Love and Suction

"A quirk? What, like... a kink, or something?" The thought surprised me. Throughout our relationship, Vivienne had never mentioned any kinks, so I had just kind of figured she didn't have any. In fact, the only thing I knew for sure about her was that she didn't like blowjobs... The few times I had brought them up, she insisted that they just weren't her thing, and left it at that. It was kind of a bummer, to be honest, but it wasn't a dealbreaker by any means. I couldn't imagine what kink she would have that ever would be that much of an issue for me. I liked to think I was pretty open-minded, but, then again, I wasn't terribly kinky myself, either. Whatever it was, though, I was sure we'd be able to make it work.

"No, that's not what I... ugh. God, I hate this!" she groaned. Oh. Whelp, never mind. I guess I was back to being completely lost.

"Viv, whatever it is, you can tell me," I said, as I took her trembling hands in mine. She stared at me for a second, and her lips curled into a frown before she turned away from me. I wondered what it was that was so shocking that she couldn't say it to my face. She grabbed the wine glass in front of her and drained the rest of it before placing it back on the table with a forceful clink. She just sat there like that for a while, and I patiently waited for her to continue.

"So... I'm not... exactly... human," she finally said, the last word trickling out of her mouth hesitantly. It took my brain a few moments to even register what she had said. I simply stared at her, dumbfounded and unable to respond for a bit. Finally, my mind started working long enough for me to consider what she had said... and I couldn't believe it. There was no way it was true. It did sound absolutely insane, and yet... I wanted to believe that Vivienne was telling the truth. I needed to believe her. So, I was going to listen what she had to say.

"G-go on," I urged, the words catching in my throat.

"It's a, um... family thing. Genetic."

"O-okay. So... what, um... are you, exactly?" I asked, still hardly able to believe I was entertaining the notion that she wasn't human. Vivienne's cheeks flushed with color as gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white.

"So, you know how I said I use the work vacuum for the apartment?" she asked, still unable to meet my gaze.

"Uh huh."

"That's a lie. I don't use the work vacuum."

"So... you, like... borrow someone else's, or something...?" I asked. It seemed weird that she wouldn't let us just buy one if that were the case.

"No, that's not it," Viv said, with a sigh.

"Okay. So what exactly are you saying, Vivienne?" I asked, still confused as hell. She turned to look at me then, her face deathly serious.

"I'm saying... I've... been doing the vacuuming, Noah." The emphasized word wasn't lost on me, but I hadn't quite followed what she meant.

"You've... been doing the..." I repeated slowly, letting the sentence trail off as I tried to wrap my mind around the implications of what she was saying... but I just didn't understand. "Okay, so I'm still lost. Can you explain it to me like I'm five?"

"I'm a vacuum cleaner, Noah!" she finally exclaimed, the words pouring out of her mouth in a flurry of frustration. Her cheeks blazed with heat as her eyes bored into mine, searching them for my reaction to the ridiculous admission she had so unceremoniously dropped into my lap.

And honestly? My first reaction was to laugh. Because of all the things she could have said... of all the surprising, hilarious things she had ever said to me in our twenty-one months together... that one was the most ridiculous, by far. And so, yeah, I laughed at it. I couldn't help myself, because... what the fuck? When she brought up the whole 'I'm not exactly human' thing, she sounded so serious, I'll admit I had almost believed the bit for a second. And maybe I would have been more inclined if she said she was, like, maybe a witch, or something, but... a fucking vacuum cleaner? It was so goddamn goofy that I couldn't help but laugh - when I looked over at her, though, she was glowering at me.

"Are you done?" she asked, the question laced with irritation.

"What?!" I asked, cracking a smile at her. "It was a good joke. You got me! Surprise!"

"I'm being serious," she said, sounding a bit more irritated. She could say it all she wanted, but how was I supposed to take that seriously?

"Sure, you are, Viv," I said, with a smirk. "If you're a vacuum cleaner, then I'm a—"

"It's not a FUCKING JOKE, Noah!" Vivian screamed; her face was flushed with color. I had heard her loud and clear, but she nevertheless punctuated the outburst by slamming her fist onto the table, causing both me and dishes on the table to jump. I promptly shut the fuck up, feeling a shiver run down my spine. Throughout our entire relationship, I had never once seen Vivienne get that angry. She would snap, occasionally, sure... but yelling, punching things... swearing? It was... a surprise, for sure. A decidedly unpleasant one. She had definitely made her point abundantly clear.

