Chapter 3.1: You've Caught Me Doing Weirder Things

Neither of us notice when Angie walks back into the room. I’m too busy vividly describing and showing Billy exactly how it feels to ride someone’s face into the mattress as they shove their pierced tongue as far into your vagina as it can go. He whimpers every time it reaches just that little bit further than he thinks it should, hips stuttering and breath hitching. One of the memories we managed to surface, connected to a partner who wanted me to love my body as much as they did. He’s too busy trying to capture the feeling for himself, eyes screwed shut tight and every muscle tightened as he teeters at the edge. She must watch us as we shudder our way to a grinding climax on the couch pillow before collapsing into a naked heap on the floor at her feet.

“Hey, babe,” he mumbles in a daze, peeling up just enough of his face to be intelligible. “We’re gonna get a tongue piercing for you later.” I nod in emphatic encouragement.

“I thought you two were going to talk, not paint the floor.” She sighs and shakes her head with a rueful little smile, shifting the laptop in her arms and pushing up an adorable pair of glasses. “We are so lucky this is hardwood. Oh, don’t bother moving. Face down ass up is always a good look for you.” We hum in contented agreement, far too worn out at this point to care. She sets herself up at a small table far out of our splash zone, the blue glow making her look serious. “I think I may have found something, but I was hoping you’d remembered some details we can corroborate.”

“She remembered the facesitting,” Billy slurs out with a dopey grin. “And the nipple play. That one was good. Being tied down. This one thing with feathers we have to try. Oh, and dancing!” He tries to kip up but all those muscles fail him as he wobbles and sinks us back to the floor with an undignified grunt. “What else did you remember again, Peej?”

I very carefully sit us up, avoiding anything still thrumming with sensation as we come down. “I think I know my name. A nickname really. It’s PJ.” Our shoulders hunch and I feel like I’m about to be scolded for some reason. “I realize it’s not much and we got so distracted by…” I make the decision in an instant. “Billy made me touch us, like, everywhere so it’s mostly his fault really,” I blurt out in a rush like I’m confessing to a teacher. It’s got to be the glasses having this effect.

Hey, you can’t just throw me under the bus like that! We’re literally in this together! There’s that exaggerated pout again but it seems he’s too exhausted to do much more than that. You were definitely a younger sibling.

Angie bites back that beautiful giggle of hers before getting back to business. “So I looked into reported instances of violence that have occurred on this nature reserve for the past fifteen or so years and narrowed it down to the most likely candidates. By the way, never looking into the history of a place ever again. Any place.” She shudders and looks us over, expression softening and turning fond. “You know what, we can save that for tomorrow. It’s late and we’re all tired. So how about you clean up your mess, shower, and we get into bed?”

I wait for Billy to answer, since this is very much still his body and life and thus his choice, but I get nothing in response for the first time. No teasing, no acknowledgement, no warm glow, nothing. “Aaaaannnnggggiiiiiiie,” slithers its way out of our mouth and fear sinks its claws into my heart. “Hhhhheeeeeelllllpppp?”

She’s at our side in an instant, eyes wide with concern but focused. I try to move us but I’ve never felt so heavy before, like every part of me is made of lead. Even crying, the thing that apparently came so naturally to me that I did it without thinking before, feels like a Sisyphean task I’ll never complete. Thankfully, she hits the gym as much as he does, managing to roll us onto our back and out of the mess before sliding a fresh pillow under our head. I stare up at her even as I try to feel for the warmth that I’d gotten so used to feeling so quickly. I try not to panic when I feel absolutely nothing. She checks us over like she did when we first came in from the woods, being even more thorough this time as she checks our vitals. A crease forms between her eyebrows as she checks them again. A third time. I’d tell her she’s making me anxious but I’m afraid of what will happen if I try to talk again. Then she lets out this annoyed little huff.

“PJ,” she says very softly, brushing back our hair, “I think our boyfriend is asleep.” The smile that breaks across her face reminds me of maybe the only sunrise I’ve ever appreciated, the warm soft recollection seeping in like the light. I wish I could show Billy, he’d get it. “You fucked him so hard, he passed out. Nice job.”

Several different emotions hit me at the same time. First trying not to reel from her calling him our boyfriend. Ours. Like I haven’t accidentally inserted myself into their lives to cause untold grief. Like I’m just a new partner in their relationship. Like I’m worthy of that relationship. If crying weren’t so fucking hard right now, I would be bawling and kissing her. The second takes much longer to sink in. I think I can be forgiven considering the revelation of the first part. Talking still isn’t something I want to hazard but I try to raise an eyebrow and exude an air of confusion. She surely must have meant something else.

“Oh, right, you haven’t been in there long enough to…” She makes puppeteering motions and the thought of doing that makes me want to be physically ill. “Which, by the way, looks terrifying in the movies so please don’t do that. But our boy’s had a big day.” She rubs soothingly at our cheek and I try to press into it. “Made a big breakfast, went on a long actual hike, still did his workout, chased me through the woods for a few hours, got possessed, learned a lot in a very short time, maybe fell in love a little bit.” Then that grin that makes me want to shiver spreads across her face, her voice dipping irresistibly low. “Then you gave him the kind of sex people can only dream of, solo and nearly hands-free. Did you two even know you were barely touching yourselves? That almost every touch was inside that beautiful head you’re sharing? All of it was just neurons and muscle memory.” Then the spell she has on me breaks as she pulls back and she’s Angie again, not the domme I’m pretty sure just peeked out from behind the mask. “So it makes sense that he blacked out. It happens sometimes.”

