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Ohhh! This is so good! 😍

the howler monkey

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo & gn!reader rating: Mature (18+ only!) warnings: no smut but some nudity, implied drug use/addiction, little bit silly, mildly angsty, performance anxiety, screaming, Dieter Bravo's soft cock. basically mild hurt/comfort/fluff with my usual bit of silliness. word count: 2.8k summary: You got him here, he was safely tucked away upstairs and everything was going, mostly, according to plan. So, who the fuck is screaming?

A/N: For the Dieter Bravo Brain Rot Club March Server Challenge - you're unhinged and I love you all. Dieter would be so, so proud of us. Circus mention in honour of Clown!Dieter.

TROPE: Only one bed and forced proximity PROMPT: "You're going to get us arrested." "Oh, I've always liked the idea of you in handcuffs."

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On days like this, getting Dieter Bravo out of the house was more like wrangling an overtired toddler than it was dealing with a full grown man. At least, you assumed it was. You didn't have a toddler for reference, but you did have a Dieter and, sometimes, that felt worse. He stalled and delayed for so long that by the time you finally - finally - got him out of the door, it was quite literally a race to get the the airport.

The flight hadn't been much different, having to practically drag him through the terminal with head down and sunglasses on to cram him into his window seat. Truth be told, you didn't know why you were flying with him anyway, only to fly back later tonight. Still, as long as it wasn't your money on the line, what Dieter wanted, Dieter got.

But now it was done. You got him here relatively unscathed, all things considered, and Dieter had been deposited in his room, ready to get a full nights beauty sleep before the press descended and the festival opened. All that was left to do was check in with his publicist and you'd be on your way back home, where you couldn't wait to crawl into bed and have a few blissful days to yourself.

So, as is the natural way with these things, it's when you're just finishing up with his publicist in the back of the bar that it all starts. It's nothing but a few strained looks from the hotel staff to begin with.

Then the phones start ringing. Every single one.

And when the phones can't be answered quick enough, hotel guests start crowding around the lobby, whispering amongst themselves about the screaming.

The screaming.

And your blood turns cold. Because it's not. It couldn't be. He wouldn't.

The publicist pays no attention, continuing swiping through his phone and yammering away. Not your circus, not your monkeys, you try to think to yourself as the lobby just gets busier and busier.

But then the hotel manager rushes in, sickly sweet smile plastered on his face, Dieter's publicist blissfully unaware as he stares down at his phone, looking at schedules and interview times and literally anything but the chaos evolving around you.

"Excuse me? Excuse me," he's saying, wringing his hands together as he approaches the table. "You're with Mr. Bravo?"

His publicist doesn't even bother looking up, simply nodding as you stare, open mouthed, into the lobby.

"It seems we have... a bit of a problem," he whispers with wide eyes. "Mr. Bravo is uh... well, screaming. It's disturbing the other guests. I'm afraid if he doesn't stop we're going to have to ask him to leave or call the police."

Well, shit. This is your circus, and that is your monkey in particular.

You're swiping the extra key card out of his hand and making your way out of the bar and into the packed lobby as quick as you can while his publicist sits there, arguing that Dieter would never (he would), that he was quiet (he wasn't), and so it couldn't possibly be him (it absolutely could).

The elevator feels so slow, the whirl of gears and an unseen mechanism pulling you up and up, as you ascend the many floors of the hotel. Then, in a blink and with another creak the doors are about to pull themselves open, and you swear you can hear it already.

The fucking screaming.

You're running now, the elevator doors barely open before you're squeezing through them, not caring for the noise you make as you thud heavily down the hallway. What would a little extra noise matter when there's someone screaming blue murder inside one of the hotel rooms.

Tapping the card, the lock on room 819 illuminates green and you're throwing open the door, the screams having subsided for a moment, and shutting yourself inside and trying to catch your breath.

Aside from the silence, it's dark. That's the first thing you notice. The second thing you notice is Dieter Bravo is nowhere to be seen, even in the dim light creeping around the window.

"Dee... Dieter?" you whisper into the darkness, hoping beyond hope that he's not here and he hasn't been screaming for the past fifteen minutes.

A small, hoarse voice floats toward you from much further away than you'd expect him to be able to be given the size of the room, "Who is it?"

"Dieter? It's me. What the fuck is going on? Where are you?" you loud whisper into the hotel room, running your fingertips across the wall as you creep forward. From what you can tell it looks the same as when you left him here. Nothing is wrecked or overturned, and he hasn't had another sudden burst of artistic inspiration - the walls look the same as they did when you shut the door to Dieter looking forlornly out of the window to the city below.

"What do you mean?" comes the muffled voice. It's closer now, but you still can't see him. There's no lump on the bed, no one sat in the chair, and he's not lying spread eagle on the floor.

"Dieter, where the fuck are you?!"

He sighs, and you hear a slap, like the sound of a hand hitting a flat, solid surface. "Under here, numbnuts."

You take another step forward, peaking under the desk, seeing no sign of Dieter. Turning toward the bed, you try to find somewhere else to look under to find wherever Dieter has stashed himself when you see it.

Two bare legs sticking out from under the bed, the end of his soft green robe just poking out from beneath the frame.

"Dee... what is going on, why are you under there? There was screaming, they think it's coming from in here."

Dieter's silence is all you need to confirm it was indeed coming from in here, from him. Pinching your nose, you ready yourself for whatever he's going to throw at you this time.

"Why are you screaming?"

"Come under here."

"Dieter, no, it's disgusting under there, they don't clean these -"

"I'll tell you if you come under here."

"No, I know this is a nice hotel, but the floors are still filth-"

Dieter cuts you off, a loud scream ripping out of his chest and rattling around your head at a frequency that makes you feel like your skull is about to burst. It must hurt, is all you can think, his throat must be raw and his mouth dry. Panic sets in - hearing a scream like that will do that to a person, you suppose. You panic not just because it must hurt, but because if there was one thing you knew, despite Dieter Bravo's flair for dramatics, he wasn't a man to scream for no reason. And, as much as you hate to admit it, you can't help but think down to Dieter's publicist likely still sat in the bar - Dieter will be impossible to interview tomorrow if you don't stop him soon, and that's if he's even allowed to stay in the hotel much longer.

So, you do the only thing you know how to do when a metaphorical fire in the shape of Dieter Bravo threatens to burn everything down. You throw yourself over it and hope for the best.

"DEE! DIETER! OKAY, OKAY!" you shout, trying not to grimace as you get on your hands and knees to crawl under the cramped space under the bed, ignoring the grit and dust already on your palms.

"Fuck. Shit, Dieter. Ow." You're wedged under there with him now, ass sticking up in the air as you cram your upper body under the bed frame. You can see the vague shape of him under here, a Dieter shaped profile visible in front of you as he stares blankly up at the underside of the bed.

"What's wrong with you?" you ask, somewhat breathlessly, only to watch Dieter tense up at your words. Shit. You didn't mean it like that, and you certainly didn't say it like that either, but before you can take it back and apologize, he beats you to it.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong with me," he says in a voice so much smaller and quieter now that your head is right beside his.

"Sorry. Look, I didn't - I meant, why are you screaming, Dee. They said they'd have to kick you out or call the cops. You're going to get us arrested."

"Arrested, huh?" he says thoughtfully, turning to look over at you. "I've always liked the idea of you in handcuffs."

"No, Dieter," you say, and even though you know he can't see you, you roll your eyes in the dark anyway.

Dieter's sigh is so big it picks up errant dust swirls it around under the bed. The urge to swipe at your nose is strong but you resist, knowing from the state of things and the chalky feeling of your palms that it'll only make things worse.

"I'm nervous," he finally says, and that's all you needed to hear.

His face is turned toward the underside of the bed when you crawl backwards. It takes a moment for him to notice, but as soon as he does he's whimpering and taking in a breath big enough that you know he's going to scream again. But you're not leaving, and instead you roll onto your back with an oof and slide yourself under the bed to look up into the nothing with Dieter.

You think back to other times he'd been like this. Too scared to perform, anxiety taking root, frightening him off into some dark quiet corner of a set or his house. You'd found him in his closet once, the only thing apparently capable of coaxing him out was watching you unbutton your shirt a little more because you'd gotten so hot sitting in the stifling little room with him. When he'd finally made his way out, it had been with his eyes glued to the extra patch of skin you'd uncovered and the trickle of sweat dripping down your chest.

Dark as it was, visual distractions wouldn't work this time.

"How many times do you have exactly the same thoughts, and how many times does everything turn out okay anyway? You're good at this, Dieter. You're going to be amazing tomorrow, just like you always are, and I'm not saying that to pressure you to perform, but just because you are. You're amazing."

"Yeah, right," he scoffs, slapping a hand dramatically down on the floor again with a grunt.

"I'm serious. You have a lot to be proud of."

"A lot to not be proud of too."

"Well, you know what to do about that."

"I'm not going to rehab."

"I've never told you to."

Dieter sighs again, because you were right. You had never told him to go to rehab. You never would. It didn't feel like your place to - you were only his assistant. He knows this and you think - know - that sometimes he'd like for you to just tell him to get it together and go, but you don't. "I know."

You don't know how long you both lie there in silence and darkness after that, softly exchanging breaths under the bed. You do know it's long enough for your mind to wander back down to the bar and all the people now going about their evenings. It's not lost on you that no one came in to check on him before you. That now that he'd been silent for several minutes, no one had bothered to knock on the door to see if he was okay. None of them cared, not really. You knew that and, worse of all, Dieter knew that. The people here didn't care about him unless he was being a shiny, glitzy movie star who could say and do the right things in front of the cameras.

Scuffling feet alert you to his movement as Dieter move shuffles toward you, his head colliding gently with the side of yours. You make no effort to move and neither does he, choosing instead to lean his head against yours and rest it there.

The signs are obvious then. The small weave of his head as his eyes track invisible shapes in the dark. The twitch in his fingers, the bounce of his foot. He'd been a mess all day, you can see that now, and whatever he had taken since getting here was somehow making it better and worse all at once.

"How much have you taken this time?"

His breath catches, caught doing something he said he wouldn't do, not here, not this time. But he doesn't lie, not to you. He'd stopped doing that a long time ago, and that was as much progress as you could ever hope for.

"Too much. Not enough. I don't know."

"Okay," you say, even though it isn't, not really. He should stop. You wish you could do more to stop him.

"Will you stay?" he murmurs, even though he knows you have a flight to catch. He'd paid for it when he demanded you come with him, promising you a few days off while he was stuck at the festival answering the same questions over and over again.

"You know I can't, my flight is in a couple of hours, I need to get through the traffic -"

"Please stay."

"There is nowhere for me to stay, Dieter. You don't need me here and I couldn't get a room if I tried. Everywhere nearby is booked." Assistants don't sleep with their employers, assistants don't sleep with their employers...

"I do. I do need you. I'm not asking you to stay anywhere else, I'm asking you to stay here. Stay with me," he mumbles. "I can sleep under here if I have to. Just stay." Assistants don't sleep with their fucking employers...

"You're not sleeping on the floor. And I- I can't." By this point you don't know why you can't, because maybe assistants don't sleep with their employers, but you and Dieter were always a little bit, well... y'know.

"Please."

And your resolve never was that strong where Dieter was concerned. Not really. "Fine. I'll stay. I need a shower and I need to go -"

"You can borrow some of my clothes," he says quickly. "We can shower - separately, I mean - get room service - fuck I'm starving - and then when we sleep, we can cuddle?"

You can't help but laugh, smiling up at the bed at how quickly his mood could turn around, particularly where cuddling and a good meal were concerned. Sometimes, when he was really tired, or high, or sad, or a combination of all three, he'd ask you to cuddle. You'd always settle on stroking his hair instead, watching his face as his jaw relaxed and sleep finally pulled at his features before sneaking away. Today, you had nowhere else to be so, you think, you may as well stay to cuddle.

"Yeah, Dee. We can cuddle."

You talk over room service - fancy toasted sandwiches and warm chocolate chip cookies that weren't on the menu, but Dieter had the audacity to ask for anyway. When you shower, he waits outside the door for you, restlessly stepping from foot to foot. You wait for him too, convincing him to leave the door open a little just in case, and he does so without question. A few minutes later he comes out, flushed red from the heat of the water and totally naked. You don't bat an eye.

Your skin still feels damp when you're climbing into bed, grateful to be on top of it and grit free now rather than under it. Dieter soon follows, crawling naked on all fours before tucking his legs under the sheets beside you.

You talk for a little longer, listening as Dieter sounds more and more slurred with sleep, before flicking the light off. He fidgets, shuffling closer to you until his arm wraps around your chest, resting his hand softly on your shoulder, his nose nuzzling into your neck on the pillow you now share. It's not comfortable, not for you, but the contented sounds coming from Dieter and the way his face twitches against your bare skin tells you he's holding back tears, that he needs this. You can be uncomfortable for one night, you think, just before he hooks his leg over yours, well and truly pinning you to the bed.

"Dee?"

"Yeah?"

"Your cock is on my leg."

"I know."

"Okay, well... G'night Dee."

"Night," he says straight into your ear, smacking his lips as he snuggles into your side, soft cock squished against your leg. And when, somehow, sleep ignores your discomfort and pulls you under barely a few minutes later, you swear you can feel Dieter press his lips to the bare skin of your neck.

---

Read this over on AO3 and it’s SUUUUCH a good story!!!! 😍😍😍

A LITTLE SUN (SERIES)

rating: 18+ (MINORS GET OUTTA HERE OR I'M TELLIN'!)

Story Summary: As a PA to megastar and mega man-child Dieter Bravo you've had your fair share of headaches. Getting accidentally pregnant with his baby however takes the cake, especially when he offers to pay you to be his surrogate. You just weren't expecting to fall in love with him along the way. inspired by AbsurdThirst ' s 'Daddy Dieter' (go read it!)

story trailer

part one -

part two

part three

part four

part five

part six

part seven (Part 1)

part seven (Part 2)

part eight - Postpartum

EXTRAS

How your desk usually looks (even though you're totally NOT in love with your boss. Not at all.)

---

Oh how it started out so promising 😭😭😭

Ninety-Nine Days- Dieter Bravo x OFC

Main Masterlist | Dieter Bravo Masterlist

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x Unnamed OFC

Summary: Dieter Bravo pays his estranged wife a visit after leaving rehab.

Rating: M for mature MDNI 18+

Word Count: 2481

Warnings: TAGS CONTAIN SPOILERS: drug abuse and addiction, major angst, character death

Author's Note: I literally have no excuse for this. I'm so sorry. I had a thought in the shower and ran with it. shout-out to @pedgito for beta reading and basking in the sadness with me!

graphic made by me!

Dieter steps out of the building into the blistering Arizona heat. He slides his sunglasses onto his face and lights a cigarette. It's a dry heat, they always say. “Dry heat my ass,” Dieter thinks. Humidity doesn't matter when it's a hundred and seventeen. Garbage cans and car headlights are melting to the ground. Ground so hot you can fry an egg on it. 

He blows smoke out of his mouth and nose, thankful this rehab place didn't prohibit them like the last one. Ninety days without his smokes doesn't do anyone any good. A black Escalade pulls up to the curb and Dieter leaves the relative shade of the building overhang and the sun warms his face and neck immediately. The driver exits the SUV and grabs Dieter's rolling suitcase. “Mr. Bravo,” he nods. Dieter grumbles a reply and opens the back door himself, desperate to escape the oppressive heat. 

