter. She picks a seat facing away from the end of the train with the sleeper car, but she can’t stop herself looking over her shoulder every minute or two to check if Maggie has come to breakfast as well. There’s an older man sitting across the aisle from her, and he’s treating her to a hard, continental stare. Charlotte distracts herself by studying the map of Budapest on her phone, memorizing the path from the station to the hostel.

It’s inevitable that Maggie will eventually emerge from their shared compartment, but it’s somehow still a surprise when Charlotte checks over her shoulder and she’s there, seated at the end of the car, looking out of the window with a coffee in hand.

Charlotte should really go over and say something to her. Apologize at the least, though demanding answers might be better. She can’t really get a handle on how sorry she should really be, but she can’t imagine Maggie apologizing — she doubts she has the words in her vocabulary. And she could just as easily mock Charlotte to her face — lord knows there’s enough material. Charlotte squishes the remains of her roll into crumbs between her thumb and her forefinger.

They’re quickly approaching Budapest. Not saying anything at all feels so terribly rude. Charlotte needs to do it, or it will dog her for the rest of the trip. She watches Maggie in the window and hopes for a little more time to find the guts to cross the car. The conductor seems to be listening — the train is delayed twenty minutes from their scheduled arrival time, but it’s still not long enough. When they pull up to the station, her thumb is bleeding where she’s ripped the cuticle with her teeth.

The morning is bright and crisp, a welcome contrast to the hermetic cabins onboard. Maggie breezes through it with purpose, her massive red ponytail easy to track in the crowd. Charlotte jogs to catch her, tapping her on the elbow just before she enters the station. Maggie turns, surprised.

For all the time she spent waiting, Charlotte hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say. All she can think is this woman saw me come last night. It makes eye contact unbearable. She rummages in her bag to avoid it.

“Sorry, I just wanted to give you these. I thought you might want them? I don’t really smoke.”

“Wow, thanks,” Maggie says. “You know these are practically free here, right?”

“Oh shut up,” Charlotte says, but she’s laughing, and she’s a little bit proud of herself for it.

Maggie takes the cigarettes all the same, slipping them into the side pocket of her backpack. She idles, sensing, correctly, that Charlotte didn’t run her down just to give her a busted, mostly-empty pack of smokes.

Charlotte forces herself to look at Maggie. She has frown lines in between her eyebrows, and she looks like she could cut Charlotte in half with a sharp word. Before she can think twice, she hands Maggie a scrap of paper, torn out from her travel journal. “And here. If you want to, you know, stay in touch.”

Maggie looks down at the paper with a half-smile. She tucks it into her pocket. “Thanks.”

In that moment, Charlotte is absolutely certain that she is never going to hear from Maggie again. The ending to this story will not be sexy, or satisfying.

She should have just asked Maggie for her number instead — even if it meant enduring the agony of having to text first. She should have asked where she was staying. Charlotte doesn’t want to leave her and go meet up with her friends and pretend that everything is normal. She can’t.

“Wait —” Charlotte says, even though Maggie hasn’t moved. “Do you — would you maybe want to — I’m not meeting my friends for another hour and —” Her hands grasp for something to do. There’s a sign for a single-occupancy bathroom across the way. It’s sure to be cold and filthy but for some reason Charlotte just doesn’t care.

Maggie reaches out and grabs Charlotte’s hand. She squeezes it hard. “I’m sorry, but I should really get going. Enjoy the city.” She sounds apologetic, but again, she doesn’t give Charlotte time to respond. She kisses the back of Charlotte’s hand and then she’s gone, ponytail swaying as she heads down the labyrinthine tunnels of the station. Charlotte follows her with her eyes as long as she can, until she rounds a corner.

Charlotte is sure she looks strange, stood in the middle of the platform, blocking traffic and craning her neck to stare down the hall. The only thing that gets her moving is the arrival of another train, its brakes so ear-splittingly loud that Charlotte has to seek refuge inside. As she passes through the terminal, she unlocks her phone and opens the Whatsapp group she has with her friends.

> hey guys, decided to stay another night or two in prague — don’t have too much fun without me, and i’ll be in touch to meet up soon!

She throws in a selfie she took with the astrological clock, then she turns off her phone completely. Out on the street, she follows the signs for the river, navigating by feel alone.

[marinabays]

[M/F] [Established Relationship] [Consensual Non-consent]

“So,” Simon says, rearranging his silverware into a neat, parallel row. “Tonight, when we get home, I’m going to rape you.”

Jean, who had been dragging her last bite of steak through the jus, freezes. Adrenaline had always felt cold to her, but this time it’s hot, flames blooming in her middle.

“Alright,” Jean says, her throat tight. The urge to cry is immediate, and she feels nauseous shoving it down. “When did you decide?”

Simon is calm, deliberate. “Does it matter?”

It does matter to Jean, because the longer Simon’s been planning this, the more Jean has been oblivious, the more naive she feels. They got dressed in their shared bedroom before they left. Simon picked out this outfit for her. He’d booked Jean’s favorite restaurant.

Jean sets down her fork, stares into the bloody rare center of her dinner, and tries to will away the heat between her legs. In a matter of seconds, their waiter descends upon the table to ask if they need anything else.

