the price is right

You would not have begrudged any male attention, in fact you were long starved of it; but you felt guilty, in a way, subjecting a man to the state you were in. Short-fused and frazzled, thin knitted scarf wrapped tight around your neck, autumn coat slipping from your drooping shoulder. You dug around in your bag for your wallet when the bartender handed you the card reader, scooping frantically through the piles of receipts and hairclips and loose tampons. Offered sheepish apologies to him; so sorry, it’s definitely in there. I’m a mess! Long day, sorry. So sorry. Sorry. 

You jumped when you heard the thud of a light slap on the counter, the low huff of an exasperated man, sick and tired. Looking up from your bottomless satchel, you saw the tenner left beside the card reader, and the bartender nodded in thanks before taking it swiftly. 

“No problem,” came the gruff voice from above you, implicitly chastising your lack of thanks when you tilted your head upward to blink at him. 

He was pretty - your first thought - in a dirty, brutish sort of way. Heavy-browed and amber-eyed, with thick blond lashes and a deep golden stubble. He was adorned with freckles and little scars, slivers of pink and white, some fresh and some old. And when he smirked knowingly at your silence, a dimple pulled in his cheekbone, the crater of an injury once sustained. 

He had just been to the gym, you could smell it on him; ripe and heady, a musk you should have been more repulsed by than you were. Instead you savoured it like some little animal, turned your head at the raw pheromones as though a doe sniffing out her stag during the rut. You could also tell as much from his gym gear, grey marled wife-beater under his unzipped black hoodie, stained with dried sweat, navy blue sport shorts that sat high on his hefty thighs and strained over their magnitude. 

“You didn’t need to do that,” you said abashedly, giving him an awkward smile in the hopes of concealing your flustered embarrassment. 

“I didn’t,” he agreed, and he leaned on the bar by his elbow to get a shred closer to your height. Through a haughty growl, he insisted, “You gonna thank me?”

His brazen arrogance should have put you off. You quickly got the sense he was well used to these encounters - a presumption that you’d be grateful for his interest, a raffish ease that reeked of habitual sex. You wouldn’t have called him well-practised, nothing about him was suave or carefully preened. No, instead, he was viciously masculine in a primal sort of way, rugged and unkempt around the edges. A cold gaze and a serrated smile. The kind of man that oozed testosterone and potent virility without needing to utter a word in his own favour. The unashamed lack of effort was bait in itself. 

You might have dismissed him if it were a Saturday, and you had friends to discourage you and drunkenness to embolden you. But, worn-out and sober, you felt obliged to entertain the man that had paid for you. Besides, something about him gave you the impression his attention was non-negotiable. 

And once you had thanked him as requested, soon followed a superficially understated conversation, though every word felt laden with some lude prescience. A simple question, then a simple answer, each delivered with more weight than the last. I’m a mechanic. Was in the army. This one’s from a scrap, got hit with a chair. From Manchester. Don’t normally come here on Wednesdays, maybe I should more often. No, not married. Yourself?

Minutes bled quickly to hours, and you didn’t spend a cent on your own alcohol. Soon you had migrated to a booth, and your sticky table became the graveyard of three gin and tonics, tired lime slices floating in the melted ice as you mindlessly prodded at them with a soggy straw. You ogled him shamelessly from the other side of the table, resting your tilted head in your palm, elbow extended on the wooden tabletop. 

He was a gladiator. Broad shoulders, pure meat - every part of him was thick with muscle and padded with a warm layer of fat. Winter bulk. You imagined his mammoth arms would be soft and pillowy if you were to squish them with your hungry hands, but that they’d turn as solid as rock if he were to engage them more forcefully. 

You asked him if he normally did this, went to pubs on weekdays to prey on bored working women and got them drunk so he could fuck them. 

He shrugged, shook his head. “Don’t need to get ‘em drunk.”

His tone was cocksure but insincere, and you didn’t yet have a good enough read of him to determine whether or not he was joking. It wouldn’t have surprised you if he were something of a lothario, given how quickly you had been sucked into his orbit despite his astonishing apathy - and yet, something told you he was more of a prowling wolf than a peacock. The kind of man that sets his eyes on his quarry and is unsatisfied until he has her between his teeth. It made your heart shiver to imagine yourself that meal. 

“Just me, then?” You bit back, thanking the bartender when he brought over a fourth gin for you and a third pint for the Mancunian. 

He dropped his pint glass down hard after he took his hefty swig. “You’re putting up more of a fight than they usually do.”

“Fighting the inevitable, am I?” You teased, facetious but not entirely unserious. 

“You tell me.” Is all he said. 

When you checked the time and decided it was far past your bedtime, seeing four fuzzy hands on your watch, he offered to walk you home - never know who’s out this time o’ night. You decided to take him up on it, the plentiful alcohol pumping through your blood blurred your already dubious sense of self-preservation. 

