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1800titz · 11 months

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HI FRIENDS. 18K here!! This time we explore breaks, because sometimes they are necessary! Also, we see Jealousrry, and we see Isla being Isla. Hope you enjoy!! (Feedback always appreciated!) (✿◠‿◠)

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Open houses, to Harry, are a stage, and the gift of his gab leaves him basking in the luster of the spotlight with no stage fright.

First time home buyers, young couples waltzing through hallways with gazes bouncing over walls with demure decorum, families with young kids who run amuck, darting from one end of the house to the other as he guides their parents through empty rooms, his dialogue friendly and bright — he finds comfort in any audience. Divorced milfs whose heels click over tile, mimicking wood varnish, trailing behind as his silver tongue sells, and sells, and sells — some of those really find his dialogue of “sleek, floor to ceiling windows,” and the “flowing floor plan,” and “custom built additions,” charming enough for hungry fingers to creep against biceps by the end of the tour.

Harry, never in his life, has had so many nerves over a tour. Maybe just his very first open house, where he’d taken the reins for the first time alone.

It makes sense, theoretically, that he’d be nervous to become enclosed in a space with Isla Cleery — his masked, blissfully unaware submissive, in a setting where so much was prone to go awry. It makes sense that he’d be nervous to let something slip, that he’d be nervous he’d find himself fucking into her, pressing her face against a full length bathroom mirror mid-tour, like the climax (pun unintended) to a dirty storyline in a professionally produced porno. Young, Hot Slut Isla Cleery Bounces on Raunchy Realtor Cock, or maybe Adorable Brunette Gets Pussy Pounding for a Discount. Something like that. That last one is especially depraved, but — gotta add some form of sordid cliche to create a flashy title. Click bait, if you will.

It makes sense to be nervous when his nerves are all he can think about, sitting behind the wheel of his Range Rover, parked on the curb as he waits for her own vehicle to turn the corner and pull up to the property. It’s all sort of a vicious cycle.

She’d called him two days prior. He’d been laying in bed, in the midst of his Candy Crush bedtime ritual — culling ice tiles and smashing colorful blocks with point-inducing combos of stripes and wrappers. He’d stared at his phone as the LED display sparked alive with a banner over the top of the screen — an incoming call from an unsaved phone number. A pinch had worked between his brows, and he’d tapped over the banner with the pad of his thumb, clearing his throat and pressing the phone to his ear as he answered. A business call was a business call.

“Hello?” his voice was low with incoming sleep, his vocal cords supplying a rasp on account of the silence he’d priorly stalled in.

The pace of the organ behind his rib cage had picked up considerably when Isla Cleery’s soft voice had come in response, her cadence tinny through the speaker, undeniably delectable.

“Hey!” his ears had swallowed her chime, “Harry,” the man had shifted a bit over his linen sheets, “This is Isla Cleery.”

Isla Cleery. Bright, and chipper, and …randomly dialing his number at a strange hour in the night.

“Isla! Hi,” he’d responded, clearing his throat to curtail tacking on a quip of how can I assist you at this ungodly hour?

The uneasy wavelength of her inflection had spurred a crease to work over his brow bone — rushed, and breathy, and almost frantic in its phrasing.

“Hi,” a pause, a half-hearted apology, “Listen, I’m so sorry to be calling you so late but — ah,” a stifled, little sound that had caused his nostrils to flare and had sent an inopportune rush of excitement slithering through to the trench of his tummy and frothing, “So, you sent me this other property, and I wanted to — I wanted to see that one. The one on, Mul-Mulner, was it?”

“Mulnich,” he’d gnawed into his lip, sitting up a smidge, braced on his forearm as his curiosity piqued.

“Yes, the, uh, the Mulnich property. I wanted to see that one. So,” another pause that had his face contorting in bemusement — (was she running on a fucking treadmill?), “Can we set that up?”

The man had pulled the receiver back and toggled his counterpart to leak through the speaker setting, rolling onto his side as he’d swiped through his virtual calendar.

“Sure. Yeah. Let me just check,” Harry had supplied, pausing and pursing his lips as he’d just listened — background noise, like a TV, a rustle, a sigh, a laugh track, an inhale, “Does Wednesday at two work for you?”

“Can’t — can’t. Wednesday, at two. Anything — can you do anything later? In the evening, maybe?”

Harry had paused. He’d paused, and just listened, his ears working on overdrive to attempt to decipher whatever was spurring her strange behavior, the note of apprehension of her cadence, the — was he going insane? — desperation to her dialogue. There’d been nothing but the familiarity of a common laugh track and shuffling. His pupils had perused as he’d ripped his attention off of the odd display and swiped to give her a proper appointment.

“Yeah,” the man responded after a moment of lull, clearing his throat, “I can do …five? If that works for you.”

“Yes! Yeah,” He’d picked up on Isla Cleery doing the same on the other end of the line, her speech giddy and garbled, “Five. Wednesday. Yes. So, I can — I can come?”

His jaw had set at the choice of words — there was just no way, but the frenzy in her inflection so vividly resembled the way she’d begged him back in the White Room, days prior. There was no way, he’d told himself. She didn’t have the gall. She didn’t have the audacity. She was working him into a ludicrous frenzy — or rather, he was working himself into one with the lewd train of thought derailing his composure.

There was no way Isla Cleery was calling him and touching herself.

“To see the property?” the voice on the other end had tacked on, coaxing him from the zoned out thrill of a wild imagination.

“Yeah, yes. Of course,” he’d said.

There was just no fucking way.

More shuffling. A garbled sound. Something that’d incited his teeth to dig into his bottom lip, to sit up as he was met with silence beyond the sounds of a TV.

“Isla?”

More shuffling. There was just—

No. Fucking. Way.

He’d felt his own stomach clenching up then, muscles rippling as blood pumped and the familiarity of deluded arousal, at the prospect, suffusing through his veins like quick-acting alcohol.

“Isla?” Harry had prodded again, louder.

“Yes, sorry, I’m so sorry. God, I just saw the time — I’m sorry, it was so unprofessional of me to call so late. I hope I didn’t—“ his face twisted up at the breathless onslaught of her breakless cadence, like her speech was expelled all in one, rushed breath, “Thank you for taking my call. Wednesday at Five. Have a good night.”

His mouth had parted to inquire, because what the fuck — but from there, a click. The green logo of an active phone call had vanished. She’d hung up, evidently in a rush. Harry had stared up at his ceiling for a solid twenty minutes, ruminating on the odd encounter.

There was, simply, as previously emphasized, no fucking way.

So yeah, now, with his bare fingertips drumming over the leather of his steering wheel, he’s a smidge nervous to see her. His innards are twisting into knots by the time he catches sight of her white Corolla slipping in against the curb behind him. Harry climbs out of the car.

“Hi,” Isla Cleery talks first.

There’s no dainty bell sleeves trapped in car doors today — a pencil skirt hugs her hips, and a long sleeve with a funnel neckline adorns her torso. Harry notes the way she nonchalantly tugs to further lower a sleeve on the arm where he knows the bangle is manacled.

“You’ve renounced …your renouncement of heels,” is the first thing he says. He wants to smack himself square between the brows with the heel of his palm — what an inane start.

“Oh,” Isla shoots a glance to her choice of footwear — smart (Harry thinks, spiffy), dark pumps, “Yeah,” she bends a knee back and lifts an ankle a smidge, “Sort of had to. Felt a little weird wearing a pencil skirt with flats.”

“And,” the young woman casts a small simper his way, “No evil grates, as of yet. Fingers crossed,” she lifts her arm, the left, where the bracelet isn’t, and bares friendly teeth.

Evil grates …what the fuck? Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, her inner voice coaxes frantically.

Isla is dying inside. For good reason — it makes sense. Being enclosed in a space, casually, with her dominant un-dominant-clad, has this weird butterfly-eruption effect. They bounce against her insides aimlessly, like little crack-infused insects. She’s nervous to let something slip — anything, and it’s too easy considering she’s been cuffed by a bracelet that sort of gives it all away within a split-second flash of gold and secrets.

She’s unsure of what succubus-like tendencies of the day had possessed her to abandon her panties — that had been a dirty, last-minute decision of thrill, and it had seemed filthily exciting and sort of dangerous in the best way. The idea of ambling through a house tour with Harry, and knowing that she was entirely bare beneath her skirt. But now, faced by him, obnoxiously aware of her nude thighs grazing together under the fabric and … only …more debauched nudeness higher, well.

Isla just feels like a pervert.

It bears resemblance to the sensation she had encountered two days prior, once she’d hung up the phone (and the sex-haze had worn off). That was another thing she was nervous about. There’s no way the man had just glossed over the encounter as entirely unsuspicious. It was weird, she was weird for that, Isla thought, she was weird on the phone with a stuttery, breathy inflection that was obnoxious in give-away, and he definitely knew something was off, if not the entire background behind the lust-driven call.

She clears her throat in an attempt to ward off the flurry of nervous apprehension coiling in her stomach (that she’s sure will find its way among her vocal cords), “But. Yeah.”

Harry grins. He’s just so — Isla ogles, kind of dreamily — handsome. And she knows him on an intimate level, (a very intimate level), but these glimpses of his face, in person… she doesn’t get the pleasure of espying those often. His hair, coiled and placed in soft ringlets, his dimples burrowing as teeth showcase and his mouth lights alive with a smile. Last time he’d been clean-shaven and smooth, but today there’s a soft dusting of facial hair over his jaw. She wants to kiss him, she wants to feel it brush against her own face, wants to feel it graze over her inner thighs as he sucks kisses into her skin like affectionate bruises as proof of his presence, and—

“Please,” the man folds his palms together, like a prayer, and pillowy pink curves with his statement, “No …impromptu rope swing climbing—“

Isla’s mouth jolts.

“In heels,” Harry tacks on, raising his eyebrows and gesturing subtly with his palms.

“Ooh,” she rocks forward a bit, a pinch in her own brows, “Can’t make any promises. The rope swing calls.”

“Oh it does?”

“Siren song,” Isla nods.

Harry’s mouth quirks. And then he clears his throat.

“Well. I’m pleased you’re interested in viewing another property with me, but I can’t lie and say I’m not a bit disappointed that Sweeger Avenue didn’t particularly catch your eye. I’ll have to buy it if you don’t,” the curly-headed brunette jests.

“It did!” Isla assuages, motioning with her palm and following as he turns slowly — a gesture that indicates he’d like her to follow in the direction of the house, “It’s a beautiful house, I’m just keeping my options open.”

Harry hums. The young woman’s heels sink softly into the lawn, bright, neatly trimmed tufts crinkling with each step.

“Watch your step, there, darling,” the realtor warns softly as they venture over a pattern of concrete stone that leads up to the porch.

“Oh — thank you.”

She adds, once they’re stood under the awning of the porch, “And, well, you gave such a good tour, I figured another property in my price range was worth a look, right?”

“Right,” he sends a soft grin over his shoulder at her (that shrouds the nerves he feels teeming below the surface), “Sure. Of course.”

Isla watches him unveil a little key from his pocket and stuff it into the notch in the knob, twisting. “I will say,” the man starts, gaze cast to his handiwork, “while this one isn’t as… maybe ritzy as the last — y’know, all the bells and whistles of the reno’s — there’s still a lot of potential with this one. Character.”

The door creaks and clicks on its hinges as it swings open. Isla follows him in, greeted by the sight of what she imagines, once upon a time, had been pasted with warm hues of color and overbearing wallpaper patterns. The entryway, as the first showing had been, is no showstopper with elegant twin staircases. The wood beneath her feet is scuffed, and faint stains litter the walls near the baseboards — but it’s far from time forgotten and termite embraced, as she’d assumed would tail the realtor lingo of potential.

“Three bed, two-and-a-half bath — little more space with 2,052 square feet. Little more out of pocket, too, if you wanted to amp it up to that sort of à la mode Sweeger had,” the realtor’s shoes click over the wood in a sound that just oozes power, power, power, and Isla tails him, vision walloping the walls to curb the hunger that grows within her at something as innocuous as the sound of his dress shoes on wooden floors, “but if not, there’s loads of character to enjoy and build upon.”

The young woman sneaks a glance — they’re no serpentine patched loafers, but they’re smooth and glossy and jet. Simple.

She wonders what pair will greet her on Friday night.

“This one’s a bit newer than the last — but a lot of this stuff is original. Really a step back in time. Very open concept — vaulted floor to ceiling floor plan,” her vision flits over the living area, his velvety cadence like a pre-rehearsed soundtrack to fit a virtual tour posted on the web.

Isla gazes over the expanse of the innards — replicas of the imagery she’d scrolled through online. Only now, the lines are larger, the shapes are prettier, the space is more vibrant. Personal. It’s lived in — furnishings remain of the sellers, but there are no personalized touches of family photos (a key factor, she’d learned, to bolster prospective buyer imaginations, to spur their mental imagery into forming their own space). A half wall breaks a living area off from the entry. Set upon a platform (where tile sweeps from lounge to kitchen; a drab shade of beige others would perhaps not find nearly as endearing as Isla does — it’s a nostalgia thing, she’s sure) — between the wooded entryway that flows into an empty expanse of doors — are armchairs and a sectional in neutral tones. Beyond this, a formal dining area, and on the end is a little kitchen, broken apart from a hallway with another wall.

“We’ve got these sleek lines that come with open space like this,” Harry gestures towards the sculpt of plaster and drywall shaping lips over windows in the lounge, “but we’ve also got little touches, like a time capsule,” he twists, motioning towards the staircase — an interesting piece unforeseen, “like the spiral staircase. White wrought-iron with wood paneling — you’re not gonna find these being built very often, anymore.”

Upon the grin the realtor casts her way, Isla ambles towards it, and she runs her touch over the railing.

“Really pretty. You’re right. I don’t see many of these anymore.”

Her sight is torn between the man — his charismatic demeanor, his good looks — and the space as he continues, lucratively well-versed, “I’m sure you note there’s no overbearing pops of color, or wallpaper that’s wasting away, since I told you it wasn’t all that renovated. Carpet’s been ripped up,” he slides the toe of his shoe over the wooden floorboards, a dark, warm chocolate, and then his hand comes to rap softly over the short wall dividing the kitchen from an expanse of hallway with doors as jade reaffixes onto her, “and the walls were repainted by previous buyers. All original wood and tiling, though.”

As Isla steps onto the platform, she regards chips in laminate. Yes. Original.

