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Sleep. Finally. Thank the heavens above, you can finally sleep. You flop down on your bed, wearing nothing but your underwear and a designated sleeping t-shirt. The sale-priced sheets feel impossibly soft against your skin as you roll onto your back. After a long day lifeguarding the Floridian shores of Cape Kennedy, there’s nothing you need more than to drift off to dreamland and get a solid eight hours.
Exhaustion overtakes you and you close your eyes. Knowing your usual patterns, you’re still a bit away from actually sleeping. Now is the time for your mind to race, to toss and turn a little, to rifle through the day’s memories and over-analyze them, to let your imagination stretch your innermost anxieties and desires into something new.
Despite sitting at your lifeguard post most of the day, work is unexpectedly exhausting. It’s not like you got to relax, you have to keep a vigilant eye out to ensure that no one’s in danger. That being said, hand in hand with needing to keep an eye on things means that you have an excuse to watch people, and you love watching people.
Today, it had been a little too cloudy to sunbathe, but still warm enough to swim, and the beach buzzed with activity. Families volleyed around beach balls and splashed in the surf in a rainbow array of bathing suits. Rollerbladers raced down the boardwalk. From time to time, a surfer would take a crack at the middling waves, usually paddling to shore a few minutes later.
Cape Kennedy is a small town, and over the months you’ve been stationed there, you’ve taken up the habit of making note of the regulars that visit the beach nearly every day. Today, Delia was on shift at the ice cream stand, Rodney was still trying to perfect his volleyball serve, and Mr. Hutchinson was nearly done with the book he’d been reading for the past week. In the distance you saw Hal passing out fliers with a young woman with rainbow streaks in her hair. You’d seen one of the fliers on the way to work, something about locating the woman’s long-lost brother.
It was all going as usual until sometime around noon, when, in the midst of the familiar crowd, someone you had never seen before caught your eye.
It was a man wearing a long tan coat and dark jeans. A usually ordinary sight, but certainly not at the beach. He popped out immediately from the swarms of swimsuits, cropped t-shirts, and board shorts. The only beach-appropriate thing he wore was a pair of round, dark sunglasses.
The strangeness of this man’s getup did little to repel your gaze, in fact, you found it hard to look away. He was handsome in a classic kind of way, golden haired with a defined jaw and straight-sloped nose, like a 1950s movie star. You caught more than one beachgoer doing a double take as he passed by, but the only person he stopped for was Hal.
Though you couldn’t hear their conversation over the crash of the surf and the shouts of kids, you could sense the charm pouring off the mystery man in waves. A smirk perpetually lingered on his lips, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. It wasn’t something you’d usually notice, but he had impeccable teeth. Straight, pure white and shining, they practically glistened every time he opened his mouth.
You could’ve watched him talk for hours, but the exchange was over far too quickly. Before you knew it, the man had taken a flier from Hal and was walking up the beach and out of sight. The rest of the day puttered along with little incident, leaving you to stew in your mind on the lifeguard stand. You’d seen the man for what, five cumulative minutes? You still couldn’t get your mind off him for the rest of your shift.
As you lie in bed, your mind latches onto the thought of this tall, gorgeous mystery man once more, then runs with it. Your subconscious sprints headfirst into the most salacious territory it could possibly go, conjuring up vignettes so shamelessly filthy they bring a flush to your cheeks.
The man shrugging the coat off his broad shoulders and leaving it forgotten on the floor. The exquisite pain you’d feel when he sinks his perfect teeth into the tender spot right above your hip that makes you squirm, leaving a mark that’ll last days. How your fingers would wind into his short blond hair, encouraging him to go lower and lower…
Warmth pools between your legs at the thought of it. You curl over on your side to try and alleviate the pressure. Letting your mind wander to places like these leaves you in a precarious position, carried away into your dreams and yet too worked up to actually fall asleep. It’s like you’re floating somewhere in the middle, body aching with want, your mind propelling the fantasy forward to newer, more tangible places.
The faintest ghost of a caress slides down your arm, like the gentle graze of a fingertip, light as a feather. Goosebumps raise in its wake. It keeps going, tracing random shapes and swirls down your arm and then back up again. As it goes, the feeling steadily intensifies against your skin, concentrates, until you could swear that someone is actually there in your room with you, touching you.
