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whositmcwhatsit · 1 year ago

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PART TWO

A/N: So, this has kind of unravelled... or unfolded... or collapsed like a... collapsing thing.

It's a silly, spooky, smutty love letter to Elvis, motels, small towns, ghosts, mysteries, and, erm, pine trees, with a ton of Elvis references and easter eggs that I think only I'm sad and nerdy enough to get.

Putting this out into the tumblr void in the hope that someone else might find some enjoyment from it too.

Catch up on Part 1

Everyone had congregated to eat in one of the other guys’ rooms. Elvis was reclined on the bed with his shoes on but wearing an entirely different outfit to the gray slacks and dark blue shirt he had been clad in while driving. Now he was all in black, but the captain’s hat was still in place.

Cheryl had heard girls outside, she was sure of it. She had even turned up the radio to drown out one particularly shiver-inducing shriek that could have only been made by someone overcome with emotion. From all the racket, she had been sure that she would see at least a hundred girls in a crowd outside. She surveyed the road and the trees beyond, trying to fashion a scenario that made sense.

After watching them devour their food like a pride of lions over a carcass, Cheryl understood why Elvis chose someone else’s room to eat in if he wanted all his guys around him. She picked at the overcooked meat and nibbled on some fries, but her stomach was too tense to allow much food inside. She had a strange feeling, like she had forgotten something or left it behind, but she couldn’t think what that would be, outside of her poor crumpled car by the side of the road.

Spreading out the paper napkin to cover her largely untouched meal, Cheryl brushed off her lap and fixed the group with a pleasant smile.

“Well, thank you so much for your hospitality. I should probably be heading back to my room, I’m going to have a long day tomorrow.”

“You can’t be going to bed yet!” Elvis teased. “It’s early! It’s not even little Billy’s bedtime yet!” The slight man he nodded towards pulled a face and made as if to swipe at Elvis, but was never in danger of making contact, especially after Elvis dodged with a raucous laugh.

“Goodnight,” Cheryl said quietly to a background of banter and manly tussling. She turned as she stepped out onto the sheltered walkway and gasped as someone brushed by her in a canvas raincoat.

“Oh, excuse m-” The walkway was empty in both directions.

Cheryl’s arm still tingled from where the stiff material of the coat had brushed against her skin, but her brain was struggling with the contradiction given by her eyes. She briefly considered turning and knocking on the room door again, but then she caught sight of neon behind the squat little motel office and made a new plan.

Forty minutes later, she was sitting at a table in the bar/restaurant nursing a martini and some barbecue wings. A couple of the patrons, men in rumpled shirts sitting at the bar, had given her a long look when she had walked in, but they had since gone back to their beers.

The waitress made conversation with her, saying that she was a nice change from her usual clientele and she got excited when Cheryl explained what she was doing in the area.

“Oh my grandma had the sight!” she whispered, glancing towards the bar before dipping onto the seat beside Cheryl. “And, you know, my folks said that when I was a little girl, I wouldn’t walk past one of the houses on our block? Just flat out refused to do it. I always said a strange man was staring at me, but there was never anyone there.”

Cheryl nodded and smiled, eager to keep her companion for a little longer so that she could stay in the warmth and light without worrying about the heavy-set gentlemen at the bar deciding that she needed company.

“How about here?” she asked, trying to look nonchalant as she blotted barbecue sauce from her lips with her napkin. “Did you ever see anything here? Or at the motel?”

The waitress scoffed as she lit a cigarette and waved it airily at the barman to let him know she was taking a break.

“Here? Nothing happens at the Cozy Pines. Just truckers and the odd tourists who didn’t stop in time in Portland but can’t quite make it to Seattle. The same family has even had the place as long as I’ve been alive. Old Bob Rochelle was manager for years until he had a hunting accident by the river. Still lives there though in the old honeymoon suite. His son Steve runs it all now.”

Cheryl thought about taking a walk over to the office and having a chat with Steve. She weighed up her curiosity about the figure in the raincoat and the screaming girls against the potential awkwardness of the conversation. She could try the reporter angle and pretend she was writing about local history for her college newspaper, that one usually worked without making people stare strangely at her. However, Steve was a businessman, a man whose trade relied on people looking at his establishment and seeing comfort and respite. He probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming about events traumatic enough to leave an echo.

“Say, did you hear that Elvis Presley is staying at the motel right now?” the waitress asked her. “I don’t know how true that is, but I heard it from Betty, whose husband is the manager. Didn’t sign in under his name, of course, but Steve thought he caught sight of him in the group. I’m going to head over after my shift and see if it’s true.”

“Elvis? Really?” Cheryl grimaced doubtfully. “Wouldn’t he stay in a fancy hotel in the city? I didn’t realize that times were so tough for him.”