"O-okay," I said, raising my hands up submissively. "Alright, Vivienne." She stared at me, trembling and clearly embarrassed as she rubbed a shaking hand through her hair. She looked like she might cry again, and I didn't want to see her hurting anymore. "I'm sorry."

"I'm... sorry, too, Noah." she said, finally. Her voice wavered as the tension of the moment dissipated. "That was... uncalled for, but I didn't know how else to..." she let the sentence trail off, then took a moment to regroup. "I need you to trust me, Noah. Okay?" I nodded slowly.

"Okay," I let out a deep breath and grabbed the bottle of wine. "More wine?" She nodded but didn't say anything, just slid her glass over toward me. I poured us each a small glass. We both picked them up and an awkward gulf of silence grew that neither of us seemed to know how to break. We ended up just silently clinking our glasses together, then awkwardly taking a sip. I set my glass down after just that little bit, but Vivienne ended up draining her glass again. The tension in the air was thick, and the mood was somber. I decided to just dive right in and start fresh. "So... you're a vacuum cleaner." Viv stared at her empty wine glass for a second, then looked up at me and nodded.

"Technically, I'm a vacuum cleaner shifter." I racked my brain for anything I knew about shifters.

"A shifter?" I asked. "Isn't that, like... a werewolf, or something, right? So, you're, like... a were...vacuum?" It sounded stupid as hell even as I said it, my brain conjuring images of rabid vacuum cleaners rampaging under the full moon.

"A were-vacuum?" Vivienne asked, with a snort. She started to laugh, then. What began as a quiet chuckle slowly got more intense, and before long she was positively cackling at the absurdity of the notion. Soon we were both laughing, and by the time we had both managed to calm down, the tension that had hung so heavily in the air just moments ago had all but disappeared.

"No, babe. I'm not a were-vacuum," she said, grabbing another tissue to dab at the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes; thankfully, they were tears of laughter that time. She beamed at me, and I had to admit it was good to see her smiling again. "Those don't exist. At least, I don't think they do." She stopped for a moment as she seemed to consider the possibility. "God, I hope they don't." Her smile gave way to a grimace, and she shivered a bit before her face turned serious again. "Anyway..." She said the word in a firm tone, as if to bring us both back to reality. "I can shift whenever I want - no full moon required." I could hear the sense of pride in her words, and she punctuated the last bit with a cheeky little smirk.

"Into a vacuum cleaner," I said, my voice incredulous. Vivienne nodded, and I stayed silent, still trying to comprehend everything.

"Look, Noah, I know how this sounds," Viv said. "But it's true." It sounded impossible. My mind ran through the evidence that she just might have been telling the truth. I thought about the way she had come home from her parents' house looking like she had literally rolled around in the dirt, and how she had acted so weird when I had asked her about the mess. There was the incident at dinner, and the weird whining noise coming from Vivienne's throat. I had originally chalked it up to a lack of proper air flow, but, thinking about it further, it had almost sounded like... a vacuum cleaner. The pieces all started to click together in my brain, and I felt like I was going mad as everything started to make sense: Vivienne's dogged insistence on being the only person to take care of the vacuuming, the way she always did it when I wasn't home... even her vehemently strong disdain for Roombas. A shiver ran down my spine as I realized that this insane notion of hers was actually seeming plausible.

"Okay. So... I believe you. Why didn't you tell me sooner, though, Viv?" I said, unable to hide the hurt behind the words. "You could have told me at any point before—"

"—Before you asked me to marry you?" she asked, and I could see the sadness on her face. It twisted through me like a knife.

"That's not what I meant, Vivienne. I just... want to understand why you hid this from me." I said, my lips curling downward into a frown. "We've been together two years, after all." Thankfully, she didn't correct me that time.

