Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s not very often that Shane’s younger brother flies into Zuzu City, after having moved overseas for his career. That means that, when it does happen, Shane has no choice but to go see him to maintain their relationship. And Shane does love his brother, truly, despite the younger man’s overly optimistic and confident demeanor grating on his nerves. 

“How have you been?” the younger man says. “You look good, dude!” 

As if it isn’t glaringly obvious that Shane has been, and looks like, shit. Just like he has every visit prior.

They talk about his brother’s success as he climbs the corporate ladder, his fiancée’s unwavering support, as well as her own ambitions of becoming an educator. Shane tells him about Marnie’s animals, how the chickens are his favorite, and how Jas is excelling in school, being purported as very mature for her age. How Shane worries that that might not be a good thing, how he wants her to remain a child as long as life will allow. How maturity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

The brothers don’t talk about their parents, which is fine with Shane, because their parents fucking sucked. Shane hasn’t visited their graves in years. Seeing his brother brings back those kinds of memories, though, so despite his muted happiness at seeing his sibling alive and well, Shane ends the excursion with numerous drinks at a local dive bar. Marnie had warned him not to miss the bus home, and he scarcely makes it to the bus stop in time to catch the transit.

He trips over his untied shoelaces climbing aboard, nearly catching his chin on the steps, and huffs an embarrassed puff of air before shoving his ticket unceremoniously into the driver’s face. The man nods, maybe, probably, and Shane shuffles towards the back of the vehicle. It’s pretty crowded, but luckily Shane manages to find a spot to himself, where he slouches low to bury his chin in his coat. 

The inside of the bus has a fuzzy, greenish hue to it, probably due to the combination of alcohol pumping through Shane’s bloodstream and the eerie glow of public transit lighting. The seats are covered in hideous, patterned moquette, like the booths of a bowling alley. Some sort of moody ambient music drifts through the speakers. He scuffs the toe of his sneaker against the floor, antsy to get home despite the two hour bus ride ahead of him.

After some time, the rhythmic start-and-stop of the vehicle lulls him into a sleepy kind of calm. He watches the yellow cord by the window draw taught, ding, ding, over and over, as people signal their stops to the driver. Runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth, rough with scum from forgetting to brush them that morning. Gross.

Another stop. People exit. People enter. Somebody sits down beside him, and Shane grimaces, because couldn’t they have sat literally anywhere else? He glances around. Sees every other seat thoroughly occupied, and decides to hold only a slightly smaller grudge against his new seating partner because of it. 

He peers at her out of the corner of his eye. She looks young. Mid-twenties, maybe, with wavy brown hair that’s bleached blonde at the ends from an old dye job, pushed back from her forehead by a bandana the colour of pale green lichen. It stands out against her naturally tanned skin, in stark contrast to his own pallid complexion. He feels uncomfortable next to her. Like a slimy old toad, or a particularly repulsive bug that’s been unearthed from beneath a rock. 

Thinking about it, he honestly can’t remember the last time a woman was this close to him. Years, probably. Their thighs are brushing, hers smaller than his, and he’s torn between wanting to recoil from her warmth and wanting to press closer. Which is fucked up, because she’s a total stranger, and now he is recoiling with a sneer, pressing himself snugly against the window where it’s safe. 

She’s staring at him, frowning, probably because he’s being blatantly rude. Good, he thinks, maybe she’ll go sit somewhere else after somebody deboards. But his hopes are in vain, because at the next couple stops, more and more people pile in, lining up along the aisles, standing with their hands gripping the transit straps. 

He sighs, wearily, and rests his forehead against the glass of the bus window. The vibration of the vehicle feels like it’s shaking his brain, sloshing it around in its fluids. Streetlights pass more and more infrequently as the transit nears the city limits. The girl is shuffling beside him, putting in earbuds and closing her eyes, leaning her head back against the seat languidly, exposing the long column of her neck. Not that he’s looking. 

Eventually, there’s nothing but the long stretch of the highway ahead of them. Most of the passengers are gone, yet the creature beside him remains, lashes painting heavy half-moons against her healthy, pinkened cheeks. Her eyelids shimmer bronze, a colour that verges on a sickly shade of bile green under the light. Sometimes she makes sounds, these kitten-soft snuffles and heavy breaths, and that’s how he knows for certain she’s fallen asleep. Explains why she never moved.