You welcome it.
It feels like hands, you finally decide. Two large hands with warm, slightly calloused palms and long, dexterous fingers. They trail down from your arms and over your shoulders. Their touch is steadfast and firm as they push against your limbs, encouraging your body to unfurl from its wound-up position. You let yourself go completely pliant, mere putty for this mystery force to splay out against the sheets as they wish.
Once you’re fully on your back, the hands meander over your throat, settling over your pulse point for a second before dragging lower, over your collarbones, down your chest. They skim over your nipples, which harden at the sensation. Fingers encircle them, giving them a faint pinch that makes your back arch up off the bed. You then hear a low, satisfied chuckle, so close yet so far away, seemingly off in the distance but resonating in the base of your skull.
The touch retreats and you’re left all alone in the darkness behind your eyelids. Your heart skips in your chest and you feel warm all over. Every inch of skin the hands have touched feels like it’s glowing. You breathe shakily, fully relaxed against the sheets and yet wired tight with anticipation for what will come next.
Whatever it is that’s happening to you, you can’t get enough. You need more.
As if on cue, you feel the hands lower, tracing down your thighs and calves, before they stop to circle around your ankles. With a gentle tug, they pull you down, away from the pillows, until your hips are right at the foot of the bed.
Then, you feel the fingers toying with the waistband of your underwear. You're so ready for them to keep going that it practically burns within your gut.
“Please.”
The word comes out as a whine, so wrecked with desperation that it takes a moment to realize that it was you that said it, the beg pouring out from your lips on its own volition. At that, the hands tug your underwear down from your hips and over your legs until they’re nothing but a passing afterthought.
Your eyes blink open for barely a second, just long enough to catch a form with blond hair and dark glasses at the foot of your bed.
“It’s you,” you murmur.
The man from the earlier, from the beach. It can’t be possible, and yet, you feel your right leg being raised up, pulled forward, settled down against the wide plane of a shoulder covered in thick, luxurious wool.
“What’s going on?” Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, making the words slur together. “How are you-? Hmmm…”
He lets out a low, long exhale from somewhere deep in his chest, startlingly close and warm against your sex. The sheets crinkle beneath your body as you squirm at the sensation.
“Are you actually here?” you finally ask.
It certainly feels that way. Your dreams have taken you to places like these many times in the past, but it’s never felt so real before.
“You tell me,” the man says. There’s a Southern lilt to his rich baritone, a voice that holds equal parts charm and menace. Your skin prickles at the sound of it.
You find the strength to open your eyes once again. Yes, it’s him, or what your mind has conjured of him. He kneels at the edge of your bed between your spread legs, face angled up to look at yours.
You can see your reflection in the dark lenses of his glasses, splayed out on the bed. Your hair is a mess, and your shirt has ridden up so high on your chest it barely even functions as a piece of clothing anymore. You look eager, open, ready for him. It's a position so vulnerable that you have to look away, heat blazing in your cheeks at the sight of it.
It’s a sight he seems to enjoy, though. He keeps his gaze trained on you as he presses his lips against the inside of your thigh. He works his way upward, agonizingly slow, kissing as he goes. Every so often you’ll feel the faintest prick of teeth against your skin, followed by a careful, tender lave of his tongue. You can feel yourself growing wetter with arousal with each passing second, God, you’re so ready. Just as it seems that he’s about to finally touch you where it counts, he switches to your other thigh, and you practically wail with frustration.
“Please.” Repeating the word, you somehow sound even more desperate than before. You bury your hands into his hair, latching on to where it’s been left longer at the top of his head. “ Please .”
He moves in, then, licking a long stripe up the entire length of you. You shudder and keen against him, hips driving forward.
“Calm down, now,” he assures you. “I’m just getting started.”
And then it begins for real.
His pace is firm but measured, never once letting up for a second and yet not quite hard enough to push you over the edge. Arousal winds around itself within you, never ending, kept in a stasis that makes each nerve sing with a sweet agony. You twitch and groan and wriggle but he keeps you right where he needs you, refusing to give in to your pleas. It seems that he likes it when you writhe. Every time your hips stutter or your legs shake or your breath comes in feathery and uneven, you can feel him smiling against you for a second before starting once more.
