Misconstrued, p.17
Misconstrued, page 17
“I liked!” I protested.
He grinned at that, pressing his forehead to mine, before going back to nuzzling my neck. He was holding my ribcage between his hands now, running his thumbs over my nipples. I whined and squirmed in his grasp.
He immediately let go, pulling away and I looked around in confusion. “Stop?”
“No!” I protested. Then understanding set in. “If I need you to stop, I promise I will say so, okay? This is just going to get really frustrating if you stop every time I like something.”
I could see exactly when he got that translated in his head, because his eyes went soft. “You liked that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Please, sir, can I have some more?” He didn’t get the reference, but he was happy to give me more. There was something about just being held, regardless of what his thumbs were doing, that just felt comforting. I wiggled around so I could just sit in his lap and put my head against his shoulder.
He went back to a simple stroke down my back that faltered when I stretched my neck up to kiss his jaw. His eyes drifted closed, and his breath caught in his throat. I could feel how much he enjoyed that but I stopped, just to get a moment of revenge, and asked, “Need me to stop?”
He absolutely whined. I chuckled, and gently bit his earlobe.
“Mina,” he gasped.
“Yes?”
I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but I got a soft growl of a word I didn’t understand. His hand started to reach between my legs, then fell helplessly at his side.
“It’s okay,” I told him, “just be gentle.”
“I don’t know what you like,” he moaned.
“You’re doing fine,” I assured him. He gave me a worried look that said that wasn’t the point. I smiled at him. “Okay, put your fingers here,” guiding his hands between my legs.
“Here but not in,” he mumbled. “I thought in, but no.”
“Just there,” I agreed, before squeaking in delight as he tried to find my rhythm from last night. He was so close to my clit, it barely took any shift and he was there. I gasped and twitched.
Romeo’s eyes went wide, then he smirked. “Not fast? Slow?”
I whimpered, then gasped, “Just like that.” I was so close now, I just needed a little something to push me over the edge. My hips bucked; Romeo gasped.
Or a big something.
I pulled away and for a moment his fingers chased me. “I don’t—” No, that wasn’t what I wanted to say. I took a deep breath and tried again, looking up into a worried orc face. “Romeo?” At the last moment I caught his wrist, to avoid any accidents. “Time for more, but I need you to let me.”
He blinked, then nodded enthusiastically. I sat up on my knees and repositioned to straddle him. He was sucking his bottom lip a little.
“Need me to stop?” I asked.
He slowly shook his head. “Want badly. Worried about too fast.”
My brain translated that in a hurry. “Just don’t pull on me, and it’ll be okay,” I promised.
He nodded.
I looked down at his cock and almost had second thoughts. I was out of practice, but I was also so wet it was sliding down my thighs. I took grip of the base of him, guided the tip against my folds, and just rocked there for a moment. Romeo choked out a sob. His eyes were squeezed shut and his fists were balled up in the sheets.
“Need me to stop?”
He shook his head in a frantic no.
I smirked for an instant, before my face went slack as I slowly slid him home. His whole body was clenched with the effort of holding still. I should have waited to adjust, but instead my fingers went to my clit. It wasn’t slow and romantic; I was long past that point. It only took a moment of quick fumbling and my whole body shook and clenched as I came.
Romeo threw back his head and roared.
I was vaguely aware of the door opening, but my body was arched, my head thrown back and fireworks were exploding behind my eyelids. By the time I could breathe again, it was closed.
Which was probably just as well, because as Romeo came down from his high, he pulled me tight to his chest and held me in a bear hug as he trembled. I just laid blissfully limp in his arms.
- - - -
I was glad no one was waiting in the hallway when I dragged Romeo across to my room to use the shower. He had cum a lot, and we were both sticky and dripping. I couldn’t imagine this without access to a shower. Honestly, Miriam was a braver woman than I was.
Romeo, however, had melted for me. He just kept staring at me with a dopey expression of adoration on his face. He made me want to giggle, or roll my eyes. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. I just knew I wanted to get cleaned up, put on clean clothes, and eat breakfast. A lot of breakfast.
That was another reason I couldn’t imagine doing this in the camp. I wanted a three-course meal right now, and this had only been a quickie. I couldn’t imagine being sticky, unable to clean up, and having only a bowl of mystery food to eat.
“You are sad,” he noted, as I stepped under the water.
I flashed him a smile. “I’m thinking of the people still living in the schoolyard. At least they have showers now, too.”
“Always have showers. They know how to use them now because you show them,” he pointed out.
I nodded. Still, though. They should have shown us that when they first set up the place. “Can you wash my back?” I asked, mainly to change the subject.