He’s vaguely exasperated with her for continuing to intrude on his ride home, but now that she’s unconscious, the tension in his chest eases to a tolerable degree. Her big brown cow eyes aren’t watching him anymore – taking in his ratty, stained clothes, his unshaven stubble and sunken, sallow eyes, dark bushy brows hanging over them like heavy rain clouds. He knows he looks like shit. Probably smells like it too, all liquor-sweat and sickness. 

She hums, a throaty little thing that barely registers over the rumble of the bus engine, and slumps to the side, her head tilting at a painful looking angle to smush her cheek into her shoulder. With her center off balance, she continues to lean, closer and closer, until she’s touching him again. A light brush at first, and then a solid, warm pressure along his entire left side. 

Shane goes ramrod straight, stiff as a fucking board under her touch. Can’t be a comfortable surface to lean against, with every muscle in his body taught like steel, his heart pounding erratically under his ribs. He can feel her hot breath through his shirt, somewhere between his shoulder and neck, dampening the fabric there. Her low-cut top hangs loosely forward, and Jesus Christ, he can see her lacey mauve bra and how it cups her breasts on full display. 

He squirms minutely, entirely uncomfortable, irritated, and overwhelmed by the situation, and that’s when he notices it – he’s getting hard. His dick chubs up slowly, like waking from a deep sleep, heat pooling low like thick, syrupy candy. Fitting, since that’s what she smells like, something sweet enough to eat. Apple blossoms, vanilla, amber, and a bright undertone of citrus. Shane takes a deep breath, just to taste her on the back of his throat, to pull that soft, feminine scent into his lungs and hold on to it. 

God, this is so fucked up. He should shove her off of him, tell her how stupid she has to be to fall asleep on miserable, drunken, strange men. Doesn’t she have any sense of self-preservation? Don’t city girls know better than this? Though, he supposes, she could be from out-of-town, just like him.

His phone feels heavy in his pocket, like a paperweight, and his fingers dance over it through the khaki. It would be wrong, but he really wants to take a picture. To capture the image of her voluptuous tits all but spilling out onto his lap, so that he can remember this moment later. He wonders if her lipgloss is smearing into his sweater, leaving an oily, glittering stain. A concrete reminder of when he touched something beautiful.  

His erection strains within the confines of his shorts. Impossible to ignore.

Slowly and carefully, like the lonely, perverted freak that he is, he presses his cheek to the crown of her head. Shane’s fist creeps deep into his pocket to rest on his own thigh, close enough to his shaft to feel its heat, but not touching it. The outline of his fingers burns like a tattoo through his shorts. There’s that needling feeling between his eyes, heart rabbiting in his chest. The feeling when you know you’re about to do something bad, but you’re still selfishly hoping you can get away with it. The seconds before you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. 

Don’t, a part of him begs. Unfortunately he’s grown used to drunkenly ignoring his conscience. He does it every night at the bar, squandering his paycheque on pints. Money that he could be saving for Jas’s college fund.

“Mmph,” the girl snuffles, snuggling into him like a goddamn kitten. She’s so warm and soft, and to Shane, all cold-blooded and calloused and tired, it feels like touching a sunbeam. Like he’s the frozen winter earth and she’s the light of spring bringing him to thaw. He wants to melt into her. He wants to fuck into her. Wants to press his tongue and teeth into her delicate skin until he can chew out whatever has her glowing like that, like something healthy, happy, and safe. Chew it out and swallow.

He lets his knuckles brush his filling cock, finally, haltingly. Glances, again, down her shirt. Her breasts are a decent size – big enough for her bra to be putting in some serious work to support them, jiggling with every bump on the highway. Pale, lightning-bolt stretch marks dance across toffee coloured skin, and the dark crescent of an areola peeks out tantalizingly from above lace. Saliva pools around his gums.

He wants to feel them, heavy and buttercream soft in his palms. To knead them with his rough fingers and suck her nipples into his hot, hungry mouth. She would press into him, threading her fingers through his hair to hold him tight to her tits, making needy little sounds and stuttering praise as she moaned and demanded more of him. 

Shane wants to grab her, right here on the bus, and hoist her into his lap. She’d settle, a warm weight across his thighs, and he’d slip a hand right into her panties to cup her pretty little cunt. She’d already be wet for him, because she was never truly asleep, no, she’d been trying to turn him on this whole time. His thick fingers would drive into her, two of them at once, pistoning in and out, making that come-hither motion that women seem to love, and she’d gasp and writhe, the picture of Aphrodite with those glossy pink lips parted. 

