#every read through i kept finding spots where i'd slipped back into past tense and had to change all the verbs

[woodelf68]

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

My long-promised homage to @worryinglyinnocent‘s Playtime ‘verse, because she managed to write fifty installments without doing hippies, and I had to rectify that. Also my contribution to @rumbelleishope. Rated E. 

***

The large cardboard box bearing items from the estate sale was like a time capsule from the late 1960s. Gold sorts through the items, fond memories of his early childhood stirred by such things as the beaded curtain and concert posters and the heavy stack of albums, their cardboard covers worn along the edges but still bright with the distinctive graphics of the era. The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Iron Butterfly. Donovan, too, Glasgow-born like himself. He can hear them in his head, like a soundtrack to the Summer of Love, and he wonders if Belle will like any of them. He’s fairly certain that she’ll like the clothes, and holds up a loose, flowing smock with wide sleeves and delicate flowers embroidered around the neckline and hem.  It’s a pretty thing, and he can easily see Belle wearing it, hopes that she’ll want to.

Methodically he sorts through the contents of the box, dividing everything into three piles. One to be priced and sold – the two posters were what had drawn him to bid on this lot in the first place, and he knows that he can sell them for a pretty penny – one of things he thinks Belle might be interested in, and one of a few items of clothing that he looks at doubtfully, unsure if he wants them to fit or not. But he thinks of Belle in the short dress, thinks of surprising her with a scenario they haven’t played out yet, knows he won’t regret any temporary feelings of silliness at wearing what are, after all, fairly normal clothes compared to some of the things he’s put on for her. Making up his mind, he goes into the shop’s small bathroom and locks the door.

Several minutes later he’s studying his reflection, and surprisingly not feeling too ridiculous. although he would die of embarrassment if anyone other than Belle were to see him wearing a suede leather vest adorned with long fringes. But the undyed linen shirt with the open neck and band collar is soft and comfortable, and if it’s a little too big, it’s not overly so, and he can roll up the sleeves. Same with the trousers, he’s sure that the flare-legged rust denim was originally meant to fit a bit more tightly than they do on his frame, but although he knows that Belle would no doubt appreciate that, he’s gotten used to more freedom of movement. With a belt and the cuffs turned up if he doesn’t want them to drag on the ground, the jeans fit well enough. The clothes remind him of his childhood, those years after he had been taken in by his aunts, where he had learned the feeling of security, and being wanted, and what it was like to be praised and encouraged instead of constantly belittled. Whether it’s the warm memories associated with the era, or simply the fact that he knows his ten year old self would have loved to have had a fringed leather vest, he’s satisfied with his image.  Now all he has to do is suggest a scene. He thinks about it as he changes back into his suit and tucks the vintage garments into a bag. The shop is small, and would be easily decorated, but far too public for more than a quickie. The large Victorian house filled with fine antiques is not right at all. That leaves the cabin, he decides.

Saturday morning, he drops Belle off at the library and hands her a box tied with string that he’d stashed in the back seat of the Cadillac. “Don’t open it until lunchtime,” he says, knowing the pleasure of an anticipated surprise. “I won’t be in the shop today; I’ve got some other business to take care of.”

“All right; see you later.” Belle watches him drive off, mystified by the package in her hands. By the time lunchtime rolls around, she’s more than ready to tear off the box lid and find out what’s in it. A piece of paper sits on top of some tissue paper-covered contents, with the heading “Playtime?” She forces herself to read the rest before folding back the tissue paper and seeing what awaits her. “It’s 1968. Fibre artist and co-founder of Storybrooke’s new “Enchanted Forest” commune “Rumpelstiltskin” Gold has agreed to an interview with the hip young reporter from the local newspaper.  Please confirm interview at 6 pm Saturday.”  Intrigued, she folds back the tissue paper and nearly squeals with delight, instantly picking up the beaded, white leather headband that lays on top of the other items and tying it around her head. She gets out her compact mirror to admire how it looks for a moment before texting Rum back.

“Interview confirmed. Looking forward to it.”

He must have been waiting for her reply; his return message is swift. “Dove will have the car there for you at five; I’ll see you later.”

