Butane and Bullets

Gerard expelled a large sigh and crossed his arms, eyes once more flitting to the clock hanging on the opposite wall. Five minutes had never seemed so tiresome before now. He’d been stood in the same spot for pretty much an hour. If he wasn’t the only employee left in the literary department he’d have bailed long ago on a quest to find Mikey amongst the CDs. The shelves were full to bursting with stock already, and his section was so empty he could hear a pin drop. Usually it wasn’t so bad. Working in the books department tended to offer an immediate solution to boredom, but not even fiction could save him now. There was a perfectly good graphic novels section – always kept in pristine condition if Gerard had anything to do with it – but he was far beyond that point. He was so bored he could barely think.

He rolled the balls of his feet experimentally, attempting to gauge just how badly his feet would hurt by the time he stumbled home. It was 15:56 according to the mocking tick of the Peter Pan clock before him, but Gerard’s day would be far from over once he left work. He was heading straight to band practise after dropping Mikey off, and then it was on to Eyeball Records for the festivities. Frank had turned 20 three days ago, and his label had insisted he hold a birthday shindig at their place. Gerard hadn’t been out in a couple of weeks, but this promised to be a good night. Plenty of people he knew would be in attendance, he was in dire need of a double digit number of drinks, and hey, it would probably just be fun watching Frank bounce around and be the birthday boy.

Just as he groaned once more at the time, Mikey rounded the corner, face fashioned in confusion and hair sticking up oddly at all angles.
“G, what are you doing? Shift ended 10 minutes ago.”

Gerard’s eyes widened and he let out an indignant squeak, looking up to check he hadn’t misread the clock. Upon discovering that no, he was right, it had only just changed to 15:58, pointed accusingly up at it to direct Mikey’s gaze. Mikey didn’t even turn his head, simply shook it, and held up Gerard’s bag, having retrieved it from the locker room.
“Are you actually serious? That thing has been slow ever since we started here. Come on.”
He held up his wrist, offering his own watch as evidence when Gerard came out from behind the counter and took his bag. Gerard wasn’t technically supposed to leave his post until someone had come to relieve him, but fuck it; he was already doing overtime apparently. He grumbled all the way to the door.

“I can’t believe you didn’t even tell me. Sometimes you’re a really bad brother, Mikeyway.” And then a beat later: “Hey, do you think I can get them to compensate all the overtime I’ve done by trusting that fucking thing?”
“No” Mikey replied instantly, making his way across the lot. Before Gerard could get over the clock fiasco and judge how close they were to the vehicle, Mikey was already getting in the shotgun seat of Kaye’s car. He couldn’t even be bothered to argue and dropped himself in the back with another grumble.
“Hey, Ways” greeted Kaye, chirpily. When she received a reply from the younger but not the elder she grinned again and looked in the rear-view mirror. “What’s up, GG?”
“Just wondering how I got landed with such a traitorous sibling; the usual.” The mistake he made was to meet her eyes in the mirror, immediately feeling his angry façade fall out from beneath him. “Hi, by the way” he mumbled, small smile pinching at his cheeks.
“Hey” she said with warmth, showing off her pearly whites again before dropping her eyes and starting the car.

The ignition triggered the CD player to start up again, spitting out The Smiths at a comfortable volume. Both brothers smiled smugly to themselves. Either they’d enticed her into a bit of the ol’ Morrissey infatuation or she kept music in her car that she played specifically while they were around. Either scenario worked out well for them, and when each sang the opening line under their breath, all notions of time-keeping treachery melted away and were forgotten.

She drove back to Belleville firstly, dropping Mikey off at home.
“Sure you don’t wanna come to practise, Mikey? Might be nice to have someone else to cheerlead with” she hedged.
Neither of them had watched Gerard at band practise yet, and secretly he was glad when Mikey declined. He wasn’t sure he could handle debuting for both of them in the same day.

Gerard decided not to go back in to change out of his work clothes. The session would be a short one, and he felt it too much effort to get changed twice in one afternoon. He did hop out of the car and take Mikey’s previous seat, though.