He wouldn’t stop until she came, shuddering and crying on his fingers, cunt clenched tight like a vice. He’d keep them there afterward, let his digits soak until the skin pruned, just to keep feeling her silky warmth. To stay connected, stay inside of her. Hell, he’d probably blow a load in his pants just from getting her off. 

But that’s not going to happen. Because she’s a stranger on public transit, and he’s just some creep probably ten years her senior, contemplating jerking off to the smell of her hair while she sleeps. 

Fuck, he hates himself, and while the thought should make his prick wilt like one of those shitty bouquets at Jojamart, instead it only makes him harder. You’re a disgusting person, he thinks. You’re a horrible, degenerate bastard that belongs in a prison cell, or at the bottom of those cliffs in the woods. She would be repulsed if she woke up right now and saw what you were doing.

Shane rubs his fingers along his shaft before grasping it, and nearly chokes with the shock of how good it feels. The wrongness of it all, the danger, putting his senses into overdrive. He wants to touch her so badly his teeth ache, but he’s sure that one faulty move is all it will take to wake her up. For this one addictive moment to come to an abrupt end.

It feels like all the blood in his body has pooled in his cock, like it has a heartbeat of its own. He pumps it slowly, still within the confines of his shorts, relishing the feeling of precum wetting the tip and sticking to his boxers. All of Shane’s nerve endings are on fire knowing that he’s doing this in public, where anyone could see, where the consequences could be so severe. He’d been a thrill-seeker in his youth, and he guesses that never truly changed, because his balls are pulling up from the adrenaline. Pulse fluttering moth-wing desperate at his jugular, he thinks that she really is like a light he can’t look away from. 

They hit a pothole. 

The transit bus jolts, rocking, and the downy crown of her head knocks into his jaw. She makes a sound – a strangled, befuddled huh? – and paws at his chest while righting herself. 

There’s confusion scrawled across her features, that bleariness that comes after sleep, as she blinks. A deep flush bleeds across her cheeks and she speaks.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry. I can’t believe I fell asleep on you!” she apologizes, clutching a fist to her chest, darkest brown eyes focusing on Shane’s. Taking in his shocked expression and fat pupils. “This doesn’t normally happen, it’s just that I've had a crazy day and...” 

Those glittering eyes trail down from his and stutter, halting at his waist as she takes in the scene before her. His shorts, very visibly tented. One hand buried deep in his pocket. Christ, she can probably smell his arousal on the air, it’s so thick.

When she speaks again, her voice has trailed off until it’s all but a whisper. Expression like a deer in the headlights, caught frozen and afraid.

“... Oh.”

Chapter Text

When you get on the bus, you’re fidgety with nervous energy. You don’t know what awaits you on your grandpa’s old farm – what your new life will look like, whether you’re ready to take on all that responsibility. Sure, you want to escape the miserable corporate rat race of your office job. Yes, you love animals, you love gardening, and you love the outdoors. But does that mean that you’re prepared to take on an entire farm, to learn generational skills all by yourself with nobody to guide you, doing hard labour day in and day out? Honestly, you’re not sure. 

You figure if all else fails, you can sell the farm and move to a smaller property. Get a remote job with your current skills, and work from home. Grow a small hobby garden, just for your own benefit. Thinking about some of your favorite houseplants, you worry, absently, about whether the moving company will damage any of your meager belongings in transit. You really hope not.

The vehicle is pretty crowded you note as you brandish your electronic ticket to the driver. It has a weird, gloomy aura that makes your skin crawl, and you shiver under the night lights. Your wedge-heeled boots clomp with every step you take further into the belly of the beast. There, tucked into the back corner, is one free seat. Possibly the only one left. You slide into it, settling next to a man in blue and cramming your shoulder bag between your feet so it doesn’t infringe on his space. The spread of your legs has your thigh brushing against his, but he's a big man and there's not a lot of room. 

You look him over in a way you hope is subtle, not meaning anything by it, just scoping out who you're stuck with. He's scruffy, with a five o'clock shadow and dark bags under his eyes, tired and rumpled like somebody who's down on his luck. His hair looks like it was cropped short and has since grown out, with a strand of silver here and there catching the light, while his dark brows press heavy and low over angry eyes.

