Research, pt. 2

It's all the dialogue that's giving me fits on this one, I think. I'm not used to writing other people's words. It's strange and unwieldy.

Still, there's just an epic sex scene left and then I can put this one to bed...so to speak. And follow it with something less wordy!

Enjoy.


First, nothing; then a car alarm, going off inside my head. Making my brains vibrate. It doesn't even register as pain at first, just a horrible dark throb, then I groan pitifully and bury my head under a pillow.

I'm awake, hungover, confused, upset, and alone.

Somewhere in the back of my head, hiding behind liquor-fried neurons and sticky sleep haze, are last night's vague memories. Of Devon driving me home, and how neither of us said a word the whole way. Of handing him my door key because I wasn't sure I could find the lock. Leaving him in the front hall while I stumbled to my bedroom, alone, tore off the stupid clothes, fell into bed and then, blackness.

The warm, unfamiliar not-blanket I'm wrapped in turns out to be his jacket.

Must have a shower. Hot water beads down on me, sweating out all the bad; aspirin for the headache, vitamins for the other corporeal woes. There's no need to think about anything yet. I lather, rinse, repeat every square inch of skin, running out the hot water, delaying. But when I finally exit, towel-wrapped and beginning to feel human again, he's still here. Sprawled awkward in sleep across my couch with all his clothes on, scruffy, snoring.

Damn.

I could hit him. Now's the best time for it, really; after so many years I know how difficult he is to catch with a headstart. I could get the lily vase from the kitchen and pour it over his head, flowers and all, though my couch would never recover. Dump his duplicitous, perverted, presumptuous ass on the floor and watch him crawl away. Climb on top of him and kiss his sleep-soft mouth till I'm trapped in his arms, pressed against the admirable swell of cock I tried not to notice on the trip home last night. Hit him with a frying pan. Drop the towel and drag him into the shower with me. Set fire to his socks.

Wait. What?

Damn.

For maybe 10 minutes I stand there, watching him sleep, trying to concentrate on violent retribution. On screaming, cursing, throwing household objects.

But in the end it's impossible, so I make breakfast instead.

The bacon's done, eggs are scrambled and I've managed to get some actual cothes on by the time he stumbles into the kitchen. Squinting and sheepish, quiet.

"Poisoned?" he asks when I put food in front of him on the little kitchen/living room divider. "Or is this a last meal for the condemned sort of thing?"

"Just eat," I tell him and for a few more blessed minutes don't have to think about last night. About how it felt, how he tasted, what it means. Part of me wants to freeze this moment. Stay in the kitchen with the smell of coffee around us, his hair uncombed, my feet bare on the linoleum. Balanced.

But things always tip, eventually, one way or the other. When the coffee is gone and the dishes stacked in the sink, he comes closer, leaning next to me, and talks.

Always an unrequited attraction, he says. Nothing he ever thought would work, be reciprocated. He'd left it at friends because the guys I dated were all so different - jocks in college (the only guys who ever seemed to approach me), doctors and lawyers after (the ones my mother pushed me at, and almost all of them dull. Or gay.) No hints, no hopes.

He swears up and down that the convention thing was not intended to entrap or entice me in any way and I can tell, from the genuinely pathetic distressed look on his face, that it's true. I know his fake pathetic distressed look. It's different.

"But still," I say slowly, "You were encouraging it. Whatever was happening, you made it worse."

"Was it really that bad?" he asks, right behind me, carefully not touching. "Really? ...I did press a little. And I'm sorry. I don't want you to think I'm a creep."

"You're a creep." I busy myself putting away the remnants of breakfast. Looking at him right now doesn't seem like a good idea. "Maybe not a manipulative bastard."

"That's something, at least."

When there's nothing left in the kitchen to busy myself with, I give up and collapse onto the couch, looking for answers in the ceiling. Devon takes a spot on the floor next to me, where he can lean his head back against my hip. For a while we're quiet, trying to regain our easy companionship.

"I don't like how it felt," I tell him. "I mean. I liked it then. I don't like it now."

He looks over at me and smiles. "You don't like how much you liked it," he says. "I get that. It's powerful, and anything that affects our emotions that powerfully is fucking scary."

I nod. He nuzzles my hip a little, comfortingly, and I find I'm toying with the ends of his hair with my free hand, smoothing out tangles, taming it.

"It was like the ground fell out from under me. I was on my feet, and safe, with you, in a brightly lit public place, with nothing real to be afraid of, but inside I was falling."

"That's part of the appeal, though," he says. "The falling. Losing control. Trusting someone enough to give up that control, and fall."

"Like skydiving," I say, half skeptical.

"Like skydiving. With orgasms."

The back of his head rests warm and heavy against my hip, a solid, reassuring contact. I can see his face in profile against the kitchen light; eyes closed, long golden-haloed fringe of lashes against his cheek. He does have a nice mouth. I'd never noticed before.

"I'm afraid we'll wake up afterwards and I'll realize 'oh shit, my best friend tied me up and spanked me and made me cum' and I'll be humiliated and never be able to talk to you again." I have to close my eyes to say it, feeling the blood rising in my face. "I'm afraid you'll think I'm pathetic."

"We can take turns," he offers instantly. "You can tie me up and spank me and make me cum. I draw the line at diapers, though. And pink frilly aprons. And toys you need an electrician's licence to operate."

"Damn you! Stop making me laugh, it's unfair."

I poke his shoulder accusingly, and before I can pull my hand back he's turned, captured my fingers in his warm mouth, nipping at them. Suckling. The current moves from fingertip to groin almost instantly and I shudder, no way to hide the reaction - too sudden, too strong. When I open my eyes, when I can't *not* look anymore, he's staring back at me, all wickedness. Taking my hand in both of his so I can't pull away, warm rough tongue against my fingers, between them.

"Devon - oh god. I can't," I tell him, and am astonished to hear how soft my voice is, how it trembles. "Please. I don't know what to do like this."

He releases my fingers with a soft, moist slurp that makes my spine flex, hips rising involuntarily...a raw sound, a sex sound. Then he's climbing over me, one knee between my thighs on the couch, his hands by my shoulders...not holding me down, but close. "You don't have to know what to do," he whispers to me. "You don't have to do. Just allow. Trust. Let go."

Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back, surrendering. Parting my lips hungrily. Waiting for his kiss.

The velvet brush of his lips against mine, nibbling, without pressure.

"Say yes," he tells me.

I shake my head slowly, rubbing my mouth across his, savoring the texture, the hint of his flavor. Standing at the precipice, feeling the wind go through me, waiting for it...

"Yes," I say.