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Julie looks beautiful like this. Auburn bangs plastered to her forehead with sweat, her lips parted, painted red by her lipstick, the one he has smudged on his cheek and nowhere else. Her skin is marble; like statues in museums, though those never made him feel anything. Art has never made him feel anything.
And really, for a long time, Dex just didn’t think things could be beautiful to him. That beauty is something that eludes him, something he’ll never be able to grasp, another barrier to divide him from normalcy.
(“There’s no such thing as normal,” Dr Mercer’s voice echoes in his head, though these days, it starts sounding more and more like Julie. Dex doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, or just a thing that is. He remembers Julie’s smile when she told him that things are allowed to be neutral, too. That normal people don’t always distinguish between good or bad, and that he doesn’t have to, either.
“There’s no such thing as normal. And you are not inherently bad. You’re human, just like the rest of us.”)
But Julie…
Actually, she hasn’t always been beautiful to him. This whole thing started out simply because of how good she is, but she’s beautiful to him now. Something he can grasp, a feeling tangible and real, just like the softness of her thigh against his left hand. The slickness of her cunt against his right.
“Dex,” she gasps, breathless, high, and it makes him swallow hard, furrow his brows in concentration. Makes him swipe his thumb up to her clit, watching the jump of her hips, the shudder of her rib cage, her breasts heaving with irregular breaths. Her face is flushed down to her shoulder, blooming into her chest.
All these things, Dex has learned, are good. Like this, it’s good. Like this, he’s doing good, like this, he’s making Julie feel good.
It’s everything he wants. To make her feel good, to please her, so that she likes him, so that she gives him her approval, so that he can be good. Just in her eyes, in her eyes only, for that’s the only thing that matters. She is the center of the universe. She is everything good in the world, and he wants to be just like her. Wants to burrow into her chest, wants to stare at her like this always.
Her body is responsive. Her hips twitch again when he brushes his thumb down to her hole, when he circles it, another shuddering gasp slipping out of her, her head rolling back. Her hair spills over his pillow, tinting it with color. She tints everything he owns in color.
(It’s all hers, anyway. All of him is hers—and all his belongings are, too. Sometimes, he wants to tell her how deeply she holds him, that his whole foundation is built on her, but he doesn’t want to scare her.
Then again, she knows already, doesn’t she?)
Dex’ gaze flits up to her face, then back down to where he’s touching her. Slick skin, reddish pubic hair, her swollen clit. Her body is responsive, it always has been, and his thumb returns to her clit to lightly press against it as he slips two fingers inside of her.
Her body is responsive, but he needs—
“Julie,” he murmurs, trying his hardest not to sound desperate. He doesn’t want to be desperate. He doesn’t want to be too much, he doesn’t want to scare her away. He’d die if she left. He’d die, die, die. “Julie.”
She drips on his hand. Her mouth twitches to a smile, lips red like the blood rushing through him, and she lifts her head a little, tries to focus her glassy gaze on him. Dex swallows. Julie is beautiful.
“I’m here,” she says, a breathy whisper that makes him shiver as he leans in and presses a kiss to her soft stomach. As he continues, slowly fucking his fingers into her, continuing to rub at her clit and the place around it to build her up slowly, to avoid overstimulation. “I’m here. You’re doing so good. Dex—that’s good. Feels—feels good.”
He breathes, tension leaving his body he wasn’t aware of. Even when he closes his eyes like this, leans his head against her left thigh, the one that’s propped up, her foot pressing into the mattress next to his shoulder, he knows her body by heart. He’s always been good at things like this.
And she’s—she’s telling him he’s good, too. That he’s making her feel good. He’s pleasing her, right? She likes this. She does. It means he’s good.
“Julie,” he says again, this time just to say her name, and it’s things like these he still doesn’t fully understand. Everything has purpose—her in his life, for stability, him in hers, for security. Even this has a purpose, it makes her feel good, it’s stress-relief, it’s healthy, too. But—but this feeling in his chest, this burrowing need—
His thoughts get interrupted when Julie moans, when she starts gently rocking her hips against his hand, and he opens his eyes, gaze wandering up the soft marble of her body, such a stark difference to his hard planes and sharp edges. Her breasts are bobbing with the movement, the fat on her body moving in a way that makes him swallow again.
