#a petrol station worker?

[countingstars-17]

ferrari is blue

[secretdiaryofanawkward]

it baffles me that 90% of the time i'm the only one who stops to help push cars on the street when i'm a 1,63 metres teenage looking skinny ass bitch and everyone else sees it and just drives past

[bitterrfruit]

kerosene

ghost x f!reader. 17k words. cw: noncon. kidnapping. gun violence. free use. smut. mentions of involuntary groinal responses lol. simon is a smug asshole and reader is into it you get robbed at gun point while working the lone register at a nowhere petrol station. the money in the till is not the only thing he takes with him. or [read on ao3]

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so they say. 

The devil should have been busy with you, then. Malignant boredom had taken root in you, rankled in every crevice and swell, metastasized like knobbly tumours that parasitised on your will to live until only the gritty alluvium was left. 

You began your shift behind the till at the Gulf station in the late afternoon, shy of four p.m., as you had done yesterday and as you would tomorrow. You took over from Mitchell, who worked the morning shift, the old man with a wiry grey beard and eyebrow hairs like corkscrews sticking haywire out of his forehead. You’d work until midnight, when you would be replaced by Charlie, a pinguid twenty-something with legs like beanpoles and eyes so sunken they were hollow as caves in his skull. 

They had been your co-workers for the better part of three years, yet they might as well have been strangers to you. The scant exchanges you would share with them were a few words at shift change, if that. Mitch would prattle on about some rude geezer and tell the same story about his ex-wife that he had every other week. Charlie, bedecked in his cheap headphones and carrying an egg sandwich cling-wrapped by his grandmother, would only give you a nod and ask been busy? with little attention paid to your answer. 

You had been offered the morning shift when you first started. 

The owner of the franchise station, Dave, was uneasy about the prospect of a ripe (his word) young woman working alone behind the register after dark, at a nowhere white-pole station in the sticks, where the only customers were long-haulers and on-the-way-home farmers. A just concern, you supposed, and a part of you had considered taking him up on his offer. 

You refused, in the end. 

Told him that someone like Mitch (frail, near-blind, on the cusp of Alzheimer’s) would far more likely be victimised by the ilk of patrons that trudged through the station. In your experience, anyway, most of the late-night customers that came through the push-door understood the implication of a burly old man being served by a young woman on her own. They’d tread more carefully, offer you kind smiles, sometimes mention their wives to make sure you understood they were not a threat to you. 

There was always the odd lecher, though. Goes without saying. 

The kinds of yellow-toothed men that would lean too far over the counter, talk to you like they knew you, overly familiar. The type to ask you to smile for them, or for a discount, or for your number. Ones that would joke about coming back, just to visit you. That would say you’re too pretty to be working in a dump like this, you should be in a bar instead. Maybe on a pole. Maybe in the passenger seat of their truck, to keep them company. 

It never frightened you, really, because nothing ever happened. You stuck with the late shift because it offered the fanciful possibility that something interesting might come to pass. Maybe, if you were lucky, there would be a car wreck outside the station, or a patron threatening enough to justify hitting the panic button, or a fire set off by the fuel pump and you’d finally be able to put the ten-year-old extinguisher to use. 

But you were confident that every shift would be the same, as always. 

Nothing would happen, you would drive home to your shoddy seventies cottage in the pit-stop hamlet of Dunhill, eat a frozen pastry, sleep alone, and do it all over again. Days came and went like empty boxes on a trundling conveyor belt, your life a deserted factory, only still whirring because the last attendant forgot to switch off the machinery when they left. 

Today was no different. 

You perused the grocery shelves with cheap earbuds stuffed in your ears, the kind with squishy mushroom plugs that made it sound like you were underwater. Shuffling through the same playlist you had been slowly adding to over the last year — you liked the songs you already knew every word to, creature of habit that you were. Busied yourself by twisting the canned foods so that their labels all faced outwards, then backwards, just for a laugh. 

It got to half-nine, the sun had long since set, and you had served one customer since your shift started. A middle-aged man with a muddy van, who bought three RedBulls, a pack of Chesterfields, and half a tank of diesel. He scarcely acknowledged you, a hi when he walked in and a cheers when he left. 

Your meal for the evening was a pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps and a bottle of chocolate milk, plucked from the shelves and not logged. Leaned back in the plastic chair behind the till with your Chucks propped up on the counter, some Sally Rooney book with its spine broken folded in half in your hand. 

You had milk in your mouth when you heard the characteristic thud of a closing car door, a harsher slam than you were used to. Attuned to the noise even while your ears were plugged. You swallowed it hard when you heard the chime of the bell, the swing of the door, the thuds of boots. New customer. 

Sat upright, you peered over the register to see who had entered the station, and you were flummoxed when there was nobody there. 

You grabbed your earbuds by the flimsy cord and tugged them from your ears with a pop — there were footsteps, someone was there, you weren’t crazy. You could hear the sound of provisions being swept from shelves and shoved into a bag, the bonking of cans and the crinkling of plastic. 

Only once you stood did you see the head above the shelves. 

Black hood pulled up. Could only see the side of him as he wandered down the aisle, towering beast shuffling along and torpidly picking things up just to put them down again. A foot taller than the racks he meandered between. Wore a black leather bomber over his hooded sweater, well-worn hide, turned tawny brown in the creases and at the edges. All bulky. Padded up. His shoulders swayed with the bravado of a gladiator who spent his life unchallenged.

Had you any remaining hospitality in your system you’d have greeted him, but you circumspectly held your tongue. 

There was something in his presence that did not augur well. Something crooked, something bent. Turned the tired air inside the station dyspneic, too dense and thick to comfortably breathe. 

Call it a woman’s intuition, if you believed in such a thing. 

Simon hadn’t accounted for a bird at the till. 

He’d have expected some ruddy-cheeked man with buck teeth and brown-bordered sweat stains on his shirt. The typical clerk at a shithole backroads petrol station, in his experience. They’d shoot him a grimy look, eye him up-and-down with a curl in their lip, all ruffian until he brandished the Sig Sauer he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans. 

That was what he had prepared for. He came to stick the gunmetal barrel in the face of the old bloke behind the register, demand every stack of cash from the till drawer and anything valuable he had on his person, maybe fire at the ceiling if he moved too slowly. Piece of cake. In and out. 

Instead, it was you. 

Sneakers propped up by the register, sucking the crisp dust off your fingers with pink lips. Reading a book as disinterestedly as you might watching paint dry. 

Unluckily for you, it didn’t make a difference that you had a pair of tits. He wanted that money. 

Your chary little head poked up from behind the counter once he was done collecting his supplies. A few cans of Baked Beans, couple bags of crisps, some vacuum-sealed biersticks. A roll of gauze and a bottle of Dettol for the flesh wound in his thigh. Pack of tissues. Bic lighter. KitKat for a treat. All shoved in the duffle bag he held in his fist, heavy with the wads of cash he had already collected from the last pit-stop on his trip north — an offy in a piss-stained back alley in Cheltenham. Grabbed a few pilsners for the road from there, too. 

He forsook his urgency as he approached the register, measured pace, duffle in hand. Eyeing you up with each step as if you were a candybar on a display rack. 

Pretty wee thing. 

He hadn’t even shown you his gun yet, and your eyes were already peeled wide, glistening in the bright fluorescent lights hanging overhead. 

None of the goods he intended to pay for. He didn’t need to make that any clearer to you, the assumption was already plastered on your face as he loomed towards you. Had his mask on, after all; thick black ski mask pulled over his head, jagged holes cut out for his eyes. No doubt that made quite plain his intentions. 

You stood pin straight, curling the purple cord of your earbuds between your fingers as if some attempt to ground yourself. Not a drop of makeup on, he could see the satin sheen of sweat on your forehead, the plum rings unconcealed under your eyes. Nobody to impress out here. Still pretty. 

“Um, which pump?” You asked flatly, tone meek, in denial of the obvious. 

Your stupefied stare followed his hand as it ventured to the base of his sweatshirt, a frown fluttering in your brow as you all but tilted your head in nervous confusion. He reeled up the heavy fleece, white t-shirt underneath — but that wasn’t what your eyes clung to. 

His hand curled around the grip of his handgun, plucking it out from the waistband and holding it insouciantly at his side. No need to point it at you, not yet. 

Your skin turned cadaver grey as your blood flooded to your feet, eyes bulging with the instantaneous panic that wracked you as though you had been smacked in the face with it. 

“Oh my god — ohm — oh my god,” you squeaked, tongue knotting in your mouth, tears quick to well. “Oh my god — y-you—”

It was this, the histrionics, that he hoped to avoid. The tears, Christ, the fucking tears. There wasn’t anything to cry about, not yet, but your rheumy eyes glowed sanguine, and the tears that oozed from them were clear and glittery. Rolled dramatically from their wells and dripped from your chin, seeped into the corners of your trembling mouth. All flushed and glossy and he hadn’t even spoken yet. 

There was no blood-curdling outburst, though. You didn’t scream, didn’t wail, didn't scurry around hysterically like a decollated hen. You were stiff as a board, arms pinned flat to your sides. Merely whispered the Lord’s name in vain over and over as if he might answer your call. 

“Please — ohmygod — please don’t hurt me,” you cried, lungs seizing with every word, hiccuping and spluttering like you had just been pulled ashore. “What do you want, you can — you can take anything. P-please—”

“Shut up,” he barked, and you flinched at his aggression. “Just open the fuckin’ till.”

You nodded so vehemently he thought your head might roll off your shoulders, and your pallid hands began raking over your body in desperate search of the pocket you kept your keys in. His glare followed keenly as they ran over your hips, waist, unabashedly caressing your arse in the search. After finding them in a back pocket you tried to orient the keys in your grip, but your fingers trembled so vigorously that you immediately dropped them to the linoleum floor. 

“Fuck — I’m sorry,” you bleated as you bent down to pick them up, eyes still riveted to him, “I’m sorry, let me just — please, I’m sorry—”

He let out a grunt of exasperation as he marched around to the other side of the counter. Your feet remained planted still as though you were bolted to the floor, leery eyes following him while your head kept rigid. 

A deer in headlights. Fawn, more like. Small and doe-eyed and too stupid to get out of his way. 

You only whimpered when he jostled you away from the till, physically driving you to the wall with his hands under your arms, clearing his path. He took your shaky little hand in a fist and peeled it open, plucking the keys from your sweaty palm. 

The register was old, something from the nineties, yellow-faded plastic with cube-clacky buttons. He shoved the tiny key into its slot on the drawer, gave it a good shimmy to loosen it up, and it popped open with a ding. 

Pretty much empty. 

“The fuck is this?” He growled, fingering through the notes in the drawer — all twenty-two of them. “There’s fuckin’ nothing in ‘ere!” 

Your face screwed up like a wrung cloth when his glare shot to you. Great gulping sobs, your eyes squeezed into fleshy little crescents and spewed tears from either corner, terror rilling from your nose and making your lips all wet. 

“I’m sorry — it’s not my — I think Mitch m-must have done the cash drop this morning,” you wailed, “Please — it’s not my f-f-fault!” 

“Shut up,” he snapped, jutting the mouth of his Sig Sauer at you, callously reminding you of the fate he held in his grip. 

He snarled to himself as he plucked out all of the notes, flipped through them to count it up. Nine fivers, six tenners, five twenties, two fifties. A few quid worth of coins floating around unorganised between the compartments. A prodigious spoil of three-hundred-and-five pounds. 

Fucking joke. 

He rancorously shoved all the paper in the bag — left the coins, ego too tall to fish out the petty change. 

“Piss take,” he grumbled as he slammed shut the till drawer. “What else y’got.” 

You blinked up at him timorously as he tucked his gun into his jeans and marched towards you, almost buckling over as though you could curl up into a shell to protect yourself from him. 

Only cried as he spread your arms, shamelessly smearing his hands over your body to feel for something in a pocket. Down your waist, stomach, hips; all pillowy under the pressure of his hands, soft even through your t-shirt. Prodded the undersides of your breasts with shameless fingers, checking for anything tucked in your bra, and your lips curled in disgust as you looked away from him. 

He almost cracked a smile at your diffidence. Maybe another time, pretty thing. 

He flipped you around, manhandling you until your nose pressed into the wall. Hands smoothed down your back, before finding something rectangular tucked into the tight pocket of your skinny jeans. You squeaked in dispute as he stuck his fingers in the pocket, flush with your arse, but he had no time to enjoy it. 

Little red wallet. 

He flicked through it — a visa debit card, expired Primark gift card, two quid in the zipped pocket and a tenner note folded in a card sleeve. Eyed your license for longer than necessary — cute little photo of you, a tiny smirk in your lips as you gazed at the camera. 

“Pretty name,” he said wryly, and you only huffed with your forehead pressed against the wall. 

He didn’t bother taking any of the change. Looked like you needed it as much as he did. You winced when he pushed a finger in your back pocket, tugging it open so he could shove your wallet back in. 

He instead returned his attention to the checkout, scouring the counters for anything else that could be deemed at all valuable. Nothing, obviously. Merely cardboard display racks of chewing gum and cheap candies. There was a cigarette cabinet behind the till, at least — after some fiddling he found the key on the ring that fit the lock, broke open the steel door, and swept an entire rack of cartons into the duffle bag. 

As a last resort, he dropped the bag and crouched down, wiped underneath the countertops with gloved hands, hoping for a vault, a hidden compartment, or—

His fingers brushed plastic, creasing and soft; something wrapped in film, taped to the underside of the counter. He tore it off with a zip, held it in a tight hand; a stack of notes, more than a centimetre thick, wrapped with a hair tie and shoved in a zip-seal sandwich bag. 

You let out a remorseful sob as you sunk to the floor with your back against the wall; thighs tucked to your chest, head dropped to your knees. 

A grin peeled his lips from his teeth as the realisation settled. “This yours?” 

“No,” you chirped, a pitiful attempt at a lie — he was unsure why you wouldn’t admit to it, it wasn’t as though he’d have informed your boss. 

“Skimming, eh?” He snorted, peeling open the yellow seam of the plastic pouch and fishing out the stack. Flipped through them — mostly tens and twenties — easily a couple grand, at the very least. 

“I just—” you sobbed, shoulders hunched, “I was just saving up. It doesn’t matter. Just t-take it.” 

“Saving?” He asked incredulously, voice thick with amused derision. “Little thief. No better than me, are ya?” 

“Whatever,” you bellyached, arms wrapped around your knees, snivelling on the floor. 

He sucked his teeth as he dumped the stack in his bag. Too bad. His now. 

As he went to stand, though, he went dead still — eyes hooked on a flashing blue light under the counter. Squinting, he leaned closer, to substantiate his hunch—

A fucking panic button. 

His rage burst like a purulent blister — apoplectic with it, he ripped his handgun from his jeans and steamed towards you. 

“You fuckin’ hit the alarm?” He roared, and you shrieked in terror as he took the collar of your t-shirt in a fist and heaved you up from the ground. 

“I — I’m — I didn’t—”

Your spluttering only enkindled his fury. You cried out in despairing dread when he shoved the mouth of his pistol into the soft flesh under your chin, and he held his teeth to your cheek. 

“Why the fuck would you go and do that, eh?” He growled, inexplicably disappointed. Thought you were smarter than that. 

“I’m sorry,” you bawled, shaking your head, wet eyes bolted to the ceiling. “I didn’t know what to do, I just — I thought I was s’posed to, I’m s-sorry. Please — god, please, don’t kill me.”

He huffed, jaw rigid. 

He wouldn’t put a bullet in you, pretty thing. Too lovely to mire with lead, that butter-soft skin. 

It was a shame you were such a thorn in his side, fractious girl, because otherwise he would have just left you be. Would have taken his cash and been done with it, left you in your piss-wet jeans to cry to your boss about the ordeal and rightfully request some weeks off to escape to somewhere more therapeutic for the soul than fucking Dunhill. 

“Would be a damn waste,” he grunted, finally pulling his gun from under your chin, sticking the barrel into his jeans. A moan of relief leaked from your throat once the instrument of your imminent death was no longer kissing your jaw. 

Premature relief, love. He grappled you away from the wall, and with a shove, had you in front of him. You yelped when he collared you with a tight hand around the back of your neck, stumbled over your feet as he began driving you forward.

“What are you—”

“Use those legs, girl,” he barked, as he reached to hoist up his duffle bag from where he left it on the floor. 

You blubbered like a toddler, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, as if your tears might engender pity from him. “Are you t-taking me?” 

“Not gonna leave you to blab to the cops, am I?” 

Another sob. “No — I wouldn’t — I won’t say anything, I don’t even know what you look like. Please—”

“Christ, you’re a whinger, aren’t you?” He rumbled, barrelling through the swinging door and hauling you across the asphalt of the forecourt.

The air was thick with the greasy smell of petrol seeping from lousy fuel pumps, amalgamated with the distant fumes of factory farms and cow manure that hung in a blanketing smog from there to Birmingham. Only the corrugated metal infrastructure of beef and dairy industries for miles in any direction out there. 

He couldn’t fathom what a bird like you was doing with her feet in the mud, stagnating in such a miserable shithole. Maybe he was doing you a favour. 

He tore open the passenger door of his twenty-year-old Mitsubishi L200 — a rusty black pickup he bought with cash from a shrivelled old man on Gumtree, with hopefully just enough life in it to last the drive north. 

You stuck your hand out and planted it on the edge of the door as he pushed you towards it, vigorously shaking your head. “No, n-no — I’m not going with you, I’m not—”

He snorted, and when you didn’t capitulate with a shove, he swept an arm under your knees and hoisted you upward before dumping you into the passenger seat whether you liked it or not. You landed with a squeak, and before you could spew out any more vacant refusals he slammed shut the door. 

He stormed around to the drivers side and hopped in beside you, tossing his duffle bag back between the seats, hastily igniting the engine as he shut his own door. Hit the central lock button and the entire truck locked shut with a clunk — you whimpered when you heard it, and turned your knees away from him.

“Where are you taking me?” You cried, as he revved the truck and rapidly accelerated, tearing out of the forecourt and over the curb, landing on the road with a sharp bounce and a tire screech. 

He paid little attention to your whimpering as he sped off down the dilapidated country road, eyes flicking to the rearview every odd second to make sure he saw no flashing lights in pursuit. The vehicle dipped and recoiled over every pothole on the crumbling old road — motorway would be preferable, but he decided heading in the opposite direction to loop back around would be the safest bet. 

You only sobbed quietly to yourself in his silence, no doubt his lack of response was a threat in itself. 

He had no issue frightening you. Served you right. 

Took some morbid glee in considering what you imagined he planned on doing with you. Whether you considered weighing up your chances. Might you survive if you were to attack him? Would he go easy on you? Might he enjoy the struggle? 

Perhaps you were girding yourself for what he might do next. 

Truth was, he hadn’t decided yet. 

His decision to take you was as impulsive as it was inexorable. 

You weeped until your tear troughs were droughted and nothing more could bleed from their ducts. Cheeks had gone sticky with it, salt dried gritty on your flushed skin, lips shrivelled and thirsty. 

Transient thoughts of rebellion had been ignited and snuffed out in the ten minutes since he had abducted you from the station — you could have reached over and pulled the gun from his waistband, could have tried to kick through the passenger window, could have thrown a nuclear tantrum and bucked and screamed until he was forced to pull over. 

All would have been futile. You weren’t stupid. 

He had that gun in his immediate reach; in fact he kept a heavy hand resting high up on his thigh, prepared to yank it out of its nest above his crotch at any given opportunity. He had made abundantly clear the shortness of his fuse, and that his reflexive reaction to annoyance was to threaten your life. 

Best you settle down, you thought — wait until his guard was down, until he pulled over somewhere, then consider something more drastic. While you were trapped in a car with him such an opportunity was unlikely to present itself. 

There were no streetlights out this way; your abductor had bypassed Dunhill entirely, sticking to unmaintained back roads that had you bouncing up and down in your seat. Not the motion alone that made you queasy, but the fact he was driving even deeper into nowhere, where the only sources of light were the headlights of his truck, illuminating the dark road ahead like something out of a found-footage horror film. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” you croaked, voice abraded to the point of gurgling stones. 

You felt his head turn to look at you, but you kept your stare pointed out your window. Knees turned so far away from him that they burrowed into the door. 

“Eh?” He huffed dryly. 

Sipped a cautious breath before repeating yourself. “Where are you taking me?” 

“I’m ‘eaded north,” he said, no elaboration. 

“Where north,” you asked more firmly, warily frustrated. 

He let out a breathy chortle, as though surprised you’d interrogate him. “Scotland.” 

You cocked your head back in bewilderment and turned to glower at him. “Scotland?” 

“S’what I said.” 

“I don’t want to go to Scotland,” you whined, realising quickly the length of the drive — easily six hours to Glasgow if he stuck to the motorways, but you got the sense he was avoiding them. 

“That’s a shame,” he said. 

“I don’t understand,” you pleaded, terror thick in your throat. “What do you — what do you want from me?”

You regretted the question as soon as you uttered it, because there was some comfort to be found in uncertainty — that is, the possibility that he wasn’t going to throw you into the bed of his truck and rape you in the pitch dark of the backcountry night. 

He looked at you again, eyes tar-black in the shadows of his balaclava, and you held shut your thighs on instinct. 

“Dunno yet,” he said. 

You might have cried if you had any tears left to give. Instead you blinked at him uneasily, petrified into a surreal state of milky numbness — maybe you were in shock, you had heard of that before. 

“So you — you just took me because you felt like it?” 

He shrugged with a single shoulder. “‘Spose so.” 

A minute of stodgy silence settled in the cab as you stared blankly ahead down the spotlighted country road. You weren’t sure what you should do with yourself, and it made you itch all over. From the pits of you echoed screams to put up a fucking fight, to do something — instead you sat quietly, vacantly, erosively indecisive. Waiting for something to happen. For the other shoe to drop. 

“Are you going to shoot me?” You timidly asked, words eking out like dripping water from a tight faucet. 

“Hopefully not.” 

“Then — then why did you take me?”

His head rocked back and bounced off the headrest as he let out an exasperated puff of air. “Y’make a lot o’ noise, don’t you?” 

