Chapter 11
The elevator ding was unnaturally loud. Or maybe it felt that way because she was headed toward Aunt Rhonda’s apartment in the knowledge that she was going to have filthy, filthy sex. There were two other apartments on her floor. One was occupied by a middle-aged Russian couple, the other belonged to an ancient ex-showgirl gleefully outliving her relatives. They were all nice enough, but they’d skin her alive if they saw her going down the hallway in roller skates. She skated up the hall as quietly as she could. She didn’t really need to worry, all the apartments on her floor were soundproofed. Sometimes Mr Petkovic opened his door and marching band music blasted out at a hundred decibels, only to vanish the instant it closed again. Kate had taken comfort in that whenever she screamed for Daddy to fuck her harder. She reached her door and eased her keys out of her sports bag. Ty, she knew, was already in her apartment. She’d given him a key of his own, slipped it into his pigeonhole at work like a criminal. That knowledge would probably make Maria’s head explode, but it was safer than leaving her door unlocked and it made scenes like the one they had planned tonight so much more realistic.
Kate slid her key into her door as quietly as possible. The lock turned easily and she tugged her front door open. The unmistakable groans and slapping sounds of sex greeted her.
“Yeah?” she heard a man say. “Yeah, you like that, you dirty b—”
Kate slammed the door shut.
“What the heck?”
Her brain was buzzing with information and all she could think of was Ty bringing another girl to her apartment and having sex with her in full view of her Aunt Rhonda’s carnival glass animals. Then she realised that was utterly insane. Since Ty had given her every indication of being sane, there had to be another reason. She re-opened the door, just a crack, and glanced around. A second later she realised Ty wasn’t hosting an orgy, he was playing porn through her TV. The voices had the slightly tinny quality of a recorded video and the American accents were obvious even through the moaning. Relief and mortification surged through her in equal measure and she closed her door, needing a moment to collect herself.
Where had he gotten the porn from? Netflix didn’t have a secret porn side-channel, was he streaming it on his phone? Had he brought a DVD? Kate knew most people watched porn but the thought of Ty striding into an adult store in one of his nice suits and walking out with a bag of DVDs called things like Anal Sluts III: The Re-Sluttening just didn’t seem right. But maybe that was the point. From their first encounter, Ty had made it clear he liked playing the immoral sleazebag, an unusual choice from a man everyone praised for being so upstanding and honourable. Maybe it was a release pretending to be the man no one wanted him to be, just like it was a release for her to wallow in helplessness deliberately instead of incidentally.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob. She wanted to go inside and experience what Ty had in store for her, and yet something held her back.
“What do you want?” she asked herself
The answer came with embarrassing clarity: Ty on top of her in bed, his naked body warm and reassuringly heavy. He’d thrust inside her with slow, careful rolls of his hips, one big hand cupping her cheek. “Does that feel good, baby? I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“No, Daddy,” she’d whisper. “It feels nice.”
“Good. I want to make you feel nice.” He pressed his mouth to her ear, his hair falling like a silk curtain against her skin. “I love you, Katie, I always will.”
As Ty had already noticed, Kate rarely swore. Her mother had been a big fan of the washing-your-mouth-out-with-soap trick, and say what you will about child abuse—it worked. Saying the F-word to Ty that night had given her guilt pangs that lasted days, but in that moment Kate couldn’t help herself.
“Fucking hell,” she muttered. “Fucking, fucking, fucking hell.”
That fantasy was pathetic. It was a big bowl of sad with tragic sprinkles on top. To think such soppy crap about Mr Peterson when she was fourteen was one thing, to feel that way about Ty, the earthbound Adonis she was actually sleeping with, was beyond embarrassing. Kate seized the doorknob and yanked her door open. She’d take porn and perversion over that saccharine, painfully female fantasy any day of the week.
The porn was even louder on the other side of the door. She skated into the living room and saw Ty sitting on her couch with a beer in his hand. On the TV an obscenely muscled man was getting a blowjob from two blondes. He was being very ungrateful about it, working a rough fist in each woman’s hair and snarling, “Suck harder you little sluts.”
The crassness was so overwhelming, Kate had to look away. Ty was so good at getting her into this headspace of erotic uncertainty, making her feel so much younger and more naïve than she was. It was even stronger tonight, with him relaxing in her home as if he owned the place. She shifted in her roller skates, the heavy boots hindering her in a way that felt like bondage.
