The Way of Things

Author's note:

Hello all! There is a conversation missing from the middle of this story. It's not a huge deal, but it will be obvious to you, the reader. This is because I wrote the missing scene three times and hated every take! Male/male dialogue is difficult for me.

However, I wanted to post this in the hopes of getting some feedback on the characters and general feel of the piece. I find writing from the male POV exhausting, but I feel some connection to the cast I've created. Any feedback you can offer will really help me decide if I should pursue these guys some more!

Despite the patchwork nature of this thing, I can promise you some delightfully dirty/weird sex if you decide to read it.

*****

"That's a lot of money," I told Madeline Hook, looking down at the deposit slip she'd just handed me. The five figure number was, apparently, my Christmas bonus.

The older businesswoman shrugged and wandered over to the private let's minibar. And though her actions were blocked from my view, the mischief in her voice was impossible to miss, "I gave Drake more."

"Really?" I asked, in spite of myself. Immediately I felt stupid. Stupid for looking this gift horse in the mouth. Stupider for taking Madeline's bait.

Drake leaned towards me from his own seat, hand outstretched to take my bank slip. "How much did you get?" he drawled. Everything Drake says meanders from his lips in the same slow, vaguely southern, roll. When we first met, it was infuriating. Now, it's just part of his charm.

I let Drake pull the slip from my hands. He fished his own identical stub from his jacket's breast pocket and held the two up to compare. "Yup," he confirmed, "I got more then you."

"As business partners, we should split the difference," I suggested.

"I forbid it," came Madeline's voice from the minibar. "Check your bank accounts."

Drake and I looked to each other and, confirming that the other was just as puzzled as we were, we pulled out our phones, set to run off of the plane's WiFi, and tapped out the addresses of our respective bank's websites.

"Well fuck me sideways," I heard Drake intone.

The little spinning circle on my phone's screen faded away to be replaced by my bank account status. "Fuck me any way you want," I told my partner. "I've hit one million. Exactly."

"No shit Mike; so did I. That's why I got more then you. Brains of this operation my ass."

My response, which was sure to be a real gem of whit, was stifled by Madeline's reappearance. She was holding three low-ball glasses, scotch probably, and she was beaming.

Drake and I took the glasses reflexively. "Seriously, that you so much Ms. Hook. But you know we can't drink on the job," I told her, raising my glass in a toast, but never bringing it to my lips. I think I heard Drake mutter something as well. He's not so good with gratitude.

"I thought I was your boss?" probed Madeline, inflicting the two of us with a surprisingly powerful pair of 40 year old puppy-dog-eyes. "I'm telling you this is OK."

I met Drake's eyes. They told me it was a shame to let the caliber of liquor that Madeline buys go to waste, but that he'd differ to my decision.

"Ms. Hook," I began, meeting her with hard eyes, but remaining seated. I wanted to be firm but not chastising, "you're paying us quite a bit of money to keep you safe. We can only do this with clear heads. There are no second chances in our line of work." On the fringe of my vision I saw Drake already mourning the scotch with his own pair of puppy-dog-eyes.

There was a moment of tension between Madeline and I. Executives in her position are not known for being understanding, or even forgiving, of refusal.

Then, in a flash, a pleased smile chased away the hard eyes and pursed lips. Madeline fell into her chair, and plucked the glasses from both of our hands. "OK then, more for me!" she twittered, mixing the three drinks into a single glass. "Also, you get to keep your jobs."

I leaned back into my seat, hands behind my head, and gave Drake my most meaningful look.

"Brains of the operation indeed," he told me, toasting me with an imaginary glass.

-----

Home was an apartment. The nice kind. A quarter-floor, eight stories up, with one of those big glass windows that really make you feel like the king of the world.

Maybe it's time for a bigger place, I found myself thinking while fishing for my keys.

I opened the door into the kitchen, and looked up just in time to see my girlfriend's bare bottom disappear around a corner. A moment later her head poked back around to corner to watch me close the kitchen door. At which point she hopped energetically out from her hiding place and skipped over to me.

I admired Sarah's body, as she crossed the space. Taking in all the bits of her that bounced and all the bits that didn't. Her hair was getting long. The straight blond strands hopping along behind her reached almost to her hips when her momentum didn't have have them flying this way or that.