He slides in and the blast of air from the car's a.c is a blissful relief. His shirt sticks to his skin and the black leather of the seat. He slams the door and rolls the window down, flicking the ash off of his cigarette. James, his publicist, is occupying the other middle row seat. He's tapping furiously on his phone and doesn't even seem to notice Dieter. 

The driver closes the gate and slips into the front seat. “Is the air cool enough, Mr. Bravo?” He asks, meeting Dieter's eyes in the rearview. 

“Yeah, it's fine. Thanks,” Dieter replies. He slips his wired earbuds from his pocket and plugs them into his phone. Lou Reed's voice fills his ears and he lays his head back on the seat and smokes all the way to the airport. 

He and James make small talk on the plane while Dieter's leg shakes with nerves. He's been gone for three months. Did the City of Angels forget about him? Did she? A nearly identical black SUV collects them from LAX. They pass by her neighborhood on the way to his. Dieter looks over even though her house isn't visible from the main road. James places a hand on his shoulder, startling him. 

“You can't see her, you know.” Dieter nods in agreement but doesn't say anything. He knows he can't see her. But the thing about being rich and famous is that Dieter can do anything he wants. He shouldn't, though. It wouldn't be good for either of them. She's probably been home for a week or two. The rehab she went to was in Maine, but she was able to go before Dieter could get away. He had to wrap up filming, and neither the studio nor his people were willing to put it off for three months. Wonder what they would have done if I died? 

James rattles off a laundry list of obligations Dieter has to fulfill. Promotional interviews for the film, a meeting with a filmmaker who wants Dee to be the lead in his new movie, even a podcast. All Dee really wants to do is crawl into his bed and never come out. Not unless she's there to drag him out. Dieter doesn't listen too intently, his assistant handles his schedule, after all. He just goes where he's told. Wears what he's told. Stands where he's told. Says what he's told. 

He's got three Oscars in a case at his too-big house that let him, and everyone else, know that he's made it. He doesn't need to do this shit anymore. He's got more money than he knows what to do with, even with the alimony payments to two ex-wives. Soon to be three. He could just quit. Sell his Sherman Oaks mansion and move into her modest two-story suburban house. The house he bought for her when she moved out over a year ago. The same house he overdosed on the floor of three months ago. The memory of the bitter taste of activated charcoal fills his mouth. It wasn't his first rodeo with overdoing it. It likely wouldn't be his last.

“Did she sign the papers?” He asks James. James doesn't answer right away and that tells Dieter everything he needs to know. She's the one who left. Why won't she sign the fucking papers? He knows why, though. The same reason the first thing he wanted to do the second his plane touched down was rush over to her house. They might not be good for each other, but they love each other. Love isn't enough anymore , she had told him. But she still won't sign the divorce papers. She still won't let him go. Dieter doesn't want to let go. Toxic, the kids call it.  

“I'll have the lawyer send them again,” he tells him. Dieter thanks the driver and waves to James. Finally, he's home. 

He enters his house and it is finally quiet. He hasn't had many moments alone in the last three months. There were doctors and nurses first. Then there were police and reporters and James and his agent. More doctors and roommates. Other junkies. Every fucking person in the whole state of California. Every person except the one he wanted to see. He lugs his suitcase up to his room and drops it on the floor. He begins stipping his clothing away, dropping it on the floor while walking to the bathroom. The walk in shower has a digital display that controls everything from an exact water temperature down to the lights. Dieter punches the button for his saved specifics and turns to the mirror while he waits for the water to heat. 

He hardly recognizes the man looking back at him. His body looks much healthier than it did before he went in. His skin has returned to a normal color after months of being pale and clammy. He's softer around the middle he notices with a sharp poke into his gut. The bags under his eyes are gone and his once hollow cheeks have filled out. The wonders of three meals a day, he supposes. The mirror begins to fog and Dieter runs his hand through his messy curls before opening the glass door and stepping into the shower. 

He goes through his routine pretty quickly. Shampoo twice and let the conditioner sit for five minutes. Gives his natural curls a fluffy appearance. He soaps his body thoroughly, eager to wash the medicinal smell of the rehab center and the sweat from himself. Once he's finished, he plants one hand on the wall and curls the fingers of the other around his cock. He gives himself a few tugs and tries to work himself up. Just like every other time over the last three months, nothing happens. Not even a twitch. 

“Fuck!” He shouts, smacking his open hand against the tile. A sharp pain radiates up to his wrist and pisses him off even more. He hasn't come once in ninety days. Ninety-nine actually. He was hoping it was just the lack of privacy. Clearly, that wasn't the issue. He yanks the door open and shoves his finger onto the button on the shower control panel, shutting it off. 

The entire time he’s getting dressed, the whole time he’s sifting through papers on his desk, he tells himself that it's just business. He just wants to get the papers signed, get this chapter of his book closed. He knows it isn’t true, not even that deep in his mind. But that’s what he needs to tell himself. He knows how fucked up it is to go over there, to go see her. To drag her back into his shit. Ninety-nine days without the sound of her laugh, the feel of her fingers running through his hair. Ninety-nine days without the sound of her moaning in his ear or the velvet of her cunt wrapped around his cock. 

He curses himself as he gets in his car. He sticks the keys into the ignition but hesitates before turning the engine over. He hits the button that opens the gate to his property and every second it takes to open is another second he has to question his decision. He hits every red light along the way, which he oughta take as a sign. A sign to turn around, go home and forget this stupid ass idea. But he doesn’t. 

His car idles at the curb, and Dieter stares at his hands on the wheel. This is a bad idea, he tells himself. Probably the worst idea he’s ever had. She’s probably fine without him. Piecing her life together. A life that doesn’t include Dieter. “Fuck it,” he says aloud, turning off the car. “She’s my fucking wife.” He’s not ready to give up on her, on them. He grabs the envelope from the passenger seat and slams the door behind him. The grass is a little overgrown and starting to yellow in the late July heat. When he gets to the door he raises his hand, takes a deep breath and knocks. When the door opens, Dieter quickly realizes he had it all wrong. This is why James didn’t want him to come over here. 

“Hey, Dee,” She says and Dieter’s eyes widen in shock. It’s clear that whatever she’s been up to, she didn’t spend the last three months in rehab. Since it wasn’t a court ordered stay, there was nothing stopping her from leaving any time she wanted. Since they already had Dieter’s money whether she stayed or not, they weren’t very bothered when she left. Especially when they filled that bed with someone else’s money. 

“Hey, baby.” Dieter takes in her disheveled appearance. Her eyes are bloodshot and sunken in. She’s wearing a ratty old band tee of Dieter’s, The Replacements, and it hangs off her too slim frame. There are scars from old tracks in the crooks of her elbows. Fresh ones run alongside them. “Can I come in?” She opens the door all the way and steps to the side. Dieter walks into the house and is struck by the smell of food that’s been sitting out just a tad too long and stale cigarettes. She closes the door behind her and follows Dieter into the living room. 

“If I had known you were gonna drop by I woulda cleaned up a little.” She gathers laundry from the couch and deposits it into the chair, making a space for Dieter to sit. “I thought after James told you I left rehab you wouldn’t wanna see me again.”

“He didn’t tell me.” Dieter clears his throat and pulls the papers out of the envelope. “We need to get this taken care of, baby.” She sighs and wipes a stray tear from her cheek. She reaches for them but he snatches his hand back. “You don’t have to sign them, ya know.” 

“What do you mean?” She picks at the hem of her shirt. His shirt.  

“You could always come home,’ he offers quietly. He doesn’t meet her eyes for fear of what he might find there. She might not want to come home. “I’ll call James. We can get you into another rehab, have you there by tomorrow if you want.” She doesn’t answer so he continues. “Then when you finish treatment, you can just come home. We’ll sell this shithole and move forward. Together. ” 

She’s quiet for a long time. Too long. Dieter reaches his hand out and this time she takes the papers. She looks at them for a long moment but when Dee reaches for the pen in his shirt pocket she surprises him by tearing them in half. “Let’s go home.” Dieter stands from the couch and wraps his arm around the small of her back. He pulls her close and captures her lips in a kiss. She returns it with the same fervor she always did. Like she wanted to swallow him whole. Dieter grabs her by the hand and tugs her towards the bedroom.

“Let’s get you changed and get the fuck outta here,” he declares. When they make it to the bedroom she drops Dieter’s hand and heads to her nightstand. 

“Before we go,” she begins, “how about one last one? For the road?” She holds up a baggie full of white powder. Dieter opens his mouth to protest but she doesn’t let him speak. “I swear baby, this will be the last time. I’ll go to rehab tomorrow for however long you want,” she promises. “Then I'll come home to you and we’ll never have to be apart again.” 

Dieter’s eyes flick between his wife’s face and the baggie pinched between her fingers. He shouldn’t. He can’t. The last call was such a close one. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, baby.” Nobody knows better than Dieter the siren call of that first hit after a drought. But it’s been ninety-nine days. 

“I just bought this, an hour before you got here. It’s good shit, new shit. I already spent the money, baby. Let’s not waste it.” Dieter sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’ll be like old times,” she promises, climbing into his lap. Dieter’s cock twitches in his pants. The erection he was chasing earlier in the shower finally makes an appearance and Dieter groans when she grinds down on his growing bulge. “One last hurrah, and then we’ll be good. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good for you, baby.” She bites the skin just below his jaw. His favorite place. Her favorite place.  

“Fuck, baby,” he whispers against her lips. He can feel his self control melting away. Tomorrow will be a hundred days. Dieter hasn’t been a hundred days sober his entire adult life. His will is slipping through his fingers and then it’s gone. All it took was a tug on a zipper for him to cave. “Fuck it, set it up.” She stands from his lap and removes her shirt, his shirt, and drops it to the floor. Clad only in a pair of panties, she bends and rummages through the nightstand drawer. Dieter tugs off his jeans and kicks off his shoes. Finally, everything he wants is within reach. He has ninety-nine days sober, he can start fresh tomorrow. 

“Oscar winner Dieter Bravo has died today at the age of forty-five, TMZ reports. He was found unresponsive in the home of his estranged wife this evening by his publicist. There was another person in the home, also confirmed deceased. No identity has been made, but reports suggest that it may have been Mr. Bravo’s wife. Mr. Bravo was released this morning from a treatment center in Phoenix, where he was recovering from a drug overdose three months ago. Friends and fans alike are taking to social media to mourn the troubled but beloved star.” 

---

😮‍💨🥵

Didn’t know I needed this til I read it!

three's company

pairing: dieter bravo x ex-wife!reader x dustin mulray rating: e (explicit) tags/warnings: smut, pinv, protected sex, oral (female receiving) *inserts good for her meme*, oral (male receiving), dirty talk, light voyeurism, talk and use of drugs and alcohol (weed & wine), the weirdest situationship you ever did see, a bit of angst, jealousy, fingering, dubious consent (but like, only a tiny bit dubious. the tiniest bit) word count: 16.k+ (don't ask me what happened there) summary: The world is slowly descending into madness all around you, so you decide to give in and go with Dieter to his latest poor decision: a franchise movie filming in England. One night while there, you both sweep another into this odd half-hearted, life-long tryst you've got. a/n: i don't know how i got here but i hope you enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. i could dedicate this to a lot of things but mostly i'm going to dedicate it the red shoe diaries. thanks to david and the horny '90s. also to maria (@sweetly-yours-and-mine) who has spent countless nights working through this with me. you are a gem

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Facetime isn’t the same as real people.”

“Those are bad movies, Bravo. I’m not sure I want to be around those who make them for that long.”

“I know.”

“Actors have never been my favorite company.”

“I know.”

“And I just don’t want to go.”

“I know.”

“I’ll learn to stop answering your calls one day, you know? And then you’ll do everything alone, even a global disaster.”

“I knew you’d give in. That's my girl.”

——

The hotel is a converted English Manor - the very stuff of childhood fairytales and honeymoon daydreams with its Italianate architecture and technicolor green grass. It is warm, inviting, with high ceilings and the soft, consistent hum of human activity as workers scurry around to greet the incoming guests. They filter you in through white plastic tents and stick cotton swabs up your nose before giving you the WIFI password and a room with a stunning view of their expansive, manicured grounds. You don’t have any grounds to look in America, and your studio apartment has been eerily quiet as of late. The pulse of life has stopped in Los Angeles, but here it comes back with an unvarying rhythm.

You don’t like to admit it, but Dieter was right: you are not above loneliness.

The room they give you feels anachronistic, too modern and beige, but cozy in the way all four star hotels aim to be. You’ve got a television, a pristine bathroom that hosts a bathtub and a shower, and enough floor space to move around without stubbing any toes. There’s ample furniture too: a reading chair by the large window, the queen bed, and another chair by the door, which looks like it’s meant only for bags and the stray suit jacket. They’ve given you decorative pillows and instructions not to leave for two weeks - not for any reason.

You lay out on the queen bed and Facetime Dieter. The irony of the situation is too good not to tease him for.

“I know,” he gruffs, picking up your call immediately.

You can’t help but laugh at the misery that drips from his voice. “I’ve always been better at being alone. I think it was you who didn’t want to be alone.”

He runs a hand through his unruly hair and frowns. Even if you won’t take it, you like the idea that he’s only a long walk away now. You give in and shuck off your winner’s ego. “It’s only two weeks,” you assure kindly.

“If I’m good, do you think I can earn a sleepover?” There’s mischief in his eyes, flirtation thick on his tongue. You look askance at him and the dimple in his cheek deepens. “I’m only kidding of course.”

“Ha ha,” you deadpan.

“It’ll be nice after two weeks,” he promises. You know that tone, far off and introspective. It’s not good.

“Just Facetime me when you’re losing your mind.”

“You don’t want that. I’ll be on the phone with you all the time.”

You stare down at the phone, frowning. He smiles, coming back to his body. “I’ll be alright, kid. I always am.”

“Two weeks is not so long.”

“No,” he agrees quietly.

——

Two weeks is a prison sentence.

The room they put you in, while spacious, is merely a cell block now, reduced down to its most basic elements: the bathroom with the shower and the tub, which you’ve used so much it's a miracle your skin hasn’t fallen right off; the bedroom area, with the reading chair by the window; the queen bed, which you stopped making after day four and try your damndest not to fall in before 3pm. You’ve paced the floor so many times, feeling the angry itch of loneliness coupled with a newfound, perpetually lurking anxiety.

“One more day,” he reminds you over the telephone, trying to allay your fears. You hear the sound of his tub running in the background, over the static of his voice, and you wonder what he looks like right now. You picture two week’s more worth of beard growth, the slouch of his back as he sits on the edge of the tub, the pudge of his stomach, and the inciting trail of hair below his belly button. And his naked self. At home he was perpetually nude, and you imagine it’s no different now.

You find your own reflection in the mirror over the sink: sunken eyes, with bags underneath and your flesh taking on a slightly gray cast, the color of isolation.The window sun doesn’t seem to be helping much. You frown self consciously, but try to remind yourself he must be in a state himself; he stopped Facetiming you a week ago, opting for the good ol’ telephone call at least once or twice a day since.

“I’m going out of my mind,” you say as you continue to look at yourself. You lower your voice, vulnerability shared in a hushed, confessional tone. You imagine Dieter again: with that soft concentrated look that pulls his eyebrows together, the one that enhances the lines between them. They called him a curious child and now he’s got the lines to show for it. He told you that. The thought makes you smile at yourself, but you still look so tired.

“Just one day,” he supplies again. He sounds vaguely apologetic.

“I know,” you tell him simply.

“What have you been up to today?” he asks. You hear water come to a stop and a gentle splash follows it. He’s gotten in. “Anything fun?”

