Ring Dance (Part One of Two)
Mar. 12th, 2011 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Sosa/Face, Sosa/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part One of Two of a fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
So, I was watching the phone booth scene again and a thought popped in my head when Face tells her, "I was a player and you wanted to play." I think we all pretty much assume that Sosa is (and was when she met Face) a woman of sexual prowess and experience.
Suppose she wasn't though? What if we go in the opposite direction of that assumption? What if she was virgin when they met? Face talks a lot about her ambition. Maybe she was so busy in high school and college (perhaps she was determined to go to West Point?) that she never dated? Maybe being in the army and determined to get ahead she spent all her time working and rejected any advances made to her because she felt it would mean she got less respect from the male soliders she was working with and for? Or maybe there were other reasons. That could be up to anon.
Then she decided it was time to change her status as a virgin because she was getting to the point where it was kind of silly that she was still a virgin. Then she met Face and figured he was the perfect choice for her first time because a) he is just so hot and b) he is a total player (slut) and there wouldn't be any emotional ramifications or messy relationship to deal with. Only then there was a relationship so she freaked when Face got serious.
Bonus points if Face doesn't even realize that Sosa has never had sex before. There are reasons why a woman might be a virgin but not have hymen (including extreme and intense athletic activity, like say sports and millitary training) so she might not have that physical evidence the first time they have sex. Double bonus points if Sosa has close friend who is the only one that knows she is a virgin and Sosa asks her for advice so she can appear experienced in bed. Triple bonus points for an ending to the story that jumps in time to after the events of movie and Face pays her a surprise visit. :D
Charisa Sosa’s still a virgin, following an incident at West Point, and she hates it. She figures that Face presents some interesting opportunities for her to finally lose it, but what she doesn’t count on is him falling in love with her...
a/n: I'd like to note that what happens in this story has nothing to do with me not liking Sosa as a character (even though I kind of don't) or any kind of statement about the USMA, all those recent sexual assault scandals aside...
“Trust me, Charisa, it’s easier if you’re drunk.”
It’s another one of those conversations. The ones that start up on those rare occasions she met another female, another women, she reminds herself, that doesn’t drive her up the fucking wall. When they go out on a Friday, to the O-Club or somewhere downtown. When the conversation turns to all those things she’s never done.
Greene’s got some other friends they came with, but those other girls are gone right now. Thank fuck. She doesn’t want to hear about their boyfriends, their stories about that one time they accidently hooked up with an enlisted guy. She’s here to get drunk, not indulge her psycho-masochistic tendencies or live vicariously or whatever.
“Does it hurt?” She’s asked this before. It’s not what she’s nervous about.
“I was drunk,” Greene replies, and smiles over her third gin and tonic. “It helps.”
Sosa nods. “I mean, fuck, Sarah, I’m twenty-five, almost twenty-six. It’s getting embarrassing.”
“It’s not like you have to, if you don’t want to or anything. Lots of gals haven’t done it yet,” Greene tells her.
“Yeah, the goddamn Mormons, maybe. Girls who grow up in trailers out in the desert and are homeschooled.” Sosa sighs. She knows she’s out of line. She should know better than to drink when she’s pissed. Or horny. Or desperate.
“Can’t count them. They get married at what, eighteen?”
“People see it as a character flaw.”
“Who sees it as an issue?”
“Everyone.”
Greene pats her on the hand and jiggles the ice in her glass with manicured nails. Brunette hair, smelling of the really good condition, falls in her face. Her eyes are a little glazed. She’s here to hook up with somebody tonight, and Sosa’s not going to begrudge her that. She’s not exactly sure if she’s jealous though. It’s interesting like that.
“I’m empty,” and Greene rattles her glass again, standing up. “You want another?”
She’s staring down at her beer now. It’s gone warm and flat and she doesn’t want another. If she gets another in the mood she’s in, she’s going to end up fucking some guy in the alley behind the bar. She’s not exactly sure if she doesn’t want to do that. Just get this whole fucking thing over with. “No, I’m good.”
This would be impossible to explain. Even to Greene, who’s been nothing but a good and loyal friend for the past year. Nothing like the way things were at school, one of six girls in a class of thirty in her company, all of them A-type and vicious, constantly at each other’s throats, living far too close to ever be friends. No, Greene’s a captain from medical, older, just in so the Army’ll pay her school debt. Doesn’t have a goddamn clue how the military operates. Maybe that’s why Sosa gets along with her so well.
Fuck, Sosa hates military women. Hates being one. Hates her life.
Hates being a twenty-five year old with no boyfriend, no prospects, no experience, because of the goddamn military.
Hates the memories.
Sosa thinks about West Point, what, three years ago now? Her roomie, who was screwing that guy from D-Company in the trunk room, Tuesday nights, every Tuesday night, for two years. Strip poker. The way instructors tended to forget that there were females in their classrooms. The way you could be a slut or a dyke.
The female cadets who chose to be sluts were shunned.
Everyone else was a dyke by default.
And that made some things easier.
Like if you wanted respect. At West Point, that meant keeping your legs shut and laughing along with the dick jokes, pretending you were fucking some civilian guy on the weekends and never, ever letting on to anyone that you were a virgin. Not like that time, not like Ring Dance...
And her throat closes up a little, thinking about that night, junior year, the first time she realized this virgin thing was an issue. That this whole not-having-had-sex thing was going to cause her problems.
Huge party, formal dining in, the one where you got to bring your date. The guys all had girlfriends, or got their girlfriend’s entire sorority house to show up for the boys in the company that didn’t. It’s amazing - Playboy lists an Academy Ring Dance as the second most prestigious even for a woman to get invited to in her lifetime, mix in the damn uniform, and girls around the country are soaking through their silky pink panties to attend.
Great ego boost for the guys. Soul-crushing for the females.
It was formal wear, which meant all the West Point females, all the girls who’d been through hell for the past three years, who were fucking earning something that night, had to wear the most hideous outfit ever conceived by man. Ugly, ugly, ugly mess dress.
Meanwhile, the civilian dates got to dress like sluts in stilettos, hair perfect, because everybody knew Ring Dance was for fucking. Real women, little girls in dress-up, beautiful and real, soaking up the envy of the females in their standard-issue green.
And Sosa had been alone through it.
None of her male friends wanted to go with a girl in uniform, not even her best friend, the one she’d always had a crush on. And she didn’t date in high school, too focused on getting in here, so there hadn’t been anybody back home to call. So Sosa had found herself the only member of her company not to have a date.
She remembers that now, ears burning, tears rising to the surface. Why it had mattered.
There was this bullshit the pre-brief didn’t mention, like how after you got your class ring, you dunked it in your date’s champagne flute and that skinny bitch sucked it into her mouth and kissed you, giving it over. And then you could put it on. Class crest facing your heart.
And Sosa remembers how that felt, staring at the little gray velvet box containing her three-thousand-dollar class ring with the ruby she’d picked out herself, so proud of it, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to take part in the tradition nobody had warned her about. The lieutenant remembers her little cadet self, the one who’d only barely managed to hold the sob when one of her male classmates, one of the guys who respected her, offered to do it.
And she’d told him no.
She still had her self-respect, after all, goddamn it, and her company was watching. She wasn’t about to let them see her break down over this.
So she’d done it herself. Like she did everything. With a laugh and a smirk, like it didn’t matter.
And later, when everyone was starting to trickle out of Washington Hall towards the reception, she passed her best friend’s company, and her best friend, who’d gotten himself set up with some girl he barely knew. She’d locked eyes with him for a second.
He’d looked down, knowing full well what he’d done to her, and she looked away, knowing full well what kind of stories she was going to have to endure after this weekend was over. The one guy in this whole awful place she’d once fantasized about, like maybe they’d be in his room studying one night and he’d just get up and close the door and start... but after this, it would never happen.
And she’d stumbled back to her room after that, her ugly little dorm room, just a little too drunk, locked the door. Sobbed until mascara ran and ruined her issued pillowcase.
Greene slides back in next to Sosa, and the lieutenant tries to remember where she is. Downtown? No, no, they’re at the Club, one of those fucking Officers’ Calls, and everybody’s long moved past the pretending-we’re-accomplishing-something phase to the let’s-get-drunk phase, and she’s just fine with that. The captain rubs her shoulder.
“You doin’ okay, honey? You look like you’re going to cry.”
“It’s not like this is a choice,” she says quietly. “I don’t have any options. Never have.”
Greene nods and starts playing with the little black stirring straw from her drink, quite serious. “We need to get you laid.”
Laughing, Sosa considers this now. She’s considered this before. “I don’t know. I mean, like, I want to, I’ve tried, but guys our age are clumsy and stupid and...” And Sosa stops herself before she can say what she’s thinking, like that night after Ring Dance, fingers inside her, too rough, the way she’d had to... how he’d...and she winces.
“Yeah, well, not one of those, obviously,” Greene agrees sympathetically, sipping at the clear, bubbly concoction in her lowball. “We need to find you some nice, experienced thirty-something year old...”
“Sarah!” she laughs, slapping her friend lightly. “Come on, what am I supposed to do, put out a damn ad on Craigslist? Single female Army lieutenant needs a nice older guy who knows how to fuck...”
“Yeah, a nice older guy who knows what he’s doing. And it’s okay to ask.”
“What if he lies?”
“Oh, there’s that, isn’t there?” There’s a twinkle in Greene’s eye that Sosa sort of loves. She’s thought about maybe asking if maybe they’d couldn’t... but she hates herself for thinking it. That she’s that desperate that she’d ask a friend to do something that would ruin her career. “Somebody who just fools around and doesn’t want...”