“Well there would be no noise if you hadn’t.” 

He laughed at that, you could see the fine lines creasing in the corner of his puckering eyes through his mask. “Got me there.” 

“So then why don’t you just let me out?” You pestered, only emboldened by his droning indifference. Apathy exuded from him like serum from an open wound, oily yet salutary, and you found it grotesquely reassuring. 

“Don’t want to,” he bluntly replied. 

“Why not?” 

He was twitchy. On a razor edge. He lasered a glare at you and it stung, and you shrunk into yourself under the heat of it. 

“Because I don’t want to.” He repeated, jaw tight. 

You should have heeded the venom in his throat as a warning to shut up, but despite effort to wire your jaw shut, your compulsion to fill the silence was pathological. 

“Are you — are you going to—” Couldn’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. The tail of it sat heavy and sour on your tongue. 

“Goin’ to what.” 

A quivering breath leaked through your teeth. “Rape me.” 

He sighed heavily, languidly rocking his head to the side, and you felt his hard eyes on you. Excoriating you from legs to lips. 

“Thought about it,” he said. 

Ribs closed like dog jaws around your lungs. 

Said with such torpor that it didn’t cut you like a threat. Instead it made your heart tight and hot, shuddering rather than beating, pumping out needly adrenaline that made your hairs spike up and your stomach drop heavy. 

“And?” You creaked, voice scratching in your trachea. 

“Wouldn’t mind a fuck,” he grunted indifferently. “But I don’t like crying.” 

A mortifying heat feathered over your cheeks. Something pre-programmed, an evolutionary reaction to the suggestion of sex at all, consensual or otherwise — that’s what you told yourself, when you felt a reflexive shiver between your legs, and your ears turned hot. 

“So that’s why you took me,” you mumbled anxiously. 

“To fuck?”

You shot him a pointed lour in place of a response. 

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Fucking weird girl. 

Your curiosity was potently unsettling, riveting in the same breath. Didn’t make sense to him, that you’d ask him so unabashedly whether or not he intended on defiling you. What answer were you hoping for? Did you simply want to make sure he said no? 

You blinked at him vacantly after his candid response. No use in lying to you. 

It wasn’t his style to brutalise himself into a bird, to bulldoze through wails and shrieks of refusal, physical capability to do so notwithstanding. He simply didn’t like tears. Felt beneath him, really, the impotent sadism needed to enjoy milking them. The only wetness he liked in a girl was a wet mouth and a wet cunt. 

He was partial to a hisser, though. Liked his spitters and scratchers. The kinds of girls that would gripe and grouse about his brutishness but turned treacly sweet when he inevitably overpowered them. 

Perhaps you’d be a hisser. 

He would have liked to find out. What noises you might have made. What the skin of your thighs might have felt like when free of their denim sheaths. How your nipples might spike up in the invasive cool of the September evening, or under the unwelcome brush of his fingers. 

There was a glimmer in the pools of your eyes, fretful yet inquisitive. He was probably only seeing what he wanted to see. 

You went quiet after that, at least. For the best. Kept your little knees nailed together as you glowered out your passenger window, pleasantly pacified for the time being. Sulking like a fucking child, but he supposed he couldn’t blame you. 

He wasn’t stupid enough to expect that you’d be cheerful after he kidnapped you. And he wasn’t in denial, either — he did kidnap you. There was no dancing around it. He threatened to kill you and then he abducted you, because he felt like it. Because he liked the look of you. 

Not remorseful, though. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever felt sorry for anything. His brain just didn’t function that way. If he wanted something, it was his. No use wasting time feeling guilt over something not even he could prevent. 

He spent his time in your silence considering how to make it worth his while. Whether he would, in fact, drag you all the way to Scotland with him. Whether he’d have you aid and abet his next robbery to make up for the piss-poor spoils he purloined from your petrol station. Whether he would find a way to fuck you on the way, or perhaps once he got to his destination. 

Maybe he’d let you keep some of your savings if you showed him your pussy. He looked at you briefly as he thought about it. Wondered how badly you needed the money. 

“What were you savin’ for, eh?” He asked suddenly, and you flinched at the sound of his voice. 

Soft little girl. He’d need to harden you up. 

“What do you mean,” you murmured, hardly a croak. 

“Don’t play dumb,” he gritted.

You sighed warily, eyeing him before you answered. “Doesn’t even matter,” you grumbled. “You took it, so now I haven’t saved anything.” 

He glowered at you, and something in his dissatisfied stare must have compelled you to elaborate. He had that effect on people. Birds, especially. Intimidation coursed through his blood and emanated out of his skin, it didn’t take much effort. 

“I wanted to leave Dunhill, obviously,” you groaned, reluctant to spill every word. 

“Yeah?” He asked, “where were y’off to?”

“Fucked if I know,” you muttered. “Literally anywhere else.” 

He snorted at that. “Couldn’t do that without skimming, eh?” 

“What, do you disapprove?” You hissed, scowling at him. “At least I don’t kidnap people when I need money.” 

“I’m not judging, sweetheart,” he crooned through a grin. “M’only impressed.” 

“Whatever,” you groused, crossing your arms and glaring out the window. “I only took it because I owe a bunch of money.” 

He quirked a brow at that. “To who?” 

“Why do you care.” 

He shrugged. “Boring drive.”

You let out a petulant huff before you inevitably decided to answer him. 

“I’m behind on rent,” you said, through gritted teeth. “Like, four months behind. And I’m still paying off my car, which I just needed to get repaired, so now I also owe money to the mechanic who did me the favour. Fucking owe money to the government, too, because they found out I was on the dole while I was working at the station.” 

A curl tugged in his lips, brows raised in intrigue. No surprise you had managed to find yourself burdened by so many favours — landlord giving you grace, mechanics fixing your cars without payment upfront. Pretty thing like you, though, he’d expect you’d get everything for free. Couldn’t imagine what kind of penny-pinching wankers would still demand money from you when you looked like that. 

Shame you didn’t cross his path sooner, he’d have fixed your car for you. No charge. Might have even let you squat at his place rent-free, assuming you made it worth his while. 

Started to imagine it, despite himself. Pictured having a pretty thing like you to come home to. Standing in the kitchen in his t-shirt, nothing under it. He’d bend you over the counter and fuck you right there while you stirred your tea. Wouldn’t have taken much to get your cunt nice and wet, he thought. You seemed like you’d be easy to please, bored little thing, hopelessly awaiting a man like him to show you what’s worth living for. 

Maybe he would take you all the way to Scotland, after all.  

“What about you,” you asked dully, snapping him from his reverie. “Why do you need the money.” 

He glanced at you, you picked at your fingernails and glared at his hands on the wheel. 

“Must need it pretty bad,” you muttered, scorn bubbling in your throat. 

He tapped the steering wheel. “Long story.” 

“What, are you a fugitive, or something?” You asked, contemptuous eyes raking over him. 

“Is it that obvious?” He asked, through a chortle. 

You gulped, almost cartoonishly. So scared of him. He was sure the mask didn’t help, but he didn’t feel like taking it off yet. 

“What’d you do?” You questioned, that pang of anxiousness never quite leaving your voice, despite your attempts at feigning bravery. “Kill someone?” 

“Worse than that,” he said frankly. 

Your brows knitted together worriedly, fingers knotting. Nervous fidgeting. “Some kind of rapist, then?” 

“Not quite,” he replied facetiously, certain you must have found his amusement at the prospect ill-placed. 

“Then what?” 

“Got in trouble with people you shouldn’t get in trouble with,” he explained, purposefully vague. He enjoyed your inquisitiveness. 

“A gang?” 

“Could call it that,” he jeered. “Special air service.” 

Probably shouldn’t have told you that. Couldn’t help himself. 

“Special — wait, you’re in the army?” 

“Not anymore,” he said. 

You frowned uneasily. “What happened?” 

“That’s a tale for another day,” he grunted, and you turned to glare out the window again, spiteful now that he left your curiosity unsated. Little brat. 

Twenty uneventful minutes passed uninterrupted, then, and Simon focused on the route he had set out to follow. He had successfully avoided main roads for the better part of an hour, now electing it safe enough to return to the highway. Took a few dark turn offs, and every time the truck slowed, you visibly tensed up; so terrified that he’d pull over for a rest stop and drag you into the grass on the side of the road.

He didn’t like the streetlights. They were confrontational, accusatory, as though their beams of light were enough to alert every cop in the vicinity to his presence underneath them. 

The highway was largely empty, at least. Only one car passed in the opposite direction as he cruised along the smooth asphalt, decidedly more comfortable to drive on than the tattered backroads. Meant he could drive a lot faster, too. Might have been able to cut his trip by an hour, if he stuck to eighty-five miles an hour for the stretch between there and Birmingham. 

Your girlish little hands clutched the armrest of the door as he accelerated, the speed of the vehicle pushing you against the window as he followed a curve in the wide road. 

“You’re driving too fast,” you said quietly. 

He cracked a grin. How endearing that you thought to warn him. You were lucky he was trying to keep a low profile, in any other circumstance he’d be brushing a hundred. Then he’d really scare you, wouldn’t he? You could do with some toughening up, he thought. 

“Now you’re worried about the law, eh?” He sneered. 

“I just don’t want to die in a car wreck,” you bit. 

Seemed his docility was emboldening you. Perhaps you were a hisser, after all. Wondered if he needed to correct your behaviour. Maybe you’d spit on him if he reached over the centre console and fixed his hand to your thigh. 

“You’ll be fine,” he said. 

He avoided the arterial motorway that cut through Birmingham, choosing instead to stick to the A roads that bounced between exits and junctions in a zigzag. Hardly efficient, such a route would tack on an extra three hours of travel between there and Manchester, but at least far less monitored than the M5. 

He got cocky, he supposed. 

Saw the flashing red-and-blue lights before the sirens started blaring, and you jumped like a bunny — your head wracked around with a speed that made your neck crick, glaring at the cop car through the back windscreen. 

“Fuck,” he barked, through a clenched jaw, eyes jumping between the cruiser in his rearview and the highway ahead of him. 

He could have shoved his foot down, pressed the accelerator flat to the floor and fled the likely jaded cop patrolling the country highway at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday. There was a chance the fat old bastard wouldn’t give chase, but that chance was slim. Simon didn’t need the attention. 

He sunk his foot into the brake and slowed to sixty, veering into the shoulder. “Fuckin’ tosser.” 

And didn’t you perk up? Itching all over to bounce out of your seat, head swinging back to look at the police car twice a second. All twitchy and riled up. He could see what you were thinking, it was printed in your cheeks, bright in your eyes; now’s your chance. 

He hoped you weren’t that stupid. 

“You gonna be a good girl?” He asked rigidly. 

“What do you mean,” you squeaked, panicked, eyes peeled wide and skin glossy with sweat. 

“Means keep your fuckin’ mouth shut,” he snapped, lifting up his jersey, and you gawped at the gun against his stomach. “You make a scene, I’ll have to shoot him. And then I’ll have to shoot you. Y’understand?”

You nodded tightly, wiping under your eyes with your palms, some paltry attempt to collect yourself. He sincerely hoped you’d behave. He didn’t want to kill you. Would be a waste of a pretty bird. Not to mention a fucking pain in the arse to hide not one, but two bodies. 

“Good,” he muttered, as he tore off his mask and tossed it on the ground between his feet, slowing the car to a stop on the side of the highway. Rubbed his hand over his buzzed head on instinct, cropped hair velveteen under his palm. Hopeful the knit didn’t leave suspicious imprints in his skin. 

Your lips went a little slack when you looked up to see him unmasked, and a grin creased in his cheeks. Saw plain as day that glimmer in your little eyes, as they scoured over his face as if reading the pages of a book. 

Didn’t think he’d be pretty, did you? He was not ignorant of his looks, and wasn’t humble about them either. So blatant in your flustered expression that you liked what you saw, only too virtuous to admit it to yourself. 

He wound down his window before the policeman approached. He was adept at pretending to be a good boy. Spent decades licking boots in the military, and cops were even easier to please. 

The officer was middle-aged and saggy-eyed, just as jaded as Simon had predicted. The truck was taller than him, so his hatted head peered through the center of the open window, assessing the cab with his lips in a line. 

“Evenin’,” Simon said simply. 

“Heading home, are we?” The officer asked, eyeing up the bird next to the driver, lathering you in more attention than necessary. 

Could’ve clubbed him in the nose for so shamelessly drooling over you — as far as the cop was likely aware, you were his bird, not some slapper along for the ride. He had king-hit men for less. 

“You bet,” was all he said. 

“Must be in a hurry,” the cop said derisively, glare finally returning to the driver. “Any clue how fast you were going, mate?” 

Mate made Simon twitch. Swallowed back the urge to spit not your fucking mate, instead offering a placating grin and a pat of the steering wheel. 

“We are in a bit of a hurry.” 

“Yeah? Enough of a hurry to be going twenty over the limit?” 

“Bird tells me to hurry home, I hurry home,” Simon jeered. “Y’know what I mean.” 

The officer almost tutted, until your voice cut across from the passenger seat, and Simon’s knuckles turned white on the wheel. 

“Don’t blame me,” you snapped. “It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself.” 

To Simon’s surprise, the cop chuckled at that. 

“Need to rein your fella in, love.” 

“I tried,” you lamented. “I told him he was going too fast and he was going to get pulled over. I told him so. Bastard doesn’t listen to me.”

Simon blinked in your direction, to see you sitting upright with your arms spitefully crossed over your chest, cheeks red-hot with panic and knee bouncing in frustration. If he didn’t know the root of your unease was the fact he had abducted you, he’d have believed you were a contemptuous wife itching to castigate her reckless husband for getting in trouble. 

Seemed the cop believed that, too. “Bird’s smarter than you, eh?” 

Simon snorted, electing to play along. “That she is.” 

“Looks like you’re in plenty of trouble, then,” he taunted.

Simon looked at you, again, to see you scowling at him before you glowered out the windshield. “Mh. Think so.”  

“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to do the paperwork,” the policeman said sternly. “I’ve got your plate, though, so slow down, yeah? Way down. No excuse for eighty-five in a sixty.” 

“Understood.” 

“Don’t let me catch you again, eh?” 

Simon smiled politely, concealing the chortle that curdled in his throat. Cop wouldn’t be seeing him again at all, ever, because he was fucking off to a different country and intended to stay there for as long as he remained under the radar. 

He’d have to dump the car, though. With the plate on the record it was fated for the scrapyard. 

“Appreciate it,” Simon said through an artificial grin. “Have a good one.” 

The cop only nodded, patted the car door with a flat hand, before waddling back to his cruiser without another word. 

Simon was humiliated to admit the relief that doused him was sobering, letting out a ragged sigh as he rolled up the window and twisted the keys in the ignition. He was certain that the encounter would have been far uglier — felt his hand twitching towards the gun on his stomach more than once, imagined how quickly it could have been over if he simply tore it out and pointed it at the wanker’s forehead. 

You, strange girl, saved his arse. Whether or not you had intended to help him, you did. His eyes fixed to you as he pulled back onto the motorway, speedometer creeping back up to sixty and staying there, while the police car was still in sight. 

“‘Bastard doesn’t listen to me’?” He quoted with a brow raised, incredulous amusement rich in his tone.  

“What,” you muttered derisively, staring rigidly out of the passenger window, arms tightly interlocked. 

“Think of that on the spot, did ya?” 

Seemed you were avoiding eye contact with him now, glare fastened out into the moonlit countryside and head bolted still. Ashamed, perhaps, that you had thwarted your only real opportunity to escape him. Or, worried that if you looked at him for too long, your fear of him might have mutated into something far more difficult to justify. He smirked at the thought. 

“You should be grateful,” you grumbled. 

“Should I?” 

“You didn’t get arrested because of me.” 

He chortled at that. Maybe your tactic to ingratiate yourself was to help him, but he got the sense that wasn’t your intention.

“In that case, ‘course I’m grateful.”

“Then say thank you,” you spat, finally swivelling your head on your neck to pin your grouchy little lour to him. 

“Thank you,” he crooned, grin sharp. 

“Whatever,” you griped, slumping back into your seat with a huff. 

He wasn’t sure if he preferred you whining and crying to pouting like a teenager, either option tested his patience. He at least found the latter vaguely amusing, only slightly more endearing than a whimpering abductee in his passenger seat. 

“Thanks not good enough for you?” He asked mordantly, and you scoffed. “What, do I have to lick your cunt to prove it?” 

Your stare cut to him out of the corner of your eyes, head impudently bowed to avoid facing him head-on. 

“Don’t say things like that,” you murmured uneasily, eyes glittering under the streetlight that passed by.

“Like what?” He sneered, “don’t want me to talk about licking your cunt?” 

“Shut up,” you chirped, stiff-lipped, tipping your knees away from him and once again scowling out of your window. 

He snickered at you, couldn’t help it, watching you get all tight and restless when he said it again. Certain you were involuntarily picturing his head between your legs, whether you liked it or not. 

“Don’t like the word cunt?” He teased, winding you up for his own enjoyment. “Or don’t like thinking of me licking it?” 

“Stop it,” you whined, shrivelling up like a raisin. 

He grinned. “I can call it your pussy instead.”

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Uh-huh,” he laughed. 

You turned to tug at the door handle, yanking at it unrelentingly, and it only thumped as you failed to break through the lock. “Let me out.” 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” 

“Open the fucking door,” you spat, spite simmering in the back of your throat. “Let me out.” 

He liked this better. Hissing derision, contemptuous attempts to escape, to demand your freedom. Much more enjoyable than your earlier weeping, all snotty and puffy-eyed. 

“Not gonna happen,” he said.

“You’re a pervert,” you growled.  

“So?” 

“Let me go,” you repeated, glaring daggers at him. 

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said candidly, tone as rigid as he intended it to be. He meant it. 

Again stymied, you slouched over and turned away from him, and went petulantly silent. Simon drove ahead unruffled, took another exit off the motorway — once again trundling over a poorly kept rural road, heading in the direction of the next highway junction half an hour north. 

It was evident being off the beaten track put you on edge, pellucid in the way you tightened your arms around yourself once the streetlights became fewer and further between. He couldn’t blame you, it was certainly slasher-esque to cart you around backroads, where the only buildings were abandoned barns and grain silos. Lucky for you, he wasn’t a murderer. Not anymore. Besides, all of his past killing was government sanctioned. Most of it, anyway. 

You kept your mouth shut for the next long while, huffing and puffing every now and again, making sure not to let him forget how unhappy you were with your circumstances. Strangely enough, he found it endearing.

“I need to pee,” you said suddenly, a squeak, shy to say so. 

He snorted. “Think I’m thick?” 

“I — I’m being serious,” you stammered. Unconvincing. 

“Hold it,” he said unsympathetically, turning a left corner, the momentum making you tip into the centre console, your shoulder nudging against his before you spitefully tugged yourself away.

“I can’t,” you grouched. 

“Piss yourself then,” he sneered. “I’m not keepin’ this car.” 

Your brows scrunched up in disappointment. “I don’t want to — to pee on myself. That’s just gross.” 

He smiled. Something cute about you. 

“You can piss when we stop for the night,” he said. “How’s that?” 

“We’re stopping?” You asked quietly, blinking at him charily, as if he’d change his mind if you spoke too loud.  

“Been a long fuckin’ day,” he grumbled. “I’m not driving for nine hours straight.” 

“Nine hours?” You pestered, “I thought we were going to Scotland?” 

He couldn’t help but grin at that. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip — we. Maybe you had come to terms with it already, the ineludible fact that you were stuck with him for however long he wanted to keep you. So far, that looked like a good while. 

“Taking the long way,” he answered. 

“What the hell, how many people are looking for you?” You asked, pouting in worry. 

He sucked his teeth. “Not enough to find me.” 

You didn’t need to pee at all. 

In fact, your nerves had sucked up every drop of water that remained in your body after your deluge of tears. They were glutted with it. All swollen and pinging with panic every odd moment, when you remembered you were supposed to be in fight-or-flight. 

You were seething, though, that you had failed to convince him. 

The plan was poorly conceived, in fairness — you only imagined getting as far as an unlocked door, girding your legs to bolt off into the endless fields on the side of the road in whichever direction they took you. Didn’t spend a moment considering whether you could outrun the goliath, or how rough he’d be when he predictably tackled you. Maybe he’d simply have shot you as you ran away, turned it into a game of target practice for his own amusement. 

There was shame brewing within you, now. 

Sweltering, emetic, frothy as it crawled up your throat — you were disgusted with yourself, at how pathetic you were being, at how little you had done in the interest of your own escape. How you had let all of it happen. 

You always imagined yourself a fighter, it was easy to imagine such a thing. In hypotheticals you would kick and scream, could easily overpower your assailants by sheer will, your resolve to survive so strong that capitulation was inconceivable. 

Reality stung. 

You weren’t a kicker or a screamer. You were a sit-and-waiter, and that realisation was sobering as it was disappointing. 

Humiliated that you had forsaken a real opportunity at rescue for no discernable reason. No reason you could truly justify. Perhaps you had done it to save the police officer; if you hadn’t intervened, your deranged captor would have shot the innocent man for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and it would have been your fault for making a fuss. 

Terror was the next excuse, but that didn’t quite justify it either. If you were so terrified that the man would shoot you, you would not have uttered a word. No, you would have been quiet, a good girl, just as he ordered you to be. 

It assuaged your fear, you thought, to see his face. 

You were surprised to see a face at all beneath the mask, forgetting he was a man and not some caricature of chaos and violence. He looked like a soldier, too. All scarred and cynical, disillusionment was inlaid in his features despite how caustically he grinned at you. 

His hair was freshly buzzed, sandy blond velvet coating his head, long pink cicatrices carved lines into his scalp as if someone had attempted to cut through it and peel it from his skull. He was tattooed, you could tell, by the teal-black engravings that crept up the side of his neck, the rest concealed by the thick hood of his sweatshirt. Nose a little swollen at the bridge, fractured once and poorly healed. 

The shame was even more potent when you caught yourself eyeing him for too long, flicking over to him every now and again just to get a glance, the shortest possible eye contact to ensure he didn’t catch you staring. 