His vast hand travelled boldly down your back while you walked, and in a more sober state you would have told him off. Instead you giggled demurely, flicked his hand away half-heartedly just to test how quickly he’d put it back. And when he took an audacious and greedy handful of your ass you yipped at him, falsely agog, but you did nothing more to stop him. He grinned as he did it, sharp teeth, kneading your soft flesh as though evaluating how it felt in his thick fingers. Determining its adequacy. 

Arriving at your door he stood behind you like a shadow, watching you key the lock and breathing down the back of your neck. Such a lecher, already so bold as to assume you’d welcome him inside, spread your legs for him after so little effort. When his hand slithered to your waist and took a presumptuous grip, so confident, you felt your fortitude begin to waver. Would it hurt? 

But as you spun on your heel you blocked him out with your body in the frame, and gave him a sweet and hazy smile. A chaste kiss on the cheek. 

“Not lettin’ me in?” He asked, a grumble, with just enough mirth for you to lower your hackles. 

You traced along the jamb with your fingernail. “Maybe next time.”

A test, you drunkenly thought, for if he were really an unashamed cunthound you’d expect him to sulk, or to get grouchy, or to call you a fucking bitch for leading him on. Maybe, you wondered, he might dismiss your refusal entirely, shove you into the apartment with an angry paw and make you fulfil your unspoken proposal. Not much of a fight you could put up, if he were such a beast. 

Instead, he merely gave you a rakish grin, and brushed your chin with his thumb. “Next time, then.”

Next time came unexpectedly on the Friday, shortly after you had come home from work; freshly showered and lotioned, you answered the knock on your door in only a blue towel wrapped around your torso. Confronted immediately by the gargantuan man on your doorstep, you stepped back in fright. 

There were smudges of oil on his ruddy cheeks, grime embedded deep into the fibres of his black work jacket. With his fists in his pockets, a cigarette jutting out of his pursed lips, he sniffed brashly in the cold. “You busy?”

Your eyes scanned him shrewdly for a short moment before the memory came speeding back to you, flew across your face like a slap, and he gave you a fleeting smirk when he saw your eyes widen and your cheeks go red. The stranger from the pub remembered your address. Not something you considered as you stupidly welcomed him to walk you all the way home. 

“I’m not inviting you in,” you murmured, adjusting your towel higher on your chest when you felt his gaze warm the cleavage it failed to conceal. 

“Come out, then.” 

His imperious persistence was another warning you should have heeded, bright red and clear as day. Not often a man so obstinate is worth pursuing. Better avoided. His resolute silence compelled you, though, made unspoken demands that you dared not refuse. He wasn’t asking, he was telling. 

You didn’t recall his name until he reminded you, after you had already gotten yourself dressed and met him out the front of your apartment; Simon. You smothered your more rational counterpart with a pillow, shutting her up when she warned you about going out with the man that showed up uninvited on your doorstep - particularly this one, who had your intuition screaming at you so ferociously. Play stupid games.

He hadn’t planned a date, no prior effort had gone in beyond the sudden compulsion to come and try his luck.

“Didn’t want you to forget me,” is what he told you when you asked. 

You went with him to get fried chicken - his choice, an option wasn’t given - and ate it together on a park bench. Unsophisticated and to the point, a din of crunching and sucking on toothpick bones, broken up occasionally by your coy laughter. He made no effort to conceal a potently authoritarian nature, one you had as yet only caught glimpses of, and you were ruefully drawn to it. Reared its head when he told you where to sit, how fast to walk, what not to talk about. When you had demurely requested a single small punnet of hot chips from the food truck, and he had snorted at you; “Don’t take the piss. More than that.”

You shared a cigarette with him, sat under the bare elm tree and observed the chipmunks that came to feed on the crumbs of fried batter. Talked about nothing until the sun had set and the frost began to settle. 

After returning you home he quickly had you trapped against the front door of your flat, laving your flushed neck with his ravenous mouth, tongue under your jaw like he was tasting you. Palmed your cunt through your jeans with a thick hand, uncaring of passersby, and you let him persist, just for a little bit - selfishly, you thought, because you weren’t going to let him sink his cock into you yet. 

It was simply an experiment, you told yourself. Some part of you was well aware of the fire you were playing with, warning you vociferously about what happened to the curious cat. And that you were - dangerously eager to know for how long he would pursue you if you abstained from presenting your cunt to him off the cuff. What might happen if you dangled your prizes in front of his nose and continued to withhold them. 

His hand was so big, warm, strong like he might lift you up by it. He knew exactly where to press the heel of his palm to push a needy whine from your throat, right at the throbbing crux of your heat. If you had let him continue kneading you unfettered you’d have pathetically come inside your jeans before you had even taken him inside. 

You clutched his wrist to thwart his efforts, flustered and out of breath. Sheepishly warned him; “I - I don’t put out until the third date.”

Not a conviction you’ve ever held firm on, but it has been a long while since the last time you had taken a man home. You were slightly fearful that the second you let him fuck you, he’d be satisfied and spent and move on to the next helpless woman at the pub who couldn’t find her wallet. And, in truth, you relished in starving him. Delighted in the appetite you could see swelling in his belly, frothing at his jaws when he glowered at you under dark lids. 