Dove arrives with the keys to the Cadillac before she closes the library at five, and as soon as she locks the front door, she retires to the restroom to change into her outfit. It’s a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and she drives out to the cabin as instructed, deciding what she’s going to say when she gets there.  Parking, she starts to head for the door of the cabin when she hears music coming from around the side of it and alters her course.  Gold is there, sitting on top of the picnic table, his spindle hanging down and twirling as he spins a smooth yarn from the basket of wool roving in the basket beside him. He is dressed – well, he is dressed to match her, obviously, and it suits him. It suits him incredibly well.  He looks softer, younger, his dark hair set off by the off-white linen shirt, feathering out over the band collar, the open neckline displaying the line of this throat and a string of love beads, mostly black with a few white and sky blue ones mixed in at regular intervals.  The rust-coloured denim of his jeans sits low on his hips and flares out below the knees and the fringed vest…she’d like to see him move with it on, see the fringes flare out. She kind of wants to borrow it herself, and thinks about what it would feel like to wear it with nothing on underneath.  Preferably while she was riding him in bed, rocking back and forth, the open edges of the leather rubbing back and forth against her bare skin… She swallows hard, and pushes that image back to take out and play with again later. Gold looks both snuggly, and sexy, and she wants nothing more than to go over to him and slide her fingers into his hair to hold him still while she kisses him breathless, but she has a part to play first.

”Mr. Gold?” she asks, approaching. “I’m Belle French, with the Storybrooke Mirror. You agreed to an interview.” She holds out her hand and he lets go of the dangling yarn forming between his fingers to reach out and shake it.

“Call me Rum, please.” He goes back to smoothing the spinning fiber into a smooth, even yarn, and Belle can’t help but watch his hands.

“That’s a nickname, right?” She takes out a pen and notebook from her purse, ostensibly jotting it down. “For Rumpelstiltskin, because of the spinning.”

“It is. I quite like it.”

“How did you get into spinning?”

“My aunts taught me. We had a wee croft, a few sheep, chickens, that sort of thing. Turned out that I was quite good at it. I like the rhythm of it, and there’s a lot of satisfaction in taking a bit of dirty, rough wool and combing it clean and spinning it into a strong, even twist of yarn that can be made into things.”

“Do you use the yarn yourself? Make it into things?”

“Aye, we do a fair bit of that here, at the commune. Granny’s our champion knitter, ponchos and scarves and mittens, they always sell really well at the Miner’s Day Festival. And my son and his girlfriend like to make dreamcatchers with the wool; they’re another popular item. And of course we make things for ourselves as well.”

“So is that part of your goal here? To be as self-sufficient as possible?” Belle drops her bag on the grass and sits down beside it, cross-legged, resting her notebook on her thigh and glancing back up after scribbling a few things down in it.  It’s a lazy sort of day, and for once she isn’t in a hurry to rush to the sex, instead interested in the unusually detailed background story he’s made up about himself, and hinted at in the letter he’d written. She wouldn’t mind being a journalist if she wasn’t a librarian, she thinks, and wonders if the Mirror might be interested in her starting a weekly column about books.

“Aye, I suppose. It’s cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it, for example, and better for you. You’ll have to talk to Anton, our crops expert, if you want to know more about that side of thing. He’ll talk your ear off about beans if you show even the slightest bit of interest.”

Belle grins, thinking of the gentle giant who ran the local health food store, and knowing it was actually true. “You mentioned your son; tell me about him.”

Gold smiles fondly. “He’s an artist. Does portraits when he can get a commission, freelance political cartoons, sign painting, anything really.”

Neal is indeed a good artist, she knows, even if he has chosen the steady paycheck that came with a job at the hardware store over any artistic dreams, preferring to keep it a hobby. “You sound very proud of him .”

“I am.”

“What about those other people you mentioned? His girlfriend, and Granny. Do they live here, too?”

“Aye, Emma and her parents are fairly new here. Her mother’s our respectable member of society – she’s a teacher at the school – and her father can do just about everything around here. Good with the animals, construction work, anything that needs doing. And I can’t even be jealous of him because he’s so nice, too.”

