#hawaiian jungle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soulcandi · 10 months

Text

𝑷𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑻𝑶𝑴 | 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐲

synopsis: sorority!reader stumbles upon ghostface behind a closed door at a halloween party and decides to play along with what she assumes is a cruel prank.

warnings: blood/gore, murder, implied alcohol and drug use, bimbo!reader, finger-sucking (lmao), written with afab!reader in mind.

a/n: first tumblr post! this is cross-posted on wattpad and ao3 too! lowercase intended.

word count: 3,841

it wasn’t the muffled screaming that drew you toward the room at the end of the upstairs hallway, but it was certainly what inspired you to press your ear against the door.

at first, you weren’t sure what you were hearing—the music from the party downstairs was making the floor thrum beneath your feet and it was impossible to try and hear anything over the deafening, base-heavy music blaring in the downstairs hallway. especially in your state. but then through the thin wooden frame, there it was again—the screaming, the pleas of terror reduced to stifled, high-pitched whines.

you held your breath, reaching down to set your big gulp full of jungle juice on the floor of the hallway. the entire first week of zeta orientation was focused solely on helping sisters in trouble and recognizing unsafe situations at parties like this one. and with your ear plastered to the door, you could tell that there was nothing safe or orderly going on in the room behind it, and not even the joint you stole from the guy dressed as danny zuko downstairs was going to change that.

you had seen date-rape frankie hanging around downstairs, slinking around the kitchen on the prowl for incoming zetas to prey on, but you hadn’t seen him in a few minutes. in fact, you hadn’t seen him much at all since you lost track of your new freshman friend, tara.

biting down hard on your bottom lip, you rapped your knuckles against the wood. there was a slight pause before the sounds of struggle grew louder.

oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

“tara?” you called, it felt like your mouth had been stuffed with cotton and you could still taste the sour hawaiian punch mixer on your tongue. The last thing you wanted to do was interrupt someone’s fantasy of hooking up in pike house on the thirsty thursday before halloween, but you would rather not just walk away when it sounded like someone was being gutted—or worse.

the knob turned with ease and you found yourself stumbling into the room before you could reconsider turning right back around and locating one of your sober sisters to investigate on your behalf. you had half a mind to slap a hand over your eyes to avoid seeing anything you rather live your life without ever seeing.

“tara, is that you? it’s—” you peaked between your fingers for a fleeting second but all you saw was red.

desperate, angry red claw marks marred the white carpet in a breadcrumb trail leading all the way from the door to the back wall just underneath the window. you stumbled, ankles wobbling in your strappy pink heels as you reached for the doorknob to catch your balance.

there was a figure cloaked in familiar black robes wearing a gaunt white mask that you knew all too well. his hand was raised with a knife poised to stab the girl currently wriggling in his arms. they both watched with bated breath as you gaped at the scene before you.

“uhm…?” you mumbled, not entirely sure you were seeing this right. you glanced over your shoulder to find that you were completely alone in the upstairs corridor. you coughed and shook your head disbelievingly. you really needed to thank danny zuko for his potent product.

or maybe you needed to stop stealing people’s weed when they were too busy making out with girls dressed as marie antoinette to notice.

the girl’s head lolled to the side, blood running like rivers through the crevices of her face. her eyes were half-lidded, the entire front of her slutty cowboy costume drenched in blood. you squinted down at her, unable to place her at first. but then it hit you like a slap to the face.

“courtney fucking carter.” you pointed almost accusingly down at her limp body. it was courtney. she posted a mirror selfie in that exact same outfit just a few hours ago, minus all the gore. ew, you really needed to take her off of your snapchat.

you felt like an idiot for believing all those heartfelt ‘your first college roommate will become your lifelong friend!’ facebook posts that your mom sent you the entire summer before your freshman year because courtney fucking carter was the furthest thing from a friend that you had at the moment.

from the split second she’d gotten wind of what you went through a few years back—of what you had seen and survived, it was all downhill from there. fake blood in your body wash, ghostface masks in your closet, daily prank calls, and anonymous threatening texts every morning, noon, and night.

her little display tonight was no different from last halloween when she paid the entire lacrosse team fifty bucks each to wear those stupid costumes and stalk the zeta house while you were sober sister.

she coughed and even more blood started bubbling in the corners of her mouth. her perfectly winged eyeliner was smudged at the tips and her face was blotchy and red from crying. you were honestly a little impressed that she would make herself look so disgusting for a silly prank that didn’t even scare you.

“(y/n)...” she blubbered, gasping as she reached out with a limp hand in your direction. “please…”

the killer hadn’t moved since you tripped into the room and if it weren’t for the labored breaths making his chest rise and fall every few seconds, you would have thought he was a statue. you wouldn’t have been surprised if she hired an actual actor to help her with this one.

“oh, this is too good,” you sighed, twirling around and grabbing your drink off of the floor before walking into the room and letting the door ease shut in your wake. as soon as it did, it was like you had hit mute on the entire rest of the party. sinking to your knees on a wet, bloody patch of carpet, you took a long sip from your straw, ignoring the delicious sting it delivered to the back of your throat.

you were just nearing the point of the night where a rum and coke only tasted like coke and you started forgetting that there was liquor in your cup at all.

courtney’s eyebrows tethered in confusion, but you weren’t even looking at her anymore. the masked figure cocked his head to the side, gloved fingers clenching around the steely hunting knife hovering a foot or so over your ex-roommate's chest.

trauma sure had a funny way of presenting itself because there was absolutely no reason that you should be so spurred on by that sight. biting your lip, you mirrored his empty expression, tilting your head parallel to his. “well? go ahead. finish her off.”

“please, no! oh my god, no!”

“shut the fuck up, my god. you act like I wouldn’t have paid like a million dollars to see this happen to you for real. grow up and let me enjoy this.”

leaning your back against the door, you pulled your barely-parted knees halfway up to your chest, not caring in the slightest that your satin slip was leaving very little to the imagination. chewing lazily— drunkenly—on your cherry-red straw, you gestured vaguely for her accomplice to proceed.

he bristled at your attention, testingly bringing the knife down a few inches to gauge your reaction. the movement elicited a weak cry from the girl lying victim in his lap and you smiled with the nibbled tip of your straw pinned between your glittery-painted lips. “do it.”

through the floorboards, you could hear the opening chords of SLUT ME OUT, followed by the excited screams of your sorority sisters. the stars were aligning in the most perfect way. if this ended quickly enough, you could link up with tara and ethan and make your way to the dance floor with time to spare before the song was over.

a long, labored breath was smothered by the smooth plastic of the mask but you heard it anyway in all of its gruff, ravenous glory. not even a full second passed before the stainless (probably retractable) blade disappeared and plunged straight between courtney’s ribs. she arched her back as her body mimed a reaction to the pain and you watched from afar with hazy curiosity.

“yes!” you clapped, throwing a weak fist in the air. “get her ass!”

“fu-fuck you, (y/n),” she spat.

“ditto. no, actually you can eat shit and choke. you’re honestly such a good actress that this is kinda sad.”

every insult, every bitter comment that you’ve been holding in since last september came threatening to spill out of you. courtney’s body lurched as the knife was yanked out of her torso, but when it re-entered, there was no reaction. no more pleas for her life, no melodramatic dying remarks. in fact, she went deathly still—her body slumping over in an awkward heap on the carpet as ghostface rose, shoving her aside in order to stalk his way over to you.

his heavy black combat boots made deep imprints on the stained carpet, now half-dried and tacky to the touch. with one more sip for good luck, you abandoned your cup beside the door and crawled on your hands and knees to meet him halfway at a tantalizing pace.

pointing your half-lidded eyes through the black eye holes of the mask, you wondered which of her sick and twisted friends was watching you back right behind them. but honestly, who were you kidding? the not-knowing was what made it just a teensy bit sexy.

“you gonna kill me next?” you pouted, sitting up on your knees less than a foot away from where he stood, shooting him the biggest, roundest doe eyes that you could manage. your pitiful frown only deepened as he shook his head, dragging a leather-gloved hand through your hair and knocking your little plastic tiara aside.

you couldn’t help the airy gasp that slipped past your lips as he made a fist in the back of your head, pulling your face up toward his before tapping two fingers against your lips.

heaven. you had flown straight of out pike house and somehow landed right at the pearly gates of heaven.

your mouth fell open obediently, tongue rolling out like a welcome mat for his two thick digits to bully themselves inside. the stiff leather was coated in a warm, sticky substance that made your mouth water and your fists clench where they were folded neatly in your lap. fake blood. nice.

the flimsy plastic mask seemed to shiver as a hushed groan echoed inside of it. your tongue swirled over the leather pads of his fingers, sucking them clean like your life depended on it—and maybe it did, who knew?

the stranger’s thick index finger curled against your tongue and coaxed a soft whine to rise from the back of your throat. the stretch wasn’t too much, but paired with the sharp yank of the tight ponytail he had formed with your hair with his opposite hand, you were borderline delirious from stimulation.

when the hand in your hair loosened without warning—like he was struggling to keep a solid grip—you blinked up at him with wide eyes and listened as the muffled breathing grew louder and even more rapid. you were desperate to see how far this would go while your shitty ex-roommate was still playing dead in the corner.

an unexpectedly hard yank to your hair had you sitting up on your knees, face angled up toward the mask as a pleading whine bounced against the leather digits exploring the cavern of your mouth. your face had long since been reduced to pins and needles and the only thing you could do to ground yourself was seek reassurance in those black, empty eyes looming over you, even if all he did was stare back at you with blank, unfeeling apathy.

you pulled your lips off of his knuckle with a quiet pop, wet eyes blinking up at the mask as you hesitantly wrapped your hands around his wrist. when he did nothing to pry you off of him, you pressed a gentle kiss to the tips of his fingers, licking a long stripe through the slit between the two digits and forcing them to part.

only when you were 100% certain that every trace of gooey, thick artificial blood had been licked clean from his glove did you sit back on your heels with a sickeningly sweet smile. “thank you for sparing my life, mr. killer.”

the mask was aimed directly at your face and you weren’t quite sure that it ever moved. he gave you a quick, restrained nod before finally releasing your hair.

you shook your head to free your hair from the ponytail shape, only slightly concerned with the red handprint that must have been slapped across the back of your head. downstairs, you heard a lapse in the music and pouted as you wobbled to your feet. you missed your favorite song.

almost instinctively, ghostface offered you his arm, leaving yet another bloody handprint on your elbow where he caught you from falling. “thank you,” you snorted, finding that small lapse in character insanely funny. this whole thing was hilarious to you and you really hoped that you would remember it when you woke up tomorrow morning for your econ lecture at noon.