“Yeah, the last thing I need right now is a relationship,” Sosa nods back.
“This kind of thing goes much smoother that way, sure. Hmm, but let me think...” and Greene turns around in his chair, drink in hand, scanning the room.
“Jesus, not an officer, what are you thinking?” Sosa groans. “They’re all a bunch of fucking grunts on this base...”
“No, no, there’s this one guy, Ranger yeah, but super cute, great ass, really knows what he’s doing...”
“Yeah?”
Greene smirks at some happy memory. “Oh, yeah, Charisa. He’d be real good for you.” She stiffens a little, and grabs Sosa’s hand excitedly. Points. “And he’s right over there.”
Sosa follows her friend’s gaze, over to the blonde guy lounging against the bar, clearly flirting with girl behind the counter, and starts laughing. “Fuck, are you talking about Peck?”
“Why not?”
“Aren’t I, uh, I don’t think I’m in his league,” Sosa says, looking down at her faded jeans, remembering how she didn’t shave her legs this morning. How her hair was all kinked from being up in that uniform bun all day. She knows who he is. The whole goddamn base knows who he is, what he does with women, and actually, it’s not a bad idea. But... “He’s, like...”
“Charisa, are you kidding me? You’re gorgeous, honey.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she protested
“Just finish your beer.”
But it doesn’t seem to matter. Greene still gets her up and over to the bar, and it turns out Sosa doesn’t have to try to start anything at all. Peck moves aside for her as she orders another Fat Tire, and when she looks over, he’s smiling. Her friend carries some of the light conversation, then Peck’s attention it on her, asking where she works and telling her to call him Face and Sosa relaxes a little. She can do this. She’s good at talking to people.
She finishes that second beer in record time, and Peck, Face, buys her a third, lets his hand play up her arm a little. It’s strange, it’s like she can feel him holding himself back. But she’s okay with this too. It’s not like she’s never kissed a guy before, never tried to go further, and it’s always easy up to that certain point. Where she freezes.
Not tonight. She’s not going to freeze up tonight. Smiles at Face over the neck of the bottle, surprised to find that she’s laughing at something he’s saying.
“Is that a yes?” His blue eyes are sparkling.
“Sure,” she says and chugs the rest of her beer. “Why the hell not?”
+++++
Somehow, they make it back to his apartment. A cab, probably, or maybe one of his buddies, somebody he keeps calling buddy, drives them and drops them off. It’s small, a one-bedroom, but comfortable. None of that usual bachelor shit she’s used to with her guy friends. “Nice pad,” she comments, not sure what she's supposed to be doing.
“Yeah,” he says casually and toes his shoes off at the door. She watches him for a second, and does the same. “Spend enough time over in the sandbox without my house looking like shit.”
Iraq.
And she remembers from somewhere that he’s a Ranger. How much different those deployments have to be for him. She spent hers sweating her ass off, processing intel briefings and trying unsuccessfully to keep the grit out of her socks. Easy. Boring.
None of that crawling around outside the wire, killing people stuff that he probably does...but the way he turns and looks at her right then, soft, eager, eyes dark and mouth twitching into a smile, he doesn’t seem like he’s a killer. Some of the Rangers, you can tell that kind of stuff. It marks them. But not Face. No sign at all.
Didn't she hear somewhere that he pulls cons?
Doesn't that makes this easier?
“So,” and she dumps her purse on the counter, aware of her cell phone in the outer pocket, Greene’s last little squeeze and whisper, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, just remember that, you don’t owe him anything..., and tries not to think about that Ring Dance night, New York City, when she believed otherwise.
“Yeah, so,” he replies, just a little quiet, probably just an act, and runs a soft hand down an arm. Frowns when he feels her buck involuntarily. “You okay?”
The alcohol’s making this easier, it really is, and at least he’s got to be somewhat inebriated himself. Sosa remembers what Greene mentioned, what she should say if she’s worried, if she seizes up, and smiles. “It’s just been a while.”
“Fuck, why? You’re gorgeous...” he says, and brushes his lips across hers. Sosa feels a stab of fear, that fear she’s been carrying ever since Ring Dance all those years ago. Like she’s not going to be able to please whoever she's with, like she’s taking and giving nothing back, and it’s all going to be disappointment and frustration and humiliation, all over again.
She can’t help it, the stiffness, the way she can't quite give into it yet. “Sorry.” It’s not what she should say, but it just comes out.
“Don’t be, pretty lady.”
That gets her laughing, and that’s good. The surface tension breaks enough for her to melt into Face’s touch as he moves that hand off her wrist, around the small of her back, holding lightly. And then he’s kissing her, slow and simple, lips gentle on hers, the lightest flick of tongue, the slightest little bit of movement.
It’s like nothing she’s ever felt before in her limited experience. The few times she’s been brave or drunk enough to try this, the man’s always been rough with her, forceful and greedy. But Face...
“What do you want, Charisa?”
Nobody’s ever quite said her name like that, sweet and smooth and slow, and it gives her pause. All part of the act, right? He’s going to just go for it in a few minutes, she’s sure, but for right now... “This is nice,” she says hopefully.
He kisses her again, a little deeper, pulls away far too soon. “Like this?” he asks, and she nods against his cheek. He moves back in.
Sosa’s aware that she’s arching into him, her hips to his thighs, her belly over that swelling flesh. It send a thrill through her, the growing thought of this man, this lieutenant, treating her like a woman, a real woman, for once. Something she’s never known before, something that’s coming tonight.
Something that needs to be over with.
Fuck, she wants the weight of this problem off her back. She needs to be free of this, this...failure of hers.
Get it over with.
So Sosa starts kissing him back, fighting just a little. He groans and the kiss gets harder. No less sensual, just... more. She grabs at him, finding grip on his belt, which slams her harder against that hard cock between his legs. This is familiar territory, the kissing, almost at the place where she always turns back, and that uncertainty’s already starting to swell.
But not tonight. Not tonight.
Daring at something she hopes is good, Sosa slides one leg up the outside of his, and feels his hand close down under it. Face groans and his lips are gone, both of them gasping for air. He guides her other up as well, locking her legs around his waist and takes her weight, one hand under her ass, the other on her back, like it’s nothings she clings to him, she feels that wetness between her legs.
“Good?” he asks.
Burying her face in his soft t-shirt, smelling the so longed-for scent of warm skin not hers, she nods, and as she’s drawn back into that sinfully talented mouth, Sosa vaguely realizes that they’re moving.
He's carrying her.
A bit belatedly, she realizes they’re headed for his bedroom, his bed, as he cups her head and holds her in, easing her around a door frame. Her jeans hit something soft and she’s tilting back, Face still between her still-tight legs, still kissing her. Fingers trail around her stomach and down, teasing right at the hem or her sweater, the thin cami she’s got on underneath it. He doesn’t ask.
That’s more like it, she thinks, not sure if old patterns are better or worse here, right now, with this.She feels a flush coming on as he rears up and pulls it off, diving in to nuzzle that spot right above the rise of her small, pert breasts.
And the old panic’s rising again. She’s almost at the point where she usually throws the guy off and leaves.
There’s never been good cause for it. Sosa just knows what she looks like. Pretty, sure, but always too skinny, too flat to warrant the attention that gets thrown her way, and she hates those looks, like she’s just something to be fucked. She’s never liked it, the baggage her appearance brings to these things. It’s one of the reasons she’s never done this, like she’s not good enough to have something real, like she needs to have a fucking one night stand in order to get what other girls get from their boyfriends, guys who at least think they’re in love.
She’s hoped, she really has, that maybe there’d be somebody that she cared for, somebody who cared for her, who would do this for her. Give her virginity to somebody deserving, and just wanting to fuck her is not a qualification...her price has been higher than that, and hasn’t that been a stupid, stupid decision?
What’s it ever done for her? Where’s it ever gotten her?
But Face is different at least, better, like that thing he’s doing with his tongue right now, like how he’s touching her, as if she could break apart at any moment. He doesn’t know how true that is, Sosa thinks to herself, and finds her hands in that thick, beautiful hair, moaning a little as his hand roam and his lips close down over a nipple.
The lieutenant can feel him everywhere, it seems, and she knows she’s soaking through her panties, black cotton boy briefs. It feels amazing, and Face is kissing a line down her stomach, her abs fluttering involuntarily, her hands still kneading in his hair. He unzips her jeans and slides them away. Kneeling between her spread legs.
Her blush deepens, realizing he’s still fully clothed, and she can tell, this is another one of those times she’s going to feel humiliated. Where the guy’s taking complete control and giving her none, and she remembers that hotel room in New York, that other cadet’s hand between her legs, the long mess dress skirt hitched up over her knees, stripping her jacket off, limbs too heavy with alcohol to stop him...
Face murmurs something that might be beautiful and runs a hand down the full length of her naked body before kissing her palm and slipping a hand over her clit.
If she was wet before, she’s drenched now, and Sosa bites her lip as her body responds. As she waits for the pain. This is where it always starts to hurt, gets rough, where somebody makes a comment about how she doesn’t shave down there, where she always becomes afraid, but there’s nothing. Just a gentle glide across that little nub down there, so much different from her own touch and so, so much better. She sighes, loving the feel of all that hair between her fingers, bracing herself.
Then the panic rushes through her fully. He’s moved, his head lower, and that’s not his index finger but his tongue, warm and wonderful. Sosa can’t help it, her hand yanks his hair, and he looks up at her, licking a delicate string of moisture off his lip, her own juices she thinks with not a little heat.
“What’s wrong?”
“I, uh, that, it’s been...” she stammers, not knowing what to say, not wanting to tell him she can’t reciprocate, that she’s been spectacularly bad at giving head the few times she’s had to try, but Face is over her in a flash again, kissing her. She can taste herself on his lips. It’s not as strange as she thought it might be.
