#jeryd mencken x ofc

[secondhand-snow]

a question, (a promise)

jeryd mencken x f!reader (succession)

wc: 6.1k+

warnings: shitty politician (fictional), swearing, slight dub-con, slight abuse of power, drinking, smut, affairs, workplace relationships, cheating, grinding, thigh riding, fingering (f! receiving), vaginal sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!), clothed sex (m!clothed, f! nude), biting, slight degradation, angst, light dom/sub, no use of y/n

summary: It's been several months since your first meeting with Jeryd Mencken, and many weeks since his involvement with ATN began your work together. What followed was hours of cocky smiles, over confident laughs, and unaddressed tension. Tension that finally snaps due to an party invitation, a vodka martini, and a conveniently empty hotel bar.

authors note: This is a longer one, but I wanted to start out strong for my first fic published on this account! Mencken was such a dick in the show, but I know he'd treat you so right in the bedroom. please consider liking, commenting, or reblogging if you enjoyed!

You didn’t mean for it to start this way.

Well, you didn’t mean for it to start at all, but if you had to choose a way to a begin an extramarital affair with an infamous American politician and presidential candidate, fucking him against the wall in a hotel room at 1 AM would not be your first choice.

And yet, when those blue-green eyes stared into yours, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop it. Maybe it’s the way he looks at you, or how his smile-lines wrinkle as he smirks, but you don’t push him away. You don’t tell him to fuck off and run back to your apartment. Instead, gazing up at his face, your questions receding to the back of your mind, you pulled him back in.

You should have found yourself hating him, like Shiv, or maybe enthralled in him, like Roman, but you really felt somewhere in the middle. Your first meeting was in Virginia, at that Future Freedom Summit where Logan was flooded with more attention than the queen for three days straight. You were in the room when he brought Waystar’s CEO a coke, setting it onto his table like a trophy. Maybe it was the casual confidence in his voice, or the way his crisp white button up was rolled to expose his forearms, but you couldn’t help your eyes raking across his back as he left the room.

“That was nice,” Logan had said.

         Out of all the words you could use to describe Jeryd Mencken, “Nice” was not one of them. “Bastard,” “Fascist,” “Cocky,” and “Manipulator” all came to mind. But so did “Confident,” “Intelligent,” and “Charismatic.” Don’t get yourself wrong, you didn’t agree with his politics at all. But at the end of the day, you were devoted to Waystar Royco and ATN. And whatever worked for them, worked for you.

         You didn’t get to be in the photo that took place the next day, not important or close enough in relation. You lingered to the side, next to your few-times removed cousin, Greg, and out of view of the harsh camera lens. Mencken and you didn’t end up having too much interaction that weekend. A nod of recognition here, a handshake there. But by the time you left the conference, his boisterous laugh was echoing through the halls of your mind, and you just couldn’t stop thinking about his impenetrable gaze.

You remember Roman saying once that Mencken had told him that he “didn’t have a lot of boundaries.” That much became clear to you as you began to work with him. From your very first meeting at ATN, the man didn’t seem to have any issue with discussing personal topics or joking with his employees. You were used to humor in the workplace, I mean, you worked with Kendall and Roman Roy for fuck’s sake, but there was a stark difference in the humor between the Roy siblings and Jeryd Mencken. While their jokes bordered on sexual harassment, Mencken’s were backed by a teasing smirk and a good-natured laugh. You knew it was wrong, or at least weird, to be so enamored by this man. He was a borderline fascist, bible-thumping yuppie, but for some reason you allowed yourself to overlook the obvious flaws in the politician. And soon, you found yourself beginning to fall for his good looks and somewhat sleazy charms

         “You’re on in ten, let me know if you need anything.” You popped your head into the conference room where Mencken was waiting. It was his first in-person appearance on ATN, an interview with one of the hosts to help his relatively extreme political agendas seem a bit more palatable to the average  viewer. He was surrounded by his team of marketers, campaign managers, and other low to mid-ranking poli-sci majors, a thick stack of papers in front of him and a chorus of open laptops circling the table.

         “A kiss for good luck, maybe?” He lifted his head from his reading to give you a half-quirked grin. Nobody else paid you any mind, too engrossed in their work to give a shit about some random woman that probably out-ranks them making sure they’re on task. “I am half Irish, you know.”

         “You’re a white American man, of course you’re part Irish. But seriously. Get down to makeup soon, they want to do some touchups before you go on.”

         “I don’t need makeup,” he stressed the word need, like it’s so obvious his beautiful face shouldn’t be covered by any cosmetics.

         “Nobody needs makeup. It does help though” You lightly rolled your eyes as you stressed the same word as him and laughed at the reaction he displayed before exiting the room, heading to the stage as you pulled out your phone. An incoming text caught your eye, and you clicked off the email you had been reading to view it.

         Having a small celebration after the show tonight. Interested in coming? – Jeryd.

         It was something small that reminded you of his age, the signing of his name behind the text he sent. As if you didn’t have a contact for the man you’ve been working with for several weeks now. But still, a smile brushed your lips and you responded.

         Sure. What time?

         10, I’ll send the address.

         10? Isn’t that a bit late for your age? I thought you’d be tucked into bed by 8:30.

         Haha.

  See you soon, Mr. Mencken.

So, at 9:50 pm you found your driver pulling up to the curb outside The Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan. It figures that Mencken would book the most expensive hotel in New York for his stay. You were familiar with the building, having gone to enough work parties in the bar to make your way there without getting lost in the vast expanse of the well-decorated hallways and foyers. Brushing your hair out of your face, you checked your phone again. Refreshing your emails and messages, you had about a dozen new items to read, even though you were off the clock. One thing you learned early on about working in Waystar, the work never really stops.

          “Hey, look who showed up,” your attention snapped from the device in your hands to the source of the noise. Your eyes met Jeryd Mencken, whiskey in hand, moving from his spot atop a bar stool towards your direction. His smile was bright, and he was still dressed in his suit from earlier in the day, though now he was missing a tie and a few buttons at the top of his shirt. You noticed his blazer buttons were undone as he opened his arms wide to you.

“Here I am. I know, I know, you missed me.” You replied to his open arms with your own, giving in to the hug he initiated. Your arms circled around his neck and shoulders, his fall to your waist as you held each other for a moment. Maybe it’s the alcohol in his system, but you feel him rest his mouth against the top of your head, placing something close to a kiss on your hair.

“Yeah, I don’t get enough of you during 12-hour workdays. You want a drink?”

“Yeah.” The hug broke away and he smiled down at you, a look which you returned with a bit of reservation. You were far enough into the bar now from moving to meet Mencken that you only had to turn a bit to address the bartender. “Can I get a vodka martini?” A silent nod confirmed your order.

“Walk with me.” Jeryd whispered into the shell of your ear, stooping down a bit to level himself to your height. He offered an arm out to you, and you grabbed on with a hand as the two of you began moving through the crowded bar.

You saw a few familiar faces as you slowly progressed, which you greeted with small smiles and hellos. Mencken was stopped more times than you, something you had learned to accept when with him, but he was hasty in ending conversations as he pulled you through the crowd. It took longer than it should for the two of you to finally arrive at the empty booth in the back of the bar, but you were happy all the same to sit down on the cool red leather seat. He sat across from you, because of course he did, and you heard a small sigh escape his lips as he relaxed a bit against the seat behind him.

         Both of you stayed quiet for a moment, just sitting in each other’s presence. There was something thick about the air around the table, something dark in the way he looked at you, eyes never leaving yours. You broke out of the haze as the bartender from earlier set your drink at the table, which you welcomed with an acknowledging smile. As you lifted the drink to your lips, he finally spoke.

         “I’m glad you came.” You swallowed thickly, a slight burn grazing your throat before opening your mouth again.

         “Well, I had to celebrate your television debut,” you responded with a small teasing smile, he scoffed a bit at your joking.

         “The numbers were good.” He said quietly, unwavering eyes still trained to yours. There’s something he’s not saying, you felt it in his short responses and slightly clenched jaw, the way he brought his whiskey glass to his lips and how his empty hand flexed a bit against the dark wood table. You hummed in response, taking another sip of your martini. It was quiet again for a moment, the two of you just staring and drinking, tension building until you broke it.

         “Is there something wrong? Did someone fuck something up?” You finally questioned him, shaking your head a bit as you spoke. He just smiled and exhaled through his nose, moved to lean forward and placed his elbows on the table.

         “It’s… personal,” he took his time answering, searching for the right word before he spoke. And you think you might have just messed everything up, ruined the unsaid attraction between you two. He hadn’t been one to shy away from personal topics before, you might have just pushed him too far. “But hey, marital issues are basically a rite of passage in the oval office,” he joked with a grin.

         “True, it’s probably a sign of your future. Might wanna get used to it,” you matched his tone. You knew it was fucked up to be attracted to a married man, a man currently talking about his troubles with his wife, but something about that smile sent a wave of shock down your stomach and found yourself subtlety squeezing your thighs together beneath your skirt. Regardless, he laughed at your answer, and you smiled at his amusement.

         You continued this way for a while, small talk and meaningless conversations just to make each other laugh. You poked fun at his age and he joked about your fucked up family. Around and around you go, drinks are removed and refilled, coworkers stop by for a few minutes before leaving, and others just wave before making their way out. The next time you checked your phone, two hours had passed and more drinks than you probably should have on a near empty stomach had been consumed.

         “Shit, I should get going. I have a meeting tomorrow I need to be ready for.” You mumbled a bit, looking down at your screen with cheeks flushed a light red from the alcohol in your system and the presence of Jeryd across from you. The bar was nearly empty by then, and completely devoid of your co-workers. Any last lingering customers were patrons of the hotel, and you were suddenly struck by the realization you were practically alone with him.

         “You sure? It’s late, I have a suite on the top floor and the guest bed is empty.” He had lost his suit jacket by then and pushed up his sleeves in the way you loved so much. His arms were open and rested on the top of the booth, elbows slightly bent and hands lightly gesturing as he spoke. You pressed your lips together, biting the bottom one and contemplated. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t want to stay, didn’t wonder what would happen if you accepted. It was a bad idea, you both knew it, backed by the gold ring on his left hand and the NDA you signed when accepting your job so long ago. Still, he cocked an eyebrow at your silence and beneath the table you felt the toe of his black leather loafers travel up the expanse of your leg. He started at your ankle, just above your designer heels and slowly moved up the inside of your lower leg, beginning to reach the inside of your knee. You had enough time to stop him, to move away, kick his foot away and leave the bar.

But you didn’t. You didn’t want to. So instead, you opened your mouth slightly, your bottom lip slightly wet from your bite to it earlier.

         “Yeah, okay. I probably shouldn’t be driving.” It was a half assed excuse and you both knew it. You barely drove, and you’d been dropped off at the hotel today so there was no way you were driving home in the first place. But maybe you needed some justification for yourself, something to make your subconscious just a little less guilty for what you were about to do. For what you wanted to do.

         Mencken didn’t press, though. He just nodded, tapping his toe lightly on the inside of your thigh before retracting it to stand up. The loss was sudden and a bit jarring, and it made you notice that you had been subtly leaning into his touch. He put back on his jacket, not bothering to roll down his sleeves as he moved beside the table to help you up, extending a hand to you. Slowly, you reached up and gently placed your hand in his. His skin was surprisingly rough for a man who worked a desk job, you could feel calluses on his palms and the tips of his fingers. He pulled some of your weight as you stood, reaching around with your free hand to smooth the back of your skirt and grab the handles of your small purse. When you met his eyes again, his pupils had grown and a smirk had landed on his otherwise stoic face.

“Lead the way,” you spoke so softly that your lips barely moved, your eyes looking up at him through dark lashes. He nodded again. His eyes dragged over the curves of your body before briefly returning to your eyes. As you began walking, your hand rose from clutching his to softly holding his arm just above the bend in his elbow. You maintained just enough distance between your bodies that the interaction could be passed off as polite, not the breaking point of months of unresolved sexual tension that it was. Mencken walked fast, you almost tripped over your feet a few times as you tried to keep pace with him. The halls were ornate, outfitted in marble flooring that left your shoes clacking frantically with your hurried steps.

The pair of you stopped briefly at the entrance to the elevators, and you took the time to quickly glance over your shoulder behind you, finding the room otherwise empty. You weren’t sure whether you should be relieved or disappointed. Relieved for a lack of witnesses. Disappointed that you couldn’t use a crowd as an excuse to call off the encounter. It would be for the better to forget about it, put the flirtations to an end and abort the budding affair. You were putting your job at risk, your credibility and your public image. Not to mention your relationship with your family.

He pressed the elevator button once, twice, three times. You opened your mouth slightly, the beginnings of a sentence forming on your lips when he moved his arm from your grasp, snaking it around your back to rest on your hip. He pressed the fabric of your skirt gently, and you found your side pressing against his. Warmth radiated through your body, going straight to your cheeks as a subtle blush started to grow. Your mouth was left hanging open, silently gasping for air as he delicately traced his lips in a small line over your hair. His large nose pressed into your scalp, you felt him slowly inhale the scent of your shampoo. The moment was the closest thing to tender you’ve ever experienced from him, and it’s over just after it starts.

A loud ding from the elevator dragged your attention from the feeling of Jeryd to the empty elevator in front of you. You looked from him to the space before you. He was watching you, of course. Waiting for your next move. Either into the elevator and a time of lies and careful discretion, or back to what you knew was safe. 

You walked into the elevator.

The second the hotel door clicks shut, Jeryd is on you. Pressing your back into the nearest wall, his hands cradle your face with a surprising amount of care. His knee slots between your legs and he takes a moment to just look at you. Your chest rises and falls quickly, mouth open and eyes blown wide with passion. 

“Tell me you want this.” He breathes into you.

“What?” You gasp out the question, mind too foggy with desire to quickly process his words.

“Tell me you want this. I need to hear it from you.” His hands move from cupping your face to grab your chin, your lips slightly pouting with the pressure on your skin. The air is silent for a moment before you answer.

“I want this. I want you.”

The words have barely left your mouth before it's covered by his, greedy and heavy and passionate. You move with him, slinging your arms around his shoulders and leaning into his touch. His tongue taps at your bottom lip before entering your mouth, tracing lines on the roof of it. You let out a quiet moan and his knee moves up between your thighs, granting you a source of friction for the heat building between your legs. You grind down on it unabashedly, sighing at the sensation that results. Jeryd smiles against your lips before moving one of his hands from your face to your hip, encouraging the movements you’re making against his leg. A whimper escapes your lips and he groans at the noise, your attention moving to the growing bulge you feel pressed into your lower stomach. 

He kisses you like a man starved. Like he could do it forever, just savoring the flavor of your lips. You move a hand from his shoulder to feel down the front of his chest and reach his crotch. Your fingers press lightly against the seam of his pants, rubbing the fabric just enough to earn a low growl from Jeryd’s throat and a restrained buck of his hips. His lips move from yours to travel down your neck, sucking your skin hard enough to leave bruises that’ll last the week. Your lips part when freed from his kiss and your neck falls slightly to the slide, allowing him more access to the small area not covered by your button up, office appropriate blouse. A small nip of his teeth causes you to squeeze the hand covering his groin, a movement that causes Jeryd to muffle a deep moan into the slope of your neck. 

“Fuck.” You sound wrecked, desperate, needy, and Jeryd’s barely touched you. You’re rolling your hips steadily now, too far gone to worry about his reaction. Pencil skirt hiked up, skin-toned stockings on display, you selfishly chase your own climax. Eyes flutter shut as you focus on the sensations enveloping your body. Jeryd’s wet kisses trailing down your neck, his hands possessive on your hips and chin, his leg sandwiched between your thighs and pressing roughly against your core. Two thin layers of fabric separating you, both providing a deliciously coarse texture against your sensitive clit.  Your panties are soaked, you wouldn’t be surprised if his slacks are left with a wet mark when he removes them. 

His hands move from their places to begin undoing the buttons on your top. Your eyes open with heavy lids as you watch him. He’s hurried, urgent, his brows slightly furrowed and his lips parted while his fingers move nimbly, making quick work of your blouse. You move to help him, together pushing the garment off your shoulders. He bends his knees slightly to level his face to your chests, and you momentarily whine at the loss of pressure against your vulva, but the sight your eyes are greeted with is worth it. His hands are immediately on your breasts, cupping you roughly through your bra and pushing your tits together as he plants sloppy, open mouthed kisses on your cleavage. It’s odd to see him like this, slightly bent over, serving someone other than himself and enjoying it. Hair ruffled and forehead damp with sweat, pupils blown wide, wide, wide, with lust. You thread your fingers through his salt and pepper hair, not pulling or controlling, just wanting to touch him.