Belle laughs; it really is a good summation of David.

“And Granny, well, she’s been here since the beginning.”

Belle makes a note, and looks back up to watch the whirling spindle, his fingers never still as he forms the yarn between his fingers. “Tell me about the beginning. What made you decide to start a commune?”

“Well, we didn’t, not really, certainly not at first. When my son was young – “ he hesitates, and then continues. “His mother left us, and there I was, needing to go to work and having a wee boy to take care of at the same time. We didn’t have any family, or friends. But I knew the woman in the flat across from ours had taken in her granddaughter recently and was raising her on her own – there’d been some scandal with the mother, from what Milah had gathered. But the lass looked hearty enough, so I figured that the woman knew how to take care of a bairn and I was desperate. I went knocking on her door, thinking she might be willing to look after Neal for what little money I could offer her, since it would be in the convenience of her own home. And he was a sweet, well-behaved boy, no trouble at all.”

Belle looks up at him uncertainly, knowing that he was talking about his own real life here; at least as far as Neal’s mother leaving them went, and wonders about it. He normally never talks about that period of his life, maybe this was one way he could do so?  She isn’t sure about the Granny part; they don’t seem to have that sort of relationship. She stops herself from asking if Granny had really watched Neal, though, not wanting to break character yet. Rum has gone through a lot of trouble putting together a backstory for this particular scenario, and she doesn’t want to break the mood. She realises that she knows even less about Granny’s past, or Ruby’s parents, and makes a note on her pad to ask later. She squints against the sun, positioned behind his head and outlining the locks of hair falling forward into his face, and tries to think what would be the next question that a journalist would ask.

“Were you working as a spinner then?”

“Lord, no, an accountant. It’s only been in the last few years that people have begun appreciating handcrafted items again, enough to pay a little more for them than mass-produced factory goods. It was when the last of my aunts died that I took it up again. They’d left me their cottage, and everything in it, including their wheels and a good stash of both raw wool and spun yarn. I would have moved back to Scotland and lived there, but Neal had his friends and his life here, and wanted to stay, so I sold the place and brought as many of their things home with us as possible, things that I remembered from my childhood, even though I had to place most of it in storage. But I made Neal a scarf for Christmas from the yarn, and his friend Emma then asked if I could make her a hat, and paid for it with her allowance money, and then Granny’s Ruby wanted one, and pretty soon the boutique in town contacted me about selling some of my stuff there. I took a leap of faith and quit my job, but if I was going to spend all day at home spinning and weaving, then I wasn’t going to do it in my tiny apartment. This cabin was for sale, needed a lot of fixing up, but Neal was old enough to help by then and enlisted a bunch of his friends from woodshop at school as well. We had it fixed up and livable in quite a short amount of time, and well, that was the start of things.”

Belle mentally sorts out the facts from fabrication. His aunts had been real, she knows, but the cabin has never been more than a weekend getaway place. She is saved having to think of another question by the music in the background coming to a stop and Gold putting aside his spindle and going over to the record player to flip over the disc. A new song begins playing, with what she thinks is a bass line, a deep, thumping riff that gets under her skin and makes her want to move. She stands up, leaving her notepad and pen lying on her bag in the grass, and goes to meet Gold. “I like this song,” she says, beginning to sway in place as he turns back around to face her.

“Do you?”

“Mm-hm.” She takes his hands, trying to get him to dance with her. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey, don’t you know that I love you,” she sings, and nearly laughs at the way his eyebrows go up in surprise, biting back the remark that Storybrooke does have an oldies radio station, and it’s kind of hard to forget a song that seems to go on forever. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby, don’t you know that I’ll always be true?” She lifts his arms up, spinning beneath him, and smiling; he helps twirl her,  her lightweight skirt flaring out around her.

“Oh, won’t you come with me,” she sings, and her mind completely derails in a sexual direction. “Won’t you take my hand?” With a filthy smirk on her face she tugs at his hands, backing away, and he follows, entranced, helpless to do otherwise. “Oh, won’t you come with me and walk this land? Please, take my hand.” She stops as they reach the picnic table, putting her hands on his shoulders, swaying to the music, forcing him to move as well, his feet staying planted but hips and shoulders moving to the beat.

