Chapter six: Parting
Her eyes flittered to the clock on the stove – she had about fifteen minutes to get out the door if she wanted to get to work on time – and then back to him. She felt her eyes tighten as she smiled at him. The medley of love, pity, gratitude, protectiveness, and lusting hunger that always seemed to wash over her when her mind turned to thoughts of what he had given up for their new life together filled her. She knew that he was aching for her, and she knew how much worse she could make it.
She brought him in, pressing him to the bare skin at the base of her throat. She felt his frame run over collar bone and breast, the length of his little body slight against hers. He nuzzled into her in affectionate bliss, his damp face cool on her neck. She felt the tickle of his gentle kiss on her throat, drew in a breath through her nose that filled her chest, and began to guide him over her front. She undid the latticework of her fingers behind him, freeing her right hand and holding him to her with her left. She passed him over her chest, felt his tiny weight over her breasts, before she flattened him against her stomach in a firm press. He rode against the rise and fall of her breathing, pinned against the surety of her abdomen, as she bunched some of her dress in her free hand. She could feel the firm poke of his erection against her, just below her navel. He shuddered, passing a moan too softly to reach her ears.
"Don't you dare ruin this dress," she warned, voice heavy and grave. She eased the pressure at his back enough for him to lift away from her stomach, and she lowered him under the bunch of her dress and between her legs, pressing him flatly against her. She felt the tickle of his arms reach up her thighs as he framed her from beneath, clutching at her quads as he tried to lift himself from the seat of her hand and into her tights.
He was drenched in her scent. He buried his face into dark fabric, licking and pressing pressure where he knew her hood hid behind her tights. His body ached with need for her, pulsing pleasure radiating from his cock as he felt the weight of her hand behind him press him harder against her. The heady earthiness of her arousal drowned out all other senses, silenced all thought. He was drunk on her in an instant. Every part of him screamed for her, ached desperately to stay with her, to plant roots and serve her. And just like that he felt her falling away from him.
He was practically convulsing into her through her tights when she began to withdraw him. Slowly she retraced the driving pressure of her hand into his back. Gravity parted his torso from her labia, her fingers crooking back into a curving seat as she carried him backwards, out from under her dress and into the full light of the kitchen. She had felt herself awakening in tingling waves at his needful presses, the sure weight of his form against her vulva whispering wet memories of the mornings' adventures.
She only quickened when she saw the frenzied confusion on his face as he emerged from under her dress. His eyes were lit by passionate hunger, a blind desperation to close the growing distance between them and lose himself in her. She considered for a moment that the sight of her thrall over him had turned her on more than his touch. She lifted her boyfriend swiftly up the length of her, confident that this speed would only add to his dizzied overstimulation. Her grip switched on him as he arrived at her eye level, the fingers of her left hand closing around his torso. His left arm reached out between index and middle finger, gripping her knuckle for security, his eyes burning for her.
She affected a quiet, low murmur. "Little bug is so easily distracted," she purred, squeezing him gently in her hand. His erection surged against her grip. Her free right hand rose to join him, lightly caressing the tip of him with the pad of her finger. He shuddered in her hand, his breath coming to him in a slow roll. She felt her own hunger grow at this meditation on ownership. Her mind raced over ready-made excuses for her boss as interest in reinforcing her dominion over the pitiful writhing boy in her hands overwhelmed her objections to tardiness. Reason won out, but she knew she could push him just a little bit farther before he broke.
He waited there, dangling from her hand, feet swaying gently above the kitchen tile as he watched her eyes consider him. He felt words continue to tread towards the periphery of his consciousness, turning to smoke before he could close around one with enough intent to speak it aloud. He finally landed on what, in that moment, felt like the most compelling argument in the world: "Ness, put me back," he sighed as much as spoke. "I wanna finish you," he slurred. Enough of his brain came back online to register the pathetic distraction in his voice.
She smirked. "No time, bug. It's time to say goodbye." She offered him an exaggerated pout, relishing his deflated defeat in her grasp. Her right hand, still hovering over his groin, traced a line down his legs, sliding delicately up his backside to place a pinching pressure at his ass. He jerked back to alertness as the flat of her nail passed between his legs, driving up at his base and flicking his balls as it passed.
