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July is a month too hot to make love, Edith thought, as she slammed Krupp's back against her front door. It's hard to touch when you yourself don't want to be touched, with sheets and clothes sticking, with all the kisses tasting like sweat. There are no breezes on these nights either, and so she breathed in her own air as she licked a hot stripe up his neck, shuddering, coils writhing as he wrapped his legs around her. Hip pressed to hip, she could feel Krupp twitching, and Edith was tempted to make a comment about patience and persistence when she felt him grab the base of two tentacles and squeeze, hard.
His chuckle was right in her ear until she threw him down on the pre-made pull-out sofa.
There was a split second where he looked like he'd get away, might win the upper hand, but that second came and passed and in the next instant she was on him, dragging him to the center of the bed. Heavy coils are enough of a deterrent to move on their own, but a little bit of extra squeeze never hurt anyone, especially Krupp, who she could practically see the heat rising off of as she ran the point of her hand down his tie.
"Not fair," he tried to keep his voice steady, but she could hear the quiver in it. Her smile was one of all teeth as she lay on top of him, slowly, relishing in the way he jumped at every connecting point. She stopped only when her mouth was a hair’s breadth away from his. Straining to reach her, he tried to lift himself up if only enough to catch a kiss, but she coyly pulled away.
"How am I not being fair?"
Wide eyed gibberish was the only reply she got until she spread his legs wide with a vicious tug and began palming him through his pants. With her lips on his neck, his moans fell directly into her ear, and she lavished the skin above his vocal chords as they slipped up and down beneath her, as though he were an instrument, as though she owned him. Changing the direction of her ministrations to nip and lick brought out a yelp and a snap of his hips; the sharp note. She relished the crackle of him through the dense air, the arcing of electricity in every twitch he made, in every unconscious movement, and it caused her coil over herself in delight as she sucked a dark mark into his collar bone. It was low enough that nobody would notice, low enough that his sharp ironed shirts and his ties would cover it, but she’d know it was there, and in the dark with her lips on him, she made plans to dig her fingers into it every chance she got to remind him too, when no one else was looking.
“Edith-”
Her name was a sigh not strong enough to leave his mouth, but she still caught it. In a fervor she kissed him, pulling the air from him and returning it with a gentle, “Yes?”
She could feel him swallow, working the words around his mouth, “Can I-? Let me-?” he sucked in a hard breath between his teeth, “Let me- let me up.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I’m not playing, please.”
Edith recoiled, surprised, pulling back as he slowly sat up. The light coming through the kitchen window cast his face into relief, the soft edges of waxy street lamps dipped into the darkness that played up and down his skin as he sat there, one arm propping him up, the other rubbing the back of his neck.
He was smiling at her, the goober. It was that lopsided curling thing she only ever seemed to catch every once in a while, and her heart thrummed in her chest as she watched it sprawl across his face.
It would have been nice if he could be soft like this all the time, but she’d take what she can get.
“You okay?”
“What? Yeah, no yeah, I’m fine I- I uh- ho,” he took a deep breath, looking at the ceiling as he tripped over his own words, clenching his teeth around every errant consonant until he finally managed, “Can I- would you- um...Will you please let me eat you out?”
Edith blinks, and there is a pause. Her coils slacken as she slowly sits upright, piecing together what he was asking, “What?”
Krupp groaned, face flushing as it twisted with embarrassment, “Oh my god, don’t make me repeat it.”
She can’t help but laugh, “Ben, I don’t have-”
“I know, I know I know, but-”
“No but isn’t that kind of-?”
“It’s not. I may have spent…way, way too much time figuring this out.”
“…What-?”
“Edith, please,” his hands were balling the sheets in anxious fists, eyes still not meeting hers as he ground the words out, shuddering and sputtering, “You always- I just really- I want to learn how to do something just for you, alright? I don’t know if it’ll work, but I’d like to try. And it’s- it’s too hot to do all this other stuff anyway. Not-! Not that it’s ever bad. It’s never bad, jesus, just let me- let me do something nice for you, please?”
There was a breath of silence, neither one of them speaking, while outside a car alarm sounded and echoed through the night. The air hung thick between them, growing thicker still as the heat rising from their skin mingled with the heat the concrete still had yet to let go of.
