Paresthesia Pt. 12

I break from her and that sends a terribly needy whine from her. The windows rattle in the noise, but my hands on her, that helps. Under her shirt, helping her move some of the fabric out of the way. She throws her head back and stifles the poise, holding it down in her core, pressured enough to crack diamond. I kiss her stomach, feel her tension, feel the knots plucked like guitar strings. She is singing in her bottle silence, the glass bottle cracking and reverberating back into itself. I can't hear anything, anything at all, save for the flashbang ringing in my ears. And her heartbeat, surprisingly steady, infinity deep.

Her warmth dances on my tongue and she can't keep the bottle corked. It shatters and she moans down to the building's foundations. It is glorious, the heavens cleaved in two from sonic waves. Her stomach twitches, just a bit, the shift the knots, move the core, let the tension and release sit somewhere else in her body.

"I love you," she moans and the world moans with her, "I love you so much."

I spell I love you in her as well. She doesn't notice. Or if she notices, all she does to let me know is more mindless noise. She moves a bit up the desk, full straddling my mouth, my tongue, my lips. And it is finally something that she likes, something that she needs. It is not going to be enough at all. But it is a start, an appetizer, something to keep her from going absolutely feral.

I am hard and I am loathe to admit that the particular gift for her and her alone is now rather pleasant on me. It is soft and slick against me, lighting the length and teasing the head with the holes of lace. Shapes to rub against and little folds to hide it. It didn't have quite the same heat as Riot, the reaction of movement to movement, but it is something. And I move my hips a bit with it, they find new ways to get the sensation and bring me closer.

Riot is taking from me and she has no plans to give me anything. She will. Later. More than she thinks, but it will be enough and I will enjoy taking from her with no regard for her own enjoyment. And she will enjoy being taken for a ride. Because it is me. And because it is her. There Is us and anything we do is one of us together. I find a pattern she likes and she clamps down hard on my fingers in her. They are starting to cramp up, but I do not mind. She wants more. She wants more and I will give her more until I am still and spent. I pull and kiss her though and her hands find my hair. She pulls me back and sets her pace. I am a vessel for her pleasure. I am a tool for her, just a toy, just a thing to ride on and move with her so she can get the world she wants. So, I do what she wants. No questions asked, disobedience not even a thought.

She moans again and it is beautiful. Church bells and angle choirs, demon screams and roaring flames, disaster and exuberance, jubilation and desolation, loud enough to make the city shake into the rubble. It is not enough. She has her edge off at least, or almost will be. She is almost something close to on the road to satisfaction.

"Soon, soon," she squeaks, trying to put all the spine back in the bottle, back in the little package. It can't. It can't stay in. I don't want it to. I have my stutter step in between the off-time beats. I have the moments, fraction of seconds where she can't respond.

Tight, she is incredibly tight and wound, to the point of snapping chords and blasting noise. I am there with her, the sound of her heartbeat, the labored breath, the rush of blood in her veins. I am giving a disaster everything she needs.

It happens. She is there and over the edge in terrible free fall. She implodes on herself, the energy, the heat, all collapsing into her with the first core snapping in. I move us both a bit, letting her have some breathing room, sparing me from the worst of what she can pull. I keep my fingers moving, keep the shape and pattern she likes, keep the motion going so everything in her is white and sharp and blinding star.

Riot is silent, so silent. She is lost to it all. There is nothing for her anymore. She is just the hollow of what she is. Her spray is hard and long, staining his desk. I can't help but laugh. If only, if only he was here to see this. It would be funny as hell. I don't even know what the tirade would be about. But I make it longer. I make it last however long as she wants. Her hops are moving, making me hit the spots I am not quite matching, helping me help her become only white and energy and power.

I laugh. I laugh at it all because there is nothing else to do. She is lost, just lost to the white light and the tense muscles. Tense and slip and slide down m, arms too locked to give her a fall. I move my legs up and let her rest on my knees. It is long. I make it long, so long that the red in her face turns blue from the stamped down breath and held moment. A fight within her against her., every fiber tight and knotted and chorded. It snaps, it snaps and she finally goes limp against me, collapsing into me. My foot slips and she is now lying on top of me, on top of the desk, falling down into the light wood.