“Between you and me,” her head twists — a friendly simper plays over the realtor’s cushiony (intimately familiar) lips, “I think that was a good choice. Versatile. But the rest, like these gorgeous light fixtures — all original,” he nudges towards the dining area behind her, and Isla pivots to face the table, “‘83, I believe.”

A bundle of two lanterns, elongated like cylinders with tapered ends. They hang over the table, a darling focus point.

Isla peers back over just as the man’s tongue peeks out to slick his mouth, “But my favorite’s in the kitchen.”

Eagerly, she makes her way forward, where the kitchen lays, open for her exploration. It’s no showstopper. She gets it now — his sugared warning of original pieces. And it’s not like the kitchen is this heinous sight, but it’s timeworn. An outdated shade of mustard hugs the countertops, and the cabinetry is stale and dinged. Scratches and blemishes stain almost plastic-y looking white. The appliances look to be about forty years old — which adds up, according to the timeline. But there’s an island. It’s beautiful, and broad, and even if Isla has no interest in piling it with culinary disasters, it’s still pleasant ken. She finds that on the opposite side of that wall is a pantry.

“I don’t know what to do with a kitchen like this,” her pink (gloriously fuckable, Harry thinks) mouth jolts as a smile slithers over, “It’s so. Large.”

“You don’t cook?”

Her irises roll up to the ceiling with her soft smile, “I microwave. TV dinners, mostly. I can put frozen waffles in a toaster, too. Maybe scramble an egg, but there’s no guarantee there won’t be shell in the mix.”

It’s sort of funny, Harry thinks — the way polar opposites attract. Like magnets, he supposes. Really, very horribly horny magnets. He can’t remember the last time he had a frozen waffle.

“But I guess I’ll have to learn, with an island like this,” Isla sighs and gestures.

Well, if you’re ever in need of a taste tester… Harry bridles his flirty quip. Instead, he shows her what lies behind the doors of the hallway, the rooms downstairs. A half bath, a bedroom scantily furnished — an office, for her, perhaps.

“You said you were a paralegal last time, right?” he cocks his head back at her over his shoulder as he leads the way, and Isla tries not to feel the warmth the remembrance of the minute detail ignites.

Of course he remembered. It was his job. She bites her tongue to curb the instinctive, “Yes, Sir.”

“I am, yeah.”

“Lot’s of research and a work-from-home, after-hours situation, you said, last time? I think the study on this property will be very suited to your needs.”

A laundry room, the entrance to the garage, a slow amble back towards the staircase. Ah, the staircase. The young woman feels a burnishing blush suffuse over her cheekbones when the male gestures with an open palm — an invitation for her to go on ahead of him. But there’s that little …no panties …thing. Her legs shift. Her skirt brushes against the back of her knees. There’s no probable likelihood of a flash, she’s sure. Still, that ruddiness glows over her skin as she takes the cautious, first step. She feels ludicrously lewd.

“Wouldn’t want you to get your heel caught,” the realtor states, strawberry mouth twitching.

No, that would certainly cause far more than a glimpse of a flash.

“Truly a gentleman,” Isla quips, and by the time she’s wound halfway up, Harry only a couple of steps behind, she tacks on, “God. It really is sort of a scary set of stairs.”

“Climbing a rickety rope swing is scary,” Harry scoffs from behind, his cadence lighthearted.

A hallway with a landing that allows for a gaze upon the first story. A wall of doors. A bathroom with an unsightly, pink tub. A cozy original with old-world-charm, according to the realtor; definitely creative wording, Isla thinks.

“Master bedroom,” the man slips the final door open, and Isla’s irises bounce from window to window — they suffuse the room with what she imagines would be bright, refreshing daylight. Now, it comes in the form of a warm, yellow glow with the time of day.

“Very roomy,” she comments. It is. The square footage of the space, she’s sure, has to be roomier than the master bedroom of the first showing, but perhaps the emphasis on the broadness of the space has to do with the sheer fact that the first showing had been bare, and this room holds furniture — even still, the space is bigger. Despite the queen sized bed, throned by the waxy, wooden headboard, the nightstands that mirror either side of the mattress, and the matching wooden dresser, the space is open.

“S’no reno’d Sweeger Ave,” the realtor supplies, wandering a handful of steps behind her as she makes her way into the room, “But it’s roomy, like you said. Bright. Beautiful windows — lots of light. Can you imagine yourself here?”

It’s a queen sized bed. Isla is not wearing panties, and she’s reminded of this particular fact as she stares at it and imagines Eros bending her over the edge of the mattress. She thinks of Harry’s chest pressing up behind her as his broad, ring-clad digits slide over her waist, settle on her stomach. She thinks of his mouth pasting to the crook of her neck, sponging kisses over the expanse of her skin as his soft breaths caress her nerve endings. She thinks of him walking her forward, his crotch glued to her hips. She thinks of fingers grappling for wrists and a firm grip as he manhandles the joints behind her back with ease. She thinks of him flipping her skirt up and discovering that she’s bare beneath it, thinks of a palm fondling, of croons in her ear on what a filthy, naughty girl she is, of his fingers slipping lower and his teeth grazing over her neck and—

“Great room, innit?”

Her eyes flash to him at a dangerous speed, his words from the prior week hurtling through her mind as he tells her, tone entirely innocuous, “But I think there’s something missing.”

An ottoman, the young woman thinks, her expression kept impressively neutral, all things considered. An ottoman.

“Accent wall there, long curtains with a sheer layering, different furniture set — contemporary, I’d go with, a rug,” the male taps his foot over a stark area of the floorboards, just ahead of the footboard of the bed, “Nice shag rug. Right here.”

Shag rug.

Shag rug — textile characterized by longer, heavier pile, so as to have the appearance of being shaggy. Isla imagines a white rug in tufts, warding her brain from mental images of the man physically shagging her on said rug. Yes. These are all very …compelling suggestions.

“Mhm,” Isla hums curtly.

“And, y’know, all this light lets the room whisper sweet nothings about the beauties of the approaching day, but I think, the view,” he takes slow steps over chocolate wood to tug blinds open, “beckons sleepless nights.”

Sleepless nights — Isla is going to wring her own neck. Despite the arousal that seeps through her at the dirty-fucking-twist of insinuation, she makes her way to his side for a peer. Beyond the horizon of plains and landscaping lies skyscrapers — the city a blip of scenery with the sky as its backdrop.

“Oh.”

“Mm. Really pretty at night, I’d think.”

“It’s a …good thing I have a strong constitution for sleepless nights,” Isla swallows, “I’m sure the view will keep me entertained.”

Harry steals a soft glance, down at her side profile. He’s bridled his flirtish nature, he’s restrained his quips. He’s bent over backwards for sanctity. But—

“If you ever find yourself in need of a midnight conversation partner, you know who to call.”

The young woman peers up at him through her lashes. It’s a blatant implication of her untimely phone call two days prior. He’s teasing. He has to be simply teasing. But the way his mouth twitches, the way his eyes fix on her — there’s something… something beyond innocent jest.

“Offering your services as a nocturnal conversationalist?” she tries to keep the nervous note from her cadence as she takes a step away — he had to be flirting. “I’m a lucky girl.”

“Real estate agent by day, midnight talk-show host by night. I’m a man of many talents,” the curly-headed brunette shrugs, digging ring-adorned fingers halfway into pockets of slacks. A soft smile plays over his soft mouth. It’s all sort of lascivious. Isla wants to clamber back onto a stranger's bed in a master bedroom that doesn’t belong to her, and she wants to ogle his reflection glint at her from the waxy headboard as his hips pump forward. As his cock pummels into her. A warmth pulses between her thighs, beneath her pencil skirt.

The reminder of her arousal, left in a dried stain post her drive home, confronts her as she strips in the confines of her apartment, alone, nearly two hours later.

Harry is not a green-eyed monster.

Which is an irony, because in the realm of indulge, there’s more than a handful of people who would confidently deem him with that pretty title.

Perhaps, better phrasing (that wouldn’t allow for the claim to be twisted by unruly, prior play partners), would be that Harry is not innately a jealous man. He’s a sure man, a man who knows his ambitions and aims — bluntly so. He’s a man that doesn’t like to share during scenes, but he’s upfront and honest about it. There’s no games, no teetering tugs and yanks on strings of emotions. He’s not a man that is known to ooze green at the sight of his partner fraternizing with someone else, and he’s definitely not the type of man to care about those things in any context outside of Indulge.

A person is a person — their own person. That’s not his thing to fuck with. Harry is not a green-eyed monster that bleeds envy with begrudging glances.

The sight of Isla Cleery, though, shrouded by her commonplace lace, leant up against the bar, in the midst of lively chatter with some shirtless dom adorned by an eye-cover with plastic-y tufts of horns — that culls an odd reaction from him. It’s strange — she’s early. He always shows before her to reserve the room of the night, and she arrives and waits in an obedient kneel until he opts to join her. But she’s early — she’s at the bar, and he’s just booked the room (The White Room, tonight). Harry nearly misses the sight of the interaction altogether.

But he doesn’t — she catches his eye, clad in a set of dark, silky underthings and sheer stockings. He watches her toe back against the stem of one of the barstools. She’s got her cherry concoction in hand, a plethora of syrupy fruit upon a bed of ice and artificial sweeteners, and she’s laughing at something her counterpart says. In response, the man’s grin is vibrant over the visible expanse of his lower face. Harry doesn’t know who he is at first. But then he squints, and his vision roves. Faunus. He vaguely knows of the dominant, but the most prominent thought that floats to the forefront of his mind involves the jest Isla had made prior to the drafting of their contract. The one where she’d mentioned the alternation of rocking her shit, and the name Faunus had been introduced in the prospective party.

And it’s not like Harry bleeds jade at the sight, but he kind of does. Because, the thing is, next week is their last scene, contractual obligations concerned — and. Well, it makes him feel ill. The thought of his submissive — of Isla Cleery, slipping to her knees for Faunus as their own contract comes to a close, the thought of Faunus manhandling her in the same way Harry does every Friday night, it all makes his jaw set from across the lounge. Because those are their Fridays. Something stirs in him when Faunus places his hand onto her arm — because, what the fuck?

Slowly but surely, he makes his way over, slipping into the interaction from behind his submissive. He brushes a gloved palm against the small of her back, and upon the touch, Peitho stiffens and twists. And then she relaxes. Smiles all pretty at him, too.

“You’re early,” the hand slides to the vale of her waist and squeezes softly as he presses close and speaks low. It’s obnoxious, Harry’s aware — opting not to initially acknowledge the other member of the conversation, but Faunus watches the two with a silent eye, anyhow, so.

“I was late last week, so. Wanted to be early this time. Didn’t know you were here, Sir,” the submissive supplies, rocking forward onto her toes, and then lets the outside of her arm glue to his torso as he pastes to her side.

Harry hums. And then he casts his gaze onto Faunus as the man speaks. “Eros, right?” the male’s mouth curls softly as he nudges towards Harry.

“In the flesh,” Harry grins politely. Politely. Because he’s polite.

His counterpart, glistening with a sheen of sweat under the purple-ish tinges of the lights, takes a swig from his glass — water, Harry assumes it to be, but you never can really tell in the hue of the lounge, “You’re a little infamous around here.”

Infamous. Sounds about right.

“Am I?”

“Mm. I’ve heard only good things from this one, though,” the horn-masked man gestures with his glass towards Isla. In turn, she shifts a little further against her dominant.

“Yeah?” Harry’s chin dips toward the submissive, then, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “All good things, baby?”

Isla nods and hums, melting with the side of her cheek against his chest.

“But between you and me,” Faunus leans forward a smidge, elbow braced over the marbled bar countertop, “This one’s a bit of a handful.”

Harry grins politely. Yeah, the reminder that this man has manhandled his submissive in the same manner he has makes him go a bit neon green. What the fuck. And Isla — she just squirms against him. Harry’s well aware that the nonchalant small talk of her, with no acknowledgement, like she’s not stood in the midst of the conversation, riles her in a filthy way. And Faunus seems to know this tidbit of information, too — his irises, glinty under the lights overhead, slink from Harry to Isla and back again. It’s a subtle motion, but it shows Harry enough. The dominant’s mouth quirks, gaze subtly steely in the narrow of his lashes.

“Mm. Well, between you and me,” the hand that’d previously settled on her waist slips up to her hair, cards through past the nape of her neck, digits entangling in the roots, “she knows her place with me,” Harry shoots her a look, and tugs firmly by slowly tightening his fist. It’s a subtle motion — but the pinpricks of pain that burst over her scalp, as a result, have her pulse quickening.

And Harry knows. He knows and his lips nearly crook up, but he curbs his smirk. And Faunus can ogle all he wants — but he can’t touch. Can’t draw the same reaction from her. That thought has satisfaction blooming in his chest.

“Don’t you, darling?”

When the young woman returns in concurrence, her inflection is breathy and soft. “Yes, Sir.”

He’s jealous, Isla thinks. She’s not sure why. But he’s jealous, and he tugs on her hair like a showcase of his dominion, like she’s simply a plaything for him and him only to lewdly siphon soft reactions from. It’s so blatant, the way he does it all in front of Faunus. He’s claiming his territory. It’s subtle, it’s obnoxious, it borders on impolite, but it lights a fire within her like no other.

“The White Room,” Harry croons against her ear, low in decibel, “S’open. If you were up to play.” Jade slinks back up to dull blue, to the opposite dominant watching the display — a blank slate of curious interest. His gloved fingers untether gently and he speaks a bit louder, face turned back towards Faunus, “Wouldn’t want to tear you away and impose, though.”

The White Room. With Eros. Yes. Isla wants to go to the White Room with her Eros.

“Oh — no,” Isla assuages quickly, pivoting her head from Faunus to Eros and back, “Great — it’s been great, catching up, with you,” she motions with her palm towards the horn-masked dom.

Faunus pauses, as if musing, and eventually the corners of his mouth curl up softly.

“Likewise,” he tells her, gesturing with his glass, before his vision skids from Isla to Harry and back. His tongue peeks out to glide over his bare lips. Harry doesn’t miss the way his eyes wander roguely over the submissive’s silhouette — a tad flirtily, if he’s not mistaken, before he tacks on what sounds uncomfortably ominous to him. “I’ll see you around, Peitho.”