whose bedroom did courtney borrow for this? you prayed for that poor fucker’s sake that he was well-paid because there was no way in hell that all of that gore was coming out of this carpet. he could kiss his security deposit goodbye.

speaking of courtney, you turned to flip her off one last time before dipping to collect your abandoned drink and pointing an accusatory finger at the guy who was still pretending to be ghostface. “Make sure she cleans this up before one of the pledges sees. I don’t want you getting blacklisted.”

he nodded, slow and considerate. your lips found the straw and you took an idle little sip, reaching up to boop the sunken plastic nose of the mask before twirling around and slamming the door behind you. the air around your body instantly chilled—compared to the rest of the party, that bedroom had been broilingly hot.

another one of your favorite songs began to play but you ignored the urge to wobble your way downstairs and instead felt along down the dark hallway toward the bathroom.

the dim yellow overhead lights flickered to life as soon as the door shut behind you and you leaned your entire weight over the porcelain sink. someone had been rifling through the medicine cabinet—some loose odds and ends were strewn across the counter.

you reached forward to pull the door of the medicine cabinet closed so you could catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror but your eyes instantly grew round and your mouth fell open at the sight of your own reflection.

the entire bottom half of your face was painted in cartoonishly red fake blood. it caked your skin and rivered down your face like drool. you looked like a vampire immediately after chowing down on some poor unsuspecting person. your last-second princess costume had been transformed into a carrie-at-the-prom nightmare.

you reached up and smeared the blood across your lips with the tips of your fingers, taking a single drop and tapping it against your tongue. it didn’t taste like cherry or corn syrup or chemicals. it tasted like old pennies. copper.

it tasted real.

a loud, blood-curdling scream echoed down the corridor and you felt your face grow numb. not even a full second later, there was a series of rapid knocks on the bathroom door and you blankly fumbled for the doorknob, eyes practically glazed over. all you could focus on was the taste of blood— blood—in your mouth. what were the odds that she sourced actual, genuine blood for this?

as soon as you unlocked the door, it swung outwards and you blinked up at the figure standing in the doorway.

ethan’s face was flushed, eyes nearly half-lidded. he took one look at you and swallowed thickly. black mascara cast dark shadows across the apples of your cheeks and if you hadn’t known any better, you would have thought you had just been thoroughly fucked-out.

you felt disconnected from the rest of your body, a dull prickly sensation stabbing over every inch of your exposed skin. ethan gulped, glancing up at the ceiling for a split-second before he could bring himself to meet your eye. meanwhile, you were scoping out the red-hot issue brewing in his khakis.

“eth,” you whined, pulling a sad face as you shifted all your weight to one heel. “were you dancing without me?”

he always tended to get a little stiff whenever you dragged him out to the dance floor with your girlfriends at parties like this one. it wasn’t his fault. after the first few times, you started to realize that it kinda just…happened. it was flattering, honestly.

ethan was a sweetheart—your sweetheart. your heart would have shattered into a million pieces on the floor between you if he’d told you that he had been downstairs dancing to your song while you sucked the soul out of some poor creep’s fingers in the upstairs bedroom.

he cocked his head to the side, eyes wide and pleading as he silently begged you not to tease him. not here. not now. he really wouldn’t be able to handle it once you started.

ethan’s tongue darted out to wet his lips and he pushed the door open wider, reaching for your hand. “we gotta get out of here,” he croaked. “something happened.”

“oh shit. cops?”

you glanced toward your cup on the rim of the sink and immediately swatted it into the trash can. there was no way in hell that you were getting busted for underage drinking the night before your favorite night of the year. spending halloween in a holding cell was at the very bottom of your bucket list.

the world was moving in slow motion—the weed, the two lime-green jello shots you took downstairs, plus the drink you’ve been nursing since the pre-game you hosted in your room earlier that afternoon were all hitting you at once.

ethan let out a stressed groan and glanced behind him. “not yet, but chad is talking to 911 downstairs. they’ll be here soon.”

you just then noticed that the music had stopped completely and the sound of voices were echoing up the stairs in its place. a breeze was crawling up the staircase from the front door which had been propped open as partygoers filed out onto the front lawn. “come on,” he said, voice on-edge as he guided you out of the bathroom by your hand. “i have to get you home.”

he said nothing about the blood that was trickling down your face and staining the neckline of your slip. you wrapped your fingers around his instantly, trailing absent-mindedly behind him as he guided you down the hall. when you passed the room at the top of the stairs, the door was propped wide open and a trail of blood was spilling out into the corridor.

you tried to peek over ethan’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of courtney begrudgingly scrubbing red goo off of the carpet, but she was still playing dead in the corner.

“don’t look.” ethan snapped, instantly pulling your face into his chest. you planted your hands there against him, feeling every hastened breath and rapid thundering of his heart. the palm of his large hand closed over your eyes and you gasped at the sincerity in his tone, stumbling blindly as he led you back downstairs blindfolded.

the dots were starting to connect and you felt yourself begin to sober up as an anxious, dreadful feeling began rising in your throat. “eth…”

courtney was dead—or hurt, at least. and you were the one who encouraged her attacker to stab her in the heart. you were the one who refused to listen when she begged you to get help. you were the one who licked her blood clean off of his fingers, looking him in the eye the entire time as if begging for him to let you do more.

“ethan…” you tried again when he ignored you. “i think I’m gonna puke.”

“no, no, no— shit. you’re fine, (y/n). you’re okay.”

if eth said you were okay, you were going to be okay. simple as that.

you felt numb—completely brainless—as he shoved his jacket over your bare shoulders (his jacket, because when you left the zeta house earlier that evening, you proudly proclaimed to him that a hoe never gets cold and that you wouldn’t need one). his hand found the small of your back and he rubbed comforting circles into your skin.

the taste of copper was like acid on your tongue. you could only stare ahead as two police cruisers rolled up onto the lawn outside of pike house—the lawn which was now littered with red solo cups and the odd strands of toilet paper that also hung from the trees like thin ghosts.

ethan squeezed your hand and you looked up, eyes blank and bleary. he shot you a quick, pitying smile, like the way someone would look at a cat with a jar stuck on its head. it was cute, but you couldn’t help but feel bad for it. “we’ll take that shortcut you like,” he said, thinking out loud as he led you toward the sidewalk away from the police. “the one that takes us by 7/11.”

with your back toward the house, you didn’t see the forensics team barrel inside through the front door. you had no way of knowing that at that very second, there was a group of officers closing off the room that you had stumbled into earlier that evening or that they were swabbing the carpet, the door, and every surface in between for dna.

“mhm,” you hummed absently, almost completely spaced as you relied on ethan to guide you down the bustling new york city street. he supported your weight happily, knowing that when you woke up for class the next morning, it would be devastatingly easy to convince you that most of what took place tonight was a product of your vivid imagination.

you would have no idea that after hours of labwork, they would find zero evidence that you had wandered upstairs at all or that ethan—your sweet baby ethan—had erased all traces of you from pike house, down to the big gulp you threw away in the upstairs bathroom.

he couldn’t have you blamed for his crimes. are you kidding? that would have defeated the whole purpose of putting courtney fucking carter at the top of his hit list. he wanted you to watch him play his sick little games without ever getting your hands dirty.

what else were friends for, really?

#ethan landry x you #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry #scream 2022 #bimbo!reader #scream fanfic #phantom #ethan landry x y/n #jack champion #ghostface #ghostface x reader #scream 1996

414 notes · View notes

aconflagrationofmyown · 8 months

Text

Even Goldish in the Privacy of Bowls do it

A Sarge & lil Mama episode

circa 1966 (yes this got moved a little from original shooting time of the movie hinted at here-in, shh)

Elvis Presley x original character -chart refresher for kid’s ages HERE

Warnings: 18+ -y’all, this is perhaps my most unhinged attempt at chaos yet. Finally we’re getting to see more of the kids, maybe more than wanted when a man’s just trying to grab a quickie in the shower with his wife. Warnings include unhinged family chaos, filthy smut, Elaine using firearms, brief mention of animal death by gunshot, brief mention of implied young children sleeping in their parents bed/bedroom while past sexual activities may have taken place, and -PLEASE NOTE- multiple references to an eating disorder on Elvis’ part. Troubling issues like this are integral to him and his mindset at the time so I include them, but please be aware there’s language in here that’s dismissive and condoning at times by certain individuals, just as it’s pleaded against by others. Along with brief body issues and shaming. Just a caution.

Word count: 12k -hope ya missed my tomes lol

Thanks: ever so much thanks is owed to many for their help and support but particularly to the dolls who made this so much better worse with their suggestions. Calling out @missmaywemeetagain @elvisabutler @eliseinmemphis @ab4eva @stylespresleyhearted

Summary: when Elaine visits the Colonel’s bungalow early on a Hawaiian dawn to defend her man and his appetite for her fried chicken -bringing along a loaded firearm for emphasis- the pelicans aren’t the only things startled.

Seven o’clock in the balmy hours of a Hawaiian morning, a solitary gunshot broke the peaceful silence and sent the beach birds squawking into the jungle’s dense foliage.

As seven AM was an ungodly hour of the day to expect anything from a human being, Elvis Presley was still in bed, asleep, and finally settled into that sorta circadian rhythm that helped him sleep through nightmares, alarm clocks, voracious wives and the pokes and prods of three to five children in his bed.

But a gunshot was jarring enough he swam to the surface of consciousness long enough to fling an arm out and pat Laney’s sweet ass and mumble an inquiry as to wether she had any clue why someone was shooting a gun in fuckin’ Hawaii. Especially as he, the only one likely to do so, was, quite obviously, in bed with her.

Except Laney’s sweet flesh wasn’t anywhere to be grabbed the more he flailed his arm in the cold sheets and, with a sudden bolt of terror, Elvis sat up and searched about the room only to find her gone. Jack was, predictably, still clinging to the same pillow Elvis had mistaken as her. He felt a little validated by that.

Two more gunshots punctuated his growing alarm and before two seconds had passed he was flying out of bed despite the way Jack’s legs clung to him and he exited the bungalow door with nothing but his silk night shorts on and espadrilles.

“Laney? The hell are you, woman?” he bellowed out the veranda with caring bravado.

No answer. Which didn’t mean much but it was harder to shake shit like this since the recent uptick in hate crimes and the way those girls had jumped her at their own gate last summer. His knuckles ached at the mere memory of the pummeling he’d given those tarts’ car hood. Nothing funny or harmless about it.