Underneath all of that, though, or maybe because of it, you have to admit he's attractive. Overwhelmingly masculine, with the way you can see a muscle bouncing in his tensed jaw, with the sheer, bulky width of his shoulders. Shoulders you wouldn't mind hanging on to while…

Abruptly, he flattens himself against the window, shrinking away from where your legs had been touching with a severe scowl on his face. It makes you feel dirty, like he’s repulsed by you, and also vaguely ashamed that you’d been so obviously checking out a stranger. You frown, crossing your arms over your chest and tapping your foot nervously. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not as though he could read your mind. Yet, you still feel like you’ve ruined this man’s impression of you before you’d even opened your mouth. 

Irritated and embarrassed, you decide to pop your earbuds in and close your eyes, aiming to daydream this bus ride away entirely. Don’t think about the rude guy next to you, don’t think about your nebulous future prospects, don’t think about what you’d left behind in the city. Just let the music carry you away.

The first track is upbeat and fast-paced, but the next two are slow and lilting. It’s nice, in that it soothes your anxiety, but unfortunate in that it does too good of a job calming you down. You feel yourself drifting in and out of consciousness without really realizing that’s what’s happening. As you slip deeper under the music fades into a kind of blurry humdrum in the background, and then you’re slumping into something warm and soft before you’re gone altogether.

There’s fuzzy recollections of feelings, the kind of half-under sensory input that sticks with you without your active intent. A musky, comforting smell, with a bitter undertone that reminds you of nights out with friends, smoking cigarettes and slamming shots. The steady shift of somebody breathing next to you, shoulders rising and falling as their ribcage expands and contracts like a lapping tide. Safety, safety, safety. Animal instinct that tells you closeness means protection and kindness.

A great jostling and a painful collision of skull on skull rouses you from your slumber like a bucket of cold water to the face. 

You scramble upwards, grabbing at whatever’s closest to right yourself in your confusion, which happens to be your seating partner’s entire front – you knot fingers into his sweater and pull at it for leverage, getting a good idea of just how soft his pecs and stomach are as you sink into that tender give that betrays layers of fat over a sturdy foundation of muscle. 

“Huh…?” you squawk, blinking and looking around in confusion. 

That’s when it sinks in, what has happened. You fell asleep on this guy, who seemed visibly displeased by your legs accidentally touching earlier. God, he must be so pissed off. He obviously has strong feelings about his personal space and you’re just stomping all over those boundaries like an asshole. Some ditzy, entitled idiot that he can’t push away without looking like the aggressor.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” you begin, frantically, overwhelmed with guilt. 

You keep talking, trying to make excuses, to explain yourself, but as you do you start to take him in. Flushed cheeks, pupils all blown and eyes glassy, lips wet as though he’d been licking or chewing them. He doesn’t look angry, no, he looks caught. Terrified. You examine him closer, the way his shoulders are tense, hiked up to his ears. Those strong arms are still at his sides and his right hand buried in his pocket, deep into his pocket, like it’s causing a bit of an – oh. That’s more than his hand. That’s an erection. Not a small one, either, some half-way thing that could be brushed off or ignored. He’s straining in the confines of his shorts. 

You don’t know what you were saying, but whatever it was is gone. You manage to let out a noise, something stupid, a breathy sort of wheeze that makes him flinch. And he’s turning away again, folding into the window like he could hope to slip out of it and fly away. Escape your unblinking eyes as you remain frozen, gawking at him. 

This has never happened to you before. 

You’d heard stories from friends who’d encountered perverts on the bus – old, gross dudes who whipped out their repulsive and shriveled dicks in front of women and children for kicks. It had always sounded horrifying, unpleasant and scary. This, somehow, isn’t. Well, it is, too. It’s complicated. You’re having a lot of feelings about it, none of which are very clear at the moment. 

On the one hand, adrenaline is pumping through your veins like liquid fire, heart pounding hard and fast in your chest between the abrupt awakening and the shocking sight before you. It’s violating to think about this stranger getting hard as you slept against him, completely unaware and vulnerable. God, had he been touching himself? If you hadn’t woken up, would he have touched you? Did he touch you? Your skin crawls. You swallow and it feels like sandpaper going down your throat, eyes itchy and dry from not blinking too long. Your fingers are shaking and you can feel your pulse between your temples and at your jugular and between your legs. 

