Chapter Twenty-One

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Chapter Twenty-One

TPOV

I wasn’t sure what was worse, being at work and anticipating being with her, or being at work after she came to surprise me and blown me in the maintenance closet, and knowing I wouldn’t see her until tomorrow.  Even after she left, I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face no matter how hard I tried.  It was amazing that she came to visit, even more amazing that she seemed to be missing me as much as I missed her.  She made me feel like some lovesick teenager.  And Christ, her mouth.  Not even all the math textbooks in the world could save me there.  I think I spent most of the rest of the day sporting wood just because I was in the same fucking building she did it in.  This was probably not good for my work productivity.  

I decided that seeing Caroline was probably a really good idea.  I picked her up from school a few times on and off the last couple weeks, but I hadn’t spent a lot of actual time with her.  That was the only downside that came along with my lovesick teenager ways.  So it was the perfect opportunity to reconnect.  

I called as soon as I was through with work.  “Hey, Picasso.”

“Hi, Tyler.”

“You busy tonight?”

“No.”  She paused. “Why?  Are you coming over?”

“Did you eat dinner yet?”

“I think it’s almost ready.”

“Go ask mom if you can bail on dinner and go with me instead.”

“Ok!”

I chuckled as I could hear her run down the hall.  I loved that she was still excited to hang out with me.  That probably wouldn’t always be the case, so I wanted to make sure I was around as much as she wanted me to be.  Michael had changed that without ever knowing.  I wasn’t really the best big brother before he was gone.  I was always the middle child, and I’d been a little brother before I was ever a big brother.  And I’d been much more comfortable in the little brother role.  I was happy to let Michael be the big brother for Caroline, too.  His death had sort of forced me into the other role, and I was sort of glad it had.  I wasn’t necessarily good at it, but I tried, and I think Caroline appreciated that more than anything else.  I was there.  That was most of life—showing up.  

I might have been a little late, but I was always there.

“Tyler?”

“Hey, mom.”

“How are you, honey?”

“I’m good.  You?  Les?”

“We’re good.  You want to take Caroline out to dinner?”

“Yeah, and whatever she wants.  I haven’t had a lot of time to hang out with her, so…”

“She’d love that."

“I’m on my way now.  I’m just leaving work.”

“Ok, we’ll see you in a bit then.”

~ ~ ~

I let Caroline pick the restaurant, and she decided on pizza, which was fine with me and we wound up eating it on the way to the MET, which was her first demand for our activities.  Activities, plural, because mom gave us no curfew, it was a Friday and not a school night, and she deemed that I had not yet completely fulfilled my previous obligation to take her many places for the one time I missed picking her up when I stalked Allison’s club for three days.  That seemed like a really long time ago already.  

She liked the Drawings and Prints Collection the best out of all the collections they had, so we spent the whole time there, until the place closed.  The kid could rattle off facts about artists I never heard of, and no matter how many times we went, no matter how many hours I spent hanging with her while she communed with the artwork, she’d happily go back the next day.  Caroline was special; and much more mature than kids her age.  Hell, she was more mature than I was.  And introspective.  She could pick out shit in paintings or drawings and analyze why the artist had drawn or painted something a certain way and she wasn’t even a fucking teenager yet.  She amazed me a lot.  Just her perspective on everything and the way she was determined to make art come to life.  It was profoundly deep shit for a kid her age.  

She had crazy talent, too.  I told her all the time that she’d have work displayed in some place like the MET one day, and I meant it.  

If I could have given her anything, the only thing she lacked was people her age who understood that.  Kids could be incredibly cruel and there weren’t a lot of kids that shared Caroline’s maturity and interests.  And that fucking pretentious school she went to didn’t help anything.  It gave her opportunities, sure, but it also meant she had to truck with some of the city’s most snobbish brats, too.  She wasn’t the kind of kid that acted out though, so there was no way she was going to get expelled or booted from a school like I did.  The only assurance I could offer was that eventually it ended, and they’d all be miserable little fucks while she was a huge success.  It wasn’t cool to have your brother kick someone’s ass for you, but I frequently had the urge when I picked her up from school.  What was a few less uniformed bitches-in-training?  The school could certainly survive without them.  They stuck mostly to teasing her or telling her she was weird, but if they ever truly hurt her, there’d be hell to pay.

“You’re taking me to a movie,” she announced as we left the MET.

“Oh?  I am, huh?”

“Yeah, it was one of the stipulations in the agreement we had.”

“Well, then, by all means, I’m obligated to appease your request.”  

She smiled at me.

“What are we seeing?”

“I dunno.  But there’s popcorn in my future.”

“This is getting to be a pretty expensive date.”

She laughed. “I haven’t even told you what’s on the agenda for our next date.”

“Oh, I can hardly wait,” I teased.  “Hey, you look at that book I gave you?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “The drawings are pretty cool.  I didn’t know that Michael liked that stuff.  Mythology and all that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he liked the stories.”  

“I don’t really remember him that much.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Yeah you were pretty little when he died.”  This was the one part that I disliked.  She was an incredibly intuitive child, so she knew that asking our mother about Michael was something that hurt in ways we couldn’t understand.  So she usually deferred to me.  Sometimes I had the answers she was looking for and other times I did not, but I never turned her down because I wanted her to know Michael even if she couldn’t remember a lot about him.  She didn’t ask about his death a lot, which I was grateful for, and a lot of the things she did ask tended to bring more good memories than bad, so it usually balanced out.  She reveled in stories about him, things from when we were kids and things that I hadn’t recalled in years.  We wound up talking about him all the way to the theater.  