Good, almost.
“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, the words hot against her overheated skin. “Let me, though? I like it...”
That’s probably a lie, but she’s not sure and it feels so good, so she nods again and tugs a little at his collar. He grins at her, pulls the Ralph Lauren polo off as he moves back between her legs.
That’s better, that’s great, the bare skin of his back against his thighs as he works, lips and tongue. His hands draw nonsense patterns on her legs, and she can feel the tell-tale bubble building up in her belly, so much more than when she does this herself, and it’s not long before muscles hitch and she’s gasping and he sucks a little and she’s coming.
He’s up next to her on the bed again, hand back down there, fingers rolling slowly over her swollen clit, drawing the aftershocks of her orgasm out just a little longer.
“Mmm,” she says, hoping it sounds like something an experienced girl might say, and Face laughs. He seems to like laughing. She likes the sound.
“I have that effect sometimes,” he teases back, and that hand’s gone. He’s up on an elbow, and she can feel her own slickness circling a tight nipple. He cups her breast and slings a leg over her, kissing, grinding down just a little, and Sosa can feel how hard he is in those jeans of his.
It’s what’s expected of her, she reasons, so she forces shaking hands to undo his belt, his fly. Lightly and hopefully not too curious, Sosa strokes him through his boxers, trying to remember when was the last time that she felt one of these. He smiles against her lips, probably the greatest sensation of the whole night. A big, gun-calloused hand closes over hers and together they get his jeans and underwear off, laughing as it tangles them up together.
Surprising herself, she lets her hand stay on his cock, erect in the small space between them, a slight wetness leaking onto her, right below her bellybutton. A year and a half, since she’s last had the courage to try, she remembers, and her hand tightens at her own cowardice. It draws a groan from him, though, and his hands push hers away.
He’s rolling on a condom, she realizes, and the panic flutters up again.
And then she reminds herself.
What's been the point in trying to keep it, all these years? She's been such a fucking idiot. A boyfriend? A real relationship? The Army isn't going let her have that, not with an officer, all of whom like their wives fat and sweet and at home, not with a civilian, who’d have to follow her around from base to base. She knows better. As a cadet, she’d still had some hope for that, even after the bullshit of that night after Ring Dance. Three years of active duty has shown her how futile that hope has been.
And even if it did, even if there was a chance of that, she’s no good to anyone like this. Relationships are impossible without sex, and the older she gets, the weirder it is that she hadn’t done this. Something wrong with her, this state she’s in right now.
And she can't wait any longer. She'd come to that conclusion a few weeks ago. Who’d want her? Who'd really want her, like this?
No, this has to happen.
So it doesn’t matter as Face fusses for a few more seconds, and, dropping to hold his weight on his elbows, breaches her just barely. She moans, loud, maybe too loud, but he doesn’t stop and ask her what the hell’s the problem, so she must be doing okay. His hips keep rolling, driving in, and she fists a hand in the sheet, waiting for the pain, for the blood that some girls talk about...
...but there’s nothing. Only a strange, strange sensation of being torn open and filled in, like he fits just so, like there’s supposed to be this weight, this throbbing, inside of her like this. Does it feel good? She desperately wants to know if it feels good, but her body’s too new at this. She can’t quiet figure it out. Too many things, all needing to be sorted.
But Sosa does realize she’s whimpering, which means there has to be something to this whole sex-is-awesome thing she’s heard about all her life, and he rubs a thumb across her lips and down her throat, letting his hand splay between them for a moment before he’s covering her body with his, tensing like he’s trying to not crush her, elbows again, one hand kind of playing with her hair as he establishes a slow, easy roll.
If it felt strange on the initial push, it feels stranger now, that achingly hard length of his so absent, present, absent... But it’s a little easier each time, and her brain sorts it out and it feels right, her body opening up like it’s supposed to.
Sosa’s limbs go cool as relief rushes through her, and then hot again, Face pushing in again. Her hands leave the sheets and gather up around his shoulders, her knees pull up and back around. He kisses her, laughs again, and things start speeding up.
He’s close. She doesn’t really know how she knows that. Instinct, maybe. But everything inside of her is rushing towards inevitable conclusion, and she lets go. Not a bubble popping this time, not smooth and round and diffuse. It’s an explosion, bright and thorny and concentrated, harsh and beautiful.
Her nails dig into smooth skin, riding the edge of her second climax out as Face’s rhythm shatters and he groans, shudders, and she feels the weirdest thing of the night, a rush of heat inside her, contained neatly in its little rubber.
Thank god. She isn’t on birth control
Another wave of shame washes over her, that that is the first thing she thinks about after, well, after that. Her whole body is thrumming, everything heavy, sated, and all she registers is confusion. How is she supposed to feel about this? How is an experienced girl supposed to react?
Face sort of falls off to the side, breathing hard up at the ceiling. He’s already gotten rid of the condom, and seems kind of blissed out or something. She rolls over on her side to look at him, that fine mouth slack, blue eyes dark and hooded, beaded sweat on his skin. Sosa reaches out, curious about what’s going on in there, if he feels good, if she was okay.
He catches her hand and draws her in. Why? Isn’t he, aren’t they, done here? But Face seems to want something else, so she lets him scoot in towards her, so close their noses are almost touching. “Stay,” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
A dark spot. She looks at it. His Ranger tattoo. Of course. Everybody’s got a tattoo in the military. Sosa doesn’t reply, doesn’t nod, but he pulls her against him, settling around her so her back’s to his chest, spent cock against her leg.
He’s mumbling something to her, mouth working against sweat-damp hair, but alcohol and orgasm are pushing him towards sleep and Sosa can’t understand him. It’s making her more nervous, this kind of contact, more familiar and more intimate than the sex itself. More confusing than the way she feels right now.
Heart hammering, she waits for his breathing to slow, for him to drop off. A few minutes more.
And pushes herself out of bed.
She’s hot, too hot, and she stumbles on uncertain feet into the kitchen. She fills a glass from the tap, drains it, goes back for another. Her head’s still swimming, and now that she’s up, the lieutenant can feel a kind of dull soreness between her legs, up there. Fuck, is this how it’s supposed to be?
He was so sweet. Greene had said hot. Not sweet.
She pulls her cell phone out of her purse. Greene’s number is in there, stuffed in amongst dozens in her contact list, but it’s the only one she can see right now.
No problem, Charisa, don't worry 'bout me. I’ve got a season of Gray’s Anatomy I need to finish up anyway....
The lieutenant smiles, and sniffles and presses the call key.
It’s answered almost immediately. “You okay, honey?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sosa says with a yawn, rubbing a hand into her forehead. “Everything’s, you know, good I guess...” She has to hold the phone away from her ear a little at her friend’s squeal. It cuts through the confusion, reminds her it was just sex and she doesn’t have to worry about what any of it means. Why Face wanted to... what, cuddle? “Yeah, I know, right?”
“Well, what’s up. Need a ride?”
Sosa casts a look back over her shoulder, at the quiet bedroom. “I don’t know. Should I stay?”
“It’s better to just leave. All that morning-after stuff can be kind of awkward...”
There’s that, isn’t there? Like that morning after Ring Dance, waking up with that guy, too embarrassed for words... she goes cold.
No, no. Not that. Ever again.
“Yeah, yeah, a ride'd be good.”
+++++
The next day is Saturday, which is nice. She doesn’t have to see anybody from work for two whole days. Plenty of time to get caught up on her sleep, relax, think about things.
Greene had been so excited. Tired, but excited, and she’d clearly been holding herself back from asking a whole bunch of questions. She’d dropped Sosa off at the lieutenant’s own apartment with a wild, happy hug and a promise that they’d hang out on Sunday or something.
Sosa, for her part, stumbled back into her place, collapsed on the sofa, and slept until noon.
Her cell phone was buzzing when she woke, vibrating insistently in her purse. Bleary, she didn’t get to it before whoever was calling hung up, and she didn’t recognize the number. Fuck it,, she told herself and made herself a greasy, fatty, delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Sat down on the floor with it and switched on the TV, just for the noise and settled in for the weekend.
She’s trying not to draw comparisons, not between... whatever that was with Face and the first time she’d tried. But it’s kind of unavoidable, leaking into things for the next couple of days, the rest of the week, following her to the grocery store, running, as she’s reading emails at work, when she stops by the BX Starbucks at lunch on Thursday, all the mundane bullshit her life is filled with. It was better with Face, he was really good but that...
She just can’t get it out of her mind.
Ring Dance.
It hadn’t been like she was allowed to stay in her room. That’s what she wanted to do, curl up in bed and maybe play with herself a little or cry or both until she fell asleep. Make a grilled cheese sandwich on her iron the next morning, go for a run. Yet another glorious weekend. Yet another reason why not having a boyfriend sucked.
But nope, the reception was an official function and she had to go to that. Scrubbed her face clean and fixed her make-up. Issue uniform heels clacking on the walkways, she tried to ignore the bright flutters of color around her and pushed into the hall.
The food was better here than dinner had been, a live band in the corner, but it was all a formality. Just a cover. Something the permanent party required. The real festivities were going to start up later, as the guys took their borrowed civilian dates off to hotels and friends’ houses for all the logical activities.
She moved through the crowd as quick as she could, trying to find the one cadet from her company with the accountability clipboard. Just had to check in, and she could leave...
“Hey, gorgeous.”
She jumps, literally, latte spilling all over the table. She gets a dirty look from the major and his wife at the next table over. The wife’s fat. Sosa doesn’t want to end up like that, she knows that much, and flashes them an apologetic smile.
