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[mermaidgirl30]

“M’not gonna hurt ya” 😭😭😭 I feel so bad for Joel, and the way he doesn’t want to hurt her 🥹 I love this so much, I can’t wait for the next part!!!

of rage and ruin - chapter two

of rage and ruin series

chapter two

series masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

werewolf!alpha!Joel Miller x f!omega!reader

word count: 3.3k

summary: you come face to face with the beast.

chapter warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, a/b/o, alpha/omega dynamics, omegaverse, captivity, canon-typical violence, genre-typical violence, horror themes, graphic violence, allusions to/threats of torture, abuse by captors (not by either joel or reader), depiction of injury, body horror, typical raider/hunter behavior, mention of cordyceps, angst, viewer discretion is advised,

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

They were careful never to touch you. The exam you’d been given when they first brought you here was done with thick rubber gloves, and no one has touched you since. 

But there are plenty of ways to teach you compliance without touching you. 

Before they moved you, you didn’t see a soul for two days. No one delivered or removed the cloth strips, food, or water. No one woke you up with a loud buzzer or dragged you outside to hose you down. 

No one hurt you.

The first few hours, you sit and do nothing as usual. You don’t really notice.

After that, though, you start to wait. This deviation, this anomaly, was far more terrifying than the wretched routine. And with no meals, you’re bereft of a way to count the passing of time. There’s no sunlight down here, after all. 

To your deep relief, the lights still go off at night. Until you’re lying awake in the dark and realize they’re probably on a timer. So maybe all your captors are dead. Made a stupid mistake and got their asses handed to them by FEDRA.

Which would be nice, but also, you’d still fucking die. Because you’re trapped in this godforsaken grimy ass basement, and somewhere on the other side of it is the only other resident you know of. Him. 

So either you starve to death, or he eats you. Or both. 

You spend the next day hoping to see Cheryl’s smug bitch face. 

When someone finally comes for you, it’s not Cheryl. It’s not Jim, either, but that’s not a surprise. He doesn’t like you, doesn’t like whatever Cheryl’s doing with you.

Not because he has any objections to the captivity or abuse. No, Jim’s been clear—you’re a waste of resources. 

Anyway, it’s fucking Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber who show up. They’re not real twins (you’re not even sure they’re brothers), but they’re a damn good argument for nurture over nature. Spending the apocalypse together has them moving in tandem, grunting and jerking their heads to one another in a language all their own. They’re built like oxen and about as polite. 

You don’t fight anymore, but they still tie you and drag you around. You haven’t so much as argued in weeks. You’ve heard that everyone breaks from torture eventually. You waved your flag from the start. 

You’re not made for this. 

They tie you up without touching your skin; hands layered in gloves just in case. They leave a length of rope from your wrists to pull you by, leaving the rope around your feet as it was. You had earned that six inches of slack, just enough to stand and walk to the makeshift toilet instead of crawling, after a solid week of good behavior. 

When you figure it out, though, you try to run. Every electric screaming nerve in your body says to go. Go where? Who fucking knows. Anywhere. Away. Run. 

The room they’ve brought to you is saturated in oaky musk, and you only need a glimpse of the little cage within before you’re jerking backward.

They must have gotten used to your compliance because the rope flies from Tweedle Dumb’s grasp. The three of you stand still for a moment, all shocked by the turn of events. 

You turn to run, but it’s too late already. One of them swept your fucking legs like this was an action movie, and bound as you are, that’s the end of the fight. You crash and earn yourself some new bruises, and they drag you into the room by the rope between your feet. 

One of them—you’ve forgotten who had which nickname in all the hubbub—snaps out a baton.

“Get in the fuckin’ cage, or I’ll break your ankles.”

It’s a strong argument that you have no desire to see if he’ll follow through on. Already hurt and humiliated, you crawl into the cage.

They lock it behind you and leave without another word. The lights go out with a buzz, casting everything you hadn’t taken in yet in total darkness. 

When the lights come back on, you wish they hadn’t. 

At first, you don’t even realize they’ve flickered to life, because what they’ve revealed isn’t real. 

It’s a big, brown Rorschach blob. It’s an oil spill. It’s moving, in a jerky, fluid way that should be impossible. The limbs have pointed bony joints, and you can only describe the way they crawl as spidery, though they’re thick and bulky. 

Jim is standing on the other side of the gate, holding onto a thick chain that rattles and creaks dangerously as the beast strains against the thick metal band around its neck. He looks bored, but he usually does. 

Cheryl, however. The way her lips are curled, eyes wide and bright… this must be him. 

“Don’t you know what happens to the others? The alphas?” she had teased the night of all the howling. She had laughed at the traitorously dumbfounded look on your face. 

You do now. 

A long pink tongue has unfurled from his massive jaw, flopped over far too many teeth, and dripping thick saliva onto the floor. The… fur, for lack of a better word, around his muzzle is matted with something dark that you can’t look at anymore. 

Jim yanks him by the chain, and the creature lets himself be pulled to the door, barely holding still while the padlock and chain are removed from his collar and the cuffs from his paws. 

He’s at the end of your cage before you realize he’s moved, and you scream, scrambling back as much as you can into the corner. The spaces between the bars are thin enough for just his… good god, are those fingers? They certainly aren’t canine toes. They’re tipped in thick, long claws packed with soil and detritus.

“Hey,” Jim barks, and the beast side-eyes him. “Remember what I fuckin’ told you. You break or eat her? That’s it. I’m not getting you another one.” 

Eat? Eat?  

Oh god.

Your stomach swoops and falls, abdomen clenching and drawing attention to your too-full bladder, unlocking a new fear that you’re going to piss yourself if he comes closer. 

He does. You don’t. But just barely.

That long, dark snout pushes against the cage, as if it could nudge through to reach you, pink tongue lapping against the air. The oak musk is so strong now that it lines your throat and makes you gag.

You choke back a retch-turned-sob and he rumbles, a strange vibration that rattles the bars where he’s pressed against them. He rises, stretching up up up on his hind legs until he towers over your little cube, enveloping you in his shadow, and you can’t help it. You start to cry. 

He can’t reach you, not when you’re tucked back in the corner of your cage. But he can smell you, and he can smell the rich iron soaking into the ropes around your wrists. It’s not yet visible, but the skin squishing through the edges is red and rough. 

He whines, pushing his muzzle against the bars, long tongue flopping out like he can reach. 

The sharp battery acid edge of your fear spikes, and he growls. Stupid girl. Stupid fucking omega. He’s trying to help you, and you’re—you’re— 

You’re starting to cry again. 

He can’t make human words like this, can’t enunciate or even really remember them. He tries to reach you through the bars again, snarling when they burn against his knuckles. Even the distended bony fingers of his full form can’t reach you there, not even with the tip of his claw. 

You’re shaking now, body twitching and jittering beyond your control. Everything inside you is screaming white-hot and dissolving; vomit tickles the base of your throat, and you just can’t stop crying. It hurts; it’s ripping your throat and lungs to shreds. It’s a violent, tumultuous thing, and you can’t stop the wounded keening of your cries. 

He’s pacing in front of your cage now, the beast, on four mangled limbs too long to be canine and too warped to be human. His huffs startle you, long snout returning, again and again, tongue darting out for a taste. 

A little drop of blood slides down your hand from where the rope’s edge cuts into the bottom of your palm.

He freezes, nostrils flaring. You freeze, barely breathing. 

He looks right at you and then tips his head back to howl, the sound like icy water through your veins. 

You can’t help yourself. You scream, broken as your voice is from all the tears. 

Between the cacophony, Jim stomps into the corridor and slams his hand on the wall. “Shut the fuck up, both of you!” 

“Help me,” you yell. 

I’m trying, the wolf howls. 

“Please, please help me,” you gasp, sobs reaching new highs alongside your panic. 

“If you don’t quiet the fuck down, I’ll open up your goddamn cage and let him eat you,” Jim snaps. “I said you were going to be more trouble than you’re worth, and I was fuckin’ right.”

The beast snarls, snapping his sharp teeth at the air. 

Jim regards him with a sneer. “And you! Giving her a heart attack counts as breakin’ her.”

The words don’t make sense, but you don’t really hear them, anyway. “Please, I want to go home, please, please,” you whisper. 

But no one’s listening. 

The Wolf is listening. 

He prowls back and forth on all fours, which really, isn’t any more or less terrifying than when he rises up on his haunches. Neither image capitulates to your need to make it make sense. There is no sense, no logic, no reality that can hold him.

The wolf, for really, that’s what he is, isn’t he? God, you don’t want to say it. Unbidden, a memory works loose in your brain, slipping out of the crates of nonsense stored away in favor of survival, and rattles around.

I know what you are. But you won’t say it. 

Did you bring this upon yourself for reading trashy supernatural romance novels? Did you watch Underworld too many times? Did the shot actually put you in a coma, and you’re living in some kind of nightmare?

The wolf is watching you. There are no whites in his eyes, just pools of gasoline on muddy puddles. 

You close your eyes and pretend you can’t hear the way his claws click against the tile. 

While Laura had fed them stew, she told them about the trials. 

They had been the first. The first taken, before volunteers were called. Before they knew they’d need secure places to hold them, they had been gathered for observation in an old YMCA, packed in racketball courts so the doctors could stand outside the large wall of glass and watch them all at once.

They stood outside that glass and watched them change, in one way or another. The ones who turned, as she called it, went first. The ones who would become test group alpha. More than half of the overall subjects, who became suddenly, violently ill. 

They left them all in there with the rest, waiting, watching them cry out, watching them vomit and sweat and break impossible fevers. Temporal thermometers reading 105, 106, before they’d succumb to unconsciousness. 

If they woke, they were… inhuman. Something more. Something hungry. 

A lot of the first round of test data was lost when the subjects were eaten. But some were lost to the turn. Test group beta, Laura’s brother among them, didn’t survive the fever.

Laura’s husband turned but didn’t lose himself to the beast. Something in him stayed present, alert enough to protect his wife from the others. Or rather, something in her kept him that way. Something that had turned in her too, albeit without the violence, into something more than she’d ever been before. 

“They drove us out of the QZ,” she said, picking idly at a gouge in the table’s surface. “To shoot us where they could burn all the bodies and forget.”

“And what happened?” Tommy asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

“We ate them.”

They come back for him that night but he’s not waiting for them. He’s sat with his big, furry back to you, close enough to the cage that you could pet him. The thought crosses your mind in a moment of delirium. You could stick your fingers through the little bars and feel the coarse hickory hair. You know, if you were clinically insane. 

You’re not about to offer him a little snack. 

He’d given up on reaching you a few hours ago, content to sit there unmoving once your tears dried up. It’s only slightly less terrifying.

But when they take him out, you only get to sit with the relief for a moment. Minutes pass in the dark and silent room, but you regret letting your guard down when footsteps echo through the cavernous halls beyond. 

The Idiot Twins are back, and they’re not taking chances with you this time. Oh, no. When they unlock the cage, you’re faced with the barrel of a handgun that doesn’t leave your temple as they pull you out by your bound hands.

They don’t bother to stand you up or give you a chance to move on your own, just dragging you out of the room and across the hall. You’re sprawled on your stomach across the frigid floor of the new room, with the door slamming shut behind you without so much as a word. 