“That’s it,” she encourages, and he smiles, drawing her close with his hands on her hips, pulling her flush against his body. She loops her arms around his neck, playing with his hair, her gaze drawn to the open collar of his shirt. “You look good,” she says.

“Do I?’ He tilts his head, grazes his lips against hers.

“Mm-hm. You should wear light colours more often.” She dips her head, pressing a kiss against his collarbone, mouthing against the warm skin.

“Have we moved into the second portion of the programming?” he asks, amused, leaning in to run his tongue around her earlobe.

“New questions. Like, do you believe in free love?” She runs her hand up his back, feeling each bump in his spine through the soft shirt, and then back down again, slipping up underneath the sun-warmed fabric.

“Oh, most definitely,” he assures her, his breath ghosting over hers as the music throbs in the background, a primal beat that makes him want to move against her, inside her. He debates the practicalities of just lifting her up onto the top of the picnic table and taking her right there.

“And is there a reason for that picnic blanket that you spread out so thoughtfully in the shade of the tree over there?”

“There are twigs and bugs in the grass,” he says, and Belle snorts. “And I thought, if any visitors should wish to recline in comfort…”

“Well, then,” she says, and takes his hand, leading him behind her towards the blanket. She sinks down upon it and he sits down beside her, facing her,  and she can’t think of anything else to say, because all she wants to do is touch him. She slides her hand beneath his hair at the nape of his neck and draws him closer and he tilts his head and then they’re kissing languorously, need slowly building between them. Belle slips her hands up under the hem of his shirt, then back out again, tugging at the hem. “Off,” she instructs.

Gold breaks away from the path he’d been nuzzling along her neck to grin at her. “Run out of questions, have you?”

“The only thing I want to know is what you’re going to look like spread out naked before me,” she says, her voice gone a bit husky.

Gold sheds his vest first and then reaches back and yanks his shirt off over his head, his eyes darkening. The light breeze rustling the leaves above them feels good on his heated skin as he shakes his hair out of his eyes, reaching out to splay his hands over Belle’s ribs before she can touch him herself, very much aware that she isn’t wearing a bra and grazing his thumbs over her nipples. Her breathing quickens and her head falls back as he rubs them, back and forth and back and forth, feeling them tighten and swell until she moans and reaches down to grab the hem of her own shirt. Gold obligingly drops his arms so that she can pull it off and cast it aside, the motion lifting her breasts and stretching out her taut belly. She kicks off her sandals and Gold takes the opportunity to remove his own low cut boots and socks, shifting more comfortably now onto his knees, and drawing Belle forward to straddle one of his thighs before kissing her again, more urgently than before.

Belle begins moving, riding his hard thigh, rubbing herself against him. His belt buckle digs into her stomach, and she reaches down, tugging it open and free impatiently, and then going for the snap and zipper of his jeans, wanting only warm skin against her, feeling Gold slide his hands up under her skirt, his palms smoothing along her legs. She slips her hand inside his jeans, palms his growing hardness, and Gold makes a desperate sort of noise, pressing up against her and then pulling back, scrambling to his feet to shove down his jeans and underwear together, while Belle makes quick work of removing the rest of her clothes and tossing them to the side,  where she spots his discarded vest and, with a small smile, pulls it on over her bare chest.  It feels as good as she had imagined, the suede soft but with just enough of a roughness to its texture to make her very aware of it as it shifts over her breasts, the edges grazing her nipples. Gazing up at Gold, she thinks it’s a good angle, his cock already half hard and lifting away from his body, and she thinks about rising back onto her knees and taking him into her mouth,  but as she shifts onto her knees and curls a hand around his ankle, he braces his hands on her shoulders and lowers himself back down to the blanket, stretching out above her, one hand supporting her lower back, and she lets him ease her down, enjoying the weight of his hips pressing her down against the ground. They kiss, long and slow, and then he begins working his way down her body, touching and tasting, fingers and lips and tongue as her head falls back and her body arches into him.

