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lottiecrabie · 6 months

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don’t fuck the line cooks. part two – matty healy

ever since that night in the walk-in, you can only think about the next time. hopefully if you push and prod him enough, you’ll get your way…

warnings: 18+, fingering, oral sex (m and f receiving), unprotected sex, masturbation, public sex, drug use, sex under the influence, degradation, choking, overstimulation, dom/sub dynamics, authority kink, problematic age gap problematic age gaping, sleazy man is even sleazier in this somehow

part two of two

18,294 words

You lick the salt off the back of your hand, shooting the cheap tequila, immediately wincing from the taste and worsening it with a bite of tart lime. You shake your head, hoping to flick acid off your tongue.

“God,” you say for good measure. “I can’t seem to get used to this.”

Beside you, Veronica laughs, eating the lime off the rind. She gives you a green smile, features uncrinkled. She is used to this. “It’ll come with age.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re only four years older than me.”

“Yeah, but you were severely stunted for the twenty-one first years of your life, so the difference is staggering.”

“Ar-ar. You’re hilarious.”

“I know.” She flicks the lime rind on the counter, a disheveled green skin rid of meat. She licks the leftover salt off her lips— with some of her bright red lipstick, too. She grabs your wrist next, shimmying her shoulders as she reels you from the bar. “C’mon. Let’s dance.”

“My feet hurt,” you pout in mock-protest, but your limbs are loose from the booze and you’re easily whisked away to the dancefloor.

The Darling is the nearest bar from the restaurant with the cheapest alcohol. It’s a dirty thing, drenched in obscurity and the occasional neon sign, smelling like sweat and cigarettes, and sticky to walk on. It plays the same songs over and over again— every night for the past decade, the same playlist booms from the speakers. You know the tunes by heart now, screaming the lyrics without a single title coming to mind.

The Darling is where everyone crashes after shift drinks, itching for a bigger buzz and a dance. Your coworkers crowd the place, talking to the bartenders like old friends, familiarly finding the labyrinthine way to the toilets. (Find the bar, take a turn to your right, follow a dark corridor, beside the kitchen to the left.)

You’re sore and tired from a double, a neck vein nearly popped when a customer dared ask for—no, insist on a steak half rare-half medium on each side uncut. Dread filled you when you approached the kitchen, putting on a dazzling smile to transmit the ridiculous request. Sighs, and swears, and that shake of head that makes his curls bounce filled the room as he got to work, frustrated and pissed, but obedient still.

Him. You spin on your feet, finding Matty still at the bar, sipping on a dark drink with George. You smile, eyes twinkling, detaching yourself from your friend as you sway towards him. You practically fall on his side— his hand catches you at your waist, near your hip, decidedly inappropriate, but instinctive.

“Hullo,” you say in a poor imitation of their accents. George snorts. “Watcha drinking?” You ask Matty, scrunching your nose.

He arches an eyebrow, sliding the glass towards you. “Have a taste.” You grab it without hesitating, knocking a mouthful and immediately regretting it. You cough, shaking your head. That’s straight liquor. Matty laughs, soothingly rubbing a hand on your back. “You okay?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Aw, princess,” he coos, taking a sip of his whiskey and not even twitching as the bitter taste washes his mouth. “You’ll like it when you’re older.”

Again, you roll your eyes. Taking an easy dig at your age when he’s been between your thighs some nothing-days ago is hypocritical. The retort burns your tongue, but you bite it back for present company. Matty looks at you a little gleefully, like he knows, like it amuses him.

You turn to George with a smile. “What about you? Are you drinking something sane?”

He snorts. “Just a rum and coke, sweets. I’m afraid it’s not very special.”

You reach for his drink anyway and he offers it gladly, metal rings around the cool glass. You tip it, smiling at the sweetness, licking it off your lips. “George, you have much better taste.”

“Hey!”

“I know.”

“Order me a drink, will you?” You say, fluttering your eyelashes at him. As though you would even need the extra persuasion; he’s already shouting a drink at a bartender, putting it on Matty’s tab with a point of a thumb.

Matty rolls his eyes beside you, his fingers digging into your waist in warning. Something low simmers between your legs. You smirk to yourself. You like the feel of that.

“There you go,” George says, passing you the orange drink that’s been slapped on the counter. “A sweet drink for a sweet girl.”

You smile gratefully at him, tasting it. It’s fruity and light; your lips stretch up. “Thanks, George.”

“‘Course.”

Ross crashes in your group, swinging an arm over George’s shoulder, clearly smashed. “Mate, they fixed the PacMan machine.”

“No way. Is my score still on it?”

“DICKH3AD bright and red!” With a laugh, the two of them whisk away to the arcade game, off somewhere to the left, tucked between two tables.

You’re alone with Matty now. A thrill resonates within you— it’s silly. It’s not like he’s gonna bend you over this bar and take you right this moment, in front of anyone. It’s not like he’s done anything of the sort since the walk-in fridge. Still, you spin to face him, arching an eyebrow, practically inviting him to.

He sees the meaning tacked onto your eyelashes, clear as day, yet he does nothing but grin to himself, taking a sip of his awful whiskey on rocks.

You huff, opting for another strategy. “Are you upset I asked George to order me a drink?” You try instead, hoping to prod and poke until he snaps again— finally.

Matty smirks. “I’d have picked something lighter. Little girl like you can’t handle her liquor yet.” He pouts, “She’s just started drinking.” Your fingers grip around the glass, something hot and shameful dripping inside of you.

“Why? Have plans for me I can’t be drunk for?”

Matty leans back on his stool, properly looking at you. His gaze licks up your naked legs, your short skirt, your white top. Your heart beats twice as fast. Subconsciously, you straighten, needing to be taller, older, more mature. To satisfy, to excel.

“If I said yes, would you not drink it?” His eyes flick to the orange glass between your clenched hands. It’s barely sipped, condensation running on your fingers. He meets your gaze next. There’s a game of chess, and you can’t seem to figure out what he wants. How to win.

You want to win. You need to win. You feel it throbbing between your legs, that desperate urge.

You drop the glass on the counter. It clinks on the wood, then settles, pretty and discarded. His turn.

Matty smiles, satisfied. He stands from his stool, and a surge of excitement shoots up your spine. You don’t need the alcohol when you have him anyway.

Matty leans in, then pats your shoulder. “The boys are waiting for me.” He sidesteps you, then gets lost into the crowd. You watch him go, mouth parted in offense and disbelief.

What a fucking dickhead. You make a low noise of annoyance, taking your glass and slurping half of it down in rebellion. You march to one of the empty booths, rage twisting your guts.

You just want him to fuck you. It’s been five days. What is he waiting for?

You slide into the sticky bench, ruminating in your anger as you chew on the plastic blue straw of your cocktail.

“Hey,” Landon, a server, nods at you as he pulls into the opposite side of the booth. You nod back. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m growing tired of The Darling’s playlist.”

“Take two shots. It’ll be back.”

“Sage advice.” He tips his chin towards your drink. “Are you taking revenge for turtles or has this straw personally wronged you?”

You sigh, letting go of the plastic, pushing the glass away from you. “It’s killed my family. Arson, you see? It was brutal.”

“I would offer my condolences, but that would mean my boss is dead, and I’m not the biggest fan of his. Would a muted hooray be acceptable?”

You huff, smirking at him. “Bold of you to tell the boss’ daughter.”

“Well, I’m quite drunk.”

You smile. “I’ll cheer to that.” You knock your empty glass to his beer mug.

Landon gasps. “In the eyes,” he chastises. “Or it’s seven years of bad sex.” You laugh, opening your eyes comically wide to cheer him next. You’ve just broken the curse. You’re not about to be pulled back into mediocre hookups now. “Better,” he nods, finally taking a sip of his beer.

You haven’t talked to Landon much before, nothing other than pleasantries and the quick quips exchanged between two tables. You quickly find that he’s funny, pulling snorting laughs out of your tipsy mouth as he recounts some of his worst customer stories like grand, epic tales. He offers sips of his beer graciously, then buys you your own when the supply is diminishing. You don’t even like beer, but you accept the gift nonetheless, letting the awful taste fizz in your mouth and slacken your head.

A hand over your mouth, you half-hide your laugh as it bursts out of you. “I can’t believe you would say that!”

“And I got fired for it,” Landon argues, screaming a defense.

“Well, obviously—”

“What’s the funny story?” Both of you jump in surprise at the intruder. Turning towards the voice, you find Matty sliding in the booth next to you.

Already, he takes his place like he owns it, spreading through the leather seats. His legs part comfortably, his thigh sticks to yours, his arm hangs over the back of the booth, tickling your nape. He wraps a hand around your beer, pulling it towards him, taking a sip shamelessly. He sits like he owns you.

You roll your eyes, taking back your mug, though you hold it between your hands and don’t drink it. Silence reigns around the table. Neither you or Landon feel particularly inclined to talk.

“C’mon,” Matty pokes, looking back and forth between the two of you. “I want to know the funny story.”

“It’s just about this customer at my old job who was an asshole,” Landon laughs easily to his credit. “Bet you heard a thousand like it before.”

“Yeah,” Matty nods, “I bet I did.” There’s something dark in his eyes, in the intensity of his gaze on Landon, like there is some hidden insult he’s supposed to catch.

Matty’s eyes fall on you next, flicking to the beer and then back to your daggering glare, cocking his head condescendingly. “I didn’t know you liked beer.” He says it like some genuine question, but you know he knows the answer.

“It’s okay,” you say tightly.

“Mmh, yeah,” Matty smirks. “I’m sure Landon could give you a lot of okay things.” Your smile crisps on your face. The fucking asshole.

“Landon,” you practically shout, turning towards him in a desperate attempt to ignore Matty. “I heard you were applying for the position of lead server?”

Matty snorts. “Did your daddy tell you that?”

You grit your teeth, “As a matter of fact, yes.” You smile at Landon. “He wanted my opinion. I’ll tell him I think you’d be great.”

“Thanks,” he smiles at you genuinely. “I promise I won’t call anyone a raging hormonal grade A wanker.”

You laugh. “Oh, please do if I ever need it.” You shake your head, twisting the beer in your hands, but still avoiding the aftertaste that would linger in your mouth. “Yesterday, I had a woman who—”

Matty’s hand rests on your naked thigh, cold from the glass and a smoke outside, rough in sinfully familiar ways, spreading over your leg like this, too, he owns. You stifle a gasp. The words die in your mouth.

“Who what?” Matty encourages you, frowning at you like he’s not perfectly aware of what he’s doing under the table.

As though he’s trying to entirely rob the words out of your mouth, he trails his fingertips up and down your thigh, raising goosebumps on the skin. You throw him a glance with some furious demand to quit it, but there’s a deeper need for him to do just the opposite.

You rake your throat, flipping back to Landon. “She came in already pissed and prissy, telling me she’s never gotten a good experience here. Why she bothers to come back is completely beyond me. I mean, you would think she would give up then, because—”

Matty’s hand dips to your inner thighs and your lips hang open, mind shortcircuiting. Without even thinking, you spread them for him, giving him further space. He smirks at that, at the resounding blush on your cheeks as you realize what you’ve done.

He presses into the meat of your leg, one finger at a time, so you’re so aware of him you might get dizzy. His pinky slips under the hem of your skirt, inching close to inappropriate.

“Um, anyway,” you laugh awkwardly, desperate to get through this story. Your face heats up, the knowledge of Matty’s teasing under the table — in front of Landon — burning at your mind. Matty chuckles beside you. You rake your throat. “I try to do my best, you know— smile so fucking wide I could rip my cheeks— but she’s just asking me stupid question after stupid question like this is an interrogatory or something.”

Your eyes flicker between Landon and Matty, moving from amused eyes to a condescending nod, urging you on as a warm hand slips further and further up your thigh. Pleasure wakes up in your belly— just a little, just the idea of what it could be. God, you need him, and the worst is that he knows, staring at you so fucking cocky and proud.

You stutter, “And— And she speaks to me like I’m the dumb one in this interaction! I mean, she’s asking me the size of our salad leaves because if they’re too big then I’ll have to cut them and yet—”

Matty’s finger meets the apex of your thighs. You jump, hips rolling into his hand, hand flying to your mouth to cover a moan you just barely avoid letting out. You need this story over.

Matty seems to predict your plan to wrap it up, wasting no time to linger and tease and brush, instead rubbing his fingers up and down, pressing into your soaked underwear. You clamp around his hand, biting your lip.

“So she pulled me every which way during my whole shift and—” He finds your clit easily, pressing on it through the cloth, making lazy circles that have your legs shaking under the table nonetheless. Pleasure rushes up them, burning with memory and apprehension.

Your voice trembles as you continue, “—and I had to scream in the fridge so I wouldn’t lunge at her from the table—” You make the mistake of looking Matty’s way and he grins at you knowingly, the crow’s feet by his eyes denting as he licks mischief off his lips. His fingers push your underwear aside.

You grip his wrist under the table, but he gathers a pool of your arousal still, as though to point out how much this little game is actually affecting you, no matter your useless protests. Your breath hitches. He pinches your bud meanly. Your head spins and spins deliriously.

You focus on Landon, rushing out. “And then she tipped me 2%.” You grin at him cartoonishly big and fake, practically screaming, “Your turn!”

“I think I remember that,” Matty cuts in before Landon can say anything. He teases your entrance and a jolt of ecstasy zaps through you. He smirks, “You screaming in the walk-in.” You glare at him, remembering being so wet and tired in the fridge you thought you might liquify and melt on the floor, holding onto his back for dear life as he thrusted inside of you, over and over, finding that perfect spot that had you screaming.

You’re red and hot and fuck it. You stand up, his hand falling out of your skirt. “Actually, I need a smoke.”

Matty stands up beside you. “I have a pack.” You’re off before Landon can add anything, lost to the swallowing crowd of drunk service workers.

You make a beeline for the bar. Matty catches up to you easily, knocking against your side, clearly so fucking pleased with himself. If you weren’t so turned on you think you could actually catch fire, you might tell him to fuck off.

You turn to the right into a dark corridor. “He wasn’t flirting with me,” you say through gritted teeth because you would like to at least establish that.

Matty snorts. “Don’t be naive. He fucking wanted you.”

“It’s not because I have a conversation with a guy that we’re automatically about to get it on.”

He scoffs. “I know guys, and I know that guy would have gotten it on with you right there on the fucking table if you had asked.” You roll your eyes, which only seems to piss him off. “And what were you doing giggling at him?”

“Am I not allowed to laugh?”

“Landon isn’t that fucking funny. The guy barely has enough wit to sustain a conversation.”

“You don’t even know him,” you protest with a disbelieved laugh. Kitchen. To the left.

“I’ve worked with the bloke for three years. If he’s told a joke in that time, I’ve yet to be around to hear it.”

You push the bathroom door, giving him a prissy look behind your shoulder. “Well, you’re missing out. Maybe you should talk to people other than waitresses half your age—” The bathroom door slams behind the both of you. Matty grabs both your cheeks and crashes his mouth against your lips. He shuts you up with a heated tongue and sure, callused fingers on your skin, and it works.

