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heylittleriotact · 3 days ago

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𝐢 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞

��𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

𝐄𝐦𝐦𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 �� 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐀𝐔

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If you had told Emmrich Volkarin a month earlier that he would find himself at a midtown 7/11 shortly after midnight on a random Thursday in November, sliding a box of condoms and the most passable bottle of red he could find in a place like this (a popular mainstream Antivan shiraz) across the counter, he would have politely dismissed you with a laugh and assured you that the day he could be found buying wine from a convenience store was the day that the world could safely assume that he had completely lost the plot.

But here he was.

A man in his early fifties, bearing the humble offerings of one who has found themselves about to get laid, and was woefully unprepared for it.

Hence why 24 hour convenience stores are a boon to all such people.

“Anything else?” The clerk, roughly in his mid-thirties asked, and he didn’t say anything else, but the spark of comprehension in his bloodshot caffeine-fueled eyes told Emmrich that the fellow, named Sikander, knew exactly what the rest of his night entailed.

Emmrich purchased a fresh pack of cigarettes along with the condoms and the wine, bid Sikander a good evening, and emerged out of the aggressively bright fluorescent light of the 7/11, wondering if he had indeed lost the plot at last.

She wasn’t drunk. All she’d had to drink today were the two drinks at the bar with Emmrich, so she couldn’t even use that as an excuse when he turned up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, expecting to have sex, because really - what other conclusion could be drawn when you sent a dude a scantily clad photo of yourself and then followed it up with an invitation to come over? It was pretty clear she wasn’t asking him by to help her reach something from a high up shelf.

God, she wished she was drunk.

If she was drunk she could laugh brainlessly when he arrived and demure coyly as she led him up the stairs to her suite before pretending she had no recollection of inviting him over. She could chalk it up to an awkward drunken miscommunication and send him on his way, because if she was sure of anything, it was that Emmrich wasn’t in the business of making girls feel like shit for turning him down - even if they might deserve it.

Glancing at the clock on the stove before sweeping from the kitchen and into the living room she tugged an oversized hoodie on over the gray chemise she had so proudly shown off to Emmrich a short time ago, wandering completely coincidentally over to the window and peering out into the darkened street below. No Audi. Not yet. Maybe Emmrich had enough sense for the both of them and decided not to come at all.

She shifted a pile of books off the dinged up coffee table, stuffed them haphazardly onto the bookshelf next to the TV, and snagged a lighter to light the blackberry scented candle that sat on the table.

The well-loved crochet throw balled up on the couch was folded and draped over the back of it, and she fished a few socks out from the cushions and walked them to her room along with whatever other random clothing was strewn around the living room - t-shirts, sweaters, scarves - and chucked them all into the heavy gold vintage art-deco laundry hamper by the door.

If she was having him over - if he was coming into her home - she’d at least have him think that she sort of had her life together.

Returning to the living room, she collected a few half-full coffee mugs and empty wine glasses and managed them over to the small galley kitchen, dumping the coffee and placing everything in the dishwasher that was older than she was.

She was washing her hands when her eyes landed on an unopened bottle of cheap red wine on the counter.

Should I open it? It would be polite to offer him a drink, right?

Drying her hands on a tea towel that had little black cats patterned all over it, she racked her brain, not knowing why: this was a hook-up - she wasn’t unfamiliar with those. Traditionally one didn’t sit around and sip wine with a booty-call - they came inside, took off their coat, Rook turned on some music, and they got to fucking. Simple.

But this felt different. More complex. She and Emmrich worked together, which in and of itself presented opportunities for awkwardness, and if she was being honest, she absolutely wanted to climb Emmrich like the gentlemanly tree he was and fuck his brains out, but what if he didn’t want that? What if he wanted to sip wine and chat and… and have a date?

“I’m a fucking idiot,” she murmured, deciding against the wine for now, and resuming her vigil at the window, checking her phone every thirty seconds in case he texted her to tell her that actually he had changed his mind, and wouldn’t be coming over.

Looking down at her phone for what felt like the millionth time, she was actually considering messaging him herself and telling him not to bother - make up some shit about being too tired or having a headache or something - when she heard the crunch of hard icy snow under tires snapping through the cold early-winter air outside.

Her stomach ricocheted around her abdominal cavity at the sight of the familiar white Audi pulling up outside her building - physically gripped the trim of the window frame to steady herself when Emmrich’s unmistakable form emerged from the driver’s side and headed for the walkway to her building. She squinted: he was holding something. Was that… a bottle of wine?

Her cheeks went crimson.

Oh fuck he’s bringing me things now.

Not waiting for him to take the time to phone her to inform her of his arrival - because she knew that would occur to him before just texting her like a normal person - she grabbed her keys and headed for the stairs to let him into the building: the front doors automatically locked at sundown.

Wiping her sweaty palms on the black hoodie as she descended the stairs, she found herself concentrating very hard on not tripping and falling down them because her legs were increasingly rubbery, and the last thing she needed was to fall on her ass in front of Emmrich wearing lingerie, a sweater, and her yellow ducky slippers (which she realized with a wave of mortification that she had forgotten to take off.)

Managing to make it to the main floor without committing any grievously slapstick errors, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and pushed through the interior lobby door, out into the main vestibule where the apartment buzzer system and mailboxes were. She could see Emmrich through the rather streaky glass - he was smiling.

Of course he was. He was always smiling that friendly, unthreatening smile of his.

She made a little sound in the back of her throat at the sight of it, and then pushed the main door outwards, filling the vestibule with chilly air.

“Hi,” she managed, her voice lacking any of the edge or strength she usually commanded.

He looked fucking gorgeous standing there with his cheeks slightly pink from the cold, one hand in the pocket of the expensive looking black wool coat that he wore, the other holding a bottle of wine.

It was the first time she’d seen him outside of his pristine suit, and his ‘civilian’ attire was no less perfect: she knew with a glance that the charcoal sweater wasn’t some scratchy poly-blend from H&M, and his dark brown chinos might have been custom made they fit so perfectly.

His glasses fogged up as he stepped into the heat of the vestibule. “Hello, Rook.”

Oh he was so confident and self-assured and put-together, and here she was: a nervous wreck in fucking duck slippers.

I’m in over my head…

“Uhhh… come in.” She fiddled with her keys, trying to conceal the shake of her hands as she found the one that would get them back into the lobby, jamming it in the hole, and blessedly managing to turn it without it deciding to get stuck, which happened often. “I’m just… I’m just up on the fourth floor. Gotta climb I’m afraid - absolute bullshit when you have a ton of groceries - anyway, how was traffic?”

Fucking-stupid-fucking-question-fucking-idiot: it’s the middle of the night. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“It er… wasn’t bad…”

“Good!” She said brightly, speaking in a tone two octaves higher than she normally did - even with families. “Good!”

It took everything she had in her not to sprint up the remaining stairs and lock herself in her apartment and never emerge again, but she didn’t, and she decided to keep her fucking mouth shut until they were out of the common stairwell.

“Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess,” she warned, turning the doorknob and slinking inside, knowing full well that it wasn’t really a mess, but figuring that this was the least embarrassing thing that could come out of her mouth at this moment. “Lemme take your coat.” She held out her hand when Emmrich crossed the threshold, apparently choosing this moment to attempt her very best imitation of an accommodating 1950s housewife having the new neighbour over for a friendly game of Canasta.

But instead of taking off his coat, he put the bottle of wine in her hand and said, “Thank you for inviting me to your home.”

Classy fucking bastard.