The throbbing between your legs increases and your thighs clench together with nothing else to stimulate your core. You whimper, he chuckles at the sound, a vibration traveling through your chest and sending electric shocks straight to your center. Jeryd reaches up, moving the straps of your bra down your shoulders, not bothering to move his face from his attack on your breasts. You push it down to your waist, not bothering to unclasp the back, fully exposing your tits to him. Now he pauses, taking a moment to crouch down and sit back a bit on his heels, eyes focused on your body before him. Your immediate reaction is to cover up, but you hold yourself back when his tongue darts out to lick his lower lip. When he finally meets your gaze, you're sure you must look wrecked, at least if his smirk is anything to go off of. 

“Look at you. So eager for my touch.” Jeryd speaks quietly, getting closer to you as his hands travel up your thighs to rest on the dip of your hips. His fingers dig in slightly, not enough to hurt but enough to control you and dimple your skin underneath his touch. One hand comes up, kneading the flesh of your left breast. The other moves to unclip your bra from behind you, letting it softly fall to the floor. You nod and bite your lower lip, knees knocked together as your thighs rub against each other, desperately chasing some kind of stimulation. Your eyes drop his gaze as you watch him palm your skin. 

“Please..” You whine out, blushing as you make eye contact again. Mencken laughs, only a little mean, takes your nipple between his fingers and pinches enough to make your voice squeak in your throat.

“If you want something you have to ask for it.” He cocks an eyebrow as he speaks and you swear you’re drooling at the look in his eye. You hesitate a minute before responding, feeling strangely self conscious and filthy.

“Please touch me, Jeryd. I need you.” He smiles and curses before returning his mouth to your breasts. A large hand creeps between your thighs, pressing gently on the soaked fabric of your panties. He speaks into your skin as he feels your need.

“So wet for me already. I wouldn’t have kept you waiting if I’d known how desperate you were.” His touch is feather light, and you feel your cunt clenching at the sensation. His hand doesn’t wait long, hooking your panties to the slide before he begins to slide his middle finger through your sopping wet folds. Your hips buck against his touch, he responds by moving a hand to pin your hip against the wall. Your head is thrown back now, resting against the surface behind you. Blush is hot on your face, you can’t figure out if it’s caused by shame, or desire, or the combination of both.

It’s not long before his fingers are gently probing your entrance, his middle digit entering you up to his second knuckle. You clench around him, moaning at the feeling of finally having some part of him inside you. His thumb moves to your clit, spreading your wetness there as he massages small circles into the bundle of nerves. Instinctively, you try to move, try to grind down on his palm and take what you want. Jeryd’s hand keeps your back to the wall though, and he tsks at your disobedience. Your eyes move down and you find him staring back at you. You wonder if he’s ever looked away, or if he’s just been relishing in your desperation. 

His finger presses deeper, your folds met with the skin of his first knuckle. He curves the digit, gently pressing against that spongy tissue deep inside of you. When he finds it, he smirks, looks down at your exposed mound and briefly presses a kiss to your upper stomach. The finger moves, thrusting in and out of your cunt a few times before being joined by his index finger. It stretches just a bit, before the sensation is replaced by one of building pleasure. That heat you’ve been chasing courses through your core, your lips parting at the feeling. Shocks of pleasure course down your thighs as your clit becomes more and more sensitive. 

You were slightly shocked when your legs began to shake, kness almost buckling under the jerky motion. It normally took you much longer to climax when with a partner, but you had been so needy for so long that your orgasm was approaching at a rapid speed. Jeryd felt it too, wrapping a free arm around the back of your hips to help hold you up while your cunt clenches and flutters around his fingers.

“Come on, Cum for me. Show me how good I make you feel.” He whispers, leaning his upper body back slightly to look deeply into your eyes. You barely hear him over the filthy sounds of wet skin and your increasingly loud moans. His words have to register somewhere though, and just a few seconds after he utters the command, you obey. Eyes roll back while you constrict around his fingers, gasps of air leaving your throat. Jeryd is relentless, finger fucking you through your orgasm until you’re overstimulated and practically pushing his hand away.

Your eyes haven’t even opened again when you feel him stand and crash his lips crash back into yours, his hands raking through your hair. Unhindered by his grip, you move your arms to press him against you, rolling your hips into his.You groan in unison, and Jeryd takes the moment to move one of his hands to the back of your skirt, quickly unzipping it. Your grip releases for a moment to push the skirt and your panties down your legs, kicking them off your heels further into the room. Neither of you bothers with your thigh high stockings or shoes, too engrossed in the feeling of your exposed skin to pay them any mind. 

The pair of you separate for a moment. Jeryd’s eyes travel down your body, a curse escaping his lips at the sight. You look vulnerable, powerless under him. He loves it. His lips go back to your throat and his hands reach for your breasts again. In turn, your hands fumble with a few buttons on his shirt, exposing the top of his chest before you abandon the garment and travel down to the seam of his pants. Your fingers linger on the zipper. Asking for permission or readying yourself or wanting him to tell you what to do, it doesn’t matter. All that matters in this moment is Jeryd Mencken and the passion burning through both your bodies.

He nods against your neck and you waste no time in undoing the button and zipper of his slacks. His boxers are black, your fingers flutter under the elastic waistband, stroking the soft skin there lightly. Your hand dips lower, past the mass of short blond pubic hair climbing up his lower stomach, settling on the base of his cock. Slowly, you begin to pump his length. When you reach his tip you dip your fingernail slightly into the slit there, and Jeryd rolls his hips forward in response with a loud groan. A wide smile graces your face, your hand surging faster in his boxers. 

“Fuck, take it out.” He traces his nose up the side of your neck, whispering into the shell of your ear. Of course you comply, how could you not? Your eyes dart down to his cock, getting your first good look at the skin there. He’s an average thickness but long, longer than you’ve taken before. With a slight curve upwards and a pink tip dripping with pre-cum, you clench around emptiness in sympathy. Your hand moves again, jerking him off as his head falls back and his eyes shut. You savor the sight before you. 

Jeryd’s eyebrows are raised and his lips are parted, completely and totally lost in his pleasure. His neck now exposed to you, you lean forward and press kisses along the underside of his jawline, trailing down to his Adam's apple. You’re careful not to leave marks, even if you nip a little at the sensitive skin that your lips brush. His eyes open again, and he grins at the coy smile on your face. He kisses you again, his tongue stroking the roof of your mouth, causing you to moan loudly into his lips before he pulls away.

“Here, wrap your legs around me. I’m gonna fuck you right next to this door, let the rest of the hotel hear how loud my cock makes you.” He moves against you, pressing his hips to yours, slotting his arms around your waist. You wrap a leg around the back of his hips before he helps hoist you up to wrap the other. His length is hard against your lower stomach, the tip spreading wet precum across the skin there. Your hand moves down, grasping it and pumping a few more times when Jeryd moves his hips back, creating enough space between you for his tip to brush against your folds. 

He tilts his hips again, rubbing himself across your pussy, catching on your clit just enough to make you rock your core forward to try and meet him. A breathy laugh escapes his mouth at your attempt, he rewards your debauchery by circling his hand around his base and roughly tapping his tip against the bundle of nerves. You sigh and let your head fall back, watching him move with heavily lidded eyes. Jeryd moves again, using his hand to position himself at your entrance. He teases you a bit, slightly shifting in and out without fully sheathing his cock inside of you. 

“Jeryd…” Your voice is whiney as you speak, but still carries an edge of warning with it. He just smiles that lopsided grin of his, takes a deep breath in, and presses fully into you.

There’s a slight stretch as you adjust to his length, you can’t help your mouth falling open in ecstasy at the feeling. As he bottoms out, he releases his breath with a groan and you feel his tip brush against your cervix. You’re needy and wanton, whimpering and moaning at his every twitch, wiggling your hips to try and get some relief as he keeps himself deep inside your cunt. His face is tucked into your neck, his breath hot against your skin. You feel your entire being aching for him. Another mewl escapes your lips, and he lifts his head to meet your eyes. He’s waiting for you to break first. So you do.

“Please fuck me.” Your voice is barely a whisper, your hands traveling to cup his chin. Jeryd surges forward, even deeper into your dripping pussy, and kisses you roughly on the mouth. He bites your lower lip, slightly pulling it with him as he moves away, and your hands find their place again on his shoulders. His hips move back, so far that his length almost slips out of you, before thrusting forward. He sets a brutal pace from the beginning. Hard and fast, pulling noises you didn’t know you could make from the depths of your throat. It almost hurts at the beginning, but then he tilts his hips and finds that spot inside of you, the one that lights a roaring fire inside your cunt. The pleasure is immense and all consuming, the only thing you can focus on as your head drops backward and your back begins to arch.

You don’t even recognize half the words leaving your throat. Strings of “please,” curses and mumbles come from your mouth, joined by the animalistic grunts and groans of Jeryd’s approaching climax. Your fingers tangle in his hair and this time you pull, earning a deep moan from his parted lips. The sex feels primal and wanton and borderline violent. The culmination of heavy pressure. A cord stretched as tight as possible and then some, the snapping of which caused depravity and perversion for all those involved.

 He grinds into you roughly, hitting your g spot perfectly with every thrust. Your hand moves down to rub frantic circles into your clit, repeatedly murmuring a line of “yes”’s as you stare deeply into Jeryd's eyes. You know you’re pathetic. Begging and pleading him to fuck you harder, the wet slick from your cunt spreading onto both of your thighs, causing truely obscene sounds to fill the air. 

“Fuck, look at you. My pretty little slut..” He groans out, punctuating his words with strong bucks of his hips. “Cum on my cock, you’re fucking mine” he says, adding your name like it’s a divine word. 

That's all it really takes, and with a particularly perfect movement of your fingers, you clench down on his cock in a harsh climax. You swear you see white for a moment, your toes curling in your heels, your back arching up from the wall behind you, the moan coming out of your mouth echoing around the hotel room. All you can do next is hold on as Jeryd’s hips stutter and his mouth comes down to bite on your exposed shoulder as he follows you to his own peak.

He spills inside of you, fucking his cum further into you while he thrusts through his own orgasm. A “fuck” falls from his lips, muffled by the skin his mouth is pressed into. You stay like that for a minute, heavily breathing and coated in sweat, his softening cock still inside of you. When you finally move away, he’s surprisingly careful. Setting you back down on your feet delicately before tucking himself back away. Your hands come up to instinctively cover yourself, feeling insecure now that he wasn’t actively fucking you. His hand grabs one of yours, removing it from its position in front of your breast as he steps closer to you. You speak first, quietly and full of question.

“I can go…” you look behind him for your clothing strewn across the carpeted floor.

“No. Stay the night, I meant it.” Jeryd pulls you into him, his larger form tucking around your body in a hug. He rests his chin on your head. “You’re insane if you think I’m letting you go so quickly. Not after I’ve waited so long to have you.”

You smile at that, let him press a kiss to the top of your head before he grabs your hand and begins leading you to the bedroom. 

He’s passionate and possessive and caring and mean. You live in the shadows together, wrapped in deceit and white bed sheets. You never comment on the lack of his gold wedding band, and he never mentions the taste of vodka on your tongue. Your fights are brutal and sadistic, always ending in sex that would make the bed shake and leave your bodies sore for days after. It’s more of an alliance than an affair. It’s more of a tragedy than a comedy.

It’s more of a promise than a question.

© secondhand-snow 2024

[beebeetheclown]

~⭒Eat the Rich⭒~

⭒Teaser/Mood Boards⭒

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Jeryd Mencken x Colette Fisher

Kendall Roy x Colette Fisher

Jeryd Mencken vs Kendall Roy

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Guys… don’t hate me for also turning into a Kendall fic, he’s in it to add more drama okayyy😭 Mencken is obvi the main man😉 Kendall is like a side character I think, he won’t even be in every chapter. I’m excited but also nervous to see how this fic turns out👀

Hopefully posting it this weekend, if I can get it done and edited in time😵‍💫

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part VII

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: dubious content, affairs, sexual content, alcohol consumption, my improper use of commas, JFK references (a warning within itself)

A/N: I can’t remember who posted that photo up there^ but BLESS! Up until this point, this entire fic has been a slow burn. I hope everyone had fun while it lasted because it’s finally about to kick off. Big thanks to @vivalafae for talking me off the ledge multiple times while writing this chapter and @runningwiththefoxes for being the love of my life. Also, there’s a cutesy little playlist I made for this entire shit show, if anyone is interested in it, lemme know.

WC: 2539

I became more delusional the further we drove. Each mile marker was an omen, a declaration of how removed I was from real life. Our premeditation personified when he insisted I leave my car parked at the university after class on Friday.

“It’ll look weird if we leave together with multiple bags,” He told me. He was right, after all, but the notion still didn’t put me at ease.

The more secretive he became about our destination, the antsier I became.

“I don’t like surprises,” I told him as I gazed out the passenger’s window.

“Lighten up, Olive,” his hand on my inner thigh squeezed reassuringly, bunching my dress up even further under his fingertips, “just trust me.”

Trusting him was also easier said than done, but I did it with the type of ease that made me feel gullible, diminutive. Like I had folded myself up into delicate pieces to fit into the intricate, hollow spaces containing all the lies I had told and would tell in his name.

Nevertheless, he drove on, and so too did my desire for him, stretching endlessly like the highway laid out before us.

By the time we arrived in town, four whole hours later, I was content to continue spinning the web.

A fly does not struggle in a web in which its very wish was to get caught.

“I used to come here every summer with my parents before they divorced,” I told him, my wide eyes reflecting back to me through the window as I realized we were in Cape Cod.

“We’re going to Hyannis,” he said, squeezing my thigh as he continued to drive.

“To live out your Kennedy fantasy?”

“Which one are you referring to?” He glanced over at me with an impish grin, “The one where my brains are blown out of my skull or the one where I veer off this bridge up here and land in the pond?”

He jerked the wheel to the right, his car veering dangerously close to the edge of the road before realigning the wheel, crossing a small bridge as I grabbed onto his forearm, my mouth agape in a silent scream.

“You’re a fucking asshole!” I dug my nails into the tender flesh of his forearm to solidify my point.

“Can you swim, Olive?”

_________________________________________

“It’s beautiful.”

Settled on a bank directly overlooking the sea with unfiltered access to the beach, I stood back and took the house in with all its charm. Snowball hydrangeas teetered in the breeze, accenting the yard and picket fences, adding softness to the gray cedar siding. In typical New England fashion, the house was weather worn, but warm and inviting nonetheless. White adirondack chairs formed around a dining table on the concrete patio, only a few feet away from the entryway of the house.

“I used to think this place was a mansion when I was a kid.” He said as he came over to unlock the door.

He opened it, inviting me inside.

The house was swathed in navy blue linens, neutral shades, and pale pastels throughout, giving it a pop of warmth amongst the white planked walls. The living room and adjoining kitchen was bathed in natural light from the surrounding colonial style windows, spilling onto the natural wood floor, shining blindingly into my eyes as I made a right down a long hallway.

“Last door on the left,” He said from his place behind me, but I kept walking, stopping long enough to run my hands across the markings on the first door frame I passed.

‘JM’ and ‘JA’ had been etched in pencil along the door’s frame ranging from midway up my thigh, spanning to above my eyeline. A simple two digit year was beside every entry.

“Are you JM or JA?” I turned back to look at him as he made his way up to inspect the markings.

“JM.”

“Jeryd Motherfucker,” I joked and he looked at me with a grin.

“It’s French.”

I only nodded in response, running my fingertips along the scattered pieces of driftwood that hung along the hall’s narrow walls as I sought out the bedroom I would be sleeping in.

The bedroom was functional and simple, its shaker furniture characteristic of the quintessential New England style. A four poster bed sat against the far right wall under a bare window, a bookshelf directly across it on the opposing wall, with a dresser nestled into an alcove beside the windows leading out to a stunning view of the coastline.

“What a view,” I mused as my fingertips danced across the windowpane.

“Yeah,” He walked up to join at my side, never taking his eyes off mine, “What a view.”

_________________________________________

The rest of the day was spent in town, perusing the little shops that littered Main Street, fighting through tourist sludge, and a quick trip to a local market to pick up non-perishable necessities. It felt normal and fun doing such casual things with him. For a while I was oblivious to anything but the pleasure of being with him.

He chose Pain D'Avignon for dinner. We drank Belgian beer on the intimate patio, people watching, until my Dutch courage kicked in, willing my curious nature to take the lead.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Here, to the restaurant,” He asked, stopping long enough to take a pull from his pint, “or to Hyannis?”

“Hyannis.”

“Don’t question my motives, Olive,” he lowered his eyes at me, “Can we have dinner without an interrogation?”

“Sure,” I sat back in my seat and nodded, “Whatever you want.”

His eyes sparkled like crystalline snow, more gray than blue at that particular moment, possibly due to the beam of sun that had broken through a small sliver between two buildings across the street. I surmised, though, they reacted to my giving him the reins to do whatever he pleased.

At some point, after a hearty serving of Wellfleet oysters, I lost all interest in questioning his motives.