“I read, watched a movie. You?”

“I got high and jerked off. So, you know, nothing different than the past thirteen days that you’ve called.”

You scan your reflection in the mirror, contemplating your next words. It isn’t a good idea, but nothing is. “What did you think about?” you ask.

“Lots of things.”

He tells you this as casually as if you’ve asked him his name. You are so achingly lonely and this is so embarrassing, but you can’t help it. You know he’ll let you. Hell, he’s probably been waiting weeks for this. Years.

“Do you ever think about me?”

There’s a short, considerate pause. “Do you want the truth or a lie?”

“A lie.” You worry your lip between your teeth.

“Oh, never.”

You laugh, relieved. “I thought you were going to say something different.”

“Hm,” he hums, “I don’t think that’s the truth. I think you worried about what the real truth would be. We’ve got something here and it’s worrisome.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Mine too. She thinks inviting you was a terrible idea but she wants you to know she’s thinking of you.”

“Mine hates you.”

He grunts. “Suppose I deserve that, don't I?”

“I think this is the first time in history that you diverted phone sex with talk like that.”

“I’m getting older, wiser,” he jokes. Then, “Do you think of me?”

“Do you want a lie or the truth?”

He considers it for a moment. “The truth. Hit me with it hard, baby.”

“Oh, a lot more than I should.”

——

The rapt sound of knuckles against your door incites an excitement in you that you haven’t felt since childhood. You jump from the bed, uncaring of the state of yourself, hungry for the news that awaits on the other side.

A kindly British man tells you that the quarantine has been lifted and that there will be a party and dinner for the cast and crew in a couple of hours. Formal wear is encouraged but not required.mYou spend the next few hours undoing what’s been done by isolation: the bags under your eyes; the unkempt room, with the fetid smell of loneliness wafting over everything; the living out of your suitcase and the wrinkles on your best clothes. You find an iron in the closet and shave your entire body.

Dieter stops by your room while you’re in the middle of getting ready. He sits quietly at the edge of your bed, watching you in the mirror with that dazed look in his eyes. He wears the ugliest goddamn housecoat you’ve ever seen, but he’d smiled so wide at the door that you’ve forgiven him for it.

“You’re excited,” he observes. His fingers fiddle with the sunglasses in his hands. “I thought you hate actors.”

You try to steady your hand as you bring the eyeliner up to your eyelid. “I don’t care what they are, as long as they can hold a conversation,” you mumble.

“I can hold a conversation. Maybe we ought to stay here and celebrate with each other.”

You look at him in the mirror, trying to figure out if he’s serious or not. You can’t tell. “You’re kidding.”

He shrugs. There’s a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s thinking too hard about something.

“Are you high?” you ask him.

“No, but I’m thinking maybe I should be.”

“Cheer up, boy scout. You’re the one who wanted to do this goddamn movie.”

He lets out a defeated sigh and falls back into the mattress with a groan. “I’m going to kill myself.”

———

He doesn’t kill himself, but he looks like he’s still weighing the prospect of it as you take your drink from the bartender.

Dieter suffers no one lightly, and you have a feeling the personable strawberry blonde in front of him isn’t exactly his crowd. You smile over the rim of your drink, enjoying seeing him squirm for once. Everything seems to come easy to him–except this. He’s never been very good at socializing when he doesn’t want to.

“That your boyfriend?”

You turn your head and find Dustin Mulray. You feel a hint of your teenage self come back to you as you look at him, struck wordless. It’s nothing as strong as the love that had you tacking up posters with his face on it to bedroom walls, but something vaguely akin to it. You’re happy to find it manifests itself as a friendly smile instead of love confessions. Perhaps it’s helped by his appearance: In his infinity scarf and beige knitted sweater, he reminds you more of a homely professor than a Hollywood movie star. You think: Movie stars! They’re just like us! while shaking your head in answer.

“No,” you tell him, “He’s my ex-husband.”

“Ah. That’s my ex-wife with him. Marriage is tricky, isn’t it?”

He takes a seat next to you and orders a drink. The bartender sits it on a napkin for him and he turns to you, his blue-green eyes awaiting an answer. You hadn’t thought he would want to talk to you, not really. You’re used to being invisible at events.

“I guess you could say that,” you reply.

“Are you working on the movie?”

You remember what Dieter told you to say if anyone asked: “For legal purposes, yes. Art coordinator #3.”

This amuses him, drawing out a smile. “That title come with pay or would you say it's just an internship?”

“I guess you could call it an internship.” You smile back at him. “Why? You think you could pull some strings and get me a paycheck?”

“I think I’d do you one better and get you a better place of employment. Have you read the script?” This makes you let out a genuine laugh. He brightens, smiling a little wider. “What? It’s the truth! Everyone thinks us Hollywood actors just commit to this shit knowing it’s shit but we don’t! I mean—“ He looks over the crowd, lowering his head closer to yours conspiratorially. “—Not those of us who started at the beginning. We thought it’d be good. Like Jurassic Park, but yanno, we didn’t get Steven Spielberg. We keep getting arthouse fucks. And I like arthouse fucks–don’t get me wrong–but what’s a man with an IPhone know about blockbusters?”

“Ah, I feel you but I can’t quite reach you from here.”

“No, I bet not.”

There’s something simmering in that line. If you didn’t know better, you’d figure it was a light flirtation. Surely not.

“I liked your early stuff better,” you confess.

“Me too. But those were the glory days and now I have alimony and child support to pay. How about him?” he nods in the direction of Dieter. “You get half his ass in court?”

You shake your head. His candor, although surprising, is refreshing. “No, no big payout. We’re amicable.”

He clicks his tongue in awe. “I envy the bastard but I can’t say I didn’t deserve my lot.”

“You haven’t even finished your first drink and you’re already gonna confess your sins?” You raise a curious, teasing eyebrow. He hangs his head and laughs.

“You married an actor. Don’t we all wear our hearts on our sleeves?”

“Mm, not mine,” you shake your head. “It seems he saved his emotions for the silver screen.”

It’s Dustin’s turn to raise his own curious eyebrow.

“How cozy.” You look over your shoulder to see Dieter standing in front of your chair, his fingers reaching out to the back of your chair. He looks…jealous.

“Dustin, this is Dieter,” you introduce them. Dustin sticks his hand out and Dieter plays nice, shaking it with a passing grin.

“Nice to meet you,” Dustin mutters. Dieter nods his head. “Yeah, you too. I was actually coming over here to steal her away for a moment. If she doesn’t mind.” He looks over at you, expectant. There’s a bite to his words you don’t like at all. How fucking rich, you think bitterly, remembering all the times you had to sit by while he shamelessly flirted with half the fucking world.

“She does mind,” you respond. The sharp finality of it makes even Dustin cough awkwardly.

Dieter looks taken aback. “Okay,” he mutters, looking between the two of you. He nods again, as though he’s drawn some conclusion. “Alright.”

You watch as he walks away to the other side of the room. Looking back at Dustin, you give him a rueful grin. “Sorry. And here I was, talking about how amicable we are. Exes of the year.”

He raises his glass. “To us pitiful people and our pitiful crash and burn marriages.”

You clink your glass against his, fighting the urge to cry or kill Dieter. “To us.”

—

The dinner table arrangement is unforgiving for Dieter. He’s sat next to Dustin at the far end of the table, with yet another red headed actress to his left. Unlike the talkative one, this one is in a state of brooding and continually huffing at everything he says. You’re slightly more lucky, sat at the other end, sandwiched between Dustin's ex-wife and the director.

He watches woefully as you chat with the ex-wife, nodding your head along politely. You were always such a good listener, even with the worst people. He frowns. He had changed his outfit between the party and the dinner, opting for a classier open dress shirt. He had seen the look in your eye when you had opened the door for him earlier, and figured he could use all the help he could get now that he’s undoubtedly pissed you off. He had hoped that they would’ve sat him next to you so you could talk. He’s even wearing that cologne you like. Or used to like. He doesn’t know anymore.

“So, like what—you usually get along with her or…?” Dustin asks him, following his eyeline right to you. Dustin brings the cool champagne they’ve served to his lips, his eyes too burningly curious as he gazes at you.

Dieter tries not to be possessive. He saw it in your eyes, heard it in your tone: that sharp, angry disappointment that you’re so used to delivering him. You don’t like when he gets like that. Not that he has much. This is a relatively new side effect he’s required since the divorce. He shrugs lazily, pushing the sunglasses up his nose. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

This earns him an even laugh. He looks over at the older man, frowning. “What?”

“I see magazines with your face all over it, man. C’mon, we all kiss and tell, even if we don’t want to.”

Dieter bites at the side of his cheek and considers him for a moment. “Look you and your wife-“

“Ex-wife-“

Dieter nods, uncaring. “Sure, your ex wife — you both like to talk a lot.”

“I’m just trying to figure out if I can make a pass at her or not. Make it easy for me. I don’t want to have to suffer this entire shoot because you’ve got some weird shitty thing going on between you. I don’t step on kept grounds….Well, not anymore,” he adds.

“How noble,” Dieter says wryly, “She’s not mine to answer for. Besides, it seems like you were already doing a good job at making a pass earlier.”

He fights down the petulant child inside of him, biting at his lip instead of wearing an all out pout. Through the concealed tint of his sunglasses, his eyes soften at the sight of you across the room. He can almost feel the crack in his heart as he considers the fact that you might have actually liked talking to this man.

Dieter knows one day it’ll come, the moment when you find yourself in a serious relationship with someone else. Most of the time he thinks he’ll be okay — that it will affect him like it must but it won’t ruin him entirely — but sometimes, like right now, he worries he’ll get on his knees and beg you not to do it. You don’t deserve that. He hates himself for the greed he feels, how he can’t ever just let you be happy. He doesn’t want to be like this dick, taking and taking from his ex-wife, all while he noses around and wets his dick in anything that will let him. He never wants to embarrass you like that. Not again. Never again.

Chugging the last bits of his drink, Dieter looks over at the man. Dustin looks back at him, nonplussed. It takes herculean strength to say the next words.

“She doesn’t like men who are crude or too direct, but to be frank, I think you can’t really fuck up with her. She likes you and always has.” Dieter casts a glance in your direction again, feeling mischievous. He smirks, letting himself have this one. “Well, since you were last relevant, that is.”

Dustin laughs the burn off, shaking his head. He touches Dieter’s shoulder in a show of faux friendliness. “We’re in the same shitty franchise now, bud, so welcome to the club,” he whispers, just low enough for him to hear.

Dieter raises his empty glass to Dustin with a forced grin. Feeling defeated but comforted by the fact that he’s now got something to separate him from that asshole, he raises his hand to the pretty waitress for another drink. To celebrate.

But he truthfully doubts there will be much to celebrate.

He fucking hates Hollywood.

—-

Truth be told, Dieter didn’t plan on doing this tonight. Getting high. He planned, if he was being honest with himself - and he is trying, at his most introspective more now than ever - to be doing you. Had he invited you on the vacation just to fuck you? No, but ignobility inevitably follows in the tracks of his nobility. It was written between the lines, something you both had hinted at over the past two weeks. But now you’re somewhere else. There's a lot of rooms in this hotel. Maybe you’re in your own. Maybe not. Dustin had looked like he was going to devour you at the bar earlier tonight, so probably, you’re doing him in his room.

Or do you bring men back to your own place now? He doesn’t know.

Dieter would blanch if he wasn’t so high. He sits in the middle of the decorative couch, staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes, and he tries to imagine a different version of your last phone conversation.

When you asked if he ever thought of you when he touched himself, he’d tell you the truth. Because you like the truth. He’d say: all the time. More than he should. Really a sickening, depressing amount because he misses you, especially lately. New York is a terrible place to be these days; death permeates everything and nothing seems as right as it used to. Even loneliness feels worse, no longer poetic or artistic but just lonely. It's less like Al Pacino on the set of the Godfather and more like Michael Corleone, sitting alone at the empty dining room table. Days stretch on and on, and he’s hungry for life that has halted so he paints terribly, insecure of even hobbies. What else is he supposed to do but play with himself and remember poignantly that he had once been married to a lovely sort of woman who would’ve made it all better, if only he hadn’t fucked it up?

Well, he doesn’t think about that last part so much. It doesn’t really make for good masturbating material.

He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the pandemic before they asked him to do this movie. And of course he asked you along when they had. It’s the only way in the world he could ask for your help: through omission of truths and beating around the bush. He wonders if you might take pity on his soul again and let him crash with you for a while, just to wait the rest of this out together after the movie wraps. If you really are fucking Dustin, it might make things tense but not impossible. He’ll learn to live with it. He’ll have to. What else is he going to do? Go back to this moment in time and stop you?

Perversely he wonders if Dustin is not the first man you’ve fucked since the divorce. You’re not his last but he wishes you were a lot. It’s been nearly two years and he’s forgotten what you feel like, what you taste like. It’s miserable. When he touches himself and thinks of you, you’re like an apparition, some Franksteinian woman built of fragmented, hazy memories. All he remembers was that the last time wasn’t nice and that you didn’t cum. He couldn’t make you, something about you being too sad or too angry. It was a shame, because he’d always imagined the two of you would’ve gone out with a bang.

This thought makes him smile, but it doesn’t last for long. There's nothing funny about your divorce, not really. He broke your heart tediously, and now you’ve got to tell people that it wasn’t just one thing but many things. He knows that. An unanswered phone call. That waitress in Vegas who he flirted with so unabashedly your mother thought he was cheating on you - along with half the internet and for a brief moment, yourself too. The apartment in New York he bought and moved into without asking you. That art house opening he missed, the one you’d asked him continually throughout the week to set time aside for. So many things—the seven sins and just a few more to top it off.

He wasn’t really surprised when you had asked him for a divorce over lunch one day. You didn’t even live together at the time - the New York apartment became more permanent than he had originally planned for - and you looked so tired, like you were drained of life, overwrought and quiet. What surprised him was the fact that you hadn’t done it sooner. The knowing that you had tried against hope was not an easy one for him to reconcile with for a long time after that. Even in that moment you had developed a sort of halting lisp as you pushed the statement out, as though your own body protested it. He remembers that better than the sex.

You had waited for him to get better and he never did, so you both took your chicken salads with a side of failed marriage that day, and now here you are. Dieter sighs, feeling the familiar pangs of remorse.

“Whatever drugs you’re on must not be very good because you look miserable.”

Dieter lifts his head off the back of the loveseat, straining his eyes to make out the shape that’s hovering in his doorway. His brain catches up with him before his eyes do, and the distinct mumbling voice of the figure comes to him. Dustin.

Shaking his head, Dieter laughs, relieved. “I was thinking.”

Dustin takes this as an invitation to cross the corridor. As he comes closer, Dieter finds he’s in more casual clothes - perhaps even sleepwear - clutching a bottle of wine in his hand. If this is a peace offering, Dieter will take the olive branch. He’s so goddamn pleased you’re not fucking this guy, he might even kiss him.

“You want a joint?” he asks him, straightening on the couch. Suddenly it’s not so hard to be magnanimous, not with the sheer euphoria of you not having betrayed him (is he allowed to call it that? Probably not, but there’s no word quite so apt). He feels he might even be smiling, but he can’t be sure. He hopes so.

“God, please,” Dustin groans. He sits the bottle of wine on the table and rubs his hands together eagerly as Dieter lights the one he’s been puffing away at.

“I figured you were the one with the goods,” Dustin says around a cloud of smoke. He looks over at the open door, nodding at it. “We should close that, huh?”

Dieter shrugs. He thought he had closed the door, truthfully. “Probably should. I think I saw a kid here,” he says. Neither of them get up.