The rusted pipes on the wall in the beast’s room make more sense now, once you take in your shadowy surroundings. This room has the same shitty tan tile over every inch, but the walls are lined with blue (or what used to be blue) lockers. Not a single one is intact, whether rusted or dented or doorless, but they’re unmistakably lockers. 

There are two lines of seamless benches, though half are rotted to oblivion. But it’ll be a better bed than the floor.

This is practically paradise. There’s a tray by the door that you don’t see for a while, but when you do, you almost cry again. Might have, if you hadn’t spent the day in tears. 

It’s just broth and water, long gone lukewarm and dusty, but you set upon it like a vampire upon a vein. Wait, no, you really don’t want to think about that right now. But it’s not your fault you’ve got monsters on the brain.

Your reprieve is not long. The sun rises. 

The beast returns.

Oh, and he’s pissed that you’re gone, based on the fucking racket that brings you back to the waking world. 

“Oh, did you think you’d been good enough lately for a treat?” Cheryl taunts him. 

The steel doors between you aren’t enough to hide the sounds of his fury. 

“You’ll have her back when you’ve earned her,” she tells him amidst the cacophony of snarling and gnashing. 

It’s ten days before they return you to the cage. Ten days of poking around the abandoned lockers and finding nothing. Ten days of broth delivered at dawn and dusk. Ten days of your back no longer appreciating the bench to stretch out on. 

Ten days of listening to the nonstop scratching and growling and whining from across the hall. And worse. Oh, much worse. Wet squicks and splatters and harsh groans. You’re not sure if he’s eating or masturbating or what, but it sends shivers through your whole body each time. 

It also sends the weird, sticky slick pooling between your thighs, but you ignore that. It’s been happening since the shot, one of the weirder side effects, but it’s gotten downright fucking annoying since you got here.

You try not to think about it. 

It’s not long after they drag you back to the little cage that they drag him into his. For that’s what this room really is, you know that, even if it doesn’t make you feel better about being in there with him. He’s trapped, too, but you’re the one in danger.

They haven’t untied your wrists since the first time, which have blistered and bled and scabbed until the ropes rubbed the scabs raw and started the whole thing all over. 

He smells it before he sees it, any interest in the slippery sweetness on your thighs gone when he tastes the blood in the air. 

Hurt, he whines, though you can’t understand. Help.  

You don’t cry this time, don’t split the sour tang with salt, but the fear and pain and exhaustion are enough to center him. If he tries, if he could just focus…

And there it goes. You watch, mouth agape and eyes blown wide, as he shifts in front of you for the first time. He backs away while it happens until he’s on the other side of the room and sits his very bare ass on his bed. 

You watch the way his bones jerk and his body shakes and cracks and huffs out sharp, agonized grunts until he’s just a man. Just a man, nothing more. Just a beast masquerading. Worse than a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you think, because you know he’s the wolf, but right now? 

He’s just a pathetic, broken human. Bruised and bloodied, though his marks are rapidly fading as the healing takes over, but his face is edged in nothing but pain and sorrow.

“M’not gonna hurt ya,” was the first thing he croaked out. 

You startle, rattling the cage a little, which makes you wince. 

But he stays on the other side of the room. He’s sitting on his mattress, legs bent up and crossed, as if he had anything left to hide. As if you hadn’t seen too much already.

He tries not to think about it, but jesus. It’s a fucking struggle. As he takes you in this way, unclouded by the hazy moon, it still punches him back. Your smell. 

Joel’s never really liked tart things. Too much of a secret sweet tooth, of a deep yearning for the char and depth of anything fresh from the grill. 

But even now, even nearly fully man , he’s salivating at your green apple tang. Of uncovering the sweet ‘n sour burst of you on his tongue. Of letting his sharp teeth fall sharper through the tough act you fail to wear right, too bruised and soft underneath. 

To feel the way you’d give beneath him. The way you’d spill down his chin. No. He has to get a fuckin’ handle on himself. He can’t even look at you, not now that he knows you can smell the salt of his own slick where his swollen cock sits sobbing, neglected and furious. 

“I’m not,” he protests against your silence. 

He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. 

But he doesn’t stay himself for long. Not after he thinks instead, suddenly, of autumn. Of the sweet smell of the orchard. Of taking Tommy’s truck up up up into the places where seasons meant something. 

The roads sprawled like veins and they followed them with no end just to see the way the trees curled overhead, branches reaching and burning with dying leaves—a sight so devastating that Joel considered leaving Texas behind for somewhere he could start to take this beauty for granted. 

Chasing the colors led them first to a field of corn, blustering amber in the setting sun. They had returned the next day, fresh from the motel with burnt coffee and warm flannels, parting with precious dollars for the privilege of picking pumpkins and apples and a little corn husk doll. 

He’d have paid every cent ten times over to see Sarah smile like that again. 

This is where the man breaks and bows out. Where the wolf at its weakest is still stronger than Joel. He gives in, gives into the grief, gives into the wolf, and shifts back. He stays curled up on his bed, though, and doesn’t look at you.

He doesn’t speak to you again for a month.

[mermaidgirl30]

the art of breaking (dark!joel miller x f!reader; dead dove do not eat)

very dark!Joel Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 10k

Summary: Your meeting is happenstance, but everything that follows? Well, that’s all Joel. He just knows you’re going to be his perfect little toy. He just has to show you how.

written for the #deaddovedecember2023 event hosted by @romana-after-dark | also on ao3 | dedicating this to @kewwrites, who is a master and icon of unsettling-but-still-romantic dark fic & whose incredible vibes made me feel brave enough to write this. love you ty 🖤

dividers by @saradika-graphics

NOTE: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.

Seriously, I am saying this as clearly as I can: read the warnings carefully. If anything listed is something you don’t want to read, don’t. The working title for this was “the darkest joel” for a reason (and I actually tamed it down/cut out some of the intense scenes). It’s modern-day/no outbreak, but Joel still lost Sarah and went off the deep end. He was probably a good dom at some point, but now he’s just fucked up.

If you're worried it'll be too dark, it probably will be.

Warnings under the cut:

Warnings: dead dove do not eat, non-con, dub-con, very dark!Joel, BAD bdsm etiquette, not SSC/RACK compliant, sadist!Joel x masochist!reader, coercion, corruption, manipulation, isolation, gaslighting, captivity, sadism, masochism, pain play, extreme punishment, semi-permanent damage (a bone is broken, I’m not fucking around), whipping, spanking, face slapping, tit slapping, impact play in general, mentions of vomit (no description), oral, anal, vaginal, degradation, humiliation, overstimulation, edging, denial, dacryphilia, bastinado (mentioned), restraints, very brief knifeplay, tiny drop of blood play, Joel sees reader as property, inadequate aftercare 

Again, I cannot say this enough. This is a dark fantasy and should not be taken as representative of a good d/s relationship—it’s abuse masquerading. Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I’m condoning it. 

Please read responsibly. 

I. in media res

     -the fracture

There’s one comfort Joel almost never denies you.

Well, never denies himself.

Unless you’ve been real bad, you always take your place in bed with him at the end of the day. You think it’s so he has easy access to you if he wakes up horny, but honestly, that happens a lot less than expected. He works hard all day; he needs his sleep.

No, he likes the comfort of your warm body next to his. The way you curl up and press kisses to him, no matter how bad he hurt you during the day. His sweet little pet, desperate for every bit of his affection you can earn. He’s always gentle with you here.

It’s part of what makes The Pit so effective.

It fucks with your brain on so many levels, exposes you to so many fears, and then you have to reconcile that you were bad enough for Joel to deny himself the comfort of you in his arms at night. That you’re so undeserving of his love.

Of all of the ways he punishes you, this will be the worst. You can take the humiliation, the pain—not easily, but you can, and there’s usually immediate care after.

But a night in The Pit will tear you down completely.

You hadn’t known what to expect when he said you’d have to spend the night alone, but it wasn’t this.

“No, please,” you scream, stumbling to keep up as Joel pulls you by your hair.

“Shut up,” he snarls.

The soil is loose, clinging to your sweat as you try to right yourself. It’s a futile effort. When you reach The Pit, he holds you down with his boot on your chest while he unlocks and opens the bars.

“Get in,” he says.

You’re sobbing and shaking, skin already gone cold. Somehow, you manage to obey.

The Pit is exactly what it sounds like. It has an open wooden frame with mesh on the side walls to keep the dirt in place. The bottom is bare soil. Mounted to the top of the beams is a grate of bars that sit flush with the ground.

It’s big enough for you to curl up at the bottom—which is what you do now.

“I’m sorry,” you cry.

He shuts and locks the gate.

II. from the start

     -intact

It was kismet, really, that he was there that night. He didn’t usually go out for drinks with the guys, not wanting to be the boss who was always cramping their style. But Tommy had dragged him out tonight, and so he was witness (with the rest of the pub) to your relationship falling apart.

And okay, maybe he went outside for a smoke after you moved the fight to the alley so he could eavesdrop. But it wasn’t his fault. How could he not?

You had said, “Maybe you’re just not man enough for me,” to the brawny but pathetic prick across from you in the booth. “Wanting you to be rough doesn’t make me a freak.”

“That’s not rough; that’s fuckin’ abuse. You’re sick,” your boyfriend had practically shouted.

The discussion evolved into a screaming match in the alley, where Joel had been pleased to be right. It was about more than just a little rough sex or spanking.

At the end of it, your boyfriend stormed off, and you went back in the pub. Joel found you at the bar, throwing back another shot and wiping your tears away.

“You did good back there,” he says.

You startle and look at the stranger. The very handsome stranger. Rugged, with a salt and pepper beard and a scar across his nose.

“What do you mean?”

“Standin’ up for yourself. Not a lot of people woulda been confident enough. ‘Specially not a girl lookin’ for that.”

You glare at the bar counter. “M’not a weirdo.”

“Nah, you’re not. Shit like that is perfectly normal. He’s just pathetic.”

You look back up at him, and he sticks one hand in his pocket, trying to adjust himself discreetly. The tear streaks on your cheeks are getting to him.

“I don’t know. He’s probably right. It’s not your garden variety shit,” you say. The tequila and his gentle eyes have loosened your tongue.

“I doubt that. Try me,” he says.

“What?”

“Try me. Tell me what he freaked out over, and I’ll tell ya if it’s weird. Trust me, I’ve seen it all.”

You hesitate, but he looks genuine and kind. “I asked him to hit me. Like, in the face. And to, y’know, pin me down and—” you trail off.

“And make ya take it?” he guesses.

You nod. “He thought I like, I dunno, actually wanted to be raped,” you whisper the last word, eyes darting to the people around you.

Joel laughs. “Honey, that’s so normal, you wouldn’t believe. I’ve helped ladies out with that little roleplay more times than I can count. If that’s your deepest, darkest fantasy, and he couldn’t take it, then you’re better off without him.”

“It’s not,” you mumble.

“Speak up, honey.”

“It’s not my deepest, darkest fantasy. It’s probably one of the least of them.”

He grins. “Then you’re definitely better off. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with likin’ things on the darker side, sweetheart.”

You’re feeling hot all over and are about to ask him more when your phone rings. It’s your idiot boyfriend, who’s realized you have the car keys.

“I better go. Thank you,” you say, standing and offering him your hand.

He gives it a firm shake, tipping his head. “I’m Joel. And if you’re ever so inclined, I’d like to take you out sometime.”