I don’t even know what the name of the movie was that we saw.  It was something I know my mother would never have taken her to, which was basically the point.  As the cool older brother, I could do shit like that and get major points without the parental fallout because Caroline, while a good girl, could lie with a completely straight face, and that benefited both of us.  She made up some truly awesome story about the animated movie that I took her to, and I just nodded in the appropriate places.  If our mother had any indication we were lying through our teeth, she never let on, so she either approved of my deviancy or she knew saying something wouldn’t have changed anything.

While Caroline got ready for bed, I had the usual talk with my mother about how things were going and got the normal looks of worry and concern that accompanied these talks no matter how many times I assured her that I was fine and I was happy.  She was a social worker, which meant she had just enough psychology to be dangerous, so I think she spent a great deal of time looking for warning signs that I was going to end up like Michael or that I was eternally depressed.  The fact that my relationship with my father was strained to the breaking point didn’t help matters.  So, per usual, I attempted to satisfy the anxiety she felt over the fact that my life was completely off track—as in, I didn’t even have a foreseeable track on the horizon to shoot for.  And somehow spin that to be positive.  

I didn’t tell her about Allison; that actually probably would have made her very happy, and I could have played that as an out for months, because relationships meant stability and blah, blah, blah.  But I didn’t.  Because I kind of wanted to keep it for myself.  I didn’t want to use it just to my advantage so my mother felt better about my life.  

Funny though, how Caroline always seemed to manage to weasel whatever she wanted out of me.  

I came up to say goodnight, and she was busy shading in a portion of what looked a lot like me at the MET.  I’d gotten used to being an unwitting subject of her art a long time ago.  It didn’t bother me anymore, so I wasn’t surprised something from tonight was pouring out on the paper.  She had this way though of being completely into her art, with all her focus funneled there, and she could still carry on a conversation without missing a beat of either one.  

“So when do I get to meet her?”

“Who?” I asked, already knowing what she was asking me.

“The girl.”

“What girl?” Playing this way wouldn’t last long.

She turned her head to look at me, something between indignation and ‘puh-lease’ on her face.  

I sighed. “I dunno."

“She’s the one you had to apologize to?”

“Yes.”

“Must have worked.” She smirked, going back to the shading.

“Yeah, it did.”

“Does mom know?”

“No, not yet.”  I paused and then added, “I wanted it to just be mine for a while.”

She nodded like she completely understood and she probably did.  

“Soon though.  You’ll be the first.”

She smiled at me. “You should bring her when you pick me up from school some day.”

I thought about that for a minute, wondering how Allison would react to that.  “Maybe, yeah.  Or maybe I’ll pick you up and we’ll meet her somewhere.  I’ll ask her, ok?”

She nodded. “Ok.”  We were quiet for a minute, the only sound from her pencil on the paper back and forth.  She stopped after she finished a part and climbed into bed.  “What does she do?”

I chuckled, scratching my forehead.  “Uhm.  Well.”  How do you tell your twelve-year-old sister that your girlfriend is a stripper?  “She’s a dancer.”  There!  That was safe.

Unless Caroline is you sister.  “A dancer… like… professional dancer?  Ballet?  That kind of dancer?”

Shit.  “Uhm, no.”

“Then what kind of dancer is she?”

Fuck it.  “She’s a stripper ok,” I said, glancing at the door and hoping my mother wasn’t hovering.  “And if you tell mom,” I started, but she didn’t let me finish.

“Tyler,” that was the ‘puh-lease’ tone again, “when have I ever told mom?”

I nodded. “Yeah, ok.”

“She must be very confident.”

I barked out a laugh.  Only my sister would come up with that as a follow-up comment.  

“I bet she’s pretty.

I smiled warmly. “I think so, yeah.”

“You really like her.”  She didn’t say that as a question.  Which probably meant I was fucked.  

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I do.”

She nodded. “Then I want to meet her soon.”

“Yeah, I’ll ask her.”

She rolled over and pulled the covers up and I bent to kiss her on the head.  “Night, Tyler.”

“Night.”

I’d almost closed the door when she called out, “Thanks for tonight, Tyler.”

“Anytime,” I said quietly.  It wasn’t every day you scored both an awesome girlfriend and an awesome sister, so I was pretty damn lucky.  I said goodnight to mom and Les, and it was almost midnight when I got back to the apartment.  She’d be getting off of work soon, so I changed and then sat down debating reading something recreational or the book I was supposed to read, but never did, for class.  The recreation won out and I dozed off about ten minutes in.  My phone vibrating woke me, and I glanced at the clock, it was about an hour since I got home.  

“Hey,” I said, muffling a yawn.

“Were you sleeping?”

“I dozed off, yeah.  How was work?”

“It was work,” she said, and she sounded tired.  I decided I probably didn’t want to know the reason for that.  “How was your night?  What did you do?”

“Hung out with Caroline.”

“Oh, that’s good.  Did she have fun?”

“Yeah, I think so.”  I paused for a second, and then decided to just go for it.  “She wants to meet you.”

There was dead silence on the other end for a good minute, and I didn’t fill the void.  She finally said, “Oh,” very quietly.

I chuckled. “It’s just my sister.  She’s twelve.  Pretty harmless.”

“Yeah,” she said, sort of dangling it like she wanted to add something else.

“She can tell you’re important to me.”

“Oh,” she said again, only this one was less quiet and more positive.  “So…you talked about me then?”

“Not really.  She just knows me.  We talked a little bit, but not much.”  I’m not sure what possessed me to say the next thing because I knew she’d take it wrong.  “No one else knows about you.”  So I mentally slapped myself and kept going, “I sort of wanted to keep you just for myself.  But Caroline’s not having that.  So she’d like to meet you soon.”

The whole pause and break thing in the conversation was sort of unnerving because I couldn’t see her.  I didn’t know how to take all the silences.  “Does…does she know what I do, Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”  That one was surprised.  At least if she kept saying ‘Oh,’ I might be able to decipher one for each emotion.  “And?”