“That you, Katie?” Ty didn’t turn around, but from his voice Kate could imagine his expression, a smirk of pure masculine pleasure. His sex doll was home and he was about to get laid.
“Erm, yeah, hi,” she stammered.
She could never call him Daddy when they started playing like this, and it didn’t seem right to call him Ty. This wasn’t Ty. This was another, meaner man—her brutish stepfather if not the daddy borne of her Mr Peterson fantasies.
“You’re late,” he said, because that was what they’d planned.
“Sorry, I had derby practice.”
He made a meal of slowly checking his wristwatch. “That finished at eight. Where have you been since?”
Kate put her sports bag down on the floor. The clunk, without her roller skates inside it, was much lighter than usual. “Out with my friends.”
“And you didn’t think to let me or your mother know?”
The menace underlying his tone made her shiver. How did he do it? How did he make her feel guilty for offending her imaginary mum, while he sat watching porn on TV with his boots up on Aunt Rhonda’s antique coffee table?
“I’m waiting?”
“I forgot to text,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Seconds ticked past with agonising slowness. The girls on the screen moaned and the man swore but Ty said nothing. Kate’s nerves began to flutter, her hands and feet and pussy buzzing with useless energy. Sorry was never good enough, but how would her stepfather make her pay? They never discussed the ins and outs of a scene in their Kinkworld correspondences. Kate had a hand in the destination, could veto or suggest certain things, but Ty sat behind the wheel and drove them where he wanted to go. She liked that, didn’t she?
Ty sat up, drained his beer, and put the empty on the coffee table. “Come here, Katie.”
“Why?”
Tension crackled in the air between them.
“Because,” Ty said very quietly. “I want my cock sucked and seeing as you’re late, I think it’s the least you can do.”
She swallowed. The male pornstar was now taking one of the girls from behind as the other stroked her hands over his chest. “Okay, but can you please turn that stuff off first? It’s gross.”
He stretched his arms over his head, making his shoulders flex beneath one of the cotton t-shirts he always favoured when he came to her house. “After all our fun together, Little Miss Good Girl still thinks sex is gross, huh?”
“I don’t think sex is gross. I think you’re gross. Why are you watching this stuff while my mum’s out?”
He turned to look at her then, and as always Kate was struck by how handsome he was. Not an unusual or brooding kind of handsome, just handsome. Bright blue eyes, thick blonde hair, a stern brow and a square jaw. She’d never seen pictures of him as twenty-something, but she already knew he was more attractive now. The faint lines around his eyes and forehead lent him the ruggedness of a cinematic cowboy. In looks, he was the perfect all-Australian man, yet such a strange perversion had brought them together. Kate thought of Ty’s ex-fiancée. Had she known about this? Had she stood where Kate was standing only with a diamond ring and the knowledge that he loved her? What would having Tyler Henderson’s love even feel like?
“I do a lot of things while your mother’s out, something you know very well,” Ty said scanning her body. His eyes lingered on her tight derby tee. “Is that what you wear to practice?”
Kate tugged at the hem of her short-shorts. “Yes.”
“Interesting. So you went out with your little friends after practise, did you? Where to, a playground?”
“A bar.”
Ty’s upper lip curled into a sneer. “Maybe I’m corrupting you after all. Did you drink?”
“Yes.” Kate tried to sound as smug as teenagers always did when they consumed alcohol, as though it wasn’t an incredibly mundane adult activity.
“How’d you get drinks? You flirt with the bartender ?”
“No, my best friend Casey bought them for me, she has an ID.”
She was also twenty-six and far from her best friend, but Kate figured that didn’t matter so much in role play.
“Casey, huh? She a dirty little girl like you?”
“No,” she said quickly.
Ty’s sneer grew more pronounced. “I don’t believe you. Maybe you should invite her over some time so I can find out for myself.”
Kate knew he didn’t mean it, that he was acting like a jerk on purpose, but hearing him talk about other girls, even in the context of this fantasy, stung. Unwilling to let him read that in her face, she bent over to take off her roller skates.
“Leave them on.”
Kate straightened up, her heart hammering. “You can’t tell me what to—”
“Yes, I can,” Ty said coldly. “You know the reason why, go ahead and tell me what it is?”