“Laney!”

Jesse barreled out shortly after and stood beside Elvis with a mimicking pose of concern, staring out at the beach with his hands on his hips, surveying the glittering water in the fresh sun’s rays and the undisturbed sand for miles. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen for that long stretch of golden beach.

“You seen your mother?” he asked Jesse sternly.

“No sir, didn’t hear her go out either. She not in bed?”

“No, and I didn’t hear her either. Neither did Jack and he’s always wound round her like a sloth to a branch.”

“Maybe she’s the one doin’ the shootin.” Jesse ventured with a mild expression of hope.

Father and son were both recalling when Elaine had given Elvis ample complaint and ample warning to do something about his reprobate pet chimp and when nothing was done and a child was harmed, Laney stalked into the den where Elvis and the boys were going over rehearsals and asked if he’d like to do the honors of shooting the damn monkey. When he laughed her off she trumped upstairs and the next thing Elvis knew was Tink clipping past the den and out the front door in her heels with his shotgun in her hand, while poor, unfortunate Scatter was being carried by the scruff of his sailor costume.

By the time Elvis caught up with her she’d put five holes in the hairy little pervert. To be perfectly honest he was aghast at such overriding of his jurisdiction but it didn’t prevent him from appreciating that when she meant business, she meant it.

So, it was plausible Laney was shooting something at seven am, and that was one of the reasons Elvis loved her. The only trick was, there was no Scatter here, no enemies in the general vicinity for her to be shooting at.

Elvis commented as much to his young son in grave deliberation.

“ ‘Cept for the colonel.” Jesse pointed out blithely and at that excellent observation all of Elvis’ blood felt like it rushed to his brain and pounded within like a tribal drum.

“Oh sweet merciful Jesus-“ Elvis wheezed and took off from his porch in a sprint along the beach hedges, towards the colonel’s adjacent bungalow, the roof of which -now that he was looking- appeared to have smoke coming out of its abnormally saggy thatch.

“She didn’t like it when he called ya fat yesterday!” Jesse was still hell bent on a little redeeming PR and Elvis waved at him with the back of his hand in acknowledgment that, if Laney was murdering, it would be for him.

And his fat self.

And for the reputation of her fried chicken that Elvis had been laying off of ever since he got so damn pudgy no director would hire him without contractually asking for a little casual bulimia on the side.

It was all part of the business, the snow job of an available and attractive man made harder by the real life presence of a wife and brood of children. The addition of a decidedly fatherly gut wasn’t gonna make them money.

He got it. Laney didn’t.

He tried to jog faster through the sand before she put her fingerprints all over the scene.

Inside the bungalow Elaine fanned the smoke out of her face with red tipped fingers and kept her diction very clipped as was most effective with this self consumed weasel.

“Am I understood? No more sedation and no more starvation and stop recommending those damn uppers that keep him buzzing while his body goes undernourished.”

Elaine still gripped the shotgun barrel, right there by the racker thingy but Parker had watched this woman long enough to know that if he agreed, then she would be pacified enough, he’d live to see another day.

“I get you, Mrs. Presley,” he assured in a pleasing tone, one that always suggested she started this long war between them, “no more. It was the business I was thinking of, it is my role. And yours is to nurture. You cannot expect me to have the same leniency as a wife, but I bow to your superior discretion.”

“You’ve kept him from home, colonel, robbed him and my children of valuable time together just because he knows he’ll be tempted to eat when he’s home. You’re a cruel, heartless Scrooge, that’s what you are. And this ain’t over.”

“It was merely business, Elaine.” he looks close to crying and she feels tempted to blast another shell into his roof.

“It's not your fault Colonel,” she steadied herself and he always liked how she was not so emotional like some women, even if she was icier than Elvis would ever admit, “I wouldn’t expect you to know what appeals to women, you never had the chance to appeal to them yourself. But I’ll tell you now, just for your excelsior betterment, some women like a sturdier man, some women like more cheeks on their husband, and your gravest omission when thinking of his appeal -a slight ponch rubs ever so delightfully on a woman’s clitoris when making love. You have heard of those, haven’t you? Maybe not, I’ll leave you to peruse the encyclopedia. It’s under C.”

Elvis got smacked in the face by the opening door as she stepped out right as he barreled in.

“Good morning honey, why on earth are you awake?” she greeted blithely as the door swung behind her and she raked his bed head back into place with her hands.

“Because you were shootin’ up the damn island.” he cried, “The hell’s goin’ on, Tink? You kill the colonel?”

“No. Of course not.” she rolled her eyes, “I’m just on a roll, keeping varmints in their places. It was his turn.”

“What’s he done wrong?” Elvis was aghast.

“Oh honey we haven’t got the time for all that on such a perfect morning.” she laughed instead, “C'mon back to bed, when you wake up again I’ll make you your favorite.”

“I can’t have flap jacks right now, Laney, you know that.” he mumbled sullenly as they turned back to the path leading to their own bungalow.

“Yes you can.”

“Says who?”

“Says the woman who owns ya before God, that’s who.” Elaine retorted sharply and he sucked in a breath in appreciation of the vindictive mood still clinging to her. He should chastise her for her language but right now he didn’t wanna shift the mood. The racked gun at her side may have added to the thrill a little.

“You’re real pretty totin’ that thing around in just your kaftan.” he complimented

“Oh Naughty.” she breathed, a little blush flaring on her face. His simple little sweetnesses still getting to her far more than any of his wiles or spice.

“Really, just so pretty, sun’s gettin’ in your hair like it’s what it got up to do this mornin’. S’all gold.”

“Oh naughty, hush.” Elaine felt a fit of compliments coming on and was a little rusty at receiving them, truth be told.

“Why can’t I tell ya you’re pretty?” he laughed.

“You can.” she shook her head in amusement and tried to keep walking but his narration stalled her a few steps down the path.

“Your legs are gold too.” he was saying “Is this like your witchin’ hour or somethin? Do I gotta get up at ass crack a’dawn to catch ya like this?”

“I am in a kaftan, Elvis. And this is hawaii, hardly a new sight.” Elaine laughed herself.

“Yeah, and the sun sure goes right through it.” he was admiring the way her legs were shapely shadows under the cream linen, the illuminating ball of fire in the sky giving him a little show. “Is this how early I gotta get up to see this?”

“You’re sleep deprived, that’s why you’re so astounded by a woman in a kaftan, c’mon and I’ll help ya get back to sleep.”

“No, no I don’t wanna go inside yet.” he objected like a child in the middle of his construction when the dinner bell goes off, “There’s kids inside.”

“Yeah there are.” Elaine’s lip curled in wry amusement.

“Colonel gets ya alone but I don’t.” he wasn’t saying it accusingly, just a contemplative pout and Elaine shaded her eyes to watch his face as he stood in front of the glittering ocean, so bright its reflective rays were almost painful this early in the day. “Why’ve we got so many damn kids.” he joked, “Hardly see ya.”

“Aww well I’m here now.” she was touched and a little confused by this mood but she sauntered up to him, leaning the shotgun against a dune marker, and put her arms around him.

That seemed to be the right course of action as he gave her one of those soft little expressions that weren’t smiles so much as they were bashful little cheek scrunches of recognition. The extra cheeks on him made the expression almost intolerably cherubic. “You got up to blow his roof off but..” he can’t accuse her of not getting up to be with him, that was a damn lie, Elaine somehow managed a schedule that fit both the normal world’s waking hours and incorporated in his bizarre nocturnal clock, he very rarely was awake while she was asleep although the same couldn’t be said for him and this morning it nagged him, what little pleasant nothings he might be missing at seven in the morning.

“It don’t make a habit of it,” she reminded softly, “he just needed a talking to. It’s like spanking or putting a child to bed, never meant to disturb you and was gonna slip right back in next to you.”

“Yeah well, three gunshots kinda have the opposite effect, woman.” he shook her shoulders playfully.

“Well I think I got the message across.”

“What was the message?”

“I-“ Elaine paused to restructure her complaint into the mildest terms possible to preserve his sleepy temper and the peaceful scenery around them. “It’s kinda like you were saying with me! I miss you, the children miss you and it’s got nothing to do with movies and making money. You’re tired from the pills and from the starving and -lord, if I see you excuse yourself after one of my meals one more time just to hear you gaggin’ it right up, I’ll-“ she couldn’t quite finish that, wasn’t sure what she’d do but the most constructive thing she could think of after hearing it last night before bed was to visit the colonel and put some fear of God in him.

“How’d you-“ he scratched the back of his neck, sheepish.

“Oh heavens Elvis!” she pinched his cheek, “It’s the oldest one in the book for us women, when I didn’t shift the weight in two months after having a second set of twins it was recommended to me by all the other wives. Just because it’s old or common doesn't make it healthy and I’m just saying that if you’re unhappy and wanna fit in your old slacks then so be it, I’ll feed ya salads and cut down on the butter but there ain’t a single movie producer I’m gonna let stipulate or pay you to starve yourself. Sweet Jesus I- I know you like looking pretty but for god’s sake! You are! You are pretty, you’re Elvis Pretty Presley for the love of God and what are your children gonna think growin’ up watchin’ you treat yourself this way? It isn’t business, no! No! It isn’t! Hush up! It’s not! Business can be constructive or destructive and Christian business only builds up. Actin’ like a pagan by starvin’ your bodily temple that the Lord gave ya isn’t gonna sell us more movies.”

“You done?” he asked her after letting out a long whistle.

“No not quite,” she cooled her tone a little but stopped her hug to cross her arms and hug herself defensively, “Marlon told me they’ve been asking the same from him and he told them to go- well, you know. And they did. They’re still casting him in serious roles even if he’s not a breathing Adonis. They should be castin’ you in movies about human life not posin’ you like some cut out in a storyline.”

“Brando told ya this?”

“Yeah.” she said, “Because Brando’s manager does what he’s supposed to. I was just reminding the colonel that he is *your* manager which means he’s supposed to be your advocate not your damn jailor!”

“Sheesh alright,-“

“Elvis! It’s serious! I mean if Marlon-“

“God!- stop all this talkin’ about Brando, dammit!” Elvis bellowed and Elaine flushed bright red for an instant and it made him do a double take, thinking he saw a flicker of something new there but in an instant it was gone and -this was Laney, it couldn’t have been there in the first place, “Lord ya need to cool off.” he muttered.

He saw Elaine heave in a deep breath and cup her hand over her nose in that tell-tale way she had when she was regaining her control, started with the nose then the hand would go to the lips and then drop as she shook it out like casting out the damn emotions it collected before it fell to her side, diamond ring glinting in the morning light.