“She doesn’t carewhat you do.  She just knows you make me happy.”

I could hear the breath she let out.  “Uh, ok.”  She chuckled. “You actually told your kid sister you’re dating a stripper?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me.  “We don’t have a lot of secrets, Caroline and I.  She’s always been very mature.”

“I guess,” she said with another short chuckle.  

“You busy tomorrow?”

“Nope.  Just have to sleep.  That’s it.”

“Ok, I work until four.  I can be there after that… if you want, that is.”

I could tell she was smiling. “Yeah, that’d be fine.  We can do dinner then instead.”

“Great.”

“So I’ll see you after four then.”

“Yeah.”

“Ok… night, then.”

“Night.”  I tried to catch her, hoping she hadn’t hung up. “Hey, Allison?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for surprising me today.  I never really got the chance… I loved it.”

“I liked it, too.”  

We didn’t say goodnight again, and for some reason, I really loved that, too.  

~ ~ ~

Work was brutal.  

I spent most of it reliving various parts of the previous day every place I went.  Because that was the aisle I first kissed her in, pressing her up against the books; and that was the aisle that we shifted to after the mother and her two brats nearly caught us; and that, that was the hallway that led to the maintenance closet.  Which I’m sure I’d never be able to look at the same way again.  Thankfully, Saturdays were normally really busy, so that kept me from having a hard-on for my entire shift.  

I hadn’t called her.  Mostly because I was probably becoming extremely annoying in that it was difficult for me to go several hours without talking to her.  I supposed I should ask her if that was completely suffocating or she didn’t mind putting up with it.  It wasn’t a possessive thing really; quite the opposite actually.  It was for me.  I was simply becoming accustomed to her being there and then when she wasn’t, it was just…off.  It felt off.  

When I got to her apartment, she answered almost before I was done with the first knock.  

“Hi!” she said; a huge smile on her face.

I chuckled. “Hey.”  

She motioned me in. “C’mon, come in.”

I stepped through the door and kicked it shut with my foot, pulling her into my arms and kissing her quickly, completely loving that there was no hesitation on her part, she just eased into it with me.  She was wearing this amazingly silky shirt that felt almost like velvet under my fingers, and if I wouldn’t have gone directly for her mouth, I might have known what color it was.  I broke it off long before I really wanted to, resting my forehead against hers.  Red.  The shirt was red; like, bright, blazing fire-engine red.  Dousing me with water might have been a good idea, because the way my fingers seemed intent on delighting themselves in the fabric and the intensity of the color did nothing for making me want to stop what I just started.  

Down, boy.

“Hi,” I said, smirking.

She giggled, fingers playing with the hair at the base of my neck. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

“I can tell.”

Good lead in.  “Does that bother you?  That I have a hard time going several hours without seeing or talking to you?”

She shook her head, rubbing her forehead against mine. “No, it’s nice.”

“So I’m not freaking you out, and making you think I’m a really possessive bastard?”

She smiled warmly, shaking her head again. “No, not yet.  It’s nice to be missed.”

“Good.”  I pressed my lips to hers again. “You can tell me if it does.  If I need to back off.  And I’ll attempt to control myself better.”

She laughed, her hands cupping my neck. “I’ll let you know.”

“It smells great in here,” I added.  “And this shirt is seriously fucking with my control.”

She looked bashful for a second and then nodded, saying, “Good,” before pulling back and running her fingers down my arm until she linked our hands together.  “Come on.  Dinner’s ready.”

I may have moaned.  Because seriously, what could be better?  She pointed me to the table and then started talking while she moved around the kitchen.  “So I found this recipe a long time ago and I’ve only made it once before, but when it sort of just flew in there when I was trying to think of something, and…” She made a vague hand motion. “Yeah.”  

“So what it is?” I asked excitedly.

“It’s basically just meatballs, but they’re in this soup-based gravy.  It gives them a really good flavor.”

“Sounds amazing.”

She moved her head back and forth, squinting at me. “We’ll see.”  She started putting dishes down in front of me on the table and Jesus, when she cooked, she went all out.  I mean, a meal for me normally consisted of one thing.  Here, yeah, there were meatballs in gravy, but there were also mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, and bread.  “What do you want to drink?”

I was sort of lost in all the food.  She snapped her fingers at me. “What?”

She smirked. “What do you want to drink?  As soon as you tell me, you can stop drooling and eat.”

“This smells so fucking good.”

She snickered. “You want milk?  A beer?  Can you focus for a second?”

I tore my eyes back up to her. “Milk would be awesome.”

She shook her head at me. “Jesus Christ, why don’t you start already then before you chew a hole through the table or something.”

Well, she didn’t need to tell me twice.  And I managed to finally accomplish speaking again probably halfway through the meal.  

“You’re cute when you’re hungry,” she said, smiling at me.

“You are such a fantastic cook.  Seriously.  You ever thought about cooking professionally?”

She balked at my suggestion. “Pfffft.  No.  Cooking for you is one thing, but you’re really easy to please, too.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m serious.  You should totally cook for a living.”

She considered this for a minute while I was happy to shovel more in my mouth.  “No, I don’t think so.  I don’t think I’d like it as much then, ya know?”

I nodded, bobbing my head for a few seconds while I chewed.  “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“I made you something else, too.”

My head snapped up immediately.  “Yeah?’

She nodded, getting up and…

“Oh, sweet motherfucking Christ, tell me that’s pie.”

She giggled and set it on the table, grabbing my other plate, and that’s the only reason she could take it, too—because there was pie.  

“There is no way you could be more awesome.  Seriously, how did you get this awesome?  And how did I get near you?”

She smiled at me, and I think for a second she thought I was kidding, but I totally wasn’t, and she figured that out when my face didn’t change at all.  Her hand darted out and cupped my cheek for a second before cutting me a really large piece of pie.  