Fucking mortifying that he was good-looking. 

That your mind even allowed you to think so, that your eolithic subconscious had considered your abductor’s appearance at all. The way he had rakishly smirked at you was arrogance manifest, you could see in his russet-brown eyes a patent awareness of your attraction. As if he could smell it on you, goading you to admit it, ego stroked every time you caught his eye. 

So you didn’t. 

You kept your body tilted away from him, gaze locked out of your passenger window, sweaty hands clamped together. Every now and then you felt his glare on the back of your neck, heard him breathing in your direction — it felt as though you were counting down the minutes until he felt compelled to reach over the console and touch you. 

It was only a matter of time, undoubtedly. That’s what he took you for, you were certain, despite his supposed ambivalence. The thought made your heart sit fat in your throat. Stopping for the night was a deadline.

“Where are we stopping?” You asked weakly, voice aimed at the passenger door. 

He let out an exasperated breath. “Not sure yet.”

“Are you going to sleep in the car?” 

He seemed to find that amusing. “I might not look it, love, but I’m a creature of comfort,” he said. “I’ll get us a bed.” 

Us. You shivered when he said it. 

A scornful refusal knocked at the back of your teeth, but you knew how he’d twist it, would mock your aversion. He’d make another foul little quip about your pussy, you thought. 

You didn’t want to give him the chance to say the word again. Not simply because it was revolting to listen to the degenerate joke about eating you out — licking your cunt, it echoed in the sauna of your skull — but because the mere mention of it turned your cheeks claret-red and the back of your neck all clammy. 

What was worse, is that you knew he could see it on you. Plainly emboldened by how much it ruffled you. Could decipher your unease as an effort to conceal some biomechanical reaction, one provoked by the mere suggestion of it, by the vibrations of his voice as he said it. 

“Do me a favour,” He suddenly demanded.

You refused to turn and look at him. “What.” 

“Grab me a fag, will ya?” 

Animosity congealed in your mouth. The fucking gall to request favours of you. “From where?” 

“Bag in the back there,” he said simply, “light’s in there too.” 

“Fine.” 

You peered behind the headrest, his unzipped duffle bag was dumped on the back seat; just out of reach if you were to extend an arm between the gap. Instead you had to twist your entire body and contort yourself through the middle, waist between the front seats as you climbed over the console.

You resented being in such a position, arse jutting out towards the windshield, unable to see the driver that sat so close to you — so you were quick about it, burrowing through the sack, stuffed to the brim with junk, and myriad different brands of cigarette cartons. 

“Which ones do you want,” you asked impatiently.

He huffed as he thought about it. “What’ve we got?” 

“Um,” you murmured, digging through the cardboard cartons. “Mayfairs, Richmonds… uh. Embassies, Davidoffs—”

“Mh. Gi’s a davidoff,” he interrupted. 

You followed his instruction and plucked out the trim red box, and an orange Bic lighter once you found it at the bottom of the bag, wedged between wads of cash. You peeled away the thin plastic covering and flipped open the card lid as you reeled your body back between the seats — immediately you caught him lavishing your rear in attention. He sniffed casually when he caught your eye, utterly shameless. 

Heart shuddered in your ears as you sat back down in your seat, gooseflesh prickling up in your skin as you held the carton out for him to pluck out a roll. 

He pinched the end of one and stuck it between lips curled over his teeth, before gesturing wordlessly for you to give him the lighter. 

“You’re a doll,” he said, muffled by the filter in his lips. Jaw jutted out to angle up the cigarette, he flicked the lighter in his fist with his thumb, little orange flame hovering under the end of the roll as he sucked it. 

“Whatever,” you grumbled, swiftly turning away from him to return your attention to the road out the window. 

Seemed he was approaching some area of population, little brick houses began popping up on the side of the street, lampposts peppering the road ahead. A surge of adrenaline made your hackles spike up — bystanders, you thought, people who might have heard you if you screamed loud enough. 

“Want a puff?” He asked indifferently. 

“I don’t smoke,” you snarked, distracted. 

He snorted. “Goodie girl, are ya?” 

“No,” you said curtly. 

“Mh, that’s right — you’re a little thief,” he taunted. “Not a good girl at all.” 

There was no response that would spare you his teasing, so you kept your mouth shut. Stayed silent for the remainder of the drive, in fact, a solid quarter-hour — until the car bounced over something and you jolted in your seat. Quickly realised he had pulled up into a parking lot as the truck began to slow. 

A two-star Travelodge, evidently, one planted directly on the side of the northbound highway. It looked barren, coral bricks all grimy with lichen and sludgy brown water stains, every window blocked by shut curtains. Not a single light glowed from within a hotel room, only the dim yellow lantern bolted to the wall above the sliding door at the entrance. 

You held your tongue in your teeth as he drove to a park at the very back of the lot, under a low-hanging tree branch, concealed by shadow. Your skin began to itch, crawling with bugs and alight with adrenaline — you could run, now, if he opened your door. Maybe you could sprint to the nearest building and hammer on the door, shriek that you’d been kidnapped, and to please please call the police. Or, maybe you could try to snatch his gun from him and shoot him in the fucking head. 

Instead you sat still in your seat. Felt your chest breaking out in a panic rash. 

“Righ’,” he said casually as he killed the engine, the suspension of the truck bouncing under the weight of him as he adjusted in his seat. “Look at me.” 

You shook your head in refusal. Entire body stiff as wood. Anticipation frayed your nerves and made your hairs stand on end. It was suddenly real. 

You kept your eyes pinned away from him, but it was futile, because he reached a massive arm across the gap and seized your jaw in a single hand. Fingers dimpled your cheeks as he twisted your head to face him, and you attempted to scowl at him, but your quivering lip made plain your alarm. 

“You gonna make a fuss?” He asked stiffly, pinching his cigarette with his free fingers, silvery smoke clouding out from behind his teeth. 

You just about said no on reflex, but bit down on it instead, because it likely would have been a lie. Only pouted at him scornfully and shivered in his grip. 

“What d’you think will happen if you do.” 

You swallowed. “You’ll shoot me.” 

He shook his head. “Would be an uncomfortable night for you, though, I can tell y’that.” 

A crease pulled between your brows. “Are you going to — to beat me up, or something?” 

He chuckled at that, a cocksure grin; you suddenly felt a weight in your chest, burning hot, made your ribs sink and your heart flutter. 

You hadn’t yet seen his face up close. His cheeks were stubbled, skin peppered with freckles and the creases of early aging. Teeth were sharp and unexpectedly white, raffishly crooked with pointed canines, a silver cap on a premolar. His lips were full, pale, a single scar running through the top one, white stripe in the ruddy pink. 

The shame returned with a kick to the stomach when you noticed yourself staring at his mouth, and you tried to look away from him, but he riveted your head in place. 

“Don’t plan on it,” he said, after a beat too long. 

Sweat pricked along your hairline. “Then what.”

“I’d like to have a nice long snooze,” he grumbled. “I don’t wanna be up all night wrangling you. So if you throw a tantrum you’ll be sleeping tied up with a sock in your throat. S’that what you want?” 

“No,” you chirped. 

He nodded approvingly. “I don’t want that either. I like the sound o’ your voice. Be a shame to snuff it out, wouldn’t it?” 

You attempted to nod, and though his hand kept you still he understood the intention. With a ragged sigh he finally released you, giving you a condescending pat on the cheek. 

With a grunt he suddenly twisted and leaned between the seats, gargantuan body taking up the entire cab as he reached behind you to grab his duffle bag, and you wedged yourself against the door to avoid touching him. 

Clambered about as he reeled the giant bag back to the front, before snatching the car keys out of the ignition and unlocking the driver side door. He kicked it open and hopped out with a huff, immediately slamming it shut behind him — only unlocked your door with his keys once he was directly outside it, pre-empting any of your attempts to slip away. 

He opened the door for you with a clunk, and the biting air of the late autumn night made your entire body tighten up. 

“Get out,” he said.  

You nodded, swivelling yourself on your bottom and sliding out of the truck cab, landing directly in front of him. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and left the stub smoking on the concrete. 

“C’mon.” He fixed a hand to your bicep and yanked you away from the car, shutting the door with a slam. 

You were light on your feet as he ferried you towards the entrance to the cheap hotel, his other fist white-knuckled around the strap of his bag. 

“You don’t need—” you chirped, almost tripping over your feet, “—to hold me so tight.” 

“No?” He snorted. 

“I’m not gonna run,” you spat, hushed despite yourself. 

“Obviously.”

The sliding glass doors trundled open as you approached them, a tired ding echoing out to welcome you. The reception was quiet, poorly lit by vibrating fluorescent bars, stunk of fresh linen toilet spray and floor cleaner. 

Your abductor let go of your arm abruptly when he noticed the receptionist — a teenage boy with headphones on, who disinterestedly looked up from a Nintendo Switch to address the tall brute that sauntered in with you in tow. 

“Y’after a room?” The kid asks monotonously. 

“Standard double.”

The receptionist clicked around on the computer, smacking chewing gum between his teeth. “How many nights.” 

“Just the one.” 

Click click. “It’s sixty-eight for the night.” 

“Y’take cash?” 

The kid frowned dubiously at that, jaw hanging open as he rolled the wad of white gum along his tongue. “Sure.” 

“Lovely,” your abductor grunted, unzipping the flap of his duffle bag and fishing out a thick wad of paper notes. 

Jaw gaped as you watched him unashamedly finger between the notes to pluck out three twenties and a tenner, slapping them on the counter of the reception before tucking the stack away again. As agape as the receptionist at his brazenness, all but showing off his spoils, plainly stolen. 

The kid pouted skeptically as he swiped the notes and counted them again, tucking them aside, and you wondered if he used the same technique as you. 

He dropped a keycard on the counter. “Room thirteen,” he said. 

“Cheers.” 

Your abductor scooped up his bag and planted his other hand on the small of your back, nudging you ahead of him towards the narrow hallway, never allowing more than two feet to grow between his body and yours. 

You glanced around feverishly as you wandered meekly down the corridor, identical doors mirroring each other for as far as you could see, until the hall turned a corner. Eyes clung to the glowing green emergency exit lights dotted along the ceiling, as if they might lead you to your salvation. 

“Can’t believe you actually paid for a room,” you murmured spitefully, when he nudged you forward by the arse as if guiding a ewe. 

“Wouldn’t want to break the law,” he chuffed. 

In any other circumstance you would’ve giggled. You might have found him funny if he weren’t the deranged fugitive who had kidnapped you. 

A yank of your shirt stopped you in your tracks, tugging you back — your abductor had flippantly taken your t-shirt in a fist, as he shoved the key card into its slot under the handle of a door behind you. 

“In,” he snipped, shoving you through the door once he had pushed it open. 

The room was small. Hardly enough room for the double bed in the middle of it, skinny end tables wedged on either side. The only amenities were a shin-height fridge and a kettle on a bench, tucked into a nook by the door. It was hot in there, too — radiator bubbling all day, you guessed, to counteract the cold weather. 

Immediately you fixed your stare on the window by the bed; a good metre across, brown aluminium trim, lumpy textured glass that distorted the view of whatever sat directly outside the hotel room. Ground floor, you thought, easy to slip out, if you could open it —

Noticed, then, that there was no indication it could be opened at all. No hinges, no frames, no handles. Simply a flat plane of glass stuck in the wall. 

Your stomach wrung itself, and you did your best not to keel over. The air was suddenly infinitely stuffier, sweltering, torrid in your lungs. 

He flipped shut the bolt on the door, and landed a pat on your shoulder. You could unlatch it, obviously, but the old thing was squeaky, clanking old brass, and undoing it would certainly alert him. 

He nudged you out of his way and dumped his duffle bag on the floor beside the bed, evidently claiming the side closest to the door, as if prepared to catch you should you try to slip around him. 

In truth, the notion of escape was scarcely a whisper. Supplanted by a nauseating docility — a survival instinct, you thought, to simply behave. To do as you were told. 

He began undressing himself, uninterested in whether you observed him; shucked off his old leather jacket and hung it over the back of his bag, unlaced and kicked off his muddy old boots. Your toes curled involuntarily into the soles of your shoes, watching him like a degenerate, as he tore off his hoodie and t-shirt and tossed them to the floor. 

Something out of a movie, you thought; gargantuan beast of a man, broad-shouldered and cladded in such a dizzying mass of muscle and adipose bulk that he looked encumbered by it all. The icteric light of the sconces by the bed carved out the divots in his back, the valley of his spine, the symmetrical dimples above the waistband of his jeans — you felt sick with yourself, that you even let your eyes venture there, but they cleaved fast to him despite your chagrin. 

He was slathered in tattoos as you had imagined, all flames and skulls and barbed wire, broken up by the occasional stamp of something more meaningful — a sacred heart, serif-font numbers, somebody’s name with a date beneath it. You could read it from where you stood; Johnny, 11/2023.

You were only thankful he hadn’t turned around — couldn’t see you leering at him, and spared you having to see him from the front. 

“Still need to piss?” He asked roughly, and your lips twisted. 

“No,” you said, still standing awkwardly by the door. 

He snickered. “Seemed pretty desperate before.” 

“I — yeah,” you stammered, “I don’t know. I’m fine.” 

Gave you a shrug as he lumbered into the ensuite bathroom, and you heard the unbuckling of a belt and zip of a fly, the clunk of metal on a counter, then the steady stream of his piss landing in the toilet water. 

You scoffed in revulsion. Fucking pig. Couldn’t even close the door. You heard him rinse off his hands at least, though you couldn’t be sure he had used any soap. 

He emerged from the bathroom rubbing his shaven head and with his belt undone, leather straps hanging loose from his hips, zipper of his jeans wide open. His gun was gone. Plaid boxers bunched up, distended by the mass within and protruding through his fly — you felt yourself turn berry pink, more repulsed by yourself than him. 

This time he caught you staring, and he was manifestly pleased about it. A smug grin pulled in his lips as he shuffled towards you, and you rested your weight on your hind foot. 

“Y’want a Valium?” He asked you, and you frowned at him bewilderedly. 

“What?” 

In front of you, now, you panted like a cornered animal in the shadow he cast. “Might help you sleep.” 

You grimaced at him. “You just want to knock me out.” 

He snorted. “Why would I do that?” 

The daggers you stared at him served as your only reply, and he half-heartedly rolled his eyes at you. 

“You reckon I’d want to fuck a sleeping bird?” 

“Probably,” you muttered, averting his gaze when he uttered the word. 

“No fun in that,” he said simply. “No nice noises if you’re asleep.” 

You scoffed, perturbed by how he discussed it happening with you as if it were an inevitability. “What, like screaming?”

He cracked a grin. “Screamer, are ya?”

Your blood went runny. “Stop it.” 

He brushed a knuckle under your chin, and you flinched — but to your relief, he relented. Turned away from you and squeezed the back of his neck as if to release tension. 

“Get into bed,” he grumbled, plodding towards the bathroom, returning swiftly with his gun in hand. 

You went cold. “Why?” 

“The fuck do you think?” He replied curtly, shoving his pistol under his pillow, before he pulled his jeans down and your mouth went dry. 

“I don’t want to,” you squeaked. 

He chuffed at that. “Christ, fucking is the only thing on your mind, in’t it?” He taunted, “don’t get all worked up.” 

“I’m — I’m not worked up, you—”

“I’m too tired for this shit,” he grunted, “‘n I’m not havin’ you up and about while I’m sleeping. Get into bed or I’ll put you in bed.” 

There was no give in his expression, it was a final order. He did look tired — eyes were sunken and beset with aubergine rings, lids heavy with frustration and exhaustion. He stood with hands hooked on his hips as he impatiently awaited your acquiescence, and you sensed you were on a short timer.  

“Fine,” you murmured, shuffling around the end of the bed with your arms crossed tightly, eyes averting him.

He watched you, though. Scrutinised your every move as you bent over to untie your shoelaces, pulling off your converses and dumping them on the carpet. 

“Sleepin’ in your jeans?” He jeered, when you reached to pull back the blankets.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” you retorted, sitting on the mattress and swiftly tucking yourself under the covers. The mattress was foamy, soft, sunk deep as though permanently impressed by all the bodies that have ever slept in it. 

“Hardly comfortable,” he said, smirking, decidedly amused. 

“Don’t care,” you groused, rolling onto your side away from him, blanket up to your ears. 

He chuckled. “Suit yourself.”

You bounced on the mattress as he fell into it, springs moaning as they sunk deep beneath him, and you felt your body tip back towards him — you curled up, as close to the edge of the bed as you could get without toppling over the side. 

He switched off the sconce above the bed, and the room was abruptly black as pitch. 

The mattress recoiled as he adjusted himself, settling into bed with a gruff sigh, and you felt his warm breathing on the back of your head. 

He seemed to find comfort quickly; exhales turning deep and languid, you sensed he had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. 

There was some relief in that. Temporarily escaping him while he was unconscious. 

With your heart thundering in your ears, though, sleep was impossibly out of reach for you. You could hardly keep your eyes shut, they fluttered and twitched as you tried to close them, and they’d bolt back open as though spring-loaded. 

Now’s your chance — it echoed ad nauseum in your skull like the chiming of a clock, over and over until your ears rang. 

You could have slithered out of bed and scurried to the door, unbolted it and ran down the hallway if you were quick enough. You could have used the steel-legged chair in the corner to shatter the window and sprint into the night. You could have slipped a hand under his pillow nice and slow, snatched his gun from under his head and shot him while he slept. 

Instead you lay dead still, save for the trembling that never quite subsided. 

You tried to vivisect your own mind while you stagnated in the bed. Attempted to determine why you failed to enact your own rescue, why you actively avoided pursuing your freedom. 

The answer eluded you, in concrete terms anyway. 

Truth was, you didn’t know where you’d go. 

Literally, of course — you had no idea where you were, no phone with you, no sense of direction. You could run to a bystander and ask, of course, but you didn’t want to do that either. 

It was as if you didn’t want to go back. 

The thought of it nauseated you almost as gruesomely as the uncertainty of the path ahead. Of being dragged back to Dunhill, of being back to square one, of having no money, no prospects, no future. 

It was the obscurity, you thought, that kept you there. Something new. Something different, albeit terrifying. The ambiguity of any future, however short, was somehow preferable than the certainty of not having one at all. 

Worse to admit was whatever churning you felt between your legs. What seed he had planted when he took you had taken root, tendrils burrowing into the recesses of you and tumescing with a reluctant anticipation. You all but throbbed with it, as if your body were preparing itself for the inevitable, manipulating your mind into assenting to it. 

It made you feel sick, and your skin was febrile, sticky with apprehension. 

You were baking — the air was thick with it, stifling heat, though in truth it was likely your thundering nerves that set your body alight. Too anxious to release yourself from under the covers, or to roll into a cooler position, or to flip over your pillow to the cooler side. 

You lay cocooned for as long as you could bear the heat, but your blood was molten and your head began to ache, and you resorted to uncovering yourself. 

You did it desperately slowly, peeling the cover away from you inch by inch, and even in the air you found no relief. Your last resort was to turn off the radiator — if you could — but you’d need to get out of bed for that. 

Slinked a leg over the edge of the mattress, whisper-slow, used your elbow to prop yourself up—

You felt a hand grab at your hip, and you were unceremoniously yanked back into the bed with a squeak. 

“Where d’you think you’re goin’,” he grunted, voice gratingly hoarse after a half-hour sleep. 

A ten-tonne arm was suddenly hooked over your waist, and you were flush with his back, his knees folded in behind yours. 

“I just wanted to turn the heater off,” you whispered, hoping he wouldn’t hear you. 

“Too hot, eh?” 

You exhaled shakily. “Yeah.” 

“Y’know why you’re too hot,” he murmured, and you felt him stick his fingers into the back of your skinny jeans, tugging the stretchy waistband and snapping it against your lower back.  

“I just can’t s-sleep when it’s warm,” you stuttered, tongue tangling in your mouth. 

“Bit restless, are ya?” 

You felt his hand glide over your belly, and your muscles turned to stone, entire body tensing up with the touch. 

“I’m not havin’ you tossing and turning all night,” he grumbled, thumbing at the button of your jeans, unfastening it with a pinch. 

“Don’t do that,” you breathed, heart plugging your trachea, unable to swallow a real breath. 

He persisted unimpeded as if he had not heard you, pushing down your zipper and stuffing his hand unhesitantly down the front of your underwear. 

You squeaked in fright the moment his fingers brushed your mons — every millilitre of blood in your body flooded out of your extremities and pooled between your legs, a reflexive reaction that fired off every nerve ending under your skin. 

“No, d-don’t—” your whimpers of refusal eked out between your teeth on instinct, but their root lay more in humiliation than fear. 

His hand was icy against your feverish skin, and goosebumps bristled out from his touch — your vision went foggy as a cold middle finger the size of two of yours slid along your seam, lips went slack as the tip burrowed deeper. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he grunted, his stony voice tickling the hairs on the nape of your neck, “you are warm, aren’t ya?”

“Stop it,” you whined, half-heartedly, defeat viscid on your tongue. 

His finger snaked deeper between your legs, the others flush with the puffy outer lips of your cunt, thumb burrowing into your groin as he wedged his hand in the tight gap between your pussy and your jeans. 

He chortled under breath when the tip of his finger broached your entrance, dipping into the mortifying abundance of your fluid that had pooled there. God, there was so much of it, you were humiliated — you had been in denial, ignoring it, even as you felt it slicken the gusset of your underwear, maybe even the inseam of your jeans. It was only instinctive, you told yourself, it wasn’t like that—

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he chuffed, breathless, and you could not for the life of you tell whether he was proud or disgusted. “Made you wait too long, did I?” 

You shivered, cunt pulsing around nothing, felt the nettle sting of adrenaline crawling down your spine. 

“N-no, I—”

Bit down on your tongue as his slippery finger dragged up between your folds, catching your clitoris with a swipe and making your legs clamp together in a vice. 

He only scoffed in awe. “Sensitive thing.” 

“Stop doing that,” you mewled, so embarrassed that your cheeks were aflame, ears burning red-hot, heart galloping in your chest. 

