Chapter 1: Early spring
Frances woke to the brittle chorus of sparrows, a sound so sharp it sliced through the last gossamer threads of a dream. The house held that hollow, mid-morning silence that meant her father and stepmother had already left for work, and Marco wasn’t clattering around downstairs either.
She pushed herself upright, the sheets pooling around her waist, and stared at the narrow rectangle of her window. It was fogged from her sleep, the world outside softened to a blur of green and gold. With a pale finger, she wiped a clear arc on the glass. The light was a physical shock, so clean and urgent it made her eyes water.
And there he was.
Si, from next door, shirtless and leaning under the hood of his ancient pickup. A sheen of sweat covered the tight rope of muscle that ran down his spine as he reached deep into the engine’s guts. Frankie didn’t breathe. This felt like seeing something she wasn’t supposed to, a secret glimpse of a world that was all torque and physicality, so opposite her own realm of pressed flowers and ink-smudged notebooks.
She watched, mesmerized by the simple rhythm of his work, the way his shoulders moved. It was a kind of poetry, she supposed. Then he straightened, wiped his forearm across his brow, and turned his head. His eyes, even from this distance, locked directly onto hers through the smudged glass.
He didn’t look away. A slow, knowing smirk spread across his face, utterly devoid of embarrassment. It was a challenge, or an invitation, or maybe just an acknowledgment that he’d caught her looking. Frankie’s heart didn’t flutter; it dropped like a stone into her stomach, then kicked back up into her throat with a heavy, sluggish beat that was more thrill than panic.
She jerked back from the window, the worn wood of the floor cold under her feet. The silent house felt suddenly too big, a container for the loud, buzzing noise now in her head. She needed to move, to do something ordinary. Downstairs, the kitchen was tidied, a note on the counter about leftovers. She poured cereal, the crackle of bran flakes absurdly loud. She was just chewing, staring blankly at the swirling pattern in the laminate, when a loud, deliberate knock sounded at the back door.
She froze, the spoon halfway to her mouth, her heart thudding against her ribs. The thought of him, that smirk, seeing her like that, drove her crazy—a wild, restless energy burning straight through her embarrassment. She dumped the bowl in the sink and decided to get in the shower, first stopping to get her dildo out of her nightstand.
She walked upstairs, the worn silicone cool and heavy in her palm, and pushed the bathroom door shut behind her with a quiet click. She turned the shower knob all the way to the left, and the pipes shuddered and groaned before a stream of water hit the porcelain tub with a hard, steady hiss. Steam began to unspool, curling up to fog the mirror as she stood there, watching the water sheet and swirl down the drain. Her reflection in the blurred glass was just a suggestion of a girl, all long limbs and tangled hair, her breath catching as she remembered the direct, unflinching heat of Si’s gaze. Then, she let out a shaky breath, shed her clothes in a heap on the tile, and stepped into the scalding rush.
The water hit her like a punishment, scalding the back of her neck and shoulders, but she welcomed the burn. It grounded her, drowning out the silent, too-big house and the image of that smirk. Her breath came in short, sharp huffs as she leaned her forehead against the cool, wet tile, one hand bracing against the wall, the other bringing the silicone to the place where her need felt fiercest. She pressed the dildo hard against the tile, using the solid surface to guide it into herself with a ragged, relieving pressure. A low, guttural sound escaped her lips, part sob, part surrender, as she began to move against it, the steam and the pounding water sealing her in a private, frantic catharsis.
The door swung open on a gasp of cooler air. Marco, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, stood frozen on the threshold, his hand still on the knob. His gaze, wide and startled, locked onto hers in the steam-filled space. A silence crashed down, heavier than the water, broken only by the shower’s relentless hiss. “Jesus, Frances,” he breathed, the words a stunned exhale as he stumbled back, pulling the door shut with a sharp, final click.
The shower’s roar filled the silence he left behind. She stood there, water sluicing over her clenched eyelids, the plastic texture of the dildo suddenly foreign and absurd against her thigh. Her breath hitched, not from the steam, but from a hollow, crawling shame. She turned the water off, the silence now deafening, and wrapped a towel tightly around herself. “Marco,” she called out, her voice steadier than she felt, cracking through the bathroom door, “can you… can you come in here? I need help.
There was a long, silent beat before the door opened a crack. “With what?” Marco asked, his voice strained through the narrow gap.