He huffed mournfully, patience waning, as he removed his hand from between your legs with a purposeful swipe. Grumbled huskily, “You’re really testing my strength o’ character.”

You chuckled breathily as you fondled the door handle behind you, letting out a puff of relief when it gave way to you and you stumbled onto your back foot into the foyer. You could guess what he implied from his crude remark - barely a veiled threat, and yet you were only more eager to peer under the shroud. 

“Mustn’t be very strong if you can’t wait a little longer,” you prodded, emboldened by the false safety of being indoors. 

He nodded, gritting teeth as he adjusted his jacket. “You make it weak.”

Your throat nearly closed at that, the air suddenly warm and acrid. “Well, I hope you can hold strong till then.” 

He let out a hoarse groan, rubbing his neck with stiff knuckles. Dints pulled in his temple as he clenched his jaw, exerted no effort to mask his frustrations. 

“Wednesday count as date one?” He asked stiffly. 

You pursed your lips as you thought of a response, conscious that if it were the first ‘date’ - in heavy quotes - he’d expect your cunt on the next. You would likely not have bemoaned that, given the thumping you felt already in the peak of your swollen bud, the slick that you felt soak into the gusset of your underwear after such moderate attention. But it was a bit of a game, now, wasn’t it? A creature within you, one whose nature was perhaps a cause for concern, wanted to see if he would crack. Wanted to know what he would do to you if he did. 

“No,” you told him. 

With a terse nod, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and left. 

Date two came to pass on the Sunday, as presumptuously as the first, but he had at least sent you a text from an unsaved contact beforehand; picking you up in 10. 

You didn’t recall giving him your number, but wistfully assumed you must have put it in his phone on the drunken night you met him. 

With nothing better to do, you replied, what am I wearing? 

Dress. 

Following his blunt text like it were an instruction from your manager, you dug through your closet for a dress that would suffice - nothing too dressy, you didn’t want to expend too much effort - and nothing too provocative, lest you provoke him. Settled on something plain and black, dense cotton with a bit of flow and sat low on your neckline, but not too low. Once you were dressed you snapped a photo of yourself in your floor-length mirror, concealing your face with your phone, and sent it to him for his approval. 

He replied after a few minutes; No stockings. 

You frowned as you typed out your answer. It’s cold though. 

He never followed up, and you took off the stockings. 

When he arrived to pick you up in his black off-roader pickup and you hopped inside - he didn’t open the door for you - you immediately spotted a big purple welt protruding from his cheekbone, fresh and throbbing and speckled with broken capillaries. You asked him if it was the result of another ‘scrap’, so he called it, and he shook his head.

“Match last night,” he told you, before shrugging it off. Then joked - or, intended to joke; “You should see the other lad.”

“Match?” You asked him to clarify, perhaps stupidly, as he revved the rumbling engine of the four-wheeler and drove off like he was in a hurry. 

The cab of his truck smelled like tobacco, and the redolence of old sweat embedded in his seat; from how often he’d hop in unshowered after working out, you guessed. There was a tired old Evian bottle in the cup-holder of the centre console, next to it a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a clear orange lighter. The passenger seat was stiff and dusty, you must have been one of very few people to have sat in it.

“Boxing,” he answered. 

A boxer, you thought to yourself, eyes clinging to his bulky arm as it gripped and shoved the gearshift; forearm turning stiff as you had imagined it would, where it peeked out from the rolled sleeve of his black crewneck. Thick veins ran in webs under his skin. Tendons bulged in the back of his hand. Now that you looked more closely, you could see the bruises on his knuckles - some turned ochre yellow with age, others fresh and plum and looked tender to the touch. He’d have to have been a heavyweight, given the fucking size of him. Built like a bear, wide set and heavy and so comically tall that he looked too large for the cab of his own truck. 

He took you out for dinner, a proper date, he called it - a hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant with four tables and a single waitress. Far more of a date than his last two attempts - you briefly considered counting this as date number one. He ordered himself two meals, an unsurprising quantity, and requested that both be as hot as the chef could make them. 

You asked him about his boxing, and he said that he made some money from it but not quite enough to live on. That you probably wouldn’t have seen him on the telly, because he usually fought in the undercards and didn’t like the cameras. 

Told you under his breath that he made more cash when the games were ‘under the table’. What that meant you weren’t certain, and he kept it thrillingly vague. “No gloves,” was how he explained it, “and no referee.” You told him that sounded illegal and he only gave you a shrug.

“Are you any good?” You asked with a kink in your brow. 

He smirked at you, mouth full of rendang. “I’m alright.”

Something in his tone told you he was being humble. You felt a little giddy. “You ever knocked someone out?” 

“Did last night,” he admitted indifferently. 

You questioned him a little more. “Are you a violent person?”