You laugh. “Let me break up with my boyfriend first, Joel.” But you dig a pen out of your purse and write your number on one of the tiny bar napkins.

Your first date was so normal. You’re not sure what you expected. To jump right to hardcore sex?

But no, he turns up at your door in a neatly pressed green button-up, black slacks, and an ostentatious belt buckle. He greets you with a kiss on the cheek and a bouquet of wildflowers, lavender stalks nestled between pink honeysuckle and red salvia. Not a traditional arrangement, but it reminds you of a summer sunset.

“From my garden,” he says a little sheepishly, but you like them a lot better than some generic store display. You tell him as much and his cheeks flush a little.

You return the kiss and pop the flowers in a vase of water before he sweeps you off in his pickup. You aren’t surprised, really, but it’s more charming than some of the other men and their gaudy trucks.

Joel’s is older but well-kept, with minimal rusting around the wheel wells. The bed is open, and you can see streaks of grease and paint spills. A silver tool chest is mounted against the back of the cab. Everything inside and out has a light coating of sawdust.

He isn’t some insecure man with a truck big enough to make up for what isn’t in his britches, that’s for certain. You’d hazard a guess that the corded muscle of his forearms and the breadth of his shoulders are well-earned.

He holds the door open for you, which you tease him for as you slide onto the truck’s bench seat.

“Ain’t doin’ it ‘cause you’re incapable,” he drawls. “Or because you’re a lady,” he adds when he sees the glint in your eye.

“Oh yeah, cowboy?”

His grin is lopsided, a little dark. “Nah. I just think you deserve to be taken care of, s’all.”

You flush, the back of your neck burning, but you don’t fight the smile that threatens to break out. “Thank you, Joel.”

He shakes his head. He’s pretty sure, now, that if he plays his cards right, he’s found somethin’ special.

He waits three whole dates to take you to bed, and even then, it doesn’t start dirty.

“Let me get to know your body first, baby,” he urges when you ask him to fuck you rough. Instead, he takes you apart piece by piece. First with his tongue, and then his fingers. He brings you to the edge over and over, but never lets you fall.

After a while, you’re a broken record, pleas and sobs spilling from you.

“That’s music to my ears, darlin’,” he says, pulling his fingers out abruptly to see how your cunt throbs for him. He spits on your clit and watches it drip down to join the mess between your thighs.

“Please, please, Joel,” you beg.

“Please who now?”

“Please, sir,” you try, and are rewarded with his sharp grin. But not with an orgasm.

He slaps your cunt. “That’s more like it, baby. You remember who you’re talkin’ to, alright?”

You nod. “Yes, sir; thank you, sir.”

He shakes his head, sucking on your clit for a moment before pulling back to get a good look at you. “You do like a little pain, huh?”

“Would like more,” you say.

“Oh yeah? What would you let me do to you?”

“Anything, please, sir.”

He clicks his tongue at you. “Don’t go sayin’ that to someone you barely know. It’s okay to mean it when you trust somebody, but you’re gonna end up in more trouble than you bargain for if you pass that out like candy.”

“I do mean it.”

“Yeah? You’ll let me do this?” His open palm smacks across your face, leaving a sting tingling on your cheek and a lightness to your brain.

Tears spring to your eyes, but you nod frantically.

“What about this?” he grabs a nipple in his calloused fingers and yanks, twisting.

You yelp, but it trails off to a moan, and you nod.

“Goddamn, baby. S’good. But what about this?” He flicks open the switchblade he keeps in his pocket.

You jerk and whine, eyes wide and wet as he brings it to your breast. Your breathing falls shallow as you try to hold still, the point scraping the delicate skin as he circles it. But the look you’re giving him almost has him cumming in his pants like he were twenty years younger.

“Fuck, you weren’t kidding. I mean, you’ve gotta have limits; everyone does. But you just want me to hurt you, huh?” He digs the tip of the blade in a little on the side of your breast, cock throbbing as you gasp, and you both watch a tiny drop of blood bead and trickle down the blade.

He puts it away. “No,” he says when you whimper. “Not today. I ain’t prepared for all that.”

Joel doesn’t like to break his toys. Not permanently. Just enough that he can put them back together how he likes and then do it all over again.

“Don’t need to be prepared; just do it,” you whine.

He slaps you again and wrenches your head up with a hand in your hair. “First of all, I fuckin’ told you no. Second, I know you want to be a stupid little cunt for me, but I’m not about to cut you open without any goddamn first aid shit.”

He leans back and smacks the breast he had cut. He hits you over and over, alternating sides, until your chest burns, and you’re sobbing.

He looks you over briefly and then shoves his hand between your thighs. “You’re wetter than a slip ‘n slide, baby.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” you whisper.

“I know,” he says, and wipes the tears from your cheek with his thumb. He feels your cunt twitch when he brings his thumb to his mouth and sucks it clean.

It’s the last straw for him. He’s not opened you enough, but he has a feeling you’ll like it better this way anyway.

You cry out, back arching when he shoves into you. He meant to go slow, he really did, if only to drag out the anticipation. But you’re so warm. So wet. So he just stuffs himself inside.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe you love the pain; it’s just that he can’t resist feeling the evidence for himself. He slaps you across the face while you’re still processing his cock, and the resulting clench and jerk of your body drag a moan from him.

He holds back, regulates his urge to pull each whimper and scream from you, but it’s still so fucking good. It’s been a long time since he’s doled out real cruelty to a slut like you who loves to suffer.

When he finally lets you cum, it’s when he’s about to. He pulls out and spanks your cunt, granting his permission. As your pussy flutters desperately around nothing, he cums on it, watching the way it gets prettier as he paints it.

You black out for a minute. When you come to, he’s wiping you down gently with a warm washcloth, wicking the sweat off your face and chest before cleaning his cum from your curls. You whimper, and he grins, leaning over to steal a kiss.

Even after that first night, he goes slow. He can’t scare ya, not while you still have someplace to run. Plus, it’s so much easier if he starts planting the seeds for your training now.

He knows you’ll beg for it, anyway. He’s been getting the nastiest text messages from you. Part of it is the dopamine; he’s not stupid. But part of you really wants this shit. And the rest? Well. You’ll get there.

It’s the little things. He orders you a black decaf at the drive-thru when you ask for a latte. You start to correct him, like you think he’s made a mistake, but he gives you a look, and you shut your mouth immediately.

When he pulls away from the speaker, you look over at him again. “Sorry,” you mumble.

“Sorry…?”

You squirm a little, heart pounding, unsure if he’s really doing this at the Dunkin’ Donuts. “Sorry, sir.”

He smiles and rubs his hand on your thigh where it peeks out from your skirt. “Thanks, baby.”

And that’s all it takes. You take the cup when he hands it to you and you’re quick to say, “Thank you, sir,” even though the kid at the window is still passing things through to Joel and can clearly hear you.

     -fissured

It goes on like that for a couple of months, but it doesn’t all go so smoothly. One night, he picks you up from work and takes you to a restaurant, saying he wants to treat you. Halfway through the meal, he asks for your panties.

“What?” you say, shocked at his vulgar language in the dining room.

“Take ‘em off and hand ‘em to me.”

You go to stand, probably thinking you can go to the bathroom to obey.

He shakes his head, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Right here, right now, baby.”

“Joel,” you hiss, sitting back down, “I can’t do that.”

He fixes you with a calm smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, raising one finger in the air. “I’ll give ya three choices. The first one, the one I’m going to advise you pick, is that you do it right now, and I’ll only punish ya for talkin’ back.”

“The second one,” he holds up another finger for emphasis, “is you can go to the bathroom to take ‘em off, but you’re gonna pay for it when we get home. The third one is where you don’t listen, we leave right now, and you learn to fuckin’ regret it.”

Your breathing is shallow, and your pretty eyes are shining. If he wasn’t fully hard before, he is now.

“I-I can’t,” you whimper. “Please, sir.”

“You got about thirty seconds to make up your mind.” The softness is gone—from his voice, from his face, from the set of his shoulders.

“Fuck,” you whisper, and you stand up. You’re only in the bathroom for a minute, and when you sit back down, you try to hand them to him under the table.

“Nah, that was only a choice if you were good,” he says, smirking and laying his expectant hand on the white linens.

Mortified, you ball them up tight in your fist and press them into his hand. He slides them into his pants pocket.

He doesn’t say anything else about it for the rest of dinner, asking instead about your projects at work and your visit with your parents over the holidays. You feel sick, barely eating a thing, and biting your lip to stave off the tears.

As soon as you’re in the truck, you start to cry. “I’m sorry, I was just scared and—”

“Shut up. You made your choice. You’re not sorry. You’re just afraid of the consequences.”

“N-no, I am sorry, I mean it.”

“You’re gonna have to prove it.” He doesn’t look at you on the drive home, doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t even turn the radio on; just listens to you sniffle.

When he parks, he sets his hand on your thigh. “Don’t worry, baby. I know you can be my good girl. All you gotta do is take your punishment and learn from it, okay?”

You sniffle again and nod, blinking through tear-laden lashes at him.

“So pretty when you cry for me,” he murmurs. He gets out and comes around to open your door, offering a hand to help you step down from the tall truck. You take it, and he holds on, leading you inside his house.

He sits sprawled on the couch, thighs parted wide to make room and waits until you’re comfortably kneeling between his legs. You’re sat in silence, head bowed, arms folded behind your back.

“Tell me what you did wrong today.”

This is a first, but not a last. Even on days when nothing egregious has happened, you will follow this ritual. He’ll ask for your sins, and you’ll confess. There will always be something you’ll owe him for.

“I argued when you gave me orders. I was disobedient.”

“Anything else I need to know about, baby?”

“No, sir.”

“Why’d you argue?”

“I was afraid. I’m sorry.”

“Save your grovelin’ for after, baby. Why were you afraid?”

“I didn’t want people to see. I didn’t want to get kicked out or arrested.”

“You think I’d let anything happen to you? You think I would have given you an order that put either of us at any kinda risk?”

Your face burns. “I—”

“I thought you trusted me.” He sounds hurt, and you’re a little nauseous when you look up to see his eyes wide and sad, lips turned into a wounded scowl.

Your shoulders slump. “I didn’t think. I panicked.”

“Hmm. Okay, I can work with that.”

You look up at him, brow scrunched and lips pouting as you try to parse his words.

He smiles. It’s cold, and his eyes are steel.

You swallow hard, and his grin widens, quirking into a smirk.

“Alright, baby. I got just the thing.”

He leads you into the ensuite. You kneel on the little rug by the tub while he fills it. You’re too afraid to ask what’s happening, so you just sit quietly. He leaves the room and doesn’t come back until the tub is nearly full, and you’re starting to worry that you were supposed to be monitoring it.

He comes back in, and once it’s nearing the lip of the tub, he turns off the faucet. He has you kneel on the top of the three steps leading up to the edge. It’s the most luxurious thing in this house, and you suspect he installed it custom so he could soak his aching muscles.

He bends you over the edge so you’re leaning close to the water and crouches down behind you. It’s a pleasant surprise when he spreads you wide and licks from your clit to your asshole.

He stays there for a few minutes, indulging in your wet cunt and the cries it draws from your lips. After he’s had his fill, he stands up and lubes up his cock before pushing his way into your ass. He’s generous with the lube but rarely preps you, since you both like it better when it hurts.