She buries her fingers in his hair and gazes up into the branches of the tree as he suckles at her breasts. Something glints there, catches the sun and magnifies it. She closes her eyes briefly against it, becomes more aware of the pulse of the music in the background, the pulse of her blood in her veins. She opens her eyes again as his mouth leaves her and he moves further down, leaving her nipples wet and swollen and aching. She looks down at her body as she lifts her hands to cup her own breasts, to tug and pinch at the nipples and sees small rainbows dancing over her chest, her skin dappled in light and shade from the sun filtering through the leaves. She looks up in puzzlement, and then smiles in delight and reaches up as if she could reach the crystals she spots hanging from the branches of the tree, their prisms catching the light and breaking it up into the bands of colour that paint her skin and increase the dreamlike quality of the moment. She knows at once where they’re from, thinking of the box in the shop’s back room full of dismantled chandelier parts, but the knowledge doesn’t lessen their magic.  She traces one along her skin, then takes one of the vest’s long fringes and shifts it back and forth over her nipple, sucking in a breath as it catches briefly before rolling over. Gold runs a hand along her thigh and she lets her legs fall apart and half closes her eyes as his fingers slip inside her, drawing out her moisture and using it to draw slow circles over her clit.

He watches her rolling the fringe back and forth over her nipple, the flesh visibly puckering around the hardening nub,  and his own cock hardens in response. He longs to take her into his mouth, but cannot look away.

“You would fit right in at Woodstock,” he says huskily. “Imagine us there, listening to the music, and I’m standing right behind you, and we’re swaying to the music. You’re wearing nothing but your skirt and that vest, and it’s open, and I’m cupping your breasts in my hands, and playing with your nipples.“

Belle’s hips jerk, as the image goes straight to her core.

Gold dips his fingers into her again, and feels the effect his words are having on her. There’s plenty of slick now, for his thumb to glide easily over her flesh, that light, grazing touch that causes her clit to swell and harden in response. His voice drops in pitch, his Scottish accent strengthening without him being quite aware of it. “There’s people all around us, but it doesn't matter, no one does more than glance our way.” He searches his memory for images from the documentary of the famous concert. “It’d been pouring rain earlier, and your shirt had gone drenched and transparent in minutes. Other people were stripping off their wet things, and you’d boldly done the same; there’s no shame here, no constraints. Bodies are natural, they’re beautiful, there’s no need to hide them.  There’s people with body paint, offering their services. Perhaps we’ll ask one to decorate your breasts; would you like that?”

Belle can’t keep from squirming, her eyes wide as they rake over his smooth, lightly tanned chest and lower, his cock blatantly erect for her.

“If we could paint you, too.  What about you? Is your shirt off?”

“Oh aye, my chest is bare against your back, and my jeans are clinging to me like a second skin, and my cock is straining against the zipper; anyone who looks at me would know how much I want you. I want to take you away from the crowd and find a place to lay you out on the ground and rut into you like a wild beast, but I need you to come first, come on my hands, come for everyone to see  – “ He slid his free hand up her chest, pushing the suede leather of the vest aside, completely baring her front, and cupped her breast in his warm hand, his hips shifting and pressing down against her pubis as he leans over her, thumb being replaced by middle finger, changing the angle, rubbing relentlessly. “Come on, sweetheart,” he urges, kneading her breast, his touch rougher here where she prefers lighter down below. 

The music pulses in time with her blood and Gold’s hair falls forward to hang in his face. He blocks out the sun, he is haloed by it, sun and shade and the scent of grass and incense and she is here and she is there at the same time and his cock is heavy and stiff against her thigh and the hard knot of pleasure bursts within her and she comes with all her muscles clenching tight and her fingers digging into his skin where she’d reached for him. His finger stills against her, knowing not to move again until she relaxes, the tension sagging out of her body, and she feels good but it’s not enough, there’s an aching emptiness inside her that needs to be filled. She sits up abruptly, tumbling him onto his back, and straddles his hips, taking hold of his cock and stroking it firmly. 