He didn’t believe your attempts at refusal, and you weren’t certain you did either — not when he stroked your clit with the palp of his finger, up and down, all of his movement honed in on the one spot that made you choke on air. 

“Not so bad, is it,” he sneered. 

You curled up like a cat, but he kept you fastened to him, immovable hand burrowed deep in your jeans. His finger slid between your folds effortlessly despite how hard you pressed your legs together — there was no escaping it, every brush of his fingertip against your slippery clit burned more than the last, igniting an inferno in the core of you that seemed inextinguishable. 

Fucking humiliating, degrading, shameful, that the brute who had abducted you could make you feel that good, do so little to have you so, so—

“You’re a fuckin’ furnace,” he jabbed, and he swiftly tugged his hand from between your legs and out of your jeans. 

Whatever remorseful noise spilled from your mouth was beyond you, high-pitched and so wanton it made you sick to hear it, but he only snickered. 

“Quit whingein’,” he chided, taking your waistband in a fist.

He hiked your jeans down with a violent tug, tearing them down to your thighs, underwear pulled down with them. What little abnegation you had left turned to sugar on your tongue, dissolving in your saliva and sliding down your throat. 

The blanket was gone, then, pulled off and pooled at the end of the bed — the slightly cooler air biting at your bare skin scarcely settled your tempers, even less so when he roughly shoved his hand between your legs again, now unobstructed. Three avid fingers prodded against your hole as if to collect the syrup that pooled there, slickening themselves before they dragged back up. 

You yelped like a kicked puppy when he kneaded your clit, pads of his fingers pressing and pulling in firm circles, bud swollen and shuddering and so sensitive it was sore. 

You could only whine about it, now unwilling to fight him off and likely incapable even if you wanted to. He had you riveted to him, chest solid against your back, heaving arm locking you in place. Your compunctions had melted, deliquescing into the stodgy recesses of your mind; usurped by the revoltingly animal, blood-thinning want that thundered in your temples and made your mouth all wet. 

“Don’t, p-please, you’re—”

“Tha’s it, girl,” he rumbled, directly into the back of your skull, and it made you dizzy. “Let it happen.” 

Your core tightened up, cunt constricting as tight as a vice, painfully empty — the surge was as sudden as a flash flood, just as violent, and you drowned in it as it swept you under. You came beneath his fingers with a winded whimper, so forcefully you bucked your legs to evade him, bullied clit ablaze and spasming in waves that made your heart stop with each contraction. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he chortled, easing his infliction but not yet stopping. “Listen to you.” 

“Shut up,” you whined, unable to catch your breath. 

“That’ll help you sleep, eh?” He teased, fingers finally retreating, trailing your slick up your mons before he landed flat on his back with a huff.

You were molten, sweaty hair clinging to the nape of your neck, and you wanted nothing more than to take off all your clothes and have a cold shower. All you could muster was your jeans, though, already half-off — you used your feet to peel them down to your calves, kicking them off into nowhere. Your shame had dissolved, now, utterly irretrievable. 

The stale air was cool against the wetness of your inflamed cunt when you rolled onto your back; a potent relief, despite how unbecoming you felt it to leave yourself so exposed in the company of a bedlamite.

“Now stop fussing,” he grunted, settling into the mattress, hand resting on his stomach. “Don’t want you wakin’ me up again.” 

You couldn’t have fussed, even if you tried. Body utterly siphoned of all energy, mind as foggy and blank as smoke. 

It took you less than a minute to fall asleep. 

Morning came with rain. 

The glow of daylight through the embossed window was powdery white, you heard the gentle patter of raindrops landing on the pane, the loud dripping of a leaky gutter pipe somewhere outside. 

Your mouth was chalky, tongue swollen, vision too blurry to identify where you were at a glance. 

The realisation rinsed you like cold water when you heard the gruff breathing from beside you. Heavy and deep, the warmth of a body lying too close to you, you felt the hirsute skin of a leg against yours. 

You were nauseous as you remembered the night before, when your legs brushed together and you noticed they were bare — no underwear on either, the sheets tangled up between your feet and your hair greasy on your forehead. Your cunt was still sticky and it made you wince to move and feel it, remembering how he had touched you, that his fingers were likely still covered in the dried residue of the orgasm he had milked from you. 

The remorse was as pounding as a migraine. Brontide in your skull that made the room spin, and you wanted nothing more than a glass of icy water and some ibuprofen.  

You peered over your shoulder at your abductor; lying on his side with an arm folded under his pillow, shoulders rising and collapsing with each heavy breath, scarred face somehow peaceful in his slumber. It was surreal to witness him like that, observing him in his most vulnerable state — you knew his gun was under that pillow, but the thought of trying to steal it faltered as fast as it came. 

Instead you slipped out of the bed, pattering on the soft soles of bare feet to the tiny kitchenette, and filled up a brown glass mug with tap water. You drank it all in three hard gulps, then filled up another. 

He didn’t stir, not even slightly. In such a deep sleep that you likely could have put your jeans back on and unbolted the door without even waking him. 

Instead you went into the ensuite, shutting the door behind you. The bulbous knob had a push-button to lock it, but it was loose, and no matter how many times you pushed it, it failed. You gave up quickly, though — didn’t want to wake him up yet. 

The bathroom was arranged nonsensically — the toilet sat by the door, the vanity across from the shower that was tucked into the corner. Its glass walls were grimy with limescale, every amenity made of faded ivory acrylic and stained brown at the edges where the janitors had failed to clean it.  

You flushed the toilet when you saw that he hadn’t and swore under your breath in disgust. Fucking animal. You quickly peed, rinsed out your mouth with water from the sink, then turned on the shower. You only had a t-shirt to take off, revolted that it was all you had worn during the night. You hung it on the towel rail. 

You kept the water lukewarm, too sensitive for cold and too feverish for hot. An array of cheap mini soaps and shampoos lined the tiny in-built caddy, and you were not frugal in using them. Used almost the entire bottle of body wash to lather every crevice of your body, washing away the sweat of panic and ignominious lust that mired your skin. Shampooed and conditioned your hair with products that smelt like pine and citrus with an undercurrent of battery acid. 

The water was cleansing, a pleasant distraction, and you shut your eyes as you rinsed off your face, rubbing the grease off your skin. 

You rubbed your eyes before you opened them — immediately spotted a silhouette outside the shower, and a blood-curdling scream erupted from your chest as you sprung from the ground. Almost slipped over when you landed on the PVC floor, but you managed to catch yourself with your hands on the glass.

“What the fuck!” You shrieked, heart galloping so rapidly you worried it would break a rib. 

He was blurry through the spray of water landing on the shower walls, but you could see him lumber towards the shower door. You shrunk into the corner when he cracked it open, back firm against the square tiles as if you could slip through the fractures in the grout. 

He stepped into the shower as if he hadn’t noticed you there, leviathan that he was, his body took up two thirds of the space in the narrow glass box. Boxers were gone, his cock hung heavy and unashamedly, and your stare caught on it like a fish on a hook. Fucking bludgeon of a thing; it swung as though prideful, thick from root to head, roped with veins and sheathed in rosy foreskin. Half-hard, it jutted out from his bed of wheaten curls at a forty-five degree angle, and it bounced as he took a step. 

You looked at it for too long, breath caught in your gullet, and he noticed. 

“Settle down,” he taunted, hardly a croak, morning voice abraded and gurgling from his throat. He shut the shower door behind him. 

You had a plethora of disputes to mount — get the fuck out, how dare you, you didn’t even knock — but they all fizzled at the back of your throat, when he hauled you out of the corner by the hips, swivelling you around until your nose was flush with the shower wall. Kept you there with a hand cuffed around the back of your neck, wet hair knotting in his fingers. 

“You can’t—”

“Prettier than I thought,” he murmured to himself, a rough hand smoothing from your hip to your ass, brazenly taking a handful and squeezing hard enough to make you chirp.

“Get off—”

You choked on the rest of your dispute when he packed his hand between your legs, the gap tight where you held your thighs together — he gave no warning when he snaked his finger between your folds, nudging for an entrance. 

It happened so fast you couldn’t catch a breath — he found it quickly when your hole twitched at the intrusion, and you yelped in shock when he unhesitantly pushed it inside you to the knuckle, palm flush with the base of you. 

“Lovely little cunt.” 

And despite every effort to maintain some dignity, every bulwark you had attempted to erect against succumbing to your baser appetites, came toppling down in the quake of his words. Scruples sloughed off from you like the shed of a snake, and whatever slithered free was as shameless as she was hungry. 

“Mh, still nice and warm after last night, in’t she,” he crooned, flexing his finger to push it deeper before raking it out. 

He was priming you, evident in how he stretched you open around his thick finger, pumping it in and out of you as though assessing how deep he could go. You pressed your forehead against the cold tile, toes curling into the plastic shower floor, whimpering like a wounded animal.

You felt like one, when he tried to push a second finger in — he had to wriggle it to wedge it in, bully it deeper before your hole could stretch to fit it. It stung where the fragile skin pulled taut, but it was a delicious pain, like the burn of liquor or the sting of pulled hair. 

“Christ, that’s tight,” he grunted into the shell of your ear, and a chill prickled down the side of your neck. 

He ran out of patience, you supposed, because he slid his fingers out of you and your cunt spasmed in protest of its emptiness. He had spun you around then, handling your body like a ragdoll, moving you right where he wanted you — had his hands under your ass in a blink, and he deftly hoisted you upward, back grinding against the tile wall. 

You hooked your legs around his hips on instinct, arms slung over his shoulders when he put them there, his face level with yours. Water ran in rivulets down his face, dripping from his hairline and off his chin. Pupils distended and black as tar, beady as a shark, and glaring into the depths of them made your tongue even wetter. 

His titanic arms held you up without exertion, and one released your thigh to scoop underneath you — held his cock upright in a fist, and with no pause he lodged the clubbed head of his cock against your opening. He pushed in with his full weight, reaming you open on the girth of it, and your eyes glassed over. 

The noises you made were animal, mewling and gasping, coughing when he landed against the spongy plug of your womb, cock as hard as a gun barrel and just about as threatening. 

“Fu-hu-huck,” he chuffed into your cheek, voice oozing ardent satisfaction, vibrating directly into your skull. “Tha’s heaven.” 

It tracked that he was a talker, given how chatty he was for the duration of the drive — but you liked it. God, you liked it. Mortifying, yet liberating to admit to yourself, that you wanted to hear him talk; you wanted to hear him tell you how lovely, how pretty, how perfect you were. 

“All sweet now, aren’t ya?” He purred, bouncing you upward as he rutted hard. “Just what she needed, mh?”

You almost said it aloud — yes crept along your tongue and prickled at the tip, but you weren’t quite ready to let loose the confession. It escaped instead as a moan, head rocking back and knocking against the tile, and he let out a low chuckle, because you said it in all but words. 

“Yeah,” he grunted, panting, pelvis grinding against yours as he pistoned into you, somehow deeper every thrust. “Fuckin’ knew it. Barmy for it the second I walked in, weren’t ya?” 

He grabbed your face by the jaw, angling your head to look directly at him, the squeeze of his fingers forcing your lips to pucker. His cheeks were ruddy, blood fresh and hot under his skin, eyes rabid with hunger and pride. They scoured every feature on your face and you melted beneath their attention. 

“Gorgeous girl, aren’t you?” 

He rutted with purpose, chasing his own end with no mind paid to your squeaks of sore rapture, grunting as his cock reeled out and stuffed you full again in steady rhythm. You could only burrow your fingernails into the meat of his back, carving into his wet skin as if holding on for dear life. 

“Just fuckin’ perfect,” he grunted, a tirade that persisted through every thrust, 

“Sweetest thing I ever stole.” 

“Who needs fuckin’ money, eh?” 

“Hit the jackpot with you, din’t I?” 

“Might just keep you forever.” 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, sweetheart?” 

Perhaps your brain had been knocked against your skull one too many times, turned soggy and stupid in the heat, because you whimpered; “Y-yeah.” 

His brows shot up at that, shocked — but that surprise quickly gave way to a lavish conceit, a vicious smile that oozed pride for having conquered your inhibitions without even having to try. You’d have been embarrassed if you had the capacity for it anymore, but all shame had been bled from you. 

“Yeah?” He goaded, grin wide and jaw loose, panting through his teeth. “Want me to steal you away, eh?” 

You nodded as much as he would allow you to, and his lips planted on your chin as though tempted to bite you. 

“I can do that, love,” he crooned, “I can take y’where no one will ever find ya. Keep you all for m’self.” 

You whined when he only fucked you harder, tender skin of your back chafing against the grout with every jolt. Seemed he was approaching the summit of his own pleasure — huffing like a bull, thrusting with anger, not nearly as chatty as he had been for the rest of it. 

“Agh, shit—” he groaned, mouth landing on your shoulder, teeth catching your skin. “Fuckin’ hell—”

He hastily reached underneath you to unsheathe his cock from your hole, leaving your cunt bitterly empty and convulsing in its sudden vacuity — his entire body jerked against you as he came, you felt his cock jolt beneath the cleft of you as it spurted ropes come against the tiled wall he held you to. 

His climactic groans were music, to you, little lecher that you were. Some foul part of you was remorseful he hadn’t come inside you instead, hadn’t carelessly pumped you full of it — not a drop of rationality left within you, evidently. 

You didn’t expect him to kiss you, but he did; planted a slovenly kiss on the side of your neck, pillowy lips wet with saliva and the water of the still-running shower. 

He released you, then — didn’t quite drop you, lowered you as gracefully as he could before letting you land on your feet with a thud. Gave you a pet on the head as though to praise you, a prideful kiss into your scalp. 

He shut off the water with a shove of the chipping lever, and the showerhead continued to leak fat drops of water despite it being shut off. He pushed opened the shower door for you, and you slipped out, sodden feet landing on the bathmat. 

There were scant words exchanged as you handed him one of the towels, using the other to dry yourself off. You couldn’t help but watch him as he rubbed himself down with the teal-blue cotton, polishing his head like a bowling ball, flossing under his arms, unabashedly rubbing the towel under his balls to dry between his legs. Something in his nonchalance, unapologetically going about it all as if it were normal, was endearing to you. Made your hackles soften, if they were still at all raised. 

You put your t-shirt back on, wishing you had a change of clothes, and ventured back into the bedroom — the air was still thick with the dusty warmth of the heater, and ripe with the musk of both of the worked up bodies that had spent the night in it. 

“Get dressed,” came a demand from behind you, followed by a coaxing pat on your bare arse. “Need to hit the road.” 

You looked over your shoulder at him, watching as he pulled on his boxers, tucking his cock away and snapping the elastic waistband around his hips. You picked up your knickers from where they had landed on the carpet the night before, shimmying up your legs. 

Couldn’t yet believe what you were girding yourself for. What you had already accepted as the next step you would take. 

You caught his eye, a pout in your lips; 

“Can we get breakfast first?” 

i've got a pinterest board for this one. the vibes have been stewing for a long while

[roxabellas]

Pretty From The Back

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

part one part two part three part four

word count : 15,191

warnings : sex work, cheating (he's married), blowjob, backshots, piv, age gap mentioned and referenced throughout (19 & 38), bit of a daddy kink (towards the end), the slightest bit of thigh fucking, 1 spank, he gets attached easily

You were too young for this line of work, or at least that's what most people said when they found out how old you were. Nineteen, navigating a world reserved for people much older, particularly the men who frequented your services. Men double, sometimes triple your age, with failing marriages or no marriage at all, seeking something that had long since faded in their own lives. Your clients saw you as merely a service, a product, a body that could satisfy the desires that they couldn't voice to anyone else. They rarely saw you for anything more than the fantasy they craved.

While being seen as simply a sex object with no one making an attempt to scratch beneath the surface wasn't the greatest feeling in the world, you didn't treat the men asking for your services much better. To you, they were just a wallet. Walking, talking sources of money, worth no more than the cash they offered. Some of them tried to act like they cared, like they wanted to get to know you beyond the persona you put on, to try and make it seem like this wasn't what it was, but you knew better. You’d seen it before; how they’d ask your name, pretend to be interested in the smallest details about your life, only to turn around and reduce you to nothing but a means to an end.

So you learned not to care. It wasn't like you did this to build long-lasting relationships with these people, or even form some loose acquaintances. You didn't even expect respect. It was just for money. You were realistic about what it entailed, about what men were like, about what they wanted from you. And you were good at it, too. At least, you used to be.

You weren't sure what had happened, what had changed. It wasn't like you were old or used up or had downgraded in skills. But recently, things had been slow. Too slow. The kind of slow that made you worry about rent, about groceries, about whether you’d be able to pay off the debt you owed to people you really didn’t want to owe anything to. You had another job, sure, a “proper” job at a nearby petrol station, but they barely paid you minimum wage. You relied on your clients, or lack thereof these days, to get by. But why had they slowed down?

Maybe you were losing your appeal. Or you already had, and those last few clients had taken pity on you. You were young, of course you were, but that was the cruelest part of it all. A few years from now, would men even want you anymore?

You'd obviously known men were strange with what they wanted and desired beforehand, especially the age demographic that often came to you, but in the time you'd spent being a sex worker, you'd seen it first hand.

These men only want something when it feels fresh, for it to be untouched enough for it to feel exciting, but experienced enough to know how to give them exactly what they want. And once they got bored, they moved on, finding something new to chase after. Something more naive, at least on the outside. Maybe there was some eighteen-year-old girl on the other block, dressing in tube tops, fishnets, tiny skirts and pigtails, fit to fulfill those disgusting desires these men crave, telling themselves it's fine, she's legal. Nevermind the morals.

Maybe that's who all your clients had ran to. You'd previously thought about going to a different town in the city where you could lie, tell them all you'd just turned eighteen, that you were a virgin, change the way you dress and tie your hair in braids and ponytails, but with what money? What car?

The lack of work made you feel uneasy. You could handle a slow week, maybe even two, but this dry spell had been going on for too long, longer than you'd ever be comfortable with. It was starting to make you desperate, and desperation was dangerous in your line of work. It made you lower your standards significantly, far more likely to say yes when you should be saying no. You had started spending time in places you thought potential clients might be. Bars, hotel lobbies, certain street corners where men with too much money and too little self-control often found themselves after a night of drinking.

You exhaled sharply, your breath visible in the cold air, adjusting the hem of your short dress as you leaned back against the cold brick wall of dimly lit bar you'd started frequenting in hopes of finding new business. It wasn't the most glamorous place in town, but it was reliable. Or at least, it used to be. The men here often had money, and they were always looking for someone to spend it on. It used to be you they went to, now they barely even looked at you.

Maybe they were starting to recognise you, not as some thrilling, mysterious experience, but rather just like the rest of the girls around there, just trying to make ends meet. Or maybe someone you hadn't given the greatest service to, or someone you'd declined, had started a rumour you had some STD. You'd tried to not let your mind feed into it too much, to be reasonable, but what was reasonable?

You sighed, long and slow, leaning your head back against the wall as you fished the last cigarette from your pack. The thin paper crinkled between your fingers, slightly bent out of shape from being shoved into your pocket earlier. You straightened it out the best you could before bringing it to your mouth, holding the filter between your lips while you rummaged for your lighter. When you finally pulled it out, the cheap plastic felt light, too light. You already knew before you flicked the wheel that it was nearly empty.

The first couple of futile attempts gave you nothing but a weak spark, the metal grinding under your thumb without catching, undoubtedly leaving an imprint on your skin for the next half an hour or so. You gritted your teeth, flicking it again and again, shaking it between tries as if it would magically refill it, until, finally, a tiny, flickering flame emerged. You cupped your hand around it, shielding it from the cool breeze as you touched it to the end of the cigarette, inhaling deeply to coax the ember to life.

The first drag filled your lungs with the stale, bitter smoke, the familiar and comforting burn settling in your chest, warming you from the inside out. You held it in for a moment before exhaling through your mouth, watching the thin tendrils of smoke curl and intertwine as they floated upwards, dissipating into the dark. The earthy taste of tobacco lingered on your tongue and the walls of your mouth, sticking to the backs of your teeth and clinging your throat, but it gave you something to focus on. Something to do with your hands, something to think about other than the bills you had to pay, a landlord who didn't care about how slow work had been, and a stomach that still growled when you hadn't eaten.

This part of the city was usually quieter at night, the daytime chaos dwindling to nothing more than faint footsteps, the occasional hum of passing cars, and the distant murmurs of late-night conversations coming from inside the bar behind you. It wasn't the best spot you'd hung around by, not the safest either, but far from the worst. You'd been coming here for a few weeks now, hoping to pick up work, for something to change, but it never did.

Another slow inhale, another drag, another puff of smoke curling past your lips, and that was when you saw him again.

You saw him often, enough times that his face was vaguely familiar, but you never paid him too much mind. He was attractive, you'd noticed that, though often dressed in clothes that looked like they’d seen better days, but you weren't one to talk. You'd been wearing the same old, thin, ripped up tights you'd had since high school for about a week straight. The way he moved: calm, self-assured, not quite looking like he was in a hurry but with purpose. He always seemed to stand out just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to seem out of place.

He wasn’t usually alone, often accompanied by a woman who you had always assumed was his wife, or at least his girlfriend, from the times you'd seen them together, usually in the afternoon or early evening. You'd never given him, or them, much thought beyond that. He wasn’t a regular here, especially not at this hour. He wasn’t like the men you usually watched, the ones whose patterns you could predict down to the hour.

Men like him weren't your clientele. You were used to men who were lonelier, needier. The ones who looked at you with hunger barely concealed beneath thin veils of politeness. The ones who couldn’t help themselves.

But this man had never looked at you like that. You weren't sure if he'd ever even looked at you at all. You assumed he hadn't, most men like him didn’t. They didn’t have a reason to.

So why was he here now?

Alone, at night.

You took another slow drag from your cigaratte, inhaling the smoke deep into your lungs, then blowing it out through your nose as you watched him.

His posture was relaxed, hands tucked into the pockets of his worn, deep, navy blue blazer, his eyes drifting over the street as if it were his first time seeing it.