“With what do you think?” she said, the words slicing through the humid air while the dildo was still inside her. “Get in here.”
He pushed the door open slowly, his face a mask of cautious disbelief. His eyes traveled from her face, down, and back up, avoiding the space between.
His eyes traveled from her face, down, and back up, avoiding the space between. The steam curled around them, a thick, intimate fog.
“Step inside,” she said, her voice low. It wasn’t a request.
He hesitated, his jaw tight, but then he moved. As he crossed the threshold, the movement of his loose sleep pants was unmistakable. The fabric tented, betraying him completely. Her eyes dropped to it, held, then lifted back to his face. A fresh, dangerous heat pooled low in her belly, mixing with the shame until she couldn’t tell one from the other.
“Take off your clothes,” she heard herself say, the words leaving her mouth like stones dropped into a well.
Marco’s breath hitched. “Frankie—”
“Just do it.”
His stare was a tangible weight. Then, with a slow, almost defiant nod, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and pushed them down. He stepped out of them, kicked them aside. He stood there, vulnerable and exposed, his erection a stark line in the humid air. The shower spray drummed a steady, relentless beat against the tub.
“Closer,” she said.
He took one step, then another, until he was at the edge of the fiberglass tub. The cool air from the bathroom met the wall of wet heat radiating from the shower. Beads of condensation traced paths down his chest. Her own skin was pebbled with goosebumps beneath the scalding water. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t removed the toy. Its presence was a fact, a part of the strange, suspended reality of the moment.
He looked down at her body, then quickly back at her face, his expression a storm of conflict. She reached out a dripping hand, fingers splaying to press against his sternum. The contact was electric. His skin was hot, his heart hammering under her palm.
“Why?” he whispered, the word almost lost in the shower’s hiss.
She had no answer that made sense. Only the pulsing need to shatter the awful, echoing silence he’d walked in on, to rewrite the shame into something else, something they owned together. She pulled her hand back, let it fall to her side, still holding his gaze, waiting to see what he would do next.
She pulled her hand back, let it fall to her side, still holding his gaze, waiting to see what he would do next.
The steam thickened between them. A droplet of water traced the line of his collarbone. His chest rose and fell too quickly. He didn’t look away from her face, as if meeting her eyes anywhere else was a line he couldn’t cross yet. His control was a palpable thing, a wire pulled taut from his jaw to his clenched fists.
“This is messed up, Frankie,” he said, his voice rough.
“I know.” Her own voice was a ghost of a sound. She tilted her chin up. The shower’s spray was beginning to cool, raising gooseflesh on her arms. The cheap fluorescent light buzzed overhead, a stark counterpoint to the private, humid dark they were in. She could feel the weight of the toy inside her, a ridiculous, embarrassing anchor to the moment he’d shattered. She needed to reclaim it. She needed to turn his seeing into something else.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird. She swallowed, her throat tight. The words formed, clumsy and desperate. She needed to hear him say it. To make the seeing mean something.
“Do you?” she whispered, the steam catching the words and holding them in the air. “Do you like what you see?”
The question hung in the steamy air, ugly and necessary. Marco’s eyes flickered—a lightning-quick glance down her body, a involuntary tightening of his jaw—before snapping back to her face. The conflict there was a physical thing, a war between the obvious truth of his body and the horrified denial in his eyes.
His voice, when it came, was scraped raw. “Y-y-you know I do.” He flinched, his stutter a betrayal of his control. He hated it, that childhood remnant that only surfaced under extreme stress or feeling cornered. He swallowed, forced the words out slower, each one heavy as a stone. “You know I do, Frankie. That’s the fucking problem.”
She felt a perverse thrill at the crack in his composure. It matched the one in her own. The water was tepid now, a pathetic drizzle. She reached behind herself with a shaking hand, the movement awkward, and turned the squeaky knob off. The silence that followed was profound, broken only by the drip-drip from the showerhead and the ragged sound of their breathing.
“Then stop looking at my face like I’m a ghost,” she said, her own voice low. “You saw. So see.”
He let out a shaky breath, a puff of air in the cooling room. His hands flexed at his sides. He didn’t move closer, but he didn’t retreat either. He was anchored, a ship caught in a riptide of his own making. The evidence of his want was still there, blatant and honest, a stark contrast to the tortured lines of his face.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked again, but it was softer now, a genuine plea for a map out of a place he’d never meant to enter.