Harry’s jaw sets and he watches the other man all the way as he ambles off and disappears into the midst of the crowded lounge to mingle. It’s childish, he’s aware, to feel as though his turf is being invaded upon, like a personally deemed sector of a sandbox, and Isla his prized, shiny …bucket …or something (what do children play with in sandboxes? Harry can’t recall, at the moment). And he’s aware that Isla is not his possession, per se, but she sort of is. For the window of six weeks, she is his and his only, and the way he seems to recall it, they’re only on number five. His head snaps to her as the submissive clears her throat. She’s peering up at him, her mouth twitchy in giveaway.

He’s jealous, Isla thinks, and obviously so, the envy in him visible like figurines through the glass of a snowglobe.

“Had a nice time catching up with your friend?” Harry settles on. His inflection is smooth like molasses and low like a foreboding omen — a siren song. Isla contemplates getting him jealous more often.

“Yeah,” the young woman blinks, “Faunus is always great.”

Her lips twitch on the latter, and the word choice is made with such outright and overt intent to goad him — but she’s so harmless about it, too, afterwards nestling against him sweetly post the double entendre. Always great. Always a great fuck. Harry gives into her game shamelessly. He fingers at the strap on her brassiere as his mouth quirks wryly.

“This is a pretty little piece. Wear it for Faunus?”

“No,” Isla’s cadence doesn’t offer nearly as much resolve, and she jolts minutely as he lets it snap back into place. “Wore it for you.”

“For me?” the dominant raises his eyebrows, playing coy, and smooths the pad of his finger over an embellishment of lace over the edge of a cup as he tacks on, a little derisively, “How sweet.”

Then, Eros juts with his chin towards her unfinished rocks glass of sugar and syrup and fruit with the barest bones of their original nutrients, “Are you gonna throw that up if I play rough tonight?”

The brazen insinuation causes Isla to swallow, her chest growing a little tighter and the valley between her thighs growing a little warmer.

“Wouldn’t be a pretty sight. S’the White Room, after all,” his irises glimmer mischievously.

“No,” Isla protests, her gaze jumping from the glass to the shiny latex disguising his stupid, perfect face. A beat. The sound of the glass grazing over the wood coaxes his eyes to her hand as she slides it away. Yes.

“No, no. Feel free to finish it. I’ll wait.”

Despite this, her eyes jump between the half-empty glass and his face. His lack of tout — the empty, unspoken allurement of possibility — only lure her further. Take your time, I’ll patiently wait to do cruel and unusual things to you (that would’ve probably been deemed beyond illegal in the middle ages). It’s — yes. That is, no. No. Isla does not want to wait, her imagination running rampantly on the prospects of a mean Eros spurred by a jealous streak suddenly prevalent.

That she’s wrenched from him.

“No, I’m good,” Isla tells him, her cherries discarded.

Harry blinks at her, and then responds, his mouth curling softly, “Really, love. S’no rush. Got all night to,” her fingers jump to her palm, as he stretches it and settles it against the countertop, pleather-coated digits splaying, “play.”

Play. Her interest itches horribly to know what his agenda for the night entails.

“No — no, I’m good. I’m good,” the submissive clears her throat, sliding the cup away just a smidge more with the flex of her fingers. Harry’s mouth quirks.

“You’re awfully eager.”

Good. He’s pleased to coax the reaction — he’s pleased that Faunus, evidently, doesn’t even have the ability to harvest her attention in the same manner. Good, good, good.

“Well. White Room’s waiting for you, then. I’ll meet you in there,” Harry blinks at her, and then his eyes flash to his fingers as those come out to smooth over the bangle manacling her wrist, “Lemme just tie up some loose ends.”

Isla looks at him then, for a second, speaking volumes through her expression despite the majority of it being clandestine by swirls of dark fabric. Loose ends. He can tell she’s bemused that he doesn’t personally walk her, hand-in-hand.

“Okay,” the young woman settles on.

“Okay?”

“Okay, …Sir.”

He watches her walk off down a secluded hallway at the edge of the lounge, and then he blows out a breath and turns to the mocktail bartender on shift. Bliss — pretty corset, pretty, bedazzled mask, and a pretty mean dominatrix on the weekends when she’s not tending to the bar, he’s heard.

“S’cuse me, could you just—“ he gestures with the glass once the bartender’s in earshot, and she lifts her face from the sink at his cadence, “switch this off her tab onto mine.”

He doesn’t have to specify — he knows Bliss well enough. They’ll engage in the occasional small talk. Mundane shit, usually; the weather, the housing market, reputable toy artisans. Or, they had. These days he spends much of his Indulge time playing rather than strung up at the bar. Anyways, it’s the least he could do for Peitho, considering… well. The agenda for the night. The least. His mouth nearly crooks at the thought.

“Oh, it’s not on her tab, babes. Guy that was with her already tabbed it out.”

Oh — Oh. Okay. O-kay. His head swivels back to the throng of Indulge, where Faunus has vanished into the midst of the mingling masses. So now Faunus was buying her mocktails. Sick.

“How …nice,” Harry turns back, a tick in his jaw.

By the time the door clicks open from behind her, Isla’s knees are already shifting into their welcomed ache. It’s all sort of a routine she’s become beyond well accustomed to. The young woman listens to his dress shoes pad over the floor, and then she feels his hand brush through her hair from the back.

“Come sit.”

He says it in a way that doesn’t imply that he’s presently vexed — it’s easygoing enough, but his tone nearly carries the impending weight of the incoming scene. The submissive feels his palm withdraw, and then watches the backs of his dress shoes move, for a moment, as he winds past her towards the chair. And then she clambers up and follows. The mischievous jest Isla had basked in, priorly, starts its usual gear-shift into apprehension. Because being in a room, alone, with Eros, post whatever brazenly mouthy infringements Isla has managed, doesn’t leave her with …nearly as much pluck. Though, unfortunately for Eros and his ego, (or perhaps fortunately — she’s convinced he quite enjoys manually taming her into submission far more than he lets on), she’s still far from that state of mindless subservience he always manages to draw her into by the end of a session. The dominant sinks into the cushion and blows out a breath as if to discard the heft of a long workday, and his thighs splay a smidge as his eyes convey, expectantly through the slit of his mask, that he’d like her to sit. Isla slips into his lap, against the sturdy muscle of one of his parted thighs, and his leg shifts beneath her as his arm winds around her waist to cradle her close.

“I didn’t fuck you last week, and you’re already looking elsewhere, darling?” are the first words out of his mouth.

The statement is said as a jest — but it’s only half of that. His strawberry mouth is twitchy, and the pads of his digits are gentle on her thigh, and his tone is calm, and friendly, and traitorously sweet.

But Isla knows better.

Her mother had always said, behind every joke there’s some truth, sort of like a more wholesome version of drunk words are sober thoughts — far more kid friendly, but. The young woman couldn’t relate more to the wise piece of advice than she was, now, in this moment. Because her Eros is green, and obviously so. It radiates from his pores, the envy, no doubt a response to seeing Faunus’s palm pasted to her arm (she’s sure her innocuous, little comment played some part, as well), and the tidbits of his vulnerability make something oddly twist in her. Something like — feelings, beyond the playroom. It pleases her, in a red-flag-on-her-part sort of way, knowing that he cares. But more than that, the sentiment leaves her brimming with arousal. A jealous man was never a kind man, and a mean Eros, tucked away with her in a reserved playroom at Indulge, always left her simmering in welcomed anticipation.

“Of course not,” she assuages, tracing the folds of fabric in his collar and fixing them up with a smoothing touch, her pupils fixed to her fingers as she tacks on, “I’d never look elsewhere when I’m contractually obligated to uphold monogamy.”

It’s a tease that’s blatantly meant to rile him — the corners of her mouth buckle like an afterthought, and beneath her touch, the dominant’s chest heaves with a sigh.

“Contractual obligation. S’that all my time is to you, then?”

His tone is lighthearted, but the words have that undercurrent of brooding, like her words have wounded him, and Isla thumbs over a button and pops it through a loop — just for a bit of skin.

“All my cock is to you?” the man shifts below her, his tone still playful, “A contractual obligation?”

“No,” she protests, her fingers twitchy before his chin dips to ogle her handiwork, and a palm clasps over her wrist to bring the fingertips to his mouth and nip.

“Hm?” he prods, teeth grazing over skin playfully, “Gonna go back to alternating having your shit rocked when my time is up?”

Okay. Little less playful. His cadence is still light and good-natured but. Oddly heavy question. That little, unspoken slice of reality peeks through the facade of joking, traces streaking like dawn through cracks of blinds, if only for a moment.

Isla swallows. Her pupils paste to his cushiony mouth, to the tips of her digits pressed lightly between his teeth. She settles for something safe, her breath held in her chest. Actually, maybe a little unsafe, given the trajectory of his emotions.

“If you want me to, Sir.”

Placate, placate, placate. The words are all that any dominant could want — submission in its ultimation. Whatever he wants of her. Despite this, the statement has something like …disappointment twisting in his chest. He doesn’t want that. He wants to elongate their contract, he wants to keep railing Isla over, and over, and over, he wants to spend the rest of timeless time with her as his in the realm of Indulge, and only his. And he doesn’t want it to be up to him. Tell me no, Harry wants to say. Tell me you want me and only me. Show me you care, the way I do.

Instead, his mouth purses.

If there’s any inkling of protest to her words, the dominant doesn’t showcase it. She’s curious to hear his response, but he doesn’t give one. Instead, he intertwines their fingers and shoots her a glance. The topic of conversation pivots.

“Were you a good girl for me this week, sweetheart?”

Oh, goodness gracious. She’d nearly forgotten all about Monday night’s debacle, so honed and amused by the envy the dominant was radiating. The mischievous streak in her really starts to fade, then.

Was she a good girl for him this week? Vague recollections of a very satisfying vibrator pressed between clammy thighs in messy sheets at late hours flit through her mind.

And her Eros on the other end of the line.

There’s a sudden heaviness to her tongue. It’d be easy to fib and pretend she hadn’t slipped up with hungry fingers between hungrily splayed thighs, just as he’d requested — commanded — her not to do. It’s not like he’d know.

Was she a good girl for him? No. Isla certainly wasn’t.

She admits, after a moment of deliberative lull, “No, Sir.”

Sir, she’s tacked on, politely — without coaxing, Harry notes. It’s the first thing he notes, in fact, besides her candid confession of misconduct. After that, it’s the way her body language has morphed from joking to tensed, to the way her fingers rub together in her lap, to the way her chest rolls lightly with her slow, bated breaths.

“No?” he prods softly, pondering on her admission, “You weren’t a good girl?”

Behind his ribcage, his heart kicks it up a notch from priorly peaceful equilibrium into a wild, racketing hammer. Because if she tells him what he thinks she’s going to tell him, if she confirms his suspicions and proves that he hadn’t spent Monday night driving himself mad, with hands raking restively through his tendrils in lieu of getting a good night’s rest post her late night call, then—

“I …touched myself, Sir.”

And there it is.

Isla bites into her cheek when faced with his hum of acknowledgement — of course the sound is coated with condescension, as if he’d expected her to fail.

“And you came, I assume?” jade glimmers between lengthy lashes and shadows of an unnecessary disguise as he tacks on, “I mean, I’d hope disappointing me was worth it, at least.”

It — what? Isla toes at the back of her opposite ankle, a crease working between her eyebrows.

“I didn’t — I don’t know,” she blows out a breath, “how to answer this question.”

“You don’t know if you came?” his own eyebrows rise in teasing, inflection jestingly incredulous. It’s a good sign, for now, the young woman thinks. She’d expected green to turn steely, but he seems keen on poking at her — which she’ll take rather than to be confronted by his demeanor of disdain.

“No— I,” she sighs, craning her neck back and crossing her arms as the dominant’s pillowy mouth twitches, “I did,” upon the glint of warning to his expression, even mostly bridled by rubber, the submissive curbs the exasperation that’s leaked into her tone, backtracking softly, “I mean, I don’t — I wasn’t trying to disappoint you.”

“Mm.”

“And — well, anyways. I think you should be the opposite of disappointed, considering I came clean,” the twist she takes on the circumstances, to Harry, are a little appalling.

He just sort of hums, entertained, and states, “S’that where the bar is, now?” and upon her vexed look, commences a slow clap, “Applause for the bare minimum.”

“Amnesty,” she cocks her head, sitting up a bit, unperturbed by his derisive sarcasm, “is a thing, by the way, if you weren’t aware.”

At that, he literally feels the dimples poke into place beside the curl of his smile. “You’re quite funny.”

“I know,” Isla tells him after a moment, her shoulders sagging as she tips her chin to her hands and picks at her nails, her voice low, “I’m hilarious.”

Harry brushes a pleather-clad palm over her thigh before he bats at her hands. He clears his throat. “How many times?”

Her face tips up, like she’s confused by the question, and the man clarifies, “How many times did you touch yourself?”

Rather than persisting with the jittery habit of nail picking, she mollifies by tracing down his chest, over his dress shirt, sort of hoping to smooth out the incoming tension of the scene in the same way her touch smooths the fabric, “Just once.”

“Tell me,” she watches his tongue peek over before his swipes over his lips, and her vision only flits away for a mere moment when she feels his colossal palm squeezing at her hip, “how you did it.”

She blinks up at him, like the request baffles her.

“S’not that difficult of a task. Well,” Harry pauses, and his eyes roll to the side with the patronizing dig, “The first one wasn’t either, but.”

“I—“ the young woman’s jaw sets as she lifts her chin at the jab and she declares with resolve (plucky, Harry thinks, considering the circumstances), “with my vibrator.”

Vibrator. Interesting. He hadn’t heard it on the other end of the phone — sneaky girl. The chatter from the television, obnoxiously loud, floats to the forefront of his mind, then.

“Okay,” he nudges with his chin, “Getting somewhere…”

“Third setting,” Isla states, deadpan in decibel, “and I came.”

And then his palm locks, softly, over the back of her neck, and he physically guides her to lean forward against him. The dominant’s strawberry lips brush over Isla’s ear as he speaks, low and tantalizing, and then that same mouth pastes to an expanse of skin just below.

“Details, little miss. And less attitude. Paint me a picture.”

Oh — her pulse stutters.

“Were you,” his mouth alternates between questioning and pressing open-mouthed kisses that incite chills to bloom over her flesh, “watching something? Thinking of something? Hm?”