More noticeably, however, were the dark crimson stains on Sarah's skin. Flecks of dark coloring dotted her breasts and midriff. And her fingers and lips were stained with it. Also, my trained masculine senses noticed, there was a definite sheen of wetness on the protruding bits of her pussy. The surrounding skin, delightfully bare, also sported little red flecks of the... something. Had I not know better, I might have suspected Sarah of having just partaken in gleeful homicide.

"You surprised me!" said my girlfriend of four years as she skidded to a stop in front of me. "You should make more noise next time. Imagine if you had brought a friend!"

"You're wet," I told her, letting my eyes roll down her splattered torso. "And what's the red stuff?"

Sarah popped a stained finger into her mouth, sucking at it experimentally. When the digit escaped it was still stained, but now more of a pink then the deep crimson which the rest of her markings were. "Beet juice!" she told me happily.

Then my naked girlfriend, with pussy visibly damp, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and scampered over to the stove top, where every pot, pan, and skillet I owned was in some stage of boiling, bubbling, or nuclear fission.

I shook my head, bemused, and carefully threaded my way through the disaster area towards the bedroom. I wanted to get out of my suit before it fell victim to the same treatment as Sarah's flesh.

I should probably explain that this scene is not uncommon in my apartment. Sarah is a chef, and while my pallet is decidedly unrefined, I've been told she's quite a good one. A savant, if you will, boasting a intimate connection with cuisine that simply cannot be taught.

Sarah's greatest complaint is that her little bistro will not let her cook naked. You see, what I had interrupted moments earlier had been, quite literary, Sarah's love affair with food. To her, cooking is the other intercourse. Every splatter of juice and hot oil is, to her, a lover's touch. Each seasoning and baste, a caress. For my girlfriend, the food she makes can be literally orgasmic.

When her 'secret' was revealed to me, Sarah asked if I felt threatened. I told her that I didn't, because what kind of man is threatened by something he will later consume, but that I wouldn't mind being around if she decided to cook with cucumbers, if you know what I mean.

"It's not like that," she'd told me. Then she'd paused, put a finger to her lips, and murmurer thoughtfully, "Though those may be complementary flavors."

When we go out to eat as Sarah's bistro, Drake is not allowed to order anything with cucumbers.

-----

Roughly forty five minutes later, Sarah called to me that dinner was ready.

Though I was already changed into jeans and a sweater, I grabbed Sarah's heavy bathrobe from the closet. It was Christmas time, she would want it soon enough.

When I returned to the kitchen my girlfriend was sitting naked on one of the counter stools. She was bent forward, face over the dish in front of her, basking in the heat and smell of it. Her contours, in this position, called to me. They screamed at me to pace up behind her and pull her hips back just an inch, maybe two. That's all the room I would need to take her from behind. She would reach down, I imagined, and hold onto the top of the stool for leverage, wobbling her perch as she pushed back into me.

But it wasn't time for that. I'm relegated to an observer in Sarah's culinary romance.

I sat on my own stool across from her. The dish in front of me didn't smell like beets anymore. It resided in a little rectangular baking pan, there was a breaded crust on top.

Looking up at Sarah, it was difficult to hold my amusement in check. Her usually pale skin was the exception on her breasts, and her arms were completely crimson up to the elbows. She goes out of the way to get messy, it's part of the thrill.

It wouldn't have been right to laugh at her though. Because, through the veneer of beet juice, I could see Sarah's nipples were hard and her stained lips were parted expectantly.

"What is it?" I asked, indicating the dish.

"It has beets in it," my girlfriend told me, glazed eyes pointing meaningfully in the direction of my fork.

Sarah mimicked my movements carefully as I picked up the utensil and brought it to my food. The first bite, I am told, is all that matters. Up until that point she isn't quite sure what shes created. The first bite is the great revel, the climax if you will. Sarah wanted to share it with me.

As we both lifted our first forkfuls of the dish to our mouths my girlfriend's breath grew ragged, her eyes began to dart between our two forks, torn between the two experiences.

When I placed my bit into my mouth it was not difficult to feign reverence for the dish. The beets were there, the centerpiece and the focus of attention, but they had been altered. The experience was altogether sweeter then I would have thought wise with such a main ingredient, but it washed over my senses of taste and smell beautifully. I closed my eyes just for a moment, knowing that Sarah had been watching my reaction, and that this would be her cue to try her own bite.