Kaye looked happy not to be looking at him through the barrier of reflective glass, and after another couple of shy ‘hey’s, they both leant over the gear box and met mouths. Gerard’s eyes fluttered shut immediately as he caught Kaye’s bottom lip between both of his. They kissed like that for a time, small pecks in greeting, but Kaye was the first to extend her tongue, and reached up to slide her fingers through Gerard’s hair. She made a delighted noise in her throat that went straight to Gerard’s gut when she found the hair to be soft and clean. Gerard pulled away shortly afterwards, careful not to embarrass himself by getting too excited. They mirrored small smiles for a second or two before Kaye laid her cheek against the headrest and looked up at him through her lashes.

“You’re nervous.”
Gerard softened and turned away his gaze, embarrassed.
“Yeah, kinda. I just… don’t really know what you’ll think.”
“Well” she smiled, leaning forward to give another peck and lay her forehead against his. “Let’s go find out, okay?”

************

They’d only just finished running through their first song when Frank looked up and saw Gerard walk in, Kaye in tow. He raised a hand in greeting and set to tuning his guitar back to standard. Ray and Matt were already waiting for them in the corner.
“Hey, guys. Sorry we’re a bit late, we had to drop Mikey home first.”
“No worries” called Shaun, answering for everyone.

Frank pointedly kept his eyes on his strings as Gerard proudly introduced Kaye to those who hadn’t met her before. It wasn’t anything personal, but they had a limited amount of time today. They didn’t usually have the room on a Saturday, but a couple of complications had meant the session on Thursday had to be called off. This was to be a short session – only an hour split between both bands, roughly 40/20 – but it was just enough to calm Pencey’s nerves for the time being. They’d been working this ritual of three practises a week for months, and it felt like a pattern that shouldn’t be disrupted. This meant that time spent on pleasantries was essentially time wasted. Thankfully everyone else seemed to be on the same wavelength. Kaye, Gerard, Otter and Ray huddled together in one corner, leaving Pencey to get on with flying through their practise.

Frank had always assumed that if Gerard brought his – ...date? Fuck buddy? What the hell sort of title does she even come under? – to the practise space he would be entirely too distracted in his efforts to keep her happy. However, as Frank punched through the next song happily, he was pleased to notice that Gerard was just as focused as ever. Maybe it was false in an attempt to impress her, but as long as Gerard was working Frank didn’t really care about the particulars of his motivation. It made him feel like some psychotic blend of overbearing parent, pressurising teacher and slave driving employer. It probably wasn’t a good thing, and he threw himself into the next song attempting to shake it, closing his eyes to hide from the sight of Kaye looking over at their set and nodding her head along to the beat.

All too soon their portion of the session was used up, and before Frank could even lift the strap of his guitar over his head Ray had leapt forward, pulling Frank’s cable from the amp and inserting his own. He tried not to smirk as the bands swapped places, both happy and amused by their enthusiasm. He met Gerard’s nervous eyes for a fleeting second as they passed each other. Although Gerard could ignore Kaye’s presence whilst in the process of creating, that wasn’t the case when it came to performing. Frank could relate to the feeling; revealing something so personal to others was bound to raise your fear of ridicule. Her opinion probably mattered more than most too, which only increased Gerard’s nervousness and by virtue heightened Frank’s surliness.

However, the only chair left was the one beside her, and he decided to swallow his pride, and not become that guy. There was nothing worse than a friend and your partner not getting along. It caused a stifling atmosphere, and Frank wasn’t willing to put Gerard through that grade of awkwardness. Besides, in a contest between Kaye and himself, Frank was well aware that the perky blonde would win out every time; it was best to keep schtum.

“Hey” he mumbled as he lowered himself into the seat.
She was startled by Frank’s begrudging effort to strike up conversation, but managed to suppress her surprise down to just a quirk of the eyebrow, answering with a “hey” of her own. When Frank looked back towards the band set-up Gerard was staring back at them with eyes wide and worried, not particularly soothed by the sight of them sitting so close together, like if one had both a pet mouse and a pet cat who’d suddenly decided to snuggle.
“Smile” Kaye mumbled, keeping her mouth as tight as possible so as not to alert Gerard to her instructing Frank to reassure him. “He’s nervous enough as it is.”

She beamed up at Gerard then, trying to be as encouraging as possible without calling out embarrassingly overenthusiastic phrases such as “go get ‘em!” Frank caught on quickly, and although he didn’t produce a smile that split his face in half, he gave a short nod along with it, as if motioning for him to carry on. Frank was sort of impressed, actually. She was obviously far more perceptive than she seemed.
“Dare I ask why you have a problem with me?” she enquired quietly, keeping her eyes fixed ahead and not permitting her smile to falter.

