I know what they call you.
🍯 honey flavour: You’re a little lost in your head. Eddie wants to find you.
🐝 the bees: Eddie x shy!Reader, best friends Steve + Robin
wc: 11k
cw: alcohol/weed used as a social crutch, R is hassled by a guy at a party (but her boys back her up), brief vomit mention, implied bad home life for R, light SH by way of tight grip, PTSD, R has breasts+V, praise kink, oral (R receiving), one (1) spank, multiple orgasms (R), soft dom!eddie, overstim, coming in pants (E)
foreword: The healing properties of good head <333 Anyways I labeled this R “shy” but she’s more… introverted? Reserved? this one goes out to the weird and off-putting girlies who have a lot to say but are kinda quiet instead. Timeline may be a bit wibbly but designed it to be early 4th-season era, with R (early 20s) having played an undetermined part in the various Upside Down battles from seasons previous.
Loosely based on this anon every1 say thank you anon!
___
It’s spring break, 1986, and you’re cursing the name of your so-called “best friend” Robin Buckley.
You didn’t even want to go to this stupid kegger in the first place, arguing with her the whole ride over from Steve’s backseat.
“Don’t you think it’s totally lame that you’re basically being chaperoned by two gap-year losers?” you’d said, leaning forward to rest your elbows on the console, seatbelt pulling taut across your Rolling Stones tee. “You’re a big girl, Robin, you don’t need Steve and me to babysit you anymore.”
Robin began protesting but Steve interrupted, tapping at your forearms without looking away from the road- “Sit back, wouldja, that’s not safe. And for the record, it’d only be lame if we were, like, thirty and still going to high school kickbacks. Gap-year drinking parties are a rite of passage.”
You’d sat back against your seat with a huff, arms crossed, unconvinced until Robin turned those big pleading eyes your way over the back of her seat. “You wanna talk about lame? Lame is me getting anywhere within a 60-foot radius of Vickie. I am totally hopeless around that absolute beauty.”
She’d twisted in her seat and reached for your hand, and you gave it to her grudgingly (the two of you ignoring another of Steve’s gripe about vehicular safety) as she said, “You’re like, the best wingwoman I’ve ever met. Please come to the party and help me avoid the natural disaster that is me running my mouth.”
Robin wasn’t just being generous- you were a killer third wheel. Especially when alcohol was involved: the walls that you naturally upheld around your introverted demeanor by day turned liquid as whiskey by night, often scoring you major cool points with your friends for things you barely remembered doing the day after.
So you’d relented, and in turn resolved to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible (in the name of Robin’s aid, of course), but turns out your best friend didn’t even need your help in the first place; within 5 minutes of setting foot in the crammed house party Robin won a spot right next to Vickie on the living room couch, starry-eyed gaze saved only for the redhead that bore no room for your intervention.
Three shots ago, the situation would have struck you as funny, but it’s been a lonely time (what with Steve abandoning you, too, in favor of chatting up some college blonde); drifting from packed room to packed room, sneakers sticking to the floorboards, winding through throngs of sweaty dancing students just to keep on top of your alcohol consumption.
Kind of like hunting in the wild, you muse, leaned against a wall with red solo cup in hand. Flirt with Amy Thacker and her low-cut blouse to access the watering hole (Mystery Punch, green both in color and flavor); let Lenny Baker put his paws on your waist to gain entry to the standing liquor cabinet. The stuff of nature docs.
If this dimly-lit Hawkins party is the savanna, then you are the antelope- grazing on snacks, never staying in one spot for too long, minding your own business and staying way the hell away from the lion’s den (the group of jocks in Hawkins Tigers polos).
Unfortunately, you push off the wall in search of a refill at the same time Lenny Baker decides to sidle up to you, nearly knocking the cup from your grasp when he bends his thick head to shout in your ear above the music.
“Great party, right?” His arms are crossed above his tank of a chest, blocking you from a smooth exit via the kitchen archway.
“If you’re into drunk teens, I guess,” you say back, pointedly, licking a stripe up your wrist from where the punch had sloshed onto your bare arm.
When you look back up Lenny’s still standing there, watching you with a hungry edge that’s starting to make your well-honed antelope-sense tingle. As you not-so-subtly cast your glance around for Steve, Lenny leans in again, close enough to give you a sour whiff of his breath. “I’m legal, if that’s what’s got your panties in a twist. And what’s wrong with having some fun?”
“I’m not into having fun with douchebags who ‘roid away their remaining brain cells to bully my friends,” you retort, flatly. You doubt this guy knows you’re connected to the Hellfire group (de facto sitter, second only to Steve), but the insult seems to land anyways.
Lenny scoffs, going for a low blow to offset the sting of his bruised ego- “If you’re trying to play the part of slut, you were doing a way better job earlier.”
What the meathead hasn’t picked up on yet is your absolute lack of care about him- or anyone else at this stupid fucking party, for that matter. Besides Robin and Steve, obviously, but they’re equally indisposed at the moment. You’re feeling bold enough that you could play dirty: throw the dregs of your drink in his face, make a real scene- but the shots from earlier are hitting you sideways and you’re not entirely confident in your ability to multitask.
So instead, with a wink, you tell him, “At least this slut knows when to quit,” and turn on your heel, abandoning the kitchen escape route for a closer door that leads to the back porch.
You suck in lungfuls of cool night air, trying to clear the fuzz of booze from your vision. When you don’t hear any angry footsteps following in your wake, you sink against the wooden bannister and tip back the last of your drink in one swallow. Maybe Steve doubled back to the car…?
With your empty cup left neatly on the railing, you set off down the couple of steps that separate you from the grass, except the toe of your shoe catches on a hidden groove in the wood, and nothing is within reach to grab onto as you trip and begin to fall.
The stumble should have ended with you facedown in the dirt, but something- someone- solid breaks your downward path, catching the upper half of your body in a sturdy hold even as your legs twist around themselves.
“Whoa, whoa, hey, I gotcha. You okay?”
The voice is instantly familiar, one that you’ve heard ringing out from underneath the drama room door on countless occasions as you’ve waited on your various child wards to wrap up their D&D sessions.
Eddie Munson is holding you in his leather-clad arms, larger than life with that big cloud of hair and doe-eyed gaze matching yours. He helps you stand, properly, dropping his hands once you’re stabilized and taking the warmth of his palms with him.
“You okay?” he asks again, tilting his head, looking at you with fresh concern from under that mop of bangs. “Looks like you had a lot to drink.”
“Thanks, Dad,” you drawl, bravado flooding back in. “Am I really gonna get a fucking lecture on drinking from my local drug dealer?”
Instead of rising to the bait or bristling at your tone, Eddie grins- delighted, wolfish- before letting out a low whistle. “Who coulda guessed: resident Shy Girl has a mouth on her.”
You twist said mouth into your own smile, one that you hope is coy and charming and not dorkily lopsided (because you stopped being able to feel your face after that last drink), and coo, “You thinkin’ about my mouth, Munson?”
He laughs- a full, vibrant sound that lights up the night. There’s a flutter in your ribcage, knocking up a frenzy at the noise, like it wants to get out and at him, but you tamp it down and play it cool.
“You’ve only seen me in the cold, unforgiving light of day,” you continue, as Eddie rifles through his pockets, surfacing with a pack of cigs, eye contact yet to be broken. “My nighttime alter ego is a real riot, all liquored up.”
“Well, I happen to think you’re a riot in the sober light of day, too.” Eddie shrugs a shoulder as he flips the lid of the cigarette box.
You’re unsure if he’s messing with you- he’s gotta be, right? The only meaningful interaction you two have had in the past handful of years has been through the courtesy of the children in your respective care- a few surface-level conversations during carpool pickup, some flirting on his end that you’ve always been too skittish to return.
Well, until now, you guess. Maybe this is a good thing, him seeing you like this- it’ll either scare him away, or you’ll finally make good on the quiet crush you’ve been harboring.
You’re about to speak again when the porch door opens with a bang; you and Eddie swivel at the same time to see Lenny clomping noisily towards the steps, voice booming out over the thrum of bass back inside- “This freak bothering you?”
You look between the metalhead and the jock, eyes wide and mocking as you call back, “No, but you’re starting to!”
“Jesus, talk about poking the bear,” you hear Eddie mutter behind you, but your focus is taken up by the fact that Lenny is tromping down the steps and reaching out to grab your upper arm, his cold and clammy palm taking up a sizeable amount of space.