The young woman’s unsure of the cause behind the sudden, sensual twist in their discussion, but she tries to bare her neck a bit, quite literally the furthest from complaining.

“I — the TV was on. But I was thinking about you,” she admits, and the dominant slides the opposite hand around the curvature of her hip, fondling over the side of her thigh.

“What about?”

“Your—“ the man’s mouth curls up lewdly against her skin in response to the stutter he coaxes as his hand ventures to her backside, squeezing — the way her throat bobs with a swallow, “your hands, touching me. Your mouth — on my, on my—“

“Your…?” Harry wheedles tauntingly, his hand tracing its way back onto her front and teasing at the hem of her underwear.

Isla’s confession comes breathy, and her legs splay apart a smidge when he dips his forefinger past the barrier just a tad, brushing over the smooth, sensitive crease between her pelvis and her thigh, “My pussy.”

“Mm. S’that all?”

“No,” her lashes flutter behind the lace, “I thought about — about your cock. Thought about you fucking my mouth, and,” her speech dies off as his fingers wriggle further beneath her panties and brush against her clit.

“And?”

“and I thought about you,” Isla swallows, screwing her eyes shut, “…holding my nose, as you did it. So I couldn’t breathe.”

The pads of his fingers stutter in their caress. Shit. His nostrils flare at the filthy admission, and the way desire teems through his veins and arousal coils through his tummy at the thought is pure, hedonistic darkness. When Harry asks her, “What else?” his voice is considerably huskier against the crook of her neck.

“I thought about you slapping me — my face,” her chest rolls as his fingers dip and gather sopping slick — she knows she’s ludicrously wet, reliving the fantasies that’d become tucked away in the dells of her mind, in combination with his soft touch, will sort of do that. It all has her feeling as if a fucking furnace glows angrily between her thighs. “I thought about—“ her jaw sets as she tips her head back, and he nips at her earlobe, “you spanking me for touching myself. How sore I would be over the next few days, having to sit at work.”

“Spanking you with what?” Harry’s cadence comes muffled and heady against her skin.

“Just — just your hand,” Isla’s heart races in her chest as he draws circles, like it beats in laps that trace the track of the motion.

The dominant presses open-mouthed kisses to her skin, crooning, “Just my hand? Y’dont think you deserve the paddle or the strap for disobeying me?”

Isla doesn’t think much of anything when his tongue pokes out and glides over straining muscle.

“Whatever,” she swallows, his fingers fisting desperately at the sturdy muscle of his thigh, “Whatever you want, Sir.”

“S’not whatever I want, though,” he hums, “It’s about what you deserve. So what,” his fingers press a little harder, his cadence grows a little hungrier, “do you think you deserve?”

“I — I deserve whatever you decide I deserve, Sir.”

“Mm. Well. I think,” Isla gasps and jolts, her breath morphing into a soft whimper when he pinches her clit between his digits, “You don’t deserve to entertain any of those little fantasies. Not after you couldn’t follow one simple rule.”

She sags as his fingers withdraw and the elastic snaps back into place.

“Don’t deserve to have your mouth fucked,” Harry sighs, shaking his head as if disappointed by the statement, himself (good, he’d be missing out, Isla thinks petulantly), “Don’t deserve to have my hands, or my mouth. I suppose spanking wouldn’t even serve as a punishment for you, would it?”

“Because,” he motions with a hand, “we’ve done loads of that, and you’re still what, darling?”

Isla gnaws on her bottom lip, chin tilted to her hands.

“I’m talking to you,” she’s caught off guard and has to bridle a gasp when he grips onto her jaw with a gloved palm and roughly guides her face in the direction of his own. The sudden emergence of his stern streak leaves her doused in want, “You’re still what?”

It’s appalling, honestly, the way a mercurial flip of a switch in his character could affect her so deeply, but there’s nothing Isla finds more arousing than when her Eros gets like …this.

“…Disobedient,” Isla tells him softly, after a moment, not entirely sure of the answer he’s looking for.

“A disobedient, little whore—“

Isla swallows dryly, his words — his irritated tone, sinking straight to her core.

“—that just doesn’t seem to learn.”

“I’m sorry,” the submissive starts after a moment, but her cautious apology is hindered by his scoff, a shake of his head that leaves light bouncing off the glossy hood, a sound of sardonic amusement. Her pupils, through the lace, bound to meet his narrowed gaze.

“No, you’re not.”

Isla swallows. He’s right. She’s not exactly this virtuous angel who’s lurched into a pit of misdeed because of a careless accident. And she’s not exactly regretful of it, either.

The way the dominant squeezes over her hip then, the fondle of his hand gentle in contrast to the foreboding words he tacks on — the way his irises sweep over her like he’s nonchalantly deliberating her fate, has an eager thrill of the looming danger wracking down the knobs of her spine. “But you will be.”

Loads of people are adrenaline junkies — the bungee jumpers, the skydivers, the bull riders, the mountain bikers, the people who like to watch scary movies in theaters with 3D glasses, melted back against their seats as the volume of the music dims and a pregnant pause of impending doom stalls. The ones who stand in lines, veins teeming with anticipation as they edge closer and closer, zig-zagging through dividers in slow, stalling steps, all to become seated in a rollercoaster with a 90 degree drop. That excitement on the drop billows through their arteries like a chaser. It’s all sort of the same thing. Isla just has …unorthodox penchants. Methods. She happens to enjoy having the shit beat out of her, maybe, or being terrorized by something rooted in fear. Because when you mix adrenaline and sex, it’s just. Unfathomable. Truly a top-tier recommendation, if Isla were ever coaxed to recommend it. But it’s all the same thing. All a similar outcome.

Isla’s absolutely aching for that enslaving rush, and then Eros nearly gives her whiplash as he just …looks at her and says, “Maybe we shouldn’t play at all tonight.”

She can’t manage to muzzle the bloom of bemused disappointment that seeps into her tone, “I — what?”

“I mean,” Harry retracts his palm, and Isla’s suddenly left oddly cold, perched on his lap as his arms cross laxly over his chest, “you’re a disobedient, little whore. We’re on the same page about that, aren’t we, pet? Doesn’t matter if I punish you for it. And you certainly don’t deserve to be rewarded. Could just call it a night, hang out in the lounge—” his eyes convey volumes as he peers at her through lashes with insinuation, “Could mingle a bit. Sit around with your great, little friend.”

Faunus. Back to Faunus.

“I—“ Harry watches her pillowy mouth part, and settle into a line as words fail her, and then part again, “Please.”

“Please?” his eyebrows jolt, mouth pursing as a huff of wry amusement is expelled from his nostrils, and he’s about to say more, but then she interjects—

“Please, Sir. Please, I need—“

“Shut—“ Isla freezes when his hand comes back to her face, this time with the pads of his digits squeezing into her cheeks harshly, “—the fuck up.” And all Isla can really manage, from there, is a wordless mouthing against his digit, like a fish out of water. Harry watches her lips move a bit over a silent please, sort of amused by the persistive spectacle (but he definitely doesn’t let it show).

“Stand up,” he tells her, after a moment, unlatching his grip and shifting his thigh beneath her, “Stand up, and strip.”

As the young woman stands, he nudges himself off the armchair as well, making a beeline straight for the wall of toys, but not before aiming his forefinger her way and adding, (a bit cheekily, if Isla’s not mistaken, though that note is drowned out by the sternness that brims his tone), “Leave the stockings on.”

The pads of her thumbs hesitate, just past the hem of her left, sheer stocking. Slowly, she straightens back out and fixes the digits into her bra straps, shimmying those off of her shoulders first, then winding her arms behind her back to unsnap the hooks with a deft enough motion (her hands are sort of trembling). Her fingertips dip into her underwear — soaked, of course, post the ministrations of the man who mills about the room all the while, gleaning objects. Isla watches him gather and deliver the objects to the mattress before going back for more — almost like an animal stockpiling in preparation for a lengthy winter. She works the pair of underwear down her thighs, stepping out of them, and throwing them alongside her brassiere on the armchair.

The young woman feels, for the first time in a long time, a bit awkward, just standing on the linoleum, bare of all but her stockings, as she waits for further instruction from a dominant who doesn’t look as if he cares to bask in her nudity for even a split second. Because Harry always has this way of making her feel worshiped — even when he feigns that his attention is entirely torn away. Because in those split seconds where his pupils train back onto her, that facade breaks, and she sees the hunger seeping through. Her pulse stays impressively even when she watches him set a long, metallic spreader bar with cuffs — like shackles — onto the comforter beside a large wand. Finally, the rubber-hooded male shoots her a blank gaze — it lasts, as expected, a minute timespan before he fixes his attention back onto the objects. He doesn’t look even a smidge interested in her denuded state — it’s an offhand glance to make a point.

“Are you just going to stand there all night?”

“If you’d like me to, Sir,” Isla tells him — he couldn’t possibly get upset at an open offer of subservience (despite the underlying aim of innocuously-feigned backchat), and that fact seems to register with him.

Harry gives her a good look then, one considerably longer than the previous had been, one where she can practically witness the gears turning behind his skull. The submissive supposes she’s gotten what she’d wanted, after all. Then, his mouth twitches like he’s actively attempting to bridle it from morphing to a grimace.

“Come here,” the dominant instructs eventually, tone firm.

Shrouding her timidness, Isla follows his directions and makes her way to the bed until she’s stood in front of him with her chin held high. The way his hand gently grasps her wrist then, as the opposite digs into a pocket of his slacks, has her heart fluttering. His face is downcast to the bracelet as the pin-like key winds, until there’s a click and it isn’t — instead it fixes onto her own. The dominant leans in, his voice soft.

“On the bed. All fours.”

Isla turns just as he pockets the bangle, and crawls onto the mattress, just as instructed. She feels chilly metal graze against her calves, a brush of smooth leather.

“Spread,” Harry demands, and starts fastening one of the plush, padded cuffs to her ankle once she’s knee’d her thighs apart. Then, the following joint. “Put your arms back, through here,” he pats at the empty space between her (involuntarily) splayed limbs.

So Isla does that, too, rocking forward onto her shoulders and pressing her cheek against the sheets, her face cast at the wall where the door stands as her fingers twitch. He fastens cuffs onto those, too, and by the time all’s done and well, Isla’s absolutely immobile. Testingly, she tries to wrench her wrist back, the attempt subtle. She can’t move. At all. And behind her, the dominant’s pillowy mouth crooks at the sight. Apprehension rises in her, like a flood of water surging through a cylindrical building, swelling in the space between a spiral staircase that clings to the curved walls.

The beginnings of that beautiful adrenaline.

“Anything uncomfortable?”

“No, Sir,” Isla tells him.

“I mean — you’re going to be plenty uncomfortable,” she rocks back a tad as the dominant smooths his hand down the back of her thigh, “but I’d prefer you didn’t end up with a cramp, or a weird soreness because your neck’s in a funny position.”

The touch withdraws. Isla swallows.

“No. Everything’s good.”

She jolts when her ears pick up on a sound that destroys the lull — like tape, bondage tape, she’s sure, and the dominant sounds as if he has a piece between his teeth when he responds, “Wonderful.”

Then comes the sounds of tape tearing. Her muscles tense as she feels something press against her thigh, against her core, and then his hand starts to wind what she knows is the tape around her flesh. A click. The wand comes alive, rumbling. Isla can’t begin to stifle her soft hum.

“Good spot?” the dominant prods, out of sight.

The young woman fixes her gaze onto the bland wall through shapes and swirls of lace, her lashes fluttering, “Mm — yeah. Really good spot.”

“O-kay.”

And then after that — a stalling silence. Nothing reverberates over the walls, nothing falls on eardrums besides her soft breaths and the fixed buzz of the wand, pressed between her clammy thighs. Pleasure builds within her like water surging behind a dam, just sort of steadily rising until the structure starts to show signs of wear, rifts in its integrity. Then — well, then, there’s imminent destruction.

The mattress creaks. He’s shifted.

“Sir?” Isla prods, her voice small.

“No talking,” the dominant tells her after a moment, his cadence steely, “Don’t wanna hear you.”

Her bottom lip becomes siphoned past her teeth. That’s — fuck. Okay. She regulates her breathing, and stares at the wall as the toy continues rumbling against her. He hadn’t exactly, explicitly mentioned that she was to hold off her climax, so. All sort of fair game, Isla thinks. Despite this, she does try to moderate the pace in the surge of bliss — maybe it could be, like, a trickle instead of a swelling flood, if she really focuses—

Another click. The buzzing increases in intensity. Her digits flex and clench, and her wrists shift in their respective cuffs. Still, she stays very quiet. That is, until the familiar, foreboding wave of pleasure tides, frothing at her tummy and sinking. Isla tenses in the restraints, and holds off pleading until she absolutely has to. It’s sort of a gray area, because she’s definitely not supposed to wait until that happens, but apparently she’s also not supposed to talk, so.

“Sir! Can I cum? Please, please, can I—“

“Cum,” he tells her simply, not even batting an eye at her improper wording — may, he’s told her so many times, may I?

Isla does, and it’s extraordinary. His dialogue nearly misses the mark entirely before the wave crashes, the countdown spent to milliseconds. Her toes curl, and her eyes screw shut, and her thighs tense, and her wrists tug reflexively, pinioned, as she groans and attempts to coil up. The dominant doesn’t make any moves that propose the idea of him touching her or using her for his own pleasure, in any manner, nor does he make an effort to remove the vibrator or her restraints. It buzzes at her core, even as the tide of pleasure ebbs. It ebbs, and all she’s left with is the hammering of her heart, and the toy still rumbling at her core. The young woman feels her pulse racketing in her eardrums. Isla shifts in her cuffs a smidge — as much as she can — though, there’s not much leeway for that.

“Thank you, Sir,” she tells him, after a moment, her tongue swiping out after, over her strawberry mouth. She supposes she’s supposed to thank him, right? Isla’s still unsure of what exactly is going on. He’s going to overstimulate her — that much she’s discerned. It’s not rocket science. Spreader bar plus vibrator plus bondage tape? That shit was crystal clear from a mile away. She figures the dominant is aiming to venture to three, …maybe four. Maybe until she’s crying. Who knows.

The dominant doesn’t respond. She hears him exhale, though. The bed creaks again.

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit …wasn’t all that rough. The first bit feels good — even on the advance towards the second crest, past that incipient budding of discomfort post an orgasm, the pleasure builds up pretty well. In fact, it sort of feeds off that discomfort. For Isla, at least. Because once you get past that first hurtle of too much, too much, that smidge of aching becomes a mere shadow in the cliff of rapture that blooms from stone — growing, growing, growing.

