Intrusion

It was true. He'd formed a company for his BBQ Done Right channel and I was part of that company. Months of weekly shoots had passed in a blur. My aunt had stopped asking questions. I was paying both our rents, now.

"But we still don't really know Dee," Trandor said.

Also true. Not that there was that much to know, besides my sordid past and sordid fantasies for the near future. I mean, sure, I liked videography. I was good at it, it turned out. I'd managed to transform the channel into a cult hit among certain subreddits. But they knew that part.

"Um, I live with my aunt," I said, scraping the bottom of a very shallow barrel.

"Oh yeah," said Baustin. "Ol' Gerstle down the way, right?"

"Yeah, her. She actually was against me taking this job at first."

"Why's that?" asked Trandor.

I wouldn't say I'd talked myself into a corner. I'd started in the corner. I could lie. I could say anything that wasn't, "I'm a horrid slut." But I didn't. I did the next best thing: I said nothing. I felt the pressure of my silence growing as I fiddled with the label on my beer bottle. I felt their gazes. What the fuck was I doing here?

"It's okay you don't want to tell us," Baustin said, at length. "I guess you're a pretty closed book. That's fine, though. Sorry you're stuck here with us geezers."

I wanted to say it was fine, because it was. It was more than fine. I was more worried about the chair I was sitting on than anything. But I nodded pathetically, got my laptop out, and started organizing the day's footage for editing. Trandor and Baustin bantered a bit about some sports team or other. Eventually it became clear that the storm was not going to let up, and Baustin cleared his throat to get my attention.

"We've got a guest room," he said. "I don't think it'd be wise to drive the dirt road in this."

Unlike when it came to food, he was right.

"Thanks. Let me call my aunt."

It's a pretty basic courtesy to let your household know where you're at, and if you're not coming home. But I wasn't calling just as a courtesy. I don't know exactly what I wanted, but I think some part of me was hoping Aunt Gerstle would insist I come back. She didn't. She thanked me for staying safe, and then she rushed to hang up. I could hear Jeopardy! playing in the background and knew how much she hated having that interrupted. Fuck me, I guess.

Trandor retreated to his attic room, and Baustin showed me to the guest room. It was a simple affair: a full size bed, a nightstand with a lamp, a wardrobe that would have been full of spare linens if this was a normal household. I half expected it to be full of skewers, onion skins, and empty Jack Daniels bottles.

"Think it'll do?" he asked.

It seemed fine, but there was one problem. It was only seven-thirty in the evening--too early for bed, and a good chunk of time past my last meal. We'd finished shooting around two or three. I hadn't eaten since. My stomach growled, and Baustin could hear it. He chuckled.

"I know you don't like my cooking, hon, but the kitchen's yours if you want t'feed yourself."

I winced at that--I'm not sure why I thought I'd managed to hide my distaste for so long--and he laughed louder.

"It's fine. We're just glad you're willing to shoot, you know. It's not for everyone, I guess."

But that's the thing. It was for me. As Baustin showed me the kitchen and pantry, all I could think was that I wanted to see him cook more. Maybe it was the hour. Maybe it was how close I'd come to spilling my lust earlier. Maybe it was just all the weeks of fucking myself to tears in my bedroom thinking of Baustin's hands and the wretched ingredients that passed between them. I put a hand on his shoulder as he turned away, his kitchen tour complete.

"Will you cook?" I asked. My voice was small.

I felt weak in the knees, like I'd bared my heart, like I'd propositioned him. But I'd just asked him to make me food--something he did every time we saw each other, technically. What was the big deal?

Even as I berated myself for getting all in a knot about it, though, he turned and took my hand in his. Every synapse in my body fired. It's happening! It's happening!

Baustin was wearing a serious expression.

"Dee--" His tone was immediately grave. My heart sank.

I don't know what he saw in my face, but he wordlessly pulled me into that all-enveloping hug. He smelled of charcoal and cigar smoke, as always, but this time I caught whiffs of beer and sweat. Just as I had the first time in his arms, I found myself enjoying the smell. I wasn't surprised this time, though. I knew what my body wanted. It had been pretty clear on that front for a while now.

Tentatively, I wrapped my arms around his trunk. I think it was my first time hugging him back, and I half expected him to tease me about it, but he said nothing. He just held me there.

Just as the hug was becoming too much--when was the next thing going to happen?--he let go.

"Dee," he said again. "I'm twice your age. I could be your father. I don't want--" He groped for the right words. "I really like the work we do together. I don't wanna endanger that. And I don't want you to..." He paused again. "I'm not judgin' you, okay? Not at all."

