The Flare (short story, commission, slow burn, vanilla, nsfw)

Things were good, in the before time, good, not great – successful, not overwhelmingly so. Annie was taken care of, she had an education, she had a condo she called home in a city with nice things all around –traffic, smog too, but she couldn’t win on every front. Working in her field the young woman spent most of her days in office whether it be from home or on site.
Annie was a hard worker; she was whip smart and quick to understand. She threw herself into her job, and her attention to quality did not go unnoticed. She had friends, Annie was known for her friends and her laugh, warm, infectious, so it was easy to see why. Not least of all, Annie was pretty. She had fair skin, auburn hair, and a firm, trim build that bordered on athletic.
When not working or enjoying her wealth of friends in the city she lived, Annie tended toward self improvement. Hot yoga, painting in the park, reading. . . she’d even found a mentor in her field, an older gentleman with the same drive. -though it might have been just as appropriate to say John found her. John found her and gave her purpose, gave her someone to admire, someone to aspire to be like even. . . though she could never fill his shoes.

John had offered her the internship that led her to the consulting role and education she had. Annie’s sister Jessica, a veteran in the armed forces and John, another veteran, were friends – Annie wasn’t sure if they’d seen combat together but only because she actively avoided those topics with Jess and John knew they made her squeamish; they did serve together though.
After working three summers assisting John as an intern, she was hired on, full contract, promotions came on quick. Annie was catapulted in part with John’s mentorship, in part thanks to her own determination and merit. She wanted to think that was all, but some days she wondered if nepotism won that day.

She did all she could to make up for it, a dutiful girl in all ways she could be. . . she went above and beyond for John, she didn’t mind either.

This was all to say: Annie was content, before. . . Before the power went out, before The Flare.
A lashing tentacle of magma was the last footage anyone saw before all screens went black that summer afternoon, when the world stood still and all power drained from it, a solar flare so magnificent it destroyed society as it was known to man. It could be seen from earth, even in the day, a gout of flames rushing out of the sun across the sky, magnetic storms and world ending tides washed up from the shore. . . this was the end of everything, Annie and many others had thought.
--or a new beginning.

No power, no internet, no Wi-Fi, no cars. . . nothing, batteries, computers, sparkplugs, and solenoids. Pacemakers stopped in hearts, dams flooded, nuclear plants shut down and went dormant, tick-tick-ticking toward inevitable meltdown. It was almost like the world didn’t turn any longer and it could be so very-very quiet. Quiet when it wasn’t deafeningly loud, gunshots and fires, chaos.

When the power didn’t come back, when people started to see help was not on the way, the looting and bedlam began. No government and no rules meant might was right once again. Brawn and survival were the law of the land. Annie had been lucky, lucky like she always was in life really.

She found peace, she found an escape, she found a place to survive – a new life.

The early days of The Flare were hard fought but at Pine Needle Park, a small cabin community and summer camp things were different, things were kinder, gentler, a new beginning for her and the people she met there, the other survivors.
At The Pines, as it’s inhabitants affectionately referred to it, there was community for all, they were collectivists, a certain oneness in everything they did. It was a hippy commune in the 2020’s, only the staples growing, hemp for fibres, some beans, soy particularly, and corn for food along with a small vegetable and herb garden to add variety to their pallets, even a few marijuana plants some had insisted on.
It was magical really. . . for Annie and others. The Pines were more of a hippy commune than anything, sure, they had scavengers that told her everything was hell beyond, that it was kill or be killed out in the open. . . but the forest offered them this safety and they’d taken full advantage. They carved out a new life for themselves without the bondage of dependence, without relying on. . . on everything that they’d lost.

Annie found her stride here, in things. . . she found belonging and a place where she could be her own person. It felt like she didn’t need her sister, or John watching her back, didn’t need them to catch her when she fell or scraped her knee. She was alive, free, wild with joyousness every day.

The world was better, now.

“Aauh-ha-ha!” A melodious laughter echoed between pine trees that morning, Annie following it. She laughed back, in fact. Every day they’d run barefoot, they’d practice yoga and community before they ate breakfast as a colony and started their collective tasks. That day, no exception. She had a small list of chores, she wasn’t on breakfast this week, that would have meant waking at dawn. Annie was cleaning up this week.

