The Illing

Author note: This Netflix-and-chill story is my first attempt at erotic fiction. It's also my entry into the

Winter Holiday contest

, and there, I was especially trying to channel an interior mood of cozy comfort (and, yes, excitement) as a contrast to inhospitable exteriors, both of which I associate with winter. It's also an alternate ending to the story of my second date with my spouse (in which we had a lot of fun but did not kiss). The title is taken from the name of a television show (2011--2014) and the French idea of

la petite mort

.

x-x-x-x-x-x

For E.

Take it easy, Thunderheart, you haven't given me a safeword yet.

--Detective Stephen Holder,

The Killing

There's gloom on the tube--a teenager has died, and two ramshackle detectives must dash through sheets of Seattle rain to find sopping misdirections and clues. From the cozy safety of a dry couch, two thirtysomethings watch with what might seem rapt attention. Their eyes closely follow each rain drop, each mumbled phrase and accusation.

Yet their gaze is a mask. They appear fixed on the onscreen drama, but their bodies are in the here and now of a more subtle plot, the quiet story of a feminine hand that rests just above the man's knee.

A character on the TV speaks haltingly to another character, but in the woman's head a torrid monologue of questions spills out. Is this OK? Does he like this? What if I move my hand like this? Does he feel that? Does he want me?

The light play of the girl's fingers on the man's leg is driving him nuts. Even through his jeans, it feels like her hand is fire. The flames of her touch are licking up his legs, and the sensation of her hand there--did she really just move her hand up?--has all his smoking thoughts colliding. This seems like a good sign, right? She must be into me. Or is this just an aimless wandering? Please, oh please, keep wandering.

She pauses her tentative exploration, and it's as if his head is tethered to her touch. Suddenly, his thoughts careen in the other direction. He genuinely can't tell whether the movements mean something or nothing. But her hand is still there, and his dick doesn't mind the ambiguity. He can feel it begin to harden, stretching against the denim. He tries to concentrate on the television.

Detective Holder is crackling the polypropylene of a Doritos bag. He reaches into the bag and extracts a perfect chemically dusted triangle. His partner leans out the window of the police cruiser and takes a long drag from her cigarette. The man on the couch watches closely as the female detective sucks in the tobacco, and he can't help seeing the cigarette as phallic, the act as sexual.

The woman doesn't see innuendo in the scene. She isn't thinking much about the scene at all. She's thinking about that afternoon a week ago when she cradled a peppermint mocha in her lap and read words that stopped her mid-scroll, words that glittered with quirk and wit and kindness in an online dating wasteland of the vapid and banal. She's thinking especially of the odd line where the man confessed to never sharing a kiss on a first, second, or even third date. She thinks of that line, and she wants to feel his body on hers, to feel the weight of his longing--that goes without saying--but beyond that, she senses an inner sprite, a powerful force within that wants to charm this man as he hasn't been charmed before. Because she can. Because she will.

There's a startling discovery in the squad car, and the show jumps to the credits. The man is neither ready for the night to end, for her lonely exit into the cold Seattle night, nor courageous enough to speak his longing aloud. He asks what she thinks, and they talk TV weather.

Netflix seems to think we have perpetual rain and melancholy here, she says, gesturing to the world outside, where it's not raining but where rain threatens to melt an early snowfall and paralyze the city with ice. Sometimes getting wet is inevitable.

Yeah, this is pretty dark, he quips, but it is the winter solstice.

His riff is mildly funny, at best, yet her eyeroll is playful, and she laughs easy and free. He is warmed by her delight and the way she seems authentically present in the moment with him. He can be himself with this woman, he thinks. This feels good and right.

He reaches for the remote on the coffee table. Is it too late, or can we watch another?

He notices her bite her lip before nodding yes. It's likely just a reflex as she considers his query, but there's something tremendously sexy about the motion. It draws his attention to her lips and then, in the same thirsting look, down to the alluring curves of her body. He is briefly thankful for interior spaces, for the doffing of bulky coats and scarves, the slow revelation of the feminine form--now she is wearing a cozy gray hoodie that somehow manages to accentuate her figure while keeping the exact shape of things a tantalizing secret.

As he settles back into place, the man risks letting his arm brush against her breast before draping it behind her head. That slight touch is the opening gamut in the second act of their silent negotiations, and it sends waves of desire and confidence throughout her body.

They snuggle ever so slightly closer on the couch and pretend to watch as the man presses play on the next episode. But the real action in the room is again the hands. The man can think of nothing but the hand that is now creeping up his leg, drawing ever closer to his lengthening member and then backing away. Oh god, he thinks with each teasing advance. He can't stare at the screen any longer. He looks down to see the outline of his dick a mere inches from the woman's dancing fingertips. Just touch it, he thinks. Please, just touch it.

And the woman can think of nothing but the way the man is now stroking her blonde curls, the way the gentle pulling motion of his hand in her hair mirrors her own movements on his leg, the tugs becoming more insistent when she moves further up his inner thigh. She imagines the man pulling hard, directing her by the strength of his desire.

They play this game of silent flirtation to the accompaniment of windshield wipers and subdued dialogue in the opening scene of the next episode, each waiting for the other to make a move. The woman takes the theme song as her cue. She turns her face to the man. He's about to speak, but his words are caught by the way the corners of her mouth and the sparkle of her eyes give physical definition to the same thoughts and feelings that race through him. In her eyes he sees questions. He sees excitement. He sees desire. And then her lips are on his. Softly at first, but then hard and insistent when she feels his hand in her hair, pulling her to him.