"I wanted to, but... I was scared. The last time I told I told a partner about this, it... didn't go well, and I didn't want to go through that again. Not with you, Noah." She had mentioned her shitty ex a couple times, but I had never gotten the full story. All I knew was that things had ended badly between them, and Viv had been torn up over it for a while before she finally decided to start dating again. Vivienne's gaze drooped down to her lap before she continued. "I had hoped to tell you sooner... but every time I worked up the courage, I just couldn't bring myself do it. I was so scared of losing you, and now... well, here we are." They were the same words I had spoken earlier, but instead of pride in them, there was only shame. Vivienne reached across the space between us and took my hands in hers. She stared at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, and my heart somehow managed to both break and melt simultaneously. Her face was a paradox, somehow managing to look dejected and hopeful all at once. The smile on her face was small and hesitant, a mere shadow of the one I loved so much. "Of course, I want to marry you, Noah. But... if you've changed your mind, well... I wouldn't blame you." Her eyes started to water, and I could see the resignation in them, the willingness to accept whatever outcome was coming.

I looked over at the box with the ring before I turned my gaze back toward Vivienne.

"If I'm being honest, Viv, I don't know if I can give you an answer right now," Vivienne was quiet for a moment before she nodded. Her face was a veritable brick wall; if she was disappointed, she didn't show it.

This new development had called into question everything I thought I knew about Vivienne, and yet... I understood. There was never going to be an easy way to tell me. It's not like there was an instruction manual for telling your significant other that you're actually a vacuum cleaner. I wished she would have told me earlier, but the fact that she was telling me at all, at such an important juncture, meant she was trusting me with a part of herself she could have just as easily continued to keep hidden. And if I truly did love her... if I was going to marry her... I would have to accept that part of her, too. I knew I had to see it with my own eyes, first, though.

"You said you can... shift whenever you want?" I asked. I saw the stoniness of her expression crack as a smile flitted across it. I wondered if she was nursing that same small flicker of hope and feeling those same butterflies dancing in her stomach that I felt earlier.

"I... can," she said. The words were both hesitant and hopeful, lodged somewhere between a statement and a question. Her smile grew a bit, but she still seemed hesitant, as if she didn't want to get her hopes up too much.

"Can you show me?" I finally asked, grinning back at her. Her smile lit up her face all at once; it was absolutely radiant, and my cheeks blazed with heat.

"Of course!" she chirped, her mood perking up in an instant. The heaviness from earlier seemed to dissipate in an instant, and, just like that, she was back to her usual, cheerful self. "We can get this place cleaned up, too, alright?" I nodded quickly, feeling an odd mix of anxiety and morbid curiosity settle into my stomach. I had no idea what to expect. I stared on, confused, as Vivienne went over to the windows and shut the blinds. I wondered what the hell she was up to, and soon I had my answer -- my eyes widened as Vivienne began to strip off her clothes. She took her shirt off first and carefully folded it up before placing it on the couch. It turns out that she hadn't put a bra on after she showered, and my cock rose to attention at the sight of her breasts. Her little show wasn't over, though. Next, she unbuttoned her pants and pulled those down before putting them with her shirt. Now all that was left to go were her panties, which she gingerly slid down her legs. She stepped out of them and neatly placed them onto the couch with the other clothes before letting out a breath, her cheeks blazing as she stood stark naked in our living room. My face was on fire, and she flashed me an amused grin as her eyes drifted down to the bulge in my jeans. "You like what you see?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "I, uh, wasn't expecting you to take your clothes off," I said, my cheeks still burning.

"Surprise!" she exclaimed, with a wink and a playful little flourish of her hands. After a moment, she added, "I can't exactly do this with my clothes on, Noah."

"So, you... do the vacuuming... naked?" I asked. Vivienne nodded, and her cheeks turned pink. I thought about the way she had come home earlier completely caked in dirt and dust from head to toe. "So... when you were cleaning over at your parents' house...you were...?" I let the sentence trail off. Her cheeks turned from pink to crimson at that, and she ran a hand through her blonde locks. She was quiet for a moment before she finally nodded. "Yeah. It... can get a bit messy."

"Do you, um... do this... anywhere else? Like for your work?" Vivienne's eyes widened, and she shook her head vigorously, even as her face somehow turned even more red, thought I wasn't sure it was possible.

"God, no, Noah!" she said, quickly. "I only shift here at home, or at my parents' house." She chuckled a bit before she spoke again. "We actually do have a specific vacuum we use for work, babe. I can't exactly change into a vacuum cleaner out in public, after all." It was a relief to know that she didn't do this... naked vacuuming thing in strangers' houses, but the fact that she did it at her parents' place was still kind of weirding me out.