It turned out, Romeo was really good at that. I ended up resting my head and forearms on the wall while he massaged whatever the soap actually was into my skin. It was like some barrier in my head had broken, and the need to be touched was pouring out of me in great waves. Once I had come to terms with the idea that this was okay, it had given me permission to be lonely. I felt emotional and chaotic, and whatever Romeo was doing felt amazing. I knew I should rinse off and offer to wash his back, or even just get out of the shower before I used up all the hot water. I just didn’t want to.
It turned out I wasn’t going to have a choice.
Erika turned up for our morning meeting and let herself into my room with a knock I didn’t hear. Normally, that would have been fine, but being naked in the shower, bent slightly forward with a naked orc behind me, and then hearing my friend shout, “Get it, girl!” and whoop in delight was a bit of a mood killer.
For me, anyway. Romeo didn’t seem to be bothered in the least.
“Get out!” I shrieked, then caught Romeo’s wrist when he turned to go. He gave me a confused half grin. “You’re covered in soap. Rinse off first. Let me get her out of the room.”
He nodded, still looking puzzled.
“What?” I asked, feeling a little exasperated in that moment
He just shrugged. “She has already seen me naked. All of us. In the med room.”
I blinked. “Right. Okay. That was really mean of me to do that to you. I’m sorry.”
He just shrugged. “You needed to see. I was happy to show.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you as a person,” I admitted.
“I hadn’t shown I was a person,” he argued.
Part of me wanted to get into a fight that person should be the default setting until people proved they were actually monsters.
Then I remembered shooting at them with my slingshot and I nearly fell over. I hadn’t waited to see if they were people. I had been part of The Resistance trying to get rid of them. Shit. I remembered laughing with my friends when we hit one. I was a good shot; I had hit more than a few. I staggered out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and hurried out into the room. Erika was gone, but someone had laid out a clean set of coveralls for me.
I roughly toweled off, pulled my clothes on over my still-damp skin, and headed out to the kitchen. Mac and Erika’s three were there, and I grabbed her arm. “We should talk at your place,” I suggested.
She pursed her lips at me. “Are you okay? I thought you were having fun.”
I froze as a million things the guys had said jumped up and mugged my stream of consciousness. It has to be my choice. Rape is punishable by death. Orcs are beaten for being disrespectful. Shit. I looked wildly over at the four in the kitchen. They were all staring at me. None of them were smiling. Oh shit.
“I was having fun,” I explained, slow. “But now I’m embarrassed.” I was about to say that I didn’t like being watched, but then I worried that would make trouble for Iago. Wait! “Where are Iago and Tybalt?”
“Out finding house for us.” Lucky shrugged. Then he apologetically added, “Place Erika wanted not good, he said.”
I frowned. Iago hadn’t said that to me.
But I had said I didn’t want to stay there if it already had people. Did it still have people? I shivered, and it wasn’t just the water running down the back of my neck where my hair was dripping. I tried not to hope. All the time in the camp, I had just wanted to escape and go back to the people I might have waiting for me. Now I had the chance to go back there, and I didn’t want to.
I sat down on the couch, and tried to ignore the orcs watching me as I leaned forward and put my head between my knees.
Erika sat down next to me. “Are you okay?”
I looked up to see Mac hovering close by. “I should probably eat something,” I suggested, hoping I could pass this off as low blood sugar or something.
The orcs all sprang into action to organize that for me. Not just Mac, but Erika’s three as well.
“Let me get a towel,” she murmured. “I’m sure we can dry your hair better than that. You don't have to be embarrassed. That was nothing that I haven’t done.”
I rolled my eyes. “That isn’t totally helpful right now,” I snarked.
She just laughed as she wandered down the hallway. I heard her say, “Lovely to see you, Romeo J. Smith. What big … feet you have!”
I absolutely groaned and put my head back down to cover my blush, which wasn’t helped by Lucky’s puzzled expression and him noting that Romeo’s feet weren’t that big, just normal sized.
I choked, then it was just too much; I had to laugh.
Erika came back to attack my head with the towel, drying my hair as I snorted and laughed and sobbed and cried.
A plate of cut up bread and fruit was passed bucket-brigade style from orc to orc to Erika, and finally to me. I used the towel to wipe my face, and ate a slice of slightly mealy apple. I remember when I would have been disappointed that it wasn’t crisp. I had been so spoiled. I still was.
This was me being incredibly lucky, and I had no idea how that had happened.
I looked up to see five orcs all watching me with confusion and concern. I looked back down at the plate and ate a strawberry. “Erika? You know I’m okay, right?”
“Fffft! Yeah! Why wouldn’t you be?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not sure they know I’m okay,” I nodded in the general direction of the kitchen.
“You crying!” Rosencrantz protested.
“I didn’t sleep much, and I haven’t eaten today,” I countered.
Mac slapped Romeo on the back and grinned like an idiot.
