Work Out Come Back

"If you're escaping," mom says without looking back, "then you're helping."

She hands me a scooper and a bowl and starts laying out little circles of dough in front of me. I do my best, but now they're going to be misshapen and poorly sealed. That's on her. I am not a good helper.

"He's telling the Rasputin story again," I say. I get a good little dumpling full of potato and bacon and feel very pleased with myself. Mom sighs.

"Louise, honey," she yells, "Don't listen to him. The dates don't line up and he's from nowhere near us. Like a whole continent away, really."

"Siberian blood magic cares not for drops of ink on a map," dad shouts back.

"Yeah. I believe in the blood magic," Louise yells. Mom sighs in the most pleasantly exasperated way. She looks at my dumplings and fixes one of them. I redo the ones I've already failed and they look a bit better.

"She's nice," mom says, "I like her. Seemed kind of nervous."

"She is," I say, "And I was too. I know you both wouldn't do anything, but still. There's always that little what if."

"Oh, I know. Isaac was so frazzled when he met Dad. And he said poor Isaac looked like a Neanderthal and I thought for sure he was going to cry."

Mom sighs and stops fixing the ones I've made. Mostly because I've made ones that don't need fixing, to my surprise. I have good hands. And I have many more dumplings to go.

"How many of these are we making?" I ask.

"Enough," mom say, "With both you and your father here, I have an army to feed. I also want to give you some to take home."

"That's still way too many."

"I'm not feeding just the two of you."

"I'm not sure what..."

Mom gives me the look and all the words I have simply die down with the smirk and the stare.

"How many," she asks.

"What?"

"Rachel, I know my family. How many?"

I blush and realize I have nowhere to hide. I should never have come. I should run and find Troy and Saoirse so they can protect me and I never have to feel this way again.

"Including Louise," I mutter, "Three."

Mom gives a little tilt of her head and goes back to the dumplings. She does some math I can't see in her head and comes back to a good conclusion. There is enough. I don't know how well they'll keep on the drive, but I assume she has that figured out as well.

"I'm happy for you," she says, "And I mean it. And I know you think I think it's weird and it'll pass and whatever other mom thing you think I have to say. Counterpoint, do you remember Uncle Martin and Aunt Gina?"

And now I do. Repressed back in the deepest parts of my mind are two people who would come over and say hi to us, always right before Gigi would come pick us up for the weekend. I want to hide even more. I want to die. If I curl up on the floor and be very, very still, that might just happen. I slip from my perch and mom catches me with another question.

"What are their names?" she says, just sliding right past anything else that might be odd about this situation.

"Troy and Saoirse," I mutter. The words hurt me. My face is red and I'm dying. And then mom is hugging me and stroking my hair and getting all sorts of terrible things in it that will need a comb and shampoo. Then she kisses the crown of my head and I hug back.

"Good for you," she whispers. She holds me there for a brief moment. Then a timer goes off and she has to pull away.

"We'd like to meet them," she says with a steaming tray of something green and healthy, "But I get it. Probably hard enough to get one of them out here and we probably don't have the room for all of them at once. Maybe we can come up sometime. But run it by them."

I'm getting good at dumplings and that's great. They line up and wait for the boiling water and I don't know what else I can do to help. So, I just sit and wait and watch the pot. Mom looks out the window and to the shimmering grass.

"Go yell at your father and tell him to set the table," she says, "Louise can get the drinks. You already did your chores."

---

It's harder than I thought to lift the bags. Mostly because the staircase is so tiny. And I'm full. And Louise is full and slow and in my way. But in a good way. She can be in my way. I readjust my grip and I keep moving. Mom and dad are still downstairs, doing the wonders of cleanup. We have the immutable armor of being guests and being tired of driving across at least a million state lines.

Louise is happy and that makes me happy. She opens the door to an unfamiliar room. None of these rooms are familiar. I do kind of miss the old house with the creaky steps and a bit more space, but they wanted to move and go feral and I can't blame anyone for wanting that. I almost drop the bags when I see what's on the bed. Louise gets to it first, a little stuffed wolf with mismatched eyes.

"Who's this little fella," she asks. I want to snatch and grab and take, but that's mean. I can share. I was taught to share.