He tilted his head either way as though considering his answer, shovelling a hunk of beef folded in naan into his mouth and chewing it thoughtfully. “Not all the time.”

A little shaken, you asked if you should be worried. 

“I can be gentle,” is what he answered, with a lidded glare and the faintest smirk that flickered in his lips. You didn’t believe him. 

After he paid for your meal - told you crudely to shut it when you offered to split the bill - he put you in his truck ostensibly to drive you back home. But when he missed the turn that he should have taken, you shuffled disquieted in your seat, lacking the bravery to mention it just yet. Perhaps he was simply taking an unfamiliar route. 

He must have noticed your unease, because he turned his head to look down at you, but he did little to assuage your discomfort. 

“Takin’ you to mine,” he declared bluntly, as though reminding you of a fact you already knew. 

You blinked at him, felt the prickles of adrenaline creep down your neck like a nettle sting, an alert from your primal subconscious to a looming threat. “This is only the second date,” you diffidently reminded him. 

“I know,” he said, through a toothy grin, apparently amused by your skittishness, “‘m not ready to let you go just yet.”

You nodded stiffly, chewing on the inside of your cheek and picking your nails in an anxious habit. You weren’t frightened of him - despite the awareness that you should be - if you truly were, you’d kick up much more of a fuss. But he was quite unreadable, purposefully so, and what could you possibly do if he decided he wasn’t interested in waiting any longer? Win stupid prizes.

“Don’t panic, love,” he asserted, reaching his burly arm over and taking hold of your knee, thigh dwarfed by his hand as he gave your meat a quick squeeze. “Not interested in takin’ what I haven’t earned.”

His terraced flat was modest and unadorned, a skinny three-storey house sandwiched between rows of similar boxes. Two windows per floor. A layer of tan stucco smeared over its brick. No garden, only some moss and a few sprouting weeds, and a wrought iron fence that lined the sidewalk out the front. 

He pulled his pickup to a stop on the side of the road, killed the engine and barked an order at you as he opened the door, “Out y’get.” 

The street was barren and dark, and every breath you let out echoed in the lifeless silence. Not even after nine in the evening and the neighbourhood seemed to be devoid of inhabitants, only one or two windows glowed from within - an indication of at least some life. You felt a chill as you stepped out onto the road, tightened your arms around your torso as you wandered bashfully behind him to his front step. He huffed impatiently as he jammed his keys in the lock, shoving and shimmying them loudly until the door reluctantly gave way to him. 

He marched into the depths of his flat, swallowed by the darkness within - didn’t bother to turn on the light. You only saw which direction he had headed once a yellow light flickered on in a distant room down the hall. Shutting his front door behind you, leaving it unlocked, you quietly walked in the direction of the light. 

His flat was painfully undecorated. Raw, messy with clutter and miscellaneous belongings, in stacks and piles, on tables and chairs. Torn open envelopes, old socks, misplaced boots. Jackets hung over the bannister and sweaters over the backs of his seats. You found yourself in an open kitchen and living room, bare save for the odd piece of secondhand furniture and empty bottles of beer dotted about the place. 

You found him leaning into an open fridge, illuminated by its dim bluish light. “Can I getcha somethin’?” 

 “Um,” you pondered, failing to conceal your unwelcome nerves, a shiver in your voice. “No - thank you, I’m okay.” 

He shrugged as he shut the fridge door with his elbow, a bottle of Carlsberg dwarfed in his hand. Stuck the top in his open mouth and popped off the cap with his teeth in a horrid crack, spat it aimlessly into the kitchen. “Suit yourself.”

He left you standing like a fool as he went to sit himself down on his sofa, landing in it with a gruff and satisfied sigh. Sunk into the cushions and spread his knees to make himself comfortable, big enough that he took up two seats of the three-seater. He reached for the remote and turned on the telly, volume low, but audibly some football game or other. 

His eyes fastened on you, though - narrow and pointed as though you had been caught in his crosshairs. He tipped his beer into a jutted jaw, took a noisy and insouciant sip. 

“All shy now?” He asked. 

A defensive no caught in your throat and it emerged as a quiet hiccup. You wanted to smack yourself. “I just - I’m not sure why I’m here.” 

He huffed testily. ”Want to go home, do you?” 

You knew you should say yes. “No - no it’s not that. I’m - I’m okay.” 

He cracked a grin, a flash of teeth before it vanished. “Do I make you that nervous?”

“I’m not nervous,” you retorted, voice higher-pitched than would otherwise be convincing. 

“C’mere, then.” He gestured a lazy hitherto with three fingers, an edge in his glare. 

Your feet were moving before you disputed. “What for.”

“Siddown,” he grunted.

Better judgement hammering at you, you hesitated before you obeyed, standing in front of him but just out of reach. 

“What’re you so afraid of, sweethear’,” he asked richly, and you blinked at him before looking down at your hands. 

“I’m not,” you insisted. “Just not - not really used to this sort of thing.” 