The waitress ground out her cigarette and took out a compact and her lipstick from the little pocket in the front of her apron, reapplying her lipstick.

“Well, it’s probably bullhockey,” she agreed. “Still, I’m not taking the risk. My high school steady wouldn’t let me go back when Elvis did a show up this way. He was jealous, like all the boys.” She rolled her eyes and twisted the cap back on her lipstick. “I should have gone, the memories would’ve lasted longer than Teddy Davis, I’ll tell you that.”

Another couple of guys walked into the smoky, noisy interior of the bar as the waitress returned to work. It took Cheryl a little while to recognise them out of their coveralls. A lot of her work involved reading people, taking in the lines and details; she wasn’t much of a ‘big picture’ or whole face person.

Still, she was a woman alone in a bar and she sensed their interest, their attention on her as they strolled past her table. One of them took a table in the corner, while the other headed towards the phone, hung into a visored cubby beneath a stark bare light bulb.

A few minutes later, he was standing at her table.

“Hey, uh, Miss, the Boss has been looking for you. He wanted a word before you turned in.”

Cheryl smiled into the rim of her martini glass at the play pretend and the subterfuge. ‘The Boss’, ‘wanting a word’. She had half a mind to stay and order another drink, but she hadn’t been lying earlier: it was going to be a long day tomorrow if she intended to get her car at least roadworthy and travel the last few hours to Seattle.

“Of course,” she replied demurely, rising and leaving some rumpled bills on the table. She waved to the waitress on the way out, followed uncomfortably closely by Elvis’ guy.

Walking through the scrubby boundary between the restaurant parking lot and the motel, Cheryl paused as she took in the sheer number of automobiles now parked outside. There was a large mob of teenagers and even some older adults standing at the foot of the stairs to the second floor and a couple of cops looking bemused beside a tall, lean man in a striped shirt that Cheryl supposed was Steve the manager. They stopped her and Elvis’ friend/employee as they approached the steps.

“We’re staying here,” her escort informed the officers, shaking his key with the room number etched into it. Cheryl took her cue from him and fished her key from her purse. After examining the fob carefully as if he suspected her of sitting in the woods painstakingly whittling a forgery, the uniformed officer stood aside and waved her on.

The crowd started to chant as she climbed the steps and she wondered how she was ever going to get any sleep.

“You go to your room,” her charming companion instructed. “I’ll let him know you’re back.” She unlocked her door and gave his retreating back a sarcastic salute before stepping inside.

As she turned on the lamp, Cheryl had the strongest feeling that someone was waiting for her. If she had illuminated a figure sitting in the chair beside the dresser, she would not have been surprised, her sense of a presence was so strong, but the light thrown against the walls by the lamp just showed the spartan furniture and its shadows.

The interconnecting door opened again. Elvis tapped on it once he had opened it and caught sight of her. She had never known anyone to knock as a greeting instead of a request to enter.

“Come on in,” she said dryly, placing her purse on the nightstand and kicking off her shoes. He did, his vast aura engulfing the room and smothering the sense of that other presence she had felt. She raised her eyebrows as she registered the forcefully bland expression on his face and the way that he seemed to be grasping for words. He was annoyed.

“Goddamn weasel in the office ratted us out,” he snapped finally. He paused in the center of the room and encircled his wrist with his other hand, flexing his fingers. “Hate that underhanded shit. We’re customers just like everyone else, we deserve some damn privacy.” He shook his head and sighed. “Guess it don’t matter, they always find out anyway.”

“That must get annoying.” She perched on the edge of her bed. “A policeman down there tried to stop me from coming back to my room and I found that irritating enough.”

Elvis thought about it, his thick black lashes fluttering as he blinked. Cheryl felt a little fondness for the way that he seemed to consider her comment so carefully.

“No, uh, not annoying. Being sold out by that sonovabitch down there gets me heated, but people coming out… I mean they care enough to get in their cars and drive on over here in the cold and dark and everything… I appreciate that. It means something.”

“You’re grateful,” she put in, thinking back to their conversation in the motor home.

“Sure…” He knocked the side of his fist against his thigh, looking around her room. “Sure. Uh, you know, a couple of my guys saw you at the bar across the way. I tell ya, you gotta be more careful, honey. A good girl like you shouldn’t be going to places like that all alone. People might get the wrong idea.”

Cheryl’s eyebrows shot up and she had to rein in her laughter when she saw that he was serious. Deadly, earnestly serious.

“The wrong idea,” she parroted instead, glad that her voice didn’t quaver.

“Uh huh,” he shifted uncomfortably, looking somewhere near her right knee. “They might think you’re- That is-” He cleared his throat. “You just gotta be careful. You’re lucky you ran into little ole us, really.”