Until, eventually, it gives.

“Oh, oh, please, can I— Sir—“

“Cum.”

She expands and shrivels all in one, everywhere and nowhere with a surfeit of dopamine spurting through her nervous system. The fire kindles. Ah. The beginning stages of displeasure-pleasure. She’s felt it before, a plethora. That kind where her nerve endings settle into a dull, numbing ache. Involuntarily, her limbs jerk in the restraints, tugging to get away. Her jaw clenches.

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit wasn’t all that rough, but the bit after starts to suck. All good things must come to an end, and all that, but—

Despite that, the unwavering pleasure builds. It builds because of the stimulation, first and foremost, but then it builds because he hasn’t touched her, because he’s just sat back ogling, because she knows she’s dripping down the toy and that the bulbous head glints with her arousal. It builds because it’s a punishment, because Eros doesn’t want to hear her, because she’s disappointed him, and now she’s meant to appease him by enduring suffering. It builds because she wants nothing more than to endure suffering to please him—

“Sir!” Isla wriggles in the restraints, helplessly, the mantra of please-please-please morphed to nothing but a slurred string of words.

“Cum.”

The submissive nearly rolls and topples to her side under the earth-shattering abuse of the third — frankly, the only reason she doesn’t sink into a ridiculous sort of spreader-bar-mangled fetal position, is because Harry touches her, for the first time, steadying her with a firm palm against her bare hip. The pleasure with the third is much shorter-lived than the wide windows of the first two. It wanes nearly instantaneously, shrinking back as fiery ache overtakes it in the race. Isla grits her teeth, writhing forlornly as pain settles, coating her and seeping to interweave through the marrow of her bones. Three, maybe four, she tells herself, a mellow appeasement for inner peace — though, her brain has slowly begun its melt into a commonplace mush. Telling anyone anything, or even processing thoughts besides the signals fired off by her nervous system, is beyond strenuous. She doesn’t notice a sheen of tears has glazed over until she blinks and what’s normally sharp, clear lines of fabric turns to blurs. Despite the (reasonable, Isla believes) assessment of the dominant’s agenda (Isla’s fixated upon to ground herself amidst the curdling fear that tails the unknown, in all circumstances), she can’t help but start to plead, a bit, all things considered.

“Sir, please, please, please—“

“Cum,” the man tells her, from behind, offhand and simple, probably admiring his gloves, or something. The statement comes as if he’s nothing but a robot programmed to grant her permission, and that word is the only term coded into his feasible vocabulary.

If Isla had it in her to balk, she certainly would. She doesn’t. Partly because she doesn’t have it in her, and mostly because the tingling pain from the toy has her expression helplessly forming into a frown, almost as if on its own accord. The submissive just pouts, her bottom lip quivering in forlorn appall. Because Sir doesn’t care if she’s begging, because he doesn’t care that she’s already had three, because the realization dawns on her, then, that that would’ve been four, and he still hadn’t made any inclination to cease the torture.

“No — no, Sir,” Isla starts, her waterline welling with tears behind her disguise — it’s wet, and irritates her skin horribly.

The bed creaks. Behind her, the man tuts. And then the toy becomes toggled to a higher setting, buzzing incessantly against her clit with an intensity that wrenches a sharp keen from her.

“What did I tell you? I don’t want to hear you. Not unless you’re asking permission, or you’re safing. One or the other. Nothing in between. Disobedient, little whores don’t deserve to beg.”

It’s — he’s. Pitifully, Isla sobs against the comforter.

Five. Harry’s on the track to wrench five from her — which, all things considered, is a reasonable goal to shoot for, he thinks. He knows she certainly has four in her to give, because she’s already given him four, weeks ago, in the Dungeon. And if she can’t make it to five within a reasonable time frame, he’ll cut it short post her enduring the aftershocks of the fourth for a bit. He settles back onto his arm, braced against the mattress as he splays behind her, at the foot of the bed, cheek pasted to his gloved palm as he drinks in the sight of her cunt leaking helplessly over the head of the wand. Great view. One for the books.

Despite all of this, the sobs wracking her body have him sitting up a smidge to peer around at her face, which. Not much to decipher past swollen-post-teething lips and trembling flesh, without a good view of her eyes, but. The goal is definitely not to make her safe — that last bit was just sort of open encouragement. Like, an, always feel free sort of thing. They’re only on three. He frowns.

“Hey. Baby,” Harry sits up to lean beside her, closer to her face, where she expels helpless sobs from a quivering, slobbery mouth.

The thing with Isla crying was that it was cool. Deemed cool by both parties — sought after, in fact. But checking in, Harry thinks, is also (even more) cool, especially when she’s crying in a manner that implies that she’s slipping, and that it’s all teeming into the territory of too much, despite the fact that it can sort of break apart the characters they play up in a scene. Because roles are easy to slip back into, but reforming a bond of security post the unnecessary trauma of a boundary being unintentionally crossed is, frankly, much more difficult to casually slip back into. Safety is cool. Big thumbs up.

This stuff is so much easier with eyes, Harry thinks — they speak volumes. They get blown like nightfall, crossing and shading past the lines of pupils and seeping into colors of irises, they become shifty and evident in apprehension, they kind of give it all away. He flips the toy off, but it stays nestled to her core, and he strokes hair off the band of lace shrouding her from him.

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” a crease works between his brows as he rakes his digits through Isla’s hair from her sweaty hairline. Because you sound like I’m murdering you, goes unsaid.

The thing is, he knows Isla’s limits, basically. General ballpark, that is. Really knowing and understanding takes months, and months — maybe years of experimentation. But even then, there’s those scenes where you have to check in and break character, and that’s okay. He just hadn’t prepared that it’d be after three.

Isla sniffles beneath his touch.

“Do you want to stop, darling? Red?” he smooths the pads of his digits over her cheek. And beneath his palm, weakly, the submissive shakes her head, an indication that, no, she doesn’t want to do that.

The muscles in her neck strain with a swallow as Harry tucks loose fragments of hair away, his chin dipped to observe her response, and then the young woman tells him, softly, “No. Please.”

“We don’t have to keep doing this, pet,” Harry promises, his cadence taking on a note that’s the most gentle it's been since she’d been sat over his lap, “I can take these off, and we can keep playing, but we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.”

Isla sighs softly. The pain had begun intermingling with pleasure just before he’d shut the toy off, tinges of bliss blooming post abuse on her physical senses — that’s not why she was crying. Really, there’s a plethora of reasons, some not entirely decipherable. Partly because of the intensity, partly because of the adrenaline and their subsequent endorphins, and partly because she was definitely fucking slipping. She could feel it loom over her when her mind got all mushy, when it all became slower, and more difficult, like trudging through a swamp of molasses. When her tongue got heavier and her body felt fuzzier.

“Wanna make you happy,” Isla tells him. Her eyes are screwed shut behind the lace, mostly to hinder the onslaught of tears, so she can't see him, but she does hear him sigh.

“You do make me happy. Always make me happy. Always happy I get to play with you. Silly.”

Her mouth twitches, then, and curls up a bit. She huffs through her nostrils. Harry cocks his head, smoothing a thumb down the bare fragment of her face on one cheek.

“You make me happy, too,” Isla confesses, her voice small.

Harry tries to keep his mouth from curving into a sad sort of smile in return. Instead, he slips his thumb up to brush over the bottom-most hem of her mask.

“Let me get you out of these,” he only pivots his head towards the bar before she’s humming, evidently dissatisfied by the proposal.

“No,” Isla whines, “Don’t wanna stop playing.”

“We’re not going to stop playing,” the dominant curbs the instinctive eye roll that nearly overtakes the jade, “Just a little break. Don’t you want some water? Doesn’t water sound so good?”

He smirks when she gnaws on her bottom lip and gives him a slow, little nod against the sheets. The man smooths his hand, fondly, down the side of her neck, kneeing around her to slip his fingers to the tape. He unravels that, first, trying to keep the process short, like a bandaid, and he sets the toy down beside her on the bed. Next to go are the cuffs.

“Just a little break,” he promises, “Gonna get some water,” he unbuckles the first cuff — her left wrist, “stretch a bit,” the second — her right, “stretch your neck. Can’t imagine it’s not cramping a bit,” Isla rolls her wrists, her arms still splayed beneath her in the space between the bed and her arched back — the third to go is her left ankle, “and we’ll get you back to shambles in no time,” the last, her right ankle, and he smacks her backside lightly, because it’s there and it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the opportunity, honestly. “How’s that sound?”

The dominant strokes a palm softly up her calf after he sets the spreader bar aside. Isla stretches back against him, like a little cat. Yes. All of these things sound great.

“Stretch out a bit. I’m gonna grab some,” Isla picks up on him saying, before his touch retracts and she hears his shoes clicking over the tile.

Isla shuffles her arms forward, lifting up a bit only to flop back down and morph into Child’s Pose. Sort of. As best as she can. The water machine grinds in the background. By the time Harry has made his way back to the foot of the bed, Isla’s rolled onto her side. He gestures out with the plastic, little cup, and Isla flips onto her back and sits up to grasp it between her palms. They’ve ceased their shaking, for now. Harry takes a seat beside her, his legs kicked out ahead as opposed to her coiled hover, calves pressed against the bed. Her Eros has all the answers, Isla thinks. Her throat bobs frantically as she chugs, and in her peripherals she watches him take a slow sip. Once she’s reached the bottom, her hands flop against her sweaty lap, the empty cup wrapped by her right hand.

She turns her face to him, a little smile over her mouth. The dominant peers at her, lips wrapped over the rim of his respective cup through the unzipped mouth slit, and he lifts a hand to swipe a stray rivulet of water from the corner of her mouth with a thumb. Her tongue swipes out as his touch retracts, almost as if to chase the pad of his digit. The man makes a soft sound of amusement over the lip of the cup. Slowly, Isla cranes her neck back, and then forward, and then side to side, and Harry takes another sip.

“You take care of me so well,” Isla admits, planting her forehead against his arm. She’s jostled then, and nearly complains, but then she realizes that he’s only done it to grant her a space to nestle, a nook for her so he can hold her. She still feels a little …warm and fuzzy, but her head has cleared considerably since he’d unshackled her. Isla scoots in, and the dominant winds his arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly.

“You always know what I need, even when I don’t.”

“S’because I’ve got you figured out,” Harry nudges in her direction with his beverage, three thirds of the way down. His hand, cradling the cup, lays laxly against his thigh, then.

“Do you?” Isla’s gaze narrows behind the mask as a little grin plays over her mouth. She lifts her chin up to display it. And she’s so close, he could kiss her.

The male’s tongue peeks out to glide over his pillowy mouth. Isla Cleery. Cherries, and Hydrangeas, and pencil skirts and strange tendencies to do dangerous things on a whim.

No. He absolutely does not.

“Basically. You’re an easy read, love.”

Her pupils rove over the rubber hood. Over his eyes, glinting through the shadows cast by parted zippers, slipping to the muted berry of his mouth. She’s never yearned, so badly, to surpass a personal limit and kiss someone she was …just playing with. Desperately. She tears her gaze away.

“Can we keep playing?” the young woman inquires, instead.

The dominant rolls his eyes, a soft smile cresting his cushiony mouth, “Do you want to keep playing?”

“Yes. Sir. Please. Right where we left off.”

“Right where we left off?” his eyebrows raise a smidge, “Are you sure? We can move on to phase two.”

“Phase two?”

“Well. Since phase one was punishment for your little slip up earlier in the week,” Isla’s gaze skids away sheepishly, “figure s’only fair phase two is penance for that little comment you made out in the lounge.”

The young woman’s gaze snaps back to the dominant, and she wracks her brain for a dull moment where her mind sort of lags, the edges still a little fuzzy. And then it dawns on her. Fuck. Right. There was that.

“Okay,” Isla tells him, after a moment — not a deliberative one, per se. Just. Mental preparation. “That sounds good.”

“That sounds good?” Harry’s hand slinks out to stroke over her bare thigh, and then his gaze skims to his thumb as he strokes it over the hem of her stocking, “You’re sure?”

“Yes, Sir,” Isla tells him, sitting up a bit with her rejuvenated courage, “and I want to start where we left off.”

Harry hums, pausing his thumb over her stocking. He digs it under, just a bit, tugs up, and lets it snap back into place. And then he pats her thigh, takes her cup from her, and tells her, “Alright. Back into position then. M’gonna refill these so we have them ready, for later.”

As the dominant stands to refill their respective beverages of sustenance, Isla scoots back on the mattress, flips, and clambers into position, already prepped with her arms stuck flat out in the space between her parted calves by the time he returns and sets the cups onto the, (oddly domestic and ludicrously practical), nightstand, beside the bed. She hears him blow out a breath, and the bed shifts as he knees his way onto it from behind.

“All good to keep going?” Harry prods, the thin pole of the spreader bar grasped in one hand, “Promise?”

“I promise,” the young woman returns, half-nodding and half kind of just taking the opportunity to snuggle her face into the comforter. The area soused by her tears is a little further to the right, now, and despite the fact that her mask is still wet, the blanket beneath her face, now, is dry, so it all feels like a spruced up, fresh start.

He slots the cuffs back on, one by one, working backwards from the order in which they’d been discarded minutes prior. And when she’s all splayed and riveted for him, a particular sort of sensitivity settles in her as the wand, still slick from her, presses to her cunt as he sets all the props back into place for the scene (pun intended). It’s not necessarily that grating numbness she’d become accustomed to, or a cloying past aftershocks. Just the sensation of knowing, physically, that she’s already given three. A tremble nearly slinks down the knobs of her spine at the thought. The tape unsticks from the roll as the dominant works it back over her thigh.

Isla blinks, her lashes brushing over the innermost of the lace, squeezed to her face in its tightening against the sheets. She chimes, for good measure, “And. I’m all good. You don’t have to …be nice.”

His handiwork pauses. And his cadence, rasped like sandpaper, slow like seeping molasses, sweet like syrup, nearly causes her to drown in it all. He sounds …hungry, for the first time in the night since they’d explored her fantasies in the verdant armchair, when he tells her, “I don’t intend to be.”

That’s — shit. Okay. Then, Eros smooths his palm down the back of her thigh and ponders, aloud, “Can you give me five, d’you think?”