He wanted to say he missed her again, but that felt redundant. Instead he busied himself with observing how pretty she was and before he could voice that again, her eyes cleared and she smirked at him.

“Last one in is chicken.” she dared him before taking off over the sand, headed for the decently violent surf.

That was an old trick of hers, when shit became too real she just- played, instead. He felt it was for his benefit but maybe not, maybe it kept them both sane. He was as fond of the old trick as he had been the first time she pulled it in the studio back in ‘56. Elvis caught up to her about three paces from the surf and managed to swing her up in his arms and crash into the water together. After that first gasp inducing plunge and the salty sting up the nose, the water became a sparkling friend to them, and holding onto each other they surfaced and bobbed for a brief time, enjoying the sounds of the island waking up.

“So I guess I gotta get up at the crack a’dawn to do this with ya.” he griped again and pouted into her neck.

Elaine laughed and stroked the curling hair at the base of his neck, “If you want to escape the heat of the day and catch this lighting, then yes, yes you do. Otherwise, I’m here anytime you want me.”

“Why’d we make so many people!” his face puckered playfully for a moment, “I miss you!”

“I dunno, just sorta happened.” she fibbed herself and after a moment of disbelief he caught the joke and laughed too.

“I-I mean I try to be a good father-“

“You’re an excellent father .” Elaine butted in sternly.

“a-and part of that is bein’ with ‘em and I do try,” he laid his head back partially and let the water buoy him, “whatever you may say, I do try, but when I try I-I well, I let Daisy give me a haircut because she had her heart set on it and then when I get to the film set I’m told that was a ‘dis-reee-spectful’ thing to have done. I just can’t figure out how to manage what everyone wants from me. Just can’t figure it out.”

“Elvis, I don’t know why you’re caring so much what a half a dozen crusty old men say.” Elaine murmured, “Especially not when your wife finds your haircut rather fetchin’ and thinks the meat on your bones feel real nice when you’re up against me.”

“Oh?” Elvis tipped his head back up and seemed to register their close proximity for the first time. As if a switch had been flipped it seemed to be all his eyes could process, the material of her transparent kaftan clinging to what parts of her torso he held out of the water by his hold on her thighs and- Elaine thought it sweet how sometimes her man had a singular track in his mind and that was for sex, but just as singular could be some other focus and a near naked woman wouldn’t strike his as suggestive at such a time until he was made to notice. “Oh, Laney!” his eyes lit up as he surveyed his wife and then the coastline behind her, “Hell, baby, we’re alone, we’re genuinely alone!”

“I know.” her voice couldn’t keep from pitching low as she tightened her legs around his padded hips and watched in awed appreciation for the way his face’s coloring looked like it belonged in the blush splashed sea. “Seven am, for the lighting and for -the solitude.”

“Oh I like the lighting.” he muttered as if to himself as he swayed closer, eyes glued to her wettend lips. “And I like not havin’ all those damn people around. You get it don’t you?”

“Yes I do.”

“You tired of our friends?” he asked.

That could be trick question so she carefully shrugged it off, “Not really, you?”

“Not really just-“ Elvis pondered for a bit, his full cheeks squishing his mouth up and he looked the closest to his babyish self when he had married her than he had in ten years. “It’s just always so crazy ‘round us and I -I want more of this. Just not at seven am. I’ve got a naked woman in the ocean and I’m so sleepy I can’t even stay on track to get in her!” and he laughed ruefully.

“You can just kiss me?” she begged, “Kiss me and we’ll get you back to sleep.”

As if he knew what kind of his kisses she’d been missing most in this fast paced life -for Elvis Presley had many different kinds of kisses for Mrs. Presley- Elvis brushed her hair off her face with gentle care before thumbing at her throat, making her pulse jump from the swipe of his thumb before he brought his lips nearer and nearer as her own trembled and puckered in anticipation until after painful restraint those two plush pillows caressed her own. And stayed. And stayed.

Stayed until the screech of a car peeling out on the path they'd just abandoned made Elaine look up and she saw the Colonel’s conveyance speeding inland after breaking to view their little rendezvous.

“I’m sure we cut a rather scandalous figure in here.” she realized.

“Where’s the scandal when you’re married?” Elvis scoffed. “Besides, not even the paps want a picture of me when I’m this fuckin pudgy-“

“-oh not this again!” Elaine growled, kneading said pudge with vigor as if it would get her point through him better.

“Laney, you're sick in the head, we’ve established this already.” he replied, teasing yet not entirely unserious, “What appeals to you ain’t a rule for the rest of the world.”

“Ha.” she tossed her head back, “Let’s talk about trends then. The trend is towards beefier, hairier men, less of this pristine crooner image, more of the beefcake -Redford, Bogart, that sorta thing.” Learning her lesson on the beach, she omitted Brando from the list.

“Neither of those men are fat.”

“And neither are you.”

“But I don’t look like a star no more-“

“-oh, oh trust me,” she crowed, “if you got yourself a role where you could play a man, a real , raw, gritty man, theaters would be forced to change their seat cushions.”

Elvis scoffed again but asked again with helpless curiosity, “W-what kinda man? I mean, I’m playing real men, honey. Whadda ya even mean, Tink?”

Elaine kneaded his shoulders and pondered the earthy, sultry lines of his face and the heft of his chest beneath her hands, “A working man.” she admitted. “Salt of the earth working man. A man they show working. That’s what I mean.”

“Want me to play a mailman or somethin?” he rolled his eyes. “Real innovative, honey. I’ve been a race car driver, a-a-a Cowboy, I-I’m playin’ a pilot now-”

“I mean a hefty, strong working man who crawls out from under a sink he just fixed and lays a lonely housewife on her husband’s table and gives her something to keep her company at night.” Elaine rasped in his ear.

She felt the gust of his shocked gasp against her wet ear. “Hell, Laney,” he choked, “this-this somethin’ you wanna play?” he sounded scandalized and eager all at once.

“Always, when you’re ‘in this state’, my dear.” she murmured, thumping at his back significantly.

“Hell mama, I could lay you out good.” he swore, going back in for another searing, messy kiss.

“Is everything alright boss?” a yell from the shore startled them both and Elvis fumbled with his grip on Laney’s ass to lower her further in the water for modesty’s sake.

“You’re a lil late, Jerrah.” he snarked back at his friend who was investigating gunshots from fifteen minutes ago. “But yeah, yeah all’s fine.”

“Yeah, yeah ok,” Jerry hollered back, slowly backing away from the beach and up to the hedges, “I can see that. That it’s alright, I mean, like, I can see y’all are very alright. I mean, yeah ok, I’ll go.”

“Why’s he actin’ so prissy.” Elvis grumped but began to ease them both out of the surf anyway.

“You know why it is.” Elaine’s color heightened and Elvis’ grin grew wildly proud. “We were mauling each other a bit.”

“Oh you’re thinkin’ of those early days, hmm? Fresh back from Europe and alllll the world clutchin’ their pearls over how much we loved each other. Fuck ‘em.”

“Elvis!” Elaine prostested, amused yet aghast, “We gave them some cause!”

“Yeah buddy we did.” his tone held masculine admiration for the memories of leading Tink away to a darkened alcove in her pretty jewels and silks and taking her up against one of the ‘Cabana’s marble pillars. He’d had to move so slowly not to attract notice that it was practically cockwarming with a little jive to it.

“Don’t forget the boat.” she pointed out as if she knew he was hung up on another memory.

“Ooh, oh the boat.” he clutched his chest as if she’d brought up the fondest of memories and he was an old man reviewing the best in the twilight of his life, “God you looked so damn good in those photographs, Laney.”

“Elvis! It’s not a proud thing to be the first “indecent” photograph on the cover of Life Magazine.”

“We were fully clothed! They’d no idea what-“

“Yeah, yeah just a man casually playing hoola hoop behind his wife, I’m sure. That stupid captain’s hat,” she pretended to bemoan, “if you wouldn't have been wearing that I coulda resisted and we wouldn’t be on Life.”

“Five years ago, ‘bout time to give ‘em a refresher on the faces you make when lil Elvis is hittin’ the spot.” he snickered at his own joke as she swatted him towards the stairs to their bungalow.

“Five years is not sufficient to dim for me the awful talking to the colonel gave us that night.” Elaine retorted wryly and watched Elvis’ broad back shiver at the recollection before he jiggled up the steps in just his soaked silk night shorts. She stayed below for a moment just to enjoy the dripping, meaty sight of him.

“Lord mama, what was all that for? Was that you?” a wall of young voices hit them as they stepped into their house, five children in various stages of undress and sleepwear scattered around the front kitchen area and worked up by excitement to an ungodly level of energy this early in the morning.

“Yes, that was me.” she admitted cheerily and Elvis loved her for it. “Oh heavens, we forgot the gun-“

“I’ll get it mama!” Jesse was up out of his seat in a flash. “What’d you shoot with it?”

She kissed his forehead in a good morning greeting and soothed, “There was a varmint out back, kept me awake all night so I took care of it.”

“Oh, that’s real cool, mama.” Jesse’s eyes filled with admiration before he backed outta the screen door and flew down the path to get the gun in a blur of blue swim drawers.

“Cool.” Elaine repeated and tested the compliment on her tongue as Elvis laughed in a tired rumble that reverberated against her back as he clung to her like a sleepy child, one hand around her waist, his chin on her shoulder and his other hand busy stroking a clinging Rosalee’s head.

“Yeah, you’re real cool.” he insisted, his voice warbling.

“Outta sight.” Daisy offered from her place on the floor amidst a pile of crayons.

“Mhmm!” Elvis grunted, all gritty and revved up in her ear and she shuddered from something besides her wet kaftan.

“Alright, alright thanks.“ she batted the air like she could knock the compliments down that way, while trying to spin in Elvis’ hold. “Your daddy needs his sleep. Woke him up with all that racket, y’all be good and I’ll be back to fix food. C’mon Mopey, let’s get ya tucked in.”

“But Jack’s in our damn bed!” Elvis bawled.

“Not for long! He’ll be up for breakfast, come on baby, let me tuck ya in.”

“Can’t tuck me in the way I need when he’s there.” Elvis grumped.

“Oooooooh.” Elaine drew it out in understanding before turning back round to address their sleepy little audience gathered round the kitchen table, “Y’all get the flour and maple syrup out for me, your silly daddy dunked us in the ocean so we’ve gotta shower off. I’ll be back.”

“I know how to make pancakes mama!” Ella piped up, suddenly very awake.