We both watched curiously as a small boy, no more than three, picked up a glob of cotton candy pink ice cream from its cone, lobbing it directly at his mother as they crossed the street away from us.

“We used to be able to sit and enjoy each other , too.” His mother looked over at Jeryd and I, laughing sarcastically as she combed her fingers through the sticky concoction leaking from her blonde curls. She grabbed the ice cream cone, now covered in fingerprints, and tossed it in the garbage can a few feet from us. All the while her kid screamed bloody murder as he was dragged away by, what I assumed, were his older siblings.

“Enjoy it while it lasts.” She offered us a genuine smile and rejoined her clan.

“I don’t know if I’m fit for that type of nightmare,” he laughed, tossing his napkin on the table.

“Kids are gross,” I laughed out and he nodded in agreement.

“And codependent,” He added.

“I guess that’s why I’m an only child.”

“Surely you couldn’t have been that awful of a child, Liv.”

“There was no real reason for them to try for perfection a second time when they got so close the first time around.” I flashed him a big smile, and he reached across the table, dragging the palm of his hand down my forehead, slender fingers down the bridge of my nose, gripping my chin with a delicate squeeze.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a good dad,” I offered, obviously on my way to being drunk because why else would I have said something so out of pocket?

“You don’t know that much about me.” He eyed me over the rim of his glass as he finished his beer.

“I guess I don’t.”

I realized then and there that it would never just be dinner with him. My internal monologue would always fire on all cylinders, leaving me musing to myself about a future with him, his past, and everything between where we sat now and where we would go in the future. His mother’s words fueled my delusions even further, nowhere was safe, every place leading back to what she had said days prior. It was never just dinner. Every place led back to his arms, to his grasp. Him still virtually a stranger throughout, where I stood, open and transparent, ready to be sought out and read, cover to cover. Oftentimes I found myself desiring to be the painter instead of the muse. Thus, it was easy to see a future with him. To imagine things far beyond my scope. But it’s always easier to not see the forest for the trees, isn’t it?

“Where’d you go just then?” He asked, bringing me plummeting back down to earth.

He reached across the table, seeking out my balled up fist.

I hesitated, eventually unfurling my palm to him.

“Why are you so scared to touch me, Olive?”

His fingers danced across my palm, his nails following the trails of the deeply etched lines.

“I’m not scared to touch you.” A lie if I had ever told one. All I did was lie. But it came so easily when I was looking at him. That in itself should’ve scared me away. But it didn’t. It never did. Never would.

“What do you want from me?” I asked him.

He angled his head to the side, an inquisitorial look painting his features as his lips pulled into a smile.

“What do you want to give me?”

“You say that as if I have a choice in the matter,” I laughed dryly, pulling my hand back from him like a scolded child.

_________________________________________

A subdued energy overtook me once we were back in the cottage and I walked on eggshells contemplating what would come next.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth like I normally would that time of night, alone with myself and my thoughts just long enough to realize the gravity of the situation and let it all come crashing back down on me. Nothing like looking in the mirror and seeing the problem staring back at you.

When I exited the bathroom, he trapped me between his body and the wall, looking down at me like prey caught in a trap.

“You have a choice,” He grasped at the halter strap tied intricately at my neck, unwrapping me like a gift from the neck down.

“Do I?” I wriggled to accommodate him as he slid the dress down my stomach and over my hips.

He nodded down at me, grasping my jaw to tilt my head up to him.

“Everyone has a choice.” He worked my mouth open with his, enough for his tongue to find solace as it tangled with mine.

He broke away long enough to speak with his tinged sarcasm, “What’s your excuse going to be tomorrow?” He asked, “‘I was drunk.’” Parroting back the words I had said to him the night I embarrassingly apologized for kissing him in his car.

“I’m not sorry.” I looked up at him, reaching down to grasp onto his collar. “I wasn’t sorry then and I’m not sorry now.”

“Maybe I’ll be sorry tomorrow,” I shook my head and looked down, feeling transparent and small under his gaze, “Maybe I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life, I don’t know.”

He grasped my chin, pulling my face back up to look at him. We were still for a brief second, staring at one another as if we could read each other’s minds.

He was quick to hoist me up by the back of my thighs, wrapping my legs around his waist, and we bounced around the hallway, my fingers combing through the hair at the nape of his neck as we did a dance of sorts through the narrow hall and into the bedroom.

When he laid me out on the bed, I leaned up towards him, practically tearing him out of his clothes. He took his time undressing me, exploring every inch of my body as he removed the remnants of my dress. Each time I’d rise off the bed to touch him, to graze my hand across his chest, he would press me back into the mattress with a smirk. He went down and pulled off my panties as he kissed around my navel and teased my inner thighs with his lean fingers. Just when I least expected it, he dipped his head low, licking a stripe through my folds, never taking his eyes off mine.

I took a deep breath and laced my fingers into his while he worked his tongue, exploring places I had never imagined him. My other hand raked through his scalp, pressing him further into my cunt.

He came up for air as I felt myself on the precipice of an orgasm, crawling his way up my body to hover over me. When he kissed me, I tasted myself mixed with a flavor that was unmistakably him.

I wrapped my legs around him, letting my body follow his lead as he pressed himself into me. Usually he was quick and relentless upon entry, but that night, he took his time filling in gaps, touching places he had never been before, places he had never seen.

A sort of unfettered pleasure transpired between us. One born from pure, unbridled lust between two people who knew right from wrong, but chose the latter because burning out simply felt better than fading away.

He moved his hands over my lower back and ass, grasping for purchase, driving himself further and further into me. I laid there, clinging to him for dear life, as I plummeted into an intense orgasm. For a while, it was hard to discern where one began and the other ended. We melted together, and each time his face would end up in the crook of my neck, moaning and groaning into the sensitive skin, I would nod along, pressing chaste kisses to the side of his head and into his hairline.

That night, I would lose all sense of fear in regards to him. I would, instead, get lost in his sea blue eyes, the light freckles that littered his cheeks and chest, the scar on his chin. I would watch closely as his shoulders flexed with each thrust, my hands roaming over his flesh with amazement as his body worked its way into mine. The tiny part of me that longed for normalcy, a foundation in which I could build from, got tucked away when he pulled back to look at me with his icy blues. The intensity was there, it would never fade, but a longing that I finally understood and felt deeply myself, shone through then.

He drug the palm of his hand down my forehead, pointer finger down the bridge of my nose, crescendoing with a tender kiss on my lips.

I fell in love at the tender age of twenty-two, in Hyannis, at a cottage by the sea, under the weight of a married man. It was simultaneously one of the best and worst things that I would ever do in my entire life.

Tag list: @aurorag98

[weakling-grace]

“What’s Liv short for anyway?” He asked, alluding back to the day at The Marina where he had asked my name, “Olive? Livestrong? Liver?”

The Girl Next Door (Jeryd Mencken x OFC) by @rxgirlie

[rometabss]

sorry but all i can think about now when i listen to this song is romencken

[secondhand-snow]

I have a request on mencken: what do you think of reader being his questionably young wife? (This is probably going to end in pwp but i dont mind lol) he likes to show her off and buy her expensive things from the money he pocketed 😂 she's practically his sugar baby but she has a side hustle of being the first lady too

your mind... im obsessed this is such a good dynamic

nsfw | jeryd mencken x f!reader (succession)

The sugar baby comments don’t really get to you anymore. They’re pretty accurate, truth be told. But people don’t need to know that. 

Your relationship with Jeryd Mencken began in your late 20’s, back when you still had a bad dye job, student loans, and a shitty studio apartment. You were employed at a jewelry store, barely making minimum wage, working 9 hour shifts every day just to pay your rent. The first time he came into the store, you treated him like any other customer. Any other incredibly attractive, extremely charismatic, and undoubtedly rich customer. But all the same, when he made his purchase and you parted ways, you never expected to see him again. Until he came back to the store a second time. And a third time. And a fourth, fifth, and sixth time. When he finally asked you on a date his image had already been clouding your sexual fantasies for weeks.

And so started your incredibly complicated romance. Jeryd expected you to be submissive and compliant when you first started going out, basing his speculations on how you’d acted at your job. Let’s just say he was more than surprised when you talked back to him, not afraid to be a brat in public to get what you wanted. This revelation was more of a thrill than a shock. Not only did he get to fuck you so hard the neighbors complained on the noise, he also got to punish you when you acted out. And you acted out a lot. But more than the sex was the attention the pair of you got in public. He’d bring you to his business events, dressing you in expensive silks, showing you off to his colleagues. He loved how amazed his peers got when he arrived with a pretty little doll on his arm, how the women would envy you and the men would crave to be him. 

The gifts started as a reward of sorts. Everytime you accompanied Jeryd to one of these work benefits, everytime you made him look good in public, everytime you were especially well behaved in the open, a present would arrive at your door. Wrapped in gold wrapping paper, with a handwritten note on the top expressing his appreciation, and usually sporting a designer logo of some sort. It began as just a few times a month, but you reacted so happily each time you opened one that he started delivering them almost daily. Oh and he loved when you wore his presents out in public. Most outings with you wearing his gifts would end with him pulling you into a bathroom, car, or empty room, making you thank him for the present while he bent you over and fucked some gratitude into you. He started paying your rent when he convinced you to quit your job, saying that you're too pretty to have to work so hard. And when he sees your apartment for the first time, he immediately insists on finding you a new space. When you can’t find anything you like enough, Jeryd just moves you in with him.

When you finally get married, it’s more a formality than anything else. Your love goes beyond metal bands and a piece of paper. The 5 carat diamond ring does help, though. The wedding happens when Jeryd’s career starts really taking off, when his name starts to seriously come up in political discussions. You both knew he needed a loyal wife to further his traditionalist image, and you were more than capable to play the part. So what if your age gap was controversial, you would make sure every other aspect of your public personas was absolutely perfect. And you did! You wore the business casual skirt suits and attended the charity events. Shit, you even learned about government systems to understand his campaign better. But you can’t tame the perversion away, not completely, not forever. So when Jeryd finally wins the presidency and your lives become semi-private again, it’s a massive relief.

It’s only his first week in the White House when you can’t hold back anymore, sauntering into the Oval Office and kneeling underneath his desk as he works. 

“You missed me this much? Had to come in here while I’m working, couldn’t wait a few hours?” Jeryd’s hand is tangled in your air, slacks around his ankles as you sit on your knees in front of him. You kitten lick at his tip, already red and leaking from your touch as you stroke his shaft languidly. “Such a little slut, so desperate for my cock.”

Your only response is a little smile as you press a teasing kiss to his public bone. Then, you swallow his dick to the base in one movement. His hand tightens in your hair, his head falling back as soft sighs of pleasure leave his plump lips. You’ve done this more times than you can count, having his likes memorized to the point of instinct. You know to cup his balls as you suck his cock, to trace your tongue along that one vein on the underside of his shaft, to hum around his length as he’s fully sheathed in your throat. If you wanted to, you could bring him to release in a matter of minutes. But where’s the fun in that? 

You release him from your mouth with a pop, taking a few seconds to deviously lick the pre-cum on his tip before addressing your husband. 

“You haven’t given me attention in so long…” You lean forwards on your knees, face moving into a pout as you look up at Jeryd with the eyes of a sad puppy. “I’m starting to think you don’t like me anymore.”

He scoffs at that, but takes the bait enough to pull you into his lap, hand coming to your chin to force eye contact. “Don’t be a brat. Just say you want me to fuck you- without making bullshit excuses.”

“I want you to fuck me.”

“Good girl.” He captures your mouth in a kiss. 

It's all teeth and tongue, messy and sloppy and charged with passion. Before long he has you bouncing on his cock, face pushed into his shoulder to muffle your moans. You cum once as he presses a kiss to the crown of your head, then again when he bends you over his desk to fuck you from behind at a brutal pace. You're glad the building is less busy this time of day, since the sounds of wet skin and hushed groans would be unmistakable to anyone passing by. Jeryd finishes inside of you, like always. When he pulls out, he kneels behind you, your ass swaying temptingly side to side in front of him. He spends several minutes collecting any liquid that leaks out of you onto his fingers and fucking it back inside of you, making comments that his cum is too important to waste.

The next morning you wake up to a golden wrapped present on your night stand. Inside, a remote controlled vibrator, and a note with a promise to film next time.

© secondhand-snow 2024

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part IX

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: dubious content, affairs, age gap, morality issues, mentions of vomiting, mentions of pregnancy, my improper use of commas. MDNI!

A/N: Alright, this is the big one. There’s one chapter after this and then the epilogue. Can anyone guess where this is going? To everyone who has read this and commented, my lovely betas who listen to my neurotic rants, and everyone else in between, thanks for all the love. I never would’ve guessed this little piece of shit would garner so much attention but here we are. You all get one (1) kiss on the forehead.

WC: 2725

Call it women’s intuition, clairvoyance, unchecked paranoia, I knew the moment I saw the other vehicle in his driveway that she was home. I felt it deep within my gut, unsettled like the battering sea, churning away to the point that there was no ignoring it. Willful ignorance was the only thing keeping me afloat in those days.

Something came up. Let’s rain check our run.

“Rain check your run,” I mumbled to myself as I read his text, sliding into my trainers as I made my way to the front door.

A series of events quickly set into motion as I latched the door behind me, completely out of my control, blurring the lines between he and I even more than they had been blurred previously.

Jackson came barreling towards me out of nowhere, nipping and licking at my fingertips once he finally skidded to a stop at my shins, coaxing my hand to scratch between his ears.

“Where did you come from?” I cooed to him, patting his side as he leaned into me.

“Jackson!” I expected Jill to come tottering around the corner, but the smile on my face quickly faded when I saw her poking her head over the picket fence that separated our properties.

“I am so sorry!” She whistled at Jackson, pointing her finger back at the yard he had escaped from, “He doesn’t listen to me.”

“I’ve got him,” I led Jackson carefully over to the yard as she unclasped the gate and let him back inside.

“Thank you,” she smiled at me, “He doesn’t like me, I don’t think.”

Jeryd came walking out on the porch, leaning against a column casually, drying his hands with a dish towel, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He watched the scene unfold, his eyes darting between his wife and I.

“I’m Hannah,” she said, offering her hand out to me.

“Liv,” I noticed her hands were soft and small as we exchanged a clipped handshake. Her eyes were kind, everything about her screaming out the picturesque vision of domesticity that I would never be able to achieve. Imagining her on her knees in a head shop bathroom in Provincetown was like imagining myself being the First Lady; so very wrong and out of place. She and I would fill our respective roles in a man’s life that had no regard for either of our feelings at the end of the day. A man so unsatiated that he would have his cake and demand he be able to eat it. That’s the only thing Hannah Mencken and I would ever have in common.

She bobbed her head at me, “Law school Liv. The previous owners gave us a run down.”

“Right.”

“Well, it’s nice to be able to put a name with a face.” She assessed me, walking back to the porch to take her place beside Jeryd as her eyes roamed across my face and down my figure.

I smiled up at them, nodding as I turned the other way, running as fast I could before the tears inevitably came falling down.

_________________________________________

He started out by flaking. On my first day back at the university later that week, he called in sick. I only found out when I walked in and was greeted by a substitute. My texts went unanswered, and each call was forwarded to his voicemail. Any headway we made in Hyannis was quickly replaced with regret and remorse.

I cried the entire way home that evening, breaking the vow I had made to him a few days prior in Hyannis.

When he attempted to talk to me from his vantage point on his front porch once I arrived home and mustered enough strength to get out of my car, I fully ignored him.

When I walked into his classroom the next day, he looked at me as if to say ‘I know, I know’ but I was quick to shut down his attempt to rectify the situation.

I quite simply didn’t want to hear him speak.

That didn’t last long. When he slid his hand into my slacks, opening me up with deft fingers against his desk, I felt all the tension leave my body.

“There’s my girl,” he cooed as I came around his fingers, looking over my shoulder with a sly smile as if I died and came back to life under his ministrations.

At one point, I reasoned with myself that I couldn’t possibly be in love with him, chalking up my moments of weakness to the different ways he found to get me off. And boy, did he find new ways to get me off once the stakes were higher and his wife was home. Like he knew I would eventually tire of the secrecy and lies if he didn’t make it worth my while.

“You get wetter now that she’s back,” He whispered against the nape of my neck as he angled his fingers deeper, one orgasm following the next, leaving a trail of my arousal slathered across my skin as he drug his fingers across my asscheeks and up to the small of my back.

“Don’t fucking say that to me,” I turned around and shoved myself away from his desk, repositioning my pants as I grabbed my bag.

“Where are you going?” He asked as I made my way to the door.

“To hell.”

_________________________________________

If the situation wasn’t already complicated by Hannah’s presence, my mother arriving home added a new element to the entire charade.

“You don’t look so good.” She said as she appeared in the kitchen.