It’s not just that, though. There’s only so deep he can go without the frame of his sunglasses scraping your leg. You can’t help but wonder why he’s kept them on for so long. Wearing them on the beach was one thing, but in the middle of the night?
You wish you could see his eyes, watch him watch you, get a better sense of who he is. As good as he looks with them on, you’re willing to bet that he looks even better without them.
Eventually, your curiosity gets the better of you, you have to see. You shift your hands down from his hair and towards his ears, slow enough that he won’t notice.
With a quick flick of your wrist, you knock the glasses away from his face. They land on the floor with a clatter, the sound echoing off your walls, reverberating over and over in your ears.
The man’s gaze snaps up immediately, and the instant you see his whole face your heart drops into your stomach. Panic rushes up your spine and you clamor up onto your elbows. Your mind yells at you to kick him away, recoil, scream, but you can’t. You’re completely frozen in place. All you can do is stare.
The man lets out a resigned huff.
“Well,” he says. “Like what you see?”
Right where his eyes should be are two small sets of shiny white teeth. Teeth, just as pristine as the ones you’d first noticed in that winning grin of his. You can’t help but feel his stare against your face as the jaws sneer up at you.
“Who are you?” you ask, voice small.
If he even is a who at all. The more appropriate question may be what is he, a question you never say but seems to hang in the air regardless.
The man swipes his thumb across his chin, collecting the remnants of your arousal from it. He watches it shine in the dim light for a second, then sucks it between his lips. He keeps it there, dragging out the moment to savor the taste of you, or to keep you waiting in agonized anticipation for his reply. After what feels like forever, he pulls his thumb out with a dramatic pop . You can’t help but bite your own lip at the sight of it, the thrill slicing down the terror in an instant.
“I’m a nightmare, darlin’,” he drawls. “What did you expect? Baby blues?”
He has a point. You don’t know what you thought you'd see behind those glasses, which he now picks up from the floor. When he moves to slot them over his nose again, you feel something rise within you.
“Wait,” you cry, and he pauses.
You bite down harder on your lip, chewing at the delicate skin.
The man doesn’t move. He holds his sunglasses in front of his face, eyebrow raised, awaiting whatever it is you’ll say next.
“I think you look better without them,” you tell him.
You hear the faintest huh from somewhere deep in his chest, the kind of sound someone makes when something doesn’t go as expected, but they’re not complaining. Slowly, he folds the glasses up and places them into the pocket of his coat.
You barely have a chance to process what’s just happened before he reaches forward and shoves you back down against the bed. The sheer force of it leaves you breathless. Your back collides with the mattress, and you grip into the sheets on reflex, trying to ground yourself against them.
“Keep your hands there from now on,” the man says, and you recognize that the suggestion is undercut with a dire warning.
You nod, wrenching the sheets tighter in your grip as he settles back into position between your thighs. He reaches up and grips them hard enough to bruise, his fingers digging into your flesh and keeping you pinned in place on the bed.
“Now,” he says, “where were we?”
As soon as he takes you in his mouth once again you can’t think about anything except how good it feels. Now that the initial shock has passed, in the midst of this dreamy haze you’re in, you don’t really mind how many mouths he’s got, just that he’s using one of them on you.
He goes down on you like a man starved. You don’t know if you’ve ever encountered someone who’s taken you, tasted you, so eagerly, doing it not just to get you to come, but because it seems to bring him a kind of pleasure as well. He quickly regains the consistency from before, but now, he doesn’t seem interested in teasing you. He drives down hard, and this time your body wastes no time building up the release. Soon enough you find yourself teetering on the edge of the relief, so close you can practically taste it. Everything inside you feels impossibly tight, muscles pulled taut like a rubber band being pulled back, needing only the smallest amount of force to snap.
The man seems to notice, because then his tongue is doing something absolutely exquisite, and he yanks your thighs towards him to go as deep as he can. It hits you in just the right spot, and the next thing you know you’re coming hard into his mouth.
You wrench your eyes shut, stars exploding behind your eyelids as every ounce of tension and strain within your body unravels into molten euphoria. You might feel tears on your cheeks. You might laugh. You collapse against the bed, the sheets sticking to your sweaty skin as every muscle in your body goes slack with relief.
