u/throwsawaydev

It’s incredible how fast you can drive when the only thing in your head is the promise of someone’s body. My heart pounded every time I blew past a speed limit sign. The roads were a blur. I’m not even sure how I got home, only that I did, rubber squealing in the driveway as I slammed the shifter into park and bailed out before the engine finished shutting down.

Inside, the house was quiet. Too quiet. Mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which meant it was just us. I flew up the stairs two at a time, legs unsteady and jittery from the anticipation that had been building all afternoon. By the time I hit the landing, my palms were sweating. I hesitated for only half a breath outside the door before shoving it open without knocking.

Abby was perched at the edge of her bed, exactly the way she’d been in the photo that sent my brain into a tailspin just fifteen minutes prior. Face down, ass in the air, legs spread wide enough to practically form a straight line with her hips. She had her phone in one hand and the tail resting between her cheeks. The only difference was that now she was actually waiting for me, head tilted just enough to catch my entrance in the room.

She met my gaze and smirked, like she’d been expecting me to sprint home and do something desperate. “Well? This pussy’s not getting fucked by itself,” she said, as if she’d been reading over the script in my head.

My brain short-circuited. I don’t remember dropping my backpack, or peeling off my shirt, or even kicking my shoes away, but I do remember the static charge that ran from my scalp to my toes. The air in her room felt thick, humid, almost electric. I closed the gap between us and got on my knees behind her, hands shaking as I ran my palms up her thighs. She was already wet—embarrassingly so. The sweet-salty scent of her arousal filled my nose, and I buried my face between her ass cheeks, letting my tongue trace the rim of her plug.

She gasped, but it wasn’t a delicate sound. More like the noise someone makes when surprised by a cold shower: loud, urgent, a little bit angry and a lot turned on. I flicked my tongue around the base of her plug, tasting the subtle, plasticky tang of silicone before working my way down to her pussy. Abby was dripping, her folds shining in the afternoon light that spilled through her curtains. I licked a slow, deliberate stripe up her slit, pausing to swirl the tip of my tongue around her clit, gentle at first. She squirmed and pushed her hips back, grinding against my face like she was trying to suffocate me in her cunt.

“You’re such a fucking perv,” she said, breathless, voice muffled by the pillow she’d shoved her face into. Her words did something to me. I slid my tongue deeper, exploring every crease, every shiver that ran through her thighs. My hands wrapped around her hips to steady her, and my right hand wandered up to cup one of her tits, thumb and forefinger pinching her nipple. I twisted it, not gentle, and she let out a grunt that sounded like a warning and a request at the same time.

“Harder,” Abby muttered, her voice coming out ragged and needy. So I did. I tugged on her nipple, squeezing it until I could feel the flesh stiffen in my grip, then moved my mouth up to suck on the sensitive skin at the base of her spine. I left a sloppy trail of spit as I worked my way back down to her cunt, where I started lapping her again, this time with more pressure. Her ass jiggled with each movement, the tail twitching comically.

She moaned, long and low, the sound vibrating through the mattress. I glanced up at her in the mirror she put on my nightstand, I caught the look of disbelief on her face. Like she still couldn’t quite believe this was happening, or maybe couldn’t believe how much she liked it.

I got greedy. My tongue flattened against her clit, rubbing hard circles that made her knees buckle. She tried to hold herself up but eventually collapsed onto her elbows, ass still pointed square at my face. I took the opportunity to snake a finger between her thighs, gently probing the entrance of her pussy before slipping in. She clenched around me, greedy for contact, so I added another finger and curled them up, searching for the spot that would make her lose control.

Abby’s hips jerked in response. She started rocking back against me, chasing the pleasure. “Fuck, Brian, that’s—shit, don’t stop—” Her voice trailed off as she bit the pillow again, legs trembling. I kept the rhythm steady, working my tongue and fingers in tandem, and reached up with my left hand to play with the tail, giving it a little tug. The plug shifted in her ass, and she screamed—actually screamed, a sound so raw and involuntary I worried, briefly, that the neighbors might hear.

“That’s it,” I said, voice low, almost a growl. “You like that?”

She nodded, face still buried in the pillow. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Do it again.”

I did. I pulled on the tail, twisting it gently, and flicked my tongue across her clit at the same time. She started babbling, words tumbling out so fast they barely formed sentences: “Shit, shit, fuck, keep going, don’t stop, I’m gonna—” The rest was lost in a shriek as she came, body convulsing, thighs squeezing around my head. She thrashed so hard I thought she might break the bed frame.

I kept my mouth on her, swallowing everything she gave me, not stopping until she was whimpering and twitching in overstimulation. I slowed down, giving her gentle, soothing licks while she caught her breath. The taste of her coated my tongue, sweet and tangy, a flavor I could’ve lived on for weeks.

Abby turned her head, hair sticking to her forehead with sweat, and grinned at me like the world’s most satisfied delinquent. “Didn’t think you had it in you, bro.”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and shrugged, heart pounding so hard I could barely hear her over the rush of blood in my ears. “You started it,” I said, only half-joking.

She laughed, a wild, unfiltered sound. “Yeah, and I’m gonna finish it. Get up here.”

I pulled myself up onto the bed, suddenly aware of how hard I was. My cock strained against the fabric of my boxers, already leaking. Abby twisted around to face me, eyes dark and daring. She reached out and grabbed the waistband, yanking it down with no ceremony. My dick popped free, throbbing with anticipation.

Abby bit her lip, ran her hand up the length of me, and gave it a firm squeeze. “Not bad,” she said, voice teasing. Then she scooted backwards, ass hanging off the edge of the bed, legs spread and feet planted wide. Her pussy was red and glistening, the tail still perched in her ass like a badge of honor. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

I planted my knees on the bed, lined up my cock with her slick entrance, and pushed forward slow, savoring every inch as she opened around me. Abby let out a ragged moan that broke halfway through like a singer missing a high note, and then she slammed her ass back against my hips, burying me to the hilt in one go. The heat of her nearly made my legs give out.

“That’s what I fucking needed,” Abby said, voice raw. She arched her back, grabbing onto the sheets for leverage, muscles straining. “Now turn my legs to jello, Brian. My pussy’s been throbbing all day.” The look she gave me in the mirror was pure challenge.

I gripped her hips tight enough to leave marks and started to thrust, slow at first, then faster. Every time I pulled back, she tried to follow, not letting me out of her for more than a split second before she forced me back in. It was like she couldn’t get enough, like she’d been starving for this and now she was going to devour me whole.

With every stroke, Abby chanted “Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck,” the curse rising in pitch and urgency until it became a soundtrack to our bodies colliding. The sound of skin slapping, the creak of the bed, her voice getting hoarser. it all built into a noise I could feel in my bones.

I leaned forward, putting my weight into her, and reached up to grab the base of the tail plug. I twisted it just slightly, watching her reaction in the mirror. Abby’s eyes rolled back, mouth dropping open in shock at the new sensation.

“Holy shit,” she gasped. “Play with my tail while you fuck me.” So I did. Every time I drove into her, I gave the tail a little tug or a twist. Abby’s whole body went taut, like she was strung up on wires. I told her, “Clench and hold onto your tail. Show me how tight you can squeeze.” Her pussy gripped my cock so hard it felt like she was milking me for every drop of pleasure I could give her.

Abby whimpered, “That’s it, that’s fucking insane! do it again!” I obliged, tugging the tail at the exact moment I thrust deep. She lost control, slamming her fist into the mattress and cursing under her breath.

We kept up that pace for what felt like forever, time stretching out as the pleasure built. At one point I thought I might lose it right then, but I forced myself to slow down, savoring the feeling of Abby wrapped around me, the noises she made, the way she looked back at me in the mirror, eyes glazed, lips parted, sweat beading on her skin.

She must have sensed I was getting close, because she suddenly shifted and barked, “Wait—flip me over. I want to see you when you fuck me.”

I pulled out and, for a second, just admired the sight of her: hair wild, cheeks flushed, body trembling with anticipation. Abby rolled onto her back, spreading her legs without hesitation. The tail plug still jutted from her ass, making her look even filthier. I hooked my hands under her knees and pulled her to the edge of the bed so her ass just barely hung off. Then I lifted her legs up, resting them on my left shoulder, and pressed myself back into her soaking heat.

The new angle made her pussy clamp down even tighter. Abby screamed, louder this time, her nails raking across her own belly as she tried to grab onto something, anything, to ground herself. “Harder,” she begged, her voice almost a sob. “Fucking split me open.”

I obliged, slamming into her with everything I had. My balls slapped against her ass, the plug bobbing up and down with every thrust. Abby never stopped making noise. Every movement, every shift, sent her into a new chorus of “God, yes, yes, right there, don’t fucking stop.”

I shifted my grip, grabbing her left thigh with both hands and using it for leverage, fucking her even deeper. The sounds of our bodies crashing together filled the room, the wet slap and the guttural moans bouncing off the drywall. Abby looked up at me, eyes glassy with tears she probably didn’t even notice. She reached between her legs, fingers searching for her clit, and started rubbing fast and hard.

The look on her face—equal parts pain and bliss—sent me right to the edge. My brain couldn’t process anything except the sensation of her pussy pulsing around my cock, the visual of her working herself, and the echo of her filthy words ricocheting in my skull.

She kept her legs high, her toes curling in the air, back arched off the mattress. Every time I thrust in, she met me halfway, her hips bucking up with almost animalistic need. I watched the muscles in her thighs tense and shudder, saw the outline of my cock moving under the skin of her lower belly. The tail bobbed in time with the rhythm, a constant reminder of how fucked up—and perfect—this all was.

Abby never lost eye contact, even as she rubbed herself to the brink. “Gonna cum again,” she warned, voice shaky. “Don’t stop, Brian, don’t fucking stop…”

I didn’t. I kept the pace, kept pounding into her, my own orgasm coiling up inside me like a live wire. I felt the first spasm of her climax before she even made a sound. Her pussy squeezed around me like a vise, and then she screamed, full-body, not holding back at all. She squirted, an actual stream splashing between us, and the shock of it sent me right over the edge.

But I wasn’t done yet. I kept going, riding out her orgasm with hard, deep thrusts. She shook all over, spasming with each movement, her legs trying to close around my waist but unable to resist the force of my hips. The pleasure was too much, almost painful, but neither of us wanted it to stop.

“Holy fuck,” Abby gasped, her voice hoarse and nearly gone. She let go of her clit and reached up to grab my arm, nails biting into my skin. “I love your cock, oh god, I love it.”

I kept pounding her, desperate to drag out the moment as long as possible. Her pussy trying to milk every drop from me, the feeling so intense I thought I might black out. I locked eyes with her, saw the twisted smile on her face, the satisfaction and insanity mixed together.

Eventually the pace slowed, the world narrowing down to the sound of our breathing and the lingering tremors in my legs. Abby looked up at me, her smile lazy and content. “You killed me,” she said, voice a rasp. “I can’t move.”

I slid out of her slowly, not wanting to lose the connection just yet. My cock was soaked, smeared with her cum, and the sight of it made Abby giggle deliriously.

She opened her legs wide and ran her fingers down her slit, showing off the mess we’d made. “Look what you did,” she said, laughing. “Bet you feel proud of yourself.”

I did. I really, really did.

For a long, slow minute, we just lay there. Abby’s legs draped over my lap, toes wiggling in the air, and her head lolling to the side with a satisfied smile. My cock was still half-hard, sticky with the combined evidence of our work, and every pulse of blood made me want to dive right back in.

At some point, I realized Abby’s feet were just inches from my face. They were pretty, in a tomboy sort of way—strong, not dainty, with chipped black polish on the toenails. I grabbed one of her ankles, feeling the heat radiate off her skin, and pressed her toes to my mouth. I didn’t think about it, didn’t plan; I just opened up and took her big toe between my lips.

The effect was immediate. Abby let out a bark of laughter, like she thought I was joking, but when I started sucking her toes for real she let her head fall back and moaned, “What the fuck? That’s filthy.”

I kept going, swirling my tongue around her toe and biting down gently, all while lining my cock back up with her pussy. She was still so wet that it slipped right back in, and the feeling of her clamping down on me—combined with the taste of her feet in my mouth—sent a shiver up my spine.

It was something neither of us had ever done before, and from Abby’s reaction, it might have been her new favorite. Her legs started to shake, toes curling against my tongue, and every time I thrust into her she pushed her foot harder against my face, like she wanted me to choke on it.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, her voice thick and breathless. “Please, just fuck me and suck my toes, okay?”

So I did. I alternated between her left and right, getting them slippery with spit, all the while pounding into her with enough force to shake the bed frame against the wall. Abby was losing it, her moans turning into whimpers, then outright screams as she clawed at her own tits and pinched her nipples.

It didn’t take long before she started squirting again, a messier, more desperate stream that splashed across my abs and pooled onto the sheets. The look on her face, utterly blissed-out, eyes rolled back and mouth open, made me want to fuck her until we both passed out.

I buried my cock in her, leaned forward to kiss her hard and messy, and felt her legs wrap around my back to pull me in closer. Our mouths mashed together, her tongue fighting mine, teeth clacking in the heat of it. The scent of sweat, sex, and her salty skin was overwhelming. For a second, I thought I might black out from the sensory overload.

We broke the kiss, both gasping for air. Abby stared up at me, eyes wild. “Eat me out while I’m like this. Please. I need you to.”

I didn’t even answer, just slid down the bed until my face was level with her pussy. I licked her clean, savoring the taste of her cum, my spit, and the faint hint of latex from the tail plug. Abby grabbed her legs behind the knees and held herself open for me, completely unashamed.

I worked my tongue everywhere: her clit, her slit, the crease where her thigh met her pussy. I started paying more attention to the plug, circling the silicone and giving it a playful spin. Abby started shuddering, hips canting up to meet me, hands fumbling for purchase on the sheets.

Then I got an idea. I gripped the tail with my right hand and began to work it back and forth, tugging ever so gently as I licked her. The plug shifted inside her with each movement, and the sound Abby made—a half-growl, half-plea—told me I was onto something.

“Take it out,” she begged. “I want to feel you there.”

I gave the plug a slow, twisting pull. It slid out with a wet pop, leaving her asshole gaping and twitching. The sight was obscene, beautiful, and I couldn’t resist leaning in to flick my tongue over the now-exposed hole. Abby shrieked, legs kicking, and grabbed my hair in both fists.

I spat on her asshole, then licked it again, using slow circles to relax her. Abby started chanting my name, “Brian, Brian, oh my god, you’re such a freak.” She was grinning like it was the best compliment she could give.

Once I was sure she was ready, I pushed a finger inside, feeling the tight, hot grip of her ass. Abby moaned so loud it made my ears ring. I slipped a second finger in, working them gently, and then pressed my cockhead up against her. The entrance offered some resistance, but Abby was already reaching back to guide me, desperate to be filled.

“Go slow,” she said, voice shaking. “But don’t stop. I want it all.”

I spat into my hand, slicked up my cock, and pushed the head against her asshole. This time, it slid in with shocking ease. The feeling was incredible—hot, tight, and completely different from her pussy. I took my time, letting her adjust to the stretch, then pressed in further. Abby’s entire body tensed, then relaxed as she took more of me.

“Holy shit,” she said, panting. “That’s amazing. I can feel you everywhere.”

I started moving, short shallow thrusts at first, then deeper as she loosened up. Abby reached down to rub her clit, and the combined sensation made her shake all over. Every time I bottomed out, she let out a satisfied whimper.

I kept one hand on her hip for leverage and the other on her lower back, pulling her against me with every stroke. The sounds coming from her were wild—guttural and broken, like she was being fucked out of her mind. I loved every second of it.

After a minute, I pulled her legs up so her knees touched her chest, giving me a better angle. I watched my cock disappear into her ass, the sight more arousing than anything I’d ever seen in a porn video. Abby grinned up at me, eyes glazed, and started talking absolute filth.

“Fill me up,” she begged. “Wreck my ass, Brian. I want to feel you in my stomach.”

I obliged, fucking her harder, her asshole gripping me tighter than I thought possible. She reached between her legs, rubbing her pussy furiously, and before I knew it she was cumming again. this time harder, her body going rigid and her ass squeezing my cock in rhythmic pulses.

Abby wasn’t done with me yet. She reached above her head, dug under the pillow, and came up with a clear silicone dildo I’d never seen before.

She twirled it in the air, then looked right at me, grinning. “Think you can handle me double?”

That was all the warning I got before she jammed the dildo into her own dripping pussy. Her eyes rolled back, and she let out a guttural groan. The sight of it…her ass stuffed with my cock, her pussy filled to the hilt by the toy, both holes stretched to their limit was enough to get me hard again in an instant.

Abby moaned incoherently, alternating between begging for more and just chanting my name. “Fuck, Brian, I want to feel so full. I want to feel you everywhere. Please don’t stop, I’m so close, I’m so fucking close.”

I took the invitation for what it was. I grabbed her thighs, yanked them higher, and started hammering my cock into her asshole with everything I had. Abby’s hands were a blur: one working the dildo in and out, the other rubbing frantic circles on her clit. She was sweating as hard as I was, drops running down her temples and pooling in the hollow of her throat.

Every thrust made the dildo in her pussy shudder and move, the visual more obscene than anything I could have imagined. I wanted to watch her break, to see how far I could take her. Abby’s noises became animalistic—grunting, growling, then suddenly howling as her orgasm hit her like a freight train.

She yanked the dildo out at the last second and aimed it up at her own face, a move so depraved it left me speechless. She squirted again, this time in a massive arc that hit my chest and chin, and the sight of it drove me right to the edge.

Her asshole clamped down on my cock with incredible force, making it impossible to pull out even if I’d wanted to. I leaned forward, putting my weight behind her legs, and kept thrusting as she spasmed beneath me, her body caught in one long, rolling climax.

“Cum in me,” Abby begged. “I want to feel it all night, I want to be leaking your cum in the morning, please, Brian, fill me up.”

The words triggered something primal. I buried myself as deep as possible, then let go, wave after wave of hot cum shooting into her ass. The pleasure was so intense it blanked out my vision for a few seconds.

We collapsed together, tangled and gasping. Abby was still giggling between moans, totally unashamed of the filth or the mess. “We’re fucking perverts,” she said, laughing. “I love it. I love you.”

I kissed her, not caring about the sweat and spit and everything else on our faces. “Love you too, Abs.”

We lay there for a long time, her head tucked under my chin, bodies cooling in the aftermath. Eventually, I slipped out of her, making sure to watch as a trickle of my cum oozed from her gaping asshole. Abby shivered and purred in satisfaction.

“Don’t even bother changing the sheets,” she said. “I want to remember this every time I wake up.”

We fell asleep like that, wrapped up in each other.

My alarm went off at 5:00 AM, which was at least two hours earlier than any self-respecting human should be awake. The noise was a synthetic klaxon, scientifically engineered to sound like a cross between a nuclear launch alert and a toddler’s temper tantrum. It vibrated the nightstand, rattled the Ikea lamp, and punched me square in the frontal lobe.

Abby’s response was immediate and violent. She rolled over, elbowed me in the ribs, and hissed, “Turn it off or get out of this bed, you fucking monster.”

She didn’t open her eyes. Didn’t need to. The menace in her voice did all the heavy lifting.

I fumbled for the phone, missed twice, and finally found the screen with my cheek. “It’s five,” I mumbled, mostly to myself but also as a sort of apology to the universe. “I have to go.”

“Don’t care,” Abby grunted, face already burrowing back into the pillow. “You are literally the worst part of my life right now.”

“Liar. I’m the only good part of your life right now.”

“i know,” she muttered, voice muffled by the pillow. “But I was having a dream about Chris Hemsworth eating a cheeseburger off my tits.”

“Please do not finish that sentence,” I said, which was a lie, because I kind of wanted to hear the rest.

She didn’t. She just gave me the finger without looking, and the blanket slipped a little lower down her back. The tan lines from Disney were still visible, a pale line across the top of her ass. I made a mental note to tell her later, maybe after she’d had coffee and the will to live had returned.

My gym shorts were on the floor, right where I’d dropped them yesterday. I found a mostly clean t-shirt on the dresser and tugged it over my head. It still smelled faintly of Abby’s shampoo, which was a thing I was never going to admit out loud, but I wore it anyway.

I tiptoed to the bathroom, partly to avoid waking Abby again, mostly to avoid stepping on the minefield of chargers, cups, and used Q-tips that had colonized the carpet on her side of the bed.

I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror. My hair looked like it had lost a fight with a ceiling fan, and my face was puffy in a way that made me look like the villain in a B-list crime drama. I splashed water on my face, hoping the shock would reset my features. It didn’t.

Downstairs, the kitchen was pitch dark except for the glow of the fridge. I grabbed my water bottle, dumped the previous day’s backwash into the sink, and filled it to the brim. Abby had rearranged the fridge magnets again; they now spelled out “BRIAN = HIMBO” in a crooked line above a photo of me at age thirteen, shirtless and holding a fish. I rolled my eyes and smiled, because she was right and we both knew it.

Next was the sacred ritual: the creatine shake. I opened the cabinet, found the half-empty tub and scooped a mountain of blue powder into my shaker. The dust clouded up, settling on the counter like radioactive fallout. I’d learned the hard way to never sniff the tub directly—two years ago, it had caused me to sneeze violently and spill blue dust all over my first MacBook. Abby still brought it up every time I bought a new supplement.

I shook the bottle until it threatened to explode, then unscrewed the cap and drank half in one go. It tasted like batteries and blue raspberry, but the caffeine kicked in by the time I was lacing my sneakers.

The house was silent. I stood in the entryway, water bottle in one hand, gym bag in the other, and took a moment to appreciate the weird, liminal peace of the hour. Mom and Greg wouldn’t be back until Sunday, and the only other living soul in the house was currently face-down in my pillow, dreaming of Australian actors and cheeseburgers.

I stepped outside, letting the door click shut behind me. The air was crisp and wet with the kind of dew that made your hair stand up straight. I popped the trunk, tossed the gym bag in, and slid behind the wheel.

The drive to the gym was twelve minutes, exactly. I hit every green light, because the only other people on the road at 5:07 in the morning were truckers and people even crazier than me. I played the same playlist I always did for early mornings—synthwave, something with enough BPM to keep my brain from drifting back into sleep mode.

I pulled into the gym parking lot\. A handful of other cars dotted the lot, most of them the same sedans and battered SUVs that showed up every morning. A sense of camaraderie, even if I never talked to these people except to grunt or nod in the locker room.

I chugged the rest of my creatine, made a face, and crunched the empty shaker into the cupholder.

Inside, the gym was a cathedral of LED lights and squeaky rubber flooring. The air smelled like sanitizer and old sweat, a combination that would have grossed me out anywhere else but here felt like home.

At the check-in desk, the overnight staffer gave me the nod. He was probably two years younger than me, maybe a year into college, with an air of defeated optimism that said he’d once dreamed of a better job than swiping keycards for minimum wage. He had a vape tucked behind his ear and was watching TikToks on mute.

“Morning,” I said.

He looked up, eyes glazed. “Hey, man.”

He then went back to TikTok.

I scanned in, walked through the glass doors, and the day officially began.

There were only a handful of people on the floor. Two old guys power walking on the treadmills. A lone woman in the free weights section, loading up a barbell like it had personally insulted her. In the far corner, a group of women in neon yoga gear were taking turns on the rowing machine, giggling in bursts loud enough to make the old guys shoot dirty looks over their shoulders.

I started with the treadmill, like always. Punched in my usual interval—eight miles, steady pace, finish with a two-minute sprint. I popped in my AirPods and queued up Book 5 of Battle Mage Farmer, the only audiobook series I could stand for early mornings. The narrator’s voice was soothing, familiar, and I let myself get absorbed as my feet found their rhythm.

Forty-ish minutes later, I’d sweated through my shirt and felt my brain unspool enough to handle the rest of the day. I wiped down the machine, ignoring the way the yoga girls were definitely not being subtle about watching. Abby said it was because I looked like “a jock’s jock,” but I had my own theory: people just liked seeing someone bigger than them sweat.

I moved to the rowing machine next, set up shop right in the line of sight of the neon crew, and went to work. The seat creaked under my weight, the flywheel whined, and I focused on perfect form.