Kate thought back to their last encounter, Ty rubbing her to the brink of orgasm then stopping, telling her he’d only get her off if she said Daddy owned her pussy. She’d held out, she’d held out at least a dozen times and then…
“Katie…” Ty’s voice was softer than silk. “You look me in the eyes and tell me what I want to hear or what I did to your ass last week will seem like a beautiful fucking fantasyland compared to what I’ll do now.”
The skin on Kate’s backside prickled. She looked down at her roller skates “I have to do what you say because you…because you own me.”
“And why do I own you?”
“Because you’re my…” Kate glanced up at the TV. The two girls were sitting on the beefy man’s face and hips, riding him at same time. “Because you’re my Daddy.”
“That’s right,” Ty said with some satisfaction. “Now take off your t-shirt. Slowly.”
Kate peeled her top over her head with what she hoped was sufficient slowness.
“Lose the bra.”
She flipped open the catch on her sports bra and let the material fall away. Now she was standing in her fully-lit living room in her shorts and skates, feeling more naked than if she were actually naked. Ty studied her body and she studied the TV. Both of the pornstars were blonde and deeply tanned with breasts like cantaloupes. Was this the kind of woman Ty preferred? His ex had been blonde. ‘Like Scarlett Johansson with better tits,’ Dutchy had said. As she stood there she felt exceptionally pale, skinny, and bland. She thought about her fantasy—Ty making slow, sweet love to her in his bed—her chest throbbed.
“Touch yourself,” Ty said.
“Wh-What?”
“Touch your tits for me. Nice and hard the way I do it.”
She placed her hands on her breasts and squeezed. The sensation sent another sizzle from breasts to groin. Her mind was all over the place but alcohol and anticipation had her body more than ready.
“Very nice,” Ty said. “Now skate your ass over here.”
Kate skated toward him. She felt a bit guilty for doing it indoors, but Aunt Rhonda had been a huge fan of sexual expression and she probably wouldn’t have cared. She stood in front of Ty, expecting him to pull her onto her lap. Instead, he stared at her with frank curiosity. “Is that really your uniform?”
Kate knew it was her boss, not her stepfather who wanted to know.
“Not this.” She gestured to her bare breasts. “But everything else is. I wear a lot of protective gear, knee guards, wrist guards and a helmet.”
“Sure.” He reached out and brushed the skin below her belly button. His eyes were very soft, almost sad. Kate was on the verge of asking if he was okay when he extended his arms. “Come here.”
It was hard work, sitting on someone’s lap while wearing skates, but Kate managed to clamber on. Ty stroked her with entitled precision, brushing his palms over her hair and shoulders as though revelling in his ownership. It lasted so long that she closed her eyes, soothed by his touch like an anxious kitten and when finally he plucked at her nipple, she gasped.
“You’re starting to enjoy this, aren’t you, little girl?”
“No.”
“Liar.” Ty’s hand closed over the front of her shorts, cupping her sex. “You can pretend all you want, but I know you like it.”
Kate struggled weakly against his hold. “You make me have sex with you.”
“Maybe at first, but I’ve woken something up in you, haven’t I? You want it now, even more than I do. I can see it whenever you look at me.”
He grinned, and Kate knew he was referring to all the meetings in which she’d had to drag her gaze away from his hands, his mouth, the seat of his pants. “I can’t help it.”
“I know you can’t.” His hands slid up her torso, cupping her breasts. “I think I’m gonna buy you a nice fat toy. Something you can play with when I’m not here. You can call it Daddy, use it whenever you wish I was inside you.”
The thought of Ty giving her something—even if it was a dildo—made Kate’s heart clench like a fist. “I don’t want that,” she lied.
“And what do you want?”
For you to make love to me in your bed, your skin against mine, your weight on my body. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Ty kissed her hard. It was a kiss meant to claim, his lips and tongue dominating her hers.
“Maybe you do,” he said when he pulled away. “I won’t leave you alone, though, your pussy’s too sweet. Your mouth feels too good around my cock.”
“I could tell on you.”
Ty bent forward and sucked her nipple into his mouth. “You really think your mother would believe you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Really?” Ty assumed a look of concern. “Jennifer, I need to get something off my chest. The other night Katie came home and she’d been drinking. She was dressed in…well, let’s just say it didn’t leave much to the imagination…”
“Stop it,” Kate whispered.
“…she came and sat on the couch with me.” Ty’s face contorted into a pained paternal grimace. “She uh, sat in my lap, if I’m honest. Then she… rubbed herself all over me. Said she had a crush on me and—Jesus, I’m just a man, what was I supposed to do?”
