Chapter Text
Cheery laid on her back, naked, and looked up at her ceiling, and frowned. Then she felt guilty about frowning.
This was supposed to feel good, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it said that dwarfs with wombs* were supposed to enjoy this sort of thing more than other kinds of lovemaking? She was sure she had heard some older dwarfs giggling and chuckling about that once. And she wouldn’t say this felt bad, not really. And the strange thing was that it had felt really nice at first. She had been gasping and squirming around when Bashfull had first taken off her clothes and kissed his way down her stomach, finally kneeling at the foot of the bed, her short legs hanging over it, and kissing and licking her down there there.
(*Because traditionally all dwarfs are male, on the rare occasions that dwarfs explicitly talk about sex they say “a dwarf with a womb” or “a dwarf without a womb”, respectively.)
But now she felt a bit strange. She thought it still felt good, but it felt a bit repetitive and overwhelming. And, stressful, somehow.
She heard Bashfull fumbling around at the foot of the bed.
“Are you touching yourself?” Cheery asked after a moment.
Bashfull hesitated.
“Yes,” he mumbled, kissing the inside of one of her thighs. “Is that okay?”
“No, no,” Cheery said, sitting up slightly and feeling alarmed and inadequate. Bashfull froze, looking up at her. “I want to do that for you,” she murmured, looking at him urgently. “I don’t want you to have to, yourself.”
Bashfull stared at her, blushing and looking slightly shocked, and then smiled at her.
“OK,” he whispered. He kissed her inner thighs again and sighed.
“You’re so sweet, Cheery,” he mumbled into her.
“It’s not just that I don’t want to make you do it,” Cheery murmured after a moment. “I mean, I want you, too.”
Bashfull moaned into her, pausing to suck and nip at the inside of her thighs. He continued licking and sucking at her, but it didn't feel quite right. Cheery felt nervous and... alone somehow, lying on her bed all alone with Bashfull below her. It didn't feel right.
“Cheery,” Bashfull breathed, after a moment.
“Yes?” Cheery asked.
“Am I… doing something wrong, my dear?” Bashfull said, and Cheery could see that he blushed slightly when the word “dear” left his mouth. “You seem… tense. Do you want me to stop?”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Cheery said after a moment, “I get so… nervous. Um.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry!” Bashfull exclaimed, looking horrified. “I mean, I’m sure it’s...it's me, I don’t have any experience, ahah, I just… have… read things. About what dwarfs with wombs like.”
Cheery nodded, biting her lower lip and sitting up in the bed and crossing her legs underneath her. She did this instinctively, and didn't realize that she was obviously and clearly signaling to Bashfull that she didn’t want him down there anymore. She blushed and looked at him. He was still on his fully clothed, on his knees, and looking... worried.
“I’ve read that dwarfs with wombs like that too,” Cheery said, blushing and looking away, wanting him to feel better. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
It had been so good, really so good when they had been both kissing and moaning and touching one another, she had felt so hot and he had felt so warm and so good in her hands but now... What if he thought she didn’t like this ever, what if he thought she would never want him to go down on her again — or worse, what if he decided she was… defective in some way? Frigid. She had heard those stories, too. What if he... left her? It was too horrible to think about, but Cheery shuddered slightly all the same.
She looked at Bashfull expectantly, biting her lower lip and feeling more than a bit like a failure. Certainly most women didn’t have this problem, did they? All she had to do was lie there and feel nice, and she couldn’t even do that. Good grief.
Bashfull gave her a little worried smile which made Cheery feel worse. He really thought this was his fault.
Cheery looked away from him and wondered if he had lost his erection. Would that be better or worse? Better, maybe, because he wouldn’t be in pain when he went down on her? Didn’t penises become painful with prolonged erections? She thought that happened. How quickly did it happen, though? She didn’t know. But this was worse, certainly, because you didn’t want your fiancee habitually going around losing erections when you were naked in front of them, did you?
She realized she was looking at nothing, lost in her thoughts, and glanced back at Bashfull, who was now looking at her somewhat quizzically, his head tilted slightly to one side.
“Maybe we should cuddle?” Bashfull said finally, smiling slightly. “I like touching you.” He grinned at her and said, his voice getting slightly low and dark, “I like it a lot.”
Cheery blushed and nodded.
“Would it be better if I were wearing less clothes?” Bashfull said quietly, standing up and indicating his leather tunic. “Maybe it makes you feel more vulnerable, being naked when I’m not.”
Cheery hesitated, and then nodded. Bashfull had been in such a rush to take her clothes off, which had been exhilarating and amazing, all gasps and moans and his eyes getting wider when he saw each new inch of her skin exposed.