Everyone took turns with different duties, cooking, cleaning, working the crops, tilling soil for new ones, scavenging was a volunteer duty, however. Annie couldn’t imagine returning to the city, stories of bandits, slavers and even cannibals, filled her nightmares. The pines, however, were safe. They were far enough from the path oft more traveled it was nearly impossible to even stumble by them; purposefully removed they wished never to be found. The scavengers even did well to hide their tracks coming and going.

“What will you do today, Julie?” Annie asked, trying to catch her by the hem of her shirt.

Julie darted side to side, chuckling and turning around “Same thing we do every day, Annie!” she giggled in response, “Chores!” bemoaning the reality of their humdrum lives, whereas Annie couldn’t be more content. Annie had made friends with another girl, Julie, a younger woman, a woman who laughed loud, danced free, an educator before The Flare. They’d chase each other some mornings, they shared cabin, a bunk, they shared tasks and chores, life, and experiences; sorority.
“Wait up!” Annie called after her, unable to find her side.

The two darted around a cabin and through sandy ways padded down by foot falls, “You can’t catch me!” It wasn’t uncommon around here, to play too. To catch up on the things people took for granted. It was a different life and Julie embraced it fully, Annie played along well enough. Skidding to a halt Julie gasped then “Unf!” A large man in riot gear and tattered apparel stood in front of her, a dull, then suddenly sharp pain in her front making her topple into him despite every urge in her body to run. “Annie, go’auh!” She croaked over her shoulder.

If Annie had learned anything since the fall of society, it was that things could go wrong very quickly. . . and wrong they went. As wrong as her best friend with a combat knife in her sternum, pleading with her to run for her life, gargling on something crimson, something necessary – bubbling down the side of her face, lifeblood draining from her mouth and “No!” the wound as the man retrieved his knife and shoved her down – she crumbled to the sand.

An unfamiliar sound of glass shattering and fire blazing behind it, Molotov cocktails burning their cabins, no firearms, just brutal hand weapons and flames, shouting, commotion, pleads for it to stop! Turning, Annie ran for the bank, there was a small lake just beyond a patch of pine trees, if she could get to the water maybe she had a chance. Her feet were bare, her clothing old hiking gear that had been patched and rethreaded, dirty.

The peace and tranquility of her home was destroyed, screams of her friends all-around, cold-hearted violence ruled the day. Annie gulped as a crossbow bolt slung passed her and lodged into a tree at her side, there was cotton wrapped around it burning. Jonas, an agriculture major took a shovel to one man in a black mask, hockey pads. . . armed. He came out ahead, “Annie! Come with me,” she obliged.

Jonas was a kind man, she knew he wasn’t violent, she knew it wasn’t his way to do what he’d done – to kill, though he looked far from apologetic as he heaved his shovel’s blade free of the raider’s skull, his orbital and the mask that obscured his features caved in around it. The sound made her sick.
Another bolt sailed toward them, “Hey, they’re getting away!” A call from one of the men and women wrapped in black and armed with danger. Jonas took Annie by the arm and urged her forward, urged her down a berm that separated them and those who would capture or kill.

They ran with all they had, ran toward the lake, toward a dock with a paddle boat waiting. They didn’t need to speak, both knew what they were running for, what they were after. If they could reach the boat they had a chance, Annie kept thinking to herself, though she could hear voices approaching, they were gaining on them.

“Don’t look back,” Jonas hissed through ragged breaths, dropping the shovel he’d defended them with and breaking into a full sprint. “Don’t look back,” she wasn’t sure if he meant the mantra for her or himself, but she obliged him a second time, only to watch his head turn and “Oauf!” Jonas stumbled.

Annie nearly tripped herself but managed to break passed Jonas and make for the boat when the whistle of ammunition sailing passed resumed a plunk! Sound as a bolt stuck into the side of a boat house that housed a larger power boat lost to time. “Annie, run!” Jonas shouted only to find himself overcome, grunting as a man in makeshift armour crashed into him.

The two wrestled as Annie sprinted down the dock toward the paddle boat. “Oh shit, oh fuck, oh god, oh my god.” She huffed and puffed, muscles pumping acid, threatening to fail on her if she strained them any worse. . .