By the time I finished, my shirt was plastered to my back, my lungs burned, and the women in the corner were definitely talking about me. I heard the words “unit” and “tree trunk,” which was good for the ego even if they were also probably laughing at my treadmill sweat stains.

I refilled my water bottle at the fountain, that’s when she showed up, standing just to my right, her own bottle in hand.

She was shorter than I’d thought, maybe five-five, with the compact build of someone who’d spent most of her teen years upside-down. She wore black leggings and a loose tank that said “Not A Morning Person” in block letters.

“Hey,” she said, with the confidence of someone who never gets rejected.

I blinked. “Uh, hi.”

“I’m Stephanie.” She stuck out her hand, then seemed to remember it was sweaty, and wiped it on her leggings. “Sorry. Kind of gross.”

I shook her hand anyway. “That’s, like, the least gross thing I’ve touched in this place.”

She grinned. “True. But you look like you just finished swimming in your clothes.”

“Eight miles, then row,” I said, realizing too late that I sounded like a humblebrag. “I’m training for a thing.”

“Yeah? What kind of thing?”

I thought about lying—say it was a 10K, or Tough Mudder—but something about her made me want to be honest.

“Mostly just trying to stay ahead of my metabolism,” I said. “If I stop moving, I become a sad potato in under a month.”

Stephanie laughed, and it was a real, unfiltered sound. “Same. If I stop, I lose all definition in, like, two days. Plus, I get cranky.” She took a drink, then glanced over at the group, who were now packing up their yoga mats. “My friends were talking about you. We have a running bet on how far you’d go before you collapse.”

“Am I winning?”

She sized me up, then nodded. “Yeah.”

I felt my face go red, but not from the workout. “Glad to be of service.”

She leaned in, conspiratorial. “You should see what they say about you in the locker room.”

We stood in silence for a moment, neither of us in a hurry to break it. Then she held out a slip of paper—actual paper, torn from a notebook, folded into a tiny square.

“If you ever want to do something other than run in place,” she said, “text me. Or don’t. Up to you.”

She pressed the square into my palm, turned, and walked away. Her ponytail bounced in time with her stride. At the door to the locker rooms, she looked back once, caught me staring, and winked.

I unfolded the note. It was a phone number, with a little doodle of a rowing machine beneath it. Underneath that, in all caps, “I’M NOT A MILF. YET.”

I grinned, slipped the note into my gym bag, and suddenly didn’t mind the sweat or the early hour or the fact that my legs felt like spaghetti.

I took my time in the shower, letting the hot water loosen the knots in my shoulders. I replayed the conversation in my head, trying to remember every detail, every inflection. Not because I was in love—hell, I barely knew her—but because it felt good to be wanted. Even if it was just a phone number on a scrap of paper.

By the time I left the gym, the sun was up, and the day felt a little less like a punishment and a little more like a fresh start.

I drove home with the windows down, the air blasting my still-damp skin, and wondered if Abby was still in bed or if she’d already turned the living room into a fortress of cereal bowls and phone chargers.

Either way, I was in a good mood.

It was going to be a weird day.

The drive home was a blur of sunlight, mid-morning radio, and the steady burn in my thighs from eight miles of abuse. I parked in the driveway and sat for a second, hands on the wheel, letting the residual endorphins work their magic.

I padded up the stairs, shoes in hand, and braced myself for the state of my bedroom. The door was open, just enough to reveal a tangle of bedsheets, pillows on the floor, and in the center of it all, Abby, sprawled out like she’d been shot by a sniper in her sleep.

She was completely naked. Not even a token t-shirt. Just a horizon of bare skin and the remnants of last night’s makeout session, which had ended with both of us half-undressed and asleep before eleven-thirty.

Then Abby rolled over, exposing even more of herself. She was so beautiful.

I tiptoed to the dresser, found a clean pair of boxer briefs, and slid them on as quietly as I could. Work clothes were easy—slacks, a blue oxford. I brushed my teeth with the speed of someone in a toothpaste commercial, rinsed my face, and did a quick check in the mirror.

I didn’t look like a disaster, which was progress.

On my way out, I paused by the bed. Abby’s hand had migrated to the empty spot where I’d slept, fingers curled like she was holding onto a ghost. I leaned down, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, and kissed her on the forehead.

She stirred, blinked up at me with sleep-heavy eyes. “Work already?” she mumbled.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “You want anything before I go?”

She yawned, stretching her arms over her head, which did nothing to conceal the rest of her. “Coffee and a Danish. And maybe send me one of your gym selfies. I miss you when you’re gone.”

I laughed, kissed her again, and promised to text her later.

The commute to the office was 90 minutes, give or take. Enough time to let my brain settle into work mode, to shift from the private world of Abby and me to the public world of office politics, emails, and the relentless grind of adulthood.

But as I merged onto the highway, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the rearview mirror. I was smiling. For no reason at all, except that the morning hadn’t sucked.

And I was already counting the hours until I could crawl back into bed with her.

Mondays at the office were always the same. Someone brought donuts, someone else tried to enforce a diet, and by 9:45, half the team was either sugared up or deep in the shame spiral of a carb crash. I floated somewhere in between, drinking black coffee and trying to look alert while my brain slowly rebooted from the weekend.

My desk was a corner unit near the window. The view wasn’t great—mostly HVAC units, a sliver of parking lot, and the back entrance to a Vietnamese restaurant that started prepping fish sauce by ten every morning. But the light was good, and nobody could sneak up on me while I was online shopping or checking Reddit.

I spent the first hour catching up on emails, answering a few urgent ones from the East Coast branch, and deleting approximately seven hundred “priority” tickets that had already been handled by the support team. The new manager, a woman with the energy of a step aerobics instructor on meth, popped by my desk twice to ask if I was “settling back in after vacation.” She used finger guns and said “touch base” so many times that I half-expected her to break into an improv warm-up.

At eleven, I joined the morning standup, which was more of a sit-down in the break room with ten other people and a box of the aforementioned donuts. We went around the circle, updating on projects, and I zoned out halfway through the discussion of onboarding protocol until I realized someone had asked me a question.

“Brian, you’re in the loop on the vendor changeover, right?” This from Tom, who had been at the company so long that the break room couch was rumored to have a permanent imprint of his ass.

“Yup,” I said. “I already reached out to IT to make sure we’re covered for the database migration. Should be seamless.”

Tom nodded like this was both reassuring and boring. He moved on to the next person, and I went back to thinking about nothing.

Around eleven-thirty, my phone buzzed.

Abby: how’s work going

I smiled at the screen, already feeling my day improve.

Me: soul-crushing and slow. how’s your morning?

Abby: watched three episodes of drag race, did not shower, currently eating cereal out of your “World of Warcraft” mug

Abby: also I’m naked. forgot to put on clothes after you left

Me: please do not get cereal on my sheets

Abby: no promises

There was a brief lull, during which I tried to focus on a spreadsheet. Then my phone buzzed again.

Abby: you said you’d send me a gym selfie

Me: I am in an office. would you like a spreadsheet selfie?

Abby: only if you’re naked

Me: HR would like a word

Abby: coward

The next text was a photo. Abby’s hand, between her legs, with the sheets pushed down just far enough to see the curve of her thigh and the tips of her fingers disappearing between them. The caption read:

Me too. thinking about your tongue

I nearly dropped my phone.

I looked around, made sure nobody was paying attention, and typed back:

Me: you are evil

Abby: i know

Abby: maybe if you were here i wouldn’t have to take matters into my own hands

Me: stop. i am at work

Abby: but you like it

She wasn’t wrong.

I tried to get back to the spreadsheet, but the blood had left my brain for other regions. I adjusted myself in the chair, tried to think about video games… or something, and instead started wondering what Abby would look like if she really was sprawled across my desk.

My phone buzzed again.

Abby: i was going to do laundry and think about dinner, but now i can’t stop thinking about you eating me out

Me: i’ll pick up dinner on the way home. laundry is optional

Abby: you know i like it when you boss me around

Me: abby

Abby: yes?

Me: stop

Abby: make me

This was spiraling fast, but I was powerless to resist. I found myself anticipating the next buzz of the phone, the next message, even as I tried to project an image of normalcy to the coworkers around me.

Fifteen minutes later, another text.

Abby: who’s stephanie, and why do you have her number?

It took me a second to remember. The brunette from the gym. The note. I’d left the slip of paper in my bag and must have forgotten about it.

Me: girl from the gym. she gave me her number after my run this morning. wanted me to text her

Abby: are you going to?

Me: no. i only like one unhinged woman in my life at a time

Abby: good answer. she’s skinnier than me but her ass isn’t as good

Me: so you’ve met?

Abby: kinda, she works at the salon. She seems like a thirsty ho

I laughed, drawing a look from the guy in the next cubicle over. I lowered my voice.

Me: you’re insane

Abby: i’m horny

Abby: and jealous, apparently

The next text was a photo of a crumpled piece of paper burning in the bathroom sink. The edges curled up, blackening, the phone number in blue ink still faintly visible. The caption: “problem solved.”

The next photo was of Abby, bent over the bathroom counter, taking the shot in the mirror so that her ass was front and center. There was something new, her tail plug sprouting from between her cheeks.

Caption: “turned on enough to ditch work and come home?”

I felt a surge of adrenaline, a need to leave the office immediately. Instead, I typed back:

Me: you are going to be the death of me

Abby: promise?

Me: get the plug ready. i’m going to ruin you tonight

Abby: we’ll see who ruins who

I took a deep breath, tried to finish my work. I got through maybe two lines of the spreadsheet before another text arrived.

Abby: not to be dramatic but i am dying

Abby: come home at lunch. please

There was a short video attached. Abby, on my bed, legs spread, fingers moving in and out, moaning my name.

Caption: “need you so bad. can’t wait til tonight”

I was out of my chair before I’d even processed it. I told my manager I was feeling sick…true, in a way and needed to head home to avoid infecting the rest of the office.

In the parking lot, I sat in my car, hands shaking, and watched the video again. And again.

I texted Abby: i just left. you have made a terrible mistake. i’m going to ruin you today

She replied before I even pressed in the ignition:

Bring it on. I’m waiting

The last thing I saw before I pulled out of the parking lot was another photo: Abby, on all fours, tail plug in, ass arched, pussy glistening in the light from the window.

Caption: “hurry”

We slept like the dead. When I finally blinked awake, the sun was leaking around the curtains and the resort AC had chilled the room to meat locker temperatures. Abby was sprawled across the king bed with the kind of complete abandon that only comes from twelve miles of walking, five pounds of sugar, and approximately three orgasms in one night. Her hair fanned out across the pillow in a tangled halo, her arm flopped over my chest, hand resting on the exact spot where I always started to sweat when I woke up.

I checked the clock: 7:34 AM, which was at least three hours later than we’d managed all week. Checkout was at eleven. The airport was maybe half an hour away if we didn’t get caught in Magical Express purgatory. This was it. Last day of the magic. Last day of Florida humidity and Mickey-shaped food and pretending the real world wasn’t waiting just outside the park gates.

For a moment I lay there and just... watched her. Abby’s lashes were long and dark against her cheeks. Her mouth, usually so quick and sharp, was slightly open, the hint of a drool trail glimmering at the corner of her lips. I wanted to take a photo. Not for Instagram. Not for Snapchat. Just for me, so I’d remember this version of her forever: peaceful, unguarded, so completely at home in my bed that it made my chest ache.

She woke up when I tried to extract my arm from under her. Not suddenly. More like a slow reboot, her eyes opening in increments as her brain went through the necessary diagnostics before allowing her to speak.

“You smell like cake,” she mumbled, nose scrunching as she sniffed my neck.

“That’s because you smeared it all over my body and then licked it off,” I said, careful to keep my voice down in case her head was about to start hurting.

She considered this. “Worth it. I’d do it again.”

We lay there for another minute, neither of us willing to be the first to leave the cocoon of the comforter. Abby curled closer, nuzzling my shoulder with her face. “Can we stay here forever?” she asked. “Like, just never leave. Pretend the real world is the gift shop and we’re trapped in here until the end of time.”

“I think it’s technically called squatting if we refuse to check out,” I said. “But I’m open to it if you are.”

“Good,” she said, and closed her eyes again.

But reality always wins. After ten minutes of faux-sleep, her bladder made itself known, and she slipped off to the bathroom, her naked form silhouetted in the dim light for a second before the door closed behind her. I got up too, digging around in my suitcase for a fresh pair of shorts and a t-shirt that hadn’t yet fallen victim to sunscreen stains or the faint, persistent smell of theme park water.

By the time I’d dressed and run a quick hand through my disaster of a hairstyle, Abby was back in the room, already half-dressed in one of the resort’s logo tees and a pair of athletic shorts that did absolutely nothing to disguise the curve of her ass. She tossed me a sideways look as she yanked a brush through her hair.

“I’m starving,” she announced. “Mickey waffles or bust.”

She made a face, but then she smiled and shook her head. “Let’s go, idiot. If we miss the waffles, I’m holding it against you for at least three months.”

The Pop Century food court was chaos. Even this early, it was a sea of screaming toddlers, zombie parents, and sunburned couples already fighting about FastPass reservations. We joined the queue, which snaked past every available breakfast display, and Abby spent the entire linewatch critiquing the outfits of the families ahead of us.

“Matching shirts,” she whispered, nodding toward a family in coordinated neon green. “Classic rookie mistake. They think it makes them look cute, but all it does is paint a target for every character handler and line photog in the park.”

“I dunno, I respect the commitment,” I whispered back. “At least they’re not the ‘Bride and Groom’ mouse ears couple.”

Abby shuddered. “Those people always fuck in the pool. Every time.”

When we finally got to the front, Abby ordered a triple-stack of Mickey waffles, extra whipped cream, and a side of bacon that could have fed a small army. I went with the Pop Tart French Toast, which looked like diabetes on a plate, but I’d already resigned myself to a weeklong cleanse when we got home.

We found a table near the window, next to a family who was already at DEFCON 3 over a spilled apple juice. Abby dug in immediately, spearing a waffle ear and dunking it in syrup before shoving it in her mouth. She closed her eyes, chewing with an expression that bordered on religious ecstasy.

“This is what I want for my last meal,” she said, voice muffled by waffle. “Not steak, not caviar, just this. Douse me in syrup and let me die happy.”

“I’ll put it in your will,” I promised, taking a bite of my French toast and nearly passing out from the sugar rush.

For the next twenty minutes, we people-watched and made up backstories for every person who walked past our table. The couple in full Disneybounding attire (“They’re YouTube famous, but only in Holland”); the group of teens who’d clearly snuck out of their hotel the night before (“Definitely just vaped for the first time and are now coming to terms with the existential weight of their choices”); the mom with the stroller so loaded down with bags that it looked like a siege engine (“She’s running from the law, obviously”).

Abby was in her element. She always had a gift for reading a crowd, dissecting group dynamics like she was part psychic, part gossip columnist. Every time she nailed a detail, she’d smirk at me and demand a bite of my breakfast as tribute.

By the time we finished eating, my head was buzzing from sugar and caffeine, and my body had accepted its fate as future compost. Abby licked the last trace of whipped cream from her fork, leaned back in her chair, and surveyed the carnage of the food court with the satisfaction of a conquering general.

“I’m ready to hit the gift shop,” she declared. “I need something to prove we survived this trip. Like a trophy. Or at least a sticker.”

We wandered into the shop, which was basically a Disney-fied version of a gas station minimart. Rows of plushes, racks of t-shirts, a whole wall dedicated to pins and lanyards. Abby made a beeline for the fridge magnets and started reading each one aloud, providing color commentary.

In the end, we settled on a Pop Century magnet shaped like a disco ball and a set of plastic resort cups that, according to Abby, were “essential for iced coffee emergencies.” I grabbed a pack of Goofy gummies for the plane, knowing Abby would steal them from me before we even hit the gate.

Back in the room, the air felt heavier. Less because of the Florida humidity, more because we both knew the trip was ending. Abby sat on the bed, swinging her feet over the edge, while I started to gather our things into two neat piles: clean clothes, and clothes that would never be the same again.

I zipped up the first suitcase, tossed Abby’s onto the bed beside her, and was about to start on mine when I saw it—the present from Mom. The small, silver-wrapped box with a blue ribbon, tucked in the front pocket of my backpack.

I picked it up. The box was so light I almost worried it was empty.

“Hey,” I said, nudging Abby with my knee. “There’s something I need to give you.”

She looked at the box, then at me. “What is it?”

“It’s from Mom,” I said. “She wanted me to give it to you on your birthday.”

Abby took the box. She didn’t open it right away, just turned it over in her hands a few times, like she was trying to x-ray the contents.

“Should I wait?” she asked. “Open it at home?”

I shook my head. “I think she wanted you to have it now.”

Abby nodded, fingers working the ribbon loose with surprising care. She slid the paper off in a single piece (classic Abby), then opened the small box inside.

Nestled in the cotton were a pair of earrings. Diamond studs, simple but elegant, the kind you could wear with anything. There was a note underneath, folded once and written on Mom’s distinctive, loopy stationery.

Abby picked up the note and read it silently, her eyes moving quickly down the page. As she read, her lips pressed together, and her thumb began to trace the edge of the box in slow, repetitive circles. I wanted to ask what it said, but something in her posture stopped me.

After a moment, she cleared her throat and handed the note to me.

I took it, unfolded the paper, and read:

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, talented, and amazing daughter.

These earrings were a present from your dad to your Aunt Jules. I’ve kept them all these years because I knew one day, I’d want to give them to you. After this week, and seeing you and your brother together, I feel like now is the right time. I want you to have something that reminds you that love isn’t always simple. Sometimes it breaks the rules. Sometimes it hurts. But it’s still worth fighting for.

No matter what happens, remember that I love you both unconditionally. I just want you both to be happy, with whomever your heart falls for.

Love,

Mom

I read it twice before I looked up at Abby. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. Not the crooked, sarcastic grin I’d expected, but something softer. Real.

“I guess we’re not as subtle as we thought,” she said, voice shaky but light.

I crossed the room and sat beside her, careful not to crush the earring box between us.

“She knows,” I said. “And she’s okay with it.”

“Yeah,” Abby said, her voice a whisper. “Yeah, she is.”

For a few seconds we just sat there, shoulder to shoulder, hands overlapping on the bedspread. The weight of the trip, the week, the whole weird, beautiful mess of our lives, seemed to settle around us like the faintest dusting of sugar on a Mickey waffle.

Then, slowly, Abby reached for the earrings, turned them over in her palm, and smiled again. “They’re perfect,” she said. “And so is this.”

I pressed my forehead to hers, closed my eyes, and breathed her in.

We had a few hours left. We had the rest of our lives.

After a while, Abby let go and wiped her eyes again. “I’m a mess,” she muttered, then managed a watery smile. “These waffles are coming right back up if I don’t get my shit together.”

“You look great,” I said, and meant it. The diamonds sparkled even in the weird hotel lighting.

She snorted. “Suck up.” But then she took the earrings and, without a word, started swapping them in for her usual studs. She did the left side first, careful and slow, then the right. When she was done, she turned to the mirror by the TV and angled her head a few different ways to see how they caught the light.

“They’re actually really nice,” Abby said, tilting her head this way and that. “Like, not the ‘oh my god I’m gonna get mugged’ level, but definitely ‘I have my life together’ nice.”

“Better than the ones from Claire’s you wore to homecoming?” I asked.

She threw a pillow at me, missing by a mile, but I could see she was already feeling better.

We spent the next half hour packing, the easy rhythm of stuffing dirty clothes into zippered cubes and debating which toiletries were worth salvaging. Every so often I’d catch Abby glancing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, touching the earrings, turning her head so they’d glint. She never said anything, but I could tell: the note had landed somewhere deep.

When the suitcases were zipped and stacked by the door, I glanced at my watch. 9:10 AM. Still two hours before checkout. Our flight wasn’t until late afternoon. We had time to kill.

“So,” I said, “do you want to check out that Character Warehouse store before we go? It’s supposed to be like a black market for retired Disney merch. Maybe we can find something with a demented Goofy on it for Mom.”

Abby perked up. “I thought you’d never ask. Also, you still owe me a birthday present.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean besides the thousands of dollars I spent on this trip?”

“That was for you too, you dork. You gotta buy me something at the warehouse, or the birthday gods will be mad.”

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Is so,” Abby said, her tone leaving no room for debate. “And you don’t want to piss off the birthday gods.”

I laughed, relishing the return of her normal attitude. “Fine. I’ll get you something at the store. But if it’s a Dole Whip scented candle, you’re not allowed to light it within a hundred feet of me.”

“Deal,” she said, already grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

I watched her for a second… my little sister, my girlfriend, my impossible, wonderful Abby, and felt the world slide back into focus. The trip wasn’t over. Not yet.

And if the birthday gods had anything to say about it, we still had a few good surprises left in store.

The Character Warehouse was thirty-five minutes and one absolutely unhinged Uber ride from the resort. Our driver, a guy who looked and sounded exactly like an off-brand John Cena, spent the entire trip giving us a running commentary on every single Disney cast member scandal of the last decade. By the time we rolled into the parking lot, I knew more about the secret underground tunnels, the “Costume-Only” policy, and the emotional toll of the Dapper Dans than any sane person should.

Abby tipped him five bucks for the entertainment. “That was better than Space Mountain,” she said as we climbed out. “I almost want to stay in the car and hear the end of the Club 33 story.”

“Trust me, you don’t,” I said, grabbing her hand and steering us toward the mall entrance. “Any club that secret definitely serves babies for brunch.”

Inside, the mall felt like every other Florida strip mall: pastel walls, neon signs, the faint, cloying scent of Auntie Anne’s wafting from somewhere down the corridor. The line for the Character Warehouse wasn’t terrible. Maybe twelve people, all with these black rolling carts and phone stands attached to the handles. Abby eyed the carts with the suspicion usually reserved for snake oil salesmen and Tinder matches who claimed to be “sapiosexual.”

“Who are these people?” she whispered, dropping her volume the closer we got.

I checked the first cart: bins labeled “Whatnot” The woman running it had a GoPro on her forehead and was live-streaming herself not moving in line. Next to her, a guy with neck tattoos was explaining to his chat how the “real money is in the limited drop spirit jerseys”

“They’re Disney resellers,” I said, remembering a Reddit thread about this exact phenomenon. “They buy all the discounted park stuff and flip it for double online. It’s like sneakerheads, but with mouse ears.”

Abby looked horrified, then fascinated, then just amused. “We’re at the very heart of late-stage capitalism, Brian. I feel honored. I feel dirty.”

She wasn’t wrong. The doors hadn’t even opened, but the resellers were already strategizing, pacing out their rolling carts, prepping phone batteries, comparing notes on the inventory through the glass windows. We had maybe fifteen minutes until the doors opened up. Abby immediately started ranking the resellers by probable “chaos factor.”

“Neck Tats is going to cut the line,” she said, “but not until he’s sure the girl in the white mini-backpack is distracted by the clearance pins. She’s an amateur. Watch out for her elbows.”

I love her, I thought, not for the first time this trip.

The doors opened with a mechanical thunk. The resellers rolled forward like an invading army, phones up, voices rising in a chorus of “We’re in, chat! We’re in!” Abby and I got swept along in the wake, her hand tight around mine, her eyes wide as the crowd funneled into the store’s narrow aisles.

It was madness. Shelves of Disney hoodies, buckets of clearance Funko Pops, wall after wall of sequined ears in every color ever manufactured. The resellers attacked in tactical formations, their carts forming a perimeter while they loaded up on “grails” (highly sought-after merch) and “mystery bags.” I saw one guy clear an entire bin of Baby Yoda plushies in under fifteen seconds.

“I feel like I’m in the Thunderdome,” Abby said. “Do we grab weapons, or do we go for supplies and try to outlast the horde?”

“Cardigans are on the far wall,” I said, spotting a rack of folded sweaters with a pattern that looked suspiciously like the EPCOT globe. “We make for the sweaters, then double back for snacks. Ready?”

She gave me a look of pure joy. “On your signal, Captain.”