It’s probably kind of insane that this is turning you on. Is it because he’s hot? Or is it just the attention, the idea that someone wants you badly enough to break the law? The fear that this man, bigger and stronger than you, clearly morally questionable, could just take you if he wanted to? 

You don’t know what your damage is. You do know, looking down at your hands wringing anxiously in your lap, that you need to do something about it. You can’t just keep sitting here for the next hour pretending that nothing has happened. There are empty seats, places you could move to now, to escape this man who very nearly assaulted you. Did he assault you? Is it sexual assault if you’re both still clothed? Jesus Christ.

You glance over at him again, and he’s still very deliberately looking out the bus window into the night. His arms are crossed, fingers white-knuckle tight and digging into his biceps through his ratty hoodie. He looks so upset, so angry with himself, that for a moment you’re overcome with sympathy. The irrational urge to comfort someone in distress, even if it’s at your own expense. He doesn’t look so scary like this. No, he looks more like a wet cat, all bedraggled and sad and in need of saving. 

So you touch your knee to his, in spite of your heart skipping a beat and your instincts screaming that you’re a fool. Instantly, all that poorly withheld anger and upset is turned on you. He whips his head in your direction, glaring with furious incredulity.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hisses.

You blink, taken aback, panicked. 

“I – uh, sorry?” you yelp, shrinking away, but he advances on you, more of a tiger than a housecat all of the sudden. Claws extended and snarling.

His eyes are green, you think to yourself as he looms over you. You hug your arms around your midsection, a fearful, self-soothing gesture, and he glances down to where it pushes up your cleavage. It wasn’t your intention obviously, and you flush as he narrows those eyes at you accusingly.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” he frowns, a disgusted growl to his tone that makes you feel ashamed of yourself even though you don’t particularly understand what he means.

“Doing what?” you shrink down in your seat.

He looks at you, a slow up and down from head to toe, as though your loose, flowy shirt and jean shorts are the most depraved thing he’s ever seen, like you’re doing something wrong simply by existing in your own clothes. It makes your skin prickle, somewhere between indignant disgust and burning arousal. 

“Dressing like a whore. Cozying up to strangers on public transit. Shoving your tits in my fucking face. And now, you’re what? Mocking me?” The man’s face is red with anger underscored by humiliation. 

“Mocking you?” you parrot, astonished. 

His expression flattens into a stony mask, fire in his eyes turning cold. Detached.

“Move. Go sit somewhere else. Now.”

You gape. Who the fuck does this guy think he is?

“This is public transit! I can sit wherever I want! And nothing that I've done justifies your insane behavior! You should move. I'm not going anywhere!”

The man sneers. Then smirks, a grim little thing. Like he has the upper hand, somehow.

“Fine. Stay as long as you want.”

He shifts his hips. Takes his hand out of his pocket and strokes the outline of his erection, which has flagged somewhat, through the thick material of his fly. 

“What are you doing?!” you squeak. 

He doesn't reply. He isn't looking at you. He's looking out the window, feigning an impressive degree of nonchalance.

Your pulse thunders in your ears and heat rushes to your cheeks. You should definitely sit somewhere else. That's what a rational person would do. Escape this situation as soon as humanly possible. You're going to! Any minute you'll grab your bag and relocate. Really.

He cants his hips up, just a little, rutting into his own palm as he presses down. Drags his thumb teasingly along his fly before halting to rest it against the tab of his zipper. The man's fingers are thick and calloused, nails bitten down into messy stumps. You think about how those hands might feel against your skin. You think about what those cargo shorts might be hiding. 

They're abstract thoughts, tangential and half-formed. It's getting rather hard to think much at all in this environment. Your brain feels cotton-fuzzy and gooey, like it's been dipped in hot sugar. You feel dumb. Your tongue is thick in your mouth, useless, slimy, and too big. Your eyes sting. Not blinking enough. 

He slides the zipper down so slowly that it's agonizing. Each metal tooth, as they catch and then release, sends sparks bursting through your body. Every noise is amplified, as if the two of you exist in a bubble separate from your surroundings. Clink, clink, clink. One tooth after another, until they're all separated and a wedge of his army green boxers is exposed. 