"Mr. Fangy," I say. And the words are out of my mouth and again I realize they sound stupid and dumb and I want to take Mr. Fangy with me when we leave.

"They found him," I continue. Louise pets him and puts him back down. We swap places and she starts rummaging through our stuff for comfy things to sleep in. I just lie down on the bed, set my best friend on my stomach and close my eyes. I've had a big day.

"I need to apologize for a couple things," Louise says as she pulls out her pillowcase and starts the swap.

"No, you don't," I say. Mr. Fangy makes me feel all better.

"I'd rather over than under this, cause I think its better in the long run. One, sorry for freaking out a bit on the way over. It's just a thing and I know it's a thing and I can't help that little tingle, especially with some of my exes. Two, sorry about the questions with the pictures, but I am just so curious. You don't really talk about your past. I just want you to know that the world is now a better place because there is at least one more of you. And three, I'm sorry about what I would do with your parents. If either of them told me to get on my knees, I would do it and open my mouth like the good little slut they know I am."

That last one throws me a little mostly, mostly because I don't think I've ever heard her refer to herself as a slut before. I might actually have to get a uniform if that's what it does to her.

"It was weird to see you in uniform. You never talk about the military stuff," Louise sighs, "and you don't have to. I just want to know if I can help. That's all."

I just keep petting Mr. Fangy. He does not judge me. He just gives me a slightly cold stare that means he's vigilant.

"It was a bad time," I say, "And that's kind of it. Never saw combat. Never fired my weapon outside a range. I'm not even scared of fireworks. Okinawa was cool. Like really, really cool, and if we can swing it, I think that's our next big vacation. But the other stuff really wasn't."

Louise hums something and gives me back our special pillows. They are sleek and soft and smell very good. Then she starts taking off her clothes and that makes me put Mr. Fangy down. I make him look at the door to see if anything wants to come in and disturb us. He will bite and maul everything bad. Louise tosses me my sleep shirt and I join her in undressing. It's nice to be naked. It's also nice to have something soft to wear.

"Is that bed going to be big enough," she asks. I scooch a bit and there's enough for a Louise. Maybe.

"There's not four of us," I shrug, "I'm pretty sure we can figure it out."

"I don't know. From the looks of it, we'll have to snuggle all night long. Your dick will be right at ass level and I like to wiggle."

"That sounds terrible. It sounds horrible. Get over here and show me."

She does. Her little night gown is loose and thick and not sexy at all and I love it. I don't look much better, with all of maybe five minutes in the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. But she slides right in. I make Mr. Fangy go on patrol. Since this is technically a kid's bedroom, there are monsters in the closet. He needs to be aware for those.

Louise slots into me perfectly. There is probably enough room for her to roll over and get a good side of the bed, but I won't tell her that. I kiss the top of her head. She presses into me and makes me drape a hand over her chest. I touch and feel and she goes to my arms. I feel the work she's put in, that little spring and tense to her body. Everything's loose and wound, water taking the shape of Louise. She is constantly moving, constantly wiggling and that's amazing. She turns her head and finds my lips. I press and she presses and there's a moment where our tongues meet and back away. I stare into her eyes. She stares into mine. From the way she looks, I think she likes me. I kiss her again, right on the nose and she scrunched her face and kisses my chin. Not my favorite place to be kissed, but it's up there. She wiggles a bit more and the bed frame creaks. We both go still. That's going to be a problem. A fun problem, full of work arounds and box adjacent thinking, but a problem. She wiggles slowly this time and the bed says nothing.

We go back to kissing, her spine twirling against my body. I can still reach her chest, and she can still reach my arms. We can all get what we want, it just takes some fun contortion to get there.

"I kind of missed just us," I whisper when I have a moment to breathe.

"Me too," Louise says when she's tugging at my lips, "Not nearly as chaotic as it can get with the others."

I kiss her and she kisses me. She stops wiggling her hips, but she does turn and face me, so that's nice. It all balanced out in the end. Her hands go to my chest and I feel her grip. Just us, under a blanket, in a small dark room in the middle of nowhere. It all falls away. Just us, nothing more, nothing less.

