Too Sweet Pt. 04

I flinched. That sentence hurt. It cut too deep. It had Ethan's signature personalized cruelty backing it.

"Back off, man," Ira snarled from my right side. "She's done with you."

"Are you the one who answers her phone? You really are a faggot, huh?" Ethan snickered. "Short little fucker, too."

"Leave him alone!" I snapped. As angry as I was to confront him at all, Ethan turning on my friends sparked an overprotective fury in my chest.

Ethan smirked patronizingly.

"You're so pretty when you're angry."

Mike and Ira both had their hands on my shoulders, pushing me back and stepping in front of me. I didn't hear any communication between them, but Mike gently encircled my shoulders with his arm and shifted me back as Ira moved the block Ethan.

"Leave," Ira said firmly. "And don't come back here."

Ethan scoffed, but he stepped forwards towards us and the sidewalk beyond. Mike pulled me back, keeping me behind Ira and in the gentle circle of his arm until Ethan passed.

"Come on," Mike said as he took me back to the coffee shop. Ben was standing at the entrance to the alley glaring down the street where Ethan had disappeared. He started dispersing the crowd with his inarguable professional manner.

Mike had me sit on the floor in the stock room. My brain was far away. I could feel myself trembling. I could feel angry, embarrassed tears on my face. I thought I heard Mike and Ira talking. I couldn't get my body off autopilot.

Ben pushed a plastic cup of water into my hands. I stared at it in confusion. Ben was definitely trying to talk to me over the roar in my ears and the distance to my consciousness. He eventually shook his head and said something to Mike and Ira that I still couldn't hear.

I distantly realized that Ira and Mike were both sitting on the floor with their laptops as time wore on and my body started to respond to me.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

...

Teddy

There's something so deeply wrong about a person you barely know running up to you in the middle of a factory to say you have an emergency phone call. It feels intrusive. It makes the phrase "don't shoot the messenger" make a lot of sense.

I made it to the office area, near enough to the windows where my cell phone was sure to have reception inside the big metal building full of whatever it was that bugged out my signal, and called Ben back.

"Everything's ok," Ben said immediately. "No one is hurt." That didn't really settle the acid in my stomach. "Ethan showed up and cornered Kit. She's not hurt, but she isn't talking."

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I said. I was already jogging towards the lockers to get my helmet and keys.

"Don't speed and get yourself killed," Ben reprimanded me. "She's safe here with me and Mike and Ira. Just get here."

"Fine, I'll be there in twenty," I conceded.

...

Kit was sitting on the floor in the storage room between Mike and Ira when I got there. No one was talking, but Mike had one hand resting on Kit's sneaker and she was leaning lightly on Ira's shoulder.

"Hey," I said and crouched in front of Kit. She blinked at me and teared up.

"You didn't have to leave work," she whispered in a small, creaky voice.

"Let me take you home?"

"My shift isn't over," Kit argued.

"You're working your shift from the floor back here?" Ira asked. Kit chuckled dully.

"Maybe. Maybe my sunny presence is my contribution," she said. It lifted my spirits a bit to hear her making jokes.

"Let Smokey take you home and pamper you," Mike said. "You could probably wrangle just about anything out of him right now."

"She always gets whatever she wants from me," I scoffed and helped Kit to her feet. "¿Estás bien, diosa? ¿Puedes caminar?"

"I'm ok, querido. He just scared me and now all the adrenaline is gone," she answered and then winced. "Lo siento. No puedo hablar Español ahora."

"Lo hablo para que solo tú entiendas. Puedes hablar Inglés," I reassured her. She nodded, as always understanding Spanish better than she could speak it. "¿Puedo llevarte a mi casa?"

Kit just collapsed into me and nodded against my tee shirt.

...

I tried to convince Kit to take a shower. She stared at me like I suggested that she go out alone into the woods blindfolded.

"I'll come with you," I offered. Kit grimaced and shook her head.

"I'm not afraid," she insisted.

"Ok, just for company, then?" I suggest. "Or because I'm afraid?"

"You afraid I'll wash down the drain?" she asked, but she was smiling again.

"Yes." I took a chance and wrapped my arms around her. Kit sighed and relaxed a bit. "I don't want to lose you to the sewers."

"I want to say that I'm not always so much drama, but that would be a lie," she said with a grim chuckle.

"You're really not," I told her. "I mean, no more than me and all my family stuff."