Cheryl’s mind was whirling with responses, most of them sarcastic and some of them resentful, but she discarded them all as he bit his lip and came to sit down next to her on the edge of her bed.

“Now don’t go getting yourself all worked up,” he murmured, fingers grazing her kneecap. “I ain’t saying nothing bad about you, baby. I know you’re a good girl-”

“I’m not that much of a good girl,” Cheryl interjected, putting her hand on one of his thighs. She felt the muscle tense and twitch against her palm.

Her hand flexed on his thigh as the other ran up his chest and grasped his collar. He wasn’t even touching her and yet her skin was tingling all over; all over. When his hand finally settled on her waist, his thumb kneading into the curve as the heat radiated through her cotton blouse, she let out a helpless moan. Then the lights started to flicker.

“W-w-well, there’s such a thing as too good,” he murmured, and they both laughed a little under their breath as they drew closer. His lips were soft, full and he used them skilfully like a tool he had mastered.

Most men, at least the ones that Cheryl had kissed, thought of kissing as a trailer for the upcoming feature: tight lips, plunging tongue, unrelenting pressure that she had to yield to.

Elvis’ kiss was gentle, not timid but playful and tender. His lips brushed against hers, nuzzling and massaging. Then he pulled back slightly, tilted his head and she caught the slightest hint of a smile as he parted his lips and his tongue teased its way into her mouth.

With her eyes squeezed shut and her mind otherwise engaged, Cheryl barely noticed, lost in a maelstrom of soft breath and tickling, warm pressure, but, as the bulbs grew brighter, they let out a loud buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. They pulled apart, looking around, and suddenly the lamp beside the bed gave off a loud pop as the bulb exploded and left them with an image seared on their retinas and a cluster of broken glass over the nightstand.

Cheryl couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, but she sensed Elvis’ head turn from the lamp to her face and he nuzzled into the line of her throat, his nose cold against the skin behind her ear.

“Did I blow your bulb too, baby?” he rumbled in a deep bass, and they both broke into giggles. She enjoyed the way he laughed with his whole body, dragging her into it, his arms tight around her shoulders.

“What happened, do you think?” she asked, staring at the glass fragments as she finally calmed down.

“Power surge maybe?” He sounded like he was used to objects exploding and the rules of science and technology bending around him. He probably was. “The hell if I know.”

He let out a little boyish moan as he once again buried his face in her neck. The nerve that twitched at the feel of his hot breath went right down her spine and between her legs, which she was already clenching together.

“I should go out there,” he said, words almost entirely muffled against her throat.

“You know, the waitress told me that Elvis was staying at this motel,” she told him, angling her head as he nipped at her skin and then soothed it with a kiss. “I said that I didn’t realize he was that hard up.”

Another huff of a laugh right into the crook of her neck and she had to cross her legs, feeling far from being a good girl.

“Hard up,” he murmured under his breath as he rose, the emphasis he put on the words made her cheeks rapidly heat like that lightbulb. She tried to busy herself clearing up the mess on the table to hide her embarrassment.

“Hey Cheryl?” It was the softness of his voice, almost breathless, that made her look up as he turned into the doorway between their rooms.

“Yes?”

“Can you.. uh, see a spirit around me?”

Cheryl had seen that same look he was wearing countless times before on many other people, a cocktail of hope and fear, and, just like always, she tried not to disappoint.

“Well, um, let me see.” She squinted and focused on the empty space around him, letting his handsome face blur and fade with some regret.

“I can’t be sure,” she hedged, “but I’m picking up something, a strong feeling… love. You’ve lost someone you loved very much… No, someone who loved you very much…” She quickly let her eyes zoom in on his face, checking for the tiny tells, tension around the eyes, tightening of the mouth, and movement of the pupils.

This should have been easy, he was one of the most famous men in the world and every aspect of his life was publicized, but Cheryl had never been much of a fan of popular music. She had never even seen one of his movies.

“You don’t see nothing, do you.” His jaw muscle flexed as he turned away and she thought she glimpsed a sheen in his eyes, but he was blinking very rapidly. “I-I guess I knew you wouldn’t. I don’t feel-” He shot her a fast, rueful smile and crinkled his eyes. It was the smile of someone who was always careful not to make people uncomfortable with their emotions. More than the promise of money, this made her want to tell him comforting lies.

“I don’t always see what’s there, not straight away,” she said. “Especially if the spirit was very close to the person in life. They tend to cleave closer and blend with the aura of the person I’m reading, because they’re cut from the same cloth, so to speak.”

He nodded, that socially appeasing smile still faint on his lips, and she knew he didn’t believe her.