“What kind is it?” I asked, more excitedly and animatedly than I probably should have.

She laughed at me while licking pie filling off of her thumb. “You’re so cute.  It’s mixed berry.  It was in the same cook book and it seemed more interesting than just one kind like apple or something.  I mean, I know you like apple, ‘cause you had it at the diner that night, but I thought this…” She shrugged. “I dunno.  Hope you like more than just apple.”

I nodded enthusiastically.  “I do.  Mixed berry is great.”

And oh my God, was it ever.  There was totally a reason why food and sex were linked together, and this was the reason.  Because it was basically like an orgasm for your mouth.  

After she thoroughly enjoyed teasing me about my love of food, we cleared the table and wound up chilling on the couch for a while.  She was snuggled into me, her hand playing with my fingers and seriously, I couldn’t think of anything better.  

I tread lightly when I asked, “You and Jordan still pissed at each other?”

She nodded into my shoulder. “She’s at work right now.  We haven’t talked since then.”

I nodded in answer, but I didn’t really know what else to say to that.  “You think you’ll work it out?”

“I dunno.  Probably.  We haven’t had many fights… well, that’s not true.  We fight all the fucking time, but this was kinda different.  Usually if we tell each other something, the other one has to agree eventually because we’re being stupid.  But we don’t agree here, and I’m not changing my mind, so if she won’t then…” She broke off, not filling in the rest.

We were silent for a few minutes until I brilliantly declared, “Imma dream about pie tonight.”

She burst out laughing, her hand landing on my chest and her head tipping up to smile at me.  “That good, huh?”

I nodded. “Totally that good.”  I let a beat pass. “Can I live here?”

She snorted.

I was only partly joking.  “I mean, I suppose that would put more of a strain on things with Jordan, but think of all the food you could make then!”

“Yeah, think of how much the grocery bill would go up.”

I scoffed. “I’d totally pay for groceries.”

She settled back onto my shoulder. “I think we’re a ways off from that.”

I sighed, covering her hand with mine on my chest.  

“Plus, you might not like me if we were together all the time.”

“I highly doubt that.”

She pulled back to scrutinize me, a lazy grin forming.  “Is this about food or sex?”

“I’m having a hard time telling the difference, but it can be about either one.”

She shook her head at me.  “Uh huh.”

“You go get the pie; I’ll show you how sexual it can be.”

More laughter.  “I’m not eating pie off your dick or anything weird.”

“Who said anything about you eating it??

She fell into me, her mouth crashing into mine and I sort of wasn’t expecting it.  I compensated quickly but keeping up with her took me a minute.  Her mouth and by corollary, tongue, was quite possibly the only thing better than the pie.  And she was particularly aggressive with both her tongue sliding against mine and her teeth pulling my bottom lip with her when she backed up for a second.  

“Still want the pie?”

My brain had to click again and I was already hard. “What fucking pie?”

She nodded, kissing me softer. “Exactly.”

She straddled my lap and landed right on the bulge in my jeans, and ground down into me the second she felt it.  “Pie really gets ya, huh?”

“Not the pie,” I managed to gasp out before her mouth became completely relentless.  

She had an awesome but completely chaotic balance between gentle and rough.  And because it was chaotic, it was sometimes completely infuriating and frustrating.  She would be grinding and nipping at my mouth, fists full of my hair or shirt, and have me completely ramped and unbelievably horny one second, and then she’d switch abruptly and I could barely feel her lips against mine, no tongue, no aggression, hands docile or simply running over my face and hair. 

The worst part was I don’t think it was at all intentional.  I think whatever her emotion was at the time, that’s what the response came out as.  And I must have sparked multiple emotions.  

Perhaps even more infuriating was that I really didn’t care, no matter how much start and stop there was.  I kind of liked that she could switch to gentle while wriggling her ass into my cock a second before.  It fit her.  It fit us.

There came a point though where a guy just couldn’t take anymore, and I grabbed her, shifting her onto her back on the couch.  She didn’t have any argument for the switch; her legs wrapped around my hips, and I happily leaned to grind our pelvises together.  It wasn’t just me, either; she was pushing her hips up into me as much as I was shoving mine down against her.  

The friction was unbelievably amazing and yet completely constricting.  Jeans were both perfect and horrible for this.  And I was convinced our lips were going to be swollen and bruised for days, but that didn’t stop either one of us.  

I realized suddenly as I was busy thrusting my hips up into her that if we lost the clothing, we’d totally be having sex right now.  And I couldn’t remember that last time I dry humped somebody and it felt this fucking awesome.

Her hands were clenched in the front of my shirt, pulling me into her, and then the next second they were pushing wildly and forcefully into my chest.  I backed up immediately.  “You ok?” I asked, my voice sounding completely fucked, as I searched her eyes.

There was a flash there, and she took a second to catch her breath before nodding enthusiastically.  “Bed. Now.”

I had no trouble keeping up with that, and clothing started coming off in the hallway.  Her hair was down and the shirt, sweet fucking Christ the shirt, she unbuttoned and then wriggled it off of her small frame.  I ripped my shirt over my head quickly, because missing anything wasn’t an option.  She lost only her shirt before the bedroom, tossing it in her room before turning back to me and walking backwards the rest of the way in the room and toward the bed, unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans along the way.  She shimmied out of them slowly, and sat down to get them all the way off, flicking them with her feet in the last second. 

I watched, holding onto the doorframe, as she reclined back, resting on her elbows and hooked a finger, inviting me in. “C’mere.”

Keeping up seemed so much clearer now; and it seemed easier.  Maybe it was all the blood rushing to my dick, which didn’t make any cognitive sense but made a whole shitload of cock sense. 