She smirked, brown eyes full of a playful mischief, smoldering over an unquenchable hunger, as she turned to step out of the kitchen. She crossed the threshold as she spoke, keeping him at eye level, eyes fixed on his. "I have to say goodbye to my sweet bug, leave him for hours all alone," she pouted. "What ever will he do all day?" She moved him back to her mouth, wrapping her lips around his erection.
The hot plush of her mouth's grip closed over his cock. He craned his back in an instinctive reaction of pleasure, the vastness of her lips spilling over him, crashing over thigh and hip as she slid him out of her puckered lips in a slow pull. His shoulders fell and his hips thrust uselessly towards her as he left her mouth. She smirked at him again, eyes alight.
"Ness, you're gonna kill me," he begged. She was already moving him back in for another kiss. He felt a deep pressure welling within him, threatening equilibrium with the pressure of her gripping lips around his dick. The pressure grew, coalesced around the head of his penis. He felt ready to explode, lost in the lovely depths of her soft lips, the gentle suckling tide of her mouth. And just like that he was withdrawn again.
She offered him another pout this time, tilting her head slightly. Her thoughts were foggy with desire. She was consumed with the need to return to bed with him, to let him lose himself to her, to fill her in his worship. Her teasing pout yielded to a sad smile as the fantasy faded to an understanding that she had to leave him soon. It deepened as she realized how profoundly overpowering her cocktease had been. He was heaving putty in her hands. "Sorry bug, you just make it so easy. I really do have to go, though."
He reached through her words and sought lucidity. The pressure in his groin still screamed, but he knew this game well enough by know to recognize its end, and he squeezed her fingertip in an admission of defeat. "You're a monster."
"Yeaaah probably," she drawled, smiling. "You were just so cute, how could I resist a little kiss?"
He was still catching his breath. Still naked from the waist down. Still hard, and could still smell her heady arousal on his chest, in his beard. "That was a little kiss, huh?"
"Just a lil smooch to show I loved ya," she returned, humor lilting her voice. She had crossed from the kitchen into the living room as she had played with him, and stood now before the couch. "Not my fault if you have a horny little meltdown over a kiss."
He rolled his eyes at her, but she was moving him in towards her chest before he could start on his rebuke. She held him close, pressing him gently to the top of her breasts, so that she could safely drop into the couch without giving him whiplash. He could feel the soft fabric and her smooth skin on his naked lower half. The steady thuds reverberating from her chest offered him a self-satisfying glimpse into her own excitement at his work under her dress.
She clutched him to her tightly as she dropped onto the couch. He fell with her, the jolt of impact lessened by the cup of her hand and the cushion of her breasts. Her hand left him there, splayed awkwardly across her front, as she settled into the seat, leaning suddenly to her left as she pulled her feet in under her.
He held himself still as she settled, his eyes shut as he lay against her through the familiar motion of her settling into a comfortable seat. His center of gravity shifted atop her as she shifted backwards, seeking the comfort of her usual sloppy seiza, seated almost atop her calves, burying her feet behind her in the cushion's corner. He felt her raise her phone in her right hand through the gentle incline of her breast beneath him. He sat up, eyes opening.
He swung his legs out and away from her, settling into a straddle towards the top of her right breast. The small room stretched before him: their modest television centered on a dark wood console against the wall that separated kitchen and living room. The console was a grid of eight storage nooks, the bottom four holding hastily-folded blankets and bedding, the top littered with knicknacks, half-used candles, a router, and a Switch. Between the television and the couch was a modern looking coffee table. Dark metal framed the glass-topped surface, clear save for a lonely cork coaster. The glass granted view of the table's base, which Ness used as a catch-all shelf for magazines, library books, paperwork, and board games. They were organized into somewhat neat stacks, their orderliness allowing enough space for him to walk if he wanted a shortcut to or from the couch.
He took the room in, familiar sights from a familiar perch, in the space of one of Ness' breaths. He rose with her diaphragm, gathering himself to move as the warmth of her quiet exhale found his hair and shoulders. A tight buzzing sound turned his eyes downwards and to their right, where he saw a text notification slide down over the Instagram feed she had been lazily thumbing through to relay a series of confetti emojis from her friend Emily.
Her thumb jumped to the banner, the colors of Instagram yielding to a plane of white and blue as her messenger app opened.