You can feel that rage, simmering and easily accessed, start to crawl over your skin. You stand your ground in the face of someone much larger than you, sneakers planted firmly, chin tilted in defiance- I’ve killed monsters in alternate dimensions, asswipe. You might’ve scared me back in high school but now I dare you to fuck with me.
Before Eddie can jump to your defense, you’re already going in for the bite, voice dripping with derisiveness. “So glad your right hand found its way off your dick for a change, Len. How about you do me one better and take it far, far away from here?”
Lenny’s face is almost purple with anger as his grip tightens, and you feel Eddie moving in at your back- to do what exactly, hard to say, ‘cuz Lenny’s got about 60 pounds on the lanky DM- but just as fast as the tension has ramped up, it gets diffused with the arrival of one Steve Harrington from around the corner of the house.
He cuts a smooth path through the grass to your other side, Robin’s sweater slung over one arm, twirling his car keys in neat loops around his finger, boasting a casual demeanor that doesn’t match up with the steely look he’s giving Lenny. “You heard the girl, Baker. Time to am-scray.”
Whether it’s the rumors of Steve’s nail bat or the manic look in your eyes or the fact that he’s outnumbered, Lenny’s got plenty of reason now to drop your arm.
Which he does, spitting one last “bitch” at you before hulking off into the night.
The anger in you recedes like a wave. You breathe out a dry laugh, then turn back to the boys, clasping your hands over your heart with faux-dopeyness. “My heroes. How will I ever repay you?”
“Shutting up, for a change, would be a great start,” Steve grouses over the sound of Eddie’s cackles.
“Holy shit. Can’t believe your girl’s feistiness almost landed me in the hospital.” Eddie shakes his head, plucking a cigarette out and sticking it between his plush lips.
“She’s not my girl,” Steve says, even as you wind your arms around his chest from behind, tucking your chin over his shoulder. “She is, unfortunately, my problem.”
“I love when you two talk about me like I’m not here.” You simper at Eddie from your draped position.
He’s watching you with a fondness that feels overly familiar, through the haze of smoke streaming from his nostrils as you pat the chest beneath your hands- “Don’t worry about ol’ Stevie boy. He’s turned into quite the good guard dog after the whole Russian mall takeover last year.”
“Aaaaand that’s enough talking from you,” Steve says firmly, twisting out of your arms and putting his own around your waist. “Say goodbye to your new buddy, we’ve got a Robin to collect.”
As Steve steers you towards the direction of his car you wave at Eddie, a motion that he returns, his rings glinting in the porch light.
“Christ, you really are somethin’ else with some drinks in you,'' Steve fusses, helping you into the backseat, hand shooting up to block the door frame before your head can collide with the metal. “Did you seriously have to bring up the Russians?”
“He probably thought it was a joke, Steve,” you say, exasperated and fighting the twisted middle seatbelt with uncoordinated hands. “You know… those things that you tell people when you wanna get in their pants?”
The crack was aimed at Steve’s recent string of strike-outs in the dating department, but he throws it back at you. “You’re trying to get in Eddie Munson’s pants?”
“No,” you sputter, indignant and feeling suddenly too hot.
Steve knocks your still-struggling hands from the belt, clicking you in himself, before pointing an accusatory finger in your face. “Stay here while I get Robin, and no throwing up in the Beemer.”
He shuts the door, Robin’s sweatshirt hanging from one shoulder while he stalks back into the house.
You let your head fall back against the seat and close your eyes, bright cherry embers of cigarettes between lush-lipped curves dancing behind the dark of your lids.
___
You manage to avoid throwing up in the BMW, saving the worst of it for the downstairs toilet of the Harrington house after Steve drags you and Robin indoors. Once your body is purged of the spirits, you collapse into your usual side of the guest bed, sweaty and exhausted, murmuring an apology to Robin who squeaks at the rocking movement of the mattress. In a few minutes, you’re lulled to sleep by the gentle snores of your best friend.
The morning sun is a very rude awakening, Robin apparently having forgotten to close the blinds before leaving with Steve for their shifts at Family Video. There’s a full glass of water on the bedside table and a few loose Tylenol tablets, the word “DRINK” sprawled on a sticky note in Steve’s handwriting.
You wince, down the meds along with half the water, and start the search for your sneakers.
When you’d signed up to protect a bunch of teens at the end of the world awhile back, it had seemed like a one-time gig. But now, here you were a few years later, loading yourself into your curb-parked junker to willingly cart around the same kids.
While wearing yesterday’s clothes. Even with the sprays of cologne that you’d stolen from Steve’s dresser, you’re pretty sure you’ll be fooling no one.
Evidenced by your first stop in east Hawkins for Dustin Henderson, who clambers into the front seat with a scathing appraisal. “Rough night?”
“You could say that,” you reply, shifting the gear to drive and grimacing at the subsequent squeal of metal that pierces into your left temple. “Learn from my mistakes as a washed-up twenty-something and cool it on the teen drinking, all right?”
“Washed up though you may be,” Dustin intones sagely, digging through his backpack and producing two brown-paper bundles, “you are now one Claudia Henderson Breakfast Sandwich Deluxe richer.”
You take the proffered sandwich gratefully, steering with one hand to peel back the oil-stained paper from the still-warm bread. “God. Is your mom looking to adopt?”
“She’s kind of got the perfect child already, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground for ya,” Dustin says around a mouthful of cheese and egg.
The solid breakfast helps your stomach ease back into a place of normality, but with your next stop adding two more kids to the mix, the rowdy bickering that follows puts that Tylenol to work.
“You’re an idiot,” Max is saying to Lucas over the sound of his indignation in the back seat. “You seriously think Indiana Jones would win against Supergirl? She can shapeshift, and she has heat vision.”
“All I’m saying is, it’s really hard to see a whip coming.” Lucas is stretching the limits of his seatbelt in his earnestness to get his girlfriend on his side.
It doesn’t work- Max rolls her eyes and taps at your shoulder. “Help me out here. His logic is totally shit, right?”
Making a turn onto the main road, you nod your assent without looking back. “I think you should listen to your very smart girlfriend, Lucas.”
Max makes a triumphant “hah”, and Dustin adds fuel to the argument’s fire when he drags in some other comic book character that you’ve never heard of.
You hazard a glance in your rear-view mirror at Max, who’s too busy dishing out an enthusiastic rebuttal to notice. Her auburn braids swing with the movement of the car, and you wonder if they were done by her mother before work or if Max had to rely on her own hair expertise again.
You’ve got a real soft spot for Max, always have. While you both have plenty of cause to bond over shitty home lives, it’s also Max’s brash and defiant attitude that drew you to her. She’s got the bravery you can only hope for, something that you are sure to tell her frequently, even though the compliment is hard for her to take.
You score a parking spot that’s right in front of the arcade, calling after the kids already scrambling out of your car that you want to leave at noon, sharp. They all give some form of distracted acknowledgement before disappearing into the building, so you figure the earliest you'll be getting out of here is noon-thirty.
Not like you have much to do today, anyways, besides bother Steve and Robin at work- since the arcade is conveniently located right next to Family Video, it’s a perfect excuse to wait out the kids’ spring break activities in the company of your nearest and dearest.
You’re cutting a swift track up the sidewalk when you nearly collide with Eddie Munson, for the second time in less than 24 hours.
“Hey!” He beams at you, a wide, easy thing that fits on his face so well, like it was made to be there, boyish dimples digging in. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah,” you agree, trying to smile back but probably landing somewhere in the grimace region as memories of last night float to the forefront of your mind. Small talk. You can do it. Say something. “Um. Were you getting a movie?”
“Nah.” Eddie shakes his head, hooks a thumb at the Family Video doors behind himself. “Keith’s one of my regulars. That guy might actually smoke more weed than me.”
You hum mildly to show you’re still paying attention but really you’re looking at Eddie’s hair, dark curls that shift with each of his movements. His hair isn’t black, like you’ve been led to believe this whole time- with the morning light shining through, highlighting the halo frizz around the edges, it’s actually a deep, chocolatey brown.
Similar to his eyes. Which are trained on you. Because you haven’t talked in a weird amount of time and are now just openly ogling his hair.
Before you can open your mouth to apologize Eddie asks, “You wanna smoke?”
You nod, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically, and then stretch on your tiptoes to peer around Eddie’s frame at the Family Video sign. “Yeah, but we gotta be fast unless you want the Wonder Twins joining us.”
His grin slips into a smirk, and he winks before taking your hand in his. “A quickie, then.”