“Alrighty then, pancakes it is.” Elaine smirked and saluted her before leading Elvis into the adjacent master bedroom.

“You’re showering with daddy?” Jack grumped from their bed, his stuffed whale toy clutched and his blonde hair scattered across the pillow, “I need a drink, mommy.”

“There’s this great thing called a water faucet in the kitchen, son.” Elvis snarked, now he was the one tugging Elaine.

“Well I can-“ Elaine began before finishing with a little scream as Elvis hauled her bodily into the bathroom with him.

“S’real bad to let the salt stay in your hair for long, Laney, you know this.” he tsked before addressing Jack as he slid the door closed, “Mornin’ Trouble, hope that pilla kept ya good company.”

“You’re awful.” Elaine snickered behind him as she adjusted the faucets. “Having a rivalry with your own son!”

“You like gettin’ fought over, don’t you even try to deny it.” he murmured, coming up behind her to kiss her neck -and help her remove her kaftan. “And I can dance better than him. So it’s a clear choice, lil mama.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t give me half the trouble you do.” she grinned, making fun of his nickname for the poor kid.

“You’d be bored to death without it.” he growled and it sent sparks down her spine as his damp and slippery silk shorts rubbed against her butt.

There was a knock at the door. Elvis quickly left off his romancing and bodily picked up Elaine and set her behind the shower curtain in the steaming bath.

“What?” he asked of Jack, because of course it was Jack.

“You’re not in yet.”

“Thanks t’you,” Elvis laughed, “now what?”

“My whale wants to go swimming with you.” he held up his fuzzy sea creature.

Elvis took a very nasally breath and held it, “Jack, there’s a whole goddamn ocea-“

“Elvis!” came a rebuke from behind the curtain and only the thought of Elaine naked and slippery back there gave him fortitude to begin again, although in a mockingly patient voice:

“Jack, there’s an entire ocean out there for you and your whale to swim in. He swam yesterday and I’m sure mama’s gonna take ya this afternoon. Now go eat Ella’s pancakes. Good mornin’.” and he shut the door.

He tore into the shower so fast he didn’t even shuck his swim trunks, spurred by the image of Elaine lazily wetting her hair under the spray. She looked at him and at his dripping silk shorts and the outline of little Elvis poking needily out the waistband and bit her lip to suppress a grin. It was pretty gratifying to be so wanted.

“Did you lock the door?” she asked breezily and saw the exhaustion cloud his face once more.

“No.” he admitted and stared at the shower curtain while contemplating the door beyond it, “Nope, and if he comes in, it’s on him what he sees.”

“The kid has seen a lot and it hasn’t deterred him yet.” she laughed.

Elvis still stared at the curtain, “Yeah, maybe we should take him to see someone ‘bout that.”

“Oh hush,” Elaine smacked his belly, “couldn’t be hereditary or anything, could it?” she joked.

“I did not cockblock my father at every goddman opportunity!” he railed, playfully backing her into the tiled wall.

“Oh?” Elaine grinned, “That’s not how Vernon recalls it.”

“Vernon’s a bastard!” Six years after Jack’s birth and Elvis was still aggrieved by the suggestion that his doppleganger was anything like him. “Just makes that shit up to justify remarryin’ so fast, actin’ like mama weren’t the best thing that ever happened to his sorry a-“

“I know, I know.” Elaine soothed, regretting this line of conflict. “Just teasing.”

“Don’t tease.” he begged, kissing her under the spray, “I’m tired and I don’t want it.”

“Ok.” she assured, returning his smooches, “No teasing it is then. C’mon now, help me, step outta of them.” she kneeled under the fall of water and peeled away his shorts.

It was a gift every time, pulling the fabric away to see her man and that alluring place that all his costumes and paraphernalia teased but only she got to see at the end of it all. Those deep and skimpy tan lines that marked her territory versus the rest of him that the world saw, like a sovereign country’s borders. Thighs thicker than usual and soft brown skin stretching over his fuller belly, that dark thatch of hair so fastidiously trimmed and leaky lil Elvis collecting shower droplets on his bubblegum pink head. She shifted on her knees and licked her lips, so impatient to taste him she had to force herself to finish the task of untangling his shorts from his feet.

“Think he’s gone?” she asked Elvis as he stroked back her hair in anticipation, spreading his feet to get a stance that didn’t make him knock his knees and crumple at the first throat tickle she gave him.

“Awful quiet.” he shrugged, a whimper caught in his throat as Elaine shifted closer on the hard tile and peppered his stomach with kisses, kneading those handles of his on his fleshy hips and nuzzling the little crease he’d begun to show where he’d once been cut and firm. Her tongue darted out and traced those lines lovingly and the way she held him so firmly to her attentions and the sweet arch of her back beneath the spray convinced him to view such things a little gentler, a little less obnoxious while his Tink’s mouth was worshiping them so gently.

Down she went, lovingly nuzzling and licking a path across his creases and up his thighs, nosing as his balls and rubbing her cheek against him before opening her mouth and letting Elvis guide his throbbing length onto her tongue. He clasped her head and started a rhythm, a gentle and steady pump to the back of her throat which she knew by heart, and when the cadence had been perfected he let her be and grabbed the shampoo and lathered his own hair before tipping his head back in the water and washing the suds out. Then he poured out a dollop again and, rubbing it between his hands, began to massage it through her locks, lovingly swiping any run-off away from her eyes and swirling hypnotizing little circles into her scalp.

That made her moan. It sent the damndest spark to his very toes and he thrust in harder, hissing and smiling down at her. She was smiling back -around a mouthful of cock. And she looked so pretty doing it, there wasn’t a sweeter or lovelier face to be found when she was hollowing her cheeks and stretching her lips and batting her sparkly eyes. Savoring the feel of a man’s meaty weight in her mouth, letting him gag her with aplomb. The suds squished under his grasp as lewdly as the slurping sounds Elaine made when her gasps grew short and she tried to sneak in a breath or two between his thrusts.

“Hell laney, you’re prettier than you ever been.” he realized with his chest fit to burst from love for her, her and the way she massaged his thick sides and the way she always smiled when sucking cock. The way she blew the Colonel's roof off over a point of honor, “How’d I ever get so lucky.” he muttered, realizing suddenly that she reminded him of those early days, before the babies -any of the babies- back when she was toned and lanky and bare faced. She had the prettiest smattering of freckles when her makeup was gone, he swiped the shower spray from off them.

She looked a girl again, the girl who gave herself to him for safe keeping.

She was trailing one hand down her stomach, flat and firm again, and down and down till she was playing with herself, he could tell by the way her arm moved in time with her head. He rubbed at her scalp again.

Another moan. His toes curl. His spine ran like hot lava.

It had been three years since…a baby. That would account for the toned and lean look, he had a sudden epiphany. Felt a fool for it immediately after.

It maybe wasn’t what they wanted but something a little feral and fond flooded his chest at this old Tink. Something told him to marvel at her, marvel at her like he had in her soaked kaftan at the beach. He had a beautiful wife. Damn stunning and he just -he didn’t see her enough, he felt. Odd, that.

“Laney, laney, hold up.” Elvis tapped her jaw and pulled her off him, chuckling as she wheezed in a breath, spit and precum sputtering thick and shiny off her lips and caught herself against the slick tile wall as if she had sparks in her eyes.

“What baby?” she gasped with eagerness, playing with the suds on her breasts and looking up at him coyley, knowing that tone meant her man had a notion up his sleeve. Probably a dirty one.

“I-I-I w-wanna, I-I wanna see you.” he begged and when she still looked lost he clarified, “I w-w-wanna w-watch ya p-play wi’yeself.”

Elaine’s face flushed crimson in pleased gratification at his adoring tone and with one last look of skepticism at his bobbing and visibly pulsing cock, asked with soft eagerness, “How’d’ya want me, daddy?”

Oh lord, it had been awhile since they played this game and his heart skipped a beat in anticipation. “Want ya to lay down on the tile, baby,” he instructed and watched as she sank back on her haunches without argument, slowly spreading her legs and scooting down until she was laying amongst the swirling suds, “Now, I-I-I w-want ya to spread your legs, baby, nice and wide f’me.”

Elaine did as asked, her hair swirling out in the eddy of water, her belly a canvass of sprinkles, letting her right foot push into the encroaching shower curtain a little, feeling a draft of the cold outside air rush in. “Like this?” she asked, her mouth dry from the sight of his bulk standing in a straddle above her.

“Jus’ like that.” he nodded down at her, his eyes darting all across her beautiful shiny self as the spray pelted down on her after breaking across his body, “Now this next part’s important to get right, Tink. Ya gonna be a good widdle bitty f’me, ain’t ya?”

“Yes daddy, I’d do anything for you, anything at all!” her voice rose.

“Then you spread those pretty pussy lips for me,” Elvis directed, “wanna see your itty bitty rosebud, gonna let the water do the teasin’ for us. Wanna see ya cum from the drip.”

Elaine did as she was told and stretched her labia, sucking in a breath as a small jet of water landed on her teased vagina. “Ooh, l-like this?” she hoped, sucking at her lip, trying to get on top of the teasing sensation.

“Fuuuck yeah, oh fuck, ‘xactly like that.” Elvis’ eyes were glued to her wobbling little petals, battered beneath the shower stream as he began to strip his cock with cruel, tight jerks of his wrist. Elaine nuzzled his ankle and glued her own eyes to his heavy sack, swinging above her in perfect view as it tightened up, guarded by those delicious, meaty thighs and her mouth hung open in craving. A drop of water ran off his heavy balls and landed on her forehead. “Oh Laney, you’re just perfect honey, jus’ perfect.” he praised. “It feel good?”

She was pretty sure if they kept this up he’d be spouting down on her face in a matter of seconds. “Yeah, it really does.” She craned her head back and stuck her tongue out in optimism.

—————-

Back in the kitchen a disgruntled Jack wandered into the little gathering of his siblings who were eagerly dishing out advice and praise to Ella as she capably flipped decently fluffy pancakes and stacked them onto a steaming plate.

“There, that should do for a start.” she declared and even Jesse and his ever growing appetite assented as he set the kitchen table with forks.

“Rosalee.” Jack sidled up to the auburn haired little girl trying to make a swan out of the paper towel Jesse had laid down as her napkin.

“Yeah, Jack?”

“Daddy said he’s gonna take us swimmin’.” he lied with the most guileless tone, “You wanna come?”

It was a calculated move, and a stunt Jack had pulled often to back up his own devices regarding monopolizing Elaine.