“You’re evil.”
Ty dropped his martyred expression and smirked at her. “I am. So if you want to go out drinking with your little friends, you’d better remember to come by here and do right by me first.”
As he lowered his lips to hers, Kate was visited by a sharp, unwelcome flash of awareness. Why was she so turned on by her and Ty eroticizing the worst stereotypes about their genders? Man as perverted predator, woman as passive vessel. Kate had read every book on kink and plenty on sexual psychology, she’d discussed it with Maria and the internet at large, but at that moment, the question actually baffled her; why was she doing this?
Ty’s fingers tightened on her nipples, biting into the sensitive flesh. “Get on your knees, girl.”
“No.”
“If that’s the way you want to play it.” Ty slapped his palm into her ass. She’d barely registered the sting before she was lifted into the air and deposited on her knees. He unzipped his jeans one-handed and pulled out his cock. It was thick with blood and glossy at the tip. Too eager to pretend to resist, Kate bent forward to put her mouth on it. Ty pressed a gentle palm to her forehead. “Just a minute.”
He picked up the remote and started doing something to the TV. Kate realised he was selecting something to watch while she sucked him off. Another zing sizzled down between her legs.
“There we go.” Ty put down the remote and fisted his cock. “Come get it.”
Kate looked up at him. Her handsome boss didn’t look the least bit civilized now. The TV was flickering over his sharp cheekbones, making him look hard and unkind. She thought of her silly girlish fantasy and shuddered at the thought of trying to fuse it with this uncompromisingly cruel man. It would never, could never, work. This was the way Ty liked to play and she needed to get used to it. She bent forward and sucked him into her mouth like a good girl.
Ty groaned, his hand sifting through her hair. “That’s it, deeper now, you know how I like it.”
Kate did know. Ty seemed to have a particular affinity for blow jobs. Men’s enjoyment of that particular act was well documented, but he almost seemed to prefer them to sex. She’d given more BJs in a few short weeks than she had in her whole life. She guessed he liked the power of watching a woman service the undeniably impressive length of his cock.
As she sucked, the moans on the TV grew more intense, and she could hear sharp slapping sounds, either spanking or sex. The fact that she couldn’t turn to look at them made the whole scene more erotic. Ty reached down and cupped her breast. “Fuck, your skin is so soft.”
She let out a tiny moan.
“Not as soft as your pussy, though, is it? Soft and wet and tight. I’ve been thinking about getting you on the pill so I can ride you without a condom. Would you like that, Katie? Feeling me come inside you? Having it run down your thighs afterward?”
Kate’s pussy throbbed and without any other way to express herself, she sucked him harder, bringing her mouth further and further down his cock. It was already much easier to do this without choking. She was like the girls at school who made themselves throw up so many times, they could shove a whole toothbrush down their throats. Only less sad, obviously.
Ty’s hand tightened in her hair. “That’s a good girl. Push your hands inside those shorts and get your pussy ready for me.”
She did what she was told, unbuttoning her shorts and sliding her fingertips into her underwear. She was so hot and damp she felt like a rainforest, and the slightest strokes made her shudder.
“That’s it,” Ty muttered. “Get yourself off while you suck me.”
After that, everything seemed to move in leaps. Kate had so much to do—sucking, stroking, listening to Ty’s groans and the sounds of porn. She couldn’t concentrate on any one thing, her attention leapt from sensation to sensation trying to take it all in. Pre-come began to slick the head of his cock and his motions became rougher. He tugged her hair, forcing himself deep between her lips. As always, the degradation sharpened her arousal. She slipped a finger inside herself and looked up, hoping to see him watching TV and found his gaze fixed on her. His expression was so tender, so infinitely soft, she choked from sheer surprise.
Ty’s fist wrapped itself even more tightly in her hair. “You keep your eyes on my cock where they belong, little girl.”
Before she could respond, he thrust his hips upward and began fucking himself into her mouth. She felt a slight panic as he bumped against her soft palate and she ceased all attempts to get herself off as she breathed deep through her nose. Ty’s gaze was locked on the porn now, drinking it in as he used her mouth. Kate swallowed furiously, trying to keep spit from spraying out of her mouth like a busted fire hydrant. She was barely sucking, just keeping her teeth out of the way and attempting not to choke. Above her, Ty moaned. “I’m gonna come.”
Please god, she thought, I’m only three, maybe four seconds away from gagging, please let me hold out.