“No?” He questioned with aplomb, pride oozing from him like crude oil. “Been a while, has it?”

You fawningly shrugged. “Guess so.” 

“Am I taking you home, then?”

The second time he had offered it, though this time there was something discerning in his tone; cocksure yet challenging, a last call. Resolved, you sat down mousily in the cushion next to him. Shrivelled so that you took up as little space as possible, held your arms tight to your body. 

You shook your head, steadfast. “No, that’s okay.”

He let slip a grin at your answer, canines sharp and catching the glint of the dim television in front of him. You thought he might hang his mammoth arm over your shoulder, or rest a hand on your thigh; might test the waters with a noncommittal touch to see how you reacted to his crossing of the boundary. 

But he had no such subtlety nor restraint - instead he slipped his hand behind you and hooked you by the waist, hoisting you one-armed from your distant spot with the ease of picking up a house cat. You let out a sharp gasp as he plonked you on his left knee so that you straddled it, back firm against his side as he riveted you in place with his forearm.

You yelped as you were made to forcibly bestride his thigh, left tongue-tied in your shock and momentarily unable to utter a word of dispute. Heart set to panic, scarcely able to subdue your hurricane of thoughts, you exerted all effort wriggle out of his grip - bucked and twisted and pulled, all painfully futile. 

His strength was unfathomable and frightening, the muscles of his only restraining arm hardly even tensed to hold you in place. It was easy for him. He briefly leaned to the side to dump his beer on the side table. 

You barked;  “Simon - let go of-”

Me was muffled by the right hand that swiftly sealed over your mouth, fingertips burrowing into your cheeks, the top of his hand tucked under your nose and barely allowed you to suck in a breath. 

He shushed you quick and sharp, and you let out a defeated moan as you persisted in your attempts to writhe free. You clamped your legs closed around his thigh as if you might seal off your cunt from him, but he simply let out a breathy chuckle - lightly bounced his knee to remind you that he had you wedged open as he pleased, and the force beared down on your centre with each jolt had you squeaking like a mouse into his palm. 

“Settle down,” he chided, stern-toned, you felt the coarse stubble of his jaw scrape down the side of your face as he craned his head beside yours. “Don’t you kick up a fuss now.” 

His colossal paw raked up your thigh, hitching the forgiving fabric of your skirt along with it and leaving pointy gooseflesh in its wake. 

Still you squirmed, but your defensive tenacity was rapidly fizzling away - doused with the sobering knowledge that you had made the very bed he was now forcing you to lie in. 

“You knew what you were after when you came out, didn’t you,” he snarled, accusing, lifting the hem of your skirt up to your belly. 

You shook your head as ferociously as he allowed you to, his suffocating hand stifling both your movement and your breathing. You whined into his clammy palm, hoping he’d be able to translate the sounds you made in place of words; not yet. 

Whether or not he understood, he ignored you; his fingertips clawed over your mound, catching in the thin fabric of the plain underwear you wore under your dress - dug into the leg hole where the hem sat against your groin, before yanking it to the other side. He tugged at the elasticated cotton, shimmying the gusset so it was entirely out of his way; cunt bare and exposed, your vealy lips rubbed raw against the rough denim of his jeans. 

“Like a cat in heat, eh?” He grumbled, feeding his imperious hand between your legs where they were held open by his titanic thigh. Jammed his thick fingers into your folds without hesitation, indifferent to your whimpering. 

His solid nose buried under your ear, right into the underside of your jaw, and he took a deep and wolfish sniff.  “Can fuckin’ smell it on you.”

You winced as he pressed the pads of two fingers against your twitching opening, not yet slick; nudging at the precipice as though hoping to milk you of your nectar - but he didn’t puncture you. Instead, he languidly dragged them back up to your timid bud where it was hidden under its hood, used your scant fluid to barely lubricate his incursion. 

He bucked his knee, making you bounce into a better position for him. Began chafing circles with the tips of mean fingers, kneading out your clit with a steady pressure that made you sob into the palm of his restraining hand. 

He was deft, knew how to make quick work of you - you felt your watery blood turn viscous and hot, it flooded down the middle of you as though spiralling an open drain. Pumped warm right into the centre of your bud and made it shudder and swell, twitched with hypersensitivity.

Morally, you spurned it, fought against it viciously - the man so arrogant and cruel as to forcibly pleasure you despite vehement protest. But your feeble body spoke far louder, betrayed you with its carnal appetite. Your acrid resistance turned to pudding under his abrasive hand. 

No longer wrestling, your hips leaned into him, spine arching and curling, flesh so pathetically desperate for purchase that it begged implicitly in spite of your expressed dispute. 

He sensed your blossoming acquiescence, heard your grunts and moans of defiance melt into high-pitched, needy whines; you felt his wrenching grip of you soften and a rough smile curl against your cheek. 

“Tha’s it,” he purred, low voice thrummed directly into your skin. You could only mewl into his palm like a trapped animal, his hand growing wet against your mouth. “Tha’s what you were after, eh? All that whingeing.”