As Cheryl was scooping the last of the glass into the wastepaper basket, a communal shriek went up that signaled Elvis’ emergence from his room. Now that she had heard it, she realized that the screams she had heard earlier were not excited, not hysterical with joy and desire, they had been terrified.

“I heard you,” she said quietly into the stillness of the room. You have terrible timing, she thought very loudly in her head.

With a sigh, she jammed her aching feet back into her pumps and yanked on her jacket, peering through the net curtains at the window. It was an information gathering opportunity too good to pass up. Half the town was down there milling beneath the window, including cops who might be distracted enough by having to wrangle wailing women that they might answer her strange questions without getting too interested in her.

It sounded like a carnival as she stepped outside her door. There were car radios blaring the same Elvis songs, presumably the local radio station showing deference to their prestigious visitor. People were laughing and talking and rushing backwards and forwards like they were lining up for rides.

It took a moment for Cheryl to locate Elvis in the center of it. He seemed to have changed into his third outfit of the day before venturing out and was now accessorizing his captain’s hat with a light blue neckerchief. She found herself imagining untying it with her teeth and she flushed even though no one could have possibly known what she was thinking about.

Nearly all of Elvis’ guys were clustered around him in a knot, a tense and frowning wall of boys that could not have been more in contrast to the man they were encircling, who was grinning and laughing and glowing in the center of them. She supposed they were employed to do the worrying for him.

Hopping from the last step, Cheryl took a wide arc around the main action and scanned the faces. Finally, she sidled up to a little group of girls who were leaning against a car and giggling over a folded magazine.

“Hi,” she smiled and tried to look innocent. For some reason, she always had to make that effort, something about her natural resting face always made people suspicious. “Do you know what’s going on over there?”

“Elvis Presley!” one of the girls cried. “He’s stopped here, of all places, on his way up to Seattle for a movie!”

“Oh wow!” Cheryl marveled. She was putting on a voice, why was she putting on a voice?! “That’s wild! I love Elvis!”

“He’s really the most!” one of the girls agreed.

“I’m just so glad I was listening to the radio when they announced it,” said another. “Can you imagine if we had missed it?!”

“I’m just glad it’s happened now and not when old Mr Rochelle was in charge. My folks would’ve never let me come!”

Recognition pinged in Cheryl’s mind and she zoomed in on this girl, who was blithely kissing the scrawled autograph on her forearm.

“Why wouldn’t they have let you come?” She kicked herself for the intensity she heard in her voice, but luckily the other girls were too distracted to notice it.

“What? I’m not saying they’re true, just that people talked. They said that old Mr Rochelle was…” Even this girl seemed to demure suddenly, glancing around as if someone might overhear. “He was just creepy.”

“Because of the stories,” the girl replied absently. One of the others hissed:

“Jane!”

“Was?” Cheryl prompted, wondering how far she could push without drawing suspicion. “He’s still alive, right?”

“Yeah, but he can’t walk. Not after… what happened.”

“Jane, that was just an accident. You are such a storyteller! You should be careful that people don’t start telling stories about you!”

Seeing them descending into squabbling, Cheryl moved on in case they reconciled by uniting against the outsider who instigated everything. She tried a few more girls, but they were far too distracted by the object of their desire standing in the parking lot to put words together into sentences.

Finally, Cheryl caught sight of the waitress- She wished she had asked her name- and she wandered over, having to focus on making her steps seem casual and not rushed.

“Hi there!” she smiled. “Seems like the rumors were true!” Cheryl watched recognition flash in the woman’s eyes.

“Had to happen eventually!” she agreed.

“So, have you spoken to the great man himself?” she asked, feeling a little bad at the deception since the waitress had been so nice to her.

“Not yet. I’m biding my time, it’ll be curfew soon and the cops will chase the teenyboppers out of here. I don’t want to risk having my eyes clawed out before then!”

“Ha, yes, probably wise.” She shook her head as the waitress offered her a cigarette. “Are you from here originally?”

“Born and raised. Why? Can you see the hope draining out of my eyes?” Cheryl really liked the waitress.

“I was just wondering how much you know about the Rochelle family. You mentioned they’d run this place for a long time, and the girls over there were saying there were some stories about them?”

The waitress squinted across the parking lot. “Oh yeah, well, their mothers listen in to the party lines instead of watching television. You know how small towns are.”

“And no girls ever… disappeared or anything?” Cheryl wanted to reel the words back in as soon as they flopped out of her mouth and floundered in the dark, cold, damp air. The warmth rapidly cooled in the waitress’s eyes and Cheryl gave her an awkward, grimacing smile and edged away.

“Of course,” Cheryl murmured, though all she knew of small towns was what she glimpsed as she passed through them with her family when they were on the circuit.