She had no answer that would make it clean. There was only the before and the after, and the unbearable, silent vacuum in between that needed to be filled with something, even if it was this. Even if it was wrong.
Slowly, never breaking his gaze, she moved her hand. Her fingers, pruned and pale, found the base of the silicone toy still lodged within her. His eyes tracked the movement, widening slightly, his breath catching. She didn’t pull it out. She just held it there, a silent, shocking claim on the moment.A challenge.
“I’m not doing anything,” she whispered. “You’re the one who’s here.”
He made a sound, a low groan that was pure anguish, and took a single, decisive step into the tub. The cold fiberglass was a shock against his feet. Water splashed, wetting his legs. He was close enough now that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, could see the pulse hammering in his throat. His eyes were dark, pupils swallowing the hazel.
He lifted a hand, his fingers trembling just once before they stilled. He didn’t touch her. He reached past her shoulder, bracing his palm flat against the wet tile wall, caging her in. The other hand came up, hesitated, then his knuckles brushed a strand of wet hair from her cheek. The touch was startlingly gentle.
“This is a bad idea,” he murmured, his voice thick. His thumb traced the arch of her cheekbone, a whisper of contact.
“I know,” she breathed, leaning infinitesimally into his touch.
He closed his eyes for a second, a man accepting a sentence. When he opened them, the struggle was still there, but it was quieter, submerged. He looked at her—really looked—his gaze traveling over her face, down her neck, over her shoulders, and finally, deliberately, down to where her hand was. He didn’t flinch.
“Let me,” he said, the words so quiet they were almost lost. It wasn’t clear what he meant. Let him see?Let him help? Let him in?
He lowered himself slowly, his knees finding the hard, wet surface of the tub. The cold porcelain bit into his skin, a stark, grounding contrast to the heat coiling in the air between them. His hands came up to rest on her hips, his thumbs making small, uncertain circles on the points of her pelvic bones.
Her breath hitched. She leaned back against the tile, the grout lines pressing into her spine, and guided his head with a gentle pressure. His breath was warm against her inner thigh. He looked up at her, his eyes a storm of hesitation and yearning, his lips parted slightly.
“Here,” she whispered, her voice raspy. She shifted her weight, arching her back. “I need… I want you to use your mouth. While I’m still…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. His gaze flicked to where her body met the silicone, then back to her face. Something clicked into place behind his eyes, a surrender to the strange, desperate logic of the moment. He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
Frances braced herself, one hand splayed against the cool tile for balance, the other finding the base of the dildo where it met her body. She adjusted her stance, her muscles trembling. Then she began to move, a slow, rolling rhythm of her hips against the unyielding pressure.
A low groan escaped Marco. It was a sound of pure, agonized want. He closed the remaining inch of space.
The first touch of his tongue was a bolt of lightning.
It was tentative, a soft, questioning stroke against her most sensitive flesh, bypassing the silicone entirely. Her whole body jerked. A sharp gasp tore from her lips, echoed by the slick sound of her own movement. He flinched for a second, as if shocked by his own audacity, then dove back in, more sure this time.
His mouth was fever-hot and devastatingly soft. He licked and explored with a frantic, focused intensity, his nose bumping against her, his stubble scratching the tender skin of her thighs. It was messy and awkward and unbearably intimate. She rode the rigid length inside her with a growing urgency, each forward thrust meeting the relentless, fluttering pressure of his tongue. The dual sensations short-circuited her thoughts, leaving only a white-noise static of pure feeling.
Her fingers tangled in his damp hair, not guiding, just holding on as the world narrowed to this tile-walled universe of steam and sweat and slippery skin. Her movements became less controlled, more desperate, a ragged, chasing rhythm. She could hear him, hear the wet, hungry sounds he was making, feel the vibrations against her. It was too much. It was everything.
A raw, fractured sound ripped from her throat—half his name, half a sob. Her knees buckled, but the wall and his hands on her hips held her up as she shattered, waves of release crashing through her so violently she saw sparks behind her clenched eyelids.
The silence that followed was deafening. The only sounds were the drip of the showerhead and their ragged, synced breathing. Marco rested his forehead against her thigh, his breath coming in hot puffs against her skin. He didn’t move. She slumped against the wall, boneless, the toy still inside her, the aftershocks making her twitch.
Slowly, he raised his head. His lips were swollen, his chin glistening. He looked up at her, his expression utterly wrecked—awed, horrified, utterly lost.