“T-thanks for… for this. You didn’t have to. Um…” She cast around frantically and took the few paces required to get to the kitchen, setting the bottle of shiraz on the counter and thrusting her hand back out to Emmrich. “So are you gonna give me your coat or what?”

He almost looked hesitant, like he didn’t want to - maybe he was having second thoughts - but shrugged out of the handsome coat anyway and handed it to Rook. It was warm and carried the same new car smell that she’d become so familiar with.

She slid the front closet open and found a hanger, slipping Emmrich’s coat onto it and hanging it between her beat up leather jacket, and the very old fox-fur she’d inherited from her grandmother.

“Rook–” Emmrich began.

“Want a tour?” She interrupted, not waiting for an answer before pointing into the kitchen. “Uh that’s the kitchen. When I first moved in, the sink kept backing up and flooding the floor whenever I ran the dishwasher - turns out whoever lived here before loved pouring bacon grease and coffee grounds down the drain. It’s all fixed now, but the stupid maintenance guy never dried out the cupboards properly so like… I’m pretty sure they’re filled with black mold –”

Why the fuck am I telling him this?

“I don’t have a kitchen table,” she gestured towards the drafting table against the wall where a dining table should go. “That’s where I work on art.”

Emmrich approached the table, his eyes sweeping over the stack of filled sketchbooks, the piece of scrap wood that was completely coated in hardened piles of paint that served as a palette; the stained cup that was half full of gray-blue water the colour of lichen.

“I didn’t know you were an artist,” he said, staring at the out-of-place green ammo can on the table.

“I keep my paints in there,” she explained, flipping the lid and revealing bottles and tubes of acrylic paint, gouache, and other art supplies. “And uh… yeah. I mean not really anymore, but I used to be. Not much to show for it but a well-decorated apartment.” She glanced into the living room and the gallery of paintings lining the walls - every single one hers. “Being a starving artist blows - I don’t recommend it.”

She followed Emmrich into the living room, and he surveyed the closest painting to the kitchen: a particularly vibrant and psychedelic piece she’d done using a photo of an old friend playing bass as reference, his long swirling hair tossed into the air, frozen in time forever.

“I like this,” Emmrich said, touching the painting; feeling the texture of the dried paint against his fingertips. “It’s evocative.”

“Apparently not evocative enough for anyone to want to buy it.” Rook crossed her arms and glared at the painting like it had done her a personal wrong.

“You said you don’t paint anymore?” His eyes left the painting and he was looking at her.

He was so close to her… practically elbow-to-elbow. Her stomach jolted.

“Just haven’t been feeling it, I guess,” she said dismissively, not caring to admit that she no longer found joy or comfort in creating things anymore. Couldn’t bring herself to even try. “Anyway, much more interesting than this stupid painting is my wall of pets.” She turned to the massive shelving unit on the side of the TV that was closest to the window. “I have a houseplant problem.”

Twenty-four. There were twenty-four plants lining the shelves: ferns, vines, succulents, grasses - some were thriving, others were languishing.

“This is Perry - and no I didn’t name him after our esteemed HR Coordinator. He was in the picture long before that drip was.” She tapped the ceramic pot that Perry the Pothos lived in. “He was my first - I grew him from a cutting that a friend of mine gave me a couple years ago. I’m pretty sure he’s unkillable. I’ve propagated him into even more babies - one in my bathroom, one in the bedroom.” She pointed at a few more in turn, “Snake Plant Rick, Peter Parker - he’s a spider plant - Phyllis the Ficus, and…” she brought Emmrich’s attention to the Norfolk Pine in the corner, “Norrington.”

“An esteemed name for a houseplant.”

“He’s a dramatic, needy bitch, so yeah… it fits, trust me: look at him the wrong way and his needles will start turning brown.”

Emmrich took one of Perry’s thick, happy leaves between his fingers and rubbed it, laughing slightly.

“What?”

“I find the fact that you name all of your houseplants rather endearing.”

Rook felt colour rise in her cheeks again - was he having a laugh at her expense? “I dunno. They always say you’re not supposed to name things - like animals and shit - that you’re either going to have to kill or part ways with because if you name them you become attached and you’ll care too much when it comes time to butcher them or surrender them, so like… I figure if I name my plants, then I’ll actually feel bad if they suffer and die. If I give them names they’re not just plants: they’re friends, and I need to take care of them.”

Emmrich nodded, tracing the shape of a leaf with an exceedingly gentle finger, surprising Rook when he didn’t immediately burst out laughing at the childishness of her reasoning. “Do you talk to them?”

“Uhhh… yeah,” she admitted. “I’m not over here playing Beethoven and shit for them, but there’s tons of evidence that plants react to auditory stimulus, and even if they didn’t I would anyway, because it seems silly to give something a name and then never talk to it, don’t you think?”

He must think I’m fucking insane.

This assumption was compounded by the fact that Emmrich didn’t say anything at first. He just kept staring at Perry the Pothos, an odd expression on his face.

“Why did you invite me over, Rook?” He asked at last, his tone serious but in no way harsh or judgemental.

She found herself unable to inhale: the question froze the breath in her lungs.

He was calling her out on her bullshit.

Her heart pounded in her chest and her fingers curled in the sleeves of her hoodie.

“I… I uh…” her voice shook, and words were not forming properly in her mind, let alone her mouth. “I… we… earlier when we were at the bar, I-I told you that I… that I liked you, and you didn’t… you didn’t get it. You just said you liked me too and smiled at me, but you didn’t get it. And I wanted to make you get it, so I sent you that picture and invited you over, because maybe…” she swallowed and forged on, words tumbling past her lips, knowing that when all was said and done, he’d get a good laugh at her immaturity. “Because maybe if I fucked you, maybe you’d get it, or at least I’d get it out of my system and I wouldn’t fucking think of you so much.” She brought a hand to her mouth - started gnawing on a fingernail like she always did when she was at her wit’s end. “And now here I am, standing around wearing ducky slippers and telling you that I name all of my houseplants because I consider them friends, and you were probably hoping for a quick, no-strings attached fuck with a coworker, but instead you got a grown-ass woman who’s a fucking disaster going off about her shitty pine tree.”

She wanted to cry. Felt her throat tightening. Felt tears threatening to gather in her eyes.

She wished he’d just leave.

But instead of leaving, he pulled her hand from her mouth with the same deliberate grace he had touched the plant with, and brought the backs of her fingers to his lips.

They were warm. Soft. His hot breath curled over her knuckles gently.

He lowered his hand but didn’t let go, stroking the pad of his thumb over the curve of her fingers, his eyes - so effortlessly kind - fixed on hers.

“I’m sorry, Rook, for misunderstanding you earlier. I admit I… didn’t think that someone like myself might be of interest to you.” He kissed the back of her hand again. Squeezed it. She let herself move closer to him, drawn in by his inescapable gravity. “For what it’s worth: I really like you too.” His voice was barely above a whisper, his face mere inches from her own.

She loosened her hand from his, daring to rest it over his shoulder, feeling the soft, warm wool of his sweater, and the heat of him beneath it as she closed the remaining distance between them, rose on her toes slightly, and traced the side of her nose against his, leaving that lingering hair's breadth of space between his lips and hers until she felt his long fingers curl into the thick fabric of her hoodie.

Heart hammering in her chest, she banished that space entirely, brushing her lips against his, tentatively at first; giving him ample opportunity to recoil or pull away, and when he did not, she kissed him properly: nothing obscene or vulgar, just… a kiss. A kiss she had been yearning for longer than she dared to admit, and based on the way Emmrich’s hand wandered across the small of her back and pulled her tighter to him, he had hungered for it too.