“Thanks. I didn’t have the luxury of going on a two week cruise.” I had been sitting at my laptop at the kitchen table for over an hour preparing the last few batches of PowerPoints for Jeryd’s lectures. With The Marina reopening on the Fourth of July, which also doubled as my twenty-third birthday, I planned to give my notice at the university the following day.

She stopped and looked at me, shocked that I would hit back that deeply. “That wasn’t very nice.”

I had become so used to hard-hitting sarcasm as a defense mechanism, a tactic I had learned from him, or maybe to protect myself from him, that I had forgotten how to have a normal conversation without any dour undertones.

“You’re right,” I said, rubbing my temples, “I’m sorry.” I closed the laptop, offering her a kind smile.

“Tell me about your trip.”

For the next hour we worked in tandem around the kitchen. She chopped onions and I sautéed mushrooms, listening intently as she recounted each port the ship stopped in, tenderly going into detail about each little thing that reminded her of me.

“I really wish you could’ve been with me, my love.”

I wondered if she would still love me unconditionally if she knew what I had been up to. If a mother’s love truly knew no bounds and if she would forgive me for hurting another woman the way my father had hurt her.

“Me too.” I said honestly, knowing I had been out at sea in regards to my own life for the duration of her trip.

We dined together in content silence, sipping wine, enjoying one another’s presence. For the first time in a while, I didn’t think about Jeryd.

But he was there, like he always was, peeping cautiously through his kitchen window at us, like he knew I was debating on coming clean to my mother.

Luckily for him and I both, I decided to live our lie a little longer.

_________________________________________

“You could’ve told me, Olivia,” A few brisk steps and he caught up with me as I made my way down the hall, towards his classroom.

His use of my full name still had a weird effect on me.

I surmised the department head had let him know about my resignation because everything else in my life, big, small, or undefined, he knew about. The more my legs opened for him, the more secrets, or lack thereof, he seemed to pry out of me.

I waited for him to unlock his classroom door, his eyes never leaving mine as he turned the key in the lock.

“You knew I would be going back to The Marina as soon as it reopened.”

He let me enter first, tossing his keys and phone onto the desk with a loud huff of frustration.

“But you could’ve told me first. Seems calculated, no?”

I shook my head, “I knew you’d try to talk to me out of it if I told you first.”

“And you knew I’d be successful.” He seemed almost pleased with himself as he said that, a wry, sly smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

I let out a full body sigh, watching his movements in the reflection of the window I was standing beside, “This was fun once, wasn’t it?”

“In the beginning, maybe?” I continued, willing myself to turn around and look at him. It was a genuine question.

Everything blurred together when I looked at him. Days, weeks, months, years could have passed by and I wouldn’t have had a clue. I had been so wrapped up in him that nothing else had mattered.

He searched my face as I stared at him. Before he could comment, his students began to pour into the room, effectively shutting our exchange down.

I wanted to care about him, I truly did. There was a part of me that wished that he would be an unbearable asshole all the time, just so I’d be able to walk away a little easier. I was tired of the constant battles and pitfalls that existed between us, the need for me to continue waging my internal battles, as I fought for control of my own life and feelings. I was tired of navigating through broken promises and shattered expectations, letting my own guard down only to quickly rebuild it, reminding myself of why it was there in the first place.

I filed out of his classroom with the sea of students once class was over, not willing to face him to hear his answer.

_________________________________________

I kept my distance as July approached, longing for him to want to see me, to need me the way I had convinced myself that I needed him, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to beg myself for an ounce of his attention. I had gotten so used to everything being on his terms, I had forgotten that I was a willing participant in our affair. That I mattered just as much as he did. My needs remained unfulfilled and knowing that he was merely hundreds of feet next door at any given moment sent me into a maniacal spiral filled with thoughts of bursting into his house, of spilling my guts to his wife. Just to hurt him. She was an innocent bystander that my bulleted speech would maim. I lied to myself, my mind assuring me she deserved so much better. That I would be doing her a favor. At the same time, I assured myself he was exactly what I deserved.

If that doesn’t say something about the way I viewed myself then, I don’t know what else does.

_________________________________________

It was hotter than usual that Fourth of July.

“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” My grandmother said to my mother as I walked into the kitchen, grabbing the cup of coffee she slid over to me.

Her southern accent was a means of comfort to me, until she eyed me up and down, “You don’t look so good, Livvy Lou.” Even her sweet cadence couldn’t sugarcoat the fact that I was falling apart.

She continued to eye me over the rim of her teacup, sitting it down long enough to insult me again.

“You look terrible. Like you crawled up from the grave. Was that you throwing up last night?”

“Nope,” I lied. “Must have been the neighbor's dog again.” Knowing good and well I had cried so hard that I had vomited sometime during the witching hour.

She only hummed in response, not looking away as I quickly downed the coffee that had been placed in front of me, grabbing my keys from the counter.

“These were on the porch this morning,” My mother came from the living room holding a bouquet of red roses and a book, neatly bound together with a simple piece of silky red ribbon.

“Who sent this?” I grabbed the book, pale yellow, with the words DOSTOEVSKY: LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES emblazoned on the front in sage green calligraphy.

“Don’t know. It was on the porch when I went out to grab the newspaper this morning.”

“Strange.”

All it took was flipping the book open to notice his handwriting scrawled out on the first page:

‘Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.’

_______________________________________

“Did you get my gifts?”

About an hour before my shift was scheduled to end, he showed up, requesting a table by the window in a secluded part of the restaurant, in my section.

“I did.”

I looked around at my other tables before gazing back down at him with a soft smile, “Thank you.”

“Do you have any plans tonight?”

“Dinner with my parents and grandma at that Italian restaurant next to the jazz bar on MaryAnn street. I might go out with Heather and her family on their boat to watch the fireworks after.”

He nodded at me, sipping his water to maintain the illusion of casual coolness between the two of us.

“Right, well,” I nodded as I took off, dancing around my section under his prying gaze for the rest of my shift.

I delivered his check, watching as he inked his name across the bottom, letting out a measured sigh as he began to speak, “We need to talk.”

_________________________________________

“You’re going to do this to me on my birthday?”

Per his request, I followed him to the university, its parking lot empty due to the holiday. For a split second, I thought he had wanted to see me, spend time with me, or maybe he would drag me to the backseat like he had on the way home from Hyannis. But as I followed his car closely, those four words, “we need to talk” ringing in my ears, I realized what was coming. I knew it the moment I climbed into his car, when he couldn’t look at me, barely acknowledging my presence as I waited for an answer.

“It’s not personal, Olivia.”

“Stop fucking saying that to me,” I seethed from my place in his passenger’s seat.

He didn’t let my anger phase him. He looked straight ahead, his hands pressed flat down on his thighs, his eyes scanning the empty parking lot.

“Spit it out,” I wanted to sound brave and hardened, like I could take whatever he threw at me, letting it roll off my back in stride, but my words came out as nothing more than an airy plea.

I braced for impact, waiting for the speech about my age and future. The setbacks our tryst would eventually unravel and what lost potential would come along with it. The disappointment of it all.

“Let’s be honest,” he cleared his throat, finally looking over at me, “this thing had an expiration date from the beginning.”

I met a whole different side of him that day. The Jeryd Mencken who is so full of himself, so wholly pompous and removed from any vulnerability, that you start to believe the things he says. He believed himself, at least, in saying that we had an expiration date. So much so that I sat there in silence, running through each word we had shared, every interaction, for any indication that this whole thing had been given a strict timeline.

I laughed incredulously, scoffing at him.

“God. Fuck you, Jeryd.”

I grasped the door handle, clawing at it in an attempt to get away from him.

“She’s pregnant.”

In grim slow motion, I turned around to stare at him, jaw clenched, my entire body coiled up and ready to strike.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Taglist: @aurorag98

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part I

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: mentions of religion. This chapter is pretty tame tbh. Minors DNI.

A/N: I posted a little sneak peek of this a few weeks back and now I’m finally brave enough to post the first few chapters. For reference, this takes place around 2010ish, with Mencken being in his early 40s and OC being 22. There is an age gap here so if that’s not your thing, keep moving. Also, once again, I know I have no business writing about a fictional fascist but he’s not real and can’t hurt you. Thank you to @runningwiththefoxes for being my beta and and @luxlisbons for listening to my neurotic ass whine about this for weeks.

WC: 1670

There was a constant debate on how we met. He claimed it had been on Easter of that year when I had swooped into town long enough to get a few hours of sleep before heading to the sunrise service. I hadn’t been to mass since the previous Easter, my presence that day only being an emotional support seat filler, occupying the space in which my father used to sit at the right hand of my mother. I only showed up on the major holidays at her insistence. I was a good girl at heart, or at least that’s what she had always told me.

When I dropped my rosary, it clanged loudly against the marble floor, its echo shril amongst the congregation’s stillness. That’s when I saw him. He sat a few pews ahead of me, seated to the far right, his arm draped casually around the brunette to his left. His eyes bore holes into me as I blindly felt for the rosary at my feet. I shot him an apologetic look for no reason other than being chronically sorry to everyone around me, even if the nature of the outburst was a mistake, my idle hands slick with nervous sweat allowing the sacred beads to slip through before I had even noticed. He quirked an eyebrow at me, his lips pulled tightly into a thin line. When he turned back around, I felt personally chastised by him. I did my best to swallow it down. It left me feeling weirdly small for the rest of the morning.

“Go in peace.”

_________________________________________

Our actual meeting took place at The Marina, a few months later, when summer had officially begun and I was home as a college graduate. I had only been home overnight when I had been called in emergently during the afternoon rush. I hadn’t worked at The Marina since my senior year of high school, and though I’d worked part time as a research assistant while I had been at NYU, I knew serving would be a change of pace. One I wasn’t sure I’d fully acclimate to the way I had in the past.

“It’s just like riding a bike.” Heather assured as she glided past me, balancing four plates on the inner part of her forearm as I stared at the bustling dining room.

It only took a few minutes before muscle memory took over and I was doing my own song and dance in my assigned section. It was like riding a bike. If the bike was on fire, the tires had gone flat, the brakes had given out, and I was on a steady descent into a body of water.

“Eight top coming your way,” I turned around to see the hostess seating a group of men at the long table against the window with a pristine view of the water. A bachelor party, I assumed, given their trucker hats with obscene phrases alluding to their buddy, the groom, being stuck with one person for the rest of his life.

“Great.” I muttered under my breath, snatching up a handful of straws and a stack of menus from the host’s stand. They turned into campers, not leaving until the one sober guy in their group wrangled each of them on uneasy feet back down to the pier, along the winding path towards the dock, and onto a modest yacht.

The afternoon passed quickly amongst the blurred faces of patrons, most of them a blip on the radar, while two of them set out to make my life a living hell. Frick and Frack, the other girls called them. I was informed that they came in every Saturday, two sisters, and terrorized the wait staff with absurd requests. They stayed until thirty minutes before closing time and watched me carefully as I shut down the section around them. When they finally left, I scraped the tip, all two dollars and seventy-five cents of it, off the glass top and sighed deeply.

“What the fuck was that?” I called out, dragging myself up to the bar where Heather was divvying out the remaining waitstaff’s tips for the day.

“The terror twins,” she informed with a smirk, sliding over a few twenties, a crumpled up ten, and some spare ones. I shoved the wad deeply into my apron and hopped up on the bar beside her.

“Trust me, I wouldn’t still be here if my mom hadn’t guilted me into running the place.” She zipped past me as she began to fill in the following week’s schedule on the whiteboard. I was content to listen to the Expo marker’s dry squeal until I felt the urge to drag my tired feet out to my car, making the ten minute drive back home to officially unpack and try my best to become readjusted to life at home.

When the front door opened and the familiar chime rang out amongst the empty dining room, I wanted to scream. Not only were we thirty minutes from closing completely, I had mentally and emotionally checked out, the need to go home and unwind taking precedence over any other matter.

And then I saw him.

A part of me wanted to turn around, hand Heather half of my tips for the day in exchange for her waiting on him. Anything to put me out of the embarrassment of seeing him, of having to speak to him. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.

“Sit where you want,” I told him through my silent protests.

He nodded at me, grinning slyly, as if he could hear my internal monologue. He sat by the window across the room, the table allowing him a perfect view of the moonlight as it cast its blinding light across the waves.

All I could think about was the echo of my rosary clanging against polished marble, reverberating in distorted slow motion and the look he had given me. Suddenly, I was back in my car, unreasonably angry, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel as I boiled over. Something about the way he had looked at me then set me off so badly, it came creeping back up coated in hot embarrassment as I walked over to hand him a menu. Given my hazy state of anxietal rage mixed with a bad case of sweaty palms, I dropped the menu right at his feet.

“You have a habit of dropping things?” He reached down to pick the menu up and plopped it on the table.

My face grew hot, my expression falling flat.

I shook my head and sighed, “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.”

“Yeah, well, I do. I actually thought it was very funny.” A small smirk occupied his face as he looked up at me.

“Really?” I chuckled dryly, “the look on your face that day said otherwise.”

“Looks can be deceiving, can’t they?” He cleared his voice, shaking his head, continuing, “No, really, it was a welcome change from the doom and gloom.”

“Well then,” I tapped the menu with my pen, “what are you having?”

“They’ll kill me if I order a steak, won’t they?” He already knew the answer judging by the sly grin on his face.

“I’ll kill you,” I threatened, “with my bare hands.” I grabbed the menu he waved at me and tucked it under my arm.

“Well then, I’ll have a slice of key lime pie and water with two lemons. Preferably without the homicide.”

“Got it.” I watched his eyes glide up and down my figure in the reflection of the floor length windows across from us as I walked towards the kitchen.

Heather did my bidding and promptly brought over his order, allowing me to pick up on side work, idling between refilling salt shakers and wiping stubborn stains off the remaining menus left at the host’s stand.

He watched me intently the entire time, his gaze never leaving my busy body as I drug around the dining area. When Heather brushed by, informing lowly that she would take care of him, I sighed in relief, dragging my tired body over to the side door to pluck my keys off the key rack.

When I finally made it to my car, I saw him stalking towards me in the window’s reflection.

“If you’re going to kidnap and kill me, know that I won’t go down without a fight.” I turned on my heel, crossing my arms.

He chuckled and shook his head, “thought we agreed on no homicide?”

“The night is young.”

“What’s your name, killer?” He laughed at my attempt to be tough. It wasn’t much of an attempt, to be fair, I had already given up the fight long before it had started. I didn’t know that then.

“Liv.”

“Liv.” He repeated back to me, “same time next week?”

I watched as he flipped his wallet open, pulling a twenty out of the neatly stacked set of bills, and held it out to me.

“Take it.”

I slid it into the pile of bills tucked carefully in my apron pocket. I nodded, smiling at him, watching as he walked to his car and sped off.

When I pulled into my own driveway, not a memory of how I’d gotten there as I’d driven in a sort of zombie state, I was shocked to see his car on the other side of the short privacy fence, parked in my neighbor’s driveway. He must’ve sensed my staring because, once the familiarity dawned on him, he stared back in an equally shocked state, and when the shock wore off, I could practically hear him laughing.

He got out quickly, hanging off his driver’s side door and I did the same, propping myself up on the door paneling so I could see him.

“Did you follow me?” He asked. Not mad or worried, more so amused than anything.

“No,” I was quick to rebuttal, “I live here.”

“Well, I live here.” He used his car key to point to the house directly next to mine.

“Of course you do.”

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part V

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: sexual content, age gap, affairs, unhealthy relationships, dubious morality, my improper use of commas, pure angst, mention of politics.

A/N: For the four people that read this, thank you so much. I almost scrapped this fic earlier this week (the full moon really had me in a full blown tizzy) but this chapter poured out of me at six AM this morning. (Y’all want me to make a tag list? Would that make life easier?)

WC: 1811

“You’re twenty-two?” He hung over my shoulder, watching with darting eyes as I filled out each line of the necessary paperwork for employment through the university.

“I feel like that should’ve been a prerequisite question, don’t you?” I looked back at him and shrugged with an alarmed look on my face.

“Is it my turn to ask if you’re legal?” I joked, watching as he crossed the kitchen and made his way over to the refrigerator.

“To be fair, I estimated you were around that age.” He grabbed the carton of orange juice and turned around towards the drying rack, plucking two wine glasses out, filling them with orange juice.

“Estimations aren’t exact.” I grabbed the glad he slid in my direction and lowered my eyes, “Not very careful of you.”

“They ID’d you at the restaurant, genius,” he shot back at me, “I’m observant.”

I slid the finished paper over to him. He picked it up, skimming the details as he sipped his orange juice.

“Luciano?” He glanced down at the paper and back at me, “That’s your last name?”

I shrugged, “What about it?”

“You’re one bad joke away from joining the mafia.”

“You’re one more insult away from waking up with a severed horse head in your bed.” I countered as I poured the remaining orange juice into the sink and rinsed out the glass.

