"You're lucky I'm a big boy who doesn't get car sick," Cody grumbled as the pick-up truck scraped to a halt along what sounded like gravel. He'd been blindfolded for not only the entire journey way out of town, but the lead up to the journey too, ambling around his kitchen bumping into things as Belle took her typical own sweet time to get ready.
"Quit whining, you adorable baby." Belle hopped out of the driver's seat, walked around the truck, and began to haul her lump of dizzy boyfriend out.
His boots crunched onto the dirt track. The coolness of the night pricked his cheeks and stole under his flannel shirt. He splayed his fingers and steadied himself, then spoke sternly to a direction Belle was not in. "Look, Duchess, I know I can be hard to live with, but you could also not, on my literal birthday, take me out into the sticks, murder me, and leave me dead in a ditch. That feels like an over-reaction to whatever my latest crime was."
She hooked her arm into his. "I mean, maybe, but would it be an over-reaction to your accumulated crimes?"
"Damn, you got me there."
She started to guide him in a clumsy walk along the track. "One of these days, we are going to have a conversation about how drastic all your first thoughts are."
He stumbled and she caught him by his bicep and giggled, giving it a greedy squeeze. He laughed brashly. "Stop feeling me up while I'm vulnerable!"
She snickered like a little imp and grabbed his ass.
Cody relaxed into letting Belle steer him, her warm hands moulding him like dough, even when all they were doing was walking. The cold air smelled of wheat and soil, rich and fresh and appetising. And then it melted into sweet vegetables and hay and sugar. Warmth rushed over him and he felt the ground turn to floorboards. He raised an eyebrow behind the blindfold, pricking his ears up. "Where are we?"
Belle's arm left his and the blindfold whipped away, grazing his nose.
His jaw dropped.
He was standing at the entrance to a large barn. The whole space glowed with clementine light from huge space heaters in the four corners. The rafters and tables around the sides were decked with the bountiful harvest of the Mortal Realm; engorged pumpkins as bright as the space heaters, crowned with ruffled, green leaves and gleaming like melting wax, bundles of corn like pure spun gold looted from a stormed palace, squashes and gourds overflowing like bubbles blown through a misshapen loop, bottles of fizzing cider gushing a sticky tang into the air, brown glass glimmering like lanterns. Cosy, delicious warmth enveloped the whole space in a welcoming shelter from the crisp night. Tucked within the decoration were little pies and cakes and snacks, fresh baked and steaming. Between the tables, it looked like Belle had held up a carnival and robbed it for all she could get in a van. There was a popcorn machine drumming tinnily, a shooting gallery with black-hatted bandits clunking along in painted rows, a high striker flashing with buzzing bulbs, and a wagon converted into a bar. A band was getting settled on a platform in the back, a group of freckled women in embroidered boots and denim propping guitars and violins onto their laps and shoulders. The middle of the barn was taken up by a wide, fenced ring, the floorboards brushed with straw. At its centre was some kind of contraption. It was a broad, padded board raised off the ground by a set of thick, tall springs and crooked, bolted, metal arms.
Cody didn't really fully register any of this. Because all around the fenced ring, crowding the room with the blaze of smiles and the dazzle of rhinestones, was a vast horde of women.
"SURPRISE!"
They threw their arms up in the air, fringed jackets shaking, cute, pointed boots kicking up. Cody stared at them. Each and every one was dressed in a glam, glitzy cowgirl outfit, shiny leather in liquorice colours and silver studs winking in invitation, hats with fluffy rims pulled low over smoky eyes, skirts... extremely short.
His lips slowly curled into a smile. He tilted to where Belle stood at his side and said bemusedly. "Aaaw, Babe, you got me... every stripper in the county?"
She scoffed. "They're not strippers, Sweetie, they're my friends."
"So they are strippers, just here for free."
She clucked her tongue. "Not exclusively."
He grinned wider, eyes still roving around the grinning, giggling, glistening crowd like a kid in a toy store. "OK... first thoughts definitely not drastic this time."