But then, for the briefest moment, his eyes flicked in your direction. It was brief, no more than a second, but it was enough, because you knew that look. You had seen it before, in other men, in different settings, but their intention was always the same each time.

He was looking at you. Not through you, not past you. At you.

You looked down at the cigarette between your fingers for a moment, nearly burned all the way down to the filter, but you didn't put it out. Not yet, anyway. You let it rest between your middle and index finger, an idle comfort as you tried to keep your breathing steady and your expression neutral.

Then he moved, deliberate and slow.

The steady rhythm of his footsteps grew nearer, sending a strange pulse through your chest. Not quite nerves, not quite anticipation, but something else. Something you couldn't quite register. Maybe it was because you'd gone without a client for so long you'd forgotten how to react to being approached. You switch your cigarette from between your middle and index finger to your thumb and index finger, before pressing it into the bricks on the outside wall of the bar behind you, grinding the ember into the rough surface.

By the time you straightened, he was there.

He was closer, close enough that you could see the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the faint noticeable creases near his mouth, the way the dim glow of the bar’s purposefully enticing lights flickered against the deep brown of his eyes.

He didn't say anything for a moment, just looked at you, but different from the way most men leered at you. Not like you were a product they were trying to assess, a service they were weighing up in their minds, deciding whether or not you were worth the price. He looked at you like he already knew, as if his mind had already been made up.

You shifted slightly, the silence stretching, thick, awkward and expectant. It wasn’t often that men like him approached you. Not men who carried or presented themselves the way he did.

You had dealt with plenty of men who thought they were above this. The ones who couldn’t look you in the eye and the ones who spoke in stammering hesitations and awkward euphemisms, as if it would somehow distract themselves from what they were actually there for, not wanting to admit to themselves that they'd stooped this low.

He wasn't like that.

“I was, uh…” He began, his voice low, smooth. “I was wondering if you were still working.”

You glanced up at him properly then, lifting your gaze just enough to meet his. He was a bit taller than you had realised, but not overwhelmingly so, just a few centimetres higher than you.

That was it. That was the moment.

The hesitation, the carefully chosen words, the way he said it like he wasn’t entirely sure if he was saying it right, while still maintaining a level of confidence.

You had seen this before. You had heard it before.

Some men were blunt, shameless in their asking. They treated it like any other purchase, like ordering a drink at a bar. “How much?” “How long?” “Can we go somewhere else?”

Others tried to be more discreet, more careful, afraid of being overheard or judged or caught in something they weren’t supposed to be doing.

“What were you looking for?” You asked in response, your eyes wandering down his body, particularly down his left arm, before he answers.

“Well, do you charge for time or… activity?” His voice maintained that limbo between confident, calculated and measured, and unsure, discreet and almost afraid, making him difficult to read.

“Time.”

“How much for an hour?”

“£200 for an hour.” You told him. Before your work had gotten slower, you'd sometimes charged upwards of £500 for an hour, but with the lack of clients, you'd began charging less in hopes of more work.

He nodded slowly, looking over his shoulder for a moment, then down at the ground, then back at you. He didn't argue, didn't try to haggle, just nodded. His hand fished into the pocket of his blazer, pulling out a tattered black leather wallet, the material peeling away in places, and that was when you noticed it. The ring.

It was a simple wedding band, gold, nestled tightly on the ring finger on his left hand, catching the dim glow of the streetlights as he flipped open his wallet.

Married.

You should've guessed.

Most of them were.

But somehow, you hadn't expected it from him. He didn't have that same guilty air that most men had carried when they sought you out; no hesitation, no second-guessing, none of the quiet shame that usually accompanied their requests.

You kept your gaze steady, pretending you hadn't noticed. It wasn't your business. It never was. You needed the money more than anything, even if the money came from a married man.

He held his wallet open for a moment, counting the notes inside before pulling out the £200, flipping it shut again and shoving it back into his pocket before handing you the notes.

You tucked them into your jacket pocket, and he looked at you, waiting.

“There's that hotel down the road,” he said, his voice smooth and unwavering. “I'll get us a room.”

You nodded once, and just like that, it was settled.

He turned, slipping his hands back into his blazer pockets as he began walking, his pace unhurried, like this was just any other night, any other walk. You walked beside him, your worn-out boots clicking softly against the pavement, the only real sound between you, but aside from that, it was silent. Uncomfortably so.

You’d walked with clients before, obviously back when you had more. Usually, they would filled the space with words. Nervous small talk, strained attempts at casual conversation. Some of them treated it like a date, asking about your night, your plans, pretending that this was anything but a transaction. Others made crude comments, testing boundaries, seeing how far they could push before you pushed back.

But he didn't say anything, and neither did you.

You kept your gaze forward, watching the city stretch out around you. The glow of the bar signs, the distant hum of traffic, the occasional burst of laughter from some drunken group staggering down the street. The city kept moving, oblivious to the two of you walking side by side: the married man who had just paid to cheat on his wife, and the girl he had chosen to do it with.

You weren’t sure what you’d expected from him. Hesitation? Guilt? Regret, maybe? But there was none of that. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t glance around like he was worried about being seen. If anything, he looked calm, like this wasn’t his first time, and that thought twisted something in your stomach. You didn’t ask, though. It wasn’t your place to care.

You focused on the hotel coming into view, its sign glowing dull yellow against the dark sky. It wasn’t the worst place; mid-range, decent enough to not feel cheap but not extravagant enough to feel too detached.

He reached the door first, pulling it open and stepping aside to let you enter first. You hesitated for half a second. It was the smallest thing, just a flicker of surprise. Not many men bothered with things like that. The whole situation was already an unbalanced exchange, so most of them didn’t waste time on little courtesies.

The lobby was quiet when you stepped inside, the drone of a TV playing on the wall the only real noise aside from the soft buzz of the overhead lights. A few armchairs and a coffee table with magazines stacked on top were tucked into a corner, likely placed there just for the visuals rather than actual use.

He stepped ahead of you, moving towards the front desk without hesitation while you lingered back slightly, letting him handle the transaction.

"Just one night, please,"

The receptionist, a woman who appeared to be in her late thirties with dark but slightly greying brunette hair pulled back into a low ponytail and thick-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, barely acknowledged him beyond a nod, her fingers already moving hastily across the keyboard in front of her with practiced efficiency.

He reached into his blazer pocket, pulling out his worn leather wallet once more, the edges softened from years of use, while the quiet click of keys filled the space between them.

"What name will it be under?" she asked, still focused on the screen in front of her.

"Alex Turner."

She gave a small nod, her gaze never lifting. "Any form of ID?”

Without a word, he slid his driver’s licence across the counter. She barely glanced at it, just registered the name and the photo before pushing it back towards him with an indifferent motion.

"Queen or a double?"

"Queen," he answered without hesitation.

"And how many guests?"

"Two."

More tapping, more quiet clicks of the keyboard. A few moments passed before she finally spoke again.

"That'll be £71 for the night."

He didn’t hesitate. Just pulled his debit card out from his wallet and slid it across the counter, and she slid it back along with a key card a few moments later.

“Room 314. Checkout is at 11. Lifts are just down the hall to your right.”

“Thanks,” he said simply before turning his head to meet your gaze properly for the first time since you'd stepped inside. “Let's go.”

Without waiting for a response, he started trailing towards the lifts. The card to the room rested between his fingers as he walked, his footsteps steady as he led the way.

You walked beside him, though your steps were instinctively slower than his, just enough to keep a small distance between the two of you. Not slow enough to seem reluctant or uninterested, but just enough to maintain a space that made you feel the slightest bit safer. It was a very small thing, but one thing you'd learned while being a sex worker is that there's no such thing as being "too safe."

The thick carpet on the floor of the hallway muffled your footsteps, making the silence between the two of you in the quiet hotel feel even more daunting.

He pressed the button for the lift, using his left hand, and you wondered if he was doing it on purpose. To make sure you saw the ring, make sure you were aware of what you were about to do with a married man.

The light above the lift blinked, signalling it's descent, and you stayed stood beside him. The wait was short, just a few seconds, but the silence that stretched between you seemed to elongate it.

When the doors finally slid open, he stepped in first, and you followed, once again keeping a little bit of distance between you two. The mechanical doors glided shut with a soft hum, sealing you both in.

He reached for the panel, once again with his left hand, and he pressed the button for the third floor, and you leaned against the mirrored wall, shifting your weight slightly. You didn't look at him, and he didn't look at you.

Aside from the soft whirring of the lift ascending, it was silent. The kind of silence that flooded a space quickly, swelling, thickening.

Your eyes flicked to the mirror on the wall that you were leaning on, and you watched him for a moment. His posture was relaxed but upright, with his hands in his blazer pockets and his gaze fixed forwards. He wasn't fidgeting or shifting his weight like most men you'd been in this scenario with.

When the doors slid open with a soft chime, the cool air of the corridor filtered in for a moment before he stepped out into the hallway, and you followed. The lighting here was dimmer, not as fluorescent as the ones that had illuminated the lobby. These were softer, warmer, rows of sconces mounted on the walls, casting a soft golden glow onto the otherwise beige hallway.

Each door was identical to the next; dark wood with a golden plated number. His eyes scanned the doors as he walked, until he stopped in front of one. Room 314.

He slid the key card into the reader, once again with his left hand, then there was a small pause before a soft beep accompanied by a green light and a quiet click of the lock releasing, indicating the door had unlocked, and he pushed it open, stepping inside without a word, and you followed.

You shut the door behind you, the sound muffled by the thick carpet, and you flicked on the light switch by the doorframe, though you weren't sure how long it would stay on for.

He shrugged off his blazer, hanging it on the coat rack by the door, barely paying you any mind at all, before slipping off his shoes and setting them neatly on the floor next to the rack. You look at him for a moment before sliding off your jacket as well, hanging it on the opposite side of the coat rack, and pulling off your boots and setting them beside his dress shoes.

It was a standard hotel room. Not overly luxurious, but not too basic either. A queen-sized bed, a TV on top of a chest of drawers on the far side of the room, accompanied by a small coffee table and a single armchair.

The silence stretched between you, thick and unspoken.

You tilted your head slightly, watching him as he took a few steps inside, pausing near the foot of the bed, then exhaled through your nose before breaking the silence.

"So," you said, your voice even. "What do you want?"

It was a simple question, obviously. One you'd asked a hundred different times to a hundred different men.

He looked at you then, properly, his dark eyes studying you with quiet intent, and you could tell he knew exactly what he wanted.

It was in the way his lips parted slightly, in the way his breath slowed just a fraction. But instead of answering immediately, he let a beat pass, like he was considering it. Like he was deciding how to say it. Maybe even pretending to hesitate, as if he didn’t want to seem too eager.

“A blowjob.”

You nodded, unsurprised. Most of your clients started with that, when you used to get them.

“You've got an hour,” you reminded him, and he nodded once.

“Just a blowjob,” he repeated, his voice firm but not demanding. He didn't seem to care about the hour, how much he could get in that time, no attempt to push for more or less.

He had no interest in stretching this out, no expectation of anything more.

Fine by you.

He moved without hesitation; no awkward fumbling, no nervous second-guessing. Just quiet, assured movements as his hands went to his belt, the soft clink of metal as he unfastened the buckle, pulling the leather to one side until it came loose from his belt loops, dropping it onto the floor, before his hands moved to the waistband of his jeans. His fingers pressed lightly against the denim before they found the button, pushing it through the hole effortlessly, before tugging the zip down, the quick whir as the metal teeth seperated.

The waistband of his jeans hung open for a moment before he pulled them down just enough to let them fall down his legs, pooling around his ankles. You stayed still as you watched him slide his thumbs underneath the soft, dark grey waistband of his boxers before tugging them down much swifter, letting them join his jeans around his ankles before stepping out of them both, leaving them crumpled on the floor, but he left his shirt on.

He was already hard. Very hard. You wouldn't of been able to tell how aroused he was from the outside. He'd seemed calm, steady, just generally at ease, completely contrasting the impatience and restlessness your previous clients exhibited in the moments leading up to the sex.

He wasn't in a rush, wasn't trying to shove you onto his dick as fast as possible. He didn't seem eager to push you into anything faster than you were willing to go.

He just climbed onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, settling back against the pillows and spreading his legs slightly as he got comfortable.

It'd obviously been a while since your last client, that long dry spell you'd endured for the past couple of months or so, but none of that mattered now, because even after all that time, you still knew exactly what to do.

You climbed onto the mattress yourself, settling between his legs on your knees at first, putting one hand on his thigh for a moment for balance, to position yourself just right.

You reached for the neckline of your dress, your fingers sliding beneath the fabric, and you slowly pulled it down, letting the straps slip loose down your shoulders. It falls down your arms until your chest is exposed, the cool air of the hotel room making your nipples stiffen.

His eyes followed your movements, lingering on your tits, and he reaches up to grab one, massaging and squeezing it gently before moving his hand to give the same attention to the other one.

You let the fabric of your dress bunch around your waist, not bothering to pull the rest of it off. While he pinches your nipple, you wrap your right hand around his cock. He was thick, your middle finger unable to meet your thumb around his girth as you pumped your fist up and down one, two, three times before murmuring, “You’re fucking big…”

He didn't respond with words, but instead with a twitch of his cock and a squeeze of your boobs. From his response, or lack thereof, you could tell he knew one of two things. One, that he knew how huge his dick was, or two, that he knew you said that to all of your clients, regardless of whether they were two inches or twelve inches.

You glanced up at him for a moment, his prominent nose scrunched up ever so slightly as your thumb glides over his wide tip, smearing the bead of pre-cum that had formed over the sensitive skin.

You adjusted your position, lying on your stomach between his legs, your bare shoulders brushing against the insides of his thighs, and you licked a stripe along the underside of his thick cock. Your tongue travelled the long distance from the base, all up his shaft to the tip, tracing every ridge and vein with the tip of your tongue.

His left hand rested on your shoulder blade, the cool metal of his wedding band contrasting the heat of the moment, while you flicked your tongue against his frenulum. You pulled his foreskin back and pressed a kiss to that sensitive spot before wrapping your lips around the scorching hot tip, sucking gently for a moment before you took him in your mouth properly.

The weight of him on your tongue was familiar, yet distinct, his size stretching the soft heat of your mouth almost immediately. You kept your pace measured and slow as you bobbed your head up and down, adjusting to him, your lips sealing tightly around him as you took him deeper.

You wrapped your hand around the base of his cock, the thick patch of coarse pubes coiled over his groin lightly scratching your soft skin, and you kept up the gentle suction, hollowing your cheeks as you sucked.

You gave the base of his dick a gentle squeeze before starting to stroke him in time with the movements of your mouth, your tongue teasing the velvety underside of him, hoping to pull a noise from him.

You looked up at him, meeting his eyes with your mouth still full of him, and that's when you heard the first sound. It was barely audible; a slow, steady exhale with the undertones of a soft, breathy moan, accompanied by his head falling back against the white pillows.

It spurred you on, wanting to coax him deeper into the pleasure, for him to let go, to draw more of those soft, barely-there sounds from him.

Your moved your other hand to rest on his lower belly as you took him deeper, feeling the soft fabric of his t-shirt he still hadn't taken off beneath your palm, your lips stretching around his thick length.

The slick, wet, obscene sound of your mouth gliding up and down his cock filled the quiet space, along with a soft grunt tumbling from his lips. You pulled back all the way to the head, just suckling on the tip for a moment before taking him in again, deeper this time, the tip of your nose brushing against the thatch of dark, wirey hair around the base of his cock.

You glanced up at him again, meeting his eyes as you continued to pleasure him. His cheeks were flushed ever so slightly, his lips parted, and his eyes hooded, watching you as you worked your mouth over him. His breathing had gotten heavier, his chest rising and falling deeply, but still, he didn't moan too much.

You held his gaze as you took him deeper again, his tip kissing the back of your throat before you pulled your mouth off of him for a moment, stroking his cock with your hand while you caught your breath. His hand moved from your shoulder to your hair, gathering it behind your head in a messy makeshift ponytail before you wrapped your lips around him again, pulling his foreskin back again to access that sweet spot right where his shaft meets the head, gently sucking and flicking the tip of your tongue against it, pulling yet another noise from him.

“God…” he sighed, tugging on your hair lightly before releasing his grip from your hair all together, using that hand to prop himself up slightly while his right hand slips underneath you, gently tracing your collarbone before finding your tits once more.

His head fell back, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed hard, letting out another noise somewhere between a whine and a breathless moan as you sucked hard on the head, before pulling off again.

“That feel good, baby?” you murmured, your lips brushing against the head of his cock, your hot breath ghosting over the ridge. He lifted his head back up at that, making the simple movement look laboured, and his right hand once again moved from your boobs to your face, brushing the stray strands from your forehead, his fingers tracing your jawline.

You smiled up at him, lowering your head to lick and kiss along his shaft before taking him in your mouth properly again, slowly, letting the heat of your mouth wrap around him completely. You hummed softly and contentedly around his girth as you felt him pulse against your tongue, the gentle sensation comforting and familiar despite him being a complete stranger. You swallowed around him, hollowing your cheeks to create that perfect pressure that usually had your clients moaning within seconds.

You took him all the way down again, relaxing your throat to let him fill your mouth completely, letting out a few soft, muffled moans yourself. His body shuddered beneath you before his hips lifted off the mattress slightly, pressing his cock deeper into your mouth. He moaned again, louder this time, breathless and whiney as his cock twitched in your throat, his thighs lightly trembling.

In a moment of desperation, he cupped the back of your head with an unexpected force, contrasting how he'd gently caressed your face just before, pressing your face right up into his groin as he moaned.

You kept sucking hard, your face buried in his pubes and your lips flush against the base of his cock as his he ground his hips against your mouth. He was unshaved. Not just a little, but very. Dark, coarse curls covering his groin and lower stomach and running thick down between his legs. You weren't surprised though. He was married, after all. A man with a wife probably didn't see much of a need to stay trimmed. Not with someone who presumably loved him unconditionally, pubic hair and all.

The noise that tore from his throat was deep, raw, the groan vibrating through his chest and rolling past his lips, his thighs taut on either side of you as he came. It was the kind of noise men made when their last bit of resistance had shattered, and all that was left was pure, unadulterated sensation.

You felt the hot pulse of him against your tongue, the way his cock twitched with each spurt, the way his grip tightened on the back of your head just enough to keep you in place, making you take it all. His stomach was tense beneath your hand, and you instinctively swallowed everything he gave you. Your throat tightened and relaxed around him, taking in every last drop without hesitation.

When his grip finally loosened, it was with a long, deep exhale, his chest rising and falling slowly as you gently pulled back. Your lips dragged along his sensitive skin before letting him slip from your mouth, his cock dropping onto his stomach, a little wet patch forming on the bottom of his t-shirt from the saliva.

You pressed a final kiss to the underside of his softening shaft before sitting up properly on your knees, wiping your lips with the back of your hand. You looked up at him, meeting his gaze. His eyes were half-lidded, dark, but his expression unreadable.

He leaned himself back against the pillows, draping one of his arms over his stomach while he tucked the other behind his head. The room fell quiet. Not just quiet in the way that followed something like this; where heavy breaths evened out, and the raw edge of pleasure dulled into something slower, lazier, but quiet in a way that almost felt unnatural. Stretched out, hanging in the air between you, heavy and lingering. The only sounds were the faint hum of the hotel air conditioning and the distant, muffled noises of the city outside, the occasional horn blaring or the low murmur of voices from people walking past on the street below, but between the four walls of this rented space, there was nothing.

You remained kneeled between his legs for a few moments, the top, folded over half of your dress still bunched around your waist, but you didn't bother to fix it yet. Your eyes drifted over him for a moment, studying the lines of his face, the way his tousled, slightly sweaty hair fell over his forehead, the way his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm beneath the fabric of his soft, worn top.

He hadn't said a word since he came, and you weren't sure if he was lost in thought or just waiting for you to speak first.

After another long moment, you shifted from between his legs, sitting beside him and leaning back against the headboard. You looked down at him again before breaking the silence.

“You've still got about forty minutes left,” you said softly, your fingers idly smoothing out the crumpled white bedsheets beneath you. It was just a reminder, just a nudge, just an acknowledgment that the time was his to do with as he pleased. “If you wanted anything else.”

His eyes flicked up to meet yours for a brief moment before looking away again. “No,” he said simply but certain, as if he knew what you were going to say before you said it and had premeditated his response. “Just the blowjob.”

You raised your eyebrows ever so slightly, your eyes lingering on him for a moment longer with, not surprise, but mild curiosity.

You'd seen both ends of the spectrum before in your clients. Men booking an hour and only using a fraction of it, while most others tried to get the absolute most out of an hour, squeezing every last drop of pleasure out of the time they'd paid for.

But he was unwavering, adamant in his decision, and you couldn't help but find it a bit odd.

You let the silence settle between you again, feeling the cool air against your exposed skin, and stark contrast to the lingering warmth of his touch, the ghost of his fingertips imprinted on your tits, his wedding ring leaving behind the faintest memory of its presence.

Your eyes trailed down to his left arm draped over his torse, his hand sprawled across his stomach, and you caught sight of it yet again. The golden band wrapped around his ring finger. You never said anything about it when you'd noticed them on clients’ fingers before. It wasn't your business, but it was always impossible to ignore.

To think that there was someone else out there, an unsuspecting, trusting woman who thought she knew who his heart belonged to, someone who had made vows with him, shared a life with him, likely even slept beside him in their own bed just last night.

To think you knew who that woman was. Well, you'd seen her with him before.

But yet, here he was. Lying in a cheap hotel room, half-naked, spent, having just paid for the kind of intimacy he should’ve been getting from his wife. But still, it wasn't your business. It never was.

You tried not to think about it much more. Instead, you asked him, running a hand through your hair, “Do you have any cigarettes?”

You weren't desperate for one, but the craving was there, creeping up the back of your throat slowly. You also just wanted something to do with your hands. You hadn't had the chance to buy yourself a new pack after smoking your last one earlier, before he had appeared.

He glanced up at you before looking away again. He didn't seem to be able to hold your gaze for more than a few seconds. He said, his voice low and steady, “In my blazer,” he paused for a moment, “Pocket.”