He narrowed his eyes at me, following my eyeline as I idled about the kitchen, pretending I was focused on anything but him.

“Godfather one or two?” He asked.

“You hardly know me well enough to ask those types of questions.” It was easy to feign innocence when I wasn’t directly looking at him.

“HA!” He bellowed, “That’s rich considering the events of last night,” He laughed again, “You’re funny.”

“Now you’re turning pink.” He cocked his head to the side and lowered his eyes, “Don’t get all shy on me now, Livvy.”

“I’m not shy,” even with my proclamation, I still couldn’t look him in the eye, “I’m still processing it.”

“Oh, boo-hoo,” he mocked with an eye roll,“Should we call a priest? Your therapist?”

“We could call your wife.”

That garnered the reaction I so desperately craved. A little hint of something boiling under the surface threatened to spill over and I waited with baited breath for him to tear into me. In a sick way, I anticipated it. Any crack in the surface to reveal his true nature, or anything of the sort. Something real, something I could latch onto. My own personal souvenir to remind myself that, like me, he was actually human. For a while, he had been a caricature to me. A walking trope actualized in the way he bantered with me, stared at me through his long eyelashes, existed within the confines of my home, my job, my dock. The only thing I knew about him was that he was a reckless driver, previously taught at a high school in Roslyn, liked two lemons in his ice water, and that he had an entire wife and a life so far removed from mine that he may as well have lived on Mars.

I itched for him to ask me my LSAT score, my favorite color, what fucked up series of events had led me to seek sexual gratification from my married neighbor with whom I shared a twenty year age difference.

It was at this very moment, I realized I was never built to be regarded as casual. In other words, being someone’s dirty secret only took care of the gap between my legs, my heart and ego bearing the brunt of his casual coolness.

I grabbed the form from his grip and held it closely to my chest.

“If there’s going to be an issue with us working so closely, I don’t want this job. I’m still technically employed at The Marina.”

He was quick to grab it back from me. A look of disapproval flashed across his face.

“We’re good, Olive.” He moved closer to me, patting me reassuringly on the shoulder.

I nodded, listening as his footfalls echoed from the entryway as he made his way to the front door.

I wish I had the restraint to walk away from him as easily as he walked away from me.

_________________________________________

A day later, we made the trip to the university together. A bad choice on my part, I know, but I genuinely enjoyed his company.

He didn’t seem to mind my company, nor did he seem to mind my stealing the occasional glance at him. A look of approval colored his features as he looked over at me while waiting at a stoplight.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m just looking at you, Olive.”

“Well, don’t.”

That earned me a chuckle as the light turned green.

Getting approval from the university was child’s play. My fingerprints were clean, my background untarnished, my last name garnering enough attention from the hiring office that the job was offered to me on the spot. Turns out I didn’t need his help after all. Though I’d never admit it aloud, I appreciated his offer, flattering myself despite the obvious manipulative undertones both of us were well aware of when the job was offered, considered, and taken.

“You could have told me your grandfather is the district attorney for Manhattan, for Christ’s sake.” He spoke lowly as we walked back to his car.

He opened the door for me and I slid into the passenger's seat, watching as he skulked to the driver’s side and climbed in.

“Is there anything else I should know?” He asked, eyebrows piqued.

“Part two,” I said, and he looked at me confusedly, “The Godfather.”

“Right.” he chuckled, “Are we friends now, Livvy?”

“No, actually,” I rolled the window down, tipping my hand in the wind.

“We’re colleagues.”

_________________________________________

The second mistake I made that day was going over to his house to discuss lesson plans as well as his teaching preferences.

“No fancy transitions, no bubbly text, no stupid pictures,” he told me as he clicked through an example of one of his PowerPoint presentations.

“These are college students, not kindergarteners.”

‘Poli Sci 408- The American Presidency,’ his syllabus read, with a brief introductory statement framing the coursework: This subject describes the types, functions and roles of the Chief Executive, personal administration, administrative corruption, financial administration and administrative improvement.

“No fun in Professor Mencken’s class,” I mockingly saluted him, “I got it.”

Only later would I realize how ironic it had been to stand in the future president’s kitchen discussing the details of his class, which included administrative corruption, given the nature of our relationship.

When he left me alone at his laptop to click through his lesson plans, I did anything but that. I glanced around the kitchen and adjoining living room, my curious feet carrying me to the entryway. No colors, no personal style, no signs of life in the living space. The style screamed avoidant. Like he could pick up his stuff in one go and run out the door at any given moment.

What caught my eye the most, though, was the photo on the fireplace’s mantle. A wedding photo of him and his wife framed in plated gold with the words ‘From This Moment On’ etched into the bottom of the frame in flowing cursive.

I picked it up, my fingertips gliding gently across the glass as I inspected the photo. The refined ball gown she wore with its basque bodice dripping onto the tulle skirt met with a shirred waistline, all made of matte satin throughout. The delicate V back coming to a halt with a simple bow, the chapel length train trailing behind her as they gazed adoringly at one another. He could have been standing there completely naked in the photo and I still would have only noticed how her delicate collarbones peaked through from under the high scoop neckline. Her face, her timeless American beauty. Brunette hair down to her chin, curled under at the ends, framed neatly with a headpiece at the crown of her head. Her veil flowing gently in, what I imagined to be, the summer breeze.

Suddenly I was a little girl again, gazing through the storefront window on Madison Avenue as an elated bride-to-be twirled around in front of the floor length mirror, surrounded by her friends.

Mrs. Mencken was now as real to me as that woman had been. My guilt now had a face.

I slid the frame back onto the mantle and turned around, smacking right into Jeryd’s chest.

“Do you still want to call her?”

I shook my head vehemently, swallowing audibly as I looked up at him.

His face remained calm as he blinked down at me expectantly, his eyebrow sloping at the arch.

He fucked me hard against the wall after that. My legs wrapped around his waist like a noose when he hoisted me up and took me right there in his living room. A reward, I guessed, for not spilling my guts on his carpet or to his wife. In all reality, I had wanted him to fuck me. To break the code of professionalism that we had agreed on previously. I had dressed for the occasion, silently pretending a skirt with no panties was an innocent choice when he pulled it up to rest on my hips. The entire time, my head rested in the crook of his neck, my eyes burning holes through the photo that rested innocently in its rightful place on their mantle. I held onto him for dear life as he fucked into me, slowly coming to a halt as he pulled back to look into my eyes.

“Don’t do that.” He said, lowly chastising my wandering mind. “Don’t make it personal.”

I wanted to ask him what the fuck life is if it’s not personal but I stayed silent.

He brought his left hand to rest on my cheek as he balanced our weight against the wall. The coldness of his wedding band felt like something akin to holy water on the flesh of the possessed.

“Take it off,” I pleaded with him. He was confused by my outburst, his eyes narrowing down at me.

When I slid his finger into my mouth, the cold metal gripped between my teeth, he got the message. It pooled under my tongue briefly before I spit it onto the floor. The ring landed with a soft thud right in front of the rug on the fireplace.

He didn’t look away from me when he resumed his pace. Each time I tried to avert my gaze, he quite literally jerked my chin back to look directly at him.

I wanted to ask him if that was his idea of not making it personal.

But I didn’t.

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part VIII

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: dubious content, affairs, sexual content, age gap, my improper use of commas. MDNI

A/N: When I tell you guys this chapter was a labor of love, I fucking mean it. We’re almost at the end, my friends. If anyone can predict accurately how this is going to end, I will give you one (1) forehead kiss. As always, thanks to @runningwiththefoxes and @vivalafae for dealing with my neurotic ass.

WC: 4426

My delusions hit an all time high when I woke up plastered to his chest the next morning. My hair, like inky black tendrils, spilled across his neck and shoulders, the rest of my limbs fitted to his, melting so dangerously close together that it was hard to tell where I ended and he began.

His gruff voice pulled me to the present, vibrating my caged chest.

“Hold still.”

I only hummed in response, too sleepy and drunk off him, his scent, to come up with any verbalisation that would’ve made sense at that moment.

We zoomed at one singular pace then, his hands finding purchase clasped together at the small of back, as I dozed back off.

When I woke again, I had rolled to my side, the comforter pulled up to the pillows where he had once been.

Walking around someone else’s house scantily clad made me feel dirtier than anything else we had done up to that point. Not that I was modest, heaven knows modesty was a trait I’d try my hand at and fail over the course of my life, but my presence felt like I was tainting someone else’s memories the cottage contained.

I floated lightly in the kitchen, tiptoeing about as I put a kettle of water on to boil. Jeryd was nowhere to be found and I only assumed he was out for a run or taking in the morning air. My curiosity getting the better of me, I eased down the hallway, to the first door on the right, my fingertips grazing across the penciled in heights and their corresponding dates along the door's frame.

Cautiously, I opened the door, revealing two twin beds, their comforters checkered in identical blue and black plaid, against two opposite walls. A photo of two young boys sat atop the small nightstand separating the beds. Simultaneously the kettle’s whistle and a set of hands on my shoulders caused me to shriek.

“You’re a bad influence!” I turned around and eyed him intensely before swerving past to grab the kettle off the eye.

“Never have I ever felt so sneaky and slithery!” I called from the kitchen, hearing his footsteps draw nearer.

He appeared behind me within seconds, leaning against the counter as I filled two teacups with scalding hot water, turning around to look at him as the tea steeped.

“Tell me, will I always be the blame for all of this or will you open your eyes and see yourself as a willing participant?”

I scoffed, crossing my arms. “You’ve got me up here, half naked, making tea at daybreak, trying to figure out whose house I’m in.”

He mirrored my stance, closing his eyes with a deep sigh. “Okay, well, I didn’t ask you to make tea.”

He reached forward and grabbed the box containing the teabags, reading the back label with squinted eyes.

“This shit has probably been here since the sixties.”

“No,” I shook my head, “I snagged it from the store yesterday.”

“The sixties?” I questioned, “Whose house is this?”

He reached beside me, grabbing his respective cup of tea.

“My mother’s,” he stopped long enough to blow away steam and sipped carefully, “Do you want to see the deed for the house or do you believe me?”

I rolled my eyes at him.

“I believe you.”

“Shocking,” He commented sarcastically as he made his way over to sit at the breakfast nook.

“You fight in your sleep.” He commented, his voice still gruff and laced with sleep.

“I had to pin you close to me last night to keep from taking a right hook to the face.”

“And here I thought you just wanted to cuddle.” I laughed breathlessly as I snagged the chunky blanket from the arm of the couch and wrapped it around myself, making my way over to sit across from him.

“Hardly.” He eyed me over the rim of his teacup.

“What do we do after this?” I thrummed my fingertips across the tabletop. “When we get home... Surely a mission trip can’t last more than a few weeks.”

I slyly laid out a chance for him to come clean about his wife’s whereabouts.

“What are you going to do after Georgetown?” He asked, leaning back in his seat to eye me with the curious coolness he always undertook when regarding these subjects with me.

“I asked first.” I countered, sipping my tea confidently as I stood my ground.

“In terms of love, marriage, and a baby carriage?”

I shifted awkwardly in my seat, “Uh, not exactly what I meant for us.”

“Then what did you mean, Liv?”

“I have a soft spot for PR,” I watched as he stood up, grabbing his teacup, carrying it over to the sink, “but I think going the corporate route might be right for me, I don’t know.”

“Don’t deflect, Olive.” He chided, rinsing out his teacup, shaking his head at my poor attempt to cover my scent.

“I’m not,” I sighed, “I answered your question.”

“I answered your question last night.” He walked over, placing a firm finger over my lips before I could open my mouth to speak.

“Go get ready. Let’s have a good day, yeah?” He nodded down at me pleased with my obedience as I tucked my tail between my legs and made my way to the bathroom.

_________________________________________

I didn’t realize the extent of his hypocrisy back then, but it was, and still is, very much alive. Maybe that’s why I was so attracted to him; the hypocrite in me recognized the one in him. Or maybe it was the way we both compartmentalized any real feelings. No regard for his wife, my reputation, his reputation. I could choose when to feel my feelings, simply sliding them back on the shelf alongside my reservations, my nervousness, my general ability to know right from wrong, and everything else in between that kept me awake at night.

I sleepwalked through the museum he took me to, the only thought occupying my brain was the way he held my hand, coaxing me along through each exhibit.

When he finally spoke, I shook my head.

“What?”

“They preached traditional family values,” he motioned up to the photo of Jackie O and her young daughter swathed in JFK’s arms, “but he definitely had a wandering dick.”

“You’re not doing much to help your case.” I unlinked from his arm, reaching out to stroke a careful finger across the canvas.

“Well, I’m not, and never have been, the president of the United States.”

“And if you were?” I looked at him from over my shoulder, a playful smirk appearing on his lips.

“You ever heard of the Code of Hammurabi?”

I shoved him playfully, “Oh, shut the fuck up.”

The rest of the afternoon took on an airy feel. We lingered in downtown Hyannis before hopping back in his car, aimlessly driving until I suggested we visit Provincetown.

“We used to stay here every summer before my parents split.” I told him, eyes peeled to the window as I looked for any familiarity in the sites around us as the city unfurled itself.

“Funny,” he looked over at me, his right hand once again finding its usual spot, cradled against the meat of my thigh, “I used to spend every summer with my family in Hyannis.”

“Is the cottage a family place?”

“Well, sort of. No one has really used it since my dad kicked the bucket.”

I didn’t expect him to reveal that kind of information to me but I went with my first instinct, questioning, figuring he wouldn’t have given me that sliver of an inkling if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“When did he die?”

“I was sixteen, maybe? Heart attack on Christmas day.”

“Ouch,” I squeezed his hand, “that’s personal.”

“He was older.” He added, fingertips thrumming the dash and his thumb held closely to the wheel.

I nodded along, not really sure if treading lightly or shutting up altogether was the better option.

“He was from Brookline. My mom is from Medford. They would meet up in Hyannis to, ya know, rendezvous. Away from his wife.” He glanced over quickly, his brow sloping at the arch as he watched my face change at the realization.

I looked over at him, my eyes wide, “That’s scandalous, honestly, but I’m more worried about the bed we slept in.”

“Pretty sure the sheets have been washed in the last forty years, Olivia.” He squeezed my thigh reassuringly.

“Some stains never come clean, Jeryd.”

Ironically enough, I wasn’t sure if I was talking about the stain that blemished my soul by proving that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree in his regard.

He smirked at me as he parallel parked on a side street.

We decided to hold off on eating until it cooled off, the June heat hitting its peak around the time we set off downtown, making us both amble in and out of the gift shops littering Commercial Street for any relief from its bleating rays.

“I could’ve spent the afternoon fucking you in the air conditioning, you know?” He grumbled as we walked back out into the heat.

I stopped, looking over at him, “Didn’t know that was an option.”

“Well, it was,” he grabbed my hand, pulling me closer to him, “but now we’re here.”

He eased behind me, hands on my hips, walking single file as a sea of tourists came our way.

“I could be right here,” he purred into my ear, his left hand snaking around my waist below my navel, applying pressure right at my pubic bone, “right where you like me.”

I looked around, sighing at the prospect of fucking him in the bathroom of a building that appeared to be painted with every color of the rainbow.

“How fucking old are we?” I asked as he dragged me inside the multi flavor shop, forgoing a response to the lady behind the counter as she waved and greeted us, her glazed over eyes following us with curiosity.

“Old enough to know better,” he flung the bathroom door open, slamming and locking it behind him as I backed myself up against the sink, “too stupid to care.”

It wasn’t long until he was fucking into me from behind, his hands grasped onto the porcelain basin as his nose found a place at the shell of my ear, occasionally rutting against the hair there.

Each time one of us glanced at the other in the mirror, we would laugh, each thrust distorting the sound amongst the sea of stickers, particularly ones that said Fuck The Patriarchy and God is a Woman, plastered along the neon tinged bathroom, the nineties track blasting loudly into the confined space.

If god was a woman, I figured, she wouldn’t be too mad at me for what I did. What I would do in the grand scheme of things.

Poetically enough, he pushed me to my knees, shoving himself into my eagerly waiting mouth. As his cock thickened and his whole body tensed, he pulled my head down to his root so he could come deeply down my throat.

A shrill knock on the door startled me and quickly scrambled to my feet, dragging my underwear ungraciously up my thighs.

“Uh, just a second!”

He clasped his belt and readjusted his shirt, reaching out to push my hair away from my face.

“Go and I’ll meet you out front.”

I nodded, cracking the door open enough so I could slide through the opening.

From behind, I didn’t immediately recognize her, but when she turned around, hands full of paraphernalia and niknaks, we both stood still, looking at one another in shock.

“Good god, Olivia, what are you doing here?!” She shoved her trinkets on an empty shelf by the bathroom door and pulled me into a hug.

“Hey, Kimmy,” I patted my step mother’s back whilst simultaneously feeling the blood drain from my face.