She cooed audibly as the forkful slipped into her mouth, and I quickly opened my own eyes to observe the magic that was about to take place. Sarah's eyes were closed now, and as she experienced her creation for the first time, I got to watch her body react.

Everyone knows to say mmmmmh in appreciation of a meal. But Sarah's exclamation was so much more than that. It began with that same appreciative tone that we can all produce; but then modulated. As her jaw closed on the first bite the pleased hum went up an octave. At first it was a single note. But as I watched, her chest tightened beneath her breasts, and the contracting muscles warred against each other, Sarah's sound began to thrum; a harp string which had just been plucked.

Shortly she withdrew the empty fork from her mouth and grabbed the edges of the marble counter with both hands. I was struck by the sense that the noise Sarah was making was moving down through her core, down below where the counter-top obscured my field of vision. Down into her lower belly where the butterflies of arousal so often settle.

Sarah, in a series of events far prettier, poetic, and graceful then I have the skill to relay, swallowed her food and then came. It was not a violent orgasm. It was a gentle release. She'd been building herself up to this moment for hours, and when it finally arrived I watched her open to it. She had swallowed it, and it made a long, lazy, circular pass through her body, ticking at her spirit as it went. And then, as her eyes opened, she parted her lips and let it flow out again.

When Sarah looked up at me, it was with a sheepish expression I had come to know very well. Thank you for indulging my weirdness and I hope you don't think less of me, it said.

"This is delicious," I told her, as she slipped into the heavy bathrobe I'd brought her. It always was.

-----

After dinner came the daunting, though amusing, task of cleaning the kitchen.

While we scrubbed and washed improbable corners of the room I tried to devise the right way of telling Sarah my good news, that I was a millionaire now. Sarah felt, I knew, a little bad about how her own income compared to mine. She made decent money, but not enough that I would let her help pay for the apartment.

I couldn't seem to think of a way to share my economic victory with my girlfriend without poking at her insecurities. Though, I may have simply been distracted, as the open front of Sarah's robe regularly teased me with quick flashes of deep red designs on soft white flesh.

"Do you like the look?" Sarah asked. She put her hands on her hips, to model for me, pushing back the robe to offer a clear view of her patterned front.

I did like the look. Novelty, in any lengthy relationship, is a huge aphrodisiac. And, to a primal part of my mind, Sarah's splotchy coating made her look like some soft of game animal. Something to be hunted, slain, and consumed. 'Slain' and 'consumed' being translated a bit differently in the more evolved portions of my brain, of course.

I gave her a look. I'm good at looks. Partially because I've been trained to read them, and partially because, well, I just am. This extremely complex look said, I'm going to fuck you. Curiously, it is the same look you give another man who's talking tough, in order to get him to actually swing.

Sarah, in response, stuck out her tongue and ran off in the general direction of the bedroom, shedding the robe as she went. Watching her backside, which remained mostly unstained, vanish around the corner sent another twinge of simulation to the ancient hunter portion of my brain. Also, my crotch.

"Will beet stains wash out of these sheets?" Sarah shouted from the bedroom. I wasn't sure of the answer, except as far as to know that I didn't give a fuck.

I finished cleaning the kitchen in record time.

-----

Stepping into my bedroom, I had to marvel again at Sarah's beauty. She lay on her back, atop the sheets, long blond hair splayed in an impressive area around her, legs casually parted; just enough to be inviting without being lewd.

"You look like Christmas," I told her, "with your green eyes and the red markings."

"That's corny Mike," she responded. Which made me self conscious as I stripped off my own clothes and set the thermostat to warm the room up a little. Those green eyes watched me the whole time. They were not the eyes of prey.

I went to lay beside Sarah, letting my finger trace the outline of a red splotch whose corner grazed her nipple. My plan, moments ago, had been to slide a pair of pillows under my girlfriend's butt and to pin her hips down with my arms as I slid into her without fanfare or pretense. I had just been imagining how exciting it would be to watch the pattern of her shift and bounce with every thrust. I had visualized so easily how she would run her hands, once again their usual pale tone after washing dishes, through the hair by her scalp.