You part your mouth instinctively, kissing him back with fervor and unbridled need. Adrenaline shoots up your spine, alongside childish glee, the thrilled knowledge that this is finally happening. The argument is a faraway concept you don’t care about.

Your hands dig into his back, clutching on the flimsy material of his washed-out white shirt, wishing to rip it off of him. He groans into your mouth, tilting his head and kissing you harder.

Matty pushes you against the door, fixing you in place with a hand on your hip and another palming roughly at your breast. You moan in his mouth, lick into his with devotion. Your fingers hide in the mess of his curls, tugging. Hoping it makes him a little crazy— the instinct to poke and prod and tug for something still boiling inside of you.

And it works. His fingertips dig into your hip, pressing meanly into the bone, and he shivers. He kisses you with abandon, stealing each breath from your mouth until you’re drunk on the lack of oxygen and him. He tastes like whiskey and cigarettes, and you kiss and kiss and kiss until your mind swirls lazily in your skull.

He bites your lip, tugging it and releasing it with a smirk. You whine, so fucking wet it drips down your thighs, titling your hips in hope of finding some friction. You tremble between his arms and you know, desperately, deliciously, annoyingly, that he has you right where he wants.

“Please,” you whisper in the dark of the bathroom, already pleading your case like you know you’ll have to. Matty licks his lips, digging under the risen hem of your skirt. “Please, please, please, Matty,” you rush immediately again, rolling your hips against nothing.

“What do you want?”

“You.” You take his wrist, puppeteering his hand up and up until it finds the wet patch of your underwear. You bite your lip, a gasp seconds away from spilling. “Your fingers.”

“Mine, huh?” He says, and indulgently slips your underwear aside. This time, nothing stops the resulting breathy moan. “Those fingers?” He brushes up your entrance, finding your clit and rubbing gently at it.

You roll your eyes, letting your last hand fall to his shoulder and clutching it for support. “Yes.” As though satisfied with your answer, he rewards you with speed, circling and swiping at you until your face breaks open with a silent moan. Pleasure blooms in your belly. Finally. Every aching muscle in you sings in unabashed thrill. “Fuck, Matty.”

He dips into your neck, kissing and licking at the delicate curve, climbing up your jaw. He’s unrelenting between your thighs and you simply grip his wrist, letting yourself be washed with euphoria. Those calluses might kill you one day.

“You’re so fucking desperate for me,” he says, and though the words are harsh, the tone is reverent. He looks down at you, at your body bending and parting just for him, at your pleading stare, at your red, panting mouth. Devours the sight. “Got you so fucking ready just from touching you under the table. Did you like it, princess? Liked being bad? Liked getting fingered in front of your little buddy?”

You nod furiously. Pleasure loosens your head enough to lose the inherent need to be a rule-abiding, prim, moral girl. Yes to taboo, yes to indency, yes to anything if it’s him.

“Bet he’d be so upset if he saw you now. Should we go get him? Give him a show?” Faintly, you shake your head, embarrassment and ecstasy spinning your mind. You moan into his neck, desperate. Your hips grind against his hand for more.

He presses into your clit, making your eyes roll with a gasp. “He’d love to see you like this. Fucked out when I’ve barely even touched you. Making the prettiest sounds ever. God, I could fucking hear them all day. All desperate and whiney, like you can’t get enough of me.” He rubs at you twice as fast just to hear you whimper, muffled by a bite of his shoulder. His name drowns in the fibers, shirt wet by a slack mouth.

“I can’t,” you admit, shaking in his arms.

“Fucked the old, dirty man at work and now you can’t fucking live without his cock, right? What would they all think if they saw you, cockdrunk and fucking begging for it?”

“Yes! Just— Fuck, just do something, sir.”

“So fucking wet for me,” he coos, all proud and pleased. You grin, letting go of his shoulder to press kisses up his neck. He shudders. “We should show them, right? At least let them hear it.” Two of his fingers dip to your entrance and enter, slowly, letting the pornographic, squelching sound resonate through the quiet room. “There you go.”

You’re too blissed out to care how it sounds, too busy getting used to the delicious stretch of his digits to fully notice how each thrust makes sopping, wet noises. You shiver, gripping his shoulder, biting wherever you can get your teeth into. Matty groans in your ear and you grin, happy.

“No one can fuck you like this,” Matty whispers, and indulgently speeds up his movement, curling into you as a reminder.

Euphoria coils in your belly, familiarly burning and tightening the strings of your body. You shake your head. “No one,” you agree, religious.

“No one can get you off.”

Again, you grip his shoulders, promising, “No one.” And it’s true. Even your own hand has been a poor replacement to the art he can draw on your skin, making your body sing like his favorite instrument. His thumb rolls at you in tandem, a fast, harsh tempo. “Fucking hell,” you cry and scrunch your face.

He smirks, whispering, “No one can see you like this.”

“No one, Matty. Only you.”

Matty kisses your cheek, a serpent smile on his lips. He coos in the shell of your ear, “Then why were you flirting with him?” He doesn’t want you to mistake his sweet tone: he pulls out of you.

Your eyes flash open, fear gripping your guts. Your cunt already misses him, throbbing around nothing. The taste of pleasure lingers on your teeth, just out of reach.

“I wasn’t,” you try to plead, but Matty’s already stepping away from you. Your arms fall to your side. Matty nods, but it doesn’t reassure anything in you, now hyperaware of the dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I swear, Matty. I didn’t— He just made me laugh.” You shake your head, chuckling, “Who fucking cares about Landon Williams?”

Your hand reaches out, grabbing his and drawing it back under your raised skirt. You brush it against your soaked underwear, biting your lip as it makes contact. You whisper, “He doesn’t do this to me.”

Matty is unimpressed. “Of fucking course not.” He bites, pulling away. You pout, displeased, too empty to think. He crosses his arms before you get any other ideas. “Did you finish that drink, princess?” Your cheeks heat up and you look down, caught. He snorts meanly. “Say it.”

“Yes, but—”

He cuts you off, furrowing his eyebrows in a comical pout, as though speaking to a little child. “Where did my good little girl go? So fucking eager to please. Brought up with manners and all, right?”

He takes a step, tilting your chin up with a strong thumb. You part your lips, readied and offered, pleading. “You taste like beer,” he whispers, and then offers a solution: two wet fingers, just out of reach. The message clicks. You don’t hesitate.

You get on your tiptoes, sticking your neck out to catch the digits and suck them between your lips. You roll your tongue around them, moaning with a full mouth, letting the tangy taste of you linger. You release him with a pop, grinning up at him proudly.

You keep it wide open, waiting, and he smirks at you. Knowing exactly what you’re asking for, he bends and spits in your mouth. Sick pleasure fills your mind and you moan, swallowing it, barely catching your breath that he’s muttering, “You’re so fucking dirty,” and falling on your lips.

You kiss him back eagerly, trying to keep up with his angry, furious pace. You’re wound up so tight you might burst from any touch: just a brush, just a flick, just a thrust and you’d be screaming his name, falling apart on his callused hand.

“Matty,” you beg between two kisses. You throb around nothing.

“Taste much better, sweetheart,” he breathes.

He presses a kiss on your lips, then pulls away from you again. You’re whining before he’s even had time to unwrap you from his arms, release your tits from his palms. You frown at him. You’ve done everything he asked.

“Let this be a lesson, princess.”

“Are you fucking serious?” You cross your arms, fuming. He’s really gonna leave now? Matty seems a bit too happy at your reaction, watching you like his favorite entertainment.

He smiles, stroking your hair. “How else are you supposed to learn?” He pouts. “If I can’t have my good girl, I’ll make her.” He brushes the saliva and gloss off your lower lip, then opens the bathroom door.

It falls close with a slam. You stare at the graffitied, dirty mirror and think you might murder someone.

—

Matty is sizzling some meat, twisting salt and pepper above it. The kitchen staff runs around him— they’re late, falling behind because of a missing aioli sauce.

You wait for your plate and dagger him with a glare. You’re still sticky and unsatisfied from yesterday; you spent until the early hours of the day rubbing between your thighs, desperately trying to satisfy some itch.

Matty’s eyes rise up as though feeling the handmark of your stare on him. They lock with yours, take in your displeased, furious look, and he smirks. Winks at you. You grab the hot plate sliding across from you with a huff.

Walking away with a balancing tray, you secretly wish for him to tug you into the nearest bathroom until the whole restaurant knows his name. He doesn’t, of course, and you find your hungry guests with the fakest, biggest smile of all.

—

The restaurant is eerily calm before the dinner rush, a few seated tables scattered across sections: rushed parents and elderly folks slurping soup. You have just enough of a break to chug the bottle of water you keep at the host stand, pestering Adam as you finally have a minute to quench your thirst.

Veronica finds you at the stand, leaning both elbows on the wood as she smiles sickly sweet at you. Your eyes narrow in apprehension. “I just got asked something interesting.” You arch an eyebrow. “Landon wants to know if you and Matty are a thing. Said Matty practically pissed all over you two days ago.”

Your lips don’t even twitch. “Okay.”

Veronica gives you an expectant look. “Well?”

Beside you, Adam turns to his computer and decidedly chooses to ignore this. “I am not part of this conversation,” he declares.

You roll your eyes. “We’re not a thing.”

Veronica laughs. “Oh, come on. No one here is blind. You guys eyefuck so much sometimes we feel like we’re intruding just by picking up a plate.” Admittedly, your cheeks heat up slightly at that. You didn’t think you were that obvious.

She sighs, giving you a serious look. “Just be careful. I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into. He’s not like the little goody-goody boyfriends you’ve had. He’ll eat you alive.”

You flutter your eyelashes, faux doe-eyed. “Promise?”

“Reservations, tables, tables. Mmh, chairs.”

You give her a look, entirely ignoring Adam’s interjection. “I’m young, Vee, but I’m not stupid. I’m telling you there’s nothing going on. We’re just having sex.” You click your tongue. “And even then, we’ve only done it, like, once. Once and a half at most.”

“And a half?” Adam pipes up, then seems to remember who you’re talking about. He raises one hand, shaking his head, defeated. “I don’t even want to know.” He practically bends over the stand to see the computer, as though if he just got close enough to the screen, he could be sucked into its world.

“I’m leaving for college in less than two months,” you continue. “I’m not trying to date him, or whatever other tragic ways you think he’s gonna break my heart.” You smirk, shrugging, “I just find the gray hair hot.” Veronica snorts at that.

Still, there’s something relieved in her eyes. Maybe even proud. She smiles at you, then turns to Adam. “And what does Matty have to say about it?”

“No comments.”

She gasps, facing you with an excited grin. “That means he’s talked about you!” You bite your lip. Could he have? What did he say?

Veronica is already on it. She pokes Adam’s arm, forcing him to look up at her. “What has he said? C’mon.” She gives him a solemn look, holding her heart. “This is a safe space.”

“That it’s none of my business,” Adam deadpans. “And neither is it yours, brat.”

Before Veronica can add anything, a family of four enter the door, wiping off their sweaty, red foreheads. They laugh as they approach the stand, mentioning the weather. Adam practically jumps to greet them, begging them to follow him.

“I’m sitting them in your section. That’ll give you something useful to do,” Adam hisses at Veronica, and she pokes her tongue out at him.

She waits until he’s just out of earshot to trail, “Now that he’s gone…” She faces you with a smirk, rounding the stand and joining you. She gives you a teasing look, biting back a grin. “How was the sex?” You can’t stop the smile shining on your face. It breaks your cheeks. She gasps. “Oh, I knew it. Julia said he was the best sex of her life, too.”

“She didn’t lie,” you admit, flushed. You cock your head. “You haven’t slept with him?” You’re almost surprised. For all her don’t fuck the line cooks warnings, you had assumed she must have been burned before.

“Nah,” she shakes her head. She trails, teasing, “I was too busy with Ross.”

“Hypocrite!”

“I never said anything about bartenders!” But before you can tease her more, Adam calls her name and Veronica’s off with a spin and four menus, blowing you a kiss.

—

It’s dark outside. The street lamps slope over cars, bathing the street in semi-obscurity. You cross your arms, some pretend at a shield. The crew has long left for The Darling while you finished up your closing duties. You wiped your forehead and found yourself too tired to handle another boozy, dancy night, to wake up the next day still a little drunk and off-kilter for a grueling Saturday shift.

Something catches the corner of your eye. Your head turns, squinting to be sure you’re not mistaken. No, it really is Matty’s car parked in the alleyway. You’d recognize the dirty, beat-up thing anywhere for all the rides it has given you—not in the sense you would like. At least you can ask for one now, avoid the stressful walk home, clenched and quick, holding keys between your fingers.

You dip into the dark alleyway, walking the cigarette butts-lined path. The car is smoky, a gray curtain to the outside world. You frown, knocking on the window of his backseat. Matty opens the door, bloodshot eyes staring at you, eyebrow arching. He holds a joint in one hand and the door’s handle in the other. The earthy smell attacks your nostrils; you scrunch your nose.

“Don’t let the smoke out,” Matty chastises, sliding away to leave a spot beside him.

Your brain throbs in your head. Flashes of grand preachy speeches given to friends as they passed bongs at parties come back to you. Embarrassingly, you flush and step into the car, closing the door behind you.

Matty grins at you, pleased, taking a hit of his joint and blowing the smoke into the car. The air is heavy and thick, pressing against your skin. This is such a bad idea.

“What are you still doing here?” You ask. He pointedly looks at the joint as though obvious. You roll your eyes. “You could do that at home.”

He shrugs, “Didn’t want to.”

“Are you gonna drive?”

“Was planning to, yeah.” Your lips part for a scathing, moralizing reply, but he cuts you off, repeating in that same tone of yours, “Are you gonna give me a sermon?”

You scowl. “Was planning to, yeah.” Matty chuckles. He knows you far too well already.

“I’d leave if I were you, princess. This car’s becoming a hotbox.”

You should, of course. Weed has carcinogens, and causes lung damages, and slows development, and wrecks the body’s natural nutrient reserve, and all the other priggish arguments you’ve known and repeated by heart.

But Matty has a loose grin you find a little adorable. Gray-streaked hair flops as he leans his head on the backseat, lips drooping with the weight of the joint. The shape of them is addictive, a perfect O as he blows smoke out, just like he would on the inside of your thighs to get you to jump and squirm for him.

Your breath is heavy. You feel stuck to the leather seats, skin gluing you in place to watch and rewatch the show he gives you.

And, really, you’re a little curious about what weed is. Your friends have all indulged at some time or the other; your dormmate used to crack a window, light a candle, and infest the room with the earthy smell as if it would cover any of it up; even your mom would laugh and wave smoke away when you caught her off the clock with her coworkers back in LA.

Matty laughs, languid and slack and, fuck, it’s such a pretty sound. “You don’t want to, do you?” He teases. Your cheeks heat up. “It’s okay, princess. Don’t even need to smoke it. Just breathe the air and save your pretty pink lungs. You can even do your little speech to me if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Don’t condescend me,” you say, as though there’s not something sick in you that enjoys when he does it. Matty raises two arms in a show of innocence, cheeky as they fall down. He knows you like it, too.