Emboldened and encouraged by the warmth of his body against hers, and the thrumming need between her thighs, Rook put his other hand on her waist, then guided it down under the hem of her scant clothing to cup her ass, moaning softly against his mouth when he gently squeezed, his fingers sinking into her soft flesh.

He shuddered at the sound she made, and she swallowed, forcing herself to remember to breathe before breaching his lips with her tongue, his mouth opening wider to allow her access. His own tongue found hers, and the soft, wet warmth between them made her knees go weak.

She walked him backwards towards the couch, making a very deliberate point of leaving the duck slippers behind.

Emmrich’s large, ring-clad hands continued to wander until the backs of his legs hit the couch and he dropped. Rook followed, perching on his lap, bracketing his hips between her knees.

He tasted good - like spearmint breath mints.

He smelled good too - not like a 20-something drenched in Sauvage, but like a sophisticated, well-off, middle-aged man: The kind that would take you on a holiday to Orlais and buy you expensive designer clothes without batting an eyelash, simply because you remarked that you thought a pair of jeans that just so happened to be $400 were cute. He’d wine you and dine you and pour you a glass of some absurdly priced Orlesian cognac at the hotel after dinner, and then he’d fuck you passionately until the sun came up on a massive, king-sized four poster bed with linens so luxurious they could support the population of a small country for years. Depending on who you asked, there were probably rose petals involved somewhere along the way too.

Maker…

Coming up for air, she leaned back slightly so she could pull her hoodie up over her head and give him a proper, real life view of her deliberately slutty outfit she’d been so keen to show off earlier. He looked so… surprised still as he looked up at her, lipstick smudged all over the lower half of his face. In fact, she’d never seen him look quite so ruffled in the months that she’d known him as he did right then. It was enough to force a smile onto her face and a giggle from her lips.

“You know this is probably a fucking terrible idea, right?” She inquired as she resumed pursuing her life’s crowning achievement of shoving her tongue down his throat.

“Perhaps…” he agreed, breaking from her lips to trail sucking kisses down her jawline and neck that made a jolt of arousal shoot down her spine, right to her core. “But open to discussions on the matter.” His teeth grazed the skin over her carotid artery and she arched against him, squirming in his arms, aware of the growing bulge in his pants as her hips rolled against his, causing his breath to hitch.

“How uncharacteristically edgy of you,” she teased, crushing her mouth against his again and slipping her fingers under the bottom of his sweater and working it up, pulling it off over his shoulders and head, leaving his hair that was always painstakingly coiffed somewhat of a mess.

Ohhhh that’s a good look…

He left out a short bark of laughter and deftly tugged the left side of the chemise down under her breast. “Do you think so?” He quipped back, and then he filled his mouth with her exposed tit, sucking on her nipple and earning a soft cry from her, then immediately feathering his tongue gently over the peaked surface of it, sending jolts of exquisite sensation ripping through her body.

“Ah! Fuck - Emmrich!”

Her breast slipped from his mouth, and he kissed the curve of it before saying, “I’m sorry, darling - if this is too much all at once, we can certainly slow down…”

And the craziest thing happened: she actually believed him when he said that. Trusted that he meant it. Knew that she needed only to say the word and he would get back in his car, drive home, jack off in the shower before going to bed, and he’d never say a bad word to her - or anyone else - about it.

“The last thing I want to do is slow down,” she breathed. “Un-unless you want to slow down?”

She hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought about where Emmrich’s mind was at with all of this. Hadn’t considered that maybe he might be more comfortable with this if he at least took her out for dinner first - he certainly seemed like the type…

He cupped her breast, played with her hard wet nipple with his thumb while he made a thoughtful noise in his throat, “What I want, ideally, are directions to the bedroom, so I can make love to you properly on a bed.”

Holy shit.

This is… this is really going to happen.

She had been terrified earlier, when Emmrich initially called her bluff and agreed to come over. She’d been terrified waiting for him. She had been terrified when he walked in the door and didn’t once treat her like she fucking owed him something.

She wasn’t terrified any more: she was ready.

She felt safe with him. She felt valued.

That was a lot more than could be said for the majority of the other dregs of the music and dating scene that she’d settled for a tumble with.

“Yeah… I can do that…” She slid from his lap onto wobbly legs and took his hand in hers, leading him down the hallway towards her room. “Guess I never finished the tour, hey?” She tossed him a coy smile over her shoulder, expecting to wake up at any moment from what surely had to be the most vivid dream she’d ever had about fooling around with a coworker.

She flipped on the light switch and flooded the small room with warm dim light - she only ever kept one 40 watt bulb in the fixture above her bed in an effort to keep her environs as cozy and ambient as possible.

Emmrich’s hand was still entwined with hers, but he was no longer kissing her or touching her. Instead he stood at the threshold, looking into the inviting space with a look of tension and uncertainty on his face that wasn’t there before: an abrupt change from the eager, charming air he was exuding only moments earlier.

“Emmrich?”

His eyes snapped from the large 70s-era mirrored vanity that was covered with intimate little snapshots of her life: bottles of foundation, palettes of eyeshadow, and other cosmetics; the mid-range perfume she wore most days; another sketchbook and a pencil; empty cigarette packs and a nearly overflowing ashtray that also had a few smoked-down roaches lining the edges. Personal things. Things that people you work with never see. Proof that you existed beyond the confines of an eight hour day and were a real person with interests and routines and flaws.

Emmrich was seeing all of that now. The veil around who Rook was at work, and who Rook actually was had been thrown asunder… and maybe he didn’t like what he saw. Maybe he’d crafted some other image in his mind of her: some manic pixie dream girl who vacuumed her apartment in roller blades while espousing virtues of naively placed hope in the inherent goodness of people like it would make her some kind of fucking martyr when the world inevitably bled her dry.

That wasn’t her - not by a long shot - even though it seemed like the majority of the male population wanted that for her: quirky oddball, or pliant polite wife material with no ambitions beyond pumping out a few kids and joining a multi level marketing scheme.

He gathered her against him, winding his long arms around her waist, and she could feel his heart thundering against his ribcage where her chest met his bare skin, and she realized that just as she’d floundered in the living room when faced with the reality of this situation, so had he.

He was freaking out too, and he didn’t want her to know it.

And why shouldn’t he? This was unlike any random late night hookup Rook had ever had before: no one was drunk, they had established rapport and didn’t meet at a bar for the first time hours earlier, and try as she may, it was becoming abundantly clear to her that as murky and confusing as they were, there were feelings involved.

Real, proper feelings, which was far more than what Rook bargained for.

It only made sense that he had picked up on that too. Why else would he have asked why she invited him over?

He tilted his head down to look at her, and drew a deep breath, seeming hesitant to say what he said next, but clearly deeming it too important to keep to himself. “Rook, I… I must admit I didn’t expect to find myself here with you like… like this. I’m not generally this… impulsive, and I feel that I owe it to you speak plainly—“

Oh fuck me, he’s married, isn’t he?

“— Your interest in me is lovely, wholly unexpected, and not at all unwelcome, but… before we go any further, I need to know if your attentions go beyond charming flattery and a passing fancy.”

Oh. not married, then: he’s been hurt before.

Bad.

Shit.

Wait - did he unironically say ‘passing fancy’?

Her heart - her damned, compassionate, empathetic heart - tugged at the vulnerability of his request despite the positively unhinged wording of it: ached for whatever he’d been through that made it so vital for him to pump the brakes on… whatever this was… specifically to assert that he was not in the business of casual dalliances, because he needed to know that this wasn’t one.

But when she put her mind to it, she could only conclude that it wasn’t at all.