Your eyes flickered over to the coat rack by the door where he'd hung up his blazer when he entered, and you pushed yourself up off of the bed. You crossed the room to the rack, your fingers slipping into the pocket and feeling the familiar shape of a cigarette pack. Thin cardboard, scuffed at the edges, and the foil inside crinkled. You pulled it out and flipped open the loose top, seeing that there were a couple left inside. Not exactly fresh, but not stale either.

You plucked one from the box, bringing the filter to your mouth and holding it between your lips as you turned your head back towards him. He was watching you now, his dark eyes following your movements, but there was no lust in his gaze now.

“You mind?” you asked, though it felt rhetorical. He shook is head, a small, barely noticeable movement, and you nodded, more to yourself than him.

You fished your own almost empty lighter out of your jacket pocket, also hung on the coat rack, and you shook it before flicking the wheel a few times until a small flame sparked. You inhaled, the familiar, comforting burn of the smoke floating in your lungs before exhaling.

You made your way across the room once more, the cigarette dangling from between your fingers, leaving a trail of delicate wisps of smoke behind you. You perched on the windowsill, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out slightly, nudging the window open ajar so the smoke can flow out.

The air outside was cool, enough to raise goosebumps across your skin, seeping into the room in lazy drafts. You didn't bother fixing your dress, pulling the straps back over your shoulders and attempting to make yourself decent. The cool breeze drifting in from the window made your nipples perk up once again. You left it down, the fabric still bunched uselessly around your waist, your tits exposed to the open air, to the room, to anyone who might have been looking up from the street below.

You took a slow drag, inhaling deep, letting the smoke settle before exhaling through your nostrils. The view wasn't much; mainly just rooftops, blinking streetlights, and the occasional set of fluorescent headlights as cars passed below. But it was more interesting than staring at blank hotel walls, whatever he was doing.

He hadn't moved much, still on the bed, his legs stretched and sprawled out, one arm resting on his stomach, still naked from the waist down. He was watching you. You could feel his gaze on you, a quiet presence between the two of you. You let the silence stretch out, letting him sit with whatever thoughts were running through his head.

Maybe he was thinking about his wife. About the woman who's finger their golden wedding band still sat snug around. Maybe he was thinking about everything you two had just done. Maybe he wasn't thinking at all.

Your cigarette burned slowly between your fingers, the orange of the ember glowing each time you took a drag. The cool night air kissed your bare skin, but still, you didn't pull your dress up.

His voice broke through the silence, low and steady, just like it had been all night. “Are you staying here tonight?”

You turned your head slightly, not fully looking at him, but just enough to acknowledge that you had heard him.

It wasn’t the kind of question you'd heard clients usually ask. Some might assume you’d just leave once the hour was up, others didn’t care enough to ask, and some would pathetically offer to pay for extra time just to have company a little longer. But he didn’t sound like he was offering, didn’t sound hopeful or pleading. It was just a question, simple and even, like he genuinely wanted to know.

You took another drag, letting his question hang in the air for a while as the smoke filled your lungs, exhaling towards the open window before you replied, “Do you want me to?”

You heard him shift slightly, the bedsheets creasing and the mattress creaking with his movement. He didn't answer right away, but when he did, his voice wasn't in the unreadable, measured tone it had been all night. There was a hint of something else; maybe a tinge of vulnerability, or hesitation.

“I don't know,” he admitted after a beat, his voice softer. “Maybe.”

That made you turn your head a little more. You met his gaze, and he was still sat where you'd left him.

Maybe. It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no either.

You tapped the ash from your cigarette, watching as it fluttered down out of the window in all different directions, dissipating into the night. You reply, “I normally charge for that.”

When you glanced back at him, his expression made you pause.

It wasn’t irritation or frustration at your response, nothing like that. It was something quieter, something more knowing. A look that told you he already had you figured out, at least in one way.

Because he knew.

He'd been observing you long before he approached you earlier that night. He had noticed you before, maybe not in a way you had caught onto at the time, but he had been looking. Studying. And he knew something most men wouldn’t have figured out so easily; that it had been weeks since your last client. That the dry spell had dragged on longer than you had ever anticipated. That you needed the money. That you didn’t have the luxury of saying no.

You held his gaze for a moment longer, the cigarette burning low between your fingers. Then, without a word, you turned back toward the window, taking another slow drag, letting the embers glow bright before fading again.

You didn’t say yes, but you didn’t say no, either.

“I'll pay you, if that's what you want. Or need.”

That hint of vulnerability you'd heard in his voice just moments before was more prominent now, the unbothered confidence he'd exuded during your time together filtering out.

“Just stay.”

It wasn’t a demand, not a command from a man used to getting his way. It wasn’t even a transaction, not really. It was something else. Something closer to a request, maybe even a plea.

You leaned your head back against the wall of the windowsill, closing your eyes for a second. If you said no, you knew he wouldn’t argue. He wouldn’t push. He’d probably just watch you get dressed, maybe offer you a lift somewhere, then let you go, but he’d noticed things about you that others hadn’t. He knew you hadn’t been working, and he knew you needed to be working.

And maybe he needed something too.

You sighed slowly before you spoke.

“Okay,” you said, looking over at him again. “I'll stay.”

You ground the cigarette against the windowsill, putting it out completely before tossing it out the window, leaving it ajar. You stepped out of the windowsill before slipping your hands under the waistband of your tights, pulling them down and off your legs. They were ripped and thin from years of wearing, clinging to your skin like cobwebs whenever you wore them. You pulled them off of your feet before tossing them to the side, not bothering to look or care where they landed.

You then finally pulled the straps of your dress back up over your shoulders, smoothing out the fabric. It wasn't the most comfortable dress in the world, but you didn't really have another option to sleep in.

You got into the bed beside him, slipping underneath the thick duvet while he stayed lay on top of it. As you made yourself comfortable, you expected him to say something, anything. Small talk, a question, some comment about the night, or even just a joke to break the silence.

But, nothing.

The air conditioner hummed softly in the corner, filling the room with a low, mechanical drone. You could hear the faint sound of cars outside, the distant murmur of life still moving beyond the walls of this hotel room, but between you and him, there was nothing.

You lay on your side, your cheek pressed against the pillow as you watched him in the dim light, your gaze falling down to his ring again.

You couldn't help but wonder where his wife thought he was. You knew all the basic, typical excuses. On a work trip, out with friends, visiting family. But you wondered what he had told her.

But once again, it's not your business. You just let the silence sit between you, until he moves, snapping you out of it and stopping your mind from getting too deep in that rabbit hole. He pulled the duvet up over him, joining you under it. He exhaled deeply, settling on his back once again, staring up at the ceiling.

You stayed on your side, facing him, but you closed your eyes. You heard him shift again, just slightly, only his head turning in your direction. He must've seen your eyes closed, as he murmured, “…Goodnight.”

You hesitated, just for a moment, before you replied, your eyes still closed, “Goodnight.”

You weren’t sure how long it took for you to drift off, but when you woke up, it was early. Far too early, judging by the pale light filtering through the curtains and the cold dawn air seeping in through the window you'd left ajar. It was morning, but just barely. The cool air had been slowly invading the room while you two slept, a contrast to the warmth beneath the duvet, and for a moment, you just lay there, still and quiet.

You rubbed the sleep from the corners of your eyes before looking over at him, still asleep. His breathing was deep and steady, his lips slightly parted. His dark hair was tousled against the pillow, a few strands falling over his forehead. The t-shirt he’d slept in had ridden up slightly as well as his side of the duvet being pushed down, exposing just a sliver of skin above his hip.

As for leaving, you weren’t sure what the right move was. Leaving now would spare you both the awkwardness of waking up next to each other, of the inevitable moment when he’d have to remember what he’d done and how he got here. You could slip out quietly now, gather your things, and disappear before he even stirred.

But then what?

You’d have to walk out of the hotel alone, past the receptionist who had already seen you last night, past the other guests making their way to breakfast or checkout, all while in ripped tights and a mini dress. And even though you’d walked away from plenty of clients without a second thought before, something about this one made you hesitate.

So you stayed.

The minutes felt like hours, slow and heavy, the room still dim with early morning light. You lay there, listening to the soft rhythm of his breathing, the occasional shuffle of footsteps down the corridor outside the door to your room.

You shifted slightly, careful not to disturb him, staring up at the ceiling. You didn’t know what him waking up would bring; whether he’d be distant, polite, or regretful. Maybe he’d pretend last night never happened. Maybe he’d slip back into the confidence he’d had when he first approached you.

Either way, you decided you’d ride it out.

Eventually, he’d wake up, and you’d leave together. No lingering, no drawn-out goodbyes. Just two people going their separate ways, back to their separate lives.

And then, like always, you’d move on.

You noticed his breathing change before anything else, the deep, slow rhythm of sleep turning into something lighter and more conscious. When he stirred, it was with a slow stretch, a small grunt and a rustle of the sheets as he rolled onto his side. His hand came up to drag over his face, but you didn't turn to look at him yet.

When he did finally move again, it wasn’t with hesitation. He sat up, exhaling quietly, running a hand through his messy hair. You turned your head slightly, watching as he blinked against the morning light, but the awkwardness you'd been expecting never quite settled in. At least, not entirely.

He seemed preoccupied, maybe even in a bit of a hurry. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his trousers and boxer shorts on the floor. His movements were purposeful. Not rushed exactly, but definitely not slow. Like he had somewhere to be. Work, maybe. Probably.

You sat up, letting the duvet fall from your shoulders as you leaned back against the headboard. He didn't say anything to you at first, but neither did you.

When he buttoned and zipped his jeans, he turned to glance at you, giving you a half-hearted nod of acknowledgement. You pushed yourself up out of bed a few moments after, not bothering to even make an attempt to put your tights back on. You pick them up from where you'd discarded them on the floor the night before, then walking over to the door of the room to slide on your boots and jacket, stuffing your tights into your pocket.

He grabbed his blazer off of the rack before sliding his shoes on, and with that, you followed him out of the door.

The silence between you wasn't overly heavy, but it just existed. You two made your way down the corridors, past doors identical to the one you'd just left.

The lift ride down to the lobby was quiet, the soft, mechanical hum of descending floors the only sound that filled the space between you. The same uncomfortable lighting, the same mirrored walls reflecting the both of you back at yourselves. You didn’t glance at him, and he didn’t look at you either, both of you caught in the unspoken understanding of the morning after.

When the doors slid open, the lobby was as sterile and impersonal as it had been the night before. The receptionist barely looked up as he stepped forward to check out, giving his key card back with a nod and a murmured, “Checking out of 314.”

The process was quick, efficient. No questions asked, no lingering looks, just a receipt printed and handed over and a polite, almost automatic “Have a good day.”

The air was cool and crisp as you stepped outside. The city was already awake, cars moving sluggishly through the streets, people heading to work, to school, to whatever lives they led. You both stopped just outside the entrance, a brief moment before going your separate ways.

He turned to you, hands in his pockets, and he asked, his voice smooth but with remnants of sleep, “How much do you want for staying the night?”

You glanced up at him before replying “£100.”

He nodded, no argument, no negotiation. He pulled out his wallet once more, just as he'd done the night before, and he pulled out five £20 notes for you.

“Thanks,” you gave a half-hearted smile as you took the notes, slipping them in your pocket along with your hand.

“Thank you,” he replied, taking a slow deep breath in, glancing around before looking back at you and saying, “See you later.”

You didn't watch him walk away, or try to figure out which direction he was going, whether he was heading towards a cab, a parked car, or just blending in with the sluggish morning foot traffic. Maybe he was going to work, or home, or to a coffee shop or a bar, somewhere that served as a liminal space before he had to return to whatever life existed beyond the anonymity of last night. It didn’t matter to you.

You turned in the opposite direction, your worn boots scuffing against the pavement, hands stuffed in the pockets of your jacket. Your eyes scanned over the city as you walked, watching as cars idled at red lights, cyclists weaved between them, people shuffled along with tired eyes and takeaway cups warming their hands.

Your flat was as unremarkable as ever, a small, cheap place that barely fit the definition of home. It was the kind of place that didn’t ask for much, and didn’t expect much. A sink that dripped no matter how hard you turned the handle, a radiator that barely worked and rattled ominously whenever you tried to switch it on, and a window that didn't close all the way.

You'd told your landlord about these problems many months ago, but just like everything else in this building, it was just a problem left unresolved.

You kicked off your boots by the front door as you entered and shrugged off your jacket, draping it over the back of your tattered couch. You fished the money out of the pocket of your jacket, making sure you had it all. It was mostly twenty-pound-notes, a few tens, but you checked that it added up to £300 before tucking them into an old jar in the kitchen where you kept most of the money made by clients. When you used to get them more often, that was.

It was enough to pay for groceries, maybe even enough to pay off a few of your overdue bills.

Hopefully enough to get you through the next few weeks until your next client came along, if they ever did.

The next two weeks crawled by, thick and slow, dragging their weight behind them like something half-dead. Nothing. Again. Just like before that man. Alex, you thought his name was, or at least that was what you remembered from when he had checked into the hotel.

Names never mattered much to you, not with what you did. It made it too personal. Unless they'd asked you to moan their name, you never bothered.

But now, even he was gone, fading into the same absence that had filled your nights before him.

You tried. You went out, made the rounds, hung around by the places that used to get you flooded with work, but now, nothing. You dressed the part; skimpy dresses, short skirts, low necklines that left little to the imagination, heels that clicked against the pavement like an invitation.

But still, nothing.

You were invisible in the way that only people like you could be, standing in plain sight yet unseen. The men who used to look at you, who used to slow their steps and cast glances from the corners of their eyes, no longer lingered.

Maybe it was just bad luck, or maybe it was just the economy. The way indulgences like this had become harder to justify. Maybe it was just a slow season. Excluding that last man you had, it'd been over two months since your last client now.

The last of the money he had gave you was nearly gone. You'd stretched it out as much as you could, buying the cheapest groceries, skipping meals when you could, rationing what little warmth your radiator could provide, but £300 didn't last long.

Nights became longer. You walked more, stayed out later, hoping that maybe someone would stop. You tried different spots, changed up your routine, even considered lowering your rates again just to get something. But nothing worked. The men who did glance your way never stopped, never approached, never reached for their wallets with that familiar mix of guilt and desire.

The silence of your empty flat became unbearable. The dripping tap, the cold air seeping in through the cracked window, the faint smell of dust and cigarette smoke that clung to the fabric of your furniture; it all felt heavier now. Every night, you came home with the same empty pockets, the same unshakable weight settling in your chest. You would sit on the couch, scrolling through your laptop mindlessly, looking at nothing in particular, just trying to distract yourself from the growing anxiety curling inside you.

And sometimes your mind slipped back to him, Alex. It wasn't like he was anything too special, anyway. Older and married with a big dick, you'd had plenty of those. He was just the first in a long time, the only in a long time, and that made you wonder what he saw in you that nobody else seemed to anymore.

You hadn’t thought much about him in the days right after, too caught up in the relief of finally having made some money. But now, with nothing else filling the void, his face lingered in the back of your mind. The way he had been so sure of himself when he had approached you, the quiet confidence in his voice as he made his request. The way he had watched you, not just in the hotel room but before, before he had even come to you. He had known you hadn’t had clients in weeks. He had seen it.

You wondered if he was thinking about you now. Probably not, but you'd seen him around few times after your night together, with her, his wife. Walking hand in hand or with his arm around her shoulder, sharing a small kiss or a few whispered words. You should've felt guilty, should've felt sorry for her, completely oblivious to the fact her husband had cheated on her just days before, but you didn't.

Men like him didn’t think about women like you, not after the fact. You had been a moment, an indulgence, something he had sought out and paid for and left behind without a second thought. He had a wife, a life, maybe even a child, a world beyond what happened with you. If he was thinking about anything now, it was probably work, or his morning coffee, or whatever mundane responsibilities filled the lives of men who had the luxury of stability.

But still, your mind circled back to him more often than you wanted to admit. Because at least with him, for one night, the dry spell had ended. Now, it stretched on again, endless and unforgiving.

The night had started just like the others. You had been lingering near one of your usual spots, the cool night air pressing against your bare skin, the city moving around you in its usual detached way. The pavement was damp from an earlier rain, the lights from nearby bars reflecting in puddles, casting a distorted, artificial glow over everything.

You weren’t expecting much. You weren’t expecting anything, really. Just another night of waiting, another night of trying.

And then, you saw him.

At first, you thought it was just some other man, some stranger who just happened to look familiar in the dim light, but then he moved closer, and recognition settled in.

It was Alex.

The man from the hotel two weeks ago. The man who had given you your last job, or rather you'd given your last ‘job to, before the dry spell stretched on unbearably. The man who had watched you, observed you, knew you hadn’t had any clients for a while before him. And now, here he was again, standing in front of you, looking at you in the same way he had that previous night; like he had already made up his mind before he had even approached.

“Hi,” he said, his voice quieter than you remembered, like he was hesitant, or maybe just unsure of what to say. “I want to see you again.”

He slipped his hands into his pockets, glancing around for a moment as if to check if anyone saw him talking to you. Maybe the guilt was heavier this time, maybe two weeks had given him time to think about what he had done that night, but if he had regrets, they weren’t strong enough to keep him from coming back.

You met his eyes, and before you could respond, he continued. “There's a bar down the road, it's got a few rooms. We could go there.”

You didn't say anything yet, watching him shift slightly.

“I'll buy you a drink first,” he added, as if he felt the need to justify it, like that somehow would differ it from last time, but it made you smile. Just a small quirk of your lips, but enough for him to notice. It wasn’t something clients usually did. They wanted to get to the point, get what they paid for and be on their way. But he wasn’t rushing, wasn’t pushing for anything. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was something else, but either way, you weren’t about to turn down a free drink.

“Alright,” you finally said, your voice soft and smooth. “For how long tonight?”

His gaze trails off from yours, down to the puddles of rain on the pavement from the earlier showers, and he says, a little quieter, “The whole night. Please.”

You nodded and told him, “£400.”

He didn't argue, again, didn't try to haggle or get you to lower the price, just another confirmation that he'd already made up his mind before soughting you out again. He just agreed and fished out his wallet, pulling the notes out carefully.

After he handed you the notes and you put them in your pocket, you two walked to the bar together, side by side, but not quite touching. The sound of drunken laughter spilling out of pubs, the faint, distant sound of music, and cars with blaring headlights driving past, the light reflecting off of every puddle.

Inside, the bar was small, warm, dimly lit, the kind of place where people came to drink quietly as opposed to getting drunk. A few tables were occupied, some older men nursing their pints alone, a couple in the corner speaking in hushed voices. The bartender gave you both a smile as you walked in before going back to wiping down the surfaces.

He ordered a whiskey for himself and a vodka cranberry for you before quietly asking the bartender about the room availability upstairs. The worker asked him a few questions before handing over a key, a much more laid-back than the check-in process at the last hotel you’d been to.

You watched as he handed over the cash, your eyes lingering on his hands. They were nice. Large, veiny, strong-looking. When the bartender handed over your drinks, he took a slow sip of his whiskey, his wedding ring clinking gently against the side of the glass, before leading you over to a small table in the corner.

“You been doing alright?” he asked after sitting down, his voice a bit rougher than before. The question caught you off guard. It wasn't something clients usually asked. In fact, they rarely saw you as a person, no more than a set of holes to be rented for a few hours, to be very honest. But there was something in his voice, something just slightly softer, like maybe he actually cared to hear the response.

You swirled your drink in your glass, the ice tinking against each other as they shifted. “Been quiet,” you admitted, setting your glass down on the sticky, dark brown wooden table.

He nodded as if he had already known the answer. There was another pause, another sip of whiskey, before he spoke again.

“When we go upstairs…” he started, his voice quieter and his gaze low, trying not to meet your eyes. “Can you- um… would you call me daddy?”

It wasn’t an unusual request. You’d been asked for worse. Much worse. But what caught your attention wasn’t the request itself, rather the way he said it. Not smug, not demanding, not trying to put on some kind of dominant act like so many others did. No, there was something else there. The slightest hint of embarrassment, a flicker of vulnerability that he couldn’t quite hide.

You didn’t say yes immediately, didn’t give him what he wanted right away. Instead, you just tilted your head slightly, watching him, letting the moment stretch just long enough to make him wonder.

"You like that?" you asked, voice slow, smooth. His eyes flicked back to you for just a second before answering, almost shyly.

“…Yeah.”

You smiled, letting his words hang in the air between you for a few more moments before replying softly, “I can do that for you.”

You noticed a flicker of relief flash across his features as he nodded, exhaling a small, quiet breath through his nose.

The conversation, if you could even call it that, was slow. Hesitant.

He sat with his drink, fingers wrapped loosely around the glass, rolling it slightly in his palm, watching the liquid shift. His wedding ring caught the low light every now and then, a fleeting glint of gold before it was swallowed back into the shadows of the dim bar. He didn't fidget much, but you could tell he was thinking, maybe too much, maybe about things he shouldn't be thinking about right now.

“You been busy?” you asked after a moment, your voice casual.

His gaze flicked up to meet yours then, just for a second, before he looked back down at his drink. "Same as always.”

’Same as always’. You wondered what that meant for a man like him. You wondered if he went back to his wife after the first night you'd spent together. If he kissed her when he came in through the door, if she made him coffee. If she noticed anything different about him.

But that wasn’t something you were going to ask. That wasn’t something you wanted to ask, and you were sure that wasn't something he wanted to answer.

"Thought about coming back sooner?" you asked instead, tilting your head slightly, watching him, studying the way his expression remained carefully neutral.

For the first time, he actually smirked, just a little, just the faintest curve of his lips as he exhaled through his nose. "Maybe."

You hummed, dragging your finger around the rim of your glass, a faint red lipstick mark pressed onto the glass from where you'd been sipping it. "What stopped you?”

He took a sip of his drink, his throat shifting slightly as he swallowed, before he finally said, "Didn't know if I should."

"And what changed your mind?" you pressed, curiosity getting the better of you now.