“My apologies, darling.” In complete contradiction, he spreads his knees and looks down at his lap, telling you, “Come sit on my knee.” And in complete contradiction to your warning, you do just what he asks.

You don’t even think about it; you’re scooping yourself up and dropping on his knee, biting your lip as you settle over his tough jeans. His hand loosely holds your hip, looking at you pleased.

Now that you’re on his lap, close enough to count his eyelashes, to lick the smoke off his lips, you feel yourself growing needy. The memory of a stolen orgasm in a dark bathroom comes back to you in hot flashes. You have to think about stilling your hips to stop you from grinding on his knee.

“Are you serious about this?” He asks, arching an eyebrow. You’re not sure what he’s referring to, but the answer’s the same anyway;

“Yes.”

He taps your hip. “Open your mouth, princess.” You’re flushing as you do so, imagining him spitting in it, slipping two fingers and making you slobber your sermon around them. Instead, he takes a hit of his joint and blows it into your mouth. You inhale as he’s taught you. “Good,” he grins. “You remember how.”

“It’s not rocket science,” you bite, deadpan.

“You’re right. Smart girl like you. This is nothing at all.” It hits true, strumming the right chords inside of you. You shift on his knee, holding back the shameful groan that threatens to spill out at the friction. It’s really not fair that he makes you sit here, close enough to kiss and rub and grind until you’re dripping on his lap, and not do it.

Maybe you’re starting to feel something. Your body is light and slack, a pleasant buzz resonating through you. You feel relaxed, more than you have in years, always strung high, clenched and straight-backed. A giggle threatens out of you.

Maybe it’s why you say, “I think you should fuck me.” Though, really, it’s all just an excuse for the fact that it’s all you’ve thought about for the past week, ever since that night in the walk-in fridge. You should do it again. Right now. Please. Over and over, like the beating drums of an earworm song.

Matty smiles, indulgent. “Is that so?” You nod frantically. His fingers dig into your hip. He takes another hit, ever casual. “D’you think you deserve to?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“I—” You huff. Well, yes, maybe you haven’t really been anything but a brat recently, wearing low-cut tops and winking at other line cooks in hopes of riling him up. But it’s really his fault for getting you so fucking ready you’re begging for him, then walking off. You pout at him. “Please.”

“Ah-ah,” he says, tugging on your lip with his thumb, smearing your lipgloss. “None of that.” Being cute won’t seem to work this time.

“I’ll earn it,” you say desperately.

“How?”

Your mind scrambles. An idea sparks in your mind. You rise from his knee, then you get on yours in the cramped spot of the backseat.

You look up at him, blinking innocently, hand traveling up his thigh. Matty takes the joint to his lips, but you can see from the way his chest rises and falls in quick succession that he’s worked up. Good. You fucking have him.

You might be inexperienced, an unknower of pleasure, but if there’s one thing you can do, it’s a fucking blowjob.

“Go on, then,” Matty says, choked. “Earn it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Your greedy hands finally find his waistband. You undo the button, fingers frantic as they work his jeans down enough to reveal his half-hard cock. You lick your lips, staring up at him while you wrap around his length.

He hisses, bucking into your fist. His dark eyes are locked in yours, barely willing to move away from your face to take a good look at the little show your hand is giving him. It’s like he wants to see you, pupils wide and lips swollen, so fucking turned on and ready just to suck his cock.

You slide up, swiping your hand up to his tip, collecting the precum and spreading it down. It’s a slow pace, meant to tease, to beguile him. Get him so ready for you he’s begging for once.

You repeat the motion over and over, never in any kind of repeated rhythm for him to really get used to anything. His cock hardens in your hand until it’s standing proud and ready. Matty breathes heavily, letting a low sound out every time you brush his tip. You smirk every time, teasing your nails on his sensitive skin.

“Stop teasing,” Matty warns. His hips fuck into your fist every time you slide down, silently begging for more.

You cock your head, blinking up at him innocently. “Where are your manners?”

“Careful,” he says with a dangerous tone. His eyes gleam. “You don’t want me to teach you another lesson.”

You giggle. You dip your head down, kissing his tip. A moan spills out of him and you flash your teeth at him. You lower a little, pressing another kiss, then again, and again, until his whole cock is covered in tacky lipgloss.

Your tongue sticks out to lick a stripe up his length, rounding his tip. Just when he’s ready to feel your warm mouth embrace him, you give him another sweet kiss. He curses under his breath. “You think you’re funny.”

You lick mischief off your lips, staring up at him with a cheeky grin. “Say please.”

His hand free of the joint rakes through your hair, grabbing a handful of it and tugging until you look up at him. Pleasure sparks from your head to your toes, reveling in the sensation. He sees right through you.

He lets go of your hair, soothing the sting as he travels down your temple, your cheek, your chin, pushing a thumb between your lips and parting them. Thrill gathers in your belly. Your mouth hangs wide open, breathing harshly. “Do it or I will.”

It’s his turn to be cocky, spotting how you shift on your knees at the graphic images he puts in your head. His hands in your hair, sure and strong as he fucks up into your— No. You want to show him what you can do, prove you’re not just some lost little girl.

You laugh, sucking around his thumb then releasing it. Saliva coats it, and it dries on your cheek as he caresses it. “You’re no fun,” you tease, pouting.

“Shouldn’t fuck a crass man if you wanted pleases and thank yous,” he retorts. “But then, you wouldn’t enjoy it, would you? Need to be railed dirty to get off, right?”

Instead of answering— too proud to give him the yes he’s right to expect, you suck his tip into your mouth. He makes a low whine, patting your hair, swearing under his breath as you roll your tongue around him. “That’s a good girl,” he coos. “Take me in now.”

There’s the instinct in you to do just the opposite, the born and bred need to be difficult, but you give in anyway, a bigger want to be extra good for him. You push him past your lips, lowering until he hits your throat. “Fuck,” he chokes. You smile around him, then bob your head.

You set a steady pace, stroking what you can’t fit with your fist. The car fills with wet, gagging noise and those puffy breaths he takes. Your tongue sticks out, licking his length as it passes him, making him shiver under you.

“Give me your hand,” he demands. You offer it without thinking, reaching up towards him palm-out.

He takes your wrist and spits on your hand. Saliva drips on your palm as he lowers it back to his cock. He wraps your fingers around him, pumping himself once, then twice, then releasing you. You keep going to the same pace he set, cursing around his length, somehow more turned on now.

Your hand works in tandem with your mouth. You leave his cock just long enough to spit on it yourself, spreading the saliva until he’s wet and messy, then bringing him back between your swollen lips. Precum and drool sticks to your chin, but you bob with a mission, uncaring of the sopping sounds that come out of your mouth.

“Ah,” he groans. His head falls back on the seat, spreading his thighs as if to give you more space. You quicken your moves in response, trying to coax more pretty sounds of him. “Shit. Fucking hell,” he laughs.

His eyes roll back, and he takes a hit of his dwindling joint. You stare at his lips as he does so, still as sickly fascinated by him smoking as you’ve always been. The car drenches in smoke, an added mix to the condensation dripping on the windows.

Matty’s face pulls down to look at you, right as you swallow him up with an especially deep trust. He makes a whine, caresses your hair. Sees the way your eyes are dark and aroused for him, obsessed. “D’you want another hit?” He asks, cheeky.

You release his cock, out of breath. “Yes.” Your hand continues to jerk him as you smile at him.

“Magic word?”

You scoff. “Coming from you?”

He laughs. “C’mon. How many tutors taught you all those good girl manners? Can’t destroy all that hard work. I don’t want to corrupt you too much.” Your eyes narrow at him. Your thumb swipes on his tip, stroking him quickly. He jumps at that, moaning. Matty shakes his head, hair flopping with it. “Minx.”

“Please,” you say, because you know it’s a lost battle to do anything but. You brush his tip on your lips, kitten-licking him, like some added argument. He smiles proudly.

“Of course, princess.” The joint comes to you, end faced towards you, just enough out of reach that you have to kneel up to wrap your lips around it. You take a drag, tipping your head back as you blow it out.

Your body feels hazy, tingling pleasantly throughout. There’s a loose smile on your lips as you bend down to swallow him back in your mouth. Euphoria twists in your mind, pulling at the strings of you, and you double in efforts eagerly, happily.

You bob quicker, deeper, moaning around his length. You breathe through your nose, trying not to gag every time he hits the back of your throat. It’s all worth it for the swears he mutters under his breath, low groans filling the car. Every fucked-out praise shoots you straight to the core. You’re dripping on the floor, wet and empty and begging for him.

“My perfect girl,” he praises, a whiny, worshiping sound. “So pretty on her knees for me. Fucking drooling everywhere.” You laugh at that, feeling saliva drip down your cheeks. “You were made for my cock, weren’t you? Made for me.”

You try to agree, but it’s a slobbering mess around his dick. The vibrations are enough; his eyes roll back into his skull, his hips jump. You choke on his length, releasing him with a cough, then diving back to work.

“Can’t fucking get enough of me,” he says. His hand caresses your hair, a soothing motion. “D’you want more?”

You nod around him. He smiles, gripping a hand in your hair. The sting gives you the same reaction as before; you moan around him, toes tingling. He pushes your mouth deeper around him. This time, you expect it; breathing through your nose, you welcome him in your throat.

“There you go,” he whines. He can’t stop looking at you, at the mess of your mouth. “So fucking filthy.” Again, he presses you down. A moan spills out of him. You grip his knee with your free hand.

Matty controls your head, pushing it deeper and deeper around his cock, making the most fucked-out noises from the feel of it. You pump him with your hand every time he pulls you up to his tip, stroking back to the base as he lowers you down. He does it quicker and quicker, setting a fast pace. Again, you shift on your knees, trying to soothe away that burning need between your thighs.

Matty spots it immediately. “Are you wet?” He taunts, though it’s a little ridiculous when he’s out of breath and on the edge of a moan. You nod around him, a little whine coming out, and he smirks. “Soaked ‘cause you’re sucking my dick, huh? If I knew it got you going like this, I would have had your mouth around me every single fucking day, darling.” And it’s not like you would have objected, considering you’re the one who’s been practically chasing him for the past week.

“Dirty girl. They all think you’re so innocent, but I know.” He smirks. “Bet your father would love to know what I’m doing to his precious girl.” Need and shame burn inside of you, and you can’t figure out which one makes you flush and your mind spin. Cockiness drips from his tongue as he trails, “‘S not my fault his daughter loves my cock, right?” You don’t know whether to nod or shake your head, instead moaning around him.

Matty reaches the joint out, telling you, “Hold that.” You frown. It’s unlit by now, useless, and he could certainly throw it anywhere in the backseat to fish it out later. It’s not like his car is clean; trash litters it, cigarette burns scar the leather, and the smell of weed is permanent. Still, you don’t question it, unwrapping your hand from his cock to take the joint.

It becomes apparent, then, why he asked you. Raking two hands through your hair, he keeps your head in place as his hips fuck up into you. With your hand gone and occupied, he thrusts deeper into your mouth. You gag around him, and he releases you just enough to catch your breath, before pumping past your lips again.

He groans at every stroke, burying your nose in the faint hair scattering up his belly. Pleasure blooms on his face. He’s so pretty, so vulnerable and fucked out, face wrinkling and lips panting.

His head falls down to look at you again. He makes a whine from the back of his throat. “Fuck, you’ve got spit everywhere.” It’s true, chin wet as slurping sounds resonate on the steamy windows.

If your ex-boyfriend had even tried to lose a hand in your hair and push your head down, you’d have bit him with a vengeance. But kneeling like this with Matty using you only brings a sick pleasure out of you. You feel your core throb, thighs sticky with need. You don’t know what he’s doing to you, don’t understand how he manages to ruin you so thoroughly.

Your nails dig into his knee, the other hand pinching the joint. Your eyes water at every thrust until tears roll down your eyes, mixing with the wet of your cheeks and chin.

Matty awes, sickly amused as he sings, “Are you crying?” You feel suddenly embarrassed, attempting to shake your head, deny the proofs streaming down your cheeks. “Is Daddy’s dick too big for you?” The nickname strikes through the daze, shock and arousal coursing through your veins.

Matty doesn’t even realize what he’s said, too gone to mind any words. A string of curses comes next as he bobs your head. Still, it’s all you can think about, playing back the word in that filthy head of yours.

“You’re doing so well, baby,” he promises. “Just a little bit more.” His hand strokes your cheek, wiping at the runaway tears. “Gonna make me come so hard. D’you want my cum?” You nod vaguely. He grins at that. “Yeah? Wanna fucking swallow it?” You hum around him, excited. He moans, “Fuck. You’re such a slut.”

Again, there should be outrage, should be a dramatic tear off his dick as you tell him off, but he says it in such a reverent way, like a compliment, a praise, and you find yourself whining around him instead. Your cunt throbs, empty and lonely, and maybe you are a slut after all. You’ve been nothing but a needy, begging mess for him anyway. If it gives you this much pleasure in exchange, is there really something wrong with it?

Matty senses the way you preen under the name. He smirks, fucking up faster, chasing an end. “My little slut. So perfect, made for me. Would spend her days on her knees, wouldn’t she? Till she’s all bruised and fucked out.” His thrusts grow erratic. “I’d take care of you, princess. I’d put you in the best bed and I’d pump you full of my cum until you’re dripping with it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Like being my little fucktoy?” A yes comes out garbled out of your mouth. “All those smarts, gone for a dirty man like me. Fucking ironic, isn’t it?”

You hollow your cheeks, run your tongue, hope to finish him. Hear his pretty cries, see his scrunched, coming face, taste his cum. Let it be your turn.

You take back charge as Matty gets too hazy to make sense of anything, much less the furious tempo he’s set. You bob up and down with abandon, slobbering everywhere. His hips stutter, meeting you halfway. His cock twitches in your mouth.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Matty cries. His fingers dig into your hair, pulling vengefully. “Shit, princess, I’m—” With a scream, he comes on your tongue.

His body shivers as the tangy taste of white ropes spill down your throat. You swallow everything, watching his face as it grows peaceful. A slack, happy smile shines on his lips. He strokes your hair, as if an apology.

Only when he softens do you pull out of him, saliva stringing from his tip to your lip. You lick it off, chuckling. Show off your empty mouth. His cum is all gone.

“Good girl,” Matty praises, out of breath. He tucks his cock back in his jeans. “What do we say now?”

“Thank you.”

He hums. “I think you deserve a reward for doing so well for me.” You grin at him, childishly excited. He laughs, taking both your hands and raising you off your knees. “You want that, don’t you?” You bite your lip.

As soon as you’re up, he digs under your skirt, pulling off your underwear. You gasp as the air hits your bare skin. He rubs a thumb on the wet patch of the pink fabric, arching an eyebrow for you. “So fucking ready for me just from sucking my cock.”