Rosalee went nowhere without her father and everywhere that her father did go, she went. And Jack knew this. She had meltdowns when she was escorted off sets and had meltdowns when she arrived at sets to find him holding his young co-stars instead of her. Jealous and sensitive, there was nothing more precious to her than time with daddy and at this news of an impromptu frolic, Rosalee clambered off her barstool so quickly she nearly split her head open.

“What are you up to, Jacky?” Nine years old with a head twice older, Jesse was onto him and stared his towheaded brother down with slanted gray eyes, “How is it daddy’s takin’ ya to the ocean when he’s washing the ocean off him as we speak? Don’t sound like somethin’ he’d do before going back. Waste a’time.”

“I’m just bearin’ the news.” Jack held up his hands, “It’s what he done told me.”

“But daddy’s gotta sleep, Jack!” Ella protested, always so keenly aware of her father’s irregularities and fiercely protective of his health.

“Ooooh leave off, he promised!” Rosalee whooped in joy and tore back towards the master bedroom with a maniacally gleeful Jack following on her heels.

Ella dropped the pancake plate onto the tabletop with a thump and Daisy immediately grabbed her fork and skewered four at once.

“Where y’all goin’?” Jesse cried out after trying to get a pancake of his own, abandoning it in favor of running down his two rogue little siblings who were about to start banging at the bathroom door like they had a death wish.

———��——

Inside the shower Elvis felt his climax hit him like a freight train and bracing himself with one hand on the tiled wall, he watched with flitting eyes as his thick ropes of come joined the water shower to spatter across Laney’s chest and then down to the pattering of the stream against her pink house, then back up again. His thighs quaked and his belly shook and he kept stripping himself as wave after wave took over him from the sight of her down there, looking up at him with a pleasured grimace as the jetstream wiggled her nub. She had to be close, he could tell from the lines on her forehead and he managed to lift his foot and press it gently on her lower belly, jostling her womb like he did with his hand when he was inside. Her toes curled.

“Ya almost there, ain’t ya pretty girl?” he gasped, his own toes curling as lil Elvis didn’t seem content to flag after one shot alone, still standing stiff and interested in the proceedings below him. Elvis’ hand started to cramp.

“Elvis-“ her pretty pink tongue came out and touched her upper lip, her breasts jiggling with every big heave of breath.

Just then a round of knocks sounded on the door and if Elvis was any judge of distance -and he was a good one- he’d wager they were coming from someone about three feet off the ground and blonde as satan himself. “Not yet!” he barked, well past being patient.

“Elvis!” Elaine fretted below him, so close her eyes looked scared from desire. “I’m -“

“That’s it, that’s it you just take your time and feel it, sugar pie, that’s it.” he cooed to her and stepped over her, turning round in between her legs and running his foot further down, pressing on her little mound and after observing her hesitant moan, slipped his big toe along her soft seam.

The way her legs snapped closed like a trap spurred him on, as did her happy gasp as she thrashed and gripped at her chest like she was trying to hurt herself with the squeeze. He wiggled his toe in further, snagging her lil hole and plunging in, his leg shimmying in that controlled way he’d perfected on stage and she shrieked, happily, he was sure, except Jack didn’t know that-

“Mama I know you’re in there!” He demanded from behind the door, driven to outrage by neglect.

Laney was gorgeous when she was coming, and while often a moaner in the moments leading up to it -when propriety allowed- she was a silent screamer in the throes of it. Elvis kept up the merciless jimmying of his leg all the way through it and watched with distinct enjoyment a sight he rarely got to see from this removed vantage point. Caught in the vice grip of pleasure Elaine couldn’t humor her little brat any more than she could call on Jesus for help and Elvis just smirked down at her evilly as he kept the stimulation up. Kept it up until he was getting kicked in the gut by an overwhelmed wife.

The faucet stabbed his back as he stumbled backwards, laughing those hiccuping laughs of his and jostling his throbbing balls in one hand as Elaine cupped her mouth and tried to get her breath back. “You ok?” Elvis giggled as he knelt down and crawled over her to cup her wet cheek and bring her back down to earth. She was giggling herself, unable to voice anything but giving him a thumbs up to assure she was ok. He smooched her cheek vigorously.

“You’re still-“ she tried to form a full sentence but couldn’t.

“Those diet pills.” he whispered in explanation, gingerly still stroking his hard cock but over-sensitive cock. “It won’t go down, Laney.” he whined a little as he humped her slick belly, conscious that this was a lil pathetic to do on the shower floor but this is what he missed, moments like these where they could trust each other with all of it. He couldn’t stop himself now just to make it a little less animalistic, a little less needy. Truth was he needed her terribly and he didn’t mind her knowing.

Elaine’s hands came up and clung to the backs of his meaty thighs, as high as she could reach over his hips and she begged in a hoarse whisper that underscored the way her eyes were heavy and half mast “Sit, please, sit on my face, Daddy. Wanna taste you, I’ll get ya drained.”

She’d seen the chafed markings on her little friend from all the tucking and taping the wardrobe department had put him through, she’d tended to them with Vaseline and kissed the booboos goodnight. From the way she had her mouth open and her chin tipped back -Elvis knew what his wife wanted and with a weak moan he crawled over her again and at her insistent hands, turned back around till they faced the same way.

69ing he’d heard it called from a co-star. A filthy sorta indulgence that his ingenious wife had discovered on her own without the benefit of co-star gossip or ‘new wife’ magazines. “Gosh yes, yes that’s it, smother me baby, you're a hunk like this you know?” She gushed, gripping his hips firmly.

“Mama?” got yelled through the door along with another knock and a small racket as if there were reinforcements approaching -wether for Elvis’ cause or Jack’s, was yet to be seen.

“Go eat your pancakes!” Elvis hollered over the noise of shower spray.

“I need mama to cut them up!” Trouble hollered right back and Elvis looked down to see his fair temptress waiver at the sound of her son’s dire plight.

“Oh no, no you don’t, don’t even think it.” Elvis corrected her as he settled over her, a hefty thigh on each side of her face trapping her where he needed her, hard tile and grout lines digging at his knees. He patted at her belly and rubbed her hips as he stared ahead at the wall and slowly, almost apologetically, lowered his package over her sweet face. One ball slotted into her waiting mouth perfectly, aided by her eager little hands as she snuggled it onto her waiting tongue and with a contented grunt he muttered, “All you need to think about right now, my lil Tinkerbell, is how full and stuffed your lil mouth is with daddy’s sugar plums, how nice he is to give ya a treat n’how good you’re lil mouth is gonna make daddy feel, so good I just might kiss your lil kitty in thanks.”

Laney always got a little woozy when he didn’t give her a choice, told him it made her feel like goo inside and like she was a baby again -not in a bad way, mind. She loved it and he capitalized on it on occasions like this. After years together he’d come to understand she enjoyed a little sternness so long as he mixed it with affirmations and gentleness after. Something his younger and randy self may have been pitifully short on in his eagerness to sample her. So Elvis found himself able to squash the shame of teabagging his wife in the shower rather speedily, the obvious and untampered joy she took in the act helping him, as well as the feel of her rolling the damn things, one at a time due to size, in her mouth like his nuts were a Listerine swish.

How someone could enjoy gargling ballsack or having their noses smashed to an asshole was a little beyond Elvis, but when he said as much to her, Tink had told him she didn’t get how he could eat bloody pussy for hours.

After arguing this they had to call a truce. No accounting for taste. And since then, as a treat, Laney gets to suck his balls with the only addendum being she can’t lick his ass.

Never stops her from kneading it though, digging at the plain globes with her nails and pulling it apart -for his sanity’s sake he likes to assume she spreads it so she can get some air down there. He wishes he didn’t like that feeling as much as he does but hunched over her in the shower he has to admit the stretch of it feels rather good, combined with her suckling his sack. Little Elvis begins to pulse like he gets the memo. The better it gets, the greater the sensation becomes, the more he moans and shifts and bends double till he’s biting her thigh to keep quiet. In doing so he stops sheltering her little house from the spray with his shoulders, and with malevolent delight, he notices her jerk from the water jet.

It’s fun to watch from down here, her pretty pink petals getting battered and he adds his tongue into the mix on occasion and she thrashes and screams around his balls and he keeps his thighs locked against her cheeks, muffling it almost completely. He’s missed this, not just the filthy want for each other but -but the selfishness to do it. Sure he had been a cad in their earlier marriage, using her more like an animated glory hole than a cherished child of God, but they’d both trade the exhausted lassitude of the past year for that rigorous idiocy in a heartbeat. There’s gotta be some middle ground. He just can’t come up with the right balance with Tink mouthing at his balls like a feral harmonica player tearing up the riff to Orange Blossom Special.

“Daddy! Daddy when are you takin’ us swimmin?” That’s Rosalee’s voice, coming through the door and Elvis’ heart thuds to a stop for a moment in complete confusion as to why his lil pet expects that of him this morning, “I’ve been waitin’ patiently! Please daddy!”

She’s been waiting, by the door, this whole damn time while Jack’s been doing his regular, moronic behavior. She has been good. And somehow there’s been a mix up. He’s had little enough time to play with the kids on this set and Rosalee always takes that absence the hardest. The tile is unyielding beneath his knees and his resolve waivers.

“Oh sweetie I-I-“ he brings his fist up to his mouth to try to steady his wrecked voice, “sweetie I didn’t say nothin about that, did I?”

Elaine, callous succubus that she is, ignores his fatherly plight and begins to strip the base of little Elvis like it’s gonna spurt pixie dust for her. He falls down a little more in his kneeling posture from the intensity of it, forehead banging against her shin as he claws at the slippery grout lines.

“Jack said you promised to take us swimmin!” Rosalee sounds close to tears and it makes Elvis plan on wringing Jack’s little neck while the desperate need to cum rattles in Elvis' head until he’s humping Elaine’s mouth like a maniac. She digs in harder and he hides a sob as a cough.

Angrily he peels her pussy wider and let’s the jets sting her little nub, locking his legs resolutely against her cries until he sees a stream going in the opposite direction of the shower flow, a pretty little arc of fluid straight from her pussy and if it weren’t so diluted by the shower he’d know it tastes perfectly salty sweet. Satisfied with his revenge he covers her again with his back and lays his face on the tile between her legs, trusting her to either let him get up and console his poor daughter or else finish him fast.

Going with the first option becomes entirely necessary when he hears the door crack open and a cold gust of air rustles the shower curtain.

Panic gives Elvis’ voice a thunderous edge as he shouts:“The hell are you doin’? Don’t you dare open the curtain, don’t do it! Do not!”