A wanton oh, fuck, was muted by his palm as he slowed and eased his pace, no longer toiling to subdue you. With two fingers flat against the crux of your folds, he ran them up and down your seam - uncovering your puffy clit with each upward stroke and making you flinch with the shock. 

You tightened your legs around his thigh on reflex, curling your pelvis away from his touch as you grew so sensitive it began to burn - but your range of motion was sorely limited, and relief you could not find. 

He removed his smothering hand from your mouth and smoothed it down your waist, finding the meat of your hip and taking a fastening grip. Anchored your pelvis still and held you down, exacerbating the pressure on your cunt; parting it like a butterfly and grinding his coarse denim against flushed lips, you felt your slick seep out of you and soak the fabric underneath it.

You rocked your head back against his collarbone, feeling its rigidity at the back of your skull, and your eyes fluttered shut; you felt his hot breathing on the side of your head, an airy chortle at your whimpering capitulation. He only slowed his infliction, gently grazing your yearning clit as though to tease it, to force you to debase yourself as you pleaded for his brutality. 

“F-fuck-” You mewled, face flustered, skin febrile - you were suddenly so infuriatingly close, wracked by a surging current that shuddered into your core and made you spasm and shiver. The dawning heat was abruptly overpowering, and you leaned desperately into his hand to chase it. “Simon - Please - I-”

Every attempt you made to speak or complain was bitten off by an indulgent sob, weak and pleading cries, begging him to release you. 

“Please, what?” He gloated deeply, you could hear his smug grin without having to see it. “Speak up.”

Your mind was frayed, and your tongue was fat and heavy in your mouth. You squeezed out your answer through a strained whine; “I’m - I’m going to-”

“Y’gonna come, are you?” He mocked, voice rumbling and cruel. Seemed to find immense satisfaction in your pathetic desperation. 

He pressed down on your scalding clit and forced a pained cry from your throat when you failed to answer him.

“Y-yes,” you bawled, driven close to pitiful tears.

He pinched your plump and angry bud between his fingers and made you jolt, before he let out a chuckle, and his hand glided out from between your legs. Left glossy trails of your syrup up your mound, your belly, as he abandoned you. 

An agonised groan lept from your chest as you buckled forward, wrecked with desperation, suddenly and brutally hollow. 

“Taste o’ your own medicine, eh?” He crooned, haughty, he smacked the side of your thigh with two firm pats as if to reassure you. “I don’t put out easy, either.”

You only sobbed, deafened by the thunder of your throbbing blood in your ears, cunt still so ravenous you were rendered a slave to it. You were unconsciously grinding your cunt on his thigh, rocking your hips, hissing at the abrasion of the denim on your clit - but it was better than nothing. 

“Look at you,” he snorted, leaning back on the sofa with his arms hung over the back, as if to enjoy the show. As he reached for his abandoned beer, he chided; “Fuckin’ needy slut, aren’t you?”

He glided a hand up your spine as you rode his leg like a little animal, and maybe you could finish yourself off like that, if you tried hard enough - but his claw settled at the back of your neck and took malicious hold. He yanked you back by it so that your head knocked against his shoulder, the angle he had you at starving your clit once more. 

“‘Nuff o’ that, sweethear’,” he muttered into your temple. “You can wait, like me.”

You whimpered, the humiliation finally having caught up to you - it rained over you cold and bitter, and you suddenly wanted to run and hide. 

He put both paws on your hips, then, and hoisted you up and off of him - dumped you into the sofa cushion beside him and you landed with a bounce. 

You grunted bitterly, still panting. “You’re such a-” you breathed, twitching. “Prick.”

“Careful,” he grumbled, scolding you, and you sealed your lips. 

After a short and breathless silence, you heard him chuckle to himself as he stuck his beer between his lips, swallowing a frothy sip as if he hadn’t just left you a wreck. 

You glanced at him, to see what was so funny - and you saw him swipe his thigh with his thumb, a mortifying patch darkened by your slick, more than you had thought, soaked through. 

“Fuckin’ mess you made,” he jeered, voice low and harsh as though distracted. He grunted out a tiresome sigh. “Gonna be tough to wait for date three, eh?”

You only nodded, mind blunt and blurry, suddenly remembering the rule you had set. 

“What’ve you got in mind,” you puffed, shimmying your dress back over your thighs to regain some of your stolen decency. 

He sucked his teeth, rocked his head as he took another sip of his Carlsberg. 

“Come watch me fight,” he said. 

He needed someone soft spoken—a sweet damozel without the connections of a lover, without something to hold her back. When he first laid eyes on you, he could see the prints in your skin. The divots left behind from the feet that have walked all over you, tread marks scarring your epidermis without any guarantee of fading. He watched those prints manifest before his very eyes in the pub he first saw you in as you laughed at your friend’s jokes, too gauche to share how uncomfortable it truly made you. 