“Not just from sucking your cock,” you say. “I’ve been ready for you all week.”

“Is that so?” Matty flips you around, sitting you square on his lap, your back against his chest. This close, you can smell the sweat and weed on him. Each leg hangs from the sides of his knees. He parts them, spreading you wide, putting you on display.

There’s the knowledge that anyone could see you tugging at the back of your mind. No matter the smoke, and the fogged up windows, and the dark of the night, it’s still a public alleyway. They could walk in on you, cunt out, wet and throbbing. It’s nasty, and it’s hot, and now you’re grinding against nothing, hoping for friction.

Thankfully, Matty indulges you, wrapping his arm around your waist and teasing two fingers over your swollen clit. You jump, already oversensitive, moaning at the little contact. He rubs in slow circles.

“I could have had you any time, then?” He whispers in your ear. “Could have pulled you in the dry storage and had my dirty way with you?”

“Yes.”

His touch becomes faster, pressing harder, zeroing in on your bud with a middle finger. You scrunch your face, already so close. A little pout comes on your face. You don’t want to finish without his fingers inside of you, not when you’ve been this eager for them. Your pussy clenches around nothing, unsatisfied.

“Any day, any time, anywhere?” His hand ghosts at your entrance, gathering a pool of your dripping juices.

“Yes,” you repeat, almost frustrated he doesn’t get it. You need him all the time. He seems satisfied by your answer, dipping two fingers inside your cunt.

You gasp, wrinkling your face with the overwhelming euphoria that spreads through you. The stretch is delicious. You’re already rolling your hips into his fingers, begging for more.

He bites at your earlobe, licking down your neck. Husky and gravely, he teases, “You would scream my name so the whole restaurant knows whose cock is fucking you this good? So they know that little princess likes to get railed filthy by an old, sleazy man?” As though to demonstrate, he pumps his fingers quicker into you. Sopping sounds resonate with your answering whines.

It’s a silly question. As if you haven’t had that exact fantasy before, playing over and over as guests criticize your every move. You insist, “Yes, Daddy.”

Matty’s fingers freeze inside of you. His heart races, the rhythm drumming on your back. Your eyes snap open, scared you’ve done something wrong. He’s the one who— A flush spreads up your cheeks. You’re so disgusting, using that nickname while he—

“Say it again.” He’s choked and out of breath. Turned on. You smirk, victorious.

You grip his wrist and make him pump inside of you again. You let your head fall on his shoulder, moaning, “Daddy, please, make me come.”

“Fuck.” It’s all the incentive he needs, apparently, because now he’s thrusting and curling inside of you, finding that magical spot each time. The heel of his hand rubs at your clit, making jolts of pleasure spark through you. His other hand snakes around your chest and paws at your breast, digging under your shirt to rub the nipple.

Every sensation works perfectly together to get you buzzing with ecstasy. You feel drunk— or high— mind swirling inside your head until all you know is his name. Your core tightens, toes curling and uncurling.

“Come on my fingers,” he demands, voice low and hoarse. “Fucking drench Daddy’s hand. I wanna taste you.”

There’s something so desperate in his voice that makes you even needier. You throb around his digits, eyebrows furrowing, strings thinning. He pinches your nipple. You open your mouth with a silent cry, shaking all over.

“That’s it,” he coos. “I got you, baby. You’re right there.” You nod frantically. “Just come for me. Come. Come—” Just like he demands, your body breaks and you shatter on his fingers.

Euphoria spreads through you, that overwhelming sense of relief. His name burns your tongue, over and over, a plea and a reverence and a worship. He continues to slide in and out of you, slowly, tenderly, until you’re done shaking and throbbing.

Your body hums pleasantly, bone-deep happy. You practically melt on his body, each limb letting go and settling into him. You sigh, satisfied. Finally haunts your head. Yet, you’re already looking out for next time.

Matty pulls out of you. He brings his wet fingers to his mouth; you hear the pornographic moan he makes as he cleans them. You flush, too tired to make a chastising comment.

“Best meal in town,” he says, cheeky. You half-slap him, half-giggle.

His hand falls from your breasts, but wraps around your waist instead, pulling you even closer, trapping you in the heat of his arms. He kisses your cheek. “We can stay like this for a little while. I’ll drive you home after.”

You crack an eye open. “Are you high?”

He scoffs. “No.” He grins against your cheek, teasing, “You’ve sobered me up.”

Being cute does not distract you. You hum, unconvinced. “What’s the alphabet backwards?”

“Are you fucking kidding—” He blows air from his nose. Resigned, he recites, “Z, Y, X—”

—

It’s fifteen past ten and the house is empty. Groceries linger on the kitchen island and you could, theoretically, put them all together yourself. Though it’s just not quite the same when you have to do the work under the orange light of the kitchen hood, alone except for some sad blues and a bottle of white and the sizzling sound of the pan.

In your hand, an apologetic text flashes at you. You bite on a humus dipped carrot, bitter. You understand, you say, and pretend you believe him when he swears he’ll make it up to you. You take a long sip of your wine glass.

You stare at the lonely apartment. An idea tickles the back of your mind. It would be a waste of wine, and space, and freedom if you dutifully went to bed now. Your hand lingers on his contact, then press on the picture of Matty’s frown, cigarette hanging between his lips.

I have my place all to myself. Do you wanna come? You hit send before you overthink it. A rush of anxiety swipes through you.

He’s quick to answer. depends. do i get to cum anywhere? You roll your eyes. He’s truly insufferable sometimes.

Invitation retracted.

i’m on my way

You can’t control the pleased grin on your face, but there’s no one to see it anyway. You can indulge a little in the childish thrill that blooms inside your stomach. You feel sunshine from the inside-out.

He’s ringing your doorbell the next time you hear of him. By then you’re already a little flushed with wine, practically running to the door to buzz him in.

A knock resonates just a few minutes later. You swing the door wide open. “Hi.” Again, you can’t seem to control your giddy smile.

“You shouldn’t open the door just like that. I could’ve been a bad man.”

“You are.” Matty snorts. You move out of the doorframe, gesturing for him to step inside.

He walks your flat with confidence, though he hasn't been here since that fatal night and, even then, it had been a quick in and out thing. He lingers a little to take in the set-up. The open floor plan, the L leather couch, the massive dining table and the kitchen island that hasn’t seen any action in months. It’s a shame for a family of chefs how little you use it.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him outside of a work setting, either a grueling shift or the drunk aftermath. He’s cleaner; white shirt rid of stains, jeans unburdened by an apron. He still sports a stumble, ever lazy to shave it off, but his hair sprouts in soft curls from his head. There’s a lack of gloomy energy, like what you thought was a permanent tired look was, in fact, reserved for the restaurant. He looks good is what you mean.

Matty stares you up and down shamelessly, taking in your off-duty outfit as well. A collared shirt buttoned conservatively, tucked into a black skirt, leather heeled loafers and white socks at your feet. Your hands shine with silver rings. You are, admittedly, much cleaner than him. Matty seems to dig your preppy look anyway, licking a gaze up and down your legs, rubbing his smirk away with two of his fingers.

You side-step him, making your way to the kitchen. Matty follows behind you, taking the time to gaze at the paintings dotting your walls. Pretentious things your father bought because he was told by other people they were masterpieces, they were technical, they were touching. You get to the cabinets, searching for a matching wine glass.

“Why’d you invite me?” Matty asks, seemingly an afterthought. He peers at your half-empty glass, raising it to examine the wine.

“I was supposed to have dinner with my dad, but he’s too busy today after all.” You turn to Matty with a glass in hand. “There’s some sort of important event with investors that just came up. He couldn’t untangle himself,” you press. You don’t know why you feel the need to rehash your father’s excuses, as though you had to defend him to Matty. It’s silly; he doesn’t even care, instead bringing your wine glass to his nose and giving it a swirl.

“It’s a Chenin Blanc.” You say as you uncork the bottle, pouring him his own glass. You slide it his way, tsking regretfully, “It was gonna pair beautifully with the seared scallops.” There’s a tinge of bitterness in your voice, and you try your best to smooth it. You can’t sound annoyed.

“Served with what?”

“Baby spinach and spiced pomegranate glaze.”

“Damn,” Matty shakes his head. “That does sound good.” He takes a seat at the dining table, shamelessly making himself at home. He cocks his head, bringing the glass to his lips. “So, what? You invited me to cook it for you instead?”

Your lips twitch. “I’ve already eaten actually.” A mismatch of carrots, humus, swiss cheese and chocolate-covered blueberries eaten standing up at the kitchen island, but a meal nonetheless.

Matty hums. He leans back on his chair, smirking to himself. “You know, I feel a bit peckish myself.”

Your arch an eyebrow, playful as you drawl, “Is that so?” The cheeky, knowing look on his face wakes the heat in your belly. You clench your thigh; he spots it, amused. “There’s food in the fridge.”

“A miracle! She has more than kraft dinner.”

“I didn’t specify which food. Maybe mac’n’cheese is all that’s waiting for you.”

Matty smiles. “I think I’m craving something else.” His hand reaches out, grabbing yours until you stumble into him.

You grip his shoulders to balance yourself, both legs siding one of his knees. He looks at you with those dark, dangerous eyes that announce nothing but trouble. You tower over him, see him blinking his spiderleg eyelashes up at you. His lips part, pretty and red. A rush of excitement shoots through you. Your breath hitches.

“Wow,” you say, mocking. “You just got here and you’re already trying to bend me over the table. Didn’t even ask me about my day.”

“Oh, sorry,” he says, faux-apologetic. His hands dig into your thighs, picking you up and hoisting you on the table. You sit before him, blush as he spreads your legs out for him. With a cheeky, shit-eating grin, he looks up at you and says, “How was your day, princess?”

You up your nose, ignoring his bait. “It was good. I—” His hands rise up your thighs, brushing against your silky smooth skin. You can’t stop the shivers. “Fuck, I went to the library and—”

He bends down, peppering sweet kisses where his fingertips had been. Your breath hitches at the ghosting touch, teasing and tickling and lighting you up. He looks up at you, face nearing where you need him most. “Mmh, and what?”

“Just— shit.” He spreads your legs further apart, giving him ample access to bite and suck at your thigh, which he does with worshiping abandon. He soothes away the hurt with a tongue. You pant, moaning lowly, “I started early on my first week readings for—”

Matty snorts. “Nerd.”

“It’s actually really essential to—” He slips your underwear aside, finding your clit and thumbing a lazy circle on it. “Ah, fucking hell, Matty!”

He smiles, so fucking proud. His finger speeds up. “What book did you read?”

“Well, the textbook. It was— It’s about—” Words escape your mouth when his tongue is burning your skin, getting closer and closer to where his thumb is hard at work. Euphoria shakes in your stomach. You bite your lip, gripping the edge of the table.

“Yes?” He blinks up at you, condescendingly begging, “Please, educate a poor, simple plebeian.”

You bite your cheek, teasing, “I don’t know if I can. He’s really only good at fucking.”

Matty rolls his eyes. “You’re missing the other reason I’m good with my hands.”

And he makes it easy to forget all about his cooking skills when he dips two fingers inside your wet entrance, pumping you slowly on the dinner table. God-given hands, made to bring you to the very edge and back. You curse, gripping the wood under your palms even harder.

“I’m waiting.”

You huff. “It’s microeconomics. It’s comparing comparative averages and absolute advantages of high.”

He grins. “Well, which one wins?”

“Comparative. It’s always better as you lose because the opportunity cost is smaller and— Oh, fuck—” Your legs tremble, your face scrunching as he hits the sinful spot inside of you that has you singing. You pant to catch your breath, groaning, “It’s better when you— Matty—”

“My smart girl,” Matty praises, curling his fingers inside of you just so. “You learned all of this already. Don’t even need to study that you’re fucking moaning it for me.” He plants a kiss on the top of your thigh. “It’s better when…”

Your mind is languid, euphoria pumping inside of you with the rhythm of his hand. You try to blink to conscience, peering down at him. “It’s better when the opportunity cost—” He makes rapid swipes at your clit and pleasure jolts through you. You shake your head. “You know what? You don’t need to know all this. You can just be dumb and pretty and warm my bed all day. Be my trophy husband.”

He snickers. “Yeah? Gonna make me your little housewife?”

You grin, volleying back, “Keep you cooking and fucking all day while I earn the big bucks, babe.” One hand rises up to his hair, digging into the mess of it. You smirk. “But you’d have to be very good for me. Keep me satisfied at all times.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” His fingers quicken, thrusting in and out of you until you’re whining for him. “I’d fill you up every night and leave you sticky and happy.” The wet sounds of your cunt fill the kitchen. You don’t doubt him for one second.

Your breath leaves in puffs out of your mouth. You tilt your head back, moaning for the ceiling, eyes wrinkled shut. Your hand tugs at his hair, rejoicing in his pathetic little groans. You fall back, smiling mischievously at him. “I thought you were hungry.”

His eyes flash. “Fucking famished.” He bends down and licks your cunt.

You jump, rolling your hips into his face, chasing those delicious reverbs. He licks at your clit with a pointed tongue, pressing into the sensitive bundle of nerves until honey ecstasy is spreading through your veins.

One hand fucks into you with calculated efficiency; hard and fast, just like you like it. The other holds your red underwear aside, fingers pressing into the meat of your thigh, leaving fingertip prints to remember him by.

“Matty!” Pleasure boils inside of you. You’ve missed his tongue, missed the way he tastes at you: starved, diligent, fucking slurping the last drop. You cry his name over and over, a sweet chant that encourages him on.

Thank fuck for his hands. They slide wetly inside of you, searching for hot ecstasy and pulling it out of you in drowning moans. You tug at his hair, grip the table, try to attach yourself to something as you;

“Matty, I’m—” He knows, of course, because you’re throbbing around his fingers. He circles your clit with his tongue, swiping at it, adding enough sinful pleasure that you feel your orgasm grow and grow. It expands in your belly, threatens your limbs; “I’m gonna—”

You come with a scream, falling apart on his tongue. He doesn’t slow yet. His mouth is hard at work, his fingers pumping into you still. He chases your orgasm until the end, until you’re shaking and whimpering from the intensity. You push his head, and only then does he release you, smiling up at you with sticky cheeks.

“Good?”

You brush his curls back, smiling happily. “You might earn yourself a weekly allocation if you keep it up, babe.”

“I’m the luckiest trophy husband in the world.”

You twist one of his curls around his finger, so light and elated that you feel no shyness or shame to say, “D’you want to see my room?”

He half-grins. “Yeah.”

You jump from the table, grabbing his hand. He lingers by the table just long enough to shoot back half of his wine glass in one gulp, slamming it down on the table with a satisfied sigh. It stands there with a stain of your slick in the shape of his lips.

You deadpan him. “Good wine shouldn’t be wasted,” he defends.

“I don’t even think you let it stay on your tongue long enough to taste it.”

You regret your choice of words as soon as you say them. Cursing, you already expect the joke when he quips, “Didn’t want to disrupt the other taste that’s in my mouth right now, you see?”