A bottle sailed passed her and with it, her hopes went up in flame, fire burst across the bow of the boat and coat the seats, the oars “No-no’ah!” Annie’s plan changed as quickly as she could think on it. She dove off the side of the dock, splashes on either side of her; two men.

The raiders on either side grabbed at her, yanked at her, refused her-her escape. Choking on lake water the young woman nearly drowned, kicking, and screaming, gulping, and thrashing. She made them work for it, the two captors, but inevitably, they wrestled her back up onto the dock. . . “Don’t look back,” She repeated, Jonas’s corpse just behind her, where she dared not to look.

-
Annie, along with a small number of others left Pine Needle Park alive, their home ransacked, the inhabitants killed or enslaved. While she’d considered herself lucky to be alive for some time after The Flare, that had changed, changed as she watched her home and bubble of safety burn, her friends hurt and worse.

They’d spent several days walking, the first just out of rows and rows of pine trees. Another day down cracked and crumbling interstate roads. . . Annie hadn’t been out in the world in so long she hardly recognized it today, how quickly, without the toil of man did nature reclaim her spaces. So quickly did vines and moss clench their way up through the cracks in cement, did rain, wind and otherwise leave windows stained, overgrown, smashed or otherwise ruined.

The whole world was ruined.
There were nearly twenty of them all together, the column of slaves and their captors. She recognized two women and one man from home, two she did not recognize, previous captures. . . the other dozen or so were armed and escorting them.
“Ooh-ho-hoauh, you’re going to make a nice trade for me, hmm, mhmmm. . .” a bald man with an eyepatch and a handlebar mustache informed her some time after they made their first camp. While Annie was no sleuth, she’d come to understand what had happened, where they were going too. He took Annie by the face, his hand dirty, fingernails encrusted black.

Turning her chin Annie fought against his filthy, fat fingers, “Hmph!”

“Y’know what tits like these are worth in New LA? Mhmm,” he chuckled and reached toward her chest, a small flourish of his fingers before he grabbed and groped. Annie could only wince, could only whine, could only fuss and fight against the bondage of her handcuffs, stumbling before she was yanked forward.

“Stop-stoppit,” She hissed.

“Stop, is not in your vocabulary slave, ho-hoauh-hoo, Mhmm.” Chortling the man smacked his lips.

She could taste the desperation in her voice as she whined for help, whined to a god of convenience or some other benevolence to spirit her from this. . . she had never known fear, never known violation, she’d known privilege and luck and warmth. . . kindness. She couldn’t do this!

The privilege she’d survived both the times before and after The Flare were shattered, shattered as his grubby hand wrapped around one of her perky breasts and roughly felt it through her shirt, squeezing and groping her. His cheek and chin brushed the crook of her neck and she cringed reluctantly. Her back stiffened and bristled straight with the rest of her posture.

While a big part of her demanded she cry for help, she could call, and holler, make a fuss. . . she knew there was no getting out of this. No getting out of their grasp or the promise of much worse to come. Annie gulped down a sob and tried to steel herself against the oncoming when a strange zip she was unfamiliar with caught the attention of every raider and one of the slaves.

Another zip and a man fell out flat.

“Go-go-go! Down!” Panic broke across the ranks of slavers, the slaves looking about confused then ducking as deeper baritones and pops of submachine gun fire joined the zips of silenced assault weapons. Annie understood all too late, as the man groping her pulled her over his body like a human shield and started to walk her away from firefight.

In her tattered hiking gear, the enslaved girl took her chance while she still had one. “Aauh!” hollering as she stamped her foot on his boot and shoved him back away from her with her shoulders.

The large slaver toppled backwards into a car, the abandoned street offering some grime encrusted vehicles and decaying urban et cetera to hide about. Annie broke for a bench, running with her face and body angled toward the city street bullets riffling passed in either direction, slavers protecting their bounty and an unknown, heavily armed force attempting to appropriate it, for better or worse.

There was terror in her heart and mind as she attempted escape, the pudgy slaver refusing it. “Mmmrph, just you wait!” He garbled and reached for her shoulder.