"And... so you go over to your parents' house and... do this...?" I waved a hand toward her as I recalled the unexpected stripping episode that had unfolded just a few moments ago. Vivienne looked at me and cocked her head to the side before her eyes lit up in recognition. She grimaced and shook her head again.

"What? No! I mean... yes, but it's not like I get naked in front of them, Noah! I do it in the bathroom... like a normal person!" I smiled at the irony of the words - nothing about this was normal.

"Oh," I said. "Duh." Thinking about it rationally, that should have been obvious, but between the aforementioned stripping and the fact that I was still trying to wrap my head around this whole bizarre situation, my brain wasn't really in rational thinking mode just then. I watched as Vivienne kneeled down onto the carpet and straightened out her back, making herself as tall as she could. She took a deep breath and let it out before looked over at me; when she saw my face, concern flooded her features and the corners of her mouth curled downward into a frown.

"Are you sure you're okay, babe?" she asked, as she relaxed her posture a bit. "You're looking a little pale." I had to admit I was a more than a little nervous. I couldn't believe I was evidently about to witness Vivienne, the woman I had spent nearly two years with - the love of my life - transform into a fucking vacuum cleaner. I felt like I had tumbled into a strange alternate reality, or some kind of wild fever dream that I would surely wake up from at any moment, but no... it was actually happening.

"It doesn't... hurt you, does it? To, er... shift?" The question was clumsy as it rolled off my tongue, but I needed to quell the anxiety that had settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt completely in over my head with everything going on.

"Not at all," she said, reassuringly. "I'll be fine, Noah." I stared at her for a second, still feeling a bit uneasy, but I did my best to put that out of my mind.

"Um, should I just leave you to it then, or...?" I asked, letting the sentence trail off. "D-do you want me to be here?" Viv broke my gaze for a second, and her cheeks reddened.

"If... that's okay with you?" she asked, tentatively, and then we both were blushing. "Y-you don't have to, though!"

"No, no; that's... it's fine!" I piped up, trying my best to stifle my nerves with a confident smile. "H-how long does it take to change, exactly?"

"Not long at all! Only a minute or so." I nodded slowly.

"Um, do you want me to watch...?" I asked, hesitantly. I wasn't sure I was prepared to see exactly what the process looked like. In fact, I didn't know if I would ever be, but I still wanted to be there for Vivienne if I could.

"That's up to you," she said. "I don't mind, either way." I was silent for a little bit, considering whether or not I wanted to, whenever Viv spoke up again. "Actually... I've got an idea."

"W-what is it?" I asked.

"Uh-uh-uh," Viv shushed me, shaking her head playfully with each rising syllable. "You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would you?" she asked, her lips curling into a deliciously devious grin as she beckoned me over with an enticing wag of her finger.

I know I said I didn't like surprises, but... I mean, come on. I had no fucking clue where she was going with this, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was a sexy surprise. My dick did too, from the way it was still tenting my jeans. I reached down and hesitantly unbuttoned them, spurred on by an encouraging nod from Viv. I quickly stripped down and haphazardly threw my clothes on the couch before scrambling over to her.

"Are you ready for your surprise?" she purred; the words were sultry. All I could do was nod at her. "Close your eyes...and keep them closed." I did as I was told, and the room was plunged into darkness. My heart started to race in anticipation, and my dick was still standing at full attention. Suddenly, I felt Vivienne's arms wrap around me as she leaned in close and pressed her lips against mine - a pleasant surprise, indeed. I took her in my arms and leaned into the kiss, eagerly pressing my tongue into her mouth. As we started to make out, my left hand drifted upward toward her chest while the right one wrapped around her back and found her ass. Vivienne shivered slightly as her nipple stiffened against my palm, and she let out a soft moan as I gave her ass a playful little squeeze. She smiled as she pulled away from me and ducked her head to the side, until her mouth was tantalizingly close to my ear.

"Here I go," Vivienne whispered just before she nibbled playfully at my earlobe, sending an electric shiver of pleasure racing down my spine... and through my dick. She maneuvered her head back toward me, and soon enough her lips found mine once again. She uncurled her arms from around my back and let them hang limply at her sides. Before I could even think about the fact that she had untangled herself from our embrace, things started to get weird.