You’re writhing a little beneath him, wriggling your hips to try to ease the passage. Once he’s fully seated inside you, he grabs the back of your head and shoves it under the water before fucking hard into you.

You thrash, displacing water from the tub, until he yanks you back up.

You gasp for air and scrabble to get a grip on the wet tile, but he pushes you back down and groans at how tight you get while you’re struggling.

He pulls you roughly back up. “Gonna keep going until you stop makin’ a fuss.”

You go to protest, to panic, and he pushes you back down.

The next time he pulls you out, he spanks you until your skin is burning. “Fuckin’ trust me. You think I’m gonna let you drown?”

“No, sir,” you cry, but it’s garbled as he pushes you back down. You’re still fighting him each time.

He pulls you back out and repeats the beating. “Relax, or we’re gonna be here all night.”

He continues the process a few more times and then gives you a reprieve, letting go of your hair so you can rest your cheek against the cold edge of the tub while he pounds into you. He reaches and rubs featherlight circles around your clit until you’re softly moaning.

“You gonna trust me?”

“I’m trying, my body panics,” you pant.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to ya. You hear me? You know you’re panicking, so focus on me instead.”

“Yes, sir.”

It shouldn’t make sense, but you think he’s long warped your brain anyway. The next time he pushes you underwater, you clench your fists tight and focus on what oxygen you do have, even if he knocks a little out with each thrust.

His hand in your hair is your anchor and buoy. You tense when you feel your body start to jerk, trying so hard to control it.

He pulls you up. “Just like that, baby. Again.”

It gets just a little easier each time. He leaves you under longer, until your lungs are burning, and you’re on the edge of gasping in water, but he pulls you out in time.

“Fuck, you’re doing so well.” He’s a little fascinated. He hadn’t really been sure it could be done or if your survival instincts would go into a frenzy. But here you are, letting him almost fucking drown you.

Not that he would.

Despite being balls deep in your tight little asshole, he isn’t trying to reach his orgasm. Not yet, staving off his pleasure so he can keep a clear head.

He keeps it up just a little longer. You’re getting tired and tolerating less and less time underwater. The last time he pulls you up, he pinches your clit and tells you to cum while he fills you.

He dunks you again while you cum, and you clamp down on him tighter than you have before, convulsing on his cock. When he pulls you back up, you’re gasping and sobbing. He pulls out and wraps you in a towel, easing you to the wet floor while he cleans up.

When he comes back to you, he helps you stand and dry off, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“So?”

Your brow furrows. It’s not what he usually asks after a punishment, but you think you know what he means. “I’m sorry. I trust you, I promise.”

“I know. M’so proud of you for taking that. You’re turning out so nicely, sweet thing.”

In the morning, you’re almost late to work after sucking him off when you should have been getting dressed. He’s about to walk out the door to head to the site when he hears your frustrated voice from the bedroom.

“Joel, where are my underwear? I need to fuckin’ leave.”

“I told you, baby. There was a price to pay when you picked the bathroom. Y’ain’t wearing ‘em anymore.”

“What?”

He doesn’t need to see you to smirk at the shocked expression he knows is on your face. “We’ll talk about it more tonight; I gotta run.”

     -avulsed

“Y’know, baby,” Joel says, leaning forward to rub your shoulder. “They just don’t fuckin’ appreciate you.”

You’re bent over, elbows on your knees, crying with your face buried in your hands. You sit up and sniffle, wiping the tears. “It’s fine; it’s not like I need to be coddled at work.”

All the stress of the PR world is getting to you, and you hate it, you fucking hate it, but you dropped 50k on a degree, so now you’re stuck.

“But they make you work all this overtime, cut your team in half, and then berate you when you can’t meet the client’s deadline? You do not deserve that, baby.”

You let him coax you into his lap, facing him so you can bury your face in his soft, worn tee. He rubs your back and holds your head to his chest.

“You’re too good to me,” you mumble.

“Nah, darlin’, I’ve told ya a thousand times. You deserve to be taken care of.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head. “I, well. I was thinkin’...”

You wait, but when he doesn’t pick back up, you sit up and look at him.

“I dunno. It’s nothin’,” he says.

“Please tell me?”

“Alright, fine. Now, I don’t want ya to feel any pressure. It’s just a thought. But maybe you should just quit and stay with me a while, ‘till you can find something better?”

You can’t tell if he’s joking. He must see something on your face, because he tips your chin up so you’re looking into his eyes.

“I know it’s sudden, but I mean it. Let me take care of ya while you figure shit out. We don’t gotta treat it like living together if y’ain’t ready. But I’d be open to that conversation, too.”

It doesn’t take much more than that. The first couple weeks, he lets you give it a try—searching for new degree programs, applying for jobs you know you’re overqualified for just to try something different.

After nothing pans out, he suggests you both take a week off. Him from work and you from the burden of trying to escape unemployment. Just relax, like a little staycation.

It’s bliss. You go on dates, eat pizza and marathon the “Jurassic Park” movies, and fuck like crazy.

On the third night, he sits you down. On his cock, of course. While you’re bouncing and brainless, he cups your cheek. “Baby, you’ve been too damn stressed still. What if we… well, what if we tried out a day or two like we’ve been talking about?”

Sometimes, you whisper to him in the darkness, usually while he’s balls deep, how you wish you could be his all the time. His good girl. His pet. And he whispers back, lures you right in with promises of taking care of everything, of you not having a worry or care in the world. Just him.

Now, he fondles your tits while he murmurs to you. “We can just wake up together, and I can take care of ya. Everything you need, baby. All you’d have to do is be good for me, yeah?”

You moan and grind down harder on his cock. “Please, sir. I want it more than anything. Just to be yours.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Joel had no patience for brats, so he usually broke his toys in sooner into the training process. He liked ‘em nice and obedient—scared, if that’s what it took, but devoted. But you had been from the start—you wanted to be good in all the ways you could never seem to be to other people. Your family, your job, the world seemed to just demand more and more.

Joel was the first person to make you feel like you had actually, really, truly pleased him. There wasn’t a higher mark you should have made. There wasn’t any expectation for you to give more and more.

His orders were complete, always. You learned that very quickly. Attempts to go above and beyond were rebuked.

“If I wanted that, I woulda said so,” he told you. And like everything else, you committed his words to memory.

It helped that he gave praise freely. You didn’t have to wonder if he was satisfied, if you should have licked him differently, if you should have made prettier faces while you came. He reassured you until you believed him, and then kept going anyway.

It made it easier for him to slowly peel you away from the ungrateful world.

“You don’t have to take that,” he’d say after watching your face fall further and further while on the phone with your mom. “Family ain’t supposed to make you feel like shit.”

They made it too easy, really, and your relationship with them would have likely just fizzled out. But in the end, he had to step in and snap it off.

You asked him to come with you to dinner at their house. He was hesitant. He wasn’t really the boyfriend type. He wasn’t really even your boyfriend. That was too weird a word for either of you, not when he owned you.

But he knows you didn’t want to go alone, and he has a feeling he’ll be cleaning up the mess anyway.

You want to give them a chance. Things have been so tense, and they said they missed you. But they didn’t even make it through the entrée without ridiculing you.

When your father asks how work is going, you quietly confess to quitting, hastily reassuring them that you are looking for a new position. Though, and you keep this part to yourself, you maybe haven’t been trying that hard.

“What do you mean you quit? How are you paying your bills? You better not have come here to ask for money,” your father says, setting down his fork to glare at you.

“Well, I’ve been living with Joel,” you mumble to the tablecloth.

“I didn’t raise you to be a gold digger,” your mother chides.

Joel tries to bite his tongue and let them dig their own graves. But your father calls you a “fucking whore,” and he can’t stand it. Can’t stand the way you’re cowering in your chair, fighting back tears.

“You watch your mouth,” Joel snaps at your father.

You look up, mouth agape, eyes darting from Joel to your parents.

“Mind your business,” your dad tells him.

Joel stands up and throws his napkin on the table. “She is my fuckin’ business. I wouldn’t stand by and let anyone talk to her like that. You’re not an exception just because you managed to get it up long enough to cum in your wife.”

“Joel,” you whisper, tugging at his sleeve. You’re burning, melting on the spot, from the vulgar way he’s talking to them. For him, someone who’s always strict about manners and proper hospitality, to talk back like this? God, you think, he must really love you.

He puts a hand on the back of your neck and holds firmly as you lean into it. He rounds back on your parents. “You treat her like fuckin’ dirt beneath your feet, and I’m tired of it. You don’t deserve the fuckin’ dirt beneath her feet.”

He shoves his chair back and grabs your hand. “C’mon, baby; we’re leaving.”

You take it and stand up, letting him pull you along. Your father follows you into the foyer, and you try not to look at him while you shove your shoes on.

Joel holds your coat out while you slip into it, and you tune out whatever your dad is yelling now. You don’t want to hear it; you know it’s nasty, and your whole world has narrowed to Joel anyway.

He holds out the key. “Go wait in the truck, baby.”

And you do.

He comes out about five minutes later, red-faced and huffing with fury. He doesn’t say a word when he gets in; just throws the truck into reverse and pulls away. You both ignore the blood on his knuckles.

Once you’re on the road, he looks over at you and sighs. “C’mere, sweetheart.”

You unbuckle and slide over to the middle seat, tucking your hand between his warm body to curl around his arm. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“Whaddya sorry for? None of that was your fault.” He kisses the top of your head and cups your cheek at the stoplight. “It was gonna happen eventually, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

The rest of the ride home is silent while you breathe in his comforting musk and try to relax. But the tension is unrelenting, the horrible rotting feeling eating away at your spine.

He knows. Knows what you need, knows what he can do to seal this moment forever. He waits until he’s unzipping the pretty little cocktail dress you’d stressed over.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs, breaking away from where he was sucking his claim down your neck to swap out your delicate necklace with his collar.

He unhooks the bra and kisses the marks he left behind with the cane, your penance for being allowed to wear it. It leaves you bare to him, and his hands turn greedy. He presses biting kisses against your lips while digging fingers into your bruises, swallowing your whimpers.

He grabs you by the neck and squeezes the sides of your throat, holding you to him while your vision blurs. When he lets go, you stumble, but his arm around your back holds you upright. He slaps your face with quick, sharp blows in rapid succession to keep you unsteady.

“Knees, hands behind your head,” he says, and lets go.

You fall but are quick to right yourself and take the position. He wastes no time, giving you another harsh smack before grabbing your hair and shoving his cock into your throat.

You choke and gag but keep your hands in place even as your head spins. You feel limp and grateful that he doesn’t seem to require any effort from you as he uses you without mercy.

“Look at you. You’ve got my whole cock down your throat. You’re so fuckin’ good for me.”

Your eyes are already glazed over, and you moan your appreciation around him.

He pulls out and hauls you to your feet. “I know what you need, sweetheart. Get your ass downstairs.”

He fucks you, beats you, uses you wherever he wants. But the basement is where he keeps the heavy equipment and where you know you’re about to have your mind and body pushed to the absolute limit.

You’re ready, he thinks, when he gets down and finds you waiting perfectly in place for him, eyes wide like he’s descended from on high. He jerks a thumb to the wooden post, and you meet him there.