“Dex,” she gasps, and Julie is skin and fat and muscle and flesh and blood and bone, and still, she is perfect. And still, she is everything he needs, the same as other people and so completely, beautifully different. “Dex, please, yes, you’re so good, good—”
When she starts moving like this, it means she is close. It means he is successful—he’s gentle, and yet he’s getting her there quickly. Her brows furrow up, a drop of sweat rolls down the valley between her breasts, and she’s dripping on his hand as he focuses on her clit, as he watches how her lashes flutter, how she gasps and moans and breathes raggedly, slowly falling apart.
He knows all of that. Knows all of that rationally, saved away in his brain, yet something hot builds up inside of him, tightens, makes his throat feel dry and his chest boiling. She’s—
“Julie,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her knee. Is this the right time to say it? He never knows when it is. “Julie, I love you.”
She whines in response, and the sound rushes down his spine, tingling inside of him, his breath quickening even when he’s not doing anything much. It grips him, this feeling. Makes his fingers grow sloppy as they push inside of her, her cunt slick and open and warm around him, her clit throbbing against his thumb.
But for some reason, she just seems to be getting more eager at that. It doesn’t make sense. “Yes,” she mumbles back, voice a little slurred, and her head is thrown back, so he can’t see her face, which burns inside of him, sticks in his side like a thorn. He needs to see her to read her. “Yes, yes, love you, yes, Dex, so good—”
Her words wash over Dex like relief, a deep breath rushing out of him, his hand relaxing against her thigh where he didn’t realize he was gripping. Her hips are trembling, rocking against his hand frantically, now, and he tries his best to keep up with her pace. He’s always trying his best. That means something, right? That means something to her, right?
(He’d do anything for her.)
That’s when she shatters. Her voice goes rough as she moans, as she bucks her hips against him, grunting, and his hand is as slick as her cunt is, now. She twitches around him, trembles, squeezing his fingers, and if there is such a thing as a God, he must be looking at her right now. Nothing in the world could ever make him feel like this.
Rationally—rationally—Julie Barnes is coming on his fingers, her face screwing up. None of it should have meaning beyond that, but it’s her, and it makes him burn up, makes something inside of him squeeze and expand.
He closes his eyes again. Leans against her full thigh, slowly slips his fingers out of her. Wipes them on the bed sheets. Listens to her panting, imagining the way her chest rises and falls, quickly, quickly, quickly. When he digs his fingers into her flesh just so, he can feel her pulse, thrumming and alive.
“Thank you,” she whispers, voice still a little broken, brushing a hand through his hair. Dex leans into the touch. “Good boy.”
It’s stupid, perhaps, the way his insides go all gooey at her words. It’s stupid, perhaps, how much it means to him, but this is the only thing that matters to him. That he’s good to her. That she thinks he’s good.
When Julie nudges at his jaw, he opens his eyes, looks at her, at the way she’s sitting up a little. Dex scoots up her body, presses a kiss to her mouth, because he thinks that’s what she wants, and what she wants is what he’ll do, always. Her lips feel nice against his, her breath soft on his face. Her lipstick stains his mouth now, too.
Suddenly, her hand brushes over the front of his pants, over his erection straining against them, and something rushes through him quickly, cold like something similar to panic. He flinches back. Recoils, his throat thick, his body rigid, and Julie’s eyes are wide when he opens his, hovering on top of her now.
“No,” he gasps, ragged, his pulse slowly calming again, “no, I don’t want you to do that for me.”
Just as slow, eyes still wide, she nods.
She doesn’t understand, but that’s okay. This is—this is for her, and only for her. He doesn’t want her to please him, he wants to please her. Never could he ask of her to please him, just the thought alone makes him cringe. It’s not… it’s just not right.
“Dex,” she says, softly, her voice tinged in the way he knows means she’s worried. “Are you okay?”
He lets out another breath. Looks at Julie’s round, beautiful face, and leans his forehead against hers, tension leaving him once again, flowing out of his body, as it tends to do in her presence. “Yes,” he says. “I’m not mad. I hope I made you feel good.”
Julie hums, nods, cups his cheeks, thumbs brushing his cheekbones softly, and Dex melts against her.
“You did,” she says. “You did, darling.”
Everything is good. He’s good.