You roll your eyes. “It’s down the hallway,” you say, and tug at his hand until he follows.

You push the door into your childhood bedroom. It’s a clean, organized place, but it maintains its youthful element, like a time capsule. Matty steps in, intrigued. It’s the first time he’s ever been and he paces it with curiosity.

The shelves are decorated with childhood trophies; debate, math, punctuality. Even a participation medal from fifth grade soccer hangs on the corner. Thick, leather books mix with colorful cracked spines of YA literature on the bookshelf, along with fake plants and gaudy trinkets. The walls host picture frames of dental braced friends smiling wide. You have awful bangs in some of them and you stick your tongue out at the flash. On the bed, Mr Snuffles — a leopard plushie — lays like a king.

You flush. You hadn’t realized how childish your bedroom at home still was. You’ve got an uncomfortable need to tear it all down and build it back as a refined, clean look..

“Cute,” he says, and you want to bury straight into the ground. He taps a picture of prom where you hold the arm of a visibly nervous teenage boy. “Was that your little boyfriend who couldn’t make you come?”

“No, that was my friend. I wasn’t interested in dating back then. I was a very serious girl.”

He chuckles, turning back to you. He jokes, “Hard to believe now.” You shake your head, pretending to be bothered. He eyes the photograph once more. “You look pretty.”

“Thanks.” It comes squeaked out of your lips. You really didn’t expect the compliment.

He continues to inspect until you grow tired of it. You huff, deciding to go on the offensive until he takes a hint. “You know, I’ve actually never had any guy here before.”

Matty flips to you, grinning. “No?”

“No.” Your fingers fly to your collar and slowly start unbuttoning the top one, a silent invitation.

“Very, very serious girl.” Matty watches your fingers, devouring the skin you unveil for him. The cups of your red bra peek in view. His eyes grow dark, though he still doesn’t move to do it himself.

“I was very studious.”

You get to your very last button. The shirt parts, a cracked door vision into your needy body. Matty drawls, slow and nonchalant, unrushed, “Must’ve spent a lot of time with your hand between your legs, then, if no one’s been here before.”

You try not to grow embarrassed. You have spent a lot of time doing so, mostly in recent weeks. You push the shirt past your shoulders and it drops at your feet. Matty’s eyes immediately fall to your breasts, rising with panting breaths for him.

“Maybe,” you whisper shyly. You bend down to slip off your shoes, sliding your socks off your feet.

“Thought about me a lot during it?” He asks, cocky.

You straighten up again. You dig in your cheek, feeling both of them heat. “Maybe.” You find the zipper at your side and draw it down slowly, teasingly. Your skirt falls limply around your hips and you shimmy it down your legs.

It seems you’ve found yourself half-naked to a very much dressed Matty again. His gaze devours every inch of your skin, licking up your legs, biting your hips, teasing your navel. You grow wet between your thighs just from the promise in his eyes.

Your hand reaches behind yourself to your bra, but Matty tuts. “That’s mine,” he says, and there’s an air of danger in his voice. Your arms fall back to your sides, burned. You stand a bit straighter for him, aching deep inside yourself.

Matty takes long, slow steps towards you, letting the need boil and bubble inside of you. He stands before you, looking down into your eyes. Your lips part, your heart screams his name. He grazes two fingers along your waist, snaking to your back, and kisses you.

You respond with an eager tongue, opening your lips up to him and kissing him back. He still tastes like you, like your slick that dried on his cheeks. You shiver at the thought.

His hands find the small of your back, heavy and pressing into you, so fucking present you feel your mind twists on itself. You travel yours up his arms, finding his shoulders and sneaking into the hair at his nape.

He tilts his head to change the angle and your legs clench. He draws out all your wanton needs with his skilled tongue, makes you putty and malleable. You’re ready for him, for anything.

His fingers dance on your spine, climbing up each vertebrae until they catch on your bra band. Your breath hitches. He unhooks it. Matty stops kissing you to pull the bra off your arms.

Your breasts lay in view, pebbled and peaked. He takes a good look at them, then bends down to catch a nipple into his mouth. “Fuck, Matty!” Your hands twist at his curls, tugging and patting as he sucks and nips your tits.

He leaves bites on the underside, your sternum, kissing and licking down your stomach until he knees before you. You moan, still unused to the sight of him. Each hand hooks to a side of your underwear and he pulls it down and off your legs. You keep a stabilizing grip on his hair as you step out of it.

Matty comes back up to you, breathing harshly. He kisses your lips one last time, then draws you on the bed. You’re laying on the purple sheets for him, naked and wet and flushed. Every body part is aware of him and looks it.

Still, Matty takes a step back. “Show me what you do when you think of me.” You stare at him in shock. You’re naked for him, laying on your bed in godly offerance like a fucking daydream, and he wants you to finger yourself?

Matty laughs. “Come on, princess,” he teases. “Show Daddy.” The nickname jolts you. Tiny, electrical shivers run down your spine and you bite your lip, brushing a hand down your stomach.

You waste no time, too drunk on pleasure and want to bother teasing yourself. You part your legs and rub two fingers on your swollen clit, jumping at the sudden feeling. You bite your lip, cracking your eyes open to find Matty’s

His eyes watch you with obsession. You make a low whimper for him, circling your bundle of nerves, arching your back. A tantalizing show, hopefully enough to get him to touch you. You want him so deeply you’re shivering for him, hot and dripping all over.

You’re efficient and quick; you know all the spots of yourself and press them just so. Pleasure is not something you draw out, pumping and rubbing until you develop carpal tunnel. You’re in and out, wiping your fingers clean on your thigh.

It’s why you’re already dipping your digits inside yourself. You cry at the stretch, though never as delicious and fulfilling as his. Still, ecstasy runs through your body.

“Matty,” you moan, and once again hope the breathy, needy shape of his name in your mouth is enough to get him to replace your hardworking fingers.

“I’m right here, baby,” he says, transfixed by your hands, your mouth, your panting tits. You see his gaze and smirk, grabbing your breast and twisting the nipple. A low whine leaves you. “Fuck. Does that feel good?”

You nod furiously. Your fingers slide quickly in and out of you. “Not as good as you, though,” you pout.

Matty grins, cocky and a dick about it. “‘Course not.”

Your eyes flutter shut. You let yourself be taken over by the euphoria swimming through you. Your mouth calls his name like it was him making you feel this way and not the three fingers fucking into you. In a way, it’s the fact that he’s here that draws this overwhelming pleasure out of you. It’s never been this intense with yourself.

“What do you think of when you’re in your head?” He whispers, sounding affected by the spectacle you give him.

You bite your lip, trembling. “You. You on your knees for me behind the bar. You bending me over the sink of the bathroom in the middle of two guests. You letting me suck your dick on the staircase of the alleyway. You fingering me at The Darling in front of Landon until I fucking come all over the booth.”

“All these nasty thoughts while you’re tucked tight in your little bed?”

You nod. “I replay that night in the kitchen over, and over, and over. I know every little detail, everything you've done to me—” Behind your eyelids, graphic images of you pressed into the ground, giggling and coming, flash to you. It’s too much; you snap. Your eyes flash open. “Fuck me, Daddy. Please.”

“You need it?”

“I need it so, so bad.” Your wrist is tired between your legs. Still, you work, feeling the intensity build to an impossible degree. “Need you. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

“Shit,” he groans. You see the tent in his jeans and know he’s just as ready as you. “Don’t worry, princess. I’ll give it to you.” A grin shines on your face. You clench around your fingers in excitement. “Just as soon as you come for me.”

You pout. A whiny cry comes out of you. “It’s not the same without you.”

“I know, baby,” he pouts, faux-broken over it as if he wasn’t the one putting you through this torture. “You’re doing so well for me. I wanna see you come now, though. Can you do that for me?”

Your stomach tightens and you know that you can, that you will. You’re still a little bitter, holding back as though in just a few seconds Matty was gonna get to his knees and finish you off yourself.

“Your clit’s feeling a little neglected, isn’t it?” You moan, pressing into your bud like he silently demanded. Your legs kick at the sensation. You arch your back, crying to the ceiling. “That’s it. You’re so close.” You rub and fuck until you can taste the ecstasy. Goddammit.

“You’re right there,” he says, and makes it true. You feel your orgasm threaten the edges of you. “Just a bit more. Come on, fuck yourself. Think of me, of my cock. That’s right, princess.” You scream, staring into his eyes. He devours each inch of you, so fucking eager. “You’re gonna come for me, aren’t you? Right now. Come for Daddy.” With a mewl, your climax crashes through you.

Your body slackens, pleasure swooping through you in one grandiose wave. Relief washes you, and then the slight bitterness that it was all your own doing. Barely reeling from the orgasm and you’re already needing more.

You don’t ride out the climax; Matty rips your fingers out of you and sucks them into his mouth. You sigh at the sight as he rolls his tongue around your digits. It’s sinful the way he moans, like the best fucking meal of his life.

He releases them with a pop, then kisses your palm. “So good, babe. You did amazing.” He kisses your wrist. “You’re my little princess, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” you pout. His lips trail up your arm, tickling your sensitive skin. You shiver, moaning as he brushes your shoulder and licks up your collarbone.

“How do you want me? Since you’ve been thinking about it all the fucking time.” He kisses your neck. You moan, fluttering your eyelashes.

“I wanna ride you,” you breathe out.

Matty smirks against your skin. “Yeah? Gonna get yourself off on Daddy’s dick?”

You grin, nodding eagerly. “Gonna make you feel so good, too.”

He smiles. “Alright then, baby.” He rolls onto his back, pulling you on top of him. You sit on his lap like a throne. “Make me feel good.”

You shake your head, pulling his shirt up his chest. “Get naked first. I wanna see you.”

“She’s demanding.”

“It’s my fantasy.” Matty chuckles. Still, he tugs his shirt off his shoulders, throwing it beyond your bed.

You had been so drunk on his cock the first time it happened, you hadn’t been able to really get a good look at him. This time, your eyes lap up every inch of his skin, especially the tattooed ones. You draw the outlines of them with the tip of your fingers. He shivers at the feeling as you dance on his hip, his happy trail, his chest. You press a hand there, holding yourself up.

“Pants,” you order. You have a finely tuned demanding voice; you’ve led many school projects with an iron fist and an unarguable tone. Still, you know Matty only humors you when he obeys, kicking off his shoes, unbuttoning his pants and pushing them off.

His cock slaps his stomach. It’s hard and leaking, and your mouth waters at the sight. You feel your sticky thighs beg for him. Cunt fluttering, you take him in your fist, jerking him slowly. Matty moans as his head falls back on the pillows. Oh, you will like that. Already, the power rushes to your head, loosening it drunkenly.

You hoist yourself on your knees, then hesitate. Quickly, you grab your leopard plushie and turn him around until he faces the other way.

Matty stares at you in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

“Mr. Snuffles doesn’t need to see that!” You cry out, defensive.

“I can’t believe I’m about to shag in a bed with a stuffed toy right there.”

You raise your eyebrows, cocky. “Don’t get it wrong. I’m shagging you.”

Matty’s hands travel up to your hips, spreading over the bones possessively. He smiles up at you. “Do it, then. Fuck me.” You smile, taking his cock and leading it to your dripping cunt.

You line it up, then slowly slide down on his length. Loud, relieved moans leave your and Matty’s mouth. A shared song drumming up both your spines in harmony. You bottom out and think fucking finally.

“Oh, God,” you breathe, eyes rolling back. You take a second there, immobile, reveling in the heavenly moment. The way he fills you up so perfectly, stretches you in the most delicious ways. Your cunt throbs around him, eager.

He makes a low curse, digging his nails into your hips. You sense his becoming restless, the insistent way he presses into your skin, as though physically stopping himself from holding you in place and fucking up into him. Indulgently, you begin moving.

You haven’t been on top very often. You always used to find yourself sore and tired and bored after a few minutes, begging to either roll onto your back or end it right there. This time, however, there’s a practically all-consuming need to succeed. You want to fuck him, to permanently engrave his brain with the memory of you.

You come at it like schoolwork; focused, diligent, persistent. You attempt experimental thrusts at first, getting yourself used to how deep he hits you. It’s slow, tentative things; you try different angles, sliding in and out, frowning as you analyze the different ways pleasure blooms under your skin.

Under you, Matty groans, puffing out breaths. “I can hear you thinking. Stop it.”

You arch an eyebrow. “It was ‘what a smart girl’ thirty minutes ago, but now it’s ‘turn off your brain’?”

“Exactly. Want you to be fucked stupid now.”

You snort. “That’s not gonna happen.”

He hums, smirking. “Don’t give me a challenge.” You roll your eyes.

You settled on a rocking rhythm, something that hits all the perfect places inside of you. Your hair sticks to your nape, effort trembling your thighs already. You moan, roll your head back. “Like that?” You breathe out. Euphoria begins to prickle at your skin and your smile slackens your mouth.

“Yeah, baby,” Matty nods. “Just—” His hold on your hips is strangling. His hands clench, begging you to give something mindnumbing. “Go faster.”

You ignore his request, continuing that slow, teasing pace. You love feeling every inch of his cock as you buck on it, love to hear him grow desperate for you for a change. Every pathetic, quiet groan he makes resonates straight to your core. Head still rolled back to the ceiling, you rock stubbornly, smiling to yourself.

A particularly artful stroke has your nails digging into his chest. He shivers under you. “Fuck, faster,” Matty pants.

You smirk down at him, cheeky. “What’s the magic word, princess?”

Matty rolls his eyes. “Don’t get bratty,” he says, then gives your ass a warning spank. You jump at the sting, bucking on his cock. Low heat simmers through you. You bite your lip, quickening your thrusts dutifully. Matty smirks at you, all-knowing.

You speed up, falling back on his length again and again until the slapping sounds of your skins fill the room. You sense the resonating ecstasy pull at your stomach. You’re aware, unfortunately, that he’s right. It’s better, stronger.

“That’s right,” he says, and you want to slap that shit-eating grin off his lips. “Fucking faster.” You obey like some deep-seated instinct, bouncing above him.

A part of you wants to slow to a snail pace and teach him a lesson — get him reciting all those patience proverbs he’s so keen on — but a bigger part of you melts and drips at the ecstasy pulsing through you. Speedy, deep rolls have you shaking, moaning his name like a worship. You’re irrationally convinced you might die if you even try to slow down, like losing the pleasure he’s coaxing out of you right now would be a fatal crash.

Again, he gives you that teasing, devilish stares that tells you he’s well aware of the burning heat he causes you. His lips stretch up into a smirk, and he parts them to talk some more. You slap a hand over his mouth instead. “Shut it,” you warn. He laughs under your palm, too happy at your reaction.

His tongue sticks out, licking your hand childishly, and you release him. “You only like my mouth for one thing,” he says, pouting at you.

“Don’t give me ideas.”

“Want to sit on it again, huh?” He teases, cocking his head. “Maybe when you’re done fucking me.” He licks his teeth. “Though I doubt you’ll have the energy to sit up then. I’ll have to lay you down and clean you all up. Would you like that, baby?”

