Chapter 8: The Aftermath
The cold night air was a shock after the sweat-box heat of the van. Lex walked a few paces ahead, her shoulders hunched, a slight, almost imperceptible hitch in her step. Josh watched the way she moved, that familiar, restless static buzzing in his teeth. The festival was a corpse now, lights dying, the ground littered with plastic cups and lost possibilities.Crewmembers shouted to each other, breaking down rigging with the clank of metal.
“Lex,” he said, his voice cutting through the industrial hum.
She slowed but didn’t turn.He caught up in two strides, his hand finding her elbow. She flinched, just a tiny spasm of muscle, then went still. “You’re walking like I broke you.”
“You didn’t.” Her voice was small, aimed at the mud-streaked grass.
“Look at me.”
She turned her head, and in the erratic strobe of a dying light tower, her face was a palette of exhaustion and something else.Not regret.Not fear. A deep, unsettling stillness.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured, his thumb rubbing a circle on the inside of her arm.“About choice.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes. A silent communication passed between them, clearer than any lyric he’d shouted that night. She wasn’t running.She was waiting.He didn’t speak again. He just tilted his head back toward the row of vans, a question in his raised brow.After a heartbeat, she nodded.
The walk back was quiet, the only sound their boots on the wet ground. When they reached their van, he yanked the door open. The interior light had died, leaving the space in near darkness, save for the faint, blueish glow of her laptop screen, still open on the master deck. The air inside was thicker now, humid with the ghost of their last act, smelling of sex, synthetic coconut from her hair, and the mineral tang of cooling electronics.
He climbed in first, then offered her his hand.She took it, her fingers cool and delicate in his. He pulled her up, then kicked the door shut behind them, plunging them into a gloom broken only by that eerie digital glow.
For a long moment, they just stood, crammed between the stacked flight cases.He could hear her breathing, shallow and quick. He reached out and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing the high arch of her cheekbone.
“One more,” he whispered, the words not a command, but a request hung between them.She nodded, a tiny dip of her chin. “One more.”
He kissed her then, not with the bruising force of before, but slowly, exploring the soft yield of her lips. She kissed him back, her hands coming up to rest tentatively on his waist. He guided her down, clearing a space on the floor, laying her back onto the nest of coiled cables and the rough, woven blanket they used for picnics. The cables bit into her skin, leaving temporary ridges he knew he’d trace with his tongue later.
He knelt between her thighs, pushing her legs apart with his knees. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her shorts and the damp underwear beneath, peeling them down her legs with a slow, deliberate drag.She lifted her hips to help, a small, vulnerable motion that made his chest tighten.
In the bluish light, her cunt was a shadowed slickness. He lowered his head, his breath warming her skin first.She shuddered.He didn’t use his hands. He just leaned in and licked, one long, flat stroke from her perineum up through her soaked folds to her clit.“Oh god,” she gasped, her hips jumping.
He dove in, his tongue becoming purposeful, focused. He licked and sucked, tracing circles around her clit before zeroing in on it, applying just the right amount of pressure. He fucked her with his tongue, shallow then deep, drinking her in. She tasted of herself and of him, a mixed, musky flavor that drove him crazy. Her hands fumbled above, grabbing at anything—a cable, the edge of a case—her breath coming in ragged hitches.
“Josh, please… fuck, right there…”
He obliged, sucking her clit hard into his mouth, flicking it rapidly with the tip of his tongue.He felt her body begin to tighten, her thighs clamping around his head. He slid two fingers inside her, curling them upward, and she cried out, a broken, beautiful sound as her orgasm ripped through her. He rode it out with her, gentling his mouth but keeping contact until her trembling subsided into weak shivers.
He crawled up her body, his jeans rough against her bare skin.He captured her mouth, letting her taste herself on his lips. Her hands came to his belt, fumbling with the buckle. He helped her, shoving his jeans and briefs down just enough to free his cock, which was painfully hard, dripping onto her stomach.
He positioned himself, the broad head of his dick nudging against her wet, swollen entrance. He paused, looking down at her. Her eyes were open, watching him, dark and bottomless in the dim light.“Look at me,” he said, echoing his words from outside. “Stay with me.”
She nodded, her breath catching as he began to push inside. He entered her slowly, a relentless, inch-by-inch invasion, letting her feel every ridge, every stretch. She was so fucking tight, her inner walls fluttering around him, oversensitive from her climax. He bottomed out, his pelvis pressed flush against hers, and held there, buried to the hilt. The feeling was overwhelming—a hot, velvet vise.“Okay?” he breathed, his forehead resting against hers.
“Yes,” she whispered.“Move. Please.”
He withdrew almost all the way, then sank back in, setting a deep, measured rhythm.This wasn’t the frantic pounding from before. This was something else, a grinding, connective fuck. Each thrust was deliberate, aimed at a spot deep within her that made her eyes roll back. He kept his eyes locked on hers, maintaining that fragile thread.Her legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back. He shifted slightly, angling his hips, and found a new rhythm, shorter, sharper. A low moan built in her throat.“You feel that?” he grunted, his control starting to fray. “That’s me.All me. You take it so fucking good.”
“Harder,” she begged, her nails scraping down his sweat-slicked back. “I want to feel it tomorrow.”
A dark, possessive sound tore from him. He obeyed, his thrusts becoming harder, deeper, the van filling with the sound of skin slapping skin and their mingled, ragged breaths. He could feel his own climax coiling, a tight spring in his gut. He reached between them, his thumb finding her clit again, rubbing in frantic circles.
“Come with me,” he demanded, his voice guttural. “I want to feel that cunt squeeze my goddamn cum out.”
The crude words, paired with the relentless pressure of his thumb, sent her over the edge. Her body arched, a silent scream on her lips as her orgasm claimed her, her channel pulsing around him in rhythmic, milking contractions.It was too much. With a final, deep plunge, he buried himself and let go, his release pumping into her in hot, endless spurts, his own shout muffled against the skin of her neck.
They collapsed together in a heap of spent limbs, his weight partly on her, partly on the cables.He was still inside her, softening slowly. The only sound was their labored breathing and the distant beep of a truck reversing.
After a while, he shifted, pulling out.A soft, wet sound followed. He found the gritty towel again and cleaned them both with a tenderness that felt foreign to his hands. She watched him, her eyes heavy-lidded.He lay back beside her, pulling the rough blanket over them. The laptop screen finally dimmed to black, leaving them in complete darkness. He could feel the warmth of her along his side.
“Berlin was take,” he said into the blackness, his voice hoarse. “This was… give and take.”
She was silent for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep.Then her hand found his in the dark, her fingers lacing through his.
“It’s still take,” she whispered. “You take parts of me I don’t give anyone else.”
He turned his head toward her, though he couldn’t see her. “And you take parts of me that don’t exist anywhere else.”
Outside, an engine growled to life. The world was moving on, ready to haul itself to the next city, the next festival, the next beat.But here, in the sour, intimate dark, something had shifted. A new rhythm, just for them, had been established in the silence.