Following you home was an easy feat when your friends were too inebriated to care about your well being. To give you a ride, or accompany you to the tenebrous corner. You were timid like a newborn fawn unsteady on their feet—too anxious to look over your shoulder at the large brute who had been tailing you for the last block and a half. There is no self preservation instinct. You let both friends and life alike drag you where they wish. 

Everything else was easy after that. Making a copy of your key, spiking the tea you always drink at night before bed, breeding you like the good bitch you are—but there was still doubt. Could something as pathetic as you ever make it as far as he needs you to? Would you suddenly grow skittish and flee the moment you knew you were with child? Could you ever be cruel enough to purge the foetus before he was finished with you? 

All his qualms vanish the moment he catches you in the grocery market. 

It’s truly by accident. A meeting planned by fate. He rounds the corner into the aisle of packaged bread and he sees you, trolley half full, teeth biting into your knuckles. Freezing, Simon’s eyes widen as he soaks you in—even the prospect of choosing between brands of bread troubles you as you inspect the shelves with narrowed eyes. Lips parted, free hand resting on your growing stomach, his mind reels. 

The sonogram in his wallet begins to burn a hole through his pocket. Its warmth is hardly matched by the blazing fury of the sun itself, but he revels in the sting. He gets to witness without a shred of doubt that he’s made the right choice. Look at you—pathetic, alone, in need of someone to take care of you. Scared. Worried. Struggling to hold back the frustration that boils just beneath your skin. In need of someone. 

In need of him. 

Simon tails you for a little while longer through the store, clandestine as he browses various canned goods and sacks of rice. His act isn’t needed, it seems, as you are utterly oblivious to the savior lurking in your shadow. Like a scientist watches a specimen squirming on an examination board, grotesque limbs pinned by unkind needles, he witnesses with avaricious delight as you stumble upon the baby food section. Small jars of puree carrots, peas, and bananas look up at you from the shelves with curling grins. Even from a distance he can see the way your throat bobs. How you attempt to be brave and reach for a jar only to pull back at the last second, unable to stand the heat. 

If only you knew how soon he would be there to swoop in and kiss the aches. To smother everything that ails you—to save you from this strife. 

These last few weeks have left his skin itching. Scarabs nettle beneath his flesh, scurrying on spindly legs, whispering with gnarly teeth into the shell of his ear telling him to take, take, take. Take you—wrap you up in the blankets you hide yourself in while you sleep and bring you home so that he can finally have the life he’s coveted since he’s seen the way bullets tear through bone. He often finds himself standing at the foot of your bed, watching you. Hands wandering to your stomach to feel, to press, to simper. He’s witnessed you swell—the child grow—his dreams manifest before his very eyes. 

He can’t wait—he can only hold this accismus for so long. 

Your gaze adverts from the baby food and you return your trembling hands to the trolley before continuing down the aisle. More often than not, your heart is like a hummingbird these days. Wings flapping too fast, beak darting, begging for sustenance, begging for anything that might free you from the bars keeping you caged; keeping you isolated. 

You’ve gotten good at pretending as if you meant for this to happen. This wretched state of your body—of this fatigue, of your swollen abdomen, of your dither. Though no one could look at you and realize that you don’t know the father of this creature growing inside of you, the gaze of the clerk has you believing otherwise. His eyes linger on your stomach for far too long as if he ponders how much red he could see if he cut you open, or the taste of ichor when licked off of his own fingers. 

He gives you a courteous smile as you pay for your groceries, then leave. Automatic sliding doors squeak as you push your trolley outside into the dying carotene puff of the setting sun, and you waste no time trudging along to your car. Its fragile, beaten exterior greets you flippantly with a simple beep as you unlock the boot and begin to pile everything inside. Milk, bread, eggs, apples, avocados—all things your doctor told you would be good for the baby’s development. 

Then, something rips. 

One of the bags tears open on the corner of the trolley, sending items tumbling free from their confines and onto the cracked asphalt at your feet. Doxylamine clatters to the ground and stares up at you. It grins. It’s goading you into doing the thing that seems to be increasingly difficult these days—bending. Crouching. Stooping low enough to grab something all while carrying the weight of some sick sin. 

Just as you go to reach for the box, a large hand swoops in and eats it. 

Blinking, you watch as the box slowly rises from the ground before it’s being held out for you to take. Scarred knuckles scream at you as they slice along pale skin, but your eyes follow the lines like words of a book—a story you’re waiting to peel back and uncover. 

“Doxylamine is alright, but I usually go with Diphenhydramine.” 

The voice that speaks to you is thick. Viscous like syrup—like cruor. Your gaze follows the invisible line that traces his arm, paying attention to the niello ink that permeates the skin just around his wrist as it peeks out from beneath the sleeve of his jumper. His palm is fat. Wide enough to smother a football with long digits that are so meaty they could pop it with a single hand. Then, there’s his height. This stranger towers over most, broad shoulders competing against even the most spacious of doorways, and the hood on his head coupled with the work boots on his feet give him an extra inch. 