She pulled back to look at me, “Are you okay?”

I nodded profusely, reaching out to close the bathroom door as Jeryd tried to exit. The door unceremoniously bobbed open a few times, my hand applying more and more pressure against its spine as he tried the doorknob and I watched in absolute horror as Kimmy looked from me and over my shoulder as the door pounded on its frame.

“Had some bad oysters. You definitely do not want to go in there.” I lied, rubbing my stomach for a dramatic effect.

She nodded, eyes widening as she spoke, “Looks like they’re really putting up a fight.”

Once Jeryd really put his back into it, I went flying forward, the door creaking open as he walked out.

“Those aren’t bad looking oysters.” Kimmy commented, a smirk appearing on her face as she sized Jeryd up.

_________________________________________

Once Kimmy paid for her loot while I stood awkwardly to her side like a lost child, we followed her outside and down the block where my father sat unsuspectingly under a large parasol. Jeryd had tried and failed to walk the opposite way down the street, Kimmy giving us both a look as I pulled him back to me, knowing full well what had transpired in that bathroom, loving nothing more than to watch me sweat.

“Look who I found,” Kimmy announced as my father’s head swiveled around at the sound of her voice.

“Ollie!” He was on his feet in an instant, arms wrapping around me, lifting me off the ground momentarily.

“Hi,” I squeaked out, finding my footing as Jeryd shoved his hands deeply in his pockets. An unsettling smile pulled at his lips as he watched the scene unfold.

“What are you doing up here?” He asked and I looked over at Jeryd again like he was about to be my savior through the awkwardly crushing scene.

“Field trip,” I shrugged, “We broke off from some of the students to grab a bite to eat and ran into Kimmy.”

“Liv had bad oysters,” Kimmy added with a sympathetic nod, “She was absolutely dying in the bathroom when I knocked.”

Jeryd's eyes narrowed at me and I closed mine long enough to regain blood flow to my brain as it misfired along with Kimmy’s recounting of what happened.

“He’s a professor at Stony and I’ve been working with him. A bunch of us decided to, uh, come see Plymouth monument and hit the Kennedy museums.”

My father turned slightly, the heavy chair dragging across the pavement, and looked at Jeryd.

He stood, offering his hand, doing the awkward white male handshake that men of their age tend to default to.

That’s when it hit me. Seeing them together, how close in age they were, wondering how many daddy issues I had to have for this particular moment to happen to me. Was there a set amount, like a ticket token, to hit the fucked up jackpot that I seemed to have won in that very moment. If I could have shed my skin and slithered away, I very much would have.

“Why don’t you guys sit and eat with us?”

I looked at Jeryd for any sign of confirmation but he very much let me know, silently, of course, with a look, that I was in the lead here. When I sat down, he pulled a chair from the table beside ours and pushed it next to mine.

I heard my father explain something about an annual car show and if I spoke to my dad regularly, maybe I would’ve been able to avoid running into him altogether. Other than that, their words were muffled. My inner monologue bleating, debating on fleeing the scene altogether, I wished for nothing more than to be a man in that moment. Men don’t care when things are awkward, and from an outsider’s perspective, nothing was wrong at the table. But the way Kimmy looked at me, the way her eyes dragged along my face, I knew she would eventually want to know what exactly I was doing and who I was doing it with.

Somewhere between the constant droning about the weather, the political climate, and shared similarities, Jeryd and my father finally shut up. Their constant chatter had been filler for me, and I suddenly felt small when they all looked at me, waiting as if I was supposed to chime in.

“I think that dinner reservation is ready, Professor.”

Jeryd cleared his throat, “Right, of course, it was nice to meet you both.”

We both rose, him stepping back enough to give me space for goodbye embraces, listening to me make excuse after excuse as to why I hadn’t been to visit them.

“Make sure you stay away from those bad oysters, Liv.” Kimmy called out and I waved sheepishly back at her as Jeryd and I walked in the direction where he had parked the car.

_________________________________________

The ride back to the cottage was tense and quiet. He didn’t reach over to touch me, nor did he make any effort to speak to me.

“You looked like a little kid at the adult’s table back there,” he finally said to me when we were inside the cottage, staring silently at one another across the kitchen bar.

“What?” I shook my head, scoffing at him.

“You just,” he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “you locked up. I’ve never seen you look so small.”

I shrugged, looking away from him in what I would describe now as hot, bubbling shame.

“I fucked up by bringing you here.” He said, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked into the living room.

“What was I supposed to do?!” I cried out, following him closely. “She saw us basically come out of the bathroom together.”

“You could have, I don’t know, let me walk away like I was trying to do.” He turned around and looked at me and for the first time, I saw him genuinely upset.

“But, no,” he continued, “you had to drag me right down with you, didn’t you?” He spat.

I laughed incredulously at him, all the while stepping closer and closer to where he stood. “Yeah, like you haven’t been dragging me to hell everyday since I’ve known you!”

He let out a shrill laugh, his canines showing, before leaning down closely into my face, “You know what this has always been about. You made your choice. You’re happy to take the perks that come with being my mistress. Don’t act like you’re some poor, innocent woman. You always knew exactly what this was, what we are.”

“Perks?! There are perks,” I let out a shaky laugh, “Please tell me what they are and where the fuck I can find them!”

He shook his head, walking over toward the window, maintaining a safe amount of distance from me.

“I swear to god, the only thing that would make you happy is if I slapped a collar and leash on you and led you around town all night.” He said with a groan.

“The only thing that would make me happy is if you weren’t such a lying hypocrite.” I stalked back towards the bedroom in a fury, grabbing my overnight bag, stuffing my strewn out contents wherever they would fit, dragging it to the bathroom to grab my toiletries and dirty clothes.

“What are you doing?” He appeared in the doorway, a look of discomfort and disdain painting his features at my very presence.

“Going home,” I brushed past him, making my way towards the living room.

“Like hell you are,” he jerked the bag I was holding, effectively pulling me back to him like a rubberband threatening to snap.

“Is this how you act every time your wife leaves?” I jerked the bag again but I was no match against his ironclad grip. “You do her like this?”

I watched as he unzipped the bag, dumped it upside down, the contents hitting the floor like broken glass at our feet.

“A fucking mission trip?” I laughed at him, “She fucking left you and it’s no goddamn wonder!”

He pressed me against the wall, his forearms resting on either side of my head as he seethed down at me. His jaw clenched and for a moment, I closed my eyes, gearing up for whatever he was about to unleash upon me.

“You let my mother fill your head with fucking delusions and get disappointed when I don’t meet your expectations.”

I shook my head, “I had expectations for someone I knew couldn’t meet those expectations, so that’s my fault for expecting anything from you at all.”

He moved away from me, allowing me to sidestep him, easing my way into the bedroom across the hall. When I locked the door, I heard him sigh, a heavy hand smacking against the door caused me to jump.

“I’ve never cried because of someone’s lack of feelings for me, you know? I’ve never had anyone to cry over in that regard. You’re the first, and you’ll also be the last, or so help me god through this embarrassment.” I yelled at the door, hearing him sigh again, footfalls growing more distant as he walked through the house and away from the scene.

Eventually I fell asleep in one of the twin beds, its stale sheets and comforter providing me with a false sense of comfort amongst the discord.

_________________________________________

I woke up on my side facing the wall. For the most part, I slept contentedly, only waking when I heard Jeryd messing with the door, the knob jingling erratically as he tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock. I thought about asking him to stop a few times, wondering why he even gave a solitary fuck about getting inside, but realized my silence was far more personal than any words I could mutter.

“I’m tired of acting like I don’t care, because I do. I fucking do, and that’s what makes this even worse.”

I jumped as he spoke from behind me, rolling over to see that he had crammed himself in the opposite twin bed, legs bent and arms crossed against his chest, his words making him grimace as if his own honesty was poisoning him.

“Don’t,” I shook my head, “it’s too late for a death row confession.”

“I just spent three hours breaking into this room to get to you.” He sat up and looked at me, head cocking to the side when I didn’t flinch at his declaration, “I thought about leaving you here last night, you know?

I rolled my eyes, sighing. “I wish you would have.”

“I made a shitty decision and you’re a testament to that matter, but you don’t get to decide my feelings for you.” He said, finally looking comfortable enough to continue, “I may not sail a thousand ships for you, but if I didn’t give a fuck, I wouldn’t have continued this past the first night.”

Somehow over the course of us staring at one another silently, gauging eachother’s temperaments, he made his way over to my respective bed, climbing in behind me, molding himself around my body.

I listened intently as he told me about his train wreck of a marriage, “I chose my wife because she provided stability and consistency and safety and kindness and support. We were not exactly madly in love when we married. Our marriage was based on a set of rational, mutually beneficial criteria and we’ve built it from there. I make no claim that it is a passionate, fiery love. But we do love each other,” his long term political goals, cackling shrilly when he told me he would be president one day and would take me to the White House with him.

“She will wise up and leave me in the next few years.” He said in regards to his wife.

It was stupid to indulge myself in his fantasy but it felt good.

He told me how he and his brother used to lay in the twin beds, cooking up ideas on how they could both be President at the same time. Jason, who I later learned was the other set of initials on the doorframe, gave up and decided on being a professional baseball player sometime after he turned fourteen, giving it up altogether to become a lawyer once most of his childish notions left him. But Jeryd, he clung to his dream, and I felt somewhat flattered that he decided to share it with me.

It was far-fetched, but so was the idea of us laying together, spinning our web of lies, content to fall even deeper without any regard for how hard the impact would be when we landed.

Eventually we both fell asleep with his aspirations in full force in the background.

_________________________________________

Leaving the cottage felt almost bittersweet. On one hand, I felt like I had survived a war, and on the other, I felt like we had made a breakthrough of sorts amongst the rubble we were leaving behind.

Before we left, though, he made it a point to back me up against the guestroom’s door frame, marking my height against the wood, my full adult height paling in comparison to the teenage boy’s marked far above.

“A little pointless, don’t you think?” I asked as I turned around and watched as he marked my initials above the new line.

“Nah,” he shook his head, “You’ll be back and we will see if you’ve grown any.”

I rolled my eyes, “Maybe they’ll turn this place into a museum once you’re president and I will forever be emblazoned into American history.”

He managed to crack a smile at me before carrying my bag out to the car.

The ride back to Stony Brook felt shorter than it had on the way to Hyannis. We stopped once for gas and another time so we could climb in the backseat and fuck once we both realized we had gone twenty four hours without touching one another and the prospect of reentering secretive society really took hold.

We made plans to run together the following morning as we said our goodbyes in the university’s parking lot. I took the long way home once I was back in my car, timing it perfectly as I watched his front door close as I pulled into my driveway.

Only this time, his car wasn’t the only car parked in his driveway.

Taglist: @aurorag98

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part VI

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: sexual content, dubious content, age gap, alcohol consumption, mentions of drug use, affairs, my improper use of commas.

A/N: alright alright alright, we’re getting into the thick of things. Thanks to @vivalafae and @runningwiththefoxes for their spiritual guidance. Still shocked so many of y’all have stuck around this long! Love you allllll xo

WC: 2964

For the next two days, we kept our distance. I imagined I had frightened him off with my intensity. My propensity to feel things so deeply had spilled over from my brooding teenage years, maring my early twenties like ink bleeding from one page to the next.

“Have you always been so sullen?” He asked later on that second day when I stared at him blankly from my seat across from him at his dining room table.

A simple text from him had pulled me to my feet and towards his back door. Mistresses don’t use the front door, I told myself. Pavlov would’ve loved me. Freud would’ve had a field day with me.

“Have you ever had an affair before?”

He shook his head, laughing sarcastically as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Curiosity killed the cat, Olive.”

“But satisfaction brought it back, Jeryd.”

“No,” he sighed, “you’re my first.”

“That doesn’t make you feel any better, though, does it?”

I shook my head.

“It’s hard to believe a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.” I said, wondering where this place of courage and effortless fluency was coming from.

“Be that as it may, I have no reason to lie to you.” He offered, continuing on as he searched my face, “Do you want to be my wife, Olive? Is that what this is about?”

I shook my head at him. “You mistake my guilt and curiosity as flattery.”

“I could tell you everything about me and that still wouldn’t change the fact that I’m married, Olive.”

“I know.”

_________________________________________

“I can’t believe you’re trying to pull off this whole ‘I don’t care’ thing. You care. Big time.”

I stopped in my tracks, slamming the filing cabinet closed as I glowered at him.

I had been silent since seeing him again. Existing in the space of professionalism, treading lightly for fear my emotions might disrupt the status quo two days away had provided.

He smiled at me from his spot behind his desk.

“You’re right, maybe I do care,” I stepped closer to him as his eyes glimmered with the satisfaction of knowing what I was about to unleash on him.

“Maybe I’m curious and maybe I feel guilty. Maybe I am sullen. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that you long to elicit these types of reactions from me,” I stepped closer to his desk, feeling my breath hitch as he ran a lone finger across the hem of my skirt, “That this entire thing is just a game to you. One that I will eventually get tired of playing.”

I leaned down closer to him and looked directly into his eyes.

“I can leave, Jeryd. But you can’t. You’re stuck in a marriage and a mortgage,”

He stood up to his full height, smiling down at me devilishly as I willed myself to continue, “You’re stuck here in hell right along with me and if you want to continue to play this fucking game with me, this sick cat and mouse, emotional foreplay extravaganza we’re dancing through, then you need to recognize that everything is personal with you. That you’ve made it that way.”

“You don’t look at someone the way you look at me without it being personal.” My voice was small as I backed away from him, grabbing my bag and coffee cup off the windowsill before making my way to exit his classroom.

A few quick strides and he had me trapped between him and the classroom door. He remained silent, his eyes boring holes into mine as he grabbed my face roughly and kissed me.

Despite all my efforts to remain composed, I became pliant under his hands. That’s a theme with me, after all, one my therapist would gnash into years down the road.

The sound of my heels scuffing rhythmically against the gritty linoleum as he bent me over his desk was enough cause for him to hoist me up onto the desk, climb on top of me, and fuck me like he would never see me again, like he was scared I might disappear.

His disregard for consequences, the pleasure he derived from my turmoil, and little regard for my idle threats made me cum harder than I ever had before.

_________________________________________

After his second class of the day, he found me sitting in the cafeteria, flanked by a group of students, all male, ranging from tall to short.

One in particular, a lean brunette on the shorter end of the spectrum with long brown hair, stared at me with such intensity that I had to hold back laughter each time he looked at me.

“I play guitar in a band,” he said as he sipped his Arizona tea, “You should come check us out one day.”

He crunched a chip and upped the ante.

“I can give you my number.”

I nodded along and smiled awkwardly, making eye contact with Jeryd as he sipped his coffee, one hand tucked in his pocket, relishing in my torment as I squirmed and looked for an out.

The rest of the group stared blankly at me and I wondered if I needed to get up and do some sort of trick with the expectant looks covering their faces.

I sighed in relief as I saw Jeryd making a beeline for the table.

“Hey everybody,” he clapped his hand on my shoulder and I turned around to look up at him, “Can I borrow Liv for a second?

“Of course,” the guitarist smiled up at us as I stood and collected my things, but being the pain in the ass he seemed to be, he had to ask questions.

“How do you guys know each other?”

“Us?” I glanced over at Jeryd, “Professor Mencken has been a friend of my family’s for years. Almost like an uncle to me. He agreed to let me come help out with things given my affinity for all things political.”

“Yep,” Jeryd stepped over to stand next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “She’s a good egg.”

He guided me through the labyrinth mazes of the cafeteria, out a side door, and into an outdoor corridor connecting the cafeteria with a breezy courtyard.

“‘A good egg’?” I scoffed up at him, walking quickly to keep up with his brisk pace.

“‘Almost like an uncle to me’?” He mimicked my disgust. “Now that was personal.”

_________________________________________

As if things weren’t already personal and confusing enough, I ran into him and his mother at the beach the next day.

It was low tide that day. Heather and I had made plans to scour the sand for sea glass and any sort of trinkets she could incorporate into the nautical theme at The Marina.

What I didn’t predict, however, was Heather blowing me off last minute, leaving me feeling somewhat desolate and unlikable, not taking into account how many times I’d blown her off over the course of a week so I could pine for my neighbor.

I dug my feet deeper into the sand, twiddling the strap of my bikini top between my forefinger and thumb as my other hand waded blindly across the sand. I laid there as the clouds unfurled themselves to me, their formations pillowy and soft, doing my best to decipher their shapes as they drifted by.

Suddenly, my vision was occluded by patchy shades of brown and black. I sat up quickly, coming face to face with the biggest fucking dog I had ever seen in my life. A Doberman, the size of a miniature pony, licked a clean stripe from my mouth to the bridge of my nose. It sat back on its heels and looked at me with the same confusion I was looking at it with.