“Oh daddy please don’t hit me!” Rosalee wails this idiotic plea like it’s a line from some dramatic afternoon Soap Opera, and Elvis is quite sure that’s where she learned it.

“Oh, s-s-stop the d-d-dramatics!” he begs, half to his children and half to Laney who seems convinced he can come from ball sucking alone, while he’s quite sure he can’t today.

“You promised!” Rosalee continues crying, very near the shower but not touching the curtain.

“Jack!” Elvis' voice thunders shakily.

“Yes Elvis?” the kid replies very calmly from the sink area.

“G-get out! Both of ya- get out.”

“I just wanted to take a bath with you!” Rosalee stays from sheer horror at having provoked such temper from her ever-loving father, “I’m sorry daddy! I-I-I didn’t mean to make you mad, honest I didn’t! Jack said-“

“Guys, what the- come on, get out!” That’s Jesse’s beautiful voice resounding in the bathroom, sounding like a general at nine years old and Elvis is gonna have to buy the kid another motorcycle for always being such a swell fella in times of need.

“But Daddy promised to take us swimming-“

“Guys out!” Jesse grabs ahold of Jack’s tshirt and starts tugging.

“But swimming-“

“Only Mommy’s and Daddy’s swim in showers, sometimes-“ Jesse insists.

“I just came to tell mama that Ella has caught the stove on fire-“

“Jack, liars go to hell.” Jesse reminds.

Elvis realizes then that maybe his thighs are squishing all the sound from Laney’s hearing and that perhaps she’s just coasting while enjoying her favorite hobby, unaware of exactly how nuts it’s gotten in here. Nuts was a bad word for it but- he starts to pull himself off her only to feel her teeth snap in protest at the thin base of his scrotum.

He can’t help his yelped,

“Laney!” that in turn spurs Jesse onto a frantic beg,

“Kids come on! Really, we need to evacuate now!” The poor boy sounds frantic and Elvis wishes he had the moral fiber to get off his wife’s face this close to the finish line. But he doesn’t, not for Jack, not even for Rosalee and any other sweet idiot spawn who didn’t obey the closed door policy.

This isn’t the first time.

Hovering as he is, balls clamped in a toothy prison, it’s like Elaine finally hears it all, processes her children and their proximity, finally gets it without the soundproof padding of Elvis’ thighs. She responds accordingly. Instead of abandoning their tryst as he expected, like a ninja geisha, she simultaneously grabs his cock and bends him backwards between his cheeks into her mouth, while raising her foot for Elvis to muffle his impending scream around some perfectly manicured toes.

To a chorus of wailing youngsters and one very admanet eldest son who sounds like a shell-shocked veteran encouraging the green troops to pull back, Elvis feels the persuasive suction of Laney’s mouth around his throbbing head, a flick or five to his weeping slit and he’s giving into her efforts, biting her toe to keep silent and smacking at the shower curtain in an attempt to stifle the need to move with his release.

Elvis shakes to the floor with an exhausted splat as his orgasmic loss of reality gives him a blissful five seconds of escapism where he lays, cheek down in the swirling shower drain, thanking Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit for his wife.

Elaine surfaces from beneath him with the invigorated gusto of a woman satisfied with her work, pulling herself out from beneath her man’s inert form only to be hit by a toy whale that’s been hurled over the curtain and onto her wet head -a last little defiance by a growling Jack who is getting tugged out by Jesse. An impressive throw, one Elvis is responsible for helping Jack perfect with the football many a summer’s night on Graceland’s lawn.

“Oh you silly thing!” she shouts with a laugh, “If any of you sprites are still in here, make yourselves useful, hand me those towels on the countertop.” she adds as she leans over Elvis, straddling him to turn off the tap, sticking just her hand out the curtain and making grabby motions with her fingers till the feel of fuzzy cotton meets it. “Thanks, sweets.”

“Why’re you so short mama?” Rosalee’s voice asks and Elvis groans beneath her on the floor.

“Cause I’ve been playing with sea creatures.” she explains without missing a beat and Elvis’ slick back starts heaving beneath her from suppressing his laughter.

“Oh.” Rosalee accepts it with a sniffle, having spent many hours in the tub or hot tub on her knees, the better to help her toys swim around.

Elvis rolls over beneath Elaine’s straddle and smiles at her with eyes still crossed from going to the grown man’s neverland. “Alright Rosalee, you run on now we’ll be out in just a minute. Promise.” he speaks up.

“And swimming?” she begs as she retreats.

“Well, uh, we’ll talk about that over breakfast.”

Elaine makes a sad face at the realization he’s not going to let himself go back to bed after causing so much heartache in their little people. “S’ok.” he insists, reading her mind and patting her thighs.

Hearing the latch click and the silence of privacy restored, Elvis clasps her by her neck and brings her face down to his, kissing her passionately, licking at her tongue and the traces of his spend on it. “You sure know how to love a man, Tink.” he murmurs, clinging to her warm body as the shower tile turns cold.

“All I ever wanted was to learn to be the best for ya.” she whispers, sweet and gentle.

“Born the best.” he insists, “The rest was just…a bonus.”

She brings the towels she’s been balancing out of the wet, onto his chest, and sitting up they rub each other dry, soft smiles and drowsy affection making them clumsy and open.

They stagger upright together and Elvis throws his towel around her and she throws hers around him and they’re cocooned in terry cloth this way, standing in the dripping shower, snuggled together and nipping at each other’s lips.

“How’s my lil friend.” she asks, sneaking a hand between them in the damp warmth of their burrow and cupping his harmless, shrunk little appendage.

“He’s good, he’s real good.” Elvis giggles, his cheeks turning pink, “Gentle with him now, he got wrung out by a cruel, lecherous gal.”

“He sure did.” Elaine grunts satisfactorily and it’s the most masculine sorta sound Elvis has ever heard her make, full of smugness and a dirty, gritty edge he can’t quite believe came out of his woman, his woman who is so polished and elegant most times. As if to underscore this departure from demure normality and diminish it all at once, Elvis feels her hand move again beneath the towel before an electrifying sting slices up his spine and down his leg from his freshly smacked ass.

“Laney!” he cries again, utterly aghast and pink as a baby and she can’t stand it anymore, standing on tippy toes to neck him some more, vigeorusly smashing her lips to his as she yanks the shower curtain open with her free hand

She steps out while Elvis lingers and bends down to retrieve Jack’s sodden whale plushie. He may wring the poor creature out more violently than necessary but it makes his wife titter.

“God! - I love you.” she insists, surveying her man as he steps out, his wet hair dripping in a boyish mop down his forehead and his lips kissed and bitten puffy pink and his cheeks bunched in a grin despite their bashful blush and the soft accumulation of fluff and good living filling out his chest and swelling his belly just that little bit. “Sometimes I think it’s gonna kill me, gettin’ to enjoy you, getting to look at you so much. Feels indulgent somehow, like you oughta be rationed to a gal, the same way you’re dosed out to your fans in little bits, one movie a time.” she laughs at her own silliness and he shakes his head shyly as he tucks his towel into a covering around his waist. “One day they’ll find me keeled over from palpitations brought on by starin’ too long.”

“That’s what the obituary’ll say,” Elvis snarks, “but you and I’ll know the truth of the matter, that you’re a lil squirrel who likes her nuts so much she don’t take time to breathe. Mark my words, that’s how you’ll go if you keep this appetite up.”

“Then I hope they accuse ya of manslaughter, right after.” Laney grins and he stalls with his comb in hand, raised to coiff his hair back, waiting for the punchline, “Because I don’t wanna be up there without you for too long.”

“Laney!” he repeats for the upteenth time this morning, but this time it’s hushed and his lower lip wobbles with emotion and his eyes swim, touched by the sentiment. Clearing his throat he adds, “I still wanna uh, sometime -yeah, uh sometime do that thing you were t-t-talking about in the w-water.”

She makes a puzzled face as she wiggles into a tiny pair of shorts Elvis bought her last month. She’s fit as hell, and he’s envious of it, and has to admit Jack’s overdue weening did serve one purpose at least, it thinned her out like nothin’ else coulda.

“Play handyman or-or whatever.” he blushes and turns his face away as he hangs up his towel, aware that they haven’t the time to linger over this with the kitchen possibly on fire and his children eager for a swim. “Ya recall? -what you were sayin’? Me uh, playin’ a handyman or plumber or, uh, whatever. Come visit ya.”

“Oooh that,” she goads playfully wrapping her arms around his belly once more, chin in his shoulder blades, “you wanna swing by Graceland and fix a pipe or two, find the rich and spoiled Mrs. Presley wasting away in her gold cage, rich but wanting in the worst ways? Hmm?” she runs her finger down the shell of his ear and it’s flaming hot to her touch, he must be red as her nails in the face, “Wanna take her on the table and give her what her posh movie star husband can’t? Wanna do that, huh Naughty?”

“God y-yes.” he stutters, head thunking against the wall in desperation at the mere

concept.

“Wanna make a movie of it,” she whispers into his ear, “like those ones Thumper and I made? Wanna make a movie so Elvis Presley has to sit and watch it later, hmm? Watch his wife get taken by a workin’ man?”

“Nghhh…” he growls smacking the wall, overwhelmed by memories and prospects.

“I see, well, that’s settled then.” Elaine murmurs before stepping away from their embrace, flicking his bare butt one last time as she laughs, “Only you would get the hots for cuckolding yourself.”