Ahead of them, Gerard’s band was about to start. Their anxious vocalist tugged on the hemline of his plain navy t-shirt and shook his hair down over his face, probably in an attempt to shield Kaye from his sight. Frank swallowed surreptitiously and kept his voice casual when he replied:
“I don’t.”

She hummed shortly, as if to demonstrate her scepticism, but left it at that and didn’t probe any further. The room fell quiet, and Otter hit his drumsticks together to the count of three to cue Toro to start. Frank had heard them play through the song several times by now, and was no longer plagued by anxiousness on Gerard’s behalf, but he kept sneaking small glances at Kaye out of the corner of his eye just to survey her reaction. On the other hand, Gerard stared down at his feet while Ray and Otter played the introductory notes, one hand wrapped tightly around the microphone, other hand twitching once again on his fraying hemline. He took a deep breath, and opened his mouth.

Kaye’s eyes widened instantaneously, shocked that such a bold voice could come out of the nervous shell of a man she regularly accepted into her bed. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him capable, exactly, but more that she didn’t know he had the courage to show her. In all honesty, even though he was belting it out, he still didn’t look particularly confident about it; more like he’d already got used to the routine of doing so. His mouth fit easily around the words he’d memorised, and even though it was her first listen and the words sped past too fast for her to memorise them, the snippets of phrases she did manage to catch sounded quite poetic and complex. It made her throat tighten marginally, whether in pride or excitement, and she smiled up at Gerard even though he was still doing everything he could to avoid looking back at her.

Frank’s narrowed eyes backed off slightly when he determined her smile to be genuine, and turned his head back to watch, already able to notice subtle improvements between the first practise the trio had attended and the present performance. They flew through the song easily; it was almost second nature to them already. Gerard didn’t draw out the last note as long as he sometimes did, instead choosing to cut it short and retreat back into the shell hidden behind his hair. Frank wasn’t sure if Gerard had opened his eyes for the entire duration of the song, and it was hard to tell if he was now, under the cover of dull auburn locks.

Hambone threw out a cursory whoop, and a couple of claps, but everyone knew that Kaye’s presence meant something to Gerard, and the entire room seemed to be holding their breath secretly in anticipation of her reaction. Gerard inhaled deeply, and stepped forward gingerly, head still lowered, making his way over to where she was sitting. Frank sort of felt like he should move, but that would have only highlighted the importance on which Gerard had placed Kaye’s opinion, and he was sure that wouldn’t help the guy feel any better. He stayed put, fidgeting in his seat and attempting to look casual, staring into space instead of at them.

Gerard lifted his eyes to hers, surprisingly calm. He’d already resigned himself to ridicule, so he was partially prepared to be turned down.
“…What did you think?”

For a hot minute Kaye didn’t say anything, merely sat back in her seat and let her cool gaze brush over Gerard’s face. It was almost a test, and Frank’s fidgeting only increased. Why was she dragging it out so much? Couldn’t she see how much he needed her to say she liked it? If she didn’t, she’d better lie well enough to fool a fucking polygraph.

Eventually she stood up, and cupped Gerard’s cheeks in her hands. A warm smile settled over her features and Frank heard the smacking sound of a short kiss before she spoke.
“I had no idea you could do that.”

Gerard tried to let out the breath held in his lungs slowly, rather than heaving a massive sigh of relief, and sort of managed somewhere between the two, a slow but loud exhale. He grinned.
“Neither did I, really. So you… you liked it?”

She answered with another couple of loud kisses and threw her arms around the relieved man. The hug was tight and expressive.
“Of course I did. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t!”

Gerard didn’t reply to that one, merely pressed his face even further into her hair and inhaled deeply, knowing he couldn’t spend too much longer in the embrace.
“Have you got more to do?” she asked as she withdrew, snagging one of Gerard’s hands as she went.
“We haven’t got long left, like 10 minutes or so. We’re just gonna quickly run through a couple more ideas. Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, Frankie’s taking care of me” she quipped brightly, leaving the two men to lock eyes.