“I know what the gossip says,” the waitress said shortly. “But Bob was always nothing but polite and kind to me. He gave me my first job as a maid at the motel back when I was in high school.”

That left only the police, but they all seemed very busy now that curfew had fallen and some kids were trying to defy it, lingering in the parking lot, trying to talk themselves out of having to leave. Cheryl slowly rotated, looking for a younger officer, maybe someone who looked like they had something to prove and would open up to someone willing to be impressed.

Cheryl’s eyes instead snagged on Elvis, who had glanced up from the crowd of people surrounding him, eyebrows raised inquiringly, almost as if she had called him. He flashed her a smile, not the irrepressible grin she had bathed in back in her room, but the crooked ‘Elvis’ smile that was almost his trademark. She realized she might well have never seen him in a movie or attended one of his shows, but she had certainly seen a performance now. His attention was drawn back to the older ladies who were taking their turn now that the teens had been forced back home, and she finally managed to blink.

“You should go on and head upstairs now. He’ll be done in a minute.” She flinched at the low voice to her left.

“Joe, right?” she asked of the man who had appeared at her side.

“He’ll be done in a minute,” he repeated in a flat tone.

“That’s nice,” she returned, turning away.

Cheryl’s mother always said that Cheryl’s biggest weakness was her stubbornness. And she was right, but Cheryl was obviously never going to admit that.

Likewise, she had just been about to head back upstairs to puzzle over this little mystery she had found herself wrapped up in, but now that Joe had told her that she had to, she had to force herself to stand in the cold, dark parking lot until Elvis and his gang went back upstairs. Those were the rules.

Cheryl made one last attempt to talk to one of the police officers, but after all the excitement of the evening they seemed to have got their fill of young women and coolly told her to be moving along. She risked a glance back and Elvis was still talking, flanked by adoring middle aged fans he had his arms around.

She rubbed her own goose-pimpled arms and swore under her breath. She was going back to her room because she was cold, she told herself, not because some lackey ordered her to. It didn’t make her feel any better as she stomped up the concrete steps and she kept her head high in case she looked down and saw them smirking at her. Ugh.

“Who are they to be telling me what to do,” she muttered, unlocking her door and switching on the overhead light. “I’m a grown woman, do they think-”

Tossing her jacket onto the chair, she looked up just as a girl with a swollen, tearstained face started to run at her, her face contorted by a soundless scream. Letting out a shriek, Cheryl collapsed back against the door and braced for impact, but it never came. She opened her eyes and took in the empty room.

“Stop doing that!” she snapped, trying to sound like her heart wasn’t positioned somewhere in her windpipe, racing a hundred miles an hour. “I’m trying, okay?!”

It wasn’t like people imagined, Cheryl didn’t even think it was much of a ‘gift’ as such. There were no silvery silhouettes standing in a line waiting patiently to pass on reassuring words to their loved ones on the earthly plane. And Cheryl wasn’t some mystical disk jockey taking messages and playing them out over the airwaves.

“This one goes out to Barbara from Rod: sorry for the fifty years of marital neglect, and my will is hidden under the floorboard beneath my easy chair in the den. Next up, ‘Earth Angel’ by The Penguins.”

If only! No, instead it was silent, sepia, mimed mirages and flashy, nausea-inducing replays of trauma and horror. Other times, it was voices that sounded like they were being played at half-speed while underwater in the next room. Her ‘gifts’ had never been intended for use as a career and the more she tried to pretend that she was a worker on a production line, cranking out the latest in comforting and reassuring products, the more they acted up, twisted and turned on her.

“God gave you this talent,” her great grandmother would tell her in the old tongue, refusing to speak the language of the cursed invaders. “Not PT Barnum, God.”

Unfortunately, God hadn’t given her any other talents or inclinations she could profit from, so she had been forced to disappoint Granny O’Donahoe, but then poor Granny had been disappointed from the moment she first breathed air in that little stone peat-roofed cottage back in the old country, that was nothing new.

Cheryl was still trying to shake the icy fear that she had walked into like a fog, or like a fog that had walked into her, and she didn’t hear the knock or register Elvis standing in the doorway at first. She tuned in halfway through his sentence, which was something about an autograph.

“Sorry?”

“I said, you went all the way down for an autograph, but you never came over, honey. You scared of me?”

She forced a weak smile. “No, I just didn’t have any paper… or a pen.”

“That’s never stopped me before, darlin’. Come on in here and I’ll show you.” He dipped his head, looking at her through his brows with sparkly eyes; his radiant smile half a second away from breaking out across his immaculately made up face. He was a goddamn movie star, standing in her motel room in the middle of a podunk town in Nowheresville. The screaming spirits were the least weird part of this whole situation.