“He doesn’t bite.” A familiar voice rang out behind me.

I reached my hand out cautiously and the dog, whose bone shaped tag read ‘Jackson’, licked the tips of my fingers curiously.

“My mom’s dog,” He told me, motioning back to where his mother struggled to walk in the sand due to the height of her wedged sandals.

“He doesn’t bite!” She called out to me.

“Yeah, she got the memo,” He looked down at me as if to say “shoot me, please,” and I smiled up at him.

I stood up, dusting the sand off of my shoulders and shorts as his mother finally came wobbling up to us.

She glanced up and down at my figure, seemingly appraising me, before she spoke, “Aren’t you a dish?”

“Thanks?” I laughed nervously. I could feel my cheeks turning red.

Once again, Jeryd’s eyes widened and he sighed heavily through flared nostrils.

“Jill Mencken,” she offered her hand as her caftan billowed in the breeze.

“Liv Luciano.” We shook hands. She seemed to be trying to figure me out.

“This is Jackson,” she reached down and cooed to the dog who ate it up, “Jeryd’s brother.”

Jeryd, again, looked as if he would rather be anywhere but there at that moment.

“I definitely see the resemblance.”

She swatted Jeryd’s shoulder. “And she’s funny!”

“Why don’t you walk with us?” She offered and my brain went on the defensive, listing every reason why that shouldn’t occur.

“Oh, I couldn’t intrude,” I offered, my attention falling to Jackson to be my buffer at that moment. I scratched behind his ears and he rolled into the sand, rutting back and forth, happily making a mess of his surroundings and perfectly manicured coat.

“If I had done that as a child, she would’ve given me away.” Jeryd looked over at me, giving me a knowing look, easing me out of my mind for a moment.

“I insist,” Jill grabbed my hand, using me as support as her chunky heels disappeared into the sand with each uneven step. I turned around to look at Jeryd as he waited for Jackson to comply and walk along with us.

Eventually, at Jeryd’s insistence, his mother abandoned her shoes, leaving me to walk along the shore at my own pace without her balancing act quite literally dragging me down. She trudged behind, stopping altogether to scoop up a few shells as Jeryd and I continued to walk slowly, side by side.

“She’s fun,” I looked over at him as he nodded.

“She’s, uh, something.” We both turned back to watch as she yelled something about a particular shell she had found.

“Can you swing a few days out of town this weekend?”

We began to walk forward, inching our way back towards the parking lot and adjoining playground.

He leaned forward abruptly, swiping his hand across the exposed part of my stomach, catching me off guard.

“Well, I was going to go with Heather to an art exhibit in the city.”

“Tell her you’ll be busy until Monday.”

“Sounds like a pretty personal thing for you to ask me to do, Jeryd.” I commented, watching as his signature smirk pulled at his lips.

_________________________________________

Jill insisted that I go to lunch with them and that I chose the restaurant. She also insisted that I sit up front with Jeryd, opting to occupy the backseat, holding onto Jackson lovingly as he stuck his head out the window.

“She loves the dog more than me,” He murmured, looking over at me briefly before turning back to the road.

“I do not,” she interjected, playfully smacking at Jeryd’s shoulder, “Don’t listen to him, Liv.”

Seeing him like this, in a dynamic with his mother that was familiar to me, made me feel like I knew him a little better. A glimpse into his life, the one that existed outside of the bounds of our entanglement, provided me with a sliver of hope. Hope for what, I didn’t know, but I felt hopeful nonetheless.

I chose Mirabelle’s, a restaurant adjoined to one of the original inns Stony Brook boasted, mainly so Jackson could join us on the outdoor patio.

I was never a big dog person, but watching Jeryd being walked by a literal miniature horse through the old historic district made me think I could be a dog person. Every few steps, Jackson would jerk him forward and he would scoff in the middle of whatever he was talking about, causing me to bite my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing at how worked up he was over something so small.

“Your dog is an asshole,” He turned around and glared at his mother, causing her to pat his shoulder affectionately.

“Takes one to know one, honey.” She quipped.

Lunch with the two of them was easier than I expected. At first, at least. The conversation took on different topics such as the weather, Jackson’s obedience school progress, Jeryd’s students, and his brother’s upcoming wedding. I happily took the seat of the neutral observer as the two of them chatted idly, occasionally breaking off a piece of rye bread to share with Jackson, who rested between mine and Jeryd’s feet.

It was easy to see the resemblance between mother and son once they were so close to one another. Their flamboyant hand gestures when speaking, the shape of their eyes, the same pale blue irises. They spoke the same way, with that witty, sharp banter.

She turned the conversation to me once she was done catching up with Jeryd, inquiring about what I did for a living, where I had grown up, and what I planned to do after law school. All the while throwing in a casual, “you’re so young and full of life. I was the same way when I was your age,” or “my god, I’d kill to have your skin. I quite literally mean I would kill for that elasticity.”

Between the compliments and inquiries, I would catch her staring at me from the corner of my eye. There was no contempt or malice behind her eyes, more so a curiosity of sorts evident in the way her eyes would bounce from my face to Jeryd’s as he and I spoke casually to one another about a new book I had started reading.

“Do you drink?” Jill asked as she perused the alcoholic beverage menu.

“Usually not before seven PM,” I smiled at her, “but they do have fantastic mimosas here.”

“Mimosas, ah,” she fawned, “A girl after my own heart!”

Jeryd pinched the bridge of his nose and audibly made a noise of discontent.

“I’m not driving Miss Daisy all day for you two sots.”

“Oh, please,” she waved her hand in the air while her other hand dug deep down into the confines of her Birkin bag, “it’s going to take more than a few mimosas to keep me down.”

“Said every alcoholic ever,” He mused with an eye roll.

I watched as she pulled a silver cigarette case from her bag. Her initials emblazoned across the side in deep crimson jewels.

“You smoke?” She asked as she slid a cigarette from the case, struck a match, and lit it, dousing the remaining flame in the remnants of her drink.

“I don’t.”

“Well, you’ll start if you keep hanging out with this one.” She motioned over to Jeryd.

“She’s on a roll today,” he grabbed his drink, eyeing me over the rim of the glass. “Smoking and drinking at lunch. Maybe she will smoke some opium at dinner.”

“Always with the dramatics,” she rolled her eyes at him, “Don’t take it so personally that I want to live the remainder of my life happily.”

“Yeah, Jeryd,” I leaned back in my seat and eyed him cooly, “don’t take it so personally.”

She smiled at me, tilting her head as she followed my eyeline across the table to Jeryd’s, obviously very happy to have someone on her side.

Once the second round of drinks were served and I sipped contentedly on my mimosa, Jeryd excused himself, disappearing into The Inn’s indoor dining room.

Jill turned to me, looked me dead in the eye, and asked, “How long have you two been fucking?”

I nearly choked on my mimosa. I sputtered and felt my face flush hot, covering my mouth with the cloth napkin I had placed over my lap

“I’m sorry,” I shook my head, “What?”

“I’m certainly not blind.” Her face remained blank of any emotion.

“Um, it’s not like that at all,” I wasn’t convincing her. Convincing a grand jury would have been a smaller feat.

“Have things been peaceful next door since she’s been gone?” She asked with careful disdain laced in her cadence. I was taken aback, quite literally clueless as to what she was asking, or rather, what she was implying.

“His wife,” she offered and I shook my head.

“I don’t know. She hasn’t been home since I’ve been back.”

“She runs away when they fight.” She shook her head and drained her glass in one go. “Right back to mommy and daddy when she doesn’t get her way.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured me, “Your secret is safe with me.”

“I don’t have a secret.”

“We all have a secret.” She gave me a knowing look.

I glanced longingly at the door Jeryd had walked through, silently willing him to come back to the table.

“I was Jeryd’s father’s second wife,” she told me, “They always get it right the second time around.”

She didn’t have time to expand on that before Jeryd reappeared, reclaiming his seat next to me. I ate in silence once the food was served, Jill’s words bouncing around my brain like a warped soundtrack. Whatever they spoke about after that was hazy and untuned to me as I focused on what possibilities might come my way given the newfound circumstances that had been brought to light.

Tag list: @aurorag98

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part III

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: politics (gag), dubious content, alcohol consumption. Read the previous chapter’s warnings (we ALL know where this is headed)

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Benadryl. I went to the moon last night and somehow woke up with this chapter finished. Thanks to @runningwiththefoxes for being THAT BITCH and @luxlisbons for letting me whine, @weakling-grace for being the best hypeman and @vivalafae for also being neurotic and insane like me.

Also, we’re staying in the Succ universe for this. Jeryd just hasn’t taken off on his political journey yet. I’ve had a few messages about this and just wanted to clear it up.

WC: 1956

I made it a point to buy curtains the next day. They would lay in a pile below my bedroom window for close to a month. The rod would become bent and the screws would wind up in various cracks and divots of the hardwood floor. I made an effort, I would tell myself, only giving up because I couldn’t find a screwdriver or a drill- It was a lie if I had ever told one.

Over the course of a week his house became visible to me through his bedroom window. He never closed his curtain after that night, rewarding me a few days later when he opened the curtains covering the bay window adjacent to the one in my own kitchen.

Oftentimes I would catch him fresh out of the shower. He would trail past the window, his hand vigorously rubbing a towel through his hair, before reappearing a few seconds later, his slender fingers buttoning his button down as he gazed out the window. He would stare out at the sky, at the old oak tree looming in my front yard, over to the inlet, but his eyes would always end up on me.

No more peep shows, I told myself, but dressed and undressed purposely in front of the window each day.

Other times, I would catch him watching me doing innocent things. Folding myself uncomfortably into a dining room chair with an old book, perched on top of the kitchen counter as I chatted animatedly to my long distance friend over the course of hour long phone calls, dancing around the kitchen as I ate raw cake batter. It didn’t matter what I was doing- he looked at me with the same intensity he had the night I fucked Evan for him to see. There was something about that I just couldn’t shake.

On Wednesday, I woke up earlier than I normally would have. A waterline break had canceled my shift at The Marina, an answered prayer delivered via text message sometime after I had gone to sleep the previous night. I rooted around the sheets for the better part of an hour before I decided I wouldn’t be going back to sleep. It was barely past six in the morning.

Thinking about him made me nervous. It’s normal, I told myself, it’s human to be curious. My silent commiserations had left me feeling dirty. My internal monologue seesawing between morality and depravity.

For the first time in a week, I dressed timidly in the darkness of my bathroom, away from any prying eyes. A sort of guilt had washed over me, the type you experience when barely any remorse is involved. Which made the guilt, or lack thereof, even more personal. I laced my tennis shoes in haste and nearly toppled down the staircase in an effort to put physical distance between him and I.

I ran briskly out the front door, my feet thudding against the cool pavement as I set my pace. I took the same course I had taken when I was a teenager. Right out of my driveway to the end of the residential area where the lopsided Welcome sign stood, around the traffic circle that connected Blair Street with Ocean Avenue, and back down Paxton Place. Rinse and repeat. Easy enough.

Running had always cleared my mind. I knew the science behind it. The rush of endorphins and such, but I also resonated with the idea of simply running away from my problems.

And then my problem caught up to me. I hadn’t noticed him at first, too lost in my own little world, before his stride caught up to mine. We stayed at the same pace for a short while, only when I had a burst of energy did I manage to outrun him, but it didn’t last long.

“So,” he blew out a gust of air and looked over at me, “Georgetown in the fall?”

“Can’t. Talk. And. Run.” I managed to get out. He laughed at me, running ahead.

Once we were home free and both of our respective houses were within eyesight, I came to a violent stop, bending at the waist as I braced my thighs in an effort to catch my breath.

“How’d you know about Georgetown?” I asked, dragging myself to the curb to sit down.

“Oh,” he sat beside me, “the McGovens told us all about the neighbors when we moved in.”

“Obviously you weren’t warned properly.”

He nodded along, seemingly agreeing to what exactly I was alluding to.

“There’s a lecture at Stony Brook today,” he stretched his legs out in front of him and looked back at me, “a congressman from Pennsylvania.”

“Yeah, Gil Eavis. I heard about that.”

He nodded. “I’m expected to be there to make sure my students show up and engage. You could join me,” He looked at me almost expectantly, “Only if you want.”

_________________________________________

To say I was nervous would have been the understatement of the century. I silently chastised myself for not having a more structured summer. To not be able to use work or school as an excuse as I had done so many times in the past when I wanted to get out of a social engagement.

“He’s full of shit,” Mencken whispered to me while looking straight ahead, “everything he says is bullshit.”

I pretended to be so deeply immersed in whatever Eavis was rattling on about that I only nodded in silence.

“Pandering to the fucking left,” Mencken scoffed, “this guy doesn’t know the difference between his asshole and a hole in the ground.”

Right. Sure. Whatever you say, Mr. Mencken. The only thing I had been focused on was how far apart his legs were spread, his right knee touching my left knee, had me practically breaking apart at the seams. If driving to the university together had been foreplay, this was practically second base.

When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Eavis took a few questions from the crowd as Mencken suggested we leave.

“I’ve heard enough,” he leaned down and told me as we made our way out of the lecture hall and towards the main entrance.

“You hungry, Olive?”

_________________________________________

We ended up at a little Italian restaurant about fifteen minutes outside of town.

“A hidden gem,” he told me as he drove and I gazed out the window at the dulcet tones the sunset put off.

When we got there, we were swiftly seated towards the back of the restaurant. I promptly ordered a glass of wine but he intervened, ordering an entire bottle.

“So,” he cleared his throat, “Georgetown. That’s heavy stuff.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?,” he laughed and cocked his head at me, “Georgetown is impressive. “

Once the wine was served and my pulse returned to its baseline, he pried more information out of me. We discussed how I’d double majored in Political Science and Communications, with him calling me an overachiever, and then ragging on me for going to NYU.

“Law schools don’t give a shit about a double major, Olive.” Or, “You should’ve gone to college further from home and seen the world a little bit, Olive.”

“What about you?” I asked him after my second glass of wine. “Who are you?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t go to Georgetown.” He spat back at me. That same sarcastic grin I’d come to loathe and love simultaneously mirroring my own.

“Hofstra University. Full scholarship,” he informed me as he downed his second glass of wine.

“Impressive.”

The conversation idled comfortably as we both ate.

It was never awkward or forced. Neither of us gave away any personal details other than colleges and majors. Nothing of which would be deemed too deep for the light evening we had shared thus far.

“I taught high school Civics and US government in Roslyn for ten years,” he filled our glasses with the last remaining bit of wine from the bottle before continuing, “and then I took the job at Stony back in January before we settled here.”

We.

I wanted to ask about his partner. Their presence being highlighted in the subtle glitter of his wedding band. I had noticed it the first night I met him, an observation I would have made on anyone else. It didn’t mean anything to me then and it shouldn’t have meant anything to me at dinner. But it did. It meant more to me in the back of that old school Italian restaurant than I cared to realize. I wasn’t sure if I was jealous or concerned. Frankly, I was curious.

“Where’s your wife?” I asked him out of nowhere.

I had caught him off guard, his eyes narrowing at me.

“Mission trip.” Was all he offered.

“Where’s your mother?” He asked, “I noticed you’ve been alone.”

Sinister, but not at all threatening. It’s hard to be a voyeur and not recognize these things.

“A medical conference in Florida. She leaves Miami on Thursday to go on a 14 day cruise.”

He hummed in response.

I wanted to call him a dog. But if he was a dog, well, I was one as well.

_________________________________________

It rained that night. It started lightly at first, mixing uncomfortably with the humidity outside, casting the windows in thick fog. He drove slower than he had before, cursing the defroster for not doing the one job it had been designed to do.

I was blissfully drunk and the world felt a little lighter than it had when my day started. I leaned back in my seat, my head lulling to the side as I watched him thrum the tips of his fingers on the dash while his palm gripped the wheel.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, eyes never leaving the road.

I sat up a little straighter. “Like what?”

I hadn’t even realized he had made it back to our houses until he put the car in park.

“Like that,” he said, finally turning his body to the side to look at me.

There were plenty of things I wanted to say:

“Don’t look in my windows anymore.”

“Don’t come into The Marina when I’m working.”

“Don’t ply me with wine at dinner.”

“Move back to Roslyn.”

But none of them would have conveyed what I was feeling more so than when I crawled over the center console and directly onto his lap, straddling him with ease.

His hands rested on the outside of my thighs and he looked up at me, so confident and cool, as I stared down at him.

When I leaned down to kiss him, he met me halfway. What started slowly and deeply, turned into a power struggle of sorts. My hands roamed across his neck, my thumbs meeting at the crest of his Adam’s apple, as our teeth clashed. His hands, his huge hands, explored my stomach, nearly covering the surface area with his palms alone. When his hands danced onto my lower back and dipped low into my jeans, I felt the cool metal of his wedding band as he gripped onto my bare ass, kneading and pulling the soft flesh, dragging me down onto him in a grinding motion.