Gerard’s gaze was questioning. He’d got the impression so far that Frank wasn’t really Kaye’s biggest fan. In all honesty he couldn’t blame him for that, but perhaps if they got to spend a little bit of time together like this things wouldn’t be quite so difficult between them and Gerard wouldn’t feel like he had to shield himself every time he mentioned her name. To his credit Frank smiled back, and nodded, even though he looked sort of reluctant to do so. He was making an effort, and it showed. Gerard smiled at them both again and squeezed Kaye’s hand once before letting go and turning to walk back towards his band, who were clearly already making some progress. The sound of Frank’s voice made him turn back.

“That was really great, by the way.” Frank wasn’t even aware he’d given his mouth permission to move. “You’re getting better every day.”
The statement made Gerard produce one of those grins that displayed his freaky little teeth, and Frank wanted to give himself a pat on the back for making that happen.
“Thanks” Gerard replied quietly, turning away with the beginnings of a blush upon his cheeks.

Frank extracted a cigarette from his pack and wordlessly extended the box in Kaye’s direction, seeing her accept out of the corner of his eye. He passed the lighter her way when he was done, too, keeping his eyes on Gerard and Ray the whole time. They were quietly putting their voices together to try and firm up a vocal melody for a section that would hopefully make it into a new song. Frank’s brain went into music-mode and judged that Ray’s voice was decent enough to work backing vocals onstage. From what Frank could hear, although his voice wasn’t good enough to front a band, he could hit high notes well enough to create a solid harmony with the vocalist. The odds were looking more in Gerard’s favour every time he watched them practise. Frank took his lighter back and slid it into his pocket.

“Is that really what you think?” he asked quietly, tone tight with the boldness of his question.
“You really don’t think a lot of me, do you?” she chuckled, taking a hit of her cigarette, well aware that Frank wasn’t going to confirm anything self-incriminating. “That’s not something I’d lie about. I have ears just as well as you do. It’s different, no doubt about it. And it’s nowhere near perfect either. But it’s not supposed to be. Nothing about Gerard is perfect.”

Frank took a second to wonder whether he should take that as an insult against his friend, but he didn’t manage to come to a solid conclusion.
“Besides” she added. “Anything that makes him this happy will never get disapproval from me.”

Frank blew his smoke out slowly. As long as she supported him in this, he would continue to make an effort. What had he actually got to be mad at her about? Her and Gerard had obviously agreed about the nature of their relationship, she did seem to make him happy (most of the time), and she was already supportive of his band after hearing them play once.
“It’s important to him” he murmured.
“I know that” she replied. “If it makes him happy, it’s important to me too.”

He turned his head to look at her then. Her eyes were just as cold on him as his were on her, but he figured he’d given her just cause to be suspicious. He lifted the corners of his mouth in a peace offering.
“Then I guess we’re cool.”
“I guess we are…” she replied in amusement, smile pulling up hard into one cheek.

Frank got up once to retrieve an ash tray, and rested it companionably where the armrests of their chairs met. They watched Ray and Matt correlating a new section in silence for a couple of minutes before Kaye spoke up again.
“Why is it so important to you?”
It caught Frank off guard.
“What?”
“Why is supporting this band so important to you? You’ve insisted they come share your practise space at a fraction of the price they should be contributing-“ Gerard had obviously filled her in on a few things. “- you’re letting them borrow half your equipment, and you don’t even really know them.”

She didn’t sound suspicious, just intrigued. It was sort of nice to talk about something with her in a neutral, genuinely interested tone. It enticed Frank to let his guard down for a minute or two. It would have been easy just to spout some generic response about remembering what it was like starting out as a brand new baby band without any friends, but that was only part of the reason. He sighed as he stubbed out his cigarette, Kaye’s hand steadying the ash tray as he did so.

“I don’t know. I know what it’s like, for one. It’s nice to have some support. But the support is deserved, you know?” He turned his eyes to hers. “I see something in Gerard. He has something special. But he needs people to gently kick the shit out of him before he’ll do anything about it.”
She snorted delicately (as if that was even possible), and inclined her head once as if to indicate she knew what he was talking about.
“He’s just so shy, so…”
“He doesn’t believe in himself.”

“Right…” Frank was mildly alarmed to share an opinion with her, but he rolled with it, sort of glad for the opportunity to affirm to himself out loud why he cared so much. “He doesn’t. But he should. He’s a great artist, and he got so disillusioned with that after doing it for years that he sort of stopped trying as hard. In the end he was just decreasing his own chances by not believing his stuff was good enough.” He took a breath, worried that he wasn’t getting his point across well enough. “It’s not just sympathy, though. I genuinely saw something in his song, and I guess I just wanted to make him believe it early on so he didn’t approach it with the same attitude he ended up with applying for art jobs.”