She's laughing too, laughing at the world that would allow her to exist, her power given and used as she wants with no repercussions given. She shivers and laughs and groans as something more pulls from her and another arc goes over my head.

It winds down with a shuddering laugh and a tantrum in her legs. The muscles twitch and writhe and she eventually moves away from me and sprawls out, descending into mad giggles. Her face is flushed and beaming and I don't think I've ever seen her so radiant.

"So," she sighs, "I want more. Like now. Like right now. Like take your pants off and get in me now, or I start breaking things now. So y'know, do that. Now."

Before I can say anything at all, there is a polite knock on the door. She doesn't even bother putting herself back to some sort of together. She waves her hand and the air detonates on our side.

"Cute," says Serpentor, "But I've already heard everything you little horndog."

"Sorry," I call, "But I had no control over any of this."

"I could tell."

"Serpentor," Riot yells, "come in. It's fun in here. You can be naked too. And we can do stuff together. Like sex stuff. Beat's being stingy."

"As much as I want to, the cops are coming. The real ones. Now, I could come in there and we can all play until they show up. But then I'd have to arrest you and it'll be a whole thing. Or you can leave and have fun later, but in your bed."

It's torture. It is simple torture for her to actually use her mind in any other capacity than horny. I am here, halfway to naked with another beloved partner on the other side of the door and it can be something special. I can smell the smoke from the turning gears in her mind. So many variables, such a complex equation of weighing pros and cons. It comes up with nothing, nothing at all. She instead choses to rub my chest and go down, trailing lips and kisses and little fluttering licks against me. Sex now. That is the only important thing.

"Hey, Serpentor," I shout in between her lips, "Settle a debate while you're here. Do I have a big dick?"

"You're not talking about this now," Riot sighs, "Not now. Who cares? It's going in me. That's the important part. The best dick is the one that's going in."

"I want to know. She's the only one we haven't gotten an answer from. I hear it from her and that's all I need."

She sighs and thunks her head against the door.

"Men," she says, "Fucking why are you all like this? Why?"

"Answer the question and I'll answer yours."

She considers her answer very carefully.

"You're bigger than Solar at least. But that's all your getting."

That's enough. That is more than enough to settle this once and for all. I will never ask that question again.

"I ask because it annoys Riot. That's it."

She barks a laugh and that seems to save face.

"Tick tock, by the way. I'll be at the Roulette tonight if you want to play. I think we've all earned a drink. Good show all around."

"Beat, Beat, come on," Riot whines, "Let's keep going. Screw the cops. They don't matter. You're hard right now. You're wearing enough of the thing. Come on."

It is a bad day, a bad day indeed, where I have to be the voice of reason against all this. And she makes a very, very good case as to why we should keep going until the cops come.

I make the executive decision to uphold my word and take the world into the soft gray. I sling her over my shoulders and start to make my exit. Serpentor gets a little pinch on her ass on the way out. She doesn't look too bad, considering the hit she took. Good for her.

---

Kieran dug through the bottom of her desk, humming a silly little kid's song that she forgot was stuck in her brain. It was about counting and letters and all the wonderful facts of life that little kids should know. The song did not cover everything, but it wasn't supposed to. It didn't cover where the clit was, or how to roll on a condom, or the early warning signs that your husband was a controlling prick who would put your entire career in a perfect little box if you so much as decided to get a tattoo without submitted every drop of ink for personal inspection. But it did cover a good amount. Kieran found her little treat at the bottom of a drawer. It was next to a stapler and what looked like the old police chief's business card. The treat was a bottle of gin. There were no cups.

"Jormungandr," she hummed to her baby in the corner, "would you be a dear and fetch mommy a glass?"

The snake flicked his tongue in a way that meant yes and slithered off to the break room. Kieran thought about pulling straight from the bottle, but that was uncouth. She was already barefoot, feet on her desk, and waiting to get drunk on office hours. She had some dignity to preserve.

She leaned back in her new executive chair. It was the best part about the promotion, really. The new office was okay. Definitely not Tom's. She didn't want his even if it was offered. She wanted blinds to pull down, low lights to turn even lower, maybe some sort of sunken couch deal to trip up other important people so she could watch them crawl on their bellies. She just had a corner in the trenches with beige walls and a map of the city tacked up on a wall. She sighed and watched her monitor.