Kit seemed unconvinced, but she let me talk her into the shower. I couldn't ignore the bruises on her arm. That fucking asshole had hurt her again. I pushed that off in favor of trying to take care of Kit.

"¿Puedo lavarte el pelo?" I asked her.

"¿Por qué? ¿Mi cabello está tan sucio?" she giggled.

"Because I like to take care of you," I told her. "And I love it when you let me treat you like a goddess."

"You're such a sucker," Kit chuckled and stepped into the shelter of my arms. "I'm pretty sure I'm just human."

"All myths were human until someone started worshiping them," I told her.

"Are we starting a cult?" she asked me. "Yes, you can wash my hair."

...

Kit

Teddy spent the evening taking care of me and I felt like a fraud. That mean voice was loud and it sounded suspiciously like Ethan.

Soak it up now, use him as much as you can.

He'll figure it out.

You this is temporary.

It's temporary.

Temporary.

Oh, God.

Ethan had wormed his way back into my head.

"Teddy?"

He paused the movie we were supposedly watching on his laptop and turned his full attention on me with that gentle, sweet look. I almost backed out of what I needed to say. My urge to protect Teddy from the insanity I reaped in my life was strong. Instead, I decided to be vulnerable.

"I need to tell you something," I said carefully. "About Ethan. About something he said today."

"You can tell me anything," he said gently.

"There's kind of a backstory," I started. "I don't want to get too deep into it, but Ethan and I didn't date. I met him at a, um, a BDSM meetup thing.."

I paused, searching Teddy's face for any sign of a bad reaction, but he was just listening and waiting with that same sweet patience.

"So, um, you know I'm not really much of a sub, but I was already doing shibari. I was doing the tying. I wanted to try out the other way. I, um, well I was in a weird place. You know, brain stuff. So when I met Ethan and he started pushing me, I just let it happen. It felt like the punishment that I deserved and it gave me a goal I thought I could reach. Just do what Ethan wanted. Be a good girl and maybe I could eventually earn better treatment, you know?"

Teddy squeezed me gently, but he didn't say anything. His sweet look had softened with a pall of sorrow.

"He made me tell him things. Things about myself. Therapy shit, you know? And then he used that to remind me that he was the only person who could know all that and still love me. Every other person in my life was temporary. That was his word. Temporary."

I shuddered. God, I felt more exposed than I did when I was naked. I shut my eyes to try to gain some amount of privacy.

"He said that to me today. All my new friends are temporary. I'll slip up and I'll lose them all jut like I always have. And then it will just be Ethan again. Just like that. One sentence and he's back in my head. I'm really struggling, Teddy. I'm scared."

"Kit," Teddy said softly. "Can you look at me?"

I took a shaky breath and chanced opening my eyes. The look on Teddy's face shattered the tenuous grip I had on my emotions. He looked devastated. I felt the sobs in my throat before I could stop them. Teddy just pulled me close and let me cry, gently stroking my back and my hair until I calmed down enough to listen to him.

"I'm not temporary," he said firmly. "I'm here, Kit, and I'm not leaving unless you throw me out. You've been really upfront. I've had every chance to go. I'm in. I'm all in. I get giddy thinking about growing old with you. I want to see what kind of life we make together. I want us to be that cute elderly couple at the coffee shop. I want to paint pictures of you until I can fill a whole gallery with them. My beautiful, fierce goddess forever."

He reached up and used his thumb to wipe tears off my cheeks. He had a cracked, shaky smile and wet tracks beneath his own eyes.

"Ethan is a coward who just wants his victim back. He doesn't actually know anything about you and he doesn't believe in you. I wish I could promise that I'll protect you from him, but we both know that isn't realistic," Teddy sighed and pushed my hair off my face. His shaky smile faltered. "I'll be here, though. I'll stand beside you. I'll take the punches if I can. And I'll pick up the pieces if he knocks you down."

I couldn't look him in the eyes anymore. My nerves felt exposed and raw. I clamped my teeth down tight and leaned close to hide my face in the curve of his shoulder and neck.

"You can count on Ira and Ben, too. Ira is my brother. Ben is, well it's complicated with him, but Ben is family," Teddy reminded me. "They're both there for you. You aren't going to lose your friends. You don't know Foz that well, but he was there with me in the early days, when I was still so angry, and he's still here. You aren't alone. This isn't temporary."