She crossed the floor and stopped in front of him, still a little shaky. He seemed to see it, rubbing his hands slowly up and down her arms, soothing her even as he was leaning in to shake her up all over again with his soft lips.

The flat of his hands left the relatively platonic zone of her arms, sliding against her rib cage as he bent her backwards like they were in some romantic Hollywood epic. She gripped his shoulders for balance, feeling his palms travel the outline of her waist and hips before moving back to join in cupping her ass, tugging her against him.

When he drew back, leaving her gasping for air, all the blood rushed to her face and… other places. She could only stare at his lips, the curves and creases, as he said:

“I’d like you to come into my room. Will you do that, sweetheart?”

Cheryl’s heart gave a squeeze at the ‘sweetheart’, and the soft, gentle way he said it. That didn’t mean that she was going to make it easy for him though.

“Why can’t we stay in my room?” she asked. She noticed that he hadn’t ventured any further than the threshold. She wondered if he felt it too, that lingering miasma of terror and pain.

“I’m doing you a favor, honey, there’s faulty wiring in here or somethin’. You’re liable to get yourself fried if you stay in here.” He backed into his room. “No way, that ain’t how I’m going out, zapped by a thousand volts with my one-eyed peter hanging out.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to see that quote printed up on a nice poster in the office,” she returned.

The laughter burst out of him like his body couldn’t quite contain it and he dropped backwards onto his bed, laying spread eagle.

“You are too much, honey, get over here!” He propped himself up on his elbows and wiggled his legs invitingly.

Even as she was ambivalently drifting closer, he snorted again, thinking back on her words. She paused with her knee on the bed and struck what she hoped was a seductive pose, pulling the pins and combs from her hair. It gradually unlooped and fanned out across her shoulders.

A smile, absent and unforced, tugged at the corner of his mouth, even as it was falling open, his bottom lip glistening invitingly.

With her hair now loose and unencumbered, Cheryl’s fingers trembled a little as she lifted her hand to the lapels of her blouse and began to unfasten the tiny buttons. Yet again, Elvis seemed to sense her trepidation and shook his head slightly, giving her a little closed-mouth smile.

“Come sit down, honey,” he coaxed, patting the bed beside him. “Let’s get comfy and cozy.”

“As cozy as a pine tree,” they finished together. He winked and nodded.

“Exactly.”

She clambered onto the bed as gracefully as she could in her tight knee length skirt and sat beside him, tucking her feet beneath her.

“See,” he murmured, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “Ain’t that better?” She was in no position to reply as he rained down warm, wet kisses on her face, snagging her mouth and tangling her tongue with his own.

With almost painful slowness, he cradled her across the shoulders and gradually let her descend against the pillows, even while his other hand was unbuttoning her blouse.

Cheryl shivered and tried to ground herself, exploring the shape of him with her hands, marveling at the heat that radiated through his clothes, the firm softness of his sides and the sharpness of his shoulders.

Awkwardly moving his arms around hers, he slipped her blouse off her shoulders and expertly unfastened her bra with a flick of his fingers, his twitching eyebrow and twinkling eyes almost requesting her awe. Instead, she rose slightly, bending at the waist, and entwined her arm around his neck, pulling him down onto her and hearing him moan softly, boyishly into her mouth.

It took almost all the restraint she had not to rub up against him like a bear with an itch, her core almost aching for the feeling of pressure, a satisfying answer to the throbbing between her legs. She knew, however, that her skirt was too tight to allow her to spread her legs, to entwine them around him as they longed to.

When he tugged her slightly onto her side so that he could get to the padded button at the back of her waistband, she started to unfasten his shirt, smiling slightly at the sight of the sparse hair curling against his chest. Unable to help herself, she leant forward and licked a strip from the middle of his sternum to the hollow of his throat, moaning as her tongue tingled from the salty taste. She finally got the chance to tug at one end of his neckerchief with her teeth, but all that served to do was tighten the knot and almost strangle him.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she whispered, as he paused in his task of tugging down her skirt to loosen the bind around his neck. He shook his head, his apple cheeks brimming as he fixed her with a boyish smile, and deftly tied the scarf around her bare throat, using the ends to pull her forward, crushing her mouth against his own. She reached over and grabbed the captain's hat by the brim, placing it on top of her head, letting it sit jauntily over one eye.

Elvis smoothed down his hair with his hands, grinning at her as she struck a pose and saluted. Finally, he grabbed the hat and frisbeed it onto the dresser with impressive accuracy.

“You want your autograph now?” he murmured, voice almost slurred. She gazed without comprehension into his heavy lidded eyes. In response, he drew back and she whined a little, making him huff a laugh as he tugged her up too, the both of them facing each other bare chested and flushed.