“Aaouh!” Annie shrieked, his hand tugging at her auburn hair when it missed her shoulder, he almost took a chunk in the panic but Annie took hold of her safety, of her future, of her chances and “Hugh!” Kicked with all her might toward his groin, she caught him too.

“Gwauh!” The man wheezed crumpled in the comotion, once again she was free, she was running.

Pat-pat-pat, a ring of bullets into cinderblocks shattered overhead and Annie found herself running wild but not quite free. Shouting and chaos continued to erupt all around, Annie ducked behind a car, cursing her captor, the large man who was never far. She attempted a break, crossing the sidewalk and darting down a narrow alley. Behind her the slaver stumbled, grimacing as he too fled the fire fight.

The rattle of firearms was louder than she imagined, deafeningly so, even as she barreled down the alley toward an uncertain freedom. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back making it difficult to balance, difficult to get too terribly far but she did everything she could to put distance between her and her groaning captor, the large man.

“Hey, mrph, stop right there!” She heard him over the shoulder but refused, eyes closing, whimpers escaping her lips, bubbling up her throat and shaking out of her with absolute urgency. She felt like she’d explode if she didn’t find some respite. Grubby hands nearly found her shirt but stopped just shy as a chortled death rattle came instead. The boom and sickly, wet, clap of a shotgun blast to the slaver’s shoulder dismantled him entirely.

Blood, meat and chips of bone sprayed from the gaping wound where his shoulder used to be, the man fell forward and crashed into Annie, pinning her on the ground as he garbled and choked on his last breaths. “Aaau-ha-hauh!” She called out for aid, pinned there, pinned by the corpse, still shuddering, still dying.

Pale, grave, shuffling and scampering out from under the slaver, not an easy task without the use of her hands. Long legs bloodied and bruised; her hiking gear tattered. . . her spirit all but bankrupt. “Annie, what are you doing here?”


Annie blinked, a familiar voice. . . a sight for sore eyes. There he was, in his own combat gear brandishing a cannon of a weapon, some sort of semiautomatic rifle the length of her arm and far more powerful. “Oh john,” she sobbed, she didn’t know what he was doing here either, but she wouldn’t ask questions.

As he bent down to lift her off the ground, first removing the body from her legs, she crashed into him, trying to find a hug, trying to get close to the first shred of sanity she’d seen in days, it had been blood and death since that awful morning and it hadn’t gotten better. “There’s no time to talk, not here. Let’s get you somewhere safe, Annie.” John said in his cool, confidence.

John was handsome, rugged, he was made for this world. While he’d accommodated and pivoted to the boardroom, he’d adapted to the life of a consultant, at his core – he was a soldier, he was her savior.
A few final pops of the firefight rang out before a chatter of ‘clear!’s shouted across different areas. The slavers had been outmatched several surrendering their bounty and their weapons. Annie and the others free.

There was some discussion of what to do, both with the remaining slavers as well as the slaves.

“We can’t take them back. . . can we?” One soldier asked John, another looked puzzled as well.

“This one is coming; we leave the slavers for the coyotes for all I care. . . the others are free, but not our responsibility.” John grumbled to his cohorts in private and they agreed. He was not heartless, but the group had mouths to feed enough as it was, plus there was the issue of where to put them. Bunks were in short supply at the compound, a shopping mall they’d barricaded and reinforced, it was a fortress.

Unlike the hippies, John and his companions, the colony, they’d been tested, they’d been attacked, hardened by the realities of The Flare, of human nature. . . greed.

John would go on to explain to Annie, as they returned to his home, The Colony, he, like her before had settled with a group, only they seemed far more organized, armed. Things had changed out here, out of the peace and security of the deep forest oasis she’d lived in; they were tough, had to be. The Colony was larger than the commune, John nearly one hundred people, children not included,

“Children? There are children?”

“We even have a small hospital, there’s two women expecting.”

it gave her hope, unlike the bullet holes and spray paint warnings spattering nearly every building they passed, cars burnt out and smashed to bits, cracks in sunbaked pavement, litter blew freely through the streets along with a ghostly wind.
It was quiet, John encouraged everyone to keep it that way, Annie included.