Then the hallway creaks outside and I think dad had to go pee. That's fun to think about. Louise giggles and I shush her. There's an intruder afoot and we need to be quiet.

"Why does this feel so bad?" she whispers.

"No clue," I reply, one more kiss in between the words.

"Do you want to raid your parent's liquor cabinet after this?"

"Yeah, but we can only take a little from each bottle. That way, they'll never find out."

"Does your dad have a shotgun? I don't want to be caught tainting his precious little ray of sunshine. It might be kind of hard to sneak me out in the morning."

She is smiling and cute and her nose is a little more kissed. I think we can tie the sheets together and make a rope out my window if it comes down to it. Then we bolt to the car and floor it. Maybe tip some cows on the way out, just for good measure. She rolls her hips against my body. Not quite the same as it feels when her ass is tantalizing me, but it works wonders.

My hands creep lower down her back, gently exploring for the hem of her night gown. Then I can flip it up and have what I glimpsed a few moments ago. Her abs are already doing a wonderful job of tantalizing and teasing. Her lips and her teeth, the way they play against mine, the hands roaming over my breasts, I am filled, body and soul, by her in our dark little cave of blankets.

I can hear the insects drone and buzz. There is an owl out there in the night. The room is quiet and dark. Another board creaks and one of the houses many mechanisms start and click and whir. Louise's heartbeat is in my ear and her breath's hot down my collar. She goes into my neck, kissing and biting and I finally find the bottom of her gown and start to go up again. Her back, her back moves and shifts in the muscled lines over her bones. It works under my hands. Her motions on my chest sing in me. She rolls her stomach down mine and she finds that wonderful little present creeping up.

Her body presses into my length under my shirt. Her hands do nothing. All of her is on me. All of her is flowing over me and I am trying to bottle lightning. It all moves over me and through me. She does like to wiggle and I like things that wiggle. Especially when they wiggle on me.

She moves my shirt out of the way and shimmies me out into the open. I am warm under the blankets. She kisses and licks and rolls my breasts and I just hold her close. I keep her close. Blanket warmth and body heat and the impenetrable walls against the world and all we have is each other. She moves a bit more of me out to play on her and I run my nails down her spine. She stops wiggling and starts shivering. That's all wonderful and captivating and the bed stays silent in the night. It's all capped and bottled and just for me. I kiss her again, I think on her forehead, and she slinks up to meet me.

"You're going to be quiet, right?" I whisper, "I'd hate for them to kick you out."

She nods and presses tight into me. My length gets a wonderful hit of pressure and heat and I can feel her entire body thrum along with mine. She shimmies up a bit more, moving some of her cloth out of the, moving her body in alignment. I have to take my shorts down a bit more to keep everything free. I roll my shirt up over my chest. Clothed and open and warm and dark, I catch the soft sparkle of her eyes in the motes of light that dare to pierce our vale. I feel her lips dart and play on everything she can reach. I feel her in the smallest things, poured down into my cracks and chips. She finds everything she can to fill and mend within me.

One of her legs throws itself over my hips and I start my hands working down between us. I glide across her taught stomach. I glance over her mound and find her weeping entrance. She gets a simple curious finger and I get a whimper swallowed by the threads. Just for me.

But she stays quiet. Only I can hear her. Only the darkness acknowledges the transgression. Mr. Fangy keeps his vigilance. I keep working with Louise, letting those microscopic noises squeak out of her in the dead of night. I kiss through the noise, swallowing it whole. She keeps whimpering and shivering and I go a little deeper. She is warm and tight and holding me down. I add one more finger and that almost breaks the veil of noise. We are here. We are warm and silent. She bucks her hips and I find a spot she likes. I stay there and slowly circle, slowly tease it while her hands try to find my length. They seem very preoccupied with my breasts. That's also fine. That's more than fine.