"Could you grab my shoes for me?" There was a tired worry to her voice that often accompanied conversations with Emily. Her right hand moved inward, knuckles meeting in a gently knotted wall as she employed both thumbs in her response. Her chest rose slightly as her arms centered, and his right foot grazed the peachfuzz of her arm where it pressed into her breast.
"Sure thing," he assented, already swinging bodily to his right side. He rolled clumsily sideways over her front, letting gravity slope him over the side of her chest and into the crook of her arm. He twisted into a sitting position in the in the sloped bed of the inside of her elbow. His right hand held against the originating rise of her bicep, his left on the flat wall of soft forearm, alive with the gentle twitches of her texting thumb. He lifted himself up and out of this seat slowly, his butt and then back pressed firmly against her, lowering himself as far as he could towards the couch cushion before releasing and allowing himself to fall.
It was a short drop, barely a foot, from her elbow to the cushion beneath. His slow descent had eased him most of the way down, and he dropped the remaining inches in a quick pencil dive. Momentum drove his feet down into the upholstery, which snapped him back upwards in a bounding retort. He had slid down her in anticipation of this bouncy landing, and had kept his hands held to the fabric of her dress as he fell, allowing himself to thud gently against the wall of Ness' thighs behind him and avoid springing into a fall.
She had hardly noted the excitement of his descent, her eyes held fast to her phone. The hushed hums of messages received and sent that sounded as he had worked his way to the couch meant that the conversation was unfolding quickly, typically signifying some sort of catastrophe on Emily's end.
"How's Emily doing?" He called up to her as he started towards the far side of the couch. Emily had been Ness' best friend for years. They had met in their freshman year of college and had been roommates for the remaining three. She was a kind and caring person, but her tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend had built a lot of distance between she and Ness over the past year. It seemed like Emily only reached out when she was in crisis these days.
"One sec," she said, her usual distracted way of saying that she needed to finish typing out the thought she was working on before she could answer. He crossed the couch in awkward, loping steps, trying not to be tripped up by the sinking slopes that formed around each footfall. It was a grey couch, its upholstery frayed in spots from years of service as the only proper seating that they could fit in the living room. It was comfortable though, and its deep cushions made it as useful as a guest bed as it was a couch. He neared the far arm rest as she sent her text and answered him.
"Rough. She and Derek had a huge fight last night apparently. She says they're done for real this time, but I'll believe it when I see it."
He had reached the far side of the couch, and approached its lip. Ness had picked up a pair of stairs from a pet store meant to help small dogs or cats who had become too old to jump climb onto furniture. The stairs were covered in a soft synthetic wool and consisted of four steps about six inches high each. They were still far too large for him to step down as stairs, but they made a safe – if awkward – journey out of an otherwise risky drop of almost two feet from cushion top to living room floor. He was far enough from Ness at this point that he'd have to shout if he wanted his voice to reach her reliably, so he remained quiet as he leaned to his left side to place his palm on the landing of the cat stairs to hop onto the first step in a clumsy hurdle. She was used to him keeping quiet outside of easy conversational range since his Diminishing, and would continue to update him as he retrieved her shoes.
He hopped down the second step, his bare feet gripping the wispy fabric of the stairs with each thudding landing. As he swung himself off onto the last step he heard her phone buzz with an incoming text.
"Oh, holy shit." The muttering shock of her initial exclamation gave way to quiet wonder. "She says it was her call this time. She told him she was done and spent the night at her mom's. This one might stick. I'm gonna have to see her this weekend, bug."
He turned around to face her. Her attention had risen from her phone to him as she finished her thought, clearly looking for his reaction. They had not yet told anyone about his Diminishing. As far as his friends and family knew, he had relocated to Oaxaca for work and focus on his writing. It had been a hasty and somewhat sloppy lie, but it had held up so far, though Ness had admitted that she had come incredibly close to telling Emily on more than one occasion. If she and Derek were truly over this time – and he hoped for both Emily and Ness' sake that they were – it meant that Emily would become a much more regular part of Ness' life again, and probably a much more regular presence in the apartment. The fiction would become simultaneously harder to maintain and much more taxing on Ness, who hated lying to her friend.