That fluttering thing in your ribs is back. The metal of Eddie’s rings are cool against your palm as he leads you around the side of the building, dropping your hand once you both are leaned up against the red brick.
Trying not to outright stare again, you watch from the fringes of your vision as Eddie lights up and breathes a cloud of smoke into the air. His nails are painted black- they weren’t last night. An image of him- hunched over a kitchen table, tongue sticking out of those pillowy lips in concentration, a nail polish brush held in his long fingers- flits across your mind.
Eddie holds the cigarette out, filter-side towards you, and you shake your head lightly. “No thanks. I don’t actually smoke, I just wanted to talk to you.”
Eddie glows. Before he gets the wrong idea you start explaining, arms crossing tight over your chest in unconscious defense- “I wanted to talk about last night. And say I’m sorry. I’m not usually so…”
“Badass? Charming? Hot?” Eddie fills in when you trail off, taking in another deep drag of smoke.
Christ. You feel heat rushing from head to toe as you ward off his flattery, nails nipping into your upper arms. “I was gonna say… talkative? I guess? I’m normally not one to pick fights, but Lenny was being a dick and I don’t like the way he treats the kids, or you, for that matter, and I was drunk and mouthy but that’s not an excuse to drag you into it and I’m sorry-”
“Hey, hey.” Eddie’s tone is soothing, low, cutting smoothly into your feverish confession. He reaches out and strokes the back of his knuckle across your hand, tiny half-moons from your nails leaving their impression as you soften your grasp on yourself.
He doesn’t seem to mind that you can’t look anywhere but at your sneakers planted in the gravel as he says, “You have nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. I’m a big boy, I can handle myself when it comes to dickwads like Lenny Baker. And I would say that rescuing fair maidens is part of my job description, but…”
Eddie stubs the half-smoked cigarette out against the brick, flicks it to the ground, and waits until you look up at him again before saying “You don’t seem like you’re in need of any saving.”
That flutter, again, as you hold his eye contact for as long as you can stand it.
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “There she is.”
Mortified, you resist the urge to scream into your hands as you push off from the brick, instead squeezing them into fists at your sides. “Oh-kay. Well. I better head inside or Robin will send out the search party for me.”
Eddie lets you walk past him, but just before you turn the corner he says, “I’m across from the Mayfields in Forest Hills if you ever want some company. Or some good weed.”
Footfalls from his thick-heeled boots recede into the distance, and you take a minute to calm your breathing before pushing your way through the doors of Family Video.
Steve’s stocking a shelf of New Releases at the front of the store, vest-clad torso faced away as the bell above the door signals your entrance. On autopilot he monologues, “Welcome to Family Video, let us know how we can be of service.”
“Aw, I miss the days when you were forced to say Ahoy, mateys!” You tease, Steve turning to give you an irritated frown as you prop your hip against the register counter.
Robin clacks away on the computer, hitting the Enter key a little harder than necessary as she says, “You’re about one mall fire and a bajillion NDA’s too late to ever hear that shit again.”
Keith must be lurking around in the back office, ‘cuz the three of you only refer to last year’s cataclysmic series of events as a “mall fire” when you’re talking in code.
Or if you’re trying to be funny. But based on the dark circles under Robin’s eyes and the harried way Steve’s shoving a hand through his hair as he drifts towards the counter, you surmise that the three of you are very much on the same page this morning with regards to humor and hijinks.
“I didn’t know it was possible to be this hungover,” Robin groans, sinking her hand into a torn-open Skittles bag and popping a handful into her mouth. “Sugar is supposed to help, right?”
You snort, fiddling with a stack of paper brochures as Steve leans against the counter.
“Had any more run-ins with the town riffraff?” He asks, feigning casual, honey-colored eyes roaming around the shop.
“I’m visiting you, aren’t I?” You shoot back, unreasonably defensive.
“Another point for the pretty lady, and Harrington strikes a zero,” Robin totals in her best sports broadcasting voice. “What the hell are you talking about, Steve?”
“Drinky McGee over here was spilling her guts last night to none other than Edward Munson,” Steve replies, looking satisfied when Robin’s eyes bug dramatically.
“Eddie?” Robin hops off the stool, sliding her hands from the other side of the counter to stop your own from ripping the brochures to shreds. “And what, pray tell, were you spilling about with Eddie Muson?”
“Nothing.” You pull your hands from Robin’s, rolling your eyes as if the stakes are low, when in fact the stakes are as tall as the Empire State Building. You can practically hear the wind whistling from this height. “I wasn’t… we barely talked. He was backing me up when some jock started messing with me. That’s all.”
Robin whirls on Steve with animosity- “You left her alone long enough for some meathead to get involved? Jesus, Steve, the hell is wrong with you?”
“Like you shacking up with Vickie after two Tears for Fears tracks is any more responsible!” Steve snaps.
Having spent enough time with both your friends to know their propensity towards petty arguments, you slap a hand against the counter to derail. “Hey! Both of you knock it off. It’s fine, I’m fine, we survived yet another night out on the town unscathed. Let’s just… drop it.”
Steve looks properly chastised, but Robin gets a glint in her eye that confirms she’s not thrown off the scent so easily.
“You know what they call him, right?” she asks you, lowering her raspy voice even further.
“Eddie The Freak Munson,” Steve supplies, but shrinks noticeably when Robin gives him a withering look. “...not that, then?”
“Of course you, Steve The Hair Harrington, would only know him by that name.” Robin shakes her head, disapproving, before turning back to you with a wicked grin. “Word on the street holds Eddie The Munch Munson in very high regard.”
Steve scoffs at this, but you blink, uncomprehending. “Munch, like… he eats a lot of food?”
You feel very suddenly and violently ganged up on when Steve and Robin give you mirrored quizzical looks.
“No, babe,” Robin says, slowly. “Munch as in he eats pussy.”
“Jesus christ.” Heat courses through you as you scan the empty store, even as Steve chuckles and says, “You really are a prude.”
A skittle sails airborne into the side of his temple and he flinches, Robin coming to your aid. “That’s no way to talk to a lady, Steven.”
“I’m so not a prude.” You’re quick to jump to your own defense. “I just… didn’t know what that meant.”
You’d had a boyfriend for 6 months your sophomore year of high school, Ben- nice enough guy, but you’d mostly dated as an excuse to get all your firsts out of the way. Some laid-back hookups have occurred since then- it’s not like you’ve been chaste all these years, for fuck’s sake.
But you certainly wouldn’t give any of those boys a prize-winning nickname for their ability to eat you out.
“It’s all baseless gossip, right?” Steve grabs a nearby wheeled cart and pushes it to the New Releases, resuming his shelf stocking. “I mean, what the hell else are small-townies good for other than trading lies like baseball cards.”
“I dunno,” Robin says, thoughtfully, sucking at her front teeth. “If the token lesbian is hearing about it, then he’s gotta be some sort of sex god.”
Steve’s making a snarky comeback, but you can’t hear him over the whistling in your ears.
You stare blankly out at the parking lot, one hand absently crunching at a brochure, trying really hard to think of anything but those plush lips and all the places you want them.
____
Ever since the events of last year ripped a hole in your found family’s world, you make it a weekly habit to visit Max.
You’re always armed with some excuse- made too much pasta, please take it off my hands and put this tupperware in your fridge; I was on my way to the thrift store and thought I’d stop by, wanna come with and help me pick out some new jeans?- so that it’s harder for Max to deny your company. Slowly, over the last handful of months, by way of secondhand book offerings and slices of leftover pizza, Max has let her guard down enough to let you in.
Even on days like today, when her demeanor suggests active disdain (calling you “mom” with a caustic bite when you ask after her last meal, rolling her eyes when she finds you doing the leftover sink dishes), you don’t take it personal. Her coldness towards little acts of kindness is due to the shitty way other people have failed her. And plus, you’ve put in enough effort to be able to see the warm side of Max Mayfield.
Like now, for instance- she’s giving you a bone-crushing hug on your way out, freshly-braided hair pressed tight to your sternum as you hug her back and sway in the doorway. The hug is quick and fierce, over in seconds as she slips back into practiced indifference
“Stay out of trouble this week and I’ll buy you a pony,” you joke as she pulls away, and the smile that she cracks makes it all worth it.
“Make it a racehorse and you’ve got yourself a deal,” she says, giving you a small wave before closing her front door.
You walk down the dirt path to your parked car, keys in hand. Tonight’s schedule is that of a responsible, sensible young adult- the classified ads on your desk at home need trawling through, and a laundry pile the size of Hoosier Hill waits expectantly on your floor.
