Terrell and Diramina

He narrows his eyes. "The throw blankets are folded across the back of the couch."

"I organized the living room, that's not cleaning it." I was just trying to calm the sea of nerves within me. "I'm honestly not this neat, don't expect this whenever I show up."

"Too late, if dinner's not on the table by nine I'm talking divorce."

I spurt laughter and he continues on to the kitchen. The fridge was somewhat stocked this time, so I made my father's stir fry. And then I remember the things, both somber and embarrassing, that my father said the other night, and resolve to watch the rest of the godawful movie I put on in relative silence. I hear general evening activities: dog food hitting empty bowls, the creak of stairs, a distant shower running.

After a bit Terrell comes to sit down, handing me a plate of food with two biscuits wedged on the side and tucking himself over the other arm of the couch with his own. I change the TV back to his show and we watch it, snorting and eating. In between episodes, he turns his head to me.

"Sorry about the other night."

"What, for the truth? It's fine."

"It wasn't your fault, and it happened a while ago."

"It still happened. My father's here, yours is not, and that's bullshit."

He has nothing to say to that, and we sit through the opening song of the next episode before he speaks again. "You don't have to cook and clean like that to apologize, either."

I look over at him, trying to understand how he got that interpretation. "Next time, I'll trim the hooves and you stay in, make me an egg sandwich."

I lean the side of my head against the cushion, but he doesn't laugh or smile. "I know how to cook."

"And all I've seen you make is sandwiches."

"Because I don't like to cook."

I nod, yawning. "When I'm nervous, I need something to do. I was in the house, I did housework."

"Is that what all the meddling in the kitchen is for?" We're ignoring the episode, even though it's probably funny.

I nod again, and he reaches for my bowl, stacking it on top of his when I hand it over and putting them both on the side table.

"Tell me how to break the spell," he finally says. I sit up so I can get properly flustered and walk away but he lifts an arm, somehow reaching me across the length of the couch and weighing me down with a hand on my shoulder. "I don't hate having you here, D'Mina. But this is clearly an increasing inconvenience for you."

"I can do it myself," I bluff, leaning hard against his hand to try and dislodge it. His arm doesn't give. Probably sturdy from wrestling all the sheep. I petulantly fall back against the couch.

He takes his hand off my shoulder and rests it with the other in his lap, and waits. A mixture of nerves and embarrassment is making my whole body flush, and his face is blank and stern.

"My godmother Sia told me it's a well known type of spell from the island my grandmother came from called matchcasting, and the courtship can be annulled by a formal rejection by either or both parties," I recite. I'd been practicing it for days.

He nods, thinking it over. "Special words, rituals, items?"

"Just intent."

"Intent." His eyes won't leave mine, and I take courage in that. Sort of.

"Whoever rejects the match has to mean it and actually want to annul it, or else it doesn't work."

He's very still. "So what's the hangup?"

I feel myself physically, spiritually, and somehow even financially shrivel away from the question. So I pretend I don't hear it. "So could you do it?"

Terrell watches me try my best to burrow into the couch. "D'Mina, could you do it?"

"I just said-"

"D'Mina," he repeats, arms swinging my way again. "Could you do it?

He pulls me upright and I wilt under his gaze, condemned. "N-not..." The stutter from my lips surprises and embarrasses me so much that I just fall silent, eyes downcast.

I'm folded into a hug, and once I'm no longer stunned by the contact I feel some sort of resigned relief at the truth finally being pulled out of me, albeit almost kicking and screaming. I sink into it rapturously and allow myself a few seconds before breathing deep and pulling my head up to talk.

"Listen, it doesn't have to be both of us, so pretty much now that you know how to do it, you can whenever. I'm sorry about holding it for so long, it's just embarrassing to-"

Lips against my neck, unmoving. I breathe out the rest of my words, all forgotten anyway, and feel my hands flutter against his back.

"I can't," he murmurs against my skin, tracing his mouth back and forth. "I can't do it either."

My head is still tilted back to accommodate him when he brings his face up and presses his lips into mine, hands in a claw-like grip on my shoulders and drawing me closer.

"Okay," I gasp for air when he pulls away, his hazed-out eyes soft on mine. My body, in contrast, is on high alert, in full sprint. "Okay."