There was a hesitancy in my kiss then. The guilt had begun to set in.

I pulled away from him.

“I can’t do this.”

I scurried back across the center console and nearly threw myself from the passenger’s side door. I didn’t turn around once I made it to my doorstep. Instead, I let myself inside, slammed the door, and tried to catch my breath.

I slept in my mother’s room that night. The only bedroom with curtains.

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door part II

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: dubious content, drug use, voyeurism, age gap, mentions of death, masturbation. Minors DNI

A/N: Look at me posting back to back! I have no clue how long this series will be, nor do I have any idea of how frequently I’ll be posting. Inspiration has been coming in waves, tbh, and I’m quite literally riding the wave. Also, if you’ve watched Scandal, I swear I didn’t steal OC’s name from their main character. It’s a name I’ve been in love with since I was a kid. Do not come for me. I am fragile.

WC: 2490

Of all the things that had changed in the time I had been away, the old wooden dock stayed the same, in its rightful place, bobbing directly in between the divide of property lines. I had imagined that when Ms. McGoven died, her children quickly went through her things. Auctioning off what they deemed unsuitable to their tastes, while quickly listing the house for sale. They seemed to be a covetous lot, so it came as a huge surprise to me when my mother informed me that the dock stayed in possession of my family and the new neighbors, The Menckens.

I had spent most of the day sprawled out on the dock, idling between sunbathing and getting lost amongst the tattered pages of an old novel. The sound of the waves lapping against the inlet across the way lulled me into a state of contentedness, so much so that I had failed to notice the bright sky change and shift above me, its cotton candy tone now reflecting against the shifting waves set out before me as the sun began its descent.

I was awestruck by the simplicity of the beauty around me. Flipping a tattered corner on the page, I snapped the book shut and deposited it down into my bag. I absentmindedly dug out my wallet, sliding my pointer finger along the ridges of the change section until I found the joint and lighter at the bottom of the compartment. I lit it up happily, lying flat down on my back for the optimal view of the ever changing sky. A few moments passed before I heard someone speak from the bank behind me.

“Are you smoking pot on my dock?”

I sat up in an instant, my cheeks flushing red as I thought of every possible lie I could float to him in an effort to get out of this.

“No,” I lied. A plume of smoke billowed from my mouth, effectively betraying me.

When I turned around, he didn’t look angry. He appeared amused. His hands were tucked in the pocket of his slacks as his simple white tee held snugly to his middle as the wind blew in our direction.

I bobbed along with the dock as he stepped down from the bank to stand beside where I was sitting. He looked down at me with a smirk.

“I think you are.” He crouched down beside me and plucked the joint from my mouth. When he brought it to his mouth and sharply inhaled, I stared at him with wonder.

“Tastes like pot.” His voice went up a few octaves as he inhaled as deeply as he could. He never took his eyes off me as he exhaled above my head. He observed the joint in his hands, hitting it again as he watched me.

I felt small under his gaze. Like he knew something I didn’t. And with the newfound intensity now occupying the space around us, I needed to move, to cut the tension I felt was due to my increasing paranoia. I surely hadn’t been this worked up a few days ago when I served him at The Marina. When he slid a twenty in my hand and asked for my name, ensuring he would be back to sit in my section again.

He watched me carefully as I leaned forward onto my knees, running my hands through the water. When he went to hand the joint back to me, I wiped my hands along the top of my swimsuit, finding myself gobsmacked when the material didn’t soak up the water on my hands the way I had intended for it to.

“I… can’t?” I held up my hands and shrugged. He laughed at me.

“Here,” he offered, and I watched as he puffed on the joint again. His free hand tilted my face upward towards his, gently cupping my jaw as he pursed his lips and blew the smoke gently at my mouth. It took me a second to register exactly what was happening and I was quick to settle on my knees in front of him, happily welcoming the smoke into my mouth.

When he did it again, I let my fingers dance across his cheek, making a home directly over his cheekbone as a way to ground myself as the dock moved back and forth with the waves.

The intimacy of the moment wasn’t lost on me as I opened my eyes to look into his. They were a violent shade of blue, the golden hour appearing to make them almost glow.

“It’s definitely pot.” He confirmed with a toothy grin, stubbing the joint out on the side of the dock. “I’m taking it with me.”

“What?!” I guffawed, mouth open wide at the audacity of this man. “You can’t just rob me like that!”

“I can and I did.” He turned around and began his trek back up the bank to his house.

“I’ll think of it as a housewarming gift.” He turned around and gave me a smirk.

I didn’t argue back, choosing to huff frustratedly instead, lying back down on the dock, thinking of how I could get even with him

——————————————————————

“No one told me she died.” I sipped at the steaming French roast as I eyed her.

“Who are you talking about?” My mother mimicked me from across the bar, blowing away the steam as she relished the decadent scent.

“Mrs. McGoven.” I nodded my head towards the bay window. The same bay window that had sat in Mrs. McGoven’s house, always open with various potted plants on its sill, now sporting closed curtains. I surmised the Mencken’s were private people, the vast opposite of Mrs. McGoven who liked to open her curtains and blinds as the sun rose each day. Oftentimes I’d catch her smiling at me as I idled around the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah.” She shrugged her shoulders, “her kids had the funeral back in New Haven.”

“It was quick, honestly. They had the house cleared out and on the market by March and it sold in April.”

“Right,” I nodded, pushing around a paper clip that had fallen off the stack of mail jammed carefully between the bread box and roll of paper towels.

“He takes our trash cans to the curb every Wednesday,” she told me, as if I was supposed to know who he is.

“Him, the new neighbor,” it’s her turn to nod her head at the Mencken’s closed window.

“He, uh, he came to The Marina the other night, right before closing,” I told her, plucking off a piece of skin from a Granny Smith apple that sat lonely in the fruit basket across from me, “he tipped me more than what his entire bill was.”

“Well, maybe he felt bad about coming in right before closing.” She offered with a shrug and I snorted, wanting to comment that he doesn’t seem like the type of person to give two shits about that sort of thing, but who am I to judge? He only stole my weed with a snarky smile and a sarcastic tone. Surely Mrs. McGoven wouldn’t have stolen my weed.

Mrs. McGoven also didn’t look like that. She definitely didn’t speak to me like that.

“Right, well,” she sighed heavily, “I’m back on night shift until I leave for my trip this weekend, so I’m taking a Xanax and sleeping until dinner time.” She looked over at me and continued, “I’m so glad you decided against being a doctor.”

——————————————————————

A familiar tap on my window jolted my attention away from The Godfather before I walked each apprehensive step towards the sound. I flung the window open, grabbing Evan’s hand, hoisting him over the sill.

“What the fuck?”

He stood up and dusted his shirt off, “been a while since I’ve done that. Wanted to know if I still had it in me.”

I was unimpressed. Chronically so, but more acutely as I stared at him.

“You don’t have to come through the window anymore. We’re literally adults.” I told him, “plus it’s just me here. Mom is pulling night call again.”

“Right, well,” he rocked awkwardly back and forth on his heels, hands shoved deeply in his pockets, “nice to see you too.” He admitted with a tone of sarcasm and I smiled at him.

“Sorry, I, uh, was busy.”

He looked at the TV and then back at me, giving me a look that signaled he saw through my bullshit.

An hour or so later, I found myself on my back, him hovering above me, my nails grazing the taut skin over his ribs as he nipped and grazed at my collarbone. Evan was familiar in a way that seasonal allergies were familiar- annoying but expected. The sex was always mediocre and the one time I had pretended to cum when we were sixteen had bonded us in the weirdest way possible. Sure, it felt good, but so did scratching a mosquito bite.

He knew me well, adjusting and flipping us over so I had full access to take over. As I began to ride him reversed, I glanced out the window. Surely I had curtains before my mother decided to switch our rooms while I was away. I hadn’t noticed the lack thereof until then, when a shadow appeared in the window across the way from mine, his silhouette glowing in the break of light beaming in from behind him.

If there had been a logical part of me bigger than the lustful, ravenous part, I would have surely climbed off of Evan and covered myself. But the hunger won and in the brink of a second, I pulled my shirt over my head and flung it away from me. I was quite literally exposed to my voyeur then, the only glimpse of him that I could make out in the darkness was the occasional reveal of his profile as he moved his face around, angling his head for the most optimal view, I supposed. Maybe he was as ravenous and lustful as me. The thought spurred me on physically as I touched myself, dragging a lone finger between the valley of my breasts to the crest of my pubic bone. Evan surely noticed the change in my enthusiasm, bringing his hands to my hips, yelping shrilly when I swatted them away. I didn’t want him to touch me. Not while he was watching.

Then, out of nowhere, I felt it. The familiar gush of heat in my lower belly. I had gotten there myself plenty of times. Never with a man. And never ever like this. I rode it out, waiting patiently for it to wash over me. I watched as his hand pressed flat against the window, his other hand, well, I figured was busy given the fluid movement of his bicep and shoulder.

Just like that, it was over. I descended back down the valley, having never fully reached the peak. At least two out of three of us got to cum, I thought to myself.

The best thing about Evan was that he didn’t linger. We redressed in silence and I waited for him in the hallway outside of my bedroom door. We exchanged a quick goodbye at the front doorstep and I waited until his headlights disappeared down the road before locking the door behind me. I meandered slowly into the kitchen for no other reason than to peruse the cabinets and refrigerator out of a place of boredom. When I came up empty, I allowed myself to sink down in one of the dining room chairs, the gravity of the situation finally raining down on me. It wasn’t every day I fucked solely for the neighbor’s pleasure.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a constant red glow appearing at the dock. I squinted, focusing on it deeply as it brightened and dimmed over the course of fifteen seconds, never completely going out. Without thinking, I marched dutifully to the back door, across the pavement in the pool area, clasping the gate closed gently behind me, and walked carefully on bare feet down the bank.

“Are you smoking pot on my dock?” I mocked him, parroting his words from the previous day.

“No,” he turned his head to face me, a smirk pulling at his lips, “I’m smoking pot on my dock.”

“You’re on my side,” I told him, “this,” I moved to stand on the side opposite of him, “is your side.”

“You should be a land surveyor,” he remarked with a dry laugh, “if you’re half as good at dividing property lines as you are at faking orgasms, the town could definitely use your help.”

I sighed heavily, thankful that we were shrouded in darkness given the deep blush I could feel creeping up my neck.

“Oh, don’t get all shy on me now,” he chided, “it was a good show.”

I sat down beside him, our thighs touching as my feet swayed above the water.

“Not my finest moment,” I remarked, taking the joint from his slender fingers.

“No complaining from me. I thought it was weird that an old lady would live in a house that big, all alone for all those years, but now it makes sense.” He snickered.

“That’s fucking sick and twisted.” I grimaced as I handed the joint back to him. A cloud of smoke gushed out of his mouth as he laughed at me.

"Yeah, that might be true,” he countered, “but so are you.”

There was no argument there. I had enjoyed him watching me as much as he had enjoyed watching. It was a weird symbiotic episode we had shared, my curiosity piquing at him as his eyes roamed my face, wondering if this was his norm, or if, god forbid, this would be my new norm. Relegated to being The Girl Next Door who gave weekly peep shows for the price of sexual satisfaction to a man old enough to be my father.

Of course, I said none of these things. But the way he looked at me clued me into the fact that he might just be a mind reader. Either that, or maybe, just maybe, I had been running circles in his mind too.

When I handed the joint back to him, he licked his pointer finger and thumb, mashing the cherry out between his grip.

“What’s Liv short for anyway?” He asked, alluding back to the day at The Marina where he had asked my name, “Olive? Livestrong? Liver?”

“Live and let die,” I joked, “Olivia, obviously.”

He nodded, a hum of approval sliding past his lips. “You look like an Olivia.”

“Just Liv.” I corrected him.

“Well, Just Liv,” he stood, holding his hand out to me, pulling me to my feet, “buy some fucking curtains.”

With the events of the night, I wondered if we were even yet.

[rxgirlie]

An Olive Branch (spin-off of The Girl Next Door) Sneak Peek

A/N: I’m back back back again! Y’all know I couldn’t let this die just yet, so, welcome to part two. If you’re new here (hi) please go read The Girl Next Door. If you’re not new here, welcome back to the seventh layer of hell!

For context, this is about ten years after their final meeting, where Jeryd has been president for about six-ish months. I have six chapters planned so far, but I’m insane and that’s subject to change.

Jeryd gestures toward an empty table in the corner of the restaurant. “Sit down.”

Liv hesitantly sits down, still shocked and nervous by the presence of the Secret Service around them. The way they had cleared out the restaurant unnoticed by her, the chimes and vibrations from her notifications pulling her away from the ever changing scene around her, lost within aimless social media posts and emails before realizing the patrons around her simply didn’t exist anymore.

“You seriously ambushed me?”

Jeryd shakes his head. “It’s more about making sure nobody ambushes me.” He gestures slightly at the guards, then at her.

Liv rolls her eyes, replying sarcastically. “The understatement of the year.”

Jeryd raises an eyebrow. “You think this is funny?”

“In the grand scheme of things, yeah, actually, I do.”

Jeryd smiles slightly, finding a bit of humor in her response, “I’m guessing you still don’t like me too much.”

Liv hums in response, appraising him over the rim of her wine glass. He’s older, naturally, and it’s not that she hasn’t seen him on ATN, the news outlet shoving him down the throats of unsuspecting Americans during his run and subsequent reign, but it’s different seeing him in person.

Jeryd shakes his head. “I know we ended on, let’s say, not the best terms.” Liv just gives a look of “you think?”

“I know we haven’t spoken for a while. I’ve been out to dinner with hundreds, maybe thousands, of people since we last saw each other. You’re the only one I’ve ever sent my security to box in.”

Liv smirks to herself, imagining the conversation between Jeryd and his detail, wondering if they questioned his motives or had learned to jump at his commands.

“Is that supposed to make me feel special?”

Jeryd shakes his head “No. It’s supposed to make you feel confused and curious.”

Liv rolls her eyes and Jeryd smiles again at her reaction.

“Well, you got me there. What’s happening here? Why the ambush?”

Jeryd waits a second and then gets serious. “I need a favor from you.”

Tag list: @aurorag98

[rxgirlie]

The Girl Next Door Epilogue

Pairing: Jeryd Mencken x OFC

Warnings: Shockingly enough, none.

A/N: Goodbye, my dear world of a fic.

WC: 423

Seven months passed before I saw Mencken again. As fate would have it, our reunion took place in the same church in which we had first laid eyes on each other.

This time, however, the scene had changed and where he and his wife had previously sat in front of me, the two of them on a lone, empty pew, they now sat a few rows behind my family and I, occasionally their hushed tones would float up to us, lost somewhere between their newborn’s grunts and the cooing of the choir.

When the newborn’s shrill cry rang out amongst the stillness of the congregation—something akin to a rosary clanging against polished marble—my instinctive reflex had my head on a swivel, turning quickly to survey the scene behind me.

Unlike Mencken a year prior, I didn’t gawk or stare. There was no malice in my curiosity, a kind smile pulled at my lips as I looked down at the newborn in his arms and back to his face, turning back around with a lump in my throat brought on by pure nostalgia for a time that I had worked so hard to come to terms with and accept as nothing but a dwindling high followed by a dangerous low.

“Peace be with you.”

_________________________________________

Walking around my house, seeing the pool, the dock, the patch of yard between mine and Mencken’s house and the white picket fence that divided evoked feelings in me that had long since been dormant. Cognitive dissonance, my therapist called it. The need to be loved and to be healthy, but longing for a time where I was anything but.

Eventually, after indulging myself in sordid memories, I made my way to my bedroom. Nothing had changed, not that I would have expected it to in the months I’d been away at Georgetown, however, a new set of curtains billowed in the soft breeze provided by the ceiling fan in the window that faced Mencken’s bedroom.

Such a simple object, but what a difference they would have made seven months prior. I laughed at the thought, how hindsight truly is twenty-twenty, running my fingertips along the silken fabric.

It wasn’t long until my eyes met his across the way, a silent exchange occurred between the two of us as we surveyed one another for damage, for any signs of life, of yearning. If there was any, it must have been occluded behind our windowpanes.

I closed the curtains, effectively blocking Mencken out of my vision, out of my life.

Tag list: @aurorag98

[beebeetheclown]

~Eat the Rich~

Chapter 2 - War and Revenge

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Chp. Summary:

Social media platforms blew up and went crazy over night. As Colette is still not taking the issue seriously and continues to push his buttons, he plans to get his revenge. He plans to get what he wants, he plans to win the little game of cat and mouse. Two can play at that game.

word count: 3.7k

Notes:

Sorry that this chapter seems short😵‍💫. The work load I have on my hands is getting very piled up, but I really wanted to get another chapter to this fic done. Hopefully you like it?? Idk just enjoy haha