Eventually they arrived, a large cement building, a shopping mall, surrounded by cars and corrugated steel walls, guards with torch light and rifles. With the sun setting in the sky and the day’s change long since set in her bones, Annie joined John and the others inside.

It was a new world in there, in the East Chicago mall, she’d shopped there, once or twice at least, but it wasn’t that place, not anymore. There were cots and beds, torches illuminating every surface, a small workforce of people cooking and sorting through what she could only describe as garbage, small electronics and larger, being taken apart Televisions, laptops and appliances, hand tools. . . rifles being cleaned, wounds being bandaged. It was like a small city inside the mall and while it was very impressive it was also grimy, filthy.

Through the food court turned factory of sorts, she was lead by John into a makeshift barracks and eventually to what she could only describe as a command centre, a strong woman with a scar on her upper lip and another over patched eye. She looked like another veteran, but not of a war she knew – of a new, different battle, the one they’d all been fighting since The Flare.

John saluted, Annie catching the drift and nodding her head – she wasn’t a soldier, but she wanted to be respectful. “Hello,”

“At ease, John, who’s this? Heh.” She sounded kind, but wary, Annie supposed the woman had every right to be.

“This is Annie, an old friend. . . a good friend. -I’d like her to stay here, with us.”

“Annie,” The woman greeted her, walking into the light of a flickering torch, the juxtaposition of linen wrapped torches and modern décor a strange combination to say the least. “What can you offer the colony?”
Annie blinked, John grimaced, he wasn’t sure what she had to offer here, in truth but she’d have to figure that one out herself, he’d brought her this far. “I can cook, large batches too. I can clean and, and. . . and I know how to sew. I could mend clothing or cook.” She nodded confidently.

“She cooks and cleans John,” the commander as it were, smirked. “Alright Annie. We’ll find a bunk for you. . . but in the mean time, you’ll be staying with John. I’m sure you don’t mind, old friends that you are.” The woman almost sounding adversarial under her blonde shock of hair.

“Let’s go.” John encouraged her, she was quick to agree. Annie followed back toward the barracks, though John didn’t stay with the other grunts or the masses, his place in the colony earned him his own quarters on the 2nd floor of the building with the other folk who’d earned as much.

“John, I never thought I’d see you again.” Annie confessed breathlessly as they crossed a flaming barrel, several individuals huddled about it for warmth, the smoke billowing upward through a ventilation shaft they’d opened up and pulled from a drop ceiling above. John nodded with agreement, smiling.

“Glad to of found y’ah, those men were. . . that was no place for you to be, out there, alone.” He gave her a grave look, one of concern, one that was hard to reconcile for her, one that said everything he couldn’t in a word. “It’s dangerous.” She didn’t know the half of it.

They entered a small, shuttered store. She recalled it as a women’s clothing store, the lingering floral scent confirmed it. “This is your. . .”

“My home, heh.” It was nice enough, tidy, a queen-sized mattress and a couch, there were liquor bottles on the counter that a register once occupied, amenities. It was nice. “I’ll sleep on the couch, I’m sure you’ve been living hard, for. . . how long were you out there, Annie?”

“Not long. . . I uh, not long.” Her voice cracked, unsure she could recount what brought her to out there, to the slaver’s grasp.

He nodded, understanding. “We have running water, heated, I can’t draw you a bath, but you can take a quick, warm shower and I’ll. . . there’s clothing, plenty for everyone. I’ll find you something. Fix y’ah a hot meal. There were some advantages, settling here, between the food bank and other dried goods, clothing, and shelter. It’s given us a chance to regroup.”

“We’re not just surviving, the colony, here. . . we’re thriving. We found a few engineers, a spark. . . they said they could get us power some day, think about it, power. First the mall but. . . someday the whole grid, won’t be easy but people did it before us.” John figured.

Annie felt hopeful, especially with John. . . she felt something closer to safe. Something closer to secure. –though part of her half expected the other shoe to drop any time now, half of her expected something awful to come around a corner or her to wake up feverish on the ground, under a slaver’s boot. The scars of that reality still gripped her heart, the trauma.

“You okay, kiddo?” she’d been staring off at nothing for a moment but tore back to him with a start.