She breaks through the hypnosis of my body and falls right back into me. A different spot and her soft hands start to rise and fall on me. She's cautious. I might make noise. I might sound the alarm. I might bring the whole of the world down on her so they can know our union. But she has a single finger tracing up and down the back of me. My breathing deepens and slows. I match her pace and we are just slowly sinking deeper into the mire of our selves. I find that nice spot of hers again and hammer a little pattern into her. She goes a bit faster. She gets a bit faster. There's a little hitch in my throat that she takes into her. It's low and growling and rumbling and everything shakes as she keeps us still. She takes her whole hand around me and I go a bit harder into her. My fingers curl and her legs tense. Her free hand grabs onto a sheet or a pillow or something forgiving. Not me.

It takes a bit more to find the rhythm that sets her off, but I have the spot and the shape. I keep it there. I keep her close and make sure my own hands keep her still. It's getting harder for her to keep quiet. She's doing wonderfully. It blends in with the soft drone of the insects in the tall grass. A ghost whisper that tugs at the end of my mind and sends shivers up my arms. It's a shock of cold and a spark of electricity that runs through me. She shifts and breaks and holds on tight. I love the pressure. She's not moving enough for me, but it's enough to keep me running. It's enough to keep me grounded. It's enough to keep me moving in her and making her shiver.

I know how to tease it out of her and it's almost second nature at this point. She just shakes and shivers and tries to make noise, but nothing comes out. A fight inside of her makes her silent. No one can know. No one should know. There is just me and her and the endless dark world. She cannot break that simple rule.

But she shivers and shakes and the bed makes its little protests now. It's a rising noise that never quite breaks over the line. I am there, a vessel to be filled with all parts of her. She screams silently in a soft hum. Her hands stop moving. It leaves and I find it with my free one. She grips, knuckle white and tense and then slack. The leg over me trembles and shakes. Something sprays against my stomach and she keeps muttering and humming and trying to keep us safe. Her eyes are all scrunched and tight, teeth working her lip. She's going to draw blood. She's going to break herself. Poor thing. I kiss her and her hand and let it all flow through her .

She takes a deep breath in and lets it settle her. She lets it all relax and shake and now she is panting and flushed and barely thinking.

"When did you get so good at that," she sighs. I get little pecks in between the words. I get little noises and touches and her legs slowly gather their strength back. She's smiling and huffing and teasing me again. A little pearl of preseed escapes my tip and smears against her hard stomach. We can keep teasing for a moment or two. After that, I might get mad and there will be other things making loud scary noises.

"Saoirse made me practice," I hum, "Says if she had the full thing regularly, I'd ruin her. And she wants to be not ruined."

"That's dumb," Louise says, "Not the practice thing. That's good. I need to thank her. The ruin thing. It's fun to be ruined. We should all be ruined all the time."

I kiss the bridge of her nose, because she's right. She's not ruined. I'm not ruined. No one is ruined and she's getting heated again. So greedy. So eager. Apparently she doesn't like the soft touches and loving strokes and all the little bits that come with a gentle exploration. She does need to get ruined. I need to ruin something. These aren't my sheets, so I think we can start with those. Her leg runs up and down over mine, making sure that I'm still so impossibly close. My hand returns to the small of her back and I am positive I am. Nowhere could be better than here.

I have to shove and push and scooch her all the way up me and now I have to look up to her eyes. I like that. She has such beautiful eyes, so dark and warm. She looks down at me and I can see her thinking about how I should be on my knees more. I don't disagree, but that's an experiment for when we have more space.

"Are you going to be a good little slut for me?" I ask, deep and low and purring. I watch the word make everything tense and shiver. I don't even need the touches anymore. Just words and noises and everything falls like a house of cards.

"I hate that," she muttered, "I hate that you picked up on that. Don't tell Troy or Saoirse. They'll have me wrapped around every little finger in our house."

"You didn't answer the question."

"Depends. What do good little sluts do?"

"They take me all the way to the base and they keep quiet so nobody ever knows. Can you do that?"

She nods meekly, already back to the silence and quiet. Such a perceptive little thing. She opens her legs a bit more. It's not quite enough, but I move her the rest of the way. I am a hard thing to accurately guess.

Louise almost breaks her promise when we meet. To be fair, so do I. We had last night together, a whole car ride looking at corn stalks and fun lawn flags, and it was still not enough. We a cleared glade and an endless platter of tasty dumplings, and now we take tonight, dark and silent and close, for all its worth. And it's still not enough. We need the night loud and shattering.