He was still too far for his voice to carry easily, and he resisted the urge to shout an affirmation at her. He looked up at her, folded in on herself on the couch, phone limp in her hand, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she likely cataloged the same thoughts that were running through his mind. Her eyes shone for a moment when he gave a quick thumbs up, and then pointed towards the doorway, inferring that he'd be back with her shoes in a moment.
"We'll talk about it before we make any decisions, I promise." She offered, seemingly to him, though almost certainly to quiet her own concerns as well.
He set off away from the couch, padding over the chunky cords of the living room's polyester carpet. He walked briskly, knowing that Ness needed to leave soon, and hoping she'd be pleased enough with his pace so as not to start fetching her own shoes before work again. Finding tasks like this where he could continue to be a helpful presence around the house was increasingly important to him; he took a lot of pride in his outfit retrievals, his morning coffee brews, his fetched shoes and cleaned shelves. It was a way to give, an outlet for tangibly expressing love through supportive labor, something that had become much more difficult at this scale.
Just past the doorless frame that separated their living room and kitchen was a narrow hallway to the outside door. Ness kept a small row of her most regularly worn shoes there, and chief among them were a pair of black Toms that she often wore to work. They were simple black flats, made of a lightweight canvas that lipped up at the heel in an elastic gore. They each weighed just under half a pound, and were only a couple inches shorter than he was, making lifting and carrying them an impossibly difficult task. He had found that he could get a good handle on the inside gore of the shoe's heel, though, allowing him to lift the heel slightly off of the carpet and pull the shoe with him. These flats in particular had smooth, worn soles to them, and glided over the carpet easily.
He approached the left shoe first, leaning down to find a handle on the seam of the elastic gore, and lifted it up to his waist. The shoe had a familiar heft by now, and he had become much more efficient in these runs since Ness had let him take over the task about three weeks back. With the base of the heel pressing against his waist, he began trotting backwards, pulling the shoe with him. She hadn't worn her Toms in two days, but her scent clung to them, the fabric of the soles serving as an efficient sponge for the sweat of her workdays. The familiar briny warmth of her feet rose to greet him in increasingly intense waves as his breathing reached a deep, even rhythm from the work of the run. He crossed the room back to the couch quickly, dragging the shoe down along the base of the couch, and deposited it with a faint thud near Ness. He craned his head back as he approached, still walking backwards, and took her in. She rose before him, upside down at his perspective, back to swiping idly at her phone. She felt his gaze and looked down at him, wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes in cheerful acknowledgment of his return. He jogged back to the shoe's twin, eager for her to see the effort he was putting into getting her to work on time.
The return trip was a repeat of the first, though his breaths had deepened for his hustle. It carried the sweet scents of foot lotion and sweat to him in ever-increasing waves, the odor tangy and sharp in his nose and mouth as he brought the second shoe to a stop next to its twin. He flexed his fingers, easing some of the tension from the awkward hold that the shoes required, and let a huffing sigh out of his mouth to begin easing his breathing. "All set!"
She set her phone on the couch and leaned forward, looming exaggeratedly over him. She had watched him work out of the corner of her eye, mostly ignoring her phone in favor of the ridiculous but heartwarming sight of her boyfriend working up a sweat to drag each shoe over to her as if hauling a canoe. She was still working on putting words to the complicated mix of emotions that watching him labor over these mundane tasks elicited: gratitude for the work he put into these gestures of love, pity at the enormous undertaking they now represented for him, deep need for the worshipful way he seemed to approach these moments as examples of devotion, and burning hunger over how completely he orbited her. Dwelling on these thoughts created a lightness in her chest that could easily give way to consumptive demands for his continued adulation if she gave them space to breathe. She begrudgingly banished the thought, feeling the lightness warm into more benign appreciation for this man who loved her so deeply.
"Thanks bug, good hustle."
"Any time." He smiled, running his hand through his hair to shape it back off of his shoulders. His breath was already evening out, but he couldn't quite hide the deep fall in his chest as he exhaled. "Need a hand?"
"Sure, careful." She warned, leaning back into a sitting position against the couch. She clumsily kicker her legs free, and they slipped out of their hiding place in the corners of the cushion with a ruffling scrape. She set her feet onto the coffee table, transferring weight towards her legs to straighten herself into a seated position that brought him back into sight, centered between her legs. Her toes gripped the edge of the table, heels inches from him in either direction. She loved framing her view of him with her body, reaffirming their disparate scales. "Right first."