That revelation hit her like a ton of bricks: the possibility that maybe this was something more than a fleeting, fair weather infatuation.

It certainly seemed to be for Emmrich…

“You asked me why I invited you over earlier,” she said, lifting her hand between them, letting it settle over his racing heart and curling her fingers in the well-groomed thatch of hair on his chest. “If you’re not as impulsive as you claim to be, then why did you come?”

He brushed the back of his finger over her cheekbone, studying her with his soulful hazel eyes. “I find myself fascinated by you,” he admitted, his voice hushed. “Even against my better judgement, knowing that our relationship as colleagues, and my position with the university leaves more than a little room for scandal. But you are… disarming. Your spirit does indeed charm, but there is a kindness and justness about you that is impossible to ignore: there is something quite indomitable about you, Rook.” He stroked the curve of her chin with the pad of his thumb. “It inspires.”

Rook felt a bit teary then, though she wasn’t quite sure why. “Oh,” she managed weakly.

“I’ve tried to turn my mind from thoughts of you, but have found myself unable: I fear you have enchanted me, darling… though that may not have been your intent.”

“That’s um…” she swallowed and smiled up at him. “That’s a way prettier and more poetic way of saying ‘I really like you‘. Fuck. Blows my attempt at getting the point across out of the water...” She laughed uneasily and caught his hand with both of hers, lifting it slightly so she could kiss his fingers. “I can’t even compare with that, but uh… I do really like you, Emmrich. I know it didn’t really come off that way at first, but I… I can’t get you off of my mind either. You look at me differently than most people - like you see that I’m a real person and not just some… fuck up of wasted potential. You’re so kind and patient and thoughtful: everything that I feel like I’m not, so um… yeah. This definitely goes beyond calling you over for a quick fuck in the middle of the night because I have nothing better to do.” She placed his hand over her chest, above her own rapidly beating heart. “So… now that that’s settled: are you gonna kiss me?”

His stained lips quirked upwards and he leaned in, but was halted by her finger over his mouth.

“One more question first,” she said, eyes glittering with clever mirth. “What sort of thoughts were you having about me that were so hard to ignore? Hmm?”

Emmrich’s expression changed again to one of barely restrained lust as though her words alone brought to the surface sordid details kept tortuously private and secret for months.

“Oh far too many to summarize neatly for you in one night.” He spun her in his arms and aimed her towards the bed. “Why don’t I show you instead?”

At this, she shivered, excited at the prospect, and willed her legs to carry her over the stained expanse of carpet between herself and the bed, managing to collapse onto the mattress, aware of Emmrich following closely behind her. The metallic ‘clink’ of his belt buckle as it was undone followed by the sound of his pants being unzipped sent another chill up her spine.

She crawled over the bed and flipped onto her back, sinking into the pillow beneath her and watching as Emmrich set his glasses on the nightstand, stepped free of his pants, underwear (bougie Calvin Klein briefs, she noted with some amusement), and socks.

When he straightened she glimpsed his cock: half-hard again, and oh… oh wow it was long, but not intimidatingly girthy: it appeared to share the same lean, willowy appearance of its owner, uncut, and surrounded by a thick but well maintained patch of mostly gray hair that trailed up over the slightly sagging skin of his lower belly to his navel.

Shame seared through her as it occurred to her that she had never slept with someone Emmrich’s age. When she was 21, she’d gone home from the club with a guy who told her he was 33, but in reality was probably closer to 40 and clearly sustained himself on a diet of cocaine and espresso. It wasn’t a memorable night: he’d brought her back to his fancy executive apartment, complained about having to wear a condom, and proceeded to sloppily fuck her so hard her cervix was bruised for a week afterwards.

Emmrich looked his age though, and he clearly cared for himself: the toned shape of his limbs made that clear, but there was no denying that he was a middle-aged man.

Nothing within her balked at this realization. In fact it only served to endear him to her further: he didn’t shrink away or try to conceal the soft pooch of his belly or the flatness of his chest as he joined her on the bed. Didn’t ask her to turn the light off or look away.

There was a confidence about him in his nakedness that made her mouth water and made the heat between her legs rise even higher, settling in her core where it began to smolder insistently. She parted her legs for him and he settled between them, lowering his mouth to hers and propping himself up with his elbows on either side of her head as he kissed her long and deep.

“It started right here, actually,” he told her, his gaze wandering over her pillow, banked in her long black hair. He twirled a strand of it around his fingers, taking care not to pull it. “I knew I was taken with you… found myself enjoying our interactions at work as brief and professional as they were. But I never dared to entertain the thought that you would be interested in someone like me… so imagine my surprise when I received a message from you in the middle of the night and it was a picture of you right here - just like this.”

Rook felt herself smile at the memory of the wasted selfie she’d plucked up the courage to send him, and Emmrich went on after pausing to leave a line of soft kisses up her jaw.

“You’re very beautiful, Rook, and truthfully, that picture had me thinking things that were entirely inappropriate…” His hips rolled forward slightly as if to punctuate his point, and she felt his hard length against the inside of her thigh.

“Mmmm…”

“I pleasured myself that morning thinking about that perfect image of you, here in your bed…” he murmured against her ear, still lazily grinding his cock against her thigh. “… and I’ve pleasured myself to it many times since…”

“Ohhh fuck…” she whimpered, feeling her clit throb at this filthy disclosure as her mind filled with images of Emmrich staring at his phone, stroking that long cock of his while looking at her, head tilting back, mouth opening slightly as he brought himself to completion - as she brought him to completion.

“After that, there was no going back: my thoughts were consumed by you. I desired to know how your pretty lips tasted…” he kissed her again, and his hand wandered down between them, slipping under the chemise and moving her thong aside. His fingers found her heat, slick and engorged with anticipation. “And I yearned to touch you - to know what you felt like…”

Rook’s breath hitched when Emmrich traced the shape of her the same way he’d traced the leaf of her pothos: gently, but deliberately, dipping his fingers beyond her outermost lips to collect the moisture that clung to her, spreading it around and circling her clit, imparting just the right amount of pressure that had her squirming at his touch.

Oh fuck this is hot. He’s hot. He’s… ahhhh…

He had kissed her again and slipped a finger past her entrance, slowly - so slowly - easing it all the way inside of her, then back out with the same torturously slow pace that sent thrills of sensation through every inch of her soft walls that he came into contact with, and a second finger joined the first, adding to the stretch and the feeling of fullness in her pelvis.

The vulgar sound of her wetness as he buried his fingers in her pussy made her cheeks go red, her body making no secret of how much she was enjoying this. A trembling moan slipped past her lips when Emmrich curled those dexterous fingers slightly, continuing to circle and stroke her clit with his thumb, working that spot inside of her that was making bright flashes of light dance in her vision.

“I thought about this too: what it would be like to see you come undone… how your pretty face would look when you’re deep in the throes of pleasure…”

Oh he was trouble, wasn’t he? ‘It’s always the polite ones you have to watch out for,’ her late friend, Varric, had told her once. ‘They’ll pull you in with their good manners and keep you coming back once you discover that they get off on getting you off.’

His fingers glanced off her g-spot again in a firm but naunced movement that made her yelp and thrust up into his hand reflexively.

No one had ever done that before.

Maybe she just had a lamentable rap-sheet of less than stellar-in-the-sack partners, but whatever Emmrich was doing - between his words and his touch - was making every lover she’d ever had look like a fumbling goon in hindsight.

She panted his name and dragged him down for another deep, searing kiss, writhing against his hand, seeking the relief of those wicked fingers as he likewise dragged her towards an orgasm with an effortlessness that had her mind scrambling: it was like he knew exactly where to touch her, when, and how; picked up on physical and visual cues that she wasn’t even aware of.