“Anything involving rearrangin’ your guts on a table gets me hot.” he mumbles defensively and Elaine smirkes at him with a promise in her eyes as she makes her way past him. He snags her back to him briefly by a finger in her back pocket, “Hey you,” he says adently with his hand cupping her jaw, “I love you too. I love you somethin’ fierce.”

~~~~~

“Daisy!” Jack’s voice warbled with betrayal as he entered the kitchen, “You didn’t!”

“Daisy!” Ella chimed in, whirling around from the stove to survey the kitchen table and her demolished stack of pancakes, “There was enough there to feed uncle Jerry and us besides!” she cried out as her little sister swallowed down the last of her syrupy goodness with a shrug,

“Oh, oh Daisy, oh my, that’s gonna -that’s gonna bite ya later.” Jesse sighed as he pulled up a chair and pushed around his abandoned, now cold and half eaten single pancake on his plate. “Your stomach’s gonna kill ya, Mae Mae.” he explained to a remorseless Daisy Mae.

“I was hungry.” she defends as Rosalee sullenly takes a seat next to her twin, “Sorry Rosalee, I shoulda saved one for ya.” she conceded but Rosalee shook her head.

“I don’t feel like eatin’ anything.” Rosalee moped.

“Why not?” Ella turned again from the stove, affronted for the reputation of her irresistible pancakes. “I’ll put blueberries in them and everything for ya!”

“I’m not hungry!” Rosalee repeated close to tears and her little chestnut bob swayed with her head shake.

“What happened to you?” Daisy grunted.

“Daddy got mad at me.” she whimpered.

“No he didn’t.” Jesse sighs, settling Jack into a seat by the scruff of his t-shirt, “He’d just told y’all not to come in and you disobeyed. He ain’t mad. He’ll be right as rain in a minute, hold tight.”

“He sounded mad! He sounded sad!” Rosalee’s tone grew in emphasis.

Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at his empty plate as Rosalee’s whimpers grew from just that to outright crying. “No, no look it’s-“ he glanced over at the stove to his twin who was industriously cooking another batch but not fast enough to circumvent Rosalee’ meltdown, “it’s like, when we all used to sleep in the big bed,” he chose his words carefully for optimal grief assuagement, “you know how some mornings you thought daddy was cryin’?”

“Yeah.” her little voice was garbled by snot.

“Yeah but he wasn’t, was he?” Jesse pressed his point, “He was just tryin’ to hold in his laughs so he didn’t wake you, while mama or Ella was ticklin’ him.”

“Yeah.” Rosalee cracks a small smile.

“S’like that.” Jesse reminded, “He ain’t sad. You ‘member how he’d start bawling when we started ticklin’ too?”

“Yeah.” Jack smiled in reminiscence of mornings when they’d all pile on top of Elvis and tickle him while Mama held his shoulders down. “But I know you don’t tickle people in the shower.” Jack fired back with six year old conviction, “Elvis hisself told me it wasn’t safe.”

Before Jesse was forced to choose between explaining further or else sullying his daddy’s reputation for safety ethics in the shower -or in general- the man himself and Mama breezed through the door, hair wet and as smartly dressed as always.

“Alright, alright, kids what’s groovin’ huh?” Elvis barreled in like his kitchen was his stage and topics of tickling and sadness were shelved, much to Jesse’s watery eyed relief, though he couldn’t quite meet his mama’s eyes when she scootched past him with a kiss to his head on her way to the sink. “Hey you I’ve got a present for you.” Elvis addressed Jack before plopping a very sudden and deformed whale plushie on the boy’s plate.

“Thanks a lot Elvis.” Jack muttered.

“Look on the bright side Trouble,” Elvis laughed while reaching down Jack’s back to grab a handful of his jean’s waistband, “all ya had to do was wait fifteen minutes and now mama’s got your glass o’water and your pancakes’ll be cut in triangles. Imagine that, patience.” and with that laughing admonition Elvis hefted Jack out of his chair by his waistband and proceeded to jostle his second born son in the age old manner often referred to as a wedgie. It even made Rosalee laugh and Jack hiccup from something they all suspected was enjoyment, although the kid would never admit it. “Alright, everyone alive and well? No fires?” He took stock of the place and found it comparatively tidy -little wonder as the kids didn’t have time to wreck anything, too busy knocking on his door. “Ella Bug those smell amazing and- Daisy, why’re you actin’ put out?”

“M’fine.” his daughter protested even as her face was folded into the identical sorta scowl that sold him a lotta records back in the early days.

“Is everyone mad at me?” he balked.

“No, she just ate fifty pancakes while everyone else was… busy.” Jesse cleared his throat. “Should enter her in a contest.”

“Oh Daisy, no!” Elaine swiped back her black curls and knelt by her, “Is your belly hurting?”

“Startin’ to.” Daisy was forced to admit through clenched teeth.

“Lordy, Mae Mae, that’s impressive,” Elvis murmured as he took his seat and, in a well worn routine, opened his arms and lap in welcome to a still sniffling Rosalee who catapulted into him, “what got into you?” he marveled as he tucked Rosalee into a snuggle and peppered her now glowing face with kisses.

“They were very good.” Daisy insisted and Ella beamed with pride over the stack of freshly made ones she carried to the table.

“Bet they were.” Elvis praised, tongue poked through his teeth laughing, “Glad ya enjoyed yourself at least.”

“Come lay down sweetheart, here on the couch.” Elaine led her to the adjacent wicker lounge. “Get you some ginger ale or something. Heavens, girly, the appetite on you!”

“Are you gonna eat with us, daddy?” Ella spoke up timidly as she took her own seat, the rather novel concept of her daddy at morning breakfast and the pride she took in her own cooking warring to make his verdict overly meaningful to her.

Elvis stared for a moment at the heaping piles of fluffy goodness with its melting pad of butter and sparkling syrup trickling to the plate as Jack voiced the very worry he had rattling in his head:

“That’s a lotta carbs.”

The whole table’s racket of pancake stabbing screeched to a halt and Elaine fumbled the glass bottle of ginger ale she had retrieved from the fridge to the very ground in her shock. “Jack!” she chatsized with more vehemence than the little stinker had ever elicited from her in his life, “Why on earth would you say a thing like that?”

Jack shrugged, although the combined weight of his family’s horror and Elaine’s blazing eyes made him timid, “It's just what the Colonel said. Last night. To daddy.”

“And why would you ever wanna sound like that good for nothin’ scallywag?” Elaine cried, “We appreciate a good appetite in this house, plenty of folks don’t have what we’ve got and we’re not about to thank the good Lord for his generosity to us by listenin’ to the worn out gimmicks of a corpulent glutton. Carbs! Maybe he should count some carbs-“

“Laney, laney.” Elvis moderated her with a shushing wave of his hand and she stilled, pinching the bridge of her nose in that way Jesse had learned from her and clipping over to Daisy with grief stricken eyes she hid behind her ire.

“Sorry.” Jack croaked while giving his mother the stink eye even as Jesse in turn glared at him, “I said I was sorry?”

“There’s nothin’ to be sorry about Jack.” Elvis insisted, eyeing his strangely cold wife as she tended to Daisy and got her a preemptive barf pan. “You were just statin’ nutritional facts and if you’re gonna be a scientist one day, your interest in ‘em will serve ya well. Now Ella, dish me up some a’those sticky carbs, won’t ya?”

Ella beamed and quickly stacked up a steaming pile on her daddy’s plate, presenting a blushing cheek for his kiss just as Daisy lost her battle with the bellyache and puked into the bowl Elaine held for her.

“Well that’s an appetizing sound.” Jesse pushed his plate away with a joking grimace and he and Elvis shared a silly moment that almost made Jesse forget about the shower and his subsequent vow never to look his daddy in the eye again.

“Poor Mae, Mae,” Elvis sighed, stabbing his pancake and making a show of chewing it obnoxiously for Ella’s benefit.

Elaine couldn’t help but smirk, even as she dabbed at Daisy’s mouth with a cloth, amused that her man was moaning louder over pancakes than he did from her attentions in the shower.

“So,” he spoke up as he scarfed them down, “what’s this about swimmin’? Hmm? For the record I never promised anythin’ of the kind but, loathe as I am to award bad behavior,” and here he gave Jack a pointed look over his poised fork, “since we’re all together, why not?”

“Really? Really?” Rosalee screamed so loud in his ear he shook his head just to get the ringing out.

“Oh daddy, it’s gonna be so fun! You there! Oh yes yes yes yes!” Ella was spinning in circles, having gotten out of her chair at some point to celebrate.

“Mhmm,” he hushed them and went on, pushing his plate away, “is it swimmin’ you’ve really got your hearts set on?”

“Well, no- we just wanna be with you.” Rosalee admitted.

“What? No! We wanna go swimmin’, just us and mama-“

“Jack, please hush up.” Jesse begged.

“See I was thinkin’,” Elvis rose above his six year old’s sharp remarks, “we could certainly go swimmin’ but then again, ya can go swimmin’ most anytime, near anywhere. But ya know what ya can’t do?”

“What, daddy?” a hushed chorus of anticipation went up from his little audience, even Daisy showed interest as Elaine doted on her.

“How would you Tiddlywinks like to fly ‘round in a helicopter?” He asked with a brilliant grin.

“No way!” Jesse nearley fell out of his seat and his eyes filled with excitement.

“Yes way, perks of the job, boyo.” Elvis sat smug at the head of his table as his children gushed around him in a frenzy of anticipation, Elaine watched their adoration with a pleased smile, praying only that he wasn’t going to be the lone pilot. “Now who’s glad daddy works for that ‘corpulent scalliwag’, huh?” he goaded and Elaine’s smile turned brittle as the kids laughed and cheered.

Elvis eyes met hers above the den of kids clearing plates and his sober, cobalt stare put her right back in her place, a place that more and more had little or nothing to do with his creative processes and business deals - a far cry from the production and artistry that first brought them to together. She bit her lip and walked the vomit pan back to the sink, receiving a wide berth from the little revelers as she did. “Alright well, help your mama with this mess and get yourselves sorted.” he clapped, “We’ll leave, soon as we’re ready. Gotta go brush my teeth.” he rose from the table, his hasty exit unnoticed by any save Elaine who postured herself to be in his path as he turned to go into the master bedroom,

“E,” she murmured softly as he brushed past and he didn’t stop, but she knew he was listening by the tilt of his head as he went “while you’re at it, be sure you don’t accidentally brush your tonsils again, silly man.”

This loaded tease met with a titter of laughs by the couple clueless kids who overheard it and this time it was Elvis’ face that grew brittle, his step halted and his lip was close to sneering as he lowly rejoined,

“If you know ‘nother silly man who can get you a helicopter ride, an all expenses paid for vacation to Hawaii and satisfy your particular tastes, then be my guest Elaine, you tell him how to brush his teeth.”

Hope y’all enjoyed! Your “bugging” and “screaming” is music to my ears, fuel to my fire and keeps me writing, please never hold back -this is a safe space for feral little Elvis loving rodents…like you and me.

If you’d like to be tagged in this particular series please drop a note below. I’ll admit I’m disorganized and have trouble keeping all the requests sorted when they’re scattered, what I do check regularly are the requests in the notes for chapters -and I do manage to get those added. So, if you’ve put in a request and I’ve failed ya, or if you’re new and would like to be added, please pop a note below. Xoxo

Taglist:

@eliseinmemphis

@prompted-wordsmith

@ab4eva

@foreverdolly

@powerofelvis

@butlersxbirdy

@crash-and-cure

@elvisabutler

@heartbrake-hotel

@stylespresleyhearted

@thatbanditqueen