“Forget about what they want you to be,” he murmurs as he closes the steel cuffs around your ankles. “You know what you want, baby. Right?”

“Mhm,” you nod, already slipping away into that safe place only Joel can get you to.

“What do you want to be?” he asks, binding your arms up over your head to the eye bolt at the top of the post.

“Yours.” It’s half-whisper, half-whine.

“Yeah? You just wanna be mine? You don’t want to get a new job?”

“No,” you finally confess. “But—”

“But what, baby? If you say somethin’ about money or bills, I’m gonna be mighty unhappy.”

You bite your lip. “I’m scared one day, you’ll wake up and not want me anymore.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, sweetheart. You think I put all this work into helpin’ you, into teaching you how to be mine, just to toss ya out? You’re hurtin’ my feelings.”

“I’m sorry,” you say automatically.

He slides a silicone cock into the bracket lined right up with your mouth. It’s a fairly standard size, since he knows you’re going to thrash around and doesn’t want you gagging too much and throwing up.

Your torso gets tied to the post by your tits, the wood nestled between them and rope woven around. Securing you there forces your head onto the toy, but he doesn’t make you take it all the way. You keep your mouth open and don’t move closer or further, waiting for his command.

“Suck on it whenever you’d like. You’re going to need it.”

Your eyes roll back a little at his promise. If he thinks you’re going to need something in your mouth to self-soothe, you’re in for an absolutely amazing time.

“Focus on me. That’s all you’ll need to do from now on, baby. No more worries in that pretty little head, okay?”

The first strike is a warm-up. When you feel the lash of his favorite whip lick your ass, you moan. It’s a moderately short signal whip that he wields like a fucking pro. His warmups are quick but thorough, and you’re squirming when he moves on to your thighs and shoulders.

“Already?” he says, laughing when you whine around the silicone cock.

You’re absentmindedly sucking on it when he starts a harsher assault. A particularly sharp strike stings at the valley where your ass meets your thighs, and you yelp, jerking a little and gagging yourself on the dildo.

His smirk burns into your back as the cry melts into a moan, and you writhe a little, trying to get friction where you need it most. What you get, though, is the tip of the whip against your cunt.

By the time he moves around to your tits, they’re covered in spit, heaving with the effort of holding back your orgasm. He comes up to you first, and pinches at your nipples.

“Aw, does my dumb little cunt want to cum?” He croons, tugging and twisting until you moan. He laughs when all you can get out is a muffled “mhm.”

“Tell ya what. You can cum all you want while I hurt you tonight, okay?”

He punctuates it with a particularly cruel pinch, and that, combined with his permission, is all you need to let the pleasure shudder through you.

“Yeah? You gonna get off to being my little toy? Gonna let me do whatever I want?”

You moan around the fake cock, easing it further into your throat.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He doesn’t give a warm-up on your tits, figuring you’re already so far gone it doesn’t fuckin’ matter.

He’s right. The first lash is harsh, a welt blooming across the top of your breast in its wake, but you groan, trying to press your cunt up against the post for any relief.

You don’t need it, though. He brings you to your peak again with the skilled flick of his wrist, landing blows across the fat of your breasts. He waits until you’re mid-orgasm to bring the whip hard across your nipples.

The resulting wail almost makes him cum in his pants. He does it only twice more, relishing in your agony, but restraining himself from just letting loose. Not with the whip, as much as he’d like to. Maybe later with a flogger.

Once he’s taken it as far as he’s willing to risk, he moves back around to give the rest of you the same treatment. The hardest hits push you over the edge, and by the time his arm is getting tired, you’re sobbing and writhing in your restraints, overstimulated in every way.

He unlatches your ankles first, helping you find steady footing before untying your wrists and torso. You drop to your knees and open your mouth, throat aching for his cock after the tease of the toy.

He doesn’t have the willpower to torment you by denying it tonight. Instead, he nearly pops the button off his jeans in his urgency to pull his cock out and shove it as far down your throat as he can.

Your arms find their place behind your back, and you just take it. He fucks into you without restraint. It’s filthy, from the mess you’re making to the wet choking sounds he pushes out of you with each thrust.

You’re shaking, and he pulls out abruptly.

“I said while I’m hurting you. You don’t get to just cum from getting facefucked.”

“Then hurt me, please,” you sob. It’s right there; you’re so close.

He slaps you across the face and laughs as you cum, shoving back into your throat while you’re still riding out the aftershocks.

He pulls back out, and you whine until he yanks you up by the bicep and pushes you over to the padded bench, bending you over it and shoving into your sopping cunt.

“Still disappointed?” he teases.

“N-no,” you pant. “Please hurt me.”

“Beg me properly, greedy little cunt.”

You clench around him just at the words, but obey. “Please, sir, please hurt me so I can cum. Please.”

“I’ve been hurtin’ you all night, baby,” he says, voice thick with false pity. “Don’t you want me to be gentle with you now?” He can feel how hard you’re trying not to cum as he mocks you.

“No,” you sob. “No, love me, hurt me, please.”

It’s got an edge of desperation and heartbreak to it that he just loves.

He smacks your already bruising ass until you sob harder, shaking uncontrollably as you cum. He wraps his hands around your throat and fucks you through it until he cums, hips stuttering, and filling your cunt with his spend.

He lets himself collapse a little on top of you, pinning you with his weight against the bench with his softening cock still buried in you. “Feel loved now?”

You’re still crying, and when he folds his arms around your chest, elbows resting on the table, you cling to him. “Love you,” you murmur over and over, pressing kisses up and down his forearms.

He nuzzles his face into your neck, kissing and sucking at you. “I know, baby. You know I love ya.” He’s half-hard—not something that happens a lot anymore at his age, so he’s not gonna waste it. He pulls out just to manhandle you up onto the bench on your back, climbing up between your legs and shoving back in.

It’s a little sloppy until he’s fully hard again; your combined cream making things a little too slippery. Once he’s erect, though, he sets a punishing pace, folding you in half with your legs up by your ears. He works your clit with his hand, relishing in the way you’re fucking exhausted and overstimulated, but your poor clit’s been neglected. It means he can twist and pull on it, tugging until you give him more and more, until you’re sobbing for mercy that you know you’ll never get.

He doesn’t ease up until he pulls out to cum over your tits and face.

“Mine,” he snarls, shoving his fingers into your swollen cunt and feeding you what’s left of his first orgasm and your… well, he’s not really sure how many. A fuckin’ lot. “You’re all mine. Little fuckin’ toy to do whatever I want, right?”

You’re still gasping for breath, having been half-suffocated in that position, but when you look at him, it’s like he’s a fucking god. “Yes, sir.”

     -broken

The day had started out fine.

He’d laid out a dress for you to wear. Sometimes, he made you go around bare for a while, just to fuck with your head a little, but he prefers to unwrap you like a present.

Plus, the sight of you crawling around in nothing but a slutty, barely-there dress is picture-fuckin’-perfect. He’d know; he’s got a bunch of ‘em on his phone.

And crawl, you do. You haven’t been allowed to walk further than a couple of feet in a long time. There’s penance to be paid if you can’t avoid it.

Joel collects your penance whenever possible, gathering what’s owed for your sins and dealing out forgiveness when it's settled. It’s how he shows his love.

And he does love you. How could he not? Such a perfect little toy. He’s spent so much time training you right to be his prized possession.

He knew it’d happen eventually, so when you commit one of the worst offenses, he has to make it count. You were testing your limits, of course; he had expected it. He had expected it months ago. It was worse now, after you’d been so good and earned so much trust. But now that you’d been nothing but his for two months, you had finally fucked up.

Your punishments were never painful. Okay, they weren’t pain-focused. Sometimes, he had to put you over his knee to let his frustration out before he could give you a proper punishment. But the pain wasn’t the point—you both liked it too damn much. No matter how much farther he took it than a regular session, and no matter how sick you were with guilt, you were always a soaking wet mess after a beating.

This time would have to be different, though.

It was time to finally break you.

He knew as soon as he got home. Not the particulars, but that you’d made a huge mistake.

On the surface, nothing was amiss. You were knelt by the door in your pretty little dress, a short number in navy blue. You had your head down and arms folded behind your back in perfect posture.

But something was off. It didn’t feel like you were happy he was home. And he was pretty sure there would only be one reason for that.

He hung up his keys but didn’t bother to take off his shoes, coming to stand in front of you. “What’d you do?”

You flinch and have to re-tense to hold the position as a sob escapes you. Your hands are balled into fists to fight the urge to cover your face. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I asked what you did.”

If it were still the early days, when this shit usually happened, he might have been just a little softer. At least until he coaxed the confession from you, anyway. But you were in too deep, now, too entangled in this life that he had little patience for your reticence.

“I—”

“I recommend you spit it out. You’ll tell me in the end, anyway.”

You start to cry. “I can’t say it.”

“You better figure it out pretty fuckin’ fast, little girl.”

“I had an orgasm,” you blurt, whimpers escalating to sobs.

He pauses. It’s worse than he thought. The rush of disappointment and anger sends his heart racing, and his fingers flex in longing for a cane.

“Did you enjoy it?” he says.

It catches you off guard. “No, I promise.”

“That’s too bad, ‘cause it’s the last one you’re gonna have for a while.”

You aren’t surprised; you’re actually relieved. Of course, of course he’ll fix you.

He finally takes his shoes off and sets his phone on the counter, beckoning you to follow him to the living room. Taking his seat on the couch, he waits until you’re settled at his feet.

“Why’d you do that, baby?”

“I-I didn’t mean to. I was edging for the last time today, and I don’t know what happened. It was just there, and I knew it, I knew it was coming, and I—” You choke on the guilt, the grief.

“You what?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t convince myself to stop. I kept thinking ‘no, you stupid cunt,’ but I couldn’t pull my hand away.”

He regards you for a moment. He’s burning inside, but trying to calculate the most effective approach.

“Thank you for telling me right away,” he says, but even though he means it, the words are cold and clipped. “Which hand?”

You look at him, eyes wide and brows furrowed. “What?”

“Which hand did you use? Give it to me.”

You lift up your right hand, and he cradles it in his.

“Listen close.” He waits until he’s sure you’re focused on him, on his words.

This is where things have fallen apart in the past. No amount of training and manipulation can get someone across this hurdle; they have to mean it. The last thing he wants is someone running to the police because they don’t fucking understand how serious he is.

“This is going to be your last chance to back out. I will stop right now and let you pack your shit and leave. But if you stay, you’re agreeing to anything I do to you past this point.”

You bite your lip, stomach churning. “You’re scaring me,” you whisper.

“Good. You should be scared. What you’ve done is one of the worst things you could have. That’s got some serious consequences, baby.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“I gotta hurt you. Bad. Y’ain’t going to like this; I can promise you that. I can’t punish your cunt because you’re such a stupid pain slut; anything short of permanent damage is gonna make you wet. And I’m not lookin’ to do permanent damage.”

Your lip trembles, heart pounding. You’ve never been so afraid, but you’re also enthralled. Lured in by the timbre of his voice and the salvation it’s promising.

He squeezes your hand where he’s still holding onto you. “I’m going to break one of your fingers.”

Your heart falters, blood rushing. “Oh god,” you whisper, shaking your head. Instinctively, you tug back on your hand, but he grasps it tight, tight enough that you feel the bones grind under his large fingers.