She lurched up just as I was about to descend and her fingers went straight for the button and fly on my jeans, her fingers urgent but deliberate.  She pushed them down roughly before spinning us around, shoving me until I landed on the bed, chuckling at her.  She tried once unsuccessfully to rid me of the pants while my shoes were still on and then thought better of it, and threw me this look that clearly said that I should be helping.  I toed off both shoes and she yanked the jeans off before I was thrown another lapful of grinding girlfriend.  My hands automatically went to her back, fanning out, my fingertips tracing up her spine until I reached her bra and then carefully unhooked the clasp.  I think the sense of urgency was setting in because she refused to do anything slowly then, tossing the bra off to the left and then shoving her tongue back in my mouth with no preamble, her breasts crushing into my chest.  And just as soon as I had the lapful, she was pushing me to lie back and her fingers raked down my chest until they were under the waistband of my boxer briefs, and she had those off before I really knew it, too.  I’d say she was getting a little impatient.

I rose to my elbows, fully intending to divest her of her remaining undergarment, but somewhere along the line, or maybe she’d been plotting this course all day, she acquired a plan with a purpose, because her look was suddenly very resolute and focused and my God, was it the epitome of sexy.  Because I was the subject of the focus and having it fixed on you was about the best damn thing I’ve ever seen. 

She had this lazy smirk plastered on her face, too, and a hint of a predatory gleam in her eye and if she kept this shit up, this was gonna be a really early night, because it went from all lazy smirk, gleaming, to my cock down her throat and her swallowing so fast I completely missed the part where she moved back between my legs.  And this was really fucking intense.  She didn’t back off, and when I managed to bring my gaze back to look at her, I almost came right there.  Eye contact is a really big thing with sex, and she had that down in spades, basically slurping all over my cock, saliva coating her chin, and she just kept taking me all the way in.  I was already halfway to aneurysm when she started fucking humming, her throat working on swallowing, her fucking tongue doing shit I wasn’t even capable of describing or putting into words and all the while, her eyes never leaving mine and holy mother of fuck, she needed to stop this. 

No one could ever say, ever again, that I had no self-control.  Because it took every ounce to slowly push her back and not want to shove my hips forward and up instead, forcing her throat to take me in again.  Every. Ounce. Of. Self. Control.

She looked surprised, one; and confused, two.  I shook my head, trying to form coherent words in any language close to English.  I think I finally managed, “Not tonight.” Which I’m sure didn’t really help with the confusion.  So I quickly added, “You, too.”

The confusion wasn’t lost though, and I got a furrowed brow and a kinda pissed look because I think she’d rather been enjoying making my eyes roll back in my head.  I scooted back on the bed and motioned for her to join me. “Lose the underwear.”  She complied easily, and tried to approach the bed like normal, crawling towards me but I shook my head again and made a circle motion in the air so she’d turn around, and in all my infinite wisdom, this was one of the best ideas I had, ever. 

She moaned before I even got near her, realizing what I set up, and I took that moan as quite the compliment, given that she just reduced me to a whimpering mess with her sneak attack deep throat-ing.  I shoved one of the pillows under my head and then rested my hands on her hips to start, drawing her back towards me and moaning at the sight of her this way.  I didn’t waste any time then, my hands palming over soft skin on her ass, thumbs digging into her thighs, while I could smell her arousal and see the wetness just waiting for my mouth.  69 was odd; you can be very focused on what you’re doing, while still being completely distracted, and since I was starting, she was in full-on distracted mode.  Her hand was gripping my cock lightly, but her forehead was pressed into my upper thigh, and she jerked and moaned at the same time when I made the first pass with my tongue.  I used my thumbs to part her lips, flicking my tongue over her clit until she pressed back into my mouth before I sealed my mouth over her center, darting my tongue into her opening.  I eased my grip on her hips, letting my fingers ghost over the skin, too much skin to touch, too much to lick, especially when her body started grinding back on my face. 

I stopped for a minute, deciding what I wanted to do next, and the small reprieve was all she needed to move her own mouth, descending on me again without warning, head of my cock in the back of her throat almost before I even knew it.  I couldn’t help the kick my hips gave, but she took that, too, her palms resting on my hipbones.  She flexed her hands on my hips; just a gentle flex, but her mouth didn’t move and I didn’t either.  It was sort of difficult to ascertain what she wanted me to do here, what with her mouth full of my cock, and my brain function pretty much focused on that mouth.  She sucked back off of me quickly, but fuck, it felt good, and said only one word to me, not turning to moving from her position.  “Thrust.”

My brain couldn’t process fast enough but my dick was happy to comply.  Her head dipped back down, her tongue laving over the head of my cock while her lips sealed more loosely around my length.  If I needed any final encouragement, her fingers flexed again, and that was enough to get my hips moving.  I can honestly say no one had ever done that to me before.  For starters, I don’t think a lot of women were willing to give up that level of control; it was sort of a trust thing, but with so much more mixed in.  Second, I don’t think a lot of women could, and I wasn’t exactly surprised she could, but sweet motherfucking Christ, did this girl’s awesomeness never end?  I obviously already knew the answer. 

I would have never thought of this.  In anything other than this setting, unless I was actively trying to be an asshole, I just wouldn’t have expected anyone to.  And I really had no idea what it meant that she was.  In a lot of ways, this was a total submission; but at the same time her teeth could have chewed my dick to pieces if she didn’t like the way I moved in her mouth.  The fact that she prompted it said something so huge about her level of trust in me that I almost didn’t want to even do it.  But she seemed to want me to, so I started thrusting lazily in her mouth… until she got pissed at me and pulled off again.  She stayed facing away from me again. “You gonna thrust or what?”

And there was the challenge.  Because she wasn’t being huffy or angry really, she offered this and I wasn’t taking full advantage or something.  And while a very large part of me totally was cool with thrusting my hips up until my back ached and my cock was buried in her throat, I still didn’t want to do that to her.  I started this position so we could both get something out of it; so I’d just answer her challenge right back.