“She’ll have the panna cotta, and I’ll take the check,” Simon says, smiling.

He doesn’t stop smiling, not even when he signs the exorbitant bill and watches Jean struggle to get down a bite of her dessert. For the foreseeable future, this is what Jean will remember when she tastes vanilla — bone-grinding fear and deep, sticky arousal.

Jean carefully rearranges the napkin on her lap and pushes the panna cotta away.

Simon tuts in sympathy. “Should we go?” he asks, gently. Under the table, he traces soothing circles on Jean’s knee. The dissonance makes Jean want to scream.

Jean can barely meet Simon’s eyes, but she forces herself to do it. She feels acquiescent yet brave, like a lamb going quietly to slaughter. “Yes, I think that it would be best.”

When they emerge from the restaurant, the temperature has dropped precipitously, too cold for her summer linen dress. Simon must see her shiver — he shrugs out of his jacket and places it on Jean’s shoulders. It’s still warm from Simon’s body heat. It smells like him — like waking up next to him.

Jean pulls the jacket on properly and shoves her hands in the pockets, hoping to stop them shaking. “Thank you.” She can hear herself going formal and short, old habits kicking in when her nerves start running high.

“Of course,” Simon replies, opening the car door for her. “After you.”

⁂

”I’ve never really done something like that before.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask of anyone. And if you don’t— If you aren’t comfortable with it, just say so, it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m not— Will you give me some time to think about it?”

⁂

“I love you. Don’t do this.”

Simon just laughs in Jean’s face and shoves her over the arm of the couch. He’s not holding back any of his strength, and as Jean breaks her own fall she’s struck with what should have been patently obvious — that they really could hurt each other. Not just now, but at any time. That the potential has always been there, caged and tamed.

Still, there’s no doubt who would win, in a true fight. Jean struggles — struggles hard — but she doesn’t put her whole heart into it. She wants it too badly, Simon catching her wrist and slamming it back into the cushion, followed by the stomach-churning pain of Simon hitting her across the face.

“What the fuck, stop,” Jean whines, wincing.

Simon hesitates, fractionally, and in that split second Jean prays that Simon either safewords or carries on because if he makes Jean ask for it for real she thinks she might cry — a childish kind of crying, one that doesn’t promise to leave her feeling scoured out and new. She wants Simon to trust her — to trust that she knows what she’s getting herself into, without someone there to double-check her work.

Maybe her own trust in Simon was lacking. His expression quickly hardens, sardonic. “I don’t think,” he says, his hand coming up to fist in Jean’s hair, “I asked what you want. Now shut the fuck up.”

With her face held to the couch cushions, nose crooked and squashed, breaths short and scattered in the moments she can grab them, Jean lets the word no die in her throat. She knows she should fight a bit more, make this performance worth the effort, but it’s just easier to resign herself to his position, the arm of the couch providing unsatisfying pressure against her cunt. And besides, when she goes quiet, compliant, she can hear the sound of Simon’s zipper, and the wet slick sound of him jerking himself off over her.

Jean wonders how many times Simon has gotten himself off to the thought of hurting her. Wonders how their tallies might compare.

⁂

”It’s so fucked up.”

“You’re telling me. But you want it, don’t you?”

“I used to be a good man, Jean. What the hell are you doing to me?”

⁂

She makes one final break for it — spits in Simon’s face and twists away and dashes for the door. She’s mid-stride when Simon grabs the back of her flimsy necklace, cord snapping at her throat as he pulls her to the ground. It's on the scary side of reckless. Simon straddles her with resigned ease. This time, Jean expects the slap, is ready for the sting.

“You bitch. You’re not making this any easier for yourself. Just let me do it.” Simon pulls her up onto her hands and knees and shoves back into her, more forceful this time, knowing she can take it. Jean so rarely sees Simon angry, but it’s another thing he’s capable of, underneath it all. When she twists around on the floor to look at him, she makes sure to really look.

Simon’s flushed, panting hard, shirt messily half-unbuttoned. He doesn’t look angry — he looks younger than he has in years. The hardwood floors probably hurt his knees. He’s doing this for her.

It’s a bad position — Simon knows Jean doesn’t like it like this — but it’s unremarkable because she just hurts all over. Her palms burn from the friction of being shoved forward with every thrust, cunt raw even though she’s sopping wet.

She’s welling up again, and this time she doesn’t try to stop it. She needs to cry so badly it scares her.

“Stop crying. If you don’t want it, you shouldn’t make it feel so good,” Simon says through gritted teeth. He drapes himself over Jean’s back to whisper in her ear. “You’ve got such a fucking hungry cunt.”

Jean wails and falls forward, flat against the ground, covered in Simon’s weight, arm pinned painfully between her own body and the floor.

“Sorry,” Jean whispers, without thinking.

Simon doesn’t respond — he just curls one hand around the front of Jean’s throat, the other over her mouth. For a moment, it’s just like being held, like they’re in bed together — Simon’s hands cradling these fragile corners of Jean’s body, Jean trusting him to treat them kindly — but then Simon digs his fingers in, and it’s clear that tenderness couldn’t be further away.

⁂

“How can you trust me this much?”

“How could I not?”