In short, Emmrich Volkarin knew what he was doing, she concluded confidently at the exact moment she moaned raggedly, clenched around his fingers, buried her face in his shoulder, and came hard. He continued to finger her through her orgasm, alternating between kissing her and whispering sweet encouraging nothings into her ear as the wet sound of his fingers plunging into her amplified and she felt the bedspread underneath her hips heat as she spilled onto it, gushing around him uncontrollably, her breath coming in short rapid bursts.

“Oh darling, yes…” he purred, curling around her, kissing her hair, her cheeks, her forehead. “Your voice is music to my ears: I love hearing you.”

She had just managed to rub enough brain-cells together to exert the motor skills required to reach down and take his cock in her hand, easing his foreskin back and stroking him as she rode out the waning tide of pleasure that still rippled through her from head to toe.

It didn’t last long though: Emmrich clearly had other plans for her, and his fingers slipped from her dripping pussy.

“That felt so… so good…” she huffed, still catching her breath, watching as he licked his fingers clean with a stately elegance she never thought anyone would be capable of when performing such an act.

“I’m not finished yet, darling: I’ve only elaborated on my thoughts - my dreams, on the other hand, are an entirely different category...”

Rook’s cunt clenched around nothing at his words, and he kissed her again, the sweet, slightly salty taste of her own juices gracing his lips now along with her lipstick.

His cock slipped from her hand (to her dismay) when he parted from her and began drifting downwards, his fingers hooking over the waistband of her sodden thong and whisking it down her legs and over her feet, setting it at the foot of the bed rather than wadding it up and discarding it on the floor like most would.

He pushed her chemise up over her hips, baring her to him fully. A pleased sound rumbled from deep in his throat as he rested on his elbows between her legs and spread her slightly with two fingers, taking in the sight of her wet blushing pussy, dragging the tip of his thumb feather-soft over her blood-engorged clit, and up the thin landing strip of brown hair above it.

“I’ve dreamt of this frequently, in fact…” he murmured, lowering his lips and keeping her spread open so he could press his tongue flat against her and lick all the way from her hole to her clit, the delicious heat and friction of it against her slightly overstimulated flesh causing her fingers to curl into the sheets on either side of her.

“Ohhhh….” she warbled, and he did it again. “Fuck!” She whined, catching the satisfied glint in his eyes as he watched her writhe against the wet blankets before his hand splayed over her belly and she could feel the cold metal of his expensive watch against her skin.

His tongue dipped inside of her, and licked into her deeply, the tip of his nose rubbing against her clit as he feasted on her, his other hand slipping under the back of her quivering thigh and easing it to the side, opening her deeper.

“Em-ah-Emmrich… fuck… keep going…”

He hummed at the sound of his name, his voice vibrating through her, and it was all she could do not to crush his head between her thighs.

In short order he wrung blissed out moans, needy whimpers, and a chorus of ecstatic whines from her as he lapped at her pussy, determined to clean up the mess he’d made earlier.

He sucked her clit into his mouth and tongued the swollen, sensitive flesh gently, flicking it then sucking it a little, politely pinning her hips to the mattress, encouraged if anything by her squirming and thrusting, which had become frantic and desperate. He carefully drew her inner labia past his lips and captured them gently between his teeth, imparting the slightest amount of pressure that had Rook twisting in his hands, seeing sounds, tasting colours, and overall transcending the confines of banal planar existence.

He moaned approvingly at her bliss, hooked his arms under her thighs and dragged her a few inches over the bed towards him, lifting her hips clear of the mattress so he had unimpeded access to her.

“Ah… ah - I’m gonna cum, Emmrich…”

He groaned his encouragement against her pussy, clearly not willing to part from it for long enough to use words, choosing to continue ravishing her instead, his soaked moustache rubbing over her slickened skin as Rook felt the familiar feeling of rapidly peaking tension in her belly: heavy but light; intense but welcomed.

“Yes-yes-yes-yes… fuck - ah - ah!” She was chanting words and uttering sounds, not knowing or caring what any of them meant - all that remained was him and the incredible variety of lurid sensations he was spoiling her with.

Release found her again, and she went rigid in Emmrich’s arms, her eyes slamming shut, flooding his mouth as her legs tightened around him.

He swallowed every last drop of her, moaning appreciatively as though he was sampling a particularly delectable and expensive vintage, rubbing small soothing circles on her belly as she spasmed and quivered and babbled fucked-out nonsense that she didn’t even possess the ability to be embarrassed about anymore.

He pressed a disarmingly wholesome kiss to her drenched folds and lowered her hips back to the bed, and Rook managed to verbalize something along the lines of “IwannafuckyouEmmrich… need you in-inside me…”

Forcing a jelloid arm off the mattress, she groped blindly at the drawer of her nightstand and managed to find a condom with her shaking fingers, every ounce of her being roaring for more. She needed all of him - needed to wrap herself around him and never let go.

His fingers wrapped around the square wrapper and her hand as he sat back on his knees and massaged her quaking thigh, breathing rather heavily himself, his cock jutting into the air. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand.

“We can take a break if you’d like,” he soothed, and Rook laughed drunkenly even though she was completely sober, pushing the condom towards him.

“Oh no,” she panted. “No, no, no - what I’d like is for you to put that on, and then I want you balls deep inside me. I have an IUD, but… uh… you know...”

He tugged the condom from her fingers with an understanding smile on his slightly shiny face. His hair had become even more disheveled, strands of it hanging down around his forehead, framing his distinguished faces

“As you wish,” he purred, not complaining about the condom, not asking if he really had to wear it, not rolling his eyes or looking annoyed at this perfectly reasonable exertion of autonomy over her own body.

He tore the package open, pulled the rubber out, and rolled it down the impressive length of his cock (she couldn’t stop staring: when one is confronted with a dick like that, it behooves a bit of staring,) setting the empty wrapper on the end of the bed next to her panties, apparently not willing to litter her floor with garbage even in the heat of passion.

He settled between her legs again and kissed her sweetly, the taste of herself even more obvious than it had been before.

“Did you dream about this too?” Rook asked, pushing some of his hair out of his face and gazing up into his intelligent, lust-blown eyes.

“Making love to you? Oh yes… in fact they’re the dreams that I cherish the most.”

“You really like to lay it on thick, huh?”

“There’s no need to tease, Rook.”

“I think you need to be teased every now and then,” she grinned, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Keeps you honest.”

“You certainly have a knack for picking the most interesting moments to do it,” he grinned back, turning his head to kiss the palm of her hand and reaching down to guide himself to her entrance, penetrating her only slightly.

She gasped at the feeling of his head breaching her, and the unmistakable sensation of a cock inside of her. His cock. Emmrich’s. The dude that held the door for her with a smile the day of her interview.

Back then, she never would have foreseen this turn of events… though truthfully she couldn’t be happier with them.

“It’s… it’s been some time for me, darling…” he admitted, looking somewhat sheepish but thrusting forward anyway, his words broken by a ragged groan as he sunk into her, and her heat enveloped him. “Ahh… I - I fear I won’t last long: you already feel divine…”

He did too: she could feel the hard throb of him against her walls as he rolled his hips tentatively, urging taut sighs of pleasure from both of them.

“I don’t care,” she promised, arching her hips upwards, coaxing him deeper still, and she couldn’t help but think that he looked somewhat relieved at this before their lips met again and he began to thrust in earnest, setting a steady but languid rhythm, inching deeper with each snap of his hips until he was fully seated inside of her.