He shifts, dips that hand below his waistline to readjust himself, and Oh. There it is. His cock springs up, finally free of his cargos to strain against the green material of his briefs. The tip juts out only barely past the slit in the front, revealing a tantalizing pink head that glistens with precum.

Saliva floods your mouth so hard and fast that you have to swallow. Your throat clicks audibly. The dark haired man finally glances your way, almost shyly. Then he stares.

“Holy fuck,” he mutters, “you're gagging for it, aren't you?”

You can feel the flush on your cheeks travelling all the way down to your chest. Shaky breaths making your cleavage heave. You give a non-committal hum. 

His pupils are dilated, green irises nearly eclipsed by desire. Brows furrowed as he chews his lips.

He pushes his boxers down, fully exposing his length to the air. You can see how it twitches with the temperature change, or maybe it's your attention that's making him pulse so sweetly. You wrap your arms around yourself, gently squeezing your sides. Press your thighs together to combat the throbbing, hot ache between your legs.

Against your own volition, one of your hands travels upwards. Brushes against the swell of one breast, heavy and warm. You knead it beneath your bra. He huffs a sharp little noise through his nose, squeezing the base of his prick tight. Drags that fist up in a lazy pump, foreskin easing the drag of his dry palm along sensitive flesh. 

You can practically feel the weight of it on your tongue, taste the salty musk of his skin. The way each vein would pulse against your hungry lips as you bobbed your head for him. It looks like a mouthful, thick but not too long, just enough to stretch you to your limit. To ram against your throat and make a home there past your gag reflex, your clenching muscles convulsing around his cockhead. 

Another swallow. Shifting your hips, squirming in your seat. He's still watching you. Watching you and pumping that dark, engorged length slowly, as though savoring the experience. Taking in every shift in your facial expressions, every minute reaction you have to the show he's putting on. 

You brush your thumb across your pert nipple, sensation tingling despite layers of clothing dulling your touch.

“What a nasty little bitch,” he marvels cruelly.

“Why don't you take those out for me, huh?” he says, a question spoken like a command, nodding at your tits. 

You clam up. Shrink back. Hesitate. Is that a boundary you're willing to cross? Again, you wonder what the hell you're doing. What has come over you to make you act this way. 

“Don't act like you don't want to. Probably do this all the fucking time, don’t you? Whore yourself out to strangers? Better not expect me to pay you. I'm flat broke.”

There's something about him thinking so lowly of you, not knowing that you've never done this before, that makes you feel both disgusted with yourself and shameless. Makes it easier to pretend that this isn't a big deal. Or a literal crime – indecent exposure. 

He pumps his cock again, looking at you with those angry dark eyes and bitten lips, and you feel yourself giving in. Stop thinking. Just follow the sensation, the animal instinct. It’s wrong, but it feels so undeniably good. 

You slip a hand into your shirt from above and cup your breast in hand. Your fingers are cold, and it causes the skin to tighten beneath your touch. Slowly, deliberately, in the same way that stranger has been touching himself, you pull your breasts out to rest above your bra and the neck of your shirt. The position pushes them up obscenely, pooling cleavage like a corset, nipples erect in the cool bus air. 

He releases a low breath, a silent sort of moan in tandem with a sharp jerk of his hand around his member. A frantic squeeze that breaks the earlier composed tempo. 

“God, you're something else. Touch them for me,” he tells you. 

You comply. He hardly had to ask. Your hands come up to massage your tits, just on the side of being painful. How you like it. You pinch your nipples, twisting them a little just to make yourself gasp. The man watches greedily, debauched by your performance. Laboured breathing and lust oozing from his every pore. 

His eyes on you make every touch of your own hands feel electric, foreign and exciting. You want to touch him. You want him to touch you. But you're also scared of him, this antisocial stranger, potentially dangerous and entirely unknown. The distance is a comfort just as much as it is agonizing. Bittersweet in the best way. 

He's leaking now, enough to make slick, lewd noises as he fists himself. Staving off his orgasm nice and slow despite the angry purple tinge of his prick. Right on the edge.

Somebody sneezes, violently. 

You flinch hard, jolting in your seat and crossing your arms over your chest, eyes as wide as dinner plates. 

Nobody is looking at you. Nobody has noticed. An older man up front wipes his hooked nose with a handkerchief. A fat lady taps away at her cellphone. You shiver anyways.

“Hey.” The man sitting beside you catches your attention. 