“It’s up to you. That’s half the price for forgiveness. The rest is gonna be spending the night alone.”

Somehow, that sounds worse. You can’t breathe.

“Gotta choose, baby. You wanna go? I’ll pay for a cab. You can walk away, but you can’t ever come back.”

You think you might be drowning. Leave? How could you leave? There’s no debate in your head; you have nothing without Joel. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. And the idea of losing him feels catastrophic.

You’re crying again, and you’re vaguely aware of his soothing voice trying to coach you through breathing. When you focus on him, just like he’s taught you, you start to calm down.

It’s Joel, you think. He’ll take care of you. And he said he didn’t want permanent damage. You just have to suffer for your betrayal and he’ll forgive you.

“I think I might throw up,” you warn him.

He sighs, the fear of losing you flooding away, taking some of his anger with it. “We’ll do it in the bathroom.”

He stands up, and you follow, albeit slowly, as the wave of nausea rises. You do throw up as soon as you get in the bathroom, thankfully making it to the toilet. He holds your hair and rubs his hand across your shoulder blades.

“It’s okay, baby, get it out of your system. You’re being so brave for me,” he croons. He helps you up to sit on the edge of the tub and gets you a little cup of mouthwash.

“I’ll help you brush your teeth after,” he promises. “I’d do it now, but, well. You’re probably going to puke again.”

When you’re done swishing the mouthwash, when it’s all turned to foam and you’ve spit it back in the cup, he swaps you for water. You rinse and spit that, too.

He’s laid a few things out on the counter. You feel dizzy all over again. Something tells you the comfort you feel is wrong, but he’s prepared an ice pack and medical tape, and has four little ibuprofen out next to another cup of water.

The other, louder part of you is whispering, see? He’ll take care of you. The act of wondering what’s wrong with you feels like a farce. You’re thinking it because you think you should, just going through the motions.

He takes off his belt and brings it to your mouth. You clench it between your teeth, letting a shaky breath through. His hand cups your cheek, and you lean into the warmth.

“I knew you were somethin’ special,” he whispers. You’re not sure he meant to.

Your whole body is shaking uncontrollably. He watches you for a moment, worried you’re going to faint, and then sits on the floor with his back against the tub, pulling you into his lap. He lays you back against his chest, caging you in with his arms and thighs. The ice pack sits to his right, already popped and frozen. Waiting.

Gently, he lifts your hand and brings it in front of your chest, taking it in his left. It’s a macabre mockery, the way he cradles it in his palm, fingers wrapped around the sides. In his right hand, he notches his thumb on the knuckle of your middle finger, bringing the other fingers in below it.

He doesn’t drag it out, doesn’t take pleasure in your terror. When he moves, it’s faster than a gunshot. Your scream is raw, breaking free from the spaces between your teeth and the belt. The taste of leather will remind you of this moment for the rest of your life.

He has the ice pack on it before you mentally register that it’s over. You’re sobbing. Horribly, he’s right, and you are sick again. He holds your hair in one fist, holding the ice pack to your mangled hand in the other.

When you’re done, he pulls you back against him, wrapping his limbs around you in a perverse embrace as you shake harder. With his free hand, he brings a damp, cool cloth to your face, cleaning you of the viscera of your sickness.

He’s shushing you, head bent close to your ear. “It’s alright, baby, it’s over. You did so good. I’m so proud. I love you so much.”

It’s good that he doesn’t expect an answer because he doesn’t get one. You’re too lost in the pain and shock.

When it’s time to take a break from the ice, he grabs the medical tape and wraps it around your index and middle fingers. You cry out again as he jostles the break. Once he’s splinted it, he lowers your hand gently to your lap so he can grab the medicine.

“I can’t; I’ll throw up again,” you say, voice cracking.

“Don’t have a choice, baby. Gotta keep the swelling down.”

He feeds you each pill, one by one, chasing them with sips of water.

You look so sad and precious that he almost feels bad. Unfortunately, he’s also rock fucking hard, so he shifts you a little to pull his dick out.

You don’t say anything when he lifts you to lower you on it. He’s careful, trying not to shake you around too much. He was right; you didn’t enjoy this pain. You’ve never been this dry for him before, and you whimper pathetically at the pinch and sting of his girth.

You may be worn out and in agony, but your cunt doesn’t get the message. He grins when he feels you getting wet and clenching around him. He doesn’t push it though, doesn’t torment you, just fucks up into you gently until he fills you.

You’re limp against him now, and he presses a kiss into your hair. “You may have to walk for a bit,” he muses. “But I’ll cap your penance at ten.”

You wince. Ten strokes with the cane on the soles of your feet every day until your finger heals? You usually only owe enough for two or three. It is a mercy, though, so you nod and thank him.

Joel can hardly contain the way his chest is flooding with warmth. You’re so close; he can feel it. So close to being completely his to put together just the way he likes.

He can’t wait to take you to The Pit.

     -kintsugi

You’re cold. So cold. You’re curled in on yourself, tucked into a corner in the hopes that you’d be able to keep warmer. Your whole right hand throbs.

Moonlight only cuts across the corner, but it’s a comfort still. The soil is loose and you keep shuddering, feeling the tickle of a dozen phantom insects.

Worst of all, your chest aches, like he may as well have hewn you open. Dry sobs work their way free every now and then, leaving your mouth tacky and your throat full of cotton.

The only rest you get is when you blessedly pass out. Every time you close your eyes voluntarily, you see the heartbroken look on his face when you begged him not to leave you there.

“I wish I didn’t have to. I wish you hadn’t broken my trust and I could keep you close, baby. But you’re never going to learn how to be good if I don’t show ya.”

Bad, I’m bad, he doesn’t want me anymore, you think to no end.

When the sun starts to rise, you’re limp, still in your corner. You barely turn your head when a shadow falls over The Pit, but your heart starts to pound when the lock clicks, and Joel raises the gate.

“Oh, baby,” he says, soft and sorrowful. “C’mere.” He reaches out a hand, and you scramble to him, letting him take your left arm in his grasp and pull you out. You move immediately to your knees, body bent forward as your knotted muscles protest. He scoots his boot out of the danger zone near your broken finger.

You keep whispering, a broken record of “Sorry, please, I’m so sorry.”

He picks you up and holds you to his chest, shushing until you fall quiet. It doesn’t take longer than a few seconds as your brain desperately clings to any scrap, any way you can be good for him.

He brushes the loose dirt from you before going inside and upstairs to the ensuite. He sets you on the little rug next to the full garden tub, and he tests the water with his fingers before peeling his clothes off.

You flex your left hand, balling it in and out of a fist. You’ve never been particularly ambidextrous and wonder how you’re going to wash him without falling in or hurting your hand.

Before he gets in, he feeds you four more little red pills. Once he’s settled, he reaches out and guides you carefully by the waist, pulling you into his lap in the warm water.

That’s all it takes for you to start crying again. He doesn’t try to quiet you; just holds you there against his chest and lets you sob.

By the time you’ve calmed, the water has cooled, but instead of getting out, he just drains a little and runs more hot water.

Joel tips your chin up gently with the knuckle of his index finger. “You ready to be my good girl again?”

You nod, lip trembling.

Joel does nothing you hadn’t asked for. The trouble for you was that you asked for too much. Gave him too much. And it was far too late to get any of it back.

He gave what he could, though. Couldn’t replace what he’d taken, so he pours himself in the cracks, puts you back together with a firm hand and loving care. Sure, his love doesn’t look like what you’re used to, but he knows you see it for what it is.

“I know, baby. You took that all so well. Don’t worry,” he pauses to kiss you, “I forgive you. My perfect little toy.”

pls be nice, I'm so nervous about this.

[mermaidgirl30]

[mermaidgirl30]

ok fun story time

so about a year ago, someone came into my work and asked if we sold any mr potato head toys. we did, and she told me that they were for the octopus at the local aquarium, because she liked to put the pieces in the holes.

fast forward, i had made plans to go to the local aquarium with a couple friends who were coming into town. i emailed the aquarium and told them that, and asked if i could bring the octopus a new toy. they said yes, she would love a shape sorter.

i went this week, and octopus was sleepin on the day i came but the biologists at the aquarium grabbed my email so they could send me pictures of storm playin w her new toy.

THOSE PICTURES ARRIVED TODAY ENJOY SOME OCTOPUS

[mermaidgirl30]

Hey folks, if you want to fight back against the twitterfication of tumblr USE IT LIKE IT'S TUMBLR!!!!!! REBLOG THINGS!!!!!! USE THE TAGS TO SCREAM AT YOUR FRIENDS!!!!!!!

[mermaidgirl30]

"can you give me spoilers" yes. absolutely. "can i send you a song that reminds me of your fic" YES. I LOVE YOU. "can i draw– " FUUUUCK YEAH "this reminded me of your fic" i love you i hope you know that.

[mermaidgirl30]

Marcus is such a sweetie and so caring and I think I’d die for him 🥹

thunderstruck | marcus pike

Summary | You're scared of storms but it's okay, because Marcus always knows how to soothe you.

Pairing | Marcus Pike x F!Reader

Word Count | 1.4K

Warnings | Explicit - descriptions of thunderstorms, softness/fluff, rain, established relationship, oral sex (f receiving), dirty talk, our boy Marcus just being Marcus. No use of y/n.

Authors Note | This is my contribution to @undercoverpena's April Showers Challenge. It's a blessing that I got anything out because this brief gave me so many ideas, but I've missed my man and knew he would be the one I'd want to comfort me through a rain storm. Enjoy.

Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi

Divider by @saradika

Are you busy?

No baby, what’s up?

I don’t like the storm.

They’ve never been your favourite. Something about growing up on the coast, when the rain and wind would bring the waves crashing near your home, and your parents would walk about like nothing was wrong and there wasn’t the immediate danger of your house being washed out to sea. The nights, when the wind would clatter the shutters against the windows and drag tiles from the roof to break onto the ground. It might be Washington D.C. now and you might live in a new apartment building, but it doesn’t make the torrential rain and gale force winds any easier to handle.

You’re sitting on the couch, curtains drawn with all the lights on to try and make it feel less scary, but when the first clap of thunder hits you jump and scream all the same, burying yourself further under the blanket, some childhood wish for that to keep you safe.

There’s a knock at the door a little while later, the only thing that could drag you from the warm cocoon of blankets. Padding gently to the door, you open it, Marcus stood in front of you, dripping wet from the storm outside. He steps across the threshold, arm wrapping around your waist as he dips to press a kiss to the crown of your head.

“This feels stupid.” You grumble as you shut the door behind him, following close to his heels as he walks through your apartment, so familiar with it now that it feels like home to have to him here.

“It’s not stupid if you’re scared, baby.” He soothes, sitting down on your couch, opening his arm to encourage you to snuggle into his side, which you do without question.

You can feel his thumb tracing soothing circles on your arm as you settle a little, but it’s short-lived, when a crash of thunder bellows through the room from outside, making you jump and bury your head into the side of his neck with a groan.

“I blame the coast,” You speak softly, “I was always so scared of it blowing our house away when I was small.”

“You know what helps?” Marcus murmurs against your head, another soft kiss placed to it.

“Hmmm?”

“Sometimes you’ve just got to be louder than the storm.”