But there’s this crawling under your skin, a feeling that tends to flare up every so often, a craving for some sort of release gnawing at the edges. Usually the cure is sad music and masturbation, or some of Steve’s parents’ wine and a cheesy romcom.
Or weed. That tends to work, too.
You’re shoving your keys into the pocket of your denim jacket and walking across the way to Eddie’s trailer before you lose your nerve, scuffing your sneakers against his porch while you knock.
He looks surprised to see you, dark brows raised, leaning into the palm he’s got on the doorframe- “Oh shit. Hi.”
“Hi,” you reply, tracking one foot up the back of your calf, feeling timid under his gaze. “Do you… can I buy some weed?”
When he nods, you duck under his arm and drop to one knee on the carpeted floor to untie your laces.
“Shit, sweetheart, don’t go to all that trouble.” He lets the door close, enveloping you both in the moody lighting of his trailer. There’s a radio playing the local rock station dimly from one of the bedrooms, and as you toe off your shoes you notice a gleaming black guitar leaned upright against the couch.
“Do you play?” You drift over on sock feet to gently brush across the strings, a faint and discordant noise rising and fading underneath your fingertips.
“Yeah.” Eddie’s voice comes from just over your shoulder as he watches your gentle fingers on his prized possession. “I’m in a band, actually. You should come see us play sometime.”
“That’s cool,” you say earnestly. “I remember when you got in trouble for that talent show performance- your band was totally swindled out of first place, if you ask me.”
When he doesn’t respond right away, you hazard a look at him over your shoulder and find him staring at you again, something you’re still not used to, giggling out a little “What?” as his eyes stay on your face.
“You’re pretty, that’s all.” The Dio logo on the front of his tee ripples when he shrugs a shoulder. As if he knew it would embarrass you, he leaves no room for your disagreement, turning away into the kitchen, stretching tall for the metal lunchbox on the top of his fridge.
His shirt lifts with the stretch, a flash of stomach lined with a trail of dark hair that makes you swallow back the gathering saliva in your mouth.
“So, weed,” he’s saying as he pops the lid on the box, shaking out a small bag of fuzzy-looking green clumps. “I can set you up with a couple of days’ worth, if you want.”
“That sounds good,” you reply, mustering courage to drift to Eddie’s side, pretending to assess the baggie he’s holding, committing to memory the way his long fingers deftly pluck apart bud from stem. “That way I can come back and buy more.”
His fingers pause, halfway to the metal grinder nestled in the lunchbox as he says, “You know, you don’t need to use weed as an excuse to come see me. I think we’ve already established I like lookin’ at ya, so you’d be doing me a favor if you came by more. Just to hang out.”
This offer sits between you as he grinds the weed down, then tips a stripe of it neatly across some rolling paper. His dexterous fingers pinch and tuck until a joint takes shape, a small strip of the paper poking out.
He holds it to your lips, brown eyes shimmering with warmth as he waits.
A Stevie Nicks song starts up on the radio, muffled by the trailer walls but crooning through all the same. This close to Eddie for the first time, you can smell him- balmy and spicy, like bergamot and Irish Spring.
You lean into the joint, licking across the paper in one unbroken motion. Your tongue catches on Eddie’s thumb when you pull away, and there’s a salt-warm taste that settles in your mouth.
“Good girl,” he says, in that low-toned voice, and you have to fight to keep your thighs from pressing together in your jeans.
“Wanna smoke here?” Eddie smooths the spit-damp end of the joint down, giving the end a twist. “Good way to test out the merchandise. First one’s free.”
You shake your head as he extends the joint- “I’m definitely paying you, Eddie. And no, I can’t smoke here.” With you being the unspoken addition to that sentence.
“Aw, shucks, sweetheart,” he drawls, devilish grin creeping back in, “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not you I don’t trust,” you admit, before you can stop yourself.
His brows shoot up again, then waggle, obscenely. “Afraid I’m gonna be too tempting to resist once you’re in the clutches of the Green Dragon?”
Something like that, you think, wryly, but that fluttering is back and you really want to shut it up, so against your sensible, better judgment, you take the joint from Eddie’s hand.
“Got a light?”
You haven’t smoked in over a month, and with your tolerance so low two hits is all it takes to get you sprawled out on the living room floor, arms akimbo like you’re making a carpet snow angel.
Eddie’s a bit more restless in his high, plucking melodious and listless tunes from the couch with his guitar, one foot propped on the coffee table near your head.
Feeling loose-limbed and confident, you stare unabashed up at Eddie. He’d put his hair into a low bun, earlier, and there are a few dark tendrils swinging free around his neck with the rocking movements of his body to the music.
He hits a snag, string buzzing out a dissonant noise. “Can’t focus with you lookin’ at me.”
“Sorry,” you murmur, except you’re not at all. “Now you know how I feel all the time.”
He sticks his tongue out at you, your girlish tittering in answer; you pat the carpet beside your hip. “Come lay with me.”
His body responds easily to your request; Eddie props the guitar back up against the couch and stretches out next to you with a sigh, a wave of that smokey sweet smell coming with him.
Under your weed-filtered view, the popcorn ceiling above you is moving, whorling and undulating in the muted light. You’re feeling gutsy and sure of yourself as you ask aloud, “Do you really think I’m pretty?”
Your head turns so you can meet Eddie’s eyes, which are dancing across your face- cheek to lips to nose back up to eyes- and he doesn’t make a joke, this time, his words coming with weighty seriousness.
“Yeah, I do. I think you’re beautiful. Always have.”
“Always?” Your echo is a soft and seeking thing.
“Yeah, always,” he confirms, simply, as if it’s a fact of life. “Woulda made a move sooner, but you always seemed so…”
“Unapproachable? Aloof? Bitchy?” You fill the gap in his speech with adjectives that have been used to characterize you in the past- usually by boys in the heat of an argument over inconsequential things that have been lost to time, only the labels sticking around.
Eddie gives you a reproachful look. “No. I was gonna say, you seemed like you were always in your own world.”
This throws you for a loop. Neck on a swivel, you look back up at the ceiling as Eddie continues.
“I wanted to get to know you more, but I’ll be the first to admit I was intimidated by you. I mean, you’re way out of my league-” Eddie ignores the sardonic snort you give to this- “-and I just assumed asking you out would've ended with an epic crash and burn.”
The ceiling stops swaying, and you swivel back to hold Eddie’s eyes again, the weed making honesty easy. “I always kinda thought you were beautiful, too.”
Awash with the bravery that only comes from being in an altered state, you keep the momentum that’s aided by Eddie’s soft smile and push up on your elbows.
“I know what they call you.”
Eddie blinks up at you, then slowly, slowly, pushes himself up onto his elbows too. “Yeah?”
It’s a taunt, a dare, an I bet you won’t.
Shows how much he knows. When you’re drunk or stoned, he’d be hard pressed to find a bet you can’t win.
You say it, unwavering. “Eddie The Munch Munson.”
His lips fall open, leaning in towards you as if drawn by a magnet, and you think he’s gonna kiss you until he falls back against the carpet, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Shit. Fuck. We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” You’re a little taken aback, ‘cuz while it’s not an outright rejection, Eddie’s upping the drama, hands pressed into the sockets of his eyes, groaning as he tips into your side.
With his forehead pressed into the curve of your shoulder, he says softly, “I think we’re both a little too stoned to be thinking clearly. And I really, really want you to think clearly when it comes to this.”
“Comes to what?” You’re egging him on now, trailing your fingers up his bicep, coy and angelic.
He rolls away from you, making a pained noise with his face smushed into the carpet before pushing himself off the ground. “You know what, princess. New topic, for the love of god. You hungry?”
You are, actually, and when he extends his hand to help you up, you take it.
Eddie whips up a box of mac and cheese while you sit on a counter nearby, conversation engaging and fluid as he cooks.
Between interjections of ‘scuse me, angel, gotta get into this cabinet and can you take over stirring for a sec? you answer all his questions. You tell him your favorite bands, the states you’d visited on a road trip when you were six, even giving him the whole “my mom’s a nice enough person but we don’t get along” spiel that you don’t usually get to until a third date.
If that’s even what this is. He’s scooping steaming noodles into two bowls, passing you one, leaning up against the counter closest to the one you’re sat on. Your knee rubs against his ribcage as you eat.
In between chews, he lets you ask about himself- his favorite bands, the states he’s never been but wants to travel to someday, the highlights of his golden years with his mom that he misses every day.