Maybe it's okay that she's single. She doesn't want anything right now. Knows that much.
A handful of napkins slap down over the mess, and there he is, Face, kind of grinning, his teeth holding on his lower lip. It’s cute, like a guy’s not supposed to be cute, and everything in her goes hot, screaming. He needs to go away. Right now, he needs to go away. Isn’t that what Greene said? Just avoid the guy, don’t worry, you never have to see him again, he never needs to know about, you know, that he took your...
“Hey, so, you, uh, little lost in thought there?”
“Yeah,” she laughs, waving it off, hoping he thinks the embarrassment is only about the coffee. “Long week.”
“Oh, tell me about it. I don’t know how yours is, but my boss is crazy.”
“Colonel Smith, right?”
He nods and looks at his own cup, at hers. “You want another one?”
Sosa doesn’t really know how to handle this. She only knows how she’s handled it in the past, but getting up and walking away doesn’t seem to be an option. Are they chatting? Why would they be chatting? “Look, Face...”
He laughs, just a little nervous and stands up. “I can’t stay or anything, Hannibal needs me to go pick up a new toy helicopter for his latest...” and he trails off, looking at her, that little grin on his face softening in a way that makes her even more nervous. “But, umm, it’s good to see you.”
She doesn’t say anything.
+++++
“Wait, wait, waitwaitwait, he talked to you?”
“What, is that supposed to mean something?”
Sosa’s sprawled out on her sofa, spooling past the previews on the movie Greene brought over. The captain chuckles from the kitchen, and microwave beeps.
“Well, yeah.” The brunette nudges her over, and Sosa pulls herself more or less upright as a bowl of popcorn lands on her lap. “He doesn’t talk to anybody afterward. And Face has slept with, like, half the girls on this base and,” and her voice drops conspiratorially, “a few of the guys.”
“No way!”
“Mmm,” Greene says around a handful of buttery goodness. “You’ve never heard those rumors?”
“Yeah, but...”
“Can you just imagine it? That body, spread out beneath another guy, all those hard, sweaty abs grinding into the sheets, moaning as a finger is shoved up his...”
Sosa can feel herself going red, and yeah, she can imagine it quite, quite well. But, still. “Sarah! Damn, come on!”
“I mean, like, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Greene says, just a little defensively and reaches back into the bowl. “Whatever, point being, he’s been through practically everybody.”
It hits Sosa at that point. Something that’s been bugging her, off and on, all week. Just because she’s done it doesn’t mean she knows what she’s doing. It doesn’t do her any good, just losing it and then not doing any follow-up work. Nothing’s been fixed. It’s just... nothing to be scared of anymore.
She doesn’t have to keep remembering...
Anyway, if there’s somebody around who’s that knowledgeable and even kind of interested, isn’t that a good option?
Wouldn’t that be really fun?
Face is a fun guy. That much is obvious. And if he’s really that prolific, she doesn’t need to worry about anything getting complicated. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
Sensing she’s been forgiven, her friend smiles as the DVD menu pops up and grabs for the remote to start the damn thing. Something from Greene’s collection of hot-guy-action-movies. “I’m just sayin’, have you ever seen that smoking hot silver fox he works for?”
“Smith?”
“Fucking. Hot.” And Greene hits the play button. "Like Ed Harris or something."
It’s pretty easy to find Face again. He stands out. Likes coffee, too, evidently, according to one of the baristas, who giggles when Sosa asks about the guy. Finds out he comes in every day at the same time. And if she just happens by around then, happens to be sitting at a table, working on something, and if he just happens to pull up a chair and happens to ask what she’s doing that weekend...
“No plans,” she tells him.
And that shy little smile’s back.
+++++
For a while, they have something really good going.
Face likes to call on Saturdays, late, tells her some bullshit about what he’s doing, what kind of fun he’s out having and how much he’d like to see her. She lies right back about what club she’s at and who she’s dancing with. They’re both usually at home, watching TV. And that’s usually where it starts and stops, at home, Face’s apartment, Face’s bed or couch or floor or the wall that one time she asks for that.
He likes her asking for things, and she finds kind of thrilling. Guy like that, so forceful, so in control, bending so easily to the simplest of requests. But it’s fun for him. Sosa knows this because he tells her how fun it is for him, how he hopes it’s fun for her.
It is. It really, really is.
It’s really, really simple.
Then he calls her on a Thursday night. She thinks, what the hell, why not? They end up making out on his sofa, cuddled up around each other, watching some reality show until they fall asleep in a big pile.
Then he asks her if she’d like to go see a movie, and takes her out to dinner at a really good restaurant, the kind where they both have to dress up and Sosa discovers that her booty call looks devastating in a suit and Greene tells her that constitutes a real date, and gets this little frown on her face.
Then she stays one Sunday and not just for the morning sex, which Greene tells her she shouldn’t stick around for but she usually does anyway. It’s hot and dirty and fast in the mornings.
And it’s a good compromise, between her need to just keep this about the experience, about all the lovely things he shows her, and the other lieutenant’s seemingly insatiable need for contact. He’s always touching her, always playing with her hair, her hands.
She likes it. Twenty-odd years of pent-up sexual frustration does that to a girl, Sosa figures, and goes with all of it.
And it’s all okay.
It’s not like there’s anything else going on.
“Hey, beautiful,” he whispers in her ear, and she laughs at the sound of his voice. Face pulls her in close again, like he did that first night, like he hasn’t done since. Chest to chest. Sosa loves the way her breasts feel, soft against his pecs. “Hey, I was thinking... we’ve got a mission. Leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know. I do see all the intel briefs.”
He looks a little deflated, like she just took a new toy away from him that he wanted to show off. And it’s not until later that she realizes how she must have hurt him, how that was a habit she picked at school to keep the boys off balance. Old self preservation technique.
“People die on these things sometimes, you know, Charisa.”
Where was he going with this? “Yeah...”
He squeezes her a little tighter. Cups her ass. He’s always saying how much he loves her ass. “We’re gonna to be gone a while. A month or more. Are you...going to be here, when I get back?”
Sosa smiles. Some of the wives she knows say the sex is always amazing after TDYs, departures, deployments. All that pent up frustration comes out.
That could be fun, and if she’s honest with herself, the lieutenant doesn’t feel confident enough yet on her own. But she feels like she could do anything with Face. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiles, dazzling, and kisses her hard, pulling her up to straddle his waist, like she weighs nothing. Sosa loves that, the rush that comes from knowing what he could do to her, how much power’s coiled up in his body. “Good,” he says, like he’s relieved. “Good. You’re just... god, you’re so damn amazing, you know that?”
She’s heard it before. From him, from others. All they ever want is sex. That’s all he wants. Sosa’s not an idiot. But it’s nice to know she’s good at it, can be good at it. Nice to know that it’s this much fun.
Because she wasn’t, not that night. Drunk and pissed off at her friend’s betrayal, at the fact nobody had told her of the extreme necessity of a date. She’d just been leaving the reception, and then there he was, that guy from Comparative Politics, the asshole with the drug dealer brother, whatshisname, Drew, the one who was supposed to be really, really good at sex.
The guy who’d been hitting on her for the past semester.
“Hey gorgeous,” he’d said, and Sosa had looked around, everybody with their fucking beautiful dates, and grabbed another glass of champagne off a nearby table. She had cotton undies on, she hadn’t shaved her legs, but Drew was smiling at her. It was Ring Dance. Everybody got laid Ring Dance weekend. “You know, some of my friends and I are going into New York tonight and I don’t have a date...”
Actually, his date had gotten pissed off and left - and that was a long story Sosa had unsnarled the next week, her very first investigation. She probably knew that at the time. But she was drunk and she was pissed and she’d been sick of being a virgin, even then.
Why the hell not?
It’s not like it was worth anything anyway.
“You’re pretty amazing yourself,” she replied.
Face smiles up at her, and she smiles back, feeling that morning wood nudging against her. “Wow,” he says.
“Wow?”
“Well, look at you. You could have anybody you wanted. And here we are.”
Sosa’s not sure where this is going, but it can’t be anywhere good. “Yeah,” she says instead, bending down to capture those lips before any more words can escape. “Yeah, here we are, lover.”
“Lover, huh?”
“Too romance novel for ya, Peck?”
He shakes her hip. Slaps at her playfully. “I’ve never heard you say it.”
Sosa throws her hair back as she pulls away, rocking against him a little. He loves both, she’s discovered over the course of the past three months. “Say what?”
“My name...”
Oh, this is embarrassing. “I don’t think I know it.”
“It’s Templeton,” he says quietly, sheepish.
“Templeton Peck?” If she laughs, she can’t help it.
“I was named by the damn nuns!”
Nuns? There’s a story. But not for right now. “Templeton?”
“Templeton,” and he kind of turns his head. "Faceman's the name Hannibal gave me. Not sure what my mom meant it to be."
Sosa runs both her hands through his rich hair, so they're facing each other again and leans in, covering his body with hers, loving the little shiver that runs through him. She thinks about what Greene said, about him being a bottom, why he might prefer the name his commander bestowed on him.
“Well, then it's very nice to meet you, Templeton Peck,” and she reaches behind for his rapidly swelling length, loving the feel of it in her hand.
“And you, beautiful lady,” he purrs.
When she finally gets home that afternoon, turning down his offer of dinner and more cuddles, giggling a little at his actual use of the word cuddles, Sosa pulls out the wheat bread and the Kraft cheese singles.
Grilled cheese is definitely in order.
Something’s going on, she thinks, and fishes the non-stick griddle out. Leans against the counter on her elbows, wondering if this is where everything goes to shit.