She heard his strangled cry, felt his cock throb as he came but was amazed to discover that she couldn’t taste his orgasm. The mess of his semen had slid straight down her throat.
That’s one plus to deep throating, she thought, wiping a hand across her lips. Her throat was slightly tender, but she didn’t mind. She had swallowed what had to be four-fifths of Tyler Henderson’s insane wang and lived to tell the tale; she was a hero.
Ty released her hair. “You okay, baby?”
She thought she’d pushed it down, but as soon as he called her ‘baby’ it rose again, the desire for him to take her slowly and lovingly in a bed. She hated herself a little for being such a cliché. What they’d just done had been so filthy and hot. Why couldn’t she just enjoy that, the way he could? It was like he had strength she didn’t, an ability to disconnect that she just didn’t possess. Was it because she hadn’t had enough sex, or was it really just easier for men? Kate resolved to stop letting her dumb heart get the better of her. “I’m fine.”
“Good, that was one hell of a job you just did.” Ty stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “Just give me a minute, and I’ll sort you out.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Ty’s post-orgasm softness faded like morning frost. “Middleton, take off those shorts and sit on my fuckin’ lap. I wanna watch the wheels on your skates spin while I get you off.”
A few seconds later, she was riding his hand, his bunched fingers feeling roughly the size of a rolling pin.
“That’s it,” Ty muttered as he rocked her back and forth. “You like this, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because you’re a needy little thing now you’re broken in. You need dick once a day, or you start to misbehave. I’m gonna have to think up new ways to punish you now I know spanking just gets you wet.”
“But—ooh.”
His finger circled her asshole, damp and hard. “Have you ever touched yourself here?”
“A little, but I’ve never had anything inside.”
“Figured.” Ty slid the tip of his finger just past the ring of muscle. “That feel okay?”
“Um…” The burn was uncomfortable, but it was also nice, wrong and right just like the games they played. “I think so.”
“I won’t go any deeper than this for now, but we’ll work on it. I’d love to fuck you in the ass, sweetheart.”
Kate tried to picture his enormous wang going into her backside and tensed. “Um, have you done this before?”
Ty chuckled. “Yes.”
Figured. “How often? And were the women okay afterward? Like could they walk and sit in regular chairs and perform normal butt related activi—”
Ty placed a gentle hand over her mouth. “Don’t worry about it right now. We’re a long way from that. Just relax and feel what I’m doing to you.”
“But—”
“Middleton, I promise if I stick it in your ass, you’ll be so ready for it, every inch’ll feel like heaven. Now close your eyes and come on me.”
Kate closed her eyes and let the sensations take her. She felt the fingers penetrating her, rubbing inside and around her most sensitive areas. She remembered the way his eyes had locked on the TV as she sucked him, the way he’d used her. She felt the press of the roller skates against her feet, clasping her in discomfort as this big hard man forced a response from her body. She shuddered, pressure growing tight in her middle. “Daddy, I think I’m going to…”
Ty leaned forward and buried his face in her neck, the stubble brushing against her as his fingers worked their magic. “Do it, you dirty little girl.”
When she was done, Ty wiped his hands on his T-shirt and reached around her to the remote, turning off the porn she’d only dimly registered. “How was that?”
Kate nodded faintly.
“Again?”
“I think I might die.”
Ty laughed. There was a warmth to it that, combined with the memory of him gazing tenderly down at her, inspired her to do something silly—she wrapped her arms around his neck and slumped into his chest. She enjoyed a single second of bliss before Ty lifted her up and gently placed her onto the couch. “How are you feeling? Are you warm enough?”
She nodded, knowing there was no reason for the lump in her throat, the hollow sensation in her chest. Ty’s palm slid up her leg. “You’re shivering, hang on a sec.”
He undid the laces on her roller skates and tugged them off her feet, then he took the peach blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it tightly around her, binding her so tightly Kate felt like a Chinese noblewoman’s foot during the Song dynasty.
Why does he keep doing this? Does he think I like it or is it some kind of weird blanket fetish?
Ty stood up. “I’m gonna grab a beer. You want something, or did you have enough espresso martinis at the bar?”
Kate felt a stab of fear. She’d chewed gum all the way home to avoid coffee breath but maybe it hadn’t worked? “How did you know I drank espresso martinis?”
A flash of his soft, post-orgasm smile. “I can smell it on your hands. My mate Georgie’s addicted to them. Every time we go out she has about five and spends the rest of the night talking like one of those cartoon chipmunks. Rum?”