"Thank you," I whispered. I tried to just believe it. Teddy was always asking me to love myself enough to let good things happen. I wasn't sure I could do that, but maybe I could love him enough to trust that he really meant it.

...

Teddy

I held Kit until she stopped shaking. In the long, gentle silence that followed, I thought about the life I had described to her with a little giddy sense of glee. Growing old, making art, just being in her presence forever. I was lost in a daydream when Kit started giggling.

"What?" I asked her and moved her back to see her face. She was red eyed from her tears, but she was grinning mischievously at me.

"You don't know, do you?" she asked.

"I don't know what?"

"Ben and Ira. You haven't even noticed," she said and laughed. God, I loved that sound.

"Apparently not," I said with a helpless giggle of my own.

"For as observant as you have to be to paint like that, you're so oblivious, querido," she went on. "Ira and Ben are dating again."

"What? Since when?" I was grinning. Those two always made sense in my head. They just needed to get over some of their worse habits.

"Ben is worried what you'll think. I guess it went sour between them before?"

"Ah, it went the way things go when two really young hotheads who are just figuring out adult life get together," I said and shrugged. "They both mellowed out. It's been, um, almost a decade I guess."

I pulled out my phone to text Ben, "So, what are your intentions with my brother?"

I showed Kit the text. She giggled and cuddled back close to me. She fit so perfectly in my arms. The sappy part of me that believed in soulmates liked to imagine we were created as a whole and broken apart by some meddling higher power. Now that I found my missing piece, I would never let her go again.

Ben took a long time to answer. I saw the dots appear and disappear over and over again before he finally responded, "So Kit told you?"

"Maybe I figured it out myself?" I suggested.

"We both know that isn't possible. Look, I know you had to deal with two sides of the last breakup, but it's going really well this time."

"I'm happy for you. You two make a lot of sense. I figured you would end up together."

"Yeah, well, you're a hopeless romantic. Of course you would say that."

13

Kit

I was absolutely correct about exactly one thing - Teddy was beautiful in my ropes. I put him in a basic chest harness, no actual movement restriction, just to see how we both liked it. He knelt obediently so I could reach to lay the lines of the harness across the expanse of his chest.

I tied it off at his spine and stood back to admire my work. I had chosen a soft, sapphire rope to complement Teddy's eyes. Between the low light and his dilated pupils, his eyes looked nearly black at that moment, and he was watching me with that adorable, brainless dazed look he got when he really let go. I had stripped him before I started, but I was still wearing my panties and a tank top.

"¿Qué color, querido?" I asked him. I gently tugged on his hair as I asked to make sure he was listening. Teddy blinked at me with a distant, goofy smile, but he didn't answer.

"Necesito escucharlo," I reminded him. "Dame un color. Tengo que cortar las cuerdas si no puedes decir verde."

"Verde," Teddy mumbled. "Green, diosa."

I grinned, pulled him up off the ground by the hold I left on the harness, and moved him in front of the full length mirror on the back of my door to see his own reflection.

"Look how pretty you are," I purred in his ear. "You look like a fantasy right now. Hands behind your back, stand up straight and present. Show me how proud you are to wear my ropes."

Teddy obeyed. He widened his stance and crossed his arms at the small of his back, straightening his spine and lifting his chin. He knew his positions very well. I wondered in the back of my mind who trained him so well. I owed whoever that was a big thank you.

"Oh, good boy. You're such a beautiful, good boy," I murmured and ran my hands possessively over his skin, tracing the lines of the harness. Teddy trembled as goosebumps prickled his skin.

"Your good boy," he whispered. "I'm your good boy." He looked a little uncertain to say something that could be interpreted as correcting me. I chuckled and twisted my fingers in his hair.

"Yes, my good boy," I agreed. "I love it when you tell me what you need, querido. I'm so proud of you. Do you want me to show you that you're mine? Is that what you need?"

Teddy whined and nodded. I waited while he struggled to verbalize and answer. He knew I wouldn't go on until he did.

"Please, please, Kit," he managed to gasp at me. "Te pertenezco. Please?"

"Yes, of course, good boy," I had to stand on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. I used the harness to tug him back to the pillow I had him kneeling on before. Teddy didn't particularly care if I made him kneel on the linoleum, but he was a soft, sweet good boy at heart who really just wanted to be praised, so I leaned hard on treating him like a precious treasure.