His smile crawls across his face as lazy as magic, eyes half shut, flickering across my face, and still managing to convey what he wants.

I slide my arms from his back and let them barely rest on his chest, glancing between his lips and eyes to make sure it's not a trick. And I pour myself into the next kiss, a small trickle of lips and teeth and then the stream of my tongue, hands finding and roving over the warm body underneath all the goddamned flannel.

He shifts onto his knees, tipping me back to fall against the couch, my back against the warmth of the space I was just occupying. "Okay?" he teases, pulling my legs up onto the cushions and on either side of his body.

I pull him down to me and let him plunder, idly running hands over his back and ass as he sneaks his under the bra he'd seen earlier, clutched in my hands as I apparated into his living room.

"Terrell," I hiss, as he frees my mouth to bring his to my chest.

"Hmm." Hot lips close down, and as I shudder, my unattended breast shakes with the movement. He stares up at me, lips parted around and sucking strong at the nipple that he's wailing away at with his tongue.

"Nothing," I decide, sliding a hand over the back of his head, the thick hair catching at my fingers.

"I like your dragon," he states, smoothing fingers over the winged jewelry that's quivering on my stomach.

"I like you," I tell him, and when he smiles most everything in me leaps into a much stronger emotion. But I can hold onto that for now. Now he's got his face over mine again, pressing kisses into my lips and cheeks as his hands rove wildly at my waist.

"I like you, Diramina. Can we do this?"

He wraps the drawstring of my pants around his questing fingers, slightly tugging and causing the slipknot to slide a little.

I nod furiously against the couch, and he laughs, prompting a smile from me as he tugs the elastic loose and over my hips.

"The transport really, really caught you off guard, huh?" Terrell huffs over me, gazing at my bare skin. "Or was I right when I said you just waltz around next to naked?"

"Shut up, Terrell," I tell him, but end up shivering when he traces a hand over one of my hips.

Then he sits up over me. "Shit."

I look down at him. "What?" Then I see my body wavering at the edges.

"Fuck," he swears, so loud that Hade lifts her head from the cushion she and Frank share on the other side of the room.

He slams his mouth back into mine, invading with his tongue and pulling at my lips with his teeth.

His breath is harsh and hollow, quick and accompanied by quicker hands. The urgency has me desperate and dazed, and a soft, whining grunt slips into the air, repeating with the frequency of the light, breeze-like movements of his thumb over my clit.

"D'Mina, the first thing I'm gonna do," he pants against my lips, sliding two fingers over my shining pussy before sneaking them up into me, "when you come back, is fuck you."

"Fu- mmm," I moan, riding against the smooth curving of his fingers.

"And after that," he says decisively against my throat, where he began. His eyes travel over my body as our breathing turns foggy and distant to my ears. He pulls his fingers from me to swipe at them with his tongue, then stuffs them right back in, twisting at the knuckles. "Going to fuck you all kinds of ways."

I'm pulsing at cold, dark air when I come to, on the floor of my bedroom. My shirt and bra are pulled up over my damp breasts, baring them to the cold, but nothing compared to the chill pulling at my thighs and pussy with my pants down around my ankles.

"Next time," I call out, bursting up from the floor and throwing myself into my bed, rifling in the drawer next to me for relief.

I push the dildo up into myself and it's nothing compared to what he was about to do for me, nothing warm or overpowering. It's frigid, and I take the pain from the temperature difference as punishment for not telling him sooner. We could've been doing this sooner, and I wouldn't be here with a hole burning in my stomach for him.

I snatch it out and force it back in, the walls of my pussy already pulling at it and causing my limbs to jump from trying to contain any further movement.

"Fuck," I hiss, sliding a cold hand over the hip he barely touched and holding my breast, fiddling at the black nipple still swollen from his mouth. His hands were just playing at me, sliding in and riding the muscle to make sure I was ready for him. The dildo makes sloppy wet noises, making its way back out and gradually warming to my steaming body temperature.

I imagine him holding my hips still when I can't anymore and planting himself inside of me, and I arch and roll against the bed. I needed him to finish. Fuck this. I power my toy in and out of my pussy and feel it sucking at it, clamping down in its absence so that I have to effortfully push it back in past the slick gripping walls.