They say you know when you've hit rock bottom. For me, it was being rejected by a fifty-year-old barbecue enthusiast who didn't know how to clean a bell pepper.

I didn't say anything. I just looked up into those small round eyes, searching for any sign that I wasn't fucked. Well, fucked metaphorically. I knew I wasn't fucked literally. That was off the table. Shit. The table. I'd maybe wanted to do stuff on the table.

There was a moment I considered lying to Baustin. I hadn't technically asked for anything. I could mock him for his assumptions. I could deride him. I could walk out the door into the storm and make it his fault. But the thought of doing that broke my heart. He might have been an incorrigible food criminal, but he was a sweet guy. And he was right about me, about what I wanted.

Instead, I did the next worst thing. I bargained.

"If it wasn't complicated," I tried, "would you want me?"

"Let's not play what ifs," he said, releasing my shoulders and taking a step back. "'sides, an old man like me? Trandor'd laugh, he'd say I probably can't even get it up anymore."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Can you?"

Baustin blinked. "Walked into that one, I s'pose."

"I s'pose you did," I returned. Fuck. Why was I needling him? He was my business partner. He was twice my age. He wasn't comfortable. Dee. Don't. Do. This. I clenched my fists and forced a hissing exhale. "Sorry."

"Oh." Baustin looked more apologetic than I felt. "No, no, it's okay--"

It's not fair of me, but I seized on that. "Is it okay or isn't it okay."

"Dee--"

"Is it okay or is it not okay."

"Let's just get you fed," he said, pushing past me toward the pantry. "What do you want to eat?"

Your fucking cock, dude.

When I didn't reply audibly, Baustin started suggesting things. "Okay, we've got a few options. Box mac, classic. Can always do more burgers. A salad would be easy, too."

"Salad," I said, instantly.

"Okay. Just lettuce and dressing? Maybe some cucumber? Oh, you like tomatoes."

"Bell pepper?" I asked, my voice small again.

"Sure, we have."

Baustin's voice was all business. He was just getting me fed.

But the chaos in me wasn't going to be sated with food. I leaned on the counter observing as Baustin prepared the ingredients. I don't think I was striking a particularly sensual pose, but I thought my proximity might do something, and anyway, I was waiting for an opportunity. He didn't say anything, so I figured... fuck me, right? What a way to go. But I was long gone.

When he got to the red pepper, I engaged in some very poor kitchen safety and put my left hand over his. I was holding the pepper through him. He didn't flinch. He just went for it, reaching into the pepper with his right to "clean" it. I felt, through his left hand, the pepper expanding to accommodate him. A primal shudder shot up my arm and exploded in my brain. Next thing I was fully leaning against his arm, almost sobbing with lust.

"Just let me get it out of my system," I begged. I never begged.

I looked up into Baustin's eyes, his wild, anxious eyes.

"Please, Boss."

"I guess," he said, after taking a deep breath, "that if I want it, too, denyin' you just 'cos I think I know better'n you's pretty fucked, huh."

I could have screamed.

"Yes," I rasped. "God, yes."

I expected Baustin to let me take the lead, to defer to my direction. It's not that that's what I wanted, that's just the vibe I got from his hesitancy. I couldn't have been more wrong. When my abundant consent met his clarity, he finally took control. He heaved me over his shoulder and strode purposefully from the kitchen.

There's little I like more in this world than being topped from the bottom, and I'd have never in a hundred years anticipated that this was in Baustin's skillset. But instead of throwing me down on the loveseat, he sat down. And then he pulled me down from his shoulder and into his lap. And then he wrapped a hand--his left hand, the hand that he used to hold onions in a stupidly dangerous fashion while he diced them--around my neck. At the contact, I felt myself flooding. He must have felt it, too; I was straddling his thigh, and he was grinding up into me. Even with two layers of denim between us it had to be obvious.

"Let me kiss you," I whimpered.

"If you're good," he said. I whimpered some more.

His right hand reached for my waist, and he forced me down harder on his thigh.

Fuck. I was putty in his hands. Putty that was going to come, hard.

"You've wanted this a long time," he stated.

I nodded. He wasn't really squeezing my neck, or holding me that firmly. But it was enough.

"Since that second time," I admitted.

"You filthy slut," he whispered.

He'd said he wouldn't judge me, and he wasn't. He was guessing what I wanted. He was guessing correctly. I shivered.

"You've the nerve," he continued, "to come down here, week after week, and desecrate the sanctity of my pit?"

"Sorryyy," I moaned, which got me a harder grinding.