He had been utterly focused on her since the moment she began moving. He watched her legs swing out from the couch, the right passing over him with steady grace. He marveled at the soft slopes of her nylon-clad calves, breathed the medley of lotion and body that stirred in the breeze her motion awakened. A particularly distractible part of his mind drifted over the earthy notes of arousal he thought he might still be able to pick up, though he could just as easily have fabricated the thought in a moment of imaginative desire.
He found lucidity as he felt the brightness of her eyes wash over him, and the instant after processing her demand he looked down at the flats to his right. "Can do." He leaned down to the shoe, taking it by the side now, only having to skitter it a few jolting inches to bring it into alignment with the foot perched atop the table. He moved behind the shoe, taking a tight grip to the top of the gore, bending it slightly towards him. "Ready for ya."
Ness' foot flexed, her knuckles sloping convex as she slid her foot slowly from the table. The grip of her left foot on the table tightened and twisted slightly as she leaned into it, careful in the controlled descent of her foot towards him. She flourished her toes inward, their curling awakening a plane of wrinkled nylon as her sole puffed. She glided her foot backwards and towards him, confident that he'd be transfixed by the sight of her looming towards him.
Glancing down to ensure she wasn't moving quickly or deeply enough to hurt him, she relaxed her toes as they approached his face. His vision vanished in a sea of soft nylon, cool and fragrant with the light perspiration from their minutes wedged in the couch cushion, firming into the pressing pads of her toes as she scrunched gently. Her toes hugged at his face in the slope of their curl. He heard her exaggerated "mwah" noise as the squeeze of her foot's kiss reached its sturdiest hold, the smell of nylon and lavender mingling with the buttery baseline of her foot and flooding into him.
He let his left hand fall away from the shoe and rise to meet her foot, pressing his palm against the knuckle of her big toe and pushing, driving his face towards her in an assenting kiss. He planted a kiss, firm and long, on the inside of her scrunched toes. He drew his hand back to its place on the heel of her shoe as her grip laxed, aware of the pressure solidifying his arousal.
Her tight-clad toes slipped out of view as they entered her Toms, some of her weight transferring into her right foot to drive the shoe down and forward. He met the growing resistance with a rising pull of his own, drawing the heel of the shoe back towards him and lifting slightly, stretching it enough to grant the rest of her foot passage. Her heel lowered before him, passing first past his head and then down into the shoe, level with his waist, his view blocked by the black wall of her flexing calf. She worried the ball of her foot down and into the carpet, twisting to ensure the shoe held. He released his hold on her shoe and pressed his face against her calf muscle, its plush softness flowing back into it as the muscle relaxed and the weight disappeared from her leg. He kissed her as she leaned down, running the index finger of her right hand along the perimeter of the shoe, smoothing out the canvas of the flat around the top of her foot. There was a chime to her voice: "Left's turn."
He crossed over to the left shoe in two strides, aware of the pulsing pressure between his legs. He lined the shoe up with her left foot this time, and it slid from its perch on the table in a mirrored flourish.
She watched him standing there, spreading her shoe open for her and eyeing her traveling foot as a tarmac worker might a plane. She found his face with her toes again, feeling the desperate slam as he grabbed at her foot with both hands this time, the humid wash of tiny exhales as he buried into the flesh of her toes. He could feel his greedy inhales through the fabric of her tights. She squeezed again, harder this time, and offered him another kissing noise. They had played this game at their original scales together, and she relished the memory of her toes gripping at his nose, where now they envelop his face. He had always been easy to work up, but she could effectively frenzy him with a touch of late. She released his hold on him and worked her foot into the toe of her shoe, feeling the length of him hug against her leg as she settled her heel into the shoe.
"Such a good helper," she teased, reaching down for him as she prepared to stand up.
He watched her right hand soar towards him, stepping into her grip. Her fingers closed around his midsection, running most of the circumference of his torso, and he turned so that he faced out with her knuckles. She stood as she lifted him, his vision blurring in the dizzying acceleration of their rise.
She stepped out from between the couch and coffee table and crossed the distance that had taken him a minute to jog in two easy steps. He braced himself by holding onto the knuckles of her hand, riding out the flittering skips in his stomach as she settled him at eye level. She had stopped near the kitchen doorway, just before the hallway that would take her out of the apartment. She held him at eye level as she spoke, her voice touched in affected sadness.
