Hi everyone!
As with all my stories, all characters involved in sexual situations are 18 or older, all are creations of mine and any resemblance to any people living or dead is purely coincidental.
This one comes with a gentle trigger warning due to some inferred non-consent. If this isn't your jam, now you know, and you can move along.
Thanks for coming back to Maple Ferry and checking in on Lyric.
--
On arrival at home, Lyric first checked to make sure that his parents were in for the night.
The rhythmic snoring from their room told him that his dad was home and in bed, the absence of light from the lounge and the empty wine bottle on the kitchen counter suggested that his mother was also down for the count.
He slipped his boots off at the top of the basement stairs and carried them down to his room, walking on his toes to minimize the creakiness as he descended to his room.
Once Lyric had stepped into his small space, he relaxed, heels descending to the carpeted concrete floor, and left hand idly locking the door behind him.
Boots were dropped by the door and two quick flicks of switches later had white LED lights illuminating his room from the ceiling, and a circular daylight lamp projecting light on Lyric's drawing table.
It only took moments before Lyric's hand began working back and forth over the sketchpad with a fury, wielding charcoal like a short sword stabbing new life onto the blank page.
Surging, he strove to capture that last look on Evelyn's face, the sweat and the shaking, the damp hair hanging over shoulders and face like vines hiding those piercing blue eyes.
Frustration. Resentment. Resignation.
What was it that those too bright eyes were saying under the brow furrows and heavy breaths?
The charcoal swirled making a vortex around Evelyn, forcing white to the negative spaces between her hands and hair and face.
Ear pods in, Lyric listened to his music at deafening levels voiding anything that might distract him from releasing the image within him.
It was undeniable, and uncontrollable; Lyric's need to take to his pencils.
There were dozens of sketchbooks and finished pieces strewn across walls and stuffed into bookshelves in Lyric's small basement apartment. Remnants from previous nights out.
Captures from previous viewing sessions.
Viewing sessions.
That's what they were.
He wasnt a peeping Tom. In his mind, Lyric saw himself as a collector.
Lyric never masturbated while watching, and he never, ever, recorded a session; both activities feeling vulgar and reductive in comparison to the free expression that he reveled in while sketching the mental snapshots he took from the people he watched.
He took those moments. He stole them.
Lyric knew this.
His release, how he got off, was in the theft of a private moment and then his own translation of that most personal experience into his art.
So unlike the forced stillness and silence that Lyric endured while watching someone, Lyric's creation process was anything but serene.
Pencils broke and tore pages.
Charcoal dust coated his drawing table and fingers, and clothes, and carpet under the stool on which he sat.
Sketches ripped from books filled his waste bin and filing cabinet and hung from years' old blue tack nodules stuck to walls, shelves, and any surface close to hand.
While there were dozens of sketches, there were only a handful of subjects.
In one drawing a Rubenesque woman sat forward with long wavy hair completely obstructing her head and face, only her feet, shins, knees, flowing hair, shoulders and gracious curves sweeping down to buttocks
were visible as the sketch framed her from the front.
There was no doubt she was crying, though no eyes were visible.
Another sketch another subject, a limber and willowy woman, skinny but not malnourished, captured in a laugh of pure joy, gut binding, hands clenching, out-loud laughing, as captured in her eyes, her wide-open mouth, smile lines radiating to ears.
Lyric did not take his subjects for granted, he knew he was stealing from them; stealing them.
He knew that there would be repercussions if he was ever discovered.
So he put pencil to paper, and drew, until he dropped.
-
Sun crept into Lyric's apartment around the blackout curtains pulled haphazardly across the small windows, barely large enough for him to fit through in case of a fire.
The room smelled of sweat and wet cedar.
Without thinking, Lyric rubbed the sleep from his eyes only to note, too late, his heavily dusted fingers laden with charcoal and graphite.
He'd be looking like a raccoon now.
Barely functioning, he forced himself up and stripped off the jeans and work shirt from the night before moving into the tiny washroom which filled one corner of the one bedroom apartment plus bath that he had built into his parents' basement.
In the shower now, with blazing heat and skin removing water pressure, Lyric began to feel the pain and the fear he had buried the night
before rise to the surface.
The texts from Darcy.
His banishment from The Sugarshack.
The certainty that his loss of income meant a delayed enrollment in Community College and even longer sentence stuck in this town.