I can't do this, you think, I can't do this, this is crazy. What am I doing? This is insane. I need to get out of here. I need to stop this now.

“Someone's going to see,” you say instead of any of those more reasonable responses. 

Tears are welling up in your eyes, arms wound tightly across your bare chest while humiliation stings at the back of your throat like bile.

“I can't, I don't –” you stutter.

“C'mere,” the man interrupts.

He pulls you closer by the arm, all but yanking you into his side, half onto his lap. 

“Get on your knees.”

You do. The floor is hard against your bare joints. It hurts. Knelt between his legs, however, you do feel safer somehow. Terrified too, face to face with his still-hard length. But also sheltered, as though back in the sanctity of your own little bubble. He takes your face in hand and strokes your cheek with his thumb. 

“Nobody's going to see you,” he promises. “Nobody but me. Yeah?” 

With a harsh grip on your chin, he makes you nod in agreement. You like it. You like it when he treats you like an idiot, like something small and stupid that he's being generous enough to take care of. His condescension is like a soothing balm to your anxiety.

“C'mon, there you go. I've got you. Let me see.” He takes your arm gently in hand, so much kinder than you'd imagined his touch to be but just as warm and rough, and guides it away from your chest. 

You're exposed again, and it's so much more intimate this time while nestled between his thighs. They're big thighs – the girth of them stretching khaki fabric. You lay your palm on one and feel muscle jump.

The hand he'd used to grasp your chin traces lower, calloused fingers tickling against your jawline and down your neck, before lacing through the hair at the back of your head. He cups the base of your skull, tender and firm all at once. Tilts your head back so you look him in the eye. Up, up, up. There's something basely vulnerable about baring your throat like a lamb for slaughter.

You don't know him. You don't even know his name. But he's looking into your eyes like he's trying to map out the shape of your soul, like he wants to crack your head open and see what's inside, like he's entranced by whatever he might see there. And because of that you can fool yourself into thinking you might know each other, just in this moment.

“You're so fucking pretty,” he whispers. A secret between the two of you.

Then he blinks. Frowns. 

“Pretty little slut, just for me, huh?” The grip on your hair tightens. There's a sardonic edge to his tone, as though he's mocking you. 

You nod anyway. 

He leans back and it's a relief that his face isn't so close to yours anymore. That he isn't suffocating you with his dark eyes and sullen stare. It also reminds you of just how near you are to his cock, because you hear him go back to fisting it. You glance down, which is hard considering the grip on your hair, and watch him touch himself through heavy lashes. 

A whine slips past your lips. A needy sound that builds low in your stomach and releases like an exhale. 

You can smell him. His dick is probably only a foot away from you, flushed, leaking, and veiny, and you can smell him. It's mouthwatering. Heady male arousal, sweat, and skin. A tinge of body odour, the slightest dank undertone that should turn you off but only serves to make you more wet. You want to swallow him whole. You want to prostrate yourself at the altar of his pleasure, a tool for him to use in whatever way he sees fit.

“If I had a condom,” he tells you, “I'd fuck that dirty little mouth of yours. But I don't, so here's what we'll do instead.” 

You try to pay attention. Mostly you're distracted by how gorgeous he is. There's not enough of him on display, in your opinion. You think that if you just focus hard enough, you can visualize his naked, hairy thighs spread against the bus seat. What his balls would look like, heavy but delicate, pulled up taught with pleasure. There's a thick crop of pubic hair at the base of his cock. Unkempt. Unruly. You want to bury your nose between that thatch and the crook of his thigh and inhale.

“You're going to touch yourself for me. Convince me of how much you like this. And if you're a good enough actor, I'll cum on your fat fucking tits before we get to my stop. Yeah?”

You arch closer, unconsciously, as if to press your chest to his erection. The fist in your hair holds you back. Uncompromising. You nod. Words are too big to leave your mouth. Too much work to form behind your teeth. Too many syllables for a brain that's mostly offline. 

“Mm,” you concede. It's the best you can do. 

“Get to it, then.”

You sink greedy claws into the meat of his leg one last time before letting go, reluctant, ravenous. Lick your lips. You pop open the button of your shorts, squeeze a hand into your panties. Watch him watching you. You can feel your own sweltering heat against your fingertips, a fire burning from within, consuming all reason you once possessed. You could tell immediately how damp your underwear were, but it's nothing in comparison to the slick and instantaneous give when you press two fingers inward to stroke your clit. 