We weaved through the chaos, dodging a woman who’d triple-parked her carts and was FaceTiming her mother for advice on which princess dolls to buy. Abby took the lead, using her natural height advantage and a wicked elbow jab to get us past a bottleneck near the T-shirt wall. She stopped only once: at a bin of heavily discounted Spirit Jerseys.

“These are thirty dollars,” she said, voice reverent. “That’s less than half of park price. What are we doing? Get in here.”

She pulled out a pale blue jersey with “Walt Disney World” stitched in rainbow across the back, held it up to her chest, and gave me a look that said, “If you don’t buy me this I will create a scene.”

“You’ll wear that once, max,” I said.

“I will wear it to your funeral,” Abby replied, “after you die from a heart attack caused by how hot I look in it.”

There was no arguing with that logic.

Abby found her way to the women’s section and immediately zeroed in on a cropped cream-colored cardigan with vintage Mickey on the front. “This,” she declared, “is my soul in sweater form. Also, look at these buttons. They’re actual little faces.”

I found a matching men’s cardigan in black, with subtle stripes and a small castle crest on the breast. I tried it on over my t-shirt, and even with the Florida heat I could tell it was quality. Abby took one look and nodded in approval.

“You look like a college professor who moonlights as a Disney villain,” she said.

“Compliment or insult?”

“Both. I want you to wear it while you make me coffee in the mornings.”

We cruised the rest of the store, picking up a couple of weird pins and a Haunted Mansion mug for Mom, who always claimed to “hate Disney” but drank out of her vintage Minnie cup every single morning.

At the checkout, Abby got distracted by a rack of car accessories and picked up a Disney World license plate frame, waggling her eyebrows at me. “So everyone knows I’m a passhole,” she said.

“They already know from your driving,” I replied.

The cashier was unphased by the chaos, ringing up our pile while a TikTok reseller live-streamed his own transaction next to us, narrating every coupon applied and discount rung up.

Back outside, the heat was immediate and overwhelming. We barely made it to the Uber pickup before both of us were glistening, the sweaters and cardigans stuffed deep in an eco tote bag.

“Next time we do this,” Abby said, “we bring a tactical hydration plan. Maybe a camelbak.”

“Next time?” I asked. “You’re already planning the sequel?”

She grinned, leaning her head on my shoulder as we waited for the car. “You didn’t hear? Once you taste the high of Disney deals, you can never go back. We’re hooked.”

I squeezed her hand, and for a second, standing on the curb with the mall behind us and the prospect of an air-conditioned hotel ahead, I felt happier than I’d been in months.

The Uber back to Pop Century was a different beast entirely. The driver didn’t say a word the entire trip, just kept the AC blasting and the Top 40 station at a respectful, almost meditative volume. Abby curled up against the window, cardigan in her lap, humming along to “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and watching the billboards fly by on the highway.

Back in the room, the AC was a revelation. Abby threw her new sweater on immediately and pirouetted in front of the mirror, the oversized sleeves flopping around her wrists.

“I look like a TikTok influencer about to get canceled for shoplifting at Target,” she declared.

I pulled on my own cardigan, already feeling fifty percent more mature. “You look like a college student who’s about to write a think piece on late-stage capitalism.”

“That’s what the license plate frame is for,” she said, brandishing it with a flourish.

We spent the next half hour rolling and re-rolling our new haul into the suitcases, every so often stopping to try on another piece of clothing or model the weirder pins on our t-shirts.

Packing was basically done. There was nothing left to do but wait for the airport shuttle.

Abby flopped onto the bed, legs dangling off the side. “I’m gross,” she said. “You’re gross. We’re both sweating. We should shower before we go, so we don’t get airplane swamp ass.”

“Good plan,” I said. “You want to go first?”

Abby sat up, a sly smile spreading across her face. “Actually, I was thinking…maybe we should get sweaty one more time before we shower?”

I froze, then laughed. “You’re insatiable.”

“Birthday week, Brian. And if we ruin the bed again, we’re already checked out. Housekeeping can’t stop us.”

She stood, peeled off her cardigan, then her shirt. Underneath, she wasn’t wearing a bra. She tossed the pile onto the chair and wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I didn’t need a second invitation.

We didn’t even make it to the bed before Abby jumped on me like a wild animal. One second she was naked and grinning, her new cardigan abandoned on the chair, and the next she’d wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, anchoring herself to me with the kind of full-body force that only comes from absolute confidence. Her lips crashed into mine, hungry and hot, her tongue slipping past my teeth before I’d even caught my breath.

I staggered backward a step, nearly knocking over the suitcase, then caught my balance and gripped her ass to steady her. That’s when I felt it: a tiny, firm bump right between her cheeks, not the usual softness I’d come to expect.

I squeezed, experimenting, and sure enough—there was something there. Something hard. Something clearly deliberate.

I pulled my face away from hers, eyebrows raised. “Are you… wearing a plug?”

Abby’s eyes flashed, the impish light in them going supernova. “Maybe,” she said, wiggling her hips, so the pressure of the plug pressed against my palm. “Surprise.”

I laughed, loud and incredulous. “You’re fucking incredible.”

She grinned. “I know. Now, less talking, more making me cum. We dont have a lot of time before we have to leave for the airport, and I want to see how many times you can break me before then.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

I carried her to the bed and dropped her onto the mattress, then crawled up after her, my hands already roaming over her skin. She spread her legs wide, giving me the kind of invitation that didn’t require a response. I knelt between her thighs, bent down, and kissed the inside of her knee. Then the other knee. Then, slowly, up the line of her thigh, tracing the muscle with my tongue.

Abby shivered. Her fingers laced in my hair, not guiding me but letting me know she was ready.

I worked my way up, kissing and licking, until my face was right in front of her pussy. She was wet already, the anticipation and the mischief of her own plan having worked her up. I breathed in the scent of her, then pressed my lips to her folds and gave a long, slow lick from bottom to top.

She moaned, high and sharp, her hands tightening in my hair.

I flicked my tongue across her clit, teasing, then plunged it inside her, tasting the sweet salt of her arousal. I alternated between sucking her clit and fucking her with my tongue, my fingers slipping between her legs and pressing into her, finding that perfect rhythm that made her hips buck against my face.

But it wasn’t just the tongue she wanted. I slid my hand lower, trailing a finger down to her asshole, circling the base of the plug. It was small, a starter model, but it was already stretching her just enough to make her gasp when I touched it.

“Take it out,” she said, her voice breathy but demanding. “Play with me. Please.”

I grinned against her pussy, then did as I was told. I gripped the jewel at the end of the plug, twisted gently, and eased it out of her, slow and careful. The sound she made was almost a whimper, her body tensing with the relief and the ache of being emptied.

I set the plug on the nightstand, then went back to work, this time licking from her clit to her now empty hole, giving it special attention. I tongued her there, slow and deliberate, then pushed a finger inside, feeling the tight, slick heat of her body. She clenched around me, panting, her legs closing around my head.

“God, Brian,” she moaned. “Don’t stop. Please.”

I didn’t. I added a second finger, scissoring them inside her, pressing against her gspot while my mouth worked her clit with the same relentless focus I used to beat Dark Souls. She started to shake, the tension building in her body, and I knew she was close.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—” she gasped, and then she came, her pussy clenching around my fingers, her whole body shuddering as the orgasm ripped through her. She cried out, loud, not caring if the entire hallway heard, and I felt a hot rush of fluid against my hand as she squirted onto my palm and the sheets.

I licked her through it, savoring every twitch and every aftershock, until she finally slumped back onto the bed, boneless and grinning.

“Missionary,” she panted, “now. Fuck me. Hard.”

I climbed up, lined myself up, and plunged inside her in one stroke. She was so wet, so open, that I slid in to the hilt without resistance. Her legs wrapped around my waist again, her heels digging into my back as I started to thrust.

She was greedy, pulling me deeper, her nails raking down my shoulders as I fucked her. She wanted it rough, and I gave it to her, slamming into her with a rhythm that matched the thump of my heart and the pounding in my head. I leaned down, kissed her hard, then bit her lip. She growled, biting me back.

After a minute, she pushed against my chest, rolling me over so she was on top. She straddled me, hair wild, tits bouncing, and lowered herself onto my cock with a slow, teasing grind. From this angle, I could see everything: the way her pussy stretched around me, the way her asshole winked with every bounce, the red ring where the plug had been.

“Like that?” she taunted, giving a little twerk that made my cock jump inside her. “You like watching my ass bounce on your cock?”

“Fuck yes,” I groaned, grabbing her hips and slamming her down harder.

She laughed, the sound wicked, and started fucking me in earnest, slamming her ass down over and over. Every time she did, her asshole winked at me, red and slick, still open from the plug and begging for attention.

I could feel myself getting close, the pressure building, but I didn’t want to finish yet. I grabbed her by the waist, pulled out, and flipped her onto her hands and knees at the edge of the bed.

“God, you’re bossy today,” she said, but her voice was eager. “You gonna eat my ass now, or just look at it?”

I didn’t answer. I knelt behind her, spread her cheeks, and dove in, licking from her pussy up to her asshole, flicking my tongue against the sensitive rim. She gasped, her back arching, and pushed back against my face.

I rimmed her for a minute, then pressed my tongue inside, fucking her there while my hand reached under to rub her clit. She was shaking again, her moans getting louder, her body rocking back and forth on the edge of the bed.

“Fuck me, please,” she begged. “In my ass, Brian. I want it so bad.”

I lined up, pressed the head of my cock against her asshole, and eased in, slow and careful. She was tight, so fucking tight, but the plug and my tongue had done their job. I slipped in, inch by inch, until I was buried to the hilt. Abby let out a long, low groan, her fingers clutching the sheets.

I started to move, fucking her slow at first, then faster as she loosened around me. She reached between her legs, rubbing her clit in frantic circles, her head down, hair in her face.

“Harder,” she said, voice rough. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

I did. I grabbed her hips, slammed into her with everything I had, the slap of my thighs against her ass echoing in the room. She was a mess, moaning, cursing, her body shaking with each thrust.

“God, I love your cock,” she gasped. “Fill me up, please, I want it so bad.”

I could feel it building, the pressure at the base of my spine, the inevitability of it. I pounded her harder, her asshole gripping me tight, her moans turning into wordless screams.

“I’m gonna cum,” I warned, my hands digging into her hips.

“Do it,” she begged, “cum in my ass, please, please!”

I came, hard, my cock pulsing as I emptied into her. She came too, almost simultaneously, her body clenching and shuddering, her fingers rubbing her clit so fast it was a blur. We both screamed, the noise impossibly loud, then collapsed onto the bed, spent.

We lay there, tangled and sweaty, the air conditioning cooling our skin as our heartbeats slowed.

Abby laughed, the sound wrecked and happy. “Bet the neighbors loved that.”

I grinned, too breathless to answer. We stayed like that, skin to skin, until we finally remembered we had to shower and get ready to go.

But for a few perfect minutes, nothing else existed.

The first sound that broke the post sex bliss was the hotel room phone.

It rang, insistent and sharp, slicing through the perfect silence with all the subtlety of a marching band in a funeral home. Abby groaned, rolling over and burying her face in the pillow.

“Who the fuck even calls hotel rooms anymore?” she mumbled.

“Housekeeping?” I guessed, though the tone was a little too urgent for a towel restock. “Room service?”

“Maybe it’s Mickey, calling to ask if we had a magical time.”

She snorted, then started giggling uncontrollably. I answered on the third ring, hand still sticky from what had just gone down.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice, bright and efficient, piped in. “Good morning! This is the front desk. We received a noise complaint from one of your neighboring rooms. If you could please keep it down, we’d really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your understanding!”

I blinked. Looked over at Abby, who’d propped herself up on one elbow and was now openly eavesdropping. I covered the receiver, whispering, “It’s a noise complaint.”

Abby’s eyes went wide. She started laughing again, this time full bore, grabbing the sheet and yanking it over her face to muffle the sound.

“Uh. Sorry about that,” I said, into the phone. “We’ll keep it down.”

“Thank you again,” the woman said. “And have a magical day.”

Click.

I hung up, staring at the phone for a moment before turning to Abby.

“Your scream has been immortalized in Disney history.”

She beamed, tossing the covers aside. “Fuck yeah. That’s going in the vacation scrapbook. Page one: Abby gets the Magic Kingdom banned from the happy zone.”

I reached over, pulling her on top of me. She was still flushed, sweat drying in the AC, hair sticking to her forehead in wild, beautiful chaos.

“We should probably shower before we get banned for real,” I said.

She wriggled her hips against me, smirking. “Can you walk? Or did I break you?”

“I’ll crawl if I have to.”

We staggered to the bathroom, climbing in together under the rainfall showerhead. The water was hot, almost scalding, and for a minute we just stood there, arms around each other, letting it beat the last of the sweat and stickiness from our skin.

Abby grabbed the hotel body wash, squirted a huge glob into her palm, and started massaging it into my back with surprising tenderness.

“Next time,” she said, “we book a suite. I want to see how many square feet we can desecrate before the Mouse gets wise.”

“I’ll start saving,” I promised, ducking to kiss her soapy shoulder. “Might have to pick up a second job. Maybe as a hotel noise consultant.”

“You’d be amazing at that,” Abby said. “You could rate the rooms on how much soundproofing they have. ‘This one’s a six out of ten… Abby’s orgasm leaked right through the drywall.’”

She rinsed her hair, then spun to face me, fingers tracing the line of my jaw.

“Hey,” she said, suddenly serious. “About earlier. The note. I’m not gonna freak out or anything, but… thank you. For everything.”

I brushed her wet hair from her face, kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” I said.

We finished the shower, toweled off, and packed the last of our stuff in record time. The sheets were a disaster. Abby left a twenty on the pillow and scribbled “Sorry for everything!” on a notepad by the phone.

We walked out hand in hand, both of us still damp, both grinning.

“You ready?” I asked.

She squeezed my hand. “Ready. And next time, we’re hitting Universal. I hear their walls are even thinner.”

“Just think of the possibilities.”

We shut the door behind us, rolling our suitcases down the hall, leaving the room and a little piece of ourselves for the next adventure.

The fireworks at Magic Kingdom were supposed to be the capstone of Abby’s birthday, this big emotional crescendo after a day that had already felt like one long, perfect gift. We’d hit every mountain, eaten approximately our body weight in park food, and I’d watched her face light up so many times I’d lost count. By the time the sun started to set, my feet had officially joined a union and were threatening to strike, but I’d have crawled on my hands and knees through Tomorrowland if that’s what it took to see those fireworks with her.

We grabbed a couple of snacks before staking out our spot; popcorn for Abby, mini corn dogs and cheese sauce from Casey’s for me. The crowd was already thickening around the hub in front of the castle, families claiming patches of concrete with the territorial intensity of people who’d been planning this moment for months. We found a decent spot off to the right, not perfect but good enough, with a clear view of the spires and the sky above them.

The castle looked different at night. During the day it was impressive, sure, all gleaming white and turrets, but at night it transformed into something else entirely. Projections danced across the stone, colors shifting and swirling, telling stories I only half paid attention to because I was too busy watching Abby watch the castle. Her birthday button caught the colored light, flashing pink, then blue, then gold as the projections changed. Twenty years old. My sister. My girlfriend. The person I’d do just about anything for, including standing in a crowd of several thousand strangers with blisters forming on both heels.

The music started first. That swelling orchestral Disney thing that somehow manages to sound exactly like every other Disney orchestral thing while still making the hair on your arms stand up. Then the first firework. A single white streak shooting into the dark, hanging for a breath at its apex, and then... boom. The sound hit a half-second later, a deep, physical thump that I felt in my chest before I heard it in my ears.

Abby’s hand tightened around mine.

The next one was bigger, a burst of gold that rained down over the castle in glittering trails. Boom. Her fingers squeezed again, just a little harder. I glanced at her. Her face was tilted up, mouth slightly open, eyes wide and reflecting the colors above us. Each explosion brought another squeeze, her grip tightening in rhythm with the mortars, like she was anchoring herself to me against the sensory onslaught.

I found myself counting the squeezes. One. Two. Three. Each boom, each pulse of her fingers against mine. It was the most Abby thing imaginable; this tough, take-no-shit girl who dyed her hair black at sixteen and told our high school principal exactly where he could stick his dress code, gripping my hand like I was the only solid thing in a world that had temporarily turned to light and noise.

The show built toward its middle act. The music swelled. The fireworks came faster, bigger, the castle cycling through projections of different Disney stories while the sky above it erupted in coordinated bursts of color. Tinkerbell’s flight path arced over the crowd, a tiny speck of light trailing pixie dust, and the collective gasp from the children around us was almost as loud as the fireworks.

During a particularly violent sequence, a barrage of mortars firing in rapid succession, I felt Abby’s hand go almost bone-crushingly tight. I looked at her, and she was already looking at me. The colored light played across her face, turning her eyes from blue to purple to gold and back again. Her lips were parted, her breath coming quick. Behind her, the castle was a riot of projected color, but all I could see was her.

I reached over with my free hand and gently took her chin between my thumb and forefinger. Tilted her face up toward mine. The music was deafening, the explosions shaking the pavement under our feet, but I leaned in close to her ear, close enough that my lips brushed the curve of it, and whispered the wordFs.

“Happy Birthday, gorgeous.”

Then I kissed her.

I’d kissed Abby maybe a thousand times by now, in bedrooms and showers and the backseats of Ubers, but this was different. This was in front of God and Mickey Mouse and several thousand tourists with their phones raised, and I didn’t care. Her mouth opened against mine, warm and soft and tasting like popcorn butter, and her body did this thing where it just... melted. Every muscle seemed to loosen at once, her weight settling against my chest, her free hand coming up to grip the front of my shirt.

She dropped the popcorn. I heard the plastic bucket hit the pavement with a hollow clatter, and then her arms were around my shoulders, pulling me closer, her fingers tangling in the hair at the back of my neck. The kiss deepened. Her tongue found mine. Some distant part of my brain registered that we were full-on making out in the middle of Main Street USA with fireworks going off overhead, and that distant part of my brain thought this was, objectively, hilarious.

The tap on Abby’s back was gentle. Persistent. We broke apart, both of us breathing hard, and there was a kid standing there. Maybe four or five, holding Abby’s popcorn bucket with both hands, his face a study in the particular brand of confusion that only children can truly master.

“Um,” he said. “You dropped this.”

Abby took the bucket from him with the grace of someone who had just been caught doing something extremely not-Disney in the most Disney place on earth. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice came out a little higher than usual. “That’s very... thank you.”

The kid nodded solemnly and retreated to his parents, who were pretending very hard not to have witnessed any of this.

We looked at each other. Abby’s cheeks were flushed bright pink, and not from the projections. I could feel my own face burning. For a second we just stood there, the absurdity of the situation settling over us like a warm blanket, and then Abby started to laugh. A real laugh, the kind that shook her whole body, the sound of it swallowed by the next barrage of fireworks.

“Maybe,” I said, raising my voice over the music, “making out in the middle of a crowd of children wasn’t our brightest idea.”

“Maybe not,” Abby agreed, still giggling. “But it was a good kiss.”

I pulled her in front of me, her back against my chest, and draped my arms over her shoulders. She fit there perfectly, the top of her head just under my chin, her body warm through the thin fabric of her tank top. I held her close, my hands finding hers and interlacing our fingers. The fireworks continued above us, the castle pulsing with light, and I leaned down to her ear again.

“I love you, butthead,” I whispered.

The chuckle that earned me vibrated through both of us where we were pressed together. I felt it in my chest, a warm, familiar rumble that had nothing to do with the mortars still shaking the air.

Then Abby wiggled. One deliberate, unmistakable grind of her ass against the front of my shorts, and the effect was immediate and entirely inappropriate for our current location. I stiffened, both physically and in terms of personal conduct, and she laughed again, softer this time, knowing exactly what she’d done.

“Behave,” I murmured into her hair.

“Or what?” she shot back, but she settled against me, her weight comfortable and familiar, and didn’t wiggle again.

We stayed like that for the rest of the show. My arms around her, her hands in mine, the two of us watching as the sky above the castle turned into something that shouldn’t have been possible with mere chemicals and explosives. The finale built with that particular Disney inevitability, the music reaching for something epic, the fireworks coming so fast they blurred together into a continuous sheet of light and sound, and then the final, massive salvo that turned the entire night sky white for one breathtaking second before the darkness rushed back in.

In the sudden quiet, with the last trails of light still fading and the smell of gunpowder hanging in the humid air, Abby turned in my arms and kissed me once more. Quick this time. Sweet. Just a press of her lips against mine that said everything the fireworks hadn’t needed to.

“Best birthday ever,” she said against my mouth.

I believed her.

The crowd around the castle started to break up almost immediately after the last firework faded, families dispersing toward exits or late-night ride opportunities with the purposeful shuffle of people who’d been standing in one spot for too long. Abby grabbed my hand and pulled me toward Fantasyland with a determination that suggested she had a very specific agenda for the next twenty minutes, and that agenda did not involve going home.

“Tiana’s,” she said, already walking. “One more ride. Then we can call it.”

“Tiana’s has a forty-minute wait during the day,” I pointed out, hurrying to keep up with her pace. My feet, which had been staging a formal protest since approximately 3pm, renewed their complaints with fresh vigor. “It’s probably still packed.”

“It’s not packed,” Abby said, and there was that particular confidence in her voice, the one that brooked no argument because she’d already decided how things were going to go. “Trust me.”

She was right, which was annoying. The line for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was... not a line. It was a suggestion. A polite queue of maybe ten people stretching from the entrance to the merge point, moving at the brisk pace of an attraction that had been functionally abandoned by a park full of people still clustered around the castle taking selfies with the fireworks aftermath.

“They’re all taking pictures,” Abby said, smugness radiating off her in waves. “We’re the smart ones.”

“We’re the ones with blisters,” I muttered, but I followed her into the queue anyway because arguing with Abby on her birthday was like arguing with gravity. You could do it, but you’d lose, and you’d look stupid while losing.

The cast member at the loading platform took one look at us, two adults with no children in tow, and directed us to a log boat that was otherwise empty. “Just you two,” he said, with the cheerful efficiency of someone who’d been saying variations of this phrase for eight hours straight. “Enjoy the bayou!”

We settled into the front of the log, Abby on the left, me on the right, the molded plastic seats still warm from the previous occupants. “This is the life,” she announced as our log pushed off into the bayou. The ride was different at night, the artificial Spanish moss and cypress trees taking on a deeper, more mysterious quality under the carefully placed lighting. Fireflies blinked in the undergrowth, animatronic frogs croaked from perches along the water’s edge, and the smell of... something vaguely floral and artificial hung in the humid air.

We didn’t do anything we shouldn’t have. Disney has cameras everywhere, a fact that had been drilled into me by approximately seventeen different YouTube vids during my pre-trip research phase. There were probably thirty-three cameras on this ride alone, capturing every angle of our log for the safety team and, presumably, some underpaid cast member whose job it was to make sure nobody was getting handsy with Mickey’s intellectual property.

Instead, we talked.

“So,” Abby said, her voice carrying easily in the quiet of the bayou. The ride music swelled around us, that jazzy, New Orleans-inflected score that Tiana’s was famous for. “Plans for the rest of the night. I’ve been thinking about this.”

“I’m listening,” I said, because I was. Abby with a plan was Abby at her most dangerous, in the best possible way.

She held up three fingers, ticking them off one by one with the solemnity of someone outlining a binding treaty. “One. We get back to the hotel. We go to the cafeteria. We get cake. Good cake, not that sad little cupcake they sell at the kiosk. Actual slices.”

“Noted.”

“Two. We shower.”

“Fair.”

“Three.” She lowered her voice, leaning closer even though we were the only people on the ride. “I get to do anything I want with you. Anything. No complaining, no negotiating, no ‘babe, my back hurts from walking twenty miles.’ You agreed to this on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which makes it legally binding under Disney jurisdiction.”

I laughed. The log rounded a bend, passing under a low-hanging branch that dripped fake water onto our heads. “I agree to your terms. But just so we’re clear, ‘anything’ covers a lot of ground. You could ask me to recite the entirety of Hamilton from memory and I’d have to do it.”

“I’m not that cruel,” Abby said, but the look on her face suggested she was filing the Hamilton idea away for future use. “Though now that you mention it...”

“Deal,” I said, cutting her off before she could elaborate. “Cake, shower, whatever you want. It’s your birthday.”