She drew her right leg up and slipped it over his shoulder, deepening his angle and allowing him a broader range of movement, moving her hips in time to meet his thrusts, moaning richly as he plunged into her, his heavy balls slapping against her wet skin.

“Rook…” he rasped as she wriggled out of the chemise, completely naked at last. “Ohhh Rook…” his voice was almost a whine as he looked down at her, watching her lips part and her eyes glaze as he fucked into her, urging soft cries and delicate mewls from her lungs. “Rook… you feel too good…” He tossed his head back and looked at the ceiling, taking a deep breath and clearly trying to maintain some semblance of control, finding her clit with his thumb again and rubbing it, adding yet another layer to the arousing intensity of his dick filling her.

“Lemme ride you…” She didn’t wait for his blessing - she just sat up and felt his cock slip out of her before she pushed him onto his back and straddled his thin hips, reaching behind her to take him in hand and reposition him at her entrance again.

He let out a strangled cry as she lowered herself, taking every inch of him. His hands gripped her hips, well-manicured fingernails digging into the soft flesh there as she pressed her tits to his chest and trailed sucking kisses up the column of his thin neck, leaving a pattern of delicate purple marks on the skin there: good thing he wears a high-collared shirt to work, she thought as she rolled her hips, flexing and clenching around him; dragging him over every ridge and curve of her cunt, feeling him come undone underneath her, stammering, cursing, and babbling like she had been minutes earlier when she was at the mercy of his tongue.

“I could fuck you all night, Emmrich…” she sighed, kissing him savagely before sitting upright and giving him a good, clear view of her young, tight, naked body as she ground on him. She took his hands and put them on her tits, tilting her chin up to expose her neck, and making a point to really fucking show off for him: if he wasn’t just spinning tales and feeding her sugared words about dreaming of fucking her in some attempt to appeal to her vanity, then he deserved to enjoy this - deserved to revel in his reality, which was that a pretty thing half his age was currently bouncing on his dick like the world was going to end in the morning.

She knew she was nice to look at. Knew that attention - particularly from men - was easy to come by because of it, and she wanted Emmrich’s attention. Wanted him to feel good about himself for the fact that he had not only gotten her into bed, but he’d made her cum twice, and if this kept up much longer, a third time wasn’t out of the picture either.

Her ass slapped against the inside of his thighs as she slammed down on him again, and he groaned roughly, seeming to be teetering on the brink of losing himself completely.

“I could fuck you every night,” she told him, taking his wrists in her hands and leaning down again, pinning them to the mattress above his head as she continued to ride him, his hips shuddering beneath hers, his mouth gaping, his gold watch warm under her hand.

“Ahhhh - R-Rook…”

“No more dreams…” She kissed him: sloppy and wet and deep and honest, and he returned her enthusiasm. Practically whimpering underneath her, she could tell his ability to waylay himself was at an end. “I wanna fuck you every night that you’ll have me: will you have me?”

“Ye-yes…” he panted, gazing up at her with his half-lidded, fucked-out face. “Please, yes… if you’ll… if - ah - if you’ll have me…”

She was seconds away from cumming a third time, and she adjusted the tilt of her hips, angling them slightly to guarantee her release as his rock-hard cock raked against her g-spot.

“Yes please,” she husked, releasing his wrists and burying her fingers in his hair - it was soft, slightly sweaty, and filled with product that smelled faintly of ripe cherries. “F-fuck Emmrich… I’m gonna cum again…”

The third orgasm hurtled into her with basically no warning: there was a fleeting wave of full-body tingles that telegraphed its arrival, and then she was seeing stars, rocking against Emmrich, toes curling into the sheets under her as her legs unfurled and contracted again, knees locked tight around him as her overstimulated pussy gripped his cock. A shattered moan tore from him as he wrapped his arm around her waist, trapping her against him as he thrust gracelessly up into her, and then she felt the heady throb of his cock as it twitched inside of her, flooding the condom that separated skin from skin.

They writhed against each other, chasing the intimacy of the moment - the utter entanglement of their limbs, their coupled baptism in sweat, saliva, and other fluids; and the breathless, needy way they kissed - the shared air between them belonging to no one else.

Emmrich whispered her name and smoothed her sweaty bangs from her forehead, holding her to him like she may flee if he let go.

Silly of him, really…

She had no idea what they were doing, but she knew one thing for sure: she wasn’t going anywhere.

“I regret that I can’t stay longer, darling,” Emmrich said a few minutes later when he returned from the bathroom, rejoining Rook in the sweaty love nest of bedding that was now in desperate need of laundering. He stroked her hair softly, his voice hoarse from their exertions, but still tender. “I have to work today, and I need to return home to feed Manfred and get cleaned up.”

Rook emerged from under his arm and wriggled free, stretching and snatching a pack of cigarettes off the nightstand, giggling when Emmrich groped her bare ass from his place on the bed. “I see how it is,” she said, collapsing back to the soft blankets with an ashtray in hand as well. “Hit and run - wham-bam, thank you, ma’am.” She abandoned the bed altogether to open the bedroom window a crack, but hurried back to Emmrich’s warmth when the cold air began to chase her. She fished out a pair of smokes and lit them, handing one off to Emmrich, who had rolled onto his side to face her. “Ugh. Typical.” She rolled her eyes, and took a drag hoping that her stupid joke hit its mark.

“I didn’t say I had to go right this minute,” he clarified, “I’d stay all night if I could.”

“It was a joke, Emmrich.”

“Oh.” He looked genuinely surprised by this revelation and puffed on his own smoke, thumb tracing the round edge of the filter after he tapped the ash off the coffin nail on the edge of the ash tray. “But… you don’t mind if I stay for a while, then?”

Rook looked at him, unable to keep the smile from her lips. “I wasn’t planning on kicking you out... Why? Should I? Are you gonna piss in my houseplants and rob me blind after I pass out or something?”

Emmrich laughed - hard. She liked his laugh. He had this really discreet, turbo-polite laugh that he used around families, but when you really got him going and there was no expectation to be collected and dignified, he giggled - he chuckled - he full-on guffawed. She assumed that some people might consider such an unbridled laugh to be obnoxious or annoying.

She thought it was lovely.

She rather thought she’d like to keep hearing it.

“No, I wasn’t planning on defacing your home and stealing from you,” he said when he collected himself. “But a few hours of sleep wouldn’t be unwelcome.”

She considered him again - it was sweet how he actually wanted to stick around, though in her experience this could mean one of two things: either he really did want to cuddle up with her in bed and bask in post-coital bliss, or he would stay the night. Then the next one… and the one after that… and before long, she’d have a live-in boyfriend that she never asked for and who proved to be incredibly challenging to evict.

Fool me once, shame on you…

But she knew the latter wasn’t the case - Emmrich wasn’t a sponge. He was a bit quirky, obviously suffered from anxiety, and spoke kind of like a character from a Jane Austen novel or something, but he certainly didn’t need to mooch off of her to support himself.

“I talk in my sleep,” she deadpanned. “I say really fucked up shit too. Sometimes I laugh.” She ashed her cigarette and took another drag. “Just a heads up in case you wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you’ve accidentally been seduced by a demon or something.” Her lips curved into another smile.

“Luckily for us both, I’ve been told that I sleep like the dead.”

“Oof - death joke. Like those aren’t played out as fuck in our line of work,” she winced, draping her legs over his. “You’ve been at this for a while: how soon did you get tired of people asking you if people were ‘dying to get in here’?”

“Within a month,” he stated confidently, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out.