You look up at him, confused for a second, until you can feel him moving the two of you, laying you gently down on the couch. His mouth sponges kisses across your neck, trailing down across your collarbone before he drags it away to peel your tank top from your body. You hear Marcus hum in approval at your lack of bra, his hands gently pressing your tits together before his mouth is suckling a nipple into his mouth, tongue flicking over it until it’s stiffened to a peak, giving the same attention to the other side until you’re gasping, bucking your hips into his, the bulge in his trousers evident as his mouth trails further south, tongue leaving a trail from your tits and down your stomach until he gets to the waistband of your pyjama pants.

“Lift up.” He murmurs softly, voice almost drowned out by the constant smattering of rain against the windows.

Doing as you’re told, you lift your hips up, letting him hook his fingers into the waistband to drag them down your legs. You miss the weight and warmth of his body when it’s gone, but then you feel his warm palms on the inside of your thighs, pressing your legs open, and then you don’t mind so much at all, especially when you look up at him, watching him admire the already sticky mess accumulating between your thighs.

Marcus moves to run his thumb across your folds, dragging your slick across your skin, but not daring to dip below to where you truly want him.

“Such a pretty pussy.” He muses, moving to situate himself between your legs, hot mouth pressing wet kisses to the delicate skin of your thighs, teasing you by putting his mouth everywhere but where you need it most.

“M-Marcus, please.” You whimper when his face moves, he’s so close to your cunt you can feel the hot of his breath.

“What do you want, baby?” He asks, running that damn thumb over your folds once more, this time though, his other thumb rests to the side, gently pulling your folds apart to bare you to him, “Want me to kiss it a little?”

“Oh god, oh please Marcus, please.”

“Sound so pretty when you beg for it.” He speaks, and you’re about to say something smart when he leans forward and presses a single, open-mouth kiss to your clit.

It’s tiny in comparison to what you really want, but it makes you throw your head back anyway, back arching, trying to press your cunt closer to his face. Thankfully, he takes pity on you, kisses your clit once, twice more, and then you can feel the tip of his tongue, flicking up against your clit, then dragging back down, sometimes circling, working you gently until you’re whining and bucking your hips into his face.

You’d almost forgotten about the storm outside, the movements of his tongue distracting you just enough, until the loudest clap of thunder echoes through the apartment. It makes you scream, jumping slightly, but you feel Marcus’ hands grip tightly to the skin of your thighs, tearing his mouth away from you. You look down at him, mouth glistening with a mix of your slick and his spit, glint across his brown eyes.

“What did I say?” He asks, squeezing at your thighs again, “What did I tell you earlier?”

“Um…” You wrack your brain, trying to remember, “I needed to be louder than the storm?”

“That’s right, my clever girl,” He praises, heat rising across your skin, “If you scream for me, you won’t notice.”

Once again, before you can retort with your smart mouth, he’s back on you, lips closing around your clit, tongue resuming it’s flicking across your bundle of nerves, but then you can feel two of his fingers sinking inside you, easing into your walls, curling up against that perfect spot inside of you.

It makes you cry out, his name dropping from your lips as you arch off the couch, his tongue working in time to the press of his two fingers in your cunt. You’re chanting his name into the room, moving your hips in time to the movements of his hands until you’re teetering on the edge of bliss. He knows, of course he does, the way your walls start to flutter around his fingers, so he slows his fingers, keeping you dangling over the edge but not quite pushing you just yet.

“Marcus p-please,” You whimper, hands tangling in his hair, “Please make me come.”

“You asked so nicely, baby,” He muses against your pussy, letting his fingers curl just perfectly against the spongy spot inside you, “Whenever you’re ready honey.”

It takes very little more, his mouth suckling at your clit, his fingers pressing inside you, and then you’re crashing, skin aflame with pleasure as you do exactly as he told you and scream his name into the living room, body convulsing, gushing around his fingers as they still inside you. You’re clenching around him as his tongue moves gently across your clit to work you through your orgasm until you’re boneless and pliant beneath him.

Marcus drags his fingers from you, letting them run up the skin of your thighs, as he finally relents and pulls away from you, just in time for more thunder to sound out, this time a little further away.

“Well, listen there,” He whispers, fingers moving to undo the button of his trousers, “Storm still hasn’t passed,” He speaks as he drags the zipper down, “Think you can make a little more noise, baby?”

You reach up, hand clutching the back of his neck to pull him back down on top of you, mouth meeting his, tasting yourself on his tongue as he kisses you before you pull away, “I can make all the noise you want.”

[mermaidgirl30]

Some of you would not survive waiting months to years for a WIP to update.

Look at me, listen to me: A couple of months is way too early to think a fic is abandoned or dead. A year is often too early. Internalize this.

[mermaidgirl30]

For the Sea Calls to Selkies

[mermaidgirl30]

Joel Miller

[mermaidgirl30]

oh to be called "my love" by your favourite person in the whole world

[mermaidgirl30]

Here’s a little sneak peek without giving away too much for a one shot I’m working on 🥹

[mermaidgirl30]

Soft Joel will always kill me 😩 This was so beautiful

you’re gonna go far (joel miller x f!reader)

we ain’t angry at you, love, we’ll be waiting for you, love. and we’ll all be here forever. 📻✨

summary: your daughter needs her father — he’s never let her down before. and hell, if he’s about to start now.

warnings: age gap (sixteen years), no outbreak, fluff, husband!joel, insecure parenting, smutty happenings, cursing, alcohol, timelines all over the place, one (1) tiny mention of daddy kink, allusions to unprotected piv, mentions of babymaking & pregnancy, 18+ mdni.

notes: this has been languishing in my drafts for months now, so here it is! nothing special, just proclaiming my love for joel miller the father <3 i also promised a plushy-sized surprise for @hellishjoel all that time ago, and here it is! sorry it took so long 🥹

thank you, as ever, to my @macfrog for your eyes on this. i couldn’t do this without you. also, to @frannyzooey, who helped me navigate the trickier parts to get right! i love you.

“Joel.”

He groans, stretches out languidly in his sleep.

His hand instinctively slides over your tummy, his favourite place: chest pressed to your bare back, wedding band against your warm skin as he holds you.

It can’t be time for him to get up yet.

“Joel,” comes your voice again, more insistent this time. He feels you reach back and tap his hip, sheets pooled round your bodies.

“Phone.”

Joel blinks one eye open wearily. His iPhone flashes obnoxiously from the nightstand, rattling the smooth wood as it vibrates.

11:45pm.

A number he doesn’t recognise flits across the screen. A slight frisson of anxiety settles in his stomach, jolting him awake.

“Hello?” Joel answers cautiously, settling back into the pillows with the phone crooked under his ear.

“Dad?” comes a timid voice, whispering from the other end.

“Clara? Are you okay, honey?”

At the sound of your daughter’s name, you turn to face him, eyebrow raised uneasily.

“‘m fine,” she admits, and Joel waits for the inevitable whimper that he knows will come from his seven-year-old. He can picture her bottom lip trembling, and his heart wants to break for her.

“Baby?” he pushes, certain he knows what’s coming.

“Can you come get me, please? From Madison’s? I can’t sleep, daddy. I tried, but—” she sniffles, and Joel soothes her.

“Ssssh, baby. It’s okay, you don’t need to explain it to me. Is Madison’s mom there?” he asks, and listens for Clara’s quiet uhuh.

“Pass me over to her, honey. Jus’ wanna confirm everything, that’s all. I’ll be twenty minutes,” he assures her.

“She okay?” you ask when he’s done with the call, flicking the beside lamp on, both of you wincing at the sudden intrusion.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep. Wants me to go ‘n get her,” Joel chuckles, hand squeezing your calf fondly.

He watches your features draw tight with anxiety, the way they do so often when it comes to the daughter you share.

“You think you could try to see if she’s alright? Y’know, with school and everything?”

Joel’s eyebrow raises, prompting you to continue.

“I just worry she’s not settled. I don’t want her being bullied, but I don’t want to be overbearing—”you start, pulling at your bottom lip with your teeth.

“Hey, hey,” Joel hushes, moving to hold your face in his hands. “Sweetheart, I’ll talk to her. I promise,” he adds, before kissing you gently.

“I mean, I don’t think she’ll tell me anythin’, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.”

He presses his lips to your forehead, thumb stroking across your skin.

“You’re forgetting she’s a daddy’s girl, Joel,” you tease quietly, pushing at his chest.

“Makes two of ya, then,” he smirks, eyebrow raised.

You roll your eyes; slide back beneath the covers, breathing a little easier. He knows you’re anxious about Clara, you both are.

But it’s not his first rodeo.

Nineteen years separate his daughters, but Joel relishes fatherhood and all the trials and tribulations that come with it, knows he will for the rest of his life. Lessons learned and repeated, a cycle he’s grateful for. Both kids so different, but their hearts the same.

“Drive careful,” you mumble, after he’s pulled on sweatpants and an old shirt.

“Always.”

He switches the lamp off again and bends to kiss the tip of your nose, ignoring the creaky protests of his knees. The house is quiet as he moves through it soundlessly; photos of the women in his life grinning at him as he heads downstairs.

Sarah: freshly graduated from college, working as an accountant in Houston. The earliest years of being her dad were the hardest; getting to know her, raise her, round her out. But holy shit, was it worth it; even through the hardship of doing it alone.

His beautiful baby girl.

He thinks of her, now, making a note to call her tomorrow. Sarah still has a room here, Clara gazing at her with starstruck eyes whenever she visits.

Joel rummages through the chipped trinket dish by the front door, searching for his truck keys. Typical family detritus litters the space around him; individual declarations that show love is well-known and nurtured in those four walls.

His work boots lie abandoned in a heap, your sneakers and sandals stored away neatly, Clara’s favourite plushie left behind on the tabletop: Grogu’s big eyes watching him make ready to leave.

Joel sticks the toy carefully in the crook of his arm, sliding his own battered sneakers on as he scrubs his free hand over his face. Cicadas sing as he makes his way to his truck, moonlight casting silver shadows over the front lawn as he deposits his green friend in the front seat beside him.

“Alright, pal,” Joel yawns, turning on the ignition. “It’s time to go.”

There’s no traffic, and Joel finds himself thinking of a time he’d been here before: on the same stretch of road, years earlier. Sarah had called him from a friend’s house; said that some of the girls had teased her for being a tomboy with unwashed ketchup stains on her shirt, and Joel remembers the burning shame sticking to him like slime.

Trying to make it as the sole parent, and failing at it.

Working all the hours he could, roping in a young Tommy to take care of Sarah when he couldn’t, going without so she could have more. When he’d picked Sarah up that night, though, she wasn’t upset. She just wanted her dad, asking if Joel could stop for pizza for them to share on the way home.

The memory makes him smile. Sarah’s toothy grin told him everything he needed to know, soothed away all his doubts.

He was enough.

Joel grew confident in his abilities, watching his baby stretch up and out into the arms of happiness and security in herself, chasing her college dreams.

Then, you came along.

Joel had been feeling the stretch of the long days without his daughter to fill in the gaps, his not-so-little brother moved out to his own apartment. He felt unsure about the stage in his life he was settling into, had been pondering it one day when he got home with a smaller grocery haul than he was used to.

He hadn’t noticed the moving truck next door, but he’d noticed you.