She sank down again, and every time she pulled off the difference in temperature was enough to be completely consuming when the heat of her mouth descended again.  And for a minute or so, I more actively pursued her offering; my hands spread over her back to her hips, holding onto her while I explored the limits of her throat.  I still got the impression she was expecting me to take more; so I made sure I didn’t. 

There really aren’t discernable words for what this must have looked like if the sounds were any indication.  She never gagged, only shifted, and took whatever length of my cock I thrust in her mouth.  Her hands stayed flexing gently on my hips, no tension or distress.  This was probably as close to any type of celestial afterlife I was ever going to get, and I was damn sure I was going to return the favor.  

Pulling away or refocusing on her was difficult because her mouth was about the most fucking amazing thing ever, but this wasn’t just about me, no matter what her current plans were.  

I think I managed the transition quite expertly.  I don’t think she saw it coming.  And the only time she ever faltered or gagged was when I started to move my hands from her hips up to her back and down her sides, my fingers skimming over her smooth skin until I reached her breasts.  I palmed them both, kneading gently, and lapped at her the same time my fingers started tugging gently on her nipples.  And backed off all the thrusting immediately when she kinda sounded like she was choking on my cock.  Heh.  Never saw that coming.  She pushed back on my face completely involuntarily, my fingers gently twisting her nipples, while my tongue re-explored the added wetness at her center.  We worked out this sort of chaotic, symbiotic rhythm, where I would thrust and she would suck and then I’d suck on her clit, only to have her start moaning and humming around my cock and start the whole process over again.

I broke it only to move a hand back so I could get my fingers inside her, two curling down while my thumb circled her clit.  The more I pressed my fingers down into her front wall, the harder she sucked, like the two actions were connected by some invisible wire.

And if both of us didn’t come pretty soon, shit might have just gotten broken, fer fuckin’ serious.  It was like I couldn’t feel anything but where she was touching me in some way; not the bed, not the pillow, nothing else but her body and that sweet fucking mouth.  It felt very… transcendent, but with complete awareness…which probably wasn’t possible, but I didn’t really care.  I could feel her body tensing, the way she shifted and pushed back on me, riding the accumulated intensity like a wave, waiting for it to crash and break.  

She jerked almost violently when it did, and I actually moved my hand to her side, attempting to steady her with my other hand while she sucked me off into my own orgasm.  The relief after all the concentration and build up was nearly overwhelming.  Tiring and potent.  

She slumped while licking me clean, her breasts pressing into my stomach, nipples pebble-hard, before letting me slip from her mouth and resting her head on my thigh.  I could hear her ragged breathing, could feel it hot on my thigh, her hand lazily stroking me, her body still shuddering as I licked at her just as lazily as she was stroking me.  

I felt completely wrung out, and yet, I wanted more of her—like I couldn’t ever get enough.  Like nothing would ever completely sate the need.  I ran my fingers over her ass, continuing up her back and back down again, her back arching at the feeling, but her mouth only letting out a sigh that sounded as contented as I felt.  

“C’mup here by me,” sort of vibrated out of somewhere in my chest and for a second her movements were all stunted and choppy, like her muscles weren’t obeying anymore, and I knew exactly how she felt.  Once she started to turn, I reached out and pulled her the rest of the way so she was lying on my chest, her soft hair right under my chin.  

That lasted all of a few minutes before she rolled off on her side, pulling my hand over her stomach with her as she rolled and lined us up like spoons.  I curled around her happily, wiggling my arm under her, and pulled her back so there was no space between us at all.  I’d been soft maybe all of five minutes total, but her ass grinding back into me brought it back to hardness almost instantly.  Her hand landed on my thigh, kneading, and it wasn’t difficult to find a way to get the friction I wanted, rubbing and riding my cock in the groove between her cheeks.  I had one handful of her breast while the other was slowly sliding down to roll her clit between my fingers, and I couldn’t get enough of the way her head pressed back into my shoulder, the way her neck became completely exposed for my tongue to lick and my lips to kiss and suck on.  I made one trail down to her shoulder and back, nipping when I got back to her neck and I may have been a little overzealous with the sucking in that spot, but the little reddish-purple mark just made everything seem that much more intense, too.  Because she’d wear it for days and it was probably the first thing that actually physically said she belonged to me.  Everyone would see it.  And well, that kinda got to me.  I groaned into her ear as I dipped my tongue there, her mouth parting on her own moan, and her body jerking back into mine, like a wall that she could just continuously bounce off of.  I rolled my tongue around the shell of her ear before sucking gently on the lobe, and shit, I could feel the wetness from her starting to coat the head of my cock as I rode that groove.  

I hadn’t actively been trying, but the more she wriggled against me, the more she responded to my hand kneading her breast and rolling her nipple, the closer my cock kept getting to her center.  And I wasn’t paying that close attention to how close it was until just the tip prodded at her opening.  Her back pushed into my stomach and she gasped along with me, her head snapping back, like her body was warring in different directions.  

“You wanna?” I mumbled into her ear while nibbling on her lobe, tapping her clit at the same time.

She nodded, gasping again. “Yeah.”

I shifted, pulling her back and holding her there.  Her fingers clamped on my thigh, her whole body rigid as I started to enter her.  And I was wrong.  So fucking wrong.  Because her mouth couldn’t even begin to compare to this.  Nothing could.  The startling smoothness of her walls around my cock and pushing into that unbelievably hot, wet heat—there wouldn’t be an equal to this.  Ever.  