At least she’s going to have a month to think it over.
Continue to Part Two...
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part One of Two of a fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
So, I was watching the phone booth scene again and a thought popped in my head when Face tells her, "I was a player and you wanted to play." I think we all pretty much assume that Sosa is (and was when she met Face) a woman of sexual prowess and experience.
Suppose she wasn't though? What if we go in the opposite direction of that assumption? What if she was virgin when they met? Face talks a lot about her ambition. Maybe she was so busy in high school and college (perhaps she was determined to go to West Point?) that she never dated? Maybe being in the army and determined to get ahead she spent all her time working and rejected any advances made to her because she felt it would mean she got less respect from the male soliders she was working with and for? Or maybe there were other reasons. That could be up to anon.
Then she decided it was time to change her status as a virgin because she was getting to the point where it was kind of silly that she was still a virgin. Then she met Face and figured he was the perfect choice for her first time because a) he is just so hot and b) he is a total player (slut) and there wouldn't be any emotional ramifications or messy relationship to deal with. Only then there was a relationship so she freaked when Face got serious.
Bonus points if Face doesn't even realize that Sosa has never had sex before. There are reasons why a woman might be a virgin but not have hymen (including extreme and intense athletic activity, like say sports and millitary training) so she might not have that physical evidence the first time they have sex. Double bonus points if Sosa has close friend who is the only one that knows she is a virgin and Sosa asks her for advice so she can appear experienced in bed. Triple bonus points for an ending to the story that jumps in time to after the events of movie and Face pays her a surprise visit. :D
Charisa Sosa’s still a virgin, following an incident at West Point, and she hates it. She figures that Face presents some interesting opportunities for her to finally lose it, but what she doesn’t count on is him falling in love with her...
a/n: I'd like to note that what happens in this story has nothing to do with me not liking Sosa as a character (even though I kind of don't) or any kind of statement about the USMA, all those recent sexual assault scandals aside...
“Trust me, Charisa, it’s easier if you’re drunk.”
It’s another one of those conversations. The ones that start up on those rare occasions she met another female, another women, she reminds herself, that doesn’t drive her up the fucking wall. When they go out on a Friday, to the O-Club or somewhere downtown. When the conversation turns to all those things she’s never done.
Greene’s got some other friends they came with, but those other girls are gone right now. Thank fuck. She doesn’t want to hear about their boyfriends, their stories about that one time they accidently hooked up with an enlisted guy. She’s here to get drunk, not indulge her psycho-masochistic tendencies or live vicariously or whatever.
“Does it hurt?” She’s asked this before. It’s not what she’s nervous about.
“I was drunk,” Greene replies, and smiles over her third gin and tonic. “It helps.”
Sosa nods. “I mean, fuck, Sarah, I’m twenty-five, almost twenty-six. It’s getting embarrassing.”
“It’s not like you have to, if you don’t want to or anything. Lots of gals haven’t done it yet,” Greene tells her.
“Yeah, the goddamn Mormons, maybe. Girls who grow up in trailers out in the desert and are homeschooled.” Sosa sighs. She knows she’s out of line. She should know better than to drink when she’s pissed. Or horny. Or desperate.
“Can’t count them. They get married at what, eighteen?”
“People see it as a character flaw.”
“Who sees it as an issue?”
“Everyone.”
Greene pats her on the hand and jiggles the ice in her glass with manicured nails. Brunette hair, smelling of the really good condition, falls in her face. Her eyes are a little glazed. She’s here to hook up with somebody tonight, and Sosa’s not going to begrudge her that. She’s not exactly sure if she’s jealous though. It’s interesting like that.
“I’m empty,” and Greene rattles her glass again, standing up. “You want another?”
She’s staring down at her beer now. It’s gone warm and flat and she doesn’t want another. If she gets another in the mood she’s in, she’s going to end up fucking some guy in the alley behind the bar. She’s not exactly sure if she doesn’t want to do that. Just get this whole fucking thing over with. “No, I’m good.”
This would be impossible to explain. Even to Greene, who’s been nothing but a good and loyal friend for the past year. Nothing like the way things were at school, one of six girls in a class of thirty in her company, all of them A-type and vicious, constantly at each other’s throats, living far too close to ever be friends. No, Greene’s a captain from medical, older, just in so the Army’ll pay her school debt. Doesn’t have a goddamn clue how the military operates. Maybe that’s why Sosa gets along with her so well.
Fuck, Sosa hates military women. Hates being one. Hates her life.
Hates being a twenty-five year old with no boyfriend, no prospects, no experience, because of the goddamn military.
Hates the memories.
Sosa thinks about West Point, what, three years ago now? Her roomie, who was screwing that guy from D-Company in the trunk room, Tuesday nights, every Tuesday night, for two years. Strip poker. The way instructors tended to forget that there were females in their classrooms. The way you could be a slut or a dyke.
The female cadets who chose to be sluts were shunned.
Everyone else was a dyke by default.
And that made some things easier.
Like if you wanted respect. At West Point, that meant keeping your legs shut and laughing along with the dick jokes, pretending you were fucking some civilian guy on the weekends and never, ever letting on to anyone that you were a virgin. Not like that time, not like Ring Dance...
And her throat closes up a little, thinking about that night, junior year, the first time she realized this virgin thing was an issue. That this whole not-having-had-sex thing was going to cause her problems.
Huge party, formal dining in, the one where you got to bring your date. The guys all had girlfriends, or got their girlfriend’s entire sorority house to show up for the boys in the company that didn’t. It’s amazing - Playboy lists an Academy Ring Dance as the second most prestigious even for a woman to get invited to in her lifetime, mix in the damn uniform, and girls around the country are soaking through their silky pink panties to attend.
Great ego boost for the guys. Soul-crushing for the females.
It was formal wear, which meant all the West Point females, all the girls who’d been through hell for the past three years, who were fucking earning something that night, had to wear the most hideous outfit ever conceived by man. Ugly, ugly, ugly mess dress.
Meanwhile, the civilian dates got to dress like sluts in stilettos, hair perfect, because everybody knew Ring Dance was for fucking. Real women, little girls in dress-up, beautiful and real, soaking up the envy of the females in their standard-issue green.
And Sosa had been alone through it.
None of her male friends wanted to go with a girl in uniform, not even her best friend, the one she’d always had a crush on. And she didn’t date in high school, too focused on getting in here, so there hadn’t been anybody back home to call. So Sosa had found herself the only member of her company not to have a date.
She remembers that now, ears burning, tears rising to the surface. Why it had mattered.
There was this bullshit the pre-brief didn’t mention, like how after you got your class ring, you dunked it in your date’s champagne flute and that skinny bitch sucked it into her mouth and kissed you, giving it over. And then you could put it on. Class crest facing your heart.
And Sosa remembers how that felt, staring at the little gray velvet box containing her three-thousand-dollar class ring with the ruby she’d picked out herself, so proud of it, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to take part in the tradition nobody had warned her about. The lieutenant remembers her little cadet self, the one who’d only barely managed to hold the sob when one of her male classmates, one of the guys who respected her, offered to do it.
And she’d told him no.
She still had her self-respect, after all, goddamn it, and her company was watching. She wasn’t about to let them see her break down over this.
So she’d done it herself. Like she did everything. With a laugh and a smirk, like it didn’t matter.
And later, when everyone was starting to trickle out of Washington Hall towards the reception, she passed her best friend’s company, and her best friend, who’d gotten himself set up with some girl he barely knew. She’d locked eyes with him for a second.
He’d looked down, knowing full well what he’d done to her, and she looked away, knowing full well what kind of stories she was going to have to endure after this weekend was over. The one guy in this whole awful place she’d once fantasized about, like maybe they’d be in his room studying one night and he’d just get up and close the door and start... but after this, it would never happen.
And she’d stumbled back to her room after that, her ugly little dorm room, just a little too drunk, locked the door. Sobbed until mascara ran and ruined her issued pillowcase.
Greene slides back in next to Sosa, and the lieutenant tries to remember where she is. Downtown? No, no, they’re at the Club, one of those fucking Officers’ Calls, and everybody’s long moved past the pretending-we’re-accomplishing-something phase to the let’s-get-drunk phase, and she’s just fine with that. The captain rubs her shoulder.
“You doin’ okay, honey? You look like you’re going to cry.”
“It’s not like this is a choice,” she says quietly. “I don’t have any options. Never have.”
Greene nods and starts playing with the little black stirring straw from her drink, quite serious. “We need to get you laid.”
Laughing, Sosa considers this now. She’s considered this before. “I don’t know. I mean, like, I want to, I’ve tried, but guys our age are clumsy and stupid and...” And Sosa stops herself before she can say what she’s thinking, like that night after Ring Dance, fingers inside her, too rough, the way she’d had to... how he’d...and she winces.
“Yeah, well, not one of those, obviously,” Greene agrees sympathetically, sipping at the clear, bubbly concoction in her lowball. “We need to find you some nice, experienced thirty-something year old...”
“Sarah!” she laughs, slapping her friend lightly. “Come on, what am I supposed to do, put out a damn ad on Craigslist? Single female Army lieutenant needs a nice older guy who knows how to fuck...”
“Yeah, a nice older guy who knows what he’s doing. And it’s okay to ask.”
“What if he lies?”
“Oh, there’s that, isn’t there?” There’s a twinkle in Greene’s eye that Sosa sort of loves. She’s thought about maybe asking if maybe they’d couldn’t... but she hates herself for thinking it. That she’s that desperate that she’d ask a friend to do something that would ruin her career. “Somebody who just fools around and doesn’t want...”
“Yeah, the last thing I need right now is a relationship,” Sosa nods back.