There’s a quiet lull, after your bowls are scraped clean and set aside. He helps you off the counter and tells you to pick out a movie; you load The Black Cauldron into the VCR and settle into the couch cushion.
Eddie puts an arm around you, lets you play with his hands for the bulk of the film, running your nails methodically across his palms.
By the last act of the movie, you can feel your high beginning to fade, taking your courage with it; when the credits roll, you’re ready to call it quits and sleep off the hangover in your own bed.
“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Eddie asks, following after you as you tug your sneakers back on in the hall.
“Yeah, Eddie, I’ll be good. Thanks for the weed,” you say, pulling your jacket tight around your frame. “And for the- for everything.”
The smile appears again; the one that cuts deep dimples into his cheeks as he watches you step onto his porch.
When he says your name, you turn, keys in hand- “Yeah?”
Leaning into the doorframe like he had earlier, he cants his head, streetlight a warm glow across his cheeks. “You wanna know where I got my nickname, you come back in a few days. Sleep on it tonight.” And then he closes the door.
___
So, technically, he told you to come back in a few days, and showing up less than 24 hours later has to hint at being some sort of desperate.
Which, fuck it, you kinda are, at this point. Frankly it’s a miracle you’ve lasted this long what with the whole being plagued with visions of Eddie Munson’s hands and lips and hair and that stupid fucking nickname every waking and dreaming hour you’ve spent apart.
While you can appreciate the honorable nature of Eddie asking you to make a clear-headed decision, you’re wishing for a hundred things to take the edge off as you change out of the PJ’s you’ve been moping in all day.
Black tights stretch over your calves as you think of the whiskey you mom keeps hidden in the downstairs cabinet; denim miniskirt smoothed over your hips as you long for a deep hit of weed; hands shakily plucking your black tanktop into place as the urge to be anything but sober gets swallowed down.
You make the ten minute drive to Forest Hills in silence (relative to the weird engine noises your hunk of metal car decides to make), wracking your brain for silver-tongued excuses but instead drawing blank after blank.
By the time you’re rolling to a stop in front of Eddie’s trailer, you still have no idea what you’re gonna say to him- only that something needs to be said. Max is at the Sinclair’s for the night, one less person to worry about witnessing you slamming your car door shut and walking right up to Eddie on his front steps.
He’s wearing a pair of overalls, grease-stained, shirtless underneath- the tail end of a larger ink piece peeking out against his ribs. There’s a lone bike tire on the ground, held steady by the spokes his boot rests on as he wrenches the middle hub, biceps rippling and flexing with each movement.
Certainly a sight that would have stopped you in your tracks, on any other day. But you’re determined to have it out with the returning wingbeat behind your navel, planting your Converse in the gravel just before the first step that Eddie’s sat on.
He doesn’t seem surprised to see you this time, instead giving you a lazy smile on a half-tilt, wiping the tire oil from his hands onto the front of his overalls.
“What brings a fair maiden such as yourself to this ugly neck of the woods?” Eddie leans the tire up against the steps and rises to greet you.
You’re gonna lose what little nerve you have left if he touches you so you act quick, speaking as you cross your arms- “I need to tell you a few things.”
That stops him up short, just a few feet away as he inclines his head, hair loose around his bare shoulders. “I’m nothin’ but ears.”
A wet, rattling breath catches in your chest. You give a cursory scan around to confirm that the rest of the trailer park citizens are indoors, soft lights from rows of windows luminous against the darkening twilight sky.
“I have a… a thing,” you start, unsure of where to begin, really wishing you’d come up with a polished script on the ride over instead of being forced to flounder through for the right dialogue. “It started last year. With the mall fire?”
When Eddie nods his understanding, you continue, in short starts and bursts, like you’re fighting with the words before they come out.
“Something… happened. To Robin, and Steve, and to- to me. It was really bad, for awhile, and then it got better, but I’m still…” your hands squeeze tight into the flesh of your upper arms, nails stinging. “I’m fucked up from it. And the only way I can talk about it is if I’m fucked up, too. S’why I can only hold a conversation when I’m drunk or flirt while I’m high, like there’s this bad thing inside of me that I can’t look at when I’m sober-”
There’s a frantic edge that’s slipped in to your voice and Eddie steps towards you, as if to soothe, but you’re not ready to give in yet so you take a step back, choking out the last few words- “I just- I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t, not yet, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
From somewhere in the forest behind, a bright chorus of crickets swells as you fix your focus on the ground, as Eddie’s boots crunch forward on the gravel, toe-to-toe with your sneakers.
He moves carefully, as if worried that you’ll spook- lightly brushing his fingers across yours, drawing your awareness to the fact that your nails are dangerously close to drawing blood, a sigh as you release.
“Thank you for telling me.” Unlike your own voice, his is low and sure as his thumbs brush against the red half-moons in your arms. “You’re really brave, you know that?”
He doesn’t leave room for you to dispute this, instead tracing the underside of your jaw with his knuckle, forcing you to hold his gaze, those deep brown eyes soft with empathy as he says, “I don’t have any expectations of you, ‘kay? I’ll be all ears when you need me to be, but you don’t have to spill all your secrets every time you come around. You wanna just watch shitty cartoons and keep my couch warm, that’s fine by me. Nothin’ else needs to happen.”
And it’s his acknowledgement of your admission, his softhearted way of letting you know that nothing needs to happen, that makes you brave.
Brave enough to tilt your chin into the lift of his finger as you say, “I didn’t just come here to apologize.”
You watch his Adam’s apple bob against the taut vein in his neck as he swallows, hard.
“Yeah?”
When you nod, Eddie blows out a breath and turns on his heel, motioning you to follow him up the stairs.
Your eagerness is obvious as you scramble up the steps after him, heart starting to thrum in tandem with the flutters as he shuts his front door behind the both of you.
“Take your shoes off,” is all he says, in a low, strained voice, before turning into the kitchen.
Obedient, you drop to one knee and jerk apart your sneaker laces with trembling hands.
Now on nyloned feet, you step onto the linoleum tile of Eddie’s kitchen. He’s faced away from you at the sink, taut lines of his shoulders rising and falling as he washes his hands.
“You’re sober?” He asks, still at the sink, drying his hands on a patterned teatowel.
When you realize he can’t see your nod, you speak- “Yes. Yeah. As a judge.”
A soft exhale through his nose, amused, as he finally turns to face you. Eddie’s eyes do that hypnotizing dance- skipping from your chin to your eyes to your lips back up again- and you let him, feeling exposed to the point of nakedness with the intensity of his focus.
“I want to hear you say it.”
The sentence winds through the air, joins the wings in your stomach, sits low in your belly as you shift your weight from side to side, a gentle rock to ease your flayed-alive nerves.
You say it. “I want your mouth.”
Eddie takes a step closer, nearly toe-to-toe with you again. Over the familiar layer of bergamot and fresh hand soap he smells like the outdoors, and faintly of mechanic oil, hearty and wild.
“Where?” It’s a single word, but with so much weight- suggestive, a taunt, an offer.
You breathe him in, eyes fluttering closed, ‘cuz brave as you’ve been it’s still hard to say some things while looking at him. “Want your mouth… on me.”
He crowds into your space, one hand gliding smoothly to set against your waist, the other fitted against your neck, tapping a thumb to your lips.
You part them, passive and wanting, but he doesn’t press his finger to the pad of your tongue like you’d hoped. Instead, he lets his thumb stroke to the corner of your mouth to make room for his own.
“Where?” he asks again, this time into your mouth. You can feel the tip of his nose graze yours, pinpricks of his hair tickling your cheeks.
“Please,” is all you manage this time, awash with heat when you feel his smile form.
“S’okay, sweetheart. I’ll work you up to it.” It’s a touch condescending, skirting that fine line between tease and mean, the same tone of voice that has your thighs pressing together.
And then, he gives you what you asked for. His plush lips- the ones that you’ve been fantasizing about for what feels like eons- are pressing against yours.
It’s a kiss that starts chaste, tender, but soon devolves into a heady, fevered thing when you push your tongue past the seam of his lips. He melts into you, using the hand he has on your face to keep you steady as he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, grazing his teeth into the plush of it before going back to twining his tongue with yours.
There’s an audible wet click as he pulls away, both of your chests heaving in the quiet that follows; Eddie rests his forehead against yours briefly to catch his breath, and then he’s tugging you down the hall and into his room.
It’s pleasantly messy and lived-in, posters and photographs taking up most of the walls, guitar cables snaking and criss-crossing atop his dresser. You take a seat on the bed, hands tightening into the flannel duvet while Eddie begins to undo the buttons of his overall straps.