Oh. Right. I was still going to have to deal with that at some point. I gave Romeo a nervous smile. “Not that I’m complaining! I’m just explaining.”
I could see him relax a little, and that made me feel better.
“And I was an accidental cock block,” Erika added. “I hate it when that happens.” I didn’t know what she was referencing, but Guildenstern looked deeply embarrassed. Erika seemed willing to babble until everyone got over themselves, but she did it in a way I wasn’t expecting.
“You know what I miss?” she asked. Then, without giving anyone time to guess, she told us. “Cheese. I fucking miss cheese. Brie with fruit. Cheese on pizza. Hell, I miss my grandma putting fake cheese on celery.” She sighed. “And don’t even get me started on Chicago-style popcorn.”
I groaned. “Yeah. Okay. Now I miss that, too. Thanks.”
She grinned sweetly at me. “You are so very welcome.”
I shook my head, feeling better already. “So, what do you know, Joe?” I asked, managing to further confuse the onlookers.
Erika’s face lit right up at that, “Oh! Oh my god! Mina! They have whole warehouses of stuff! Like … all the stuff! Anything that could be salvaged went into storage when they started tearing down the damaged houses. You know what that means, right? We get to go shopping! But, like, without worrying about money, and no budget! I’m going to get a sex swing, if I can find one! They’re completely ridiculous and I’m going to get one anyway!”
I snorted and shook my head. “I would be happy with a pair of socks.”
“Well, bah humbug to you, too,” she teased, bumping into me with her shoulder. “No, really though. What do you want for the house?”
I looked at her. It had been so long since I had even considered anything beyond wanting to be alive and able to eat tomorrow that I had no idea what to even wish for. The things I would have wanted were pointless now. A big TV was useless without power and content to watch. Computers needed power and the internet. Really, my deck of cards was more useful than any of that right now.
“Some board games would be good,” I hazarded.
Erika snorted. “Yeah. I want a sex swing and you want to play Scrabble! That’s just us in a nutshell.”
“Well, maybe not Scrabble,” I conceded.
- - - -
It wasn’t like shopping. It was like walking through an airplane hanger full of other people’s stuff; it felt like stealing. They had everything, alright, but none of it was sorted. Some still had the tags, but most of it had belonged to someone before it got here. And there was miles of it, all spread out in rows on the floor.
Even Erika’s enthusiasm dampened.
Some of it had been vaguely sorted by shape or sometimes by colour, only rarely by use. We had made it most of the way down the first row when Erika sagged. “We should just go.”
I stood still for a moment and tried to think. “I can’t look for stuff for a house before we know what the house will be like or if there will still be stuff in it.” I took a deep breath and continued, “But everything is here. I’m going to keep looking in case I find anything that was mine.”
Erika just looked at me in horror. “I just … I can’t. I gotta go,” she announced, before she fled.
I could understand that. I hadn’t known her before I got here. I couldn’t help her, I might walk right past her favourite thing in the whole world and not know. I walked and walked, up one row and down another, followed by two worried-looking orcs. In the end, I hadn’t seen anything that I could definitively say had been mine.
“Like nothing?” Romeo asked when I told them I was ready to go.
I just shrugged. “None of it looks like mine. Mostly I’m just amazed at how much there is.”
“Can look again tomorrow,” Romeo suggested. “Lots more.”
I winced. That didn’t make it better. Shaking my head, I replied, “I just want to go home and eat and rest.” I thought some more. “Do you know when Iago and Tybalt will be back?”
“If you need them, I will get them,” Mac declared.
As we walked from the building, I wondered what would happen if I did try to get them to come home. Surely the warden wouldn’t approve of them abandoning their posts because some defective human was worried. “I don’t want to distract them if they’re at work. You guys don’t get much time to do that anymore.”
They shared a slightly cagey look, and I decided I really wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with whatever that was right now. I was busy being surprised that it was already dusk. “That took longer than I thought.”
Romeo did something weird with his hand, then when I looked at him, he very slowly reached for my shoulder, only to have his arm knocked away by a furious Mac.
“It’s okay,” I explained. “I’ll tell you if you need to stop.”
Romeo was a lot more brazen this time. I half expected him to stick out his tongue at Mac, he looked so smug. Mac just looked worried. That was how I ended up walking home with Romeo’s arm around me while I held Mac’s hand. Orcs stared at us, but orcs always stared at me, or any human not in the compound. I hate to say I’d gotten used to it, but I kinda had.
We ended up sitting on my bed, lit faintly by keeping the bathroom lights on. “I hope wherever we end up has more electricity,” I murmured, watching Mac win at cards. I wondered if I could catch him cheating if I was paying closer attention, but I didn’t really care that much.
“What were you looking for today?” Mac asked carefully.