“Damn right it is.”

The log began its climb. Tiana’s featured one substantial drop, enough to get you decently wet if you were sitting in the front, which we very much were. The mechanical clicking of the lift chain filled the silence between us, each click bringing us higher above the artificial bayou, the park spreading out below us in a grid of colored lights and distant music.

“Ready for the photo?” I asked, because there was always a photo. Disney didn’t build a drop without a camera pointed at it, ready to capture the precise moment your soul briefly left your body.

“Born ready,” Abby said, and struck a pose that involved both arms raised and her tongue sticking out. I managed something slightly more dignified, which is to say I didn’t cover my face with my hands, and then we were dropping.

The sensation was familiar by now, that stomach-lifting lurch followed by the splash at the bottom that hit us exactly as advertised: thoroughly. Water sprayed over the front of the log, soaking my shorts and Abby’s tank top in a single, enthusiastic wave. She shrieked, the sound bouncing off the ride enclosure, and then we were laughing, both of us dripping and ridiculous as the log coasted into the unload area.

“Worth it,” Abby declared, wringing out a section of her hair as we stepped onto the platform and we made our damp way toward the exit.

I pulled out my phone and opened the Lyft app. The buses would be crowded tonight, full of fireworks refugees with the same idea, and the thought of standing in another line made my feet stage a formal walkout. A Minnie Van would cost roughly the same as a small automobile, but sometimes capitalism had its perks.

“Minnie Van,” I told Abby, already tapping through the booking process. “Ten minutes.”

“Fancy,” she said, bumping her shoulder against mine. “My birthday chauffeur is upgrading.”

The van arrived exactly on time, which was somehow both impressive and vaguely unsettling. A cheerful driver in a polka-dotted cap helped us with the door, and we settled into the back seat of what was, essentially, a very expensive taxi with mouse ears on the roof. Worth every penny not to stand in another line.

Pop Century materialized out of the darkness ten-ish minutes later, its giant icon sculptures looming over the parking lot like friendly sentinels. We thanked the driver, climbed out, and made a beeline for the cafeteria before it closed.

The food court was still moderately busy, families grabbing late snacks before retreating to their rooms. I headed straight for the dessert case, where the cakes sat in their individual containers like little promises of sugar and regret. Tie-dye cheesecake for me, the one with the swirls of color that made it look like someone had baked at a Grateful Dead concert mid-song. For Abby, the chocolate marshmallow, a dense brick of cake topped with a cloud of fluffy frosting that probably contained more sugar than the state of Florida’s annual budget.

I paid, the cast member at the register wishing Abby a happy birthday with the automatic warmth of someone who’d said it eight hundred times that shift, and we carried our prizes back toward building 10. The walkway was quiet, lit by those soft, nostalgic lamps that made everything look like it had been filtered through Instagram. Abby walked beside me, cake container in one hand, her free hand finding mine without looking.

“Best day,” she said simply.

It really had been.

The closer we got to room 255, the heavier my key card felt in my hand. I’d left a twenty and a note that morning, true, but twenty dollars felt wildly insufficient compensation for whatever poor cast member had walked into the aftermath of what Abby and I had done to that bed. The sheets had been... well. There had been fluids. Multiple kinds. In multiple locations. The kind of situation that would make even the most professional housekeeper consider a career change.

I paused outside our door, key card poised near the lock like a man approaching a bomb he wasn’t entirely sure had been disarmed. “Maybe we should just... brace ourselves,” I said to Abby, who was already bouncing on her toes beside me, cake container clutched to her chest like it contained state secrets.

“Brace for what? It’s a hotel room.”

“It’s a crime scene, Abby. We left evidence.”

She rolled her eyes with the particular exasperation she reserved for moments when I was being, in her estimation, ridiculous. “Just open the door, you drama queen.”

I swiped the card. The light turned green. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, and my brain did this thing where it processed the room in stages, each stage more surprising than the last.

Stage one: the room was clean. Not just clean. Immaculate. The bed was made with the crisp, military precision that only Disney housekeeping seems capable of achieving, the comforter pulled taut enough to bounce a quarter off.

Stage two: the bed was decorated. Our pillows had been arranged in a heart shape at the head of the bed, the standard white cases looking almost artistic in their careful placement. A single Mickey balloon, the helium kind with the weighted base, hovered cheerfully beside the nightstand. And on the pillow, centered with the care of someone who took their decorative responsibilities very seriously, was a “Happy Birthday” button. The round, pin-back kind that cast members hand out by the thousands, except this one was waiting for Abby like a tiny, plastic sentinel.

Stage three: there was no smell. None. Not a trace of the particular musk that had permeated the room that morning, the unmistakable aroma of two people who had used every horizontal surface for purposes Disney definitely did not endorse in their terms of service. The air smelled like nothing. Like clean linen and the faint, artificial sweetness of whatever cleaning product they’d deployed with the efficiency of a tactical strike.

“Wow,” Abby said from behind me, and the word contained approximately seventeen different emotions, ranging from delight to mild shock.

I set my cake container on the desk and approached the bed with the caution of someone inspecting a potentially elaborate practical joke. I ran my hand over the comforter. Dry. Completely, definitively dry. I leaned down and took a discreet sniff of the pillow. Nothing but fabric softener and the ghost of whatever industrial-grade sanitizer they’d used to erase our morning from existence.

“Disney housekeeping,” I said reverently, “are the special forces of the hospitality industry.”

Abby was already across the room, picking up the birthday button and pinning it to the front of her still-damp tank top with the solemnity of someone receiving a medal. “They did this for me?”

“They did this because you’re staying at a Disney resort on your birthday and they have a protocol for literally everything, including making heart shapes out of pillows.” I sat on the edge of the bed, testing the mattress with my weight. It felt exactly as cloud-like as it had that morning, except now it was also, crucially, not sticky. “I’m just impressed they got the smell out. I was convinced we’d have to request a room change.”

“Told you twenty dollars was enough,” Abby said, but she was smiling, turning in a slow circle to take in the full effect of our unexpectedly festive accommodations. The Mickey balloon bobbed gently in the air conditioning current, its weighted base keeping it tethered to the carpet like a cheerful, inflated watchdog.

She set her cake container on the mini-fridge, opened it, and placed both our desserts inside with the care of someone handling explosives. “Shower first,” she announced. “Then cake. I’m not eating dessert while I still have Tiana’s Bayou water in my hair.”

I nodded, already pulling my damp shirt over my head. The prospect of a shower, of warm water on muscles that had been complaining since approximately noon, was almost as appealing as the cake waiting in the fridge. Almost.

The shower was its own kind of ritual by now. We’d developed a system over the past few days, a choreographed dance of soap and hands and the particular intimacy of helping someone wash places they could easily reach themselves but letting you do it anyway because it felt good to be taken care of.

I washed Abby’s hair because she claimed I was better at it than she was, which was probably true only in the sense that I was marginally less likely to get conditioner in my eyes. My fingers worked through the dark strands, massaging her scalp in slow circles while she stood under the rainfall showerhead with her eyes closed and a small, contented smile on her face. She returned the favor by soaping my back, her hands moving in broad, firm strokes from my shoulders to the small of my back, finding the knots that twenty miles of park walking had left behind and working them loose with the precision of someone who knew exactly how much pressure to apply.

We didn’t fuck in the shower. Not this time. The morning had been... comprehensive, and my body, while enthusiastic in theory, was sending polite but firm memos about its current capacity for acrobatics. Instead, we just stood there, skin against skin under the warm water, kissing occasionally when the mood struck, comfortable in a way that felt almost married. It was nice. Simple. The kind of naked intimacy that had nothing to prove and everything to enjoy.

We dried off with the resort towels, which were somehow both too small and not absorbent enough, a combination that left us damp in inconvenient places. Abby wrapped her hair in a turban of one towel and used another around her body, a system that worked for approximately forty-five seconds before the body towel started to slip and she abandoned the concept entirely.

“Clothes are overrated,” she declared, dropping both towels on the bathroom floor and walking naked into the bedroom. I followed, equally naked, equally damp, and considerably more aware of the air conditioning now that we were out of the steam.

Abby retrieved the cake containers from the mini-fridge and brought them to the bed. Mine, the tie-dye cheesecake, had held its structural integrity remarkably well despite the journey from cafeteria to fridge to bedside. Abby’s chocolate marshmallow was slightly less pristine, a corner of the frosting cloud having slumped against the container wall during transport, but it still looked obscenely decadent.

I grabbed the remote and flipped through channels until I landed on HGTV, some show where a couple with a budget larger than my annual salary times four was complaining about subway tile. Perfect background noise. I settled against the headboard, cake container balanced on my stomach, and dug in.

The tie-dye cheesecake was exactly as good as it looked. Sweet, tangy, the swirls of color contributing absolutely nothing to the flavor but making each bite feel like a small victory for aesthetic joy. I ate steadily, working my way from one edge of the slice to the other, while Abby sat cross-legged beside me with her container still unopened in her lap.

Halfway through my cake, I noticed she hadn’t so much as lifted the lid on hers.

“You gonna eat that, or are you just carrying it for emotional support?” I asked around a mouthful of cheesecake.

Abby looked at me. There was something in her expression, a particular gleam that I’d learned to associate with Abby having Thoughts, capital T intended. It was the look she got right before suggesting something that would either revolutionize my life or get us both in trouble, with no reliable way to predict which.

“Do you remember what you agreed to on Tiana’s?” she asked.

The cheesecake suddenly felt very heavy in my stomach. “Yes,” I said carefully. “I agreed to cake, shower, and then whatever you wanted. No complaining.”

“And do you remember what ‘whatever I wanted‘ entails?”

I swallowed. My brain, which had been operating at approximately sixty percent capacity since the fireworks, scrambled to catch up. “I assumed it would be something sexual. I was thinking maybe a specific position, or... you know. The usual requests.”

Abby’s smile widened. It was not a reassuring smile. It was the smile of someone who had just drawn four aces and was waiting for the right moment to reveal them.

“Lay down,” she said. “Across the bed. On your back.”

I set my empty cake container on the nightstand and complied. The sheets were cool against my skin, the AC having done its work on the freshly made bed. I stretched out, arms at my sides, and looked up at Abby, who was still sitting cross-legged beside me with her unopened cake container.

She opened it. The chocolate marshmallow cake sat in its plastic prison, the frosting cloud slightly deflated but still impressively fluffy. Abby regarded it with the focused intensity of an artist considering a blank canvas. Then she looked at me. At my chest, my abs, the trail of hair that led down to my cock, which was already starting to take an interest in proceedings despite having no idea what those proceedings actually were.

“Oh,” I said, because I was starting to get it. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Abby replied, and plunged her hand into the cake.

The first dollop of frosting hit my chest just below my collarbone, cold and thick and startling enough to make me gasp. Abby worked with the focused determination of someone executing a plan they’d been refining in their head for hours. She smeared chocolate frosting across my pectorals, my sternum, down the ridges of my abs in broad, deliberate strokes. The cake itself followed, crumbled and pressed against my skin in a messy, delicious topography that extended from my chest to my navel and then, with a wicked grin, lower.

She dragged a line of frosting down the center of my stomach, over my hipbones, and then, with a flourish that left no ambiguity about her intentions, across the length of my cock.

It was cold. Incredibly, shockingly cold against skin that was already sensitized from the shower. My cock jerked in response, hardening rapidly under the layer of chocolate and marshmallow that now coated it from base to tip. The sensation was bizarre and electric, sweet and cold and utterly unlike anything we’d done before.

“There,” Abby said, surveying her work with evident satisfaction. “Birthday cake, Brian flavor.”

Then she bent down and licked a stripe up my chest.

The combination of sensations was almost too much to process. The warm wetness of her tongue against my skin, the sweet-salt taste of frosting mixed with the underlying flavor of just... me. She started at my collarbone and worked upward, her lips closing around my nipple and sucking gently, her tongue circling the sensitive bud while chocolate melted between us. The vibration of her hum traveled through my chest and straight into my spine, and I might have made a sound. A small, involuntary one that I would deny making if asked about it later.

She moved lower. Her mouth traced the path of frosting down my sternum, her teeth grazing my abs in a way that made the muscles jump under her lips. Each lick was deliberate, unhurried, her tongue flat against my skin as she cleaned the chocolate from the ridges of my stomach with the dedication of someone who considered this both a duty and a pleasure.

My cock was fully hard now, jutting upward from a nest of chocolate-smeared pubic hair, the head glistening with a combination of precum and melted marshmallow that should not have been as erotic as it objectively was. Abby’s eyes kept drifting to it as she worked, her licking growing slower, more deliberate, her kisses lingering on my hipbones as she cleaned the last of the frosting from my upper body.

“Now that you’re clean up top,” she said, her voice lower than it had been a minute ago, rough around the edges in a way that sent a fresh pulse of blood to my already straining cock, “it’s time for you to get a snack.”

She moved. One fluid motion that put her straddling my face, her knees on either side of my head, her pussy hovering inches from my mouth. From this angle, I could see everything. The flushed pink of her inner thighs, the glistening wetness already gathering between her folds, the way her body was responding to the sheer novelty of what she was doing before I’d even touched her.

Abby leaned forward, her weight shifting onto her hands planted on either side of my hips, and lowered her mouth to the frosting still coating my waist, my cock, the places she hadn’t cleaned yet. Her tongue dragged along my hipbone, hot and wet against the cold residue of chocolate, and the contrast of temperatures made me groan against the lips of her pussy, which were now pressed directly against my mouth.

I didn’t hesitate. I buried my face in her, my tongue finding her entrance and pushing inside in one long, flat stroke that drew a moan from Abby that vibrated through both of us where we were joined. She was soaking, dripping wet, her arousal mixing with the shower gel still lingering on her skin to create a flavor that was uniquely, unmistakably hers. I licked upward, finding her clit with the tip of my tongue, and circled it slowly while Abby’s mouth continued its methodical demolition of the cake on my lower body.

The dual sensation was overwhelming. Abby’s tongue on my cock, lapping at the frosting with these slow, deliberate strokes that left clean patches of hypersensitive skin in their wake, while my own tongue worked her pussy with a focus that had her thighs trembling on either side of my head. She moaned around a mouthful of cake and my dick, the vibration traveling through her lips and into my shaft with an intensity that made my hips buck involuntarily off the mattress.

She sucked. Actually sucked, her lips wrapping around the head of my cock and drawing it into the wet heat of her mouth while chocolate and marshmallow melted between us. The sensation was indescribable, sweet and hot and tight, her tongue working the underside of my shaft while my own tongue fucked into her pussy in rhythm with the pulses of pleasure radiating up from my groin.

Abby pulled off with a wet pop that echoed in the quiet room. “Fuck,” she gasped, her breath hot against my stomach. “This is the best birthday cake I’ve ever had.”

I would have responded, but my mouth was otherwise occupied, my tongue buried in her pussy as deep as it would go, my hands gripping her ass and holding her against my face while she shuddered above me. She went back to my cock with renewed enthusiasm, her hand joining her mouth, stroking what she couldn’t fit between her lips while she sucked the head with a focus that had my vision starting to blur at the edges.

We stayed like that, trading sensations, her mouth on me and my mouth on her, the last of the chocolate disappearing between us in a messy, desperate exchange that had the headboard knocking against the wall and HGTV droning on about shiplap in the background, utterly ignored by everyone in the room.

When Abby came, it was with my tongue inside her and her mouth around me, her thighs clamping against my ears hard enough to make them ring, her pussy pulsing around nothing as she ground herself against my face and moaned into the sensitive skin of my hip. The vibration of it traveled straight to my cock, which was already so close I could taste it, and I came a second later, shooting into her mouth in pulses that she swallowed without breaking rhythm, her throat working around me while her body continued to shake through the aftershocks.

She collapsed forward, her forehead resting on my stomach, her breath coming in huge, ragged gulps. I could feel her heart hammering against my thigh where her chest pressed against me. My own breathing was barely under control, my chest heaving, my abs sticky with a combination of dried chocolate and fresh sweat.

“Happy Birthday,” I managed, my voice wrecked.

Abby lifted her head just enough to look at me. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen and shiny with a mixture of spit and frosting, her hair a disaster from the shower and the subsequent activities. She looked thoroughly debauched and completely, utterly satisfied.

“Best,” she said, between breaths, “fucking birthday. Ever.”

I believed her.

Since i left you all hanging, i wrote some more late last night so its a long one.
The rest of the story is in the comments, as the post was too long.

|It was day 5 of our Disney death march, and my legs had officially declared war on the rest of my body. Eighteen point three miles according to my Apple Watch, which was currently sitting on the nightstand giving me the digital equivalent of a disappointed look. Three days in the parks. Three days of rope drop to fireworks, open to close, every single attraction we could cram into fourteen blistering hours. And somehow, Abby was still bouncing.

We’d hit Animal Kingdom first, because that’s what the Disney blogs said to do. Get there before the park opened, sprint to Flight of Passage when the rope dropped, and ride it before the line hit three hours. We did exactly that, and it was worth every second of the 5:30am alarm. Abby’s face during that ride, the way her eyes went wide as we dove through the valleys of Pandora on the back of a banshee, her hand crushing mine in the seat next to her... I would have dragged myself out of bed at 3am for that.

We rode it two times that day. Once in the morning, once with a Lightning Lane I’d paid an embarrassing amount for.

Disney Springs was day two. Less walking, theoretically, but somehow my watch still clocked sixteen miles. Abby dragged me through every store, trying on hats and ears and approximately seven thousand t-shirts with progressively more aggressive Disney puns. She settled on a pair of sequined Minnie ears that changed color when you brushed them the wrong way.

We ate at someplace fancy with a name I couldn’t pronounce, where the portions were tiny and the bill was not. Abby ordered a cocktail(they didn't card her) that came in a glow-in-the-dark tiki glass that she insisted on keeping, smuggling it out in her backpack while I pretended not to notice the suspicious clinking noises every time she moved.

Hollywood Studios was the third day. Tower of Terror first thing, because Abby claimed she wasn’t scared of anything and then proceeded to crush my hand hard enough to leave marks during the first drop. I had the photo to prove it. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was open in what the camera had optimistically labeled a “scream of delight” but was definitely just a scream, and my face beside her was a mask of barely contained pain as her fingernails dug into my palm.

The new Rockin’ Rollercoaster featuring the Muppets was... incredible. We rode it four times. Four. The launch still got me every time, that zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds punch that shoved you back in your seat and turned your internal organs into soup. Abby threw her hands up on the third ride, which was brave of her considering the last inversion nearly launched her phone into the stratosphere.

Rise of the Resistance broke us. The line was ninety minutes, the preshow involved what felt like seven hundred Stormtroopers staring at us with those expressionless helmets, and by the time we got to the ride vehicle my back was already staging a protest. But then the doors opened onto a Star Destroyer hangar bay with a full-size AT-AT and actual human actors playing First Order officers, and Abby’s face did this thing where all the exhaustion just... evaporated. She grabbed my arm, her eyes wide, and whispered “holy shit” with the reverence of someone witnessing a miracle.

Worth it. All of it.

But god, the heat. Florida in June was a special kind of torture. Ninety-eight degrees on the thermometer, one-oh-seven with the humidity, which meant walking around felt like swimming through warm pudding. We drank water constantly. I had a hydration backpack that I refilled at every water station.

We sweated through everything. Shirts, shorts, underwear. The chafing situation was... let’s just say Gold Bond became my religion. I applied it morning, noon, and night with the devotion of a man who valued the integrity of his inner thighs. Abby thought this was hilarious until she developed a rash from her sports bra and spent thirty minutes in the resort bathroom letting me apply aloe vera to her back while she hissed like a angry cat.

Eighteen miles a day. Eighteen. My calves felt like they’d been replaced with concrete, my feet had developed a relationship with the floor that could best be described as adversarial, and my lower back had sent me a formal letter of resignation that I was choosing to ignore. Abby, somehow, was fine. Or at least pretending to be fine, which in Abby terms was basically the same thing.

Every night followed the same pattern. We’d stumble back to Pop Century around ten, sometimes eleven, depending on how long we stayed for fireworks. We’d peel off our sweat-soaked clothes and drop them in a pile by the door that grew more concerning by the day. We’d shower together, which started as practical and quickly became the highlight of my evening, watching the day’s grime swirl down the drain while Abby’s hands found the knots in my shoulders and worked them loose with fingers that knew exactly how much pressure to apply.

Then bed. King-sized, cloud-soft, the kind of bed that makes promises it can keep. We’d turn on the TV, flip through channels until we found something aggressively mediocre to fall asleep to, and then we’d curl into each other, skin on skin, her head on my chest, my arm around her waist, and we’d be out before whatever procedural drama we’d landed on reached its first commercial break.

Three days down. Four to go. Tomorrow was Magic Kingdom. Tomorrow was Abby’s actual birthday, the reason for all of this, the day I’d been planning since I first clicked “book now“ on the Disney website three months ago.

My legs were going to fall off. My bank account was weeping. My ability to process the sight of one more Mickey-shaped snack was hanging by a thread.

And I wouldn’t have traded a single second of it.

My eyes snapped open at 4:30 exactly, like my brain had set an alarm I didn’t know about. The room was still dark, the AC humming its steady white noise, and beside me Abby was asleep in that particular way that made it look like she’d been dropped from a great height onto the mattress. One arm flung above her head, the sheet tangled around her waist, her mouth slightly open. Peaceful. Oblivious to the fact that today was the day she officially stopped being a teenager, and I had plans.

I slipped out of bed with the caution of someone defusing a bomb. One leg, then the other, pausing after each movement to check if she stirred. She didn’t. Three days of Disney had knocked her out harder than any sleeping pill could. Mission accomplished.

My body disagreed with every step I took toward the bathroom. My calves sent a formal complaint. My quads seconded it. My lower back abstained from the vote entirely because it was too busy staging a work stoppage. I flipped on the bathroom light and squinted at myself in the mirror. I looked like someone who’d been hit by a truck, then backed over for good measure. My hair was doing something apocalyptic. My eyes had the faint raccoon shadows of someone running on four-five hours of sleep for three days straight.

I took a piss, the relief was almost spiritual. As I stood there, I reached for my Apple Watch on the counter and tapped the screen awake.

Eighteen point seven miles yesterday. Eighteen point three the day before. Seventeen point nine on day one, which was practically a rest day by comparison. My watch had started sending me concerned notifications around mile fifteen each afternoon. “It looks like you’ve been working out for quite a while.” Thanks, watch. Very perceptive.

I washed my hands and crept back into the bedroom. The ice water on my nightstand called to me like a siren song. I grabbed it, twisted the cap, and took a long pull. The cold hit my throat and spread through my chest like something alive, and for a moment I understood why people in desert movies made such a big deal about finding water. This wasn’t hydration. This was transcendence.

I set the bottle down and stood at the foot of the bed, watching Abby sleep. The room was just light enough now that I could make out the shape of her under the thin sheet. The curve of her hip. The gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her hair fanned across the pillow in a dark tangle that she would complain about for twenty minutes once she woke up.

I love you.

Today was her birthday. Twenty years old. No longer a teenager, technically an adult, though the distinction had always seemed arbitrary where Abby was concerned. She’d been more of an adult than me at sixteen, with her sharp tongue and her take-no-shit attitude and the way she could read a room faster than I could find the light switch.

I’d planned this trip for months. Saved PTO. Read blogs. Watched vids. Made spreadsheets, which Abby had found and mocked relentlessly. “You made a spreadsheet for a vacation,” she’d said, scrolling through my color-coded ride strategy with the expression of someone discovering a new species of nerd. “I’m dating a spreadsheet.”

“You’re welcome,” I’d replied, and she’d kissed me to shut me up, which was her preferred method of conflict resolution.

The parks opened at nine today. Magic Kingdom. The big one. I had Lightning Lanes for every mountain, a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest that had required me to set a calendar alert for the exact second bookings opened. I had done everything right.

Except I hadn’t given her a birthday present yet.

The wrapped box from Mom was still in my backpack, tucked safely between my laptop and a spare pair of socks. The earrings that had belonged to Jules. I’d find the right moment for those. But I wanted to give her something else first. Something that didn’t come in a box.