“Yes, please.”
As he left for the kitchen, Kate digested the fact that he had a friend called Georgie. A woman who liked espresso martinis. It was such a little fact, and yet it felt like someone had placed a diamond in her hand. She closed her eyes, and imagined the three of them having drinks together. Her and Ty and Georgie, chatting about work and holidays and how she and Ty met…
“Still feel okay?” he asked when he returned from the kitchen with a beer and a small glass of Sailor Jerry.
“Totally.” Kate sat up and shook off her swaddles so she could hold the glass. “How do you feel?”
“I’m good.” Ty’s smile wasn’t exactly patronising but you could tell he thought she was cute for asking because of course he was totally fine. Always and perpetually fine. Something about that flicked at her brain. She took a small sip of rum and felt it trickling into her belly.
Ty settled on the couch beside her, careful, as always, not to touch her. Another irritable flick. She didn’t have cooties and even if she did they’d be swimming around in the head of his penis right now, so why was he so uptight about touching her? She bet if science found a way for him to fuck her via some sort of virtual reality/fleshlight situation, he’d take it.
Kate realised she’d just thought the word ‘fuck’ without feeling the slightest bit guilty. She drank some more rum.
“You didn’t mind the porn, did you?” Ty asked, breaking the silence. “I thought it might be good for shock value.”
“It was, but you kind of freaked me out at first. I thought you might be having an orgy in my house.”
Ty laughed. “I wouldn’t do that to you, I promise. Do you want me to leave you the disk?”
“I’m a millennial; I get my kicks on Tumblr—mostly in GIF form.”
“Of course.” He nudged one of her roller skates with his foot. “So, roller derby. How’d you get into that?”
“I saw a poster about it,” Kate lied, not wanting to bring up Whip It and her quest for female friendship. “I loved skating when I was a kid. I thought it would be fun and it is. Fun and occasionally painful.”
“How does it work, like the competition side of things? How do you score?”
They talked roller derby for a few minutes until Kate, tired of trying to use her fingers to demonstrate blocking and jamming, got her phone and showed him an instructional YouTube video. Watching it required him to sit right beside her, and Kate found herself zoning out to the feel of his shoulder against hers, the smell of his sweat and cologne.
That was when it hit her—in the excitement of her upcoming date, she’d forgotten to take her Ritalin. No wonder she’d spent half the night feeling as loose as a scarf knitted by a ten-year-old. She leapt to her feet. “I have to…pee.”
Ty raised a brow. “Okay.”
She locked herself in the bathroom, swallowing her pill with water she sucked straight from the tap. Ty was too much of a gentleman to ask but she suspected he already knew she wasn’t peeing. It should be easy to tell him she had a totally manageable form of ADHD but what folks didn’t know about behavioural disorders could fill a mineshaft. Kate wasn’t sure what was worse, the people who thought she was crazy, the people who thought ADHD was invented to sell pills, or the people who wanted to buy her Ritalin.
Or the people like Maria who think you’re a googly-eyed flower who can’t take care of herself.
“Shut up,” Kate told her reflection. “You’re always ready with a bitchy comment, but where were you when I needed to be reminded to take my pill?”
The voice said nothing.
“Exactly.”
When she returned to the couch, Ty didn’t so much as bat an eyelid. “So,” he said as she sat down. “Whereabouts are your games played?”
“They’re called bouts,” Kate corrected with a smile. “And Northcote Stadium.”
“Hipster town, hipster sport.”
“Pretty much.” Kate was struck with a sudden idea. “You know if you want to see a game, I could get you a ticket. Our finals are coming up and there’s heaps of night markets and taco trucks and…would you want to come?”
Ty took a long slug of beer before answering. “Not sure that’s my scene, Middleton. Thanks, though.”
She felt the air cool between them, the electric warmth evaporating into wherever negative romantic chemistry went. Kate picked up her rum and sipped it. She should have been embarrassed but weirdly she wasn’t. The man had expressed an interest in roller derby and she had invited him to a bout. He’d said no, which he was at liberty to do, though considering she’d just defied nature to put most of his penis in her throat, he could have been nicer about it.
“I have a question for you,” she said without thinking.
“Oh yeah?”
Kate’s heart banged a warning against her chest, but she ignored it. “I go down on you all the time, and you’ve never gone down on me.”