“This kind of thing goes much smoother that way, sure. Hmm, but let me think...” and Greene turns around in his chair, drink in hand, scanning the room.
“Jesus, not an officer, what are you thinking?” Sosa groans. “They’re all a bunch of fucking grunts on this base...”
“No, no, there’s this one guy, Ranger yeah, but super cute, great ass, really knows what he’s doing...”
“Yeah?”
Greene smirks at some happy memory. “Oh, yeah, Charisa. He’d be real good for you.” She stiffens a little, and grabs Sosa’s hand excitedly. Points. “And he’s right over there.”
Sosa follows her friend’s gaze, over to the blonde guy lounging against the bar, clearly flirting with girl behind the counter, and starts laughing. “Fuck, are you talking about Peck?”
“Why not?”
“Aren’t I, uh, I don’t think I’m in his league,” Sosa says, looking down at her faded jeans, remembering how she didn’t shave her legs this morning. How her hair was all kinked from being up in that uniform bun all day. She knows who he is. The whole goddamn base knows who he is, what he does with women, and actually, it’s not a bad idea. But... “He’s, like...”
“Charisa, are you kidding me? You’re gorgeous, honey.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she protested
“Just finish your beer.”
But it doesn’t seem to matter. Greene still gets her up and over to the bar, and it turns out Sosa doesn’t have to try to start anything at all. Peck moves aside for her as she orders another Fat Tire, and when she looks over, he’s smiling. Her friend carries some of the light conversation, then Peck’s attention it on her, asking where she works and telling her to call him Face and Sosa relaxes a little. She can do this. She’s good at talking to people.
She finishes that second beer in record time, and Peck, Face, buys her a third, lets his hand play up her arm a little. It’s strange, it’s like she can feel him holding himself back. But she’s okay with this too. It’s not like she’s never kissed a guy before, never tried to go further, and it’s always easy up to that certain point. Where she freezes.
Not tonight. She’s not going to freeze up tonight. Smiles at Face over the neck of the bottle, surprised to find that she’s laughing at something he’s saying.
“Is that a yes?” His blue eyes are sparkling.
“Sure,” she says and chugs the rest of her beer. “Why the hell not?”
+++++
Somehow, they make it back to his apartment. A cab, probably, or maybe one of his buddies, somebody he keeps calling buddy, drives them and drops them off. It’s small, a one-bedroom, but comfortable. None of that usual bachelor shit she’s used to with her guy friends. “Nice pad,” she comments, not sure what she's supposed to be doing.
“Yeah,” he says casually and toes his shoes off at the door. She watches him for a second, and does the same. “Spend enough time over in the sandbox without my house looking like shit.”
Iraq.
And she remembers from somewhere that he’s a Ranger. How much different those deployments have to be for him. She spent hers sweating her ass off, processing intel briefings and trying unsuccessfully to keep the grit out of her socks. Easy. Boring.
None of that crawling around outside the wire, killing people stuff that he probably does...but the way he turns and looks at her right then, soft, eager, eyes dark and mouth twitching into a smile, he doesn’t seem like he’s a killer. Some of the Rangers, you can tell that kind of stuff. It marks them. But not Face. No sign at all.
Didn't she hear somewhere that he pulls cons?
Doesn't that makes this easier?
“So,” and she dumps her purse on the counter, aware of her cell phone in the outer pocket, Greene’s last little squeeze and whisper, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, just remember that, you don’t owe him anything..., and tries not to think about that Ring Dance night, New York City, when she believed otherwise.
“Yeah, so,” he replies, just a little quiet, probably just an act, and runs a soft hand down an arm. Frowns when he feels her buck involuntarily. “You okay?”
The alcohol’s making this easier, it really is, and at least he’s got to be somewhat inebriated himself. Sosa remembers what Greene mentioned, what she should say if she’s worried, if she seizes up, and smiles. “It’s just been a while.”
“Fuck, why? You’re gorgeous...” he says, and brushes his lips across hers. Sosa feels a stab of fear, that fear she’s been carrying ever since Ring Dance all those years ago. Like she’s not going to be able to please whoever she's with, like she’s taking and giving nothing back, and it’s all going to be disappointment and frustration and humiliation, all over again.
She can’t help it, the stiffness, the way she can't quite give into it yet. “Sorry.” It’s not what she should say, but it just comes out.
“Don’t be, pretty lady.”
That gets her laughing, and that’s good. The surface tension breaks enough for her to melt into Face’s touch as he moves that hand off her wrist, around the small of her back, holding lightly. And then he’s kissing her, slow and simple, lips gentle on hers, the lightest flick of tongue, the slightest little bit of movement.
It’s like nothing she’s ever felt before in her limited experience. The few times she’s been brave or drunk enough to try this, the man’s always been rough with her, forceful and greedy. But Face...
“What do you want, Charisa?”
Nobody’s ever quite said her name like that, sweet and smooth and slow, and it gives her pause. All part of the act, right? He’s going to just go for it in a few minutes, she’s sure, but for right now... “This is nice,” she says hopefully.
He kisses her again, a little deeper, pulls away far too soon. “Like this?” he asks, and she nods against his cheek. He moves back in.
Sosa’s aware that she’s arching into him, her hips to his thighs, her belly over that swelling flesh. It send a thrill through her, the growing thought of this man, this lieutenant, treating her like a woman, a real woman, for once. Something she’s never known before, something that’s coming tonight.
Something that needs to be over with.
Fuck, she wants the weight of this problem off her back. She needs to be free of this, this...failure of hers.
Get it over with.
So Sosa starts kissing him back, fighting just a little. He groans and the kiss gets harder. No less sensual, just... more. She grabs at him, finding grip on his belt, which slams her harder against that hard cock between his legs. This is familiar territory, the kissing, almost at the place where she always turns back, and that uncertainty’s already starting to swell.
But not tonight. Not tonight.
Daring at something she hopes is good, Sosa slides one leg up the outside of his, and feels his hand close down under it. Face groans and his lips are gone, both of them gasping for air. He guides her other up as well, locking her legs around his waist and takes her weight, one hand under her ass, the other on her back, like it’s nothings she clings to him, she feels that wetness between her legs.
“Good?” he asks.
Burying her face in his soft t-shirt, smelling the so longed-for scent of warm skin not hers, she nods, and as she’s drawn back into that sinfully talented mouth, Sosa vaguely realizes that they’re moving.
He's carrying her.
A bit belatedly, she realizes they’re headed for his bedroom, his bed, as he cups her head and holds her in, easing her around a door frame. Her jeans hit something soft and she’s tilting back, Face still between her still-tight legs, still kissing her. Fingers trail around her stomach and down, teasing right at the hem or her sweater, the thin cami she’s got on underneath it. He doesn’t ask.
That’s more like it, she thinks, not sure if old patterns are better or worse here, right now, with this.She feels a flush coming on as he rears up and pulls it off, diving in to nuzzle that spot right above the rise of her small, pert breasts.
And the old panic’s rising again. She’s almost at the point where she usually throws the guy off and leaves.
There’s never been good cause for it. Sosa just knows what she looks like. Pretty, sure, but always too skinny, too flat to warrant the attention that gets thrown her way, and she hates those looks, like she’s just something to be fucked. She’s never liked it, the baggage her appearance brings to these things. It’s one of the reasons she’s never done this, like she’s not good enough to have something real, like she needs to have a fucking one night stand in order to get what other girls get from their boyfriends, guys who at least think they’re in love.
She’s hoped, she really has, that maybe there’d be somebody that she cared for, somebody who cared for her, who would do this for her. Give her virginity to somebody deserving, and just wanting to fuck her is not a qualification...her price has been higher than that, and hasn’t that been a stupid, stupid decision?
What’s it ever done for her? Where’s it ever gotten her?
But Face is different at least, better, like that thing he’s doing with his tongue right now, like how he’s touching her, as if she could break apart at any moment. He doesn’t know how true that is, Sosa thinks to herself, and finds her hands in that thick, beautiful hair, moaning a little as his hand roam and his lips close down over a nipple.
The lieutenant can feel him everywhere, it seems, and she knows she’s soaking through her panties, black cotton boy briefs. It feels amazing, and Face is kissing a line down her stomach, her abs fluttering involuntarily, her hands still kneading in his hair. He unzips her jeans and slides them away. Kneeling between her spread legs.
Her blush deepens, realizing he’s still fully clothed, and she can tell, this is another one of those times she’s going to feel humiliated. Where the guy’s taking complete control and giving her none, and she remembers that hotel room in New York, that other cadet’s hand between her legs, the long mess dress skirt hitched up over her knees, stripping her jacket off, limbs too heavy with alcohol to stop him...
Face murmurs something that might be beautiful and runs a hand down the full length of her naked body before kissing her palm and slipping a hand over her clit.
If she was wet before, she’s drenched now, and Sosa bites her lip as her body responds. As she waits for the pain. This is where it always starts to hurt, gets rough, where somebody makes a comment about how she doesn’t shave down there, where she always becomes afraid, but there’s nothing. Just a gentle glide across that little nub down there, so much different from her own touch and so, so much better. She sighes, loving the feel of all that hair between her fingers, bracing herself.
Then the panic rushes through her fully. He’s moved, his head lower, and that’s not his index finger but his tongue, warm and wonderful. Sosa can’t help it, her hand yanks his hair, and he looks up at her, licking a delicate string of moisture off his lip, her own juices she thinks with not a little heat.
“What’s wrong?”
“I, uh, that, it’s been...” she stammers, not knowing what to say, not wanting to tell him she can’t reciprocate, that she’s been spectacularly bad at giving head the few times she’s had to try, but Face is over her in a flash again, kissing her. She can taste herself on his lips. It’s not as strange as she thought it might be.