Email after email after email, call after call after call, news and politicians, worried citizens and other professionals clutched their pearls and wrung their hands over the disaster they saw in cellphone videos already contagion levels of viral. And there was nothing she could do about any of it. Nothing at all. She would just deal with the rubble later. The bad guys won and she would raise a glass to a high-class bout. A knock came at her door.

"Did you remember the ice, Jor?" she called out. The knock came again, much too high on the frame for a snake. She rubbed her temples. This she had to deal with now.

Will walked in like a deflated balloon. His unkempt hair was even more unkempt. His disheveled kit was even more disheveled. His eyes were red, and there were tears streaking down his cheeks. There was some sympathy in her for that. Tears always pulled that terrible string.

"Hey Will," she said softly, "Take a seat."

He took it and more of him fell to pieces. He sobbed and fought back a full-blown meltdown valiantly.

"We lost," Will sniffed.

"Yeah. Yeah, we did."

"We're not supposed to lose."

"Yeah, we are."

Will shot her a look that tried to be intimidating. But the puffy eyes and the runny nose and the small hiccups kind of ruined it. The emails kept making that soft little chime through her monitor. Her original idea of a shot for everyone seemed fatal now.

"Captain Solar said we don't lose," he croaked.

"Tom-" said Kieran.

"Solar."

"Tom said a lot of things," Kieran sighed, "And he said a lot of things to you that just don't work outside of his little bubble."

"But-"

"Stop. Will, I know this is hard. But the sooner you get off his path and get on your own, the happier you're going to be. I know that firsthand. I thought that maybe if I did things his way, he'd let up. That didn't work out. He gutted me and it took a lot of dumb luck and a lot of dumb people breaking him to get me back on track."

Will simmered and cried and fought against the tears and the tantrum. It wasn't how the pieces should sit. A hammer, a boot, a strong hand needed to come back and set them right. One more little chime came through and Kieran actually read this one. Hugh was back from the dead, at Pepperell's Memorial Hospital. She was going to be a good manager and delegate.

"Will," she said, "I need you to do something, okay? It's not going to be big, but I need you to go to the hospital and pick up Hugh. Just bring him back here. There should be a town car that survived the explosion in the garage. If it's mine or his, you can take it. Can you do that?"

He sniffed again and straightened up. Despite everything, the kid got things done. He never asked how high to jump, but he always jumped. It came in useful occasionally. Will started patching himself up as he walked out the door. Jormungandr came back with a small bucket of ice balanced on his head, along with a small round cup. Jormungandr was a good boy. Kieran groaned. There was gin to drink and a phone call to make. She started with the call.

"Serpentor," Deadman growled.

"Don't do the voice," Kieran sighed, "I can barely understand you over the phone. Any problems putting yourself back together?"

"Nah," said Hugh, "Bit slower than usual, but still faster than the time Flow and Sunday decided to do a reunion tour. Sorry I couldn't be there for the cleanup. Any idea what they were after?"

Kieran laughed. That was very easy to see once they traced the packet. No idea where it wound up in a physical sense, but it was probably in The Doppel Gang's many, many hands.

"They got into Tom's files," she snickered.

Hugh laughed and stomped his foot. She almost felt the aftershock from across town.

"Going to leak his porn stash?" he chuckled.

"Probably more than that. I've been trying to make sense of the budgets forever. Well, it makes sense now if we take Tom's little savings into account. Oh, and Alizarin stole our last squad car and kidnapped Ken. And Will got the piss kicked out of him. And Riot and Beat fucked in Tom's office. This is going to be such a shit show."

She was laughing and it was ugly. He was laughing at it was even uglier. He choked and coughed and thumped his chest. He was fine. It was all fine.

"I'm giving everyone the day off tomorrow," she said when it was all winding down, "I have some ideas on how to spin this, just need to draft them. Going to have a real big talk with the cops about their contract if this is the performance we get. Will should be there soon to pick you up. We'll do a quick debrief and the head to the Roulette."

"That's beautiful. Wait. Wife's calling. See you soon."