Rook finished hers too and put the ashtray and lighter back on the nightstand. She walked over to the door and closed it before flicking off the lightswitch, plunging the room into darkness.

“Maybe that’s my million-dollar idea,” she mused, crawling back into bed and sliding under the covers. Emmrich joined her, his long, lean form enfolding her with an ease that imparted instant comfort. “Maybe I’ll write an entire book of jokes about death. Maybe if people can learn to laugh at it, it won’t seem so terrifying.”

Emmrich didn’t say anything right away. In fact, Rook almost wondered if he’d fallen asleep already, but then his lips found hers in the dark and he said, “That would be nice, wouldn’t it, darling?”

They stayed like that, twined around each other, stealing long, slow, lazy kisses in the dead of night until their eyes became too heavy, and eventually sleep found them both.

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heylittleriotact · 15 days ago

Text

𝐢 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝐄𝐦𝐦𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐱 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐀𝐔

𝐄𝐦𝐦𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐦

4 Months Later

As luck would have it, snow started flying ten minutes before her shift ended. Flying. Not falling gently like in a Hallmark movie. No - this snow was heavy, wet, thick, and moved horizontal to the ground due to the beastly wind that bore it into the city.

It was dark too: by this time in November the sun was pretty much gone by 4:30, and by 5:00 when she was done it was completely black.

Rook learned early on that commuting to work in her uniform on public transit was uncomfortable at best, and self-inflicted psychological warfare at worst: riding the cramped bus into downtown and transferring to the train at rush-hour, packed in with dozens of other people and stuffed inside the damnable three piece suit was a nightmare.

Instead, she learned to just keep her uniform at work in her locker and get changed at the beginning and end of her shift.

It was one of a few tricks she’d picked up over the past few months to make certain things bearable. Leaving her uniform at work meant she had to wear it for as little time as possible each day. The uncomfortable pantyhose she had to wear (minimum 80 denier to conceal her tattoos which were to be hidden at all times) were swapped out about two months in when she discovered the joy of stay-up thigh high stockings, which alone made the uniform practically bearable. The shoes were still hideous, but she had been working on sourcing a pair of plain black pumps that fell within the dress code (no embellishment, glitter, or sequins; no platform; heel height maximum three inches).

She still hadn’t gotten around to tailoring her jacket, but it was the least of her worries these days. Standing in the middle of a fucking snow storm waiting for her bus that was surely going to be late was actually taking priority over everything else at the moment.

“Fuck!”

She’d flicked her cigarette, failing to notice it was wet, causing it to snap just under the filter.

“God… fucking… dammit…” she muttered, throwing the busted smoke in the garbage can nearby and digging out another one.

She’d given up on trying to find a practical way to smoke during the day: staff were forbidden from smoking on funeral home property, and if she wanted to leave the property to hack a dart, she was expected to remove her entire uniform, change into street clothes, and find somewhere acceptable to light up, then be back, changed, and ready to go before her break ended.

It wasn’t worth it.

It was fucking stupid.

She got it: the optics of having a bunch of funeral home staff gathered around like a murder of crows, issuing smoke from their mouths like miniature crematoriums by the side door wasn’t a great look to the public at large, especially given the amount of cancer patients that passed through the doors in body bags.

So she eventually conditioned herself to get through an eight hour shift without needing a cigarette. It actually wasn’t that hard, but there was no denying that at the end of her shift she was fucking jonesing for a puff in a bad way.

She lit the fresh smoke and inhaled deeply, exhaled heavily, and turned her back to the wind so this one wouldn’t get wrecked too.

Pulling the collar of her jacket up around her neck, she checked her transit app.

Your bus is 5 minutes late

Lovely.

In the gap between the tracks of her current playlist (she was currently having a Megadeth renaissance) she could hear the constant rush of tires on slick asphalt as cars sped down the main road next to her, and… honking?

Turning around and raising her arm to prevent getting a face full of wet, stinging snow, she squinted: some asshole in an Audi had pulled up alongside her. She was used to people honking at her when they drove by - this had to be the first time someone had actually stopped.

Yeah great idea, jackass, stop in the middle of traffic…

The passenger window rolled down and in the LED glow of the streetlights she could make out the distinct shape of Emmrich’s face.

Oh fuck me.

“Would you like a ride home?” He inquired.

Yeah right, like I want anyone I work with knowing where I live… especially you.

“Nah I’m good. Bus will be along any minute.” She took a drag, hoping her disinterest would hit home and he’d realize she wasn’t going to get in his fucking car.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he remarked, sounding genuinely surprised by this revelation of her character - but not put off by it. Just intrigued.

“Not like we’re encouraged to stand around lighting up at work,” she retorted dryly. “It’s good you didn’t know: means my hands and hair don’t reek like stale smoke.”

She was forever paranoid of smelling bad: cigarette smoke, body odor, mildew… unwashed clunge - it made her cringe when people smelled like shit.

“I’ve never noticed anything like that,” he admitted like the idiot he was.

“Cool…” she drawled, her sardonic tone nearly drowned out by the cars speeding past. “Good to know that you make a habit of smelling me when you’re around. That’s fucking creepy, Emmrich.”

She couldn’t be sure due to the cold practical glow of the streetlight above them, but she was pretty sure she saw his sallow skin turn a splotchy red.

“I don’t— I never said I was smelling you,” he stated, trying to reclaim his dignity. His left hand tightened on the steering wheel, loosened, and slid down the curved surface a few inches. “Only that there isn’t a cloud of stale cigarette smoke following you around everywhere - people notice such things, you know.”

“Do they?” She queried facetiously. “I had no idea.”

“Your bus still hasn’t arrived.”

“How very astute of you to notice.”

She could keep this up all night, even if her toes were starting to tingle and hurt from standing in two inches of slush: she wore Chucks today and they were drenched through to her thin stockings.

“I’m more than happy to give you a lift home. I’m sure you’d do the same for me, if our positions were reversed.”

Oh fuck, sure, appeal to my compassion and humanity and imply that I wouldn’t leave your ass out here shivering in the snow. Wrong!

“The longer you hang around here pressuring me to get into your car, the faster you’re moving up in my list of creepy dudes.”

“A very good thing for both of us then that I’m not a ‘creepy dude’ - only a colleague extending the courtesy of a warm, dry trip home to another colleague in a less than ideal position.”

She puffed on the smoke again and exhaled through her teeth, rolling her eyes: her feet were going numb, her peacoat was covered in snow, and her hair was sticking to her head. She was miserable, and her bus - if it ever came - was going to be fucking packed with likewise miserable people.

“I’ll get my muddy feet all over your nice car and make it smell like cigarettes,” she argued.

“My car is subjected to my own muddy feet frequently enough when I’m scheduled on graveside services, and I really don’t care about the smell,” he said with far more nonchalance than he needed to.

“Fine,” she capitulated, reefing on the smoke one more time before stubbing it and dropping it in the bin. “But only on the condition that I never have to hear you say the word ‘position’ again.”

She was turning back towards him when she said it, and he moved his head out of the light before she could see his face, but she was pretty sure she heard him let out a short laugh.

“You have my word,” he said, and she shifted her backpack on her shoulder and opened the passenger side door, folding awkwardly into the seat, grateful she didn’t manage to slip and land on her ass.

The inside of the car was nice and warm, and it smelled like he’d just driven it off the lot. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the dashboard or console.

“Christ, don’t we listen to enough of this shit during the day?” She buckled up and nodded towards the screen in the middle of the console that indicated they were currently listening to ‘Violin Suite in E Minor: K.304: II. Tempo de Minuetto’ by the one and only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

All seven locations of McDermott & Rafferty played the same eleven track CD on a loop over the sound system throughout the day, and all eleven tracks consisted of Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and a variety of lamentable instrumental covers of well-known songs like Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight’. She’d only worked there for four months and already had nightmares featuring that music.