“Of course. -just a little tired, is all.” John agreed to start, to get her some clothes and give her the lay of the shower, a stand-up booth that had been installed in a store room behind the shop’s showroom.

“I gotcha, let’s get you some rest and some food. Y’ah?” he smiled and gestured off to it, heading out of the store, his room, and back into the barracks.
She didn’t feel like herself, in the shower. She could hardly get it started after peeling off her clothes, a dirty old shirt, and some khakis with more pockets than any pair of pants she’d ever owned, not that she made good use of any of them. She groaned, massaging her shoulders, pulling the strain off them as she finally got the spigot open, finally got it pouring its warm grace across her tight, aching body.

No, it wasn’t that she didn’t feel like herself, she felt beside herself, like she was in shock; likely was. She washed herself slowly, clean water rolling down her dirty, grimy body. She groaned.

“You alright in there?” A voice called out to her after some moments under the beads of bliss.

Out of the corner of her vision she caught John as he set down some items at the edge of the room, “There’s some clothes for you, a towel. . . I’ll grab dinner too.”

Annie called over her shoulder “Thank you John.” Biting on her lip, she almost wanted him to see her. . . to see she wasn’t a kiddo anymore. She wasn’t when they last met either, but, well, she felt even greater than then, even more grown, matured. Couldn’t he see her as more than just a damsel, distressed and desperate though she may have been. She could take a shower at least.

When the shower ran cold, Annie decided it must have been her sign to towel off. John had supplied her with several sets of clothing, few of which fit properly, a fairly safe all sizes sweater with their fair state’s name written in bold across the chest did, she draped it over her body and pulled up a pair of shorts with it.

By the time John returned with dinner she’d already fallen asleep on his bed, it smelled like him. . . like sandalwood, safety, and home. Not the home she’d found, the home she’d lost.
John smirked and set down the tray with a simple meal on it, he’d brought it up from the cafeteria, it was nothing special but it was better than nothing at all, mostly canned veggies, hunted game and they’d started growing on the roof, though this was still a work in progress, the yields not great enough to feed the colony, just supplement their diets with some fresh green.

Days would pass, days that were quiet, days that were kind, days that she smiled through most of all. John slept on the couch, a perfect gentleman through and through, though his eyes did wander, his resolve did wane. Annie met new people, other colonists, a botanist who told her they’d make vertical farms some day if power ever came back. A sardonic poet who insisted he was now the greatest in the world, but only because he wasn’t sure any other poets could make it in this world. She met soldiers and a doctor with a prosthetic leg, a story about how John saved him too.

Children, she hadn’t seen children in what felt like years. . . she played with them too, played a games she forgot even existed. The Colony was more than just a place to live, it was a new beginning, it was a new hope. . . not a rift in time, delaying the inevitable, there was progress here, purpose. A new meaning, a new life –with John.

John, a man who’d saved her once before, who’d given her a purpose before, more than just a shot. John was her mentor, her friend. . . she’d looked up to him for so long, she’d been sweet on him even longer.
“Did you hear the news? –I’ve been assigned a bunk.” Annie called to John some afternoons later, she’d brought home dinner for them from the cafeteria. John wasn’t sure to be happy for her or sad for him, it had been nice having her around, it always was. It had been before, before all of this, before the colony that is, The Flare.

They sat, sat over dinner like they had each day before since she arrived though they didn’t talk while they ate, not today. There was a pause, a pregnant, pensiveness to the meal. Neither of them said a word. They didn’t want to say, but they also didn’t. . . they couldn’t left things unsaid any longer, could they?

--She didn’t know when she’d have a chance.

“John.”

“Yes, Annie?”

Her nostrils flared, a deep breath shuddering up and down her throat, she smiled. “Well,” she always had been a go getter, she’d gotten this far. The table they sat at was squat, it wasn’t a dinner table – more a coffee table with trays. She reached across with both her hands, palms up, gesturing to take his.

“What is this about, Annie?” John, amused.

A splotch of blush ravished her cheeks and bridge of her nose, “I’ve always. . . no, maybe not always but. . . I just, I wanted to thank you. I wanted to thank you for being so kind to me. In fact, I’ve wanted to thank you for that, since. . . well, always. You’ve got a history for pulling me out of it.” Annie, earnest, none too coy. She turned her face, looked down at the tray, the last of her peas.