I realize I'm holding my breath only when I can't anymore, and gasp and pant into the cool air, nostrils burning. With the next expanse of my chest I come in a rush, one hand preoccupied with pumping the rod in and out of my seizing pussy and the other rubbing fiercely vicious circles and lines into my clit.

When the warmth of my activity fades, I go to turn the heat up, and I fall asleep.

...

"This is going up on the website."

"Aw Ma, thanks," I mutter, a clipped portion of a wire hanger clenched between my teeth and a PVC pipe in both hands.

"Have you talked to Terrell yet?"

I fumble one of the pipes. "Yeah."

She leans against the work station, and I bite back the sigh threatening to come hissing through my teeth.

"You should invite him over."

I put one of the pipes down and take the wire out from between my teeth. I'm gonna have to hot glue them in place first anyway. "Ma, he's not mad, like you said, but I think that's a bit too far."

"You're still going over there, so I'm assuming the match is working out."

"Ma, this costume isn't going to be website-worthy if we keep talking about this."

She cocks her head, a question and the answer to that question in her eyes. I tap the hard plastic in my hand against the solid wood of the table, flustered.

She finally bows her head with a blustery sigh coming through her smile, accepting my silence. "D'Mina you get so embarrassed so easily, I wonder if he even knows how you feel."

Oh he definitely does.

I burn and prick myself a few times over the average that day, daydreaming about just how much he knows. I haven't seen Terrell in over a week, and hot dreams and wet fingers only go so far. By the eighteenth day I'm assuming the magic is doing this on purpose.

I want to be back under him. Or on top of him. Next to him. Even just in his general vicinity. The chilling thought hits that maybe he realized he didn't actually want me, and rejected me after I left. But wouldn't I know? I could ask Sia, but then she'd ask me all those questions that I have no intention of answering.

By day twenty-two my parents must know something is up, but they don't say anything. I'm able to complete the steampunk dress and photograph the customer wearing the piece, assuring her that I won't post the photos until after the promotional event she ordered it for.

I start arranging a consultation for another one of our Spring requests, but my mother shoos me away from the phone and makes the appointment with the customer herself.

She hangs up and scrutinizes me as I'm considering whether or not I can use one of my favorite patterns for a project I'm about to start, with a few minor adjustments. "You didn't take your usual week off yet, so you're gonna do it now."

"Ma I've already missed enough time as it is."

She bustles around the shop, tidying the chaos here and there. "No, I've told you to take every Friday off since this all started, but you end up coming in anyway. And you're here most weekends. You're overcompensating when you've only missed about four days."

"And because of it, we've finished three more costumes than usual at this time of the year." I'm not bold enough to blatantly disobey her and keep manipulating the pattern cut outs, but I refuse to remove my hand from the stack.

"D'Mina," my mother yawns from behind a rack of fabric. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. I think I know what this is about, but I'm letting you figure it out yourself, because that's what I've always done." She peers around the rack, a roll of ivory silk in hand. "You seem stuck."

I am. "I'll be back in a couple days, Mom," I say, as sternly as I can muster. There's no such thing as putting your foot down with her.

She shrugs and in a rare show of power, waves a hand to call a breeze, brushing me towards the door. I stumble towards the coatrack where my coat and keys are hanging. "Really?!"

Her laugh is as musical as grandma's, but without the spine-chilling ethereality. It makes me smile against my sour will, and as I drive home, I think about what I can get done over the next week.

...

Two days in and I find myself in my own workroom, gathering tulle for the underskirt of a personal project that I haven't worked on in almost a full year. I tell myself it's definitely not to make up for the dress my mother took over from me, and stubbornly resolve to finish the whole Cinderella-style gown in the days I have left.

My mind keeps drifting off to an absurd expanse of sodden grass and the thick, waxy smell of wool. The bite of cold air and the sting of unforgiving winter sunlight on snow. Warm hands, warm eyes.

In the late afternoon I'm hunkering back over the machine after a short break, when I realize my hands are going see through. I only have time for the bare bones of excitement and dread before I'm standing in the cold, empty barn, staggering but eventually overcoming the spin and pull of gravity that I had nearly come to miss. I whip my head around and don't see him; stand stock still for several seconds hoping to hear the dogs charging in. Nothing.