"Wrists together," I ordered and demonstrated by holding my own up in front of me in the position I wanted him to mimic. Teddy obliged. I used a second length to double column tie his wrists. His eyes widened as he watched the ropes slide over his skin, tightening to restrict his movement for the first time. I secured his wrists to the harness and left myself enough of a bight to use as a lead. I helped him back up and led him to the bed. I led him into position with a gentle hand on his chest. Teddy never needed a firm hand.

"Teddy, these shouldn't be tight enough to hurt. You tell me if you feel any numbness or tingles, ok?" I said firmly. "I can cut you out in less than a minute. These ropes are replaceable. You are not. You call red the second this feels bad, ok?" Teddy agreed shakily. Satisfied that he understood the safety measures in place, I went back to teasing him.

"Oh, you love this, don't you?" I asked as I lifted his chin to force him to keep eye contact with one hand and skated the fingers of my other hand in the lightest possible touch on his straining erection. Teddy blushed and whimpered softly. I smirked and pumped him just long enough to make him moan. "You know what I want to do?" Teddy was deep. He was just staring at me and panting. I let him get away with not answering for the moment.

"I want to draw you just like this. Will you kneel and be pretty for me?" That time, I needed an answer, so I waited. Teddy was processing what I said. I could tell the moment he managed to understand when his blush deepened. He struggled a bit to rearrange himself back into a proper kneel with his hands bound, but he managed to correct his posture before he responded.

"Yes, Kit," he said softly. He seemed a bit more hesitant than normal. I gently stroked his thigh and dropped my act.

"Hey, do we need to talk about this one? Stop? Pause?" I offered. I wasn't really sure if he would red me or not if I pushed too hard. Teddy shook his head, flipping his curls over his eyes with the movement.

"No, I like it. I'm just embarrassed," he said barely above a whisper.

"Ok, we'll call it yellow, then," I murmured, slipping back to the confident, smooth character I played when I was in charge. "I'll take it easy and explain as I go."

"I know how drawings work," he chuckled.

"Hmm, maybe, but I'm about to stop making you answer me and let you go brainless while I admire you," I said that like the promise I meant it as. Teddy's eyes widened and a strangled, surprised little sound escaped him. "All you have to do when I check in is nod, querido. Shake your head for red."

Teddy nodded. I took a moment to run my hands over the lines of his muscles and purr approval into his ear. He fought to stay still even as he twitched under my touch. I grinned and used one finger to gather the precum he was leaking to show him before I licked it off my hand.

I left him there to get my charcoals and sketchbook. I wasn't exactly planning to create a masterpiece. This was more about praising Teddy than it was about making art. Still, though, his flushed, disheveled state was a compelling picture. I roughed out the form with quick lines and shapes, just an articulated mannequin put to paper. I made sure Teddy felt my eyes on him as I focused, filling in details of his face and body.

"I never get your hair just right," I told him softly and showed him the rough picture. I had focused on capturing the beauty of the scene in front of me with long, elegant lines emphasizing the bulge of his muscles and smudged, delicate coils representing his curls. "Those gorgeous curls and your fucking abs. You always want to tell me that I look like an art nouveau painting, but you, you beautiful man, you look like the ignudi on the Sistine Chapel. A fantasy of perfection. I couldn't ask for a more beautiful model. This stunning man, all mine to do with as I please. My very good boy."

Teddy took a shaky breath. His eyes were completely glazed over and he was trembling. I decided he was deep enough and set the sketchbook aside. I carefully rearranged him on the mattress to help relieve some of the strain of kneeling. He was leaning back on the headboard with his legs more comfortably stretched in front of him when I finished. I knelt with my knees on either side of his hips and my still somewhat-clothed body pressed to his to kiss him urgently.

Teddy melted into the kiss. I felt him yield, letting me push my way into his mouth to explore with my tongue. He whimpered and shook when I broke it off to kiss along his jaw and nip at his shoulder.

"You did such a good job," I purred. "I'm so proud of my beautiful, good boy. So, so proud. I'm going to reward you now. Do you know what's next?"

Teddy grinned dopily and nodded. He was still too deep to talk. I smirked and leaned back to strip off my remaining clothes. Teddy watched me, a bit of focus back in his eyes as I climbed back over him. Now that we were both naked except for the ropes, I sighed and shifted my hips so he would feel how utterly drenched I was. I took in the helpless sound he made with a victorious grin.