“…How have you worked this out?”
He finally looked at her then, “You’re okay with it?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do yet, but I’m willing to listen.”
“Oh, right- right”
“…But I still don’t have-”
“It’s not about-,” he drug his hands down his face, “I hate this. I can’t believe I’m explaining this. Augh, you don’t have to- you don’t have to have a v-ho fuck, come on-,” he took a deep breath, “I- can I have one of your inkers? Oh come on, stop laughing!”
But she couldn’t. Her whole body was trembling, head thrown back as her giggles echoed around the apartment, “My what?”
“I don’t know what you call them!”
“Oh my god, Ben.”
“Inkers isn’t a bad name!”
“Oooh my god, Ben.”
“Listen, please, just work with me here.”
“I am working with you,” she laughed, gently maneuvering the end of one tentacle into his hand, “I am very much working with you. Here’s, here’s an inker.”
“Until you tell me what they’re actually called, I’m going to keep calling them that.”
“Oh honey, then I’m never going to let you find out.”
“Joy.”
Edith nudged the tentacle further forward, wrapping it around Krupp’s hand and bringing his attention back, “But really, what are you planning on doing with this?”
She could see him swallow, could feel him shudder in the dark, “Ah, you have- there’s- you told me there’s a little tube that runs up and down about half of these, right?”
“Yes.”
“And- and the tubing runs right along that nervous system that lets you do all that stuff to see things without seeing them.”
“That’s…a crude way of putting it but yeah, basically.”
“Right,” he took another breath, “right, then if I- if I put my mouth- um- Are the nerves towards the top or the bottom?”
She leaned forward, “The top. What are you planning?”
“If I…if I put pressure from the inside up with-ah- using m-my-the hope is you…um…”
He was shaking, hand trembling as he ran his thumb across the head of the tentacle again and again. Edith brushed a coil across his shoulders, causing him to look up as she muttered, “Go ahead. I trust you. Show me what you’re trying to do.”
He gave her that smile again, that anxious flash of bravado, before lifting the head to his mouth and-
It felt like she was hit with lightning. Edith coiled in on herself, pulling tight then stretching out as a heavy hum of current passed through her head, leaving popping stars and sparks in its wake. Distantly, she heard herself cry out, but it didn’t register that it was her until she felt Krupp’s hands smoothing up and down her skin as he frantically asked, “Did that not work? Was that a bad idea?”
“Ben-”
“Yes? Are you okay? What-”
“Do that again.”
All Edith got back was a blank stare, “What?”
“I said,” she grabbed him by his tie, pulling herself up as she yanked his face close to hers, “Do. That. Again.”
His brow went up, mouth popping opened, until slowly his face settled into a knowing smirk. Taking her in hand again, she watched him, felt him, wrap his lips around her as he nudged the tip of his tongue into her, stretching the opening lightly as he pushed up and-
She coiled again, curling in and locking up with a shudder. It was only because Krupp caught her that she didn’t fall directly backwards. Distantly, through the static that overwhelmed her brain, she felt him shift to lay her down, rearranging pillows around her head as he kept going, kept licking and nibbling and pushing, kept working himself in slowly.
Underneath all that callus, and there was a lot of it, he was such a blundering, gentle thing. She would have laughed were she capable.
Edith could feel his hands skittering over the buttons of her dress, working to undo them even while he was shaking. Task completed, he pushed back the two halves of fabric, letting his hands roam up and down the planes of her, fingers dipping around edges and curves with this ardent sort of reverence. His mouth was on her neck just under her jaw, lapping at the tendons there and-
She blinked, lazily coming to with sparks still blooming in front of her eyes. How was he-
Oh.
He had the tentacle pinched loosely between his littlest finger and his thumb, the thumb pulling the head back and forth while the little finger was embedded deep inside of it. She could feel it curling slightly, pressing up as he turned his wrist, continuing to stretch and play with the sensitive tissues and nerves there.
Edith let her head fall back against the pillows again, turning as she cupped Krupp’s face and brought his mouth to hers. They were sloppy kisses, open-mouthed and full of too many teeth, broken only when the feeling of lightning struck her again and she arched, back jumping up off the creaking sofa as the rest of her rolled against the mattress without thought.