I looked at her sleeping there, one foot sticking out from under the sheet, completely naked and utterly unself-conscious about it. We’d been sleeping skin to skin every night, her body curved against mine, her breath warm on my collarbone. It was the best part of each exhausting day, those last few minutes before sleep, when it was just us in the dark with no lines to stand in and no sun trying to melt us into puddles.

My body was sore. My feet were sore. Parts of me I didn’t know could be sore were making their discontent known with every movement.

But my mouth felt just fine.

I set the water bottle down and knelt on the bed beside her. The mattress dipped slightly under my weight. Abby murmured something in her sleep, a soft, indistinct sound, and turned onto her back without waking. The sheet slid lower, revealing the smooth plane of her stomach, the gentle curve of her hip, the dark triangle between her legs.

She was perfect. She was always perfect, but there was something about her like this, asleep and unguarded, that made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the eighteen miles I’d walked yesterday.

I reached for the sheet and pulled it back slowly, revealing all of her. The morning light was stronger now, pale and golden through the gaps in the curtains, painting her skin in soft gradients. I could see every freckle on her shoulders. Every scar. The small one on her knee from when she’d fallen off her bike at twelve and refused to cry even though it had taken eight stitches.

I coaxed her legs apart, just a little. Just enough.

And there she was. Pink and soft and still asleep, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

I leaned closer. The smell of her hit me first, that particular Abby scent that lived somewhere between her fancy shower gel and something muskier, something that was just her. I’d become addicted to it over the past few months. There were worse addictions to have.

I inched closer. My breath ghosted across her skin, and she shifted in her sleep, her thighs parting another fraction of an inch. An invitation she didn’t know she was extending.

Time for the wake-up call.

I started with a single lick, so slow it was almost not there. Just the very tip of my tongue tracing the outer edge of her labia, from bottom to top, a featherlight touch that left a wet trail cooling in the AC. She tasted clean, faintly of the shower gel we’d used last night, something coconutty that Disney put in all their resort bathrooms. Underneath that, though, was the real flavor. The one that belonged to Abby alone. Musky and sweet and so distinctly her that I could have picked it out blindfolded in a lineup of a thousand women.

She didn’t wake up. Her breathing stayed deep and even, her body still relaxed in sleep. So I tried again. Another lick, this time on the other side, a mirror of the first. A little slower. A little more pressure.

This time, she made a sound. A small, sleepy moan that started in the back of her throat and emerged as something barely above a whisper. Her hips shifted almost imperceptibly, her thighs easing apart another inch, giving me more room to work. An unconscious invitation. Her body responding before her brain had fully come online.

I kept going. My tongue traced the length of her slit, from her entrance to the top where her clit waited, still hidden beneath its hood. I took my time. This wasn’t about rushing her to orgasm. This was a wake-up call, not an alarm clock. The difference mattered.

I circled her entrance with the flat of my tongue, feeling how wet she already was. Sleep did that to her sometimes. Her body getting ahead of her mind, readying itself for things she hadn’t consciously decided she wanted yet. I dipped inside, just the tip of my tongue, tasting the saltier, deeper flavor there, and she made another sound. Louder this time. A proper moan, sleep-cracked and needy.

Her hands moved. Not to push me away. To find me. Her fingers groped blindly through the sheets until they connected with my hair, and then they were there, tangling in the strands, holding me in place without applying pressure. Still mostly asleep, but her body knew what was happening. Her body had opinions.

I moved higher. My tongue found her clit, or the hood covering it, and I licked across it once, broad and flat. Abby’s breath hitched. Her hips rolled forward a fraction of an inch, seeking more contact. I gave it to her. I circled her clit with the tip of my tongue, slow deliberate circles that had her thighs tensing on either side of my head, and then I closed my lips around it and sucked.

That did it.

Abby jolted upright like she’d been electrocuted. One second she was asleep, the next she was sitting bolt upright in bed, both hands now gripping my head, her eyes wide and startled and then immediately, gloriously understanding.

“Oh,” she said. Then, “OH.”

Her hips started moving. Not the tentative, sleep-drunk rocking from a moment ago. Full, deliberate grinding, her pussy riding my tongue with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to get it. My hands found her thighs, holding her steady as she used my face, her fingers tightening in my hair with each downward movement.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck, that’s... good morning to me too, I guess.”

I hummed against her, the vibration making her gasp and grind harder. My tongue kept working her clit, flicking rapidly side to side while my lips maintained suction. Her thighs began to tremble. I could feel her getting closer, the tension building in her body, her breathing going short and sharp.

Then she laughed. Actually laughed, a bright, startled sound that broke through the rhythm of her movements.

“Stop,” she said, pushing gently at my forehead. “Stop, stop, stop. I really have to pee. Like, really really.”

I pulled back, my face wet, my lips tingling. Abby was already scrambling off the bed, one hand between her legs like she was physically holding something back, and half-running, half-waddling toward the bathroom.

“Don’t go anywhere!” she called over her shoulder. “That was a great wake-up call for my birthday. And here I thought it was gonna be a phone call from Mickey!”

The bathroom door slammed. I heard the toilet seat hit the tank, then the immediate, relieved sigh of someone who’d been holding it for longer than was medically advisable.

“We still have those Dude Wipes or whatever?” she called through the door. “I’m not done riding your face, and I don’t think you want a face full of pee. Oh, here they are!”

I lay back on the bed, grinning at the ceiling. My jaw ached pleasantly. My cock was hard enough to drive nails, tenting the sheet that had gotten tangled around my waist during the proceedings. I could hear Abby moving around in the bathroom, the rustle of the wipe package, the sink running briefly.

Three days of Disney exhaustion, and my body still responded to her like it had its own separate nervous system that bypassed my brain entirely. Some things never changed.

The bathroom door opened. Abby stood in the doorway, completely naked, her hair a disaster, her eyes bright with that particular combination of mischief and desire that had been my undoing since Christmas. She had a giant, wicked grin on her face that made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the fact that I was about to be thoroughly used, and I was going to enjoy every second of it.

She crossed the room in three strides and launched herself onto the bed beside me. Not on top of me. Beside me. Her hand found my face, cupping my cheek, her thumb brushing across my lower lip where it was still wet from her.

“Hi,” she said softly.

“Happy birthday,” I replied.

She kissed me. Deep and slow and thorough, her tongue sliding against mine, her hand moving from my face to my chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle there with practiced familiarity. My hand found her waist, then her hip, then the curve of her ass, pulling her closer until there was no space between us at all.

Her skin was warm from sleep, soft in the places that were always soft and firm in the places that weren’t. I could feel her heart beating against my chest, rapid and strong, matching the rhythm of my own. Her free hand slid down my stomach, past the waistband of the boxers I’d somehow managed to put on before bed, and wrapped around my cock.

“Someone’s enthusiastic,” she murmured against my mouth.

“You started it,” I said. “With the whole sleeping-naked thing. That’s basically entrapment.”

She laughed, the sound vibrating through both of us where we were pressed together. Her hand stroked me once, slow and firm from base to tip, her thumb circling the head where I was already leaking. The sensation shot straight up my spine and into my brain, turning coherent thought into static.

“Maybe you should finish what you started,” she said, and her voice had dropped into that lower register that always, always meant business.

I was entirely on board with that plan.

I broke the kiss, my breath coming harder than it had any right to after just a few minutes of making out. “Should I finish the wake-up call?” I asked, my voice already rough around the edges.

Abby smiled. That particular smile, the one that always preceded her taking control of a situation I thought I was controlling. “Yes,” she said. “But I have a better idea.”

Before I could ask what that meant, she was moving. One fluid motion that involved her pushing me onto my back, swinging her leg over my chest, and positioning herself above my face with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this approximately a thousand times. Which she had. We had routines.

She gripped the headboard with both hands, her arms fully extended, her body suspended above me in a position that offered both stability and, from my perspective, the single best view in the entire state of Florida. Her pussy hovered inches from my mouth, pink and swollen and still glistening from my earlier attention. I could smell her. That rich, musky scent that made my cock throb against my stomach where it lay trapped in my boxers.

“Get to work,” she said, and lowered herself onto my face.

I didn’t need telling twice. My tongue found her immediately, a broad, flat stroke from her entrance to her clit that made her gasp and her thighs tense on either side of my head. I followed with my fingers, two of them sliding inside her with ease, feeling how wet she was, how her inner walls clenched around me the moment I pushed past the entrance.

The combination was devastating. My tongue focused on her clit, circling it rapidly before sucking it between my lips, while my fingers curled upward inside her, finding that rough patch of tissue that always made her back arch. I’d mapped her body over months of practice. I knew exactly where to press, how hard, how fast. The knowledge paid dividends in moments like this, when Abby’s breathing went from steady to ragged in the space of three thrusts.

“Oh fuck,” she moaned, her hips starting to rock against my face. “Right there, don’t stop, don’t you dare stop.”

I had no intention of stopping. My free hand found her ass, gripping the soft flesh, holding her steady as she ground herself against my mouth. Her thighs trembled on either side of my head. Her grip on the headboard tightened until her knuckles went white. I could feel her getting closer, the tension building in her body with each downward movement of her hips.

When she came, it was with a cry that I was pretty sure the family in the next room could hear through the drywall. Her whole body went rigid, her thighs clamping down on my head with enough force to make my ears ring, her pussy pulsing around my fingers in rhythmic waves that I could feel against my palm. I kept my tongue on her clit through all of it, maintaining steady pressure even as she jerked above me, even as her inner muscles squeezed my fingers so tight I could barely move them.

Most guys would have backed off then. Given her a minute to recover. Been gentle. Considerate.

I was neither of those things. Not this morning. This was her birthday, and I had plans that involved her coming apart on my face more than once before we so much as looked at a park map.

So I kept going. My tongue didn’t slow. My fingers didn’t withdraw. I pressed harder against her g-spot, curled my fingers deeper, and felt her body respond with a shocked, broken moan that told me she was already climbing again, her oversensitivity transforming into a different kind of need entirely.

“Brian,” she gasped, her voice wrecked. “Oh my god, I love you, but what the fuck are you doing?”

“Making you cum again,” I said against her pussy, the words vibrating through her in a way that made her thighs jerk. “That’s the plan. Multiple times. We’re not leaving this room until you’re shaking too hard to stand.”

She laughed, a breathless, incredulous sound. “Bold words from a man with my thighs around his head. But fine. Get to work. I want to cum again.”

So I did. I redoubled my efforts, my tongue finding new rhythms, alternating between broad, flat strokes across her entire vulva and focused, rapid flicks directly on her clit. My fingers kept their pace inside her, curling and pressing in that particular way that I knew made her see stars. And then, because I was feeling ambitious, I let my tongue wander lower.

The first tentative lick across her asshole made her shriek. Not a moan. A full, startled shriek followed immediately by a giggle that shook her entire body.

“What are you DOING?” she demanded, though the way her hips pushed back against my face suggested she wasn’t exactly opposed to the development.

“Exploring,” I mumbled against her, and did it again. Longer this time. A slow, deliberate swipe from the bottom of her pussy to the top of her ass, my tongue tracing the seam between her most intimate places with a focus that would have embarrassed me if anyone but Abby had been present to witness it.

She giggled again, the sound higher and more surprised than the first. Her hand left the headboard and found my cock, which had escaped my boxers at some point during the proceedings and was now standing at full attention, leaking a steady stream of precum that made her grip slick and effortless.

“God, you’re so wet,” she murmured, her fingers wrapping around my shaft and stroking from base to tip in a slow, deliberate motion that made my hips buck off the mattress. “All this from eating my ass? You have issues, Brian.”

“Your ass is exceptional,” I managed, the words distorted by the fact that my mouth was currently occupied with the subject in question. “I have... very specific... appreciation criteria.”

She laughed again, the vibration traveling through her hand and into my cock in a way that nearly short-circuited my brain. Her strokes picked up speed, her palm twisting on the upstroke, her thumb circling the head where I was most sensitive. The dual sensation of her hand on my cock and her pussy grinding against my face was almost too much to process.

I could feel her building toward another orgasm. Her thighs were trembling harder now, her breathing coming in short, desperate pants that hit the headboard and echoed back at us. My tongue plunged deep into her pussy while my nose rubbed her clit back and forth with each movement of her hips. It was messy and inelegant and absolutely working, because Abby’s hand suddenly left my cock and grabbed a fistful of my hair instead.

“Fuck,” she gasped. “Fuck, I’m gonna—Brian, I’m gonna—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. Her body did the talking for her. Her hips snapped forward, grinding herself against my face with a force that drove the breath from my lungs, and then she was coming again, harder than the first time, her thighs clamping around my head like a vise as she rode out the waves.

And she squirted.

It hit me like a warm wave, jetting across my chin, my cheeks, my forehead. I tried to take as much as I could, my mouth sealed around her, but there was too much volume and not enough containment. It sprayed across my face in pulses that matched the contractions of her pussy around my fingers, soaking the pillow beneath my head, running in warm rivulets down my neck.

Abby collapsed forward, her forehead resting against the headboard, her entire body shaking with the aftershocks. I could feel her heart hammering against my chest where her breasts pressed against me. Her grip in my hair loosened, becoming almost apologetic, her fingers stroking gently through the strands she’d been yanking on seconds earlier.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Holy shit.”

I lay beneath her, face dripping, cock throbbing, and decided that this was probably the best birthday present I’d ever given anyone. The bar was high, but I’d cleared it by several miles.

Before I could even catch my breath, Abby was moving again. She swung her legs over my head in one fluid motion, turning around so that she was straddling my face the right way up this time, her pussy lowering onto my tongue as she bent forward and took my cock into her mouth.

The transition was so smooth it felt choreographed. One second I was looking up at her from below, the next she had pivoted and I was staring directly at her ass, her pussy settled firmly against my mouth, and the wet heat of her lips wrapped around the head of my cock. The dual sensation was almost enough to make me come on the spot. Her tongue flat against the underside of my shaft, her mouth sucking gently, while my own tongue was buried in her pussy, tasting the mixed flavors of her arousal and the coconut shower gel.

I thrust upward involuntarily, my hips lifting off the mattress, driving my cock deeper into her mouth. Abby pulled back with a wet pop and a giggle that vibrated through both of us where we were connected.

“Someone’s eager,” she murmured, her breath warm against my sensitive skin. “Down, boy. I’m driving.”

She went back to work with the focused determination of someone who took oral sex very, very seriously. Her tongue traced the length of my shaft from base to tip, lingering on the sensitive spot just beneath the head where every nerve ending I owned seemed to have congregated for a convention. Each time she spent extra time there, my hips bucked upward of their own accord, pushing my cock against her tongue in a way that made her laugh around me.

The vibrations traveled straight up my shaft and into my spine. I was not going to last long if she kept this up. My brain, which had been functioning at approximately thirty percent capacity since she’d first lowered herself onto my face, managed to scrape together enough coherence for a single, overriding thought.

Make her cum again.

So I got to work. My tongue plunged deep into her pussy, fucking her in slow, deliberate strokes while my fingers found her clit and began rubbing it in tight circles. At the same time, because I was apparently feeling ambitious with my limited motor functions, I let my tongue wander again. One long, exploratory lick from her pussy to her asshole, then another, slower this time, my tongue flat against that tight ring of muscle in a way that made her entire body jerk above me.

Abby moaned around my cock. The sound was muffled but unmistakable, a deep, hungry vibration that traveled through her lips and straight into my dick with the efficiency of a dedicated fiber line. Her hips began to rock against my face, grinding her pussy against my tongue in rhythm with the strokes of her mouth on my cock. It was coordinated in a way that suggested either months of practice or some kind of supernatural sexual intuition. Probably both.

Her free hand found my balls, cupping them gently, her fingers rolling the sensitive skin between them with a dexterity that made my toes curl. The sensation, combined with the wet heat of her mouth and the sight of her ass hovering inches from my face, was almost too much to process. I focused on my mission. Tongue in her pussy. Fingers on her clit. Occasional, deliberate licks across her asshole that made her thighs tense on either side of my head.

Abby pulled off my cock with a wet sound that echoed in the quiet room. “Fuck my ass with that tongue, baby,” she said, her voice rough and breathless. “Come on. Really get in there.”

I didn’t need telling twice. My tongue pressed against her asshole, firm and flat at first, then pointed, working the tip against that tight ring of muscle until I felt it give, just slightly, enough for the very tip of my tongue to breach the entrance. The sound she made was something between a moan and a whimper, her hips rolling in slow, desperate circles above my face.

My fingers kept their rhythm on her clit, rubbing in tight circles that matched the thrust of my tongue into her ass. The dual stimulation had her trembling, her thighs shaking on either side of my head, her breathing coming in short, sharp pants that I could feel against my cock where it lay wet and neglected on my stomach.

She went back to my cock with renewed enthusiasm, taking me deep, her throat opening around the head in a way that made my vision blur at the edges. The vibrations of her moans traveled through her lips and into my shaft, each sound sending fresh jolts of pleasure up my spine. Her hand worked my balls with practiced skill, rolling and squeezing in a rhythm that had me biting my lip to keep from making noise.

I could feel her getting close. Her pussy was clenching around nothing, her inner muscles pulsing in empty contractions as my tongue worked her ass and my fingers worked her clit. Her hips had lost their rhythm, moving erratically now, grinding against my face with a desperation that told me she was right on the edge.

And then I felt it. Her asshole clamped down around my tongue, squeezing so tight I could barely move it, and Abby’s entire body went rigid above me. She pulled off my cock with a gasp that turned into a moan that turned into something that wasn’t quite a word, and then she was coming, her pussy pulsing in waves I could feel against my chin even though I wasn’t inside her, and a fresh jet of fluid hit my face with enough force to splatter across the bridge of my nose.

“FUCK,” she shouted, the word tearing out of her ragged. Her thighs clamped around my head with enough force to make my ears pop, her body shaking through the orgasm with an intensity that traveled through both of us where we were connected.

When it finally subsided, she collapsed forward, her forehead resting against my thigh, her breath coming in huge, shuddering gulps. I could feel her heart hammering against my leg where her chest pressed against me. Her fingers were still wrapped around my cock, loose now, almost absently stroking the length of it as she tried to remember how breathing worked.

“Holy shit,” she mumbled against my thigh. “Holy fucking shit.”

“I need your cock inside me,” Abby said, pushing herself up from my thigh with the determination of someone who had just made a very important decision. “Like, right now. Not your tongue. Not your fingers. You.”

Before I could respond, she was moving. One fluid pivot that put her facing me, knees on either side of my hips, her hand reaching between us to grip my cock and guide it to her entrance. She was so wet that the head slid against her without any resistance, leaving a glistening trail across her inner lips before she positioned me properly and sank down.

The feeling was indescribable. Hot, tight, wet, her body opening around me inch by inch until I was buried to the hilt inside her, our hips pressed together, her pussy gripping my shaft with a intensity that made my vision briefly double. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on my chest, and kissed me. Sloppy, desperate, her tongue pushing into my mouth with the same urgency that her body was taking my cock.

“Mine,” she murmured against my lips. “All mine.”

Then she started to move.

It began as a slow roll of her hips, grinding herself against me in circles that hit spots inside her that made her breath catch with each rotation. Her hands slid up my chest to my shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle there, using me for leverage as she established a rhythm that had both of us moaning within seconds.

But slow wasn’t what she wanted. Not this morning. Her pace increased, her hips lifting until just the head of my cock remained inside her, then slamming back down with enough force to drive the breath from my lungs. The wet sound of skin against skin filled the room, punctuated by Abby’s increasingly ragged breathing and the occasional broken gasp when I hit particularly deep.

She changed positions without warning. Sitting up straight, knees still planted on either side of my hips, she started what could only be described as semi-twerking. Her ass bouncing on my cock in rapid, shallow movements that had her tits jouncing with each impact, her hands braced on my thighs for balance. The view was... educational. I had a perfect sightline to where our bodies joined, my cock disappearing into her with each downward movement, her pussy stretched around me, glistening and pink and so fucking beautiful I couldn’t look away.

“God, you feel good,” she gasped, her head thrown back, her throat working as she swallowed. “So fucking good inside me.”

The twerking evolved into something more primal. She began slamming herself down on me with abandon, each impact driving me deeper than I thought possible, her inner walls clenching around my shaft in rhythmic pulses that told me exactly how close she was. Her hands found my chest again, fingers splaying across my pecs, and she used the leverage to fuck herself on my cock with a ferocity that had the headboard knocking against the wall in a steady, concerning rhythm.

When she came, it was with a cry that I was pretty sure they could hear from the Skyliner across the resort. Her body went rigid above me, her pussy clamping down on my cock with enough force to border on painful, her inner muscles pulsing in waves I could feel along my entire length. She ground herself against me, rolling her hips in tight circles as she rode out the orgasm, her nails digging half-moons into my chest that I would find later and cherish like trophies.

She collapsed forward, her forehead resting against my collarbone, her breath hot and rapid against my skin. I could feel her heart hammering against my chest, could feel the occasional aftershock ripple through her where our bodies were joined. My hands found her back, tracing the damp line of her spine, feeling the fine tremors that ran through her muscles.

“I love you,” she said, the words muffled against my chest. “But if you’re gonna tease my asshole and tongue fuck it, you better really fuck it now.”

I laughed, the sound rumbling through both of us. “Bossy.”

“It’s my birthday,” she said, pushing herself up to look me in the eye. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen, her hair a disaster. She looked thoroughly debauched and completely, utterly glorious. “I get to be bossy.”

We are back! Thanks for giving me a break from writing to deal with work and our vacation. There will probably be 2 or 3 other vacation posts the coming weeks. Anyways good to be back.

The alarm hit like a truck at 7:30 in the morning. I groaned and slapped at my phone until the noise stopped, then lay there for a second staring at the ceiling and trying to remember why I’d set an alarm on a day that should have been for sleeping in.

Then it hit me: Disney. Today was Disney.

My door opened before I could even sit up. Abby stood in the doorway, already dressed in a faded band t-shirt and black shorts, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looked more awake than anyone had a right to be at this hour.

“Rise and shine, birthday girl’s personal chauffeur,” she said, bouncing on her toes. “We have a flight to catch.”

“It’s your birthday Thursday, not today,” I mumbled, but I was already sitting up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The excitement in her voice was contagious. I’d been planning this trip for months, saving up PTO, reading Disney blogs, watching YouTube about the best rides and the worst food. All so I could watch Abby’s face light up the way it did when she was genuinely happy.

The way it was lighting up right now.

“Birthday week,” she corrected, crossing to my desk and picking up my phone charger. “Starts today. Ends when I say it ends.” She tossed the charger at me, and I caught it one-handed. “Pack this. And check if you grabbed your portable battery. The one that actually works, not the one that dies in ten minutes.”

I rubbed sleep from my eyes and stood up. Our suitcases were already by the door, two mid-sized spinners that I’d bought specifically for this trip. I’d packed three days ago, methodically checking items off a list I’d made on my phone. Abby had packed yesterday in about twenty minutes, throwing things into her suitcase with the chaotic energy of someone who was either extremely confident or extremely unprepared.

“We did the final check last night,” I said, pulling open the top of my suitcase anyway. Clothes, toiletries, swim trunks, sunscreen. All there. “But yeah, let me grab the battery.”

It was on my desk, tucked next to my laptop. I slipped it into the front pocket of my carry-on backpack, then zipped everything shut. Abby was already halfway out the door.

“I’m showering first,” I said.

“Don’t use all the hot water when it’s your turn.” Abby called over her shoulder.

I laughed. Some things never changed, secret relationship or no secret relationship. She still called dibs on the shower like we were sixteen and fighting over bathroom time.

My shower was quick and efficient. Cold water at the end to wake myself up properly, then out, dried, dressed in the comfiest clothes I owned: gray sweatshorts and a soft black t-shirt with the logo of some indie game I’d played years ago. I brushed my teeth, ran a hand through my hair, and decided that was as good as it was going to get at 7:15 in the morning.

When I came downstairs, the smell of coffee hit me first. Then bacon. Mom was at the stove, flipping pancakes with one hand and holding her mug with the other. She’d dressed for work, blouse and slacks, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. But she’d made time for breakfast. That was Mom.

“Morning,” she said, not turning around. “Coffee’s fresh. Mugs are where they always are.”