I sank deeper and deeper, inch by deliriously slow inch until I was fully sheathed inside her.  And I kind of didn’t want to move at all.  Thrusting now seemed kind of…wrong.  I just wanted to stay buried in the heat, if it wouldn’t have been for the need building inside me, the orgasm that was probably going to be much faster than I wanted it to be this time.  

Except, I didn’t need to worry about the thrusting.  Because she was suddenly pulling away and that was just wrong.  Where was she going?  

I felt drowsy, lazy, like everything was kind of muted and hazy and it seemed like the perfect kind of sex for that.  So she didn’t need to have some other kind of plan for this.  This was fine.  This was great.  Sleepy-ish.  We could nap after.  

I heard my name and it was just wrong.  It cleared my head instantly.

“Allison?”

She was still pulling away from me and it was at a desperate point now.  

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

“No.”

“What?”

“Pull out, Tyler.”  Her voice scared me.  All authoritative and completely broken at the same time.  

I backed off immediately, moving my hands away from her, too, as I eased out of her.  “What…”

“No,” she said again, curling up on her side, going all fetal on me.  

“Allison, what’s going on?”  What the fuck just happened there?  “What happened?  Are you ok?”  I had all of these racing thoughts; like, had I missed something?  Had I missed where she hadn’t wanted this?  Where she hadn’t nodded?  I hadn’t made that shit up.  I…wouldn’t have done anything if she wouldn’t have agreed, and it’s not like it was planned, it just sort of happened.  

Christ, she was crying, but like a mewling kind of crying, with lots of tears and not a lot of vocalization.  And I didn’t know what the fuck to do.  I curled around her again, and she completely freaked, like I was a hot coal she had to shoot away from.  She scrambled away from me until her back hit the wall, and I put my hands up uselessly.  I couldn’t read her eyes at all, and that was scarier than her scurrying away from me.  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.  You gotta help me out here.  What did I do?”

No answer.

I shook my head again, all short and choppy. “I’m not…I’m not gonna hurt you.  You know that, right?”

She looked away from me.  That certainly wasn’t encouraging.  

Ok.  I could try to rationalize this.  Or try to reason with her.  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on.  I mean,” I paused, running my hand through my hair while I was thinking, “I asked and you said it was ok.  I would never.  You know I would never.  I didn’t…”  She wasn’t even looking at me, so I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish here.  

Well, I know exactly what I was trying to accomplish.  I was trying not to be some asshole who just tried something without getting her consent first.  No.  I asked.  I know I asked.  And she nodded.  And responded.  And seemed to be enjoying it.  

What had I fucking missed?  Was this something from the past that I couldn’t even begin to touch yet?  Something I didn’t know that had happened to her and I somehow fucked it up by just letting this happen and not thinking about positioning and shit?  

I looked at her again, and she hadn’t moved from the spot she landed in, still pressed against the wall with tear tracks on her face.  Silent tears just kept pouring out and it was kind of scaring me that there was no vocalization to go with it.  Like there was some sort of psychological reason she wasn’t actively crying or something.  I dunno.  I was completely out of my element here.  I thought I could read her pretty well, thought I knew what she was thinking, tried to be sensitive to what she needed or what might have happened to her.  What she wouldn’t talk about.  But the reality was, I didn’t know anything.  I had no conception of what her life had been like beyond the scraps that I managed to collect along the way.  And it wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t enough to know that I shouldn’t have let this happen.  It wasn’t enough to know that something had gone horribly wrong a few minutes ago and I hadn’t even had an inkling that it was going to happen.  I should have.  I should have known because now she was like this and I didn’t fucking know what to do.  

I sighed heavily.  “Can you just talk to me?  Tell me what happened?  If it was something I did or…”

She wasn’t even in the room with me.  I mean, she was here, sure, physically, but her mind was miles away.  I didn’t think she’d heard a word I said.  I inched closer and started to reach out a hand, tentative, like she was some scared fucking animal or something.  And once the movement registered, she shifted farther away.  

“Ah, fuck.”  Now I was just getting pissed off.  What could have possibly happened in the span of like half a minute to get her to this point, where apparently I couldn’t even approach her even though she’d had my dick in her mouth within the last half hour?

I sighed, frustrated. “Allison, come on.  I can’t work with nothing here.”  

I got no response.  

This was so fucked up.  I mean, what was I supposed to do now?  I couldn’t just leave her like this.  And it wasn’t like I could take her to a hospital or something, I didn’t even know what the fuck had happened and it wasn’t like she was gonna let me get her dressed and shit.  I felt fairly ridiculous when I realized I was kneeling on her bed completely naked and trying to have this psychological conversation with her.  I pushed off the bed, starting to look for clothing articles and started roughly putting them back on.  Blessedly, I had a pack of cigarettes in the back pocket of my jeans and I lit one the second I was dressed.  That would help me think.  Help me calm down and figure out what the hell I was supposed to do now.  I sat down on the edge of the bed closest to her and chuckled humorlessly. “Wanna cigarette?”

I mean, of all the mundane and stupid things to ask someone who was having a mental-sexual breakdown or something.  I sighed, tossing the pack and the lighter next to me on the bed, and was completely surprised when she suddenly scuttled over and grabbed both the pack and the lighter, and totally lit one up after she was a safe distance away from me again.  

“Well, fuck me.”  

She winced, and I realized her hands were shaking.  In fact, all of her was shaking, and that was probably not the best choice of words given the situation.  She took the longest fucking drag I’ve ever seen anyone take on a cigarette and coughed on the exhale.  She hadn’t smoked in I didn’t know how long.  Fuck, I didn’t even know that.  Christ, did I know anything?  I was beginning to think I didn’t.  

I scrubbed a hand over my face roughly as I sighed again, turning to look at her.  She looked so…fragile.  And haunted.  She looked so fucking small all curled into herself, her arms around her knees and that cigarette teetering from her tiny fingers.  She had such delicate fingers.  I never thought she’d ever look this way because of me.  I fucked this up so badly.  