Good, almost.
“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, the words hot against her overheated skin. “Let me, though? I like it...”
That’s probably a lie, but she’s not sure and it feels so good, so she nods again and tugs a little at his collar. He grins at her, pulls the Ralph Lauren polo off as he moves back between her legs.
That’s better, that’s great, the bare skin of his back against his thighs as he works, lips and tongue. His hands draw nonsense patterns on her legs, and she can feel the tell-tale bubble building up in her belly, so much more than when she does this herself, and it’s not long before muscles hitch and she’s gasping and he sucks a little and she’s coming.
He’s up next to her on the bed again, hand back down there, fingers rolling slowly over her swollen clit, drawing the aftershocks of her orgasm out just a little longer.
“Mmm,” she says, hoping it sounds like something an experienced girl might say, and Face laughs. He seems to like laughing. She likes the sound.
“I have that effect sometimes,” he teases back, and that hand’s gone. He’s up on an elbow, and she can feel her own slickness circling a tight nipple. He cups her breast and slings a leg over her, kissing, grinding down just a little, and Sosa can feel how hard he is in those jeans of his.
It’s what’s expected of her, she reasons, so she forces shaking hands to undo his belt, his fly. Lightly and hopefully not too curious, Sosa strokes him through his boxers, trying to remember when was the last time that she felt one of these. He smiles against her lips, probably the greatest sensation of the whole night. A big, gun-calloused hand closes over hers and together they get his jeans and underwear off, laughing as it tangles them up together.
Surprising herself, she lets her hand stay on his cock, erect in the small space between them, a slight wetness leaking onto her, right below her bellybutton. A year and a half, since she’s last had the courage to try, she remembers, and her hand tightens at her own cowardice. It draws a groan from him, though, and his hands push hers away.
He’s rolling on a condom, she realizes, and the panic flutters up again.
And then she reminds herself.
What's been the point in trying to keep it, all these years? She's been such a fucking idiot. A boyfriend? A real relationship? The Army isn't going let her have that, not with an officer, all of whom like their wives fat and sweet and at home, not with a civilian, who’d have to follow her around from base to base. She knows better. As a cadet, she’d still had some hope for that, even after the bullshit of that night after Ring Dance. Three years of active duty has shown her how futile that hope has been.
And even if it did, even if there was a chance of that, she’s no good to anyone like this. Relationships are impossible without sex, and the older she gets, the weirder it is that she hadn’t done this. Something wrong with her, this state she’s in right now.
And she can't wait any longer. She'd come to that conclusion a few weeks ago. Who’d want her? Who'd really want her, like this?
No, this has to happen.
So it doesn’t matter as Face fusses for a few more seconds, and, dropping to hold his weight on his elbows, breaches her just barely. She moans, loud, maybe too loud, but he doesn’t stop and ask her what the hell’s the problem, so she must be doing okay. His hips keep rolling, driving in, and she fists a hand in the sheet, waiting for the pain, for the blood that some girls talk about...
...but there’s nothing. Only a strange, strange sensation of being torn open and filled in, like he fits just so, like there’s supposed to be this weight, this throbbing, inside of her like this. Does it feel good? She desperately wants to know if it feels good, but her body’s too new at this. She can’t quiet figure it out. Too many things, all needing to be sorted.
But Sosa does realize she’s whimpering, which means there has to be something to this whole sex-is-awesome thing she’s heard about all her life, and he rubs a thumb across her lips and down her throat, letting his hand splay between them for a moment before he’s covering her body with his, tensing like he’s trying to not crush her, elbows again, one hand kind of playing with her hair as he establishes a slow, easy roll.
If it felt strange on the initial push, it feels stranger now, that achingly hard length of his so absent, present, absent... But it’s a little easier each time, and her brain sorts it out and it feels right, her body opening up like it’s supposed to.
Sosa’s limbs go cool as relief rushes through her, and then hot again, Face pushing in again. Her hands leave the sheets and gather up around his shoulders, her knees pull up and back around. He kisses her, laughs again, and things start speeding up.
He’s close. She doesn’t really know how she knows that. Instinct, maybe. But everything inside of her is rushing towards inevitable conclusion, and she lets go. Not a bubble popping this time, not smooth and round and diffuse. It’s an explosion, bright and thorny and concentrated, harsh and beautiful.
Her nails dig into smooth skin, riding the edge of her second climax out as Face’s rhythm shatters and he groans, shudders, and she feels the weirdest thing of the night, a rush of heat inside her, contained neatly in its little rubber.
Thank god. She isn’t on birth control
Another wave of shame washes over her, that that is the first thing she thinks about after, well, after that. Her whole body is thrumming, everything heavy, sated, and all she registers is confusion. How is she supposed to feel about this? How is an experienced girl supposed to react?
Face sort of falls off to the side, breathing hard up at the ceiling. He’s already gotten rid of the condom, and seems kind of blissed out or something. She rolls over on her side to look at him, that fine mouth slack, blue eyes dark and hooded, beaded sweat on his skin. Sosa reaches out, curious about what’s going on in there, if he feels good, if she was okay.
He catches her hand and draws her in. Why? Isn’t he, aren’t they, done here? But Face seems to want something else, so she lets him scoot in towards her, so close their noses are almost touching. “Stay,” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
A dark spot. She looks at it. His Ranger tattoo. Of course. Everybody’s got a tattoo in the military. Sosa doesn’t reply, doesn’t nod, but he pulls her against him, settling around her so her back’s to his chest, spent cock against her leg.
He’s mumbling something to her, mouth working against sweat-damp hair, but alcohol and orgasm are pushing him towards sleep and Sosa can’t understand him. It’s making her more nervous, this kind of contact, more familiar and more intimate than the sex itself. More confusing than the way she feels right now.
Heart hammering, she waits for his breathing to slow, for him to drop off. A few minutes more.
And pushes herself out of bed.
She’s hot, too hot, and she stumbles on uncertain feet into the kitchen. She fills a glass from the tap, drains it, goes back for another. Her head’s still swimming, and now that she’s up, the lieutenant can feel a kind of dull soreness between her legs, up there. Fuck, is this how it’s supposed to be?
He was so sweet. Greene had said hot. Not sweet.
She pulls her cell phone out of her purse. Greene’s number is in there, stuffed in amongst dozens in her contact list, but it’s the only one she can see right now.
No problem, Charisa, don't worry 'bout me. I’ve got a season of Gray’s Anatomy I need to finish up anyway....
The lieutenant smiles, and sniffles and presses the call key.
It’s answered almost immediately. “You okay, honey?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sosa says with a yawn, rubbing a hand into her forehead. “Everything’s, you know, good I guess...” She has to hold the phone away from her ear a little at her friend’s squeal. It cuts through the confusion, reminds her it was just sex and she doesn’t have to worry about what any of it means. Why Face wanted to... what, cuddle? “Yeah, I know, right?”
“Well, what’s up. Need a ride?”
Sosa casts a look back over her shoulder, at the quiet bedroom. “I don’t know. Should I stay?”
“It’s better to just leave. All that morning-after stuff can be kind of awkward...”
There’s that, isn’t there? Like that morning after Ring Dance, waking up with that guy, too embarrassed for words... she goes cold.
No, no. Not that. Ever again.
“Yeah, yeah, a ride'd be good.”
+++++
The next day is Saturday, which is nice. She doesn’t have to see anybody from work for two whole days. Plenty of time to get caught up on her sleep, relax, think about things.
Greene had been so excited. Tired, but excited, and she’d clearly been holding herself back from asking a whole bunch of questions. She’d dropped Sosa off at the lieutenant’s own apartment with a wild, happy hug and a promise that they’d hang out on Sunday or something.
Sosa, for her part, stumbled back into her place, collapsed on the sofa, and slept until noon.
Her cell phone was buzzing when she woke, vibrating insistently in her purse. Bleary, she didn’t get to it before whoever was calling hung up, and she didn’t recognize the number. Fuck it,, she told herself and made herself a greasy, fatty, delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Sat down on the floor with it and switched on the TV, just for the noise and settled in for the weekend.
She’s trying not to draw comparisons, not between... whatever that was with Face and the first time she’d tried. But it’s kind of unavoidable, leaking into things for the next couple of days, the rest of the week, following her to the grocery store, running, as she’s reading emails at work, when she stops by the BX Starbucks at lunch on Thursday, all the mundane bullshit her life is filled with. It was better with Face, he was really good but that...
She just can’t get it out of her mind.
Ring Dance.
It hadn’t been like she was allowed to stay in her room. That’s what she wanted to do, curl up in bed and maybe play with herself a little or cry or both until she fell asleep. Make a grilled cheese sandwich on her iron the next morning, go for a run. Yet another glorious weekend. Yet another reason why not having a boyfriend sucked.
But nope, the reception was an official function and she had to go to that. Scrubbed her face clean and fixed her make-up. Issue uniform heels clacking on the walkways, she tried to ignore the bright flutters of color around her and pushed into the hall.
The food was better here than dinner had been, a live band in the corner, but it was all a formality. Just a cover. Something the permanent party required. The real festivities were going to start up later, as the guys took their borrowed civilian dates off to hotels and friends’ houses for all the logical activities.
She moved through the crowd as quick as she could, trying to find the one cadet from her company with the accountability clipboard. Just had to check in, and she could leave...
“Hey, gorgeous.”
She jumps, literally, latte spilling all over the table. She gets a dirty look from the major and his wife at the next table over. The wife’s fat. Sosa doesn’t want to end up like that, she knows that much, and flashes them an apologetic smile.