Five. That’s a …milestone.

Isla blinks. Warmth coils in her at the suggestion, instantly, hunger unsatiated as if she hadn’t just endured the three course meal of three orgasms, back to back. Her throat feels dry, like her mouth’s been stuffed by cotton.

“I can — I can try,” she swallows, “Sir.”

“There’s a good girl,” the man hums, pleased by her answer, and he sits back a bit, rewarding her with a loud smack that siphons a gasp and a jerk in the restraints from her. A ruddy splotch teems over the surface of her skin — tinges shaped by his open palm. He gives her another, just over where the first had landed, and Isla releases a girlish grunt in response, rocking forward. A third, then, and with the opposite hand, he toggles the toy on. Harry watches every muscle in her body tense, at that.

The newfound pleasure, post the break, feels almost as if spawning from square one. Not entirely — there’s still that nagging reminder deep within her nervous system that she’s already spent so much for him (recovering from three takes, maybe, just a little longer than a span of minutes). But rather than numbing tingles enmeshed with knife-like, slicing pain, pleasure blooms quickly, radiating from between her thighs and coaxing the pit of her tummy to coil with something familiar and warm. And rather than sitting back like an audience member to enjoy the show, this time, the dominant seems interested in taking part — an active part, in fact. He smooths his palms over the globes of her ass, and every blow, falling in increments (when she seems to least expect it), sends jarring shocks through her nervous system that throw her entire comprehension of sensation for a loop. It doesn’t hurt — not at all, really. Instead, each hit enmeshes with the overpowering bliss from the rumbling against her core, and the only tinges of pain come from the eventual soreness that blooms. But it makes her wetter, hotter, more sensitive, and, eventually—

“Sir!” Isla’s eyes squeeze shut as the beginnings of the flame lick at her, “Can I—“

And then one of his palms squeezes into one of her hips and the opposite smacks her again — and, fuck. Isla can’t bridle her strangled sound when he tells her, “Cum.” The wave washes over her like water crashing over jagged rock.

The discomfort that flourishes as the weak bout of ecstasy recedes is not …horrific, per se, but it certainly reminds her that this isn’t her first, and, just as it’d been strung up prior to the break, her body becomes launched into a frenzied state of escape. Five. Why did she agree to try for five? Isla whimpers, her thighs trembling in desperation. And, as if to allay her worries (or perhaps to spur them further), Harry just delivers another strike. And then again, and again, and again, and again.

“Sir,” the submissive whines, a plea (for more? for less?), tears gathering over her waterline like rain in a gutter.

“Say it with me now, go on, darling, I will not,” the volume of his cadence climbs up the stairwell as he smacks her and digs the pads of pleather-clad digits into her skin. Her brows pinch when his mean affections don’t abate, when she aches everywhere to please him, and she sobs.

“I will— will not,” Isla hiccups, sniffles, sobs, pleads for more of his aggressive attention. More, more, more, please.

“Cum without permission,” Eros waits for her to parrot the dialogue before he toggles the setting on the vibrator pressed within her to a higher setting and her sentence cuts off into a high, loud moan. Perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of pain, and probably a solid concoction of both.

He talks over her nonetheless, “I will not cum without permission,” he says it until she’s up to par and mimics, in unison, “I will not cum without permission.”

“What—“ Isla keens as the dominant smacks her again, and her arms strain in the restraints, shackled to the slim pole between her ankles, “—will you not do?”

“I will not cum without permission!” the young woman responds, her cadence breaking into a sob as the toy buzzes incessantly, nuzzled to her overstimulated clit.

“You will not,” Eros agrees and assures her, tone unwavering despite her sobs, “and I will make sure you remember this lesson very, very well.”

By the time she really starts approaching the fifth crest, Harry’s faltered on the follow through of the blows, just sort of admiring the marks, in lieu, like a rabid animal. He’s nearly foaming at the mouth. The dominant traces the pad of his forefinger over a curve, entranced, and nearly misses her shrill plea entirely.

“I’m—“

“Cum,” he demands, pupils roving over her hips, over her sticky thighs, between her legs where she clenches emptily, helplessly, drinking in her cry like an audible variation of nectar.

The burst of pleasure is as short-lived as Isla can imagine, like the most anti-climatic climax of all time. It tears through her, severing her seams, and dwindles almost immediately for a dull ache to settle in its place. Except, this one isn't dull at all. It’s sharp, and it sends her nerve endings into pure angst. She freezes up, her muscles quivering, tensed like the string of a bow just waiting to snap, and she can’t even make out discernable request for him to turn the wand off. All that slips from her is a string of incoherent, muffled sounds, and then the rumbling ceases. Isla pants, her heartbeat so frantic she can feel it in the tip of her tongue. It pulses through her neck, through her appendages, tingling in their cuffs. It slinks through her stomach, through her fingers, it rattles her ribcage as the organ pumps rapidly.

She doesn’t realize the cuffs are gone until she feels herself being manhandled, onto her side, and then onto her back. The dominant slips off the bed, standing at the foot, and wraps his arms around the backs of her thighs as he yanks her toward him. And Isla just splays like a ragdoll. She watches him watch her, her legs flopping and her soles planting against the mattress, knees bent. The submissive tells him, then, cadence soft and dry as if she hasn’t drunk in days, “Please.”

Her chest rises and falls, almost in tune with the slow clink of his belt buckle as he opens it, nimbly, with one gloved palm as the opposite strokes over her knee. His eyes glint like green embers — hungry with want like fire kindling in a forest. Contained in a campfire, for now, just yearning to swallow the branches and brush in flame. Her own pupils shift to his belt buckle. He draws the belt out.

“Please.”

Finally, some give in his otherwise hardened features — his mouth quirks as he tips his chin towards his trousers, utilizing both hands to pop the button and tug down the zipper.

“Please? What, you wanna bounce on my cock, a bit? Gave you five orgasms, and you’re still desperate for it, like a slut.”

Her inhale is tremble-y as she watches him cull a condom, tucked away in its wrapper — red, this time, unlike his usual. His mouth purses as he flips it, rotating between his fingertips.

“Funny,” Harry shoots a glance her way, “This one’s cherry.”

Want a taste, she nearly expects him to jest, memorable remnants of their first one-on-one scene floating to the forefront of her mind. He doesn’t. He goes quiet, and looks awfully concentrated. Isla exhales at the sight of him untucking his cock from its confines, at the view of him tearing the wrapper open with his teeth, and the image of him rolling the condom down his shaft. He takes his hands away, and his cock bobs. The young woman’s chest rolls as he lines himself up with her core, and she jerks when he swipes the head from where she gushes and leaks to where she’s swollen and sensitive. Jade flickers up to face her.

“Gonna be a good girl and follow the rules from now on?” he croons, his voice a bit strained given that he’s been aching for fuck her for the entirety of the session.

The submissive nods, weakly. More than anything, it’s a mindless jerk of her chin. She tenses when he nudges into her. And the stretch is — it’s euphoric. She feels like pure euphoria to him, her spongy walls squeezing over his tip as if they’re two puzzle pieces destined to slot together. A perfect fit. A tight one. His teeth clench, and he hisses and he slides further, unable to curb his groan halfway to the hilt.

“Fuck.”

Isla spasms over him, over the perfect drag, over the perfect stretch. He buries in, sheathing his cock in its entirety until she hugs every last inch, and his fingers fondle over her thigh as he lifts her legs to plant her calves against his shoulders.

“Please,” Isla says again, her hips shifting like she’s eager for him to move.

His mouth twitches. He huffs, reining the instinct to hammer into her as his stomach swirls with want and his mind swims with defiling filth. “Look at you. Desperate to cum. Desperate for attention — for anyone’s attention,” he tacks on pointedly, a dig made as her little rendezvous back at the bar, and Isla’s irises nearly roll back into her head as he withdraws, just a smidge, and pumps forward harshly. Harry grunts. “Just a desperate, little thing. Aren’t you?”

All Isla can manage, as his hips work into a steady pace, is a wordless part of her lips.

“Answer me,” the dominant demands, tone hard.

“No,” the submissive manages out, eventually, and his hips stutter. She whines, bracing her calves against his shoulders to grind wantonly. Case and point.

A wryly amused crease works over his brow bone, behind latex, and his pace becomes stifled to nothing, “No?”

Isla whines, frantically, rolling her hips and squeezing over his length, until he scoffs, throws her legs off of him unceremoniously, and leans down in the newfound space to press her cheeks between his digits harshly.

“No? What the fuck are you doing right now? Grinding on me, like a desperate whore.”

Her breaths are shallow, and she expels, again, a denial. His takes his hand away, just a smidge, and then pats, once, over the fleshy part of her cheek with his open palm splaying — it’s borderline harsh enough to be considered a slap. Isla groans, and the dominant feels the aftermath manifest as a frantic spasm over his cock.

“No?” he repeats, voice low and soft.

“No,” Isla tells him, for the third time. So, he lifts his hand back and does it again, this time a little firmer. Her hips cant as she muzzles a soft sound with her lips, glued together.

“Don’t want anyone’s attention,” the young woman tells him from below, then, her inflection borderline frenzied, “just want yours.”

Slowly, the plush strawberry of his mouth quirks and curls up. His ego swells, and the man pulls his hips back, just a smidge, and pummels forward — a reward, for her, and she’s aware. “S’that right?”

“Yes, Sir,” Isla cranes her neck back against the comforter when he pushes off of her, picks her legs back up, and melts back into a sure, satisfying tempo, his hips pumping relentlessly. It’s the best. He’s the best.

The dominant takes her ankles in one palm — how the fuck does he do that, Isla thinks, his hand is so large, and strong, and—

“Fuck, baby, f’you could just see the way we fit together — s’like a fucking match made in heaven,” he throws his head back with a groan post taking in the view of her cunt swallowing him up, coated in cherry-flavored, red latex. His shoulders roll as a shudder wracks down the knobs of his spine, and he separates her ankles off with his hands, setting them into a spread, against the bed, gently. He pushes her knees back until the front of her thighs nearly brush over the sheets, and braces himself with his palms on either side of her head as he works into a hammer.

“He fuck you like—“ Harry grunts as his hips swivel, and Isla watches, entranced, the plush of his lips part on shallow breaths, his grin wicked and twitchy in response to her little sounds, “this? Give you what you want? What you need?”

She doesn’t have to inquire to know that he’s talking about Faunus — still on about Faunus.

“No,” Isla tells him, soft and breathy, And he rewards her, again, by pumping forward, harder, faster, deeper, and groaning, soft huffs suffusing his speech.

“No? Doesn’t stretch this snug little cunt out the way you need? Who does?”

“You — just you,” she keens as the entire mattress rocks beneath her.

“Just me?” his tongue sticks to the tips of his front teeth as he pummels forward and punches a little gasp out of her, “Who does this sweet, little cunt belong to?”

“You — Sir!”

“That’s right. S’my cunt. Mine to fuck, mine to tease, mine to kiss,” his gaze flickers down between them, where they connect, and the sight alone nearly has his balls draining. His hand ventures, and fingertips rub over the bundle of nerve endings in a way that has her tensing and crying out.

“My clit. Isn’t it?” He switches to a thumb, swiping over it, and his jaw falls open as he watches her pulse over his shaft while her head thrashes above, her teeth clenched and grinding in a pained frenzy. She’s quite pretty, overstimulated, too.

“And that means,” the left corner of his mouth buckles up, his speech glazed with condescension, “I can do whatever I want to it, right?”

As soon as his touch abates, Isla can no longer restrain herself. She digs the pads of her fingers onto his placket, into the empty spaces between the buttons of his shirt and the slits where they’re looped, clenching a fist as she raises herself and tugs him down. And before the dominant has the opportunity to scold her for treating his dress shirt with such an unshackled lack of care, she meshes their mouths together. Harry’s arms nearly buckle.

It’s filthy — but not at first. At first, he doesn’t return it, appalled by the gesture. Because it’s a limit, according to her, it’s her limit, because it’s too personal, and she’s just broken it herself. Because she just couldn’t hold back anymore, and in the fervor with which she kisses him, that shit is pretty evident. But then, he does return it. His lips move, and he moans against her strawberry mouth, and then her lips part, and from there it’s just …lewd. They’re sort of in the middle of active intercourse, Isla thinks, so a kiss shouldn’t make her feel so dirty — but it does. It’s not a dainty first kiss of first loves and soft touches and curious experimentation. It’s thrilling, and dirty, and his tongue slips into her mouth after she brushes her own against his bottom lip, and one of her hands tangles into his dress shirt while the opposite presses against his shoulder as if aiming to work out a fucking knot with the pressure. She whimpers against him, wetly, and in turn he groans and nips at her bottom lip with his teeth, his cock pulsing inside of her. And then it’s all teeth, and tongues, and want, want, want, as his hips hammer against her. It’s wanton moans, and whimpers, and rugged groans. It’s everything she’s been yearning for, and more.

“Open your mouth, open your mouth,” Harry urges, pulling off a bit and slinking a hand over her cheek, “Tongue out.”

She complies, and then a rivulet of spit dribbles from his mouth against her twitching tongue, and that’s just—

“Fuck,” Harry groans, his hips rolling against her, “You’re fucking filthy. Swallow it.”

So she does, her throat bobs below his palm, which slinks to cradle over her windpipe — not squeezing, just …there. She moans, soft and melty and desperate as his hips roll into her. And then Harry exhales, takes his hand off of her throat, and plants his palms on either side of her head to raise himself, hovering over her. He sighs like the experience is too pornographic to even comment upon. It sort of is.

“Dirty fucking girl,” the dominant settles on, eventually. And then he plows her like fucking farmland.

Her palms roam, frantically, over the fabric covering his back, the craving to leave marks of her own with short nails swelling through her mind, as he pumps forward, until it’s the only thought fathomable. It’s that — and the sick urge to spit into his own strawberry mouth, to have him leant back against the sheets, bare beneath her as she works and bounces over his cock.

Christ.

She’s warm, and wet, and heaven, and Harry imagines that his own personal Nirvana, then, would involve nothing but her cunt squeezing over his cock for the rest of eternity, her skin sticky with sweat beneath him, and her muscles quivering as he imbibes and basks. She is, in the moment, everything he wants and everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he ever will want, maybe. Because sex with Isla was — well. It was something else. Something rapturous, something sick and twisted, something he imagines he could never grow tired of. Ever.

