Chapter 4: The Midnight Tryst
The schnapps tasted like chemical strawberries and regret. Natalie sat wedged between Tash and Brittany on the couch, her skin still buzzing from Zebby’s hands, her lips throbbing with the memory of the kiss. Every laugh from the group felt like a seismic event. Every glance towards the darkened backyard was a dagger of want.
She lasted forty-seven minutes.
She watched the clock on the microwave, each tick a torment. Zebby had come back inside, calm, smiling, accepting a beer from Angie. She’d caught Natalie’s eye only once—a slow, deliberate look that traveled from her face down to her hands clenched in her lap—and the heat that followed was unbearable.
“I think I’m done,” Natalie announced, standing too quickly. Her head swam a little from the schnapps and the adrenaline. “Gonna head out. Early shift tomorrow.”
Protests erupted, a wall of familial concern. Tash squinted at her. “You’re pale, Nat. You alright?”
“Just tired,” Natalie lied, the words ash in her mouth. “And that schnapps is fucking lethal. Beeby Nana’s ghost is trying to kill us all.”
It got a laugh. She hugged them all, a parade of perfumed cheeks and tight squeezes. She hugged Zebby last, a brief, brittle embrace for the audience. But Zebby’s hand slid to the small of her back, fingers pressing hard into the fabric, a brand that promised everything. “Drive safe,” Zebby said, her voice low and rough just for her.
Natalie didn’t drive home.
She sat in her car two streets over, engine off, hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles ached. The silence was suffocating. The memory of Zebby’s body against hers, the hard, insistent pressure of her cock, was a live wire in her gut. Three years of waiting. Three years of pixelated fantasy. It was here, now, ten minutes away in a cheap motel room.
“Fuck it,” she whispered to the empty car.
She drove with a frantic focus, the headlights cutting through the coastal mist. The Seaview Motel was a string of beige boxes facing the highway. Room 14. Light bled from around the cheap curtain.
She knocked, soft, rapid taps.
The door opened almost instantly, as if Zebby had been standing there waiting. She’d changed into a soft, worn t-shirt and loose sweatpants. Her hair was damp. She didn’t speak. She just grabbed Natalie’s wrist and pulled her inside, kicking the door shut with her foot. The deadbolt clicked into place with a sound of finality.
For a second, they just stared. The hum of the mini-fridge filled the space. The room was as described: cheap, anonymous, a temporary cage. But now it held them.
“I told them I was going home,” Natalie breathed.
“You’re a liar,” Zebby said, a dark, approving smile touching her lips. She stepped closer, backing Natalie against the door. “A beautiful, fucking liar.”
Then there was no more space. No more time. Zebby’s mouth crashed down on hers, all the controlled hunger from the garden unleashed. This kiss was a claiming. It was deep, wet, and filthy. Natalie moaned into it, her hands flying to Zebby’s face, holding her there. Zebby’s tongue swept into her mouth and Natalie sucked on it, the taste of her, the realness of her, making her dizzy.
Zebby’s hands were everywhere. Rough and sure. They shoved Natalie’s jacket off her shoulders. They yanked her shirt up and over her head in one frantic motion, the fabric catching on her ear before being discarded. Cool air hit her skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of Zebby’s palms on her ribs, her thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts through her lace bra.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” Zebby growled, her mouth leaving Natalie’s to blaze a trail down her neck, sucking a mark at the junction of her shoulder. “I’ve dreamed about this. About how you’d feel.”
Natalie’s head fell back against the door with a thud. Her fingers scrambled for the waistband of Zebby’s sweatpants, shoving them down over her hips. They caught on the hard line of her erection. Natalie’s breath hitched. She wrapped her hand around it through the cotton of Zebby’s boxer-briefs, feeling the thick, heavy length, the pulsing heat. “Jesus, Zeb.”
“All for you,” Zebby whispered against her skin, her own hands making quick, desperate work of Natalie’s jeans. The button popped, the zipper grated down. “Always for you.”
She pushed the jeans and Natalie’s underwear down her thighs in one urgent motion. Natalie kicked them off, stepping out of the tangled pile, naked now except for her bra. The air was cool but her skin was on fire. Zebby knelt, her hands sliding up Natalie’s bare calves, her thighs, spreading them.
“Wait,” Natalie gasped, her fingers in Zebby’s hair.
“No more waiting,” Zebby said, and her voice was pure gravel. She put her mouth on her.
The sensation was electric, a direct current to Natalie’s core. Zebby’s tongue was flat and demanding, licking a firm, wet stripe through her folds before circling her clit. Natalie cried out, her hips jerking forward. Zebby held her firm, hands gripping her ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh as she ate her with a starving, focused intensity. She fucked her with her tongue, deep, then sucked her clit hard, humming against her.
“Oh god, oh fuck,” Natalie chanted, her legs shaking. The pleasure was sharp, too much and not enough. She could hear the wet, obscene sounds Zebby was making, could feel the scratch of her short hair against her inner thighs. The thin motel wall felt paper-flimsy. Someone in the next room coughed. She didn’t care. Zebby’s tongue was pushing her higher, a relentless, perfect pressure.
“Zebby, I’m gonna—” The warning was a sob.