His fingers tapped absently against his glass, a small, repetitive sound. He didn’t answer right away, but when he did, his voice was quieter than before.

"Didn't want to stay away any longer."

The way he said it, the weight behind it, made your stomach dip just slightly. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t devotion, it wasn’t even attachment. But it was something. Some little thing that had tugged at him enough to bring him back to you.

“Should we do something about it?” you murmured, your lips curling at the corners into the faintest smile.

His eyes met yours again, and without a word, he downed the rest of his drink and set his empty glass beside yours on the table before standing up, and gestured towards the stairs leading up to the rooms above.

You followed him up the steep, narrow, rickety wooden stairs, creaking loudly with each step you took. He unlocked the door with the key he'd been given and pushed the door open, and you followed after him.

It wasn't at all like the last hotel you'd been in. It was smaller, only a three or four rooms available in total. It seemed older, the few decorations looking like they'd been plucked from an old vintage second-hand shop. The same dark wood from the bar downstairs climbed up the walls and framed the old furniture, polished but worn in places where time and use had left their marks. The wallpaper was dark, patterned in a way that might’ve been stylish once, decades ago, but now just felt old. Even the lighting was dimmer, warmer, the sconces on the walls casting a low, flickering glow

It was the kind that sat above places like this; a bar with cheap drinks and patrons who didn’t ask too many questions.

The room itself smelled like old wood and something faintly floral, like an air freshener that had been plugged in as a half-assed attempt to cover up the underlying musty scent.

The room was simple. A double bed with faded burgundy sheets, a small dresser, a mirror hanging slightly crooked on the wall, a tatty sofa with mismatched cushions, and a TV that probably didn't work. The kind of place built for one-night stays like this.

You slipped off your heels and draped your jacket over the back of the couch before turning back to him, letting your gaze drop slightly.

“What do you want this time?” you asked, tilting your head slightly.

He exhaled through his nose, a soft, amused sound before shrugging off that same blazer he'd worn last time, draping it over the couch next to your jacket. “Want you from behind,” he said simply.

There was no hesitation this time, no feigned uncertainty. He knew exactly what he wanted.

His fingers worked at his belt, the soft clink of the metal buckle tainting the quiet of the room as he undid it, pulling it to one side to free it from his belt loops before starting on his button and zip.

“On all fours,” he clarified while pushing the button of his jeans through the hole, followed by the soft, metallic whir of his zip being pulled down.

You smiled a little at his instruction, hooking your thumbs under waistband of your short skirt, sliding it down your hips and letting it pool at your feet before stepping out of it, draping it over the back of the couch on top of your jacket.

The room's dim, golden lighting from the lamp cast delicate shadows across your bare thighs as you turned to move towards the bed. You had no intention of taking your shirt off. Not that you were shy, far from it, but you liked the contrast of keeping something on.

You were stopped by his hands, firmly gripping your waist before finding the hem of your shirt, tugging it upwards. You let out a small breath of surprise, but you didn't stop him, letting him pull it up over your head and off your arms, bunching it up in his hand before tossing it in the general direction of the couch, but he didn't care too much where it landed.

The cool air of the room made your nipples tighten in response and he pressed a kiss to your shoulder, pressing his chest against your back, and you felt that he'd taken his shirt off this time. His arms snaked around your waist, one of his hands trailing up to squeeze your boobs as he kissed the side of your neck.

He pulled you closer to him, his arm tightening around your waist and his hand squeezing your tits harder, feeling your hard nipples against his palm.

He pressed a final kiss just below your ear before slipping his hands underneath the waistband of your panties, sliding them down as he kneeled down behind you, pressing a few kisses to the backs of your thighs, his eyes closing as he pressed a paticularly long kiss just below your ass cheek.

When he stood back up, he pressed a kiss between your shoulder blades before tugging down his own underwear down his legs while you stepped out of yours. Once they were down, he grabbed them off the floor by the waistband and tossing them in whatever direction his wrist flicked in first, not wanting to waste a single second.

His lips landed on your neck again, the opposite side this time, and you could feel his cock, long, hard, hot and pulsing, against your thigh as his arms wrapped around you from behind again, holding you close to him. Almost unintentionally, from shifting his hips in an attempt to get some friction, his searing hot cock slid between your thighs, and he moaned, his lips still latched to you neck.

He started to rock his hips gently, tentatively, adjusting the position of his feet to get more leverage as he thrusted his cock in and out of between your thighs.

After a few more thrusts, his hips stilled, his hips pressed right up against your ass before he murmured, an underlying hint of humour in his tone, “Should we get on the bed?”

Your lips curled into a small smile, turning your head just enough to look up at him. You half-expected him to kiss you, after all that neck kissing, but he didn't. You weren't sure if he was ready for anything mouth-on-mouth yet, and you weren't going to force him into anything.

His hands drifted down to your hips, his grip firm but not forceful, guiding you onto the bed and positioning you just how he wanted you. The mattress dipped beneath your weight as your crawled forward just enough to give him some space to kneel behind you, and you settled on all fours, arching your back just enough to give him a good view as well as easy access while he quickly padded across the room back to where he'd left his jeans, pulling a condom out of the back pocket.

The bed creaked as he got on the bed behind you, then you felt his hand on your ass, giving it a quick squeeze before it slid up your back, steadying himself as you heard him tear open the wrapped before he rolled it on himself.

His fingertips traced down your spine, just barely ghosting over the fair skin before he leaned down, pressing soft and warm, slow and deliberate kisses along your back, his lips moving along your shoulder blades, all the way down to the dip of your lower back.

His lips pressed against every vertebrae, his teeth grazing your skin, the contrast between his soft lips and the the sharp drag of his teeth sending a shiver through you. When he pressed the final kiss to your skin, the lowest point of your back, he straightened up again. He wrapped one hand around his latex-wrapped cock, rubbing the tip along your soaked pussy lips before lining himself up.

The head of his cock nudged at your entrance before he gently pushed his hips forward. He slid in slowly, his thick shaft stretching you just enough for that subtle burn you adored, but not enough for it to hurt.

You gasped softly, your breath melting into a gentle moan as you murmured, “Daddy…”

He liked that. A lot. You felt him twitch inside you as he continued to push forward, letting out a deep groan himself once he reached the hilt.

You felt his pubes gently scratch against your thighs as he held himself there for a moment, giving you a few seconds to adjust to the fullness before placing one of his hands on your lower back, his fingers sprawling out, and he pulled back before pushing back in again.

You let out another moan, slightly higher-pitched this time, whinier, your pussy fluttering and tightening around him as you adjusted to the sheer size of him. He was big, you knew that from the first time, but having him like this, feeling how deep he could get, how much he could stretch you, it was indescribable.

He exhaled deeply, his hands settling on your ass cheeks as he began to thrust properly, building a steady rhythm. You felt it again, the cool metal of his wedding ring pressing against the hot skin on your left cheek as his thumb rubbed over your skin absentmindedly, but the grip he had on you made it clear that he wasn't going to be gentle for long.

You could feel the tension in his body, like he had to physically restrain himself from pulling all the way out and slamming right back in again.

As he kept up those steady thrusts, you continued moaning softly for him each time he pushed in, but you could tell he wanted to get rougher, so to urge him on, you whimpered, breathy and laced with submission, “Fuck, harder, daddy…”

The effect was immediate. His grip on your ass tightened as he groaned, a low rumble from deep in his chest as he moved faster, thrusting into you with a newfound hunger, getting harder, deeper, and rougher with each snap of his hips.

The bed creaked beneath you, the rickety wooden frame protesting under the force of his movements. His hands roamed over your body. Up your back, underneath to your stomach, up to your tits and giving each of them a squeeze before settling between your legs, his rough fingers finding your clit and circling it in time with his thrusts, and then it happened.

A sudden pop, a sharp crack from his knee as he drove forward, and he instantly faltered. He slowed down, just for a moment, a quiet, barely audible huff of irritation leaving his lips. His rhythm stuttered, and you felt his hands momentarily tense before he eased his movements, shifting his weight slightly as if to lessen the strain.

You could tell he was embarrassed. He didn’t say anything, but you felt the way his fingers twitched against your waist, the slight hesitation in his next thrust. Maybe he thought you’d say something, acknowledge it, but you didn’t. Instead, you just pushed back against him, rolling your hips, coaxing him to keep going, and he did.

With a low grunt, he picked up his pace again, slower at first, regaining his bearings before he found his rhythm once more. But this time, it was different. Still rough, still deep, still relentless, but there was something else too. A slight urgency, like he needed to reclaim control, to push past that brief, unwanted reminder of his own age.

His breathing was rough, laboured, and every time you moaned for him, letting that daddy slip from your lips, you felt him twitch inside your warmth, heard the way his breath hitched ever so slightly. It was the only confirmation you needed; he fucking loved it.

The headboard knocked against the wall in rhythm with his movements, a steady, ceaseless rhythm, punctuated only by the occasional grunt from low his throat. His grip tightened on your ass, raising his hand up just enough before bringing it back down in a harsh slap, watching the flesh bounce slightly.

The feeling of his long, thick cock filling you up over and over again, combined with the pads of his fingers continuously rubbing your clit in tight circles almost too much. You lowered your head to rest on your elbows, your back arching as you moaned and whined for him, and you could tell he was getting close too.

His pace was getting less controlled, both in his thrusts and his fingers on your clit, his breathing getting shallower, and when he leaned forward, his chest pressing to your back, you could feel the thin sheen of sweat coating him, his small patch of twiddly chest hair slightly dampened.

“Fuck, you feel good…” he groaned into your ear, and you clenched around him at that, rocking your hips back against him, meeting his thrusts half way. His grip on your ass tightened almost painfully and his rhythm faltered again, this time not from embarrassment, but because he was right there, teetering on the edge.

You squeezed your eyes shut and whimpered, “Daddy, I'm gonna cum…”

A strangled moan rose from his lips as he buried himself in you one last time. His body went rigid, his face scrunching up and his cock twitching uncontrollably as he spilled into the condom, letting out a long, low moan of pure satisfaction.

The sensation of him filling up the condom inside you was enough to send you over the edge as well, your pussy muscles spasming around him as you came, murmuring a soft, “Daddy…”

For a moment, he just stayed still, his sweat-drenched forehead pressed against your shoulder as he caught his breath. The only sound in the room was the distant murmur of the bar downstairs, and the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing as he finally started to come back down from his high.

As he finally withdrew, you felt the slow drag of him against your sensitive walls as he slipped out, leaving behind a dull, empty ache in his absence. He took his time pulling the condom off, his fingers deft and practiced as he tied it off and set it aside on the bedside table for now.

The dim, warm glow from the bedside lamp cast soft shadows across his skin, accentuating the sweat still shiny on his skin, while you took a deep, steady breath before straightening yourself up, your thighs aching from the way he'd gripped you.

You sat up, rolling your shoulders for a brief moment before shuffling to lay beside him on the bed, mirroring his position. You stretched your legs out next to his, the sheets slightly cool against your warm skin. You didn’t bother slipping underneath the duvet. Not yet, anyway. Instead, you let your body sink into the mattress, staring up at the ceiling, still feeling the remnants of his touch.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t exactly peaceful either. It was something in between, something neither of you seemed willing to break just yet.

Your gaze drifted to him, studying the side of his face. The soft line of his jaw, the faint creases at the corners of his eyes, the texture of his skin. His dark hair was a little messier now, strands sticking up slightly from where his fingers had run through it earlier.

You turned your head slightly, watching him as he lay there, eyes half-lidded, fingers idly tracing patterns against his stomach like he was lost in thought.

He shifted slightly, rolling onto his side to face you, one arm propped under his head, making eye contact with you.

He took a deep breath before saying simply, “My wife doesn't know.”

You turned as he spoke, lying on your side, facing him properly now. “I’d hope not.”

He let out a dry, humourless chuckle. “Yeah,” he sighed. “She's… she's a good woman, but… I don't know what happened.”

You didn't respond, wanting to see if he had anything else to say. You didn't want to admit it to yourself, but you had been curious about her. But when he spoke again, it wasn't about her. It was about you.

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

You hesitated for a moment, just long enough for him to notice, but you told him anyway. “I'm nineteen.”

Something changed in his expression. Just slightly, but enough for you to catch it. A brief flicker of something that looked like hesitation or disbelief before it smoothed out again.

“…Christ,” he finally muttered under his breath. “I'm thirty-eight.”

You watched him for a moment, reading the shift in his expression, the way his mouth pressed into a thin line. He wasn’t stupid, he’d known you were young, but knowing you were young and knowing you were nineteen were two different things.

“Regretting it now?” you asked, voice laced with dry amusement and a hint of teasing.

His eyes flicked back to you. “No.” A pause. Then, a little quieter, he added, “Should I be?”

You didn't say anything in response, just looking at him, watching, your eyes staying locked on each other's, until he started to speak again.

“My wife's younger than me too. Not as young as you, just about 6 years. I met her when I was thirty. She was twenty-four.”

You watched him closely as he spoke, listening carefully, and he added, “That felt wrong, back then. Six years felt like too big of a gap,” his eyes trailed off from yours, down to small gap between you on the bed. “God knows what the fuck I’m doing with a nineteen-year-old now.”

His morals, if he even had any left, had clearly stopped mattering to him a long time ago. Because he was here, wasn’t he? Paying for a nineteen-year-old to keep him company, and to let him fuck her in dingy hotel rooms.

The conversation drifted back to his wife, as if now that he’d finally mentioned her, he couldn’t stop.

“It’s not working, obviously,” he admitted, rolling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. His voice was quieter now, less guarded. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling heavily. “I don’t think she knows. Or she does and she just doesn’t care enough to ask.”

He looked different now. Less composed, less put together. Your eyes scanned over him, still naked, now both physically and emotionally.

“I do love her,” he murmured, more to himself than to you. “Or... I did. I don’t know.” His fingers flexed slightly against the sheets, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “I think I still love who she is. But I don’t think I love us anymore.”

You didn't say anything, just listened.

“She’s a good woman,” he continued, exhaling slowly. “Always has been. Stuck with me through a lot of shit. We did everything we were supposed to.”

He shifted slightly, his eyes flickering over to you for a moment before he turned his gaze back up to the ceiling. “I don't think she's too happy either. She'd never say it though. She doesn't say when things bother her.”

He stopped. His lips parted slightly, like he was going to finish the thought, but he didn’t. He just breathed out, shook his head slightly. “We still do all the normal things. I take her out for dates and buy her flowers and whatever, we have sex when she wants, but that's about all we do nowadays.”

Silence settled between you again, heavier this time. He turned over onto his side again, facing you properly once more, and his hand reached for you, gently resting on your waist.

“I don’t know if I can say I love her anymore,” he murmured. “Not after what I’ve done with you.”

You held his gaze for a long moment, searching for something in his eyes. You weren’t sure if you found it, but you nodded anyway.

You weren't here to try and fix his marriage or tell him where to go from here. It wasn't your place. You were just here because he paid you to be.

But as he pulled you against him, as his fingers traced patterns along the skin of your waist as he held you close to him, as he settled into the quiet beside you, it felt like just for tonight, the money wasn’t the only reason you stayed.

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

i don't know why the age in these sorts of fics are always nineteen. but im not writing about an eighteen year old 😭 for some reason eighteen feels weird but nineteen feels fine. that probably doesn't make sense but whatever. also the part where his knee cracks was inspired by this junedenim one where his knee also cracks. it's been plaguing me ever since i read it

[corvid-language-library]

和製英語（わせいえいご）

Japanese word constructed of elements from one or more English terms; pseudo-English word or phrase coined in Japan

和 = Japan, Japanese style (also: harmony, peace, soften)

製 = made in...; manufacture

英 = England, English (also: hero, outstanding, calyx)

語 = language, word, speech

Examples

A non-exhaustive list. Please feel free to reblog and add more!

サラリーマン (salaryman) white-collar worker

オフィスレーディー (office lady) female version of "salaryman"

フライドポテト (fried potato) fries

スーパーボール (super ball) rubber ball, bouncy ball

ガソリンスタンド (gasoline stand) petrol/gas station

サイン (sign) signature

マンション (mansion) apartment block

ツインテール (twin tail) pigtails, bunches

ソフトクリーム (soft cream) soft-scoop ice cream

ホットケーキ (hot cake) pancake

タッチ (touch) high five (does also mean "touch" apparently)

キーホルダー (keyholder) keyring

ブラインドタッチ (blind touch) touch typing

シャープペンシル (sharp pencil) mechanical pencil

シール (seal) sticker

アメリカンドッグ (American dog) corndog

バイキング (viking) buffet

ワンピース (one piece) dress

ビーチサンダル (beach sandal) flip-flops

[cy-cyborg]

Can we talk about how dangerous petrol stations can be for wheelchair users? Because I feel like this is something that gets overlooked by pretty much everyone.

A lot of Australian petrol stations have a sign somewhere that tells wheelchair users to beep their horn and the worker will come and help you. But not a single station I've been to has ever actually told their workers this is what they're supposed to do, so most just ignore you when you do it. I've also been sworn at by other drivers who thought I was beeping at them.

So you have to get out of the car and assemble your chair - which takes a good minute, but to be able to do that, you need to park far enough out from the pump to allow the space to actually assemble the chair, if your fuel door is on the driver's side, which usually results in you parking in a way that partially blocks the road or is too far for the pump to reach. If your fuel door is on the passenger side, you have to assemble your wheelchair in the road between pumps (and people are often not looking for something as short as a wheelchair user in that environment).

When its busy, navigating around between your car, the pump and the store is also really dangerous, because again, people aren't watching for a wheelchair user (I also have the same problem on my short prosthetics, and I imagine little people would have the same issue). I've almost been hit a few times because people just didn't see me. Pay-at-pump makes this easier and safer because you dont have to go in, but I live rurally, not every place has that option (assuming I can even reach the keypad on the pumps that do).

Then there's getting back in. You have to disassemble your chair again, which can take time. Only about a minute or so, but that hasn't stopped people beeping and yelling at me for taking too long and holding up the line for the pumps when it's busy.

My old work van was fitted with a side wheelchair lift so we didn't have to do the assemble/disassemble bit, but we couldn't use it at petrol stations because the fuel door was on the same side as the lift, which meant we needed to leave a little over a meter between the van and the pump to get out, and most pumps don't have that much reach. a few stations specifically for trucks (as in, big 18-wheeler trucks) did, but that just increased the "people can't see you" risk even more because we were even less visible to truck drivers due to truck blind spots.

It's all well and good to mandate that petrol stations have a disabled parking space out the front, but that doesn't make them actually accessible or usable to disabled drivers. We don't all have someone with us to help, we shouldn't need to. I got my car modified so I can drive it on my own, without the aid of other people, I want to be able to safely put petrol in it on my own too, which, as of right now, depends on inaccessible public inferstructure.

[octuscle]

Now open under new management (remake)

Edward Parker III rolled down the car window a crack. Peter, his driver, had switched off the air conditioning to save fuel. The fuel gauge was practically at 0.00. Here, in the middle of nowhere, they had no mobile network. The last Google message said that a petrol station would appear at some point. And Peter claimed that it should open in five minutes. Open from 10:40 am. Strange opening times. Edward's stomach grumbled. Something had gone wrong at breakfast. The car desperately needed a gas pump. And he needed a toilet just as badly. Then, like an oasis in the desert, a building appeared in the middle of endless cornfields and pastures full of stupidly staring cattle. It was 10:39:50 a.m. when Peter steered the car into the dusty gas station with the last drop of gas. At 10:40 sharp, Edward yanked open the car door and jumped out. And the moment his spotless Oxfords touched the ground, the neon sign flashed. Open!

Edward ran towards the little store where the neon sign was shining. He was far too intent on not wetting his pants to notice the leather soles of his shoes turning into a firm rubber tread. When he pushed the door handle down, he got something like an electric shock. He didn't care. The store was empty. His palm became calloused. His fingernails were black. There was a door at the back labeled "Private". Hopefully there was a toilet there. Thank God the door was open. And thank God there was a toilet. In the middle of a room full of tools, car tires and packages. It stank miserably. But Edward didn't care at all. He had already undone his belt while running, unzipped his trousers, pulled them down and dropped onto the dirty toilet seat at the last moment. And he had to shit like never before in his life. The stench was overwhelming. But the relief was immense. Edward finally relaxed again. But only for a second. Then his eyes fell on the dirty biker boots. They contained a pair of completely filthy jeans, pulled down as far as they would go. And what was even more irritating: his right hand was the hand of a construction worker, the sleeve of his shirt had disappeared. And the fabric of the right sleeve of his jacket was also coming undone. And on his chest and back, the color changed from a navy blue to a washed-out red. What the hell was going on here?

Even greater than the panic was the disgust at the stench. His left hand, still freshly manicured, reached for the toilet flush. And again he was hit by an electric shock. Panicked, he watched as his fingernails became dirty and his hand calloused. Edward's gaze fell between his legs. That wasn't his circumcised, shaved penis. That was a cheesy, hairy cock. Much bigger than it normally was. Edward had to get out of here! He hastily wiped his ass. A tight, hairy ass, sitting there on a familiar toilet seat. A man needs a good place to shit. Hehehe, this was a good place to shit. Stumbling, Edward stood up, his head spinning. He looked in the mirror. That was still his head. But the rest of him? His stiff white collar and tie knot vanished into thin air, revealing a well-toned chest. The last remnants of the finest navy blue wool on his upper left arm disappeared, and the transformation of his jacket into a washed-out and worn-out tank top was complete. I look like a fucking hillbilly, were his last thoughts before he grew a scruffy three-day fuzzy beard. His $100 haircut became a home-cut mullet. Damn, the greasy hair hadn't been washed in a while.

Loud honking from outside. "Damn, I've taken a shit! Can't you wait?" Edward shouted. He wiped his hands on the dirty cloth stuck in his pants. Washing hands was for sissies in the city. He entered the yard of his gas station.

Hehehe, he knew the dirty truck that was parked there at the gas pump. "Pete's services of all kinds" was written on the door. And Pete Jr. was hanging in the cab with a visible bulge. "Eddy, don't you always promise the best service at your gas station?" said Pete with a grin. Ed spat out the chewing tobacco and licked his lips. "Go ahead, gas station attendant. The belt buckle won't undo itself!"