With tantalizing slowness, he traced his nail along the inside of her thigh, swirling and skating across the skin as he signed his name.

“There ya go, now you’re mine,” he murmured, smiling lazily with sleepy eyes.

“Uh uh.” She shook her head; he mirrored her and pouted

“No?”

“Just that leg,” she informed him, her lips somehow both tingling and numb. “Just that leg belongs to you.”

“Aw man, well, I can’t have that.” His long fingers flicked the top of her panties and she squeaked, but then he scrawled his ‘autograph’ in large letters across her stomach, before doing the same with her other leg.

“Now, see,” he hummed meditatively, “normally I give out a kiss with my autograph.”

“Oh, you do? Well, then you gotta be fair.”

“Yeah, gotta be,” he murmured, leaning in and missing her mouth altogether. Instead, his lips and the delicious scrape of his stubble grazed the velvety skin of her breast, dragging with delicious sharpness across to her aching, pebbling nipple.

When he looked up at her cheekily through his brows, his dark blue eyes murky against the shadow of his black eyebrows and his smudged mascara, she started seeing double; it was too much for her mind to comprehend. She wasn’t sure whether she was going to succumb to pleasure or unconsciousness.

He stuck out the tip of his tongue, painstakingly slowly extending it towards her pink nipple as she held her breath and started to see stars.

“Elvis, please,” she mouthed, her voice almost gone. When he still didn’t take that final step, she tugged on his hair at the nape of his neck.

“Ow, watch it!” His eyes flashed with genuine anger for a second and she panicked. Her sex-drunk brain was able only to think of simple solutions, so she petted his hair where she had pulled it, gradually increasing the territory of her hands to include his back and his shoulders and his chest. Yet even in her simplified state, she was surprised to see how he basked in the affection, the loving, tender light back glowing in his gaze.

Finally, he closed his lips around her areola, sucking her breast into the warm, wet cavern of his mouth. She continued to stroke and rub her fingers into his scalp and along the lines of his neck and shoulders as he turned his attention to her other aching breast.

At the same time, one of his hands began to trail down from where they had both been pinning her hips hard to the mattress, like he had been afraid she would float away otherwise. He might have been right. She felt him slide a finger under the leg of her panty and pause, tracing along the line of her lower lips.

“Okay?” he murmured, his words damp and hot against her ear as his mouth had moved back towards her head, nipping at the flickering pulse in her throat and the soft line of her jaw. She nodded, exhaling loudly through her nose.

She felt his finger slide in deeper and her face throbbed as she felt how little resistance he was encountering. What must he think of her, dripping and clenching around his fingers so eagerly, so hungrily?! She tried to look away, craning her neck to try and bury her face in the pillow, but he grabbed her chin with his other hand and pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes still twinkling, but his expression otherwise as serious and real as she had seen all day.

His jaw was clenched and she could make out the sound of him almost grinding his teeth as he pressed his pout against hers like he was trying to control himself and manage the flow against the flood of affection he wanted to give.

He grunted softly and she heard the clink of his belt being unfastened and then felt the material of his pants rustling and brushing against her bare legs. She was impressed by how quickly and gracefully he had managed to whip them off and was about to tease him about it, when she discovered that Elvis did not wear any underwear.

Because she was human, Cheryl tilted her head, trying to get visual confirmation of what she could feel, the heavy, velvety length of him poking and prodding against her slick entrance as he adjusted his position over her. Instead, he lifted her leg behind the knee and pulled it tighter against him, like he wanted to feel the pressure of her around him. It meant that her bent legs were encasing him and blocking her own field of vision.

“So pretty,” he murmured, wiping her hair back from her face with a splayed hand and tickling her cheek and ear with his prickly stubble and lips. “And you feel so good.”

She smiled, wondering if he knew he was talking; there was kind of a mindless automaticity to it, like he was soothing a fretful, wild animal. Her laughter caught in her throat as the pressure increased and a rod of heat slid inside her.

Elvis froze between her legs, obviously feeling her discomfort in the tension of her muscles as they resisted him.

“Shhh, shhh,” he murmured, “It’s okay. Kiss me, baby, just kiss me.” He caught her mouth with his and for a moment, he was everywhere and it was too much. It was just too much.

Cheryl wanted to fight him off, to separate them to reassure herself that she could, that there would still be a her left after they were done. Then, her body relaxed and she found herself again, wrapping her legs around his hips, feeling the round curves of his ass against the backs of her calves as she crossed her legs at the ankles.