His muscles do, though. Eventually. He feels the ache start in his hamstrings, in his shoulders, in his neck from its crane to gaze down upon her, because he just can’t tear his irises away — it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the view of a lifetime, afterall, Harry thinks. And along with the ache of his muscles comes the familiar chip in his resolve — cracks surfacing as he begins to become rended apart. He feels that in his stomach, first and foremost, in the trench of his tummy as his muscles tense — then, on the underside of his balls, a pleasured warmth that radiates as he pulses, and finally it seeps through his shaft. She squeezes over him, like she knows, and he almost loses it, then and there. He drives into her frantically, groaning animalistically as his body chases release almost on its own accord.

“Shit — always milk my cock so good, baby. Gonna— FUCK—“

Isla moans, soft beneath him, when she feels the warmth of his release, confined by the stupid cherry-flavored condom. When she feels his cock pulsing in her, when she feels his tempo slow, when he gives her a few last, weak strokes. When his head dips and he blows out a long breath, grunting as he pulls back and slips out, when she feels nothing but emptiness.

“Sir,” she starts, soft, soft, soft, and the rough exterior, the paramountcy-hungered, hard shell of his demeanor splinters and falls apart.

“So sweet for me,” Harry says, voice coated in candy, tucking strands back from her sweaty hairline, “Aren’t you? Always so eager to be good for me.”

Isla whimpers. Harry coos, shushing her with soft croons for a moment, until he pulls back and starts untucking himself from the condom and clearing up a bit.

“Always make me happy, always such a good girl. Take everything I give you and more, so well,” the man tells her, his pupils bouncing from his cock to her face as he cautiously rolls the condom off, “Hold on just a minute, baby, and we’ll have a cuddle, alright?”

He stows the condom away in its wrapper after he’s tucked himself away, and he contemplates making the short walk to the trashcan by the electric water thing against the wall. Ultimately, the dominant decides against it when she whines, needy for him and in need. Instead, he sets it off to the side, on the nightstand, as he turns back to her, lips twitching up into a little grin.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he starts, kneeing his way back onto the bed to sit beside her and hover, his hand stroking over her cheek, the side of her head, over her ear, down the side of her neck, “Gave me five today. Made me so proud.”

Isla just nods against his gloved palm, her sigh dreamy. Did she? Five, really? What an exciting and, frankly, impressive number. It’s all sort of a bliss of euphoria. She feels it, the headspace, the kind where she’s buzzing and floaty and her mind drifts and bobs about the walls aimlessly. The kind where all she can fathom is that she wants to be close to him. And it really hits her when Eros coaxes, “Can you sit up for me, pet?”

Absolutely not.

She shakes her head at him, wordlessly, and his mouth quirks with an endeared scoff, and the young woman nearly whines until he slips onto his side beside her to cradle her close. For a minute, he just lays near her, his chest to her side as he pets and caresses over her waist, and eventually he rolls to his own back and beckons, “Come here, baby,” holding her close as she shifts her head onto the space just over his butterfly.

Harry stares at the ceiling. All is well.

All is well, and it happens nearly out of the blue, brought about from a murky horizon, unforeseen. Because in their nights together, Isla cries — she always cries, and sometimes, when Harry cradles her close, he coddles her out of soft sobs that wrack her body post an intense scene. But those are traces. Remnants. They’re aftermath. The unanticipated is a fresh wave.

And Isla feels it coming on. She feels it settling in her chest, first, bursts and blooms of sadness, like the kind where you feel nostalgic, missing something. Then, her eyes. They already feel puffy and swollen, but they start to burn in the back. Her throat feels tight. And that sadness creeps deeper and settles.

Because she sort of feels she’s living through the nostalgia, then and there, in the moment. Like she’ll never relive it again.

Isla lays her head over his heartbeat and starts to cry.

TDIAG MASTERLIST HERE

#dom harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles wattpad #harry styles writing #harry styles dirty fanfiction #harry styles x oc #dom!harry #dom!harry x sub!reader #tdiag

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scyllas-revenge · 1 year

Text

Well, @i-did-not-mean-to, it’s done at last! I’m sorry for all the lies and deceit, it was for a good cause.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my dear dear friend! Enjoy your fic for @officialtolkiensecretsanta!

An Idiot’s Guide to Gift-Giving

In which Faramir and Eowyn try and fail to buy each other the perfect Yuletide gift in their first year as a married couple.

Pairing: Eowyn/Faramir

Rating: T (some sexual innuendo, but not much more than that)

Word count: 4836

Read on AO3!

“Do the people of Gondor even exchange gifts at Yule?”

Eomer scowled at the crowded market sprawled across the streets of Minas Tirith, their bustling stalls and cheerful crowds adding some much-needed color to the heavy white stone and imposing walls.

“Of course they do,” Eowyn replied, peering idly at a booth draped with dyed silks. The merchant offered her an eager smile and held up a bright roll of fabric, to which she smiled and shook her head politely, moving on.

The Yuletide markets seemed to have overtaken nearly an entire level of Minas Tirith. Makeshift tables and booths clogged the imposing, white-walled streets, and the air was thick with sellers hawking their wares, musicians striking up Yuletide songs, and local shop owners beckoning in the crowds of buyers.

Eowyn had nearly forgotten how overwhelming the White City could be.

It had been a long time since she or her brother had been here—Eomer was more than preoccupied with his new kingly duties, of course, and Eowyn herself was busy establishing her home with Faramir in Ithilien. But a summons from King Elessar to celebrate Yule in Gondor’s capital had brought them all together at last. A much-needed rest from so much travel and bitter work and what seemed lifetimes of strain, and her first-ever celebration of Yule with her new husband—it should have been a pleasant, relaxing holiday.

If only she could think of a gift for Faramir.

“What gift would suit your husband anyway?” Eomer asked, looking as impatient as Eowyn felt.

Eowyn sighed, dragging a hand down her face. “I could hardly say. Faramir lacks for nothing, it seems, and I’ve seen nothing in these stalls that would tempt him in the slightest!” She shook her head again at the next merchant, who gestured proudly to his assortment of oil lamps, their burnished copper and silver glinting merrily at her. “I’m only glad I could shake him off for the afternoon,” she admitted. “He doesn’t know I have yet to find him a gift.”

“Could you not buy him a horse?” Eomer offered, chuckling to himself. “I could arrange for one to be sent here from my herds. It would arrive late for your gift exchange this evening, of course, but I’m certain even the scrawniest horse in the Mark would far surpass any steed in Gondor.”

“Oh, you are cruel,” Eowyn chided him, though privately she agreed—the horses she’d seen in Minas Tirith were sad, rather dismal creatures. “But a horse is a betrothal offering, not a proper Yuletide gift.”

“Ah!” Eomer snapped his fingers. “I know what you can do!”

Eowyn turned to him desperately. “Really?”

“Yes! Simply tell Faramir that husbands and wives don’t exchange Yuletide gifts in the Riddermark, and then you need get him nothing at all—ow!” Eowyn thwacked her brother over the head. Dodging her attack, Eomer pointed to a nearby stall, where a red-faced merchant was doling out cups of steaming red wine. “Let’s stop here, eh?”

“It’s rather warm for such a drink,” Eowyn protested as Eomer called for the merchant—mulled wine was for the coldest of winter nights at Yule, snow piled up on the rooftops of Edoras and a fire crackling in the hearth.

“Come now, this gentle sea breeze is the coldest weather they can hope for in Gondor, it seems,” Eomer laughed, passing his sister a cup. “Besides, it will help us think.”

Eowyn took a sip of her wine, steam curling up to lick at her face. Bland, compared to the heavily spiced wines in the Riddermark, but it would do. “Alright then, brother. Let us think. Faramir is helping me build a garden in our new home…but what sort of gift would help him in that endeavor? And he takes great pride in caring for our horses—but you’re right, there is no point buying something Gondor-made for his horse, is there?”

Busy downing half his drink in one go, Eomer took a moment to answer. “It seems your husband’s only other hobbies are reading and writing,” he snorted at last. “Alas, a scholar through and through! Bema, why did you not just marry Boro—?”

“That’s it!” Eowyn cried, whipping around excitedly. “Reading and writing—of course! I will buy him a book!”

“How will you choose one?” He raised an eyebrow. “You can’t read.”

She laughed—as though she’d let something as trifling as illiteracy stop her now! “I need not read it, for the book is not for me, is it? I need only find a bookseller’s tent, that’s all. Surely there must be several here, in such a large market. And then you can help me choose one.”

“Me?”

“You can read, can you not?”

“A precious little,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Enough to grasp letters addressed to me, sign them, and write out decrees when needed.”

Eowyn nodded in understanding. The Riddermark rarely wrote down their laws, so she knew her brother used these skills but rarely. “If it gives you difficulty,” she said gently, “you need not help me choose one. I’m certain the merchants will help me find something to make Faramir happy.”

“And you truly think a book will make your husband happy?”

“Faramir? Of course. There is little he enjoys more than learning new things—any subject in the world will do.”

“Well, strange as he may be, at least you’ve chosen an intelligent husband. You go and buy your gift; I’m going to rest my feet at the Fiddler’s Elbow for a while.” He gestured to the loud, bustling pub across the street. “Good luck!”

Eowyn eyed the pub longingly—minstrel-song and the smell of mulled wine wafted toward her enticingly out the open door—but she had a job to do first.

She found a bookseller’s stand three streets away. Her first thought was that Faramir would have adored it: luxurious stacks of books, all bound in leather and cloth, some propped open to show richly illustrated maps and portraits and diagrams. Overwhelmed with fondness for her husband, she had the sudden urge to buy him the whole stand.

“Greetings, miss!” The bookseller, a gray-haired woman with dark, shrewd eyes, waved her over. “Might I help you find something?”

“Hello,” Eowyn said, with more confidence than she felt. How out of her depth she was here, among all this literature! “I am looking for a book.”

“Well, you don’t say?”

Eowyn felt herself flush. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Something for my husband.”

“And what are you looking for? We have many histories and anthologies in our collection, books of the sciences, of languages, literature from across Gondor and Harad…”

So many choices! Eowyn ran her sword-calloused fingers over the leatherbound spines—perhaps she should have brought Eomer along after all. She had never known the written word to be so intimidating. “I do not know,” she stammered. “I can hardly say—that is, I may need your assistance.”

“How do you mean, miss?”

She did not want to admit her ignorance to this woman, but what else could she do? “It is—difficult for me to admit,” Eowyn began through gritted teeth. “You see, I am not…” But she simply couldn’t say it. Oh, why hadn’t she learned to read before? “Oh, please just choose for me,” she blurted at last, suddenly impatient to be gone. “Any book in which my husband might learn something new, and I will be happy.”

“Oh? I see, miss. There is nothing to worry about, I assure you.” The bookseller’s eyebrows tilted knowingly, and she beckoned Eowyn further into the stall. She pulled back a blanket covering another set of books on a small table, nearly hidden from view of the passersby. “Are any of these what you had in mind?”

Eowyn picked up one of the books and frowned, wondering why they had been covered up. They looked no different to her than any of the other books did—the same stately bindings, the same gold-embossed script running along their spines. “I suppose,” she muttered. “Please, do you have a recommendation for me?”

“The book you hold now is a fine choice,” the woman said, grinning. “It will teach your man a great deal, I promise you. It even includes diagrams, in certain sections, to ensure his understanding.”

Diagrams? Eowyn beamed. Faramir always loved pouring over illustrations in his books! “That sounds perfect!” Eowyn said in relief, squinting at the title stamped across the spine. The font was oddly small, the letters cramped as though trying to take up as little space as possible. Still, she nodded wisely at the words, imitating the scholarly expression Faramir often wore when he was absorbed by a book. “Hmm, yes, this will do quite well. I’m sure it will be just the thing for my husband.”

She passed the woman some silver—and more silver—Bema, how expensive books were!—and as she tucked her coin purse away, the woman patted Eowyn’s arm with something like sympathy. “May he read it well, and often.”