The man stays with you all the way through it, holding on tight to your thighs and wringing out any remaining drop of pleasure that you’ll give him with his tongue. It’s almost too much to take, but when you try to pull back he growls against you, holding you tighter, keeping you in place. Eventually, you relent, letting yourself lay down and relax as he cleans away your release. As your mind winds down with the exhaustion of it all, you feel him rising from between your legs, breath hot over your pelvis.
Suddenly, a sharp twinge of pain erupts from that spot right above your hip as he bites down into your skin. Your eyes snap open and your body lurches forward with a cry, but the man’s hand shoots forward to wrap around your throat, pinning you down as he sinks his teeth in even deeper. Your hands burrow into his hair upon reflex, not sure if you want to push him away or pull him closer. It hurts and feels so good, pleasure and pain intertwining into something horrible and perfect. A moan pries free from your lips, a guttural gasp that encompasses it all.
“What did I say about the hands?” he rasps, a set of teeth nipping at your skin.
“I’m sorry,” you say, immediately moving your hands back to the sheets. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
He releases his hold on your throat, lowering his hand to settle into the notch between your collarbones.
“I’ll let you off,” he says. “Just this once. Again.”
He remains latched onto you for a while, teeth eventually giving way to lips. He sucks hard, as if trying to coax forth a bruise, and you know he’ll succeed. By morning, your skin will have mottled, and he’ll officially have left his mark on you.
You could stay like this forever, at his mercy, taking what he gives you. But, like all good dreams, it comes to an end far too quickly. Eventually, the man rises to his feet and takes a step back, watching as you collect the last of your bearings. He looks perfectly composed, almost nonchalant, as he removes the sunglasses from his coat pocket.
“I can’t believe…” The words drain from your mouth, why is it so damn hard to talk all of a sudden? All you can muster is a single question: “Will I see you again?”
The man slips his sunglasses back onto his face. The glimmer of moonlight pouring through the window dazzles against the dark lenses of his glasses, and you catch sight of yourself reflected back once more. Oh, you look even more debauched than before, as wrecked and spent as you feel.
“Oh, we’ll meet again soon,” he says with that winning smile. “I promise.”
And then he’s gone, like a handful of sand dispersed through a gust of wind, drifting off to unknown places, leaving without a trace.
- - -
Your eyes snap open with a start. You realize that you’re gasping for air, each breath thick and heavy as your chest rises and falls. Your pulse thunders through your whole body, like your system has just been hit with a dose of adrenaline. Cold sweat slicks your skin, you can’t tell if you’re overheated or shivering. It’s the way you usually feel when you awake from a nightmare.
As each subsequent second passes, you feel the panic in your veins begin to dwindle. You uncurl your fists, which have been clenching at the sheets with a death grip. You focus on keeping your breaths steady, breathing in for three counts, holding, and then letting go. You do it until your heartbeat grows slower and steadier than before. It’s only then that you let yourself take in your surroundings.
You’re in your room. Everything is as it should be, you assure yourself. Everything is as you left it before falling asleep, still in its proper place. You’ve draped tomorrow’s outfit over the chair of your desk, the cherry-red swimsuit and t-shirt you sport every day on the job. The curtains on your windows drift languidly in the breeze, and through them you can see the faintest hint of sunlight tinting the sky pink with dawn. Looking over at the clock on your nightstand, you see that you still have a few hours before you need to wake up for work.
Slowly, your body returns to a state of relaxation, and you feel at peace once more. Your eyelids go heavy and once again shut.
It’s against this fresh, comfy void of darkness that the memory of the man returns. The wool of his coat against the back of your leg, the glint of his many teeth, the way his hot, perfect mouth wrung a pleasure unlike any you’d ever felt out of you. You can’t help the smile pulling at your lips, small and lazy, but nonetheless there.
It was just a dream. A tantalizing, terrifying dream, or else a beautiful, beautiful nightmare. It was a…
You feel yourself dozing off again already. Your whole body feels limp with exhaustion, melting against your sheets. As you drift away once more, you hardly even feel the ache emanating from your hip, don’t even notice the bruise purpling there, and the creeping impression of some forgotten promise along with it.