Again, she lapped at the line of his throat as he moved over her, nuzzling her nose into the curve of his shoulder, her mouth watering at the musk and the salt and the faint tang of a long-since applied cologne. She explored his body with her hands, enjoying the fact that he was solid and yet soft at the same time, it seemed to fit him somehow. He flinched and let out a muffled squeak as she traced her own autograph down the length of his side. It threw him off his rhythm, but when she whispered into his neck, ‘Now that part is mine.’, his only response was to nod and mumble:

“Okay.”

Regaining his pace, Elvis adjusted his hips, tilting them somehow and the heavy, warm feeling tingling below Cheryl’s belly began to unfurl, to radiate and to send out sparks. Her toes curled, the insoles of her feet tingled and at the deepest, warmest, fullest part of her, waves of pleasure began to ripple outwards with a rush that was almost painful, it felt so good. She couldn’t stop the moan from tearing from her throat, even though she was also trying to heave in a breath. Her thighs spasmed and clenched; She arched her back, pushing her breasts, already flushed and sensitive from his close attention, against the coarse hair of his chest. She could feel his chest shuddering against as he tried to suck in air.

Abruptly, roughly, he wrenched himself free from the grip of her arms and legs. More importantly, she gasped as he pulled out, taking with him the warm, heavy feeling of fullness from within her. She watched in bemusement as he stroked himself a handful of times, before wet warmth splatter onto the surface of her belly.

“Oh God,” he mumbled, his voice soft and high, utterly free from pretense.

For a minute or two, there was only the sound of their breathing as they struggled to fill their aching lungs. Then Elvis leant down and snatched up something from the floor, handing it to her for her to wipe her stomach. It was only afterwards that she realized it was her own blouse.

He pressed a hard kiss into her forehead, practically ramming her head into the pillow, and then he climbed off her and grabbed his robe from the chair by the dresser. Wrapping himself in the dark silk, he padded into the adjoining bathroom and she glimpsed his silhouette in the bright light and shiny tile, before he closed the door behind him.

Cheryl wondered if she was supposed to leave. Was that what all his other conquests did, the Hollywood starlets and the glamorous models? She could well imagine them wrapping themselves back up in their Parisian dresses and fur coats and sweeping out the door. Those types of women probably always knew the correct thing to do.

Cheryl, for whom this had been her first time in a bed and only her third time with a man, had not quite mastered the classy departure. In fact, she was still wallowing in her inferiority when the bathroom door opened again and Elvis clicked off the light. She wondered if he was disappointed to find her still there, clutching her ruined blouse to her chest and staring balefully at the tiled ceiling.

Elvis gave nothing away as he climbed back into bed, Cheryl felt the mattress shifting beneath her as he shuffled across to her. He plucked the blouse from her hands and tossed it onto the floor, then maneuvered her onto her side, pulling her back against his robe-clad front. She felt the weight of the blankets being tossed over her and he snuffled endearingly into the crook of her neck as he got comfortable.

“Mmm, the coziest pine tree in the forest,” he yawned, his minty breath telling her that he had even brushed his teeth in the bathroom, while she was laying naked, sticky and decidedly unfresh in his bed. “Goodnight, darlin’.”

Cheryl felt him peck the outside rim of her ear and had a frightening rush of tenderness for this stranger that felt more like danger than anything else she had felt, seen or heard that day. Spirits she could handle, ghostly apparitions in her bedroom were hardly uncommon; lightbulbs exploding right next to her was a little rarer, but caring about a boy was a worry. Caring about Elvis Presley was downright terrifying.

Once she was sure he was asleep and after she had stared in wonder at his profile and taken in the details of his straight nose and pillowy lips, the curve of his chin and the slope of his forehead. After all that, Cheryl slipped from his bed, gathering her discarded clothing to her chest and hurried back to her room. She didn’t bother turning on the light, not wanting to see if a distressed ghost was about to rush her. Instead, she made sure that the adjoining door was locked.

As she showered, under a trickling, tepid spray, she let her hands follow the pathways that his had taken, scratching at the warm beard rash across her chest, pressing against the slight ache above her pubic bone, her palms flat against her still blushing cheeks. She grinned secretly to herself, thinking about the cresting of that achey, pleasurable wave, her toes scrunching against the slick wet tiles at the memory.

Taglist: @deniseinmn, @vintageshanny, @be-my-ally, @missmaywemeetagain, @ellie-24, @peskybedtime, @thatbanditqueen , @lookingforrainbows

All of which shattered like a sheet of ice when she heard a shout- Elvis’ shout- loud and panicked- and something began pummeling furiously against the locked door.

TO BE CONTINUED (AGAIN) (SORRY!)

#elvis presley #hollywood elvis #60s elvis #elvis fanfic #elvis x oc #elvis fanfiction #elvis presley fanfic #whositmcwhatsit #spooky #smutty #silly

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