But now, my plan seemed wrong. Something different was to happen here, I could feel it.

Sarah's eyes watched mine expectantly, oblivious to my inner conflict.

Then, in some misguided attempt to do something, my mouth moved without permission. "Did you know that Drake's gay?" I asked.

We both froze.

Sarah recovered first. She rolled on top of me, breasts pressed tightly to my chest, smearing her crimson coloring across the two of us. She propped her elbows on either side of my head and supported her temples with her hands so that she could look straight down into my eyes. "Isn't this an odd time to tell me that?"

I stammered something. A vague face saving apology for ruining the mood, and we laughed it off. At least, I did. Sarah's laugh, had... undertones.

"Let me tie you up," she said. Her eyes, this close to me, were large and expressive. It was, I knew, a request, not a command.

"Sure, OK," I acquiesced. Anything to avoid the previous topic of conversation.

As soon as the words had left my lips Sarah was at the dresser, rummaging through the drawers.

At this point in out lives Sarah and I had, what we felt, was a pretty adventurous sex life. Her tying me up, or me tying her for that matter, would not be new for us. So why was I suddenly nervous?

When she turned around Sarah was holding two of my belts, and her little blue vibrator. The markings on her front and flanks, now smudged streaks and stripes, didn't remind me of a game animal's spots anymore. They looked like bloodstains.

Despite my vague feeling of unease, I felt my dick respond to predatory picture that was my girlfriend and her implements of bondage.

Sarah straddled my waist. The slick lips of her bare sex tickling at my chest. From there she leaned forward to do something with the two belts above my head. It left my wrists stuck there, immobile.

"Can you get out?" she asked. The question caught me off guard, but I obliged her by tugging hard at the bonds on my wrists. They held fast.

"Good," Sarah cooed. Then she bent forward again to press her mouth to mine. I felt the beet juice smear smear against my lips and wondered if the taste would be something I would always associate with whatever kind of sex Sarah had in mind for tonight.

The kiss itself was unexpected. Sarah's mouth, though above me, yielded to mine. She kept her lips soft, and opened herself up to my exploring tongue. It simply was not the type of kiss you give to a lover you've just tied up. Unless-

Unless it's an apology! Some part of me hissed. She's making amends for what she's about to do to you.

As soon as Sarah lifted her head from mine, when I say the excited glint in her eyes, I knew that I was right. And with with the revelation came a delicious moment of fearful anticipation.

Sarah slid down my body and elevated herself so that my cock just tickled the opening of her vagina. I found it impossible to maintain eye contact, so I watched her body and its mesmerizing warpaint.

With expert control my girlfriend lowered herself onto me just enough so that I could feel the tip of my cock press against the opening of her canal.

The urge to thrust up and into her was powerful. But that would be like skipping to the last page of a book. I couldn't rob myself of whatever experience Sarah had planned for me.

As though it was some vulgar reward for my self control, Sarah brought one hand to her mouth and spit heavily on it, smearing the liquid between her fingers and upon her palm. I wanted to look up into her eyes and see her revel in the messiness of the action, the unbridled sexuality it represented. But for whatever reason, I couldn't. Though when she brought the slicked hand down to grasp the base of my cock I would have pushed into her if she hadn't actively held me down.

She began to massage my shaft, keeping her tantalizing pussy impressively immobile. Occasionally she would stop long enough to bring her hand back to her lips for more lubrication. And, I'm sure, the joy of putting on another lewd display.

As the squeezing hand worked my cock, I couldn't help but fantasize about my impending orgasm. I imagined that Sarah's plan was to push me to the very edge before sliding her pussy onto me. But that didn't explain the apology kiss, did it?

I didn't realize I had closed my eyes until a new sensation manifested itself at the tip of my cock. Another form of resistance, far more formidable then the first.

My eyes shot open to meet Sarah's. They were teasing and alive as her slick hand guided me to press against her asshole.

My own expression of wide eyed surprise was all the encouragement she needed. And she let her torso press down upon my carefully lubricated dick. I felt her warmth and tightness progressively consume each and every nerve in the tip of my cock, until, all at once, Sarah made a little 'oof' noise, and her tight ring of muscle nestled below the head of my penis.