His heart warmed as she sashayed from his side to in front of him, standing with her statuesque pride in the frame of gathered girls, all looking to her for some kind of cue. She was as beautiful as the day he first saw her walking across the street with that deadly strut and he almost got hit by a bus trying to talk to her. Tall and curvy and broad-shouldered, she cut the kind of intimidating figure that made paths open for her in crowds. But there was a cuteness to her face, a beauty mark on the soft sculpt of her cheekbone, a little quirk to her tanned nose, a Cupid bow upper lip that made her look like she was sucking candy. Her expressive eyes were the colour of sunshine hitting stone and twinkling. She was wearing a lipstick red, leather mini skirt with a fringed belt that accentuated her heavy, rhythmic hips, and a red jacket stitched with baby pink hearts and piercingly sparkling rhinestones. Her red hat had a huge, heart-shaped buckle on it. She wore it at a tilt over her cascade of untamed, dark blonde hair like honey. Her red boots shone like peppermint sticks.
Cody smiled at her with a crinkle across the bridge of his nose. "Oh my God, you're the cutest thing in the universe."
She poked her tongue between her teeth. She unhooked the button closing her jacket. It slid parted to show naked cleavage and a pretty belly button. She cocked her knee to flash him the inside of her thigh. Her eyes glittered like a fortune of silver dollars.
Cody's knees buckled. "Uuuuhh... Yes. Whatever's happening. Yes."
Whistles and catcalls danced over to him from the crowd.
"Happy Birthday, Big Man!"
"Hope you're hungry, you varmint!"
"BELLE, TAKE OFF HIS SHIRT!"
He glanced towards the burst of laughter and stared back at Belle and her cocky, strawberry smirk. "But, also, what is happening?"
She broke into an effervescent grin. "It's an all-girl rodeo party!"
His voice husked as his knees went weaker. "An... all... girl... ro..." He blinked and cleared his throat. "Hang on, what? How's that gonna work, where's the horse?"
She wriggled her shoulders and drew her jewelled fingernail down his chest. "Right here."
He frowned. Then his pulse pounded. "WHAT?"
She giggled with that zing of wickedness that made him hot under the collar. "You game?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Would you like a choice?"
He looked over the dented peak of her cowgirl hat to the jostling, whistling herd escaped from the corral. "Absolutely not, I'm good."
Another one of those pulse spurring giggles. She prowled up to him and delicately undid a few buttons of his shirt, her sharp fingernails skimming his tank top and making him prickle. "Then you are gonna get strapped down and you are gonna go buck wild for every girl who wants a ride," she bobbed onto her toes and tugged him down by his collar to murmur into his ear, "my big, burly bronco."
Heat sneaked down his body from the tease of her lips by his jaw. "Uhuh, yeah, I can do that."
"Yeah?"
His husk cracked. "Yes. I... Yes. Uhuh. Yesplease."
She pushed him back and hung from his shirt front, cackling gleefully. Her laughter was echoed by the women, eager eyes all trained on him.
"How did you even get all these girls here?"
She shrugged, still toying with his shirt opening. "I put them in a group chat and typed, 'hey, bitches, anyone wanna spend a night drinking root beer floats and riding my boyfriend's dick?'"
"And that's all it took?"
"You're a hunk, Baby." She poked his nose. "And women are, by and large, depraved."
"The ones you hang out with anyway."
She rolled her eyes and tugged his collar sharply. "Oh my God, are you done talking? I didn't give them the dress code 'cowgirl going commando' for chit-chat."
"Cowgirl... going... com..."
"Clip clop." She ran her hand down his torso, hooked his belt loop, and pulled him into a dizzy stumble. She led him into the ring, his boots scuffing on hay and his cheeks flaring amber as the women squashed around the fence, folding forward or craning over each other, muttering and giggling. So much giggling. The constant giggling from all sides was like feathers tickling his abs and underarms. He turned his head slowly, his dumbfounded smile widening and widening as his heart beat giddily.
Belle suddenly yanked him in by his belt loops. He flooded with sweetness as she snatched his mouth into a sloppy, stirring kiss, clearly made to be as theatrical as it was intimate. The crowd whooped and hooted.
Oh, you want a show?
Cody smiled against her lips, clapped her ass, and hoisted her up around his waist. Her legs hugged him and her hands clasped his face. He kissed her with all the wild, excited energy kicking up in his body and spun her around.
"Aaaaw!"
"Good, he looks strong."
"Get it, Belle!"
Belle broke the kiss with her melodic laughter and cupped his face. She was beaming at him like the moon. She kissed the tip of his nose. "Upsies."