I poured myself a cup, black, no sugar, and leaned against the counter. The kitchen felt different this morning. Lighter, somehow. The three of us had existed in this new reality for... what, a few days now? A week? It was still surreal, but the edges were softening. We were figuring it out.

Abby came bounding down the stairs ten minutes later, hair damp, wearing an oversized hoodie and leggings. She made a beeline for the coffee pot, poured herself a cup, added enough cream and sugar to turn it beige, and took a long sip with her eyes closed.

“God bless caffeine,” she sighed.

Mom turned from the stove, spatula in hand, and smiled. It was a real smile. Warm, genuine, the kind that reached her eyes. “Happy early birthday, honey,” she said. “Twenty. Hard to believe.”

Abby grinned. “Twenty and heading to Disney with my favorite person. Life is good.”

There was a beat of silence, just a fraction of a second, where the word “person” hung in the air where “brother” would have been a month ago in front of mom. Mom’s smile didn’t falter. She turned back to the stove and slid two more pancakes onto the growing stack.

“Call me when you land,” she said. “And send pictures. Lots of them. I want to live vicariously through you two.”

“We will,” Abby promised, already reaching for the bacon. “Every ride, every character, every overpriced churro. You’ll be sick of us by day three.”

Mom laughed. “Impossible.”

We ate at the island, the three of us, passing syrup and butter and pretending it was any other morning. Mom asked about our flight times, our hotel, whether I’d remembered to pack Dramamine for Abby, who got motion sickness on anything that spun. I had. I’d packed everything. I’d been planning this trip with the meticulous attention of someone defusing a bomb, because that’s what it felt like: one wrong move and the whole thing could blow up in my face.

Not because of Mom anymore. Because of me. Because I wanted it to be perfect for her.

Halfway through breakfast, Abby’s eyes went wide. “Shit. My headphones.”

“What about them?” I asked.

“I left my good ones upstairs. The noise-canceling ones.” She was already sliding off her stool. “Be right back.”

She disappeared up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Mom waited until we heard Abby’s bedroom door close, then turned to me.

“Come here a second,” she said, voice lowered.

I followed her to the living room, coffee mug still in hand. She sat on the couch, and I took the armchair across from her. Morning light filtered through the blinds, casting stripes across the carpet between us.

“Have fun,” Mom said. “Both of you. Really have fun. You’ve earned it.”

I nodded. “We will.”

“And be safe.” Her eyes held mine. Not the worried-mom “be safe“ from when we were kids. The new “be safe.” The one that came with a whole dictionary of meanings we’d established in the kitchen a few days ago.

“We will,” I said again. “I promise.”

She reached into her purse, which was sitting on the floor beside the couch, and pulled out a small wrapped box. Silver paper, blue ribbon. She handed it to me.

“Can you sneak this into your luggage?” she asked. “It’s for Abby. For her birthday. I was going to give it to her on her birthday, but... well. You’re leaving today.”

I took the box. It was light, whatever was inside. “What is it?”

“Earrings. Nothing fancy. But they belonged to Jules.”

The name landed between us like something physical. Dad’s sister. The woman from Mom’s story. The one who’d loved her brother the way I loved Abby.

“Mom,” I started, but I didn’t know what to say after that. Thank you felt inadequate. I’m sorry felt wrong. So I just held the box carefully, like it might break, and nodded.

“She would have wanted Abby to have them,” Mom said simply. “I’ve been holding onto them for years, waiting for the right time. This feels right.”

I slipped the box into the front pocket of my backpack, next to the portable battery. “I’ll make sure she gets it. At the right moment.”

Mom smiled. It was a complicated smile, full of history and hurt and something that might have been hope. “I know you will.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Abby reappeared, headphones around her neck, backpack slung over one shoulder. “Ready?” she asked, bouncing on her toes again.

“Ready, Uber’s in fifteen.” I said, standing up. Mom stood too, and pulled Abby into a hug that lasted a few seconds longer than usual. When she let go, there was something in her eyes that looked like pride.

“Have the best time,” she said. “Both of you.”

We would.

Right on schedule, my phone buzzed with the Uber notification. Roger was two minutes away in a black SUV, the app said. Perfect timing.

“Car’s here,” I called upstairs, though Abby was already bounding down with her carry-on rolling behind her. She’d changed her hoodie to a lighter one, bright blue, and swapped her leggings for some shorts. Travel upgrades.

Mom met us at the door. One more hug for each of us, quick and firm. “Call me,” she said to Abby. “And for god’s sake, wear sunscreen. Both of you. I don’t want to see lobster-red vacation photos.”

“Yes, Mom,” we said in unison, and she laughed.

The SUV pulled up just as we got the suitcases to the curb. Roger was a guy in his fifties, gray hair, friendly smile. He hopped out, introduced himself, and took our bags with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d done this a thousand times. “Where ya headed after the airport?” he asked, popping the trunk.

“Orlando,” I said. “Week at Disney.”

His eyebrows went up. “Nice. Special occasion?”

I glanced at Abby, who was already climbing into the back seat. “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday,” I said.

He nodded appreciatively, closed the trunk, and got behind the wheel. I slid in next to Abby, and we pulled away from the curb. Mom stood on the porch, waving, getting smaller in the rear window until we turned the corner and she was gone.

The backseat was quiet. Abby’s hand found mine immediately, her fingers threading through my fingers. We sat like that, not talking, just holding hands and watching our neighborhood slide past the windows. It was a weird feeling. Normal and not normal at the same time. Holding my sister’s hand in the back of an Uber, heading to the airport, about to spend a week together in the most magical place on earth. Three months ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now it just felt... right.

Roger broke the silence about ten minutes into the drive. “So, first time to Disney?” he asked, eyes meeting mine in the rearview.

“First time together,” I said. “I went once as a kid. She’s never been.”

Abby squeezed my hand. “My boyfriend’s treating me for my birthday,” she said, and the word “boyfriend” landed between us like something alive. We hadn’t discussed what to call each other in public. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Brother and sister. We’d just been... us. But “boyfriend” made sense. It was the closest approximation to the truth that wouldn’t get us stared at.

“That’s sweet,” Roger said. “Weather’s gonna be a lot different down there. Humid as hell this time of year. You packing for that?”

“We’ve got shorts,” I said. “And a lot of sunscreen. Mom’s orders.”

He laughed. “Smart mom. You two have fun. Disney’s something else. My granddaughter went last year, still won’t stop talking about it.”

The conversation drifted after that. Traffic, the best airport drop-off point, whether the TSA line would be terrible on a weekday morning. Roger had opinions on all of it. We nodded and made appreciative noises while Abby’s thumb traced small circles on the back of my hand.

Forty-five minutes later, we pulled up at departures. Roger helped with the bags again, wished us a good trip, and pulled away with a friendly wave. We stood on the curb for a second, suitcases at our feet, the airport buzzing around us. Then Abby grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the doors.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” she chanted, practically skipping. The excitement radiating off her was palpable. I couldn’t help but grin.

Security was... security. Shoes off, laptops out, the usual dance. Abby got flagged for a bag check because of her portable charger, which gave the TSA agent an excuse to rifle through her meticulously packed carry-on while she stood there tapping her foot. I got through without incident, reassembled myself on the other side, and waited.

“All clear,” the agent finally said, and Abby grabbed her bag and joined me with an exaggerated eye roll.

“Next time I’m putting that thing in your bag,” she muttered.

We hit Dunkin first. Large iced coffee for me, some complicated frozen thing for Abby that involved caramel and whipped cream and probably more sugar than was strictly necessary. Then a quick stop at one of the newsstand shops for snacks: chips, candy, a bag of those weird peanut butter filled pretzels that Abby loved and I tolerated.

Our gate was at the far end of the terminal. We walked slowly, Abby sipping her drink, me checking the departure board every thirty seconds like the gate might have changed in the last half minute. It hadn’t. Still C27, still on time, still boarding in approximately forty-five minutes.

We found two seats near the window and settled in. Abby pulled out her phone and started scrolling Instagram. I pulled out my iPad and pretended to read while actually people-watching. A family with three exhausted-looking kids. A business traveler typing furiously on a laptop. An older couple holding hands, the woman’s head on the man’s shoulder. Normal airport stuff. The kind of scene that made our situation feel both wildly abnormal and perfectly ordinary at the same time.

Boarding started right on schedule. Group 4, which was us. We shuffled down the jet bridge with the rest of the cattle, presented our boarding passes to the flight attendant with the strained smile, and made our way to row 23.

“Window,” Abby announced, sliding into seat A before I could even put my bag in the overhead.

“I get the window,” she said, already buckling her seatbelt. “It’s my birthday week.”

I stared at her. “Your birthday is later in the week, not today. And also, you didn’t ask.”

She grinned. “I’m asking now. Can I please have the window seat for my birthday week?”

“That’s not how asking works. You don’t get to claim something and then ask permission after the fact.”

“Too late.” She patted the middle seat beside her. “You can sit here. And look.” She pointed to the empty aisle seat. “We’ve got the whole row to ourselves. Almost.”

I sighed, put my bag overhead, and took the middle seat. “You’re impossible.”

“You love it,” she said, and she was right.

The armrest between us went up before the flight attendant had finished her safety spiel. Abby scooted closer, her thigh pressing against mine, her shoulder tucked under my arm. I wrapped my arm around her and she settled against me with a contented sigh.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For this. For everything.”

I kissed the top of her head. “You’re welcome.”

The plane took off on time, climbing through a layer of clouds before breaking into clear blue. Abby had her face pressed to the window, watching the ground get smaller, the cars becoming toys, the buildings becoming models. I watched her instead. The way the sunlight caught in her hair. The small smile that hadn’t left her face since we’d pulled away from the house.

Somewhere over Kentucky, she turned to me. “I gotta pee,” she said. “Bathroom break.”

I stood up, moving into the aisle to let her pass. She squeezed past me, her hand brushing my thigh in a way that was probably accidental but felt intentional, and disappeared toward the rear of the plane.

I settled back into my seat, pulled out my phone, and opened Reddit. A minute later, it pinged with a notification.

A message from Abby. A photo.

I opened it and nearly dropped my phone.

It was Abby in the airplane bathroom. Shirt and hoodie pulled up to her neck, her breasts completely exposed, the harsh fluorescent light doing absolutely nothing to diminish how good she looked. Her free hand was giving a peace sign next to her face, which wore a mischievous grin.

The caption: “too bad we can’t try for the mile high club”

I stared at the photo for a solid ten seconds before my brain caught up. Then I typed back, my thumbs moving on autopilot: “the plane would definitely know with how loud you get”

I hit send and immediately regretted it. Not because it wasn’t true. Because I knew exactly what was coming.

A minute later, Abby reappeared at our row. I stood to let her in, and she punched me hard in the arm as she slid past.

“I am not that loud,” she hissed, but she was fighting a smile.

“You absolutely are,” I whispered back. “The neighbors could file a noise complaint any day now.”

She rolled her eyes and settled back against me, pulling out her phone. I reached into my backpack and pulled out my iPad, already loaded with the anime I knew she’d want to watch.

“Rent-A-Girlfriend?” I asked, holding it up.

Her eyes lit up. “Season 3? You downloaded it?”

“Obviously.”

We put in our earbuds, shared the screen between us, and spent the rest of the flight watching fictional people navigate relationships that were, ironically, significantly less complicated than ours. Abby’s head found my shoulder again. My arm found its way around her waist. And for two hours, flying at thirty thousand feet over America, everything felt simple.

The plane touched down with that particular jolt that always made my stomach drop, and then we were taxiing, and then the seatbelt sign dinged off, and then the cabin filled with the sound of a hundred people simultaneously reaching for their overhead bags. Normal airport chaos. Except we were in Florida now. And Florida in June was a whole different beast.

The jet bridge attached with a hydraulic hiss, and the door opened. Hot, wet air rushed in immediately, carrying the distinct smell of jet fuel and... something else. Something green and heavy and alive. Humidity. It hit me like a wall the second I stepped off the plane, pressing against my skin, clinging to my clothes, filling my lungs with what felt like warm soup.

“Holy shit,” Abby said beside me, already fanning herself with her boarding pass. “It’s like breathing through a wet towel.”

“Told you,” I said, though I hadn’t, not really. I’d mentioned it would be humid. I hadn’t mentioned it would be like walking into a sauna fully clothed. My t-shirt was already sticking to my back.

We made our way through the terminal, following signs for baggage claim. Orlando Airport was bright and noisy and full of families in matching t-shirts, most of them heading to the same place we were. The baggage carousel spat out our suitcases after about twenty minutes of waiting. I grabbed both, hefted them onto a cart, and we followed the signs for Disney’s Magical Express.

Except Disney’s Magical Express didn’t exist anymore. I’d done my research. Now it was Mears Connect, or you could spring for a Minnie Van if you wanted to pay triple for the privilege of riding in a red SUV with polka dots. I’d gone with the Minnie Van option: to spoil the birthday girl some more.

The drive took about thirty minutes. Abby spent most of it with her face pressed to the window, watching Florida slide past: palm trees, strip malls, billboards for every tourist trap within fifty miles. I pointed out the first glimpse of Disney property when we passed under the archway with the welcoming sign, and she actually gasped.

“We’re here,” she said, squeezing my hand. “We’re actually here.”

The SUV dropped us at Pop Century, which was exactly as chaotic and wonderful as the YouTube vids had promised. A massive resort dedicated to the decades, with giant icons everywhere: a Walkman the size of a truck, Rubik’s cubes you could live in, a foosball table where the players were taller than me. Abby was spinning in slow circles, trying to take it all in at once.

“Which building are we in?” she asked.

“Seventies,” I said. “Building 10. Close to the Skyliner.”

“The what?”

I pointed to the elevated gondola system running from the back of the resort toward the distant shapes of Epcot and Hollywood Studios. “That. It’s how we get to two of the parks. No buses, no waiting. Just hop on and you’re there in like, ten minutes.”

Her eyes went wide. “That’s so cool.”

The check-in line at the front desk was mercifully short. A cast member with a name tag that read “Jasmine” and a smile that looked genuinely warm helped us through the process: IDs, credit card for incidentals, the room keys that doubled as park tickets. She asked if we were celebrating anything special, and Abby beamed.

“It’s my birthday Thursday. Twenty!.”

Jasmine’s smile widened. “Happy birthday! Make sure you get a birthday button at the parks. The characters will make a fuss.” She handed us our keys. “You’re in building 10, room 255. Enjoy your stay!”

We found building 10 without too much trouble. The exterior was decorated with giant 8-Track cartridges, a nod to the seventies theme. The elevator took us to the second floor, and we walked down the outdoor corridor until we found 255.

I brushed the key card into the lock. The light turned green. I pushed the door open.

The room was exactly what I’d hoped for. Not huge, but clean and bright, with pops of color everywhere. A small table with two chairs by the window. A dresser with a TV on top. A mini-fridge tucked into a cabinet. And dominating the center of the room, exactly as promised: a king-sized bed with a massive headboard. Mickey Mouse above the headboard.(You can see what im talking about in the photo in my profile)

Abby made a sound that was half gasp, half squeal. She dropped her backpack in the corner with a thud, took two running steps, and launched herself onto the bed in a perfect swan dive. The mattress absorbed her impact with a comfortable bounce, and she lay there spread-eagle, arms and legs outstretched, staring at the ceiling with a dazed grin.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Brian. Come feel this bed. It’s like sleeping on a cloud that loves you.”

I dropped my bags next to hers and sat on the edge of the mattress. She was right. It was... remarkably comfortable. Firm but soft, with pillows that actually supported your head instead of collapsing into sad pancakes the way most hotel pillows did.

Abby rolled toward me, her movement fluid and sudden, and wrapped her arms around my waist. She buried her face against my chest, and for a second I thought she might be crying. But when she looked up, her eyes were dry and bright and full of something that made my chest tighten.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was quiet, serious in a way Abby’s voice rarely was. “For all of this. For planning it, for paying for it, for... for wanting to do this with me. It means everything.”

I cupped her face with one hand, thumb brushing her cheek. “You’re welcome,” I said. And then, because I couldn’t not say it: “I love you.”

She smiled, and then she was kissing me. Not the quick, playful kisses we exchanged in the car or on the plane. This was hungry. Her mouth opened against mine, her tongue finding my tongue, her hands sliding up my back to tangle in my hair. I kissed her back with equal fervor, my arms wrapping around her, pulling her closer until there was no space between us at all.

When we broke apart, both of us were breathing hard. Abby’s cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen. She looked at me with those dark eyes, and I knew exactly what was coming next.

“We should check out the shower,” she said, her voice low and rough around the edges. “Don’t you think?”

I nodded. My throat felt suddenly dry. “Yeah. We should.”

She didn’t wait for me to elaborate. In one fluid motion, she pulled her hoodie over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her t-shirt followed, then she was out of her leggings. “Hurry up,” she said, “I’m not doing this alone.”

I stood up, already reaching for the hem of my own shirt. The room was warm, the AC still working to catch up after we’d opened the door to the Florida humidity. Or maybe it was just us, generating enough heat between us to power the entire resort.

Abby was down to her bra and underwear now, standing by the bathroom door, one hand on the frame. She looked at me with that mix of challenge and desire that never failed to short-circuit something in my brain.

“Coming?” she asked.

I was definitely coming. Just not yet.

The bathroom was smaller than I’d expected, but what it lacked in square footage it made up for in shower quality. A glass door led to a tiled enclosure with two showerheads: one mounted directly overhead in that rainfall style that dumped water on you like a warm monsoon, and a detachable wand on a hose that you could aim wherever you wanted. Disney didn’t mess around with their bathroom upgrades.

Abby reached past me and twisted the handle. Water burst from both showerheads with impressive pressure, filling the room with steam almost immediately. She stepped out of her underwear, unhooked her bra, and tossed both toward the general vicinity of the sink. Then she turned to me, completely naked now, water already beading on her shoulders, and held out her hand.

“Your turn,” she said.

I kicked off my shorts, pulled my shirt over my head, and stepped out of my boxers. The bathroom was warm, steam thickening the air, turning everything soft at the edges. Abby’s hand found mine, and she pulled me toward the shower.

The water hit me like a second wall of heat, warmer than I’d expected, pounding down from above. Abby stepped under the rainfall showerhead first, her head tilting back, eyes closed, water streaming through her hair and down her body in rivulets. She looked like something from a dream. All smooth skin and soft curves, backlit by the bathroom light filtering through steam.

I stepped in behind her, and she turned, wrapping her arms around my neck and her body around mine in one fluid motion. Her skin was slick and hot against mine, water between us making everything slide. She kissed me, and I kissed her back, my hands finding the small of her back, then lower, cupping her ass and squeezing.

She made a sound against my mouth. Not quite a moan, not quite a gasp. Something between. I squeezed harder, lifting her slightly, feeling the muscles in her ass tense under my fingers. She pressed herself against me, her breasts flattening against my chest, her hips rocking forward until I could feel her, hot and insistent, through the press of our bodies.

“God, you feel good,” she murmured, her lips brushing my jaw, my neck, the sensitive spot just below my ear that always made my knees weak. Her hands slid down my chest, tracing the lines of muscle I’d spent months building at the gym, and then lower, past my stomach, until her fingers wrapped around my cock.

I was already half-hard, had been since she’d pulled her hoodie off in the bedroom. Her touch finished the job. One firm stroke from base to tip, her thumb circling the head where I was most sensitive, and I was fully, painfully erect, throbbing in her grip.

“Someone’s excited,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

“Someone’s been teasing me since the airplane bathroom,” I countered.

She laughed, a bright sound that cut through the steady drum of the shower. Then she was sinking to her knees on the tile floor, water cascading over both of us, and taking me into her mouth.

The heat of her mouth was almost unbearable after the already-hot water. Wet, tight, her tongue flat against the underside of my shaft as she worked me deeper. I braced one hand against the shower wall, the other finding the top of her head, fingers tangling in her wet hair.

This was one of my favorite things in the world. Watching Abby take me. Watching my cock disappear between her lips, inch by inch, her mouth stretching to accommodate me, her eyes looking up at me with that mix of defiance and devotion that turned my brain to static. And feeling it. The slow, deliberate slide as she took me deeper, then pulled back, then deeper again, establishing a rhythm that had my thighs trembling within seconds.

She hummed around me, the vibration traveling straight up my shaft and into my spine. My hand tightened in her hair, not pulling, just holding, anchoring myself against the sensation. Abby’s free hand found my balls, cupping them gently, her thumb tracing small circles that sent fresh jolts of pleasure through my groin.

She took me deeper than I thought possible, her nose pressing against my stomach, her throat working around the head of my cock. I felt her gag, just slightly, a reflexive contraction that she pushed through without breaking rhythm. The sight of her like that, on her knees in a Disney hotel shower, taking me to the point of discomfort because she wanted to, because she loved the way it made me react. It was almost too much.

“Fuck, Abby,” I gasped, my hips bucking involuntarily. “I want you. Right here. Right now.”

She pulled off with a wet pop that echoed in the small enclosure. Stood up in one smooth motion, water streaming down her face, her lips red and swollen. She kissed me again, hard, shoving her tongue into my mouth with the same enthusiasm she’d just shown my cock. I could taste myself on her, faint and musky, and the realization made me groan against her lips.

Her hands were everywhere. On my chest, my shoulders, tangling in my hair, pulling me closer like she couldn’t get enough. I could feel how much she wanted this. How wet she was, the slick heat between her legs pressed against my thigh, her body trembling with anticipation.

She broke the kiss, turned around, and bent at the waist, bracing both hands against the shower wall. The position presented her to me perfectly: ass raised, back arched, the curve of her spine leading down to the two places I wanted most. She reached between her legs with one hand, fingers finding her own wetness, rubbing herself in slow, deliberate circles.

“Come on,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. Her hair was plastered to her neck, water running down the dip of her spine. “I’ve been thinking about this since we got on the plane.”

I stepped closer, my cock sliding against the inside of her thigh, leaving a wet trail on her skin. My hands found her hips, thumbs pressing into the dimples at the base of her spine. I could feel her trembling under my touch, could hear the hitch in her breathing as her fingers worked between her legs.

“You’re so wet,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I’d intended.

She laughed, the sound breathless and eager. “What can I say? Disney does things to me.”

I lined myself up, the head of my cock pressing against her entrance. She was soaked, her arousal mixing with the shower water, making everything slick and hot. I pushed forward slowly, feeling her body open to accept me, inch by inch, the tight ring of muscle yielding to steady pressure.

Abby’s hand left her clit and reached back between her legs, finding my balls as I pressed into her. Her fingers massaged them gently, rolling the sensitive skin between her fingertips, and the sensation sent a fresh wave of pleasure up my shaft that made my knees buckle.

“God,” I breathed, pausing when I was about halfway in. “You feel...”

“Amazing,” she finished for me, pushing back against me. “I know. Now stop talking and fuck me.”

I didn’t need telling twice.

I grabbed her hips with both hands, fingers digging into the soft flesh, and started to move. Not the slow, careful thrusts from moments ago. Something harder. Something that had been building since the airplane bathroom, since the king bed, since the moment we’d stepped into this shower and her mouth had wrapped around me.

Each thrust drove me deeper, the wet slap of skin against skin echoing off the tile walls. Abby braced herself against the shower, her forearms flat on the wall, head down, taking every inch I gave her. Her moans, which had started as soft, muffled things she was biting back, began to change. Grew louder. Less controlled. Each thrust drew a sound from her that started in her throat and ended somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

“Brian,” she moaned, and my name in her mouth, ragged and desperate, pushed me to go harder. Faster. My hips snapped forward with enough force to drive her further up the wall, her tiptoes barely touching the shower floor now.

The moans kept coming. Louder. Less muffled. I could hear them bouncing off the bathroom walls, could picture the family in the next room wondering what the hell was happening in 255. For a second, the thought was funny. Then Abby let out a cry that was definitely, unequivocally loud enough to carry through drywall, and my hand shot forward before my brain had fully processed the motion.

I grabbed her throat from behind, my fingers wrapping around the column of her neck, and pulled her back against my chest. Not hard enough to cut off her air, just enough pressure to let her feel it. To let her know I was there, that I had her, that the sounds she was making were driving me out of my mind.