The woman keeps her mouth on his and swivels her body counterclockwise so her knees are wedged into the couch cushions on either side of his waist. From this new position, the man's hands run down her hair, down her back, and then, as if he must have purchase on something to stop from bursting, they cup her firm ass.

She puts her hands to his face, feels the short stubble there. She whimpers quietly when he gently bites and then sucks on her bottom lip. She had worried that the man, with his history of chaste third dates, might lack moxie when it came to making out, but this boy can kiss. Their tongues duel for a moment longer, and then, when shouts erupt from the TV, the man breaks the kiss off and chuckles. Well, that was fun, he says, looking beyond her toward the TV.

She misses the glint in his eye and doesn't notice his hands sneaking inside her hoodie. For an instant, she believes this is it, that her seduction lost out to tired cops hustling a suspect on a television street corner. But now she is engulfed in fabric--the man is pulling the hoodie up over her head and off her arms. She shakes tousled strands out of her face, and he takes a snapshot in his mind of her disheveled superstar hair, of the skin exposed as she effortlessly ties her hair back into a ponytail. When he thinks she isn't looking, she sees him adjust his dick. She smiles at the effect she has had on him, at the bigger effect she plans to have.

And then he pounces, pushing her down onto the couch, his erection pressing against her, their hands touching everywhere. I want you, he says. I want you to come over here every night. To veg and spoon and laugh. I want you for Christmas and New Years and I want to do this--

As he speaks, he plants kisses on her neck, slowly, making his way down to the small hollow where her neck meets the shoulder and then slipping her shirt and the shoulder strap of her bra slightly down her shoulder so he can kiss the skin there. He finds a lot of give in the loose shirt, and so as he continues his tender journey, he tugs the shirt downward, exposing her cleavage, but before he can caress her there, she coaxes him back up. He thinks he crossed a line, but she tastes like mint or sea salt, and god, he can't tell, but he wants it all.

And then she shimmies out from under his weight and pulls him up with her. She grabs him by the hand and leads him a few steps until she has backed him against the windowed front door. I want you too, she says. Now take this off.

She pulls up from the bottom of his shirt, and then as his vision is obscured, there's a cinching motion at his waist. She tugs at and then unbuckles his belt, pulls the zipper down. His shirt has cleared his head now, and his bare skin is goosepimpled, and he wants to play catch-up, but she's reaching in his pants, and he gasps as her fingers squeeze around the head of his dick.

Just wanted to say hi, she smirks.

That's not fair, he says, grabbing at her shirt and pulling upward to reveal a black lacy bra that accentuates the curve of her breasts. With one hand he corrals her arms over her head, and with the other he cradles the underside of her left breast.

And then, without warning, he flips her around so she's facing the door. The woman can see, beyond the front porch, the street--a bundled figure walking a dog on the snow-dusted sidewalk below. The cold of the glass through her bra makes her nipples hard, and then she can feel him tug her jeans down and off her legs. He firmly runs one hand up her legs, another trailing lightly behind. As he stands, he presses his boxer-clad hard-on against her butt and continues his hands' upward trajectory, up her back. He stops at her bra and unfastens it but doesn't yet slip it from her shoulders.

She wants to say something about the pedestrians in the lamplight below, but one of his hands is caressing the sides of her breast, and then in a sweeping motion, the bra is on the floor and the hand is cradling her. The other is jerking her hair to the side, and now he is kissing her neck from behind. He slips a hand around to her stomach and traces the top of her panties. They're both breathing loudly now, fogging up the glass on the door. He runs his finger below the waistband and into her curls. He traces along her outer lips and then whispers into her ear--do you want this?

She nods.

Tell me you want this.

Yes. I want it.

He sticks a finger between her wet folds and slowly makes a circuit. And then another. And another. He makes a pumping motion with his fingers and imagines it's his dick.

You're so wet, he says.

She feels something electric when he uses his thumb to gently nudge her clit. Left, right. Left, right. Left, and right again.

Then her hand is on his. And she whispers. No, I want your cock. Give me your cock.

A dozen thoughts collide in his mind. He wants to be a gentleman and make her come. He wants to have a thoughtful conversation about consent and sexual boundaries, about condoms and the pill. But she grabs him by the dick--when did he lose his boxers?--and she pulls him back to the couch. And he is so hard, and suddenly the only thing in his mind is an animal-like need to cover her skin with his, to push himself deep into her and explode. Without thinking, he strips a fistful of panties down her legs, and he's grabbing her hips and thrusting inside. His twitching cock is buried deep within in her. And then her hands are on his hips, pushing him out.

No. First the tip, she says.

He pulls all the way out, savoring how she feels along his shaft.

He dips the mushroom head just barely in and then out, repeated light strokes that send sensations of pleasure and want up and down their bodies. It's unclear who is teasing who, but their bodies feel aligned, as if they can communicate only by the slightest touch, and so, when her hands appear on his butt, he knows to pause, his long wet dick pointing lewdly at her lips, waiting to ravish her.

She must have him inside. And yet there is a split second where she senses her power and smiles. And then she growls, and she is pulling him hard toward her, forcing him all the way in. Fill me up, she says, and there are exaltations to God. His mouth is on her mouth, his hand on her tits, his dick claiming her pussy. And he is so hard and deep, and she is so tight. And he is thrusting wildly, and she's rocking back and forth.

And there's an explosion on the TV or in the room and someone shouts oh fuck.