Dustin passes the joint to Dieter. He takes another hit when he gets it because fuck it, this is a celebration. “What, she didn’t want you?” he can’t help but ask.

Dustin laughs mutedly. “I don’t know. I figured by the way you reacted at dinner that I better not try. And there's that thing with my wife.” He shrugs. “I’m always fucking that one up. I thought I should just wander around and see where the night takes me.”

Dieter rests his head back against the couch again, nodding sympathetically. “Mm, I understand. Me too.”

“What’d you do?”

“The better question would be what didn’t I do.”

“Did you cheat?”

Dieter turns his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t fuck anyone else while we were together but she said I might as well as have. And I guess she’s whose opinion really matters, isn’t it?”

Dustin mumbles an agreement. “I fucked a lot of people,” he confesses. “Even the divorce lawyer.”

“And she still talks to you?” Dieter asks.

“We’ve got a kid.”

“That’s right. She told me that, because she likes to talk.”

“Hey don’t be a dick. Yours does too, you know? That’s what women like to do—talk. And they like to be listened to.”

Dieter narrows his eyes. “Is that what you were doing at the bar? Talking?”

Dustin nods. “Yeah. Listening, too.”

“I listened.”

“But you didn’t like what you heard.”

Dustin says this more as a statement than a question. Dieter looks back to the ceiling and pinches his eyes closed, too high. “Mm,” he mumbles. “I’m just so happy she isn’t fucking you right now. I really thought she would be there for a second and it was making me sick.”

Dustin huffs out a laugh. “I take it you never shared?”

“What do you mean ‘shared’?” Dieter asks. “Like wife swapping? No. We seemed to have left the practice in the sixties.”

“Not necessarily. Threesomes?”

“Have you done that?”

Dustin shrugs, smiling unashamedly. “Before we got married, of course,” he tells Dieter. Then, “And a little after too.”

Even with the high, Dieter can’t help but feel curious about the arrangement. “With men?”

“Sure. It wouldn’t have been fair with just women. That was the rules, anyway. Why? You’ve never been with a man?”

“A few. That’s not what strikes me as odd. You just didn’t strike me as the type.”

“I wouldn’t say I was, but fair is fair. And it can be nice. Interesting.”

Dieter rolls his eyes. “Gay sex is gay sex, no matter how you cut it. If you’re about to tell me it doesn’t count, I’m gonna laugh.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just like there to be a girl there too.”

The information weighs heavily on Dieter’s drug induced state of mind. He finds himself beginning to laugh. “Wait a minute, are you trying to talk me into a threesome? Is that what this is? Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson? That’s what the wine is about, isn’t it?” He points to the bottle in question, and everything suddenly seems much too funny.

Dustin begins laughing too. “No! The wine was for something. I just couldn’t figure out what”

Dieter ignores him. “Your…your wife hates me,” he manages to hiccup out, “And mine? She—“ She hates me too. This thought makes the laughing come to a slow halt. That’s right. She hates him too.

“I bet she’d do it,” Dustin supplies, soft chuckles still emitting from him. “They can surprise you like that sometimes.”

Dieter shakes his head, his smile more soft, almost sad. “Not with me. I pissed her off. I was thinking I’d try with that waitress downstairs but she’s young and I’ll for sure hate myself for that later.”

“Don’t do that. Your wife really will hate you for that,” Dustin advises. “Take it from an expert. Just call her. Apologize.”

Dieter shakes his head. “That won’t work. It’ll just make her more mad when she realizes I’m high.”

Dustin considers this. “Maybe. I don’t know. Let’s go to her room. Do it in person.”

“You can’t go,” Dieter tells him evenly. It’s not often he’s the voice of reason — even less so when he’s high — and this dynamic is beginning to make him feel out of sorts. He wants to shut his eyes and sleep this off, but naturally — because he is who he is — he will follow this train of thought through with Dustin.

“Why not?” Dustin smiles widely, catching his stride in the conversation. He speaks more animatedly, bringing his hands into the mix for emphasis. “She doesn’t want to fight with you in front of me! And she can see we’ve made friends. That’s progress! She’ll like that.”

Dieter considers this. He does want to show you he’s sorry — really.

“You just want to fuck her,” he says to Dustin. He’s too high to be angry, even if he really wanted to be, but he is suspicious.

When Dustin doesn’t respond to that, Dieter narrows his eyes. “You do!” he accuses, acutely horrified by the idea.

Dustin looks at him, a smile playing across his lips. “C’mon, aren’t you a little curious to see what it’d be like?”

“No. And besides, even if I was, I don’t think she would. She’s not…I don’t know, I don't know how to explain it.” Dieter pinches up his face, stuck for the right words. “She’s not a prude by any means, but I don’t think she would.”

“Would you? If she did?”

Dieter doesn’t consider the question, only beats around it. “She wouldn’t. I know her.”

He watches as Dustin rises from the couch. “Let’s just go ask her.”

Dieter jumps up, feeling sobriety sneak up on him. “No!” he says, horrified.

But Dustin has snatched up his bottle of wine and began to make his way out into the corridor before Dieter can stop him.

So crumbles the olive branch.

—-

When you see Dustin standing at your door, holding up a bottle of wine with a goofy grin, you think it's a sign from the Heavens above. No more Dieter, that’s what it tells you. He’s ruined your life for a decade now and it’s a cause you’ve got to accept is a lost one. A new man is here and you’re lonely, and you didn’t even have to go search this one out. You smile, open the door a little wider.

But then you see Dieter shuffling down the corridor, brown eyes blown wide. Dustin looks over at him with a grin and you realize with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t what you imagined it was. You don’t know what it is, to be exact, but you’re sure it’s not right.

They look up to no good, with glazed eyes and Dustin’s too wide grin. You close your door just a smidge when Dieter shoulders to the front. He smiles apologetically, and you instinctively hold out a hand to keep him steady. But he’s steady, in no risk of tumbling forward. He puts his hands over yours before you quickly take it away. He looks stung but you don’t care.

“Hey kid,” he says sheepishly. His eyes seem to be asking you something - saying something - but you’ve long lost that way of communicating. You frown, slumping against the doorway.

“Make friends?” you ask, nodding back to Dustin.

Dustin nods his head, unaware or — more likely — too high to be aware. “He’s being a good boy,” he vouches.

“I’ve been good,” Dieter echoes. He tries another grin and that easy charm of his, but none of it works. You fold your arms over your chest.

“Listen, I’m a little tired and—“

“I’m sorry. I know what I did earlier was shitty. I don’t know why I do things like that. Don’t shut me out. Please.” Dieter pouts. The sincerity of his words punches you in the gut, and makes you angrier somehow. Like it’s mocking, even though you know it’s not. He seems to sense this and he continues talking. “I know I don’t own you like that. I had no right. None at all. And I’ve been meaning to say it to you all night. And I know you’re thinking ‘this prick is high.’ I am. I’m really high, and I can’t deny it, but I’m sorry too. I was sorry even before I got high. That’s why I got high.”

Dustin giggles behind Dieter. You look over, feeling pangs of annoyance for him too. Now that he’s not your knight in shining armor he’s just some asshole in kahoots with this asshole. “That’s terrible,” he huffs out. Dieter glares at him over his shoulder before you’ve got the chance.

“I’m sorry,” Dieter tells you again, pleadingly. You shake your head.

“You’re always sorry. That was always the problem.”

“I know! God, I know.”

“Ask her if she wants some weed,” Dustin whispers.

“And I suppose you smuggled that in?” you ask, straightening yourself up. You feel motherly, glowering at him like this. You want to wring his neck. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed fuck you, make you feel eternal and sexy. But no. Now you’re so matronly, standing there in your PJs, frowning so hard wrinkles are mapping their permanent home in the places your face creases.

He nods guiltily. “But you knew that! I’ve talked about it all week.”

“Yeah but—“ you wave your hands in the air. “It all adds up with you. It’s..”

“The little things,” he finishes sadly. “I know.”

“Why do you know so little if you know so much?”

Dustin coughs suggestively behind Dieter and Dieter turns around swiftly. “No,” he tells him sharply.

You furrow your eyebrows. “No, what?”

Dieter shakes his head dismissively and Dustin shrugs, looking around aimlessly. He’s trying hard to contain a laugh or a grin, you can tell. You hate that Dieter is making you a bitch in front of him. You could be fucking him for God’s sake, but you’re just annoyed.

“Go to bed,” you tell them.

“Well that’s the idea,” Dustin counters, his lips drawing upwards. Dieter looks pallid.

“It wasn’t,” he tells you. “I swear. I came here to stop him from asking!”

“Asking what?” you say, exasperated.

“For a threesome,” Dustin says simply, like it’s nothing at all. “Though I can see now that’s probably not in the cards. And it wasn’t really asking for one, just a hypothetical.”

You look over to Dieter. He looks down at the floor, like a kid in trouble. “Dieter,” you scold.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want him to ask. I told him—I said you wouldn’t. I didn’t even want to suggest it,” he mumbles helplessly. “That’s not what this was supposed to be at all, kid. I swear. I just wanted to say sorry and…I don’t know.”

You don’t know whether to believe him or not. “But you talked about it?”

“Hm?” Dieter raises an eyebrow.

“The threesome? You were talking about having one?”

“Yeah, but not like—it wasn’t locker room talk. Not really. He just started talking about it and asked if you would and I said no—“

“How do you know I would say no?” you huff. “You don’t know. You don’t know me.”

Dieter frowns. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah it is,” you nod. “I’m different now. I’m not the woman you dragged around all those years.”

“I never thought of you like that.”

“Well, still, yes,” you say, feeling angry and stung and in a desperate need to prove him wrong and spite him all in one go. It’s such an ugly feeling and it’s not right, but you can tell the words take him by surprise.

“Yes?…” he asks. “Listen, I get that you’re angry, but you don’t have to do this.”

“No I want to,” you say. “If that’s what you want, what he wants, I want it too. If that’s what you’ve come for, then you’ll get it.”

He shakes his head. “You’re angry and you’re not thinking straight. You’re…being mean. And you’re only going to piss yourself off more, I think, and then you’re going to be mad at me because I drove you to it.”

You shake your head. “No. I think I’m being quite nice. I’m standing here telling you I want you to fuck me. I want him to watch. I want him to fuck me and you to watch. Whatever perverse things you cooked up together, let’s do them. If you’re going to make me mad, then I’m asking that you have the decency to fuck me too.”

Dieter struggles to compute the information. You do too. You hate him. You love him. You are so high strung and pissed and you’d do anything to be touched. Let him prove himself, goddamnit, or let him be damned jealous. Either way, you get fucked. Everyone's a winner or only you are. You don’t give a shit.

Dustin seems altogether pleased by this, clapping a hand onto Dieter’s shoulder. “I told him you might surprise him.”

“Mm hm,” you hum. You do not break eye contact with Dieter. He nods his head, resolving to trust you—or to go along with it. It doesn’t matter, just so long as he doesn’t question it.

When he steps forward, you put your hand up, blocking him. “First the weed.”

He lets out a soft sigh and stays put for a second, looking as though he wants to say something more. He’s wise enough not to in the end.

As he rounds the corner, heading back to his room, you finally glance back up at Dustin. He smiles softly. “You don’t have to do this,” he tells you. “I really was just to get some fire under his ass. I mean, I’m not against it, but if you’re just doing it because you’re pissed—“

You cut him off with a hard look. “I want to,” you say resolutely. “And I am pissed. So be it. Men start wars for less.” You shrug. He looks amused and you feel something arise in you, up alongside the anger — arousal. Desire. Something. He smiles handsomely. The grayish scruff on his cheeks bodes well with his aged features.

You do want to fuck him. That’s freeing information. Propping the door open wider with the kick of your foot, you nod him in. “C’mon. Get in here before I change my mind.”

The dichotomy between his laughter and the intensity of the fight you just had with Dieter makes you smile despite yourself.

“Wouldn’t want that,” he responds with a wink.

He brushes past you with his body and you fight the urge to suck in a shallow breath at the sudden casual contact. As he moves into the room, he pulls you away from the door with him, gripping at your shoulders. He doesn’t let you stay back and wait for Dieter like some lost puppy.

You look at him, eyes wide, and he hands you the wine in his hand. He is so unserious that it’d be plain endearing if it hadn’t been a source of annoyance a moment before. You watch as he wets his lips and looks down at yours. There seems to be a pregnant pause, eyes searching yours for an answer to an invisible question. You think of Dieter, of all the sex you’ve not had since the divorce, and how hurt he seemed when you pulled back from his touch. You love him so much. It isn’t fair. You will love him your whole life if you don’t stop this. You heed your mother’s warning too late and you kiss Dustin hard on the mouth. He takes some of your grief with a practiced tongue, kissing you deeply until you’re interrupted by a cough in the corner a few blurry moments later.

Dustin smiles, holding your face between his hands. “The weed,” he remarks. Dieter nods. He looks a little hurt, a little angry, a little betrayed—looks like he’s always made you feel, and you are not surprised it doesn’t make you feel any better.

You love him. You fool.

You shake Dustin off and Dieter hands you the joint with a forced grin. “It’s strong,” he warns softly as he lights the end. As you inhale, Dustin comes to stand behind you. Dieter’s eyes watch as his arms snake around you. He plants wet kisses alongside your neck and Dieter worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

Dieter reaches out to you, touches the wrist you’ve risen to put the joint in your mouth. His calloused fingers try to reach across burned bridges and you aid him, handing the joint back and reaching out to him too. His baggy sleep shirt is easy to take between your fingers. He takes a hit and then comes closer to you, pressing into you.

When he kisses you for the first time, you think of an ouroboros. Whole and eternal, destruction and rebirth. Your mother hates him when she once loved him. He knows your birthday and the way you like your coffee in the morning. You don’t know what he did yesterday. He doesn’t know your friend’s old cat died and that you’d been to two weddings before COVID hit. He tastes familiar and feels strange against you, unreal and vivid. You open your mouth and he slides in his tongue. The kiss isn’t like the one with Dustin; he does not explore you as much as he remembers you.

Dustin and Dieter pass the joint between them. When you feel the loss of warmth behind you, you turn curiously, detaching from Dieter’s lips. Dustin goes to abandon the joint on the table by the bed and Dieter’s hot mouth presses kisses alongside your neck. You wrap your fingers in his hair and you can't help but moan when he tongues alongside your jaw. Dustin’s eyes spark with delight at the sound.

You look down at the wine bottle still in your hand and hold it up. Dustin takes it from you, grinning. “I forgot to tell you it was my gift. I’ll open it. It’s good, aged to perfection,” he comments.

He searches your bedside for a glass and finds a crystal one beside the water vase that they gave you earlier that week. He looks down at the bottle in his hand and frowns. “Fuck, I forgot the wine opener.”

“Call the desk,” Dieter says against your skin.

You turn your head back and begin kissing him again, humming an agreement against his lips. Dustin shuffles behind you as you return completely to Dieter, your lips ghosting over his. He licks into your mouth and grasps at the back of your neck, keeping you attached to him as you begin the dance backwards to the bed.

The weed gives you a cloudy feeling, enhancing the warmth of his fingers and lips on your skin, but erasing any inhibition that would make you embarrassed to be doing it in front of another man. You like the idea of it, actually, that there’s some stranger - albeit a familiar one - standing somewhere in the room as Dieter’s fingers lift up your sleep shirt and dip beneath the hem of your underwear. Your ass presses against the edge of the bed and you feel his erection against your thigh. You moan carelessly, tugging at his hair, and he exhales into you, the line between pleasure and pain thin and delicate as he rushes to do what he’s afraid Dustin will get to first if he doesn’t.