The cot and blankets are still there, and I wrap the heaviest blanket around myself before shuffling out of the barn. It's cold, I determine, but it could be worse. No wind, no snow. I see the flock and dogs in the far distance, white dots and two brown ones against a pale green earth. No man among them, so he's got to be back at the house. I hope. Or else I'm going to huddle up on that cot back at the barn until he comes around.

I jog most of the way there, but the wheezing eventually gets to me and I settle for a fast walk at the end. My numb face reminds me of how it felt walking to school in the winter, and I find I'm not that mad at the cold today. When I take the last couple of steps to the door, I hesitate to knock.

I shake myself to get over it and rap six times. Silence from inside. I raise my hand to knock again when I hear a crash and thud, then footsteps. The door is yanked open with such a force that the gust of air pushes him back a bit, but not before he grabs one of my hands clutched in the folds of the blanket and pulls me inside.

I blink and find my back pressed to a closed door and Terrell holding me up against it, lips sealed tight over mine. He stumbles over the blanket at our feet in his effort to kick my legs apart, and snaps back to a broad-legged stance in front of me, grunting.

There's nothing but a blaze wherever he touches, and I can't tell if it's because I'm so cold or so immediately ready for him. Hands find my breasts again, pinching and scraping at my nipples and pressing me firmly against the door when I rise up against them, my first true moan escaping when he releases my mouth.

He steps back to start snatching my clothes from my body and I find that his eyes aren't hazy or soft, but sharp and urgent. The frozen ground is a distant memory as he slides rough hands into my waistband, pushing my sweatpants down and lifting me out of them before I can make a move to step out myself.

He presses his lower body against mine, pinning me to the door, and my legs separate and close around his body, top half arching to comply as he tugs my sweater over my head.

He brings his face down to mine again and I hear a zipper and cursing while I trace swirls against his shoulders. My fingers clamp down when scorching hands begin to crush my hips, tilting them forward in the dim light of the hallway. He studies the drooling junction of my legs; how it got like that, I have no idea. I just know I've been waiting for the heat of his hands for nearly a month.

I grunt as he takes one hand off of me to guide himself in, the pressure of his remaining hand holding me up against the door almost unbearable. It only lasts a moment and then all my focus is centered on him sinking into me, at last, his body covering mine as his face falls to my neck.

"Mmh," is the first thing out of me, prompted by a thick, hot tongue dipping at my skin. I feel his fingers flutter over my body just as I'm fluttering around him, my body trying to decide whether it's going to relax or clamp down. My legs are already sliding, trembling too much to lock onto his waist.

Terrell pulls back, eyes open, and comes to life again, one arm at a time sweeping up under my knees and lifting until he can grab my hips again. I let out a small "hoo," because that's all I can do except wrap my arms around his neck and feel him pressing me open further against the wall.

He starts rocking, and I cringe at the immediate squelching, but he just starts going faster, leaning back to watch himself disappear into me over and over again. The slamming of my thighs against my stomach won't allow me to take a full breath, and I'm gasping against the folding of my body and the wall of sensation until tears are running down my face and onto his.

He slows to a stop for a moment to replant his feet and adjust his grip, and while he does he just looks straight into my eyes, halfway unseeing. The silence is laden with awareness, and we're both tuned in to me pulsing around him. He hefts my body back up, in intense concentration as he resumes. I squeak, the first telltale signs of what's to come, and he slaps into me, drawing the sound out again.

I toss my head against the strength of the next set of thrusts and he makes a wheezing sound at the rippling of my body around him. He starts throwing his hips against mine as I crumble in orgasm, the smacking of flesh no longer jarring against my ears. I welcome the wet, sloppy pistoning and bear down against his ramming motions so that I can hear those hollow breaths again, this time shakily drawn against my neck as he's summoning the energy needed to keep thrusting.

The white-hot feeling I've been waiting for since he first touched me strikes my whole body rigid, and he uses those precious moments to his full advantage, slamming up relentlessly into a spasming, dripping hole.

Gently, in comparison, he rests his forehead against the heavy door to my right, his shoulder and chest pressing down on my body and holding me down to feel the rush of fluid uninterrupted.