I started running through possible scenarios about what I could do.  How I could pull her out.  Anger was totally out.  She’d nearly shot off the bed when I’d gotten up to get dressed.  I didn’t even know Jordan’s number, and I wasn’t going to leave her to go to the club.  Aidan would be useless, and the only other person that I knew that cared about her was that guy from the postcard.  I seriously considered calling him, but it wasn’t like she was going to be giving me his number, and he lived in fucking Indiana or something.  At one point, I actually had my phone out and was ready to call my mother, but I thought better of that plan.  I mean, she was a social worker, she wasn’t a therapist.  I even had a fleeting thought of calling my father and having him send some specialist over here, and I would have for her, if I thought she would have talked to them anymore than she wasn’t to me.  

I sat there for two fucking hours, watching her smoke cigarette after cigarette in a chain like she was trying to win a contest for lung cancer, and she never said one word to me.  The shaking hadn’t stopped and I finally handed her the blanket from the chair because I didn’t think dressing would go well.  She hadn’t really covered up with it, so she either wasn’t cold, or didn’t care, but she also didn’t cover herself up, she just sort of draped it over her lap and legs, and I wasn’t sure that was good or bad.  I had arguments for both.  On one hand, it was good she wasn’t scrambling to cover up while shirking away from me.  It meant she wasn’t afraid of me seeing her, and she couldn’t have been physically hurt.  On the other hand, she was a fucking stripper, and used to people seeing her naked, so I could be Tyler or I could be the construction worker that came in on Tuesdays, it wouldn’t have made her cover up any more or less.  

I found myself really tired after those two hours.  Not a normal tired, but like a weary tired, but I also refused to go to sleep, afraid something else would happen or she’d fly off the handle and hurt herself or something.  I just had no fucking clue what the hell she was even capable of.  She was really capable of silence.  That was all.  The tears had stopped fairly quickly, now it sort of just seemed like there was a shell of what used to be Allison with me.  A shell that was nearly out of cigarettes.  Then what would happen?  Should I get more cigarettes?  Thank God I had nearly a full pack.  

I yawned and realized I was really dry, and I was going to uselessly ask her if she wanted something to drink when it also occurred to me that I said all of that out loud.  And when I glanced at her, she was looking at me.  

I blinked, waiting for her to turn away, but her eyes stayed fixed like she was trying to read me as hard as I’d been trying to read her.  

I sighed softly. “I dunno what to do.”  I wasn’t expecting an answer, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get one.  I brought my gaze back up to level with hers.  “Do you want me to leave?”  I didn’t let my eyes waver; just kept them locked on hers, but still got nothing.  “I can’t leave until I know you’re ok.”

Typically, I got no answer, so we just sat there again, in silence.

Hours probably passed again; I have no idea how much time.  There was really only one way this was gonna end.  I’d just resigned myself to that after the first few hours.  

The front door opened and closed, and I closed my eyes for a second because this…was not going to go well.  I knew I had to, but it wasn’t high on my list of things I wanted to do.  But this was beyond my control, and she was the only other person I could trust who might know what to do.  If she didn’t, then I think we were totally fucked.  

I walked out of the bedroom and waited in the hallway, stuffing my hands in my pockets and trying to look as harmless as possible.

I waited until she turned to go to her room.  “Hey, Jordan?” I was surprised by how quiet and how shaky my voice was.

She made a noise, her shoulders slumping. “Ugh, Jesus.  It’s way too fucking early, and I’m too tired to start shit with you right now, ok?  So just fuck off, all right?”

I cleared my throat. “Uh, I can’t do that.”

She slowly swiveled her head until she was looking at me.  “Why the fuck not?  Can’t you torture someone else for a while?  Take me off the list.”

I shook my head. “I’m not trying to fight with you.  I need your help.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest, her bag still on her shoulder. “With what?”

I swallowed thickly, nodding my head in the direction of Allison’s room.  I had no idea what the fuck to say.  “With Allison,” seemed as good as anything.

She stared me down for all of a few seconds and then dropped her bag and pushed past me, her shoulder knocking into mine deliberately as she rounded into Allison’s room.  She stopped in the doorway and then her head swiveled again, back to me.  I didn’t think I wanted to be on Jordan’s bad side if that look was any indication.  If the look didn’t seal things, her very deliberate, very careful, words all laden with threat and promise, did.  “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Now.”

I nodded once tiredly.  I expected as much; it wasn’t like Jordan was going to wait for an explanation.  I didn’t even know what I would explain.  Yeah, Jordan, weirdest thing—we were totally 69-ing it before she freaked—no fuckin’ clue wouldn’t have sufficed.  God, I felt like such a prick, though.  Worse.  I didn’t want to just walk out and not even know what had happened.  But Jordan wasn’t going to allow me to stay.  That was very clear.  

I stuck my head in the door anyway, determining it was worth the risk of it getting cut off.  “Uhm, I’ll call, if that’s ok?"

Jordan was already sitting next to Allison on the bed, so I knew she’d probably allow contact if she wasn’t shrinking away from her.  That was good.  Progress.  Better than what she’d accept from me at the moment.  

Jordan cut her eyes to me. “Just leave, Tyler.”

Sighing, I turned to leave, the walk out about the longest minutes of my life since leaving Michael’s apartment that day.  I tried so hard not to fuck this up.  

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangst.   (Hey, it had to happen sooner or later). 



One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) |   Two   |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |  Six  |  Seven  |  Eight  |  Nine  |  Ten  |  Eleven  |  Twelve  |  Thirteen  |  Fourteen  |  Fifteen  |  Sixteen  |  Seventeen  |  Eighteen  |  Nineteen  |  Twenty  |  Twenty-One  |  Twenty-Two  |