Maybe it's okay that she's single. She doesn't want anything right now. Knows that much.
A handful of napkins slap down over the mess, and there he is, Face, kind of grinning, his teeth holding on his lower lip. It’s cute, like a guy’s not supposed to be cute, and everything in her goes hot, screaming. He needs to go away. Right now, he needs to go away. Isn’t that what Greene said? Just avoid the guy, don’t worry, you never have to see him again, he never needs to know about, you know, that he took your...
“Hey, so, you, uh, little lost in thought there?”
“Yeah,” she laughs, waving it off, hoping he thinks the embarrassment is only about the coffee. “Long week.”
“Oh, tell me about it. I don’t know how yours is, but my boss is crazy.”
“Colonel Smith, right?”
He nods and looks at his own cup, at hers. “You want another one?”
Sosa doesn’t really know how to handle this. She only knows how she’s handled it in the past, but getting up and walking away doesn’t seem to be an option. Are they chatting? Why would they be chatting? “Look, Face...”
He laughs, just a little nervous and stands up. “I can’t stay or anything, Hannibal needs me to go pick up a new toy helicopter for his latest...” and he trails off, looking at her, that little grin on his face softening in a way that makes her even more nervous. “But, umm, it’s good to see you.”
She doesn’t say anything.
+++++
“Wait, wait, waitwaitwait, he talked to you?”
“What, is that supposed to mean something?”
Sosa’s sprawled out on her sofa, spooling past the previews on the movie Greene brought over. The captain chuckles from the kitchen, and microwave beeps.
“Well, yeah.” The brunette nudges her over, and Sosa pulls herself more or less upright as a bowl of popcorn lands on her lap. “He doesn’t talk to anybody afterward. And Face has slept with, like, half the girls on this base and,” and her voice drops conspiratorially, “a few of the guys.”
“No way!”
“Mmm,” Greene says around a handful of buttery goodness. “You’ve never heard those rumors?”
“Yeah, but...”
“Can you just imagine it? That body, spread out beneath another guy, all those hard, sweaty abs grinding into the sheets, moaning as a finger is shoved up his...”
Sosa can feel herself going red, and yeah, she can imagine it quite, quite well. But, still. “Sarah! Damn, come on!”
“I mean, like, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Greene says, just a little defensively and reaches back into the bowl. “Whatever, point being, he’s been through practically everybody.”
It hits Sosa at that point. Something that’s been bugging her, off and on, all week. Just because she’s done it doesn’t mean she knows what she’s doing. It doesn’t do her any good, just losing it and then not doing any follow-up work. Nothing’s been fixed. It’s just... nothing to be scared of anymore.
She doesn’t have to keep remembering...
Anyway, if there’s somebody around who’s that knowledgeable and even kind of interested, isn’t that a good option?
Wouldn’t that be really fun?
Face is a fun guy. That much is obvious. And if he’s really that prolific, she doesn’t need to worry about anything getting complicated. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
Sensing she’s been forgiven, her friend smiles as the DVD menu pops up and grabs for the remote to start the damn thing. Something from Greene’s collection of hot-guy-action-movies. “I’m just sayin’, have you ever seen that smoking hot silver fox he works for?”
“Smith?”
“Fucking. Hot.” And Greene hits the play button. "Like Ed Harris or something."
It’s pretty easy to find Face again. He stands out. Likes coffee, too, evidently, according to one of the baristas, who giggles when Sosa asks about the guy. Finds out he comes in every day at the same time. And if she just happens by around then, happens to be sitting at a table, working on something, and if he just happens to pull up a chair and happens to ask what she’s doing that weekend...
“No plans,” she tells him.
And that shy little smile’s back.
+++++
For a while, they have something really good going.
Face likes to call on Saturdays, late, tells her some bullshit about what he’s doing, what kind of fun he’s out having and how much he’d like to see her. She lies right back about what club she’s at and who she’s dancing with. They’re both usually at home, watching TV. And that’s usually where it starts and stops, at home, Face’s apartment, Face’s bed or couch or floor or the wall that one time she asks for that.
He likes her asking for things, and she finds kind of thrilling. Guy like that, so forceful, so in control, bending so easily to the simplest of requests. But it’s fun for him. Sosa knows this because he tells her how fun it is for him, how he hopes it’s fun for her.
It is. It really, really is.
It’s really, really simple.
Then he calls her on a Thursday night. She thinks, what the hell, why not? They end up making out on his sofa, cuddled up around each other, watching some reality show until they fall asleep in a big pile.
Then he asks her if she’d like to go see a movie, and takes her out to dinner at a really good restaurant, the kind where they both have to dress up and Sosa discovers that her booty call looks devastating in a suit and Greene tells her that constitutes a real date, and gets this little frown on her face.
Then she stays one Sunday and not just for the morning sex, which Greene tells her she shouldn’t stick around for but she usually does anyway. It’s hot and dirty and fast in the mornings.
And it’s a good compromise, between her need to just keep this about the experience, about all the lovely things he shows her, and the other lieutenant’s seemingly insatiable need for contact. He’s always touching her, always playing with her hair, her hands.
She likes it. Twenty-odd years of pent-up sexual frustration does that to a girl, Sosa figures, and goes with all of it.
And it’s all okay.
It’s not like there’s anything else going on.
“Hey, beautiful,” he whispers in her ear, and she laughs at the sound of his voice. Face pulls her in close again, like he did that first night, like he hasn’t done since. Chest to chest. Sosa loves the way her breasts feel, soft against his pecs. “Hey, I was thinking... we’ve got a mission. Leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know. I do see all the intel briefs.”
He looks a little deflated, like she just took a new toy away from him that he wanted to show off. And it’s not until later that she realizes how she must have hurt him, how that was a habit she picked at school to keep the boys off balance. Old self preservation technique.
“People die on these things sometimes, you know, Charisa.”
Where was he going with this? “Yeah...”
He squeezes her a little tighter. Cups her ass. He’s always saying how much he loves her ass. “We’re gonna to be gone a while. A month or more. Are you...going to be here, when I get back?”
Sosa smiles. Some of the wives she knows say the sex is always amazing after TDYs, departures, deployments. All that pent up frustration comes out.
That could be fun, and if she’s honest with herself, the lieutenant doesn’t feel confident enough yet on her own. But she feels like she could do anything with Face. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiles, dazzling, and kisses her hard, pulling her up to straddle his waist, like she weighs nothing. Sosa loves that, the rush that comes from knowing what he could do to her, how much power’s coiled up in his body. “Good,” he says, like he’s relieved. “Good. You’re just... god, you’re so damn amazing, you know that?”
She’s heard it before. From him, from others. All they ever want is sex. That’s all he wants. Sosa’s not an idiot. But it’s nice to know she’s good at it, can be good at it. Nice to know that it’s this much fun.
Because she wasn’t, not that night. Drunk and pissed off at her friend’s betrayal, at the fact nobody had told her of the extreme necessity of a date. She’d just been leaving the reception, and then there he was, that guy from Comparative Politics, the asshole with the drug dealer brother, whatshisname, Drew, the one who was supposed to be really, really good at sex.
The guy who’d been hitting on her for the past semester.
“Hey gorgeous,” he’d said, and Sosa had looked around, everybody with their fucking beautiful dates, and grabbed another glass of champagne off a nearby table. She had cotton undies on, she hadn’t shaved her legs, but Drew was smiling at her. It was Ring Dance. Everybody got laid Ring Dance weekend. “You know, some of my friends and I are going into New York tonight and I don’t have a date...”
Actually, his date had gotten pissed off and left - and that was a long story Sosa had unsnarled the next week, her very first investigation. She probably knew that at the time. But she was drunk and she was pissed and she’d been sick of being a virgin, even then.
Why the hell not?
It’s not like it was worth anything anyway.
“You’re pretty amazing yourself,” she replied.
Face smiles up at her, and she smiles back, feeling that morning wood nudging against her. “Wow,” he says.
“Wow?”
“Well, look at you. You could have anybody you wanted. And here we are.”
Sosa’s not sure where this is going, but it can’t be anywhere good. “Yeah,” she says instead, bending down to capture those lips before any more words can escape. “Yeah, here we are, lover.”
“Lover, huh?”
“Too romance novel for ya, Peck?”
He shakes her hip. Slaps at her playfully. “I’ve never heard you say it.”
Sosa throws her hair back as she pulls away, rocking against him a little. He loves both, she’s discovered over the course of the past three months. “Say what?”
“My name...”
Oh, this is embarrassing. “I don’t think I know it.”
“It’s Templeton,” he says quietly, sheepish.
“Templeton Peck?” If she laughs, she can’t help it.
“I was named by the damn nuns!”
Nuns? There’s a story. But not for right now. “Templeton?”
“Templeton,” and he kind of turns his head. "Faceman's the name Hannibal gave me. Not sure what my mom meant it to be."
Sosa runs both her hands through his rich hair, so they're facing each other again and leans in, covering his body with hers, loving the little shiver that runs through him. She thinks about what Greene said, about him being a bottom, why he might prefer the name his commander bestowed on him.
“Well, then it's very nice to meet you, Templeton Peck,” and she reaches behind for his rapidly swelling length, loving the feel of it in her hand.
“And you, beautiful lady,” he purrs.
When she finally gets home that afternoon, turning down his offer of dinner and more cuddles, giggling a little at his actual use of the word cuddles, Sosa pulls out the wheat bread and the Kraft cheese singles.
Grilled cheese is definitely in order.
Something’s going on, she thinks, and fishes the non-stick griddle out. Leans against the counter on her elbows, wondering if this is where everything goes to shit.
At least she’s going to have a month to think it over.
Continue to Part Two...