Wholly fascinated, you watch as he pushes the thick material from his body and kicks it to the side, leaving him in just his guitar pick necklace and a simple pair of black boxers. Now on full display, you drink in the sight of the most skin you’ve ever seen of his- tattoos at his chest and arms dark against the rest of him, pale and gleaming softly in the yellow light of the bedside lamp.
You’re trying to figure out if the larger piece on his ribs is a dragon or some other mythological creature when he moves in to sit next to you, his kisses erasing all thoughts.
Eddie’s making these throaty little noises as you kiss; his hands track lines from your hips to your sides to your shoulders, your chest unconsciously pressing into his touch.
When his thumb catches on the outline of your beaded nipple through your shirt, he hisses lightly, drawing back to look at you again- “Is this okay?”
You nod, but he doesn’t seem satisfied with that, tsking as he swipes with his thumb again, watching closely as you react silently to the touch.
“Hard to tell when you’re enjoying yourself if you’re quiet as a churchmouse,” Eddie says, in a tone that’s reminiscent of training a pet. “You gonna let me hear you?”
Your teeth catch on your lower lip as he thumbs across your nipple again, shockwaves coursing into goosebumps as you choke out, “I’m not s-so good at that. Not without- fuck- weed..”
Eddie huffs a laugh, a little derisive but you figure he’s probably got the right, seeing as how you’re this worked up and he’s barely touched you.
“You’re plenty good at this sober, sweetheart. Want me to prove it?”
His hand falls from your breast, extricates one of yours from the covers, and slides it up the meat of his thigh- then to the front of his boxers.
The first noise you make for him is a small gasp, one that matches his own as you cup your palm over the thick jut of his hard cock.
“Told you,” he says, sounding strung-out, his hand still closed around your wrist, “You’re doin’ just fine at working me up.”
You wrap your fingers around the bulge as best you can with the fabric of his boxers separating skin from skin, gaining confidence to explore as his grip on your wrist loosens. The black ink at his ribs expands and shrinks with the bellows of his breath, jolting and stuttering with each stroke of your hand.
Just as he’s drawing in a breath to speak, tightening his hold around your wrist in warning, you still your movements. Delicately, slowly, you slide out of his grasp and take his wrist in your hand, placing his palm on your own thigh.
The whole “reciprocating pleasure with sound” is still a hard one to give in to; maybe you can compensate for your hesitancy by showing instead of telling. You guide his hand up, into your skirt, parting your thighs until his fingers find the wetness soaking through both your panties and tights.
“Fucking… jesus.” Eddie moves with the fluid surety that you lack, middle finger running up the seam of your clothed pussy, your hips jerking reflexively when he catches against your clit. “This all for me, princess?”
In answer, you lean to bury your face into the crook of Eddie’s neck. He lets you, taking the opportunity to hook your leg over his thigh, spreading you out as much as your fitted denim skirt will allow.
You pant into the column of his throat as he strokes you through the light layers, the fabrics grinding friction into your clit caught under his fingertip. He rests his chin on the crown of your head, cooing praises that have your stomach muscles tensing.
“That’s it, good girl, such a good girl for me.”
Your clit is throbbing now as he rubs you in small, quick circles, and you’re so close to falling over the edge that you have to pull his hand away.
Eddie picks up on your unspoken plea; he tugs the skirt down your hips then tosses it blindly over his shoulder, reaching for the edge of your tights. He slips them down your thighs, your calves, peeling them off you with reverence. When all that’s left is your best pair of satin panties, he maneuvers you up against the headboard and stretches himself flat on his stomach, nose pressing into your core.
That heat has come back, flashing through you with a vengeance as Eddie mouths at your pussy through the satin, sloppily but with purpose enough to have your cunt clenching around nothing.
You stay up on your elbows, watching that mane of dark hair bracketed by your thighs, but when Eddie pulls your underwear down and off your ankle your weight falls back against the mattress.
The flat of his tongue licks a wide stripe from your weeping hole up to spread the wetness around your clit. When he sucks the bundle of nerves into his mouth, your head presses back into the covers, hands grappling above you for something to anchor your grasp.
When Eddie flicks the point of his tongue against that bright spot of nerves your hands find a pillow to grip, and when he moans into your pussy the vibrations have you instinctively pulling the pillow against your face, teeth biting into the fluff, masking the whine that would have been loud in the otherwise quiet room.
You think you might be able to get away with this setup (what with Eddie seemingly focused on making you explode into a million little pieces) but there’s a sharp smack before the outer skin of your thigh is burning, white-hot from the kiss of his rings.
Eddie’s mouth leaves you only for the time it takes for him to rip the pillow from your grasp and scold, “Uh uh, none of that, c’mon,” and then he’s back at your clit, suckling with renewed vengeance.
There are little stars bursting at the edges of your vision, your hands shooting down to grip at Eddie’s hair when he pistons the point of his tongue against you again. Your hips are subtly bucking into his mouth, shaking thighs involuntarily closing around his ears. Normally you’d be concerned about Eddie’s air intake but going off the moans he’s burying in your pussy, you’d hazard a guess that he’s really into it.
As if in confirmation, he pulls off your clit with a wet pop, laving his tongue up the junction where thigh meets pelvis, voice sounding wrecked- “Doin’ so good, sweetheart. Fuck, you got me so hard. Gonna blow a load in my boxers like a teenager, y’taste so good. Gonna let me hear you? Hm? Wanna hear you.”
You’re dizzy with want as you prop yourself on your elbows again, mouth falling open as Eddie sinks two of his fingers up to the ringed knuckle inside your velvet walls.
His other hand comes to rest on the soft curve of your stomach, pinning you in place, before he looks up at you, black pupils nearly eclipsing the chocolate brown.
“What do you want?” he asks again, patiently, as if he doesn’t have two fingers nestled inside your cunt.
Your efforts to grind into him are stopped with his firm hold on your middle, and he tuts at you again- but instead of a reprimand, he seems to soften a bit.
“C’mon, angel,” Eddie says, with such tenderness that makes tears prick at the corner of your eyes. He presses his lips to the inside of your thigh before encouraging, “Lemme hear you say it, and I’ll make it so good for you. Promise.”
“Want you to make me come. Please.” Your voice is unsteady, but it’s audible enough.
Eddie rewards you by sinking his fingers further, to the hilt, heel of his palm catching against your clit. When you let out a warbling moan, he nods- “That’s it,”- before setting a steady rhythm for fucking his fingers up into you.
“Fuck, Eddie- fu-uck…” you’re trying, really trying to stay in the moment and not get caught up in the noises you’re making- for him.
When Eddie reattaches his mouth to your throbbing clit and angles his fingers to hit into that soft, spongy spot with each thrust, you feel waves of pleasure start to wash through you. There’s just time for a choked “Shit, Eddie, you’re gonna make me cum,” before you’re spasming around his fingers.
Somehow, you manage to stay on your elbows, bracing your body through the convulsive shocks, white-hot stars joining the wingbeat rhythm as Eddie takes you apart with his mouth and fingers.
He moans, long and low, fucking you through it and then some- your orgasm has been completely wrung out when you push at his forehead, whimpering at the overstimulation.
“No, baby, one more, please. Gimme one more,” Eddie lifts his head to plead with you, sweaty bangs glued to his forehead- and then he’s back between your legs.
It’s this moment that makes you retrospective. Sex with boys, in the past, has always been a quick means to an end: a few minutes of foreplay, tamping down your own pleasure for the sake of blowing off some steam.
But now, pleasure was being given to you in spades by Eddie Munson, and you wanted to give it back to him.
You come on his tongue and fingers, again, stomach tightening beneath his warm palm, and this time you really loose the sounds caught in your chest: a strangled mix of your bliss-soaked whines with his name, Eddie Eddie Eddie.
You feel the bed frame jolt below you both as Eddie’s hips thrust into the mattress in a frenzied tempo.
“Fuck me.” He pulls away, finally, panting into the side of your knee. He rests his head against your leg, lips tinged pink and shining wet, gazing at you with lust-blown eyes. “You are so fucking hot. Holy shit.”
Bashful as your peak wears off, you pull him forward so you don’t have to look at him when you whisper, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, princess,” he says, slumping against your chest and into your arms. “That’s going straight to my long-term spank bank. Number one. For sure.”
You slap playfully at his shoulder, and he rises on his elbows to kiss you- once on the lips, twice on the cheek- warm palms on the outside of your shoulders.