Dustin hangs up the phone and looks at the two of you on the bed, a surge of desire filling him as he watches. You’ve got your legs open and Dieter’s got his hands down your underwear and he can see it all from this angle. You’re making delicious, breathy moans and Dieter’s arm muscles flex as he works them out of you. There’s a wet spot on your underwear and he wants nothing more than for Dieter to take them off so he can see more of you.

He watches a while longer, captivated by what makes you tick and what kind of a lover Dieter is. It's kinda like hotel porn that he’s had on repeat the past few days, but live. Before he can get out the request for Dieter to take your underwear off, or wait for the inevitability of it, there’s a knock on the door. He rushes to answer it, holding the door open only enough to take the glasses and the bottle opener. He mumbles a quick thanks before shutting the door on the confused worker.

Dieter enters you with a thick finger and you let out a loud uninhibited moan around his kiss. As Dustin attempts to open the wine he smiles, thinking of the young man who was just outside the door. He likes that you aren’t afraid; he’s always found that attractive in women.

“Here,” he says, pouring the pinkish liquid into three separate glasses. Neither of you look at him, so he repeats it again, this time with more command in his tone. You look so thoroughly kissed when you look up, red lipped and swollen, that it makes him ache, and Dieter’s wild haired annoyance is charming in its own way. He hands you both a glass and you take it with a shy smile. Dieter is less pleased, but takes it anyway with a soft ‘Thanks.’

Dustin watches as Dieter wipes your slick from his fingers with a pang of envy, swallowing down the wine. This isn’t something he’s made a habit of doing often— watching people fuck, threesomes — but he had felt that it wouldn’t have been right to do without Dieter. Truthfully, he had had every intention of going to your room by himself before he had peered into Dieter’s open door. The sight of him sitting there, staring up at the ceiling like he had been doing, inspired sympathy. He hadn’t been entirely truthful about that with Dieter, but what he’s learned over the years about sex is that some little white lies must be told sometimes.

A part of him feels guilty, knowing his own ex-wife lies somewhere in this hotel, probably brewing in her own anger. But he’s leaving her alone. That’s what she asked of him, isn’t it?

“So, any rules?” he asks, abandoning this train of thought before it crashes.

Dieter unwraps himself from you, sitting on the edge of the bed like you are, and shrugs his shoulders. You both look at each other. Dustin feels like an outsider, intruding on something too big and personal, but he doesn’t mind. A bit of self-flagellation mixed in with pleasure was always how he did his sex best, and there’s nothing quite like sleeping with two people very much in love during a pandemic.

“Dieter said you’ve never done this before,” he says, looking at you. “Is that true?”

You nod your head. “What do you mean by ‘rules?’”

“Well, I guess it’s a bit different because no one is with anyone here, but sometimes there will be requests people make to ensure no one gets their feelings hurt. For instance, you might not want me to cum inside of you or enter you at all. They’re for safety too—consent, boundaries.”

“I see.” You look down at your glass of wine, thinking. “I don’t really have any rules. Maybe just use condoms.”

“Are you sure?” Dieter whispers, tugging at your shirt sleeve. He leans in closer, says something Dustin can’t hear. You shake your head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t care if you do that,” you tell him. He seems surprised by your answer.

Dustin can’t help himself. “What’d you ask?”

Dieter shrugs his shoulders. “Just about how she feels about us.”

“Do you have any rules?” he asks.

“Don’t cum in her first.”

You look at Dieter quizzically and all he provides is a shrug that says nothing. Dustin nods his head. “That seems easy enough: condoms, don’t cum first.” He swallows down the rest of his wine and sets the glass aside.

You twirl the liquid around in your own glass, smiling faintly. “I can’t believe I’m gonna do this,” you say.

“Me either,” Dieter replies. He sits his glass, half finished, on the nightstand.

“I’m feeling high,” is your next sentence. Dieter seems to grimace.

“You’re in the wrong state of mind,” he tells you.

You shake your head. “No. I made up my mind before I got high. I want to be fucked,” you tell him, voice plain and even. “If you don’t want to fuck me, I’m sure I’ll be okay with just him.”

Dieter shakes his head adamantly, cheeks beginning to red. “I—I do want to. I always want to. I just want to make sure you’re not doing something you’re going to regret later.”

With a smile, you tell him teasingly, “I won’t regret it later. Not if you do it right.” You offer him a teasing wink that draws out his dimple. He leans forward and presses a chaste kiss on your lips, too romantic and sweet to be good for your soul.

You decide then that this will have to be less Dieter focused if you want to last. “Lay on the bed,” you say to him. He nods his head, prying off his house shoes. You look over to Dustin, who stands awkwardly at the head of the bed. He smiles again with that charming Hollywood grin that age hasn’t dimmed in the slightest, and you grin back. “I want to kiss you again,” you tell him directly.

“That can be arranged,” he says, dipping onto the bed.

Dieter lies back against the heap of pillows at the headboard, his knees spread apart to make a spot for you. Dustin guides you there slowly, his body pressing into yours until there’s nowhere left to go but into Dieter. He kisses you deeply, hands strong and warm and unfamiliar in an entirely exciting way as they bunch up the fabric of your sleep shirt and expand over your skin.

Dieter doesn’t touch you, even though he badly wants to. Part of it is heartbreak and disbelief, and the other part is erotic fascination—watching you come apart like this, at another angle, is undeniably doing something to him. You are so pliable under Dustin, so easy for him, like you’ve waited your entire life to be like this. Maybe you have. Maybe he never paid enough attention—maybe in all your thousand little, subtle ways you had once alluded that you’d like to be this way. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a prick, he could’ve made more rules, one like ‘Don’t enter her at all’ and ‘Don’t kiss him like that because I know once upon a time you kissed me like that and I screwed it up, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better husband. I’ll be a better friend, just don’t kiss him like that.’

But then again maybe not. That’s a mouthful and you’re high and he’s high. Maybe it would be just like this. It’s just that he loves you. It’s an odd kind of love, but it’s real. Dustin has his tongue down your throat, his exploratory fingers beneath the fabric of a sleep shirt, but Dieter loves you. The fool.

Blissfully you are unaware of the pity party Dieter throws for himself behind you. He is a body, a springboard for desire and heat, as you surrender yourself to lust the way you never really have before. You do draw up some comparisons, unable to help yourself.

Dustin is grittier, all command and surrender. He is an electric taste of the illicit, some faraway fantasy made palpable. Dieter is your ground zero, vivid and stormy. He is what yesterday was. You read somewhere once that when you have a child with a man, their genes have the ability to change your own. Though you and Dieter have no children, you feel like something irrevocable like that happened — that you carry a part of him in your genetic makeup. It doesn’t make Dustin worse for it. In fact, it makes him better, an exotic vaccine into your very tired bloodstream. You deserve it. You deserve it so much, and you practically beg for it, mewling as Dustin kisses his way down.

“I bet you taste like heaven,” he mumbles warmly into your skin, licking a teasing strip over your midriff. You watch, mouth agape, heart beating wildly in your chest. Dieter tilts your chin up, directing your attention towards him, feeling impossibly greedy now. He kisses you languidly, tonguing lolling gently against yours, making it lasts forever. Your mind is in a haze, the slow, sensual turn of your tongues lighting a fire in your belly as Dustin uses his own on you. He trails lower and lower, warm and wet, fingers drawing down your underwear and then—

“Fuck,” you say, gasping out the word. You surprise yourself. Dieter captures the word in his mouth and groans in soft appreciation. You glance down your body, your knees hanging loosely over Dustin’s shoulders, watching his warm tongue pressing against your clit. It’s a sight to behold, the way his pink tongue flattens over you. His large hands grip onto your legs, holding you apart as your back presses into Dieter’s front. You feel his semi-erection nudge into your back.

Dustin spends his time with you, teasing you lightly with his tongue at first, learning the careful intricacies of your body. As you run your hands through his unruly bed hair, the tip of his tongue dips into your opening experimentally. He looks up to you, blue-green eyes searching for approval. You buck against his face, desperate, full of want and drugs and something indescribable but undeniably exciting. Ambition. Want. Joy. You used to masturbate to this man. His nose grazes against your clit and he laughs as you struggle. It is warm and bubbly, and you feel it all the way down to your bones.

You tug his hair so hard that he sends another noise vibrating through you: a low, half pained, half aroused groan.

Dustin brings his mouth back to your clit, grazes it gently with his teeth. “Oh,” you say, your head drawing backward, falling into Dieter’s shoulder. He watches you, his dark eyes fixed. He presses his lips onto yours like time hasn’t changed anything. You bask in it, give yourself over to the fantasy with the ease he’s offering it—you kiss like lovers, familiar and intimate, an unformidable duo in sex where you weren’t in marriage.

Dieter doesn’t leave your lips as he says, “I never got to see this sort of thing from this point of view. You’re so goddamn pretty.”

His hands tease up your sides, fingers drawing closer to your chest. “Is he making you soaked? Just like I used to?” he asks, his voice a low drawl. You arch up, bringing your lips up to his. He slots his mouth over yours, pressing into you roughly as his fingers find a pebbled nipple through the cloth of your night shirt. As he scraps over the top of it with the pad of his thumb, you draw your eyes closed. The heady scent of Dieter surrounding you mixed with the intoxicating feel of Dustin pressed against your cunt is almost too much to bear. Almost. You moan against Dieter’s lips again as Dustin’s tongue works you, and Dieter smiles, nodding. “Oh baby, he’s gonna be like me. A pitiful, helpless fool for you. Aren’t you?” he says, looking down the valley of your body to the other man.

Dustin grunts wordlessly against you and your hips fail you again, pressing up into the vibration. Sensing this isn’t the end of lack of control, Dustin presses a hand against them, pinning you down. As he licks you open, spreads your folds with the warmth of his eager tongue, you feel on fire, the sensation reaching every part of your body. He’s good at that. He’s lapping and lapping, his strong nose meeting your clit at just the right time each time he comes up.

“He’s so fucking good,” you say helplessly, uncaring of who hears. The drugs make you uninhibited, looser. You meet Dustin’s eyes as he takes your clit into his mouth again. He is sucking lightly and you try to roll your hips into him, but he presses down, a silent no. “Fuck, you’re so—good at that. Oh my god.”

Dieter pinches your nipple between his fingers, humming softly at the sight before him. “You’re gonna make me jealous, baby.”

Dustin’s mouth grows more focused, intent. You feel your orgasm drawing up, coming closer and closer. You open your eyes, blown wide with desire, and focus on Dieter. He kisses you softly again, bringing his hand up to your other breast. Dustin sucks your clit into his mouth, his fingers digging into your soft flesh, and your hardened nipple scraps against the warmth of Dieter’s palm. It's all so right. You cum then, toes curling into the sheets, body going rigid beneath the touch of them both. Dustin doesn’t stop; he laps up your want greedily and Dieter draws up his head to watch. His eyes darken, full of desire and what you assume is a begrudging respect.

After you’ve ridden out your orgasm on Dustin, Dieter huffs out a soft laugh. “He wants to fuck you,” he tells you, thumb swiping affectionately across your cheek. Dustin, unable to let that one go, presses a kiss to your inner thigh and muffles a laugh against your skin.

“Bravo, you’re so jealous it’s making you stupid. She knows that,” he says, nuzzling his face against your inner thigh. “Of course she knows that.”

“M’not jealous,” Dieter denies evenly. When he looks down at you, brown eyes too kind, you half believe him.

You break the eye contact and smile appreciatively down at the man between your legs. A finger you’d locked in his hair now swipes across the bottom of his shiny lips. He takes it into his mouth, wetting the pad, and you say, “You aren’t a very good team. I think it’s important to be a good team.”

Dieter places a hand on your arm, more of a phantom touch than a grip, but you know it’s a stroke of possessiveness. You glance back up at him, cupping his cheek in your palm. “Dieter likes men,” you tell Dustin, not looking away from Dieter. “He’s not playing nice now and I think it’s a shame because I bet you taste just like me right now. And I know—“ your gaze drops down to Dustin, your voice velvet “—how much this dearest ex-husband of mine likes the taste of me. Have you ever kissed another man, Dustin?”

Dustin bites at your bait, smirk growing wide as his body stalking up yours. “Of course. I looked like a God in the ‘90s. Everyone wanted me and I wanted everyone,” he jokes, his warm hands flattening against your torso. His legs rest behind your thighs as he sits upwards, and you can see the tent of his erection against his sleep shorts. The black of them does little to conceal the full outline, and you thrill at the idea that he’s probably not wearing any underwear beneath the fabric.

You’re not one for getting starstruck - not anymore, anyway, a Los Angeles resident for years and the ex-wife of a star - but the fact that you used to masturbate to this man in front of you is something you still can’t shake. It occupies your mind, the way you had rewinded scenes from his raunchy, made for tv erotica over and over. Even now, many years later, you can still picture it: his younger frame pressed behind a blond woman, fucking into her in haste, his hands all over her and his thrusts rough. It was incredible to you back then, placed in some seedy location like an alley. Public and animalistic—the stuff of paperback romance novels. You remember the way he tugged her shirt upwards, how in the heat of the moment he grasped at any part of her he could get. A black bra and a long skirt, the bra pushed askew, going higher and higher with each thrust, and the skirt gripped onto, used for leverage as he pushed into her from behind. The VHS that hosted the scene had been passed from friend to friend in your college days, until someone’s VCR had eaten it. You feel a bit excited to know you’ve got the real thing right here. You think about telling him.

But it’s not about you, not now; it’s about Dieter. You widen your legs, make room for the ‘90s heart throb to slip between your body and come closer to the man you’ve dedicated your life to. In this moment you can admit as much. Dieter’s got his cock pressed against your back, and you know he would do anything - anything - for you if you’d just ask. His love burns like a million suns and you’ll be Icarus in every lifetime. You fool. Kiss another man hard and seek penance in his presence behind you.

Dieter stiffens as Dustin presses closer and closer to him. You shift to accommodate them, moving your body up, guiding Dieter along. He holds you close like a shield but doesn’t protest when Dustin’s lips press into his.

Dustin tastes of earthy vineyards and you—like sweetened strawberry wine and the familiar palette of tangy and acidic that’s blessed Dieter’s tongue many times over. That’s it, he thinks with a smile against Dustin’s generous lips. That’s how you taste. He savors it like a wine connoisseur does his wine, running it over his tongue and thinking too long about how to describe it. It is so utterly you, it makes him yearn for another life.

He plunges his tongue so deeply into Dustin’s mouth, it threatens to gag them both. But it doesn’t. They’ve both got their party tricks, after all. Dieter’s kiss grows hungry and suddenly there’s no space between any of you. You are a perfectly molded puzzle, fingers on skin, in hair, tongues swiping against lips and chests, and there are deep guttural moans exposing what the erections do well to show.

You know Dieter wants this, can feel his evident excitement press into your back. You happily welcome the warmth of Dustin’s firm body pressing impossibly close to yours. Dieter wets his bottom lip and squeezes you reassuringly, a habit from other life slipping into this new one.

You alternate kissing one another, creating a new taste on your warm, eager tongues. It is perfect. Dustin’s hands gingerly fumble over your chest, not focused or intent but curious, and Dieter’s allow it. The possessiveness has translated into something entirely more agreeable, and these men work together like lovers.

Your fingers grip at Dustin’s muscular shoulders, trail lower and lower over the slope of his chest down to the dip above his shorts. The path is slow and arduous to your lust riddled brain. He grunts against your collarbone, his hot breath fanning over you, and you go lower still, taking the shorts with you.