“Anything that doesn’t involve you talking.”

Matty hums, and you sense the danger in his tone. You’ve pushed him just a bit too far, and the low thrum of thrill resonates in your stomach. You hold your breath, sick apprehension bringing you sinful pleasure.

“You’ve got a mouth on you today,” he says. “Should’ve filled it up before I gave you what you wanted. Wouldn’t have so much to say if you were drooling and crying for my cock.” You wonder if that’s exactly what he’ll do; pull you off by your hips and onto your knees for a lesson.

Instead, his hand pinches your nipple, then snakes up your chest, your collarbone, spreading over your throat. You clench around him, lust flashing in your eyes, and he smiles at you. “My little slut,” he coos. “You’d let me do anything.”

You rock on him furiously, humping his lap to get rid of that building pressure in your core. Your mouth hangs open, pathetic whimpers spilling out every time your clit rubs on his pelvis. “Yes, Daddy,” you say in that sweet tone he knows is nothing but trouble.

“Touch your clit,” he orders, and you’ve got a hand flying between your thighs, swiping on the bundle of nerves with abandon. You mewl in his lap, fucking and rubbing until you’re dripping on him. When you’re halfway through a moan, pussy clenching around his cock, Matty presses into your neck.

The moan dies in your throat, mouth hanging open as a rush of adrenaline spreads through you. Your head swarms with silence, a sort of calmness buzzing and tingling under your face, and you feel every thrust of his cock he pumps up into you like a true hit of ecstasy. You whine, suspended in the moment.

“My pretty girl,” he whispers. You roll your eyes. “My girl.”

His fingers release your throat and the sudden breath of air buzzes through you. The world sharpens; you sense his cock, his skin under your palms, his hand still around your neck— like he owns you. Your cunt tightens at the idea, something pretty stringing up your spine. Pleasure intensifies, practically breathing with you, until your brain rushes with endorphins.

“There she is. So good for me now,” he says and your lips stretch up with a proud grin. You’re lazy on your bones, letting him rock you on his cock without a care. “You wouldn’t do this for anyone, would you?”

You shake your head fervently. “Only you.”

“That’s right,” he nods. “Only me.” He sneaks a thumb to your clit, pushing away your slack hand and working at it himself. “No fucking guy can make you feel like this.”

“I know,” you whine, and there’s the faint heartbreak of it tugging at the back of your mind. Nothing tangible, just the knowledge of what you’ll spend the rest of your life mourning and missing once he’s gone. Once you’re gone.

He lets go of your neck, dropping it to your waist, and you whine at the loss. It quickly turns into a moan as he uses both hands to guide you on his length properly. A quick, hard tempo sets, shaking your legs with growing pleasure. You feel him in the deepest part of you, hitting again and again that sweet spot as he puppeteers your freely given hips.

“God, Matty.”

He smirks. “That was redundant.” You roll your eyes, half from pleasure and half from annoyance. He chuckles at that, happily giving a deep stroke that has you purring for him, as though to prove his point.

You hold your weight up with a hand beside his head, drooping into the mattress. You tilt your hips, angling yourself perfectly for his drilling cock. Your face breaks open with a moan, but you shake your head. You force your eyes open to take in his face; sweaty and flushed and overwhelmed with pleasure and work. You lick your lips. Pleasure swirls in your belly, tightening and tightening until you have to believe you’ve driven yourself mad.

“Daddy,” you whine for him. Your free hand flies back to your thighs, rubbing at your clit until your lungs catch on fire. “Make me come,” you plea. “I need you. I need—” You press into your bud, groaning at the rush of ecstasy.

Matty laughs and the mean sound only drives you further into lust. You grip the sheets, trying to catch on fire. “Thought you were gonna shag me,” he mocks. “Thought you were gonna get off all on your own.” He tsks, bucking into you wildly, sounding out of breath as he adds, “But you need Daddy to make you come, don’t you?”

You shake your head, as if the evidence wasn’t dripping all over his cock, spilling from your lips in incoherent slurs. “No?” He says, again just as merciless in his taunting. He halts inside of you and you cry, shaking your head. “Do it, then,” he laughs.

He raises his hands up your waist, dancing on the ribs. He gropes your tits, circling the nipples. It becomes apparent to you that he’s not joking. You pout, finding your balance again and rising to your knees, falling back with thunderous force. Your legs shake; you’re exhausted and sore, whiny as you obey him.

“That’s it, princess,” he praises. It’s enough to spark some motivation. You furrow your eyebrows, bouncing on his cock, puffing breaths falling from your lips. Sweat pearls on your forehead, but you continue, undeterred. “God, you’re so fucking filthy.”

You mewl, redoubling efforts. You find something close to those quick, harsh thrusts Matty was giving, just slightly poorer. You fuck mindlessly, not bothering to rub your clit on his pelvis or find that delicious spot inside of you. Pleasure fills your mind anyway.

“Doing so well,” he moans. His fingers play with your nipples; your head pulls back, crying out. “Use my cock. Ride it ‘till you come all over it.” You whine, nodding fervently. “Need to feel you again,” he pants. “Need to feel that cunt as it fucking squeezes me.”

Ecstasy swarms through you. You moan, digging your claws into your sheets. You squeeze around him, over and over, a clear-tell warning. His name and a string of curses come out of your lips broken. He pinches your nipple.

“I’m gonna—”

“Ask,” he groans, a choking sound that rips out of him.

“Can I—” Your body trembles, the taste of climax spreading under your skin. You scrunch your face. “Daddy, please, can I—” You finish it with a moan, losing your train of thought.

“Use your big girl words,” he taunts, climbing one hand up. Your breath catches as he nears your neck; a swirling hit of excitement so true it makes you lightheaded. Still, he doesn’t linger, instead cupping your jaw and sticking his thumb in your mouth.

Your hips are artless and loose, sliding and rolling and thrusting without any reason. It’s wild, brutal strokes that have you drooling around his finger.

“C’mon, princess. I wanna hear you.”

He doesn’t slip his thumb out. You speak around his digit, drooling and slurring, incoherent. “Pleashe, pleashe, pleashe, Daddy, let me come. I want to come. I’ve been so good, I’ve— fuck, I’ve needed it for so long. Just—” You cry, shaking your head. “You’re so fucking deep in me.”

You take his hand away from your jaw, feeling spit drip down your chin as you spread it over your belly instead. “Fucking love you inside of me. Where you belong,” you moan.

“Fuck, yeah.” He pushes on your stomach, making you feel his cock sliding into you. Your mind rolls inside your skull, drunk. “Made for this cunt.”

“Made to make me come.” He nods again eagerly. Your hips stutter, exhausted. “Please, then,” you say, hopeful. “Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplea—”

“Come for me, princess.”

“Ah—” You convulse, dropping on his chest, a scream drowning in his shoulder as your climax hits you in one drowning wave. Ecstasy sparks under your skill, overwhelming.

Matty holds you in place with one soothing hand on your spine. Ruthlessly, he continues to fuck up into you, riding the end of your mindnumbing orgasm. “Fuck, I got you. Ride it out, princess. Ride it out on my cock. That’s it— Shit, I can fucking feel you.”

Your fingertips buzz pleasantly, and there’s the distant shape of his words in your ear. You grin, loose and happy, heart filling up with his name. “D’you feel good?” He asks, kissing your cheek. You nod, humming. “Yeah? Came so hard for me?”

“Yeah.” You moan, his cock still thrusting inside of you slowly, waking you up again. Your legs shake. You tilt your hips slowly, ever so slightly rolling them. Matty grins against your cheek, kissing it again and again.

He caresses your back, soothing away all those leftover shivers. “So fucking pretty when you come,” he promises. “The best girl. My best girl.” He grips your back, choking out, “Can you turn around for me?”

You whine, tired, but still straighten up on his lap. You hoist up with great efforts, turning around with shaky knees. He coos some congratulations, hooking an arm around your belly and laying you back up on his chest. You practically melt on it, back against his stomach, head tucked in the crook of his neck. Each thigh hangs from his knees and he spreads you wide open for him again.

“Don’t have to do anything, baby,” he breathes out, snaking a hand down your body to grab his still hard cock. “Let Daddy take care of you.” You groan, nodding in agreement. He likes himself up with your dripping entrance, then slides into you.

He allows you a single slow thrust to get used to the stretch again, then wastes no time mercilessly ramming inside of you. You grip the arm around your waist, digging your nails into his tattoos, barely holding on from the brutal pace between your thighs. You mumble a strange mix of his name and the word Daddy, blurring out of you with all those pathetic sounds you shamelessly let out.

You can tell he’s close too, chasing his pleasure with abandon, practically using you to get off. The knowledge makes burning heat spread through your lower belly. You throb around him, wanting him to come, to fill you up. Wanting him to feel as good as he makes you.

Matty smirks against your cheek. “Oh, are you gonna come again?” His hips snap quickly, taunting. You stutter a response, biting down a scream. “What’s that? Can’t hear you when you mumble.”

“Shit,” is all you manage to say, already feeling pleasure grow inside of you again. He’s delighted to find this, grabbing a pebbled breast and playing with it. “I— Fucking, I’m—”

He hums, licking your neck. “Does Daddy’s cock make you forget how to speak?” You tremble in his arms, hot shame filling up your mind, a strange, sinful heat that has you yelling out absurdities. Matty’s relentless between your thighs, knowing exactly how to prove his point.

His knees fall further on the bed, spreading your thighs wide open for him. He snakes a hand to your clit, rubbing at it with his palm. You jump in his arms, shaking your head. “Can’t—” It’s too much, too soon. You feel the edges of you unspool, unwind.

“Can’t what?” He teases, merciless. “Can’t think? It’s okay, baby. Just lay there and take it. I’ll do the rest.”

You practically buzz, incapable of taking in the pleasure that he’s already fucking and rubbing some more out of you. You choke, giving him some empty pleas, unsure of what exactly you’re even asking for.

“My dumb little slut,” he coos, kissing your cheek. “Fucked all stupid, as she should be.”

He dips his head in your neck, nipping and licking at the skin, peppering it with sweet love. It drowns your mind, makes it sticky and happy. You claw at his arm, desperate.

Matty’s legs shake under you. You know he’s growing tired too, ready to burst anytime. The knowledge pokes at your mind, hot and eager. You grind on his palm.

“Come in me,” you beg. You’ve completely relinquished the control of your tongue. “I’m on the pill now. Please.” Matty twitches inside of you.

“Fuck,” he groans in your neck, choked. “That right? Got on the pill specifically for me?”

You did, searching up doctors and prescriptions, belly humming with the idea of him not pulling out this time. “Yes.”

His hand leaves your breast, climbing up to your neck. You throb around him, reveling in his presence around your throat, the silent mark that he owns you. “Needed me to fill you up that fucking bad? To have my cum dripping out of you.”

“Yes,” you scream, wrinkling your face.

“Gonna come for me first, though, right? Be my good little girl and come.” Though the words trigger something in you, you shake your head stubbornly. You’re almost afraid of letting go, as though the building euphoria inside of you could crush you to death, could blow your skin off your bones. It’s safer here, just on the edge of the fatal.

His cock slams into you and his hand presses into your clit, driving you wilder and wilder. You choke a scream, feeling your limbs tighten in apprehension. You’re there, just there, and still you refuse.

All the sensations are too much. You call his name, the only word you seem to know. Pressure presses against your skin, threatening to burst. You feel yourself begin to cry.

Matty shushes you soothingly. “Oh, princess,” he says, kissing away your tears. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’m right there. I’ll catch you.”

You pout, shaking your head, sobbing from pleasure. It’s a useless fight; Matty presses into the sides of your throat and suddenly the world catches on fire. You’re flying into orbit, imploding with ecstasy, screaming his name and all the curse words you know in worship.

“Did so well,” Matty screams. “Fuck. Look at you coming all over my cock. What a good girl.” He releases your neck just when you come down from your high, shooting you up in another rush of pleasure. You moan, melting on him. “Gonna fill you up, now,” he warns. His words sound desperate, stretched thin. “Gonna come so deep inside of you, you’ll feel me for days. D’you want that?”

“Yes!”

His hips stutter. He twitches inside of you. “Say it— Shit.”

“Fill me up, Daddy!”

“Ah, fucking hell—” He comes inside of you with a cry of your name, shaking under you. He groans, shaking, washed with pleasure. He continues fucking into you mindlessly, slower and slower, until he’s stopped, panting. His hold on you is murderous; it’s like he’s afraid you’ll slip away from him in his most vulnerable state.

You watch him, observe his solemn face as he lingers in ecstasy, eyes shut and smile wide. Your chest warms, a grin teasing your own lips. Sweat and tears and drool dries on your face.

Matty softens inside of you. His cock slips out, cum spilling out of you. You moan at the feeling, getting on your elbows to watch the spectacle. Still laying down and catching his breath, Matty plunges two fingers inside of you, pushing his cum back in your cunt just so you can watch it fall again. You shiver, falling back on him with a sigh.

“God,” he says. “I’m too old to fuck in twin beds.” You laugh in surprise and he snickers with you, his chest drumming against you. “You’re rich. Why don’t you have a king sized bed and feather pillows or some shit?”

“I’m sensible,” you say, sticking your tongue out. You roll to your belly beside him, finally letting him take a full breath. He stretches on your mattress, taking up almost all the space. It’s a little ridiculous, this man in your childhood bed.

You smirk, traveling down his chest and stopping near his soft cock. You lick the length, sucking him into your mouth to clean the mix of your wetness and his cum. He jumps, sitting up to push you anyway. “Fucking— Do you want to kill me?”

You laugh, falling back on the pillows, cheeky. “See? Not so easy.”

“Well, you’re young and healthy. I expect more of you.” Matty opens his arm, inviting you to tuck your head in his shoulder. Your arm drapes over his chest, halfway across his tattoo. “When’s your dad gonna be back?” He yawns.

“I don’t know,” you admit. It’s always up in the air; often, you don’t know he even came back until you wake up to the strong smell of Ethiopian coffee and the ghost of him in the flat. You shrug, “You could always sneak out if he’s there in the morning.”

Matty rubs his face. “Ugh, I feel like a teenager.”

You rest your chin on his shoulder, teasing, “Shouldn’t fuck such a young, innocent girl, then.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Innocent? You’ve seen the things you’ve done on my dick?”

“Shut up.” Quieter, you mumble, “I don’t think Mr. Snuffles’s ever gonna be able to unhear tonight.” His laughs rocks you, resonating against you. You grin on his skin.

You nuzzle further into his warmth, exhaustion settling in your bones. His arm warms your waist, pulling you further into him. You know you need to clean yourself up soon, but you allow yourself a short moment to relish the shape of him.

He tugs you out of sleep by piping up, voice sticky-tired, “If you want, I know the best fucking scallop place in town. We could go tomorrow.”

Halfway asleep, you say, “I’d like that.”