“Are you… d’you need any help?” you ask, reaching to tuck his hair behind his ears, feeling the crush of insecurity leech in. “I dunno if you even- I mean, did you…”
From all the physical activity, your breasts are half-spilled out of your bra, and Eddie bends to kiss at the tops of them, affectionately, shaking his head as he goes. “There is no world in which I would’ve lasted, just now. Very noble of you to assume, though.”
He grins at your giggle, then says- “I dunno about you, but I need some new underwear. Wanna borrow a pair of my boxers? Bet you’d look cute.”
________
Later, when you’re both cleaned up, dressed, and full from a pizza delivery, Eddie invites you outside for a smoke.
You sit with him on the porch couch, legs slung over his, a big flannel blanket shared over both your laps while he smokes with the hand that isn’t on your thigh.
There’s a crunching of wheels on gravel, and Max Mayfield’s bike lamp cuts through the dark.
“Hey, Heavy Metal,” she calls out, undoing her bike helmet and leaning her bike into its kickstand. “Are you done fixing up Lucas’s tires or do I have to keep hauling my ass all the way across town to see him?”
“I’ll have it done tomorrow, Red,” Eddie calls back, giving her a salute.
Halfway to her door, she remarks, “You two are gross, by the way,”
You cross your arms in the sweatshirt Eddie loaned you, slipping into irksome older sister mode easily. “So how’d it go with your boyfriend, tonight, Maxine?”
She flips you both off, but you catch the smile on her face before the front door bangs shut behind her.
Eddie chuckles, smoothing his palm up your thigh, then takes another drag. “You gotta come night smoke with me more often, angel. The streetlights suit you.”
“Gonna get me hooked on nicotine, too?” Your sock foot pokes him in the ribs and he tuts, snapping it up in his free hand and digging his thumb into the arch of your sole.
“Fuck no, your teeth are too pretty to ruin. Want you to come keep me company while I destroy my lungs.”
Another cloud of smoke lifts dreamily around Eddie’s face. His thumb is working wonders on the tense muscle of your foot as you tip your head to rest on the back of the couch. With the nearby streetlamp, his profile is cast in a warm glow; you do a dance of your own, eyes taking in the strong slope of his nose, tracking down to his lips, back up to the wild curls at his temple.
Eddie feels you staring, turns to fix you with a quit it look that you can’t help but laugh at- “What, so you’re the only one who’s allowed to stare?”
“That’s right,” he confirms, leaning forward to set his cig in an ashtray, bullying his way into your space, rings cold under your chin when he tilts your face towards his- “Gotta pay the piper for that obvious violation, sweetheart. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.”
This time, when the flutter within you kicks up, you have a place for it to go- melting softly into Eddie’s lips.
___________________
I wrote the last third of this while blasted please don’t judge too harshly lmao
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It took LaToysha Brown 13 years to realize how little interaction she had with white peers in her Mississippi Delta town: not at church, not at school, not at anywhere.
The realization dawned when she was in the seventh grade, studying the civil rights movement at an after-school program called the Sunflower County Freedom Project. It didn't bother her at first. By high school, however, Brown had started to wonder if separate could ever be equal. She attended a nearly all-black high school with dangerous sinkholes in the courtyard, spotty Internet access in the classrooms, and a shortage of textbooks all around. Brown had never been inside Indianola Academy, the private school most of the town's white teenagers attend. But she sensed that the students there had books they could take home and walkways free of sinkholes.
"The schools would achieve so much more if they would combine," said Brown, now age 17 and a junior.
But more than four decades after they were established, "segregation academies" in Mississippi towns like Indianola continue to define nearly every aspect of community life. Hundreds of these schools opened across the country in the 20 years after the Brown v. Board decision, particularly in southern states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Virginia. While an unknown number endure outside of Mississippi, the Delta remains their strongest bastion.
A Hechinger Report analysis of private school demographics (using data compiled on the National Center for Education Statistics website) found that more than 35 such academies survive in Mississippi, many of them in rural Delta communities like Indianola. Each of the schools was founded between 1964 and 1972 in response to anticipated or actual desegregation orders, and all of them enroll fewer than two percent black students. (The number of Mississippi "segregation academies" swells well above 35 if schools where the black enrollment is between three and 10 percent are counted.) At some of them -- including Benton Academy near Yazoo City and Carroll Academy near Greenwood -- not a single black student attended in 2010, according to the most recent data. Others, like Indianola Academy, have a small amount of diversity.
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"These schools were started to keep white children away from blacks," said Wade Overstreet, a Mississippi native and the program coordinator at the national advocacy organization Parents for Public Schools. "They've done an amazing job of it."
It would be easy to see Indianola -- and Mississippi more generally -- as an anomaly when it comes to education: hyper-segregated, fraught with racial mistrust, stuck in the past. But in some respects, the story of education in Indianola is becoming the story of education in America.
As the Atlantic reported last week, throughout the country, public schools are nearly as segregated as they were in the late 1960s when Indianola Academy opened. In many areas, they are rapidly resegregating as federal desegregation orders end. White families continue to flee schools following large influxes of poor or minority students. And in Indianola, as in the rest of the country, there's stark disagreement as to why: Whites often cite concerns over school quality, while blacks are more likely to cite the persistence of racism.
Indeed, as Indianola struggles to make its way educationally and economically in the 21st century, the town's experience serves as a cautionary tale of how separate and unequal schools can not only divide a community, but fracture a place so deeply that its very existence is at stake.
Flight From Gentry
Indianola's tale of two school systems -- one public and black, one private and white -- began in January of 1970, when a U.S. district judge ruled that Indianola could no longer permit blatant segregation in its public school system. For years, white students had attended schools north of the train tracks that divide the town, while black students were relegated to inferior school buildings south of the tracks. The plan was to merge the schools and send all high school students -- white and black -- to the previously black Gentry High School.
In anticipation of the ruling, the white community founded Indianola Academy in 1965. But the fledgling school did not yet have a facility large enough to accommodate the hundreds of white students who left the public schools during Christmas break in 1969, knowing the decision was imminent, said Steve Rosenthal, a senior in high school at the time. Rosenthal said he was instructed to bring his textbooks home with him over break. When school started back up in January, he attended one of the academy's new satellite campuses in a Baptist church. The situation was far from ideal: Study halls sometimes were interrupted by weekday funerals. Yet not a single white student showed up at Gentry that semester. In the spring, Rosenthal received his diploma as part of the academy's first graduating class.
Today, Rosenthal serves as mayor of Indianola, a two-hour drive north of Jackson. The academy still thrives. According to the Private School Universe Survey, the school enrolled 434 white students and two black ones during the 2009-10 school year (the most recent year for which such data is available). Yet fewer than 20 percent of the town's approximately 10,000 residents are white.
Little else is publicly known about Indianola Academy apart from the information the school promulgates on its website. As a private school, its students do not have to take the state's standardized tests (much to the chagrin of the town's public school students), though a student handbook on the school's website states that students should score in the top 30 percent on a student achievement test to gain admission.
Sammy Henderson, the academy's headmaster, never responded to a reporter's request to visit while in town. But he did answer several questions via e-mail. Henderson wrote that African-American enrollment at the school has risen to nine students this school year, and "we also have Hispanic, Indian, and Oriental students." Annual tuition, which includes money for books and other fees, ranges from $3,795 to $5,080, depending on the grade level. And the academy budgets money annually for minority scholarships, spreading word about their availability via newspaper advertisements and word-of-mouth, Henderson said.
IRS tax forms filed by Indianola Academy show the school has raised a modest amount for scholarships in recent years. In 2010, for instance, the school paid out $6,500 for "minority scholarships," according to those forms.
Tradition and history partly explain why the scholarships aren't more widely utilized: Black families know their children could be isolated and shunned at the academy, and those with the means and desire to avoid the public schools have long relied on other -- more historically welcoming -- private schools, including a tiny, nearly all-black Christian academy in Indianola.
But Indianola Academy is also highly selective and opaque in its recruitment and admissions processes for African-Americans, according to public school students and teachers. Applicants have to be top students and submit multiple letters of recommendation, said a Sunflower County Freedom Project participant whose younger brother thought about applying. And some black students appear to be recruited at least partly because of their athletic abilities, said Sam Wallis, a current Gentry teacher, and Katie Cooney, a former one. Henderson denies that claim, writing that several of the academy's African-American students do not even play sports. He said a "minority scholarship committee" reviews the applications and awards money to those who "meet the qualifications," although he did not spell out what those qualifications are.