“We’ve gone away from the crowd now,” she tells him. “Found a place by the lake, behind some bushes. They offer us some privacy, but we can hear people nearby, going down to the lake, to bathe, to swim. Someone could easily come upon us, if they came in just the right direction.”  She rubs her thumb over his slit, coaxing out a bead of moisture, and he lets out a nearly inaudible whine. “I don’t care, though. I want you, and I don’t want to wait. Are you willing to risk it? Willing to risk someone seeing me riding you into the ground?” 

“Hell, yes.” He can’t wait, either. “Let them see. Let them see a beautiful woman like you wants someone like me.”

“You say “someone like me” as if I’m not dripping wet for you, as if I don’t want to have you buried inside me more than anything in the world,” she says, and rises up, positioning him at her entrance so he can feel the truth of her words. “You have to be quiet,” she warns, mischievously, and sinks down. 

Gold swallows down the noise that wants to escape his throat as she engulfs him. “I don’t know if I can promise that.” He splays his hands out on her waist, just under the edge of the vest, his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Hanging open as it is, the vest only half covers them, baring a lovely wide strip of pale flesh right down the center of her body, adorned only by the love beads she still wore around her neck. As she shifts above him, the edges of the vest fall back, just revealing her nipples, and his cock throbs in response. He bucks up, everything feeling tight, and hot, and urgent. “That vest is a good look on you; we should keep it.”

Belle grins. “I’m glad you think so; I quite like it myself.” She leans forward over him, resting her weight on her hands, and begins to ride him, deliberately shifting continuously in a way that keeps the edges of the vest moving and rubbing against her breasts, her nipples staying hard and sensitive from the teasing friction. She undulates; rising and falling and pleasuring herself on his shaft, the long fringes falling forward as she lowers herself above his body. 

Gold arches up as the leather fringes trail over his belly and swing forward to drag over his nipples, driving himself deeper inside her as he seeks more of the teasing sensation. He cups his hands over her breasts, rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, and Belle moans. He grins. “I thought we had to be quiet.”

"I never said I would be." She lifts herself up until just the head of his shaft remains within her, glancing down to see the hard column of his flesh joining their bodies. She tightens her muscles around him, squeezing as hard as she can. 

Gold's whole body jerks as he cries out, his balls tightening and drawing up. He drags her back down upon him and rolls them over, pulling back out just enough to slam forward into her, rocking her backwards. He thrusts into her again, all control gone, feeling his climax rapidly approaching. 

"That's it." Belle braces herself with drawn up knees and urges him on. "Come on, Rum, give it to me." He is all lean, wiry muscle, and dark hair falling forward and shielding his eyes from her view. She arches up into his next thrust, digging her fingers into his lean buttocks and feeling him long and thick and solid inside her. "That's it, so good, come on, come for me."

He snaps his hips forward, driving deep again and again until his body seizes with pleasure and he stills, braced on his forearms with his hips sealed against hers while the hot flood of his release spills inside her. After a few seconds his muscles unclench and he lowers himself to lay atop her, panting and letting his eyes fall shut as he savours the fading rush of ecstasy, his cock twitching a few times in aftershock as he softens inside her. He feels her fingers run through his hair and turns his face into her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin and the smell of crushed grass beneath the blanket, the air moving lightly over his sweaty back. A bird chatters above them, and he realises that the record had stopped playing at some point, unnoticed. He takes in a deep breath and rolls off to the side, blinking up at leaf-dappled sunlight and rainbows dancing in the air. He turns his head to the side and the corner of his mouth quirks up as Belle does the same and meets his eyes. She looks as debauched as he feels. 

"So, Rumpelstiltskin," she says, reaching out to twine her fingers with his. She feels thoroughly well-used and it is about all she has the energy for at the moment. "Do you have any final words for the readers of our paper?"

Gold's smile widens into a grin. "Yeah. Turn on," He draws their joined hands to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles.  "Tune in, and drop out." He lifts his free hand and flashes her a peace sign, feeling utterly sated and stupidly happy. He thinks of the box from the estate sale. 

Best buy ever.