"It's time to say goodbye, little bug. Thanks for all of your help this morning."
He deflated slightly at the realization that she was truly leaving without him, falling limp in her hand. Her smile faltered at the sight of him falling limp in her grasp, and she brought her left hand over to join her right, linking fingers in a knotwork at his back, whispering a thumb over his chest. "I know, I know," she cooed, clicking her tongue. Her thumb retracing lines over his chest. "I hate saying goodbye."
He felt goosebumps rise across the delicate lines traced by her thumb. He raised his hand to grasp her thumb, fingers sprawling over the tip of the digit. He squeezed, gazing into the brown pools of her eyes. "I'll miss you, Ness."
He tried to gain control of the flood of emotions washing over him. He understood that she had to go to work, he said goodbye to her in this way almost every day – it was only once or so a week that she could bring him with her. But he found himself increasingly having to wade through these complicated experiences of loss and terror at her departure. When he approached the thought head on he understood that he would be fine; it was another day to get some writing done, to finish some chores for her, and that he'd see her in a few hours. But there was a panicking despair at the thought of being outside of her sight, outside of her reach, and beyond her protection for the bulk of the day. The dawning thought that he had effectively domesticated himself woke him out of the panic, and he stroked her thumb distractedly, smiling up at her.
She considered him there, her pliable doll of a boyfriend, content to lie in the palm of her hand, nuzzling her thumb and muttering flirty platitudes at her until she asked him to paint her nails or shoved him under her dress. She was his, sure: she loved him. But he was hers, completely and beyond measure. He needed her, craved her. Mourned for her when she so much as stepped out of the room. She considered for a moment what leaving for work meant for him, the vast emptiness of their shared apartment, the terror he must feel at the sound of an opening door when he knew she was nowhere nearby. She was consumed with a brief need to hold him close, to forsake her obligations at work and stay home with him. The clouds parted though, and she knew it was time to leave him.
He floated towards her as she carried him to her face. Her lips eclipsed his vision, smacking gently as she spoke: "You be good while I'm away, little bug. If you need me you can text me, though once my session starts I won't be too responsive." She planted an enormous kiss on him then, burying his face and torso in hungry lips, the tip of her tongue escaping from between them slightly to press at him as she pulled away. She continued, a teasing hum creeping into her tone, "I hope you can have a productive day here, and I'll see you in just a few hours. I'll miss you, love." Her lips bounced through the syllables, his only focal point as she held him so close to her mouth that he could taste the warm air carried by her words.
"I love y-," His admonitions were smothered under the weight of another kiss, her mouth sealing over his, her bottom lips pressing at his chest. Her mouth parted slightly, her top lip sliding over his scalp, her curious tongue lashing up over his face, soaking him in her saliva. He kissed back, unable to gain sufficient leverage to lean into her, but pressing bodily against her knuckles, kissing blindly at her tongue. She withdrew him, spittle sticking to his bearded face.
"I love you too," he continued. She smiled, needfully at first, but it faded to a reserved sadness as she stooped slightly. She lowered him gently, placing his feet softly atop the carpet in front of her. As soon as she returned to her full height she stepped over him.
He watched her right foot pass over his head. She was a series of alien angles and severe lines from this perspective. Her chest rose out in sharp relief from the vertical plane of her. He barely caught sight of her nose before the step took her away from him, dress yawning to brandish pale cheek through dark nylon as she passed. He stood there as her left foot rose this time, drifting over him, stirring air that smelled of her as she approached the door.
She laid her hand on the doorknob and turned her head to look down at him. He had trod after her, centered in the hallway, to watch her go.
"Have a great day at work, Ness," he said, swallowing panicky dejection and focusing on abstracted knowledge of the short hours between now and her return. "I'm sure the session will go well. I'll miss you."
She turned the knob and smiled down at him, her lonely little bug watching his sun set. "I know. I'll miss you too. I'll be home before you know it, though. Love you." The door was open and she was stepped through it.
The door closed with a soft click. He heard her fumble for her keys for a moment before the deadbolt far above flipped with a heavy slam. He was alone.
"Love you too." He was alone.