The effect was immediate. Abby’s whole body went rigid against mine, a sharp, choked gasp escaping her lips as my hand tightened. Her inner walls clenched around my cock with almost painful intensity, her ass pressing back against my stomach as she arched into the pressure on her throat.

“Fuck,” she breathed, the word barely audible. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

I didn’t stop. I kept thrusting, my hand still around her throat, feeling her pulse hammer against my palm. Her moans changed again. Became hitched, broken things, catching on each exhale as my fingers constricted just enough to make her dizzy with it. She turned her head, seeking my mouth, and I kissed her, my tongue pushing past her lips as my cock pushed deeper inside her.

Her legs were shaking now. I could feel them trembling against mine, could feel the tension building in her body with each thrust. Her free hand dropped between her legs, fingers finding her clit, rubbing in frantic circles that matched the rhythm of my hips.

“I’m gonna cum,” she gasped against my mouth. “Brian, I’m so close, I’m gonna—”

Her body went taut, back arching, a cry tearing from her throat that my hand barely muffled. And then I felt it: the sudden, violent clench of her pussy around my cock, squeezing so tight that it actually pushed me out, and in the next instant she was squirting, a hot gush of liquid jetting from her and hitting the shower floor with enough force to splash against our ankles.

“Holy shit,” I managed, momentarily stunned by the intensity of it. I’d made her squirt before, plenty of times, but never like this. Never with this much force, this much volume, her release mixing with the shower water and turning the tile floor into something slippery and warm.

Abby was panting, her body still shuddering with aftershocks, her inner muscles fluttering around nothing as she came down from the peak. I gave her about three seconds to recover. Then I gripped her hips again, lined myself up, and pushed back inside.

She gasped, her body jerking at the renewed penetration. “Too sensitive,” she whimpered, but she was pushing back against me, her ass meeting my thrusts with increasing urgency. Her pussy was even tighter now, hypersensitive from her orgasm, each stroke drawing a broken moan from her lips that went straight to my cock.

I fucked her through it, my pace steady and deep, hitting spots inside her that made her toes curl against the shower floor. I could feel my own orgasm building, that familiar pressure at the base of my spine, the tightening of my balls, the pre-cum leaking from the tip of my cock where it disappeared inside her.

“I’m gonna cum,” I said, my voice strained with the effort of holding back. “Abby, I’m close.”

She pulled away from me suddenly, my cock slipping free with a wet sound that made us both gasp. Then she was turning, dropping to her knees on the shower floor, and taking me into her mouth without hesitation.

The transition from her tight, wet pussy to her hot, eager mouth was almost enough to push me over the edge immediately. She took me deep, her throat opening around the head of my cock, her tongue working the underside of my shaft as she bobbed her head with desperate enthusiasm.

“Fuck,” I gasped, one hand braced against the shower wall, the other finding the back of her head. “I’m gonna—Abby, I’m—”

She didn’t pull away. She took me deeper, her nose pressing against my stomach, her throat constricting around me as I came. The orgasm hit like a freight train, intense enough to make my vision blur at the edges. Pulse after pulse of cum shot down her throat, and I could feel her swallowing around me, taking every drop, not missing a single one.

When it was finally over, I slumped against the shower wall, completely spent. Abby sat back on her heels, a satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth. A tiny droplet of cum escaped from the corner of her lip, and she casually wiped it away with her finger before standing up.

She kissed me, soft and lingering, her tongue sweeping into my mouth so I could taste myself on her. Then she stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel from the rack, and wrapped it around herself with a flourish that was pure Abby.

“Let the birthday week shenanigans begin,” she announced, and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the bathroom tile.

I stood under the rainfall showerhead, water pounding down on my shoulders, and tried to process what had just happened. We’d been in Florida for less than two hours. We’d checked into our room, tested the bed, and fucked in the shower hard enough to make the neighbors question their life choices. And this was only day one. Day zero, technically, since her birthday wasn’t until Thursday.

Abby had seven full days of “birthday week” ahead of her. Seven days of parks and rides and character meet-and-greets and, apparently, wherever else her whims took us. Including, if the shower was any indication, every horizontal surface in this hotel room.

I turned off the water and reached for a towel. This trip was going to be the death of me. And I was going to enjoy every second of it.

This post is a little different from our hormone fueled fuck fests. But we wanted to give you a fly on the wall insight after what happened that night. Thanks again!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The lights flicked on with a harsh click. Mom stood in the doorway, her hand still on the switch, her body rigid as a statue. Her eyes were fixed on me, then on Abby beside me, naked and asleep, one arm thrown across my chest. The expression on her face was one I had never seen before. Not anger, not disappointment. Something worse. Something that made my stomach drop through the floor.

“BRIAN! EXPLAIN!”

The words hit me like a physical blow. Abby shot upright beside me with a piercing scream that seemed to crack the drywall. She scrambled backward, dragging the blanket with her, wrapping it around her body in a frantic tangle. Her eyes were wide, panicked, darting between Mom and me and the empty spaces of the room as if looking for somewhere to hide that didn’t exist.

Mom’s jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle twitching in her cheek. Her eyes were wet, but her voice was ice cold.

“Brian, get dressed and get in the kitchen.” She turned her gaze to Abby, who had pulled the blanket up to her chin, her knees drawn to her chest. “Abby, get some clothes on and get down there too.”

She turned on her heel and walked down the hall. Each step was measured, deliberate, the sound of her shoes on the hardwood floor echoing through the silent house like gunshots.

Abby was still crying. Not the dramatic, performative crying she sometimes did when she was frustrated. This was real. Her shoulders shook with each sob, her face buried in the blanket she’d wrapped around herself. When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were red and swollen, her face splotchy with the kind of crying that leaves marks.

“I need to go,” she managed, her voice breaking. She clutched the blanket tighter around her body and slid off the bed, her bare feet padding across my floor. At the door, she paused, glanced back at me with something between terror and apology in her eyes, then disappeared into the bathroom. I heard her bedroom door open and close behind her, the door clicking softly into place.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands gripping the sheets on either side of me. The room smelled like us... sweat and sex and that faint jasmine scent from Abby’s shower gel. My stomach churned with a nausea that had nothing to do with food.

This was it. The moment I had pushed to the back of my mind every time I kissed my sister, every time I made her laugh, every time I held her and told her I loved her. The moment when the fantasy we’d built crashed into the real world where people had rules and consequences and mothers who walked in on their adult children fucking.

I pulled on a pair of basketball shorts and grabbed the first t-shirt I found. It was some faded band shirt from a concert I’d gone to years ago. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the shirt over my head. I took one look at my reflection in the mirror above my dresser. My hair was a disaster. My face was pale. I looked like someone who had just watched his entire life implode, which was exactly what was happening.

The walk downstairs felt like walking to my own execution. Each step was heavier than the last, the creak of the old wooden stairs loud enough to wake the dead. I could hear Mom moving around in the kitchen, the clink of a glass being set down, the scrape of a chair leg against tile.

She was sitting at the island when I entered, her back straight, her hands folded on the counter in front of her. She didn’t look up at me. The pizza box she’d brought home sat unopened beside her, the delivery sticker still on the lid.

“Mom,” I started, my voice catching in my throat. “I can explain…”

“Wait.” She held up a hand, still not looking at me. “Wait for your sister.”

I stood there, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, my hands shoved deep in the pockets of my shorts. The kitchen clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside, a car drove past, music thumping through its speakers. Life going on, indifferent to the disaster unfolding in our kitchen.

A few minutes later, Abby appeared at the top of the stairs. She had changed into sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, the hood pulled up over her head. Her face was red and blotchy, tear tracks still visible on her cheeks. She came down slowly, each step tentative, like she was walking on broken glass.

She sat on the stool next to Mom, pulling her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She looked small. Young. Nothing like the confident, take-no-shit woman who had been riding me hours earlier.

Mom looked at me. Her eyes were dry now, but the hurt in them was raw and exposed.

“Brian. Explain.”

I took a breath. Then another. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

“It started around Christmas,” I said, the words coming out in a rush. “After that whole thing with the nude photo on my phone. Abby saw it and... something changed. We started kind of flirting, I guess. Texting more. Sitting closer when we watched movies. It was stupid and I knew it was wrong but it just kept happening and it felt...” I paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t make everything worse. “It felt good. Really good. And then one night we kissed and after that we just... didn’t stop.”

Tears were falling now. I could feel them hot on my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them away. I deserved this. Every second of it.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I never wanted you to find out like this. I never wanted to hurt you. I just—”

“It was me.” Abby’s voice cut through mine, sharp and clear despite the tears. She straightened up on her stool, pushing her hood back. “I started it. All of it. The flirting, the first kiss, everything. Brian tried to stop it at first. I pushed. So if you’re going to blame someone, blame me.”

Mom looked at Abby, her expression softening just enough to be visible. “Honey, I just said to explain. I did not place any blame yet.”

The kitchen fell silent again. Abby and I exchanged a glance, a quick, desperate look that contained everything we couldn’t say out loud. I love you. I’m scared. What happens now?

We kept talking. Abby picked up where I left off, describing the night we first slept together, the trip to Phoenix, the countless times we’d been careful, the countless times we hadn’t. Mom listened without interrupting, her face a mask I couldn’t read. She nodded occasionally. Sometimes she closed her eyes, like she was trying to process something too big to fit in her head.

After what felt like hours but was probably closer to forty-five minutes, Mom held up a hand.

“Stop,” she said. “Just... stop.”

We stopped. The kitchen went quiet again, the only sound the soft ticking of the clock and the occasional sniff from Abby as she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie.

Mom looked at us both, her gaze moving from my face to Abby’s and back again. Her expression had changed. The raw hurt was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something I couldn’t quite name.

“I need to tell you a story,” she said.

Mom folded her hands on the countertop and took a long breath. When she spoke, her voice had changed. Gone was the ice, the controlled anger. What replaced it was something softer, sadder, like she was reading from a story she’d memorized years ago and never wanted to tell.

“I need to tell you a story about your father’s sister,” she began. “Jules. Dad’s younger sister. She died about 8 years before he did. Brain cancer.”

“Aunt Jules was always sick, even as a kid,” Mom continued. “Headaches, fatigue, bruising easily. When she was fourteen, they found out it was leukemia. The aggressive kind.”

Mom’s fingers traced a pattern on the countertop, her eyes fixed on some middle distance between Abby and me.

“She lost all her hair within a month of starting treatment. Went from this vibrant, athletic girl to pale and frail practically overnight. Her boyfriend, this kid she’d been dating since middle school. He stopped coming by. Her friends too. One by one, they all drifted away. Can’t blame them, really. Teenagers don’t know how to handle that kind of thing. But it left her completely alone.”

A heavy silence filled the kitchen. I could picture it too clearly: a teenage girl in a hospital bed, bald and scared, watching her life empty out around her.

“Except for your father,” Mom said. “He was always there. Every day after school, every weekend. He had this... this magical ability with her. Five minutes in the room and she’d be smiling. Ten minutes and she’d be laughing. He’d bring her comics and magazines, or these stupid jokes he’d copied out of a book, or just sit there and let her talk about whatever she wanted. For hours. While all her other relationships fell apart, the one with your dad only got stronger.”

I thought of Dad. The man I remembered was quiet, steady, the kind of person who fixed things without being asked. I tried to imagine him as a teenager, sitting by his sister’s hospital bed, making her laugh through chemotherapy. The image fit, and that made something twist in my chest.

“Jules started to get better. The treatments worked. Her hair grew back, her color returned. But even healthy, she was different. Quieter. She kept to herself, didn’t make new friends. The only time she looked like herself was when your dad was around. They were inseparable. Hanging out constantly, doing everything together.”

Mom paused, her mouth tightening. “And then something changed. I don’t know exactly when it happened. Your father never gave me dates, and I never pushed. But at some point during their teens, the relationship stopped being just brother and sister.”

A gasp came from beside me. Abby’s hand had flown to her mouth, her eyes wide. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at anything except the grain of the countertop, because if I looked up I might fall apart.

“They kept it secret, of course. No one knew. Not their parents, not their friends. Jules beat the leukemia, got her health back, but the relationship with your father continued. All through high school, into their twenties. She never dated anyone else. Never showed interest in anyone else. And your father... he tried. Dated a few girls in college. But nothing stuck. Nothing felt right.”

Mom’s voice had dropped to almost a whisper. The kitchen felt airless, too small for the story unfolding in it.

“Jules was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was twenty-three. She fought it for two years. Your father was with her for every appointment, every treatment, every bad night. She died eighteen months before he did. And the whole time, even at the end, they were together. In every sense of the word.”

I heard another sharp intake of breath from Abby. A small, wounded sound. My own chest felt like it had been wrapped in something too tight.

“I found out about it a year after your father and I got married,” Mom said. “Found some letters. Old photos. Things he’d kept hidden. I was going to leave him. Packed a bag, called my sister, the whole thing. But we talked. For hours. And he told me the same thing I’m telling you now.”

Mom looked up, meeting my eyes directly for the first time since she’d started speaking.

“Jules couldn’t have children. The leukemia treatments damaged her reproductive system beyond repair. She was alone in the world except for him. And the only time she was truly happy, the only time she felt like herself, was when they were together. Not as siblings. As something else.”

The word hung in the air between us. Something else. The same phrase I’d used about Abby and me a hundred times in my own head, when I lay awake at night trying to make sense of what we were.

“Your father loved me,” Mom said, and there was no doubt in her voice. “He loved me completely. But he loved Jules too, in a way I could never compete with. Not because I wasn’t enough, but because what they had was... it was its own thing. Something forged in sickness and isolation and a bond I could never fully understand.”

I realized I was crying again. Silent tears this time, tracking down my cheeks without sobs to accompany them. Across the counter, Abby was crying too, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

Several times during Mom’s story, Abby had made these little shocked noises. Little sharp inhales, small gasps, each one hitting me like a physical blow. I hadn’t looked at her. I couldn’t. If I looked at her right now, with this story sitting between us like a live wire, I wasn’t sure what would happen.

But I was thinking about her. About the way she looked at me when no one else was watching. About the sound of her laugh, the weight of her body against mine, the way she knew exactly what I needed before I asked for it. I was thinking about Dad and Jules, about hospital rooms and secret kisses and a love that existed outside every rule I’d ever been taught.

And something in me, something that had been tied in knots since Mom flipped on the light in my bedroom, began to loosen.

“There’s more to the story,” Mom said, her voice softer now. “Personal things. Family things. But that’s enough for now. That’s the part you needed to hear.”

The kitchen felt different. The same fluorescent lights, the same pizza box on the counter, the same clock ticking on the wall. But the air between us had changed. Charged, somehow. Like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks.

“I’ve had this weird feeling,” Mom continued, “for months now. Couldn’t put my finger on it. Something was different between you two. Abby, you’ve been... present. At dinner, during movie nights. Not in your room with the door closed. Not snapping at every little thing I said. And your style…” She gestured at Abby’s hoodie, the faded band logo visible on the sleeve. “The black lipstick is gone. The safety pins. The whole punk thing you had going. It’s softened.”

I looked at Abby properly for the first time since Mom had started talking. She was still crying, but quietly now, tears tracking down her cheeks without sound. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, her face bare and vulnerable. She looked nothing like the girl who’d dyed her hair black at sixteen and refused to speak to anyone for a week.

My thoughts were racing so fast I could barely track them. My heart was pounding against my ribs like it was trying to escape. What happened next? Grounding? Kicking me out? Calling some kind of family therapist who specialized in exactly this brand of fucked up? Every possible outcome flashed through my head, each one worse than the last.

Mom looked at me. Her eyes, so similar to mine in shape and color, held mine with an intensity that made it hard to breathe.

“Brian,” she said. “Do you love your sister?”

The question hit me like a physical blow. Simple. Direct. Impossible to dodge.

“What?” The word came out smaller than I intended, barely more than a whisper.

“Your sister,” Mom repeated, her voice steady. “Do you love her?”

I turned to look at Abby. Really look at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face splotchy from crying, a strand of hair stuck to her damp cheek. She looked terrified. She looked beautiful. And as I held her gaze, something in my chest unknotted itself completely. The panic receded. My heartbeat slowed. My mind, which had been screaming in five different directions since Mom flipped on the light, went quiet.

I gave her a small, cautious smile. The kind you give someone when you’re about to jump off a cliff together and you both know there’s no going back.

“Yeah,” I said. “I really do.” The words came out steadier than I expected. “She’s the one I think about all day. The person who really gets me. And if something happened to her…” My voice caught. I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I would do. I really don’t.”

Abby wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. A fresh tear escaped and tracked down her cheek, but she was smiling through it. A wobbly, fragile thing.

“I love you too, dummy,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

Mom looked at us both. Her expression was complicated. The hurt was still there, and confusion, and something that might have been resignation. But underneath it all was a warmth I hadn’t expected. A recognition.

“I’m not sure that I will ever understand it,” she said quietly. “But I can tell that you both mean it. You are both adults, and even though I’m your mom and should be appalled...” She paused, took a breath. “Just know that I love you both. No matter what.”

She reached across the counter and took my right hand in hers. With her other hand, she found Abby’s left. The three of us sat there, connected across the kitchen island, a circuit completed.

“This is very close to the same conversation I had with your father and Jules,” Mom said. “Years ago. In this very kitchen, actually. Different countertops. But the same feeling.”

I squeezed her hand. Abby squeezed back.

“I won’t stop you,” Mom continued. “I can’t. You’re adults. But I need you to keep this a secret around Greg. He’s... he’s important to me. And I think he’s going to propose at some point. This would be a lot for him to process all at once.”

We both nodded. Greg was a good guy. Straightforward, kind. The type who’d probably have a heart attack if he found out his girlfriend’s adult children were sleeping together. Keeping our relationship under wraps around him wasn’t just reasonable, it was necessary.

“Protection,” Mom said, her voice shifting back into practical-mom mode. “What are you doing?”

Abby spoke up. “I have an IUD. Got it last year for period stuff. My doctor said it’s more effective than the pill.”

Mom nodded, then turned to me. “And you?”

“Umm,” I said. “Nothing. But honestly, Mom? I’d get a vasectomy if that’s what it took. I’m serious.”

The words were out before I’d fully processed them. But as soon as I said them, I knew they were true. I would. For Abby, for us, for whatever this was becoming, I would.

Mom looked at me, her eyes searching mine. “Is that really what you want to do? At twenty-two?”

“I’d move to Rhode Island,” I said. The words kept coming, unstoppable now. “Or whatever East Coast state allows relationships like ours. That’s how serious I am about this. About her.”

The kitchen fell silent. Mom’s hand was still holding mine, her grip firm. Abby’s fingers had intertwined with mine under the counter, out of Mom’s sight, a secret within a secret.

“I believe you,” Mom said finally. “Both of you. And that’s... that’s enough for now.”

We talked for several hours. Or Mom talked, and Abby and I listened, and sometimes we talked too, in fragments and half-sentences, the way people do when the ground beneath them has just shifted and they’re still finding their balance.

Mom told us more about Dad. Not about Jules this time, but about the man she’d married. His steadiness, his quiet humor, the way he could fix anything with his hands and a little patience. She told us about the early years of their marriage, how she’d struggled with the knowledge of what he’d had with his sister, how they’d built something new together despite it. Not to replace what he’d lost, but to exist alongside it. A second life.

“I love you both,” she said again, her voice firmer now. “And if you’re happy… really, truly happy, then I can learn to be happy for you too. It might take time. There will be days where this feels impossible to understand. But I’m your mother. My job is to love you, not to judge you.”

Something loosened in my chest. Not all at once, but in stages, like a knot being carefully untied. Across the counter, Abby’s face had settled into something close to peace. Her tears had dried. Her hand was still in mine under the island, her thumb tracing small circles on my palm.

And somehow, just like that, everything felt... normal. Not the old normal, the one where Abby and I tiptoed around each other with stolen glances and racing hearts. A new normal. Messier. More honest. The kind of normal where your mother knows you’re sleeping with your sister and has decided, against all odds, that it’s okay.

It was surreal. The kitchen looked exactly the same. The same dishes in the drying rack. The same magnet holding the same takeout menu to the refrigerator. But the air felt different. Lighter. As if the truth, once spoken, had taken up less space than the secret.

The pizza sat on the counter, untouched and long cold. Mom noticed it at the same time I did.

“Food,” she said, like she’d just remembered humans needed to eat. “We should eat.”

I picked up the box and carried it to the oven. Preheated to 375, slid the pizza in on the middle rack. Twelve minutes, maybe fifteen. Enough time for the cheese to melt again, for the crust to crisp back up. Simple mechanics. A task that required no emotional processing whatsoever. I was grateful for it.

We ate at the island, the three of us on stools, paper plates balanced on our knees. The pizza was good!

Pepperoni and sausage from the place down the street that Mom had been ordering from since I was in elementary school. We talked about ordinary things. Abby’s classes. My job. Greg’s car, which was still in the shop. When she thought he would propose.

And then we weren’t talking about ordinary things anymore. We were talking about Dad.

“It’s eerie,” Mom said, picking a mushroom off her slice and examining it before eating it. “How much you’re like him. Not just looks. The way you are with Abby. Protective, but not smothering. The way you make her laugh. He had that same quality with Jules. Could pull her out of a dark mood in seconds.”

I thought about Dad. The quiet way he moved through the house. The patience he had with broken things like toys, appliances, my childhood moods. I’d inherited his hands, his height, the slight crookedness of his smile. But this, this ability to be someone’s anchor, someone’s safe place… that was new. That was a legacy I hadn’t known I was carrying.

“I didn’t realize,” I said. “Any of it. He never talked about her.”

“He couldn’t,” Mom said simply. “It hurt too much. Even after she was gone, even after we’d worked through it together... some things stayed private. Some griefs are too big for words.”

Abby was quiet, listening. Her knee pressed against mine under the island, a point of warmth and contact that kept me grounded.

“He would have understood,” Mom continued. “About you two. Not approved, maybe. But understood. He knew what it was to love someone you weren’t supposed to love. Someone the world said was off-limits.”

The word hung between us. Off-limits. The phrase that had defined every moment Abby and I had shared since Christmas. The boundary we’d crossed without looking back.

“We’re not hurting anyone,” Abby said. Her voice was small but steady. “That’s what matters, right? We’re not hurting anyone but ourselves if we stop.”

Mom reached across and squeezed Abby’s hand. “That’s exactly what matters.”

The evening wound down slowly. We finished the pizza. Mom made some tea. Chamomile for her, peppermint for Abby, black for me. We moved to the living room, settling into our usual spots on the couch. Mom in the middle, Abby to her left, me to her right. The TV stayed off. We didn’t need it.

We talked about practical things. Boundaries. Privacy. What would change and what would stay the same. Mom asked questions. Respectful ones, the kind that assumed we were adults making adult choices. We answered as honestly as we could.

By ten o’clock, we were all yawning. The emotional marathon of the day had caught up with us. Mom kissed us both goodnight. Abby on the forehead, me on the cheek, and headed upstairs to her room. We heard her door close. The house settled into its nighttime rhythm, creaks and sighs and the soft hum of the air conditioning.

Abby and I sat on the couch for a while longer, not speaking. Her head was on my shoulder, her hand in mine. The same position we’d been in a thousand times before, except now everything was different. Now the secret was out. Now we existed in the light.

“What happens tomorrow?” Abby asked quietly.

I thought about it. About work, about Greg, about the careful dance we’d have to perform around other people for the foreseeable future. About the weight of what we’d chosen, and the strange, unexpected grace of Mom’s acceptance.

“Same as today,” I said finally. “We get up. We live our lives. We love each other.” I squeezed her hand. “Just without the hiding.”

She smiled against my shoulder. A real smile, tired but genuine. “I can work with that.”

We sat there until the clock in the hallway chimed eleven. Then we went upstairs together, not to my room or hers, but to our separate doors. A small concession to the new normal. A boundary, freely chosen.

I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, and thought about Dad. About Jules. About the parallel lines of our lives, separated by decades but running in the same direction. I thought about Mom, about the strength it had taken for her to sit in that kitchen and tell us the truth instead of the easier version. I thought about Abby, laying in her room next door, and the future stretching out in front of us, complicated and messy and ours.