Kaye tilted her head, considering. Frank had no response for what she said next.
“Thank you.”

Thankfully he was rescued by Shaun calling out the time, and that they all needed to make a move. He got up from his seat, picking up the ash tray as he moved. Kaye stretched, and bid him goodbye quietly before making her way over to Gerard.
“Might spot you tonight, birthday boy. Just remember that he and I aren’t a couple, okay?”

Frank sort of wanted to bite back with ‘you are to him!’, but he wasn’t even sure if that was the case anymore, so he smiled resignedly, and sort of waved as she walked away, wrapping herself around Gerard again.

************

Kaye dumped her bag in the corner of Gerard’s room, and went straight to the desk, where a wodge of paper half her height was piled. She flicked through the first few on top, and then picked up a massive section, lifting it up and looking through a few in the middle.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many pictures of Spiderman in one place” she exclaimed. She turned to smile at him. “They look great, babe.”

Gerard hadn’t even been paying attention, lighting an incense stick, self-conscious of the overwhelming smell of unwashed solitary man, although Kaye was long used to it by now and hadn’t complained once. He looked over his shoulder as he spoke.
“What? Oh. Yeah, I know. I got the job.”
“Really?” she grinned, spinning around, hands still full of Spidey. “Oh my God! Well done.”

She half extended one of her arms to place the sketches back on the desk to go and give him a congratulatory hug, before she really analysed his tone of voice and the look on his face. His inflection had been nonchalant and his expression was blank. What? He’s not excited about working for DC Comics? …Who the fuck is this?”

He waved his hand dismissively and placed his lighter back on his bedside cabinet.
“Thanks, but I turned it down.”

Kaye was wondering what on earth that loud fluttering sound was before she realised that it was coming from the stack of papers she’d let fall from one of her hands. In her right hand she still held the upper half of the pile, but her left had disengaged, and when she looked towards the carpet the mottled orange/brown colour had been replaced by a swarm of red, white and blue. Both sets of eyes settled on the papered floor in silence for a few seconds before Kaye snapped out of her shocked trance.
“Oh God!” She dropped to her knees slowly and began gathering them up, careful not to accidentally fold the corners or rumple the sheets. ”I’m so sorry, G, give me a minute.”

A short laugh emerged from Gerard and he ran a hand through his hair.
“No, don’t worry about it. Leave them. They were only piled up to be taken out for recycling anyway.”

Kaye’s mouth fell open and she wondered absently whether she’d actually come home with Gerard’s weird-ass doppelganger. Or even worse, his normal doppelganger. He laughed again at her open-mouthed expression and extended his hand to help her up. She left the second pile in a small tower amidst the paper chaos as she climbed to her feet. They stood together, fingers linked for another minute, simply surveying the floor. It looked kind of cool, Spiderman taking up various stances in protection of Gerard’s room. Kaye began to be able to pick out which pieces were drawn earlier and which ones came later, as he had become more and more immersed in the Spiderman style. No wonder he got the job she thought rather frankly. He’s fucking mastered it.

Eventually she turned her eyes on his face, soft hair tucked back behind his ears. She frowned lightly.
“I don’t get it.” She watched him look at her, his eyes clear and untroubled. She didn’t understand it, but it was certainly a welcome sight. “All you’ve ever wanted to do is comics. I didn’t see you for like two weeks while you locked yourself away to perfect this. Which you did, by the way, they look amazing.” He gave a small smile at that. She sighed. “Why did you turn it down?”
“I don’t think it’s what I want anymore. …I want this band. I have a good feeling about it.”
“…You turned down a solid guaranteed job – a job you’ve been after for years – because you ‘have a good feeling’ about a very unstable possibility of making it as a band?”

He nodded, face neutral but innocent. He knew how ridiculous it sounded, and he’d been keeping it from everyone to avoid having conversations like this. He told Mikey, of course, but only because his brother reacted just as he’d expected – a scrutinising incredulous raise of the eyebrow, before replying “okay” and spinning back to the computer screen. He expected Kaye to react sceptically. That’s what he expected of everyone. He couldn’t just say “fuck art” after years of being nothing but ‘The Art Guy’ and just expect everyone to be on board with it.