Even if I could talk right now, it would just be embarrassing little whimpers. Maybe this is better.

“Little change of plan.” She gives us one last peck on the forehead and gets up. “I’ll clean up down here while you two rest a little longer. Then we’ll wake him up, because I absolutely cannot wrestle him up that tiny spiral staircase and you’re not going to be able to help. And you two can’t just sleep on the floor.” She frowns as she looks down at us, giving me that look of concern I was starting to recognize. “Why aren’t you asleep? You’ve had a long day too, you need your rest.” I give her my best attempt at a shrug. Who even knew if I could sleep anymore? REM cycles might only be the domain of the living.

If nothing else, Angie was fast, not even needing to look for cleaning supplies before efficiently wiping everything down in a way that either spoke to doing this before or working with children. Considering how our currently unmoving sprawl is perfectly positioned to not roll into any mess or drying floor, it might be both. I watch her as much as possible, stuck without much else to do in a body that I can’t move, and try to remember anything I can instead. Doing chores on Sundays with the music turned at least a little above polite levels as I dance between tasks. Feeling proud as someone kisses my cheek after I cleaned and decorated our little kitchen with no prompting. The bittersweet feeling of doing a final clean in my shitty studio apartment and closing the door for the last time. The burn of my eyes late in the night as I take each item from the dishwasher and clean it again. The annoyance as I have to run the sheets in this shitty washing machine for the third time to get her smell out of them. The curl of my fist and the bite of my manicured nails in my palm as shame burns across my face, getting chided by someone for forgetting ‘some simple chores’ once again. The churning mix of wet warmth and solid cold raging in my stomach as I look down at the spreading red mess beneath me on the tent floor, annoyed that now I have to clean this up too.

We’re hyperventilating. I’m panicking. I’m panicking so hard that I’ve made our body react on its own and now I can’t get it back under control. And the only one who can is off in a sex-induced dreamland. Great. Perfect. I’ll add it to my running list of how I’m ruining this weekend. I can’t even cry about it. I can’t do anything. I’m de—

The hard slap across our face wakes us both up. Angie looks sorry even as she flexes and stretches her reddened hand. “Sorry, PJ,” she bends down to kiss the radiating warmth on our cheek and thankfully we’re both still too stunned to react like we normally would. “And probably Billy too. I was down to my last few wake-up tricks and I figured a blowjob wouldn’t help.” She nods over at the coffee table and a hastily filled pitcher of water.

Peej? I let out an audible cry of joy as his goldenrod glow of warmth finally flickers back into reach and I mentally fling myself at it, pressing myself in as it envelopes me. Hey. Hey, owww, why does our face hurt?

“I’ll take that to mean he’s up,” Angie smiles down at us and presses a warm wet towel to our cheek, moving one of our hands to hold it. “So what happened? Tell me while I get you two cleaned.”

“Ummm, I think I passed out,” Billy mumbles tiredly, helping her manipulate him as she needs to without being asked. Something clicks into place and my jaw internally drops. “Then you slapped us awake.”

“You were—” I timidly try, worried I won’t be able to use our mouth again. Angie pauses as she glides another wet towel over us, nodding for me to continue. “You were helping me, this whole time,” I mumble, holding back tears. “You don’t even know that you’re doing it, do you?”

“Doing… what?” Billy repositions himself without a thought, so in tune with his girlfriend that he already knows where she wants him to be next.

“Doing that, baby,” Angie laughs. “You’ve been doing it the entire time I’ve known you. And you have no idea.” The smile fades away. “I think it’s been too long since PJ’s had a body of her own. When you fell asleep, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even talk. And we thought something had happened to you.”

I give his internal warmth another little squeeze. “Since I couldn’t do anything else, I tried to remember and…” The warmth squeezes back, our minds intertwining for just a moment. I know he understands because the warmth heats up just that bit more to drive back the empty cold. Angie waits patiently for me to continue. “Sorry, we… We’ll get better about that. The memories were nice at first, good ones about cleaning. Didn’t even think I had those. But then they… they just kept getting worse. Until I was back at my death. I guess my thoughts just sort of spiral without an anchor.”

“Then let’s get you two upstairs so I can be your anchor.” She gives us one last wipe before moving everything away and helping us up to our feet. “Come on, darlings,” she coos as if coaxing a pet. Or a child. Or maybe just a massive tired boyfriend with several inches of height on her and who knew how much weight. “The faster we get upstairs and ready for bed, the faster we can spoon.” She holds our hand the entire way, gently guiding us through the full floor bedroom, around their scattered bags, clothes, and equipment, to the massive bed. She sits us down for one more serious check before giving us a goofy grin. “How are the legs feeling?”

“Still a little jello-y,” Billy breaks off with a massive yawn, turning away to politely cover it. “You never told me that riding me was such a workout. All that bouncing…”

“You never asked, except when you take care of me.” She pokes playfully at his chest, barely able to make an indent. “Don’t ever forget how much work I put in. What about you, PJ?”

I blink our eyes several times, still a little surprised to be addressed. “I, ummmm…” A memory surfaces of the first time a partner asked about me, gave me the care I needed and how intimate it felt. I give the same answer I did then. “I think I might cry?” I shake the memory clear as what feels like bubbles pop gently against my brain. He’s laughing at me. No, with me. I can feel the shy little smile on our face and I duck my head.

“Hey, none of that.” A hungry look flitters across her face that makes us both shiver. “Maybe a little of that later. But for now, are you okay? Can we do anything for you?” I shake our head and add a little reassuring peck to the cheek for good measure. “Good. Now go get ready for bed. I won’t even join you. No distractions, I promise.”