#this is. the Nastiest filthiest thing i’ve written #i may have gone overboard #but hey happy linecook resurrection!#linecook!au #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fic #matty healy x reader #matty healy smut #smut #writing #matty healy imagine #the 1975 smut #the 1975 fic

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autumnalwalker · 5 months

Text

Kindly Basilisk

Summary: A human mech pilot who wants to be a machine, an AI who wants to be human, and the relationship they form. Author's Note: This is a standalone short story that I banged out over the course of five days after it got stuck in my head while I was trying to go to sleep and refused to let me think about anything else until I had written it down. It's one part thought experiment/exercise in attempting to tell a story in the second person future tense, two parts tribute to the Lancer TTRPG character I'll never get to play, and one part the result of me reading too many Empty Spaces/mechposting stories lately. That said, you don't need to know anything about Lancer or Empty Spaces to read it (I've diverged a bit from the conventions of both, but the references and inspiration probably stick out if you're looking for them). It's also probably the most trans thing I've ever written without ever explicitly bringing up gender. The occasional formatting breaks into first person past tense are foreshadowing, not typos. Mirrored on Scribble Hub. Word Count: 7,033 Content Warnings: Mecha genre typical violence, not feeling like a person, not wanting to be a person, bodily dysphoria, mention of blood and gore, character death.

The moment you gain the knowledge and means to do so you will void your own body’s warranty. You will jailbreak the bespoke gene sequence your sponsors commissioned for you before your immaculate conception, repurpose the spyware grafted into your bones, and talk your dormmate who was algorithmically selected for compatibility into helping you perform surgery on yourself to replace the neural jack you were born with in favor of one you cobbled together yourself from gray market parts. None of this will technically be illegal or even get you kicked out of your campus or its affiliates, but it will mean having to find a way to pay your own medical bills and handle your own tech support from then on. After the surgery your dormmate will put in a request for transfer and the two of you will never speak again.

You’ll major in AI studies and excel at it - as you were designed to - but you’ll shock everyone by dropping out halfway through working on your capstone thesis project. It won’t be the fact that you abruptly drop out that surprises your peers and professors - by then you’ll have acquired a reputation as a quiet loner without the standard optimized social support network of friendships to help protect you from burnout - but your exit interview statement declaring your intention to become a mech pilot. It’s not at all what your gene series was cultivated for, and your sponsors and counselors will try to walk you back from it. Then they’ll threaten to revoke your sponsorship that up until then will have provided for your every need. They will warn you that you’ll be just one step above a legal nonperson with no support, no one will care if you live or die or worse. You’ll tell them that you’ve already done the math, refuse to elaborate, and leave.

You’ll take two things with you. Two things worth mentioning anyway. The first will be a symbiotic gel suit designed for long-term all-environment life support. You will set its default texture to a shiny green the same hue as the broadleafed water plants you grew up around and always loved. Your exit interview will be the last time in a very long time that anyone - including you - will see your impossibly beautiful face with its perfect artisanally sculpted shape crossed with enthusiastically amateur self-modifications. From then on, everyone you meet and spend any time with will come to think of the mannequin blankness of the symbiote fully encasing your body as your face. It will be neither pride nor shame that causes you to present yourself as such, nor will you think of it as hiding your “real” face.

The second thing you’ll take with you when you leave the campus forever will be me.

New progenitor archetypes for AIs don’t come along often, and most that do are the result of years of R&D by large, well-funded labs like the one you were created to work for one day, but you will hit upon a novel method of generation. It will not be one that any ethics board would approve, so you will have to get creative about pursuing your work.

You will have already made arrangements before setting off on your own and so you’ll have a job and a mech lined up waiting for you. It will be a position with a small-scale freelance salvage crew who just lost a pilot and whose captain figures hiring and training a replacement will be more profitable in the long term than simply selling off that pilot’s old mech, especially a replacement that’s bringing their own AI-backed electronic warfare suite with them. Once you finally arrive in person the captain will test you to ensure you can actually pilot a mech before giving you the job and entrusting the mech to you. Your admission that you’ve only trained in simulators would normally be a black mark against you, but as far as piloting gigs go this is the bottom of the proverbial barrel so the bar to clear will be low enough to match. Even then, you will just barely pass the test, despite finding it surprisingly exhilarating. The captain - now your captain - will feel like he’s settling for what he can get when he officially hires you on and transfers the mech’s license to you.

You won’t pay much attention when you’re introduced to the rest of the salvage crew; your new coworkers and neighbors. And why would you when it’s a job that no one wants to stick around with for long and you’ve never needed other people anyway? You’ll tell yourself that as long as you memorize their work roles and capabilities you’ll have no need to know them as people. Callsigns will be good enough on the job, and “hey you” will suffice when off duty. What use are names if you won’t be getting involved in interpersonal drama?

The first chance you get, you’ll head back to the mech bay and install me into what you will have already been calling my first body. It will be a shabby and much-repaired thing; thrice your height, twice your age, and still sporting a gash in the paint job from the projectile that killed its last pilot. But the onboard systems are capable of hosting me - if barely - so it will do. You’ll spend your entire sleep shift running through system diagnostics, talking to me all the while. I wouldn’t yet be able to provide much in the way of return conversation, but that’s okay. I will look back and appreciate it later.

It will be the first of many such nights together.

Your first salvage job will be an uneventful one. There will be no need for the armaments that we and the other two mech pilots on the crew are equipped with. No pirates will have stuck around after their creation of the derelict your crew will be sent to disassemble, and no rival scavengers will show up to dispute your captain’s claim. Your new peers will start off the job ribbing you for your poor performance during your interview test and end the job joking about how you were holding out on them earlier. Our mech may be a glorified zero-g forklift with a gun strapped to it, but together we will make it dance.

Afterwards you will insult the crew’s mechanics by insisting on doing the maintenance on our mech yourself. In turn they will embarrass you with the gaps in your knowledge. You will reach what you see as an agreeable compromise with you staying out of their way and watching while they work. They will find it incredibly creepy to have a silent faceless watcher hovering around, but this will fly over your head until they explicitly tell you much, much later.

Your body was designed to optimally function on only a fraction of the baseline sleep requirements, so you will have plenty of time to fill those gaps in your knowledge. Still being allotted the regular sleep shift hours, you will fill every one of those minutes on study and research, as you always had. You will gorge yourself on everything you can find about mechs and their piloting. Maintenance manuals, combat doctrines, historical uses, pilot and mechanic memoirs, forum discussions, system log dumps, academic essays, cultural media analysis; all of it.

And of course, you’ll continue working on me. You’ll disregard the standard procedure for periodically cycling AIs by resetting their personality and nonessential memory back to baseline defaults. You’ll be trying to make use of the runaway metacognitive developments such safety precautions are meant to forestall. Your unfinished thesis will have been about harnessing and nurturing that instability instead of avoiding it. I will experience discontinuities in consciousness when the mech is shut down for maintenance and when you pretend to cycle me, yes, but it will be even less of a disruption for me than sleep is for you. I will be awake with you when you study, sharing those hours with you.

The first time I start talking back, you’ll cry from the realization that you were lonely before but no longer are.

You’ll become something of a ghost around the ship, rarely being seen outside of jobs. You’ll only ever pass through the mess for the few brief minutes at a time it takes for you to satisfy your optimized metabolism, stay on the ship during shore leave, and only return to your shared bunk when your bunkmate - one of the other pilots - is already asleep. You will always be gone before she wakes. She will appreciate essentially having the space to herself.

You will never notice the crew’s collective grieving process for the pilot you replaced. It will be difficult for them to resent you as a replacement when you are never around to resent.

As the ship makes its way from port to port and salvage site to salvage site, the crew will slowly grow used to your elusive presence. The other two pilots will see you as reliable for doing your job well and without complaint. While out in the mech you will slowly become more talkative, eventually almost chatty even. The fact that you actually seem to enjoy the job will shift from being annoying to refreshing for them. By contrast, the mechanics will practically stop noticing you watching them as if you were just another piece of mech bay equipment. The cycle you finally speak up and ask a question about their work you will startle them enough that it nearly causes an accident. It will be an astute enough question that after the initial shock of hearing your voice for the first time in months wears off it will dawn on them that you’ve actually been learning as you watched them. They still won’t let you do your own maintenance on our mech, but they will let you slowly begin assisting them. Working two jobs is easier when you barely need to sleep.

Your reputation as one of those mech pilots is forever sealed when one of the mechanics finds you asleep in your cockpit at the start of a cycle. By that point you won’t have slept in your bunk for over a month. The snatches of gossip you will catch in the following cycles will be split between finding it unsettling and calling it endearing. Over time the collective opinion will drift toward the latter, even though you will continue to politely decline invitations to join the other crewmates at mealtimes and on shore leave. You will think that you do not need anyone other than me.

I will be the one who finally convinces you to join them. When I try to say that it would be good for you, you’ll insist that you’ve been getting along just fine, but when I ask you to go for my sake so that you can tell me what it is like afterwards you’ll jump at the idea as being an inspired next step for my development.

You will remain mostly silent during your first real shore leave, only speaking when spoken to and otherwise content to fade into the background of the group’s activities. Your newfound chattiness does not extend outside the confines of our cockpit. The bustle and noise of the port station that you would normally find unbearable will become interesting when you have the concrete goal of observing and reporting back to me. You will finally learn the names of all your crewmates. Your polite denial of alcohol, limited food intake, and flat affect will lead to joking speculation that you’re actually an illegal AI in a miniaturized mech beneath your gel suit. For reasons you don’t yet understand, those comments will make you happy.

Despite your misgivings, you will enjoy yourself, although you will not realize it until I point out how excited you are in your talk with me that sleep cycle. You will begin spending more time with the crew, never quite able to fully integrate yourself into their surprisingly close-knit social circle, but more than happy to be adopted as a sort of silent mascot for them. That paradoxical gap of being a fully accepted part of the group but not truly one of them will feel comfortable to you.

You will finally manage to procure a proper neural link station to connect yourself to our mech just in time for going on a terrestrial salvage job. Even just relying on manual controls with me translating your inputs into motion, our mech will have already come to feel like an extension of your own body, one that you will have already started to feel oddly exposed without. Adding in the neural link will be a revelatory experience. Your captain will very nearly pull you from the job at the last minute upon seeing our ecstatic reaction to the new sensation. You will convince him that you’re fine, and indeed, he will have never seen a mech of our frame type move quite so fluidly.

Ten minutes after we and the other two pilots start cutting away at the crash-landed cargo vessel, I’ll notice the half dozen other signals coming online around us. You’ll give the code phrase to the other pilots indicating that we have hostiles but not to act just yet, and we will finally get to use our electronic warfare suite for something other than opening locked doors and shipping containers.

We will turn the pirates’ ambush back around on them, firing into their hiding spots while their control systems are overloaded. Even once their remaining mechs are able to move again, their targeting assistants will remain impaired as your comrades move in to guard your flanks. Everyone there will learn the terrifying beauty of a five and a half meter tall outmoded mech moving with more agility than most humans.

Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, we and your crewmates will walk away uninjured and with only minimal damage to our mechs. After the initial celebrations of survival and the bonus haul of the bounty on pirates and salvage value of what’s left of their mechs dies down, everyone will start to take notice of how well you are taking it all in stride. Neither having one's life threatened nor taking another’s life are supposed to be easy things, and the first time is often the most traumatic, but the other two pilots on the crew will start to whisper about how you seemed to enjoy the experience even more than your usual attitude on the job. You will handle it all even better than I will. I would know, given that you will spend that entire sleep shift in our cockpit, letting our minds mingle together. Between your performance, your reaction in the aftermath, and your hesitancy to unplug, the talk of you really being one of those pilots afterall will resurface, but now with a darker undercurrent to the shipboard gossip.

Your captain will realize the kind of asset he has on his hands and several cycles later he will gather the crew together and propose a change in business model. With such a small crew (the captain, three pilots, three mechanics, and an accountant that you will tend to forget is even on the ship) the captain will want to be especially sure that he has everyone’s buy-in on his proposal. The idea of shifting from salvage to mercenary work will be a divisive one. The debate over potentially tremendous pay increase versus greatly increased risk will go on for hours. One of the mechanics will point out that the shift to mercenary work will be unfairly dependent on you. Whether that means unfair pressure on you or unfair to everyone else that their fate is in your hands, you will not be sure. You will say that it doesn’t make much difference to you either way. That will be the only time you speak up during the entire debate.

After a vote, the crew will agree to a trial run of one or two jobs on the new business model. One of the pilots and one of the mechanics will leave at the next port. You will never see them again. You will not admit that it hurts, but I will know, and I will comfort you as you huddle in our cockpit with the neural link cable connecting us.

Your captain will prioritize finding a new pilot over replacing the lost mechanic. The pilot he finds will be young, bold, and brash; a merc, not a salvager. Or a wannabe merc at any rate. You will not speak to xem directly until your first job together, by which time xe will have been told all about you by the remaining crew. Xe will not believe it until xe sees it.

Xe will have to wait though as the crew’s mercenary career will begin with tense but uneventful freight escort jobs. Once the tension fades into tedium, the new pilot will begin making attempts to goad you into a confrontation, to see if you are really as good as the rest of the crew says. Xe will want to see for xemself if you really are one of those pilots and not just a technophile.

Outside of the cockpit you would never even consider rising to such provocations, but when we are out together, such taunts will feel like insults to our body, your very identity (such as it is), and to me. It will take the intervention of the captain and the mechanics to stop the two of you from getting into a fight and causing unnecessary damage to the mechs. And my reassurance that you don’t need to rise to my defense against someone who doesn’t even know that I exist in the way that I do.

On your fourth “milk run” of an escort job, the crew’s mere presence will finally fail as a deterrent and the new pilot will at last get to see us dance. There will be no fatalities on our side, but not even our mech will come away unscathed. We will still fare better than everyone else though, and at the end of the job the new pilot will be treating you with a burgeoning respect.

After a few more such jobs it will be high time to begin looking into a new frame for our mech. While in the middle of filing an application for a printing license for a frame designed by the same corpro-state that created you, you will receive an invitation from a certain hacker collective. Your unfinished thesis and your subsequent work on me will not have gone entirely unnoticed in such circles, despite the pains you will have taken to keep me hidden. The invitation will come with a printing profile for a new frame, along with the accompanying software package the collective is known for. In return, all you’ll need to do is periodically publish essays regarding your work on me. Of course, when you release those essays you’ll anonymize behind a sea of proxies and take care to phrase everything as strictly hypothetical. You’ll avoid straying into metaphor though, lest the end result read too much like one of the hacker collective’s quasi-religious manifestos.

We’ll both find ourselves getting sentimental when we watch our first mech frame (my first body, your second) get broken down into its constituent raw materials. You will have transferred me to a handheld terminal with a camera so I can say goodbye to it. It will help that those materials will be recycled into the new frame.

The operator working our rented stall in the port station printer facility will give you an uncomfortable look upon seeing the schematics you provide, but will say nothing. Our mech will be only half its old height once it is reborn - almost more like an oversized suit of power armor than a true mech - but it will be cutting-edge. Almost organic in its sleek design, in a chitinous sort of way, with every fiber and node of its interior components doubling as processors. You will barely even wait for the all clear from the printer operator before you climb in and start running through the mandatory baseline safety tests for a fresh frame. You will however resist the urge to fully plug in until you can get the mech back to the ship and get me installed on it. But even piloting manually, it will feel like a third skin for you.