The academy, like other private schools, is eligible for federal money through what are known as Title programs that flow through public school districts. Indianola school district officials say the academy has received about $56,000 in Title II money for professional development over the last two years.
But apart from that exchange of money, there's little formal or informal interaction between the academy and the public school system, say Indianola residents.
Wallis, a New York native who attended public schools in Westchester County, expected to encounter segregation when he moved to Indianola in 2011 to teach in the public schools. But he had not anticipated such a laissez-faire attitude toward it.
"When I taught Plessy v. Ferguson, I offered it up that separate is not equal. I said it was one of the worst decisions in American history," he said. "But several of the students said, 'Why? That sounds okay.'"
Sinkholes and Low Scores
Compared to Indianola Academy, Gentry High School is an open book, its academic struggles exposed to the world. While there's some modest racial integration at Indianola's public elementary schools, by high school all but a few white students have departed. Ninety-eight percent of Gentry's students are black, one percent are Hispanic, and one percent are white. A plaque at the school's entrance states that Gentry was erected in 1952 as part of South Sunflower County's "special consolidated school district for colored."
The campus is made up of several worn buildings, which means that students have to walk outdoors between many of their classes. Since the outdoor drainage and sewage systems are outdated, sinkholes dot the walkways; when it rains, students and teachers can find themselves wading through foot-deep floodwaters.
Even Gentry's current students believe white county leaders deliberately built a partially outdoors campus 60 years ago, after a fire destroyed the previous school building, because they hoped it would deter black students from coming to school in the rain or cold. "They didn't want black kids to get an education," said Brown.
Gentry has struggled with test scores since the state's accountability system began in the 1990s: Last year, 56 percent of students at the school had passing scores in algebra, 51 percent in English, 42 percent in history, and 17 percent in biology.
But students like Brown believe the poor scores are at least partly because the school lacks the resources it needs to be successful. Students sometimes swelter in classrooms without working air-conditioning during the hottest months and they can shiver without enough heat during the coldest. In some classes, the teenagers cannot take textbooks home because teachers fear they will get lost. Computers crash constantly because of low bandwidth. In Wallis' first year at Gentry (2011-12), he inherited government textbooks identifying the latest U.S. president as George H.W. Bush.
"The school needs to be torn down and rebuilt altogether," says Brown.
Her classmate, 16-year-old Primus Apolonio, says poorly behaved students also keep Gentry down -- partly by scaring away the teachers. Of the six young instructors brought to Gentry in the fall of 2011 through the alternative recruitment program, Teach For America, Wallis was the only one to return for a second year. Others left for personal reasons, or because of frustration with the job, according to Gentry staff. Teach for America participants typically make two-year commitments to teach in a high-needs school.
"The students are disrespectful to the point where the teachers don't stay," said Apolonio. "And the school [administration] does not do anything but paddle them and send them back to class." (Corporal punishment has long been legally employed by Indianola's school district staff, as in other parts of the state. Earl Watkins, the "conservator" recently appointed by the state to oversee the school district, wrote in an e-mail that teachers have also been trained in other discipline strategies. "Because corporal punishment has been a practice for many years in the district, professional development must precede the reduction/phase-out of it," Watkins wrote.)
But Apolonio agrees with Brown that students would behave better if they felt like the community placed more value on their education. "During the winter it gets cold and the heaters don't work in the classrooms," he said. "Of course the kids are going to get more disruptive."
Gentry and Indianola Academy do not play each other in interscholastic sports; academies typically play other academies. Yet throughout most its history -- and for reasons that remain the subject of urban legend in town -- Indianola Academy has maintained control of a large football field adjacent to the old public junior high school (which now houses the district's early childhood center), on land town leaders say is actually privately owned by the American Legion. Instead of sharing the field, the academy leaders put their logo, IA, on the buildings like territorial markings. There's also a six-foot barbed wire fence around the field's perimeter: a stark reminder that outsiders should stay away.
Two Communities, Two Narratives
Indianola, like other segregated communities across the country, is defined not only by two school systems and two sides of town, but by two competing narratives that attempt to explain segregation's stubborn persistence.
According to one narrative, white leaders and residents starved the public schools of necessary resources after decamping for the academy, an institution perpetuated by racism. According to the opposing narrative, malfeasance and inept leadership contributed to the downfall of the public schools, whose continued failings keep the academy system alive.
Hury Minniefield is a purveyor of the former narrative. He was one of the first black students to integrate the town's public schools in 1967 through a voluntary -- and extremely limited -- desegregation program. He and his two younger brothers spent a single academic year at one of the town's white schools. "Because the blacks were so few in number, we didn't interfere with the white students too much and never did hear the 'n word' too much," he said.
Despite his unique personal history, Minniefield does not believe the schools in Indianola will ever truly integrate. "It has not been achieved and it will likely never be achieved," he said. "It's because of the mental resistance of Caucasians against integrating with blacks. ... Until the white race can see their former slaves as equals, it will not happen."
Steve Rosenthal, the mayor, takes a different view. He argues that many white families have no problem sending their children to school with black students, but choose Indianola Academy because the public schools are inferior. His two children, both in their 20s, graduated from the academy, where he believes they received a strong education. "I would not have had a problem sending them to public schools had the quality been what I wanted," he said, adding a few minutes later, "If there's mistrust, it's the black community toward the whites."
Rosenthal and Minniefield also have divergent views on what led to the public schools' decline.
The white community "would prefer not to pay a dime to the public schools," said Minniefield. "It's had a devastating effect on resources and the upward mobility of the community."
Rosenthal is not deaf to such arguments, agreeing that the Gentry campus should be updated or replaced. However, he cites mismanagement as well. When the state took over the schools in 2009, the district reportedly employed dozens of unnecessary employees, he says. "The old saying was that even the secretaries had secretaries," he said. "I don't think funding was our entire problem."
Students tend to offer the most nuanced perspective on why wholesale segregation endures. "It's because of both races," said Brown. "No one wants to break that boundary or cross that line. Both sides are afraid."
The Academies' Local Impact
The private academies scattered throughout the state have more in common than racial demographics and founding purpose. Many of them, like Indianola Academy, are located on their town's "Academy Drive" and embrace mascots that hearken back to the Civil War: the Generals, the Patriots, the Colonels. Their websites often prominently display non-discrimination clauses -- yet feature photos only of smiling white children.
The academies are also partly responsible for destroying the economic and educational fortunes of their communities, contends Dick Molpus, a former Mississippi secretary of state who co-founded Parents for Public Schools.
Those communities that continue to operate two separate school systems "are moving onto life support if they are not already dead," he said. "Companies don't want to come to places where both of the school systems are inferior." Molpus added that Mississippi towns have limited amounts of money, power, and influence. "When those three things are divided between black public schools and white academies, both offer substandard education," he said.
Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and expert on school desegregation, said he's concerned that increasing numbers of poor, minority students will attend under-resourced schools nationally if segregation continues to deepen. Although research has uncovered blatant racial disparities in school spending, Kahlenberg defines school "resources" more broadly -- including teacher quality, parent involvement and peer college aspirations -- all of which he says tend to lag at schools with predominantly low-income, minority students.
'We Would Give Away Our Empty Buildings'
Rosenthal maintains that Indianola Academy, at least, offers a superior education. But he, too, is worried about the town's economic future. The schools aren't preparing enough students for living wage jobs, and the jobs aren't always there for those who need them. Indianola has lost several major businesses in recent decades, including the yard equipment manufacturer Modern Line and a large catfish processing plant. The town's population dropped by about 1,400, or 11.5 percent, between the 2000 and 2010 census. "We would give away our empty buildings to a company that would agree to employ x number of people," said Rosenthal.
Indianola's students say they need more than jobs to entice them to stay in a town that feels provincial in more ways than one. "Indianola is small to me," said Apolonio. "I would bring my family back here and show them where I grew up. But as far as living here? No."
Brown said the community has been taking small steps forward. Earlier this year the Sunflower Freedom Project published a literary magazine featuring the work of both public school and academy students -- an unprecedented collaborative effort. Hundreds of blacks now live north of the train tracks in previously all-white neighborhoods. And youth of different races meet regularly in recreational sports leagues, if not yet at formal interscholastic events.
Brown, however, would prefer to live in a town where the milestones are not so modest, the racial divide not so deep. "I do want to give back to this community," she said. "But if I start a family I do not want to start it here. We are so behind on everything -- especially education."
Jackie Mader contributed material to this report.
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