Zebby redoubled her efforts, fucking her with two fingers now, curling them deep, her mouth never leaving her clit. Natalie came with a shattered, choked scream, her body convulsing against the door, her vision whiting out at the edges. Zebby rode her through it, gentling her mouth but not stopping, until Natalie was whimpering, oversensitive, pulling her head away.
Zebby stood up, her mouth glistening. She looked feral, triumphant. She kissed Natalie, letting her taste herself. “That’s one,” she breathed.
Then she half-carried, half-dragged Natalie to the bed. The covers were cheap polyester, scratchy. Zebby pushed her down onto them, looming over her. She pulled her own t-shirt off. Her body was a map of lean muscle and soft curves that Natalie had only ever seen in fragments on a screen. The sight of her, fully naked, her cock standing thick and full against her stomach, made Natalie’s mouth go dry.
“I need you inside me,” Natalie said, the words raw. “Now.”
Zebby didn’t need telling twice. She fumbled in the bedside drawer for a condom, her hands uncharacteristically clumsy. She sheathed herself, the latex snapping loud in the quiet room. Then she was between Natalie’s legs, pushing them wide, her hips settling into the cradle of Natalie’s thighs. The broad, slick head of her cock pressed against Natalie’s entrance.
Their eyes locked. Three years of distance, of secrets, of longing, hung in that moment.
Zebby pushed in.
It was a slow, inexorable invasion, a stretch that burned in the best way. Natalie gasped, her nails biting into Zebby’s shoulders. “Fuck… you’re so big.”
“You take it so good,” Zebby groaned, sinking deeper, her forehead dropping to Natalie’s. “Christ, Nat. You feel… you feel like fucking heaven.”
She was fully seated, buried to the hilt. They stayed there, fused, breathing each other’s air. Then Zebby began to move.
It was not making love. It was fucking. A raw, grinding, desperate piston of hips. The bedframe slammed against the wall in a rhythmic, frantic beat. Zebby’s thrusts were deep, punishing, each one driving a broken sound from Natalie’s throat.
“Yes… just like that… oh god, right there,” Natalie babbled, her heels digging into the small of Zebby’s back, urging her on. The sound of their bodies slapping together was obscene and perfect. Zebby’s cock hit a spot inside her that made her see stars with every drive.
“Whose is this?” Zebby grunted, her pace never faltering. She was sweating, a strand of blonde hair stuck to her temple.
“Yours,” Natalie moaned.
“Say it.”
“It’s yours! All yours, Zebby, fuck!” The admission tore from her, freeing something.
Zebby’s control snapped. She hooked her arms under Natalie’s knees, pushing them back towards her shoulders, opening her up completely. The angle was brutal, devastating. Natalie screamed, a real scream this time, muffled only by Zebby’s hand clamping over her mouth.
“Shhh, baby, they’ll hear,” Zebby rasped, but she didn’t slow. She fucked her harder, deeper, the headboard cracking against the wall like a gunshot. “Come on my cock. Come for me. I need to feel it.”
The command, the sheer overwhelming fullness, the illicit thrill of the thin walls—it all coalesced into a second, sharper climax. It ripped through Natalie, a convulsive, silent shaking, her internal muscles clenching and milking Zebby’s length in frantic pulses.
The feel of it tore Zebby over the edge. With a guttural, choked-off groan, she thrust in one last, brutal time and held, her body rigid. Natalie felt the throbbing pulse of her release through the latex.
They collapsed in a heap of sweat-slicked limbs and shuddering breaths. The room smelled of sex and salt and their shared exertion. The headlights from the highway painted fleeting stripes across the ceiling.
Long minutes passed. Zebby gently pulled out, disposed of the condom, and gathered Natalie against her. She fit perfectly, her head tucked under Zebby’s chin.
“So,” Zebby whispered into her hair, her voice wrecked. “Was it worth the wait?”
Natalie let out a shaky laugh that was almost a cry. She trailed her fingers over the bite marks on Zebby’s shoulder. “Shut up.”
They dozed, tangled in the scratchy sheets. For a few precious hours, the motel room was the entire world. It was warm, and safe, and theirs.
The digital clock on the bedside table glowed 4:17 AM when Natalie’s eyes flew open. The peace shattered.
Reality poured back in, cold and insistent.
She extricated herself from Zebby’s arms. Zebby stirred, her hand reaching out sleepily. “Nat?”
“I have to go,” Natalie whispered, already scrambling for her clothes. “If I’m not home before dawn, if Tash tries to call…”
She dressed in the dark, her movements frantic. The bra, the shirt, the jeans. Each piece of clothing felt like armor being locked back into place. The woman from moments ago—the one who screamed and begged and came apart—was being boxed away.
Zebby sat up on the edge of the bed, watching her, a silhouette against the window. She didn’t try to stop her. She just watched.
Natalie finished, shoving her feet into her shoes. She crossed to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Zebby. It was soft, tender, a ghost of what they’d shared. “Today. We’ll figure something out for today.”
“Okay,” Zebby said. Her voice was empty.
Natalie turned and left, closing the motel room door with a quiet, definitive click. The sound echoed in the silent, empty space.
Zebby lay back down on the sheets that still held Natalie’s scent and the fading warmth of her body. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the highway, a new and deeper kind of loneliness settling into her bones. She had had her. She had had all of her. And now the secrecy didn’t feel like a challenge; it felt like a thief.