Ty’s ‘you’re so cute’ smile vanished. The atmosphere between them cooled another degree. “That’s not a question.”
Kate’s hands were trembling, but she wasn’t ready to back down, she really freaking wanted to know why he wouldn’t do it. “My question is, why haven’t you ever gone down on me?”
“Am I not getting you off?”
Ty’s voice made her think of rusted axes embedded for centuries in mossy logs. “Yeah, but—”
“Go to some other man if you want your pussy licked, Middleton. I don’t do it.”
Kate’s magical confidence melted away as swiftly as it had emerged. She tugged the blanket across her lap, needing the warmth. How did a guy get away with not giving head in this day and age? Maybe he was just so handsome no one ever demanded it of him. Still, if the old clichés were true and you were what you ate, she would basically be his sperm. It seemed uncharacteristically selfish that he wouldn’t return the favour. That he would rather she slept with another man than get that from him. Prick, she thought, the word sharp as a vaccination. Prick .
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
Kate turned to look at Ty. “Huh?”
“Me not eating pussy doesn’t have anything to do with the taste, or how it looks or being lazy.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“Because…” Ty looked as uncomfortable as Kate had ever seen him. “…it’s a submissive thing.”
She was so surprised by his answer she laughed. “Are you for real?”
Lines furrowed his handsome brow. “Yes.”
“My sister Claudia once faked a pregnancy to get out of the year ten swimming carnival and this is still the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“Are you looking to get your backside slapped?”
Kate wasn’t done being confused about his vagina prejudice but her body heated at the idea of another round. She chewed her lower lip.
Ty smirked. “Feeling shy, are you? That’s okay, we can play like that.”
He reached out to grip her hair but Kate held up a hand, warding him off. “Can’t you tell me why you won’t do it to me? Really?”
Ty opened his mouth, then closed it again shaking his head. “I already gave you my answer, Middleton. We’re leaving it at that.”
“And what if I decide I don’t give head anymore?”
“You’d miss it too much. I see you pressing your legs together whenever you’re blowing me. You like it. You like it when I pretend I’m watching TV or drinking beer, too. When I’m acting like I don’t know there’s a girl between my legs.”
Kate looked away, embarrassed to have been caught out. It was bizarre how Ty could be so cagey about some things and so open about others. They had such a bipolar relationship. Sometimes she felt like he knew her better than anyone. Other times it felt like they were strangers who’d happened to see each other come.
Her stomach gave a painful rumble. On days when she knew she was seeing Ty, she was always too nervous to eat. Now she was starving. She needed dinner, something heavy with lots of salt and sauce. She reached over and grabbed her phone.
“What are you doing?” Ty asked with a frown.
“Ordering dinner. Are you hungry?”
“No. I’m good.”
He was going to leave; she could feel it in the current of the air, in the tone of his voice. He could drink with her, eat her cupcakes or slices, but it was clear that in his mind an entire meal was violation of their sex-buddy code. Kate’s stomach squirmed but she forced herself to open the Uber Eats app and scroll through the options. “All I’ve eaten today is espresso martinis and your semen. As nutritionally balanced as that is, I need dinner.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ty staring at her, his mouth slightly open. She felt a perverse sense of satisfaction. “Hey, did you know Cookie does Uber Eats?”
“No, I didn’t,” Ty said warily. Every Melbournite knew about Cookie, they did the best Thai fusion food in the city, and if she’d once heard Ty tell Stormy it was his favourite restaurant, that was just a strange coincidence.
“Well, they do,” Kate said in her chirpiest voice. “I’m gonna get Penang Curry, fat rice, salt and pepper calamari, and sticky rice pudding.”
She watched in her peripheral vision as Ty opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
Come on, have dinner with me, you know you want to…
“Middleton?”
She glanced at him, all casual-like. “Yeah?”
“Can you put down five-spice chicken?”
Kate turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her smile. “Sure.”
“I can see you smiling.”
“I’m not,” Kate said, adding five-spice chicken to her order.
Ty made a soft growling noise, like a hostile bear. “I’m gonna beat your ass while we wait for our food.”
“Okay.”
“It’s going to hurt.”
“I’m sure it will.”
“Then I’m going to fuck you from behind while you bite down on your panties.”
Kate licked her lower lip. “Fine.”
Ty stood up, unbuckling his belt and pulling it from its loops. “When our food gets here you’ll be lucky if I don’t make you get the door naked. Now come here.”