To his surprise, she framed his face with her hands and pressed their mouths together. He kept his eyes open, and saw that her own were tightly closed in emotion. It made Gerard’s chest flutter as he wondered what emotion those puckered lids were trying to convey.

When she pulled back, she kept her palms on his cheeks and just looked over his face for a second or two. She still didn’t really understand why he’d abandon something he’d worked for so long trying to achieve, but even as he stood there letting her scrutinise his face, he looked calm and self-assured. That’s why she needed to make the effort to accept this new facet of Gerard. Even with his art, something he’d practised for so long and something that by all means he was academically qualified to do, he had never looked so sure. Even though he had a great deal more reason to believe in these carefully inked replications, they were cast aside, littering his bedroom floor like autumn leaves past their prime.

He gazed into her eyes, ones that he’d secretly drawn a hundred times over, and found himself testing his memory of her irises - the exact shade of blue; how many flecks in each one – and realised he was overreacting in his preparation for ridicule. His stomach cramped, but she only moved forward again, softly brushing her mouth over his.

His lips began to move of their own accord and his eyes fell shut on instinct, even as he was frantically wondering what this meant. Sliding her hands from his face to link at the back of his neck she started to pull Gerard in the direction of his bed. Papers scattered and crumpled underneath their feet as they shuffled across the room. Kaye’s lips were growing even more fevered, nipping at his bottom one and injecting heat straight into his veins, and things were quickly getting out of hand.

Almost as suddenly as she had started, Kaye paused, hands once again on Gerard’s face, smiling up at him.
“If you really think this is what you should do, you should go for it.”

She waited until the realisation dripped into his eyes before leaping forward once again with a smirk and attaching her teeth to his bottom lip, tugging before grabbing at his hem and pulling his shirt over his head.

Gerard had barely recovered from the shock that Kaye was supporting him – god, she wanted him to do this, and she didn’t care about all the perfect Spidermen they were now in the process of trampling - before he found them both topless and his fingers fumbling on the hook of her bra. He started to pant as Kaye made fast work of his zipper and stared up at the ceiling, baffled by his life appearing temporarily so clear and simple.
“Do we actually have time for this?” he asked breathlessly, well aware that she usually liked having adequate time to dress up before a party.

By the time she replied she was underneath him on the mattress, arching her breasts up into the press of his chest. He attached his mouth to her neck and felt her words vibrate under his lips as she gasped out her response.
“I rock the bed hair look.”

He simply hummed against her skin in reply and moved his hands to her hips underneath him. Before he could tell which way was up he’d been flipped and his own pelvis was now bracketed by Kaye’s bare thighs which had somewhere along the way lost their material barrier. She curled her palms around his wrists and spread his arms wide as she leaned down to speak again, mouth just teasingly out of range.
“Besides, this is going to be fast because I can’t wait anymore.”

She ground down on him as she said it, and his eyes slipped closed, lips parting just enough to grant air entry as he wondered how the fuck he ever got lucky enough to hook up with this chick. Just as he was getting used to her weight on his dick and becoming antsy for more, all sensation was ripped away as she stood up abruptly. The bed bounced under the dramatic shift of weight, and Kaye wobbled slightly as she lifted each leg in turn to remove her socks. Gerard was baffled as he watched. She made it look so graceful and sensual. When he took off his discoloured bobble-covered socks he looked like an unbalanced whale. A mutant whale with ugly fleshy feet instead of a tail.

Kaye hooked her fingers underneath her panties and slid him a look, poised to remove the last piece of clothing. Satisfied that he was wide-eyed enough, able to imagine the saliva pooling in the bottom of his mouth, she slid them down her legs slowly and stepped out of them before using one foot to flick them onto the floor.

Gerard was still far too clothed for her liking. He was bare-chested and bare-footed, but his jeans gaped open, revealing his straining boxer shorts simply begging for her attention. She was going to grant that wish quickly, no doubt about it. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was about this guy that kept her coming back for more. He wasn’t the most breath-taking specimen she’d ever seen. As he looked up at her now from where he laid on his back, gravity smoothed out the hills of his chest and stomach. He was definitely carrying a little more weight than he should have been, but it wasn’t off-putting in the slightest. His flesh wasn’t rippling over the cover of hard muscle, but his skin was of a beautiful pallid shade and was softer against her skin that anything she’d ever felt before. She didn’t even know it was possible for a man to feel to smooth and soft. Even where hair covered his legs, it wasn’t rough and harsh. He was the most unique lover she’d ever had. And she found herself increasingly needing to have him right that very second.