"You charged me money," Baustin said. "You charged me money to come into my house and jack off all over the place."

"I should have paid youuu."

"As if I'd sell myself to a whore like you."

"I'd pay anything," I gasped.

"Yeah? You'd pay to fuck an old man?"

"Absolutely, I'm wretched." I tried to grind a bit of my own accord, but Baustin caught me and stopped my movements with a stern hand around my throat and a sterner look.

"You're so needy you'd take me at the grill. Even with the cameras rolling. Hell, you'd play it back for yourself and get off back home."

"Was doing that already," I said, which was more truth than play. "Jus' with my mind."

"But it was never enough, huh."

"Noooooo."

"It wasn't what you wanted, huh?"

"No!"

Baustin brought both hands to my shoulders and smirked. "Well, take it." And he pushed, hard, and I ground down on his leg until I came. I forgot Trandor in the attic and screamed. I shrieked, I gasped. I cursed and beat my fists against Baustin's chest and then he let me curl up against him and recover.

"Not so bad, right?" I asked, nuzzling his beard.

"Speak for yourself," he said. "You got off good, heh; how 'bout me?"

"Oh, don't you worry."

He nodded, granting me permission to slide to the floor. As I went, I noticed the deep dark patch on his jeans where I'd gotten off. I thought back to my jeans, after that second shoot: to the splash of oil, and the sink, and the bathtub. This was always going to happen. My aunt had called it. But I didn't feel bad about it. If anything, I felt smug as the cat that got the cream. I'd gotten mine, and it had been weird as hell but it had been right.

Once I was on my knees, any thought to my own pleasure was set on the backburner. It was Baustin's turn. I waited patiently with my hands in my lap while he undid his belt buckle, unbuttoned his jeans, and pulled out his cock. I'd thought Baustin had been big and small in all the wrong places. I'd been wrong. His cock was perfectly sizable: thick enough to fill my hand, long enough to reach my throat. I led with a lick or two, then took him to the root, wanting to prove that I was going to be good.

This kind of play was not my wheelhouse. And I'd never been with a guy twice my age who I wasn't remotely attracted to on any level that made sense. But here we were, and I wanted nothing more than to keep doing this, to suck, and lick, and slobber, to give what he would take and to take what he had to give.

Frustratingly, he had other plans. He put a hand on my head and controlled my pace. Occasionally this meant a surprise thrust down my mouth, which sent fire rushing to my extremities, but more often than not it meant a lot of air and breaks and frustrated half-licks along the underside of his cock.

"Lemme make you cum," I begged finally.

He chuckled, cupped my chin, and pushed his thumb into my mouth. Then, holding me by my jaw, he pulled me to my feet. I moaned in protest until he went for the waistband of my wrecked jeans with his other hand.

"Oh," I said.

"Let's get it outta your system," he suggested as he began unsnapping my fly.

"We can try," I countered, feeling rebellious. "But if it lingers, we might have to try again."

"Might just."

Once we'd disposed of my pants and sopping wet underwear, Baustin guided me into his lap--all without removing his thumb from my mouth, which I loved. I suckled at it and bit it and he rewarded me by unceremoniously impaling me on his cock. I groaned around his thumb as he thrust up into me with the same surety and vigor he brought to the pit. My body relaxed into this position and pace; I kept my weight off his lap by resting my hands on his shoulders, and I just let him fuck me as he pleased while I hovered, blowing his thumb. He felt good in me, and I squeezed down on him, eager to feel his release.

I tried to moan things like "cum, please cum, Boss, please, please cum," but it all came out "mmmmmnmnnnn" with his thumb in my mouth. He got the message, though.

"Dee," he started, a moment of clarity shining through our play, but I bit his thumb, hard, and his eyes rolled back. He growled. "Okay, slut, hope you're ready."

And then he pulled me down, hard, and stopped thrusting. I felt a faint pulse or two in my pussy, and then he was pulling his thumb out of my mouth and holding me to his chest and stroking my hair.

"You good?" he asked, just a little too soon.

We'd work on that.

#

I didn't get it out of my system, it turned out. But, as I'd promised, it wasn't complicated. Baustin's YouTube channel kept going, and I stayed on as his videographer. We weren't in love. Neither of us wanted a romance, anyway. But I started hanging out after pretty much every shoot, and his buddies kept finding reasons to make themselves scarce on the compound, and we had a lot of fun together.

My aunt gave me hell when she found out, of course, so fuck her I guess. Eventually my business reached the point I could leave Longriver and return to hipper and happeninger haunts, but I never looked at a bell pepper the same way again.