Dieter’s eyes trail the same place yours do, his chin tucked into your neck; you share the same view of Dustin: the red weeping head of his cock as it bops against his toned stomach, eager to be touched and licked and surrounded. Dustin sighs hotly against you as you press against him - against it - and Dieter swipes his tongue behind your ear. It is heaven, the way Dieter and Dustin feel against you, combined like this. You want them both. You need them.

You wrap your hands in Dieter’s curls, let him support your body as it rubs frantically over Dustin’s. Dieter peppers kisses alongside your neck and whispers, “God, you’re so fucking hot. God, I was so fucking lucky—“

The rest of it is lost against the shell of your earlobe. Some things - even the kindest, most genuine things - are better left unsaid.

Dustin emits soft, urgent moans as his cock catches between your bodies. The tempo of your shared thrusts grows quick, more focused, and he is close, on the very brink of letting go. You knit your brows, watch curiously and excitedly as he draws closer. You think of it: A hot spurt, just for you. Dieter holds up your sleep shirt, seeming to expect the same.

But then Dustin stops, his thick fingers rough and tight against your skin as he stills your movements. In the morning you’ll be bruised, a thought that thrills you. “Not yet,” is what he says in explanation, leaning his forehead against yours.

Dieter laughs softly, some terrible joke about bad endurance dying before it rises to be heard. He’s on his best behavior. Dustin tastes of you, of him, and you’re all naked and you’re so happy, so pliant. You lean against him like he’s someone you can lean on, and he swallows the serenity of that thought silently. Dieter is a half guilt, a perpetual bleeding heart, and you are his salvation. He knows it doesn’t work like that, can’t, but sex is not about what is real and logical. That’s why you were always so fucking good at it; it was beyond the both of you, and somehow a language you spoke best together.

He should feel worse about Dustin. Perhaps it’s because you want it so bad, or maybe it’s because he’s so horny, but the inclusion of him feels less intrusive than before. This is not your marriage bed - it’s been lost to the cruel seas of time - but it feels like a union, and Dustin plays a curious part. Not the voyeuristic onlooker, but the active participant, his glistening cock hot and heavy against your beautiful stomach. It should make Dieter sick. It did, thirty minutes ago. But now it makes him hard, wets his mouth. The bastard is good looking.

What can he say - you have always had good taste.

You turn your head and lick into Dieter’s mouth, redirecting your attention. He turns you between their bodies, pressing you into him as he kisses you feverishly. Dustin assists him, holding you against his body like Dieter had been doing before, only upwards. Dieter draws back and lifts the cotton sleep shirt over your head. He takes advantage like Dustin hadn’t been smart enough to, wetting your nipple with his warm mouth and tweaking the other between his fingers. You squirm, pressing your hot cunt against his stomach. He feels too clothed suddenly, having been denied contact because layers. You help him take off his shirt and Dustin helps you take off his pants. You waste no time wrapping your hot hand around him and tugging loosely.

His mouth finds your nipple again and you wrap your fingers into his unruly hair, jerking him off slowly as he kisses and sucks at your bare chest. He knows you’re already dripping, seen it on Dustin’s glossy lips when he got done with you, but this is his body remembering you and he can't stop. He remembers the way you got when he licked at you like you were the last scraps of his final meal on earth. How desperate and needy you became, just as desperate and needy as him. His hand travels down your stomach, straight down to your cunt, and he palms the wet heat of you into his hand. Dieter relishes the way you gasp into his mouth as the heel of his hand finds your clit, a smirk on his lips and a sentence like, “That’s it, baby,” coming out against you.

He fingers your entrance teasingly and finds you devastatingly wet. This is heaven, he thinks, the wet stickiness of you on the pad of his finger and your hot breath on his lips. You dig your nails into his shoulder, shut your eyes against the sensation of one of his fingers entering you. Dieter is ground zero. In your Garden of Eden, Dieter was there, at once Adam and the serpent. This is the apple. How delicious it is to be fucked, how perfectly human. Of course they’d turn on God for this. Cover up with leaves and be terrified of the whole earth later. Bleed and cry. Divorce. Whatever. This is worth turning back on perfection for. Poor Eve. Poor you.

You rub yourself against his hand and Dustin takes one of your breasts into his hand, watching. Dieter is so focused on the squelch of your juices and the way his finger - fingers now, two, and you stretch so perfectly for him - enters you that he doesn’t even mind. You’re no pissing contest, he sees that now—you're the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He swallows your moans and tries his best not to cum. Your grasp on his cock is so loose and it’d be so embarrassing to cum on your stomach when the tugs are nothing, and besides this is about you. So he focuses on trying not to.

“Condom,” you mutter, your lips landing on the side of Dieter’s mouth. Dieter nods his head but doesn’t pull back from you. He watches, enchanted, as your hips move against his hand. He can feel your orgasm build in the way you clench around his fingers, the penultimate pressure too much to bear. When you come, its with a shudder, your body tight and rigid above his as you ride it out. Dieter is so high and so in love with you, and he’s so sick about it that all he can do is laugh earnestly, even though what he wants is to ask you to marry him again.

Dustin is touching you all over with his hands, palming your perfect breasts, and you’re arching farther and farther back. Dieter can hardly bear the sight—not because of the jealousy—but because he’s deathly afraid this is it for him. You’re the best thing he’s ever had, and he knows he can’t think that way. You had a good run—you’re great friends now—but God, you married him in Vegas and you used to sketch his nose with careful affection onto canvases you kept for yourself. Who’s gonna sit in your studio now? Who’s gonna take up space in your heart, make you smile over the canvas as you work? He would weep if you didn’t look so pretty and sated, leaning into Dustin the way you are.

He kisses you hard on the mouth just to get rid of the thoughts, and then he kisses Dustin too, grabbing roughly at the back of his hair the way he hasn’t ever with you. It’s not kind, but Dustin doesn’t seem to mind; he moans gruffly, absorbing nothing but the desire behind it.

Your hands explore Dieter’s exposed skin as they kiss, warm and gentle, unconsciously fingering the scar he got as a child. You know the map of this body. When his hard cock bops against his stomach you take it in your hand again. Before he has time to think, you put him in your mouth.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against Dustin’s lips. They stop kissing, looking between them at the sight of you. Dustin is so considerate, so much better than Dieter has ever been. He moves aside your hair, kisses against the curve of your spine. All Dieter can do is think about not cumming. He feels bad about this, wishes he could gather enough strength to think about your hair and things like that. But your mouth is warm and you take him in with expertise, bobbing in a rhythm he wouldn't dare break. Up, down, the tip of your tongue running alongside a vein, back up again. He’ll cum like this. You look up at him through your eyelashes and he touches the top of your head with unspeakable tenderness. Cum, you beckon, but he won’t. Can’t.

Where is that goddamn condom? How can he make this last forever?

He pulls back from your lips smiling an apologetic grin when you at him, surprised. You seem to understand, a devilish little smirk playing across your glossy lips. He wants to kiss you, but even that feels dangerous right now. He thumbs your lips instead.

“Condoms,” he tells you softly. You nod your head.

“In my bag.” You point over to the corner of the room. Dieter pads off to get them.

Dustin’s hands sneak between your thighs and you sigh when he finds your entrance, the tip of a finger rubbing the spot Dieter abandoned. You’re so wet and you want it so badly. He presses his lips against your shoulder and you feel the heat of his breath against your goose pimpled flesh. As you loll your head against him, he slides a finger in. You scratch the back of his head and nod frantically.

“You’re so tight.” He nips your skin and then licks at you with a desperation you’ve only experienced in Dieter. You like being wanted this badly. You lift your hips and ride his finger, squeezing around him. So tight, right. He laughs and you feel that too. “You like being talked dirty to, don’t you? You’re being so good, riding my finger like this. I can’t wait to fuck you. To feel you around my cock like this. And I bet he’s thinking that too.”

You both look over to Dieter as he unwraps a found foil and takes out the condom. You sigh; Dustin’s thumb finds your swollen clit. “We’ve got to make him cum in you, but I don’t think you’ll find that hard. He wants you so bad. Look—“ You feel Dustin’s grin already across your back. “He’s so fucking hard for you. Just as hard as me.”

Dieter strokes himself through the protective sleeve as he watches the two of you. You feel the familiar sensation of heat spreading low in your belly. When Dustin dares to enter another finger into you, you gasp, feeling full and stretched and yet not full enough. He spreads his fingers inside you, preparing you. You tug at his hair and make eye contact with Dieter.

He smiles lopsidedly, suddenly boyish and more handsome than he’s ever been. You think he looks happy for you—so pleased that you’re pleased, with a glint in his eye. Maybe it’s the drugs. You don’t know. Maybe he is happy that you’re happy. He was always better at saying he loved you than he was at showing it, but you suspect that this is his showing you. Love. Maybe it spills over in divorce, just another cruel thing you’ve got to cope with.

When Dieter comes back, he presses a condom into Dustin’s thigh. You are at the edge of another orgasm, everything perfectly in place — the sensation of Dustin’s thumb, the way his breath hits your skin, the idea that Dieter is watching you—but he denies you it, interrupting. You go to protest, whine, but he doesn’t give you a chance.

Dustin’s fingers are still in you, on you, when Dieter leans down and presses his tongue flat against your clit, greedy with lust. He licks at you around Dustin’s fingers and it feels like too much. They seem to make an agreement, working you at the same time. You cum quickly and this one seems to go on for eternity. You squeeze Dieter’s shoulder. The other condom package falls loosely onto the bed as Dustin uses his hand to keep you steady, your knees weak from the pleasure.

You tug at Dieter’s hair to make him stop. Dustin seems to know instinctively, leaving you feeling empty when he takes his fingers away. His slick covered fingers rest on your hips as you tell them both, breathlessly, “I can’t do another one. It’s too much.”

Dieter shakes his head in protest but Dustin takes the information in stride. He’s too good at this, moves through the motions with ease, improvising quickly. He extends his slicked fingers to Dieter. Dieter, who has been so focused on you, looks at them quizzically, unsure of what they mean. Then he seems to get it, hard features smoothing out in realization.

He looks at Dustin, and it’s not like with you. He's focused, not icy or angry but so intent. It’s not a loveless gaze, per se, but it is devoid of love; filled not with something warm but something hot.

Dustin’s cock presses into the small of your back. As Dieter’s mouth wraps around his fingers, you feel a warm bead of pre-cum drip onto your skin. You bite at your lip. You’ve never seen Dieter with men before, and this new side of him excites you—like unlocking a new door in a house you’ve had for ages. He puts on a show for you, bobbing like you did on him. Dustin’s fingers seem to be an extension of yourself. You shudder as Dieter tongues along them, and Dustin rubs himself helplessly against your backside.

“I want to see what you’re like with men,” you say to Dieter, your voice barely a whisper. But Dieter hears you and his eyebrows perk in interest. This is a long unanswered question to something you’ve never been brave enough to ask. You’ve always known that he’s been interested in men — that he’s had sex with them — but you’ve never really questioned outright about what it was like. It felt equal parts too personal and hurtful; you didn’t want to know what it was like with other people before you. But everything seems different tonight. You want to know badly, like he’s got secrets that could be your salvation hidden in him.

You slip from between them, lying against the pillows. Before filling the space, Dieter looks over at you. His brown eyes implore you for a sign and you nod your head.

He’d asked you earlier, when Dustin asked about rules, if you’d be alright with them touching each other, maybe even entering one another. You hadn’t expected it to get to that, so it had been easy to say you didn’t mind. In fact, you had figured Dieter only said it as a means to scare you away from the idea. And now that the notion is not only on the horizon, but a reality, it comes just as easy to say yes—maybe even more so.

He stalls, hesitating, so you nod again, laughing. He smiles. Your ex-husband is a startlingly beautiful man like this, looking so openly vulnerable. He’s physically and emotionally naked and you’ve waited decades for it.

Dieter and Dustin kiss each other like men do, aggressive and dominating, neither willing to lose the good fight just yet. You feel your interest piqued, watching the way their fingers touch each other. How they tug and grip, search for purchase all over. Dieter is much rougher with Dustin than he’s ever chanced to be with you, with bruising kisses and bruising touches. When he grabs the man’s cock, it is with an ugly dedication, fast dry and quick tugs. Dustin hisses the first time but doesn’t protest. In fact, he thrusts his hips unashamedly into Dieter’s closed fist, licking into his mouth with a degree of delight. They tug at the back of each other’s heads of hair and eventually Dieter gives way, falling back to allow Dustin to mount him.

Dustin searches for the condom on the bed, his chest rising and falling heavily in an attempt to grasp at long denied air. You watch through heavy lids as he slides the latex onto himself. He’s circumcised, pink and swollen at the tip. Drips of pre-cum have made him all glossy and you bite your lip watching him struggle to line himself up. When he gets the latex down to his base, he smiles a satisfied smirk. He doesn’t look at you. If he notices you staring, he doesn’t mind at all. This is his favorite play, and he’s an actor after all.

Dieter’s knees knock apart to accommodate his frame—a body you’ve begun to notice with quiet admiration in your desire. He’s broad, much broader than he’d been in his youth, and he’s got muscle all over now, whereas before he’d been lean and lanky. He’s hard and tight and as he begins to rub himself against Dieter, you’re taken with the way his skin stretches over the plains of his back, his arms, his stomach. Dustin is in impeccable shape, perhaps one of the only men who can claim he’s doing better now than he was in his youth. Gone is the boyishness, replaced with a heady, sure masculinity.

Dieter seems to relinquish his fight happily now, soft growls emitting from his lips. Dustin presses down into him, and while most of what they’re doing is obscured by Dieter’s legs, you can imagine it well enough: the steady, erratic thrusts of Dustin’s cock rubbing against Dieter’s. There’s a sheen of sweat on them both and Dustin buries his head in Dieter’s neck. He licks at the places you had once, and it is nothing but erotic little huffs from them both.

“You’re…” Dustin begins, but falters off. He lifts himself up, repositions, bracketing Dieter’s head between his strong arms. Dieter’s eyes are pressed closed, his dark features etched with pleasure. All they do for a while is rub against each other. You feel like an intruder, like something stopping them from getting where they need to be. Maybe you are.

You dare to speak: “Aren’t you going to touch each other?”

Dieter looks startled. He’s red in the cheeks, the exertion of their movements and the heat of his desire making him flush. He taps Dustin on the arm, making the steady roll of his hips slow until suddenly it’s nothing. It’s all quiet for the first time in minutes.

They both look at you with intent eyes. But Dieter is the first to take charge. “You should fuck her,” he tells Dustin. Dieter looks at you, questioning.

“But—“ you protest. Dieter shakes his head.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Later.”

Dustin has no qualms about the interchanging of you and Dieter. You notice that he's notably gentler with you than he was with him, though. He crawls to you, kisses you chastely—as if testing the waters. There’s nothing necessarily erratic or rough about what he does to you. He looks between your spread legs and fingers at your entrance once more, circling the area teasingly. You groan in anticipation and his head falls to your chest. He takes a taut nipple into his mouth as he plunges his fingers inside of you, pushing them against your front wall. As you sigh heavily, he moves his wet mouth to the other nipple.

You turn your head, catch Dieter’s fixed gaze. He reaches out his hand and you lace your fingers together. He’s touching himself through his condom, stroking softly. You want to devour him.

Dustin takes his fingers from you, and you look back at him. Before you can plead for more he says, “I’m gonna enter you now.” You nod, wordless.