In the dark, she could hear him laugh.
It was then she remembered, reaching out, trying to find him, that he was still fully dressed. He was probably soaked to the skin, drenched in his own sweat, and that was not fair in the least. She’d make him a trembling mess of him yet, see how he liked it, and she knew he did like it. One arm coiled around his leg and steadily she worked it up until it was plucking at the button of his pants. His laughing turned to giggling, turned to breathy moans, and she felt his ministrations falter as he hissed, “Cut that out.”
Edith didn’t have enough air in her lungs to reply, so instead she just grinned as she finally undid the button and began to pull the pants down, bending her arm just so she could grind it hard against his own personal struggle.
When she heard that airless attempt at a scream, she knew she’d won her small victory.
She could feel Krupp grabbing at her blindly, hands gripping, groping, at coils and reaching for something- something. His thumb flickered over the heads of tentacles, and first she assumed it was just him and his roving hands, but then-
“Ben!”
It came out as wail, limbs writhing as he catered to the tentacle in his mouth as well as the one in his hand. She could feel it, could feel the vibrations of his chuckles the whole way down the limb and the current took her again. Now fierce and electric, she coiled in on herself, panting, high and breathy whimpers collecting in her open mouth like water bubbling into a spring from below. The pressure was building, there was that curling deliciousness just within reach- god- so close- god- give it-let her-
Edith’s whole body went taut, and in that instant, lightning struck again as ink poured from her, staining the mattress, the carpet, the everything. Everything seemed to roll in her, to twist and to burst, and she couldn’t breathe for the sheer delight of it. Distantly, she heard Ben’s coughing gags, but she could only sink lower into the pillows, breathing heavy, relishing the hard beating of her chest and the tingling in her skin.
She felt him kiss her temple lightly, but when she turned, he was already pulling back to sit up on the side of the bed, giggling as he murmured gently, “Well…that was new.”
Edith gave a breathless chuckle, blinking to find his face hovering above hers, “So smug,” she slurred, and he grinned.
“Little bit, yeah.”
“How long have you been wanting to do that?”
“…I don’t even know, to be honest,” Krupp laughed quietly, “before I knew- well, before I knew about all of this,” he ran his knuckles lightly up and down her side, flipping his palm up as Edith slipped her hand into his, “Though I kept trying to figure it out, come up with different options after- after- well. Yeah.”
She cocked her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye, “What other options did you have?”
“Listen, this one worked. I’d rather not go into it.”
Edith didn’t have the energy to laugh even if she wanted to, but the hand whose fingers were currently tangling with her arm was close enough to kiss lightly, so she did. “You’re telling me you wanted to go down on me before you knew I wasn’t human?”
“Oh yeah.”
“And…that didn’t change once you found out?”
He shrugged, brushing his thumb across her skin, “No, not really.”
“You are ridiculous,” she smiled, “Absolutely ridiculous.”
His eyes seemed to twinkle with mischif then, just a little, and her stomach fluttered pleasantly as she drank him in, from his face to his rumpled, stained shirt, to his loose tie, to- ah.
A wicked grin slowly bent her mouth as she snaked a tentacle around him and dipped it into the waistband of his underwear. He hissed, clutching tightly at the end of the tentacle that was still twisting around his fingers as he ground out, “I thought we agreed it was too hot for that kind of thing.”
“I’m not doing much,” she cooed, smirking, “I just want to finish you off. You had your fun, now let me have mine.”
Krupp moaned quietly, shoulders slumping as he bent forward, rutting into the loose grip she had on him. She could feel his hips twitching, could feel his shuttering through the vibrations of the mattress. If the dampness of his underwear told her anything, it’s that it wouldn’t be much longer. Still, though, just to get back at him, she twisted lightly, letting another tentacle sneak around to brush against the sensitive space right between-
With grunt, he came, spilling himself into the cotton and against her skin, gritting his teeth as he snapped his hips forward, riding through the gently coasting high until, with sigh, he shimmied out of his underpants and laid down next to her, taking her hand in his again once again.
“You,” he mumbled, kissing her lightly, “are too wonderful.”
“Mm, love you too.”
There was that smile, lopsided and curling, which she watched bend around the words, “Love you too.”