Then, there’s his eyes. Inky. Pitch dark like the shadows the monsters in your closet used to hide in when you were a child. It’s impossible to see through him—to poke and prod your way into his mind. Something stops you just short of diving into the depths; a wall you can’t quite push through. 

Shaking your head, you knock your thoughts free from your mind. “What?” 

“Diphenhydramine is a better antihistamine. For allergies. Though, it makes you tired,” the man says bluntly. Once more, he shakes the box in his hand, and you bring yourself to look at it. 

“Oh.” You take it into your grasp, fingers not even coming close to brushing against his. “I don’t take it for allergies. It’s for… morning sickness, technically.” 

Your hand spreads over your stomach, almost lovingly. Almost as if this were planned—as if this is what you want. You feel this stranger’s gaze wander, just like everyone else’s always does. You’re a spectacle. Woman contorted into a show for all to witness. 

He hums in response to your unwarranted explanation before turning his attention to your trolley. Wordlessly, he begins to unload the basket. Bags slipping into his arms, you watch as he yanks them free and gently places them in the back of your car, piled neatly next to the few you had managed to load before making a mess of things. 

“Oh—uhm—you don’t- you don’t have to do that,” you stutter. 

“I know.” 

Stoic. Stale. No room for argument. Anxious fingers tap against the box of drugs as you watch him move your groceries for you. He’s not old, but the scars on his face age him. They settle into the lines of his face, deepening them until his skin is permanently creased. There’s a bump on his nose that you don’t think was there when he was born, and a rosy scar to accompany the ridge. His lips are tight. Thin, stony—as if he’s holding back something. 

A secret. A thought. 

“Well, thank you…?” Your tone curls. Your grace turns into a question, and you’re not even sure what you’re asking until he answers. 

“Simon.” 

Strong. Simple. Fitting, for a man like him. 

“Thank you, Simon.” 

He pauses when you speak his name—back turned to you, hands full of bags, he loads the last few into the boot before sneaking a piece of paper out of one of them. You open your mouth to protest until you notice it’s only your receipt. 

“It’s not right, havin’ you out here like this by yourself,” he tells you. 

Disbelief settles deep in your bones as you scoff. “Excuse me?” 

Not looking at you, Simon fishes a pen from his deep pockets and begins scribbling something on your receipt. “A woman in your condition shouldn’t be doing such heavy liftin’ on her own. You need someone to take care of you.” 

“What makes you think I need help?” you ask, brows raised. 

The pen clicks. It’s sharp. A shot ringing throughout the air. Simon’s eyes settle on you, and the weight constricts around your chest. They’re… eerie. Adust, like the lowering countryside right before a storm hits to wipe the earth clean. 

“You walk like you’re guilty. You’ve got some weight dragging you down, and I don’t think it’s the baby in your tummy doin’ that, love. When you look at people, you’re already apologizing. Can read it all over that sweet face of yours. Besides, there’s no ring on that finger. Means the dad isn't all that serious ‘bout you.” He holds the folded receipt out for you to take, but all you can do is stare at it with blank eyes. “Or maybe you don’t even know who the daddy is at all.” 

His impudence is jarring. Shame gnaws through your intestines straight into your womb where it grows. He’s read you to filth. Swallowing, you look at him, throat tightening. 

“Have we met before?” Your question flows from your mouth like blood from a wound—already apologetic for the damage. “You just… seem familiar.” 

All Simon does is stare. 

“I think I’d remember meetin’ someone like you.” 

He’s scribbled your receipt with his number, and before leaving he tells you to call him if you need anything. Stilted as ever, you stiffly thank him before shoving it into your pocket and climbing into your car, silently telling yourself that you’d never reach out to him—that you’d never drag anyone else into this… situation. Least of all someone like him, a stranger who can read you better than you can yourself; better than your own friends can. 

When you arrive home, it takes you much too long to load all your groceries into your flat. The stairs leave you huffing, and by the end of it, your knees clatter together so viciously you fear you may collapse. Instead, you endure. Unpacking items, shoving them into the fridge, the pantry, into cupboards—you think about how soon your space will be invaded. High chairs and puree food, bibs and swaddle blankets, toys to trip on. Another mouth to feed. 

Or not.

As you place the milk in the fridge, you think about how you could put the child up for adoption. Push it out and send it off into the world for you to never lay eyes on it again. You don’t have the stomach to terminate it, but you can stomach this. Sending them off to live with real parents. Someone better. 

Your thoughts freeze the moment your hand wraps around a box of toothpaste. 

Brows furrowing, you look through the contents of your final bag to find items you don’t remember buying. Aftershave. Protein mix. Soap. 

Sighing, you tilt your head back to look at the ceiling as your palms rub at your achy, swollen eyes. Simon’s phone number whispers to you from your back pocket, and you grit your teeth as you slip it free from your jeans. This grocery mix up feels like a seed—carefully planted and watered. 

Now, it’s germinating.