He gathers the slick from his fingers and coats his latex covered cock with it. As you squeeze Dieter’s hand, Dustin lines himself to your entrance. His kiss is soft, barely a kiss at all, and he enters you, inch by careful inch. He feels so overwhelmingly right, snug, puncturing something decidedly primal inside of you when he bottoms out.

“Oh, fuck,” you groan hotly against his shoulder. He manages a small laugh, running his lips against your cheek. “Go hard,” you ask. He hasn’t moved yet, stays still inside of you. You think of the way he was with Dieter.

“I don’t know if I can. I think I’ll…” He swallows. “I know I’ll cum.”

“Please,” you beg. You dig crescent shaped nail marks into ass and he smiles teasingly, running his warm tongue against your sensitive skin. He presses so intimately into you, your nipples scrap against his chest. It feels so good. Everything does.

“He said no,” he answers, looking up to meet your eyes.

“He’ll give me anything I want,” you say. Dieter’s fingers leave yours then, and you look over. You think you’ve made him mad but he’s only repositioning himself, coming closer to your bodies. He doesn’t say anything.

Some things are so true they don’t need to be confirmed. They just are. The sky is blue and people die, and Dieter is a man who will give you everything because he was once a man who gave you nothing.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dustin mumbles, finally drawing back. You nod your head, encouraging, but he doesn’t go harder. He moves in the same way he did before, experimental and slow. When you look at him, imploring silently, he shakes his head. “But a rule is a rule, baby. ‘Sides, I think he’s making me get you ready. Your husband is a bit of a pervert. He’s touching himself, watching me stretch you open with my cock.” Dustin presses his lips into yours. Against you, he mumbles, “Did ya know he likes to watch? Bet he likes to hear too. You—“ Dustin pushes back into you, stopping himself, and the squelch of your juices adds to the effect. He smirks. “—You’ll get fucked. Just not by me. Not yet. Maybe I’ll fuck him while he fucks you. Maybe we’ll do it..” he grunts, bottoming out again, “We’ll do you together. You’re tight as hell, but I know we can get you wide. Couldn’t we?”

You feel Dieter’s fingers but can’t move your eyes away from Dustin’s. They’re greener like this, up close. Dieter trails a line over your body, and then up to Dustin’s, with a lone finger. Dustin turns to look at him and he smiles, nodding. They seem to work without words.

Dustin reaches down to grip the condom as he pulls out of you. You look over at Dieter, half angry and half amused that he could interrupt. You realize what they’re doing almost immediately. Dieter holds open your legs by pressing his palm against one of your knees, and Dustin shuffles, moving back to let Dieter take his place.

His cock probes against your entrance and he smiles down at you like a fool. “Hey,” he tells you evenly, half sober. You ache for him. You clench around nothing as he licks into your mouth.

“Hey,” you respond, overcome. Your fingers wrap around his arms and you notice that he’s got more muscle than before too.

“You want to be fucked?” Although he attempts to make this a question, it is more of a statement. You nod along anyway. He kisses you hard, rough like with Dustin, and he nearly enters you as he rubs himself greedily against your naked warmth, wetting himself with your slick.

“Yes. Hard, like you do with him,” you tell him. He smiles against your lips. You take his cock in your hand, so much more sure with him than anyone, and he slides into you. It feels like homecoming, wet and warm and familiar, your fingers digging into his skin and the smell of sex in the air. He does what you ask, his thrusts sharp, his hips snapping against your hips.

“Dieter,” you pant out, nodding your head. He kisses the side of your mouth sloppily and you smile the best you can. Where Dustin felt right, Dieter feels perfect. You feel like you touch the hem of eternity as he plunges into you with the intensity you requested, uninhibited and giving in the roughness.

He repositions you both in one expert movement, moving to his knees, pushing your hips farther up. This makes you let out a startled gasp; he hits you far deeper like this, his thumbs digging into the flesh on your hips with bruising intensity. You can’t kiss from this position, but it doesn’t matter. He fucks you. Really fucks you.

You see Dustin in the hazy peripheral. Lolling your head to the side, you focus on him. He stands at the side of the bed, smiles at you when you catch his eyes. With his cock standing out in front of him like that, he looks a bit unserious. If you weren’t so full of Dieter, perhaps you’d be amused by this. He doesn’t even touch himself. This makes you frown.

“D—Dieter,” you stammer out.

“Huh?” he grunts.

“Dustin.”

“Mm, what—what about him?”

“Let him fuck me too. Please.”

Dieter shakes his head. “No, you’re mine right now. You’re—“ he snaps into you roughly, the bed creaking. “I’ll suck him off. Or maybe—“ Dieter grunts again, “Maybe he’ll be smart and he’ll get behind me. And maybe he’ll—“ his head drops to your neck, and your head the next part through mumbles. “Maybe he’ll rub against me like he was doing before. But it doesn’t matter right now. Just think about you. It’s all for you.”

You close your eyes, nodding. That sounds fine. Great. Dieter’s finger gazes at your clit and you nod, your hand reaching out to hold his wrist. You always liked to feel the way his forearm moved as he did this to you.

“Cum for me and I’ll cum for you,” he says, and you feel it begin, the stirrings of another orgasm. You think of him, of the way he punctures his thrusts with grunts, how good he feels inside of you, bottoming out like this with measured fury. You like how rough he’s being, like never before. You like this side of Dieter. You like that there is more of Dieter to know.

When you cum, you call out his name. He swallows it, pressing his lips to yours. “Fuck, you’re such a good girl for me. You’ve always been.” He fucks faster into you, his own release on the horizon. You squeeze around him once, twice, and that’s it; he’s filling the condom up and he’s gasping earnestly, amazed and so goddamn in love. He kisses you on the mouth and it’s so genuine. You kiss him back, smiling like a newlywed.

“Dustin,” you say against Dieter’s lips, after a moment. Your chests are both heaving and you're drenched in a thin layer of sweat. He presses his forehead against yours and you smile. “Let me take care of him,” you tell him.

Dieter rolls off of you, collapsing into bed with a soft groan and saying nothing. You take a moment to recuperate, breathing in and out, letting the bliss of this moment wash over you.

“Come here,” you say to Dustin, patting the open space of the bed beside you. He listens, the bed dipping beneath his weight. It takes a lot of effort on your part, but you rise to your knees. You guide him onto his back and he helps you straddle him. For a moment, you just sit there on top of him, looking at him.

“I used to masturbate to you,” you finally admit. This makes him grin. Beneath your cunt, his erection jumps a little.

“Thanks,” he says. His hand palms one of your breasts again. “You don’t have to do anything to me. I can finish myself off if you want.”

You shake your head, grinning. “Didn’t you hear me? I used to masturbate to you. This is a dream.”

Another hand comes up to cup your other breasts. “Are you sure you don't feel too sore? He fucked you pretty good.” You begin to glide your cunt alongside his prominent erection. He sucks in a swallow breath. “Guess that’s a no.”

“That’s a no,” you confirm.

“Just let her fuck you,” Dieter tells him quietly. You smile over at him but he doesn’t see it; he’s too busy watching the way you move your hips over Dustin. Even with a flaccid penis and in a state of post-coital peace, you manage to get to him.

You ride Dustin quickly, grabbing onto his strong shoulders as he tongues your alongside chest, finding your nipples. He groans, the sensation vibrating throughout your body as you follow the motion his hands set for you. A fast up and down, your back arching, taking him in completely and then pushing back so far he nearly falls out.

Admittedly he does most of the work, your legs wobbly and your body tired. But it feels good. God, does it feel good. You like this, being with two men back to back, each of them taking turns. Dustin generously tries to get you to cum again, his fingers sliding between your bodies, but you stop him.

“It’s too much. Just this,” you tell him. You grind down on him to make him feel better about it, and he hums sympathetically around a mouthful of your breast.

You ride him less enthusiastically the closer he gets, both of you too tired and worn. He stops aiding you so much, kissing anywhere he can access: your jaw, your neck, the side of your mouth. He lets your body fall forward into his. It’s a sort of lazy fucking that you do, meeting halfway to create the sharp thrusts that push him closer to climax.

“Cum in me,” you tell him, voice silky against his ear. He knows how tired you are, feels it too. He gathers up the last of both of your strengths, rutting up into you with intent. As he cums, you ride him, curious, taking all he can give. Dieter is too sensitive, can’t stand to move when he cums, but Dustin nods, moaning against you. When it’s over, you collapse into him, hugging his sweaty body. He laughs against your warm skin.

“Thank you,” he tells you softly, so only you can hear. You nod. You lie on him like that for a moment, listening to the beat of his heart. Dieter watches you, his expression unreadable. But he doesn’t look faraway.

You reach out to him with your fingers and he smiles, coming to.

Dustin helps you off of him and you fall between them, sated and spent. He slides off his condom and reaches across your body. “You want me to take yours?” he asks Dieter. Dieter, no longer feeling jealous but merely tired, nods. He hands the man his condom and Dustin pads off to the bathroom. Dieter and you watch this, amused.

“I kinda understand what you see in him now,” he confesses, smiling. He interlocks your fingers and you let him.

“Thank you,” you say, ignoring his comment. You look over at him.

He nods, sincere. “Of course. I assume I did it right?”

“You did it right.”

“And you don’t regret it?”

You shake your head. “I don’t seem to regret you. Even though sometimes it’d be better if I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I love you.”

You kiss him chastely, even though you know you shouldn’t. “I know,” you tell him softly. “I love you too.”

“Like a friend?”

“No.”

“Like a husband?” he asks, testing the waters. You laugh. Dustin comes back from the bathroom.

“No. Something more than all of that.”

“I can handle that.”

You nod your head. “Me too,” you tell him.

The bed dips from the weight of Dustin once more, and you roll over to your side, cuddling into him. He passes a warm rag to Dieter and he accepts it, cleaning himself. He goes to hand it to you, but you shake your head.

“I’ll take a shower in a little. When I can walk.”

This earns a laugh from them both. Dustin reaches an arm around you, drawing you closer to his body. Dieter, surprisingly, doesn’t mind this; he curls up behind you, too, wrapping an arm around your waist. You’re all so close, and it’s nice. He thinks maybe they might be something to this sharing after all.

“I liked that,” you say to no one in particular.

Dustin hums, fingering trailing over your arm. “Enough to do it again?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I think the opportunity for this kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know about that. This is Hollywood, and they love sequels,” Dieter adds, smiling.

“Yeah,” Dustin nods, “That’s true.”

You close your eyes, smiling faintly. “A sequel, then, maybe,” you say tiredly.

In the morning, you do not regret any of it.

—-

A YEAR LATER.

SUBJECT: THREE’S COMPANY, BUT ONLY SOMETIMES from: [email protected]

I was at an art show the other day and I saw a painting with your name on it. The guy in it looked a little familiar (they told me it was an old painting, from nearly a decade ago, before you were both famous. Cute). I bought it, of course. Not that I’m in the habit of buying paintings from people I’ve slept with, but it was for charity and it looked good and I’ve got a new apartment that I’ve got to fill, so I thought why not? It cost a lot (good for you!) and because of that they let me wrangle an email address from them to tell you what a brilliant job you did. You did great. Very Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of you. Anyway, to the point: You weren’t at the premiere of the documentary with Dieter last month. He told me that it's because you don’t like that scene, and I don’t blame you. Neither do I. But I was wondering how you feel about commissioned paintings? And do you think that Dieter would like to come with you to deliver it if your opinion is positive? (He told me I had to ask you that myself, so I think he’d be happy to accompany you if the canvas is too big to carry by yourself). P.S. I’m asking you for sex–a sequel, as it were–but I really would like a painting, too. I’ll spend a lot (not for the sex, but the art. I guess for the sex too, if you’re into that). Love, D. Mulray.

—-

SUBJECT: HOPEFULLY NOT ROSEMARY’S BABY SITUATION to: [email protected], [email protected]

Sometimes I commission art work for people I like and sometimes I make an exception for those I don’t if they pay enough. I’m sure you fall somewhere in those categories, Dustin. But I must warn you: I won’t do dick drawings. I might do a vagina one if the inspiration strikes. I must admit I’ve never had a man ask me for sex over email. Kind of thrilling, like a retro sext but without any of the sexy parts. I’ve attached Dieter to this email for obvious transparency reasons. He says he’d gladly help me carry your canvas (figuratively and literally). P.S. It will cost you. For tax purposes, I hope you’ll let ‘it’ be the art.

—

from: [email protected] to: you, [email protected]

Who said divorce couldn’t be sexy?

---

Oh how I love this man!!!! 😍

seeded

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo & gn!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: no explicit smut but references to the following - tentacles, monster/alien fucking, cum inflation, mpreg, masturbation. also, pregnancy anxiety. word count: 979 summary: Dieter Bravo believes in aliens. Do you?

A/N: happy slightly early birthday to the gorgeous @sp00kymulderr for tomorrow - adore you 💛. in honour of you there is also a slight mention of just a touch because that lives rent free in my head.

for the @dieterbravobrainrotclub May drabble challenge - I make my own rules so I didn't include meet-cute (I accidentally wrote this, so I can't be blamed for excluding it) quote: "Do you believe in aliens?" trope: meet-cute follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics

"Do you believe in aliens?"

It wasn't the first time he'd asked you this question. It probably wouldn't be the last either, knowing him, and so you answer in the same way you did that very first time so long ago.

"Yes, Dee," you say, looking at him over your laptop screen, the ghost of his rammed summer calendar still burned into your retinas as he comes into focus. Due on a new set in a few weeks, and with his filming schedule just through this morning, you'd spent the last few hours scrambling to put his life together while yours chaotically whirls out of control, ignored, in the background.

Dieter, oblivious as ever to the state of your life, has shuffled into your direct line of sight with coffee cup in hand, robe open and soft belly on display.

"Right..." he starts, before drifting off to look down at his hands as a concerned look takes over his face.

"You have that dream again?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. It's a dream he has every few months, seems like he has for most of his life. You're about as familiar with it as he is by now. Dieter Bravo will dream of some kind of elaborate alien abduction, usually involving him being dragged up by a beam of light into some extraterrestrial spacecraft. Most often it's pretty benign - occasionally he'd be abducted and never seen again, once or twice it's been pretty gruesome, sometimes he even wakes up having thoroughly enjoyed himself. You can't quite work out what has happened this time though, as his face flicks between concerned and softly dazed.

"No," he says quickly.

"You're a shit liar, Dee."

Closing your laptop - you need the break anyway - you look at him, properly, and see his hand has moved from itching his stomach, to gently caressing it.

Oh no. No. Not this again.

"Dieter."

"Do you think I could be-"

"No, Dieter," you start, standing to approach him like you're approaching a skittish deer. "I don't think you're pregnant." - it sounds stupid to even say it out loud - "I believe in aliens, I do not believe you've been abducted, or probed, or inseminated. I think you had a very nice, or very horrible, dream and now you've woken up confused. Drink your coffee."

Dieter dutifully takes a slurp from the mug in his hand, nodding to you like he's holding onto your every word. Because sometimes, he does. Sometimes you rule Dieter Bravo's world, and he gladly lets you. Take that, alien overlords.