He hung up on her and that was fine. There was gin to drink now and gin to drink later. Ken would turn up, probably. Will would go back to being a douchebag. She would go back to her apartment, sleep for a week, string up Hannah and Evan, and fuck them both to death for this wonderful disaster.

---

"I hate you so fucking much," Hannah whines. She's playing with herself. I can hear it. I can feel it. The heat in her body did not abate with our little trapse through time. It did not abate on the silently fuming ride back to our place. It did not abate when I slipped the Droog a ten for his or her trouble and carried off into the late afternoon.

"I am aware," I shout back, "If you wanted to spend a night in jail, then by all means, go ahead. I just know from experience that the mood there is terrible. Couldn't even jack off."

"Even when they brought out the cute lady cops?"

"Even then. And I'll be out in a second. I just have to figure out this strap."

"It can't be that hard. But do you need help? Please say you need help."

"I do not, but I appreciate you asking."

"I hate you so fucking much. You were supposed to say yes, so I could hop in there and we could finally do this. I'm dying. I'm dying and this is hell."

And hell is full of liars, like me. I figured out the strap about five minutes ago. But I am putting on lipstick for the first time in my life and that is a bit of an ordeal. A nice deep ruby red, classic, garish, probably the worst color for me, but Hannah wanted red lingerie, so she gets red everything.

"You'll live. There," I shout from the second floor, "It just hooks there and I'm finally ready."

"If you don't get down here in five seconds, I am coming up there and I am breaking all of your furniture."

"Our furniture. It's our furniture now."

She scoffs and gives a squeak as she finds something else in her body that she likes. Such a noisy little creature she is. My favorite kind of noisy too. Shake the roof, uproot the foundation, shatter the windows, booming bass that lets my eardrums bleed. I chuckle to myself and smile. A finger wipes at my teeth. A bit of the paint stuck to them. But it's clean now. A quick twirl and everything is in its place. I do look good, surprisingly good. Excitement is evident and clear and I see no reason at all to hide it. She'll appreciate it.

No music, no fanfare, just a slow open of the door and a strut down the stairs. I feel simply amazing. Never better. Stockings on tight, highlighting every muscle to long and lean and lithe. Everything she likes on full display. The silk is soft and light, easily letting the breeze of the room carry down through the fabric. Patterns and swirls, little flourishes of thread to give peaks of pale bare skin. Hannah is devouring me with her gaze.

"Get over here. Right. Now," she says. The words vibrate the air and settle deep into my soul. They are heavy. They are carried by subsonic waves, louder than what song and rumbling thunder, eruptions and earthquakes and I feel that I have done something rather foolish.

"So, I look- "

"What did I just say?"

I lean over the railing. She is stone faced, just a bit of color in the cheeks, lounging on our couch, legs open, panties around her ankle, a simple tank top keeping her chest hidden. She is playing with herself, even now. I cannot make her stop. A lazy finger, keeping folds moving, rubbing the lips, keeping everything warm and moving. She hitches in the breath for a moment.

I am next to her, without a moment's pause. She is still looking to the stairs, only breaking from the hypnosis of my after image, when I nip her ear and put my hand across her chest. I kiss her neck and I am knocked to my back for my trouble. I am pinned and still and completely under her grip. The thrum of power is back, a little more subdued than the Hall, but still crashing, still overwhelming. I laugh again. Such a simple thing she can be. I am a prize she has earned and she will play with it until I break. I don't mind breaking if it's her.

"Why do you look so good in all that?" she mutters. I don't have an answer for her. I don't want to answer. It simply is a fact of the world settled and scored and there is nothing she or anyone can do to change that.

"Fucking laced up present for me," she murmurs, trailing her lips down my stomach, "Dolled up and pretty. Never let you leave the house again. Just need to put you in a trophy case, breaking the glass anytime I want you."

"I take it you like all this?" I whisper. I stretch under her, buckling my stomach and giving her a soft wave of my abs. She licks the lines and kisses my navel.

"And he even shaved," she moans, "All smooth and silky and perfect."

"Not everything," I say, "Just gave the edges a bit of a trim. I wanted to be perfect for you. I did do my legs this morning, though. That took forever. So, I guess you get a pass if you want to skip. I mean, I like 'em smooth, but they're not my legs."