“Oh gosh.” She tittered, covered her face. “John, let me thank you. For everything. You’ve always been there for me, always.” She squeezed his hands.

“You don’t need to thank me for anyth-“

“John, I do.”

She rose from her seat, gesturing for him to come with her. “John, I know. . . I know here I can’t be your assistant, or your intern, I can’t help you scavenge or defend this place, these people. But there’s something I can do here. We, can do here.”


John blinked, wordless for a moment, “What are you talking about Annie?” She rounded the table, pressing her hands flat on his chest, dispelling any personal space he had left. Annie had always had eyes for him, always. He had to know that; a harmless crush, a work marriage that could never be more, unspoken tension on late nights grinding and burning oil, Chinese takeout dates trying to figure out that next right move. . .

. . . it wasn’t perfect, but they had something then, she wanted something else now.

“Smch,” the young woman haloed his shoulders with her arms and placed a delicate kiss on his chest, over his shirt. John wasn’t stunned, he wasn’t even surprised. He always knew, somewhere, in his heart of hearts. Knew that Annie harboured something more than admiration for his tact and work ethic, for his service and pluck. He knew the girl longed for him, he’d never felt it a fair position to take but, “Kiss me, John.” With her asking, with her touching, with her so close. . .

He took a step into her, wrapping her up in his arms, lips crashing together in a meaningful exchange of heat, of saliva, of dead skin cells and intimacy worth more than the sum of its parts, certainly worth more than the groan it forced. It had been some time, some time for them both, but they were adults – they both knew the dance, they both knew the moves.

Annie raised her arms over her head as his hands slid from her back to her sides at her ribs, his thumbs cradled through her underarms, his fingers around her side to her back till they snagged on her top, with his hands, the fabric climbed over her head and she sunk downward, letting him peel her shirt from her along the way. She shrugged her shoulders and head and the tan fabric covered her no more. Kneeling, shirtless, she reached for his fly and belt buckle, making remarkably short work of each, his pants going the same way as her shirt, a puddle of fabric on the floor between them.

Not so innocent, not anymore, the moments compounded and moved faster, faster still. Annie seemed pressed forward, pressed her face into his crotch, a certain vulnerable obsession with him answered in that moment, she felt his member hardening, hot against her features. “Mmmph,” She groaned, fishing it out of his underpants, working them down his legs, letting him step out of them once he could.

John was impressive, muscular, some scars, no surprise. His cock was large, impressive like his pectorals or glutes, biceps and abs. . . john. “Mmph,” A murmur of excitement, of approval, of something else, something desperate, if only to please.
“Go on, I won’t bite’yah.” John encouraged her, sweeping some hair out of her face, tenderly taking her cheek as she began to kiss and flick her tongue out across is cock’s mushroom tip. “Mph, hmmph. . . -yeah, that’s good.” Little starbursts of pleasure and excitement jumping along his body with every ministration she made, every flick of her tongue or gliding advance of her lips, and advance they did. After some moments, some gentle, salty suckles Annie made her way up his shaft. She licked one side, stroked the other, her lips burbling a frothy mess of spit along his shaft till John took a chunk of her hair and guided her back toward the tip.

It was the suggestion she needed, her lips peeling back and maw opening for him to slide inside.

Inch after inch slid over the velvet bed of her tongue toward the back of her throat. He didn’t just taste, he felt, manly. A certain harshness melting away on her tongue, the taste of his day, of his salt. . . she wanted all of it. “Sllrrpht,” her eyes slid shut and she focused all her attention on his pleasure, on his cock, on bobbing back and forth along it, skewering herself.

One hand found his hanging nuts, urging them from under his cock and between his thighs, she took them in her dainty fingers and started to fondle gentle but with purpose, with just enough crescent of her nails to give a little itch but never scratch. . .

“Sh-shit,” John grunted, he a throb of heat welling up inside of him, a skipped breath or two – he was sure he was about to pop and Annie felt the throb. Just like he’d suggested her onto his cock, he took her back off, easing her away from him, “I’m gonna cum if you keep that up, Annie.” He chuckled, maybe it was her, Annie, who was the impressive one; her tongue certainly could be impressive.