Full service and guaranteed customer satisfaction. That's what Ed's gas station was famous for.

[professorfcknmoriarty]

this must be the place

For the first time in over a decade, Evan Kelmp finds himself standing on someone’s front step with everything he owns in the world on his back, his nicest shoes on his feet, and the hope that this time, just for once, it won’t end badly. Except, he’s no longer a boy of barely ten, relying on the generosity and kindness that the state of Iowa reluctantly bestows upon him in the form of an endless cast of frustrated and sometimes frightened social workers. He is a man of twenty-one, who’s just quit his job at the petrol station, broken the lease on his apartment with little warning, and travelled to the next country to be with one of his best friends in the entire world, all because she offered him a couch and time and company while he figures some things out. --- A post-canon slow burn.

for @heckblade

[jetiisyandereclones]

Hey! I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your blog! Your writing is truly incredible and inspires me so much! Thank you for being here ❤️

OH MY GOD!

I havnt heard from you in ages! (Mostly my own fault.)

Life's been hellish this past year and I'm gonna take this opportunity to explain myself for why I've been so silent and non existent.

The year 2024 has tested me.

In the beginning, my brother in law had a mental breakdown due to a run in with the cops, threatened suicide (he's okay now) amd because of the association with the place he was living he decided he absolutely had to move.

Now, what this has to do with me is that I was boarding with him and my sister, in their spare room.

And i don't know if anyone here is familiar with Australian community housing, but you can't qualify for housing if the total income of the residents is deemed too high.

Because I had a job the income of the household was considered too high for my sister and brother in law to qualify for a new house so I was told that I would not be allowed to live with them any more.

So I had to make extremely last minute arrangements and ended up in a co tenancy in a week.

That turned out to be a bad decision as my housemate was in with... a bad crowd.

She also wouldn't pay any of her rent or bills on time.

By month 5 I had had enough and decided I would be leaving the tenancy at the end of my lease.

At the end of month five I got a knock at the door from the police telling me suspected drug runners had been seen peeling out of my yard.

I'd seen those bikes before, and they were definitely friends of my housemaid, although I am not sure just how deep in she was with all that mess (I suspect fairly deep, but I have no actual evidence)

I told the police I was just her housemate and worked nights so we didn't cross paths alot, and that I was planing to move in a month.

He basically told me that they were gonna be back to turn the place over, and that if I was leaving, I should leave sooner.

That was my 13th reason why. I quit my job at the petrol station, packed up my car and with the help of my sister and BIL was out of the house the next morning.

I moved back into my dads place where I went for my licence (and got it on the second attempt) and started job hunting. At that point I was looking for something with some actual perks so I looked into remote work.

A couple of months after applying around for any remote work I could find that included housing, I got an offer to work as a Cafe supervisor in a community in remote northern Territory and I jumped on it.

They flew me up to the other end of the country after my interview, for a recruitment trip so I could see where I would be living and working. At that point it seemed okay.

A month later I was moving and two days into starting my new job I realised I hated it and was horribly ill suited to do it.

So I spent about three weeks going through the right channels to figure out an alternative arenagement.

Now, getting people to work remote is a bitch and I was already up there so I was pretty confident that the company I was hired by was not gonna cut me loose, and they didn't.

I was moved to an office job where I was much better suited.

And I'm just gonna speed run what's happened over the last few months since moving up north (keep in mind my closest family is clear down the other end of the country, 5000 kilometres away, so it's just me up here)

I damn near fell in love with my team leader, and never said a thing about it cause I wanted to keep things professional and not weird in the office.

He has since left for a better paying job elsewhere.

I made best friends with a co-worker who has since been moved to the kitchen supervisor job that I didn't want, and she's so happy doing it.

One of our travelling support officers has left the company to work for a different business in the community where I live, the other Travelling support officer was moved to her next assignment.

All this left me the most senior staff member I. The office after only a month and a half. The only other staff member is also fairly... useless.

In my personal life,

My sister, who i lived with before is getting divorced soon, as she has had enough of him using her for free labor and not treating her with respect.

My brother is probably engaged to his boyfriend (who is a lovely guy) but I havnt heard any official confirmation

My mums had a health scare due to suspected complications after thyroid surgery. But she refuses to go to hospital cause she's the main carer of my young, disabled neice, and I suspect she's afraid she will be deemed physically unfit to care for her and my neice will be removed.

So yeah. After all that I managed to stumble my way into an extremely challenging, but very rewarding and secure full time job where they pay for all my housing and bills.

So... still got shit going on in my personal life but I'm in a much more secure situation now.

Between all this i just have not had time or energy to write. And I can't make any promises of anything coming out any time soon, but I still massively appreciate all the likes, comments and reblogs.

They really do make my day when I see them.

[cherriebbyyyy]

A little Drabble on how this merch was designed :)

Meanwhile somewhere in Milan….

“Alessio I need to turn in an idea for the merch drop this after noon”

“Massimo, designing for Ferrari should not be this stressful I see the garments they shill it is not Avantgarde Haute Couture, come back to bed Amore sleep on it. Maybe you will find inspiration in the after glow”

Massimo let himself get dragged to bed by his lover, I mean he was right Ferrari did want them to reinvent the wheel over and over, sleek and red and the glorious Miami drop where they could use azzurro la plata, it was a classic style boxy shirt and while people called it pedestrian like a petrol worker it was still one of Massimo’s favorite designs he pitched because Ferrari was for the people he did want to see petrol station workers wearing it it was a very masculine shirt and it was wonderful. It was one of his more plain designs but those where typically the ones chosen you had to be different in cut and fit vs actually using prints or tone changes.

“Fuck” Massimo gasps as he feels a bite on his neck. He brings a hand to try and pull off his lover from his neck finger tangled in the Deep long brunette locks of hair.

“Don’t think about design while you fuck me” his lover looks up at him and spits out before bring him in to a deep passionate kiss. They make passionate love in the warmth of the midday sun that comes in through the window. When they finish out of breath Massimo rolls off of Alessio relishing in the after glow and watches as Alessio gets up.

“Where are you going?”

“I have a shoot Amore” he says patting Massimo’s cheek. Massimo closes his eyes as he hears Alessio patter around the flat. He could just go in with another shade of red and call it a day maybe that’s it.

“Ciao Massimo, and don’t over think it” he hears Alessio call out as the door shuts. Massimo gets out of bed and walks over to his desk and his jaw drops. Alessio has some fucking nerve, Massimo’s mock ups used as come rags. All he could do was laugh because that was just how his lover was, always needing to be above everything even in thought.

Massimo continued to laugh thinking about how everyone would look if this was what he presented.

[xxleviathanquinsarteestxx]

"Who exactly do you think you are..." #4

Weaponstress/Kiki x Dabi ( Oc x canon )

Weaponstress meeting Dabi's Leader? This could only go well...

The next night after... Everything that happened, after all that, she was stuck thinking about him all the time. Even during her nightly patrol with Hawks, even right now while she's currently patrolling the streets of anything suspicious. She was walking by a local petrol station, looking inside, she recalled not having anything to eat that night so she thought it wouldn't hurt to buy a little thing to snack on during work.

Walking in, she greeted the worker at the register before walking over to the place where they had the warm foods stored.

Weapon: "Hmmm.. Should I go for a toastie or a pie? What am I feeling like tonight?"

???: "you should definitely get the toasted sandwich, those are my favourite"

Weapon: "hm? You think so?"

???: "absolutely... They even got cheese and bacon tonight"

Weapon: "no way! Sweet! Thanks for the... Recommendation"

She turned around to thank the kind stranger only to be greeted with a weird smile. He looked oddly familiar too. But she can't quite place her finger on it at all.

Weapon: "um.. My apologies but. Have we met before?"

???: "Oh... We might have, I can't recall.. But you have met some of my 'friends' though.."

Weapon: 'friends huh? This guy seems like trouble'... "Friends? Who exactly are these so-called friends?"

???: "oh you might know a certain someone named... Dabi"

Weapon: "... How do you know him exactly?" She asked, quietly backing away and looking around. There wasn't anyone in sight at all, just her, and this guy...

???: "he works for me. How else?.. And also, I apologize for how rude I was... Call me Shigaraki"

Shiggy: "Tomura Shigaraki"

I knew he seemed familiar. I've seen him before... He's the one who infiltrated the USJ and planned on getting rid of Toshinore. He's a sicko.

Shiggy: "No need to get all defensive. I'm not here to hurt you at all.."

Weapon: "you... Aren't?"

Shiggy: "nah. I just want to have a little chat... Dabi's taken a bit of an interest in you.."

Weapon: *blushes* '... Me?'

Shiggy: "a hero... And a villain... Heh, how interesting"

Weapon: "how so?"

Shiggy: "oh come on. You're a hero, everyone looks up to you, for as we are villains. Everyone looks down on us."

Weapon: "that isn't true... In fact, I think dabi's quirk is very.. Powerful"

Shiggy: "heh, really now?"

Weapon: "yeah have you seen him use it! It's like.. So cool" she blushes, stopping herself from ranting about how cool he was to her.

Shiggy: "I see. Could we continue this more outside? I just came here to grab more sour patch kids- I mean. Acid"

Weapon: 'pffft sour patch kids-' "sure thing, lemme grab my late dinner" she said, taking a toasted bacon and egg sandwich, taking it to the register to pay for it before heading out with Tomura.

Once outside, she looked around noticing how dead it was. Which was weird since it's usually pretty busy. She pulled out her phone to check the time, no wonder why it was so dead. It's 1 am... And she just checked Hawks message saying that she didn't need to stay out any longer since it's late.

She shrugged it off and decided to have a walk and talk with Shigaraki. As strange as he seems, he's actually kind of chill. But as usual she's keeping her guard up while talking to him.

"Hm" she thought to herself for a second before writing something down on a piece of paper and handing it to him.

Tomura: "uh... What's this?"

Weapon: "my number, could you pass it to Dabi next time you see him?"

Tomura: "Pffft what are we? Friends?"

Weapon: "well you said it yourself, you just wanted to talk didn't you?"

Tomura: "ugh, you got a point... But" He came to a pause, moving a but closer to her and slipping the paper in her pocket in her jeans.

Tomura: "it would be better if you gave it to him" he suggested, backing away a bit

She was surprised at the sudden action but thought about it to herself. Yeah it would be better if she gave it to him instead. She continued eating her sandwich to fill herself while also occasionally talking to Tomura. She also had this strange feeling that she was being watched, and she can't seem to rid herself of it. Though she shrugged it off whilst listening to Tomura talk about something of his.

❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥

Once finishing off her sandwich she continued walking off with Tomura and chatting to him for a bit, hm, for a villain he's actually kind of chill. Just like... Dabi.

She never thought she'd be on duty, conversing with another villain just cause she... Liked one of his workers? Friends? She still didn't understand their relationship. But then all of a sudden Tomura stopped in front of some bar. She looked up at the sign and then back at him

Weapon: "this your... Uhhh. Headquarters?"

Tomura: "well what do you know. It is... Thanks for talking and walking with me. I can see now why Dabi likes you."

Weapon: "i- uhm- thank you, it was nice talking to Dabi's boss"

Tomura: "haha boss. Okay, I have to go now. I'll see you around... Weaponstress"

Weapon: "next time I do I'll have to catch ya" she joked before turning around and started making her way back to her apartment.

❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥

Tomura gave her one last smile, this time, a more genuine one. Before he walked inside, going down the set of stairs and up to the bar to sit down on a stool, he took out his packet of sour patch Kids and began munching on them.

Not so long after he came in, Dabi began walking down the set of stairs too, looking down to see Tomura, he walked up to him. Clearing his throat.

Dabi: "so... You were with weaponstress?"

Tomura: "heh, you were stalking us weren't you?"

Dabi: ".... "

Dabi: "what's it to you?"

Tomura: "oh nothing, I was just asking that's all" he answered, chuckling to himself before looking up at Dabi.

Tomura: "pretty, but she's not my type. So don't worry, she's in your hands."

Dabi: "okay. So... What we're you two talking about?"

Tomura: "oh I was just ranting to her about my hatred for all might and also talking about some other things"

Dabi: "sick"

Tomura: "and she was also talking about how cool your quirk is" he mentions with a smirk.

Dabi stood there, blushing at the fact that she liked his quirk. It made him get a few ideas for what he's gonna do to her next time he sees her.

Dabi: "I see... Thanks for telling me that, Shigaraki." He said before turning around and walked up the set of stairs again as he started making his way back to his apartment as well... Not knowing that both him and Kiki live in the same apartment... Who knows what could happen next..

Authors note: Hiya!! Late update, it's usually nightly. But I fell asleep last night due to being overtired lolz. But also I hope you enjoy this?!!! And yes, Tomura and Kiki are besties to be 👀👀

[albatris]

I'm mixing up names and pronouns so sorry about that but can I please hear more about the vampire who thought they were hungry for someone's baking when they were really thirsty for blood 🥺that excerpt was so neat

:D yay I'm glad you liked it!! thank u for the kind words...!!

that's Nat! poor guy. he recently woke up on the side of the road covered in mud in his rental car with no memory of the past ten days... oh, and he's somehow turning into a vampire now! surprise!

so ya, he has no reason initially to suspect the mystery delicious scent he keeps smelling is human blood.... he doesn't know vampires exist let alone that he is one!! he's just broke n hungry n thinkin about sweet baked goods......

he's an anxious, awkward lad with a big heart and lots of feelings about things. he loves animals! especially cats! and in the story will soon come into possession of a very odd ugly scrungly rescue cat named Grub, who is the light of his life c: he's a vegetarian and an excellent cook, and shows his love for others by cooking their favourite dishes :3 he is incredibly smart and did well back in high school, but as an adult he's rather apathetic and unmotivated, n struggles with his self-esteem quite a bit 😔

Nat works (mostly) night shifts at dodgy petrol station chain Stop 'N' Go, where he takes naps on the clock and encourages shoplifting. he becomes a manager in book two purely by accident, but doesn't stick at it very long

he has schizotypal personality disorder too (like me!), which means he struggles a lot with paranoid ideation and social situations, as well as some mild psychosis. he struggles to make and keep friends, but he really does love people and being included in a friendship group, even if he's pretty nervous. his desperation for friendship often leads to him overextending himself though - kiddo will do almost anything to feel useful and liked :c

Nat's character arc mostly focuses on him learning his place in the world and becoming steadfast in his own values, and LEARNING what those values are n not letting himself get pushed around so much. he's an earnest, kind-hearted dude who wants to do good in the world, and he's trying to balance this with the fact that he now has to feed on human life to survive

he's also trying to solve the mystery of what happened during his ten day disappearance...... aaaand he might end up on a quest to kill and eat the centre of the giant vampire hivemind known as "the Garble" at some point. nbd <3

Nat's vampirism comes with a monster mode! it kicks in when he's extremely stressed or extremely hungry, and has rather too many mouths and eyes and claws. in this state, he is still able to recognise friends, but it takes him a lot more effort and concentration, and he's unable to understand unfamiliar humans or vampires as anything other than food, threats, or resources. it's a painful transformation and Nat really doesn't like going monster mode. it's very scary for him and can be very dangerous for others around him. his partner Quinn and his friends Alex and Zeke can usually calm him down though..... his other friend Yvonne will stay as far away from monster mode Nat as possible, thank you very much

Nat's preferred prey is abusive bosses and dirtbag CEOs and rich pricks, etc etc etc, all of which his own personal rich prick, Quinn, helps him track down and access. he is also not above eating particularly awful customers hahaha. like. if someone is screaming in his face for no reason or it's some creepy dude harassing one of his younger female co-workers, yeah, he might just go for a little spontaneous snack. can you blame him

so yeah! that's a lil about my boy Nat! he's the protagonist and main viewpoint character of "a rental car takes a left down rake street and disappears", the horror trilogy I'm working on atm :D

[masterbradleysblog]

So It's now Sunday morning and my Roxanne Slapper who I fully own and have totally transformed since he was a cocky little skinhead 3 years ago 😂😂😂 (Unknown to him being a Skinhead in my book is a serious crime)

So My Slapper is being punished (Read the rest of my blog on tumblr@ slapper-sw-h-13 to find out why)

Waking up Sunday morning I immediately wanted an update on how Slapper is Fairing having put her in a Diaper for the first time as voted by the voters in a Poll I ran. It's now hour 32 out of 48. She told me she couldn't hold out any more and 💩 herself, infact unfortunately for her a BIG 💩😂😂. And she now believes homer diaper is maxed out as its heavily soaked and now has something extra added that she absolutely was dreading happen. So I Said that's good and to remember the reason why your in this diaper in the first place. I told her to send me photos of your diaper so I can show everyone what A dirty naughty girl you've been abd to remember one very important thing Slapper. DONT EVER GO AGAINST A DECISION OR COMMAND AGAIN AGAINST YOUR MADTER OR WHAT THE VOTERS VOTED FOR.

Now as part of your punishment I want you out walking and wearing your diaper on full show abd your to go to the cash machine at the local petrol station and walk through your your local shopping precinct and back home to show everyone your now there local street worker that wears a dirty filled diaper Thar will enhance your local reputation on your estate. Oh I Also want photos of you to show everyone on your blogs.

Good Luck 😂

[pink-apocalypse]

My first artfight piece, of @arvemisarts’s character from my Monster of The Week oneshot last yeah heheh

His name is Ernest and he’s a werewolf thing and also a disgruntled petrol station worker hehe

[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sees-signs-kharkiv-front-stabilising-warns-buildup-near-sumy-region-2024-05-14/

[hazel-of-sodor]

What's Lost is Found

Ch.8 The Resting Village

Other Chapters

Gwyn, Freda. And Mali brought their meals out to Screech and ate on the edge of the station platform beside her. They had also brought several old loaves of bread the Cafe had warmed for Screech. Screech had never quite understood the U&DR's tendency to give their engine human snacks, it wasn't like engines needed food, but she wasn't self-punishing enough to turn away warm bread.

An old wolfhound lay next to the humans, begging for treats, ignoring the full bowl of kibble against the station wall.

Freda had been telling Mali of a childhood visit to Lloergan when Miss Morgan approached, carrying her own meal.

"Was your meeting with the Mayor a success?" Gwyn asked as she sat down next to him.

Miss Morgan took a long sip of tea before answering. "It depends on your definition of success. They want us to reopen the line here. Their businesses have suffered since the line's closure, and they hope that if the line reopens, some of those who moved away will return."

Mali was skeptical, "Would that be enough? When I was younger Lloergan was filled with life, the largest city from Uman to Glain now..." She looked over the town skeptically, "I hardly recognize it."

Miss Morgan sat down her sandwich and appeared to seriously consider the question.

"It's hard to say. The loss of the freight line crippled the town, restoring it won't save the businesses already lost, but it might encourage the growth of old ones." She shook her head, "The point is mute either way...until we find another engine, we can't handle the extra traffic."

"Unless the other railway closes the line from Harlech." Freda mused.

Mali tapped a foot against Screech's running board, "I don't suppose you can just summon us another engine Miss Screech?"

Screech let her eyes swirl hypnotically as she looked over to the teenager, "So eager to meet another of my kind Little Thief?"

Mali gulped as the world seemed to twist around her, barely noticing Gwyn and Freda chuckling at her expense. "Are there others like you?" She asked nervously.

"Hmmm..." Screech lifted her gaze from Mali, who was left shivering even after the gaze had left her. "I highly doubt I am the only engine to ever fall...but something tells me they would take a different form to my own."

"Would they be willing to help us if you called?" Miss Morgan asked.

"I would not put you at such risk." Screech hissed, her tendrils whipping anxiously. "They would be more likely to destroy you all than to help you."

Freda frowned, "you were hardly malicious towards us when you arrived."

"I held my wrath for the sake of your engines, it is unlikely others would be so merciful. One does not defy death out of goodwill."

Screech shook her head, "And that is even if they could hear my call...assuming they even exist."

Miss Morgan stood, brushing off her pants, "So there's no way to cheat ourselves an engine then."

"Not unless you want me to steal one from a scrapyard."

Miss Morgan snorted, "I'd rather keep you off the other railway's radar, and the old scrapyard has been abandoned for years."

"Old scrapyard?" Mali asked. "I don't remember there being a scrapyard."

"It was closed around the same time the branch to Argol was," Gwyn said. He casually waved his thermos towards an abandoned switch that led into the forest. "Hegni, the railway's freight engine at the time, a sharp stewart 0-8-0 built-in..."

"Ahem." Freda interrupted.

"Quite right dear, Hegni pulled the cars full of scrap to Din. They never dealt in locomotives thankfully, although our lorry was saved from there."

Mali blinked, "Arwen?"

"The same! Her old owner decided she was out of date and wanted a modern petrol lorry. Luckily the owner of the yard knew me and called me straight away. She was in the shops by nightfall."

He paused, sipping at his coffee, "One of the few good things coming from the line being closed was the end of him. Horrid man treated his workers as poorly as his lorries..."

"There will be no engines at the yard then?"

Gwyn shook his head. The yard closed only a few weeks after they closed the line, and we were the only railway to service them. Any engine sent there would have had to pass by our lines." He hesitated, "I suppose there could be a lorry or tractor there, but no locomotives."

Screech reached out, searching for any sign of life from the direction of the scrapyard. A vague sense of sadness and exhaustion drifted from the forest, but the only active life she sensed was coming from behind her.

'If there were any there.' The whisper mused 'They've long since faded.'

Instead of answering, Screech informed her crew of Blaidd's approach.

Soon the little tank engine pulled past Screech's cars and stopped beside her, a new line of empty flatbeds behind her.

"Well, you made it further than I expected."

Screech raised an eyebrow, "oh?"

"I expected to find you still on the hill fighting the brambles."

"You do remember what happened to the truck?" Freda asked in askance.

"That's fair." Blaidd conceded

"Wait, that story is true?!" Mali squeaked.

"Aye, the big lass knocked the fight out of the buggers for weeks after that."

Mali's eyes were wide as she turned to Screech, "You blew up a truck?!"