“I’ll need your address, please.”

Ugh. No going back now.

She could give him a fake one near her apartment, but he seemed like the kind of guy that would sit there and wait for you to get inside before leaving, so that wouldn’t work.

Fuck.

So she told him, because she had to.

And he entered it into the nav on the console.

And it was there forever now.

Satisfied that she was properly buckled in, Emmrich shifted into drive and signaled, looking over his shoulder before easing into traffic.

“This is what I enjoy listening to,” he stated plainly, returning to the topic of his shitty music. “What do you prefer?”

“You don’t have to change it.”

“I wasn’t offering to change it, I asked what music you enjoy listening to.” His right hand released the steering wheel to turn the heat up and returned to its place as soon as he was done.

She felt awkward as fuck, sitting next to Emmrich in his nice car, wearing his nice suit, listening to his nice music while her box-dyed black hair was plastered against her skull and she was dripping all over his nice leather seats.

“I dunno. Everything, I guess.”

“Except classical music.”

Hoooooly fuck, am I going to have to sit here and make bullshit small-talk with you the entire time? Can‘t you just be like an Uber driver and take me home and let me stare out the window in silence like a normal fucking person?

“Yeah, I guess so. I dunno. It’s fucking boring. It makes me want to go to sleep. It’s frankly a miracle that you haven’t driven into oncoming traffic if this is what you listen to on your way to and from work.”

“That’s not very nice—“

Oh good, he expects me to be nice.

“— you can’t very will sit here decrying my musical tastes while holding your own close to your chest.”

“Chest. That’s on the list with ‘position’ now as words I never want to hear you say again.”

“Rook.”

“Emmrich.”

He sighed and drove on, reflections of traffic lights and neon store signs skimming over the lenses of his glasses, as he seemed to finally take the hint and cease his attempts at getting to make idle chit-chat.

Astoundingly, this did absolutely nothing to diffuse the awkwardness. Now she felt guilty on top of it.

Unfortunately for Rook, as much as she liked to project an abrasive, rather unapproachable vibe into the world - especially around people she didn’t trust - she was actually a very nice person. A very compassionate person. A very empathetic person. It was why she’d been drawn to the funeral profession in the first place.

He didn’t have to give her a ride home, he didn’t have to spend ten minutes cajoling her soggy ass into his car, and he didn’t have to try - earnestly, it seemed - to assure her he wasn’t a pervert, which, if she was being honest with herself was what he was trying to accomplish with his attempts at harmless conversation.

Goddammit…

“I dunno, I guess I like everything? Like… if I like the way it sounds, I like it, I don’t care who it is or what genre it is.” She shifted her sodden backpack on her thighs. “Weird stuff mostly that you’ve probably never heard of, like uh… Dead Meadow, Le Tigre… Nine Inch Nails, y’know?”

He did not know. This man had never been to a rock concert in his life.

“Classic rock is good too - Zeppelin, Queen, Sabbath. I spin them a lot too.”

“I’m of the mind that one can never go wrong with the classics, as I’m sure you can tell by my own tastes.” He signaled and changed lanes, fastidious in his mirror and shoulder checks once again. “If they bring you joy, you should enjoy them.”

“What, so you’re not gonna dump on my music?”

“No, why would I?”

“I dunno. I assumed because I ragged on yours you’d rag on mine: my shitty, un-nuanced tastes.”

“Did you?” His eyebrows raised, his eyes stayed on the road. “Do you take the bus to work every day?”

“Yeah, I don’t have a car.”

“But you drive?”

“Don’t have a license either.”

Emmrich frowned slightly. “But you need—“

“— a driver’s license to work as a funeral director at McDermott & Rafferty - yeah, I’m aware. They made that abundantly clear when I was hired. Numerous times.”

She didn’t want to get into this: being in her mid-twenties and not being able to drive wasn’t exactly something she was proud of.

He might have been creepy, but he wasn’t dumb: Emmrich seemed to pick up on her reluctance to discuss the topic further and changed the subject again.

“You’ve settled in nicely at the chapel. I hear nothing but good things about you from families, and the turnaround when I give you an obituary to work on when I’m meeting with a family is unmatched by any other admin - with no sacrificing accuracy or quality either. You’re a very talented writer.”

He also seemed to know that the best way to pick someone up after accidentally blundering into one of their more embarrassing personal shortcomings was to make up for it with a compliment.

“Thanks.”

The rest of the drive passed by without incident. Emmrich would occasionally ask her questions: what she did before she decided to pursue the funeral profession, if she’d always lived in the city, etc. It was a decently long drive - Rook lived on the far west side of the city and the Hildwell chapel was central. By the time Emmrich turned into her street, her hair was mostly dry and she wasn’t shivering anymore.

“Uh, yeah, just… just up there on the right. The building with the white stucco.” She pointed, her fingernail plain and unpainted: no ‘unnatural or bright’ nail polish allowed - including black.

She quite liked her little one bedroom walk-up: it was hers. Well… not really, because she rented, but it was hers because it was only hers. No family, no ambitionless sponge of a boyfriend, no loud messy roommates: just her own space, her own air, and her ever-growing collection of houseplants. She’d scratched and fought for 720 square feet of freedom, and she was never going back to anything less.

Despite her deep affection for her home, she couldn’t help but feel somewhat embarrassed as Emmrich pulled up to the curb to let her out as close to the front doors as he could.

It wasn’t the nicest place. It wasn’t a shithole either, but it was an older building, and it was clearly a rental property. Emmrich probably lived on the bougie side of town in a fancy condo or townhouse. She knew he wasn’t married and he had never mentioned having any children, but that didn’t mean he didn’t live in a place that was four times the size of her apartment, furnished with top-of-the-line everything.

“Thanks for the lift,” she said, unbuckling and practically scrambling to get out of the car: the less time he had to stare at her building, the better. “I hope this didn’t take you too far out of the way - whereabouts do you live?”

Emmrich was staring intently over her shoulder at the warm light of the apartment lobby. “Hm? Oh, I live in Darrowley,” he said absently, seemingly fascinated with the square, four storey building looming in the dark.

“Darrowley?!” She repeated, hand pausing on the door handle. “That’s clear on the other side of town!”

It definitely qualified as bougie too.

“I enjoy driving. I find it relaxing,” He smiled at her as effortlessly as he smiled at everybody.

“Right… you find driving across town through insane rush hour traffic in a city of over a million people relaxing.”

What a fucking weirdo.

She opened the door at last and got out before he could take it upon himself to open it for her. “Uh… seriously though - thanks, Emmrich. I’d probably still be waiting for the bus. Sorry for… for being so stubborn about it.”

“I’m just glad that you’re home safe.” The pleasant expression on his face lingered, and the light spilling out from the apartment lobby made him look rather nice, she thought. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rook. Take care.”

“For sure. Uh… have a good night, Emmrich.”

She closed the door and swung her backpack over her shoulder, carefully navigating the slushy walkway up to her building lest she slip and eat shit - the last thing she needed.

Withdrawing her keys from her pocket, she unlocked the lobby door and as it closed behind her she looked through the glass.

As it turned out, he absolutely was the sort to sit and wait until she got inside safely.

She flicked on the entryway light when she entered her suite on the fourth floor, crossing over to the window in time to see him pulling away at last, the red glow of his brake lights getting smaller until she could no longer see them.

She put her nose against the damp sleeve of her coat. It smelled like new car.

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