The two lewdly smeared a little spittle across her upper lip, first with his cock, then with his thumb. She purred with excitement, shifting from side to side on her knees, on her bottom atop them, she wanted more, she needed more. Her nipples had grown turgid, she’d found a bra that fit in a forgotten department store, it needed to come off.

Unclasping, she shrugged out of the bondage of the aqua cups and straps. Her breasts each a petite handful under her freckled sternum and collar bones, pale flesh save two pink, dusky nubs. John watched intently, pulling off his shirt, his body covered in short, curly hairs, more scars, muscle. “I’m going to fuck you all night, Annie.” A promise, not a boast or threat. . . it had been too long, and he didn’t intend to stop at one.

She turned over, stepping, half crawling till she was stretched over the side of the bed she’d been in the last few days. It didn’t smell like John, not anymore, it smelled like Annie now, her natural scent and the floral bouquet of feminine bar soap.

The young woman lay over the edge of the bed, John leaning down over her, holding himself with one hand, his other pinning her in place as he “Hnngph!” stuffed himself inside her razor shy, but no less inviting cooz, the two moaning softly, then hard. For a moment John let her get used to his girth, his length, only giving her the first so much, then a few inches more when her legs stopped jerking, stopped quaking.
John took hold of the young woman’s throat with one hand, snaking it up under her body, holding her in place as he began to urge forward and back, his hips clapping into her pert ass. Her tunnel was hot, was tight, was everything he’d imagined, even then, when it was far from appropriate, when he, was sweet on her.

Maybe it was more mutual than either of them ever thought, he always wondered. . . wondered what could have been between him and Annie.

“Hggfk!” his stomach tightened, hot-hot-heat imparted from between his legs, his hanging testicles, into her waiting snatch, he was so close! John managed to reel himself in though, managed to keep himself from painting her insides after a few meagre minutes.

A sheen of sweat covered them both, a humidity, a musk filling the room. He pulled back, pulled out, grinding his still turgid cock against her swollen cunt. “Fuck, roll over.” She obliged, once she’d climbed up onto the bed at least.

The young woman turned over and pulled her legs up toward her shoulders, bending them at the knee. Her toes wriggled and her sopping pussy waited, the fair skin, young woman contorted into a hot little bowl so that he could dive in, so that he could impart more heat into her, pour his lust into her, a vessel specifically made to accept it.

“Ungffk!” She grunted as he did just that, as he climbed up onto the bed, the bed wheezing under their weight, the frame cranking as he slid inside, as he started to thrust. She caught each, caught each thrust with a loud sound of excitement, a loud sound of bliss.

“Oh-hoauh-J-John!” She cried and carried on, the friction and girth filling her to the brim, spreading her wide, making her drool both upstairs and down. She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t help but dig nails to flesh, kiss what she could, bite and eventually cum. “Hnnngk!”

John felt the squeeze, the throbbing intensity of her spasm, her orgasm, there was no stopping his own at that point, “I-I’m cmmngph,” her ability to produce real words limited at best, “Cummin’ffk!”

“Me too, cum with me, Annie. . . let’s cum together!” growling into her sweaty body his thrusts became erratic, became wild, then slower, slower, and weaker, finality imparted along with that hot-hot-heat from his testicles. He came. His orgasm intense, intense enough to make him clamp down on his lip and growl, growl as he shot rope after rope into Annie.

Between the sheets, between the deep, ragged breaths and between sweet nothings whispered from one to the other the real discussion of where they went from here hung in the air. John couldn’t think of a better place than where she was laying, next to him. Annie had trouble, much the same, trouble even parting with his back despite the sweaty tack clinging to them.

John, her true home. . .

“What if, hff, what if you stayed? –stayed here.”

Annie blinked, the thought crossed her mind, she sat up and looked down at John, half a sheet draped over his muscular form, salt and pepper beard and body hair glistening in the low light, “With you?”

“Yeah, what do you think?” John responded inviting, warm.

Annie could only huff and smile, she nodded “Yeah, I’d like that John.”