“Plus, I want to see you,” she whispered.
Bashfull actually blushed slightly when she said this, and as he tugged his leather tunic off his chest, Cheery could see that his blushes went all the way down to his thin chest. She wasn’t sure why, but discovering this about him made Cheery feel woozy and unhinged. It felt like such an... intimate thing to know. She swallowed.
He was thinner and had less chest hair than Cheery would have expected. He looked much smaller without a shirt on. He looked…younger, too, somehow without the tunic on, even though Cheery knew he was only two years younger than her.
“You have freckles on your chest,” Cheery murmured.
“Er… yes,” Bashfull said, shifting slightly uncomfortably under Cheery’s gaze.
“Come here, let me touch you,” Cheery whispered, beckoning him close to her.
He sat next to her on the bed and, touching her incredibly tenderly, eventually kicking off his boots and swinging his legs on the bed. He gave her a somewhat awkward sideways cuddle.
Cheery pushed him on top of her, biting her lower lip, until he was straddling her.
“Oh, Cheery,” he gasped, looking stunned. Hearing him say her name sent little shivers down her spine, and she kissed him deeply.
Cheery ran her fingers over his chest, feeling each lean muscle after the other, dragging her fingernails over his nipples when she reached them, which caused him to moan deeply into her kiss. Cheery pulled him down on top of her, gasping when his bare skin touched her chest. Bashfull was breathing very hard now, and Cheery could feel him hard now, underneath his trousers and pushed up against her thigh. Even through his pant leg, it felt so warm, like it was on fire.
“Cheery,” Bashfull gasped again, but more urgently this time, as Cheery bit his earlobe and pulled on it slowly. Her legs twitched slightly and she felt herself getting wetter. She grabbed one of his hands and brought it down to below her waist, shifting a bit to give him a bit more room.
“Ahheh,” Bashfull grunted in her ear, sounding exceptionally proud of himself and slightly relieved, “you’ve gotten so wet, Cheery.”
“I want you so badly, Bashfull,” Cheery whispered, shyly and quietly, and was relieved when he moaned again. It was frightening, somehow, to put into words what she wanted. She had this fear that Bashfull wouldn’t like it, or that she would sound silly, or something.
Bashfull had some trouble finding her clit from this position, but Cheery had anticipated this. As a teenager it had taken her some frustrating hours to figure herself out. Plus she had even snuck a book about anatomy into her bed that night. Her mother* had gotten really sarcastic when she had found it tangled up in her bed sheets the next morning, knowing what it had been for. Summoning up her courage, she matter-of-factually moved his hand and whispered to him small directional changes (higher, softer, still softer, now a bit harder), hoping he didn’t find it annoying.
(*In Dwarfish, "Mother" means "The parent tasked with more of the day-to-day child-rearing responsibilities." It has nothing to do with pregnancy, delivery, or breast-feeding. It has everything to do with irritably telling children to do their chores, teaching them how to use a pickaxe while their father is away getting paid to use a pickaxe, and telling them to wear an extra layer of chain-mail in the winter.)
In fact, glancing at him, she suspected he liked it when she told him what to do. He seemed eager to explore her body and to learn about her. And, well, he was learning, and pretty quickly, too. It was... really, nice. Amazing, really.
Cheery gasped and started to rock her hips back and forth when he whispered in her ear if he should go down on her again. Cheery shook her head.
“I want you to be close to me, not so… so far away,” she panted. “I want you near me. I love y- oh, I love having you near me,” she panted, flushing deeply. She had almost said it. That was just like her, always blurting things out awkwardly.
But as soon as Bashfull seemed to register what she had said - or almost said - he gave a strangled little gasp and kissed her deeply, starting to work a finger inside of her. Cheery moaned into the kiss.
“I love yo- oh, I mean I love being next to you too,” he mumbled into her ear when he broke the kiss.
Cheery squirmed happily, her heart pounding hard in her chest.
After a few more seconds of this euphoria, Cheery felt brave enough to request something.
“Will you talk dirty to me?” she whispered.
Bashfull hesitated, frowning at her. Cheery froze, surprised and a little irritated. Really? He was going to have a problem with dirty talk? They had practically been doing it earlier, right?
“What’s that?” Bashfull whispered into her ear.
“What?” Cheery asked, frowning at him. “Really?”
“I mean what is it in Morporkian,” he responded. “I don’t know that Dwarfish phrase.”
“Oh.” Cheery said, thinking for a few seconds what it would be in Morporkian. Bashfull kissed her forehead. “Eh… Filthy talking, I think?”