For the first time in months, I fell asleep without a single secret keeping me awake.

The blaring of my phone’s alarm cut through my dreams like a knife. I groaned, reaching blindly for the device that was ruining my peaceful sleep. 6:30 glowed back at me from the screen way too early for a Saturday. I slapped at the screen until the noise stopped, then flopped back onto my pillow with a sigh.

I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling as my brain slowly came online. The house was quiet, which meant Mom hadn’t come home last night. She was probably still at Greg’s place, she’s been spending a lot of time over there. The thought made me smile. It had been a while since I’d seen her this happy.

I forced myself to sit up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My water bottle sat on the nightstand, half-empty from the night before. I drained the rest in one go, then tossed my legs over the side of the bed and headed for the bathroom.

My morning routine was simple. Piss, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to tame the worst of the bedhead, then reached for my deodorant. The mirror reflected a face that looked more awake than I felt. Dark circles under my eyes from playing games online with friends until 2:30 since Abby had gone to Sierra’s yesterday.

Speaking of Abby... my phone buzzed on the counter. I picked it up to see another text from her last night. She’d been sending me selfies all night, trying to distract me from gaming with the guys. The latest was of her in Sierra’s bathroom, making a ridiculous face at the camera with her tongue sticking out. The caption read: “Thought you might miss this beautiful face.”

I laughed, sending back a quick heart emoji before setting the phone down. Last night had been pretty boring without her around. I’d spent most of it playing Apex with the guys, followed by a couple hours of Valheim before calling it quits around 2:30. Nothing too exciting, but it had kept me from thinking about how empty the house felt with both Mom and Abby gone.

I headed back to my room and pulled on a pair of gray gym shorts and a faded blue t-shirt with the logo of some random tech conference from three years ago. My running shoes were by the door, laces already tied from my last workout. I grabbed my gym bag from the closet, checked that my water bottle, earbuds, and gym pass were inside, then headed downstairs.

The house felt different. It was lighter, quieter, and emptier. I grabbed a protein bar from the kitchen cabinet and ate it in three bites, washing it down with a swig of orange juice straight from the carton. Mom would kill me if she saw that, but she wasn’t here to catch me.

My car started with its usual jingle sound. I’d had the Kia for about three and a half months now, since the insurance payout from my accident, but I still wasn’t used to how different it felt from my old Honda. The steering was tighter, the acceleration smoother. It was a nice car, even if I still missed my first ride.

The drive to the gym took about ten minutes. The streets were mostly empty, just the occasional early riser walking their dog or heading out for a morning run. I pulled into the parking lot, relieved to see only three other cars. Saturday mornings were usually pretty dead, which meant I’d have my pick of equipment.

The check-in assistant, a college-aged guy with a man bun and bored expression scanned my card without looking up from his phone. “Have a good workout,” he mumbled, the words clearly on autopilot.

“Thanks,” I replied, already heading for the locker room.

Stashing my bag in a locker and tucking the key into the pocket of my shorts. My AirPods went in next, the noise cancellation immediately cutting off the generic pop music the gym piped through their speakers. I opened my Audible app and selected the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book: A Parade of Horribles. Jeff Hayes’ voice filled my ears, immediately transporting me to a world of dungeon levels, explosions, and talking cats.

The treadmill section was empty, all twelve machines waiting patiently for someone to use them. I chose one in the corner, set it for a light warm-up pace, and started walking. The story picked up right where I’d left off yesterday, with Carl and Donut facing off against some new threat. Hayes’ narration was as incredible as ever, his voice shifting seamlessly between characters, adding depth and personality to each one.

After a half-mile warm-up, I increased the pace to a jog, then a run. The miles clicked by as Carl and Donut navigated the latest challenge, their banter keeping me company as my legs began to burn. By mile three, I was fully immersed in the story, my body moving on autopilot as Hayes’ voice carried me through the dungeon.

Five miles later, I slowed to a walk, letting my heart rate come down gradually. My shirt was soaked with sweat, my legs pleasantly tired. I grabbed my water bottle from the cup holder and took a long drink, then wiped my face with the small towel I’d brought.

The weight area was my next stop. I loaded a barbell with a moderate amount of weight and positioned it across my shoulders for squats. Ten reps, rest, ten more, rest, and a final set of twelve to finish. My quads were burning by the end, but in that good way that meant I’d actually done something.

I moved on to the rowing machine next, setting it for a thirty-minute steady state. The rhythmic pull-and-release was almost meditative, my body falling into the familiar pattern as Hayes continued the story in my ears. By the time the machine beeped to signal the end of my session, I was drenched in sweat but feeling great. There was something about a morning workout that just set the tone for the whole day.

I headed for the showers, grabbing my gym bag from the locker on the way. I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and let it beat down on my sore muscles, washing away the sweat and fatigue of the workout.

Ten minutes later, I was dressed in clean clothes, my hair still damp but shaken into some semblance of order. I checked my phone as I walked back to the car, surprised to see a text from Abby that had come in about twenty minutes ago.

“Hey! Just saw you’re at the gym on Find My. Any chance you could give me a ride home? Sierra’s mom needs her car today.”

I smiled, already typing back a response. “Sure thing. How long do you need me to stall before picking you up?”

Her reply came almost immediately: “If you could give me like 20 mins that would be great. I’m still packing up my stuff.”

“No problem. Want anything from the coffee shop?”

“Duh. You know what I like.”

I did know. A matcha latte with vanilla and an extra shot, topped with whipped cream. Simple enough. I got in my car and pulled out of the parking lot, turning toward the coffee shop that was conveniently on the way to Sierra’s apartment. The morning was shaping up to be better than I’d expected. A good workout, a few new audiobook chapters, and now coffee with Abby. Not a bad start to the weekend.

I pulled into the coffee shop parking lot with fifteen minutes to kill before heading to Sierra’s. The morning had warmed up nicely, the Arizona heat a distant memory as I settled into the comfortable spring weather of home. I parked in a spot with a good view of the entrance, then leaned back in my seat and opened Reddit on my phone.

My home page was a mix of gaming memes, tech news, and the occasional 3D print video,the usual Saturday morning scroll. I clicked on a thread about the latest Steam sale, adding a few games to my mental wishlist as I scrolled. Meanwhile, Jeff Hayes continued his incredible performance in the car, his voice shifting between Carl’s gruff determination and Donut’s prim exasperation with seamless precision. The man was a genius.

After killing about ten minutes in the parking lot, I figured it was time to grab the coffee. The shop was busy but not packed, the morning rush having died down to a steady trickle of caffeine seekers. I joined the line, checking my phone one last time before slipping it into my pocket.

When I reached the counter, the barista. A girl with purple hair and multiple piercings, gave me a tired smile. “What can I get for you today?”

“Medium black coffee, room for cream,” I said. “A large matcha latte with vanilla, extra shot, whipped cream. And one of those almond croissants.”

She nodded, tapping my order into the system. “That’ll be $14.27.”

My order came up a few minutes later, the barista calling “Brian” in a voice that cut through the ambient chatter. I grabbed the drinks and pastry, careful not to spill as I made my way back to my car.

The drive to Sierra’s apartment took about ten minutes. She lived in a complex on the east side of town, not far from the community college where she and Abby took most of their classes. I pulled into the visitor parking and texted Abby that I’d arrived, then settled back to wait.

She appeared a few minutes later, backpack slung over one shoulder, hair pulled up in a messy bun. She spotted my car immediately and jogged over, her face breaking into a smile when she saw the coffee cup holder.

“You’re the best,” she said, throwing her bag into the backseat before sliding into the passenger seat. She immediately reached for the pastry bag, pulling out the croissant with a happy sigh. “I’m starving. Sierra’s mom made some weird health food breakfast that looked like it came from another planet.”

I laughed, pulling out of the parking lot as she took her first bite. “What was it?”

“Some kind of... I don’t even know. Green mush with seeds on top? Tasted like lawn clippings.” She took a sip of her matcha, closing her eyes in appreciation. “This is so much better.”

I paused my audiobook and handed her my phone. “Your turn to pick the music.”

She grinned, already opening Spotify. A moment later, she was playing some older Death Cab for Cutie songs. I turned it up a notch, my ears were craving some indie tunes.

“So,” I said, raising my voice slightly to be heard over the music, “how was the sleepover? Sierra still dating that guy from her psych class?”

Abby nodded, breaking off another piece of croissant. “Yeah, though I think they might be on the rocks. She spent half the night complaining about how he never texts her back, but then her phone would ding and she’d drop everything to answer.” She rolled her eyes. “It was exhausting.”

“Sounds like it,” I agreed. “At least you got some decent sleep, though. My bed felt weird without you there.”

She smiled, reaching over to squeeze my thigh. “Aw, did you miss me?”

“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “Though your selfie spam did help.”

“Good. Mission accomplished.” She took another sip of her matcha. “So what’d you get up to? Probably spent the whole night gaming with the guys, right?”

I shrugged, turning onto our street. “Some Apex, some Valheim. The usual.” I paused, then added, “I also worked on that next update for Reddit.”

Her eyes lit up immediately. “The one about Phoenix? Did you include the shower?”

“Maybe,” I said, trying to keep my expression neutral despite the heat rising to my face. “You’ll have to wait and read it like everyone else.”

She pouted, but I could tell she was secretly pleased. “That’s not fair. I should get early access, as the subject matter.”

“I’ll think about it,” I promised, pulling into our driveway. “But no promises.”

We gathered our things and headed inside, Abby leading the way with her key. The house was exactly as I’d left it. Quiet, slightly messy, and smelling faintly of the pizza I’d had for dinner. Home sweet home.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Abby announced, dropping her backpack by the stairs. “I swear Fred’s fur is embedded in my clothes. I can still smell him.”

Fred was Sierra’s cat, a massive orange tabby with a personality to match his size. The thought of Abby covered in cat hair made me smile. “Go for it. I’m gonna chill in my room.”

She headed upstairs while I went to the kitchen. I filled my shaker cup with water, added a scoop of creatine and a serving of my Gamer Supps powder. The flavor was officially called “Guacamole Gamer Fart 9000,” though it tasted more like green apple than anything else. I shook it vigorously, then took it with me to my bedroom.

My desk was in its usual state of organized chaos. Controller balanced precariously on the edge, empty water bottles lined up like sad soldiers. I moved the controller to a safer location, then settled into my chair and opened Reddit.

The homepage had refreshed with new content, most of it the usual weekend fare. I clicked on a thread about desk organization, curious if there were any good 3D printing ideas I could borrow. My printer had been gathering dust for a few months, and I was itching to get back to it.

I was halfway through a particularly interesting post about cable management when my bedroom door opened. I glanced up, then did a double-take that nearly made me spill my drink.

Abby stood in the doorway, completely naked, her matcha in one hand and a towel in the other. Her skin was still pink from the hot shower, water droplets clinging to her shoulders and the curve of her breasts. My mouth went dry at the sight.

“Thanks for the breakfast and the ride home,” she said, crossing to where I sat. She leaned down, pressing her lips to my forehead in a kiss that smelled like her fancy shower gel. “You’re the best big brother ever.”

I set my drink down carefully, trying to ignore the way my body had immediately responded to her presence. “No problem. That’s what I’m here for.”

She smiled, taking a sip of her matcha. “Actually, I have another favor to ask.” She set her cup down next to mine, then met my eyes with a look that sent a jolt straight to my groin. “I really need to cum. Like, right now.”

The words hit me like a physical force. One second I was sitting in my chair, the next I was tossing her onto my bed. She let out a surprised squeal that quickly turned into a laugh as she bounced on the mattress.

“Well,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows, “that’s one way to answer.”

I was already moving, launching myself onto the bed between her legs. My hands found her thighs, spreading them wider as I lowered my head toward the center of her desire. This favor, at least, I was more than happy to grant. Already leaning down to press kisses along the soft skin of her inner thighs. The smell of her body wash filled my nostrils, something expensive with jasmine and vanilla but underneath it was that scent that was uniquely Abby, musky and sweet and driving me crazy.

“Someone’s eager,” she teased, her fingers finding my hair as I continued my upward journey. Her thighs were soft beneath my lips, slightly damp from her shower, and they trembled as I got closer to her center.

I reached between her legs, my fingers finding her already slick with arousal. “Someone’s ready,” I countered, circling her clit with my middle finger while my other hand slid beneath her to cup her ass. “Very ready.”

She moaned, her back arching off the bed as my finger made contact with her most sensitive spot. Her free hand moved to her breasts, fingers pinching her nipples in that way I knew drove her wild. The sight of her touching herself while I worked her with my hand was almost enough to make me lose control right then.

“You have no idea,” she gasped, her hips pushing up to meet my touch. “I’ve been thinking about this since I woke up. Sierra’s couch is not comfortable for... you know.”

I laughed against her thigh, then moved higher, my lips brushing the very edge of her folds. “Poor you. All that frustration...”

Before she could respond, I bit down gently on the soft flesh where her thigh met her hip. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make her yelp in surprise. She jerked beneath me, her hand tightening in my hair.

“Jesus, Brian!” she cried, though there was no anger in her voice. “Warn a girl next time!”

I chuckled, giving the spot a soothing lick. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.” Then, before she could respond, I buried my face between her legs, my tongue making firm contact with her clit.

The taste of her exploded across my tongue. Clean from her shower but with that underlying musk that made my cock twitch and harden in my pajama pants. She was already so wet that my first stroke slid easily from her entrance to the top of her slit, gathering her arousal. I focused my attention on her clit, flicking my tongue rapidly across the sensitive bud before sucking it gently between my lips.

Abby’s reaction was immediate. Her thighs tensed on either side of my head, her hand pressing firmly against the back of my skull as she guided me exactly where she wanted me. “Right there,” she moaned, her voice already taking on that breathless quality that told me she was getting close. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

I had no intention of stopping. I kept at it, alternating between broad, flat strokes of my tongue and more focused attention to her clit. Her free hand continued to work her breasts, pinching and rolling her nipples between her fingers. The dual stimulation had her breathing coming in short, sharp pants, her hips rocking against my face as she chased her release.

I could feel her getting closer, the tension building in her body, her inner muscles beginning to flutter around the finger I’d slipped inside her. Just as I thought she might tip over the edge, I pulled back, raising my head to meet her eyes.

“Let’s 69,” I suggested, already moving to strip off my clothes. “I want to taste you while you taste me.”

She didn’t need telling twice. As I hurriedly removed my shirt and pajama pants, kicking them to the floor, she positioned herself above me, her knees on either side of my head. The view was incredible! Her pussy hovering just above my face, pink and swollen and glistening with her arousal.

I reached up, guiding her down until she was seated firmly on my face. Then I straightened my tongue and pushed it as deep inside her as it would go, feeling her inner walls clench around me in response. At the same time, my thumb found her clit, rubbing it in tight circles that matched the rhythm of my tongue.

Above me, Abby took my cock in her mouth, her lips wrapping around the head before she began to work her way down the shaft. The wet heat of her mouth was almost too much to bear after the visual feast I’d just enjoyed. I had to force myself to focus on the task at hand, on bringing her as much pleasure as she was giving me.

Her technique was, as always, impeccable. She took me deep, then pulled back to swirl her tongue around the head before diving down again. Every few strokes, she’d hum deep in her throat, the vibration traveling straight up my shaft and making my toes curl. I responded by redoubling my efforts, my tongue fucking into her as deeply as I could reach while my thumb continued its attention to her clit.

It didn’t take long for Abby to reach the edge. Her thighs began to tremble on either side of my head, her movements becoming less coordinated as pleasure built within her. I felt the exact moment she tipped over, her body going rigid, a muffled cry escaping her as her orgasm crashed through her.

She dropped all her weight onto my face, her pussy grinding against my mouth as she rode out the waves of her climax. I kept my tongue inside her, gentler now, helping her through the aftershocks until the sensitivity became too much. She lifted herself slightly, giving me room to breathe, but didn’t completely remove herself from my face.

“Fuck,” she gasped, her voice slightly hoarse. “That was...”

I didn’t let her finish. Instead, I grabbed her hips and flipped us over, positioning her beneath me on the bed. My cock was rock hard, jutting out from my body and begging for attention. “I need to fuck you,” I managed, the words coming out rougher than I’d intended. “Right now.”

Abby’s response was to reach between us, wrapping her hand around my shaft and guiding me to her entrance. “Then what are you waiting for?” she asked, a mischievous smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

I needed no further encouragement. I pushed forward, feeling her body open to accept me. The tight, wet heat of her enveloped me inch by inch until I was buried to the hilt, our bodies joined in the most intimate way possible.

We both gasped at the sensation. For a moment, I stayed perfectly still, letting her adjust to my size, enjoying the feeling of being completely inside her. Then Abby began to move, her hips rocking in small circles that made us both groan.

“That’s it,” I murmured, bracing myself on my forearms above her. “You feel amazing.”

She smiled, her hands finding my ass to pull me deeper. “So do you. Now stop talking and fuck me.”

I complied, pulling back until just the head of my cock remained inside her, then thrusting forward with enough force to push her further up the bed. The new angle allowed me to go even deeper, hitting spots that made her cry out with each thrust.

We found a rhythm together, our bodies moving in perfect harmony. Abby’s legs wrapped around my waist, her heels digging into the small of my back as she urged me on. Each thrust drove me deeper, the headboard knocking softly against the wall with each impact.

After a few minutes of this, Abby suddenly pushed at my chest. “lay down,” she said, her voice tight with desire. “I want to ride you.”

I didn’t need telling twice. I carefully pulled out, then lay on my back as she positioned herself above me. She reached between her legs, guiding my cock to her entrance, then slowly sank down until I was fully inside her.

The view was incredible—Abby above me, her breasts bouncing with each movement, her face flushed with pleasure. She started with small circles, grinding herself against me, then gradually increased her pace until she was bouncing up and down on my cock with enough force to make the bed frame creak.

“God, you feel so good,” she gasped, her hands braced on my chest for leverage. “So fucking good inside me.”

I reached up, cupping her breasts and thumbing her nipples. The dual sensation had her moaning louder, her movements growing less coordinated as pleasure built within her. I could feel my own orgasm approaching, a tightening at the base of my spine that grew with each downward thrust of her hips.

Just as I thought I might tip over the edge, Abby changed positions again. She turned around, presenting me with the incredible view of her ass bouncing on my cock. Each upward movement revealed her asshole, the ring of muscle contracting with each bounce before disappearing again as she sank back down.

The sight was so erotic that I felt my control slipping. My hands found her hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh as I tried to hold on just a little longer. But it was too much. The visual of her taking me like this, combined with the tight, wet heat of her around my cock.

“I’m gonna cum,” I managed, my voice strained with the effort of holding back. “Abby, I’m close.”

She immediately lifted herself off my cock and spun around, taking me into her mouth without hesitation. The sudden transition from her tight pussy to her hot, wet mouth was almost enough to make me come on the spot. She bobbed her head up and down, adding more and more suction with each movement.

Her hand wrapped around the base of my shaft, stroking in time with her mouth. The sensation was incredible. Her mouth on the head of my cock, her hand working the shaft, her tongue swirling around the sensitive spot just beneath the tip. I braced myself against the headboard, my hips lifting involuntarily as pleasure built to an almost unbearable level.

And then it hit me. My orgasm crashed through me with the force of a freight train, intense enough to make my vision blur at the edges. “Fuck!” I gasped, my hand finding the back of Abby’s head as I came.

She didn’t pull away. Instead, she took me deeper, swallowing around my cock as pulse after pulse of cum shot down her throat. I could feel her throat working, taking every drop, not missing a single one. The sight of her like this, taking all of me, completely focused on my pleasure, pushed me through one final, powerful wave of release.

When it was finally over, I slumped back against the pillows, completely spent. Abby sat back on her heels, a satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth. A tiny drop of cum escaped from the corner of her lip, and she casually wiped it away with her finger before sucking it clean.

“Good?” she asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

I couldn’t help but laugh, reaching for her and pulling her into a kiss. “Better than good. That was...”

“Amazing?” she suggested, settling against my side.

“Something like that,” I agreed, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. My body felt pleasantly heavy, muscles relaxed in the aftermath of our activities. This, right here, was perfection.

We lay there for a moment, both of us trying to catch our breath. The room was quiet except for the sound of our gradually slowing heartbeats and the soft hum of the air conditioning. My body felt pleasantly heavy, muscles relaxed in the aftermath of our activities.

Abby reached for her matcha on the nightstand, taking a long sip before setting it down again. She turned to me, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and leaned in for a kiss. “Now that’s how to start a lazy day,” she said, pulling back slightly. Her hair was a mess, falling across her face in damp strands, and there was a slight redness to her cheeks that had nothing to do with makeup. She looked thoroughly debauched, and the sight made me want to start round two immediately.

I forced myself to focus on her words rather than the tempting curve of her breast just inches from my face. “Definitely beats the gym,” I agreed, running a hand up her side to cup that very breast. “Though my legs are going to be sore tomorrow for entirely different reasons.”

She laughed, the sound bright and carefree. “Mom said she was going to hang out with Greg most of the day,” she continued, settling more comfortably against my side. “So this means we can just chill. No interruptions, no worrying about being too loud...” Her hand traced a teasing pattern on my chest. “We’ve got the whole house to ourselves.”

The thought was appealing. A lazy Saturday with Abby, doing nothing but watching TV, maybe ordering food later... it sounded like heaven after the whirlwind of the past few days. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.

“I should wash my face,” I said, reluctantly disentangling myself from her embrace. “Be right back.”

The bathroom was cool after the warmth of the bedroom. I splashed cold water on my face, then dried off with the hand towel hanging by the sink. My reflection looked... happy. Relaxed. The dark circles that had been under my eyes that morning were gone, replaced by a contented glow that no amount of sleep could have provided.

When I returned to the bedroom, Abby had pulled the covers up to her waist and was scrolling through her phone. The sight of her like that, casual and comfortable in my space, sent a fresh wave of warmth through my chest.

“What are we watching?” she asked, patting the space beside her. “I’m thinking something mindless. My brain is too fried for anything complicated.”

I grabbed the remote from my desk and climbed back into bed, pulling the covers up over both of us. “How about that new anime? The one with the kids and the demons?”

Abby wrinkled her nose. “Too depressing. I want something fun. What about that Rent-a-Girlfriend one”

I nodded, already pulling it up on Crunchyroll. “that’s fine. I may fall asleep. I’m beat.”

We settled in to watch, Abby’s head on my shoulder, my arm around her waist. The show was exactly what we needed. Light, funny, with just enough plot to keep us interested but not so much that we had to pay close attention. Within minutes, we were both laughing at the main character’s disastrous attempts to impress his crush.

Halfway through the third episode, I felt Abby’s breathing slow, her body growing heavier against my side. I glanced down to see her eyes half-closed, fighting a losing battle against sleep. I reached for the remote, turning the volume down slightly.

“You can sleep if you want,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t mind.”

She made a noncommittal sound, her eyes drifting fully closed. “Just resting my eyes,” she mumbled, but within seconds, her breathing had deepened into the steady rhythm of sleep.

I smiled, adjusting the blanket to cover her shoulders. The show continued to play, but my attention was divided between the screen and the weight of Abby against me. Her hair tickled my chin with each breath, her chest rising and falling in a hypnotic rhythm. It wasn’t long before my own eyes began to grow heavy, the combination of our morning activities and the comfortable bed pulling me toward sleep.

The last thing I remembered was the main character making some disastrous mistake that made his crush upset. Then I was out, drifting into dreams filled with green tea and warm skin and the sound of Abby’s laughter.

---

The room was dark when I woke up, the only light coming from the TV, which had switched to a screensaver of drifting colors. I blinked, disoriented for a moment, before the events of the morning came rushing back. Abby was still asleep beside me, one arm thrown across my chest, her face peaceful in repose.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand, squinting at the bright screen. 5:17. We’d been asleep for... I did a quick calculation... almost six hours. No wonder my stomach was growling. I’d skipped lunch completely, too caught up in other activities to think about food.

Carefully, so as not to wake Abby, I extricated myself from her grasp and sat up. In the corner of my vision, I could see someone standing in my doorway. The lights turned on, it was Mom.

“BRIAN! EXPLAIN!”