The panic started in his belly, feeling almost like a hiccup, his stomach seized into a painful knot and Lyric doubled over both hands grabbing at his guts, his moan turning into a sob as he began to release that
fear.
Shoulders shaking, tears fleeing, snot dripping from his nose, Lyric hunched over in the bottom of the shower stall, knees and shins on the tile, arms cradling his abdomen, head bowed forward under the stream
of steam and heat and stabbing water.
Lyric bawled. His sobbing lasted; seconds, minutes, a score more minutes, before he had no more tears, no more sobs.
His fingers left white imprints on his triceps from holding himself so close, so carefully. Lyric reached his left hand out to steady himself and stood, blood rushing through calves to feet that had been cut-off
for too long and sending pins and needles from toes to brain.
Lyric washed, he scrubbed, he wore out his washing cloth only to flay himself further with the loofa he kept for special occasions.
Stepping, eventually, scoured from the shower; free of the pain, but not the fear, free of the stain but not the doubt. Lyric moved back into his room to pull on clean black jeans and t-shirt.
-
Down the river and across town, The Sugarshack was well into its Sunday morning rush, baristas banging out cappuccino and hot chocolates to families out for the morning in town.
Chelsea looked around, confused, from behind the bar. She wasn't used to working the espresso machine during a rush. This was Lyric's territory.
"Where's Lyric today?" Chelsea asked Tariq, her co-barista.
"I dunno. He was on the schedule, but Darcy called me first thing this morning asking me to come in and cover Lyric's shift." Tariq answered back, as he paused between greeting customers in line.
"Yeah, we closed last night. He seemed totally fine!" Chelsea responded.
One nice thing about morning rushes was that they made the shift fly by. Chelsea and Lyric hadn't been scheduled to open, they were supposed to be working the 10-3 shift which bridged the busiest parts of a Sunday.
The two of them really were a dream team for a cafe. Lyric's barista expertise and Chelsea's bubbly out-going nature meant that customers got great service, and great drinks, and they left killer tips.
To say Chelsea was out-of-sorts with today's shift was an understatement. "Fucking Lyric. Calling in sick. He knows I hate working bar on a Sunday." Chelsea muttered under her breath.
But she only had time to mutter, the cafe was too busy for anything else, and before she knew it, Chelsea hit her scheduled break at
12pm.
After being replaced on bar by Rodrigo, God bless the afternoon shift, Chelsea headed back to the stockroom which doubled as the employee dressing and break room, pulling her sandwich and apple from the fridge she sat down to doom-scroll Insta on her phone and eat lunch.
As Chelsea quickly scanned her text messages she noted a thread between herself and Darcy with the last message being sent at 11:15 last night.
Chelsea couldn't remember chatting with Darcy yesterday.
Curiousity led to her clicking on the last message and opening the text thread.
The first thing she noted were the photos sent from her phone to Darcy.
Scrolling back up the dozens of messages Chelsea saw three images.
"Oh my fucking God!" She couldn't help but blurt out loud.
The first, sent at 11:10 was a picture taken looking down on Chelsea from above, clearly displayed in the photo was a wet and glistening, fully erect cock and Chelsea, with her head at the same level, looking angrily up at the camera.
The second photo was even more graphic. Taken from the same angle, this image showed Chelsea choking on that same cock.
The picture captured tears forming in Chelsea's eyes, pooling, a thick red flush
in her cheeks, and her tongue sticking out lewdly her throat distended.
The last photo showed Chelsea mid choke, or cough, with a cum-splattered face, eyes looking down at the ground. Her makeup
running in rivulets down her face, her hair sweaty and disheveled, one arm held up towards the camera in a half-hearted attempt to block the picture.
The text thread was direct.
Chelsea 11:09 - Darcy, can't work with him anymore. Lyric pushed too
far tonight.
Darcy 11:09 - Sorry. Chelsea? What's going on?
Chelsea 11:09 - Something happened with Lyric tonight, out of the blue. He got angry, he forced me to do something I didn't want.
Darcy 11:09 - Really concerned now, are you safe? Are you okay?
Chelsea 11:10 - Yes, I am safe. He is gone. Okay? I am sad and don't want to see him again.
Darcy 11:10 - What happened?
Chelsea 11:10 - Image 1
Chelsea 11:10 - Image 2