“Oh. Talking dirty,” Bashfull corrected her softly. “Sure, I can try.”
“How could you not have known that?” Cheery demanded. “What kind of grag are you? Not knowing a phrase in Dwarfish?”
Bashfull laughed.
“Surprisingly enough, that particular phrase wasn’t on the curriculum,” he whispered, kissing her neck and beginning to stroke her again.
“You speak Morporkian better than Dwarfish,” Cheery accused, letting out a long exhale as Bashfull quickly found that little spot that made her squirm.
“Oh, I definitely do,” Bashfull agreed. “Not like you. You sound a bit more… elegant in Dwarfish, you know. It’s incredibly sexy, hearing you switch back and forth.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yes. But I’m just a little street rat from Treacle Mine Road, you know. I’m not from a nice, respectable part of Uberwald, like you. You’ll be marrying below your station with me, you know.” Bashfull’s voice took on that slightly teasing edge that it had taken Cheery so long to admit to herself that she liked, “Are you sure you want to go through with it? What under earth will your poor parents think?”
He slipped a finger inside of her again, still rubbing small little circles over her clit with his thumb, and then, tentatively, slipped a second finger inside of her.
Cheery couldn’t answer in a sentence at this point, but could only gasp and nod.
“Oh, but it’s a good thing you want to marry me,” Bashfull continued, his face slightly red, “because you drive me completely insane. I’ve never felt this… this turned on. Your tits are bloody incredible, I could lick them for hours and not get tired of it…”
By this point, Cheery’s eyes were closed, her hips were rocking slowly back and forth, and she was wimpering.
“And your… eh… your… vagina is so nice and wet and warm,” Bashfull said. The word “vagina” sounded clinical and not quite right. Really the only people who used that term were, well, doctors or awkward adolescents in health classes. Or adolescents reading books about Dwarfish anatomy under their bed sheets.
Cheery smirked, and opened one eye to give him a little look.
“My ‘vagina’?” she mumbled breathlessly, teasing him.
“Oh, you little creature,” Bashfull growled, laughing. “The slang is pussy or cunt in Morporkian, is that rough enough for you?”
“Mmmhmmm,” Cheery responded. “It’s pocket in Dwarfish. Or…dumpling.”
“Dumpling? Really?” Bashfull repeated, trying the normal Dwarfish word out in this context. He noticed Cheery bit her lower lip and squirmed a bit when he said it. “Oh, is that the dirtier one?”
Cheery nodded.
“It’s considered very dirty,” she whispered.
“Well, your dumpling is incredible,” Bashfull whispered. “It’s hard for me not to just take you right now, I’m so… so damn hard, Cheery…”
“And you are so beautiful," Bashfull continued in a whisper, his voice hoarse and deep, "I just want to watch you squirm and hear you moan and… I want you to say my name, Cheery…”
“Bashfull,” she moaned.
“In Morporkian,” he murmured again.
“Bashfull,” she moaned, in Morporkian.
“Mmmm… that’s right. You’re so good at this, Cheery. I’ve wanted you for so long, Cheery, I’ve thought of you on so many dark, cold, and lonely nights and a part of me feels like I’m dreaming…”
“Oh,” Cheery said suddenly, arching her back, about to come, “Oh. Eh… no, don’t stop, please. Please. Please,” Cheery begged, shuddering slightly and then falling back on the bed, her face sweaty and white.
“Mmmm,” Cheery breathed, a smile spreading over her face as she turned slightly to face Bashfull. She grinned at him. “That was wonderful,” she murmured, as Bashfull removed his fingers from her. Cheery hesitated for a minute.
“Is it okay if I do something that is maybe a little weird?” she said. “I’ve always wanted to.”
Bashfull stared at her.
“Eh…” he said. “What?”
“I’ll try it, anyway,” Cheery said, shrugging. “If you don’t like it, you can tell me,” she took his hand that was still wet from her and carefully inserted one of the slick fingers into her mouth and started to suck it clean.
Bashfull swore under his breath, and when Cheery glanced up to look at him, he looked…Cheery almost froze under his gaze. He looked like he wasn’t prepared to take much more of this…teasing without some release. He was taking shaking breaths and giving her a very, very serious look. One of Cheery’s hands snaked down to where Bashfull was hard underneath his trousers. Still sucking on his fingers she somewhat uncertainly started to rub him through his pants.
Bashfull took a gasping, unbelieving little laugh and removed his fingers from Cheery’s mouth and began fumbling with his belt.
“No, no,” Cheery whispered, now pulling him on the bed and arranging him underneath her, “Let me.”