The Adler’s eldest niece, he found out later. Denim cut-offs and a snug baby tee, smile bright enough to light up the neighbourhood. You were fresh from a bad breakup, younger than him by sixteen years. You’d moved in with Danny and Connie for a new start, looking for some stability in your life.

It happened faster and more perfectly than he ever could’ve predicted.

Joel was asked to remodel the kitchen, and he couldn’t turn the Adlers down. You made him lunch, hung around him whilst he worked; asked questions that would’ve been irritating, had it been anyone else.

You told him you’d never really settled; not at home, not at college. Always searching for something else, something more. Never feeling like you fitted in.

“Seems like you’re doin’ a fine job of that here, sweetheart.”

That smile: so captivating, entrancing, striking Joel dumb every time he saw it.

“You think so?”

“Neighbourhood wouldn’t be the same without ya.”

He loved the way you looked down at your feet, like you couldn’t believe what he was saying. He wanted you to know: wanted to show you, push you down into his sheets and make you certain of it.

You’re so fucking sweet.

He caved one day; too tempted by the soft curves of your body and the lingering glances he felt from you whilst he worked.

He asked you on a date, feeling like a fool, fumbling his words and carding a nervous hand through his hair. His earlier bravado deserted him - surely he was being foolish. A beautiful, young butterfly like you?

Joel didn’t have much to offer, he knew that: a bad back from too many years on site, not a lot of spare cash, weekends spent woodworking, a slow, steady way of living.

But he had to try, and to his delight: you said yes.

You were waiting for him that night on his doorstep, pretty sundress floating round your thighs. The bodice lifted your breasts towards him, smooth skin dewy along your collarbones, eyes bright with excitement.

Goddamn. An absolute dream.

Joel knew he was late — fuckin’ Tommy, getting the wrong size for the headers — but you laughed his apology off, said you’d wait for him to take a shower.

He offered you a beer in his kitchen, joined you for one after he’d towelled off. One beer turned into two, into three, into a slow kiss that became something deeper: wandering hands, breathy groans, forgotten insecurities.

“We’ll miss our reservation,” Joel gasped, when your lips left his to take a breath.

“I don’t give a fuck,” you giggled, eagerly pulling his shirt over his head, sliding your panties down your calves. Hearing you curse spurred him on, filth falling from that sweet mouth.

Joel wanted to hear it again, pull it from you as many times as you’d let him.

You didn’t even make it upstairs.

You both collapsed naked on his couch, and Joel held you there till dawn broke, the skies pink and rosy.

You’d hardly been apart since.

He was insatiable for you.

You kept him laughing, made him feel younger. Joel wanted to be with you, around you, inside you, as much as he could. He’d never have called it a missing piece as such, but he felt whole. For the first time in his life.

You’d done that for him, without even trying.

Joel Miller was only human. He had a feeling you, however, were not.

You were married after two years. Joel watched you love Sarah like she was your own, despite you not even being a decade older. The two of you were thick as thieves whenever she was home, and Joel remembers the tears of joy when you told her she had a baby sister on the way.

Joel’s younger daughter was the light of his life: unexpected, but loved unconditionally. Everyone who knew Clara doted on her - she had a face you couldn’t help but fall in love with.

Yours.

Joel knocks on the door as quietly as he can.

Madison’s mom is endlessly kind, waving away Joel’s sympathetic smile. His daughter’s shoulders droop as they head back to the truck, holding Grogu close as she leans her head against the window.

“Y’okay, bug?”

Clara sighs, scrunches her brow in frustration. The streetlights illuminate tear tracks on her cheeks, Joel’s heart shattering a little to see it.

He knows he can’t keep her this close forever.

He remembers when Sarah stopped needing him for grazed knees and scary dreams; came to him to help assemble her bed frame instead, to check the tyre pressure on her car.

He feels grateful to be able to do it all again, even if it hurts him to see his daughter like this.

“They’ll all think I’m a baby,” Clara confesses, screwing her fist up to wipe her eyes. Joel tuts quietly as he spins the wheel, wishing he could gather her in his arms.

“What makes you say that?”

Another drawn-out sigh, wobbling bottom lip, downcast gaze.

“‘Cuz I wanted to come home,” she sniffs. “I - I missed you, and mommy. The sheets smelled all different, and I didn’t like it.”

Joel reaches out a hand, his daughter wrapping her smaller one in his. He squeezes tight, feels his own heartbeat thrumming right back at him.

“But that’s okay, baby. Y’know what? I actually think you’ve been really brave.”

Clara plays with Grogu’s ears, making a dissatisfied noise that tells Joel she doesn’t believe him. At all.

Tough gig, kids.

“Takin’ yourself out of a situation - or place - where you don’t feel comfy or happy is very brave, sweetheart. You might not think so, but grown-ups do it all the time.”

She releases his hand, turns to look at him. Joel flashes her a smile, happy to see one in return. Not quite her trademark toothy grin, but he’ll take what he can get.

“You remember Sarah’s boyfriend, Jake? How we don’t see him now? That’s because he wasn’t makin’ your sister happy anymore,” he tells her, Clara silent as she digests his words.

“She was brave and made a decision, one that sure as hell wasn’t easy. We all liked him, right? But Sarah had to do what was best for her, just like you did tonight,” he tickles her under the chin, hears her giggling.

“‘s there anythin’ else, baby? Anything on your mind, like school or your friends?” he prompts gently, and is met with silence, knowing his daughter is thinking it through.

“Can I call Sarah? I want to tell her I’ve been brave. And if she’ll come over and help me finish my Lego,” she adds, crisis averted, face set with fierce determination.

She reminds Joel of you when she does that.

“In the morning, bug, we’ll call her. ‘s gettin’ late now, and we need to get you in bed. Mom’s waitin’ up to give you a hug,” he tells her, pulling round the bend to the cul-de-sac they call home.

Clara nods, yawns gratefully. Joel already knows he’ll be shaken awake before 7am, mobile stolen so Clara can call her big sister. Sarah’s her hero - always has been, always will be.

Nothing makes him happier.

An hour later, and you close the bedroom door behind you. Joel’s in bed with a book, propped up against the pillows, soft lamplight spilling out across the room.

“She okay?”

“Out for the count,” you smile, hanging your robe up on the hook he made. “She told me what you said — that she’s brave, about Sarah. Nothing seems to be bothering her about school, either, from what I can tell.”

“Told ya. She’ll come to you if she needs you, baby. I promise,” Joel smiles. You sit down by his side, reach out to take his hand. He brushes his thumbs across your knuckles, lifts it towards him and kisses your palm.

“I know I’m overreacting. It’s just, you get to know ‘em - or think you have - one day, and by the next week, they’ve changed. Our little person.. Always growing, having new interests, new fears.”

He nods sympathetically.

“Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up, y’know?”

“I know,” Joel agrees, because he does know, hates to see you doubt yourself.

“It’s not just you. Hell, parenting doesn’t come with a manual. It’s one of the scariest things you can do, and everybody’s wingin’ it.”

He plays with your wedding band absentmindedly as you lounge against his legs, digesting his words.

“One day at a time, mama. You’re doin’ just fine,” Joel murmurs, and you look through your lashes at him, chewing your lip. He gazes at you imploringly, and you shrug, start to laugh.

“If you say so.”

“I know so.”

He opens his arms, beckons you towards him.

“C’mere. I’ll prove it.”

Your eyes roll again, but nevertheless: you slip your panties down your thighs, just like the very first time, and toss them in the hamper, grinning shyly.

He helps you to sit astride him, hands planted firmly on your ass. “I ever tell you you’re the best daddy?” you whisper, bending to press your lips to his. Joel anchors you to him, thumbs rubbing circles across your flesh, inching beneath your nightgown.

You start to rock your hips slowly against his belly and the coarse hair that lives there. Joel feels you on his skin: already so slick and soft for him; groaning as he slides the thin straps of your dress down your arms.

“It’s all teamwork, sweetheart,” he tells you between kisses, welcoming your tongue in his mouth. He squeezes and pinches you softly, fingers eager for any skin he can find, claim as his own. You’re so goddamn responsive to his touch: tugging at his hair, nails drawn across his chest.

“What if I said I wanted another, one day? Another baby?”

Joel stills for a moment, peering up at you. Your chest is heaving; breasts spilling out over the flimsy material, lips bitten, eyes narrow and full of longing. You’re still grinding against him, all worked up - he knows you can feel it, feel what you do to him.

You’re incredible.

Joel flips you over as you squeak in surprise, pulling the dress over and off your head so you’re finally bare beneath him. He searches your face, kisses you softly. He remembers your first pregnancy: how beautiful you were, round with what the two of you created.

“I’d say.. Okay. I’d say, let’s try.”

You wrap your legs round his waist, work to push his boxers off together. Joel pins your hands above you in one of his, teeth scraping in the column of your throat, dragging the scruff on his jaw between your breasts, just the way you like.

He teases you, touches you till you’re ready; breathless and downright impatient for him. Before long, Joel’s sliding into the warm, wet heart of you — his wife, his forever.

[mermaidgirl30]

Ma babe

[mermaidgirl30]

can we get a little sneak peek of part 3 of can you please be mine? it’s my favorite series of yours 🥺💛

Thank you so much for loving this series anon 🥹 I have not really had a chance to work on that one yet. This week I’ve been working on two one shot Taylor Swift inspired pieces and am trying to get the next chapter of Dark Shades of Innocence Lost done. I plan to work on more of Can You Please Be Mine very soon! That’ll be my next priority. I’ll give you a little sneak peek of a scene I’ve been thinking about in my mind for the next chapter ☺️

“Hold still, stop smiling!” you giggle as you tap the edge of the shading pencil on your sketchbook. Joel just smiles wider as the Crow’s feet pull tighter to make his honey eyes crinkle and sparkle. You think he looks so dreamy when he smiles like that at you. It’s like he’s already a perfect painting.

“Joel! I’m serious, I’m trying to draw you. Stop looking at me like that,” you laugh as you throw a small eraser at him playfully. He catches it with no hesitation and throws it back to you.

“Stop lookin’ at you like what? Hmm?” he smirks as he relaxes back into his leather couch.

“Like… well, just relax your face. Alright? I’m almost done, but I can’t finish it if you keep smirking like that,” you say as you shake your hair out.

“Jus’ can’t stop starin’ at my gorgeous girl. The way you’re so fixated on your art when you work, it’s hard not to look at ya. You’re like a piece of art yourself, darlin’.”

Your breath hitches as you listen to his deep timbre voice carry through the dim lit living room, your pencil forgotten as it falls from your fingers and hits the cream colored rug. He called you his girl. That meant you were his. He did want you, he does want you.

“My girl?” you ask quietly, wide-eyed like you can’t believe it’s actually real.

“That’s right, sweetheart. My girl.” He smiles at you then, his face almost glowing as his warm brown eyes shine every single time he looks at you. And you know now this will be the ride of your life, him. A ride you don’t want to get off, maybe not ever. Maybe you’ll just stay here, put the ride on repeat, and never let go of his calloused hand.

[mermaidgirl30]

“everyone is going to hate it” someone will love it. someone will reach out to you and tell you it changed their life. someone will hold it close and treasure it forever in a way you can’t even understand. keep going

[mermaidgirl30]

Every writer has two sides:

"I love my characters, they are my children and will protect them with my life"

"I wanna make them suffer so fucking much"