“Well, I would certainly hope so,” Eowyn said, confused. “Why else would I be giving it to him?” Shrugging at the bookseller, she tucked her purchase into her shoulderbag and swept off to join Eomer at the pub. Book-buying was stressful work, and she could use another drink.

~~~

“Perhaps Eowyn would like a new dress,” Boromir offered, holding up a rather frilly gown from a clothier’s stall. Faramir paused to consider the piles of fabric on display.

The clothier swelled with pride at the attention of the Steward of Gondor and Prince of Ithilien, but before he could speak, Faramir shook his head wearily. “Eowyn cares little for fine clothes, and she needs no new garments.” The clothier’s chest deflated like an old balloon, and the brothers moved on.

“I presume the same might be said of jewelry, then?” Boromir asked, now looking over a booth encrusted with necklaces and rings and glittering hairpieces.

Faramir nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“What of these dyes, imported from Harad?”

“No, no.”

“New glassware perhaps, to brighten your new home?”

Faramir wrinkled his nose in dismissal.

“Oh, surely she would love this carved music box—listen, how charming!”

Faramir raised an eyebrow in amusement as his brother marveled over the market’s wares. It had been a long time since either of them had visited a Gondorian Yuletide market. They had had no time to shop like this during the long years of the Ring War, and the markets had been bleak, minimal affairs then in any case.

Now, Minas Tirith seemed determined to make up for lost time. Faramir’s heart swelled to hear bursts of songs and poems on streetcorners, heated bartering between merchants and shoppers, children laughing and chasing each other wildly between stalls, their harried parents racing after them. The city seemed to have woken up at last after a long hibernation.

“I know,” Boromir cried, putting down the intricate music box at last. “Can we not buy her a new sword? There are shops not far from here selling weaponry—the finest in the city!”

“Perhaps,” Faramir said slowly. “Yet Eowyn wishes to fight in no more battles. Most often she uses her sword now to train some of the local children, or to spar against me.”

Boromir chuckled, tinkering with the music box again. “I had never guessed you would find yourself sparring with your wife. Does she win these trials, I wonder, or do you?”

“You have not seen Eowyn’s competitive side. If you had, you would not need to ask me that!”

“I suppose commissioning armor for her is equally out of the question,” Boromir mused. “Something for her horse, then?”

“That might do,” Faramir said, brightening. “Let us visit the leatherworkers’ stalls.”

They set off—though while Boromir stopped to buy himself a plate of salted pork from the open window of a restaurant, Faramir doubled back to buy him the little wooden music box.

At least Boromir, who eagerly admired nearly everything he passed, was easy to buy for.

“My lord Steward! My Prince—” The flustered merchant bowed hastily as Boromir and Faramir approached a row of elegant stalls, horses’ tack displayed on rich cloth, piles of leather sitting by for the craftsmen who were hard at work behind the sellers. “How may I help you today, milords?”

“I may be in the market for a new saddle,” Faramir said, admiring the supple leather of the reins and richly embroidered saddle-skirts on display. These wares were certainly lovely and well-crafted enough to suit the Princess of Ithilien.

“Of course, my lord.” The merchant bowed again, the hope of a large sale gleaming in his eyes. “We have the finest saddles and bridles in all of Gondor, as you see, to befit even King Elessar himself!”

“The saddles are lovely,” he admitted. “What do you think, Boromir?”

His brother nodded. “My own saddle was made by these same craftsmen years ago. It should serve her well.”

“Her?” the merchant asked. “Ah—you are looking for a gift, perhaps for your wife?” Faramir nodded, and the man clapped his gloved hands together. “Excellent, excellent—we have the most elegant women’s saddles in the city.”

“Elegance alone will not do for my sister-in-law,” Boromir broke in, a note of pride in his voice. “She is a rider of Rohan, and will need practical, sturdy tack.” Faramir grinned at him.

“Of course, of course…” The merchant frowned but bowed again, making Faramir grind his teeth impatiently. “Our saddles will outlast any riding she attempts, and will keep her safe and secure while she does so. We can also emboss the leather with a pattern of your choosing, of course. Perhaps the Tree of Gondor and a rearing horse, to mark the unity of your marriage, eh?”

A surprisingly thoughtful gesture, Faramir thought, until he realized it would probably cost a good deal extra. “Very good,” he said, picturing the joy on Eowyn’s face. “That would be most appreciated.”

“Excellent, excellent! You are too generous, truly.” The merchant clapped his hands again and bowed low again. “We shall begin straightaway. I daresay you’ll want such a heavy gift delivered to your quarters, of course?”

Another extra fee, Faramir thought dryly. “Yes, yes, I suppose so. My wife and I are staying in the guest quarters in the Citadel. Have the gift sent there before sundown.”

Money was exchanged, and so much bowing and scraping followed from the merchant that Faramir gritted his teeth, while Boromir was doing his best not to laugh.

“That’s settled, then!” Boromir cried, clapping Faramir on the back as they departed, wandering aimlessly through the market. “Come now—let us find somewhere to get a drink. You look like you need it.”

“Very true,” Faramir said, laughing and dragging a hand down his face. “Gift-buying is tiring work.” Thank the Valar he had found such a fitting present at last. A beautifully crafted saddle, fit for royalty! True, he had not seen the exact saddle they would deliver that evening, but each one on display looked much the same as the others, with only slight differences in the stain of the leather or detailing along the straps. It would be perfect for Eowyn.

“Look there!” Boromir pointed across the throng. “It is Eomer!”

Faramir brightened at the sight of his brother-in-law heading into a crowded pub. The brothers followed him, reuniting in a chorus of boisterous embraces. They squeezed themselves into a small table, along with several mugs of ale, and only minutes later were joined by Eowyn, who was beaming with the same eager joy Faramir felt—the happy anticipation of gift-giving.

The four raised their glasses in a toast to Yuletide.

~~~

Eowyn’s eyes fell on the book again, wrapped in festive cloth and waiting expectantly on the dinner table in the guest house.

She had been so sure of the gift just a few hours before. But now? The wait for Faramir to return wasn’t helping her nerves.

Having to babysit the King of the Riddermark had done her no favors either: exhausted with his kingly duties and thrilled to be among friends again, Eomer had taken to the ale in the Fiddler’s Elbow with such gusto that before long he could barely stand.

“A model ambassador of the Rohirrim you are,” Eowyn had cried, lugging her brother upright in his seat. “I’d better get him to bed,” she’d added apologetically to Faramir. “I’ll see you tonight for our gift exchange.”

“Get me t’ bed?” Eomer had repeated indignantly. “I’m not a child to be—hic—coddled so.”

“Then stop whining so, and get up. Come on, I’m taking you back to your quarters.”

With some difficulty, she’d managed to steer her brother stumbling and grumbling to the door. “Good luck, dear sister,” Boromir had called in his booming voice. “Take care of the poor fellow—some men just can’t hold their drink, eh?” He waved goodbye cheerily, seeming to forget that he was holding his tankard in the same hand, and promptly sloshed half his ale across the table.

Faramir had dragged a hand down his face, and his eyes had met Eowyn’s from across the pub, mirroring each other’s exasperation and barely suppressed laughter.

Bema, how she loved that man.

The door burst open, jolting Eowyn out of her thoughts. Faramir staggered into the guest house at last, long hair frazzled and shoulders slumped in exhaustion. He was dragging in an enormous box behind him. “Forgive me my lateness,” he managed, pulling Eowyn into a swift kiss. “I was delayed.”

“Your brother gave you some trouble, I imagine?”

“Valar save me, yes—Boromir drank himself half into the ground and bought three rounds of ale for everyone in the pub before I could convince him to leave.” Eowyn giggled at that, and Faramir sighed. “And then he could barely walk a straight line to return to the Steward’s quarters. I had to threaten to drag him home in a cart—”

“You didn’t actually get a cart, did you?”

“No, the idea seemed to sober him up enough. We’ll see if he’s feeling better by the feast this evening.”

“It’s less than two hours away,” Eowyn reminded him, laughing all the harder. “I suspect both our brothers will be late. Eomer was in fine form as well, though I got him back to his quarters at last, and he’ll hopefully sleep it off.”

“What stubborn fools we have for family, eh?”

“Yes,” Eowyn said fondly. “Oh! But enough talk, now—you must open your gift!”

Faramir brightened. “Yes—and you must open yours. I’m glad it was delivered on time, as promised.” He hefted the clunky box toward her, its thin wooden slats draped in brightly dyed fabric. “You first, now. Go on.”

Eowyn reclined in a chair by the fire and began pulling away the cloth wrapping. A childlike giddiness was overtaking her—she had not expected such a large box!

The thin wooden slats had hinges, she discovered. She pried open the box’s lid—removed more cheap fabric used as cushioning—caught a glimpse of beautiful soft, polished leather—

“Oh, Faramir,” she cried, lifting it half out of its box. “You got me a—” The words caught in her throat as she noticed the two stirrups on the left side. “Faramir—you got me a sidesaddle?”

Faramir choked. “What?”

She dropped the saddle back into its packaging with numb hands. Her husband had seen her ride astride more times than she could count—Bema, she had ridden into the Pelennor Fields during the siege of Minas Tirith, after all! “Why would you give me this?” Her brain was buzzing, heart racing with a dozen conflicting emotions, none of them charitable.

“Sidesaddle?” Faramir knelt beside her, digging through the box. “That damned merchant,” he cried. “I told him I was looking for a gift for my wife, and he must have presumed…I’ll rectify it tomorrow,” he promised. “I’ll send for a proper saddle to match your riding style, I promise.”

“Then—” His words reached her as though through a thick fog. “It was an accident?”

Faramir was still frowning at the offending gift. “What? Of course it was!” Catching the stunned look on her face at last, he stood and pulled her to her feet. “You cannot have thought I would buy you such a thing on purpose! I know more about you than that, dear wife. I have yet to see a single rider of Rohan sit sidesaddle on a horse! I suppose I was so accustomed to your riding astride that I did not think to clarify with the merchant. Most of the women in Gondor learn to ride sidesaddle—at least, the nobility do,” he added.

“A disgusting practice,” Eowyn said vehemently.

Her husband raised an eyebrow. “Is it so bad as all that?”

“Of course! A woman cannot control her horse's reins properly when sitting sideways. Such a rider would need someone else to manage her horse’s speed and direction. She loses all control, all independence, by riding so.”

Faramir’s hands tightened their grip on hers. “Of course she would…Valar, I can see why your people would hate such a thing.” He lifted a warm hand to cup her cheek. “Oh, dearest Eowyn, I did not mean to insult your customs or your independence! I would not have you rely on me or anyone else to wend your way through the world.”

She kissed him then, her heart swelling in her chest. “I know you wouldn’t,” she murmured. “You are a good man, and I’ve chosen my husband well. I do, however, have some choice words for that merchant of yours.”

He laughed. “As do I. I hope, however, that they can wait until tomorrow, eh?”

“Indeed they can. I’m rather busy at the moment.” Eowyn grinned as she kissed her husband again, slipping her arms around his neck. Faramir responded with enthusiasm, parting her lips with his tongue, and for a long moment all thoughts of ill-fated Yuletide gifts were forgotten.

At last Eowyn drew away, her face flushed and her gown rather rumpled. “Oh! Your gift—you have not yet opened it!” She slipped out of Faramir’s arms, leaving him swaying slightly on his feet, and pressed her gift into his hands. “Go on, go on, open it! Oh, I hope you like it.”

He waved away her concern as he unfolded the wrapping. “Come now, Eowyn, I’m certain I’ll like whatever it is you…”

The wrapping fell away. He stared at the book in his hands for a long moment, then back up at Eowyn.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Why—” He cleared his throat, and there was a flush on his face that Eowyn didn’t think could be entirely attributed to the warmth of the fire. “Why did you gift me this?”

She frowned—something was wrong. “I only thought…you take such joy in reading, and I thought it could be of some use to you. Have I done wrong?”

“I…” Faramir sat down heavily in his chair. “Eowyn—if all was not well…if you have not been…but Valar, was there no better way to tell me?”

Something like panic was starting to settle in her stomach. “What do you mean? Of—of course all is well.”

“How am I to believe that,” he exclaimed, “when you gave me a book entitled The Art of Pleasuring One’s Wife?”

For a moment, the floor seemed to tilt under Eowyn’s feet. The bookseller’s strange demeanor and odd replies drifted back to her, as though from a distant memory.

Then all at once she was laughing, so hard that she sank to the floor beside her husband’s chair, tears welling in her eyes as she struggled to breathe. “The—the art of…”

“Eowyn—” Faramir’s voice was strained. “Please, tell me the meaning of this.”

“Bema help me,” Eowyn managed, covering her face with her hands, still laughing and gulping for air. “Oh, that is why this book was kept out of sight—” She snatched the book from her husband’s hands and flipped through the pages, stifling a cry of laughing misery as the book fell open to a sketch of what could only be a woman’s— “Oh, cursed thing, that’s what she meant by diagrams!”

“Eowyn!” The sight of the diagram had turned Faramir’s face a glowing pink. “Please.”

Oh, Bema, poor man! “I am sorry,” she said earnestly, her laughter dying away at last. “Truly, I didn’t mean to do it—I don’t know how this came about, but…oh, Faramir, you know I can’t read!”

He dragged a hand down his face. “You mean to say you bought this book without knowing what it was?”

Heat crawled up her skin. “Well, yes. The—the bookseller assured me you would learn a great deal from it—”

“You mean to say this bookseller knows of your dissatisfaction?”

“No!” Eowyn leapt to her feet. “I am not dissatisfied in the slightest. I told her no such thing, I promise you.”

“But did you not even inquire as to the book’s subject before buying it?”

Eowyn scoffed. “You did not even see the saddle you bought before paying for it!”

That sobered him up a little. “Valar help us,” he muttered at last. “Neither of us is possessed of much gift-giving talent, I suppose.”

“I suppose not,” she admitted. “Or perhaps your people are simply not equipped to manage a woman who rides astride and a man who enjoys reading for its own sake.” She perched on his knee, wrapping her arms around his neck and placing a soft kiss under his ear. “We shall have many more Yuletides to improve our gift-giving, you know.”

“And I look forward to them,” Faramir said warmly. “But, Eowyn…”

“Mm?”

“You are—you are certain that your choice of gift was an accident?”

An uncharacteristic hesitance had crept into his voice, and she drew away incredulously. “Of course! Let me see, now,” she said thoughtfully, picking up the offending book and adopting her best scholarly expression as she flipped through the pages. “You certainly have no need for this diagram, after all. Nor do you need a book to teach you to do this, do you?”

Faramir had gone pink again. “No, indeed.”

“My dear, foolish husband,” Eowyn said sternly, “if I were unhappy in any part of our marriage, do you not think I would tell you?”

“That you would,” he admitted, laughing. "Without the least hesitation." He took the book from her hands and flipped through it as Eowyn rested her head against his.

“You know,” she said idly, “I did not know books were written about this sort of subject. Perhaps I ought to learn to read after all.”

“Indeed you should. I would be more than happy to teach you, you know.”

She beamed. “Then that shall be your gift to me for next Yule. A year’s worth of reading lessons, so that by this time next year, we might read this horrid old thing together. If we have not found anything better to read, that is, for I doubt there is a single thing this book might teach us.”

“I don’t know,” he said idly, raising an eyebrow with an expression that made Eowyn’s breath hitch. “The illustration on this page is quite…illuminating, don’t you think?” He showed her the page, eyebrow raised teasingly.

“Oh!” Now it was Eowyn’s turn to flush pink. Could such a position possibly be comfortable? But then the figures on the page certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. “Well…perhaps this book has a few things to teach us after all.”

“You are lucky you married a scholar, you know,” Faramir said, leaning in to press a kiss to her neck, his warm fingers slipping her sleeve down her shoulder. “For I would happily spend all night making a very close study of this book.”

He rucked her dress further down, his hands warm and strong on her skin. His lips and tongue were playing at her neck, making their slow, teasing path lower… “Faramir—we are expected at the Yuletide feast soon,” she recalled, though she made no effort to stand.

Faramir chuckled against her skin. His lips kept moving ever lower, teeth nipping at her collarbone, then her breasts. “And?”

“And…” She had quite forgotten what she was going to say. “And...”

“Our brothers will be late enough as it is, drunk fools that they are,” Faramir mused. “Perhaps it would only be polite to arrive late as well, eh? So as not to draw attention to their behavior.”

Eowyn laughed, and she stood up just enough to straddle her husband’s thighs—there was little to be gained from sitting sidesaddle, after all. “I like the way you think, dear husband.”

Perhaps this was shaping up to be quite a successful Yule after all.

#lotr fanfic #eowyn #faramir #eowyn x faramir #faramir x eowyn #farawyn #tss2022 #tolkien secret santa 2022

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