Another deep breath and Dieter's shoulders relax, falling from the tense position he'd held them in. He'd quite liked the idea of being impregnated by an otherworldly lifeform when you first met him. You'd been working for him for a few weeks and, perhaps regrettably, still hadn't established the boundaries you have now. After one of his more sedate parties, you sat with him giggling on his patio. Soon you were both agreeing that the deep sea was much more terrifying than deep space, and a three, two, one later you'd simultaneously exclaimed your belief in aliens. Dieter, naturally, took it one step further, and once you'd got onto the topic of tentacles you knew you were done for, even then. You learnt a lot about what Dieter Bravo would do given the chance to fuck an alien that night, and none of it sounded remotely romantic or sanitary. It barely sounded safe. You're not sure a human could even physically contain the amount of fluid he was talking about. Still, amongst the thoughts of all that mess you definitely stopped breathing at some point, and when he finally got up with a slap to his bare thighs you'd all but scurried home just to make yourself come to the thoughts he planted in your head. It was safe to say Dieter Bravo liked aliens.

"But what if I was," his hand comes to his stomach again, resting below his belly button as his eyes go wide. "I don't know what I'd do."

The worry on his face is almost funny. Almost, because you're the one who has to deal with it, and that makes it not very funny at all. For a moment, you have to humor him, tell him what he wants to hear so he calms down and leaves you alone, and that feels sillier than anything. Which is saying something. You've chased this man through the house, high out of his mind two minutes before a video interview, wearing nothing but a sock on his dick.

"You'd be fine, Dee. You have plenty of space for alien babies in this place. We could get a nanny too, and you can more than afford to take a little time off work. It'd be okay."

"You promise? You'd help?"

"Promise. I'll help look after your alien babies, Dee."

"Okay, cool, because I am not ready to be a mom."

He shuffles off again before you can say anything else, his shaggy head disappearing around a corner just before you hear him flop down on the couch in the other room. You don't need to see him to know exactly what he's doing right now. It's the same thing he does whenever he flops onto that couch. He'll put his coffee down and then scratch his balls a little before simply resting his hand there. Sometimes it devolves into something a little more handsy - the man can tease himself for hours - but sometimes he's comforted just holding his own balls for a little while. The issue always is, you never know which way it's going to go, so before he gets too distracted, you shout through to him from your little corner of his house.

"Hey, Dee?"

"Yeah?"

"Want me to get you a pregnancy test?"

---

God damn Lo! I feel like I went through so many different emotions with this. Giggling thinking about Sims 2 alien abductions and then felt like my heart was breaking with that ending?!

MAKE HER COME BACK!!! DIETER DESERVES LOVE 😭

please impregnate dieter

ok bye 💜👽🛸

fine 👽🛸 beam him up, boys.

propagation

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo x f!alien rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: dub/non-con (because alien abduction), alien impregnation, implied mpreg, anal sex (including rimming and fingering), tentacle (just one), belly bulge, alien gender includes humanoid alien ladies with shapeshifting tentacle dicks, spaceship bondage, light mind control. word count: 2.8k summary: He always knew their existence to be fact, but Dieter Bravo never considered their continued existence would one day rely on him.

A/N: seeded left me with too many thots, so I accidentally stayed up until 4am writing this, and finished it this morning, thanks to this comment of yours. I hope you're happy. I have very thoroughly impregnanted That Man™, with his own hypervirile sperm.

And for anyone curious, he was beamed up into the spaceship like a Sim.

tagging a few unfortunate people who have expressed interest in my little weirdo:

@sp00kymulderr @umnitsa @missredherring @thereaperisabitch @magpiepills

@pedge-page @max--phillips

Dieter has no clue how long he's been here. It could be minutes, it could be weeks. Time stopped meaning much of anything pretty quickly - that's how it goes when you're trussed up in a windowless room, strapped up by some extraterrestrial technology the likes of which he hadn't even seen imagined on the most bizarre of movie sets.

Logically, he knows he should be afraid. If there's one thing Dieter Bravo knows, it's to fear the unknown. But, some part deep inside him knew this to always be true. These things that have him existed long before he did and would go on to exist long after him too. Even deeper down he knows that what they're doing to him right now is to ensure that continued existence.

There's no other reason he can think of for being in a position like this.

Or stripped entirely naked.

And nothing else will quite explain the contraption currently strapped to his cock.

No amount of wiggling will dislodge it, and between the way his arms are strapped up and the way his hips are hoisted high in the air, his head left to dangle as it pleases, he doesn't think it's coming off anytime soon. It's a good thing he kind of likes it, even if it does make him feel a bit like a dairy cow.

In the minutes, hours, days, since he's been here, not a single soul has bothered to come in to see him. He didn't know if this damn tube that was pumping him was even okay to piss into, or where his next meal would come from. Realistically, he hadn't thought that he'd die here - it didn't feel like that kind of thing. Still, the fact remained that he hadn't seen a single living thing since the light took him and the floating feeling took over his body.

It was a floaty feeling, thanks to the position he's been kept in, that hasn't quite left him. Between that and his cock being relentlessly pumped without reprieve or release, he's starting to feel desperately lonely here, floating through space or wherever here is.

No sooner does he think it, when there's a hiss of mechanical doors behind him. Dieter opens his eyes - he'd closed them some time ago - and there she is, stalking towards him on two long legs, talking to him in a tongue he's never heard.

It's an unnatural voice. Somehow too high, and too low, and lilting, and rumbling all at once. It's the voice of a dream, one he's had before, except this time it's so very real. It wraps itself around him and lodges into his bones, vibrating sound through to his core until he's gasping and suddenly understanding everything.

This is a processing chamber. He is to be processed, bred, and released.

The newfound knowledge isn't exactly a relief, but he supposes the machine trying to milk his cock without letting him come just yet makes sense. The longer he teased himself, the more he had to give, and it seemed these lifeforms already knew that too.

She purrs, dark eyes bright and curious, and it sends a jolt to his cock, twitching and swelling in the grip of the machine. If he wasn't sure about coming before, now he's certain. He doesn't care who, or what they are. He just wants to burst, to give them every last drop he has, and to make a show of it for the alien thing standing behind him. She's beautiful. Her skin practically glitters, shimmers holographic, translucent, full of sunbeams and starlight. Her eyes trace him, examining every inch, before settling between his legs where his engorged cock hangs and his balls draw up in a desperate attempt to come.

But the machine still keeps him on the cusp of losing it.

Even when one elongated finger reaches out to stroke him, tracing down the seam of his sack, he can't come, and that's when he realizes it's her doing.

"Please. You can have it. All of it. Just please..." his voice sounds thick and just about as alien to his ears as hers did, but he knows she understands him.

He knows, because with a blip and a soft whine, he's being maneuvered in his restraints by some unseen force. With legs spread wider, and his shoulders pulled back, that ethereal voice hums through him again.

...Ready for processing...

It's her. Dieter can see her out of the corner of his eye as he twists in his restraints. But she's changed. Sort of.

She still looks effervescent - her skin shifting and fizzing under his gaze - but so much about her has expanded and grown. Her fingers have gotten longer, wider, the tips practically glowing with each throb of blood through her veins. She seems taller too, and broader, rounder, but he's struggling to work out what's a trick of the too-bright light and what's real. Fuck, everything feels so real.

Most of all what Dieter notices, and can't take his eyes off, is the swelling appendage between her legs that definitely wasn't there a moment ago. He'd almost mistake it for a cock, if it wasn't for the way it moved and writhed, as if a limb all on its own.

He should be scared. He knows he should. But he knows that all that's between him and coming is being processed, and he's quite liking the look of what that means.

Another tingle ripples through him, just as the cool weight of her drops down behind him.

...Commence lubrication...

Something slippery and long slides along his ass. It slips between his cheeks, wet and slick as it glides across his puckered hole, leaving trails across his skin. Dieter can't help the groan that leaves him. If this is lubrication, he can't wait for what comes next.

And then it slides inside, the slender tip breaching his asshole for a moment, feeling wetter than any tongue he's ever had there before. He can't help but twitch in his restraints, his legs trying desperately to give him momentum to rut into the air, to give him more friction so he can just come already.

Instead, he's held still by long fingers with too many knuckles. Fingers so long they wrap around his entire thigh, anchoring him in place. He's totally at the mercy if her and her tongue - because that's definitely what it is, even if the feeling of it swirling around his rim is more than a little different to the human tongues he was used to.

It probes into him deeper, and he groans in his restraints. The machine on his cock has stopped it's sucking, but it hasn't given up it's grip. He can't bust even if he wanted to, and he's starting to think she's never going to let him come.

He can feel it. The tongue slipping deeper, her mouth meeting the skin of his asshole, and the slick rush of liquid as it pours into his hole.

He's begging. He can hear it distantly coming from his own mouth, before the soft lullaby of her voice rings in his head and turns his bones to jelly.

But then she's gone. Her mouth unlatching from his ass, the tongue slipping from his hole, and the fizz of knowing is back in his head.

...Lubrication complete...

There's so much of it he can feel it dribble and bubble out of him, leaving gloopy trails down his thighs as he shudders in the bindings keeping him hoisted high.

He can see pools of it on the floor beneath him too, and more dripping in oily globs out of him as he shudders. No lube, or saliva, he's ever experienced is like this. Nothing has ever pumped so deep and felt so good.

...Commence dilation...

Fear.

Fear because he knows those words, but doesn't know what it means for him here and now, with his ass so he exposed to her and his cock at the mercy of the machine. Dieter tries in vain to move, to tuck his ass under so he's a little less exposed.

But it's no use.

The long fingers find his thighs again, and that voice echoes through his head, bringing him to calm as the tip of one throbbing finger strokes against the slick of his hole.

When it pushes in, the stretch feels no different to the toys he's used on his own ass, or the many people he's had fuck him before. It feels good. Incredible even. Each slight fuck of the finger into him coinciding with a deep throb in his asshole.

The bulbous tip of her finger pops in and out of him, drawing more moans out of him as his rim is stretched around the appendage.

When the thinks dilation isn't too bad, her other hand creeps up to his ass, pulling him apart and holding him open.

The stretch is deeper like this. And he's nodding his head, spurring her on to finger his ass more, to go deeper and curl just the way he loves until she's milking his prostate. He knows he can come like that. He doesn't need anything on his cock, he just needs some well practiced fingers in his ass, and he has a feeling this creature is extremely well practiced at this.

Deeper doesn't come, but the stretch does. It's the stretch of another of her thick tipped fingers being pushed into his hole. And when that pops past the resistance of his asshole, he yelps, his chin wobbling in a feeble sob. Dieter can't help but gyrate his hips. He's so desperate for more he's willing to risk those fingers pulling out and holding him in place.

Except they don't.

She lets him rut this time. He can feel the pleasant approval from her in his mind as he rocks himself in the air, fucking her fingers as deep as his shallow movements will allow.

Even when the fingers tug at him in opposite directions, he doesn't stop rocking. He feels so full and stretched, that he barely registers a third finger joining the others until it's too late.

He almost panics. Almost, because he's fairly certain at that same moment she tells him to calm, to relax, and he does. The tense muscles in his asshole give in to the fingers and let them in, all three fucking into him and stretching him beyond anything he's had before. Even a fourth, and final, finger doesn't draw response from him beyond a whimper and a sob, his hips still doing whatever they can to get the digits deeper.

...Dilation complete...

And then they're gone.

And he feels so empty.

"Please. Please you can't. Don't leave me like this, please. You've got to - I need to - please. Anything. I'll do anything."

Dieter knows he's babbling. Knows she might not even understand a word he's saying, mess that he is. But he doesn't care. He's never been so desperate in his life. He wants her fingers back, or her tongue, or even that terrifying thing writhing between her legs -

...Commence insemination...

He doesn't even hear it, even though it's right there inside of his brain, unavoidable. Dieter doesn't hear, because the moment the voice floats into his body, the slick tip of her cock, more like a tentacle than any penis he'd ever seen, slips easily inside of him.

It's immediately swelling and growing as it slips deeper. He can feel as he's stretched wider and wider around it, the whines that leave his chest turning more and more desperate with each throb of the thing plundering his hole. It's deeper than anything has ever been, he can feel it as it wriggles around through him, pushing aside organs and pulsing into the deepest parts of him. It's impossibly wide too, the deep stretch in his asshole unlike anything he's ever felt, even two cocks being no match for this thing she's wedged inside of him.

And the deeper it pushes, the wider it pulls him, the more he craves it, the more he needs something to anchor him down and ground him even as he floats along, hoisted in the air of a fucking spaceship to be bred by an alien creature.

Whoever his captor is, she's benevolent, and she gives him exactly what he wants. Her long hands wrapping themselves around his hips, finger tips pressing on the bulge in his belly, massaging him and drawing soft ah ah ah's from his mouth. She likes it when he makes noise, he can tell by the burst of approval tingling down his spine, like she's singing something beautiful to him as she destroys the very hole she just prepared.

When those same fingers trail down to his balls, the throbbing in their tips turning to frantic thrumming, vibrating his sack in her hand, he knows he's done for. The machine around his cock starts sucking in earnest, switched back on by some command unheard by Dieter. The tight grip it had around his base is gone, and all he can feel is relentless sucking, the buzzing along his balls, and the writhing tentacle cock deep in his guts, fucking the life out of him.

He feels higher than he's ever been, and before he knows it he's coming, his cock throbbing and pulsing in the tube that contains him, spilling out seemingly endlessly as the thing inside him writhes, pressing against his prostate and milking him for more and more and more.

He doesn't stop coming. It's still leaking out of him, his balls spent and drawn, but his cock red and throbbing and sore but still so drippy from the relentless onslaught in his asshole.

Around him everything whirrs to life. Lights flickering on control panels, sparkling across his vision. There's movement too, above and to the sides of him, but he can't move, doesn't even much care what's going on as he still twitches and comes and comes with her tentacock buried in him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck -"

There's pulsing. The gentle throb of her fingers was one thing, but the thing inside him is now pulsing so deep it stretches him wide as each pulse ripples from the base of her through to the tip, where he can feel it burst and fill him.

And with one final wave, the biggest yet, the thing inside him throbs and bursts once more before she releases a pained gasp. The fingers around his hips don't release, the throbbing in the tips of them so quick the vibrations are numbing his skin.

Dieter can hear it - actually hear it - her voice uttering some gibberish he doesn't understand, and the thrumming pulse of her fingers eases off, even if the depth of her cock does not.

...Processing...complete...

His own breaths are the only ones he can hear among the slow winding down of the machine around him. There's other sounds too, as his vision hazes and blurs. Snicks of tubes disconnecting, the hydraulic hiss of moving machinery, the soft steps of the alien behind him as she pulls away, and out of him, with one final gasp from both of them as the impossible length of the appendage she had buried in him finally comes free.

The machine unlatches from his cock without another sound, before collapsing into some hidden compartment in the floor. The panel lights switch themselves off, and his restraints fall slack. He can finally move again, twist to see her, even though all of him aches too much to ever want to move again.

But he does. Anything to see her one last time, because he knows in his bones that this is his last chance. He's never known it himself, but he's certain she looks how love feels. Even now as she reduces back down to something a little smaller, but nonetheless imposing, he can tell that that's what she is. And maybe it's her function, the draw of her electrifying skin. Maybe she looks this way to make processing easier. Still, looking at her, he already knows he'd do it again, if only to lay his eyes on the thing that looks so much like a love he's never known.

With a final look into those beautiful, endless eyes, he lets exhaustion take him, the last remnants of her voice flitting through his veins just as he succumbs to darkness.

...Thank you...

He dreams of a light so bright he's certain he can hear it, the harsh metallic glare of it buzzing through his ears, making them ring and his head spin.

But the light gives way to darkness as he wakes, and he sees the very same stars that took him, just as distant as they've ever been, and looking down to the city below from the hills, he sees stars there too, as close as they always are, and the ache taking deep and low in his belly is forgotten, if only until dawn breaks across the horizon.

---