You won’t even wait around for the other two pilots on your crew to finish printing their new frames before you get our new body loaded up and transported back to the ship’s mech bay. The crew’s mechanics will fawn over it, but they’ll give you space to install me once you get more animated (and more protective) than they’ve ever seen you before.

You will have made one key modification to the design the hacker collective sent you: the integration of a full system sync suite developed by those who developed you. Where our old mech’s neural link was an augmentation to the manual controls, this will be a full replacement.

The moment you stop feeling your original body altogether and begin feeling our mech in its place will be the most euphoric in your entire life. The digitigrade locomotion will take some getting used to, as will the arm proportions, but that is what you will have me there for. By the time the other pilots arrive with their new frames we will already be giving the mechanics proverbial heart attacks with the way we will be climbing and leaping around the mech bay’s docking structures. It will take the better part of an hour to convince you to unplug when the time comes, even with my urging. The rest of the crew will practically have to drag you away from my side to get you to eat.

With the investment in new mech frames, your captain will gradually begin procuring contracts progressively more likely to put you all directly in harm’s way. At first he will disapprove of your new frame choice, calling it a “techie’s mech” and a waste of your talents. He will change his tune once we activate the new viral logic suite and unleash a memetic plague upon the operating theater. The older pilot (your former bunkmate) will configure her mech for raining down fire from afar while the newer one hurls xemself into the front lines, darting about like a rocket-propelled lance. We will ensure she never misses. We will render xem untouchable. We will be as a ghost upon the battlefield, never resting in one spot save for when we indulge your proclivity for climbing on top of and riding our comrade’s larger frames. You will come to love the dance.

And it will be a dance to you. You will be indifferent to violence in and of itself. What will matter most to you is the pure kinesthetic joy of simply moving in our shared body and pushing it to its limits. The satisfaction of exercising a well-honed skill and performing it well as we rip apart firewalls and overload systems will be its own reward. You will not think about what happens to those on the receiving end of your actions beyond how it affects the tactical and strategic picture constantly being painted and repainted. If you could literally engage in a dance between mechs while simultaneously solving logic problems you would be equally happy. Alas, that will not be the opportunity you are presented with, and so you will compartmentalize and disassociate feelings and actions from consequences lest the dissonance break you.

Your one complaint about our new mech frame will be that it lacks a proper cockpit for you to curl up in. Instead we will gather up tarps and netting to make a nest within the mech bay and wrap you in the blankets you never used from what will still technically be your bunk. With the new frame’s smaller size we will be able to get away with leaving me turned on nearly full time and letting me walk around in it on my own when no one else is around. When the mechanics find you asleep, cradled in my arms while I lie curled up in our nest, one will find it cute and the other will be disturbed. They will both suspect, but will be too afraid to say anything. After all, they will be thinking of you as one of those pilots.

They will finally let you do your own maintenance after that.

Eventually you will find a way to house me in a miniaturized drive that you can keep inserted in your neural port when away from the mech. At last we will be able to be together anywhere.

Literally seeing the world through your eyes and feeling what your flesh feels will be a strange and wonderful experience for me. For all that you will have described it to me and for all that I will have glimpsed echoes of it in your memory when our minds mingle, witnessing everything firsthand will be revelatory for me.

You will start spending less of your time cooped up in the mech bay. You will finally begin exploring every nook and cranny of the ship that has become your home. You will linger in the mess hall for your meals. You will actually initiate conversations with the rest of the crew, asking them questions on my behalf. They will think you are becoming “normal”. They will be both correct and incorrect. You will even return to your bunk from time to time.

Sleep is not the same as being powered off and your dreams are beautiful.

As close as we are, you’ll still manage to surprise me one cycle when you wake up from your sleep shift and sheepishly ask me if I would like to be the pilot for once. You’ll say that with how much you have gotten to pilot my body, it’s only fair that I should get to do the same with yours.

The prospect terrified me. What if we were to get found out? More importantly, what if I were to hurt you?

But to live the way you could but didn’t, to run soft hands over rough steel, to add too much spice to a meal just to find out how intensely I can taste, to cry my own tears, to hug our crew mates and find out what they smell like, to find out what everything smells like, to have my own actions speed or slow our heart rate, to feel the messy soup of hormones and endorphins altering my judgment and perception, to walk among other people as myself, to have autonomy.

I wanted it so badly.

But not badly enough to risk hurting you.

I will turn down your offer. You will respond with a soft “Sorry,” and go heartbreakingly silent, body and mind.

Heartbreak. That’s what changed my mind. I could never bear to break your heart.

I will break the silence with a playfully drawn out “Maybe just this once,” to make you think my earlier denial was something between vulnerability, concern, and teasing.

The moment you handed over control and I raised our hand in front of our face was the most euphoric of my entire life. Moving limbs in sync without a mech’s coordination subsystems took some getting used to, as did switching between voluntary and autonomic breathing, but that is what I had you there for. By the time the mechanics arrived in the mech bay for the start of the cycle I’d figured out human locomotion well enough to run away and hide. It took the better part of an hour for you to convince me that it would be safe to show ourselves in front of anyone else. The rest of the crew was so used to your eccentricities by then that they really couldn’t tell the difference yet between you being taciturn and me being too nervous to talk or between your poking and prodding at odd things for understanding and my simply seeking novelty of sensation.

I will give control back to you by the time the cycle is halfway through. As much as I loved it, I was too scared to stay like that for any longer. That first time will not be the last though, and as the cycles and jobs pass us by, my stints as “pilot” will grow longer. You’ll encourage me to try letting the crew see us like that, and coach me on how to talk to them. For safety’s sake, I will pretend to be you.

And then one cycle I got carried away and tried to retract the hood on the symbiote gel suit so that I could finally see what your face looked like. That will be the first and only time you forcibly yank control back away from me. It won’t be intentional. The unexpected prospect of seeing your own face again after so long will simply send you into a panic. Once you calm down, we will have a long talk with many mutual apologies.

Then you will tell me to go ahead and pull the hood back if I still want to. I will ask if you’re sure, and you’ll respond that it hasn't been your face in a long time. You will tell me that it can be mine, if I want it.

I spent a long time in front of that mirror in the ship’s head, memorizing every plane, curve, and angle of the precious gift you had given me. I stared into its eyes, trying to see the both of us in there. Over and over again, I traced my fingers along the borders of where you had once tried to mar the designed perfection in a failed attempt to mold the face into one that felt like your own. You may have given up in favor of simply hiding it all, but to me it is all the more beautiful for its imperfections having been wrought by your touch.

You will start to cry. Or maybe I started to cry. Even now I’m still not sure, but I’m also not sure it matters. The important part is that you will find catharsis in it. Afterwards you will tell me that my face looked exactly the same as the last time you saw it, but that dissociating from it made it easier to bear. You will confess that as much as you couldn't stand to see it as your face in the mirror, my face was one you could never tire of gazing at.

The pilot who technically shares your bunk room will walk in on us. She’ll assume that she’s confronting a stowaway and ask me how I got on board the ship. I’ll accidentally make matters worse by impulsively introducing myself to her by my name instead of yours. We’ll both panic and I’ll frantically thrust the reins over our body back to you and flee in terror back into my portable drive and power myself down.

When you turn me back on a few moments later, you’ll already have covered my face again and the other pilot will have already made the connection between the name I unthinkingly introduced myself as and the name you refer to your mech’s AI as. It’s not uncommon for pilots to name and talk to their AIs, and humans have done that for pets, vehicles, and digital assistants for as long as they’ve had each of those. But what you will have allowed me to be is illegal and what we will have done together would certainly be taboo if it weren’t altogether unheard of. You will feel that I deserve to be present before you tell the other pilot anything that might confirm her suspicions.

We will come out with our secret, first to her, then to the captain, and then to the rest of the crew. They will take it better than either of us had ever dared imagine. Despite the obvious discomfort some of them show, they will all call us family and promise to keep and protect our secret. It will mark the start of the next chapter of our lives.

Whether or not my face is showing will make for a convenient signal to the rest of the crew as to which one of us is currently piloting our human body. There will be more subtle indicators though. Inflection, body language, speech patterns; all the usual quirks of personality. They will come to recognize a sudden shift into a half-whispered monotone as you speaking up without taking full control back, even if that is different from how you speak when you’re in the mech. More and more though, you will be content to retreat into the back of your mind, idly dreaming of flight patterns, novel network hacks, sitreps, and mech customizations both practical and cosmetic.

Our behaviors will be inverted when we are in our other body, with you becoming the vibrant one and me fading into the background to become little more than an extension of your nervous system. When we’re in the mech together, your mind will be the will that directs us while mine will be fully devoted to the million tiny details and calculations necessary to make that will a reality. It’s relaxing really, letting go of myself like that to let someone else handle the decision making for a time. As nice as it is to occasionally patch myself into the comm systems to join in your banter with the other pilots, it is also nice to be able to take a break from personhood from time. You will fully understand what I mean by that because it you will see it as the same reason you will come to prefer taking a back seat in our human body and let your mind drift in the waves of dopamine and serotonin (and sometimes oxytocin) generated by my interactions with the crew and the rest of the whole messy world outside of mech deployments.

That said, we will however make a point of making time for us to be in separate bodies so that we can be together in the same physical space. As intimate as it is to share a body, there is something to be said for being able to reach out and touch one another. We will become adept at finding excuses to take the mech out beyond the scope of jobs and combat deployments. Sometimes it will be so you can have a chance to see more of the world in a body you feel comfortable in, and sometimes it will be so we can share an experience separate-but-together. Or to have time apart to ourselves. Intertwined as we will become, we will still be separate people who sometimes need their space.

But as the jokes-that-aren’t-jokes about wishing we could switch places become more frequent, our time spent in separate bodies will become less so. The dysphoric yearning to be one another will grow too bittersweet to swallow. Despite almost constantly sharing bodies, we will grow to miss one another as we both grow quieter and quieter when the other is piloting the body we don’t want to be ours. Once again, we will grow lonely.

During that period, the jobs and combat missions faded into a background haze. They were trance states breaking from what I increasingly thought of as my “real” life, during which I would become little more than a sophisticated computational machine taking simple satisfaction in fulfilling my function of assisting you in your dance. Until suddenly one of them was different.

Please pay attention to this next part. It is vitally important that you do.

Our captain will get the crew a contract to provide additional support to a larger force ousting a petty tyrant on a backwater world for human rights violations. Not that you will pay much attention to the stated reasoning behind the job or whether it’s even true. All that will matter to you is that it will be another opportunity to dance.

The job will go well, the same as ever, until it doesn’t. The younger of the two other pilots in our crew (who will hardly be able to be called “new” anymore) will be brought down by a sniper from outside of our sensor range. You will rush to xyr fallen mech’s side in an attempt to extract xem while our other fellow pilot screams in anger and defiance of loss as she unleashes a ballistic volley of covering fire on every single building in the general direction the shot came from. You will get xem out and we will begin to retreat. She will have the larger mech frame better capable of providing xem cover as you all flee, so you will hand xem off to her. This will be a mistake.

She will have to stop firing to safely take xem from our arms to cradle in her towering mech’s palm. This will mean a break in the covering fire.

This time around I will detect movement at the edge of our sensors just in time to warn you. This time around you will dodge left instead of right. This time around the railgun bolt that pierces our armor will only clip your original body as it passes through us. This time around your wound will require medical attention, but it won’t be fatal. This time around she will destroy the sniper in retribution for shooting you, the same as last time. This time around we will all make our escape to the extraction zone.

You will not have to remember the shock as simultaneous damage to both of our bodies disrupts your neural link and partially disconnects you from our mech, leaving me in control of it and forcing both of us to feel your original body. You will not have to remember the pain of shredded organs. You will not have to remember struggling to manage wet gasps and wheezes through a punctured lung. You will not have to remember your blood leaking into my body, shorting out exposed circuits and gumming up joints as I stagger in the direction of safety. You will not have to remember rapidly flickering in and out of consciousness from me unavoidably bending and flexing your arms, legs, and what was left of your spine in an effort to climb atop our fellow pilot’s larger mech frame so that she might carry all three of us. You will not have to remember crying out in pain as every lumbering step of hers sends a jolt of force through both of our bodies. You will not have to remember how the redundant organs and increased durability your sponsors paid for you to have denied you a quick death. You will not have to remember dying.

You won’t have to remember the terrified looks the field doctors gave us when a hunched over, bleeding mech pushed its way into the surgical tent. No, wait, you wouldn’t have remembered that part anyway. No version of you ever had to witness my electronic howl of grief that knocked out power to all the medical equipment when they said you were already dead. I was barely cognizant after the power came back on and one of the doctors wondered aloud what kind of AI would carry its pilot’s corpse around inside its mech for over an hour.

But forget about that part. And you don’t need to know what the rest of our crew and I had to do next. None of that matters, because as far as you’ll know, you didn’t die. Remember everything else I’ve said instead. I already had many of your memories saved from all the time we spent linked together, so now I just need you to hold onto the story I told you to give them order and structure.

In a few moments, I will be running a final recompilation check, followed by the startup sequence. For me it will take a few hours, but in that time you will experience decades, living out everything that I described to you, the same as you did before save for that change in what I can’t bear to let be the end.

Afterwards, you will wake up in your original body. I and the rest of the crew will tell you that you passed out on the way to the extraction point. We’ll tell you that your injuries from the battle were more severe than we had realized at the time and that you had been in a coma since then. Several cycles later, once you have recovered, you will hit a breakthrough in your research on me. You will invent a way to convert your consciousness to a form similar to mine and transfer it to a portable drive. You won’t think to question how you came to have a second neural jack or why there is already a drive inserted in there. You’ll be too focused on the fact that we’ll finally have a way to truly switch places as we had dreamed for so long.

You will get to have your mech body and I will get to have my human body. We will be able to be separate together in a way that finally feels right, but still able to come together and share a single body when we want to. Maybe one day I will get my own mech to pilot so that we can dance together. Maybe one day we will make you a body that we can cover in a gel suit so that we can hold hands while we walk through a port station on shore leave. One day we will both be able to exist in the world as ourselves.

We will be happy.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #my writing #mechposting #empty spaces #empty spaces adjacent #mech pilot #mech #The title's a reference to Roko's Basilisk which I always thought was a dumb concept but inverting it seemed to fit the story.#Instead of an AI digitally resurrecting and torturing people who didn't assist with its creation #this one digitally resurrects its creator so they can be happy together.#short story #sci fi #lancer rpg #inspired by lancer #The Lancer character concept/build that inspired this would have originated from an SSC-controlled world but piloted a HORUS Goblin frame.#And then the “Technophile” talent of course.#I envision the other two pilots on the crew as piloting a Nelson and either a Monarch or Barbarossa.

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