“Ahn,” you whimper, all but panting as pleasure strikes through you like lightning.

You want to press your forehead into his knee, to crumple forward into his lap and beg him to do whatever he wants with you. It's all so much. Too much. But you remember that you're supposed to be putting on a show, and you want to be good for him more than anything. With your free hand you reach up to fondle your breast, tweaking a nipple. Your index finger sinks deeper into your cunt, dipping shallowly into your entrance. Sloppy, easy – a smooth glide. You're welcoming and wanting. 

“Please,” you find your voice, but it's raspy and foreign. “Please.” 

Tears are prickling at the corners of your eyes. You've never felt so desperately turned on or so small. 

“That's it,” he growls. “Beg me for it.”

He's fisting himself hard and tactlessly now, how you imagine he might when he's alone. It's no longer a performance, an attempt at seduction. Instead it's a mindless race towards the finish line, a frantic act of carnal instinct.

“Please,” you obey. “I want it. I want it so bad. I want to see you let go. I want you on me. The heat of it on my skin. I need it. I need you. Please.”

The man blushes, mouth falling open in a quiet pant, and looks at you like he wants to consume you. Like he's been lost in the desert and you're a glimpse of water on the horizon – still not entirely convinced that you aren't a mirage. Cruel trick of the light. 

“God. Fuck. You're incredible.”

The praise is lost in the crook of your neck as he leans forward and kisses you there, stubble scraping along delicate skin and setting your nerve endings alight. You jolt, pleasure striking directly to your core at both the reverent affirmation and sudden contact. His lips and tongue travel from your clavicle to the hinge of your jaw, before pausing to suck and nibble at your earlobe. You can hear it so intimately there, the sound of his mouth lavishing your skin. Wet and messy.

A waterfall of pleas and pathetic noises continue slipping from your lips as you massage your clit in earnest. Your other hand comes up to grasp the back of his head, bold and thoughtless, threading into the thick hair at his nape. Pulling him as close as he can get. 

“You're going to remember me,” he tells you gravely. “Gonna remember how you got on your knees for some drunk stranger. Gonna look in the mirror tomorrow and think about how you begged for my nasty load like a bitch in heat.”

You whine. Rut harder against your cramping fingers. There are slick sounds coming from the brutal pumping of his arm. He must be close and he's right, you will be thinking about this for days. Thinking about this with a hand down your pants and your own fingers shoved so far down your throat that you gag on them.

He bites down your shoulder to muffle a moan as he orgasms. The radiating pain of it accompanied by the hot splatter of his cum across your chest sends you over the edge, and you spasm as the tide overwhelms you. An animal sound slips between your teeth as you ride out the shockwaves of pleasure.

In the afterglow, your mind has gone blank. Your body feels floaty and far away. The world around you is effervescent, sparkly, and surreal. Eventually, faint sensations start to creep in – your breasts are sticky and cold and your knees hurt. The man's breath puffs warm and wet against the fresh bruise on your skin, face still tucked away against you. Your hand still in his hair. You start to run your fingers through it, absently, affectionately. The strands are damp with sweat. Under the smell of sex you can detect sour, sickly booze-sweat. A hint of cigarette smoke. You wouldn't pass up a cigarette right now. 

He inhales, shuddery and ticklish on your sensitive flesh. You can feel tension growing in his previously lax body, muscles going taught and flighty.

A pre-recorded voice echoes through the cabin. 

“Next stop, Stardew Valley.” 

He pulls back. Tucks himself into his boxers, zips up his shorts. Doesn't look at you, not even to glance at the mess he's made. 

The bus rolls to a halt. Ding.

“This's me.” He grunts and gets up.

And just like that, he's gone. 

It takes a few minutes for you to process exactly what's happened. Even more after that for you to rise from your knees and clean yourself up. Cum-smeared tissues get shoved into a small side-compartment in your bag, and you try not to cringe at how gross that is. Ashamed and paranoid, you glance around discreetly, looking for witnesses. There aren't many passengers left. The few who linger are both apathetic and preoccupied with their own business, seemingly ignorant to anything unusual having happened. 

You breathe a sigh of relief. Check your phone. Blink hard, frowning. 

Goddamn it. You'd missed your bus stop.