She sank to her knees, bracketing his legs, and bunched her hands in his underwear, signalling the removal of his two remaining garments. Propping himself up on his elbows he lifted his ass off the bed and let her tug his jeans off swiftly, dumping them on the floor for Spidey to look after.

His dick was hard and leaking, and had she not been so desperate, she’d have lapped up the small beads of liquid that settled on the end and listened to him mewl beneath her. However, she was in far too much of a hurry.

He’d been so determined today, displaying his hunger for the music he was now becoming dedicated to. It had been insanely attractive for reasons she couldn’t really decipher. It didn’t really matter, she supposed. She needed him inside her, and he seemed only too willing to oblige.

Kaye laid herself over him and kissed him furiously, hand curling tightly over him and stroking as he reached up to caress one of her breasts. She sucked in a hard breath through her nose as he tweaked her nipple, and threw her other arm out in the direction of his bedside table, yanking the draw open, knocking something off – X-men? – as she did so. She fumbled around until her hand hit a box. This would have been far easier if she could see what she was doing, but she was quite keen on the feel of Gerard’s tongue in her mouth, so her eyes stayed firmly shut. She probed inside the packet, seizing a condom wrapper between two fingers.

She pulled her mouth away from Gerard’s and instead thrust the small packet at his face, getting a kick out of the fact that it was his teeth to rip the wrapper. She rewarded him with three hard pecks on the lips before relocating and rolling the condom onto his dick, gripping it at the base and sliding him straight inside. They both sighed loudly; he blissful to be encased within her wet heat, and her content now that she was full with him. She gave a couple of slow rocks to allow her body to accommodate him before gripping his hands tightly and holding them in front of her, setting a brutal pace from the get-go.

Gerard merely laid back, head pressed stiffly back into the pillow behind him, exposing his throat, as he kept his arms as straight and strong as he could, letting Kaye steady herself as she rode herself out furiously on his cock. She was moving so fast, so hard, her bouncing movements causing her to crash back down onto him, and he realised she wasn’t kidding when she said it was going to be fast; he was approaching orgasm already.

“Look at me” came a breathy cry from above him, and he did as she commanded, watching as she angled herself slightly forward so that his dick could stroke her off from the inside as she continued to rock quickly over him.

She kept her eyes trained intensely on his face, whereas his eyes darted from her flushed panting face to her bouncing breasts to the sight of himself disappearing into her over and over. Her breath was coming faster and louder, not only from the exertion of moving so sharply and quickly, but because she was so close to coming it was tantalising. Her eyes slipped closed of their own accord then, her mouth gaping open as she feverishly thanked Gerard in her head. It was rare for her to come at all when practising penetrative sex, but it was even rarer to be able to come before the guy. She found that as a female it was usually better to be the first to crest; that way there was no chance of the useless man falling asleep or getting bored before she had the time to get her rocks off. This usually made up for all of Gerard’s short-comings – he never left her wanting afterwards. She whined as she came, eyes screwed tightly shut, letting the buzz settle over her skin like sunshine.

Gerard’s stomach spiked at her cry, and he swiftly followed her over the edge as her aftershocks curled hotly around him in tight spasms, groaning shortly as he shot. He let his tired arm muscles fall loose onto the bed, fingers still linked with Kaye’s. She lazily rolled her hips to get him through the last of his orgasm until she became too sensitive and whined, taking back one of her hands to hold the condom at the base as she climbed off and collapsed next to him, breathing heavily.

Between shuddering pants she pressed her lips against the skin of his bicep, trying to communicate her gratitude through dry pecks. Gerard was too blissed out to realise that her lips were actually supposed to be silently saying something, but he nodded hazily, hoping that an incline of the head would be enough. It seemed to do the trick as she sighed contentedly, rolling away from him to allow the air to dry the sweat that coated her body. She was going to need a shower now. She’d have suggested Gerard do the same, but she was well aware of the irritated grunt she’d get in reply. She supposed he hadn’t had the chance to break much of a sweat this time, though. She had taken control and didn’t want it any other way. She fondly watched him slip slowly into slumber and smiled to herself. She’d let him wallow in his own filth for a while longer.